The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 72

Apropos: I hear there is a medal struck at Rome of her brother- in-law, as Henry the Ninth; which, as one of their Papal majesties was so abominably mean as to deny the royal t.i.tle to his brother, though for Rome he had lost a crown, I did not know they allow his brother to a.s.sume. I should be much obliged to you if you could get one of those medals in copper; ay, and of his brother, if there was one with the royal t.i.tle. I have the father's and mother's, and all the Popes', in copper; but my Pope, Benedict the Fourteenth, is the last, and therefore I should be glad of one of each of his successors, if you can procure and bring them with little trouble. I should not be sorry to have one of the Grand Duke and his father; but they should be in copper, not only for my suite, but they are sharper than in silver.

Thursday night.

Well! I have had an exact account of the interview of the two Queens, from one who stood close to them. The dowager was announced as Princess of s...o...b..rg. She was well-dressed, and not at all embarra.s.sed. The King talked to her a good deal; but about her pa.s.sage' the sea, and general topics: the Queen in the same way, but less. Then she stood between the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, and had a good deal of conversation with the former; who, perhaps, may have met her in Italy. Not a word between her and the Princesses: nor did I hear of the Prince, but he was there, and probably spoke to her. The Queen looked at her earnestly. To add to the singularity of the day, it is the Queen's birthday. Another odd accident: at the Opera at the Pantheon, Madame d'Albany was carried into the King's box, and sat there. It is not of a piece with her going to court, that she seals with the royal arms. I have been told to-night, that you will not be able to get me a medal of the royal Cardinal, as very few were struck, and only for presents; so pray give yourself but little trouble about it.

Boswell has at last published his long-promised Life of Dr.

Johnson, in two volumes in quarto. I will give you an account of it when I have gone through it. I have already perceived, that in writing the history of Hudibras, Ralpho has not forgot himself nor will others, I believe, forget him!

(790) The Duc do Brissac was at this time commandant-general of Louis the Sixteenth's const.i.tutional guard. In the following year he was denounced; and in the early days of September put to death at Versailles, for his attachment to his unfortunate sovereign.-E.

(791) The Duc de Nivernois, who, at this time, was employed about the person of Louis the Sixteenth, was denounced by the infamous Chaumette, and Cast into prison in September 1793; where he remained till 1796. He died in 1798.-E.

(792) In Mr. Wilberforce's Diary of the 22d of December, there is the following entry:--"Hastings's impeachment question. Pitt's astonis.h.i.+ng speech. This was almost the finest speech he ever delivered: it was one which you would say at once he never could have made if he had not been a mathematician. He put things by as he proceeded and then returned to the very point from which he had started, with the most astonis.h.i.+ng clearness. He had all the lawyers against him, but carried a majority of the House, mainly by the force of this speech. It pleased Burke exceedingly.

'Sir,' he said, 'the right honourable gentleman and I have often been opposed to one another, but his speech tonight has neutralized my opposition; nay, Sir, he has dulcified me.' "

Life, vol. i. p. 286.-E.

(793) Louisa Maximiliana de s...o...b..rg Goedern, wife of the Pretender. After the death of Charles Edward in 1788, she travelled in Italy and France, and lived with her favourite, the celebrated Alfieri, to whom she is stated to have been privately married. She continued to reside at Paris, until the progress of the revolution compelled her to take refuge in England.-E.

(794) Lady Anne Rawdon, sister to the first Marquis of Hastings.

Letter 380 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, May 26, 1791. (page 500)

I am rich in letters from you: I received that by Lord Elgin's courier first, as you expected, and its elder the next day. You tell me mine entertain you; tant mieux. It is my wish, but my wonder; for I live so little in the world, that I do not know the present generation by sight: for, though I pa.s.s by them in the streets, the hats with valences, the folds above the chin of the ladies, and the dirty s.h.i.+rts and s.h.a.ggy hair of the young men, who have levelled n.o.bility almost as much as the mobility in France have, have confounded all individuality. Besides, if I did go to public places and a.s.semblies, which my going to roost earlier prevents, the bats and owls do not begin to fly abroad till far in the night, when they begin to see and be seen.

However, one of the empresses of fas.h.i.+on, the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, uses fifteen or sixteen hours of her four-and-twenty. I heard her journal of last Monday. She first went to Handel's music in the Abbey; she then clambered over the benches, and went to Hastings's trial in the Hall; after dinner to the play; then to Lady Lucan's a.s.sembly; after that to Ranelagh, and returned to Mrs. Hobart's faro table; gave a ball herself in the evening of that morning, into which she must have got a good way: and set out for Scotland the next day. Hercules could not have achieved a quarter of her labours in the same s.p.a.ce of time, What will the Great Duke think of our Amazons, if he has letters opened, as the Emperor was wont! One of our Camillas,(795) but in a freer style, I hear, he saw (I fancy just before your arrival); and he must have wondered at the familiarity of the dame, and the nincomp.o.o.phood of her Prince. Sir William Hamilton is arrived-- his Nymph of the Att.i.tudes!(796) was too prudish to visit the rambling peeress.

The rest of my letter must be literary; for we have no news.

Boswell's book is gossiping;(797) but, having numbers of proper names, would be more readable, at least by me, were it reduced from two volumes to one; but there are woful longueurs, both about his hero and himself; thefidus Achates; about whom one has not the smallest curiosity. But I wrong the original Achates: one is satisfied with his fidelity in keeping his master's secrets and weaknesses, which modern led-captains betray for their patron's glory, and to hurt their own enemies; which Boswell has done shamefully, particularly against Mrs. Piozzi, and Mrs. Montagu, and Bishop Percy. Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse any body, by saying some dead body said so and so of somebody alive. Often, indeed, Johnson made the most brutal speeches to living persons; for though he was good-natured at bottom, he was very ill-natured at top. He loved to dispute, to show his superiority. If his opponents were weak, he told them they were fools; if they vanquished him, be was scurrilous--to n.o.body more than to Boswell himself, who was contemptible for flattering him so grossly, and for enduring the coa.r.s.e things he was continually vomiting on Boswell's own country, Scotland. I expected, amongst the excommunicated, to find myself, but am very gently treated.

I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad arguments (purposely, out of Jacobitism,) into the speeches which he wrote fifty years ago for my father, in the Gentleman's Magazine; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till Johnson died, nor have looked at since.

Johnson's blind Toryism and known brutality kept me aloof; nor did I ever exchange a syllable with him: nay, I do not think I ever was in a room with him six times in my days. Boswell came to me, said Dr. Johnson was writing the Lives of the Poets, and wished I would give him anecdotes of Mr. Gray. I said, very coldly, I had given what I knew to Mr. Mason. Boswell hummed and hawed, and then dropped, "I suppose you know Dr. Johnson does not admire Mr. Gray." Putting as much contempt as I could Into my look and tone, I said, "Dr. Johnson don't--humph!"--and with that monosyllable ended our interview. After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me, begging subscriptions for a monument for him--the two last, I think, impertinently; as they could not but know my opinion, and could not suppose I would contribute to a monument for one who had endeavoured, poor soul! to degrade my friend's superlative poetry. I would not deign to write an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish officers with a brief, that I Would not subscribe. In the two new volumes Johnson says, and very probably did, or is made to say, that 'Gray's poetry is dull, and that he was a dull man!(798) The same oracle dislikes Prior, Swift, and Fielding.

If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a great deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy ungraceful animal. Pa.s.s to a better chapter!

Burke has published another pamphlet(799) against the French Revolution, in which he attacks it still more grievously. The beginning is very good; but it is not equal, nor quite so injudicious as parts of its predecessor; is far less brilliant, as well as much shorter: but, were it ever so long, his mind overflows with such a torrent of images, that he cannot be tedious. His invective against Rousseau is admirable, just, and new.(799) Voltaire he pa.s.ses almost contemptuously. I wish he had dissected Mirabeau too; and I grieve that he has omitted the violation of the consciences of the clergy, nor stigmatized those universal plunderers, the National a.s.sembly, who gorge themselves with eighteen livres a-day; which to many of them would, three years ago, have been astonis.h.i.+ng opulence.

When you return, I shall lend you three volumes in quarto of another Work,(800) With which you will be delighted. They are state-letters in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Mary, Elizabeth, and James; being the correspondence of the Talbot and Howard families, given by a Duke of Norfolk to the Herald's-office; where they have lain for a century neglected, buried under dust, and unknown, till discovered by a Mr. Lodge, a genealogist, who, to gratify his pa.s.sion, procured to be made a poursuivant. Oh!

how curious they are! Henry seizes an alderman who refused to contribute to a benevolence: sends him to the army on the borders; orders him to be exposed in the front line; and if that does not do, to be treated with the utmost rigour of military discipline. His daughter Bess is not less a Tudor. The mean, unworthy treatment of the queen of Scots is striking; and you will find Elizabeth's jealousy of her crown and her avarice were at war, and how the more ign.o.ble pa.s.sion predominated. But the most amusing pa.s.sage is one in a private letter, as it paints the awe of children for their parents a little differently from modern habitudes. Mr. Talbot, second son of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was a member of the House of Commons, and was married. He writes to the Earl his father, and tells him, that a young woman of a very good character, has been recommended to him for chambermaid to his wife, and if his lords.h.i.+p does not disapprove of it, he will hire her. There are many letters of news, that are very entertaining too--but it is nine o'clock, and I must go to Lady Cecilia's.

Friday.

The Conways, Mrs. Damer, the Farrens, and Lord Mount-Edgc.u.mbe supped at the Johnstones'. Lord Mount-Edgc.u.mbe said excellently, that "Mademoiselle D'Eon is her own widow." I wish I had seen you both in your court-plis, at your presentation; but that is only one wish amongst a thousand.

(795) Lady Craven; who was at this time in Italy with the Margravine of Ans.p.a.ch. Lord Craven died at Lausanne in September, and the lady was married to the Margrave in October following.-E.

(796) Miss Martel married, in the following September, to Sir William Hamilton-the lady, the infatuated attachment to whom has been said to have been "the only cloud that obscured the bright fame Of the immortal Nelson." By the following pa.s.sage in a letter, written by Romney the painter to Hagley the poet on the 19th of June, it will be seen that she had not been many days in England, before a warm pa.s.sion for her was engendered in the breast of the artist:--"At present, and for the greatest part of the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the divine lady: I cannot give her any other epithet; for I think her superior to all womankind. She asked me if you would not write my life: I told her you had begun it-then, she said, she hoped you would have much to say of her in the life; as she prides herself in being my model."-E.

(797) On the first appearance of his most interesting and instructive Life of Dr. Johnson, a considerable outcry was raised against poor Boswell. On the subject of this outcry, Mr. Croker in the introduction to his valuable edition of the work, published in 1831, makes the following excellent observations:-- "Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the propriety of the original publication--however naturally private confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended--the voices of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general applause. And, no wonder; the work combines within itself the four most entertaining cla.s.ses of writing--biography, memoirs, familiar letters, and that a.s.semblage of literary anecdotes, which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination Ana. It was a strange and fortuitous concurrence, that one so p.r.o.ne to talk, and who talked so well, should be brought into such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able to record. Dr. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers; but Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He United lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding the excellencies of others. His contemporaries, indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive--his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objects--when he meddled, be did so, generally, from good-natured motives--and his giddiness was only an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and reverence due to literature, morals, and religion' ' and posterity grate taste, temper, and talents with which he selected, enjoyed, and described that polished intellectual society which still lives in his work, and without his work had perished!" Mr. Croker's edition of the work is the eleventh; and since its appearance, a twelfth, in ten pocket volumes, with embellishments has been given to the world, by Mr. Murray, of which thousands are understood to have been called for. Whenever Walpole, in the course of his correspondence, has had occasion to introduce the name of Boswell, he has uniformly spoken so disparagingly of him, that it is but justice to his memory to append to the above extract, a pa.s.sage or two, in which other writers have recorded their estimation of him. Mr. Burke told Sir James Mackintosh, that "he thought Johnson appeared greater in Boswell's volumes than even in his own." Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the Doctor, says, "he yet is, in our mind's eye, a personification as lively as that of Siddons in Lady Macbeth, or Kemble in Cardinal Wolsey; and all this arises from his having found in Boswell such a biographer as no man but himself ever had." In the opinion of the Edinburgh Reviewers, Boswell was "the very prince of retail wits and philosophers," and his Life of Johnson is p.r.o.nounced to be "one of the best books in the world-- a great, a very great work;" while the quarterly Review considers it "the richest dictionary of wit and wisdom, any language can boast, and that to the influence of Boswell we owe, probably, three-fourths of what is most entertaining, as well as no inconsiderable portion of whatever is most instructive, in all the books of memoirs that have subsequently appeared."-E.

(797) Dr. Johnson's attack upon Gray was undoubtedly calculated to give great offence to Walpole: "Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull every where: he was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great: he was a mechanical poet."-E.

(798) This was the "Letter from Mr. Burke to a member of the National a.s.sembly."-E.

(799) "We have had," says Mr. Burke, "the great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good opportunities of knowing his proceedings, almost from day to day, he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained no principle, either to influence his heart or to guide his understanding, but vanity; with this vice he was possessed to a degree little short of madness. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up for an unsocial independence, this their hero of vanity refuses the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which opulence owes to genius, and which when paid, honours the giver and the receiver: and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch him by the remotest relation; and then, without one natural pang, casts away as a sort of offal and excrement, the sp.a.w.n of his disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms her young; but bears are not philosophers."-E.

(800) This was Lodge's "Ill.u.s.trations of British History, Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary, Elizabeth and James the First;" a work which has also been highly praised by Mr. Gifford, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Egerton Brydges, Mr. Park, and others.-E.

Letter 381 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, June 2, 1791. (page 504)

To the tune of the Cow with the crumpled Horn, etc.

"This is the note that n.o.body wrote."

This is the groom that carried the note that n.o.body wrote.

"This is Ma'am Gunning, Who was so very cunning, to examine the groom that carried the note that n.o.body wrote.

"This is Ma'am Bowen, to whom it was owing, that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom that carried the note that n.o.body wrote.

"These are the Marquisses shy of the horn, who caused the maiden all for-Lorn, to become on a sudden so tattered and torn, that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom, etc.

"These are the two Dukes, whose sharp rebukes made the two Marquesses shy of the horn, and caused the maiden all for-Lorn, etc.

"This is the General somewhat too bold, whose head was so hot, though his heart was so cold; who proclaimed himself single before it was meet, and his wife and his daughter turned into the street, to please the Dukes, whose sharp rebukes," etc.

This is not at all new; I have heard it once or twice imperfectly, but could not get a copy till now; and I think it will divert you for a moment, though the heroines are as much forgotten as Boadicea; nor have I heard of them since their arrival at Dover.

Well! I have seen Madame d'Albany who has not a ray of royalty about her. She has good eyes and teeth; but I think can have had no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is civil and easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Ailesbury made a small a.s.semblage for her on Monday, and my curiosity is satisfied. Mr.

Conway and Lady A., Lord and Lady Frederic Campbell, and Mrs. E.

Hervey and Mrs. Hervey, breakfasted with me that morning at Strawberry, at the desire of the latter, who had never been there; and whose commendations were so promiscuous, that I saw she did not at all understand the style of the place. The day was northeasterly and cold, and wanting rain; and I was not sorry to return into town. I hope in five months to like staying there much better. Mrs. Damer, who returned in such Spanish health, has already caught an English northeastern cold; with pain in all her limbs, and a little fever, and yesterday was not above two hours out of her bed. Her father came to me from her before dinner, and left her better; and I shall go to her presently; and, this not departing till to-morrow, I hope to give you a still more favourable account. These two days may boldly a.s.sume the name of June, without the courtesy of England. Such weather makes me wish myself at Strawberry, whither I shall betake myself on Sat.u.r.day.

505 Letter 382 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, June 8, 1791.

Your No. 34, that was interrupted, and of which the last date was of May 24th, I received on the 6th, and if I could find fault, it would be in the length; for I do not approve of your writing so much in hot weather, for, be it known to you ladies, that from the first of the month, June is not more June at Florence, My hay is crumbling away; and I have ordered it to be cut, as a sure way of bringing rain. I have a selfish reason, too, for remonstrating against long letters. I feel the season advancing, when mine will be piteous short for what can I tell you from Twickenham in the next three or four months'! Scandal from Richmond and Hampton Court, or robberies at my own door?

The latter, indeed, are blown already. I went to Strawberry on Sat.u.r.day, to avoid the birthday crowd and squibs and crackers.

At six I drove to Lord Strafford's, where his goods are to be sold by auction; his sister, Lady Anne,(801) intending to pull down the house and rebuild it. I returned a quarter before seven; and in the interim between my Gothic gate and Ashe's nursery, a gentleman and gentlewoman, in a one-horse chair and in the broad face of the sun, had been robbed by a single highwayman, sans mask. Ashe's mother and sister stood and saw it; but having no notion of a robbery at such an hour in the high-road and before their men had left work, concluded it was an acquaintance of the robber's. I suppose Lady Cecilia Johnstone will not descend from her bedchamber to the drawing-room without life-guard men. The Duke of Bedford(802) eclipsed the whole birthday by his clothes, equipage, and servants - six of the latter walked on' the side of the coach to keep off the crowd-or to tempt it; for their liveries were worth an argosie. The Prince *as gorgeous too - the latter is to give Madame d'Albany a dinner. She has been introduced to Mrs. Fitzherbert. You know I used to call Mrs. Cosway's(803) concerts Charon's boat; now, methinks, London is so. I am glad Mrs. C. is with you; she is pleasing-but surely it is odd to drop a child and her husband and country, all in a breath! I am glad you are disfranchised of the exiles. We have several, I am told, hire; but I strictly confine myself to those I knew formerly at Paris, and who all are quartered on Richmond Green.

I went to them on Sunday evening, but found them gone to Lord Fitzwilliam's, the next house to Madame de Boufflers', to hear his organ; whither I followed them, and returned with them.

The Comtesse Emilie played on her harp; then we all united at loto. I went home at twelve, unrobbed; and Lord Fitzwilliam, who asked much after you both, was to set out the next morning for Dublin, though intending to stay there but four days, and be back in three weeks.

I am sorry you did not hear all Monsieur do Lally Tollendal's(804) tragedy, of which I have had a good account.

I like his tribute to his father's memory.(805) Of French politics you must be tired; and so am I. Nothing appears to me to promise their chaos duration; consequently, I expect more chaos, the sediment of which is commonly despotism. Poland ought to make the French blush-but that, they are not apt to do on any occasion. Let us return to Strawberry. The house of Sebright breakfasted there with me on Monday; the daughter had given me a drawing, and I owed her a civility. Thank you for reminding me of falls: in one sense I am more liable to them than when you left me, for I am sensibly much weaker since my last fit; but that weakness makes me move much slower, and depend more on a.s.sistance. In a word, there is no care I do not take of myself: my heart is set on installing you at Cliveden; and it will not be my fault if I do not preserve myself till then. If another summer is added, it will be happiness indeed--but I am not presumptuous, and count the days only till November. I am glad you, on your parts, repose till your journey commences, and go not into sultry crowded lodgings at the Ascension. I was at Venice in summer, and thought airing on stinking ditches pestilential, after enjoying the delicious nights on the Ponte di Trinit'a at Florence, in a linen night-gown and a straw hat, with improvisatori. and music, and the coffee-houses open with ices--at least, such were the customs fifty years ago,.

The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine, for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses--nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob--not at all; it was only pa.s.sengers. Nor is there any complaint of depopulation from the country: Bath shoots out into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year: Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia's mouth water. Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.