CORRESPONDENCE

OF THE

HON. HORACE WALPOLE.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1759.

I REJOICE Over your brother's honours, though I certainly had no hand in them. He probably received his staff from the board of trade. If any part of the consequences could be placed to partiality for me, it would be the prevention of your coming to town, which I wished. My Lady Cutts is indubitably your own grandmother: the Trevors would once have had it, but by some misunderstanding the old Cowslade refused it. Mr. Chute has twenty more corroborating circumstances, but this one is sufficient.

Fred. Montagu told me of the pedigree. I shall take care of all your commissions. Felicitate yourself on having got from me the two landscapes; that source is stopped. Not that Mr. Müntz is eloped to finish the conquest of America, nor promoted by Mr. Secretary's zeal for my friends, nor because the ghost of Mrs. Leneve has appeared to me, and ordered me to drive Hannah and Ishmael into the wilderness. A cause much more familiar to me has separated us—nothing

Lady Cutts was the mother of Mrs. Montagu, by her second husband, John Trevor, Esq. and grandmother of George Montagu.-E.

VOL. IV.

B

but a tolerable quantity of ingratitude on his side, both to me and Mr. Bentley. The story is rather too long for a letter: the substance was most extreme impertinence to me, concluded by an abusive letter against Mr. Bentley, who sent him from starving on seven pictures for a guinea to one hundred pounds a year, my house, table, and utmost countenance. In short, I turned his head, and was forced to turn him out of doors. You shall see the documents, as it is the fashion to call proof papers. Poets and painters imagine they confer the honour when they are protected, and they set down impertinence to the article of their own virtue, when you dare to begin to think that an ode or a picture is not a patent for all manner of insolence.

My Lord Temple, as vain as if he was descended from the stroller Pindar, or had made up card-matches at the siege of Genoa, has resigned the privy seal, because he has not the garter. You cannot imagine what an absolute prince I feel myself with knowing that nobody can force me to give the garter to Müntz.

My Lady Carlisle is going to marry a Sir William Musgrave, who is but three-and-twenty; but, in consideration of the match, and of her having years to spare, she has made him a present of ten, and calls them three-and-thirty. I have seen the new Lady Stanhope. I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the faces of the Stanhopes. Adieu!

SIR,

TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.

Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1759.

ON coming to town, I did myself the honour of waiting on you and Lady Hester Pitt; and though I think myself extremely distinguished by your obliging note, I should be sorry for having given you the trouble of writing it, if it did

See vol. iii. p. 495.

2 Now first collected.

not lend me a very pardonable opportunity of saying what I much wished to express, but thought myself too private a person, and of too little consequence, to take the liberty to say. In short, Sir, I was eager to congratulate you on the lustre you have thrown on this country; I wished to thank you for the security you have fixed to me of enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed England in a situation in which it never saw itself a task the more difficult, as you had not to improve, but recover.

In a trifling book, written two or three years ago,1 I said (speaking of the name in the world the most venerable to me), "sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have already written his eulogium." It is but justice to you, Sir, to add, that that period ended when your administration began.

Sir, do not take this for flattery: there is nothing in your power to give that I would accept; nay, there is nothing I could but what I believe you would scarce offer meenvy, your glory. This may seem very vain and insolent; but consider, Sir, what a monarch is a man who wants nothing! consider how he looks down on one who is only the most illustrious man in England! But, Sir, freedoms apart, insignificant as I am, probably it must be some satisfaction to a great mind like yours to receive incense, when you are sure there is no flattery blended with it; and what must any Englishman be that could give you a moment's satisfaction and would hesitate?

Adieu! Sir. I am unambitious, I am uninterested, but I am vain. You have, by your notice, uncanvassed, unexpected, and at a period when you certainly could have the least temptation to stoop down to me, flattered me in the most agreeable manner. If there could arrive the moment when you could be nobody and I anybody, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be. In the mean time, permit me to be, as I have been ever since I had the honour of knowing you, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

1 His "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.”—E.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Nov. 30th of the Great Year.

HERE is a victory more than I promised you! For these thirteen days we have been in the utmost impatience for news. The Brest fleet had got out; Duff, with three ships, was in the utmost danger - Ireland ached-Sir Edward Hawke had notice in ten hours, and sailed after Conflans Saunders arrived the next moment from Quebec, heard it, and sailed after Hawke without landing his glory. No express arrived, storms blew; we knew not what to think. This morning at four we heard that, on the 20th, Sir Edward Hawke came in sight of the French, who were pursuing Duff. The fight began at half an hour past two-that is, the French began to fly, making a running fight. Conflans tried to save himself behind the rocks of Belleisle, but was forced to burn his ship of eighty guns and twelve hundred men. The Formidable, of eighty, and one thousand men, is taken; we burned the Hero of seventy-four, eight hundred and fifteen men. The Thesée and Superbe of seventy-four and seventy, and of eight hundred and fifteen and eight hundred men, were sunk in the action, and the crews lost. Eight of their ships are driven up the Vilaine, after having thrown over their guns; they have moored two frigates to defend the entrance, but Hawke hopes to destroy them. Our loss is a scratch, one lieutenant and thirty-nine men killed, and two hundred and two wounded. The Resolution of seventy-four guns, and the Essex of sixty-four, are lost, but the crews saved; they, it is supposed, perished by the tempest, which raged all the time, for

"We rode in the whirlwind and directed the storm."

Sir Edward heard guns of distress in the night, but could not tell whether of friend or foe, nor could assist them.1

This was Hawke's famous victory, for which he received the thanks of Parliament, and a pension of two thousand pounds a-year. In 1765, he was created a peer.-D.