having already wished you joy of your chivalry, I would not send you a formal congratulation on the actual despatch of your patent: I had nothing new to tell you: forms between you and me would be new indeed.
You have heard of the nomination of my friend and relation, Lord Hertford,(555) to the embassy of Paris: you will by this time have learned or perceived, that he is not likely to go thither. They have sent demands too haughty to be admitted, and we are preparing a fleet to tell them we think so. In short, the prospect is very warlike. The ministry are so desirous of avoiding it, that they make no preparations on land—will that prevent it?—Their partisans d-n the plantations, and ask if we are to involve ourselves in a war for them? Will that question weigh with planters and West Indians? I do not love to put our trust in a fleet only: however, we do not touch upon the Pretender; the late rebellion suppressed is a comfortable ingredient, at least, in a new war. You know I call this the age of abortions: who knows but the egg of this war may be addled?
Elections, very warm in their progress, very insignificant in their consequence, very tedious in their attendance, employ the Parliament solely. The King wants to go abroad, and consequently to have the Houses prorogued: the Oxfordshire election says no to him: the war says no to him: the town say we shall sit till June. Balls, masquerades, and diversions don't trouble their heads about the Parliament or the war: the righteous, who hate pleasures and love prophecies, (the most unpleasant things in the world, except their completion,) are finding out parallels between London and Nineveh, and other goodly cities of old, who went to operas and ridottos when the French were at their gates—yet, if Arlington Street were ten times more like to the most fashionable street in Tyre or Sidon, it should not alarm me: I took all my fears out in the rebellion: I was frightened enough then; I will never have another panic. I would not indeed be so pedantic as to sit in St. James's market in an armed chair to receive the French, because the Roman consuls received the Gauls in the forum. They shall be in Southwark before I pack up a single miniature.
The Duke of Dorset goes no more to Ireland: Lord Hartington is to be sent thither with the olive branch. Lord Rochford is groom of the stole; Lord Poulet has resigned the bedchamber on that preference, and my nephew and Lord Essex are to be lords of the bedchamber. It is supposed that the Duke of Rutland will be master of the horse, and the Dorset again lord steward. But all this will come to you as very antique news, if a whisper that your brother has heard to-day be true, of your having taken a trip to Rome. If you are there when you receive this, pray make my Lady Pomfret's(556) compliments to the statues in the Capitol, and inform them that she has purchased her late lord's collection of statues, and presented them to the University of Oxford. The present Earl, her son, is grown a speaker in the House of Lords, and makes comparisons between Julius Caesar and the watchmen of Bristol, in the same style as he compared himself to Cerberus, who, when he had one head cut off three others sprang up in its room. I shall go to-morrow to Dr. Mead's sale, and ruin myself in bronzes and vases—but I will not give them to the University of Oxford. Adieu! my dear Sir Knight.
(555) Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of Hertford; his mother was sister to Lady Walpole.
(556) Henrietta Louisa, Countess-dowager of pomfret, having quarrelled with her eldest son, who was ruined and forced to sell the furniture of his seat at Easton Neston, bought his statues, which had been part of the Arundelian collection, and had been purchased by his grandfather.
243 Letter 127 To Richard Bentley, Esq. Arlington Street, March 27, 1755.
Your chimney(557) is come, but not to honour: the caryatides are fine and free, but the rest is heavy: Lord Strafford is not at all struck with it, and thinks it old-fashioned: it certainly tastes of Inigo Jones.
Your myrtles I have seen in their pots, and they are magnificent, but I fear very sickly. In return, I send you a library. You will receive, some time or other, or the French for you, the following books: a fourth volume of Dodsley's Collection Of Poems, the worst tome of the four; three volumes of Worlds; Fielding's Travels, or rather an account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an inn-keeper's wife in the Isle of Wight; the new Letters of Madame de S`evign`e, and Hume's History of Great Britain; a book which, though more decried than ever book was, and certainly with faults, I cannot help liking much. It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-abite: where others abuse the Stuarts, he laughs at them: I am sure he does not spare their ministers. Harding,(558) who has the History of England at the ends of his parliament fingers, says, that the Journals will contradict most of his facts. If it is so, I am sorry; for his style, which is the best we have in history, and his manner imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing. He has showed very clearly that we ought to quarrel originally with Queen Elizabeth's tyranny for most of the errors of Charles the First. As long as he is Willing to sacrifice some royal head, I would not much dispute with him which it should be. I incline every day to lenity, as I see more and more that it is being very partial to think worse of some men than of others. If I was a king myself, I dare say I should cease to love a republic. My Lady Rochford desired me t'other day to give her a motto for a ruby ring, which had been given by a handsome woman of quality to a fine man; he gave it to his mistress, she to Lord * * * * *, he to my lady: who, I think, does not deny that it has not yet finished its travels. I excused myself for some time, on the difficulty of reducing such a history to a poesy—at last I proposed this:
"This was given by woman to man, and by man to woman."