The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 57

(610) One of the Hieroglyphic tales, containing a description of Park-place. it will be found in Walpole's works.

Letter 315 To Thomas Barrett, Esq.(611) Berkeley Square, June 5, 1788. (page 398)

I wish I could charge myself with any merit, which I always wish to have towards you, dear Sir, in letting Mr. Matthew see Strawberry; but in truth he has so much merit and modesty and taste himself, that I gave him the ticket with pleasure, which it seldom happens to me to do; for most of those who go thither, go because it is the fashion, and because a party is a prevailing custom too; and my tranquillity is disturbed, because n.o.body likes to stay at home. If Mr. Matthew was really entertained I am glad; but Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth not to have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my attempts; for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the science, and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider that I should please myself more by allowing time, than by hurrying my plans into execution before they were ripe. My house therefore is but a sketch by beginners, yours is finished by a great master; and if Mr. Matthew liked mine, it was en virtuose, who loves the dawnings of an art, or the glimmerings of its restoration.

I finished Mr. Gibbon a full fortnight ago, and was extremely pleased. It is a most wonderful ma.s.s of information, not only of history, but almost on all the ingredients of history, as war, government, commerce, coin, and what not. If it has a fault, it is in embracing too much, and consequently in not detailing enough, and it, striding backwards and forwards from one set of princes to another, and from one subject to another; so that, without much historic knowledge, and without much memory, and much method in one's memory, it is almost impossible not to be sometimes bewildered: nay, his own impatience to tell what he knows, makes the author, though commonly so explicit, not perfectly clear in his expressions. The last chapter of the fourth Volume, I own, made me recoil, and I could scarcely push through it. So far from being Catholic or heretic, I wished Mr.

Gibbon had never heard of Monophysites, Nestorians, or any such fools! But the sixth volume made ample amends; Mahomet and the Popes were gentlemen and good company. I abominate fractions of theology and reformation.

Mr. Sheridan, I hear, did not quite satisfy the pa.s.sionate expectation that had been raised;(612) but it was impossible he could, when people had worked themselves into an enthusiasm of offering fifty, ay, fifty guineas for a ticket to hear him.

Well! we are sunk and deplorable in many points, yet not absolutely gone, when history and eloquence throw out such shoots! I thought I had outlived my country; I am glad not to leave it desperate. Adieu, dear Sir!

(611) OF Lee, in East Kent; Whose seat was built by Mr. Wyatt, and greatly admired by Walpole.-E.

(612) Of his speech in Westminster-hall, on bringing forward the Begum charge against Mr. Hastings; upon which Mr. Burke p.r.o.nounced the high ealogium, that "all the various species of oratory that had been heard, either in ancient or modern times-whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit; could furnish--had not been equal to what the House had that day heard." Gibbon, who was present, thus describes it, in a letter to Lord Sheffield:-- "Yesterday the august scene was closed for this year. Sheridan surpa.s.sed himself; and, though I am far from considering him a perfect orator, there were many beautiful pa.s.sages in his speech- -on justice, filial love, etc.; one of the closest chains of argument I ever heard, to prove that Hastings was responsible for the acts of Middleton; and a compliment, much admired to a certain historian of your acquaintance. Sheridan, on the close of his speech, sunk into Burke's arms--a good actor: but I called this morning; he is perfectly well."-E.

Letter 316 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday night, June 17, 1788. (page 399)

I guess, my dear lord, and only guess, that you are arrived at Wentworth Castle. If you are not, my letter will lose none of its bloom by waiting for you; for I have nothing fresh to tell you, and only write because you enjoined it. I settled in my Lilliputian towers but this morning. I wish people would come into the country on May-day, and fix in town on the first of November. But as they will not, I have made up my mind; and having so little time left, I prefer London, when my friends and society are in it, to living here alone, or with the weird sisters of Richmond and Hampton. I had additional reason now, for the streets are as green as the fields: we are burnt to the bone, and have not a lock of bay to cover our nakedness: oats are so dear, that I suppose they will soon be eaten at Brooks's and fashionable tables as a rarity. The drought has lasted so long, that for this fortnight I have been foretelling haymaking and winter, which June generally produces; but to-day is sultry, and I am not a prophet worth a straw. Though not resident till now, I have flitted backwards and forwards, and last Friday came hither to look for a minute at a ball at Mrs. Walsingham's at Ditton which would have been pretty, for she had stuck coloured lamps in the hair of all her trees and bushes, if the east wind had not danced a reel all the time by the side of the river. Mr.

Conway's play,(613) of which your lordship has seen some account in the papers, has succeeded delightfully, both in representation and applause. The language is most genteel, though translated from verse; and both prologue and epilogue are charming. The former was delivered most Justly and admirably by Lord Derby, and the latter with inimitable spirit and grace by Mrs. Damer. Mr.

Merry and Mrs. Bruce played excellently too. But General Conway, Mrs. Damer, and every body else are drowned by Mr. Sheridan, whose renown has engrossed all Fame's tongues and trumpets. Lord Townshend said he should be sorry were he forced to give a vote directly on Hastings, before he had time to cool; and one of the peers saying the speech had not made the same impression on him, the Marquis replied, a seal might be finely cut, and yet not be in fault for making a bad impression.

I have, you see, been forced to send your lordship what sc.r.a.ps I brought from town: the next four months, I doubt will reduce me to my old sterility; for I cannot retail French gazettes, though as a good Englishman bound to hope they will contain a civil war.

I care still less about the double imperial campaign, only hoping that the poor dear Turks will heartily beat both Emperor and Empress. If the first Ottomans could be punished, they deserved it, but present possessors have as good a prescription 'on their side as any People in Europe. We ourselves are Saxons, Danes, Normans; our neighbours are Franks, not Gauls; who the rest are, Goths, Gepidae, Heruli, Mr. Gibbon knows; and the Dutch usurped the estates of herrings, turbots, and other marine indigenae.

Still, though I do not wish the hair of a Turk's beard to be hurt, I do not say that it would not be amusing to have Constantinople taken, merely as a l.u.s.ty event; for neither could I live to see Athens revive, nor have I much faith in two such b.l.o.o.d.y-minded vultures, c.o.c.k and hen, as Catherine and Joseph, conquering for the benefit of humanity; nor does my Christianity admire the propagation of the Gospel by the mouth of cannon.

What desolation of peasants and their families by the episodes of forage and quarters! Oh! I wish Catherine and Joseph were brought to Westminster-hall and worried by Sheridan! I hope, too, that the poor Begums are alive to hear of his speech; it will be some comfort, though I doubt n.o.body thinks of restoring them a quarter of a lac!

(613) A comedy, called "False Appearances" translated from L'Homme du Jour of Boissy. It was first acted at the private theatre at Richmond.house, and afterwards at Drury-lane.-E.

Letter 317 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1788. (page 401)

I am soundly rejoiced, my dear Madam, that the present summer is more favourable to me than the last: , and that, instead of not answering my letters in three months, you open the campaign. May not I flatter myself' that it is a symptom of your being in better health? I wish, however, you had told me so in positive words, and that all your complaints have left you. Welcome as is your letter, it would have been ten times more welcome bringing me that a.s.surance; for don't think I forget how ill you was last winter. As letters, you say, now keep their coaches, I hope those from Bristol will call often at my door.(614) I promise you I will never be denied to them.

No botanist am I; nor wished to learn from you, of all the Muses, that piping has a new signification. I had rather that you handled an oaten pipe than a carnation one; yet setting layers, I own, is preferable to reading newspapers, one of the chronical maladies of this age. Every body reads them, nay quotes them, though every body knows they are stuffed with lies or blunders.

How should it be otherwise? If any extraordinary event happens, who but must hear it before it descends through a coffee-house to the runner of a daily paper? They who are always wanting news, are wanting to hear they don't know what. A lower species, indeed, is that of the scribes you mention, who every night compose a journal for the satisfaction of such illiterati, and feed them with all the vices and misfortunes of every private family; nay, they now call it a duty to publish all those calamities which decency to wretched relations used in compa.s.sion to suppress, I mean self-murder in particular. Mr. -Is was detailed at length; and to-day that of Lord - and -. The pretence is, in terrorem, like the absurd stake and highway of our ancestors; as if there were a precautionary potion for madness, or the stigma of a newspaper were more dreadful than death. Daily journalists, to be sure, are most respectable magistrates! Yes, much like the cobblers that Cromwell made peers.

I do lament your not going to Mr. Conway's play: both the author and actors deserved such an auditor as you, and you deserved to hear them. However, I do not pity good people who out of virtue lose or miss any pleasures. Those pastimes fleet as fast as those of the wicked; but when gone, you saints can sit down and feast on your self-denial, and drink b.u.mpers of satisfaction to the health of your own merit. So truly I don't pity you.

You say you hear no news, yet you quote Mr. Topham;(615) therefore why should I tell you that the King is going to Cheltenham? Or that the Baccelli lately danced at the opera at Paris with a blue bandeau on her forehead, inscribed, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Now who can doubt but she is as pure as the Countess of Salisbury! Was not it ingenious? and was not the amba.s.sador so to allow it? No doubt he took it for a compliment to his own knee.

Well! would we committed nothing but follies! What do we not commit when the abolition of slavery hitches! Adieu!

Though Cato died, though Tully spoke, Though Brutus dealt the G.o.dlike stroke, Yet perish'd fated Rome.

You have written; and I fear that even if Mr. Sheridan speaks, trade, the modern religion, will predominate. Adieu!

(614) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"Mail-coaches, which come to others, come not to me: letters and newspapers, now that they travel In coaches, like gentlemen and ladies, come not within ten miles of my hermitage: and while other fortunate provincials are studying the world and its ways, and are feasting upon elopement, divorces, and suicides, tricked out in all the elegancies of Mr. Topham's phraseology, I am obliged to be contented with village vices, petty iniquities, and vulgar sins,"

Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.

(615) Major Topham was the proprietor of the fashionable morning paper ent.i.tled The World. "In this paper," says Mr. Gifford, in his preface to the Baviad, "were given the earliest specimens of those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character, and which the town first smiled at for their quaintness then tolerated for their absurdity; now--that other papers equally wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it--will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty." In 1791, Major Topham published the Life of John Elwes the miser; which Walpole considered one of the most amusing anecdotical books in the English language.-E.

(616) While the Duke of Dorset, who kept her was amba.s.sador at Paris. The Countess of Salisbury, to the fall OF whose garter has been attributed the foundation of the order of the Garter.

Letter 318 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1788. (page 402)

Won't you repent of having opened the correspondence, my dear Madam, when you find my letters come so thick upon you? In this instance, however, I am only to blame in part, for being too ready to take advice, for the sole reason for which advice ever is taken, 'because it fell in with my inclination. You said in your last that you feared you took up time of mine to the prejudice of the public; implying, I imagine, that I might employ it in composing. Waving both your compliment, and my own vanity, I will speak very seriously to you on that subject, and with exact truth. My simple writings have had better fortune than they had any reason to expect; and I fairly believe, in a great degree, because gentlemen-writers, who do not write for interest, are treated with some civility if they do not write absolute nonsense. I think so, because I have not unfrequently known much better works than mine much more neglected, if the name, fortune, and situation of the authors were below mine. I wrote early, from youth, spirits, and vanity; and from both the last when the first no longer existed. I now shudder when I reflect on my own boldness; and with mortification, when I compare my own writings with those of any great authors. This is So true, that I question"Whether it would be possible for me to summon up courage to publish any thing I have written, if I could recall the past, and should yet think as I think at present. So much for what is over and out of my power. As to writing now, I have totally forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? n.o.body will be so coa.r.s.e as to tell me so; but if I published dotage all the world would tell me so. And who but runs that risk who is an author after severity? What happened to the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my age Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, Went to Paris to receive the incense, in person, of his countrymen, and to be witness of their admiration of a tragedy he had written at that Methusalem age. Incense he did receive till it choked him; and at the exhibition of his play he was actually crowned with laurel in the box where he sat. But what became of his poor play? It died as soon as he did--was buried with him; and no mortal, I dare to say, has ever read a line of it since, it was so bad.(617)

As I am neither by a thousandth part so great, nor a quarter so little, I will herewith send you a fragment that an accidental rencontre set me upon writing,, and which I found so flat, that I would not finish it. Don't believe that I am either begging praise by the stale artifice of' hoping to be contradicted; or that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my caducity. No; but the fragment contains a curiosity--English verses written by a French prince of the blood, and which at first I had a mind to add to my Royal and n.o.ble Authors, but as he was not a royal author of ours, and as I could not please myself with an account of him, I shall revert to my old resolution of not exposing my pen's gray hairs.(618)

Of one pa.s.sage I must take notice; it is a little indirect sneer at our crowd of auth.o.r.esses. My choosing to send this to you is a proof that I think you an author, that is, a cla.s.sic. But in truth I am nauseated by the Madams Piozzi, etc. and the host of novel-writers in petticoats, who think they imitate what is inimitable, Evelina and Cecilia. Your candour I know will not agree with me, when I tell you I am not at all charmed with Miss Seward and Mr. Hayley piping to one another: but you I exhort, and would encourage to write; and flatter myself you will never be royally gagged and promoted to fold Muslins, as has been lately wittily said on Miss Burney, in the list of five hundred living authors. Your writings promote virtues; and their increasing editions prove their worth and utility. If you question my sincerity, can you doubt my admiring you, when you have gratified my self-love so amply in your Bas Bleu? Still, as much as I love your writings, I respect yet more your heart and your goodness. You are so good, that I believe you would go to heaven, even though there were no Sunday, and only six working days in the week. Adieu, my best Madam!

(617) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 8th of March 1778, says--"Voltaire se Porte bien: il est uniquement occup'e de sa tragedie d'Ir'ene; on a.s.sure qu'on la jouera de demain en huit: si elle n'a pas de succ'es, il en mourra." On the 18th, she again writes--"Le succ'es de la pi'ece a 'et'e tr'es mediocre; il y eut cependant beaucouP de claquemens de mains, mais C''etait Plus Voltaire qui en 'etait l'objet que la Pi'ece."

He died in the May following.-E.

(618) The French prince of the blood here spoken of, was Charles Duke of Orleans, who being a prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, was brought to England and detained here for twenty.five years.

For a copy of the verses, see Walpole's works, vol. i. p. 564.-E.

Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, August 2, 1788. (page 404)

Matter for a letter, alas! my dear lord, I have none; but about letters I have great news to tell your lordship, only may the G.o.ddess of post-offices grant it be true! A Miss Sayer, of Richmond, who is at Paris, writes to Mrs. Boscawen, that a Baron de ]a Garde (I am sorry there are so many as in the genealogy of my story.) has found in a vieille armoire five hundred more letters of Madame de S'evign'e, and that they will be printed if the expense is not too great. I am in a taking, lest they should not appear before I set out for the Elysian fields for, though the writer is one of the first personages I should inquire after on my arrival, I question whether St. Peter has taste enough to know where she lodges, she is more likely to be acquainted with St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Undecimillia; and therefore I had rather see the letters themselves. It is true I have no small doubt of the authenticity of the legend; and nothing will persuade me of its truth so much as the non-appearance of the letters-a melancholy kind of conviction. But I vehemently suspect some new coinage, like the letters of Ninon de l'Enclos, Pope Ganganelli, and the Princess Palatine. I have lately been reading some fragments of letters of the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, which are certainly genuine, and contain some curious circ.u.mstances; for though she was a simple gossiping old gentlewoman, yet many little facts she could not help learning: and, to give her her due, she was ready to tell all she knew. To our late Queen she certainly did write often; and her Majesty, then only Princess, was full as ready to pay her in her own coin, and a pretty considerable treaty of commerce for the exchange of scandal was faithfully executed between them; insomuch that I remember to have heard forty years ago, that our gracious sovereign entrusted her Royal Highness of Orleans with an intrigue of one of her women of the bedchamber. Mrs. Selwyn to wit; and the good d.u.c.h.ess entrusted it to so many other dear friends that at last it got into the Utrecht Gazette, and came over hither, to the signal edification of the court of Leicester- fields. This is an additional reason, besides the internal evidence, for my believing the letters genuine. This old dame was mother of the Regent; and when she died, somebody wrote on her tomb, Cy gist l'Oisivet'e. This came over too; and n.o.body could expound It, till our then third Princess, Caroline, unravelled it,--Idleness is the mother of all vice.

I wish well enough to posterity to hope that dowager highnesses will Imitate the practice, and write all the trifles that occupy their royal brains; for the world so at least learns some true history, which their husbands never divulge, especially if they are privy to their own history, which their ministers keep from them as much as possible. I do not believe the present King of France knows much more of what he, or rather his Queen, is actually doing, than I do. I rather pity him; for I believe he means well, which is not a common article of my faith.

I shall go about the end of this week to Park-place, where I expect to find the Druidic temple from Jersey erected. How dull will the world be, if constant pilgrimages are not made thither!

where, besides the delight of the scenes, that temple, the rude great arch, Lady Ailesbury's needle-works, and Mrs. Damer's Thames and Isis on Henley-bridge, with other of her sculptures, make it one of the most curious spots in the island, and unique.

I want to have Mr. Conway's comedy acted there; and then the father, mother, and daughter would exhibit a theatre of arts as uncommon. How I regret your lordship did not hear Mrs. Damer speak the epilogue!

Letter 320To John Pinkerton, Esq.(619) Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1788. (page 405)

Your intelligence of the jubilees to be celebrated in Scotland in honour of the Revolution was welcomed indeed. It is a favourable symptom of an age when its festivals are founded on good sense and liberality of sentiment, and not to perpetuate superst.i.tion and slavery. Your countrymen, Sir, have proved their good sense too in their choice of a poet. Your writings breathe the n.o.ble generous spirit congenial to the inst.i.tution. Give me leave to say that it is very flattering to me to have the ode communicated to me; I will not say, to be consulted, for of that distinction I am not worthy: I am not a poet, and am Sure I cannot improve your ideas, which you have expressed with propriety and clearness, the necessary ingredients of an address to a populous meeting; for I doubt our numerous audiences are not arrived at Olympic taste enough to seize with enthusiasm the eccentric flights of Pindar.

You have taken a more rational road to inspiration,'-by adhering to the genuine topics of the occasion; and you speak in so manly a Style, that I do not believe a more competent judge could amend your poetry.

I will tell you how more than occasionally the mention of Pindar slipped into my pen. I have frequently, and even yesterday, wished that some attempt were made to enn.o.ble our horse-races, particularly at Newmarket, by a.s.sociating better arts with the courses; as, by contributing for odes, the best of which should be rewarded by medals. Our n.o.bility would find their vanity gratified; for, as the pedigrees of their steeds would soon grow tiresome, their own genealogies would replace them; and, in the mean time, poetry and medals would be improved. Their lordships would have judgment enough to know if their horse (which should be the impression on one side) were not well executed; and, as I hold that there is no being more difficult to draw well than a horse, no bad artist could be employed. Such a beginning would lead farther; and the cup or plate for the prize might rise into beautiful vases. But this is a vision; and I may as well go to bed and dream of any thing else.