The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 13

If it were not printed in the London Chronicle, I would transcribe for you, Sir, a very weak letter of Voltaire to Lord Lyttelton,(132) and the latter's answer: there is nothing else new, but a very indifferent play,(133) called The Jealous Wife, so well acted as to have succeeded greatly. Mr. Mason, I believe, is going to publish some elegies: I have seen the princ.i.p.al one, on Lady Coventry; it was then only an unfinished draft. The second and third volumes of Tristram Shandy, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the contempt they deserve: genius may be exhausted;--I see that folly's invention may be so too.

The foundations of my gallery at Strawberry are laying. May I not flatter myself, Sir, that you will see the whole even before it is quite complete?

P. S. Since I wrote my letter, I have read a new play of Voltaire's, called Tancred, and I am glad to say that it repairs the idea of his decaying parts, which I had conceived from his Peter the Great, and the letter I mentioned. Tancred did not please at Paris, nor was I charmed with the two first acts; in the three last are great flashes of genius, single lines, and starts of pa.s.sion of the first fire: the woman's part is a little too Amazonian.

(132) An absurd letter from Voltaire to the author of the Dialogues of the Dead, remonstrating against a statement, that "he, Voltaire, was in exile, on account of some blamable freedoms in his writings." He denies both the facts and the cause a.s.signed; but he convinced n.o.body, for both were notoriously true. Voltaire was, it is true, not banished by sentence; but he was not permitted to reside in France, and that surely may be called exile, particularly as he was all his life endeavouring to obtain leave to return to Paris.-C.

(133) The Jealous Wife still keeps the stage, and does not deserve to be so slightingly spoken of: but there were private reasons which might possibly warp Mr. Walpole's judgment on the works of Colman. He was the nephew of lord Bath, and The Jealous Wife was dedicated to that great rival of Sir Robert Walpole.-C.

[Dr. Johnson says.-that the Jealous Wife, "though not written with much genius, was yet so well exhibited by the actors, that it was crowded for near twenty nights."]

Letter 66 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 17, 1761. (page 112)

If my last letter raised your wonder, this Will not allay it.

Lord Talbot is lord steward! The stone, which the builders refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My Lady Talbot, I suppose, would have found no charms in Cardinal Mazarin. As the Duke of Leeds was forced to give way to Jemmy Grenville, the Duke of Rutland has been obliged to make room for this new Earl.

Lord Huntingdon is groom of the stole, and the last Duke I have named, master of the horse; the red liveries cost Lord Huntingdon a pang. Lord Holderness has the reversion of the Cinque-ports for life, and I think may pardon his expulsion.

If you propose a fas.h.i.+onable a.s.sembly, you must send cards to Lord Spenser, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Melcomb, Lord Grantham, Lord Boston, Lord Scarsdale, Lady Mountstuart, the Earl of TyrConnell, and Lord Wintertown. The two last you will meet in Ireland. No joy ever exceeded your cousin's or Doddington's: the former came last night to Lady Hilsborough's to display his triumph; the latter too was there, and advanced to me. I said, ":I was coming to wish you joy." "I concluded so," replied he, "and came to receive it." He left a good card yesterday at Lady Petersham's, a very young lord to wait on Lady Petersham, to make her ladys.h.i.+p the first offer of himself. I believe she will be content with the exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds a-year.

Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Pa.s.sion week; I have written to her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being (,one; but, considering her alliance, why does not Miss Price bespeak the play and have the stage box?

I shall smile if Mr. Bentley, and M'Untz, and their two Hannahs meet at St. James's; so I see neither of them, I care not where they are.

Lady Hinchinbrook and Lady Mansel are at the point of death; Lord Hardwicke is to be poet-laureate; and, according to modern usage, I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good night!

Letter 67 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 19, 1761. (page 113)

I can now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin(134) is certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will be sorry too to hear that your Lord North is much talked of for succeeding him at the board of' trade. I tell you this with great composure, though today has been a day of amazement. All the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord Holderness has resigned the seals,(135) and they are given to Lord Bute. Which of the two secretaries of state is first minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holderness received the command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking himself extremely well at court; but it seems the King said he was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary who both could act and would. Pitt had as short a notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little better pleased. He is something softened for the present by the offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by the Duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in eyre, from whence Lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite: if the Bedfords have done so too, will it surprise you? It will me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take for granted the Duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The temper with which the new reign has. .h.i.therto proceeded, seems a little impeached by this sudden act, and the Earl now stands in the direct light of a minister-, if the House of Commons should cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom; the other new peers are to follow on Monday.

There are horrid disturbances about the militia(136) in Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of the Yorks.h.i.+re militia, who, in return, fired and shot twenty-one.

Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequences of my first paragraph.

P. S. Sat.u.r.day.--I forgot to tell you that Lord Hardwicke has written some verses to Lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter made on Lady Egremont.(137) If I had been told that he had put on a bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher,(138) I should not have been more astonished.

Poor Lady Gower(139) is dead this morning of a fever in her lying-in. I believe the Bedfords arc very sorry; for there is a new opera(140) this evening.

(134) The Earl of Halifax.

(135) Lord Barrington, in a letter to Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, of the 23d says, "Our friend Holderness is finally in harbour; he has four thousand a-year for life, with the reversions.h.i.+p of the Cinque- ports, after the Duke of Dorset; which he likes better than having the name of pensioner. I never could myself understand the difference between a pension and a synecure place."-E.

(136) In consequence of the expiration of the three years' term of service, prescribed by the Militia-act, and the new ballot about to take place.-E.

(137) The following are the lines alluded to, "Addition extempore to the verses on Lady Egremont:

"Fame heard with pleasure--straight replied, First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride, My trumpet oft I've raised to sound Her modest praise the world around; But notes were wanting-canst thou find A muse to sing her face, her mind?

Believe me, I can name but one, A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."

(138) A celebrated courtesan of the day.-E.

(139) Daughter of Scroope Duke of Bridgewater.

(140) The serious opera of t.i.to Manlio, by Cocchi. By a letter from Gray to Mason, of the 22d of January, the Opera appears at this time to have been in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition--"The Opera is crowded this year like any ordinary theatre. Elisi is finer than any thing that has been here in your memory; yet, as I suspect, has been finer than he is: he appears to be near forty, a little potbellied and thick-shouldered, otherwise no bad figure; has action proper, and not ungraceful. We have heard nothing, since I remember operas, but eternal pa.s.sages, divisions, and flights of execution: of these he has absolutely none; whether merely from judgment, or a little from age, I will not affirm: his point is expression, and to that all the ornaments he inserts (which are few and short) are evidently directed. He gets higher, they say, than Farinelli; but then this celestial note you do not hear above once in a whole opera; and he falls from this alt.i.tude at once to the mellowest, softest, Strongest tones (about the middle of his compa.s.s) that can be heard. The Mattei, I a.s.sure you, is much improved by his example, and by her great success this winter; but then the burlettas and the Paganina, I have not been so pleased with any thing these many years. She is too fat, and above forty, yet handsome withal, and has a face that speaks the language of all nations. She has not the invention, the fire, and the variety of action that the Spiletta had; yet she is light, agile, ever in motion, and above all, graceful; but then, her voice, her ear, her taste in singing; good G.o.d! as Mr.

Richardson, the painter, says." Works, vol. iii. p. 268.-E.

Letter 68 To George Montagu, Esq.

March 21, 1761. (page 115)

Of the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law! Lord Abercorn asked me this evening, if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for the answer to your compliment.

There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The Speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones too; he did not over-act, and it was really a handsome scene.(141) I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I do not tumble out of the chair, and break my neck, you shall hear from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; Lady Hinchinbrook is dead.

(141) Mr, Onslow held the office of Speaker of the House of Commons for above thirty-three years, and during part of that time enjoyed the lucrative employment of treasurer of the navy: "notwithstanding which," says Mr Hatsell, "it is an anecdote perfectly well known, that on his quitting the Chair, his income from his private fortune, which had always been inconsiderable, Was rather less than it had been in 1727, when he was first elected into it. Superadded to his great and accurate knowledge of the history of this country, and of the minuter forms and proceedings of Parliament, the distinguis.h.i.+ng features of his character were a regard and veneration for the British const.i.tution, as it was declared at and established at the Revolution."-E.

letter 69 To George Montagu, Esq.

Houghton, March 25, 1761. (page 115)

Here I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think what a crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not furnish so many: nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have the patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church--that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too lies he who founded its greatness; to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.

The surprise the pictures(142) gave me is again renewed; accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My young imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abis.h.a.g to warm me now? Does great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women In riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster on a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers!

When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those all'ees, where I have pa.s.sed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or over-grown--many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to call it, monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I do not want to be preached to; I have long considered, how every Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants wanted to lay me in the great apartment-what, to make me pa.s.s my night as I have done my evening! It were like Proposing to Margaret Roper(143) to be a d.u.c.h.ess in the court that cut off her father's head, and imagining it would please her. I have chosen to sit in my father's little dressing-room, and am now by his scrutoire, where, in the heights of his fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us, with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and how weak! For what has he built Houghton? for his grandson to annihilate, or for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh could rise and view his representative driving the Hatfield stage, he would feel as I feel now.(144) Poor little Strawberry! at least it will not be stripped to pieces by a descendant! You will find all these fine meditations dictated by pride, not by philosophy.

Pray consider through how many mediums philosophy must pa.s.s, before it is purified--

"how often must it weep, how often burn!"

My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern.

To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on Friday. I shall return hither on Sat.u.r.day, again alone, to expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne.

Epping, Monday night, thirty-first.-No, I have not seen him; he loitered on the road, and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday morning. It is plain I never knew for how many trades I was formed, when at this time of day I can begin electioneering, and succeed in my new vocation.. Think of me, the subject of a mob, who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing them in the town-hall, riding at the head of two thousand people through such a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them, amid b.u.mpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finis.h.i.+ng with country dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk! I have borne it all cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and reasonable, and civilized; their very language is polished since I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King's dominions, have at least tamed his subjects. Well, how comfortable it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously! The Herac.l.i.tus of the beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finis.h.i.+ng it to sign himself your old friend, Democritus.

P. S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, ,Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,-- he always stood the whole time." "Madam," said I, "when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones." I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, the instant they meet.

(142) This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars relative to the sale will be found in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature. A series Of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in 1788, under the t.i.tle of "The Houghton Gallery: a collection of prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the Earl of Orford."-E.

(143) Wife,, of William Roper, Esq. and eldest and favourite daughter of Sir Thomas More. She bought the head of her ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames, after having been affixed to London bridge, and on being questioned by the Privy Council about her conduct, she boldly replied, that she had done so that "it might not become food for fishes." She survived her father nine years, and died at the age of thirty-six, in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan's church, Canterbury; the box containing her father's head being placed on her coffin.-E.