MY DEAR LORD:

945. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. THOUGH I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with another line now. Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his profession noticed. He is very desirous of paying his respects to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris. It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently me, if you will favour him with your attention. Everybody experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to attribute it a little to my request.

I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers. If they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the Dutch. As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will hurry it into the first history he publishes. I, therefore, enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver's character, but to save the world from one more fable. I know Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some satisfaction when the man knows how to ride). I remember one night at the Duke of Grafton's, a bust of Cromwell was produced: Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the most speaking look imaginable, as much as to say, "Is it possible you can admire this man!” Apropos I am sorry to say the reports do not cease about the separation,' and yet I have heard nothing that confirms it.

I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called 'Essais sur les Mours;' forgive me if I put you in mind of it, and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our political stuff, which, as the Parliament is happily at the distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help hearing of it. I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the evenings are so long, I cannot get

1 of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-CROKER.

through one of his periods between dinner and supper. They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight of King James's journal; ' I wish I could see all the trifling passages that he will not deign to admit into History. I do not love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they would be thought, but for what they are.

Mr. Elliot brings us woful accounts of the French ladies, of the decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their behaviour. Nobody is dead, married, or gone mad, since my last. Adieu!

P.S. I enclose an epitaph on Lord Waldegrave, written by my brother [Sir Edward], which I think you will like, both for the composition and the strict truth of it.

He had two

Arlington Street, Friday evening. I was getting into my post-chaise this morning with this letter in my pocket, and coming to town for a day or two, when I heard the Duke of Cumberland was dead: I find it is not so. fits yesterday at Newmarket, whither he would go. The Princess Amelia, who had observed great alteration in his speech, entreated him against it. He has had too some touches of the gout, but they were gone off, or might have prevented this attack. I hear since the fits yesterday, which are said to have been but slight, that his leg is broken out, and they hope will save him. Still, I think, one cannot but expect the worst.

The letters yesterday, from Spa, give a melancholy account of the poor Duke of Devonshire: as he cannot drink the waters, they think of removing him; I suppose, to the baths at Aix-laChapelle; but I look on his case as a lost one. There's a chapter for moralising! but five-and-forty, with forty thousand pounds a-year, and happiness wherever he turned him! My reflection is, that it is folly to be unhappy at anything, when felicity itself is such a phantom!

1 I have here met with a prodigious historical curiosity, the Memoirs of King James II., in fourteen volumes, all wrote with his own hand, and kept in the Scots' College. I have looked into it and made great discoveries. David Hume to Dr. Robertson, Paris, 1st December 1763. It appears from a note made by Mr. Fox, that "the works which were placed in the Scotch College at Paris, soon after the death of James II., and were there at the time of the French Revolution," were in fourteen volumes. Lord Holland's Preface to Fox's History, p. xix. The work published in 1816 as 'The Life of King James the Second, collected out of Memoirs writ by his own hand, is a compilation by a Roman Catholic follower of the exiled Stuarts, of the name of Innes. The fourteen volumes which Hume saw were destroyed during the French Revolution.'-CUNNINGHAM.

946. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. Ir is over with us!-If I did not know your firmness, I would have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the worst at once. The Duke of Cumberland is dead. I have heard it but this instant. The Duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast with me, and pulled out a letter from Lord Frederick, with a hopeless account of the poor Duke of Devonshire. Ere I could read it, Colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant this fatal news! I know no more-it must be at Newmarket, and very sudden; for the Duke of Newcastle had a letter from Hodgson, dated on Monday, which said the Duke was perfectly well, and his gout gone-yes, to be sure, into his head. Princess Amelia had endeavoured to prevent his going to Newmarket, having perceived great alteration in his speech, as the Duke of Newcastle had. Well! it will not be.-Everything fights against this country! Mr. Pitt must save it himself—or, what I do not know whether he will not like as well, share in overturning its liberty-if they will admit him; which I question now if they will be fools enough to do.

You see I write in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill fortune, I would have done just as I have done; and my conduct shall show I am satisfied I have done right. For the rest, come what come may, I am perfectly prepared! and while there is a free spot of earth upon the globe, that shall be my country. I am sorry it will not be this, but tomorrow I shall be able to laugh as usual. What signifies what happens when one is seven-and-forty, as I am to-day?

"They tell me 'tis my birth-day"-but I will not go on with Antony, and say

"and I'll keep it

With double pomp of sadness."

No; when they can smile, who ruin a great country, sure those who would have saved it may indulge themselves in that cheerfulness which conscious integrity bestows. I think I shall come to you next

week; and since we have no longer any plan of operations to settle, we will look over the map of Europe, and fix upon a pleasant corner for our exile for take notice, I do not design to fall upon my dagger, in hopes that some Mr. Addison a thousand years hence may write a dull tragedy about me. I will write my own story a little more cheerfully than he would; but I fear now I must not print it at my own press. Adieu! You was a philosopher before you had any occasion to be so pray continue so; you have ample

occasion!

Yours, ever,

H. W.

947. TO THE REV. THOMAS WARTON.1

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 9, 1764.

I SHOULD be very ungrateful, Sir, if I did not execute with much pleasure any orders you give me. My knowledge is extremely confined and trifling, but such information as I can give you, will always be at your service.

The most authentic picture of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, is a whole-length at Hampton Court. I have a small copy of the head by Vertue. She has a round face, blue eyes, and brown hair, not light.

2

The original of her sister Mary (with her second husband, Charles Brandon), which Vertue engraved while Lord Granville's, is now mine; her face is leaner and longer than in the print; her eyes blue, like her sister's, and her hair rather more dark. Vertue believed that the small head by Holbein, which I have, and was Richardson's, and which is engraved among the Illustrious Heads for Catherine Howard, is the portrait of this Queen Mary; but it has no resemblance to the large one, which is unquestionably of her. In the two first pictures I mentioned, Margaret is much superior to Mary in point of beauty, though I think neither of them handsome; nor is any sense in either face. The picture supposed of Catherine Howard has much expression, but little beauty; the print resembles it very imperfectly.

I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant,

HOR. WALPOLE.

Now first collected from Wooll's Memoirs, &c., of Joseph Warton.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Bought at the Strawberry Hill sale, for 535l. 108. by the Duke of Bedford, and now at Woburn.-CUNNINGHAM.

948. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

1

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1764.

LORD JOHN CAVENDISH has been so kind as to send me word of the Duke of Devonshire's legacy to you. You cannot doubt of the great joy this gives me; and yet it serves to aggravate the loss of so worthy a man! And when I feel it thus, I am sensible how much more it will add to your concern, instead of diminishing it. Yet do not wholly reflect on your misfortune... You might despise the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply; but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is a million. Measure it with the riches of those who have basely injured you, and it is still more! Why, it is glory, it is conscious innocence, it is satisfaction-it is affluence without guilt. -Oh! the comfortable sound! It is a good name in the history of these corrupt days. There it will exist, when the wealth of your and their country's enemies will be wasted, or will be an indelible blemish on their descendants.

My heart is full, and yet I will say no more. My best loves to all your opulent family. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this world? It is rewarded by virtue, and it is persecuted by the bad. Can greater honour be paid to it?

949. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 21, 1764.

IN In your letter of September 22nd, which I received but yesterday, you make excuses, my dear sir, for your silence; but in good truth I fear I am not less culpable on that head. I have for many years pleaded summer and the country; you must add to the account now, that I am not only in the country, but in the minority; and you may be sure folks that are disposed to blame, are not told anything that can be kept from them. London, whither I stroll now and

1 William, fourth Duke of Devonshire. During his administration in Ireland, Mr. Conway had been secretary of state there.-WALPOLE. He died at Spa on the 2nd of October.-WRIGHT.

The legacy was contained in the following codicil, written in the Duke's own hand. "I give to General Conway five thousand pounds as a testimony of my friendship to him, and of my sense of his honourable conduct and friendship for me." -WRIGHT.