Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume I Part 14

You guessed right about the King of Spain; he is dead, and the Queen Dowager may once more have an opportunity of embroiling the little of Europe that remains unembroiled.

Thank you, my dear Sir, for the Herculaneum and Caserta that you are sending me. I wish the watch may arrive safe, to show you that I am not insensible to all your attentions for me, but endeavour, at a great distance, to imitate you in the execution of commissions.

I would keep this letter back for a post, that I might have but one trouble of sending you Quebec too; but when one has taken so many places, it is not worth while to wait for one more.

Lord George Sackville, the hero of all conversation, if one can be so for not being a hero, is arrived. He immediately applied for a Court-Martial, but was told it was impossible now, as the officers necessary are in Germany. This was in writing from Lord Holdernesse--but Lord Ligonier in words was more squab--"If he wanted a Court-Martial, he might go seek it in Germany." All that could be taken from him, is, his regiment, above two thousand pounds a year: commander in Germany at ten pounds a day, between three and four thousand pounds: lieutenant-general of the ordnance, one thousand five hundred pounds: a fort, three hundred pounds. He remains with a patent place in Ireland of one thousand two hundred pounds, and about two thousand pounds a year of his own and wife's. With his parts and ambition it cannot end here; he calls himself ruined, but when the Parliament meets, he will probably attempt some sort of revenge.

They attribute, I don't know with what grounds, a sensible kind of plan to the French; that De la Clue was to have pushed for Ireland, Thurot for Scotland, and the Brest fleet for England--but before they lay such great plans, they should take care of proper persons to execute them.[1]

[Footnote 1: De la Clue and the French were this year making unusual efforts to establish a naval superiority over us, which they never had done, and never will do. As is mentioned in this letter, one powerful fleet was placed under De la Clue, another under Conflans, and a strong squadron under Commodore Thurot. De la Clue, however, for many weeks kept close in Toulon, resisting every endeavour of Boscawen to tempt him out, till the English admiral was compelled to retire to Gibraltar for the repair of some of his s.h.i.+ps. De la Clue, not knowing which way he had gone, thought he could steal through the Straits to join Conflans, according to his original orders. But Boscawen caught him off Cape Lagos, and gave him a decisive defeat, capturing five sail of the line, and among them the flags.h.i.+p _L'Ocean_ (80). Before the end of the year Hawke almost destroyed the fleet of Conflans, capturing five and driving the rest on sh.o.r.e; while Thurot, who at first had a gleam of success, making one or two descents on the northern coast of Ireland, and even capturing Carrickfergus, had, in the end, worse fortune than either of his superior officers, being overtaken at the mouth of Belfast Lough by Captain Elliott with a squadron of nearly equal force, when the whole of the French squadron was taken and he himself was killed (the Editor's "History of the British Navy," c. 12).]

I cannot help smiling at the great objects of our letters. We never converse on a less topic than a kingdom. We are a kind of citizens of the world, and battles and revolutions are the common incidents of our neighbourhood. But that is and must be the case of distant correspondences: Kings and Empresses that we never saw, are the only persons we can be acquainted with in common. We can have no more familiarity than the _Daily Advertiser_ would have if it wrote to the _Florentine Gazette_. Adieu! My compliments to any monarch that lives within five hundred miles of you.

_A YEAR OF TRIUMPHS._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 21, 1759.

Your pictures shall be sent as soon as any of us go to London, but I think that will not be till the Parliament meets. Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold.[1] I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of suns.h.i.+ne. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing--all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu! I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.

[Footnote 1: The immediate cause of this exultation was the battle (September 14th) and subsequent capture of Quebec. On the other side of the world Colonel Forde had inflicted severe defeats on the French and Dutch, and had taken Masulipatam; and besides these triumphs there were our naval successes mentioned in the last letter, and the battle of Minden.]

P.S.--You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

2nd P.S.--I had sealed my letter, but break it open again, having forgot to tell you that Mr. Cowslade has the pictures of Lord and Lady Cutts, and is willing to sell them.

_FRENCH BANKRUPTCY--FRENCH EPIGRAM._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Nov._ 8, 1759.

Your pictures will set out on Sat.u.r.day; I give you notice, that you may inquire for them. I did not intend to be here these three days, but my Lord Bath taking the trouble to send a man and horse to ask me to dinner yesterday, I did not know how to refuse; and besides, as Mr. Bentley said to me, "you know he was an old friend of your father."

The town is empty, but is coming to dress itself for Sat.u.r.day. My Lady Coventry showed George Selwyn her clothes; they are blue, with spots of silver, of the size of a s.h.i.+lling, and a silver tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and cost--my lord will know what. She asked George how he liked them; he replied, "Why, you will be change for a guinea."

I find nothing talked of but the French bankruptcy;[1] Sir Robert Brown, I hear--and am glad to hear--will be a great sufferer. They put gravely into the article of bankrupts in the newspaper, "Louis le Pet.i.t, of the city of Paris, peace-breaker, dealer, and chapman;" it would have been still better if they had said, "Louis Bourbon of petty France." We don't know what is become of their Monsieur Thurot, of whom we had still a little mind to be afraid. I should think he would do like Sir Thomas Hanmer, make a faint effort, beg pardon of the Scotch for their disappointment, and retire. Here are some pretty verses just arrived.

Pourquoi le baton a Soubise, Puisque Chevert est le vainqueur?[2]

C'est de la cour une meprise, Ou bien le but de la faveur.

Je ne vois rien la qui m'etonne, Repond aussitot un railleur; C'est a l'aveugle qu'on le donne, Et non pas au conducteur.

[Footnote 1: In 1759 M. Bertin was Finance Minister--the fourth who had held that office in four years; and among his expedients for raising money he had been compelled to have recourse to the measure of stopping the payment of the interest on a large portion of the National Debt.]

[Footnote 2: "_Chevert est le vainqueur._" He was one of the most brilliant officers in the French army. It was he who, under the orders of Saxe, surprised Prague in 1744, and it was to him that Marechal d'Estrees was princ.i.p.ally indebted for his victory of Hastenbeck.]

Lady Meadows has left nine thousand pounds in reversion after her husband to Lord Sandwich's daughter. _Apropos_ to my Lady Meadows's maiden name, a name I believe you have sometimes heard; I was diverted t'other day with a story of a lady of that name,[1] and a lord, whose initial is no farther from hers than he himself is sometimes supposed to be. Her postillion, a lad of sixteen, said, "I am not such a child but I can guess something: whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in n.o.body else, and then they call for a pen and ink, and say they are going to write history." Is not this _finesse_ so like him? Do you know that I am persuaded, now he is parted, that he will forget he is married, and propose himself in form to some woman or other.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Montagu was the foundress of "The Blue-stocking Club."

She was the auth.o.r.ess of three "Dialogues of the Dead," to which Walpole is alluding here, and which she published with some others by Lord Lyttelton.]

When do you come? if it is not soon, you will find a new town. I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire; there are twenty new stone houses: at first I concluded that all the grooms, that used to live there, had got estates, and built palaces. One young gentleman, who was getting an estate, but was so indiscreet as to step out of his way to rob a comrade, is convicted, and to be transported; in short, one of the waiters at Arthur's. George Selwyn says, "What a horrid idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate!"

I was still more surprised t'other day, than at seeing Piccadilly, by receiving a letter from the north of Ireland from a clergyman, with violent encomiums on my "Catalogue of n.o.ble Authors"--and this when I thought it quite forgot. It puts me in mind of the queen[1] that sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe.

[Footnote 1: Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I., who erected the cross at Charing, and others at the different places where her body had stopped on the way from the North to Westminster.]

Mr. Chute has got his commission to inquire about your Cutts, but he thinks the lady is not your grandmother. You are very ungenerous to h.o.a.rd tales from me of your ancestry: what relation have I spared? If your grandfathers were knaves, will your bottling up their bad blood mend it? Do you only take a cup of it now and then by yourself, and then come down to your parson, and boast of it, as if it was pure old metheglin? I sat last night with the Mater Gracchorum--oh! 'tis a Mater Jagorum; if her descendants taste any of her black blood, they surely will make as wry faces at it as the servant in Don John does when the ghost decants a corpse. Good night! I am just returning to Strawberry, to husband my two last days and to avoid all the pomp of the birthday.

Oh! I had forgot, there is a Miss Wynne coming forth, that is to be handsomer than my Lady Coventry; but I have known one threatened with such every summer for these seven years, and they are always addled by winter!

_HE LIVES AMONGST ROYALTY--COMMOTIONS IN IRELAND._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 7, 1760.

You must not wonder I have not written to you a long time; a person of my consequence! I am now almost ready to say, _We_, instead of _I_. In short, I live amongst royalty--considering the plenty, that is no great wonder. All the world lives with them, and they with all the world.

Princes and Princesses open shops, in every corner of the town, and the whole town deals with them. As I have gone to one, I chose to frequent all, that I might not be particular, and seem to have views; and yet it went so much against me, that I came to town on purpose a month ago for the Duke's levee, and had engaged Brand to go with me--and then could not bring myself to it. At last, I went to him and Princess Emily yesterday. It was well I had not flattered myself with being still in my bloom; I am grown so old since they saw me, that neither of them knew me. When they were told, he just spoke to me (I forgive him; he is not out of my debt, even with that): she was exceedingly gracious, and commended Strawberry to the skies. To-night, I was asked to their party at Norfolk House. These parties are wonderfully select and dignified: one might sooner be a knight of Malta than qualified for them; I don't know how the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, Mr. Fox, and I, were forgiven some of our ancestors. There were two tables at loo, two at whist, and a quadrille. I was commanded to the Duke's loo; he was sat down: not to make him wait, I threw my hat upon the marble table, and broke four pieces off a great crystal chandelier. I stick to my etiquette, and treat them with great respect; not as I do my friend, the Duke of York.

But don't let us talk any more of Princes. My Lucan appears to-morrow; I must say it is a n.o.ble volume. Shall I send it to you--or won't you come and fetch it?

There is nothing new of public, but the violent commotions in Ireland,[1] whither the Duke of Bedford still persists in going. Aeolus to quell a storm!

[Footnote 1: "In 1759 reports that a Legislative Union was contemplated led to some furious Protestant riots in Dublin. The Chancellor and some of the Bishops were violently attacked. A judge in a law case warned the Roman Catholics that 'the laws did not presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom'; nor could they breathe without the connivance of the Government" (Lecky, "History of England," ii. 436). Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, mentions that they forced their way into the House of Lords, and "placed an old woman on the throne, and called for pipes and tobacco." He especially mentions the Bishops of Killaloe and Waterford as exposed to ardent ill-treatment, and concludes: "The notion that had possessed the crowd was that an union was to be voted between the two nations, and they should have no more Parliaments in Dublin."]

I am in great concern for my old friend, poor Lady Harry Beauclerc; her lord dropped down dead two nights ago, as he was sitting with her and all their children. Admiral Boscawen is dead by this time. Mrs.

Osborn[1] and I are not much afflicted: Lady Jane c.o.ke too is dead, exceedingly rich; I have not heard her will yet.

[Footnote 1: Boscawen had been a member of the court martial which had found Admiral Byng guilty. Mrs. Osborn was Byng's sister.]

If you don't come to town soon, I give you warning, I will be a lord of the bedchamber, or a gentleman usher. If you will, I will be nothing but what I have been so many years--my own and yours ever.

_SEVERITY OF THE WEATHER--SCARCITY IN GERMANY--A PARTY AT PRINCE EDWARD'S--CHARLES TOWNSEND'S COMMENTS ON LA FONTAINE._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 14, 1760.

How do you contrive to exist on your mountain in this rude season? Sure you must be become a s...o...b..ll! As I was not in England in forty-one, I had no notion of such cold. The streets are abandoned; nothing appears in them: the Thames is almost as solid. Then think what a campaign must be in such a season! Our army was under arms for fourteen hours on the twenty-third, expecting the French; and several of the men were frozen when they should have dismounted. What milksops the Marlboroughs and Turennes, the Blakes and the Van Tromps appear now, who whipped into winter quarters and into port, the moment their noses looked blue. Sir Cloudesley Shovel said that an admiral would deserve to be broke, who kept great s.h.i.+ps out after the end of September, and to be shot if after October. There is Hawke in the bay weathering _this_ winter, after conquering in a storm. For my part, I scarce venture to make a campaign in the Opera-house; for if I once begin to freeze, I shall be frozen through in a moment. I am amazed, with such weather, such ravages, and distress, that there is anything left in Germany, but money; for thither, half the treasure of Europe goes: England, France, Russia, and all the Empress can squeeze from Italy and Hungary, all is sent thither, and yet the wretched people have not subsistence. A pound of bread sells at Dresden for eleven-pence. We are going to send many more troops thither; and it is so much the fas.h.i.+on to raise regiments, that I wish there were such a neutral kind of beings in England as abbes,[1] that one might have an excuse for not growing military mad, when one has turned the heroic corner of one's age. I am ashamed of being a young rake, when my seniors are covering their grey toupees with helmets and feathers, and accoutering their pot-bellies with cuira.s.ses and martial masquerade habits. Yet rake I am, and abominably so, for a person that begins to wrinkle reverendly. I have sat up twice this week till between two and three with the d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton, at loo, who, by the way, has got a pam-child this morning, and on Sat.u.r.day night I supped with Prince Edward at my Lady Rochford's, and we stayed till half an hour past three. My favour with that Highness continues, or rather increases. He makes everybody make suppers for him to meet me, for I still hold out against going to court. In short, if he were twenty years older, or I could make myself twenty years younger, I might carry him to Campden House, and be as impertinent as ever my Lady Churchill was; but, as I dread being ridiculous, I shall give my Lord Bute no uneasiness. My Lady Maynard, who divides the favour of this tiny court with me, supped with us. Did you know she sings French ballads very prettily? Lord Rochford played on the guitar, and the Prince sung; there were my two nieces, and Lord Waldegrave, Lord Huntingdon, and Mr. Morrison the groom, and the evening was pleasant; but I had a much more agreeable supper last night at Mrs. Clive's, with Miss West, my niece Cholmondeley, and Murphy, the writing actor, who is very good company, and two or three more. Mrs.

Cholmondeley is very lively; you know how entertaining the Clive is, and Miss West is an absolute original.

[Footnote 1: French chroniclers remark that the t.i.tle Abbe had long since ceased in France to denote the possession of any ecclesiastical preferment, but had become a courteous denomination of unemployed ecclesiastics; and they compare it to the use of the term "Esquire" in England.]

There is nothing new, but a very dull pamphlet written by Lord Bath, and his chaplain Douglas, called a "Letter to Two Great Men." It is a plan for the peace, and much adopted by the City, and much admired by all who are too humble to judge for themselves.