Volume Ii Part 1 (1/2)
Letters of Horace Walpole.
by Horace Walpole.
Volume II.
_MADAME DE BOUFFLERS AT STRAWBERRY--THE FRENCH OPINION OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER--RICHARDSON'S NOVELS--MADAME DE BEAUMONT._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, _Dec._ 20, 1764.
... My journey to Paris is fixed for some time in February, where I hear I may expect to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti. Her husband is just dead; and you know the House of Bourbon have an alacrity at marrying their old mistresses. She was here last year, being extremely infected with the _Anglomanie_, though I believe pretty well cured by her journey. She is past forty, and does not appear ever to have been handsome, but is one of the most agreeable and sensible women I ever saw; yet I must tell you a trait of her that will not prove my a.s.sertion. Lady Holland asked her how she liked Strawberry Hill? She owned that she did not approve of it, and that it was not _digne de la solidite Angloise_. It made me laugh for a quarter of an hour. They allot us a character we have not, and then draw consequences from that idea, which would be absurd, even if the idea were just. One must not build a Gothic house because the nation is _solide_. Perhaps, as everything now in France must be _a la Grecque_, she would have liked a hovel if it pretended to be built after Epictetus's--but Heaven forbid that I should be taken for a philosopher! Is it not amazing that the most sensible people in France can never help being domineered by sounds and general ideas? Now everybody must be a _geometre_, now a _philosophe_, and the moment they are either, they are to take up a character and advertise it: as if one could not study geometry for one's amus.e.m.e.nt or for its utility, but one must be a geometrician at table, or at a visit! So the moment it is settled at Paris that the English are solid, every Englishman must be wise, and, if he has a good understanding, he must not be allowed to play the fool. As I happen to like both sense and nonsense, and the latter better than what generally pa.s.ses for the former, I shall disclaim, even at Paris, the _profondeur_, for which they admire us; and I shall nonsense to admire Madame de Boufflers, though her nonsense is not the result of nonsense, but of sense, and consequently not the genuine nonsense that I honour.
When she was here, she read a tragedy in prose to me, of her own composition, taken from ”The Spectator:” the language is beautiful and so are the sentiments.
There is a Madame de Beaumont who has lately written a very pretty novel, called ”Lettres du Marquis du Roselle.” It is imitated, too, from an English standard, and in my opinion a most woful one; I mean the works of Richardson, who wrote those deplorably tedious lamentations, ”Clarissa” and ”Sir Charles Grandison,” which are pictures of high life as conceived by a bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualized by a Methodist teacher: but Madame de Beaumont has almost avoided sermons, and almost reconciled sentiments and common sense. Read her novel--you will like it.
_DEBATE ON AMERICAN TAXES--PEt.i.tION OF THE PERIWIG-MAKERS--FEMALE HEAD-DRESSES--LORD BYRON'S DUEL--OPENING OF ALMACK'S--NO. 45._
TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.
ARLINGTON STREET, _Feb._ 12, 1765.
A great many letters pa.s.s between us, my dear lord, but I think they are almost all of my writing. I have not heard from you this age. I sent you two packets together by Mr. Freeman, with an account of our chief debates. Since the long day, I have been much out of order with a cold and cough, that turned to a fever: I am now taking James's powder, not without apprehensions of the gout, which it gave me two or three years ago.
There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day on the American taxes,[1] which, Charles Townshend supporting, received a pretty heavy thump from Barre, who is the present Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths and Rigbys, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power. Do you never hear them to Paris?
[Footnote 1: Mr. Grenville's taxation of stamps and other articles in our American colonies, which caused great discontent, and was repealed by Lord Rockingham's Ministry.]
The operations of the Opposition are suspended in compliment to Mr.
Pitt, who has declared himself so warmly for the question on the Dismission of officers, that that motion waits for his recovery. A call of the House is appointed for next Wednesday, but as he has had a relapse, the motion will probably be deferred. I should be very glad if it was to be dropped entirely for this session, but the young men are warm and not easily bridled.
If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an entertaining pet.i.tion of the periwig-makers to the King, in which they complain that men will wear their own hair. Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate, that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no demand for wooden legs? _Apropos_ my Lady Hertford's friend, Lady Harriot Vernon, has quarrelled with me for smiling at the enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came one night to Northumberland House with such display of friz, that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before marriage, and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now. This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As she never found fault with anybody herself, I excuse her. You will be less surprised to hear that the d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at Court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel....
We have not a new book, play, intrigue, marriage, elopement, or quarrel; in short, we are very dull. For politics, unless the ministers wantonly thrust their hands into some fire, I think there will not even be a smoke. I am glad of it, for my heart is set on my journey to Paris, and I hate everything that stops me. Lord Byron's[1] foolish trial is likely to protract the session a little; but unless there is any particular business, I shall not stay for a puppet-show. Indeed, I can defend my staying here by nothing but my ties to your brother. My health, I am sure, would be better in another climate in winter. Long days in the House kill me, and weary me into the bargain. The individuals of each party are alike indifferent to me; nor can I at this time of day grow to love men whom I have laughed at all my lifetime--no, I cannot alter;--Charles Yorke or a Charles Townshend are alike to me, whether ministers or patriots. Men do not change in my eyes, because they quit a black livery for a white one. When one has seen the whole scene s.h.i.+fted round and round so often, one only smiles, whoever is the present Polonius or the Gravedigger, whether they jeer the Prince, or flatter his phrenzy.
[Footnote 1: In a previous letter Walpole mentions the duel caused by a dispute at cards, in which Lord Byron was so unfortunate as to kill his cousin, Mr. Chaworth.]
_Thursday night, 14th._
The new a.s.sembly Room at Almack's[1] was opened the night before last, and they say is very magnificent, but it was empty; half the town is ill with colds, and many were afraid to go, as the house is scarcely built yet. Almack advertized that it was built with hot bricks and boiling water--think what a rage there must be for public places, if this notice, instead of terrifying, could draw anybody thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping with wet--but can you believe me, when I a.s.sure you the Duke of c.u.mberland was there?--Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and went to the Opera before the a.s.sembly! There is a vast flight of steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies of it,--and how should he not?--it will sound very silly when Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, ”I caught my death on a damp staircase at a new club-room.”
[Footnote 1: Almack was a Scotchman, who got up a sort of female club in King Street, St. James's, at the place since known as Willis's Rooms. In the first half of the present century the b.a.l.l.s of Almack's were the most fas.h.i.+onable and exclusive in London, under the government of six lady patronesses, without a voucher from one of whom no one could obtain admittance. For a long time after trousers had become the ordinary wear they were proscribed at Almack's, and gentlemen were required to adhere to the more ancient and showy attire of knee-breeches; and it was said that in consequence of one having attempted unsuccessfully to obtain admission in trousers the tickets for the next ball were headed with a notice that ”gentlemen would not be admitted without breeches and stockings.”]
Williams, the reprinter of the _North Briton_, stood in the pillory to-day in Palace Yard.[1] He went in a hackney-coach, the number of which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite him, on which they hung a boot[2] with a bonnet of straw. Then a collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near 200. In short, every public event informs the Administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to impose even upon the mob! Think to what a government is sunk, when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face ”the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,” and not a man can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us. 'Tis poor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious of former days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible. That goes to _my_ heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth!--Good night!--I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to Paris, and dream I am pro-consul there: pray, take care not to let me be awakened with an account of an invasion having taken place from Dunkirk![3] Yours ever, H.W.
[Footnote 1: This was the last occasion on which the punishment of the pillory was inflicted.]
[Footnote 2: A scandal, for which there was no foundation, imputed to the Princess of Wales an undue intimacy with John Earl of Bute; and with a practical pun on his name the mob in some of the riots which were common in the first years of his reign showed their belief in the lie by fastening a _jack-boot_ and a petticoat together and feeding a bonfire with them.]