Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume I Part 10

[Footnote 2: A name given to the Duke of c.u.mberland for his severities to his prisoners after the battle of Culloden.]

The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays.

Anstruther's affair will go on, but not with much spirit. One wants to see faces about again! d.i.c.k Lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his papers into Hamlet's grave?

Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively well on his father's death. When they told him of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!"--he replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in Leicester Fields: one said, "He has left a great many small children!"--"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to our paris.h.!.+" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I), but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices: he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company."

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter. You will, with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicoll is, I am told, extremely to be pitied too; but so is everybody that knew Whithed! Bear it yourself as well as you can!

_CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY AND HOUSEHOLD--THE MISS GUNNINGS--EXTRAVAGANCE IN LONDON--LORD HARCOURT, GOVERNOR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _June_ 18, 1751.

I send my letter as usual from the Secretary's office, but of what Secretary I don't know. Lord Sandwich last week received his dismission, on which the Duke of Bedford resigned the next day, and Lord Trentham with him, both breaking with old Gower, who is entirely in the hands of the Pelhams, and made to declare his quarrel with Lord Sandwich (who gave away his daughter to Colonel Waldegrave) the foundation of detaching himself from the Bedfords. Your friend Lord Fane comforts Lord Sandwich with an annuity of a thousand a-year--scarcely for his handsome behaviour to his sister; Lord Hartington is to be Master of the Horse, and Lord Albemarle Groom of the Stole; Lord Granville[1] is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more--in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him. It is believed that Impresario Holdernesse will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations. If the former does, you will have ample instructions to negotiate for singers and dancers! Here is an epigram made upon his directors.h.i.+p:

[Footnote 1: Lord Granville, known as Lord Carteret during the lifetime of his mother, was a statesman of the very highest ability, and was regarded with special favour by the King for his power of conversing in German, then a very rare accomplishment.]

That secrecy will now prevail In politics, is certain; Since Holdernesse, who gets the seals, Was bred behind the curtain.

The Admirals Rowley and Boscawen are brought into the Admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board. Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen's case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quant.i.ty of resentment to Anson. In short, the whole present system is equally formed for duration!

Since I began my letter, Lord Holdernesse has kissed hands for the seals. It is said that Lord Halifax is to be made easy, by the plantations being put under the Board of Trade. Lord Granville comes into power as boisterously as ever, and dashes at everything. His lieutenants already beat up for volunteers; but he disclaims all connexions with Lord Bath, who, he says, forced him upon the famous ministry of twenty-four hours, and by which he says he paid all his debts to him. This will soon grow a turbulent scene--it is not unpleasant to sit upon the beach and see it; but few people have the curiosity to step out to the sight. You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult, to conceive what an indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The two Miss Gunnings,[1]

and a late extravagant dinner at White's, are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers [Newcastle and Pelham] and Lord Granville. These are two Irish girls, of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think their being two so handsome and both such perfect figures is their chief excellence, for singly I have seen much handsomer women than either; however, they can't walk in the park or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they are generally driven away. The dinner was a folly of seven young men, who bespoke it to the utmost extent of expense: one article was a tart made of duke cherries from a hot-house; and another, that they tasted but one gla.s.s out of each bottle of champagne. The bill of fare is got into print, and with good people has produced the apprehension of another earthquake. Your friend St. Leger was at the head of these luxurious heroes--he is the hero of all fas.h.i.+on. I never saw more das.h.i.+ng vivacity and absurdity, with some flashes of parts. He had a cause the other day for ducking a sharper, and was going to swear: the judge said to him, "I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath." "Yes, my lord," replied St. Leger, "my father was a judge."

[Footnote 1: One of the Miss Gunnings had singular fortune. She was married to two Dukes--the Duke of Hamilton, and, after his death, the Duke of Argyll. She refused a third, the Duke of Bridgewater; and she was the mother of four--two Dukes of Hamilton and two Dukes of Argyll.

Her sister married the Earl of Coventry. In his "Memoirs of George III."

Walpole mentions that they were so poor while in Dublin that they could not have been presented to the Lord-Lieutenant if Peg Woffington, the celebrated actress, had not lent them some clothes.]

We have been overwhelmed with lamentable Cambridge and Oxford dirges on the Prince's death: there is but one tolerable copy; it is by a young Lord Stormont, a nephew of Murray, who is much commended. You may imagine what incense is offered to Stone by the people of Christchurch: they have hooked in, too, poor Lord Harcourt, and call him _Harcourt the Wise_! his wisdom has already disgusted the young Prince; "Sir, pray hold up your head. Sir, for G.o.d's sake, turn out your toes!" Such are Mentor's precepts!

I am glad you receive my letters; as I knew I had been punctual, it mortified me that you should think me remiss. Thank you for the transcript from _Bubb[1] de tristibus_! I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who had composed such a funeral oration on his master and himself fully intended that its flowers should not bloom and wither in obscurity.

[Footnote 1: Bubb means Mr. Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, who had written Mr. Mann a letter of most extravagant lamentation on the death of the Prince of Wales. He was member for Winchelsea, and left behind him a diary, which was published some years after his death, and which throws a good deal of light on the political intrigues of the day.]

We have already begun to sell the pictures that had not found place at Houghton: the sale gives no great encouragement to proceed (though I fear it must come to that!); the large pictures were thrown away; the whole-length Vand.y.k.es went for a song! I am mortified now at having printed the catalogue. Gideon the Jew, and Blakiston the independent grocer, have been the chief purchasers of the pictures sold already--there, if you love moralizing!

Adieu! I have no more articles to-day for my literary gazette.

_DESCRIPTION OF STRAWBERRY HILL--BILL TO PREVENT CLANDESTINE MARRIAGES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 12, 1753.

I could not rest any longer with the thought of your having no idea of a place of which you hear so much, and therefore desired Mr. Bentley to draw you as much idea of it as the post would be persuaded to carry from Twickenham to Florence. The enclosed enchanted little landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill; and I will try to explain so much of it to you as will help to let you know whereabouts we are when we are talking to you; for it is uncomfortable in so intimate a correspondence as ours not to be exactly master of every spot where one another is writing, or reading, or sauntering. This view of the castle is what I have just finished, and is the only side that will be at all regular. Directly before it is an open grove, through which you see a field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn before the house is situated on the top of a small hill, from whence to the left you see the town and church of Twickenham encircling a turn of the river, that looks exactly like a seaport in miniature. The opposite sh.o.r.e is a most delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the n.o.ble woods of the park to the end of the prospect on the right, where is another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily placed as Twickenham is on the left: and a natural terrace on the brow of my hill, with meadows of my own down to the river, commands both extremities. Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must figure that all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, waggons, and hors.e.m.e.n constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after t.i.tian, &c., but when I gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle.

Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the lightest Gothic bal.u.s.trade to the staircase, adorned with antelopes (our supporters) bearing s.h.i.+elds; lean windows fattened with rich saints in painted gla.s.s, and a vestibule open with three arches on the landing-place, and niches full of trophies of old coats of mail, Indian s.h.i.+elds made of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, longbows, arrows, and spears--all _supposed_ to be taken by Sir Terry Robsart in the holy wars. But as none of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pa.s.s to that. The room on the ground-floor nearest to you is a bedchamber, hung with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner, invented by Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders printed. Over this is Mr. Chute's bedchamber, hung with red in the same manner. The bow-window room one pair of stairs is not yet finished; but in the tower beyond it is the charming closet where I am now writing to you. It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; has two windows; the one in the drawing looks to the garden, the other to the beautiful prospect; and the top of each glutted with the richest painted gla.s.s of the arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces of green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, that the castle, when finished, will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with painted gla.s.s. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's college of Arms, are two presses with books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sevigne's Letters, and any French books that relate to her and her acquaintance.

Out of this closet is the room where we always live, hung with a blue and white paper in stripes adorned with festoons, and a thousand plump chairs, couches, and luxurious settees covered with linen of the same pattern, and with a bow-window commanding the prospect, and gloomed with limes that shade half each window, already darkened with painted gla.s.s in chiaroscuro, set in deep blue gla.s.s. Under this room is a cool little hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper to imitate Dutch tiles.

I have described so much, that you will begin to think that all the accounts I used to give you of the diminutiveness of our habitation were fabulous; but it is really incredible how small most of the rooms are.

The only two good chambers I shall have are not yet built: they will be an eating-room and a library, each twenty by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet high. For the rest of the house I could send it you in this letter as easily as the drawing, only that I should have nowhere to live till the return of the post. The Chinese summer-house, which you may distinguish in the distant landscape, belongs to my Lord Radnor. We pique ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, and have no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayings, or tawdry businesses.

You will not be sorry, I believe, by this time to have done with Strawberry Hill, and to hear a little news. The end of a very dreaming session has been extremely enlivened by an accidental bill which has opened great quarrels, and those not unlikely to be attended with interesting circ.u.mstances. A bill to prevent clandestine marriages,[1]

so drawn by the Judges as to clog all matrimony in general, was inadvertently espoused by the Chancellor; and having been strongly attacked in the House of Commons by Nugent, the Speaker, Mr. Fox, and others, the last went very great lengths of severity on the whole body of the law, and on its chieftain in particular, which, however, at the last reading, he softened and explained off extremely. This did not appease: but on the return of the bill to the House of Lords, where our amendments were to be read, the Chancellor in the most personal terms harangued against Fox, and concluded with saying that "he despised his scurrility as much as his adulation and recantation." As Christian charity is not one of the oaths taken by privy-counsellors, and as it is not the most eminent virtue in either of the champions, this quarrel is not likely to be soon reconciled. There are natures whose disposition it is to patch up political breaches, but whether they will succeed, or try to succeed in healing this, can I tell you?

[Footnote 1: These clandestine marriages were often called "Fleet marriages." Lord Stanhope, describing this Act, states that "there was ever ready a band of degraded and outcast clergymen, prisoners for debt or for crime, who hovered about the verge of the Fleet prison soliciting customers, and plying, like porters, for employment.... One of these wretches, named Keith, had gained a kind of pre-eminence in infamy. On being told there was a scheme on foot to stop his lucrative traffic, he declared, with many oaths, he would still be revenged of the Bishops, that he would buy a piece of ground and outbury them!" ("History of England," c. 31).]

The match for Lord Granville, which I announced to you, is not concluded: the flames are cooled in that quarter as well as in others.

I begin a new sheet to you, which does not match with the other, for I have no more of the same paper here. Dr. Cameron is executed, and died with the greatest firmness. His parting with his wife the night before was heroic and tender: he let her stay till the last moment, when being aware that the gates of the Tower would be locked, he told her so; she fell at his feet in agonies: he said, "Madam, this was not what you promised me," and embracing her, forced her to retire: then with the same coolness looked at the window till her coach was out of sight, after which he turned about and wept. His only concern seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn: he was not disturbed at the dresser for his body, or at the fire to burn his bowels.[1] The crowd was so great, that a friend who attended him could not get away, but was forced to stay and behold the execution; but what will you say to the minister or priest that accompanied him? The wretch, after taking leave, went into a landau, where, not content with seeing the Doctor hanged, he let down the top of the landau for the better convenience of seeing him embowelled! I cannot tell you positively that what I hinted of this Cameron being commissioned from Prussia was true, but so it is believed.

Adieu! my dear child; I think this is a very tolerable letter for summer!

[Footnote 1: "The populace," says Smollett, "though not very subject to tender emotions, were moved to compa.s.sion, and even to tears, by his behaviour at the place of execution; and many sincere well-wishers of the present establishment thought that the sacrifice of this victim, at such a juncture, could not redound either to its honour or security."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE MONTAGU.]

_NO NEWS FROM FRANCE BUT WHAT IS SMUGGLED--THE KING'S DELIGHT AT THE VOTE FOR THE HANOVER TROOPS--BON MOT OF LORD DENBIGH._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _May_ 19, 1756.

Nothing will be more agreeable to me than to see you at Strawberry Hill; the weather does not seem to be of my mind, and will not invite you. I believe the French have taken the sun. Among other captures, I hear the King has taken another English mistress, a Mrs. Pope, who took her degrees in gallantry some years ago. She went to Versailles with the famous Mrs. Quon: the King took notice of them; he was told they were not so rigid as _all_ other English women are--mind, I don't give you any part of this history for authentic; you know we can have no news from France but what we run.[1] I have rambled so that I forgot what I intended to say; if ever we can have spring, it must be soon: I propose to expect you any day you please after Sunday se'nnight, the 30th: let me know your resolution, and pray tell me in what magazine is the Strawberry ballad? I should have proposed an earlier day to you, but next week the Prince of Na.s.sau is to breakfast at Strawberry Hill, and I know your aversion to clas.h.i.+ng with grandeur.

[Footnote 1: "During the winter England was stirred with constantly recurring alarms of a French invasion.... Addresses were moved in both Houses entreating or empowering the King to summon over for our defence some of his Hanoverian troops, and also some of hired Hessians--an ignominious vote, but carried by large majorities" (Lord Stanhope, "History of England," c. 22).]

As I have already told you one mob story of a King, I will tell you another: _they say_, that the night the Hanover troops were voted, _he_ sent Schutz for his German cook, and said, "Get me a very good supper; get me all de varieties; I don't mind expense."

I tremble lest his Hanoverians should be encamped at Hounslow; Strawberry would become an inn; all the Misses would breakfast there, to go and see the camp!

My Lord Denbigh is going to marry a fortune, I forget her name; my Lord Gower asked him how long the honey-moon would last? He replied, "Don't tell me of the honey-moon; it is harvest moon with me." Adieu!

_VICTORY OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA AT LOWOSITZ--SINGULAR RACE--QUARREL OF THE PRETENDER WITH THE POPE._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 17, 1756.

Lentulus (I am going to tell you no old Roman tale; he is the King of Prussia's aid-de-camp) arrived yesterday, with ample confirmation of the victory in Bohemia.[1]--Are not you glad that we have got a victory that we can at least call _Cousin_? Between six and seven thousand Austrians were killed: eight Prussian squadrons sustained the _acharnement_, which is said to have been extreme, of thirty-two squadrons of Austrians: the pursuit lasted from Friday noon till Monday morning; both our countrymen, Brown and Keith, performed wonders--we seem to flourish much when transplanted to Germany--but Germans don't make good manure here!

The Prussian King writes that both Brown and Piccolomini are too strongly intrenched to be attacked. His Majesty ran _to_ this victory; not _a la_ Molwitz. He affirms having found in the King of Poland's cabinet ample justification of his treatment of Saxony--should not one query whether he had not these proofs in his hands antecedent to the cabinet? The Dauphiness[2] is said to have flung herself at the King of France's feet and begged his protection for her father; that he promised "qu'il le rendroit au centuple au Roi de Prusse."

[Footnote 1: On the 1st of the month Frederic II. had defeated the Austrian general, Marshal Brown, at Lowositz. It was the first battle of the Seven Years' War, and was of great political importance as leading to the capture of Dresden and of laying all Saxony at the mercy of the conqueror. "_a la_ Molwitz" is an allusion to the first battle in the war of the Austrian Succession, April 10, 1741, in which Frederic showed that he was not what Voltaire and Mr. Pitt called "a heaven-born general;" since on the repulse of his cavalry he gave up all for lost, and rode from the field, to learn at night that, after his flight, his second in command, the veteran Marshal Schwerin, had rallied the broken squadrons, and had obtained a decisive victory.]

[Footnote 2: The Dauphiness was the daughter of Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.]