Chapter VII: Preface (3)

With the Marquise du Deffand, the old, blind, but clever leader of French society, he became acquainted at Paris late in her life. Her devotion for him appears to have been very great, and is sometimes expressed in her letters with a warmth and tenderness, which Walpole, who was most sensitive of ridicule, thought so absurd in a person of her years and infirmities, that he frequently reproves her very harshly for it; so much so, as to give him the appearance of a want of kindly feeling towards her, which his general conduct to her, and the regrets he expressed on her death, do not warrant us in accusing him of. (51)

In concluding the literary part of the character of Walpole, it is natural to allude to the transactions which took place between him and the unfortunate Chatterton; a text upon which so much calumny and misrepresentation have been embroidered. The periodicals of the day, and the tribe of those "who daily scribble for their daily bread," and for whom Walpole had, perhaps unwisely, frequently expressed his contempt, attacked him bitterly for his inhumanity to genius, and even accused him as the author of the subsequent misfortunes and untimely death of that misguided son of genius; nay, even the author of "The Pursuits of Literature," who wrote many years after the transaction had taken place, and who ought to have known better, gave in to the prevailing topic of abuse. (52) It therefore becomes necessary to state shortly what really took place upon this occasion, a task which is rendered easier by the clear view of the transaction taken both by Walter Scott in his "Lives of the Novelists," and by Chalmers in his "Biographical Dictionary," which is also fully borne out by the narrative drawn up by Walpole himself, and accompanied by the correspondence.

it appears then, that in March 1769, Walpole-received a letter from Chatterton, enclosing a few specimens of the pretended poems of Rowley, and announcing his discovery of a series of ancient painters at Bristol. To this communication Walpole, naturally enough, returned a very civil answer. Shortly afterwards, doubts arose in his mind as to the authenticity of the poems; these were confirmed by the opinions of some friends, to whom he showed them; and he then wrote an expression of these doubts to Chatterton. This appears to have excited the anger of Chatterton, who, after one or two short notes, wrote Walpole a very impertinent one, in which he redemanded his manuscripts. This last letter Walpole had intended to have answered with some sharpness; but did not do so. He only returned the specimens on the 4th of August 1769; and this concluded the intercourse between them, and as Walpole observes, "I never saw him then, before, or since." Subsequently to this transaction, Chatterton acquired other patrons more credulous than Walpole, and proceeded with his forgeries. In April 1770 he came to London, and committed suicide in August of that year; a fate which befell him, it is to be feared, more in consequence of his own dissolute and profligate habits, than from any want of patronage. However this may be, Walpole clearly had nothing to say to it.

In addition to the accusation of crushing, instead of fostering his genius, Walpole has also been charged with cruelty in not assisting him with money. Upon this, he very truly says himself, "Chatterton was neither indigent nor distressed, at the time of his correspondence with me. He was maintained by his mother and lived with a lawyer. His only pleas to my assistance were, disgust to his profession, inclination to poetry, and communication of some suspicious MSS. His distress was the consequence of quitting his master, and coming to London, and of his other extravagances. He had depended on the impulse of the talents he felt for making impression, and lifting him to wealth, honours, and faine. I have already said, that I should have been blamable to his mother and society, if I had seduced an apprentice from his master to marry him to the nine Muses;' and I should have encouraged a propensity to forgery, which is not the talent most wanting culture in the present age." (53) Such and so unimportant was the transaction with Chatterton, which brought so much obloquy on Walpole, and seems really to have given him at different times great annoyance.

There remains but little more to relate in the life of Walpole. His old age glided on peacefully, and, with the exception of his severe sufferings from the gout, apparently contentedly, in the pursuit of his favourite studies and employments. In the year 1791, he succeeded his unhappy nephew, George, third Earl of Orford, who had at different periods of his life been insane, in the family estate and the earldom. The accession of this latter dignity seems rather to have annoyed him than otherwise. He never took his seat in the House of Lords, and his unwillingness to adopt his title was shown in his endeavours to avoid making use of it in his signature. He not unfrequently signed himself, "The Uncle of the late Earl of Orford." (54)

He retained his faculties to the last, but his limbs became helpless from his frequent attacks of gout: as he himself expresses it,

"Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of season, Though unkind to my limbs, has yet left me my reason." (55)

As a friend of his, who only knew him in the last years of his life, speaks of "his conversation as singularly brilliant as it was original," (56) we may conclude his liveliness never deserted him; that his talent for letter-writing did not, we have a proof in a letter written only six weeks before his death, in which, with all his accustomed grace of manner he entreats a lady of his acquaintance not to show "the idle notes of her ancient servant."-Lord Orford died in the eightieth year `of his life, at his house in Berkeley Square, on the 2d of March 1797, and was buried with his family in the church at Houghton and with him concluded the male line of the descendants of Sir Robert Walpole.

(20) Originally prefixed to his lordship's edition of Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, first published in 1833.

(21) In a MS. note by Walpole, in his own copy of collins's Peerage, it is stated, that Sir Robert Walpole had, by his first wife, "another son, William, who died young, and a daughter, Catherine, who died of a consumption at Bath, aged nineteen."-E.

(22) The occasion of the death of sir John Shorter was a curious one. It is thus related in the Ellis Correspondence:-"Sir John Shorter, the present Lord Mayor. is very ill with a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter of Aug. 30th, 1688.

"On Tuesday last died the Lord Mayor, Sir John Shorter: the occasion of his distemper was his fall under Newgate, which bruised him a little, and put him into a fever." Letter of September 6th, 1688.

(23 )birthdate) In Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary it is stated, that Horace Walpole was born in 1718; and Sir Walter Scott says he was born in 1716-17, which, according to the New Style, would mean that he was born in one of the three first months of the year 1717. Both these statements are, however, erroneous, as he himself fixes the day of his birth, in a letter to Mr. Conway, dated October 5th, 1764, where he says "What signifies what happens when one is seven-and-forty, as I am to-day? They tell me 'tis my birthday," And again, in a letter to the same correspondent, dated October 5th, 1777, he says, "I am three-score to-day."

(24) The exact cause of this quarrel," says Mr. Mitford, in his Life of Gray, " has been passed over by the delicacy of his biographer, because Horace Walpole was alive when the Memoirs of Gray were written. The former, however, charged himself with the chief blame, and lamented that he had not paid more attention and deference to Gray's superior judgment and prudence." See Works of Gray, vol. i. p. 9, Pickering's edition 1836. In the "Walpolianae" is the following passage:-"The quarrel between Gray and me arose from his being too serious a companion. I had just broke loose from the restraints of the University with as much money as I could spend, and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, etc. while I was for perpetual balls and plays: the fault was mine."-E.

(25) Sir Walter Scott says that Walpole, on one occasion, " vindicated the memory of his father with great dignity and eloquence" in the House of Commons; but, as I cannot find any trace of a speech of this kind made by him after Sir Robert Walpole's death, I am inclined to think Sir Walter must have made a mistake as to the time of delivery of the speech mentioned in the text. [Secker, at that time Bishop of Oxford, says that Walpole "spoke well against the motion." See post, letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated March 24, 1742.

(26) Sir Walter Scott is in error when he says that Walpole retired from the House of Commons in 1758, "at the active age of forty-one." This event occurred, as is here stated, in March, 1768, and when Walpole was consequently in his fifty-first year.

(27) Letter, dated Arlington Street, March 12th, 1768. It is but fair to mention, in opposition to the opinion respecting George Grenville, here delivered by Walpole, that of no less an authority than Burke, who says, "Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country,"

(28) He had also offered to share his fortune with Mr. Conway in the year 1744 (see letter of July 20th of that year), in order to enable Mr. Conway to marry a lady he was then in love with. He ends his very pressing entreaties by saying, "For these reasons, don't deny me what I have set my Heart on-the making your fortune easy to you." Nor were these the only instances of generosity to a friend, which we find in the life of Walpole. In the year 1770, when the Abb`e Terrai was administering the finances of France, (or, to use the more expressive language of Voltaire, "Quand Terrai nous mangeait,") his economical reductions occasioned the loss of a portion of her pension, amounting to three thousand livres, to Madame du Deffand. Upon this occasion Walpole wrote thus to his old blind friend, who had presented a memorial of her case to M. de St. Florentin, a course of proceeding which Walpole did not approve of:-"Ayez assez d'amiti`e pour moi pour accepter les trois mille livres de ma part. Je voudrais que la somme ne me f`ut pas aussi indiferente qu'elle l'est, mais je vous jure qu'elle ne retranchera rien, pas m`eme sur mes amusemens. La prendriez vous de la main de la grandeur, et la refuseriez vous de moi? Vous me connaissez: faites ce sacrifice `a mon orgueil, qui serait enchants de vous avoir emp`ech`ee de vous abaisser jusqu'`a la sollicitation. Votre m`emoire me blesse. Quoi! vous, vous, r`eduite `a repr`esenter vos malheurs! Accordez moi, je vous conjure, la grace que je vous demande `a genoux, et jouissez de la satisfaction de vous dire, J'ai un ami qui ne permettra jamais que je me jette aux pieds des grands. Ma Petite, j'insiste. Voyez, si vous aimez mieux me faire le plaisir le plus sensible, ou de devoir une grace qui, ayant `et`e sollicit`ee, arrive toujours trop tard pour contanter l'amiti`e. Laissez moi go`uter la joie la plus pure, de vous avoir mise `a votre aise, et que cette joie soit un secret profond entre nous deux." See Letters of the Marquise de Deffand to the Honourable Horace Walpole.-It was impossible to make a pecuniary offer with more earnestness or greater delicacy; and Madame du Deffand's not having found it necessary subsequently to accept it, in no degree diminishes the merit of the proffered gift.

(29) See letter, dated Monday, five o'clock, Feb. 1761.

(30) See letter, dated April 19th, 1764.

(31) See letter to Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 25, 1750.

(32) Catherine Hyde, the eccentric friend of Pope and Gay. She was, at this time, living in a small house in Ham Walks. Walpole, having found her out airing in her Carriage, one day that he had called on her, there addressed the following lines to her:--

'To many a Kitty, Love his car Would for a day engage; But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, Retains it for an age."

(33) Letter of June 8th, 1747.

(34) Lee, in Kent.

(35) Letter of June 5th, 1788.

(36) George James Williams, Esq.

(37) In his vers de soci`et`e we perpetually discover a laborious effort to introduce the lightness of the French badinage into a masculine and somewhat rough language."-Quart. Rev. vol. xix. p. 122.

(38) Lives of the Novelists, Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 304, ed. 1834.

(39) Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary, article Walpole.

(40) "The Mysterious Mother" was printed in that year: but was never published till after the death of Walpole.

(41) Lord Byron, Preface to Mtrino Faliero."

(42) Lives of the Novelists, Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 313.

(43) Shortly after the appearance of this romance, the following high encomium was passed upon it by Bishop Warburton:-"We have been lately entertained with what I will venture to call a masterpiece in the fable, and a new species likewise. The piece I mean is laid in Gothic chivalry, where a beautiful imagination, supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the author to go beyond his subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient tragedy; that is, to purge the passions by pity and terror, in colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best dramatic writers."-E.

(44) Lives of the Novelists; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 323.

(45) Postscript to "The Mysterious Mother."

(46) Lord Byron.

(47) Social Life in England and France," by Miss Berry.

(48) Lives of the Novelists; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 301.

(49) "In 1744, the difference between Walpole and Gray was adjusted by the interference of a lady, who wished well to both parties. The lapse of three years had probably been sufficient, in some degree, to soften down, though not entirely obliterate, the remembrance of supposed injustices on both sides; natural kindness of temper had resumed their place, and we find their correspondence again proceeding on friendly and familiar terms." Mitford's Gray, vol. i. p. xxiii; see also vol. ii. p. 174.-E.

(50) Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774.

(51) "Vanity, when it unfortunately gets possession of a wise man's head, is as keenly sensible of ridicule, as it is impassible to its shafts when more appropriately lodged with a fool. Of the sensitiveness arising out of this foible Walpole seems to have had a great deal, and it certainly dictated those hard-hearted reproofs that repelled the warm effusions of friendship with which poor Madame du Deffand (now old and blind) addressed him, and of which he complained with the utmost indignation, merely because, if her letters were opened by a clerk at the post-office, such expressions of kindness might expose him to the ridicule of which he had such undue terror." Quart. Rev. Vol. xix. p. 119.-E.

(52) See "Pursuits of Literature," second Dialogue:-

"The Boy, whom once patricians pens adorn'd, First meanly flatter'd, then as meanly scorn'd."

Which lines are Stated in a note to allude to Walpole. See also, first Dialogue, where Chatturton is called, "That varlet bright." The note to which passage is "'I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd,' says Falstaff, in Henry IV. Part 1. Act. 2. Mr. Horace Walpole, now Lord Orford, did not, however, seem to think it necessary that this varlet Chatterton should chew at all. See the Starvation Act, dated at Strawberry Hill."

(53) Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Chatterton. Works, vol. iv.

(54) The Duke of Bedford has a letter of Walpole's with this signature.

(55) "Epitapilium vivi auctoris."-l 792.

(56) "Social Life in England and France."

REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND: WRITTEN IN 1788, FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF MISS MARY AND MISS AGNES BERRY.

Il ne faut point d'esprit pour s'occuper des vieux `ev`enements.-Voltaire.