The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 16

(196) Pompei a was not then discovered.

155 Letter 24 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

R'e di Cofano, vulg. Radicofani, July 5, 1740, N. S.

You will wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome: why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old eminences are cross and obstinate, and will not choose one the Holy Ghost does not know when. There is a horrid thing called the mallaria, that comes to Rome, every summer, and kills one, and I did not care for being killed so far from Christian burial.

We have been jolted to death; my servants let us come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare: to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you out some little trifle there, but don't depend upon it; you are a disagreeable creature and may be I shall not care for you.

Though I am so tired in this devil of a place, yet I have taken it into my head, that it is like Hamilton's Bawn, (197) and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abara.s.ser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but about writing-what do you think I write with? Nay, with a pen; there was never a one to be found in the whole circ.u.mference but one, and that was in the possession of the governor, and had been used time out of mind to write the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent me under the conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss, with desire to return it when I should have done with it. 'Tis a curiosity, and worthy to be laid up with the relics which we have just been seeing- in a small hovel of Capucins, on the side of the hill, and which were all brought by his Majesty from Jerusalem. Among other things of great sanct.i.ty there is a set of gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth, the grinders very entire; a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits; a crow of St. Peter's c.o.c.k, very useful against Easter; the crisping and curling, frizzling and frowncing of Mary Magdalen, which she cut off on growing devout. The good man that showed us all these commodities was got into such a train of calling them the blessed this, and blessed that, that at last he showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tree that Christ cursed.

Florence, July 9.

My dear Harry, We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you with Hosier's Ghost. Your last put me in pain for you, when you talked of going to Ireland; but now I find your brother and sister go with you, I am not much concerned.

Should I be? You have but to say, for my feelings are extremely at your service to dispose as you please. Let us see: you are to come back to stand for some place; that will be about April. 'Tis a sort of thing I should do, too; and then we should see one another, and that would be charming; but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to do; and then we shall not see one another, unless you would come hither-but that you cannot do: nay, I would not have you, for then I shall be gone. So! there are many @ that just signify nothing at all. Return I must sooner than I shall like. I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation. I am lodged with Mr. Mann, (198) the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me is the famous Gallery; and, on either hand, two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a slight gauze to keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret (199) has a charming conversation once a week. She has taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours. You know her daughters : Lady Sophia (200) is still, nay she must be, the beauty she was: Lady Charlotte, (201) is much improved, and is the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine. The Princess Craon (202) has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me.

One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it.

You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning; I wish I had no better.

As to Hosier's Ghost, (203) I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion is charming.

Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can send you none. I have left the conclave, which is the only stirring thing in this part of the world, except the child that the Queen of Naples is to be delivered of in August. There is no likelihood the conclave will end, unless the messages take effect which 'tis said the Imperial and French ministers have sent to their respective courts for leave to quit the Corsini for the Albani faction: otherwise there will never be a pope. Corsini has lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and him he designed; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's mistress. The last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish of chocolate down his throat, and would carry him to the scrutiny. The poor old creature went, came back, and died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the pope's coronation, but I might have stayed for seeing it till I had been old enough to be pope myself.

Harry, what luck the chancellor has! first, indeed, to be in himself so great a man; but then in accidents: he is made chief justice and peer, when Talbot is made chancellor and peer: (204) Talbot dies in a twelvemonth, and leaves him the seals at an age when others are scarce made solicitors: (205)-then marries his son into one of the first families of Britain, (206) obtains a patent for a marquisate and eight thousand pounds a year after the Duke of Kent's death: the duke dies in a fortnightt, and leaves them all! People talk of Fortune's wheel, that is always rolling: my Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel, and rolled with it. I perceive Miss Jenny (207) would not venture to Ireland, nor stray so far from London; I am glad I shall always know where to find her within threescore miles. I must say a word to my lord, which, Harry, be sure you don't read. ["My dear lord, I don't love troubling you with letters, because I know you don't love the trouble of answering them; not that I should insist on that ceremony, but I hate to burthen any one's conscience. Your brother tells me he is to stand member of parliament: without telling me so, I am sure he owes it to you. I am sure you will not repent setting him up; nor will he be ungrateful to a brother who deserves so much, and whose least merit is not the knowing how to employ so great a fortune."]

There, Harry,-I have done. Don't suspect me: I have said no ill of you behind your back. Make my best compliments to Miss Conway. (208)

I thoght I had done, and lo, I had forgot to tell you, that who d'ye think is here?-Even Mr. More! our Rheims Mr.

More! the fortification, hornwork, ravelin, bastion Mr.

More! which is very pleasant sure. At the end of the eighth side, I think I need make no excuse for leaving off; but I am going to write to Selwyn, and to the lady of the mountain; from whom I have had a very kind letter. She has at last received the Chantilly bra.s.s. Good night: write to me from one end of the world to t'other. Yours ever.

(197) A large old house, two miles from the seat of Sir Arthur Acheson, near Market-hill, and the scene of Swift's humorous poem, "The Grand Question debated, whether Hamilton's Bawn should be turned into a barrack or a malt- house."-E.

(198) Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. He was at this time resident at Florence from George II.

(199) Henrietta Louisa, wife of Thomas Earl of Pomfret. [She was the daughter of John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem. Lady Pomfret, who was the friend and correspondent of Frances d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, retired from the court upon the death of Queen Caroline in 1737.]

(200) Afterwards married to John Lord Carteret, who became Earl of Granville on the death of his mother in the year 1744.

(201) Lady Charlotte Fermor married, in August 1746, William Finch, brother of Daniel seventh Earl of Winchelsea, by whom she had issue a son, George, who, on the death of his uncle, in 1769, succeeded to the earldom. Her ladys.h.i.+p was governess to the children of George III., and highly esteemcd by him and his royal consort.-E.

(202) The Princess Craon was the favourite mistress of Leopold the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de Beauveau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of the empire. They at this time resided at Florence, where Prince Craon was at the head of the council of regency.

(203) This was a party ballad (written by Glover, though by some at the time ascribed to Lord Bath,) on the taking of Porto-Bello by Admiral Vernon. "The case of Hosier," says Bishop Percy, in his admirable Reliques, vol. ii. p. 382, where the song is preserved, "The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this. In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies to block up the galleons in the port of that country, or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them to England: he accordingly arrived at Bastimentos, near Porto-Bello; but, being employed rather to overawe than attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on this station. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and remained crusing in those seas, till the greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy Climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his s.h.i.+ps exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart.-E.

(204) Philip Yorke Lord Hardwicke was the son of an attorney at Dover, and was introduced by the Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole. He was attorney-general, and when Talbot, the solicitor-general, was preferred to him in the contest for the chancellors.h.i.+p, Sir Robert made him chief justice for life, with an increased salary. He was an object of aversion to Horace Walpole, who, in his Memoirs, tells us, "in the House of Lords, he was laughed at, in the cabinet despised." Upon which it is very properly observed by the n.o.ble editor of those memoirs, Lord Hollan,-"Yet, in the course of the work, Walpole laments Lord Hardwicke's influence in the cabinet, where he would have us believe that he was despised, and acknowledges that he exercised a dominion nearly absolute over that house of Parliament which, he would persuade his readers, laughed at him. The truth is, that, wherever this great magistrate is mentioned, Lord Orford's resentments blind his judgment and disfigure his narrative."-E.

(205) charles Talbot baron Talbot was, on the 29th Nov.

1733, made lord high chancellor and created a baron; and, dying in Feb. 1737, was succeeded by Lord Hardwicke. There is a story current, that Sir Robert Walpole, finding it difficult to prevail on Yorke to quit a place for life, for the higher but more precarious dignity of chancellor, worked upon his jealousy, and said that if he persisted in refusing the seals, he must offer them to Fazakerly. "Fazakerly!"

exclaimed Yorke, "impossible! he is certainly a Tory, perhaps a Jacobite." "It's all very true," replied Sir Robert, taking out his watch; " but if by one o'clock you do not accept my offer, Fazakerly by two becomes lord keeper of the great seal, and one of the staunchest Whigs in all England!" Yorke took the seals and the peerage.-E.

(206) That of Grey, Duke of Kent, see avove.-E.

(207) Miss Jane Conway, half-sister to Henry Seymour Conway. She died unmarried in 1749.

(208) Afterwirds married to John Harris, Esq. of Hayne in Devons.h.i.+re.

159 Letter 25 To Richard West, Esq.

Florence, July 31, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, I have advised with the most notable antiquarians of this city on the meaning of Thur gut Luetis. I can get no satisfactory interpretation. In my own opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love offering conjectures on a language in which I have hitherto made little proficiency, but I will trust you with my explication. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of Cadwalladhor, was renowned for her conjugal virtues, and grief on the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her lord, and that the inscription Thur gut Luetis means no more than her dear Llewis or Llewellin.

In return for your coins I send you two or three of different kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples; the device, a horse; the motto, Equitas regni. This curious pun is on a coin in the Great Duke's collection, and by great chance I have met with a second. Another is, a satirical medal struck on Lewis XIV.; 'tis a bomb, covered with flower-de-luces, bursting; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last, and almost the only one I ever saw with a text well applied, is a German medal with a Rebellious town besieged and blocked up; the inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting.

Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on the taking of Porto-Bello? Admiral Vernon will s.h.i.+ne in our medallic history. We have just received the news of the bombarding Carthagena, and the taking Chagre. (209) We are in great expectation of some important victory obtained by the squadron under Sir John Norris. we are told the Duke is to be of the expedition; is it true? (210) All the letters, too, talk of France suddenly declaring war; I hope they will defer it for a season, or one shall be obliged to return through Germany.

The conclave still subsists, and the divisions still increase; it was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two popes; they were on the dawn of a schism. Aldovrandi had thirty-three voices for three days, but could not procure the requisite two more; the Camerlingo having engaged his faction to sign a protestation against him and each party were inclined to elect. I don't know whether one should wish for a schism or not; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church in the powers of Europe which has been so far decaying.

On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montague. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple alliance: we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear West! Yours ever,

Hor. Walpole.

Though far unworthy to enter into so learned and political a correspondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page de 7 pounces et demie en hauteur, et 'a en largeur; and to inform you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of Tuscany: the lat.i.tude I cannot justly tell, but it is governed by a prince called Great Duke; an excellent place to employ all one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself: the device is thus 0, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most concise manner to contain a full account of my person, sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here you shall get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast till three, dine till five, sleep till six, drink cooling liquors till eight, go to the bridge till ten, sup till two, and so sleep till twelve again.

Lah.o.r.e fessi venimus ad larem nostrum, Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto; Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laborious tantis.

O quid solutis est beatius curis?

We shall never come home again; a universal war is just upon the point of breaking out; all outlets will be shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, while you, that will be so absurd as to exist, will envy me. You don't tell me what proficiency you make in the n.o.ble science of defence. Don't you start still at the sound of a gun? Have you learned to say ha! ha! and is your neck clothed with thunder? Are your whiskers of a tolerable length? And have you got drunk yet with brandy and gunpowders? Adieu, n.o.ble captain!

T. GRAY.

(209) On the 24th March, 1740, the Spaniards hung out a white flag, and the place was surrendered by capitulation to Admiral Vernon.-E.

(210) The Duke of c.u.mberland had resolved to accompany Sir John Norris as a volunteer, and sailed with him from St.

Helens on the 10th June; but on the 17th a gale arising drove them into Torbay, Where Sir John continued until the 29th, when he again put to sea; but the wind once more becoming contrary, and blowing very hard, he was constrained to return to Spithead, and on the following day his royal highness returned to London.-E.

161 Letter 26 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Florence, September 25, 1740, N. S.

My dear Hal, I begin to answer your letter the moment I have read it, because you bid me; but I grow so unfit for a correspondence with any body in England, that I have almost left it off. 'Tis so long since I was there, and I am so utterly a stranger to every thing that pa.s.ses there, that I must talk vastly in the dark to those I write: and having in a manner settled myself here, where there can be no news, I am void of all matter for filling up a letter. As, by the absence of the Great Duke, Florence is become in a manner a country town, YOU may imagine that we are not without dem'el'es; but for a country town I believe there never were a set of people so peaceable, and such strangers to scandal. 'Tis the family of love, where every body is paired, and go as constantly together as paroquets. Here n.o.body hangs or drowns themselves; they are not ready to cut one another's throats about elections or parties; don't think that wit consists in saying bold truths, or humour in getting drunk. But I shall give you no more of their characters, because I am so unfortunate as to think that their encomium consists in being the reverse of the English, who in general are either mad, or enough to make other people so. After telling you so fairly my sentiments, you may believe, my dear Harry, that I had rather see you here than in England. 'Tis an evil wish for you, who should not be lost in so obscure a place as this. I will not make you compliments, or else here is a charming opportunity for saying what I think of you. As I am convinced you love me, and as I am conscious you have One strong reason for it, I will own to you, that for my own peace you should wish me to remain here. I am so well within and without, that you would scarce know me: I am younger than ever, think of nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round of pleasures.

We have operas, concerts, and b.a.l.l.s, mornings and evenings. I dare not tell you all One's idleness: you would look so grave and senatorial at hearing that one rises at eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine at night, to supper at one, and to bed at three! But literally here the evenings and nights are so charming and so warm, one can't avoid 'em.

Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole town. (211) Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canva.s.s petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a-, partly covered with a plaster, and partlv with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coa.r.s.e, that you would not use it to wash a chimney.-In three words I will give you her picture (212) as we drew it in the Sortes Virgilianae- Insanam vatem aepicies.

I give you my honour, we did not choose it; but Mr. Gray, Mr.

Cooke, (213) Sir Francis Dashwood, (214) and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine: those that did I will tell you.