The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 1

The Letters of Horace Walpole.

Volume 3.

by Horace Walpole.

Letter 1 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1759. (page 25)

I rejoice over your brother's honours, though I certainly had no hand in them. He probably received his staff from the board of trade. If any part of the consequences could be placed to partiality for me, it would be the prevention of your coming to town, which I wished. My lady Cutts(1) is indubitably your own grandmother: the Trevors would once have had it, but by some misunderstanding the old Cowslade refused it. Mr. Chute has twenty more corroborating circ.u.mstances, but this one is sufficient.

Fred. Montagu told me of the pedigree. I shall take care of all your commissions. Felicitate yourself on having got from me the two landscapes; that source is stopped. Not that Mr. M'untz is eloped to finish the conquest of America, nor promoted by Mr.

Secretary's zeal for my friends, nor because the ghost of Mrs.

Leneve has appeared to me, and ordered me to drive Hannah and Ishmael into the wilderness. A cause much more familiar to me has separated US--nothing but a tolerable quant.i.ty of ingrat.i.tude on his side, both to me and Mr. Bentley. The story is rather too long for a letter: the substance was most extreme impertinence to me, concluded by an abusive letter against Mr. Bentley, who sent him from starving on seven pictures for a guinea to One hundred pounds a year, my house, table, and utmost countenance. In short, I turned his head, and was forced to turn him out of doors. You shall see the doc.u.ments, as it is the fas.h.i.+on to call proof papers. Poets and painters imagine they confer the Honour when they are protected, and they set down impertinence to the article of their own virtue, when you dare to begin to think that an ode or a picture is not a patent for all manner of insolence.

My Lord Temple, as vain as if he was descended from the stroller Pindar, or had made up card-matches at the siege of Genoa, has resigned the privy seal, because he has not the garter.(2) You cannot imagine what an absolute prince I feel myself with knowing that n.o.body can force me to give the garter to M'untz.

My Lady Carlisle is going to marry a Sir William Musgrave, who is but three-and-twenty; but, in consideration of the match, and of her having years to spare, she has made him a present of ten, and calls them three-and-thirty. I have seen the new Lady Stanhope.

I a.s.sure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the faces of the Stanhopes, Adieu!

(1) Lady Cutts was the mother of Mrs. Montagu, by her second husband, John Trevor, Esq. and grandmother of George Montagu.-E.

(2) See vol. ii. p. 522, letter 344.

Letter 2 TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.(3) Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1759. (page 26)

Sir, On coming to town, I did myself the honour of waiting on you and Lady Hester Pitt: and though I think myself extremely distinguished by your obliging note, I shall be sorry for having given you the trouble of writing it, if it did not lend me a very pardonable opportunity of saying what I much wished to express, but thought myself too private a person, and of too little consequence, to take the liberty to say. In short, Sir, I was eager to congratulate you on the l.u.s.tre you have thrown on this country; I wished to thank you for the security you have fixed to me of enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed England in a situation in which it never saw itself--a task the more difficult, as you had not to improve, but recover.

In a trifling book, written two or three years ago,(4) I said (speaking of the name in the world the most venerable to me), "sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have already written his eulogium." It is but justice to you, Sir, to add, that that period ended when your administration began.

Sir, do not take this for flattery: there is nothing in your power to give that I would accept; nay, there is nothing I could envy, but what I believe you would scarce offer me--your glory.

This may seem very vain and insolent: but consider, Sir, what a monarch is a man who wants nothing! consider how he looks down on one who is only the most ill.u.s.trious man in England! But Sir, freedoms apart, insignificant as I am, probably it must be some satisfaction to a great mind like yours to receive incense, when you are sure there is no flattery blended with it; and what must any Englishman be that could give you a moment's satisfaction and would hesitate?

Adieu! Sir. I am unambitious, I am uninterested, but I am vain.

You have, by your notice, uncanva.s.sed, unexpected, and at a period when you certainly could have the least temptation to stoop down to me, flattered me in the most agreeable manner. If there could arrive the moment when you could be n.o.body, and I any body, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be. In the mean time, permit me to be, as I have been ever since I had the honour of knowing you, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

(3) Now first collected.

(4) His "Catalogue of Royal and n.o.ble Authors."-E.

Letter 3 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Nov. 30th of the Great Year. (page 27)

here is a victory more than I promised you! For these thirteen days we have been in the utmost impatience for news. The Brest fleet had got out; Duff, with three s.h.i.+ps, was in the utmost danger--Ireland ached--Sir Edward Hawke had notice in ten hours, and sailed after Conflans--Saunders arrived the next moment from Quebec, heard it, and sailed after Hawke, without landing his glory. No express arrived, storms blow; we knew not what to think. This morning at four we heard that, on the 20th, Sir Edward Hawke came in sight of the French, who were pursuing Duff.

The fight began at half an hour past two--that is, the French began to fly, making a running fight. Conflans tried to save himself behind the rocks of Belleisle, but was forced to burn his s.h.i.+p of eighty guns and twelve hundred men. The Formidable, of eighty, and one thousand men, is taken; we burned the Hero of seventy-four, eight hundred and fifteen men. The Thes'ee and Superbe of seventy-four and seventy, and of eight hundred and fifteen and eight hundred men, were sunk in the action, and the crews lost. Eight of their s.h.i.+ps are driven up the Vilaine, after having thrown over their guns; they have moored two frigates to defend the entrance, but Hawke hopes to destroy them.

Our loss is a scratch, one lieutenant and thirty-nine men killed, and two hundred and two wounded. The Resolution of seventy-four guns, and the Ess.e.x of sixty-four, are lost, but the crews saved; they, it is supposed, perished by the tempest, which raged all the time, for

"We rode in the whirlwind and directed the storm."

Sir Edward heard guns of distress in the night, but could not tell whether of friend or foe, nor could a.s.sist them.(5)

Thus we wind up this wonderful year! Who that died three years ago and could revive, would believe it! Think, that from Petersburgh to the Cape of Good Hope, from China to California,

De Paris 'a Perou,

there are not five thousand Frenchmen in the world that have behaved well! Monsieur Thurot is piddling somewhere on the coast of Scotland, but I think our sixteen years of fears of invasion are over--after sixteen victories. if we take Paris, I don't design to go thither before spring. My Lord Kinnoul is going to Lisbon to ask pardon for Boscawen's beating De la Clue in their House; it will be a proud supplication, with another victory in bank.(6) Adieu! I would not profane this letter with a word of any thing else for the world.

(5) This was Hawke's famous victory, for which he received the thanks of Parliament, and a pension of two thousand pounds a-year. In 1765, he was created a peer.-D.

(6) The object of Lord Kinnoul's mission to the court of Portugal was to remove the misunderstanding between the two crowns, in consequence of Admiral Boscawen's having destroyed some French s.h.i.+ps under the Portuguese fort in the bay of Lagos.-E.

Letter 4 TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 13, 1759. (page 28)

That ever you should pitch upon me for a mechanic or geometric commission! How my own ignorance has laughed at me since I read your letter! I say, your letter, for as to Dr. Perelli's, I know no more of a Latin term in mathematics than Mrs. Goldsworthy(7) had an idea of verbs. I will tell you an early anecdote in my own life, and you shall judge. When I first went to Cambridge, I was to learn mathematics of the famous blind professor Sanderson.

I had not frequented him a fortnight, before he said to me, "Young man, it is cheating you to take your money: believe me, you never can learn these things; you have no capacity for them."- I can smile now, but I cried then with mortification.

The next step, in order to comfort myself, was not to believe him : I could not conceive that I had not talents for any thing in the world. I took, at my own expense, a private instructor,(8) who came to me once a-day for a year. Nay, I took infinite pains, but had so little capacity, and so little attention, (as I have always had to any thing that did not immediately strike my inclination) that after mastering any proposition, when the man came the next day, it was as new to me as if I had never heard of it ; in short, even to common figures, I am the dullest dunce alive. I have often said it of myself, and it is true, that nothing that has not a proper Dame of a man or a woman to it, affixes any idea upon my mind. I could remember who was King Ethelbald's great aunt, and not be sure whether she lived in the year 500 or 1500. I don't know whether I ever told you, that when you sent me the seven gallons of drams, and they were carried to Mr. Fox by mistake for Florence wine, I pressed @im to keep as much as he liked: for, said I, I have seen the bill of lading, and there is a vast quant.i.ty. He asked how much? I answered seventy gallons; so little idea I have of quant.i.ty. I will tell you one more story of myself, and you will comprehend what sort of a head I have! Mrs. Leneve said to me one day, "There is a vast waste of coals in your house ; you should make the servants take off the fires at night." I recollected this as I was going to bed, and, out of economy, put my fire out with a bottle of Bristol water! However, as I certainly will neglect nothing to oblige you, I went to Sisson and gave him the letter. He has undertaken both the engine and the drawing, and has promised the utmost care in both. The latter, he says, must be very large, and that it will take some time to have it performed very accurately. He has promised me both in six or seven weeks. But another time, don't imagine, because I can bespeak an enamelled bauble, that I am fit to be entrusted with the direction of the machine at Marli. It is not to save myself trouble, for I think nothing so for you, but I would have you have credit, and I should be afraid of dishonouring you.

There! there is the King of Prussia has turned all our war and peace topsy-turvy ! If Mr. Pitt Will conquer Germany too, he must go and do it himself. Fourteen thousand soldiers and nine generals taken, as it were, in a partridge net!

and what is worse, I have not heard yet that the monarch owns his rashness.(9) As often as he does, indeed, he is apt to repair it. You know I have always dreaded Daun--one cannot make a blunder but he profits of it-and this ' just at the moment that we heard of nothing but new bankruptcy in France. I want to know what a kingdom is to do when it is forced to run away?

14th.--Oh! I interrupt my reflections--there is another bit of a victory! Prince Henry, who has already succeeded to his brother's crown, as king of the fas.h.i.+on, has beaten a parcel of Wirternberghers and taken four battalions.

Daun is gone into Bohemia, and Dresden is still to be ours. The French are gone into winter quarters--thank G.o.d! What weather is here to be lying on the ground! Men should be statues, or will be so, if they go through it. Hawke is enjoying himself in Quiberon Bay, but I believe has done no more execution. Dr. Hay says it will soon be as shameful to beat a Frenchman as to beat a woman. Indeed, one is forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of missing one. We talk of a con(,,ress at Breda, and some think Lord Temple will go thither: if he does, I shall really believe it will be peace; and a good one, as it will then be of Mr.

Pitt's making.

I was much pleased that the watch succeeded so triumphantly, and beat the French watches, though they were two to one. For the Fugitive pieces: the Inscription for the Column(10) was written when I was with you at Florence, though I don't wonder that you have forgotten it after so many yeirs. I would not have it talked of, for I find some grave personages are offended -with the liberties I have taken with so imperial a head. What could provoke them to give a column Christian burial? Adieu!

(7) Wife of the English consul at Leghorn, where, when she was learning Italian by grammar, she said, "Oh! give me a language in which there are no verbs!" concluding, as she had not learnt her own language by grammar, that there were no verbs in English.

(8) Dr. Treviger.

(9) It was not Frederick's fault; he was not there ; but that of General Finek, who had placed himself so injudiciously, that he was obliged to capitulate to the Austrians with fourteen thousand men.

(10) The inscription for the neglected Column in St. Mark's Place at Florence.-E.

Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1759. (page 30)

How do you do? are you thawed again? how have you borne the country in this bitter weather? I have not been here these three weeks till to-day, and was delighted to find it so pleasant, and to meet a comfortable southeast wind, the fairest of all winds, in spite of the scandal that lies on the east; though it is the west that is parent of all ugliness. The frost was succeeded by such fogs, that I could not find my way out of London.

Has your brother told you of the violences in Ireland? There wanted nothing but a Ma.s.saniello to overturn the government; and luckily for the government and for Rigby, he, who was made for Ma.s.saniello, happened to be first minister there. Tumults, and insurrections, and oppositions,