and three long ones of news of Mr. Garrard, Master of the Charterhouse;' all six written on paper edged with green, like modern French paper. There are handwritings of everybody, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with which they tied their letters. The original Proclamations of Charles the First, signed by the privy council; a letter to King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and many, very many letters of negociation from the Earl of Bristol in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roe.-What say you? will not here be food for the press ? I have picked up a little painted glass too, and have got a promise of some old statues, lately dug up, which formerly adorned the cathedral of Lichfield. You see I continue to labour in my vocation, of which I can give you a comical instance :-I remembered a rose in painted glass in a little village going to Ragley, which I remarked passing by five years ago; told Mr. Conway on which hand it would be, and found it in the very spot. I saw a very good and perfect tomb at Alcester of Sir Fulke Greville's father and mother, and a wretched old house with a very handsome gateway of stone at Colton, belonging to Sir Robert Throckmorton. There is nothing else tolerable but twenty-two coats of the matches of the family in painted glass.-You cannot imagine how astonished a Mr. Seward,' a learned clergyman, was, who came to Ragley while I was there. Strolling about the house, he saw me first sitting on the pavement of the lumber room with Louis, all over cobwebs and dirt and mortar; then found me in his own room on a ladder writing on a picture: and half an hour afterwards lying on the grass in the court with the dogs and the children, in my slippers and without my hat. He had had some doubt whether I was the painter or the factotum of the family; but you would have died at his surprise when he saw me walk into dinner dressed and sit by Lady Hertford. Lord Lyttelton was there, and the conversation turned on literature: finding me not quite ignorant added to the parson's wonder; but he could not contain himself any longer, when after dinner he saw me go to romps and jumping with the two boys; he broke out to my Lady Hertford, and begged to know who and what sort of man I really was, for he had never met with anything of the kind. Adieu! The gossipping and pleasant correspondent of the Great Lord Strafford. -CUNNINGHAM. The Rev. Thomas Seward, canon residentiary of Lichfield, editor of Beaumont and Fletcher, and father of Miss Seward.-CUNNINGHAM. 567. TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ. Arlington Street, August 22, 1758. By my ramble into Warwickshire I am so behind hand in politics, that I don't know where to begin to tell you any news, and which by this time would not be news to you. My table is covered with Gazettes, victories and defeats which have come in such a lump, that I am not quite sure whether it is Prince Ferdinand or Prince Boscawen that has taken Louisbourg, nor whether it is the late Lord Howe or the present that is killed at Cherbourg. I am returning to Strawberry, and shall make Mr. Müntz's German and military sang-froid set the map in my head to rights. I saw my Lord Lyttelton and Miller at Ragley; the latter put me out of all patience. As he has heard me talked of lately, he thought it not below him to consult me on ornaments for my lord's house. I, who know nothing but what I have purloined from Mr. Bentley and you, and who have not forgot how little they tasted your real taste and charming plan, was rather lost. To my comfort, I have seen the plan of their hall; it is stolen from Houghton, and mangled frightfully and both their eating-room and salon are to be stucco, with pictures. I have not time or paper to give you a full account of a vast treasure that I have discovered at Lord Hertford's, and brought away with me. If I were but so lucky as to be thirty years older, I might have been much luckier. In short, I have got the remains of vast quantities of letters and state papers of the two Lords Conway, secretaries of state-forty times as many have been using for the oven and the house, by sentence of a steward during my lord's minority. Most of what I have got are gnawed by rats, rotten, or not worth a straw; and yet I shall save some volumes of what is very curious and valuable-three letters of Mr. Garrard, of the Charter-house, some of Lord Strafford, and two of old Lenox, the Duchess, &c. &c. In short, if I can but continue to live thirty years extraordinary, in lieu of those I have missed, I shall be able to give to the world some treasures from the press at Strawberry. Do tell me a little of your motions, and good night. 568. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 24, 1758. You must go into laurels, you must go into mourning. Our expedition has taken Cherbourg shamefully-I mean the French lost it shamefully, and then stood looking on while we destroyed all their works, particularly a basin that had cost vast sums. But, to balance their awkwardness with ours, it proved to be an open place, which we might have taken when we were before it a month ago. The fleet is now off Portland, expecting orders for landing or proceeding. Prince Edward gave the ladies a ball, and told them he was too young to know what was good-breeding in France, therefore he would behave as he should if meaning to please in England -and kissed them all. Our next and greatest triumph is the taking of Cape Breton, the account of which came on Friday. The French have not improved like their wines by crossing the sea; but lost their spirit at Louisbourg as much as on their own coast. The success, especially in the destruction of their fleet, is very great: the triumphs not at all disproportionate to the conquest, of which you will see all the particulars in the Gazette. Now for the chapter of cypresses. The attempt on Crown-point has failed; Lord Howe' was killed in a skirmish; and two days afterward by blunders, rashness, and bad intelligence, we received a great blow at Ticonderoga. There is a Gazette, too, with all the history of this. My hope is that Cape Breton may buy us Minorca and a peace. I have great satisfaction in Captain Hervey's gallantry; not only he is my friend, but I have the greatest regard for and obligations to my Lady Hervey; he is her favourite son and she is particularly happy. Mr. Wills is arrived and has sent me the medals, for which I give you a million of thanks; the scarce ones are not only valuable for the curiosity of them, but for their preservation. I laughed heartily 1 General George Augustus, third Viscount Howe. He was succeeded in the title by his brother Richard, the celebrated admiral. Mr. George Grenville, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 28th, pays the following tribute to his memory :-"I admired his virtuous, gallant character, and lament his loss accordingly: I cannot help thinking it peculiarly unfortunate for his country and his friends, that he should fall in the first action of this war, before his spirit and his example, and the success and glory which, in all human probability, would have attended them, had produced their full effect on our own troops, and those of the enemy." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 339.-WRIGHT. at the Duke of Argyll, and am particularly pleased with the Jesus Rex noster.' Chevert, the best and most sensible of the French officers, has been beat by a much smaller number under the command of Imhoff, who, I am told would be very stupid, if a German could be so.-I think they hope a little still for Hanover, from this success. King of Prussia-not a word. Of the My Lady Bath has had a paralytic stroke, which drew her mouth aside and took away her speech.-I never heard a greater instance of cool sense; she made signs for a pen and ink, and wrote Palsy. They got immediate assistance, and she is recovered.* As I wrote to you but a minute ago, I boldly conclude this already. Adieu ! DEAR SIR: 569. TO GROSVENOR BEDFORD, ESQ.3 Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1758. As you know a great deal more of Somerset House than I do, I will beg you some day as you go by to call there, and inquire carefully of the keeper of the King's pictures, or of the house-keeper, if there is any such thing as a picture of Lord Wimbledon there. In an old MS. of Vertue, I find this memorandum : "Among the King's pictures at Somerset House, a picture of Colonel Cecil Viscount Wimbledon, ætat: 37, anno 1610. Corn. Johnson pinx." You may imagine why I am solicitous to see this portrait. Adieu, dear Sir, H. WALPOLE. 570. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 2, 1758. It is well I have got something to pay you for the best letter that ever was! A vast victory, I own, does not entertain me so much as 1 Inscription on a silver coin of the republic of Florence, who declared Jesus Christ their King, to prevent the usurpation of Pope Clement VII.-WALPOLE. 2 Lady Bath died three weeks after the date of this letter, September 14, 1758.— CUNNINGHAM. 3 Now first printed.—CUNNINGHAM. a good letter; but you are bound to like anything military better than your own wit, and therefore I hope you will think a defeat of the Russians a better bon-mot than any you sent me. Should you think it clever if the King of Prussia has beaten them? How much cleverer if he has taken three lieutenantgenerals and an hundred pieces of cannon? How much cleverer still, if he has left fifteen thousand Muscovites dead on the spot ? Does the loss of only three thousand of his own men take off from or sharpen the sting of this joke? In short, all this is fact, as a courier arrived at Sion Hill this morning affirms. The city, I suppose, expect that his Majesty will now be at leisure to step to Ticonderoga and repair our mishap.' But I shall talk no more politics; if this finds you at Chatsworth, as I suppose it will, you will be better informed than from me. Lady Mary Coke arrived at Ragley between two and three in the morning; how unlucky that I was not there to offer her part of an aired bed! But how could you think of the proposal you have made me? Am not I already in love with "the youngest, handsomest, and wittiest widow in England ?" As Herculean a labourer as I am, as Tom Hervey says, I don't choose another. I am still in the height of my impatience for the chest of old papers from Ragley, which, either by the fault of their servants, or of the waggoner is not yet arrived. I shall go to London again on Monday in quest of it; and in truth think so much of it, that, when I first heard of the victory this morning, I rejoiced, as we were likely now to recover the Palatinate. Good night! DEAR SIR: 571. TO DAVID MALLET, ESQ.' Strawberry Hill, Sept. 8, 1758. THE pamphlet I mentioned to you t'other day, of which I could not remember the title, is called 'Reflections concerning Innate Moral Principles,' written in French by the late Lord Bolingbroke, and translated into English. Printed in both languages 1752. May I mention this as Lord Bolingbroke's ? Be so good as to tell Mrs. Mallet how extremely obliged I am for her note, and I hope she knows that I have scarce been in town two 1 The defeat of the Russians at Zorndorf.-WALPOLE. ? The repulse of General Abercrombie at Ticonderoga.—WALPOLE. • Now first printed.—CUNNINGHAM. |