DEAR SIR: 812. TO GROSVENOR BEDFORD, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 12. THE next time you go that way, be so good as to drop two guineas for me, but not in my name, according to the enclosed advertisement. I hope your gout is quite gone off. Yours ever, H. W. DEAR SIR: 813. TO GROSVENOR BEDFORD, ESQ. Arlington Street, Oct. 29. As you go into the city, I will be obliged to you, if you will give two guineas for me at the Poultry, but it must be ordered to be laid out only for the comfort of the sick prisoners, according to this enclosed advertisement. Yours, &c., DEAR SIR: 814. TO GROSVENOR BEDFORD, ESQ. H. W. I WISH that any morning as you go into the city, you would take the trouble of calling at the Poultry Compter. The poor people there have advertised several times to beg money to pay their fees of discharge. I would give them two guineas towards it if I could be sure it would be honestly employed for them, and will beg you, if you find that possible, to advance it. Yours ever, H. WALPOLE. 815. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 24, 1762. I was disappointed at not seeing you, as you had given me hopes, but shall be glad to meet the General, as I think I shall, for I go to town on Monday to restore the furniture of my house, which has been painted; and to stop the gaps as well as I can, which I have made by bringing away everything hither; but as long as there are auctions, and I have any money or hoards, these wounds soon close. I can tell you nothing of your dame Montagu and her arms; but I dare to swear Mr. Chute can. I did not doubt but you would approve Mr. Bateman's, since it has changed its religion; I converted it from Chinese to Gothic. His cloister of founders, which by the way is Mr. Bentley's, is delightful; I envy him his old chairs,' and the tomb of Bishop Caducanus; but I do not agree with you in preferring the Duke's [Cumberland's] to Stowe. The first is in a greater style, I grant, but one always perceives the mésalliance; the blood of Bagshot-heath will never let it be green. If Stowe had but half so many buildings as it has, there would be too many; but that profusion that glut enriches, and makes it look like a fine landscape of Albano; one figures oneself in Tempe or Daphne. I never saw St. Leonard's-hill [near Windsor]; would you spoke seriously of buying it! one could stretch out the arm from one's postchaise, and reach you when one would. I am here all in ignorance and rain, and have seen nobody these two days since I returned from Park-place. I do not know whether the mob hissed my Lord Bute at his installation,' as they intended, or whether my Lord Talbot drubbed them for it. I know nothing of the peace, nor of the Havannah; but I could tell you much of old English engravers, whose lives occupy me at present. On Sunday I am to dine with your prime minister Hamilton [SingleSpeech]; for though I do not seek the world, and am best pleased when quiet here, I do not refuse its invitations, when it does not press one to pass above a few hours with it. I have no quarrel to it, when it comes not to me, nor asks me to lie from home. That favour is only granted to the elect, to Greatworth, and a very few more spots. Adieu ! 816. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 26, 1762. WELL, my dear Sir, we write and write, but we do not take the Havannah or make the peace; I wish the latter may not depend on the former! Lord Albemarle's last letters have not been made public; we do not doubt but there is great sickness among our troops, nor do the Spaniards seem so terrified at the name of an 1 Ante, Vol. iii. p. 429.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 The ceremony of the installation of Prince William and Lord Bute, as knights of the garter, took place at Windsor on the 22nd of September.- WRIGHT. Englishman as the French are. The former proceed in conquering Portugal before our faces; yet we have given them a little check, and I hope a little spirit to the Portuguese. The Duchess of Bedford is certainly going to Paris, but we do not expect the definitive treaty before the Parliament meets. The clamour does not increase, though I do not tell you it abates. One knows not what to believe about the chiefs. Pitt is said to declare firmly against opposition; others make a salvo for him, unless in case of a bad peace. But neither they nor he know what he will do till he is in the middle of his first speech. In the mean time Lord Temple is all flax, tow, pitch, and combustibles. What I do believe is, that Pitt has refused all junction with the Duke of Newcastle, who has certainly contributed most to raise the flame, who is for ever at Court, and yet ruining himself with more alacrity than ever in entertainments to keep up a party; yet I dare to say he will neither have courage to head an opposition, nor art enough to get to the top again, but will be just troublesome enough to obtain some insignificant post in the Cabinet Council. Somebody said t'other day, "Yet sure the Duke of Newcastle does not want parts ;"-"No," replied Lord Talbot, "for he has done without them for forty years." His Grace, Lord Temple, and Lord Bute, met last Wednesday at the installation of the last. The first, when he performed the ceremony, embraced Lord Bute; Lord Temple sat next to him at dinner, but they did not exchange a syllable, and yet I do not esteem habitual virulence more than habitual dissimulation. The pomp was great; the King, Queen, and all the family, but Princess Amelia, (who excused herself from seeing her father's trophies buried) were there: Prince William [the Duke of Gloucester] was installed too, and it was the King's first appearance to take his stall. The Queen was charmed with Windsor, and they stay there till Tuesday. Pains had been taken to breed a riot, but nothing happened. The Duke de Nivernois was ill, and could not see the ceremony. He is very battered, delicate, and anxious about his health; very plain and little in his person, but with the air of a gentleman, so I hear. I have not seen him, nor have any curiosity; he translated Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead,' which has not given me much opinion. of him. I did not doubt but such humanity as yours would agree with me about the Czarina-but I grow a little cooled upon that subject; I have not named her with abhorrence above seven times this week. Well, I have seen my Duchess [of Grafton]-you have not returned her as you received her. I was quite struck at seeing her so much altered. She wears no rouge, and being leaner, her features, which never were delicate, seem larger. Then, she is not dressed French, but Italian, that is, over-French. In one point, in which she cannot be improved, she seemed so; being thinner, she looked taller. She spoke of you to my perfect content; and as if I did not know it, told me of all your good-breeding, good-nature, and attentions. She had said to a friend of mine that she had something for me from you, but that I should not have it till she saw me. That was but for half an hour, and not at her own house, so she and I both forgot it; was it my letters? I hope not, for she is gone to her father's [Lord Ravensworth's] in Northumberland, and being doomed never to appear where she is formed to shine, was not at the Installation; nay, will not be in town till December. If she who was so proper for it was not at Windsor, pray do not imagine I was. I saw that show above thirty years ago, and do not, like the Duke of Newcastle, tease every reign with my presence. Lord Melcombe, except some trifling legacies, has left everything in his power to a near relation, Mr. Windham; but Eastbury [in Dorsetshire], and the estate are Lord Temple's, who having always threatened to pull down that pile of ugliness when it should be his, is charmed since he has seen it through the eyes of possession. I told you of Lady Mary Wortley's death and Will, but I did not then know that, with her usual maternal tenderness, and usual generosity, she has left her son one guinea. Arlington Street, Monday night 27th. What a scene will What acrimony, if we And does war want new This codicil to my letter will not rejoice you. I find here great doubts of the peace in the city they disbelieve it, and prove their disbelief substantially: the Stocks fall fast. follow, if this negotiation breaks off too! think ourselves again deluded by France! edge? Wretched mortals! more wretched Kings and ministers, who look on lives as on gunpowder, and care not how many barrels they waste of either! Negotiations indeed will fluctuate before they settle. I wish this may be only one of their qualms. Prince Ferdinand too, will not be sparing of the human gunpowder committed to his charge: he will have a match ready in his hand to the last moment to blow up the treaty ;-such a blessing is a foreign general, who has a different interest and cannot be called to account! Sure |