I am so glad to find it is you that are to blame, not I. Well, well, I am all good-nature, I forgive you; I can overlook such little negligences. Mr. Chute is indefatigable in your service, but Anstis' has been very troublesome; he makes as many difficulties in signing a certificate about folks that are dead as if they were claiming an estate. I am sorry you are so pressed, for poor Mr. Chute is taken off from this pursuit: he was fetched from hence this day se'nnight to his infernal brother's, where a Mrs. Mildmay, whom you must have heard him mention, is dead suddenly: this may turn out a very great misfortune to our friend. Your friend, Mr. Dodington, has not quite stuck to the letter of the declaration he sent you: he is first minister at Carlton-house, and is to lead the Opposition; but the misfortune is, nobody will be led by him. That whole court is in disorder by this event: everybody else laughs. I am glad the Barrets please you, and that I have pleased Count Lorenzi. I must tell you a speech of the Chevalier, which you will reconnoitre for Florentine; one would think he had seen no more of the world than his brother. He was visiting Lady Yarmouth with Mirepoix he drew a person into a window, and whispered him; "Dites moi un peu en ami, je vous en prie; qu'est ce que c'est que Miledi Yarmouth ?"-" Eh! bien, vous ne sçavez pas ?"-" Non, ma foi nous sçavons ce que c'est que Miledi Middlesex." Gibberne is arrived. I don't tell you this apropos to the foregoing paragraph: he has wanted to come hither, but I have waived his visit till I am in town. I announce to you the old absurd Countess-not of Orford, but Pomfret. Bistino will have enough to do: there is Lady Juliana [Fermor], who is very like, but not so handsome as Lady Granville; and Lady Granville's little child. They are actually in France; I don't doubt but you will have them. I shall pity you under a second edition of her follies. Adieu! Pray ask my pardon for my writing you so short a letter. 1 Garter King at Arms [vol. i. p. 234, and vol. ii. p. 160.]-WALPOLE. It was to him Lord Chesterfield said, business."-DOVER. You foolish man, you do not know your own foolish 2 Who had never been out of Tuscany.-WALPOLE. 3 In 1751 married to Thomas Penn, Esq., of Stoke Pogeis.-WRIGHT. : 300. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1749. AT last I have seen le beau Gibberne: I was extremely glad to see him, after I had done contemplating his person, which surely was never designed to figure in a romance. I never saw a creature so grateful! It is impossible not to be touched with the attachment he has for you. He talks of returning; and, indeed, I would advise it for his sake he is quite spoiled for living in England, and had entirely forgot what Visigoths his countrymen are. But I must drop him to thank you for the charming intaglio which you have stolen upon me by his means: it is admired as much as it deserves; but with me it has all the additional merit of coming from you. Gibberne says you will be frightened at a lamentable history' that you will read of me in the newspapers; but pray don't be frightened: the danger, great as it was, was over before I had any notion of it; and the hurt did not deserve mentioning. The relation is so near the truth, that I need not repeat it; and, indeed, the frequent repetition has been much worse than the robbery. I have at last been relieved by the riots at the new French theatre, and by Lord Coke's lawsuit. The first has been opened twice; the latter to-day. The young men of fashion, who espouse the French players, have hitherto triumphed: the old ladies who countenance Lady Mary Coke, are likely to have their grey beards brought with sorrow to the grave. It will be a new æra (or, as my Lord Baltimore calls it, a new area), in English history, to have the mob and the Scotch 1 Mr. Walpole had been robbed the week before in Hyde Park, and narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental going off of the highwayman's pistol, which did stun him, and took off the skin of his cheek-bone.-WALPOLE. "One night in the beginning of November, 1749, as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen [M'Lean and Plunket] in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them [the accomplished M'Lean] going off accidentally, razed the skin under my eye, left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me. The ball went through the top of the chariot, and if I had sat an inch nearer to the left side, must have gone through my head."- Walpole's Short Notes. (See vol. i. p. lxvi.) -CUNNINGHAM. 2 The mob was determined not to suffer French players; and Lord Trentham's engaging in their defence was made great use of against him at the ensuing election for Westminster; where he was to be re-chosen, on being appointed a lord of the Admiralty.-WALPOLE. 3 Lady Mary Coke swore the peace against her husband.-WALPOLE. 4 The Scotch were indignant at the English Lord Coke's treatment of his wife, a daughter of the great Duke of Argyll and Greenwich.-CUNNINGHAM. 4 beat out of two points that they have endeavoured to make national. I dare say the Chevalier Lorenzi will write ample accounts to Florence of these and all our English phenomena. I think, if possible, we brutalise more and more: the only difference is, that though everything is anarchy, there seems to be less general party than ever. The humours abound, but there wants some notable physician to bring them to a head. The Parliament met yesterday: we had opposition, but no division on the address. Now the Barrets have left you, Mr. Chute and I will venture to open our minds to you a little; that is, to comfort you for the loss of your friends: we will abuse them—that is enough in the way of the world. Mr. Chute had no kind of acquaintance with Mr. Barret till just before he set out: I, who have known him all my life, must tell you that all those nerves are imaginary, and that as long as there are distempers in the world, he will have one or two constantly upon his list. I don't know her; I never heard much of her understanding, but I had rather take your opinion; or at least, if I am not absolutely so complaisant, I will believe that you was determined to like them on Mr. Chute's account. I would not speak so plainly to you (and have not I been very severe ?) if I were not sure that your good-nature would not relax any offices of friendship to them. You will scold me black and blue; but you know I always tell you when the goodness of your heart makes you borrow a little from that of other people to lend to their heads. Good night! 301. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1750. I DON'T at all know what to say to you, for not having writ to you since the middle of November: I only know that nothing has happened, and so I have omitted telling you nothing. I have had two from you in the interim, one of Nov. 28th, and one without a date, in which you are extremely kind about my robbery, of which in my last I assured you there were no consequences: thank you a thousand times for having felt so much on my account. Gibberne has been with me again to-day, as his mother was a fortnight ago: she talked me to death, and three times after telling me her whole history, she said, "Well, then, Sir, upon the whole," and began it all again. Upon the whole, I think she has a mind to keep her son in England; and he has a mind to be kept, though in my opinion he is very unfit for living in England-he is too polished! For trade, she says, he is in a cold sweat if she mentions it; and so they propose, by the acquaintance, he says, his mother has among the quality, to get him that nothing called something. I assured them, you had too much friendship for him to desire his return, if it would be a prejudice to his interest-did not I say right? He seems a good creature; too good to make his way here. I beg you will not omit sending me every tittle that happens to compose my Lady Pomfret's second volume. We see perpetual articles of the sale of the furniture in the Great Duke's villas: is there any truth in it? You would know me again, if you saw me playing at pharaoh on one side of Madame de Mirepoix, as I used to do by her mother: I like her extremely, though she likes nothing but gaming. His pleasure is dancing: don't you envy anybody that can have spirits to be so simple as to like themselves in a minuet after fifty? Don't tell his brother, but the Chevalier Lorenzi is the object of the family's entertainment. With all the Italian thirst for English knowledge, he vents as many absurdities as if he had a passion for Ireland too. He saw some of the Florentine Gesses at Lord Lincoln's; he showed them to the Ambassadress with great transport, and assured her that the Great Duke had the originals, and that there never had been made any copies of them. He told her the other day that he had seen a sapphire of the size of her diamond ring, and worth more she said that could not be. "Oh!" said he, "I mean, supposing your diamond were a sapphire." I want to know Dr. Cocchi's and your opinion of two new French books, if you have seen them. One is Montesquieu's "Esprit des Loix;" which I think the best book that ever was written—at least I never learned half so much from all I ever read. There is as much wit as useful knowledge. He is said to have hurt his reputation by it in France, which I can conceive, for it is almost the interest of everybody there that can understand it to decry it. The other, far inferior, but entertaining, is Hainault's "Abregé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." It is very amusing, though very full of Frenchisms; and though an abridgment, often so minute as to tell you when the Quinzevingts first wore flower-de-luces on their shoulders but there are several little circumstances that give one an idea of the manners of old time, like Dr. Cocchi's treatise on the old rate of expenses. : There has been nothing particular in Parliament: all our conver : sation has turned on the Westminster election, on which, after a vast struggle, Lord Trentham had the majority. Then came on the scrutiny after a week's squabbling on the right of election, the High-bailiff declared what he would take to be the right. They are now proceeding to disqualify votes on that foot; but as his decision could not possibly please both sides, I fear it will come to us at last. : Lord Pembroke' died last night: he had been at the Bridge Committee' in the morning, where, according to custom, he fell into an outrageous passion; as my Lord Chesterfield told him, that ever since the pier sunk he has constantly been damming and sinking. The watermen say to-day, that now the great pier (peer) is quite gone. Charles Stanhope [Lord Harrington's brother] carried him home in his chariot; he desired the coachman to drive gently, for he could not avoid those passions; and afterwards, between shame and his asthma, he always felt daggers, and should certainly one day or other die in one of those fits. Arundel, his great friend and relation, came to him soon after he repeated the conversation, and said, he did not know but he might die by night. "God bless you! If I see you no more, take this as my last farewell!" He died in his chair at seven o'clock. He certainly is a public loss; for he was public-spirited and inflexibly honest, though prejudice and passion were so predominant in him that honesty had not fair play whenever he had been set upon any point that had been given him for right. In his lawsuit with my Lady Portland he was scurrilously indecent, though to a woman; and so blasphemous at tennis, that the present primate of Ireland' was forced to leave off playing with him. Last year he went near to destroy post-chaises, on a quarrel with the postmaster at Hounslow, who, as he told the Bishop of Chichester, had an hundred devils and Jesuits in his belly. In short, he was one of the lucky English madmen who get people to say, that whatever extravagance they commit, "Oh, it is his way." He began 1 Henry Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke, the architect Earl, of whom Walpole has given some account in his Anecdotes of Painting.' He died January 9, 1750-51. Of his widow, who married a Captain Barnard in the Dragoon Guards, see an amusing notice in Rigby's Letter to the Duke of Bedford, of September 10, 1751.— CUNNINGHAM. 2 The Westminster Bridge Committee. Labelye, the architect and engineer of Westminster Bridge, had been employed on that work mainly by the influence of the Earl of Pembroke.-CUNNINGHAM. 3 Richard Arundel, treasurer of the chambers: his mother, the Dowager Lady Arundel, was second wife of Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, father of Earl Henry.WALPOLE. * Dr. George Stone.--WALPOLE. |