The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford
Chapter 96 : The Letters of Horace Walpole.Volume 2.by Horace Walpole.1749 13 Letter 1 To Sir Horace

The Letters of Horace Walpole.

Volume 2.

by Horace Walpole.

1749

13 Letter 1 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, March 4, 1749.

I have been so shut up in the House of Commons for this last fortnight or three weeks, that I have not had time to write you a line: we have not had such a session since the famous beginning of last Parliament. I am come hither for a day or two of rest and air, and find the additional pleasure of great beauty in my improvements: I could talk to you through the whole sheet, and with much more satisfaction, upon this head; but I shall postpone my own amus.e.m.e.nt to yours, for I am sure you want much more to know what has been doing in Parliament than at Strawberry Hill. You will conclude that we have been fighting over the peace; but we have not. It is laid before Parliament, but will not be taken up; the Opposition foresee that a vote of approbation would pa.s.s, and therefore will not begin upon it, as they wish to reserve it for censure in the next reign--or perhaps the next reign does not care to censure now what he must hereafter maintain--and the ministry do not seem to think their treaty so perfect as not to be liable to blame, should it come to be canva.s.sed. We have been then upon several other matters: but first I should tell you, that from the utmost tranquillity and impotence of a minority, there is at once started up so formidable an Opposition as to divide 137 against 203.(1) The minority is headed by the Prince, who has continued opposing, though very unsuccessfully, ever since the removal of Lord Granville, and the desertion of the patriots.

He stayed till the Pelhams had brought off every man of parts in his train, and then began to form his party. Lord Granville has never come into it., for fear of breaking with the King; and seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies. If Lord Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand. His ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore, a very good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was of Lord Granville's admiralty, and is still much attached to him.

He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright parts, and, from his way of life and profession, much ignorant of, and unfit for, a ministry. You will wonder what new resources the Prince has discovered-why, he has found them all in Lord Egmont, whom you have heard of under the name of Lord Perceval; but his father, an Irish Earl, is lately dead. As he is likely to make a very considerable figure in our history, I shall give you a more particular account of him. He has always earnestly studied our history and const.i.tution and antiquities, with very ambitious views; and practised speaking early in the Irish Parliament. Indeed, this turn is his whole fund, for though he is between thirty and forty, he knows nothing of the world, and is always unpleasantly dragging the conversation to political dissertations. When very young, as he has told me himself, he dabbled in writing Craftsmen and penny-papers; but the first event that made him known, was his carrying the Westminster election at the end of my father's ministry,-which he amply described in the history of his own family, a genealogical work called "The History of the House of Yvery,"(2) a work which cost him three thousand pounds, as the heralds informed Mr. Chute and me, when we went to their office on your business; and which was so ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or some such words, "And here let us leave this young n.o.bleman struggling for the dying liberties of his country!" When the change in the ministry happened, and Lord Bath was so abused by the remnant of the patriots, Lord Egmont published his celebrated pamphlet, called "Faction Detected," a work which the Pitts and Lytteltons have never forgiven him; and which, though he continued voting and sometimes speaking with the Pelhams, made him quite unpopular during all the last Parliament. When the new elections approached, he stood on his own bottom at Weobly in Herefords.h.i.+re; but his election being contested, be applied for Mr. Pelham's support, who carried it for him in the House of Commons. This will always be a material blot in his life; for he had no sooner secured his seat, than he openly attached himself to the Prince, and has since been made a lord of his bedchamber. At the opening of this session, he published an extreme good pamphlet, which has made infinite noise, called "An Examination of the Principles and Conduct of the two Brothers," (the Pelhams,) and as Dr. Lee has been laid up with the gout, Egmont has taken the lead in the Opposition, and has made as great a figure as perhaps was ever made in so short a time. He is very bold and resolved, master of vast knowledge, and speaks at once with fire and method. His words are not picked and chosen like Pitt's, but his language is useful, clear, and strong. He has already by his parts and resolution mastered his great unpopularity, so far as to be heard with the utmost attention, though I believe n.o.body had ever more various difficulties to combat. All the old corps hate him on my father and Mr. Pelham's account; the new part of the ministry on their own. The Tories have not quite forgiven his having left them in the last Parliament: besides that, they are now governed by one Prowse, a cold, plausible fellow. and a great well-wisher to Mr. Pelham. Lord Strange,(3) a busy Lord of a party by himself, yet voting generally with the Tories, continually clashes with Lord Egmont; and besides all this, there is a faction in the Prince's family, headed by Nugent, who are for moderate measures.

Nugent is most affectedly an humble servant of Mr. Pell)afn, and seems only to have attached himself to the Prince, in order to make the better bargain with the ministry; he has great parts, but they never know how to disentangle themselves from bombast and absurdities. Besides those, there are two young men who make some figure in the rising Opposition, Bathurst(4) attorney to the Prince; and Potter, whom I believe you have had mentioned in my letters of last year; but he has a bad const.i.tution, and is seldom able to be in town. Neither of these are in the scale of moderation.

The Opposition set out this winter with trying to call for several negotiations during the war; but the great storm which has so much employed us of late, was stirred up by Colonel Lyttelton;(5) who, having been ill-treated by the Duke, has been dealing with the Prince. He discovered to the House some innovations in the Mutiny-bill, of which, though he could not make much, the Opposition have, and fought the bill for a whole fortnight; during the course of which the world has got much light into many very arbitrary proceedings of the Commander-in-chief,(6) which have been the more believed too by the defection of my Lord Townshend's(7) eldest son, who is one of his aide-de-camps. Though the ministry, by the weight of numbers, have carried their point in a great measure, yet you may be sure great heats have been raised; and those have been still more inflamed by a correspondent practice in a new Navy-bill, brought in by the direction of Lord Sandwich and Lord Anson, but vehemently opposed by half the fleet, headed by Sir Peter Warren, the conqueror of Cape Breton, richer than Anson, and absurd as Vernon. The bill has even been pet.i.tioned against, and the mutinous were likely to go great lengths, if' the admiralty had not bought off some by money, and others by relaxing in the material points.- We began upon it yesterday, and are still likely to have a long affair of it-so much for politics: and as for any thing else, I scarce know any thing else. My Lady Huntingdon,(8) the Queen of the Methodists, has got her daughter named for lady of the bedchamber to the Princesses; but it is all off again. as she will not let her play at cards on Sundays. It is equally absurd on both sides, to refuse it, or to insist upon it.

Pray tell Dr. Cocchi that I shall be extremely ready to do him any service in his intended edition of the old Physicians,(9) but that I fear it is a kind of work that will lie very little within my sphere to promote. Learning is confined to very narrow bounds at present, and those seldom within the circle in which I necessarily live; but my regard for him and for you would make me take any pains. You see, I believe, that I do take pains for you--I have not writ such a letter to any body these three years. Adieu!

P. S. I am very sorry for your sake that the Prince and Princess(10) are leaving Florence; if ever I return thither, as I always flatter myself I shall, I should miss them extremely.

Lord Albemarle goes amba.s.sador to Paris.

(1) Upon the last clause of the Mutiny-bill, an amendment to render half pay officers subject to the act, only in case of actual war, insurrection, rebellion, or invasion, was rejected by 203 to 137.-E.

(2) Compiled princ.i.p.ally for Lord Egmont by Anderson, the genealogist. It was printed, but not published, in 1742. "

Some," says Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, "have affected to laugh at the History of the House of Very: it would be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the n.o.ble Lord who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry. Family histories, likv, the imagines majorum of the ancients, excite to virtue." Vol. viii. p. 188.-E.

(3) James, Lord Strange, eldest son of Edward Stanley, eleventh Earl of Derby. In 1762 he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and died during his father's life-time, in 1771. He always called himself Lord Strange; though the t.i.tle, which was a barony in fee, had in fact descended to the Duke of Atholl, as heir general of James, seventh Earl of Derby.-]).

(4) The Hon. Henry Bathurst, second heir of Allen, first Lord Bathurst, He became heir to the t.i.tle upon the death, without issue, of his elder brother, the Hon. Benjamin Bathurst, in 1761. In 1746 he was appointed Attorney-General to Frederick, Prince of Wales; in 1754, one of the puisne judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and in 1771, Lord Chancellor. He was, upon this occasion, created a peer, by the t.i.tle of Lord Apsley. He succeeded his father as second Earl Bathurst in 1775, and died in 1794.-D.

(5) Richard, third son of Sir Thomas, and brother of Sir George Lyttelton: he married the d.u.c.h.ess-dowager of Bridgewater, and was afterwards made a knight of the Bath.

(6) William Duke of c.u.mberland. He was "Captain-general of the Forces," having been so created in 1745.-D.

(7) George Townshend, afterwards the first Marquis of that name and t.i.tle.-D.

(8) Selina, daughter of Was.h.i.+ngton, Earl Ferrers, and widow of Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon.

(9) In 1754, Dr. Cocchi published his "Chirurgici Veteres," a very curious work, containing numerous valuable extracts from the Greek physicians.-E.

(10) Craon.

16 Letter 2 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 23, 1749.

Our debates on the two military bills, the naval one of which is not yet finished, have been so tedious, that they have rather whittled down the Opposition than increased it. In the Lords, the Mutiny-bill pa.s.sed pretty easily, there happening no quarrel between Lord Bathurst and Lord Bath on the method of their measures; so there never divided above sixteen in the minority, and those scarce any of the Prince's Lords. Duke William was there and voted, which was too indecent in a rigorous bill calculated for his own power. There is a great disunion among the ministers on the Naval bill: Mr.

Pelham and Pitt (the latter out of hatred and jealousy of Lord Sandwich) gave up the admiralty in a material point, but the paramount little Duke of Bedford has sworn that they shall recant on the report-what a figure they will make! This bill was chiefly of Anson's projecting, who grows every day into new unpopularity.(11) He has lately had a sea-piece drawn of the victory for which he was lorded, in which his own s.h.i.+p in a cloud of cannon was boarding the French Admiral. This circ.u.mstance, which was as true as if Mademoiselle Scudery had written his life (for he was scarce in sight when the Frenchman struck to Boscawen)(12) has been so ridiculed by the whole tar-hood, that the romantic part has been forced to be cancelled, and one only gun remains firing at Anson's s.h.i.+p.

The two Secretaries of State(13) grow every day nearer to a breach; the King's going abroad is to decide the contest.

Newcastle, who Hanoverizes more and more every day, pushes on the journey, as he is to be the attendant minister: his lamentable brother is the constant sacrifice of all these embroils.

At the Leicester-house the jars are as great: Doddington, who has just resigned the treasurys.h.i.+p of the navy, in hopes of once more governing that court (and there is no court where he has not once or twice tried the same scheme!) does not succeed: Sir Francis Dashwood and Lord Talbot are strongly for him-could one conceive that he could still find a dupe? Mr. Fox had a mind to succeed him, but both King and Duke have so earnestly pressed him to remain secretary at war, that he could not refuse. The King would not hear of any of the newer court; and Legge, who of the old was next oars, has managed in the Prussian business so clumsily, that the King would not bear him in his closet: but he has got the navy-office, which Lyttelton would have had, but could not be rechosen at his borough, which he had stolen by surprise from his old friend and brother Tom Pitt. The treasury is to be filled up with that toad-eater and spy to all parties, Harry Vane:(14) there is no enumerating all the circ.u.mstances that make his nomination scandalous and ridiculous!-but such is our world! General Charles Howard and a Mr. Saville are named to the red riband.

My friend the Duke of Modena is again coming hither, which astonishes me, considering how little reason he had to be satisfied with his first visit; and sure he will have less now!

I believe I told you that King Theodore(15) is here: I am to drink coffee with him to-morrow at Lady Schaub's. I have curiosity to see him, though I am not commonly fond of sights, but content myself with the oil-cloth picture of them that is hung out, and to which they seldom come up. There are two black Princes of Anamaboe here, who are in fas.h.i.+on at all the a.s.semblies, of whom I scarce know any particulars, though their story(16) is very like Oroonoko's: all the women know it-and ten times more than belongs to it. Apropos to Indian historians, half our thoughts are taken up--that is, my Lord Halifax's are--with colonizing in Nova Scotia: my friend Colonel Cornwallis is going thither commander-in-chief. The Methodists will scarce follow him as they did Oglethorpe; since the period of his expedition,(17) their lot is fallen in a better land. Methodism is more fas.h.i.+onable than any thing but brag; the women play very deep at both--as deep, it is much suspected, as the matrons of Rome did at the mysteries of the Bona Dea. If gracious Anne was alive, she would make an admirable defendress of the new faith, and build fifty more churches for female proselytes.

If I had more paper or time, I could tell you an excellent long history of my brother Ned'S(18) envy, which was always up at highwater-mark, but since the publication of my book of Houghton (one should have thought a very harmless performance), has overflowed on a thousand ridiculous occasions. Another great object of his jealousy is my friends.h.i.+p with Mr. Fox: my brother made him a formal visit at nine o'clock the other morning, and in a set speech of three quarters of an hour, begged his pardon for not attending the last day of the Mutiny bill, which, he said was so particularly brought in by him, though Mr. Fox a.s.sured him that he had no farther hand in it than from his office. Another instance: when my brother went to live at Frogmore, Mr. Fox desired him to employ his tradesmen at Windsor, by way of supporting his interest in that borough. My brother immediately went to the Duke of St. Albans, to whom he had never spoke, (nor indeed was his acquaintance with Mr. Fox much greater), and notified to him, that if seven years hence his grace should have any contest with Mr. Fox about that borough, he should certainly espouse the latter. Guess how the Duke stared at so strange and unnecessary a declaration!

Pigwiggin's Princess has mis-pigged, to the great joy, I believe, of that family, for you know a child must have eaten.

Adieu!

(11) It was ent.i.tled, A bill for amending, explaining, and reducing into one act, the laws relating to the Navy. "it was,"

says Sir John Barrow, "a most desirable and highly useful measure. The princ.i.p.al and , indeed, the only novelties attempted to be introduced, were, first, that of subjecting half pay officers to courts-martial, which after much opposition was thrown out; the second was the administration of an oath of secrecy to the members, which was carried, and continues to the present time." See Life of Lord Anson, p.

218.--E.

(12) The Hon. Edward Boscawen, third son of Hugh, first Viscount Falmouth. He was a distinguished naval commander, and had a large share in the success of Lord Anson's engagement with the French fleet off Cape Finisterre in 1747. He died in 1761.-D.

(13) The Dukes of Bedford and Newcastle.-D.

(14) Eldest son of Lord Barnard, and afterwards first Earl of Darlington. he died in 1758.-E.

(15) Theodore, King of Corsica.-D.

(16) Their story is briefly this: A Moorish king, who had entertained with great hospitality a British captain trafficking on the coast of Africa, reposed such confidence in him, as to intrust him with his son, about eighteen years of age, and another sprightly youth, to be brought to England and educated in the European manners. The captain received them, and basely sold them for slaves. He shortly after died; and, the s.h.i.+p coming to England, the officers related the whole affair: upon which the government sent to pay their ransom, and they were brought to England and put under the care of the Earl of Halifax, then at the head of the board of trade, who had them clothed and educated in a suitable manner. They were afterwards received in the higher circles, and introduced to the King. On the first of February in this year, they appeared at the Covent-Garden theatre, to see the tragedy of Oroonok; where they were received with a loud clap of applause, which they returned with a genteel bow. The tender interview between Imoinda and Oroonoko so affected the Prince, that he was obliged to retire at the end of the fourth act. His companion remained, but wept all the time so bitterly that it affected the audience more than the play.-E.

(17) General Oglethorpe was the great promoter of the colony of Georgia. See vol. i.-E.

(18) Sir Edward Walpole, K. B.-D.

19 Letter 3 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, May 3, 1749.

I am come hither for a few days, to repose myself after a torrent of diversions, and am writing to you in my charming bow-window with a tranquillity and satisfaction which, I fear, I am grown old enough to prefer to the hurry of amus.e.m.e.nts, in which the whole world has lived for this last week. We have at last celebrated the peace, and that as much in extremes as we generally do everything, whether we have reason to be glad or sorry, pleased or angry. Last Tuesday it was proclaimed: the King did not go to St. Paul's, but at night the whole town was illuminated. The next day was what was called "a jubilee-masquerade in the Venetian manner" at Ranelagh: it had nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best understood and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw: nothing in a fairy tale ever surpa.s.sed it. One of the proprietors, who is a German, and belongs to court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade the King to order it. It began at three o'clock, and, about five, people of fas.h.i.+on began to go. When you entered, you found the whole garden filled with masks and spread with tents, which remained all night very commodely. In one quarter was a May-pole dressed with garlands, and people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe and rustic music, all masqued,'as were all the various bands of music that were disposed in different parts of the garden; some like huntsmen with French-horns, some like peasants, with a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the little open temple on the mount. On the ca.n.a.l was a sort of gondola, adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about. All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops, filled with Dresden china, j.a.pan, etc. and all the shop-keepers in mask. The amphitheatre was illuminated; and in the middle was a circular bower, composed of all kinds of firs in tubs from twenty to thirty feet high: under them orange-trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots; and festoons of natural flowers hanging from tree to tree. Between the arches too were firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above. There were booths for tea and wine, gaming-tables and dancing, and about two thousand persons. In short, it pleased me more than any thing I ever saw. It is to be once more, and probably finer as to dresses, as there has since been a subscription-masquerade, and people will go in their rich habits.

The next day were the fire-works, which by no means answered the expense, the length of preparation, and the expectation that had been raised; indeed, for a week before, the town was like a country fair, the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom. This hurry and lively scene, with the sight of the immense crowd in the Park and on every house, the guards, and the machine itself, which was very beautiful, was all that was worth seeing. The rockets, and whatever was thrown up into the air, succeeded mighty well; but the wheels, and all that was to compose the princ.i.p.al part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and shapes: the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce any body had patience to wait the finis.h.i.+ng; and then, -what contributed to the awkwardness of the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, and being burnt down in the middle of the show. The King, the Duke, and Princess Emily saw it from the library,(19) with their courts: the Prince and Princess, with their children, from Lady Middles.e.x's; no place being provided for them, nor any invitation given to the library. The lords and Commons had galleries built for them and the chief citizens along the rails of the mall: the lords had four tickets a-piece, and each Commoner, at first, but two, till the Speaker bounced and obtained a third. Very little mischief was done, and but two persons killed: at Paris, there were forty killed and near three hundred wounded, by a dispute between the French and Italians in the management, who, quarrelling for precedence in lighting the fires, both lighted at once and blew up the whole.

Our mob was extremely tranquil, and very unlike those I remember in my father's time, when it was a measure in the Opposition to work up every thing to mischief, the excise and the French players, the convention and the gin-act. We are as much now in the opposite extreme, and in general so pleased with the peace, that I could not help being struck with a pa.s.sage I read lately in Pasquier an old French author, who says, "that in the time of Francis 1. the French used to call their creditors 'Des Anglois,' from the facility with which the English gave credit to them in all treaties, though they had broken so many." On Sat.u.r.day we had a serenata at the Opera-house, called Peace in Europe, but it was a wretched performance. On Monday there was a subscription-masquerade, much fuller than that of last year, but not so agreeable or so various in dresses. The King was well disguised in an old-fas.h.i.+oned English habit, and much pleased with somebody who desired him to hold their cup as they were drinking tea. The Duke had a dress of the same kind, but was so immensely corpulent that he looked like Cacofogo, the drunken captain, in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. The d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond was a lady mayoress in the time of James I.; and Lord Delawarr,(20) Queen Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard-chamber at Kensington; they were admirable masks. Lady Rochford, Miss Evelyn, Miss Bishop, Lady Stafford,(21) and Mrs. Pitt,(22) were in vast beauty; particularly the last, who had a red veil, which made her look gloriously handsome. I forgot Lady Kildare. Mr. Conway was the Duke in Don Quixote, and the finest figure I ever saw. Miss Chudleigh(23) was Iphigenia, but so naked that you would have taken her for Andromeda; and Lady Betty Smithson had such a pyramid of baubles upon her head, that she was exactly the Princess of Babylon in Grammont.

You will conclude that, after all these diversions, people begin to think of going out of town--no such matter: the Parliament continues sitting, and will till the middle Of June; Lord Egmont told us we should sit till Michaelmas. There are many private bills, no public ones of any fame. We were to have had some chastis.e.m.e.nt for Oxford, where, besides the late riots, the famous Dr. King,(24) the Pretender's great agent, made a most violent speech at the opening of the Ratcliffe library. The ministry denounced judgment, but, in their old style, have grown frightened, and dropped it. However, this menace gave occasion to a meeting and union between the Prince's party and the Jacobites, which Lord Egmont has been labouring all the winter. They met at the St. Alban's tavern, near Pall-mall, last Monday morning, an hundred and twelve Lords and Commoners. The Duke of Beaufort(25) opened the a.s.sembly with a panegyric on the stand that had been made this winter against so corrupt an administration, and hoped it would continue, and desired harmony. Lord Egmont seconded this strongly, and begged they would come up to Parliament early next winter. Lord Oxford(26) spoke next; and then Potter, with great humour, and to the great Abashment of the Jacobites, said he was very glad to see this union, and from thence hoped, that if another attack like the last rebellion should be made on the Royal Family, they would all stand by them. No reply was made to this. Then Sir Watkyn Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Tom Pitt,(27) and the meeting broke up. I don't know what his coalition may produce; it will require time with no better heads than compose it at present, though great Mr. Doddington had carried to the conference the a.s.sistance of his. In France a very favourable event has happened for us, the disgrace of Maurepas,(28) one of our bitterest enemies, and the promoter of their marine. Just at the beginning of the war, in a very critical period, he had obtained a very large sum for that service, but which one of the other factions, lest he should gain glory and credit by it, got to be Suddenly given away to the King of Prussia.

Sir Charles Williams is appointed envoy to this last King: here is an epigram which he has just sent over on Lord Egmont's opposition to the Mutiny-bill;

"Why has lord Egmont 'gainst this bill So much declamatory skill So tediously exerted?

The reason's plain: but t'other day He mutinied himself for pay, And he has twice descried."

I must tell you a bon-mot that was made the other night at the serenata of "Peace in Europe" by Wall,(29) who is Much in fas.h.i.+on, and a kind of Gondomar. Grossatesta, the Modenese minister, a very low fellow, with all the jackpuddinghood of an Italian, asked, "Mais qui est ce qui repres'ente mon maitre>"

Wall replied, "Mais, mon Die, l'abb'e, ne scavez vous pas que ce n'est pas un op'era boufon!" And here is another bon-mot of my Lady Townshend: We were talking of the Methodists: somebody said, "Nay, Madam, is it true that Whitfield has recanted?"

"No, Sir, he has only canted."