Volume I Part 16 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: Newstead, since Walpole's time immortalised as the seat of the ill.u.s.trious Byron. Evelyn had compared it, for its situation, to Fontainebleau, and particularly extolled ”the front of a glorious Abbey Church” and its ”brave woods and streams;” and Byron himself has given an elaborate description of it under the name of ”Norman Abbey,” not overlooking its woods:

It stood embosomed in a happy valley Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid-oak Stood like Caractacus in act to rally His host, with broad arms, 'gainst the thunderstroke--

nor the streams:

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its softened way did take In currents through the calmer waters spread Around--

nor the abbey front:

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile While yet the church was Rome's, stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screened many an angle.

(”Don Juan,” xiii. 56-59.)]

_GENTLEMAN'S DRESS--INFLUENCE OF LORD BUTE--ODE BY LORD MIDDLEs.e.x--G.

SELWYN'S QUOTATION._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 16, 1761.

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace. Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings the yard; you might have a very substantial real lace, which would wear like your buffet, for twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve s.h.i.+llings, and those tarnished, for the species is out of fas.h.i.+on. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Bushy, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.

I was last night at your plump Countess's, who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen ha.s.socs. Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner and was dead before the surgeon could arrive.

There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head![1]

Poor Lord Edgec.u.mbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward, on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians!

[Footnote 1: Lord Bute used his influence in favour of Scotchmen with so little moderation that he raised a prejudice against the whole nation, which found a vent in Wilkes's _North Briton_ and Churchill's bitter and powerful satire, ”The Prophecy of Famine.”]

You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middles.e.x upon Sir Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine: I have not seen anything so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.

Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join In solemn dirge, while tapers s.h.i.+ne Around the grape-embossed shrine Of honest Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine.

Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine, Mix'd with your falling tears of brine, In full libation o'er the shrine Of honest Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine.

Your brows let ivy chaplets twine, While you push round the sparkling wine, And let your table be the shrine Of honest Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine.

He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn. I must tell you an admirable _bon mot_ of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, ”How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,

Wake Duncan with this knocking--would thou couldst!”

I enclose the receipt from your lawyer. Adieu!

_CAPTURE OF BELLEISLE--GRAY'S POEMS--HOGARTH'S VANITY._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _May_ 5, 1761.

We have lost a young genius, Sir William Williams; an express from Belleisle, arrived this morning, brings nothing but his death. He was shot very unnecessarily, riding too near a battery; in sum, he is a sacrifice to his own rashness, and to ours. For what are we taking Belleisle?[1] I rejoiced at the little loss we had on landing; for the glory, I leave it the common council. I am very willing to leave London to them too, and do pa.s.s half the week at Strawberry, where my two pa.s.sions, lilacs and nightingales, are in full bloom. I spent Sunday as if it were Apollo's birthday; Gray and Mason were with me, and we listened to the nightingales till one o'clock in the morning. Gray has translated two n.o.ble incantations from the Lord knows who, a Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to be enchased in a history of English bards, which Mason and he are writing; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and of which the latter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual footpace, will finish the first page two years hence.