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When we three meet again at Strawberry, I think I shall be able at least to divert Mr. Williams; but till then you must keep my counsel. Madame du Deffand says I have le fou mocqueur, and I have not hurt myself a little by laughing at whisk and Richardson,* though I have steered clear of the chapter of Mr. Hume;† the only Trinity now in fashion here. A propos, I see by the papers that the Bishop of London is suppressing mass-houses. When he was Bishop of Peterborough and Parson of Twickenham, he suffered one under his nose. Did the Duchess of Norfolk get him translated to London? I should conclude so; and that this was the first opportunity he had of being ungrateful. Adieu! my dear sir, yours most sincerely, HORACE WALPOLE.

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

Arlington Street, October 16, 1767. THANK YOU; I am as well as any body can be that has been drowned from above and below, that was sick to death for eight hours, with the additional mortification of finding myself not invulnerable. In short, I had every affliction from my passage, except in not catching cold; so that on that side I am still first-cousin to Hercules.

I find London as empty as possible, and politics quite asleep,-I

his work, the " Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." Voltaire addresses him,

Henault, fameux par vos soupers,
Et votre Chronologie, &c.

Henault was the intimate friend of Madame du Deffand, and his table was the resort of all the men of wit and talent of the French capital. He died in 1770. -ED.

"High as Richardson's reputation stood in his own country, it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany, whose imaginations are more easily excited, and their passions more easily moved, by tales of fictitious distress, than are the cold-blooded English. Foreigners of distinction have been known to visit Hampstead, and to inquire for the Flask Walk, distinguished as a scene in Clarissa's History, just as travellers visit the rocks of Meillerie to view the localities of Rousseau's tale of passion. Diderot vied with Rousseau in heaping incense upon the shrine of the English author. The former compares him to Homer, and predicts for his memory the same honours which are rendered to the father of epic poetry ; and the last, besides his well-known burst of eloquent panegyric, records his opi nion in a letter to D'Alembert: On n'a jamais fait encore, en quelque langue que ce soit, de roman égal à Clarisse, ni même approchant.'" Sir Walter Scott, Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 48.-ED.

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Hume, as Secretary of the Embassy under the Earl of Hertford, and afterwards as Chargé d'Affaires at Paris, had rendered himself personally no less popu lar in France than Richardson had done by his sentimentalities.-ED.

In his passage from France. Walpole quitted Paris for England on the 6th of this month.-ED.

mean, in town. In the counties they are all mad about elections. The Duke of Portland, they say, carried thirty thousand pounds to Carlisle, and it is all gone already. Lord Clive is going before his money, and not likely to live three months.

Lady Bolingbroke has declared she will come into waiting on Sunday se'nnight; but as the Queen is likely to be brought to bed before that time, this may only be a bravado. The report is, that she intends to acknowledge all my Lord can desire.

I found Lord Holland most remarkably mended in his health. Lady Holland has set out to-day, and he follows her to-morrow. I beg you will tell the Marquise de Broglie, (whom you will see at the President's,) that Lord Holland carries her a box of pimpernel seed, and will leave it at Mons. Panchaud's, whither she must send for it. I hope you will be so good as not to forget this; nor another little commission, which is, to ask Madame Geoffrin where Mons. Guibert, the King's carver, lives, and then to send him a guinea, for a drawing he made for me, which I will deduct from the lottery tickets which I have bought for you, at twelve pounds seventeen and sixpence a-piece. The numbers are, 17574, on which I have written your name and Mad. de Bentheim's, and 26442, on which I have written Wiart's.

I have twice called on my Lady Townshend, but missed her; I am now going to her by appointment.

Pray tell Lord Carlisle that I delivered his letters and parcels. Say a great deal for me to Madame du Deffand and Lord March, who I need not say are what I left best at Paris. Do not stay for more hurricanes and bad weather, but come away the first fine day. Adieu! Yours ever,

A Monsieur, Monsieur Selwyn,

à l'Hôtel de Duc de York, Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germain, à Paris.

H. W.

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1771.

WHO would ever have thought that Raton and Rosettef would be talked of for one another? But neither innocence nor age are secure! People say that there never is a smoke without some fire: here is a striking proof to the contrary. Only think of the poor dear souls having a comic opera made upon their loves.* Rosette is so shocked that she insists upon Raton's posting to Paris and breaking

*The Queen was brought to bed of the late Duke of Kent, father of her present Majesty, on the 2d of November.-ED.

The names of two dogs belonging to George Selwyn and Horace Walpole. -ED.

the poet's bone's sauf à les ronger après. If he is a preux chevalier, he will vindicate her character d'une manière éclatante. Do not tell me that you are lying-in and cannot spare him; I am sure you are so fond of your little girl, that you will not miss him.

Have you heard the last adventure of the fiancée du Roi de Garbe? She was seven years and a half at sea; the captain of the packet-boat is tall, comely enough, and a very shark on such an occasion. He snapped her up at once as voraciously as she did John Harding. They passed a week together at Calais, and he then consigned her over to a marching regiment at Ardres. Alfierit told this story himself to Monsieur Francès, from whom I had it fresh. Alfieri's sentiments, that had resisted so many trials, could not digest this last chapter; he has given her up. I wish, when she has run the gauntlet through all the troops on the road to Paris, she may replace Madame du Barry, and prove la fiancée du Roi de France.

Yours ever,

H. WALPOLE.

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

York, Aug. 12th, 1772.

DEAR GEORGE.

I LOVE to please you when it is in my power, and how can I please you more than by commending Castle Howard? for though it is not the House that Jack built, yet you love even the cow with the crumpled horn that feeds in the meadow that belongs to the House that Jack's grand-father built. Indeed, I can say with exact truth, that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanbrugh, and how Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another; nay, I have heard

* Le Journal des Spectacles, 28 August, 1771, contains the following bill under the head of "La Comédie Italienne."

RATON ET ROSETTE,

Parodie rémise au Théâtre,
Avec ses agrémens;
Précédée Du MARECHAL.
On prendra 6 liv. et

Demain la troisième Réprésentation
Des DEUX MILICIENS,

Comédie nouvelle en un Acte.
Suivi d'un Divertissement,

Précédée

Des INTRIGUES D'ARLEQUIN,

Pièce Italienne.

On commencera à cinq heures et un quart.-ED.

Alfieri had recently visited England, where he had distinguished himself by

his numerous gallantries.

of glorious views, and Lord Stafford alone had told me I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire; but nobody, no, not votre partialité, as Louis Quatorze would have called you, had informed me that I should at one view see a palace, a town, a fortified city, temples on high paces, woods worthy of being each a metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic places before, but never a sublime one. For the House, Vanbrugh has even shown taste in its extent and cupolas, and has mercifully omitted ponderosity. Sir Thomas's front is beautiful without, and, except in one or two spots, has not a bad effect, and I think, without much ef fort of genius, or much expense, might be tolerably harmonized with the rest. The spaces within are noble, and were wanted; even the hall being too small. Now I am got into the hall, I must beg, when you are in it next, to read Lord Carlisle's verses on Gray, and then write somewhere under the story of Phaeton these lines, which I ought to have made extempore, but did not till I was half way back thither:

Carlisle, expunge the form of Phaeton;
Assume the car, and grace it with thy own,
For Phoebus owns in thee no falling son.

Oh! George, were I such a poet as your friend, and possessed such a Parnassus, I would instantly scratch my name out of the buttery-book of Almack's; be admitted, ad eundem, among the muses; and save every doit to lay it out in making a Helicon, and finishing my place.

I found my Lord Northampton :* his name is on his picture, though they showed me his nephew Suffolk's portrait, who was much fatter, for his. There is a delicious whole-length of Queen Mary, with all her folly in her face and her hand, and a thousand other things, which I long to talk over with you. When you write to Spa, pray thank Lord Carlisle, for the great civilities I received here. The house-keeper showed me and told me every thing, and even was so kind as to fetch Rosette a basin of water, which completed the conquest of my heart. Wine I was offered, and fruit was heaped on me, and even dinner was tendered; in short I never passed a day more to my content. I only wanted you, and I should have been as happy as I was at Iceaux; you know my ecstacies when I am really pleased. By the end of next week I shall be in town, and hope to find you there, that we may satisfy both ourselves with larger details.

When I mentioned the attentions paid to me, I am ungrateful to

*Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, so celebrated for his share in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, died June 15th, 1614.-ED.

VOL. II.-34

forget the sun, who was complaisance itself, shone all day, gilt a hundred hay-cocks that were spread over the great lawn, and illuminated the mausoleum during my dinner. And now, will you tell me that Lord Carlisle is not nearer related to him than some folks thought? Let me tell you, this is much better authenticated than his lordship's priority to Howard of Corbie, in which you are mistaken, and so good night,

Your most cordially,

HOR. WALPOLE,

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

Strawberry Hill, Wednesday, Aug. 10th, at night. [1774.]

I THINK I shall be with you on Saturday; at least I know that I intend to set out to-morrow and lie at Park Place; but it is so formidable to me to begin a journey, and I have changed my mind so often about this, though I like it so much, that I beg you will not be disappointed if you do not see me. If I were juvenile enough to set off at midnight and travel all night, you would be sure of me; but folks who do any thing eagerly, neither know nor care what they do. Sedate me, who deliberate, at least do not determine but on preference; therefore, if I surmount difficulties, I shall at least have some merit with you; and, if I do not, you must allow that the difficulties were prodigious, when they surmounted so much inclination.

In this wavering situation I wish you good-night, and hope I shall wake to-morrow as resolute as Hercules or Mr. Bruce ; but pray do not give me live beef for supper.

To George Augustus Selwyn, Esq.,

at Matson, near Gloucester.

Yours ever,

H. W.

* The celebrated Abyssinian traveller. After surviving perils, such as it has been the fate of few men to encounter, he died by an accidental fall down stairs, while taking farewell of some guests, in April, 1794. Notwithstanding the difficulties spoken of by Mr. Walpole, he visited his friend as we find by the following letter to the Rev. Mr. Cole, dated the 15th March :-" Matson, near Gloucester. You will not dislike my date. I am in the very mansion where King Charles and his two eldest sons lay during the siege; and there are marks of the last's hacking with his hanger on a window, as he told Mr. Selwyn's grandfather. The present master has done due honour to the royal residence, and erected a good marble bust of the martyr, in a little gallery. In a window is a shield in painted glass, with that King's and his Queen's arms, which I gave him. So you see I am not a rebel, when alma mater antiquity stands godmother."

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