Volume Ii Part 12 (1/2)
[Footnote 1: He means the Duke of Gloucester.--WALPOLE.]
P.S.--I have seen the d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort; who sings your praises quite in a tune I like. Her manner is much unpinioned to what it was, though her person remains as stately as ever; and powder is vastly preferable to those brown hairs, of whose preservation she was so fond. I am not so struck with the beauty of Lady Mary[1] as I was three years ago. Your nephew, Sir Horace, I see, by the papers, is come into Parliament: I am glad of it. Is not he yet arrived at Florence?
[Footnote 1: Lady Mary Somerset, youngest daughter of Charles Noel, Duke of Beaufort. She was afterwards married to the Duke of Rutland.--WALPOLE.]
_BURKE'S ELECTION AT BRISTOL--RESEMBLANCE OF ONE HOUSE OF COMMONS TO ANOTHER--COMFORT OF OLD AGE._
TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.
STRAWBERRY HILL, _Nov._ 7, 1774.
I have written such tomes to Mr. Conway,[1] Madam, and so nothing new to write, that I might as well, methinks, begin and end like the lady to her husband; ”Je vous ecris parceque je n'ai rien a faire: je finis parceque je n'ai rien a vous dire.” Yes, I have two complaints to make, one of your ladys.h.i.+p, the other of myself. You tell me nothing of Lady Harriet [Stanhope]: have you no tongue, or the French no eyes? or are her eyes employed in nothing but seeing? What a vulgar employment for a fine woman's eyes after she is risen from her toilet? I declare I will ask no more questions--what is it to me, whether she is admired or not?
I should know how charming she is, though all Europe were blind. I hope I am not to be told by any barbarous nation upon earth what beauty and grace are!
[Footnote 1: Mr. Conway and Lady Aylesbury were now at Paris together.--WALPOLE.]
For myself, I am guilty of the gout in my elbow; the left--witness my handwriting. Whether I caught cold by the deluge in the night, or whether the bootikins, like the water of Styx, can only preserve the parts they surround, I doubt they have saved me but three weeks, for so long my reckoning has been out. However, as I feel nothing in my feet, I flatter myself that this Pindaric transition will not be a regular ode, but a fragment, the more valuable for being imperfect.
Now for my Gazette.--Marriages--Nothing done. Intrigues--More in the political than civil way. Births--Under par since Lady Berkeley left off breeding. Gaming--Low water. Deaths--Lord Morton, Lord Wentworth, d.u.c.h.ess Douglas. Election stock--More buyers than sellers.
Promotions--Mr. Wilkes as high as he can go.--_Apropos_, he was told the Lord Chancellor intended to signify to him, that the King did not approve the City's choice: he replied, ”Then I shall signify to his lords.h.i.+p, that I am at least as fit to be Lord Mayor as he is to be Lord Chancellor.” This being more Gospel than everything Mr. Wilkes says, the formal approbation was given.
Mr. Burke has succeeded in Bristol, and Sir James Peachey will miscarry in Suss.e.x. But what care you, Madam, about our Parliament? You will see the _rentree_ of the old one, with songs and epigrams into the bargain.
We do not s.h.i.+ft our Parliaments with so much gaiety. Money in one hand, and abuse in t'other--those are all the arts we know. _Wit and a gamut_[1] I don't believe ever signified a Parliament, whatever the glossaries may say; for they never produce pleasantry and harmony.
Perhaps you may not taste this Saxon pun, but I know it will make the Antiquarian Society die with laughing.
[Footnote 1: Walpole is punning on the old Saxon name of the National Council, Witangemot.]
Expectation hangs on America. The result of the general a.s.sembly is expected in four or five days. If one may believe the papers, which one should not believe, the other side of the waterists are not _doux comme des moutons_, and yet we do intend to eat them. I was in town on Monday; the d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort graced our loo, and made it as rantipole as a Quaker's meeting. _Loois Quinze_,[1] I believe, is arrived by this time, but I fear without _quinze louis_.
[Footnote 1: This was a cant name given to a lady [Lady Powis], who was very fond of loo, and who had lost much money at that game.]
Your herb-snuff and the four gla.s.ses are lying in my warehouse, but I can hear of no s.h.i.+p going to Paris. You are now at Fontainbleau, but not thinking of Francis I., the Queen of Sweden, and Monaldelschi. It is terrible that one cannot go to Courts that are gone! You have supped with the Chevalier de Boufflers: did he act everything in the world and sing everything in the world? Has Madame de Cambis sung to you ”_Sans depit, sans legerete_?”[1] Has Lord Cholmondeley delivered my pacquet? I hear I have hopes of Madame d'Olonne. Gout or no gout, I shall be little in town till after Christmas. My elbow makes me bless myself that I am not in Paris. Old age is no such uncomfortable thing, if one gives oneself up to it with a good grace, and don't drag it about
To midnight dances and the public show.
[Footnote 1: The first words of a favourite French air.--WALPOLE.]
If one stays quietly in one's own house in the country, and cares for nothing but oneself, scolds one's servants, condemns everything that is new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the summers get over themselves.
_DEATH OF LORD CLIVE--RESTORATION OF THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT--PREDICTION OF GREAT MEN TO ARISE IN AMERICA--THE KING'S SPEECH._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
STRAWBERRY HILL, _Nov._ 24, 1774.
... A great event happened two days ago--a political and moral event; the sudden death of that second Kouli Khan, Lord Clive.[1] There was certainly illness in the case; the world thinks more than illness. His const.i.tution was exceedingly broken and disordered, and grown subject to violent pains and convulsions. He came unexpectedly to town last Monday, and they say, ill. On Tuesday his physician gave him a dose of laudanum, which had not the desired effect. On the rest, there are two stories; one, that the physician repeated the dose; the other, that he doubled it himself, contrary to advice. In short, he has terminated at fifty a life of so much glory, reproach, art, wealth, and ostentation! He had just named ten members for the new Parliament.
[Footnote 1: Lord Clive had committed suicide in his house in Berkeley Square. As he was pa.s.sing through his library his niece, who was writing a letter, asked him to mend a pen for her. He did it, and, pa.s.sing on into the next room, cut his throat with the same knife he had just used.
It is remarkable that, when little more than a youth, he had once tried to destroy himself. In a fit, apparently of const.i.tutional melancholy, he had put a pistol to his head, but it did not go off. He pulled the trigger more than once; always with the same result. Anxious to see whether there was any defect in the weapon or the loading, he aimed at the door of the room, and the pistol went off, the bullet going through the door; and from that day he conceived himself reserved by Providence for great things, though in his most sanguine confidence he could never have antic.i.p.ated such glory as he was destined to win.]
Next Tuesday that Parliament is to meet--and a deep game it has to play!