I have executed all Lady Ailesbury's commissions; but mind, I do not commission you to tell her, for you would certainly forget it. As you will, no doubt, come to town to report who burnt Portsmouth;(63) I will meet you here, if I am apprised of the day. Your niece's marriage,(64) pleases me extremely. Though I never saw him till last night, I know a great deal of her future husband, and like his character. His person is much better than I expected, and far preferable to many of the fine young moderns. He is better than Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, at least as well as the Duke of Devonshire, and Adonis compared to the charming Mr. Fitzpatrick. Adieu!
(61) Mr. Walpole arrived at Paris on the '10th of July, and left it on the 2d of September-E.
(62) Mr. Conway was now at the head of the ordnance, but with the title and appointments of lieutenant-general only. The particular circumstances attending this are thus recorded in a letter from Mr. Walpole to another correspondent at the time (January 1770), and deserve to be known:—"The King offered the mastership of the ordnance, on Lord Granby's resignation, to Mr. Conway, who is only lieutenant-general of it: he said he had lived in friendship with Lord Granby, and would not profit by his spoils; but, as he thought he could do some essential service in the office, where there were many abuses, if his Majesty would be pleased to let him continue as he is, be would do the business of the office without accepting the salary."-E.
(63) On the 27th of July, a fire had broken out in the dockyard at Portsmouth, which, as it might be highly prejudicial to the country at that period, excited universal alarm. The loss sustained by it, which at first was supposed to be half a million, is said to have been about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.-E.
(64) The marriage of Lady Gertrude Seymour Conway to Lord Villiers, afterwards Earl of Grandison.
Letter 36 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 10, 1771. (page 62)
However melancholy the occasion is, I can but give you a thousand thanks, dear Sir-., for the kind trouble you have taken, and the information you have given me about poor Mr. Gray. I received your first letter at Paris; the last I found at my house in town, where I arrived only on Friday last. The circumstance of the professor refusing to rise in the night and visit him, adds to the shock. Who is that true professor of physic? Jesus! is their absence to murder as well as their presence?
I have not heard from Mr. Mason, but I have written to him. Be so good as to tell the Master at Pembroke,(65) though I have not the honour of knowing him, how sensible I am of his proposed attention to me, and how much I feel for him in losing a friend of so excellent a genius. Nothing will allay my own concern like seeing any of his compositions that I have not yet seen. It is buying them too dear—but when the author is irreparably lost, the produce of his Mind is the next best possession. I have offered my press to Mr. Mason, and hope it will be accepted.
Many thanks for the cross, dear Sir; it is precisely what I wished. I hope you and Mr. Essex preserve your resolution of passing a few days here between this and Christmas. Just at present I am not My own master, having stepped into the middle of a sudden match in my own family. Lord Hertford is going to marry his third daughter to Lord Villiers, son of Lady Grandison, the present wife of Sir Charles Montagu. We are all felicity, and in a round of dinners. I am this minute returned from Beaumont-lodge, at Old Windsor, where Sir Charles Grandison lives. I will let you know, if the papers do not, when our festivities are subsided.
I shall receive with gratitude from Mr. Tyson either drawing or etching of our departed friend; but wish not to have it inscribed to me, as it is an honour, more justly due to Mr. Stonehewer. If the Master of Pembroke will accept a copy of a small picture I have of Mr. Gray, painted soon after the publication of his Ode on Eton, it shall be at his service—and after his death I beg, it may be bequeathed to his college. Adieu!