THE LETTERS

OF

HORACE WALPOLE.

460. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 18, 1756.

I AM not surprised to find by your letters of 21st and 28th of February how much you have been alarmed for your brother. You have not felt more than I have: but I have the satisfaction of seeing him mend, while you undergo the terrible suspense of waiting for posts. He has been pulled much back by the operation of his quicksilver, which flung him into a severe looseness and kind of salivation: it weakened him much and kept him from the air; but it brought off a great load of black stuff from his stomach, and his spirits are exceedingly better. He is to go to the Bath as soon as he is able. Would to Heaven I could prevail for his going to Italy, but he will not listen to it. You may be confident that I do not stop at mere decency in checking his domestic torment-it is terrible; but when I saw him in so much danger, I kept no measures-I went lengths that would be inexcusable in any other situation. No description can paint the madness, (and when I call it madness I know I flatter), the preposterous unreasonableness and infernal temper of that little white fiend! His temper, which is equal to yours, bears him up under it. I am with him two or three mornings every week, and think I shall yet preserve him for you. The physicians are positive that his lungs are not touched.

We proceed fiercely in armaments-yet in my own opinion, and I believe the ministry think so too, the great danger is for Port-Mahon. Admiral Byng sails directly for the Mediterranean. The Brest fleet

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that slipped away, is thought on its progress to Nova Scotia. The Dutch have excused sending us their troops on the imminence of their own danger. The parliamentary campaign is almost over; you know I persist in believing that we shall not have any other here.

Thank you much for your kindness to Mr. Dick; I will repay you on your brother, though I don't know how to place him to any account but my own. If I could be more anxious than I am about him, it would be, my dear child, on what you say to me on yourself; but be comforted, all will yet be well.

Mr. Chute's picture is not yet arrived; when it comes, he shall thank you himself. I must now give you a new commission, and for no less a minister than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir George Lyttelton desires you will send him for his hall the jesses of the Venus, the dancing Faun, the Apollo Medicis (I think there is a cast of it), the Mercury, and some other female statue, at your choice he desires besides three pair of Volterra vases, of the size to place on tables, and different patterns. Consign the whole to me, and draw the bill of lading on me.

I have nothing more to tell you but a naïveté of my Lady Coventry; the King asked her if she was not sorry that there are no Masquerades this year-(for you must know we have sacrificed them to the idol earthquake)—she said, no, she was tired of them; she was surfeited with most sights; there was but one left that she wanted to seeand that was a Coronation! The old man told it himself at supper to his family with a great deal of good-humour. Adieu! my dear child.

461. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington Street, March 25, 1756.

INSTEAD of being sorry, as I certainly ought to be, when your letters are short, I feel quite glad; I rejoice that I am not much in your debt, when I have not wherewithal to pay. Nothing happens worth telling you: we have had some long days in the House, but unentertaining; Mr. Pitt has got the gout in his oratory, I mean in his head, and does not come out: we are sunk quite into argument -but you know, when anything is as it should be, it is not worth talking of. The plate-tax has made some noise; the ministry carried one question on it but by nine. The Duke of Newcastle, who

reserves all his heroism for the war, grew frightened, and would have given up the tax; but Mr. Fox bolstered up his courage and mustered their forces, and by that and softening the tax till it was scarce worth retaining, they carried the next question by an hundred. The day before yesterday the King notified the invasion to both Houses, and his having sent for Hessians. There were some dislikes expressed to the latter; but, in general, fear preponderated so much, that the cry was for Hanoverians too. Lord George Sackville, in a very artful speech, a little maliciously even proposed them and noblemen's regiments; which the Duke had rejected. Lord Ravensworth, in the other House, moved in form for Hanoverians; the Duke of Newcastle desired a few days to consider it, and they are to go upon it in the Lords to-morrow. The Militia, which had been dropped for next year, is sprouted up again out of all this, and comes on to-day. But we should not be English, if we did not become still more intent on a very trifle: we are. A new road through Paddington' has been proposed to avoid the stones : the Duke of Bedford, who is never in town in summer, objects to the dust it will make behind Bedford House, and to some buildings proposed, though, if he was in town, he is too short-sighted to see the prospect. The Duke of Grafton heads the other side: this is carried! you can imagine it—you could compose the difference! you, grand corrupter, you who can bribe pomp and patriotism, virtue and a Speaker, you that have pursued uprightness even to the last foot of land on the globe, and have disarmed Whiggism almost on the banks of its own Boyne-don't you return hither, we shall have you attempt to debauch even Mr. Onslow, who has preserved his chastity, while all the band of chosen youths, while every Pulteney, Pitt, and Lyttelton have fallen around him. I could not help laughing at the picture of Malone bribed out of his virtue and mobbed into it again!

Now I am in a serious strain, I will finish my letter with the only other serious history I know. My Lady Lincoln has given a prodigious assembly to show the Exchequer House.' She sent to the porter to send cards to all she visited: he replied he could easily do that, for his lady visited nobody but Lady Jane Scott. As she has

1 The Paddington or New Road, which the Duke of Bedford opposed as making a dust behind Bedford House, and from some intended buildings being likely to interrupt his prospect. The Duke of Grafton warmly espoused the other side of the question.-WALPOLE.

2 The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons.—WALPOLE.

3 Lord Lincoln was at this time Auditor of the Exchequer.-WRIGHT.

really neglected everybody, many refusals were returned. The Duchess of Bedford was not invited, and made a little oppositionsupper, which was foolish enough. As the latter had refused to return my Lady Falmouth's visit, my Lady Lincoln singled her out, visited and invited her. The dignity of the assembly was great: Westminster Hall was illuminated for chairs; the passage from it hung with green baize and lamps, and matted. The cloister was the prettiest sight in the world, lighted with lamps and Volterra vases. The great apartment is magnificent. Sir Thomas Robinson, the Long, who you know is always propriety itself, told me how much the house was improved since it was my brother's.' The Duchess of Norfolk gives a great ball next week to the Duke of Cumberland so you see that she does not expect the Pretender, at least this fortnight. Last night, at my Lady Hervey's, Mrs. Dives was expressing great panic about the French: my Lady Rochford, looking down on her fan, said with great softness, "I don't know: I don't think the French are a sort of people that women need be afraid of." Adieu!

462. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, April 16, 1756.

You wrong me very much in thinking I omit writing because I don't hear from you as often as you have a mind I should: you are kinder to me in that respect than I have reason, considering your numerous occupations, to expect: the real and whole truth is, that I have had nothing to tell you; for I could not tire either you or myself with all the details relating to this foolish road-bill, which has engrossed the whole attention of everybody lately. I have entered into it less than anybody. What will you say when you are told that proxies have been sent for to Scotland? that my Lord Harrington has been dragged into the House of Lords from his coffin,

There is a portrait of Richardson at Rokeby, with this odd story belonging to it, which Mr. Morritt told me when he pointed it out. It had been painted for one of his female admirers, and when long Sir Thomas Robinson took possession of the house, and of this portrait, he wondered what business a Mr. Richardson could have there, in company with persons of high degree; so the canvass was turned over to the nearest painter, with orders to put on a blue riband and a star, and thereby convert it into a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole! You may be sure Mr. Morritt, when he restored the picture to its right name, left it in possession of these favours, -Southey to Sir Egerton Brydges.-CUNNINGHAM.