The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 79

Instead of thinking of her child's distress, she kept me half an hour with a thousand histories of Lady Caroline Fitzroy and Major Johnstone, and the new Paymaster's(1222) m'enage, and twenty other things, nothing to me, nor to her, if only she could drop the idea Of the pay of office.

The serene hessian is gone. Little Brooke is to be an earl.

I went to bespeak him a Lilliputian coronet at Chenevix's.(1223) Adieu! dear George.

(1220) George Dunk, Earl of Halifax.

(1221) Son of Viscount Townshend and Dorothy, sister of Sir Robert Walpole. he was a captain in the service of the East India Company, and died at Batavia, having at that time the command of the Augusta.-E.

(1222) Mr. Pitt.

(1223) A celebrated toy-shop.

485 Letter 207 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, June 20, 1746.

We are impatient for letters from Italy, to confirm the news of a victory over the French and Spaniards-(1224) The time is critical, and every triumph or defeat material, as they may raise or fall the terms of peace. The wonderful letters of Van Hoey and M. d'Argenson in favour of the rebels, but which, if the ministry have any spirit, must turn to their harm, you will see in all the papers. They have rather put off the negotiations, and caused the sending five thousand men this week to Flanders. The Duke is not yet returned from Scotland, nor is anything certainly known of the Pretender. I don't find any period fixed for the trial of the Lords; yet the Parliament sits on, doing nothing, few days having enough to make a House. Old Marquis Tullibardine, with another set of rebels are come, amongst whom is Lord Macleod, son of Lord Cromarty,(1225) already in the Tower. Lady Cromarty went down incog. to Woolwich to see her son pa.s.s by, without the power of speaking to him: I never heard a more melancholy instance of affection! Lord Elcho(1226) has written from Paris to Lord Lincoln to solicit his pardon; but as he has distinguished himself beyond all the rebel commanders by brutality and insults and cruelty to our prisoners, I think he is likely to remain where he is.

Jack Spenser,(1227) old Marlborough's grandson and heir, is just dead, at the age of six or seven and thirty, and in possession Of near 30,000 pounds a-year, merely because he would not be abridged of those invaluable blessings of an English subject, brandy, small-beer, and tobacco.

Your last letter was of May 31st. Since you have effectually lost the good Chutes, I may be permitted to lay out all my impatience for seeing them. There are no endeavours I shall not use to show how much I love them for all their friendship to you. You are very kind in telling me how much I am honoured by their Highnesses Of Modena; but how can I return it? would it be civil to send them a compliment through a letter of yours? Do what you think properest for me.

I have nothing to say to Marquis Riccardi about his trumpery gems, but what I have already said; that n.o.body here will buy them together; that if he will think better, and let them be sold by auction, he may do it most advantageously, for, with all our distress, we have not at all lost the rage of expense; but that for sending them to Lisbon, I will by no means do it, as his impertinent sending them to me without my leave, shall in no manner draw me into the risk of paying for them. That, in short, if he will send any body to me with full authority to receive them, and to give me the most ample discharge for them, I will deliver them, and shall be happy so to get rid of them. There they lie in a corner of my closet, and will probably come to light at last with excellent antique mould about them! Adieu.

(1224) The battle of Placentia, which took place on the 15th of May.-E.

(1225) George Mackenzie, third Earl of Cromartie, and his eldest son John, Lord Macleod. They had been deeply engaged in the rebellion, were taken prisoners at Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland, and from thence conveyed to the Tower. They were, upon trial, found guilty of high treason; but their lives were granted to them. Lord Macleod afterwards entered the Swedish service. Lady Cromartie was Isabel, daughter of Sir William Gordon, of Invergordon, Bart.-D.

(1226) Eldest son of the Earl of Wemyss.

(1227) Brother of Charles Spenser, Earl of Sunderland and Duke of Marlborough.

486 Letter 208 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, June 24, 1746.

Dear George, You have got a very bad person to tell you news; for I hear nothing before all the world has' talked it over, and done with it. Till twelve o'clock last night I knew nothing of all the kissing hands that had graced yesterday morning; Arundel(1228) for treasurer of the chambers; Legge, and your friend Walsh Campbell, for the treasury; Lord Duncannon for the admiralty; and your cousin Halifax (who is succeeded by his predecessor in the buck hounds) for chief justice in eyre, in the room of Lord Jersey. They talk of new earls, Lord Chancellor, Lord Gower, Lord Brooke, and Lord Clinton; but I don't know that this will be, because it is not past.

Tidings are every minute expected of a great sea-fight; Martin has got between the coast and the French fleet, which has sailed from Brest. The victory in Italy is extremely big; but as none of my friends are aide-de-camps there, I know nothing of the particulars, except that the French and-Spaniards have lost ten thousand men.

All the inns about town are crowded with rebel Prisoners, and people are making parties of pleasure, which you know is the English genius, to hear their trials. The Scotch, which you know is the Scotch genius, are loud in censuring the Duke for his severities in the highlands.

The great business of the town is Jack Spenser's will, who has left Althorp and the Sunderland estate in reversion to Pitt; after more obligations and more pretended friendship for his brother, the Duke, than is conceivable. The Duke is in the utmost uneasiness about it, having left the drawing of the writings for the estate to his brother and his grandmother, and without having any idea that himself was cut out of the entail.

I have heard nothing of Augustus Townshend's will: my lady, who you know hated him, came from the Opera t'other night, and on pulling off her gloves, and finding her hands all black, said immediately, "My hands are guilty, but my heart is free."

Another good thing she said, to the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford,(1229) who told her the Duke was windbound at Yarmouth, "Lord! he will hate Norfolk as much as I do."

I wish, my dear George, you could meet with any man that could copy the beauties in the castle: I did not care if it were even in Indian ink. Will you inquire? Eckardt has done your picture excellently well. What shall I do with the original?

Leave it with him till you come?

Lord Bath and Lord Sandys have had their pockets picked at Cuper's Gardens. I fancy it was no bad scene, the avarice and jealousy of their peeresses on their return. A terrible disgrace happened to Earl Cholmondeley t'other night at Ranelagh. You know all the history of his letters to borrow money to pay for damask for his fine room at Richmond. As he was going in, in the crowd, a woman offered him roses--"Right damask, my lord!" he concluded she had been put upon it. I was told, a-propos, a bon-mot on the scene in the Opera, where there is a view of his new room, and the farmer comes dancing out and shaking his purse. Somebody said there was a tradesman had unexpectedly got his money.

I think I deal in bon-mots to-day. I'll tell you now another, but don't print my letter in a new edition of Joe Miller's jests. The Duke has given Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender's coach, on condition he rode up to London in it. "That I will, Sir," said he, "and drive till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa Tree."

(1228) The Honourable Richard Arundel, second son to John, Lord Arundel, of Trerice. He married, 1732, Lady Frances Manners, daughter of John, second Duke of Rutland.-E.

(1229) Daughter of John, Earl Gower.

487 Letter 209 To George Montagu, Arlington Street, July 3, 1746.

My dear George, I wish extremely to accept your invitation, but I can't bring myself to it. If I have the pleasure of meeting Lord North(1230) oftener-at your house next winter, I do not know but another summer I may have courage enough to make him a visit; but I have no notion of going to any body's house, and have the servants look on the arms of the chaise to find out one's name, and learn one's face from the Saracen's head. You did not tell me how long you stayed at Wroxton, and so I direct this thither. I have wrote one to Windsor since you left it.

The Dew earls have kissed hands, and kept their own t.i.tles.

The world reckon Earl Clinton obliged for his new honour to Lord GranVille, though they made the Duke of Newcastle go in to ask for it.

Yesterday Mr. Hussey's friends declared his marriage with her grace of Manchester,(1231) and said he was gone down to Englefield Green to take possession.

I can tell you another wedding more certain, and fifty times more extraordinary; it is Lord Cooke with Lady Mary Campbell, the Dowager of Argyle's youngest daughter. It is all agreed, and was negotiated by the Countess of Gower and Leicester. I don't know why they skipped over Lady Betty, who, if there were any question of beauty, is, I think, as well as her sister. They drew the girl in to give her consent, when they first proposed it to her; but now la Belle n'aime pas trop le Sieur L'eandre. She cries her eyes to scarlet. He has made her four visits, and is so in love, that he writes to her every other day. 'Tis a strange match. After offering him to all the great lumps of gold in all the alleys of the city, they fish out a woman of quality at last with a mere twelve thousand pound. She objects his loving none of her s.e.x but the four queens in a pack of cards, but he promises to abandon White's and both clubs for her sake.

A-propos to White's and cards, d.i.c.k Edgec.u.mbe is shut up with the itch. The ungenerous world ascribes it to Mrs. Day; but he denies it; owning, however, that he is very well contented to have it, as n.o.body will venture on her. Don't you like being pleased to have the itch, as a new way to 'keep one's mistress to one's self!

You will be in town to be sure for the eight-and-twentieth.

London will be as full as at a coronation. The whole form is settled for the trials, and they are actually building scaffolds in Westminster-hall.

I have not seen poor Miss Townshend yet; she is in town, and better, but most unhappy.

(1230) Francis, Lord North and Grey; in 1752 created Earl of Guilford. His lordship died in 1790, at the age of eighty-six.-E.

(1231) Isabella, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Montagu, married in 1723 to William, second Duke of Manchester, who died in 1739. She married afterwards to Edward Hussey, Esq.

who was created Baron Beaulieu in 1762, and Earl Beaulieu in 1784.

488 Letter 210 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 7, 1746.

I have been looking at the dates of my letters, and find that I have not written you since the 20th of last month. As long as it seems, I am not in fault; I now write merely lest you should think me forgetful of you, and not because I have any thing to say. Nothing great has happened; and for little politics, I live a good deal out of the way of' them. I have no manner of connexion with any ministry, or opposition to ministry; and their merits and their faults are equally a secret to me. The Parliament sitting, so long has worn itself to a skeleton; and almost every body takes the opportunity of shortening, their stay in the country, which I believe in their hearts most are glad to do, by going down, and returning for the trials, which are to be on the 28th of this month. I am of the number; so don't expect to hear from me again till that aera.

The Duke is still in Scotland, doing his family the only service that has been done for them there since their accession. He daily picks Up notable prisoners, and has lately taken Lord Lovat, and Murray the secretary. There are flying reports of the Boy being killed, but I think not certain enough for the father(1232) to faint away again-I blame myself for speaking lightly of the old man's distress; but a swoon is so natural to his character, that one smiles at it at first, without considering when it proceeds from cowardice, and when from misery. I heard yesterday that we are to expect a battle in Flanders soon: I expect it with all the tranquillity that the love of one's country admits, when one's heart is entirely out of the question, as, thank G.o.d!

mine is: not one of my friends will be in it. I -wish it may be as magnificent a victory for us, as your giornata di San Lazaro!

I am in great pain for my eagle, now the Brest fleet is thought to be upon the coast of Spain: bi-it what do you mean by him and his pedestal filling three cases? is he like the Irishman's bird, in two places at once?

Adieu! my dear child; don't believe my love for you in the least abridged, whenever my letters are scarce or short. I never loved you better, and never had less to say, both which I beg you will believe by my concluding, yours, etc.