The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 50

One heard of nothing but their good discipline and quiet disposition. When the day came for their going to the water side, an hundred and nine of them mutinied, and marched away in a body. They did not care to go where it would not be equivocal for what King they fought. Three companies of dragoons are sent after them. If you happen to hear of any rising don't be surprised-I shall not, I a.s.sure you. Sir Robert Monroe, their lieutenant-colonel, before their leaving Scotland, asked some of the ministry, " "But suppose there should be any rebellion in Scotland, what should we do for these eight hundred men?" It was answered, "Why, there would be eight hundred fewer rebels there."

"Utor permisso, caudeque pilos ut equinae Paulatim cello; demo unum, demo etiam unum, Dum-"

My dear child, I am surprised to hear you enter so seriously into earnest ideas of my lord's pa.s.sing into Italy! Could you think (however he, you, or I might wish it) that there could be any probability of it? Can you think his age could endure it, or him so indifferent, so totally disministered, as to leave all thoughts of what he has been, and ramble like a boy, after pictures and statues? Don't expect it.

We had heard of the Duke of Modena's command before I had your letter. I am glad, for the sake of the d.u.c.h.ess, as she is to return to France. I never saw any body wish anything more!

and indeed, how can one figure any particle of pleasure happening to the daughter of the Regent,(819) and a favourite daughter too, full of wit and joy, buried in a dirty, dull Italian duchy, with an ugly, formal object for a husband, and two uncouth sister-princesses for eternal companions? I am so near the eve of going into Norfolk, that I imagine myself something in her situation, and married to some Hammond or Hoste (820) who is Duke of Wootton or Darsingham. I remember in the fairy tales where a yellow dwarf steals a princess, and shows her his duchy, of which he is very proud: among the blessings of grandeur, of which he makes her mistress, there is a most beautiful a.s.s for her palfrey, a blooming meadow of nettles and thistles to walk in, and a fine troubled ditch to slake her thirst, after either of the above mentioned exercises.

Adieu! My next will be dated from some of the doleful castles in the princ.i.p.ality of your forlorn friend, the duchy of Reepham.

(818) William Fortescue, master of the rolls, a relation of Margaret Lady Walpole. ffortescue was made master of the rolls in 1741, and continued so until his death in 1749. He was the friend and correspondent of Pope, and a.s.sisted the poet in drawing up the humorous report, "Stradling versus Stiles." He was a man of great humour, talents, and integrity.]

(819) Mademoiselle de Valois, who had made herself notorious during the regency of her father, by her intrigue with the Duke of Richelieu. She consented to marry the Duke of Modena, in order to obtain the liberty of her lover, who was confined in the Bastille, for conspiring against the Regent. The Duke of Richelieu, in return, followed her afterwards secretly to Modena.-D.

(820) The Hammonds and Hostes are two Norfolk families, nearly allied to the Walpoles.

324 letter 108 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Jan. 4, 1743.

I wrote, this week to Mr. Chute, addressed to you; I could not afford two letters in one post from the country, and in the dead of summer. I have received one from you of May 21st, since I came I must tell you a smart dialogue between your father and me the morning we left London: he came to wish my lord a good journey: I found him in the parlour. "Sir," said he, "I may ask you how my son does; I think you hear from him frequently: I never do." I replied, "Sir, I write him kind answers; pray do you do so?" He coloured, and said with a half mutter, "Perhaps I have lived too long for him!" I answered shortly, "Perhaps you have." My dear child, I beg your pardon, but I could not help this. When one loves any body, one can't help being warm for them at a fair opportunity. Bland and Mr. Legge were present-your father could have stabbed me. I told your brother Gal, who was glad.

We are as private here as if we were in devotion-. there is n.o.body with us now but Lord Edgec.u.mbe and his son. The Duke of Grafton and Mr. Pelham come next week, and I hope Lord Lincoln with them. Poor Lady Sophia is at the gasp of her hopes; all is concluded for his match with Miss Pelham. It is not to be till the winter. He is to have all Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle can give or settle; unless Lady Catherine should produce a son, or the d.u.c.h.ess should die, and the duke marry again.

Earl Poulett(821) is dead, and makes vacant another riband.

I imagine Lord Carteret will have one; Lord Bath will ask it.

I think they should give Prince Charles(822) one of the two, for all the trouble he saves us. The papers talk of nothing but a suspension of arms: it seems toward, for at least we hear of no battle, though there are so many armies looking at one another.

Old Sir Charles Wager(823) is dead at last, and has left the fairest character. I can't help having a little private comfort, to think that Goldsworthy-but there is no danger.

Madox of St. Asaph has wriggled himself into the see of Worcester. He makes haste; I remember him only domestic chaplain to the late Bishop of Chichester.(824) Durham is not dead, as I believe I told you from a false report.

You tell me of dining with Madame de Modene,(824) but you don't tell me of being charmed with her. I like her excessively-I don't mean her person, for she is as plump as the late Queen; but, sure her face is fine; her eyes vastly fine! and then she is as agreeable as one should expect the Regent's daughter to be. The Princess and she must have been an admirable contrast; one has all the good breeding of a French court, and the other all the ease of it. I have almost a mind to go to Paris to see her. She was so excessively civil to me. You don't tell me if the Pucci goes into France with her.

I like the Genoese selling Corsica! I think we should follow their example and sell France; we have about as good a t.i.tle, and very near as much possession. At how much may they value Corsica? at the rate of islands it can't go for much.

Charles the Second sold Great Britain and Ireland to Louis XIV. for 300,000 pounds. a-year, and that was reckoned extravagantly dear. Lord Bolingbroke took a single hundred thousand for them, when they were in much better repair.

We hear to-day that the King goes to the army on the 15th N.

S. that is, to-day; but I don't tell it you for certain.

There has been much said against his commanding it, as it is only an army of succour, and not acting as princ.i.p.al in the cause. In my opinion, his commanding will depend upon the more or less probability of its acting at all. Adieu!

(821) John, first Earl of Poulett, knight of the garter. He died, aged upwards of eighty, on the 28th May 1743.-D.

(822) Prince Charles of Lorraine, the queen of Hungary's general against the French.-D.

(823) This distinguished admiral died on the 24th of May, in his seventy-seventh year; at which time he was member for West looe. A splendid monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.-E.

(824) Dr. Waddington.

(825) It was not the d.u.c.h.ess of Modena, but the Duke's second sister, who went to Florence.

326 letter 109 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, June 10, 1743.

You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless letter; my spirits are all in agitation! I am at the eve of a post that may bring me the most dreadful news! we expect to-morrow the news of a decisive battle. Oh! if you have any friend there, think what apprehensions I (826) must have of such a post! By yesterday's letters, our army was within eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to attack them. Lord Stair and Marshal Noailles both think themselves superior, and have pressed for leave to fight. The latter call themselves fourscore thousand; ours sixty. Mr.

Pelham and Lord Lincoln come to Houghton to-morrow, so we are sure of hearing as soon as possible, if any thing has happened. By this time the King must be with them.- My fears for one or two friends have spoiled me for any English hopes-I cannot dwindle away the French army-every man in it appears to my imagination as big as the sons of Anak! I am conjuring up the ghosts of all who have perished by French ambition, and am dealing out commissions to these spectres,

"-To sit heavy on their souls to-morrow!"

Alas! perhaps that glorious to-morrow was a dismal yesterday at least, perhaps it was to me! The genius of England might be a mere mercenary man of the world, and employed all his attention to turn aside cannonb.a.l.l.s from my Lord Stair, to give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword: was plotting glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing his own apartment in Westminster Hall with a new set of trophies-who would then take care of Mr. Conway? You, who are a minister, will see all this in still another light, will fear our defeat, and will foresee the train of consequences.-Why, they may be wondrous ugly; but till I know what I have to think about my own friends, I cannot be wise in my generation.

I shall now only answer your letter; for till I have read to-morrow's post, I have no thoughts but of a battle.

I am angry at your thinking that I can dislike to receive two or three of your letters at once. Do you take me for a child, and imagine, that though I may like one plum-tart, two may make me sick? I now get them regularly; so I do but receive them, I am easy.

You are mistaken about the gallery; so far from unfurnishing any part of the house, there are several pictures undisposed of, besides numbers at Lord Walpole's, at the Exchequer, at Chelsea, and at New Park. Lord Walpole has taken a dozen to Stanno, a small house, about four miles from hence, where he lives with my lady Walpole's vicegerent.(827) You may imagine that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where there is In a modest, unmarried girl.(828)

I will write to London for the life of Theodore, though you may depend upon its being a Grub Street piece, without one true fact. Don't let it prevent your undertaking his Memoirs.

Yet I should say Mrs. Heywood,(829) or Mrs. Behn(830) were fitter to write his history.

How slight you talk of Prince Charles's victory at Brunau! We thought it of vast consequence; so it was. He took three posts afterwards, and has since beaten the Prince of Conti, and killed two thousand men. Prince Charles civilly returned him his baggage. The French in Bavaria are quite dispirited-poor wretches! how one hates to wish so ill as one does to fourscore thousand men!

There is yet no news of the Pembroke. The Dominichin has a post of honour reserved in the gallery. My Lord says, as to that Dalton's Raphael, he can say nothing without some particular description of the picture and the size, and some hint at the price, which you have promised to get. I leave the residue of my paper for tomorrow: I tremble, lest I should be forced to finish it abruptly! I forgot to tell you that I left a particular commission with my brother Ned, who is at Chelsea, to get some tea-seed from the physic-garden; and he promised me to go to Lord Islay, to know what cobolt and zingho(831) are, and where they are to be got.

Sat.u.r.day morning.

The post is come: no battle! Just as they were marching against the French, they received orders from Hanover not to engage, for the Queen's generals thought they were inferior, and were positive against fighting. Lord Stair, with only the English, proceeded, and drew out in order; but though the French were then so vastly superior, they did not attack him.

The King is now at the army, and, they say, will endeavour to make the Austrians fight. It wilt make great confusion here if they do not. The French are evacuating Bavaria as fast as possible, and seem to intend to join all their force together.

I shall still dread all the events of this campaign. Adieu!

(826) Mr. Conway the most intimate friend of Horace Walpole, was now serving in Lord Stair's army.

(827) Miss Norsa; she was a Jewess, and had been a singer.

(828) Lady Maria Walpole.

(829) Eliza Heywood, a voluminous writer of indifferent novels; of which the best known is one called "Betsy Thoughtless." She was also auth.o.r.ess of a work ent.i.tled "The Female Spectator." - Mrs. Heywood was born in 1693, and died in 1756.-D.

(830) Mrs. Afra Behn, a woman whose character and writings were equally incorrect. Of her plays, which were seventeen in number, Pope says,

"The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed."

Her novels and other productions were also marked with similar characteristics. She died in 1689-D.

(831) Cobalt and Zinc, two metallic substances; the former composed of silver, copper, and a.r.s.enic, the latter of tin and iron.-D.