Chapter VIII: Part 8

I came yesterday from Woburn, where I have been a week. The house is in building, and three sides of the quadrangle finished. The park is very fine, the woods glorious, and the plantations of evergreens sumptuous; but upon the whole, it is rather -what I admire than like-I fear that is what I am a little apt to do at the finest places in the world where there is not a navigable river. You would be charmed, as I was, with an old gallery, that is not yet destroyed. It is a bad room, powdered with little gold stars, and covered with millions of old portraits. There are all the successions of Earls and Countesses of Bedford, and all their progenies. One countess is a whole-length drawing in the drollest dress you ever saw; and another picture of the same woman leaning on her hand, I believe by Cornelius Johnson, is as fine a head as ever I saw. There are many of Queen Elizabeth's worthies, the Leicesters, Essexes, and Philip Sidneys, and a very curious portrait of the last Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, who died at Padua. Have not I read somewhere that he was in love with Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Mary -with him? He is quite in the style of the former's lovers, red-bearded, and not comely. There is Essex's friend, the Earl of Southampton; his son the Lord Treasurer; and Madame l'Empoisonneuse,(273) that married Carr,(274) Earl of Somerset--she is pretty. Have not you seen a copy Vertue has made of Philip and Mary? That is in this gallery too, but more curious than good. They showed me two heads, who, according to the tradition of the family, were the originals of Castalio and Polydore. They were sons to the second Earl of Bedford; and the eldest, if not both, died before their father. The eldest has vipers in his hand, and in the distant landscape appears in a maze, with these words, Fata viam invenient. The other has a woman behind him, sitting near the sea, with strange monsters surrounding her. I don't pretend to decipher this, nor to describe half the entertaining morsels I found here; but I can't omit, as you know I am Grammont-mad, that I found "le vieux Roussel, qui `etoit le plus fier danseur d'Angleterre." The portrait is young, but has all the promise of his latter character. I am going to send them a head of a Countess of Cumberland,(275) sister to Castalio and Polydore, and mother of a famous Countess of Dorset,(276) who Afterwards married the Earl of Pembroke,(277) of Charles the First's time. She was an authoress, and immensely rich. After the restoration, Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary of state, wrote to her to choose a courtier at Appleby: she sent him this answer: "I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been ill-treated by a court, but I won't be dictated to by a subject; your man shall not stand. Ann Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery." Adieu! If you love news a hundred years old, I think you can't have a better correspondent. For any thing that passes now, I shall not think it worth knowing these fifty years.

(273 Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and married to the Earl of Essex, from whom she was divorced. She then married her lover, the Earl of Somerset. She poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, because he had endeavoured to dissuade his friend the Earl of Somerset from this alliance. She was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by King James.

(274) Robert Carr, a favourite of King James the First, who created him Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset. He was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by James the First.

(275) Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, daughter of Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford, and married to George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland.

(276)) Ann Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of Cumberland, first married to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards to Philip, Earl of Pembroke.

(277) Philip, Earl of Pembroke, son of Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was chamberlain to Charles the First.

115 Letter 49 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1751.

It is above six weeks since I wrote to you, and I was going on to be longer, as I stayed for something to tell you; but an express that arrived yesterday brought a great event, which, though you will hear long before my letter can arrive, serves for a topic to renew our correspondence. The Prince of Orange is dead: killed by the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. This is all I yet know. I shall go to town to-morrow for a day or two, and if I pick up any particulars before the post goes away, you shall know them. The Princess Royal(278) was established Regent some time ago; but as her husband's authority seemed extremely tottering, it is not likely that she will be able to maintain hers. Her health is extremely bad, and her temper neither ingratiating nor bending. It is become the peculiarity of the House of Orange to have minorities.

Your last letter to me of Sept. 24th, and all I have seen since your first fright, make me easy about your Genoese journey. I take no honour from the completion of my prophecy; it was sufficient to know circumstances and the trifling falsehood of Richcourt, to confirm me in my belief that that embassy was never intended. We dispose of Corsica! Alas! I believe there is but one island that we shall ever have power to give away; and that is Great Britain--and I don't know but we may exert our power.

You are exceedingly kind about Mr. Conway-but when are not you so to me and my friends? I have just received a miserable letter from him on his disappointment; he had waited for a man-of-war to embark for Leghorn; it came in the night, left its name upon a card, and was gone before he was awake in the morning, and had any notice of it. He still talks of seeing you; as the Parliament is to meet so soon, I should think he will scarce have time, though I don't hear that he is sent for, or that they will have occasion to send for any body, unless they want to make an Opposition.

We were going to have festivals and masquerades for the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, but I suppose both they and the observance of the King's birthday will be laid aside or postponed, on the death of our son-in-law. Madame de Mirepoix would not stay to preside at her own banquets, but is slipped away to retake possession of the tabouret. When the King wished her husband joy, my Lady Pembroke(279) was standing near him; she was a favourite, but has disgraced herself by marrying a Captain Barnard. Mirepoix said, as he had no children he was indifferent to the honour of a duchy for himself, but was glad it would restore Madame to the honour she had lost by marrying him! "Oh!" replied the King, ,you are of so great a family, the rank was nothing; but I can't bear when women of quality marry one don't know whom!"

Did you ever receive the questions I asked you about Lady Mary Wortley's being confined by a lover that she keeps somewhere in the Brescian? I long to know the particulars. I have lately been at Woburn, where the Duchess of Bedford borrowed for me from a niece of Lady Mary about fifty letters of the latter. They are charming! have more spirit and vivacity than you can conceive, and as much of the spirit of debauchery in them as you will conceive in her writing. They were written to her sister, the unfortunate Lady Mar, whom she treated so hardly while out of her senses, which she has not entirely recovered, though delivered and tended with the greatest tenderness and affection by her daughter, Lady Margaret Erskine: they live in a house lent to them by the Duke of Bedford; the Duchess is Lady Mary's niece.(280) Ten of the letters, indeed, are dismal lamentations and frights of a scene of villany of Lady Mary, who, having persuaded one Ruremonde, a Frenchman and her lover, to entrust her with a large sum of money to buy stock for him, frightened him out of England, by persuading him that Mr. Wortley had discovered the intrigue, and would murder him; and then would have sunk the trust. That not succeeding, and he threatening to print her letters, she endeavoured to make Lord Mar or Lord Stair cut his throat. Pope hints at these anecdotes of her history in that line,

"Who starves a sister or denies a debt."(281)

In one of her letters she says, "We all partake of father Adam's folly and knavery, who first eat the apple like a sot, and then turned informer like a scoundrel." This is character, at least, if not very delicate; but in most of them, the wit and style are superior to any letters I ever read but Madame Sevign`e's. It is very remarkable, how much better women write than men. I have now before me a volume of letters written by the widow(282) of the beheaded Lord Russel, which are full of the most moving and expressive eloquence ; I want to persuade the Duke of Bedford to let them be printed.(283)

17th.--I have learned nothing but that the Prince of Orange died of an imposthume in his head. Lord Holderness is gone to Holland to-day--I believe rather to learn than to teach. I have received yours of Oct. 8, and don't credit a word of Birtle's(284) information. Adieu!

(276) Anne, eldest daughter of George the Second. Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 173, describes her as being immoderately jealous and fond of her husband : "Yet," adds he, "this Mars, who was locked in the arms of that Venus, was a monster so deformed, that when the King had chosen him for his son-in-law, he could not help, in the honesty of his heart and the coarseness of his expression, telling the Princess how hideous a bridegroom she was to expect; and even gave her permission to refuse him: she replied, she would marry him if he was a baboon; "Well, then," said the King, "there is baboon enough for you!"-E.

(279) Mary, daughter of the Viscount Fitzwilliam, formerly maid of honour to the Queen, and widow of Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. [In the preceding month, Lady Pembroke had married North Ludlow Barnard, a major of dragoons. She died in 1769.]

(280) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Mar, and the first wife of John, Lord Gower, were daughters of Evelyn Pierpoint, Duke of Kingston.

(281) Upon this passage Lord Wharncliffe observes, that "nothing whatever has been found to throw light upon the ill treatment of Lady Mar by Lady Mary, and that accusation is supposed, by those who would probably have heard of it if true, to be without foundation." Nine of the ten letters spoken of by Walpole, are given in his lordship's edition of Lady Mary's Works; and, in the opinion of the Quarterly Reviewer, "they confirm, in a very extraordinary way, Horace Walpole's impression." See vol. viii. p. 191.-E.

(282) @Rachel, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, lord treasurer. One of these letters to Dr. Tillotson, to persuade him to accept the archbishopric, has been since printed, and a fragment of another of her letters, in Birch's Life of that prelate.

(283) They were published in 1773, and met with such deserved success as to call for a Seventh edition of them in 1809. In 1819, appeared a quarto volume, entitled "Some Account of the Life of Rachael Wriothesley, Lady Russell, with Letters from Lady Russell to her husband Lord Russell," by the editor of Madame du Deffand's Letters.-E.

(284) Consul at Genoa: he had heard the report of Mr. Mann's being designed for an embassy to Genoa.

118 Letter 50 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Nov. 22, 1751.

As the Parliament is met, you will, of course, expect to hear something of it: the only thing to be told of it is, what I believe was never yet to be told of an English Parliament, that it is so unanimous, that we are not likely to have one division this session-Day, I think not a debate.(285) On the Address, Sir John Cotton alone said a few words against a few words of it. Yesterday, on a motion to resume the sentences against Murray, who is fled to France, only two persons objected--in short, we shall not be more a French Parliament when we are under French government. Indeed, the two nations seem to have crossed over and figured in; one hears of nothing from Paris but gunpowder plots in a Duke of Burgundy's cradle (whom the clergy, by a vice versa, have converted into a Pretender,) and menaces of assassinations. Have you seen the following verses, that have been stuck up on the Louvre, the Pontneuf, and other places?

"Deux Henris immol`es par nos braves Ayeux, L'un `a la Libert`e et l'autre `a nos Dieux, Nous animent, Louis, aux m`emes entreprises: Ils revivent, en Toi ces anciens Tyrans: Crains notre desespoir: La Noblesse a des Guises, Paris des Ravaillacs, le Clerg`e des Clements."

Did you ever see more ecclesiastic fury? Don't you like their avowing the cause of Jacques Clement?'and that Henry IV. was sacrificed to a plurality of gods! a frank confession! though drawn from the author by the rhyme, as Cardinal Bembo, to write classic Latin, used to say, Deos immortales! But what most offends me is the threat of murder: it attaints the prerogative of chopping off the heads of Kings in a legal way. We here have been still more interested about a private history that has lately happened at Paris. It seems uncertain by your accounts whether Lady Mary Wortley is in voluntary or constrained durance - it is not at all equivocal that her son and a Mr. Taaffe have been in the latter at Fort LEvesque and the Chatelet.(286) All the letters from Paris have been very cautious of relating the circumstances. The outlines are, that these two gentlemen, who were pharaoh-bankers to Madame de Mirepoix, had travelled to France to exercise the same profession, where it is suppose(] they cheated a Jew, who would afterwards have cheated them of the money he owed; and that. to secure payment, they broke open his lodgings and bureau, and seized jewels and other effects; that he accused them; that they were taken out of their beds at two o'clock in the morning, kept in different prisons, without fire or candle, for six-and-thirty hours; have since been released on excessive bail; are still to be tried, may be sent to the galleys, or dismissed home, where they will be reduced to keep the best company; for I suppose nobody else will converse with them. Their separate anecdotes are curious: Wortley, you know, has been a perfect Gil Blas, and, for one of his last adventures; is thought to have added the famous Miss Ashe to the number of his wives. Taaffe is an Irishman, who changed his religion to fight a duel; as you know in Ireland a Catholic may not wear a sword. He is a gamester, usurer, adventurer, and of late has divided his attentions between the Duke of Newcastle and Madame Pompadour; travelling, with turtles and pine-apples, in postchaises, to the latter,-flying back to the former for Lewes races--and smuggling burgundy at the same time. I shall finish their history with a bon-mot. The Speaker was railing at gaming and White's, apropos to these two prisoners. Lord Coke, to whom the conversation was addressed, replied, "Sir, all I can say is, that they are both members of the House of Commons, and neither of them of White's." Monsieur de Mirepoix sent a card lately to White's, to invite all the chess-players of both 'clamps'. Do but think what a genius a man must have, or, my dear child, do you consider what information you would be capable of sending to your court, if, after passing two years in a country, you had learned but the two first letters of"a word, that you heard twenty times every day! I have a bit of paper left, so I will tell you another story. A certain King, that, whatever airs you may give yourself, you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The Intriguing Chambermaid in the farce(287) says to the old gentleman, "You are villanously old; you are sixty-six; you can't have the impudence to think of living above two years." The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a passion, and said, "This is d-d stuff!" Pray have you got Mr. Conway yet! Adieu!

(285) "Nov. 14 Parliament opened. Lord Downe and Sir William Beauchamp Proctor moved and seconded the Address. No opposition to it." Dodington, p. 114. Tindal says that this session was, perhaps, the most unanimous ever known."-E.

(286) See ant`e.-E.

(287) The Intriguing Chambermaid was performed at Drury-lane on the 6th of November; it was dedicated by Fielding to Mrs. Clive.-E.

119 Letter 51 To Sir Horace Mann. Dec. 12, 1751.

I have received yours and Mr. Conway's letters, and am transported that you have met at last, and that you answer so well to one another, as I intended. I expect that you tell me more and more all that you think of him. The inclosed is for him; as he has never received one of my letters since he left England, I have exhausted all my news upon him, and for this post you must only go halves with him, who I trust is still at Florence. In your last, you mentioned Lord Stormont, and commend him; pray tell me more about him. He is cried up above all the young men of the time-in truth we want recruits! Lord Bolingbroke is dead, or dying,(288) of a cancer, which was thought cured by a quack plaster; but it is not every body can be cured at seventy-five, like my monstrous uncle.

What is an uomo nero?-neither Mr. Chute nor I can recollect the term. Though you are in the season of the villegiatura, believe me, Mr. Conway will not find Florence duller than he would London: our diversions, politics, quarrels, are buried all in our Alphonso's grave!(289) The only thing talked of is a man who draws teeth with a sixpence, and puts them in again for a shilling. I believe it; not that it seems probable, but because I have long been persuaded that the most incredible discoveries will be made, and that, about the time, or a little after, I die, the secret will be found out of how to live for ever--and that secret, I believe, will not be discovered by a physician. Adieu!

P. S. I have tipped Mr. Conway's direction with French, in case it should be necessary to send it after him.

(288) lord Bolingbroke died on the 15th.-E.

(289) The late Prince of Wales: it alludes to a line in The Mourning Bride."

120 Letter 52 To George Montagu, Esq. THE ST. JAMES'S EVENING POST. Thursday, Jan. 9, 1752.

Monday being the Twelfth-day, his Majesty according to annual custom offered myrrh, frankincense, and a small bit of gold; and at night, in commemoration of the three kings or wise men, the King and Royal Family played a@ hazard for the benefit of a prince of the blood. There were above eleven thousand pounds upon the table; his most sacred Majesty won three guineas, and his Royal Highness the Duke three thousand four hundred pounds.

On Saturday was landed at the Custom-house a large box of truffles, being a present to the Earl of Lincoln from Theobald Taaffe, Esq. who is shortly expected home from his travels in foreign parts.

To-morrow the new-born son of the Earl of Egremont is to be baptized, when his Majesty, and the Earl of Granville (if he is able to stand), and the Duchess of Somerset, are to be sponsors.

We are assured that on Tuesday last, the surprising strong woman was exhibited at the Countess of Holderness's, before a polite assembly of persons of the first quality; and some time this week, the two dwarfs will play at brag at Madame Holman's. N.B. The strong man, who was to have performed at Mrs. Nugent's, is indisposed. There is lately arrived at the Lord Carpenter's, a curious male chimpanzee, which had had the honour of being shown before the ugliest princes in Europe, who all expressed their approbation; and we hear that he intends to offer himself a candidate to represent the city of Westminster at the next general election. Note: he wears breeches, and there is a gentlewoman to attend the ladies.'

Last night the Hon. and Rev. Mr. James Brudenel was admitted a doctor of opium in the ancient UNIVERSITY of White's, being received ad eundem by his grace the Rev. father in chess the Duke of Devonshire, president, and the rest of the senior fellows. At the same time the Lord Robert Bertie and Colonel Barrington were rejected, on account of some deficiency of formality in their testimonials.

Letters from Grosvenor Street mention a dreadful apparition, which has appeared for several nights at the house of the Countess Temple, which has occasioned several of her ladyship's domestics to leave her service, except the coachman, who has drove her sons and nephews for several years, and is not afraid of spectres. The coroner's inquest have brought in their verdict lunacy.

Last week the Lord Downe received at the treasury the sum of a hundred kisses from the Auditor of the Exchequer, being the reward for shooting at a highwayman.

On Tuesday the operation of shaving was happily performed on the upper lip of her grace the Duchess of Newcastle, by a celebrated artist from Paris, sent over on purpose by the Earl of Albemarle. The performance lasted but one minute and three seconds, to the great joy of that noble family; and in consideration of his great care and expedition, his grace has settled four hundred pounds a year upon him for life. We hear that he is to have the honour of shaving the heads of the Lady Caroline Petersham, the Duchess of Queensberry, and several other persons of quality.

By authority, on Sunday next will be opened the Romish chapel at Norfolk House; no persons will be admitted but such as are known well-wishers to the present happy establishment. Mass will begin exactly when the English liturgy is finished.

At the theatre royal in the House of Lords, the Royal Slave, with Lethe. At the theatre in St. Stephen's chapel, the Fool in Fashion.

The Jews are desired to meet on the 20th inst. at the sign of Fort L'Evesque in Pharaoh Street, to commemorate the noble struggle made by one of their brethren in support of his property.

Deserted--Miss Ashe.

Lost--an Opposition.

To be let--an ambassador's masquerade, the gentleman going abroad.

To be sold--the whole nation.

Lately published, The Analogy of political and private Quarrels, or the Art of healing family-differences by widening them; on these words, "Do evil that good may ensue." a sermon preached before the Right Hon. Henry Pell)am, and the rest of the society for propagating Christian charity, by William Levenson, chaplain to her R. H. the Princess Amelia; and now printed at the desire of several of the family.

For capital weaknesses, the Duke of Newcastle's true spirit of crocodiles.

Given gratis at the Turn-stile, the corner of Lincoln's-inn-fields, Anodyne Stars and Garters.(290)

(290) The residence of the duke of newcastle.-E.

122 Letter 53 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1752.

We are much surprised by two letters which my Lady Aylesbury has received from Mr. Conway, to find that he had not yet heard of his new regiment. She, who is extremely reasonable, seems content that he went to Rome before he got the news, as it would have been pity to have missed such an opportunity of seeing it, and she flatters herself that he would have set out immediately for England, if he had received the express -at Florence. Now you know him, and you will not wonder that she is impatient; you would wonder, if you knew her, if he were not so too.

After all I have lately told you of our dead tranquillity, You will be surprised to hear of an episode of Opposition: it is merely an interlude, for at least till next @ear we shall have no more: you will rather think it a farce, when I tell you, that that buffoon my old uncle acted a principal part in it. And what made it more ridiculous, the title of the drama was a subsidiary treaty with Saxony.(291) In short, being impatient with the thought that he should die without having it written on his tomb, "He-re lies Baron Punch," he spirited up--whom do you think?--only a Grenville! my Lord Cobham, to join with him in speaking against this treaty: both did: the latter retired after his speech; but my uncle concluded his (which was a direct answer to all he has been making all his life,) with declaring, that he should yet vote for the treaty! You never heard such a shout and laughter as it caused. This debate was followed by as new a one in, the House of Lords, where the Duke of Bedford took the treaty, and in the conclusion of his speech, the ministry, to pieces. His friend Lord Sandwich, by a most inconceivable jumble of cunning, spoke for the treaty, against the ministry; it is supposed, lest the 'Duke should be thought to have countenanced the Opposition: you never heard a more lamentable performance! there was no division.(292) The next day the Tories in our House moved for a resolution against subsidiary treaties in line of peace: Mr. Pelham, with great agitation, replied to the philippics of the preceding, day, and divided 180 to 52.

There has been an odd sort of codicil to these debates: Vernon,(293) a very inoffensive, good-humoured young fellow, who lives in the strongest intimacy with all the fashionable young men, was proposed for the Old Club at White's, into the mysteries of which, before a person is initiated, it is necessary that he should be well with the ruling powers: unluckily, Vernon has lately been at Woburn with the Duke of Bedford. The night of' the ballot, of twelve persons present, eight had promised him white balls, being his particular friends--however, there were six black balls!-this made great noise--his friends found it necessary to clear up their faith to him--ten of the twelve assured him upon their honour that they had given him white balls. I fear this will not give you too favourable an idea of the honour of the young men of the age!

Your father, who has been dying, and had tasted nothing but water for ten days, the other day called for roast beef, and is well; cured, I suppose, by this abstinence, which convinces me that intemperance has been his illness. Fasting and mortification will restore a good constitution, but not correct a bad one.

Adieu! I write you but short letters, and those, I fear, seldom; but they tell you all that is material; this is not an age to furnish volumes.

(291) Mr. Pitt was so much pleased with Mr. Horatio Walpole's speech on this occasion that he requested him to consign it to writing, and gave it as his opinion, that it contained much weighty matter, and from beginning to end breathed the spirit of a man who loved his country. See Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 63.-E.

(292) For an account of this d(@bate, taken by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, see Parl. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 1175.-E.

(293) Richard Vernon, Esq. He married Lady Evelyn Leveson, widow of the Earl of Upper Ossory, and sister of Gertrude, Duchess of Bedford.-D.

123 Letter 54 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Feb. 27, 1752.

Gal. tells me that your eldest brother has written you an account of your affairs, the particulars of which I was most solicitous to learn, and am now most unhappy to find no better.(294) Indeed, Gal. would have most reason to complain, if his strong friendship for you did not prevent him from thinking that nothing is hard that is in your favour; he told me himself that the conditions imposed upon him were inferior to what he always proposed to do, if the misfortune should arrive of your recall. He certainly loves you earnestly; if I were not convinced of it, I should be far from loving him so well as I do.

I write this as a sort of letter of form on the occasion, for there is nothing worth telling you. The event that has made most noise since my last, is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, who have made so vehement a noise. Lord Coventry,(295) a grave young lord, of the remains of the patriot breed, has long dangled after the eldest, virtuously with regard to her virtue, not very honourably with regard to his own credit. About six weeks ago Duke Hamilton,(296) the very reverse of the Earl, hot, debauched, extravagant, and equally damaged in his fortune and person, fell in love with the youngest at the masquerade, and determined to marry her in the spring. About a fortnight since, at an immense assembly at my Lord Chesterfield's, made to show the house, which is really magnificent, Duke Hamilton made violent love at one end of the room, while he was playing at pharaoh at the other end; that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were of three hundred pounds each: he soon lost a thousand. I own I was so little a professor in love, that I thought all this parade looked ill for the poor girl; and could not conceive, if he was so much engaged with his mistress as to disregard such sums, why he played at all. However, two nights afterwards, being left alone with her while her mother and sister were at Bedford House, he found himself so impatient, that he sent for a parson. The doctor refused to perform the ceremony without license or ring: the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop--at last they were married with a ring of the bed-curtain, at half an hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair chapel,(297) The Scotch are enraged; the women mad that so much beauty has had its effect; and what is most silly, my Lord Coventry declares that he now will marry the other.

Poor Lord Lempster has just killed an officer(298) in a duel, about a play-debt, and I fear was in the wrong. There is no end of his misfortunes and wrong-headedness!--Where is Mr. Conway!--Adieu!

(294) Mr. Mann's father was just dead.

(295) George-William, sixth Earl of Coventry. He died in 1809, at the age of eighty-seven.-E.

(296) James, fourth Duke of Hamilton. He died in 1758.-D.

(297) On the 14th of February.-E.

(298) Captain Gray of the Guards. The duel was fought, with swords, in Marylebone Fields. lord Lempster took his trial at the Old Bailey in April, and was found guilty of manslaughter.-E.

124 Letter 55 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, March 23, 1752.

Mr. Conway has been arrived this fortnight, or a week sooner than we expected him: but my Lady Ailesbury forgives it! He is full of your praises, so you have not sowed your goodness in unthankful ground. By a letter I have just received from you he finds you have missed some from him with Commissions; but he will tell you about them himself I find him much leaner, and great cracks in his beauty. Your picture is arrived, which he says is extremely like you. Mr. Chute cannot bear it; says it wants your countenance and goodness; that it looks bonny and Irish. I am between both, and should know it; to be sure, there is none of your wet-brown-paperness in it, but it has a look with which I have known you come out of your little room, when Richcourt has raised your ministerial French, and you have writ to England about it till you were half fuddled. Au reste, it is gloriously coloured--will Astley promise to continue to do as well? or has he, like all other English painters, only laboured this to get reputation, and then intends to daub away to get money?

The year has not kept the promise of tranquillity that it made you at Christmas; there has been another parliamentary bustle. The Duke of Argyll(299) has drawn the ministry into accommodating him with a notable job, under the notion of buying for the King from the mortgagees the forfeited estates in Scotland, which are to be colonized and civilized. It passed with some inconsiderable hitches through the Commons; but in the Lords last week the Duke of Bedford took it up warmly, and spoke like another Pitt.(300) He attacked the Duke of Argyll on favouring Jacobites, and produced some flagrant instances, which the Scotch Duke neither answered nor endeavoured to excuse, but made a strange, hurt, mysterious, contemptuous, incoherent speech, neither in defence of the bill nor in reply to the Duke of Bedford, but to my Lord Bath, who had fallen upon the ministry for assuming a dispensing power, in suffering Scotland to pay no taxes for the last five years. This speech, which formerly would have made the House of Commons take up arms, was strangely flat and unanimated, for want of his old chorus. Twelve lords divided against eighty that were for the bill. The Duke, who was present, would not vote; none of his people had attended the bill in the other House, and General Mordaunt (by his orders, as it is imagined) spoke against it. This concludes the session: the King goes to Hanover on Tuesday, he has been scattering ribands of all colours, blue ones on Prince Edward, the young Stadtholder, and the Earls of Lincoln, Winchilsea, and Cardigan;(301) a green one on Lord Dumfries;(302) a red on Lord Onslow.(303)

The world is still mad about the Gunnings; the Duchess of Hamilton was presented on Friday; the crowd was so great, that even the noble mob in the drawing-room clambered upon chairs and tables to look at her. There are mobs at their doors to see them get into their chairs; and people go early to get places at the theatres when it is known they will be there. Dr. Sacheverel never made more noise than these two beauties.

There are two wretched women that just now are as much talked of, a Miss Jefferies and a Miss Blandy; the one condemned for murdering her uncle, the other her father. Both their stories have horrid circumstances; the first, having been debauched by her uncle; the other had so tender a parent, that his whole concern while he was expiring, and knew her for his murderess, was to save her life. It is shocking to think what a shambles this country is grown! Seventeen were executed this morning, after having murdered the turnkey on Friday night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle.

Mr. Chute is as much yours as ever, except in the article of pen and ink. Your brother transacts all he can for the Lucchi, as he has much more weight there(304) than Mr. Chute. Adieu!

(299) Archibald Campbell, Duke of argyll, formerly Earl of Isla.

(300) For Lord Hardwicke's notes of this speech, see Parl. Hist. vol. xiv. P. 1235.-E.

(301) George Brudenell, fourth Earl of cardigan, created Duke of Montagu in 1776; died in 1790.-D.

(302) William Crichton Dalrymple, fourth Earl of Dumfries in Scotland, in right of his mother. He also became, in 1760, fourth Earl of stair, and died in 1768.-D.

(303) George, third Lord Onslow; died in 1776.-D.

(304) With the late Mr. Whithed's brothers, who scrupled paying a small legacy and annuity to his mistress and child.

126 Letter 56 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(305) Arlington Street, May 5, 1752.

I now entirely credit all that my Lord Leicester and his family have said against Lady Mary Coke and her family; and am convinced that it is impossible to marry any thing of the blood of Campbell, without having all her relations in arms to procure a separation immediately. Pray, what have I done? have I come home drunk to my wife within these four first days? or have I sat up gaming all night, and not come home at all to her, after her lady-mother had been persuaded that I was the soberest young nobleman in England, and had the greatest aversion to play'! Have I kept my bride awake all night with railing at her father, when all the world had allowed him to be one of the bravest officers in Europe? In short, in short, I have a mind to take COUNSEL, even of the wisest lawyer now living in matrimonial cases, my Lord Coke * * * If, like other Norfolk husbands, I must entertain the town with a formal parting, at least it shall be in my own way: my wife shall neither 'run to Italy after lovers and books,(306) nor keep a dormitory in her dressing-room at Whitehall for Westminster schoolboys, your Frederick Campbells, and such like. (307) nor 'yet shall she reside at her mother's house, but shall absolutely set out for Strawberry Hill in two or three days, as soon as her room can be well aired; for, to give her her due, I don't think her to blame, but flatter myself she is quite contented with the easy footing we live upon; separate beds, dining in her dressing-room when she is out of humour, and a little toad-eater that I had got for her, and whose pockets and bosom I have never examined, to see if' she brought any billets-doux from Tommy Lyttelton or any of her fellows. I shall follow her myself in less than a fortnight; and if her family don't give me any more trouble,-why, who knows but at your return you may find your daughter with qualms and in a sack? If you should happen to want to know any more particulars, she is quite well, has walked in the park every morning, or has the chariot, as she chooses; and, in short, one would think that I or she were much older than we really are, for I grow excessively fond of her.(308)

(305) Now first published.

(306) Alluding to the wife of his eldest brother, Lord Walpole, Margaret Rolle, who had separated Herself from her husband, and resided in Italy.--E.

(307) Lady Townshend.-E.

(308) All this letter refers to Ann Seymour Conway, then three years old, who had been left with her nurse at Mr. Walpole's, during an absence of her father and mother in Ireland.-E.

127 Letter 57 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, May 12, 1752.

You deserve no charity, for you never write but to ask it. When you are tired of yourself and the country, you think over all London, and consider who will be proper to send you an account of it. Take notice, I won't be your gazetteer; nor is my time come for being a dowager, a maker of news, a day-labourer in scandal. If you care for nobody but for what they can tell you, you must provide yourself elsewhere. The town is empty, nothing in it but flabby mackerel, and wooden gooseberry tarts, and a hazy east wind. My sister is gone to Paris; I go to Strawberry Hill in three days for the summer, if summer there will ever be any.

If you want news you must send to Ireland, where there is almost a civil war, between the Lord Lieutenant and Primate on one side (observe, I don't tell you what that side is), and the Speaker on the other, who carries questions by wholesale in the House of Commons against the Castle; and the teterrima belli causa is not the common one.

Reams of scandalous verses and ballads are come over, too bad to send you, if I had them, but I really have not. What is more provoking for the Duke of Dorset, an address is come over directly to the King (not as usual through the channel of the Lord Lieutenant), to assure him of their great loyalty, and apprehensions of being misrepresented. This is all I know, and you see, most imperfectly.

I was t'other night to see what is now grown the fashion, Mother Midnight's Oratory.(309) It appeared the lowest buffoonery in the world even to me, who am used to my uncle Horace. There is a bad oration to ridicule, what it is too like, Orator Henley; all the rest is perverted music: there is a man who plays so nimbly on the kettle-drum, that he has reduced that noisy instrument to an object of sight; for, if you don't see the tricks with his hands, it is no better than ordinary: another plays on a violin and trumpet together: another mimics a bagpipe with a German flute, and makes it full as disagreeable. There is an admired dulcimer, a favourite salt-box, and a really curious jew's-harp. Two or three men intend to persuade you that they play on a broomstick, which is drolly brought in, carefully shrouded in a case, so as to be mistaken for a bassoon or bass-viol; but they succeed in nothing but the action. The last fellow imitates * * * * * curtseying to a French horn. There are twenty medley overtures, and a man who speaks a prologue and an epilogue, in which he counterfeits all the actors and singers upon earth: in short, I have long been convinced, that what I used to imagine the most difficult thing in the world, mimicry, is the easiest; for one has seen for these two or three years, at Foote's and the other theatres, that when they lost one mimic, they called ,Odd man!" and another came and succeeded just as well.

Adieu! I have told you much more than I intended, and much more than I could conceive I had to say, except how does Miss Montagu?

P. S. Did you hear Captain Hotham's bon-mot on Sir Thomas Robinson's making an assembly from the top of his house to the bottom? He said, he wondered so many people would go to Sir Thomas's, as he treated them all de haut en bas.

(309) "Among other diversions and amusements which increase upon us, the town," says the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1752, "has been lately entertained with a kind of farcical performance, called 'The Old Woman's Oratory,' conducted by Mrs. Mary Midnight and her family, intended as a banter on Henley's Oratory, and a puff for the Old Woman's Magazine."-E.

128 Letter 58 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, May 13, 1752.

By this time you know my way, how much my letters grow out of season, as it grows summer. I believe it is six weeks since I wrote to you last; but there is not only the usual deadness of summer to account for my silence; England itself is no longer England. News, madness, parties, whims, and twenty other causes, that used to produce perpetual events are at an end; Florence itself is not more inactive. Politics,

"Like arts and sciences are travelled west."

They are cot into Ireland, where there is as much bustle to carry a question in the House of Commons, as ever it was here in any year forty-one. Not that there is any opposition to the King's measures; out of three hundred members, there has never yet been a division of above twenty-eight against the government: they are much the most zealous subjects the king has. The Duke of Dorset has had the art to make them distinguish between loyalty and aversion to the Lord Lieutenant.

I last night received yours of May 5th; but I cannot deliver your expressions to Mr. Conway, for he and Lady Ailesbury are gone to his regiment in Ireland for four months, which is a little rigorous, not only after an exile in Minorca, but more especially unpleasant now as they have just bought one of the most charming 'places in England, Park-place, which belonged to Lady Archibald Hamilton, and then to the Prince. You have seen enough of Mr. Conway to judge how patiently he submits to his duty. Their little girl is left with me.

The Gunnings are gone to their several castles, and one hears no more of them, except that such crowds flock to see the Duchess Hamilton pass, that seven hundred people sat up all night in and about an inn in Yorkshire to see her get into her postchaise next morning.

I saw lately at Mr. Barret's a print of Valombrosa, which I should be glad to have, if you please; though I don't think it gives much idea of the beauty of the place: but you know what a passion there is for it in England, as Milton has mentioned it.

Miss Blandy died with a coolness of courage that is astonishing, and denying the fact,(310) which has made a kind of party in her favour as if a woman who would not stick at parricide, would scruple a lie!

We have made a law for immediate execution on conviction of murder: it will appear extraordinary to me if it has any effect;(311) for I can't help believing that the terrible part of death must be the preparation for it.

(310) Miss Blandy was executed at Oxford, on the 6th of April, "I am perfectly innocent," she exclaimed, "of any intention to destroy or even hurt my dear father; so help me God in these my last moments!"-E.

(311) Smollett, on the contrary, was of opinion that the expedient had been productive of very good effects.-E.

129 Letter 59 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, June 6, 1752.

I have just been in London for two or three days, to fetch an adventure, and am returned to my hill and castle. I can't say I lost my labour, as you shall hear. Last Sunday night, being as wet a night as you shall see in a summer's day, about half an hour after twelve, I was just come home from White's, and undressing to step into bed, I heard Harry, who you know lies forwards, roar out, "Stop thief!" and run down stairs. I ran after him. Don't be frightened; I have not lost one enamel, nor bronze, nor have been shot through the head again. A gentlewoman, who lives at Governor Pitt's,(312) next door but one to me, and where Mr. Bentley used to live, was going to bed too, and heard people breaking into Mr. Freeman's house, who, like some acquaintance of mine in Albemarle-street, goes out of town, locks up his doors, and leaves the community to watch his furniture. N. B. It was broken open but two years ago, and all the chairmen vow they shall steal his house away another time, before we shall trouble our heads about it. Well, madam called out "watch;" two men who were centinels, ran away, and Harry's voice after them. Down came I, and with a posse of chairmen and watchmen found the third fellow in the area of Mr. Freeman's house. Mayhap you have seen all this in the papers, little thinking who commanded the detachment. Harry fetched a blunderbuss to invite the thief up. One of the chairmen, who was drunk, cried, "Give me the blunderbuss, I'll shoot him!" But as the general's head was a little cooler, he prevented military execution, and took the prisoner without bloodshed, intending to make his triumphal entry into the metropolis of Twickenham with his captive tied to the wheels of his postchaise. I find my style rises so much with the recollection of my victory, that I don't know how to descend to tell you that the enemy was a carpenter, and had a leather apron on. The next step was to share my glory with my friends. I despatched a courier to White's for George Selwyn, who you know, loves nothing upon earth so well as a criminal, except the execution of him. It happened very luckily, that the drawer, who received my message, has very lately been robbed himself, and had the wound fresh in his memory. He stalked up into the club-room, stopped short, and with a hollow trembling voice said, "Mr. Selwyn! Mr. Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a house-breaker for you!" A squadron immediately came to reinforce me, and having summoned Moreland with the keys of the fortress, we marched into the house to search for more of the gang. Colonel Seabright with his sword drawn went first, and then I, exactly the figure of Robinson Crusoe, with a candle and lanthorn in my hand, a carbine upon my shoulder, my hair wet and about my ears, and in a linen night-gown and slippers. We found the kitchen shutters forced but not finished; and in the area a tremendous bag of tools, a hammer large enough for the hand of a Joel, and six chisels! All which opima spolia, as there was no temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the neighbourhood, I was reduced to offer on the altar of Sir Thomas Clarges.

am now, as I told you, returned to my plough with as much humility and pride as any of my great predecessors. We lead quite a rural life, have had a sheep-shearing, a hay-making, a syllabub under the cow, and a fishing of three gold fish out of Poyang,(313) for a present to Madam Clive. They breed with me excessively, and are grown to the size of small perch. Every thing grows, if tempests would let it; but I have had two of my largest trees broke to-day with the wind, and another last week. I am much obliged to you for the flower you offer me, but by the description it is an Austrian rose, and I have several now in bloom. Mr. Bentley is with me, finishing the drawings for Gray's Odes; there are some mandarin-cats fishing for gold fish, which will delight you; au reste, he is just where he was: he has heard something about a journey to Haughton, to the great Cu(314) of Hauculeo, but it don't seem fixed, unless he hears farther. Did he tell you the Prices and your aunt Cosby had dined here from Hampton Court? The mignonette beauty looks mighty well in his grandmother's jointure. The Memoires of last year are quite finished, but I shall add some pages of notes, that will not want anecdotes. Discontents, of the nature of those about Windsor-park, are spreading about Richmond. Lord Brooke, who has taken the late Duchess of Rutland's at Petersham, asked for a key; the answer was, (mind it, for it was tolerably mortifying to an Earl,) "that the Princess had already refused one to my Lord Chancellor."

By the way, you know that reverend head of the law is frequently shut up here with my Lady M * * * * h, who is as rich and as tipsy as Cacafogo in the comedy. What a jumble of avarice, lewdness, dignity,--and claret!

You will be pleased with a story of Lord Bury, that is come from Scotland: he is quartered at Inverness: the magistrates invited him to an entertainment with fire-works, which they intended to give on the morrow for the Duke's birthday. He thanked them, assured them he would represent their zeal to his Royal Highness; but he did not doubt but it would be more agreeable to him, if they postponed it to the day following, the anniversary of the battle of Culloden. They stared, said they could not promise on their own authority, but would go and consult their body. They returned, told him it was unprecedented, and could not be complied with. Lord Bury replied, he was sorry they had not given a negative at once, for he had mentioned it to his soldiers, who would not bear a disappointment, and was afraid it would provoke them to some outrage upon the town. This did;-they celebrated Culloden. Adieu!

(312) George Morton Pitt, Esq, Member for Pontefract.-E.

(313) Mr. Walpole called his gold-fish pond, Poyang.

(314) The Earl of Halifax.

131 Letter 60 To George Montagu, Esq. Twickenham, Thursday.

Dear George, Since you give me leave to speak the truth, I must own it is not quite agreeable to me to undertake the commission you give me; nor do I say this to assume any merit in having obeyed you, but to prepare you against my solicitation miscarrying, for I cannot flatter myself with having so much interest with Mr. Fox as you think. However, I have wrote to him as pressingly as I could, and wish most heartily it may have any effect. Your brother I imagine will call upon him again; and Mr.' Fox will naturally tell him whether he can do it or not at my request.