TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY AND LADY AYLESBURY.
ARLINGTON STREET, Jan. 15, 1775.
You have made me very happy by saying your journey to Naples is laid aside. Perhaps it made too great an impression on me; but you must reflect, that all my life I have satisfied myself with your being perfect, instead of trying to be so myself. I don't ask you to return, though I wish it: in truth, there is nothing to invite you. I don't want you to come and breathe fire and sword against the Bostonians,[1] like that second Duke of Alva,[2] the inflexible Lord George Germaine….
[Footnote 1: The open resistance to the new taxation of the American
Colonies began at Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, where, on the
arrival of the first tea-ship, a body of citizens, disguised as Red
Indians, boarded the ship and threw the tea into the sea.]
[Footnote 2: The first Duke of Alva was the first Governor of the
Netherlands appointed by Philip II.; and it was his bloodthirsty and
intolerable cruelty that caused the revolt of the Netherlands, and cost
Spain those rich provinces.]
An account is come of the Bostonians having voted an army of sixteen thousand men, who are to be called minutemen, as they are to be ready at a minute's warning. Two directors or commissioners, I don't know what they are called, are appointed. There has been too a kind of mutiny in the Fifth Regiment. A soldier was found drunk on his post. Gage, in his time of danger, thought rigour necessary, and sent the fellow to a court-martial. They ordered two hundred lashes. The General ordered them to improve their sentence. Next day it was published in the Boston Gazette. He called them before him, and required them on oath to abjure the communication: three officers refused. Poor Gage is to be scapegoat, not for this, but for what was a reason against employing him, incapacity. I wonder at the precedent! Howe is talked of for his successor.—Well, I have done with you!—Now I shall go gossip with Lady Aylesbury.
You must know, Madam, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus, composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and a view of the Avon, which has been new christened Helicon. Ten years ago there lived a Madam Riggs, an old rough humourist who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a Captain Miller, full of good-natured officiousness. These good folks were friends of Miss Rich, who carried me to dine with them at Bath-Easton, now Pindus. They caught a little of what was then called taste, built and planted, and begot children, till the whole caravan were forced to go abroad to retrieve. Alas! Mrs. Miller is returned a beauty, a genius, a Sappho, a tenth Muse, as romantic as Mademoiselle Scudéri, and as sophisticated as Mrs. Vesey. The Captain's fingers are loaded with cameos, his tongue runs over with virtù, and that both may contribute to the improvement of their own country, they have introduced bouts-rimes as a new discovery. They hold a Parnassus fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles receives the poetry,[1] which is drawn out every festival; six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope Miller, kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle, with—I don't know what. You may think this is fiction, or exaggeration. Be dumb, unbelievers! The collection is printed, published.—Yes, on my faith, there are bouts-rimes on a buttered muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland; receipts to make them by Corydon the venerable, alias George Pitt; others very pretty, by Lord Palmerston; some by Lord Carlisle: many by Mrs. Miller herself, that have no fault but wanting metre; an Immorality promised to her without end or measure. In short, since folly, which never ripens to madness but in this hot climate, ran distracted, there never was anything so entertaining or so dull—for you cannot read so long as I have been telling.
[Footnote 1: Four volumes of this poetry were published under the title of "Poetical Amusements at a villa near Bath." The following lines are a fair sample of the bouts-rimes.
The pen which I now take and brandish
Has long lain useless in my standish.
Know, every maid, from her own patten,
To her who shines in glossy sattin,
That could they now prepare an oglio
From best receipt of book in folio,
Ever so fine, for all their puffing,
I should prefer a butter'd muffin;
A muffin Jove himself might feast on,
If eat with Miller at Batheaston.
The following are the concluding lines of a poem on Beauty, by Lord
Palmerston:—