The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 58

Letter 242 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, Feb. 28, 1765. (page 377)

Dear sir, As you do not deal with newspapers, nor trouble Yourselves with occurrences of modern times, you may perhaps conclude from what I have told you, and from my silence, that I am in France. This will tell you that I am not; though I have been long thinking of it, and still intend it, though not exactly yet. My silence I must lay on this uncertainty, and from having been much out of order above a month with a very bad cold and cough, for which I am come hither to try change of air. Your brother Apthorpe, who was so good as to call upon me about a fortnight ago in town, found me too hoa.r.s.e to speak to him. We both asked one another the same question--news of you?

I have lately had an accession to my territory here, by the death of good old Franklin, to whom I had given for his life the lease of the cottage and garden cross the road. Besides a little pleasure in planting, and in crowding it with flowers, I intend to make, what I am sure you are antiquarian enough to approve, a bower, though your friends the abbots did not indulge in such retreats, at least not under that appellation: but though we love the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly with my own name: but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any longer entirely keep the secret. Does the t.i.tle, The Castle of Otranto(763) tempt you? I shall be glad to hear you are well and happy.

(763) In the first edition of this work, of which but very few copies were printed, the t.i.tle ran thus:--"The Castle of Otranto, a Story, translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original Italian of onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. London: printed for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street, 1765."-E.

Letter 243 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. (page 378)

Dear sir, I had time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto, as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was going to go abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of this place.(764)--When you read of the Picture quitting its panel,(765) did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in white, in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it--add, that. I was very glad to think of any thing, rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till after one in the morning when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I- could not hold my pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as idle as you please.

You are, as you have long been to me, exceedingly kind, and I should, with great satisfaction, embrace your offer of visiting the solitude of Bleckely, though my cold is in a manner gone, and my cough quite, if I was at liberty: but as I am preparing for my French journey, and have forty businesses upon my hands, and can only now and then purloin a day, or half a day, to come hither.

You know I am not cordially disposed to your French journey, which is much more serious, as it is to be much more lasting.

However, though I may suffer by your absence, I would not dissuade what may suit your inclination and circ.u.mstances. One thing, however, has struck me, which I must mention, though it would depend on a circ.u.mstance, that would give me the most real concern. It was suggested to me by that real fondness I have for your MSS. for your kindness about which I feel the utmost grat.i.tude. You would not, I think, leave them behind you: and are you aware of the danger you would run, If, you settled entirely in France? Do You know that the King of France is heir to all strangers who die in his dominions, by what they call the Droit d'Aubaine. Sometimes by great interest and favour, persons have obtained a remission of this right in their lifetime: and yet that, even that, has not secured their effects from being embezzled. Old Lady Sandwich(766) had obtained this remission, and yet, though she left every thing to the present lord, her grandson, a man for whose rank one should have thought they would have had regard, the King's officers forced themselves into her house, after her death, and plundered. You see, if you go, I shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me. Seriously, you must leave them in safe custody behind you.

Lord Ess.e.x's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful publication of this winter, a Collection of Old Ballads and Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge.(767) There were three such published between thirty and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in this set: indeed, there were others, a looser sort,(768) which the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to omit.

When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to go a Step Out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece from different farmhouses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see--but don't take further trouble than that.

I long to know what your bundle of ma.n.u.scripts from Cheshire contains.

My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback.

I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth:(769) but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet on one's own dunghill!--Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower. Yours ever.

(764) "As, in his model of a Gothic modern mansion, Mr. Walpole had studiously endeavoured to fit to the purpose of modern convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient romance, with that accurate display of human character and contrast of feelings and pa.s.sions, which is, or ought to be, delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 307.-E.

(765) The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint Look living in the moon; and as you turn Backward and forward, to the echoes faint Of your own footsteps--voices from the urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but death should sleep."

Don Juan, c. xvi. st. 18.-E.

(766) Elizabeth, second daughter of John Wilmot Earl of Rochester, and sister and co-heiress of Charles third Earl, and widow of Edward Montagu third Earl of Sandwich, who died 20th of October, 1729.-E.

(767) Edited by the Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the t.i.tle of 'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone; of whose labours, as an editor, it might be said, 'Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.'" Sir W. Scott. Prose Works, vol. xvii. P.

120.-E.

(768) The work was ent.i.tled "A Collection of Old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant, with Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous." Sir Walter Scott observes, that the editor was an enthusiast in the cause of old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to one or two indelicate pieces of humour:--"One of the greatest complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears, is the want of merry songs. I believe I may give a pretty good guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as These, and shall endeavour to satisfy them." Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 122.-E.

(769) The Bower of Rosamond is said, or rather fabled, to have been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily destroyed her fair rival.-E.

Letter 244 To Monsieur Elie De Beaumont.(770) Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. (page 381)

Sir, When I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a pa.s.sage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle.(771) I have since that time published my little story, but was so diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so great a mistress of the pa.s.sions as Madame de Beaumont, if the approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to send it to you. After I have talked of the pa.s.sions, and the natural effusion-, of the heart, how will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures!

How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's.(772) You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I quote, and that in defence, not of myself' but of my countrymen, who have good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and actors in the Castle of Otranto.

To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recall the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and if the Marquis de Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say, that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must forgive me if I add, that Richardson had, to me at least, made that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was become dignus vindice, and that a G.o.d, at least a ghost, was absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with putting you in mind of, Sir, your, etc.

P. S. The pa.s.sage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is where Matilda owns her pa.s.sion to Hippolita. I mention it, as I fear so unequal a similitude would not strike Madame de Beaumont.

(770) M. Elie de Beaumont was admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. The weakness of his voice militated against his success as a pleader, but the beauty and eloquence with which he drew up his M'emoires, and especially the one in favour of the unfortunate Calas family, gained him great reputation. He was born in 1732, and died in 1786.-E.

(771) A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de Beaumont. She also wrote the third part of "Anecdotes de la Cour et du R'egne de Edouard II." She was born at Caen in 1729, and died in 1783.-E.

(772) "Churchill," observes Mr. Campbell, in his Specimens of the British Poets, " may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden," Vol. vi. P. 5.-E.

Letter 245 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Arlington Street, March 28, 1765. (page 382)

Three weeks are a great while, my dear lord, for me to have been without writing to you; but besides that I have pa.s.sed many days at Strawberry, to cure my cold (which it has done), there has nothing happened worth sending across the sea. Politics have dozed, and common events been fast asleep. Of Guerchy's affair,(773) you probably know more than I do; it is now forgotten. I told him I had absolute proof of his innocence, for I was sure, that if he had offered money for a.s.sa.s.sination, the men who swear against him would have taken it.

The King has been very seriously ill,; and in great danger. I would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the worst. I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him. They talk of his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public, and the bills are pa.s.sed by commission; but he rides out. The Royal Family have suffered like us mortals; the Duke of Gloucester has had a fever, but I believe his chief complaint is of a youthful kind. Prince Frederick is thought to be in a deep consumption; and for the Duke of c.u.mberland, next post will probably certify you of his death, as he is relapsed, and there are no hopes Of him. He fell into his lethargy again, and when they waked him, he said he did not know whether he could call himself obliged to them.

I dined two days ago at Monsieur de Guerchy's, with the Comte de Caraman,(774) who brought me your letter. He seems a very agreeable Man, and you may be sure, for Your sake, and Madame de Mirepoix's, no civilities in my power shall be wanting. I have not yet seen Schouvaloff,(775) about whom one has more curiosity--it is an opportunity of gratifying that pa.s.sion which one can so seldom do in Personages of his historic nature, especially remote foreigners. I wish M. de Caraman had brought the "Siege of Calais,"(776) which he tells me is printed, though your account has a little abated my impatience. They tell us the French comedians are to act at Calais this summer--is it possible they can be so absurd, or think us so absurd as to go thither, if we would not go further? I remember, at Rheims, they believed that English ladies went to Calais to drink champagne!--is this the suite of that belief? I was mightily pleased with the Duc de Choiseul's answer to the Clairon;(777) but when I hear of the French admiration of Garrick, it takes off something of my wonder at the prodigious admiration of him at home. I never could conceive the marvellous merit of repeating the words of other's in one's own language with propriety, however well delivered.

Shakspeare is not more admired for writing his plays, than Garrick for acting them. I think him a very good and very various player--but several have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff, was as excellent as Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson far more natural in every thing he attempted. Mrs. Porter and your Dumesnil surpa.s.sed him in pa.s.sionate tragedy; Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never reach, c.o.xcombs, and men of fashion.(778) Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in low comedy--and Yet to me, Ranger was the part that suited Garrick the best of all he ever performed. He was a poor Lothario, a ridiculous Oth.e.l.lo, inferior to Quin(779) in Sir John Brute and Macbeth, and to Cibber in Bayes, and a woful Lord Hastings and Lord Townley. Indeed, his Bayes was original, but not the true part: Cibber was the burlesque of a great poet, as the part was designed, but Garrick made it a Garretteer. The town did not like him in Hotspur, and yet I don't know whether he did not succeed in it beyond all the rest. Sir Charles Williams and Lord Holland thought so too, and they were no bad judges. I am impatient to see the Clairon, and certainly will, as I have promised, though I have not fixed my day. But do you know you alarm me! There was a time when I was a match for Madame de Mirepoix at pharaoh, to any hour of the night, and believe did play, with her five nights in a week till three and four in the morning--but till eleven o'clock to-morrow morning- -Oh! that is a little too much even at loo. Besides, I shall not go to Paris for pharaoh--if I play all night, how shall I see every thing all day?

Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Baume de vie, for she gives you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.

We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena(780) in the Gevaudan: but our fox-hunters despise you: it is exactly the enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known its history a few months ago, I believe it would have appeared in the Castle of Otranto,--the success of which has, at last, brought me to own it, though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid: but it was comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the author: indeed, it met with too much honour far, for at first it was universally believed to be Mr.

Gray's. As all the first impression is sold, I am hurrying out another, with a new preface, which I will send you.

There is not so much delicacy of wit as in M. de Choiseul's speech to the Clairon, but I think the story I am going to tell you in return, will divert you as much: there was a vast a.s.sembly at Marlborough-house, and a throng in the doorway. My Lady Talbot said, "Bless me! I think this is like the Straits of Thermopylae!" My Lady Northumberland replied, "I don't know what Street that is, but I wish I could get my - through." I hope you admire the contrast. Adieu! my dear lord! Yours ever.

(773) This alludes, it is presumed, to a bill of indictment which was found in the beginning of March, at the sessions at Hick's Hall, against the Count de Guerchy, for the absurd charge of a conspiracy to murder D'Eon.-C.

(774) Probably fran'cois Joseph, Count de Caraman, who married a Princess de Chimay, heiress of the house of Benin, niece of Madame de Mirepoix.-C.

(775) He had been favourite to the Empress Catherine; and, as Mr.

Walpole elsewhere says, "a favourite without an enemy."-C.

(776) A tragedy by M. du Belloy, which, with little other merit than its anti-Anglicism, (which, in all times, has pa.s.sed in France for patriotism,) "faisait fureur" at this time.-C.

(777) Mademoiselle Clairon was at this moment in such vogue on the French stage, that her admirers struck a medal in honour of her, and wore it as a kind of order. A critic of the name of Fr'eron, however, did not partake these sentiments, and drew, in his journal, an injurious character of Mademoiselle Clairon.

This insult so outraged the tragedy queen, that she and her admirers moved heaven and earth to have Fr'ron sent to the Bastile, and, failing in her solicitation to the inferior departments, she at last had recourse to the prime-minister, the Duke of Choiseul, himself. His answer, which Lord Hertford, no doubt, had communicated to Mr. Walpole, was admired for its polite persiflage of her theatric Majesty. "I am," said the Duke, "like yourself, a public performer, with this difference in your favour, that you choose the parts you please, and are sure to be crowned with the applause of the public (for I reckon as nothing the bad taste of one or two wretched individuals who have the misfortune of not admiring you). I, on the other hand, am obliged to act the parts imposed on me by necessity. I am sure to please n.o.body; I am satirized, criticised, libelled, hissed,--yet I continue to do my best. Let us both, then, sacrifice our little resentments and enmities to the public service, and serve our country each in our own station. Besides," he added, "the Queen has condescended to forgive Fr'eron, and you may, therefore, without compromising your dignity, imitate her Majesty's clemency." M'emoires de Bachaumont, t. i. p. 61. Such were the miserable intrigues and squabbles, and such the examples of ministerial pleasantry and prudence which occupied and amused the Parisian public!--this; is but a straw to show which way the wind blew; but such instances moderate our surprise and our sorrow at the storm which followed.-C.

(778) There was some little personal pique in Mr. Walpole's opinion of Garrick; yet it would be difficult to imagine a more forcible eulogium on that great actor than is here inadvertently p.r.o.nounced, when, in order to find an equivalent for him, Mr.

Walpole is obliged to bring together old Johnson and Colley Cibber, Quin and Clive, Porter and Dumesnil--two nations, two generations, and both s.e.xes.-C.

(779) "In Brute he shone unequalled; all agree Garrick's not half so great a brute as he." Rosciad.-E.

(780) A wolf of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular conformation, which for a long time ravaged the Gevaudan; it was, soon after the date of this letter, killed, and Mr. Walpole saw it in Paris.-C.