The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 74

You will say, that your concealing your name is an answer to all I have said. A bad author may be concealed, but then what good does he do? I am persuaded you would write well-ask your heart, Sir, if you then would like to conceal yourself.

Forgive my frankness; I am not old, but I have lived long enough to be sure that I give you good advice. There -is lately published a voluminous history of Gustavus Adolphus, sadly written, yet very amusing from the matter.

(1031) Mr. Walpole, in his dedication of the "Anecdotes of painting," says, he is rather an Editor than an Author; but much as he certainly derived from Vertue, his own share in this interesting work ent.i.tles him to the thanks of every lover of the fine arts, and of British antiquities.-C.

(1032) The French were at this time attempting to play the farce of invasion. Flat-bottomed boats were building in all the ports of Normandy and Brittany, calculated to transport an army of a hundred thousand men.-C.

489 Letter 315 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 16, 1759.

I packed up a long letter to you in the case with the Earl of Manchester, which I suppose did not arrive at Greatworth before you left it. Don't send for it, for there are private histories in it, that should not travel post, and which will be full as new to you a month hence.

Well! Maria was married yesterday. Don't we manage well! the original day was not once put off: lawyers and milliners were all ready canonically. It was as sensible a wedding as ever was. There was neither form nor indecency, both which generally meet on such occasions. They were married at my brother's in Pall-Mall, just before dinner, by Mr. Keppel; the company, my brother, his son, Mrs. Keppel, and Charlotte, Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Lady Betty Waldegrave, and I. We dined there; the Earl and new Countess got into their postchaise at eight o'clock, and went to Navestock alone, where they stay till Sat.u.r.day night: on Sunday she is to be presented, and to make my Lady Coventry distracted, who, t'other day, told Lady Anne Connolly how she dreaded Lady Louisa's arrival; "But," said she, "now I have seen her, I am easy."

Maria was in a white silver gown, with a hat pulled very much over her face; what one could see of it was handsomer than ever; a cold maiden blush gave her the sweetest delicacy in the world. I had liked to have demolished the solemnity of the ceremony by laughing, when Mr. Keppel read the words, "Bless thy servant and thy handmaid;" it struck me how ridiculous it would have been, had Miss Drax been the handmaid, as she was once to have been.

Did I ever tell you what happened at my Lord Hertford's wedding? You remember that my father's style was not purity itself. As the bride was so young and so exceedingly bashful, and as my Lord Hertford is a little of the prude himself, great means were used to keep Sir Robert within bounds. He yawned, and behaved decently. When the dessert was removed, the Bishop, who married them, said, "Sir Robert, what health shall we drink?" It was just after Vernon's conquest of Porto Bello.

"I don't know," replied my father: "why, drink the admiral in the straights of Bocca Cieca."

We have had a sort of debate in the House of Commons on the bill for fixing the augmentation of the salaries of the judges: Charles Townshend says, the book of Judges was saved by the book of Numbers.

Lord Weymouth(1033) is to be married on Tuesday, or, as he said himself, to be turned off. George Selwyn told him he wondered that he had not been turned off before, for he still sits up drinking all night and gaming.

Well! are you ready to be invaded? for it seems invasions from France are coming into fas.h.i.+on again. A descent on Ireland at least is expected. There has been a great quarrel -between Mr.

Pitt and Lord Anson, on the negligence of the latter. I suppose they will be reconciled by agreeing to hang some admiral, who will come too late to save Ireland, after it is impossible to save it.

Dr. Young has published a new book,(1034) on purpose. he says himself, to have an opportunity of telling a story that he has known these forty years. Mr. Addison sent for the young Lord Warwick, as he was dying, to show him in what peace a Christian could die--unluckily he died of brandy-nothing makes a Christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath, where you are. Adieu!

P. S. I forgot to tell you two good stories of the little Prince Frederick. He was describing to Lady Charlotte Edwin the eunuchs of the Opera; but not easily finding proper words, he said, "I can't tell you, but I will show you how they make them," and began to unb.u.t.ton. T'other day as he was with the Prince of Wales, Kitty Fisher pa.s.sed by, and the child named her; the Prince, to try him, asked who that was? "Why, a Miss." "A Miss," said the Prince of Wales; "why, are not all girls Misses?" "Oh! but a particular sort of Miss--a Miss that sells oranges." "Is there any harm in selling oranges?" "Oh!

but they are not such oranges as you buy; I believe they are a sort that my brother Edward buys."

(1033) Afterwards created Marquis of Bath. He married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish Bentinck, daughter of William, third Duke of Portland.-E.

(1034) "Conjectures on Original Composition; in a letter to the author of Sir Charles Grandison." The article on this work in the Critical Review was written by Oliver Goldsmith. See the recent edition of his Miscellaneous Works, vol. iv. p. 462.-E.

491 Letter 316 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1759.

I have not announced to you in form the invasion from France, of which all our newspapers have been so full, nor do I tell you every time the clock strikes. An invasion frightens one but once. I am grown to fear no invasions but those we make.

Yet I believe there are people really afraid of this--I mean the new militia, who have received orders to march. The war in general seems languis.h.i.+ng: Prince Henry of Prussia is the only one who keeps it up with any spirit. The Parliament goes into the country to-morrow.

One of your last friends, Lord Northampton,(1035) is going to marry Lady Anne Somerset, the Duke of Beaufort's sister. She is rather handsome. He seems to have too much of the coldness and dignity of the Comptons.

Have you had the comet in Italy? It has made more noise here than it deserved, because Sir Isaac Newton foretold it, and it came very near disappointing him. Indeed, I have a notion that it is not the right, but a little one- that they put up as they were hunting the true--in short, I suppose, like pine-apples and gold pheasants, comets will grow so common as to be sold at Covent-garden market.

I am glad you approve the marriage of my charming niece--she is now Lady Waldegrave in all the forms.

I envy you who can make out whole letters to me--I find it grow every day more difficult, we are so far and have been so long removed from little events in common that serve to fill up a correspondence, that though my heart is willing, my hand is slow. Europe is a dull magnificent subject to one who cares little and thinks still les about Europe. Even the King of Prussia, except on post-days don't occupy a quarter of an inch in my memory. He must kill a hundred thousand men once a fortnight to Put me in mind of him.

Heroes that do so much in a book, and seem so active to posterity, lie fallow a vast while to their contemporaries--and how it would humble a vast Prince who expects to occupy the whole attention of an age, to hear an idle man in his easy chair cry "Well! why don't the King of Prussia do something?"

If one means to make a lasting bustle, one should contrive to be the hero of a village; I have known a country rake talked of for a riot, whole years after the battle of Blenheim has grown obsolete. Fame, like an essence, the farther it is diffused, the sooner it vanishes. The million in London devour an event and demand another to-morrow. Three or four families in a hamlet twist and turn it, examine, discuss, mistake, repeat their mistake, remember their mistake, and teach it to their children. Adieu!

(1035) Charles Compton, seventh Earl of Northampton, married Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of beaufort; by whom he had an only Child, Lady Elizabeth Compton, married to Lord George Henry Cavendish, now Earl of Burlington.

Lord Northampton died in 1763.-D.

492 Letter 317 To George Montagu, Esq.

June 2, 1759.

Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos; it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the d.u.c.h.esses of Hamilton and Richmond and Lady Ailesbury dined there; the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the sh.e.l.l; a thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were than they will be then: I shall say, "Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the pretty d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the sh.e.l.l on my terrace with the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings." Yesterday t'other more famous Gunning(1036) dined there. She has made a friends.h.i.+p with my charming niece, to disguise her jealousy of the new Countess's beauty: there were they two, their lords, Lord Buckingham, and Charlotte. You will think that I did not choose men for my parties so well as women. I don't include Lord Waldegrave in this bad election.

Loo is mounted to its zenith; the parties last till one and two in the morning. We played at Lady Hertford's last week, the last night of her lying-in, till deep into Sunday morning, after she and her lord were retired. It Is now adjourned to Mrs. Fitzroy's, whose child the town called "Pam--ela'. I proposed, that instead of receiving cards for a.s.semblies, one should send in a morning to Dr. Hunter's, the man-midwife, to know where there is loo that evening. I find poor Charles Montagu is dead:(1037) is it true, as the papers say, that his son comes into Parliament? The invasion is not half so much in fas.h.i.+on as loo, and the King demanding the a.s.sistance of' the militia does not add much dignity to it. The great Pam of Parliament, who made the motion, entered into a wonderful definition of the several sorts of fear; from fear that comes from pusillanimity, up to fear from magnanimity. It put me in mind of that wise Pythian, My Lady Londonderry, who, when her sister, Lady DOnnegal was dying, p.r.o.nounced, that if it were a fever from a fever, she would live; but if it were a fever from death, she would die.

Mr. Mason has published another drama, called Caractacus; there are some incantations poetical enough, and odes so Greek as to have very little meaning. But the whole is laboured, uninteresting, and no more resembling the manners of Britons than of j.a.panese. It is introduced by a piping elegy; for Mason, in imitation of Gray, "will cry and roar all night"(1038) without the least provocation.

Adieu! I shall be glad to hear that your Strawberry tide is fixed.

(1036) Lady Coventry.

(1037) Only son of the Hon. James Montagu, son of Henry Earl of Manchester.-E.

(1038) An expression of Mr. Montagu's.

493 Letter 318 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, June 8, 1759.

This is merely a letter about your commission, and I hope it will get to you with wondrous haste. I have not lost a minute in trying to execute what you desire, but it is impossible to perform all that is required. A watch, perfect by Ellicot or Gray, with all the accompaniments, cannot possibly be had for near seventy-five pounds. Though the directions do not expressly limit me to seventy-five, yet I know Italians enough to be sure that when they name seventy-five, they would not bear a codicil of fifty-five more. Ellicot (and Gray is rather dearer) would have for watch and chain a hundred and thirty-four guineas; the seals will cost sixteen more. Two hundred and sixty-eight sequins are more than I dare lay out.

But I will tell you what I have done: Deard, one of the first jewellers and toymen Here, has undertaken to make a watch and chain, enamelled according to a pattern I have chosen of the newest kind, for a hundred guineas; with two seals for sixteen more; and he has engaged that, if this is not approved, he will keep it himself; but to this I must have an immediate answer.

He will put his own name to it, as a warrant to the goodness of the work; and then, except the nine of Ellicot or Gray, your friend will have as good a watch as he can desire. I take for granted, at farthest, that I can have an answer by the 15th of July; and then there will be time, I trust, to convey it to you; I suppose by sea, for unless a fortunate messenger should be going 'a point nomm'e, you may imagine that a traveller would not arrive there in any time. My dear Sir, you know how happy I am to do any thing you desire; and I shall pique myself on your credit in this, but your friend has expected what, altogether, it is almost impossible to perform--what can be done, shall be.

There is not a syllable of news--if there was, I should not confine myself solely to the commission. Some of our captains in the East Indies have behaved very ill; if there is an invasion, which I don't believe there will, I am glad they were not here. Adieu!

494 Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1759.

My dear lord, After so kind a note as you left for me at your going Out Of town, you cannot wonder that I was determined to thank you the moment I knew you settled in Yorks.h.i.+re. At least I am not ungrateful, if I deserve your goodness by no other t.i.tle. I was willing to stay till I could amuse you, but I have not a battle big enough even to send in a letter. A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's riding three horses at Once. The King of Prussia's campaign is still. in its papillotes; Prince Ferdinand is laid up like the rest of the pensioners on Ireland; Guadaloupe has taken a sleeping- draught, and our heroes in America seem to be planting suckers of laurels that will not make any future these three years.

All the war that is in fas.h.i.+on lies between those two ridiculous things, an invasion and the militia. - Prince Edward is going to sea, to inquire after the invasion from France: and the old potbellied country colonels are preparing to march and make it drunk when it comes. I don't know, as it is an event in Mr. Pitt's administration, whether the Jacobite corporations, who are converted by his eloquence which they never heard, do not propose to bestow their freedom on the first corps of French that shall land.

Adieu, my lord and my lady! I hope you are all beauty and verdure. We are drowned with obtaining ours.