Read Ebook: Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters by Walpole Horace Seeley L B Leonard Benton Editor

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Ebook has 409 lines and 104785 words, and 9 pages

"I told you the women talked of going out of town: several families are literally gone, and many more going to-day and to-morrow; for what adds to the absurdity is, that the second shock having happened exactly a month after the former, it prevails that there will be a third on Thursday next, another month, which is to swallow up London. I am almost ready to burn my letter now I have begun it, lest you should think I am laughing at you: but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told me last night, that he should put off the last ridotto, which was to be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would come to it. I have advised several who are going to keep their next earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so periodic. Dick Leveson and Mr. Rigby, who had supped and stayed late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, 'Past four o'clock, and a dreadful earthquake!' But I have done with this ridiculous panic: two pages were too much to talk of it....

"I had not time to finish my letter on Monday. I return to the earthquake, which I had mistaken; it is to be to-day. This frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days seven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park Corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is a good advertisement which I cut out of the papers to-day:

"'On Monday next will be published A true and exact List of all the Nobility and Gentry who have left, or shall leave, this place through fear of another Earthquake.'

"I did not doubt but you would be diverted with the detail of absurdities that were committed after the earthquake: I could have filled more paper with such relations, if I had not feared tiring you. We have swarmed with sermons, essays, relations, poems, and exhortations on that subject. One Stukely, a parson, has accounted for it, and I think prettily, by electricity--but that is the fashionable cause, and everything is resolved into electrical appearances, as formerly everything was accounted for by Descartes's vortices, and Sir Isaac's gravitation. But they all take care, after accounting for the earthquake systematically, to assure you that still it was nothing less than a judgment. Dr. Barton, the Rector of St. Andrew's, was the only sensible, or at least honest divine, upon the occasion. When some women would have had him pray to them in his parish church against the intended shock, he excused himself on having a great cold. 'And besides,' said he, 'you may go to St. James's Church; the Bishop of Oxford is to preach there all night about earthquakes.' Turner, a great china-man, at the corner of next street, had a jar cracked by the shock: he originally asked ten guineas for the pair: he now asks twenty, 'because it is the only jar in Europe that has been cracked by an earthquake.'"

Not long after the earthquake, we find Walpole engaged in a frolic at Vauxhall, though in the best company, Lady Caroline Petersham, his hostess on the occasion, being the dashing wife of Lord Petersham, eldest son of the Earl of Harrington, who had been Secretary of State. We insert Walpole's history of the affair for the reason which he gives for telling it. It is part of a letter to George Montagu. After a jest about the habits of Buxton, where his friend's sister was then drinking the waters, the writer proceeds:

Our next extract displays even better than the last our author's skill in telling a story. It also contains some pleasant references to his life at Strawberry Hill:

"I 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, for a present to Madam Clive. They breed with me excessively, and are grown to the size of small perch. Everything 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....

"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 birth-day. He thanked them, assured them he would represent their zeal to his Royal Highness; but he did not doubt 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...."

A few years later Strawberry Hill had attained its greatest celebrity. In June, 1759, Walpole writes:

"Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos; it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury dined there; the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell; a thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were than they will be then: I shall say, 'Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the pretty Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings.' Yesterday t'other more famous Gunning dined there. She has made a friendship with my charming niece, to disguise her jealousy of the new Countess's beauty: there were they two, their lords, Lord Buckingham, and Charlotte. You will think that I did not choose men for my parties so well as women. I don't include Lord Waldegrave in this bad election."

"Strawberry Hill, April 4, 1760.

"'I am so charmed with the two specimens of Erse poetry, that I cannot help giving you the trouble to inquire a little farther about them, and should wish to see a few lines of the original, that I may form some slight idea of the language, the measures, and the rhythm.

"'Is there anything known of the author or authors, and of what antiquity are they supposed to be?

"'Is there any more to be had of equal beauty, or at all approaching to it?

"'I have been often told, that the poem called Hardykanute was the work of somebody that lived a few years ago. This I do not at all believe, though it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand; but, however, I am authorised by this report to ask, whether the two poems in question are certainly antique and genuine. I make this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am not otherwise concerned about it; for if I were sure that anyone now living in Scotland had written them, to divert himself and laugh at the credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the Highlands only for the pleasure of seeing him.'

"You see, Sir, how easily you may make our greatest southern bard travel northward to visit a brother. The young translator has nothing to do but to own a forgery, and Mr. Gray is ready to pack up his lyre, saddle Pegasus, and set out directly. But seriously, he, Mr. Mason, my Lord Lyttelton, and one or two more, whose taste the world allows, are in love with your Erse elegies: I cannot say in general they are so much admired--but Mr. Gray alone is worth satisfying.

"The 'Siege of Aquileia,' of which you ask, pleased less than Mr. Home's other plays. In my own opinion, 'Douglas' far exceeds both the others. Mr. Home seems to have a beautiful talent for painting genuine nature and the manners of his country. There was so little of nature in the manners of both Greeks and Romans, that I do not wonder at his success being less brilliant when he tried those subjects; and, to say the truth, one is a little weary of them. At present, nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance: it is a kind of novel, called 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy;' the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards. I can conceive a man saying that it would be droll to write a book in that manner, but have no notion of his persevering in executing it. It makes one smile two or three times at the beginning, but in recompense makes one yawn for two hours. The characters are tolerably kept up, but the humour is for ever attempted and missed. The best thing in it is a Sermon, oddly coupled with a good deal of indecency, and both the composition of a clergyman. The man's head, indeed, was a little turned before, now topsy-turvy with his success and fame. Dodsley has given him six hundred and fifty pounds for the second edition and two more volumes ; Lord Fauconberg, a donative of one hundred and sixty pounds a year; and Bishop Warburton gave him a purse of gold and this compliment , 'that it was quite an original composition, and in the true Cervantic vein:' the only copy that ever was an original, except in painting, where they all pretend to be so. Warburton, however, not content with this, recommended the book to the bench of bishops, and told them Mr. Sterne, the author, was the English Rabelais. They had never heard of such a writer. Adieu!"

A new reign.--Funeral of the late King.--Houghton revisited.--Election at Lynn.--Marriage of George the Third.--His Coronation.

"Arlington Street, Nov. 13, 1760.

The demise of the Crown, of course, dissolved Parliament. Horace Walpole went down to Houghton to be re-elected for Lynn:

"Houghton, March 25, 1761.

"Here I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where I have not been in sixteen years! Think, what a crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not furnish so many; nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the last time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church--that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too lies he who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.

"My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne.

"DEMOCRITUS.

"P.S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, 'Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,--he always stood the whole time.' 'Madam,' said I, 'when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones.' I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, the instant they meet."

The King's marriage followed a few months later:

"Arlington Street, Sept. 10, 1761.

"The Duke of Cumberland told the King that himself and Lady Augusta were sleepy. The Queen was very averse to leave the company, and at last articled that nobody should accompany her but the Princess of Wales and her own two German women, and that nobody should be admitted afterwards but the King--they did not retire till between two and three.

"The next morning the King had a Levee. After the Levee there was a Drawing-Room; the Queen stood under the throne: the women were presented to her by the Duchess of Hamilton, and then the men by the Duke of Manchester; but as she knew nobody, she was not to speak. At night there was a ball, drawing-rooms yesterday and to-day, and then a cessation of ceremony till the Coronation, except next Monday, when she is to receive the address of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, sitting on the throne attended by the bridesmaids. A ridiculous circumstance happened yesterday; Lord Westmoreland, not very young nor clear-sighted, mistook Lady Sarah Lenox for the Queen, kneeled to her, and would have kissed her hand if she had not prevented him. People think that a Chancellor of Oxford was naturally attracted by the blood of Stuart. It is as comical to see Kitty Dashwood, the famous old beauty of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, living in the palace as Duenna to the Queen. She and Mrs. Broughton, Lord Lyttelton's ancient Delia, are revived again in a young court that never heard of them. There, I think you could not have had a more circumstantial account of a royal wedding from the Heralds' Office. Adieu!

"Yours to serve you,

"HORACE SANDFORD, "Mecklenburgh King-at-Arms."

The Coronation of the King and Queen took place on the 22nd of September, 1761, a fortnight after their marriage. Walpole writes to Mann:

"Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1761.

General Taste for Pleasure.--Entertainments at Twickenham and Esher.--Miss Chudleigh's Ball.--Masquerade at Richmond House.--The Gallery at Strawberry Hill.--Balls.--The Duchess of Queensberry.--Petition of the Periwig-makers.--Ladies' Head-gear.--Almack's.--The Castle of Otranto.--Plans for a Bower.--A Late Dinner.--Walpole's Idle Life.--Social usages.

"'On vient de nous donner une tr?s jolie f?te au ch?teau de Straberri: tout ?toit tapiss? de narcisses, de tulipes, et de lilacs; des cors de chasse, des clarionettes; des petits vers galants faits par des f?es, et qui se trouvoient sous la presse; des fruits ? la glace, du th?, du caff?, des biscuits, et force hot-rolls.'--This is not the beginning of a letter to you, but of one that I might suppose sets out to-night for Paris, or rather, which I do not suppose will set out thither; for though the narrative is circumstantially true, I don't believe the actors were pleased enough with the scene, to give so favourable an account of it.

"The Press speaks--

"FOR MADAME DE BOUFFLERS.

"'The graceful fair, who loves to know, Nor dreads the north's inclement snow; Who bids her polish'd accent wear The British diction's harsher air; Shall read her praise in every clime Where types can speak or poets rhyme.

"FOR MADAME DUSSON.

"Feign not an ignorance of what I speak; You could not miss my meaning were it Greek: 'Tis the same language Belgium utter'd first, The same which from admiring Gallia burst. True sentiment a like expression pours; Each country says the same to eyes like yours.

"Thursday.

A fortnight afterwards he writes:

"June 7th.

"Last night we had a magnificent entertainment at Richmond House, a masquerade and fireworks. A masquerade was a new sight to the young people, who had dressed themselves charmingly, without having the fear of an earthquake before their eyes, though Prince William and Prince Henry were not suffered to be there. The Duchesses of Richmond and Grafton, the first as a Persian Sultana, the latter as Cleopatra,--and such a Cleopatra! were glorious figures, in very different styles. Mrs. Fitzroy in a Turkish dress, Lady George Lenox and Lady Bolingbroke as Grecian girls, Lady Mary Coke as Imoinda, and Lady Pembroke as a pilgrim, were the principal beauties of the night. The whole garden was illuminated, and the apartments. An encampment of barges decked with streamers in the middle of the Thames, kept the people from danger, and formed a stage for the fireworks, which were placed, too, along the rails of the garden. The ground rooms lighted, with suppers spread, the houses, covered and filled with people, the bridge, the garden full of masks, Whitehall crowded with spectators to see the dresses pass, and the multitude of heads on the river who came to light by the splendour of the fire-wheels, composed the gayest and richest scene imaginable, not to mention the diamonds and sumptuousness of the habits. The Dukes of York and Cumberland, and the Margrave of Anspach, were there, and about six hundred masks."

In the intervals of these engagements, he is busy at Strawberry Hill. Thus, in arranging a short visit to George Montagu, he says :

"The journey you must accept as a great sacrifice either to you or to my promise, for I quit the Gallery almost in the critical minute of consummation. Gilders, carvers, upholsterers, and picture-cleaners are labouring at their several forges, and I do not love to trust a hammer or a brush without my own supervisal. This will make my stay very short, but it is a greater compliment than a month would be at another season; and yet I am not profuse of months. Well, but I begin to be ashamed of my magnificence; Strawberry is growing sumptuous in its latter day; it will scarce be any longer like the fruit of its name, or the modesty of its ancient demeanour, both which seem to have been in Spenser's prophetic eye, when he sung of

"In truth, my collection was too great already to be lodged humbly; it has extended my walls, and pomp followed. It was a neat, small house; it now will be a comfortable one, and, except one fine apartment, does not deviate from its simplicity. Adieu! I know nothing about the world, and am only Strawberry's and yours sincerely."

Our next extract shows that, however fond of frequenting large parties, the writer had little inclination to give them, at any rate, in his toy-house:

"Last Thursday, the Duchess of Queensberry gave a ball, opened it herself with a minuet, and danced two country dances: as she had enjoined everybody to be with her by six, to sup at twelve, and go away directly.... The only extraordinary thing the Duchess did, was to do nothing extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had this distich sent to her,

"'Come with a whistle, and come with a call, Come with a good will, or come not at all.'

A little later on we have more gossip about the humours of the day and of Lady Queensberry. Writing to the same correspondent, under date of February 12, 1765, Horace says:

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