The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 79

No; but I concluded you did not intend, at least yet, to publish what you had written. As you did intend it, I might have expected a month's preference. You will do me the Justice to own that I had always rather have seen your writings than have shown you mine; which you know are the most hasty trifles in the world, and which, though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, I constantly forget in a very short time after they are published.

This would sound like affectation to others, but will not to you.

It would be affected, even to you, to say I am indifferent to fame. I certainly am not, but I am indifferent to almost any thing I have done to acquire it. The greater part are mere compilations; and no wonder they are, as you say, incorrect, when they are commonly written with people in the room, as Richard and the n.o.ble Authors were. But I doubt there is a more intrinsic fault in them: which is, that I cannot correct them. If I write tolerably, it must be -,it once; I can neither mend nor add. The articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peterborough, in the second edition of the n.o.ble Authors, cost me more trouble than all the rest together: and you may perceive that the worst part of Richard, in point of ease and style, is what relates to the papers you gave me on Jane Sh.o.r.e, because it was taken on so long afterwards, and when my impetus was chilled. If some time or other you will take the trouble of pointing out the inaccuracies of' 'It, I shall be much obliged to you: at present I shall meddle no more with it. It has taken its fate; nor did I mean to complain. I found it was Condemned indeed beforehand, which was what I alluded to. Since publication (as has happened to me before) the success has gone beyond my expectation.

Not only at Cambridge, but here there have been people wise enough to think me too free with the King of Prussia!(1006) A newspaper has talked of my known inveteracy to him. Truly, I love him as well as I do most kings. The greater offence is my reflection on Lord Clarendon. It is forgotten that I had overpraised him before. Pray turn to the new State Papers, from which, it is said, he composed his history. You will find they are the papers from which he did not compose his history. And yet I admire my Lord Clarendon more than these pretended admirers do. But I do not intend to justify myself. I can as little satisfy those who complain that I do not let them know what really did happen. If this inquiry can ferret out any truth, I shall be glad. I have picked up a few more circ.u.mstances. I now want to know what Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation was, which Speed in his history says is preserved by Bishop Leslie. If you look in Speed, perhaps you will be able to a.s.sist me.

The Duke of Richmond and Lord Lyttelton agree with you, that I have not disculpated Richard of the murder of Henry VI. I own to you, it is the crime of which in my own mind I believe him most guiltless. Had I thought he committed it, I should never have taken the trouble to apologize-for the rest. I am not at all positive or obstinate on your other objections, nor know exactly what I believe on many points of this story. And I am so sincere, that, except a few notes hereafter, I shall leave the matter to be settled or discussed by others. As you have written much too little, I have written a great deal too much, and think only of finis.h.i.+ng the two or three other things I have begun--and of those, nothing but the last volume of Painters is designed for the present public. What has one to do when turned fifty, but really think of finis.h.i.+ng?(1007)

I am much obliged and flattered by Mr. Mason's approbation, and particularly by having had almost the same thought with him. I said, "People need not be angry at my excusing Richard; I have not diminished their fund of hatred, I have only transferred it from Richard to Henry." Well, but I have found you close with Mason--No doubt, cry Prating I, something will come out.(1008)- -Oh! no--leave us, both of you, to Annabellas and Epistles to Ferney,(1009) that give Voltaire an account of his own tragedies, to +Macarony fables that are more unintelligible than Pilpay's are in the original, to Mr. Thornton's hurdy-gurdy poetry'(1010) and to Mr. ***** who has imitated himself worse than any fop in a magazine would have done. In truth, if you should abandon us, I could not wonder--When Garrick's prologues and epilogues, his own Cymons and farces, and the comedies of the fools that pay court to him, are the delight of the age, it does not deserve any thing better. Pray read the new account of Corsica. What relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There is a deal about the island and its divisions that one does not care a straw for. The author, Boswell,(1011) is a strange being, and, like Cambridge, has a rage of knowing any body that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up from me about King Theodore. He then took an antipathy to me on Rousseau's account, abused me in the newspapers, and exhorted Rousseau to do so too: but as he came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest. I see he now is a little sick of Rousseau himself; but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me.

However, his book will I am sure entertain you.(1012)

I will add but a word or two more. I am criticised for the expression tinker up in the preface. Is this one of those that you object to? I own I think such a low expression, placed to ridicule an absurd instance of wise folly, very forcible.

Replace it with an elevated word or phrase, and to my conception it becomes as flat as possible.

George Selwyn says I may, if I please, write historic doubts on the present Duke of Grafton too. Indeed, they would be doubts, for I know nothing certainly.

Will you be so kind as to look into Leslie De Rebus Scotorum, and see if Perkin's Proclamation is there, and if there, how authenticated. You will find in Speed my reason for asking this.

I have written in such a hurry, I believe you will scarce be able to read my letter--and as I have just been writing French, perhaps the sense may not be clearer than the writing. Adieu!

(1006) Gray, in a letter to Mr. Walpole, of the 14th, had said-- "I have heard it objected, that you raise doubts and difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what is really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of the princ.i.p.al parts are made out with a clearness and evidence that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry the Sixth." Works, vol. iv. p. 105.-E.

(1007) To this Gray, on the 25th, replied--"To what you say to me so civilly, that I ought to write more, I answer in your own words, (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to refute you out of your own mouth,) what has one to do, when turned fifty, but really to think of finis.h.i.+ng? However, I will be candid (for you seem to be so with me), and avow to you, that, till fourscore and ten, whenever the humour takes me, I will write, because I like it; and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not write much, it is because I cannot." Works, vol. iv. p. 111.-E.

(1008) "I found him close with Swift."--"Indeed?"--"No doubt,"

Cries prating Balbus, "something will come out." Pope.

(1009) Keate's "Ferney; an Epistle to M. Voltaire."-E.

(1010) His burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; with the humour of which Dr. Johnson was much diverted, and used to repeat this pa.s.sage--

"In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join, And clattering and battering and clapping combine, With a rap and a tap, while the hollow side sounds, Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds.-E.

(1011) "Your history," wrote Dr. Johnson to Boswell, "is like other histories, but your journal is, in a very high degree, curious and delightful: there is between them that difference which there will always be found between notions borrowed from without and notions generated within. Your history was copied from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and observation. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited or better gratified."-E.

(1012) To this Gray replies--,'Mr. Boswell's book has pleased and moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure be could invent nothing of this kind. The true t.i.tle of this part of his work is a Dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero." Works, vol. iv. p. 112.-E.

Letter 338 To Mr. Gray.

Arlington Street, Friday night, Feb. 26, 1768. (page 512)

I plague you to death, but I must reply a few more words. I shall be very glad to see in print, and to have those that are worthy, see your ancient Odes; but I was in hopes there were some pieces. too, that I had not seen. I am sorry there are not.(1013)

I troubled you about Perkin's Proclamation. because Mr. Hume lays great stress upon it, and insists, that if Perkin affirmed that his brother was killed, it must have been true, if he was true Duke of York. Mr. Hume would have persuaded me that the Proclamation is in Stowe, but I can find no such thing there; nor, what is more, in Casley's Catalogue, which I have twice looked over carefully. I wrote to Sir David Dalrymple In Scotland, to inquire after it; because I would produce it if I could, though it should make against me: but he, I believe, thinking I inquired with the contrary view, replied very drily, that it was published at York, and was not to be found in Scotland. Whether he is displeased that I have plucked a hair from the tresses of their great historian; or whether, as I suspect, he is offended for King William; this reply was all the notice he took of my letter and book. I only smiled; as I must do when I find one party is angry with me on King William's, and the other on Lord Clarendon's account.

The answer advertised is Guthrie's, who is furious that I have taken no notice of his History. I shall take as little of his pamphlet; but his end will be answered, if he sells that and one or two copies of his History.(1014) Mr. Hume, I am told, has drawn up an answer too, which I shall see, and, if I can, will get him to publish; for, if I should ever choose to say any thing more on this subject, I had rather reply to him than to hackney-writers:--to the latter, indeed, I never will reply. A few notes I have to add that will be very material; and I wish to get some account of a book that was once sold at Osborn's, that exists perhaps at Cambridge, and of which I found a memorandum t'other day in my note-book. It is called A Paradox, or Apology for Richard the Third, by Sir William Cornwallis.(1015) If you could discover it, I should be much obliged to you.

Lord Sandwich, with whom I have not exchanged a syllable since the general warrants, very obligingly sent me an account of the roll at Kimbolton; and has since, at my desire, borrowed it for me and sent it to town.(1016) It is as long as my Lord Lyttelton's History; but by what I can read of it (for it is both ill written and much decayed), it is not a roll of kings, but of all that have been possessed of, or been Earls of Warwick: or have not--for one of the first earls is Aeneas. How, or wherefore, I do not know, but amongst the first is Richard the Third, in whose reign it was finished, and with whom it concludes. He is there again with his wife and son, and Edward the Fourth, and Clarence and his wife, and Edward their son (who unluckily is a little old man), and Margaret Countess of Salisbury, their daughter.--But why do I say with these? There is every body else too and what is most meritorious, the habits of all the times are admirably well observed from the most savage ages. Each figure is tricked with a pen, well drawn, but neither Coloured nor shaded. Richard is straight, but thinner than my print; his hair short, and exactly curled in the same manner; not so handsome as mine, but what one might really believe intended for the same countenance, as drawn by a different painter, especially when so small; for the figures in general are not so long as one's finger. His queen is ugly, and with just such a square forehead as in my print, but I cannot say like it. Nor, indeed, where forty-five figures out of fifty (I have not counted the number) must have been imaginary, can one lay great stress on the five. I shall, however, have these figures copied, especially as I know Of no other image of the son. Mr. Astle is to come to Me tomorrow morning to explain the writing.

I wish you had told me in what age your Franciscan friars lived; and what the pa.s.sage in Comines is. I am very ready to make amende honorable. Thank you for the notes on the n.o.ble Authors.

They shall be inserted when I make a new edition, for the sake of the trouble the person has taken, though they are of little consequence. Dodsley has asked me for a new edition; but I have had little heart to undertake such work, no more than to mend my old linen. It is pity one cannot be born an ancient, and have commentators to do such jobs for one! Adieu! Yours ever.

Sat.u.r.day morning.

On reading over your letter again this morning, I do find the age in which the friars lived--I read and write in such a hurry, that I think I neither know what I read or say.

(1013) Gray, in his letter of the 25th, had said:--"The Long Story was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of explaining the plates) was gone; but, to supply the place of it in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea or a pismire I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or prose; so I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz. The Fatal Sisters; The Descent of Odin; a bit of something from the Welch, and certain little Notes, partly from justice-,, partly from ill- temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward 1. was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an author." Works, vol. iv. P. 110.-E.

(1014) Gray, in his answer of the 6th of March, says--"Guthrie, you see, has vented himself in the Critical Review. His History I never saw, nor is it here, nor do I know any one that ever saw it. He is a rascal; but rascals may chance to meet with curious records." Works, vol. iv. p. 116.-E.

(1015) "The Praise of King Richard the Third," which was published by Sir William Cornwallis, Knight, the celebrated "Essayist," in 1617, is reprinted in the third volume of the Somers' Collection of Tracts.-E.

(1016) From this roll were taken the two plates of portraits in the Historic Doubts.

Letter 339 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 12, 1768. (page 514)

The house, etc. described in the enclosed advertis.e.m.e.nt I Should think might suit you; I am sure its being in my neighbourhood would make me glad, if it did. I know no more than what you will find in this sc.r.a.p of paper, nor what the rent is, nor whether it has a chamber as big as Westminster-hall; but as you have flown about the world, and are returned to your ark without finding a place to rest your foot, I should think you might as well inquire about the house I notify to you, as set out with your caravan to Greatworth, like a Tartar chief; especially as the laws of this country will not permit you to stop in the first meadow you like, and turn your horses to grazing without saying by your leave.

As my senatorial dignity is gone,(1017) and the sight of my name is no longer worth threepence, I shall not put you to the expense of a cover, and I hope the advertis.e.m.e.nt will not be taxed, as I seal it to the paper. In short, I retain so much iniquity from the last infamous Parliament that you see I would still cheat the public. The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here, instead of being at Lynn in the high fever of a contested election, which at best would end in my being carried about that large town like the figure of a pope at a bonfire, is very great. I do not think, when that function is over, that I shall repent my resolution.

What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same knaveries, that I have seen their fathers and Grandfathers act?

Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to Charles Townshend's? Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of beings? Will he not be constantly whining, and droning, and interrupting, like a cigala(1018) in a sultry day in Italy.

Guthrie has published two criticisms on my Richard;(1019) one abusive in the Critical Review; t'other very civil and even flattering in a pamphlet; both so stupid and contemptible, that I rather prefer the first, as making some attempt at vivacity; but in point of argument, nay, and of humour, at which he makes an effort too, both things are below scorn. As an instance of the former, he says, the Duke of Clarence might die of drinking sack, and so be said to be drowned in a b.u.t.t of malmsey; of the latter sort, are his calling the Lady Bridget Lady Biddy, and the Duke of York poor little fellow! I will weary you with no more such stuff!

The weather is so very March, that I cannot enjoy my new holidays at Strawberry yet; I sit reading and writing close to the fire.

Sterne has published two little volumes, called Sentimental Travels. They are very pleasing, though too much dilated, and infinitely preferable to his tiresome Tristram Shandy, of which I never could get through three volumes. In these there is a great good-nature and strokes of delicacy. Gray has added to his poems three ancient Odes from Norway and Wales. The subjects of the two first are grand and picturesque, and there is his genuine vein in them; but they are not interesting, and do not, like his other poems, touch any pa.s.sion. Our human feelings, which he masters at will in his former pieces, are here not affected.(1020) Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive, the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's hall? Oh! yes, just now perhaps these odes would be toasted at many a contested election. Adieu! Yours ever.

(1017) Walpole had retired from Parliament at the general election in the beginning of this year.-E.

(1018) "The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper-bells that rose the boughs along."

Don Juan, c. iii. st. 106.-E.

(1019) Walpole's work is thus characterized by Sir Walter Scott:- -"The Historical Doubts are an acute and curious example how minute antiquarian research may shake our faith in the facts most pointedly averred by general history. It is remarkable also to observe how, in defending a system, which was probably at first adopted as a mere literary exercise, Mr. Walpole's doubts acquired, in his own eyes, the respectability of certainties, in which he could not brook controversy." Prose Works; vol. iii. p.

304.-E.

(1020) "They strike, rather than please; the images are magnified by affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence.

Double, double, toil and trouble! There is too little appearance of ease and nature." Johnson.-E.

Letter 340 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, April 15, 1768. (page 516)

Mr. Chute tells me that you have taken a new house in Squireland, and have given yourself up for two years more to port and parsons. I am very angry, and resign you to the works of the devil or the church, I don't care which. You will get the gout, turn Methodist, and expect to ride to heaven upon your own great foe. I was happy with your telling me how well you love me, and though I don't love loving, I could have poured out all the fullness of my heart to such an old and true friend; but what am I the better for it, if I am to see you but two or three days in the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive is preparing to leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all round us and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear into an old gallery that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, that will understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talked to them of a call of serjeants the year of the Spanish armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of Chaucer; for with all the divinity of wit, it grows out of fas.h.i.+on like a fardingale. I am convinced that the young men at White's already laugh at George Selwyn's bon-mots only by tradition. I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them; for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule, like Mrs.

Hobart in her cotilion. I tell you we should get together, and comfort ourselves with reflecting on the brave days that we have known--not that I think people were a jot more clever or wise in our youth than now, are now; but as my system is always to live in a vision as much as I can, and as visions don't increase with years, there is nothing so natural as to think one remembers what one does not remember.