Chapter 372

Berkeley Square, June 2, 1791. (page 504)

To the tune of the Cow with the crumpled Horn, etc. "This is the note that nobody wrote." " This is the groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Gunning, Who was so very cunning, to examine the groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Bowen, to whom it was owing, that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"These are the Marquisses shy of the horn, who caused the maiden all for-Lorn, to become on a sudden so tattered and torn, that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom, etc.

"These are the two Dukes, whose sharp rebukes made the two Marquesses shy of the horn, and caused the maiden all for-Lorn, etc.

"This is the General somewhat too bold, whose head was so hot, though his heart was so cold; who proclaimed himself single before it was meet, and his wife and his daughter turned into the street, to please the Dukes, whose sharp rebukes," etc.

This is not at all new; I have heard it once or twice imperfectly, but could not get a copy till now; and I think it will divert you for a moment, though the heroines are as much forgotten as Boadicea; nor have I heard of them since their arrival at Dover.

Well! I have seen Madame d'Albany who has not a ray of royalty about her. She has good eyes and teeth; but I think can have had no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is civil and easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Ailesbury made a small assemblage for her on Monday, and my curiosity is satisfied. Mr. Conway and Lady A., Lord and Lady Frederic Campbell, and Mrs. E. Hervey and Mrs. Hervey, breakfasted with me that morning at Strawberry, at the desire of the latter, who had never been there; and whose commendations were so promiscuous, that I saw she did not at all understand the style of the place. The day was northeasterly and cold, and wanting rain; and I was not sorry to return into town. I hope in five months to like staying there much better. Mrs. Damer, who returned in such Spanish health, has already caught an English northeastern cold; with pain in all her limbs, and a little fever, and yesterday was not above two hours out of her bed. Her father came to me from her before dinner, and left her better; and I shall go to her presently; and, this not departing till to-morrow, I hope to give you a still more favourable account. These two days may boldly assume the name of June, without the courtesy of England. Such weather makes me wish myself at Strawberry, whither I shall betake myself on Saturday.

505 Letter 382 To The Miss Berrys. Berkeley Square, June 8, 1791.

Your No. 34, that was interrupted, and of which the last date was of May 24th, I received on the 6th, and if I could find fault, it would be in the length; for I do not approve of your writing so much in hot weather, for, be it known to you ladies, that from the first of the month, June is not more June at Florence, My hay is crumbling away; and I have ordered it to be cut, as a sure way of bringing rain. I have a selfish reason, too, for remonstrating against long letters. I feel the season advancing, when mine will be piteous short for what can I tell you from Twickenham in the next three or four months'! Scandal from Richmond and Hampton Court, or robberies at my own door? The latter, indeed, are blown already. I went to Strawberry on Saturday, to avoid the birthday crowd and squibs and crackers. At six I drove to Lord Strafford's, where his goods are to be sold by auction; his sister, Lady Anne,(801) intending to pull down the house and rebuild it. I returned a quarter before seven; and in the interim between my Gothic gate and Ashe's nursery, a gentleman and gentlewoman, in a one-horse chair and in the broad face of the sun, had been robbed by a single highwayman, sans mask. Ashe's mother and sister stood and saw it; but having no notion of a robbery at such an hour in the high-road and before their men had left work, concluded it was an acquaintance of the robber's. I suppose Lady Cecilia Johnstone will not descend from her bedchamber to the drawing-room without life-guard men. The Duke of Bedford(802) eclipsed the whole birthday by his clothes, equipage, and servants - six of the latter walked on' the side of the coach to keep off the crowd-or to tempt it; for their liveries were worth an argosie. The Prince *as gorgeous too - the latter is to give Madame d'Albany a dinner. She has been introduced to Mrs. Fitzherbert. You know I used to call Mrs. Cosway's(803) concerts Charon's boat; now, methinks, London is so. I am glad Mrs. C. is with you; she is pleasing-but surely it is odd to drop a child and her husband and country, all in a breath! I am glad you are disfranchised of the exiles. We have several, I am told, hire; but I strictly confine myself to those I knew formerly at Paris, and who all are quartered on Richmond Green. I went to them on Sunday evening, but found them gone to Lord Fitzwilliam's, the next house to Madame de Boufflers', to hear his organ; whither I followed them, and returned with them. The Comtesse Emilie played on her harp; then we all united at loto. I went home at twelve, unrobbed; and Lord Fitzwilliam, who asked much after you both, was to set out the next morning for Dublin, though intending to stay there but four days, and be back in three weeks.

I am sorry you did not hear all Monsieur do Lally Tollendal's(804) tragedy, of which I have had a good account. I like his tribute to his father's memory.(805) Of French politics you must be tired; and so am I. Nothing appears to me to promise their chaos duration; consequently, I expect more chaos, the sediment of which is commonly despotism. Poland ought to make the French blush-but that, they are not apt to do on any occasion. Let us return to Strawberry. The house of Sebright breakfasted there with me on Monday; the daughter had given me a drawing, and I owed her a civility. Thank you for reminding me of falls: in one sense I am more liable to them than when you left me, for I am sensibly much weaker since my last fit; but that weakness makes me move much slower, and depend more on assistance. In a word, there is no care I do not take of myself: my heart is set on installing you at Cliveden; and it will not be my fault if I do not preserve myself till then. If another summer is added, it will be happiness indeed--but I am not presumptuous, and count the days only till November. I am glad you, on your parts, repose till your journey commences, and go not into sultry crowded lodgings at the Ascension. I was at Venice in summer, and thought airing on stinking ditches pestilential, after enjoying the delicious nights on the Ponte di Trinit`a at Florence, in a linen night-gown and a straw hat, with improvisatori. and music, and the coffee-houses open with ices--at least, such were the customs fifty years ago,.

The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine, for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses--nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob--not at all; it was only passengers. Nor is there any complaint of depopulation from the country: Bath shoots out into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year: Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia's mouth water. Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.

Mr. Dundas has kissed hands for secretary of state; and Bishop Barrington, of Salisbury, is transferred to Durham, which he affected not to desire, having large estates by his wife in the south-but from the triple-mitre downwards, it is almost always true, what I said some years ago, that "nolo episcopari is Latin for I lie.-- Tell it not in Gath that I say so; for I am to dine to-morrow at the Bishop of London's, at Fulham, with Hannah Bonner, my imprime. This morning I went with Lysons the Reverend to see Dulwich college, founded in 1619 by Alleyn, a player, which I had never seen in my many days. e were received by a smart divine, tr`es bien poudr`e, and with black satin breeches--but they are giving new wings and red satin breeches to the good old hostel too, and destroying a gallery with a very rich ceiling; and nothing will remain of ancient but the front, and an hundred mouldy portraits, among apostles, sibyls, and Kings of England. On Sunday I shall settle at Strawberry; and then wo betide you on post-days! I cannot make news without straw. The Johnstones are going to Bath, for the healths of both; so Richmond will be my only staple. Adieu, all three!

(801) Lady Anne Wentworth, married to the Right Honourable Thomas Conolly.

(802) Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford. He died at Woburn, in March 1802, at the early age of thirty-one; upon which event, Mr. Fox, in moving for a new writ for Tavistock, in the room of his brother John, who succeeded to the dukedom, pronounced an eloquent eulogium on the deceased-the only speech he could ever be prevailed upon to revise for publication-E.

(803) Maria Cosway, the wife of the eminent painter, and herself distinguished for her proficience both in painting and music. She was a native of Italy but of English parentage; and being passionately fond of music, her soir`ees in Pall-Mall and afterwards in Stratford-place, were attended by all the fashion of the town. In consequence of ill-health, accompanied by her brother, who had gained, as a student in painting, the Academy's gold metal, she had left England for Italy; where she remained about three years.-E

(804) The celebrated Count Lally do Tollendal. In 1789, he was one of the most eloquent members of the Constituent Assembly; but disapproving of the principles that prevailed, he retired into Switzerland, Gibbon, in a letter of the 15th of December of that year, says of him, "Lally is an amiable man of the world, and a poet: he passes the winter here; you know how much I prefer a quiet select society to a crowd of names and titles: what happy countries are England and Switzerland, if they know and preserve their happiness!" Having returned to France in 1792, he was sent to the Abbaye; whence he escaped during the massacres which took place in the prisons in September, and effected his retreat to England, where he found an asylum in the house of Lord Sheffield. On the restoration of the Bourbons, he was created a peer of France, and died in 1830. The subject of the tragedy above alluded to was the fall of the Earl of Strafford.-E.

(805) The unfortunate Count do Lally, governor of Pondicherry; who, on the surrender of the place to the English in 1761, was made prisoner of war, and sent to England. In the Chatham Correspondence, there is a letter from him to Mr. Pitt, written in English; in which he says, "When I shall have seen and heard here of Mr. Pitt all I have already read of him, I shall always remember I am his prisoner, and liberty to me, though a Frenchman, is of an inestimable value; therefore, I earnestly beg your interest with his Majesty to grant me leave to repair to my native soil." The desired permission was granted; but no sooner had he reached Paris, than he was thrown into the Bastille, and after being confined several years, brought to trial for treachery and found guilty. When his sentence was pronounced, "the excess of his indignation," says Voltaire, " was equal to his astonishment: he inveighed against his judges, and, holding in his hand a pair of compasses, which he used for tracing maps in his prison, he struck it against his heart; but the blow was not sufficient to take away life; he was dragged into a dung-cart, with a gag in his mouth, lest, being conscious of his innocence, he should convince the Spectators of the injustice of his fate." Madame du Deffand, in giving to Walpole, on the 10th of January 1766, an account of this horrible scene, having stated, that the populace "battait des mains pendant l'ex`ecution," he returned her an answer, in a high degree honourable to his moral feeling:--"Ah! Madame, Madame, quelles horreurs me racontez-vous la! Qu'on ne dise jamais que les Anglais sent durs et f`eroces. Veritablement ce sent les Fran`cais qui le sent, Oui, oui, vous `etes des sauvages, des Iroquois, vous autres. On a bien massacr`e des gens chez nous, mais a-t-on jamais vu battre des Mains pendant qu'on mettait `a mort un pauvre malheureux, un officier general, qui avait langui pendant deux ans en prison? un homme enfin si sensible `a l'honneur, qu'il n'avait pas voulu se sauver! si touch`e de la disgrace qu'il chercha `a avaler les grilles de sa prison plut`ot que de se voir expos`e `a l'ignominie publique; et c'est exactement cette honn`ete pudeur qui fait qu'on le traine dans un tombereau, et qu'on lui met un baillon `a la bouche comme au dernier des sc`elerats. Mon Dieu! que je suis aise d'avoir quitt`e Paris avant cette horrible sc`ene! je me serais fait d`echirer, ou mettre `a la Bastille."-E.