The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 50

Letter 216 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.

Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 330)

Sir, You will have heard of the severe attendance which we have had for this last week in the House of Commons. It will, I trust, have excused me to you for not having answered sooner your very kind letter. My books, I fear, have no merit over Mr. Harte's Gustavus, but by being much shorter. I read his work, and was sorry so much curious matter should be so ill and so tediously, put together. His anecdotes are much more interesting than mine; luckily I was aware that mine were very trifling, and did not dwell upon them. To answer the demand, I am printing them with additions, but must wait a little for a.s.sistance and corrections to the two latter, as I have had for the former.

You are exceedingly obliging, Sir, to offer me one of your Fergussons. I thank you for it, as I ought; but, in truth, I have more pictures than room to place them; both my houses are full, and I have even been thinking of getting rid of some I have. That this is no declension of your civility, Sir, you will see, when I gladly accept either of your medals of King Charles.

I shall be proud to keep it as a mark of your friends.h.i.+p; but then I will undoubtedly rob you of but one.

I condole with you, Sir, for the loss of your friend and relation, as I heartily take my share in whatever concerns you.

The great and unmerited kindness I have received from you will ever make me your most obliged, etc.

Letter 217To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 331)

Dear Sir, I must never send you trifles; for you always make me real presents in return. The beauty of the coin surprises me. Mr.

White must be rich, when such are his duplicates. I am acquainted with him, and have often intended to visit his collection; but it is one of those things one never does, because one always may. I give you a thousand thanks in return, and what are not worth more, my own print, Lord Herbert's Life, (this is curious, though it cost me little,) and some orange flowers. I wish you had mentioned the latter sooner: I have had an amazing profusion this year, and given them away to the right and left by handfuls. These are all I could collect to-day, as I was coming to town; but you shall have more if you want them.

I consign these things as you ordered - I wish the print may arrive without being rumpled: it is difficult to convey mezzotintos; but if this is spoiled you shall have another.

If I make any stay in France, which I do not think I shall, above six weeks at most, you shall certainly hear from me but I am a bad commissioner for searching you out a hermitage. It is too much against my interest- and I had much rather find you one in the neighbourhood of Strawberry. Adieu!

Letter 218 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1764. (page 332)

As my letters are seldom proper for the post now, I begin them at any time, and am forced to trust to chance for a conveyance.

This difficulty renders my news very stale: but what can I do?

There does not happen enough at this season of' the year to fill a mere gazette. I should be more sorry to have you think me silent too long. You must be so good as to recollect, when there is a large interval between my letters, that I have certainly one ready in my writing-box, and only wait for a messenger. I hope to send this by Lord Coventry. For the next three weeks, indeed, I shall not be able to write, as I go in a few days with your brother to Chatsworth and Wentworth Castle.

I am under more distress about my visit to you--but I will tell you the truth. As I think the Parliament Will not meet before Christmas, though they now talk of it for November, I would quit our Politics for a few weeks; but the expense frightens me, which did not use to be one of my fears. I cannot but expect, knowing the enemies I have, that the treasury may distress me.(633) I had laid by a little sum which I intended to bawble away at Paris; but I may have very serious occasion for it. The recent example of Lord Holderness,(634) Who has had every rag seized at the Custom-house, alarms my present prudence. I cannot afford to buy even clothes, which I may lose in six weeks. These considerations dispose me to wait till I see a little farther into this chaos. You know enough of the present actors in the political drama to believe that the present system is not a permanent one, nor likely to roll on till Christmas without some change. The first moment that I can quit party with honour, I shall seize. It neither suits my inclination nor the years I have lived in the world; for though I am not old, I have been in the world so long, and seen so much of those who figure in it, that I am heartily sick of its commerce. My attachment to your brother, and the apprehension that fear of my own interest would be thought the cause if I took no part for him, determined me to risk every thing rather than abandon him. I have done it, and cannot repent, whatever distresses may follow. One's good name is of more consequence than all the rest, my dear lord. Do not think I say this with the least disrespect to you; it is only to convince you that I did not recommend any thing to you that I would avoid myself; nor engaged myself, nor wished to engage you, in party from pique, resentment, caprice, or choice. I am dipped in it much against my inclination. I can suffer by it infinitely more than you could. But there are moments when one must take one's part like a man. This I speak solely with regard to myself. I allow fairly and honestly that you was not circ.u.mstanced as I was. You had not voted with your brother as I did; the world knew your inclinations were different. All this certainly composed serious reasons for you not to follow him, if you did not choose it. My motives for thinking you had better have espoused his cause were for your own sake - I detailed those motives to you in my last long letter; that opinion is as strong within me as ever.

The affront to you, the malice that aimed that affront, the importance that it gives one, upon the long-run to act steadily and uniformly with one's friends, the enemies you make in the opposition, composed of so many great families, and of your own princ.i.p.al allies,(635) and the little merit you gain with the ministry by the contrary conduct,--all these were, to me, unanswerable reasons, and remain so, for what I advised; yet, as I told you before, I think the season is pa.s.sed, and that you must wait for an opportunity of disengaging yourself with credit.

I am persuaded that occasion will be given you, from one or other of the causes I mentioned in my last; and if the fairest is, I entreat you by the good wishes which I am sure you know from my soul I bear you, to seize it. Excuse me: I know I go too far, but my heart is set on your making a great figure, and your letters are so kind, that they encourage me to speak with a friends.h.i.+p which I am sensible is not discreet:--but you know you and your brother have ever been the objects of my warmest affection and however partial you may think me to him, I must labour to have the world think as highly of you, and to unite you firmly for your lives. If this was not my motive, you must be sure I should not be earnest. It is not one vote in the House of Lords that imports us. Party is grown so Serious,(636) and will, I doubt, become every day more so, that one must make one's option; and it will go to my soul to see you embarked against all your friends, against the Whig principles you have ever professed, and with men, amongst whom you have not one well-wisher, and with whom you will not even be able to remain upon tolerable terms, unless you take a vigorous part against all you love and esteem.

In warm times lukewarmness is a crime with those on whose side you are ranged. Your good sense and experience will judge whether what I say is not strictly the case. It is not your brother or I that have occasioned these circ.u.mstances. Lord Bute has thrown this country into a confusion which will not easily be dissipated without serious hours. Changes may, and, as I said in the beginning of my letter, will probably happen but the seeds that have been sown will not be rooted up by one or two revolutions in the cabinet. It had taken an hundred and fifty years(637) to quiet the animosities of Whig and Tory; that contest is again set on foot, and though a struggle for places may be now, as has often been, the secret purpose of princ.i.p.als, the court and the nation are engaging on much deeper springs of action. I wish I could elucidate this truth, as I have the rest, but that is not fit for paper, nor to be comprised within the compa.s.s of a letter;--I have said enough to furnish you with ample reflections. I submit all to your own judgment:--I have even acted rightly by YOU, in laying before you what it was not easy for you, my dear lord, to see or know at a distance. I trust all to your indulgence, and your acquaintance with my character, which surely is not artful or mysterious, and which, to you, has ever been, as it ever shall be, most cordial and well-intentioned. I come to my gazette.

There is nothing new, but the resignation of Lord Carnarvon,(638) who has thrown up the bedchamber, and they say, the lieutenancy of Hamps.h.i.+re on Stanley being made governor of the Isle of Wight.

I have been much distressed this morning. The royal family reside chiefly at Richmond, whither scarce necessary servants attend them, and no mortal else but Lord Bute. The King and Queen have taken to going about to see places; they have been at Oatlands and Wanstead. A quarter before ten to-day, I heard the bell at the gate ring,--that is, I was not up, for my hours are not reformed, either at night or in the morning,--I inquired who it was? the Prince of Mecklenburgh and De Witz had called to know if they could see the house; my two Swiss, Favre and Louis, told them I was in bed, but if they would call again in an hour, they might see it. I shuddered at this report,--and would it were the worst part! The Queen herself was behind, in a coach: I am shocked to death, and know not what to do! It is ten times worse just now than ever at any other time: it will certainly be said, that I refused to let the Queen see my house. See what it is to have republican servants! When I made a tempest about it, Favre said, with the utmost sang froid, "Why could not he tell me he was the Prince of Mecklenburgh?" I shall go this evening and consult my oracle, Lady Suffolk. If she approves it, I will write to De Witz, and pretend I know nothing of any body but the Prince, and beg a thousand pardons, and a.s.sure him how proud I should be to have his master visit my castle at Thundertentronk.

August 4th.

I have dined to-day at Claremont, where I little thought I should dine,(639) but whither our affairs have pretty naturally conducted me. It turned out a very melancholy day. Before I got into the house, I heard that letters were just arrived there, with accounts of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re having had two more fits.

When I came to see Lord John's(640) and Lord Frederick's letters, I found these two fits had been but one, and that very slight, much less than the former, and certainly nervous by all the symptoms, as Sir Edward Wilmot, who has been at Chatsworth, p.r.o.nounces it. The Duke perceived it coming, and directed what to have done, and it was over in four minutes. The next event was much more real. I had been half round the garden with the Duke in his one-horse chair; we were pa.s.sing to the other side of the house, when George Onslow met us, arrived on purpose to advertise the Duke of the sudden death of the d.u.c.h.ess of Leeds,(641) who expired yesterday at dinner in a moment: he called it apoplectic; but as the Bishop of Oxford,(642) who is at Claremont, concluded, it was the gout flown up into the head.

The Duke received the news as men do at seventy-one: but the terrible part was to break it to the d.u.c.h.ess, who is ill. George Onslow would have taken me away to dinner with him, but the Duke thought that would alarm the d.u.c.h.ess too abruptly, and she is not to know it yet: with her very low spirits it is likely to make a deep impression. It is a heavy stroke too for her father, poor old Lord G.o.dolphin, who is eighty-six. For the Duke, his spirits, under so many mortifications and calamities, are surprising: the only effect they and his years seem to have made on him is to have abated his ridicules.(643) Our first meeting to be sure was awkward, yet I never saw a man conduct any thing with more sense than he did. There were no notices of what is pa.s.sed; nothing fulsome, no ceremony, civility enough, confidence enough, and the greatest ease. You would only have thought that I had been long abroad, and was treated like an old friend's son with whom he might make free. In truth, I never saw more rational behaviour: I expected a great deal of flattery, but we had nothing but business while we were alone, and common conversation while the Bishop and the Chaplain were present. The Duke mentioned to me his having heard Lord Holland's inclination to your emba.s.sy. He spoke very obligingly of you, and said that, next to his own children, he believed there was n.o.body the late Lord Hardwicke loved so much as you. I cannot say that the Duke spoke very affectionately of Sir Joseph Yorke. who has never written a single line to him since he was out. I told him that did not surprise me, for Sir Joseph has treated your brother in the same manner, though the latter has written two letters to him since his dismission.

Arlington Street, Tuesday night, 10 o'clock.

I am here alone in the most desolate of all towns. I came to-day to visit my sovereign d.u.c.h.ess(644) in her lying-in, and have been there till this moment, not a sole else but Lady Jane Scott.(645) Lady Waldegrave came from Tunbridge yesterday en pa.s.sant, and reported a new woful history of a fracas there--don't my Lady Hertford's ears tingle? but she will not be surprised. A footman--a very homely footman--to a Mrs. Craster, had been most extremely impertinent to Lord Clanbrazil, Frederick Vane, and a son of Lady Anne Pope; they threatened to have him turned away-- he replied, if he was, he knew where he should be protected.

Tunbridge is a quiet private place, where one does not imagine that every thing one does in one's private family will be known:- -yet so it happened that the morning after the fellow's dismission, it was reported that he was hired by another lady, the Lord knows who. At night, that lady was playing at loo in the rooms. Lord Clanbrazil told her of the report, and hoped she would contradict it: she grew as angry as a fine lady could grow, told him it was no business of his, and--and I am afraid, still more. Vane whispered her--One should have thought that name would have some weight--oh! worse and worse! the poor English language was ransacked for terms that came up to her resentment:- -the party broke up, and, I suppose, n.o.body went home to write an account of what happened to their acquaintance.

O'Brien and Lady Susan are to be transported to the Ohio, and have a grant of forty thousand acres. The d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton says sixty thousand were bestowed; but a friend of yours, and a relation of Lady Susan, nibbled away twenty thousand for a Mr.

Upton.

By a letter from your brother to-day, I find our northern journey is laid aside; the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re is coming to town; the physicians want him to go to Spa. This derangement makes me turn my eyes eagerly towards Paris; though I shall be ashamed to come thither after the wise reasons I have given you against it in the beginning of this letter; nous verrons--the temptation is strong, but patriots must resist temptations; it is not the etiquette to yield to them till a change happens.

I enclose a letter, which your brother has sent me to convey to you, and two pamphlets.(646) The former is said to be written by Shebbeare, under George Grenville's direction: the latter, which makes rather more noise, is certainly composed by somebody who does not hate your brother--I even fancy you will guess the same person for the author that every body else does. I shall be able to send you soon another pamphlet, written by Charles Townshend, on the subject of the warrants:-you see, at least, we do not ransack Newgate and the pillory(647) for writers. We leave those to the administration.

I wish you would be so kind as to tell me, what is become of my sister and Mr. Churchill. I received a letter from Lady Mary to-day, telling me she was that instant setting out from Paris, but does not say whither.

The first storm that is likely to burst in politics, seems to be threatened from the Bedford quarter. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess have been in town but for two days the whole summer, and are now going to Trentham, whither Lord Gower, qui se donnoit pour favori, is retired for three months. This is very unlike the declaration in spring, that the Duke must reside at Streatham,(648) because the King could not spare him for a day.

The memorial(649) left by Guerchy at his departure, and the late arr'ets in France on our American histories, make much noise, and seem to say that I have not been a false prophet! If our ministers can stand so many difficulties from abroad, and so much odium at home, they are abler men than I take them for. Adieu, the whole H'otel de La.s.say!(650) I verily think I shall see it soon.

(633) He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C.

(634) Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-C.

(635) Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the opposition.-C.

(636) The state of the public mind at this time is thus described by Gray:--"Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have driven away our logwood cutters already,) down go their friends in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have. Are you not struck with the great similarity there is between the first years of Charles the First and the present times? Who would have thought it possible five years ago?" Works, vol. iv.

p. 34.-E.

(637) It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he alludes to; the contests of Whig and Tory were never so violent as in the last years of Queen Anne, just fifty years before this time.-C.

(638) The Marquis of Carnarvon, eldest son of the second Duke of Chandos.-E.

(639) See ant'e, p. 258, letter 184.

(640) Lord John and Lord Frederick Cavendish, his grace's brothers.-E.

(641) Lady Mary, daughter of the second Lord G.o.dolphin, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and sister of the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle.-E.

(642) Dr. John Hume.-E.

(643) The reader will not fail to observe the sudden effect of Mr. Walpole's conversion to the Duke of Newcastle's politics, how it abates all ridicules and sweetens all acerbities. As no writer has contributed so much as Mr. Walpole to depreciate the character of the Duke of Newcastle, this kind of palinode is not unimportant. See ant'e, p. 258, letter 184.-C.

(644) The d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton lay-in, on the 17th July 1764, of her youngest son, Lord Charles.-E.

(645) Eldest daughter of Francis, second Duke of Buccleugh, born 1723, died in 1777, unmarried.-E.

(646) They were called "An Address to the Public on the late dismission of a General Officer," and "A Counter Address." The latter was written by Mr. Walpole himself.-C.

(647) Dr. Shebbeare had been convicted of a libel, and, I believe, punished in the pillory-C. [By the indulgence of the under-sheriff of Midlles.e.x, the Doctor was allowed to stand on, and not in, the pillory; for which indulgence he was prosecuted.)

(648) A villa of the Duke's at Streatham, derived from Mr.