You are not the first Eurydice that has sent her husband to the devil, as you have kindly proposed to me; but I will not undertake the jaunt, for if old Nicholas Pluto should enjoin me not to look back to you, I should certainly forget the prohibition like my predecessor. Besides, I am a little too close to take a voyage twice which I am so soon to repeat; and should be laughed at by the good folks on the other side of the water, if I proposed coming back for a twinkling Only. No; I choose as long as I can

"Still with my fav'rite Berrys to remain."(643)

So you was not quite satisfied, though you ought to have been transported, with King's College Chapel, because it has no aisles, like every common cathedral. I suppose you would object to a bird of paradise, because it has no legs, but shoots to heaven in a trait, and does not rest on earth. Criticism and comparison spoil many tastes. You should admire all bold and unique essays that resemble nothing else; the Botanic Garden, the Arabian Nights, and King's Chapel are above all rules: and how preferable is what no one can imitate, to all that is imitated even from the best models! Your partiality to the pageantry of popery I do not approve, and I doubt whether the world will not be a loser (in its visionary enjoyments) by the extinction of that religion, as it was by the decay of chivalry and the proscription of the heathen deities. Reason has no invention; and as plain sense will never be the legislator of human affairs, it is fortunate when taste happens to be regent.

(639) Miss More, in a letter written at this time to Walpole, says, "How you do scold me! but I don't care for your scolding; and I don't care for your wit neither, that I don't. half as much as I care for a blow which I hear you have given yourself against a table. I have known such very serious consequences arise from such accidents, that I beg of you to drown yourself in the "Veritable Arquebusade." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 158.-E.

(640) The following are the Bishop's expressions:—"And now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales. Ill as I have been, almost ever since they came to hand, I have read as much of them as I shall read while I live. indeed, they do not please my taste; they are writ with so romantic an air, and are of so wild and absurd a contrivance, that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience in reading them. I cannot help thinking them the production of some woman's imagination." The Honourable Charles Yorke, in a letter to his brother, the second Earl of Hardwicke written in June 1740, states that Pope and Warburton both agreed in condemning the bishop's judgment on the Arabian Tales and that Warburton added, that from those tales the completest notion might be gather,d of the Eastern ceremonies and manners.-E.

(641) The work entitled "Mille et Une Nuits," was translated from an original Arabic manuscript, in the King of France's library by M. Galland, professor of Arabic in the University of Paris. It appeared in 1704-8: in twelve volumes.-E.

(642) Her "Observations and Reflections in the course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany," honoured with a couplet in the Baviad—

See Thrale's gray widow with a satchel roam,
And bring in Pomp laborious nothings home."-E.

(643) A line from some verses that he had received.-M.B.

Letter 332 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, July 2, 1789. (PAGE 421)

I almost think I shall never abuse you again; nay, I would not, did not it prove so extremely good for you. No walnut tree is better for being threshed than you are; and, though you have won my heart by your compliance, I don't know whether my conscience will not insist on my using YOU ill now and then; for is there any precedent for gratitude not giving way to every other duty? Gratitude like an earl's eldest son, is but titular, and has no place upon trials. But I fear I punning sillily, instead of thanking you seriously, as I do, for allowing me to print your lovely verses. My press can confer no honour; but, when I offer it, it is a certain mark Of My sincerity and esteem. It has been dedicated to friendship, to charity-too often to worthless self-love; sometimes to the rarity of the pieces, and sometimes to the merit of them; now it will unite the first motive and the last.

My fall, for which you so kindly concern yourself, was not worth mentioning; for as I only bruised the muscles of my side, instead of breaking a rib, camphire infused in arquebusade took off the pain and all consequences in five or six days: and one has no right to draw on the compassion of others for what one has suffered and is past. Some love to be pitied on that score; but forget that they only excite, in the best-natured, joy on their deliverance. You commend me too for not complaining of my chronical evil; but, my dear Madam, I should be blamable for the reverse. If I would live to seventy-two, ought I not to compound for the encumbrances of old age? And who has fewer? And who has more cause to be thankful to Providence for his lot? The gout, it is true, comes frequently, but the fits are short, and very tolerable; the intervals are full health. My eyes are perfect, my hearing but little impaired, chiefly to whispers, for which I certainly have little occasion: my spirits never fail; and though my hands and feet are crippled, I can use both, and do not wish to box, wrestle, or dance a hornpipe. In short, I am just infirm enough to enjoy all the prerogatives of old age, and to plead them against any thing I have not a mind to do. Young men must conform to every folly in fashion - drink when they had rather be sober; fight a duel if somebody else is wrong-headed; marry to please their fathers, not themselves; and shiver in a white waistcoat, because ancient almanacks, copying the Arabian, placed the month of June after May; though, when the style was reformed, it ought to have been intercalated between December and January. Indeed, I have been so childish as to cut my hay for the same reason, and am now weeping over it by the fireside. But to come to business.

You must suffer me to print two hundred copies; and if you approve it, I will send thirty to the Bishop of London out of your quota. You may afterwards give him more, if you please. I do not propose putting your name, unless you desire it; as I think it would swear with the air of ancientry you have adopted in the signature and notes. The authoress will be no secret; and as It will certainly get into magazines, why should not you deal privately beforehand with some bookseller, and have a second edition ready to appear soon after mine is finished? The difficulty of getting my edition at first, from the paucity of the number and from being only given as presents, will make the second edition eagerly sought for; and I do not see why my anticipating the publication should deprive you of the profit. Rather than do that, I would print a smaller number. I wish to raise an additional appetite to that which every body has for your writings; I am sure I did not mean to injure you. Pray think of this; there 'Is time enough; I cannot begin to print under a week: my press has lain fallow for some time, and my printer must prepare ink, balls, etc.; and as I have but one man, he cannot be expeditious. I seriously do advise you to have a second edition ready; why should covetous booksellers run away with all the advantages of your genius? They get enough by their ample share of the sale.

I will say no more, but to repeat my thanks for your consent, which truly obliges me; and I am happy to have been the instrument of' preserving what your modesty would have sunk. My esteem could not increase: but one likes to be connected by favours to those one highly values.

Letter 333 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, July 9, 1789. (PAGE 422)

You are so good and punctual, that I will complain no more of your silence, unless you are silent. You must not relax, especially until you can give me better accounts of your health and spirits. I was peevish before with the weather; but, now it prevents your riding, I forget hay and roses, and all the comforts that are washed away, and shall only watch the weathercock for an east wind in Yorkshire. What a shame that I should recover from the gout and from bruises, as I assure you I am entirely, and that you should have a complaint left! One would think that it was I was grown young again; for while just now, as I was reading your letter in my bedchamber, while some of my customers(644) are seeing the house, I heard a gentleman in the armoury ask the housekeeper as he looked at the bows and arrows, "Pray, does Mr. Walpole shoot?" No, nor with pistols neither. I leave all weapons to Lady Salisbury(645) and Mr. Lenox;(646) and, since my double marriage, have suspended my quiver in the Temple of Hymen. Hygeia shall be my goddess, if she will send you back blooming to this region.

I wish I had preserved any correspondence in France, as you are curious about their present history; which I believe very momentous indeed. What little I have accidentally heard, I will relate, and will learn what more I can. On the King,'s being advised to put out his talons, Necker desired leave to resign, as not having been consulted, and as the measure violated his plan. The people, hearing his intention, thronged to Versailles; and he was forced to assure them from a balcony, that he was not to retire. I am not accurate in dates, nor warrant my intelligence, and therefore pretend only to send you detached scraps. Force being still in request, the Duc du Chatelet acquainted the King that he could not answer for the French guards. Chatelet, who, from his hot arrogant temper, I should have thought would have been One of the proudest opposers of the people, is suspected to lean to them. In short, Marshal Broglio is appointed commander-in-chief, and is said to have sworn on his sword, that he will not sheathe it till he has plunged it into the heart of ce gros banquier Genevois. I cannot reconcile this with Necker's stay at Versailles. That he is playing a deep game is certain. It is reported that Madame Necker tastes previously every thing he swallows.(647) A vast camp is forming round Paris; but the army is mutinous—the tragedy may begin on the other side. They do talk of an engagement at Metz, where the French troops, espousing the popular cause, were attacked by two German regiments, whom the former cut to pieces. The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who were at Paris, have thought it prudent to leave it; and My Cousin, Mr. Thomas Walpole, who is near it, has just written to his daughters, that he is glad to be Out of the town, that he may Make his retreat easily.

Thus, you see the crisis is advanced far beyond orations, and wears all the aspect of civil war. For can one imagine that the whole nation is converted at once, and in some measure without provocation from the King, who, far from enforcing the prerogative like Charles the First, Cancelled the despotism obtained for his grandfather by the Chancellor Maupeou, has exercised no tyranny, and has shown a disposition to let the constitution be amended. It did want it indeed; but I fear the present want of temper grasps at so much, that they defeat their own purposes; and where loyalty has for ages been the predominant characteristic of a nation, it cannot be eradicated at once. Pity will soften the tone of the moment; and the nobility and clergy have more interest in wearing a royal than a popular yoke; for great lords and high-priests think the rights of mankind a defalcation of-their privileges. No man living is more devoted to liberty than I am; yet blood is a terrible price to pay for it! A martyr to liberty is the noblest of characters; but to sacrifice the lives of others, though for the benefit of all, is a strain of heroism that I could never ambition.

I have just been reading Voltaire's Correspondence,—one of those heroes who liked better to excite martyrs, than to be one. How vain would he be, if alive now! I was struck with one of his letters to La Chalotais, who was a true upright patriot and martyr too. In the 221 st Letter of the sixth volume, Voltaire says to him, "Vous avez jett`e des germes qui produiront un jour plus qu'on ne pense." It was lucky for me that you inquired about France; I had not a halfpennyworth more of news in my wallet.

A person who was very apt to call on you every morning for a Minute, and stay three hours, was with me the other day, and his grievance from the rain was the swarms of gnats. I said, I supposed I have very bad blood, for gnats never bite me. He replied, "I believe I have bad blood, too, for dull people, who would tire me to death, never Come Dear me." Shall I beg a pallet-full of that repellent for you, to set in your window as barbers do?

I believe you will make me grow a little of a newsmonger, though you are none; but I know that at a distance, in the country, letters of news are a regale. I am not wont to listen to the batteries on each side of me at Hampton-court and Richmond; but in your absence I shall turn a less deaf ear to them, in hopes of gleaning something that may amuse you: though I shall leave their manufactures of scandal for their own home consumption; you happily do not deal in such wares. Adieu! I used to think the month of September the dullest of the whole set; now I shall be impatient for it.

(644) The name given by Mr. Walpole to parties coming to view his house.-M.B.

(645) Lady Mary-Amelia, daughter of Wills, first Marquis of Downshire; married, in 1773, to James seventh Earl of Salisbury, advanced, in August 1789, to the title of Marquis. Her ladyship was a warm patroness of the art of archery, and a first-rate equestrian. In November 1835, at the age of eighty-four, she was burnt to death at Hatfield-house.-E.

(646) In consequence of a dispute, concerning words said to have been spoken at Daubiny's club, a duel took place at Wimbledon, on the 26th of May, between the Duke of York and Colonel Lenox, afterwards Duke of Richmond. Neither of the parties was wounded; and the seconds, Lords Rawdon and Winchilsea, certified, that both behaved with the utmost coolness and intrepidity.-E.

(647) On the 11th of July, two days after the date of this letter, Necker received his dismission and a formal demand to quit the kingdom. It was accompanied by a note from the King, praying him to depart in a private manner, for fear of exciting disturbances. Necker received this intimation just as he was dressing for dinner-, after which, without divulging his intention to any one, he set out in the evening, with Madame Necker, for Basle. See Mignet, tom. i. p. 47.-E.

Letter 334 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, July 10, 1789. (PAGE 425)

Though I am touchy enough with those I love, I did not think you dilatory, nor expect that answers to letters should be as quick as repartees. I do pity you for the accident that made you think yourself remiss.(648) I enjoy your patient's recovery; but almost smiled unawares at the idea of her being sopped, and coming out of the water brustling up her feathers and ermines, and assuming the dignity of a Jupiter Pluvius.

I beseech you not to fancy yourself vain on my being your printer would Sappho be proud, though Aldus or Elzevir were her typographer? My press has no rank but from its narrowness, that is, from the paucity of its editions, and from being a volunteer. But a truce to compliments, and to reciprocal humility. Pray tell me how I shall convey your parcel to you: the impression is begun. I shall not dare, vu le sujet, to send a copy to Mrs. Garrick;(649) I do not know whether you will venture. Mrs. Boscawen shall have one, but it shall be in your name: so authorize me to present It, that neither of us may tell the whitest of fibs. Shall I deliver any others for you within my reach, to save you trouble?

I have no more corrections to make. I told you brutally at first of the only two faults I found, and you sacrificed them with the patience of a martyr; for I conclude that when a good poet knowingly sins against measure twice, he is persuaded that he makes amends by greater beauties: in such case docility deserves the palmbranch. I do not applaud your declining a London edition; but you have been so tractable, that I will let you have your way in this, though you only make over profit to magazines. Being an honest printer myself, I have little charity for those banditti of my profession who pilfer from every body they find on the road.

(648) "You will think me a great brute and savage, dear Sir, for not having directly thanked you for your letter, till you have read my piece justificative, and then you will think I should have been a greater brute and savage if I had; for the very day I received it, a very amiable neighbour, coming to call on us, was overturned from her phaeton into some water, her husband driving her. The poor lady was brought into our house, to all appearance dying. I thank God, however, she is now out of danger; but our attendance, day and night, on the maimed lady and the distressed husband banished poetry from my thoughts, and suspended all power of writing nonsense." Miss More to Walpole. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 160.-E.

(649) Mrs. Garrick was a Roman Catholic.-E.

Letter 335 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, [July 15, 1789.] (PAGE 425)

I write a few lines only to confirm the truth of much of what you will read in the papers from Paris. Worse may already be come, or is expected every hour. Mr. Mackenzie and Lady Betty called on me before dinner, after the post was gone out; and he showed me a letter from Dutens, who said two couriers arrived yesterday from the Duke of Dorset and the Duchess of Devonshire, the latter of whom was leaving Paris directly. Necker had been dismissed, and was thought to be set out for Geneva. Breteull, who was at his country-house, had been sent for to succeed him. Paris was in an uproar; and, after the couriers had left it, firing of cannon was heard for four hours together. That must have been from the Bastille,(650) as probably the tiers `etat were not so provided. It is shocking to imagine what may have happened in such a thronged city! One of the couriers was stopped twice or thrice, as supposed to pass from the King; but redeemed himself by pretending to be despatched by the tiers `etat. Madame de Calonne told Dutens, that the newly encamped troops desert by hundreds.

Here seems the egg to be hatched, and imagination runs away with the idea. I may fancy I shall hear of the King and Queen leaving Versailles, like Charles the First, and then skips imagination six-and-forty years lower, and figures their fugitive majesties taking refuge in this country. I have besides another idea. If the Bastille conquers, still it is impossible, considering the general spirit in the country, and the numerous fortified places in France, but some may be seized by the dissidents, and whole provinces be torn from the crown! On the other hand, if the King prevails, what heavy despotism will the `etats, by their want of temper and moderation, have drawn on their country! They might have obtained many capital points, and removed great oppression. No French monarch will ever summon `etats again, if this moment has been thrown away.

Though I have stocked myself with such a set of visions for the event either way, I do not pretend to foresee what will happen. Penetration argues from reasonable probabilities; but chance and folly are apt to contradict calculation, and hitherto they seen) to have full scope for action. One hears of no genius on either side, nor do symptoms of any appear. There will perhaps: such times and tempests bring forth, at least bring out, great men. I do not take the Duke of Orleans or Mirabeau to be built du bois dont on les fait; no, nor Monsieur Necker.(651) He may be a great traitor, if he made the confusion designedly: but it is a woful evasion, if the promised financier slips into a black politician! I adore liberty, but I would bestow it as honestly as I could; and a civil war, besides being a game of chance, is paying a very dear price for it.

For us, we are in most danger of a deluge; though I wonder we so frequently complain of long rains. The saying about St. Swithin is a proof of how often they recur; for proverbial sentences are the children of experience, not of prophecy. Good night! In a few days I shall send you a beautiful little poem from the Strawberry press.

(650) For an interesting account of the storming and destruction of the Bastille, on the 14th of July, see Mr. Shobert's valuable translation of M. Thiers's "History of the French Revolution," vol. i. p. 59.-E.

(651) "It was in vain," says Sir Walter Scott, "that the Marquis de Bouill`e pointed out the dangers arising from the constitution assigned to the States General, and insisted that the minister was arming the Popular part of the nation against the two privileged orders, and that the latter would soon experience the effects of their hatred, Necker calmly replied, that there was a necessary reliance to be placed on the virtues of the human heart—the maxim of a worthy man, but not of an enlightened statesman, who has but too much reason to know how often both the virtues and the prudence of human nature are surmounted by its prejudices and Passions." Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, vol. i, p, 107, ed. 1834.-E.

Letter 336 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Monday night, July 20, 1789. (PAGE 427)

My excellent friend, I never shall be angry with your conscientiousness, though I ) do not promise never to scold it, as you know I think you sometimes carry it too far; and how pleasant to have a friend to scold on such grounds! I see all your delicacy in what you call your double treachery, and your kind desire of connecting two of your friends.(652) The seeds are sprung up already; and the Bishop has already condescended to make me the first, and indeed so unexpected a visit, that, had I in the least surmised it, I should certainly, as became me, have prevented him. One effect, however, I can tell you your pimping between us will have: his lordship has, to please your partiality, flattered me so agreeably in the letter you betrayed, that I shall never write to you again without the dread of attempting the wit he is so liberal as to bestow on me; and then either way I must be dull or affected, though I hope to have the grace to prefer the former, and then you only will be the sufferer, as we both should by the latter. But I will come to facts -. they are plain bodies, can have nothing to do with wit, and yet are not dull to those who have any thing to do with them.

According to your order, I have delivered Ghosts(653) to Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Juliana Penn, Mrs. Walsingham, and Mr. Pepys. Mr. Batt, I am told, leaves London to-day; so I shall reserve his to his return. This morning I carried his thirty to the Bishop of London, who said modestly, he should not have expected above ten. I was delighted with the palace, with the Venerable chapel, and its painted episcopalities in glass, and the brave hall, etc. etc. Though it rained, I would crawl to Bonner's chair. In short, my satisfaction would have been complete, but for wanting the presence of that jesuitess, "the good old papist."

To-morrow departs for London, to be delivered to the Bristol coach at the White-horse-cellar in Piccadilly, a parcel containing sixty-four Ghosts, one of which is printed on brown for your own eating. There is but one more such, so you may preserve it like a relic. I know these two are not so good as the white: but, as rarities, a collector would give ten times more for them; and uniquity will make them valued more than the charming poetry. I believe, if there was but one ugly woman in the world, she would occasion a longer war than Helen did. You will find the Bishop's letter in the parcel. I did not breathe a hint of my having seen it, as I could not conjure up Into my pale cheeks the blush I ought to exhibit on such flattery.

I pity you most sincerely for your almost drowned guest. Fortune seems to delight in throwing poor Louisas in Your Way, that you may exercise your unbounded charity and benevolence. Adieu! pray write. I need not write to you to pray; but I wish, when your knees have what the common people call a worky-day, you would employ your hands the whole time. Yours most cordially.

P. S. I believe I have blundered, and that your knees would call a week-day a holiday.

(652) With the view of making Bishop Porteus and Walpole better known to each other, Miss More had committed what she called a double treachery, in showing to the Bishop a letter she had received from Walpole, and to Walpole one sent her by the Bishop.-E.

(653) Though the author of this poem must have been known to so many individuals in the year 1789, the secret was so well kept, that it was actually printed in the, Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1804, as the production of Walpole.-E.

Letter 337 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1789. (PAGE 428)

I have received two dear letters from you of the 18th and 25th and though you do not accuse me, but say a thousand kind things to me in the most agreeable manner, I allow my ancientry, and that I am an old, jealous, and peevish husband, and quarrel with you if I do not receive a letter exactly at the moment I please to expect one. You talk of mine; but, if you knew how I like Yours, you would not wonder that I am impatient, and even unreasonable in my demands. However, though I own my faults, I do not mean to correct them. I have such pleasure in your letters (I am sorry I am here forced to speak in the singular number,'which by the way is an Irishism,) that I will be cross if you do not write to me perpetually. The quintessence of your last but one was, in telling me you are better - how fervently do I wish to receive such accounts every post. But who can mend but old I, in such detestable weather?—not one hot day; and, if a morning shines, the evening closes with a heavy shower.

Of French news I can give you no fresher or more authentic account, than you can collect in general from the newspapers; but my present visitants and every body else confirm the veracity of Paris being in that anarchy that speaks the populace domineering in the most cruel and savage manner, and which a servile multitude broken loose calls liberty; and which in all probability will end, when their Massaniello-like reign is over, in their being more abject slaves than ever, and chiefly by the crime of their `Etats, who, had they acted with temper and prudence, might have obtained from their poor and undesigning King a good and permanent constitution. Who may prove their tyrant, if reviving loyalty does not in a new frenzy force him to be so, it is impossible to foresee; but much may happen first. The rage seems to gain the provinces, and threatens to exhibit the horrors of those times when the peasants massacred the gentlemen. Thus you see I can only conjecture, which is not sending you news; and my intelligence reaches me by so many rebounds, that you must not depend on any thing I can tell you. I repeat, because I hear; but draw on you for no credit. Having experienced last winter, in suporaddition to a long life of experience, that in Berkeley Square I could not trust to a single report from Kew, can I swallow implicitly at Twickenham the distorted information that comes from Paris through the medium of London?

You asked me in one of your letters who La Chalotais was. I answer, premier pr`esident or avocat-g`en`eral, I forget which, of the Parliament of Bretagne; a great, able, honest, and most virtuous man, who opposed the Jesuits and the tyranny of the Duc d'Aiguillon; but he was as indiscreet as he was good. Calonne was his friend and confident; to whom the imprudent patriot trusted, by letter, his farther plan of opposition and designs. The wretch pretended to have business with, or to be sent for by, the Duc de la Vrilli`ere, secretary of state; a courtier-wretch, whose mistress used to sell lettres do cachet for a louis.(654) Calonne was left to wait in the antechamber; but being, as he said, suddenly called in to the minister, as he was reading (a most natural soil for such a lecture) the letter of his friend, he by a second natural inadvertence left the fatal letter on the chimney-piece. The consequence, much more natural, was, that La Chalotais was committed to the Ch`ateau du Taureau, a horrible dungeon on a rock in the sea, with his son, whose legs mortified there, and the father was doomed to the scaffold; but the Duc de Choiseul sent a counter reprieve by an express and a cross-road, and saved him.(655) At the beginning of this reign he was restored. Paris, however, was so indignant at the treachery, that this Calonne was hissed out of the theatre, when I was in that capital.(656) When I heard, some years after, that a Calonne was made controlleur-g`en`eral, I concluded that it must be a son, not conceiving that so reprobated a character could emerge to such a height; but asking my sister, 'who has been in France since I was, she assured me it was not only the identical being, but that when she was at Metz, where I think he was intendant, the officers in garrison would not dine with him. When he fled hither for an asylum, I did not talk of his story till I saw it in one of the pamphlets that were written against him in France, and that came over hither.

Friday night, 31st.

My company prevented my finishing this: part left me at noon, the residue are to come to-morrow. To-day I have dined at Fulham(657) along with Mrs. Boscawen but St. Swithin played the devil so, that we could not stir out of doors, and had fires to chase the watery Spirits. Quin, being once asked if ever he had seen so bad a winter, replied, "Yes, just such an one last summer!"—and here is its youngest brother!

Mrs. Boscawen saw a letter from Paris to Miss Sayer this morning, Which says Necker's son-in-law was arrived, and had announced his father-in- law's promise of return from Basle. I do not know whether his honour or ambition prompt this compliance; Surely not his discretion. I am much acquainted with him, and do not hold him great and profound enough to quell the present anarchy. if he attempts to moderate for the King, I Shall not be surprised if he falls another victim to tumultuary jealousy and outrage.(658) All accounts agree in the violence of the mob against the inoffensive as well as against the objects of their resentment; and in the provinces, where even women are not safe in their houses. The hotel of the Duc de Chatelet, lately built and superb, has been assaulted, and the furniture sold by auction;(659) but a most shocking act of a royalist in Burgundy who is said to have blown up a committee of forty persons, will probably spread the flames of civil rage much wider. When I read the account I did not believe it; but the Bishop of London says, he hears the `Etats have required the King to write to every foreign power not to harbour the execrable author, who is fled.(660) i fear this conflagration will not end as rapidly as that in Holland!

(654) The Duc de la Vrillibre was dismissed in 1775, and succeeded by M. de Malesherbes, Madame du Deffand's letter to Walpole of June 26, 1774, contains the following epigram on him:—

"Ministre sans talent ainsi que sans vertu,
Couvert d'ignominie autant qu'on le peut `etre,
Retire-toi donc! Qu'attends-tu?
Qu'on te jette par la fen`etre?"-E.

(655) La Chalotais died in July 1785. Among other works he wrote an "Essay On National Education," which was reprinted in 1825. His son perished by the guillotine in January 1794.-E.

(656) "An intrigue brought M. de Calonne forward, who was not in good odour with the public, because he had contributed to the persecution Of La chatolais." Thiers, vol. i. p. 5.-E.

(657) With Bishop Porteus. "I fear," writes Hannah More, on hearing of this dinner, "I shall secretly triumph in the success of my fraud, if it has contributed to bring about any intercourse between the Abbey of Fulham and the Castle of Otranto, it sounds so ancient and so feudal! But among the things which pleased you in the episcopal domain, I hope the lady of it has that good fortune; she is quite a model of a pleasant wife. Now, I am acquainted with a great many very good wives, who are so notable and so manageable, that they make a man every thing but happy; and I know a great many other;, who sing, play and paint, and cut paper, and are so accomplished, that they have no time to be agreeable, and no desire to be useful," Memoirs, vol.'Ii. p. 165.-E.

(658) On the 16th of July, five days after the dismissal of M. Necker, the National Assembly obtained his recall. His return from Basle to Paris was one continued triumph. During the next twelve months, he was constantly presenting new financial statements; but he soon perceived that his influence was daily diminishing: at length the famous Red Book appeared, and completely put an end to his popularity. In September 1790, his resignation was accepted: as he was quitting the kingdom, his carriage was stopped by the same populace which had so recently drawn him into Paris in triumph; and it was necessary to apply to the Assembly for an order, directing that he should be allowed to proceed to Switzerland. He obtained this permission, and retired to Coppet, "there," says M. Thiers, "to contemplate at a distance, a revolution which he was no longer qualified to observe Closely Or to guide."-E.

(659) The Duke, who was colonel of the King's guard, narrowly escaped assassination.-E.

(660) After an inquiry, instituted by the National Assembly, the whole was found to be a villanous fabrication.-E.

Letter 338 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(661)
Strawberry Hill, July 31, 1789. (PAGE 431)

Having had my house full of relations till this evening, I could not answer the favour of your letter Sooner; and now I am ashamed of not being able to tell you that I have finished reading your "Essay on the Ancient History of Scotland." I am so totally unversed in the story of original nations, and I own always find myself so little interested in savage manners unassisted by individual characters, that, though you lead me with a firmer hand than any historian through the dark tracts, the clouds rose round me the moment I have passed them, and I retain no memory of the ground I have trod. I greatly admire your penetration, and read with wonder your clear discovery of the kingdom of Strathclyde; but, though I bow to you, as I would to the founder of an empire, I confess I do not care a straw about your subjects, with whom I am no more acquainted than with the ancient inhabitants of Otaheite. Your origin of the Piks is most able; but then I cannot remember them with any precise discrimination from any other hyperborean nation; and all the barbarous names at the end of the first volume, and the gibberish in the Appendix, was to me as unintelligible as if Repeated Abracadabra; and made no impression on me but to raise respect of your patience, and admire a sagacity that could extract meaning and suite from what seemed to me the most indigestible of all materials. You rise in my estimation in Proportion to the disagreeable mass of your ingredients. What gave me pleasure that I felt, was the exquisite sense and wit of your Introduction; and your masterly handling and confutation of the Macphersons, Whitaker, etc. there and through your work. Objection I have but one, I think you make yourself too much a party against the Colts. I do not think they were or are worthy of hatred.

Upon the whole, dear Sir, you see that your work is too learned and too deep for my capacity and shallow knowledge. I have told you that my reading and knowledge is and always was trifling and superficial, and never taken up or pursued but for present amusement. I always was incapable of dry and unentertaining studies; and of all studies the origin of nations never was to my taste. Old age and frequent disorders have dulled both my curiosity and attention, as well as weakened my memory; and I cannot fix my attention to long deductions. I say to myself, "What is knowledge to me who stand on the verge, and must leave any old stores as well as what I may add to them; and how little could that be?"

Having thus confessed the truth, I am sure you are too candid and liberal to be offended - you cannot doubt of my high respect for your extraordinary abilities I am even proud of having discovered them of myself without any clue. I should be very insincere, if I pretended to have gone through with eagerness your last work, which demands more intense attention than my age, eyes, and avocations will allow. I cannot read long together; and you are sensible that your work is not a book to be`rea'd' by snatches and intervals; especially as the novelty, to me at least, requires some helps to connect it with the memory.

(661) Now first collected.

Letter 339 To Miss Hannah More.(662)
Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1789. (PAGE 432)

You are not very corresponding, (though better of late,) and therefore I will not load the conscience of your fingers much, lest you should not answer me in three months. I am happy that you are content with my edition of your Ghost, and with the brown copy. Every body is charmed with your poem: I have not heard one breath but of applause. In confirmation, I enclose a note to me from the Duchess of Gloucester, who certainly never before wished to be an authoress. You may lay it up in the archives of Cowslip-green, and carry it along with your other testimonials to Parnassus.(663) Mr. Carter, to whom I sent a copy, is delighted with it. The Bishop, with whom I dined last week, is extremely for your printing an edition for yourself, and desired I would press you to it. Mind, I do press you: and could Bonner's Ghost be laid again,-which is ,impossible, for it will walk for ever, and by day too,—we would have it laid in the Red Sea by some West India merchant, who must be afraid of spirits, and cannot be in charity with you. Mrs. Boscawen dined at Fulham with me. It rained all day; and, though the last of July, we had fires in every room, as if Bonner had been still in possession of the see.

I have not dared to recollect you too often by overt acts, dear Madam; as, by the slowness of your answer, you seem to be sorry my memory was so very alert. Besides, it looks as if you had a mind to keep me at due distance, by the great civility and cold complimentality of your letter; a style I flattered myself you had too much good will towards me to use. Pretensions to humility I know are generally traps to flattery; but, could you know how very low my opinion is of myself, I am sure you would not have used the terms to me you did, and which I will not repeat, as they are by no means applicable to me. If I ever had tinsel parts, age has not only tarnished them, but convinced me how frippery they were.

Sweet are your Cowslips, sour my Strawberry Hill;
My fruits are fallen, your blossoms flourish still.

Mrs. Boscawen told me last night, that she had received a long letter from you, which makes me flatter myself you have no return of your nervous complaints. Mrs. Walsingham I have seen four or five times - Miss Boyle has decorated their house most charmingly; she has not only designed, but carved in marble, three beautiful base reliefs, with boys, for a chimney-piece; besides painting elegant panels for the library, and forming, I do not know how, pilasters of black and gold beneath glass; in short, we are so improved in taste, that, if it would be decent, I could like to live fifty or sixty years more, just to see how matters go on. In the mean time, I wish my Macbethian wizardess would tell me "that Cowslip Dale should come to Strawberry Hill;" which by the etiquette of oracles, you know, would certainly happen, because so improbable. I will be content if the nymph of the dale will visit the old man of the mountain, and her most sincere friend.

(662) Now first collected.

(663) In reply to this, Miss More says, "You not only do all you can to turn my head by printing my trumpery verses yourself. but you call in royal aid to complete my delirium. I comfort myself you will counteract some part of the injury you have done, my principles this summer, by a regular course of abuse when we meet in the winter: remember that you owe this to my moral health; next to being flattered I like to be scolded; but to be let quietly alone would be intolerable. Dr. Johnson once said to me, 'I Never mind whether they praise or abuse your writings; any thing is tolerable except oblivion.'" Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 169.-E.

Letter 340 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(664)
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 14, 1789. (PAGE 433)

I must certainly have expressed myself very awkwardly, dear Sir, if you conceive I meant the slightest censure on your book, much less on your manner of treating it; which is as able, and clear, and demonstrative as possible. No; it was myself, my age, my want of apprehension and memory, and my total ignorance of the subject, which I intended to blame. I never did taste or study the very ancient histories of nations. I never had a good memory for names of persons, regions, places, which no specific circumstances concurred to make me remember; and now, at seventy-two, when, as is common, I forget numbers of names most familiar to me, is it possible I should read with pleasure any work that consists of a vocabulary so totally new to me? Many years ago, when my faculties were much less impaired, I was forced to quit Dow's History of Indostan, because the Indian names made so little impression on me, that I went backward instead of forward, and was every minute reverting to the former page to find about whom I was reading. Your book was a still more laborious work to me; for it contains such a series of argumentation that it demanded a double effort from a weak old head; and, when I had made myself master of a deduction, I forgot it the next day, and had my pains to renew. These defects have for some time been so obvious to me, that I never read now but the most trifling books; having often said that, at the very end of life, it is useless to be improving one's stock of knowledge, great or small, for the next world. Thus, Sir, all I have said in my last letter or in this, is an encomium on your work, not a censure or criticism. It -would be hard on you, indeed, if my incapacity detracted from your merit.

Your arguments in defence of works of science and deep disquisition are most just; and I am sure I have neither power nor disposition to answer them. You have treated your matter as it ought to be treated. Profound men or conversant on the subject, like Mr. Dempster, will be pleased with it, for the very reasons that made it difficult to me. If Sir Isaac Newton had written a fairy tale, I should have swallowed it eagerly; but do you imagine, Sir, that, idle as I am, I am, idiot enough to think that Sir Isaac had better have amused me for half an hour, than enlightened mankind and all ages? I was so fair as to confess to you that your work was above me, and did not divert me: you was too candid to take that ill, and must have been content with silently thinking me very silly; and I am too candid to condemn any man for thinking of me as I deserve. I am only sorry when I do deserve a disadvantageous character.

Nay, Sir, you condescend, after all, to ask My opinion of the best way of treating antiquities; and, by the context, I suppose you mean, how to make them entertaining. I cannot answer you in one word -, because there are two ways, as there are two sorts of readers. I should therefore say, to please antiquaries of judgment, as you have treated them, with arguments and proofs; but, if you would adapt antiquities to the taste of those who read only to be diverted, not to be instructed, the nostrum is very easy and short. You must divert them in the true sense of the word diverto; you must turn them out of the way, you must treat them with digressions nothing or very little to the purpose. But, easy as I call this recipe, you, I believe, would find it more difficult to execute, than the indefatigable industry you have employed to penetrate chaos and extract the truth. There have been professors who have engaged to adapt all kinds of knowledge to the meanest capacities. I doubt their success, at least on me: however, you need not despair; all readers are not as dull and superannuated as, dear Sir, yours, etc.

(664) Now first collected.

Letter 341 To John Pinkerton, Esq,(665)
Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1789. (PAGE 434)

I will not use many words, but enough, I hope, to convince you that I meant no irony in my last. All I said of you and myself was very sincere- It is my true opinion that your understanding is one of the strongest, most manly, and clearest I ever knew; and, as I hold my own to be of a very inferior kind and know it to be incapable of sound, deep application, I should have been very foolish if I had attempted to sneer at you or your pursuits. Mine have always been light and trifling, and tended to nothing but my casual amusement; I will not say, without a little vain ambition of showing some parts but never with industry sufficient to make me apply to any thing solid. My studies, if they could be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In my latter days I discovered the utility both of my objects and writings: I felt how insignificant is the reputation of an author of mediocrity; and that, being no genius, I only added one name more to a list of writers that had told the world nothing but what it could as well be without.

These reflections were the best proofs of my sense: and, when I could see through my own vanity, there is less wonder at my discovering that such talents as I might have had, are impaired at Seventy-two. Being just to myself, I am not such a coxcomb as to be unjust to you. No, nor did I cover any irony towards you, in the opinion I gave you of making deep writings palatable to the mass of readers. Examine my words; and I am sure you will find that, if there was any thing ironic in my meaning, it was levelled at your readers, not at you. it is my opinion, that whoever wishes to be read by many, if his subject is weighty and solid, must treat the majority with more than is to his purpose. Do not you believe that twenty name Lucretius because of the poetic commencement of his books, for five that wade through his philosophy?

I promised to say but little; and, if I have explained myself clearly, I have said enough. It is not, I hope, my character to be a flatterer: I do most sincerely think you capable of great things; and I should be a pitiful knave if I told you SO, unless it was my opinion; and what end could it serve to me? Your course is but beginning; mine is almost terminated. I do not want you to throw a few daisies on my grave; and if you make the figure I augur you will, I shall not be a witness to it. Adieu, dear Sir!

(665) NOW first collected.

Letter 342 To Richard Gough, Esq.
 Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1789. (PAGE 435)

I shall heartily lament with you, Sir, the demolition of those beautiful chapels at Salisbury. I was scandalized long ago at the ruinous state in which they were indecently suffered to remain. It appears as strange, that, when a spirit of restoration and decoration has taken place, it should be mixed with barbarous innovation. As much as taste has improved, I do not believe that modern execution will equal our models. I am sorry that I can only regret, not prevent. I do not know the Bishop of Salisbury(666) even by Sight, and certainly have no credit to obstruct any of his plans. should I get sight of Mr. Wyatt, which is not easy to do, I will remonstrate against the intended alteration; but probably without success, as I do not suppose he has authority enough to interpose effectually: still I will try. It is an old complaint with me, Sir, that when families are extinct, chapters take the freedom of removing ancient monuments, and even of selling, over again the sites of such tombs. A scandalous, nay, dishonest abuse, and very unbecoming clergy! Is it creditable for divines to traffic for consecrated ground, and which the church had already sold? I do not wonder that magnificent monuments are out of fashion, when they are treated so disrespectfully. You, Sir, alone have placed several out of the reach of such a kind of simoniacal abuse; for to buy into the church, or to sell the church's land twice over, breathes a similar kind of spirit. Perhaps, as the subscription indicates taste, if some of the subscribers could be persuaded to object to the removal of the two beautiful chapels, as contrary to their view of beautifying, it might have good effect; or, if some letter were published in the papers against the destruction, as barbarous and the result of bad taste, it might divert the design. I zealously wish it were stopped, but I know none of the chapter or subscribers.(667)

(666) Dr. Shute Barrington; in 1791, translated to the see of Durham.-E.

(667) Much discussion on the subject of the injury done to Salisbury cathedral, here complained of by Walpole, took place in the Gentleman's Magazine for this and the following year. "This good," says the writer of a learned article on Cathedral Antiquities, in the Quarterly Review for 1825, "has arisen from the injury which was done at Salisbury, that in subsequent undertakings of the same kind, the architect has come to his work with Greater respect for the structures upon which he was employed, and a mind more embued with the principles of Gothic architecture."-E.

Letter 343 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Thursday evening, Aug. 27, 1789. (PAGE 436)

I jumped for joy,-that is, my heart did, which is all the remain of me that is in statu iumpante,-at the receipt of your letter this morning, which tells me you approve of the house at Teddington. How kind you was to answer so incontinently! I believe you borrowed the best steed from the races. I have sent to the landlord to come tomorrow: but I could not resist beginning my letter to-night, as I am at home alone, with a little pain in my left wrist; but the right one has no brotherly feeling for it, and would not be put off so. You ask how you have deserved such attentions? Why, by deserving them; by every kind of merit, -and by that superlative one to me, your submitting to throw away so much time on a forlorn antique—you two, who, without specifying particulars, (and you must at least be conscious that you are not two frights,) might expect any fortune and distinctions, and do delight all companies. On which side lies the Wonder? Ask me no more such questions, or I will cram you with reasons.

My poor dear niece(668) grows worse and worse: the medical people do not pretend to give us any hopes; they only say she may last some weeks, which I do not expect, nor do absent myself. I had promised Mr. Barrett to make a visit to my Gothic child, his house, on Sunday; but I have written to-day to excuse myself: so I have to the Duchess of Richmond,(669) who wanted me to meet her mother, sister,(670) and General Conway, at Goodwood next week.

I wish Lady Fitzwilliam may not hear the same bad news as I expect, in the midst of her royal visitors: her sister, the Duchess of St. Albans, is dying, in the same way as Lady, Dysart; and for some days has not been in her senses. How charming you are to leave those festivities for your good parents; who I do not wonder are impatient for you. I, who am old enough to be your great-grandmother, know one needs not be your near relation to long for your return. Of all your tour, next to your duteous visits, I most approve the jaunt to the sea - I believe in its salutary air more than in the whole college and all its works.

You must not expect any news from me, French or homebred. I am not in the way of hearing any: your morning gazetteer rarely calls on me, as I am not likely to pay him in kind. About royal progresses, paternal or filial, I never inquire; nor do you, I believe, care more than I do. The small wares in which the societies at Richmond and Hampton-court deal, are still less to our taste. My poor niece and her sisters take up most of my time and thoughts: but I will not attrist you to indulge myself, but will break off here, and finish my letter when I have seen your new landlord. Good night!

Friday.

Well! I have seen him, and nobody was ever so accommodating! He is as courteous as a candidate for a county. You may stay in his house till Christmas if you please, and shall pay but twenty pounds; and if more furniture is wanting, it shall be supplied.

(668) The Countess of Dysart.-M.B.

(669) Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Ailesbury by Caroline Campbell, daughter of General John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle.-M.B.

(670) Mrs. Damer, only child of the Dowager Countess of Ailesbury, by Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, her second husband. She was thus half-sister to the Duchess of Richmond.-M.B.

Letter 344 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1789. (PAGE 437)

You ask whether I will call you wise or stupid for leaving, York races in the middle-neither; had you chosen to stay, you would have done rightly. The more young persons see, where there is nothing blamable, the better; as increasing the stock of ideas early will be a resource for age. To resign pleasure to please tender relations is amiable, and superior to wisdom; for wisdom, however laudable, is but a selfish virtue. But I do decide peremptorily, that it was very prudent to decline the invitation to Wentworth House,(671) which was obligingly given; but, as I am very proud for you, I should have disliked your being included in a mobbish kind of colhue. You two are not to go where any other two misses would have been equally pri`ees, and where people would have been thinking of the princes more than of the Berrys. Besides, princes are so rife now, that, besides my sweet nephew(672) in the Park, we have another at Richmond: the Duke of Clarence has taken Mr. Henry Hobart's house, pointblank over against Mr. Cambridge's, which will make the good woman of that mansion cross herself piteously, and stretch the throat of the blatant beast at Sudbrook(673) and of all the other pious matrons `a la ronde; for his Royal Highness, to divert lonesomeness, has brought with him - -, who, being still more averse to solitude, declares that any tempter would make even Paradise more agreeable than a constant t`ete-`a-t`ete.

I agree with you in not thinking Beatrice one of Miss Farren's capital parts. Mrs. Pritchard played it with more spirit, and was superior to Garrick's Benedict; so is Kemble, too, as he Is to Quin in Maskwell. Kemble and Lysons the clergyman(674) passed all Wednesday here with me. The former is melting the three parts of Henry the Sixth into one piece: I doubt it will be difficult to make a tolerable play out of them.

I have talked scandal from Richmond, like its gossips; and now, by your queries after Lady Luxborough, you are drawing me into more, which I do not love: but she is dead and forgotten, except on the shelves of an old library, or on those of my old memory; which you will be routing into. The lady you wot of, then, was the first wife of Lord Catherlogh, before he was an earl; and who was son of Knight, the South Sea cashier, and whose second wife lives here at Twickenham. Lady Luxborough, a high-coloured lusty black woman, was parted from her husband, upon a gallantry she had with Dalton, the reviver of Comus and a divine. She retired into the country; corresponded, as you see by her letters, with the small poets of that time; but, having no Theseus amongst them, consoled herself, as it is said, like Ariadne, with Bacchus.(675) This might be a fable, like that of her Cretan Highness—no matter; the fry of little anecdotes are so numerous now, that throwing one more into the shoal is of no consequence, if it entertains you for a Moment; nor need you believe what I don't warrant.

Gramercy for your intention of seeing Wentworth Castle. it is my favourite of all great seats;-such a variety of ground, of wood, and water; and almost all executed and disposed with so much taste by the present Earl. Mr. Gilpin sillily could See nothing but faults there. The new front is, in my opinion, one of the lightest and most beautiful buildings on earth - and, pray like the little Gothic edifice, and its position in the menagerie! I recommended it, and had it drawn by Mr. Bentley, from Chichester Cross. Don't bring me a pair of scissors from Sheffield - I am determined nothing shall cut our loves, though I should live out the rest of Methusalem's term, as you kindly wish, and as I can believe, though you are my wives; for I am persuaded my Agnes wishes so too. Don't you?

At night.

I am just come from Cambridge's, where I have not been in an evening, time out of mind. Major Dixon, alias "the Charming man,"(676) is there; but I heard nothing of the Emperor's rickets:(677) a great deal, and many horrid stories, of the violences in France; for his brother, the Chevalier Jerningham, is Just arrived from Paris. You have heard of the destruction of thirty-two chateaus in Burgundy, at the instigation of a demon, who has since been broken on the racks. There is now assembled near Paris a body of sixteen thousand deserters, daily increasing; who, they fear, will encamp and dictate to the capital, in spite of their militia of twenty thousand bourgeois. It will soon, I suppose, ripen to several armies, and a civil war; a fine acheminement to liberty!

My poor niece is still alive, though weaker every day, and pronounced irrecoverable: yet it is possible she may live some weeks; which, however, is neither to be expected nor wished, for she eats little and sleeps less. Still she is calm, and behaves with the patience of a martyr.

You may perceive, by the former part of my letter, that I have been dipping into Spenser again, though he is no passion of mine - there I lighted upon two lines that, at first sight, reminded me of Mademoiselle d'Eon,

"Now, when Marfisa had put off her beaver,
To be a woman every one perceive her!"

but I do not think that is so perceptible in the Chevali`ere. She looked more feminine, as I remember her, in regimentals, than she does now. She is at best a heri-dragoon, or an Herculean hostess. I wonder she does not make a campaign in her own country, and offer her sword to the almost dethroned monarch, as a second Joan of Arc.(678) Adieu! for three weeks I shall say, Sancte Michael, ora pro nobis! You seem to have relinquished your plan of sea-coasting. I shall be sorry for that; it would do you good.

(671) The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were going to receive a great entertainment at Wentworth House.-M.B.

(672) The Duke of Gloucester.

(673) Lady Greenwich.

(674) The " little Daniel" of the Pursuits of Literature, brother of Samuel Lysons, the learned antiquary, and author of "The Environs, twelve miles round London," in four volumes quarto—

"Nay once, for Purer air o'er rural ground,
With little Daniel went his twelve miles round."-E.

(675) Lady Luxborough died in 1756. Her letters to Shenstone were published in 1775. In the first leaf of the original manuscript there is an autograph of the poet, describing them as being "written with abundant ease politeness, and vivacity; in which she was scarce equalled by any woman of her time." Some of her verses are printed in Dodsley's Miscellany, and Walpole has introduced her ladyship into his Noble Authors.-E.

(676) Edward Jerningham, Esq. Of Cossey, in Norfolk, uncle to the present Lord Stafford. He was distinguished in his day by the name of Jerningham the poet; but it was an unpoetical day. The stars of Byron, of Baillie, and of Scott, had not risen On the horizon. The well merited distinction of Jerningham was the friendship, affection, and intimacy which his amiable character had impressed on the author, and on all of his society mentioned in these letters.-M.B.

(677) This alludes to something said in a character which Jerningham had assumed, for the amusement of a society some time before at Marshal Conway's.-M.B.

(678) Miss More gives the following account of this extraordinary character:—"On Friday I gratified the curiosity of many years, by meeting at dinner Madame la Chevali`ere D'Eon - she is extremely entertaining, has universal information, wit, vivacity, and gaiety. Something too much of the latter (I have heard) when she has taken a bottle or two of Burgundy; but this being a very sober party, she was kept entirely within the limits of decorum. General Johnson was of the party, and it was ridiculous to hear her military conversation. Sometimes it Was, 'Quand j'`etais colonel d'un tel regiment;' then again, 'Non, c'Rait quand j'`etais secr`etaire d'ambassade du Duc de Nivernois,' or, 'Quand je n`egociais la paix de Paris.' She is, to be sure, a phenomenon in history; and, as such, a great curiosity. But one D'Eon is enough, and one slice of her quite sufficient." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 156.-E.

Letter 345 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 5, 1789. (PAGE 440)

You speak so unperemptorily of your motions, that I must direct to you at random: the most probable place where to hit you, I think, will be Goodwood; and I do address this thither, because I am impatient to thank you for your tale, which is very pretty and easy and genteel. It has made me make a reflection, and that reflection made six lines; which I send you, not as good, but as expressing my thoughts on your writing so well in various ways which you never practised when you was much younger. Here they are:

The Muse most wont to fire a youthful heart,
To gild your setting sun reserved her art;
To crown a life in virtuous labours pass'd,
Bestow'd her numbers and her wit at last;
And, when your strength and eloquence retire,
Your voice in notes harmonious shall expire.

The swan was too common a thought to be directly specified, and, perhaps, even to be alluded to: no matter, such a trifle is below criticism.

I am still here, in no uncertainty, God knows, about poor Lady Dysart (679) of whom there are not the smallest hopes. She grows weaker every day, and does actually still go out for the air, and may languish many days, though most probably will go off in a moment, As the water rises. She retains her senses perfectly, and as perfectly her unalterable calmness and patience, though fully sensible of her situation. At your return from Goodwood, I shall like to come to you, if you are unengaged, and ready to receive me. For the beauties of Park-place, I am too well acquainted with them, not, like all old persons about their contemporaries, to think it preserves them long after they are faded; and am so unwalking, that prospects are more agreeable to me when framed and glazed, and I look at them through a window. It is yourselves I want to visit, not your verdure. Indeed, except a parenthesis of scarce all August, there has been no temptation to walk abroad; and the tempter himself would not have persuaded me, if I could, to have climbed that long-lost mountain whence he could show one even the Antipodes. It rained incessantly all June and all July; and now again we have torrents every day.

Jerningham's brother, the Chevalier, is arrived from Paris, and does not diminish the horrors one hears every day. They are now in the capital dreading the sixteen thousand deserters who hover about them. I conclude that when in the character of banditti the whole disbanded army have plundered and destroyed what they can, they will congregate into separate armies under different leaders, who will hang Out different principles, and the kingdom will be a theatre of civil wars; and, instead of liberty, the nation will get petty tyrants, perhaps petty kingdoms: and when millions have suffered, or been sacrificed, the government will be no better than it was, all owing to the intemperance of the `etats, who might have obtained a good constitution, or at least one much meliorated, if they had set out with discretion and moderation. They have left too a sad lesson to despotic princes, who will quote this precedent of frantic `etats, against assembling any more, and against all the examples of senates and parliaments that have preserved rational freedom. Let me know when it will be convenient to you to receive me. Adieu!

(679) Her ladyship, who was the daughter of Sir Edward Walpole and the first wife of Lionel, fourth Earl of Dysart, died on the day this letter was written.-E.

Letter 346 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. -, 1789. (PAGE 441)

I know whence you wrote last, but not where you are now; you gave me no hint. I believe you fly lest I should pursue, and as if you were angry that I have forced you to sprout into laurels. Yet you say you are vain of it, and that you are no philosopher. Now, if you are vain I am sure you are a philosopher; for it is a maxim of mine, and one of my own making, that there never was a philosopher that did not love sweetmeats. ou tell me too, that you like I should scold you but since you have appeared as Bonner's ghost, I think I shall feel too much awe; for though (which I never expected would be in my power) I have made you stand in a white sheet, I doubt my respect is increased. I never did rate you for being too bad, but too good: and if, when you make up your week's account, YOU find but a fraction of vanity in the sum total, you will fall to repenting, and Come forth On Monday as humble as * * *. Then, if I huff my heart Out, you will only simper, and still wrap yourself up in your obstinate goodness. Well! take your own way; I give you Up to your abominable virtues, and will go answer the rest of your letter.

I congratulate you on the demolition of the Bastille; I mean as you do, of its' functions.(680) For the poor soul itself, I had no ill will to it: on the contrary, it was a curious sample of ancient castellar dungeons, which the good folks the founders took for palaces: yet I always hated to drive by it, knowing the miseries it contained. Of itself it did not gobble up prisoners to glut its maw, but received them by command. The destruction of it was silly, and agreeable to the ideas of a mob, who do not know stones and bars and bolts from a lettre de cachet. If the country remains free, the Bastille would be as tame as a ducking-Stool, now that there is no such thing as a scold. If despotism recovers, the Bastille will rise from its ashes!— recover, I fear, it will. The `Etats cannot remain a mob of kings, and will prefer a single one to a larger mob of kings and greater tyrants. The nobility, the clergy, and people of property will wait, till by address and Money they can divide the people; or, whoever gets the larger or more victorious army into his hands, will be a Cromwell or a Monk. In short, a revolution procured by a national vertigo does not promise a crop of legislators. It is time that composes a good constitution: it formed ours. We were near losing it by the lax and unconditional restoration of Charles the Second. The revolution was temperate, and has lasted; and, though it might have been improved, we know that with all its moderation it disgusted half the nation, who would have brought back the old sores. I abominate the Inquisition as much as you do: yet if the King of Spain receives no check like his cousin Louis, I fear he will not be disposed to relax any terrors. Every crowned head in Europe must ache at present; and the frantic and barbarous proceedings in France will not meliorate the stock of liberty, though for some time their majesties will be mighty tender of the rights of their subjects.

According to this hypothesis, I can administer some comfort to you about your poor negroes. I do not imagine that they will be emancipated at once; but their fate will be much alleviated, as the attempt will have alarmed their butchers enough to make them gentler, like the European monarchs, for fear of"provoking the disinterested, who have no sugar plantations, to abolish the horrid traffic.

I do not understand the manoeuvre of sugar, and, perhaps, am going to talk nonsense, as my idea maybe impracticable; but I Wish human wit, which is really very considerable in mechanics and merchantry, could devise some method of cultivating canes and making sugar without the manual labour of the human" species. How many mills and inventions have there not been discovered to supply succedaneums to the works of the hands, which before the discoveries would have been treated as visions! It is true, manual labour has sometimes taken it very ill to be excused, and has destroyed such mills; but the poor negroes would not rise and insist upon being worked to death. Pray talk to some ardent genius, but do not name me; not merely because I may have talked like an idiot, but because my ignorance might, ipso C fiacto, stamp the idea with ridicule. People, I know, do not love to be put out of their old ways: no farmer listens at first to new inventions in agriculture; and I don't doubt but bread was originally deemed a new-fangled vagary, by those who had seen their fathers live very comfortably upon acorns. Nor is there any harm in starting new game to invention: many excellent discoveries have been made by men who were a la chasse of something very different. I am not quite sure that the art of making gold and of* living for ever have been yet found out: yet to how many noble discoveries has the pursuit of those nostrums given birth! Poor chymistry, had she not had such glorious objects in view! If you are sitting under a cowslip at your cottage, these reveries may amuse you for half an hour, at least make you smile; and for the ease of your conscience, which is always in a panic, they require no answer.(681)

I will not ask you about the new history of Bristol,(682) because you are too good a citizen to say a word against your native place; but do pray cast your eye on the prints of The cathedral and castle, the chef-d',oeuvres of Chatterton's ignorance, and of Mr. Barrett's too; and on two letters pretended to have been sent to me, and which never were sent. If my incredulity had wavered, they would have fixed it. I wish the milkwoman would assert that Boadicea's dairymaid had invented Dutch tiles; it would be like Chatterton's origin of heraldry and painted glass, in those two letters. I must, however, mention one word about myself. In the new fourth volume of the Biographia Britannica I am more candidly treated about that poor lad than usual: yet the writer still affirms, that, according to my own account, my reply was too much in the-commonplace style of court replies. Now my own words, and the truth, as they stand in print in the very letter of mine which this author quotes, were, "I wrote him a letter with as much kindness and tenderness as if I had been his guardian." Is this by my own account a court-reply? Nor did I conceive, for I never was a courtier, that courtiers are wont to make tender replies to the poor; I am glad to hear they do.

I have kept this letter some days in my writing-box, till I could meet with a stray member of parliament, for it is not worth making you pay for: but when you talk to me I cannot help answering incontinently; besides, can one take up a letter at a long distance, and heat one's reply over again with the same interest that it occasioned at first? Adieu! I wish you may come to Hampton before I leave these purlieus! Yours More and More.

(680) Miss More had written to Walpole,—"Poor France! though I am sorry that the lawless rabble are so triumphant, I cannot help hoping that some good will arise from the sum of human misery having been so considerably lessened at one blow by the destruction of the Bastille. The utter extinction of the Inquisition, and the redemption of Africa, I hope yet to see accomplished." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 170.-E.

(681) To this passage Miss More thus replies:—"Your project for relieving our poor slaves by machine work is so far from being wild or chimerical, that of three persons deep and able in the concern (Mr. Wilberforce among others), not one but has thought it rational and practicable, and that a plough may be so constructed as to save much misery." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 187.-,E.

(682) "The History and Antiquities of Bristol, by William Barrett:" Bristol, 1789, quarto; a Work which Mr. Park described as " a motley compound of real and superstitious history."-E.

Letter 347 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 4, 1789. (PAGE 444)