The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford
Chapter 95 : Strawberry Hill, Dec. 26, 1748.Did you ever know a more absolute country-gentleman? Her

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 26, 1748.

Did you ever know a more absolute country-gentleman? Here am I come down to what you call keep my Christmas! indeed it is not in all the forms; I have stuck no laurel and holly in my windows, I eat no turkey and chine, I have no tenants to invite, I have not brought a single soul With me. The weather is excessively stormy, but has been so warm, and so entirely free from frost the whole winter, that not only several of' my honeysuckles are come out, but I have literally a blossom upon a nectarine-tree, which I believe was never seen in this climate before on the 26th of December. I am extremely busy here planting; I have got four more acres, which makes my territory prodigious in a situation where land is so scarce, and villas as abundant as formerly at Tivoli and Baiae. I have now about fourteen acres, and am making a terrace the whole breadth of my garden on the brow of a natural hill, With meadows at the foot, and commanding the river, the village, Richmond-hill, and the park, and part of Kingston-but I hope never to show it you. What you hint at in your last, increase of character, I should be extremely against your stirring in now: the whole system of emba.s.sies is in confusion, and more candidates than employments. I would have yours pa.s.s, as it is, for settled. If you were to be talked especially for a higher character at Florence, one don't know whom the -,additional dignity might tempt. Hereafter, perhaps, it might be practicable for you, but I would by no means advise your soliciting it at present. Sir Charles Williams is the great obstacle to all arrangement: Mr. Fox makes a point of his going to Turin; the ministry, Who do not love him, are not for his going any where. Mr. Villiers is talked of for Vienna, though just made a lord of the admiralty. There were so many compet.i.tors, that at last Mr. Pelham said he would carry in two names to the King, and he should choose (a great indulgence!) Sir Peter Warren and Villiers were carried in; the King chose the latter. I believe there is a little of Lord Granville in this, and in a Mr. Hooper, who was turned out with the last ministry, and is now made a commissioner of the customs: the pretence is, to vacate a seat in Parliament for Sir Thomas Robinson, who is made a lord of trade; a scurvy reward after making the peace. Mr. Villiers, you know, has been much gazetted, and had his letters to the King of Prussia printed; but he is a very silly fellow. I met him the other day at Lord Granville's, where, on the subject of a new play, he began to give the Earl an account of Coriola.n.u.s, with reflections on his history. Lord Granville at last grew impatient, and said, "Well! well! it is an old story; it may not be true." As we went out together, I said, "I like the approach to this house."'(1494) "Yes,"said Villiers, "and I love to be in it; for I never come here but I hear something I did not know before." Last year, I asked him to attend a controverted election in which I was interested; he told me he would with all his heart, but that he had resolved not to vote in elections for the first session, for that he owned he could not understand them--not understand them!

Lord St. John(1495) is dead; he had a place in the custom-house of 1200 pounds a year, which his father had bought of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal for two lives, for 4000 pounds. Mr. Pelham has got it for Lord Lincoln and his child.

I told you in my last a great deal about old Somerset's will: they have since found 150,000 which goes, too, between the two daughters. It had been feared that he would leave nothing to the youngest; two or three years ago, he waked after dinner and found himself upon the floor; she used to watch him, had left him, and he had fallen from his couch. He forbade every body to speak to her, but yet to treat her with respect as his daughter. She went about the house for a year, without any body daring openly to utter a syllable to her; and it was never known that he had forgiven her. His whole stupid life was a series of pride and tyranny.

There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford: the Duke of' Bedford and Lord Gower pressed it extremely. The latter asked the Attorney-General(1496) his opinion, who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough: Lord Gower said, "Mr. Attorney, you Seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied, "My lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, nor ever was but Of one party." There is a scheme for vesting in the King the nomination of' the Chancellor of that University,(1497) who has much power--and much noise it would make! The Lord Chancellor is to be High Steward of Cambridge, in succession to the Duke of Newcastle.

The families of Devons.h.i.+re and Chesterfield have received a great blow at Derby, where, on the death of John Stanhope, they set up another of the name. One Mr. Rivett, the Duke's chief friend and manager. stood himself, and carried it by a majority of seventy-one. Lord Chesterfield had sent down credit for ten thousand pounds. The Cavendish's. however, are very happy, for Lady Hartington(1498) has produced a son.(1499)

I asked a very intelligent person if there could be any foundation for the story of Niccolini's banishment taking its rise from complaints of our court: he answered very sensibly, that even if our court had complained, -which was most unlikely, it was not at all probable that the court of Vienna would have paid any regard to it. There is another paragraph in your same letter in which I must set you right: you talk Of the sudden change of my opinion about Lord Walpole:(1500) I never had but one opinion about him, and that was always most favourable: nor can I imagine what occasioned your mistake, unless my calling him a wild boy, where I talked of the consequences of his father's death. I meant nothing in the world by wild, but the thoughtlessness of a boy of nineteen, who comes to the possession of a peerage and an estate. My partiality, I am sure, could never let me say any thing else of him.

Mr. Chute's sister is dead. When I came from town Mr. Whithed had heard nothing of her will - she had about four thousand pounds. The brother is so capricious a monster, that we almost hope she has not given the whole to our friend.

You will be diverted with a story I am going to tell You; it is very long, and so is my letter already; but you perceive I am in the country and have nothing to hurry me. There is about town a Sir William Burdett,*1501) a man of a very good family, but most infamous character. He formerly was at Paris with a Mrs. Penn, a Quaker's wife, whom he there bequeathed to the public, and was afterwards a sharper at Brussels, and lately came to England to discover a plot for poisoning the Prince of Orange, in which I believe he was poisoner, poison, and informer all himself. In short, to give you his character at once, there is a wager entered in the bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett. About two months ago he met at St. James's, a Lord Castledurrow,(1502) a young Irishman, and no genius as you will find, and entered into conversation with him: the Lord, seeing a gentleman, fine, polite, and acquainted with every body, invited him to dinner for next day, and a Captain Rodney,(1503) a young seaman, who has made a fortune by very gallant behaviour during the war. At dinner it came out, that neither the Lord nor the Captain had ever been at any Pelham-levees. "Good G.o.d!" said Sir William, "that must not be so any longer; I beg I may carry you to both the Duke and Mr. Pelham: I flatter myself I am very well with both." The appointment was made for the next Wednesday and Friday; in the mean time, he invited the two young men to dine with him the next day. When they came, he presented them to a lady, dressed foreign, as a princess of the house of' Brandenburg: she had a toadeater, and there was another man, who gave himself for a count. After dinner Sir William looked at his watch, and said, "J-s! it is not so late as I thought by an hour; Princess, will your Highness say how we shall divert ourselves till it is time to go to the play!" "Oh!" said she, "for my part you know I abominate every thing but pharaoh." "I am very sorry, Madam," replied he, very gravely, "but I don't know whom your Highness will get to tally to you; you know I am ruined by dealing'." "Oh!" says she, "the Count will deal to us." "I would with all my soul." said the Count, "but I protest I have no money about me." She insisted: at last the Count said, "Since your Highness commands us peremptorily, I believe Sir William has four or five hundred pounds of mine, that I am to pay away in the city to-morrow: if he will be so good as to step to his bureau for that Sum, I will make a bank of it." Mr. Rodney owns he was a little astonished at seeing the Count shuffle with the faces of the cards upwards; but concluding that Sir 'William Burdett, at whose house he was, was a relation or particular friend of Lord Castledurrow, he was unwilling to affront my lord. In short, my lord and he lost about a hundred and fifty apiece, and it was settled that they should meet for payment the next morning at breakfast at Ranelagh, In the mean time Lord C. had the curiosity to inquire a little int the character of his new friend the Baronet; and being au fait, he went up to him at Ranelagh and apostrophized him; "Sir William, here is the sum I think I lost last night; since that I have heard that you are a professed pickpocket, and therefore desire to have no further acquaintance with you." Sir William bowed, took the money and no notice; but as they were going away, he followed Lord Castledurrow and said, "Good G.o.d, my lord, my equipage is not come; will you be so good as to set me down at Buckingham-gate?" and without staying for an answer, whipped into the chariot and came to town with him. If you don't admire the coolness of this impudence, I shall wonder. Adieu!

I have written till I can scarce write my name.(1504)

(1494) Lord Granville's house in Arlington Street was the lowest in the street on the side of the Green-park-D.

(1495) John, second Viscount St. John, the only surviving son of Henry, first Viscount St. John, by his second wife, Angelica Magdalene, daughter of George Pillesary, treasurer-general of the marines in France, He was half- brother of the celebrated Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, who was the only son of the said Henry, first Viscount St. John, by his first wife Mary, second daughter of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick. John, second Viscount St. John, was the direct ancestor of the present Viscount Bolingbroke and St. John.-D.

(1496) Sir Dudley Ryder.

(1497) In consequence of the University's always electing Jacobites to that office.-D.

(1498) Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, Earl of Burlington and Cork, and wife of William, Marquis of Hartington.

(1499) William Cavendish, afterwards fifth Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, and Knight of the Garter. He died in 1811.-D.

(1500) George, third Earl of Orford.

(1501) Sir William Vigors Burdett, of Dunmore, in the county of Carlow.-E.

(1502) Henry Flower, Lord Castledurrow, and afterwards created Viscount Ashbrook.

(1503) George Brydges Rodney. He had distinguished himself in Lord Hawke's victory, In 1761 he took the French island of Martinique. In 1779 he met and defeated the Spanish fleet commanded by Don Juan de Langara, and relieved the garrison of gibraltar, which was closely besieged; and in 1789, he obtained his celebrated victory over the French fleet commanded by Count de Gra.s.se. For this latter service he was created a peer, by the t.i.tle of Baron Rodney, of Rodney Stoke in the county of Somerset. He died May 24, 1792.