objects he has chronicles in behalf of the air, and battens on tokay, his single indulgence, as he has heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste: it is tumbled with fragments of mountains, that look ready laid for building the world. One scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain ashes and various trees spring out of the very rocks; and at the brow is the den, but not spacious enough for such an inmate. However, I am persuaded it furnished Pope with this line, so exactly it answers to the picture : "On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes." I wanted to ask if Pope had not visited Lady Mary Wortley here during their intimacy, but could one put that question to Aridien himself? There remains an ancient odd inscription here, which has such a whimsical mixture of devotion and romanticness that I must transcribe it: Pray for the saule of for the Kyngys bode to Edward the forthe, Rychard therd, Hare the VII and Hare VIII. hon this crag ne mydys of Lord a thousand cccccx.1 It was a chase, and what he meant to hear was the noise of the stags. During my residence here I have made two little excursions, and I assure you it requires resolution; the roads are insufferable: they mend them-I should call it spoil them-with large pieces of stone. At Pomfret I saw the remains of that memorable castle "where Rivers, Vaughan, and Grey lay shorter by the head;" and on which Gray says "And thou, proud boy, from Pomfret's walls shalt send The ruins are vanishing, but well situated; there is a large demolished church, and a pretty market-house. We crossed a Gothic I have copied the inscription in the text from Hunter's South Yorkshire,' ii. 329. -WALPOLE. The transcriber of his letter had very carelessly copied the quaint old spelling. CUNNINGHAM. 'August 14, 1654.-Passed through Pontefract; the castle was now demolishing by the rebels: it stands on a mount, and makes a goodly show at a distance." Evelyn.-WRIGHT. bridge of eight arches at Ferrybridge, where there is a pretty view and went to a large old house of Lord Huntingdon's at Ledstone, which has nothing remarkable but a lofty terrace, a whole-length portrait of his grandfather in tapestry, and the having belonged to the great Lord Strafford. We saw [Kippax Park] that monument of part of poor Sir John Bland's extravagance, his house and garden, which he left orders to make without once looking at either plan. The house is a bastard Gothic, but of not near the extent I had heard. We lay at Leeds, a dingy large town; and through very bad black roads (for the whole country is a colliery, or a quarry), we went to Kirkstall abbey, where are vast Saxon' ruins, in a most picturesque situation, on the banks of a river that falls in a cascade among rich meadows, hills, and woods: it belongs to Lord Cardigan: his father pulled down a large house here, lest it should interfere with the family seat, Deane. We returned through Wakefield, where is a pretty Gothic chapel on a bridge, erected by Edward IV. in memory of his father, who lived at Sandal castle just by, and perished in the battle here. There is scarce anything of the castle extant, but it commanded a rich prospect. By permission from their graces of Norfolk, who are at Tunbridge, Lord Strafford carried us to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge, and one of the magnificent works of old Bess of Hardwicke, who guarded the Queen of Scots here for some time in a wretched little bed-chamber within her own lofty one:-there is a tolerable little picture of Mary's needlework. The great apartment is vast and triste, the whole leanly furnished: the great gallery, of above two hundred feet, at the top of the house, is dividen into a library, and into nothing. The chapel is decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is richly furred with ever-green plantations, under the direction of the late Lord Petre. On our way we saw Kiveton, an ugly neglected seat of the Duke of Leeds, with noble apartments and several good portraits. Oh! portraits! I went to Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay, and with ten thousand other fat morsels; all their histories inscribed; all their arms, crests, The supposed Saxon of Walpole's period is the Norman of the nineteenth century -the days of Britton, Willis, and Parker.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 The mansion at Worksop, mentioned in this letter, was nearly destroyed by fire in 1761; a part (now, 1857, the property of the Duke of Newcastle) has been converted into a mansion, and let to Lord Foley.-CUNNINGHAM. devices, sculptured on chimneys of various English marbles in ancient forms (and, to say truth, most of them ugly). Then such a Gothic hall, with pendent fret-work in imitation of the old, and with a chimney-piece extremely like mine in the library. Such watercolour pictures! such historic fragments! In short, such and so much of everything I like, that my party thought they should never get me away again. There is Prior's portrait,' and the Column and Verelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress Duchess of Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore,' and, consequently, looking as mad as the present Duchess; and dukes of the same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary Wortley,' drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions ; and cabinets and glasses wainscotted with the Greendale oak,' which was so large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding, and only killed it! But it is impossible to tell you half what there is. The poor woman who is just dead' passed her whole widowhood, except in doing ten thousand right and just things, in collecting and monumenting the portraits and relics of all the great families from which she descended, and which centered in her. The Duke and Duchess of Portland" are expected there to-morrow, and we saw dozens of cabinets and coffers with the seals not yet taken off. What treasures to revel over! The horseman Duke's' manège is converted into a lofty stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place has little pretty, distinct from all these reverend circumstances. 1 There are two portraits of Prior; one by Rigaud, painted in 1699-the other by Richardson, and engraved by Vertue.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 There is a good duplicate of this full length by Lely, at Wentworth Castle.— CUNNINGHAM. 3 This portrait of Lady Mary is not now (1857) at Welbeck The only portrait here of Lady Mary is the small exquisite enamel by Zincke, dated 1738, and engraved by Vertue. The picture mentioned by Walpole is at Wortley Hall: by Rosca, painted in 1739, and presented by Lady Mary herself to the Countess of Oxford.-CUNNINGHAM. * Welbeck, which I had the pleasure of seeing in 1856, contains several drawings of the Greendale oak. To the student of English history the portraits at Welbeck will supply a lasting treat.-CUNNINGHAM. 5 Henrietta Cavendish Holles, Countess of Oxford, daughter of John Holles, Duke of Newcastle and widow of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, of the Harley family. She died December 10, 1755.-CUNNINGHAM. 6 The Duchess of Portland was the daughter and sole heir of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford. Through her (by the families Cavendish and Holles) Welbeck passed to the Bentincks, Dukes of Portland.-CUNNINGHAM. 7 William Cavendish, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Newcastle, the patron of two generations of poets, including Ben Jonson and Dryden.-CUNNINGHAM. 479. TO SIR HORACE MANN, Strawberry Hill, Sept. 19, 1756. I PROMISED you an account of your brother as soon as he should return from Bristol, but I deferred it for a week, till I could see him reposed and refreshed, and could judge more fairly. I do think him much mended; I do not say recovered. He looks with colour again, and has got a little flesh, and is able to do much more than before he went. My Lord Radnor thinks he has a great appetite; I did not perceive it when he dined with me. His breath is better, though sometimes troublesome, and he brought back a great cough, which, however, is much abated. I think him so much better, that I ventured to talk very freely to him upon his own state; and though I allowed him mended, I told him plainly that I was convinced his case would be irrecoverable, if he did not go abroad. At times he swears he will, if he falls back at all; at others he will not listen to it, but pleads the confusion of his affairs. I wish there is not another more insurmountable cause, the fury, who not only torments him in this world, but is hurrying him into the next. I have not been able to prevail with him to pass one day or two here with me in tranquillity. I see his life at stake; I feel for him, for you, for myself; I am desperate about it, and yet know no remedy! I can only assure you that I will not see it quietly; nor would anything check me from going the greatest lengths with your sister, whom I think effectually, though perhaps not maliciously, a most wicked being, but that I always find it recoils upon your brother. Alas! what signifies whether she murders him from a bad heart or a bad temper? Poor Mr. Chute, too, has been grievously ill with the gout-he is laid up at his own house, whither I am going to see him. I feel a little satisfaction that you have an opportunity of returning Richcourt's insults: who thought that the King of Prussia would ever be a rod in our hands? For my part, I feel quite pleasant, for whether he demolishes the Queen, or the Queen him, can one but find a loophole to let out joy? Lord Stormont's' valet de chambre arrived three days ago, with an account of his being within four leagues of Dresden.' He laughs at the King of Poland 1 British Minister at Vienna.-WALPOLE. This was the King of Prussia's irruption into Saxony, which was the commencement of the terrible Seven Years' War.-DOVER, VOL. III. D with so much good breeding, and abuses Count Bruhl ' with so much contempt, that one reconciles to him very fast: however, I don't know what to think of his stopping in Saxony. He assures us that the Queen has not 55,000 men, nor magazines, nor money; but why give her time to get away? As the chance upon the long run must be so much against him, and as he has three times repeated his offers of desisting if the Empress-Queen will pawn her honour (counters to which I wonder he of all Kings would trust) that she will not attack him, one must believe that he thinks himself reduced to this step: but I don't see how he is reduced to involve the Russian Empress in the quarrel too. He affirms that both intended to demolish him-but I think I would not accuse both till at least I had humbled one. We are much pleased with this expedition, but at best it ensures the duration of the war-and I wish we don't attend more to that on the Continent than to that on our element, especially as we are discouraged a little on the latter. You reproach me for not telling you more of Byng--what can I tell you, my dear child, of a poor simpleton who behaves arrogantly and ridiculously in the most calamitous of all situations? He quarrels with the Admiralty and Ministry every day, though he is trying all he can to defer his trial. After he had asked for and had had granted a great number of witnesses, he demanded another large set this has been refused him he is under close confinement, but it will be scarce possible to try him before the Parliament meets. : The rage of addresses did not go far: at present everything is quiet. Whatever ministerial politics there are, are in suspense. The rains are begun, and I suppose will soon disperse our camps. The Parliament does not meet till the middle of November. Admiral Martin, whom I think you knew in Italy, died here yesterday, unemployed. This is a complete abridgment of all I know, except that, since Colonel Jefferies arrived, we think still worse of the land-officers on board the fleet, as Boyd passed from St. Philip's to the fleet easily and back again. Jefferies (strange that Lord Tyrawley should not tell him) did not know till he landed here what succour had been intended-he could not refrain from tears. Byng's brother did die immediately on his arrival. I shall 1 Prime minister to Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.-WALPOLE. 2 Edward Byng, youngest brother of the Admiral. He was bred up in the army. On the Admiral being brought home a prisoner, he went, on the 28th of July, to visit him at Portsmouth overcome by the fatigue of the journey, in which he had made great expedition, he was on the next morning seized with convulsions and died.— WRIGHT. |