Page images
PDF
EPUB

to tell you facts only, not reasonings; and therefore will say no more now on the public. One event, indeed, of Parliamentary complexion. touches my private feelings very particularly. The King has demanded a provision for his younger children, and has been so good as to add the Duke's to the list-nobly too, both from the proportion of the allowance, and the circumstances of the times. The King's sons are to have ten thousand a year each, his daughters six, Prince William eight, and Princess Sophia four. Thus, both income and rank are ascertained. This is a great thorn extracted from all our sides, and I trust will have good influence on his Royal Highness's health.

I was débarrassed (not in so comfortable a way) of my nephew. He has resumed the entire dominion of himself, and is gone into the country, and intends to command the militia. I have done all I could, when scarce anything was in my power, to prevent it; but in vain. He has even asked to be a major-general, which officers of militia cannot be. What a humiliation to know he is thus exposing himself, and not dare to interpose! Yet he is not ignorant of his situation. He said the other day to his Dalilah, speaking of Dr. Monro, "Patty, I like this doctor! don't you? We will have him next time.". What an amazing compost of sense, insensibility, and frenzy! Adieu !

1717. TO THE EARL OF HARCOURT.1

April 16, 1778.

Ir is at the bottom of the first volume of the notes to p. 346 of Warton's second volume, that your Lordship will find how the Erle of Harcourt served the Kyng of his spyce-plate. That Kyng was the real, not nominal, Kyng of France. Will not this piece of intelligence entitle me at least to the post of HarcourtPursuivant ?

I am very ambitious of serving that most ancient and noble House, to which I am bounden by inclination, zeal, and gratitude; and though I am not thought worthy of being Printer to it, I will never miss any occasion of showing myself

Lord and Lady Harcourt's

Most devoted humble servant.

1 Now first published.-CUNNINGHAM.

1718, TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.

Strawberry Hill, April 18, 1778.

I AM come hither like a good Christian to pass in retreat the holy week before Easter, and the unholy week of Newmarket, which has almost beaten Easter out of the Calendar, and to which yet I would give a Scripture appellation, and call it the passover. In these ten days I shall probably fulfil my promise of sending you the heads of my interview with Dr. Robertson; but I will tell you first the little else I have to say. Most people expect a French war: I still doubt it, I do not very well know why, but it does not seem a very decisive age. The Turks and Russians have not yet drawn blood. I take the Emperor to be the most impatient to be a Cæsar, and his mother I suppose is very ready to employ him at a distance from home.

The Commissioners are gone, and Mr. Adams is arrived at Paris. As we do not know the amount of their treaty, all we do is in the dark. I suspect that Dr. Franklin has duped Governor Johnstone, and yet many a dishonest man has been made a fool, as well as many an honest one.

The Opposition are notoriously split into two factions. Lord Shelburne heads the Chathamites, and puts me in mind of a French beggar, who asked charity as one of the quinze vingt aveugles; why, said the person he applied to, you are not blind! helas! non, monsieur, said the fellow, je ne suis qu'un aspirant.

The Foleys are at last likely to lose their cause by the indecent impetuosity of their partizans. If you have not seen it in the papers, you will. Oh! I have begun my letter on a torn sheet, but I cannot write it over again, and so shall proceed. Yes, you will thank me for an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn. When the Foleys had more chance of cancelling their father's will, he said, "The New Testament will now be more favourable to the Jews than the Old."

There is a pretty poem just published called 'The Wreath of Fashion' it is written by one Tickell, a son of Addison's friend.'

1 Richard Tickell was not the son, but the grandson, of Addison's friend. He married a Miss Linley, the sister of Sheridan's first wife, and died by his own hand in 1793. He was the author also (1778) of Anticipation,' one of the liveliest political satires ever written; and (1780) of a clever Epistle in verse, from the Hon. Charles Fox partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townshend cruising.' Compare Walpole to the Misses Berry, 7th Nov., 1793.-CUNNINGHAM.

[ocr errors]

He has been an assistant at Eton, and wrote this winter another poem at least as good, called 'The Project.' The conclusion of the new is very inferior to the rest, and ends absurdly, like Anstey's on Lord Tavistock, with a hemistich; and as absurdly with a panegyric on that water-gruel bard Shenstone, who never wrote anything good but his Schoolmistress.' The Wreath' is a satire on sentimental poets, amongst whom, still more absurdly, he classes Charles Fox; but there is a great deal of wit par cy, par là. He calls sentimental comedies, Dramatic Homelies; says Lord Palmerston fineers (what an admirable word!) rebus's and charades with chips of poetry; and when Lord of the Admiralty, like Ariel, wrecked navies with a song— sure that is an excellent application.

I have very near finished Warton, but, antiquary as I am, it was a tough achievement. He has dipped into an incredible ocean of dry a d obsolete authors of the dark ages, and has brought up more rubbish than riches, but the latter chapters, especially on the progress and revival of the theatre, are more entertaining; however it is very fatiguing to wade through the muddy poetry of three or four centuries that had never a poet.

Have you heard how Voltaire has been at his own Apotheosis? he has literally been crowned with laurel in a side box at his 'Irene,' and seen the actors and actresses decorate his bust with garlands on the stage. As he is so very old, one must excuse his submitting to this vanity; nay, it must have been moving,-yet one is more charmed with the violette, qui se cache sous l'herbe.

As Lord and Lady Strafford are to drink tea here this evening, I shall desire my Lord to frank this modicum, that you may not pay for a scrap that has nothing in it. My conversation with the Scottish historian is as little worth, especially after I had prepared you for expecting it. When do you quit your Cathedral for your Parish? I shall not leave my little hill for the dinner at the Royal Academy on Thursday, only to figure the next day in the newspapers in the list of the Mecænas's of the age. Lady Di Beauclerk has drawn the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, and it has been engraved by Bartolozzi. A Castalian nymph conceived by Sappho, and executed by Myron, would not have had more grace and simplicity; it is the divinity of Venus piercing the veil of immortality, when

roseâ cervice refulsit,

Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere.

The likeness is perfectly preserved, except that the paintress has lent

her own expression to the Duchess, which you will allow is very agreeable flattery. What should I go to the Royal Academy for? I shall see no such chefs d'œuvre there.

1719. TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON.1

[1778.]

THE purport of Dr. Robertson's visit was to inquire where he could find materials for the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, which he means to write as a supplement to David Hume. I had heard of his purpose, but did not own I knew it, that my discouragement might seem the more natural. I do not care a straw what he writes about the Church's wet-nurse, Goody Anne; but no Scot' is worthy of being the historian of William, but Dr. Watson.3

When he had told me his object, I said, "Write the reign of King William, Dr. Robertson! That is a great task! I look on him as the greatest man of modern times since his ancestor William Prince of Orange." I soon found the Doctor had very little idea of him, or had taken upon trust the pitiful partialities of Dalrymple and Macpherson. I said, "Sir, I do not doubt but King William came over with a view to the crown; nor was he called upon by patriotism, for he was not an Englishman, to assert our liberties. No; his patriotism was of a higher rank. He aimed not at the crown of England from ambition, but to employ its forces and wealth against Louis XIV. for the common cause of the liberties of Europe. The Whigs did not understand the extent of his views, and the Tories betrayed him. He has been thought not to have understood us; but the truth was, he took either party as it was predominant, that he might sway the Parliament to support his general plan." The Doctor, suspecting that I doubted his principles being enlarged enough to do justice to so great a character, told me he himself had been born and bred a Whig, though he owned he was now a moderate one: I believe, a very moderate one. I said Macpherson had done great injustice to another hero, the Duke of Marlborough,

1 From Walpole's Works, vol. v., p. 651, but not included in Mr. Mitford's edition of the Correspondence of Walpole and Mason.'-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Lord Orford changed his opinion upon this subject, after reading the accurate, impartial, and elegant history of Dr. Somerville, which he always declared to be the most faultless account yet given of any interesting period of our history; and added, that its perfect impartiality would ever prevent its being popular.- BERRY.

[ocr errors]

3 Dr. Watson's History of the Reign of Philip II. of Spain' was published, in two quarto volumes, in 1777.-WRIGHT.

whom he accuses of betraying the design on Brest to Louis XIV. The truth was, as I heard often in my youth from my father, my uncle, and old persons who had lived in those times, that the Duke trusted the Duchess with the secret, and she her sister the popish Duchess of Tyrconnel, who was as poor and as bigoted as a church mouse. A corroboration of this was the wise and sententious answer of King William to the Duke, whom he taxed with having betrayed the secret. Upon my honour, Sir," said the Duke, "I told it to nobody but my wife," "I did not tell it to mine!" said the King.

[ocr errors]

I added, that Macpherson's and Dalrymple's invidious scandals really serve but to heighten the amazing greatness of the King's genius; for, if they say true, he maintained the crown on his head, though the nobility, the churchmen, the country gentlemen, the people were against him; and though almost all his own Ministers betrayed him-"But," said I, "nothing is so silly as to suppose that the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin ever meant seriously to restore King James. Both had offended him too much to expect forgiveness, especially from so remorseless a nature. Yet a re-Revolution was so probable, that it is no wonder they kept up a correspondence with him, at least to break their fall if he returned. But as they never did effectuate the least service in his favour, when they had the fullest power, nothing can be inferred but King James's folly in continuing to lean on them. To imagine they meant to sacrifice his weak daughter, whom they governed absolutely, to a man who was sure of being governed by others, one must have as little sense as James himself had.

The precise truth I take to have been this. Marlborough and Godolphin both knew the meanness and credulity of James's character. They knew that he must be ever dealing for partisans; and they might be sure, that if he could hope for support from the General and the Lord-Treasurer, he must be less solicitous for more impotent supporters. "Is it impossible," said I to the Doctor, "but they might correspond with the King even by Anne's own consent? Do not be surprised, Sir," said I: "such things have happened. My own father often received letters from the Pretender, which he always carried to George II. and had them indorsed by his Majesty. I myself have seen them countersigned by the King's own hand."

In short, I endeavoured to impress him with proper ideas of his subject, and painted to him the difficulties, and the want of materials.

« PreviousContinue »