The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 49

The Prince is to come to town every Sunday fortnight to hold drawing-rooms; the Princesses stay all the summer at St.

James's-would I did! but I go in three weeks to Norfolk; the only place that could make me wish to live at St. James's. My Lord has pressed me so much, that I could not with decency refuse: he is going to furnish and hang his picture-gallery, and wants me. I can't help wis.h.i.+ng that I had never known a Guido from a Teniers: but who could ever suspect any connexion between painting and the wilds of Norfolk.

Princess Louisa's contract with the Prince of Denmark was signed the morning before the King Went; but I don't hear when she goes. Poor Caroline misses her man of Lubeck,(803) by his missing the crown of Sweden.

I must tell you an odd thing that happened yesterday at Leicester House. The Prince's children were in the circle: Lady Augusta(804) heard somebody call Sir Robert Rich by his name. She concluded there was but one Sir Robert in the world, and taking him for Lord Orford, the child went staring up to him, and said, "Pray, where is your blue string! and pray what has become of your fat belly?" Did one ever hear of a more royal education, than to have rung this mob cant in the child's ears till it had made this impression on her!

Lord Stafford is come over to marry Miss Cantillon, a vast fortune, of his own religion. She is daughter of the Cantillon who was robbed and murdered, and had his house burned by his cook(805) a few years ago. She is as ugly as he; but when she comes to Paris, and wears a good deal of rouge, and a separate apartment, who knows but she may be a beauty! There is no telling what a woman is, while she is as she is. There is a great fracas in Ireland in a n.o.ble family or two, heightened by a pretty strong circ.u.mstance of Iricism.

A Lord Belfield(806) married a very handsome daughter of a Lord Molesworth.(807) A certain Arthur Rochfort, who happened to be acquainted in the family, by being Lord Belfield's own brother, looked on this woman, and saw that she was fair.

These ingenious people, that their history might not be discovered, corresponded under feigned names-And what names do you think they chose?-Silvia and Philander! Only the very same that Lord Grey(808) and his sister-in-law took upon a parallel occasion, and which arc printed in their letters!

Patapan sits to Wootton to-morrow for his picture. He is to have a triumphal arch at a distance, to signify his Roman birth, and his having barked at thousands of Frenchmen in the very heart of Paris. If you can think of a good Italian motto applicable to any part of his history send it to me. If not, he shall have this antique one-for I reckon him a senator of Rome, while Rome survived,-"O, et Presidium et dulce decus meum!" He is writing an ode on the future campaign of this summer; it is dated from his villa, where he never was, and being truly in the cla.s.sic style, "While you, great Sir," etc.

Adieu!

(802) Walpole seems to have forgotten the battle of Blenheim.-D;

(803) Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, Bishop of Lubeck, was elected successor, and did succeed to the crown of Sweden. He married the Princess Louisa Ulrica of Prussia.

(804) Afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick.-D.

(805) Cantillon was a Paris wine-merchant and banker, who had been engaged with Law in the Mississippi scheme. He afterwards brought his riches to England and settled in this country. In May 1734, some of his servants, headed by the cook, conspired to murder him, knowing that he kept large sums of money in his house. They killed him, and then set fire to the house; but the fire was extinguished, and the body, with the wounds upon it, found. The cook fled beyond sea; but in December, three of his a.s.sociates were tried at the Old Bailey for the murder, and acquitted.-E.

(806) Robert Rochfort, created Lord Belfield in Ireland in 1737, Viscount Belfield in 1751, and Earl of Belvedere in 1756. His second wife, whom be married in 1736, was the Hon.

Mary Molesworth. D.

(807) Richard, third Viscount Molesworth, in Ireland. He had been aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Marlborough, and in that capacity distinguished himself greatly at the battle of Ramilies. He became afterwards master-general of the ordnance in Ireland, and commander of the forces in that kingdom, and a field-marshal. He died in 1758.-D.

(808) Fordo, the infamous Lord Grey of werke, and his sister-in-law, Lady Henrietta Berkeley, whose "Love Letters,"

under these romantic names, were published in three small volumes. They are supposed to have been compiled by Mrs.

Behn.-D. [Lord Grey commanded the horse at Sedgmoor, and is accused of flying at the first charge, and preserving his life by giving evidence against his a.s.sociates. He married Lady Mary, daughter of George, first Earl of Berkeley, and died in 1701.)

320 Letter 105 To Sir Horace Mann.

May 4, 1743.

The King was detained four or five days at Sheerness but yesterday we heard that he was got to Helvoetsluys. They talk' of an interview between him and his nephew of Prussia-I never knew any advantage result from such conferences. We expect to hear of the French attacking our army, though there are accounts of their retiring, which would necessarily produce a peace-I hope so! I don't like to be at the eve, even of an Agincourt; that, you know, every Englishman is bound in faith to expect: besides, they say my Lord Stair has in his pocket, from the records of the Tower, the original patent, empowering us always to conquer. I am told that Marshal Noailles is as mad as Marshal Stair. Heavens! twice fifty thousand men trusted to two mad captains, without one Dr.

Monroe(809) over them!

I am sorry I could give you so little information about King Theodore; but my lord knew nothing of him, and as little of any connexion between Lord Carteret and him. I am sorry you have him on your hands. He quite mistakes his province: an adventurer should come hither;(810) this is the soil for mobs and patriots it is the country of the world to make one's fortune - with parts never so scanty, one's dulness is not discovered, nor one's dishonesty, till one obtains the post one wanted-and then, if they do not come to light-why, one slinks into one's green velvet bag,(811) and lies so snug! I don't approve of your hinting at the falsehoods(812) of Stosch's intelligence; n.o.body regards it but the King , it pleases him-e basta.

I was not in the House at Vernon's frantic speech;(813) but I know he made it, and have heard him p.r.o.nounce several such: but he has worn out even laughter, and did not make impression enough on me to remember till the next post that he had spoken.

I gave your brother the translated paper; he will take care of it. Ceretesi is gone to Flanders with Lord Holderness. Poor creature!

he was reduced, before he went, to borrow five guineas of Sir Francis Dashwood. How will he ever scramble back to Florence?

We are likely at last to have no opera next year: Handel has had a palsy, and can't compose; and the Duke of Dorset has set himself strenuously to oppose it, as Lord Middles.e.x is the impresario, and must ruin the house of Sackville by a course of these follies. Besides what he will lose this year, he has not paid his share to the losses of the last; and yet is singly undertaking another for next season, with the almost certainty of losing between four or five thousand pounds, to which the deficiencies of the opera generally amount now. The Duke of Dorset has desired the King not to subscribe; but Lord Middles.e.x is so obstinate, that this will probably only make him lose a thousand pounds more.

The Freemasons are in so low repute now in England, that one has scarce heard the proceedings at Vienna against them mentioned. I believe nothing but a persecution could bring them into vogue again here. You know, as great as our follies are, we even grow tired of them, and are always changing.

(809) Physician of Bedlam-

"Those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down."-E.

(810) He afterwards came to England, where he suffered much from poverty and dest.i.tution, and was finally arrested by his creditors and confined in the King,'s Bench prison. He was released from thence under the Insolvent Act, having registered the kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors. Shortly after this event he died, December 11, 1756, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho, where Horace Walpole erected a marble slab to his memory. He was an adventurer, whose name was Theodore Anthony, Baron Newhoff, and was born at Metz, in 1686. Walpole, who had seen him, describes him as "a comely, middle-sized man, very reserved, and affecting much dignity,"-D.

(811) The secretaries of state and lord treasurer carry their papers in a green velvet bag.

(812) Stosch used to pretend to send over an exact journal of the life of the Pretender and his sons, though he had been sent out of Rome at the Pretender's request, and must have had very bad, or no intelligence, of what pa.s.sed in that family.

(813) The admiral had recently said, in the House of Commons, that "there was not, on this side h.e.l.l, a nation so burthened with taxes as England."-E.

322 Letter 106 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, May 12, 1743.

It is a fortnight since I got any of your letters, but I will expect two at once. I don't tell you by way of news, because you will have had expresses, but I must talk of the great Austrian victory!(814) We have not heard the exact particulars yet, nor whether it was Kevenhuller or lobkowitz who beat the Bavarians; but their general, Minucci, is prisoner. At first, they said Seckendorffe was too; I am glad he is not: poor man, he has suffered enough by the house of Austria! But my joy is beyond the common, for I flatter myself this victory will save us one: we talk of nothing, but its producing a peace, and then one's friends will return.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal(815) is dead-eighty-five years old: she was a year older than her late King. Her riches were immense; but I believe my Lord Chesterfield will get nothing by her death-but his wife: (816) she lived in the house with the d.u.c.h.ess, where he had played away all his credit.

Hough,(817) the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too. I have been looking at the "Fathers in G.o.d" that have been flocking over the way this Morning to Mr. Pelham, who is just come to his new house. This is absolutely the ministerial street Carteret has a house here too; and Lord Bath seems to have lost his chance by quitting this street. Old Marlborough has made a good story of the latter; she says, that when he found he could not get the privy seal, he begged that at least they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place; in which she says they humoured him. The truth is, Lord Carteret did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo episcopari to the King-he bounced, and said, "Why I never offered it to you:" upon which he recommended my Lord Carlisle, with equal Success.

Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " Well, when am I to get rid of those fellows in the Treasury?" They are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a stand of hackney-coaches, to look like a levee.

Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you will oblige me much by executing. It is to send him three Pistoia barrels for guns: two of them, of two feet and a half in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed b.u.t.tons to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns.

The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the largest of these b.u.t.tons to be the bore of it; these feet are English measure. You will be so good to let me know the price of them.

There has happened a comical circ.u.mstance at Leicester House: one of the Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon condition that he never carries a Maid of Honour!

Our journey to Houghton is fixed to Sat.u.r.day se'nnight; 'tis unpleasant, but I flatter myself that I shall get away in the beginning of August. Direct your letters as you have done all this winter; your brother will take care to send them to me.

Adieu!

(814) There was no great victory this year till the battle of Dettingen, which took place in June; but the Austrians obtained many advantages during the spring over the Bavarians and the French, and obliged the latter to recross the Rhine.-D.

(815) Erangard Melusina Schulembergh, the mistress of George I. George I. created her d.u.c.h.ess of Munster and Marchioness of Dungannon in Ireland in 1719; Ind d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, Countess of Feversham, and Baroness of Glas...o...b..ry. in England, in 1723. All these honours were for life only. He also persuaded the Emperor to create her Princess of eberstein in the Roman empire in 1723.-D.

(816) Melusina Schulembergh, Countess of Walsingham, niece of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, and her heiress.

(817) Hough Was a man of piety, ability, and integrity, and had distinguished himself early in his life by his resistance to the arbitrary proceedings of James II. against Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was the president. Pope, with much justice, speaks of "Hough's unsullied mitre."-D. [He was nominated Bishop of Oxford in 1690; and translated to Worcester in 1717.]

323 Letter 107 To Sir Horace Mann.

May 19, 1743.

I am just come tired from a family dinner at the Master of the Rolls;(818) but I have received two letters from you since my last, and will write to you, though my head aches with maiden sisters' healths, forms, and Devons.h.i.+re and Norfolk. With yours I received one from Mr. Chute, for which I thank him a thousand times, and will answer as soon as I get to Houghton.

Monday is fixed peremptorily, though we have had no rain this month; but we travel by the day of the week, not by the day of the sky.

We are in more confusion than we care to own. There lately came up a highland regiment from Scotland, to be sent abroad.