Volume I Part 9 (1/2)
If you ever think of returning to England, as I hope it will be long first, you must prepare yourself with Methodism. I really believe that by that time it will be necessary: this sect increases as fast as almost ever any religious nonsense did. Lady f.a.n.n.y s.h.i.+rley has chosen this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty; and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has worn. The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon--and indeed they have a plentiful harvest--I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fas.h.i.+on. Drinking is at the highest wine-mark; and gaming joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and n.o.body immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man that was standing by....
_EARTHQUAKE IN LONDON--GENERAL PANIC--MARRIAGE OF CASIMIR, KING OF POLAND._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, _March_ 11, 1750.
Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent, That they have lost their name.
My text is not literally true; but as far as earthquakes go towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure we are overstocked. We have had a second, much more violent than the first; and you must not be surprised if by next post you hear of a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last (exactly a month since the first shock), the earth had a s.h.i.+vering fit between one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again--on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses: in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much chinaware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them: Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn. The wise say,[1] that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has nowhere reached above ten miles from London: they say, they are not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, ”Lord! one can't help going into the country!” The only visible effect it has had, was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night, there were but four hundred people. A parson, who came into White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said, ”I protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.” If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water: I am already planning a _terreno_ for Strawberry Hill.
[Footnote 1: In an earlier letter Walpole mentions that Sir I. Newton had foretold a great alteration in the English climate in 1750.]
The Middles.e.x election is carried against the Court: the Prince, in a green frock (and I won't swear, but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat), sat under the Park-wall in his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant--this is wise! They will spend their money to carry a few more seats in a Parliament where they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for Westminster; the High Bailiff went to vote for the Opposition.
I now jump to another topic; I find all this letter will be detached sc.r.a.ps; I can't at all contrive to hide the seams: but I don't care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon doing any more than telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told you too how pleased I was with the triumphs of another old beauty, our friend the Princess. Do you know, I have found a history that has great resemblance to hers; that is, that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Marechale l'Hopital was the daughter of a seamstress; a young gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-general, who had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the story, had a curiosity to see the victim; he liked her, married her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant. She came to Paris, where the Marechal de l'Hopital married her for her riches. After the Marechal's death, Casimir, the abdicated King of Poland, who was retired into France, fell in love with the Marechale, and privately married her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to Nancy, to hear her talk of _ma belle fille la Reine de France_. What pains my Lady Pomfret would take to prove that an abdicated King's wife did not take place of an English countess; and how the Princess herself would grow still fonder of the Pretender for the similitude of his fortune with that of _le Roi mon mari_! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened the other night, with Mrs. Nugent's calling out, _un voleur! un voleur_! The amba.s.sadress had heard so much of robbing, that she did not doubt but _dans ce pais cy_, they robbed in the middle of an a.s.sembly. It turned out to be a _thief in the candle_! Good night!
GENERAL PANIC--SHERLOCK'S PASTORAL LETTER--PREDICTIONS OF MORE EARTHQUAKES--A GENERAL FLIGHT FROM LONDON--EPIGRAMS BY CHUTE AND WALPOLE HIMSELF--FRENCH TRANSLATION OF MILTON.
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 2, 1750.
You will not wonder so much at our earthquakes as at the effects they have had. All the women in town have taken them up upon the foot of _Judgments_; and the clergy, who have had no windfalls of a long season, have driven horse and foot into this opinion. There has been a shower of sermons and exhortations: Seeker, the Jesuitical Bishop of Oxford, began the mode. He heard the women were all going out of town to avoid the next shock; and so, for fear of losing his Easter offerings, he set himself to advise them to await G.o.d's good pleasure in fear and trembling. But what is more astonis.h.i.+ng, Sherlock, who has much better sense, and much less of the Popish confessor, has been running a race with him for the old ladies, and has written a pastoral letter, of which ten thousand were sold in two days; and fifty thousand have been subscribed for, since the two first editions.
I told you the women talked of going out of town: several families are literally gone, and many more going to-day and to-morrow; for what adds to the absurdity, is, that the second shock having happened exactly a month after the former, it prevails that there will be a third on Thursday next, another month, which is to swallow up London. I am almost ready to burn my letter now I have begun it, lest you should think I am laughing at you: but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told me last night, that he should put off the last ridotto, which was to be on Thursday, because he hears n.o.body would come to it. I have advised several, who are going to keep their next earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so periodic.[1] d.i.c.k Leveson and Mr.
Rigby, who had supped and stayed late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, ”Past four o'clock, and a dreadful earthquake!”...
[Footnote 1: ”I remember,” says Addison, in the 240th _Tatler_, ”when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, that there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills, which, as he told the country people, were 'very good against an earthquake.'”]
This frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days seven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted pa.s.sing Hyde Park corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is a good advertis.e.m.e.nt which I cut out of the papers to-day:--
”On Monday next will be published (price 6_d._) A true and exact List of all the n.o.bility and Gentry who have left, or shall leave, this place through fear of another Earthquake.”
Several women have made earthquake gowns; that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all to-night. These are of the more courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back--I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His _colonel_ sent to the man's wife, and asked her if her husband had ever been disordered before. She cried, ”Oh dear! my lord, he is not mad now; if your _lords.h.i.+p_ would but get any _sensible_ man to examine him, you would find he is quite in his right mind.”...
I shall now go and show you Mr. Chute in a different light from heraldry, and in one in which I believe you never saw him. He will s.h.i.+ne as usual; but, as a little more severely than his good-nature is accustomed to, I must tell you that he was provoked by the most impertinent usage. It is an epigram on Lady Caroline Petersham, whose present fame, by the way, is coupled with young Harry Vane.
WHO IS THIS?
Her face has beauty, we must all confess, But beauty on the brink of ugliness: Her mouth's a rabbit feeding on a rose; With eyes--ten times too good for such a nose!
Her blooming cheeks--what paint could ever draw 'em?
That paint, for which no mortal ever saw 'em.
Air without shape--of royal race divine-- 'Tis Emily--oh! fie!--'tis Caroline.
Do but think of my beginning a third sheet! but as the Parliament is rising, and I shall probably not write you a tolerably long letter again these eight months, I will lay in a stock of merit with you to last me so long. Mr. Chute has set me too upon making epigrams; but as I have not his art mine is almost a copy of verses: the story he told me, and is literally true, of an old Lady Bingley:
Celia now had completed some thirty campaigns, And for new generations was hammering chains; When whetting those terrible weapons, her eyes, To Jenny, her handmaid, in anger she cries, ”Careless creature! did mortal e'er see such a gla.s.s!
Who that saw me in this, could e'er guess what I was!
Much you mind what I say! pray how oft have I bid you Provide me a new one? how oft have I chid you?”
”Lord, Madam!” cried Jane, ”you're so hard to be pleased!