pray don't bespeak any more laurels; wait patiently for what they shall send you from the Secretary's Office. I gave your brother James my new work to send you—I grieve that I must not, as usual, send a set for poor Dr. Cocchi. Good night! MY LORD: 554. TO GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON.1 Strawberry Hill, June 20, 1758. I WAS unluckily at Park Place when your Lordship sent to my house in town; and I more unluckily still left Park Place the very day your Lordship was expected there. I twice waited on you in Hill Street, to thank you for the great favour of lending me your History, which I am sorry I kept longer than you intended; but you must not wonder. I read it with as great attention as pleasure; it is not a book to skim, but to learn by heart, if one means to learn anything of England. You call it the History of Henry the Second,' -it is literally the History of our Constitution, and will last much longer than I fear the latter will; for alas! my Lord, your style, which will fix and preserve our language, cannot do what nature cannot do,-reform the nature of man. I beg to know whether I shall send this book, too valuable to be left in a careless manner with a servant. I repeat my warmest thanks, and am, my Lord, &c. SIR: 555. TO SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE,3 Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758. INACCURATE and careless, as I must own my book is,' I cannot quite repent having let it appear in that state, since it has procured me so agreeable and obliging a notice from a gentleman whose 1 Now first collected. From Phillimore's Memoirs and Correspondence, p. 576.CUNNINGHAM. A portion (then unpublished) of his History of Henry II.-CUNNINGHAM. 3 This eminent lawyer, antiquary, and historian was born in 1726. He was educate ! at Eton, and afterwards studied civil law at Utrecht. In 1748 he was called to the Scotch bar, and in 1766 made a judge of session, when he assumed the name of Lord Hailes. Boswell states, that Dr. Johnson, in 1763, drank a bumper to him "as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit." His 'Annals of Scotland' the Doctor describes as "a work which has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation, that it must always sell." He wrote several papers in the 'World' and 'Mirror.' He died in 1792.-Wright, The Royal and Noble Authors.'-WRIGHT. VOL. III. approbation makes me very vain. The trouble you have been so good as to give yourself, Sir, is by no means lost upon me; I feel the greatest gratitude for it, and shall profit not only of your remarks, but with your permission of your very words, wherever they will fall in with my text. The former are so judicious and sensible, and the latter so well chosen, that if it were not too impertinent to propose myself as an example, I should wish, Sir, that you would do that justice to the writers of your own country, which my ignorance has made me execute so imperfectly and barrenly. Give me leave to say a few words to one or two of your notes. I should be glad to mention more instances of Queen Elizabeth's fondness for praise, but fear I have already been too diffuse on that head. Bufo [in Pope] is certainly Lord Halifax: the person at whom you hint is more nearly described by the name of Bubo, and I think in one place is even called Bubb. The number of volumes of Parthenissa I took from the list of Lord Orrery's writings in the Biographia: it is probable, therefore, Sir, that there were different editions of that romance. You will excuse my repeating once more, Sir, my thanks for your partiality to a work so little worthy of your favour. I even flatter myself that whenever you take a journey this way, you will permit me to have the honour of being acquainted with a gentleman to whom I have so particular an obligation. 556. TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758. THE Tower guns have sworn through thick and thin that Prince Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and the City bonfires all believe it. However, as no officer is yet come, nor confirmation, my crackers suspend their belief. Our great fleet is stepped ashore again near Cherbourg; I suppose, to singe half a yard more of the coast. This is all I know; less, as you may perceive, than anything but the Gazette. What is become of Mr. Montagu? Has he stolen to Southampton, and slipped away a-volunteering like Norborne Berkeley, to conquer France in a dirty shirt and a frock? He might gather forty load more of laurels in my wood. I wish I could flatter myself that you would come with him. My Lady Suffolk has at last entirely submitted her barn to our ordination. As yet it is only in Deacon's orders; but will very soon have our last imposition of hands. Adieu! Let me know a word of you. 557. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, July 6, 1758. You may believe I was thoroughly disappointed in not seeing you here, as I expected. I grieve for the reason, and wish you had told me that your brother was quite recovered. Must I give you over for the summer? sure you are in my debt. That regiments are going to Germany is certain; which, except the Blues, I know not. Of all secrets I am not in any Irish ones. I hope for your sake, your Colonel is not of the number; but how can you talk in the manner you do of Prince Ferdinand? Don't you know that, next to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Delaval, he is the most fashionable man in England? Have not the Tower guns, and all the parsons in London, been ordered to pray for him? You have lived in Northamptonshire till you are ignorant that Hanover is in Middlesex, as the Bishop's palace at Chelsea is in the diocese of Winchester. In hopes that you will grow better acquainted with your own country, I remain your affected HORATIUS VOLAPOLHAUSEN. 558. TO THE REV. DR. BIRCH. Arlington Street, July 8, 1758. SIR: As you have been so good as to favour me with your assistance, I flatter myself you will excuse by begging it once more. I am told that you mentioned to Dr. Jortin a Lord Mountjoy, who lived in the reign of Henry VIII., as an author. Will you be so good as to tell me anything you know of him, and what he wrote? I shall entreat the favour of this notice as soon as possibly you can; because my book is printing off, and I am afraid of being past the place where he must come in. I am just going out of town, but a line put into the post any night before nine o'clock will find me next morning at Strawberry Hill. 559. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Arlington Street, July 8, 1758. You have made me laugh; do you think I found much difficulty to persist in thinking as well of you as I used to do, though you have neither been so great a Poliorcetes as Almanzor, who could take a town alone, nor have executed the commands of another Almanzor, who thought he could command the walls of a city to tumble down as easily as those of Jericho did to the march of Joshua's first regiment of Guards? Am I so apt to be swayed by popular clamour? But I will say no more on that head. As to the wording of the sentence' I approve your objection; and as I have at least so little of the author in me as to be very corrigible, I will, if you think proper, word the beginning thus: "In dedicating a few trifles to you, I have nothing new to tell the world. My esteem still accompanies your merit, on which it was founded, and to which, with such abilities as mine, I can only bear testimony; I must not pretend to vindicate it. If your virtues," &c. It shall not be said that I allowed prejudice and clamour to be the voice of the world against you. I approve, too, the change of "proposed" for "would have undertaken:" but I cannot like putting in "prejudice and malice." When one accuses others of malice, one is a little apt to feel it; and could I flatter myself that such a thing as a Dedication would have weight, or that anything of mine would last, I would have it look as dispassionate as possible. When after some interval I assert coolly that you was most wrongfully blamed, I shall be believed. If I seem angry, it will look like a party quarrel still existing. Instead of resenting your not being employed in the present follies, I think you might write a letter of thanks to my Lord Ligonier, or to Mr. Pitt, or even to the person [the King] who is appointed to appoint generals himself, to thank them for not exposing you a second year. All the puffs in the newspapers cannot long stifle the ridicule which the French will of course propagate through all Europe on the foolish figure we have made. You shall judge by one sample: the Duc d'Aiguillon has literally sent a vessel with a flag of truce to the Duke of Marlborough, with some teaspoons which, in his hurry, he left behind him. I know the person who In the dedication to Conway of Walpole's 'Fugitive Pieces.'-CUNNINGHAM. saw the packet before it was delivered to Blenheimeius. But what will you say to this wise commander himself? I am going to tell you no secret, but what he uttered publicly at the levee. The King asked him, if he had raised great contributions? "Contributions, Sir! we saw nothing but old women." What becomes of the thirty thousand men that made them retire with such expedition to their transports? My Lord Downe, as decently as he can, makes the greatest joke of their enterprise, and has said at Arthur's, that five hundred men posted with a grain of common sense would have cut them all to pieces. I was not less pleased at what M. de Monbagon, the young prisoner, told Charles Townshend t'other day at Harley's: he was actually at Rochfort when you landed, where he says they had six thousand men, most impatient for your approach, and so posted that not one of you would ever have returned. This is not an evidence to be forgot. Howe and Lord George Sackville are upon the worst terms, as the latter is with the military too. I can tell you some very curious anecdotes when I see you; but what I do not choose, for particular reasons, to write. What is still more curious, when Lord George kissed hands at Kensington, not a word was said to him. How is your fever? tell me, when you have a mind to write, but don't think it necessary to answer my gazettes; indeed I don't expect it. 560. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 8, 1758. IF you will not take Prince Ferdinand's victory at Crevelt in full of all accounts, I don't know what you will do autrement, we are insolvent. After dodging about the coasts of Normandy and Bretagne, our armada is returned; but in the hurry of the retreat from St. Maloes, the Duke of Marlborough left his silver teaspoons behind. As he had generously sent back an old woman's finger and gold ring which one of our soldiers had cut off, the Duc d'Aiguillon has sent a cartel-ship with the prisoner-spoons. How they must be diverted with this tea-equipage, stamped with the Blenheim eagles! and how plain by this sarcastic compliment what they think of us! Yet we fancy that we detain forty thousand men on the coast from Prince Clermont's army! We are sending nine thousand men to Prince Ferdinand part, those of the expedition: the remainder are to make another attempt; perhaps to batter Calais with a pair of tea-tongs. |