“In the midst of this prospect must I keep up the tone of the world, go shepherdising with Macaronies, sit up at loo with my Lady Hertford, be witness to Miss Pelham’s orgies, dine at villas, and give dinners at my own. ’Tis well my spirits and resolution have survived my youth: you have heard how my mornings pass—now for the rest. Consultations of physicians, letters to Lady Orford, sent for to my brother, decent visits to my Court,[55] sup at Lady Powis’s on Wednesday, drink tea with all the fashionable world at Mr. Fitzroy’s farm on Thursday, blown by a north wind there into the house, and whisk back to Lady Hertford’s; this morning to my brother’s to hear of new bills, away to dine at ——, Muswell Hill, with the Beauclerks, and florists and natural historians, Banks and Solanders; return to town, step to ask a friend whether reversions of jointures can be left away, into my chaise and hither. To-morrow come two Frenchmen to dinner—on Monday, a man to sell me two acres immensely dear as a favour,—Philip [his valet], I cannot help it, you must go and put him off; I have not a minute, I must go back to-morrow night to meet the lawyers at my brother’s on Sunday morning. Margaret [his housekeeper] comes in. ‘Sir, Lady Bingham desires you will dine with her at Hampton Court on Tuesday;’ I cannot. ‘Sir, Captain What-d’ye-call’m has sent twice for a ticket to see the house’—Don’t plague me about tickets. ‘Sir, a servant from Isleworth brought this parcel.’ What on earth is in it?—only printed proposals for writing the lives of all British writers, and a letter to tell me I could do it better than anybody, but as I may not have time, Dr. Berkenhout proposes to do it, and will write mine into the bargain, if I will but be so good as to write it first and send it him, and give him advice for the conduct of his work, and point out materials, and furnish him with anecdotes.
“My dear madam, what if you should send him this letter as a specimen of my life! Alas, alas! I have already lost my lilac tide. I have heard but one nightingale this year, and my farmer cut my hay last Tuesday morning without telling me, just as I was going to London. Is it to be borne? O for the sang-froid of an Almackian, who pursues his delights,
“‘Though in the jaws of ruin and codille!’”
CHAPTER VI.
Lord Nuneham.—Madame de Sévigné.—Charles Fox.—Mrs. Clive and Cliveden.—Goldsmith and Garrick.—Dearth of News.—Madame de Trop.—A Bunch of Grapes.—General Election.—Perils by Land and Water.—Sir Horace Mann.—Lord Clive.—The History of Manners.—A Traveller from Lima.—The Sçavoir Vivre Club.—Reflections on Life.—The Pretender’s Happiness.—Paris Fashions.—Madame Du Deffand ill.—Growth of London.—Sir Joshua Reynolds.—Change in Manners.—Our Climate.
The following letter is a specimen of Horace’s gossiping style at its best. It is addressed to Lord Nuneham, who was in Ireland with his father, Simon Earl Harcourt, the then Lord-Lieutenant. Elsewhere Walpole salutes his correspondent as “Your O’Royal Highness”:
“Strawberry Hill, Dec. 6, 1773.
“I wanted an excuse for writing to you, my dear Lord, and your letter gives me an opportunity of thanking you; yet that is not all I wanted to say. I would, if I had dared, have addressed myself to Lady Nuneham, but I had not confidence enough, especially on so unworthy a subject as myself. Lady Temple, my friend, as well as that of Human Nature, has shown me some verses; but alas! how came such charming poetry to be thrown away on so unmeritorious a topic? I don’t know whether I ought to praise the lines most, or censure the object most. Voltaire makes the excellence of French poetry consist in the number of difficulties it vanquishes. Pope, who celebrated Lord Bolingbroke, could not have succeeded, did not succeed, better; and yet I hope that, though a meaner subject, I am not so bad an one! Well! with all my humility, I cannot but be greatly flattered. Madame de Sévigné spread her leaf-gold over all her acquaintance, and made them shine; I should not doubt of the same glory, when Lady Nuneham’s poetry shall come to light, if my own works were but burnt at the same time; but alas! Coulanges’ verses were preserved, and so may my writings too. Apropos, my Lord, I have got a new volume of that divine woman’s letters. Two are entertaining; the rest, not very divine. But there is an application, the happiest, the most exquisite, that even she herself ever made! She is joking with a President de Provence, who was hurt at becoming a grandfather. She assures him there is no such great misfortune in it; ‘I have experienced the case,’ says she, ‘and, believe me, Pæte, non dolet.’ If you are not both transported with this, ye are not the Lord and Lady Nuneham I take ye to be. There are besides some twenty letters of Madame de Simiane, who shows she would not have degenerated totally, if she had not lived in the country, or had anything to say. At the end are reprinted Madame de Sévigné’s letters on Fouquet’s Trial, which are very interesting.