I have just received the favour of a letter from Lord Buchan, in which his lordship is so good as to acquaint me with the honour your new Society of Antiquaries have done me in nominating me an honourary member. I am certainly much flattered by the distinction, but am afraid his lordship's partiality and patronage will in this only instance do him no credit. My knowledge even of British antiquity has ever been desultory and most superficial; I have never studied any branch of science deeply and solidly, nor ever but for temporary \amusement, and without any system, suite, or method. Of late years I have quitted every connexion with societies, not only Parliament, but those of our Antiquaries and of Arts and Sciences, and have not attended the meetings of the Royal Society. I have withdrawn myself in a great measure from the world, and live in a very narrow circle idly and obscurely. Still, Sir, I could not decline the honour your Society has been pleased to offer me, lest it should be thought a want of respect and gratitude, instead of a mark of humility and conscious unworthiness. I am so sensible of this last, that I cannot presume to offer my services in this part of' our island to so respectable an assembly; but if you, Sir, who know too well my limited abilities, can at any time point out any information that it is in my power to give to the Society, (as in the case of Royal Scottish portraits, on which Lord Buchan was pleased to Consult Me,) I shall be very proud to obey your and their commands, and shall always be with great regard their and your most obedient humble servant.
P. S. I do not know whether I ever mentioned to you or Lord Buchan, Sir, a curious and excellent head in oil of the Lady Margaret Douglas at Mr. Carteret's, at Hawnes in Bedfordshire, the seat of his grandfather Lord Granville; I know few better portraits. It is at once a countenance of goodness and cunning, a mixture I think pleasing. It seems to imply that the person's virtue was not founded on folly or ignorance of the world; it implies perhaps more, that the person would combat treachery and knavery, and knew how. I could fancy the head in question was such a character as Margaret Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis the First. who was very free in her conversation and writings, yet strictly virtuous; debonnaire, void of ambition; yet a politician when her brother's situation required it. If your Society should give into engraving historic portraits, this head would deserve an early place. There is at Lord Scarborough's in Yorkshire, a double portrait, perhaps by Holbein or Lucas de Heere, of Lady Margaret's mother, Queen Margaret, and her second husband.
(416) Now first collected.
(417) Pope in his second Dialogue for the Year 1738, has transmitted Sir William's character to posterity—
"How can I, Pultney, Chesterfield, forget,
While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit?
Or Wyndham, just to freedom and the throne,
The master of our passions and his own?"
Speaker Onslow says, "there was a spirit and power in his speaking that always animated himself and his hearers, and with the decoration of his manner, which was, indeed, very ornamental, produced, not only the most attentive, respectful, but even a reverend regard, to whatever he spoke."-E.
(418) See Memoires of George the Second, vol. i. p. 240. "In his private life," says Walpole, "he had more merit, except in the case of his wife, whom, having been deluded into marrying without a fortune, he punished by rigorous and unrelaxed confinement in Scotland. He had a great thirst for books; a head admirably turned to mechanics; was a patron of ingenious men, a promoter of discoveries, and one of the first encouragers of planting in England; most of the curious exotics which have been familiarized to this climate being introduced by him. He died suddenly in his chair after dinner, at his house in Argyle-buildings, London, April 15, 1761."-E.
Letter 212 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, March 2, 1781. (page 272)
Dear Sir, My Lady Orford ordered herself to be buried at Leghorn, the only place in Tuscany where Protestants have burial; therefore I suppose she did not affect to change. On the contrary, I believe she had no preference for any sect, but rather laughed at all. I know nothing new, neither in novelty nor antiquity. I have had no gout this winter, and therefore I call it my leap-year. I am sorry it is not yours too. It is an age since I saw Dr. lort. I hope illness is not the cause. You will be diverted with hearing that I am chosen an honourary member of the new Antiquarian Society at Edinburgh. I accepted for two reasons: first, it is a feather that does not demand my flying thither; and secondly, to show contempt for our own old fools.(419) To me it will be a perfect sinecure; for I have moulted all my pen feathers, and shall have no ambition of nestling into their printed transactions. Adieu, my good Sir. Your much obliged.
(419) Cole, in a letter to Mr. Gough, acquainting him with Walpole's election, adds—"The admission of a few things into our Archaeologia, has, I fear, estranged for ever one of the most lively, learned, and entertaining members on our list."-E.