Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume I Part 12

I have no doubts about Lord Belhaven's speeches; but unless I could verify their being published by himself, it were contrary to my rule to insert them.

If you look, Sir, into Lord Clarendon's account of Montrose's death, you will perceive that there is no probability of the book of his actions being composed by himself.

I will consult Sir James Ware's book on Lord Totness's translation; and I will mention the Earl of Cork's Memoirs.

Lord Leppington is the Earl of Monmouth, in whose article I have taken notice of his Romulus and Tarquin.

Lord Berkeley's book I have actually got, and shall give him an article.

There is one more pa.s.sage, Sir, in your letter, which I cannot answer, without putting you to new trouble--a liberty which all your indulgence cannot justify me in taking; else I would beg to know on what authority you attribute to Laurence Earl of Rochester[1] the famous preface to his father's history, which I have always heard ascribed to Atterbury, Smallridge, and Aldridge.[2] The knowledge of this would be an additional favour; it would be a much greater, Sir, if coming this way, you would ever let me have the honour of seeing a gentleman to whom I am so much obliged.

[Footnote 1: The Earl of Rochester was the second son of the Earl of Clarendon. He was Lord Treasurer under James II., but was dismissed because he refused to change his religion (Macaulay's "History of England," c. 6).]

[Footnote 2: Atterbury was the celebrated Bishop of Rochester, Smallridge was Bishop of Bristol, and Aldridge (usually written Aldrich) was Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, equally well known for his treatise on Logic and his five reasons for drinking--

Good wine, a friend, or being dry; Or lest you should be by and by, Or any other reason why--]

_HIS "ROYAL AND n.o.bLE AUTHORS"--LORD CLARENDON--SIR R. WALPOLE AND LORD BOLINGBROKE--THE DUKE OF LEEDS._

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 21, 1758.

Sir,--Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing me new information: but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of giving you so much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me; I have sent him to the press. Lord Dorset's[1] poem it will be unnecessary to mention separately, as I have already said that his works are to be found among those of the minor poets.

[Footnote 1: Lord Dorset, Lord Chamberlain under Charles II., author of the celebrated ballad "To all you ladies now on land," and patron of Dryden and other literary men, was honourably mentioned as such by Macaulay in c. 8 of his "History," and also for his refusal, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ess.e.x, to comply with some of James's illegal orders.]

I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius[1]; nor can two authors well be more unlike: the _former_ wrote a general history in a most obscure and almost unintelligible style; the _latter_, a portion of private history, in the n.o.blest style in the world. Whoever made the comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they understood bad Greek better than their own language in its elevation.

For Dr. Jortin's[2] Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity made him always writing; yet his writings ought to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things in the world. _Good Erasmus's honest mean_ was alternate time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now heartily despise him.

[Footnote 1: "_You prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius._" It is hard to understand this sentence. Lord Clarendon did _not_ write a general history, but an account of a single event, "The Great Rebellion." It was Polybius who wrote a "Universal History," of which, however, only five books have been preserved, the most interesting portion of which is a narrative of Hannibal's invasion of Italy and march over the Alps in the Second Punic War.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Jortin was Archdeacon of London; and, among other works, had recently published a life of the celebrated Erasmus, the mention of whom by Pope, which Walpole presently quotes, is not very unfairly interpreted by Walpole.]

When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you care as little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere man of letters?) it is but fit I should answer you as sincerely on a question about which you are so good as to interest yourself. That my father's life is likely to be written, I have no grounds for believing. I mean I know n.o.body that thinks of it. For, myself, I certainly shall not, for many reasons, which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to me myself is, that I think too highly of him, and too meanly of myself, to presume I am equal to the task. They who do not agree with me in the former part of my position, will undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place, the very truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the suspicion of my prejudice. In the next place, I was born too late in his life to be acquainted with him in the active part of it. Then I was at school, at the university, abroad, and returned not till the last moments of his administration. What I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth in the last three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle, and young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his leisure as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much impartiality in my nature to care, if I could, to give the world a history, collected solely from the person himself of whom I should write. With the utmost veneration for his truth, I can easily conceive, that a man who had lived a life of party, and who had undergone such persecution from party, should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all the others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion of his affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to things of that sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we rather think, were stolen by a favourite servant of my brother, who proved a great rogue, and was dismissed in my brother's life; and the papers were not discovered to be missing till after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers for many things I could say of much importance. I have another personal reason that discourages me from attempting this task, or any other, besides the great reluctance that I have to being a voluminous author.

Though I am by no means the learned man you are so good as to call me in compliment; though, on the contrary, nothing can be more superficial than my knowledge, or more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so much strained my eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a newspaper by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life, in all the hurry of the world of pleasure, I scarce ever read but by candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As my eyes have never had the least inflammation or humour, I am a.s.sured I may still recover them by care and repose. I own I prefer my eyes to anything I could ever read, much more to anything I could write. However, after all I have said, perhaps I may now and then, by degrees, throw together some short anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story, and leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if such will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can a.s.sure you he did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke[1]--his nature was forgiving: after all was over, and he had nothing to fear or disguise, I can say with truth, that there were not _three_ men of whom he ever dropped a word with rancour. What I meant of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke, alluded not to his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made on the whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to you.

I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do in my book; but I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in me, if I appeared to undervalue an author of whom so many persons of sense still think highly. My being Sir Robert Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead of censuring Lord Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds,[2] I think you have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said, _Burnet_[3] _had treated him severely_; that is, I chose that Burnet should say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my heart condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy descendants, were excusable in a work of so extensive a nature, and that approached so near to these times. I may, perhaps, have an opportunity, at one day or other of showing you some pa.s.sages suppressed on these motives, which yet I do not intend to destroy.

[Footnote 1: Sir R. Walpole was so far from having any personal quarrel with Bolingbroke, that he took off so much of his outlawry as banished him, though he would not allow him to take his seat in the House of Peers.]

[Footnote 2: This celebrated statesman was originally Sir Thomas...o...b..rne. On the dissolution of the Cabal Ministry he was raised to the peerage as Earl of Danby, and was appointed Lord Treasurer. An attempt to impeach him, which was prompted by Louis XIV., was baffled by Charles. Under William III. he was appointed President of the Council, being the recognised leader of the Tory section of the Ministry; and in the course of the reign he was twice promoted--first to be Marquis of Carmarthen, and subsequently to be Duke of Leeds.]

[Footnote 3: Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, to whose "Memoirs of His Own Time" all subsequent historians are greatly indebted. He accompanied William to England as his chaplain.]

Crew,[1] Bishop of Durham, was as abject a tool as possible. I would be very certain he is an author before I should think him worth mentioning.

If ever you should touch on Lord Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously unlike measure, and the man was so mad and so poor, that I determined not to mention him.

[Footnote 1: Crew was Bishop of Durham. He is branded by Macaulay (c. 6) as "mean, vain, and cowardly." He accepted a seat on James's Ecclesiastical Commission, and when "some of his friends represented to him the risk which he ran by sitting on an illegal tribunal, he was not ashamed to answer that he could not live out of the royal smile."]

If these details, Sir, which I should have thought interesting to no mortal but myself, should happen to amuse you, I shall be glad; if they do not, you will learn not to question a man who thinks it his duty to satisfy the curiosity of men of sense and honour, and who, being of too little consequence to have secrets, is not ambitious of the less consequence of appearing to have any.

P.S.--I must ask you one question, but to be answered entirely at your leisure. I have a play in rhyme called "Saul," said to be written by a peer. I guess Lord Orrery. If ever you happen to find out, be so good to tell me.

_WALPOLE'S MONUMENT TO SIR HORACE'S BROTHER--ATTEMPTED a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL--COURTESY OF THE DUC D'AIGUILLON TO HIS ENGLISH PRISONERS._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 24, 1758.

It is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir; yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps the most agreeable I could send you. You will not think it the bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family at Linton [in Kent], and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much sincere friends.h.i.+p in the living. The thought was my own, adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic. The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley's, who alone, of all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic. Kent and many of our builders sought this, but have never found it. Mr. Chute, who has as much taste as Mr. Bentley, thinks this little sketch a perfect model. The soffite is more beautiful than anything of either style separate. There is a little error in the inscription; it should be _Horatius Walpole posuit_. The urn is of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of ornament that destroys neither.

What do you say in Italy on the a.s.sa.s.sination of the King of Portugal?[1] Do you believe that Portuguese subjects lift their hand against a monarch for gallantry? Do you believe that when a slave murders an absolute prince, he goes a walking with his wife the next morning and murders her too? Do you believe the dead King is alive? and that the Jesuits are as _wrongfully_ suspected of this a.s.sa.s.sination as they have been of many others they have committed? If you do believe this, and all this, you are not very near turning Protestants. It is scarce talked of here, and to save trouble, we admit just what the Portuguese Minister is ordered to publish. The King of Portugal murdered, throws us two hundred years back--the King of Prussia _not_ murdered, carries us two hundred years forward again.

[Footnote 1: The Duke of Aveiro was offended with the King of Portugal for interfering to prevent his son's marriage, and, in revenge, he plotted his a.s.sa.s.sination. He procured the co-operation of some other n.o.bles, especially the Marquis and Marchioness of Tavora, and also of some of the chief Jesuits in the country, who promised absolution to any a.s.sa.s.sin. The attempt was made on September 3rd, when the King was fired at and severely wounded. The conspirators were all convicted and executed, and the Jesuits were expelled from the country.]

Another King, I know, has had a little blow: the Prince de Soubise has beat some Isenbourgs and Obergs, and is going to be Elector of Hanover this winter. There has been a great sickness among our troops in the other German army; the Duke of Marlborough has been in great danger, and some officers are dead. Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we had received of the Duc d'Aiguillon's[1] behaviour to our prisoners. You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in good-nature and good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they pa.s.sed--but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen: the night after the ma.s.sacre at St. Cas, the Duc d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners--a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and asking for a b.u.mper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke, here's the Roy de Franse!" You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. _My Lord Duke_ was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable: our own people did not seem to feel more.

[Footnote 1: The Duc d'Aiguillon was governor of Brittany when the disastrous attempt of the Duke of Marlborough on St. Cast was repulsed.

But he did not get much credit for the defeat. Lacretelle mentions that: "Les Bretons qui le considerent comme leur tyran pretendent qu'il l'etait tenu cache pendant le combat" (iii. 345). He was subsequently prosecuted on charges of peculation and subornation, which the Parliament declared to be fully established, but Mme. de Barri persuaded Louis to cancel their resolution.]

You will read and hear that we have another expedition sailing, somewhither in the West Indies. Hobson, the commander, has in his whole life had but one stroke of a palsy, so possibly may retain half of his understanding at least. There is a great tranquillity at home, but I should think not promising duration. The disgust in the army on the late frantic measures will furnish some warmth probably to Parliament--and if the French should think of returning our visits, should you wonder?

There are even rumours of some stirring among your little neighbours at Albano--keep your eye on them--if you could discover anything in time, it would do you great credit. _Apropos_ to _them_, I will send you an epigram that I made the other day on Mr. Chute's asking why Taylor the oculist called himself Chevalier?[1]

[Footnote 1: Walpole was proud of the epigram, for the week before he had sent it to Lady Hervey. It was--

Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier 'Tis not easy a reason to render, Unless blinding eyes that he thinks to make clear Demonstrates he's but a _Pretender_.

Le Chevalier was the name commonly given in courtesy by both parties to Prince Charles Edward in 1745. Colonel Talbot says: "'Well, I never thought to have been so much indebted to the Pretend--' 'To the Prince,'

said Waverley, smiling. 'To the Chevalier,' said the Colonel; 'it is a good travelling name which we may both freely use'" ("Waverley," c.

55).]

_A NEW EDITION OF LUCAN--COMPARISON OF "PHARSALEA"--CRITICISM ON THE POET, WITH THE AENEID--HELVETIUS'S WORK, "DE L'ESPRIT."_

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Dec._ 9, 1758.

Sir,--I have desired Mr. Whiston to convey to you the second edition of my Catalogue, not so complete as it might have been, if great part had not been printed before I received your remarks, but yet more correct than the first sketch with which I troubled you. Indeed, a thing of this slight and idle nature does not deserve to have much more pains employed upon it.

I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and emendations on the first seven books. Perhaps a partiality for the original author concurs a little with this circ.u.mstance of the notes, to make me fond of printing, at Strawberry Hill, the works of a man who, alone of all the cla.s.sics, was thought to breathe too brave and honest a spirit for the perusal of the Dauphin and the French. I don't think that a good or bad taste in poetry is of so serious a nature, that I should be afraid of owning too, that, with that great judge Corneille, and with that, perhaps, _no_ judge Heinsius, I prefer Lucan to Virgil. To speak fairly, I prefer great sense, to poetry with little sense. There are hemistichs in Lucan that go to one's soul and one's heart;--for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of uninteresting battles that don't teach one even to fight, I know nothing more tedious. The poetic images, the versification and language of the Aeneid are delightful; but take the story by itself, and can anything be more silly and unaffecting? There are a few G.o.ds without power, heroes without character, heaven-directed wars without justice, inventions without probability, and a hero who betrays one woman with a kingdom that he might have had, to force himself upon another woman and another kingdom to which he had no pretensions, and all this to show his obedience to the G.o.ds! In short, I have always admired his numbers so much, and his meaning so little, that I think I should like Virgil better if I understood him less.

Have you seen, Sir, a book which has made some noise--"Helvetius de l'Esprit"[1]? The author is so good and moral a man, that I grieve he should have published a system of as relaxed morality as can well be imagined: 'tis a large quarto, and in general a very superficial one.

His philosophy may be new in France, but it greatly exhausted here. He tries to imitate Montesquieu,[2] and has heaped common-places upon common-places, which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusions, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this work? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments could support it?

[Footnote 1: Helvetius was the son of the French king's physician. His book was condemned by the Parliament of Paris as derogatory to the nature of man.]