LETTER CCCXL.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 12, 1780.

YOUR Florence, no doubt, is much occupied by the death of the Empress-Queen.* It turns all eyes on the Emperor, and sets thousands of tongues to work, the owners of every one of which will expect to pass for a prophet, if Cæsar within these two years takes one step which is at all like twenty, any one of which it is probable he may take. I was with you just forty years ago, when the departed Empress came to the crown. What a tide of events that era occasioned! You and I shall not see much of what this may produce and therefore I will not guess at a history that is in its cradle for me, and that I shall not be acquainted with when it is come to years of discretion. I wish our own wars were come to that pass!

* Maria-Theresa, Empress of Germany, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and hereditary Archduchess of Austria. This great Princess, mother of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, died at Vienna on the 29th of November, in her sixty-third year.—ED.

In a letter dated Florence, July 9, 1740, Walpole thus wrote to his friend Conway: "I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation; I am lodged with Mr. Mann, the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery, on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me is the famous Gallery; and on either hand two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a light gauze to keep away the gnats. The people are good-humoured here, and easy; and, what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it."-Collective Edition, vol. i. P. 50.-ED.

The new Parliament, which is now gone to keep its Christmas, has been but little ruffled; nay, as if there were no new matter, they are to tap again, after the holidays, the whole story of Keppel and Palliser. Indeed, at this instant, the town expect news of an engagement between Darby and D'Estaing; though I think there are more reasons for not thinking it probable however, I have still less skill in naval matters than even in others.

Our old acquaintance, Lord Pomfret, has taken his chastisement very patiently, which looks less mad than he was thought.*

This is the sum of my present knowledge and thus a most turbulent year has the appearance of concluding drowsily enough; and, for fleets and armies, their exploits on both sides would lie in a nutshell. An historian may be sorry, but a man of feeling must rejoice that such scourges as armaments may do such little mischief to the human race. Fame cannot be acquired but by the groans of hospitals full of sufferers! The last act of the Empress-Queen, the stemming the torrent of blood between her son and the King of Prussia, is in my eyes the brightest in her annals.

* Lord Pomfret was reprimanded at the bar of the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor. On being taken from it and admitted to his seat, he engaged upon his honour not to pursue further any measure of violence against the person of the Duke of Grafton.-En.

LETTER CCCXLI.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 21, 1780.

I AM sorry that my letters of late years contain so many eras; this dates a new one, of an additional war with Holland. The Manifesto of our Court appeared in the Gazette Extraordinary this morning. I am no prophesying politician, you know; and if I were, as I am too old to be a sanguine one, I should not disperse my Sibylline leaves about Europe.

Another fact, that must speak for itself, is, that Admiral Darby has brought his fleet home, as D'Estaing has led the French and Spanish squadrons and the trade to Brest. Pray desire the Emperor to leave Ostend open, or I shall not be able to write to you at all. It is not very pleasant at present; for, with so many intervening enemies and interlopers, one can converse with no more frankness than in a congress of Ambassadors. I write as much as I can for your satisfaction, but no Continental post-office will ever learn from me a tittle they did not know before. You may suffer by it, but I am sure approve me. Do not imagine there is either tædium or air in this. I do know nothing before it has happened: it is merely my own comment that I suppress, as I love my country too well to treat foreigners with anything I am sorry for.

Having thus said my say, I have nothing of the least consequence to add. The town is, and will be

empty till the Parliament meets; and then people will return, because it is the fashion to go to Newmarket : for, in countries that are or have been great, the chief philosophers are such as have no philosophy, and who consign over to the inferior classes the sense of public calamities. In fact, the world is grown more intrepid than in ancient days. Our progenitors braved enemies; we moderns defy elements, and do not, like the effeminate Greeks and Romans, go into winter quarters at the back of the almanack; and thence winds, waves, and climates gain the most considerable victories. There has been a hurricane at St. Kitt's, that, according to the etiquette of destruction, deserves a triumphal arch,—perhaps opima spolia, for nothing has yet been heard of Admiral Rowley! Oh! but I cannot sport, when humanity aches in every nerve ! and when the seals of a new book are opened, like those in the Revelations! I detest war, nor can perceive that anybody has cause to exult in it. Adieu!

LETTER CCCXLII.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 31, 1780.

I HAVE received, and thank you much for the

* During this dreadful hurricane, the squadron under the command of Admiral Rowley returned to Jamaica, mostly dismasted, and all disabled. The Stirling Castle was lost on the coast of Hispaniola, and only fifty of the crew saved; and the Thunderer, under the conduct of Commodore the Honourable Boyle Walsingham, son of the Earl of Shannon, was so completely swallowed up by this conflict of the elements, that no memorial or particulars of her catastrophe ever came to light.— ED.

curious history of the Count and Countess of Albany; what a wretched conclusion of a wretched family! Surely no royal race was ever so drawn to the dregs! The other Countess + you mention seems to approach still nearer to dissolution. Her death a year or two ago might have prevented the sale of the pictures,— not that I know it would. Who can say what madness in the hands of villainy would or would not have done? Now, I think, her dying would only put more into the reach of rascals. But I am indifferent what they do; nor, but thus occasionally, shall I throw away a thought on that chapter.

All chance of accommodation with Holland is vanished. Count Welderen and his wife departed this morning. All they who are to gain by privateers and captures are delighted with a new field of plunder. Piracy is more practicable than victory. Not being an admirer of wars, I shall reserve my feux de joie for peace.

My letters, I think, are rather eras than journals. Three days ago commenced another date the esta

* The Pretender's wife complaining to the Great-Duke of her husband's beastly behaviour to her, that Prince contrived her escape into a convent, and thence sent her to Rome, where she was protected by the Cardinal of York, her husband's brother. [After the death of the Pretender in 1788, the Countess of Albany travelled in Italy and France, and lived with the celebrated Alfieri, to whom she was said to have been privately married. On the breaking out of the French Revolution, she took refuge in England. For Walpole's account of his interview with, and description of, her in 1791, see Collective Edition, vol. vi. p. 436.ED.]

+ The Countess of Orford. [The Countess died in the following month at Pisa.-ED.]