Part 14 (2/2)
I dine to-day at the Bishop of Salisbury's, and to-morrow at Lord Lisbourne's. I was to have gone for a day with Lady Fitzw[illiam] to Roehampton, if these d.a.m.ned spasmodic complaints ne m'etoient pas survenus. However, Potts a.s.sures me that I shall be well again, but that I must take more care of myself. Je le crois. I have a great mind, as you may imagine, to see you again, and Lady C(arlisle) and Caroline, and all of you, and I have d'autres raisons qui m'attachent au monde, et je n'en suis pas degoute parce qu'il est comme il a toujours ete et comme il sera a toute eternite. I am very angry with Emily, that he will not write to me; is he afraid that his style is not good, or of what? . . . The play at Brooks's is exorbitant, I hear; Grady and Sir G.o.dfrey Whistler and the General and Admiral are at the head of it. Charles looks wretchedly, I am told, but I have scarce seen him. Richard is in high cash, and that is all I know of that infernal house. Adieu; my respects to Lady Carlisle, and my most hearty love to the children. My best compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Eden, and to Crowle, and pray rub Mr.
Dean Emily's ears till he writes to me.
It is not desirable that those who present a correspondence for perusal should play too much the part of a showman. Letters speak for themselves. Yet that which Selwyn wrote on April 14th may well be pointed to as giving, in a few lines, a reflection in miniature of the events grave and gay which were then interesting London society. We see it vividly, how people were admiring Lady Crawford's new chair, remarking parenthetically of bad news from across the Atlantic. But society was less frivolous perhaps than it seemed; the distance from America, the length of time which elapsed between the happening of an event and the news of it in England, the meagreness of the intelligence when at length it arrived, prevented the public imagination from being aroused, and so public interest and opinion lay inert.
(1781,) April 24, Tuesday noon, 1 o'clock.--. . . . . .
P.S. Tuesday afternoon, 3 o'clock.--. . . Vary has just dropped in upon me, and says that news is come from Arthburnot (sic), that there has been a skirmish with the Fr(ench) Adm[iral], and it was a kind of drawn battle; that General Phillips has joined Arnold with 2,000 men. He came to ask after George; il ne scait pas encore, a quel point le monde s'interesse pour lui. My best and most affectionate respects to Lady Carlisle, and my love to Caroline, and to her sisters, not forgetting Louisa, chi gia non sovra di me.
Two b.a.l.l.s! very fine, Caroline. Mie Mie will have seen but one, and that is Mr. Wills's annual ball. But we are very well feathered for that, a la Uestris. I had not the ordering so much ornament, and when it is over, and we have had our diversion, I shall read a lecture upon heads, which I wish not to be filled with so many thoughts about dress. But she coaxed Mrs. Webb into all this a mon inscu, and then I cannot be Mr. Killjoy; so pour le moment I seem to approve of it.
We have been at one opera, and
instead of other spectacles, I propose to go for the first part of the evening to Ranelagh, quand la presse n'y sera pas. Lady Craufurd's new chair is, as Sir C.
Williams said of d.i.c.ky's, the charming'st thing in town, et les deux laquais qui la precedent attirent les yeux de tous les envieux et envieuses.
Sir Alexander comes and dines here with March, and is as easy as ever was Sir Jos. Vanheck, and lives with his friends now upon the same foot as before this acquisition of honour. I am told that you have a receipt as Lord Lieutenant to make knights yourself. But I suppose if you intend me such an honour I must come and fetch it. I suppose you do everything that is Royal except touching for the Evil, which would be the most useful fleuron of the Crown if it was effectual.
Storer was out of spirits yesterday at dinner, and I found out afterwards that he had been losing, like a simple boy, his money at Charles's and Richard's d.a.m.ned Pharo bank, which swallows up everybody's cash that comes to Brooks's, as I am told. I suppose that the bank is supported, if such a thing wanted support, by Brooks himself and your friend Jack Manners. It is a creditable way of living, I must own; and it would be well if by robbing some you might pay others, only that ce qui est acquis et (est?) jette par la fenetre, et si l'on paye, ou ne s'acquitte pas.
(1781,) May 16, Wednesday night.--I was engaged to dine to-day at Lady Ossory's,(157) but I called in at Lady Lucan's, and they obliged me to send an excuse, and so I dined there, and dine at Lady Ossory's on Sat.u.r.day. I found myself with a party of Irish, Dean Marly, and Lady Clermont, and with her Mrs. Jones, whom I was ravished to see, for she had given a ball where Caroline was, and commended her dancing, and I tormented the poor woman with such a number of questions about her, that I believe she thought me distracted. It is hard upon me to be so circ.u.mstanced that I cannot see what would give me so much pleasure, but on ne peut pas menager le choux et la chevre. If it pleases G.o.d that I should live, I shall have that, and for a time a great deal more, for I think that I must be quite wore out with infirmities, and blindness must be one, if seeing Caroline appear to advantage will not give me pleasure. . . .
I saw Charles to-day in a new hat, frock, waistcoat, s.h.i.+rt, and stockings; he was as clean and smug as a gentleman, and upon perceiving my surprise, he told me that it was from the Pharo Bank.
He then talked of the thousands it had lost, which I told him only proved its substance, and the advantage of the trade. He smiled, and seemed perfectly satisfied with that which he had taken up; he was in such a sort of humour that I should have liked to have dined with him. His old clothes, I suppose, have been burned like the paupers at Salt Hill.
(157) Anne, only child of Lord Ravensworth. In 1769 she was divorced from the Duke of Grafton and shortly afterward married the Earl of Upper Ossory. She was a correspondent of Selwyn, and of Walpole, who called her ”my d.u.c.h.ess.” She was ”gifted with high endowments of mind and person, high spirited, and n.o.ble in her ways of thinking, and generous in her disposition.”
(1781,) May 21, Monday morning.--. . . . Yesterday about the middle of the day, pa.s.sing by Brooks's, I saw a Hackney coach, which announced a late sitting. I had the curiosity to enquire how things were, and found Richard in his Pharo pulpit, where he had been, alternately with Charles, since the evening before, and dealing to Adm. Pigott only. I saw a card on the table--”Received from Messieurs Fox & Co. 1,500 guineas.” The bank ceased in a few minutes after I was in the room; it was a little after 12 at noon, and it had won 3,400 or 500 g(uineas). Pigott, I believe, was the chief loser.
At Devons.h.i.+re House there had been a bank held by Sir W. Aston and Grady, and that won 700. Martindale cannot get paid, because, as Charles says, he is not allowed to take money from the bank; he means for the payment of debts, but yet I hear some are paid, such as O'Kelly and other blacklegs. But there are at this time two executions in his house, and Richard's horses were taken the other day from his coach, as Lady Ossory tells me.
Charles says that he is accable de demandes, comme de dettes, et avec la reputation d'avoir de l'argent, il ne sait ou donner de la tete. A vous dire la verite, si j'avais une tete comme la sienne, ou je me la ferois couper, ou j'en tirerois bien meilleur parti que ne fait notre ami; son charactere, son genie, et sa conduite sont egalement extraordinaires et m'est (me sont) incomprehensibles.
Lord G. Cavendish is to be married to Lady Eliz. Compton, it being agreed that the Cavendish family must be continued from his loins.
Me. La d.u.c.h.esse fait des paroles, mais non pas des enfans. I hear that she has won immensely, et avec beaucoup d'exact.i.tude, ce qui n'est pas fort ordinaire aux dames.
Harry St. John has been here to ask me to hold a bank to-night at his wife's, and I had an invitation from Mrs. Crewe(158) also this morning to come to her, and I suppose for the same purpose. Je rename a tout cela; les inconveniens en sont innombrables; all my play at present is confined to a rubber at whist, and a little Pharo with Ailsford, and perhaps two or three more. Le grand evenement c'est la perte or la gain de 50 or 80 guineas.
4 o'clock.--Come home to dinner. No letters as yet come from Ireland.
Lord Egremont tells me that Digby is sent after La Motte Piquet.(159) I went to Miss Gunning's to carry her a parcel of francs, but I did not find her at home. I expect to see Mitchel back in a few days; the wind, as I am told, is favourable for his return.
The post has brought me letters from Holyhead, but no other, so what kind of pa.s.sage my dear little boy has had over the sea I am still to know. But he was, I doubt not, safe with you on Friday, and will I hope in G.o.d remain so. I met Sir N. Thomas to-day, with whom I had some conversation about him. I do not perceive that he has a very favourable opinion of the Irish climate, for those whose lungs are not very strong. I hope to hear that Louisa is better. My love to them all most cordially, and to Lady Carlisle with my best respects at the same time. What a cursed affair to me is this Lieutenancy of Ireland, and a d.a.m.ned sea between us! Lord Buckingham shewed me last night an infernal ugly gold box which he had received from the town of Cork, and such another I understood that you would have. Adieu; I have heard no news to-day.
Our club at White's commence a tomber; la grande presse n'y (est?) pas; c'est un asyle toujours pour les caducs, et pour ceux qui n'ont pas une pa.s.sion decidee pour le jeu.
(158) The fas.h.i.+onable beauty, ”whose mind kept the promise was made by her face,” as Fox sang; the woman whom he said he preferred to any living. She was the daughter of Sir Everard Falkener, and was married to Mr. Crewe in the same year (1764) as her sister who became the celebrated Mrs. Bouverie.
(159) Commander of the French fleet.
<script>