Chapter IV: Part 4

For these two days we have been expecting news of a battle. Wade marched last Saturday from Newcastle, and must have got up with the rebels if they stayed for him, though the roads are exceedingly bad and great quantities of snow have fallen. But last night there was some notice of a body of rebels being advanced to Penryth. We were put into great spirits by an heroic letter from the Mayor of Carlisle, who had fired on the rebels and made them retire; he concluded with saying, "And so I think the town of Carlisle has done his Majesty more service than the great city of Edinburgh, or than all Scotland together." But this hero, who was grown the whole fashion for four-and-twenty hours, had chosen to stop all other letters. The King spoke of him at his _levée_ with great encomiums; Lord Stair said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Patterson has behaved very bravely." The Duke of Bedford interrupted him; "My lord, his name is not _Paterson_; that is a Scotch name; his name is _Patinson_." But, alack! the next day the rebels returned, having placed the women and children of the country in waggons in front of their army, and forcing the peasants to fix the scaling-ladders. The great Mr. Pattinson, or Patterson (for now his name may be which one pleases), instantly surrendered the town, and agreed to pay two thousand pounds to save it from pillage. Well! then we were assured that the citadel could hold out seven or eight days; but did not so many hours. On mustering the militia, there were not found above four men in a company; and for two companies, which the ministry, on a report of Lord Albemarle, who said they were to be sent from Wade's army, thought were there, and did not know were not there, there was nothing but two of invalids. Colonel Durand, the governor, fled, because he would not sign the capitulation, by which the garrison, it is said, has sworn never to bear arms against the house of Stuart. The Colonel sent two expresses, one to Wade, and another to Ligonier at Preston; but the latter was playing at whist with Lord Harrington at Petersham. Such is our diligence and attention! All my hopes are in Wade, who was so sensible of the ignorance of our governors, that he refused to accept the command, till they consented that he should be subject to no kind of orders from hence. The rebels are reckoned up at thirteen thousand; Wade marches with about twelve; but if they come southward, the other army will probably be to fight them; the Duke is to command it, and sets out next week with another brigade of Guards, the Ligonier under him. There are great apprehensions for Chester from the Flintshire-men, who are ready to rise. A quartermaster, first sent to Carlisle, was seized and carried to Wade; he behaved most insolently; and being asked by the general, how many the rebels were, replied, "Enough to beat any army you have in England." A Mackintosh has been taken, who reduces their formidability, by being sent to raise two clans, and with orders, if they would not rise, at least to give out they had risen, for that three clans would leave the Pretender, unless joined by those two. Five hundred new rebels are arrived at Perth, where our prisoners are kept.

I had this morning a subscription-book brought me for our parish; Lord Granville had refused to subscribe. This is in the style of his friend Lord Bath, who has absented himself whenever any act of authority was to be executed against the rebels.

Five Scotch lords are going to raise regiments _à l'Angloise_! resident in London, while the rebels were in Scotland; they are to receive military emoluments for their neutrality!

The _Fox_ man-of-war of 20 guns is lost off Dunbar. One Beavor, the captain, has done us notable service: the Pretender sent to commend his zeal and activity, and to tell him, that if he would return to his allegiance, he should soon have a flag. Beavor replied, "He never treated with any but principals; that if the Pretender would come on board him, he would talk with him." I must now tell you of our great Vernon: without once complaining to the Ministry, he has written to Sir John Philipps, a distinguished Jacobite, to complain of want of provisions; yet they do not venture to recall him! Yesterday they had another baiting from Pitt, who is ravenous for the place of Secretary at War: they would give it him; but as a preliminary, he insists on a declaration of our having nothing to do with the continent. He mustered his forces, but did not notify his intention; only at two o'clock Lyttelton said at the Treasury, that there would be business at the House. The motion was, to augment our naval force, which, Pitt said, was the only method of putting an end to the rebellion. Ships built a year hence to suppress an army of Highlanders, now marching through England! My uncle [_old_ Horace] attacked him, and congratulated his country on the wisdom of the modern young men; and said he had a son of two-and-twenty, who, he did not doubt, would come over wiser than any of them. Pitt was provoked, and retorted on his negotiations and _grey-headed_ experience. At those words, my uncle, as if he had been at Bartholomew fair, snatched off his wig, and showed his grey hairs, which made the _august senate_ laugh, and put Pitt out, who, after laughing himself, diverted his venom upon Mr. Pelham. Upon the question, Pitt's party amounted but to thirty-six: in short, he has nothing left but his words, and his haughtiness, and his Lytteltons, and his Grenvilles. Adieu!

_THE REBEL ARMY HAS RETREATED FROM DERBY--EXPECTATION OF A FRENCH INVASION._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Dec._ 9, 1745.

I am glad I did not write to you last post as I intended; I should have sent you an account that would have alarmed you, and the danger would have been over before the letter had crossed the sea. The Duke, from some strange want of intelligence, lay last week for four-and-twenty hours under arms at Stone, in Staffordshire, expecting the rebels every moment, while they were marching in all haste to Derby. The news of this threw the town into great consternation; but his Royal Highness repaired his mistake, and got to Northampton, between the Highlanders and London. They got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had subscribed against them. Then they retreated a few miles, but returned again to Derby, got ten thousand pounds more, plundered the town, and burnt a house of the Countess of Exeter. They are gone again, and go back to Leake, in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed, and, it is said, have left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick. The Duke has sent General Hawley with the dragoons to harass them in their retreat, and despatched Mr. Conway to Marshal Wade, to hasten his march upon the back of them. They must either go to North Wales, where they will probably all perish, or to Scotland, with great loss. We dread them no longer. We are threatened with great preparations for a French invasion, but the coast is exceedingly guarded; and for the people, the spirit against the rebels increases every day. Though they have marched thus into the heart of the kingdom, there has not been the least symptom of a rising, nor even in the great towns of which they possessed themselves. They have got no recruits since their first entry into England, excepting one gentleman in Lancashire, one hundred and fifty common men, and two parsons, at Manchester, and a physician from York. But here in London, the aversion to them is amazing: on some thoughts of the King's going to an encampment at Finchley,[1] the weavers not only offered him a thousand men, but the whole body of the Law formed themselves into a little army, under the command of Lord Chief Justice Willes, and were to have done duty at St. James's, to guard the royal family in the King's absence.

[Footnote 1: The troops which were being collected for the Duke of Cumberland, as soon as he should arrive from the Continent, to march with against the Pretender, were in the meantime encamped on Finchley Common near London. The march of the Guards to the camp is the subject of one of Hogarth's best pictures.]

But the greatest demonstration of loyalty appeared on the prisoners being brought to town from the Soleil prize: the young man is certainly Mr. Radcliffe's son; but the mob, persuaded of his being the youngest Pretender, could scarcely be restrained from tearing him to pieces all the way on the road, and at his arrival. He said he had heard of English mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful, and wished he had been shot at the battle of Dettingen, where he had been engaged. The father, whom they call Lord Derwentwater, said, on entering the Tower, that he had never expected to arrive there alive. For the young man, he must only be treated as a French captive; for the father, it is sufficient to produce him at the Old Bailey, and prove that he is the individual person condemned for the last Rebellion, and so to Tyburn.

We begin to take up people, but it is with as much caution and timidity as women of quality begin to pawn their jewels; we have not ventured upon any great stone yet! The Provost of Edinburgh is in custody of a messenger; and the other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain. However, nothing has been made out against him;[1] he is released; and, what convinces me that he is not a gentleman, stays here, and talks of his being taken up for a spy.

[Footnote 1: In the beginning of the year 1755, on rumours of a great armament at Brest, one Virette, a Swiss, who had been a kind of toad-eater to this St. Germain, was denounced to Lord Holdernesse for a spy; but Mr. Stanley going pretty surlily to his lordship, on his suspecting a friend of his, Virette was declared innocent, and the penitent secretary of state made him the _amende honorable_ of a dinner in form. About the same time, a spy of ours was seized at Brest, but, not happening to be acquainted with Mr. Stanley, was broken upon the wheel.--WALPOLE.]

I think these accounts, upon which you may depend, must raise your spirits, and figure in Mr. Chute's loyal journal.--But you don't get my letters: I have sent you eleven since I came to town; how many of these have you received? Adieu!

_BATTLE OF CULLODEN._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 25, 1746.

You have bid me for some time to send you good news--well! I think I will. How good would you have it? must it be a total victory over the rebels; with not only the Boy, that is here, killed, but the other, that is not here, too; their whole army put to the sword, besides an infinite number of prisoners; all the Jacobite estates in England confiscated, and all those in Scotland--what would you have done with them?--or could you be content with something much under this? how much will you abate? will you compound for Lord John Drummond, taken by accident? or for three Presbyterian parsons, who have very poor livings, stoutly refusing to pay a large contribution to the rebels? Come, I will deal as well with you as I can, and for once, but not to make a practice of it, will let you have a victory! My friend, Lord Bury, arrived this morning from the Duke, though the news was got here before him; for, with all our victory, it was not thought safe to send him through the heart of Scotland; so he was shipped at Inverness, within an hour after the Duke entered the town, kept beating at sea five days, and then put on shore at North Berwick, from whence he came post in less than three days to London; but with a fever upon him, for which he had been twice blooded but the day before the battle; but he is young, and high in spirits, and I flatter myself will not suffer from this kindness of the Duke: the King has immediately ordered him a thousand pound, and I hear will make him his own aide-de-camp. My dear Mr. Chute, I beg your pardon; I have forgot you have the gout, and consequently not the same patience to wait for the battle, with which I, knowing the particulars, postpone it.

On the 16th, the Duke, by forced marches, came up with the rebels, a little on this side Inverness--by the way, the battle is not christened yet; I only know that neither Prestonpans nor Falkirk are to be godfathers. The rebels, who fled from him after their victory, and durst not attack him, when so much exposed to them at his passage of the Spey, now stood him, they seven thousand, he ten. They broke through Barril's regiment, and killed Lord Robert Kerr, a handsome young gentleman, who was cut to pieces with above thirty wounds; but they were soon repulsed, and fled; the whole engagement not lasting above a quarter of an hour. The young Pretender escaped; Mr. Conway says, he hears, wounded: he certainly was in the rear. They have lost above a thousand men in the engagement and pursuit; and six hundred were already taken; among which latter are their French ambassador and Earl Kilmarnock. The Duke of Perth and Lord Ogilvie are said to be slain; Lord Elcho was in a salivation, and not there. Except Lord Robert Kerr, we lost nobody of note: Sir Robert Rich's eldest son has lost his hand, and about a hundred and thirty private men fell. The defeat is reckoned total, and the dispersion general; and all their artillery is taken. It is a brave young Duke! The town is all blazing round me, as I write, with fireworks and illuminations: I have some inclination to wrap up half a dozen sky-rockets, to make you drink the Duke's health. Mr. Dodington, on the first report, came out with a very pretty illumination; so pretty, that I believe he had it by him, ready for _any_ occasion....

_TRIAL OF THE REBEL LORDS BALMERINO AND KILMARNOCK._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Aug._ 1, 1746.

I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most melancholy scene I ever yet saw! You will easily guess it was the Trials of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it was the most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes and engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday; three parts of Westminster Hall were inclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet; and the whole ceremony was conducted with the most awful solemnity and decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at the bar, amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the witnesses who had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to their own House to consult. No part of the royal family was there, which was a proper regard to the unhappy men, who were become their victims. One hundred and thirty-nine Lords were present, and made a noble sight on their benches _frequent and full_! The Chancellor [Hardwicke] was Lord High Steward; but though a most comely personage with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the minister [Mr. Pelham] that is no peer, and consequently applying to the other ministers, in a manner, for their orders; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence. I had armed myself with all the resolution I could, with the thought of their crimes and of the danger past, and was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian in weepers for his son who fell at Culloden--but the first appearance of the prisoners shocked me! their behaviour melted me! Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord Kilmarnock is tall and slender, with an extreme fine person: his behaviour a most just mixture between dignity and submission; if in anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a man in his situation; but when I say it is not to find fault with him, but to show how little fault there was to be found. Lord Cromartie is an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected, and rather sullen: he dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon as he got back to his cell. For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw: the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man; at the intervals of form, with carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife, his pretty Peggy, with him in the Tower. Lady Cromartie only sees her husband through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve him better by her intercession without: she is big with child and very handsome: so are their daughters. When they were to be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go--old Balmerino cried, "Come, come, put it with me." At the bar, he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks with the gentleman-gaoler; and one day somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the trial, a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see; he made room for the child and placed him near himself.

When the trial began, the two Earls pleaded guilty; Balmerino not guilty, saying he could prove his not being at the taking of the castle of Carlisle, as was laid in the indictment. Then the King's counsel opened, and Serjeant Skinner pronounced the most absurd speech imaginable; and mentioned the Duke of Perth, "who," said he, "I see by the papers is dead." Then some witnesses were examined, whom afterwards the old hero shook cordially by the hand. The Lords withdrew to their House, and returning, demanded of the judges, whether one point not being proved, though all the rest were, the indictment was false? to which they unanimously answered in the negative. Then the Lord High Steward asked the Peers severally, whether Lord Balmerino was guilty! All said, "guilty upon honour," and then adjourned, the prisoner having begged pardon for giving them so much trouble. While the Lords were withdrawn, the Solicitor-General Murray (brother of the Pretender's minister) officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and asked him, how he could give the Lords so much trouble, when his solicitor had informed him that his plea could be of no use to him? Balmerino asked the bystanders who this person was? and being told he said, "Oh, Mr. Murray! I am extremely glad to see you; I have been with several of your relations; the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth." Are not you charmed with this speech? how just it was! As he went away, he said, "They call me Jacobite; I am no more a Jacobite than any that tried me: but if the Great Mogul had set up his standard, I should have followed it, for I could not starve." The worst of his case is, that after the battle of Dumblain, having a company in the Duke of Argyll's regiment, he deserted with it to the rebels, and has since been pardoned. Lord Kilmarnock is a Presbyterian, with four earldoms in him, but so poor since Lord Wilmington's stopping a pension that my father had given him, that he often wanted a dinner. Lord Cromartie was receiver of the rents of the King's second son in Scotland, which, it was understood, he should not account for; and by that means had six-hundred a-year from the Government: Lord Elibank, a very prating, impertinent Jacobite, was bound for him in nine thousand pounds, for which the Duke is determined to sue him.

When the Peers were going to vote, Lord Foley withdrew, as too well a wisher; Lord Moray, as nephew of Lord Balmerino--and Lord Stair,--as, I believe, uncle to his great-grandfather. Lord Windsor, very affectedly, said, "I am sorry I must say, _guilty upon my honour_." Lord Stamford would not answer to the name of _Henry_, having been christened _Harry_--what a great way of thinking on such an occasion! I was diverted too with old Norsa, the father of my brother's concubine, an old Jew that kept a tavern; my brother [Orford], as Auditor of the Exchequer, has a gallery along one whole side of the court; I said, "I really feel for the prisoners!" old Issachar replied, "Feel for them! pray, if they had succeeded, what would have become of _all us_?" When my Lady Townsend heard her husband vote, she said, "I always knew _my_ Lord was _guilty_, but I never thought he would own it _upon his honour_." Lord Balmerino said, that one of his reasons for pleading _not guilty_, was that so many ladies might not be disappointed of their show.

On Wednesday they were again brought to Westminster Hall, to receive sentence; and being asked what they had to say, Lord Kilmarnock, with a very fine voice, read a very fine speech, confessing the extent of his crime, but offering his principles as some alleviation, having his eldest son (his second unluckily with him), in the Duke's army, _fighting for the liberties of his country at Culloden, where his unhappy father was in arms to destroy them_. He insisted much on his tenderness to the English prisoners, which some deny, and say that he was the man who proposed their being put to death, when General Stapleton urged that _he_ was come to fight, but not to butcher; and that if they acted any such barbarity, he would leave them with all his men. He very artfully mentioned Van Hoey's letter, and said how much he would scorn to owe his life to such intercession.[1] Lord Cromartie spoke much shorter, and so low, that he was not heard but by those who sat very near him; but they prefer his speech to the other. He mentioned his misfortune in having drawn in his eldest son, who is prisoner with him; and concluded with saying, "If no part of this bitter cup must pass from me, not mine, O God, but thy will be done!" If he had pleaded _not guilty_, there was ready to be produced against him a paper signed with his own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death.

[Footnote 1: In a subsequent letter Walpole attributes Lord Kilmarnock's complicity in the rebellion partly to the influence of his mother, the Countess of Errol, and partly to his extreme poverty. He says: "I don't know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's Gate; 'and,' says he, 'he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner.' He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings." One cannot help remembering, _Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit_. And afterwards, in relating his execution, he mentions a report that the Duke of Cumberland charging him (certainly on misinformation) with having promoted the adoption of "a resolution taken the day before the battle of Culloden" to put the English prisoners to death, "decided this unhappy man's fate" by preventing his obtaining a pardon.]

Lord Leicester went up to the Duke of Newcastle, and said, "I never heard so great an orator as Lord Kilmarnock? if I was your grace I would pardon him, and make him _paymaster_."[1]

[Footnote 1: "_I would make him paymaster._" The paymaster at this time was Mr. Pitt.]

That morning a paper had been sent to the lieutenant of the Tower for the prisoners; he gave it to Lord Cornwallis, the governor, who carried it to the House of Lords. It was a plea for the prisoners, objecting that the late act for regulating the trials of rebels did not take place till after their crime was committed. The Lords very tenderly and rightly sent this plea to them, of which, as you have seen, the two Earls did not make use; but old Balmerino did, and demanded council on it. The High Steward, almost in a passion, told him, that when he had been offered council, he did not accept it. Do but think on the ridicule of sending them the plea, and then denying them council on it! The Duke of Newcastle, who never let slip an opportunity of being absurd, took it up as a ministerial point, in defence of his creature the Chancellor [Hardwicke]; but Lord Granville moved, according to order, to adjourn to debate in the chamber of Parliament, where the Duke of Bedford and many others spoke warmly for their having council; and it was granted. I said _their_, because the plea would have saved them all, and affected nine rebels who had been hanged that very morning; particularly one Morgan, a poetical lawyer. Lord Balmerino asked for Forester and Wilbraham; the latter a very able lawyer in the House of Commons, who, the Chancellor said privately, he was sure would as soon be hanged as plead such a cause. But he came as council to-day (the third day), when Lord Balmerino gave up his plea as invalid, and submitted, without any speech. The High Steward [Hardwicke] then made his, very long and very poor, with only one or two good passages; and then pronounced sentence!

Great intercession is made for the two Earls: Duke Hamilton, who has never been at Court, designs to kiss the King's hand, and ask Lord Kilmarnock's life. The King is much inclined to some mercy; but the Duke, who has not so much of Caesar after a victory, as in gaining it, is for the utmost severity. It was lately proposed in the city to present him with the freedom of some company; one of the aldermen said aloud, "Then let it be of the _Butchers_!"[1] The Scotch and his Royal Highness are not at all guarded in their expressions of each other. When he went to Edinburgh, in his pursuit of the rebels, they would not admit his guards, alleging that it was contrary to their privileges; but they rode in, sword in hand; and the Duke, very justly incensed, refused to see any of the magistrates. He came with the utmost expedition to town, in order for Flanders; but found that the Court of Vienna had already sent Prince Charles thither, without the least notification, at which both King and Duke are greatly offended. When the latter waited on his brother, the Prince carried him into a room that hangs over the wall of St. James's Park, and stood there with his arm about his neck, to charm the gazing mob.

[Footnote 1: "The Duke," says Sir Walter Scott, "was received with all the honours due to conquest; and all the incorporated bodies of the capital, from the Guild brethren to the Butchers, desired the acceptance of the freedom of their craft, or corporation." Billy the Butcher was one of his by-names.]

Murray, the Pretender's secretary, has made ample confessions: the Earl of Traquair, and Mr. Barry, a physician, are apprehended, and more warrants are out; so much for rebels! Your friend, Lord Sandwich, is instantly going ambassador to Holland, to pray the Dutch to build more ships. I have received yours of July 19th, but you see have no more room left, only to say, that I conceive a good idea of my eagle, though the seal is a bad one. Adieu!

P.S.--I have not room to say anything to the Tesi till next post; but, unless she will sing gratis, would advise her to drop this thought.

_THE BATTLE OF RANCOUX._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Oct._ 14, 1746.

You will have been alarmed with the news of another battle lost in Flanders, where we have no Kings of Sardinia. We make light of it; do not allow it to be a battle, but call it "the action near Liege." Then we have whittled down our loss extremely, and will not allow a man more than three hundred and fifty English slain out of the four thousand. The whole of it, as it appears to me, is, that we gave up eight battalions to avoid fighting; as at Newmarket people pay their forfeit when they foresee they should lose the race; though, if the whole army had fought, and we had lost the day, one might have hoped to have come off for eight battalions. Then they tell you that the French had four-and-twenty-pounders, and that they must beat us by the superiority of their cannon; so that to me it is grown a paradox, to war with a nation who have a mathematical certainty of beating you; or else it is still a stranger paradox, why you cannot have as large cannon as the French.[1] This loss was balanced by a pompous account of the triumphs of our invasion of Bretagne; which, in plain terms, I think, is reduced to burning two or three villages and reimbarking: at least, two or three of the transports are returned with this history, and know not what is become of Lestock and the rest of the invasion. The young Pretender is landed in France, with thirty Scotch, but in such a wretched condition that his Highland Highness had no breeches.

[Footnote 1: Marshal Saxe had inspired his army with confidence that a day of battle was sure to be a day of victory, as was shown by the theatrical company which accompanied the camp. After the performance on the evening of October 10th the leading actress announced that there would be no performance on the morrow, because there was to be a battle, but on the 12th the company would have the honour of presenting "The Village Clock." (See the Editor's "France under the Bourbons," iii. 26.)]

I have received yours of the 27th of last month, with the capitulation of Genoa, and the kind conduct of the Austrians to us their allies, so extremely like their behaviour whenever they are fortunate. Pray, by the way, has there been any talk of my cousin, the Commodore, being blameable in letting slip some Spanish ships?--don't mention it as from me, but there are whispers of court-martial on him. They are all the fashion now; if you miss a post to me, I will have you tried by a court-martial. Cope is come off most gloriously, his courage ascertained, and even his conduct, which everybody had given up, justified. Folkes and Lascelles, two of his generals, are come off too; but not so happily in the opinion of the world. Oglethorpe's sentence is not yet public, but it is believed not to be favourable. He was always a bully, and is now tried for cowardice. Some little dash of the same sort is likely to mingle with the judgment on _il furibondo_ Matthews; though his party rises again a little, and Lestock's acquittal begins to pass for a party affair. In short, we are a wretched people, and have seen our best days!

I must have lost a letter, if you really told me of the sale of the Duke of Modena's pictures, as you think you did; for when Mr. Chute told it me, it struck me as quite new. They are out of town, good souls; and I shall not see them this fortnight; for I am here only for two or three days, to inquire after the battle, in which not one of my friends were. Adieu!

_ON CONWAY'S VERSES--NO SCOTCH_MAN_ IS CAPABLE OF SUCH DELICACY OF THOUGHT, THOUGH A SCOTCHWOMAN MAY BE--AKENSIDE'S, ARMSTRONG'S, AND GLOVER'S POEMS._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

WINDSOR, _Oct._ 24, 1746.

Well, Harry, Scotland is the last place on earth I should have thought of for turning anybody poet: but I begin to forgive it half its treasons in favour of your verses, for I suppose you don't think I am the dupe of the Highland story that you tell me: the only use I shall make of it is to commend the lines to you, as if they really were a Scotchman's. There is a melancholy harmony in them that is charming, and a delicacy in the thoughts that no Scotchman is capable of, though a _Scotchwoman_ might inspire it.[1] I beg, both for Cynthia's sake and my own, that you would continue your De Tristibus till I have an opportunity of seeing your muse, and she of rewarding her: _Reprens la musette, berger amoureux_! If Cynthia has ever travelled ten miles in fairy-land, she must be wondrous content with the person and qualifications of her knight, who in future story will be read of thus: Elmedorus was tall and perfectly well made, his face oval, and features regularly handsome, but not effeminate; his complexion sentimentally brown, with not much colour; his teeth fine, and forehead agreeably low, round which his black hair curled naturally and beautifully. His eyes were black too, but had nothing of fierce or insolent; on the contrary, a certain melancholy swimmingness, that described hopeless love rather than a natural amorous languish. His exploits in war, where he always fought by the side of the renowned Paladine William of England, have endeared his memory to all admirers of true chivalry, as the mournful elegies which he poured out among the desert rocks of Caledonia in honour of the peerless lady and his heart's idol, the incomparable Cynthia, will for ever preserve his name in the flowery annals of poesy.

[Footnote 1: Walpole could not foresee the genius of Burns, that before his own death was to shed such glory on Scotland. His compliment to a Scotchwoman was an allusion to Lady Aylesbury (_née_ Miss Caroline Campbell), whom Conway married after her husband's death, which took place a few months after the date of this letter. Lady Aylesbury was no poetess, but his estimate of what might be accomplished by Scotch ladies was afterwards fully borne out by Lady Anne Lindsay, the authoress of "Auld Gray," and Lady Nairn.]

What a pity it is I was not born in the golden age of Louis the Fourteenth, when it was not only the fashion to write folios, but to read them too! or rather, it is a pity the same fashion don't subsist now, when one need not be at the trouble of invention, nor of turning the whole Roman history into romance for want of proper heroes. Your campaign in Scotland, rolled out and well be-epitheted, would make a pompous work, and make one's fortune; at sixpence a number, one should have all the damsels within the liberties for subscribers: whereas now, if one has a mind to be read, one must write metaphysical poems in blank verse, which, though I own to be still easier, have not half the imagination of romances, and are dull without any agreeable absurdity. Only think of the gravity of this wise age, that have exploded "Cleopatra and Pharamond," and approve "The Pleasures of the Imagination," "The Art of Preserving Health," and "Leonidas!" I beg the age's pardon: it has done approving these poems, and has forgot them.

Adieu! dear Harry. Thank you seriously for the poem. I am going to town for the birthday, and shall return hither till the Parliament meets; I suppose there is no doubt of our meeting then.

Yours ever.

P.S.--Now you are at Stirling, if you should meet with Drummond's History of the five King Jameses, pray look it over. I have lately read it, and like it much. It is wrote in imitation of Livy; the style masculine, and the whole very sensible; only he ascribes the misfortunes of one reign to the then king's loving architecture and

In trim gardens taking pleasure.

_HE HAS BOUGHT STRAWBERRY HILL._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

TWICKENHAM, _June_ 8, 1747.

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 told,
And little finches wave their wings in 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 prospect; but, thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight. I have about land enough to keep such a farm as Noah's, when he set up in the ark with a pair of each kind; but my cottage is rather cleaner than I believe his was after they had been cooped up together forty days. The Chenevixes had tricked it out for themselves: up two pair of stairs is what they call Mr. Chenevix's library, furnished with three maps, one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and a lame telescope without any glasses. Lord John Sackville _predecessed_ me here, and instituted certain games called _cricketalia_, which have been celebrated this very evening in honour of him in a neighbouring meadow.

You will think I have removed my philosophy from Windsor with my tea-things hither; for I am writing to you in all this tranquillity, while a Parliament is bursting about my ears. You know it is going to be dissolved: I am told, you are taken care of, though I don't know where, nor whether anybody that chooses you will quarrel with me because he does choose you, as that little bug the Marquis of Rockingham did; one of the calamities of my life which I have bore as abominably well as I do most about which I don't care. They say the Prince has taken up two hundred thousand pounds, to carry elections which he won't carry:--he had much better have saved it to buy the Parliament after it is chosen. A new set of peers are in embryo, to add more dignity to the silence of the House of Lords.

I made no remarks on your campaign, because, as you say, you do nothing at all; which, though very proper nutriment for a thinking head, does not do quite so well to write upon. If any one of you can but contrive to be shot upon your post, it is all we desire, shall look upon it as a great curiosity, and will take care to set up a monument to the person so slain; as we are doing by vote to Captain Cornewall, who was killed at the beginning of the action in the Mediterranean four years ago. In the present dearth of glory, he is canonized; though, poor man! he had been tried twice the year before for cowardice.

I could tell you much election news, none else; though not being thoroughly attentive to so important a subject, as to be sure one ought to be, I might now and then mistake, and give you a candidate for Durham in place of one for Southampton, or name the returning officer instead of the candidate. In general, I believe, it is much as usual--those sold in detail that afterwards will be sold in the representation--the ministers bribing Jacobites to choose friends of their own--the name of well-wishers to the present establishment, and patriots outbidding ministers that they may make the better market of their own patriotism:--in short, all England, under some name or other, is just now to be bought and sold; though, whenever we become posterity and forefathers, we shall be in high repute for wisdom and virtue. My great-great-grandchildren will figure me with a white beard down to my girdle; and Mr. Pitt's will believe him unspotted enough to have walked over nine hundred hot ploughshares, without hurting the sole of his foot. How merry my ghost will be, and shake its ears to hear itself quoted as a person of consummate prudence! Adieu, dear Harry!

Yours ever.

_HIS MODE OF LIFE--PLANTING--PROPHECIES OF NEW METHODS AND NEW DISCOVERIES IN A FUTURE GENERATION._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Aug._ 29, 1748.

Dear Harry,--Whatever you may think, a campaign at Twickenham furnishes as little matter for a letter as an abortive one in Flanders. I can't say indeed that my generals wear black wigs, but they have long full-bottomed hoods which cover as little entertainment to the full.

There's General my Lady Castlecomer, and General my Lady Dowager Ferris! Why, do you think I can extract more out of them than you can out of Hawley or Honeywood? Your old women dress, go to the Duke's levée, see that the soldiers cock their hats right, sleep after dinner, and soak with their led-captains till bed-time, and tell a thousand lies of what they never did in their youth. Change hats for head-clothes, the rounds for visits, and led-captains for toad-eaters, and the life is the very same. In short, these are the people I live in the midst of, though not with; and it is for want of more important histories that I have wrote to you seldom; not, I give you my word, from the least negligence. My present and sole occupation is planting, in which I have made great progress and talked very learnedly with the nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce run to seed overturns all my botany, as I have more than once taken it for a curious West Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation with which trees grow, is extremely inconvenient to my natural impatience. I lament living in so barbarous an age, when we are come to so little perfection in gardening. I am persuaded that a hundred and fifty years hence it will be as common to remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old, as it is now to transplant tulip roots.[1] I have even begun a treatise or panegyric on the great discoveries made by posterity in all arts and sciences, wherein I shall particularly descant on the great and cheap convenience of making trout-rivers--one of the improvements which Mrs. Kerwood wondered Mr. Hedges would not make at his country-house, but which was not then quite so common as it will be. I shall talk of a secret for roasting a wild boar and a whole pack of hounds alive, without hurting them, so that the whole chase may be brought up to table; and for this secret, the Duke of Newcastle's grandson, if he can ever get a son, is to give a hundred thousand pounds. Then the delightfulness of having whole groves of humming-birds, tame tigers taught to fetch and carry, pocket spying-glasses to see all that is doing in China, with a thousand other toys, which we now look upon as impracticable, and which pert posterity would laugh in one's face for staring at, while they are offering rewards for perfecting discoveries, of the principles of which we have not the least conception! If ever this book should come forth, I must expect to have all the learned in arms against me, who measure all knowledge backward: some of them have discovered symptoms of all arts in Homer; and Pineda,[2] had so much faith in the accomplishments of his ancestors, that he believed Adam understood all sciences but politics. But as these great champions for our forefathers are dead, and Boileau not alive to hitch me into a verse with Perrault, I am determined to admire the learning of posterity, especially being convinced that half our present knowledge sprung from discovering the errors of what had formerly been called so. I don't think I shall ever make any great discoveries myself, and therefore shall be content to propose them to my descendants, like my Lord Bacon,[3] who, as Dr. Shaw says very prettily in his preface to Boyle, "had the art of inventing arts:" or rather like a Marquis of Worcester, of whom I have seen a little book which he calls "A Century of Inventions,"[4] where he has set down a hundred machines to do impossibilities with, and not a single direction how to make the machines themselves.

[Footnote 1: It is worth noting that these predictions that "it will be common to remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old" has been verified many years since; at least, if not in the case of oaks, in that of large elms and ashtrees. In 1850 Mr. Paxton offered to a Committee of the House of Commons to undertake to remove the large elm which was standing on the ground proposed for the Crystal Palace of the Exhibition of 1851, and his master, the Duke of Devonshire, has since that time removed many trees of very large size from one part of his grounds to another; and similarly the "making of trout rivers" has been carried out in many places, even in our most distant colonies, by Mr. Buckland's method of raising the young fish from roe in boxes and distributing them in places where they were needed.]

[Footnote 2: Pineda was a Spanish Jesuit of the seventeenth century, and a voluminous writer.]

[Footnote 3: It is a singular thing that this most eminent man should be so constantly spoken of by a title which he never had. His first title in the peerage was Baron Verulam; his second, on a subsequent promotion, was Viscount St. Albans; yet the error is as old as Dryden, and is defended by Lord Macaulay in a sentence of pre-eminent absurdity: "Posterity has felt that the greatest of English philosophers could derive no accession of dignity from any title which power could bestow, and, in defiance of letters-patent, has obstinately refused to degrade Francis Bacon into Viscount St. Albans." But, without stopping to discuss the propriety of representing a Britiph peerage, honestly earned, and, in his case as Lord Chancellor, necessarily conferred, as a "degradation," the mistake made is not that of continuing to call him Francis Bacon, a name by which at one time he was known, but that of calling him "Lord Bacon," a title by which he was never known for a single moment in his lifetime; while, if a great philosopher was really "degraded" by a peerage, it is hard to see how the degradation would have been lessened by the title being Lord Bacon, which it was not, rather than Viscount St. Albans, which it was.]

[Footnote 4: The "Biographie Universelle" (art. _Newcomen_) says of the Marquis: "Longtemps avant lui [Neucomen] on avait remarqué la grande force expansive de la vapeur, et on avait imaginé de l'employer comme puissance. On trouve déja cetté application proposée et même executée dans un ouvrage publié en 1663, par le Marquis de Worcester, sous le titre bizarre, 'A Century of Inventions.'"]

If I happen to be less punctual in my correspondence than I intend to be, you must conclude I am writing my book, which being designed for a panegyric, will cost me a great deal of trouble. The dedication with your leave, shall be addressed to your son that is coming, or, with Lady Ailesbury's leave, to your ninth son, who will be unborn nearer to the time I am writing of; always provided that she does not bring three at once, like my Lady Berkeley.

Well! I have here set you the example of writing nonsense when one has nothing to say, and shall take it ill if you don't keep up the correspondence on the same foot. Adieu!

_REJOICINGS FOR THE PEACE--MASQUERADE AT RANELAGH--MEETING OF THE PRINCES PARTY AND THE JACOBITES--PREVALENCE OF DRINKING AND GAMBLING--WHITEFIELD._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 3, 1749.