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this once flourishing country. I am, my dear Lord,

most affectionately,

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1778.

Yours

HORACE WALPOLE.

TO GEORGE SELWYN.

Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1779.

I TAKE the liberty, which I know you will forgive, my dear sir, of troubling you with the enclosed, begging that you will add any thing that is necessary to the direction,-as par la Hollande, or whatever else is requisite, and to put it into the post as soon as you receive it. Pray tell me too, what is necessary to the direction, and where my maid in town must put in my future letters to Paris, that I may not trouble you any more with them. I fear they will not go so safely and regularly as in the old way, which will vex our good old friend,* who cannot bear to lose any of her stated occupations.

I have just received a present of four beautiful drawings of Grignan, which far exceed my ideas of its magnificence and charming situation. I had concluded that Madame de Sévigné, either from partiality or to please the Seigneur, had exceeded its pomps and command.t I long to show them to you and talk the mover, and am glad to have any thing new that may tempt you hither. Can you tell me if the Duchess of Leinster still goes to Aubigny; and, if she does, when; and if she is in London? I shall be much abliged to you for a true account of Lord Bolingbroke. It is not common curiosity that makes me anxious, though not particularly interested about him, nor is he the husband I most wish dead.

* Madame du Deffand.

Yours most sincerely,

H. W.

+ Walpole writes to the Hon. George Hardinge, on the 4th,-"I have now received the drawings of Grignan, and know not how to express my satisfaction and gratitude but by a silly witticism, that is like the studied quaintness of the last age. In short they are so much more beautiful than I expected, that I am not surprised at your having surprised me by exceeding even what I expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly executed, and with great taste. I own, too, that Grignan is grander, and in a much finer situation, than I had imagined; as I concluded that the witchery of Madame de Sévigné's ideas and style had spread the same leaf-gold over places with which she gilded her friends."-Collective Edit. vol. vi. p. 56.

Frederick, second Viscount Bolingbroke, Selwyn's early friend. He survived till May 5, 1787. VOL. II.-35

TO LORD HARCOURT.

1780.

MY LORD,

THOUGH I think myself so inconsiderable a man that it will be impertinent to give an account of my conduct to the public; yet, as I should be most unhappy to lie under any suspicion, in the eyes of my friends, of acting or being silent, from mercenary views, in the present most serious moment, I declare that my reasons for not appearing in Westminster Hall, and signing a petition to Parliament for a necessary and effectual reform of the expenditure of public money, are not from disapprobation of the measure, or from a wish that so salutary a measure should miscarry, or from the least disposition to court favour any where, or with any party; the last of which mean and interested views would be inconsistent with the whole tenor of my life, and shall never stain the small remaining part of it.

I

But the reason of my not signing such petition is, that possessing nothing but sinecure places, I must consider myself rather as a remote object of the Reformation, than as a proper person to demand it. To petition for the abolition of sinecure places, and to hope not to be included in the reduction, would be unworthy of a man. To say was ready to resign mine, would be hypocritic ostentation (for no man, I believe, is ready to part with his whole income) and would be a hardship on others in the same predicament, who should be unwilling to offer the same sacrifice, and would be honester men as more sincere.

The line of conduct, therefore, that I think the most decent for me to take, is to be totally silent, and submit myself to the determination of the legislature of my country, and to be content with what in its wisdom it shall decide for the benefit of the nation. I hold nothing from personal merit or services, and must not complain if my ease and comforts are diminished for the public good. But I cannot in conscience sign a request for the abolition of the places of others, who hold them by law, as I do mine, and who are more worthy of them than I am of mine. Neither can I demand the abolition of places not held for life, but the possessors of which are more useful members of society, have smaller incomes than mine, and execute more business than I do, who execute none-for I must speak the truth, and the whole truth. It would a be a great want of feeling and of generosity in me, to desire that any man should be discarded, who is removeable at pleasure, because nothing but a new law can remove me from my place.

Upon the whole, my Lord, it is no selfishness, or change in my principles, that makes me decline signing the petition. I shall die in the principles I have ever invariably professed. My fortune may be decreased, or taken away; but it never shall be augmented by any

employment, pension, or favour, beyond what I now enjoy by the gift of my father alone. I have more than I can pretend to deserve; and beg your Lordship, in whose incorruptible integrity I have the firmest confidence, to produce this testimony, under my own hand, if ever I deviate from what I here profess. And I will flatter myself, that if your Lordship should hear me suspected, from not signing any petition, of having swerved from my principles, you will do me the justice to defend me from that imputation. My character cannot be safer than in your Lordship's hands, and in them I beg leave to deposit it; for, as next to the imputation of being mercenary, I dread the charge of vanity, I entreat that this letter may not be made public. I am of too little consequence to give myself airs of clearing my conduct before it is censured; and am so obscure a man, that I may never be mentioned; and therefore, I will certainly not thrust myself upon the public from self-conceit and with an unnecessary parade, which I despise.

Allow me the honour of choosing your Lordship for my confessor, and with leaving my conscience in your trust. I am ready, with the utmost submission to the laws of my country, to take my fate with others in whatever shall be decided. I ask no favour or partiality, and am entitled to none; I have no merits to plead ;-but I cannot think it would become me to be at once a petitioner and a party petitioned against.

I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient humble servant,

TO THE REV. W. MASON.

HOR. WALPOLE.

1780.

You must blame yourself, not me, if you are displeased with my letters, which you forced from me. I had done all I could, both by silence, and by more than once or twice declaring I did not choose to write on politics, to avoid any political discussions with you. I could not be ignorant of Lord Harcourt's conversion, which for a moment had so much diverted the town, but I did not take the liberty to mention it to him. On the contrary, when he consulted me on going to Court, which I knew he had determined to do, on being offered the embassy to Spain, I told him I thought civility ought to be returned by respect. Neither was I quite ignorant of your change of sentiments; yet should never have uttered a syllable to you on that occasion, had you not chosen to notify it to me. Then I most certainly had an equal right to declare that my principles were not changed, especially not by a circumstance, serious indeed in itself, but ludicrous if it had produced such an effect on me as to make me

think the power of the Crown was diminished, was diminishing, and ought to be increased, because its (not secret, but open) influence had been used to force Lords of the Bed-chamber, and even the holy heads of our Church, to sacrifice his conscience, duty and opinion to his gratitude, an example that tells me how much I have been in the right never to involve myself in such terrible obligations! Ought did not become you or me.

I am so far from being hurt at your quarrelling with me, that I thank you extremely for it, and still so cordially wish you whatever you may wish for yourself, that I should delight in seeing you Archbishop of York; for as you are excellent at distinctions, you can certainly discern the difference between an Archbishop and a Bishop, as easily as between a King and his crown. I am, sir, with due regard and esteem,

Your most obedient, humble servant,

H. W.

I HAVE for five and forty years acted upon the principles of the constitution, as it was settled at the Revolution, the best form of go vernment that I know of in the world, and which made us a free peo ple, a rich people, and a victorious people, by diffusing liberty, protecting property, and encouraging commerce; and by the combination of all, empowering us to resist the ambition of the House of Bour. bon, and to place ourselves on a level with that formidable neighbour. The narrow plan of Royalty, which had so often preferred the ag grandizement of the Crown to the dignity of presiding over a great and puissant free kingdom, threw away one predominant source of our potency by aspiring to enslave America, and would now compensate for the blunder and its consequences by assuming a despotic power at home. It has found a tool in the light and juvenile son of the great Minister who carried our glory to its highest pitch. But it shall never have the insignificant approbation of an old and worn-out son of another Minister, who, though less brilliantly, maintained this country in the enjoyment of the twenty happiest years that England ever enjoyed. Your pert and ignorant Cabal at York, picking up factious slander from party libels, stigmatized that excellent man as the patron of corruption, though all his views and all his notions tended to nothing but to preserve the present family on the throne, and the nation in peace and affluence. Your own blind ambition of being the head of a party, which had no precise system in view, has made you embrace every partial sound which you took for popularity; and being enraged at every man who would not be dictated to by your crude visions, you have floundered into a thousand absurdities; and, though you set out with pretending to reform Parliament, in or der to lower the influence of the Crown, you have plunged into the most preprosperous support of prerogative, because Lord North, then

the Crown Minister, declared against your innovations, and has since fallen into disgrace with the King. I am not so little rooted in my principles as to imitate or co-operate with you. I am going out of the world, and am determined to die as I have lived-consistent. You are not much younger than I am, and ought to have acted a more temperate and rational part ;-but that is no business of mine..

TO THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

Thursday, March 13th, 1783.

YOUR Royal Highness may be surprised, madam, that after announcing the fall of Lord Shelburne, I should not have told you who was his successor. I had more reasons than one, like the Mayor of Orleans; though that one were sufficient, viz. his having no successor till yesterday. I know Lord Cholmondeley had written to the Duke; and in truth I did not care to tell foreign post-offices, though no secret, the confusion we were in. I had rather any body should publish our disgraces than I. Nay, I should perhaps have sent false news, for several appointments of Premiers were believed each for a day, and proved false the next. The post was certainly offered to and declined by young Mr. Pitt, to Lord North, Lord Gower, and, it was said, to Lord Thurlow. At last, after a vacancy of seventeen days, Lord North was summoned yesterday, and ordered to make his pro-posed arrangement; in consequence of which the Duke of Portland was sent for next, and is First Lord of the Treasury. I have not yet heard the other changes or dispositions, but suppose we shall know the principal before this shall set out to-morrow.

There have been cart-loads of abuse, satiric prints, and some little humour on the coalition of Lord North and Mr. Fox; nor has Lord Shelburne been spared before or since his exit. It is remarkable that the counties and towns are addressing thanks for the peace, which their representatives have condemned. George Selwyn has been happiest, as usual, in his bons-mots. He calls Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt the Idle and Industrious Apprentices. It is a coarser and much poorer piece of wit, I don't know whose, that the Duke of Portland is a fit block to hang Whigs on. You have seen in the papers, madam, the new peerages and pensions, and therefore I do not mention them. I very likely repeat what you hear from your daughters and others, but what can I tell but what every body knows?

My aunt Lady Walpole is dead, and they say has left but little, and that little to her two daughters. Mr. Skrine has shot himself, it is supposed, from excruciating illnesses. Old Lady Jerningham is recovering from a most violent palsy. General Conway has had as.

35*

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