Part 19

Luckily, my good lord, my conscience had saved its distance. I had writ the above last night, when I received the honour of your kind letter this morning. You had, as I did not doubt, received accounts of all our strange histories. For that of the pretty Countess [of Coventry], I fear there is too much truth in all you have heard: but you don't seem to know that Lord Corydon and Captain Corydon his brother have been most abominable. I don't care to write scandal; but when I see you, I will tell you how much the chits deserve to be whipped. Our favourite general [Conway] is at his camp: Lady Ailesbury don't go to him these three weeks. I expect the pleasure of seeing her and Miss Rich and Fred. Campbell here soon for a few days. I don't wonder your lordship likes St. Philippe better than Torcy: except a few passages interesting to Englishmen, there cannot be a more dry narration than the latter. There is an addition of seven volumes of Universal History to Voltaire's Works, which I think will charm you: I almost like it the best of his works. It is what you have seen extended, and the Memoirs of Louis XIV. refondues in it. He is a little tiresome with contradicting La Beaumelle and Voltaire, one remains with scarce a fixed idea about that time. I wish they would produce their authorities and proofs; without which, I am grown to believe neither. From mistakes in the English part, I suppose there are great ones in the more distant histories; yet altogether it is a fine work. He is, as one might believe, worst informed on the present times.--He says eight hundred persons were put to death for the last Rebellion--I don't believe a quarter of the number were: and he makes the first Lord Derwentwater--who, poor man! was in no such high-spirited mood--bring his son, who by the way was not above a year and a half old, upon the scaffold to be sprinkled with his blood.--However, he is in the right to expect to be believed: for he believes all the romances in Lord Anson's Voyage, and how Admiral Almanzor made one man-of-war box the ears of the whole empire of China!--I know nothing else new but a new edition of Dr. Young's Works. If your lordship thinks like me, who hold that even in his most frantic rhapsodies there are innumerable fine things, you will like to have this edition. Adieu, once more, my best lord!

HIS OWN "ROYAL AND NOBLE AUTHORS."

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

STRAWBERRY HILL, August 3, 1758.

Sir,--I have received, with much pleasure and surprise, the favour of your remarks upon my Catalogue; and whenever I have the opportunity of being better known to you, I shall endeavour to express my gratitude for the trouble you have given yourself in contributing to perfect a work, which, notwithstanding your obliging expressions, I fear you found very little worthy the attention of so much good sense and knowledge, Sir, as you possess.

I am extremely thankful for all the information you have given me; I had already met with a few of the same lights as I have received, Sir, from you, as I shall mention in their place. The very curious accounts of Lord Fairfax were entirely new and most acceptable to me. If I decline making use of one or two of your hints, I believe I can explain my reasons to your satisfaction. I will, with your leave, go regularly through your letter.

As Caxton laboured in the monastery of Westminster, it is not at all unlikely that he should wear the habit, nor, considering how vague our knowledge of that age is, impossible but he might enter the order.

I have met with Henry's institution of a Christian, and shall give you an account of it in my next edition. In that, too, I shall mention, that Lord Cobham's allegiance professed at his death to Richard II., probably means to Richard and his right heirs whom he had abandoned for the house of Lancaster. As the article is printed off, it is too late to say anything more about his works.

In all the old books of genealogy you will find, Sir, that young Richard Duke of York was solemnly married to a child of his own age, Anne Mowbray, the heiress of Norfolk, who died young as well as he.

The article of the Duke of Somerset is printed off too; besides, I should imagine the letter you mention not to be of his own composition, for, though not illiterate, he certainly could not write anything like classic Latin. I may, too, possibly have inclusively mentioned the very letter; I have not Ascham's book, to see from what copy the letter was taken, but probably from one of those which I have said is in Bennet Library.

The Catalogue of Lord Brooke's works is taken from the volume of his works; such pieces of his as I found doubted, particularly the tragedy of Cicero, I have taken notice of as doubtful.

In my next edition you will see, Sir, a note on Lord Herbert, who, besides being with the King at York, had offended the peers by a speech in his Majesty's defence. Mr. Wolseley's preface I shall mention, from your information. Lord Rochester's letters to his son are letters to a child, bidding him mind his book and his grandmother. I had already been told, Sir, what you tell me of Marchmont Needham.

Matthew Clifford I have altered to Martin, as you prescribed; the blunder was my own, as well as a more considerable one, that of Lord Sandwich's death--which was occasioned by my supposing, at first, that the translation of Barba was made by the second Earl, whose death I had marked in the list, and forgot to alter, after I had writ the account of the father. I shall take care to set this right, as the second volume is not yet begun to be printed.

Lord Halifax's Maxims I have already marked down, as I shall Lord Dorset's share in Pompey.

The account of the Duke of Wharton's death I had from a very good hand--Captain Willoughby; who, in the convent where the Duke died, saw a picture of him in the habit. If it was a Bernardine convent, the gentleman might confound them; but, considering that there is no life of the Duke but bookseller's trash, it is much more likely that they mistook.

I have no doubts about Lord Belhaven's speeches; but unless I could verify their being published by himself, it were contrary to my rule to insert them.

If you look, Sir, into Lord Clarendon's account of Montrose's death, you will perceive that there is no probability of the book of his actions being composed by himself.

I will consult Sir James Ware's book on Lord Totness's translation; and I will mention the Earl of Cork's Memoirs.

Lord Leppington is the Earl of Monmouth, in whose article I have taken notice of his Romulus and Tarquin.

Lord Berkeley's book I have actually got, and shall give him an article.

There is one more passage, Sir, in your letter, which I cannot answer, without putting you to new trouble--a liberty which all your indulgence cannot justify me in taking; else I would beg to know on what authority you attribute to Laurence Earl of Rochester the famous preface to his father's history, which I have always heard ascribed to Atterbury, Smallridge, and Aldridge. The knowledge of this would be an additional favour; it would be a much greater, Sir, if coming this way, you would ever let me have the honour of seeing a gentleman to whom I am so much obliged.

Good wine, a friend, or being dry; Or lest you should be by and by, Or any other reason why--]

HIS "ROYAL AND NOBLE AUTHORS"--LORD CLARENDON--SIR R. WALPOLE AND LORD BOLINGBROKE--THE DUKE OF LEEDS.

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 21, 1758.

Sir,--Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing me new information: but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of giving you so much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me; I have sent him to the press. Lord Dorset's poem it will be unnecessary to mention separately, as I have already said that his works are to be found among those of the minor poets.

I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius; nor can two authors well be more unlike: the former wrote a general history in a most obscure and almost unintelligible style; the latter, a portion of private history, in the noblest style in the world. Whoever made the comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they understood bad Greek better than their own language in its elevation. For Dr. Jortin's Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity made him always writing; yet his writings ought to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things in the world. Good Erasmus's honest mean was alternate time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now heartily despise him.

When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you care as little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere man of letters?) it is but fit I should answer you as sincerely on a question about which you are so good as to interest yourself. That my father's life is likely to be written, I have no grounds for believing. I mean I know nobody that thinks of it. For, myself, I certainly shall not, for many reasons, which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to me myself is, that I think too highly of him, and too meanly of myself, to presume I am equal to the task. They who do not agree with me in the former part of my position, will undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place, the very truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the suspicion of my prejudice. In the next place, I was born too late in his life to be acquainted with him in the active part of it. Then I was at school, at the university, abroad, and returned not till the last moments of his administration. What I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth in the last three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle, and young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his leisure as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much impartiality in my nature to care, if I could, to give the world a history, collected solely from the person himself of whom I should write. With the utmost veneration for his truth, I can easily conceive, that a man who had lived a life of party, and who had undergone such persecution from party, should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all the others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion of his affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to things of that sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we rather think, were stolen by a favourite servant of my brother, who proved a great rogue, and was dismissed in my brother's life; and the papers were not discovered to be missing till after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers for many things I could say of much importance. I have another personal reason that discourages me from attempting this task, or any other, besides the great reluctance that I have to being a voluminous author. Though I am by no means the learned man you are so good as to call me in compliment; though, on the contrary, nothing can be more superficial than my knowledge, or more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so much strained my eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a newspaper by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life, in all the hurry of the world of pleasure, I scarce ever read but by candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As my eyes have never had the least inflammation or humour, I am assured I may still recover them by care and repose. I own I prefer my eyes to anything I could ever read, much more to anything I could write. However, after all I have said, perhaps I may now and then, by degrees, throw together some short anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story, and leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if such will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can assure you he did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke--his nature was forgiving: after all was over, and he had nothing to fear or disguise, I can say with truth, that there were not three men of whom he ever dropped a word with rancour. What I meant of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke, alluded not to his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made on the whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to you. I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do in my book; but I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in me, if I appeared to undervalue an author of whom so many persons of sense still think highly. My being Sir Robert Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead of censuring Lord Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds, I think you have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said, Burnet had treated him severely; that is, I chose that Burnet should say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my heart condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy descendants, were excusable in a work of so extensive a nature, and that approached so near to these times. I may, perhaps, have an opportunity, at one day or other of showing you some passages suppressed on these motives, which yet I do not intend to destroy.