The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 58

395 Letter 238 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 8, 1757.

How I laughed at your picture of the shrine of Notre Dame de Straberri, and of the vows hung up there! I little thought that when I converted my castle into a printing office, the next transformation Would be into an hospital for the "filles repenties" from Mrs. Naylor's and Lady Fitzroy's.(826) You will treat the enclosed I trust with a little more respect; not for the sake of the hero, but of the poet. The poet, poor soul! has had a relapse, but is again recovering. As I know no earthly history, you must accept the sonnet as if it was written into my letter; and therefore supposing this the end of the third page, I bid you good night.

(826) Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Cosby, governor of New York, by Lucy Montagu, aunt of George Montagu, and widow of Lord Augustus Fitzroy; by whom she had two sons, Au_gusttis Henry, afterwards Duke of Grafton, and General Fitzroy, who was created Lord Southampton.-E.

396 Letter 239 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.(827) Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1757.

Madam, After all the trouble your ladys.h.i.+p has been so good as to take voluntarily, you will think it a little hard that I should presume to give you more; but it is a cause, Madam, in which I know you feel, and I can suggest new motives to your ladys.h.i.+p's zeal. In short, Madam, I am on the crisis of losing Mademoiselle de l'Enclos's picture, or of getting both that and her letters to Lady Sandwich. I enclose Lord Sandwich's letter to me, which will explain the whole. Madame Greffini, I suppose, is Madame Graphigny;(828) whom some of your ladys.h.i.+p's friends, if not yourself, must know; and she might be of use, if she could be trusted not to detain so tempting a treasure as the letters. From the effects being sealed up, I have still hopes; greater, from the goodness your ladys.h.i.+p had in writing before. Don't wonder, Madam, at my eagerness: besides a good quant.i.ty Of natural impatience, I am now interested as an editor and printer. Think what pride it would give me to print original letters of Ninon at Strawberry Hill!

If your ladys.h.i.+p knows any farther means of serving me, of serving yourself, good Mr. Welldone, as the widow Lackit says in Oroonoko, I need not doubt your employing them. Your ladys.h.i.+p and I are of a religion, with regard to certain saints, that inspires more zeal than such trifling temptations as persecution and f.a.gots infuse into bigots of other sects. I think a cause like ours might communicate ardour even to my Lady Stafford. If she will a.s.sist in recovering, Notre Dame des Amours, I will add St. Raoul(829) to my calendar. I am hers and your ladys.h.i.+p's most obedient and faithful humble servant.

(827) Lady Hervey was only daughter of Brigadier-General Nicholas Lepel. She was maid of honour to Queen Caroline, and was one of the princ.i.p.al ornaments of her court. In 1720, she was married to John Lord Hervey, eldest son of John Earl of Bristol, by whom she had four sons and four daughters. She died in September, 1768. A collection of her Letters, with a Memoir and Ill.u.s.trative Notes, by Mr. Croker, was published in 1821.-E.

(828) Madame de Graffigny, the author of "Lettres d'une Peruvienne," and several dramatic pieces. She died in the following year. A collection of her works, in four volumes, was published at Paris in 1788.-E.

(829) A favourite cat of Lady Stafford's.

396 Letter 240 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Sept. 20(830)

My dear Sir, I have been roving about Hamps.h.i.+re with Mr. Chute, and did not receive your very kind note till yesterday, or I should certainly not have deferred a moment to thank you for it, and to express my great concern for Miss Montagu's bad health. You do me justice when you reckon on my feeling most sincerely for you: but let me ask why you will not bring her to town? She might not only have more variety of a.s.sistance, but it would be some relief to you: it must be dreadful, with your tenderness and feeling, to have n.o.body to share and divert your uneasiness.

I did not, till on the road the day before yesterday, hear the catastrophe of poor Sir John Bland, and the execrable villany, or, what our ancestors would have called, the humours of Taaffe. I am extremely sorry for Bland! He was very good-natured, and generous and well-bred; but never was such infatuation - I can call it by no term but flirting away his fortune and his life; he seemed to have no pa.s.sion for play while he did it, nor sensibility when it ruined him but I fear he had both! What judgments the good people in the city (I mean the good in their own style, moneyed) will construe upon White's, when two of the most remarkable members have despatched themselves in nine months!

I shall be most sincerely glad to receive another letter to tell me that Miss Montagu mends: you have both my most hearty wishes. Yours ever.

(830) This letter is misplaced: the date of the year is 1755.-E.

397 Letter 241 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 29, 1757.

For how many years have I been telling you that your country was mad, that your country was undone! It does not grow wiser; it does not grow more prosperous! You can scarce have recovered your astonishment at the suspension of arms(831) concluded near Stade. How do you behave on these lamentable occasions? Oh! believe me, it is comfortable to have an island to hide one's head in! You will be more surprised when you hear that it is totally disavowed here. The clamour is going to be extreme--no wonder, when Kensington is the headquarters of murmur. The commander-in-chief is recalled-- the late Elector(832) is outrageous. On such an occasion you may imagine that every old store of malice and hatred is ransacked: but you would not think that the general is now accused of cowardice! As improbable as that is, I do not know whether it may not grow your duty as a minister to believe it-and if it does, you must be sure not to believe, that with all this tempest the suspension was dictated from hence. Be that as it may, the general is to be the sacrifice. The difficulty will be extreme with regard to the Hessians, for they are in English pay. The King of Prussia will be another victim: he says we have undone him, without mending our own situation. He expected to beat the Prince de Soubize by surprise, but he, like the Austrians, declined a battle, and now will be reinforced by Richelieu's army, who is doomed to be a hero by our absurdities. Austrians, French, Russians, Swedes, can the King of Prussia not sink under all these!

This suspension has made our secret expedition forgot by all but us who feel for particulars. It is the fas.h.i.+on now to believe it is not against the coast of France; I wish I could believe so!

As if all these disgraces were foreign objects not worth attending to, we have a civil war at home; literally so in many counties. The wise Lords, to defeat it, have made the Militia-bill so preposterous that it has raised a rebellion.

George Townshend, the promoter of it for popularity, sees it not only most unpopular in his own county, but his father, my Lord Townshend, who is not the least mad of your countrymen, attended by a parson, a barber, and his own servants, and in his own long hair, which he has let grow, raised a mob against the execution of the bill, and has written a paper against it, which he has pasted up on the doors of four churches near him. It is a good name that a Dr. Stevens has given to our present situation, (for one cannot call it a Government,) a Mobocracy.

I come to your letters which are much more agreeable subjects.

I think I must not wish you joy of the termination of the Lorrain reign, you have lately taken to them, but I congratulate the Tuscans. Thank you extremely for the trouble you have given yourself in translating my inscription, and for the Pope's letter: I am charmed with his beautiful humility, and his delightful way of expressing it. For his ignorance about my father, I impute it to some failure of his memory. I should like to tell him that were my father still minister, I trust we should not make the figure we do--at least he and England fell together! If it is ignorance, Mr. Chute says it is a confirmation of the Pope's deserving the inscription, as he troubles his head so little about disturbing the peace of others. But our enemies need not disturb us-we do their business ourselves. I have one, and that not a little comfort, in my politics ; this suspension will at least prevent further hostilities between us and the Empress-Queen, and that secures my dear you.

When I have done thinking of politics, and that is always in an instant, unless such as you and Mr. Conway are involved in them, I am far from pa.s.sing my time disagreeably. My mind is of no gloomy turn, and I have a thousand ways of amusing myself. Indeed of late I have been terribly frightened lest I must give them all up; my fears have gone to extravagance; do not wonder; my life is not quite irrational, and I trembled to think that I was growing fit only to consort with dowagers.

What an exchange, books and drawings, and every thing of that sort, for cards! In short, for ten weeks I have had such pains in my eyes with the least application, that I thought I should lose them, at least that they would be useless. I was told that with reading and writing at night I had strained and relaxed the nerves. However, I am convinced that though this is partly the case, the immediate uneasiness came from a cold, which I caught in the hot weather by giving myself Florentine airs, by lying with my windows open, and by lying on the ground without my waistcoat. After trying forty 'you should do this's,'(833) Mr. Chute has cured me -with a very simple medicine: I will tell it you, that you may talk to Dr. Cocchi and about my eyes too. It is to bathe and rub the outsides all round, especially on the temples, with half a teaspoonful of white spirit of lavender (not lavender-water) and half of Hungary-water. I do this night and morning, and sometimes in the day: in ten days it has taken off all the uneasiness; I can now read in a chaise, which I had totally lost, and for five or six hours by candle-light, without spectacles or candle-screen. In short, the difference is incredible.

Observe that they watered but little, and were less inflamed; only a few veins appeared red, whereas my eyes were remarkably clear. I do not know whether this would do with any humour, but that I never had. It is certain that a young man who for above twelve years had studied the law by being read to, from vast relaxation of the nerves, totally recovered the use of his eyes.

I should think I tired you with this detail, if I was not sure that you cannot be tired with learning any thing for the good of others. As the medicine is so hot, it must not be let into the eyes, nor I should think be continued too long.

I approve much of your letter to Mr. Fox; I will give it to him at his return, but at present he is on a tour. How scrupulous you are in giving yourself the trouble to send me a copy--was that needful? or are you not always full of attentions that speak kindness? Your brother will take care to procure the vases when they come, and is inquiring for the liqueurs.

I am putting up a stone in St. Ann's churchyard for your old friend King Theodore; in short, his history is too remarkable to be let perish. Mr. Bentley says that I am not only an antiquarian, but prepare materials for future antiquarians. You will laugh to hear that when I sent the inscription to the vestry for the approbation of the ministers and churchwardens, they demurred, and took some days to consider whether they should suffer him to be called King of Corsica. Happily they have acknowledged his t.i.tle! Here is the inscription; over it is a crown exactly copied from his coin:

"Near this place is interred Theodore King of Corsica, Who died in this perish Dec. 11, 1756, Immediately after leaving the King's-Bench Prison, By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency.

In consequence of which he registered His Kingdom of Corsica For the use of his Creditors.

The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings.

But Theodore this lesson learn'd, ere dead; Fate pour'd its lessons on his living head, Bestow'd a kingdom and denied him bread.

I think that at least it cannot be said of me, as it was of the Duke of Buckingham entombing Dryden,

"And help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve."

I would have served him, if a King, even in a gaol, could he have been an honest man. Our papers say, that we are bustling about Corsica; I wish if we throw away our own liberty, that we may at least help others to theirs! Adieu! my dear Sir.

(831) Known by the appellation of the Convention of Closter-Severn, concluded by the Duke of c.u.mberland with Marshal Richelieu; by which he agreed for himself and army not to serve again against the French during the war.-D.

(832) George II.; he had ordered his son to make the capitulation, and then disavowed him.

(833) Sic, in MS.-D.

400 Letter 242 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(834) Arlington Street, Sat.u.r.day, Oct. 8, 1757.

My dearest Harry, But one person in the world may pretend to be so much overjoyed as I am at your return.(835) I came hither to-day, on purpose to learn about you; but how can you ask me such a question, as do I think you are come too safe? is this a time of day to question your spirit? I know but two things on earth I esteem more, your goodness and your sense. You cannot come into dispute; but by what I have picked up at my Lady Townshend's, I find there is a scheme of distinguis.h.i.+ng between the land and the sea. The King has been told, that Sir Edward Hawke had written, that, after waiting two days, he asked the officers how long it would be before they took a resolution; That if they would not attack, he should carry the fleet home.(836) I should not entirely credit this report, if Mr. Keith, who was present, had not dropped, in a dry way, that some distinction would be shown to Captain Howe and Captain Greaves. What confirms my opinion is, that I have never received the letter you say you sent me by the last express. I suppose it is detained, till proper emissaries have made proper impressions; but we will not let it pa.s.s so.

If you had not bid me, I should not have given you this intelligence, for your character is too sacred to be trifled with; and as you are invulnerable by any slanders, it is proper you should know immediately even what may be meditated.

The Duke is expected every hour. As he must not defend himself, his case will be harder than yours. I was to go to Bath on Monday, but will certainly not go without seeing you: let me know your motions, and I will meet you any where. As I know your scrupulousness about saying any thing I say to you privately, I think it necessary. to tell you, that I don't mean to preclude you from communicating any part of this letter to those with whom it may be proper for you to consult; only don't let more weight be given to my intelligence than it deserves. I have told you exactly where and what I heard. It may not prove so, but there is no harm in being prepared.

(834) Now first printed.

(835) From the Expedition to Rochfort. The expedition, under Sir Edward Hawke, sailed early in September, and, on the 28th, attacked the Isle of Aix; after which it returned to Spithead, without attempting to land the troops.-E.

(836) On the 22d, Mr. Beckford writes to Mr. Pitt. "I hear that Admiral Hawke says, the land-general has acted in a very unbecoming manner, and will declare his sentiments to Parliament. I hope he will: that, if possible, the mystery may be unravelled. I have often lamented the fatality attending conjunct commands. The French avoid them in all their expeditions; for rank is perfectly settled among the land and sea officers, and the eldest commission carries the command." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 279.-E.

401 Letter 243 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1757.

My dear lord, You will have seen or heard that the fleet is returned. They have brought home nothing but one little island, which is a great deal more than I expected, having neither thought so despicably of France, or so considerably of ourselves, as to believe they were exposed to much damage. My joy for Mr.

Conway's return is not at all lessened by the clamour on this disappointment. Had he been chief commander, I should be very sure the nothing he had done was all he could do. As he was under orders, I wait with patience to hear his general's vindication.

I hope the Yorkists have not knocked out your brains for living in a county. In my neighbourhood they have insulted the Parliament in person.(837) He called in the Blues, instead of piquing himself on dying in his curule chair in the stable-yard at Ember-court. So entirely have we lost our spirit, that the standing army is forced to defend us against the people, when we endeavour to give them a militia, to save them from a standing army; and that the representative of the Parliament had rather owe his life to the Guards than die in the cause of a militia. Sure Lenthall's ghost will come and pull him by the nose!

I hope you begin to cast a southward look, and that my lady's chickens and ducklings are old enough to go to a day-school, and will not want her any longer.

My Lord Townshend and George are engaged in a paper-war against one another, about the militia. That bill, the suspension at Stade, and the late expedition, which has cost millions, will find us in amus.e.m.e.nts this winter. It is lucky, for I despair of the Opera. The Mattei has sent certificates to prove that she is stopped by an inundation.