The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 54

(566) Lord Euston, who, in 1811, succeeded his father as fourth Duke of Grafton, married, in November 1784, Charlotte Maria, daughter of the Earl of Waldegrave.-E.

Letter 300 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 9, 1786. (page 380)

It is very cruel, my dear Madam, when you send me such charming lines, and say such kind and flattering things to me and of me, that I cannot even thank you with my own poor hand; and yet my hand is as much obliged to you as my eye, and ear, and understanding. My hand was in great pain when your present arrived. I opened it directly, and set to reading, till your music and my own vanity composed a quieting draught that glided to the ends of my fingers, and lulled the throbs into the deliquium that attends opium when it does not put one absolutely to sleep. I don't believe that the deity who formerly practised both poetry and physic, when G.o.ds got their livelihood by more than one profession, ever gave a recipe in rhyme; and therefore, since Dr. Johnson has prohibited application to pagan divinities, and Mr. Burke has not struck medicine and poetry out of the list of sinecures, I wish you may get a patent for life for exercising both faculties. It would be a comfortable event for me for, since I cannot wait on you to thank you, nor dare ask you

----to call your doves yourself,

and visit me in your Parna.s.sian quality, I might send for you as my physicianess. Yet why should I not ask you to come and see me? You are not such a prude as to

----blush to show compa.s.sion,

though it should

not chance this year to be the fashion,(567)

And I can tell you, that powerful as your poetry is, and old as I am, I believe a visit from you would do me as much good almost as your verses.(568) In the meantime, I beg you to accept of an addition to your Strawberry editions; and believe me to be, with the greatest grat.i.tude, your too much honoured, and most obliged humble servant.

See "Florio," a poetical tale, which Miss Hannah More had recently published with the "Bas Bleu."-E.

(568) on the 11th, Hannah More paid him a visit. "I made poor Vesey," she says, "go with me on Sat.u.r.day to see Mr. Walpole, who has had a long illness. Notwithstanding his sufferings, I never found him so pleasant, so witty, and so entertaining. He said a thousand diverting things about 'Florio;' but accused me of having imposed on the world by a dedication full of falsehood; meaning the compliment to himself: I never knew a man suffer pain with such entire patience. This submission is certainly a most valuable part of religion; and yet, alas! he is not religious. I must however, do him the justice to say, that, except the delight he has in teasing me for what he calls over-strictness, I never heard a sentence from him which savoured of infidelity." Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 11.-E.

Letter 301 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Sunday night, June 18, 1786. (page 301)

I suppose you have been swearing at the east wind for parching your verdure, and are now weeping for the rain that drowns your hay. I have these calamities in common, and my constant and particular one,-people that come to see my house, which unfortunately is more in request than ever. Already I have had twenty-eight sets, have five more tickets given out; and yesterday, before I had dined, three German barons came. My house is a torment, not a comfort!

I was sent for again to dine at Gunnersbury on Friday, and was forced to send to town for a dress-coat and a sword. There were the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Mecklenburg, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbra.s.sil, Lord and Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham, and Mrs. Howe. The Prince of Mecklenburg went back to Windsor after coffee; and the Prince and Lord and Lady Clermont to town after tea, to hear some new French players at Lady William Gordon's. The Princess, Lady Barrymore, and the rest of us, played three pools at commerce till ten. I am afraid I was tired and gaped. While we were at the dairy, the Princess insisted on my making some verses on Gunnersbury. I pleaded being superannuated. She would not excuse me. I promised she should have an ode on her next birthday, which diverted the Prince; but all would not do. So, as I came home, I made the following stanzas, and sent them to her breakfast next morning:--

In deathless odes for ever green Augustus' laurels blow; Nor e'er was grateful duty seen In warmer strains to flow.

Oh! why is Flaccus not alive, Your favourite scene to sing?

To Gunnersbury's charms could give His lyre immortal spring.

As warm as his my zeal for you, Great princess! could I show it; But though you have a Horace too-- Ah, Madam! he's no poet.

If they are poor verses, consider I am sixty-nine, was half asleep, and made them almost extempore-and by command! However, they succeeded, and I received this gracious answer:--

" I wish I had a name that could answer your pretty verses. Your yawning yesterday opened your vein for pleasing me; and I return you my thanks, my good Mr. Walpole, and remain sincerely your friend, Amelia."

I think this very genteel at seventy-five.

Do you know that I have bought the Jupiter Serapis as well as the Julio Clovio!(569) Mr. * * * * a.s.sures me he has seen six of the head, and not one of them so fine, or so well preserved. I am glad Sir Joshua Reynolds saw no more excellence in the Jupiter than in the Clovio; or the Duke of Portland, I suppose, would have purchased it, as he has the vase for a thousand pounds. I would not change. I told Sir William Hamilton and the late d.u.c.h.ess, when I never thought it would be mine, that I had rather have the head than the vase.- I shall long for Mrs. Damer to make a bust to it, and then it will be still more valuable. I have deposited both the Illumination(570) and the Jupiter in Lady Di.'s cabinet,(571) which is worthy of them. And here my collection winds up; I will not purchase trumpery after such jewels. Besides, every thing is much dearer in old age, as one has less time to enjoy. Good night!

(569) At the sale Of the d.u.c.h.ess-dowager of Portland.

(570) The Book of Psalms, with twenty-one illuminations, by Don Julio Clovio, scholar of Julio Romano-E.

(571) A cabinet at Strawberry Hill, built in 1776, to receive seven incomparable drawings of Lady Diana Beauclere, for Walpole's tragedy of "The Mysterious Mother."-E.

Letter 302 To Richard Gough, Esq.

Berkeley Square, June 21, 1786. (page 383)

On coming to town yesterday upon business, I found, Sir, your very magnificent and most valuable present,(572) for which I beg you will accept my most grateful thanks. I am impatient to return to Twickenham, to read it tranquilly. As yet I have only had time to turn the prints over, and to read the preface; but I see already that it is both a n.o.ble and laborious work, and -will do great honour both to you and to your country. Yet one apprehension it has given me-I fear not living to see the second part! Yet I shall presume to keep it Unbound; not only till it is perfectly dry and secure, but, as I mean the binding should be as fine as it deserves, I should be afraid of not having both volumes exactly alike.

Your partiality, I doubt, Sir, has induced you to insert a paper not so worthy of the public regard as the rest of your splendid performance. My letter to Mr. Cole,(573) which I am sure I had utterly forgotten .to have ever written, was a hasty indigested sketch, like the rest of my scribblings, and never calculated to lead such well-meditated and accurate works as yours. Having lived familiarly with Mr. Cole, from our boyhood, I used to write to him carelessly on the occasions that occurred. As it was always on subjects of' no importance, I never thought of enjoining secrecy. I could not foresee that such idle Communications would find a place in a great national work, or I should have been more attentive to 'what I said. Your taste, Sir, I fear, has for once been misled; and I shall be sorry for having innocently blemished a single page. Since your partiality (for such it certainly was) has gone so far, I flatter myself you will have retained enough to accept, not a retribution, but a trifling mark of my regard, in the little volume that accompanies this; in which you will find that another too favourable reader has bestowed on me more distinction than I could procure for myself, by turning my slight Essay on Gardening(574) into the pure French of the last age;(575) and, which is wonderful, has not debased Milton by French poetry: on the contrary, I think Milton has given a dignity to French poetry--nay, and harmony; both which I thought that language almost incapable of receiving.

As I would wish to give all the value I can to my offering, I Will mention, that I have printed but four hundred copies, half of which went to France; and as this is an age in which mere rarities are preferred to commoner things of intrinsic worth,-as I have found by the ridiculous prices given for some of my insignificant publications, merely because they are scarce,-I hope, under the t.i.tle of a kind of curiosity, my thin piece will be admitted into your library. If you would indulge me so far, Sir, as to let me know when I might hope to see the second part, I would calculate how many more fits of the gout I may weather, and would be still more strict in my regimen. I hope, at least, that you will not wait for the engravers, but will accomplish the text for the sake of the world: in this I speak disinterestedly.

Though you are much younger than I am, I would have your part of the work secure - engravers may always proceed, or be found; another author cannot.

(572) The first volume of Mr. Gough's "Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain."-E.

(573) See vol. iii., Aug. 12, 1769, letter 366.-E.

(574) The author of "The Pursuits of Literature",--

"Well pleased to see Walpole and Nature may, for once, agree,"

adds, in a note, "read (it well deserves the attention) that quaint, but most curious and learned writer's excellent Essay on Modern Gardening."-E.

(575) Besides Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening, the Duc do Nivernois translated Pope's Essay on Man, and a portion of Milton's Paradise Lost, into French verse.-E.

Letter 303 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, August 29, 1786. (page 384)

Since I received the honour of your lordship's last, I have been at Park-place for a few days. Lord and Lady Frederick Campbell and Mrs. Damer were there. We went on the Thames to see the new bridge at Henley, and Mrs. Damer's colossal masks. There is not a sight in the island more worthy of being visited. The bridge is as perfect as if bridges were natural productions, and as beautiful as if it had been built"for Wentworth Castle; and the masks, as if the Romans had left them here. We saw them in a fortunate moment; for the rest of the time was very cold and uncomfortable, and the evenings as chill as many we have had lately. In short, I am come to think that the beginning of an old ditty, which pa.s.ses for a collection of blunders, was really an old English pastoral, it is so descriptive of our climate:

"Three children sliding on the ice All on a summer's day----"

I have been overwhelmed more than ever by visitants to my house.

Yesterday I had Count Oginski,(576) who was a pretender to the crown of Poland at the last election, and has been stripped of most of a vast estate. He had on a ring of the new King of Prussia, or I should have wished him joy on the death Of One of the plunderers of his country.(577)

It has long been my opinion that the out-pensioners of Bedlam are so numerous, that the shortest and cheapest way would be to confine in Moorfields the few that remain in their senses, who would then be safe; and let the rest go at large. They are the out-pensioners who are for destroying poor dogs! The whole canine race never did half so much mischief as Lord George Gordon; nor even worry hares, but when hallooed on by men. As it is a persecution of animals, I do not love hunting; and what old writers mention as a commendation makes me hate it the more, its being an image of war. Mercy on us! that destruction of any species should be a sport or a merit! What cruel unreflecting imps we are! Every body is unwilling to die; yet sacrifices the lives of others to momentary -pastime, or to the still emptier vapour, fame! A hero or a sportsman who wishes for longer life is desirous of prolonging devastation. We shall be crammed, I suppose, with panegyrics and epitaphs on the King of Prussia; I am content that he can now have an epitaph. But, alas! the Emperor will write one for him probably in blood! and, while he shuts up convents for the sake of population, will be stuffing hospitals .With maimed soldiers, besides making thousands of widows!

I have just been reading a new published history of the Colleges in Oxford, by Anthony Wood; and there found a feature in a character that always offended me, that of Archbishop Chicheley, who prompted Henry the Fifth to the invasion of France, to divert him from squeezing the overgrown clergy. When that priest meditated founding All Souls, and "consulted his friends (who seem to have been honest men) what great matter of piety he had best perform to G.o.d in his old age, he was advised by them to build an hospital for the wounded and sick soldiers that daily returned from the wars then had in France;"-I doubt his grace's friends thought as I do of his artifice "but," continues the historian, "disliking those motions, and valuing the welfare of the deceased more than the wounded and diseased, he resolved with himself to promote his design, which was, to have ma.s.ses said for the King, Queen, and himself, etc. while living, and for their souls when dead." And that mummery the old foolish rogue thought more efficacious than ointments and medicines for the wretches he had made! And of the chaplains and clerks he inst.i.tuted in that dormitory, one was to teach grammars and another p.r.i.c.k-song. How history makes one shudder and laugh by turns! But I fear I have wearied your lordship with my idle declamation, and you will repent having commanded me to send you more letters.

(576) Father of Count Michel Oginski, the a.s.sociate of Kosciusko, and author of "Memoires sur la Pologne et les Polonais, depuis 1788 jusqu''a la fin de 1815;" in four volumes octavo. Paris, 1826.-E.

(577) Frederick the Great had died on the 17th, at Berlin.-E.