Chapter 222

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 1, 1764. (page 350)

I am not only pleased, my dear lord, to have been the first to announce your brother's legacy to you, but I am glad whenever my news reach you without being quite stale. I see but few persons here. I begin my letters without knowing when I shall be able to fill them, and then am to winnow a little what I hear, that I may not send you absolute secondhand fables: for though I cannot warrant all I tell you, I hate to send you every improbable tale that is vented. You like, as one always does in absence, to hear the common occurrences of your own country; and you see I am very glad to be your gazetteer, provided you do not rank my letters upon any higher foot. I should be ashamed of such gossiping, if I did not consider it as chatting with you en famille, as we used to do at supper in Grosvenor-street.

The Duke of Devonshire has made splendid provision for his younger children; to Lady Dorothy,(679) 30,000 pounds; Lord Richard and Lord George will have about 4,000 pounds a-year apiece: for, besides landed estates, he has left them his whole personal estate without exception, only obliging the present Duke to redeem Devonshire-house, and the entire collection in it, for 20,000 pounds: he gives 500 pounds to each of his brothers, and 200 pounds to Lord Strafford, with some other inconsiderable legacies. Lord Frederick carried the garter, and was treated by the King with very gracious speeches of concern.

The Duke of Cumberland is quite recovered, after an incision of many inches in his knee. Ranby(680) did not dare to propose that a hero should be tied, but was frightened out of his senses when the hero would hold the candle himself, which none of his generals could bear to do: in the middle of the operation, the Duke said, "Hold!" Ranby said, "For God's sake, Sir, let me proceed now--it will be worse to renew it." The Duke repeated, "I say hold!" and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat and cap; for, said he, the poor man has sweated through these. It was true; but the Duke did not utter a groan.

Have you heard that Lady Susan O'Brien's is not the last romance of the sort? Lord Rockingham's youngest sister, Lady Harriot,(681) has stooped even lower than a theatric swain, and married her footman; but still it is you Irish(682) that commit all the havoc. Lady Harriot, however, has mixed a wonderful degree of prudence with her potion, and considering how plain she is, has not, I think, sweetened the draught too much for her lover: she settles a single hundred pound a-year upon him for his life; entails her whole fortune on their children, if they have any; and, if not, on her own family; nay, in the height of the novel, provides for a separation, and insures the same pin-money to Damon, in case they part. This deed she has vested out of her power, by sending it to Lord Mansfield,(683) whom she makes her trustee; it is drawn up in her own hand, and Lord Mansfield says is as binding as any lawyer could make it. Did one ever hear of more reflection in a delirium! Well, but hear more: she has given away all her clothes, nay, and her ladyship, and says, linen gowns are properest for a footman's wife, and is gone to his family in Ireland, plain Mrs. Henrietta Surgeon. I think it is not clear that she is mad, but I have no doubt but Lady Bel(684) will be so who could not digest Dr. Duncan, nor even Mr. Milbank.

My last told you of my sister's promotion.(685) I hear she is to be succeeded at Kensington by Miss Floyd, who lives with Lady Bolingbroke; but I beg you not to report this till you see it in a Gazette of better authority than mine, who have it only from fame and Mrs. A. Pitt.

I have not seen M. de Guerchy yet, having been in town but one night since his return. You are very kind in accepting, on your own account, his obliging expressions about me: I know no foundation on which I should like better to receive them,: the truth is he has distinguished me extremely, and when a person in his situation shows much attention to a person so very insignificant as I am, one is apt to believe it exceeds common compliment: at least, I attribute it to the esteem which he could not but see I conceived for him. His civility is so natural, and his good nature so strongly marked, that I connected much more with him than I am apt to do with new acquaintances. I pitied the various disgusts he received, and I believe he saw I did. If I felt for him, you may judge how much I am concerned that you have your share. I foresaw it was unavoidable, from the swarms of your countrymen that flock to Paris, and generally the worst part; boys and governors are woful exports. I saw a great deal of it when I lived with poor Sir Horace Mann at Florence-but you have the whole market. We are a wonderful people-I would not be our King,(686) our minister, or our ambassador, for the Indies. One comfort, however, I can truly give you; I have heard their complaints, if they have any, from nobody but yourself. Jesus! if they are not content now, I wish they knew how the English were received at Paris twenty years ago--why, you and I know they were not received at all. Ay, and when the fashion of admiring English is past, it will be just so again; and very reasonably- -who would open their house to every staring booby from another country?

Arlington Street, Nov. 3.

I came to town to-day to meet your brother, who is going to Euston and Thetford,(687) and hope he will bring back a good account of the domestic history,(688) of which we can learn nothing authentic. Fitzroy(689) knows nothing. The town says the Duchess is going thither.

We have been this evening with Duchess Hamilton,(690) who is arrived from Scotland, visibly promising another Lord Campbell. I shall take this opportunity of seeing M. de Guerchy, and that opportunity, of sending this letter, and one from your brother. Our politics are all at a stand. The Duke of Devonshire's death, I concluded, would make the ministry all powerful, all triumphant, and all insolent. It does not appear to have done so. They are, I believe, extremely ill among themselves, and not better in their affairs foreign or domestic. The cider counties have instructed their members to join the minority. The house of Yorke seems to have laid aside their coldness and irresolution, and to look towards opposition. The unpopularity of the court is very great indeed--still I shall not be surprised if they maintain their ground a little longer.

There is nothing new in the way of publication: the town itself' is still a desert. I have twice passed by Arthur's(691) to-day, and not seen a chariot.

Hogarth is dead, and Mrs. Spence, who lived with the Duchess of Newcastle.(692) She had saved 20,000 pounds which she leaves to her sister for life, and after her, to Tommy Pelham. Ned Finch(693) has got an estate from an old Mrs. Hatton of 1500 pounds a year, and takes her name.

Adieu! my lord and lady, and your whole et cetera.

(679) Lady Dorothy married, in 1766, the Duke of Portland.-E.

(680) A celebrated surgeon of the day. He was serjeant-surgeon to the King, and F. R. S.-E.

(681) Lady Henrietta Alicia Wentworth, born in 1737; married Mr. William Surgeon.-E.

(682) Lord Hertford was an Irish peer; he had besides so large a fortune there, and paid so much attention to the interests of that country,, that Mr. Walpole calls him Irish.-C.

(683) Lord Mansfield had married Lady Harriot's aunt.-E.

(684) Lady Isibella Finch, lady of the bedchamber to Princess Amelia, was Lady Harriot's aunt. The Mr. Milbank here mentioned had married Lady Mary Wentworth, the elder sister of Lady Harriot.-C.

(685) From being housekeeper at Kensington Palace, to the same office at Windsor Castle; but Mr. Walpole is mistaken as to the name of her successor: it was Miss Roche loyd.-C.

(686) It is due to the character of the King and the ministers, whom Mr. Walpole so often and so wantonly depreciates, to solicit the reader's attention to such passages as this, in which he imputes to others, and therefore implies in himself, an unfair disposition to criticise and censure.-C.

(687) He was member for Thetford.-E.

(688) Of the Grafton family.-E.

(689) Colonel Charles Fitzroy. See ant`e, p. 261, Letter 185.-E.

(690) Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, and wife, in 1759, of John, fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.

(691) The fashionable club in St. James's Street.-E.

(692) The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 19th of October, says, "The many great losses, both public and private, which we have had this summer, have very greatly affected the Duchess; and the last of all, of her old friend and companion of above forty-five years, poor Mrs. Spence, has added much to the melancholy situation in which she was before." Chatham Correspondence, vol, ii. p. 295.-E.

(693) Edward, fifth son of the sixth Earl of Winchelsea. Mrs. Hatton was his maternal aunt, sister of the last Viscount Hatton.-C.