You will not wonder that in a scene so busy and amusing, I should be less inquisitive about the Jesuitical war at Rome. The truth is, I knew nothing of it, nor do we think more of Rome here than of a squabble among the canons of Liege or Cologn. However, I am much obliged to you for your accounts, and beg you will repay my anecdotes with the continuation of them. If Pasquin should reflect on any Signora Rezzonica for recommending a Major Domo' to his Holiness, pray send me his epigram. If our political campaign should end here, and our German one where it is, we still are not likely to want warfare. The colliers in Northumberland are in open hostilities with the militia, and in the last battle at Hexham the militia lost an officer and three men, and the colliers one-and-twenty. If this engagement, and a peace abroad, had happened in the late reign, I suppose Prince Ferdinand would have had another pension on Ireland for coming over to quell the colliers. Adieu! 712. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, March 17, 1761. IF Ir my last letter raised your wonder, this will not allay it. Lord Talbot is Lord Steward! The stone, which the builders refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My Lady Talbot, I suppose, would have found no charms in Cardinal Mazarin. As the Duke of Leeds was forced to give way to Jemmy Grenville, the Duke of Rutland has been obliged to make room for this new Earl. Lord Huntingdon is Groom of the Stole, and the last Duke I have named, Master of the Horse; the red liveries cost Lord Huntingdon a pang. Lord Holdernesse has the reversion of the Cinque-ports for life, and I think may pardon his expulsion. If you propose a fashionable assembly, you must send cards to Lord Spencer, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Melcomb, Lord Grantham, Lord Boston, Lord Scarsdale, Lady Mountstuart, the Earl of Tyrconnell, and Lord Winterton. The two last you will meet in Ireland. No joy ever exceeded your cousin's [Halifax's] or Dodington's: the former came last night to Lady Hilsborough's to display his triumph; the latter too was there, and advanced to me. I said, "I was coming to wish you joy."-"I concluded so," replied he, The name of the then pope was Rezzonico. The Major Domo alludes to Lord Talbot's being Lord Steward.-WALPOLE. "and came to receive it." He left a good card yesterday at Lady Petersham's, "A very young Lord to wait on Lady Petersham, to make her Ladyship the first offer of himself." I believe she will be content with the Exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds a-year. Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Passion week; I have written to her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being gone; but considering her alliance, why does not Miss Rice bespeak the play and have the stage box. I shall smile if Mr. Bentley and Müntz, and their two Hannahs meet at St. James's; so I see neither of them, I care not where they are. Lady Hinchinbrook and Lady Mansel [sister to the Earl of Jersey] are at the point of death; Lord Hardwicke is to be PoetLaureate; and, according to modern usage, I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good night! 713. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, March 19, 1761. I CAN now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin [the Earl of Halifax] is certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will not be sorry too to hear that your Lord North is much talked of for succeeding him at the Board of Trade. I tell you this with great composure, though to-day has been a day of amazement. All the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord Holdernesse has resigned the seals,' and they are given to Lord Bute. Which of the two Secretaries of State is first minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holdernesse received the command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking himself extremely well at court; but it seems the King said he was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary who both could act and would. Pitt had as short notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little better pleased. He is something softened for the present by the offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which 1 Lord Barrington, in a letter to Mr. Mitchell, of the 23rd, says, "Our friend Holdernesse is finally in harbour; he has four thousand a-year for life, with the reversionship of the Cinque-ports, after the Duke of Dorset; which he likes better than having the name of pensioner. I never could myself understand the difference between a pension and a sinecure place."-WRIGHT. is to be ceded by the Duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of Justice in Eyre, from whence Lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the head of the Board of Trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of Holdernesse's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite if the Bedfords have done so too, will it surprise you? It will me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take for granted the Duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded, seems a little impeached by this sudden act, and the Earl now stands in the direct light of a minister, if the House of Commons should cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom; the other new peers are to follow on Monday. There are horrid disturbances about the militia' in Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired and shot twenty-one. Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequence of my first paragraph. P. S. Saturday.-I forgot to tell you that Lord Hardwicke has written some verses to Lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter made on Lady Egremont. If I had been told that he had put on a bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher,' I should not have been more astonished. Poor Lady Gower' is dead this morning of a fever in her lying-in. I believe the Bedfords are very sorry; for there is a new opera this evening. 1 In consequence of the expiration of the three years' term of service, prescribed by the Militia-act, and the new ballot about to take place.-WRIGHT. 2 The following are the lines alluded to, "Addition extempore to the verses on Lady Egremont : • See "Fame heard with pleasure-straight replied, First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride, My trumpet oft I've raised to sound Her modest praise the world around; But notes were wanting-canst thou find A muse to sing her face, her mind? A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."-WRIGHT. * Daughter of Scroope, Duke of Bridgewater.-WRIGHT. The serious opera of Tito Manlio, by Cocchi.--WRIGHT. 714. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. March 21, 1761. Or the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law? Lord Abercorn asked me this evening if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for the reply to your compliment. There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The Speaker [Onslow] has taken leave, and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones too; he did not over-act, and it was really a handsome scene. I go to my election [at Lynn] on Tuesday, and, if I do not tumble out of the chair and break my neck, you shall hear from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; Lady Hinchinbrook is dead. 715. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Houghton, March 25, 1761. HERE I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think, what a crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not furnish so many; nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the last time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church-that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too lies he who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.' 1 My flatterers here are all mutes. The oaks, the beeches, the chesnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the Lord of the Manor. They cannot deceive, they The surprise the pictures gave me is again renewed; accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them' seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My young imagination was fired with Guido's ideas: must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Does great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived, just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women in riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How dif ferent my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers! When I had drunk tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those allées, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or overgrown-many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares! In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to call it, a monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I do not want to be preached to; I have long considered, how every Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants wanted will not lie. Sir Robert Walpole to General Churchill, Houghton, June 24th, 1743.—CUNNINGHAM. In the "Edes Walpoliana," see vol. i. p. lxv.-CUNNINGHAM. |