The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 11

Mr. Pennant has given a new edition of his former Tour, with more cuts. Among others, is the vulgar head, called the Countess of Desmond. I told him I had discovered, and proved past contradiction, that it is Rembrandt's mother. He owned it, and said, he would correct it by a note-but he has not.

This is a brave way of being an antiquary! as if there could be any merit in giving for genuine what one knows to be spurious.

He is, indeed, a superficial man, and knows little of history or antiquity: but he has a violent rage for being an author.

He set out with Ornithology, and a little Natural History, and picks Up his knowledge as he rides. I have a still lower idea of Mr. Gough; for Mr. Pennant, at least, is very civil: the other is a hog. Mr. Fenn,(110) another smatterer in antiquity, but. a very good sort of man, told me, Mr. Gough desired to be introduced to me--but as he has been such a bear to you,(111) he shall not come. The Society of Antiquaries put me in mind of what the old Lord Pembroke said to Anstis the herald: "Thou silly fellow! thou dost not know thy own silly business." If they went behind taste by poking into barbarous ages, when there was no taste, one could forgive them--but they catch at the first ugly thing they see, and take it for old, because it is new to them, and then usher it pompously into the world, as if they had made a discovery; though they have not yet cleared up a single point that is of the least importance, or that tends to Settle any obscure pa.s.sage in history.

I will not condole with you on having had the gout, since you find it has removed other complaints. Besides as it begins late, you are never likely to have it severely. I shall be in terrors in two or three months, having had the four last fits periodically and biennially Indeed, the two last were so long and severe, that my remaining and shattered strength could ill support such.

I must repeat how glad I shall be to have you at Burnham. When people grow old, as you and I do, they should get together.

Others do not care for us: but we seem wiser to one another by finding fault with them. Not that I am apt to dislike young folks, whom I think every thing becomes: but it is a kind of self-defence to live in a body. I dare to say that monks never find out that they grow old fools. Their age gives them authority, and n.o.body contradicts them. In the world, one cannot help perceiving one is out of fashion. Women play at cards with women of their own standing, and censure others between the deals, and thence conclude themselves Gamaliels. I who see many young men with better parts than myself, submit with a good grace, or retreat hither to my castle, where I am satisfied with what I have done, and am always in good humour.

But I like to have one or two old friends with me. I do not much invite the juvenile, who think my castle and me of equal antiquity: for no wonder, if they supposed George I. lived in the time of the crusades.

Adieu! my good Sir, and pray let Burnham Wood and Dunsinane be good neighbours. Yours ever.

(110) Sir John Fenn, who edited the "Original Letters, written during the Reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry ViI., by various Persons of rank and consequence, digested in a Chronological order - with Notes historical and explanatory;" which were published in four volumes, quarto, between the years 1787-1789. The letters are princ.i.p.ally by members of the Paston family and others, who were of great consequence in Norfolk at the time Sir John who was a native of Norwich, died in 1794. A fifth volume was published in 1823.- E.

(111) Alluding to his not having answered a letter from Mr.

Cole for nearly a twelvemonth.

Letter 68 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, June 21, 1774. (page 93)

Your illness, dear Sir, is the worst excuse you could make me; and the worse, as you may be well in a night, if you will, by taking six grains of James's Powder. He cannot cure death; but he can most complaints that are not mortal or chronical. He could cure you so soon of colds, that he would cure you of another distemper, to which I doubt you are a little subject, the fear of them. I hope you were certain, that illness is a legal plea for missing induction, or you will have nursed a cough and hoa.r.s.eness with too much tenderness, as they certainly could bear a journey. Never see my face again, if you are not rector of Burnham. How can you be so bigoted to Milton? I should have thought the very name would have prejudiced you against the place, as the name is all that could approach towards reconciling me to the fens. I shall be very glad to see you here, whenever you have resolution enough to quit your cell. But since Burnham and the neighbourhood of Windsor and Eton have no charms for you, can I expect that Strawberry Hill should have any? Methinks, that when one grows old, one's contemporary friends should be our best amus.e.m.e.nt: for younger people are soon tired of us, and our old stories: but I have found the contrary in some of mine. For your part, you care for conversing with none but the dead: for I reckon the unborn, for whom you are writing, as much dead, as those from whom you collect. .

You certainly ask no favour, dear Sir, when you want prints of Me. They are at any body's service that thinks them worth having. The owner sets very little value on them, since he sets very little, indeed, on himself: as a man, a very faulty one; and as an author, a very middling one; which whoever thinks a comfortable rank, is not at all my opinion.

Pray convince me that you think I mean sincerely, by not answering me with a compliment. it is very weak to be pleased with flattery; the stupidest of 'all delusions to beg it. From You I should take it ill. We have known one another almost fifty years--to very little purpose, indeed, if any ceremony is necessary, or downright sincerity not established between us.

tell me that you are recovered, and that I shall see you some time or other. I have finished the catalogue of my collection; but you shall never have it without fetching, nor, though a less punishment, the prints you desire. I propose in time to have plates of my house added to 'the Catalogue, yet I Cannot afford them, unless by degrees. Engravers are grown so much dearer, without My growing richer, that I must have patience! a quality I seldom have, but when I must. Adieu! Yours ever.

P. S. I have lately been at Ampthill, and saw Queen Catherine's cross. It is not near large enough for the situation, and would be fitter for a garden than a park: but it is executed in the truest and best taste. Lord Ossory is quite satisfied, as well as I, and designs Mr. Ess.e.x a present of some guineas. If ever I am richer, I shall consult the same honest man about building my offices, for Which I have a plan: but if I have no more money, ever, I Will not run in debt, and distress myself: and therefore remit my designs to chance and a little economy.

Letter 69 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1774. (page 94)

I have nothing to say--which is the best reason in the world for writing; for one must have a great regard for any body, one writes to, when one begins a letter neither on ceremony nor business. You are seeing armies,(112) who are always in fine order--and great spirits when they are in cold blood: I am sorry you thought it worth while to realize what I should have thought you could have seen in your mind's eye. However, I hope you will be amused and pleased With viewing heroes, both in their autumn and their bud. Vienna will be a new sight; so will the Austrian eagle and its two heads, I should like seeing, too, if any fairy would present me with a chest that would fly up into the air by touching a peg, and transport me whither I pleased in an instant: but roads, and inns, and dirt, are terrible drawbacks on My curiosity. I grow so old and so indolent, that I scarce stir from hence; and the dread of the gout makes me almost as much a prisoner, as a fit of it. News I know none, if there is any. The papers tell me that the city was to present a pet.i.tion to The King against the Quebec-bill yesterday; and I suppose they will tell me to-morrow whether it was presented. The King's speech tells me, there has nothing happened between the Russians and the Turks.(113) Lady Barrymore told me t'other day, that nothing was to happen between her and Lord Egremont. I am as well satisfied with these negatives, as I should have been with the contrary. I am much more interested about the rain, for it destroys all my roses and orange-flowers, of which I have exuberance; and my hay is cut, and cannot be made. However, it is delightful to have no other distresses. When I compare my present tranquillity and indifference with all I suffered last year,(114) I am thankful for my happiness and enjoy it--unless the bell rings early in the morning--then I tremble, and think it an express from Norfolk.

It is unfortunate that when one has nothing to talk of but one's self, one should have nothing to' say of one's self. It is shameful, too, to send such a sc.r.a.p by the post. I think I shall reserve it till Tuesday. If -I have then nothing to add, as is probable, you must content yourself with my good intentions, as you, I hope, will with this speculative campaign. Pray, for the future, remain at home and build bridges: I wish you were here to expedite ours to Richmond, which they tell me Will not be pa.s.sable these two years. I have done looking so forward. Adieu!

(112) Mr. Conway was now on a tour of military curiosity through Flanders, Germany, Prussia, and part of Hungary.

(113) Peace between Russia and Turkey Was proclaimed at St.

Petersburgh on the 14th of August, 1774.-E.

(114) During the illness of his nephew, Lord Orford.

Letter 70 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Matson, near Gloucester, Aug. 15, 1774. (page 95)

Dear Sir, As I am your disciple in antiquities (for you studied them when I was but a scoffer), I think it my duty to give you some account of my journeying, in the good cause. You will not dislike my date. I am in the Very mansion where King Charles the First and his two eldest sons lay during the siege; and there are marks of the last's hacking with his hanger on a window, as he told Mr. Selwin's grandfather afterwards. The present master has done due honour to the royal residence, and erected a good marble bust of the Martyr, in a little gallery. In a window is a shield in painted gla.s.s, with that King's and his Queen's arms, which I gave him. So you see I am not a rebel, when alma mater antiquity stands G.o.dmother.

I went again to the cathedral, and, on seeing the monument of Edward II a new historic doubt started which I pray you to solve. His Majesty has a longish beard - and such were certainly worn at that time. Who is the first historian that tells the story of his being shaven with cold water from a ditch and weeping to supply warm, as he was carried to Berkeley Castle? Is not this apocryphal? The house whence Bishop Hooper(115) was carried to the stake, is still standing, tale quale. I made a visit to his actual successor, Warburton, 'who is very infirm, speaks with much hesitation, and, they say, begins to lose his memory. They have destroyed the beautiful cross; the two battered heads of Henry III. and Edward III. are in the Postmaster's garden.

Yesterday I made a jaunt four miles hence that pleased me exceedingly, to Prinknash, the individual villa of the abbots of Gloucester. I wished you there with their mitre on. It stands on a glorious, but impracticable hill, in the midst of a little forest of beech, and commanding Elysium. The house is small, but has good rooms, and though modernized here and there, not extravagantly. On the ceiling of the hall is Edward IVth's Jovial device, a fau-con serrure. The chapel is low and small, but antique, and with painted gla.s.s, with many angels in their coronation robes, i. e. wings and crowns. Henry VIII.

and Jane Seymour lay here: in the dining-room are their arms in gla.s.s, and of Catherine of Arragon, and of Brays and Bridges.

Under the window, a barbarous bas-relief head of Harry, young: as it is still on a sign of an alehouse, on the descent of the hill. Think of my amazement, when they showed me the chapel plate, and I found on it, on four pieces, my own arms, quartering my mother-in-law, Skerret's, and in a shield of pretence, those of Fortescue certainly by mistake, for those of my sister-in-law, as the barony of Clinton was in abeyance between her and Fortescue Lord Clinton. The whole is modern and blundered: for Skerret should be impaled, not quartered, and instead of our crest, are two spears tied together in a ducal coronet, and no coronet for my brother, in whose time this plate must have been made, and at whose sale it was probably bought; as he finished the repairs of the church at Houghton, for which, I suppose, this decoration was intended.

But the silversmith was no herald, you see.

As I descended the hill, I found in a wretched cottage a child, in an ancient oaken cradle, exactly in the form of that lately published from the cradle of Edward II. I purchased it for five shillings; but don't know whether I shall have fort.i.tude enough to transport it to Strawberry Hill. People would conclude me in my second childhood.

To-day I have been at Berkeley and Thornbury Castles. The first disappointed me much, though very entire. It is much smaller than I expected, but very entire, except a small part burnt two years ago, while the present Earl was in the house.

The fire began in the housekeeper's room, who never appeared more; but as she was strict over the servants, and not a bone of her was found, it was supposed that she was murdered, and the body conveyed away. The situation is not elevated nor beautiful, and little improvements made of late, but some silly ones 'a la Chinoise, by the present Dowager. In good sooth, I can give you but a very imperfect account; for, instead of the lord's being gone to dine with the mayor of Gloucester, as I expected, I found him in the midst of all his captains of the militia. I am so sillily shy of strangers and youngsters, that I hurried through the chambers; and looked for nothing but the way out of every room. I just observed that there were many bad portraits of the family, but none ancient; as if the Berkeleys had been commissaries, and raised themselves in the last war. There is a plentiful addition of those of my Lord Berkeley of Stratton, but no knights templars, or barons as old as Edward I.; yet are there three beds on which there may have been as frisky doings three centuries ago, as there probably have been within these ten ears. The room shown for the murder of Edward II., and the shrieks of an agonizing king, I verily believe to be genuine.

It is a dismal chamber, almost at top of the house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of foot-bridge, and from that 'descends' a large flight of steps that terminate on strong gates; exactly the situation for a corps de garde.

In that room they show you a cast of a face in plaister, and tell you it was taken from Edward's. I was not quite so easy of faith about that; for it is evidently the face of Charles I.

The steeple of the church, lately rebuilt handsomely, stands some paces from the body; in the latter are three tombs of the old Berkeleys;, with c.u.mbent figures. The wife of the Lord Berkeley,(116) who was supposed to be privy to the murder, has a curious headgear; it is like a long horseshoe, quilted in quatrefoils; and, like Lord Foppington's wig, allows no more than the breadth of a half-crown to be discovered of the face.

Stay, I think I mistake; the husband was a conspirator against Richard II. not Edward. But in those days, loyalty was not so rife as at present.

>From Berkeley Castle I went to Thornbury, of which the ruins are half-ruined. It would have been glorious, if finished.(117) I wish the lords of Berkeley had retained the spirit of deposing till Henry the VIIIth's time! The situation is fine, though that was not the fashion; for all the windows of the great apartment look into the inner court. The prospect was left to the servants. Here I had two adventures. I could find n.o.body to show me about. I saw a paltry house that I took for the s.e.xton's, at the corner of the close, and bade my servant ring, and ask who could show me the Castle. A voice in a pa.s.sion flew, from a cas.e.m.e.nt, and issued from a divine.

"What! was it his business to show the Castle? - Go look for somebody else! What did the fellow ring for as if the house was on fire?" The poor Swiss came back in a fright, and said, the doctor had sworn at him. Well--we scrambled over a stone stile, saw a room or two glazed near the gate, and rung at it. A damsel came forth and satisfied our curiosity. When we had done seeing, I said, "Child, we don't know our Way, and want to be directed into the London road; I see the Duke's steward yonder at the window, pray desire him to come to me, that I may consult him." She went--he stood staring at us at the window, and sent his footman. I do not think courtesy is a resident at Thornbury.

As I returned through the close, the divine came running, out of breath, and without his beaver or band, and calls out, "Sir, I am come to justify myself: your servant says I swore at him: I am no swearer--Lord bless me! (dropping his voice) it is Mr.

Walpole!" "Yes, Sir, and I think you was Lord Beauchamp's tutor at Oxford, but I have forgot your name." "Holwell, Sir."

"Oh! yes." and then I comforted him, and laid the ill-breeding on my footman's being a foreigner; but could not help saying, I really had taken his house for the s.e.xton's. "Yes, Sir, it is not very good without, won't you please to walk in!" I did, and found the inside ten times worse, and He was making an Index to Homer, a lean wife, suckling a child. He is going to publish the chief beauties, and I believe had just been reading some of the delicate civilities that pa.s.s between Agamemnon and Achilles, and that what my servant took for oaths, were only Greek compliments.(118) Adieu! Yours ever.

You see I have not a line more of paper.

(115) John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, who, having refused to recant his opinions, was burned alive before the cathedral of Gloucester in the year 1554.-E.

(116) Thomas, third Lord Berkeley, was entrusted with the custody of Edward II.; but, owing to the humanity with which he treated the captive monarch, he was forced to resign his prisoner and his castle to Lord Maltravers and Sir Thomas Gournay. After the murder of Edward, Lord Berkeley was arraigned as a partic.i.p.ator in the crime, but honourably acquitted. The Lady Berkeley alluded to by Walpole was his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Roger de Mortimer, Earl of March, and widow of Robert Vere, Earl of Oxford.-E.

(117) Thornbury Castle was designed, but never finished by the Duke of Buckingham, in Henry VIII's time.-E.

(118) The Rev. William Holwell, vicar of Thornbury, prebendary of Exeter, and some time chaplain to the King. He was distinguished by superior talents as a scholar, and a critical knowledge of the Greek language. His "Extracts from Mr. Pope's Translation, corresponding with the Beauties of Homer, selected from the Iliad," were published in 1776.-E.

Letter 71 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, August 18, 1774. (page 98)

It is very hard, that because you do not get my letters, you will not let me receive yours, who do receive them. I have not had a line from you these five weeks. Of your honours and glories fame has told me;(119) and for aught I know, you may be a veldt-marshal by this time, and despise such a poor cottager as me. Take notice I shall disclaim you in my turn, if you are sent on a command against Dantzich, or to usurp a new district in Poland.(120)

I have seen no armies, kings, or. empresses, and cannot send you such august gazettes; nor are they what I want to hear of.

I like to hear you are well and diverted; nay, have pimped towards the latter, by desiring Lady Ailesbury to send you Monsieur do Guisnes's invitation to a military f'ete at Metz.(121) For my part, I wish you was returned to your plough. Your Sabine farm is in high beauty. I have lain there twice within this week, going to and from a visit to George Selwyn, near Gloucester; a tour as much to my taste as yours to you. For fortified towns I have seen ruined castles.

Unluckily, in that of Berkeley I found a hole regiment of militia in garrison, and as many young officers as if the Countess was in possession, and ready to surrender at indiscretion. I endeavoured to comfort myself, by figuring that they were guarding Edward II. I have seen many other ancient sights without asking leave of the King of Prussia: it would not please me so much to write to him, as it once did to write for him.(122)

They have found at least seventy thousand pounds of Lord Th.o.m.ond's.(123) George Howard has decked himself with a red riband, money, and honours! Charming things! and yet One may be happy without them.