The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 47

Mr. Mason is to come to me on Sunday, and will find me mighty busy in making my lock of hay, which is not Yet cut. I don't know why, but people are always more anxious about their hay than their corn, or twenty other things that cost them more. I suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it fashionable to care about one's hay. n.o.body betrays solicitude about getting in his rents.

We have exchanged spring and summer for autumn and winter, as well as day for night. If religion or law enjoined people to love light, and prospect, and verdure, I should not wonder if perverseness made us hate them; no, nor if society made us prefer living always in town to solitude and beauty. But that is not the case. The most fashionable hurry into the country at Christmas and Easter, let the weather be ever so bad; and the finest ladies, who will go no whither till eleven at night, certainly pa.s.s more tiresome hours in London alone than they would in the country. But all this is no business of mine: they do what they like, and so do I; and I am exceedingly tolerant about people who are perfectly indifferent to me. The sun and the seasons were not gone out of fashion when I was young; and I may do what I will with them now I am old: for fashion is fortunately no law but to its devotees. Were I five-and-twenty, I dare to say I should think every whim of my contemporaries very wise, as I did then. In one light I am always on the side of the Young, for they only silently despise those who do not conform to their ordinances; but age is very apt to be angry at the change of customs, and partial to others no better founded. It is happy when we are occupied by nothing more serious. It is happy for a nation when mere fashions are a topic that can employ its attention; for, though dissipation may lead to graver moments, it commences with ease and tranquillity: and they at least who live before the scene shifts are fortunate, considering and comparing themselves with the various regions who enjoy no parallel felicity. I confess my reflections are couleur de rose at present. I did not much expect to live to see peace, without far more extensive ruin than has fallen on us. I will not probe futurity in search of less agreeable conjectures.

Prognosticators may see many seeds of dusky hue; but I am too old to look forwards. Without any omens, common sense tells one, that in the revolution of ages nations must have unprosperous periods. But why should I torment myself for what may happen in twenty years after my death, more than for what may happen in two hundred? Nor shall I be more interested in the one than in the other. This is no indifference for my country: I wish it could always be happy; but so I do to all other countries. Yet who could ever pa.s.s a tranquil moment, if such future speculations vexed him?

Adieu, my good lord! I doubt this letter has more marks of senility than the one I announced at the beginning. When I had no news to send you, it was no reason for tiring you with commonplaces. But your lordship's indulgence spoils me. Does not it look as if I thought, that, because you commend my letters, you would like whatever I say? Will not Lady Strafford think that I abuse your patience? I ask both your pardons, and am to both a most devoted humble servant.

(496) George Ellis, Esq.; afterwards a contributor to "The Rolliad;" a coadjutor of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere in "The Anti-Jacobin," and editor of "Specimens of Ancient English Romances," etc. He died in 1815, at the age of seventy. Sir Walter Scott, in the introduction to the fifth canto of Marmion, thus addresses him-

Thou, who can give to lightest lay An unpedantic moral gay, Nor less the dullest theme bid flit On wings of unexpected wit; In letters as in life approved, Example honour'd and beloved; Dear Ellis! to the bard impart A lesson of thy magic art To win at once the head and heart,- At once to charm, instruct, and mend, My guide, my pattern, and my friend!"-E.

(497) "Colonel Edward Dillon was particularly acquainted with him," says Wraxall, in his posthumous Memoirs; "he descended, I believe, collaterally from the n.o.ble Irish family of the Earls of Roscommon, though his father carried on the trade of a wine-merchant at Bordeaux; but he was commonly called 'Le Comte Edouard Dillon,' and 'Le Beau Dillon.' In my estimation, he possessed little pretense to the latter epithet: but surpa.s.sed most men in stature, like Lord Whitworth, Lord Hugh Seymour, and the other individuals on whom Marie Antoinette cast a favourable eye. That she showed him some imprudent marks of predilection at a ball, which, when they took place, excited Comment, is true; but they prove only indiscretion and levity on her part."-E.

Letter 261 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, August 1, 1783. (page 328)

It would be great happiness indeed to me, my dear lord, if such nothings as my letters could contribute to any part of your lordship's; but as your own partiality bestows their chief merit on them, you see they owe More to your friendship than to the writer. It is not my interest to depreciate them; much less to undermine the foundation of their sole worth. Yet it would be dishonest not to warn your lordship, that if my letters have had any intrinsic recommendation, they must lose of it every day.

Years and frequent returns of gout have made a ruin of me.

Dulness, in the form of indolence, grows upon me. I am inactive, lifeless, and so indifferent to most things. that I neither inquire after nor remember any topics that might enliven my letters. Nothing is so insipid as my way of pa.s.sing MY time.

But I need not specify what my letters speak. They can have no spirit left; and would be perfectly inanimate, if attachment and grat.i.tude to your lordship were as liable to be extinguished by old age as our more amusing qualities. I make no new connexions; but cherish those that remain' with all the warmth of youth and the piety of gray hairs.

The weather here has been, and is, with very few intervals, sultry to this moment. I think it has been of service to me; though by overheating Myself I had a few days of lameness. The harvest is half over already all round us; and so pure, that not a poppy or cornflower is to be seen. Every field seems to have been weeded like Brisco's bowling-green. If Ceres, who is at least as old as many of our fashionable ladies, loves tricking herself out in flowers as they do, she must be mortified: and with more reason; for she looks well always with top-knots of ultramarine and vermilion, which modern G.o.ddesses do not for half so long as they think they do. As Providence showers so many blessings on us, I wish the peace may confirm them! Necessary I am sure it was; and when it cannot restore us, where should we have been had the war continued? Of our situation and prospect I confess my opinion is melancholy, not from present politics but from past. We flung away the most brilliant position, I doubt, for a long season! With politics I have totally done. I wish the present ministers may last; for I think better of their principles than of those of their opponents (with a few salvos on both sides,) and so I do of their abilities. But it would be folly in me to concern myself about new generations. How little a way can I see of their progress!

I am rather surprised at the new Countess of Denbigh. How could a woman be ambitious of resembling Prometheus, to be pawed and clawed and gnawed by a vulture?(498) I beg your earldom's pardon; but I could not conceive that a coronet was so very tempting!

Lady Browne is quite recovered, unless she relapses from what we suffer at Twickenham-park from a Lord Northesk,(499) an old seaman, who is come to Richmond on a visit to the Duke of Montrose. I think the poor man must be out of his senses, at least he talks us out of ours. It is the most incessant and incoherent rhapsody that ever was heard. He sits by the card-table, and pours on Mrs. N * * * all that ever happened in his voyages or his memory. He details the ship's allowance, and talks to her as if she was his first-mate. Then in the mornings he carries his daughter to town to see St. Paul's, and the Tower, and Westminster Abbey; and at night disgorges all he has seen, till we don't know the ace of spades from Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol in the armoury. Mercy on us! And mercy on your lordship too! Why should you be stunned with that alarum? Have you had your earthquake, my lord? Many have had theirs. I a.s.sure you I have had mine. Above a week ago, when broad awake, the doors of the cabinet by my bedside rattled, without a breath of wind. I imagined somebody was walking on the leads, or had broken into the room under me. It was between four and five in the morning. I rang my bell. Before my servant could come it happened again; and was exactly like the horizontal tremor I felt from the earthquake some years ago. As I had rung once, it is plain I was awake. I rang again; but heard nothing more. I am quite persuaded there was some commotion; nor is it surprising that the dreadful eruptions of fire on the coasts of Italy and Sicily(500) should have occasioned some alteration that has extended faintly, hither, and contributed to the heats and mists that have been so extraordinary. George Montagu said of our last earthquake, that it was so tame you might have stroked it. It is comfortable to live where one can reason on them without dreading them! What satisfaction should you have in having erected such a monument of your taste, my lord, as Wentworth Castle, if you did not know but it might be overturned in a moment and crush you?

Sir William Hamilton is expected: he has been groping in all those devastations. Of all vocations I would not be a professor of earthquakes! I prefer studies that are couleur de rose; nor would ever think of calamities, if I can do nothing To relieve them. Yet this is a weakness of mind that I do not defend. They are more respectable who can behold philosophically the great theatre of events, or rather this little theatre of ours! In some ampler sphere, they may look on the catastrophe of Messina(501) as we do kicking to Pieces an ant-hill.

Bless me! what a farrago is my letter! It is like the extracts of books in a monthly magazine! I had no right to censure poor Lord Northesk's ramblings! Lady Strafford will think he has infected me. Good-night, my dear lord and lady! Your ever devoted.

(498) An allusion to Lord Denbigh's figure, and his arms blazoned on a spread eagle.-E.

(499) George, sixth Earl of Northesk, a naval officer of distinction, who attained the rank of admiral of the white. He died in 1792.-E.

(500) In the course of this year a series of violent earthquakes occurred in Calabria and Sicily. In February, the city of Casal Nuova was entirely swallowed up; and the Princess Gerace Grimaldi, with more than four thousand persons, perished in an instant. The inhabitants of Scylla, who, headed by their Prince, had descended from the rock and taken refuge on the sea-sh.o.r.e, were all washed away by an enormous wave, on its return from the land which it had inundated.-E.

(501) Messina, and all the northern parts of Sicily, suffered greatly by the convulsions of nature alluded to in the preceding note.-E.

Letter 262 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1783. (page 330)

The address from the Volunteers is curious indeed, and upon the first face a little Irish. What! would they throw off our Parliament, and yet amend it? It is like correcting a question in the House of Commons, and then voting against it. But I suppose they rather mean to increase confusion here, that we may not be at leisure to impede their progress; at least this may be the intention of the leaders. Large bodies are only led by being earnest in themselves, when their leaders are not so: but my head is not clear enough to apply it to different matters, nor could I do any good if it were. Our whole system is become a disjointed chaos, and time must digest it, or blow it up shortly. I see no way into it, nor expect any thing favourable but from chance, that often stops confusion on a sudden. To restore us by any system, it would require a single head furnished with wisdom, temper, address, fort.i.tude, full and undivided power, and sincere patriotism divested of all personal views. Where is that prodigy to be found? and how should it have the power, if it had all the rest? And if it had the power, how could it be divested of that power again? And if it were not, how long would it retain its virtues? Power and wisdom would soon unite, like Antony and Augustus, to annihilate their colleague virtue, for being a poor creature like Lepidus. In short, the ma.s.s of matter is too big for me: I am going Out of the world, and cannot trouble myself about it. I do think of your part in it, and wish to preserve you where you are, for the benefits that you may contribute. I have a high opinion of Mr. Fox, and believe that by frankness you may become real friends, which would be greatly advantageous to the country. There is no compet.i.tion in my mind where you are concerned: but Fox is the minister with whom I most wish you united,-indeed, to all the rest I am indifferent or adverse: but, besides his superior abilities, he has a liberality of acting that is to my taste; it is like my father's plainness, and has none of the paltry little finesses of a statesman.

Your parties do not tempt me, because I am not well enough to join in them: nor yet will they stop me, though I had rather find only you and Lady Ailesbury and Mrs. Damer. I am not seriously ill; nay, am better upon the whole than I was last year: but I perceive decays enough in myself to be sensible that the scale may easily be inclined to the worst side. This observation makes 'me very indifferent to every thing that is not much at my heart.

Consequently what concerns you is, as it has always been for above forty years, a princ.i.p.al object. Adieu!

Letter 263To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(502)

Strawberry Hill, Sunday, August 27, 1783. (page 331)

Though I begin my letter on and have dated it Sunday, I recollect that it may miss you if you go to town on Tuesday, and therefore I shall not send it to the post till to-morrow. I can give you but an indifferent account of myself. I went to Lord Dacre's: but whether the heat and fatigue were too much for me, or whether the thunder turned me sour, for I am at least as weak as small-beer, I came back with the gout in my left hand and right foot. The latter confined me for three days; but though my ankle is still swelled, I do not stay in my house: however I am frightened, and shall venture no more expeditions yet; for my hands and feet are both SO lame, that I am neither comfortable to myself or any body else, abroad, when I must confine them, stay by myself or risk pain, which the least fatigue gives me. At this moment I have a worse embargo even than lameness on me. The Prince d'Hessenstein has written to offer me a visit--I don't know when. I have just answered his note, and endeavoured to limit its meaning to the shortest sense I could, by proposing to give him a dinner or a breakfast. I would keep my bed rather than crack our northern French together for twelve hours.

I know nothing upon earth but my own disasters. Another is, that all yesterday I thought all my gold-fish stolen. I am not sure that they are not; but they tell me they keep at the bottom of the water from the hot weather. It is all to be laded out to-morrow morning, and then I shall know whether they are gone or boiled.

Whenever the weather cools to an English consistence, I will see you at Park-place or in town: but I think not at the former before the end of next month, unless I recover more courage than I have at present; for if I was to get a real fit, and be confined to my bed in such sultry days, I should not have strength to go through it. I have just fixed three new benches round my bowling-green, that I may make four journeys of the tour. Adieu!

Monday morning.

As I was rising this morning, I received an express from your daughter, that she will bring Madame de Cambis and Lady Melbourne to dinner here to-morrow. I shall be vastly pleased with the party, but it puts Philip and Margaret to their wit's end to get them a dinner: nothing is to be had here; we must send to Richmond, and Kingston, and Brentford; I must borrow Mr. Ellis's cook, and somebody's confectioner, and beg somebody's fruit, for I have none of these of my own, nor know any thing of the matter: but that is Philip and Margaret's affair, and not mine; and the worse the dinner is, the more Gothic Madame de Cambis will think it.

I have been emptying my pond, which was more in my head than the honour of my kitchen; and in the mud of the troubled water I have found all my gold, as Dunning and Barr'e(503) did last year. I have taken out fifteen young fish of a year and a half old for Lady Ailesbury, and reserved them as an offering worthy of Amphitrite in the vase, in the cat's vase,(504) amidst the azure flowers that blow. They are too portly to be carried in a smelling-bottle in your pocket. I wish you could plan some way of a waterman's calling for them, and transporting them to Henley. They have not changed their colour, but will next year.

How lucky it would be, should you meet your daughter about Turnham Green, and turn back with them!

(502) Now first printed.

503) In the preceding year, through the influence of Lord Shelburne, a considerable pension had been granted to Colonel Barr'e, and a peerage and pension to Mr. Dunning.-E.

(504) The china vase in which Walpole's favourite cat Selima was drowned. See Gray's Works, vol. i. p. 6.-E.

Letter 264 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1783. (page 332)

Your lordship tells me you hope my summer has glided pleasantly, like our Thames- I cannot say it has pa.s.sed very pleasantly to me, though, like the Thames, dry and low; for somehow or other I caught a rheumatic fever in the great heats, and cannot get rid of it. I have just been at Park-place and Nuneham, in hopes change of air would cure me; but to no purpose. Indeed, as want of sleep is my chief complaint, I doubt I must make use of a very different and more disagreeable remedy, the air of London, the only place that I ever find agree with me when I am out of order.

I was there for two nights a fortnight ago, and slept perfectly well. In vain has my predilection for Strawberry made me try to persuade myself that this was all fancy: but, I fear, reasons that appear strong, though contrary to our inclinations, must be good ones. London at this time of year is as nauseous a drug as any in an apothecary's shop. I could find nothing at all to do, and so went to Astley's, 'which indeed was much beyond my expectation. I do not wonder any longer that Darius was chosen king by the instructions he gave to his horse; nor that Caligula made 'his consul. Astley can make his dance minuets and hornpipes: which is more extraordinary than to make them vote at an election, or act the part of a magistrate, which animals of less capacities can perform as dexterously as a returning officer or a master in chancery. But I shall not have even Astley now: her Majesty the Queen of France, who has as much taste as Caligula, has sent for the whole dramatis personae to Paris. Sir William Hamilton was at Park-place, and gave us dreadful accounts of Calabria: he looks much older, and has the patina of a bronze.

At Nuneham I was much pleased with the improvements both within doors and without. Mr. Mason was there; and as he shines in every art, was a.s.sisting Mrs. Harcourt with his new discoveries in painting, by which he will unite miniature and oil. Indeed, she is a very apt and extraordinary scholar. Since our professors seem to have lost the art of colouring, I am glad at least that they have ungraduated a.s.sessors.

We have plenty and peace at last; consequently leisure for repairing some of our losses, if we have sense to set about the task. On what will happen I shall make no conjectures, as it is not likely I should see much of what is to come. Our enemies have humbled us enough to content them; and we have succeeded so ill in innovations, that surely we shall not tempt new storms in haste.

>From this place I can send your lordship new or entertaining, nor expect more game in town, whither nothing but search of health should carry me. Perhaps it is a vain chase at my age; but at my age one cannot trust to Nature's operating cures without aiding her; it is always time enough to abandon one's self when no care will palliate our decays. I hope your lordship and Lady Strafford will long be in no want of such attentions; nor should I -have talked so Much of my own cracks, had I had any thing else to tell you. It would be silly to aim at vivacity when it is gone: and, though a lively old man is sometimes an agreeable being, a pretending old man is ridiculous. Aches and an apothecary cannot give one genuine spirits; 'tis sufficient if they do not make one peevish' Your lordship is so kind as to accept of me as I am, and you shall find nothing more counterfeit in me than the sincere respect and grat.i.tude with which I have the honour to be your lordship's most devoted humble servant.

Letter 265 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1783. (page 334)

My rheumatism, I thank your lordship, is certainly better, though not quite gone. It was very troublesome at night till I took the bark; but that medicine makes me sleep like opium. But I will say no more about it, nothing is so troublesome as to talk of chronical complaints: has one any right to draw on the compa.s.sion of others, when one must renew the address daily and for months?

The aspect of Ireland is very tempestuous.(505) I doubt they will hurt us materially without benefiting themselves. If they obtain very short parliaments, they will hurt themselves more than us, by introducing a confusion that will prevent their improvements. Whatever country does adopt short parliaments, will, I am entirely persuaded, be forced to recur to their former practice; I mean, if the disorders introduced do not produce despotism of some sort or other. I am very sorry Mr. Mason concurs in trying to revive the a.s.sociations.(506) Methinks our state is so deplorable, that every healing measure ought to be attempted instead of innovations. For my own part, I expect nothing but distractions, and am not concerned to be so old. I am so old, that, were I disposed to novelties, I should think they little became my age. I should be ashamed, when my hour shall come, to be caught in a riot of country squires and parsons, and haranguing a mob with a shaking head. A leader of faction ought to be young and vigorous. If an aged gentleman does get an ascendant, he may be sure that younger men are counting on his exit, and only flatter him to succeed to his influence, while they are laughing at his misplaced activity. At least, these would be my thoughts, who of all things dread being a jest to the juvenile, if they find me out of my sphere.