Chapter XVII: Part 17

I dined yesterday at Wanstead many years have passed since I saw it. The disposition of the house and the prospect are better than I expected, and very fine: the garden, which they tell you cost as much as the house, that is, 100,000 pounds (don't tell Mr. Muntz) is wretched; the furniture fine, but totally without taste: such continences and incontinences of Scipio and Alexander by I don't know whom! such flame-coloured gods and goddesses, by Kent! such family-pieces, by--I believe the late Earl himself, for they are as ugly as the children he really begot! The whole great apartment is of oak, finally carved, unpainted and has a charming effect(586) The present Earl is the most generous creature in the world: in the first chamber I entered he offered me four marble tables that lay in cases about the room: I compounded, after forty refusals of every thing I commended, to bring away only a haunch of venison: I believe he has not had so cheap a visit a good while. I commend myself, as I ought: for, to be sure, there were twenty ebony chairs, and a couch, and a table, and a glass, that would have tried the virtue of a philosopher of double my size! After dinner we dragged a gold-fish pond(587) for my lady Fitzroy and Lord S@ I could not help telling my Lord Tilney, that they would certainly burn the poor fish for the gold, like the old lace. There arrived a Marquis St. Simon, from Paris, who understands English, and who has seen your book of designs for Gray's Odes: he was much pleased at meeting me, to whom the individual cat(588) belonged, and you may judge whether I was pleased with him. Adieu! my dear Sir.

(582) The two captains were the Honourable Captain Richard Howe of the Dunkirk, and Captain Andrews of the Defiance, who, on the 10th of June, off Cape Race, the southernmost part of Newfoundland, fell in with three men-of war, part of the French fleet, Commanded by M. Bois de la Motte; and, after a very severe engagement of five Hours, succeeded in capturing the Alcide of sixty-four guns, and the Lys of sixty-four.- E.

(583) Dr. Stone.

(584) Eldest daughter and coheiress of the great Duke of Argyle, and widow of the Earl of Dalkeith.-E.

(585) Franklin, who occupied the cottage in the enclosure which Mr. Walpole afterwards called the Flower-garden at Strawberry Hill. When he bought the ground on which this tenement stood, he allowed Franklin to continue to occupy it during his life.

(586) Arthur Young, in his "Six Weeks' Tour," gives the following description of Wanstead: "It is one of the noblest houses in England. The magnificence of having four state bed- chambers, with complete apartments to them, and the ball-room, are superior to any thing of the kind in Houghton, Holkham, Blenheim and Wilton: but each of these houses is superior to this in other particulars; and, to form a complete, palace, something must be taken from all."-E.

(587) Evelyn, who visited Wanstead, March 16, 1682-3, says, "I went to see Sir Josiah Child's prodigious cost in planting walnut-trees about his seat, and making fish-ponds many miles in circuit, in Epping Forest, in a barren spot, as oftentimes these suddenly moneyed men for the most part. seat themselves. He, from a merchant's apprentice, and management of the East India Company's stock, being arrived to an estate ('tis said) 200,000 pounds, and lately married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Beaufort, late Marquis of Worcester, with 50,000 pounds portional present, and various expectations."

(588) Walpole's favourite cat Selima, on the death of which, by falling into a china tub, with gold fishes in it, Gray wrote an Ode. After the death of the poet, Walpole placed the china vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a few lines of' the Ode written for its inscription.-E.

263 Letter 140 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1755.

Having done with building and planting, I have taken to farming; the first fruits of my proficience in that science I offer to you, and have taken the liberty to send you a couple of cheeses. If you will give yourself the trouble to inquire at Brackley for the coach, which set out this morning you will receive a box and a roll of paper. The latter does not contain a cheese, only a receipt for making them. We have taken so little of the French fleet, that I fear none of it will come to my share, or I would have sent you part of the spoils. I have nothing more to send you, but a new ballad, which my Lord Bath has made on this place; you remember the old burden of it, and the last lines allude to Billy Bristow's having fallen in love with it.

I am a little pleased to send you this, to show you, that in summer we are a little pretty, though you will never look at us but in our ugliness. My best compliments to Miss Montagu, and my service to whatever baronet breakfasts with you, on negus. Have you heard that poor Lady Browne is so unfortunate as to have lost her last daughter; and that Mrs. Barnett is so lucky as to have lost her mother-in-law, and is Baroness Dacre of the South? I met the great C`u t'other day, and he asked me if I ever heard from you; that he never did: I told him that I did not neither; did not I say true?

263 Letter 141 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, July 26, 1755.

who would not turn farmer, when their very first essay turns to so good account? Seriously, I am quite pleased with the success of mystery, and infinitely obliged to you for the kind things you say about my picture. You must thank Mrs. Whetenhall, too, for her prepossession about my cheeses: I fear a real manufacturer of milk at Strawberry Hill would not have answered quite so well as our old commodities of paint and copper-plates.

I am happy for the recovery of Miss Montagu, and the tranquillity you must feel after so terrible a season of apprehension. Make my compliments to her, and if you can be honest on so tender a topic, tell her, that she will always be in danger, while you shut her up in Northamptonshire, and that with her delicate constitution she ought to live nearer friends and help; and I know of no spot so healthy or convenient for both, as the county of Twicks.

Charles Townshend is to be married next month: as the lady had a very bad husband before, she has chosen prudently, and has settled herself in a family of the best sort of people in the world, who will think of nothing but making her happy. I don't know whether the bridegroom won't be afraid of getting her any more children, lest it should prejudice those she has already! they are a wonderful set of people for good-natured considerations!

You know, to be sure, that Mr. Humberston(589) is dead, and your neighbouring Brackley likely to return under the dominion of its old masters. Lady Dysart(590) is dead too.

Mr. Chute is at the Vine. Your poor Cliquetis is still a banished man. I have a scheme for bringing him back, but can get Mrs. Tisiphone into no kind of terms, and without tying her up from running him into new debts, it is in vain to recover him.

I believe the declaration of war has been stopped at the Custom-house, for one hears nothing of it. You see I am very paragraphical, and in reality have nothing to say; so good night! Yours ever.

(589)Member for Brackley.-E.

(590) Daughter of the Earl of Granville.

264 Letter 142 To Richard Bentley, Esq. Strawberry Hill, August 4, 1755, between 11 and 12 at night.

I came from London to-day, and am just come from supping at Mrs. Clive's, to write to you by the fireside. We have been exceedingly troubled for some time with St. Swithin's diabetes, and have not a dry thread in any walk about us. I am not apt to complain of this malady, nor do I: it keeps us green at present, and will make our shades very thick, against we are fourscore, and fit to enjoy them. I brought with me your two letters of July 30 and August 1st; a sight I have not seen a long time! But, my dear Sir, you have been hurt at my late letters. Do let me say thus much in excuse for myself. You know how much I value, and what real and great satisfaction I have in your drawings. Instead of pleasing me with so little trouble to yourself, do you think it was no mortification to receive every thing but your drawings? to find you full of projects, and, I will not say, with some imprudences? But I have done on this subject--my friendship will always be the same for you; it will only act with more or less cheerfulness, as you use your common sense, or your disposition to chimerical schemes and carelessness. To give you all the present satisfaction in my power, I will tell you * * * * *

I think your good-nature means to reproach me with having dropped any hint of finding amusement in contemplating a war. When one would not do any thing to promote it, when one would do any thing to put a period to it, when one is too insignificant to contribute to either, I must own I see no blame in thinking an active age more agreeable to live in, than a soporific one. But, O my dear Sir, I must adopt your patriotism-Is not it laudable to be revived with the revival of British glory? Can I be an indifferent spectator of the triumphs of my country'? Can I help feeling a tattoo at my heart, when the Duke of Newcastle makes as great a figure in history as Burleigh or Godolphin-nay, as Queen Bess herself! She gained no battles in person; she was only the actuating genius. You seem to have heard of a proclamation of war, of which we have not heard; and not to have come to the knowledge of taking of Beau S`ejour(591) by Colonel Monckton. In short, the French and we seem to have crossed over and figured in, in politics.(592) Mirepoix complained grievously that the Duke of Newcastle had overreached him-but he is to be forgiven in so good a cause! It is the first person he ever deceived! I am preparing a new folio for heads of the heroes that are to bloom in mezzo-tinto from this war. At present my chief study is West Indian history. You would not think me very ill-natured if you knew all I feel at the cruelty and villany of European settlers: but this very morning I found that part of the purchase of Maryland from the savage proprietors (for we do not massacre, we are such good Christians as only to cheat) was a quantity of vermilion and a parcel of Jews-harps! Indeed, if I pleased, I might have another study; it is my fault if I am not a commentator and a corrector of the press. The Marquis de St. Simon, whom I mentioned to you, at a very first visit proposed to me to look over a translation he had made of The Tale of a Tub: the proposal was soon followed by a folio, and a letter of three sides, to press me seriously to revise it. You shall judge of my scholar's competence. He translates L'Estrange, Dryden, and others, l'`etrange Dryden, etc.(593) Then in the description of the tailor as an idol, and his goose as the symbol; he says in a note, that the goose means the dove, and is a concealed satire on the Holy Ghost. It put me in mind of the Dane, who, talking of orders to a Frenchman, said, "Notre St. Esprit, est un `el`ephant."

Don't think, because I prefer your drawings to every thing in the world, that I am such a churl as to refuse Mrs. Bentley's partridges: I shall thank her very much for them. You must excuse me If I am vain enough to be so convinced of my own taste, that all the neglect that has been thrown upon your designs cannot make me think I have overvalued them. I must think that the states of Jersey who execute your town-house,- have much more judgment than all our connoisseurs. When I every day see Greek, and Roman, and Italian, and Chinese, and Gothic architecture embroidered and inlaid upon one another, or called by each other's names, I can't help thinking that the grace and simplicity and truth of your taste, in whichever you undertake is real taste. I go farther: I wish you would know in what you excel, and not be bunting after twenty things unworthy your genius. If flattery is my turn, believe this to be so.

Mr. Muntz is at the Vine, and has been some time. I want to know more of this history of the German: I do assure you, that I like both his painting and behaviour; but if any history of any kind is to accompany him, I shall be most willing to part with him. However I may divert myself as a spectator of broils, believe me I am thoroughly sick of having any thing to do in any. Those in a neighbouring island are likely to subside-and, contrary to custom, the priest(594) himself is to be the sacrifice.

I have contracted a sort of intimacy with Garrick, who is my neighbour. He affects to study my taste: I lay it all upon you--he admires you. He is building a grateful temple to Shakspeare: I offered him this motto: "Quod spiro et placeo, si placeo tuum est!" Don't be surprised if you should hear of me as a gentleman come upon the stage next winter for my diversion. The truth is, I make the most of this acquaintance to protect my poor neighbour at Clivden--You understand the conundrum, Clive's den.

Adieu, my dear Sir! Need I repeat assurances? If I need, believe that nothing that can tend to your recovery has been or shall be neglected by me. You may trust me to the utmost of my power: beyond that, what can I do? Once more, adieu!

(591) In June, 1755, the French fort of Beau Sejour, in the Bay of Fundy, surrendered to Colonel Monckton, and two small forts, Gaspereau and Venango, also capitulated. These were the first conquests of the British arms in America during that war. He gave the name of Fort Cumberland to Beau S`ejour.-E.

(592) This alludes to England and France not being at open war, though constantly committing aggressions against each other. The capture of these forts formed the first article Of complaint against England, in the French declaration of war, in June, 1756.-E.

(593) The Marquis de St. Simon did publish, in 1771, a translation of Pope's Essay on Man.-E.

(594) The Primate of ireland.

266 Letter 143 To Richard Bentley, Esq. Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1755.

My dear sir, Though I wrote to you so lately, and have certainly nothing new to tell you, I can't help scribbling a line to YOU to-night, as I am going to Mr. Rigby's for a week or ten days, and must thank you first for the three pictures. One of them charms me, the Mount Orgueil, which is absolutely fine; the sea, and shadow upon it, are masterly. The other two I don't, at least won't, take for finished. If you please, Elizabeth Castle shall be Mr. Muntz's performance: indeed I see nothing of You in it. I do reconnoitre you in the Hercules and Nessus; but in both your colours are dirty, carelessly dirty: in your distant hills you are improved, and not hard. The figures are too large--I don't mean in the Elizabeth Castle, for there they are neat; but the centaur, though he dies as well as Garrick can, is outrageous. Hercules and Deianira are by no means so: he is sentimental, and she most improperly sorrowful. However, I am pleased enough to beg you would continue. As soon as Mr. Muntz returns from the Vine, you shall have a supply of colours. In the mean time why give up the good old trade of drawing? Have you no Indian ink, no soot-water, no snuff, no Coat of onion, no juice of any thing? If you love me, draw: you would if you knew the real pleasure you can give me. I have been studying all your drawings; and next to architecture and trees, I determine that you succeed in nothing better than animals. Now (as the newspapers say) the late ingenious Mr. Seymour is dead, I would recommend horses and greyhounds to you. I should think you capable of a landscape or two with delicious bits of architecture. I have known you execute the light of a torch or lanthorn so well, that if it was called Schalken, a housekeeper at Hampton-court or Windsor, or a Catherine at Strawberry Hill, would show it, and say it cost ten thousand pounds. Nay, if I could believe that you would ever execute any more designs I proposed to you, I would give you a hint for a picture that struck me t'other day in P`er`efixe's Life of Henry IV.(595) He says, the king was often seen lying upon a common straw-bed among the soldiers, with a piece of brown bread in one hand, and a bit of charcoal in t'other, to draw an encampment, or town that he was besieging. If this is not a character and a picture, I don't know what is.

I dined to-day at Garrick's: there were the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holderness, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one is lord chamberlain, the other groom of the stole; and the wife of a secretary of state. This is the being sur un assez bon ton for a player! Don't you want to ask me how I like him? Do want, and I will tell you. I like her exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness too. I don't know how, he does not improve so fast upon me: there is a great deal of parts, and vivacity, and variety, but there is a great deal too of mimicry and burlesque. I am very ungrateful, for he flatters me abundantly; but unluckily I know it. I was accustomed to it enough when my father was first minister: on his fall I lost it all at once: and since that, I have lived with Mr. Chute, who is all vehemence; with Mr. Fox, who is all disputation; with Sir Charles Williams, who has no time from flattering himself; with Gray, who does not hate to find fault with me; with Mr. Conway, who is all sincerity; and with you and Mr. Rigby, who have always laughed at me in a good-natured way. I don't know how, but I think I like all this as well--I beg his pardon, Mr. Raftor does flatter me; but I should be a cormorant for praise, if I could swallow it whole as he gives it me.

Sir William Yonge, who has been extinct so long is at last dead and the war, which began with such a flirt of vivacity, is I think gone to sleep. General Braddock has not yet sent over to claim the surname of Americanus. But why should I take pains to show You in how many ways I know nothing?--Why; I can tell it you in one word--why, Mr. Cambridge knows nothing!--I wish you good-night! Yours ever.

(595) Hardouin de P`er`efixe's Histoire du Roi Henri le Grand appeared in 1661. He is stated, by the editor Of the Biog. Univ. to be the best historian of that monarch, and the work has been translated in many languages. He was appointed preceptor to Louis XIV. in 1644, and Archbishop of Paris in 1622. He died in 1670.-E.

268 Letter 144 To Sir Horace Mann. Mistley, August 21, 1755. '

I shall laugh at you for taking so seriously what I said to you about my Lady Orford. Do you think, my dear Sir, that at this time I can want to learn your zeal for us? or can you imagine that I did not approve for your own sake your keeping fair terms with the Countess? If I do not much forget, I even recommended it to you--but let us talk no more of her; she has engrossed more paragraphs in our letters than she deserves.

I promised you a brisk war: we have done our part, but can I help it, if the French will not declare it?-if they are backward, and cautious, and timorous; if they are afraid of provoking too far SO great a power as England, who threatens the liberties of Europe? I laugh, but how not to laugh at such a world as this! Do you remember the language of the last war? What were our apprehensions? Nay, at the conclusion of the peace, nothing was laid down for a maxim but the impossibility of our engaging in another war; that our national debt was at its ne plus ultra; and that on the very next discussion France must swallow us up! Now we are all insolent, alert, and triumphant: nay the French talk of nothing but guarding against our piracies, and travel Europe to give the alarm against such an overbearing power as we are. On their coasts they are alarmed--I mean the common people; I scarce believe they who know any thing, are in real dread of invasion from us! Whatever be the reason, they don't declare war: some think they wait for the arrival of their Martinico fleet. You will ask why we should not attack that too? They tell one, that if we began hostilities in Europe, Spain would join the French. Some believe that the latter are not ready: certain it is, Mirepoix gave them no notice nor suspicion of our flippancy; and he is rather under a cloud--indeed this has much undeceived me in one point: I took him for the ostensible mister; but little thought that they had not some secret agent of better head, some priest, some Scotch or Irish Papist-or perhaps some English Protestant, to give them better intelligence. But don't you begin to be impatient for the events of all our West Indian expeditions? The Duke,(596) who is now the soul of the Regency, and who on all hands is allowed to make a great figure there, is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped. It is said for him, that he has had bad guides, that the roads are exceedingly difficult, and that it was necessary to drag as much artillery as he does. This is not the first time, as witness in Hawley,(597) that the Duke has found that brutality did not necessarily consummate a general. I love to give you an idea of our characters as they rise upon the stage of history. Braddock is a very Iroquois in disposition. He had a sister, who having gamed away all her little fortune at Bath, hanged herself(598) with a truly English deliberation, leaving only a note upon the table with those lines "To die is landing on some silent shore," etc. When Braddock was told of it, he only said, "Poor Fanny! I always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up!"' But a more ridiculous story of him, and which is recorded in heroics by Fielding in his Covent-Garden tragedy, was an amorous discussion he had formerly with a Mrs. Upton, who had kept him. He had gone the greatest lengths with her pin-money, and was still craving. One day that he was very pressing, she pulled out her purse and showed him that she had but twelve or fourteen shillings left; he twitched it from her, "Let me see that." Tied up at the other end he found five guineas; he took them, tossed the empty purse in her face, saying, "Did you mean to cheat me?" and never went near her more:--now you are acquainted with General Braddock.

We have some royal negotiations proceeding in Germany, which are not likely to give quite so much satisfaction to the Parliament of next winter, as our French triumphs give to the City, where nothing is so popular as the Duke of Newcastle. There is a certain Hessian treaty, said to be eighteen years long, which is arrived at the Treasury, Legge refused peremptorily to sign it--you did not expect patriotism from thence? It will not make him popular: there is not a mob in England now capable of being the dupe of patriotism; the late body of that denomination have really so discredited it, that a minister must go great lengths indeed before the people would dread him half so much as a patriot! On the contrary, I believe nothing would make any man so popular, or conciliate so much affection to his ministry, as to assure the people that he never had nor ever would pretend to love his country. Legge has been frowned upon by the Duke of Newcastle ever since he was made chancellor of the exchequer by him, and would have been turned out long ago if Sir George Lee would have accepted the post. I am sorry that just when Tuscany is at war with Algiers, your countrymen should lie under the odour of piracy too; it will give Richcourt opportunities of saying very severe things to you!--Barbarossa our Dey is not returned yet-we fear he is going to set his grandson(599) up in a seraglio; and as we have not, among other Mahometan customs, copied the use of the bowstring for repressing the luxuriancy of the royal branches, we shall be quite overrun with young Sultans! Adieu!

(596) The Duke of Cumberland.

(597) General Hawley, who behaved with great cruelty and brutality in the Scotch rebellion, which did not however Prevent his being beaten by the rebels,-D.

(598) The story of this unfortunate young lady is told by Goldsmith, in his amusing Life of Beau Nash, introduced into the new and @greatly enlarged edition of his "Miscellaneous Works," published by Mr. Murray, in 1837, in four volumes octavo. See vol. iii. p. 294. According to the poet, the lines which were written on one of the panes of the window, were these:-

"O Death! thou pleasing end of human wo! Thou cure for life! thou greatest good below! Still may'st thou fly the coward and the slave, And thy soft slumbers only bless the brave."-E.

(599) The King had a mind to marry the Prince of Wales to a Princess of Brunswick.

270 Letter 145 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, August 28, 1755.

My last letter to you could not be got out of England, before I might have added a melancholy supplement. Accounts of a total defeat of Braddock, and his forces are arrived from America; the purport is, that the General having arrived within a few miles of Fort du Quesne, (I hope you are perfect in your American geography?) sent an advanced party, under Lord Gage's brother: they were fired upon, invisibly, as they entered a wood; Braddock heard guns, and sent another party to support the former; but the first fell back in confusion on the second, and the second on the main body. The whole was in disorder, and it is said, the General himself', though exceedingly brave, did not retain all the sang froid that was necessary. The common soldiers in general, fled; the officers stood heroically and were massacred: our Indians were not surprised, and behaved gallantly. The General had five horses shot under him, no bad symptoms of his spirit, and at last was brought off by two Americans, no English daring, though Captain Orme,(600) his aid-de-camp, who is wounded too, and has made some noise here by an affair of gallantry, offered Sixty guineas to have him conveyed away. We have lost twenty-six officers, besides many wounded, and ten pieces of artillery. Braddock lived four days, in great torment.(601) What makes the rout more shameful is, that instead of a great pursuit, and a barbarous massacre by the Indians, which is always to be feared in these rencontres, not a black or white soul followed our troops, but we had leisure two days afterwards to fetch off our dead. In short, our American laurels are strangely blighted! We intended to be in great alarms for Carolina and Virginia, but the small number of our enemies had reduced this affair to a panic. We pretend to be comforted on the French deserting Fort St. John, and on the hopes we have from two other expeditions which are on foot in that part of the world-but it is a great drawback on English heroism I pity you who represent the very flower of British courage ingrafted on a Brunswick stock!

I have already given you some account of Braddock; I may complete the poor man's history in a few more words: he once had a duel with Colonel Gumley, Lady Bath's(602) brother, who had been his great friend: as they were going to engage, Gumley, who had good humour and wit, (Braddock had the latter,) said "Braddock, you are a poor dog! here take my purse; if you kill me you will be forced to run away, and then you will not have a shilling to support you." Braddock refused the purse, insisted on' the duel, was disarmed, and would not even ask his life. However, with all his brutality, he has lately been Governor of Gibraltar, where he made himself adored, and where scarce any Governor was endured before. Adieu! Pray don't let any detachment from Pannoni's(603) be sent against us--we should run away!

(600) He married the sister of George Lord Townshend, without the consent of her family.

(601) Walpole, in his Memoires, says, that "he dictated an encomium on his officers, and expired."-D.

(602) Elizabeth Gumley, wife of William Pulteny, Earl of Bath.

(603) Pannoni's coffeehouse of the Florentine nobility, not famous for their courage of late.

271 Letter 146 To Richard Bentley, Esq. Arlington Street, August 28, 1755.

Our piratic laurels, with which the French have so much reproached us, have been exceedingly pruned! Braddock is defeated and killed, by a handful of Indians and by the baseness of his own troops, who sacrificed him and his gallant officers. Indeed, there is some suspicion that cowardice was not the motive, but resentment at having been draughted from Irish regiments. Were such a desertion universal, could one but commend@it'@ Could one blame men who should refuse to be knocked on the head for sixpence a day, and for the advantage and dignity of a few ambitious? But in this case one pities the brave young @officers, who cannot so easily disfranchise themselves from the prejudices of glory! Our disappointment is greater than our loss; six-and-twenty officers are killed, who, I suppose, have not left a vast many fatherless and widowless, as an old woman told me to-day with great tribulation. The ministry have a much more serious affair on their hands-Lord Lincoln and Lord Anson have had a dreadful quarrel! Coquus teterrima belli causa! When Lord Mountford shot himself, Lord Lincoln said, "Well, I am very sorry for poor Mountford! but it is the part of a wise man to make the best of every misfortune-I shall now have the best cook in England." This was uttered before Lord Anson. Joras,(604)-- who is a man of extreme punctilio, as cooks and officers ought to be, would not be hired till he knew whether this Lord Mountford would retain him. When it was decided that he would not, Lord Lincoln proposed to hire Joras. Anson had already engaged him. Such a breach of friendship was soon followed by an expostulation (there was jealousy of the Duke of Newcastle's favour already under the coals): in short the nephew earl called the favourite earl such gross names, that it was well they were ministers! otherwise, as Mincing says, "I vow, I believe they must have fit." The public, that is half-a-dozen toad-eaters, have great hopes that the present unfavourable posture of affairs in America will tend to cement this breach, and that we shall all unite hand and heart against the common enemy.

I returned the night before last from my peregrination. It is very unlucky for me that no crown of martyrdom is entailed on zeal for antiquities; I should be a rubric martyr of the first class. After visiting the new salt-water baths at Harwich, (which, next to horse-racing, grows the most fashionable resource for people who want to get out of town, and who love the country and retirement!) I went to see Orford castle, and Lord Hertford's at Sudborn. The one is a ruin, and the other ought to be so. Returning in a one-horse chair over a wild vast heath, I went out of the road to see the remains of Buttley Abbey; which however I could not see; for, as the keys of Orford castle were at Sudborn, so the keys of Buttley were at Orford! By this time it was night; we lost our way, were in excessive rain for above two hours, and only found our way to be overturned into the mire the next morning going into Ipswich. Since that I went to see an old house built by Secretary Naunton.(605) His descendant, who is a strange retired creature, was unwilling to let us see it; but we did, and little in it worth seeing. The house never was fine, and is now out of repair; has a bed with ivory pillars and loose rings, presented to the secretary by some German prince or German artist; and a small gallery of indifferent portraits, among which there are scarce any worth notice but of the Earl of Northumberland, Anna Bullen's lover, and of Sir Antony Wingfield, who having his hand tucked into his girdle, the housekeeper told us, had had his fingers cut off by Harry VIII. But Harry VIII. was not a man pour s'arr`eter `a ces minuties la!

While we waited for leave to see the house, I strolled into the churchyard, and was struck with a little door open into the chancel, through the arch of which I discovered cross-legged knights and painted tombs! In short, there are no less than eight considerable monuments, very perfect, of Wingfields, Nauntons, and a Sir John Boynet and his wife, as old as Richard the Second's time. But what charmed me still more, were two figures of Secretary Naunton's father and mother in the window in painted glass, near two feet high, and by far the finest painting on glass I ever saw. His figure, in a puffed doublet, breeches and bonnet, and cloak of scarlet and yellow, is absolutely perfect: her shoulder is damaged. This church, which is scarce bigger than a large chapel, is very ruinous, though containing such treasures! Besides these, there are brasses on the pavement, with a succession of all the wonderful head-dresses which our plain virtuous grandmothers invented to tempt our rude and simple ancestors.- -I don't know what our nobles might be, but I am sure that Milliners three or four hundred years ago must have been more accomplished in the arts, as Prynne calls them, of crisping, curling, frizzling, and frouncing, than all the tirewomen of Babylon, modern Paris, or modern Pall-Mall. Dame Winifred Boynet, whom I mentioned above, is accoutered with the coiffure called piked horns, which, if there were any signs in Lothbury and Eastcheap, must have brushed them about strangely, as their ladyships rode behind their gentlemen ushers! Adieu!

(604) The name of the cook in question.

(605) Sir Robert Naunton, master of the court of wards. He wrote Anecdotes of Queen Elizabeth and her favourites.

273 Letter 147 To The Rev. Henry Etough.(606) Woolterton, Sept. 10, 1755.

Dear Etough, I cannot forbear any longer to acknowledge the many favours from you lately; your last was the 8th of this month. His Majesty's speedy arrival among his British subjects is very desirable and necessary, whatever may be the chief motive for his making haste. As to Spain, I have from the beginning told my friends, when they asked, both in town and country, that I was at all apprehensive that Spain would join with France against us; for this plain reason, because it could not possibly be the interest of the Spaniards to do it for should the views of the French take place in making a line of forts from the Mississippi to Canada, and of being masters of the whole of that extent of country, Peru and Mexico, and Florida, would be in more danger from them than the British settlements in America.

Mr. Fowle has made me a visit for a few days, and communicated to me your two pieces relating to my brother and Lord Bolingbroke, and I think you do great justice to them both in their very different and opposite characters; but you will give me leave to add with respect to Lord Orford, there are several mistakes and misinformations, of which I am persuaded I could convince you by conversation, but my observations are not proper for a letter. Of this more fully when I see you, but when that will be I can't yet tell. I am ever most affectionately yours, etc.

(606) The Rev. Henry Etough, of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge. He received his education among the Dissenters, and Archbishop Secker and Dr. 'Birch were among his schoolfellows. Through the interest of Sir Robert Walpole, he was presented to the rectory of Therfield, in Hertfordshire; where he died, in his seventieth year, in August 1757.-E.

273 Letter 148 To Richard Bentley, Esq. Strawberry Hill, September 18, 1755.

My dear sir, After an expectation of six weeks, I have received a letter from you, dated August 23d. Indeed I did not impute any neglect to you; I knew it arose from the war; but Mr. S. * * * * tells me the packets will now be more regular.--Mr. S * * * tells me!--What, has he been in town, or at Strawberry?--No; but I have been at Southampton: I was at the Vine; and on the arrival of a few fine days, the first we have had this summer, after a deluge, Mr. Chute persuaded me to take a jaunt to Winchester and Netley Abbey, with the latter of which he is very justly enchanted. I was disappointed in Winchester: it is a paltry town, and small: King Charles the Second's house is the worst thing I ever saw of Sir Christopher Wren, a mixture of a town-hall and an hospital; not to mention the bad choice of the situation in such a country; it is all ups that should be downs. I talk to you as supposing that you never have been at Winchester, though I suspect you have, for the entrance of the cathedral is the very idea of that of Mabland. I like the smugness of the cathedral, and the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs. That of Cardinal Beaufort is in a style more free and of more taste than any thing I have seen of the kind. His figure confirms me in my opinion that I have struck out the true history of the picture that I bought of Robinson; and which I take for the marriage of Henry VI. Besides the monuments of the Saxon Kings, of Lucius, William Rufus, his brother, etc. there are those of six such great or considerable men as Beaufort, William of Wickham, him of Wainfleet, the Bishops Fox and Gardiner, and my Lord Treasurer Portland.--How much power and ambition under half-a-dozen stones! I own, I grow to look on tombs as lasting mansions, instead of observing them for curious pieces of architecture!- -Going into Southampton, I passed Bevismount, where my Lord Peterborough

"Hung his trophies o'er his garden gate;"(607)

but General Mordaunt was there, and we could not see it. We walked long by moonlight on the terrace along the beach- -Guess, if we talked of and wished for you! The town is crowded; sea-baths are established there too. But how shall I describe Netley to you? I can only by telling YOU, that it is the spot in the world for which Mr. Chute and I wish. The ruins are vast, and retain fragments of beautiful fretted roofs pendent in the air, With all variety of Gothic patterns of windows wrapped round and round with ivy-many trees are sprouted up amongst the walls, and Only want to be increased with cypresses! A hill rises above the abbey encircled with wood: the fort, in which we would build a tower for habitation, remains with two small platforms. This little castle is buried from the abbey in a wood, in the very centre, on the edge of the hill: on each side breaks in the view of the Southampton sea, deep blue, glistering with silver and vessels; on one side terminated by Southampton, on the other by Calshot castle; and the Isle of Wight rising above the opposite hills. In short, they are not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise.--OH! the purple abbots, what a spot had they chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, that they seem only to have retired into the world.(608)

I know nothing of the war, but that we catch little French ships like crawfish. They have taken one of ours with Governor Lyttelton(609) going to South Carolina. He is a very worthy young man, but so stiffened with Sir George's old fustian, that I am persuaded he is at this minute in the citadel of Nantes comparing himself to Regulus.

Gray has lately been here. He has begun an Ode,(610) which if he finishes equally, will, I think, inspirit all your drawing again. It is founded on an old tradition of Edward 1. putting to death the Welsh bards. Nothing but you, or Salvator Rosa, and Nicolo Poussin, can paint up to the expressive horror and dignity of it. Don't think I mean to flatter you; all I would say is, that now the two latter are dead, you must of necessity be Gray's painter. In order to keep your talent alive, I shall next week send you flake white, brushes, oil, and the enclosed directions from Mr. Muntz, who is still at the Vine, and whom, for want of you, we labour hard to form. I shall put up in the parcel two or three prints of my eagle, which, as you never would draw it, is very moderately performed; and yet the drawing was much better than the engraving. I shall send you too a trifling snuff-box, only as a sample of the new manufacture at Battersea, which is done with copper-plates. Mr. Chute is at the Vine, where I cannot say any works go on in proportion to my impatience. I have left him an inventionary of all I want to have done there; but I believe it may be bound up with the century of projects of that foolish Marquis of Worcester, who printed a catalogue of titles of things which he gave no directions to execute, nor I believe could.(611) Adieu!

(607) "Our Gen'rals now, retired to their estate, Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gate." Pope, in this couplet, is said to have alluded to the entrance of Lord Peterborough's lawn at Bevismount.-E.

(608) Gray, who visited Netley Abbey in the preceding month, calls it "a most beautiful ruin in as beautiful a situation."-E.

(609) william Henry, brother of Sir George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton. The man-of-war in which he was proceeding to South Carolina was captured by the French squadron under Count Guay, and sent into Nantes, but was shortly afterwards restored.-E.

(610) "The Bard" was commenced this year, but was for some time left unfinished; but the accident of seeing a blind Harper (Mr. Parry) perform on a Welsh harp, again put his Ode in motion, and brought it at last to a conclusion, See Works, vol. i. p. xxxiii.-E.

(611) Vol. i. letter 259 to H. S. Conway, Aug. 29, 1748.

275 Letter 149 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 23, 1755.

Dear harry, Never make me excuses for a letter that tells me so many agreeable things -as your last; that you are got well to Dublin;(612) that you are all well, and that you have accommodated all your politics to your satisfaction--and I may be allowed to say, greatly to your credit 'What could you tell me that would please me so much When I have indulged a little my joy for your success and honour, it is natural to consider the circumstances you have told me; and you will easily excuse me if I am not quite as much satisfied with the conduct of your late antagonists, as I with yours. You have tranquillized a nation, have repaired your master's honour, and secured the peace of your administration;-but what shall one say to the Speaker, Mr. Malone and the others? Don't they confess that they have gone the greatest lengths, and risked the safety of their country on a mere personal pique? If they did not contend for profit, like our patriots (and you don't tell me that they have made any lucrative stipulations), yet it is plain that their ambition had been wounded, and that they resented their power being crossed. But I, Who am Whig to the backbone, indeed in the strictest sense of the word, feel hurt in a tenderer point, and which you,. who are a minister, must not allow me: I am offended at their agreeing to an address that avows such deference for prerogative, and that is to protest so deeply against having to attack it. However rebel this may sound at your court, my Gothic spirit is hurt; I do not love such loyal expressions from a Parliament. I do not so much consider myself writing to Dublin castle, as from Strawberry castle, where you know how I love to enjoy my liberty. I give myself the airs, in my nutshell, of an old baron, and am tempted almost to say with an old Earl of Norfolk, who was a very free speaker at least, if he was not an excellent poet,

"When I am in my castle of Bungey, Situate upon the river Waveney, I ne care for the King of cockney."

I have been roving about Hampshire, have been at Winchester and Southampton and twenty places, and have been but one day in London --consequently know as little news as if I had been shut up in Bungey castle. Rumours there are of great bickerings and uneasiness; but I don't believe there will be any bloodshed of places, except Legge's, which nobody seems willing to take-I mean as a sinecure. His Majesty of Cockney is returned exceedingly well, but grown a little out of humour at finding that we are not so much pleased with all the Russians and Hessians that he has hired to recover the Ohio. We are an ungrateful people! Make a great many compliments for me to my Lady Ailesbury; I own I am in pain about Missy. As my lady is a little coquette herself, and loves crowds and admiration, and a court life, it will be very difficult for her to keep a strict eye upon Missy. The Irish are very forward and bold:--I say no more but it would hurt you both extremely to have her marry herself idly and I think my Lord Chancellor has not extended his matrimonial foresight to Ireland. However, I have much confidence in Mrs. Elizabeth Jones:(613) I am sure, when they were here, she would never let Missy whisper with a boy that was old enough to speak. Adieu! As the winter advances, and plots thicken, I will write you letters that shall have a little more in them than this. In the mean time I am going to Bath, not for my health, you know I never am ill, but for my amusement. I never was there, and at present there are several of my acquaintance. The French academy have chosen my Lord Chesterfield, and he has written them a letter of thanks. that is the finest composition in the world - indeed, I was told so by those who have not seen it; but they would have told me so if they had seen it, whether it was the finest or the worst; suffices it to be his! Yours ever.

(612) mr. Conway was now secretary of state to the Marquis of Hartington, lord lieutenant of Ireland.

(613) Miss Conway's nurse.

277 Letter 150 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Sept. 29, 1755.