Chapter V: Part 5

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 amusements, 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 surpassed 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 fashion 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, and a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the little open temple on the mount. On the canal 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, japan, &c., and all the shopkeepers 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 anything 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 fireworks, 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 principal part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and shapes: the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the finishing; 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, with their courts: the Prince and Princess, with their children, from Lady Middlesex'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 everything 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 passage I read lately in Pasquier, an old French author, who says, "that in the time of Francis I. 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 Saturday we had a serenta 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-fashioned 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 Duchess of Richmond was a Lady Mayoress in the time of James I.; and Lord Delawarr, Queen Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard-chamber at Kensington: they were admirable masks. Lord Rochford, Miss Evelyn, Miss Bishop, Lady Stafford, and Mrs. Pitt, 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 was Iphigenia, but so naked that you would have taken her for Andromeda; and Lady Betty Smithson [Seymour] 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 chastisement for Oxford, where, besides the late riots, the famous Dr. King,[1] 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, a hundred and twelve Lords and Commoners. The Duke of Beaufort opened the assembly 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 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,[2] and Tom Pitt, and the meeting broke up. I don't know what this coalition may produce: it will require time with no better heads than compose it at present, though the great Mr. Dodington had carried to the conference the assistance of his. In France a very favourable event has happened for us, the disgrace of Maurepas,[3] one of our bitterest enemies, and the greatest 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.

[Footnote 1: Dr. King was Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and one of the chief supports of the Jacobite party after 1745.]

[Footnote 2: Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1761, through the influence of the Earl of Bute. He was the owner of Medmenham Abbey, on the Thames, and as such, the President of the profligate Club whose doings were made notorious by the proceedings against Wilkes, and who, in compliment to him, called themselves the Franciscans.]

[Footnote 3: The Comte de Maurepas was the grandson of the Chancellor of France, M. de Pontchartrain. When only fourteen years old Louis had made him Secretary of State for the Marine, as a consolation to his grandfather for his dismissal; and he continued in office till the accession of Louis XVI., when he was appointed Prime Minister. He was not a man of any statesmanlike ability; but Lacretelle ascribes to him "les graces d'un esprit aimable et frivole qui avait le don d'amuser un vieillard toujours porté à un elegant badinage" (ii. 53); and in a subsequent letter speaks of him as a man of very lively powers of conversation.]

Sir Charles Williams[1] 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 deserted.

[Footnote 1: Sir Charles Hanbury Williams had represented Monmouth in Parliament, but in 1744 was sent as ambassador to Berlin, and from thence to St. Petersburg. He was more celebrated in the fashionable world as the author of lyrical odes of a lively character.]

I must tell you a _bon-mot_ that was made the other night at the serenata of "Peace in Europe" by Wall,[1] who is much in fashion, 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 représente mon maître?" Wall replied, "Mais, mon Dieu! L'abbé, ne sçavez vous pas que ce n'est pas un opéra boufon?" and here is another _bon-mot_ of my Lady Townshend: we were talking of Methodists; somebody said, "Pray, Madam, is it true that Whitfield[2] has _recanted_?" "No, sir, he has only _canted_."

[Footnote 1: General Wall was the Spanish ambassador, as Gondomar had been in the reign of James I.]

[Footnote 2: Whitefield, while an undergraduate at Oxford, joined Wesley, who had recently founded a sect which soon became known as the Methodists. But, after a time, Whitefield, who was of a less moderate temper than Wesley, adopted the views known as Calvinistic, and, breaking off from the Wesleyans, established a sect more rigid and less friendly to the Church.]

If you ever think of returning to England, as I hope it will be long first, you must prepare yourself with Methodism. I really believe that by that time it will be necessary: this sect increases as fast as almost ever any religious nonsense did. Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty; and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has worn. The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon--and indeed they have a plentiful harvest--I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fashion. Drinking is at the highest wine-mark; and gaming joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man that was standing by....

_EARTHQUAKE IN LONDON--GENERAL PANIC--MARRIAGE OF CASIMIR, KING OF POLAND._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _March_ 11, 1750.

Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent,
That they have lost their name.

My text is not literally true; but as far as earthquakes go towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure we are overstocked. We have had a second, much more violent than the first; and you must not be surprised if by next post you hear of a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last (exactly a month since the first shock), the earth had a shivering fit between one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again--on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses: in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much chinaware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them: Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn. The wise say,[1] that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has nowhere reached above ten miles from London: they say, they are not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, "Lord! one can't help going into the country!" The only visible effect it has had, was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night, there were but four hundred people. A parson, who came into White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said, "I protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against Judgment." If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water: I am already planning a _terreno_ for Strawberry Hill.

[Footnote 1: In an earlier letter Walpole mentions that Sir I. Newton had foretold a great alteration in the English climate in 1750.]

The Middlesex election is carried against the Court: the Prince, in a green frock (and I won't swear, but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat), sat under the Park-wall in his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant--this is wise! They will spend their money to carry a few more seats in a Parliament where they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for Westminster; the High Bailiff went to vote for the Opposition.

I now jump to another topic; I find all this letter will be detached scraps; I can't at all contrive to hide the seams: but I don't care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon doing any more than telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told you too how pleased I was with the triumphs of another old beauty, our friend the Princess. Do you know, I have found a history that has great resemblance to hers; that is, that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Maréchale l'Hôpital was the daughter of a seamstress; a young gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-general, who had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the story, had a curiosity to see the victim; he liked her, married her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant. She came to Paris, where the Maréchal de l'Hôpital married her for her riches. After the Maréchal's death, Casimir, the abdicated King of Poland, who was retired into France, fell in love with the Maréchale, and privately married her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to Nancy, to hear her talk of _ma belle fille la Reine de France_. What pains my Lady Pomfret would take to prove that an abdicated King's wife did not take place of an English countess; and how the Princess herself would grow still fonder of the Pretender for the similitude of his fortune with that of _le Roi mon mari_! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened the other night, with Mrs. Nugent's calling out, _un voleur! un voleur_! The ambassadress had heard so much of robbing, that she did not doubt but _dans ce pais cy_, they robbed in the middle of an assembly. It turned out to be a _thief in the candle_! Good night!

GENERAL PANIC--SHERLOCK'S PASTORAL LETTER--PREDICTIONS OF MORE EARTHQUAKES--A GENERAL FLIGHT FROM LONDON--EPIGRAMS BY CHUTE AND WALPOLE HIMSELF--FRENCH TRANSLATION OF MILTON.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 2, 1750.

You will not wonder so much at our earthquakes as at the effects they have had. All the women in town have taken them up upon the foot of _Judgments_; and the clergy, who have had no windfalls of a long season, have driven horse and foot into this opinion. There has been a shower of sermons and exhortations: Seeker, the Jesuitical Bishop of Oxford, began the mode. He heard the women were all going out of town to avoid the next shock; and so, for fear of losing his Easter offerings, he set himself to advise them to await God's good pleasure in fear and trembling. But what is more astonishing, Sherlock, who has much better sense, and much less of the Popish confessor, has been running a race with him for the old ladies, and has written a pastoral letter, of which ten thousand were sold in two days; and fifty thousand have been subscribed for, since the two first editions.

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.[1] 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!"...

[Footnote 1: "I remember," says Addison, in the 240th _Tatler_, "when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, that there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills, which, as he told the country people, were 'very good against an earthquake.'"]

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 (price 6_d._) A true and exact
List of all the Nobility and Gentry who have left, or shall leave,
this place through fear of another Earthquake."

Several women have made earthquake gowns; that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all to-night. These are of the more courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back--I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His _colonel_ sent to the man's wife, and asked her if her husband had ever been disordered before. She cried, "Oh dear! my lord, he is not mad now; if your _lordship_ would but get any _sensible_ man to examine him, you would find he is quite in his right mind."...

I shall now go and show you Mr. Chute in a different light from heraldry, and in one in which I believe you never saw him. He will shine as usual; but, as a little more severely than his good-nature is accustomed to, I must tell you that he was provoked by the most impertinent usage. It is an epigram on Lady Caroline Petersham, whose present fame, by the way, is coupled with young Harry Vane.

WHO IS THIS?

Her face has beauty, we must all confess,
But beauty on the brink of ugliness:
Her mouth's a rabbit feeding on a rose;
With eyes--ten times too good for such a nose!
Her blooming cheeks--what paint could ever draw 'em?
That paint, for which no mortal ever saw 'em.
Air without shape--of royal race divine--
'Tis Emily--oh! fie!--'tis Caroline.

Do but think of my beginning a third sheet! but as the Parliament is rising, and I shall probably not write you a tolerably long letter again these eight months, I will lay in a stock of merit with you to last me so long. Mr. Chute has set me too upon making epigrams; but as I have not his art mine is almost a copy of verses: the story he told me, and is literally true, of an old Lady Bingley:

Celia now had completed some thirty campaigns,
And for new generations was hammering chains;
When whetting those terrible weapons, her eyes,
To Jenny, her handmaid, in anger she cries,
"Careless creature! did mortal e'er see such a glass!
Who that saw me in this, could e'er guess what I was!
Much you mind what I say! pray how oft have I bid you
Provide me a new one? how oft have I chid you?"
"Lord, Madam!" cried Jane, "you're so hard to be pleased!
I am sure every glassman in town I have teased:
I have hunted each shop from Pall Mall to Cheapside:
Both Miss Carpenter's man, and Miss Banks's I've tried."
"Don't tell me of those girls!--all I know, to my cost,
Is, the looking-glass art must be certainly lost!
One used to have mirrors so smooth and so bright,
They did one's eyes justice, they heightened one's white,
And fresh roses diffused o'er one's bloom--but, alas!
In the glasses made now, one detests one's own face;
They pucker one's cheeks up and furrow one's brow,
And one's skin looks as yellow as that of Miss Howe!"

After an epigram that seems to have found out the longitude, I shall tell you but one more, and that wondrous short. It is said to be made by a cow. You must not wonder; we tell as many strange stories as Baker and Livy:

A warm winter, a dry spring,
A hot summer, a new King.

Though the sting is very epigrammatic, the whole of the distich has more of the truth than becomes prophecy; that is, it is false, for the spring is wet and cold.

There is come from France a Madame Bocage,[1] who has translated Milton: my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation. You would be more diverted with a Mrs. Holman, whose passion is keeping an assembly, and inviting literally everybody to it. She goes to the drawing-room to watch for sneezes; whips out a curtsey, and then sends next morning to know how your cold does, and to desire your company next Thursday.

[Footnote 1: Madame du Boccage published a poem in imitation of Milton, and another founded on Gesner's "Death of Abel." She also translated Pope's "Temple of Fame;" but her principal work was "La Columbiade." It was at the house of this lady, at Paris, in 1775, that Johnson was annoyed at her footman's taking the sugar in his fingers and throwing it into his coffee. "I was going," says the Doctor, "to put it aside, but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's fingers." She died in 1802.]

Mr. Whithed has taken my Lord Pembroke's house at Whitehall; a glorious situation, but as madly built as my lord himself was. He has bought some delightful pictures too, of Claude, Caspar and good masters, to the amount of four hundred pounds.

Good night! I have nothing more to tell you, but that I have lately seen a Sir William Boothby, who saw you about a year ago, and adores you, as all the English you receive ought to do. He is much in my favour.

_DEATH OF WALPOLE'S BROTHER, AND OF THE PRINCE OF WALES--SPEECH OF THE YOUNG PRINCE--SINGULAR SERMON ON HIS DEATH._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 1, 1751.

How shall I begin a letter that will--that must--give you as much pain as I feel myself? I must interrupt the story of the Prince's death, to tell you of _two_ more, much more important, God knows! to you and me! One I had prepared you for--but how will you be shocked to hear that our poor Mr. Whithed is dead as well as my brother!...

I now must mention my own misfortune. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, the physicians and _all the family of painful death_ (to alter Gray's phrase), were persuaded and persuaded me, that the bark, which took great place, would save my brother's life--but he relapsed at three o'clock on Thursday, and died last night. He ordered to be drawn and executed his will with the greatest tranquillity and satisfaction on Saturday morning. His spoils are prodigious--not to his own family! indeed I think his son the most ruined young man in England. My loss, I fear, may be considerable, which is not the only motive of my concern, though, as you know, I had much to forgive, before I could regret: but indeed I do regret. It is no small addition to my concern, to fear or foresee that Houghton and all the remains of my father's glory will be pulled to pieces! The widow-Countess immediately marries--not Richcourt, but Shirley, and triumphs in advancing her son's ruin by enjoying her own estate, and tearing away great part of his.

Now I will divert your private grief by talking to you of what is called the public. The King and Princess are grown as fond as if they had never been of different parties, or rather as people who always had been of different. She discountenances all opposition, and he _all ambition_. Prince George, who, with his two eldest brothers, is to be lodged at St. James's, is speedily to be created Prince of Wales. Ayscough, his tutor, is to be removed with her entire inclination as well as with everybody's approbation. They talk of a Regency to be established (in case of a minority) by authority of Parliament, even this session, with the Princess at the head of it. She and Dr. Lee, the only one she consults of the late cabal, very sensibly burned the late Prince's papers the moment he was dead. Lord Egmont, by seven o'clock the next morning, summoned (not very decently) the faction to his house: all was whisper! at last he hinted something of taking the Princess and her children under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No answer was made to the former proposal. Somebody said, it was very likely indeed they should agree now, when the Prince could never bring it about; and so everybody went away to take care of himself. The imposthumation is supposed to have proceeded, not from his fall last year, but from a blow with a tennis-ball some years ago. The grief for the dead brother is affectedly displayed. They cried about an elegy,[1] and added, "Oh, that it were but his brother!" On 'Change they said, "Oh, that it were but the butcher[2]!"

[Footnote 1: The elegy alluded to, was probably the effusion of some Jacobite royalist. That faction could not forgive the Duke of Cumberland his excesses or successes in Scotland; and, not contented with branding the parliamentary government of the country as usurpation, indulged in frequent unfeeling and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the reigning family:

Here lies Fred,
Who was alive and is dead:
Had it been his father,
I had much rather;
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another;
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her;
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation:
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive and is dead--
There's no more to be said.

Walpole's _Memoirs of George II._]

[Footnote 2: A name given to the Duke of Cumberland for his severities to his prisoners after the battle of Culloden.]

The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays. Anstruther's affair will go on, but not with much spirit. One wants to see faces about again! Dick Lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his papers into Hamlet's grave?

Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively well on his father's death. When they told him of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!"--he replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in Leicester Fields: one said, "He has left a great many small children!"--"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I), but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices: he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company."

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter. You will, with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicoll is, I am told, extremely to be pitied too; but so is everybody that knew Whithed! Bear it yourself as well as you can!

_CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY AND HOUSEHOLD--THE MISS GUNNINGS--EXTRAVAGANCE IN LONDON--LORD HARCOURT, GOVERNOR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _June_ 18, 1751.

I send my letter as usual from the Secretary's office, but of what Secretary I don't know. Lord Sandwich last week received his dismission, on which the Duke of Bedford resigned the next day, and Lord Trentham with him, both breaking with old Gower, who is entirely in the hands of the Pelhams, and made to declare his quarrel with Lord Sandwich (who gave away his daughter to Colonel Waldegrave) the foundation of detaching himself from the Bedfords. Your friend Lord Fane comforts Lord Sandwich with an annuity of a thousand a-year--scarcely for his handsome behaviour to his sister; Lord Hartington is to be Master of the Horse, and Lord Albemarle Groom of the Stole; Lord Granville[1] is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more--in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him. It is believed that Impresario Holdernesse will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations. If the former does, you will have ample instructions to negotiate for singers and dancers! Here is an epigram made upon his directorship:

[Footnote 1: Lord Granville, known as Lord Carteret during the lifetime of his mother, was a statesman of the very highest ability, and was regarded with special favour by the King for his power of conversing in German, then a very rare accomplishment.]

That secrecy will now prevail
In politics, is certain;
Since Holdernesse, who gets the seals,
Was bred behind the curtain.

The Admirals Rowley and Boscawen are brought into the Admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board. Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen's case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quantity of resentment to Anson. In short, the whole present system is equally formed for duration!

Since I began my letter, Lord Holdernesse has kissed hands for the seals. It is said that Lord Halifax is to be made easy, by the plantations being put under the Board of Trade. Lord Granville comes into power as boisterously as ever, and dashes at everything. His lieutenants already beat up for volunteers; but he disclaims all connexions with Lord Bath, who, he says, forced him upon the famous ministry of twenty-four hours, and by which he says he paid all his debts to him. This will soon grow a turbulent scene--it is not unpleasant to sit upon the beach and see it; but few people have the curiosity to step out to the sight. You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult, to conceive what an indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The two Miss Gunnings,[1] and a late extravagant dinner at White's, are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers [Newcastle and Pelham] and Lord Granville. These are two Irish girls, of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think their being two so handsome and both such perfect figures is their chief excellence, for singly I have seen much handsomer women than either; however, they can't walk in the park or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they are generally driven away. The dinner was a folly of seven young men, who bespoke it to the utmost extent of expense: one article was a tart made of duke cherries from a hot-house; and another, that they tasted but one glass out of each bottle of champagne. The bill of fare is got into print, and with good people has produced the apprehension of another earthquake. Your friend St. Leger was at the head of these luxurious heroes--he is the hero of all fashion. I never saw more dashing vivacity and absurdity, with some flashes of parts. He had a cause the other day for ducking a sharper, and was going to swear: the judge said to him, "I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath." "Yes, my lord," replied St. Leger, "my father was a judge."

[Footnote 1: One of the Miss Gunnings had singular fortune. She was married to two Dukes--the Duke of Hamilton, and, after his death, the Duke of Argyll. She refused a third, the Duke of Bridgewater; and she was the mother of four--two Dukes of Hamilton and two Dukes of Argyll. Her sister married the Earl of Coventry. In his "Memoirs of George III." Walpole mentions that they were so poor while in Dublin that they could not have been presented to the Lord-Lieutenant if Peg Woffington, the celebrated actress, had not lent them some clothes.]

We have been overwhelmed with lamentable Cambridge and Oxford dirges on the Prince's death: there is but one tolerable copy; it is by a young Lord Stormont, a nephew of Murray, who is much commended. You may imagine what incense is offered to Stone by the people of Christchurch: they have hooked in, too, poor Lord Harcourt, and call him _Harcourt the Wise_! his wisdom has already disgusted the young Prince; "Sir, pray hold up your head. Sir, for God's sake, turn out your toes!" Such are Mentor's precepts!

I am glad you receive my letters; as I knew I had been punctual, it mortified me that you should think me remiss. Thank you for the transcript from _Bubb[1] de tristibus_! I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who had composed such a funeral oration on his master and himself fully intended that its flowers should not bloom and wither in obscurity.

[Footnote 1: Bubb means Mr. Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, who had written Mr. Mann a letter of most extravagant lamentation on the death of the Prince of Wales. He was member for Winchelsea, and left behind him a diary, which was published some years after his death, and which throws a good deal of light on the political intrigues of the day.]

We have already begun to sell the pictures that had not found place at Houghton: the sale gives no great encouragement to proceed (though I fear it must come to that!); the large pictures were thrown away; the whole-length Vandykes went for a song! I am mortified now at having printed the catalogue. Gideon the Jew, and Blakiston the independent grocer, have been the chief purchasers of the pictures sold already--there, if you love moralizing!

Adieu! I have no more articles to-day for my literary gazette.

_DESCRIPTION OF STRAWBERRY HILL--BILL TO PREVENT CLANDESTINE MARRIAGES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 12, 1753.

I could not rest any longer with the thought of your having no idea of a place of which you hear so much, and therefore desired Mr. Bentley to draw you as much idea of it as the post would be persuaded to carry from Twickenham to Florence. The enclosed enchanted little landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill; and I will try to explain so much of it to you as will help to let you know whereabouts we are when we are talking to you; for it is uncomfortable in so intimate a correspondence as ours not to be exactly master of every spot where one another is writing, or reading, or sauntering. This view of the castle is what I have just finished, and is the only side that will be at all regular. Directly before it is an open grove, through which you see a field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn before the house is situated on the top of a small hill, from whence to the left you see the town and church of Twickenham encircling a turn of the river, that looks exactly like a seaport in miniature. The opposite shore is a most delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the noble woods of the park to the end of the prospect on the right, where is another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily placed as Twickenham is on the left: and a natural terrace on the brow of my hill, with meadows of my own down to the river, commands both extremities. Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must figure that all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, waggons, and horsemen constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after Titian, &c., but when I gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the lightest Gothic balustrade to the staircase, adorned with antelopes (our supporters) bearing shields; lean windows fattened with rich saints in painted glass, and a vestibule open with three arches on the landing-place, and niches full of trophies of old coats of mail, Indian shields made of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, longbows, arrows, and spears--all _supposed_ to be taken by Sir Terry Robsart in the holy wars. But as none of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pass to that. The room on the ground-floor nearest to you is a bedchamber, hung with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner, invented by Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders printed. Over this is Mr. Chute's bedchamber, hung with red in the same manner. The bow-window room one pair of stairs is not yet finished; but in the tower beyond it is the charming closet where I am now writing to you. It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; has two windows; the one in the drawing looks to the garden, the other to the beautiful prospect; and the top of each glutted with the richest painted glass of the arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces of green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, that the castle, when finished, will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with painted glass. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's college of Arms, are two presses with books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sévigné's Letters, and any French books that relate to her and her acquaintance. Out of this closet is the room where we always live, hung with a blue and white paper in stripes adorned with festoons, and a thousand plump chairs, couches, and luxurious settees covered with linen of the same pattern, and with a bow-window commanding the prospect, and gloomed with limes that shade half each window, already darkened with painted glass in chiaroscuro, set in deep blue glass. Under this room is a cool little hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper to imitate Dutch tiles.

I have described so much, that you will begin to think that all the accounts I used to give you of the diminutiveness of our habitation were fabulous; but it is really incredible how small most of the rooms are. The only two good chambers I shall have are not yet built: they will be an eating-room and a library, each twenty by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet high. For the rest of the house I could send it you in this letter as easily as the drawing, only that I should have nowhere to live till the return of the post. The Chinese summer-house, which you may distinguish in the distant landscape, belongs to my Lord Radnor. We pique ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, and have no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayings, or tawdry businesses.

You will not be sorry, I believe, by this time to have done with Strawberry Hill, and to hear a little news. The end of a very dreaming session has been extremely enlivened by an accidental bill which has opened great quarrels, and those not unlikely to be attended with interesting circumstances. A bill to prevent clandestine marriages,[1] so drawn by the Judges as to clog all matrimony in general, was inadvertently espoused by the Chancellor; and having been strongly attacked in the House of Commons by Nugent, the Speaker, Mr. Fox, and others, the last went very great lengths of severity on the whole body of the law, and on its chieftain in particular, which, however, at the last reading, he softened and explained off extremely. This did not appease: but on the return of the bill to the House of Lords, where our amendments were to be read, the Chancellor in the most personal terms harangued against Fox, and concluded with saying that "he despised his scurrility as much as his adulation and recantation." As Christian charity is not one of the oaths taken by privy-counsellors, and as it is not the most eminent virtue in either of the champions, this quarrel is not likely to be soon reconciled. There are natures whose disposition it is to patch up political breaches, but whether they will succeed, or try to succeed in healing this, can I tell you?

[Footnote 1: These clandestine marriages were often called "Fleet marriages." Lord Stanhope, describing this Act, states that "there was ever ready a band of degraded and outcast clergymen, prisoners for debt or for crime, who hovered about the verge of the Fleet prison soliciting customers, and plying, like porters, for employment.... One of these wretches, named Keith, had gained a kind of pre-eminence in infamy. On being told there was a scheme on foot to stop his lucrative traffic, he declared, with many oaths, he would still be revenged of the Bishops, that he would buy a piece of ground and outbury them!" ("History of England," c. 31).]

The match for Lord Granville, which I announced to you, is not concluded: the flames are cooled in that quarter as well as in others.

I begin a new sheet to you, which does not match with the other, for I have no more of the same paper here. Dr. Cameron is executed, and died with the greatest firmness. His parting with his wife the night before was heroic and tender: he let her stay till the last moment, when being aware that the gates of the Tower would be locked, he told her so; she fell at his feet in agonies: he said, "Madam, this was not what you promised me," and embracing her, forced her to retire: then with the same coolness looked at the window till her coach was out of sight, after which he turned about and wept. His only concern seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn: he was not disturbed at the dresser for his body, or at the fire to burn his bowels.[1] The crowd was so great, that a friend who attended him could not get away, but was forced to stay and behold the execution; but what will you say to the minister or priest that accompanied him? The wretch, after taking leave, went into a landau, where, not content with seeing the Doctor hanged, he let down the top of the landau for the better convenience of seeing him embowelled! I cannot tell you positively that what I hinted of this Cameron being commissioned from Prussia was true, but so it is believed. Adieu! my dear child; I think this is a very tolerable letter for summer!

[Footnote 1: "The populace," says Smollett, "though not very subject to tender emotions, were moved to compassion, and even to tears, by his behaviour at the place of execution; and many sincere well-wishers of the present establishment thought that the sacrifice of this victim, at such a juncture, could not redound either to its honour or security."]

_NO NEWS FROM FRANCE BUT WHAT IS SMUGGLED--THE KING'S DELIGHT AT THE VOTE FOR THE HANOVER TROOPS--BON MOT OF LORD DENBIGH._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _May_ 19, 1756.

Nothing will be more agreeable to me than to see you at Strawberry Hill; the weather does not seem to be of my mind, and will not invite you. I believe the French have taken the sun. Among other captures, I hear the King has taken another English mistress, a Mrs. Pope, who took her degrees in gallantry some years ago. She went to Versailles with the famous Mrs. Quon: the King took notice of them; he was told they were not so rigid as _all_ other English women are--mind, I don't give you any part of this history for authentic; you know we can have no news from France but what we run.[1] I have rambled so that I forgot what I intended to say; if ever we can have spring, it must be soon: I propose to expect you any day you please after Sunday se'nnight, the 30th: let me know your resolution, and pray tell me in what magazine is the Strawberry ballad? I should have proposed an earlier day to you, but next week the Prince of Nassau is to breakfast at Strawberry Hill, and I know your aversion to clashing with grandeur.

[Footnote 1: "During the winter England was stirred with constantly recurring alarms of a French invasion.... Addresses were moved in both Houses entreating or empowering the King to summon over for our defence some of his Hanoverian troops, and also some of hired Hessians--an ignominious vote, but carried by large majorities" (Lord Stanhope, "History of England," c. 22).]

As I have already told you one mob story of a King, I will tell you another: _they say_, that the night the Hanover troops were voted, _he_ sent Schutz for his German cook, and said, "Get me a very good supper; get me all de varieties; I don't mind expense."

I tremble lest his Hanoverians should be encamped at Hounslow; Strawberry would become an inn; all the Misses would breakfast there, to go and see the camp!

My Lord Denbigh is going to marry a fortune, I forget her name; my Lord Gower asked him how long the honey-moon would last? He replied, "Don't tell me of the honey-moon; it is harvest moon with me." Adieu!

_VICTORY OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA AT LOWOSITZ--SINGULAR RACE--QUARREL OF THE PRETENDER WITH THE POPE._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 17, 1756.

Lentulus (I am going to tell you no old Roman tale; he is the King of Prussia's aid-de-camp) arrived yesterday, with ample confirmation of the victory in Bohemia.[1]--Are not you glad that we have got a victory that we can at least call _Cousin_? Between six and seven thousand Austrians were killed: eight Prussian squadrons sustained the _acharnement_, which is said to have been extreme, of thirty-two squadrons of Austrians: the pursuit lasted from Friday noon till Monday morning; both our countrymen, Brown and Keith, performed wonders--we seem to flourish much when transplanted to Germany--but Germans don't make good manure here! The Prussian King writes that both Brown and Piccolomini are too strongly intrenched to be attacked. His Majesty ran _to_ this victory; not _à la_ Molwitz. He affirms having found in the King of Poland's cabinet ample justification of his treatment of Saxony--should not one query whether he had not these proofs in his hands antecedent to the cabinet? The Dauphiness[2] is said to have flung herself at the King of France's feet and begged his protection for her father; that he promised "qu'il le rendroit au centuple au Roi de Prusse."