I must give you account of "les amusements des eaux de Straberri.” T'other day my Lady Rochford, Lady Townshend, Miss Bland,' and the knight of the garter dined here, and were carried into the printing-office, and were to see the man print. There were some lines ready placed, which he took off; I gave them to Lady Townshend; here they are The press speaks: From me wits and poets their glory obtain; Stop, Townshend, and let me but paint what you say; They then asked, as I foresaw, to see the man compose : I gave him four lines out of "The Fair Penitent," which he set; but while he went to place them in the press, I made them look at something else without their observing, and in an instant he whipped away what he had just set, and to their great surprise, when they expected to see Were ye, ye fair, he presented to my Lady Rochford the following lines: The press speaks: In vain from your properest name you have flown, You may imagine, whatever the poetry was, that the gallantry of it succeeded. Poor Mr. Bentley has been at the extremity with a fever, and inflammation in his bowels; but is so well recovered that Mr. Müntz is gone to fetch him hither to-day. I don't guess what sight I have to come in Hampshire, unless it is Abbotstone. I am pretty sure I have none to come at the Vine, where I have done advising, as I see Mr. Chute will never execute anything. The very altarpiece that I sent for to Italy is not placed yet. But when he could refrain from making the Gothic columbarium for his family, which I propose, and Mr. Bentley had drawn so divinely, it is not probable he should do anything else. Adieu! 1 Sister of Sir John Bland.-WRIGHT. 522. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Sept. 2, 1757. Nor being in town, there may be several more new productions, as the Grubbæa frutex blossoms every day; but I send you all I had gathered for myself, while I was there. I found the pamphlet much in vogue; and, indeed, it is written smartly. My Lady Townshend sends all her messages on the backs of these political cards; the only good one of which, the two heads facing one another, is her son George's. Charles met D'Abreu t'other day, and told him he intended to make a great many good speeches next winter; the first, said he, shall be to address the King not to send for any more foreign troops, but to send for some foreign ministers. My Lord Chesterfield is relapsed: he sent Lord Bath word lately, that he was grown very lean and very deaf: the other replied, that he could lend him some fat, and should be very glad at any time to lend him an ear. I shall go to town on Monday, and if I find any thing else new, I will pack it up with a flower picture for Lady Ailesbury, which I shall leave in Warwick-street, with orders to be sent to you. Adieu! 523. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 3, 1757. HAVING intended a journey into Warwickshire to see Lady Hertford while my lord is in Ireland, and having accordingly ordered my letters thither, though without going, I did not receive. yours of the 22nd till last week; and though you desired an immediate acknowledgment of it, I own I did defer till I could tell you that I had been at Linton,' from whence I returned yesterday. I had long promised your brother a visit; the immediate cause was very melancholy, and I must pass over it rapidly—in short, I am going to place an urn in the church there to our dear Gal.! If I could have divested myself of that thought, I should have passed my time very happily; the house is fine, and stands like the citadel of Kent; the whole county is its garden. So rich a prospect scarce 1 In Kent, the seat of Edward Louisa Mann, brother of Sir Horace.-WALPOLE. wants my Thames. Mr. and Mrs. Foote are settled there, two of the most agreeable and sensible people I ever met. Their eldest boy has the finest countenance in the world; your nephew Hory' was there too, and has a sweetness of temper as if begot between your brother and you, and not between him and his Tisiphone. Your eldest brother has not only established your sister Foote there, which looks well, but dropped very agreeable hints about Hory. Your letter has confirmed my satisfaction about your situation, about which indeed I am easy. I am persuaded you will remain at Florence as long as King George has any minister there. I do not imagine that a recall obliges you to return home; whether you could get your appointments continued is very different. It is certainly far from unprecedented: nay, more than one have received them at home-but that is a favour far beyond my reach to obtain. Should there be occasion, you must try all your friends, and all that have professed themselves so; young Mr. Pelham' might do something. In the mean time, neglect none of the ministers. If you could wind into a correspondence with Colonel Yorke at the Hague, he may be of great service to you. That family is very powerful: the eldest brother, Lord Royston,' is historically curious and political: if, without its appearing too forced, you could at any time send him uncommon letters, papers, manifestoes, and things of that sort, it might do you good service. My dear child, I can give you better advice than assistance; I believe I have told you before, that I should rather hurt you than serve you by acting openly for you. I told you in my last Admiral Boscawen's affair too strongly he is not disgraced nor dismissed, but seems to reckon himself both. The story is far from exactly known: what I can sift out is, that he indulged himself in a great latitude in a most profitable station, was recalled against his inclination for the present expedition; not being easily met, a second commander was appointed, whom it seems he did not much care to serve under at first. He does not serve at all, and his Boscawenhood is much more Boscawened; that is, surly in the deepest shade. The wind has blown so constantly west for near 1 Sister of Sir Horace.-WALPOLE. 2 Horace, only son of Galfridus Mann.-WALPOLE. 3 Thomas, afterwards Lord Pelham.-WALPOLE. Sir Joseph Yorke, K.B., third son of the Chancellor Hardwicke; created Lord Dover in 1788, and died without issue in 1792.-WRIGHT. 5 Afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke; better known as the editor of 'The Hardwicke State Papers,' 2 vols. 4to.-CUNNINGHAM. three weeks, that we have not only received no mails from the continent, but the transports have been detained in the Downs, and the secret expedition has remained at anchor. I have prayed it might continue, but the wind has got to the east to-day. Having never been prejudiced in favour of this exploit, what must I think of it when the French have had such long notice? We had a torrent of bad news yesterday from America. Lord Loudon has found an army of twenty-one thousand French, gives over the design on Louisbourg, and retires to Halifax. Admiral Holbourn writes, that they have nineteen ships to his seventeen, and he cannot attack them. It is time for England to slip her own cables, and float away into some unknown ocean. Between disgraces and an inflammation in my eyes, it is time to conclude my letter. My eyes I have certainly weakened with using them too much at night. I went the other day to Scarlet's to buy green spectacles; he was mighty assiduous to give me a pair that would not tumble my hair. "Lord! Sir," said I, "when one is come to wear spectacles, what signifies how one looks?" I hope soon to add another volume to your packet from my press. I shall now only print for presents; or, to talk in a higher style, I shall only give my Louvre editions to privy councillors and foreign ministers. Apropos ! there is a book of this sacred sort which I wish I could by your means procure it is the account, with plates, of what has been found at Herculaneum. You may promise the King of Naples in return all my editions. Adieu! my dear Sir. Sept. 4. I had sealed this up, and was just sending it to London, when I received yours of the 13th of this month. I am charmed with the success of your campaign at Leghorn--a few such generals or ministers would give a little revulsion to our affairs. You frighten me with telling me of innumerable copies taken of my inscription on the Pope's picture: some of our bear-leaders will pick it up, send it over, and I shall have the horror of seeing it in a Magazine. Though I had no scruple of sending the good old man a cordial, I should hate to have it published at the tail of a newspaper, like a testimonial from one of Dr. Rock's' patients! You talk of the Pope's enemies; who are they? I thought at most he could have none but at our bonfires on the fifth of November. 1 The name of Dr. Richard Rock, the quack doctor, is of frequent occurrence in Goldsmith's Essays. See 'Citizen of the World,' Letter, 68, &c.; Hogarth has added to his immortality in his March to Finchley.'-CUNNINGHAM. 524. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 8, 1757. How I laughed at your picture of the shrine of Notre Dame de Straberri, and of the vows hung up there! I little thought that when I converted my castle into a printing-office, the next transformation would be into an hospital for the filles repenties from Mrs. Naylor's and Lady Fitzroy's.' You will treat the enclosed I trust with a little more respect; not for the sake of the hero, but of the poet. The poet, poor soul! has had a relapse, but is again recovering. As I know no earthly history, you must accept the sonnet as if it was written into my letter; and therefore, supposing this the end of the third page, I bid you good night. 525. TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.2 Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1757. AFTER all the trouble your Ladyship has been so good as to take voluntarily, you will think it a little hard that I should presume to give you more; but it is a cause, Madam, in which I know you feel, and I can suggest new motives to your Ladyship's zeal. In short, Madam, I am on the crisis of losing Mademoiselle de l'Enclos's picture, or of getting both that and her letters to Lady Sandwich. I enclose Lord Sandwich's letter to me, which will explain the whole. Madame Greffini, I suppose, is Madame Graphigny ; whom some of your Ladyship's friends, if not yourself, must know; and she might be of use, if she could be trusted not to detain so tempting a treasure as the letters. From the effects being sealed up, I have 1 Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Cosby, governor of New York, by Lucy Montagu, aunt of George Montagu, and widow of Lord Augustus Fitzroy; by whom she had two sons, Augustus Henry, afterwards Duke of Grafton, and General Fitzroy, who was created Lord Southampton.-WRIGHT. 2 This is the first of twenty letters addressed by Walpole to Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, only daughter of Brigadier-general Nicholas Lepel. She was maid of honour to Queen Caroline when Princess of Wales, and was one of the principal ornaments of her court. She died in September 1768. A volume of her Letters to a Mr. Morris, with a Memoir and Illustrative Notes, by Mr. Croker, was published in 1821.-CUNNINGHAM. 3 Madame de Graffigny, the author of 'Lettres d'une Peruvienne,' and several dramatic pieces. She died in the following year. A collection of her works, in four volumes, was published at Paris in 1788.-WRIGHT. |