many were English, and offered me the use of them. This was one of the numerous unknown correspondents which my books have drawn upon me. I put it off then, but being to pass near his door [at Holyport], for he lives but two miles from Maidenhead, I sent him word I would call on my way to Park-place. After being carried to three wrong houses, I was directed to a very ancient mansion [Filberts], composed of timber, and looking as unlike modern habitations, as the picture of Penderel's house in Clarendon. The garden was overrun with weeds, and with difficulty we found a bell. Louis came riding back in great haste, and said, "Sir, the gentleman is dead suddenly." You may imagine I was surprised; however, as an acquaintance I had never seen was a very endurable misfortune, I was preparing to depart; but happening to ask some women, that were passing by the chaise, if they knew any circumstance of Sir Thomas's death, I discovered that this was not Sir Thomas's house, but belonged to a Mr. Mecke,' a fellow of a college at Oxford, who was actually just dead, and that the antiquity itself had formerly been the residence of Nell Gwyn. Pray inquire after it the next time you are at Frogmore. I went on, and after a mistake or two more found Sir Thomas, a man about thirty in age, and twelve in understanding; his drawings very indifferent, even for the latter calculation. I did not know what to do or say, but commended them, and his child, and his house; said I had all the heads, hoped I should see him at Twickenham, was afraid of being too late for dinner, and hurried out of his house before I had been there twenty minutes. It grieves one to receive civilities when one feels obliged, and yet finds it impossible to bear the people that bestow them. For I have given my assembly, to show my Gallery, and it was glorious; but happening to pitch upon the feast of tabernacles, none of my Jews could come, though Mrs. Clive proposed to them to change their religion; so I am forced to exhibit once more. the morning spectators, the crowd augments instead of diminishing. It is really true that Lady Hertford called here t'other morning, and I was reduced to bring her by the back gate into the kitchen; the house was so full of company that came to see the Gallery, that I had nowhere else to carry her. Adieu! P. S. I hope the least hint has never dropped from the Beaulieus 1 The Rev. Mr. Mecke, of Pembroke College. He died on the 26th of September. -WRIGHT. of that terrible picture of Sir Charles Williams, that put me into such confusion the morning they breakfasted here.' If they did observe the inscription, I am sure they must have seen too how it distressed me. Your collection of pictures is packed up, and makes two large cases and one smaller. My next assembly will be entertaining; there will be five countesses, two bishops, fourteen Jews, five papists, a doctor of physic, and an actress [Mrs. Clive]; not to mention Scotch, Irish, East and West Indians. I find that, to pack up your pictures, Louis has taken some paper out of a hamper of waste, into which I had cast some of the Conway Papers, perhaps only as useless; however, if you find any such in the packing, be so good as to lay them by for me. DEAR SIR: 877. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 8, 1763. You are always obliging to me and always thinking of me kindly; yet for once you have forgotten the way of obliging me most. You do not mention any thought of coming hither, which you had given me cause to hope would be about this time. I flatter myself nothing has intervened to deprive me of that visit. Lord Hertford goes to France the end of next week; I shall be in town to take leave of him; but after the 15th, that is, this day se'nnight, I shall be quite unengaged, and the sooner I see you after the 15th, the better, for I should be sorry to drag you across the country in the badness of November roads. I shall treasure up your notices against my second edition; for the volume of Engravers is printed off, and has been some time; I only wait for some of the plates. The book you mention I have not seen, nor do you encourage me to buy it. Some time or other however I will get you to let me turn it over. As I will trust that you will let me know soon when I shall have the pleasure of seeing you here, I will make this a very short letter indeed. I know nothing new or old worth telling you. 1 The portrait of Sir 'Isabella or the Morning.' Charles Hanbury Williams, holding a paper inscribed 878. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 17, 1763. I DON'T know how long it is since I wrote to you,-I fear a great while; but I think my fidelity to you as a correspondent is so proved, that you may be sure not an incident worthy of a paragraph has happened when you do not hear from me. The very newspapers have subsisted only on the price of stocks, horse-races, the arrival of the good ship Charming Nancy, and such anecdotes, with the assistance of the heroic controversy between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Forbes, of which one is heartily sick. But the campaign draws near, and will be hot enough. Methinks I wish we had some fresh generals; I am rather tired of the old ones, all of whom I have seen so often both on the offensive and defensive, that I am incredibly incurious about their manœuvres. The press for soldiers is so warm that Augustus Hervey could not be spared to attend the Duke of York, who has sailed some time. I shall be very impatient to hear of the Duke's arrival at Florence; tell me the whole history. You will be very anxious, but you will acquit yourself perfectly well. Lord Hertford set out on his embassy last Thursday, and by this time I suppose Monsieur de Guerchy is in London. Most of our Parisian English are come back. The newspapers have given the rage of going to Paris a good name; they call it the French disease. I shall be a little ashamed of having it so late; but I shall next spring. Having Lord Hertford there will be so agreeable a way of seeing Paris, that one cannot resist, especially as I took such pains to see so little of it when I was there before. don't expect to like it much better now, though having a particular friend Minister goes a great way in reconciling one to a country not one's own; I don't believe I should have been quite so fond of Florence if I had lived with nothing but Florentines. This time I am determined to ascertain what I have always doubted of, whether there is any such thing as a lively Frenchman; the few I knew, and all those I have seen here, have had no more vivacity than a German. You see I do not go prejudiced. I Have you got Mr. Garrick yet? If you have, you may keep him; there is come forth within these ten days a young actor, who has turned the heads of the whole town. The first night of his appearance the audience, not content with clapping, stood up and shouted. 1 His name is Powell; he was clerk to Sir Robert Ladbroke, and so clever in business that his master would have taken him in as a partner, but he had an impulse for the stage, was a Heaven-born hero, as Mr. Pitt called my Lord Clive. His figure is fine and voice most sonorous, as they say, for I wait for the rebound of his fame, and till I can get in, for at present all the boxes are taken for a month. As the reputation of this prodigy could not have reached France, where they have the English disease, they were content with showering honours on Mr. Garrick; appointed a box for him, revived their best plays, and recalled their veteran actors. Their Helvetius, whose book has drawn such persecution on him, and the persecution such fame, is coming to settle here, and brings two Miss Helvetiuses, with fifty thousand pounds a-piece, to bestow on two immaculate members of our most august and incorruptible senate, if he can find two in this virtuous age who will condescend to accept his money. Well, we may be dupes to French follies, but they are ten times greater fools to be the dupes of our virtue. Good night. Arlington Street, Oct. 18. I BROUGHT this to town to-day for the Secretary's office, and found yours of October 1st. Marshal Botta's advice of ceding your palace to the Duke of York may be very proper, but his Royal Highness, who is all good-breeding and good-humour, will certainly not suffer it. Yet, I am not averse to your making the offer, if it is still to make. Do you know, my national pride is wonderfully gratified by the Pope's humility and respect for whom we please to have Duke of York. An hundred and fifty years ago an English Protestant dared not own himself for such at Rome; now they invite the very son of a family that has turned out their Stuarts, under the nose of those very Stuarts, nay, when the Stuart Duke of York is even a cardinal. I trust it is not only the Papal chair that has sunk, but the crown of England that has risen. Think of the mighty Elizabeth excommunicated by Sixtus V. and the brother of George III. invited to Rome by Clement XIII.! If the honours I have told you Mr. Garrick has received in France do not obtain him a chair in a Florentine conversazione, I think you must threaten them with the thunder of the Vatican, which you see we have at command; but to be serious, I would not have you get into a squabble about him; he is not worth that. William Powell, an actor of great promise, born at Hereford in 1735, died at Bristol July 3, 1768, at the age of thirty-four. His first appearance was in Philaster. -CUNNINGHAM. We hear the King of Poland is dead; is that to be the source of a new war? You will see by the Gazette, that without such an event we had a nest egg for another war. There have been half-adozen battles in miniature with the Indians in America. It looked so odd to see a list of killed and wounded just treading on the heels of the Peace. MY DEAR LORD: 879. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.' Arlington Street, Oct. 18, 1763. I AM Very impatient for a letter from Paris, to hear of your outset, and what my Lady Hertford thinks of the new world she is got into, and whether it is better or worse than she expected. Pray tell me all I mean of that sort, for I have no curiosity about the family compact, nor the harbour of Dunkirk. It is your private history— your audiences, reception, comforts or distresses, your way of life, your company that interests me; in short, I care about my cousins and friends, not, like Jack Harris, about my Lord Ambassador. Consider you are in my power. You, by this time, are longing to hear from England, and depend upon me for the news of London. I shall not send you a tittle, if you are not very good, and do not (one of you, at least) write to me punctually. - 2 This letter, I confess, will not give you much encouragement, for I can absolutely tell you nothing. I dined at Mr. Grenville's to-day, where, if there had been anything to hear, I should have heard it; but all consisted in what you will see in the papers-some diminutive battles in America, and the death of the King of Poland, which you probably knew before we did. The town is a desart; it is like a vast plain, which, though abandoned at present, is in three weeks to have a great battle fought upon it. One of the colonels, I hear, is to be in town to-morrow, the Duke of Devonshire. I came myself but this morning, but as I shall not return to Strawberry till the day 1 Walpole's cousin; and the first of the published series of letters which Walpole addressed to him during his embassy in Paris. See Mr. Croker's Preface to the Correspondence in vol. i. of this edition.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Lord Hertford was Lord Ambassador from England to France, and Walpole's cousin and friend. Jack Harris was Lord Hertford's brother-in-law.-CUNNINGHAM. 3 The actions at Detroit and Edge Hill, on the 31st of July and 5th and 6th of August, between the British and the Indians. In the former the British were defeated, and their leader, captain Dalyell, killed; in the latter engagements, under Colonel Bouguet, they defeated the Indians.-Croker. 4 Stanislaus Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He died at Dresden, on the 5th of October.-CROKER. |