So you have totally forgot that I sent you the pedigree of the Crouches, as long ago as the middle of last August, and that you promised to come to Strawberry Hill in October. I shall be there some time in next week, but as my motions neither depend on resolutions nor almanacs, let me know beforehand when you intend to make me a visit; for though keeping an appointment is not just the thing you ever do, I suppose you know you dislike being disappointed yourself, as much as if you were the most punctual person in the world to engagements.
I came yesterday from Woburn, where I have been a week. The house is in building, and three sides of the quadrangle finished. The park is very fine, the woods glorious, and the plantations of evergreens sumptuous; but upon the whole, it is rather -what I admire than like-I fear that is what I am a little apt to do at the finest places in the world where there is not a navigable river. You would be charmed, as I was, with an old gallery, that is not yet destroyed. It is a bad room, powdered with little gold stars, and covered with millions of old portraits. There are all the successions of Earls and Countesses of Bedford, and all their progenies. One countess is a whole-length drawing in the drollest dress you ever saw; and another picture of the same woman leaning on her hand, I believe by Cornelius Johnson, is as fine a head as ever I saw. There are many of Queen Elizabeth's worthies, the Leicesters, Essexes, and Philip Sidneys, and a very curious portrait of the last Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, who died at Padua. Have not I read somewhere that he was in love with Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Mary -with him? He is quite in the style of the former's lovers, red-bearded, and not comely. There is Essex's friend, the Earl of Southampton; his son the Lord Treasurer; and Madame l'Empoisonneuse,(273) that married Carr,(274) Earl of Somerset—she is pretty. Have not you seen a copy Vertue has made of Philip and Mary? That is in this gallery too, but more curious than good. They showed me two heads, who, according to the tradition of the family, were the originals of Castalio and Polydore. They were sons to the second Earl of Bedford; and the eldest, if not both, died before their father. The eldest has vipers in his hand, and in the distant landscape appears in a maze, with these words, Fata viam invenient. The other has a woman behind him, sitting near the sea, with strange monsters surrounding her. I don't pretend to decipher this, nor to describe half the entertaining morsels I found here; but I can't omit, as you know I am Grammont-mad, that I found "le vieux Roussel, qui `etoit le plus fier danseur d'Angleterre." The portrait is young, but has all the promise of his latter character. I am going to send them a head of a Countess of Cumberland,(275) sister to Castalio and Polydore, and mother of a famous Countess of Dorset,(276) who Afterwards married the Earl of Pembroke,(277) of Charles the First's time. She was an authoress, and immensely rich. After the restoration, Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary of state, wrote to her to choose a courtier at Appleby: she sent him this answer: "I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been ill-treated by a court, but I won't be dictated to by a subject; your man shall not stand. Ann Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery." Adieu! If you love news a hundred years old, I think you can't have a better correspondent. For any thing that passes now, I shall not think it worth knowing these fifty years.
(273 Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and married to the Earl of Essex, from whom she was divorced. She then married her lover, the Earl of Somerset. She poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, because he had endeavoured to dissuade his friend the Earl of Somerset from this alliance. She was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by King James.
(274) Robert Carr, a favourite of King James the First, who created him Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset. He was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by James the First.
(275) Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, daughter of Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford, and married to George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland.
(276)) Ann Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of Cumberland, first married to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards to Philip, Earl of Pembroke.
(277) Philip, Earl of Pembroke, son of Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was chamberlain to Charles the First.
115 Letter 49 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1751.
It is above six weeks since I wrote to you, and I was going on to be longer, as I stayed for something to tell you; but an express that arrived yesterday brought a great event, which, though you will hear long before my letter can arrive, serves for a topic to renew our correspondence. The Prince of Orange is dead: killed by the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. This is all I yet know. I shall go to town to-morrow for a day or two, and if I pick up any particulars before the post goes away, you shall know them. The Princess Royal(278) was established Regent some time ago; but as her husband's authority seemed extremely tottering, it is not likely that she will be able to maintain hers. Her health is extremely bad, and her temper neither ingratiating nor bending. It is become the peculiarity of the House of Orange to have minorities.
Your last letter to me of Sept. 24th, and all I have seen since your first fright, make me easy about your Genoese journey. I take no honour from the completion of my prophecy; it was sufficient to know circumstances and the trifling falsehood of Richcourt, to confirm me in my belief that that embassy was never intended. We dispose of Corsica! Alas! I believe there is but one island that we shall ever have power to give away; and that is Great Britain—and I don't know but we may exert our power.