Chapter 195

Arlington Street, April 5, 1764. (page 308)

Your idea, my dear lord, of the abusive paragraph on you being conceived at Paris,(571) and transmitted hither, tallies exactly with mine. I guessed that a satire on your whole establishment must come from thence: I said so immediately to two or three persons; but I did not tell you I thought so, because I did not choose to fill you with suggestions for which I had no ground, but in my own reasoning. Your arguments convince me I was in the right. Yet, were you master of proofs, the wisest thing you can do, is to act as if you had no suspicion; that is, to act as you have done, civilly, but coolly. There are men whom one would, I think, no more acknowledge for enemies than friends. One's resentment distinguishes them, and the only Gratitude they can pay for that distinction is, to double the abuse. Wilkes's mind, you see, is sufficiently volatile, when he can already forget Lord Sandwich and the Scotch, and can employ himself on you. He will soon flit to other prey, when you disregard him. It is my way: I never publish a sheet, but buzz! out fly a swarm of hornets, insects that never settle upon you, if you don't strike at them and whose venom is diverted to the next object that presents itself.

We have divine weather. The Bishop of Carlisle has been with me two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse(572) to perfection: -not that there was much sight in it. The air was very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening the Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of Twickenham, and drank tea with us. They had none of them seen the gallery since it was finished; even the chapel was new to the Duke, and he was so struck with it that he desired to offer at the shrine an incense-pot of silver philigrain.(573)

The election at Cambridge has ended, for the present in strange confusion.(574) The proctors, who were of different sides, assumed each a majority; the votes, however, appear to have been equal. The learned in university decision say, an equality is a negative: if so Lord Hardwicke is excluded. Yet the novelty of the case, it not having been very customary to solicit such a trifling honour, and the antiquated forms of proceeding retained in colleges, leave the matter wide open for further contention, an advantage Lord Sandwich cherishes as much as success. The grave are highly scandalized:--popularity was still warmer. The under-graduates, who, having no votes had consequently been left to their real opinions, were very near expressing their opinions against Lord Sandwich's friends in the most Outrageous manner: hissed they were; and after the election, the juniors burst into the Senate-house, elected a fictitious Lord Hardwicke, and chaired him. The indecent arts and applications which had been used by the Twitcherites (as they are called, from Lord Sandwich's nickname, Jemmy Twitcher,) had provoked this rage. I will give you but one instance:-A voter, who was blooded on purpose that morning, was brought out of a madhouse with his keeper. This is the great and wise nation, which the philosopher Helvetius is come to study! When he says of us C'est un furieux pais! he does not know that the literal translation is the true description of us.

I don't know whether I did not tell you some lies in my last; very likely: I tell you what I hear, and do not answer for truth but when I tell you what I know. How should I know any thing? I am in no confidence; I think of both sides alike; I care for neither; I ask few questions. The King's journey to Hanover is contradicted. The return of Lord Bute is still a mystery. The zealous say, he declares for the administration; but some of the latter do not trust too much to that security; and, perhaps, they are in the right: I know what I think and why I think it; yet some, who do not go on ill grounds, have a middle opinion, that is not very reconcilable to mine. You will not wonder that there is a mystery, doubt, or irresolotion. The scene will be opened further before I get to Paris.

Lord Lyttelton and Lord Temple have dined with each other, and the reconciliation of the former with Mr. Pitt is concluded. It is well that enmities are as frail as friendships.

The Archbishops and Bishops, who -are so eager against Dr. Pearse's divorce from his see, not as illegal, but improper, and of bad example, have determined the King, who left it to them, not to consent to it, though the Bishop himself still insists on it. As this decision disappoints Bishop Newton, Lord Bath has obtained a consolatory promise for him of the mitre of London, to the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord Bath(575 does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he is an excellent courtier! The Prince of Wales shoots him with plaything arrows, he falls down dead; and the child kisses him to life again. Melancholy ambition I heard him, t'other night, propose himself to Lady Townshend as a rich widow. Such spirits at fourscore are pleasing; but when one has lost all one's children, to be flattering those of Kings!

The Bishop of Carlisle told me, that t'other day in the House of Lords, Warburton said to another of the bench, "I was invited by my Lord Mansfield to dine with that Helvetius, but he is a professed patron of atheism, a rascal, and a scoundrel, and I would not countenance him; besides, I should have worked him, and that Lord Mansfield would not have liked." No, in good truth: who can like such vulgarism! His French, too, I suppose, is equal to his wit and his piety.

I dined, on Tuesday, with the imperial minister; we were two-and-twenty, collected from the four corners of the earth. Since it is become the fashion to banquet whole kingdoms by turns, I should pray, if I was minister to be sent to Lucca. Have you received D'Eon's very curious book, which I sent by Colonel Keith? I do not find that the administration can discover any method of attacking him. Monsieur de Guerchy very properly determines to take no notice Of it. In the mean time, the wit of it gains ground, and palliates the abomination, though it ought not.

Princess Amelia asked me again about her trees. I gave her your message. She does not blame you, but Madame de Boufflers, for sending them so large. Mr. Legge is in a very bad way; but not without hopes: his last night was better. Adieu! my dear lords and ladies!

(571) See ant`e, p. 301, letter 197. Lord Hertford suspected this paragraph to have been written by Mr. Wilkes; which certainly would have been ungrateful, as Lord Hertford showed Mr. Wilkes more attention than most people thought proper to be shown by the King's ambassador to a person in Mr. Wilkes's circumstances.-C.

(572) A considerable eclipse of the sun, which took place on the 1st of April. It was annular at Boulogne, in France, and of course nearly so at Paris and London.-C.

(573) Commonly called fillagree.-C.

(574) The contest was between Lords Hardwicke and Sandwich; but according to University forms, the poll was taken on the first name; there appeared among the Blackhoods for Lord Hardwicke, placet 103; non-placet 101: among the Whitehoods, the proctors' accounts differed; one made placet 108, non-placet 107; the other made placet 107, non-placet 101: on this a scrutiny was demanded, and refused, and a great confusion ensuing, the Vice-Chancellor adjourned the senate sine die.-E.

(575) The once idolized patriot, William Pulteney. It must be borne in mind, that Mr. Walpole cherished a filial aversion to his father's great antagonist.-C.