I am making a very curious purchase at Paris, the complete armour of Francis the First. It is gilt, in relief, and is very rich and beautiful. It comes out of the Crozat collection.(67) I am building a small chapel, too, in my garden, to receive two valuable pieces of antiquity, and which have been presents singularly lucky for me. They are the window from Bexhill, with the portraits of Henry III. and his Queen, procured for me by Lord Ashburnham. The other, great part of the tomb of Capoccio, mentioned in my Anecdotes of Painting on the subject of the Confessor's shrine, and sent to me from Rome by Mr. Hamilton, our minister at Naples. It is very extraordinary that I should happen to be master of these curiosities. After next summer, by which time my castle and collection will be complete (for if I buy more I must build another castle for another collection), I propose to form another catalogue and description, and shall take the liberty to call on you for your assistance. In the mean time there is enough new to divert you at present.
(67) This curiosity was at first estimated at a thousand crowns, but Madame du Deffand finally purchased it for Walpole for fifty louis. "Ce bijou," she says, "me parait un peu cher et ressemble beaucoup aux casques du Ch`ateau d,Otrante: si vous persistez `a le d`esirer, je le payerai, je le ferai encaisser et Partir sur le champ. C'est certainement une pi`ece tr`es belle et tr`es rare, mais infiniment ch`ere."-E.
Letter 39 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Late Strawberry Hill, Jan. 7, 1772. (page 64)
You have read of my calamity without knowing it, and will pity me when you do. I have been blown up; my castle is blown up; Guy Fawkes has been about my house: and the 5th of November has fallen on the 6th of January! In short, nine thousand powder-mills broke loose yesterday morning on Hounslow-heath;(68) a whole squadron of them came hither, and have broken eight of my painted-glass windows; and the north side of the castle looks as if it had stood a siege. The two saints in the hall have suffered martyrdom! they have had their bodies cut off, and nothing remains but their heads. The two next great sufferers are indeed two of the least valuable, being the passage-windows to the library and great parlour—a fine pane is demolished in the round-room; and the window by the gallery is damaged. Those in the cabinet, and Holbein-room, and gallery, and blue-room, and green-closet, etc. have escaped. As the storm came from the northwest, the china-closet was not touched, nor a cup fell down. The bow-window of brave old coloured glass, at Mr. Hindley's, is massacred; and all the north sides of Twickenham and Brentford are shattered. At London it was proclaimed an earthquake, and half the inhabitants ran into the street.
As lieutenant-general of the ordnance, I must beseech you to give strict order that no more powder-mills may blow up. My aunt, Mrs. Kerwood, reading one day in the papers that a distiller's had been burnt by the head of the still flying off, said, she wondered they did not make an act of parliament against the heads of stills flying off. Now, I hold it much easier for you to do a body this service; and would recommend to your consideration whether it would not be prudent to have all magazines of powder kept under water till they are wanted for service. In the mean time, I expect a pension to make me amends for what I have suffered under the government. Adieu! Yours.
(68) Three powder-mills blew up on Hounslow-heath, on the 6th of January, when such was the violence of the explosion that it was felt not only in the metropolis, but as far as Gloucester, and was very generally mistaken for the shock of an earthquake.-E.
Letter 40 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1772. (page 65)
It is long indeed, dear Sir, since we corresponded. I should not have been silent if I had had any thing worth telling you in your way: but I grow such an antiquity myself, that I think I am less fond of what remains of our predecessors.
I thank you for Bannerman's proposal; I mean, for taking the trouble to send it, for I am not at all disposed to subscribe. I thank you more for the note on King Edward; I mean, too, for your friendship in thinking of me. Of Dean Milles I cannot trouble myself to think any more. His piece is at Strawberry: perhaps I may look at it for the sake of your note. The bad weather keeps me in town, and a good deal at home; which I find very comfortable, literally practising what so many persons pretend they intend, being quiet and enjoying my fireside in my elderly days.
Mr. Mason has shown me the relics of poor Mr. Gray. I am sadly disappointed at finding them so very inconsiderable. He always persisted, when I inquired about his writings, that he had nothing by him. I own I doubted. I am grieved he was so very near exact—I speak of my own satisfaction; as to his genius, what he published during his life will establish his fame as long as our language lasts, and there is a man of genius left. There is a silly fellow, I do not know who, that has published a volume of Letters on the English Nation, With characters of our modern authors. He has talked such nonsense On Mr. Gray, that I have no patience with the compliments he has paid me. He must have an excellent taste; and gives me a woful opinion of my own trifles, when he likes them, and cannot see the beauties of a poet that ought to be ranked in the first line. I am more humbled by any applause in the present age, than by hosts of such critics as Dean Milles. Is not Garrick reckoned a tolerable author, though he has proved how little sense is necessary to form a great actor'? His Cymon, his prologues and epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes as well as in the footman's gallery. I do not mention the things written in his praise; because he writes most Of them himself! But you know any one popular merit can confer all merit. Two women talking Of Wilkes, one said he squinted—t'other replied, "Squints!—well, if he does, it is not more than a man should squint." For my part, I can see how extremely well Garrick acts, without thinking him six feet high. It is said Shakspeare was a bad actor; why do not his divine plays make our wise judges conclude that he was a good one? They have not a proof of the contrary, as they have in Garrick's works—but what is it to you or me what he is? We may see him act with pleasure, and nothing obliges us to read his writings.(69)