The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 62

(969) Lord Stair.-D.

387 Letter 147 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Sept. 1, 1744.

I wish you joy of your victory at Velletri!(970) I call it yours, for you are the great spring of all that war. I intend to publish your life, with an Appendix, that shall contain all the letters to you from princes, cardinals, and great men of the time. In speaking of Prince Lobkowitz's attempt to seize the King of Naples at Velletri, I shall say: "for the share our hero had in this great action, vide the Appendix, Card.

Albani's letter, p. 14." You shall no longer be the dear Miny, but Manone, the Great Man; you shall figure with the Great Pan, and the Great Patapan. I wish you and your laurels and your operations were on the Rhine, in Piedmont, or in Bohemia; and then Prince Charles would not have repa.s.sed the first, nor the Prince of Conti advanced within three days of Turin, and the King of Prussia would already have been terrified from entering the last-all this lumping bad news came to counterbalance your Neapolitan triumphs. Here is all the war to begin again! and perhaps next winter a second edition of Dunkirk. We could not even have the King of France die, though he was so near it. He was in a woful fright, and promised the Bishop of Soissons, that if he lived, he would have done with his women.(971) A man with all these crowns on his head, and attaching and disturbing all those on the heads of other princes, who is the soul of all the havoc and ruin that has been and is to be spread through Europe in this war, haggling thus for his b.l.o.o.d.y life, and cheapening it at the price of a mistress or two! and this was the fellow that they fetched to the army to drive the brave Prince Charles beyond the Rhine again. It is just Such another paltry mortal(972) that has fetched him back into Bohemia-I forget which of his battles(973) it was, that when his army had got the victory, they could not find the King: he had run away for a whole day without looking behind him.

I thank you for the particulars of the action, and the list of the prisoners: among them is one Don Theodore Diamato Amor, a cavalier of so romantic a name, that my sister and Miss Leneve quite interest themselves in his captivity; and make their addresses to you, who, they hear, have such power with Prince Lobkowitz, to obtain his liberty. If he has Spanish gallantry in any proportion to his name, he will immediately come to England, and vow himself their knight.

Those verses I sent you on Mr. Pope, I a.s.sure you, were not mine; I transcribed them from the newspapers; from whence I must send you a very good epigram on Bishop Berkeley's tar-water:

"Who dare deride what pious Cloyne has done?

The Church shall rise and vindicate her son; She tells us, all her Bishops shepherds are- And shepherds heal their rotten sheep with tar."

I am not at all surprised at my Lady Walpole's ill-humour to you about the messenger. If the resentments of women did not draw them into little dirty spite, their hatred would be very dangerous; but they vent the leisure they have to do mischief in a thousand meannesses, which only serve to expose themselves.

Adieu! I know nothing here but public politics, of which I have already talked to you, and which you hear as soon as I do.

Thank dear Mr. Chute for his letter; I will answer it very soon; but in the country I am forced to let my pen lie fallow between letter and letter.

(970) The Austrians had formed a scheme to surprise the Neapolitan King and general at Velletri, and their first column penetrated into the place, but reinforcements coming up, they were repulsed with considerable slaughter.-E.

(971) On the 8th of August, Louis the Fifteenth was seized at Metz, on his march to Alsace, with a malignant putrid fever, which increased so rapidly, that, in a few days, his life was despaired of. In his illness, he dismissed his reigning mistress, Madame de Chateauroux.-E.

(972) The King of Prussia.

(973) The battle of Molwitz.

388 Letter 148 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744.

My dearest Harry, My lord bids me tell you how much he is obliged to you for your letter, and hopes you will accept my answer for his.

I'll tell you what, we shall both be obliged to you if you will inclose a magnifying-gla.s.s in your next letters; for your two last were in so diminutive a character, that we were forced to employ all Mrs. Leneve's spectacles, besides an ancient family reading-gla.s.s, with which my grandfather used to begin the psalm, to discover what you said to us. Besides this, I have a piece of news for you: Sir Robert Walpole, when he was made Earl of Orford, left the ministry, and with it the palace in Downing-street; as numbers of people found out three years ago, who, not having your integrity, were quick in perceiving the change of his situation. Your letter was full as honest as you; for, though directed to Downing-street, it would not, as other letters would have done, address itself to the present possessor. Do but think if it had! The smallness of the hand would have immediately struck my Lord Sandys with the idea of a plot; for what he could not read' at first sight, he would certainly have concluded must be cipher.

I march next week towards London, and have already begun to send my heavy artillery before me, consisting of half-a-dozen books and part of my linen: my light-horse, commanded by Patapan, follows this day se'nnight. A detachment of hussars surprised an old b.i.t.c.h fox yesterday morning, who had lost a leg in a former engagement; and then, having received advice of another litter being advanced as far as Darsingham, Lord Walpole commanded Captain Riley's horse, with a strong party of foxhounds, to overtake them; but on the approach of our troops the enemy stole off, and are now encamped at Sechford common, whither we every hour expect orders to pursue them.

My dear Harry, this is all I have to tell you, and, to my great joy, which you must forgive me, is full as memorable as any part of the Flanders campaign. I do not desire to have you engaged in the least more glory than you have been. I should not love the remainder of you the least better for your having lost an arm or a leg, and have as full persuasion of your courage as if you had contributed to the slicing off twenty pair from French officers. Thank G.o.d. you have sense enough to content yourself without being a hero! though I don't quite forget your expedition a hussar-hunting the beginning of this campaign. Pray, no more of those jaunts. I don't know any body you would oblige with a present of such game - for my part, a fragment of the oldest hussar on earth should never have a place in my museum-they are not antique enough; and for a live one, I must tell you, I like my racc.o.o.n infinitely better.

Adieu! my dear Harry. I long to see you, You will easily believe the thought I have of being particularly well with you is a vast addition to my impatience, though you know it is nothing new to me to be overjoyed at your return. Yours ever.

390 Letter 149 To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744.

Does decency insist upon one's writing within certain periods, when one has nothing to say? because, if she does, she is the most formal, ceremonious personage I know. I shall not enter into a dispute with her, as my Lady Hervey did with the G.o.ddess of Indolence, or with the G.o.ddess of letter-writing, I forget which, in a long letter that she sent to the Duke of Bourbon; because I had rather write than have a dispute about it. Besides, I am not at all used to converse with hierglyphic ladies. But, I do a.s.sure you, it is merely to avoid scolding that I set about this letter: I don't mean your scolding, for you are all goodness to me; but my own scolding of myself-a correction I stand in great awe of, and which I am sure never to escape as often as I am to blame. One can scold other people again, or smile and jog one's foot, and affect not to mind it; but those airs won't do with oneself; One always comes by the worst in a dispute with one's own conviction.

Admiral Matthews sent me down hither your great packet: I am charmed with your prudence, and with the good sense of your orders for the Neapolitan expedition; I won't say your good nature, which is excessive for I think your tenderness of the little Queen(974) a little outree, especially as their apprehensions might have added great weight to your menaces.

I would threaten like a corsair, though I would conquer with all the good-breeding of a Scipio. I most devoutly wish you success; you are sure of having me most happy with any honour you acquire. You have quite soared above all fear of Goldsworthy, and, I think, must appear of consequence to any ministry. I am much obliged to you for the medal, and like the design: I shall preserve it as part of your works.

I can't forgive what you say to me about the coffee-pot: one would really think that you looked upon me as an old woman that had left a legacy to be kept for her sake, and a curse to attend the parting with it. My dear child, is it treating me justly to enter into the detail of your reasons? was it even necessary to say, ,I have changed your coffee-pot for some other plate?"

I have nothing to tell you but that I go to town next week, and will then write you all I hear. Adieu!

(974) The Queen of Naples,-Maria of Saxony, wife of Charles the Third, King of Naples, and subsequently, on the death of his elder brother, King of Spain. This alludes to the Austrian campaign in the Neapolitan territories, the attack on the town of Velletri, etc.-E.

391 Letter 150 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Oct 19, 1744.

I have received two or three letters from you since I wrote to you last, and all contribute to give me fears for your situation at Florence. How absurdly all the Queen's ban haughtinesses are dictated to her by her ministers, or by her own Austriacity! She lost all Silesia because she would not lose a small piece of it, and she is going to lose Tuscany for want of a neutrality, because she would not accept one for Naples, even after all prospect of conquering it was vanished.

Every thing goes ill! the King of Sardinia beaten; and to-day we hear of Coni lost! You will see in the papers too, that the Victory, our finest ship, is lost, with Sir John Balchen and nine hundred men.(975) The expense alone of the ship is computed at above two hundred thousand pounds. We have nothing good but a flying report of a victory of Prince Charles over the Prussian, who, it 'Is said, has lost ten thousand men, and both his legs by a cannon-ball. I have no notion of his losing them, but by breaking them in over-hurry to run away. However, it comes from a Jew, who had the first news of the pa.s.sage of the Rhine.(976) But, my dear child, how will this comfort me, if you are not to remain in peace at Florence! I tremble as I write!

Yesterday morning carried off those two old beldamss, Sarah of Marlborough and the (.countess Granville;(977) so now Uguccioni's(978) epithalamium must be new-tricked out in t.i.tles, for my Lady Carteret is Countess! Poor Bistino! I wish my Lady Pomfret may leave off her translation of Froissart to English the eight hundred and forty heroics! When I know the particulars of old Marlborough's will, you shall.

My Lord Walpole has promised me a letter for young Gardiner; who, by the way, has pushed his fortune en vrai b'atard, without being so, for it never was pretended that he was my brother's - he protests he is not; but the youth has profited of his mother's gallantries.

I have not seen Admiral Matthews yet, but I take him to be very mad. He walks in the Park with a c.o.c.kade of three /colours: the Duke desired a gentleman to ask him the meaning, and all the answer he would give was, "The Treaty of Worms!

the treaty of Worms!" I design to see him, thank him for my packet, and inquire after the cases.

it is a most terrible loss for his parents, Lord Beauchamp's(979) death: if they were out of the question, one could not be sorry for such a mortification to the pride of old Somerset. He has written the most shocking letter imaginable to poor Lord Hertford, telling him that it is a judgment upon him for all his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himself. as the cause of' his son's death.

Lord Hertford is as good a man as lives, and has always been most unreasonably ill-used by that old tyrant. The t.i.tle of'

Somerset will revert to Sir Edward Seymour, whose line has been most unjustly deprived of it from the first creation.

The Protector when only Earl of Hertford, married a great heiress, and had a Lord Beauchamp, who was about twenty when his mother died. His father then married an Anne Stanhope, with whom he was In love, and not only procured an act of parliament to deprive Lord Beauchamp of' his honours and to settle the t.i.tle of Somerset, which he was going to have, on the children of' this second match, but took from him even his mother's fortune. From him descended Sir Edward Seymour, the Speaker, who, on King William's landing, when he said to him, "Sir Edward, I think you are of the Duke of Somerset's family!" replied, "No, Sir: he is of mine."

Lord Lincoln was married last Tuesday, and Lord Middles.e.x will be very soon. Have you heard the gentle manner of the French King's dismissing Madame de Chateauroux? In the very circle, the Bishop of Soissons(980) told her, that, as the scandal the King had given with her was public, his Majesty thought his repentance ought to be so too, and that he therefore forbade her the court; and then turning to the monarch, asked him if that was not his pleasure, who replied, Yes. They have taken away her pension too, and turned out even laundresses that she had recommended for the future Dauphiness. A-propos to the Chateauroux: there is a Hanoverian come over, who was so ingenuous as to tell Master Louis,(981) how like he is to M.

Walmoden. You conceive that "nous autres souvereins nous n'aimons pas qu'on se m'eprenne aux gens:" we don't love that our Fitzroys should be scandalized with any mortal resemblance.

I must tell you a good piece of discretion of a Scotch soldier, whom Mr. Selwyn met on Bexley Heath walking back to the army. He had met with a single glove at Higham, which had been left there last year in an inn by an officer now in Flanders: this the fellow was carrying in hopes of a little money; but, for fear he should lose the glove, wore it all the way.

Thank you for General Braitwitz's deux potences.(982) I hope that one of them, at least will rid us of the Prussian.

Adieu! my dear child: all my wishes are employed about Florence.

(975) The Victory, of a hundred and ten bra.s.s guns, was lost, between the 4th and 5th of October, near Alderney.-E.

(976) This report proved to be without foundation.

(977) Mother of John, Lord Carteret, who succeeded her in the t.i.tle.

(978) A Florentine, who had employed an abbe of his acquaintance to write an epithalamium on Lord Carteret's marriage, consisting of eight hundred and forty Latin lines.

Sir H. Mann had given an account of the composition of this piece of literary flattery in one of his letters to Walpole.-D.