You never saw any thing so droll as Mrs. Clive's countenance, between the heat of the summer, the pride in her legacy,(810) and the efforts to appear concerned.
We have given ourselves for a day or two the air of an earthquake, but it proved an explosion of the powder-mills at Epsom. I asked Louis if it had done any mischief: he said, "Only blown a man's head off;" as if that was a part one could spare!
P. S. I hope Dr. Warburton will not think I encroach either upon his commentatorship or private pretension, if I assume these lines of Pope, thus altered, for myself:
"Some have for wits, and then for poets pass'd turn'd printers next, and proved plain fools at last."
(809) Daughter of the famous Wilmot Earl of Rochester.
(810) A legacy of fifty pounds, left her by John Robarts, the last Earl of Radnor of that family.
388 Letter 232 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, August 4, 1757.
Mr. Phelps (who is Mr. Phelps?) has brought me the packet safe, for which I thank you. I would fain have persuaded him to stay and dine, that I might ask him more questions about you. He told me how low your immaterial spirits are: I fear the news that came last night will not exalt them. The French attacked the Duke for three days together, and at last defeated him. I find it is called at Kensington an encounter(811) of fourteen squadrons; but any defeat must be fatal to Hanover. I know few particulars, and those only by a messenger despatched to me by Mr. Conway on the first tidings: the Duke exposed himself extremely, but is unhurt, as they say, all his small family are. In what a situation is our Prussian hero, surrounded by Austrians, French, and Muscovites-even impertinent Sweden is stealing in to pull a feather out of his tail! What devout plunderers will every little Catholic prince of the empire become! The only good I hope to extract out of this mischief is, that it will stifle our secret expedition, and preserve Mr. Conway from going on it. I have so ill an opinion of our secret expeditions, that I hope they will for ever remain so. What a melancholy picture is there of an old monarch at Kensington, who has lived to see such inglorious and fatal days! Admiral Boscawen is disgraced. I know not the cause exactly, as ten miles out of town are a thousand out of politics. He is said to have refused to serve under Sir Edward Hawke in this armament. Shall I tell you what, more than distance, has thrown me Out of attention to news? A little packet which I shall give your brother for you, will explain it. In short, I am turned printer, and have converted a little cottage here into a printing-office. My abbey is a perfect colicue or academy. I keep a painter in the house and a printer—not to mention Mr. Bentley, who is an academy himself. I send you two copies (one for Dr. Cocchi) of a very honourable opening of my press- -two amazing Odes of Mr. Gray; they are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime! consequently I fear a little obscure; the second particularly, by the confinement of the measure and the nature of prophetic vision, is mysterious.(812) I could not persuade him to add more notes; he says whatever wants to be explained, don't deserve to be. I shall venture to place some in Dr. Cocchi's copy, who need not be supposed to understand Greek- and English together, though he is so much master of both separately. To divert you in the mean time, I send you the following copy of a letter written by my printer(813) to a friend in Ireland. I should tell you that he has the most sensible look in the world; Garrick said he would give any money for four actors with such eyes—they are more Richard the Third's than Garrick's own; but whatever his eyes are, is head is Irish. Looking for something I wanted in a drawer, I perceived a parcel of strange romantic words in a large hand beginning a letter; he saw me see it, yet left it, which convinces me it was left on purpose: it is the grossest flattery to me, couched in most ridiculous scraps of poetry, which he has retained from things he has printed; but it will best describe itself:—
"SIR, "I DATE this from shady bowers, nodding groves, and amaranthine shades,—close by old Father Thames's silver side- -fair Twickenham's luxurious shades—Richmond's near neighbour, where great George the King resides. You will wonder at my prolixity—in my last I informed you that I was going into the country to transact business for a private gentleman. This gentleman is the Hon. Horatio Walpole, son to the late great Sir Robert Walpole, who is very studious, and an admirer of all the liberal arts and sciences; amongst the rest he admires printing. He has fitted out a complete printing-house at this his country seat, and has done me the favour to make me sole manager and operator (there being no one but myself). All men of genius resorts his house, courts his company, and admires his understanding—what with his own and their writings, I believe I shall be pretty well employed.—I have pleased him, and I hope continue so to do. Nothing can be more warm than the weather has been here this time past; they have in London, by the help of glasses, roasted in the artillery-ground fowls and quarters of lamb. The coolest days that I have felt since May last are equal to, nay, far exceed the warmest I ever felt in Ireland. The place I am in now is all my comfort from the heat—the situation Of it is close to the Thames, and is Richmond Gardens (if you were ever in them) in miniature, surrounded by bowers, groves, cascades, and ponds, and on a rising ground, not very common in this part of the country—the building elegant, and the furniture of a peculiar taste, magnificent and superb He is a bachelor, and spends his time in the studious rural taste—not like his father, lost in the weather-beaten vessel of state— many people censured, but his conduct was far better than our late pilots at the helm, and more to the interest of England- -they follow his advice now, and court the assistance of Spain, instead of provoking a war, for that was ever against England's interest."
I laughed for an hour at this picture of myself, which is much more like to the studious magician in the enchanted opera of Rinaldo; not but Twickenham has a romantic genteelness that would figure in a more luxurious climate. It was but yesterday that we had a new kind of auction-it was of the orange-trees and plants of your old acquaintance, Admiral Martin. It was one of the warm days of this jubilee summer, which appears only once in fifty years—the plants were disposed in little clumps about the lawn: the company walked to bid from one to the other, and the auctioneer knocked down the lots on the orange tubs. Within three doors was an auction of china. You did not imagine that we were such a metropolis! Adieu!