Horace Walpole and his World

“Democritus.

“P.S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, ‘Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,—he always stood the whole time.’ ‘Madam,’ said I, ‘when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones.’ I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace’s ghost, the instant they meet.”

The King’s marriage followed a few months later:

“Arlington Street, Sept. 10, 1761.

“When we least expected the Queen, she came, after being ten days at sea, but without sickness for above half-an-hour. She was gay the whole voyage, sung to her harpsichord, and left the door of her cabin open. They made the coast of Suffolk last Saturday, and on Monday morning she landed at Harwich; so prosperously has Lord Anson executed his commission. She lay that night at your old friend Lord Abercorn’s, at Witham in Essex; and, if she judged by her host, must have thought she was coming to reign in the realm of taciturnity. She arrived at St. James’s a quarter after three on Tuesday the 8th. When she first saw the Palace she turned pale: the Duchess of Hamilton smiled. ‘My dear Duchess,’ said the Princess, ‘you may laugh; you have been married twice; but it is no joke to me.’ Is this a bad proof of her sense? On the journey they wanted her to curl her toupet. ‘No, indeed,’ said she, ‘I think it looks as well as those of the ladies who have been sent for me: if the King would have me wear a periwig, I will; otherwise I shall let myself alone.’ The Duke of York gave her his hand at the garden-gate: her lips trembled, but she jumped out with spirit. In the garden the King met her; she would have fallen at his feet; he prevented and embraced her, and led her into the apartments, where she was received by the Princess of Wales and Lady Augusta: these three princesses only dined with the King. At ten the procession went to chapel, preceded by unmarried daughters of peers, and peeresses in plenty. The new Princess was led by the Duke of York and Prince William; the Archbishop married them; the King talked to her the whole time with great good humour, and the Duke of Cumberland gave her away. She is not tall, nor a beauty; pale, and very thin; but looks sensible, and is genteel. Her hair is darkish and fine; her forehead low, her nose very well, except the nostrils spreading too wide; her mouth has the same fault, but her teeth are good.32 She talks a good deal, and French tolerably; possesses herself, is frank, but with great respect to the King. After the ceremony, the whole company came into the drawing-room for about ten minutes, but nobody was presented that night. The Queen was in white and silver; an endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet, lined with ermine, and attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes halfway down her waist. On her head was a beautiful little tiara of diamonds; a diamond necklace, and a stomacher of diamonds, worth three score thousand pounds, which she is to wear at the Coronation too. Her train was borne by the ten bridesmaids, Lady Sarah Lenox, Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Caroline Montagu, Lady Harriot Bentinck, Lady Anne Hamilton, Lady Essex Kerr (daughters of Dukes of Richmond, Bedford, Manchester, Portland, Hamilton, and Roxburgh); and four daughters of the Earls of Albemarle, Brook, Harcourt, and Ilchester,—Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Louisa Greville, Elizabeth Harcourt, and Susan Fox Strangways: their heads crowned with diamonds, and in robes of white and silver. Lady Caroline Russell is extremely handsome; Lady Elizabeth Keppel very pretty; but with neither features nor air, nothing ever looked so charming as Lady Sarah Lenox; she has all the glow of beauty peculiar to her family. As supper was not ready, the Queen sat down, sung, and played on the harpsichord to the Royal Family, who all supped with her in private. They talked of the different German dialects; the King asked if the Hanoverian was not pure—‘Oh, no, sir,’ said the Queen; ‘it is the worst of all.’—She will not be unpopular.

“The Duke of Cumberland told the King that himself and Lady Augusta were sleepy. The Queen was very averse to leave the company, and at last articled that nobody should accompany her but the Princess of Wales and her own two German women, and that nobody should be admitted afterwards but the King—they did not retire till between two and three.

“The next morning the King had a Levee. After the Levee there was a Drawing-Room; the Queen stood under the throne: the women were presented to her by the Duchess of Hamilton, and then the men by the Duke of Manchester; but as she knew nobody, she was not to speak. At night there was a ball, drawing-rooms yesterday and to-day, and then a cessation of ceremony till the Coronation, except next Monday, when she is to receive the address of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, sitting on the throne attended by the bridesmaids. A ridiculous circumstance happened yesterday; Lord Westmoreland, not very young nor clear-sighted, mistook Lady Sarah Lenox for the Queen, kneeled to her, and would have kissed her hand if she had not prevented him. People think that a Chancellor of Oxford was naturally attracted by the blood of Stuart. It is as comical to see Kitty Dashwood, the famous old beauty of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, living in the palace as Duenna to the Queen. She and Mrs. Broughton, Lord Lyttelton’s ancient Delia, are revived again in a young court that never heard of them. There, I think you could not have had a more circumstantial account of a royal wedding from the Heralds’ Office. Adieu!

“Yours to serve you,“Horace Sandford,“Mecklenburgh King-at-Arms.”

The Coronation of the King and Queen took place on the 22nd of September, 1761, a fortnight after their marriage. Walpole writes to Mann:

“Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1761.

“What is the finest sight in the world? A Coronation. What do people talk most about? A Coronation. Indeed, one had need be a handsome young peeress not to be fatigued to death with it. After being exhausted with hearing of nothing else for six weeks, and having every cranny of my ideas stuffed with velvet and ermine, and tresses, and jewels, I thought I was very cunning in going to lie in Palace-yard, that I might not sit up all night in order to seize a place. The consequence of this wise scheme was, that I did not get a wink of sleep all night; hammering of scaffolds, shouting of people, relieving guards, and jangling of bells, was the concert I heard from twelve to six, when I rose; and it was noon before the procession was ready to set forth, and night before it returned from the Abbey. I then saw the Hall, the dinner, and the champion, a gloriously illuminated chamber, a wretched banquet, and a foolish puppet-show. A Trial of a peer, though by no means so sumptuous, is a preferable sight, for the latter is interesting. At a Coronation one sees the peerage as exalted as they like to be, and at a Trial as much humbled as a plebeian wishes them. I tell you nothing of who looked well; you know them no more than if I told you of the next Coronation. Yes, two ancient dames whom you remember, were still ornaments of the show,—the Duchess of Queensberry and Lady Westmoreland. Some of the peeresses were so fond of their robes, that they graciously exhibited themselves for a whole day before to all the company their servants could invite to see them. A maid from Richmond begged leave to stay in town because the Duchess of Montrose was only to be seen from two to four. The Heralds were so ignorant of their business, that, though pensioned for nothing but to register lords and ladies, and what belongs to them, they advertised in the newspaper for the Christian names and places of abode of the peeresses. The King complained of such omissions and of the want of precedent; Lord Effingham, the Earl Marshal, told him, it was true there had been great neglect in that office, but he had now taken such care of registering directions, that next coronation would be conducted with the greatest order imaginable. The King was so diverted with this flattering speech that he made the earl repeat it several times.

“On this occasion one saw to how high-water-mark extravagance is risen in England. At the Coronation of George II. my mother gave forty guineas for a dining-room, scaffold, and bedchamber. An exactly parallel apartment, only with rather a worse view, was this time set at three hundred and fifty guineas—a tolerable rise in thirty-three years! The platform from St. Margaret’s Round-house to the church-door, which formerly let for forty pounds, went this time for two thousand four hundred pounds. Still more was given for the inside of the Abbey. The prebends would like a Coronation every year. The King paid nine thousand pounds for the hire of jewels; indeed, last time, it cost my father fourteen hundred to bejewel my Lady Orford. A single shop now sold six hundred pounds’ sterling worth of nails—but nails are risen—so is everything, and everything adulterated. If we conquer Spain, as we have done France, I expect to be poisoned.”

An observation as awkward as that of Lord Effingham had been made by the beautiful Lady Coventry to George II. “She was tired of sights,” she said; “there was only one left that she wanted to see, and that was a coronation.” The old man, says Walpole, told the story himself at supper to his family with great good humour. As it happened, he outlived Lady Coventry by a few days.

CHAPTER IV

General Taste for Pleasure.—Entertainments at Twickenham and Esher.—Miss Chudleigh’s Ball.—Masquerade at Richmond House.—The Gallery at Strawberry Hill.—Balls.—The Duchess of Queensberry.—Petition of the Periwig-makers.—Ladies’ Head-gear.—Almack’s.—The Castle of Otranto.—Plans for a Bower.—A Late Dinner.—Walpole’s Idle Life.—Social usages.

For some years after the arrival of the Queen, the enlivening influence of a new reign is clearly traceable in Walpole’s letters. The Court, indeed, did not willingly contribute much to the national gaiety. Its plainness and economy soon incurred reproach;33 while there were intervals in which the first uncertain signs of mental derangement caused the young King to be withdrawn from public observation. Still there were christenings and birthdays, with now and then a wedding, to be celebrated in the royal family; and the State festivities, unavoidable on these occasions, were eagerly emulated by the nobility. The Peace of Paris, too, was not only welcomed with popular rejoicings, but produced a general stir in society by the renewed intercourse which it brought about between France and England. “The two nations,” writes Horace, “are crossing over and figuring-in.” A trifle restrained by the example of the Court and the presence of foreign visitors, the appetite for pleasure became universal among the English higher classes. Lord Bute and the Princess of Wales, Wilkes and the North Briton, the debates on privilege and on general warrants, divided the attention of Walpole’s world with the last entertainment at the Duke of Richmond’s or Northumberland House, with Miss Chudleigh’s last ball, with the riots at Drury Lane Theatre, with the fêtes in honour of the marriage of the Princess Augusta and the Prince of Brunswick, or, somewhat later, of the ill-starred union between the Princess Caroline and the King of Denmark. We hear no more of frolics at Vauxhall, but we find galas, masquerades, ridottos, festinos, displays of fireworks following each other in rapid succession through our author’s pages; sometimes several such scenes are described in the same letter. There is, of course, much sameness in these descriptions, but some passages serve to illustrate the tastes of the age. We will make three or four brief extracts. Our first choice is an account of two entertainments given to French guests of rank, one by Horace himself at Strawberry Hill, the other by Miss Pelham at the country seat celebrated by Pope and Thomson. The whole story is contained in a letter to George Montagu, written in May, 1763:

“‘On vient de nous donner une très jolie fête au château de Straberri: tout étoit tapissé de narcisses, de tulipes, et de lilacs; des cors de chasse, des clarionettes; des petits vers galants faits par des fées, et qui se trouvoient sous la presse; des fruits à la glace, du thé, du caffé, des biscuits, et force hot-rolls.’34—This is not the beginning of a letter to you, but of one that I might suppose sets out to-night for Paris, or rather, which I do not suppose will set out thither; for though the narrative is circumstantially true, I don’t believe the actors were pleased enough with the scene, to give so favourable an account of it.

“The French do not come hither to see. A l’Anglaise happened to be the word in fashion; and half a dozen of the most fashionable people have been the dupes of it. I take for granted that their next mode will be à l’Iroquaise, that they may be under no obligation of realising their pretensions. Madame de Boufflers I think will die a martyr to a taste, which she fancied she had, and finds she has not. Never having stirred ten miles from Paris, and having only rolled in an easy coach from one hotel to another on a gliding pavement, she is already worn out with being hurried from morning till night from one sight to another. She rises every morning so fatigued with the toils of the preceding day, that she has not strength, if she had inclination, to observe the least, or the finest thing she sees! She came hither to-day to a great breakfast I made for her, with her eyes a foot deep in her head, her hands dangling, and scarce able to support her knitting-bag. She had been yesterday to see a ship launched, and went from Greenwich by water to Ranelagh. Madame Dusson, who is Dutch-built, and whose muscles are pleasure-proof, came with her; there were besides, Lady Mary Coke, Lord and Lady Holdernesse, the Duke and Duchess of Grafton, Lord Hertford, Lord Villiers, Offley, Messieurs de Fleury, D’Eon, et Duclos. The latter is author of the Life of Louis Onze; dresses like a dissenting minister, which I suppose is the livery of a bel esprit, and is much more impetuous than agreeable. We breakfasted in the great parlour, and I had filled the hall and large cloister by turns with French horns and clarionettes. As the French ladies had never seen a printing-house, I carried them into mine; they found something ready set, and desiring to see what it was, it proved as follows:

“The Press speaks—“For Madame De Boufflers“‘The graceful fair, who loves to know,Nor dreads the north’s inclement snow;Who bids her polish’d accent wearThe British diction’s harsher air;Shall read her praise in every climeWhere types can speak or poets rhyme.“For Madame Dusson“Feign not an ignorance of what I speak;You could not miss my meaning were it Greek:’Tis the same language Belgium utter’d first,The same which from admiring Gallia burst.True sentiment a like expression pours;Each country says the same to eyes like yours.

“You will comprehend that the first speaks English, and that the second does not; that the second is handsome, and the first not; and that the second was born in Holland. This little gentilesse pleased, and atoned for the popery35 of my house, which was not serious enough for Madame de Boufflers, who is Montmorency, et du sang du premier Chrétien; and too serious for Madame Dusson, who is a Dutch Calvinist.… The Gallery is not advanced enough to give them any idea at all, as they are not apt to go out of their way for one; but the Cabinet, and the glory of yellow glass at top, which had a charming sun for a foil, did surmount their indifference, especially as they were animated by the Duchess of Grafton, who had never happened to be here before, and who perfectly entered into the air of enchantment and fairyism, which is the tone of the place, and was peculiarly so to-day.

“Thursday.

“I am ashamed of myself to have nothing but a journal of pleasures to send you; I never passed a more agreeable day than yesterday. Miss Pelham gave the French an entertainment at Esher; but they have been so feasted and amused, that none of them were well enough, or reposed enough, to come, but Nivernois and Madame Dusson. The rest of the company were, the Graftons, Lady Rockingham, Lord and Lady Pembroke.… The day was delightful, the scene transporting; the trees, lawns, concaves, all in the perfection in which the ghost of Kent36 would joy to see them. At twelve we made the tour of the farm in eight chaises and calashes, horsemen, and footmen, setting out like a picture of Wouverman’s. My lot fell in the lap of Mrs. Anne Pitt,37 which I could have excused, as she was not at all in the style of the day, romantic, but political. We had a magnificent dinner, cloaked in the modesty of earthenware; French horns and hautboys on the lawn. We walked to the Belvidere on the summit of the hill, where a theatrical storm only served to heighten the beauty of the landscape, a rainbow on a dark cloud falling precisely behind the tower of a neighbouring church, between another tower and the building at Claremont. Monsieur de Nivernois, who had been absorbed all day, and lagging behind, translating my verses, was delivered of his version, and of some more lines which he wrote on Miss Pelham in the Belvidere, while we drank tea and coffee. From thence we passed into the wood, and the ladies formed a circle on chairs before the mouth of the cave, which was overhung to a vast height with woodbines, lilacs, and laburnums, and dignified by the tall shapely cypresses. On the descent of the hill were placed the French horns; the abigails, servants, and neighbours wandering below by the river; in short, it was Parnassus, as Watteau would have painted it. Here we had a rural syllabub, and part of the company returned to town; but were replaced by Giardini and Onofrio, who with Nivernois on the violin, and Lord Pembroke on the base, accompanied Miss Pelham, Lady Rockingham, and the Duchess of Grafton, who sang. This little concert lasted till past ten; then there were minuets, and as we had several couples left, it concluded with a country dance. I blush again, for I danced, but was kept in countenance by Nivernois, who has one wrinkle more than I have. A quarter after twelve they sat down to supper, and I came home by a charming moonlight. I am going to dine in town, and to a great ball with fireworks at Miss Chudleigh’s, but I return hither on Sunday, to bid adieu to this abominable Arcadian life; for really when one is not young, one ought to do nothing but s’ennuyer; I will try, but I always go about it awkwardly.”

Two days later this indefatigable chronicler of trifles describes to Conway the fête given by Miss Chudleigh, afterwards known as the Duchess of Kingston, but at that time a maid of honour to the Princess-Dowager of Wales:

“Oh, that you had been at her ball t’other night! History could never describe it and keep its countenance. The Queen’s real birthday, you know, is not kept: this Maid of Honour kept it—nay, while the Court is in mourning, expected people to be out of mourning; the Queen’s family really was so, Lady Northumberland having desired leave for them. A scaffold was erected in Hyde-park for fireworks. To show the illuminations without to more advantage, the company were received in an apartment totally dark, where they remained for two hours.… The fireworks were fine, and succeeded well. On each side of the court were two large scaffolds for the Virgin’s38 tradespeople. When the fireworks ceased, a large scene was lighted in the court, representing their Majesties; on each side of which were six obelisks, painted with emblems, and illuminated; mottoes beneath in Latin and English.… The lady of the house made many apologies for the poorness of the performance, which she said was only oil-paper, painted by one of her servants; but it really was fine and pretty. Behind the house was a cenotaph for the Princess Elizabeth, a kind of illuminated cradle; the motto, All the honours the dead can receive. This burying-ground was a strange codicil to a festival; and, what was more strange, about one in the morning, this sarcophagus burst out into crackers and guns. The Margrave of Anspach began the ball with the Virgin. The supper was most sumptuous.”

A fortnight afterwards he writes:

“June 7th.

“Last night we had a magnificent entertainment at Richmond House, a masquerade and fireworks. A masquerade was a new sight to the young people, who had dressed themselves charmingly, without having the fear of an earthquake before their eyes, though Prince William and Prince Henry39 were not suffered to be there. The Duchesses of Richmond and Grafton, the first as a Persian Sultana, the latter as Cleopatra,—and such a Cleopatra! were glorious figures, in very different styles. Mrs. Fitzroy in a Turkish dress, Lady George Lenox and Lady Bolingbroke as Grecian girls, Lady Mary Coke as Imoinda, and Lady Pembroke as a pilgrim, were the principal beauties of the night. The whole garden was illuminated, and the apartments. An encampment of barges decked with streamers in the middle of the Thames, kept the people from danger, and formed a stage for the fireworks, which were placed, too, along the rails of the garden. The ground rooms lighted, with suppers spread, the houses, covered and filled with people, the bridge, the garden full of masks, Whitehall crowded with spectators to see the dresses pass, and the multitude of heads on the river who came to light by the splendour of the fire-wheels, composed the gayest and richest scene imaginable, not to mention the diamonds and sumptuousness of the habits. The Dukes of York and Cumberland, and the Margrave of Anspach, were there, and about six hundred masks.”

In the intervals of these engagements, he is busy at Strawberry Hill. Thus, in arranging a short visit to George Montagu, he says (July 1):

“The journey you must accept as a great sacrifice either to you or to my promise, for I quit the Gallery almost in the critical minute of consummation. Gilders, carvers, upholsterers, and picture-cleaners are labouring at their several forges, and I do not love to trust a hammer or a brush without my own supervisal. This will make my stay very short, but it is a greater compliment than a month would be at another season; and yet I am not profuse of months. Well, but I begin to be ashamed of my magnificence; Strawberry is growing sumptuous in its latter day; it will scarce be any longer like the fruit of its name, or the modesty of its ancient demeanour, both which seem to have been in Spenser’s prophetic eye, when he sung of

“‘– the blushing strawberriesWhich lurk, close-shrouded from high-looking eyes,Showing that sweetness low and hidden lies.’

“In truth, my collection was too great already to be lodged humbly; it has extended my walls, and pomp followed. It was a neat, small house; it now will be a comfortable one, and, except one fine apartment, does not deviate from its simplicity. Adieu! I know nothing about the world, and am only Strawberry’s and yours sincerely.”

Our next extract shows that, however fond of frequenting large parties, the writer had little inclination to give them, at any rate, in his toy-house:

“We had, last Monday, the prettiest ball that ever was seen, at Mrs. Anne Pitt’s, in the compass of a silver penny. There were one hundred and four persons, of which number fifty-five supped. The supper-room was disposed with tables and benches back to back, in the manner of an ale-house. The idea sounds ill; but the fairies had so improved upon it, had so be-garlanded, so sweetmeated, and so desserted it, that it looked like a vision. I told her she could only have fed and stowed so much company by a miracle, and that, when we were gone, she would take up twelve baskets-full of people. The Duchess of Bedford asked me before Madame de Guerchy, if I would not give them a ball at Strawberry? Not for the universe! What! turn a ball, and dust, and dirt, and a million of candles, into my charming new gallery! I said, I could not flatter myself that people would give themselves the trouble of going eleven miles for a ball—(though I believe they would go fifty).—‘Well, then,’ says she, ‘it shall be a dinner.’—‘With all my heart, I have no objection; but no ball shall set its foot within my doors.’”—Walpole to Lord Hertford, Feb. 24, 1764.