The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 21

Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1776. (page 154)

Mr. Granger's papers have been purchased by Lord Mount Stewart,(252) who has the frenzy of portraits as well as I; and, though I am at the head of the sect, I have no longer the rage of propagating it, nor would I on any account take the trouble of revising and publishing the ma.n.u.scripts. Mr. Granger had drowned his taste for portraits in the ocean of biography; and, though he began with elucidating prints, he at last only sought prints that he might write the lives of those they represented. His work was grown and growing so voluminous, that an abridgment only could have made it useful to collectors. I am not surprised that you wilt not a.s.sist Kippis;(253) Bishop Laud and William Prynne could never agree. You are very justly more averse to Mr. Masters who is a pragmatic fellow, and at best troublesome.

If the agate knives you are so good as to recommend to me can be tolerably authenticated, have any royal marks, or, at least, old setting of the time, and will be sold for two guineas, I should not dislike having them - though I have scarce room to stick a knife and fork. But if I trouble you to pay for them, you must let me know all I owe you already, for I know I am in your debt for prints and pamphlets, and this new debt will make the whole considerable enough to be remitted. I have lately purchased three apostle-spoons to add to the one you was so kind as to give me. What is become of Mr. Ess.e.x? does he never visit London? I wish I could tempt him thither or hither. I am not only thinking of building my offices in a collegiate style, for which I have a good design and wish to consult him, but am actually wanting a.s.sistance at this very moment, about a smaller gallery that I wish to add' this summer; and which, if Mr. Ess.e.x was here, he should build directly.

It is scarce worth asking him to take the journey on purpose, though I would pay for his journey hither and back, and would lodge him here for the necessary time. I can only beg you to mention it to him as an idle jaunt, the object is so trifling. I wish more that YOU Could come with him: do you leave your poor parishioners and their souls to themselves? if you do, I hope Dr. Kippis will seduce them. Yours ever.

(252) John Lord Mountstuart; in March 1796, created Marquis of Bute. He died in Geneva in November 1814, when the marquisate descended to his grandson.-E.

(253) Dr. Andrew Kippis, well-known for the active part he took in producing the second edition of the" Biographia Britannnica, of which he was the editor, and in a great measure the writer.

He had applied to 'Mr. Cole for a.s.sistance; and Walpole's satisfaction at Cole's refusal is to be accounted for by the fact of Kippis having threatened to expose Sir Robert Walpole in the course of that work. Walpole had called the " Biographia Britannica" an apology for every body. This Kippis happened to hear of; upon which he is said to have retorted, "that the Life of Sir Robert Walpole should prove that the Biographia was not an apology for every body.'-E.

Letter 109 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1776. (page 155)

I am grieved, and feel for your gout; I know the vexations and disappointments it occasions, and how often it will return when one thinks it going or gone: it represents life and its vicissitudes. At last I know it makes me content when one does not feel actual pain,--and what contents may be called a blessing; but it is a sort of blessing that extinguishes hopes and views, and is not so luxurious but one can bear to relinquish it. I seek amus.e.m.e.nts now to amuse me; I used to rush into them, because I had an impulse and wished for what I sought. My want of Mr. Ess.e.x has a little of both kinds, as it is for an addition to this place, for which my fondness is not worn out. I shall be very glad to see him here either on the 20th or 21st of this month, and shall have no engagement till the 23d, and will gladly pay his journey. I am sorry I must not hope that you will accompany him.

Letter 110 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1776. (page 156)

I was very glad to receive your letter, not only because always most glad to hear of you, but because I wished to write to you, and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something to answer.

I have lain but two nights in town since I saw you; have been, else, Constantly here, very much employed, though doing, hearing.

knowing exactly nothing. I have had a Gothic architect from Cambridge to design me a gallery, Which will end in a mouse, that is, in an hexagon closet, of seven feet diameter. I have been making a beauty-room, which was effected by buying two dozen of small copies of Sir Peter Lely, and hanging them up; and I have been making hay, which is not made, because I put it off for three days, as I chose it should adorn the landscape when I was to have company; and so the rain is come, and has drowned it.

However, as I can even turn calculator when it is to comfort me for not minding my interest, I have discovered that it is five to one better for me that my hay should be spoiled than not-, for, as the cows will eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not, and as I have five cows and but one horse, is not it plain that the worse my hay is the better? Do not you with your refining head go, and, out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a rich man; and yet have so little philosophy, that I had much rather be content than be in the right.

Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Di.(254) have been here four or five days -so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy. I wish Lady Ailesbury was as fortunate! The Pembrokes, Churchills, Le Texier, as you will have heard, and the Garricks have been with us. Perhaps, if alone, I might have come to you--but you are all too healthy and harmonious. I can neither walk nor sing -nor, indeed, am fit for any thing but to amuse myself in a sedentary trifling way. What I have most certainly not been doing, is writing any thing: a truth I say to you, but do not desire you to repeat. I deign to satisfy scarce any body else. Whoever reported that I was writing any thing, must have been so totally unfounded, that they either blundered by guessing without reason, or knew they lied-and that could not be with any kind intention; though saying I am going to do what I am not going to do, is wretched enough. Whatever is said of me without truth, any body is welcome to believe that pleases. In fact, though I have scarce a settled purpose about any thing, I think I shall never write any more. I have written a great deal too much, unless I had written better, and I know I should now only write still worse. One's talent, whatever it is, does not improve at sixty-yet, if I liked it, I dare say a good reason would not stop my inclination;--but I am grown most indolent in that respect, and most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet without vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous.

I have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise their approbation. The applause of slaves and of the foolish mad is below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient Briton, that cannot write what would please this age, and would not, if he could. Whatever happens in America this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating myself by choice, but dreading folly at an unseemly age, I contrive to pa.s.s my time agreeably enough, yet see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true picture of my mind; and it must be true, because drawn for you, whom I would not deceive, and could not, if I would. Your question on my being writing drew it forth, though with more seriousness than the report deserved--yet talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always been more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about one's own-yet, I repeat it, you are my apology -though I never was so unreasonable as to make you answerable for my faults in return; I take them wholly to myself. But enough of this. When I know my own mind, for hitherto I have settled no plan ,for my summer, I will come to you. Adieu!

(254) Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles, Duke of Marlborough; born in 1734; married, in 1757, to Viscount Bolingbroke; from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married immediately after to Mr. Topham Beauclerk.-E.

Letter 111 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

July 23, 1776. (page 157)

You are so good to me, my dear Sir, that I am quite ashamed. I must not send back your charming present, but wish you would give me leave to pay for it, and I shall have the same obligation to you, and still more. It is beautiful in form and colours, and pleases me excessively. In the mean time, I have in a great hurry (for I came home but at noon to meet Mr. Ess.e.x) chosen out a few prints for you, Such as I think you will like, and beg you to accept them: they enter Into no one of my sets. I am heartily grieved at your account of yourself, and know no comfort but submission. I was absent to 'General Conway, who is far from well. We must take our lot as it falls! joy and 'sorrow is mixed till the scene closes. I am out of spirits, and shall not mend yours. Mr. Ess.e.x is just setting out, and I write in great haste, but am, as I have so long been, most truly yours.

Letter 112To The Rev. Mr. Cole Strawberry Hill, July 24, 1776. (page 158)

I wrote to you yesterday, dear Sir, not only in great haste, but in great confusion, and did not say half I ought to have done for the pretty vase you sent me, and for your constant obliging attention to me. All I can say is, that grat.i.tude attempted even in my haste and concern to put in its word: and I did not mean to pay you, (which I hope you will really allow me to do) but to express my sensibility of your kindness. The fact was, that to avoid disappointing Mr. Ess.e.x, when I had dragged him hither from Cambridge, I had returned hither precipitately, and yet late, from Park-place whither I went the day before to see General Conway, who has had a little attack of the paralytic kind. You, who can remember how very long and dearly I have loved so near a relation and particular friend, and who are full of nothing but friendly sensations, can judge how shocked I was to find him more changed than I expected. I suffered so much in constraining and commanding myself, that I was not sorry, as the house was full of relations, to have the plea of Mr. Ess.e.x, to get away, and came to sigh here by myself. It is, perhaps, to prevent my concern that I write now. Mr. Conway is in no manner of danger, is better, his head nor speech are affected, and the physicians, who barely allow the attack to be of the paralytic nature, are clear it is local, in the muscles of the face. Still has it operated such a revolution in my mind, as no time, at my age, can efface.

It has at once damped every pursuit which my spirits had even now prevented me from being weaned from, I mean a Virt'u. It is like a mortal distemper in myself; for can amus.e.m.e.nts amuse, if there is but a glimpse, a vision, of outliving one's friends? I have had dreams in which I thought I wished for fame--it was not certainly posthumous fame at any distance: I feel, I feel, it was confined to the memory of those I love. It seems to me impossible for a man who has no friends to do any Thing for fame--and to me the first position in friendship is, to intend one's friends should survive one-but it is not reasonable to oppress you, who are suffering gout, with my melancholy ideas.

Let me know as you mend. What I have said, will tell you, what I hope so many years have told you, that I am very constant and sincere to friends of above forty years. I doubt Mr. Ess.e.x perceived that my mind was greatly bewildered- He gave me a direction to Mr. Penticross, who I recollect, Mr. Gray, not you, told me was turned a Methodist teacher. He was a blue-coat boy, and came hither then to some of my servants, having at that age a poetic turn. As he has reverted to it, I hope the enthusiasm will take a more agreeable plea. I have not heard of him for many Years, and thought he was settled somewhere near Cambridge: I find it is at Wallingford. I wonder those madmen and knaves do not begin to wear out, as their folly is no longer new, and as knavery can turn its hand to any trade according to the humour of the age, which in countries like this is seldom constant. Yours most faithfully.

Letter 113 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1776. (page 159)

I have time but to write you a line, and it is as usual to beg your help in a sort of literary difficulty. I have received a letter dated , "Catherine Hall" from "Ken. Prescot," whom I doubt I have forgotten; for he begins "Dear Sir," and I protest I cannot recollect him, though I ought. He says he wants to send me a few cla.s.sical discourses, and e speaks with respect of my father, and, by his trembling hand, seems an old man. All these are reasons for my treating him with great regard; and, being afraid of hurting him, I have written a short and very civil answer, directed to the "Rev. Dr. Prescot." G.o.d knows whether he is a clergyman or a doctor, and perhaps I may have betrayed my forgetfulness; but I -thought it was best to err on the over civil side. Tell me something about him; I dread his Discourses.

Is he the strange man that a few years ago sent me a volume of an uncommon form, and of more uncommon matter? I suspect so.(255)

You shall certainly have two or three of my prints by Mr. Ess.e.x when he returns. .h.i.ther and hence, and any thing else you will command. I am just now in great concern for the terrible death of General Conway's son-in-law, Mr. Damer,(256) of which, perhaps, you in your solitude have not heard.-You are happy who take no part but in the past world, for the mortui non mordent, nor do any of the extravagant and distressing things that perhaps they did in their lives. I hope the gout, that persecutes even in a hermitage, has left you. Yours most sincerely.

(255) Dr. Kenrick Prescot, master of Catherine Hall, and author of a quarto volume, published at Cambridge in 1773, ent.i.tled, "Letters concerning Homer the Sleeper, in Horace; with additional cla.s.sic Amus.e.m.e.nts."-E.

(256) John, eldest son of Joseph Damer, Esq, Lord Milton; afterwards Earl of Dorchester.-E.

Letter 114 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1776. (page 160)

May I trouble you, dear Sir, when you see our friend Mr. Ess.e.x, to tell him that the tower is covered in, and that whenever he has nothing to do, after this week, I shall be very glad to see him here, if he will only send me a line two or three days beforehand. I have carried this little tower higher than the round one, and it has an exceedingly pretty effect, breaking the long line of the house picturesquely, and looking very ancient.

I must correct a little error in the spelling of a name in the pedigree you was so kind as to make out for me last year. The Derehaughs were not of Colton, but of Coulston-hall. This I discovered only this morning. On opening a patch-box that belonged to my mother, and which I have not opened for many years, I found an extremely small silver collaring, about this size--O--but broad and flat. I remember it was in an old satin bag of coins that my mother found in old Houghton when she first married. I call it a collar from the breadth; for it would not be large enough for a fairy's lap-dog. It was probably made for an infant's little finger, and must have been for a ring, not a collar; for I believe, though she was an heiress, young ladies did not elope so very early in those days. I never knew how it came into the family, but now it is plain, for the inscription on the outside is, "of Coulstonhall, Suff." and it is a confirmation of your pedigree. I have tied it to a piece of paper, with a long inscription, and it is so small, it will not be melted down for the weight; and if not lost from its diminutive person, may remain in the family a long while, and be preserved when some gamester may Spend every other bit of silver he has in the world; at least, if one would make heir-looms now, one must take care that they have no value in them.

P. S. I was turning over Edmonson this evening, and observed an odd occurrence of circ.u.mstances in the present Lord Carmarthen.(257) By his mother he is the representative of the great Duke of Marlborough, and of old Treasurer G.o.dolphin;(258) by his father, of the Lord treasurer Duke of Leeds;(259) and by his grandmother, is descended from the Lord-treasurer Oxford.(260) Few men are so well ancestored in so short a compa.s.s of time.

(257) Francis G.o.dolphin, Marquis of Carmarthen, only surviving son of Thomas Duke of Leeds; and who, upon the death of his father, in 17 9 succeeded to the dukedom.-E

(258) Mary d.u.c.h.ess of Leeds, wife of Thomas, fourth duke, was second daughter, and eventually sole heiress, of Francis Earl Of G.o.dolphin, by Henrietta d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, eldest daughter and coheir of the great Duke of Marlborough.-E.

(259) Sir Thomas...o...b..rne, lord high treasurer of England, the first Duke of Leeds; who, having been successively honoured with the Barony of Osborne, the Viscounty of Latimer, the Earldom of Danby, and the Marquisate Of Carmarthen, was, on the 4th of May 1694, created Duke of Leeds.-E.

(260) Elizabeth, the first wife of Peregrine Hyde, third Duke of Leeds, was the youngest daughter of Robert Harley, the great Earl of Oxford.-E.

Letter 115 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Oct. 31, 1776. (page 161)

Thank you for your letter. I send this by the coach. You will have found a new scene,(261) not an unexpected one by you and me, though I do not pretend I thought it so near. I rather imagined France would have instigated or winked at Spain's beginning with us. Here is a solution of the Americans declaring themselves independent. Oh! the folly, the madness, the guilt of having plunged us into this abyss! Were we and a few more endued with any uncommon penetration? No: they who did not see as far, would not. I am impatient to hear the complexion of to-day. I suppose it will, on the part of administration, have been a wretched farce of fear, daubed over with airs of bullying. You, I do not doubt, have acted like yourself, feeling for our situation, above insulting, and unprovoked but at the criminality that has brought us to this pa.s.s. Pursue your own path, nor lean to the court that may be paid to you on either side, as I am sure you will not regard their being displeased that you do not go as far as their interested views may wish. If the court should receive any more of what they call good news, I think the war with France will be unavoidable. It was the victory at Long Island(262) and the frantic presumption it occasioned, that has ripened France's measures--And now we are to awe them by pressing--an act that speaks our impotence!--which France did not want to learn!

I would have come to town, but I had declared so much I would not, that I thought it would look as if I came to enjoy the distress of the ministers-but I do not enjoy the distress of my country. I think we are undone; I have always thought so-- whether we enslaved America, or lost it totally--so we that were against the war could expect no good issue. If you do return to Park-place to-morrow, you will oblige me much by breakfasting here - you know it wastes you very little time.

'I am glad I did not know of Mrs. Damer's sore throat till it is almost well. Pray take care and do not catch it.

Thank you for your care of me: I will not stay a great deal here, but at present I never was better in my life-and here I have no vexatious moments. I hate to dispute; I scorn to triumph myself, and it is very difficult to keep my temper when others do. I own I have another reason for my retirement, which is prudence. I have thought of it late, but, at least, I will not run into any new expense. it would cost me more than I care to afford to buy a house in town, Unless I do it to take some of my money out of the stocks, for which I tremble a little. My brother is seventy; and if I live myself, I Must not build too much on his life; and you know, if he fails, I lose the most secure part of my income.

I refused from Holland, and last year from Lord North, to accept the place for my own life; and having never done a dirty thing, I will not disgrace myself at fifty-nine. I should like to live as well as I have done; but what I wish more, is to secure what I have already saved for those I would take care of after me.

These are the true reasons of my dropping all thought of a better house in town, and of living so privately here. I -will not sacrifice my health to my prudence; but my temper is so violent, that I know the tranquillity I enjoy here in solitude is of much more benefit to my health, than the air of the country is detrimental to it. You see I can be reasonable when I have time to reflect; but philosophy has a poor chance with me when my warmth is stirred--and yet I know, that an angry old man out of parliament, and that can do nothing but be angry, is a ridiculous animal.

(261) On the opening of the session.