The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 19

It will look like a month since I wrote to you; but I have been coming, and am. Madame du Deffand has been so ill, that the day she was seized I thought she would not live till night. Her Herculean weakness, which could not resist strawberries and cream after supper, has surmounted all the ups and downs which followed her excess; but her impatience to go every where, and to do every thing has been attended with a kind of relapse, and another kind of giddiness: so that I am not quite easy about her, as they allow her to take no nourishment to recruit, and she will die of inanition, if she does not live upon it. She cannot lift her head from the pillow without 'etourdiss.e.m.e.ns; and yet her spirits gallop faster than any body's, and so do her repartees. She has a great supper to-night for the Due de Choiseul, and was in such a pa.s.sion yesterday with her cook about it, and that put Tonton into such a rage, that nos dames de Saint Joseph thought the devil or the philosophers were flying away with their convert! As I have scarce quitted her, I can have had nothing to tell you.

If she gets well, as I trust, I shall set out on the 12th; but I cannot leave her in any danger--though I shall run many myself, if I stay longer. I have kept such bad hours with this malade that I have had alarms of gout; and bad weather, worse inns, and a voyage in winter, will ill suit me. The fans arrived at a propitious moment, and she immediately had them opened on her bed, and felt all the patterns, and had all the papers described.

She was all satisfaction and thanks, and swore me to do her full justice to Lady Ailesbury, and Mrs. Damer. Lord Harrington and Lady Harriet are arrived; but have announced and persisted in a strict invisibility. I know nothing of my ch'ere patrie, but what I learn from the London Chronicle; and that tells me, that the trading towns are suing out lettres de n.o.blesse, that is, entreating the King to put an end to commerce, that they may all be gentlemen. Here agriculture, economy, reformation, philosophy, are the bon-ton even at court. The two nations seem to have crossed over and figured in; but as people that copy take the bad with the good, as well as the good with the bad, there was two days ago a great horserace in the plain de Sablon, between the Comte d'Artois,(229) the Duc de Chartres,(230) Monsieur de Conflans, and the Duc de Lauzun.(231) The latter won by the address of a little English postilion, who is in such fas.h.i.+on, that I don't know whether the Academy will not give him for the subject of an 'eloge.

The Due de Choiseul, I said, is here; and, as he has a second time put off his departure, cela fait beaucoup de bruit. I shall not at all be surprised if he resumes the reins, as (forgive me a pun) he has the Reine at ready. Messrs. de Turgot and Malesherbes certainly totter--but I shall tell you no more till I see you; for though this goes by a private hand, it is so private, that I don't know it, being an English merchant's, who lodges in this hotel, and whom I do not know by sight: so, perhaps, I may bring you word of this letter myself. I flatter myself Lady Ailesbury's arm has recovered its straightness and its cunning. . .

Madame du Deffand says, I love you better than any thing in the world. If true, I hope you have not less penetration: if you have not, or it is not true, what would professions avail?-So I leave that matter in suspense. Adieu!

October 7.

Madame du Deffand was quite well yesterday; and at near one this, morning I left the Duc de Choiseul, the d.u.c.h.ess de Grammont, the Prince and the Princess of Beauveau, Princess Of Poix,(232) the Mar'echale de Luxembourg, d.u.c.h.ess de Lauzun, Ducs de Gontaut(233) et de Chabot, and Caraccioli, round her chaise longue; and she herself was not a dumb personage. I have not heard yet how she has slept, and must send away my letter this moment, as I must dress to go to dinner with Monsieur de Malesherbes at Madame de Villegagnon's. I must repose a great while after all this living in company; nay, intend to go very little into the world again, as I do not admire the French way of burning one's candle to the very snuff in public. Tell Mrs. Damer, that the fas.h.i.+on now is to erect the toup'ee into a high detached tuft of hair, like a c.o.c.katoo's crest; and this toup'ee they call la physionomie--I don't guess why.

My laquais is come back from St. Joseph's, and says Marie(234) de Vichy has had a very good night, and is quite well.--Philip!(235) let my chaise be ready on Thursday.(236)

(229) Afterwards Charles the Tenth.-E.

(230) On the death of his father, in 1785, he became Duke of Orleans. In 1792, he was chosen a member of the National-Convention, when he adopted the Jacobinical t.i.tle of Louis-Philippe-Joseph Egalit'e; and, in November 1793, he suffered by the guillotine. -E.

(231) The Duc de Lauzun, son of the Duc de Gontaut, the maternal nephew of the d.u.c.h.esse de Choiseul.-E.

(232) Wife of the Prince de Poix, eldest son of the Mar'echal de Mouchy, and daughter of the Prince de Beauveau. The Prince de Poix retired to this country on the breaking out of the French revolution, accompanied by his son, Comte Charles de Noailles, who married the daughter of La Borde, the great banker.-E.

(233) The Duc de Gontaut, brother to the Mar'echal Duc de Biron, and father to the Duc de Lauzun. The d.u.c.h.esse de Gontaut was a sister of the d.u.c.h.esse de Choiseul-E.

(234) The maiden name of Madame du Deffand was Marie de Vichy Chamrond. She was born in 1697, of a n.o.ble family in the province of Burgundy; and, as her fortune was small, she was married by her parents, in 1718, to the Marquis du Deffand; the union being settled with as little attention to her feelings as was usual in French marriages of that age. A separation soon took place; but Walpole says they always continued on good terms, and that upon her husband's deathbed, at his express desire, she saw him.-E.

(235) Mr. Walpole's valet-de-chambre.

(236) Walpole left Paris on the 12th; upon which day, Madame du Deffand thus wrote to him--"Adieu! ce mot est bien triste!

Souvenez que vous laissez ici la personne dont vous 'etes le plus aim'e, et dont le bonheur et le malheur consistent dans ce que vous pensez pour elle. Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles le plus t'ot qu'il sera possible."-E.

Letter 98 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 10, 1775. (page 144)

I was very sorry to have been here, dear Sir, the day you called on me in town. It is so difficult to uncloister you, that I regret not seeing you when you are out of your own ambry. I have nothing new to tell you that is very old; but you can inform me of something within your own district. Who is the author, E. B.

G. of a version of Mr. Gray's Latin Odes into English,(237) and of an Elegy on my wolf-devoured dog, poor Tory? a name you will marvel at in a dog of mine; but his G.o.dmother was the widow of Alderman Parsons, who gave him at Paris to Lord Conway, and he to me. The author is a poet; but he makes me blush, for he calls Mr. Gray and me congenial pair. Alas! I have no genius; and if any symptom of talent, so inferior to Gray's, that Milton and Quarles might as well be coupled together. We rode over the Alps in the same chaise, but Pegasus drew on his side, and a cart-horse on mine. I am too jealous of his fame to let us be coupled together. This author says he has lately printed at Cambridge a Latin translation of the Bards; I should be much obliged to you for it.

I do not ask you if Cambridge has produced any thing, for it never does. Have you made any discoveries? Has Mr. Lort? Where is he? Does Mr. Tyson engrave no more? My plates for Strawberry advance leisurely. I am about nothing. I grow old and lazy, and the present world cares for nothing but politics, and satisfies itself with writing in newspapers. If they are not bound up and preserved in libraries, posterity will imagine that the art of printing was gone out of use. Lord Hardwicke(238) has indeed reprinted his heavy volume of Sir Dudley Carleton's Despatches, and says I was in the wrong to despise it. I never met with any body that thought otherwise. What signifies raising the dead so often, when they die the next minute? Adieu!

(237) Edward Burnaby Greene, formerly of Bennet College, but at that time a brewer in Westminster, He likewise published translations of Pindar, Persius, Apollonius Rhodius, Anacreon, etc.-E.

(238) Philip Yorke, second Earl of Hardwicke, when Lord Royston, published the "Letters to and from Sir Dudley Carleton, Knight, during his Emba.s.sy in Holland, from January 1615-16 to December 1620," 4to. 1727; and, in 1775, a second edition, "with large additions to the Historical Preface."-E.

Letter 99 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.

Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1775. (page 145)

Did you hear that scream?--Don't be frightened, Madam; it was only the d.u.c.h.ess of Kingston last Sunday was sevennight at chapel: but it is better to be prepared; for she has sent word to the House of Lords, that her nerves are so bad she intends to scream for these two months, and therefore they must put off her trial. They are to take her throes into consideration to-day; and that there may be sufficient room for the length of her veil and train, and attendants, have a mind to treat her with Westminster-hall. I hope so, for I should like to see this com'edie larmoyante; and, besides, I conclude, it would bring your ladys.h.i.+p to town. You shall have timely notice.

There is another comedy infinitely worth seeing--Monsieur Le Texier. He is Pr'eville, and Caillaud, and Garrick, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, all together; and as perfect in the most insignificant part, as in the most difficult.(239) To be sure, it is hard to give up loo in such fine weather, when one can play from morning till night. In London, Pam can scarce get a house till ten o'clock. If you happen to see the General your husband, make my compliments to him, Madam; his friend the King of Prussia is going to the devil and Alexander the Great.

(239) M. Le Texier was a native of Lyons, where he was directeur des fermes. The following account of the readings of this celebrated Frenchman, is from a critique on Boaden's Life of Kemble, in the Quarterly Review, vol. x.x.xiv. p. 241:--"On one of the author's incidental topics we must pause for a moment with delightful recollection. We mean the readings of Le Texier, who, seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, reads French plays with such modulation of voice, and such exquisite point of dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but almost as great as we experience in listening to a first-rate actor. When it commenced, M. Le Texier read over the dramatis persome, with the little a.n.a.lysis of character usually attached to each name, Using the voice and manner with which he afterwards read the part: and so accurately was the key-note given, that he had no need to name afterwards the person who spoke; the stupidest of the audience could not miss to recognise him." Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole, says of him-- "Soyez s'ur, que lui tout seul est la meilleure troupe que nous avons:" and again in one to Voltaire--"a.s.sis dans un fauteuil, avec un livre 'a la main, il jouc les comedies o'u1 il y a sept, huit, dix, douze personnages, si parfaitement bien, qu'on ne saurait croire, m'eme en le regardant, que ce soit le m'eme homme qui Parle. Pour moi, l'illusion est parfaitc."-E.

Letter 100 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1775. (page 146)

Our letters probably pa.s.sed by each other on the road, for I wrote to you on Tuesday, and have this instant received one from you, which I answer directly, to beg pardon for my incivility, nay, ingrat.i.tude, in not thanking you for your present of a whole branch of most respectable ancestors, the Derehaughs--why, the Derehaughs alone would make gentlemen of half the modern peers, English or Irish. I doubt my journey to France was got into my head, and left no room for an additional quarter-but I have given it to Edmondson, and ordered him to take care that I am born again from the Derehaughs. This Edmondson has got a ridiculous notion into his head that another, and much ancienter of my progenitors, Sir Henry Walpole, married his wife Isabella Fitz-Osbert, when she was widow to Sir Walter Jernegan; whereas, all the Old Testament says Sir Walter married Sir Henry's widow.

Pray send me your authority to confound this gainsayer, if you know any thing particular of the matter.

I had not heard of the painting you tell me of. As those b.o.o.bies, the Society of Antiquaries, have gotten hold of it, I wonder their piety did not make them bury it again, as they did the clothes of Edward I.(240) I have some notion that in Vertue's MSS. or somewhere else, I don't know where, I have read of some ancient painting at the Rose Tavern. This I will tell you-but Mr. Gough is such" a bear, that I shall not satisfy him about it. That Society, when they are puzzled, have recourse to me; and that would be so often, that I shall not encourage them.

They may blunder as they please, from their heavy president down to the pert Governor Pownall, who accounts for every thing immediately, before the Creation or since. Say only to Mr.

Gough, that I said I had not leisure now to examine Vertue's MSS.

If I find any thing there, you shall know-but I have no longer any eagerness to communicate what I discover. When there was so little taste for MSS. which Mr. Gray thought worth transcribing, and which were so valuable, would one offer more pearls?

Boydel brought me this morning another number of the Prints from the pictures at Houghton. Two or three in particular are most admirably executed--but alas! it will be twenty years before the set is completed. That is too long to look forward to at any age!--and at mine!--Nay, people will be tired in a quarter of the time. Boydel, who knows this country, and still more this town, thinks so too. Perhaps there will be newer, or at least more fas.h.i.+onable ways of engraving, and the old will be despised--or, which is still more likely, n.o.body will be able to afford the expense. Who would lay a plan for any thing in an overgrown metropolis hurrying to its fall!

I will return you Mr. Gough's letter when I get a frank. Adieu!

(240) The Society of Antiquaries, having obtained permission to do so, had, on the 2d of May 1774, opened the tomb of Edward the First in Westminster. The body was found in perfect preservation, and most superbly attired. The garments were, of course, carefully replaced in the tomb.-E.

Letter 101 To Thomas Astle, Esq.

December 19, 1775. (page 147)

Sir, I am much obliged, and return you my thanks for the paper you have sent me. You have added a question to it, which, if I understand it, you yourself, Sir, are more capable than any body of answering. You say, "Is it probable that this instrument was framed by Richard Duke of Gloucester?" If by framed you mean drawn up, I should think princes of the blood, in that barbarous age, were not very expert in drawing acts of attainder, though a branch of the law more in use then than since. But as I suppose you mean forged, you, Sir, so conversant in writings of that age, can judge better than any man. You may only mean forged by his order. Your reading, much deeper than mine, may furnish you with precedents of forged acts of attainder: I never heard of one; nor does my simple understanding suggest the use of such a forgery, on cases immediately pressing; because an act of attainder being a matter of public notoriety, it would be revolting to the common sense of all mankind to plead such an one', if it had not really existed. If it could be carried into execution by force, the force would avail without the forgery, and would be at once exaggerated and weakened by it. I cannot, therefore, conceive why Richard should make use of so absurd a trick, unless that having so little to do in so short and turbulent a reign, he amused himself with treasuring up in the tower a forged act for the satisfaction of those who, three hundred years afterwards, should be glad of discovering new flaws in his character. As there are men so bigoted to old legends, I am persuaded, Sir, that you would please them, by communicating your question to them. They would rejoice to suppose that Richard was more criminal than even the Lancastrian historians represent him; and just at this moment I don't know whether they would not believe that Mrs. Rudd a.s.sisted him. I, who am, probably, as absurd a bigot on the other side, see nothing in the paper you have sent me, but a confirmation of Richard's innocence of the death of Clarence. As the Duke of Buckingham was appointed to superintend the execution, it is incredible that he should have been drowned in a b.u.t.t of malmsey, and that Richard should have been the executioner. When a seneschal of England, or as we call it, a lord high steward, is appointed for a trial, at least for execution, with all his officers, it looks very much as if, even in that age, proceedings were carried on with a little more formality than the careless writers of that time let us think.

The appointment, too, of the Duke of Buckingham for that office, seems to add another improbability [and a work of supererogation]

to Richard's forging the instrument. Did Richard really do nothing but what tended to increase his unpopularity by glutting mankind with lies, forgeries, absurdities, which every man living could detect?

I take this opportunity, Sir, of telling you how sorry I am not to have seen you long, and how glad I shall be to renew our acquaintance, especially if you like to talk over this old story with me, though I own it is of little importance, and pretty well exhausted.(241) I am, Sir, with great regard, your obliged humble servant.

(241) To the above letter it was intended to subjoin the following queries:--

"If there was no such Parliament held, would Richard have dared to forge an act for it?

"Would Henry VII. never have reproached him with so absurd a forgery?

"Did neither Sir T. More nor Lord Bacon ever hear of that forgery?

"As Richard declared his nephew the Earl of Warwick his successor, would he have done so, if he had forged an act of attainder of Warwick's father?

"if it is supposed he forged the act, when he set aside Warwick, could he pretend that act was not known when he declared him his heir? Would not so recent an act's being unknown have proved it a forgery; and if there had been no such Parliament as that which forged it, would not that have proved it a double forgery? The act, therefore, and the parliament that pa.s.sed it, must have been genuine, and existed, though no other record appears. The distractions of the times, the evident insufficiency or partiality of the historians of that age, and the interest of Henry VII to destroy all records that gave authority to the House Of York and their t.i.tle, account for our wanting evidence of that Parliament."