The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 54

Letter 230 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1764. (page 352)

I am much disappointed, I own, dear Sir, at not seeing you: more so, as I fear it will be long before I shall, for I think of going to paris early in February. I ought indeed to go directly, as the winter does not agree with me here. Without being positively ill, I am positively not well: about this time of year, I have little fevers every night, and pains in my breast and stomach, which bid me repair to a more flannel climate.

These little complaints are already begun, and as soon as affairs will permit me, I mean to transport them southward.

I am sorry it is out of my power to make the addition you wish to Mr. Tuer's article: many of the following sheets are printed off, and there is no inserting any thing now, without shoving the whole text forward, which you see is impossible. You promised to bring me a portrait of him: as I shall have four or five new plates, I can get his head into one of them: will you send it as soon as you can possibly to my house in Arlington-street; I will take great care of it-, and return it to you safe.

Letter 231 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 9, 1764. (page 353)

I don't know whether this letter will not reach you, my dear lord, before one that I sent to you last week by a private hand, along with one from your brother. I write this by my Lord Chamberlain's order--you may interpret it as you please, either as by some new connexion of the Bedford squadron with the opposition, or as a commission to you, my lord amba.s.sador. As yet, I believe you had better take it upon the latter foundation, though the Duke of Bedford has crossed the country from Bath to Woburn, without coming to town. Be that as it may, here is the negotiation intrusted to you. You are desired by my Lord Gower to apply to the gentilhomme de la chambre for leave for Doberval(694) the dancer, who was here last year, to return and dance at our Opera forthwith. If the court of France -will comply with this request, we will send them a discharge in full, for the Canada bills and the ransom of their prisoners, and we will permit Monsieur D'Estain to command in the West Indies, whether we will or not. The city of London must not know a word of this treaty, for they hate any mortal should be diverted but themselves, especially by any thing relative to harmony. It is, I own, betraying my country and my patriotism to be concerned in a job of this kind. I am sensible that there is not a weaver in Spitalfields but can dance better than the first performer in the French Opera; and yet, how could I refuse this commission? Mrs.

George Pitt delivered it to me just now, at Lord Holderness's at Sion, and as my virtue has not yet been able to root out all my good-breeding--though I trust it will in time--I could not help promising that I would write to you--nay, and engaged that you would undertake it. When I venture, sure you may, who are out of the reach of a mob!

I believe this letter will go by Monsieur Beaumont. He breakfasted here t'other morning, and pleased me exceedingly: he has great spirit and good-humour. It is incredible what pains he has taken to see. He has seen Oxford, Bath, Blenheim, Stowe, Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, has dined at Wildman's, and, I think, with my Lord Mayor, or is to do.

Monsieur de Guerchy is full of your praises; I am to go to Park-place with him next week, to make your brother a visit.

You know how I hate telling you false news: all I can do, is to retract as fast as I can. I fear I was too hasty in an article I sent you in my last, though I then mentioned it only as a report.

I doubt, what we wish in a private family(695) will not be exactly the event.

The Duke of c.u.mberland has had a dangerous sore-throat, but is recovered. In one of the bitterest days that could be felt, he would go upon the course at Newmarket with the windows of his landau down. Newmarket-heath, at no time of the year, is placed under the torrid zone. I can conceive a hero welcoming death, or at least despising it; but if I was covered with more laurels than a boar's head at Christmas, I should hate pain, and Ranby, and an operation. His nephew of York has been at Blenheim, where they gave him a ball, but did not put themselves to much expense in dancers; the figurantes were the maid-servants. You will not doubt my authority, when I tell you my Lady Bute was my intelligence. I heard to-day, at Sion, of some bitter verses made at Bath, on both their graces of Bedford. I have not seen them, nor, if I had them, would I send them to you before they are in print, which I conclude they will be, for I am sorry to say, scandalous abuse is not the commodity which either side is sparing of. You can conceive nothing beyond the epigrams which have been in the papers, on a pair of doves and a parrot that Lord Bute has sent to the Princess.(696)

I hear-but this is another of my paragraphs that I am far from giving you for sterling--that Lord Sandwich is to have the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re's garter; Lord Northumberland stands against Lord Morton,(697) for president of the Royal Society, in the room of Lord Macclesfield. As this latter article will have no bad consequences if it should prove true, you may believe it. Earl Poulet is dead, and Soame, who married Mrs. Naylor's sister.

You will wonder more at what I am going to tell you in the last place: I am preparing, in earnest, to make you a visit-not next week, but seriously in February. After postponing it for seven idle months, you will stare at my thinking of it just after the meeting Of the Parliament. Why, that is just one of my princ.i.p.al reasons. I will stay and see the opening and one or two divisions; the minority will be able to be the majority, or they will not: if they can, they will not want me, who want nothing of them: if they cannot, I am sure I can do them no good, and shall take my leave of them;--I mean always, to be sure, if things do not turn on a few votes: they shall not call me a deserter. In every other case, I am so sick of politics, which I have long detested, that I must bid adieu to them. I have acted the part by your brother that I thought right. He approves what I have done, and what I mean to do; so do the few I esteem, for I have notified my intention; and for the rest of the world, they may think what they please. In truth, I have a better reason, which would prescribe my setting out directly, if it was consistent with my honour. I have a return of those nightly fevers and pains in my breast, which have come for the three last years -,it this season: change of air and a better climate are certainly necessary to me in winter. I shall thus indulge my inclinations every way. I long to see you and my Lady Hertford, and am wofully sick of the follies and distractions of this country, to which I see no end, come what changes will! Now, do you wonder any longer at my resolution? In the mean time adieu for the present!

(694) D'Auberval was not only a celebrated dancer, but a composer of ballets.@.

(695) The reconciliation of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton.-E.

(696) The Princess Dowager of Wales.

(697) Lord Morton was elected.

Letter 232 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.

November 10, 1764. (page 355)

Soh! madam, you expect to be thanked, because you have done a very obliging thing.(698) But I won't thank you, and I won't be obliged. It is very hard one can't come into your house and commend any thing, but you must recollect it and send it after one! I will never dine in your house again; and, when I do, I will like nothing; and when I do, I will commend nothing; and when I do, you shan't remember it. You are very grateful indeed to Providence that give you so good a memory, to stuff it with nothing but bills of fare of what every body likes to eat and drink! I wonder you are not ashamed! Do you think there is no such thing as gluttony of the memory?--You a Christian! A pretty account you will be able to give of yourself!-Your fine folks in France may call this friends.h.i.+p and attention, perhaps--but sure, if I was to go to the devil, it should be for thinking of nothing but myself, not of others, from morning to night. I would send back your temptations; but, as I will not be obliged to you for them, verily I shall retain them to punish you; ingrat.i.tude being a proper chastis.e.m.e.nt for sinful friendliness. Thine in the spirit, Pilchard Whitfield.

(698) Lady Hervey, it is supposed, had sent Mr. Walpole some potted pilchards.

Letter 233 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 25, 1764. (page 356)

Could you be so kind, my dear lord, as to recollect Dr.

Blanchard, after so long an interval. It will make me still more cautious of giving recommendations to you, instead of drawing upon the credit you give me. I saw Mr. Stanley last night at the Opera, who made his court extremely to me by what he said of you.

It was our first opera, and I went to town to hear Manzoli,(699) who did not quite answer my expectation, though a very fine singer, but his voice has been younger, and wants the touching tones of Elisi.(700) However, the audience was not so nice, but applauded him immoderately, and encored three of his songs. The first woman was advertised for a perfect beauty, with no voice; but her beauty and voice are by no means so unequally balanced: she has a pretty little small pipe, and only a pretty little small person, and share of beauty, and does not act ill. There is Tenducci, a moderate tenor, and all the rest intolerable. If you don't make haste and send us Doberval, I don't know what we shall do. The dances were not only hissed, as truly they deserved to be, but the gallery, 'a la Drury-lane, cried out, , Off! off!" The boxes were empty, for so is the town, to a degree.

The person,(701) who ordered me to write to you for Dobeval, was reduced to languish in the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton's box. My d.u.c.h.ess(702) does not appear yet--I fear.

Shall I tell you any thing about D'Eon? it is sending coals to Paris: you must know his story better than me; so in two words Vergy, his antagonist, is become his convert:(703) has wrote for him and sworn for him,--nay, has made an affidavit before Judge Wilmot, that Monsieur de Guerchy had hired him to stab or poison D'Eon. Did you ever see a man who had less of an a.s.sa.s.sin than your pendant, as Nivernois calls it! In short, the story is as clumsy, as abominable. The King's Bench cited D'Eon to receive his sentence: he absconds: that court issued a warrant to search for him and a house in Scotland-yard, where he lodged, was broken open, but in vain. If there is any thing more, you know it yourself. This law transaction is buried in another. The Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Clarke, is dead, and Norton succeeds.

Who do you think succeeds him? his predecessor.(704) The house of York is returned to the house of Lancaster: they could not keep their white roses pure. I have not a little suspicion that disappointment has contributed to this faux-pas. Sir Thomas made a new will the day before he died, and gave his vast fortune, not to Mr. Yorke, as was expected, but to Lord Macclesfield, to whom, it is come out, he was natural brother. Norton, besides the Rolls, which are for lite, and near 3,000 pounds a-year, has a pension of 1,200 pounds. Mrs. Anne Pitt, too, has got a third pension: so you see we are not quite such beggars as you imagined!

Prince William, you know, is Duke of Gloucester, with the same appanage as the Duke of York. Legrand(705) is his Cadogan; Clinton(706) and Ligonier(707) his grooms.

Colonel Crawford is dead at Minorca, and Colonel Burton has his regiment; the Primate (Stone) is better, but I suppose, from his distemper, which is a dropsy in his breast, irrecoverable. Your Irish queen(708) exceeds the English Queen, and follows her with seven footmen before her chair--well! what trumperies I tell you!

but I cannot help it--Wilkes is outlawed, D'Eon run away, and Churchill dead--till some new genius arises, you must take up with the operas, and pensions, and seven footmen. But patience!

your country is seldom sterile long.

George Selwyn has written hither his lamentations about that Cossack Princess. I am glad of it, for I did but hint it to my Lady Rervey, (though I give you my word, without quoting you, which I never do upon the most trifling occurrences,) and I was cut very short, and told it was impossible. A la bonne heure!

Pray, who is Lord March(709) going to marry? We hear so, but n.o.body named. I had not heard of your losses at whisk; but if I had, should not have been terrified: you know whisk gives no fatal ideas to any body that has been at Arthur's and seen hazard, Quinze, and Trente-et-Quarante. I beg you will prevail on the King of France to let Monsieur de Richelieu give as many b.a.l.l.s and f'etes as he pleases, if it is only for my diversion.

This journey to Paris is the last colt's tooth I intend ever to cut, and I insist upon being prodigiously entertained, like a Sposa Monacha, whom they cram with this world for a twelvemonth, before she bids adieu to it for ever. I think, when I shut myself up in my convent here, it will not be with the same regret. I have for some time been glutted with the world, and regret the friends that drop away every day; those, at least, with whom I came into the world, already begin to make it appear a great void. Lord Edgec.u.mbe, Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re leave a very perceptible chasm. At the Opera last night, I felt almost ashamed to be there. Except Lady Townshend, Lady Schaub, Lady Albemarle, and Lady Northumberland, I scarce saw a creature whose debut there I could not remember: nay, the greater part were maccaronies. You see I am not likely, like my brother Cholmondeley (who, by the way, was there too), to totter into a solitaire at threescore. The Duke de Richelieu(710) is one of the persons I am curious to see--oh! am I to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti? Your brother and Lady Aylesbury are to be in town the day after to-morrow to hear Manzoli, and on their way to Mrs. Cornwallis, who is acting l'agonisante; but that would be treason to Lady Ailesbury. I was at Park-place last week: the bridge is finished, and a n.o.ble object.

I shall come to you as soon as ever I have my cong'e, which I trust will be early in February. I will let you know the moment I can fix my time, because I shall beg you to order a small lodging to be taken for me at no great distance from your palace, and only for a short time, because, if I should like France enough to stay some months I can afterwards accommodate myself to my mind. I should like to be so near you that I could see you whenever it would not be inconvenient to you, and without being obliged to that intercourse with my countrymen, which I by no means design to cultivate. If I leave the best company here, it shall not be for the worst. I am getting out of the world, not coming into it, and shall therefore be most indifferent about their acquaintance, or what they think of my avoiding it. I come to see you and my Lady Hertford, to escape from politics, and to amuse myself with seeing, which I intend to do with all my eyes.

I abhor show, am not pa.s.sionately fond of literati, don't want to know people for a few months, and really think of nothing but some comfortable hours with you, and indulging my curiosity.

Excuse almost a page about myself, but it was to tell you how little trouble I hope to give you.

(699) "Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous soprano that had been heard on our stage since the time of Farinelli; and his manner of singing was grand and full of taste and dignity. The lovers of music in London were more unanimous in approving his voice and talents, than those of any other singer within my memory." Burney.--E.

(700) Elisi, though a great singer, was a still greater actor: his figure was large and majestic, and he had a great compa.s.s of voice." Ibid.-E.

(701) Probably Mrs. George Pitt.-C.

(702) Of Grafton.

(703) This is altogether a very mysterious affair: M. de Vergy was the cause of D'Eon's violent behaviour at Lord Halifax's (see ant'e, p. 254, letter 181,); he afterwards took D'Eon's part, and had the effrontery and the infamy to say, that he was suborned by the French ministry to quarrel with and ruin D'Eon.-C.

(704) Mr. Charles Yorke; but we shall see, in the next letter, that the fact on which all this imputation was built was false.-C.

(705) Edward Legrand, Esq., treasurer to the Duke of Gloucester; as the Hon. C. S. Cadogan was to the Duke of York.-E.

(706) Colonel Henry Clinton, afterwards commander-in-chief in America, and K. B.-E.

(707) Colonel Edward Ligonier, aide-de-camp to the King.-E.

(708) The Countess of Northumberland.-E.

(709) James, third Earl of March, a lord of the bedchamber, who subsequently, in 1778, succeeded to the dukedom of queensberry, and was the last of that t.i.tle.-E.

(710) The celebrated Mareschal Duc de Richelieu: he was born in 1696, and died in 1788. The whole of his long life was full of adventures so extraordinary as to justify Mr. Walpole's curiosity. The most remarkable, however, of all, had not at this period occurred. In the year 1780, and at the age of eighty-four, he married his third wife, and was severely afflicted that a miscarriage of the d.u.c.h.ess destroyed his hopes of another Cardinal de Richelieu; for to that eminence he destined the child of his age. His biographer adds, that the d.u.c.h.ess was an affectionate and attentive wife, notwithstanding that her octogenarian husband tried her patience by reiterated infidelities.-C.