The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 76

Horace Walpole, Historiographer to the high and mighty Lord John, Earl Granville.

(1166) Henry Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke, an intelligent lover of the arts, and an amateur architect of considerable merit. Walpole says of him, in his account of Sculptors and Architects, The soul of Inigo Jones, who had been patronised by his ancestors, seemed still to hover over its favourite Wilton, and to have a.s.sisted the Muses of Arts in the education of this n.o.ble person. No man had a purer taste in building than Earl Henry, of which he gave a few specimens: besides his works at Wilton, the new Lodge in Windsor Park; the Countess of Suffolk's house, at Marble Hill, Twickenham; the Water-house, in Lord Orford's park at Houghton, are incontestable proofs of Lord Pembroke's taste: it was more than taste; it was pa.s.sion for the utility and honour of his country that engaged his lords.h.i.+p to promote and a.s.siduously overlook the construction of Westminster Bridge by the ingenious M. Lahelye, a man that deserves more notice than this slight encomium can bestow." He died in January 1750-1.-E.

(1167) "Feb. 13. Lord Bolingbroke told me, that Bath had resigned, and all was now over. He approved of what had been done, though he owned that Walpole'S faction had done what he had wrote every King must expect who nurses up a faction by governing by a party; and that it was a most indecent thing, and must render the King contemptible. Lord Cobham told me, that the King had yesterday sent Winnington to stop the resignations; that he had offered Winnington the seat of exchequer, after Bath had resigned it; but Winnington said it would not do. At court I met Lord Granville, who is still secretary, but declared to be ready to resign when the King pleases." Marchmont Diary.-E.

(1168) In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, of the 18th, Lord Chesterfield says, " Your victory is complete: for G.o.d's sake pursue it. Good policy still more than resentment, requires that Granville and Bath should be marked-out,'and all their people cut off. Every body now sees and knows that you have the power; let them see and know too, that you will use it. A general run ought to be made upon Bath by all your followers and writers."-E.

(1169) The projectors of this ,attempt to remove the ministers were overwhelmed with ridicule. Among other jeux d'esprit, was "A History of the Long Administration," bound up like the works printed for children, and sold for a penny; and of which one would suspect Walpole to be the author. It concluded as follows: "And thus endeth the second and last part of this astonis.h.i.+ng administration, which lasted forty-eight hours, three quarters, seven minutes, and eleven seconds; which may be truly called the most wise and most Honest of all administrations, the minister having, to the astonishment of all wise men, never transacted one rash thing, and, what is more marvellous, left as much money in the treasury as he found in it. This worthy history I have faithfully recorded in this mighty volume, that it may be read with the valuable works of our immortal countryman, Thomas Thumb, by our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, to the end of the world:'-E.

469 Letter 196 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 6, 1746.

I know I have missed two or three posts, but you have lost nothing: you perhaps expected that our mighty commotions did not subside at once, and that you should still hear of struggles and more shocks; but it all ended at once; with only some removals and promotions which you saw in the Gazette. I should have written, however, but I have been hurried with my sister'S(1170) wedding; but all the ceremony of that too is over now, and the dinners and the visits.

The rebellion has fetched breath; the dispersed clans have reunited and marched to Inverness, from whence Lord Loudon was forced to retreat, leaving a garrison in the castle, which has since yielded without firing a gun. Their numbers are now reckoned at seven thousand: old Lord lovat(1171) has carried them a thousand Frasers. The French continually drop them a s.h.i.+p or two: we took two, with the Duke of Berwick's brother on board: it seems evident that they design to keep up our disturbances as long as possible, to prevent our sending any troops to Flanders. Upon the prospect of the rebellion being at an end, the Hessians were ordered back, but luckily were not gone; and now are quartered to prevent the rebels slipping the Duke, (who is marching to them,) and returning into England. This counter-order was given in the morning, and in the evening came out the Gazette, and said the Hessians are to go away. This doubling style in the ministry is grown so characteristic, that the French are actually playing a farce, in which harlequin enters, as an English courier, with two bundles of despatches fastened to his belly and his back: they ask him what the one is? "Eh! Ces sont mes ordres." and what the other? "Mais elles sont mes contre-ordres."

We have been a little disturbed in some other of our politics, by the news of the King of Sardinia having made his peace: I think it comes out now that he absolutely had concluded one with France, but that the haughty court of Spain rejected it: what the Austrian pride had driven him to, the Spanish pride drove him from. You will allow that our affairs are critically bad, when all our hopes centre in that honest monarch, the King of Prussia-but so it is: and I own I see nothing that can restore us to being a great nation but his interposition. Many schemes are framed, of making him Stadtholder of Holland, or Duke of Burgundy in Flanders, in lieu of the Silesias, or altogether, and that I think would follow-but I don't know how far any of these have been carried into propositions.

I see by your letters that our fomentations of the Corsican rebellion have had no better success than the French tampering in ours-for ours, I don't expect it will be quite at an end, till it is made one of the conditions of peace, that they shall give it no a.s.sistance.

The smallpox has been making great havoc in London; the new Lord Rockingham,(1172) whom I believe you knew when only Thomas Watson, is dead of it, and the t.i.tle extinct. My Lady Conway(1173) has had it, but escaped.

My brother is on the point of finis.h.i.+ng all his affairs with his countess; she is to have fifteen hundred per year; and her mother gives her two thousand pounds. I suppose this will send her back to you, added to her disappointments in politics, in which it appears she has been tampering. Don't you remember a very foolish knight, one Sir Bourchier Wrey?(1174) Well, you do: the day Lord Bath was in the Treasury, that one day! she wrote to Sir Bourchier at Exeter, to tell him that now their friends were coming into power, and it was a brave opportunity for him to Come Up and make his own terms. He came, and is lodged in her house, and sends about cards to invite people to come and see him at the Countess of Orford's. There is a little fracas I hear in their domestic; the Abb'e-Secretary has got one of the maids with child. I have seen the dame herself but once these two months, when she came into the Opera at the end of the first act, fierce as an incensed turkey-c.o.c.k, you know her look, and towing after her Sir Francis Dashwood's new Wife,(1175) a poor forlorn Presbyterian prude, whom he obliges to consort with her.

Adieu! for I think I have now told you all I know. I am very sorry that you are so near losing the good Chutes, but I cannot help having an eye to myself in their coming to England.

(1170) Lady Maria Walpole, married to Charles Churchill, Esq.

(1171) Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, a man of parts, but of infamous character. He had the folly, at the age of eighty, to enter into the rebellion, upon a promise from the Pretender, that he would make him Duke of Fraser. He was taken, tried, and beheaded.-D.

)1172) Thomas Watson, third Earl of Rockingham, succeeded his elder brother Lewis in the family honours in 1745, and died himself in 1746. The earldom extinguished upon his death'; but the Barony of Rockingham devolved upon his kinsman, Thomas Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton, who was soon afterwards created Marquis of Rockingham. ant'e, p. 458, letter 191.

(1173) Lady Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles, Duke of Grafton, and wife of Francis, Lord Conway, afterwards Earl of Hertford.

(1174) Sir Bourchier Wrey of Tavistock, in Devons.h.i.+re, the fifth baronet of the family. He was member of parliament for Barnstaple, and died in 1784.-D.

(1175) Widow of Sir Richard Ellis.

470 Letter 197 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 21, 1746.

I have no new triumphs of the Duke to send you: he has been detained a great while at Aberdeen by the snows. The rebels have gathered numbers again, and have taken Fort Augustus, and are marching to Fort William. The Duke complains extremely of the loyal Scotch: says he can get no intelligence, and reckons himself more in an enemy's country, than when he was warring with the French in Flanders. They profess the big professions wherever he comes, but, before he is out of sight of any town, beat up for volunteers for rebels. We see no prospect of his return, for he must stay in Scotland while the rebellion lasts; and the existence of that seems too intimately connected with the being of Scotland, to expect it should soon be annihilated.

We rejoice at the victories of the King of Sardinia, whom we thought lost to our cause. To-day we are to vote subsidies to the Electors of Cologne and Mentz. I don't know whether they will be opposed by the Electoral Prince;(1176) but he has lately erected a new opposition, by the councils of Lord Bath, who has got him from Lord Granville: the latter and his faction act with the court.

I have told you to the utmost extent of my political knowledge; of private history there is nothing new. Don't think, my dear child, that I hurry over my letters, or neglect writing to you; I a.s.sure you I never do, when I have the least grain to lap up in a letter: but consider how many chapters of correspondence are extinct: Pope and poetry are dead!

Patriotism has kissed hands on accepting a place: the Ladies O. and T.' have exhausted scandal both in their persons and conversations: divinity and controversy are grown good Christians, say their prayers and spare their neighbours; and I think even self-murder is out of fas.h.i.+on. Now judge whether a correspondent can furnish matter for the common intercourse of the post.

Pray what luxurious debauch has Mr. Chute been guilty of, that he is laid up with the gout? I mean, that he was, for I hope his fit has not lasted till now. If you are ever so angry, I must say, I flatter myself I shall see him before my eagle, which I beg may repose itself still at Leghorn, for the French privateers have taken such numbers of our merchantmen, that I cannot think of suffering it to come that way. If you should meet with a good opportunity of a man-of-war, let it come-or I will postpone my impatience. Adieu!

P. S. I had sealed my letter, but break it open, to tell you that an account is just arrived of two of our privateers having met eight-and- twenty transports going with supplies to the Brest fleet, and sunk ten, taken four, and driven the rest on sh.o.r.e.

)1176) The prince of Wales.

471 Letter 198 To sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 28, 1746.

I don't at all recollect what was in those two letters of mine, which I find you have lost: for your sake, as you must be impatient for English news, I am sorry you grow subject to these miscarriages but in general, I believe there is little of consequence in my correspondence.

The Duke has not yet left Aberdeen, for want of his supplies; but by a party which he sent out, and in which Mr. Conway was, the rebels do not seem to have recovered their spirits, though they have recruited their numbers; for eight hundred of them fled on the first appearance of our detachment, and quitted an advantageous post. As much as you know, and as much as you have lately heard of Scotch finesse, you will yet be startled at the refinements that nation have made upon their own policy. Lord Fortrose,(1177) whose father was in the last rebellion, and who has himself been restored to his fortune, is in Parliament and in the army: he is with the Duke-his wife and his clan with the rebels. The head of the mackintosh's is acting just the same part. The clan of the Grants, always esteemed the most Whig friendly tribe, have literally in all the forms signed a neutrality with the rebels. The most honest instance I have heard, is in the town of Forfar, there they have chosen their magistrates; but at the same time entered a memorandum in their town-book, that they shall not execute their office "till it is decided which King is to reign."

The Parliament is adjourned for the Easter holidays. Princess Caroline is going to the Bath for a rheumatism. The countess, whose return you seem so much to dread, has entertained the town with an excellent vulgarism. She happened One night at the Opera to sit by Peggy Banks,(1178) a celebrated beauty, and asked her several questions about the singers and dancers, which the other naturally answered, as one woman of fas.h.i.+on answers another. The next morning Sir Bourchier Wrey sent Miss Banks an opera-ticket, and my lady sent her a card, to thank her for her civilities to her the night before, and that she intended to wait on her very soon. Do but think of Sir B.

Wrey's paying a woman of fas.h.i.+on for being civil to my Lady O.! Sure no apothecary's wife in a market-town could know less of the world than these two people! The operas flourish more than in any latter years; the composer is Gluck, a German: he is to have a benefit, at which he is to play on a set of drinking-gla.s.ses, which he modulates with water--I think I have heard you speak of having seen some such thing.

You will see in the papers long accounts of a most shocking murder, that has been committed by a lad(1179) on his mistress, who was found dead in her bedchamber, with an hundred wounds; her brains beaten out, stabbed, her face, back, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s slashed in twenty places- one hears of nothing else wherever one goes. But adieu! it is time to finish a letter, when one is reduced for news to the casualties of the week.

(1177) William Mackenzie, fifth Earl of Seaforth, the father of Kenneth Lord Fortrose, had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and was attainted. He died in 1740. In consequence of his attainder, his son never a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Seaforth, but continued to be called Lord Fortrose, the second t.i.tle of the family. He was member of parliament in 1741 for the burghs of Fortrose, etc., and in 1747 and 1754, for the county of Ross, He died in 1762. His only son, Kenneth, was created Viscount Fortrose, and Earl of Seaforth in Ireland.-D.

(1178_ Margaret, sister of John Hodgkinson Bank,.;, Esq.; married, in 1757, to the Hon. Henry Grenville, fifth son of the Countess Temple, who was appointed governor of Barbadoes in 1746, and amba.s.sador to the Ottoman Porte in 1761.-D.

(1179) One Henderson, hanged for murdering Mrs. Dalrymple.

473 Letter 199 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 15, 1746.

Your triumphs in Italy are in high fas.h.i.+on: till very lately, Italy was scarce ever mentioned as part of the scene of war.

The apprehensions of your great King making his peace began to alarm us and when we just believed it finished, we have received nothing but torrents of good news. The King of Sardinia(1180) has not only carried his own character and success to the highest pitch, but seems to have given a turn to the general face of the war, which has a much more favourable aspect than was to be expected three months ago, has made himself as considerable in the scale as the Prussian, but with real valour, and as great abilities, and without the infamy, of the other's politics.

The rebellion seems once more at its last gasp; the Duke is marched, and the rebels fly before him, in the utmost want of money. The famous Hazard sloop is taken, with two hundred men and officers, and about eight thousand pounds in money, from France. In the midst of such good news from thence, Mr.

Conway has got a regiment, for which, I am sure, you will take part in my joy. In Flanders we propose to make another great effort, with an army of above ninety thousand men; that is, forty Dutch, above thirty Austrians, eighteen Hanoverians, the Hessians, who are to return; and we propose twelve thousand Saxons, but no English; though, if the rebellion is at all suppressed in any time, I imagine some of our troops will go, and the Duke command the whole: in the mean time, the army will be under Prince Waldeck and Bathiani. You will wonder at my running so glibly over eighteen thousand Hanoverians, especially as they are all to be in our pay, but the nation's digestion has been much facilitated by the pill given to Pitt, of vice-treasurer of Ireland.(1181) Last Friday was the debate on this subject, when we carried these troops by 255 against 122: Pitt, Lyttelton, three Grenvilles, and Lord BarringTton, all voting roundly for them, though the eldest Grenville, two years ago, had declared in the House, that he would seal it with his blood that he never would give his vote for a Hanoverian. Don't you shudder at such perjury? and this in a republic, and where there is no religion that dispenses with oaths! Pitt was the only one of this ominous band that opened his - mouth,(1182) and it was to add impudence to profligacy; but no criminal at the Place de Greve was ever so racked as he was by Dr. Lee, a friend of Lord Granville, who gave him the question both ordinary and extraordinary.

General Hawley has been tried (not in person, you may believe) and condemned by a Scotch jury for murder, on hanging a spy.

What do you say to this? or what will you say when I tell you, that Mr. Ratcliffe, who has been so long confined in the Tower, and supposed the Pretender's youngest son, is not only suffered to return to France, but was entertained at a great dinner by the Duke of Richmond as a relation!(1183) The same Duke has refused his beautiful Lady Emily to Lord Kildare,(1184) the richest and the first peer of Ireland, on a ridiculous notion of the King's evil being in the family--but sure that ought to be no objection: a very little grain more of pride and Stuartism might persuade all the royal b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that they have a faculty of curing that distemper.

The other day, an odd accidental discovery was made; some of the Duke's baggage, which he did not want, was sent back from Scotland, with a bill of the contents. Soon after, -.another large parcel, but not specified in the bill, was brought to the captain, directed like the rest. When they came to the Custom-house here, it was observed, and they sent to Mr.

Poyntz,(1185) to know what they should do: be bade them open it, suspecting some trick; but when they did, they found a large crucifix, copes, rich vestments, beads, and heaps of such like trumpery, consigned from the t.i.tulary primate of Scotland, who is with the rebels: they imagine, with the privity of some of the vessels, to be conveyed to somebody here in town.

Now I am telling you odd events, I must relate one of the strangest I ever heard. Last week, an elderly woman gave information against her maid for coining, and the trial came on at the Old Bailey. The mistress deposed, that having been left a widow several years ago, with four children, and no possibility of maintaining them, she had taken to coining: that she used to buy old pewter-pots, out Of each of which she made as many s.h.i.+llings, etc. as she could put off for three pounds, and that by this practice she had bred up her children, bound them out apprentices, and set herself up in a little shop, by which she got a comfortable livelihood; that she had now given over coining, and indicted her maid as accomplice. The maid in her defence said, "That when her mistress hired her, she told her that she did something up in a garret into which she must never inquire: that all she knew of the matter was, that her mistress had often given her moulds to clean, which she did, as it was her duty: that, indeed, she had sometimes seen pieces of pewter-pots cut, and did suspect her mistress of coining; but that she never had had, or put off; one single piece of bad money." The judge asked the mistress if this was true; she answered, "Yes; and that she believed her maid was as honest a creature as ever lived; but that, knowing herself in her power, she never could be at peace; that she knew,-by informing, she should secure herself; and not doubting but the maid's real innocence would appear, she concluded the poor girl would come to no harm."

The judge flew into the greatest rage; told her he wished he could stretch the law to hang her, and feared he could not bring off the maid for having concealed the crime; but, however, the jury did bring her in not guilty. I think I never heard a more particular instance of parts and villainy.