PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF PUBLIC MEN.
With considerable exertion, and at a great expense of capital and research, we have been fortunately enabled to gratify the prevalent taste for diaries and correspondence; a gentleman of the highest literary character, moving in the first circles as well of the political as fashionable world, has been kind enough to furnish us with no less than twenty-four volumes of MS. letters and memoranda, the production of all the leading personages of the last and present century.
It is from the unreserved communication of their thoughts and feelings that the characters of great men are to be justly appreciated; and with the addition of the notes, explanatory and critical, of our highly-gifted friend, we think we shall do the world a service, and our readers a pleasure, by submitting portions of the great collection entrusted to our care.
It must be observed that the whole of the correspondence of which we are possessed is strictly of a private nature, and certainly has never appeared in print before. We give a few specimens:—
No. I.
"From the Right Hon. William Pitt to Mr. Smith.
"Mr. Pitt will be glad to see Mr. Smith to-morrow at twelve.
"Downing-street, April 4, 1800."
I have not been able to ascertain precisely who this Mr. Smith was, and the envelope, which possibly might have shewn the address, has been unfortunately lost—the name of Smith is by no means an uncommon one; it is possible that this note might have been written to a relation of Lord Carrington, who was created a Baron on the 15th of July, 1796. His Lordship married a Miss Bernard, by whom he has had one son and eleven daughters.—Ed.
No. II.
"From David Garrick, Esq., to Dr. Goldsmith.
"Southampton-street, April 9, 1775.
"Dear Goldsmith,—Mrs. Garrick will be glad to see you here at dinner to-day, at three o'clock.
"Yours, D. G."
The authenticity of this short letter is unquestionable; for although the initials of this British Roscius only are affixed to it, the date, and the known intimacy which existed between Garrick and Goldsmith, put all doubt at rest as to the real writer. It is a curious transcript of the times, as it marks the hour of dining in the year 1775, in what may be considered the best authority. Garrick retired from the stage in 1777, and died in 1779; his widow survived him nearly half a century. The house at Hampton was purchased by a Mr. Carr, Solicitor, as I believe, to the Excise, one of whose daughters was married to Dr. Lushington.—Ed.
No. III.
"From Mrs. Letitia Barbauld to Miss Higginbotham.
"Mrs. Barbauld will thank Miss Higginbotham to let her have the silk gown home by Saturday night at latest.
"Thursday evening."
This interesting remain is without date, but it bears the evidence of truth on its face. Mrs. Barbauld, who was the daughter of Dr. Aikin, was a highly-talented lady; her "Beggar's Petition" itself is enough to immortalize her. The desire to have home a new gown on Saturday night, in order that she might wear it at church the next day, has a naturalness in it which is quite refreshing—a feminine anxiety operating upon a masculine mind.
I have endeavoured by every possible means to ascertain who the Miss Higginbotham was, to whom the letter is addressed, but hitherto in vain. By reference to the files of newspapers kept at the Chapter Coffee House, in St. Paul's Churchyard, I see that in the year 1870, a Mrs. Hickenbotham kept a milliner's shop in Hanway-yard, as it was then called. But I can hardly fancy it the same person, because in the first place Mrs. Barbauld distinctly calls her Miss, whereas the person in question was married; and secondly, because the name of the milliner to whom the newspaper refers, is spelt Hickenbotham, whereas Mrs. Barbauld makes the Hick, Hig, and spells her bottom, botham, after the manner of the landlord of the Windmill Inn, at Salt-hill, near Eton in Buckinghamshire.
No. IV.
"From the Right Hon. Edmund Burke to Mr. Burns.
"Burns,—Get something for dinner by four o'clock to-morrow, and tell Simmons to have a fire lighted in my bed-room early in the day."
"E. B."
The Right Hon. Edmund Burke, one of the most distinguished of our British worthies, was born at Limerick on New Year's Day, 1730; he was educated by a Quaker, got into Parliament in 1765, and died at Beaconsfield, July 8, 1797. Burns I imagine to have been a servant of his, but I have no particular reason for believing it, beyond the evidence of the letter before us. The direction to get dinner ready, comes evidently in the way of a command; and the unadorned style of address quite justifies my suspicions. Simmons is unquestionably a domestic servant, and a female. In the registry of marriages in Beaconsfield church, I find an entry of a marriage between Thomas Hopkins and Mary Anne Simmons, spinster; which Mary Anne I take to be the individual referred to by Burke. The date of that marriage is June 15, 1792. Now, although this letter is without date, it is fair to infer from the reference to "making a fire in his bed-room," that it was written much earlier in the year than the month of June; so that even if we were able to fix the date of the letter in the same year, it is quite within the range of possibility that the marriage did not take place till several months after the servant was spoken of, by her maiden name of Simmons. I took occasion to visit Beaconsfield twice, concerning this little doubt, and I think it but justice to make my acknowledgments to Mr. Thomas Fagg, the deputy-sexton of the parish, for his urbane attention to me, and the readiness with which he afforded me all the information of which he was possessed.—Ed.
No. V.
"From Sir Philip Francis to Mr. Perkins.
"My dear Sir,—The weather is so hot, and town so dull, that I intend flying from all its ills and inconveniences to-morrow; I shall be happy, therefore, to join your pleasant party.—Yours,
"P. F."
This very curious letter is not more valuable on account of the matter it contains, than as conducing to throw additional light upon the mystery of Junius—it would occupy too much space in a note to enter into a disquisition concerning the various conflicting opinions upon this subject, but as far as a comparison of hand-writing with some portions of the MS. of Junius's Letters, which I had an opportunity of seeing, and a strong similarity of style in the writing, go, I have no hesitation in settling the authorship upon Sir Philip—there is such vigorous imagination displayed in the description, in nine words, of the state of the weather and the metropolis, and such a masculine resolution evinced in the declared determination to "fly from all its ills and inconveniences" the very next day, that one cannot but pause to admire the firmness which could plan such a measure, and the taste which could give such a determination in such language. The cautious concealment of the place to which the supposed party of pleasure was to go, is another evidence of the force of habit—I have reason to believe it to have been Twickenham, or as Pope spells it, Twitnam, but I have no particular datum whereon to found this suspicion, except, indeed, that I think it quite as probable to have been Twickenham, or Twitnam, as any other of the agreeable villages round London.—Ed.
No. VI.
"From Sir Joshua Reynolds to Caleb Whitefoord, Esq.
"Leicester Fields, Saturday.
"My dear Sir,—I have received your witty note, and am extremely obliged to you for your present of venison. I trust you will favour me with your company on Tuesday, to meet some of your friends, to join them in discussing it.—Yours, very truly,
"J. Reynolds."
There can be little doubt that the note referred to by Sir Joshua was full of those quibbles and quaintnesses for which Whitefoord was so well known. Whitefoord was a man of considerable attainments, and was distinguished by the peculiarity of his dress; a French grey coat with black frogs, a small cocked hat and an umbrella—he was the constant frequenter of auctions, and has the credit of being the inventor of the now hacknied concit called "Cross readings." It is certain, that in his note sent with the venison, he called Sir Joshua his deer friend, hoped it would suit his pallate, recommended him to take some cuts from it and transfer them to plates, spoke of the current sauce being jelly, and perhaps signed himself his Buck friend (for at that period the words Buck and Maccaroni were the distinctive appellations of two classes of persons in London). I surmise this, because he was a confirmed punster, a character somewhat prized in those days. Goldsmith said it was impossible to keep company with him without being infected with the itch of punning. He is celebrated in the postscript to "Retaliation:"—
"Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit
That a Scot may have humour, I'd almost said, wit.
This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,
Thou best-temper'd man, with the worst-temper'd muse."—Ed.
It is impossible for us to spare more room to-day, but we think we have offered a specimen of a work which will be found at least equal to many others whose pretensions are much more formidable, and which, after all, do not exhibit so faithfully the peculiar characteristics of the private lives of public men.