Letters of Horace Walpole. 12 May 1752. Arlington Street. To George Montagu Esq (age 39).

You deserve no charity, for you never write but to ask it. When you are tired of yourself and the country, you think over all London, and consider who will be proper to send you an account of it. Take notice, I won't be your gazetteer; nor is my time come for being a dowager, a maker of news, a day-labourer in scandal. If you care for nobody but for what they can tell you, you must provide yourself elsewhere. The town is empty, nothing in it but flabby mackerel, and wooden gooseberry tarts, and a hazy east wind. My sister is gone to Paris; I go to Strawberry Hill in three days for the summer, if summer there will ever be any.

Reams of scandalous verses and ballads are come over, too bad to send you, if I had them, but I really have not. What is more provoking for the Duke of Dorset (age 64), an address is come over directly to the King (not as usual through the channel of the Lord Lieutenant), to assure him of their great loyalty, and apprehensions of being misrepresented. This is all I know, and you see, most imperfectly.

I was t'other night to see what is now grown the fashion, Mother Midnight's Oratory.³⁰⁹ It appeared the lowest buffoonery in the world even to me, who am used to my uncle Horace (age 73). There is a bad oration to ridicule, what it is too like, Orator Henley; all the rest is perverted music: there is a man who plays so nimbly on the kettle-drum, that he has reduced that noisy instrument to an object of sight; for, if you don't see the tricks with his hands, it is no better than ordinary: another plays on a violin and trumpet together: another mimics a bagpipe with a German flute, and makes it full as disagreeable. There is an admired dulcimer, a favourite salt-box, and a really curious jew's-harp. Two or three men intend to persuade you that they play on a broomstick, which is drolly brought in, carefully shrouded in a case, so as to be mistaken for a bassoon or bass-viol; but they succeed in nothing but the action. The last fellow imitates * * * * * curtseying to a French horn. There are twenty medley overtures, and a man who speaks a prologue and an epilogue, in which he counterfeits all the actors and singers upon earth: in short, I have long been convinced, that what I used to imagine the most difficult thing in the world, mimicry, is the easiest; for one has seen for these two or three years, at Foote's and the other theatres, that when they lost one mimic, they called,Odd man!" and another came and succeeded just as well.

Adieu! I have told you much more than I intended, and much more than I could conceive I had to say, except how does Miss Montagu?

P. S. Did you hear Captain Hotham's bon-mot on Sir Thomas Robinson's making an assembly from the top of his house to the bottom? He said, he wondered so many people would go to Sir Thomas's, as he treated them all de haut en bas.

Note 309. "Among other diversions and amusements which increase upon us, the town," says the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1752, "has been lately entertained with a kind of farcical performance, called 'The Old Woman's Oratory,' conducted by Mrs. Mary Midnight and her family, intended as a banter on Henley's Oratory, and a puff for the Old Woman's Magazine."-E.

Letters of Horace Walpole. 06 Jun 1752. Arlington Street. To George Montagu Esq (age 39).

I have just been in London for two or three days, to fetch an adventure, and am returned to my hill and castle. I can't say I lost my labour, as you shall hear. Last Sunday night, being as wet a night as you shall see in a summer's day, about half an hour after twelve, I was just come home from White's, and undressing to step into bed, I heard Harry, who you know lies forwards, roar out, "Stop thief!" and run down stairs. I ran after him. Don't be frightened; I have not lost one enamel, nor bronze, nor have been shot through the head again. A gentlewoman, who lives at Governor Pitt's (age 59)³¹², next door but one to me, and where Mr. Bentley used to live, was going to bed too, and heard people breaking into Mr. Freeman's house, who, like some acquaintance of mine in Albemarle-street, goes out of town, locks up his doors, and leaves the community to watch his furniture. N. B. It was broken open but two years ago, and all the chairmen vow they shall steal his house away another time, before we shall trouble our heads about it. Well, madam called out "watch;" two men who were centinels, ran away, and Harry's voice after them. Down came I, and with a posse of chairmen and watchmen found the third fellow in the area of Mr. Freeman's house. Mayhap you have seen all this in the papers, little thinking who commanded the detachment. Harry fetched a blunderbuss to invite the thief up. One of the chairmen, who was drunk, cried, "Give me the blunderbuss, I'll shoot him!" But as the general's head was a little cooler, he prevented military execution, and took the prisoner without bloodshed, intending to make his triumphal entry into the metropolis of Twickenham with his captive tied to the wheels of his postchaise. I find my style rises so much with the recollection of my victory, that I don't know how to descend to tell you that the enemy was a carpenter, and had a leather apron on. The next step was to share my glory with my friends. I despatched a courier to White's for George Selwyn, who you know, loves nothing upon earth so well as a criminal, except the execution of him. It happened very luckily, that the drawer, who received my message, has very lately been robbed himself, and had the wound fresh in his memory. He stalked up into the club-room, stopped short, and with a hollow trembling voice said, "Mr. Selwyn! Mr. Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a house-breaker for you!" A squadron immediately came to reinforce me, and having summoned Moreland with the keys of the fortress, we marched into the house to search for more of the gang. Colonel Seabright with his sword drawn went first, and then I, exactly the figure of Robinson Crusoe, with a candle and lanthorn in my hand, a carbine upon my shoulder, my hair wet and about my ears, and in a linen night-gown and slippers. We found the kitchen shutters forced but not finished; and in the area a tremendous bag of tools, a hammer large enough for the hand of a Joel, and six chisels! All which opima spolia, as there was no temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the neighbourhood, I was reduced to offer on the altar of Sir Thomas Clarges (age 63).

Am now, as I told you, returned to my plough with as much humility and pride as any of my great predecessors. We lead quite a rural life, have had a sheep-shearing, a hay-making, a syllabub under the cow, and a fishing of three gold fish out of Poyang³¹³, for a present to Madam Clive. They breed with me excessively, and are grown to the size of small perch. Every thing grows, if tempests would let it; but I have had two of my largest trees broke to-day with the wind, and another last week. I am much obliged to you for the flower you offer me, but by the description it is an Austrian rose, and I have several now in bloom. Mr. Bentley is with me, finishing the drawings for Gray's Odes; there are some mandarin-cats fishing for gold fish, which will delight you; au reste, he is just where he was: he has heard something about a journey to Haughton, to the great Cu³¹⁴ of Hauculeo, but it don't seem fixed, unless he hears farther. Did he tell you the Prices and your aunt Cosby had dined here from Hampton Court? The mignonette beauty looks mighty well in his grandmother's jointure. The Memoires of last year are quite finished, but I shall add some pages of notes, that will not want anecdotes. Discontents, of the nature of those about Windsor-park, are spreading about Richmond. Lord Brooke, who has taken the late Duchess of Rutland's at Petersham, asked for a key; the answer was, (mind it, for it was tolerably mortifying to an Earl,) "that the Princess had already refused one to my Lord Chancellor."

By the way, you know that reverend head of the law is frequently shut up here with my Lady M * * * * h, who is as rich and as tipsy as Cacafogo in the comedy. What a jumble of avarice, lewdness, dignity,-and claret!

You will be pleased with a story of Lord Bury (age 28), that is come from Scotland: he is quartered at Inverness: the magistrates invited him to an entertainment with fire-works, which they intended to give on the morrow for the Duke's birthday. He thanked them, assured them he would represent their zeal to his Royal Highness; but he did not doubt but it would be more agreeable to him, if they postponed it to the day following, the anniversary of the battle of Culloden. They stared, said they could not promise on their own authority, but would go and consult their body. They returned, told him it was unprecedented, and could not be complied with. Lord Bury replied, he was sorry they had not given a negative at once, for he had mentioned it to his soldiers, who would not bear a disappointment, and was afraid it would provoke them to some outrage upon the town. This did;-they celebrated Culloden. Adieu!

Note 312. George Morton Pitt (age 59), Esq, Member for Pontefract.-E.

Note 313. Mr. Walpole called his gold-fish pond, Poyang.

Note 314. The Earl of Halifax (age 35).

Letters of Horace Walpole. 20 Jul 1752. Arlington Street. To George Montagu Esq (age 39).

You have threatened me with a messenger from the secretary's office to seize my papers; who would ever have taken you for a prophet? If Goody Compton (age 60)³²⁰, your colleague, had taken upon her to foretell, there was enough of the witch and prophetess in her person and mysteriousness to have made a superstitious person believe she might be a cousin of Nostradamus, and heiress of some of her visions; but how came you by second sight? Which of the Cues matched in the Highlands? In short, not to keep you in suspense, for I believe you are so far inspired as to be ignorant how your prophecy was to be accomplished, as we were sitting at dinner t'other day, word was brought that one of the King's messengers was at the door. Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold; Algernon Sidney danced before my eyes, and methought I heard my Lord Chief-Justice Lee, in a voice as dreadful as Jefferies', mumble out, Scribere est agere. How comfortable it was to find that Mr. Amyand, who was at table, had ordered this appanage of his dignity to attend him here for orders! However, I have buried the Memoires under the oak in my garden, where they are to be found a thousand years hence, and taken perhaps for a Runic history in rhyme. I have part of another valuable MS. to dispose of, which I shall beg leave to commit to your care, and desire it may be concealed behind the wainscot in Mr. Bentley's Gothic house, whenever you build it. As the great person is living to whom it belonged, it would be highly dangerous to make it public; as soon as she is in disgrace, I don't know whether it Will not be a good way of making court to her successor, to communicate it to the world, as I propose doing, under the following title: "The Treasury of Art and Nature, or a Collection of inestimable Receipts, stolen out of the Cabinet of Madame de Pompadour (age 30), and now first published for the use of his fair Countrywomen, by a true born Englishman and philomystic." * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So the pretty Miss Bishop (age 24)³²¹, instead of being my niece, is to be Mrs. Bob Brudenel (age 25). What foolish birds are turtles when they have scarce a hole to roost in! Adieu!

Note 320. The Hon. George Compton (age 60) son of Lord Northampton, Mr. Montagu's colleague for Northampton.-E.

Note 321. Daughter of Sir Cecil Bishop (age 51).