who were there on a visit, escaped; the wife by jumping from the two pair of stairs, and saving herself by a rail; he by hanging by his hands till a second ladder was brought, after a first had proved too short. Nobody knows how or where the fire began; the catastrophe is shocking beyond what one ever heard: and poor Lady Molesworth, whose character and conduct were the most amiable in the world, is universally lamented. Your good hearts will feel this in the most lively manner.' I go early to Strawberry to-morrow, giving up the new Opera, Madame de Boufflers, and Mr. Wilkes, and all the present topics. Wilkes, whose case has taken its place by the side of the seven Bishops, calls himself the eighth-not quite improperly, when one remembers that Sir Jonathan Trelawney, who swore like a trooper, was one of those confessors. There is a good letter in the Gazetteer on the other side, pretending to be written by Lord Temple, and advising Wilkes to cut his throat, like Lord E***, as it would be of infinite service to their cause. There are published, too, three volumes of Lady Mary Wortley's letters, which I believe are genuine, and are not unentertaining. But have you read Tom Hervey's letter to the late King? That beats everything for madness, horrid indecency, and folly, and yet has some charming and striking passages. I have advised Mrs. Harris to inform against Jack, as writing in the North Briton; he will then be shut up in the Tower, and may be shown for old Nero. Adieu! 849. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 10, 1763. You will be impatient to hear the event of last Friday. Mr. Wilkes was delivered by the Court of Common Pleas, unanimously: not, said they, on a defect of affidavit in the Warrant; not on defect of specification of libellous matter in the Warrant; (two objections that had been made by his counsel to the legality of the commitment;) but on a breach of privilege, the libel in question not being a breach of the peace, but only tending to it. 1 The King, upon hearing of this calamity, immediately sent the young ladies a handsome present; ordered a house to be taken and furnished for them at his expense; and not only continued the pension settled on the mother, but ordered it to be increased two hundred pounds per annum.- -WRIGHT. 2 An old lion there, so called.-WALPOLE. The triumph of the Opposition, you may be sure, is great. Though he is still liable to be prosecuted in the King's Bench, a step gained against the Court gives confidence and encouragement. It has given so much to Mr. Wilkes and the warmest of his friends, that I think their indiscretion and indecency will revolt the gravest of their wellwishers. Wilkes keeps no bounds; wrote immediately to the Secretaries of State that his house had been robbed, and that he supposed they had his goods-nay, he went to a Justice of Peace to demand a Warrant for searching their houses, which, you may imagine, he did not obtain. The King ordered Lord Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, to remove him from the Militia of that county. The Earl acquainted him with that dismission, in terms of condolence; for which his Lordship has since been displaced himself. In short, the scene grows every day more serious-violence on one side, and incapacity on the other. I quit politics, to tell you the most melancholy catastrophe, that one almost ever heard or read of. The house of Lady Molesworth, in Upper Brook Street, was suddenly burnt to the ground last Friday, between four and five in the morning. Herself, two of her daughters, her brother, and three servants perished, with all the circumstances of horror imaginable! The house, which was small, happened to be crowded, by the arrival of her brother, Captain Usher, from Jamaica, who lay there but that night for the first time, and by a visit from Dr. Molesworth (her brother-in-law) and his wife. The doctor waked, hearing what he thought hail. He rose, opened the window and saw nothing. The noise increased, he opened the door, and found the whole staircase in flames and smoke. Seeing no retreat, he would have persuaded his wife to rush with him into the smoke, and perish at once, as the quickest death. She had not resolution. enough. He then flung out a mattress for her to jump on (it was two pair of stairs backwards): while he was doing this he saw from the garret above one of the young ladies leap into the back court. Mrs. Molesworth then jumped out of the window, and was scarce hurt; he clambered out too, and hung by a hook: a man from the back of another house saw him, and called to him that he would bring a ladder; he did, but it was too short. However, he begged the doctor, if possible, to hang there still, which, though his strength, for he is a very old man, almost failed him, he did and was saved; but he is since grown so disordered with the terror and calamity, that they doubt if he will live. Lady Molesworth, who lay two pair of stairs forwards, and who, to make room, had taken her eldest daughter, of seventeen, to lie with her, was seen by persons in the street at the window: the daughter jumped into the street, fell on the iron spikes, and thence into the area. Lady Molesworth was at the other window in her shift, and lifted up her hands, either to open the sash, or in agonies for her daughter, but suddenly disappeared. Some think that the floor at that instant fell with her; I rather conclude that she swooned when her daughter leaped, and never recovered. The young lady has had her leg cut off, and has not been in her senses since. The youngest daughter, about nine or ten, had the quickness to get out at window on the top of the house, but from spikes and chimneys could get no farther. She went back to her room where her governess was, who jumped first, and was dashed to pieces. The child then jumped, and was little hurt, though burnt, and almost stifled by the bed-clothes which Dr. Molesworth flung out, for this was her that he saw. They told her that her governess was safe; she replied, "Don't pretend to make me believe that, for I saw her dead on the pavement, and her brains scattered about." Another of the sisters jumped too, and escaped with a fractured thigh. A footman, who lay below, and could have saved himself easily, ran up to try to save some of the family, but being involved in flames and much burnt, was forced to try the window, fell on the spikes like Miss Molesworth, but they think will live. Lord Molesworth, the only son, a boy at Westminster, was at home that day, and was to have lain there, but not having done his task, was obliged to go back to school, and was thus fortunately preserved. The general compassion on this dreadful tragedy is much heightened by the very amiable character of Lady Molesworth. She had been a very great beauty, and was still a most pleasing woman, not above forty. Lord Molesworth, then very aged, married her, and had several children by her; her character and virtue beyond all suspicion, untainted and irreproachable. Her care of her children was most meritorious, and her general behaviour to the greatest degree engaging. Dr. Molesworth had been much her enemy, yet, while her husband lived, she had persuaded him to give the doctor an annuity, and since his death has treated him with the utmost friendship. It is not yet known how this terrible accident happened. Many suspect two blacks belonging to Captain Usher, but I believe merely from not knowing how to account for it, nor where it began. We have just got three volumes of Lady Mary Wortley's Letters; of which she had given copies at Venice. They are entertaining, though perhaps the least of all her works, for these were written during her first travels, and have no personal history. All relating to that is in the hands of Lady Bute, and I suppose will never see the light. These letters, though pretty well guarded, have certain marks of originality-not bating freedoms, both of opinion, and with regard to truth, for which you know she had little partiality. Adieu! DEAR SIR: 850. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE. Strawberry Hill, May 16, 1763. I PROMISED you should hear from me if I did not go abroad, and I flatter myself that you will not be sorry to know that I am much better in health than I was at the beginning of the winter. My journey is quite laid aside, at least for this year; though, as Lord Hertford goes ambassador to Paris, I propose to make him a visit there next spring. As I shall be a good deal here this summer, I hope you did not take a surfeit of Strawberry Hill, but will bestow a visit on it while its beauty lasts; the Gallery advances fast now, and I think in a few weeks will make a figure worth your looking at. 851. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, May 17, 1763. “ON vient de nous donner une très jolie fête au château de Straberri: tout étoit tapissé de narcisses, de tulipes, et de lilacs; des cors de chasse, des clarionettes; des petits vers galants faits par des fées, et qui se trouvoient sous la presse; des fruits à la glace, du thé, du caffé, des biscuits, et force hot-rolls."-This is not the beginning of a letter to you, but of one that I might suppose sets out to-night for Paris, or rather, which I do not suppose will set out thither; for though the narrative is circumstantially true, I don't believe the actors were pleased enough with the scene, to give so favourable an account of it. The French do not come hither to see. A l'Anglaise happened to be the word in fashion; and half a dozen of the most fashionable people have been the dupes of it. I take for granted that their next mode will be à l'Iroquaise, that they may be under no VOL. IV. obligation of realising their pretensions. Madame de Boufflers' I think will die a martyr to a taste, which she fancied she had, and finds she has not. Never having stirred ten miles from Paris, and having only rolled in an easy coach from one hotel to another on a gliding pavement, she is already worn out with being hurried from morning till night from one sight to another. She rises every morning so fatigued with the toils of the preceding day, that she has not strength, if she had inclination, to observe the least, or the finest thing she sees! She came hither to-day to a great breakfast I made for her, with her eyes a foot deep in her head, her hands dangling, and scarce able to support her knitting-bag. She had been yesterday to see a ship launched, and went from Greenwich by water to Ranelagh. Madame Dusson, who is Dutch-built, and whose muscles are pleasure-proof, came with her; there were besides, Lady Mary Coke, Lord and Lady Holdernesse, the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, Lord Hertford, Lord Villiers, Offley, Messieurs de Fleury, D'Eon,' et Duclos. The latter is author of the Life of Louis Onze; dresses like a dissenting minister, which I suppose is the livery of a bel esprit, and is much more impetuous than agreeable. We breakfasted in the great parlour, and I had filled the hall and large cloister by turns with French horns and clarionettes. As the French ladies had never seen a printing-house, I carried them into mine; they found something ready set, and desiring to see what it was, it proved as follows: 3 The Press speaks FOR MADAME DE BOUFFLERS. : The graceful fair, who loves to know, The Comtesse de Boufflers, who since the Revolution in France of the year 1789 resided in England for two or three years with her daughter-in-law, the Comtesse Emilie de Boufflers.-Walpole. Her visit to Dr. Johnson is made memorable by Boswell.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 The Chevalier d'Eon, secretary to the Duke de Nivernois, the French ambassador, and, upon the Duke's return to France, appointed minister plenipotentiary. On the Comte de Guerchy being some time afterwards nominated ambassador, the Chevalier was ordered to resume his secretaryship; at which he was so much mortified that he libelled the Comte, for which he was indicted and found guilty in the Court of King's Bench, in July 1764. For a further account of this extraordinary personage, see post, [p. 138] letter to Lord Hertford, on the 25th of November.-WRIGHT. 3 Duclos's History of Louis XI. appeared in 1743. He was also the author of several ingenious novels, and had a large share in the 'Dictionary of the Academy.' After his death, which took place in 1772, his 'Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. appeared. Rousseau describes him as a man "droit et adroit;" and D'Alembert said of him, "De tous les hommes que je connais, c'est lui qui a le plus d'esprit dans un temps donné."-WRIGHT. |