I cannot swear I wrote to you again to offer your brother the place for the coronation; but I was Confident I did, nay, I think so still: my proofs are, the place remained vacant, and I sent to old Richard to inquire if Mr. John was not arrived. He had no great loss, as the procession returned in the dark.
Your King(189) will have heard that Mr. Pitt resigned last Monday.(190) Greater pains have been taken to recover him than were used to drive him out. He is inflexible, but mighty peaceable. Lord Egremont is to have the seals to-morrow. It is a most unhappy event—France and Spain will soon let us know we ought to think so. For your part, you will be invaded; a blacker rod than you will be sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the town is a desert'! The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed it; Mr. Pitt's resignation has not brought six people to London. As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no particular man ruins it?
The Duchess of Marlborough died the night before last. Thank you for your descriptions; pray continue them. Mrs. Delany I know a little, Lord Charlemont's villa is in Chambers's book.(191)
I have nothing new to tell you; but the grain of mustard seed sown on Monday will soon produce as large a tree as you can find in any prophecy. Adieu!
P. S. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived.
(189) The Earl of Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
(190) The following is Mr. Pitt's own account of this transaction, in a letter to Alderman Beckford:—"A difference of opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the highest importance to the Honour of the crown and to the most essential national interests, and this founded on what Spain had already done, not on what that court may further intend to do, was the cause of my resigning, the seals. Lord Temple and I submitted in writing, and urged our most humble sentiments to his Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of the rest of the King's servants, I resigned, on Monday the 5th, in order not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer allowed to guide." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 158.-E.
(191) Sir William Chambers's "Treatise on Civil Architecture," a work which Walpole describes as "the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that was ever written on that science." It first appeared in 1759. A fourth edition, edited by Mr. Gwin was published in 1825.-E.
letter 96 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. (page 152)
Pray, sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If Cicero had been a drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence, for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation? Oh! sold it! you will cry, vanity was his predominant passion; he would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the tribes did but erect statues enough for him, he was content with a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baia, to the wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus. Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left, who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the disinterestedness of my Lord Bath. Come, u tremble, you are so incorrupt yourself you will give the world Mr. Pitt was so too. You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for placing England at the head of Europe, and you don't hate him for infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, Earl of Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could be more just. We owe the recovery of our affairs to him, the splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg, Guadaloupe, Africa, and the East. Nothing is too much for such services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of Chatham, and three thousand pounds a-year for three lives too much for my Lady Hester. She has this pittance: good night!