TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, July 11, 1765. You are so good, I must write you a few lines, and you will excuse my not writing many, my posture is so uncomfortable, lying on a couch by the side of my bed, and writing on the bed. I have in this manner been what they call out of bed for two days, but I mend very slowly, and get no strength in my feet at all; however, I must have patience. Thank you for your kind offer; but, my dear Sir, you can do me no good but what you always do me, in coming to see me. I should hope that would be before I go to France, whither I certainly go the beginning of September, if not sooner. The great and happy change - happy, I hope, for this country, is actually begun. The Duke of Bedford, George Grenville, and the two Secretaries are discarded. Lord Rockingham is first lord of the treasury, Dowdeswell chancellor of the exchequer, the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Conway secretaries of state. You need not wish me joy, for I know you do. There is a good deal more to come,1 and what is better, regulation of general warrants, and undoing of at least some of the mischiefs these have been com mitting; some, indeed, is past recovery! I long to talk it all over with you; though it is hard that when I may write what I will, I am not able. The poor Chute is relapsed again, and we are no comfort to one another but by messages. An offer from Ireland was sent to Lord Hertford last night from his brother's office. Adieu! Yours ever. "There has been pretty clean sweeping already," writes Lord Chesterfield on the 15th; "and I do not remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new board of treasury, and two new secretaries, &c. Here is a new political arch built; but of materials of so different a nature, and without a key-stone, that it does not, in my opinion, indicate either strength or duration. It will certainly require repairs and a key-stone next winter, and that key-stone will and must necessarily be Mr. Pitt."-E. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1765. THE less one is disposed, if one has any sense, to talk of oneself to people that inquire only out of compliment, and do not listen to the answer, the more satisfaction one feels in indulging a self-complacency, by sighing to those that really sympathize with our griefs. Do not think it is pain that makes me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is the prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy enough; but to enter into old age through the gate of infirmity most disheartening. My health and spirits make me take but slight notice of the transition, and, under the persuasion of temperance being a talisman, I marched boldly on towards the descent of the hill, knowing I must fall at last, but not suspecting that I should stumble by the way. This confession explains the mortification I feel. A month's confinement to one who never kept his bed a day, is a stinging lesson, and has humbled my insolence to almost indifference. Judge, then, how little I interest myself about public events. I know nothing of them since I came hither, where I had not only the disappointment of not growing better, but a bad return in one of my feet, so that I am still wrapped up and upon a couch. It was the more unlucky as Lord Hertford is come to England for a very few days. He has offered to come to me; but as I then should see him only for some minutes, I propose being carried to town to-morrow. It will be so long before I can expect to be able to travel, that my French journey will certainly not take place so soon as I intended, and if Lord Hertford goes to Ireland, I shall be still more fluctuating; for though the Duke and Duchess of Richmond will replace them at Paris, and are as eager to have me with them, I have had so many more years heaped upon me within this month, that I have not the conscience to trouble young people, when I can no longer be as juvenile as they Indeed I shall think myself decrepit, till I again saun are. ter into the garden in my slippers and without my hat in all weathers, a point I am determined to regain, if possible; for even this experience cannot make me resign my temperance and my hardiness. I am tired of the world, its politics, its pursuits, and its pleasures; but it will cost me some struggles before I submit to be tender and careful. Christ! can I ever stoop to the regimen of old age? I do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor drag it about to public places; but to sit in one's room, clothed warmly, expecting visits from folks I don't wish to see, and tended and flattered by relations impatient for one's death! let the gout do its worst as expeditiously as it can; it would be more welcome in my stomach than in my limbs. I am not made to bear a course of nonsense and advice, but must play the fool in my own way to the last, alone with all my heart, if I cannot be with the very few I wish to see: but, to depend for comfort on others, who would be no comfort to me; this surely is not a state to be preferred to death: and nobody can have truly enjoyed the advantages of youth, health, and spirits, who is content to exist without the two last, which alone bear any resemblance to the first.1 You see how difficult it is to conquer my proud spirit: low and weak as I am, I think my resolution and perseverance will get the better, and that I shall still be a gay shadow; at least, I will impose any severity upon myself, rather than humour the gout, and sink into that indulgence with which most people treat it. Bodily liberty is as dear to me as mental, and I would as soon flatter any other tyrant as the gout, my Whiggism extending as much to my health as to my principles, and being as willing to part with life, when I cannot preserve it, as your uncle Algernon when his freedom was at stake. Adieu ! Upon this passage the Quarterly Review observes: "Walpole's reflections on human life are marked by strong sense and knowledge of mankind; but our most useful lesson will perhaps be derived from considering this man of the world, full of information and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed, and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude and deserted solitude." Vol. xix. p. 129.— E. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, August 23, 1765. As I know that when you love people, you love them, I feel for the concern that the death of Lady Bab. Montagu1 will give you. Though you have long lived out of the way of seeing her, you are not a man to forget by absence, or all your friends would have still more reason to complain of your retirement. Your solitude prevents your filling up the places of those that are gone. In the world, new acquaintances slide into our habits, but you keep so strict a separation between your old friends and new faces, that the loss of any of the former must be more sensible to you than to most people. I heartily condole with you, and yet I must make you smile. The second Miss Jefferies was to go to a ball yesterday at Hampton-court with Lady Sophia Thomas's daughters. The news came, and your aunt Cosby said the girl must not go to it. The poor child then cried in earnest. Lady Sophia went to intercede for her, and found her grandmother at backgammon, who would hear no entreaties. Lady Sophia represented that Miss Jefferies was but a second cousin, and could not have been acquainted. "Oh! Madam, if there is no tenderness left in the world-cinq ace-Sir, you are to throw." We have a strange story come from London. Lord Fortescue was dead suddenly; there was a great mob about his house in Grosvenor-square, and a buzz that my lady had thrown up the sash and cried murder, and that he then shot himself. How true all this I don't know: at least it is not so false as if it was in the newspapers. However, these sultry summers do not suit English heads: this last month puts even the month of November's nose out of joint for self-murders. If it was not for the Queen the peerage would be extinct: she has given us another Duke.2 1 Lady Barbara Montagu, daughter of George second Earl of Halifax.-E. 2 The Duke of Clarence, born the 21st of August; afterwards King William the Fourth.-E. My two months are up, and yet I recover my feet very slowly. I have crawled once round my garden; but it sent me to my couch for the rest of the day. This duration of weakness makes me very impatient, as I wish much to be at Paris before the fine season is quite gone. This will probably be the last time I shall travel to finish my education, and I should be glad to look once more at their gardens and villas: nay, churches and palaces are but uncomfortable sights in cold weather, and I have much more curiosity for their habitations than their company. They have scarce a man or a woman of note that one wants to see; and, for their authors, their style is grown so dull in imitation of us, they are si philosophes, si géomètres, si moraux, that I certainly should not cross the sea in search of ennui, that I can have in such perfection at home. However, the change of scene is my chief inducement, and to get out of politics. There is no going through another course of patriotism in your cousin Sandwich and George Grenville. I think of setting out by the middle of September; have I any chance of seeing you here before that? Won't you come and commission me to offer up your devotions to Notre Dame de Livry?1 or chez nos filles de Sainte Marie. If I don't make haste, the reformation in France will demolish half that I want to see. I tremble for the Val de Grace and St. Cyr. The devil take Luther for putting it into the heads of his methodists to pull down the churches! I believe in twenty years there will not be a convent left in Europe but this at Strawberry. I wished for you to-day; Mr. Chute and Cowslade dined here; the day was divine: the sun gleamed down into the chapel in all the glory of popery; the gallery was all radiance; we drank our coffee on the bench under the great ash-tree; the verdure was delicious; our tea in the Holbein room, by which a thousand chaises and barges passed; and I showed them my new cottage and garden over the way, which they had never seen, and with which they were enchanted. It is so retired, so modest, and yet so cheerful and trim, that I expect you to fall in love 1 Madame de Sévigné, whom Walpole frequently alludes to under this title.-E. |