The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 12

The young Mr. c.o.ke is returned from his travels n love with the Pretender's queen,(124) who has permitted him to have her picture. What can I tell you more? Nothing. Indeed, if I only write to postmasters, my letter is long enough. Every body's head but mine is full of elections. I had the satisfaction at Gloucester, where George Selwyn is canva.s.sing, of reflecting on my own wisdom. "Suave mari maggno turbantibus aequora ventis," etc. I am certainly the greatest philosopher in the world, without ever having thought of being so: always employed, and never busy;' eager about trifles, and indifferent to every thing serious. Well, if it is not philosophy, it is at least content. I am as pleased here with my own nutsh.e.l.l, as any monarch you have seen these two months astride his eagle--not but I was dissatisfied when I missed you at Park-place, and was peevish at your being in an Aulic chamber.

Adieu! Yours ever.

P- S. They tell us from Vienna, that the peace is made between Tisiphone and the Turk: is it true?

(119) Alluding to the distinguished notice taken of General Conway by the King of Prussia.

(120) The first dismemberment of Poland had taken place in the preceding year, by which a third of her territory was ceded to Russia, Austria, and Prussia.-E.

(121) To see the review of the French regiment of Carabineers, then commanded by Monsieur de Guisnes.

(122) Alluding to the Letter to Rousseau in the name of the King of Prussia.

(123) Percy Wyndham Obrien. He was the second son of Sir Charles Wyndham, chancellor of the exchequer to Queen Anne; and took the name of Obrien, pursuant to the Earl of Th.o.m.ond in Ireland.

(124) The Countess of Albany.-E.

Letter 72 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 7, 1774. (page 99)

I did not think you had been so like the rest of the world, as, when you pretended to be visiting armies, to go in search of gold and silver mines!(125) The favours of courts and the smiles of emperors and kings, I see, have corrupted even you, and perverted you to a nabob. Have you brought away an ingot in the calf of your leg? What abomination have you committed?

All the gazettes in Europe have sent you on different negotiations: instead of returning With a treaty in your pocket, you will only come back with bills of exchange. I don't envy your subterraneous travels, nor the hospitality of the Hungarians. Where did you find a spoonful of Latin about you? I have not attempted to speak Latin these thirty years, without perceiving I was talking Italian thickened with terminations in us and orum. I should have as little expected to find an Ovid in those regions; but I suppose the gentry of Presburg read him for a fashionable author, as our squires and their wives do the last collections of ballads that have been sung at Vauxhall and Marybone. I wish you may have brought away some sketches of Duke Albert's architecture. You know I deal in the works of royal authors, though I have never admired any of their own buildings, not excepting King Solomon's temple. Stanley(126) and Edmondson in Hungary! What carried them thither? The chase of mines too? The first, perhaps, waddled thither obliquely, as a parrot would have done whose direction was to Naples.

Well, I am glad you have been entertained, and seen such a variety of sights. You don't mind fatigues and hardships, and hospitality, the two extremes that to me poison travelling. I shall never see any thing more, unless I meet with a ring that renders one invisible. It was but the other day that, being with George Selwyn at Gloucester, I Went to view Berkeley Castle, knowing the Earl was to dine with the mayor of Gloucester. Alas! when I arrived, he had put off the party to enjoy his militia a day longer, and the house was full of officers. They might be in the Hungarian dress, for aught I knew; for I was so dismayed, that I would"fain have persuaded the housekeeper that she could not show me the apartments; and when she opened the hall, and I saw it full of captains, I hid myself in a dark pa.s.sage, and nothing could persuade me to enter, till they had the civility to quit the place. When I was forced at last to go over the castle, I ran through it without seeing any thing, as if I had been afraid of being detained prisoner.

I have no news to send you: if I had any, I would not conclude, as all correspondents do, that Lady Ailesbury left nothing Untold. Lady Powis is gone to hold mobs at Ludlow, where there is actual war, and where a knight, I forget his name, one of their friends, has been almost cut in two with a scythe. When you have seen all the armies in Europe, you will be just in time for many election-battles--perhaps, for a war in America, whither more troops are going. Many of those already sent have deserted; and to be sure the- prospect there is not smiling.

Apropos, Lord Mahon,(127) whom Lord Stanhope, his father, will not suffer to wear powder because wheat is so dear, was presented t'other day in coal-black hair and a white feather: they said, "he had been tarred and feathered."

In France you will find a new scene.(128) The Chancellor is sent, a little before his time, to the devil. The old Parliament is expected back. I am sorry to say I shall not meet you there. It will be too late in the year for me to venture, especially as I now live in dread of my biennial gout, and should die of it in an h'otel garni, and forced to receive all comers--I, who you know lock myself up when I am ill as if I had the plague.

I wish I could fill my sheet, in return for your five pages.

The only thing-you will care for knowing is, that I never saw Mrs. Damer better in her life, nor look so well. You may trust me, who am so apt to be frightened about her.

(125) Mr. Conway had gone to see the gold and silver mines of cremnitz, in the neighbourhood of Grau, in Hungary.

(126) Mr. Hans Stanley.

(127) Charles Viscount Mahon, born on the 3d of August 1753.

In the following December, he married Lady Hester Pitt, eldest daughter of the Earl of Chatham. He succeeded his father, as third Earl Stanhope, in March 1786, and died in 1816.-E.

(128) In Consequence of the death of Louis XV. on the 10th of May.-E.

Letter 73 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1774. (page 101)

I should be very ungrateful indeed if I thought of complaining of you, who are goodness itself to me: and when I did not receive letters from 'you, I concluded it happened from your eccentric positions. I am amazed, that hurried as YOU have been, and your eyes and thoughts- crowded with objects, you have been able to find time to write me so many and such long letters, over and above all those to Lady, Ailesbury, your daughter, brother, and other friends. Even Lord Strafford brags of your frequent remembrance. That your superabundance of royal beams would dazzle you, I never suspected. Even I enjoy for you the distinctions you have received--though I should hate such things for myself, as they are particularly troublesome to me,'and I am particularly awkward under them, and as I abhor the King of Prussia, and if I pa.s.sed through Berlin, should have no joy like avoiding him--like one of our countrymen, who changed horses at Paris, and asked what the name of that town was? All the other civilities you have received I am perfectly happy in. The Germans are certainly a civil, well-meaning people, and, I believe, one of the least corrupted nations in Europe. I do not think them very agreeable; but who do I think are so? A great many French women, some English men, and a few English women; exceedingly few French men. Italian women are the grossest, vulqarest of the s.e.x. If an Italian man has a grain of sense, he is a buffoon. So much for Europe!

I have already told you, and so must Lady Ailesbury, that my courage fails me, and I dare not meet you at Paris, As the period arrived when the gout used to come, it is never a moment out of my head. Such a suffering, such a helpless condition as I was in for five months and a half, two years ago, makes me tremble from head to foot. I should die at once if seized in a French inn; or, what, if possible, would be worse, at Paris, where I must admit every body.--I, who you know can hardly bear to see even you when I am ill, and who shut up myself here, and would not let Lord and Lady Hertford come near me--I, who have my room washed though in bed, how could I bear French dirt! In short, I, who am so capricious, and whom you are pleased to call a philosopher, I suppose because I have given up every thing but my own will--how could I keep my temper, who have no way of keeping my temper but by keeping it out of every body's way! No, I must give up the satisfaction of being with you at Paris. I have just learnt to give up my pleasures, but I cannot give up my pains, which such selfish people as I who have suffered much, grow to compose into a system that they are partial to, because it is their own. I must make myself amends when you return: you will be more stationary, I hope, for the future; and if I live I shall have intervals of health. In lieu of me, you will have a charming succedaneum, Lady Harriet Stanhope.(129) Her father, who is more a hero than i, is packing up his old decrepit bones, and goes too. I wish she may not have him to nurse, instead of diverting herself.

The present state of your country is, that it is drowned and dead drunk; all water without, and wine within. Opposition for the next elections every where, even in Scotland; not from party, but as laying Out money to advantage. In the head-quarters, indeed, party is not out of the question: the day after to-morrow will be a great bustle in the city for a Lord Mayor,(130) and all the winter in Westminster, where Lord Mahon and Humphrey Cotes oppose the court. Lady Powis is saving her money at Ludlow and Powis Castles by keeping open house day and night against Sir Watkin Williams, and fears she shall be kept there till the general election. It has rained this whole month, and we have got another inundation. The Thames is as broad as your Danube, and all my meadows are under water. Lady Browne and I, coming last Sunday night from Lady Blandford's, were in a piteous plight. The ferryboat was turned round by the current, and carried to Isleworth. Then we ran against the piers of our new bridge, and the horses were frightened. Luckily, my cicisbeo -was a Catholic, and screamed to so many Saints, that some of them at the nearest alehouse came and saved us, or I should have had no more gout, or what I dreaded I should; for I concluded we should be carried ash.o.r.e somewhere, and be forced to wade through the mud up to my middle. So you see one may wrap oneself up in flannel and be in danger, without visiting all the armies on the face of the globe, and putting the immortality of one's chaise to the proof.

I am ashamed Of sending you three sides of smaller paper in answer to seven large--but what can I do? I see nothing, know nothing, do nothing. My castle is finished, I have nothing new to read, I am tired of writing, I have no new or old bit for my printer. I have only black hoods around me; or, if I go to town, the family-party in Grosvenor Street. One trait will give you a sample of how I pa.s.sed my time, and made me laugh, as it put me in mind of you; at least it was a fit of absence, much more likely to have happened to you than to me. I was playing eighteenpenny tredrille with the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle(131) and Lady Browne, and certainly not much interested in the game. I cannot recollect nor conceive what I was thinking of, but I pushed the cards very gravely to the d.u.c.h.ess, and said, "Doctor, you are to deal." You may guess at their astonishment, and how much it made us all laugh. I wish it may make you smile a moment, or that I had any thing better to send you. Adieu, most affectionately. Yours ever.

(129) a Daughter of the Earl of Harrington. Her ladyship was married, in 1776, to Thomas second Lord Foley.-E.

(130) When Mr. Wilkes was elected.

(131) Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Hon.

Henry Pelham, married to Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln; who, in consequence of his marriage with her, inherited in 1768, the dukedom of Newcastle-under-Line on the demise of the Countess's uncle, Thomas Pelham Holles, Who had been created Duke of Newcastle.under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of Lincoln , in 1756 _E.

Letter 74 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1774. (page 103)

Lady Ailesbury brings you this,(132) which is not a letter, but a paper of direction, and the counterpart of what I have written to Madame du Deffand. I beg of you seriously to take a great deal of notice of this dear old friend of mine. She will, perhaps, expect more attention from you, as my friend, and as it is her own nature a little, than will be quite convenient to you: but you have an infinite deal of patience and good-nature, and will excuse it. I was afraid of her importuning Madame Ailesbury, who has a vast deal to see and do, and, therefore, I prepared Madame du Deffand, and told her Lady Ailesbury loves amus.e.m.e.nts, and that, having never been at Paris before, she must not confine her: so you must pay for both--and it will answer: and- I do not, I own, ask this Only for Madame du Deffand's sake, but for my own, and a little for yours. Since the late King's death she has not dared to write to me freely, and I want to know the present state of 'France exactly, both to satisfy my Own curiosity, and for her sake, as- I wish to learn whether her, pension, etc. is in any danger from the present ministry, some of whom are not her friends. She can tell you a great deal if she will--by that I don't mean that she is reserved, or partial to, her Own country against ours--quite the contrary; she loves me better than all France together--but she hates politics; and therefore, to make her talk on it, you must tell her it is to satisfy me, and that I want to know whether she is well at court, whether she has any fears from the government, particularly Maurepas and Nivernois: and that I am eager to have Monsieur do Choiseul and ma grandmaman, the d.u.c.h.ess, restored to power. If you take it on this foot easily, she will talk to you with the utmost frankness and with amazing cleverness. I have told her you are strangely absent, and that, if she does not repeat it over and over, you will forget every syllable; so I have prepared her to joke and be quite familiar with you at once.(133) She knows more of personal characters, and paints them better, than any body: but let this be between ourselves, for I would not have a living soul suspect, that I get any intelligence from her, which would hurt her; and, therefore, I beg you not to let any human being know of this letter, nor of your conversation with her, neither English nor French.

Madame du Deffand hates les philosophes; so you must give them up to her. She and Madame Geoffrin are no friends: so, if you go thither, don't tell her of it. Indeed, you would be sick of that house, whither all pretended beaux esprits and faux savants go, and where they are very impertinent and dogmatic.

Let me give you one other caution, which I shall give to Lady Ailesbury too. Take care of your papers at Paris, and have a very strong lock to your porte-feuille. In the h'otels garnis they have double keys to every lock, and examine every drawer and paper of the English they can get at. They will pilfer, too, whatever they can. I was robbed of half my clothes there the first time, and they wanted to hang poor Louis to save the people of the house who had stolen the things.

Here is another thing I must say. Madame du Deffand has kept a great many of my letters, and, as she is very old, I am in pain about them. I have written to her to beg she will deliver them up to you to bring back to me, and I trust she Will.(134) If she does, be so good to take great care of them. If she does not mention them, tell her before you come away, that I begged you to bring them; and if she hesitates, convince her how it would hurt me to have letters written in very bad French, and mentioning several people, both French and English, fall into bad hands, and, perhaps, be printed.

Let me desire you to read this letter more than once, that you may not forget my requests, which are very important to me; and I must give you one other caution, without which all would be useless.

There is at Paris a Mademoiselle de l,Espina.s.se,(135) a pretended bel esprit, who was formerly an humble companion of Madame du Deffand; and betrayed her and used her very ill. I beg of you not to let any body carry you thither. It Would disoblige my friend of all things in the world, and she would never tell you a syllable; and I own it would hurt me, who have such infinite obligations to her, that I should be very unhappy if a particular friend of mine showed her this disregard. She has done every thing upon earth to please and serve me, and I owe it to her to be earnest about this attention. Pray do not mention it; it might look simple in me, and yet I owe it to her, as I know it would hurt her, and, at her age, with her misfortunes, and with infinite obligations on my side, can I do too much to show My grat.i.tude, or prevent her any new mortification? I dwell upon it, because she has some enemies so spiteful that they try to carry all English to Mademoiselle de l'Espina.s.se.

I wish the d.u.c.h.ess of Choiseul may come to Paris while you are there; but I fear she will not; you would like her of all things. She has more sense and more virtues than almost any human being. If you choose to see any of the savans, let me recommend Monsieur Buffon. He has not only much more sense than any of them, but is an excellent old man, humane, gentle, well-bred, and with none of the arrogant pertness of all the rest. if he is at Paris, you will see a good deal of the Comte d e Broglie at Madame du Deffand's. He is not a genius of the first water, but lively and sometimes agreeable. The court, I fear, will be at Fontainbleau, which will prevent your seeing many, unless you go thither. Adieu! at Paris! I leave the rest of my paper for England, if I happen to have any thing particular to tell you.

(132) Mr. Conway ended is military tour at Paris; whither Lady Ailesbury and Mrs. Damer went to meet him, and where they spent the winter together.

(133) In her letter to Walpole, of the 28th of October, Madame du Deffand draws the following portrait of General Conway:-- "Selon l'id'ee que vous m'en aviez donn'ee, je le croyais grave, s'ev'ere, froid, imposant; c'est l'homme le plus aimable, le plus facile, le plus doux, le plus obligeant, et le plus simple que je connaisse. Il n'a pas ces premiers mouvemens de sensibilit'e qu'on trouve en vous, mais aussi n'a-t-il pas votre humeur."-E.

(134) To this request Madame du Deffand replied--"Je ne me flatte point de vous revoir l'ann'ee prochaine, et le renvoi que vous voulez que je vous fa.s.se de vos lettres est ce qui m'en fait denier. Ne serait-il pas plus naturel, si vous deviez venir, que je vous les rendisse 'a vous-m'eme? car vous ne pensez pas que je ne puisse vivre encore un an. Vous me faites croire, Par votre m'efiance, que vous avez en vue d'effacer toute trace de votre intelligence avec Moi."-E.

(135) Mademoiselle de l'Espina.s.se, the friend of D'Alembert, born at Lyons in 1732, was the natural child of Mademoiselle d'Albon, whose legitimate daughter was married to the Marquis de Vichy. After the death of her mother, she resided with Monsieur and Madame de Vichy; but in consequence of some disagreements, left them, and in May 1754, went to reside with Madame du Deffand, with whom she remained until 1764. The letters of Mademoiselle de l'Espina.s.se were published some few years since.-E.

Letter 75 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1774. (page 105)

Dear Sir, I answer yours immediately; as one pays a shilling to clench a bargain, when one suspects the seller. I accept your visit in the last week of this month, and will prosecute you if you do not execute. I have nothing to say about elections, but that I congratulate myself ,every time I feel I have nothing to do with them. By my nephew's strange conduct about his boroughs, and by many other reasons, I doubt whether he is so well as he seemed to Dr. Barnardiston. It is a subject I do not love to talk on; but I know I tremble every time the bell rings at my gate at an unusual hour.

Have you seen Mr. Granger's Supplement? Methinks it grows too diffuse. I have hinted to him that fewer panegyrics from funeral orations would not hurt it. Adieu!