Pray give me timely notice whenever I am likely to see Dr. Farmer, that I may not be out of the way when I can have an opportunity of showing attention to a friend of yours, and pay a small part of your gratitude to him. There shall be a bed at his service; for you know Strawberry cannot be seen in a moment, nor are Englishmen so liants as to get acquainted in the time they are walking through a house.
But now, my good Sir, how could you suffer your prejudiced partiality to me to run away with you so extravagantly, as to call me one of the greatest characters of the age? You are too honest to flatter, too much a hermit to be interested, and I am too powerless and insignificant to be an object of court, were you capable of paying it from mercenary views. I know then that it could proceed from nothing but the warmth of your heart; but if you are blind towards me, I am not so to myself. I know not how others feel on such occasions, but if any one happens to praise me, all my faults rush into my face, and make me turn my eyes inward and outward with horror. What am I but a poor old skeleton tottering towards the grave, and conscious of a thousand weaknesses, follies, and worse! And for talents, what are mine but trifling and superficial; and, compared with those of men with real genius, most diminutive! Mine a great character! Mercy on me! I am a composition of Anthony Wood and Madame Danois,(423) and I know not what trumpery writers. This is the least I can say to refute your panegyric, which I shall burn presently; for I will not have such an encomiastic letter found in my possession, lest I should seem to have been pleased with it. I enjoin you, as a penance, not to contradict one tittle I have said here; for I am not begging more compliments, and shall take it seriously ill if you ever pay me another. We have been friends above forty years; I am satisfied of your sincerity and affection; but does it become us, at past threescore each, to be saying fine things to one another? Consider how soon we shall both be nothing!
I assure you, with great truth, I am at this present very sick of my little vapour of fame. My tragedy has wandered into the hands of some banditti booksellers, and I am forced to publish it myself to prevent piracy.(424) All I can do is to condemn it myself, and that I shall. I am reading Mr. Pennant's new Welsh Tour; he has pleased me by making very handsome mention of you; but I will not do, what I have been blaming.
My poor dear Madame du Deffand's little dog is arrived. She made me promise to take care of it the last time I saw her: that I will most religiously, and make it as happy as is possible.(425) I have not much curiosity to see your Cambridge Raphael, but great desire to see you, and will certainly this summer, accept your invitation,, which I take much kinder than your great character, though both flowed from the same friendship. Mine for you is exactly what it has been ever since you knew (and few men can boast so uninterrupted a friendship as yours and that of—) H. W.
(422) In his well-known "Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare."-E.
(423) Madame d'Aulnoy, the contemporary of Perrault, and, like him, a writer of fairy tales. She was the authoress of "The Lady's Travels in Spain," and many other works, which have been translated into English.-E.
(424) Walpole had printed fifty copies of"The Mysterious Mother" at Strawberry Hill as early as the year 1765; but a surreptitious edition of it being announced in 1781, he consented to Dodsley's publishing a genuine one.-E.
(425) In his reply to this letter, of the 7th of May, the worthy antiquary says-"I congratulate the little Parisian dog, that he has fallen into the hands of so humane a master. I have a little diminutive dog, Busy, full as great a favourite, and never out of my lap: I have already, in case of an accident, ensured it a refuge from starvation and ill-usage. It is the least we can do for poor harmless, shiftless, pampered animals that have amused us, and we have spoilt." A brother antiquary, on reading this passage, exclaimed, "How could Mr. Cole ever get through the transcript of a Bishop's Registry, or a Chartulary, with Busy never out of his lap!"-E.
Letter 217 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill,, Sunday evening, May 6, 1781. (PAGE 275)
I supped With your Countess on Friday at Lord Frederick Campbell's, where I heard of the relief of Gibraltar by Darby. The Spanish fleet kept close in Cadiz: however, he lifted up his leg, and just squirted contempt on them. As he is disembarrassed of his transports, I suppose their ships will scramble on shore rather than fight. Well, I shall be perfectly content with our fleet coming back in a whole skin; it will be enough to have outquixoted Don Quixote's own nation. As I knew, your Countess would write the next day, I waited till she was gone out of town and would not have much to tell you—not that I have either; and it is giving myself an air to pretend to know more at Twickenham than she can at Henley. Though it is a bitter northeast, I came hither to-day to look at my lilacs, though `a la glace; and to get from pharaoh, for which there is a rage. I doted on it above thirty years ago; but it is not decent to sit up all night now with boys and girls. My nephew, Lord Cholmondeley, the banker `a la mode, has been demolished. He and his associate, Sir Willoughby Aston, went early t'other night to Brookcs's, before Charles Fox and Fitzpatrick, who keep a bank there, were come; but they soon arrived, attacked their rivals, broke their bank, and won above four thousand pounds. "There," said Fox, "so should all usurpers be served!" He did still better; for he sent for his tradesmen, and paid as far as the money would go. In the mornings he continues his war on Lord North, but cannot break that bank. The court has carried a secret committee for India affairs, and it is supposed that Rumbold is to be the sacrifice; but as he is near as rich as Lord Clive, I conclude he will escape by the same golden key.