The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 8

Stosch has grievously offended me; but that he will little regard, as I can be of no use to him: he has sold or given his charming intaglio of the Gladiator to Lord Duncannon. I must reprove you a little who sent it; you know how much I pressed you to buy it for me, and how much I offered. I still think it one of the finest rings(144) I ever saw, and am mortified at not having it.

Apropos to Bower; Miss Pelham had heard that he had foretold the return of the earthquake-fit: her father sent for him, to COnVince her that Bower was too sensible; but had the precaution to talk to him first: he replied gravely, that a fire was kindled under the earth, and he could not tell when it would blaze out. You may be sure he was not carried to the girl! Adieu!

(140) Jonas, sixth Duke of Hamilton, the Husband of the beautiful Miss Gunning. he died in 1758.-D.

(141) Mademoiselle Gauchet.

(142) William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, Lord Lieutenant.

(143) Archibald Bow(@r, a man of disreputable character, who was born in Scotland, of a Roman Catholic family, was educated at Douay and Rome, and became a Jesuit. Having been detected, as it is said, in an intrigue with a nun, he was forced to fly from Perugia, where he resided: and after a series of strange and not very creditable adventures, he arrived in England.

Here he declared himself a Protestant; but, after some years, wis.h.i.+ng to swindle the English Jesuits out of an annuity, be again returned to their order. Having got all he could from them, he again returned to Protestantism, and wrote his "History of the Popes," which was his princ.i.p.al literary work.-D. (Gibbon, speaking of Bower, in his Extraits (le mon Journal for 1764, says, " He is a rogue unmasked, who enjoyed, for twenty years, the favour of the public, because he had quitted a sect to which he still secretly adhered; and because he had been a counsellor of the inquisition in the town of Macerata, where an inquisition never existed." Bower died in Bond Street, in September, 1766, in his eighty-first year, and was buried in Mary-le-bone churchyard, where there is a monument to his memory.]

(144) It is engraved in Stosch's book: it is a Gladiator standing, with a vase by him on a table, on an exceedingly fine garnet.

68 Letter 25 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, June 23, 1750.

Dear George, As I am not Vanneck'd(145) I have been in no hurry to thank you for your congratulation, and to a.s.sure you that I never knew what solid happiness was till I was married. Your Trevors and Rices dined with me last week at Strawberry Hill, and would have had me answer you upon the matrimonial tone, but I thought I should imitate cheerfulness in that style as ill as if I were really married. I have had another of your friends with me here some time, whom I adore, Mr. Bentley; he has more sense, judgment, and wit, more taste, and more misfortunes, than sure ever met in any man. I have heard that Dr. Bentley, regretting his want of taste for all such learning as his, which is the very want of taste, used to sigh and say, "Tully had his Marcus." If the sons resembled as much as the fathers did, at least in vanity, I would be the modest agreeable Marquis. Mr.

Bentley tells me that you press him much to visit you at Hawkhurst. I advise him, and a.s.sure him he will make his fortune under you there; that you are an agent from the board of trade to the smugglers, and wallow in contraband wine, tea, and silk handkerchiefs. I found an old newspaper t'other day, with a list of outlawed smugglers; there were John Price, alias Miss Marjoram, Bob Plunder, Bricklayer Tom, and Robin Cursemother, all of Hawkhurst, in Kent. When Miss Harriet is thoroughly hardened at Buxton, as I hear she is being,, in a public room with the whole Wells, from drinking waters, I conclude she will come to sip nothing but new brandy.

As jolly and as abominable a life as she may have been leading, I defy all her enormities to equal a party of pleasure that I had t'other night. I shall relate it to you to show you the manners of the age, which are always as entertaining to a person fifty miles off, as to one born an hundred and fifty years after the time. I had a card from Lady Caroline Petersham to go with her to Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house, and found her and the little Ashe,(146) or the Pollard Ashe, as they call her; they had just finished their last layer of red, and looked as handsome as crimson could make them. On the cabinet-door stood a pair of Dresden candlesticks, a present from the virgin hands of Sir John Bland: the branches of each formed a little bower over a c.o.c.k and hen * * * * We issued into the mall to a.s.semble our company, which was all the town, if we could get it; for just so many had been summoned, except Harry Vane(147) whom we met by chance. We mustered the Duke of Kingston, whom Lady Caroline says she has been trying for these seven years; but alas! his beauty is at the fall of the leaf; Lord March,(148) Mr. Whitehead, a pretty Miss Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre. These two damsels were trusted by their mothers for the first time of their lives to the matronly care of Lady Caroline. As we sailed up the mall with all our colours flying, Lord Petersham,(149) with his hose and legs twisted to every point of crossness, strode by us on the outside, and repa.s.sed again on the return. At the end of' the mall she called to him; he would not answer: she gave a familiar spring and, between laugh and confusion, ran up to him, "My lord! my lord! why, you don't see us!" We advanced at a little distance, not a little awkward in expectation how all this would end, for my lord never stirred his hat, or took the least notice of any body; she said, "Do you go with us, or are you going any where else?"--"I don't go with you, I am going somewhere else;" and away he stalked. as sulky as a ghost that n.o.body will speak to first. We got into the best order we could, and marched to our barge, with a boat of French horns attending, and little Ashe singing. We paraded some time up the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall - there, if we had so pleased, we might have had the vivacity of our party increased by a quarrel; for a Mrs. Loyd,(150)Who is supposed to be married to Lord Haddington, seeing the two girls following Lady Petersham and Miss Ashe, said aloud, "Poor girls, I am sorry to see them in such bad company!" Miss Sparre, who desired nothing so much as the fun of seeing a duel,--a thing which, though she is fifteen, she has never been so lucky to see,--took due pains to make Lord March resent this; but he, who is very lively and agreeable, laughed her out of this charming frolic with a great deal of humour. Here we picked up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim;(151) where, instead of going to old Strafford's(152) catacombs to make honourable love, he had dined with Lady f.a.n.n.y,(153) and left her and eight other women and four other men playing at brag. He would fain have made over his honourable love upon any terms to poor Miss Beauclerc, who is very modest, and did not know at all what to do with his whispers or his hands. He then addressed himself to the Sparre, who was very well disposed to receive both; but the tide of champagne turned, he hiccupped at the reflection of his marriage (of which he is wondrous sick), and only proposed to the girl to shut themselves up and rail at the world for three weeks. If all the adventures don't conclude as you expect in the beginning of a paragraph, you must not wonder, for I am not making a history, but relating one strictly as it happened, and I think with full entertainment enough to content you. At last, we a.s.sembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front, with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She had fetched my brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his pet.i.te partie, to help us to mince chickens. We minced seven chickens into a china dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of b.u.t.ter and a flagon of water, stirring and rattling, and laughing, and we every minute expecting to have the dish fly about our ears. She had brought Betty, the fruit-girl, with hampers of strawberries and cherries from Rogers's, and made her wait upon us, and then made her sup by us at a little table. The conversation was no less lively than the whole transaction. There was a Mr. O'Brien arrived from Ireland, who would get the d.u.c.h.ess of Manchester from Mr. Hussey, if she were still at liberty. I took up the biggest hautboy in the dish, and said to Lady Caroline, "Madam, Miss Ashe desires you would eat this...o...b..ien strawberry:" she replied immediately, "I won't, you hussey." You may imagine the laugh this reply occasioned. After the tempest was a little calmed, the Pollard said, "Now, how any body would spoil this story that was to repeat it, and say, "I won't, you jade!" In short, the whole air of our party was sufficient, as you will easily imagine, to take up the whole attention of the garden; so much so, that from eleven o'clock till half an hour after one we had the whole concourse round our booth: at last, they came into the little gardens of each booth on the sides of ours, till Harry Vane took up a b.u.mper, and drank their healths, and was proceeding to treat them with still greater freedom. It was three o'clock before we got home. I think I have told you the chief pa.s.sages. Lord Granby's temper had been a little ruffled the night before; the Prince had invited him and d.i.c.k Lyttelton to Kew, where he won eleven hundred pounds of the latter, and eight of the former, then cut and told them @e would play with them no longer, for he saw they played so idly, that they were capable of "losing more than they would like." Adieu! I expect in return for this long tale that you will tell me some of your frolics with Robin Cursemother, and some of Miss Marjoram's bon-mots.

P. S. Dr. Middleton called on me yesterday: he is come to town to consult his physician for a jaundice and swelled legs, symptoms which, the doctor tells him, and which he believes, can be easily cured: I think him visibly broke, and near his end.(154) He lately advised me to marry, on the sense of his own happiness; but if any body had advised him to the contrary, at his time of life,(155) I believe he would not have broke so soon.

(145) Alluding to the projected marriages, which soon after took place, between two of the sons of his uncle Lord Walpole: who each of them married a daughter of Sir Joshua Vanneck.-E.

(146 Miss Ashe was said to have been of very high parentage.

She married Mr. Falconer; an officer in the navy.-E.

(147) Eldest son of Lord Barnard, created Earl of Darlington in 1754.-E.

(148) Upon the death of Charles, Duke of Queensbury and Dover, he succeeded, in 1778, to the t.i.tle of Queensbury, and died unmarried in 1810.-E.

(149) Afterwards Earl of Harrington. His gait was so singular, that he was generally known by the nickname of Peter Shamble.-E.

(150) She was afterwards married to Lord Haddington.-E.

(151) A tavern at the end of the wooden bridge at Chelsea, at that period much frequented by his lords.h.i.+p and other men of rank.-E.

(152) Anne, daughter and Heiress of Sir Henry Johnson, widow of Thomas Lord Raby, created Earl of Strafford in 1711.

(153) Lady Frances Seymour, eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Somerset (known by the name of the Proud Duke), by his second d.u.c.h.ess, Lady Charlotte Finch. She was married in the following September to the Marquis of Granby.-E.

(154) Warburton, in a letter to Hurd, of the 11th of July, says, "I hear Dr. Middleton has been lately in London, (I suppose, to consult Dr. Heberden about his health,) and is returned in an extreme bad condition. The scribblers against him will say they have killed him; but by what Mr. Yorke told me, his bricklayer will dispute the honour of his death with them.',-E.

(155) The Doctor had recently taken a third wife, the relict of a Bristol merchant. On making her a matrimonial visit, Bishop Gooch told Mrs. Middleton that ,he was glad she did not dislike the Ancients so much as her husband did." She replied, "that she hoped his lords.h.i.+p did not reckon her husband among the Ancients yet." The Bishop answered, "You, Madam, are the best judge of that" Nichols's literary Anecdotes, Vol. v. p. 422.-E.

71 Letter 26 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 25, 1750.

I told YOU my idle season was coming on, and that I should have great intervals between my letters; have not I kept my word?

For any thing I have to tell you, I might have kept it a month longer. I came out of Ess.e.x last night, and find the town quite depopulated: I leave it to-morrow, and go to Mr.

Conway's(156) in Buckinghams.h.i.+re, with only giving a transient glance on Strawberry Hill. Don't imagine I am grown fickle; I thrust all my visits into a heap, and then am quiet for the rest of the season. It is so much the way in England to jaunt about, that one can't avoid it; but it convinces me that people are more tired of themselves and the country than they care to own.

Has your brother told you that my Lord Chesterfield has bought the Houghton lantern? the famous lantern, that produced so much patriot Wit;(157) and very likely some of his lords.h.i.+p's? My brother had bought a much handsomer at Lord Cholmondeley's sale; for, with all the immensity of the celebrated one, it was ugly, and too little for the hall. He would have given it to Lord Chesterfield rather than he should not have had it.

You tell us nothing of your big events, of the quarrel of the Pope and the Venetians, on the Patriarchate of Aquileia. We look upon it as so decisive that I should not wonder if Mr.

Lyttelton, or Whitfield the Methodist, were to set out for Venice, to make them a tender of some of our religions.

Is it true too what we hear, that the Emperor has turned the tables on her Caesarean jealousy,(158) and discarded Metastasio the poet, and that the latter is gone mad upon it, instead of hugging himself on coming off so much better than his predecessor in royal love and music, David Rizzio? I believe I told you that one of your sovereigns, and an intimate friend of yours, King Theodore, is in the King's Bench prison. I have so little to say, that I don't care if I do tell you the same thing twice. He lived in a privileged place; his creditors seized him by making him believe lord Granville wanted him on business of importance; he bit at it, and concluded they were both to be reinstated at once. I have desired Hogarth to go and steal his picture for me; though I suppose one might easily buy a sitting of him. The King of Portugal (and when I have told you this, I have done with kings) has bought a handsome house here,(159) for the residence of his ministers.

I believe you have often heard me mention a Mr. Ashton,(160) a clergyman, who, in one word, has great preferments, and owes every thing upon earth to me. I have long had reason to complain of his behaviour; in short, my father is dead, and I can make no bishops. He has at last quite thrown off the mask, and in the most direct manner, against my will, has written against my friend Dr. Middleton,(161) taking for his motto these lines,

"Nullius addictus jurare in verba Magistri, Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum".

I have forbid him my house, and wrote this paraphrase upon his picture,

"Nullius addictus munus meminisse Patroni, Quid vacat et qui dat, curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum."

I own it was pleasant to me the other day, on meeting Mr.

Tonson, his bookseller, at the Speaker's, and asking him if he had sold many of Mr. Ashton's books, to be told, "Very few indeed, Sir!"

I beg you will thank Dr. Cocchi much for his book; I will thank him much more when I have received and read it. His friend, Dr. Mead, is undone; his fine collection is going to be sold: he owes about five-and-twenty thousand Pounds. All the world thought himimmensely rich; but, besides the expense of his collection, he kept a table for which alone he is said to have allowed seventy pounds a-week.

(156) Mr. Conway had hired Latimers, in Buckinghams.h.i.+re, for three years.

(157) In one pamphlet, the noise of this lantern, was so exaggerated, that the author said, on a journey to Houghton, he was first carried into a gla.s.s-room, which he supposed was the porter's lodge, but proved to be the lantern. [This lantern, which hung from the ceiling of the hall, was for eighteen candles, and of copper gilt. It was the Craftsman which made so much noise about it.]

(158) The Empress Maria Theresa, who was very jealous, and with reason, of her husband, the Emperor Francis.-D.

(159) In South Audley Street. (It continued to be the residence of the Portuguese amba.s.sadors till the year 1831.-D.

(160) Thomas Ashton, fellow of Eton College, and rector of St.

Botolph's, Bishopsgate.

(161) Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the Life of Cicero. [The Doctor died three days after the date of this letter, in his sixty-seventh year.]

73 Letter 27 To sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, August 2, 1750.