The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 4

(39) Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary, article Walpole.

(40) "The Mysterious Mother" was printed in that year: but was never published till after the death of Walpole.

(41) Lord Byron, Preface to Mtrino Faliero."

(42) Lives of the Novelists, Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol.

iii. p. 313.

(43) Shortly after the appearance of this romance, the following high encomium was pa.s.sed upon it by Bishop Warburton:-"We have been lately entertained with what I will venture to call a masterpiece in the fable, and a new species likewise. The piece I mean is laid in Gothic chivalry, where a beautiful imagination, supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the author to go beyond his subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient tragedy; that is, to purge the pa.s.sions by pity and terror, in colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best dramatic writers."-E.

(44) Lives of the Novelists; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 323.

(45) Postscript to "The Mysterious Mother."

(46) Lord Byron.

(47) Social Life in England and France," by Miss Berry.

(48) Lives of the Novelists; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 301.

(49) "In 1744, the difference between Walpole and Gray was adjusted by the interference of a lady, who wished well to both parties. The lapse of three years had probably been sufficient, in some degree, to soften down, though not entirely obliterate, the remembrance of supposed injustices on both sides; natural kindness of temper had resumed their place, and we find their correspondence again proceeding on friendly and familiar terms."

Mitford's Gray, vol. i. p. xxiii; see also vol. ii. p. 174.-E.

(50) Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774.

(51) "Vanity, when it unfortunately gets possession of a wise man's head, is as keenly sensible of ridicule, as it is impa.s.sible to its shafts when more appropriately lodged with a fool. Of the sensitiveness arising out of this foible Walpole seems to have had a great deal, and it certainly dictated those hard-hearted reproofs that repelled the warm effusions of friends.h.i.+p with which poor Madame du Deffand (now old and blind) addressed him, and of which he complained with the utmost indignation, merely because, if her letters were opened by a clerk at the post-office, such expressions of kindness might expose him to the ridicule of which he had such undue terror."

Quart. Rev. Vol. xix. p. 119.-E.

(52) See "Pursuits of Literature," second Dialogue:-

"The Boy, whom once patricians pens adorn'd, First meanly flatter'd, then as meanly scorn'd."

Which lines are Stated in a note to allude to Walpole. See also, first Dialogue, where Chatturton is called, "That varlet bright."

The note to which pa.s.sage is "'I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd,' says Falstaff, in Henry IV. Part 1. Act. 2. Mr. Horace Walpole, now Lord Orford, did not, however, seem to think it necessary that this varlet Chatterton should chew at all. See the Starvation Act, dated at Strawberry Hill."

(53) Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Chatterton.

Works, vol. iv.

(54) The Duke of Bedford has a letter of Walpole's with this signature.

(55) "Epitapilium vivi auctoris."-l 792.

(56) "Social Life in England and France."

REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND: WRITTEN IN 1788, FOR THE AMUs.e.m.e.nT OF MISS MARY AND MISS AGNES BERRY.

Il ne faut point d'esprit pour s'occuper des vieux 'ev'enements.-Voltaire.

CHAPTER 1.

Motives to the Undertaking-Precedents-George the First's Reign a Proem to the History of the Reigning House of Brunswick-The Reminiscent introduced to that Monarch-His Person and Dress-The d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal-her Jealousy of Sir Robert Walpole's Credit with the King-and Intrigues to displace him, and make Bolingbroke Minister. '

You were both so entertained with the old stories I told you one evening lately, of what I recollected to have seen and heard from my childhood of the courts of King George the First, and of his son the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second, and of the latter's princess, since Queen Caroline; and you expressed such wishes that I would commit those pa.s.sages (for they are scarce worthy of the t.i.tle even of anecdotes) to writing, that, having no greater pleasure than to please you both, nor any more important or laudable occupation, I will begin to satisfy the repet.i.tion of your curiosity. But observe, I promise no more than to begin; for I not only cannot answer that I shall have patience to continue, but my memory is still so fresh, or rather so retentive of trifles which first made impression on it, that it is very possible my life (turned of seventy-one) may be exhausted before my stock of remembrances; especially as I am sensible of the garrulity of old age, and of its eagerness of relating whatever it recollects, whether of moment or not. Thus, while I fancy I am complying with you, I may only be indulging myself, and consequently may wander into many digressions for which you will not care a straw, and which may intercept the completion of my design. Patience, therefore young ladies; and if you coin an old gentleman into narratives, you must expect a good deal of alloy. I engage for no method, no regularity, no polish. My narrative will probably resemble siege-pieces, which are struck of any promiscuous metals; and, though they bear the impress of some sovereign's name, only serve to quiet the garrison for the moment, and afterwards are merely h.o.a.rded by collectors and virtuosos, who think their series not complete, unless they have even the coins of base metal of every reign. As I date from my nonage, I must have laid up no state secrets.

Most of the facts I am going to tell you though new to you and to most of the present age, were known perhaps at the time to my nurse and my tutors. Thus, my stories will have nothing to do with history.

Luckily, there have appeared within these three months two publications, that will serve as precedents for whatever I am going to say: I mean Les Fragments of the Correspondence of the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, (57) and those of the M'emoires of the Duc de St. Simon. (58) Nothing more d'ecousu than both: they tell you what they please; or rather, what their editors have pleased to let them tell. In one respect I shall be less satisfactory.

They knew and were well acquainted, or thought they were, with their personages. I did not at ten years old, penetrate characters; and as George 1. died at the period where my reminiscence begins, and was rather a good sort of man than a s.h.i.+ning king; and as the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal was no genius, I heard very little of either when he and her power were no more. In fact, the reign of George 1. was little more than the proem to the history of England Under the House of Brunswick. That family was established here by surmounting a rebellion; to which settlement perhaps the phrensy of the South Sea scheme contributed, by diverting the national attention from the game of faction to the delirium of stockjobbing; and even faction was split into fractions by the quarrel between the king and the heir apparent-another interlude, which authorizes me to call the reign of George 1. a proem to the history of the reigning House of Brunswick, so successively agitated by parallel feuds.

Commen'cons.

As my first hero was going off the stage before I ought to have come upon it, it will be necessary to tell you why the said two personages happened to meet just two nights before they were to part for ever; a rencounter that barely enables me to give you a general idea of the former's person and of his mistress's-or, as has been supposed, his wife's.

As I was the youngest by eleven years of Sir Robert Walpole's children by his first wife, and was extremely weak and delicate, as you see me still, though with no const.i.tutional complaint till I had the gout after forty, and as my two sisters were consumptive and died of consumptions, the supposed necessary care of me (and I have overheard persons saying, "That child cannot possibly live") so engrossed the attention of my mother, that compa.s.sion and tenderness soon became extreme fondness; and as the infinite good-nature of my father never thwarted any of his children, he suffered me to be too much indulged, and permitted her to gratify the first vehement inclination that I ever expressed, and which, as I have never since felt any enthusiasm for royal persons, I must suppose that the female attendants in the family must have put into my head, to long to see the king.

This childish caprice was so strong, that my mother solicited the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal to obtain for me the honour of kissing his Majesty's hand before he set out for Hanover. A favour so unusual to be asked for a boy of ten years old, was still too slight to be refused to the wife of the first minister for her darling child; yet not being proper to be made a precedent, it was settled to be in private, and at night.

Accordingly, the night but one before the king began his last journey, my mother carried me at ten at night to the apartment of the Countess of Walsingham, (59) on the ground floor, towards the garden at St. James's, which opened into that of her aunt, the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal's: apartments occupied by George II. after his queen's death, and by his successive mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth.

Notice being given that the king was come down to supper, Lady Walsingham took me alone into the d.u.c.h.ess's ante-room, where we found alone the king and her. I knelt down, and kissed his hand.

He said a few words to me, and my conductress led me back to my mother (60)

The person of the king is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins; Dot tall; of an aspect rather good than august; with a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff coloured cloth, with stockings Of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the d.u.c.h.ess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the colour of her dress was.

My childish loyalty, and the condescension in gratifying it, were, I suppose, causes that contributed, very soon afterwards, to make me shed a flood of tears for that sovereign's death, when, with the other scholars at Eton college, I walked in procession to the proclamation of the successor; and which (though I think they partly felt because I imagined it became the son of a prime-minister to be more concerned than other boys) were no doubt imputed by many of the spectators who were politicians, to fears of my father's most probable fall, but of which I had not the smallest conception, nor should have met with any more concern than I did when it really arrived, in the year 1742; by which time I had lost all taste for courts and princes and power, as was natural to one who never felt an ambitious thought for himself.

It must not be inferred from her obtaining this grace for me, that the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal was a friend to my father; on the contrary, at that moment she had been labouring to displace him, and introduce Lord Bolingbroke (61) into the administration; on which I shall say more hereafter.

It was an instance of Sir Robert's singular fortune, or evidence of his talents, that he not only preserved his power under two successive monarchs, but in spite of the efforts of both their mistresses (62) to remove him. It was perhaps still more remarkable, and an instance unparalleled, that Sir Robert governed George the First in Latin, the King not speaking English, (63) and his minister no German, nor even French. (64) It was much talked of, that Sir Robert, detecting one of the Hanoverian ministers in some trick or falsehood before the King'S face, had the firmness to say to the German, "Mentiris, impudentissime!" The good-humoured monarch only laughed, as he often did when Sir Robert complained to him of his Hanoverians selling places, nor would be persuaded that it was not the practice of the English court; and which an incident must have planted in his mind with no favourable impression of English disinterestedness. "This is a strange country!" said his Majesty; "the first morning after my arrival at St. James's, I looked out of the window, and saw a park with walks, a ca.n.a.l, etc. which they told me were mine. The next day, Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my ca.n.a.l; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp out of my own ca.n.a.l in my own park!"

I have said, that the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal was no friend of Sir Robert, and wished to make Lord Bolingbroke minister in his room.

I was too young to know any thing of that reign, nor was acquainted with the political cabals of the court, which, however, I might have learnt from my father in the three years after his retirement; but being too thoughtless at that time, nor having your laudable curiosity, I neglected to inform myself of many pa.s.sages and circ.u.mstances, of which I have often since regretted my faulty ignorance.

By what I can at present recollect, the d.u.c.h.ess seems to have been jealous of Sir Robert's credit with the King, which he had acquired, not by paying court, but by his superior abilities in the House of Commons, and by his knowledge in finance, of which Lord Sunderland and Craggs had betrayed their ignorance in countennancing the South Sea scheme; and who, though more agreeable to the King, had been forced to give way to Walpole, as the only man capable of repairing that mischief. The d.u.c.h.ess, too, might be alarmed at his attachment to the Princess of Wales; from whom, in case of the King's death, her grace could expect no favour. Of her jealousy I do know the following instance; Queen Anne had bestowed the rangers.h.i.+p of Richmond New Park on her relations the Hydes for three lives, one of which was expired.

King George, fond of shooting, bought out the term of the last Earl of Clarendon, and of his son Lord Cornbury, and frequently shot there; having appointed my eldest brother, Lord Walpole, ranger nominally, but my father in reality, wished to hunt there once or twice a week. The park had run to great decay under the Hydes, nor was there any mansion (65) better than the common lodges of the keepers. The King ordered a stone lodge designed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke, to be erected for himself, but merely as a banqueting-house, (66) with a large eating-room, kitchen, and necessary offices, where he might dine after his sport. Sir Robert began another of brick for himself, and the under-ranger, which by degrees, he much enlarged; usually retiring thither from business, or rather, as he said himself, to do more business than he could in town, on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays. On that edifice, on the thatched-house, and other improvements, he laid out fourteen thousand pounds of his own money. In the meantime, he hired a small house for himself on the hill without the park; and in that small tenement the King did him the honour of dining with him more than once after shooting. His Majesty, fond of private joviality, (67) was pleased with punch after dinner, and indulged in it freely. The d.u.c.h.ess, alarmed at the advantage the minister might make of the openness of the King's heart in those convivial, unguarded hours, and at a crisis when she was conscious Sir Robert was apprised of her inimical machinations in favour of Lord Bolingbroke, enjoined the few Germans who accompanied the King at those dinners to prevent his Majesty from drinking too freely. Her spies obeyed too punctually, and without any address. The King was offended, and silenced the tools by the coa.r.s.est epithets in the German language. He even, before his departure, ordered Sir Robert to have the stone lodge finished against his return: no symptom of a falling minister, as has since been supposed Sir Robert then was, and that Lord Bolingbroke was to have replaced him, had the King lived to come back. But my presumption to the contrary is more strongly corroborated by what had recently pa.s.sed: the d.u.c.h.ess had actually prevailed on the King to see Bolingbroke secretly in his closet. That intriguing Proteus, aware that he might not obtain an audience long enough to efface former prejudices, and make sufficient impression on the King against Sir Robert, and in his own favour, went provided with a memorial, which he left in the closet. and begged his Majesty to peruse coolly at his leisure.

The King kept the paper, but no longer than till he saw Sir Robert, to whom he delivered the poisoned remonstrance. If that communication prognosticated the minister's fall, I am at a loss to know what a mark of confidence is.

Nor was that discovery the first intimation that Walpole had received of the measure of Bolingbroke's grat.i.tude. The minister, against the earnest representations of his family and Most intimate friends, had consented to the recall of that incendiary from banishment, (68) excepting only his readmission into the House of Lords, that every field of annoyance might not be open to his mischievous turbulence. Bolingbroke, it seems, deemed an embargo laid on his tongue would warrant his hand to launch every envenomed shaft against his benefactor, who by restricting had paid him the compliment of avowing that his eloquence was not totally inoffensive. Craftsmen, pamphlet, libels, combinations, were showered on or employed for years against the prime-minister, without shaking his power or ruffling his temper; and Bolingbroke had the mortification of finding his rival had abilities to maintain his influence against the mistresses of two kings, with whom his antagonist had plotted in vain to overturn him. (69)

(57) Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria. In 1671 she became the second wife (his first being poisoned) of the brother of Louis XIV. by whom she was the mother of the regent, Duke of Orleans. She died in 1722. A collection of her letters, addressed to Prince Ulric of Brunswick, and to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, was published at Paris in 1788.-E.

(58) These celebrated M'emoires of the Court of Louis XIV. were first published, in a mutilated state, in 1788. A complete edition, in thirteen volumes, appeared in 1791.-E.