I should write to Mr. Chute to-day, but I won't till next post: I will tell you why presently. Last week I did not write at all; because I was every day waiting for the Dominichin, etc. which I at last got last night-But oh! that etc.! It makes me write to you, but I must leave it etc. for I can't undertake to develop it. I can find no words to thank you from my own fund; but Must apply an expression of the Princess Craon's to myself, Which the number of charming things you have sent me absolutely melts down from the bombast, of which it consisted when she sent it me. "Monsieur, votre g`en`erosit`e," (I am not sure it was not "votre magnificence,") "ne me laisse rien `a d`esirer de tout ce qui se trouve de pr`ecieux en Angleterre, dans la Chine, et aux Indes." But still this don't express etc. The charming Madame S`evign`e, who was still handsomer than Madame de Craon, and had infinite wit, condescended to pun on sending her daughter an excessively fine pearl necklace-"Voil`a, ma fille, un pr`esent passant tous les pr`esents pass`es et pr`esents!" Do you know that these words reduced to serious meaning, are not sufficient for what you have sent me! If I were not afraid of giving you all the trouble of airing and quarantine which I have had with them, I would send them to you back again! It is well our virtue is out of the ministry! What reproach it would undergo! Why, my dear child, here would be bribery in folio! How would mortals stare at such a present as this to the son of a fallen minister! I believe half of it would reinstate us again though the vast box of essences would not half sweeten the treasury after the dirty wretches that have fouled it since.
The Dominichin is safe; so is every thing. I cannot think it of the same hand with the Sasso Ferrati you sent me. This last is not so manier`e as the Dominichin; for the more I look at it, the more I am convinced it is of him. It goes down with me to-morrow to Houghton. The Andrea del Sarto is particularly fine! the Sasso Ferriti particularly graceful-oh! I should have kept that word for the Magdalen's head, which is beautiful beyond measure. Indeed, my dear Sir, I am glad, after my confusion is a little abated, that your part of the things is so delightful; for I am very little satisfied with my own purchases. Donato Creti's(844) copy is a wretched, raw daub; the beautiful Virgin of the original he has made horrible. Then for the statue, the face is not so broad as my nail, and has not the turn of the antique. Indeed, La Vall`ee has done the drapery well, but I can't pardon him the head. My table I like; though he has stuck in among the ornaments two vile china jars, that look like the modern japanning by ladies. The Hermaphrodite, on my seeing it again, is too sharp and hard-in short, your present has put me out of humour with every thing of my own. You shall hear next week how my lord is satisfied with his Dominichin. I have received the letter and drawings by Crewe. By the way, my drawings of the gallery are as bad as any thing of my own ordering. They gave Crewe the letter for you at the-office, I believe, for I knew nothing of his going, or I had sent you the Life of King Theodore.
I was interrupted in my letter this morning by the Duke of
Devonshire, who called to see the Dominichin. Nobody knows
pictures better: he was charmed with it, and did not doubt its
Dominichinality.
I find another letter from you to-night of August 6th, and thank you a thousand times for your goodness about Mr. Conway: but I believe I told you, that as he is in the Guards, he was not engaged. We hear nothing but that we are going to cross the Rhine. All we know is from private letters: the Ministry hear nothing. When the Hussars went to Kevenhuller for orders, he said, "Messieurs, l'Alsace est `a vous; je n'ai point d'autres ordres `a vous donner." They have accordingly taken up their residence in a fine chateau belonging to the Cardinal de Rohan, as Bishop of Strasbourg. We expect nothing but war; and that war expects nothing but conquest.
Your account of our officers was very false; for, instead of the soldiers going on without commanders, some of them were ready to go without their soldiers. I am sorry you have such plague with your Neptune(845) and the Sardinian-we know not of them scarce.
I really forget any thing of an Italian greyhound for the Tesi. I promised her, I remember, a black spaniel-but how to send it! I did promise one of the former to Marquis Mari at Genoa, which I absolutely have not been able to get yet, though I have often tried; but since the last Lord Halifax died, there is no meeting with any of the breed. If I can, I will get her one. I am sorry you are engaged in the opera. I have found it a most dear undertaking. I was not in the management: Lord Middlesex was chief. We were thirty subscribers, at two hundred pounds each, which was to last four years, and no other demands ever to be made. Instead of that, we have been made to pay fifty-six pounds over and above the subscription in one winter. I told the secretary in a passion, that it was the last money I would ever pay for the follies of directors.
I tremble at hearing that the plague is not over, as we thought, but still spreading. You will see in the papers That Lord Hervey is dead-luckily, I think. for himself; for he had outlived the last inch of character. Adieu!
(844) A copy of a celebrated picture by Guido at Bologna, of the Patron Saints of that city. VOL. 1. 29.-D.
(845) Admiral Matthews.
338 letter 117 To John Chute, Esq.(846) Houghton, August 20, 1743.