wanted its comfort, it thought about me, that is, not at all. It is a disagreeable dream which must end for everybody else as well as for oneself. Some try to supply the emptiness and vanity of present life by something still more empty, fame. I choose to comfort myself, by considering that even while I am lamenting any present uneasiness it is actually passing away. I cannot feel the comfort of folly, because I am not a fool, and I scarce know any other being that is worth one's while to wish to be. All this looks as if it proceeded from a train of melancholy ideas-it does so; but misfortunes have that good in them that they teach one indifference. If I could be mortified anew, I should be with a new disappointment. The immense and uncommon friendship of Mr. Chute had found a method of saving both my family and yours. In short, in the height of his affliction for Whithed, whom he still laments immoderately, he undertook to get Miss Nicoll, the vast fortune, a fortune of above 150,000l., whom Whithed was to have had, for Lord Orford. He actually persuaded her to run away from her guardians, who used her inhumanly, and are her next heirs. How clearly he is justified, you will see, when I tell you that the man, who had eleven hundred a year for her maintenance, with which he stopped the demands of his own creditors, instead of employing it for her maintenance and education, is since gone into the Fleet. After such fair success, Lord Orford has refused to marry her; why, nobody can guess. Thus had I placed him in a greater situation than even his grandfather hoped to bequeath to him, had retrieved all the oversights of my family, had saved Houghton and all our glory!-Now, all must go!-and what shocks me infinitely more, Mr. Chute, by excess of treachery, (a story too long for a letter,) is embroiled with his own brother-the story, with many others, I believe I shall tell you in person; for I do not doubt but the disagreeable scenes which I have still to go through, will at last drive me to where I have long proposed to seek some peace.-But enough of these melancholy ideas!' In The Regency bill has passed with more ease than could have been expected from so extraordinary a measure, and from the warmth with which it was taken up one day in the House of Commons. the Lords there were but 12 to 106, and the former, the most inconsiderable men in that House. Lord Bath and Lord Grenville spoke vehemently for it: the former in as wild a speech, with much parts, as ever he made in his patriot days; and with as little See vol. i. p. lxvii.-CUNNINGHAM. modesty he lamented the scrambles that he had seen for power! In our House, Mr. Pelham had four signal mortifications: the Speaker, in a most pathetic and fine speech, Sir John Barnard, and Lord Cobham, speaking against it, and Mr. Fox, though voting for it, tearing it to pieces. Almost all the late Prince's people spoke or voted for it; most, pretending difference to the Princess, though her power is so much abridged by it. However, the consolation that resides in great majorities balanced the disagreeableness of particular oppositions. We sit, and shall sit, till towards the end of June, though with little business of importance. If there happens any ministerial struggle, which seems a little asleep at present, it will scarce happen till after the prorogation. Adieu! my dear child; I have nothing else worth telling you at present at least, the same things don't strike me that used to do; or what perhaps is more true, when things of consequence take one up, one can't attend to mere trifling. When I say this, you will ask me, where is my philosophy! Even where the best is: I think as coolly as I can, I don't exaggerate what is disagreeable, and I endeavour to lessen it, by undervaluing what I am inclined to think would be a happier state. 324. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, May 30, 1751. MRS. BOSCAWEN' says I ought to write to you. I don't think so: you desired I would, if I had anything new to tell you; I have not. Lady Caroline and Miss Ashe had quarrelled about reputations before you went out of town. I suppose you would not give a straw to know all the circumstances of a Mr. Paul killing a Mr. Dalton;2 though the town, who talks of anything, talks of nothing else. Mrs. French and her Jeffery are parted again. Lady Orford and Shirley married they say she was much frightened; it could not be for fear of what other brides dread happening, but for fear it should not happen. My evening yesterday was employed, how wisely do you think? in trying to procure for the Duchess of Portland a scarlet spider from Admiral Boscawen. I had just seen her collection, which is 1 See Letter to Montagu, 28 Aug. 1752.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 See Gentleman's Magazine' for 1751, p. 234.-CUNNINGHAM. 3 Admiral Edward Boscawen, fifth son of Hugh, Viscount Falmouth. He died 10 January, 1761. See p. 148.-CUNNINGHAM. indeed magnificent, chiefly composed of the spoils of her father's, and the Arundel collections. The gems of all sorts are glorious. I was diverted with two relics of St. Charles the Martyr; one, the pearl you see in his pictures, taken out of his ear after his foolish head was off; the other, the cup out of which he took his last sacrament. They should be given to that nursery of nonsense and bigotry, Oxford. I condole with you on your journey, am glad Miss Montagu is in better health, and am yours sincerely. DEAR SIR: 325. TO THE REV. JOSEPH SPENCE. Arlington Street, June 3, 1751. I HAVE translated the lines, and send them to you; but the expressive conciseness and beauty of the original, and my disuse of turning verses, made it so difficult, that I beg they may be of no other use than that of showing you how readily I complied with your request. Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia vertit, If she but moves or looks, her step, her face, There are twenty little literal variations that may be made, and are of no consequence, as move or look; air instead of step, and adopts instead of adopt: I don't know even whether I would not read steal and adopt, instead of by stealth adopt. But none of these changes will make the copy half so pretty as the original. But what signifies that? I am not obliged to be a poet because Tibullus was one; nor is it just now that I have discovered I am not. Adieu. 326. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, June 13, 1751. You have told me that it is charity to write you news into Kent; but what if my news should shock you! Won't it rather be an act of cruelty to tell you, your relation, Sandwich, is immediately to be removed; and that the Duke of Bedford and all the Gowers will resign to attend him? Not quite all the Gowers, for the Earl himself keeps the privy seal and plays on at brag with Lady Catherine Pelham, to the great satisfaction of the Staffordshire Jacobites, who desire, at least expect, no better diversion than a division in that house. Lord Trentham does resign. Lord Hartington is to be Master of the Horse, and called up to the House of Peers. Lord Granville is to be President; if he should resent any former resignations and insist on victims, will Lord Hartington assure the menaced that they shall not be sacrificed? I hear your friend Lord North is wedded somebody said it is very hot weather to marry so fat a bride; George Selwyn replied, "Oh! she was kept in ice for three days before." The first volume of Spenser is published with prints, designed by Kent; but the most execrable performance you ever beheld. The graving not worse than the drawing; awkward knights, scrambling Unas, hills tumbling down themselves, no variety of prospect, and three or four perpetual spruce firs. Our charming Mr. Bentley is doing Gray as much more honour as he deserves than Spenser. He is drawing vignettes for his Odes; what a valuable MS. I shall have! Warburton publishes his edition of Pope next week, with the famous piece of prose on Lord Hervey,' which he formerly suppressed at my uncle's desire; who had got an abbey from Cardinal Fleury for one Southcote, a friend of Pope's.3 My Lord Hervey pretended not to thank him. I am told the edition has waited, because Warburton has cancelled above a hundred sheets (in which he had inserted notes) since the publication of the Canons of Criticism. The new history of Christina is a most wretched piece of trumpery, stuffed with foolish letters and confutations of Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Madame de Motteville. Adieu! Yours ever. 1 The bride was Katherine, daughter and co-heir of Sir Robert Furnese, Bart., and widow of the Earl of Rockingham. She died in 1776. She was the third wife of Lord North.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Entitled A Letter to a Noble Lord, on occasion of some libels written and propagated at court, in the year 1732-3.'-WRIGHT. 3 According to Spence, the application was made by Pope to Sir Robert Walpole; but Dr. Warton states, that, "in gratitude for the favour conferred on his friend, Pope presented to Horatio Walpole, afterwards Lord Walpole, a set of his works in quarto, richly bound; which are now in the library at Wolterton."-WRIGHT. Compare Warburton's Letter to Jortin in Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 176. Both brothers backed the poet's application; but Horace, as minister in France, was doubtless the brother who immediately obtained what the poet asked for.CUNNINGHAM. 4 By Thomas Edwards, and a well-known and able work. This mention of the cancels in the first edition of Warburton's Pope (9 vols. 8vo, 1751) is curiously confirmed by some papers I have seen in Mr. Croker's possession.-CUNNINGHAM. VOL. II. S 327. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 18, 1751. I SEND my letter as usual from the Secretary's office, but of what Secretary I don't know. Lord Sandwich last week received his dismission, on which the Duke of Bedford resigned the next day, and Lord Trentham with him, both breaking with old Gower, who is entirely in the hands of the Pelhams, and made to declare his quarrel with Lord Sandwich (who gave away his daughter to Colonel Waldegrave) the foundation of detaching himself from the Bedfords. Your friend Lord Fane' comforts Lord Sandwich with an annuity of a thousand a-year-scarcely for his handsome behaviour to his sister! Lord Hartington is to be Master of the Horse, and Lord Albemarle groom of the stole; Lord Granville is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more-in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him. It is believed that Impresario Holderness will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations. If the former does, you will have ample instructions to negotiate for singers and dancers! Here is an epigram made upon his directorship: "That secrecy will now prevail In politics, is certain ; Since Holderness, who gets the seals, Was bred behind the curtain." The Admirals Rowley and Boscawen are brought into the Admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board. Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen's case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quantity of resentment to Anson. In short, the whole present system is equally formed for duration! Since I began my letter, Lord Holderness has kissed hands for the seals. It is said that Lord Halifax is to be made easy, by the plantations being put under the Board of Trade. Lord Granville comes into power as boisterously as ever, and dashes at everything. 1 Lord Sandwich married Dorothy, sister of Charles, Lord Viscount Fane.WALPOLE. |