Chapter XLI: Letter 96: He married, in July following, Lady Grizel (7)

By your own loss YOU may measure My joy at the receipt of the dear Chutes.(1292) I strolled to town one day last week, and there I found them! Poor creatures! there they were! wondering at every thing they saw, but with the difference from Englishmen that go abroad, O keeping their amazement to themselves. They will tell you of wild dukes in the playhouse, of streets dirtier than forests, and of women more uncouth than the streets. I found them extremely surprised at not finding any ready-furnished palace built round two courts. I do all I can to reconcile their country to them; though seriously they have no affectation, and have nothing particular in them, but that they have nothing particular: a fault, of which the climate and their neighbours will soon correct. You may imagine how we have talked you over, and how I have inquired after the state of your Wetbrownpaperhood. Mr. Chute adores you: do you know, that as well as I love you, I never found all those charms in you that he does! I own this to you out of pure honesty, that you may love him as much as he deserves. I don't know how he will succeed here, but to me he has more wit than any body I know: he is altered, and I think, broken: Whitehed is grown leaner considerably, and is a very pretty gentleman.(1293) He did not reply to me as the Turcotti(1294) did bonnement to you when you told her she was a little thinner: do you remember how she puffed and chuckled, and said, "And indeed I think you are too." Mr. Whitehed was not so sensible of the blessing of decrease, as to conclude that it would be acceptable news even to shadows: he thinks me plumped out. I would fain have enticed them down hither, and promised we would live just as if we were at the King's Arms in via di Santo Spirito:(1295) but they were obliged to go chez eux, not pour se d`ecrasser, but pour se crasser. I shall introduce them a tutte le mie conoscenze, and shall try to make questo paese as agreeable to them as possible; except in one point, for I have sworn never to tell Mr. Chute a word of news, for then he will be writing it to you, and I shall have nothing to say. This is a lucky resolution for you, my dear child, for between two friends one generally hears nothing; the one concludes that the other has told all.

I have had two or three letters from you since I wrote. The young Pretender is generally believed to have got off the 18th of last month: if he were not, with the zeal of the Chutes, I believe they would be impatient to send a limb to Cardinal Acquaviva and Monsignor Piccolomini. I quite gain a winter with them, having had no expectation of them till spring'. Adieu!

(1292) John Chute and Francis Whitehed had been several years in Italy, chiefly at Florence.

(1293) Gray, in a letter to Mr. Chute, written at this time, thus describes Mr. Whithead:

"He is a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the tour in Europe to take possession and be married. I desire my hearty congratulations to him, and say I wish him more spangles, and more estates, and more wives." Works, vol. iii. p. 20.-E.

(1294) A fine singer.

(1295) Mr. Mann hired a large palace of the Manetti family at Florence in via di Santo Spirito: foreign ministers in Italy affix large shields with the arms of their sovereign over their door.

507 Letter 220 To the Hon. H. S. Conway. Windsor still, Oct. 3, 1746.

My dear Harry, You ask me if I have really grown a philosopher. Really I believe not: for I shall refer you to my practice rather than to my doctrine, and have really acquired what they only pretended to seek, content. So far, indeed I was a philosopher even when I lived in town, for then I was content too; and all the difference I can conceive between those two opposite doctors was, that Aristippus loved London, and Diogenes Windsor; and if your master the Duke, whom I sincerely prefer to Alexander, and who certainly can intercept more sunshine, would but stand out of my way, which he is extremely in, while he lives in the park here,(1296) I should love my little tub of forty pounds a-year, more than my palace dans la rue des ministers, with all my pictures and bronzes, which you ridiculously imagine I have encumbered myself with in my solitude. Solitude it is, as to the tub itself, for no soul lives in it with me; though I could easily give you room at the butt end of it, and with -vast pleasure; but George Montagu, who perhaps is a philosopher too, though I am sure not of Pythagoras's silent sect, lives but two barrels off; and Asheton, a Christian philosopher of our acquaintance, lives -,it the foot of that hill which you mention with a melancholy satisfaction that always attends the reflection. A- propos, here is an Ode on the very subject, which I desire you will please to like excessively:(1297) ****************

You will immediately conclude, out of good breeding, that it is mine, and that it is charming. I shall be much obliged to you for the first thought, but desire you will retain only the second; for it is Mr. Gray's, and not your humble servant's.

(1296) " The Duke of Cumberland is here at his lodge with three women, and three aide-de-camps; and the country swarms with people. He goes to races and they make a ring about him as at a bear-baiting." Gray to Wharton, Sept. 11. Works, vol. iii. p. 10.-E.

(1297) Here follows, in the original Mr. Gray's Ode on a, distant prospect of Eton College. [This, which was the first English production of Gray which appeared in print, was published by Dodsley in the following year. Dr. Warton says, that " little notice was taken of it, on its first publication."-E.

508 Letter 221 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Oct. 14, 1746.

You will have been alarmed with the news of another battle(1298) 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 a still stranger paradox, why you cannot have as large cannon as the French. 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.(1299)

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,(1300) the Commodore, 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 every body 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 withe 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,(1301) 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!

(1298) The battle of Rocoux; lost by the allies on the 11th of October.-E.

(1299) About the 18th of September, Prince Charles received intelligence that two French frigates had arrived at Lochnannagh, to carry him and other fugitives of his party to France: accordingly, after numerous wanderings in various disguises he embarked, on the 20th of September, attended by Lochiel, Colonel Roy Stuart, and about a hundred others of the relics of his party; and safely landed at the little port of Roscoff, near Morlaix, in Brittany, on the 29th. " During these wanderings," says Sir Walter Scott, in Tales of a Grandfather, "the secret of the Adventurer's concealment was intrusted to hundreds, of every sex, age, and condition; but no individual was found, in a high or low situation, or robbers even , who procured their food at the risk of their lives, who thought for an instant of obtaining opulence at the expense of treachery to the proscribed and miserable fugitive. Such disinterested conduct will reflect honour on the Highlands of Scotland while their mountains shall continue to exist." Prose Works, vol. xxvi. p. 374.-E.

(1300) George Townshend, eldest son of Charles, Lord Viscount Townshend, by Dorothy, his second wife, sister of Sir Robert Walpole. (He was subsequently tried by a court-martial for his conduct upon this occasion, and honourably acquitted.-D.)

(1301) To the King of Poland.

509 Letter 222 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 any body 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(1302 might inspire it. 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 ta 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,(1303) 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.

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.(1304) I have read it, and like it much. It is wrote in imitation of Livy; the style is 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."

(1302) Caroline Campbell, Countess of Ailesbury.-E.

(1303) Mr. Conway was now in Scotland.

(1304) Drummond of Hawthorne's History of Scotland, from 1423 to 1542, did not appear until after his death. This work, in which the doctrine of unlimited authority and passive obedience is advocated to an extravagant extent, is generally considered to have added little to his reputation. He died in December 1649, in his sixty-fourth year. Ben Jonson is said to have so much admired the genius of this "Scotian Petrarch," as to travel on foot to Scotland, out of love and respect for him.-E.

510 Letter 523 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Nov. 3, 1746.

Dear George, Do not imagine I have already broken through all my wholesome resolutions and country schemes, and that I am given up body and soul to London for the winter. I shall be with you by the end of the week; but just now I am under the maiden palpitation of an author. My epilogue will, I believe, be spoken to-morrow night;(1305) and I flatter myself I shall have no faults to answer for but what are in it, for I have kept secret whose it is. It is now gone to be licensed; but as the Lord Chamberlain is mentioned,(1306)' though rather to his honour, it is possible it may be refused.

Don't expect news, for I know no more than a newspaper. Asheton would have written it if there were any thing to tell you. Is it news that my Lord Rochford is an oaf? He has got a set of plate buttons for the birthday clothes, with the Duke's head in every one. Sure my good lady carries her art too far to make him so great a dupe. How do all the comets? Has Miss Harriet found out any more ways at solitaire? Has Cloe left off evening prayer on account of the damp evenings? How is Miss Rice's cold and coachman? Is Miss Granville better? Has Mrs. Masham made a brave hand of this bad season, and lived upon carcases like any vampire? Adieu! I am just going to see Mrs. Muscovy,(1307) and will be sure not to laugh if my old lady should talk of Mr. Draper's white skin, and tickle his bosom like Queen Bess.

(1305) Rowe's tragedy of Tamerlane was written in compliment to William the Third, whose character the author intended to display under that of Tamerlane, as he meant to be understood to draw that of Louis the Fourteenth in Bajazet. Tamerlane was always acted on the 4th and 5th of November, the anniversaries of King William's birth and landing; and this year Mr. Walpole had written an epilogue for it, on the suppression of the rebellion.-E.

(1306) The Duke of Grafton.

(1307) Mrs. Boscawen, wife of the Hon. George Boscawen, fifth son of Viscount Falmouth.-E.

511 Letter 224 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1746.

Mr. Chute and I a,,reed not to tell you of any new changes till we could tell you more of them, that you might not be "put into a taking," as you was last winter with the revolution of three days; but I think the present has ended with a single fit. Lord Harrington,(1308) quite on a sudden, resigned the seals; it is said, on some treatment not over- gracious; but he is no such novice to be shocked with that, though I believe it has been rough ever since his resigning last year, which he did more boisterously than he is accustomed to behave to Majesty. Others talk of some quarrel with his brother secretary, who, in complaisance, is all for drums and trumpets. Lord Chesterfield was immediately named his successor; but the Duke of Newcastle has taken the northern provinces, as of more business, and consequently better suited to his experience and abilities! I flatter myself that this can no way affect you. Ireland is to be offered to Lord Harrington, or the Presidentship; and the Duke of Dorset, now President, is to have the other's refusal. The King has endured a great deal with your old complaint; and I felt for him, recollecting all you underwent.

You will have seen in the papers all the histories of our glorious expeditions(1309) and invasions of France, which have put Cressy and Agincourt out of all countenance. On the first view, indeed, one should think that our fleet had been to victual; for our chief prizes were cows and geese and turkeys. But I rather think that the whole was fitted out by the Royal Society, for they came back quite satisfied with having discovered a fine bay! Would one believe, that in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-six, we should boast of discovering something on the coast of France, as if we had found out the Northeast passage, or penetrated into some remote part of America? The Guards are come back too, who never went: in one Single day they received four several different orders!

Matthews is broke at last. Nobody disputes the justice of the sentence; but the legality of it is not quite so authenticated. Besides some great errors in the forms, whenever the Admiralty perceived any of the court-martial inclined to favour him, they were constantly changed. Then, the expense has been enormous; two hundred thousand pounds! chiefly by employing young captains, instead of old half-pay officers; and by these means, double commissions. Then there has been a great fracas between the court-martial and Willes.(1310) He, as Chief Justice, sent a summons in the ordinary form of law, to Mayerne, to appear as an evidence in a trial where a captain had prosecuted Sir Chaloner Ogle for horrid tyranny: the ingenious court-martial sat down and drew up articles of impeachment, like any House of Commons, against the Chief Justice for stopping their proceedings! and the Admiralty, still more ingenious, had a mind to complain of him to the house! He was charmed to catch them at such absurdities--but I believe at last it is all compromised.

I have not heard from you for some time, but I don't pretend to complain: you have real occupation; my idleness is for its own sake. The Abb`e Niccolini and Pandolfini are arrived; but I have not yet seen them. Rinuncini cannot bear England--and if the Chutes speak their mind, I believe they are not captivated yet with any thing they have found: I am more and more with them: Mr. Whithed is infinitely improved: and Mr. Chute has absolutely more Wit, knowledge, and good-nature, than, to their great surprise, ever met together in one man.(1311) he has a bigotry to you, that even astonishes me, who used to think that I was pretty well in for loving you; but he is very often ready to quarrel with me for not thinking you all pure gold. Adieu!

(1308) William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, secretary of state.

(1309) The expedition to Quiberon; the troops under General St. Clair, the fleet under Admiral Lestock. The object was to surprise Port l'Orient, and destroy the stores and ships of the French East India Company, but the result attained was only the plunder and burning of a few helpless villages. The fleet and troops returned, however, with little loss. "The truth is," says Tindal, "Lestock was too old and infirm for enterprise, and, as is alleged, was under the shameful direction of a woman he carried along with him; and neither the soldiers nor the sailors seem to have been under any kind of discipline."-E.

(1310) John Willes, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas(1311) Grey, in a letter to Mr. Chute of the 12th of October says, "Mr. Walpole is full, I assure you, of your panegyric. Never any man had half so much wit as Mr. Chute, (which is saying every thing with him, you know,) and Mr. Whitehead is the finest young man that was ever imported." Works, vol. iii. p. 22.-E.

513 Letter 225 To Sir Horace Mann. Windsor, Nov. 12, 1746.

Here I AM come hither, per saldare; but though the country is excellently convenient, from the idleness of it, for beginning a letter, yet it is not at all commode for finishing one: the same ingredients that fill a basket by the carrier, will not fill half a sheet of paper; I could send you a cheese, or a hare; but I have not a morsel of news. Mr. Chute threatened me to tell you the distress I was in last week, when I starved Niccolini and Pandolfini on a fast-day, when I had thought to banquet them sumptuously. I had luckily given a guinea for two pine-apples, which I knew they had never seen in Italy, and upon which they revenged themselves for all the meat that they dared not touch. Rinuncini could not come. How you mistook me, my dear' child! I meant simply that you had not mentioned his coming; very far from reproving you for giving him a letter. Don't I give letters for you every day to cubs, ten times cubber than Rinuncini! and don't you treat them as though all their names were Walpole? If you was to send me all the uncouth productions of Italy, do you think any of them would be so brutal as Sir William Maynard? I am exactly like you; I have no greater pleasure than to make them value your recommendation, by showing how much I value it. Besides, I love the Florentines for their own sakes and to indemnify them, poor creatures! a little for the Richcourts, the Lorraines, and the Austrians. I have received per mezzo di Pucci,(1312) a letter from Marquis Riccardi, with orders to consign to the bearer all his treasure in my hands, which I shall do immediately with great satisfaction. There are four rings that I should be glad he would sell me; but they are such trifles, and he will set such a value on them the moment he knows I like them, that it is scarce worth while to make the proposal, because I would give but a little for them. However, you may hint what plague I have had with his roba, and that it will be a gentillezza to sell me these four dabs. One is a man's head, small, on cornelian, and intaglio; a fly, ditto; an Isis, cameo; and an inscription in Christian Latin: the last is literally not worth two sequins.

As to Mr. Townshend, I now know all 'the particulars, and that Lord SandWich(1313) was at the bottom of it. What an excellent heart his lordship will have by the time he is threescore, if he sets out thus! The persecution(1314) is on account of the poor boy's relation to my father; of whom the world may judge pretty clearly already, from the abilities and disinterestedness of such of his enemies as have succeeded; and from their virtue in taking any opportunity to persecute any Of his relations; in which even the public interest of their country can weigh nothing, when clashing with their malice. The King of Sar dinia has written the strongest letter imaginable to complain of the grievous prejudice the Admiralty has don@his affairs by this step.

Don't scold me for not sending you those Lines to Eckardt:(1315) I never wrote any thing that I esteemcd less, or that was seen so incorrect ; nor can I at all account for their having been so much liked, especially as the thoughts were so old and so common. I was hurt at their getting into print. I enclose you an epilogue(1316) that I hae vwritten since, merely for a specimen of something more correct. You know, or have known, that Tamerlane is always acted on King William's birthday, with an occasional prologue ; this was the epilogue to it, and succeeded to flatter me. Adieu!

(1312) Minister from the Great Duke.

(1313) John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty.

1314) See letter 221 of the 14th October.

((1315) The Beauties, an Epistle to Eckardt, the painter; reprinted in Dodsley's Miscellanieg in Walpole's Works, vol. i. p. 19.]

(1316) On the suppression of the rebellion. [See Works, vol. i. p. 25.]

514 Letter 226 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Dec. 5, 1746.

We are in such a newsless situation, that I have been some time without writing to you; but I now answer one I received from you yesterday. You will excuse me, if I am not quite so transported as Mr. Chute is, at the extremity of Aquaviva.(1317) I can't afford to hate people so much at such a distance: my aversions find employment within their own atmosphere.

Rinuncini returns to you this week, not at all contented with England: Niccolini is extremely, and turns his little talent to great account; there is nobody of his own standard but thinks him a great genius. The Chutes and I deal extremely together; but they abuse me, and tell me I am grown so English! lack-a-day! so I am; as folks that have been in the Inquisition, and did not choose to broil, come out excellent Catholics.

I have been unfortunate in my own family; my nephew, Captain Cholmondeley,(1318) has married a player's sister; and I fear Lord Malpas(1319) is on the brink of matrimony with another girl of no fortune. Here is a ruined family! their father totally undone, and all be has seized for debt!

The Duke is gone to Holland to settle the operations of the campaign, but returns before the opening of it. A great reformation has been made this week in the army; the horse are broke, and to be turned into dragoons, by which sixty thousand pounds a-year will be saved. Whatever we do in Flanders, I think you need not fear any commotions here, where Jacobitism seems to have gasped its last. Mr. Radcliffe, the last Derwentwater's brother, is actually named to the gallows for Monday; but the imprudence of Lord Morton,(1320) who has drawn himself into the Bastile, makes it doubtful whether the execution will be so quick. The famous orator Henley is taken up for treasonable flippancies.(1321)

You know Lord Sandwich is minister at the Hague. Sir Charles Williams, who has resigned the paymastership of the marines, is talked of for going to Berlin, but it is not yet done. The Parliament has been most serene, but there is a storm in the air: the Prince waits for an opportunity of erecting his standard, and a disputed election between him and the Grenvilles is likely very soon to furnish the occasion. We are to have another contest about Lord Bath's borough,(1322) which Mr. Chute's brother formerly lost, and which his colleague, Lu@e Robinson, has carried by a majority of three, though his competitor is returned. Lord Bath wrote to a man for a list of all that would be against him: the man placed his own and his brother's names at the head of the list.

We have operas, but no company at them; the Prince and Lord Middlesex Impresarii. Plays only are in fashion: at one house the best company that perhaps ever were together, quin, Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Cibber: at the other, Barry, a favourite young actor, and the Violette, whose dancing our friends don't like; I scold them, but all the answer is, "Lord! you are so English!" If I do clap sometimes when they don't, I can fairly say with Oedipus,

"My hands are guilty, but my heart is free." '

Adieu!

(1317) Cardinal Acquaviva, Protector of Spain, and a great promoter of the interests of the Pretender

(1318) Robert, second son of George, Earl of Cholmondeley, married Mary, sister of Mrs. Margaret Woffington, the actress. He afterwards quitted the army and took orders. [Besides two church livings, he enjoyed the office of auditor of the King's revenues in America. He died in 1804.]

(1319) George, eldest son of Lord Cholmondeley, married, in January 1747, Miss Edwards. (She was the, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Edwards, Bart. of Grete, in Shropshire.-D.)

(1320) James Douglas, ninth Earl of Morton.-D.

(1321) He was, a few days after, admitted to bail.-E.

(1322) Heydon.

515 Letter 227 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Christmas-day, 1746.

We are in great expectation of farther news from Genoa, which the last accounts left in the greatest confusion, and I think in the hands of the Genoese;,(1323) a circumstance that may chance to unravel all the fine schemes in Provence! Marshal Bathiani, at the Hague, treated this revolt as a trifle; but all the letters by last post make it a reconquest. The Dutch do all the Duke asks: we talk of an army of 140,000 men in Flanders next campaign. I don't know how the Prince of Orange relishes his brother-in-law's dignities and success.

Old Lovat has been brought to the bar of the House of Lords: he is far from having those abilities for which he has been so cried up. He saw Mr. Pelham at a distance and called to him, and asked him if it were worth while to make all this fuss to take off a gray head fourscore years old? In his defence he complained of his estate being seized and kept from him. Lord Granville took up this complaint very strongly, and insisted on having it inquired into. Lord Bath went farther, and, as some people think, intended the Duke; but I believe he only aimed at the Duke of Newcastle, who was so alarmed with this motion, that he kept the House above a quarter of an hour in suspense, till he could send for Stone,(1324) and consult what he should do. They made a rule to order the old creature the profits of his estate till his conviction. He is to put in his answer the 13th of January.

Lord Lincoln is cofferer at last, in the room of Waller,(1325) who is dismissed. Sir Charles Williams has kissed hands, and sets out for Dresden in a month: he has hopes of Turin, but I think Villettes is firm. Don't mention this.

Did I ever talk to you of a Mr. Davis, a Norfolk gentleman, who has taken to painting? He has copied the Dominichin, the third picture he ever copied in his life: how well, you may judge; for Mr. Chute, who, I believe you think, understands pictures if any body does, happened to come in, just as Mr. Davis brought his copy hither. "Here," said I, "Mr. Chute, here is your Dominichin come to town to be copied." He literally did not know it; which made me very happy for Mr. Davis, who has given me this charming picture. Do but figure to yourself a man of fifty years old, who was scarce ever out of the county of Norfolk, but when his hounds led him; who never saw a tolerable picture till those at Houghton four years ago who plays and composes as well as he paints, and who has no more of the Norfolk dialect than a Florentine! He is the most decent, sensible man you ever saw.

Rinuncini is gone: Niccolini sups continually with the Prince of Wales, and learns the Constitution! Pandolfini is put to-bed, like children, to be out of the way. Adieu!

P. S. My Lady O. who has entirely settled her affairs with my brother, talks of going abroad again, not being able to live here on fifteen hundred pounds a-year--many an old 'lady, and uglier too, lives very comfortably upon less. After I had writ this, your brother brought me another letter with a confirmation of all we had heard about Genoa. You may be easy about the change of provinces,(1326) which has not been made as was designed. Echo Mons`u Chute

>From Mr. Chute.

Mr. Walpole gives me a side, and I catch hold of it to tell you that I parted this minute with your charming brother, who has been in the council with me about your grand affair:(1327) it is determined now to be presented to the King by way of memorial; and to-morrow we meet again to draw it up: Mr. Stone has graciously signified that this is a very proper opportunity - one should think he must know.

Oh! I must tell you: I was here last night, and saw my Lord Walpole,(1328) for the first time, but such a youth! I declare to you, I was quite astonished at his sense and cleverness; it is impossible to describe it; it was just what would have made you as happy to observe as it did me: he is not yet seventeen, and is to continue a year longer at Eton, upon his own desire. Alas! how few have I seen of my countrymen half so formed even at their return from their travels! I hope you will have him at Florence One day or other; he will pay you amply for the Pigwiggins, and------

Mr. Walpole is quite right in all he tells you of the miracle worked by St. Davis, which certainly merits the credit of deceiving far better judges of painting than I; who am no judge of any thing but you, whom I pretend to understand better than any body living and am, therefore, my dear sir, etc. etc. etc. J. C.

(1323) This circumstance is thus alluded to in a letter of Sir Horace Mann's, dated Dec. 20th, 1746. "The affairs of Genoa are in such a horrid situation, that one is frightened out of one's senses. The accounts of them are so confused, that one does not know what to make of them; but it is certain that the mob is quite master of the town and of every thing in it. They have sacked several houses, particularly that of the Doge, and five or six others, belonging to those who were the principal authors of the alliance which the Republic made with France and Spain."-D.

(1324) Andrew Stone, secretary to the Duke of Newcastle, and afterwards sub-governor to George, Prince of Wales.

(1325) Edmund Waller, of Beaconsfield.

(1326) Meaning a change in the secretaries of state. There were at this time two, one of whom was called the Secretary of State for the Northern Province, and the other the Secretary of State for the Southern Province.-D.

(1327) Of Mr. Mann's arrears.

(1328) George, only son of Robert, second Earl of Orford, whom he succeeded in the title.

517 Letter 228 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 1747.

The Prince has formally declared a new Opposition which is never to subside till he is King (s'entendent that he does not carry his point sooner.) He began it pretty handsomely the other day with 143 to 184, which has frightened the ministry like a bomb. This new party wants nothing but heads; though not having any, to be sure the struggle is the fairer. Lord Baltimore(1329) takes the lead; he is the best and honestest man in the world, with a good deal of jumbled knowledge; but not capable of conducting a party. However, the next day, the Prince, to reward him, and to punish Lord Archibald Himllton, who voted with the ministry, told Lord Baltimore that he would not give him the trouble of waiting any more as Lord of the Bedchamber. but would make him Cofferer. Lord B. thanked him, but desired that it might not be done in a way disagreeable to Lord Archibald, who was then Cofferer. The Prince sent for Lord Archibald, and told him he would either make him Comptroller, or give him a pension of twelve hundred pounds a-year; the latter of' which the old soul accepted, and went away content; but returned in an hour with a letter from his wife,(1330) to say, that as his Royal Highness was angry with her husband, it was not proper for either of them to take their pensions. It is excellent! When she was dismissed herself, she accepted the twelve hundred pounds, and now will not let her husband, though he had accepted. It must mortify the Prince wondrously to have four-and-twenty hundred pounds a-year thrown back into an exchequer that never yet overflowed!

I am a little piqued at Marquis Riccardi's refusing me such a, trifle as the four rings, after all the trouble I have had with his trumpery! I think I cannot help telling him, that Lord Carlisle and Lord Duncannon, Who heard of his collection from Niccolini, have seen it; and are willing, at a reasonable price, to take it between them: if you let me know the lowest, and in money that I understand, not his equivocal pistoles, I will allow so much to Florence civilities, as still to help him off with his goods, though he does not deserve it; as selling me four rings could not have affected the general purchase. I pity your Princess Strozzi(1331) but cannot possibly hunt after her chattels: Riccardi has cured me of Italian merchandise, by forcing it upon me.'

Your account of your former friend's neglect of you does not at all surprise me: there is an inveteracy, a darkness, a design and cunning in his character that stamp him for a very unamiable young man: it is uncommon for a heart to be so tainted so early My cousin's(1332) affair is entirely owing to him;(1333) nor can I account for the pursuit of such unprovoked revenge.

I never heard of the advertisement that you mention to have received from Sir James Grey,(1334) nor believe it was ever in the House of Commons; I must have heard of it. I hear as little of Lady O. who never appears; nor do I know if she sees Niccolini: he lives much with Lady Pomfret (who has married her third daughter),(1335) and a good deal with the Prince.

Adieu! I have answered your letter, and have nothing more to put into mine.

(1329) Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had been a Lord of the Admiralty, on the change of the ministry in 1742. He died soon after the Prince, in 1751.

(1330) Jane, sister of the Earl of Abercorn, and wife of Lord Archibald Hamilton, great-uncle of Duke Hamilton: she had been mistress of the robes, etc. to the Princess of Wales, and the supposed mistress of the Prince. She died at Paris, in December 1752.

(1331) She had been robbed of some of the most valuable gems of the famous Strozzi collection.

(1332) The Hon. George Townshend. See what is said of him in a letter (221) of Oct. 14, 1746, and note 1300.-D.

(1333) It appeared afterwards that the person here mentioned, after having behaved very bravely, gave so perplexed an account of his own conduct, that the Admiralty thought it necessary to have it examined; but the inquiry proved much to his honour.

(1334) "Sir James Gray has sent me the copy of an advertisement, the publisher of which, he says, had been examined before the House of Commons, Lost or mislaid an ivory table-book, containing various queries vastly strong." Letter of Sir H. Mann, of Jan. 10th, 1747. It probably related to the trial of the rebel Lords.-D.

(1335) Lady Henrietta Fermor, second wife of Mr. Conyers.

519 Letter 229 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Feb. 23, 1747.

Why, you do nothing but get fevers! I believe you try to dry your Wet-brown-paperness, till you scorch it. Or do you play off fevers against the Princess's coliques? Remember, hers are only for the support of her dignity, and that is what I never allowed you to have: you must(1336) have twenty unlawful children, and then be twenty years in devotion, and have twenty unchristian appetites and passions all the while, before you may think of getting into a cradle with `epuisements and have a Monsieur Forzoni(1337) to burn the wings of boisterous gnats-pray be more robust-do you hear!

One would think you had been describing our Opera, not your own; we have just set out with one in what they call, the French manner, but about as like it, as my Lady Pomfret's hash of plural persons and singular verbs or infinitive moods was to Italian. They sing to jigs, and dance to church music -. Phaeton is run away with by horses that go a foot's-pace, like the Electress's(1338) coach, with such long traces, that the postilion was in one street and the coachman in another;--then comes Jupiter with a farthing-candle to light a squib and a half, and that they call fire-works. Reginello, the first man, is so old and so tall, that he seems to have been growing ever since the invention of operas. The first woman has had her mouth let out to show a fine set of teeth, but it lets out too much bad voice at the same time.(1339) Lord Middlesex, for his great prudence in having provided such very tractable steeds to Prince Phaeton's car, is going to be Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales; and for his excellent economy in never paying the performers, is likely to continue in the treasury. The two courts grow again: and the old question of settling the 50,000 pounds a-year talked of. The Tories don't list kindly under this new Opposition; though last week we had a warm day on a motion for inquiring into useless places and quarterings. Mr. Pitt was so well advised as to acquit my father pretty amply, in speaking Of the Secret Committee. My uncle Horace thanked him in a speech, and my brother Ned has been to visit him-Tant d'empressement, I think, rather shows an eagerness to catch any opportunity of paying court to him; for I do not see the so vast merit in owning now for his interest, what for his honour he should have owned five years ago. This motion was spirited up by Lord Bath, who is raving again, upon losing the borough of Heydon: from which last week we threw his brother-in-law Gumley, and instated Luke Robinson, the old sufferer for my father, and the colleague of Mr. Chute's brother; an incident that will not heighten your indifference, any more than it did mine.

Lord Kildare is married to the charming Lady Emily Lennox, who went the very next day to see her sister Lady Caroline Fox, to the great mortification of the haughty Duchess-mother. They have not given her a shilling, but the King endows her, by making Lord Kildare a Viscount Sterling:(1340) and they talk of giving him a Pinchbeck-dukedom too, to keep him always first peer of Ireland.(1341) Sir Everard Falkener is married to Miss Churchill, and my sister is brought to bed of a son.

Panciatici is arrived, extremely darkened in his person and enlivened in his manner. He was much in fashion at the Hague, but I don't know if he will succeed so well here: for in such great cities as this, you know people affect not to think themselves honoured by foreigners; and though we don't quite barbarize them as the French do, they are toujours des etrangers. Mr. Chute thinks we have to the full all the politeness that can make a nation brutes to the rest of the world. He had an excellent adventure the other day with Lord Holderness, whom he met at a party it Lady Betty Germains; but who could not possibly fatigue himself to recollect that they had ever met before in their lives. Towards the end of dinner Lady Betty mentioned remembering a grandmother of Mr. Chute who was a peeress: immediately the Earl grew as fond of him as if they had walked together at a coronation. He told me another good story last night of Lord Hervey,(1342) who was going with them from the Opera, and was so familiar as to beg they would not call him my Lord and your Lordship. The freedom proceeded; when on a sudden, he turned to Mr. Whithed, and with a distressed friendly voice, said, "Now have you no peerage that can come to you by any woman?"

Adieu! my dear Sir; I have no news to tell you. Here is another letter of Niccolini that has lain in my standish this fortnight.

(1336) All the succeeding paragraph alludes to Princess Craon.

(1337) Her gentleman usher.

(1338) The Electress Palatine Dowager, the last of the house of Medici; she lived at Florence.

(1339) The drama of Fetonte was written by Vaneschi. "The best apologies for the absurdities of an Italian opera, in a country where the language is little understood, are," says Dr. Burney, "good music and exquisite singing: unluckily, neither the composition nor performance of Phaeton had the siren power of enchanting men so much, as to stimulate attention at the expense of reason." Hist. of Music, Vol. iv. p. 456.-E.

(1340) Meaning an English viscount. He was created Viscount Leinster, of Taplow, in Bucks, Feb. 21st, 1747.-D.

(1341) In 1761 his lordship was advanced to the Marquisate of Kildare, and in 1766 created Duke of Leinster. By Lady Emily Lennox the Duke had seventeen children.-E.

(1342) George, eldest son of John, Lord Hervey, and afterwards Earl of Bristol, and minister at Turin and Madrid.

521 Letter 230 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, March 20, 1747.

I have been living at old Lovat's trial, and was willing to have it over before I talked to you of it. It lasted seven days: the evidence was as strong as possible; and after all he had denounced, he made no defence. The Solicitor-General,(1343) who was one of the managers for the House of Commons, shone extremely; the Attorney-General ,(1344) who is a much greater lawyer, is cold and tedious. The old creature's behaviour has been foolish, and at last, indecent. I see little of parts in him, nor attribute much to that cunning for which he is so famous: it might catch wild Highlanders; but the art of dissimulation and flattery is so refined and improved, that it is of little use where it is not very delicate. His character seems a mixture of tyranny and pride in his villainy. I must make you a little acquainted with him. In his own domain he governed despotically, either burning or plundering the lands and houses of his open enemies, or taking off his secret ones by the assistance of his cook, who was his poisoner in chief. He had two servants who married without his consent; he said, "You shall have enough of each other," and stowed them in a dungeon, that had been a well for three weeks. When he came to the Tower, he told them, that if he were not so old and infirm, they would find it difficult to keep him there. They told him they had kept much younger: "Yes," said he, "but they were inexperienced: they had not broke so many gaols as I have." At his own house he used to say, that for thirty years of his life he never saw a gallows but it made his neck ache. His last act was to shift his treason upon his eldest son, whom he forced into the rebellion. He told Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower, "We will hang my eldest son, and then my second shall marry your niece." He has a sort of ready humour at repartee, not very well adapted to his situation. One day that Williamson complained that he could not sleep, he was so haunted with rats, he replied, "What do you say, that you are so haunted with Reitc yeq?" The first day, as he was brought to his trial, a woman looked into the coach, and said, "You ugly old dog, don't you think that you will have that frightful head cut off?" He replied, You ugly old -, I believe I shall." At his trial he affected great weakness and infirmities, but often broke into passions; particularly at the first witness, who was his vassal: he asked him how he dared to come thither! The man replied, to satisfy his conscience. Murray, the Pretender's secretary, was the chief evidence, who, in the course of his information, mentioned Lord Traquair's having conversed with Lord Barrymore, Sir Watkin Williams, and Sir John Cotton, on the Pretender's affairs, but that they were shy. He was proceeding to name others, but was stopped by Lord Talbot, and the court acquiesced--I think very indecently. It is imagined the Duchess of Norfolk would have come next upon the stage. The two Knights were present, as was Macleod, against whom a bitter letter from Lovat was read, accusing him of breach of faith; and afterwards Lovat summoned him to answer some questions he had to ask; but did not. it is much expected that Lord Traquair, who is a great coward, will give ample information of the whole plot. When Sir Everard Falkener had been examined(1345) against Lovat, the Lord High Steward asked the latter if he had any thing to say to Sir Everard? he replied, "No; but that he was his humble servant, and wished him joy of his young wife." The two last days he behaved ridiculously, joking, and making every body laugh even at the sentence. He said to Lord Ilchester, who sat near the bar, "Je meUrs pour ma patrie, et ne m'en soucie gueres." When he withdrew, he said, "Adieu! my lords, we shall never meet again in the same place."(1346) He says he will be hanged; for that his neck is so short and bended, that he should be struck in the shoulders. I did not think it possible to feel so little as I did at so melancholy a spectacle, but tyranny and villainy wound up by buffoonery took off all edge of concern-. The foreigners were much struck; Niccolini seemed a great deal shocked, but he comforts himself with the knowledge he thinks he has gained of the English constitution.

Don't thank Riccardi for me: I don't feel obliged for his immoderate demand, but expect very soon to return him his goods; for I have no notion that the two Lords, who are to see them next week, will rise near his price. We have nothing like news: all the world has been entirely taken up with the trial. -Here is a letter from Mr. Whithed to Lord Hobart. Mr. Chute would have written to-Day, if I had not; but will next post. Adieu!

(1343) William Murray.

(1344) Sir Dudley Ryder; afterwards Lord Chief Justice.

(1345) He was secretary to the Duke, whom he had attended into Scotland during the rebellion.

(1346) Lord Byron has put nearly the same words into the mouth of Israel Bertuccio, in his tragedy of Marino Falicro.-E.

522 Letter 131 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, April 10, 1747.