The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 79

Lysons(876) has been drawing churches in Gloucestershire, and digging out a Roman villa and mosaic pavement near Cirencester, which he means to publish: but he knew nothing outlandish; so if the newspaper does not bring me something fresh for you presently, this limping letter must set out with its empty wallet. Mrs. Piozzi is going to publish a book on English Synonymes. Methinks she had better have studied them, before she stuffed her Travels with so many vulgarisms!(877)

(866) This alludes to some false report of the time.

(867) Lord Viscount Montague was the last male heir of a most n.o.ble and ancient family, in a lineal descent from the Lady Lucy Nevill.-E.

(868) Charles Sedley Burdett, second son of Francis Burdett Esq.

and brother of Francis, who on the death of his grandfather, Sir Robert Burdett, in 1797, succeeded to the baronetcy.-E.

(869) They insisted on shooting down the, great fall of the Rhine at Schaflhausen in a boat, against the remonstrances of the neighbouring inhabitants and their refusal of every bribe, either to a.s.sist or accompany them. They and their boat were shattered to pieces, and their remains were found some days after, at a considerable distance from the scene of their mad exploit.

(870) Richard Tickell, Esq. author of "Antic.i.p.ation," the "

Wreath of Fashion," and other poems. He was a commissioner of the stamp-office, and brother-in-law to Richard Brinsley Sheridan.-E.

(871) "C'est ici l'asile du sommeil 'eternel," was the republican inscription over all the public cemeteries. Pache, Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the munic.i.p.ality, publicly expressed their determination to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the kings of the earth. Gebel, the const.i.tutional Bishop of Paris, disowned at the bar of the Convention the existence of a G.o.d. On the 10th of November, a female whom they termed the G.o.ddess of Reason, was admitted within the bar, and placed on the right hand of the president. After receiving the fraternal hug, she was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted to the church of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Holy of Holies; and thenceforth that ancient and imposing cathedral was called "the Temple of Reason," See Thiers, vol. iii, p. 2,25, and Lacretelle, torn. xi. p, 306.-E.

(872) Widow of Dr. John Hunter.

(873) A manner of designating the Countess of Ailesbury.

(874) Two old ladies of his society, whom he thus called.

(875) Sisters to the great Earl of Mansfield.

(876) Samuel Lysons, Esq. brother to the Rev. Daniel Lysons, of whom a notice has been given at p. 438, (letter 344, note 674(, and author of several works relating to the Roman Antiquities of Great Britain. He also published, in conjunction with his brother, the earlier volumes of the "Magna Britannica." In 1804, be succeeded Mr. Astle as keeper of the records in the Tower of London; which office he held till his death in 1819. Mr.

Mathias, in November 1797, described him as "one of the most judicious, best-informed, and most learned amateur antiquaries in the kingdom in his department;" and his work on the remains of the Roman villa and pavements near Gloucester, as "such a specimen of ingenuity, unwearied zeal, and critical accuracy in delineating and ill.u.s.trating the fragments of antiquity, as rarely had been equalled, certainly never surpa.s.sed." See Pursuits of Literature.-E.

(877) The following is Mr. Gifford's opinion of the qualifications of the lady for such a work--"Though no one better knows his own house' than I the vanity of this woman; yet the idea of her undertaking it had never entered my head; and I was thunderstruck when I first saw it announced. To execute it with any tolerable degree of success, required a rare combination of talents, among the least of which may be numbered neatness of style, acuteness of perception, and a more than common accuracy of discrimination; and Mrs. Piozzi brought to the task, a jargon long since become proverbial for its vulgarity, an utter incapacity of defining a single term in the language, and just as much Latin from a child's syntax as sufficed to expose the ignorance she so anxiously labours to conceal." See Baviad and Maviad.-E.

Letter 410 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 1793. (page 552)

I begin my last letter to Bransby, that I may have it ready to send away the moment I shall have any thing worth telling; which I certainly have not yet. What is become of Lord Howe and Co.

you may guess if you please, as every body is doing--

"I'm weary of conjectures--"

but shall not end them like Cato, because I take the fate of a whole fleet a little more likely to come to a solution than doubts in metaphysics; and if Lord Howe should at last bring home two or three French men-of-war, one would not be out of the way to receive them. In the mean time, let us chat as if the destiny of half Europe were not at this moment in agitation.

I went on Monday evening with Miss Damer to the little Haymarket, to see "The Children in the Wood," having heard so much of my favourite, young Bannister, in that new piece; which, by the way, is well arranged, and near being fine.(878) He more than answered my expectation, and all I had heard of him. It was one of the most admirable performances I ever saw: his transports of despair and joy are incomparable, and his various countenances would be adequate to the pencil of Salvator Rosa. He made me shed as many tears as I suppose the original old ballad did when I was six years old. Bannister's merit was the more striking, as, before "The Children in the Wood," he had been playing the sailor in "No Song no Supper," with equal nature. I wish I could hope to be as much pleased tomorrow night when I am to go to Jerningham's play; but there is no Bannister at Covent-garden!

On Sunday night I found the Comte de Coigni(879) at Lady Lucan's.

He was to set out the next morning with Lord Moira's expedition as a common soldier. This sounded decent and well; but you may guess that he had squeezed a little Frenchism into his intention, and had asked for a vessel and some soldiers to attend him. I don't know whether he has condescended to go without them. I asked him about his daughter; he said, he did not believe she was in prison. Others say, it is the d.u.c.h.esse de Fleury, her mother-in-law. I have been surprised at not seeing or hearing any thing of poor Fleury(880) but I am told he has been forced to abscond, having narrowly escaped being arrested by a coachmaker, to whom he owed five hundred pounds for carriages: which, to be sure, he must have had, or bespoken at Paris before the revolution.

Thursday noon.

Yesterday came a letter to the Admiralty, notifying that Lord Howe has taken five of the Brest squadron: but this intelligence is derived through so many somebodys, that handed it to somebodys, that I am not much inclined, except by wishing it true, to believe it. However, the wind has got much more to the west, and now we shall probably not remain much longer in total darkness.

Three o'clock.

Another account is come to Mrs. Nugent's(881) from her husband, with the same story of the five captive French men-of-war; and so that reading is admitted: but for my part, I will admit nothing but under Lord Howe's own hand. It is tiresome to be like the scene in Amphitryon, and cry one minute "Obvious, obvious!" and the next "Dubious, dubious!" Such fluctuability is fit only for a stock-jobber. Adieu! I must dress and dine, or I shall not be ready to wait on your grandfather Seton.(882)

(878) See the Memoirs of this admirable comedian, by Mr.

Adolphus, recently published in two volumes octavo. The drama here spoken of was the production of Mr. Morton, and formed from the ancient ballad of the cruel uncle who murdered his brother's children in a wood, that he might inherit the family estate.-E.

(879) Younger brother of the Duc de Coigni, the grand 'ecuyer of Marie Antoinette and great uncle of the present Duc de Coigni.

(880) The Duc de Fleury, the Count de Coigni's son-in-law.

(881) The wife of Admiral Nugent.

(882) he means Mr. Jerningham's play, the Siege of Berwick.

Letter 411 To The Miss Berrys.

Friday, December 13, 1793. (page 553)

You will not wonder at my dulness about the time of your setting out, and of the giles you are to make on the road: you are used to my fits of incomprehension; and, as is natural at my age, I believe they increase. What augmented them was my eagerness to be sure of every opportunity of sending you the earliest intelligence of every event that may happen at this critical period. That impatience has sometimes made me too precipitate in my information. I believed Lord Howe's success too rapidly: you have seen by all the newspapers, that both the ministers and the public were equally credulous, from the collateral channels that imported such a.s.sertions! Well! if you have been disappointed of capturing five or six French men-of-war, you must at present stay your appet.i.te by some handsome slices of St. Domingo, and by plentiful goblets of French blood shed by the Duke of Brunswick; which we firmly believe, though the official intelligence was not arrived last night. His Highness, who has been so serene for above a year, seems to have waked to some purpose and, which is not less propitious, his victory indicates that his princ.i.p.al, the King of Prussia, has added no more French jewels to his regalia. I shall like to hear the National Convention accuse him of being bribed by a contrary Pitt's diamond.(883) Here is another comfortable symptom: it looks as if Robespierre would give up Barr'ere. How fortunate that Beelzebubs and Molochs peach one another, like human highwaymen! I will tell you a reflection I have made, and which shows how the worst monsters counteract their own councils. Many formerly, who meant to undermine religion, began by sapping the belief of a devil.

Next, by denying G.o.d, they have restored Satan to his throne, or will; though the present system is a republic of fiends. The Pandemonium below recalls its agents, as if they were only tribunes of the people elected by temporary factions. Barnave, called the Butcher in the first Convention, is ,gone, like Orleans and Brissot. If we do not presume to interpret judgments, I wonder the monsters themselves do not: enough has happened already to warn them of their own fate!

The Conways are in town for two or three days: they came for Mr.

Jerningham's play. Harris had at last allowed him the fourth night; and he had a good night. I have a card from Lady Amherst for Monday; and shall certainly go, as my lord behaved so n.o.bly about our cousin.(884) I have another from the Margravine of Ans.p.a.ch, to sup at Hammersmith; whither I shall certainly not go, but plead the whole list of chronical distempers. Do you think if the whole circle of Princes of Westphalia were to ask me for next Thursday evening,(885) that I would accept the invitation?

Sat.u.r.day, Dec. 14, 1793.

I am glad this is to be the last of my gazettes. I am tired of notifying and recalling the articles of news: not that I am going to dislaurel the Duke of Brunswick; but not a sprig is yet come in confirmation. Military critics even conjecture, by the journals from Manheim and Frankfort, that the German victories have not been much more than repulses of the French, and have been bought dearly. I have inclined to believe the best from Wurmser; but I confess my best hopes are from the factions of Paris. If the gangrene does not gain the core, how calculate the duration? It has already baffled all computation, all conjecture.

One wonders now that France, in its totality, was not more fatal to Europe than even it was. Is not it astonishing, that after five years of such havoc, such emigrations, expulsions, ma.s.sacres, annihilation of commerce, evanition Of specie, and real or impending famine, they can still furnish and support armies against us and the Austrians in Flanders, against the Duke of Brunswick and Wurmser, against us at Toulon, against the King of Sardinia, against Spain, against the Royalists in La Vend'ee, and along the coast against our expedition under Lord Moira; and though we have got fifteen of their men-of-war at Toulon, they have sixteen, or more, at Brest, and are still impertinent with a fry of privateers? Consider, too, that all this spirit is kept up by the most extravagant lies, delusions, rhodomontade; by the extirpation of the usual root of enthusiasm, religion; and by the terror of murder, that ought to revolt all mankind. If such a system of destruction does not destroy itself, there is an end of that ignis fatuus, human reason; and French policy must govern, or exterminate mankind.

I this moment received Your Thursday's note, with that for your housekeeper, who is in town, and with those sweet words, "You need not leave a card; we shall be at home." I do not believe I shall send you an excuse. Marshal Conway has stopped in to tell me, he has Just met with his nephew, Lord Yarmouth,(886) who has received a letter from a foreign minister at Manheim, who a.s.serts all the Duke of Brunswick's victories, and the destruction or dispersion of the French army in that quarter. The Earl maintains, that the King of Prussia's politics are totally changed to the right, and that eighteen thousand more of his troops have joined the allies. I should like to know, and to have the Convention know, that the murder of the Queen of France has operated this revulsion.

I hope I send you no more falsehoods-at least, you must allow, that it is not on bad authority. If Lord Howe has disappointed you, you will accept the prowess of the virago his sister, Mrs.

Howe.(887) As soon as it was known that her brother had failed, a Jacobin mob broke her windows, mistaking them for his. She lifted up the sash, and harangued them; told them, that was not the house of her brother, Who lives in the other part of Grafton-street, and that she herself is a widow, and that that house is hers. She stilled the waves, and they dispersed quietly.

There! There end my volumes, to my great satisfaction! If we are to have any bonfires or illuminations, you will be here to light them Yourselves. Adieu to Yorkshire!

(883) He means bribed by the then prime minister.

(884) Lord Amherst, the then commander-in-chief, had appointed a cousin of Miss Berry's to an ensigncy, on his recommendation.

(885) The persons addressed were to arrive in London.

(886) The present Marquis of Hertford.

(887) A person of distinguished abilities, She possessed an extraordinary force of mind, clearness of understanding, and remarkable powers of thought and combination, She retained them unimpaired to the great age of eighty-five, by exercising them daily, both in the practice of mathematics and in reading the two dead languages; of which, late in life, she had made herself mistress. To those acquirements must be added warm. and lively feelings, joined to a perfect knowledge of the world and of the society of which she had always been a distinguished member. Mr.

Walpole, from misinformation of her conduct towards a friend of his in earlier life, had never done justice to her character--a mistake, in which she did not partic.i.p.ate, relative to him.-M.B.