Part 17 (1/2)

And underneath,

HOTHAMINA.

How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story? The whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will. Chetwynd, Master of the Mint, Lord Bolingbroke's Oroonoho-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she past seventy-six; and what is more, much worse than I was, for, added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, and was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting circ.u.mstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly she has applied it! Do you wonder I pa.s.s so many hours and evenings with her? Alas! I had like to have lost her this morning!

They had poulticed her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it flew up into her head, and she was almost in convulsions with the agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for her patience and good breeding make her for ever sink and conceal what she feels. This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I trust she is out of danger. Her loss would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company I have....

To LADY HERVEY

_A quiet life_

Strawberry Hill, 11 _June_, 1765.

I am almost as much ashamed, Madam, to plead the true cause of my faults towards your ladys.h.i.+p, as to have been guilty of any neglect.

It is scandalous, at my age, to have been carried backwards and forwards to b.a.l.l.s and suppers and parties by very young people, as I was all last week. My resolutions of growing old and staid are admirable: I wake with a sober plan, and intend to pa.s.s the day with my friends--then comes the Duke of Richmond, and hurries me down to Whitehall to dinner--then the d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton sends for me to too in Upper Grosvenor Street--before I can get thither, I am begged to step to Kensington, to give Mrs. Anne Pitt my opinion about a bow-window--after the loo, I am to march back to Whitehall to supper--and after that, am to walk with Miss Pelham on the terrace till two in the morning, because it is moonlight and her chair is not come. All this does not help my morning laziness; and by the time I have breakfasted, fed my birds and my squirrels, and dressed, there is an auction ready. In short, Madam, this was my life last week, and is I think every week, with the addition of forty episodes.--Yet, ridiculous as it is, I send it to your ladys.h.i.+p, because I had rather you should laugh at me than be angry. I cannot offend you in intention, but I fear my sins of omission are equal to a good many Christian's. Pray forgive me. I really will begin to be between forty and fifty by the time I am fourscore: and I truly believe I shall bring my resolutions within compa.s.s; for I have not chalked out any particular business that will take me above forty years more; so that, if I do not get acquainted with the grandchildren of all the present age, I shall lead a quiet sober life yet before I die....

To THE REV. WILLIAM COLE

_Gray's death_

Paris, 12 _Aug_. 1771.

DEAR SIR,

I am excessively shocked at reading in the papers that Mr. Gray is dead! I wish to G.o.d you may be able to tell me it is not true! Yet in this painful uncertainty I must rest some days! None of my acquaintance are in London. I do not know to whom to apply but to you.

Alas! I fear in vain! Too many circ.u.mstances speak it true! the detail is exact;--a second paper arrived by the same post, and does not contradict it--and what is worse, I saw him but four or five days before I came hither; he had been to Kensington for the air, complained of gout flying about him, of sensations of it in his stomach, and indeed, thought him changed, and that he looked ill--still I had not the least idea of his being in danger.--I started up from my chair, when I read the paragraph--a cannon-ball could not have surprised me more! The shock but ceased, to give way to my concern; and my hopes are too ill founded to mitigate it. If n.o.body has the charity to write to me, my anxiety must continue till the end of the month, for I shall set out on my return on the 26th; and unless you receive this time enough for your answer to leave London on the 20th, in the evening, I cannot meet it, till I find it in Arlington Street, whither I beg you to direct it.

If the event is but too true, pray add to this melancholy service, that of telling me any circ.u.mstances you know of his death. Our long, very long friends.h.i.+p, and his genius, must endear to me everything that relates to him. What writings has he left? Who are his executors?

I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything to the public, to print it at my press--it would do me honour, and would give me an opportunity of expressing what I feel for him. Methinks, as we grow old, our only business here is to adorn the graves of our friends, or to dig our own.

To THE REV. WILLIAM MASON

_The quarrel with Gray_

2 _March_, 1773.

What shall I say? How shall I thank you for the kind manner in which you submit your papers to my correction? But if you are friendly, I must be just. I am so far from being dissatisfied, that I must beg to shorten your pen, and in that respect only would I wish, with regard to myself, to alter your text. I am conscious that in the beginning of the differences between Gray and me, the fault was mine. I was young, too fond of my own diversions; nay, I do not doubt, too much intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of my situation, as a prime minister's son, not to have been inattentive to the feelings of one, I blush to say it, that I knew was obliged to me; of one, whom presumption and folly made me deem not very superior in parts, though I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him.

I treated him insolently. He loved me, and I did not think he did. I reproached him with the difference between us, when he acted from the conviction of knowing that he was my superior. I often disregarded his wish of seeing places, which I would not quit my own amus.e.m.e.nts to visit, though I offered to send him thither without me. Forgive me, if I say that his temper was not conciliating, at the same time that I will confess to you that he acted a most friendly part, had I had the sense to take advantage of it. He freely told me my faults. I declared I did not wish to hear them, nor would correct them. You will not wonder, that with the dignity of his spirit, and the obstinate carelessness of mine, the breach must have widened till we became incompatible.

After this confession, I fear you will think I fall short in the words I wish to have subst.i.tuted for some of yours. If you think them inadequate to the state of the case, as I own they are, preserve this letter, and let some future Sir John Dalrymple produce it to load my memory; but I own I do not desire that any ambiguity should aid his invention to forge an account for me. If you have no objection, I would propose your narrative should run thus ... and contain no more, till a proper time shall come for publis.h.i.+ng the truth, as I have stated it to you. While I am living, it is not pleasant to see my private disagreements discussed in magazines and newspapers.