Chapter 338

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 4, 1789. (PAGE 444)

I am not surprised, my dear Madam, that the notice of my illness should have stimulated your predominant quality, your sensibility. 1 cannot do less in return than relieve it immediately, by assuring you that I am in a manner recovered; and should have gone out before this time, if my mind were as much at ease as my poor limbs. I have passed, five months most uncomfortably; the two last most unhappily. In June and September I had two bad falls by my own lameness and weakness, and was much bruised; while I was witness to the danger, and then to the death, of my invaluable niece, Lady Dysart. She was angelic, and has left no children. The unexpected death of Lord Waldegrave(683) one of the most amiable of men, has not only deprived me of him, but has opened a dreadful scene of calamities! he and my niece were the happiest and most domestic of couples.

Your kind inquiries after me have drawn these details from me, for which I make no excuse; good-nature never grudges its pity. I, who love to force your gravity to smile, am seriously better pleased to indulge your benevolence with a subject of esteem, which, though moving your compassion, will be accompanied by no compunction. I will now answer your letter. Your plea, that not composition, but business, has occasioned your silence, is no satisfaction to me. In my present anxious solitude I have again read Bonner and Florio, and the Bas Bleu; and do you think I am much pleased to learn that you have not been writing? Who is it says something like this line?--

Hannah will not write, and Lactilla will.

They who think her Earl Goodwin will outgo Shakspeare, might be in the right, if they specified in what way. I believe she may write worse than he sometimes did, though that is not easy; but to excel him--oh! I have not words adequate to my contempt for those who can suppose such a possibility!

I am sorry, very sorry, for what you tell me of poor Barrett's fate. Though he did write worse than Shakspeare, it is great pity he was told so, as it killed him; and I rejoice that I did not publish a word in contradiction of the letters which he said Chatterton sent to me, as I was advised to do. I might have laughed at the poor man's folly, and then I should have been miserable to have added a grain to the poor man's mortification.(684)

you rejoice me, not my vanity, by telling me my idea of a mechanic succedaneum to the labour of negroes is not visionary, but thought practicable. Oh! how I wish I understood sugar ploughs, and could marry them! Alas! I understand nothing useful. My head is as un-mechanic as it is un-arithmetic, un-geometric, un-metaphysic, uncommercial; but will not some one of those superior heads to whom you have talked on my indigested hint reduce it to practicability'! How a feasible scheme would stun those who call humanity romantic, and show, from the books of the Custom-house, that murder is a great improvement of the revenue! Even the present situation of France is favourable. Could not Mr. Wilberforce obtain to have the enfranchisement of the negroes started there? The Jews are claiming their natural rights there; and blacks are certainly not so great defaulters as the Hebrews, though they too have undergone ample persecutions. Methinks, as Lord George Gordon is in correspondence with the `Etats, he has been a little remiss in not signing the petition of those of his new communion.

The `Etats are detestable and despicable; and, in fact, guilty of the outrages of the Parisian and provincial mobs. The mob of twelve hundred, not legislators, but dissolvers of all law, unchained the mastiffs that had been tied up, and were sure to worry all who fell in their way. To annihilate all laws, however bad, and to have none ready to replace them, was proclaiming anarchy. What should one think of a mad-doctor, who should let loose a lunatic, suffer him to burn Bedlam, chop off the heads of the keepers, and then consult with some students in physic on the gentlest mode of treating delirium? By a late vote I see that the twelve hundred praters are reduced to five hundred: Vive la reine Billingsgate! the Thalestris who has succeeded Louis Quatorze! A committee of those Amazons stopped the Duke of Orleans, who, to use their style, I believe is not a barrel the better herring.

Your reflections on Vertot's passion for revolutions are admirable,(685) and yet it is natural for an historian to like to describe times of action. Halcyon days do not furnish matter for talents; they are like the virtuous couple in a comedy, a little insipid. Mr. Manly and Lady Grace, Mellefont and Cynthia, do not interest one much. Indeed, in a tragedy where they are unhappy, they give the audience full satisfaction, and no envy. The newspapers, no doubt, thought Dr. Priestley could not do better than to espouse you.(686) He certainly would be very judicious, could he obtain your consent; but, alas! you would squabble about Socinianism, or some of those isms. To tell you the truth, I hate all those Constantinopolitan jargons, that set people together by the ears about pedantic terms. When you apply scholastic phrases as happily and genteelly as you do in your Bas Bleu, they are delightful; but don't muddify your charming simplicity with controversial distinctions, that will sour your sweet piety. Sects are the bane of charity, and have deluged the world with blood.

I do not mean, by what I am going to say, to extort another letter from you before I have the pleasure of seeing you at Hampton; but I really shall be much obliged to you for a single line soon, only to tell me if Miss Williams is at Stoke with the Duchess of Beaufort. To a short note, cannot you add a short P. S. on the fate of Earl Goodwin?(687) Lac mihi novum non frigore desit. Adieu! my amiable friend! Yours most sincerely.

(683) George fourth Earl of Waldegrave born in 1751; married, in 1782, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, daughter of James, the second Earl. He died on the 22d of October.-E.

(684) Mr. Barrett was the person who first encouraged Chatterton to publish the poems which he attributed to Rowley. He was a respectable surgeon at Bristol.-E.

(685) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"What a pity it is that Vertot is not alive that man's element was a state convulsion; he hopped over peaceful intervals, as periods of no value, and only seemed to enjoy himself when all the rest of the world was sad. Storm and tempest were his halcyon days."-E.

(686) In her letter to Walpole Miss More had said,--"I comforted myself., that your two fair wives were within reach of your elbow-chair, and that their pleasant society would somewhat mitigate the sufferings of your confinement. Apropos of two wives--when the newspapers the other day were pleased to marry me to Dr. Priestley, I am surprised they did not rather choose to bestow me on Mr. Madan, as his wife is probably better broken in to these eastern usages, than Mrs. Priestley may be. I never saw the Doctor but once in my life, and he had then been married above twenty years." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 188.-E.

(687) Ann Yearsley's tragedy, which had just been represented, with little success, at the Bath and Bristol theatres. In reply to Walpole's query, Miss More says, "There are, I dare say, some Pretty Passages in it, but all seem to bring it in guilty of the crime of dullness; which I take to be the greatest fault in dramatic composition."-E.