184 Death of Madame du Deffand. has added a curious anecdote, and a horrible one, to my collection of the late events. One project of the diabolical incendiaries was to let loose the lions in the Tower, and the lunatics in Bedlam. The latter might be from a fellow-feeling in Lord George, but cannibals do not invite wild beasts to their banquets. The Princess Daskiou will certainly communicate the thought to her mistress and accomplice, the Legislatress of Russia. "P.S. I like an ironic sentence in yesterday's London Courant, which says, all our grievances are red-dressed." To complete the misfortunes of these years, Walpole lost his "blind old woman" in the autumn of 1780. Under date October 9th, he writes from Strawberry Hill to Mann: "I have heard from Paris of the death of my dear old friend Madame du Deffand, whom I went so often thither to see. It was not quite unexpected, and was softened by her great age, eighty-four, which forbad distant hopes; and, by what I dreaded more than her death, her increasing deafness, which, had it become, like her blindness, total, would have been living after death. Her memory only began to impair; her amazing sense and quickness, not at all. I have written to her once a week for these last fifteen years, as correspondence and conversation could be her only pleasures. You see that I am the most faithful letter-writer in the world-and, alas! never see those I am so constant Death of Madame du Deffand. 185 to! One is forbidden common-place reflections on these misfortunes, because they are common-place; but is not that, because they are natural? But your never having known that dear old woman is a better reason for not making you the butt of my concern." Three weeks later we have the following from London to Lady Ossory: "As I have been returned above a fortnight, I should have written had I had a syllable to tell you; but what could I tell you from that melancholy and very small circle at Twickenham Park, almost the only place I do go to in the country, partly out of charity, and partly as I have scarce any other society left which I prefer to it; for, without entering on too melancholy a detail, recollect, Madam, that I have outlived most of those to whom I was habituated, Lady Hervey, Lady Suffolk, Lady Blandford-my dear old friend [Madame du Deffand], I should probably never have seen again— yet that is a deeper loss, indeed! She has left me all her MSS.—a compact between us-in one word I had, at her earnest request, consented to accept them, on condition she should leave me nothing else. She had, indeed, intended to leave me her little all, but I declared I would never set foot in Paris again (this was ten years ago) if she did not engage to retract that destination. To satisfy her, I at last agreed to accept her papers, and one thin gold box with the portrait of her dog. I have written to beg her dog itself, which is so cross, that I am sure nobody else would treat it well; and I have 186 The Blue Stockings. ordered her own servant, who read all letters to her, to pick out all the letters of living persons, and restore them to the several writers without my seeing them," Walpole's liking for accomplished French women like Madame du Deffand was equalled by his dislike of the English "Blue-stockings." At the beginning of 1781, he seems to have been a good deal in company with the latter, and we have some amusing passages: "I met Mrs. Montagu t'other night at a visit. She said she had been alone the whole preceding day, quite hermetically sealed-I was very glad she was uncorked, or I might have missed that piece of learned nonsense. I was much diverted with your setting Mrs. Montagu on her head, which indeed she does herself without the help of Hermes. She is one of my principal entertainments at Mrs. Vesey's, who collects all the graduates and candidates for fame, where they vie with one another, till they are as unintelligible as the good folks at Babel." * "Mr. Gilpin talks of my researches, which makes me smile; I know, as Gray would have said, how little I have researched, and what slender pretensions are mine to so pompous a term. Apropos to Gray, Johnson's 'Life,' or rather criticism on his Odes, is come out; a most wretched, dull, tasteless, verbal criticism—yet, timid too. But he makes amends, he admires Thom * Author of an "Essay on Frints," the third edition of which he dedicated to Horace Walpole. The Blue Stockings. 187 son and Akenside, and Sir Richard Blackmore, and has reprinted Dennis's 'Criticism on Cato,' to save time, and swell his pay. In short, as usual, he has proved that he has no more ear than taste. Mrs. Montagu and all her Mænades intend to tear him limb from limb for despising their moppet Lord Lyttelton." 66 I saw Dr. Johnson last night at Lady Lucan's, who had assembled a blue-stocking meeting in imitation of Mrs. Vesey's Babels. It was so blue, it was quite Mazarine-blue. Mrs. Montagu kept aloof from Johnson, like the West from the East. There were Soame Jenyns, Persian Jones, Mr. Sherlocke, the new court with Mr. Courtenay, besides the out-pensioners of Parnassus. Mr. Wraxall* was not, I wonder why, and so will he, for he is popping into every spot where he can make himself talked of, by talking of himself; but I hear he will come to an untimely beginning in the House of Commons." * Afterwards Sir Nathanie! William Wraxall, Bart., known by his "Memoirs of His Own Life." 188 Walpole in his Sixty-fourth Year CHAPTER VIII. Walpole in his Sixty-fourth Year.-The Royal Academy.-Tonton. Charles Fox.-William Pitt.-Mrs. Hobart's Sans Souci.— Improvements at Florence.-Walpole's Dancing Feats.-No Feathers at Court.-Highwaymen.-Loss of the Royal George.— Mrs. Siddons.-Peace.-Its Social Consequences.-The Coalition.-The Rivals.-Political Excitement.-The Westminster Election.-Political Caricatures.-Conway's Retirement.-Lady Harrington.-Balloons.-Illness.—Recovery. "I NEVER remonstrate against the behests of Dame Prudence, though a lady I never got acquainted with till near my grand climacteric." So wrote Horace soon after passing the mystic period, compounded of seven and nine, which was once regarded as the topmost round in the ladder of human life. He would have his correspondents believe that his attention to the dame's commands was not very regular at first. In the spring of 1781, he is able to report to Conway, "My health is most flourishing for me." Accordingly, he goes about a good deal, and enjoys a sort of rejuvenescence. Of course, he visits the Exhibition of the Royal Academy at Somerset House, where Reynolds's picture of the Ladies Waldegrave was shown. "The Exhibition," he |