The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 81

The Duke gave his ball last night to Peggy Banks at Vauxhall.

It was to pique my Lady Rochford, in return for the Prince of Hesse. I saw the company get into their barges at Whitehall Stairs, as I was going myself, and just then pa.s.sed by two city companies in their great barges, who had been a swan-hopping:. They laid by and played "G.o.d save our n.o.ble King," and altogether it was a mighty pretty show. When they came to Vauxhall, there were a.s.sembled about five-and-twenty hundred people, besides crowds without. They huzzaed, and surrounded him so, that he was forced to retreat into the ball-room. He was very near being drowned t'other night going from Ranelagh to Vauxhall, and politeness of Lord Cathcart's, who, stepping on the side of the boat to lend his arm, overset it, and both fell into the water up to their chins.

I have not yet got Sir Charles's ode;(1262) when I have, you shall see it: here are my own lines. Good night!

(1260) The Earl of Kilmarnock was not the son of the Countess of Errol. His wife, the Lady Anne Livingstone, daughter of the Earl of Linlithgow, was her niece, and, eventually, her heiress.--E.

(1261) The Duke of Argyle, telling him how sorry he was to see him engaged in such a cause, 'MY Lord,' says be, 'for the two Kings and their rights, I care not a farthing which prevailed; but I was starving, and by G.o.d, if Mahomet had set up his standard in the highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.'" Gray, vol. 5.-E.

(1262) On the d.u.c.h.ess of Manchester, ent.i.tled Isabella, or the Morning.-E.

497 Letter 214 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Aug. 11, 1746.

Dear George, I have seen Mr. Jordan, and have taken his house at forty guineas a-year, but I am to pay taxes. Shall I now accept your offer of being at the trouble of giving orders for the airing of it? I have desired the landlord will order the key to be delivered to you, and Asheton will a.s.sist you.

Furniture, I find, I have in abundance, which I shall send down immediately; but shall not be able to be at Windsor at the quivering dame's before to-morrow se'nnight, as the rebel Lords are not to be executed till Monday. I shall stay till that is over, though I don't believe I shall see it. Lord Cromartie is reprieved for a pardon. If wives and children become an argument for saving rebels, there will cease to be a reason against their going into rebellion. Lady Caroline Fitzroy's execution is certainly to-night. I dare say she will follow Lord Balmerino's advice to Lord Kilmarnock, and not winch.

Lord Sandwich has made Mr. Keith his secretary. I don't believe the founder of your race, the great Quu,(1263) of Habiculeo, would have chosen his secretary from California.

I would willingly return the civilities you laid upon me at Windsor. Do command me; in what can I serve you? Shall I get you an earldom? Don't think it will be any trouble; there is nothing easier or cheaper. Lord Hobart and Lord Fitzwilliam are both to be Earls to-morrow: the former, of Buckingham; the latter, by his already t.i.tle. I suppose Lord Malton will be a Duke; he has had no new peerage this fortnight. Adieu! my compliments to the virtuous ladies, Arabella and Hounsibeloa Quus.

P. S. Here is an order for the key.

(1263) The Earl of Halifax.-E.

497 Letter 215 To sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Aug. 12, 1746.

To begin with the Tesi; she is mad if she desires to come hither. I hate long histories, and so will only tell you in a few words, that Lord Middles.e.x(1264) took the opportunity of a rivalship between his own mistress, the Nardi, and the Violette,(1265) the finest and most admired dancer in the world, to involve the whole m'enage of the Opera in the quarrel, and has paid n.o.body; but, like a true Lord of the Treasury, has shut up his own exchequer. The princ.i.p.al man-dancer was arrested for debt; to the composer his Lordship gave a bad note, not payable in two years, besides amercing him entirely three hundred pounds, on pretence of his siding with the Violette. If the Tesi likes this account-venga!

venga!

Did I tell you that your friend Lord Sandwich was sent'

/amba.s.sador to Holland? He is: and that Lady Charlotte Fermor(1266) was to be married to Mr. Finch,(1267) the Vice-chamberlain? She is. Mr. Finch is a comely black widower, without children, and heir to his brother Winchilsea, who has no sons. The Countess-mother has been in an embroil, (as we have often known her,) about carrying Miss Sh.e.l.ly, a bosom-friend, into the Peeresses' place at the trials. Lord Granville, who is extremely fond of Lady Charlotte, has given her all her sister's jewels, to the great discontent of his own daughters. She has five thousand pounds, and Mr. Finch Settles fifteen thousand pounds more upon her. Now we are upon the chapter of marriages, Lord Petersham(1268) was last night married to One Of our first beauties, Lady Caroline Fitzroy;(1269) and Lord c.o.ke(1270) is to have the youngest of the late Duke of [email protected] daughters,)1271) who is none of our beauties at all.

Princess Louisa has already reached the object of her wish ever since she could speak, and is Queen of Denmark, We have been a little lucky lately in the deaths of Kings, and promise ourselves great matters from the new monarch in Spain.(1272) Princess Mary is coming over from Hesse to drink the Bath waters; that is the pretence for leaving her brutal husband, and for visiting the Duke and Princess Caroline, who love her extremely. She is of the softest, mildest temper in the world.

We know nothing certainly of the young Pretender, but that he is concealed in Scotland, and devoured with distempers - I really wonder how an Italian const.i.tution can have supported such rigours! He has said, that "he did not see what he had to be ashamed of; and that if he had lost one battle, he had gained two." Old Lovat curses Cope and Hawley for the loss of those two, and says, if they had done their duty, he had never been in this sc.r.a.pe. Cope is actually going to be tried; but Hawley, who is fifty times more culpable, is saved by partiality: Cope miscarried by incapacity; Hawley, by insolence and carelessness.

Lord Cromartie is reprieved; the Prince asked his life, and his wife made great intercession. Duke Hamilton's intercession for Lord Kilmarnock has rather hurried him to the block: he and Lord Balmerino are to die next Monday. Lord Kilmarnock, with the greatest n.o.bleness of soul, desired to have Lord Cromartie preferred to himself for pardon, if there could be but one saved; and Lord Balmerino laments that himself and Lord Lovat were not taken at the same time; "For then," says he, "we might have been sacrificed, and those other two brave men escaped." Indeed Lord Cromartie does not much deserve the epithet; for he wept whenever his execution was mentioned. Balmerino is jolly with 'his pretty Peggy.

There is a remarkable story of him at the battle of Dunblain, where the Duke of Argyll, his colonel, answered for him, on his being suspected. He behaved well; but as soon as we had gained the victory, went off with his troop to the Pretender: protesting that he had never feared death but that day, as he had been fighting against his conscience. Popularity has changed sides since the year '15, for now the city and the generality are very angry that so Many rebels have been pardoned. Some of those taken at Carlisle dispersed papers at their execution, saying they forgave 'all men but three, the Elector of Hanover, the pretended Duke of c.u.mberland, and the Duke of Richmond, who signed the capitulation at Carlisle.(1273)

Wish Mr. Hobart joy of ])is new lordship; his father took his seat to-day as Earl of Buckingham -. Lord Fitzwilliam is made English earl with him, by his old t.i.tle. Lord TankerVille(1274) goes governor to Jamaica: a cruel method of recruiting a prodigal n.o.bleman's broken fortune, by sending him to pillage a province! Adieu!

P. S. I have taken a pretty house at Windsor and am going thither for the remainder of the summer.

(1264) Charles Sackville, eldest son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset, a Lord of the Treasury.

(1265) She was born at Vienna, in February, 1724-5, and married to Garrick, the celebrated actor, in June, 1749. She died in October, 1822, in the ninety-eighth year of her age.-E.

(1266) Second daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret, and sister of Lady Granville.

(1267) William Finch, brother of the Earl of Winchilsea, had been amba.s.sador in Holland.

(1268) Son of the Earl of Harrington, Secretary of State.

(1269) Eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain.

(1270) Edward, only son of Thomas, Earl of Leicester.

(1271) Lady Mary Campbell. She survived her husband fifty-eight years; he having died in 1753, and she in 1811.-D.

(1272) Philip the Fifth, the mad and imbecile King of Spain, was just dead. He was succeeded by his son Ferdinand the Sixth, who died in 1759.--D.

(1273) A melancholy and romantic incident which took place amid the terrors of the executions is thus related by Sir Walter Scott:--"A young lady, of good family and handsome fortune, who had been contracted in marriage to James Dawson, one of the sufferers, had taken the desperate resolution of attending on the horrid ceremonial. She beheld her lover, after being suspended for a few minutes, but not till death (for such was the barbarous sentence), cut down, embowelled, and mangled by the knife of the executioner. All this she supported with apparent fort.i.tude; but when she saw the last scene, finished, by throwing Dawson's heart into the fire, she drew her head within the carriage, repeated his name, and expired on the spot." This melancholy event was made, by Shenstone, the theme of a tragic ballad:--

"The dismal scene was o'er and past, The lover's mournful hea.r.s.e retired; The maid drew back her languid head, And, sighing forth his name, expired

"though justice ever must prevail, The tear my Kitty shed is due; For seldom shall she hear a tale So sad, so tender, yet so true."

James Dawson was one of the nine men who suffered at Kennington, on the 30th Of July.-E.

(1274) Charles Bennet, second Earl of TankerVille. The appointment did not take place. He died in 1753. His wife, Camilla, daughter of Edward Colville, of White-house, in the bishopric of Durham, Esq. survived till 1775, aged one hundred and five.--E.

500 Letter 216 To George Montagu, Esq, Arlington Street, Aug. 16, 1746.

Dear George, I shall be with you on Tuesday night, and since you are so good as to be my Rowland white, must beg my apartment at the quivering dame's may be aired for me. My caravan sets out with all my household stuff on Monday; but I have heard nothing of your sister's hamper, nor do I know how to send the bantams by it, but will leave them here till I am more settled under the shade of my own mulberry- tree.

I have been this morning at the Tower, and pa.s.sed under the new heads at Temple Bar,(1275) where people make a trade of letting spying-gla.s.ses at a halfpenny a look. Old Lovat arrived last night. I saw Murray, Lord Derwent.w.a.ter, Lord Traquair, Lord Cromartie and his son, and the Lord Provost, -,it their respective windows. The other two wretched Lords are in dismal towers, and they have stopped up one of old Balmerino's windows because he talked to the populace; and now he has only one, which looks directly upon all the scaffolding. They brought in the death-warrant at his dinner.

His wife fainted. He said, "Lieutenant, with your d.a.m.ned warrant you have spoiled my lady's stomach." He has written a sensible letter to the Duke to beg his intercession, and the Duke has given it to the King; but gave a much colder answer to Duke Hamilton, who went to beg it for Lord Kilmarnock: he told him the affair was in the King's hands, and that he had nothing to do with it. Lord Kilmarnock, who has. .h.i.therto kept up his spirits, grows extremely terrified. It will be difficult to make you believe to what heights of affectation or extravagance my Lady Townshend carries her pa.s.sion for my Lord Kilmarnock, whom she never saw but at the bar of his trial, and was smitten with his falling shoulders. She has been under his windows; sends messages to him; has got his dog and his snuff-box; has taken lodgings out of town for to-morrow and Monday night, and then goes to Greenwich; forswears conversing with the b.l.o.o.d.y English, and has taken a French master. She insisted on Lord Hervey's promising her he would not sleep a whole night for my Lord Kilmarnock, "and in return," says she, "never trust me more if I am not as yellow as a jonquil for him."(1276) She said gravely t'other day, "Since I saw my Lord Kilmarnock, I really think no more of Sir Harry Nisbett than if there was no such man in the world." But of all her flights, yesterday was the strongest. George Selwyn dined with her, and not thinking her affliction so serious as she pretends, talked rather jokingly of the execution. She burst into a flood of tears and rage, told him she now believed all his father and mother had said of him; and with a thousand other reproaches flung upstairs. George coolly took Mrs. Dorcas, her woman, and made her sit down to finish the bottle: "And pray, sir," said Dorcas, "do you think my lady will be prevailed upon to let me go see the execution?

I have a friend that has promised to take care of me, and I can lie in the Tower the night before." My lady has quarrelled with Sir Charles Windham for calling the two Lords malefactors. The idea seems to be general; for 'tis said Lord Cromartie is to be transported, which diverts me for the dignity of the peerage. The ministry really gave it as a reason against their casting lots for pardon, that it was below their dignity. I did not know but that might proceed from Balmerino'S not being an earl; and therefore, now their hand is in, would have them make him one. You will see in the papers the second great victory at Placentia. There are papers pasted in several parts of the town, threatening your cousin Sandwich's head if be makes a dishonourable peace. I will bring you down Sir Charles Williams's new Ode on the Manchester.(1277) Adieu!

(1275) In the sixth volume of "London and its Environs described," published in 1761, a work which furnishes a curious view of the state of the metropolis on the accession of George the Third, it is not only gravely stated of Temple Bar, that, "since the erection of this gate, it has been particularly distinguished by having the heads of such as have been executed for high treason placed upon it," but the accompanying plate exhibits it as being at that time surmounted by three such disgusting proofs of the- then semi-barbarous state of our criminal code. The following anecdote, in reference to this exhibition, was related by Dr.

Johnson in 1773:--"I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey: while we surveyed the Poet's Corner, I said to him,

'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.'

When we got to Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered me,

'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur ISTIS."'

Life, vol. iii. p. [email protected]

( 276) "This," says the Quarterly Review, "is an odd ill.u.s.tration of the truth of the first line in the following couplet, which begins an epigram ascribed to Johnson:--