The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 61

Lord Middles.e.x is going to be married to Miss Boyle,(955) Lady Shannon's daughter; she has thirty thousand pounds, and may have as much more, if her mother, who is a plain widow, don't happen to Nugentize.(956) The girl is low and ugly, but a vast scholar.

Young Churchill has got a daughter by the Frasi;(957) Mr.

Winnington calls it the opera-comique ; the mother is an opera girl; the grandmother was Mrs. Oldfield.

I must tell you of a very extraordinary print, which my Lady Burlington gives away, of her daughter Euston, -with this inscription:

Lady Dorothy Boyle, Once the pride, the joy, the -comfort of her parents, The admiration of all that saw her, The delight of all that knew her.

Born May 14, 1724, married alas! Oct. 10, 1741, an delivered from extremest misery May 2, 1742.

This print was taken from a picture drawn by memory seven weeks after her death, by her most afflicted mother; DOROTHY BURLINGTON.(958)

I am forced to begin a new sheet, lest you should think my letter came from my Lady Burlington, as it ends so patly with her name. But is it not a most melancholy way of venting oneself? She has drawn numbers of these pictures: I don't approve her having them engraved; but sure the inscription(959) is pretty.

I was accosted the other night by 'a little, pert pet.i.t-maitre figure, that claimed me for acquaintance. Do you remember to have seen at Florence an Abb'e Durazzo, of Genoa? well, this was he: it is mighty dapper and French: however, I will be civil to it: I never lose opportunities of paving myself an agreeable pa.s.sage back to Florence. My dear Chutes, stay for me: I think the first gale of peace will carry me to you. Are you as fond of Florence as ever? of me you are not, I am sure, for you never write me a line. You would be diverted with the grandeur of our old Florence beauty, Lady Carteret. She dresses more extravagantly, and grows more short-sighted every day: she can't walk a step without leaning on one of her ancient daughters-in law. Lord Tweedale and Lord Bathurst are her constant gentlemen-ushers. She has not quite digested her resentment to Lincoln yet. He was walking with her at Ranelagh the other night, and a Spanish refugee marquis,(960) who is of the Carteret court, but who, not being quite perfect in the carte du pais, told my lady, that Lord Lincoln had promised him to make a very good husband to Miss Pelham. Lady Carteret, with an accent of energy, replied, "J'esp'ere qu'il tiendra sa promesse!" Here is a good epigram that has been made on her:

"Her beauty, like the Scripture feast, To which the invited never came, Deprived of its intended guest, Was given to the old and lame."

Adieu! here is company; I think I may be excused leaving off at the sixth side.

(954) Thomas Carte, a laborious writer of history. His princ.i.p.al works are, his Life of the Duke of Ormonde, in three volumes, folio, and his History of England, in four. He died in 1754.-D. [The former, though ill-written, was considered by Dr. Johnson as a work of authority; and of the latter Dr. Warton remarks, "You may read Hume for his eloquence, but Carte is the historian for facts."]

(955) Grace Boyle, daughter and sole heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. She became afterwards a favourite of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and died in 17 63.-D.

(956) See ant'e, p. 205. (Letter 48)

(957 Prima donna at the opera.

(958) This is an incorrect copy of the inscription on Lady Euston's picture given in a note at 329 of this volume.-D.

(Letter 110, p. 328/9)

(959) It is said to be Pope's.

(960) The Marquis Tabernego.

383 Letter 145 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Aug. 6, 1744.

I don't tell you any thing about Prince Charles, for you must hear all his history as soon as we do: at least much sooner than it can come to the very north, and be despatched back to Italy. There is nothing from Flanders: we advance and they retire-just as two months ago we retired and they advanced: but it is good to be leading up this part of the tune. Lord Stair is going into Scotland: the King is grown wonderfully fond of him, since he has taken the resolution of that journey. He said the other day, "I wish my Lord Stair was in Flanders! General Wade is a very able officer, but he is not alert." I, in my private litany, am beseeching the Lord, that he may contract none of my Lord Stair's alertness.

When I first wrote you word of la Ch'etardie's disgrace, I did not believe it; but you see it is now public. What I like is, her Russian Majesty's making her amour keep exact pace with her public indignation. She sent to demand her picture and other presents. "Other presents," to be sure, were billet-doux, bracelets woven of her own bristles-for I look upon the hair of a Muscovite Majesty in the light of the chairs which Gulliver made out of the combings of the Empress of Brobdignag's tresses: the stumps he made into very good large-tooth combs. You know the present is a very Amazon. she has grappled with all her own grenadiers. I should like to see their loves woven into a French opera: La Ch'etardie's character is quite adapted to the civil discord of their stage: and then a northern heroine to reproach him in their outrageous quavers, would make a most delightful crash of sentiment, impertinence, gallantry, contempt, and screaming.

The first opera that I saw at Paris, I could not believe was in earnest, but thought they had carried me to the op'era-comique. The three acts of the piece(961) were three several interludes, of the Loves of Antony and Cleopatra, of Alcibiades and the Queen of Sparta, and of Tibuilus with a niece of Macenas; besides something of Circe, who was screamed by a Mademoiselle Hermans, seven feet high. She was in black, with a nosegay of black (for on the French stage they pique themselves on propriety,) and without powder: whenever you are a widow, are in distress, or are a witch, you are to leave off powder.

I have no news for you, and am going to have less, for I a)n going into Norfolk. I have stayed till I have not one acquaintance left: the next billow washes me last off the plank. I have not cared to stir, for fear of news from Flanders; but I have convinced myself that there will be none. Our army is much superior to the Count de Saxe; besides, they have ten large towns to garrison, which will reduce their army to nothing; or they must leave us the towns to walk into coolly.

I have received yours of July 21. Did neither I nor your brother tell you, that we had received the Neapolitan snuff-box?(962) it is above a month ago: how could I be so forgetful? but I have never heard one word of the cases, nor of Lord Conway's guns, nor Lord Hartington's melon-seeds, all which you mention to have sent. Lestock has long been arrived, so to be sure the cases never came with him: I hope Matthews will discover them. Pray thank Dr. Cocchi very particularly for his book.

I am very sorry too for your father's removal; it was not done in the most obliging manner by Mr. Winnington; there was something exactly like a breach of promise in it to my father, which was tried to be softened by a civil alternative, that was no alternative at all. He was forced to it by my Lady Townshend, who has an implacable aversion to all my father's people; and not having less to Mr. Pelham's, she has been as brusque with Winnington about them. He has no principles himself, and those no principles of his are governed absolutely by hers, which are no-issimes.

I don't know any of your English. I should delight in your Vauxhall-ets: what a figure my Grifona must make in such a romantic scene! I have lately been reading the poems of the Earl of Surrey,(963) in Henry the Eighth's time; he was in love with the fair Geraldine of Florence; I have a mind to write under the Grifona's picture these two lines from one of his sonnets:

"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race, Fair Florence was some time her auncient seat."

And then these:

"Her beauty of kinde, her vertue from above; Happy is he that can obtaine her love!"

I don't know what of kinde means, but to be sure it was something prodigiously expressive and gallant in those days, by its being unintelligible now. Adieu! Do the Chutes cicisb'e it?

(961) I think it was the ballet de la paix.

(962) It was for a present to Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle's secretary

(963) Henry Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk. Under a charge of high-treason, of which he was manifestly innocent, this n.o.ble soldier and accomplished poet was found guilty, and in 1547, in his thirty-first year, was beheaded on Tower Hill.

History is silent as to the name of fair Geraldine.-E.

385 Letter 146 To Sir Horace Mann.

London, Aug. 16, 1744.

I am writing to you two or three days beforehand, by way of settling my affairs-not that I am going to be married or to die; but something as bad as either if it were to last as long. You will guess that it can only be going to Houghton; but I make as much an affair of that, as other people would of going to Jamaica. Indeed I don't lay in store of cake and bandboxes, and citron-water, and cards, and cold meat, as country-women do after the session. My packing-up and travelling concerns lie in very small compa.s.s; nothing but myself and Patapan, my footman, a cloak-bag, and a couple of books. My old Tom is even reduced upon the article of my journey; he is at the Bath, patching together some very bad remains of a worn-out const.i.tution. I always travel without company; for then I take my own hours and my own humours, which I don't think the most tractable to shut up in a coach with any body else. You know, St. Evremont's rule for conquering the pa.s.sions, was to indulge them mine for keeping my temper in order, is never to leave it too long with another person. I have found out that it will have its way, but I make it take its way by itself. It is such sort of reflection as this, that makes me hate the country: it is impossible in one house with one set of company, to be always enough upon one's guard to make one's self agreeable, which one ought to do, as one always expects it from others. If I had a house of my own in the country, and could live there now and then alone, or frequently changing my company, I am persuaded I should like it; at least, I fancy I should; for when one begins to reflect why one don't like the country, I believe one grows near liking to reflect in it. I feel very often that I grow to correct twenty things in myself, as thinking them ridiculous at my age; and then with my spirit of whim and folly, I make myself believe that this is all prudence, and that I wish I were young enough to be as thoughtless and extravagant as I used to be. But if I know any thing of the matter, this is all flattering myself. I grow older, and love my follies less-if I did not, alas! poor prudence and reflection!

I think I have pretty well exhausted the chapter of myself. I will now go talk to YOU Of another fellow, who makes me look upon myself as a very perfect character; for as I have little merit naturally, and only pound a stray virtue now @ind then by chance, the other gentleman seems to have no vice, rather no villainy, but what he nurses in himself and metliodizes with as much pains as a stoic would patience. Indeed his pains are not thrown away. This painstaking person's name is Frederic, King of Prussia. Pray remember for the future never to speak of him and H. W. without giving the latter the preference. Last week we were all alarm! He was before Prague with fifty thousand men, and not a man in Bohemia to ask him, "What dost thou?" This week we have raised a hundred thousand Hungarians, besides vast militias and loyal n.o.bilities. The King of Poland is to attack him on his march, and the Russians to fall on Prussia.(964) In the mean time, his letter or address to the people of England(965) has been published here: it is a poor performance! His Voltaires and his litterati should correct his works before they are printed. A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch; but to pen manifestoes worse than the lowest commis that is kept jointly by two or three margraves, is insufferable!

We are very strong in Flanders, but still expect to do nothing this campaign. The French are so entrenched, that it is impossible to attack them. There is talk of besieging Maubeuge; I don't know how certainly.

Lord Middles.e.x's match is determined, and the writings signed.

She proves an immense fortune; they pretend a hundred and thirty thousand pounds-what a fund for making operas!

My Lady Carteret is going to Tunbridge--there is a hurry for a son: his only one is gone mad: about a fortnight ago he was at the Duke of Bedford's, and as much in his few senses as ever.

At five o'clock in the morning he waked the duke and d.u.c.h.ess all b.l.o.o.d.y, and with the lappet of his coat held up full of ears: he had been in the stable and cropped all the horses! He is shut up.(966) My lady is in the honeymoon of her grandeur: she lives in public places, whither she is escorted by the old beaux of her husband's court; fair white-wigged old gallants, the Duke of Bolton,(967) Lord Tweedale, Lord Bathurst, and Charles Fielding;(968) and she all over knots, and small hoods, and ribands. Her brother told me the other night, "Indeed I think my thister doesth countenanth Ranelagh too mutch." They call Lord Pomfret, King Stanislaus, the queen's father.

I heard an admirable dialogue, which has been written at the army on the battle of Dettingen, but one can't get a copy; I must tell you two or three strokes in it that I have heard.

Pierot asks Harlequin, "Que donne-t'on aux g'en'eraux qui ne se sont pas trouv'es 'a la bataille!" Harl. "On leur donne le cordon rouge." Pier. "Et que donne-t'on au g'en'eral en Chef(969 qui a gagn'e la victoire!" Harl. "Son cong'e."

Pier. "Qui a soin des bless'es?" Harl. "L'ennemi." Adieu!

(964) This alludes to the King of Prussia's retreat from Prague, on the approach of the Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles Lorraine.-D.

(965) In speaking of this address of the King of Prussia, Lady Hervey, in a letter of the 17th, says, "I think it very well and very artfully drawn for his purpose, and very impertinently embarra.s.sing to our King. He is certainly a very artful prince, and I cannot but think his projects and his ambition still more extensive, than people at present imagine them."-E.

(66) On the death of his father this son succeeded to the earldom in 1763. He died in 1776, when the t.i.tle became extinct.-E.

(967) Charles Poulett, third Duke of Bolton.

(968) The Hon, Charles Fielding, third son of William, third Earl of Denbigh; a lieutenant-colonel in the guards, and Gentleman-usher to Queen Caroline. He died in 1765.-E.