After some silence, one might take the opportunity of Cherbourg(930) and Louisbourg(931) to revive a little correspondence with popular topics; but I think you are no violent politician, and I am full as little so; I will therefore tell you of what I of course care more, and I am willing to presume you do too; that is, myself. I have been journeying much since I heard from you; first to the Vine, where I was greatly pleased with the alterations; the garden is quite beautified and the house dignified. We went over to the Grange, that sweet house of my Lord Keeper's(932) that you saw too. The pictures are very good, and I was particularly pleased with the procession, which you were told was by Rubens, but is certainly Vandyke's sketch for part of that great work, that he was to have executed in the Banqueting-house. You did not tell me of a very fine Holbein, a woman, who was evidently some princess of the White Rose.
I am just now returned from Ragley, which has had a great deal done to it since I was there last. Browne(933) has improved both the ground and the water, though not quite to perfection. This is the case of the house: where there are no striking faults, but it wants a few Chute or Bentley touches. I have recommended some dignifying of the saloon with Seymours and Fitzroys, Henry the Eighths and Charles the Seconds. They will correspond well to the proudest situation imaginable. I have already dragged some ancestors out of the dust there, written their names on their portraits; besides which, I have found and brought up to have repaired an incomparable picture of Van Helmont by Sir Peter Lely.—But now for recoveries—-think what I have in part recovered! Only the state papers, private letters, etc., etc., of the two Lords Conway,(934) secretaries of state. How you will rejoice and how you will grieve! They seem to have laid up every scrap of paper they ever had. from the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign to the middle of Charles the Second's. By the accounts of the family there were whole rooms full; all which, during the absence of the last and the minority of the present lord, were by the ignorance of a steward consigned to the oven and the uses of the house. What remained, except one box that was kept till almost rotten in a cupboard, were thrown loose into the lumber room; where, spread on the pavement, they supported old marbles and screens and boxes. From thence I have dragged all I could, and, have literally, taking all together, brought away a chest near five feet long, three wide, and two deep, brim full. Half are bills, another part rotten, another gnawed by rats; yet I have already found enough to repay my trouble and curiosity, not enough to satisfy it. I will only tell you of three letters of the great Strafford and three long ones of news of Mr. Gerrard, master of the Charter-house; all six written on paper edged with green, like modern French paper. There are handwritings of every body, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with which they tied their letters. The original proclamations of Charles the First, signed by the privy council; a letter to King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and many, very many letters of negotiation from the Earl of Bristol in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roe.—What say you? will not here be food for the press?
I have picked up a little painted glass too, and have got a promise of some old statues, lately dug up, which formerly adorned the cathedral of Litchfield. You see I continue to labour in my vocation, of which I can give you a comical instance:—I remembered a rose in painted glass in a little village going to Ragley, which I remarked passing by five years ago; told Mr. Conway on which hand it would b, and found it in the very spot. I saw a very good and perfect tomb at Alcester of Sir Fulke Greville's father and mother, and a wretched old house with a very handsome gateway of stone at Colton, belonging to Sir Robert Throckmorton. There is nothing else tolerable but twenty-two coats of the matches of the family in painted glass.—You cannot imagine how astonished a Mr. Seward,(935) a learned clergyman, was, who came to Ragley while I was there. Strolling about the house, he saw me first sitting on the pavement of the lumber room with Louis, all over cobwebs and dust and mortar; then found me in his own room on a ladder writing on a picture; and half an hour afterwards lying on the grass in the court with the dogs and the children, in my slippers and without my hat. He had had some doubt whether I was the painter or the factotum of the family; but you would have died at his surprise when he saw me walk into dinner dressed and sit by Lady Hertford. Lord Lyttelton was there, and the conversation turned on literature: finding me not quite ignorant added to the parson's wonder; but he could not contain himself any longer, when after dinner he saw me go to romps and jumping with the two boys; he broke out to my Lady Hertford, and begged to know who and what sort of man I really was, for he had never met with any thing of the kind. Adieu!
(930) About the middle of this month General Blighe had landed with an army on the coast of France, near Cherbourg, destroyed the basin, harbour, and forts of that place, and re-embarked his troops without loss.
(931) Alluding to the surrender of Louisbourg and the whole island of Cape Breton on the coast of North America to General Amherst and Admiral Boscawen.
(932) Lord Keeper Henley, in 1761 made lord chancellor, and in 1764 created Lord Northington.-E.
(933) Capability Browne. See vol. ii. p. 112, letter 46.-E.
(934) Sir Edward Conway, secretary of state to James the First, created Baron Conway in 1624; and Edward Conway, his grandson, secretary of state in the reign of Charles the Second, 1679, created Earl of Conway.-E.
(935) The Rev. Thomas Seward, canon residentiary of Lichfield, and father of Ann Seward the poetess.-E.
443 Letter 279 To John Chute, Esq.(936) Arlington Street, August 22, 1758.