The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 38

Letter 205 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 19, 1780. (page 263)

I cannot leave you for a moment in error, my good Sir, when you transfer a compliment to me, to which I have not the most slender claim, and defraud another of it to whom it is due.

The friend of Mr. Gray, in whom authorship caused no jealousy or variance, as Mr. Mainwaring says truly, is Mr. Mason. I certainly never excelled in poetry, and never attempted the species of poetry alluded to, odes. Dr. Lort, I suppose, is removing to a living or a prebend, at least; I hope so. He may run a risk if he carries his book to Lambeth. "Sono sonate venti tre ore e mezza," as Alexander VIII. said to his nephew, when he was chosen pope in extreme old age. My Lord of Canterbury's is not extreme, but very tottering. I found in Mr. Gough's new edition, that in the Pepysian library is a view of the theatre in Dorset Gardens, and views of four or five other ancient great mansions. Do the folk of Magdalen ever suffer copies of such things to be taken? If they would, is there any body at Cambridge that could execute them, and reasonably? Answer me quite at your leisure; and, also, what and by whom is the altar- piece that Lord Carlisle has given to King's. I did not know he had been of our college. I have two or three plates of Strawberry more than those you mention; but my collections are so numerous, and from various causes my prints have been in such confusion, that at present I neither know where the plates or proofs are. I intend next summer to set about completing my plan of the Catalogue and its prints; and when I have found any of the plates or proofs, you shall certainly have those you want. There are two large views of the house, one of the cottage, one of the library, one of the front to the road, and the chimney-piece in the Holbein room. I think these are all that are finished--oh!

yes, I believe the prior's garden; but I have not seen them these two years. I was so ill the summer before last, that I attended to nothing; the little I thought of in that way last summer, was to get out my last volume of the Anecdotes; now I have nothing to trouble myself about as an editor, and that not publicly, but to finish my Catalogue--and that will be awkwardly enough; for so many articles have been added to my collection since the description was made, that I must add them in the appendix or reprint it: and, what is more inconvenient, the positions of many of the pictures have been changed; and so it will be a lame piece of work. Adieu, my dear Sir! Yours most cordially.

Letter 206 To Sir David Dalrymple.(406) Berkeley Square, Jan. 1, 1781. (page 264)

Your favourable opinion of my father, Sir, is too flattering(r to me not to thank you for the satisfaction it gave me. Wit, I think he had not naturally, though I am sure he had none from affectation, as simplicity was a predominant feature in his amiable composition. but he possessed that, perhaps, most true species of wit, which flows from experience and deep knowledge of mankind, and consequently had more in his later than in his earlier years; which is not common to a talent that generally flashes from spirits, though they alone cannot bestow it. When you was once before so good, Sir, as to suggest to me an attempt at writing my father's life, I probably made you one answer that I must repeat now, which is, that a son's encomiums would be attributed to partiality; and with my deep devotion to his memory, I should ever suspect it in myself. But I will set my repugnance in a stronger light, by relating an anecdote not incurious. In the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, Dr.

Kippis, the tinker of it, reflecting on my having called the former, Vindicatio Britannica, or Defence of Every body, threatened that when he should come to my father's life he would convince me that the new edition did not deserve that censure. I confess I thought this but an odd sort of historian equity, to reverse scripture and punish the sins of children upon their fathers! However, I said nothing. Soon after Dr. Kippis himself called on me, and in very gracious terms desired I would favour him with anecdotes of my father's life. This was descending a little from his censorial throne, but I took no notice; and only told him, that I was so persuaded of the fairness of my father's character, that I chose to trust it to the most unprejudiced hands; and that all I could consent to was, that when he shall have written it, if he would communicate it to me, I would point out to him any material facts, if I should find any, that were not truly noted. This was all I could contribute. Since that time I have seen in the second volume a very gross accusation of Sir Robert, at second or third hand, and to which the smallest attention must give a negative. Sir Robert is accused of having, out of spite, influenced the House of Commons to expel the late Lord Barrington for the notorious job of the Hamburg lottery.(407) Spite was not the ingredient most domineering in my father's character; but whatever has been said of the corruption or servility of Houses of Commons, when was there one so prost.i.tute, that it would have expelled one of their own members for a fraud not proved, to gratify the vengeance of the minister? and a minister must have been implacable indeed, and a House of Commons profligate indeed, to inflict such a stigma on an innocent man, because he had been attached to a rival predecessor of the minister. It is not less strange that the Hamburgher's son should not have vindicated his parent's memory at the opportunity of the secret committee on Sir Robert, but should wait for a ma.n.u.script memorandum of Serjeant Skinner after the death of this last. I hope Sir Robert will have no such apologist!

I do not agree less with you, Sir, in your high opinion of King William. I think, and a far better judge, Sir Robert, thought that Prince one of the wisest men that ever lived. Your bon-mot of his was quite new to me. There are two or three pa.s.sages in the Diary of the second Earl of Clarendon that always struck me as instances of wisdom and humour at once, particularly his Majesty's reply to the lords who advised him (I think at Salisbury,) to send away King James; and his few words, after long patience, to that foolish lord himself, who harangued him on the observance of his declaration. Such traits, and several of Queen Anne (not equally deep) in the same journal, paint those princes as characteristically as Lord Clarendon's able father would have drawn them. There are two letters in the "Nugae Antiquae," that exhibit as faithful pictures of Queen Elizabeth and James the First, by delineating them in their private life and unguarded hours.

You are much in the right, Sir, in laughing at those wise personages, who not only dug up the corpse of Edward the First, but restored Christian burial to his crown and robes. Methinks, had they deposited those regalia in the treasury of the church, they would have committed no sacrilege. I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilege as Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightest species which injures n.o.body. Dr. Johnson is so pious, that in his journey to your country, he flatters himself that all his readers will join him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who were swallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.(408) I doubt that uncharitable anathema is more in the spirit of the Old Testament than of the New.

(406) Now first published.

(407) See ant'e, p. 201, letter 147.-E.

(408) The following are Johnson's words:--"The two churches of Elgin were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in Holland: I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea."-E.

Letter 207 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

January 3, 1781. (page 266)

After I had written my note to you last night, I called on * * *

* who gave me the dismal account of Jamaica,(409) that you will see in the Gazette, and of the damage done to our shipping.

Admiral Rowley is safe; but they are in apprehensions for Walsingham. He told me too what is not in the Gazette; that of the expedition against the Spanish settlements, not a single man survives! The papers to-day, I see, speak of great danger to Gibraltar.

Your brother repeated to me his great desire that you should publish your speech,(410) as he told you. I do not conceive why he is so eager for it, for he professes total despair about America. It looks to me as if there was a wish of throwing the blame somewhere; but I profess I am too simple to dive into the objects of shades of intrigues: nor do I care about them. We shall be reduced to a miserable little island; and from a mighty empire sink into as insignificant a country as Denmark or Sardinia! When our trade and marine are gone, the latter of which we keep up by unnatural efforts, to which our debt will put a stop, we shall lose the East Indies as Portugal did; and then France will dictate to us more imperiously than ever we did to Ireland, which is in a manner already gone too! These are mortifying reflections, to -which an English mind cannot easily accommodate itself. But, alas! we have been pursuing the very conduct that France would have prescribed, and more than with all her presumption she could have dared to expect. Could she flatter herself that we would take no advantage of the dilatoriness and unwillingness of Spain to enter into the war?

that we would reject the disposition of Russia to support us? and that our still more natural friend, Holland,(411) would be driven into the league against us? All this has happened; and, like an infant, we are delighted with having set our own frock in a blaze! I sit and gaze with astonishment at our frenzy. Yet why?

Are not nations as liable to intoxication as individuals? Are not predictions founded on calculation oftener rejected than the prophecies of dreamers? Do we not act precisely like Charles Fox, who thought he had discovered a new truth in figures, when he preached that wise doctrine, that n.o.body could want money that would pay enough for it? The consequence was, that in two years he left himself without the possibility of borrowing a shilling.

I am not surprised at the spirits of' a boy of parts; I am not surprised at the people; I do wonder at government, that games away its consequence. For what are we now really at war with America, France, Spain, and Holland!--Not with hopes of reconquering America; not with the smallest prospect of conquering a foot of land from France, Spain, or Holland. No; we are at war on the defensive to protect what is left, or more truly to stave off, for a year perhaps, a peace that must proclaim our nakedness and impotence. I would not willingly recur to that womanish vision of something may turn up in our favour! That something must be a naval victory that will annihilate at once all the squadrons of Europe--must wipe off forty millions of new debt--reconcile the affections of America, that for six years we have laboured to alienate; and that must recall out of the grave the armies and sailors that are perished- -and that must make thirteen provinces willing to receive the law, without the necessity of keeping ten thousand men amongst them. The gigantic imagination of Lord Chatham would not entertain such a chimera. Lord * * * * perhaps would say he did, rather than not undertake; or Mr. Burke could form a metaphoric vision that would satisfy no imagination but his own: but I, who am nullius addiclus itrare in verba, have no hopes either in our resources or in our geniuses, and look on my country already as undone! It is grievous--but I shall not have much time to lament its fall!(412)

(409) On the 3d of October occurred one of the most dreadful hurricanes ever experienced in the West Indies. In Jamaica, Savannah la Mar, with three hundred inhabitants, was utterly swept away by an irruption of the sea; and at Barbados, on the 10th, Bridgetown, the capital of the island, was almost levelled to the ground, and several thousands of the inhabitants perished.-E.

(410) "Introductory of a motion for leave to bring in a bill for quieting the troubles that have for some time subsisted between Great Britain and America, and enabling his Majesty to send out commissioners with full power to treat with America for that purpose." The motion was negatived by 123 against 81. For the speech of General Conway, and a copy of his proposed bill, see Parl. History, vol, Nxi. pp. 570, 588.-E.

(411) Mr. Henry Laurens, president of the American council, having been taken by one of the King's frigates early in October 1780, on his pa.s.sage to Holland, and it being discovered by the papers in his possession that the American States had been long carrying on a secret correspondence with Amsterdam, Sir Joseph Yorke, the British minister at the Hague, demanded a satisfactory explanation; but the same not being afforded, hostilities against Holland were declared on the 28th of December 1780.-E.

(412) To this pa.s.sage the editor of Walpole's Works subjoined, in March 1798, the following note:--"It may be some comfort, in a moment no less portentous and melancholy than the one here described, to recollect the almost unhoped-for recovery of national prosperity, which took place from the peace of 1782 to the declaration of war against France in the year 1793. May our exertions procure the speedy application of a similar remedy to our present evils, and may that remedy be productive of equally good effects!"-E.

Letter 208 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 7, 1781. (page 268)

Dear Sir, I will not leave you a moment in suspense about the safety of your very valuable volume, which you have so kindly sent me, and which I have just received, with the enclosed letters, and your other yesterday. I have not time to add a word more at present, being full of business, having the night before last received an account of Lady Orford's death at Pisa,(413) and a copy of her will, which obliges me to write several letters, and to see my relations. She has left every thing in her power to her friend Cavalier Mozzi, at Florence; but her son comes into a large estate, besides her great jointure. You may imagine, how I lament that he had not patience to wait sixteen months, before he sold his pictures!

I am very sorry you have been at all indisposed. I will take the utmost care of your fifty-ninth volume (for which I give you this receipt), and will restore it the instant I have had time to go through it. Witness my hand.

(413) See vol. i. p. 243, letter 61.-E.

Letter 209 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

February 9, 1781. (page 268)

I had not time, dear Sir, when I wrote last, to answer your letter, nor do more than cast an eye on your ma.n.u.scripts. To say the truth, my patience is not tough enough to go through Wolsey's negotiations. I see that your perseverance was forced to make the utmost efforts to transcribe them. They are immeasurably verbose, not to mention the blunders of the first copyist. As I road only for amus.e.m.e.nt, I cannot, so late in my life, purchase information on what I do not much care about, at the price of a great deal of ennui. The old wills at the end of your volume diverted me much more than the obsolete politics. I shall say nothing about what you call your old leaven. Every body must judge for himself in those matters: nor are you or I of an age to change long-formed opinions, as neither of us is governed by self-interest. Pray tell me how I may most safely return your volume. I value all your ma.n.u.scripts so much, that I should never forgive myself, if a single one came to any accident by your so obligingly lending them to me. They are great treasures, and contain something or other that must suit most tastes: not to mention your amazing industry, neatness, legibility, with notes, arms, etc. I know no such repositories. You will receive with your ma.n.u.script Mr. Kerrick's and Mr. Gough's letters. The former is very kind. The inauguration of the Antiquated Society is burlesque and so is the dearth of materials for another volume; can they ever want such rubbish as compose their preceding annals?

I think it probable that story should be stone: however, I never piqued myself on recording every mason. I have preserved but too many that did not deserve to be mentioned. I dare to say, that when I am gone, many more such will be added to my volumes. I had not heard of poor Mr. Pennant's misfortune. I am very sorry for it, for I believe him to be a very honest good-natured man.

He certainly was too lively for his proportion of understanding, and too impetuous to make the best use of what he had. However, it is a credit to us antiquaries to have one of our cla.s.s disordered by vivacity. I hope your goutiness is dissipated, and that this last fine week has set you on your feet again.

Letter 210 To The Earl Of Buchan.(414) Berkeley Square, Feb. 10, 1781. (page 269)

I was honoured yesterday with your lordship's card, with the notification of the additional honour of my being elected an honourary member of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland;(415) a grace, my lord, that I receive with the respect and grat.i.tude due to so valuable a distinction; and for which I must beg leave, through your lordship's favour, to offer my most sincere and humble thanks to that learned and respectable Society. My very particular thanks are still due to your lordship, who, in remembrance of ancient partiality, have been pleased, at the hazard of your own judgment, to favour an old humble servant, who can only receive honour from, but can reflect none on, the Society into which your lordship and your a.s.sociates have condescended to adopt him. In my best days, my lord, I never could pretend to more than having flitted over some flowers of knowledge. Now worn out and near the end of my course, I can Only be a broken monument to prove that the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland are zealous to preserve even the least valuable remains of a former age, and to recompense all who have contributed their mite towards ill.u.s.trating our common island. I am, etc.

(414) Now first printed.

(415) The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Scotland had been formed at Edinburgh in the preceding December, when the Earl of Buchan was elected president.-E.

Letter 211 To Sir David Dalrymple.(416) Strawberry Hill, Feb. 10, 1781. (page 270)

I was very intimate, Sir, with the last Lord Finlater when he was Lord Deskford. We became acquainted at Rome on our travels, and though during his illness and long residence in Scotland, we had no intercourse, I had the honour of seeing him sometimes during his last visit to England; but I am an entire stranger to the anecdote relative to my father and Sir William Windham. I have asked my brother, who was much more conversant in the scenes of that time, for I was abroad when Sir William died, and returned to England but about six months before my father's retirement, so that having been at school and at Cambridge, or in my infancy, during Sir Robert's administration, the little I retain from him was picked up in the last three years of his life, which is an answer, Sir, to your inquiries why, among other reasons, I have always declined writing his life; for I could in reality say but little on my own knowledge; and yet should have the air of being good authority, at least better than I should truly be. My brother, Sir Edward, who is eleven years older than I am, never heard of your anecdote. I may add, that latterly I lived in great intimacy with the Marchioness of Blandford, Sir William's widow, who died but a year and a half ago at Sheepe, here in my neighbourhood; and with Lady Suffolk, who could not but be well acquainted with the history of those times from her long residence at court, and with whom, for the last five or six years of her life here at Twickenham, I have had many and many long conversations on those subjects, and yet I never heard a word of the supposed event you mention. I myself never heard Sir W.

William speak but once in the House of Commons, but have always been told that his style and behaviour were most liberal and like a gentleman and my brother says, there never pa.s.sed any bitterness or acrimony between him and our father.(417)

I will answer you as fairly and candidly, Sir, about Archibald Duke of Argyll, of whom I saw at least a great deal. I do believe Sir Robert had a full opinion of his abilities as a most useful man. In fact, it is plain he had; for he depended on the Duke, when Lord Islay, for the management of your part of the island, and, as I have heard at the time, disobliged the most firm of the Scottish Whigs by that preference. Sir Robert supported Lord Islay against the Queen herself, who hated him for his attachment to Lady Suffolk, and he was the only man of any consequence whom her Majesty did not make feel how injudicious it was (however novel) to prefer the interest of the mistress to that of the wife. On my father's defeat his warm friends loudly complained of Lord Islay as having betrayed the Scottish boroughs, at the election of Sir Robert's last Parliament, to his brother, Duke John. It is true too, that Sir Robert always replied, "I do not accuse him." I Must own, knowing my father's manner, and that when he said but little, it was not a favourable symptom, I did think, that if he would not accuse, at least he did not acquit. Duke Archibald was undoubtedly a dark shrewd man. I recollect an instance for which I should not choose to be quoted just at this moment, though it reflects on n.o.body living.

I forget the precise period, and even some of the persons concerned; but it was in the minority of the present Duke of Gordon, and you, Sir, can probably adjust the dates. A regiment had been raised of Gordons. Duke Archibald desired the command of it to a favourite of his own. The d.u.c.h.ess-dowager insisted on it for her second husband. Duke A. said, "Oh! to be sure her grace must be obeyed;" but instantly got the regiment ordered to the East Indies, which had not been the reckoning of a widow remarried to a young fellow.(418)

At the time of the rebellion, I remember that Duke Archibald was exceedingly censured in London for coming thither, and pleading that he was not empowered to take up arms. But I believe that I have more than satisfied your curiosity, Sir, and that you will not think it very prudent to set an old man on talking of the days of his Youth.

I have just received the favour of a letter from Lord Buchan, in which his lordship is so good as to acquaint me with the honour your new Society of Antiquaries have done me in nominating me an honourary member. I am certainly much flattered by the distinction, but am afraid his lordship's partiality and patronage will in this only instance do him no credit. My knowledge even of British antiquity has ever been desultory and most superficial; I have never studied any branch of science deeply and solidly, nor ever but for temporary amus.e.m.e.nt, and without any system, suite, or method. Of late years I have quitted every connexion with societies, not only Parliament, but those of our Antiquaries and of Arts and Sciences, and have not attended the meetings of the Royal Society. I have withdrawn myself in a great measure from the world, and live in a very narrow circle idly and obscurely. Still, Sir, I could not decline the honour your Society has been pleased to offer me, lest it should be thought a want of respect and grat.i.tude, instead of a mark of humility and conscious unworthiness. I am so sensible of this last, that I cannot presume to offer my services in this part of' our island to so respectable an a.s.sembly; but if you, Sir, who know too well my limited abilities, can at any time point out any information that it is in my power to give to the Society, (as in the case of Royal Scottish portraits, on which Lord Buchan was pleased to Consult Me,) I shall be very proud to obey your and their commands, and shall always be with great regard their and your most obedient humble servant.

P. S. I do not know whether I ever mentioned to you or Lord Buchan, Sir, a curious and excellent head in oil of the Lady Margaret Douglas at Mr. Carteret's, at Hawnes in Bedfordshire, the seat of his grandfather Lord Granville; I know few better portraits. It is at once a countenance of goodness and cunning, a mixture I think pleasing. It seems to imply that the person's virtue was not founded on folly or ignorance of the world; it implies perhaps more, that the person would combat treachery and knavery, and knew how. I could fancy the head in question was such a character as Margaret Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis the First. who was very free in her conversation and writings, yet strictly virtuous; debonnaire, void of ambition; yet a politician when her brother's situation required it. If your Society should give into engraving historic portraits, this head would deserve an early place. There is at Lord Scarborough's in Yorkshire, a double portrait, perhaps by Holbein or Lucas de Heere, of Lady Margaret's mother, Queen Margaret, and her second husband.

(416) Now first collected.