The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 69

Here is already a third great battle this summer! But Flanders is gone! The Dutch have given up all that could hinder the French from overrunning them, upon condition that the French should not overrun them. Indeed, I cannot be so exasperated at the Dutch as it is the fashion to be; they have not forgot the peace of Utrecht, though we have. Besides, how could they rely on any negotiation with a people whose politics alter so often as ours? Or why were we to fancy that my Lord Chesterfield's parts would have more weight than my uncle had, whom, ridiculous as he was, they had never known to take a trip to Avignon to confer with the Duke of Ormond?(1074)

Our communication with the army is cut off through Flanders and we are in great pain for Ostend: the fortifications are all out of repair. Upon Marshal Wade's reiterated remonstrances, we did cast thirty cannon and four mortars for it-and then the economic ministry would not send them. "What!

fortify the Queen of Hungary's towns? there will be no end of that." As if Ostend was of no more consequence to us, than Mons or Namur! Two more battalions are ordered over immediately; and the old pensioners of Chelsea College are to mount guard at home! Flourishing in a peace of twenty years, we were told that we were trampled upon by Spain and France.

Haughty nations, like those, who can trample upon an enemy country, do not use to leave it in such wealth and happiness as we enjoyed; but when the Duke of Marlborough's old victorious veterans are dug out of their colleges and repose, to guard the King's palace, and to keep up the show of an army which we have buried in America, or in a manner lost in Flanders, we shall soon know the real feel of being trampled upon! In this crisis, you will hear often from me; for I will leave you in no anxious uncertainty from which I can free you.

The Countess(1075) is at Hanover, and, we hear, extremely well received. It is conjectured, and it is not impossible, that the Count may have procured for her some dirty dab of a negotiation about some 'acre of territory more for Hanover, in order to facilitate her reception. She has been at Hesse Ca.s.sel, and fondled extremely Princess Mary'S(1076) children; just as you know she used to make a rout about the Pretender's boys. My Lord Chesterfield laughs at her letter to him; and, what would anger her more than the neglect, ridicules the style and orthography. Nothing promises well for her here.

You told me you wished I would condole with Prince Craon on the death of his son:(1077) which son? and where was he killed? You don't tell me, and I never heard. Now it would be too late. I should have been uneasy for Prince Beauvau, but that you say he is in Piedmont.

Adieu! my dear child: we have much to wish! A little good fortune will not re-establish us. I am in pain for your health from the great increase of your business.

(1072 The French had been successful in a skirmish against the English army, at a place called Melle. The consequence of this success was their obtaining the possession of Ghent.-D.

(1073) The army of the Prince of Conti, posted near the Maine, had been so weakened by the detachments sent from it to reinforce the army in Flanders, that it was obliged to retreat before the Austrians. This retrograde movement was effected with considerable loss, both of soldiers and baggage; but it does not appear that any decisive general engagement took place during the campaign between the French and Austrians.-D.

(1074) ant'e, p. 195; Letter 45 (note 334).

(1075) Lady Orford.

(1076) Princess Mary of England, daughter of George the Second; married in 1740 to the Prince of Hesse Ca.s.sel, who treated her with great inhumanity. She died in June, 1771.-E.

(1077) The young Prince de Craon was killed at the head of his regiment at the battle of Fontenoy.-D.

425 Letter 171 To sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 12, 1745.

I am charmed with the sentiments that Mr. Chute expresses for you; but then you have lost him! Here is an answer to his letter; I send it unsealed, to avoid repealing what I have thought on our affairs. Seal it and send it. Its being open, prevented my saying half so much about you as I should have done.

There is no more news - the Great Duke's victory, of which we heard so much last week, is come to nothing! So far from having defeated the Prince of Conti, it is not at all impossible but the Prince may wear the imperial coat of diamonds, though I am persuaded the care of that will be the chief concern of the Great Duke, (next to his own person,) in a battle. Our army is retreated beyond Brussels; the French gather laurels, and towns, and prisoners, as one would a nosegay. In the mean time you are bullying the King of Naples, in the person of the English fleet; and I think may possibly be doing so for two months after that very fleet belongs to the King of France; as astrologers tell one that we should see stars shine for I don't know how long after they were annihilated. But I like your spirit; keep it up!

Millamant, in the Way of the World, tells Mirabel, that she will be solicited to the very last; nay, and afterwards. He replies, "What! after the last?"

I am in great pain about your arrears; it is a bad season for obtaining payment. In the best times, they make a custom of paying foreign ministers Ill; which may be very politic, when they send men of too great fortunes abroad in order to lessen them: but, my dear child, G.o.d knows that is not your case!

I have some extremely pretty dogs of King Charles's breed, if I knew how to convey them to you: indeed they are not Patapans. I can't tell how they would like travelling into Italy, when there is a prospect of the rest of their race returning from thence: besides, you must certify me that none of them shall ever be married below themselves; for since the affair of Lady Caroline Fox, one durst not hazard the Duke of Richmond's resentment even about a dog and b.i.t.c.h of that breed.

Lord Lempster(1078) is taken prisoner in the affair of the detachment to Ghent. My lady,(1079) who has heard of Spartan mothers, (though you know she once a.s.serted that n.o.body knew any thing of the Grecian Republics,) affects to bear it with a patriot insensibility. She told me the other day that the Abb'e Niccolini and the eldest Pandolfini are coming to England: is it true? I shall be very Clad to be civil to them, especially to the latter, who, you know, was one of my friends.

My Lady Orford is at Hanover, most Graciously received by "the Father of all his people!" In the papers of yesterday was this paragraph; "Lady O. who has spent several years in Italy, arrived here (Hanover) the 3d, on her return to England, and was Graciously received by his Majesty." Lady Denbigh is gone into the country so I don't know where she is to lodge-perhaps at St. James's, out of' regard to my father's memory.

Trust me, you escaped well in Pigwiggin's(1079) not accepting your invitation of living with you: you must have aired your house, as Lady Pomfret was forced to air Lady Mary Wortley's bedchamber. He has a most unfortunate breath: so has the Princess his sister. When I was at their country-house, I used to sit in the library and turn over books of prints: out of good breeding they would not quit me; nay, would look over the prints with me. A whiff would come from the east, and I turned short to the west, whence the Princess would puff me back with another gale full as richly perfumed as her brother's. Adieu!

(1078) George Fermor: who, on the death of his father in 1753, became second Earl of Pomfret. He died in 1785.-E.

(1079) Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, mother of Lord Lempster.

(1080) A nickname given by Walpole to his cousin Horace, eldest son of "Old Horace Walpole," afterwards first Earl of Orford of the second creation. He died in 1809, at the age of eighty-six.-E.

427 Letter 172 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, July 13, 1745.

Dear George, We are all Cabob'd and Cocof.a.goed, as my Lord Denbigh says.

We, who formerly, you know, could any one of us beat three Frenchmen, are now so .degenerated, that three Frenchmen(1081) can evidently beat One Englishman. Our army is running away, all that is left to run; for half of it is picked up by three or four hundred at a time. In short, we must step out of the high pantoufles that were made by those cunning shoemakers at Poitiers and Ramilies, and go clumping about perhaps in wooden ones. My Lady Hervey, who you know dotes upon every thing French, is charmed with the hopes of these new shoes, and has already bespoke herself a pair of pigeon wood. How did the tapestry at Blenheim look? Did it glow with victory, or did all our glories look overcast?

I remember a very admired sentence in one of my Lord Chesterfield's speeches, when he was haranguing for this war; with a most rhetorical transition, he turned to the tapestry in the House of Lords,(1082) and said, with a sigh, he feared there were no historical looms at work now! Indeed, we have reason to bless the good patriots, who have been for employing our manufactures so historically. The Countess of that wise Earl, with whose two expressive words I began this letter, says, she is very happy now that my lord had never a place upon the coalition, for then all this bad situation of our affairs would have been laid upon him.

Now I have been talking of remarkable periods in our annals, I must tell you what my Lord Baltimore thinks one:--He said to the Prince t'other day, "Sir, your Royal Highness's marriage will be an area in English history."

If it were not for the life that is put into the town now and then by very bad news from abroad, one should be quite stupefied. There is n.o.body left but two or three solitary regents; and they are always whisking backwards and forwards to their villas; and about a dozen antediluvian dowagers, whose carca.s.ses have miraculously resisted the wet, and who every Sat.u.r.day compose a very reverend catacomb at my old Lady Strafford's. She does not take money at the door for showing them, but 'you pay twelvepence apiece under the denomination of card-money. Wit and beauty, indeed, remain in the persons of Lady Townshend and Lady Caroline Fitzroy; but such is the want of taste of this age, that the former is very often forced to wrap up her wit in plain English before it can be understood; and the latter is almost as often obliged to have recourse to the same artifices to make her charms be taken notice of.

Of beauty, I can tell you an admirable story. One Mrs.

Comyns, an elderly gentlewoman, has lately taken a house in St. James's Street: some young gentlemen went there t'other night;--"Well, Mrs. Comyns, I hope there won't be the same disturbances here that were at your other house in Air Street."--"Lord, Sir, I never had any disturbances there: mine was as quiet a house as any in the neighbourhood, and a great deal of company came to me: it was only the ladies of quality that envied Me."--"Envied you! why, your house was pulled down about your ears."--"Oh, dear Sir! don't you know how that happened?"--"No; pray how?"--"Why, dear Sir, it was my Lady **** who gave ten guineas to the mob to demolish my house, because her ladyship fancied I got women for Colonel Conway."

My dear George, don't you delight in this story? If poor Harry(1083) comes back from Flanders, I intend to have infinite fun with his prudery about this anecdote, which is full as good as if it was true. I beg you will visit Mrs.

Comyns when you come to town- she has infinite humour.

(1081) Alluding to the success of the French army in Flanders, under the command of Mareschal Saxe.

(1082) Representing the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588, and surrounded by portraits of the princ.i.p.al officers who commanded the fleet. This n.o.ble suit of hangings was wrought in Holland, at the expense of the Earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral.-E.

(1083) The Honourable Henry Seymour Conway.

428 Letter 173 To Sir Horace Mann.

July 15, 1745.

You will be surprised at another from me so soon, when I wrote to you but four days ago. This is not with any news, but upon a private affair. You have never said any thing to Me about the extraordinary procedure of Marquis Riccardi, of which I wrote you word. Indeed, as his letter came just upon my father's death, I had forgot it too; so much so, that I have lost the catalogue which he sent me. Well, the other day I received his cargo. Now, My dear child, I don't write to him upon it, because, as he Sent the things without asking my leave, I am determined never to acknowledge the receipt of them because I will in no manner be liable to pay for them if they are lost: which I think highly probable; and as I have lost the catalogue, I cannot tell whether I have received all or not.

I beg you will just say what follows to him. That I am extremely amazed he should think of employing me to sell his goods for him, especially without asking my consent, that an English gentleman, just come from France, has brought me a box of things, of which he himself had no account; nor is there any letter or catalogue with them; that I suppose they may be the Marquis's collection: I have lost the catalogue, and consequently cannot tell whether I have received all or not, nor whether they are his: that as they came in so blind a manner, and have been opened at several custom-houses, I will not be answerable especially having never given my consent to receive them, and having opened the box ignorantly, without knowing the contents: that when I did open it, I concluded it came from Florence, having often refused to buy most of the things, which had long lain upon the jeweller's hands on the old bridge, and which are very improper for sale here, as all the English for some years have seen them, and not thought them worth purchasing - that I remember in the catalogue the price for the whole was fixed at two thousand pistoles; that they are full as much worth two-and-twenty thousand; and that I have been laughed at by people to whom I have showed them for naming so extravagant a price: that n.o.body living would think of buying all together: that for myself, I have entirely left off making any collection; and if I had not, would not buy things dear now which I have formerly refused at much lower prices. That, after all, though I cannot think myself at all well used by Marquis Riccardi, either in sending me the things, in the price he has fixed on them, or in the things themselves, which to my knowledge he has picked up from the shops on the old bridge, and were no family collection, yet, as I received so many civilities at Florence from the n.o.bility, and in particular from his wife, Madame Riccardi, if he will let me do any thing that is practicable, I will sell what I can for him. That if he will send me A new and distinct catalogue, with the price of each piece, and a price considerably less than what he has set upon the whole, I will endeavour to dispose of what I can for him. But as most of them are very indifferent, and the total value most unreasonable, I absolutely will not undertake the sale of them upon any other terms, but will pack them up, and send them away to Leghorn by the first ship that sails; for as we are at war with France, I cannot send them that way, nor will I trouble any gentleman to carry them, as he might think himself liable to make them good if they met with any accident; nor will I answer for them by whatever way they go, as I did not consent to receive them, nor am sure that I have received the Marquis's collection.

My dear Sir, translate this very distinctly for him, for he never shall receive any other notice from me; nor will I give them up to Wasner or Pucci,(1084) or any body else, though he should send me an order for it; for n.o.body saw me open them, nor shall any body be able to say I had them, by receiving them from me. In short, I think I cannot be too cautious in such a negotiation. If a man will send Me things to the value of two thousand pistoles, whether they are really worth it or not, he shall take his chance for losing them, and shall certainly never come upon me for them. He must absolutely take his choice, of selling them at a proper price and separately, or of having them directly sent back by sea; for whether he consents to either or not, I shall certainly proceed in my resolution about them the very instant I receive an answer from you; for the sooner I am clear of them the better. If he will let me sell them without setting a price, he may depend upon my taking the best method for his service; though really, my dear child, it will be for my own honour, not for his sake, who has treated me so impertinently. I am sorry to give you this trouble, but judge how much the fool gives me! Adieu!

(1084) Ministers of the Queen of Hungary and the Great Duke.

430 Letter 174 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 26, 1745.

It is a pain to me to write to you, when all I can tell you will but distress you. How much I wish myself with you!

anywhere, where I should have my thoughts detached in some degree by distance and by length of time from England! With all the reasons that I have for not loving great part of it, it is impossible not to feel the shock of living at the period of all its greatness! to be one of the Ultimi Romanorum! I will not proceed upon the chapter of reflections, but mention some facts, which will supply your thoughts with all I should say.

The French make no secret of their intending to come hither; the letters from Holland speak of it as a notoriety. Their Mediterranean fleet is come to Rochfort, and they have another at Brest. Their immediate design is to attack our army, the very lessening which will be victory for them. Our six hundred men, which have lain cooped up in the river till they had contracted diseases, are at last gone to Ostend. Of all this our notable ministry still make a secret: one cannot learn the least particulars from them. This anxiety for my friends in the army, this uncertainty about ourselves, if it can be called uncertain that we are undone, and the provoking folly that one sees prevail, have determined me to go to the Hague. I shall at least hear sooner from the army, and shall there know better what is likely to happen here. The moment the crisis is come I shall return hither, which I can do from Helvoetsluys in twelve hours. At all events, I shall certainly not stay there above a month or six weeks: it thickens too fast for something important not to happen by that time.