A little later, he reports: “Dr. Burney and his daughter, Evelina-Cecilia, have passed a day and a half with me.[103] He is lively and agreeable; she half-and-half sense and modesty, which possess her so entirely, that not a cranny is left for affectation or pretension. Oh! Mrs. Montagu, you are not above half as accomplished.” This was an unusual tribute from the fastidious Horace.
Here, too, we must introduce the name of another literary lady, whose acquaintance with our author, begun some time previously, ripened about this date into an occasional exchange of letters. Hannah More,[104] then one of the Vesey coterie in Clarges Street, which, however, she presently quitted, ranked, we conceive, in Walpole’s estimation, about midway between Mrs. Montagu and Miss Burney. Writing to Hannah, not long after her retirement from London, he says: “The last time I saw her,” that is Mrs. Vesey, “Miss Burney passed the evening there, looking quite recovered and well, and so cheerful and agreeable, that the Court seems only to have improved the ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserve on it, as I feared: but what slight graces it can give, will not compensate to us and the world for the loss of her company and her writings. Not but that some young ladies who can write, can stifle their talent as much as if they were under lock and key in the royal library. I do not see but a cottage is as pernicious to genius as the Queen’s waiting-room.”
Walpole had laughed at the “Blue-stockings,” but he bows graciously to the authors of “Cecilia” and “Percy,” and marks by an altered style of address his sense of the difference between the tone of these ladies and that of the Lady Ossorys and Kitty Clives with whom his youth and middle life had been spent. Poor Kitty’s old age of cards came to an end before the close of 1785, and Cliveden, which she had occupied for more than thirty years, stood for awhile untenanted. Horace lamented the loss of his old friend and neighbour, but she was several years senior to himself, and her death was not unexpected. The pair had lived so much together that probably few letters passed between them: none have been preserved, and the removal of the lady makes no gap in the gentleman’s correspondence. It is otherwise with the next name which was struck from Walpole’s list of old familiar acquaintances. Shortly after losing a friend from whom he was never long parted, he lost the friend whom he never met. No long time had elapsed since Walpole had written to Mann: “Shall we not be very venerable in the annals of friendship? What Orestes and Pylades ever wrote to each other for four-and-forty years without meeting? A correspondence of near half a century is not to be paralleled in the annals of the Post Office.” Again, about the time of Mrs. Clive’s death: “Now I think we are like Castor and Pollux; when one rises, t’other sets; when you can write, I cannot. I have got a very sharp attack of gout in my right hand.… Your being so well is a great comfort to me.” Despite this congratulation, however, the Ambassador was very near to his final setting. He died at Florence on the 16th of November, 1786, after a long illness, during the latter part of which he was apparently not in a condition to receive letters. Walpole’s last letter to him is dated June 22, 1786. It makes the eight hundred and ninth in the collection, as printed, of Walpole’s part of the correspondence between them.
But we must not suppose that Lady Ossory’s gazetteer is all this time forgetful of his Countess. Here is an anecdote which he sends her in the early part of 1786:
“How do you like, Madam, the following story? A young Madame de Choiseul is inloved with by Monsieur de Coigny and Prince Joseph of Monaco. She longed for a parrot that should be a miracle of eloquence: every other shop in Paris sells mackaws, parrots, cockatoos, &c. No wonder one at least of the rivals soon found a Mr. Pitt, and the bird was immediately declared the nymph’s first minister: but as she had two passions as well as two lovers, she was also enamoured of General Jackoo at Astley’s. The unsuccessful candidate offered Astley ingots for his monkey, but Astley demanding a terre for life, the paladin was forced to desist, but fortunately heard of another miracle of parts of the Monomotapan race, who was not in so exalted a sphere of life, being only a marmiton in a kitchen, where he had learnt to pluck fowls with an inimitable dexterity. This dear animal was not invaluable, was bought, and presented to Madame de Choiseul, who immediately made him the secretaire de ses commandemens. Her caresses were distributed equally to the animals, and her thanks to the donors. The first time she went out, the two former were locked up in her bed-chamber. Ah! I dread to tell the sequel. When the lady returned and flew to her chamber, Jackoo the second received her with all the empressement possible—but where was Poll?—found at last under the bed, shivering and cowering—and without a feather, as stark as any Christian. Poll’s presenter concluded that his rival had given the monkey with that very view, challenged him, they fought, and both were wounded; and an heroic adventure it was!”
Mrs. Clive being dead, and another sister-in-loo, Lady Browne, whom he often called his better-half, having left Twickenham, Walpole, when at Strawberry Hill, began to look across the water for society. He was attracted to Richmond by George Selwyn, who was now at times domesticated there with the Duke of Queensberry, the “Old Q” of the caricaturists. In December, 1786, Horace writes:
“I went yesterday to see the Duke of Queensberry’s palace at Richmond, under the conduct of George Selwyn, the concierge. You cannot imagine how noble it looks now all the Cornbury pictures from Amesbury are hung up there. The great hall, the great gallery, the eating-room, and the corridor, are covered with whole and half-lengths of royal family, favourites, ministers, peers, and judges, of the reign of Charles I.—not one an original, I think, at least not one fine, yet altogether they look very respectable; and the house is so handsome, and the views so rich, and the day was so fine, that I could only have been more pleased if (for half an hour) I could have seen the real palace that once stood on that spot, and the persons represented walking about!—A visionary holiday in old age, though it has not the rapture of youth, is a sedate enjoyment that is more sensible because one attends to it and reflects upon it at the time; and as new tumults do not succeed, the taste remains long in one’s memory’s mouth.”
Walpole was late this year in removing to Berkeley Square. The political topic of the London season was the debates in the House of Commons on the charges against Warren Hastings; the social topic, in our author’s circle at any rate, appears to have been some theatrical performances at the Duke of Richmond’s house in Whitehall. Horace seems to have interested himself a good deal more in the latter subject than the former. Lady Ossory having urged him to read a pamphlet in favour of Mr. Hastings, he replies:
“The pamphlet I have read, Madam; but cannot tell you what would have been my opinion of it, because my opinion was influenced before I saw it. A lady-politician ordered me to read it, and to admire it, as the chef-d’œuvre of truth, eloquence, wit, argument, and impartiality; and she assured me that the reasonings in it were unanswerable. I believe she meant the assertions, for I know she uses those words as synonymous. I promised to obey her, as I am sure that ladies understand politics better than I do, and I hold it as a rule of faith—
“That all that they admire is sweet,