SIR, 970. TO DR. JOSEPH WARTON.1 2 Arlington Street, March 16, 1765. You have shown so much of what I fear I must call partiality to me, that I could not in conscience send you the trifle that accompanies this till the unbiassed public, who knew not the author, told me that it was not quite unworthy of being offered to you. Still I am not quite sure whether its ambition of copying the manners of an age which you love, may not make you too favourable to it, or whether its awkward imitation of them may not subject it to your censure. In fact, it is but partially an imitation of ancient romances; being rather intended for an attempt to blend the marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels. This was in great measure the plan of a work, which, to say the truth, was begun without any plan at all. But I will not trouble you, Sir, at present with enlarging on my design, which I have fully explained in a preface prepared for a second edition, which the sale of the former makes me in an hurry to send out. I do not doubt, Sir, but you have with pleasure looked over more genuine remains of ancient days, the three volumes of old Poems and Ballads: most of them are curious, and some charming. The dissertations too I think are sensible, concise, and unaffected. Let me recommend to you also the perusal of the Life of. Petrarch, of which two large volumes in quarto are already published by the Abbé de Sade, with the promise of a third. Three quartos on Petrarch will not terrify a man of your curiosity, though without omitting the memoirs and anecdotes of Petrarch's age, the most valuable part of the work, they might have been comprised in much less compass: many of the sonnets might have been sunk, and almost all his translations of them. Though Petrarch appears to have been far from a genius, singly excepting the harmonious beauty of his words, yet one forgives the partiality of a biographer, though Monsieur de Sade seems so much enchanted with Petrarch as the age was in which he lived, whilst their ignorance of good authors excuses their bigotry to the restorer of taste. You will not, I believe, be so thoroughly convinced as the biographer seems to be, of the authentic discovery of Laura's body, and the sonnet placed on her bosom. When a lady dies of the plague in 1 Now first collected.-CUNNINGHAM. the height of its ravages, it is not very probable that her family thought of interring poetry with her, or indeed of anything but burying her body as quickly as they could; nor is it more likely that a pestilential vault was opened afterwards for that purpose. I have no doubt but that the sonnet was prepared and slipped into the tomb when they were determined to find her corpse. When you read the notes to the second volume, you will grow very impatient for Mons. de St. Palaye's promised history of the Troubadours. Have we any manuscript that could throw light on that subject? I cannot conclude, Sir, without reminding you of a hope you once gave me of seeing you in town or at Strawberry Hill. I go to Paris the end of May or beginning of June, for a few months, where I should be happy if I could execute any literary commission for you. SIR: 971. TO MONSIEUR ELIE DE BEAUMONT.2 Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. WHEN I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a passage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle. I have since that time published my little story, but was so diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so great a mistress of the passions as Madame de Beaumont, if the approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the natural effusions of the heart, how will you be 1 Horry Walpole has now postponed his journey till May. He procrastinates as much on this side of the water as March [Queensberry] on the other. To tell you the truth, as I believe he has no great cordiality for his excellency [Hertford], he is not very impatient to see him. How do you think he has employed that leisure which his political frenzy has allowed of. In writing a novel, entitled the 'Castle of Otranto,' and such a novel that no boarding-school miss of thirteen could get through without yawning. It consists of ghosts and enchantments; pictures walk out of their frames, and are good company for half-an-hour together; helmets drop from the moon, and cover half a family. He says it was a dream, and I fancy one when he had some feverish disposition in him.-Gilly Williams to Selwyn, March 19th, 1765.— CUNNINGHAM. 2 M. Elie de Beaumont was admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. He was born in 1732, and died in 1786.-WRIGHT. 3 A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de Beaumont. She was born at Caen in 1729, and died in 1783.-WRIGHT surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's. You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I quote, and that in defence, not of myself, but of my countrymen, who have had goodhumour enough to approve the visionary scenes and actors in the 'Castle of Otranto.' To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recall the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and if the Marquis de Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say, that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must forgive me if I add, that Richardson' had, to me at least, made that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with putting you in mind of, Sir, your, &c. P.S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita. I mention it, as I fear so unequal a similitude would not strike Madame de Beaumont. 1 "High as Richardson's reputation stood in his own country, it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany, whose imaginations are more easily excited, and their passions more easily moved, by tales of fictitious distress, than are the cold-blooded English. Foreigners of distinction have been known to visit Hampstead, and to inquire for the Flask Walk, distinguished as a scene in Clarissa's history, just as travellers visit the rocks of Meillerie to view the localities of Rousseau's tale of passion. Diderot vied with Rousseau in heaping incense upon the shrine of the 972. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD. Arlington Street, March 26, 1765. THREE weeks are a great while, my dear lord, for me to have been without writing to you; but besides that I have passed many days at Strawberry, to cure my cold (which it has done), there has nothing happened worth sending across the sea. Politics have dozed, and common events been fast asleep. Of Guerchy's affair,' you probably know more than I do; it is now forgotten. I told him I had absolute proof of his innocence, for I was sure, that if he had offered money for assassination, the men who swear against him would have taken it. The King has been very seriously ill, and in great danger. I would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the worst. I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him. They talk of his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public, and the bills are passed by commission; but he rides out. The Royal Family have suffered like us mortals; the Duke of Gloucester has had a fever, but I believe his chief complaint is of a youthful kind. Prince Frederick is thought to be in a deep consumption; and for the Duke of Cumberland, next post will probably certify you of his death, as he is relapsed, and there are no hopes of him. He fell into his lethargy again, and when they waked him, he said he did not know whether he could call himself obliged to them. I dined two days ago at Monsieur de Guerchy's, with the Count de Caraman, who brought me your letter. He seems a very agreeable man, and you may be sure, for your sake, and Madame de Mirepoix's, no civilities in my power shall be wanting. I have not yet seen Schouvaloff,' about whom one has more curiosity—it is an English author. The former compares him to Homer, and predicts for his memory the same honours which are rendered to the father of epic poetry; and the last, besides his well-known burst of eloquent panegyric, records his opinion in a letter to D'Alembert-On n'a jamais fait encore, en quelque langue que ce soit, de roman égal à Clarisse, ni même approchant.'"-Sir Walter Scott: Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 49.-WRIGHT. 1 This alludes, it is presumed, to a bill of indictment which was found in the beginning of March, at the sessions at Hicks's Hall, against the Count de Guerchy, for the absurd charge of a conspiracy to murder D'Eon.-CROKER. 2 Probably Francois Joseph, Count de Caraman, who married a Princess de Chimay, heiress of the house of Henin, niece of Madame de Mirepoix.-CROKER. 3 He had been favourite to the Empress Catherine; and, as Mr. Walpole elsewhere saya, a favourite without an enemy."-CROKER. opportunity of gratifying that passion which one can so seldom do in personages of his historic nature, especially remote foreigners. I wish M. de Caraman had brought the 'Siege of Calais,'' which he tells me is printed, though your account has a little abated my impatience. They tell us the French comedians are to act at Calais this summer-is it possible they can be so absurd, or think us so absurd as to go thither, if we would not go further? I remember, at Rheims, they believed that English ladies went to Calais to drink champagne-is this the suite of that belief? I was mightily pleased with the Duc de Choiseul's answer to the Clairon;" but when I hear of the French admiration of Garrick, it takes off something of my wonder at the prodigious adoration of him at home. I never could conceive the marvellous merit of repeating the works of others in one's own language with propriety, however well delivered. Shakespeare is not more admired for writing his plays, than Garrick for acting them. I think him a very good and very various player-but several have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff, was as excellent as Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson' far more natural in everything he 1 A tragedy by M. du Belloy, which, with little other merit than its anti-Anglicism, (which, in all times, has passed in France for patriotism,) "faisait fureur" at this time.-CROKER. 2 Mademoiselle Clairon was at this moment in such vogue on the French stage, that her admirers struck a medal in honour of her, and wore it as a kind of order. A critic of the name of Fréron, however, did not partake these sentiments, and drew, in his journal, an injurious character of Mademoiselle Clairon. This insult so outraged the tragedy-queen, that she and her admirers moved heaven and earth to have Fréron sent to the Bastile, and, failing in her solicitation to the inferior departments, she at last had recourse to the prime-minister, the Duke of Choiseul, himself. His answer, which Lord Hertford, no doubt, had communicated to Mr. Walpole, was admired for its polite persiflage of her theatric Majesty. "I am," said the Duke, "like yourself, Mademoiselle, a public performer, with this difference in your favour, that you choose what parts you please, and are sure to be crowned with the applause of the public (for I reckon as nothing the bad taste of one or two wretched individuals who have the misfortune of not adoring you). I, on the other hand, am obliged to act the parts imposed on me by necessity. I am sure to please nobody; I am satirised, criticised, libelled, hissed, and yet I continue to do my best. Let us both, then, sacrifice our little resentments and enmities to the public service, and serve our country each in our own station. Besides," he added, "the Queen has condescended to forgive Fréron, and you may, therefore, without compromising your dignity, imitate her Majesty's clemency."-Mémoires de Bachaumont, t. i. p. 61.-CROKER, Mademoiselle Clairon was born in 1723, and made her first appearance at Paris in 1743, in the character of Phédre. She died at Paris in 1803. Several of her letters to the British Roscius will be found in the Garrick Correspondence.-WRIGHT. 3 Ben Johnson, who died in 1742, aged 77. Johnson, that admirable old comedian, the most natural and of the least gesticulation I ever knew, so famous for playing the Grave-digger in Hamlet,' Morose, Noll Bluff, Bishop Gardiner, and a few other parts. Walpole's Anecdotes (by Dallaway) iii. 103; and iv. 54. The fine full length |