Letters of Horace Walpole. 04 Mar 1749. Strawberry Hill. To Horace Mann 1st Baronet (age 42).

I have been so shut up in the House of Commons for this last fortnight or three weeks, that I have not had time to write you a line: we have not had such a session since the famous beginning of last Parliament. I am come hither for a day or two of rest and air, and find the additional pleasure of great beauty in my improvements: I could talk to you through the whole sheet, and with much more satisfaction, upon this head; but I shall postpone my own amusement to yours, for I am sure you want much more to know what has been doing in Parliament than at Strawberry Hill. You will conclude that we have been fighting over the peace; but we have not. It is laid before Parliament, but will not be taken up; the Opposition foresee that a vote of approbation would pass, and therefore will not begin upon it, as they wish to reserve it for censure in the next reign-or perhaps the next reign does not care to censure now what he must hereafter maintain-and the ministry do not seem to think their treaty so perfect as not to be liable to blame, should it come to be canvassed. We have been then upon several other matters: but first I should tell you, that from the utmost tranquillity and impotence of a minority, there is at once started up so formidable an Opposition as to divide 137 against 203.(1) The minority is headed by the Prince, who has continued opposing, though very unsuccessfully, ever since the removal of Lord Granville (age 58), and the desertion of the patriots. He stayed till the Pelhams had brought off every man of parts in his train, and then began to form his party. Lord Granville (age 58) has never come into it, for fear of breaking with the King; and seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies. If Lord Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand. His ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore (age 49), a very good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was of Lord Granville's admiralty, and is still much attached to him. He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright parts, and, from his way of life and profession, much ignorant of, and unfit for, a ministry. You will wonder what new resources the Prince has discovered-why, he has found them all in Lord Egmont (age 38), whom you have heard of under the name of Lord Perceval; but his father, an Irish Earl, is lately dead. As he is likely to make a very considerable figure in our history, I shall give you a more particular account of him. He has always earnestly studied our history and constitution and antiquities, with very ambitious views; and practised speaking early in the Irish Parliament. Indeed, this turn is his whole fund, for though he is between thirty and forty, he knows nothing of the world, and is always unpleasantly dragging the conversation to political dissertations. When very young, as he has told me himself, he dabbled in writing Craftsmen and penny-papers; but the first event that made him known, was his carrying the Westminster election at the end of my father's ministry,-which he amply described in the history of his own family, a genealogical work called "The History of the House of Yvery,"(2) a work which cost him three thousand pounds, as the heralds informed Mr. Chute and me, when we went to their office on your business; and which was so ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or some such words, "And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling for the dying liberties of his country!" When the change in the ministry happened, and Lord Bath was so abused by the remnant of the patriots, Lord Egmont published his celebrated pamphlet, called "Faction Detected," a work which the Pitts and Lytteltons have never forgiven him; and which, though he continued voting and sometimes speaking with the Pelhams, made him quite unpopular during all the last Parliament. When the new elections approached, he stood on his own bottom at Weobly in Herefordshire; but his election being contested, be applied for Mr. Pelham's support, who carried it for him in the House of Commons. This will always be a material blot in his life; for he had no sooner secured his seat, than he openly attached himself to the Prince, and has since been made a lord of his bedchamber. At the opening of this session, he published an extreme good pamphlet, which has made infinite noise, called "An Examination of the Principles and Conduct of the two Brothers," (the Pelhams,) and as Dr. Lee has been laid up with the gout, Egmont has taken the lead in the Opposition, and has made as great a figure as perhaps was ever made in so short a time. He is very bold and resolved, master of vast knowledge, and speaks at once with fire and method. His words are not picked and chosen like Pitt's, but his language is useful, clear, and strong. He has already by his parts and resolution mastered his great unpopularity, so far as to be heard with the utmost attention, though I believe nobody had ever more various difficulties to combat. All the old corps hate him on my father and Mr. Pelham's (age 54) account; the new part of the ministry on their own. The Tories have not quite forgiven his having left them in the last Parliament: besides that, they are now governed by one Prowse, a cold, plausible fellow. and a great well-wisher to Mr. Pelham (age 54). Lord Strange (age 33),(3) a busy Lord of a party by himself, yet voting generally with the Tories, continually clashes with Lord Egmont; and besides all this, there is a faction in the Prince's family, headed by Nugent, who are for moderate measures.

(1) Upon the last clause of the Mutiny-bill, an amendment to render half pay officers subject to the act, only in case of actual war, insurrection, rebellion, or invasion, was rejected by 203 to 137.-E.

(2) Compiled principally for Lord Egmont by Anderson, the genealogist. It was printed, but not published, in 1742. "Some," says Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, "have affected to laugh at the History of the House of Very: it would be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the noble Lord who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry. Family histories, like, the imagines majorum of the ancients, excite to virtue." Vol. viii. p. 188.-E.

(3) James, Lord Strange (age 33), eldest son of Edward Stanley, eleventh Earl of Derby (age 59). In 1762 he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and died during his father's life-time, in 1771. He always called himself Lord Strange; though the title, which was a barony in fee, had in fact descended to the Duke of Atholl, as heir general of James, seventh Earl of Derby. D.

Letters of Horace Walpole. 05 Aug 1752. Here our woes increase. The roads row bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness, our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at all killed, we got UP, or down,-I forget which, it was so dark,-a famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a wretched village called Rotherbridge. We had still six miles hither, but determined to stop, as it would be a pity to break our necks before we had seen all we intended. But alas! there was only one bed to be had: all the rest were inhabited by smugglers, whom the people of the house called mountebanks; and with one of whom the lady of the den told Mr. Chute he might lie. We did not at all take to this society, but, armed with links and lanthems, set out again upon this impracticable journey. At two o'clock in the morning we got hither to a still worse inn, and that crammed with excise officers, one of whom had just shot a smuggler. However, as we were neutral powers, we have passed safely through both armies hitherto, and can give you a little farther history of our wandering through these mountains, where the young gentlemen are forced to drive their curricles with a pair of oxen. the only morsel of good road we have found, was what even the natives had assured us was totally impracticable: these were eight miles to Hurst Monceaux.³³⁸ It is seated at the end of a large vale, five miles in a direct line to the sea, with wings of blue hills covered with wood, one of which falls down to the in a sweep of a hundred acres. The building, for the convenience of water to the moat, sees nothing at all; indeed it is entirely imagined on a plan of defence, with drawbridges actually in being, round towers, watch-towers mounted on them, and battlements pierced for the passage of arrows from long bows. It was built in the time of Henry VI, and is as perfect as the first day. It does not seem to have been ever quite finished, or at least that age was not arrived at the luxury of white-wash; for almost all the walls, except in the principal chambers, are in their native brickhood. It is a square building, each side about two hundred feet in length; a porch and cloister, very like Eton College; and the whole is much in the same taste, the kitchen extremely so, with three vast funnels to the chimneys going up on the inside. There are two or three little courts for offices, but no magnificence of apartments. It is scarcely furnished with a few necessary beds and chairs: one side has been sashed, and a drawing-room and dining-room and two or three rooms wainscoted by the Earl of Sussex, who married a natural daughter of Charles II. Their arms with delightful carvings by Gibbons-, particularly two pheasants, hang over the chimneys. Over the great drawing-room chimney is the first coat armour of the first Leonard, Lord Dacre, with all his alliances. Mr. Chute was transported, and called cousin with ten thousand quarterings.³³⁹ The chapel is small, and mean: the Virgin and seven long lean saints, ill done, remain in the windows. There have been four more, but seem to have been removed for light; and we actually found St. Catherine, and another gentlewoman with a church in her hand, exiled into the buttery. There remain two odd cavities, with very small wooden screens on each side the altar, which seem to have been confessionals. The outside is a mixture of gray brick and stone, that has a very venerable appearance. The drawbridges are romantic to a degree; and there is a dungeon, that gives one a delightful idea of living in the days of soccage and under such goodly tenures. They showed us a dismal chamber which they called Drummer's-hall, and suppose that Mr. Addison's comedy is descended from it. In the windows of the gallery over the cloisters, which leads all round to the apartments, is the device of the Fienneses, a wolf holding a baton with a scroll, Le roy le veut - an unlucky motto, as I shall tell you presently, to the last peer of that line. The estate is two thousand a year, and so compact as to have but seventeen houses upon it. We walked up a brave old avenue to the church, with ships sailing on our left hand the whole way. Before the altar lies a lank brass knight, knight William Fienis, chevalier, who obiit c.c.c.c.v. that is in 1405. By the altar is a beautiful tomb, all in our trefoil taste, varied into a thousand little canopies and patterns, and two knights reposing on their backs. These were Thomas, Lord Dacre, and his only son Gregory, who died sans issue. An old grayheaded beadsman of the family talked to us of a blot in the scutcheon; and we had observed that the field of the arms was green instead of blue, and the lions ramping to the right, contrary to order. This and the man's imperfect narrative let us into the circumstances of the personage before us; for there is no inscription. He went in a Chevy-chase style to hunt in a Mr. Pelham's (age 57)³⁴⁰ park at Lawton: the keepers opposed, a fray ensued, a man was killed. The haughty baron took the death upon himself, as most secure of pardon; but however, though there was no chancellor of the exchequer in the question, he was condemned to be hanged: Le roy le Vouloist.

Note 338. the ancient inheritance of Lord Dacre of the South.-E.

Note 339. Chaloner Chute, Esq, of the Vine, married Catherine, daughter of Richard, Lord Dacre.-E.

Note 340. At the date of this letter Mr. Pelham (age 57) was prime minister.