Chapter 392

Strawberry Hill, June 13, 1793. (page 540)

I thank you much for all your information--some parts made me smile: yet, if what you heard of your brother proves true, I rather think it deplorable! How can love of money, or the still vainer of all vanities, ambition of wearing a high but most insignificant office, which even poor Lord Salisbury could execute, tempt a very old man, who loves his ease and his own way, to stoop to wait like a footman behind a chair, for hours, and in a court whence he had been cast Ignominiously? I believe I have more pride than most men alive: I could be flattered by honours acquired by merit, or by some singular action of `eclat; but for titles, ribands, offices of no business, which any body can fill, and must be given to many, I should just as soon be proud of being the top squire in a country village.(851) It is only worse to have waded to distinction through dirt, like Lord Auckland.(852) All this shifting of scenes may, as you say, be food to the Fronde --Sed defendit numerus. It is perfectly ridiculous to use any distinction of parties but the ins and the outs. Many years ago I thought that the wisest appellations for contending factions ever assumed, were those in the Roman empire, who called themselves the greens and the blues: it was so easy, when they changed sides, to slide from one colour to the other; and then a blue might plead that he had never been true blue, but always a greenish blue; and vice versa. I allow that the steadiest party-man may be staggered by novel and unforeseen circumstances. The outrageous proceedings of the French republicans have wounded the cause of liberty, and will, I fear, have shaken it for centuries; for Condorcet and such fiends are worse than the imperial and royal dividers of Poland. But I do not see why detestation of anarchy and assassination must immediately make one fall in love with garters and seals.

I am sitting by the fire, as I have done ever since I came hither; and since I do not expect warm weather in June, I am wishing for rain, or I shall not have a mouthful of hay, nor a noseful of roses. Indeed, as I have seen several fields of hay cut, I wonder it has not brought rain, as usual. My creed is, that rain is good for hay, as I conclude every climate and its productions are suited to each other. Providence did not trouble itself about its being more expensive to us to make our hay over and over; it only took care it should not want water enough. Adieu!

(851) On the 29th of this month, the Earl of Hertford was created a Marquis. He died on the 14th of June, in the following year, at the age of seventy-five.-E.

(852) On the 23d of May, William Eden, Lord Auckland, had been created an English peer.-E.