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

(773) Lord Gower.

(774) Edward Bligh, second Earl of Darnley, in Ireland, and Lord of the Bedchamber to Frederic Prince of Wales.-D.

309 Letter 97 To Sir Horace Mann.

Feb. 13, 1743.

Ceretesi tells me that Madame Galli is dead: I have had two letters from you this week; but the last mentions only the death of old Strozzi. I am quite sorry for Madame Galli, because I proposed seeing her again, on my return to Florence, which I have firmly in my intention: I hope it will be a little before Ceretesi's, for he seems to be planted here. I don't conceive who -waters him! Here are two n.o.ble Venetians that have carried him about lately to Oxford and Blenheim: I am literally waiting for him now, to introduce him to Lady Brown's sunday night; it is the great mart for all travelling and travelled calves-pho! here he is.

Monday morning.-Here is your brother: he tells me you never hear from me; how can that be? I receive yours, and you generally mention having got one of mine, though long after the time you should. I never miss above one post, and that but very seldom. I am longer receiving yours, though you have never missed; but then-I frequently receive two at once. I am delighted with Goldsworthy's mystery about King Theodore! If you will promise me not to tell him, I will tell [email protected] secret, which is, that if that person is not King Theodore, I a.s.sure you it is not Sir Robert Walpole.

I have nothing to tell you but that Lord Effingham Howard(775) is dead, and Lord Litchfield(776) at the point of death; he was struck with a palsy last Thursday. Adieu!

(775) Francis, first Earl of Effingham, and seventh Lord Howard of Effingham. He died February 12, 1743.-D.

(776) George Henry Lee, second Earl of Lichfield. He died February 15, 1743.-D.

309 Letter 98 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1743.

I write to you in the greatest hurry in the world, but write I will. Besides, I must wish you joy; you are warriors; nay, conquerors;(777) two things quite novel in this war, for hitherto it has been armies without fighting, and deaths without killing. We talk of this battle as of a comet; "Have you heard of the battle?" it Is so strange a thing, that numbers imagine you may go (ind see it at Charing Cross.

Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should be no longer a sinecure. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a pa.s.sport to carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any longer-not, my child, that I am one; but, tell me, is he quite recovered?

I thank you for King Theodore's declaration,(778) and wish Him success with all my soul. I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most devilish of all tyrannies!

We have every now and then motions for disbanding Hessians and Hanoverians, alias mercenaries; but they come to nothing.

To-day the party have declared that they have done for this session; so you will hear little more but of fine equipages for Flanders: our troops are actually marched, and the officers begin to follow them-1 hopes they know whither! You know in the last war in Spain, Lord Peterborough rode galloping about to inquire for his army.

But to come to more real contests; Handel has set up an oratorio against the opera @ind succeeds. He has hired all the G.o.ddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef(779) from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they sing, and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore the recitative, if it happens to have any cadence like what they call a tune. I was much diverted the other night at the opera; two gentlewoman sat before my sister, and not knowing her, discoursed at their ease. Says one, "Lord! how fine Mr.

W. is!" "Yes," replied the other, with a tone of saying sentences, "some men love to be particularly so, your pet.i.t-maitres-but they are not always the brightest of their s.e.x.'@-Do thank me for this period! I am sure you will enjoy it as much as we did.

I shall be very glad of my things, and approve entirely of your precautions; Sir R. will be quite happy, for there is no telling YOU how impatient he is for his Dominichin. Adieu!

(777) This alludes to an engagement, which took place on the 8th of February, near Bologna, between the Spaniards under M.

de Gages, and the Austrians under General Traun, in which the latter were successful.-D.

(778) With regard to Corsica, of which he had declared himself King. By this declaration, which was dated January 30, Theodore recalled, under pain of confiscation of their estates, all the Corsicans in foreign service, except that of the Queen of Hungary, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.-E.

(779) It was customary at this time for the galleries to call for a ballad called "The Roast Beef of Old England," between the acts, or before or after the play.

310 Letter 99 To Sir Horace Mann.

March 3d, 1743.

So, she is dead at last, the old Electress!(780)-well, I have nothing more to say about her and the Medici; they had outlived all their acquaintance: indeed, her death makes the battle very considerable -makes us call a victory what before we did not look upon as very decided laurels.

Lord Hervey has entertained the town with another piece of wisdom: on Sunday it was declared that he had married his eldest daughter the night before to a Mr. Phipps,(781) grandson of the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham. They sent for the boy but the day before from Oxford, and bedded them at a day's notice. But after all this mystery, it does not turn out that there is any thing great in this match, but the greatness of the secret. Poor Hervey,(782) the brother, is in fear and trembling, for he apprehends being ravished to bed to some fortune or other with as little ceremony. The Oratorios thrive abundantly-for my part, they give me an idea of heaven, where every body is to sing whether they have voices or not.

The Board (the Jacobite Club) have chosen his Majesty's Lord Privy Seal(783) for their President, in the room of Lord Litchfield. Don't you like the harmony of parties? We expect the parliament will rise this month: I shall be sorry, for if I am not hurried out of town, at least every body else will-and who can look forward from April to November? Adieu!

though I write in defiance of having nothing to say, yet you see I can't go a great way in this obstinacy; but you will bear a short letter rather than none.

(780) Anna Maria of Medicis, daughter of Cosmo III. widow of John William, Elector Palatine. After her husband's death she returned to Florence, where she died, Feb @ 7 1743, aged seventy-five, being the last of that family.

(781) Constantine Phipps, in 1767, created Lord Mulgrave in Ireland. He married, on the 26th of February, Lepel, eldest daughter of Lord Hervey, and died in 1775. Her ladyship was found dead in her bed, 9th March, 1780, at her son's house in the Admiralty.-E.

(782) George William Hervey, afterwards second Earl of Bristol. He died unmarried, in 1775.-E.

(783) Lord Gower.

311 Letter 100 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 14, 1743.

I don't at all know how to advise you about mourning; I always think that the custom of a country, and what other foreign ministers do, should be your rule. But I had a private scruple rose with me: that was, whether you should show so much respect to the late woman (784) as other ministers do, since she left that legacy to Quella a Roma.(785) I mentioned this to my lord, but he thinks that the tender manner of her wording it, takes off that exception; however, he thinks it better that you should write for advice to your commanding officer. That will be very late, and you will probably have determined before. You see what a casuist I am in ceremony; I leave the question more perplexed than I found it.

Pray, Sir, congratulate me upon the new acquisition of glory to my family! We have long been eminent statesmen; now that we are out of employment we have betaken ourselves to war-and we have made great proficiency in a short season. We don't run, like my Lord Stair, into Berg and Juliers, to seek battles where we are sure of not finding them-we make shorter marches; a step across the Court of Requests brings us to engagement.

But not to detain you any longer with flourishes, which will probably be inserted in my uncle Horace's patent when he is made a field-marshal; you must know that he has fought a duel, and has scratched a scratch three inches long on the side of his enemy-lo Paon! The circ.u.mstances of this memorable engagement were, in short, that on some witness being to be examined the other day in the House upon remittances to the army, my uncle said, He hoped they would indemnify him, if he told any thing that affected himself." Soon after he was standing behind the Speaker's chair, and Will. Chetwynd,(786) an intimate of Bolingbroke, came up to him, What, Mr. Walpole, are you for rubbing up old sores?" He replied, "I think I said very little, considering that you and your friends would last year have hanged up me and my brother at the lobby-door without a trial." Chetwynd answered, I would still have you both have your deserts." The other said, If you and I had, probably I should be here and you would be somewhere else."

This drew more words, and Chetwynd took him by the arm and led him out. In the lobby, Horace said, "We shall be-observed, we had better put it off till to-morrow." "No, no, now! now!"

When they came to the bottom of the stairs, Horace said, "I am out of breath, let us draw here." They drew; Chetwynd hit him on the breast, but was not near enough to pierce his coat.

Horace made a pa.s.s which the other put by with his hand, but It glanced along his side-a clerk, who had observed them go out together so arm-in-arm-ly, could not believe it amicable, but followed them, and came up just time enough to beat down their swords, as Horace had driven him against a post, and would probably have run him through at the next thrust.

Chetwynd went away to a surgeon's, and kept his bed the next day; he has not reappeared yet, but is in no danger. My uncle returned to the House, and was so little moved as to speak immediately upon the Cambrick bill, which made Swinny say, "That it was a sign he was not ruffled."(787) Don't you delight in this duel? I expect to see it daubed up by some circuit-painter on the ceiling of the saloon at Woolterton.

I have no news to tell you, but that we hear King Theodore has sent over proposals of his person and crown to Lady Lucy Stanhope,(788) with whom he fell in love the last time he was in England.

Princess Buckingham(789) is dead or dying: she has sent for Mr. Anstis, and settled the ceremonial of her burial. On Sat.u.r.day she was so ill that she feared dying before all the pomp was come home: she said, "Why won't they send the canopy for me to see? let them send it, though all the ta.s.sels are not finished." But yesterday was the greatest stroke of all!

She made her ladies vow to her, that if she should lie senseless, they would not sit down in the room before she was dead. She has a great mind to be buried by her father at Paris. Mrs. Selwyn says, "She need not be carried out of England, and yet be buried by her father." You know that Lady Dorchester always told her, that old Graham(790) was her father.

I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken about the statue; do draw upon me for it immediately, and for all my other debts to you: I am sure they must be numerous; pray don't fail.

A thousand loves to the Chutes: a thousand compliments to the Princess; and a thousand-what? to the Grifona. Alas! what can one do? I have forgot all my Italian. Adieu!

(784) The Electress Palatine Dowager.

(785) She left a legacy to the Pretender, describing him only by these words, To Him at Rome.

(786) William Chetwynd, brother of the Lord Viscount Chetwynd.

On the coalition he was made Master of the Mint.

(787) c.o.xe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, gives the following account of this duel: "A motion being made in the House of Commons, which Mr. Walpole supported, he said to Mr.

Chetwynd, 'I hope we shall carry this question.' Mr. Chetwynd replied, 'I hope to see you hanged first!' 'You see me hanged first!' rejoined Mr. Walpole and instantly seized him by the nose. They went out and fought. The account being conveyed to Lord Orford, he sent his son to make inquiries; who, on coming into the House of Commons, found his uncle speaking with the same composure as if nothing had happened to ruffle his tamper or endanger his life. Mr. Chetwynd was wounded."

vol. ii. p. 68.-E.