The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 32

Pray tell me how you like the pictures when you have examined them. I shall search in Edmondson's new Vocabulary of Arms for the coat which contains three bulls' heads on six pieces; but the colours are either white and black. or the latter is become so by time. I hope you are not going out of town yet; I shall probably be there some day in next week.

I see advertised a book something in the way of your inaugurations, called Le Costume; do you know any thing of it?

Can YOU tell me who is the author of the Second Antic.i.p.ation on the Exhibition? Is not it Barry the painter?

Letter 173 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sat.u.r.day, June 5, 1779. (page 225)

I write to you more seldom than I am disposed to do, from having nothing positive to tell you, and from being unwilling to say and unsay every minute something that is reported positively. The confident a.s.sertions of the victory over D'Estaing are totally vanished-and they who invented them, now declaim as bitterly against Byron, as if he had deceived them-and as they did against Keppel. This day se'nnight there was a great alarm about Ireland-which was far from being all invention, though not an absolute insurrection, as it was said." The case, I believe, was this:-The court, in order to break the volunteer army established by the Irish themselves, endeavoured to persuade a body in Lady Blayney's county of Monaghan to enlist in the militia--which they took indignantly. They said, they had great regard for Lady Blayney and Lord Clermont; but to act under them, would be acting under the King, and that was by no means their intention. There have since been motions for inquiries what steps the ministers have taken to satisfy the Irish-and these they have imprudently rejected-which will not tend to pacification. The ministers have been pushed too on the article of Spain, and could not deny that all negotiation is at an end--though they will not own farther.

However, the Spanish amba.s.sador is much out of humour. From Paris they write confidently of the approaching declaration;(360) and Lord Sandwich, I hear, has said in a very mixed company, that it was folly not to expect it. There is another million asked, and given on a vote of credit; and Lord North has boasted of such mines for next year,,that one would think he believed next year would never Come.

The Inquiry(361) goes on, and Lord Harrington did honour himself and Burgoyne. Barr'e and Governor Johnstone have had warm words,(362) and Burke has been as frantic for the Roman Catholics as Lord George Gordon against them. The Parliament, it is said, is to rise on the 21st.

YOU Will not collect from all this that our prospect clears up.

I fear there is not more discretion in the treatment of Ireland than of America. The court seems to-be infatuated and to think that nothing is of any consequence but a majority in Parliament-though they have totally lost all power but that of provoking. Fortunate it had been for the- King and kingdom, had the court had no majority for these six years! America had still been ours -and all the lives and all the millions we have squandered! A majority that has lost thirteen provinces by bullying and vapouring, and the most childish menaces, will be a brave countermatch for France and Spain, and a rebellion in Ireland! In short, it is plain that there is nothing a majority in Parliament can do, but outvote a minority; and by their own accounts one would think they could not even do that. I saw a paper t'other day that began with this Iriscism, "As the minority have lost us thirteen provinces," etc. I know nothing the minority have done, or been suffered to do, but restore the Roman Catholic religion-and that too was by the desire of the court.

This is however the present style. They announced with infinite applause a new production of Tickell:--it has appeared, and is a most paltry performance. It is called the Ca.s.sette Verte of M.

de Sartine, and pretends to be his correspondence with the opposition. Nay, they are so pitifully mean as to laugh at Dr.

Franklin, who has such thorough reason to sit and laugh at them.

What triumph it must be to him to see a miserable pamphlet all the revenge they can take! There is another, still duller, called Opposition Mornings, in which you are lugged in. In truth, it is a compliment to any man to except him out of the number of those that have contributed to the shocking disgraces inflicted on this undone country. When Lord Chatham was minister, he never replied to abuse but by a victory.

I know no private news: I have been here ever since Tuesday, enjoying my tranquillity, as much as an honest man can do who sees his country ruined. It is just such a period as makes philosophy wisdom. There are great moments when every man is called on to exert himself-but when folly, infatuation, delusion, incapacity, and profligacy fling a nation away, and it concurs itself, and applauds its destroyers, a man who has lent no hand to the mischief, and can neither prevent nor remedy the ma.s.s of evils, is fully justified in sitting aloof and beholding the tempest rage, with silent scorn and indignant compa.s.sion. Nay, I have, I own, some comfortable reflections. I rejoice that there is still a great continent of Englishmen who will remain free and independent, and who laugh at the impotent majorities of a prost.i.tute Parliament. I care not whether General Burgoyne and Governor Johnstone cross over and figure in, and support or oppose; nor whether Mr. Burke, or the superior of the Jesuits, is high commissioner to the kirk of Scotland. My ideas are such as I have always had, and are too plain and simple to comprehend modern confusions; and, therefore, they suit with those of few men. What will be the issue of this chaos, I know not, and, probably, shall not see. I do see with satisfaction, that what was meditated has failed by the grossest folly; and when one has escaped the worst, lesser evils must be endured with patience.

After this dull effusion, I will divert you with a story that made me laugh this morning till I cried. You know my Swiss David, and his incomprehensible p.r.o.nunciation. He came to me, and said, "Auh! dar is Meses Ellis wants some of your large flags to put in her great O." With much ado, I found out that Mrs.

Ellis had sent for leave to take up some flags out of my meadow for her grotto.

I hope in a few days to see Lady Ailesbury and Miss Jennings here; I have writ to propose it. What are your intentions? Do you stay till you have made your island impregnable? I doubt it will be our only one that will be so.

(360) On the breaking out of the war between this country and America, Spain had offered to mediate between them; but, receiving a refusal, she at once declared herself a princ.i.p.al in the war and ready to fulfil the terms of the family compact.-E.

(361) The Inquiry into the Conduct of the American war.

(362) In the course of a debate in the House of Commons, on the 3d of June, Governor Johnstone told Colonel Barr'e, that he was making a scaramouch of himself. The Colonel got up to demand an explanation, but the Speaker put an end to the altercation.-E.

Letter 174 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1779. (page 227)

Your Countess was here last Thursday, and received a letter from you, that told us how slowly you receive ours. When you will receive this I cannot guess; but it dates a new era, which you with reason did not care to look at as possible. In a word, behold a Spanish war! I must detail a little to increase your wonder. I heard here the day before yesterday that it was likely; and that night received a letter from Paris, telling me (it was of the 6th) that Monsieur de Beauveau was going, they knew not whither, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, with three lieutenant-generals and six or eight mar'echaux de camp under him. Yesterday I went to town, and Thomas Walpole happened to call on me. He, who used to be informed early, did not believe a word either of a Spanish war or a French expedition. I saw some other persons in the evening as ignorant. At night I went to sup at Richmond-house. The Duke said the Brest fleet was certainly sailed, and had got the start of ours by twelve days: that Monsieur de Beauveau was on board with a large sum of money, and with white and red c.o.c.kades; and that there would certainly be a Spanish war. He added, that the Opposition were then pressing in the House of Commons to have the Parliament continue sitting, and urging to know if we were not at the eve of a Spanish war; but the ministers persisted in the prorogation ,for to-morrow or Friday, and would not answer on Spain.

I said I would make you wonder-But no-Why should the Parliament continue to sit? Are not the ministers and the Parliament the same thing? And how has either House shown that it has any talent for war?

The Duke of Richmond does not guess whither the Brest fleet is gone. He thinks, if to Ireland, we should have known it by this time. He has heard that the Prince of Beauveau has said he was going on an expedition that would be glorious in the eyes of posterity. asked, if that might not mean Gibraltar? The Duke doubts, but hopes it, as he thinks it no wise measure on their side: yet he was very melancholy, as you will be, on this heavy accession to our distresses.

Well! here we are, aris et focis and all at stake! What can we be meaning? Unable to conquer America before she was a.s.sisted--scarce able to keep France at bay--are we a match for both, and Spain too? What can be our view? nay, what can be Our expectation? I sometimes think we reckon it will be more creditable to be forced by France and Spain to give up America, than to have the merit with the latter of doing it with grace.-But, as Cato says,

"I'm weary of conjectures--this must end them;"

that is, the sword:--and never, I believe, did a Country Plunge itself into such difficulties step by step, and for six years, together, without once recollecting that each foreign war rendered the object of the civil war more unattainable; and that in both the foreign wars we have not an object in prospect.

Unable to recruit our remnant of an army in America, are we to make conquests on France and Spain? They may choose their attacks: we can scarce choose what we will defend.

Ireland, they say, is more temperate than was expected. That is some consolation-yet many fear the Irish will be tempted to unite with America, which would throw all that trade into their convenient harbours; and I own I have apprehensions that the Parliament's rising without taking a step in their favour may offend them. Surely at least we have courageous ministers. I thought my father a stout man:--he had not a t.i.the of their spirit.

The town has wound up the season perfectly in character by a f'ete at the Pantheon by subscription. Le Texier managed it; but it turned out sadly. The company was first shut into the galleries to look down on the supper, then let to descend to it.

Afterwards they were led into the subterraneous apartment, which was laid with mould, and planted with trees, and crammed with nosegays: but the fresh earth, and the dead leaves, and the effluvia of breaths made such a stench and moisture, that they were suffocated; and when they remounted, the legs and wings of chickens, and remnants Of ham (for the supper was not removed) poisoned them more. A druid in an arbour distributed verses to the ladies; then the Baccelli(363) and the dancers of the Opera danced; and then danced the company; and then it being morning, and the candles burnt out, the windows were opened; and then the stewed-danced a.s.sembly were such shocking figures, that they fled like ghosts as they looked.--I suppose there will be no more b.a.l.l.s unless the French land, and then we shall show we do not mind it.

Thus I have told you all I know. You will ponder over these things in your little distant island, when we have forgotten them. There is another person, one Doctor Franklin, who, I fancy, is not sorry that we divert ourselves so well. Yours ever.

(363) After the departure of Mademoiselle Heinel, no dancing so much delighted the frequenters of the Opera as that of Mademoiselle Baccelli and M. Vestris le jeune.-E.

Letter 175 To The Hon. George Hardinge.(364) Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1779. (page 229)

I have now received the drawings of Grignan, and know not how to express my satisfaction and grat.i.tude but by a silly witticism that is like the studied quaintness of the last age. In short, they are so much more beautiful than I expected, that I am not surprised at your having surprised me by exceeding even what I expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly executed, and with great taste. I own too that Grignan is grander, and in a much finer situation, than I had imagined; as I concluded that the witchery of Madame de S'evign'e's ideas and style had spread the same leaf-gold over places with which she gilded her friends. All that has appeared of them since the publication of her letters has lowered them. A single letter of her daughter, that to Paulina, with a description of the d.u.c.h.ess of Bourbon's toilette, is worthy of the mother. Paulina's own letters contain not a little worth reading: one just divines that she might have written well if she had had any thing to write about (which, however, would not have signified to her grandmother.) Coulanges was a silly good-humoured glutton, that flattered a rich widow for her dinners. His wife was sensible, but dry, and rather peevish at growing old. Unluckily nothing more has come to light of Madame de S'evign'e's son, whose short letters in the collection I am almost profane enough to prefer to his mother's; and which makes me astonished that she did not love his wit, so unaffected, and so congenial to her own, in preference to the eccentric and sophisticated reveries of her sublime and ill-humoured daughter. Grignan alone maintains its dignity, and shall be consecrated here among other monuments of that bewitching period, and amongst which one loves to lose oneself, and drink oblivion of an era so very unlike; for the awkward bigots to despotism of our time have not Madame de S'evign'e's address, nor can paint an Indian idol with an hundred hands as graceful as the Apollo of the Belvidere. When will you come and accept my thanks? will Wednesday next suit you? But do you know that I must ask you not to leave your gown behind You, which indeed I never knew you put on Willingly, but to come in it. I shall want your protection at Westminster Hall. Yours most cordially.

(364) Son of Nicholas Hardinge, Esq. one of the joint secretaries of the treasury, and member for the borough of Eye. He was educated at Eton school, and finished his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Dr. Watson was his tutor, He was called to the bar in 1769, and was subsequently appointed solicitor- general to the Queen. in 1787, he was made a Welsh judge, and died in 1816. In 1818, the works of this clever and eccentric scholar were published, with an account of his life, by Mr. John Nichols.-E.

Letter 176 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.

Sat.u.r.day night, July 10, 1779. (page 230)

I could not thank your ladyship before the post went out to-day, as I was getting into my chaise to go and dine at Carshalton with my cousin Thomas Walpole when I received your kind inquiry about my eye. It is quite well again, and I hope the next attack of the gout will be any where rather than in that quarter.

I did not expect Mr. Conway would think of returning just now.

As you have lost both Mrs. Damer and Lady William Campbell, I do not see why your ladyship should not go to Goodwood.

The Baroness's increasing peevishness does not surprise me. When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun with nettles. She knows nothing of politics, and no wonder talks nonsense about them. It is silly to wish three nations had but one neck; but it is ten times more absurd to act as if it was so, which the government has done;--ay, and forgetting, too, that it has not a scimitar large enough to sever that neck, which they have in effect made one. It is past the time, Madam, of making Conjectures. How can one guess whither France and Spain will direct a blow that is in their option? I am rather inclined to think that they will have patience to ruin us in detail.

Hitherto France and America have carried their points by that manoeuvre. Should there be an engagement at sea, and the French and Spanish fleets, by their great superiority, have the advantage, one knows not what might happen. Yet, though there are such large preparations making on the French coast, I do not much expect a serious invasion, as they are sure they can do us more damage by a variety of other attacks, where we can make little resistance. Gibraltar and Jamaica can but be the immediate objects of Spain. Ireland is much worse guarded than this island:--nay, we must be undone by our expense, should the summer pa.s.s without any attempt. My cousin thinks they will try to destroy Portsmouth and Plymouth--but I have seen nothing in the present French ministry that looks like bold enterprise. We are much more adventurous, that set every thing to the hazard: but there are such numbers of baronesses that both talk and act with pa.s.sion, that one would think the nation had lost its senses.

Every thing has miscarried that has been undertaken, and the worse we succeed, the more is risked;--yet the nation is not angry! How can one conjecture during such a delirium? I sometimes almost think I must be in the wrong to be of so contrary an opinion to most men--yet, when every Misfortune that has happened had been foretold by a few, why should I not think I have been in the right? Has not almost every single event that has been announced as prosperous proved a gross falsehood, and often a silly one? Are we not at this moment a.s.sured that Washington cannot possibly ama.s.s an army of above 8000 men! and yet Clinton, with 20,000 men, and with the hearts, as we are told, too, of three parts of the colonies, dares not show his teeth without the walls of New York? Can I be in the wrong in not believing what is so contradictory to my senses We could not Conquer America when it stood alone; then France supported it, and we did not mend the matter. To make it still easier, we have driven Spain into the alliance. Is this wisdom? Would it be presumption, even if one were single, to think that we must have the worst in such a contest? Shall I be like the mob, and expect to conquer France and Spain, and then thunder upon America? Nay, but the higher mob do not expect such success. They would not be so angry at the house of Bourbon, if not morally certain that those kings destroy all our pa.s.sionate desire and expectation of conquering America. We bullied, and threatened, and begged, and nothing would do. Yet independence was still the word. Now we rail at the two monarchs--and when they have banged us, we shall sue to them as humbly as We did to the Congress. All this my senses, such as they are, tell me has been and will be the case.

What is worse, all Europe is of the same opinion; and though forty thousand baronesses may be ever SO angry, I venture to prophesy that we shall make but a very foolish figure whenever we are so lucky as to obtain a peace; and posterity, that may have prejudices of its own, will still take the liberty to p.r.o.nounce, that its ancestors were a woful set of politicians from the year 1774 to--I wish I knew when.

If I might advise, I would recommend Mr. Burrell to command the fleet in the room of Sir Charles Hardy. The fortune of the Burrells is powerful enough to baffle calculation. Good night, Madam!

P. S. I have not written to Mr. Conway since this day sevennight, not having a teaspoonful of news to send him. I will beg your ladyship to tell him so.

Letter 177 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1779. (page 231)

I am concerned, dear sir, that you gave yourself the trouble of transcribing the catalogue and prices, which I received last night, and for which I am exceedingly obliged to you. Partial as I am to the pictures at Houghton, I confess I think them much overvalued. My father's whole collection, of which alone he had preserved the prices, cost but 40,000 pounds; and after his death there were three sales of pictures, among which were all the whole-lengths of Vand.y.k.e but three, which had been sent to Houghton, but not fitting any of the ,s.p.a.ces left, came back to town. Few of the rest sold were very fine, but no doubt Sir Robert had paid as dear for many of them; as purchasers are not perfect connoisseurs at first. Many of the valuations are not only exorbitant, but injudicious. They who made the estimate seem to have considered the rarity of the hands more than the excellence. Three-The, Magi's Offering, by Carlo Maratti, as it is called, and two supposed Paul Veronese,-are very indifferent copies, and yet all are roundly valued, and the first ridiculously. I do not doubt of another picture in the collection but the Last Supper, by Raphael, and yet this is set down at 500 pounds. I miss three pictures, at least they are not set down, the Sir Thomas Wharton, and Laud and Gibbons. The first is most capital; yes, I recollect I have had some doubts on the Laud, though the University of Oxford once offered 400 pounds for it--and if Queen Henrietta is by Vand.y.k.e, it is a very indifferent One. The affixing a higher value to the Pietro Cortona than to the octagon Guido is most absurd--I have often gazed on the latter, and preferred it even to the Doctor's. In short, the appraisers were determined to see what the Czarina Could give, rather than what the pictures were really worth--I am glad she seems to think so, for I hear no more of the sale--it is not very wise in me still to concern myself, at my age, about what I have SO little interest in-it is still less wise to be so anxious on trifles, when one's country is sinking. I do not know which is most Mad, my nephew, or our ministers--both the one and the other increase my veneration for the founder of Houghton!

I will not rob you of the prints you mention, dear Sir; one of them at least I know Mr. Pennant gave me. I do not admire him for his punctiliousness with you. Pray tell me the name Of your gla.s.s-painter; I do not think I shall want him, but it is not impossible. Mr. Ess.e.x agreed With me, that Jarvis's windows for Oxford, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, will not succeed. Most of his colours are opake, and their great beauty depending on a spot of light for Sun or moon, is an imposition. When his paintings are exhibited at Charing-cross, all the rest of the room is darkened to relieve them. That cannot be done at New College; or if done, the chapel would be too dark. If there are other lights, the effect will be lost.

This sultry weather will, I hope, quite restore YOU; People need not go to Lisbon and Naples, if we continue to have such summers.