Letter 352 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 30, 1768. (page 532)
You are always heaping so many kindnesses on me, dear Sir, I think I must break off all acquaintance with you, unless I can find some way of returning them. The print of the Countess of Exeter Is the greatest present to me in the world. I have been trying for years to no purpose to get one. Reynolds the painter promised to beg one for me of a person he knows, but I have never had it. I wanted it for four different purposes. 1. As a grandmother (in law, by the Cranes and Allingtons): 2. for my collection of heads: 3. for the volumes of prints after pieces in my collection: and, above all, for my collection of Faithornes, which though so fine, wanted such a capital print: and to this last I have preferred it. I give you unbounded thanks for it: and yet I feel exceedingly ashamed to rob you. The print of Jane Shore I had: but as I have such various uses for prints I easily bestowed it. It is inserted in my Anecdotes, where her picture is mentioned.
Thank you, too, for all your notices. I intend next summer to set about the last volume of my Anecdotes, and to make still further additions to my former volumes, in which these notes find their place. I am going to reprint all my pieces together, and, to my shame be it spoken, find they will at least make two large quartos. You, I know, will be partial enough to give them a place on a shelf, but as I doubt many persons will not be so favourable, I Only think of leaving the edition behind me.
Methinks I should like for your amusement and my own, that you settled to Ely: yet I value your health so much beyond either, that I must advise Milton, Ely being, I believe, a very damp, and, consequently, a very unwholesome situation. Pray let me know on which you fix; and if you do fix this summer, remember the hopes you have given me of a visit. My summer, that is, my fixed residence here, lasts till November. My gallery is not only finished, but I am going on with the round chamber at the end of it; and am besides playing with the little garden on the other side of the road, which was old Franklin's, and by his death came into my hands. When the round tower is finished, I propose to draw up a description and catalogue of the whole house and collection, and I think you will not dislike lending me your assistance.
Mr. Granger,(1049) of Shiplake, is printing his laborious and curious Catalogue of English heads, with an accurate though succinct account of almost all the persons. It will be a very valuable and useful work, and I heartily wish may succeed; though I have some fears. There are of late a small number of persons who collect English heads but not enough to encourage such a work: I hope the anecdotic part will make it more known and tasted. It is essential to us, who shall love the performance, that it should sell: for he prints no farther at first than to the end of the first Charles: and, if this part does not sell well, the bookseller will not purchase the remainder of the copy, though he gives but a hundred pounds for this half'; and good Mr. Granger is not in circumstances to afford printing it himself. I do not compare it with Dr. Robertson's writings, who has an excellent genius, with admirable style and manner; and yet I cannot help thinking, that there is a good deal of Scotch puffing and partiality, when the booksellers have given the Doctor three thousand pounds for his Life of Charles V., for composing which he does not pretend to have obtained any new materials.
I am going into Warwickshire; and I think shall go on to Lord
Strafford's, but propose returning before the end of September.
Yours ever.
(1049) The Rev. James Granger, Vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire; where he died in 1776. See post, May 27, 1769.-E.
Letter 353 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, Oct. 10, 1768. (page 534)
I give you a thousand thanks, my dear Lord, for the account of the ball at Welbeck. I shall not be able to repay it with a relation of the masquerade to-night;(1050) for I have been confined here this week with the gout in my foot, and have not stirred off my bed or couch since Tuesday. I was to have gone to the great ball at Sion on Friday, for which a new road, paddock, and bridge were made, as other folks make a dessert. I conclude Lady Mary Coke has, and will tell you of all these pomps, which Health thinks so serious, and Sickness with her grave face tells one are so idle. Sickness may make me moralize, but I assure you she does not want humour. She has diverted me extremely with drawing a comparison between the repose (to call neglect by its dignified name) which I have enjoyed in this fit, and the great anxiety in which the whole world was when I had the last gout, three years ago—you remember my friends were then coming into power. Lord Weymouth was so good as to call at least once every day, and inquire after me; and the foreign ministers insisted that I should give them the satisfaction of seeing me, that they might tranquillize their sovereigns with the certainty of My not being in any danger. The Duke and Duchess of Newcastle were So kind, though very nervous themselves, as to send messengers and long messages every day from Claremont. I cannot say this fit has alarmed Europe quite so much. I heard the bell ring at the gate, and asked with much majesty if it was the Duke of Newcastle had sent? "No, Sir, it was only the butcher's boy." The butcher's boy is, indeed, the only courier i have had. Neither the King of France nor King of Spain appears to be under the least concern about me.
My dear Lord, I have had so many of these transitions in my life, that you will not wonder they divert me more than a masquerade. I am ready to say to most people, "Mask, I know you." I wish I might choose their dresses!