Volume 1 — A SELECTION (continued 4)

I cannot help smiling at the great objects of our letters. We never converse on a less topic than a kingdom. We are a kind of citizens of the world, and battles and revolutions are the common incidents of our neighbourhood. But that is and must be the case of distant correspondences: Kings and Empresses that we never saw, are the only persons we can be acquainted with in common. We can have no more familiarity than the Daily Advertiser would have if it wrote to the Florentine Gazette. Adieu! My compliments to any monarch that lives within five hundred miles of you.

A YEAR OF TRIUMPHS.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 21, 1759.

Your pictures shall be sent as soon as any of us go to London, but I think that will not be till the Parliament meets. Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this? It is still all gold.[1] I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday. Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt. One thing is very fatiguing—all the world is made knights or generals. Adieu! I don't know a word of news less than the conquest of America. Adieu! yours ever.

[Footnote 1: The immediate cause of this exultation was the battle (September 14th) and subsequent capture of Quebec. On the other side of the world Colonel Forde had inflicted severe defeats on the French and Dutch, and had taken Masulipatam; and besides these triumphs there were our naval successes mentioned in the last letter, and the battle of Minden.]

P.S.—You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

2nd P.S.—I had sealed my letter, but break it open again, having forgot to tell you that Mr. Cowslade has the pictures of Lord and Lady Cutts, and is willing to sell them.

FRENCH BANKRUPTCY—FRENCH EPIGRAM.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, Nov. 8, 1759.

Your pictures will set out on Saturday; I give you notice, that you may inquire for them. I did not intend to be here these three days, but my Lord Bath taking the trouble to send a man and horse to ask me to dinner yesterday, I did not know how to refuse; and besides, as Mr. Bentley said to me, "you know he was an old friend of your father."

The town is empty, but is coming to dress itself for Saturday. My Lady Coventry showed George Selwyn her clothes; they are blue, with spots of silver, of the size of a shilling, and a silver trimming, and cost—my lord will know what. She asked George how he liked them; he replied, "Why, you will be change for a guinea."

I find nothing talked of but the French bankruptcy;[1] Sir Robert Brown, I hear—and am glad to hear—will be a great sufferer. They put gravely into the article of bankrupts in the newspaper, "Louis le Petit, of the city of Paris, peace-breaker, dealer, and chapman;" it would have been still better if they had said, "Louis Bourbon of petty France." We don't know what is become of their Monsieur Thurot, of whom we had still a little mind to be afraid. I should think he would do like Sir Thomas Hanmer, make a faint effort, beg pardon of the Scotch for their disappointment, and retire. Here are some pretty verses just arrived.

Pourquoi le baton à Soubise, Puisque Chevert est le vainqueur?[2] C'est de la cour une méprise, Ou bien le but de la faveur. Je ne vois rien là qui m'étonne, Repond aussitot un railleur; C'est à l'aveugle qu'on le donne, Et non pas au conducteur.

[Footnote 1: In 1759 M. Bertin was Finance Minister—the fourth who had held that office in four years; and among his expedients for raising money he had been compelled to have recourse to the measure of stopping the payment of the interest on a large portion of the National Debt.]

[Footnote 2: "Chevert est le vainqueur." He was one of the most brilliant officers in the French army. It was he who, under the orders of Saxe, surprised Prague in 1744, and it was to him that Maréchal d'Estrées was principally indebted for his victory of Hastenbeck.]

Lady Meadows has left nine thousand pounds in reversion after her husband to Lord Sandwich's daughter. Apropos to my Lady Meadows's maiden name, a name I believe you have sometimes heard; I was diverted t'other day with a story of a lady of that name,[1] and a lord, whose initial is no farther from hers than he himself is sometimes supposed to be. Her postillion, a lad of sixteen, said, "I am not such a child but I can guess something: whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in nobody else, and then they call for a pen and ink, and say they are going to write history." Is not this finesse so like him? Do you know that I am persuaded, now he is parted, that he will forget he is married, and propose himself in form to some woman or other.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Montagu was the foundress of "The Blue-stocking Club." She was the authoress of three "Dialogues of the Dead," to which Walpole is alluding here, and which she published with some others by Lord Lyttelton.]

When do you come? if it is not soon, you will find a new town. I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire; there are twenty new stone houses: at first I concluded that all the grooms, that used to live there, had got estates, and built palaces. One young gentleman, who was getting an estate, but was so indiscreet as to step out of his way to rob a comrade, is convicted, and to be transported; in short, one of the waiters at Arthur's. George Selwyn says, "What a horrid idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate!"

I was still more surprised t'other day, than at seeing Piccadilly, by receiving a letter from the north of Ireland from a clergyman, with violent encomiums on my "Catalogue of Noble Authors"—and this when I thought it quite forgot. It puts me in mind of the queen[1] that sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe.

[Footnote 1: Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I., who erected the cross at Charing, and others at the different places where her body had stopped on the way from the North to Westminster.]

Mr. Chute has got his commission to inquire about your Cutts, but he thinks the lady is not your grandmother. You are very ungenerous to hoard tales from me of your ancestry: what relation have I spared? If your grandfathers were knaves, will your bottling up their bad blood mend it? Do you only take a cup of it now and then by yourself, and then come down to your parson, and boast of it, as if it was pure old metheglin? I sat last night with the Mater Gracchorum—oh! 'tis a Mater Jagorum; if her descendants taste any of her black blood, they surely will make as wry faces at it as the servant in Don John does when the ghost decants a corpse. Good night! I am just returning to Strawberry, to husband my two last days and to avoid all the pomp of the birthday. Oh! I had forgot, there is a Miss Wynne coming forth, that is to be handsomer than my Lady Coventry; but I have known one threatened with such every summer for these seven years, and they are always addled by winter!

HE LIVES AMONGST ROYALTY—COMMOTIONS IN IRELAND.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 7, 1760.

You must not wonder I have not written to you a long time; a person of my consequence! I am now almost ready to say, We, instead of I. In short, I live amongst royalty—considering the plenty, that is no great wonder. All the world lives with them, and they with all the world. Princes and Princesses open shops, in every corner of the town, and the whole town deals with them. As I have gone to one, I chose to frequent all, that I might not be particular, and seem to have views; and yet it went so much against me, that I came to town on purpose a month ago for the Duke's levée, and had engaged Brand to go with me—and then could not bring myself to it. At last, I went to him and Princess Emily yesterday. It was well I had not flattered myself with being still in my bloom; I am grown so old since they saw me, that neither of them knew me. When they were told, he just spoke to me (I forgive him; he is not out of my debt, even with that): she was exceedingly gracious, and commended Strawberry to the skies. To-night, I was asked to their party at Norfolk House. These parties are wonderfully select and dignified: one might sooner be a knight of Malta than qualified for them; I don't know how the Duchess of Devonshire, Mr. Fox, and I, were forgiven some of our ancestors. There were two tables at loo, two at whist, and a quadrille. I was commanded to the Duke's loo; he was sat down: not to make him wait, I threw my hat upon the marble table, and broke four pieces off a great crystal chandelier. I stick to my etiquette, and treat them with great respect; not as I do my friend, the Duke of York. But don't let us talk any more of Princes. My Lucan appears to-morrow; I must say it is a noble volume. Shall I send it to you—or won't you come and fetch it?

There is nothing new of public, but the violent commotions in Ireland,[1] whither the Duke of Bedford still persists in going. Aeolus to quell a storm!

[Footnote 1: "In 1759 reports that a Legislative Union was contemplated led to some furious Protestant riots in Dublin. The Chancellor and some of the Bishops were violently attacked. A judge in a law case warned the Roman Catholics that 'the laws did not presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom'; nor could they breathe without the connivance of the Government" (Lecky, "History of England," ii. 436). Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, mentions that they forced their way into the House of Lords, and "placed an old woman on the throne, and called for pipes and tobacco." He especially mentions the Bishops of Killaloe and Waterford as exposed to ardent ill-treatment, and concludes: "The notion that had possessed the crowd was that an union was to be voted between the two nations, and they should have no more Parliaments in Dublin."]

I am in great concern for my old friend, poor Lady Harry Beauclerc; her lord dropped down dead two nights ago, as he was sitting with her and all their children. Admiral Boscawen is dead by this time. Mrs. Osborn[1] and I are not much afflicted: Lady Jane Coke too is dead, exceedingly rich; I have not heard her will yet.

[Footnote 1: Boscawen had been a member of the court martial which had found Admiral Byng guilty. Mrs. Osborn was Byng's sister.]

If you don't come to town soon, I give you warning, I will be a lord of the bedchamber, or a gentleman usher. If you will, I will be nothing but what I have been so many years—my own and yours ever.

SEVERITY OF THE WEATHER—SCARCITY IN GERMANY—A PARTY AT PRINCE EDWARD'S—CHARLES TOWNSEND'S COMMENTS ON LA FONTAINE.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 14, 1760.

How do you contrive to exist on your mountain in this rude season? Sure you must be become a snowball! As I was not in England in forty-one, I had no notion of such cold. The streets are abandoned; nothing appears in them: the Thames is almost as solid. Then think what a campaign must be in such a season! Our army was under arms for fourteen hours on the twenty-third, expecting the French; and several of the men were frozen when they should have dismounted. What milksops the Marlboroughs and Turennes, the Blakes and the Van Tromps appear now, who whipped into winter quarters and into port, the moment their noses looked blue. Sir Cloudesley Shovel said that an admiral would deserve to be broke, who kept great ships out after the end of September, and to be shot if after October. There is Hawke in the bay weathering this winter, after conquering in a storm. For my part, I scarce venture to make a campaign in the Opera-house; for if I once begin to freeze, I shall be frozen through in a moment. I am amazed, with such weather, such ravages, and distress, that there is anything left in Germany, but money; for thither, half the treasure of Europe goes: England, France, Russia, and all the Empress can squeeze from Italy and Hungary, all is sent thither, and yet the wretched people have not subsistence. A pound of bread sells at Dresden for eleven-pence. We are going to send many more troops thither; and it is so much the fashion to raise regiments, that I wish there were such a neutral kind of beings in England as abbés,[1] that one might have an excuse for not growing military mad, when one has turned the heroic corner of one's age. I am ashamed of being a young rake, when my seniors are covering their grey toupees with helmets and feathers, and accoutering their pot-bellies with cuirasses and martial masquerade habits. Yet rake I am, and abominably so, for a person that begins to wrinkle reverendly. I have sat up twice this week till between two and three with the Duchess of Grafton, at loo, who, by the way, has got a pam-child this morning, and on Saturday night I supped with Prince Edward at my Lady Rochford's, and we stayed till half an hour past three. My favour with that Highness continues, or rather increases. He makes everybody make suppers for him to meet me, for I still hold out against going to court. In short, if he were twenty years older, or I could make myself twenty years younger, I might carry him to Campden House, and be as impertinent as ever my Lady Churchill was; but, as I dread being ridiculous, I shall give my Lord Bute no uneasiness. My Lady Maynard, who divides the favour of this tiny court with me, supped with us. Did you know she sings French ballads very prettily? Lord Rochford played on the guitar, and the Prince sung; there were my two nieces, and Lord Waldegrave, Lord Huntingdon, and Mr. Morrison the groom, and the evening was pleasant; but I had a much more agreeable supper last night at Mrs. Clive's, with Miss West, my niece Cholmondeley, and Murphy, the writing actor, who is very good company, and two or three more. Mrs. Cholmondeley is very lively; you know how entertaining the Clive is, and Miss West is an absolute original.

[Footnote 1: French chroniclers remark that the title Abbé had long since ceased in France to denote the possession of any ecclesiastical preferment, but had become a courteous denomination of unemployed ecclesiastics; and they compare it to the use of the term "Esquire" in England.]

There is nothing new, but a very dull pamphlet written by Lord Bath, and his chaplain Douglas, called a "Letter to Two Great Men." It is a plan for the peace, and much adopted by the City, and much admired by all who are too humble to judge for themselves.

I was much diverted the other morning with another volume on birds by Edwards, who has published four or five. The poor man, who is grown very old and devout, begs God to take from him the love of natural philosophy; and having observed some heterodox proceedings among bantam cocks, he proposes that all schools of girls and boys should be promiscuous, lest, if separated, they should learn wayward passions. But what struck me most were his dedications, the last was to God; this is to Lord Bute, as if he was determined to make his fortune in one world or the other.

Pray read Fontaine's fable of the lion grown old; don't it put you in mind of anything? No! not when his shaggy majesty has borne the insults of the tiger and the horse, &c., and the ass comes last, kicks out his only remaining fang, and asks for a blue bridle? Apropos, I will tell you the turn Charles Townshend gave to this fable. "My lord," said he, "has quite mistaken the thing; he soars too high at first: people often miscarry by not preceding by degrees; he went and at once asked for my Lord Carlisle's garter—if he would have been contented to ask first for my Lady Carlisle's garter, I don't know but he would have obtained it!" Adieu!

CAPTURE OF CARRICKFERGUS.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 28, 1760.

The next time you see Marshal Botta, and are to act King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, you must abate about a hundredth thousandth part of the dignity of your crown. You are no more monarch of all Ireland, than King O'Neil, or King Macdermoch is. Louis XV. is sovereign of France, Navarre, and Carrickfergus. You will be mistaken if you think the peace is made, and that we cede this Hibernian town, in order to recover Minorca, or to keep Quebec and Louisbourg. To be sure, it is natural you should think so: how should so victorious and heroic a nation cease to enjoy any of its possessions, but to save Christian blood? Oh! I know you will suppose there has been another insurrection, and that it is King John of Bedford, and not King George of Brunswick, that has lost this town. Why, I own you are a great politician, and see things in a moment—and no wonder, considering how long you have been employed in negotiations; but for once all your sagacity is mistaken. Indeed, considering the total destruction of the maritime force of France, and that the great mechanics and mathematicians of this age have not invented a flying bridge to fling over the sea and land from the coast of France to the north of Ireland, it was not easy to conceive how the French should conquer Carrickfergus—and yet they have. But how I run on! not reflecting that by this time the old Pretender must have hobbled through Florence on his way to Ireland, to take possession of this scrap of his recovered domains; but I may as well tell you at once, for to be sure you and the loyal body of English in Tuscany will slip over all this exordium to come to the account of so extraordinary a revolution. Well, here it is. Last week Monsieur Thurot—oh! now you are au fait!—Monsieur Thurot, as I was saying, landed last week in the isle of Islay, the capital province belonging to a great Scotch King, who is so good as generally to pass the winter with his friends here in London. Monsieur Thurot had three ships, the crews of which burnt two ships belonging to King George, and a house belonging to his friend the King of Argyll—pray don't mistake; by his friend, I mean King George's, not Thurot's friend. When they had finished this campaign, they sailed to Carrickfergus, a poorish town, situate in the heart of the Protestant cantons. They immediately made a moderate demand of about twenty articles of provisions, promising to pay for them; for you know it is the way of modern invasions to make them cost as much as possible to oneself, and as little to those one invades. If this was not complied with, they threatened to burn the town, and then march to Belfast, which is much richer. We were sensible of this civil proceeding, and not to be behindhand, agreed to it; but somehow or other this capitulation was broken; on which a detachment (the whole invasion consists of one thousand men) attack the place. We shut the gates, but after the battle of Quebec, it is impossible that so great a people should attend to such trifles as locks and bolts, accordingly there were none—and as if there were no gates neither, the two armies fired through them—if this is a blunder, remember I am describing an Irish war. I forgot to give you the numbers of the Irish army. It consisted of four companies—indeed they consisted but of seventy-two men, under Lieut.-colonel Jennings, a wonderful brave man—too brave, in short, to be very judicious. Unluckily our ammunition was soon spent, for it is not above a year that there have been any apprehensions for Ireland, and as all that part of the country are most protestantly loyal, it was not thought necessary to arm people who would fight till they die for their religion. When the artillery was silenced, the garrison thought the best way of saving the town was by flinging it at the heads of the besiegers; according they poured volleys of brickbats at the French, whose commander, Monsieur Flobert, was mortally knocked down, and his troops began to give way. However, General Jennings thought it most prudent to retreat to the castle, and the French again advanced. Four or five raw recruits still bravely kept the gates, when the garrison, finding no more gunpowder in the castle than they had had in the town, and not near so good a brick-kiln, sent to desire to surrender. General Thurot accordingly made them prisoners of war, and plundered the town.

THE BALLAD OF "HARDYKNUTE"—MR. HOME'S "SIEGE OF AQUILEIA"—"TRISTRAM SHANDY"—BISHOP WARBURTON'S PRAISE OF IT.

TO SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE.

STRAWBERRY HILL, April 4, 1760.

Sir,—As I have very little at present to trouble you with myself, I should have deferred writing till a better opportunity, if it were not to satisfy the curiosity of a friend; a friend whom you, Sir, will be glad to have made curious, as you originally pointed him out as a likely person to be charmed with the old Irish poetry you sent me. It is Mr. Gray, who is an enthusiast about those poems, and begs me to put the following queries to you; which I will do in his own words, and I may say truly, Poeta loquitur.

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

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

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

"I have been often told, that the poem called Hardykanute[1] (which I always admired and still admire) was the work of somebody that lived a few years ago. This I do not at all believe, though it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand; but, however, I am authorised by this report to ask, whether the two poems in question are certainly antique and genuine. I make this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am not otherwise concerned about it; for if I were sure that any one now living in Scotland had written them, to divert himself and laugh at the credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the Highlands only for the pleasure of seeing him."

[Footnote 1: "Hardyknute" was an especial favourite of Sir W. Scott. In his "Life of Mr. Lockhart" he mentions having found in one of his books a mention that "he was taught 'Hardyknute' by heart before he could read the ballad itself; it was the first poem he ever learnt, the last he should ever forget" (c. 2). And in the very last year of his life, while at Malta, in a discussion on ballads in general, "he greatly lamented his friend Mr. Frere's heresy in not esteeming highly enough that of 'Hardyknute.' He admitted that it was not a veritable old ballad, but 'just old enough,' and a noble imitation of the best style." In fact, it was the composition of a lady, Mrs. Hachet, of Wardlaw.]

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

The "Siege of Aquileia," of which you ask, pleased less than Mr. Home's other plays.[1] In my own opinion, "Douglas" far exceeds both the other. Mr. Home seems to have a beautiful talent for painting genuine nature and the manners of his country. There was so little of nature in the manners of both Greeks and Romans, that I do not wonder at his success being less brilliant when he tried those subjects; and, to say the truth, one is a little weary of them. At present, nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance: it is a kind of novel, called "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy;"[2] the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards. I can conceive a man saying that it would be droll to write a book in that manner, but have no notion of his persevering in executing it. It makes one smile two or three times at the beginning, but in recompense makes one yawn for two hours. The characters are tolerably kept up, but the humour is for ever attempted and missed. The best thing in it is a Sermon, oddly coupled with a good deal of coarseness, and both the composition of a clergyman. The man's head, indeed, was a little turned before, now topsy-turvy with his success and fame. Dodsley has given him six hundred and fifty pounds for the second edition and two more volumes (which I suppose will reach backwards to his great-great-grandfather); Lord Fauconberg, a donative of one hundred and sixty pounds a-year; and Bishop Warburton[3] gave him a purse of gold and this compliment (which happened to be a contradiction), "that it was quite an original composition, and in the true Cervantic vein:" the only copy that ever was an original, except in painting, where they all pretend to be so. Warburton, however, not content with this, recommended the book to the bench of bishops, and told them Mr. Sterne, the author, was the English Rabelais. They had never heard of such a writer. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: "Mr. Home's other plays." Mr. Home was a Presbyterian minister. His first play was "The Tragedy of Douglas," which D'Israeli describes as a drama which, "by awakening the piety of domestic affections with the nobler passions, would elevate and purify the mind;" and proceeds, with no little indignation, to relate how nearly it cost the author dear. The "Glasgow divines, with the monastic spirit of the darkest ages, published a paper, which I abridge for the contemplation of the reader, who may wonder to see such a composition written in the eighteenth century: 'On Wednesday, February 2, 1757, the Presbytery of Glasgow came to the following resolution: They, having seen a printed paper intituled an admonition and exhortation of the reverend Presbytery of Edinburgh, which, among other evils prevailing, observed the following melancholy but notorious facts, that one who is a minister of the Church of Scotland did himself write and compose a stage play, intituled 'The Tragedy of Douglas,' and got it to be acted at the theatre of Edinburgh; and that he, with several other ministers of the Church, were present, and some of them oftener than once, at the acting of the said play before a numerous audience. The presbytery being deeply affected with this new and strange appearance, do publish these sentiments,'" &c., &c.—sentiments with which I will not disgust the reader.]

[Footnote 2: Walpole's criticism is worth preserving as a singular proof how far prejudice can obscure the judgement of a generally shrewd observer, and it is the more remarkable since he selects as its especial fault the failure of the author's attempts at humour; while all other critics, from Macaulay to Thackeray, agree in placing it among those works in which the humour is most conspicuous and most attractive. Even Johnson, when Boswell once, thinking perhaps that his "illustrious friend" might be offended with its occasional coarseness, pronounced Sterne to be "a dull fellow," was at once met with, "Why no, Sir."]

[Footnote 3: Bishop Warburton was Bishop of Gloucester, a prelate whose vast learning was in some degree tarnished by unepiscopal violence of temper. He was a voluminous author; his most important work being an essay on "The Divine Legation of Moses." In one of his letters to Garrick he praises "Tristram Shandy" highly, priding himself on having recommended it to all the best company in town.]

ERSE POETRY—"THE DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD"—"THE COMPLETE ANGLER."

TO SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE.

June 20, 1760.

I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry: all of it has merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six descriptions of night with which you favoured me before, and which I like as much as any of the pieces. I can, however, by no means agree with the publisher, that they seem to be parts of an heroic poem; nothing to me can be more unlike. I should as soon take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and say it was an epic poem on the History of England. The greatest part are evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write by the rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give to any work a title that must convey so different an idea to every common reader. I could wish, too, that the authenticity had been more largely stated. A man who knows Dr. Blair's character will undoubtedly take his word; but the gross of mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be sceptical in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.

I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on "The Dialogues of the Dead;"[1] indeed, there are very few that differ from us. It is well for the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to ruin his book by improving it, as you have done in the lively little specimen you sent me. Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue, called "Pericles and Aristides," which will have a different effect from what yours would have. One of the most objectionable passages in Lord Lyttelton's book is, in my opinion, his apologising for the moderate government of Augustus. A man who had exhausted tyranny in the most lawless and unjustifiable excesses is to be excused, because, out of weariness or policy, he grows less sanguinary at last!

[Footnote 1: "The Dialogues of the Dead" were by Lord Lyttelton. In an earlier letter Walpole pronounces them "not very lively or striking."]

There is a little book coming out, that will amuse you. It is a new edition of Isaac Walton's "Complete Angler,"[1] full of anecdotes and historic notes. It is published by Mr. Hawkins,[2] a very worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did not think angling so very innocent an amusement. We cannot live without destroying animals, but shall we torture them for our sport—sport in their destruction? I met a rough officer at his house t'other day, who said he knew such a person was turning Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose, and opened the window to let out a moth. I told him I did not know that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too. One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly. It is a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last year have been gained since the suppression of the Bear Garden and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have made it so, that our valour did not singly and solely depend upon these two Universities. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: "The Complete Angler" is one of those rare books which retain its popularity 250 years after its publication—not for the value of its practical instructions to fishermen, for in this point of view it is valueless (Walton himself being only a worm or livebait fisherman, and the chapters on fly-fishing being by Cotton), but for its healthy tone and love of country scenery and simple country amusements which are seldom more attractively displayed.]

[Footnote 2: Afterwards Sir John Hawkins, the executor and biographer of Dr. Johnson.]

VISITS IN THE MIDLAND COUNTIES—WHICHNOVRE—SHEFFIELD—THE NEW ART OF PLATING—CHATSWORTH—HADDON HALL—HARDWICKE—APARTMENTS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS—NEWSTEAD—ALTHORP.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, Sept. 1, 1760.

I was disappointed at your not being at home as I returned from my expedition.

My tour has been extremely agreeable. I set out with winning a good deal at Loo at Ragley; the Duke of Grafton was not so successful, and had some high words with Pam. I went from thence to Offley's at Whichnovre[1], the individual manor of the flitch of bacon, which has been growing rusty for these thirty years in his hall. I don't wonder; I have no notion that one could keep in good humour with one's wife for a year and a day, unless one was to live on the very spot, which is one of the sweetest scenes I ever saw. It is the brink of a high hill; the Trent wriggles through at the foot; Lichfield and twenty other churches and mansions decorate the view. Mr. Anson has bought an estate [Shugborough] close by, whence my Lord used to cast many a wishful eye, though without the least pretensions even to a bit of lard.

[Footnote 1: The manor of Whichnovre, near Lichfield, is held (like the better-known Dunmow, in Essex) on the singular custom of the Lord of the Manor "keeping ready, all times of the year but Lent, one bacon-flyke hanging in his hall, to be given to every man or woman who demanded it a year and a day after marriage, upon their swearing that they would not have changed for none other, fairer nor fouler, richer nor poorer, nor for no other descended of great lineage sleeping nor waking at no time."]

I saw Lichfield Cathedral, which has been rich, but my friend Lord Brooke and his soldiery treated poor St. Chad[1] with so little ceremony, that it is in a most naked condition. In a niche at the very summit they have crowded a statue of Charles the Second, with a special pair of shoe-strings, big enough for a weathercock. As I went to Lord Strafford's I passed through Sheffield, which is one of the foulest towns in England in the most charming situation; there are two-and-twenty thousand inhabitants making knives and scissors: they remit eleven thousand pounds a week to London. One man there has discovered the art of plating copper with silver; I bought a pair of candlesticks for two guineas that are quite pretty. Lord Strafford has erected the little Gothic building, which I got Mr. Bentley to draw; I took the idea from Chichester Cross. It stands on a high bank in the menagerie, between a pond and a vale, totally bowered over with oaks. I went with the Straffords to Chatsworth and stayed there four days; there were Lady Mary Coke, Lord Besborough and his daughters, Lord Thomond, Mr. Boufoy, the Duke, the old Duchess, and two of his brothers. Would you believe that nothing was ever better humoured than the ancient Grace? She stayed every evening till it was dark in the skittle-ground, keeping the score; and one night, that the servants had a ball for Lady Dorothy's birthday, we fetched the fiddler into the drawing-room, and the dowager herself danced with us! I never was more disappointed than at Chatsworth,[2] which, ever since I was born, I have condemned. It is a glorious situation; the vale rich in corn and verdure, vast woods hang down the hills, which are green to the top, and the immense rocks only serve to dignify the prospect. The river runs before the door, and serpentises more than you can conceive in the vale. The Duke is widening it, and will make it the middle of his park; but I don't approve an idea they are going to execute, of a fine bridge with statues under a noble cliff. If they will have a bridge (which by the way will crowd the scene), it should be composed of rude fragments, such as the giant of the Peak would step upon, that he might not be wetshod. The expense of the works now carrying on will amount to forty thousand pounds. A heavy quadrangle of stables is part of the plan, is very cumbrous, and standing higher than the house, is ready to overwhelm it. The principal front of the house is beautiful, and executed with the neatness of wrought plate; the inside is most sumptuous, but did not please me; the heathen gods, goddesses, Christian virtues, and allegoric gentlefolks, are crowded into every room, as if Mrs. Holman had been in heaven and invited everybody she saw. The great apartment is first; painted ceilings, inlaid floors, and unpainted wainscots make every room sombre. The tapestries are fine, but not fine enough, and there are few portraits. The chapel is charming. The great jet d'eau I like, nor would I remove it; whatever is magnificent of the kind in the time it was done, I would retain, else all gardens and houses wear a tiresome resemblance. I except that absurdity of a cascade tumbling down marble steps, which reduces the steps to be of no use at all. I saw Haddon, an abandoned old castle of the Rutlands, in a romantic situation, but which never could have composed a tolerable dwelling. The Duke sent Lord John [Cavendish] with me to Hardwicke, where I was again disappointed; but I will not take relations from others; they either don't see for themselves, or can't see for me. How I had been promised that I should be charmed with Hardwicke,[3] and told that the Devonshires ought to have established there! never was I less charmed in my life. The house is not Gothic, but of that betweenity, that intervened when Gothic declined and Paladian was creeping in—rather, this is totally naked of either. It has vast chambers—aye, vast, such as the nobility of that time delighted in, and did not know how to furnish. The great apartment is exactly what it was when the Queen of Scots was kept there. Her council-chamber, the council-chamber of a poor woman, who had only two secretaries, a gentleman-usher, an apothecary, a confessor, and three maids, is so outrageously spacious, that you would take it for King David's, who thought, contrary to all modern experience, that in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. At the upper end is the state, with a long table, covered with a sumptuous cloth, embroidered and embossed with gold,—at least what was gold; so are all the tables. Round the top of the chamber runs a monstrous frieze, ten or twelve feet deep, representing stag-hunting in miserable plastered relief. The next is her dressing-room, hung with patch-work on black velvet; then her state bedchamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters. The hangings, part of which they say her Majesty worked, are composed of figures as large as life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, &c., and represent the virtues that were necessary for her, or that she was forced to have, as Patience and Temperance, &c. The fire-screens are particular; pieces of yellow velvet, fringed with gold, hang on a cross-bar of wood, which is fixed on the top of a single stick, that rises from the foot. The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets, which are all of oak, richly carved. There is a private chamber within, where she lay, her arms and style over the door; the arras hangs over all the doors; the gallery is sixty yards long, covered with bad tapestry, and wretched pictures of Mary herself, Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters, Lord Darnley, James the Fifth and his Queen, curious, and a whole history of Kings of England, not worth sixpence a-piece. There is an original of old Bess of Hardwicke herself, who built the house. Her estates were then reckoned at sixty thousand pounds a-year, and now let for two hundred thousand pounds. Lord John Cavendish told me, that the tradition in the family is, that it had been prophesied to her that she should never die as long as she was building; and that at last she died in a hard frost, when the labourers could not work. There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a lake; nothing else pleased me there. However, I was so diverted with this old beldam and her magnificence, that I made this epitaph for her:—

Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd, And every time so well perform'd, That when death spoil'd each husband's billing, He left the widow every shilling. Fond was the dame, but not dejected; Five stately mansions she erected With more than royal pomp, to vary The prison of her captive Mary. When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head, Nor mass be more in Worksop said; When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end; When Chatsworth tastes no Ca'ndish bounties, Let fame forget this costly countess.

[Footnote 1: Scott alludes to Lord Brooke's violation of St. Chad's Cathedral in "Marmion," whose tomb

Was levelled when fanatic Brooke The fair cathedral stormed and took, But thanks to Heaven and good St. Chad A guerdon meet the spoiler had (c. vi. 36).

And the poet adds in a note that Lord Brooke himself, "who commanded the assailants, was shot with a musket-ball through the visor of his helmet; and the royalists remarked that he was killed by a shot fired from St. Chad's Cathedral on St. Chad's Day, and received his wound in the very eye with which, he had said, he hoped to see the ruin of all the cathedrals in England."]

[Footnote 2: "Disappointed with Chatsworth." In a letter, however, to Lord Strafford three days afterwards he says: "Chatsworth surpassed his expectations; there is such richness and variety of prospect."]

[Footnote 3: Hardwicke was one of what Home calls "the gentleman's houses," to which the unfortunate Queen was removed between the times of her detention at Tutbury and Fotheringay. It is not mentioned by Burton.]

As I returned, I saw Newstead[1] and Althorpe: I like both. The former is the very abbey. The great east window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been so much unprofaned; the present Lord has lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which have been cut near the house. In recompense he has built two baby forts, to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy, and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like ploughboys dressed in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory, now the great drawing-room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor. Althorpe has several very fine pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw it; it is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke [of Cumberland] has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered, except in some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still visible in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to your family.

[Footnote 1: Newstead, since Walpole's time immortalised as the seat of the illustrious Byron. Evelyn had compared it, for its situation, to Fontainebleau, and particularly extolled "the front of a glorious Abbey Church" and its "brave woods and streams;" and Byron himself has given an elaborate description of it under the name of "Norman Abbey," not overlooking its woods:

It stood embosomed in a happy valley Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid-oak Stood like Caractacus in act to rally His host, with broad arms, 'gainst the thunderstroke—

nor the streams:

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its softened way did take In currents through the calmer waters spread Around—

nor the abbey front:

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile While yet the church was Rome's, stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screened many an angle.

("Don Juan," xiii. 56-59.)]

GENTLEMAN'S DRESS—INFLUENCE OF LORD BUTE—ODE BY LORD MIDDLESEX—G. SELWYN'S QUOTATION.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, April 16, 1761.

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace. Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty shillings the yard; you might have a very substantial real lace, which would wear like your buffet, for twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species is out of fashion. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Bushy, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.

I was last night at your plump Countess's, who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs. Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner and was dead before the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head![1] Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward, on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians!

[Footnote 1: Lord Bute used his influence in favour of Scotchmen with so little moderation that he raised a prejudice against the whole nation, which found a vent in Wilkes's North Briton and Churchill's bitter and powerful satire, "The Prophecy of Famine."]

You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen anything so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.

Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join In solemn dirge, while tapers shine Around the grape-embossed shrine Of honest Harry Bellendine.

Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine, Mix'd with your falling tears of brine, In full libation o'er the shrine Of honest Harry Bellendine.

Your brows let ivy chaplets twine, While you push round the sparkling wine, And let your table be the shrine Of honest Harry Bellendine.

He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn. I must tell you an admirable bon mot of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, "How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,

Wake Duncan with this knocking—would thou couldst!"

I enclose the receipt from your lawyer. Adieu!

CAPTURE OF BELLEISLE—GRAY'S POEMS—HOGARTH'S VANITY.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, May 5, 1761.

We have lost a young genius, Sir William Williams; an express from Belleisle, arrived this morning, brings nothing but his death. He was shot very unnecessarily, riding too near a battery; in sum, he is a sacrifice to his own rashness, and to ours. For what are we taking Belleisle?[1] I rejoiced at the little loss we had on landing; for the glory, I leave it the common council. I am very willing to leave London to them too, and do pass half the week at Strawberry, where my two passions, lilacs and nightingales, are in full bloom. I spent Sunday as if it were Apollo's birthday; Gray and Mason were with me, and we listened to the nightingales till one o'clock in the morning. Gray has translated two noble incantations from the Lord knows who, a Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to be enchased in a history of English bards, which Mason and he are writing; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and of which the latter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual footpace, will finish the first page two years hence.

[Footnote 1: Belleisle was of no value to us to keep; but Pitt sent an expedition against it, that in any future treaty of peace he might be able to exchange it for Minorca.]

But the true frantic Oestus resides at present with Mr. Hogarth; I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent—"Why now," said he, "you think this very vain, but why should not one speak truth?" This truth was uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin street-walker, tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, "Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you." I sat down, and said, I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this wonderful dialogue by initial letters.

H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with something in our way. W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would let me have it, to correct; I should be very sorry to have you expose yourself to censure; we painters must know more of those things than other people. W. Do you think nobody understands painting but painters? H. Oh! so far from it, there's Reynolds, who certainly has genius; why, but t'other day he offered a hundred pounds for a picture, that I would not hang in my cellar; and indeed, to say truth, I have generally found, that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it; but what I particularly wished to say to you was about Sir James Thornhill (you know he married Sir James's daughter): I would not have you say anything against him; there was a book published some time ago, abusing him, and it gave great offence. He was the first that attempted history in England, and, I assure you, some Germans have said that he was a very great painter. W. My work will go no lower than the year one thousand seven hundred, and I really have not considered whether Sir J. Thornhill will come within my plan or not; if he does, I fear you and I shall not agree upon his merits. H. I wish you would let me correct it; besides, I am writing something of the same kind myself; I should be sorry we should clash. W. I believe it is not much known what my work is, very few persons have seen it. H. Why, it is a critical history of painting, is not it? W. No, it is an antiquarian history of it in England; I bought Mr. Vertue's MSS., and, I believe, the work will not give much offence; besides, if it does, I cannot help it; when I publish anything, I give it to the world to think of it as they please. H. Oh! if it is an antiquarian work, we shall not clash; mine is a critical work; I don't know whether I shall ever publish it. It is rather an apology for painters. I think it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have not painted better. W. My dear Mr. Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, you now grow too wild—and I left him. If I had stayed, there remained nothing but for him to bite me. I give you my honour this conversation is literal, and, perhaps, as long as you have known Englishmen and painters, you never met with anything so distracted. I had consecrated a line to his genius (I mean, for wit) in my Preface; I shall not erase it; but I hope nobody will ask me if he is not mad. Adieu!

INTENDED MARRIAGE OF THE KING—BATTLES IN GERMANY—CAPTURE OF PONDICHERRY—BURKE.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, July 22, 1761.

For my part, I believe Mademoiselle Scudéri[1] drew the plan of this year. It is all royal marriages, coronations, and victories; they come tumbling so over one another from distant parts of the globe, that it looks just like the handywork of a lady romance writer, whom it costs nothing but a little false geography to make the Great Mogul in love with a Princess of Mecklenburgh, and defeat two marshals of France[2] as he rides post on an elephant to his nuptials. I don't know where I am. I had scarce found Mecklenburg Strelitz with a magnifying-glass before I am whisked to Pondicherry—well, I take it, and raze it. I begin to grow acquainted with Colonel Coote,[3] and figure him packing up chests of diamonds, and sending them to his wife against the King's wedding—thunder go to the Tower guns, and behold, Broglie and Soubise are totally defeated; if the mob have not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherry in Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglie and Soubise united, attacked our army on the 15th, but were repulsed; the next day, the Prince Mahomet Alli Cawn—no, no, I mean Prince Ferdinand, returned the attack, and the French threw down their arms and fled, run over my Lord Harcourt, who was going to fetch the new Queen; in short, I don't know how it was, but Mr. Conway is safe, and I am as happy as Mr. Pitt himself. We have only lost a Lieutenant-colonel Keith; Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend are wounded.

[Footnote 1: Mdlle. Scudéri and her brother were writers of romances of enormous length, and, in their time, of great popularity (see D'Israeli's account of them, "Curiosities of Literature," i. 105).]

[Footnote 2: "Defeat two French marshals"—they were Maréchal de Broglie and the Prince de Soubise. The action, which, however, was of but little importance, is called by Lacretelle "Le Combat de Fillingshausen."]

[Footnote 3: Colonel Eyre Coote, the best soldier next to Clive himself that India had yet seen, had defeated the French Governor, Count Lally, at Wandewash in January, 1760; and the capture of Pondicherry was one important fruit of the victory.]

I could beat myself for not having a flag ready to display on my round tower, and guns mounted on all my battlements. Instead of that, I have been foolishly trying on my new pictures upon my gallery. However, the oratory of our Lady of Strawberry shall be dedicated next year on the anniversary of Mr. Conway's safety. Think with his intrepidity, and delicacy of honour wounded, what I had to apprehend; you shall absolutely be here on the sixteenth of next July. Mr. Hamilton tells me your King does not set out for his new dominions till the day after the Coronation; if you will come to it, I can give you a very good place for the procession; where, is a profound secret, because, if known, I should be teased to death, and none but my first friends shall be admitted. I dined with your secretary [Single-speech Hamilton] yesterday; there were Garrick and a young Mr. Burke[1]—who wrote a book in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will know better one of these days. I like Hamilton's little Marly; we walked in the great allée, and drank tea in the arbour of treillage; they talked of Shakspeare and Booth, of Swift and my Lord Bath, and I was thinking of Madame Sévigné. Good night—I have a dozen other letters to write; I must tell my friends how happy I am—not as an Englishman, but as a cousin.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Burke's book was "A Vindication of Natural Society," and was regarded as a very successful imitation of the style of Lord Bolingbroke.]

ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCESS OF MECKLENBURGH—THE ROYAL WEDDING—THE QUEEN'S APPEARANCE AND BEHAVIOUR.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Sept. 10, 1761.

When we least expected the Queen, she came, after being ten days at sea, but without sickness for above half-an-hour. She was gay the whole voyage, sung to her harpsichord, and left the door of her cabin open. They made the coast of Suffolk last Saturday, and on Monday morning she landed at Harwich; so prosperously has his Majesty's chief eunuch, as they have made the Tripoline ambassador call Lord Anson, executed his commission. She lay that night at your old friend Lord Abercorn's, at Witham [in Essex]; and, if she judged by her host, must have thought she was coming to reign in the realm of taciturnity. She arrived at St. James's a quarter after three on Tuesday the 8th. When she first saw the Palace she turned pale: the Duchess of Hamilton smiled. "My dear Duchess," said the Princess, "you may laugh; you have been married twice; but it is no joke to me." Is this a bad proof of her sense? On the journey they wanted her to curl her toupet. "No, indeed," said she, "I think it looks as well as those of the ladies who have been sent for me: if the King would have me wear a periwig, I will; otherwise I shall let myself alone." The Duke of York gave her his hand at the garden-gate: her lips trembled, but she jumped out with spirit. In the garden the King met her; she would have fallen at his feet; he prevented and embraced her, and led her into the apartments, where she was received by the Princess of Wales and Lady Augusta: these three princesses only dined with the King. At ten the procession went to chapel, preceded by unmarried daughters of peers, and peeresses in plenty. The new Princess was led by the Duke of York and Prince William; the Archbishop married them; the King talked to her the whole time with great good humour, and the Duke of Cumberland gave her away. She is not tall, nor a beauty; pale, and very thin; but looks sensible; and is genteel. Her hair is darkish and fine; her forehead low, her nose very well, except the nostrils spreading too wide; her mouth has the same fault, but her teeth are good. She talks a good deal, and French tolerably; possesses herself, is frank, but with great respect to the King. After the ceremony, the whole company came into the drawing-room for about ten minutes, but nobody was presented that night. The Queen was in white and silver; an endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet, lined with ermine, and attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes halfway down her waist. On her head was a beautiful little tiara of diamonds; a diamond necklace, and a stomacher of diamonds, worth three score thousand pounds, which she is to wear at the Coronation too. Her train was borne by the ten bridesmaids, Lady Sarah Lenox,[1] Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Caroline Montagu, Lady Harriot Bentinck, Lady Anne Hamilton, Lady Essex Kerr (daughters of Dukes of Richmond, Bedford, Manchester, Portland, Hamilton, and Roxburgh); and four daughters of the Earls of Albemarle, Brook, Harcourt, and Ilchester—Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Louisa Greville, Elizabeth Harcourt, and Susan Fox Strangways: their heads crowned with diamonds, and in robes of white and silver. Lady Caroline Russell is extremely handsome; Lady Elizabeth Keppel very pretty; but with neither features nor air, nothing ever looked so charming as Lady Sarah Lenox; she has all the glow of beauty peculiar to her family. As supper was not ready, the Queen sat down, sung, and played on the harpsichord to the Royal Family, who all supped with her in private. They talked of the different German dialects; the King asked if the Hanoverian was not pure—"Oh, no, Sir," said the Queen; "it is the worst of all."—She will not be unpopular.

[Footnote 1: Lady Sarah Lennox, in an account of a theatrical performance at Holland House in a previous letter, is described by Walpole as "more beautiful than you can conceive." The King himself admired her so greatly that he is believed to have had serious thoughts of choosing her to be his queen. She afterwards married Major G. Napier, and became the mother of Sir William and Sir Charles Napier.]

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

The next morning the King had a levée. He said to Lord Hardwicke, "It is a very fine day:" that old gossip replied, "Yes, Sir, and it was a very fine night." Lord Bute had told the King that Lord Orford had betted his having a child before Sir James Lowther, who had been married the night before to Lord Bute's eldest daughter; the King told Lord Orford he should be glad to go his halves. The bet was made with Mr. Rigby. Somebody asked the latter how he could be so bad a courtier as to bet against the King? He replied, "Not at all a bad courtier; I betted Lord Bute's daughter against him."

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

Yours to serve you,

HORACE SANDFORD.

Mecklenburgh King-at-Arms.

THE CORONATION AND SUBSEQUENT GAIETIES.

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Sept. 27, 1761.

You are a mean, mercenary woman. If you did not want histories of weddings and coronations, and had not jobs to be executed about muslins, and a bit of china, and counterband goods, one should never hear of you. When you don't want a body, you can frisk about with greffiers and burgomasters, and be as merry in a dyke as my lady frog herself. The moment your curiosity is agog, or your cambric seized, you recollect a good cousin in England, and, as folks said two hundred years ago, begin to write "upon the knees of your heart." Well! I am a sweet-tempered creature, I forgive you.

[Illustration: THE LIBRARY, STRAWBERRY HILL]

My heraldry was much more offended at the Coronation with the ladies that did walk, than with those that walked out of their place; yet I was not so perilously angry as my Lady Cowper, who refused to set a foot with my Lady Macclesfield; and when she was at last obliged to associate with her, set out on a round trot, as if she designed to prove the antiquity of her family by marching as lustily as a maid of honour of Queen Gwiniver. It was in truth a brave sight. The sea of heads in Palace-yard, the guards, horse and foot, the scaffolds, balconies, and procession exceeded imagination. The Hall, when once illuminated, was noble; but they suffered the whole parade to return into it in the dark, that his Majesty might be surprised with the quickness with which the sconces catched fire. The Champion acted well; the other Paladins had neither the grace nor alertness of Rinaldo. Lord Effingham and the Duke of Bedford were but untoward knights errant; and Lord Talbot had not much more dignity than the figure of General Monk in the Abbey. The habit of the peers is unbecoming to the last degree; but the peeresses made amends for all defects. Your daughter Richmond, Lady Kildare, and Lady Pembroke were as handsome as the Graces. Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, and Lady Lyttelton looked exceedingly well in that their day; and for those of the day before, the Duchess of Queensbury, Lady Westmoreland and Lady Albemarle were surprising. Lady Harrington was noble at a distance, and so covered with diamonds, that you would have thought she had bid somebody or other, like Falstaff, rob me the Exchequer. Lady Northampton was very magnificent too, and looked prettier than I have seen her of late. Lady Spencer and Lady Bolingbroke were not the worst figures there. The Duchess of Ancaster [Mistress of the Robes] marched alone after the Queen with much majesty; and there were two new Scotch peeresses that pleased everybody, Lady Sutherland and Lady Dunmore. Per contra, were Lady P——, who had put a wig on, and old E——, who had scratched hers off; Lady S——, the Dowager E——, and a Lady Say and Sele, with her tresses coal-black, and her hair coal-white. Well! it was all delightful, but not half so charming as its being over. The gabble one heard about it for six weeks before, and the fatigue of the day, could not well be compensated by a mere puppet-show; for puppet-show it was, though it cost a million. The Queen is so gay that we shall not want sights; she has been at the Opera, the Beggar's Opera and the Rehearsal, and two nights ago carried the King to Ranelagh.

Some of the peeresses were so fond of their robes, that they graciously exhibited themselves for a whole day before to all the company their servants could invite to see them. A maid from Richmond begged leave to stay in town because the Duchess of Montrose was only to be seen from two to four. The Heralds were so ignorant of their business, that, though pensioned for nothing but to register lords and ladies, and what belongs to them, they advertised in the newspaper for the Christian names and places of abode of the peeresses. The King complained of such omissions and of the want of precedent; Lord Effingham, the Earl Marshal, told him, it was true there had been great neglect in that office, but he had now taken such care of registering directions, that next coronation would be conducted with the greatest order imaginable. The King was so diverted with this flattering speech that he made the earl repeat it several times.

On this occasion one saw to how high-water-mark extravagance is risen in England. At the Coronation of George II. my mother gave forty guineas for a dining-room, scaffold, and bedchamber. An exactly parallel apartment, only with rather a worse view, was this time set at three hundred and fifty guineas—a tolerable rise in thirty-three years! The platform from St. Margaret's Roundhouse to the church-door, which formerly let for forty pounds, went this time for two thousand four hundred pounds. Still more was given for the inside of the Abbey. The prebends would like a Coronation every year. The King paid nine thousand pounds for the hire of jewels; indeed, last time, it cost my father fourteen hundred to bejewel my Lady Orford.

A COURT BALL—PAMPHLETS ON MR. PITT—A SONG BY GRAY.

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

ARLINGTON STREET, Nov. 28, 1761.

Dear Madam,—You are so bad and so good, that I don't know how to treat you. You give me every mark of kindness but letting me hear from you. You send me charming drawings the moment I trouble you with a commission, and you give Lady Cecilia [Johnston] commissions for trifles of my writing, in the most obliging manner. I have taken the latter off her hands. The Fugitive Pieces, and the "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors" shall be conveyed to you directly. Lady Cecilia and I agree how we lament the charming suppers there, every time we pass the corner of Warwick Street! We have a little comfort for your sake and our own, in believing that the campaign is at an end, at least for this year—but they tell us, it is to recommence here or in Ireland. You have nothing to do with that. Our politics, I think, will soon be as warm as our war. Charles Townshend is to be lieutenant-general to Mr. Pitt. The Duke of Bedford is privy seal; Lord Thomond, cofferer; Lord George Cavendish, comptroller.

Diversions, you know, Madam, are never at high-water mark before Christmas; yet operas flourish pretty well: those on Tuesdays are removed to Mondays, because the Queen likes the burlettas, and the King cannot go on Tuesdays, his post-days. On those nights we have the middle front box, railed in, where Lady Mary [Coke] and I sit in triste state like a Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The night before last there was a private ball at court, which began at half an hour after six, lasted till one, and finished without a supper. The King danced the whole time with the Queen,—Lady Augusta with her four younger brothers. The other performers were: the two Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, who danced little; Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont, who danced much; the six maids of honour; Lady Susan Stewart, as attending Lady Augusta; and Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Jane Stuart, the only women not of the family. Lady Northumberland is at Bath; Lady Weymouth lies in; Lady Bolingbroke was there in waiting, but in black gloves, so did not dance. The men, besides the royals, were Lords March and Eglintoun, of the bedchamber; Lord Cantelupe, vice-chamberlain; Lord Huntingdon; and four strangers, Lord Mandeville, Lord Northampton, Lord Suffolk, and Lord Grey. No sitters-by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Bute.

If it had not been for this ball, I don't know how I should have furnished a decent letter. Pamphlets on Mr. Pitt[1] are the whole conversation, and none of them worth sending cross the water: at least I, who am said to write some of them, think so; by which you may perceive I am not much flattered with the imputation. There must be new personages, at least, before I write on any side.—Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle! I should as soon think of informing the world that Miss Chudleigh is no vestal. You will like better to see some words which Mr. Gray has writ, at Miss Speed's request, to an old air of Geminiani; the thought is from the French.

I.

Thyrsis, when we parted, swore Ere the spring he would return. Ah! what means yon violet flower, And the bud that decks the thorn! 'Twas the lark that upward sprung, 'Twas the nightingale that sung.

II.

Idle notes! untimely green! Why this unavailing haste! Western gales and skies serene Speak not always winter past. Cease my doubts, my fears to move; Spare the honour of my love.

Adieu, Madam, your most faithful servant.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Pitt had lately resigned the office of Secretary of State, on being outvoted in the Cabinet, which rejected his proposal to declare war against Spain; and he had accepted a pension of £3,000 a year and a peerage for his wife—acts which Walpole condemns in more than one letter, and which provoked comments in many quarters.]

DEATH OF THE CZARINA ELIZABETH—THE COCK-LANE GHOST—RETURN TO ENGLAND OF LADY MARY WORTLEY.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 29, 1762.

I wish you joy, sir minister; the Czarina [Elizabeth] is dead. As we conquered America in Germany,[1] I hope we shall overrun Spain by this burial at Petersburg. Yet, don't let us plume ourselves too fast; nothing is so like a Queen as a King, nothing so like a predecessor as a successor. The favourites of the Prince Royal of Prussia, who had suffered so much for him, were wofully disappointed, when he became the present glorious Monarch; they found the English maxim true, that the King never dies; that is, the dignity and passions of the Crown never die. We were not much less defeated of our hopes on the decease of Philip V. The Grand Duke[2] [Peter III.] has been proclaimed Czar at the army in Pomerania; he may love conquest like that army, or not know it is conquering, like his aunt. However, we cannot suffer more by this event. I would part with the Empress Queen, on no better a prospect.

[Footnote 1: "We conquered America in Germany." This is a quotation from a boastful speech of Mr. Pitt's on the conquest of Canada.]

[Footnote 2: The Grand Duke (Peter III.) was married, for his misfortune, to Catharine, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbzt, whose lover, Count Orloff, murdered him before the end of the summer, at his wife's command; and in August she assumed the government, and was crowned with all due solemnity as Czarina or Empress. Walpole had some reason for saying that "nothing was so like a predecessor as a successor," since in character Elizabeth closely resembled Catharine.]

We have not yet taken the galleons, nor destroyed the Spanish fleet. Nor have they enslaved Portugal, nor you made a triumphant entry into Naples. My dear sir, you see how lucky you were not to go thither; you don't envy Sir James Grey, do you? Pray don't make any categorical demands to Marshal Botta,[1] and be obliged to retire to Leghorn, because they are not answered. We want allies; preserve us our friend the Great Duke of Tuscany. I like your answer to Botta exceedingly, but I fear the Court of Vienna is shame-proof. The Apostolic and Religious Empress is not a whit a better Christian, not a jot less a woman, than the late Russian Empress, who gave such proofs of her being a woman.

[Footnote 1: Marshal Botta was the Commander-in-chief in Tuscany.]

We have a mighty expedition on the point of sailing; the destination not disclosed. The German War loses ground daily; however, all is still in embryo. My subsequent letters are not likely to be so barren, and indecisive. I write more to prove there is nothing, than to tell you anything.

You were mistaken, I believe, about the Graftons; they do not remove from Turin, till George Pitt arrives to occupy their house there. I am really anxious about the fate of my letter to the Duchess [of Grafton]; I should be hurt if it had miscarried; she would have reason to think me very ungrateful.

I have given your letter to Mr. T[homas] Pitt; he has been very unfortunate since his arrival—has lost his favourite sister in child-bed. Lord Tavistock, I hear, has written accounts of you that give me much pleasure.

I am ashamed to tell you that we are again dipped into an egregious scene of folly. The reigning fashion is a ghost[1]—a ghost, that would not pass muster in the paltriest convent in the Apennine. It only knocks and scratches; does not pretend to appear or to speak. The clergy give it their benediction; and all the world, whether believers or infidels, go to hear it. I, in which number you may guess, go to-morrow; for it is as much the mode to visit the ghost as the Prince of Mecklenburgh, who is just arrived. I have not seen him yet, though I have left my name for him. But I will tell you who is come too—Lady Mary Wortley.[2] I went last night to visit her; I give you my honour, and you who know her, would credit me without it, the following is a faithful description. I found her in a little miserable bedchamber of a ready-furnished house, with two tallow candles, and a bureau covered with pots and pans. On her head, in full of all accounts, she had an old black-laced hood, wrapped entirely round, so as to conceal all hair or want of hair. No handkerchief, but up to her chin a kind of horseman's riding-coat, calling itself a pet-en-l'air, made of a dark green (green I think it had been) brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with furs; boddice laced, a foul dimity petticoat sprig'd, velvet muffeteens on her arms, grey stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ear. She is very lively, all her senses perfect, her languages as imperfect as ever, her avarice greater. She entertained me at first with nothing but the dearness of provisions at Helvoet. With nothing but an Italian, a French, and a Prussian, all men servants, and something she calls an old secretary, but whose age till he appears will be doubtful; she receives all the world, who go to homage her as Queen Mother,[3] and crams them into this kennel. The Duchess of Hamilton, who came in just after me, was so astonished and diverted, that she could not speak to her for laughing. She says that she has left all her clothes at Venice. I really pity Lady Bute; what will the progress be of such a commencement!

[Footnote 1: It was known as the Cock-lane Ghost. A girl in that lane asserted that she was nightly visited by a ghost, who could reveal a murder, and who gave her tokens of his (or its) presence by knocks and scratches, which were audible to others in the room besides herself; and at last she went so far as to declare that the ghost had promised to attend a witness, who might be selected, into the vault under the Church of St. John's, Clerkenwell, where the body of the supposed victim was buried. Her story caused such excitement, that at last Dr. Johnson, Dr. Douglas (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), and one or two other gentlemen, undertook an investigation of the affair, which proved beyond all doubt that it was a trick, though they could not discover how it was performed, nor could they make the girl confess; and Johnson wrote an account of their investigations and verdict, which was published in The Gentleman's Magazine and the newspapers of the day (Boswell's "Life of Johnson," ann. 1763).]

[Footnote 2: Lady Mary Wortley was a daughter of the Duke of Kingston and wife of Mr. Wortley, our ambassador at Constantinople. She was the most accomplished lady of the eighteenth century. Christian Europe is indebted to her for the introduction of the practice of inoculation for the smallpox, of which she heard during her residence in Turkey, and of the efficacy of which she was so convinced that she caused her own children to be inoculated; and, by publishing its success in their case, she led to its general adoption. It saved innumerable lives in the eighteenth century, and was, in fact, the parent of the vaccination which has superseded it, and which is merely inoculation with matter derived from another source, the cow. She was also an authoress of considerable repute for lyric odes and vers de société, &c., and, above all, for her letters, most of which are to her daughter, Lady Bute (as Mme. de Sévigné's are to her daughter, Mme. de Grignan), and which are in no respect inferior to those of the French lady in sprightly wit, while in the variety of their subjects they are far superior, as giving the account of Turkish scenery and manners, and also of those of other countries which her husband visited on various diplomatic missions, while Mme. de Sévigné's are for the greater part confined to the gossip of the coteries of Paris. Her works occupy five volumes; but what we have is but a small part of what we might have had. D'Israeli points out that "we have lost much valuable literature by the illiberal or malignant descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of Lady Mary Wortley Montague's letters have been destroyed, I am informed, by her daughters, who imagined that the family honours were lowered by the addition of those of literature. Some of her best letters, recently published, were found buried in an old trunk. It would have mortified her ladyship's daughter to have heard that her mother was the Sévigné of Britain" ("Curiosities of Literature," i. 54); and, as will be seen in a subsequent letter (No. 67), Walpole corroborates D'Israeli. Lady Mary was at one time a friend and correspondent of Pope, who afterwards, for some unknown reason, quarrelled with her, and made her the subject of some of the most disgraceful libels that ever proceeded from even his pen.]

[Footnote 3: She was mother of Lady Bute, wife of the Prime Minister.—WALPOLE.]

The King of France has avowed a natural son,[1] and given him the estate which came from Marshal Belleisle, with the title of Comte de Gisors. The mother I think is called Matignon or Maquignon. Madame Pompadour was the Bathsheba that introduced this Abishag. Adieu, my dear sir!

[Footnote 1: This was a false report.—WALPOLE.]

HIS OWN "ANECDOTES OF PAINTING"—HIS PICTURE OF THE WEDDING OF HENRY VII.—BURNET'S COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CHARLES II.—ADDISON'S "TRAVELS."

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

ARLINGTON STREET, March 20, 1762.

I am glad you are pleased, Sir, with my "Anecdotes of Painting;" but I doubt you praise me too much: it was an easy task when I had the materials collected, and I would not have the labours of forty years, which was Vertue's case, depreciated in compliment to the work of four months, which is almost my whole merit. Style is become, in a manner, a mechanical affair, and if to much ancient lore our antiquaries would add a little modern reading, to polish their language and correct their prejudices, I do not see why books of antiquities should not be made as amusing as writings on any other subject. If Tom Hearne had lived in the world, he might have writ an agreeable history of dancing; at least, I am sure that many modern volumes are read for no reason but for their being penned in the dialect of the age.

I am much beholden to you, dear Sir, for your remarks; they shall have their due place whenever the work proceeds to a second edition, for that the nature of it as a record will ensure to it. A few of your notes demand a present answer: the Bishop of Imola pronounced the nuptial benediction at the marriage of Henry VII., which made me suppose him the person represented.[1]

[Footnote 1: In a previous letter Walpole mentions that Vertue (the engraver) had disputed the subject of this picture, because the face of the King did not resemble other pictures of him; but Walpole was convinced of the correctness of his description of it, because it does resemble the face on Henry's shillings, "which are more authentic than pictures."]

Burnet, who was more a judge of characters than statues, mentions the resemblance between Tiberius and Charles II.; but, as far as countenances went, there could not be a more ridiculous prepossession; Charles had a long face, with very strong lines, and a narrowish brow; Tiberius a very square face, and flat forehead, with features rather delicate in proportion. I have examined this imaginary likeness, and see no kind of foundation for it. It is like Mr. Addison's Travels,[1] of which it was so truly said, he might have composed them without stirring out of England. There are a kind of naturalists who have sorted out the qualities of the mind, and allotted particular turns of features and complexions to them. It would be much easier to prove that every form has been endowed with every vice. One has heard much of the vigour of Burnet himself; yet I dare to say, he did not think himself like Charles II.

[Footnote 1: It is Fielding who, in his "Voyage to Lisbon," gave this character to Addison's "Travels."]

I am grieved, Sir, to hear that your eyes suffer; take care of them; nothing can replace the satisfaction they afford: one should hoard them, as the only friend that will not be tired of one when one grows old, and when one should least choose to depend on others for entertainment. I most sincerely wish you happiness and health in that and every other instance.

BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES—THE CZARINA—VOLTAIRE'S HISTORICAL CRITICISMS—IMMENSE VALUE OF THE TREASURES BROUGHT OVER IN THE "HERMIONE."

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Aug. 12, 1762.

A Prince of Wales [George IV.] was born this morning; the prospect of your old neighbour [the Pretender] at Rome does not improve; the House of Hanover will have numbers in its own family sufficient to defend their crown—unless they marry a Princess of Anhalt Zerbst. What a shocking tragedy that has proved already! There is a manifesto arrived to-day that makes one shudder! This northern Athaliah, who has the modesty not to name her murdered husband in that light, calls him her neighbour; and, as if all the world were savages, like Russians, pretends that he died suddenly of a distemper that never was expeditious; mocks Heaven with pretensions to charity and piety; and heaps the additional inhumanity on the man she has dethroned and assassinated, of imputing his death to a judgment from Providence. In short, it is the language of usurpation and blood, counselled and apologised for by clergymen! It is Brunehault[1] and an archbishop!

[Footnote 1: Brunehault (in modern English histories called Brunhild) was the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia (that district of France which lies between the Meuse and the Rhine) and son of Clotaire I. The "Biographie Universelle" says of her: "This Princess, attractive by her beauty, her wit, and her carriage, had the misfortune to possess a great ascendency over her husband, and to have lost sight of the fact that even sovereigns cannot always avenge themselves with impunity." Her sister, Galswith, the wife of Chilperic, King of Neustria, between the Loire and the Meuse, had been assassinated by Fredegonde, and Brunehault, determined to avenge her, induced Sigebert to make war on Chilperic, who had married Fredegonde. He gained a victory; but Fredegonde contrived to have him also assassinated, and Brunehault became Fredegonde's prisoner. But Murovée, son of Chilperic, fell in love with her, and married her, and escaping from Rouen, fled into Austrasia. At last, in 595, Fredegonde died, and Brunehault subdued the greater part of Neustria, and ruled with great but unscrupulous energy. She encouraged St. Augustine in his mission to England; she built hospitals and churches, earning by her zeal in such works a letter of panegyric from Pope Gregory the Great. But, old as she was, she at the same time gave herself up to a life of outrageous license. It was not, however, her dissolute life which proved fatal to her, but the design which she showed to erect a firm monarchy in Austrasia and Neustria, by putting down the overgrown power of the nobles. They raised an army to attack her; she was defeated, and with four of her great-grandchildren, the sons of her grandson, King Theodoric, who had been left to her guardianship, fell into the hands of the nobles, who put her to death with every circumstance of cruelty and indignity. (See Kitchin's "History of France," i. 91.)]

I have seen Mr. Keith's first despatch; in general, my account was tolerably correct; but he does not mention Ivan. The conspiracy advanced by one of the gang being seized, though for another crime; they thought themselves discovered. Orloff, one of them, hurried to the Czarina, and told her she had no time to lose. She was ready for anything; nay, marched herself at the head of fourteen thousand men and a train of artillery against her husband, but not being the only Alecto in Muscovy, she had been aided by a Princess Daschkaw, a nymph under twenty, and sister to the Czar's mistress. It was not the latter, as I told you, but the Chancellor's wife, who offered up the order of St. Catherine. I do not know how my Lord Buckingham [the English Minister at St. Petersburg] feels, but unless to conjure up a tempest against this fury of the north, nothing could bribe me to set my foot in her dominions. Had she been priestess of the Scythian Diana, she would have sacrificed her brother by choice. It seems she does not degenerate; her mother was ambitious and passionate for intrigues; she went to Paris, and dabbled in politics with all her might.

The world had been civilising itself till one began to doubt whether ancient histories were not ancient legends. Voltaire had unpoisoned half the victims to the Church and to ambition. Oh! there never was such a man as Borgia[1]; the league seemed a romance. For the honour of poor historians, the assassinations of the Kings of France and Portugal, majesties still living in spite of Damien and the Jesuits, and the dethronement and murder of the Czar, have restored some credibility to the annals of former ages. Tacitus recovers his character by the edition of Petersburg.

[Footnote 1: Borgia, the father, was Pope Sextus VI.; Caesar Borgia was the son—both equally infamous for their crimes, and especially their murders by poison.]

We expect the definitive courier from Paris every day. Now it is said that they ask time to send to Spain. What? to ask leave to desert them! The Spaniards, not so expeditious in usurpation as the Muscovites, have made no progress in Portugal. Their absurd manifestoes appeared too soon. The Czarina and Princess Daschkaw stay till the stroke is struck. Really, my dear Sir, your Italy is growing unfashionably innocent,—if you don't take care, the Archbishop of Novgorod will deserve, by his crimes, to be at the head of the Christian Church.[1] I fear my friend, good Benedict, infected you all with his virtues.

[Footnote 1: That is, Pope Benedict XIV.]

You see how this Russian revolution has seized every cell in my head—a Prince of Wales is passed over in a line, the peace in another line. I have not even told you that the treasure of the Hermione,[1] reckoned eight hundred thousand pounds, passed the end of my street this morning in one-and-twenty waggons. Of the Havannah I could tell you nothing if I would; people grow impatient at not hearing from thence. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: In August, 1761, Sir G. Pocock took Havannah, the capital of Cuba. In September Commodore Cornish and Colonel Draper took Manilla, the principal of the Philippine Islands; and the treasures found in Manilla alone exceeded the sum here mentioned by Walpole, and yet did not equal those brought home from the Havannah, as Walpole mentions in a subsequent letter.]