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Title: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 Author: Horace Walpole Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4609] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 19, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 by Horace Walpole ******This file should be named lthw110.txt or lthw110.zip****** Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, lthw111.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lthw110a.txt Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. The "legal small print" and other information about this book may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this important information, as it gives you specific rights and tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. *** This etext was produced by Marjorie Fulton. For easier searching, letters have been numbered. Only the page numbers that appear in the table of contents have been retained in the text of letters. Footnotes have been regrouped as endnotes following the letter to which they relate. THE LETTERS of HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD: INCLUDING NUMEROUS LETTERS NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS. IN FOUR VOLUMES VOL. 1. 1735-1748. CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. PREFACE--25 Advertisement--33 Second advertisement--40 Sir Charles Grey's Letter connecting Walpole with Junius--41 Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, by Lord Dover--47 REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. CHAPTer 1.--67 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 Duchess of Kendal-her Jealousy of Sir Robert Walpole's Credit with the King-the Intrigues to displace him, and make Bolingbroke Minister CHAPTER 2.--73 Marriage of George the First, while Electoral Prince, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea-Assassination of Count Konigsmark-Separation from the Princess-Left-handed espousal-Piety of the Duchess of Kendal-Confinement and Death of Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden-French Prophetess-The King's Superstition-Mademoiselle Schulemberg-Royal Inconsistency-Countess of platen-Anne Brett- Sudden Death of George the First CHAPTER 3.--79 Quarrel between George the First and his Son-Earl of Sunderland-Lord Stanhope-South Sea Scheme-Death of Craggs-Royal Reconcilement-Peerage Bill Defeated-Project for seizing the Prince of Wales and conveying him to America-Duke of Newcastle-Royal Christening-Open rupture-Prince and Princess of Wales ordered to leave the Palace CHAPtER 4.--83 Bill Of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury-Projected Assassination of Sir Robert Walpole-Revival of the Order of the Bath-Instance of George the First's good-humoured Presence of Mind CHAPTER 5.--86 Accession of George the Second-Sir Spencer Compton-Expected Change in Administration-Continuation of Lord Townshend -and Sir Robert Walpole by the Intervention of Queen Caroline-Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Her character by Swift-and by Lord Chesterfield CHAPTER 6.--89 Destruction of George the First's Will. CHAPTER 7.91 History of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Miss Bellenden-Marriage with Colonel John Carnl)bell, afterwards Fourth Duke of Argyle-Anecdotes of Queen Caroline-Her last Illness and Death-Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-Last Years of George the Second-Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon-Lady Diana Spencer-Frederick, Prince of Wales-Sudden Removal of the Prince and Princess from Hampton Court to St. James's-Birth of a Princess-Rupture with the King-Anecdotes of Lady Yarmouth CHAPTER 8.--101 George the Second's Daughters-Anne, Princess of Orange-Princess Amelia-Princess Caroline-Lord Hervey-Duke of Cumberland CHAPTER 9.--103 Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-and of Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, TO THE EARL OF STAIR, ILLUSTRATIVE OF "THE REMINISCENCES." (NOW FIRST PUBlished) 111 LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. (Those Letters now first collected are marked N.) 1735 1. To Richard West, Esq. November 9.-Picture of a University life. Cambridge sophs. Juvenile quadruple alliance--121 1736. 2. To George Montagu, Esq. May 2.-Marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, with the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha--122 3. To the same, May 6.-Pleasures of youth, and youthful recollections--123 4. To the same, May 20.-Jaunt to Oxford. Wrest House. Easton Neston. Althorp--124 5. To the same, May 30.-Petronius Arbiter. Coventry's Dialogue between Philemon and Hydaspes on False Religion. Artemisia-- 126 6. To Richard West, Esq. Aug. 17.-Gray, and other schoolfellows. Eton recollections. Course of study at the University--127 1737. 7. To George Montagu, Esq. March 20.-French and English manners contrasted--128 8. To the same.-Feelings on revisiting Eton--129 1739. 9. To Richard West, Esq. April 21. Paris society. Amusements. Funeral of the Duke de Tresmes. St. Denis. Church of the Celestins. French love of show. Signs. Notions of honour--130 10. To the same.-, Description of Versailles. Conventof the Chartreux. History of St. Bruno, painted by Le Soeur. Relics-- 132 11. To the same, June 18.-Rheims. Brooke's "Gustavus Vasa"-- 134 12. To the same, July 20.-Rheims. Compiegne. Self-introduction--134 13. To the same, Sept. 28.-Mountains of Savoy. Grande Chartreuse. Aix. English visitors. Epigram--136 14. To the same, Nov. 11.-Passage of Mount Cenis. Cruel accident. Chamberri. Inscription. Pas de Suza. Turin. Italian comedy. "L'Anima Damnata." Conversazione--138 15. To the same.-Bologna. Letter-writing. Curl. Whitfield's Journal. Jingling epitaph. Academical exercises at the Franciscans' church. Dominicans' Church. Old verses in a new light--140 1740. 16. To the same, January 24.-Florence. Grand Duke's gallery. Effect of travel. English and Italian character contrasted. Story of the prince and the nut--142 17. To the same, February 27.-Florence. The Carnival. Character of the Florentines. Their prejudice about nobility. Mr. Martin. Affair of honour--143 18. To the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, March 6.-Complaints of his not writing. Attachment to Florence--145 19. To richard West, Esq. March 22.-Description of Siena. Romish superstitions. Climate of italy. Italian customs. Radicofani. Dome of Siena. Inscription. Entrance to Rome--146 20. To the same, April 16.-Rome. Ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica. Ignorance and poverty of the present Romans. The Coliseum. Relics--148 21. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 23.-Society at Rome. The Moscovita. Roman Conversations. The Conclave. Lord Deskford-- 150 22. To Richard West, Esq., May 7.-The Conclave. Antiquities of Rome. State of the public a century hence--152 23. To the same, June 14.-Naples. Description of Herculaneum. Passage in Statius picturing out this latent city--153 24. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 5.-Reasons for leaving Rome. Malaria. Radicofani described. Relics from Jerusalem. Society at Florence. Mr. Mann. Lady pomfret. Princess Craon. Hosier's ghost. The Conclave. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke--155 25. To Richard West, Esq.-Medals and inscriptions. Taking of Porto Bello. The Conclave. Lady Mary Montagu. Life at Florence--159 26. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 25.-Character of the Florentines. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu described. Sortes Virgiliane--161 27. To Richard West, Esq. Oct. 2.-Effect of travel- A wedding at Florence. Addison's Italy. Dr. Cocchi. Bondelmonti. A song. Bronzes and medals. Tartini. Lady Walpole. Platonic love--163 28. To the same, Nov.-Disastrous flood at Florence--166 1741. 29. To the Rev. Joseph Spence, Feb. 21.-Hopes to renew in England an acquaintance begun in Italy. Owns him his master in the antique--[N.) 168 30. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, March 25.-Rejoices at George Selwyn's recovery And at the result of Mr. Sandvs' motion for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole. Middleton's Life of Cicero- -169 31. To Richard West, Esq., May 10.-His opinion of the first act of West's tragedy of Pausanias. Description of Rome during fair-time--170 32. To Sir Horace Mann, Sept.-Calais on his return to England. Amorevoli. The Viscontina. Passage to Dover. Comfort and snugness of English in country towns. The distinction of "meddling people" nowhere but in England. Story of Mr. Pope and the Prince of Wales--172 33. To the same, Oct.-Corsica. Bianca Colonna. Baron Stosch, and his Maltese cats--174 34. To the Hon. H. S. Conway.-On his return to England. Changes produced by travel--175 35. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 8.-Illness of Sir Robert Walpole. The Opera. Sir Benjamin Keene. Dominichino's Madonna and Child. Lady Dorothy Boyle. State of parties--176 36. To the same, Oct. 13--178 37. To the same, Oct. 19.-Unfavourable state of his father's health--178 38. To the same, Oct. 22.-Duel between Winnington and Augustus Townshend. Long Sir Thomas Robinson. Mrs. Woffington. "Les Cours de l'Europe"--179 39. To the same, Nov. 2.-Sir Thomas Robinson's ball. The Euston embroil. The Neutrality. "The Balancing Captain," a new song--182 40. To the same, Nov. 5.-Opera House management--186 41. To the same, Nov. 12.-Admiral Vernon. The Opera. The Viscontina--187 42. To the same, Nov. 23.-Spanish design on Lombardy. Sir Edward Walpole's courtship. Lady Pomfret. "Going to Court." Lord Lincoln. Paul Whitehead. "Manners"--189 43. To the same, Nov. 26.-His mother's tomb. Intaglio of the Gladiator--191 44. To the same, Dec. 3.-Admiral Haddock. Meeting of Parliament. State of parties. Colley Cibber--192 45. To the same, Dec. 10.-Debate on the King's speech. Westminster petition. Triumph of Opposition. "Bright Bootle"-- 194 46. To the same, Dec. 16.-Chairman of election committees. Ministry in a minority--197 47. To the same, Dec. 17.-Warm debates in Westminster election committee. Odd suicide--199 48. To the same, Dec. 24.-Anecdote of Sandys. Ministerial victory. Debates on the Westminster election. Story of the Duchess of Buckingham. Mr. Nugent. Lord Gage. Revolution in Russia--201 49. To the same, Dec. 29.-The Dominichino. Passage of the Giogo. Bubb Doddington. Follies of the Opposition--206 1742. 50. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 7.-Reasons why he is not in fashion. His father's want of partiality for him. Character of General Churchill. Vote-trafficking during the holidays. Music party. The three beauty-Fitzroys. Lord Hervey. Hammond, the poet. Death of Lady Sundon. Anecdotes--207 51. To the same, Jan. 22.-House of Commons. Merchants' petition. Leonidas Glover. Place Bill. Projected changes. King's message to the Prince. Pulteney's motion for a secret committee on Sir Robert Walpole's conduct. New opera--212 52. To the same Feb. 4.-Sir Robert's morning levees. His resignation. Created Earl of Orford--218 53. To the same; Feb. 9.@Political changes. Opposition meeting at the Fountain. Cry against Sir Robert. Instructions to members. Lord Wilmington first lord of the Treasury.New ministry. Crebillon's "Sofa"--220 54. To the same, Feb. 18.-Rumoured impeachments. Popular feeling. "The Unhappy Favourite." "broad Bottom" ministry. the Prince of Wales at the King's levee. sir Robert takes his seat in the HOuse of Lords. Grand masquerade--224 55. To the same, Feb. 25.-House of Commons. Shippen. Murray. Story of Sir R. Godschall. Impeachments. Changes. "England in 1741," by Sir C. H. Williams--227 56. To the same, march 3.-Merchants' petition. leonidas Glover. New Story of the Lord mayor. speech of Doddington. Heydon election. "The broad Bottom." Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs. Lord Oxford's sale. New opera. Sir robert at richmond--229 57. to the same, March 10.-The coalition. Motion for a committee of inquiry into the last twenty years thrown out. Duke of Argyle resigns. Old Sarah's Memoirs--234 58. To the same, march 22.-Queen of Hungary's successes. Lord Oxford's sale--237 59. to the same, March 24.-Secret Committee to inquire into the conduct of the Earl of Orford appointed. Horace WAlpole's speech on the occasion--238 60. To the same, april 1.-Secret Committee balloted for. court and Opposition lists. Bill for repealing the Septennial Act rejected--241 61. To the same, april 8.-lady Walpole's extravagant schemes. Subsidy for the Queen of Hungary. Lord Orford's crowded levees. Rage of the mob against him. Place Bill rejected by the Lords--243 62. To the same, April 15.-Progress of the Secret Committee. Committal of Paxton--246 63. To the same, april 22.- Secret Committee. Examination of Sir John Rawdon. Opening of Ranelagh Gardens--247 64. To the same, April 29.-Preparations for war in Flanders. Examinations before the Secret Committee. Scuffle at the Opera--249 65. To richard West, Esq., may 4.-Anxiety for the recovery of his health and spirits. The age most unpoetical. Wit monopolized by politics. Royal reconciliation. Asheton's sermons. (Death of Mr. West)--251 66. To sir Horace mann, May 6.-Florentine nobility. Embarkations for Germany. Doings of the Secret committee. the opera--252 67. to the same, May 13.-first report of the Secret Committee. Bill to indemnify evidence against Lord orford brought in--254 68. To the same, May 20.-Indemnity Bill carried in the Commons. Party dinner at the Fountain. Place Bill. Mr. Nugent's attack on the bishops--254 69. To the same, May 28.-Ranelagh. Vauxhall. Mrs. Clive. "Miss Lucy in town." Garrick at Goodman's Fields: "a very good mimic; but nothing wonderful in his acting." Mrs. Bracegirdle. meeting at the Fountain. The Indemnity Bill flung out by the Lords. Epigram on Pulteney. Committee to examine the public accounts. Epigram on the Indemnity Bill. Kent and symmetry. "The Irish Beggar"--256 70. To the same, June 3.-Epigram on Lord Islay's garden upon Hounslow Heath--260 71. To the same, June 10.-Lady Walpole and her son. Royal reviews. Death of hammong. Process against the duchess of Beaufort--261 72. To the same, June 14.-Peace between Austria and Prussia. Ministerial movements. Perplexities of the Secret Committee. Conduct of Mr. Scrope. Lady Vane's adventures--263 73. To the same, June 25.-successes of the Queen of Hungary. Mr. Pulteney created Earl of Bath--265 74. To the same, June 30.-Second Report of the Secret Committee.' The Pretender. Intercepted letters. Lord Barrymore--267 75. to the same.-Lines on the death of Richard West, Esq. "A Receipt to make a lord"--269 76. To the same, July 7.-New Place Bill. General Guise. Monticelli--271 77. To the same July 14.-Ned and Will Finch. Lord Sidney Beauclerc. Pulteney takes up his patent as Earl of Bath. Ranelagh masquerade. Fire in Downing Street--273 78. To the same.-Prorogation. End of the Secret Committee. Paxton released from Newgate. Ceretesi. Shocking scene of murder. Items from his grandfather's account-book. Lord Orford at court--275 79. To the same, July 29.-About to set out for Houghton. Evening at Ranelagh with his father. Lord Orford's increasing popularity. "The Wife of Bath." Cibber's pamphlet against Pope. Doddington's "Comparison of the Old and New Ministry"-- 278 80. To the same,-New ballads. Lord Orford at Houghton--279 81. To the same, Aug. 20--280 82. To the same, Aug. 28.-Marshal Belleisles, Cardinal Tencin. "Lessons for the Day." "An honourable man"--281 83. To the same, Sept, 11.-Visit to Woolterton. A Catalogue of New French Books"--284 84. To the same, Sept. 25.-Admiral Matthews. The King'sJourney to Flanders. Siege of Prague. History of the Princess Eleonora of Guastalla. Moli`ere's Tartuffe--285 85. To the same, Oct. 8.-Siege of Prague raised. Great preparations for the King's journey to Flanders. Odes on Pulteney. Story of the Pigwiggins. Fracas at Kensington Palace--287 86. To the same, Oct. 18.-Admiral Matthews. "Yarmouth Roads." A ballad, by Lord Hervey--289 87. To the same, Oct. 23.--293 88. To the same, Nov. 1.-The King's levee and drawing-room described. State of parties. A piece of absence. Duc d'Arembery--294 89. To the same, Nov. 15.-Projects of Opposition Lord Orford's reception at the levee. Revolution in the French court. The Opera. Lord Tyrawley. Doddington's marriage--296 90. To the same, Dec. 2.--House of Commons. Motion for a new secret committee thrown out. Union of the Whigs--298 91. To the same, Dec. 9.-Debate on disbanding the army in Flanders. "Hanover"-the word for the winter--299 92. To the same, Dec. 23.-Difficulty of writing upon nothing-- 301 1743. 93. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 6.-Admiral Vernon. Reply of the Duchess of Queensberry--302 94. To the same, Jan. 13.-House of Commons. Case of the Hanover 'Forces." Difficulty of raising the supplies. Lord Orford's popularity--304 95. To the same, Jan. 27.-Accession of the Dutch to the King's measures--306 96. To the same, Feb. 2. Debate in the Lords on disbanding the Hanoverian troops--308 97. to the same, Feb. 18.--309 98. To the same, Feb. 24.' Austrian victory over the Spaniards in Italy. King theodore's Declaration. handle and the Opera-- 309 99. To the same, March 3.-Death of the Electress. Story of Lord Hervey. The Oratorios--310 100. To the same, March 14.-Duel between his uncle Horace and Mr. Chetwynd. Death of the Duchess of Buckingham--311 101. To the same, March 25.-Epidemic. Death of Dr. Blackburne, Archbishop of York--314 102. To the same, April 4.-Funeral of the Duchess of Buckingham--315 103. To the same, April 14.-Army in Flanders. King Theodore. The Opera ruined by gentlemen directors. Dillettanti Club. London versus the country--317 104. To the same, April 25.-Departure of the King and Duke of Cumberland from the army in Flanders. The Regency. Princess Louisa and the Prince of Denmark. Lord Stafford and Miss Cantillon. Irish fracas. Silvia and Philander--318 105. To the same, May 4.-King Theodore. Admiral Vernon's frantic speech. Ceretesi. Low state of the Opera. Freemasonry- -320 106. to the same, May 12.-Death of the Duchess of Kendal. Story of Old Sarah. Maids of honour--322 107. To the same, May 19.-Mutiny of a Highland regiment--323 108. To the same, June 4.-Marriages, deaths and promotions. Sale of Corsica--324 109. To the same, June 16.-expected battle in Flanders. Alarms for Mr. Conway. Houghton gallery. Life of Theodore--326 110. To the same, June 20.-Visit to Euston. Kent. Anecdote of Lord Easton. Lady Dorothy Boyle--328 111. To the same, June 28.-Batttle of Dettingen. Conduct of the King. Anecdotes--329 112. To the same, July 4.-Further anecdotes of the battle. Public rejoicings. Lines on the victory. Halifax's poem of the battle of the Boyne--331 113. to the same, July 11.-another battle expected--333 114. to the same, July 19.-Conduct of General Ilton. "The Confectioner"--334 115. To the same, July 31.-the temporizing conduct of the Regency. Bon-mot of Winnington--335 116. To the same, Aug. 14.-Arrival of the Dominichini. Description. Pun of Madame de S`evign`e--336 117. TO John Chute, Esq., Aug. 20.-Life at Houghton. Stupifying qualities of beef, ale, and wine. The Dominichini-- [N.) 338 118. To Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 29.-Undoubted originality of the Dominichini. Mr. Pelham first lord of the treasury--340 119. To the same, Sept. 7.-The marrying Princesses. French players at Cliefden. Our faith in'politics. Story of the Duke of Buckingham. Extraordinary miracle--341 120. To the same, Sept 17.-The King and Lord Stair--343 121. To the same, Oct. 3.-Journey to town. Newmarket described. No solitude in the country. Delights of a London life. Admiral Matthews and the Pope. Story of Sir James of the Peak. Mrs. White's brown bob. Old Sarazin at two the morning. Lord Perceval's "Faction Detected." Death of the duke of Argyle--344 122. To the same, oct. 12.-Conduct of Sir Horace's father. The army in Flanders in winter quarters. Distracted state of parties. Patapaniana. Imitation of an epigram of martial--347 123. To the Same, Nov. 17.-the King's arrival and reception. His cool behaviour to the Prince of Wales. Lord Holderness's Dutch bride. The Prince of Denmark. the Opera--349 124. To the same, Nov. 30.-Meeting of Parliament. Strength of Opposition. Conduct of Lord Carteret. Treasury dishclouts. Debate on the Address--351 125. To the same, Dec. 15.-Debates on the Hanoverian troops. Resignation of Lord Gower. Ministerial changes. Sandys made a peer. Verses addressed to the House of Lords, on its receiving a new peer--352 126. To the same, Dec. 26.--354 1744. 127. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 24.-The Brest fleet at sea. Motion for continuing the Hanover troops carried by the exertions of Lord Orford--356 128. To the same, Feb. 9.-Appearance of the Brest squadron off the Land's End. Pretender's son at Paris--358 129. To the same, Feb. 16.-French squadron off Torbay. King's message concerning the young Pretender and designed invasion. Activity and zeal of Lord Orford--359 130. To the same, Feb. 23.-Welsh election carried against Sir Watkyn Williams. Prospect of invasion. Preparations--361 131. To the same, March 1.-The French expected every moment. Escape of the Brest squadron from Sir John Norris. Dutch troops sent for. Spirit of the nation. Addresses. Lord Barrymore and Colonel Cecil taken up. Suspension of the Habeas Corpus. The young Pretender--361 132. To the same, March 5.-Great storm. French transports destroyed, and troops disembarked--363 133. To the same, March 15.-Fears of invasion dispelled. Mediterranean engagement. Admiral Lestock--364 134. To the same, March 22.-French declaration of war. Affair in the Mediterranean. Sir John Norris. Hymeneals. Lord Carteret and Lady Sophia Fermor. Doddington and Mrs. Behan-- 365 135. To the same, April 2.--366 136. To the same, April 15.-Nuptials of the great Quixote and the fair Sophia. Invasion from Dunkirk laid aside--367 137. To the same, May 8.-Debate on the Pretender's Correspondence Bill--369 138. To the same, May 29.-Movements of the army in Flanders. Illness of his father. Death of Pope. Mr. Henry Fox's private marriage with Lady Charlotte Lenox. Bishop Berkeley and tar-water--370 139. To the same, June 11.-Successes of the French army in Flanders. State of the combined army. And of our sea-force-- 372 140. To the same, June 18.-Return of Admiral Anson. Ball at Ranelagh. Purchase of Dr. Middleton's collection. Lord Orford's pension--373 141. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 29.-Eton recollections. Lines out of a new poem. Opinion of the present great men. Ranelagh described--[N.] 375 142. To Sir Horace Mann, June 29.-Cluster of good news. Our army joined by the dutch. Success of the King of Sardinia over the Spaniards. The Rhine passed by Prince Charles. Lines on the death of Pope. Epitaph on him by Rolli-- 377 143. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 20.-Happiness at receiving a letter of confidence. Advice on the subject of an early attachment. Arguments for breaking off the acquaintance. Offer of the immediate use of his fortune--379 144. To Sir Horace Mann, July 22.-Letter-writing one of the first duties. Difficulty of keeping up a correspondence after long absence. History writing. Carte and the City aldermen. Inscription on Lady Euston's picture. lady Carteret. Epigram on her--381 145. To the same, Aug. 6.-Marquis de la Ch`etardie dismissed by the Empress of Russia. The Grifona. Lord Surrey's sonnets-- 383 146. To the same, Aug. 16.-Preparations for a Journey to Houghton. Rule for conquering the passions. Country life. king of Prussia's address to the people of England. A dialogue on the battle of Dettingen--385 147. To the same, Sept. 1.-Victory at Velletri. Illness of the King of France. Epigram on Bishop Berkeley's tar-water--387 148. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 6.--388 149. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 6.-Self-scolding. Neapolitan expedition--390 150. To the same, Oct. 19.-Defeat of the King of Sardinia. loss of the ship Victory, with Sir John Balchen. Death of Sarah of Marlborough, the Countess Granville, and Lord Beauchamp. Marriage of Lord Lincoln. French King's dismissal of Madame de Chateauroux. Discretion of a Scotch soldier--391 151. To the same, November 9.-Lord middleton's wedding. The Pomfrets. Lady Granville's At Home. Old Marlborough's will. Glover's Leonidas--393 152. To the same, Nov. 26.-History of Lord Granville's resignation. Voila le monde! Decline of his father's health. Outcry against pantomimes. Drury Lane uproar. Bear-garden bruisers. Walpole turned popular orator--394 153. To the same, Dec. 24.-Conduct of the King. Prostitution of patriots. List of ministerial changes. Mr. Pitt declines office. Opposition selling themselves for profit. The Pretender's son owned in France--397 1745. 154. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan, 4.-Complains of dearth of news. His ink at low water mark. Lord Sandwich's first-rate tie-wig. Lady Granville's assemblies. Marshal a prisoner at Hanover-- 399 155. To the same, Jan. 14.-M. de Magnan's history. Prince Lobkowitz. Doings of the Granville faction. Anecdote of Lord Baltimore. Illness of Lord Orford. Mrs. Stephens's remedy. Sir Thomas Hanmer's Shakspeare. Absurd alteration therein--400 156. To the same, Feb. 1.-Variety of politics. Lord Granville characterized. Progress of the coalition--402 157. TO the same, Feb. 28.-Alarming illness of Lord Orford. Success of the coalition. situation of the Pelhams. Masquerade at the Venetian ambassadress's. Lady townshend's ball. Marshal Belleisle at Nottingham. matrimonials on the tapis--404 158. To the same, march 29.-Death of Lord Orford. Inquiry into the miscarriage of the fleet in the action off Toulon. Matthews and Lestock. Instability of the ministry. Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda. Glover's Leonidas. The Seasons. Alenside's Odes. Quarrel between the Duchesses of Queensberry and Richmond. Rage for conundrums--406 159. To the same, April 15.-Reflections on his father's death. Compliments paid to his memory. Mediterranean miscarriages-- 410 160. To the same, April 29.-Disadvantages of a distant correspondence. Death of Mr. Francis Chute, and of poor Patapan. Prospect of a battle in Flandders. Marshal Saxe--411 161. To the same, May 11.-Battle of Fontenoy. Bravery of the Duke. Song, written after the news of the battle, by the Prince of Wales--412 162. To George Montagu, Esq., May 18.-Condolence on the death of Mr. Montigu's brother at Fontenoy--415 163. To Sir Horace Mann, May 24.-Popularity of the Duke of Cumberland. Lady Walpole. Story of Lord Bath's parsimony--415 164. To George Montagu, Esq. may 25.-Family at Englefield Green. Sir Edward Walpole. Dr. Styan Thirlby--416 165. To the Hon. H. S. conway, May 27.-Despairs of seeing his friend a perfect hero. the Why!--417 166. To sir Horace Mann-Recommendatory, of Mr. Hobart, afterwards Lord Buckinghamshire--418 167. to the same, June 24.-Expected arrival from Italy of the sister-Countess. Surrender of the citadel of tournai. Defeat of Charles Lorrain. Revolution of the Prince of Wales's court. Miss Neville. Lady Abergavenny--419 168. to George Montagu, Esq. June 25.-Mistley, the seat of Mr. Rigby, described. Fashionable at Homes. Lady Brown's Sunday parties. Lady Archibald hamilton. Miss Granville. Jemmy Lumley's assembly--421 169. To the Hon. H.S. Conway, July 1.-Tournai and Fontenoy. Gaming act--422 170. To Sir Horace Mann, July 5.-Seizure of Ghent and Bruges by the French--424 171. To the same, July 12.---425 172. to George Montagu, Esq. July 13.-Success of the French in Flanders. Lord Baltimore. Mrs. Comyns--427 173. To sir Horace Mann, July 15.--428 174. To the same, July 26.-Projected invasion. Disgraces in Flanders--430 175. To George Montagu, Esq. AUg. 1.-Portrait of M. de Grignon. Livys patavinity. marshal Belleisle in London. Duke of Newcastle described. Duches of Bolton's geographical resolution--431 176. To sir Horace Mann, Aug. 7.-Rumours of an invasion. Proclamation for apprehending the Pretender's son--432 177. To the Rev. Thomas Birch, Aug. 15.-Respecting a projected History of George the Second--434 178. To Sir Horace Mann, Sept. 6.-Landing and progress of the young Pretender. His manifestoes--435 179. To the same, Sept. 13.-Progress of the rebellion. The Duke of Newcastle's speech to the Regency--436 179a. To George Montagu, Esq., Sept. 17.-- (Transcriber's note: this letter appears in the text but was omitted from the printed table of contents--438 180. To the same, Sept. 20.-Edinburgh taken by the rebelsOur strength at sea. Plan of raising regiments. Lady Orford's reception in England.--439 181. To the same, Sept. 27.-Successes of Prince Charles in Scotland--441 182. To the same, Oct. 4.-Operations against the rebels. Spirited conduct of the Archbishop of York--443 183. To the same, Oct. 11.-Death of Lady Granville--445 184. To the same, Oct. 21.-Excesses of the rebels at Edinburgh. Proceedings in Parliament--446 185. To the same, Nov. 4.-State of the rebellion. Debates respecting the new raised regiments. Ministerial changes--447 186. To the same, Nov. 15.-Disturbance about the new regiments. Advance of the rebels into England. Their desperate situation. Lord Clancarty--449 187. To the same, Nov. 22.-The rebels advance to Penrith. The Mayor of Carlisle's heroic letter, and surrender of the town. Proceedings in Parliament--451 188. To the same, Nov. 29.-,rhe sham Pretender. Lord Derwentwater taken. The rebels at Preston. Marshal Wade--453 189. To the same, Dec. 9.-Conduct of the rebels at Derby. Black Friday. Preparations for a French invasion Rising spirit of the people--455 190. To the same Dec. 20.-Flight of the rebels from Derby. Capture of the Martinico fleet. Debate on employing the Hessian troops.Marriage of the Duchess of Bridgewater and Dick Lyttelton. A good Irish letter--457 1746. 191. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 3.-Recapture of Carlisle. General Hawley. Preparations at Dunkirk. Ministerial movements--460 192. To the same, Jan. 17.-The rebels fortifying themselves in Scotland. Hawley's executions. Anecdotes of him. The French invasion laid aside--461 193. To the same, Jan. 28.-Battle of Falkirk--463 194. To the same, Feb. 7.-Plight of the rebels. The new regiments. Confusion at court--464 195. To the same, Feb. 14.-Insurrection in the closet. The Pelhams throw up the seals. Reconciliation and return to office. History--466 196. To the same, March 6.-Reunion of the dispersed clans. Lord Lovat--469 197. To the same, March 21.-The rebels take Fort Augustus. The Prince of Wales's new opposition--470 198. To the same, March 28.-The rebels out of spirits. Lady Walpole. Peggy Banks. The opera. Shocking murder--471 199. To the same, April 15.-The rebellion at its last gasp. Supplies from France taken. Hanoverian troops. Trial of Hawley. Marriage of Lord Kildare. An odd discovery. Strange event--473 200. To the same, April 25.-Battle of Culloden. Escape of the young Pretender. Fireworks and illuminations. Death of Mr. Winnington--476 201. To the same, May 16.-End of the rebellion. Old Tullybardine. Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Ogilvie prisoners. Antwerp taken--478 202. To George Montagu, Esq. May 22.-Visit to Langley. The Sidney Papers. Sir Philip's defence of the Earl of Leicester-- 479 203. To the same, June 6.-Character of the Prince of Hesse. Fame of the Violette--480 204. To Sir Horace Mann, June 6.-Marriage of the Princess Mary to the Prince of Hesse--482 205. To George Montagu, Esq. June 12.-Anecdotes of the Prince of Hesse. Lady Caroline Fitzroy. Dick Edgecumbe--483 206. To the same, June 17.-Prospect of Peace. Death of Augustus Townshend--484 207. To Sir Horace Mann, June 20.-Battle of Placentia. Old Tullybardine and Lord Cromartie in the Tower. Death of Jack Spenser--485 208. To George Montagu, Esq. June 24.-Ministerial changes. Arrival of rebel prisoners. Jack Spenser's will. Lady Townshend's bon-mots. Anecdotes of Lords Bath and Sandys, and the Duke of Cumberland--486 209. To the same, July 3.-Promotions and marriages--487 210. To Sir Horace Mann, July 7.-Lord Lovat, and Murray, the Pretender's secretary,taken.--488 211. To the same, Aug, 1.-Trials of the rebel Lords. Description of Lords Kilmarnock, Cromartie, and Balmerino. Intercessions in their behalf. Confessions of Murray--489 212. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 2.-Trials of the rebel Lords. Anecdotes--494 213. To the same, Aug. 5.-Discoveries of Murray. Lady Cromartie's petition. Anecdotes of the rebel lords. The Duke of Cumberland's ball--495 214. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 11.-Lord Cromartie's pardon. Lady Caroline Fitzroy's marriage--497 215. TO Sir Horace mann, Aug. 12.-Opera squabbles. The Violette. Lord Sandwich's embassy. Marriage of Lady Charlotte Fermor, and of the Princess Louisa to the King of Denmark. Wanderings of the young Pretender. Conduct of the rebel Lords. Story of Lord Balmerino--497 216. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 16.-Anecdotes of the rebel Lords under sentence--500 217. To Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 21.-Account of the execution of Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock--501 218. To the same, Sept. 15.-Lady Orford and Mr. Shirley--504 219. To the same, Oct. 2.-Arrival of Mr. Chute from Italy. Mr. Whithed described--506 220. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 3.-Enclosing Gray's Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College--507 221. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 14.-Defeat of the allies in Flanders. Capitulation of Genoa. Acquittal of Cope. General Oglethorpe's sentence--508 222. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 24.-Campaign in Scotland-- 509 223. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 3.-His Epilogue to Tamerlane--510 224. To Sir Horace Mann, Nov. 4.-Ministerial changes. Lord Chesterfield accepts the seals. Expedition to Quiberon. Admiral Matthews's court-martial--511 225. To the same, Nov. 12--513 226. To the same,, Dec. 5.-Marriages. Reformations in the army. Arrest of Orator henley. theatricals--514 227. To Sir Horace Mann, Dec. 25.-Trial of Lord Lovat. Mr.Davis's copy of the Dominichino--515 1747. 228. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 27.-The Prince's new Opposition- -517 229. To the same, Feb. 23.-The Opera. Debates on places and pensions. Lord Kildare's marriage. Panciatici. Anecdotes of Lord Holderness and Lord Hervey--519 230. to the same, March 20.-Lord Lovat's trial. Anecdotes--521 231. To the same, April 10.-Account of Lord Lovat's execution. The Independents. Tottering state of the ministry. Civil war in the house of Finch--522 232. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 16.-Mutability of fame and popularity. Lord Lovat's burial. Story of George Selwyn. Debate on the Heritable Jurisdictions Bill--525 233. To Sir Horace Mann, May 5.-The new Stadtholder. Scotch Clanships Bill. Bill for allowing counsel to prisoners on impeachments for treason. Resignations. Holland House--526 234. To the same, May 19.-Anson's victory. Death of Captain Grenville. Mr. Dayrolies--527 235. To the same, June 5.-Sudden dissolution of Parliament. Rumoured ministerial changes. Purchase (of Strawberry Hill-- 528 236. TO the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 8.-Description of Strawberry Hill. Dissolution of Parliament. Measures for carrying elections--530 237. To Sir Horace Mann, June 26.-Election tumults. Sir Jacob Botiverie's peerage. The Duchess of Queensberry at court. Instance of English bizarrerie--531 238. To George Montagu, Esq. July 2.-Ill success of the army in the Netherlands. Battle of Laffeldt. Gallant conduct of Mr. Conway. Naval captures--533 239. To Sir Horace Mann, July 3.-Battle of Laffeldt. Capture of the Domingo fleet. Progress of the elections--534 240. To the same, July 28.-Piedmontese victory over the French. Death of the Chevalier Belleisle--535 241. To the same, Sept. 1.-Bergen-op-Zoom. Sir James Grey. Pantiatici--536 242. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 1.-Cardinal Polignac's Anti-Lucretius. George Selwyn. Anecdotes--537 243. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 2.-Capture of Bergen-op-Zoom. Character of Mr. Chute. Chit-chat. Anecdote of Lord Bath--537 244. To the same, Nov. 10.-Admiral Hawke's victory. Meeting of the new Parliament. The musical clock--539 245. To the same, Nov. 24.-Meditates a journey to Florence. Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle. Ministerial interference in the Seaford election. Mr. Potter. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Eclogues--539 1748. 246. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 12.-General dispositions for war. Diplomatic Changes. Lord and Lady Coke. Matrimonial fracas--541 247. To the same, Jan. 26.-Mr. Legge's embassy to the King of Prussia. Mr. Villiers. Ministers triumphant in Parliament. Admiral Vernon's letters--542 248. To the same, Feb. 16.-Resignation of Lord Chesterfield. Ministerial changes. Hitch in Mr. Legge's embassy. Discontents in the army. Public amusements. Comedy of the Foundling--544 249. To Sir Horace Mann, March 11.-Prevalence of miliary fever. Death of the Marquis of Powis. Private theatricals. Attempt to damn the Foundling. Animosities in the House of Commons. Buckingham assizes. The Duchess of Queensberry's masquerade--545 250. To the same, April 29.-Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Masquerade at the Hay market--547 251. To George Montagu, Esq. May 18.-Lord Anson's voyage with Lady Elizabeth Yorke. His voyage. Anecdotes. Marshal Wade's house--549 252. To the same, May 26.-Ranelagh. Anecdotes. Sir Thomas Bootle. Story of Prince Edward--550 253. To the same, June 7.-The Duke of Newcastle's journey to Holland. Strawberry Hill," the old name of his house--551 254. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 27.-His rural occupations. Lord Coke. Friendly advice from White's. F`ete at Vauxhall-- (N.). 553 255. To SirHorace Mann, July 14.@The Duke of Newcastle's travels. Anecdote--554 256. To the same.-Bad state of Lord Orford's health. Reflections. Has finished his Aedes Walpolianae. Improvements at Strawberry Hill--555 257. To George Montagu, Esq. July 25.-Account of a visit to Nugent. Family of the Aubrey de Versa, Earls of Oxford. Henningham Castle Gosfield--556 258. To the same, Aug. 11.-Anecdotes of the House of Vere. Kitty Clive. Garrick and Lee. Visit to Esher. Claremont House. Mrs. Pritchard--558 259. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug. 29.-His progress in planting. Anticipations of future discoveries--561 260. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 3.-Bonmot of the duke of Cumberland. "The new light." Whitfield and the Methodists. Smell of thieves. Story of Handsome Tracy. Gray, the worst company in the world--563 261. To Sir Horace Mann, Sept. 12-Death of Bishop Gibson--565 262. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 25.-Disinterested friendship. passage in Chillingworth. The Duchess of Ireland's Hennins, or piked horns--566 263. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 4.-Meeting of Parliament. Preparations for proclaiming the peace. Lady Cadogan--567 264. TO George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 20--568 265. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 24.-Adventure of Milord Richard Onslow. Character of lord Walpole. Unpopularity, of the peace. Death of old Tom Walker--569 266. To the same, Dec. 2.-The King's return. Prospects of a stormy session. League Of the tories with the Prince's party. Bon-mots of Mr. Chute. The Opera. Pertici. Lord Marchmont and Hume Campbell. Treason at Oxford--570 267. To the same, Dec. 11.-Imprisonment of the young Pretender at Vincennes. Death of the proud Duke of Somerset; his will. Bon-mot of John Stanhope. hogarth at Calais--571 268. To the same, Dec. 26.-Improvements at Strawberry Hill. Diplomatic movements. Old Somerset's will. Trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford.Story of sir William Burdett--574 PREFACE. The letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, as hitherto published, have consisted of,- 1. The letters contained in the quarto edition of his works, published in the year 1798. 2. His letters to George Montagu, Esq. from 1738 to 1770, which formed one quarto volume, published in 1818. 3. His letters to the Rev. William Cole and others, from 1745 to 1782, published in the same form and year. 4. His letters to the Earl of Hertford, during his lordship's embassy to Paris, and also to the Rev. Henry Zouch, which appeared in quarto, in 1825. And 5. His letters to Sir Horace Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany, from 1741 to 1760, first published in 1833, in three volumes octavo, from the originals in the possession of the Earl of Waldegrave; edited by Lord Dover, with an original memoir of the author. To the above are now added several hundred letters, which have hitherto existed Only in manuscript, or made their appearance singly and incidentally in other works. In this new collection, besides the letters to Miss Berry, are some to the Hon. H. S. Conway, and John Chute, Esq. omitted In former editions; and many to Lady Suffolk, his brother-in-law, Charles Churchill, Esq., Captain Jephson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, the Earl of Buchan, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, George Hardinge, Esq., Mr. Pinkerton, and other distinguished characters. The letters to the Rev. William Cole have been carefully examined with the originals, and many explanatory notes added, from the manuscript collections of that indefatigable antiquary, deposited in the British museum. Besides being the only complete edition ever published of the incomparable letters of this "prince of epistolary writers," as he has been designated by an eminent critic, the present work possesses the further advantage of exhibiting the letters themselves in chronological order. Thus the whole series forms a lively and most interesting commentary on the events of the age, as well as a record of the most important transactions, invaluable to the historian and politician, from 1735 to 1797-a period of more than sixty years. To Lord Dover's description of these letters (1) little need be added. Of Horace Walpole it is not too much to say, that he knew more of the Courts of George I., George II., and George III., during the early years of the last monarch, than any other individual; and, though he lived to an extreme age, the perpetual youthfulness of his disposition rendered him as lively a chronicler when advanced in life, as when his brilliant career commenced. It is to this unceasing spring, this unfading juvenility of spirit, that the world is indebted for the gay colours with which Walpole invests every thing he touches. If the irresistible court beauties-the Gunnings, the Lepels, and others-have been compelled, after their hundred conquests, to yield to the ungallant liberties of Time, and to Death, the rude destroyer, it is a delight to us to know that their charms are destined to bloom for ever in the sparkling graces of the patrician letter-writer. In his epistles are to be seen, even in more vivid tints than those of Watteau, these splendid creatures in all the pride of their beauty and of their wardrobe, pluming themselves as if they never could grow old, and casting around them their piercing glances and no less poignant raillery. But Horace Walpole is not content with thus displaying his dazzling bevy of heroines; he reveals them in their less ostentatious moments, and makes us as familiar with their weaknesses as with the despotic power of their beauty. Nothing that transpired in the great world escaped his knowledge, nor the trenchant sallies of his wit, rendered the more cutting by his unrivalled talent as a raconteur. Whatever he observed found its way into his letters, and thus is formed a more perfect narrative of the Curt-of its intrigues, political and otherwise-of the manoeuvres of statesmen, the cabals of party, and of private society among the illustrious and the fashionable of the last century, at home and on the continent-than can elsewhere be obtained. And how piquant are his disclosures! how much of actual truth do they contain! how perfectly, in his anecdotes, are to be traced the hidden and often trivial sources of some of the most important public events! "Sir Joshua Reynolds," say the Edinburgh reviewers, "used to observe, that, though nobody would for a moment compare Claude to Raphael, there would be another Raphael before there was another Claude; and we own, that we expect to see fresh Humes and fresh Burkes, before we again fall in with that peculiar combination of moral and intellectual qualities to which the writings of Horace Walpole owe their extraordinary popularity." As a suitable introduction, prefixed to the whole collection of letters, are the author's admirable "Reminiscences of the Courts of George the First and Second," which were first narrated to, and, in 1788, written for the amusement of Miss Mary and Miss Agnes Berry. To the former of these ladies the public is indebted for a curious commentary on the Reminiscences, contained in extracts from the letters of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, to the Earl of Stair, now first published from the original manuscripts. Of the Reminiscences themselves it has been truly observed, that, both in manner and matter, they are the very perfection of anecdote writing, and make us better acquainted with the manners of George the First and Second and their Courts, than we should be after perusing a hundred heavy historians. Of the most valuable of all Walpole's correspondence-his letters to Sir Horace Mann-the history will appear in the following Preface to that work, from the pen of the lamented editor, the late Lord Dover:- "In the Preface to the 'Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of George II. by Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford,' published in the year 1822, is the following statement:- "'Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord Orford, was the following memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was written, Not to be opened till after my will." "'In my library at Strawberry Hill are two wainscot chests or boxes, the larger marked with an A, the lesser with a B:- I desire, that as soon as I am dead, my executor and executrix will cord up strongly, and sell the larger box, marked A, and deliver it to the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour, to be kept by him unopened and unsealed till the eldest son of Lady Waldegrave, or whichever of her sons, being Earl of Waldegrave, shall attain the age of twenty-five years; when the said chest, with whatever it contains, shall be delivered to him for his own. And I beg that the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour, when be shall receive the said chest, will give a promise in writing, signed by him, to Lady Waldegrave, that he or his representatives will deliver the said chest, unopened and unsealed, by my executor and executrix, to the first son of Lady Waldegrave who shall attain the age of' twenty-five years. The key of the said chest is in one of the cupboards of the green closet, within the blue breakfast room, at Strawberry Hill; and that key, I desire, may be delivered to Laura, Lady Waldegrave, to be kept by her till her son shall receive the chest.' "'March 21st, 1790.'" (Signed) HON. HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD.' Aug. 19, 1796.' "In obedience to these directions, the box described in the preceding memorandum was corded an(] sealed with the seals of the Honourable Mrs. Damer and the late Lord Frederick Campbell, the executrix and executor of Lord Orford, and by them delivered to the late Lord Hugh Seymour, by whose representatives it was given up, unopened and unsealed, to the present Earl of Waldegrave, when he attained the age of twenty-five. On examining the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript volumes and other papers, among which were the Memoires now published.' " "The correspondence of Horace Walpole with Sir Horace Mann, now first published, was also contained in the same box. It appears that Walpole, after the death of Sir Horace, became again the possessor of his own letters. He had them copied very carefully in three volumes, and annotated them with short notes, explanatory of the persons mentioned in them, with an evident view to their eventual publication. "It is from these volumes that the present publication is taken. The notes of the author have also been printed verbatim. As, however, in the period of time which has elapsed since Walpole's death, many of the personages mentioned in the letters, whom he appears to have thought sufficiently conspicuous not to need remark, have become almost forgotten, the Editor has deemed it necessary to add, as shortly as possible, some account of them; and he has taken care, whenever he has done so, to distinguish his notes from those of the original author, by the letter D. placed at the end of them. "This correspondence is perhaps the most interesting one of Walpole's that has as yet appeared; as, in addition to his usual merit as a letter-writer, and the advantage of great ease, which his extreme intimacy with Sir Horace Mann gives to his style, the letters to him are the most uninterrupted series which has thus far been offered to the public. They are also the only letters of Walpole which give an account of that very curious period when his father, Sir Robert Walpole, left office. In his letters hitherto published, there is a great gap at this epoch; probably in consequence of his other correspondents being at the time either in or near London. A Single letter to Mr. Conway, dated 'london, 1741,'-one to Mr. West, dated 'May 4th, 1742,'-(none in 1743,) and one to Mr. Conway, dated 'Houghton: Oct. 6th, 1744,' are all that appear till 'may 18th, 1745,' when his letters to George Montagu recommence, after an interval of eight years. Whereas, in the correspondence now published, there are no less than one hundred and seventeen letters during that interval. The letters of Walpole to Sir Horace Mann have also another advantage over those of the same author previously published, namely, that Sir Horace's constant absence from home, and the distance of his residence from the British Islands, made every occurrence that happened acceptable to him as news. It) consequence, his correspondent relates to him every thing that takes place, both in the court and in society,-whether the anecdotes are of a public or private nature,-hence the collection of' letters to him becomes a most exact chronicle of the events of the day, and elucidates very amusingly both the manners of the time, and the characters of the persons then alive. In the sketches, however, of character, which Walpole has thus left us, we must always remember that, though a very quick and accurate observer, he was a man of many prejudices; and that, above all, his hostility was unvarying and unbounded with regard to any of his contemporaries, who had been adverse to the person or administration of Sir Robert Walpole. This, though an amiable feeling, occasionally carries him too far in his invectives, and renders him unjust in his judgments. "The answers of Sir Horace Mann are also preserved at Strawberry Hill: they are very voluminous, but particularly devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry heavy style, and consist almost entirely of trifling details of forgotten Florentine society, mixed with small portions of Italian political news of the day, which are even still less amusing than the former topic. They have, however, been found useful to refer to occasionally, in order to explain allusions in the letters of Walpole. "Sir Horace Mann was a contemporary and early friend of Horace Walpole. (2) He was the second son of Robert Mann, of Linton, in the county of Kent, Esq. He was appointed in 1740 minister plenipotentiary from England to the court of Florence-a post he continued to occupy for the long period of forty-six years, till his death, at an advanced age, November 6, 1786. In 1755 he was created a baronet, with remainder to the issue of his brother Galfridus Mann, and, in the reign of George the Third, a knight of the Bath. It will be observed that Walpole calls his correspondent Mr. Mann, whereas the title-pages of' these volumes, and all the notes which have been added by the editor designate him as Sir Horace Mann. This latter appellation is undoubtedly, in the greater part of the correspondence, an anachronism, as Sir Horace Mann was not made a baronet till the year 1755; but, as he is best known to the world under that designation, it was considered better to allow him the title, by courtesy, throughout the work. "As the following letters turn much upon the politics of the day, and as the ignoble and unstable Governments which followed that of Sir Robert Walpole are now somewhat forgotten, it may not be unacceptable to the reader to be furnished with a slight sketch of the political changes which took place from the year 1742 to the death of George the Second. "At the general election of 1741, immense efforts were made by the Opposition to the Walpole administration to strengthen their phalanx-great sums were spent by their leaders in elections, and an union was at length effected between the Opposition or 'Patriots,' headed by Pulteney, and the Tories or Jacobites, who had hitherto, though opposed to Walpole, never acted cordially with the former. "Sir Robert, upon the meeting of Parliament, exerted himself with almost more than his usual vigour and talent, to resist this formidable band of opponents; but the chances were against him. The timidity of his friends, and, if we may believe Horace Walpole, the treachery of some of his colleagues, and finally the majority in the House of Commons against him, compelled him at length to resign; which he did in the beginning of February, 1742. Upon this step being taken, and perhaps even before it, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke, the two most influential members of Sir Robert Walpole's cabinet, entered into communication with Mr. Pulteney and Lord Carteret, the leaders of the regular Opposition, with a view of forming a government, to the exclusion of the Tories and Jacobites, and even of part of Mr. Pulteney's own party. The negotiation was successful; but it was so at the expense of the popularity, reputation, and influence of Pulteney, who never recovered the disgrace of thus deserting his former associates. "In consequence of these intrigues, the King agreed to send for Lord Wilmington, and to place him at the head of the ministry. It is remarkable that this man, who was a mere cipher, should have been again had recourse to, after his failure in making a government at the very commencement of the reign of George the Second, when his manifest incapacity, and the influence of Queen Caroline, had occasioned the remaining of his opponent Sir Robert Walpole in power. With Lord Wilmington came in Lord Harrington, as president of the council; Lord Gower, as privy seal; Lord Winchilsea, as first lord of the admiralty; Lord Carteret as secretary of state; the other secretary being the Duke of Newcastle, who had been so under Walpole; Lord Hardwicke continued chancellor; and Samuel Sandys was made chancellor of the exchequer. Several of the creatures of Pulteney obtained minor offices: but he himself, hampered by his abandonment of many of his former friends, took no place; but Only obtained a promise of an earldom, whenever he might wish for it. "These arrangements produced, as was natural, a great schism in the different parties, which broke out at a meeting at the Fountain Tavern, on the 12th of February, where the Duke of Argyll declared himself in opposition to the new government, upon the ground of the unjust exclusion of the Tories. The Duke of Argyll subsequently relented, and kissed hands for the master-generalship of the ordnance, upon the understanding, that Sir John Hinde Cotton, a notorious Jacobite, was to have a place. This the King refused; upon which the Duke finally subsided into Opposition. Lord Stair had the ordnance, and Lord Cobham was made a field-marshal and commander of the forces in England. This latter event happened at the end of the session of 1742, when Lord Gower and Lord Bathurst, and one or two other Jacobites, were promoted. It was at this period (July, 1742), that the King, by the advice of Sir Robert Walpole, who saw that such a step would complete the degradation Of Pulteney, insisted upon his taking out the patent for his earldom and quitting the House of Commons; which he did with the greatest unwillingness. "On the death of Lord Wilmington, in July 1743, Mr. Pelham was made first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer (from which office Sandys was dismissed), by the advice of Sir Robert Walpole, and instead of Lord Bath, who now found that his adversary had really turned the key upon him, (3) and that the door of the cabinet was never to be unlocked to him. The ministry was at this time, besides its natural feebleness, rent by internal dissensions; for Lord Carteret, who, as secretary of state, had accompanied the King abroad in 1743, had acquired great influence over his royal master,-and trusting to this, and to the superiority of his talents over his colleagues, his insolence to them became unbounded. The timid and time-serving Pelhams were quite ready to humble themselves before him; but Lord Carteret was not content with this: he was not content, unless he showed them, and made them feel, all the contempt he entertained for them. In addition to these difficulties, Lord Gower resigned the privy-seal in December 1743, upon the plea that no more Tories were taken into office; but probably more from perceiving that the administration could not go on. Lord Cobham also resigned, and went again into opposition. "Finally, in November 1744, the greater part of the cabinet having previously made their arrangements with the Opposition) joined in a remonstrance to the King against Lord Carteret, and offered, if he was not dismissed, their own resignations. After some resistance, the King, again by the advice of Lord Orford, yielded. Lord Carteret and his adherents, and those of Lord Bath, were dismissed, and a mixed government of Whigs and Tories was formed. Mr. Pelham continued first minister; the Duke of Dorset was made president of the council; Lord Gower again took the privy-seal, which had been held for a few months by Lord Cholmondeley; the Duke of Bedford became first lord of' the admiralty; Lord Harrincton secretary of state; Lord Chesterfield, Lord Sandwich, George Grenville, Doddington, and Lyttelton, and Sir John Hinde Cotton, Sir John Philipps, and some other Tories, had places. But though the King had dismissed Lord Carteret (now become Earl of Granville) from his councils, he had not from his confidence. He treated his new ministers with coldness and incivility, and consulted Lord Granville secretly upon all important points. "At length, in the midst of the Rebellion, in August 1746, the ministry went to the King, and gave him the option of taking Pitt into office, which he had previously refused, or receiving their resignations. After again endeavouring in vain to form an administration through the means of Lord Granville and Lord Bath, the King was obliged to consent to the demands of his ministers-and here may be said to commence the leaden rule of the Pelhams, which continued to influence the councils of this country, more or less, for so many years. Pitt took the inferior, but lucrative office of paymaster; and from this time no material change took place till the death of Mr. Pelham, in March 1754, unless we except the admission of Lord Granville to the cabinet in 1751, as president of the council; an office which he contrived, with an interested prudence very unlike his former conduct, to retain during all succeeding ministries-and the getting rid of the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich, of whom the Pelhams had become jealous. The death of Pelham called into evidence the latent divisions and hatreds of public Men, who had been hitherto acting in concert. Fox and Pitt were obviously the two persons, upon one of whom the power of Pelham must eventually fall. But the intriguing Duke of Newcastle hated, and was jealous of both. He, therefore, placed Sir Thomas Robinson in the House of Commons, as secretary of state and leader, and made Henry Bilson Legge chancellor of the exchequer, while he himself took the treasury-leaving Fox (4) and Pitt in the subordinate situations they had hitherto held. The incapacity of Sir Thomas Robinson became, however, soon so apparent, that a change was inevitable. This was hastened by a temporary coalition between Fox and Pitt, which was occasioned, naturally enough, by the ill-treatment they had both received from the Duke of Newcastle. "At length the latter reluctantly consented to admit Fox into the cabinet, in 1755. Upon this, Pitt again broke with Fox, and went with his friends into opposition, with the exception of Sir George Lyttelton, who became chancellor of the exchequer. The new government, however, lasted but one session of parliament-its own dissensions, the talents of its opponents, and the dissatisfaction of the King, who had been thwarted in his German subsidiary treaties, aiding in its downfall. "The Duke of Devonshire, who had been very active in the previous political negotiations, was now commissioned, in 1756, by the King to form a government. The Duke of Newcastle and Fox were turned out, and Pitt became lord of the ascendant. But the King's aversion to his new ministers was even greater than it had been to his old; and in February 1757, he commissioned Lord Waldegrave to endeavour to form a government, with the assistance of Newcastle and Fox. In this undertaking he failed, very mainly through the irresolutions and jealousies of Newcastle. Thus circumstanced, the King, however unwillingly, was obliged to deliver himself up into the hands of Pitt, Who (in June, 1757) succeeded in forming that administration, which was destined to be one of the most glorious ones England has ever seen. He placed himself at the head of it, holding the situation of secretary of state and leader of the House of Commons, leaving the Duke of Newcastle at the head of the treasury, and placing Legge again in the exchequer. This administration lasted till the reign of the succeeding sovereign." To his edition of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, Lord Dover appended illustrative notes, which are retained in the present. Of the manner in which his lordship executed the office of editor and annotator, the Edinburgh Review thus speaks, in a brilliant article on those Letters, which appeared in the number of that work for January 1834:-"The editing of these volumes was the last of the useful and modest services rendered to literature by a nobleman of amiable manners, of untarnished public and private character, and of cultivated mind. On this, as on other occasions, Lord Dover performed his part diligently, judiciously, and without the slightest ostentation. He had two merits, both of which are rarely found together in a commentator: he was content to be merely a commentator,-to keep in the background, and to leave the foreground to the author whom he had undertaken to illustrate. yet, though willing to be an attendant, he was by no means a slave; nor did he consider it as part of his editorial duty to see no faults in the writer to whom he faithfully and assiduously rendered the humblest literary offices." It remains only to add, that the original notes of Horace Walpole are throughout retained, undistinguished by any signature; whereas, those of the various editors are indicated by a characteristic initial, which is explained in the progress of the work. January, 1840. (1) Sketch of the Life, etc. (2) The coincidence of remarkable names in the two families of Mann and Walpole, would lead one to imagine that there was also some connection of relationship between them-and yet none is to be traced in the pedigree of either family. Sir Robert Walpole had two brothers named Horace and Galfridus-and Sir Horace Mann's next brother was named Galfridus Mann. If such a relationship did exist, it probably came through the Burwells, the family of Sir Robert Walpole's mother. (3) "Sir Robert Walpole's expression, when he found that Pulteney had consented to be made Earl of Bath." (4) "Fox was secretary at war." ADVERTISEMENT. To the first edition of Lord Orford's works, which was published the year after he died, no memoir of his life was prefixed: his death was too recent, his life and character was too well known, his works too popular, to require it. His political Memoirs, and the collections of his Letters which have been subsequently published, were edited by persons, who, though well qualified for their task in every other respect, have failed in their account of his private life, and their appreciation of his individual character, from the want of a personal acquaintance with their author. The life contained in Sir Walter Scott's Biographical Sketches of the English Novelists labours under the same disadvantages. He had never seen Lord Orford, nor even lived with such of his intimates and contemporaries in society as survived him. Lord Dover, who has so admirably edited the first part of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, knew Lord Orford only by having been carried sometimes, when a boy, by his father Lord Clifden to Strawberry Hill. His editorial labours with these letters were the last occupation of his accomplished mind, and were pursued while his body was fast sinking under the complication of disease, which so soon after deprived Society Of One Of its most distinguished members, the arts of an enlightened patron, and his intimates of an amiable and attaching friend. Of the meagreness and insufficiency of his memoir of Lord Orford's life prefixed to the letters, he was himself aware, and expressed to the author of these pages his inability then to improve it, and his regret that circumstances had deprived him, while it was yet time, of the assistance of those who could have furnished him with better materials. His account of the latter part of Lord Orford's life is deficient in details, and sometimes erroneous as to dates. He appears likewise to have been unacquainted with some of his writings, and the circumstances which led to and accompanied them. In the present publication those deficiencies are supplied from notes, in the hands of the writer, left by Lord Orford, of the dates of the principal events of his own life, and of the writing and publication of all his works. It is only to be regretted that his autobiography is so short, and so entirely confined to dates. In estimating the character of Lord Orford, and in the opinion which he gives of his talents, Lord Dover has evinced much candour and good taste. He praises with discrimination, and draws no unfair inferences from the peculiarities of a character with which he was not personally acquainted. It is by the Review of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, that the severest condemnation has been passed and the most unjust impressions given, not only of the genius and talents, but of the heart and character, of Lord Orford. The mistaken opinions of the eloquent and accomplished author (5) of that review are to be traced chiefly to the same causes which defeated the intentions of the two first biographers. In his case, these causes were increased, not only by no acquaintance with his subject, but by still farther removal from the fashions, the social habits, the little minute details, of the age to which Horace Walpole belongs,-an age so essentially different from the business, the movement, the important struggles, of that which claims the critic as one of its most distinguished ornaments. A conviction that these reasons led to his having drawn up, from the supposed evidence of Walpole's works alone, a character of their author so entirely and offensively unlike the original, has forced the pen into the feeble and failing hand of the writer of these pages,-has imposed the pious duty of attempting to rescue, by incontrovertible facts, acquired in long intimacy, the memory of an old and beloved friend, from the giant grasp of an author and a critic from whose judgment, when deliberately formed, few can hope to appeal with success. The candour, the good-nature of this critic,-the inexhaustible stores of his literary acquirements, which place him in the first rank of those most distinguished for historical knowledge and critical acumen,-will allow him, I feel sure, to forgive this appeal from his hasty and general opinion, to the judgment of his better informed mind, on the peculiarities of' a character often remarkably dissimilar from that of his works. Lord Dover has justly and forcibly remarked, "that what did the most honour both to the head and the' heart of Horace Walpole, was the friendship which he bore to Marshal Conway; a man who, according to all the accounts of him that have come down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a decree of affection." (6) He then quotes the character given of him by the editor of Lord Orford's works in 1798. This character of Marshal Conway was a portrait drawn from the life, and, as it proceeded from the same pen which now traces these lines, has some right to be inserted here. "It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public conduct, and into the inmost recesses of his private life, who can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his character;-who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and of a statesman, to the calm enjoyments of private -life; happy in the resources of his own mind, and in the cultivation of useful science, in the bosom of domestic peace-unenriched by pensions or places-undistinguished by titles or ribbons-unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by retirement." To this man, Lord Orford's attachment, from their boyish days at Eton school to the death of Marshal Conway in 1795, is already a circumstance of sufficiently rare occurrence among men of the world. Could such a man, of whom the foregoing lines are an unvarnished sketch-of whose character, simplicity was one of the distinguished ornaments-could such a man have endured the intimacy of such an individual as the reviewer describes Lord Orford to have been? Could an intercourse of uninterrupted friendship and undiminished confidence have existed between them during a period of nearly sixty years, undisturbed by the business and bustle of middle life, so apt to cool, and often to terminate, youthful friendships? Could such an intercourse ever have existed, with the supposed selfish indifference, and artificial coldness and conceit of Lord Orford's character? The last correspondence included in the present publication will, it is presumed, furnish no less convincing proof, that the warmth of his feelings, and his capacity for sincere affection, continued unenfeebled by age. It is with this view, and this alone, that the correspondence alluded to is now, for the first time, given to the public. It can add nothing to the already established epistolary fame of Lord Orford, and the public can be as little interested in his sentiments for the two individuals addressed. But, in forming a just estimate of his character, the reader will hardly fail to observe that those sentiments were entertained at a time of life when, for the most part, the heart is too little capable of expansion to open to new attachments. The whole tone of these letters must prove the unimpaired warmth of his feelings, and form a striking contrast to the cold harshness of which he has been accused, in his intercourse with Madame du Deffand, at an earlier period of his life. This harshness, as was noticed by the editor of Madame du Deffand's letters, in the preface to that publication, proceeded solely from a dread of ridicule, which formed a principal feature of Mr. Walpole's character, and which, carried, as in his case, to excess, must be called a principal weakness. "This accounts for the ungracious language in which he so often replies to the importunities of her anxious affection; a language so foreign to his heart, and so contrary to his own habits in friendship." (7) Is this, then, the man who is supposed to be "the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of mortals? -his mind a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations-his features covered with mask within mask, which, when the outer disguise of obvious affectation was removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing the real man."-"Affectation is the essence of the man. It pervades all his thoughts and all his expressions. If it were taken away, nothing would be left." (8) He affected nothing; he played no part; he was what he appeared to be. Aware that he was ill qualified for politics, for public life, for parliamentary business, or indeed for business of any sort, the whole tenor of his life was consistent with this opinion of himself. Had he attempted to effect what belongs only to characters of another stamp -had he endeavoured to take a lead in the House of Commons-had he sought for place, dignity, or office-had he aimed at intrigue, or attempted to be a tool for others-then, indeed, he might have deserved the appellation of artificial, eccentric, and capricious. >From the retreat of his father, which happened the year after he entered parliament, the only real interest he took in politics was when their events happened immediately to concern the objects of his private friendships. He occupied himself with what really amused him. If he had affected any thing, it would certainly not have been a taste for the trifling occupations with which he is reproached. Of no person can it be less truly said, that "affectation was the essence of the man." What man, or even what woman, ever affected to be the frivolous being he is described? When his critic says, that he had "the soul of a gentleman-usher," he was little aware that he only repeated what Lord Orford often said of himself-that from his knowledge of old ceremonials and etiquettes, he was sure that in a former state of existence, he must have been a gentleman-usher,-about the time of Elizabeth. In politics, he was what he professed to be, a Whig, in the sense which that denomination bore in his younger days,-never a Republican. In his old and enfeebled age, the horrors of the first French revolution made him a Tory; while he always lamented, as one of the worst effects of its excesses, that they must necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and establishment of civil liberty. But why are we to believe his contempt for crowned heads should have prevented his writing a memoir of "Royal and Noble Authors?" Their literary labours, when all brought together by himself, would not, it is believed, tend much to raise, or much to alter his opinion of them. In his letters from Paris, written in the years 1765, 1766, 1767 and 1771, it will be seen, that so far from being infinitely more occupied with "the fashions and gossip of Versailles and Marli than with a great moral revolution which was taking place in his sight," he was truly aware of the state of the public mind, and foresaw all that was coming on. Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more, and that he judged him more accurately, than Mr. Hume, and many others who were then duped by his mad pride and disturbed understanding. Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of vain lies in the intercourse he sought with Mr. Walpole. The details of this transaction, and the letters which passed at the time, are already printed in the quarto edition of his works. In the short notes of his life left by himself, and from which all the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus mentioned: "Although Voltaire, with whom I had never had the least acquaintance, had voluntarily written to me first, and asked for my book, he wrote a letter to the Duchesse de Choiseul, in which, without saying a syllable of his having written to me first, he told her I had officiously sent him my works, and declared war with him in defence 'de ce bouffon de Shakspeare,' whom in his reply to me he pretended so much to admire. The Duchesse sent me Voltaire's letter; which gave me such a contempt for his disingenuity, that I dropped all correspondence with him." When he spoke with contempt of d'Alembert, it was not of his abilities; of which he never pretended to judge. Professor Saunderson had long before, when he was a lad at Cambridge, assured him, that it would be robbing him to pretend teaching him mathematics, of which his mind was perfectly incapable, so that any comparison of the intellectual powers of the two men" would indeed be as "exquisitely ridiculous" as the critic declares it. But lord Orford, speaking of d'Alembert, complains of the overweening importance which he, and all the men of letters of those days in France, attributed to their squabbles and disputes. The idleness to which an absolute government necessarily condemns nine-tenths of its subjects, sufficiently accounts for the exaggerated importance given to and assumed by the French writers, even before they had become, in the language of the Reviewer, "the interpreters between England and mankind:" he asserts, "that all the great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in political science, are ours but no foreign nation, except France, has received them from us by direct communication: isolated in our situation, isolated by our manners, we found truth, but did not impart it." (9) It may surely be asked, whether France will subscribe to this assertion of superiority, in the whole range of science! If she does, her character has undergone an even greater change, than any she has yet experienced in the course of all her revolutions. lord Orford is believed by his critic to have "sneered" at every body. sneering was not his way of showing dislike. He had very strong prejudices, sometimes adopted on very insufficient grounds, and he therefore often made great mistakes in the appreciation of character; but when influenced by such impressions, he always expressed his opinions directly, and often too violently. The affections of his heart were bestowed on few; for in early life they had never been cultivated, but they were singularly warm, pure, and constant; characterized not by the ardour of passion, but by the constant preoccupation of real affection. He had lost his mother, to whom he was fondly attached, early in life; and with his father, a man of coarse feelings and boisterous manners, he had few sentiments in common. Always feeble in constitution, he was unequal to the sports of the field, and to the drinking which then accompanied them, so that during his father's retreat at Houghton, however much he respected his abilities and was devoted to his fame, he had little sympathy in his tastes, or pleasure in his society. To the friends of his own selection his devotion was not confined to professions or words: on all occasions of difficulty, of whatever nature, his active affection came forward in defence of their character, or assistance in their affairs. When his friend Conway, as second in command under Sir John Mordaunt, in the expedition to St. Maloes, partook in some degree of the public censure called forth by the failure of these repeated ill-judged attempts on the coasts of France, Walpole's pen was immediately employed in rebutting the accusations of the popular pamphlet of the day on this subject, And establishing his friend's exemption from any responsibility in the failure. When, on a more important occasion, Mr. Conway was not only dismissed from being Equerry to the King, George III., but from the command of his regiment, for his constitutional conduct and votes in the House of Commons, in the memorable affair of the legality of General Warrants for the seizure of persons and papers, Walpole immediately stepped forward, not with cold commendations of his friend's upright and spirited conduct, but with all the confidence Of long-tried affection, and all the security of noble minds incapable of misunderstanding each other, he insisted on being allowed to share in future his fortune with his friend, and thus more than repair the pecuniary loss he had incurred. Mr. Conway, in a letter to his brother, Lord Hertford, of this period, says "Horace Walpole has on this occasion shown that warmth of friendship that you know him capable of so, strongly, that I want words to express my sense of it;" (10) thus proving the justice he did to Walpole's sentiments and intentions. In the case of General Conway's near relationship and intimacy from childhood, the cause in which his fortunes were suffering might have warmed a colder heart, and opened a closer hand, than Mr. Walpole's: but Madame du Deffand was a recent acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the pleasure he received from her society, and his desire that her blind and helpless old age might not be deprived of any of the comforts and alleviations of which it was capable. When by the financial arrangements of the French government, under the unscrupulous administration of the Abb`e Terray, the creditors of the state were considerably reduced in income, Mr. Walpole, in the most earnest manner, begged to prevent the unpleasantness of his old friend's exposing her necessities, and imploring aid from the minister of the day, by allowing him to make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, Or in any manner that would be most satisfactory to her. The loss, after all, did not fall on that stock from which she derived her income, and the assistance was not accepted; but Madame du Deffand's confidence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in her letters. During his after life, although no ostentatious contributor to public charities and schemes of improvement, the friends in whose opinion he knew he could confide, had always more difficulty to repress than to excite his liberality. That he should have wished his friend Conway to be employed as commander on military expeditions, which, as a soldier fond of his profession, he naturally coveted, although Mr. Walpole might disapprove of the policy of the minister in sending out such expeditions, surely implies neither disguise, nor contradiction in his opinions. The dread which the reviewer supposes him to have had, lest he should lose caste as a gentleman, by ranking as a wit and an author, he was much too fine a gentleman to have believed in the possibility of feeling. He knew he had never studied since he left college; he knew that he was not at all a learned man: but the reputation he had acquired by his wit and by his writings, not only among fine gentlemen, but with society in general, made him nothing loath to cultivate every opportunity of increasing it. The account he gave of the idleness of his life to Sir Horace Mann, when he disclaims the title of "the learned gentleman," was literally true; and it is not easy to imagine any reason why a man at the age of forty-three, who admits that he is idle, and who renounces being either a learned man or a politician, should be "ashamed" of playing loo in good company till two or three o'clock in the morning, if he neither ruins himself nor others. (11) He wrote his letters as rapidly as his disabled fingers would allow him to form the characters of a remarkably legible hand. No rough draughts or sketches of familiar letters were found amongst his papers at Strawberry Hill: but he was in the habit of putting down on the backs of letters or on slips of paper, a note of facts, of news, of witticisms, or of any thing he wished not to forget, for the amusement of his correspondents. After reading "The Mysterious Mother," who will accede to the opinion, that his works are "destitute of every charm that is derived from elevation, or from tenderness of sentiment?" (12) But, with opinions as to the genius, the taste, or the talents of Lord Orford, this little notice has nothing to do. It aims solely at rescuing his individual character from misconceptions. Of the means necessary for this purpose, its writer, by the "painful preeminence" of age, remains the sole depositary, and being so, has submitted to the task of repelling such misconceptions. It is done with the reluctance which must always be experienced in differing from, or calling in question, the opinions of a person, for whom is felt all the admiration and respect due to super-eminent abilities, and all the grateful pride and affectionate regard inspired by personal friendship. M. B. October 1840. (5) T. Babbington Macaulay. (6) Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, by Lord Dover. See vol. i. (7) See Preface to Madame du Deffand's Letters, p. xi.; and vol. ii. of this collection. (8) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 233. (9) Edinburgh Review, vol, lviii. p. 233. (10) See vol. iii. (11) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 232. (12) Ibid., p. 237. Second Advertisement THE last volume will be found to contain upwards of one hundred letters, introduced into no former edition of the Correspondence of Horace Walpole. The greater part of them were written between the years 1789 and 1797, and were addressed to the Miss Berrys, during their residence in Italy. They embrace most of the leading events of the first five years of the French Revolution; and wherever the facts detailed in the letters have appeared to require elucidation or confirmation, the Editor has generally had recourse to M. Thiers's useful "History" of that great event; which has recently appeared in an English dress, accompanied with notes and illustrations, drawn from the most authentic sources. While the last volume was at press, the Editor was favoured with a letter from the Right Honourable Sir Charles Grey, relative to the share which he considers Mr. Walpole to have had in the composition and publication of the Letters of Junius. Albany Street, Regent's Park, October 28, 1840. TO THE EDITOR OF THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD. Sir, 1. Before your last volume is published, I am desirous of stating to you some of the considerations which, more than seventeen years ago, led me to the belief I still entertain, that Walpole had a principal share in the composition and publication of the Letters of Junius: though I think it likely that Mason, or some other friend corrected the style, and gave precision and force to the most striking passages. 2. It was in 1823, whilst I was residing in India, that Lord Holland's edition of Walpole's Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George the Second suggested to me this notion; and it was shortly afterwards communicated to several of my friends. The edition of Junius which I had with me, was that of Mr. Woodfall the younger, in three volumes; and I am not at present by any means satisfied that all the letters which the editor assigns to Junius were written by him: but in this hasty notice I must proceed upon the supposition that they were. 3. It will be remembered that the Memoires were composed by Walpole in secrecy, and that he left them in a sealed box, which, by his will, was forbidden to be opened till many years after his death. The letters from which the corresponding passages are given below are all published as Letters of Junius by Mr. Woodfall, and are of dates later than the time when Walpole wrote his Memoires; but half a century earlier than the time when they were printed. Note by the transcriber: there follows a table, in which letters of Junius are presented for comparisons side by side with writings of Walpole. I have changed the format to present them in sequence. Return to text. Junius: I own, my lord, that yours is not an uncommon character. Women, and men like women, are timid, vindictive, and irresolute. Woodfall's Junius, vol. ii, p. 168. Walpole: As it is observed that timorous natures like those of women are generally cruel, Lord mansfield might easily slide into rigour, etc.-Walpole's Memoires, vol. ii. p. 175. Junius: Without openly supporting the person, you (Lord Mansfield) have done essential service to the cause; and consoled yourself for the loss of a favourite family by reviving and establishing the maxims of their government.-vol. ii, p. 182. Walpole: The occasions of the times had called him (Lord Mansfield) off from principles that favoured an arbitrary king-he still leaned towards an arbitrary government.-vol. ii. p. 266. Junius: You (Lord Mansfield) would fain be thought to take no share in government, while in reality you are the mainspring of the machine.-vol. ii. p. 179. Walpole: Pitt liked the dignity of despotism; Lord Mansfield the reality.-Vol. ii. p. 274. Junius: You secretly engross the power, while you decline the title of minister.-vol. ii. p.179. Walpole: He was timid himself, and always waving what he was always courting.-Vol. ii. p. 336. Junius: In council he generally affects to take a moderate part.-vol. ii. p. 354. At present there is something oracular in the delivery of my opinion. I speak from a recess which no human curiosity can penetrate.-vol. i. p. 314. Walpole: The conduct was artful, new and grand: secluded from all eyes, his (Lord Chatham's) orders were received as oracles.-vol. ii. p. 347. Junius: Our enemies treat us as the cunning trader does the unskilful Indian. they magnify their generosity when they give us baubles of no proportionate value for ivory and gold.-vol. ii. p. 359. Walpole: They made a legal purchase to all eternity of empires and posterity, from a parcel of naked savages, for a handful of glass beads and baubles.-Vol. i. p. 343. Junius: If you deny him the cup, there will be no keeping him within the pale of the ministry.-vol. ii. p. 249. Walpole: Where I believe the clergy do not deny the laity the cup.-Letter to Montague. He took care to regulate his patron's warmth within the pale of his own advantage.-Memoires, vol. ii. p. 197. Come over to the pale of loyalty.-vol. i. p. 282. Junius: Honour and justice must not be renounced although a thousand modes of right and wrong were to occupy the degrees of morality between Zeno and Epicurus. The fundamental principles of Christianity may still be preserved.-vol. ii. p. 346. Walpole: The modes of Christianity were exhausted.-Vol. ii. p. 282 To mark how much the modes of thinking change, and that fundamentals themselves can make no impression.-vol. ii. p. 265. Junius: He (the duke of Bedfor) would not have betrayed such ignorance or such contempt of the constitution as openly to avow in a court of judicature the purchase and sale of a borough. Note.- In an answer in chancery in a suit against him to recover a large sum paid him by a person whom he had undertaken to return to parliament for one of his Grace's boroughs. He was compelled to repay the money.-vol. i. p. 576. Walpole: Corruption prevailed in the House of Commons. Instances had been brought to our courts of judicature how much it prevailed in our elections. Note.-The Duke of Bedford had received 1500 pounds for electing Jefrery French at one of his boroughs in the west; but he dying immediately, his heir sued the Duke for the money, who paid it, rather than let the cause be heard. Junius: The Princess Dowager made it her first care to inspire her son with horror against heresy, and with a respect for the church. His mother took more pains to form his beliefs than either his morals or his understanding.-vol. iii. p. 408. Walpole: >From the death of the Prince the object of the Princess Dowager had been the government of her son; and her attention had answered. She had taught him great devotion, and she had taken care that he should be taught nothing else.-Vol. i. p. 396. Junius: That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to blush for his own ignorance and want of education, which had been wilfully neglected by his mother and her minion. Walpole: Martin spoke for the clause, and said, "The King could not have a separate interest from his people, the Princess might; witness Queen Isabella and her minion Mortimer."-Vol. i. p. 118. Transcriber's note: the following paragraph is surrounded by asterisks. it appears to be a comment by the letter writer, sir charles Grey, rather than either Junius or Walpole. Our great Edward, too, at an early period, had sense enough to understand the nature of the connexion between his abandoned mother and the detested Mortimer. Junius: when it was proposed to settle the present King's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was forced into it in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. vol. ii. .- Walpole: Fox had an audience. The monarch was sour, but endeavoured to keep his temper, yet made no concessions; no request to the retiring minister to stay. At last he let slip the true cause of his indignation: "You," said he, "have made me make that puppy Bute groom of the stole."-Vol. ii. p. 92. Though too long to be cited in these hurried notes, there are several other passages in which the coincidence of sentiment and expression and of the order in which the thoughts and arguments are ranged, is very remarkable: and the difficulty of accounting otherwise for such coincidences between the Letters of Junius and the unpublished and secret Memoires of Walpole, first made me suspect that the two names might belong to one and the same person-Horace Walpole the younger. 4. Being led by this conjecture to examine the other works of Walpole, I found, in them also, many echoes, as it were, of the voice of Junius, which it is singular should not have been more observed. No One, I think, can collate the concluding portion of Walpole's letter to Lord Bute, of February 15, 1762, and the latter part of the eulogium of Junius on Lord Chatham, without being struck by the similarity of manner and tone; and by the identity of that feeling, which, in both cases, prompts the writer, whilst he is elaborating compliments, to defend himself jealously against all suspicion of flattery or interested motives. Transcriber's note: there follows a comparison of material from Junius and Walpole, set out in parallel columns. I have changed these to a sequential arrangement. Junius: I did not intend to make a public declaration of the respect I bear Lord Chatham. I well knew what unworthy conclusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver my opinion, and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Home to deter me from doing signal justice to a man who, I confess, has grown upon my esteem. As for the common, sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I question whether the applause of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or to a seat in the Cabinet. But if his ambition be upon a level with his understanding; if he judges of what is truly honourable for himself with the same superior genius which animates and directs him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the pen of Junius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded honour shall gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I am not conversant in the language of panegyric. These praises are extorted from me; but they will wear well, for they have been dearly earned.-Vol. ii. p. 310. WALPOLE. I did not purpose to tempt again the patience of mankind. But the case is very different with regard to my trouble. My whole fortune is from the bounty of the Crown and from the public: it would ill become me to spare any pains for the King's glory, or for the honour and satisfaction of my country; and give me leave to add, my lord, it would be an ungrateful return for the distinction with which your lordship has condescended to honour me if I withheld such trifling aid as mine, when it might in the least tend to adorn your lordship's administration. From me, my lord, permit me to say these are not words of course, or of compliment, this is not the language of flattery: your lordship knows I have no views; perhaps knows that, insignificant as it is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have raised, as I trust you will, real monuments of glory, the most contemptible characters in the inscription dedicated by your country, may not be the testimony of, my lord, your lordship's most obedient humble servant.-Letters, vol. iii. I have neither time nor space for going much farther into this part of the subject; but there is one circumstance which, in its application to the supposition that Francis was Junius, is too remarkable to be passed over. Sir Philip Francis supplied Mr. Almon with reports of two speeches of Lord Chatham, in one of which there is this passage, "The Americans had Purchased their liberty at a dear rate, since they had quitted their native country and gone in search of freedom to a desert." Junius, about three weeks before, had said, "They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert;" and it has been inferred from this, that the words in the speech were not Lord Chatham's, but the reporter's, and that Sir Philip Francis was Junius. But it happens that Walpole, in his Royal and Noble Authors, some years earlier than either the letter of Junius or the speech of Lord Chatham, had said of Lord Brooke, that he was on the point "Of seeking liberty in the forests of America." 5. If we turn from a recollection of the words to a consideration of the peculiarities of the style of Junius, I think it will be agreed that the most remarkable of all is that species of irony which consists in equivocal compliment. Walpole also excelled in this; and prided himself upon doing so. Are we not justified in saying, that of all who, in the eighteenth century, cast their thoughts on public occurrences into the form of letters, Junius and Walpole are the most distinguished! that the works of no other prose writer of their time exhibit a zest for political satire equal to that which is displayed in the Letters of Junius, and in the Memoires and Political Letters of Walpole and that the sarcasm of equivocal praise was the favourite weapon in the armoury of each, though it certainly appears to have been tempered, and sharpened, and polished with additional care for the hand of Junius? When did Francis ever deal in compliment or in equivoque? In his vituperation there was always more of fury than of malice: but Junius and Walpole were cruel. Madame du Deffand says to the latter, "Votre plume est de fer tremp`e dans de fiel." I have sometimes thought that clever old woman either knew or suspected him to be Junius. She uses in one place the unusual expression, "Votre `ecrit de Junius:" and if Walpole was Junius, some of the most carefully composed letters in 1769 and 1771 were written in Paris ; where, indeed, it would seem that Junius, whoever he was, collected the materials for the accusation with which he threatened the Duke of Bedford, and which he evidently knew to be untrue. 6. It has sometimes been said, that the Letters of Junius must have been written by a lawyer, and they were at one time attributed even to Mr. Dunning. The mistakes which I am about to notice, trifling as they may be, make it impossible that any lawyer should have been the author; and it appears to me that not only is there a considerable resemblance in those mistakes which I adduce of Walpole's, but that the affectation in both of employing legal terms with which they were not familiar, and of which they did not distinctly apprehend the meaning, is very remarkable. Junius thought De Lolme's Essay deep," (13) and talks of property which "savours of the reality:" (14) he misapplies that trite expression of the courts, bona fide: (15) misunderstands mortmain, (16) and supposes that an inquisitio post mortem was an inquiry how the deceased came by his death. (17) Walpole talks of "the purparty of a wife's lands;" of "tenures against which, of all others, quo warrantos are sure to take place;" (18) of the days of soccage," which he supposes to be obsolete; and of a fera naturae. Transcriber's note: Again there are a few passages from Junius and Walpole compared in parallel columns, which I present below in sequence. Junius: You say the facts on which you reason are universally admitted: a gratis dictum which I flatly deny.-vol. ii. p. 143. Walpole: This circumstance is alleged against them as an incident contrived to gain belief, as if they had been in danger of their lives. The argument is gratis dictum.-Works, vol. ii. p. 568. Junius: They are the trustees, not the owners of the estate. the fee simple is in us.- vol.-vol. i. p. 345. Walpole: Do you think we shall purchase the fee simple of him for so many years?-Letters, vol. ii. 7. Walpole's time of life, his station in society, means of information, and habits of writing much, and anonymously, and in concealment, all tally with the supposition of his being Junius. So do his places of residence, when that part of the subject is carefully examined. 8. It is an odd circumstance that Walpole, who makes remarks on every thing, makes no remark on Junius. If he ever expressed an opinion of him in his letters to any of his numerous correspondents, those letters have been suppressed. There are fewer letters of his in the years during which Junius was writing, than in any others. 9. Walpole's quarrel with the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and The party whom he calls "the Bedford court," and Junius "the Bloomsbury gang," would account for the rancour of the letters of the latter to the Duke. 10. Walpole's dislike and opinion of the Duke of Grafton, which is nowhere more remarkably expressed than in a letter published for the first time in your third volume, coupled with his friendship for the first Duchess of Grafton, fall in with the attacks of Junius on the Duke. 11. The Memoires of Walpole show an enmity to Lord Mansfield almost equal to that of Junius. 12. Turning from these to a person in a different station, we find, on the part of Walpole, (and, by-the-by, of Mason too,) a sort of spite against Dr. Johnson; and in the works of Walpole, selected by himself for publication after his death,' there is a high-wrought criticism and condemnation of the style of Johnson, which I cannot help believing to have been conceived in revenge of the well-known handling of Junius in Johnson's pamphlet on the Falkland Islands. "Let not injudicious admiration mistake the venom of the shift for the vigour of the bow," is said by Johnson of Junius: and Walpole says of Johnson, that "he destroys more enemies by the weight of his shield, than with the point of his spear." 13. There is a host of small facts which might be adduced in support of what I have advanced. Any one who has leisure to examine the voluminous works of Walpole, and who can lend his mind to the inquiry, will find them crowd upon him. Let me mention one well known occurrence. Junius says, in the postscript of a private note to Mr. Woodfall, Beware of David Garrick. He was sent to pump you, and went directly to Richmond to tell the King I should write no more." He then directed Woodfall to send the following note to Garrick, but not in the handwriting of Junius:-"I am very exactly informed of your impertinent inquiries, and of the information you so busily sent to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation it was received. I knew every particular of it the next day. Now, mark me, vagabond! Keep to your pantomimes, or be assured you shall hear of it. Meddle no more, thou busy informer! It is in my power to make you curse the hour in which you dared to interfere with Junius." (19) Mr. Woodfall remarks on this, that Garrick had received a letter from Woodfall, (the editor of the newspaper in which the letters of Junius first appeared,) before the above-note of Junius was sent to the printer, in which Garrick was told, in confidence, that there were some doubts whether Junius would continue to write much longer. Garrick flew with the intelligence to Mr. Remus, one of the pages to the King, who immediately conveyed it to his Majesty, at that time residing at Richmond; and from the peculiar sources of information that were open to this extraordinary writer, Junius was apprised of the whole transaction on the ensuing morning, and wrote the above postscript, and the letter that follows it, in consequence. Now all that appears to Mr. Woodfall the younger. to be so wonderful in these circumstances is very easily explained, if we suppose Walpole to have been Junius. Strawberry Hill is very near Richmond Park, and Walpole had many acquaintances amongst those who were about the King; whilst his friend, Mrs. Clive, the actress, who lived in the adjoining house to his own, and her brother, Mr. Raftor, who frequently visited her, both belonged to Garrick's company. But I have extended this letter too far. My purpose was merely to invite your attention to a subject of some literary interest, which you have peculiar opportunities of examining; and to enable you, if you should think fit, to draw to it the attention of the public also. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, CHAS. EDW. GREY. 20. Albemarle Street, October 24, 1840. (13) Woodfall's Junius, vol. i. p. 385. (14) Ibid. p. 312. (15) Ibid. p. 311. (16) Ibid., vol. ii. p. 131. (17) Ibid.,vol. i. p. 454. (18) Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 361. (19) Junius, Vol. i. P. 228. SKETCH OF THE LIFE of HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD: BY LORD DOVER. (20) Any one who attempts to become a biographer of Horace Walpole must labour under the disadvantage of following a greater master in the art; namely, Sir Walter Scott, whose lively and agreeable account of this Author, contained in his "Lives of the Novelists," is well known and deservedly admired. As, however, the greater part of Walter Scott's pages is devoted to a very able criticism of the only work of fiction produced by Walpole, "The Castle of Otranto," it has been thought, that a more general sketch of his life and writings might not prove unacceptable to the reader. Horace Walpole was the third and youngest son (21) of that eminent minister, Sir Robert Walpole-the glory of the Whigs, the preserver of the throne of these realms to the present Royal Family, and under whose fostering rule and guidance the country flourished in peace for more than twenty years. The elder brothers of Horace were, Robert, Lord Walpole, so created in 1723, who succeeded his father in the Earldom of Orford in 1745, and died in 1751; and Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the Bath, whose three natural daughters were, Mrs. Keppel, wife to the Honourable Frederick Keppel, Bishop of Exeter; the Countess of Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester; and the Countess of Dysart. Sir Edward Walpole died in 1784. His sisters were, Catherine, who died of consumption at the age of nineteen; and Mary, married to George, Viscount Malpas, afterwards third Earl of Cholmondeley: she died in 1732. The mother of Horace, and of his brothers and sisters here mentioned, was Catherine Shorter, daughter of John Shorter, Esq. of Bybrook, in Kent, and grand- daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London in 1688. (22) She died in 1736; and her youngest son, who always professed the greatest veneration for her memory, erected a monument to her in Westminster Abbey, in one of the side aisles of Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Horace Walpole had also a half-sister, the natural daughter of his father, by his mistress, Maria Skerrett, whom he afterwards married. She also was named Mary Walpole, and married Colonel Charles Churchill, the natural son of General Churchill; who was himself a natural son of an older brother of the great Duke of Marlborough. Horace Walpole was born October 5th, 1717 (23) and educated a Eton School, and at King's College, Cambridge. Upon leaving the latter place, he set out on his travels on the Continent, in company with Gray the poet, with whom he had formed a friendship at school. They commenced their journey in March 1739, and continued abroad above two years. Almost the whole of this time was spent in Italy, and nearly a year of it was devoted to Florence; where Walpole was detained by the society of his friends, Mr. Mann, Mr. Chute, and Mr. Whithed. It was in these classic scenes, that his love of art, and taste for elegant and antiquarian literature, became more developed; and that it took such complete possession of him as to occupy the whole of his later life, diversified only by the occasional amusement of politics, or the distractions of society. Unfortunately, the friendship of Walpole and his travelling companion could not survive two years of constant intercourse: they quarrelled and parted at Reggio, in July 1741, and afterwards pursued their way homewards by different routes. (24) Walpole arrived in England in September 1741, at which time his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann commences. He had been chosen member for Callington, in the parliament which was elected in June of that year, and arrived in the House of Commons just in time to witness the angry discussions which preceded and accompanied the downfall of his father's administration. He plunged at once into the excitement of political partisanship with all the ardour of youth, and all the zeal which his filial affection for his father inspired. His feelings at this period are best explained by a reference to his letters in the following collection. Public business and attendance upon the House of Commons, apart from the interest attached to peculiar questions, he seems never to have liked. He consequently took very little part either in debates or committees. In March 1742, on a motion being made for an inquiry into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole for the preceding ten years, he delivered his maiden speech; (25) on which he was complimented by no less a judge of oratory than Pitt. This speech he has preserved in his letter to Sir Horace Mann, of March 24th, 1742. He moved the Address in 1751; and in 1756 made a speech on the question of employing Swiss regiments in the colonies. This speech he has also himself preserved in the second volume of his "Memoires." In 1757 he was active in his endeavours to save the unfortunate Admiral Byng. Of his conduct upon this occasion he has left a detailed account of his "Memoires." This concludes all that can be collected of his public life, and at the general election of 1768 (26) he finally retired from parliament. Upon this occasion he writes thus to George Montagu,-" As my senatorial dignity is gone, I shall not put you to the expense of a cover; and I hope the advertisement will not be taxed, as I seal it to the paper. In short, I retain so much iniquity from the last infamous parliament, that, you see, I would still cheat the public. The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here, instead of being at Lynn, in the high fever of a contested election, which, at best, Would end in my being carried about that large town, like a figure of a pope at a bonfires is very great. I do not think, when that function is over, that I shall repent my resolution. What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same knaveries that I have seen their fathers and grandfather's act? Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to Charles Towns@ends? Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of beings?" (27) >From this time Walpole devoted himself more than ever to his literary and antiquarian pursuits; though the interest he still, in society at least, took in politics, is obvious, from the frequent reference to the subject in his letters. In the course of his life, his political opinions appear to have undergone a great change. In his youth, and indeed till his old age, he was not only a strenuous Whig, but, at times, almost a Republican. How strong his opinions were in this sense may be gathered, both from the frequent confessions of his political faith, which occur in his letters, and from his reverence for the death-warrant of Charles the First, of which he hung up the engraving in his bed-room, and wrote upon it with his own hand the words "Major Charta." The horrors of the French Revolution drove him, in the latter period of his life, into other views of politics; and he seems to have become, in theory at least, a Tory, though he probably would have indignantly repudiated the appellation, had it been applied to him. Even during the earlier part of his career, his politics had varied a good deal (as, indeed, in a long life, whose do not?); but, in his case, the cause of variation was a most amiable one. His devoted attachment to Marshal Conway, which led him, when that distinguished man was turned out of his command of a regiment, and of his place at court, in 1764, (28) to offer, with much earnestness, to divide his fortune with him caused him also to look with a favourable eye upon the government of the day, whenever Mr. Conway was employed, and to follow him implicitly in his votes in the House of Commons. Upon this subject he writes thus to Conway, who had not told him beforehand of a speech he made on the Qualification Bill, in consequence of which Walpole was absent from the House of Commons upon that occasion--"I don't suspect you of any reserve to me; I only mention it now for an occasion Of telling YOU, that I don't like to have any body think that I would not do whatever you do. I am of no consequence; but, at least, it would give me some to act invariably with you, and that I shall most certainly be ever ready to do." (29) Upon another occasion he writes again in a similar strain:-"My only reason for writing is, to repeat to you, that whatever you do, I shall act with you. I resent any thing done to you as to myself. My fortunes shall never be separated from yours, except that, some day or other, I hope yours will be great, and I am content with mine." (30) Upon one political point Horace Walpole appears to have entertained from the first the most just views, and even at a time when such were not sanctioned by the general opinion of the nation. From its very commencement, he objected to that disastrous contest the American war, which, commenced in ignorant and presumptuous folly, was prolonged to gratify the wicked obstinacy of individuals, and ended, as Walpole had foretold it would, in the discomfiture of its authors, and the national disgrace and degradation, after a profuse and useless waste of blood and treasure. Nor must his sentiments upon the Slave Trade be forgotten-sentiments which he held, too, in an age when, far different from the present one, the Assiento Treaty, and other horrors of the same kind, were deemed, not only justifiable, but praiseworthy. "We have been sitting," he writes, on the 25th of February 1750, "this fortnight on the African Company. We, the British Senate, that temple of Liberty, and bulwark of Protestant Christianity, have, this fortnight, been considering methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes. It has appeared to us, that six-and-forty thousand of these wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone! It chills one's blood-I would not have to say I voted for it, for the continent of America! The destruction of the miserable inhabitants by the Spaniards was but a momentary misfortune that flowed from the discovery of the New World, compared to this lasting havoc which it brought upon Africa. We reproach Spain, and yet do not even pretend the nonsense of butchering the poor creatures for the good of their souls." (31) One of the most favourite pursuits of Walpole was the building and decoration of his Gothic villa of Strawberry Hill. It is situated at the end of the village of Twickenham, towards Teddington, on a slope, which gives it a fine view of the reach of the Thames and the opposite wooded hill of Richmond Park. He bought it in 1747, of Mrs. Chenevix, the proprietress of a celebrated toy-shop. He thus describes it in a letter of that year to Mr. Conway. "You perceive by my date that I am got into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little plaything-house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with filigree hedges:- 'A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, And little finches wave their wings of gold.' Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually with coaches and chaises; barges, as solemn as barons of the exchequer, move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospects; but, thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. (32) Dowagers, as plenty as flounders, inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight." (33) He commenced almost immediately adding to the house, and Gothicizing it, assisted by the taste and designs of his friend Mr. Bentley; till, in the end, the cottage of Mrs. Chenevix had increased into the castellated residence we now behold. He also filled it with collections of various sorts-books, prints, pictures, portraits, enamels, and miniatures, antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds. Among these miscellaneous hoards are to be found some fine works of art, and many things most valuable in an historical and antiquarian point of view. For these various expenses he drew upon his annual income, which arose from three patent places conferred on him by his father, of which the designations were, Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats. As early as the year 1744, these sinecures produced to him, according to his own account, nearly two thousand a-year; and somewhat later, the one place of Usher of Exchequer rose in value to double this sum. This income, with prudent management, sufficed for the gratification of his expensive tastes of building and collecting, to which his long life was devoted. With regard to the merits of Strawberry Hill, as a building, it is perhaps unfair, in the present age, when the principles of Gothic architecture have been so much studied, and so often put in practice, to criticise it too severely. Walpole himself, who, in the earlier part of his life, seems to have had an unbounded admiration for the works of his own hands, appears in later times to have been aware of the faults in style of which he had been guilty; for, in a letter to Mr. Barrett, in 1788, he says, "If Mr. Matthews was really entertained" (with seeing Strawberry Hill), "I am glad. But Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth not to have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my attempts; for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the science, and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider that I should please myself more by allowing time, than by hurrying my plans into execution before they were ripe. My house, therefore, is but a sketch for beginners; yours (34) is finished by a great master; and if Mr. Matthews liked mine, it was en virtuose, who loves the dawnings of an art, or the glimmerings of its restoration." (35) In fact, the building of Strawberry Hill was "the glimmering of the restoration" of gothic architecture, which had previously, for above a century, been so much neglected that its very principles seemed lost. If we compare the Gothic of Strawberry Hill with that of buildings about the same period, or a little anterior to it, we shall see how vastly superior it is to them, both in its taste and its decorations. If we look at some of the restorations of our churches of the beginning of the eighteenth century , we shall find them a most barbarous mixture of Gothic forms and Grecian and Roman ornaments. Such are the western towers of Westminster Abbey, designed by Wren; the attempts at Gothic, by the same architect, in one or two of his City churches; Gibbs's quadrangle of All Souls' College, Oxford; and the buildings in the same style of Kent, Batty, Langley, etc. To these Strawberry is greatly superior: and it must be observed, that Walpole himself, in his progressive building, went on improving and purifying his taste. Thus the gallery and round-tower at Strawberry Hill, which were among his latest works, are incomparably the best part of the house; and in their interior decorations there is very little to be objected to, and much to be admired. It were to be wished, indeed, that Walpole's haste to finish, to which he alludes in the letter just quoted, and perhaps also, in some degree, economy, had not made him build his castle, which, with all its faults, is a curious relic of a clever and ingenious man, with so little solidity, that it is almost already in a state of decay. Lath and plaster, and wood, appear to have been his favourite materials for construction; which made his friend Williams (36) say of him, towards the end of his life, "that he had outlived three sets of his own battlements." It is somewhat curious, as a proof of the inconsistency of the human mind, that, having built his castle with so little view to durability, Walpole entailed the perishable possession with a degree of strictness, which would have been more fitting for a baronial estate. And that, too, after having written a fable entitled "The Entail," in consequence, of some one having asked him whether he did not intend to entail Strawberry Hill, and in ridicule of such a proceeding. Whether Horace Walpole conferred a benefit upon the public by setting the fashion of applying the Gothic style of architecture to domestic purposes, may be doubtful; so greatly has the example he gave been abused in practice since. But, at all events, he thus led the professors of architecture to study with accuracy the principles of the art, which has occasioned the restoration and preservation in such an admirable manner of so many of our finest cathedrals. colleges, and ancient Gothic and conventual buildings. This, it must be at least allowed, was the fortunate result of the rage for Gothic, which succeeded the building of Strawberry Hill. For a good many years after that event, every new building was pinnacled and turreted on all sides, however little its situation, its size, or its uses might seem to fit it for such ornaments. Then, as fashion is never constant for any great length of' time, the taste of the public rushed at once upon castles; and loopholes, and battlements, and heavy arches, and buttresses appeared in every direction. Now the fancy of the time has turned as madly to that bastard kind of architecture, possessing, however, many beauties, which compounded of the Gothic, Castellated, and Grecian or Roman, is called the Elizabethan, or Old English. No villa, no country-house, no lodge in the outskirts of London, no box of a retired tradesman is now built, except in some modification of this style. The most ludicrous situations and the most inappropriate destinations do not deter any one from pointing his gables, and squaring his bay-windows, in the most approved Elizabethan manner. And this vulgarizing and lowering Of the Old English architecture, by over use, is sure, sooner or later, to lose its popularity, and to cause it to be contemned and neglected, like its predecessors. All these different styles, if properly applied, have their peculiar merits. In old English country-houses, which have formerly been conventual buildings, the gothic style may be, with great propriety, introduced. On the height of Belvoir or in similar situations, nothing could be devised so appropriate as the castellated; and in additions to, or renovations of old manor-houses the Elizabethan may be, with equal advantage, adopted. It is the injudicious application of all three which has been, and is sure to be, the occasion of their fall in public favour. The next pursuit of Walpole, to -which it now becomes desirable to advert, are his literary labours, and the various publications with which, at different periods of his life, he favoured the world. His first effort appears to have been a copy of verses, written at Cambridge. His poetry is generally not of a very high order; lively, and with happy turns and expressions, but injured frequently by a sort of quaintness, and a somewhat inharmonious rhythm. Its merits, however, exactly fitted it for the purpose which it was for the most part intended for; namely, as what are called vers de soci`et`e." (37) Among the best of his verses may be mentioned those "On the neglected Column in the Place of St. Mark, at Florence," which contains some fine lines; his "Twickenham Register;" and "The Three Vernons." In 1752 he published his "Edes Walpolianae," or description of the family seat' of Houghton Hall, in Norfolk, where his father had built a palace, and had made a fine collection of pictures, which were sold by his grandson George, third Earl of Orford, to the Empress Catherine of Russia. This work, which is, in fact, a mere catalogue of pictures, first showed the peculiar talent of Horace Walpole for enlivening, by anecdote and lightness of style, a dry subject. This was afterwards still more exemplified in his "Anecdotes of Painting in England," of which the different volumes were published in 1761, 1763, and 1771; and in the "Catalogue of Engravers," published in 1763. These works were compiled from papers of Vertue, the engraver; but Walpole, from the stores of his own historical knowledge, from his taste in the fine arts, and his happy manner of sketching characters, rendered them peculiarly his own. But his masterpiece in this line was his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," originally published in 1758. It is very true, as Walter Scott observes, that "it would be difficult, by any process or principle of subdivision, to select a list of so many plebeian authors, containing so very few whose genius was worthy of commemoration." (38) But this very circumstance renders the merit of Walpole the greater, in having, out of such materials, composed a work which must be read with amusement and interest, as long as liveliness of diction and felicity in anecdote are considered ingredients of amusement in literature. In 1757 Walpole established a private printing-press at Strawberry Hill, and the first work he printed at it was the Odes of Gray, with Bentley's prints and vignettes. Among the handsomest and most valuable volumes which subsequently issued from this press, in addition to Walpole's own Anecdotes of Painting, and his description of Strawberry Hill, must be mentioned the quarto lucan, with the notes of Grotius and Bentley; the Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury by himself, flentzner's Travels, and Lord Whitworth's account of Russia. Of all these he printed a very limited number. It does not, however, appear, as stated in the Biographical Dictionary, (39) he reserved all the copies as presents; on the contrary, it would seem that in most instances he sold a certain portion of the copies to the booksellers, probably with a view of defraying the expenses of his printing establishment. As, however, the supply in the book-market of the Strawberry Hill editions was very small, they generally sold for high prices, and a great interest was created respecting them. In 1764 Walpole published one of the most remarkable of his works, "The Castle of Otranto;" and in 1768 his still more remarkable production, "The Mysterious Mother." (40) In speaking of the latter effort of his genius, (for it undoubtedly deserves that appellation,) an admirable judge of literary excellence has made the following remarks; "It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole firstly, because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman: but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters, and of "The Castle of Otranto," he is the Ultimus Romanorum, the author of the 'Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play: he is the father of the first romance, and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living author, be he who he may." (41) In speaking Of "The Castle of Otranto," it may be remarked as a singular coincidence in the life of Walpole, that as he had been the first person to lead the modern public to seek for their architecture in the Gothic style and age, so he also opened the great magazine of the tales of Gothic times to their literature. "The Castle of Otranto" is remarkable," observes an eminent critic, "not only for the wild interest of its story, but as the first modern attempt to found a tale of amusing fiction upon the basis of the ancient romances of chivalry." (42) "This romance," he continues, "has been justly considered not only as the original and model of a peculiar species of composition, attempted and successfully executed by a man of great genius, but as one of the standard works of our literature.' (43) The account which Walpole himself gives of the circumstances which led to the composition of "The Castle of Otranto," of his fancy of the portrait of Lord Deputy Falkland, in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, walking Out of its frame; and of his dream of a gigantic hand in armour on the banister of a great staircase, are well known. Perhaps it may be objected to him, that he makes too frequent use of supernatural machinery in his romance; but, at the time it was written, this portion of his work was peculiarly acceptable to the public. We have since, from the labours of the immense tribe of his followers and imitators of different degrees of merit, "supped so full of horrors," that we are become more fastidious upon these points; and even, perhaps, unfairly so, as at the present moment the style of supernatural romances in general is rather fallen again Into neglect and disfavour. "If," concludes Walter Scott, in his criticism on this work, (and the sentiments expressed by him are so fair and just, that it is impossible to forbear quoting them,) "Horace Walpole, who led the way in this new species of literary composition, has been surpassed by some of his followers in diffuse brilliancy of composition, and perhaps in the art of detaining the mind of the reader in a state of feverish and anxious suspense through a protracted and complicated narrative, more will yet remain with him than the single merit of originality and invention. The applause due to chastity of style--to a happy combination of supernatural agency with human interest-to a tone of feudal manners and language, sustained by characters strongly marked and well discriminated,-and to unity of action, producing scenes alternately of interest and grandeur,-the applause, in fine, which cannot be denied to him who can excite the passions of fear and pity must be awarded to the author of the Castle of Otranto." (44) "The Mysterious Mother," is a production of higher talent and more powerful genius than any other which we owe to the pen of Horace Walpole; though, from the nature of its subject, and the sternness of its character, it is never likely to compete in popularity with many of his other writings. The story is too horrible almost for tragedy. It is, as Walpole himself observes,"more truly horrid even than that of Oedipus." He took it from a history which had been told him, and which he thus relates: "I had heard, when very Young, that a gentlewoman, under uncommon agonies of mind, had waited on Archbishop Tillotson, and besought his counsel. Many years before, a damsel that served her, had acquainted her that she was importuned by the gentlewoman's son to grant him a private meeting. The mother ordered the maiden to make the assignation, when, she said, she would discover herself, and reprimand him for his criminal passion: but, being hurried away by a much more criminal passion herself, she kept the assignation without discovering herself. The fruit of this horrid artifice was a daughter, whom the gentlewoman caused to be educated very privately in the country: but proving very lovely, and being accidentally met by her father-brother, who had never had the slightest suspicion of the truth, he had fallen in love with and actually married her. The wretched, guilty mother, learning what had happened, and distracted with the consequence of her crime, had now resorted to the archbishop, to know in what manner she should act. The prelate charged her never to let her son or daughter know what had passed, as they were innocent of any criminal intention. For herself he bade her almost despair." (45) Afterwards, Walpole found out that a similar story existed in the Tales of the Queen of Navarre, and also in Bishop Hall's works. In this tragedy the dreadful interest is well sustained throughout, the march of the blank verse is grand and imposing, and some of the scenes are worked up with a vigour and a pathos, which render it one of the most powerful dramatic efforts of which our language can boast. The next publication of Walpole, was his "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third," one of the most ingenious historical and antiquarian dissertations which has ever issued from the press. He has collected his facts with so much industry, and draws his arguments and inferences from them with so much ability, that if he has not convinced the public of the entire innocence of Richard, he has, at all events, diminished the number of his crimes, and has thrown a doubt over his whole history, as well as over the credibility of his accusers, which is generally favourable to his reputation. This work occasioned a great sensation in the literary world, and produced several replies, from F. Guydickens, Esq., Dean Milles, and the Rev. Mr. Masters, and others. These works, however, are now gathered to "the dull of ancient days;" while the book they were intended to expose and annihilate remains an instructive and amusing volume; and, to say the least of it, a most creditable monument of its author's ingenuity. The remainder of the works of Walpole, published or printed in his lifetime, consist of minor, or, as he calls them, Fugitive pieces." Of these the most remarkable are his papers in "The World," and other periodicals; " A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher, in London," on the politics of the day; the "Essay on Modern Gardening;" the pamphlet called "A Counter Address," on the dismissal of Marshal Conway from his command of a regiment; the fanciful, but lively "Hieroglyphic Tales;" and "The Reminiscences," or Recollections of Court and Political Anecdotes; which last he wrote for the amusement of the Miss Berrys. All of these are marked with those peculiarities, and those graces of style, which belonged to him; and may still be read, however various their subjects, with interest and instruction. The Reminiscences are peculiarly curious; and may, perhaps, be stated to be, both in manner and matter, the very perfection of anecdote writing. We may, indeed, say, with respect to Walpole, what can be advanced of but few such voluminous authors, that it is impossible to open any part of his works without deriving entertainment from them; so much do the charms and liveliness of his manner of writing influence all the subjects he treats of. Since the death of Walpole, a portion of his political Memoires, comprising the History of the last ten years of the Reign of George the Second, has been published, and has made a very remarkable addition to the historical information of that period. At the same time it must be allowed, that this work has not entirely fulfilled the expectation which the public had formed of it. Though full of curious and interesting details; it can hardly be said to form a very interesting whole; while in no other of the publications of the author do his prejudices and aversions appear in so strong and unreasonable a light. His satire also, and we might even call it by the stronger name of abuse, is too general, and thereby loses its effect. Many of the characters are probably not too severely drawn; but some evidently are, and this circumstance shakes our faith in the rest. We must, however, remember that the age he describes was one of peculiar corruption; and when the virtue and character of public men were, perhaps, at a lower ebb than at any other period since the days of Charles the Second. The admirably graphic style of Walpole, in describing particular scenes and moments, shines forth in many parts of the Memoires: and this, joined to his having been an actor in many of the circumstances he relates and a near spectator of all, must ever render his book one of extreme value to the politician and the historian. But, the posthumous works of Walpole, upon which his lasting fame with posterity will probably rest, are his "incomparable LETTERS." (46) Of these, a considerable portion was published in the quarto edition of his works in 1798: since which period two quarto volumes, containing his letters to George Montagu, Esq. and the Rev. William Cole; and another, containing those to Lord Hertford and the Rev. Henry Zouch, have been given to the world; and the present publication of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann completes the series, which extends from the year 1735 to the commencement of 1797, within six weeks of his death-a period of no less than fifty-seven years. A friend of Mr. Walpole's has observed, that "his epistolary talents have shown our language to be capable of all the grace and all the charms of the French of Madame de S`evign`e;" (47) and the remark is a true one, for he is undoubtedly the author who first proved the aptitude of our language for that light and gay epistolary style, which was before supposed peculiarly to belong to our Gallic neighbours. There may be letters of a higher order in our literature than those of Walpole. Gray's letters, and perhaps Cowper's, may be taken as instances of this; but where shall we find such an union of taste, humour, and almost dramatic power of description and narrative, as in the correspondence of Walpole? Where such happy touches upon the manners and characters of the time? Where can we find such graphic scenes, as the funeral of George the Second; as the party to Vauxhall with Lady Harrington; as the ball at Miss Chudleigh's, in the letters already published; or as some of the House of Commons' debates and many of the anecdotes of society in those now offered to the world? Walpole's style in letter-writing is occasionally quaint, and sometimes a little laboured; but for the most part he has contrived to throw into it a great appearance of ease, as if he wrote rapidly and without premeditation. This, however, was by no means the case, as he took great pains with his letters, and even collected, and wrote down beforehand, anecdotes, with a view to their subsequent insertion. Some of these stores have been discovered among the papers at Strawberry Hill. The account of the letters of Walpole leads naturally to some mention of his friends, to whom they were addressed. These were, Gray the poet, Marshal Conway, his elder brother, Lord Hertford, George Montagu, Esq., the Rev. William Cole, Lord Strafford, Richard Bentley, Esq., John Chute, Esq., Sir Horace Mann, Lady Hervey, and in after-life, Mrs. Hannah More, Mrs. Damer, and the two Miss Berrys. His correspondence with the three latter ladies has never been published; but his regard for them, and intimacy with them, are known to have been very great. Towards Mrs. Damer, the only child of the friend of his heart, Marshal Conway, he had an hereditary feeling of affection; and to her he bequeathed Strawberry Hill. To the Miss Berrys he left, in conjunction with their father, the greater part of his papers, and the charge of collecting and publishing his works, a task which they performed with great care and judgment. To these friends must be added the name of Richard West, Esq., a young man of great promise, (only son of Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by the daughter of Bishop Burnet,) who died in 1742, at the premature age of twenty-six. Gray had been a school friend of Walpole, as has been before mentioned, they travelled together, and quarrelled during the Journey. Walter Scott suggests as a reason for their differences, "that the youthful vivacity, and perhaps aristocratic assumption, of Walpole, did not agree with the somewhat formal opinions and habits of the professed man of letters." (48) This conjecture may very possibly be the correct one; but we have no clue to guide us with certainty to the causes of their rupture. In after-life they were reconciled, though the intimacy of early friendship never appears to have been restored between them. (49) Scott says of Walpole, that , his temper was precarious;" and we may, perhaps, affirm the same of Gray. At all events, they were persons of such different characters, that their not agreeing could not be surprising. What could be more opposite than "the self-sequestered, melancholy Gray," and the eager, volatile Walpole, of whom Lady Townshend said, when some one talked of his good spirits, "Oh, Mr. Walpole is spirits of hartshorn." When Mason was writing the life of Gray, Walpole bade him throw the whole blame of the quarrel upon him. This might be mere magnanimity, as Gray was then dead; what makes one most inclined to think it was the truth, is the fact, that Gray was not the only intimate friend of Walpole with whom he quarrelled. He did so with Bentley, for which the eccentric conduct of that man of talent might perhaps account. But what shall we say to his quarrel with the good-humoured, laughing George Montagu, with whom for the last years of the life of the latter, he held no intercourse? It is true, that in a letter to Mr. Cole, Walpole lays the blame upon Montagu, and says, "he was become such an humourist;" but it must be remembered that we do not know Montagu's version of the story; and that undoubtedly three quarrels with three intimate friends rather support the charge, brought by Scott against Walpole, of his having "a precarious temper." The friendship, however, which does honour both to the head and heart of Horace Walpole, was that which he bore to Marshal Conway; a man who, accordant to all the accounts of him that have come down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a degree of affection. Burke's panegyric (50)upon his public character and conduct is well-known; while the Editor of Lord Orford's Works thus most justly eulogizes his private life. "It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public conduct and the inmost recesses of his private life, that can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his character-who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and a statesman, to the calm enjoyments of private life, happy in the resources of his own mind, and in the cultivation of useful science, in the bosom of domestic peace-unenriched by pensions or places, undistinguished by titles or ribands, unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by retirement." The offer of Walpole to share his fortune with Conway, when the latter was dismissed from his places, an offer so creditable to both parties, has been already mentioned; and if we wish to have a just idea of the esteem in which Marshal Conway was held by his contemporaries, it is only necessary to mention, that upon the same occasion, similar offers were pressed upon him by his brother Lord Hertford, and by the Duke of Devonshire, without any concert between them. The rest of' Walpole's friends and correspondents it is hardly necessary to dwell upon; they are many of them already well known to the public from various causes. it may, however, be permitted to observe, that, they were, for the most part, persons distinguished either by their taste in the fine arts, their love of antiquities, their literary attainments, or their conversational talents. To the friends already mentioned, but with whom Walpole did not habitually correspond, must be added, Mason the poet, George Selwyn, Richard second Lord Edgecumbe, George James Williams, Esq. Lady Suffolk, and Mrs. Clive the actress. With the Marquise du Deffand, the old, blind, but clever leader of French society, he became acquainted at Paris late in her life. Her devotion for him appears to have been very great, and is sometimes expressed in her letters with a warmth and tenderness, which Walpole, who was most sensitive of ridicule, thought so absurd in a person of her years and infirmities, that he frequently reproves her very harshly for it; so much so, as to give him the appearance of a want of kindly feeling towards her, which his general conduct to her, and the regrets he expressed on her death, do not warrant us in accusing him of. (51) In concluding the literary part of the character of Walpole, it is natural to allude to the transactions which took place between him and the unfortunate Chatterton; a text upon which so much calumny and misrepresentation have been embroidered. The periodicals of the day, and the tribe of those "who daily scribble for their daily bread," and for whom Walpole had, perhaps unwisely, frequently expressed his contempt, attacked him bitterly for his inhumanity to genius, and even accused him as the author of the subsequent misfortunes and untimely death of that misguided son of genius; nay, even the author of "The Pursuits of Literature," who wrote many years after the transaction had taken place, and who ought to have known better, gave in to the prevailing topic of abuse. (52) It therefore becomes necessary to state shortly what really took place upon this occasion, a task which is rendered easier by the clear view of the transaction taken both by Walter Scott in his "Lives of the Novelists," and by Chalmers in his "Biographical Dictionary," which is also fully borne out by the narrative drawn up by Walpole himself, and accompanied by the correspondence. it appears then, that in March 1769, Walpole-received a letter from Chatterton, enclosing a few specimens of the pretended poems of Rowley, and announcing his discovery of a series of ancient painters at Bristol. To this communication Walpole, naturally enough, returned a very civil answer. Shortly afterwards, doubts arose in his mind as to the authenticity of the poems; these were confirmed by the opinions of some friends, to whom he showed them; and he then wrote an expression of these doubts to Chatterton. This appears to have excited the anger of Chatterton, who, after one or two short notes, wrote Walpole a very impertinent one, in which he redemanded his manuscripts. This last letter Walpole had intended to have answered with some sharpness; but did not do so. He only returned the specimens on the 4th of August 1769; and this concluded the intercourse between them, and as Walpole observes, "I never saw him then, before, or since." Subsequently to this transaction, Chatterton acquired other patrons more credulous than Walpole, and proceeded with his forgeries. In April 1770 he came to London, and committed suicide in August of that year; a fate which befell him, it is to be feared, more in consequence of his own dissolute and profligate habits, than from any want of patronage. However this may be, Walpole clearly had nothing to say to it. In addition to the accusation of crushing, instead of fostering his genius, Walpole has also been charged with cruelty in not assisting him with money. Upon this, he very truly says himself, "Chatterton was neither indigent nor distressed, at the time of his correspondence with me. He was maintained by his mother and lived with a lawyer. His only pleas to my assistance were, disgust to his profession, inclination to poetry, and communication of some suspicious MSS. His distress was the consequence of quitting his master, and coming to London, and of his other extravagances. He had depended on the impulse of the talents he felt for making impression, and lifting him to wealth, honours, and faine. I have already said, that I should have been blamable to his mother and society, if I had seduced an apprentice from his master to marry him to the nine Muses;' and I should have encouraged a propensity to forgery, which is not the talent most wanting culture in the present age." (53) Such and so unimportant was the transaction with Chatterton, which brought so much obloquy on Walpole, and seems really to have given him at different times great annoyance. There remains but little more to relate in the life of Walpole. His old age glided on peacefully, and, with the exception of his severe sufferings from the gout, apparently contentedly, in the pursuit of his favourite studies and employments. In the year 1791, he succeeded his unhappy nephew, George, third Earl of Orford, who had at different periods of his life been insane, in the family estate and the earldom. The accession of this latter dignity seems rather to have annoyed him than otherwise. He never took his seat in the House of Lords, and his unwillingness to adopt his title was shown in his endeavours to avoid making use of it in his signature. He not unfrequently signed himself, "The Uncle of the late Earl of Orford." (54) He retained his faculties to the last, but his limbs became helpless from his frequent attacks of gout: as he himself expresses it, "Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of season, Though unkind to my limbs, has yet left me my reason." (55) As a friend of his, who only knew him in the last years of his life, speaks of "his conversation as singularly brilliant as it was original," (56) we may conclude his liveliness never deserted him; that his talent for letter-writing did not, we have a proof in a letter written only six weeks before his death, in which, with all his accustomed grace of manner he entreats a lady of his acquaintance not to show "the idle notes of her ancient servant."-Lord Orford died in the eightieth year `of his life, at his house in Berkeley Square, on the 2d of March 1797, and was buried with his family in the church at Houghton and with him concluded the male line of the descendants of Sir Robert Walpole. (20) Originally prefixed to his lordship's edition of Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, first published in 1833. (21) In a MS. note by Walpole, in his own copy of collins's Peerage, it is stated, that Sir Robert Walpole had, by his first wife, "another son, William, who died young, and a daughter, Catherine, who died of a consumption at Bath, aged nineteen."-E. (22) The occasion of the death of sir John Shorter was a curious one. It is thus related in the Ellis Correspondence:-"Sir John Shorter, the present Lord Mayor. is very ill with a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter of Aug. 30th, 1688. "On Tuesday last died the Lord Mayor, Sir John Shorter: the occasion of his distemper was his fall under Newgate, which bruised him a little, and put him into a fever." Letter of September 6th, 1688. (23 )birthdate) In Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary it is stated, that Horace Walpole was born in 1718; and Sir Walter Scott says he was born in 1716-17, which, according to the New Style, would mean that he was born in one of the three first months of the year 1717. Both these statements are, however, erroneous, as he himself fixes the day of his birth, in a letter to Mr. Conway, dated October 5th, 1764, where he says "What signifies what happens when one is seven-and-forty, as I am to-day? They tell me 'tis my birthday," And again, in a letter to the same correspondent, dated October 5th, 1777, he says, "I am three-score to-day." (24) The exact cause of this quarrel," says Mr. Mitford, in his Life of Gray, " has been passed over by the delicacy of his biographer, because Horace Walpole was alive when the Memoirs of Gray were written. The former, however, charged himself with the chief blame, and lamented that he had not paid more attention and deference to Gray's superior judgment and prudence." See Works of Gray, vol. i. p. 9, Pickering's edition 1836. In the "Walpolianae" is the following passage:-"The quarrel between Gray and me arose from his being too serious a companion. I had just broke loose from the restraints of the University with as much money as I could spend, and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, etc. while I was for perpetual balls and plays: the fault was mine."-E. (25) Sir Walter Scott says that Walpole, on one occasion, " vindicated the memory of his father with great dignity and eloquence" in the House of Commons; but, as I cannot find any trace of a speech of this kind made by him after Sir Robert Walpole's death, I am inclined to think Sir Walter must have made a mistake as to the time of delivery of the speech mentioned in the text. [Secker, at that time Bishop of Oxford, says that Walpole "spoke well against the motion." See post, letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated March 24, 1742. (26) Sir Walter Scott is in error when he says that Walpole retired from the House of Commons in 1758, "at the active age of forty-one." This event occurred, as is here stated, in March, 1768, and when Walpole was consequently in his fifty-first year. (27) Letter, dated Arlington Street, March 12th, 1768. It is but fair to mention, in opposition to the opinion respecting George Grenville, here delivered by Walpole, that of no less an authority than Burke, who says, "Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country," (28) He had also offered to share his fortune with Mr. Conway in the year 1744 (see letter of July 20th of that year), in order to enable Mr. Conway to marry a lady he was then in love with. He ends his very pressing entreaties by saying, "For these reasons, don't deny me what I have set my Heart on-the making your fortune easy to you." Nor were these the only instances of generosity to a friend, which we find in the life of Walpole. In the year 1770, when the Abb`e Terrai was administering the finances of France, (or, to use the more expressive language of Voltaire, "Quand Terrai nous mangeait,") his economical reductions occasioned the loss of a portion of her pension, amounting to three thousand livres, to Madame du Deffand. Upon this occasion Walpole wrote thus to his old blind friend, who had presented a memorial of her case to M. de St. Florentin, a course of proceeding which Walpole did not approve of:-"Ayez assez d'amiti`e pour moi pour accepter les trois mille livres de ma part. Je voudrais que la somme ne me f`ut pas aussi indiferente qu'elle l'est, mais je vous jure qu'elle ne retranchera rien, pas m`eme sur mes amusemens. La prendriez vous de la main de la grandeur, et la refuseriez vous de moi? Vous me connaissez: faites ce sacrifice `a mon orgueil, qui serait enchants de vous avoir emp`ech`ee de vous abaisser jusqu'`a la sollicitation. Votre m`emoire me blesse. Quoi! vous, vous, r`eduite `a repr`esenter vos malheurs! Accordez moi, je vous conjure, la grace que je vous demande `a genoux, et jouissez de la satisfaction de vous dire, J'ai un ami qui ne permettra jamais que je me jette aux pieds des grands. Ma Petite, j'insiste. Voyez, si vous aimez mieux me faire le plaisir le plus sensible, ou de devoir une grace qui, ayant `et`e sollicit`ee, arrive toujours trop tard pour contanter l'amiti`e. Laissez moi go`uter la joie la plus pure, de vous avoir mise `a votre aise, et que cette joie soit un secret profond entre nous deux." See Letters of the Marquise de Deffand to the Honourable Horace Walpole.-It was impossible to make a pecuniary offer with more earnestness or greater delicacy; and Madame du Deffand's not having found it necessary subsequently to accept it, in no degree diminishes the merit of the proffered gift. (29) See letter, dated Monday, five o'clock, Feb. 1761. (30) See letter, dated April 19th, 1764. (31) See letter to Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 25, 1750. (32) Catherine Hyde, the eccentric friend of Pope and Gay. She was, at this time, living in a small house in Ham Walks. Walpole, having found her out airing in her Carriage, one day that he had called on her, there addressed the following lines to her:-- 'To many a Kitty, Love his car Would for a day engage; But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, Retains it for an age." (33) Letter of June 8th, 1747. (34) Lee, in Kent. (35) Letter of June 5th, 1788. (36) George James Williams, Esq. (37) In his vers de soci`et`e we perpetually discover a laborious effort to introduce the lightness of the French badinage into a masculine and somewhat rough language."-Quart. Rev. vol. xix. p. 122. (38) Lives of the Novelists, Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 304, ed. 1834. (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 passed 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 passions 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 impassible 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 friendship 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 passage 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 AMUSEMENT 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 Duchess 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 passages (for they are scarce worthy of the title 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 repetition 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 hoarded 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 Duchess 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 shining king; and as the Duchess 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 constitutional 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 compassion 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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 duchess'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 duchess; 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 Duchess 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 canal, 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 canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal in my own park!" I have said, that the Duchess 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 passages and circumstances, of which I have often since regretted my faulty ignorance. By what I can at present recollect, the Duchess 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 Duchess, 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 rangership 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 Saturdays 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 Duchess, 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 coarsest 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 passed: the Duchess 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 gratitude. 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. (59) Melusina Schulemberg, niece of the Duchess of Kendal, created Countess of Walsingham and -,afterwards married to the famous Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. (60) The following is the account of this introduction given in "Walpoliana:"-"I do remember something of George the First. My father took me to St. James's while I was a very little boy; after waiting some time in an anteroom, a gentleman came in all dressed in brown, even his stockings, and with a riband and star. He took me up in his arms, kissed me, and chatted some time,"-E. (61) The well-known Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, secretary of state to Queen Anne; on whose death he fled, and was attainted. ["We have the authority of Sir Robert Walpole himself," says Coxe, "that the restoration of Lord Bolingbroke was the work of the Duchess of Kendal. He gained the duchess by a present of eleven thousand pounds, and obtained a promise to use her influence over the King, for the purpose of forwarding his complete restoration."] (62) The Duchess of Kendal and Lady Suffolk. (63) Sir Robert was frequently heard to say, that during the reign of the first George, he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin: it is a matter of wonder that, under such disadvantages. the King should take pleasure in transacting business with him: a circumstance which was principally owing to the method and perspicuity of his calculations, and to the extreme facility with which he arranged and explained the most abstruse and difficult combinations of finance." Coxe.-E. (64) Prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland, then a child, being carried to big grandfather on his birthday, the King asked him at what hour he rose. The Prince replied, "when the chimney-sweepers went about." "Vat is de chimney-sweeper?" said the King. "Have you been so long in England," said the boy, "and do not know what a chimney-sweeper is? Why, they are like that man there;" pointing to Lord Finch, afterwards Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, of a family uncommonly swarthy and dark-"the black funereal Finches"-Sir Charles Williams's Ode to a Number of Great Men, 1742. (65) The Earl of Rochester, who succeeded to the title of Clarendon on the extinction of the elder branch, had a villa close without the park; but it had been burnt down, and only one wing was left. W. Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, purchased the ruins, and built the house, since bought by Lord Camelford. (66) It was afterwards enlarged by Princess Amelia; to whom her rather, George II. had granted the reversion of the rangership after Lord Walpole. Her Royal Highness sold it to George III. for a pension on Ireland of twelve hundred pounds a-year, and his Majesty appointed Lord Bute ranger for life. (67) The King Hated the parade of royalty. When he went to the opera, it was in no state; nor did he sit in the stage-box, nor forwards, but behind the Duchess of Kendal and Lady Walsingham, in the second box, now allotted to the maids of honour. (68) Bolingbroke at his return could not avoid waiting on Sir Robert to thank him, and was Invited to dine with him at Chelsea; but whether tortured at witnessing Walpole's serene frankness and felicity, or suffocated with indignation and confusion at being forced to be obliged to one whom be hated and envied, the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from table and leave the room for some minutes. I never heard of their meeting more. (69) George II. parted with Lady Suffolk, on Princess Amelia informing Queen Caroline from Bath, that the mistress had interviews there with Lord Bolingbroke. Lady Suffolk, above twenty years after, protested to me that she had not once seen his lordship there; and I should believe she did not, for she was a woman of truth: but her great intimacy and connexion with Pope and Swift, the intimate friends of Bolingbroke, even before the death of George I. and her being the channel through whom that faction had flattered themselves they should gain the ear of the new King, can leave no doubt of Lady Suffolk's support of that party. Her dearest friend to her death was William, afterwards Lord Chetwynd, the known and most trusted confidant of Lord Bolingbroke. Of those political intrigues I shall say more in these Reminiscences. CHAPTER II Marriage of George the First, while Electoral Prince, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea-Assassination of Count Konigsmark-Separation from the Princess-Left-handed Espousal-Piety of the Duchess of Kendal-Confinement and Death of Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden-French Prophetess-The King's Superstition-Mademoiselle Schulemberg--Royal Inconstancy-Countess of Platen-Anne Brett--Sudden Death of George the First. George the First, while Electoral Prince, had married his cousin, the Princess Dorothea (70) only child of the Duke of Zell; a match of convenience to reunite the dominions of the family. Though she was very handsome, the Prince, who was extremely amorous, had several mistresses; which provocation, and his absence in the army of the confederates, probably disposed the Princess to indulge some degree of coquetry. At that moment arrived at Hanover the famous and beautiful Count Konigsmark, (71) the charms of whose person ought not to have obliterated the memory of his vile assassination of Mr. Thynne.(72)His vanity, the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumption to make his addresses to her, not covertly; and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatized a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. The Princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband, and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand before his abrupt departure and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son the new King's first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konigsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess's dressing-room-the Count having probably been strangled there the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up; George II. entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen Caroline, who told it to my father: but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the Count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances. The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father, and purposed, as was said, had the former survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen Dowager. (73) Lady Suffolk has told me her surprise, on going to the new Queen the morning after the news arrived of the death of George I., at seeing hung up in the Queen's dressing-room a whole length of a lady in royal robes; and in the bedchamber a half length of the same person, neither of which Lady Suffolk had ever seen before. The Prince had kept them concealed, not daring to produce them during the life of his father. The whole length he probably sent to Hanover: (74) the half length I have frequently and frequently seen in the library of Princess Amelia, who told me it was the portrait of her grandmother. she bequeathed it, with other pictures of her family, to her nephew, the Landgrave of Hesse. Of the circumstances that ensued on Konigsmark's disappearance I am ignorant; nor am I acquainted with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation: nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much formality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his wife. Perhaps too much difficulty of untying the Gordian not of matrimony thrown in the way of an absolute prince would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that butchering husband, our Henry VIII. Sovereigns, who narrow or let out the law of God according to their prejudices and passions, mould their own laws no doubt to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany; and the code of Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the ten commandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility of marriage, espousals with the left hand-as if the Almighty had restrained his ordinance to one half of a man's person, and allowed a greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or pronounced the former more ignoble than the latter. The consciences both of princely and noble persons in Germany are quieted, if the more plebeian side is married to one who would degrade the more illustrious moiety-but, as if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the children to be thence propagated, the children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to inherit. Shocking consequence of a senseless equivocation, that only satisfies pride, not justice; and calculated for an acquittal at the herald's Office, not at the last tribunal. Separated the Princess Dorothea certainly was, and never admitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward always styled Duchess of Halle. Whether divorced (75) is problematic, at least to me; nor can I pronounce, as, though it was generally believed, I am not certain that George espoused the Duchess of Kendal with his left hand. As the Princess Dorothea died only some months before him, that ridiculous ceremony was scarcely deferred till then; and the extreme outward devotion of the Duchess, who every Sunday went seven times to Lutheran chapels, seemed to announce a realized wife. As the genuine wife was always detained in her husband's power, he seems not to have wholly dissolved their union; for, on the approach of the French army towards Hanover, during Queen Anne's reign, the Duchess of Halle was sent home to her father and mother, who doted on their only child, and did retain her for a whole year, and did implore, though in vain that she might continue to reside with them. As her son too, George II., had thoughts of bringing her over and declaring her Queen Dowager, one can hardly believe that a ceremonial divorce had passed, the existence of which process would have glared in the face of her royalty. But though German casuistry might allow her husband to take another wife with his left hand, because his legal wife had suffered her right hand to be kissed in bed by a gallant, even Westphalian or Aulic counsellors could not have pronounced that such a momentary adieu constituted adultery; and therefore of a formal divorce I must doubt-and there I must leave that case of conscience undecided, till future search into the Hanoverian chancery shall clear up a point of little real importance. I have said that the disgraced Princess died but a short time before the King. (76) It is known that in Queen Anne's time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and Duchess of Zell, 'who might be apprehensive lest the' Duchess of Kendal should be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their son-in-law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the denunciation, that on the eve of his last departure he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approaching fate that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons he hated. He did sometimes so much justice to his son as to say, "Il est fougueux, mais il a de l'honneur."-For Queen Caroline, to his confidants he termed her "cette diablesse Madame la Princesse." I do not know whether it was about the same period, that in a tender mood he promised the Duchess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The Duchess, on his death, so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa at Isteworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the royal bird or she took their last flight. George II., no more addicted than his father to too much religious credulity, had yet implicit faith in the German notion of vampires, and has more than once been angry with my father for speaking irreverently of those imaginary bloodsuckers. the Duchess of Kendal, of whom I have said so much, was when Mademoiselle Schulemberg, maid of honour to the Electress Sophia, mother of King George I. and destined by King William and the Act of Settlement to succeed Queen Anne. George fell in love with Mademoiselle Schulemberg, though by no means an inviting object-so little, that one evening when she was in waiting behind the Electress's chair at a ball, the Princess Sophia, who had made herself mistress of the language of her future subjects, said in English to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, then at her court, "Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son's passion!" Mrs. Howard, who told me the story, protested that she was terrified, forgetting that Mademoiselle Schulemberg did not understand English. The younger Mademoiselle Schulemberg, who came over with her and was created Countess Walsingham, passed for her niece; but was so like to the King that it is not very credible that the Duchess, who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage. The Duchess under whatever denomination, had attained and preserved to the last her ascendant over the king: but notwithstanding that influence, he was not more constant to her than he had been to his avowed wife; for another acknowledged mistress, whom he also brought over, was Madame Kilmansegge, Countess of Platen, who was created Countess of Darlington, and by whom he was indisputably father of Charlotte, married to Lord Viscount Howe, and mother of the present earl. (77) Lady Howe was never publicly acknowledged as the Kings daughter; but Princess Amelia, (78) treated her daughter, Mrs. Howe, (79) upon that foot, and one evening, when I was present, gave her a ring, with a small portrait of George I, with a crown of diamonds. Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother's in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the Duchess was long and emaciated. Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling beneath two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays 80) no wonder that a child dreaded such an ogress, and that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio! They were food from all the venom of the Jacobites; and, indeed nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chaunted even in their hearing about the public streets. (81) On the other hand, it was not till the last year or two of his reign that their foreign sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English mistress. That personage was Anne Brett, eldest daughter by her second husband, (82) of the repudiated wife of the Earl Of Macclesfield, the unnatural mother of Savage the poet. Miss Brett was very handsome, but dark enough by her eyes, complexion, and hair, for a Spanish beauty. Abishag was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favourite sultanas have done, by suffering partners in the sovereign's affections. When his Majesty should return to England, a countess's coronet was to have rewarded the young lady's compliance, and marked her secondary rank. She might, however, have proved a troublesome rival, as she seemed SO confident of the power of her charms, that whatever predominant ascendant the Duchess might retain, her own authority in the palace she thought was to yield to no one else. George I., when his son the Prince of Wales and the Princess had quitted St. James's on their quarrel with him, had kept back their three eldest daughters, who lived with him to his death, even after there had outwardly been a reconciliation between the King and Prince. Miss Brett, when the King set out, ordered a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden. Anne, the eldest of the Princesses, offended at that freedom, and not choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered the door to be walled up again. Miss Brett as imperiously reversed that command. The King died suddenly, and the empire of the new mistress and her promised coronet vanished. She afterwards married Sir William Leman, and was forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond the confines of Westminster! (70) Her names were Sophia Dorothea ; but I call her by the latter, to distinguish her from the Princess Sophia, her mother-in-law, on whom the crown of Great Britain was settled. (71) Konigsmark behaved with great intrepidity, and was wounded at a bull-feast in Spain. See Letters from Spain of the Contesse D'Anois, vol. ii. He was brother of the beautiful Comtesse de Konigsmark, mistress of Augustus the Second, King of Poland. (72) It was not this Count Konigsmark, but an elder brother, who was accused of having suborned Colonel Vratz, Lieutenant Stern, and one George Boroskey, to murder Mr. Thynne in Pall-Mall, on the 12th of February, 1682, and for which they were executed in that street on the 10th of March. For the particulars, see Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 1, and Sir John Reresby's Memoirs, p. 135. "This day," says Evelyn, in his Diary of the 10th of March, "was executed Colonel Vrats, for the execrable murder of Mr. Thynne, set on by the principal, Konigsmark: he went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward, Count Konigsmark, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away: Vrats told a friend of mine, who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed God would deal with him like a gentleman." Mr. Thynne was buried in Westminster Abbey; the manner of his death being represented on his monument. He was the Issachar of Absalom and Achitophel; in which poem Dryden, describing the respect and favour with which Monmouth was received upon his progress in the year 1691, Says: "Hospitable hearts did most commend Wise Issachar, his wealthy, western friend." Reresby states, that Lady Ogle, immediately after the marriage, "repenting herself of the match, fled from him into Holland, before they were bedded." This circumstance added to the fact, that Mr. Thynne had formerly seduced Miss Trevor, one of the maids of honour to Catherine of Portugal, wife of Charles II., gave birth to the following lines: "Here lies Tom Thynne, of Longleat Hall, Who never would have miscarried, Had he married the woman he lay withal, Or lain with the woman he married." On the 30th of May, in the same year, Lady Ogle was married to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset.-E. (73) Lady Suffolk thought he rather would have her regent of Hanover; and she also told me, that George I. had offered to live again with his wife, but she refused, unless her pardon were asked publicly. She said, what most affected her was the disgrace that would be brought on her children; and if she were only pardoned, that would not remove it. Lady Suffolk thought she was then divorced, though the divorce was never published; and that the old Elector consented to his son's marrying the Duchess of Kendal with the left hand-but it seems strange, that George I. should offer to live again with his wife, and yet be divorced front her. Perhaps George II. to vindicate his mother, supposed that offer and her spirited refusal. (74) George II. was scrupulously exact in separating and keeping in each country whatever belonged to England or Hanover. Lady Suffolk told me, that on his accession he could not find a knife, fork, and spoon of gold which had belonged to Queen Ann(@, and which he remembered to have seen here at his first -arrival. He found them at Hanover on his first journey thither after he came to the crown, and brought them back to England. He could not recollect much of greater value; for, on Queen Anne's death, and in the interval before the arrival of the new family, such a clearance had been made of her Majesty's jewels, or the new King so instantly distributed what he found amongst his German favourites, that, as Lady S. told me, Queen Caroline never obtained of the late Queen's.jewels but one pearl necklace. (75) George I., says Coxe, who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father; consented to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a divorce, which was passed on the 28th of December 1694." Memoirs of Walpole.-E. (76) "the unfortunate Sophia was confined in the castle of Alden, situated on the small river Aller, in the duchy of Zell. She terminated her miserable existence, after a long captivity of thirty-two years, on the 13th of November 1726, only seven months before the death of George the First; and she was announced in the Gazette, under the title of the Electress Dowager of Hanover. During her whole confinement she behaved with no less mildness than dignity; and, on receiving the sacrament once every week, never omitted making the most solemn asseverations, that she was not guilty of the crime laid to her charge." Coxe, vol. i. p. 268.-E. (77) Admiral Lord Howe, and also of sir William, afterwards Viscount Howe.-E. (78) Second daughter of George the Second; born in 1711, died October the 31st, 1786. (79) Caroline, the eldest of Lady Howe's children, had married a gentleman of her own name, John Howe, Esq, of Honslop, in the county of Bucks. (80) According to Coxe, she was, when young, a woman of great beauty, but became extremely corpulent as she advanced in years. "Her power over the King," he adds, "was not equal to that of the Duchess of Kendal, but her character for rapacity was not inferior." On the death of her husband, in 1721, she was created Countess of Leinster in the kingdom of Ireland, Baroness of Brentford, and Countess of Darlington.-E. (81) One of the German ladies, being abused by the mob, was said to have put her head out of the coach, and cried in bad English, "Good people, why you abuse us? We come for all your goods." "Yes, damn ye," answered a fellow in the crowd, "and for all our chattels too." I mention this because on the death of Princess Amelia the newspapers revived the story and told it of her, though I had heard it threescore years before of one of her grandfather's mistresses. (82) Colonel Brett, the companion of Wycherley, Steele, Davenant, etc. and of whom the following particulars are recorded by Spence, on the authority of Dr. Young:-"The Colonel was a remarkably handsome man. The Countess looking out of her window on a great disturbance in the street, saw him assaulted by some bailiffs, who were going to arrest him. She paid his debt, released him from their pursuit, and soon after married him. When she died, she left him more than he expected; with which he bought an estate in the country, built a very handsome house upon it, and furnished it in the highest taste; went down to see the finishing of it, returned to London in hot weather and in too much hurry; got a fever by it, and died. Nobody had a better taste of what would please the town, and his opinion was much regarded by the actors and dramatic poets." Anecdotes, p. 355.-E. CHAPTER III. Quarrel between George the First and his Son-Earl of Sunderland-Lord Stanhope-South Sea Scheme-Death of Craggs-Royal Reconcilement-Peerage Bill defeated-Project for seizing the Prince of Wales and conveying him to America-Duke of Newcastle-Royal Christening-Open Rupture-Prince and Princess of Wales ordered to leave the Palace. One of the most remarkable occurrences in the reign of George I. was the open quarrel between him and his son the Prince of Wales. Whence the dissension originated; whether the prince's attachment to his mother embittered his mind against his father, or whether hatred of' his father occasioned his devotion to her, I do not pretend to know. I do suspect front circumstances, that the hereditary enmity in the House of Brunswick between the parents and their eldest sons dated earlier than the divisions between the first two Georges. The Princess Sophia was a woman of parts and great vivacity: in the earlier part of her life she had professed much zeal for the deposed House of Stuart, as appeared by a letter of hers in print, addressed to the Chevalier de St. George. It is natural enough for all princes,-who have no prospect of being benefited by the deposition of a crowned head, to choose to think royalty an indelible character. The Queen of Prussia, daughter of George I. lived and died an avowed Jacobite. The Princess Sophia, youngest child of the Queen of Bohemia, was consequently the most remote from any pretensions to the British crown; (83) but no sooner had King William procured a settlement of it after Queen Anne on her Electoral Highness, than nobody became a stancher Whig than the Princess Sophia, nor could be more impatient to mount the throne of the expelled Stuarts. It is certain, that during the reign of Anne, the Elector George was inclined to the Tories, though-after his mother's death and his own accession he gave himself to the opposite party. But if be and his mother espoused different factions, Sophia found a ready partisan in her grandson, the Electoral prince; (84) and it is true, that the demand made by the Prince of his writ of summons to the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, which no wonder was so offensive to Queen Anne, was made in concert with his grandmother, without the privity of the Elector his father. Were it certain, as was believed, that Bolingbroke and the Jacobites prevailed on the Queen *85) to consent to her brother coming secretly to England, and to seeing him in her closet; she might have been induced to that step, when provoked by an attempt to force a distant and foreign heir upon her while still alive. The Queen and her heiress being dead, the new King and his son came over in apparent harmony; and on his Majesty's first visit to his electoral dominions, the Prince of Wales was even left Regent; but never being trusted afterwards with that dignity on like occasions, it is probable that the son discovered too much fondness for acting the king, or that the father conceived a jealousy of his son having done so. Sure it is, that on the King's return great divisions arose in the court; and the Whigs were divided-some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown, and others to the expectant. I shall not enter into the detail of those squabbles, of which I am but superficially informed. The predominant ministers were the Earls of Sunderland and Stanhope. The brothers-in-law, the Viscount Townshend and Mr. Robert Walpole, adhered to the Prince. Lord Sunderland is said to have too much resembled as a politician the earl his father, who was so principal an actor in the reign of James II. and in bringing about the Revolution. Between the earl in question and the Prince of Wales grew mortal antipathy; of which -,in anecdote told me by my father himself will leave no doubt. When a reconciliation had been patched up between the two courts, and my father became first lord of the treasury a second time, Lord Sunderland in a t`ete-`a-t`ete with him said, "Well, Mr. Walpole, we have settled matters for the present; but we must think whom we shall have next" (meaning in case of the King's demise). Walpole said, "Your lordship may think as you please, but my part is taken;" meaning to support the established settlement. Earl Stanhope was a man of strong and violent passions, and had dedicated himself to the army; and was so far from thinking of any other line, that when Walpole, who first suggested the idea of appointing him secretary of state, proposed it to him, he flew into a furious rage, and was on the point of a downright quarrel, looking on himself' as totally unqualified for the post, and suspecting it for a plan of mocking him. He died in one of those tempestuous sallies, being pushed in the House of Lords on the explosion of the South Sea scheme. That iniquitous affair, which Walpole had early exposed, and to remedy the mischiefs of which he alone was deemed adequate, had replaced him at the head of affairs, and obliged Sunderland to submit to be only a coadjutor of the administration. The younger Craggs, (86) a showy vapouring man, had been brought forward by the ministers to oppose Walpole; but was soon reduced to beg his assistance on one (87) of their ways and means. Craggs caught his death by calling at the gate of Lady March, (88) who was ill of the small-pox; and being told so by the porter, went home directly, fell ill of the same distemper, and died. His father, the elder Craggs, whose very good sense Sir R. Walpole much admired, soon followed his son, and his sudden death was imputed to grief; but having been deeply dipped in the iniquities of the South Sea, and wishing to prevent confiscation and save his ill-acquired wealth for his daughters, there was no doubt of his having despatched himself. When his death was divulged, Sir Robert Owned that the unhappy man had in an oblique manner hinted his resolution to him. The reconciliation of the royal family was so little cordial, that I question whether the Prince did not resent Sir Robert Walpole's return to the King's service. Yet had Walpole defeated a plan of Sunderland that @would in future have exceedingly hampered the successor, as it was calculated to do; nor do I affect to ascribe Sir Robert's victory directly to zeal for the Prince: personal and just views prompted his opposition, and the commoners of England were not less indebted to him than the Prince. Sunderland had devised a bill to restrain the crown from ever adding above six peers to a number limited., (89) The actual peers were far from disliking the measure; but Walpole, taking fire, instantly communicated his dissatisfaction to all the great commoners, who might for ever be excluded from the peerage. He spoke, he wrote, (90) he persuaded, and the bill was rejected by the Commons with disdain, after it had passed the House of Lords. (91) But the hatred of some of the junta at court had gone farther, horribly farther. On the death of George 1. Queen Caroline found in his cabinet a proposal of the Earl of Berkeley, (92) then, I think, first lord of the admiralty, to seize the Prince of Wales, and convey him to America, whence he should never be heard of more. This detestable project copied probably from the Earl of Falmouth's offer to Charles II. with regard to his Queen, was in the handwriting of Charles Stanhope, elder brother of the Earl of Harrington: (93) and so deep was the impression deservedly made on the mind of George II. by that abominable paper, that all the favour of Lord Harrington, when secretary of state, could never obtain the smallest boon to his brother, though but the subordinate transcriber. (94) George I. was too humane to listen to such an atrocious deed. It was not very kind to the conspirators to leave such an instrument behind him; and if virtue and conscience will not check bold bad men from paying court by detestable offers, the King's carelessness or indifference in such an instance ought to warn them of the little gratitude that such machinations can inspire or expect. Among those who had preferred the service of the King to that of the heir apparent, was the Duke of Newcastle;, (95) Who, having married his sister to Lord Townshend, both his royal highness and the viscount had expected would have adhered to that connexion-and neither forgave his desertion.-I am aware of the desultory manner in which I have told my story, having mentioned the reconciliation of the King and Prince before I have given any account of their public rupture. The chain of my thoughts led me into the preceding details, and, if I do not flatter myself, will have let you into the motives of my dramatis personae better than if I had 'more exactly observed chronology.- and as I am not writing a regular tragedy, and profess but to relate facts as I recollect them; or (if you will allow me to imitate French writers of tragedy) may I not plead that I have unfolded my piece as they do, by introducing two courtiers to acquaint one another, and by bricole the audience, with what had passed in the penetralia before the tragedy commences? The exordium thus duly prepared, you must suppose, ladies, that the second act opens with a royal christening The Princess of Wales had been delivered of a second son. The Prince had intended his uncle, the Duke of York, Bishop of Osnaburg, should with his Majesty be godfathers. Nothing could equal the indignation of his Royal Highness when the King named the Duke of Newcastle for second sponsor, and would hear of no other. The christening took place as usual in the Princess's bedchamber. Lady Suffolk, then in waiting as woman of the bedchamber, and of most accurate memory painted the scene to me exactly. On one side of the bed stood the godfathers and godmother; on the other the Prince and the Princess's ladies. No sooner had the Bishop closed the ceremony, than the Prince, crossing the feet of the bed in a rage, stepped up to the Duke of Newcastle, and, holding up his hand and fore-finger in a menacing attitude, said, "You are a rascal, but I shall find you," meaning, in broken English, "I shall find a time to be revenged."-"What was my astonishment," continued Lady Suffolk, "when going to the Princess's apartment the next morning, the yeOMen in the guard-chamber pointed their halberds at my breast, and told me I must not pass! I urged that it was my duty to attend the Princess. They said, 'No matter; I must not pass that way.'" In one word, the King had been so provoked at the Prince's outrage in his presence, that it had been determined to inflict a still greater insult on his Royal Highness. His threat to the Duke was pretended to be understood as a challenge; and to prevent a duel he had actually been put under arrest-as if a Prince of Wales could stoop to fight with a subject. The arrest was soon taken off; but at night the Prince and Princess were ordered to leave the palace, (96) and retired to the house of her chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham, in Albemarle Street. (83) It is remarkable, that either the weak propensity of the Stuarts to popery, or the visible connexion between regal and ecclesiastic power, had such operation on many of the branches of that family, who were at a distance from the crown of England, to wear which it is necessary to be a Protestant, that two or three of the daughters of the king and Queen of Bohemia, though their parents had lost every thing in the struggle between the two religions, turned Roman Catholics; and so did one or more of the sons of the Princess Sophia, brothers of the Protestant candidate, George I. (84) Afterwards George II. (85) I believe it was a fact, that the poor weak Queen, being disposed even to cede the crown to her brother, consulted Bishop Wilkins, called the Prophet, to know what would be the consequence of such a step. He replied, "Madam, you would be in the Tower in a month, and dead in three." This Sentence, dictated by common sense, her Majesty took for inspiration, and dropped all thoughts of resigning the crown. *86) James Craggs, Jun, buried in Westminster Abbey, with an epitaph by Pope. [Craggs died on the 16th of February, 1721. His monument was executed by Guelphi, whom Lord Burlington invited into the kingdom. Walpole considered it graceful and simple, but that the artist was an indifferent sculptor. Dr. Johnson objects to Pope's inscription, that it is partly in Latin and partly in English. "If either language," he says, "be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another, on a tomb more than in any other place or any other occasion: such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs."] (87) I think it was the sixpenny tax on offices. (88) Sarah Cadogan, afterwards Duchess of Richmond. (89) Queen Anne's creation of twelve peers at once, to obtain a majority in the House of Lords, offered an ostensible plea for the restrictions. (90) Sir Robert published a pamphlet against the bill, entitled, "The Thoughts of a Member of the Lower House, in relation to a project for restraining and limiting the powers of the Crown in the future creation of Peers." On the other side, Addison's pen was employed in defending the measure, in a paper called "The Old Whig," against Steele, who attacked it in a pamphlet entitled "The Plebeian."-E. (91) The effect of Sir Robert's speech on the House," says Coxe, "exceeded the sanguine expectations: it fixed those who had before been wavering and irresolute, brought over many who had been tempted by the speciousness of the measure to favour introduction, and procured its rejection, by a triumphant majority of 269 against 177." Memoirs, Vol. i.-E. (92) James, third Earl of Berkeley. knight of the garter, etc. In March 1718, he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, in which post he continued all the reign of George the First. He died at the castle of Aubigny in France in 1736.] (93) William Stanhope, first Earl of Harrington of that family. (94) Coxe states, that such was the indignation which the perusal of this paper excited, that, when Sir Robert espoused Charles Stanhope's interest, the King rejected the application with some expressions of resentment, and declared that no consideration should induce him to assign to him any place of trust or honour.- E. (95) Thomas Holles Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, lord chamberlain, then secretary of state, and lastly, first lord of the treasury under George II.; the same King to whom he had been so obnoxious in the preceding reign. He was obliged by George III. to resign his post. (96) "Notice was also formally given that no persons who paid their respects to the Prince and Princess of Wales would be received at court; and they were deprived of their guard, and of all other marks of distinction." Coxe, vol. i. p. 132.-E. CHAPTER IV. Bill of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury-Projected Assassination of Sir Robert Walpole-Revival of the Order of the Bath-Instance of George the First's good-humoured Presence of Mind. As this trifling work is a miscellany of detached recollections, I will, ere I quit the article of George I., mention two subjects of very unequal import, which belong peculiarly to his reign. The first was the deprivation of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. Nothing more offensive to men of priestly principles could easily have happened: yet, as in a country of which the constitution was founded on rational and liberal grounds, and where thinking men had so recently exerted themselves to explode the prejudices attached to the persons of Kings and churchmen, it was impossible to defend the Bishop's treason but by denying it; or to condemn his condemnation, but by supposing illegalities in the process: both were vehemently urged by his faction, as his innocence was pleaded by himself. That punishment and expulsion from his country may stagger the virtue even of a good man, and exasperate him against his country, is perhaps natural, and humanity ought to Pity it. But whatever were the prepossessions of his friends in his favour, charity must now believe that Atterbury was always an ambitious, turbulent priest, attached to the House of Stuart, and consequently no friend to the civil and religious liberties of his country; or it must be acknowledged, that the disappointment of his ambition by the Queen's death, and the proscription of his ministerial associates, had driven on attempts to restore the expelled family in hopes of realizing his aspiring views. His letters published by Nichols breathe the impetuous spirit of his youth. His exclamation on the Queen's death, when he offered to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross in pontificalibus, and swore, on not being supported, that there was the best cause in England lost for want of spirit, is now believed also. His papers, deposited with King James's in the Scottish College at Paris, proclaimed in what sentiments he died; and the facsimiles of his letters published by Sir David Dalrymple leave no doubt of his having in his exile entered into the service of the Pretender. Culpable -is he was, who but must lament that so classic a mind had only assumed so elegant and amiable a semblance as he adopted after the disappointment of his prospects and hopes? His letter in defence of the authenticity of Lord Clarendon's History, is one of the most beautiful and touching specimens of eloquence in our language. It was not to load the character of the bishop, nor to affect candour by applauding his talents, that I introduced mention of him, much less to impute to him -,my consciousnesses of the intended crime that I am going to relate. The person against whom the blow was supposed to be meditated never, in the most distant manner, suspected the bishop of being privy to the plot-No: animosity of parties, and malevolence to the champions of the House of Brunswick, no doubt suggested to some blind zealots the perpetration of a crime which would necessarily have injured the bishop's cause, and could by no means have prevented his disgrace. Mr. Johnstone, an ancient gentleman, who had been secretary of state for Scotland, his country, in the reign of King William, was a zealous friend of my father, Sir Robert, and who, in that period of assassination plots, had imbibed such a tincture of suspicion that he was continually notifying similar machinations to my father, and warning him. to be on his guard against them. Sir Robert, intrepid and unsuspicious, (97) used to rally his good monitor; and, when serious, told him that his life was too constantly exposed to his enemies to make it of any use to be watchful on any particular occasion; nor, though Johnstone often hurried to him with intelligence of such designs, did he ever see reason, but once, to believe in the soundness of the information. That once arrived thus: a day or two before the bill of pains and penalties was to pass the House of Commons against the Bishop of Rochester, Mr. Johnstone advertised Sir Robert to be circumspect, for three or four persons meditated to assassinate him as he should leave the house at night. Sir Robert laughed, and forgot the notice. The morning after the debate, Johnstone came to Sir Robert with a kind of good-natured insult, telling him, that though he had scoffed his advice, he had for once followed it, and by so doing preserved his life. Sir Robert understood not what he meant, and protested he had not given more credit than usual. to his warning. "Yes," said Johnstone, "but you did; for you did not come from the House last night in your own chariot." Walpole affirmed that he did; but his friend persisting in his asseveration, Sir Robert called one of the footmen, who replied, "I did call up your honour's carriage; but Colonel Churchill being with you, and his chariot driving up first, your honour stepped into that, and your own came home empty." Johnstone, triumphing on his own veracity, and pushing the examination farther, Sir Robert's coachman recollected that, as he left Palace-yard, three men, much muffled, had looked into the empty chariot. The mystery was never farther cleared up; and my father frequently said it was the only instance of the kind in which he had ever seen any appearance of a real design. The second subject that I promised to mention, and it shall be very briefly, was the revival of the Order of the Bath. It was the measure of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bank of thirty-six ribands to supply a fund of favours in lieu of places. He meant, too, to stave off the demand for garters, and intended that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took one of the former himself. He offered the new order to old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the duke, and for the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters. (98) She haughtily replied, they should take nothing but the garter. "Madam," said Sir Robert coolly, "they who take the bath will the sooner have the garter." The next year he took the latter himself with the Duke of Richmond, both having been previously installed knights of the revived institution. Before I quit King George I. I will relate a story, very expressive of his good-humoured presence of mind. On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke. At a distance in view was the chateau of a considerable German nobleman. The king sent to borrow assistance. The possessor came, conveyed the king to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty's accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and, while the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his Majesty with a collection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to Italy. But what did the king see in one of the rooms but an unknown portrait of a person in the robes and with the regalia of the sovereigns of Great Britain! George asked whom it represented. The nobleman replied, with much diffident but decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George. who had done him the honour of sending him that picture. "Upon my word," said the king instantly, "it is very like to the family." It was impossible to remove the embarrassment of the proprietor with more good breeding. (97) At the time of the Preston rebellion, a Jacobite, who sometimes furnished Sir Robert with intelligence, sitting alone with him one night, suddenly putting his hand into his bosom and rising, said, "Why do not I kill you now?" Walpole starting up, replied, "Because I am a younger man and a stronger." They sat down again, and discussed the person's information But Sir Robert afterwards had reasons for thinking that the spy had no intention of assassination, but had hoped, by intimidating, to extort money from him. Yet if no real attempt was made on his life, it was not from want of suggestions to it: one of the weekly journals pointed out Sir Robert's frequent passing a Putney bridge late at night, attended but by one or two servants, on his way to New Park, as a proper place; and after Sir Robert's death, the second Earl of Egmont told me, that he was once at a consultation of the Opposition, in which it was proposed to have Sir Robert murdered by a mob, of which the earl had declared his abhorrence. Such an attempt was actually made in 1733, at the time of the famous excise bill. As the minister descended the stairs of the House of commons on the night he carried the bill, he was guarded on one side by his second son Edward, and on the other by General Charles Churchill; but the crowd behind endeavoured to throw him down, as he was a bulky man, and trample him to death; and that not succeeding, they tried to strangle him by pulling his red cloak tight-but fortunately the strings broke by the violence of the tug. (98) Wriothesly, Duke of Bedford, had married Lady Anne Egerton, only daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by Lady Elizabeth Churchill, daughter of John, Duke of Marlborough. See VOL. I. 8. CHAPTER V. Accession of George the Second-Sir Spencer Compton-Expected Change in Administration-Continuation of Lord Townshend-and Sir Robert Walpole by the Intervention of Queen Caroline-Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Her character by Swift-and by Lord Chesterfield. The unexpected death of George I. on his road to Hanover was instantly notified by Lord Townshend, secretary of state, who attended his Majesty, to his brother Sir Robert Walpole, who as expeditiously was the first to carry the news to the successor and hail him King. The next step was, to ask who his Majesty would please should draw his speech to the Council. "Sir Spencer Compton," replied the new monarch. The answer was decisive, and implied Sir Robert's dismission. Sir Spencer Compton was Speaker of the House of Commons, and treasurer, I think, at that time, to his Royal Highness, who by that first command, implied his intention of making Sir Spencer his prime-minister. He was a worthy man, of exceedingly grave formality, but of no parts, as his conduct immediately proved. The poor gentleman was so little qualified to accommodate himself to the grandeur of the moment, and to conceive how a new sovereign should address himself to his ministers, and he had also been so far from meditating to supplant the premier,(99) that, in his distress, it was to Sir Robert himself that he had recourse, and whom he besought to make the draught of the Kin(,'s speech for him. The new Queen, a better judge than her husband of the capacities of the two candidates, and who had silently watched for a moment proper for overturning the new designations, did not lose a moment in observing to the King how prejudicial it would be to his affairs to prefer to the minister in possession a man in whose own judgment his predecessor was the fittest person to execute his office. From that moment there was no more question of Sir Spencer Compton as prime-minister. He was created an earl, soon received the garter, and became president of that council, at the head of which he was much fitter to sit than to direct. Fourteen years afterwards, he was again nominated by the same Prince to replace Sir Robert as first lord of the treasury on the latter's forced resignation, but not -.is prime-minister; the conduct of affairs being soon ravished from him by that dashing genius the Earl of Granville, who reduced him to a cipher for the little year in which he survived, and in which his incapacity had been obvious. The Queen, impatient to destroy all hopes of change, took the earliest opportunity of declaring her own sentiments. The instance I shall cite will be a true picture of courtiers. Their Majesties had removed from Richmond to their temporary palace in Leicester-fields(100)on the very evening of their receiving notice of their accession to the Crown, and the next day all the nobility and gentry in town crowded to kiss their hands; my mother amongst the rest, who, Sir Spencer Compton's designation, and not its evaporation, being known, could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she descried by her Majesty than the Queen said aloud, "There, I am sure, I see a friend!" The torrent divided and shrunk to either side; "and as I came away," said my mother, "I might have walked over their heads if I had pleased." The preoccupation of the Queen in favour of Walpole must be explained. He had early discovered that, in whatever gallantries George Prince of Wales indulged or affected, even the person of his Princess was dearer to him than any charms in his mistresses; and though Mrs. Howard (afterwards Lady Suffolk) was openly his declared favourite, as avowedly as the Duchess of Kendal was his father's, Sir Robert's sagacity discerned that the power would be lodged with the wife, not with the mistress; and he not only devoted himself to the Princess; but totally abstained from even visiting Mrs. Howard; while the injudicious multitude concluded. that the common consequences of an inconstant husband's passion 'for his concubine would follow, and accordingly warmer, if not public vows were made to the supposed favourite, than to the Prince's consort. They, especially, who in the late reign had been out of favour at court, had, to pave their future path to favour, and to secure the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, sedulously, and no doubt zealously, dedicated themselves to the mistress: Bolingbroke secretly, his friend Swift openly, and as ambitiously, cultivated Mrs. Howard; and the neighbourhood of Pope's villa to Richmond facilitated their intercourse, though his religion forbade his entertaining views beyond those of serving his friends. Lord Bathurst, another of that connexion, and Lord Chesterfield, too early for his interest, founded their hopes on Mrs. Howard's influence; but astonished and disappointed at finding Walpole not shaken from his seat, they determined on an experiment that should be the touchstone of Mrs. Howard's credit. They persuaded her to demand of the new King an Earl's coronet for Lord Bathurst. She did-the Queen put in her veto, and Swift, in despair, returned to Ireland, to lament Queen Anne, and curse Queen Caroline, under the mask of patriotism, in a country he abhorred and despised.(101) To Mrs. Howard, Swift's ingratitude was base. She, indubitably, had not only exerted all her interest to second his and his faction's interests, but loved Queen Caroline and the minister as little as they did; yet, when Swift died, he left behind him a Character of Mrs. Howard by no means flattering, which was published in his posthumous works. On its appearance, Mrs. Howard (become Lady Suffolk) said to me, in her calm, dispassionate manner, "All I can say is, that it is very different from one that he drew of me, and sent to me, many years ago, and which I have, written by his own hand."(102 Lord Chesterfield, rather more ingenuous-as his character of her, but under a feigned name, was printed in his life, though in a paper of which he was not known to be the author-was not more consistent. Eudosia, described in the weekly journal called Common Sense, for September 10, 1737, was meant for Lady Suffolk: yet was it no fault of hers that he was proscribed at court; nor did she perhaps ever know, as he never did till the year before his death, when I acquainted him with it by his friend Sir John Irwin, why he had been put into the Queen's Index expurgatorius.(102) The queen had an obscure window at St. James's that looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night, which looked upon Mrs. Howard's apartment. Lord Chesterfield, one Twelfth-night at court, had won so large a sum of money, that he thought it imprudent to carry it home in the dark, and deposited it with the mistress. Thence the queen inferred great intimacy, and thenceforwards Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour from court- and finding himself desperate, went into opposition. My father himself long afterwards told me the story, and had become the principal object of the peer's satiric wit, though he had not been the mover of his disgrace. The weight of that anger fell more disgracefully on the king, as I shall mention in the next chapter. I will here interrupt the detail of what I have heard of the commencement of that reign, and farther anecdotes of the queen and the mistress, till I have related the second very memorable transaction of that era; and which would come in awkwardly, if postponed till I have despatched many subsequent particulars. (99) Sir Spencer Compton, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, was so far from resenting Sir Robert's superior talents, that he remained steadfastly -,attached to him; and when the famous motion for removing Sir Robert was made in both Houses, Lord Wilmington, though confined to his bed, and with his head blistered, rose and went to the House of Lords, to vote against a measure that avowed its own injustice, by being grounded only on popular clamour. (100) It was the town residence of the Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, of whom it was hired, as it was afterwards by Frederick, Prince of Wales, on a similar quarrel with his father. He added to it Savile House, belonging to Sir George Savile, for his children. (101) Mr. Croker, in his biographical notice of Lady Suffolk, prefixed to the edition of her Letters, thus satisfactorily confutes this anecdote: "On this it is to be observed, that George the Second was proclaimed on the 14th of June 1727, that Swift returned to Ireland in the September of the same year, and that the first creation of peers in that reign did not take place till the 28th of May 1728. Is it credible, that Mrs. Howard should have made such a request of the new King, and suffered so decided a refusal ten or eleven months before any peers were made? But, again, upon this first creation of peers Mrs. Howard's brother is the second name. Is it probable that, with so great an object for her own family in view, she risked a solicitation for Lord Bathurst? But that which seems most convincing, is Swift's own correspondence. In a letter to Mrs. of the 9th of July 1727, in which, rallying her on the solicitation to which the new King would be exposed, he says, - 'for my part, you may be secure, that I will never venture to recommend even a mouse to Mrs. Cole's cat, or a shoe-cleaner to your meanest domestic.'" Vol. i. p. xxv-E. (102) "This," says her biographer, "is a complete mistake, to give it no harsher name. The Character which Swift left behind, and which was published in his posthumous works, is the very same which Lady Suffolk had in her possession. If it be not flattering, it is to Swift's honour that he 'did not condescend to flatter her in the days of her highest favour; and the accusation of having written another less favourable, is wholly false." Ibid. vol. i. p. xxxviii.-E. (103) "It certainly would have been extraordinary," observes Mr. Croker, "that Lord Chesterfield, in 1137, when he was on terms of the most familiar friendship with Lady Suffolk, should have published a deprecatory character of her, and in revenge too, for being disgraced at court-Lady Suffolk being at the same time in disgrace also. But, unluckily for Walpole's conjecture, the character of Eudosia (a female savant, as the name imports,) has not the slightest resemblance to Lady Suffolk, and contains no allusion to courts or courtiers." Ibid. vol. ii. p. xxxiii-E. CHAPTER VI. Destruction of George the First's will. At the first council held by the new sovereign, Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the will of the late King, and delivered it to the successor, expecting it would be opened and read in council. On the contrary, his Majesty put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the room without uttering a word on the subject. The poor prelate was thunderstruck, and had not the presence of mind or the courage to demand the testament's being opened, or at least to have it registered. No man present chose to be more hardy than the person to whom the deposit had been trusted-perhaps none of them immediately conceived the possible violation of so solemn an act so notoriously existent; still, as the King never mentioned the will more, whispers only by degrees informed the public that the will was burnt; at least that its injunctions were never fulfilled. What the contents were was never ascertained. Report said, that forty thousand pounds had been bequeathed to the Duchess of Kendal; and more vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the Queen of Prussia, daughter of the late King. Of that bequest demands were afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son the great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much inveteracy. The legacy to the ]Duchess was some time after on the brink of coming to open and legal discussion. Lord Chesterfield marrying her niece and heiress, the Countess of Walsingham, and resenting his own proscription at court, was believed to have instituted, or at least to have threatened, a suit for recovery of the legacy to the Duchess, to which he was then become entitled; and it was as confidently believed that he was quieted by the payment of twenty thousand pounds. But if the Archbishop had too timidly betrayed the trust reposed in him from weakness and want of spirit, there were two other men who had no such plea of imbecility, and who, being independent, and above being awed, basely sacrificed their honour and their integrity for positive sordid gain. George the First had deposited duplicates of his will with two sovereign German princes: I will not specify them, because at this distance of time I do not, perfectly recollect their titles; but I was actually, some years ago, shown a copy of a letter from one of our ambassadors abroad to-a secretary of state at that period, in which the ambassador said, one of the princes in question would accept the proffered subsidy, and had delivered, or would deliver, the duplicate of the King's will. The other trustee, was no doubt, as little conscientious and as corrupt. It is pity the late King of Prussia did not learn their infamous treachery. Discoursing once with Lady Suffolk on that suppressed testament, she made the only plausible shadow of an excuse that could be made for George the Second. She told me that George the First had burnt two wills made in favour of his son. They were, probably, the wills of the Duke and Duchess of Zell; or one of them might be that of his mother, the Princess Sophia. The crime of the first George could only palliate, not justify, the criminality of the second; for the second did -not punish the maturity, but the innocent. But bad precedents are always dangerous, and too likely to be copied. (104) (104) On the subject of the royal will, Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. ii. p. 458, relates the following anecdote:-"The morning after the death of George the Second, Lord Waldegrave showed the Duke of Cumberland an extraordinary piece: it was endorsed, 'very private paper,' and was a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the first Earl of Waldegrave; in which his Grace informed the Earl, then our ambassador in France, that he had received by the messenger the copy of the will and codicil of George the First; that he had delivered it to his Majesty, who put it into the fire without opening it: 'So,' adds the Duke, 'we do not know whether it confirms the other or not;' and he proceeds to say, 'Despatch a messenger to the Duke Of Wolfenbuttle with the treaty, in which he is granted all he desired; and we expect, by return of the messenger, the original will from him.' George the First had left two wills; one in the hands of Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, the other with the Duke of Wolfenbuttle. He had been in the right to take these precautions: he himself had burned his wife's testament, and her and her father's, the duke of Zell; both of whom had made George the Second their heir--a paliative of the latter's obliquity, if justice would allow of any violation." From the following passage in Boswell's Life of Johnson, the Doctor appears to have given credence to the story of the will:--"tom Davies instanced Charles the Second; Johnson taking fire at an attack upon that prince, exclaimed, "charles the Second was licentious in his practice, but he always had a reverence for what was good; Charles the Second was not such a man as George the Second; he did not destroy his father's will' he did not betray those over whom he ruled' he did not let the French fleet pass ours.' He roared with prodigious violence against George the Second. When he ceased, Moody interjected, in an Irish tone, and a comic look, 'Ah! poor George the Second!'" See vol. v. p. 284, ed. 1835.-E. CHAPTER VII. History of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Miss Bellenden-Her Marriage with Colonel John Campbell, afterwards fourth Duke of Argyle-Anecdotes of Queen Caroline-her last Illness and Death-Anecdote of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-Last Years of George the Second-Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon-Lady Diana Spencer-Frederick, Prince of Wales-Sudden Removal of the Prince and Princess from Hampton Court to St. James's -Birth of a Princess-Rupture with the King-Anecdotes of Lady Yarmouth. I will now resume the story of Lady Suffolk whose history, though she had none of that influence on the transactions of the cabinet that was expected, will still probably be more entertaining to two young ladies than a magisterial detail of political events, the traces of which at least may be found in journals and brief chronicles of the times. The interior of courts, and the lesser features of history, are precisely those with which we are least acquainted,-I mean of the age preceding our own. Such anecdotes are forgotten in the multiplicity of those that ensue, or reside only in the memory of idle old persons, or have not yet emerged into publicity from the portefeuilles of such garrulous Brant`omes as myself. Trifling I will not call myself; for, while I have such charming disciples as you two to inform; and though acute or plodding politicians, for whom they are not meant, may condemn these pages; which is preferable, the labour of an historian who toils for fame and for applause from he knows not whom; or my careless commission to paper of perhaps insignificant passages that I remember, but penned for the amusement of a pair of such sensible and cultivated minds as I never met at so early an age, and whose fine eyes I do know will read me With candour, and allow me that mite of fame to which I aspire, their approbation of my endeavours to divert their evenings in the country? O Guicciardin! is posthumous renown so valuable as the satisfaction of reading these court-tales to the lovely Berrys? Henrietta Hobart was daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir John Hobart, Knight of the Bath on the revival of the order, and afterwards by her interest made a baron; and since created Earl of Buckinghamshire. She was first married to Mr. Howard, the younger brother of more than one Earl of Suffolk; to which title he at last succeeded himself, and left a son by her, who was the last earl of that branch. She had but the slender fortune of an ancient baronet's daughter; and Mr. Howard's circumstances were the reverse of opulent. It was the close of Queen Anne's reign: the young couple saw no step more prudent than to resort to Hanover, and endeavour to ingratiate themselves with the future sovereigns of England. Still so narrow was their fortune, that Mr. Howard finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers, Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful head of hair to pay for the expense. It must be recollected, that at that period were in fashion those enormous full-bottomed wigs, which often cost twenty and thirty guineas. Mrs. Howard was extremely acceptable to the intelligent Princess Sophia; but did not at that time make farther impression on the Electoral Prince, than, on his father's succession to the crown, to be appointed one of the bedchamber-women to the new Princess of Wales. The elder Whig politicians became ministers to the King. The most promising of the young lords and gentleman of that party, and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies, formed the new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The apartment of the bedchamber-woman in waiting became the fashionable evening rendez-vous of the most distinguished wits and beauties. Lord Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, Lord Scarborough, Carr Lord Hervey, elder brother of the more known John Lord Hervey, and reckoned to have superior parts, General (at that time only Colonel) Charles Churchill, and others not necessary to rehearse, were constant attendants: Miss Lepelle, afterwards Lady Hervey, my mother, Lady Walpole, Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity and pretty, Mrs. Howard, and above all for universal admiration, Miss Bellenden, one of the maids of honour. Her face and person were charming; lively she was almost to `etourderie; (105) and so agreeable she was, that I never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever knew. The Prince frequented the waiting-room, and soon felt a stronger inclination for her than he ever entertained but for his Princess. Miss Bellenden by no means felt a reciprocal passion. The Prince's gallantry was by no means delicate; and his avarice disgusted her. One evening sitting by her, he took out his purse and counted his money. He repeated the numeration: the giddy Bellenden lost her patience, and cried out, "Sir, I cannot bear it! if you count your money any more, I will go out of the room." The chink of the gold did not tempt her more than the person of his Royal Highness. In fact, her heart was engaged; and so the Prince, finding his love fruitless, suspected. He was even so generous as to promise her, that if she would discover the object of her Choice, and would engage not to marry without his privity, he would consent to the match, and would be kind to her husband. She gave him the promise he exacted, but without acknowledging the person; and then, lest his Highness should throw any obstacle in the way, married, without his knowledge, Colonel Campbell, one of the grooms of his bedchamber, and who long afterwards succeeded to the title of Argyle at the death of Duke Archibald. (106) The Prince never forgave the breach of her word; and whenever she went to the drawing-room, as from her husband's situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trembling at what she knew she was to undergo, the Prince always stepped up to her, and whispered some very harsh reproach in her ear. Mrs. Howard was the intimate friend of Miss Bellenden; had been the confidante of the Prince's passion; and, on Mrs. Campbell's eclipse, succeeded to her friend's post of favourite, but not to her resistance. >From the steady decorum of Mrs. Howard, I should conclude that she would have preferred the advantages of her situation to the ostentatious `eclat of it: but many obstacles stood in the way of total concealment; nor do I suppose that love had any share in the sacrifice she made of her virtue. She had felt poverty, and was far from disliking power. Mr. Howard was probably as little agreeable to her as he proved worthless. The King, though very amorous, was certainly more attracted by a silly idea he had entertained of gallantry being becoming, than by a love of variety; and he added the more egregious folly of fancying that inconstancy proved he was not governed; but so awkwardly did he manage that artifice, that it but demonstrated more clearly the influence of the Queen. With such a disposition, secrecy would by no means have answered his Majesty's views; yet the publicity of the intrigue was especially owing to Mr. Howard, who, far from ceding his wife quietly, went one night into the quadrangle of St. James's, and vociferously demanded her to be restored to him before the guards and other audience. Being thrust out, he sent a letter to her by the Archbishop of Canterbury, reclaiming her, and the Archbishop by his instructions consigned the summons to the Queen, who had the malicious pleasure of delivering the letter to her rival. (107) Such intemperate proceedings by no means invited the new mistress to leave the asylum of St. James's. She was safe while under the royal roof: even after the rupture between the King and Prince (for the affair commenced in the reign of the first George), and though the Prince, on quitting St. James's, resided in a private house, it was too serious an enterprise to attempt to take his wife by force out of the palace of the Prince of Wales. The case was altered, when, on the arrival of summer, their Royal Highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the entr`ee of the coach with the Princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her on the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John, Duke of Argyle, and his brother, the Earl of Islay, called for her in the coach of one of them by eight o'clock in the morning of the day, at noon of which the Prince and Princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond. During the summer a negotiation was commenced with the obstreperous husband, and he sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his wife for a pension of twelve hundred a-year. (108) These now little-known anecdotes of Mr. Howard's behaviour I received between twenty and thirty years afterwards, from the mouth of Lady Suffolk herself. She had left the court about the year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble Hill, at Twickenham, living very retired both there and in London. I purchased Strawberry Hill in 1747; and being much acquainted with the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of Lady Suffolk's intimates, was become known to her; though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court. Becoming neighbours, and both, after her second husband's death, living single and alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was extremely deaf, (109) and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the most recent facts was correct beyond belief. I, like you, was indulgent to, and fond of old anecdotes. Each of us knew different Parts of many court stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more; and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance, (110) before unknown to both. Those evenings, and I had many of them in autumnal nights, were extremely agreeable; and if this chain of minutiae proves so to you, you owe perhaps to those conversations the fidelity of my memory, which those repetitions recalled and stamped so lastingly. In this narrative will it be unwelcome to you, if I subjoin a faithful portrait of the heroine of this part? lady Suffolk was of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair; was remarkably genteel, and always well dressed with taste and simplicity. Those were her personal charms, for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful and those charms she retained with little diminution to her death at the age of seventy-nine. (111) Her mental qualifications were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were always in unison, and made her too circumstantial on trifles. She was discreet without being reserved; and having no bad qualities, and being constant to her connexions, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour was always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her friends even affecting to suppose, that her connexion with the King had been confined to pure friendship. Unfortunately, his Majesty's passions were too indelicate to have been confined to Platonic love for a woman who was deaf, (112)-sentiments he had expressed in a letter to the Queen, who, however jealous of Lady Suffolk, had latterly dreaded the King's contracting a new attachment to a younger rival, and had prevented Lady Suffolk from leaving the court as early as she had wished to do. "I don't know," said his Majesty, "why you will not let me part with an old deaf woman, of whom I am weary." Her credit had always been extremely limited by the Queen's superior influence, and by the devotion of the minister to her Majesty. Except a barony, a red riband, and a good place for her brother, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court with an income so little to be envied, that, though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own she found herself straitened; and, besides Marble Hill, did not at most leave twenty thousand pounds to her family. On quitting court, she married Mr. George Berkeley, and outlived him. (113) No established mistress of a sovereign ever enjoyed less of the brilliancy of the situation than Lady Suffolk. Watched and thwarted by the Queen, disclaimed by the minister, she owed to the dignity of her own behaviour, and to the contradiction of their enemies, the chief respect that was paid to her, and which but ill compensated for the slavery of her attendance, and the mortifications she endured. She was elegant; her lover the reverse, and most unentertaining, and void of confidence in her. His motions too were measured by etiquette and the clock. He visited her every evening at nine; but with such dull punctuality, that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten minutes with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute was not arrived. But from the Queen she tasted yet more positive vexations. Till she became Countess of Suffolk, she constantly dressed the Queen's bead, who delighted in subjecting her to such servile offices, though always apologizing to her good Howard. Often her Majesty had more complete triumph. It happened more than once, that the King, coming into the room while the Queen was dressing, has snatched off the handkerchief, and, turning rudely to Mrs. Howard, has cried, "Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the Queen's." It is certain that the King always preferred the Queen's person to that of any other woman; nor ever described his idea of beauty, but he drew the picture of his wife. Queen Caroline is said to have been very handsome at her marriage, soon after which she had the small-pox; but was little marked by it, and retained a most pleasing countenance. It was full of majesty or mildness as she pleased, and her penetrating eyes expressed whatever she had a mind they should. Her voice too was captivating, and her hands beautifully small, plump, and graceful. Her understanding was uncommonly strong; and so was her resolution. From their earliest connexion she had determined to govern the King, and deserved to do so; for her submission to his will was unbounded, her sense much superior, and his honour and interest always took place of her own: so that her love of power that was predominant, was dearly bought, and rarely ill employed. She was ambitious too of fame; but, shackled by her devotion to the King, she seldom could pursue that object. She wished to be a patroness of learned men but George had no respect for them or their works; and her Majesty's own taste was not very exquisite, nor did he allow her time to cultivate any studies. Her Generosity would have displayed itself, for she valued money but as the instrument of her good purposes: but he stinted her alike in almost all her passions; and though she wished for nothing more than to be liberal, she bore the imputation of his avarice, as she did of others of his faults. Often, when she had made prudent and proper promises of preferment, and could not persuade the King to comply, she suffered the breach of word to fall on her, rather than reflect on him. Though his affection and confidence in her were implicit, he lived in dread of being supposed to be governed by her; and that silly parade was extended even to the most private moments of business with my father. Whenever he entered, the Queen rose, courtesied, and retired or offered to retire. Sometimes the King condescended to bid her stay-on both occasions she and Sir Robert. had previously settled the business to be discussed. Sometimes the King would quash the proposal in question, and yield after retalking it over with her-but then he boasted to Sir Robert that he himself had better considered it. One of the Queen's delights was the improvement of the garden at Richmond; and the King believed she paid for all with her own money-nor would he ever look at her intended plans, saying he did not care how she flung away her own revenue. He little suspected the aids Sir Robert furnished to her from the treasury. When she died, she was indebted twenty thousand pounds to the King. Her learning I have said was superficial; her knowledge of languages as little accurate. The King, with a bluff Westphalian accent, spoke English correctly. The Queen's chief study was divinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened it. She was at least not orthodox; and her confidante, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance towards the less-believing clergy. The Queen, however, was so sincere at her death, that when Archbishop Potter was to administer the sacrament to her, she declined taking it, very few persons being in the room. When the prelate retired, the courtiers in the ante-room crowded round him, crying, "My lord, has the queen received?" His grace artfully eluded the question, only saying most devoutly , "Her Majesty was in a heavenly disposition"-and the truth escaped the public. She suffered more unjustly by declining to see her son, the Prince of Wales, to whom she sent her blessing and forgiveness; but conceiving the extreme distress it would lay on the King, should he thus be forced to forgive so impenitent a son, or to banish him again if once recalled, she heroically preferred a meritorious husband to a worthless child. The Queen's greatest error was too high an opinion of her own address and art; she imagined that all who did not dare to contradict her were imposed upon; and she had the additional weakness of thinking that she could play off @any persons without being discovered. That mistaken humour, and at other times her hazarding very offensive truths, made her many enemies; and her duplicity in fomenting jealousies between the ministers, that each might be more dependent on herself, was no sound wisdom. It was the Queen who blew into a flame the ill-blood between Sir Robert Walpole and his brother-in-law, Lord Townshend. Yet though she disliked some of the cabinet, she never let her own prejudices disturb the King's affairs, provided the obnoxious paid no court to the mistress. Lord Islay was the only man, who, by managing Scotland for Sir Robert Walpole, was maintained by him in spite of his attachment to Lady Suffolk. The Queen's great secret was her own rupture, which, till her last illness, nobody knew but the King, her German nurse, Mrs. Mailborne, and one other person. To prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift talking to her ladies (114) and though labouring with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning at Richmond she walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as vented the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper. It was great shrewdness in Sir Robert Walpole, who, before her distemper broke out, discovered her secret. On my mother's death, who was of the Queen's age, her Majesty asked Sir Robert many physical questions; but he remarked that she oftenest reverted to a rupture, which had not been the illness of his wife. When he came home, he said to me, "Now, Horace, I know by possession of what secret Lady Sundon (115)has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen." He was in the right. How Lady Sundon had wormed herself into that mystery was never known. As Sir Robert maintained his influence over the clergy by Gibson, Bishop of London, he often met with troublesome obstructions from Lady Sundon, who espoused, as I have said, the heterodox clergy; and Sir Robert could never shake her credit. Yet the Queen was constant in her protection of Sir Robert, and the day before she died gave a strong mark of her conviction that he was the firmest supporter the King had. As they two alone were standing by the Queen's bed, she pathetically recommended, not the minister to the sovereign, but the master to the servant. Sir Robert was alarmed, and feared the recommendation would leave a fatal impression; but a short time after, the King reading with Sir Robert some intercepted letters from Germany, which said that now the Queen was 'gone, Sir Robert would have no protection: "On the contrary," said the King, "you know she recommended me to you." This marked the notice he had taken of the expression; and it was the only notice he ever took of it: nay, his Majesty's grief was so excessive and so sincere, that his kindness to his minister seemed to increase for the Queen's sake. The Queen's dread of a rival was a feminine weakness; the behaviour of her elder son was a real thorn. He early displayed his aversion to his mother, who perhaps assumed too much at first; yet it is certain that her good sense, and the interest of her family, would have prevented, if possible, the mutual dislike of the father and son, and their reciprocal contempt. As the Opposition gave into all adulation towards the Prince, his ill-poised head and vanity swallowed all their incense. He even early after his arrival had listened to a high act of disobedience. Money he soon wanted: old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, (116) e ever proud and ever malignant, was persuaded to offer her favourite Granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer, afterwards Duchess of Bedford, to the Prince of' Wales, with a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. He accepted the proposal, and the day was fixed for their being secretly married at the Duchess's lodge in the Great park at Windsor. Sir Robert Walpole got intelligence of the project, prevented it, and the secret was buried in silence. Youth, folly, and indiscretion, the beauty of the young lady, and a large sum of ready money, might have offered something like a plea for so rash a marriage, had it taken place; but what could excuse, what indeed could provoke, the senseless and barbarous insult offered to the King and Queen, by Frederick's taking his wife out of the palace of Hampton Court in the middle of the night, when she was in actual labour, and carrying her, at the imminent risk of the lives of her and the child, to the unaired palace and bed at St. James's? Had he no way of affronting his parents but by venturing to kill his wife and the heir of the crown? A baby that wounds itself to vex its nurse is no more void of reflection. The scene which commenced by unfeeling idiotism closed with paltry hypocrisy. The Queen on the first notice of her son's exploits, set out for St. James's to visit the Princess by seven in the morning. The gracious Prince, so far from attempting an apology, spoke not a word to his mother; but on her retreat gave her his hand, led her into the street to her coach-still dumb!-but a crowd being assembled at the gate, he kneeled down in the dirt, and humbly kissed her Majesty's hand. Her indignation must have shrunk into contempt. After the death of the Queen, Lady Yarmouth (117) came over, who had been the King's mistress at Hanover during his latter journeys-and with the Queen's privity, for he always made her the of his amours; which made Mrs. Selwyn once tell him, he should be the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, for she knew he would tell the Queen. In his letters to the latter from Hanover, he said, "You must love the Walmoden, for she loves me." She was created a countess, and had much weight with him; but never employed her credit but to assist his ministers, or to convert some honours and favours to her own advantage. She had two sons, who both bore her husband's name; but the younger, though never acknowledged, was supposed the King's, and consequently did not miss additional homage from the courtiers. That incense being one of the recommendations to the countenance of Lady Yarmouth, drew Lord Chesterfield into a ridiculous distress. On his being made secretary of state, be found a fair young lad in the antechamber at St. James's, -who seeming much at home, the earl, concluding it was the mistress's son, was profuse of attentions to the boy, and more prodigal still of his prodigious regard for his mamma. The shrewd boy received all his lordship's vows with indulgence, and without betraying himself: at last he said, "I suppose your lordship takes me for Master Louis; but I am only Sir William Russel, one of the pages." The King's last years passed as regularly as clockwork. At nine at night he had cards in the apartment of his daughters, the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, with Lady Yarmouth, two or three of the late Queen's ladies, and as many of the most favoured officers of his own household. Every Saturday in summer he carried that uniform party, but without his daughters, to dine at Richmond: they went in coaches and six in the middle of the day , with the heavy horse-guards kicking up the dust before them-dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade; and his Majesty fancied himself the most gallant and lively prince in Europe. His last year was glorious and triumphant beyond example; and his death was most felicitous to himself, being without a Pang, without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have swelled to calamities. (118) (105) She is thus described in a ballad, made upon the quarrel between George the First and the Prince of Wales, at the christening recorded at p. 83 when the Prince and all his household were ordered to quit St. James's:- "But Bellenden we needs must praise, Who, as down the stairs she jumps, Sings over the hills and far away, Despising doleful dumps."-E. (106) Colonel John Campbell succeeded to the dukedom in 1761: Mrs. Campbell died in 1736. She was the mother of the fifth Duke of Argyle and three other sons, and of Lady Caroline, who married, first, the Earl of Aylesbury, and, secondly, Walpole's bosom friend, Marshal Conway.-E. (107) "The letter which Walpole alludes to," says Mr. Croker, "is in existence. It is not a letter from Mr. Howard to his lady, but from the Archbishop to the Princess; and although his grace urges a compliance with Mr. Howard's demand of the restoration of his wife, he treats it not as a matter between them, but as an attack on the Princess herself, whom the Archbishop considers as the direct protectress of Mrs. Howard, and the immediate cause of her resistance. So that in this letter at least there is no ground for imputing to Mrs. Howard any rivalry with the Princess, or to the Princess any malicious jealousy of Mrs. Howard." Vol. i. p. xiv.-E. (108) Mr. Croker asserts, that "neither in Mrs. Howard's correspondence with the King, nor in the notes of her conversation with the Queen, nor in any of her most confidential papers, has he found a single trace of the feeling which Walpole so confidently imputes." Upon this assertion, Sir Walter Scott, in a review of the Suffolk Correspondence, pleasantly remarks,-"We regret that the editor's researches have not enabled him to state, whether it is true that the restive husband sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his lady for a pension of twelve hundred a-year. For our own parts, without believing all Walpole's details, we substantially agree in his opinion, that the King's friendship was by no means Platonic or refined; but that the Queen and Mrs. Howard, by mutual forbearance, good sense, and decency, contrived to diminish the scandal: after all, the question has no great interest for the present generation, since scandal is only valued when fresh, and the public have generally enough of that poignant fare, without ripping up the frailties of their grandmothers." Sir Walter sums up his notice of the inaccuracies occurring in these Reminiscences, with the following just and considerate reflection: "When it is recollected that the noble owner of Strawberry Hill was speaking of very remote events, which he reported on hearsay, and that hearsay of old standing, such errors are scarcely to be wondered at, particularly when they are found to correspond with the partialities and prejudices of the narrator. These, strengthening as we grow older, gradually pervert or at least alter, the accuracy of our recollections, until they assimilate them to our feelings, while, "As beams of warm imagination play, The memory's faint traces melt away. See Prose Works, vol. xix. p. 201.-E. (109) Pope alludes to this personal defect in his lines "On a certain Lady at court:" "I know a thing that's most uncommon; (Envy be silent, and attend!) I know a reasonable woman, handsome and witty, yet a friend. Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour; Not grave through pride, or gay through folly-- An equal mixture of good humour And sensible, soft melancholy. 'Has she no faults then,' (Envy says,) 'Sir?' 'Yes, she has one, I must aver; When all the world conspires to praise her-- The woman's deaf, and does not hear.'"-E. (110) The same thing has happened to me by books. A passage lately read has recalled some other formerly perused; and both together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which neither separately would have expounded. (111) Lady Suffolk died in July, 1767.-E. (112) Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden, the surgeon, then in favour at court, persuaded her that he had hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a condemned convict then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the man could be pardoned, he would try it; and, if he succeeded, would practise the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man's pardon, who was cousin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended discovery to save his relation-and no more was heard of the experiment. The man saved his ear too-but Cheselden was disgraced at court. (113) Lady Suffolk formally retired from court in 1734, and in the following year married the Honourable George Berkeley, youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of St. Catherine's, in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments as member for Dover. He died in 1746.-E. (114) While the Queen dressed, prayers used to be read in the outward room, where hung a naked Venus. Mrs. Selwyn, bedchamber-woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the chaplain, Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, begin the service. He said archly, "And a very proper altar-piece is here, Madam!" Queen Anne had the same custom; and once ordering the door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The Queen sent to ask why he did not proceed. He replied, "he would not whistle the word of God through the keyhole." (115) Mrs. Clayton, wife of Robert Clayton, Esq. of the Treasury, bedchamber-woman to the Queen. This lady, who had the art to procure her husband to be created Lord Sundon, possessed over her royal mistress an influence of which even Sir Robert Walpole was jealous.-E. (116) That woman, who had risen to greatness and independent wealth by the weakness of another Queen, forgot, like Duc d'Epernon, her own unmerited exultation, and affected to brave successive courts, though sprung from the dregs of one. When the Prince of Orange came over to marry the Princess Royal, Anne, a boarded gallery with a penthouse roof was erected for the procession from the windows of the great drawing-room at St. James's cross the garden to the Lutheran chapel in the friary. The Prince being indisposed, and going to Bath, the marriage was deferred for some weeks, and the boarded gallery remained, darkening the windows of Marlborough House. The Duchess cried, "I wonder when my neighbour George will take away his orange-chest!"--which it did resemble. She did not want that sort of wit,* which ill-temper, long knowledge of the world, and insolence can sharpen-and envying the favour which she no longer possessed, Sir R. Walpole was often the object of her satire. Yet her great friend, Lord Godolphin, the treasurer, had enjoined her to preserve very different sentiments. The Duchess and my father and mother were standing by the Earl's bed at St. Albans as he was dying. Taking Sir Robert by the hand, Lord Godolphin turned to the Duchess, and said, "Madam, should 'you ever desert this young man, and there should be a possibility of returning from the grave, I shall certainly appear to you." Her grace did not believe in spirits. * Baron Gleicken, minister from Denmark to France, being at Paris soon after the King his master had been there, and a French lady being so ill-bred as to begin censuring the King to him, saying, "Ah! Monsieur, c'est une t`ete!"-"Couronn`ee," replied he instantly, stopping her by so gentle a hint. (117) Amelia Sophia, wife of the Baron de Walmoden, Created Countess of Yarmouth in 1739. (118) For an interesting account of the death of George the Second, on the 24th of October, 1760, and also of his funeral in Westminster Abbey, see Walpole's letters to Mr. Montagu on the 25th of that month, and of the 13th of November.-E. CHAPTER VIII. George the Second's Daughters-Anne, Princess of Orange-Princess Amelia-Princess Caroline-Lord Hervey-Duke of Cumberland. I am tempted to drain my memory of all its rubbish, and will set down a few more of my recollections, but with less method than I have used in the foregoing pages. I have said little or nothing of the King's two unmarried daughters. Though they lived in the palace with him, he never admitted them to any share in his politics; and if any of the ministers paid them the compliment of seeming attachment, it was more for the air than for the reality. The Princess Royal, Anne, married in Holland, was of a most imperious and ambitious nature; and on her mother's death, hoping to succeed to her credit, came to Holland on pretence of ill health; but the King, aware of her plan, Was so offended that he sent her to Bath as soon as she arrived, and as peremptorily back to Holland-I think, without suffering her to pass two nights in London. Princess Amelia, as well disposed to meddle, was confined to receiving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love with her; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connexion with her there was more reality. Princess Caroline, one of the most excellent of women, was devoted to the Queen, who, as well as the King, had such confidence in her veracity, that on any disagreement among their children, they said, "Stay, send for Caroline, and then we shall know the truth." The memorable Lord Hervey had dedicated himself to the Queen, and certainly towards her death had gained great ascendance with her. She had made him privy-seal; and as he took care to keep as well with Sir Robert Walpole, no man stood in a more prosperous light. But Lord Hervey, who handled all the weapons of a court, (119) had also made a deep impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline; and as there was a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the court was often on the point of being disturbed by the enmity of the favourites of the two Princesses. The death of the Queen deeply affected her daughter Caroline; and the change of the ministry four years after, dislodged Lord Hervey whom for the Queen's sake the King would have saved, and who very ungratefully satirized the King in a ballad, as if he had sacrificed him voluntarily. Disappointment, rage, and a distempered constitution carried Lord Hervey off, and overwhelmed his Princess - she never appeared in public after the Queen's death; and, being dreadfully afflicted with the rheumatism, never stirred out of her apartment, and rejoiced at her own dissolution some years before her father. Her sister Amelia leagued herself with the Bedford faction during the latter part of her father's life. When he died, she established herself respectably; but enjoying no favour with her nephew, and hating the Princess-dowager, she made a plea of her deafness, and soon totally abstained from St. James's. The Duke of Cumberland, never, or very rarely, interfered in politics. Power he would have liked, but never seemed to court it. His passion would have been to command the army, and he would, I doubt, have been too ready to aggrandize the crown by it: but successive disgusts weaned his mind from all pursuits, and the grandeur of his sense, (120) and philosophy made him indifferent to a world that had disappointed all his views. The unpopularity which the Scotch and Jacobites spread against him for his merit in suppressing the rebellion, his brother's jealousy, and the contempt he himself felt for the Prince, his own ill success in his battles abroad, and his father's treacherous sacrifice of him on the convention of Closterseven, the dereliction of his two political friends, Lord Holland and Lord Sandwich, and the rebuffing spite of the Princess-dowager; all those mortifications centring on a constitution evidently tending to dissolution, made him totally neglect himself, and ready to shake off being, as an encumbrance not worth the attention of a superior understanding. >From the time the Duke first appeared on the stage of the public, all his father's ministers had been blind to his Royal Highness's capacity, or were afraid of it. Lord Granville, too giddy himself to sound a young Prince, had treated him arrogantly when the King and the Earl had projected a match for him with the Princess of Denmark. The Duke, accustomed by the Queen and his governor, Mr. Poyntz, to venerate the wisdom of Sir Robert Walpole, then on his death-bed, sent Mr. Poyntz, the day but one before Sir Robert expired, to consult him how to avoid the match. Sir Robert advised his Royal Highness to stipulate for an ample settlement. The Duke took the sage counsel, and heard no more of his intended bride. The low ambition of Lord Hardwicke, the childish passion for power of the Duke of Newcastle, and the peevish jealousy of Mr. Pelham, combined on the death of the Prince of Wales, to exclude the Duke of Cumberland from the regency (in case of minority,) and to make them flatter themselves that they should gain the favour of the Princess-dowager by cheating her with the semblance of power. The Duke resented the slight, but scorned to make any claim. The Princess never forgave the insidious homage; and, in concurrence with Lord Bute, totally estranged the affection of the young King from his uncle, nor allowed him a shadow of influence. (119) He had broken with Frederick, Prince of Wales, on having shared the favours of his mistress, Miss Vane, one of the Queen's maids of honour. When she fell in labour at St. James's, and was delivered of a son, which she ascribed to the Prince, Lord Hervey and Lord Harrington each told Sir Robert Walpole that he believed himself father of the child. (120) the Duke, in his very childhood, gave a mark of his sense and firmness. He had displeased the Queen, an(f she sent him up to his chamber. When he appeared again, he was sullen. "William," said the Queen, "what have you been doing?"-- "Reading."--"Reading what?"--"The Bible."--"And what did you read there?"--"About Jesus and Mary.=--"And what about them?"--"Why, that Jesus said to Mary, Woman! what hast thou to do with me?" CHAPTER IX. Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-and of Catherine Duchess of Buckingham. I have done with royal personages: shall I add a codicil on some remarkable characters that I remember? As I am writing for young ladies, I have chiefly dwelt on heroines of your own sex; they, too, shall compose my last chapter: enter the Duchesses of Marlborough and Buckingham. Those two women were considerable personages in their day. The first, her own beauty, the superior talents of her husband in war, and the caprice of a feeble princess, raised to the highest pitch of power; and the prodigious wealth bequeathed to her by her lord, and accumulated in concert with her, gave her weight in a free country. The other, proud of royal, though illegitimate birth, was, from the vanity of that birth, so zealously attached to her expelled brother, the Pretender, that she never ceased labouring to effect his restoration; and, as the opposition to the House of Brunswick was composed partly of principled Jacobites-of Tories, who either knew not what their own principles were, or dissembled them to themselves, and of Whigs, who, from hatred of the minister, both acted in concert with the Jacobites and rejoiced in their assistance-two women of such wealth, rank, and enmity to the court, were sure of great attention from all the discontented. The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough had always been of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together, her beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair. One day at her toilet, in anger to him, she cut off those commanding tresses, and flung them in his face. Nor did her insolence stop there, nor stop till it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor Queen, her mistress. The Duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her fan and gloves, and turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells. Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children and inferiors with supercilious contempt. Her eldest daughter (121) and she were long at variance, and never reconciled. When the young Duchess exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph, of her own composition and bad spelling, to Congreve, in Westminster Abbey, her mother, quoting the words, said, "I know not what pleasure she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour."(122) With her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, old Sarah agreed as ill. "I wonder," said the Duke of Marlborough to them, "that you cannot agree, you are so alike!" Of her granddaughter, the Duchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, she affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Duchess of Manchester, you are a good creature, and I love you mightily-but you have a mother!"-"And she has a mother!" answered the Duchess of Manchester, who was all spirit, justice, and honour, and could not suppress sudden truth. One of old Marlborough's capital mortifications sprang from a granddaughter. The most beautiful of her four charming daughters, Lady Sunderland,(123) left two sons,(124) the second Duke of Marlborough, and John Spencer, who became her heir, and Anne Lady Bateman, and Lady Diana Spencer, whom I have mentioned, and who became Duchess of Bedford. The Duke and his brother, to humour their grandmother, were in opposition, though the eldest she never loved. He had good sense, infinite generosity, and not more economy than was to be expected from a young man of warm passions and such vast expectations. He was modest and diffident too, but could not digest total dependence on a capricious and avaricious grandmother. HIS sister, Lady Bateman, had the intriguing spirit of her father and grandfather, Earls of Sunderland. She was connected with Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland, and both had great influence over the Duke of Marlborough. What an object would it be to Fox to convert to the court so great a subject as the Duke! Nor was it much less important to his sister to give him a wife, who, with no reasons for expectation of such shining fortune, should owe the obligation to her. Lady Bateman struck the first stroke, and persuaded her brother to marry a handsome young lady, who, unluckily, was daughter of Lord Trevor, who had been a bitter enemy to his grandfather, the victorious Duke. The grandam's rage exceeded all bounds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman, she blackened the face, and wrote on it, "Now her outside is as black as her inside." The duke she turned out of the little lodge in Windsor Park; and then pretending that the new Duchess and her female cousins (eight Trevors) had stripped the house and gardens, she had a puppet-show made with waxen figures, representing the Trevors tearing up the shrubs, and the Duchess carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm. Her fury did but increase when Mr. Fox prevailed on the Duke to go over to the court. With her coarse intemperate humour, she said, "that was the Fox that had stolen her goose." Repeated injuries at last drove the Duke to go to law with her. Fearing that even no lawyer would come up to the Billingsgate with which she was animated herself, she appeared in the court of justice, and with some wit and infinite abuse, treated the laughing public with the spectacle of a woman who had held the reigns of empire, metamorphosed into the widow Black-acre. Her grandson, in his suit, demanded a sword set with diamonds, given to his grandsire by the Emperor. "I retained it," said the beldam, " lest he should pick out the diamonds and pawn them." I will repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked with those jewels, paid a visit to the old Duchess; who, as soon as she was gone, said, "What an impudent creature, to come hither with her bribe in her ear!" "Madam," replied Lady Mary Wortley, who was present, "how should people know where wine' is sold, unless a bush is hung out?" The Duchess of Buckingham was as much elated by owing her birth to James II.(125) as the Marlborough was by the favour of his daughter. Lady Dorchester,(126) the mother of the former, endeavoured to curb that pride, and, one should have thought, took an effectual method, though one few mothers would have practised. "You need not be so vain," said the old profligate, "for you are not the King's daughter, but Colonel Graham's." Graham was a fashionable man of those days and noted for dry humour. His legitimate daughter, the Countess of Berkshire, was extremely like to the Duchess of Buckingham: "Well! well!" said Graham, "Kings are all powerful, and one must not complain; but certainly the same man begot those two women." To discredit the wit of both parents, the Duchess never ceased labouring to restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her filial devotion to it. Frequent were her journeys to the Continent for that purpose. She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor Benedictine of the convent, observing her filial piety, took notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin was become threadbare-and so it remained. Finding all her efforts fruitless, and perhaps aware that her plots were not undiscovered by Sir Robert Walpole, who was remarkable for his intelligence, she made an artful double, and resolved to try what might be done through him himself. I forget how she contracted an acquaintance with him: I do remember that more than once he received letters from the Pretender himself, which probably were transmitted through her. Sir Robert always carried them to George II. who endorsed and returned them. That negotiation not succeeding. the Duchess made a more home push. Learning his extreme fondness for his daughter, (afterwards Lady Mary Churchill,) she sent for Sir Robert, and asked him if he recollected what had not been thought too great a reward to Lord Clarendon for restoring the royal family? He affected not to understand her. "Was not he allowed," urged the zealous Duchess, "to match his daughter to the Duke of York?" Sir Robert smiled, and left her. Sir Robert being forced from court, the Duchess thought the moment (127) favourable, and took a new journey to Rome; but conscious of the danger she might run of discovery, she made over her estate to the famous Mr. Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath), and left the deed in his custody. What was her astonishment, when on her return she redemanded the instrument!-It was mislaid-he could not find it-he never could find it! The Duchess grew clamorous. At last his friend Lord Mansfield told him plainly,- he could never show his face unless he satisfied the Duchess. Lord Bath did then sign a release to her of her estate. The transaction was recorded in print by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in a pamphlet that had great vogue, called a Congratulatory Letter, with many other anecdotes of the same personage, and was not less acute than Sir Charles's Odes on the same here. The Duchess dying not long after Sir Robert's entrance into the House of Lords, Lord Oxford, one of her executors, told him there, that the Duchess had struck Lord Bath out of her will, and made him, Sir Robert, one of her trustees in his room. "Then," said Sir Robert, laughing, @ I see, my lord, that I have got Lord Bath's place before he has got mine." Sir Robert had artfully prevented the last. Before he quitted the King, he persuaded his Majesty to insist, as a preliminary to the change, that Mr. Pulteney should go into the House of Peers, his great credit lying in the other house; and I remember my father's action when he returned from court and told me what he had done-,, I have turned the key of the closet on him,"-making that motion with his hand. Pulteney had jumped at the proffered earldom, but saw his error when too late; and was so enraged at his own oversight, that, when he went to take the oaths in the House of Lords, he dashed his patent on the floor, and vowed he would never take it up-but he had kissed the King's hand for it, and it was too late to recede. But though Madam of Buckingham could not effect a coronation to her will, she indulged her pompous mind with such puppet-shows as were appropriate to her rank. She had made a funeral for her husband as splendid as that of the great Marlborough: she renewed that pageant for her only son, a weak lad, who died under age; and for herself; and prepared and decorated -waxen dolls of him and of herself to be exhibited in glass-cases in Westminster Abbey. It was for the procession at her son's burial that she wrote to old Sarah of Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had transported the corpse of the Duke. "It carried my Lord Marlborough," replied the other, and shall never be used for any body else." "I have consulted the undertaker," replied the Buckingham, and he tells me I may have a finer for twenty pounds." One of the last acts of Buckingham's life was marrying a grandson she had to a daughter of Lord Hervey. That intriguing man, sore, as I have said, at his disgrace, cast his eyes every where to revenge or exalt himself. Professions or recantations of any principles cost him nothing: at least the consecrated day which was appointed for his first interview with the Duchess made it presumed, that to obtain her wealth, with her grandson for his daughter, he must have sworn fealty to the House of Stuart. It was on the martyrdom of her grandfather: she received him in the great drawing-room of Buckingham House, seated in a chair of state, in deep mourning, attended by her women in like weeds, in memory of the royal martyr. It will be a proper close to the history of those curious ladies to mention the anecdote of Pope relative to them. Having drawn his famous character of Atossa, he communicated it to each Duchess, pretending it was levelled at the other. The Buckingham believed him: the Marlborough had more sense, and knew herself, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress it;-and yet he left the copy behind him!(128) Bishop Burnet, from absence of mind, had drawn as strong a picture of herself to the Duchess of Marlborough, as Pope did under covert of another lady. Dining with the Duchess after the Duke's disgrace, Burnet was comparing him to Belisarius: "But how," said she, "could so great a general be so abandoned?" "Oh! Madam," said the Bishop, "do not you know what a brimstone of a wife he had'!" Perhaps you know this anecdote, and perhaps several others that I have been relating. No matter; they will go under the article of my dotage-and very properly-I began with tales of my nursery, and prove that I have been writing in my second childhood. H. W. January 13th, 1789. (121) The Lady Henrietta, married to Lord Godolphin, who, by act of Parliament, succeeded as Duchess of Marlborough. She died in 1738, childless; and the issue of her next sister, Lady Sunderland, succeeded to the duchy of Marlborough.-E. (122) "For reasons," says Dr. Johnson, "either not known, or not mentioned, Congreve bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds to the Duchess; the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."-E. (123) Lady Sunderland was a great politician; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interests she wished to influence. (124) She had an elder son, who died young, while only Earl of Sunderland. He had parts, and all the ambition of his parents and of his family (which his younger brother had not); but George II. had conceived such an aversion to his father, that he would not employ him. The young Earl at last asked Sir Robert Walpole for an ensigncy in the Guards. The minister, astonished at so humble a request from a man of such consequence, expressed his surprise. "I ask it," said the young lord, "to ascertain whether it is determined that I shall never have any thing." He died soon after at Paris. (125) By Catherine Sedley, created by her royal lover Countess of Dorchester for life.-E. (126) Lady Dorchester is well known for her wit, and for saying that she wondered for what James chose his mistresses: "We are none of us handsome," said she; "and if we have wit, he has not enough to find it out." But I do not know whether it is as public, that her style was gross and shameless. Meeting the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Orkney, the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George the First, "God!" said she, "who would have thought that we three whores should have met here?" Having, after the King's abdication, married Sir David Collyer, by whom she had two sons, she said to them, " If any body should call you sons of a whore, you must bear it; for you are so: but if they call you bastards, fight till you die; for you are an honest man's sons." Susan, Lady Bellasis, another of King James's mistresses, had wit too, and no beauty. Mrs. Godfrey had neither. Grammont has recorded why she was chosen. (127) I am not quite certain that, writing by memory at the distance of fifty years, I place that journey exactly at the right period, nor whether it did not take place before Sir Robert's fall. Nothing material depends on the precise period. (128) The story is thus told by Dr. Warton:-" These lines were shown to her grace, as if they were intended for the portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham; but she soon stopped the person who was reading them to her, as the Duchess of Portland informed me, and called out aloud, "I cannot be so imposed upon; I see plainly enough for whom they are designed;" and abused Pope most plentifully on the subject: though she was afterwards reconciled to him, and courted him, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress this portrait, which he a accepted, it is said, by the persuasion of Mrs. M. Blount; and, after the Duchess's death, it was printed in a folio sheet, 1746, and afterwards inserted in his Moral Essays. This is the greatest blemish on our poet's moral character."-E. The following extracts from Letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, were copied by me from the original letters addressed to the Earl of Stair, left by him to Sir David Dalrymple, his near relative, and lent to me by Sir David's brother, Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, long employed as Geographer in the service of the East India company. They formed part of a large volume of ms. letters, chiefly from the same person. The Duchess of Marlborough's virulence, her prejudices, her style of writing, are already well known, and every line of these extracts will only serve to confirm the same opinion of all three. But it will, probably, be thought curious thus to be able to compare the notes of the opposite political parties, and their different account of the same trifling facts, magnified by the prejudices of both into affairs of importance. January, 1840 EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, TO THE EARL OF STAIR, ILLUSTRATIVE OF "THE REMINISCENCES." (NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.) (See Reminiscences, p. 97.) London, Feb. 24th, 1738. . . . . As to Norfolk House, (129) I have heard there is a great deal of company, and that the Princess of Wales, tho' so very young, behaves so as to please every body; and I think her conversation is much more proper and decent for a drawing-room than the wise queen Caroline's was, who never was half an hour without saying something shocking to some body or other, even when she intended to oblige, and generally very improper discourse for a public room. [See p. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii] London, December 24th, 1737. My Lord, I received the favour of yours of the 17th December yesterday. I have nothing material to say to you since my last. His Majesty saw the Queen's women servants first, which was a very mournful sight, for they all cried extremely; and his Majesty was so affected that he began to speak, but went out of the room to recover himself. And yesterday he saw the foreign ministers and his horses, which I remember Dean Swift gives a great character of; and was very sorry to leave them for the conversation of his countrymen in England.; and I think he was much in the right. [See P. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii) Marlborough House, Nov. 15, 1737. It is not many days since I wrote to your lordship by post, but one can't be sure those letters are sent. However, I have a mind to give you an account of what, perhaps, you may not have so particularly from any other hand. This day, se'nnight the Queen was taken extremely ill; the physicians were sent for, and from the account that was given, they treated her as if she had the gout in her stomach: but, upon a thorough investigation of the matter, a surgeon desired that she would put her hand where the pain was that she complained of, which she did; and the surgeon, following her hand with his, found it was a very large rupture, which had been long Concealed. Upon this, immediately they cut it, and some little part of the gut, which was discoloured. Few of the knowing people have had any hopes for many days; for they still apprehend a mortification, and she can't escape it unless the physicians can make something pass thro' her, which they have not yet been able to do in so many days. The King and the Royal Family have taken leave of her more than once; and his Majesty has given her leave to make her will, which she has done; but I fancy it will be in such a manner that few, if any, will know what her money amounts to. Sir Robert Walpole was in Norfolk, and came to -London but last night. I can't but think he must be extremely uneasy at this misfortune; for I have a notion that many of his troops will slacken very much, if not quite leave him, when they see he has lost his sure support. But there is so much folly, and mean corruption, etc. London, December 1st, 1737. . . . . As to what has passed in the Queen's illness, and since her death, one can't depend on much one hears; and they are things that it is no great matter whether they are true or false. But one thing was odd: whether out of folly, or any thing else, I can't say, but the Duke of Newcastle did not send Sir Robert Walpole news of her illness, nor of her danger, as soon as he might have done; and after he came to town, which was but a few days before she died, and when she could no more live than she can now come out of her coffin, the physicians, and all that attended her, were ordered to say she was better, and that they had some hopes. What the use of that was I cannot conceive. And the occasion of her death is still pretended to be a secret: yet it is known that she had a rupture, and had it for many years; that she had imposthumes that broke, and that some of the guts were mortified. This is another mystery which I don't comprehend; for what does it signify what one dies of, except the pain it gives more than common dissolutions? etc. [See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii) I AM Of the opinion, from woful experience, that, from flattery and want of understanding, most princes are alike; and, therefore, it is to no purpose to argue against their passions, but to defend ourselves, at all events, against them. [See P. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII] Wimbledon, 17th Aug. 1737. There has been a very extraordinary quarrel at court, which, I believe, nobody will give you so exact an account of as myself. The 31st of last month the Princess fell in labour. The King and Queen both knew that she was to lie in -,it St. James's, where every thing was prepared. It was her first child, and so little a way to London, that she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to London, where she had all the assistance that could be, and every thing prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and might be forced to make use of a country midwife. There was not a minute's time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials; the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St. James's, in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach like footmen. They got to St. James's safe, and she was brought to bed in one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but did not come till it was all over. However, she expressed a great deal of anger to the Prince for having carried her away, tho' she and the child were very well. I should have thought it had been most natural for a grandmother to have said she had been mightily frightened, but was glad it was so well over. The Prince said all the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and the King, desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away as he did without acquainting his Majesty with it: and, I believe, all human creatures will allow that this was natural, for a man not to debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute's time in ceremony, which was very useless, considering that it is a great while since the King has spoke to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the King, but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said Wednesday was time enough; and, indeed, in that I think her Majesty was in the right. the Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a most submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for what he had done. And this conversation ended, that he hoped his Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers should be; and that he left all the directions of the christening to his Majesty's pleasure. The queen answered that it would be thought the asking the King to be godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to do it. When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not have had him done, there was a great concourse of people; and, notwithstanding all that had passed before, she expressed so much kindness that she hugged and kissed him with great passion. the King, after this, sent a message in writing, by my Lord Essex, in the following words:-that his Majesty looked upon what the Prince had done, in carrying the Princess to London in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree, and forbid him the Court. I must own I cleared Sir Robert in my own mind of this counsel, thinking he was not in town: but it has proved otherwise, for he was in town; and the message is drawn up in such a manner that nobody doubts of its being done by sir Robert. All the sycophants and agents of the court spread millions of falsities on this occasion; and all the language there was, that this was so great a crime that even those who went with the Prince ought to be proscribed. How this will end nobody yet knows; at least I am sure I don't; but I know there was a council today held at Hampton court. I have not heard yet of any christening being directed, but for that I am in no manner of pain: for, if it be never christened, I think 'tis in a better state than a great many devout people that I know. Some talk as if they designed to take the child away from the Princess, to be under the care of her Majesty, who professes vast kindness to the Princess; and all the anger is at the Prince. Among common subjects I think the law is, that nobody that has any interest in an estate is to have any thing to do with the person who is heir to it. What prejudice this sucking child can do to the crown I don't see; but, to be sure, her Majesty will be very careful of it. What I apprehend most. is, that the crown will be lost long before this little Princess can possibly enjoy it; and, if what I have heard to-day be true, I think the scheme of France is going to open; for I was told there was an ambassador to come from France whose goods had been landed in England, and that they have been sent back. But I won't answer for the truth of that, as I will upon every thing else in this letter. [See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII] June 20th, 1738. My Lord, I write to you this post, to give you an account of what I believe nobody else will so particularly, that Madame Walmond (130) was presented in the drawing-room to his Majesty on Thursday. As she arrived some days before, there can be no doubt that it was not the first meeting, tho' the manner of her reception had the appearance of it; for his Majesty went up to her and kissed her on both sides, which is an honour, I believe, never any lady had from a king in public. And when his Majesty went away, Lord Harrington presented the great men in the ministry and the foreign ministers in the drawing-room; the former of which performed their part with the utmost respect and submission. This is, likewise, quite new; for, though all kings have had mistresses, they were attended at their own lodgings, and not in so public a manner. I conclude they performed that ceremony too; but they could not lose the first opportunity of paying their respects, though ever so improperly. These great men were, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole, my Lord Wilmington, my Lord Harrington, and Mr. Pelham. My Lord Hervey had not the honour to be on the foot of a minister. . . . I have nothing more to say, but that this Madame Walmond is at present in a mighty mean dirty lodging in St. James's Street. Her husband came with her, but he is going away; and that house that was Mr. Seymour's, in Hyde Park, which opens into the King's garden, is fitting up for her; -and the Duchess of Kendal's lodgings are making ready for her at St. James's. There is nothing more known at present as to the settlement, but that directions are given for one upon the establishment of Ireland. perhaps that mayn't exceed the Duchess of Kendal's, which was three thousand pounds a-year. But 'tis easy for the first minister to increase that as she pleases. [See p. 101.] London, December 3rd, 1737. I saw one yesterday that dined with my Lord Fanny, (131) who, as soon as he had dined, was sent for to come up to his Majesty, and there is all the appearance that can be of great favour to his lordship. I mentioned him in my last, and I will now give you an account of some things concerning his character, that I believe you don't know. What I am going to say I am sure is as true as if I had been a transactor in it myself. And I will begin the relation with Mr. Lepelle, my Lord Fanny's wife's father, having made her a cornet in his regiment as soon as she was born, which is no more wrong to the design of an army than if she had been a son: and she was paid many years after she was a maid of honour. She was extreme forward and pert; and my Lord Sunderland got her a pension of the late King, it being too ridiculous to continue her any longer an officer in the army. And into the bargain, she was to be a spy; but what she could tell to deserve a pension, I cannot comprehend. However, King George the First used to talk to her very much; and this encouraged my Lord Fanny and her to undertake a very extraordinary project: and she went to the drawing-room every night, and publicly attacked his Majesty in a most vehement manner, insomuch that it was the diversion of all the town; which alarmed the Duchess of Kendal, and the ministry that governed her, to that degree, lest the King should be put in the opposers' hands, that they determined to buy my Lady H- off; and they gave her 4000 pounds to desist, which she did, and my Lord Fanny bought a good house with it, and furnished it very well. [See p. 106. Reminiscences, Chapter IX] London, March 19th, 1738. My Lord, I have received the favour of yours of the 11th by the post, but not that which you mention by another hand. And since you can like such sort of accounts as I am able to give you, I will continue to do it. I think it is very plain now that Sir Robert don't think it worth his while to make any proposals where it was once suspected he would. And his wedding was celebrated as if he had been King of France, and the apartments furnished in the richest manner: crowds of people of the first quality being presented to the bride, who is the daughter of a clerk that sung the psalms in a church where Dr. Sacheverell was. After the struggle among the court ladies who should have the honour of presenting her, which the Duchess of Newcastle obtained, it was thought more proper to have her presented by one of her own family; otherwise it would look as if she had no alliances: and therefore that ceremony was performed by Horace Walpole's wife, who was daughter to my tailor, Lumbar. I read in a print lately, that an old gentleman, very rich, had married a maiden lady with two fatherless children but the printer did not then know the gentleman's name. March 27th, 1738. 'I think I did not tell you that the Duke of Dorset waited on my Lady Walpole to congratulate her marriage, with the same ceremony as if it had been one of the Royal Family, with his white staff, which has not been used these many years, but when they attend the Crown. But such a wretch as he is I hardly know; and his wife, whose passion is only money, assists him in his odious affair with Lady Betty Jermyn, who has a great deal to dispose of; who, notwithstanding the great pride of the Berkeley family, married an innkeeper's son. But indeed there was some reason for that; for she was ugly, without a portion, and in her youth had an unlucky accident with one of her father's servants; and by that match she got money to entertain herself all manner of ways. I tell you these things, which did not happen in your time of knowledge, which is a melancholy picture of what the world is come to; for this strange woman has had a great influence over many. Feb. 24th. 1738. Monday next is fixed for presenting Mrs. Skerrit at court: and there has been great solicitation from the court ladies who should do it, in which the Duchess of Newcastle has succeeded, and all the apartment is made ready for Sir Robert's lady, at his house at the Cockpit. (132) I never saw her in my life, but at auctions; but I remember I liked her as to behaviour very well, and I believe she has a great deal of sense: and I am not one of the number that wonder so much at this match; for the King of France married Madame de Maintenon, and many men have done the same thing. But as to the public, I do believe never was any man so great a villain as Sir Robert. Wednesday, Feb. 16th, 1741. .....Some changes are made as to employments; but very few are brought in but such as will be easily governed, and brought to act so as to keep their places. I have inquired often about your lordship, who I have not yet heard named in this alteration. And I have been told that Lords Chesterfield and Gower are to have nothing in the government, which I think a very ill sign of what is intended; because that can be for no reason but because you are all such men as are incapable of ever being prevailed on by any arts to act any thing contrary to honour and the true interests of our country. (129) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided. (130 Welmoden. (131 John, Lord Hervey, so called by Pope. (132) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided. Correspondence of Horace walpole Earl of Orford 121 Letter 1 To Richard West, Esq. (133) King's College, Nov 9, 1735, Dear West, You expect a long letter from me, and have said in verse all that I intended to have said in far inferior prose. I intended filling three or four sides with exclamations against a University life; but you have showed me how strongly they may be expressed in three or four lines. I can't build without straw; nor have I the ingenuity of the spider, to spin fine lines out of dirt: a master of a college would make but a miserable figure as a hero of a poem, and Cambridge sophs are too low to introduce into a letter that aims not at punning: Haud equidem invideo vati, quem pulpita pascunt. But why mayn't we hold a classical correspondence? I can never forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in reading Horace and Virgil; and I think they are topics will never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire, and cultivate two barbarous towns o'er -run with rusticity and Mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle, that they Plod on in the same eternal round, with their whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars: "Their time a moment, and a point their space." Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent Tu coluisse novem Musas, Romane, memento; Hae tibi crunt artes. . . . We have not the least poetry stirring here; for I can't call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of January by that name, more than four lines on a chapter in the New Testament is an epigram. Tydeus (134) rose and set at Eton: he is only known here to be a scholar of King's. Orosmades and Almanzor are just the same; that is, I am almost the only person they are acquainted with, and consequently the only person acquainted with their excellencies. Plato improves every day; so does my friendship with him. These three divide my whole time, though I believe you will guess there is no quadruple alliance; (135) that was a happiness which I only enjoyed when you was at Eton. A short account of the Eton people at Oxford would much oblige, my dear West, your faithful friend, H. WALPOLE. (133) Richard West was the only son of the Right Honourable Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by Elizabeth, daughter of the celebrated Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. When this correspondence commences, Mr. West was nineteen years old, and Mr. Walpole one year younger. [West died on the 1st of January, 1742, at the premature age of twenty-six. He had a great genius for poetry. His correspondence with Gray, and several of his poems, are included in the collection of letters published by Mr. Mason. West's father published an able discourse of treasons and bills of attainder, and a tract on the manner of creating peers. He also wrote several essays in "The Freethinker;" and was the reputed author of a tragedy called "Hecuba;" which was performed at Drury Lane theatre in 1726.] (134) Tydeus, Orosmades, Almanzor, and Plato, were names which had been given by them to some of their Eton schoolfellows. (135) Thus as boys they had called the intimacy formed at Eton between Walpole, Gray, West, and Ashton. 1736 122 Letter 2 To George Montagu, Esq. (136) King's College, May 2, 1736. Dear Sir, Unless I were to be married myself, I should despair ever being able to describe a wedding so well as you have done: had I known your talent before, I would have desired an epithalamium. I believe the princess (137) will have more beauties bestowed on her by the occasional poets, than even a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope, that all they have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, having heard it was rude to talk Latin before women, propose complimenting her in English; which she will be much the better for. I doubt most of them instead of fearing their compositions should not be understood, should fear they should: they write they don't know what, to be read by they don't know who. You have made me a very unreasonable request, which I will answer with another as extraordinary: you desire I would burn your letters; I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge three-pence for a half-penny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear George, and dear Harry; not as formally as if we were playing a game at chess in Spain and Portugal; and Don Horatio was to have the honour Of specifying to Don Georgio, by an epistle, whether he would move. In one point I would have our correspondence like a game at chess; it should last all our lives-but I hear you cry check; adieu! Dear George, yours ever. (136) George Montagu was the son of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu, and nephew to the Earl of Halifax. He was member of parliament for Northampton, usher of the black rod in Ireland during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Halifax, ranger of Salsey Forest, and private secretary to Lord North when chancellor of the exchequer. [And of him "it is now only remembered," says the "Quarterly Review," vol. xix. p. 131, "that he was a gentleman-like body of the vieille cour, and that he was usually attended by his brother John, (the Little John of Walpole's correspondence,) who was a midshipman at the age of sixty, and found his chief occupation in carrying about his brother's snuff-box."] (137) Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, married, in April, 1736, to Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales. 123 Letter 3 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 6, 1736. Dear George, I agree with you entirely in the pleasure you take in talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet every day with new circumstances, which will be still more pleasure to me to recollect. I think at our age 'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over past happinesses, that it is still in our power to enjoy as great. Narrations of the greatest actions of other people are tedious in comparison of the serious trifles that every man can call to mind of himself while he was learning those histories. Youthful passages of life are the chippings of Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottos; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes, and policies engage their thoughts; and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age; and old men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater truth from any one cause, than their living over again their childhood in imagination. To reflect on the season when first they felt the titillation of love, the budding passions, and the first dear object of their wishes! how unexperienced they gave credit to all the tales of romantic loves! Dear George, were not the playing fields at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old maid's gown, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as those poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to have had a kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and living disguised in an humble vale! As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and pommelling king Amulius's herdsmen. I was sometimes troubled with a rough creature or two from the plough; one, that one should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as his hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of yourself, Charles,(138) and Your sincere friend. (138) Colonel Charles Montagu, afterwards Lieutenant-General, and Knight of the Bath, and brother of George Montagu. He married Elizabeth Villiers, Viscountess Grandison, daughter of the Earl of Grandison. 124 Letter 4 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 20, 1736. Dear George: You will excuse my not having written to you, when you hear I have been a jaunt to Oxford. As you have seen it, I shall only say I think it one of the most agreeable places I ever set my eyes on. In our way thither we stopped at the Duke of Kent's, (139) at Wrest. (140) On the great staircase is a picture of the duchess; (141) I said it was very like; oh, dear sir! said Mrs. Housekeeper, it's too handsome for my lady duchess; her grace's chin is much longer than that. In the garden are monuments in memory of Lord Harold (142) Lady Glenorchy, (143) the late duchess,(144) and the present duke. At Lord Clarendon's (145) at Cornbury,(146) is a prodigious quantity of Vandykes; but I had not time to take down any of their dresses. By the way, you gave me no account of the last masquerade. Coming back, we saw Easton Neston,(147) a seat of Lord Pomfret, where in an old greenhouse is a wonderful fine statue of Tully, haranguing a numerous assembly of decayed emperors, vestal virgins with new noses, Colossuses, Venuses, headless carcases, and carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and hieroglyphics.(148) I saw Althorp(149) the same day, where are a vast many pictures-some mighty good; a gallery with the Windsor beauties, and Lady Bridgewater(150) who is full as handsome as any of them; a bouncing head of, I believe, Cleopatra, called there the Duchess of Mazarine. The park is enchanting. I forgot to tell you I was at Blenheim, where I saw nothing but a cross housekeeper, and an impertinent porter, except a few pictures, a quarry of stone that looked at a distance like a great house, and about this quarry, quantities of inscriptions in honour of the Duke of Marlborough, and I think of her grace too. Adieu! dear George, Yours ever. The verses are not published. (139) Henry de Grey, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Kent, son of Anthony Earl of Kent, and Mary, daughter of Lord Lucas. [The duke, who had been so created in 1710, having lost all his sons during his lifetime, obtained a new patent in 1740, creating him Marquis Grey, with remainder to his grand-daughter Jemima Campbell, daughter of his eldest daughter, Lady amabel Grey, by her husband John, third Earl of Breadalbane. On the death of the duke, in June 1740, the marquisate of Grey and barony of Lucas, together with the Wrest House and all the vast estates of the duke, devolved upon his grand-daughter, Lady Jemima Campbell, then Lady Jemima Royston, she having married Philip Viscount Royston, eldest son of the Earl of Hardwicke, by whom she had two daughters, Amabel married in July 1772, to Lord Polwarth, only son of the Earl of Marchmont, created a peer of Great Britain by the title of Baron Hume of Berwick, and who died in 1781 without issue: her ladyship was advanced to the dignity of Countess de Grey by letters patent, in 1816, with remainder of that earldom to her sister Mary Jemima, wife of Thomas second Lord Grantham, and that lady's male issue. Lady Grantham died in 1830; and upon the death of the countess, in 1833, she was succeeded under the patent by her nephew Lord Grantham, the present Earl de Grey.] (140) Wrest House in Bedfordshire. [It is remarkable that, from the death of the Duke of Kent, Wrest House has never remained a second generation in the same family, but has descended successively through females to the families of Yorke Earl of Hardwicke, Hume Earl of Marchmont, and is now vested in that of Robinson Lord Grantham, the great-great-grandson of the duke.) (141) Lady Sophia Bentinck, second wife of the Duke of Kent, and daughter to William Earl of Portland. (142) Anthony Earl of Harold, eldest son of the Duke of Kent. [Married to Lady Mary Grafton, daughter of the Earl of Thanet. He died without issue, in 1723, in consequence of an ear of barley sticking in his throat. His widow, who survived many years, afterwards married John first Earl Gower.] (143) Amabella, eldest daughter of the Duke of Kent, married to John Campbell, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, son of Lord Breadalbane. (144) Jemima, eldest daughter of Lord Crewe, and first wife of the Duke of Kent. (145) Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, son of Laurence Earl of Rochester. (146) In the county of Oxford. (147) Easton Neston, the ancient family seat of the Fermor family, had been rebuilt by Sir William Fermor who was elevated to the peerage by the title of Baron Lempster of Lempster, or Leominster, county of Hereford; and whose only son Thomas, second baron, was advanced to the earldom of Pomfret in 1721.-E. (148) Part of the invaluable collection of the great Earl of Arundel. They had been formerly purchased by John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem; and in 1755 were presented by his daughter, the Countess-dowager of Pomfret, to the University of Oxford.-E. (149) The seat of Charles, fifth Earl of Sunderland; who, upon the demise of his aunt Henrietta, eldest daughter of John Duke of Marlborough, succeeded to the honours of his illustrious grandfather. Althorp is now the seat of Earl Spencer. An account of the mansion, its pictures, etc. was published by Dr. Dibdin, in 1822, under the title of "Edes Althorpianae," as a supplement to his "Bibliotheca Spenceriana."-E. (150) Elizabeth, third daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and wife of Scroop, Earl and afterwards first Duke of Bridgewater. She died, however, previous to her husband's advancement to the dukedom.-E. 126 Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 30, 1736. Dear George, You show me in the prettiest manner how much you like Petronius Arbiter; I have heard you commend him, but I am more pleased with your tacit approbation of writing like him, prose interspersed with verse: I shall send you soon in return some poetry interspersed with prose; I mean the Cambridge congratulation with the notes, as you desired. I have transcribed the greatest part of what was tolerable at the coffee-houses; but by most of what you will find, you will hardly think I have left any thing worse behind. There is lately come out a new piece, called A Dialogue between Philemon and Hydaspes on false religion, by one Mr. Coventry,(151) A.M., and fellow, formerly fellow-commoner, of Magdalen. He is a young man, but 'tis really a pretty thing. If you cannot get it in town, I will send it with the verses. He accounts for superstition in a new manner, and I think a Just One; attributing it to disappointments in love. He don't resolve it all into that bottom; ascribes it almost wholly as the source of female enthusiasm; and I dare say there's ne'er a girl from the age of fourteen to four-and-twenty, but will subscribe to his principles, and own, if the dear man were dead that she loves, she would settle all her affection on heaven, whither he was gone. Who would not be an Artemisia, and raise the stately mausoleum to her lord; then weep and watch incessant over it like the Ephesian matron! I have heard of one lady, who had not quite so great a veneration for her husband's tomb, but preferred lying alone in one, to lying on his left hand; perhaps she had an aversion to the German custom of left-handed wives. I met yesterday with a pretty little dialogue on the subject of constancy tis between a traveller and a dove LE PASSANT. Que fais tu dans ce bois, plaintive Tourturelle? LA ToURTURELLE. Je g`emis, j'ai perdu ma compagne fidelle. LE PASSANT. Ne crains tu pas que l'oiseleur Ne te fasse mourir comme elle? La Tourturelle. Si ce n'est lui, ce sera ma douleur. 'Twould have been a little more apposite, if she had grieved for her lover. I have ventured to turn it into that view, lengthened it, and spoiled it, as you shall see. P.-Plaintive turtle, cease your moan; Hence away; In this dreary wood alone Why d'ye stay? T.-These tears, alas! you see flow For my mate! P.-Dread you not from net or bow His sad fate? T.-If, ah! if they neither kill, Sorrow will. You will excuse this gentle nothing, I mean mine, when I tell you, I translated it out of pure good-nature for the use of a disconsolate wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a widow by the barbarity of a gun. She coos and calls me so movingly, 'twould touch your heart to hear her. I protest to you it grieves me to pity her. She is so allicholy as any thing. I'll warrant you now she's as sorry as one of us would be. Well, good man, he's gone, and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate woman, but she must have patience; tis what we must all come to, and so as I was saying, Dear George, good bye t'ye, Yours sincerely. P. S. I don't know yet when I shall leave Cambridge. (151) Mr. Henry Coventry was the son of Henry Coventry, Esq. who had a good estate in Cambridgeshire. He was born in 1710, and died in 1752. He wrote four additional Dialogues. The five were republished shortly after his death, by his cousin, the Rev. Francis Coventry. The following is transcribed from the MSS. of the Rev. W. Cole:- "When Henry Coventry first came to the University, he was of a religious turn of mind, as was Mr. Horace Walpole; even so much so as to go with Ashton, his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the Castle. Afterwards, both Mr. Coventry and Mr. Walpole took to the infidel side of the question."-E. 127 Letter 6 To Richard West, Esq. King's College, Aug. 17, 1736. Dear West, Gray is at Burnham,(152) and, what is surprising, has not been at Eton. Could you live so near it without seeing it? That dear scene of our quadruple-alliance would furnish me with the most agreeable recollections. 'Tis the head of our genealogical table, that is since sprouted out into the two branches of Oxford and Cambridge. You seem to be the eldest son, by having got a whole inheritance to yourself; while the manor of Granta is to be divided between your three younger brothers, Thomas of Lancashire, [153] Thomas of London [154] and Horace. We don't wish you dead to enjoy your seat, but your seat dead to enjoy you. I hope you are a mere elder brother, and live upon what your father left you, and in the way you 'were brought up in, poetry: but we are supposed to betake ourselves to some trade, as logic, philosophy, or mathematics. If I should prove a mere younger brother, and not turn to any Profession, would you receive me, and supply me out of your stock, where you have such plenty? I have been so used to the delicate food of Parnassus, that I can never condescend to apply to the grosser studies of Alma Mater. Sober cloth of syllogism colour suits me ill; or, what's worse, I hate clothes that one must prove to be of no colour at all. If the Muses coelique vias et sidera monstrent, and qua vi maria alta lumescant. why accipiant: but 'tis thrashing, to study philosophy in the abstruse authors. I am not against cultivating these studies, as they are certainly useful; but then they quite neglect all polite literature, all knowledge of this world. Indeed, such people have not much occasion for this latter; for they shut themselves up from it, and study till they know less than any one. Great mathematicians have been of great use; but the generality of them are quite unconversible: they frequent the stars, sub pedibusque vident nubes, but they can't see through them. I tell you what I see; that by living amongst them, I write of nothing else: my letters are all parallelograms, two sides equal to two sides; and every paragraph an axiom, that tells you nothing but what every mortal almost knows. By the way, your letters come under this description; for they contain nothing but what almost every mortal knows too, that knows you-that is, they are extremely agreeable, which they know you are capable of making them:-no one is better acquainted with it than Your sincere friend. (152) in Buckinghamshire, where his uncle resided. (153) Thomas Ashton. He was afterwards fellow of Eton College, rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate-street, and preacher to the Society of Lincoln's-inn. It was to him that Mr. Walpole addressed the poetical epistle from Florence, first published in Dodsley's collection of poems. (154) Thomas Gray, the poet. 1737 128 Letter 7 To George Montagu Esq. King's College, March 20, 1737. Dear George, The first paragraph in my letter must be in answer to the last in yours; though I should be glad to make you the return you ask, by waiting on you myself. 'Tis not in my power, from more circumstances than One, which are needless to tell you, to accompany you and Lord Conway(155) to Italy: you add to the pleasure it would give me, by asking it so kindly. You I am infinitely obliged to, as I was capable, my dear George, of making you forget for a minute that you don't propose stirring from the dear place you are now in. Poppies indeed are the chief flowers in love nosegays, but they seldom bend towards the lady; at least not till the other flowers have been gathered. Prince Volscius's boots were made of love-leather, and honour-leather; instead of honour, some people's are made of friendship; but since you have been so good to me as to draw on this, I can almost believe you are equipped for travelling farther than Rheims. 'Tis no little inducement to make me wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach- horses, and have not half the regard for them that they have for themselves. The little freedoms you tell me you use take off from formality, by avoiding which ridiculous extreme we are dwindled into the other barbarous one, rusticity. If you had been at Paris, I should have inquired about the new Spanish ambassadress, who, by the accounts we have thence, at her first audience of the queen, sat down with her at a distance that suited respect and conversation. Adieu, dear George, Yours most heartily. (156) Francis Seymour Conway, son of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway, and Charlotte, daughter of John Shorter, Esq. [Sister to Lady Walpole, the mother of Horace, and with her co-heiress of John Shorter, Esq. lord-mayor of London in 1688, who died during his mayoralty, from a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. Lady Walpole died in the August of the year in which the present letter was written, and Sir Robert soon afterwards married @Miss Skerrit. Walpole's well-known fondness for his mother is alluded to by Gray, in a letter to West, dated 22d August, 1737:-" But while I write to you, I hear the bad news of lady Walpole's death, on Saturday night last. Forgive me if the thought of what my poor Horace must feel on that account obliges me to have done."] 129 Letter 8 To George Montagu, Esq. Christopher Inn, Eton. The Christopher. Lord! how great I used to think anybody just landed at the Christopher! But here are no boys for me to send for-here I am, like Noah, just returned into his old world again, with all sorts of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound-I recollect so much, and remember so little-and want to play about-and am so afraid of my playfellows-and am ready to shirk Ashton and can't help making fun of myself-and envy a dame over the way, that has just locked in her boarders, and is going to sit down in a little hot parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably! and I could be so jolly a dog if I did not fat, which, by the way, is the first time the word was ever applicable to me. In short, I should be out of all bounds if I was to tell you half I feel, how young again I am one minute, and how old the next. But do come and feel with me, when you will-to-morrow-adieu! If I don't compose myself a little more before Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach, I shall certainly be in a bill for laughing at church; but how to belt it, to see him in the pulpit, when the last time I saw him here, was standing up funking at a conduit to be catechised. Good night; yours. 1739 130 Letter 9 To Richard West, Esq. Paris, April 21, N. S. 1739. (157) Dear West, You figure us in a set of pleasures, which, believe me, we do not find; cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb all variation of pleasures. The operas, indeed, are much frequented three times a week; but to me they would be a greater penance than eating maigre: their music resembles a gooseberry tart as much as it does harmony. We have not yet been at the Italian playhouse; scarce any one goes there. Their best amusement, and which in some parts, beats ours, is the comedy three or four of the actors excel any we have: but then to this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights; and then they go, be the play good or bad-except on Moli`ere's nights, whose pieces they are quite weary of. Gray and I have been at the Avare to-night; I cannot at all commend their performance of it. Last night I was in the Place de Louis le Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and the houses handsome, though not so large as Golden Square), to see what they reckoned one of the finest burials that ever was in France. It was the Duke de Tresmes, governor of Paris and marshal of France. It began on foot from his palace to his parish-church, and from thence in coaches to the opposite end of Paris, to b interred in the church of the Celestins, where is his family-vault. About a week ago we happened to see the grave digging, as we went to see the church, which is old and small., but fuller of fine ancient monuments than any, except St. Denis, which we saw on the road, and excels Westminster; for the windows are all ' painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortalised, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots; nothing but friars, white, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. This goodly ceremony began at nine at night, and did not finish till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it awakened them. The French love show; but there is a meanness runs through it all. At the house where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the dishes is patched up with sallads, butter, puff-paste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes; but their coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would-laugh extremely at their signs: some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and some at the sucking cat. YOU would not easily guess their notions of honour: I'll tell you one: it is very dishonourable for any gentleman not to be 'in @he army, or in the king's service as they call it, and it is no dishonour to keep public gaming-houses: there are at least an hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, And find hazard, pharaoh, etc. The men who keep the hazard tables at the duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the privilege. Even the princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them; but they are not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper dye than other women, though all use it extravagantly. The weather is still so bad, that we have not made any excursions to see Versailles and the environs, not even walked in the Tuileries; but we have seen almost every thing else that is worth seeing in Paris, though that is very considerable. They beat us vastly in buildings, both in number and magnificence. The tombs of Richelieu and Mazarin at the Sorbonne and the College de Quatre Nations are wonderfully fine, especially the former. We have seen very little of the people themselves, who are not inclined to be propitious to strangers, especially if they do not play and speak the language readily. There are many English here: Lord Holderness, Conway(158) and Clinton, (159) and Lord George Bentinck; (160) Mr. Brand,(161) Offley, Frederic, Frampton, Bonfoy, etc. Sir John Cotton's son and a Mr. Vernon of Cambridge passed through Paris last week. We shall stay here about a fortnight longer, and then go to Rheims with Mr. Conway for two or three months. When you have nothing else to do, we shall be glad to hear from you; and any news. If we did not remember there was such a place as England, we should know nothing of it: the French never mention it, unless it happens to be in one of their proverbs! Adieu! Yours ever. To-morrow we go to the Cid. They have no farces but petites pieces like our "Devil to Pay." (157) Mr. Walpole left Cambridge towards the end of the year 1738, and in March, 1739, began his travels by going to Paris, accompanied by Mr. Gray. (158) Francis, second Lord Conway, in 1750, created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford, and in 1793, Earl of Yarmouth and Marquis of Hertford. He was the elder brother of General Conway, and grandfather of the present Marquis. (159) Hugh Fortescue, in whose favour the abeyance into which the barony of Clinton had fallen on the death of Edward, thirteenth Baron Clinton, was terminated by writ of summons, in 1721. He was created, in 1746, Lord Fortescue and Earl of Clinton; and died unmarried, in 1751.-E. (160) Son of Henry, second Earl and first Duke of Portland; he died in 1759.-E. (161) Mr. Brand of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire, who afterwards married Lady Caroline Pierrepoint, daughter of the Duke of Kingston by his second wife, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley.-E. 132 Letter 10 To Richard West, Esq. >From Paris, 1739. Dear West, I should think myself to blame not to try to divert you, when you tell me I can. From the air of your letter you seem to want amusement, that is, you want spirits. I would recommend to you certain little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that I imagine bodily exercise is more suitable to your complaint. If you would promise me to read them in the Temple garden, I would send you a little packet of plays and pamphlets that we have made up, and intend to dispatch to 'Dick's' the first opportunity.-Stand by, clear the way, make room for the pompous appearance of Versailles le Grand!--But no: it fell so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray the office of writing its panegyric.(162) He likes it. They say I am to like it better next Sunday; when the sun is to shine., the king is to be fine, the water-works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are to be installed! Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have done nothing but dispute about it. They say, we did not see it to advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden en passant, and slubbered over Trianon. I say, we saw nothing. However, we had time to see that the great front is a lumber of littleness, composed of black brick, stuck full of bad old busts, and fringed with gold rails. The rooms are all small, except the great gallery, which is noble, but totally wainscoted with looking-glass. The garden is littered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and his generals, left to the pursuit of his own puerile ideas of glory. We saw last week a place of another kind, and which has more the air of what it would be, than anything I have yet met with: it was the convent of the Chartreux. All the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a word) all the adaptments are assembled here, that melancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis pleasing. Soften the terms, and mellow the uncouth horror that reigns here, but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. It stands on a large space of ground, is old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy: behind it, through some dark passages, you pass into a large obscure hall, which looks like a combination-chamber for some hellish council. The large cloister surrounds their buryingground. The cloisters are very narrow and very long, and let into the cells, which are built like little huts detached from each other. We were carried into one, where lived a middle-aged man not long initiated into the order. He was extremely civil, and called himself Dom Victor. We have promised to visit him often. Their habit is all white: but besides this he was infinitely clean in his person; and his apartment and garden, which he keeps and cultivates without any assistance, was neat to a degree. He has four little rooms, furnished in the prettiest manner, and hung with good prints. One of them is a library, and another a gallery. He has several canary-birds disposed in a pretty manner in breeding-cages. in his garden was a bed of good tulips in bloom, flowers and fruit-trees, and all neatly kept. They are permitted at certain hours to talk to strangers, but never to one another, or to go out of their convent. But what we chiefly went to see was the small cloister, with the history of St. Bruno their founder, painted by Le Sceur. It consists of twenty-two pictures, the figures a good deal less than life. But sure they are amazing! I don't know what Raphael may be in Rome, but these pictures excel all I have seen in Paris and England. The figure of the dead man who spoke at his burial, contains all the strongest and horridest ideas of ghastliness, hypocrisy discovered, and the height of damnation, pain and cursing. A Benedictine monk, who was there at the same time, said to me of this picture C'est une fable, mais on la croyoit autrefois. Another, who showed me relics in one of their churches, expressed as much ridicule for them. The pictures I have been speaking of are ill preserved, and some of the finest heads defaced, which was done at first by a rival of Le Soeur's. Adieu! dear West, take care of your health; and some time or other we will talk over all these things with more pleasure than I have had in seeing them. Yours ever. (162) For Gray's description of Versailles, which he styles " a huge heap of littleness," see his letter to West of the 22nd of May, 1739. (Works, by Mitford, vol. ii. P. 46).edited by the Rev. John Mitford.-E. 134 Letter 11 To Richard West, Esq. Rheims, (163) June 18, 1739, N. S. Dear West, How I am to fill up this letter is not easy to divine. I have consented that Gray shall give an account of our situation and proceedings; (164) and have left myself at the mercy of my own' invention--a most terrible resource, and which I shall avoid applying to if I can possibly help it. I had prepared the ingredients for a description of a ball, and was just ready to serve it up to you, but he has plucked it from me. However, I was resolved to give you an account of a particular song and dance in it, and was determined to write the words and Sing the tune just as I folded up my letter: but as it would, ten to one, be opened before it gets to you, I am forced to lay aside this thought, though an admirable one. Well, but now I have put it into your head, I suppose you won't rest without it. For that individual one, believe me 'tis nothing without the tune and the dance; but to stay your stomach, I -will send you one of their vaudevilles or Ballads, (165) which they sing at the comedy after their petites pi`eces. You must not wonder if all my letters resemble dictionaries, with French on one side and English on t'other; I deal in nothing else at present, and talk a couple of words of each language alternately, from morning till night. This has put my mouth a little out of tune at present but I am trying to recover the use of it by reading the newspapers aloud at breakfast, and by shewing the title-pages of all my English books. Besides this, I have paraphrased half of the first act of your new GustavUS (166) which was sent us to Paris: a most dainty performance, and just what you say of it. Good night, I am sure you must be tired: if you are not, I am. yours ever. (163) Mr. Walpole, with his cousin Henry Seymour Conway and Mr. Gray, resided three months at Rheims, principally to acquire the French language. (164) Gray's letter to West has not been preserved; but one addressed to his mother, on the 21 st of June, containing an account of Rheims and the society, is printed in his Works, vol. ii. p. 50.-E. (165) This ballad does not appear. (166) The tragedy of "Gustavus Vasa," by Henry Brooke, author of "The Fool of Quality." It was rehearsed at Drury Lane; but, as it was supposed to satirize Sir Robert Walpole, it was prohibited to be acted. This, however, did Brooke no injury, as he was encouraged to publish the play by subscription.-E. 134 Letter 12 To Richard West, Esq. Rheims, July 20, 1739. Gray says, Indeed you ought to write to West.-Lord, child, so I would, if I knew what to write about. If I were in London and he at Rheims, I would send him volumes about peace and war, Spaniards, camps, and conventions; but d'ye think he cares sixpence to know who is gone to Compiegne, and when they come back, or who won and lost four livres at quadrille last night at Mr. Cockbert's?--No, but you may tell him what you have heard of Compiegne; that they have balls twice a week after the play, and that the Count d'Eu gave the king a most flaring entertainment in the camp, where the Polygone was represented in flowering shrubs. Dear West, these are the things I must tell you; I don't know how to make 'em look significant, unless you will be a Rhemois for a little moment.(167) I wonder you can stay out of the city so long, when we are going to have all manner of diversions. The comedians return hither from Compiegne in eight days, for example; and in a very little of time one attends the regiment of the king, three battalions and an hundred of officers; all men of a certain fashion, very amiable, and who know their world. Our women grow more gay, more lively, from day to day, in expecting them; Mademoiselle la Reine is brewing a wash of a finer dye, and brushing up her eyes for their arrival. La Barone already counts upon fifteen of them: and Madame Lelu, finding her linen robe conceals too many beauties, has bespoke one of gauze. I won't plague you any longer with people you don't know, I mean French ones; for you must absolutely hear of an Englishman that lately appeared at Rheims. About two days ago, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and about an hour after dinner,-from all which you may conclude we dine at two o'clock,-as we were picking our teeth round a littered table and in a crumby room, Gray in an undress, Mr. Conway in a morning gray coat, and I in a trim white night-gown and slippers, very much out of order, with a very little cold, a message discomposed us all of a sudden, with a service to Mr. Walpole from Mr. More, and that, if he pleased, he would wait on him. We scuttled upstairs in great confusion, but with no other damage than the flinging down two or three glasses and the dropping a slipper by the way. Having ordered the room to be cleaned out, and sent a very civil response to Mr. More, we began to consider who Mr. More should be. Is it Mr. More of Paris! No. Oh, 'tis Mr. More, my Lady Teynham's husband? No, it can't be he. A Mr. More, then, that lives in the Halifax family? No. In short, after thinking of ten thousand more Mr. Mores, we concluded it could never be a one of 'em. By this time Mr. More arrives; but such a Mr. More! a young gentleman out of the wilds of Ireland, who has never been in England, but has got all the ordinary language of that kingdom; has been two years at Paris, where he dined at an ordinary with the refugee Irish, and learnt fortification-,, which he does not understand at all, and which yet is the only thing he knows. In short, he is a young swain of very uncouth phrase, inarticulate speech, and no ideas. This hopeful child is riding post into Lorrain, or any where else, he is not certain; for if there is a war he shall go home again: for we must give the Spaniards another drubbing, you know; and if the Dutch do but join us, we shall blow up all the ports in Europe; for our ships are our bastions, and our ravelines, and our hornworks; and there's a devilish wide ditch for 'em to pass, which they can't fill up with things-Here Mr. Conway helped him to fascines. By this time I imagine you have laughed at him as much, and were as tired of him as we were; but he's gone. This is the day that Gray and I intended for the first of a southern circuit; but as Mr. Selwyn and George Montagu design us a visit here, we have put off our journey for some weeks. When we get a little farther, I hope our memories will brighten: at present they are but dull, dull as Your humble servant ever. P. S. I thank you ten thousand times for your last letter: when I have as much wit and as much poetry in me, I'll send you as good an one. Good night, child! (167) The three following paragraphs are a literal translation of French expressions to the same imports. 136 Letter 13 To Richard West, Esq. >From a Hamlet among the Mountains of Savoy, Sept. 28, 1739, N. S. Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings, Salvator Rosa-the pomp of our park and the meekness of our palace! Here we are, the lonely lords of glorious, desolate prospects. I have kept a sort of resolution which I made, of not writing to you as long as I staid in France: I am now a quarter of an hour out of it, and write to you. Mind, 'tis three months since we heard from you. I begin this letter -among the clouds; where I shall finish, my neighbour Heaven probably knows: 'tis an odd wish in a mortal letter, to hope not to finish it on this side the atmosphere. You will have a billet tumble to you from the stars hen you least think of it; and that I should write it too! Lord, how potent that sounds! But I am to undergo many transmigrations before I come to "yours ever." Yesterday I was a shepherd of Dauphin`e; to-day an Alpine savage; to-morrow a Carthusian monk; and Friday a Swiss Calvinist. I have one quality which I find remains with me in all worlds and in all aethers; I brought it with me from your world, and am admired for it in this-'tis my esteem for you: this is a common thought among you, and you will laugh at it, but it is new here: as new to remember one's friends in the world one has left, as for you to remember those you have lost. Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30th. We are this minute come in here, and here's an awkward abb`e this minute come in to us. I asked him if he would sit down. Oui, oui, oui. He has ordered us a radish soup for supper, and has brought a chess-board to play with Mr. Conway. I have left 'em in the act, and am set down to write to you. Did you ever see any thing like the prospect we saw yesterday? I never did. We rode three leagues to see the Grande Chartreuse; (168) expected bad roads and the finest convent in the kingdom. We were disappointed pro and con. The building is large and plain, and has nothing remarkable but its primitive simplicity; they entertained us in the neatest manner, with eggs, pickled salmon, dried fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, and figs, and pressed us mightily to lie there. We tumbled into the hands of a lay-brother, who, unluckily having the charge of the meal and bran, showed us little besides. They desired us to set down our names in the list of strangers, where, among others, we found two mottos of our countrymen, for whose stupidity and brutality we blushed. The first was of Sir j * * * D * * *, who had wrote down the first stanza of justum et tenacem, altering the last line to Mente quatit Carthusiana. The second was of one D * *, Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia; et hic ventri indico bellum. The Goth!-But the road, West, the road! winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks! Sheets of @cascades forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom! Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage! This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold for one that has. If I could send you my letter post between two lovely tempests that echoed each other's wrath you might have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were reading it. Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but without any prospect, stands the Chartreuse. We staid there two hours, rode back through this charming picture, wished for a painter, wished to be poets! Need I tell you we wished for you? Good night! Geneva, Oct. 2. By beginning a new date, I should begin a new letter; but I have seen nothing yet, and the Post is going Out: 'tis a strange tumbled dab, and dirty too, I am sending you; but what can I do? There is no possibility of writing such a long history over again. I find there are many English in the town; Lord Brook, (169) Lord Mansel, (170) Lord Hervey's eldest son,(171) and a son of-of Mars and Venus, or of Antony and Cleopatra, or, in short, of-. This is the boy, in the bow of whose hat Mr. Hedges pinned a pretty epigram. I don't know if you ever heard it; I'll suppose you never did, because it will fill up my letter: "Give but Cupid's dart to me, Another Cupid I shall be: No more distinguish'd from the other, Than Venus would be from my mother." Scandal says, Hedges thought the two last very like; and it says too, that she was not his enemy for thinking so. Adieu! Gray and I return to Lyons in three days. Harry stays here. Perhaps at our return we may find a letter from you: it ought to be very full of excuses, for you have been a lazy creature: I hope you have, for I would not owe your silence to any other reason. Yours ever. (168) It was on revisiting it, when returning to England after his unfortunate quarrel with Walpole, that Gray inscribed his beautiful "Alcaic Ode" in the album of the fathers of this monastery. Gray's account of this grand scene, where "not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry," will be found in his letter to West, dated Turin, Nov. 16, N. S. 1739. Works, vol. ii. p. 69.-E. (169) Francis Lord Brooke, advanced to the dignity of Earl Brooke in 1746.-E. (170) Thomas Lord Mansell, who died in 1743, without issue. He was succeeded in the title by his uncles Christopher and Bussy; and, On the death of the latter in 1744, it became extinct.-E. (171) George William Hervey, who succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Bristol in 1751, and died Unmarried in 1775.-E. 138 Letter 14 To Richard West, Esq. Turin, Nov. 11, 1739, N. S. So, as the song says, we are in fair Italy! I wonder we are; for on the very highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the devil of discord, in the similitude of sour wine, had got amongst our Alpine savages, and set them a-fighting with Gray and me in the chairs: they rushed him by me on a crag, where there was scarce room for a cloven foot. The least slip had tumbled us into such a fog, and such an eternity, as we should never have found our way out of again. We were eight days in coming hither from Lyons; the four last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inhabitants! My dear West, I hope I shall never see them again! At the foot of Mount Cenis we were obliged to quit our chaise, which was taken all to pieces and loaded on mules; and we were carried in low arm-chairs on poles, swathed in beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and bear-skins. When we came to the top, behold the snows fallen! and such quantities, and conducted by such heavy clouds that hung glouting, that I thought we could never have waded through them. The descent is two leagues, but steep and rough as O * * * * father's face, over which, you know, the devil walked with hobnails in his shoes. But the dexterity and nimbleness of the mountaineers are inconceivable: they run with you down steeps and frozen precipices, where no man, as men are now, could possibly walk. We had twelve men and nine mules to carry us, our servants, and baggage, and were above five hours in this agreeable jaunt The day before, I had a cruel accident, and so extraordinary an one, that it seems to touch upon the traveller. I had brought with me a little black spaniel of King Charles's breed; but the prettiest, fattest, dearest creature! I had let it out of the chaise for the air, and it was waddling along close to the head of the horses, on the top of the highest Alps, by the side of a wood of firs. There darted out a young wolf, seized poor dear Tory (172) by the throat, and, before we could possibly prevent it, sprung up the side of the rock and carried him off. The postilion jumped off and struck at him with his whip, but in vain. I saw it and screamed, but in vain; for the road was so narrow, that the servants that were behind could not get by the chaise to shoot him. What is the extraordinary part is, that it was but two o'clock, and broad sunshine. It was shocking to see anything one loved run away with to so horrid a death. .... . Just coming out of Camber, which is a little nasty old hole, I copied an inscription set up at the end of a great road, which was practised through an immense solid rock by bursting it asunder with gunpowder. The Latin is pretty enough, and so I send it you: "Carolus Emanuel II. Sab. dux, Pedem. princeps, Cypri rex,public`a felicitate part`a, singulorum commodis intentus, breviorem securioremque viam regiam, natur`a occlusam, Romanis intentatam, mteris desperatam, dejectis scopulorum repagulus, aquata montiuminiquitate, quae cervicibus imminebant precipitia pedibus substernens, aeternis populorum commerciis patefecit. A.D. 1670." We passed the Pas de Suze, where is a strong fortress on a rock, between two very neighbouring mountains; and then, through a fine avenue of three leagues, we at last discovered Tturin:-- "E l'un k l'altro mostra, ed in tanto oblia La noia, e'l mal 'delta passata via."' 'Tis really by far one of the prettiest cities I have seen; not one of your large straggling ones that can afford to have twenty dirty suburbs, but, clean and compact, very new and very regular. The king's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the richest within; painted, gilt, looking-glassed, very costly, but very tawdry; in short, a very popular palace. We were last night at the Italian comedy-the devil of a house and the devil of actors! Besides this, there is a sort of an heroic tragedy, called "La rapprentatione dell' Anima Damnata."(173) A woman, a sinner, comes in and makes a solemn prayer to the Trinity: enter Jesus Christ and the Virgin: he scolds, and exit: she tells the woman her son is very angry, but she don't know, she will see what she can do. After the play we were introduced to the assembly, which they call the conversazione: there were many people playing at ombre, pharaoh, and a game called taroc, with cards so high, (174) to the number of seventy-eight. There are three or four English here Lord Lincoln,(175) with Spence,(176) your professor of poetry; a Mr. B*** and a Mr. C*** a man that never utters a syllable. We have tried all stratagems to make him speak. Yesterday he did at last open his mouth, and said Bec. all laughed so at the novelty of the thing that he shut it again, and will never speak more. I think you can't complain now of my not writing to you. What a volume of trifles! I wrote just the fellow to it from Geneva; had it you? Farewell! Thine. (172) This incident is described also by Gray in one of his letters to his mother. "If the dog," he adds, "had not been there, and the creature had thought fit to lay hold of one of the horses, chaise and we, and all, must inevitably have tumbled above fifty fathoms perpendicularly down the precipice."-E. (173) This representation is also mentioned by Spence, in a letter to his mother:-"In spite of the excellence," he says, "of the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils were like to carry off the Damned Soul, every body was in the utmost consternation and when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the stage, every body looked respectful; and, on several words spoke by the actors, they pulled off, their hats, and crossed themselves. What can you think of a people, where their very farces are religious, and where they are so religiously received? It was from such a play as this (called Adam and Eve) that Milton when he was in Italy, is said to have taken the first hint for his divine poem of "Paradise Lost." What small beginnings are there sometimes to the greatest things!-E. (174) In the manuscript the writing of this word is extraordinary tall. (175) Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln, who having, in 1744, married Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, inherited, in 1768, the dukedom of Newcastle-under-Line at the demise of the countess's uncle, Thomas Pelham Holles, who, in 1756, had been created Duke of Newcastle-under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of Lincoln.-E. (176) The Rev. Joseph Spence, the author of one of the best collections of ana the English language possesses-the well-known "Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men," of which the best edition is that edited by Singer.-E. 140 Letter 15 To Richard West, Esq. >From Bologna, 1739. I don't know why I told Ashton I would send you an account of what I saw: don't believe it, I don't intend it. Only think what a vile employment 'tis, making catalogues! And then one should have that odious Curl (177) get at one's letters, and publish them like Whitfield's Journal, or for a supplement to the Traveller's Pocket Companion. Dear West, I protest against having seen any thing but what all the world has seen; nay, I have not seen half that, not-some of the most common things; not so much as a miracle. Well, but you don't expect it, do you? Except pictures. and statues, we are not very fond of sights; don't go a-staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases. Don't you hate, too, a jingling epitaph (178) of one Procul and one Proculus that is here? Now and then we drop in at a procession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twould make a delightful masquerade dress. We asked his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate? Signor, no: ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of' the academy, between the orator and the first poet At two semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent among many candles. The chief made a little introduction, the orator a long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, and the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old abb`e, and three lay,-read their compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the town. As we came out of the church, we found all the convent and neighbouring houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two bonfires. But you are sick of this foolish ceremony; I'll carry you to no more -. I will only mention, that we found the Dominicans' church here in mourning for the inquisitor: 'twas all hung with black cloth, furbelowed and festooned with yellow gauze. We have seen a furniture here in a much prettier taste; a gallery of Count Caprara's: in the panels between the windows are pendent trophies of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turks. They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect. I looked about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose feet they were indisputably offered. In coming out of Genoa we were more lucky; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario were to have fought, "west of the town, a mile among the rocks." My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I will transcribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you in a sort of a new light. They are no newer than Virgil, and what is more odd, are in the second Georgic. 'Tis, that I have observed that he not only excels when he is like himself, but even when he is very like inferior poets: you will say that they rather excel by being like him: but mind, they are all near one another: "Si non ingenter oribus domus alta superbis Mane sa@atame totis vomit Eedibus uridam:" And the four next lines; are they not just like Martial? In the following he is as much Claudian" "Illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum Flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres; Aut conjurato descendens Dacus ab Istro." Then who are these like? "nec ferrea jura, insanumque forum, aut populi tabularia vidit. Sollicitant alii remis freta ceca, ruuntque In ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum. Hic petit excidiis urbem miseresque Penates, Ut gemma, bibat, et Sarrano indormiat ostro." Don't they seem to be Juvenal's?-There are some more, which to me resemble, Horace; but perhaps I think so from his having some on a parallel subject. Tell me if I am mistaken; these are they: "Interea dulces pendent eircum oscula nati: Casta pudicitiam servat domus-" inclusively to the end of these: "Hanc olim veteres vitam colti`ere Sabini Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit, Scilicet et retum facta est pulcherrima Roma." If the imagination is whimsical; well at least, 'tis like me to have imagined it. Adieu, child! We leave Bologna to-morrow. You know 'tis the third city in Italy for pictures: knowing that, you know all. We shall be three days crossing the Apennine to Florence: would it were over! My dear West, I am yours from St. Peter's to St. Paul's! (177) Edmund Curll, the well-known bookseller. The letters between Pope and many of his friends falling into Curll's hands, they were by him printed and sold. As the volume contained some letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the House of Lords for breach of privilege; but, when the orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.-E. (178) The Epitaph on the outside of the wall of the church of St. Proculo- Si procul `a Proculo Proculi campana fuisset, Jam procul `a Proculo Proculus ipse foret. A.D. 1392. 142 Letter 16 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, Jan. 24, 1740, N. S. Dear West, I don't know what volumes I may send you from Rome; from Florence I have little inclination to send you any. I see several things that please me calmly, but `a force d'en avoir vu I have left off screaming Lord! this! and Lord! that! To speak sincerely, Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen since. I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but once see the great duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a congregation of good sort of people, that I have a great deal of unruffled regard for. The farther I travel the less I wonder at any thing: a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen custom; and men are so much the same every where, that one scarce perceives any change of situation. The same weaknesses, the same passions that in England plunge men into elections, drinking, whoring, exist here, and show themselves in the shapes of Jesuits, Cicisbeos, and Corydon ardebat Alexins. The most remarkable thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people so obviously mad as the English. The French, the Italians, have great follies, great faults; but then they are so national, they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so excessively, that almost every one's faults are peculiar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly from our climate, partly from our government: the first is changeable, and makes us queer; the latter permits our queernesses to operate as they please. If one could avoid contracting this queerness, it must certainly be the most entertaining to live in England, where such a variety of incidents continually amuse. The incidents of a week in London would furnish all Italy with news for a twelvemonth. The only two circumstances of moment in the life of an Italian, that ever give occasion to their being mentioned, are, being married, and in a year after taking a cicisbeo. Ask the name, the husband, the wife, or the cicisbeo, of any person, et voila qui est fini. Thus, child, 'tis dull dealing here! Methinks your Spanish war is little more livel By the gravity of the proceedings, one would think both nations were Spaniard. Adieu! Do you remember my maxim, that you used to laugh at? Every body does every thing, and nothing comes on't. I am more convinced of it now than ever. I don't know whether S***w,'s was not still better, Well, gad, there is nothing in nothing. You see how I distil all my speculations and improvements, that they may lie in a small compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that, after travelling three years, brought home nothing but a nut? They cracked it: in it was wrapped up a piece of silk, painted with all the kings, queens, kingdoms. and every thing in the world: after many unfoldings, out stepped a little dog, shook his ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy tale for you. If I had any thing as good as your old song, I would send it too; but I can only thank you for it, and bid you good night. Yours ever. P. S. Upon reading my letter, I perceive still plainer the sameness that reigns here; for I find I have said the same thing ten times over. I don't care, I have made out a letter, and that was all my affair. 143 Letter 17 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, February 27, 1740, N. S. Well, West, I have found a little unmasqued moment to Write to you; but for this week past I have been so muffled up in my domino, that I have not had the command of my elbows. But what have you been doing all the mornings? Could you not write then?-No, then I was masqued too; I have done nothing but slip out of my domino into bed, and out of bed into my domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian; all the morn one makes parties in masque to the shops and coffee-houses, and all the evening to the operas and balls. Then I have danced, good gods! how have I danced! The Italians are fond to a degree of our country dances: Cold and raw-they only know by the tune; Blowzybella is almost Italian, and Buttered peas is Pizelli ag buro. There are but three days more; but the two last are to have balls all the morning at the fine unfinished palace of the Strozzi; and the Tuesday night a masquerade after supper: they sup first, to eat gras, and not encroach upon Ash-Wednesday. What makes masquerading more agreeable here than in England, is the great deference that is showed to the disguised. Here they do not catch at those little dirty opportunities of saying any ill-natured thing they know of you, do not abuse you because they may, or talk gross bawdy to a woman of quality. I found the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of Carnival even since the Reformation; Ytis in "She would if She could," they talk of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide.(179)-After talking so much of diversions, I fear you will attribute to them the fondness I own I contract for Florence; but it has so many other charms, that I shall not want excuses for my taste. The freedom of the Carnival has given me opportunities to make several acquaintances.; and if I have no found them refined, learned, polished, like some other cities, yet they are civil, good-natured, and fond of the English-. Their little partiality for themselves, opposed to the violent vanity of the French, makes them very amiable in my eyes. I can give you a comical instance of their great prejudice about nobility; it happened yesterday. While we were at dinner at Mr. Mann'S. (180) word was brought by his secretary, that a cavalier demanded audience of him upon an affair of honour. Gray and I flew behind the curtain of the door. An elderly gentleman, whose attire was not certainly correspondent to the greatness of his birth, entered, and informed the British minister, that one Martin. an English painter, had left a challenge for him at his house, for having said Martin was no gentleman. He would by no means have spoke of the duel before the transaction of it, but that his honour, his blood, his etc. would never permit him to fight with one who was no cavalier; which was what he came to inquire of his excellency. We laughed loud laughs, but unheard: his fright or his nobility had closed his ears. But mark the sequel: the instant he was gone, my very English curiosity hurried me out of the gate St. Gallo; 'twas the place and hour appointed. We had not been driving about above ten minutes, but out popped a little figure, pale but cross, with beard unshaved and hair uncombed, a slouched hat, and a considerable red cloak, in which was wrapped, under his arm, the fatal sword that was to revenge the highly injured Mr. Martin, painter and defendant. I darted my head out of the coach, just ready to say, " Your servant, Mr. Martin," and talk about the architecture of the triumphal arch that was building there; but he would not know me, and walked off. We left him to wait for an hour, to grow very cold and very valiant the more it grew past the hour of appointment. We were figuring all the poor creature's huddle of thoughts, and confused hopes of victory or fame, of his unfinished pictures, or his situation upon bouncing into the next world. You will think us strange creatures; but 'twas a pleasant sight, as we knew the poor painter was safe. I have thought of it since, and am inclined to believe that nothing but two English could have been capable of such a jaunt. I remember, 'twas reported in London, that the plague was at a house in the city, and all the town went to see it. I have this instant received your letter. Lord! I am glad I thought of those parallel passages, since it made you translate them. 'Tis excessively near the original; and yet, I don't know, 'tis very easy too.-It snows here a little to-night, but it never lies but on the mountains. Adieu! Yours ever. P.S. What is the history of the theatres this winter? (179) Sir Charles Etheridge. "She would if She could," was brought out at the Duke of York's theatre in February, 1668: Pepys, who was present, calls it "a silly, dull thing; the design and end being mighty insipid."-E. (180) Sir Horace Mann, created a baronet in 1755. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary from England to the court of Florence in 1740, and continued so until his death, on the 6th November 1786.-E. 145 Letter 18 To The Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, (181) Florence, March 6, 1740, N. S. Harry, my dear, one would tell you what a monster you are, if one were not sure your conscience tells you so every time you think of me. At Genoa, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, I received the last letter from you; by your not writing to me since, I imagine you propose to make this a leap year. I should have sent many a scold after you in this long interval, had I known where to have scolded; but you told me you should leave Geneva immediately. I have despatched sundry inquiries into England after you, all fruitless. At last drops in a chance letter to Lady Sophy Farmor, (182) from a girl at Paris, that tells her for news, Mr. Henry Conway is here. Is he, indeed? and why was I to know it only by this scrambling way? Well, I hate you for this neglect, but I find I love you well enough to tell you so. But, dear now, don't let one fall into a train of excuses and reproaches; if the god of indolence is a mightier deity with you than the god of caring for one, tell me, and I won't dun you; but will drop your correspondence as silently as if I owed you money. If my private consistency was of no weight with you, yet, is a man nothing who is within three days' journey of a conclave? Nay, for what you knew, I might have been in Rome. Harry, art thou so indifferent, as to have a cousin at the election of a pope (183) without courting him for news? I'll tell you, were I any where else, and even Dick Hammond were at Rome, I think verily I should have wrote to him. Popes, cardinals, adorations, coronations, St. Peter's! oh, what costly sounds! and don't you write to one yet? I shall set out in about a fortnight, and pray then think me of consequence. I have crept on upon time from day to day here; fond of Florence to a degree: 'tis infinitely the most agreeable of all the places I have seen since London: that you know one loves, right or wrong, as one does one's nurse. Our little Arno is not bloated and swelling like the Thames, but 'tis vastly pretty, and, I don't know how, being Italian, has something visionary and poetical in its stream. Then one's unwilling to leave the gallery, and-but-in short, one's unwilling to get into a postchaise. I am surfeited with mountains and inns, as if I had eat them. I have many to pass before I see England again, and no Tory to entertain me on the road? Well, this thought makes me dull, and that makes me finish. Adieu! Yours ever. P. S. Direct to me, (for to be sure you will not be so outrageous as to leave me quite off), recornmand4 i Mons. Mann, Ministre de sa Majest`e Britannique @ Florence. (181) Second Son of Francis first Lord Conway. by Charlotte Shorter, his third wife. He was afterwards secretary in Ireland during the vice-royalty of William fourth Duke of Devonshire; groom of the bedchamber to George II. and George III.; secretary of state in 1765; lieutenant-general of the ordnance in 1770; commander in chief in 1782; and a field- marshal in 1793. This correspondence commences when Mr. Walpole was twenty-three years old, and Mr. Conway two years younger. They had gone abroad together, with Mr. Gray, in the year 1739, had spent three months together at Rheims, and afterwards separated at Geneva. (182) Daughter of the first Earl of Pomfret, and married,, in 1744, to John second Lord Carteret and first Earl of Granville.-E. (183) As successor of Clement XII., who died in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the tenth of his pontificate, on the 6th Feb. 1740. The cardinals being uncertain whom to choose, Prosper Lamberteri, the learned and tolerant Archbishop of Ancona, said, with his accustomed good-humour, "If you want a saint, choose Gotti; if a politician, Aldrosandi: but if a good man, take me." His advice was followed, and he ascended the papal throne as Benedict XIV.-E. 146 Letter 19 To Richard West, Esq. Siena, March 22, 1740, N. S. Dear West, Probably now you will hear something of the Conclave: we have left Florence, and are got hither on the way to a pope. In three hours' time we have seen all the good contents of this city: 'tis old, and very snug, with very few inhabitants. You must not believe Mr. Addison about the wonderful Gothic nicety of the dome: the materials are richer, but the workmanship and taste not near so good as in several I have seen. We saw a college of the Jesuits, where there are taught to draw above fifty boys: they are disposed in long chambers in the manner of Eton, but cleaner. N. B. We were not bolstered; (184) so we wished you with us. Our Cicerone, who has less classic knowledge, and more superstition than a colleger, upon showing 147 us the she-wolf, the arms of Siena, told us that Romolus and Remus were nursed by a wolf, per la volonta di Dio, si pu`o dire; and that one might see by the arms, that the same founders built Rome and Siena. Another dab of Romish superstition, not unworthy of Presbyterian divinity, we met with in a book of drawings: 'twas the Virgin standing on a tripod composed of Adam, Eve, and the Devil, to express her immaculate conception. You can't imagine how pretty the country is between this and Florence; millions of little hills planted with trees, and tipped with villas or convents. We left unseen the great Duke's villas and several palaces in Florence, till our return from Rome: the weather has been so cold, how could one go to them? In Italy they seem to have found out how hot their climate is, but not how cold; for there are scarce any chimneys, and most of the apartments painted in fresco so that one has the additional horror of freezing with imaginary marble. The men hang little earthen pans of coals upon their wrists, and the women have portable stoves under their petticoats to warm their nakedness, and carry silver shovels in their pockets, with which their Cicisbeos stir them-Hush! by them, I mean their stoves. I have nothing more to tell you; I'll carry my letter to Rome and finish it there. R`e di Coffano, March 23, where lived one of the three kings. The King of Coffano carried presents of myrrh, gold, and frankincense, I don't know where the devil he found them; for in all his dominions we have not seen the value of a shrub. We have the honour of lodging under his roof to-night. lord! such a place, such an extent of ugliness! A lone inn upon a black mountain, by the side of an old fortress! no curtains or windows, only shutters! no testers to the beds! no earthly thing to eat but some eggs and a few little fishes! This lovely spot is now known by the name of Radi-cofani. Coming down a steep hill with two miserable hackneys, one fell under the chaise; and while we were disengaging him, a chaise came by with a person in a red cloak, a white handkerchief on its head, and a black hat: we thought it a fat old woman; but it spoke in a shrill little pipe, and proved itself to be Senesini. (185) I forgot to tell you an inscription I copied from the portal of the dome of Siena: Annus centenus Roma seraper est jubilenus: Crimina laxantur si penitet ista dortantur; Sic ordinavit Bonifacius et roboravit. Rome, March 26 We are this instant arrived, tired and hungry! O! the charming city-I believe it is-for I have not seen a syllable yet, only the Pons Milvius and an obelisk. The Cassian and Flaminian ways were terrible disappointments; not one Rome tomb left; their very ruins ruined. The English are numberless. My dear West, I know at Rome you will not have a grain of pity for one; but indeed 'tis dreadful, dealing with schoolboys just broke loose, or old fools that are come abroad at forty to see the world, like Sir Wilful Witwould. I don't know whether you will receive this, or any other I write; but though I shall write often, you and Ashton must not wonder if none come to you; for though I am harmless in my nature, my name has some mystery in it.(186) Good night! I have no more time or paper. Ashton, child, I'll write to you next post. Write us no treasons, be sure! (184) An Eton phrase. (185) Francesco Bernardi, better known by the name of Senesino, a celebrated singer, who, having been engaged for the opera company formed by Handel in 17@20, remained here as principal singer until 1726, when the state of his health compelled him to return to Italy. In 1730 he revisited England, where he remained until about 1734. He was the contemporary, if not the rival of Farinelli; and Mr. Hogarth, in his "Memoirs of the Musical Drama," (i. 431,) tells us, that when Senesino and Farinelli were in England together, they had not for some time the opportunity of hearing each other, in consequence of their engagements at different theatres. At last, however, they were both engaged to sing on the same stage. Senesino had the part of a furious tyrant, and Farinelli the part of an unfortunate hero in chains; but, in the course of the first act, the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage character, ran to Farinelli, and embraced him in his own.-E. (186) He means the name of Walpole at Rome, where the Pretender and many of his adherents then resided. 148 letter 20 To Richard West, Esq. Rome, April 16th, 1740, N. S. I'll tell you, West, because one is amongst new things, you think one can always write new things. When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history: but now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people nnow as much of places as One's Self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster Abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, etc. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularized there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the same subjects. I know you will hate me for this declaration; I remember how ill I used to take it when any body served me so that was travelling. Well, I will tell you something, if you will love me: You have seen prints of the ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica; you shall only hear its situation, and then figure what a villa might be laid out there. 'Tis in the middle of a garden: at a little distance are two subterraneous grottos, which were the burial-places of the liberti of Augustus. There are all the niches and covers of the urns and the inscriptions remaining; and in one, very considerable remains of an ancient stucco Ceiling with paintings in grotesque. Some of the walks would terminate upon the Castellum Aquae Martioe, St. John Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, besides other churches; the walls of the garden would be two aqueducts. and the entrance through one of the old gates of Rome. This glorious spot is neglected, and only serves for a small vineyard and kitchen-garden. I am very glad that I see Rome while it yet exists: before a great number of years are elapsed, I question whether it will be worth seeing. Between the ignorance and poverty of the present Romans, every thing is neglected and falling to decay; the villas are entirely out of repair, and the palaces so ill kept, that half the pictures are spoiled by damp. At the villa Ludovisi is a large oracular head of red marble, colossal, and with vast foramina for the eyes and mouth: the man that showed the palace said it was un ritratto della famiglia? The Cardinal Corsini has so thoroughly pushed on the misery of Rome by impoverishing it, that there is no money but paper to be seen. He is reckoned to have amassed three millions of crowns. You may judge of' the affluence the nobility live in, when I assure you, that what the chief princes allow for their own eating is a testoon a day; eighteen pence: there are some extend their expense to five pauls, or half a crown: Cardinal Albani is called extravagant for laying out ten pauls for his dinner and supper. You may imagine they never have any entertainments: so far from it, they never have any company. The princesses and duchesses particularly lead the dismallest of lives. Being the posterity of popes, though of worse families than the ancient nobility, they expect greater respect than my ladies the countesses and marquises will pay them; consequently they consort not, but mope in a vast palace with two mniserable tapers, and two or three monsignori, whom they are forced to court and humour, that they may not be entirely deserted. Sundays they do issue forth in a most unwieldy coach to the Corso. In short 'child, after sunset one passes one's time here very ill; and if I did not wish for you in the mornings, it would be no compliment to tell you that I do in the evening. Lord! how many English I could change for you, and yet buy you wondrous cheap! And, then French and Germans I could fling into the bargain by dozens. Nations swarm here. You will have a great fat French cardinal garnished with thirty abb`es roll into the area of St. Peter's, gape, turn short, and talk of the chapel of Versailles. I heard one of them say t'other day, he had been at the Capitale. One asked of course how he liked it-.Oh! il y a assez de belles choses. Tell Ashton I have received his letter, and will write next post but I am in a violent hurry and have no more time; so Gray finishes this delicately. NOT so delicate; nor indeed would his conscience suffer him to write to you, till he received de vos nouvelles, if he had not the tail of another person's letter to use by way of evasion. I sha'n't describe, as being in the only place in the world that deserves it which may seem an odd reason-but they say as how it's fulsome, and every body does it (and I suppose every body says the same thing); else I should tell'you a vast deal about the Coliseum, and the Conclave, and the Capitol, and these matters. A-propos du Colis`ee, if you don't know what it is, the Prince Borghese will be very capable of giving you some account of it, who told an Englishman that asked what it was built for: "They say 'twas for Christians to fight with tigers in." We are just come from adoring a great piece of the true cross, St. Longinus's spear, and St. Veronica's handkerchief; all of which have been this evening exposed to view in St. Peter's. In the same place, and on the same occasion last night, Walpole saw a poor creature naked to the waist discipline himself with a scourge filled with iron prickles, till he made hii-nself a raw doublet, that he took for red satin torn, and showing the skin through. I should tell you, that he fainted away three times at the sight, and I twice and a half at the repetition of it. All this is performed by the light of a vast fiery cross, composed of hundreds of little crystal latmps, which appears through the great altar under the grand tribuna, as if hanging by itself in the air. All the confraternities of the city resort thither in solemn procession, habited in linen frocks, girt with a cord, and their heads covered with a cowl all over, that has only two holes before to see through. Some of these are all black, others parti-coloured and white: and with these masqueraders that vast church is filled, who are seen thumping their breasts, and kissing the pavement with extreme devotion. But methinks I am describing:-'tis an ill habit; but this, like every thing else will wear off We have sent you our compliments by a friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a very agreeable man; one Mr. Williams; I am sorry he staid so little a while in Rome. I forget Porto-Bello (187) all this while; pray let us know where it is, and whether you or Ashton had any hand in the taking of'it. Duty to the admiral. Adieu! Ever yours, T. GRAY. (187) Porto-Bello, taken from the Spaniards by Admiral Vernon, with six ships only, On the 21st Nov. 1740. By the articles of the capitulation, the town was not to be plundered, nor the inhabitants molested in the smallest degree; and the governor and inhabitants expressed themselves in the highest terms, when speaking of the humanity and generosity with which they had been treated by the admiral and the officers of the squadron under his command.-E. 150 Letter 21 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Rome, April, 23, 1740, N. S. As I have wrote you two such long letters lately, my dear Hal, I did not hurry myself to answer your last; but choose to write to poor SelWyn (188) Upon his illness. I pity you excessively upon finding him in such a situation- what a shock it must have been to you! He deserves so much love from all that know him, and you owe him so much friendship, that I can scarce conceive a greater shock. I am very glad you did not write to me till he was out of danger; for this great distance would have added to my pain, as I must have waited so long for another letter. I charge you, don't let him relapse into balls: he does not love them, and, if you please, your example may keep him out of them. You are extremely pretty people to be dancing and trading with French poulterers and pastry cooks, when a hard frost is starving half the nation, and the Spanish war ought to be employing the other half. We are much more public spirited here; we live upon the public news, and triumph abundantly upon the taking Porto-Bello. If you are not entirely debauched with your balls, you must be pleased with an answer of Lord Harrington's (189) to the governor of Rome. He asked him what they had determined about the vessel that the Spaniards took under the canon of Civita Vecchia, whether they had restored it to the English? The governor said, they had done justice. My lord replied, "If you had not, we should have' done it ourselves." Pray reverence our spirit, Lieutenant Hal. Sir, MoscovitEO (190) is not a pretty woman, and she does sing ill; that's all. My dear Harry, I must now tell you a little about myself, and answer your questions. How I like the inanimate part of Rome you will soon perceive at my arrival in England; I am far gone in medals, lamps, idols, prints, etc." and all the small commodities to the purchase of which I can attain; I would buy the Coliseum if I could: Judge. My mornings are spent in the most agreeable manner; my evenings ill enough. Roman conversations are dreadful things! such untoward mawkins as the princesses! and the princes are worse. Then the whole city is littered with French and German abb`es, who make up a dismal contrast with the inhabitants. The conclave is far from enlivening us; its secrets don't transpire. I could give you names of this cardinal and that, that are talked of, but each is contradicted the next hour. I was there t'other day to visit one of them, and one of the most agreeable, Alexander Albani. I had the opportunity of two cardinals making their entry: upon that occasion the gate is unlocked, and their eminences come to talk to their acquaintance over the threshold. I have received great civilities from him I named to you, and I wish he were out, that I might receive greater: a friend of his does the honours of Rome for him; but you know that it is unpleasant to visit by proxy. Cardinal Delei, the object of the Corsini faction, is dying; the hot weather will probably despatch half a dozen more. Not that it is hot yet; I am now writing to you by my fireside. Harry, you saw Lord Deskfoord (191) at Geneva; don't you like him? He is a mighty sensible man. There are few young people have so good understandings. He is mighty grave, and so are you; but you can both be pleasant when you have a mind. Indeed, one can make you pleasant, but his solemn Scotchery is a little formidable: before you 1 can play the fool from morning to night, courageously. Good night. I have other letters to write, and must finish this. Yours ever. (188) John Selwyn, elder brother of George Augustus Selwyn. He died about 1750. (189)William Marquis of Hartington. He succeeded his father as fourth Duke of Devonshire in 1755.-E. (190) Notwithstanding she laboured under such disadvantages-and want of beauty and want of talent are serious ones to a cantatrice,-it will be seen from Walpole's letter to Mann, 5th Nov. 1741, that the Moscovita, on her arrival here, received six hundred guineas for the season, instead of four hundred, the salary previously given to the , second woman;" and became, moreover, the mistress of Lord Middlesex, the director of the opera.-E. (191) Son of the Earl of Findlater and Seafield, who succeeded his father in 1764, and died in 1770.-E. 152 Letter 22 To Richard West, Esq. Rome, May 7, 1740, N. S. Dear West, 'Twould be quite rude and unpardonable in one not to wish you joy upon the great conquests that you are all committing all over the world. We heard the news last night from Naples, that Admiral Haddock (192) had met the Spanish convoy going to Majorca, and taken it all, all; three thousand men, three colonels, and a Spanish grandee. We conclude it is true, for the Neapolitan Majesty mentioned it at dinner. We are going thither in about a week, to wish him joy of it too. 'Tis with some apprehensions we go too, of having a pope chosen in the interim: that would be cruel, you know. But, thank our stars, there is no great probability of it. ' Feuds and contentions run high among the eminences. A notable one happened this week. Cardinal Zinzendorff and two more had given their votes for the general of the Capucins: he is of the Barberini family, not a cardinal, but a worthy man. Not effecting any thing, Zinzendorff voted for Coscia, and declared it publicly. Cardinal Petra reproved him; but the German replied, he thought Coscia as fit to be pope as any of them. It seems, his pique to the whole body is, their having denied a daily admission of a pig into the conclave for his eminence's use who, being much troubled with the gout, was ordered by his mother to bathe his leg in pig's blood every morning. Who should have a vote t other day but the Cardinalino of Toledo! Were he older, the Queen of Spain might possibly procure more than one for him, though scarcely enough. Well, but we won't talk Politics: shall we talk antiquities? Gray and I discovered a considerable curiosity lately. In an unfrequented quarter of the Colonna garden lie two immense fragments of marble, formerly part of a frieze to some building; 'tis not known of what. They are of Parian marble: which may give one some idea of the magnificence of the rest of the building for these pieces were at the very top. Upon inquiry, we were told they had been measured by an architect, who declared they were larger than any member of St. Peter's. The length of one of the pieces is above sixteen feet. They were formerly sold to a stonecutter for five thousand crowns, but Clement XI. would not permit them to be sawed, annulled the bargain, and laid a penalty of twelve thousand crowns upon the family if they parted with them. I think it was a right judged thing. Is it not amazing, that so vast a structure should not be known of, or that it should be so entirely destroyed? But indeed at Rome this is a common surprise; for, by the remains one sees of the Roman grandeur in their structures, 'tis evident that there must have been more pains taken to destroy those piles than to raise them. They are more demolished than any time or chance could have effected. I am persuaded that in an hundred years Rome will not be worth seeing; 'tis less so now than one would believe. All the public pictures are decayed or decaying; the few ruins cannot last long; and the statues and private collections must be sold, from the great poverty of the families. There are now selling no less than three of the principal collections, the Barberini, the Sacchetti, and Ottoboni: the latter belonged to the cardinal who died in the conclave. I must give you an instance of his generosity, or rather ostentation. When Lord Carlisle was here last year, who is a great virtuoso, he asked leave to see the cardinal's collection of cameos and intaglios. Ottoboni gave leave, and ordered the person who showed them to observe which my lord admired most. My lord admired many: they were all sent him the next morning. He sent the cardinal back a fine gold repeater; who returned him an acate snuff box, and more cameoes of ten times the value. Voila qui est fini! Had my lord produced more golden repeaters, it would have been begging more cameos. Adieu, my dear West! You see I write often and much, as you desired it. Do answer one now and then, with any little job that is done in England. Good night. Yours ever. (192) This report, which proved unfounded, was grounded on the fact, that on the 18th of April his Majesty's ships Lenox, Kent, and Orford, commanded by Captains Mayne, Durell, and Lord Augustus Fitzroy, part of Admiral Balchen's squadron being on a cruise about forty leagues to the westward of Cape Finisterre, fell in with the Princessa, esteemed the finest ship of war in the Spanish navy, and captured her, after an engagement of five hours.-E. (193) Henry fourth Earl of Carlisle, grandfather of the present Earl. In 1742, he married Isabella, the daughter of William fourth Lord Byron, and died in 1758.-E. (194) Cardinal Ottoboni, Dean of the Sacred College, who died in 1740: he had been made a cardinal in 1689.-E. 153 Letter 23 To Richard West, Esq. Naples, June 14, 1740, N. S. Dear West, One hates writing descriptions that are to be found in every book of travels; but we have seen something to-day that I am sure you never read of, and perhaps never heard of. Have you ever heard of a subterraneous town? a whole Roman town, with all its edifices, remaining under ground? Don't fancy the inhabitants buried it there to save it from the Goths: they were buried with it themselves; which is a caution we are not told that they ever took. You remember in Titus's time there were several cities destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, attended with an earthquake. Well, this was one of them, not very considerable, and then called Herculaneum. (195) Above it has since been built Portici, about three miles from Naples, where the King has a villa. This under-ground city is perhaps one of the noblest curiosities that ever has been discovered. It was found out by chance, about a year and half ago. They began digging, they found statues; they dug, further, they found more. Since that they have made a very considerable progress, and find continually. You may walk the compass of a mile; but by the misfortune of the modern town being overhead, they are obliged to proceed with great caution, lest they destroy both one and t'other. By this occasion the path is very narrow, just wide enough and high enough for one man to walk upright. They have hollowed, as they found it easiest to work, and have carried their streets not exactly where were the ancient ones, but sometimes before houses, sometimes through them. You would imagine that all the fabrics were crushed together; on the contrary., except some columns, they have found all the edifices standing upright in their proper ' situation. There is one inside of a temple quite perfect, with the middle arch, two columns, and two pilasters. It is built of brick plastered over, and painted with architecture almost all the insides of the houses are in the same manner; and, what is very particular the general ground of all the painting is red. Besides this temple, they make out very plainly an amphitheatre: the stairs, of white marble and the seats are very perfect; the inside was painted in the same colour with the private houses, and great part cased with white marble. They have found among other things some fine statues, some human bones, some rice, medals, and a few paintings extremely fine. These latter are preferred to all the ancient paintings that have ever been discovered. We have not seen them yet, as they are kept in the King's apartment, whither all these curiosities are transplanted; and 'tis difficult to see them-but we shall. I forgot to tell you, that in several places the beams of the houses remain, but burnt to charcoal; so little damaged that they retain visibly the grain of the wood, but upon touching crumble to ashes. What is remarkable, there are no other marks or appearance of fire, but what are visible on these beams. There might certainly be collected great light from this reservoir of antiquities, if a man of learning had the inspection of it; if he directed the working, and would make a journal of the discoveries. But I believe there is no judicious choice made of directors. There is nothing of the kind known in the world; I mean a Roman city entire of that age, and that has not been corrupted with modern repairs. (196) Besides scrutinising this very carefully, I should be inclined to search for the remains of the other towns that were partners with this in the general ruin. 'Tis certainly an advantage to the learned world, that this has been laid up so long. Most of the discoveries in Rome were made in a barbarous age, where they only ransacked the ruins in quest of treasure, and had no regard to the form and being of the building; or to any circumstances that might give light to its use and history. I shall finish this long account with a passage which Gray has observed in Statius, and which correctly pictures out this latent city:- Haec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Littoribus, fractas ubi Vestius egerit iras, Emula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. Mira fides! credetne viram ventura propago, Cum segetes iterum, cum jam haec deserta virebunt, Infra urbes populosque premi? SyLv. lib. iv. epist. 4. Adieu, my dear West! and believe me yours ever. (195) Some excavations were made at Herculaneum in 1709 by the Prince d'Elbeuf; but, thirty years elapsed after the prince had been forbidden to dig further, before any more notice was taken of them. In December 1738 the King of the two Sicilies was at Portici, and gave orders for the prosecution of these subterranean labours. There had been an excavation in the time of the Romans; and another so lately as 1689. In a letter from Gray to his mother, he describes their visits to Herculaneum; but, not mentioning it by name, Mason supposed it had not then been discovered to be that city. It is evident, from this observation of Walpole, that Mason's opinion was unfounded.-E. (196) Pompei a was not then discovered. 155 Letter 24 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. R`e di Cofano, vulg. Radicofani, July 5, 1740, N. S. You will wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome: why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old eminences are cross and obstinate, and will not choose one the Holy Ghost does not know when. There is a horrid thing called the mallaria, that comes to Rome, every summer, and kills one, and I did not care for being killed so far from Christian burial. We have been jolted to death; my servants let us come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare: to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you out some little trifle there, but don't depend upon it; you are a disagreeable creature and may be I shall not care for you. Though I am so tired in this devil of a place, yet I have taken it into my head, that it is like Hamilton's Bawn, (197) and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but about writing-what do you think I write with? Nay, with a pen; there was never a one to be found in the whole circumference but one, and that was in the possession of the governor, and had been used time out of mind to write the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent me under the conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss, with desire to return it when I should have done with it. 'Tis a curiosity, and worthy to be laid up with the relics which we have just been seeing- in a small hovel of Capucins, on the side of the hill, and which were all brought by his Majesty from Jerusalem. Among other things of great sanctity there is a set of gnashing of teeth, the grinders very entire; a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits; a crow of St. Peter's cock, very useful against Easter; the crisping and curling, frizzling and frowncing of Mary Magdalen, which she cut off on growing devout. The good man that showed us all these commodities was got into such a train of calling them the blessed this, and blessed that, that at last he showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tree that Christ cursed. Florence, July 9. My dear Harry, We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you with Hosier's Ghost. Your last put me in pain for you, when you talked of going to Ireland; but now I find your brother and sister go with you, I am not much concerned. Should I be? You have but to say, for my feelings are extremely at your service to dispose as you please. Let us see: you are to come back to stand for some place; that will be about April. 'Tis a sort of thing I should do, too; and then we should see one another, and that would be charming; but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to do; and then we shall not see one another, unless you would come hither-but that you cannot do: nay, I would not have you, for then I shall be gone. So! there are many @ that just signify nothing at all. Return I must sooner than I shall like. I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation. I am lodged with Mr. Mann, (198) the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me is the famous Gallery; and, on either hand, two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a slight gauze to keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret (199) has a charming conversation once a week. She has taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours. You know her daughters : Lady Sophia (200) is still, nay she must be, the beauty she was: Lady Charlotte, (201) is much improved, and is the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine. The Princess Craon (202) has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it. You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning; I wish I had no better. As to Hosier's Ghost, (203) I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion is charming. Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can send you none. I have left the conclave, which is the only stirring thing in this part of the world, except the child that the Queen of Naples is to be delivered of in August. There is no likelihood the conclave will end, unless the messages take effect which 'tis said the Imperial and French ministers have sent to their respective courts for leave to quit the Corsini for the Albani faction: otherwise there will never be a pope. Corsini has lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and him he designed; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's mistress. The last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish of chocolate down his throat, and would carry him to the scrutiny. The poor old creature went, came back, and died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the pope's coronation, but I might have stayed for seeing it till I had been old enough to be pope myself. Harry, what luck the chancellor has! first, indeed, to be in himself so great a man; but then in accidents: he is made chief justice and peer, when Talbot is made chancellor and peer: (204) Talbot dies in a twelvemonth, and leaves him the seals at an age when others are scarce made solicitors: (205)-then marries his son into one of the first families of Britain, (206) obtains a patent for a marquisate and eight thousand pounds a year after the Duke of Kent's death: the duke dies in a fortnightt, and leaves them all! People talk of Fortune's wheel, that is always rolling: my Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel, and rolled with it. I perceive Miss Jenny (207) would not venture to Ireland, nor stray so far from London; I am glad I shall always know where to find her within threescore miles. I must say a word to my lord, which, Harry, be sure you don't read. ["My dear lord, I don't love troubling you with letters, because I know you don't love the trouble of answering them; not that I should insist on that ceremony, but I hate to burthen any one's conscience. Your brother tells me he is to stand member of parliament: without telling me so, I am sure he owes it to you. I am sure you will not repent setting him up; nor will he be ungrateful to a brother who deserves so much, and whose least merit is not the knowing how to employ so great a fortune."] There, Harry,-I have done. Don't suspect me: I have said no ill of you behind your back. Make my best compliments to Miss Conway. (208) I thoght I had done, and lo, I had forgot to tell you, that who d'ye think is here?-Even Mr. More! our Rheims Mr. More! the fortification, hornwork, ravelin, bastion Mr. More! which is very pleasant sure. At the end of the eighth side, I think I need make no excuse for leaving off; but I am going to write to Selwyn, and to the lady of the mountain; from whom I have had a very kind letter. She has at last received the Chantilly brass. Good night: write to me from one end of the world to t'other. Yours ever. (197) A large old house, two miles from the seat of Sir Arthur Acheson, near Market-hill, and the scene of Swift's humorous poem, "The Grand Question debated, whether Hamilton's Bawn should be turned into a barrack or a malt- house."-E. (198) Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. He was at this time resident at Florence from George II. (199) Henrietta Louisa, wife of Thomas Earl of Pomfret. [She was the daughter of John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem. Lady Pomfret, who was the friend and correspondent of Frances Duchess of Somerset, retired from the court upon the death of Queen Caroline in 1737.] (200) Afterwards married to John Lord Carteret, who became Earl of Granville on the death of his mother in the year 1744. (201) Lady Charlotte Fermor married, in August 1746, William Finch, brother of Daniel seventh Earl of Winchelsea, by whom she had issue a son, George, who, on the death of his uncle, in 1769, succeeded to the earldom. Her ladyship was governess to the children of George III., and highly esteemcd by him and his royal consort.-E. (202) The Princess Craon was the favourite mistress of Leopold the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de Beauveau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of the empire. They at this time resided at Florence, where Prince Craon was at the head of the council of regency. (203) This was a party ballad (written by Glover, though by some at the time ascribed to Lord Bath,) on the taking of Porto-Bello by Admiral Vernon. "The case of Hosier," says Bishop Percy, in his admirable Reliques, vol. ii. p. 382, where the song is preserved, "The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this. In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies to block up the galleons in the port of that country, or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them to England: he accordingly arrived at Bastimentos, near Porto-Bello; but, being employed rather to overawe than attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on this station. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and remained crusing in those seas, till the greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy Climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart.-E. (204) Philip Yorke Lord Hardwicke was the son of an attorney at Dover, and was introduced by the Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole. He was attorney-general, and when Talbot, the solicitor-general, was preferred to him in the contest for the chancellorship, Sir Robert made him chief justice for life, with an increased salary. He was an object of aversion to Horace Walpole, who, in his Memoirs, tells us, "in the House of Lords, he was laughed at, in the cabinet despised." Upon which it is very properly observed by the noble editor of those memoirs, Lord Hollan,-"Yet, in the course of the work, Walpole laments Lord Hardwicke's influence in the cabinet, where he would have us believe that he was despised, and acknowledges that he exercised a dominion nearly absolute over that house of Parliament which, he would persuade his readers, laughed at him. The truth is, that, wherever this great magistrate is mentioned, Lord Orford's resentments blind his judgment and disfigure his narrative."-E. (205) charles Talbot baron Talbot was, on the 29th Nov. 1733, made lord high chancellor and created a baron; and, dying in Feb. 1737, was succeeded by Lord Hardwicke. There is a story current, that Sir Robert Walpole, finding it difficult to prevail on Yorke to quit a place for life, for the higher but more precarious dignity of chancellor, worked upon his jealousy, and said that if he persisted in refusing the seals, he must offer them to Fazakerly. "Fazakerly!" exclaimed Yorke, "impossible! he is certainly a Tory, perhaps a Jacobite." "It's all very true," replied Sir Robert, taking out his watch; " but if by one o'clock you do not accept my offer, Fazakerly by two becomes lord keeper of the great seal, and one of the staunchest Whigs in all England!" Yorke took the seals and the peerage.-E. (206) That of Grey, Duke of Kent, see avove.-E. (207) Miss Jane Conway, half-sister to Henry Seymour Conway. She died unmarried in 1749. (208) Afterwirds married to John Harris, Esq. of Hayne in Devonshire. 159 Letter 25 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, July 31, 1740, N. S. Dear West, I have advised with the most notable antiquarians of this city on the meaning of Thur gut Luetis. I can get no satisfactory interpretation. In my own opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love offering conjectures on a language in which I have hitherto made little proficiency, but I will trust you with my explication. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of Cadwalladhor, was renowned for her conjugal virtues, and grief on the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her lord, and that the inscription Thur gut Luetis means no more than her dear Llewis or Llewellin. In return for your coins I send you two or three of different kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples; the device, a horse; the motto, Equitas regni. This curious pun is on a coin in the Great Duke's collection, and by great chance I have met with a second. Another is, a satirical medal struck on Lewis XIV.; 'tis a bomb, covered with flower-de-luces, bursting; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last, and almost the only one I ever saw with a text well applied, is a German medal with a Rebellious town besieged and blocked up; the inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting. Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on the taking of Porto-Bello? Admiral Vernon will shine in our medallic history. We have just received the news of the bombarding Carthagena, and the taking Chagre. (209) We are in great expectation of some important victory obtained by the squadron under Sir John Norris. we are told the Duke is to be of the expedition; is it true? (210) All the letters, too, talk of France suddenly declaring war; I hope they will defer it for a season, or one shall be obliged to return through Germany. The conclave still subsists, and the divisions still increase; it was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two popes; they were on the dawn of a schism. Aldovrandi had thirty-three voices for three days, but could not procure the requisite two more; the Camerlingo having engaged his faction to sign a protestation against him and each party were inclined to elect. I don't know whether one should wish for a schism or not; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church in the powers of Europe which has been so far decaying. On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montague. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple alliance: we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear West! Yours ever, Hor. Walpole. Though far unworthy to enter into so learned and political a correspondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page de 7 pounces et demie en hauteur, et `a en largeur; and to inform you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of Tuscany: the latitude I cannot justly tell, but it is governed by a prince called Great Duke; an excellent place to employ all one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself: the device is thus 0, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most concise manner to contain a full account of my person, sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here you shall get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast till three, dine till five, sleep till six, drink cooling liquors till eight, go to the bridge till ten, sup till two, and so sleep till twelve again. Lahore fessi venimus ad larem nostrum, Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto; Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laborious tantis. O quid solutis est beatius curis? We shall never come home again; a universal war is just upon the point of breaking out; all outlets will be shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, while you, that will be so absurd as to exist, will envy me. You don't tell me what proficiency you make in the noble science of defence. Don't you start still at the sound of a gun? Have you learned to say ha! ha! and is your neck clothed with thunder? Are your whiskers of a tolerable length? And have you got drunk yet with brandy and gunpowders? Adieu, noble captain! T. GRAY. (209) On the 24th March, 1740, the Spaniards hung out a white flag, and the place was surrendered by capitulation to Admiral Vernon.-E. (210) The Duke of Cumberland had resolved to accompany Sir John Norris as a volunteer, and sailed with him from St. Helens on the 10th June; but on the 17th a gale arising drove them into Torbay, Where Sir John continued until the 29th, when he again put to sea; but the wind once more becoming contrary, and blowing very hard, he was constrained to return to Spithead, and on the following day his royal highness returned to London.-E. 161 Letter 26 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Florence, September 25, 1740, N. S. My dear Hal, I begin to answer your letter the moment I have read it, because you bid me; but I grow so unfit for a correspondence with any body in England, that I have almost left it off. 'Tis so long since I was there, and I am so utterly a stranger to every thing that passes there, that I must talk vastly in the dark to those I write: and having in a manner settled myself here, where there can be no news, I am void of all matter for filling up a letter. As, by the absence of the Great Duke, Florence is become in a manner a country town, YOU may imagine that we are not without dem`el`es; but for a country town I believe there never were a set of people so peaceable, and such strangers to scandal. 'Tis the family of love, where every body is paired, and go as constantly together as paroquets. Here nobody hangs or drowns themselves; they are not ready to cut one another's throats about elections or parties; don't think that wit consists in saying bold truths, or humour in getting drunk. But I shall give you no more of their characters, because I am so unfortunate as to think that their encomium consists in being the reverse of the English, who in general are either mad, or enough to make other people so. After telling you so fairly my sentiments, you may believe, my dear Harry, that I had rather see you here than in England. 'Tis an evil wish for you, who should not be lost in so obscure a place as this. I will not make you compliments, or else here is a charming opportunity for saying what I think of you. As I am convinced you love me, and as I am conscious you have One strong reason for it, I will own to you, that for my own peace you should wish me to remain here. I am so well within and without, that you would scarce know me: I am younger than ever, think of nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round of pleasures. We have operas, concerts, and balls, mornings and evenings. I dare not tell you all One's idleness: you would look so grave and senatorial at hearing that one rises at eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine at night, to supper at one, and to bed at three! But literally here the evenings and nights are so charming and so warm, one can't avoid 'em. Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole town. (211) Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvass petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a-, partly covered with a plaster, and partlv with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse, that you would not use it to wash a chimney.-In three words I will give you her picture (212) as we drew it in the Sortes Virgilianae- Insanam vatem aepicies. I give you my honour, we did not choose it; but Mr. Gray, Mr. Cooke, (213) Sir Francis Dashwood, (214) and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine: those that did I will tell you. For our most religious and gracious- -Dii, talem terris avertite pestem. For one that would be our most religious and gracious. Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens, lassove papavera collo Demis`ere caput, pluvia cum fort`e gravantur. For his son. Regis Romani: primus qui legibus urbem Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra, Missus in imperium magnum. For Sir Robert. Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri, et late fines custode tueri. I will show you the rest when I see you. (211) In a letter from Florence, written by Lady Mary to Mr. Wortley, on the 11th of August, she says, "Lord and Lady Pomfret take pains to make the place agreeable to me, and I have been visited by the greatest part of the people of quality." See the edition of her works, edited by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. ii. p. 325.-E. (212) The following favourable picture" of Lady Mary is by Spence, who met her at Rome, in the ensuing January:-" She is one of the most shining characters in the world, but shines like a comet; she is all irregularity, and always wandering; the most wise, most imprudent; loveliest, most disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in the world; 'all things by turns, and nothing long.'"-E. (213) George Cooke, Esq. afterwards member for Tregony, and chief prothonotary in the Court of Common Pleas. On Mr. Pitt's return to office in 1766 he was appointed joint paymaster-general, and died in 1768. See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 338.-E. (214) Sir Francis Dashwood, who, on the death of John Earl of Westmoreland, succeeded to the barony of Le Despencer, as being the only son of Mary, eldest sister of the said Earl, and which was confirmed to him 19th April'1763.-E. 163 Letter 27 To Sir Richard West, Esq. Florence, Oct. 2, 1740, N. S. Dear West, T'other night as we (you know who we are) were walking on the charming bridge, just before going to a wedding assembly, we said, Lord, I wish, just as we are got into the room, they would call us out, and say, West is arrived! We would make him dress instantly, and carry him back to the entertainment. How he would stare and wonder at a thousand things, that no longer strike us as odd!" Would not you? One agreed that you should come directly by sea from Dover, and be set down at Leghorn, without setting foot in any other foreign town, and so land at Us, in all your first full amaze; for you are to know, that astonishment rubs off violently; we did not cry out Lord! half so much at Rome as at Calais, which to this hour I look upon as one of the most surprising cities in the universe. My dear child, what if you were to take this little sea-jaunt? One would recommend Sir John Norris's convoy to you, but one should be laughed at now for supposing that he is ever to sail beyond Torbay.(215) The Italians take Torbay for an English town in the hands of the Spaniards, after the fashion of Gibraltar, and imagine 'tis a wonderful strong place, by our fleet's having retired from before it so often, and so often returned. We went to this wedding that I told you of; 'twas a charming feast: a large palace finely illuminated; there were all the beauties, all the jewels, and all the sugarplums of Florence. Servants loaded with great chargers full of comfits heap the tables with them, the women fall on with both hands, and stuff their pockets and every creek and corner about them. You would be as much amazed at us as at any thing you saw: instead of being deep in the arts, and being in the Gallery every morning, as I thought of course to be sure I would be, we are in all the idleness and amusements of the town. For me, I am grown so lazy, and so tired-of seeing sights, that, though I have been at Florence six months, I have not seen Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, or Pistoia; nay, not so much as one of the Great Duke's villas. I have contracted so great an aversion to postchaises, and have so absolutely lost all curiosity, that, except the towns in the straight road to Great Britain, I shall scarce see a jot more of a foreign land; and trust me, when I returt), I will not visit the Welsh mountains, like Mr. Williams. After Mount Cenis, the Boccheto, the Giogo, Radicofani, and the Appian Way, one has mighty little hunger after travelling. I shall be mighty apt to set up my staff at Hyde Park corner: the alehouseman there at Hercules's Pillars(216) was certainly returned from his travels into foreign parts. Now I'll answer your questions. I have made no discoveries in ancient or modern arts. Mr. Addison travelled through the poets, and not through Italy; for all his ideas are borrowed from the descriptions, and not from the reality. He saw places as they were, not as they are. I am very well acquainted with Dr. Cocchi; (217) he is a good sort of man, rather than a great man; he is a plain honest creature, with quiet knowledge, but I dare say all the English have told you, he has a very particular understanding: I really don't believe they meant to impose on you, for they thought so. As to Bondelmonti, he is much less; he is a low mimic; the brightest cast of his parts attains to the composition of a sonnet: he talks irreligion with- English boys, sentiment with my sister, (218) and bad French with any one that will hear him. I will transcribe you a little song that he made t'other day; 'tis pretty enough; Gray turned it into Latin, and I into English; you will honour him highly by putting it into French, and Asheton into Greek. Here 'tis. Spesso Amor sotto la forma D'amista ride, e s'asconde; Poi si mischia, e si confonde Con lo sdegno e col rancor. In pietade ei si trasforma, Pas trastullo e par dispetto; ma nel suo diverso aspetto, Sempre egli `a l'istesso Amor. Risit amicitiae interd`um velatus amictu, Et ben`e composit`a veste fefellit Amor: Mox irae assumpsit cultus faciemque minantem, Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymas: Ludentem fuge, nec lacrymanti aut furenti; Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus. Love often in the comely mien Of friendship fancies to be seen; Soon again he shifts his dress, And wears disdain and rancour's face. To gentle pity then he changes- Thro' wantonness, thro' piques he ranges; But in whatever shape he moves, He's still himself, and still is Love. See how we trifle! but one can't pass one's youth too amusingly for one must grow old, and that in England; two most serious circumstances, either of which makes people gray in the twinkling of a bedstaff; for know you there is not a country upon earth where there are so many old fools and so few young ones. Now I proceed in my answers. I made but small collections, and have only bought some bronzes and medals, a few busts, and two or three pictures: one of my busts is to be mentioned; 'tis the famous vespasian in touchstone, reckoned the best in Rome, except the Caracalia of the Farnese- I gave but twenty-two POUDds for it at Cardinal Ottoboni's sale. One of my medals is as great a curiosity; 'tis of Alexander Severus, with the amphitheatre in brass; this reverse is extant on medals of his, but mine is a medagliuncino, or small medallion, and The Only one with this reverse known in the world: 'twas found by a peasant while I was in Rome, and sold by him for sixpence to an antiquarian, to whom I paid for it seven guineas and a half: but to virtuosi 'tis worth any SUM. As to Tartini's (219) musical compositions, ask Gray; I know but little in music. But for the Academy, I am not of it, but frequently in company with it: 'tis all disjointed. Madame * * *, who, though a learned lady, has not lost her modesty and character, is extremely scandalized with the other two dames, especially Moll Worthless, who knows no bounds. She is at rivalry with Lady W. for a certain Mr. * * *, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford. If you did not, I'll tell you: he is a grave young man by temper, and a rich one by constitution; a shallow creature by nature, but a wit by the grace of our women here, whom he deals with as of old with the Oxford toasts. He fell into sentiments with my Lady W. and was happy to catch her at Platonic love; but as she seldom stops there, the poor man will be frightened out of his senses when she shall break the matter to him; for he never dreamt that her purposes were so naught. Lady Mary is so far gone, that to get him from the mouth of her antagonist she literally took him out to dance country dances last night at a formal ball, where there was no measure kept in laughing at her old, foul, tawdry, painted, plastered personage. She played at pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon's, where she cheats horse and foot. She is really entertaining: I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript, but they are too womanish: I like few of her performances. I forgot to tell you a good answer of Lady Pomfret to mr. W. *** who asked her if she did not approve Platonic love. "Lord, sir," says she, , "I am sure any one that knows me never heard that I had any love but one, and there sit two proofs of it," pointing to her two daughters. So I have given you a sketch of our employments, and answered your questions, and will with pleasure as many more as you have about you. Adieu! Was ever such a lon@ letter? But 'tis nothing to what I shall have to say to you. I shaft scold you for never telling us any news, public or private, no deaths, riiarriages, or mishaps; no account of new books: Oh, you are abominable! I could find it in my heart to hate You if I did not love you so well; but we will quarrel now, that we may be the better friends when we meet: there is no danger of that, is there? Good night, whether friend or foe! I am most sincerely Yours. (215) Though brave, skilful, and enterprising Sir John failed to acquire renown, in consequence of mere accidents. On the breaking out of the Spanish war, he was ordered to cruise in the Bay of Biscay; but, owing to tempestuous weather, was compelled to put into port for the winter. The following lines were addressed to him upon this occasion: "Homeward, oh! bend thy course; the seas are rough; To the Land's End who sails has sailed enough." E. (216) Walpole calls the Hercules' Pillars an alehouse. Whatever it might have been at the period he wrote, it is very certain that, after the peace of 1762, it was a respectable tavern, where the Marquis of Granby, and other persons of rank, particularly military men, had frequent dinner parties, which were then fashionable. It was also an inn of great repute among the west-country gentlemen, coming to London for a few weeks, who thought themselves fortunate if they could secure accommodations for their families at the Hercules' Pillars. The spot where it once stood, is now occupied by the noble mansion of the Duke of Wellington.-E. (217) Dr. Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician, resident at Florence, who published a collection of Greek writers upon medicine. He figures conspicuously in Spence's Anecdotes.-E. (218) Margaret Rolle, wife of Robert Walpole, eldest son of Sir Robert Walpole, created Lord Walpole during the lifetime of his father. (219) Giuseppe Tartini of Padua, whom Viotti pronounced the last great improver of the practice of the violin. Several of Tartini's compositions are particularized in that amusing little volume, "The Violin and its Professors," by Mr. Dubourg, who has recorded in quaint verse the well-known story of the "Devil's Sonata," a piece of diablerie, the result of which is that to this day, Tartini's tale hath made all fiddlers say, A hard sonata is the devil to play!-E. 166 Letter 28 To Richard West, Esq. >From Florence, Nov. 1740. Child, I am going to let you see your shocking proceedings with us. On my conscience, I believe 'tis three months since you wrote to either Gray or me. If you had been ill, Ashton would have said so; and if you had been dead the gazettes would have said it. If you had been angry,-but that's impossible; how can one quarrel with folks three thousand miles off? We are neither divines nor commentators, and consequently have not hated you on paper. 'Tis to show that my charity for you cannot be interrupted at this distance that I write to you, though I have nothing to say, for 'tis a bad time for small news; and when emperors and czarinas are dying all up and down Europe, one can't pretend to tell you of any thing that happens within our sphere. Not but that we have our accidents too. if you have had a great wind in England, we have had a great water at Florence. We have been trying to set out every day, and pop upon you (220) * * * * * It is fortunate that we stayed, for I don't know what had become of us! Yesterday, with violent rains, there came flouncing down from the mountains such a flood that it floated the whole city. The jewellers on the Old Bridge removed their commodities, -and in two hours after the bridge was cracked. The torrent broke down the quays and drowned several coach-horses, which are kept here in stables under ground. We were moated into our house all day, which is near the Arno, and had the miserable spectacles of the ruins that were washed along with the hurricane. There was a cart with two oxen not quite dead, and four men in it drowned: but what was ridiculous, there came tiding along a fat haycock, with a hen and her eggs, and a cat. The torrent is considerably abated; but we expect terrible news from the country, especially from Pisa, which stands so much lower, and nearer the sea. There is a stone here, which, when the water overflows, Pisa is entirely flooded. The water rose two ells yesterday above that stone. Judge! For this last month we have passed our time but dully; all diversions silenced on the emperor's death, (221) and everybody out of town. I have seen nothing but cards and dull pairs of cicisbeos. I have literally seen so much love and pharaoh since being here, that I believe I shall never love either again SO long as I live. Then I am got in a horrid lazy way of a morning. I don't believe I should know seven o'clock in the morning again if I was to see it. But I am returning to England, and shall grow very solemn and wise! Are you wise'( Dear West, have pity on one who have done nothing of gravity for these two years, and do laugh sometimes. We do nothing else, and have contracted such formidable ideas of the good people of England that we are already nourishing great black eyebrows and great black beards, and teasing our countenances into wrinkles. Then for the common talk of the times, we are quite at a loss, and for the dress. You would oblige us exceedingly by forwarding to us the votes of the houses, the king's speech, and the magazines; or if you had any such thing as a little book called the Foreigner's Guide through the city of London and the liberties of Westminster; or a letter to a Freeholder; or the Political Companion: then 'twoulg be an infinite obligation if you would neatly band-box up a baby dressed after the newest Temple fashion now in use at both play-houses. Alack-a-day! We shall just arrive in the tempest of elections! As our departure depends entirely upon the weather, we cannot tell you to a day when we shall say Dear West, how glad I am to see you! and all the many questions and answers that we shall give and take. Would the day were come! Do but figure to yourself the journey we are to pass through first! But you can't conceive Alps, Apennines, Italian inns, and postchaises. I tremble at the thoughts. They were just sufferable while new and unknown, and as we met them by the way in coming to Florence, Rome, and Naples; but they are passed, and the mountains remain! Well, write to one in the interim; direct to me addressed to Monsieur Selwyn, chez Monsieur.Ilexandre, Rue St. Apolline, a Paris. If Mr. Alexandre is not there, the street is, and I believe that will be sufficient. Adieu, my dear child! Yours ever. (220) A line of the manuscript is here torn away. (221) Charles the Sixth, Emperor of Germany, upon whose death, on the 9th of October, his eldest daughter, Maria-Theresa, in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, instantly succeeded to the whole Austrian inheritance.-E. 168 Letter 29 To The Rev. Joseph Spence. (222) Florence, Feb. 21, 1741, N. S. Sir, Not having time last post, I begged Mr. Mann to thank you for the obliging paragraph for me in your letter to him. But as I desire a nearer correspondence with you than by third hands, I assure you in my own proper person that I shall have great pleasure, on our meeting in England, to renew an acquaintance that 'I began with so much pleasure in Italy. (223) I Will not reckon you among my modern friends, but in the first article of virtu: you have given me so many new lights into a science that but a warmth and freedom that will flow from my friendship, and which will not be contained within the circle of a severe awe. As I shall always be attentive to give you any satisfaction that lies in my power, I take the first opportunity of sending you two little poems, both by a hand that I know you esteem the most; if you have not seen them, you will thank me for lilies of Mr. Pope: if you have, why I did not know it. I don't know whether Lord Lincoln has received any orders to return home: I had a letter from one of my brothers last post to tell me from Sir Robert that he would have me leave Italy as soon as possible, lest I should be shut up unawares by the arrival of the Spanish troops; and that I might pass some time in France if I had amind. I own I don't conceive how it is possible these troops should arrive without its being known some time before. And as to the Great Duke's dominions, one can always be out of them in ten hours or less. If Lord Lincoln has not received the same orders.. I shall believe what I now think, that I am wanted for some other reason. I beg my kind love to Lord Lincoln, and that Mr. Spence will believe me, his sincere humble servant HOR. WALPOLE. (222) The well-known friend of Pope and author of the Polymetis, who was then travelling on the Continent with Henry, Earl of Lincoln, afterwards Duke of Newcastle. See ante p. 140, (Letter 14, and footnote 175).-E. (223) This acquaintance proved of infinite service to Walpole, shortly after the date of this letter, when he was laid up with a quinsy at Reggio. Spence thus describes the circumstance: "About three or four in the morning I was surprised with a message, saying that Mr. Walpole was very much worse, and desired to see me; I went, and found him scarce able to speak. I soon learned from his servants that he had been all the while without a physician, and had doctored himself; so I immediately sent for the best aid the place would afford, and despatched a messenger to the minister at Florence, desiring him to send my friend Dr. Cocchi. In about twenty-four hours I had the satisfaction to find Mr. Walpole better: we left him in a fair way of recovery, and we hope to see him next week at Venice. I had obtained leave of Lord Lincoln to stay behind some days if he had been worse. You see what luck one has sometimes in going out of one's way. If Lord Lincoln had not wandered to Reggio, Mr. Walpole (who is one of the best-natured and most sensible young gentlemen England affords) would have, in all probability, fallen a sacrifice to his disorder."-E. 169 Letter 30 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Florence, March 25th, 1741, N. S. Dear Hal, You must judge by what you feel yourself of what I feel for Selwyn's recovery, with the addition of what I have suffered from post to post. But as I find the whole town have had the same sentiments about him, (though I am sure few so strong as myself,) I will not repeat what you have heard so much. I shall write to him to-night, though he knows without my telling him how very much I love him. To you, my dear Harry, I am infinitely obliged for the three successive letters you wrote me about him, which gave me double pleasure, as they showed your attention for me at a time that you know I must be so unhappy; and your friendship for him. Your account of Sir Robert's victory (224) was so extremely well told, that I made Gray translate it into French, and have showed it to all that could taste It, or were inquisitive on the occasion. I have received a print by this post that diverts me extremely; 'the Motion.' (225) Tell me, dear, now, who made the design, and who took the likenesses; they are admirable: the lines are as good as one sees on such occasions. I wrote last post to Sir Robert, to wish him joy; I hope he received my letter. I was to have set out last Tuesday, but on Sunday came the news of the Queen of Hungary being brought to bed of a son; (226) on which occasion here will be great triumphs, operas and masquerades, which detain me for a short time. I won't make you any excuse for sending you the follOWing lines; you have prejudice enough for me to read with patience any Of My idlenesses. (227) My dear Harry, you enrage me with talking of another journey to Ireland; it will shock me if I don't find you at my return: pray take care and be in England. I wait with some patience to see Dr. Middleton's Tully, as I read the greatest part of it in manuscript; though indeed 'tis rather a reason for my being impatient to read the rest. If Tully can receive any additional honour, Dr. Middleton is most capable of conferring it. (228) I receivc with great pleasure any remembrances of my lord and your sisters; I long to see all of you. Patapan is so handsome that he has been named the silver fleece; and there is a new order of knighthood to be erected to his honour, in opposition to the golden. Precedents are searching, and plans drawing up for that purpose. I hear that the natives pretend to be companions, upon the authority of their dogskin waistcoats; but a council that has been held on purpose has declared their pretensions impertinent. Patapan has lately taken wife unto him, as ugly as he is genteel, but of a very great family, being the direct heiress of Canis Scaliger, Lord of Verona: which principality we design to seize `a la Prussienne; that is, as soon as ever we shall have persuaded the republic of Venice that we are the best friends they have in the world. Adieu, dear child! Yours ever. P. S. I left my subscriptions for Middleton's Tully with Mr. Selwyn; I won't trouble him, but I wish you would take care and get the books, if Mr. S. has kept the list. (224) On the event of Mr. Sandys' motion in the House of commons to remove Sir Robert Walpole from the King's presence and councils for ever. [The motion was negatived by 290 against 106: an unusual majority, which proceeded from the schism between the Tories and the Whigs, and the secession of Shippen and his friends. The same motion was made by Lord-Carteret in the House of Lords, and negatived by 108 against 59.-E.) (225) The print alluded to exhibits an interesting view of Whitehall, the Treasury, and adjoining buildings, as they stood at the time. The Earl of Chesterfield, as postilion of a coach which is going full speed towards the Treasury, drives over all in his way. The Duke of Argyle is coachman, flourishing a sword instead of a whip; while Doddington is represented as a spaniel, sitting between his legs. Lord Carteret, perceiving the coach about to be overturned, is calling to the coachman,"Let me get out!" Lord Cobbam, as the footman, is holding fast on by the straps; while Lord Lyttleton is ambling by the side on a rosinante as thin as himself. Smallbrook, Bishop of Lichfield, is bowing obsequiously as they pass; while Sandys, letting fall the place-bill, exclaims, ,I thought what would come of putting him on the box." In the foreground is Pulteney, leading several figures by strings from their noses, and wheeling a barrow filled with the Craftsman's Letters, Champion, State of the Nation, and Common Sense, exclaiming, "Zounds, they are over!" This caricature, and another, entitled " The Political Libertines, or Motion upon Motion," had been provoked by one put forth by Sir Robert Walpole's opponents, entitled "The Grounds for the Motion;" and were followed up by another from the supporters of Sandys' motion, entitled "The Motive or Reason for his Triumph," which the caricaturist attributes entirely to bribery.-E. (226) Afterwards Joseph the Second, emperor of Germany.-E. (227) Here follows the Inscription for the neglected column in the place of St. Mark, at Florence, afterwards printed in the Fugitive Pieces. (228) Dr. Middleton's "History of the Life of Cicero" was published in the early part of this year, by subscription, and dedicated to Pope's enemy, Lord Hervey. This laboured encomium on his lordship obtained for the doctor a niche in the Dunciad:- Narcissus, praised with all a Parson's power, Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower."-E. 170 Letter 31 To Richard West, Esq. Reggio, May 1 1741, N. S. Dear West, I have received the end of your first act, (229) and now will tell you sincerely what I think of it. If I was not so pleased with the beginning as I usually am with your compositions, believe me the part of Pausanias has charmed me. There is all imaginable art joined with all requisite simplicity: and a simplicity, I think, much preferable to that in the scenes of Cleodora and Argilius. Forgive me, if I say they do not talk laconic but low English in her, who is Persian too, there would admit more heroic. But for the whole part of Pausanias, 'tis great and well worried up, and the art that is seen seems to proceed from his head, not from the author's. As I am very desirous you should continue, so I own I wish you would improve or change the beginning: those who know you not so well as I do, would not wait with so much patience for the entrance of Pausanias. You see I am frank; and if I tell you I do not approve of the first part, you may believe me as sincere when I tell you I admire the latter extremely. My letter has an odd date. You would not expect I should be writing in such a dirty place as Reggio: but the fair is charming; and here come all the nobility of Lombardy, and all the broken dialects of Genoa, Milan, Venice, Bologna, etc. You never heard such a ridiculous confusion of tongues. All the morning one goes to the fair undressed, as to the walks of Tunbridge: 'tis Just in that manner, with lotteries, raffles, etc. After dinner all the company return in their coaches, and make a kind of corso, with the ducal family, who go to shops, where you talk to 'em, from thence to the opera, in mask if you will, and afterwards to the ridotto. This five nights in the week, Fridays there are masquerades, and Tuesdays balls at the Rivalta, a villa of the Duke's. In short, one diverts oneself. I pass most part of the opera in the Duchess's box, who is extremely civil to me and extremely agreeable. A daughter of the Regent's, (230) that could please him, must be so. She is not young, though still handsome, but fat; but has given up her gallantries cheerfully, and in time, and lives easily with a dull husband, two dull sisters of his, and a dull court. These two princesses are wofully ugly, old maids and rich. They might have been married often; but the old Duke was whimsical and proud, and never would consent to any match for them, but left them much money, and pensions of three thousand pounds a year apiece. There was a design to have given the eldest to this King of Spain, and the Duke was to have had the Parmesan princess; so that now he would have had Parma and Placentia, Joined to Modena, Reggio, Mirandola, and Massa. But there being a Prince of Asturias, the old Duke Rinaldo broke off the match, and said his daughter's children should not be younger brothers: and so they mope old virgins. I am goin@ from hence to Venice, in a fright lest there be a war with France, and then I must drag myself through Germany. We have had an imperfect account of a sea-fight in America . but we are so out of the way, that one can't be sure of it. Which way soever I return, I shall be soon in England, and there you 'will find me again. As much as ever yours. (229) of a tragedy called Pausanias, The first act, and probably all that was ever written by Mr. West. [In the preceding month West had forwarded to Gray the sketch of this tragedy, which he appears to have criticised with much freedom; but Mr. Mason did not find among Gray's papers either the sketch itself, or the free critique upon it.] (230) Philip Duke of Orleans. 172 Letter 32 To Sir Horace Mann. (231) Calais, and Friday, and here I have been these two days, 1741. Is the wind laid? Shall I Dever get aboard? I came here on Wednesday night, but found a tempest that has never ceased since. At Boulogne I left Lord Shrewsbury and his mother, and brothers and sisters, waiting too: Bulstrode (232) passes his winter at the court of Boulogne, and then is to travel with two young Shrewsburys. I was overtaken by Amorevoli and Monticelli, (233) who are here with me and the Viscontina, and Barberina, and Abbate Vanneschi (234)-what a coxcomb! I would have talked to him about the opera, but he preferred politics. I have wearied Amorevoli with questions about you. If he was not just come from you, and could talk to me about you, I should hate him; for, to flatter me, he told me that I talked Italian better than you. He did not know how little I think it a compliment to have any thing preferred to you-besides, you know the consistence of my Italian! They are all frightened out of their senses about going on the sea, and are not a little afraid of the English. They went on board the William and Mary yacht yesterday, which waits here for Lady Cardigan from Spa. The captain clapped the door, and swore in broad English that the Viscontina should not stir till she gave him a song, he did not care whether it was a catch or a moving ballad; but she would not submit. I wonder he did! When she came home and told me, I begged her not to judge of all the English from this specimen; but, by the way, she will find many sea-captains that grow on dry land. Sittinburn, Sept. 13, O. S. Saturday morning, or yesterday, we did set out, and after a good passage of four hours and a half, landed at Dover. I begin to count my comforts, for I find their contraries thicken on my apprehension. I have, at least, done for a while with postchaises. My trunks were a little opened at Calais, and they would have stopped my medals, but with much ado and much three louis's they let them pass. At Dover I found the benefit of the motions (235) having miscarried last year, for they respected Sir Robert's son even in the person of his trunks. I came over in a yacht with East India captains' widows, a Catholic girl, coming from a convent to be married, with an Irish priest to guard her, who says he studied medicines for two years, and after that he studied learning for two years more. I have not brought over a word of French or Italian for common use; I have so taken pains to avoid affectation in this point, that I have failed Only now and then in a chi`a l`a! to the servants, who I can scarce persuade myself yet are English. The COUntry-town (and you will believe me, who, you know, am not prejudiced) delights me; the populousness, the ease, the gaiety, and well-dressed every body amaze me. Canterbury, which on my setting out I thought deplorable, is a paradise, (236) to Modena, Reggio, Parma, etc. I had before discovered that there was nowhere but in England the distinction of middling people; I perceive now, that there is peculiar to us middling houses: how snug they are! I write to-night because I have time; to-morrow I get to London just as the post goes. Sir Robert is at Houghton. Good night till another post. You are quite well I trust, but tell me so always. My loves to the Chutes (237) and all the etc.'s. Oh! a story of Mr. Pope and the prince:-"Mr. Pope, you don't love princes." "Sir, I beg your pardon." "Well, you don't love kings, then!""Sir, I own I love the lion best before his claws are grown." Was it possible to make a better answer to such simple questions? Adieu! my dearest child! Yours, ten thousand times over. P. S. Patapan does not seem to regret his own country. (231) This is the first of the series of letters addressed by Walpole to Sir Horace Man, British envoy at the court of Tuscany. The following prefatory note, entitled "Advertisement by the Author," explains the views which led Walpole to preserve them for publication:- "The following Collection of Letters, written very carelessly by a young man, had been preserved by the person to whom they were addressed. The author, some years after the date of the first, borrowed them, on account of some anecdotes interspersed. On the perusal, among many trifling relations and stories, which were only of consequence or amusing to the two persons concerned in the correspondence, he found some facts, characters, and news, which, though below the dignity of history, might prove entertaining to many other people: and knoing how much pleasure, not only himself, but many other persons have found in a series of private and familiar letters, he thought it worth his while to preserve these, as they contain something of the customs, fashions, politics, diversions, and private history of several years; which, if worthy of any existence, can be properly transmitted to posterity only in this manner. "The reader will find a few pieces of intelligence which did not prove true; but which are retained here as the author heard and related them, lest correction should spoil the simple air of the narrative.* When the letters were written, they were never intended for public inspection; and now they are far from being thought correct, or more authentic than the general turn of epistolary correspondence admits. The author would sooner have burnt them than have taken the trouble to correct such errant trifles, which are here presented to the reader, with scarce any variation or omissions, but what private friendships and private history, or the great haste with which the letters were written, made indispensably necessary, as will plainly appear, not only by the unavoidable chasms, where the originals were worn out or torn away, but by many idle relations and injudicious remarks and prejudices of a young man; for which @the only excuse the author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people (if into such hands they should fall) will very justly despise. Who ever has patience to peruse the series, will find, perhaps, that as the author grew older, some of his faults became less striking." * They are marked in the notes. (232) Tutor to the young Earl of Shrewsbury. [.Charles Talbot, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, born December 1719. He married, in 1753, Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. John Dormer, afterwards Lord Dormer, and died in 1787, without issue.] (233) Italian singers. [Angelo Maria Monticelli, a celebrated singer of the same class as Veluti, was born at Milan in 1715, and first attained the celebrity which he enjoyed by singing with Mingotti at the Royal Opera at Naples in 1746. After visiting most of the cities of the Continent, he was induced by the favour with which he was received at Dresden to make that city his residence, until his death in 1764. Is the name of Amorevoli, borne by one of the first singers of that day, an assumed one, or an instance of name fatality? Certain it is,that Amorevole is a technical term in music somewhat analogous in its signification with Amabile and Amoroso.] (234) An Italian abb`e, who directed and wrote the operas under the protection of Lord Middlesex. (235) The motion in both houses of Parliament, 1740, for removing Sir Robert Walpole from the King's councils. [See ante, p. 169 (Letter 30).) (236) ("On! On! through meadows, managed like a garden, A paradise of hops and high production; For, after years of travel by a bard in Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction, A green field is a sight which makes him pardon The absence of that more sublime construction, Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices, Glaciers, volcanos, oranges, and ices."-Byron, 1823.) (237) John Chute and Francis Whithed, Esqrs. two great friendls of Mr. W.'s, whom he had left at Florence, where he had been himself thirteen months, in the house of Mr. Mann, his relation and particular friend. 174 Letter 33 To Sir Horace Mann. [The beginning of this letter is lost.) ****I had written and sealed my letter, but have since received another from you, dated Sept. 24. I read Sir Robert your account of Corsica; he seems to like hearing any account sent this way-indeed, they seem to have more superficial relations in general than I could have believed! You will oblige me, too, with any farther account of Bianca Colonna: (238) it is romantic, her history! I am infinitely obliged to Mr. Chute for his kindness to me, and still more for his friendship to you. You cannot think how happy I am to hear that you are to keep him longer. You do not mention his having received my letter from Paris: I directed it to him, recommended to you. I would not have him think me capable of neglecting to answer his letter, which obliged me so much. I will deliver Amorevoli his letter the first time I see him. Lord Islay (239) dined here; I mentioned Stosch's (240) Maltese cats. Lord Islay begged I would write to Florence to have the largest male and female that can be got. If you will speak to Stosch, you will oblige me: they may come by sea. You cannot imagine my amazement at your not being invited to Riccardi's ball; do tell me, when you know, what can be the meaning of it; it could not be inadvertence-nay, that were as bad! Adieu my dear child, once more! (238A kind friend of Joan of Are, who headed the Corsican rebels against the Genoese. (239) Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and, on his brother's death in 1743, Duke of Argyle. (240) Baron Stosch, a Prussian virtuoso, and spy for the court of England on the Pretender. He had been driven from Rome, though it was suspected that he was a spy on both sides: he was a man of a most infamous character in every respect. according to the Biographic Universelle, the Baron "ne put s'acquitter de fonctions aussi d`elicates sans se voir expos`e `a des naines violentes, qui le forc`erent `a se retirer `a Florence;" where he died in 1757. He was one of the most skilful and industrious antiquaries of his time. A catalogue of his gems was drawn up by Winkelmann.] 175 Letter 34 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. London, 1741. My Dearest Harry, Before I thank you for myself, I must thank you for that excessive good nature you showed in writing to poor Gray. I am less impatient to see you, as I find you are not the least altered, but have the same tender friendly temper you always had. I wanted much to see if you were still the same-but you are. Don't think of coming before your brother, he is too good to be left for any one living: besides, if it is possible, I will see you in the country. Don't reproach me, and think nothing could draw me into the country: impatience to see a few friends has drawn me out of Italy; and Italy, Harry, is pleasanter than London. As I do not love living en famille so much as you (but then indeed my family is not like yours), I am hurried about getting myself a house; for I have so long lived single, that I do not much take to being confined with my own family. You won't find me much altered, I believe; at least, outwardly. 'I am not grown a bit shorter, or a bit fatter, but am just the same long lean creature as usual. Then I talk no French., but to my footman; nor Italian, but to myself. What inward alterations may have happened to me, you will discover best; for you know 'tis said, one never knows that one's self. I will answer, that that part of it that belongs to you, has not suffered the least change-I took care of that. For virt`u, I have a little to entertain you: it is my sole pleasure.-I am neither young enough nor old enough to be in love. My dear Harry, will you take care and make my compliments to that charming Lady Conway, (241) who I hear is so charming, and to Miss Jenny [Conway], who I know is so? As for Miss Anne, (242) and her love as far as it is decent: tell her, decency is out of the question between us, that I love her without any restriction. I settled it yesterday with Miss Conway, that you three are brothers and sister to me, and that if you had been so, I could not love you better. I have so many cousins, and uncles and aunts, and bloods that grow in Norfolk, that if I had portioned out my affections to them, as they say I should, what a modicum would have fallen to each!-So, to avoid fractions, I love my family in you three, their representatives. (243) Adieu, my dear Harry! Direct to me at Downing Street. Good-bye! Yours ever. (241) Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton. She had been married in May, to(Walpole's maternal cousin), Francis Seymour Conway, afterwards Earl of Hertford.( 242) Miss Anne conway, youngest sister of Henry Seymour Conway. (243) They were first cousins by the mother's side; Francis first Lord conway having married Charlotte, eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook in Kent, sister to Catherine Shorter Lady Walpole. 176 Letter 35 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Oct. 8, 1741, O. S. I have been very near sealing this letter with black wax; Sir Robert came from Richmond on Sunday night extremely ill, and on Monday was in great danger. It was an ague and looseness; but they have stopped the latter, and converted the other into a fever, which they are curing with the bark. He came out of his chamber to-day for the first time, and is quite out of danger. One of the newspapers says, Sir R. W. is so bad that there are no Hopes of him. The Pomfrets (244) are arrived; I went this morning to visit my lord, but did not find him. Lady Sophia is ill, and my earl (245) still at Paris, not coming. There is no news, nor a soul in town. One talks of nothing but distempers, like Sir Robert's. My Lady Townsende (246) was reckoning up the other day the several things that have cured them; such a doctor so many, such a medicine, so many; but of all, the greatest number have found relief from the sudden deaths of their husbands. The opera begins the day after the King's birthday: the singers are not permitted to sing till on the stage, so no one has heard them, nor have I seen Amorovoli to give him the letter. The opera is to be on the French system of dancers, scenes, and dresses. The directors have already laid out great sums. They talk of a mob to silence the operas, as they did the French players; but it will be more difficult, for here half the young noblemen in town are engaged, and they will not be so easily persuaded to humour the taste of the mobility: in short, they have already retained several eminent lawyers from the Bear Garden (247) to plead their defence. I have had a long visit this morning from Don Benjamin: (248) he is one of the best kind of agreeable men I ever saw-quite fat and easy, with universal knowledge: he is in the greatest esteem at my court. I am going to trouble you with some commissions. Miss Rich, (249) who is the finest singer except your sister (250) in the world, has begged me to get her some music, particularly "the office of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows," by Pergolesi, (251) the "Serva Padrona, il Pastor se torna Aprile," and "Symplicetta Pastorella." If you can send these easily, you will much oblige me. Do, too, let me know by your brother, what you have already laid out for me, that I may pay him. I was mentioning to Sir Robert some pictures in italy, which I wished him to buy; two particularly, if they can be got, would make him delight in you beyond measure. They are, a Madonna, and Child, by Dominichino, (252) in the palace Zambeccari, at Boloana, or Caliambec, (253) as they call it; Mr. Chute knows the picture. The other is by Corregio, in a convent at Parma, and reckoned the second best of that hand in the world. There are the Madonna and Child, St. Catherine, St. Matthew, and other figures: it is a most known picture, and has been engraved by Augustin Caracei. If you can employ any body privately to inquire about these pictures, be so good as to let me know; Sir R. would not scruple almost any price, for he has of neither hand: the convent is poor: the Zambeccari collection is to be sold, though, when I inquired after this picture, they would not set a price. Lord Euston is to be married to Lady Dorothy Boyle (254) tomorrow, after so many delays. I have received your long letter, and Mr. Chute's too, which I will answer next post. I wish I had the least politics to tell you; but all is silent. The opposition sav not a syllable, because they don't know what the Court will think of public 'affairs; and they will not take their part till they are sure of contradicting. The Court will not be very ready to declare themselves, as their present situation is every way disagreeable. All they say, is to throw the blame entirely on the obstinacy of the Austrian Court, who -,vould never stir or soften for themselves, while they thought any one obliged to defend them. All I know of news is, that Poland is leaning towards the acquisition side, like her neighbours, and proposes to get a lock of the Golden Fleece too. Is this any part of Gregory's (255) negotiation? I delight in his Scapatta--"Scappata, no; egli solamente ha preso la posta." My service to Seriston; he is charming. How excessively obliging to go to Madame Grifoni's (256) festino! but believe me, I shall be angry, if for my sake, you do things that are out of your character: don't you know that I am infinitely fonder of that than of her? I read your story of the Sposa Panciatici at table, to the great entertainment of the company, and Prince Craon's epitaph, which Lord Cholmley (257) says he has heard before, and does not think it is the prince's own; no more do I, it is too good; but make my compliments of thanks to him; he shall have his buckles the first opportunity I find of sending them. Say a thousand things for me to dear Mr. Chute, till I can say them next post for myself: till then, adieu. Yours ever. (244) Thomas Earl of Pomfret, and Henrietta Louisa, his consort, and his two eldest daughters, Sophia and Charlotte, had been in Italy at the same time with Mr. Walpole. The Earl had been master of the horse to Queen Caroline, and the countess lady of the bedchamber. (245) Henry Earl of Lincoln was at that time in love with Lady Sophia Fermor. (246) Ethelreda Harrison, wife of Charles Lord Viscount Townsend, but parted from him. (247) Boxers. (248) Sir Benjamin Keene, ambassador at Madrid. (249) Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Rich, since married to Sir George Lyttelton. [Eldest son of sir Thomas Lyttelton of hagley; in 1744 appointed one of the lords of the treasury, and in 1755, chancellor of the exchequer. In 1757,when he retired from public life, he was raised to the peerage, by the title of Lord Lyttelton. He died in 1773. His prose works were printed collectively in 1774; and his poems have given him a place among the British poets.] (250) Mary, daughter of R. Mann, Esq. since married to Mr. Foote. (251) Better known to all lovers of the works of this great composer as his " Stabat mater."-E. (252) It will be seen by Walpole's letter to Mr. Chute, of the 20th August 1743, now first published, that he eventually succeeded in purchasing this picture.-E. (253) A corrupted pronunciation of the Bolognese. (254) This unfortunate marriage is alluded to several times in the course of the subsequent letters. George Earl of Euston was the eldest son of Charles the second Duke of Grafton. He married, in 1741, Lady Dorothy Boyle, eldest daughter and co-heir of Richard, third and last heir of B(irlington. She died in 1742, from the effects, as it is supposed, of his brutal treatment of her. The details of his cruelty towards her are almost too revolting to be believed. In Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's poems are some pretty lines on her death, beginning, "Behold one moment Dorothea's fate."-D. (255) Gregorio ALdollo, an Asiatic, from being a prisoner at Leghorn, raised himself to be employed to the Great Duke by the King of Poland. (256) Elisabetta Capponi, wife of signor Grifoni, a great beauty. (257) George third Earl of Cholmondeley, had married Mary Walpole, only legitimate daughter of Sir Robert Walpole-D. 178 Letter 36 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 13, 1741. [The greatest part of this letter is wanting.] **** The Town will come to town, and then one shall know something. Sir Robert is quite recovered. Lady Pomfret I saw last night: Lady Sophia has been ill with a cold; her head is to be dressed French, and her body English, for which I am sorry; her figure is so fine in a robe: she is full as sorry as I am. Their trunks are not arrived yet, so they have not made their appearance. My lady told me a little out of humour that Uguecioni wrote her word, that you said her things could not be sent away yet: I understood from you, that very wisely, you would have nothing to do about them, so made no answer. The parliament meets the fifteenth of November. **** Amorevoli has been with me two hours this evening; he is in panics about the first night, which is the next after the birthday. I have taken a master, not to forget my Italian-don't it look like returning to Florence'!-some time or other. Good night. Yours ever and ever, my dear child. 178 Letter 37 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 19, 1741, O. S. [Great part wanting.] I write to you up to the head and ears in dirt, straw, and unpacking. I have been opening all my cases from the Custom-house the whole morning; and-are not you glad?-every individual safe and undamaged. I am fitting up an apartment in Downing Street ***(258) was called in the morning, and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, for I have frequently known him snore ere they had drawn his curtains, now never sleeps above an hour without waking; and he, who at dinner always forgot he was minister, and was more gay and thoughtless than all his company, now sits without speaking, and with his eyes fixed for an hour together. Judge if this is the Sir Robert you knew. The politics of the age are entirely suspended; nothing is mentioned; but this bottling them up, will make them fly out with the greater violence the moment the parliament meets; till *** a word to you about this affair. I am sorry to hear the Venetian journey of the Suares family; it does not look as if the Teresina was to marry PandOlfini; do you know, I have set my heart upon that match. You are very good to the Pucci, to give her that advice, though I don't suppose she will follow it. The Bolognese scheme *** In return for Amorevoli's letter, he has given me two. I fancy it will be troublesome to you; so put his wife into some other method of correspondence with him. Do you love puns? A pretty man of the age came into the playhouse the other night, booted and spurred: says he, "I am come to see Orpheus"-"And Euridice- You rid I see," replied another gentleman. (258) The omissions in these letters marked with stars occur in the original MS.-D. 179 Letter 38 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 22, 1741, O. S. Your brother has been with me this morning, and we have talked over your whole affair. He thinks it will be impossible to find any servant of the capacities you require, that will live with you under twenty, if not thirty pounds a-year, especially as he is not to have your clothes: then the expense of the journey to Florence, and of back again, in case you should not like him, will be considerable. He is for your taking one from Leghorn; but I, who know a little more of Leghorn than he does, should be apprehensive of any person from thence being in the interest of Goldsworthy, (259) or too attached to the merchants: in short, I mean, he would be liable to prove a spy upon you. We have agreed that I shall endeavour to find out a proper man, if such a one will go to you for twenty pounds a-year, and then you shall ficar from me. I am very sensible that Palombo (260) is not fit for you, and shall be extremely diligent in equipping you with such a one as you want. You know how much I want to be of service to you even in trifles. I have been much diverted privately, for it is a secret that not a hundred persons know yet, and is not to be spoken of. Do but think on a duel between Winnington (261) and Augustus Townshend; (262) the latter a pert boy, captain of an Indiaman; the former declared cicisbeo to my Lady Townshend. The quarrel was something that Augustus had said of them; for since she was parted from her husband, she has broke with all his family. Winnington challenged; they walked into Hyde Park last Sunday morning, scratched one another's fingers, tumbled into two ditches-that is Augustus did,-kissed, and walked home together. The other night at Mrs. Boothby's- Well, I did believe I should never find time to write to you again; I was interrupted in my letter last post, and could not finish it; to-day I came home from the King's levee, where I Kissed his hand, without going to the drawing-room, on purpose to finish my letter, and the moment I sat down they let somebody in. That somebody is gone, and I go on-At Mrs. Boothby's Lady Townshend was coquetting with Lord Baltimore: (263) he told her, if she meant any thing with him he was not for her purpose; if only to make any one jealous, he would throw away an hour with her with all his heart. The whole town is to be to-morrow night at Sir Thomas Robinson's (264) ball, which he gives to a little girl of the Duke of Richmond's. There are already two hundred invited, from miss in bib and apron, to my lord chancellor (265) in bib and mace. You shall hear about it next post. I wrote you word that Lord Euston is married: in a week more I believe that I shall write you word that he is divorced. He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady Burlington (266) his house, and that in very ungentle terms. The whole family is in confusion: the Duke of Grafton half dead. and Lord Burlington half mad. The latter has challenged Lord Euston, who accepted the challenge, but they were prevented. There are different stories: some say that the duel would have been no breach of consanguinity; others, that there's a contract of marriage come out in another place, which has had more consanguinity than ceremony in it: in short, one cannot go into a room but you hear something of it. Do you not pity the poor girl? of the softest temper, vast beauty, birth, and fortune, to be so sacrificed! The letters from the West Indies are not the most agreeable. You have heard of the fine river and little town which Vernon took, and named, the former dugusta, the latter Cumberland. Since that, they have found out that it is impracticable to take St. Jago by sea - on which Admiral Vernon and Ogle insisted that Wentworth, with the land forces, should march to it by land, which he, by advice of all the land-officers, has refused; for their march would have been of eighty miles, through a mountainous, unknown country, full of defiles, where not two men could march abreast; and they have but four thousand five hundred men, and twenty-four horses. Quires of paper from both sides are come over to the council, who are to determine from hence what is to be done. They have taken a Spanish man-of-war and a register ship, going to Spain, immensely valuable. The parliament does not meet till the first of December, which relieves me into a little happiness, and gives me a little time to settle myself. I have unpacked all my things, and have not had the least thing suffer. I am now only in a fright about my birthday clothes, which I bespoke at Paris: Friday is the day, and this is Monday, without any news of them! I have been two or three times at the play, very unwillingly; for nothing was ever so bad as the actors, except the company. There is much in vogue a Mrs. Woffington, (267) a bad actress; but she has life. Lord Hartington (268) dines here: it is said (and from his father's partiality to another person's father, I don't think it impossible) that he is to marry a certain miss:(269) Lord Fitzwilliam is supposed another candidate. Here is a new thing which has been much about town, and liked; your brother Gale (270) gave me the copy of it: "Les cours de l'Europe L'Allemagne craint tout; L'Autriche risque tout; La Bavi`ere esp`ere touut; La Prusse entreprend tout; La Mayence vend tout; Le Portugal regarde tout; L'Angleterre veut faire tout; L'Espagne embrouille tout; La Savoye se d`efie de tout; Le Mercure se m`ele de tout; La France sch`ete tout; Les Jesuites se trouvent par tout; Rome b`enit tout' Si dieu ne pourvoye `a tout, Le diable emportera tout." Good night, my dear child: you never say a word of your own health; are not you quite recovered? a thousand services to Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed, and to all my friends: do they begin to forget me? I don't them. Yours, ever. (259) Consul at Leghorn, who was endeavouring to supplant Mr. Mann. (260)An Italian, secretary to Mr. Mann. (261"Winnington," says Walpole, (Memoirs, i. P. 151), "had been bred a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir Robert Walpole's power -. when that minister sunk. he had injudiciously, and, to please my Lady Townshend, who had then the greatest influence over him, declined visiting him, in a manner to offend the steady old Whigs; and his jolly way of laughing.at his own want of principles had revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty too sacred and profitable a commodity to be profaned and turned into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it was constant and Unmeditated. His style was a little brutal, his courage not at all so; his good-humour inexhaustible; it was impossible to hate or to trust him." Winnington was first Ynade lord of the admiralty, then of the treasury, then cofferer, and lastly paymaster of the forces: to which office, on his death in 1746, Mr. Pitt succeeded.-E. (262) The Hon. Augustus Townshend was second son of the minister, Lord Townshend, by his second wife, the sister of Sir Robert Walpole. He was consequently half-brother to Charles, the third viscount, husband to Ethelreda, Lady Townshend.-D. (263) Charles Calvert, sixth Lord Baltimore in Ireland. He was at this time member of parliament for the borough of St. Germains, and a lord of the admiralty.-D. (264) Sir Thomas Robinson, of Rokeby Park, in Yorkshire, commonly called "Long Sir Thomas," on account of his stature, and in order to distinguish him from the diplomatist, Sir Thomas Robinson, afterwards created Lord Grantham. [He has elsewhere been styled the new Robinson Crusoe by Walpole, who says, when speaking of him, " He was a tall, uncouth man; and his stature was often rendered still more remarkable by his hunting-dress, a postilion's cap, a tight green jacket, and buckskin breeches. He was liable to sudden whims, and once set off on a sudden in his hunting suit to visit his sister, who was married and settled at Paris. He arrived while there was a large company at dinner. The servant announced M. Robinson, and he came in to the great amazement of the hosts. Among others, -a French abb`e thrice lifted his fork to his mouth and thrice laid it down, with an eager stare of surprise. Unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, he burst out with I Excuse me, sir, are you the famous Robinson Crusoe so remarkable in history?'"] (265) Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke.-D. (266) Lady Dorothy Savile, eldest daughter and co-heiress of William second Marquis of Halifax, the mother of the unhappy Lady Euston.-D. (267) Margaret Woffington, the celebrated beauty.-D. (268) William, Marquis of Hartington, afterwards fourth Duke of Devonshire. He married Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, third Earl of Burlington.-D. (269) Miss Mary Walpole, daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by his second wife, Maria Skerrett, but born before their marriage. When her father was made an earl, she had the rank of an earl's daughter given to her.-D. (270) Galfridus Mann. 182 Letter 39 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Nov. 2, 1741. You shall not hear a word but of balls and public places: this one week has seen Sir T. Robinson's ball, my lord mayor's, the birthday, and the opera. There were an hundred and ninety-seven persons at Sir Thomas's, and yet was it so well conducted that nobody felt a crowd. He had taken off all his doors, and so separated the old and the young, that neither were inconvenienced with the other. The ball began at eight; each man danced one minuet with his partner, and then began country dances. There were four-and-twenty couple, divided into twelve a@d twelve: each set danced two dances, and then retired into another room, while the other set took their two; and so alternately. Except Lady Ancram, (271) no married woman danced; so you see, in England, we do not foot it till five-and-fifty. The beauties were the Duke of Richmond's two daughters (272) and their mother, still handsomer than they: the duke (273) sat by his wife all night, kissing her hand: how this must sound in the ears of Florentine cicisbeos, cock or hen! Then there was Lady Euston, Lady Caroline Fitzroy, (274) Lady Lucy Manners, (275) Lady Camilla Bennett, (276) and Lady Sophia, (277) handsomer than all, but a little out of humour at the scarcity of minuets; however, as usual, she danced more than any body, and, as usual too, took out what men she liked or thought the best dancers. Lord Holderness (278) is a little what Lord Lincoln (279) will be to-morrow; for he is expected. There was Churchill's daughter (280) who is prettyish, and dances well; and the Parsons (281) family from Paris, who are admired too; but indeed it is `a force des muscles. Two other pretty women were Mrs. Colebroke (did you know the he-Colebroke in Italy?) and a Lady Schaub, a foreigner, who, as Sir Luke says, would have him. Sir R. was afraid of the heat, and did not go. The supper was served at twelve; a large table of hot for the lady-dancers; their partners and other tables stood round. We danced (for I country-danced) till four, then had tea and coffee, and came home.-Finis Balli. * * Friday was the birthday; it was vastly full, the ball immoderately so, for there came all the second edition of my lord mayor's, but not much finery: Lord Fitzwilliam (282) and myself were far the most superb. I did not get mine till nine that morning. The opera will not tell as well as the other two shows, for they were obliged to omit the part of Amorevoli, who has a fever. The audience was excessive, without the least disturbance, and almost as little applause; I cannot conceive why, for Monticelli ***** be able to sing to-morrow. At court I met the Shadwells; (283) Mademoiselle Misse Molli, etc. I love them, for they asked vastly after you, and kindly. Do you know, I have had a mind to visit Pucci, the Florentine minister, but he is so black, and looks so like a murderer in a play, that I have never brought it about yet? I know none of the foreign ministers, but Ossorio, (284) a little; he is still vastly in fashion, though extremely altered. Scandal, who, I believe, is not mistaken, lays a Miss Macartney to his charge; she is a companion to the Duchess of Richmond, as Madame Goldsworthy was; but Ossorio will rather be Wachtendonck (285) than Goldsworthy: what a lamentable story is that of the hundred sequins per month! I have mentioned Mr. Jackson, as you desired, to Sir R., who says, he has a very good opinion of him. In case of any change at Leghorn, you will let me know. He will not lose his patron, Lord Hervey, (286) so soon as I imagined; he begins to recover. I believe the Euston embroil is adjusted; I was with Lady Caroline Fitzroy on Friday evening; there were her brother and the bride, and quite bridal together, quite honeymoonish. I forgot to tell you that the prince was not at the opera; I believe it has been settled that he should go thither on Tuesdays, and Majesty on Saturdays, that they may not meet. The Neutrality (287) begins to break out, and threatens to be an excise or convention. The newspapers are full of it, and the press teems. It has already produced three pieces: "The Groans of Germany," which I will send you by the first opportunity: "Bedlam, a poem on His Maj'esty's happy escape from his German dominions, and all the wisdom of his conduct there." The title of this is all that is remarkable in it. The third piece is a ballad, which, not for the goodness, but for the excessive abuse of it, I shall transcribe: THE LATE GALLANT EXPLOITS OF A FAMOUS BALANCING CAPTAIN. A NEW SONG. TO THE TUNE OF THE KING AND THE MILLER. Mene tekel. The handwriting on the wall. 1. I'll tell you a story as strange as 'tis new, Which all, who're concerned, will allow to be true, Of a Balancing Captain, well-known herabouts, Returned home, God save him as a mere King of Clouts. 2. This Captain he takes, in a gold-ballast'd ship, Each summer to Terra damnosa a trip, For which he begs, borrows, scrapes all he can get, And runs his poor Owners most vilely in debt. 3. The last time he set out for this blessed place, He met them, and told them a most piteous case, Of a Sister of his, who, though bred up at court, Was ready to perish for want of support. 4. This Hungry Sister, he then did pretend, Would be to his Owners a notable friend, If they would at that critical junction supply her- They did-but alas! all the fat's in the fire! 5. This our Captain no sooner had finger'd the cole, But he hies him abroad with his good Madam Vole- Where, like a true tinker, he managed this metal, And while he stopp'd one hole, made ten in the kettle. 6. His Sister, whom he to his Owners had,,;worn, To see duly settled before his return, He gulls with bad messages sent to and fro, Whilst he underhand claps up a peace with her foe. 7. on He then turns this Sister adrift, and declares Her most mortal foes were her Father's right heirs- "G-d z-ds!" cries the world, "such a step was ne'er taken!" "O, ho!" says Nol Bluff, "I have saved my own bacon." 8. Let France damn the Germans, and undam the Dutch, And Spain on Old England pish ever so much, Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that, I care not, by Robert! one kick of my hat. 9. So I by myself can noun substantive stand, Impose on my Owners, and save my own land; You call me masculine, feminine, neuter, or block, Be what will the gender, sirs, hic, haec, or hoc. 10. Or should my choused Owners begin to look sour, I'll trust to Mate Bob to exert his old power, Regit animos dictis, or nummis, with ease, So, spite of your growling, I'll act as I please." 11. Yet worse in this treacherous contract, 'tis said, Such terms are agreed to, such promises made, That his Owners must soon feeble beggars become- "Hold!" cries the crown office, "'twere scandal-so, mum!" 12. This secret, however, must out on the day When he meets his poor Owners to ask for more pay; And I fear when they come to adjust the account, zero for balance will prove their amount. One or two of the stanzas are tolerable; some, especially the ninth, most nonsensically bad. However, this is a specimen of what we shall have amply commented upon in parliament. I have already found out a person, who, I believe, will please you, in Palombo's place: I am to see your brother about it to-morrow, and next post you shall hear more particularly. I am quite in concern for the poor prinCess,(289) and her conjugal and amorous distresses: I really pity them; were they in England, we should have all the old prudes dealing out judgments on her, and mumbling toothless ditties to the tune of Pride will have a fall. I am bringing some fans and trifles for her, si mignons! Good night. Yours ever. (271) Lady Caroline D'Arcy, daughter of Robert third Earl of Holdernesse, and wife of William Henry fourth Marquis of Lothian, at this time, during his father's lifetime, called Earl of Ancram.-D (272) Lady Caroline and Lady Emily Lenox. [The former was married, in 1744, to Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland; the latter in 1746-7, to James, twentieth Earl of Kildare, in 1766 created Duke of Leinster.] (273) Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan, his duchess, eldest daughter of William Earl Cadogan.-D. (274) Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton.-[In 1746 married to Lord Petersham, afterwards Earl of Harrington.] (275) Sister to John Duke of'Rutland; married in 1742, to the Duke of Montrose. (276) Only daughter of Charles second Earl of Tankerville. She married, first, Gilbert Fane Fleming, Esq. and secondly, Mr. Wake, of Bath.-D. (277) Lady Sophia Fermor.-D. (278) Robert D'Arcy, fourth and last Earl of Holdernesse.-E. (279) Lord Lincoln was at this time an admirer of Lady Sophia Fermor,-D. (280) Harriet, natural daughter of General Churchill; afterwards married to Sir Everard Fawkener. (281) The son and daughters of Alderman Parsons, a Jacobite brewer, who lived much in France, and had, somehow or other, been taken notice of by the king. (282) William third Earl Fitzwilliam, in Ireland; created an English peer in 1742; and in 1746 an English earl.-D. (283) Sir John Shadwell, a physician, his wife and daughters, the youngest of whom was pretty, and by the foreigners generally called Mademoiselle Misse Molli, had been in Italy, when Mr. W. was there. (284) The Chevalier Ossorio, minister from the King of Sardinia. (285) General Wachtendonck, commander of the great dukes troops at Leghorn, was cicisbeo to the conslil's wife there. (286) John Lord Hervey, lord privy seal, and eldest son of John first Earl Of Bristol. He was a man of considerable celebrity in his day; but is now principally known from his unfortunate rivalry with Pope, for the good graces of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He died August 5, 1743, at the age of forty-seven.-D. (287) The Neutrality for the electorate of Hanover.( (288) This song is a satire upon George II., ,the balancing Captain," and upon that in his vacillating and doubtful conduct, which his fears for the electorate of Hanover made him pursue, whenever Germany was the seat of war. His Sister, whom he is accused of deserting, was Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary.-E. (289) The Prince de Craon, and the princess his wife, who had been favourite mistress to Leopold, the last Duke of Lorrain, resided at this time at Florence, where the prince was head of the council of regency; but they were extremely ill-treited and mortified by the Count de Richcourt, a low Lorrainer, who, being a creature of the great duke's favourite minister, had the chief ascendant and power there. 186 Letter 40 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Nov. 5, 1741, O. S. I just mentioned to you in my letter on Monday, that I had found such a person as you wanted; I have since seen your brother, who is so satisfied with him, that he was for sending him directly away to you, without staying six weeks for an answer from you, but I chose to have your consent. He is the son of a tradesman in this city, so not yet a fine gentleman. He is between fifteen and sixteen, but very tall of his age: he was disappointed in not going to a merchant at Genoa, as was intended; but was so far provided for it as to have learned Italian three months: he speaks French very well, writes a good hand, and casts accounts; so, you see there will not be much trouble in forming him to your purpose. He will go to you for twenty pounds a-year and his lodging. If you like this, Nvrite me word by the first post, and he shall set out directly. We hear to-day that the Toulon squadron is airived at Barcelona; I don't like it of' all things, for it has a look towards Tuscany. If it is suffered to go thither quietly, it will be no small addition to the present discontents. Here is another letter, which I am entreated to send you, from poor Amorevoli; he has a continued fever, though not a high one. Yesterday, Monticelli was taken ill, so there will be no opera on Saturday; nor was on Tuesday. MOnticelli is infinitely admired; next to Farinelli. The Viscontin