The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 42

Here is a little thing which I think has humour in it.

A CATALOGUE OF NEW FRENCH BOOKS.

1. Jean-sans-terre, on l'Empereur en pet-en-l'air; imprim'e 'a Frankfort.

2. La France mourante d'une suppression d'hommes et d'argent: dedi'e au public.

3. L'art de faire les Neutralit'es, invent'e en Allemagne, et 'ecrit en cette langue, par Un des Electeurs, et nouvellement traduit en Napolitain; par le Chef d'Escadre Martin.

4. Voyage d'Allemaune, par Monsieur de Maupertuis; avec un t'elescope, invent'e pendant son voyage; 'a l'usage des H'eros, pour regarder leur victoires de loin.

5. M'ethode court et facile pour faire entrer les troupes Fran'coies en Allemagne:-mais comment faire, pour les en faire sortir?

6. Trait'e tr'es salutaire et tr'es utile sur la reconnoissance envers les bienfaicteurs, par le Roy de Pologne. Folio, imprim'e 'a Dresde.

7. Obligation sacr'ee des Trait'es, Promesses, et Renonciations, par le Grand Turc; avec des Remarques retractoires, par un Jesuite.

8. Probleme; combien il faut d'argent FranSois pour payer le sang Su'edois circul'e par le Comte de Gyllembourg

9. Nouvelle m'ethode de friser les cheveux 'a la Francoise; par le Colonel Mentz et sa Confrairie.

10. Recueil de Dissertations sur la meilleure mani'ere de faire la part.i.tion des successions, par le Cardinal de Fleury; avec des notes, historiques et politiques, par la Reine d'Espagne.

11. Nouveau Voyage de Madrid 'a Antibes, par l'Infant Dom Philippe.

12. Lart de chercher les ennemis sans lea trouver; par le Marechal de Maillebois.

13. La fid'elit'e couronn'ee, par le G'en'eral Munich et le Comte d'Osterman.

14. Le bal de Lintz et les amus.e.m.e.nts de DOnawert; pi'ece pastorale et galante, en un acte, par le Grand Duc.

15. l'Art de maitriser les Femmes, par sa Majest'e Catliolique.

16. Avantures Boh'emiennes, tragi-comiques, tr'es curieuses, tr'es int'erressantes, et charg'ees d'incidents. Tom. i. ii.

iii.

N.B. Le dernier tome, qui fera le denouement, est sous presse.

Adieu! my dear child; if it was not for this secret of transcribing, what should one do in the country to make out a letter?

285 Letter 84 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Sept. 25th, 1742.

At last, my dear child, I have got two letters from you! I have been in strange pain, between fear of your being ill, and apprehensions of your letters being stopped; but I have received that by Crew, and another since. But you have been ill! I am angry with Mr. Chute for not writing to let me know it. I fancied you worse than you say, or at least than you own. But I don't wonder you have fevers! such a busy politician as Villettes,(704) and such a bl.u.s.tering negotiator as il Furibondo (705) are enough to put all your little economy of health and spirits in confusion. I agree with you, that " they don't pique themselves upon understanding sense, any more than Deutralities!" The grand journey to Flanders(706) is a little -it a stand: the expense has been computed at two thousand pounds a day! Many dozen of embroidered portmanteaus full of laurels and bays have been prepared this fortnight. The Regency has been settled and unsettled twenty times: it is now said, that the weight of it is not to be laid on the Prince. The King is to return by his birthday; but whether he is to bring back part of French Flanders with him, or will only have time to fetch Dunkirk, is uncertain. In the mean time, Lord Carteret is gone to the Hague; by which jaunt it seems that Lord Stair's journey was not conclusive. The converting of the siege of Prague into a blockade makes no great figure in the journals on this side the water and question-but it is the fashion not to take towns that one was sure of taking. I cannot pardon the Princess for having thought of putting off her 'epuis.e.m.e.nts and la.s.situdes to take a trip to Leghorn, "pendant qu'on ne donnoit 'a manger 'a Monsieur le Prince son fils, que de la chair de chevaux!"

Poor Prince Beauvau!(707) I shall be glad to hear he is safe from this siege. Some of the French princes of the blood have been stealing away a volunteering, but took care to be missed in time. Our Duke goes with his lord and father-they say, to marry a princess of Prussia, whereof great preparations have been making in his equipage and in his breeches.

Poor Prince Craon! where did De Sade get fifty sequins. When I was at Florence, you know all his clothes were in p.a.w.n to his landlord; but he redeemed them by p.a.w.ning his Modenese bill of credit to his landlady! I delight in the style of the neutrality maker(708)-his neutralities and his English arc perfectly of a piece.

You have diverted me excessively with the history of the Princess Eleonora's(709) posthumous issue-but how could the woman have spirit enough to have five children by her footman, and yet not have enough to own them. Really, a woman so much in the great world should have known better! Why, no yeoman's dowager could have acted more prudishly! It always amazes me, when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate scandal of one another. If they would but agree not to censure what they all agree to do, there would be no more loss of characters among them than amongst men. A woman cannot have an affair, but instantly all her s.e.x travel about to publish it, and leave her off: now, if a man cheats another of his estate at play, forges a will, or marries a ward to his own son, n.o.body thinks of leaving him off for such trifles.

The English parson at Stosch's, the archbishop on the chapter of music, the Fanciulla's persisting in her mistake, and old Count Galli's distress, are all admirable stories.(710) But what is the meaning of Montemar's writing to the Antinora?--I thought he had left the Galia for my ill.u.s.trissima,(711) her sister. lord! I am horridly tired of that romantic love and correspondence! Must I answer her last letter? there were but six lines--what can I say? I perceive, by what you mention of the cause of his disorder, that Rucellai does not turn out that simple, honest man you thought him-come, own it

I just recollect a story, which perhaps will serve your archbishop on his Don Pilogio(712)-the Tartuffe was meant for the then archbishop of Paris, who, after the first night, forbad its being acted. Moliere came forth, and told the audience, "Messieurs, on devoit vous donner le Tartuffe, mais MOnSeigneur l'Archev'eque ne veut pas qu'on le joue."

My lord is very impatient for his Dominichin; so you will send it by the first safe conveyance. He is making a gallery, for the ceiling of which I have given the design of that in the little library of St. Mark at Venice: Mr. Chute will remember how charming it was; and for the frieze, I have prevailed to have that of the temple at Tivoli. Naylor(713) came here the other day with two coaches full of relations: as his mother-in-law, who was one of the company is widow of Dr.

Hare, Sir Robert's old tutor at Cambridge, he made them stay to dine: when they were gone, he said, "Ha, child! what is that Mr. Naylor, Horace ? he is the absurdest man I ever saw!" I subscribed to his opinion; won't you? I must tell you a story of him. When his father married this second wife, Naylor said,"Father, they say you are to be married to-day, are you?" "Well," replied the bishop, "and what is that to you?" "Nay, nothing; only if you had told me, I would have powdered my hair."

(704) Mr. Villettes was minister at Turin.

(705) Admiral Matthews; his ships having committed some outrages on the coast of Italy, the Italians called him it Furibondo.

(706) Of George the Second.-D.

(707) Afterwards a marshal of France. He was a man of some ability, and the friend and patron of St. Lambert, and of other men of letters of the time of Lewis XV.-D. [He was made a marshal in 1783 by the unfortunate Louis XVI. and in 1789 a minister of state. He died in 1793, a few weeks after the murder of his royal master.]

(708) Admiral Matthews.

(709) Eleonora of Guastalla, widow of the last cardinal of Medici, died at Venice. (The father of the children was a French running footman.-D.) [Cosmo the Third was sixty-seven years old at the period of the marriage: "une fois le marriage conclu," says the Biog. Univ. "El'eonore refusa de la consommer, rebut'ee par la figure, par l'age et surtout par les d'esordres de son 'epouse." Cosmo died at the age of eighty-one. A translation of his Travels through England, in 1669, was published in 1820.

(710) These are stories in a letter of Sir H. Mann's, which are neither very decent nor very amusing.-D.

(711) Madame Grifoni.

(712) The Archbishop of Florence had forbid the acting of a burlettae called Don Pilogio, a sort of imitation of Tartuffe.

When the Impresario of the Theatre remonstrated upon the expense he had been put to in preparing the music for it, the archbishop told him he might use it for some other opera.-D.

(713) He was the son of Dr. Here, Bishop of Chichester, and changed his name for an estate.

287 Letter 85 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Oct. 8th, 1742.

I have not heard from you this fortnight; if I don't receive a letter to-morrow, I shall be quite out of humour. It is true, of late I have written to you but every other post; but then I have been in the country, in Norfolk, in Siberia! You were still at Florence, in the midst of Kings of Sardinia, Montemars, and Neapolitan neutralities; your letters are my only diversion. As to German news, it is all so simple that I am peevish: the raising of the siege of Prague,((714) and Prince Charles and Marechal Maillebois playing at hunt the squirrel, have disgusted me from inquiring about the war. The earl laughs in his great chair, and sings a bit of an old ballad,

"They both did fight, they both did beat, they both did run away, They both strive again to meet, the quite contrary way."

Apropos! I see in the papers that a Marquis de Beauvau escaped out of Prague with the Prince de Deuxpons and the Duc de Brissac; was it our Prince Beauvau?

At last the mighty monarch does not go to Flanders, after making the greatest preparations that ever were made but by Harry the Eighth, and the authors of the grand Cyrus and the ill.u.s.trious Ha.s.sa: you may judge by the quant.i.ty of napkins, which were to the amount of nine hundred dozen-indeed, I don't recollect that ancient heroes were ever so provident of necessaries, or thought how they were to wash their hands and face after a victory. Six hundred horses, under the care of the Duke of Richmond, were even shipped; and the clothes and furniture of his court magnificent enough for a bull-fight at the conquest of Granada. Felton Hervey's(715) war-horse, besides having richer caparisons than any of the expedition, had a gold net to keep off the flies-in winter! Judge of the clamours this expense to no purpose will produce! My Lord Carteret is set out from the Hague, but was not landed when the last letters came from London: there are no great expectations from this trip; no more than followed from my Lord Stair's.

I send you two more odes on Pultney,(716) I believe by the same hand as the former, though none are equal to the Nova Progenies, which has been more liked than almost ever any thing was. It is not at all known whose they are; I believe Hanbury Williams's. The note to the first was printed with it: the advice to him to be privy seal has its foundation; for when the consultation was held who were to have places, and my Lord Gower was named to succeed Lord Hervey, Pultney said with some warmth, "I designed to be privy seal myself!"

We expect some company next week from Newmarket: here is at present only Mr. Keene and Pigwiggin,(717)-you never saw so agreeable a creature!-oh yes! you have seen his parents! I must tell you a new story of them Sir Robert had given them a little horse for Pigwiggin, and somebody had given them another: both which, to save the charge of keeping, they sent to gra.s.s in Newpark. After three years that they had not used them, my Lord Walpole let his own son ride them, while he was at the park, in the holidays. Do you know, that the woman Horace sent to Sir Robert, and made him give her five guineas for the two horses, because George had ridden them? I give you my word this is fact.

There has been a great fracas at Kensington: one of the Mesdames(718) pulled the chair from under Countess Deloraine(719) at cards, who, being provoked that her monarch was diverted with her disgrace, with the malice of a hobby-horse, gave him just such another fall. But alas! the Monarch, like Louis XIV. is mortal in the part that touched the ground, and was so hurt and so angry, that the countess is disgraced, and her German rival (720) remains in the sole and quiet possession of her royal master's favour.