IRCH AMONG THEBQDKSOF 
 
 IRENES EDMUND 
 
 .ANDREWS 
 
 Constance Hill.
 
 MISS BEEKY'S 
 JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LONDON 
 BY SI'OTTISWOODK AND CO. 
 
 N.:U -n;i 1.1 ggi'ABB
 
 
 I/indon LotuSnan A ('"
 
 EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 JOURNALS AND COKKESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 MISS BERRY 
 
 FEOM THE YEAR 1783 TO 1852. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 LADY THEEESA LEWIS. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 1866.
 
 TO 
 
 THOSE SURVIVING FRIENDS 
 
 WHO FORMED THE SOCIETY 
 
 AND CHEERED THE LATTER YEARS 
 OF 
 
 MISS BERRY'S LIFE 
 
 THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 BY 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 2038614
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE lamented death of LADY THERESA LEWIS, 
 during the short interval that has elapsed since 
 the publication of the first edition of these 
 Memoirs, has rendered it necessary to entrust 
 the task of revision to other hands. The mis- 
 takes in names and dates, with other errors 
 pointed out by friendly critics, have been cor- 
 rected.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 THERE being no obvious reason why the editor- 
 ship of Miss Berry's Journals, Letters, and Papers 
 should have devolved on a person unconnected 
 with her by the ties of blood, or of long and 
 early intimacy, it may be satisfactory to the 
 reader to know that the task was undertaken 
 at Miss Berry's own request. 
 
 Miss Berry had bequeathed all her papers to 
 the late Sir Frankland Lewis. Not long before 
 the close of her life, she informed Lady Theresa 
 Lewis that she had done so, adding that, in case of 
 his death, and of his not having had time to deal 
 with these MSS., she wished her to promise to 
 take charge of them, and not let them pass into 
 any other hands. After the death of her father- 
 in-law, the contents of two large trunks were put 
 into Lady Theresa Lewis's hands.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 The late Mr. Charles Greville had been named 
 in some testamentary paper many years before, 
 as one of those to whom Miss Berry wished to 
 have her papers transferred ; but Mr. Greville at 
 once declared his wish to abide by Miss Berry's 
 later request to the Editor. Miss Berry had 
 taken a very kind and flattering interest in the 
 'Lives from the Clarendon Gallery' (published 
 1852), and the Editor had reason to believe that 
 it was owing to her approbation of that work 
 (which had been read to her in MS.) that she 
 was thus selected. 
 
 The task of reading, of selection, and of ar- 
 rangement from such a mass of MSS. has been 
 somewhat laborious ; nor has it been easy, or even 
 possible in all cases, to identify the various persons 
 alluded to in so long a life. The want of any 
 books of reference on the Continent corresponding 
 to Peerages, &c., cuts off the means afforded in 
 England of tracing out families or individuals, 
 when not sufficiently distinguished in public life 
 to claim their place in a Biographical Dictionary ; 
 and where no note of explanation is appended 
 to names mentioned throughout the work, it is 
 owing to the difficulty of obtaining accurate in- 
 formation respecting the persons in question. 
 
 The completion of the work has been inter-
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 rupted and delayed by trials too painful to be 
 obtruded on the reader, and by circumstances 
 over which the Editor had no control ; she can 
 only hope that the diligence with which she has 
 worked through difficulties, and the pains she 
 has bestowed on her task, will be accepted as 
 evidence of her desire to do justice to the request 
 of her loved and respected old friend. 
 
 KENT HOUSE: May 1865.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Miss BERRY has more than ordinary claims to live in the 
 memory of those to whom she was personally known. For 
 an unusually lengthened period of years she formed a cen- 
 tre round which beauty, rank, wealth, power, fashion, 
 learning, and science were gathered ; merit and distinction 
 of every degree were blended by her hospitality in social 
 ease and familiar intercourse, encouraged by her kindness, 
 and enlivened by her presence. She was not only the 
 friend of literature and of literary people, but she assidu- 
 ously cultivated the acquaintance of intellectual excellence 
 in whatever form it might appear, and to the close of her 
 existence she maintained her interest in all important 
 affairs in life, whether social, literary, or political. Without 
 any remarkable talent for conversation herself, she pro- 
 moted conversation amongst others, and shed over the 
 society which met under her roof an air of home-like ease 
 that will long be remembered by those who had the 
 opportunity of witnessing it, and who saw the consequent 
 readiness and frequency with which the guests of her 
 unpremeditated parties availed themselves of her general 
 invitation. 
 
 From the age of seventeen or eighteen to that of nearly 
 ninety, Miss Berry and her sister Agnes (one year younger
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 than herself) lived constantly in society both at home and 
 abroad : they had seen Marie Antoinette in all her pride 
 and beauty, and they lived to regret the fall of Louis- 
 Philippe, for whose prudence and abilities Miss Berry had 
 for many years conceived a high respect, and with whom 
 she was personally acquainted. Born in the third year 
 after the accession of George Hi., she lived to be privately 
 presented to Queen Victoria a few months before her 
 death. 
 
 In her early youth she gained the respect of her elders, 
 and was well known to have engaged the devoted affection 
 of one already far in the decline -of life. In her old age, 
 the loved and admired of the fastidious Horace Walpole 
 won the hearts of the grandchildren and great-grand- 
 children of the friends of her youth, and will be affec- 
 tionately remembered by some who still lingered in child- 
 hood at the time of her death. 
 
 When her own part in the active cares and duties of 
 life was over, she could look back upon it as on a drama 
 that had been played out in her sight. From the eventful 
 period in which she had lived, she had seen all the 
 vicissitudes of war and revolution, the overthrow of 
 nations, the fall of ancient dynasties, the rapid rise of new 
 ones to supply their place, the bloodless revolutions and 
 great social changes in her own country, the glorious 
 achievements of heroes of undying fame, the bitter strifes 
 of political combatants hushed one after another by the 
 solemn call of death ; and she had seen all this with the 
 eyes of a most intelligent spectator. She had seen the 
 dawn of genius leading to lasting renown, and the wane 
 of power, health, and beauty generation after generation.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 She had seen the Seven Ages played o'er and o'er again, 
 but in her own end happily escaped the dreary inanition 
 allotted to the last sad stage. She retained her senses, her 
 vigour of intellect, and even the traces of her personal 
 beauty, to a remarkable degree; and on looking back 
 through the long vista of the life she was quitting, if she 
 remembered its disappoinments with regret approaching 
 to bitterness, she also looked back upon its pleasures 
 with satisfaction, its affections with tenderness, its follies 
 with toleration, and its sufferings with sympathy. Such 
 were the latter days of one, who owed the position she 
 occupied not to the distinction of birth or of wealth, but 
 to the result of personal character, of peculiar social habits, 
 of literary tastes and pursuits, and of a modest but generous 
 hospitality. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the pleasing impression of social 
 cheerfulness which Miss Berry has left, even to the very 
 close of her life, upon all who knew her, it is clear from 
 the perusal of her letters and journals that her character 
 was strongly tinged, from her youth upwards, with melan- 
 choly. In her journals she seemed to take a pleasure in 
 confiding, as it were to herself, all that wounded her 
 sensibility, oppressed her heart, or depressed her spirits ; 
 and in this minute analysis of her own character and 
 sentiments, it is easy to see that her judgment always 
 dealt far more severely with every failing in herself than 
 in others. Endowed with the strong good sense and 
 power of thought, more often attributed to man, she pos- 
 sessed a most feminine susceptibility of feeling and nervous 
 organisation of body; her warmest affections had been 
 disappointed, and physical ailments were a frequent check 
 
 VOL. i. a
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 upon mental exertions. Her mind constantly soared 
 above the sphere in which it could act ; she longed to 
 be useful, she longed to influence the welfare of her fellow- 
 creatures, she longed to be great; she was fired with 
 ambition in the best sense of that term ; but there was 
 no career. To the merely vain woman there is in every 
 country a large arena for display, with its harvest of 
 triumphs chequered by mortification ; but to the ambi- 
 tious woman, in this country at least, there is rarely the 
 power of earning distinction but as a. reflection of the 
 stronger, greater light of man. Miss Berry was amongst 
 the few who would have received that light, and would 
 have shone by it ; she was fitted to be the partner of 
 greatness, and she missed a participation in the serious 
 realities of life. 
 
 The yielding, indolent character of her father inspired 
 neither deference nor admiration. She was brotherless 
 and unmarried ; hers was the master mind at home, but 
 without corresponding influence abroad. She estimated 
 very highly the intellectual powers of women. She felt 
 within herself the capability of understanding the philo- 
 sophy of life on which depends the conduct of human 
 affairs; but unassociated by the ties of relationship or 
 marriage with men of superior mind and cultivation, she 
 saw with pain that as an isolated being the highest posi- 
 tion she could attain, in society was that of being consi- 
 dered, an ' agreeable woman of the world.' 
 
 But, if this consciousness of a somewhat wasted existence 
 fostered the tendency to melancholy, with which adverse 
 circumstances had early clouded her disposition, it never 
 rendered her insensible to the value of friendship, and her
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xvii 
 
 heart glowed with affection and gratitude towards the 
 friends who surrounded her and who, to the last, tendered 
 her all the respect and attention which her character and 
 hospitality had so well earned. 
 
 The path of literary fame was still open to Miss Berry, 
 and that she pursued with such diligence as the claims of 
 society and the too frequent interruptions of ill-health 
 would permit. It is as an authoress that she must be 
 judged by the Public ;* and on this ground must rest the 
 right of those entrusted with her papers, to give to the 
 Public such an insight into her feelings and opinions as 
 may tend to develope her character and abilities without 
 venturing too much to invade the privacy of domestic 
 life. 
 
 The great age to which Miss Berry lived has given 
 almost an historical interest to many trifling incidents in 
 her journals ; and changes and improvements that steal 
 imperceptibly on, in manners, in morals, in refinement, in 
 general convenience, and in opinions, become more defined 
 and more interesting, when brought before the rising gene- 
 ration by the notes and journals of one who, born above 
 one hundred years ago, was so lately moving amongst the 
 living in the full enjoyment of every faculty. They are as 
 the stepping-stones that help us to remount the stream of 
 Time, down which we often drift too fast to mark the 
 ever-varying scenes which accompany our passage, or the 
 objects which unconsciously determine its course. Miss 
 
 * This statement has been questioned in the 'Edinburgh Review' for 
 October, 1865, by a writer who fully appreciates Miss Berry's abilities and 
 the peculiar charms of her character ; but it has been thought right, in this 
 case, as in other cases of the same kind, not to interfere with the opinions 
 expressed by Lady Theresa Lewis. 
 
 a2
 
 Xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Berry's own estimation of the value of the details of 
 private life, and of individual opinion, to those who would 
 study the past, is thus expressed, when comparing the 
 superior wealth of the French over the English in works of 
 that order : 
 
 So entirely (says she) do time and distance hallow and render 
 interesting minute details, that after a certain period, history 
 becomes more or less valuable as it presents more or less lively 
 pictures, not only of events, but of their effects on the minds 
 and manners of contemporaries. 
 
 Miss Berry's first literary effort was in assisting, or 
 rather in executing for her father, the work of editor to 
 the various MSS. left jointly to him and to his daughters by 
 Lord Orford. But, to the Public, she was, on that occasion, 
 known only by her father's allusion to the assistance she 
 had afforded him. The account of these MSS. and of 
 their editorship is thus given in the Preface to Lord 
 Orford's works published in five vols. 4to, in the year 
 1798 : 
 
 Lord Orford, so early as the year 1768, had formed the in- 
 tention of printing a quarto edition of his works, to which he 
 purposed to add several pieces, both in prose and verse, which 
 he had either not before published, or never acknowledged as 
 his own. A first and part of a second volume, printed under 
 his own eye at Strawberry-hill, were already in a state of great 
 forwardness. . . . The friend to whom he has entrusted 
 the care of his posthumous works has thought proper im- 
 plicitly to follow the track which he found prescribed for 
 him. ... In the arrangement of the two last volumes, 
 in the notes of the letters, and in the elucidation of many 
 passages contained in them, the Editor has been materially 
 assisted by a daughter to whose retentive memory most of the 
 names, dates, and circumstances alluded to in the correspond- 
 ence were consigned by the author himself, during the course
 
 INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 of that intimate friendship and almost parental regard, with 
 which, for several years before his death, he had honoured both 
 her and her sister. 
 
 The reader, it is hoped, will pardon from the heart of a 
 father, overflowing with affection for a child, who from her 
 infancy to the present moment has rendered his retired life a 
 scene of domestic comfort, this public acknowledgment of the 
 assistance he has received from her on the present occasion. 
 
 Mr. Berry's affectionate tribute to his daughter's merits, 
 in this little appeal to the reader, might be very gratifying 
 to her filial feelings, but his acknowledgment of the 
 assistance she had rendered in preparing these works for 
 publication by no means represents the part she really 
 bore in the task of editorship. In a letter to an intimate 
 friend written in 1797, she speaks of devoting all her time 
 and thoughts to doing justice to the wishes and to the 
 literary reputation of their deceased friend Lord Orford, 
 but ' without,' as she says of herself, the necessary publi- 
 city attached to the name of editor. 
 
 In May, 1802, a comedy, in five acts, entitled ' Fash- 
 ionable Friends,' by Miss Berry, was brought out at 
 Drury Lane ; it was performed only three nights, and 
 proved unsuccessful. It was afterwards published by 
 Miss Berry in the complete edition of her works, with 
 her own explanation of the cause of its failure on the 
 stage. 
 
 Miss Berry next appeared before the public in 1810, as 
 editor to the letters bequeathed to Mr. Walpole by Madame 
 du Deffand at her death in 1740. Marie de Vichy Cham- 
 rond, Marquise du Deffand, was born in the year 1697, of 
 a noble family in the province of Burgundy. She was 
 married in 1718 to the Marquis du Deffand, from whom
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 she was afterwards separated ; in 17 54 she became totally 
 blind, and it was, Miss Berry writes, 
 
 eleven years after this misfortune when Mr. Walpole, then near 
 fifty, and Madame du Deffand about seventy years of age, first 
 became acquainted. She had (continues Miss Berry) long passed 
 the first epoch in the life of a French wo man, that of gallantry, and 
 had as long been established as a bel esprit ; and it is to be 
 remembered that in the anti-revolutionary world of Paris these 
 epochs in life were as determined, and as strictly observed, as 
 the changes of dress on a particular day of the different seasons ; 
 and that a woman endeavouring to attract lovers after she had 
 ceased to be galante, would have been not less ridiculous than 
 her wearing velvet when all the rest of the world were in 
 demi-saison. Madame du Deffand, therefore, old and blind, 
 had no more idea of attracting Mr. Walpole to her as a lover, 
 than she had of the possibility of anyone suspecting her of 
 such an intention ; and indulged her lively feelings, and the 
 violent fancy she had taken for his conversation and character, 
 in every expression of admiration and attachment which she 
 really felt, and which she never supposed capable of misinter- 
 pretation. By himself, they were not misinterpreted ; but he 
 seems to have had ever before his eyes, a very unnecessary 
 dread of their being so by others : this accounts for the un- 
 gracious language in which he often replied to the importunities 
 of her anxious affection ; a language so foreign to his heart, and 
 so contrary to his own habits in friendship. ... In a MS. 
 note upon her character drawn by herself and published in this 
 collection, Mr. Walpole says: 'Her severity to herself was not 
 occasional or affected modesty ; . . . never having taken any 
 studied pains to improve herself, she imagined she was more 
 ignorant than many others. But the vivacity and strength of 
 her mind, her prodigious quickness, her conception, as just as it 
 was clear, her natural power of reasoning, her wit, her know- 
 ledge of the world, her intercourse with the brightest geniuses 
 of the age, raised her to a level with them.' Her natural 
 quickness, indeed (continues Miss Berry), seems sometimes to 
 have hit upon truths which she had no power of detecting by 
 thought, or of applying by inference. She often feelingly re-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 grets to Mr. Walpole that she is not devout, seeing only in the 
 practices of devotion an occupation of time, and a defence 
 against her dreaded enemy, ennui, without seeming aware that 
 nothing but fixed principles on the subject of religion, an un- 
 shaken belief in the wisdom and benevolence of the dispensations 
 of a Creator, can reconcile us in advancing years to the increased 
 evils, and diminished comforts, of existence. Nothing, indeed, 
 but a perfect and devout reliance on that Being, incapable of 
 the changes we feel in ourselves, and see in all around us, can 
 produce resignation to the present and hopes for the future ; the 
 only real supports of a protracted life. 
 
 The task of selecting, illustrating with notes, and editing 
 a collection of miscellaneous letters, must always demand 
 much patient industry ; and the difficulty of supplying in- 
 formation respecting persons named was much increased 
 by the fact of their being mostly foreigners to whom allu- 
 sions are made or the letters addressed.* 
 
 Miss Berry guards herself emphatically against any 
 approbation of, or participation in, the opinions and views 
 of Madame du Deffand; and thus concludes her modest 
 Preface to this work : 
 
 The Editor begs leave to protest against being associated 
 either in the principles, the opinions, the taste, the merits or the 
 demerits of the author of the following letters. Having exe- 
 
 * In a private letter addressed to Miss Berry, many years later, is the 
 following account of the Deffand collection of MSS. : 
 
 'The Deffand collection of manuscripts, consisting of: 1 folio of CEuvres 
 de Boufflers ; 1 do. letters from different persons ; 2 do. letters from Voltaire 
 to Madame du Deffand ; 1 do. Journal of do. ; 1 do. " divers ouvrages" of 
 do. ; 5 large bundles of manuscript papers ; 1 packet, containing several 
 hundred original letters from Voltaire, Bousseau, Delille, Montesquieu, De 
 Stael, Walpole, Renault, &c. ; 7 large packets, containing 800 letters from 
 Madame du Deffand to Horace Walpole was sold in one lot to Dyce 
 Sombre for 157/. 
 
 ' As Dyce is in Paris, and considered by the French Doctors as the least 
 
 insane Englishman they ever saw, you may refer Monsieur d' for 
 
 further particulars to that gentleman.'
 
 XXli INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cuted an humble task with care, and having obtruded as little as 
 possible the opinions, the principles, or the taste of an individual 
 unconnected with the writer, or the subject of the letters, it will 
 not perhaps be presumptuous in the Editor to hope, that the 
 public will give to them such a reception as every work seems 
 to obtain, which in any degree augments our insight into the 
 human heart, and adds some little to the mass of human know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Miss Berry had no reason to be disappointed in her 
 hopes of a favourable reception of her work, or of her 
 labours as editor. 
 
 In February, 1811, a few months after their publication, 
 an article appeared in the 'Edinburgh Eeview,' containing 
 a very favourable notice of the manner in which she had 
 executed her task ; and in May of the same year an 
 article appeared in the ' Quarterly Journal ' on the same 
 subject, and with no less favourable a tribute to the merit 
 of the then anonymous editor. 
 
 In the year 1815 Miss Berry gave to the public the 
 results of a work that must have been peculiarly congenial 
 to her taste and feelings. The original letters of Eachael 
 Lady Eussell, in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, 
 had been placed in her hands for selection and publica- 
 tion. To these she added copious biographical notes, and 
 prefixed ' Some Account of the Life of Eachael Lady 
 Eussell.' Of her difficulty in dealing with a subject when 
 there was much to feel a d little to narrate, she thus 
 writes, with great truth : 
 
 The biographers of those who have been distinguished in the 
 active paths of life, who have directed the councils or fought the 
 battles of nations, have, perhaps, an easier task than those who 
 engage to satisfy the curiosity sometimes excited by persons
 
 INTRODUCTION. XX1U 
 
 whose situation, circumstances, or sex, have confined them to 
 private life. To the biographers of public characters, the 
 pages of history and the archives of the state furnish many of 
 the documents required ; while those of private individuals 
 have to collect every particular from accidental materials, from 
 combining and comparing letters, and otherwise insignificant 
 papers, never intended to convey any part of the information 
 sought in them. 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck, on reading Miss Berry's 
 account of the life of this admirable woman, how worthy 
 was the writer to deal with a character she could so well 
 appreciate. 
 
 The vein of well-grounded enthusiasm that pervades 
 her description of Lady Eussell's excellence of conduct and 
 principles of action tends to raise at once the biographer 
 and her subject. She makes no bombastic eulogy of 
 dazzling qualities, or assumption of manly virtues for her 
 heroine ; but she is proud of her as a Christian, proud of 
 her as a woman, proud of her as a fellow-countrywoman, 
 proud of her because her fortitude was piety, her courage 
 the strength of her love, and her dignity her never-failing 
 simplicity. 
 
 In the year 1828 Miss Berry brought out the first 
 volume of her most considerable work, entitled ' A Com- 
 parative View of Social Life in England and France, from 
 the Eestoration of Charles II. to the Present Time.' The 
 second volume followed three years later, and both 
 volumes were republished in the complete edition of her 
 printed works, which appeared in the year 1844. Miss 
 Berry thus describes in her Preface the objects proposed 
 in her ' Comparative View ': 
 
 Some considerations are here offered, on the changes which
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have taken place, and the fluctuations observable in the two 
 countries, which, for above a century, may be said to have 
 divided between them the social world of Europe. 
 
 And again she tells her readers- 
 Individual characters are sometimes brought forward, as the 
 best authority for the sentiments and conduct of the period to 
 which they belong ; and sketches are sometimes given of the 
 biography of such as have been distinguished in social life, 
 although little noticed in history. 
 
 She disclaims ' great political speculations ' and ' finan- 
 cial details,' and says ' that nothing is attempted but a re- 
 view of " Social Life " and manners, from materials open 
 to every one as well as to the Author.' 
 
 The Introduction consists of an outline sketch of the 
 influence of public events on the manners in both countries 
 from the time of James I. to the Eestoration of Charles II. ; 
 she reviews the circumstances which had tended to pro- 
 duce ' an entire alienation ' between France and England 
 during the twenty years preceding the Eestoration ; the 
 narrowing influence in our insular position of foreign 
 travel being abandoned ; the ignorance and prejudices that 
 followed from this want of communication with other 
 states, and that resulted from the sudden reaction of an 
 unusually close connection, on the return of Charles II., 
 between the courts of France and England. 
 
 The Restoration (as Miss Berry observes) sent home numbers, 
 of whom some had been educated and others spent the youngest 
 and gayest years of their life in France. They had necessarily 
 adopted much of her manners, and habits and amusements. 
 Those they found established in their own country were certainly 
 not likely to have superseded them, even if the enthusiasm of 
 the moment had not been thrown into the scale in their favour.
 
 INTRODUCTION. . XXV 
 
 But such was the spring which the public mind had received 
 from the removal of the forced and unnatural pressure of the 
 sectaries upon every unaffected feeling and innocent amusement, 
 that the nation started at once from primness into profligacy, 
 and from sobriety to excess. The serious manners and moral 
 habits of England were derided at Court as fanatical, and stig- 
 matised in the country as disloyal.* 
 
 The ' Comparative View ' itself begins with the Kestor- 
 ation of Charles II. in 1660, and ends with the elevation 
 of the Duke of Orleans to the throne of France in 
 1830. 
 
 Writers on historical subjects are often in danger of 
 running into one of two very opposite extremes in their 
 style of narration. They may be influenced, on one hand, 
 by the dread of not being understood, from the ignorance 
 of their readers ; and, on the other, by the fear of 
 becoming tedious, in relating at too great length what is 
 generally known. In the desire to explain every thing, 
 the important facts are liable to be so overlaid with 
 details, as to lose their just and fitting prominence, while 
 the wish to avoid prolixity and an undue reliance on the 
 knowledge of their readers, may tend to deprive an 
 historical composition of accessories necessary to give 
 substance and life to the events and characters of which 
 they treat. Neither history nor biography can be re- 
 corded with the fulness of the daily press or the minute- 
 ness of a diary, but it will fail to be effective if written 
 with a succinctness better suited to the index of a book or 
 to the headings of chapters. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Miss Berry fell into the 
 
 * Vol. i. P . 34.
 
 . INTRODUCTION. 
 
 error of too great condensation in a work which would 
 have been more impressive 1 and more instructive by 
 greater amplification. Her ' Comparative View ' is marked 
 by the sound judgment and good sense which are the 
 growth of attentive reading, keen observation, and social 
 experience. There is neither picture-writing, nor party- 
 writing ; no hero-worship, no degraded life held up 
 to admiration ; no character drawn with striking and 
 impossible combinations, making a sort of living antithesis; 
 but, throughout her work, may be traced a calm and 
 philosophic anatomy of cause and effect in human affairs, 
 accompanied with great toleration for the influence of 
 external circumstances, on the conduct and character of 
 those she describes, together with the highest appreciation 
 of those principles of truth, virtue, and justice, without 
 which government serves only as a means to secure the 
 personal indulgence of those in power, and to become an 
 instrument of oppression to those who must submit. But 
 the length of time, the variety of subjects, the number of 
 distinguished persons and remarkable events included, are 
 crowded into too small a space to give sufficient weight 
 and interest to the various parts which make up this 
 moving panorama of the past. The mind requires more 
 time to become acquainted with the foreground figures 
 of the landscape, more familiarity with the scenes in which 
 they are placed. Miss Berry wrote so well what she did 
 write, that one cannot but wish she had written more. 
 She has, however, exhibited a gallery of portraits, not all 
 strictly historical, but all illustrative of the times in which 
 the originals lived. They are painted with more or less 
 of finish and detail, and even the slighter sketches are
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV11 
 
 made with a careful adherence to truth, and thus help to 
 people the periods described with those who breathed a 
 social atmosphere very different to our own, and whose 
 manners and conduct were moulded by habits and 
 opinions of which the living generations have no personal 
 experience. 
 
 Nor is it only by the introduction of remarkable persons 
 that Miss Berry endeavours to bring before her readers the 
 comparative view of social life in England and France. 
 The standard of public and domestic morals, the style of 
 education, the progress of literature, the cultivation of the 
 arts, the taste for the Drama and dramatic writings in both 
 countries, with many other subjects, are passed in review. 
 The Drama in all its varied forms was a subject on which 
 Miss Berry took a lively interest; and after glancing at 
 the days of Masques and Pageants, Eclogues, Pastoral 
 Cantatas, &c., she gives in some detail the rise and pro- 
 gress of the ' Opera, or drama entirely in music.' 
 
 In 1660, on the occasion of the fetes for the marriage 
 of Louis XIV., the 'Ercole amanti' was given, with a 
 French translation of the Italian poetry; and in the year 
 1652 an Abbe Perrin obtained letters patent for the estab- 
 lishment of an 'academic des operas en langue fran9oise.' 
 Other operas followed, to which French words were 
 adapted, and it became an established amusement at Paris.* 
 It was in the reign of William and Mary (says Miss Berry), 
 that the Italian Opera was introduced into England. 
 ' Several distinguished singers having visited this country 
 during the reigns of Charles and James, a taste had been 
 acquired for Italian music ; it was now to be established 
 * Vol. i. P . 141.
 
 XXviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in a theatre exclusively dedicated to it, and patronised by 
 the nobility and the good company of London, as a less 
 exceptional entertainment than the National Theatre.' 
 Miss Berry then quotes a passage from 'Chetwoode's 
 General History of the Stage,' descriptive of the mode in 
 which the performance was carried on. 
 
 Mrs. Tofts, a mere Englishwoman, in the part of Camilla, 
 courted by Nicolini, an Italian, without understanding a syllable 
 each other said ; Mrs. Tofts chanting her recitative in English, 
 in answer to his Italian ; and on the other hand, Valentini 
 courting amorously in the same language a Dutchwoman, who 
 could neither speak English nor Italian, and committing mur- 
 der on our good old English, with as little understanding as a 
 parrot. 
 
 Miss Berry gives an excellent dissertation on Tragedy 
 and Comedy, too long for extraction, but showing how 
 much and how well she had thought on the two great 
 branches of dramatic composition. 
 
 As Miss Berry approaches the time when her own re- 
 collections give additional life to her ' Comparative View,' 
 the interest is increased in her observations and opinions ; 
 and a passage on the emigration of the best blood of 
 France at the beginning of the French Eevolution, is 
 written with the vividness and warmth of having seen 
 and felt, as well as reasoned on, the events that took place 
 in the days of her youth. 
 
 How (says she) can all the illustrious names boasting of twelve 
 centuries of uncontaminated blood and of distinguished actions, 
 how can they excuse their dispersion at the beginning of the 
 Eevolution ? . . . They fled leaving their King in the midst 
 of an enraged capital and a discontented country ; they fled to 
 strangers for that assistance which they felt they could not hope
 
 INTRODUCTIOX. XXIX 
 
 for from their own dependants. Had not the great territorial 
 proprietors known that many of them were as obnoxious (and 
 much more justly so) to their own vassals than their poor deserted 
 King was to the populace of Paris, they would have gone down 
 to their estates, and spread themselves over the provinces. . . . 
 Instead of abandoning at such a moment their irritated and mis- 
 guided country, had they possessed either energy or conduct, 
 they would have reclaimed or perished with her.* . . . The 
 wiser democratical leaders, aware of the consequences of emi- 
 gration, secretly encouraged it, and whilst they declaimed from 
 the Tribune of the National Assembly against evaders, took 
 care to leave all doors open to facilitate escape. . . . Eegi- 
 ments were encouraged to revolt, that their commanding officers 
 might fancy it necessary to leave them ; and by this means the 
 ruling party got rid of persons ill-disposed towards them, and 
 found in the subaltern and non-commissioned officers zealous 
 friends to the new arrangements. . . . While the King was 
 thus abandoned, the country was left to be torn in pieces during 
 ten years, by the most bloody and despicable demagogues that 
 were ever let loose on a people, deprived of all their natural 
 counsellors and defenders, and forced to struggle out of anarchy 
 through all the horrors of popular convulsions. The inevitable 
 consequences, the natural death entailed by such convulsions, 
 were the military despotism which so long extended its iron 
 arm over that rich and highly favoured country, which her 
 nobles deserted, instead of defending, and irritated instead of 
 guiding. 
 
 The author is here speaking (Miss Berry continues) of emigra- 
 tion as a political measure of the day, and ventures to attribute 
 it to what it is believed all thinking minds will allow to have 
 been at once its cause and its excuse to the general degraded 
 state of moral feeling under institutions which the natural 
 quickness of the nation had long outrun. To which must be 
 added the administration of a series of weak ministers acting 
 under, or rather /or, the two dissipated and profligate princes 
 (the Regent and Louis XV.) who, in succeeding to Louis XIV., 
 succeeded to all the unpopularity which the disorder of the 
 
 * Vol. i. pp. 266, 267.
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 finances, entailed by the passing glory of his reign, necessarily 
 devolved on his successors. The spectacle of a great nation 
 shaking off chains it had so long worn, and reclaiming rights of 
 which it had been so long deprived, soon attracted the eyes, and 
 interested the feelings, of all Europe in its success: that 
 success it was itself entirely unprepared either to bear, or to 
 profit by. Its wits and its philosophers had undermined every 
 prop, both of its throne and its altars, without having conde- 
 scended to form any plan for a new construction, or even to 
 have any foresight of what was likely to arise from the ruins 
 they had made. Few of their number had had opportunities 
 of occupying themselves in any practical details of reform, and 
 the whole bulk of the nation, educated for centuries in the 
 habits of despotism, had no standard to recur to, by which 
 to measure either their rights, their expectations, or their 
 demands. 
 
 In our great dispute with our monarch, a century before, we 
 reclaimed rights acknowledged by repeated charters, confirmed 
 by successive sovereigns, never infringed without remonstrance, 
 and seldom without a further security for their future obser- 
 vance. But the intoxication of France, on her first successes, in 
 a cause so new, was immediately followed by a general fever of 
 mind, a mental epidemic, accompanied by symptoms of delirium 
 at once horrible and ridiculous. From a centre of infection so 
 potent the disease soon spread itself nationally and individually 
 over the greater part of Europe, marking its progress by schemes 
 of impossible reform, complaints of irremediable evils, visions 
 of perfection incompatible with human nature, a dereliction of 
 real and experienced benefits for untried and impossible im- 
 provements ; a general discontent with the existing order of 
 things, and violent aspirations after an imagined and visionary 
 future.* 
 
 Miss Berry's speculations as to the possible consequences 
 to the state of France had other countries abstained from 
 interfering, and her account of the effects she saw wrought 
 
 * Vol. i. pp. 260-72.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by the excesses in France on the opinions of political 
 parties in England, have to the present generation the 
 value of a direct tradition from an eye-witness. Many 
 a treatise may be found more elaborately worked on the 
 causes of the frightful tragedy which disgraced the close 
 of the eighteenth century; there may be ingenious pallia- 
 tions of its wanton cruelties set forth, or eloquent denun- 
 ciations hurled at its unprovoked atrocities, and many 
 profound and philosophic reflections may be founded on 
 the consideration of the various written histories of that 
 period ; but there is always a peculiar interest attached 
 to the opinions expressed and facts related by a contem- 
 porary witness. What Miss Berry thinks and says is from 
 what she heard and saw, and what she knew or believed 
 she knew, at the time ; and it always adds life and fresh- 
 ness to a narrative, when the narrator can say of the 
 past, ' / remember. 1 
 
 It is curious to observe how little the institutions, the 
 social habits, and political views of England were under- 
 stood in France, even when most admired, at the begin- 
 ning of the French Eevolution. 
 
 They looked up to the English (says Miss Berry) as their 
 preceptors in politics, treated their prejudices and their pecu- 
 liarities with indulgence, and seemed only desirous of proving to 
 them that they had outstripped their masters both in the theory 
 and practice of civil liberty.* 
 
 It would have been difficult for England to trace the 
 lessons drawn from her instructions in the wild alter- 
 nations of terrorism and license displayed during the 
 successive governments of the French Eevolution. It 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 30. 
 VOL. I. b
 
 XXXU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was the policy of Napoleon ' to put the English, name and 
 nation out of fashion ;' * but his ignorance respecting 
 everything relating to England would seem incredible, had 
 it not been fully shared by those whose opportunities of 
 better information had been so much greater than his own. 
 
 The intellect of Bonaparte (says Miss Berry) on commercial 
 subjects, and on all great views of political economy, was 
 remarkably deficient. And she was assured by one of the most 
 enlightened persons employed by him in these matters, and his 
 devoted admirer (M. Eoederer), that he had great difficulty to 
 make him comprehend even the axioms which lay on the 
 surface of these subjects. f 
 
 He thought to depreciate a commercial nation by calling 
 it a ' nation boutiquiere ;' and, 
 
 provoked (says Miss Berry) at the unbending spirit of England 
 against the continued aggression of his all-devouring ambition, 
 .... he succeeded in representing the English Government 
 as a vile despotic oligarchy, uniting all the pride and all the 
 prejudices of the old system of legitimacy and hereditary 
 honours, with all the meanness and all the self-interest ascribed 
 to commercial habits. Writers $ were sent to England to mis- 
 state our institutions, and to misconstrue our laws; and the 
 daily publications were full of sanctioned falsehoods, sometimes 
 emanating from the pen of the master himself, whose style was 
 always recognisable. 
 
 The vanity that sprang from his successes made Napo- 
 leon believe that, in case of his invasion of England, he 
 would be met with powerful and enthusiastic support, 
 and his total misapprehension of our institutions led him, 
 when gathering information as to the spirit in which he 
 might hope to be received, to attach the highest import- 
 ance, to obtaining some knowledge as to the feelings with 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 30. t Vol. ii. p. 15. 
 
 J Fievde, and many others. Vol. ii. pp. 40-1.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXlli 
 
 which such an enterprise would be regarded by different 
 classes in England, and above all by the Lord Mayor and 
 the aldermen \ \ * He could little have appreciated the 
 unity of sentiment inspired in England by his threatening 
 and aggressive policy, which is thus described by Miss 
 Berry : 
 
 In spite of public and private catastrophes in spite of severe 
 privations, severely felt by every order of the state a dejected 
 or despairing spirit was unknown. The measures of ministers 
 were severely canvassed, and often warmly opposed, in the 
 councils of Parliament ; but whenever the submission of other 
 nations, or any circumstances connected with it, seemed to 
 threaten our own national independence, one mind and one will 
 rose against the yoke that had been imposed on continental 
 Europe ; all difference of party disappeared. f 
 
 But if in Napoleon this somewhat laughable ignorance 
 of his neighbours might have resulted from that active 
 military career to which, from his earliest youth, he had 
 devoted his whole time with such brilliant success, and 
 from his having never visited the country he wished to 
 undervalue, and affected to despise, what can be said of 
 the noblesse of the old regime who took refuge on our 
 shores, who lived among us from the time of their emi- 
 gration till the Eestoration in 1814 who abstained from 
 learning our language, or endeavouring to comprehend 
 our government and institutions, or to understand our 
 national character but who lived in the atmosphere of 
 their prejudices, their resentments, and their recollections 
 of past privileges ; of whom it was said with respect to 
 their own country ' qu'ils n'avaient pas rien appris et rien 
 
 * The Editor was told this fact from undoubted authority, 
 t Vol. ii. p, 34. 
 
 b2
 
 XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 oublie,' and of whom it might have been equally assumed, 
 that they had allowed no new ideas, derived from a new 
 country and new circumstances, to disturb the state of 
 mind in which they arrived in England and again de- 
 parted for France? 
 
 While noticing the difficulties of the restored Bourbons 
 in amalgamating the discordant elements out of which 
 was to be formed a representative government to ad- 
 minister their new chartered rights, Miss Berry thus 
 describes 
 
 the old inveterate upholders of all the prejudices and preten- 
 sions of their own age, martyrs to ideas which found no longer 
 any sympathy, and sufferers from causes known by none but 
 themselves ; resting the whole pretensions of a great body of 
 insignificant but of inveterately obstinate people on the faithful 
 and devoted attachment of a part of their order to the fallen 
 and desperate fortunes of their sovereign and his family 
 claiming remuneration for losses which (for the most part) 
 their own errors had incurred, and which the country regarded 
 with a jealous eye.* 
 
 No sooner was peace established than England poured forth 
 her islanders, impatient of their confinement. . . . Many 
 arrived (at Paris) with ideas of intimate friendship contracted 
 with French individuals in emigration, by whom they conceived 
 they were to be received with such grateful remembrance of the 
 past, as would lead to a renewal of former intimacy, and to 
 much enjoyment in their society. . . . All those who re- 
 membered France in the moment of Anglo-mania which imme- 
 diately preceded the Eevolution, fancied that they should still 
 find some remains of good-will to the country which she had 
 then looked to as her model, and some respect for those who 
 had so long preceded her in the enjoyment of civil liberty. All 
 our men of science were eager to make acquaintance and seek 
 the society of those distinguished by similar pursuits in 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 88.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 France. ... In these expectations every one was more or less 
 disappointed. . . The remembrances of emigration could 
 not be agreeable, and consequently the debts of friendship were 
 in general paid as succinctly and with as little trouble as possi- 
 ble, without any renewal of great intimacy. Those old enough 
 to remember the opinions in France and England before the 
 Kevolution, heard with astonishment all the vulgar prejudices 
 against the constitution of her laws, and her public principles, 
 which had been propagated by Bonaparte, repeated not only by 
 those of his fallen party, but by the returned Koyalists and the 
 professed Constitutionalists.* 
 
 Notwithstanding these discouraging facts, Miss Berry 
 never abandoned her cherished hope of an intimate 
 alliance between France and England : she felt, to use 
 her own words, 
 
 that the combined will of two such countries, the immense in- 
 fluence of such a mass of intellectual superiority, joined to such 
 imposing political force, must and ought to dictate to Europe ; 
 to constitute the intellectual soul of an enlightened world ; to 
 be improved by their science, to be enriched by their discoveries, 
 and to be advanced by their example in all the great principles 
 of civil liberty and social happiness.f 
 
 Miss Berry concluded the second volume of her work 
 in June 1830 ; but the events of the following month at 
 Paris gave rise to another most interesting chapter : 
 
 Having been present (says she) at the marvellous events 
 which lately took place in the political existence of France, 
 the author feels it impossible not to notice so remarkable a 
 passage in the civil history of mankind, and so striking a 
 change in the character and conduct of the nation where it 
 took place. 
 
 A king of France reigning in undisturbed splendour and 
 unquestioned authority on Sunday, July 25, and on Sunday, 
 
 * Vol. n. pp. 93-5. f Vol. ii. p. 119.
 
 XXXvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 August 1, in one little week, the same being having become a 
 fugitive without power and without rights, hardly allowed to 
 remain two days longer in the disturbed and uncertain occupa- 
 tion of the most distant of his palaces these events seem 
 more like the necromantic catastrophe of an Eastern tale, than 
 facts actually taking place in the most regularly organised 
 European government.* 
 
 Miss Berry had been familiar in her youth with accounts 
 of the passing horrors : pf the first Eevolution ; and she 
 was forcibly struck by the comparative moderation and 
 humanity exhibited in that of the year 1830. The 
 more liberal institutions of fifteen years' duration had 
 done much to improve and humanise the people. The 
 fierce spirit of vengeance and retaliation which, in the 
 first Eevolution, had pervaded the feelings and prompted 
 the movements of the lower against the upper classes, did 
 not disgrace on this occasion the straggle for more assured 
 liberty ; and from this improvement in the national dispo- 
 sition, together with the personal character of the sagacious 
 prince then called upon to fill the vacant throne. Miss 
 Berry's constant hope was strengthened that the intimate 
 relations between the two countries might be the more 
 and more confirmed. 
 
 During the thirty-four years succeeding that in which 
 Miss Berry closed her * Comparative View of Social Life 
 in England and France,' much advance has been made 
 towards that better understanding that better appre- 
 ciation of the characteristics and attainments of each 
 other. Time and space have been changed by the scien- 
 tific application of steam and of electricity to the purposes 
 of communication : the two countries are brought nearer 
 
 * Vol. ii. cliap. vii. p. 121.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 
 
 together, the intercourse is constant and rapid, the com- 
 binations in commercial enterprise and financial specu- 
 lations have become numerous, and a close approxi- 
 mation of the middle class of both nations has naturally 
 followed. Twice in London, and once in Paris, have 
 all the products of nature, art, and industry been exhi- 
 bited in friendly rivalry ; and commercial restrictions 
 which, under the name of protection, fettered and impeded 
 trade, have been removed. Our armies have fought side 
 by side ; our diplomatists have negotiated with similar 
 objects in vieAv ; the sovereigns of each country have 
 exchanged visits not only of state, but of private friendship. 
 We have welcomed iii the Emperor of the French, the 
 exile who sought a refuge in England, who has never 
 forgotten on the throne those with whom he here asso- 
 ciated on friendly terms, and who, on a memorable occa- 
 sion, bore his part as one who was ready to give his aid 
 in defending those laws of peace and order which every 
 English gentleman showed a determination to maintain. 
 
 We are proud to possess as residents those illustrious 
 members- of the late reigning family in France who, 
 excluded from a return to their native country, have 
 chosen England for their sojourn ; and more especially 
 that Prince of the House of Orleans who, suddenly cut 
 short in the double career of military glory and civil 
 government,* in which he served the country that still 
 retains his unfading loyalty and affection, now turns with 
 frank cordiality to associate himself on every fitting 
 occasion, whether charitable, literary, agricultural, or 
 
 * M. de Tocqueville, no mean judge in such matters, conceived from per- 
 sonal observation the highest opinion of the Due d'Aumale's abilities in 
 the administration of his Government in Algeria.
 
 XXXVlli INTRODUCTION. 
 
 social, to promote the comfort, the improvement, or the 
 amusement of those with whom he has cast his lot. 
 
 Yet neither the courtesies of the highest, nor the good- 
 will that arises between nations when the laws of ' demand 
 and supply ' are permitted to effect a friendly dependence 
 on each other, nor even the results of rapid means of 
 communication, will prove of sufficient force to remove 
 the barriers of old prejudices long raised between the two 
 countries. Much has been done in thirty-four years, but 
 more remains to do. The once received axiom, that 
 England and France were ' natural enemies ' has passed 
 away ; but neither country has yet reached the more 
 Christian-like doctrine of love between neighbours. There 
 are differences in forms of government, differences in re- 
 ligion, differences in habits and character, which will 
 always dispose each nation to view from a somewhat dif- 
 ferent point the passing events of the world : but that 
 which keeps us most asunder that which prevents a just 
 appreciation of the motives, the feelings, the thoughts of 
 each other that which most causes misjudgment, wounded 
 susceptibility, and resentments, and denies to each the 
 softening influence of personal communication, is the 
 reciprocal ignorance of each other's language. Not many 
 Englishmen are capable of speaking French with tolerable 
 ease. Amongst the upper and best educated classes 
 generally some efforts are made by parents to secure 
 that power for their daughters, but rarely for their sons ; 
 the system of our public schools giving no facility for the 
 acquirement of even that one modern language which is 
 more or less a passport throughout Europe. Some few for- 
 tunate youths may occasionally profit by the opportunities
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 given to their sisters, and acquire in their infancy a little 
 knowledge of French, and may afterwards have the energy 
 to improve that advantage ; but these are only rare and 
 exceptional cases as compared with the mass of educated 
 persons. The acquirement of French forms no part of the 
 instruction which an English gentleman necessarily re- 
 ceives at our public schools or universities. In France, 
 the knowledge of the English language and of English 
 literature is still more rarely cultivated. There is not 
 much social intercourse between even the highest and 
 most educated classes of France and England ; and this 
 difficulty as to the medium of communication is a constant 
 check to acquaintance or intimacy. Literary and scientific 
 men, even when accustomed to read French, are often with- 
 held from attempting conversation by conscious defects of 
 pronunciation or want of fluency in expression : and so 
 much practical inconvenience arises from this ignorance of 
 each other's language when joint action is to be carried on 
 in the services of war, that the choice of persons employed 
 is narrowed by the question, not of the fittest man, but of 
 the man who can make himself understood by those with 
 whom he has to act. Some improvement in this great 
 defect on English education may follow, it is believed, the 
 long and patient enquiries, and subsequent report, of a 
 Commission which concluded its labours last spring, and 
 thus the teaching of French may become compulsory in 
 all our great seminaries of learning : nor is it unreasonable 
 to hope that the dawning knowledge of English will be 
 cultivated in return throughout France. It is impossible 
 to overrate the value and importance of increased facility 
 in direct verbal communication, in effecting those better
 
 Xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 relations between the two leading countries of Europe, so 
 much to be desired, and so warmly advocated by the 
 author of the ' Comparative View of Social Life in Eng- 
 land and France.' 
 
 Miss Berry's ' Advertisement to the Letters addressed 
 by Lord Orford to the Miss Berrys ' ( first published in 
 Bentley's Chronological Edition of Lord Orford's Letters, 
 is included in this last edition of her works, and is dated 
 October 1840. It is a defence of Lord Orford, whose 
 character had been roughly handled in an article in the 
 ' Edinburgh Eeview,' reviewing Lord Dover's edition of 
 the first part of Horace Walpole's Correspondence with 
 Sir Horace Mann. Miss Berry considered, to use her own 
 words, ' that an unjust impression had been given, not 
 only of the genius and talents, but of the heart and 
 character, of Lord Orford.' She was quite aware that 
 in endeavouring to rescue the memory of an old and 
 beloved friend from the ' giant grasp ' of his critic, it 
 was with no other than Lord Macaulay that she had to 
 contend : but though she unflinchingly combated his 
 estimate of Lord Orford's character and feelings with the 
 knowledge of facts ' acquired in long intimacy,' it was 
 not without a graceful expression of regret at differing 
 from, or calling in question the opinions of a person for 
 whom, as she says, she felt ' all the admiration and re- 
 spect clue to supereminent abilities, and all the grateful 
 pride and affectionate regard inspired by personal friend- 
 ship.' 
 
 In January 1831, a nominal review of Miss Berry's 
 work on Social Life appeared in the 4 Edinburgh Eeview.' 
 The substance of the article was taken from her book
 
 INTRODUCTION. xll 
 
 without acknowledgment or marks of quotation, and given 
 to the public without any allusion to the work itself as an 
 original essay on the subject. 
 
 In the ' Quarterly Eeview' of March 1845, there is a 
 careful analysis and very favourable notice of Miss Berry's 
 complete works as published in 1844. It contains sojust 
 a tribute to the characteristic merits of both the author 
 and her works, that a few passages from this article will, 
 it is hoped, be considered a fitting conclusion to these 
 prefatory pages. 
 
 We rejoice in the publication of this excellent and useful 
 essay, as the avowed production of Miss Berry, .because the 
 value of its original remarks upon the society of both countries, 
 in which she has so long moved as a member at once admired 
 and beloved, is greatly increased by the value of her name 
 a name never to be pronounced without the respect due to 
 talents, learning, and virtue. We place in the front of our 
 criticism that which all rightly constituted minds must regard 
 as the highest panegyric that she who has experienced and 
 enjoyed the pleasures of fashionable as well as literary inter- 
 course more and longer than any living author, has passed 
 through both the frivolities and the corruptions of times in Paris 
 as well as in London without a shadow of a taint either to her 
 heart, her feelings, or her principles. The historian of society 
 in her own as well as in former periods, the fond admirer of 
 genius whatever form it assumed, and the partaker with a keen 
 relish of all the enjoyments which the intercourse of polished 
 life affords, she has never shut her eyes for a moment to either 
 the follies that degraded or the vices that disfigured the scene, 
 nor has ever feared to let her pen, while it described for our 
 admiration the fair side of things, hold up also the reverse to 
 our reprobation or our contempt.
 
 JOUENAL 
 
 AND 
 
 COEEESPONDENCE OF MISS BEREY, 
 
 NOTES OF EARLY LIFE. 
 
 MY FATHER was the maternal nephew of an old Scotch 
 merchant of the name of Ferguson, who had been sent 
 for up from Scotland by a near relation of his, long 
 established in London, on a promise to provide for him ; 
 this he did so completely, that before the middle of my 
 uncle's life he found himself in possession of something 
 near 300,000/., a great fortune for those days, for the 
 said uncle had come up to London in the year of the 
 Union, 1709. He might now have left the City for ever ; 
 but so attached was he to the habits and habitations 
 of the counting-house, that not even his marriage, and 
 his having purchased a considerable estate in Fifeshire, 
 could persuade him to remove to the West-end of the 
 town, or to abandon Austin Friars,* where he lived for 
 more than half a century, and till his death. He had 
 married a Miss Townshend, the sister of the wife of 
 Mr. Oswald/)* a neighbour of his in Scotland, who was 
 
 * Broad Street. The House of the Augustine Friars was founded by 
 Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1243. 
 
 t Mr. Oswald married Elizabeth, daughter of Townshend, of Hon- 
 
 ington Hall, Warwickshire, 1747. Mr. Oswald was for many years in Par- 
 liament, and filled the offices of Commissioner of Navy, Lord of Trade and 
 Plantations, Lord of the Treasury, and Treasurer of Ireland. He died in 
 1766. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [1762 
 
 in Parliament, and employed in several public offices 
 during the Administrations of 1753 and 1754. 
 
 There being no children from Mr. Ferguson's marriage, 
 his sister's sons became his natural heirs. Of these, my 
 father being the eldest, was, like all elder brothers of 
 those days, bred to the law, with or without any intention 
 of following the profession. After my father had left 
 college, and gone through the routine of this education, 
 he obtained his uncle's leave to travel ; but he had only 
 spent seven months in the Netherlands before he was 
 recalled by his uncle, who, I conclude, ensured obedience 
 to his orders by stopping his supplies. The law he seems 
 never to have thought of more, nor was it thought 
 necessary he should. But in all other respects I can 
 easily suppose his careless disposition, even to his own 
 situation, his turn towards literature and literary society, 
 little suited the hard narrow mind of the man on whom 
 his fortunes depended. 
 
 My father's marriage, in 1762, with a distant relation 
 of his own, of the ancient name of Seton, the daughter 
 of a widow then living in Yorkshire, with a family of four 
 daughters, did not serve his interests with his uncle. My 
 mother is said to have had every qualification, beside 
 beauty, that could charm, captivate, or attach, and excuse 
 a want of fortune. At first she succeeded in captivating 
 the good graces of the old man, but not to induce him to 
 augment the allowance he made to his nephew. On this 
 allowance they retired to live in Yorkshire, in the same 
 house with her mother at Kirkbridge, where she gave 
 birth in two succeeding years to two daughters, myself 
 and Agnes. But however well pleased the old uncle 
 might have been with his niece, his expectations were 
 disappointed at her not producing a male heir, and were 
 finally crushed by her death in childbirth. I have been 
 told that his uncle was very importunate with my father 
 to marry again directly. If so, I am sure my father must
 
 1769] HER FATHEK. 3 
 
 have finally destroyed his prospects from him, by the 
 manner in which he would have received such a proposal 
 immediately after the untimely death of a beloved wife of 
 twenty-three, after four years' marriage. 
 
 In the meantime, his younger brother William, a sharp 
 lad, who had obtained a good report from the mercantile 
 house in which he had been placed to qualify him for 
 business, was employed by his uncle in looking into his 
 accounts in Scotland during his absence in London. He 
 soon perceived the carelessness of his elder brother's 
 character, and how little it fell in, in any respect, with 
 that of the old man, and how easily he could assimilate 
 himself to all his views. He thus continued to gain every 
 day on his confidence, and secured his goodwill by marry- 
 ing a daughter of the house of Crawford, with 5,OOOZ., a 
 handsome female fortune in those days, especially in 
 Scotland. Fortune too favoured him in the birth of two 
 sons in the first two years of their marriage. 
 
 1769. From this time his uncle seems to have con- 
 sidered him decidedly as his heir, established him in the 
 house in Fifeshire, and made him direct everything about 
 his estate and affairs in Scotland. While quietly letting my 
 poor father continue to starve on an allowance of 300 /. 
 a-year, he made him understand that his intentions as to 
 his heir were entirely altered, and that he had been sup- 
 planted by his younger brother. That my father should 
 have allowed himself to be thus choused out of a great 
 inheritance, by a brother who had not a sentiment or feeling 
 in common with himself, and by an uncle whom he had 
 never offended, and in whose society he continued to 
 spend three days of every week, while his brother was 
 living in ease, indulgence, and luxury at Eaith, and only 
 making a yearly visit of a couple of months to the 
 melancholy residence of Austin Friars, that the easy 
 temper of my father should have silently acquiesced in 
 all this ; that he should not have seen the character, and 
 
 B '2
 
 4 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [i?64 
 
 obviated the conduct, of his brother before it was too 
 late, during all the youth and middle of nay life sorely 
 afflicted me. Every expense of education in the acquire- 
 ment of talents was denied us, and much of the gaiety 
 and all the thoughtlessness of youth were lost in the 
 continual complaints I heard, and the difficulties I saw in 
 getting through the year on the wretched pittance allowed 
 us, and which my father's disinheritance (now known to 
 everybody) prevented his attempting any scheme to mend. 
 Thus, seeming not to feel for himself, he was allowed to 
 sink into the state of a disinherited man, without any of 
 the pity such a state generally inspires. When I grew to 
 an age to look about rne on the affairs of the world, and 
 the situation of my own family, I saw the lamentable one 
 in which my father's easy inefficient character had placed 
 himself and his children. While yet a mere child, I had 
 already suffered in spirits and gaiety from the melan- 
 choly difficulties and little privations of every sort, which 
 his very narrow income entailed on us, and which so en- 
 gaged his mind as to make him inattentive to its effects 
 upon us. 
 
 1763. I was born on the 16th of March, at Kirk- 
 bridge, a lone house situated immediately without the pre- 
 cincts of the Park of Stan wick, then inhabited by Hugh 
 Earl Percy, son of the first Smithson, Duke of Northum- 
 berland, and his first wife, the daughter of Lord Bute 
 (the Minister), from whom he was afterwards divorced.* 
 
 1764. My sister Agnes was born on the 29th of May 
 this year, at the same place, which was the residence of 
 my grandmother Seton and her three unmarried daughters, 
 Isabella, Jane, and Mary, with whom my father and 
 mother resided during the first two years of their mar- 
 
 * Earl Percy first married, in July 1764, Lady Anne Stuart, third 
 daughter of John, Earl of Bute, by whom he had no issue ; they separated 
 in 1769 ; and in 1779 he obtained a divorce, on account of her intimacy 
 with Mr. William Bird. Lord Percy afterwards married Miss Frances 
 Julia Burrell, sister to Lord Gwydyr, by whom he had a numerous family.
 
 1767] HER MOTHER. 5 
 
 riage. I have no further recollection of Kirkbridge, 
 except that sixty years afterwards, when going to see 
 Stanwick, I had a recollection of the ornaments of the 
 room in which I had sat in somebody's lap at breakfast, 
 and of the disposition of the staircase which led to it. I 
 have no further recollection of anything till when my 
 mother died of a milk fever (1767), giving birth to another 
 girl, who died at the same time. Of my mother I have 
 only the idea of having seen a tall, thin young woman in 
 a pea-green gown, seated in a chair, seeming unwell, from 
 whom I was sent away to play elsewhere. Of the exces- 
 sive grief of my father and grandmother at her death I 
 have no recollection ; I think I must have been kept away 
 from them. Of my own irreparable loss I had certainly 
 then no idea, and never acquired a just one till some 
 years after, when my father told us that my mother, on 
 hearing some one say to her that I was a fine child, and 
 that they hoped I should be handsome, said, that all she 
 prayed to Heaven for her child was, that it might receive 
 a vigorous understanding. This prayer of a mother of 
 eighteen, for her first-born, a daughter, struck me when I 
 first heard it, and has impressed on my mind ever since 
 all I must have lost in such a parent. 
 
 From her death, however, dates the first feeling of un- 
 kindness and neglect which entered into my young mind, 
 accustomed to nothing but the fondness of everybody 
 about me. The first wife of that Lord Percy who lived 
 at Stanwick had become, from her near neighbourhood 
 to Kirkbridge, very intimate and very much attached to 
 my mother. Lady Percy was in London at the time of my 
 mother's death,but,on her return to the North, had stopped 
 in York to see and to weep with my grandmother, who from 
 my mother's death had taken the care of her two children. 
 I have even now the clear and distinct idea of a lady in 
 a riding habit, sitting leaning on a chair drowned in tears, 
 and on my running up to her and calling her by her
 
 6 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [ITCS-TO 
 
 name, pushing me away from her, and avoiding looking 
 at me, instead of taking me on her lap as I expected. 
 The feelings of sorrow, of surprise, and mortification 
 were the very first of that long series of wounds to a 
 very affectionate heart, which everybody has to undergo 
 in life, and which nothing subsequent has blotted from 
 my memory. 
 
 1768, 1769. Of the years '68 and '69 I remember 
 nothing, but that there we remained living at Askham, 
 and that we had a sort of Bonne, governess, Miss Porter, 
 who walked with us, and taught me to read, I sup- 
 pose ; but as I have no remembrance at all of the pro- 
 cess nor of existence without the power of reading, I can 
 say nothing of the talents of my teacher. Agnes was 
 slower than myself at her book, and I have some faint 
 idea of tribulation over the spelling-book with her. Our 
 only playfellow was Mary Garforth, the youngest sister of 
 Mr. Garforth, the Squire of the parish, whose mother, 
 during her son's minority, lived at the Mansion House, 
 which was within a stone's throw of the house in which 
 we resided. 
 
 1770. In the spring of this year we removed from 
 Askham to Chiswick. My father, I fancy, had begun to 
 think (too late) that he ought to pay more attention and 
 to court the favour of the uncle to whom, during his 
 education as an advocate and before his marriage, he was 
 considered as the certain heir. At Chiswick we inhabited 
 the College House on the river-side, so called from belong- 
 ing to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster as a retreat 
 for boys on the foundation, whenever the plague was in 
 London. In the intervals it was let unfurnished at a 
 small rent, with two large enclosed gardens belonging to 
 it.* It was this, I conclude, principally recommended it 
 
 * It is not known that the school was ever removed to Chiswick since 
 Busby's time. It is on record that he resided here, with some of his 
 scholars, in 1067. A few years ago, when this house was in the tenure of
 
 1770] HER EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 7 
 
 to my father, who was then living on the wretched 300Z. 
 a-year allowed him by his uncle. Here, we had I 
 believe, soon after our arrival, a new governess instead 
 of Miss Porter a Miss Bourchier, a lively good-natured 
 young woman, with little more information than the 
 former one, but having been a little more in some sort of 
 world. She was intelligent and lively in society, and 
 made herself agreeable, without any bad intention (for 
 she was engaged to marry a stock-broker as soon as ever 
 their funds allowed them), to all the few men, old or 
 young, coming to the house ; and I remember the anguish 
 we both felt, when, in 1775, my father first announced 
 that she was going to leave us and to be married. 
 
 I was then only twelve years old, my sister only eleven. 
 My extreme precocity, both mental and physical, helped 
 to lead him to suppose that the expense of another 
 governess might be spared, and we were thus left, almost 
 children, to our own devices to be as idle, and to read 
 what books, and choose what other employments we 
 pleased. With me it led to much serious evil ; with Agnes, 
 to obliging her much later in life to acquire such know- 
 ledge as she should have had given her without pains in 
 early youth. To neither of us had the least religious 
 education been at all thought of. It was in the middle of 
 the age of Voltaire, and his doctrines and his wit had 
 been adopted "by all the soi-disant Scotch wits. My dear 
 grandmother, indeed, aware of this neglect, made me 
 read the Psalms and chapters to her every morning ; but, 
 as neither explanation nor comment was made upon 
 them, nor was their history followed up in any way, I 
 hated the duty and escaped it when I could. The same 
 consequence took place by the same dear parent making 
 me read every Sunday to her a Saturday paper in the 
 
 Robert Berry, Esq., the names of the celebrated Earl of Halifax, John 
 Dryden, and many others, were to be seen upon the walls. History and 
 Antiquities of Chisvrick, $c., by Thos. Faulkner.
 
 *8 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [1774 
 
 ' Spectator,' which, till the middle of life, prevented my 
 ever looking at those exquisite essays, or being aware of 
 the beauties of the volumes they were in. 
 
 The year after we came to settle at Chiswick, my aunts 
 Cayley* and Lynnot returned to England from Italy, 
 where they had passed two or three years in search of 
 health for Mr. Cayley, and the means of living during the 
 lifetime of his father Sir George Cayley.f The accounts 
 my young ears heard from them of the beauties and 
 charms of Italy, first impressed on my mind the strong 
 desire of seeing what they described, and which certainly, 
 in after-life, fell not short of my youthful expectations, 
 and figure as the greenest spots in my long monotonous 
 and insignificant existence. 
 
 In 1773, while our governess was yet with us, my 
 grandmother, who had lived with us ever since my 
 mother's death, went to Ireland for six months to visit 
 her daughter Lynnot, who had been married to an Irish 
 squire while with her sister in Italy. 
 
 In 1774, my grandmother took us to visit at Mr. 
 Loveday's, at Caversham near Eeading, an old Tory 
 country gentleman, who had married a cousin of hers, 
 and had two daughters much about our age : with them 
 we formed an intimacy which lasted till their death thirty 
 or forty years afterwards. The intimacy gave me occasion 
 to learn in several visits to them afterwards, and when I 
 was able to observe it, the character of Tory country 
 gentlemen of those days, or rather of days before, and the 
 sample I saw was certainly a rare and most respectable 
 
 * Isabella, daughter of John Seton, Esq., married, 1763, to Thomas Cay- 
 ley, Esq. ; died 1828, leaving one son [afterwards Sir George] Cayley, and 
 four daughters : 
 
 Elizabeth, married to Benjamin Blackden, Esq., of West Wycomb, Phila- 
 delphia ; Sarah, married to Barry Slater, M.D. ; Isabella, to Launcelot 
 Shadwell, Esq. ; Anne, married to the Rev. George Worsley. 
 
 ) Sir George Cayley, Bart., died at the age of eighty-four, in 1791 ; and 
 was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Thomas, born 1732, died 1792.
 
 1775-81] LEGACY LEFT TO HER FATHER. 9 
 
 one. He saw much of all the clergymen in his neigh- 
 bourhood. At dinner, the first toast was always Church 
 and King ; the second, To the flourishing of the two Univer- 
 sities ; the third, To Magdalen, or as he called it, Maudlin 
 College, where he had been educated. But he was, with 
 all this, an elegant and accomplished scholar, and was 
 delighted at finding me apt at recalling to his mind pas- 
 sages of the Eoman poets. 
 
 Of the few succeeding years the entries in Miss Berry's notes 
 of her early life are unfortunately very meagre. 
 
 In 1775. she states, as the only event, the loss of their 
 governess. 
 
 1776. We went in the summer with my father to 
 Lymington. 
 
 1777. My grandmother, Agnes, and I went to York- 
 shire to Lady Cayley, and did not return till the middle 
 of winter. 
 
 1778. We went to visit Mr. Mitchell in Berkshire, and 
 the Lovedays. 
 
 1779. I became acquainted with Mr. Bowman. Suf- 
 fered as people do at sixteen from a passion which, wisely 
 disapproved of, I resisted and dropped. 
 
 1780. The Catholic riots in London. 
 
 1781. I went into Yorkshire with Miss Drury, an old 
 friend of my mother's on a visit to her ; when at last, at 
 the age of ninety-three, our old uncle died, before my re- 
 turn in November. This absence I have ever regretted, as 
 I should certainly have endeavoured to back up my father 
 in these difficult and mortifying circumstances. The brother 
 William was left ah 1 ; was residuary legatee, inherited 
 above 300,000/. in the funds, together with an estate of 
 some 4,000/. or 5,OOOZ. a-year in Scotland. To my father 
 a bare legacy of 10,000, with no mention at all of his two 
 children ; so that if my father's had been a lapse legacy by 
 his death before the uncle, we must have been left to the
 
 10 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [i?8i 
 
 parish, or to the tender mercies of his brother. There 
 was another will written before the death of my mother, 
 which was never produced ; and I own that I have never 
 been able to conquer my suspicions that all was not fairly 
 arranged by the lawyers towards my poor father, who 
 stood before them at the reading of the will, to receive 
 what they pleased to give him, and to be asked by the 
 principal executor (of whom he knew nothing), when he 
 announced to him the 10,000/., if he thought it too much ! 
 
 For many years afterwards I never could figure to my- 
 self this scene without my blood boiling in my veins, and 
 lamenting that I had not been present to support and 
 reply for my father. To this 10,000. was added no per- 
 sonals of any kind, nor plate, nor linen, nor china, nor 
 anything left in the old man's house in London, to help to 
 set him up in greater comfort he, that had so long been 
 starving on 300/. a-year ! My uncle knew that his bro- 
 ther would not complain, and he treated him accordingly. 
 But he was aware that he could not treat the opinion of 
 the world of that world whose opinion he valued as 
 lie had the feelings of his brother, and therefore he im- 
 mediately announced that he meant to settle on him an 
 annuity of 1,000/. a-year, with no mention made of his 
 two daughters, who, he concluded, would marry, and be 
 thus got rid of. 
 
 This arranged, he immediately returned to Scotland to 
 take legal possession of a residence which he had already 
 long enjoyed, and to get rid of the society of a brother in 
 whose presence he could not but feel awkward, in whose 
 tastes he did not at all participate, and to whom he there- 
 fore never proposed a visit to Scotland. This we, from our 
 ignorance of the world, had supposed he certainly would ; 
 but I must do his conscience the justice to say he always 
 avoided as much as he could his brother's society, and 
 felt embarrassed in his company. But from my father's 
 carelessness of disposition he had nothing to fear, while
 
 1781-3] TO UK OF HOLLAND. 11 
 
 on the other side, his children had nothing to hope, or de- 
 pend on, for he was quite as little careful about our future 
 prospects and success as he could ever have been about 
 his own. 
 
 1781. I was now eighteen, and began to long to see 
 that world of which I had been picking up all sorts of ac- 
 counts from much desultory and often improper reading. 
 
 1782. The first fruit of our enlarged income was spent 
 in a tour to the West of England as far as Plymouth, and 
 we went in July for some weeks' residence at Weymouth. 
 
 1783. I persuaded my father to give up the house at 
 Chiswick, which we had hitherto inhabited ; and after a 
 month or two spent in a lodging in Charles Street, Gros- 
 venor Square (now an hotel), to go abroad. This had long 
 been the first object of my wishes; and it was therefore 
 settled that my grandmother, who had hitherto always 
 lived with us since my mother's death, should be received 
 by her daughter, Lady Cayley, now a widow, during our 
 tour abroad. 
 
 In May 1783, we went from Harwich to Eotterdam, 
 where a branch of the Crauford family, into which my 
 uncle had married, had been always established, and 
 where two unmarried sisters, but little older than our- 
 selves, were now spending the summer with their brother. 
 They received and lodged us on our arrival at Eotterdam 
 in their house on the beautiful terrace shaded with great 
 trees, which forms the principal street in that town. With 
 them we remained about three weeks, and made with 
 them an almost complete tour of Holland; and certainly 
 during my very long after-life I have always looked back 
 to those three weeks as the most enjoyable and most 
 enjoyed of my existence, in which I received the greatest 
 number of new ideas, and felt my mind, my understand- 
 ing, and my judgment increasing every day, while at the 
 same time my imagination was delighted with the charm 
 of novelty in everything I saw or heard.
 
 12 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [1733 
 
 From Holland we went by the banks of the Ehine to 
 Switzerland, to Lausanne, where a family of Cerjats, Swiss 
 by birth and English by marriage and connection, to 
 whom we had been particularly recommended, took a 
 sort of protecting care of us. In the month of October 
 we took the Geneva road to Italy. At Florence was our 
 first stop ; and here for the first time I began to feel my 
 situation, and how entirely dependent I was on my own 
 resources for my conduct, respectability, and success. My 
 father, with the odd inherent easiness of his character, 
 had since my mother's death entirely abandoned the 
 world and all his early acquaintance in it, entirely for- 
 getting that on him now depended the success and the 
 happiness of his two motherless daughters. I soon found 
 that I had to lead those who ought to have led me ; that I 
 must be a protecting mother, instead of a gay companion, 
 to my sister; and to my father a guide and monitor, 
 instead of finding in him a tutor and protector. Strongly 
 impressed as I was that honour, truth, and virtue were 
 the only roads to happiness, and that the love and consi- 
 deration of my fellow-creatures, and the society in which 
 I was about to live, depended entirely on my own con- 
 duct and exertions, the whole powers of my mind were 
 devoted to doing always what I thought right and knew 
 would be safe, without a consideration of what I knew 
 would be agreeable, while I had at the same time the 
 most lively sense of everything that was brilliant and 
 distinguished, and the greatest desire to distinguish my- 
 self. Add to this the most painfully quick feelings, and a 
 necessity for the support of some kind sympathising mind, 
 and it is easy to imagine not only how little I could profit 
 by all the advantages nature had given me, but how little 
 I could have enjoyed of the thoughtless gaiety and light- 
 heartedness of youth. 
 
 Here end Miss Berry's Notes of her early life, written when 
 far advanced in years, but to which no date is affixed. In the
 
 1848-9] AT FLORENCE. 13 
 
 two successive years of 1848-9, she added the following melan- 
 choly entries. It is much to be regretted that her intentions 
 were not fulfilled of continuing the precis of her life which she 
 had begun. 
 
 1848. I had intended and hoped to carry on this sort 
 of short-hand account of my life and the few enjoyments 
 and severe sufferings of my middle age, which hung about 
 me longer than anybody, for I was past sixty before I was 
 allowed by anybody but myself to consider myself as old. 
 But within this last twelvemonth I have found all the 
 weakness of age so fast increasing that I have little 
 hope of being able to fulfil my intention. 
 
 1849. Yet, as here I am still, and in spite of the 
 regular progress of old age on all my senses, still possess- 
 ing my intellect, understanding, and memory, as far as 
 regards long-passed events, I will still endeavour, in sucli 
 hours as are yet left me of capacity for writing, to recall, 
 in a very succinct manner, the many years I have left far 
 behind. I must for this return to the date of 1783 no 
 less than sixty-six years ago. In the autumn of 1783, then, 
 we found ourselves at Florence, where Sir Horace Mann* 
 was still our Minister, and where Lord Cowper,f the grand- 
 father of the present lord,J had taken up his abode for 
 several years, had there married a very handsome English 
 woman of the name of Gore, had in every respect a very 
 
 * Horace Mann was the second son of Robert Mann, Esq., of Linton, 
 Co. Kent. In 1740 he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary from his 
 own court to that of Tuscany. In 1775 he was made a baronet, and after- 
 wards a K.B. It was in 1740 that Horace Walpole visited Florence; and 
 between him and Horace Mann there commenced a friendship which was 
 maintained, by frequent correspondence only, during a period of forty-six 
 years. Memoirs of Horace Walpole and his Contemporaries, by Eliot War- 
 burton, Esq. 
 
 t George Nassau, third Earl Cowper, born 26th of August, 1738; mar- 
 ried, 31st of May, 1778, Anne, daughter of Francis Gore, Esq., of South- 
 ampton. He was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, January 
 1778; ob. 1789. 
 
 J Great-grandfather of the present Earl Cowper. 
 
 She died 18i>6.
 
 14 MISS BERRY'S NOTES. [1849 
 
 handsome establishment, by which all the good company 
 travelling in Italy were anxious to be admitted. We were 
 received most graciously by a letter I brought to Miss 
 Gore, Lady Cowper's sister, who was then living with her. 
 
 Thus ends the last entry of these Notes. 
 
 Miss Berry's earliest Journal was written during her first 
 tour on the Continent, of which she speaks in the preceding 
 Notes with so much pleasure. This Journal, begun at the age of 
 twenty, shows how early the tastes of her after-life were exhibited. 
 It is impossible not to be struck with the choice of subjects to 
 which she turned her attention, and with the intelligence and 
 tone of decision that marks her observations on all she saw; 
 and though the total absence of all apparent consciousness of 
 personal admiration shown towards herself and her sister, and 
 the scrupulous omission of light gossip and frivolous remarks on 
 the characters and circumstances of those with whom she asso- 
 ciated, may make the journal of a young lady in the year '83 
 less amusing to read eighty-two years later, it cannot fail to raise 
 the respect of the reader for one who, with not even the average 
 advantage in the training and cultivation of her mind and 
 tastes, felt such pure enjoyment in the beauties of nature and 
 such absorbing interest in the works of art. In estimating the 
 value of her opinions on all she viewed in architecture, sculp- 
 ture, and painting, it must be remembered that Miss Berry 
 wrote without the help of modern handbooks, to form her 
 judgment or to guide her taste. She was travelling with 
 those from whom she did not derive instruction, but whom 
 she was more accustomed to lead ; and her opinions, whether 
 agreeing or not with the popular criticisms of the present day, 
 have the merit of being the genuine impression which such 
 works produce on a young fresh mind of superior intelligence 
 and of genuine enthusiasm. 
 
 The Editor is aware that Miss Berry's Journal in full, of her 
 first visit to Italy, would be liable to the objection of savouring 
 too much of the guide-book, or catalogue of sights and pictures, 
 to be interesting to the general reader : but, considering the 
 many changes that revolutions, wars, and treaties make in the 
 destination of treasures in art, it seemed on the whole desira- 
 ble to preserve extracts at least of this authentic record of the
 
 1849] MISS BERRY'S LOVE OF NATURE AND ART. 15 
 
 locality and condition of different works eighty years ago, for the 
 benefit of those who take an interest in such subjects. 
 
 For works of art, and for the beauties of nature, Miss Berry 
 had a keen perception, but for that which we term picturesque- 
 ness in buildings she was evidently without any appreciation. 
 So unobservant was she, indeed, of the picturesque effects that 
 arise from those irregular outlines of varied and grotesque forms 
 that would fill the modern artist's portfolio with the richest sub- 
 jects for his art, that the doubt naturally arises whether, at this 
 time, the sense of the picturesque, as now understood, was yet 
 developed. The particular disposition or combination of objects 
 in nature, or the appearance of grandeur, of unity of design, or 
 of architectural decorations in works of construction, were re- 
 cognised subjects of admiration; but that sense of picturesque 
 beauty which springs from certain combinations of form and 
 colour, and which imparts a charm and gives a value to the 
 poorest tenement, was probably unknown and unacknowledged 
 till a more recent period. Miss Berry could see no beauty in a 
 town in which neatness, cleanliness, and regularity were not the 
 prevailing features, or that could not boast the still higher 
 merits of well-built houses and well-paved spacious streets, run- 
 ning at right angles to each other ; characteristics so seldom to 
 be found, that it was not surprising Miss Berry should often 
 have been most unfavourably impressed with the appearance of 
 continental towns.
 
 16 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ma 
 
 JOUENAL. 
 
 1783. 
 
 Tuesday, May 26 th. Set out from Charles Street at 
 four o'clock ; slept at the Blue Posts at Witham. 
 
 Wednesday, 27th. Arrived at Harwich at four o'clock ; 
 sailed on board the Prince of Wales packet-boat, Capt. 
 Nasson, at eight at night. 
 
 Thursday, 2$th. All day at sea with a very brisk gale ; 
 monstrously sick; came to an anchor at the mouth of 
 the harbour at Helveot at ten o'clock at night. 
 
 Friday, 29th. Came on shore to the Golden Lion at 
 Helveot between three and four in the morning ; break- 
 fasted at six with some of our fellow-travellers ; at eight, 
 went on board a yacht sent by Mr. Crauford to convey 
 us to Eotterdam. These yachts are elegantly fitted up 
 with every convenience for eating, drinking, and sleeping, 
 and are often hired by Dutch families for several weeks 
 together on parties of pleasure. The passage from Helveot 
 to Eotterdam is commonly made in four or five hours, 
 but there being little or no wind, and the tide being 
 against us, we were from eight in the morning till nine at 
 night in the yacht, and were at last obliged to get into a 
 little rowing boat, in which we arrived at Mr. Crauford's 
 house at Eotterdam between ten and eleven o'clock, not a 
 little delighted to find ourselves again on terra firma and 
 in company of our friends. 
 
 Saturday, 30#A. Spent the day in visiting the principal 
 buildings and streets of Eotterdam, which must strike all 
 strangers with its appearance of great bustle, cheerfulness, 
 and most remarkable cleanliness. The canals are broad 
 with rows of trees on each side, and generally full of
 
 1783] FROM ROTTERDAM TO ANTWERP. 17 
 
 vessels of all sizes, which are enabled to come up to the 
 very doors of the merchants' and traders' houses. The 
 canals are crossed by drawbridges, of which there are 
 commonly more than one in every street, and which gives 
 them such a look of similarity that it was with difficulty I 
 could distinguish one street from another. 
 
 Sunday, S\st. Went to the English Episcopal Church. 
 It is a neat but perfectly plain building, and is in general 
 very ill attended in the forenoon. 
 
 Monday, June 1st. Dined at the Orangie Eoom, a 
 house of entertainment about a mile and a half from 
 Kotterdam ; the dinner (given by Mr. Crauford), a most 
 elegant French and Dutch one of eight courses and a 
 dessert, as a specimen of Dutch cookery. 
 
 Thursday, 19th. Left Eotterdam and our friends, with 
 much regret, at seven o'clock in the evening ; sent our 
 carriage to meet us at Meer Dyck ; crossed the Maese 
 ourselves from the new works to the Toll Huys in a 
 sailing boat in about ten minutes ; slept at the Toll 
 Huys. 
 
 Friday, 20th. Left the Toll Huys at about five o'clock 
 
 in the morning in a phaeton ; arrived at the passage of 
 
 Meer Dyck about eight ; crossed in a sailing boat in half 
 
 an hour ; breakfasted at a little ale-house, from whence 
 
 we took six horses to convey our coach to Antwerp, and 
 
 were notwithstanding eleven hours in coming thirty-nine 
 
 miles, on account of the very deep sandy roads, most part 
 
 of the way over a great black dreary heath, till within 
 
 about a league and a half of Antwerp, where we came 
 
 upon a broad pavee, with a row of trees on each side and 
 
 through a rich enclosed corn country. Our equipage at 
 
 leaving Meer Dyck (being the first of the kind I had ever 
 
 seen) amused me not a little. Our six long- tailed black 
 
 horses were fastened together with very long rope traces, 
 
 the leading pair mounted by one of the tallest men I ever 
 
 saw, in a long blue coat, trowsers, and a pipe in his mouth, 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [i783 
 
 with much more of the respectable air of a skipper than 
 of a postilion. The other four were driven in hand by a 
 man sitting upon the fore trunk, accoutred exactly in the 
 same manner not excepting the pipe, which they never 
 failed stopping to light every two or three miles. Arrived 
 at the Hotel de Bruxelles at Antwerp at eight o'clock at 
 night. 
 
 Saturday, 21st. Saw the Church and Abbey of St. 
 Michel, or rather the abbot's apartments, for no other 
 part of it are ladies permitted to see. In the cabinet 
 is a Dead Christ by Vandyck, which struck me more 
 forcibly than any picture I had ever seen. The squalid 
 and cadaverous appearance of the body is wonderful and 
 affecting. It is three quarters, supported in the arms of 
 his mother, with another head (I suppose of St. John) 
 weeping over it. The collection of M. le Chanoine Knyff 
 consists of three large rooms, entirely covered from the 
 floor to the ceiling with valuable pictures of the Dutch 
 and Flemish schools. 
 
 Sunday., 22nd. Spent the whole day in visiting various 
 churches enriched with the noble works of Eubens and 
 Vandyck, and the collection of Mr. Van Lanckwex, in 
 which were several pleasing pictures, but I believe more 
 copies than originals. Almost every gentleman's house in 
 Antwerp and its neighbourhood has a collection of pictures ; 
 nay, almost every little auberge has its walls covered with 
 vile imitations and copies of the Flemish school, which 
 shows how general the profession and love of painting has 
 been, nay, even stiU is. Our valet de louage was by no 
 means a bad judge of the beauties and merits of pictures, 
 so much is the taste improved by having constantly before 
 one's eyes the works of great masters. 
 
 Monday, 23rd. Breakfasted at Malines. Arrived at 
 the Hotel de Belle Vue, at Bruxelles. The road between 
 Bruxelles and Antwerp is a fine pavee, planted with rows 
 of trees, and through the richest and most uniformly cul-
 
 1783] FROM ANTWERP TO BRUXELLES. 19 
 
 tivated country I ever saw ; the villages and farm-houses 
 had all a great air of comfort, and the country in general 
 has nothing to distinguish it from any of the richest corn 
 countries in England. Within three miles of Bruxelles, 
 by the side of the canal, the road becomes particularly 
 beautiful ; fine rising ground on all sides, well wooded 
 and adorned with several fine country-houses. Indeed, all 
 the environs of Bruxelles on every side deserve this cha- 
 racter. The lower part of the town itself is up and down hill, 
 ill built, and irregular; but the new buildings on the upper 
 part are at once gay and magnificent, especially the Place 
 Eoyale, the street that leads to it, and the buildings round 
 the Park. But I must observe, from all I saw, the new- 
 houses are not very judiciously disposed of within, nor is the 
 finishing by any means equal to their outward appearance. 
 
 Went in the evening to the Theatre des Enfants, a new- 
 built circular theatre in that part of the Park called 
 Vauxhall. The performers are children under fourteen 
 or fifteen years of age, and some of them not more 
 than six or seven. We saw a very droll petite piece, and 
 afterwards a tragedy in pantomime, both admirably well 
 acted. 
 
 Tuesday, 24:th. At shops all the morning, of which 
 there are excellent ones of all sorts at Bruxelles. In the 
 evening at the Grand Theatre. Much like our Opera 
 House in London, but the painting and decorations very 
 dirty and shabby, and the house very dark, as the lights 
 are almost all within the boxes, and never lighted but 
 when the box is occupied. 
 
 Wednesday, 2oth. Went to see the country-house 
 now building for the Archduke Albert,* the Governor of 
 
 * The Prince Albert of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria Christina 
 were at this time j oint Governors-general of the Austrian Netherlands. At 
 the early outburst of rebellion they attempted to temporise : the Emperor 
 disapproved their measures, and recalled them to Vienna. Lardncrs 
 Cyclopedia, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Bruxelles, about a mile and a half out of the town. It is 
 a large handsome building commanding fine views. The 
 lawn and grounds are all laid out entirely in the English 
 taste. 
 
 Thursday, 2Qth. Went to the play, the ' Fernmes Sa- 
 vantes ' of Moliere. Very well acted, particularly the parts 
 of Trissotin and the Grecian. Indeed, if I may be allowed 
 to judge from the little I have yet seen of foreign theatres, 
 one is never shocked with either a very awkward or a 
 very absurd representation of any part. The very confi- 
 dantes and gentlemen-ushers perform their offices decently, 
 and the chief parts have always been supported in a style 
 of mediocrity, which, if it did not captivate, would never 
 disgrace or shock. 
 
 Friday, 27th. Left Bruxelles. Breakfasted at Lou vain ; 
 from thence by Tirlemont and St. Tron to Liege, where 
 we did not arrive till ten o'clock at night, owing to an 
 accident happening to our wheel. 
 
 Saturday, 28th. Walked about the streets of Liege, 
 which is one of the dirtiest, ugliest, worst-built towns I 
 ever saw. The very palace of the Prince Bishop* has not 
 the least air of cleanliness or propriety about it ; the 
 streets are crowded with beggars, exhibiting every pos- 
 sible form of wretchedness, and everything bears the 
 appearance of poverty, vice, and misery. Indeed, the 
 many instances of profligacy observable in the city under 
 the government and the residence of a bishop, shocks and 
 surprises one. Every priest openly keeps a mistress, and 
 the principal bookseller's shop was filled with nothing 
 but libertine and profligate tales and novels. Left Liege 
 at two o'clock. The road to Aix very romantic, 
 but the worst I ever travelled, so narrow as only 
 just to admit the coach, and always very high on one 
 
 * Liege remained under the dominion of its bishops down to the time of 
 the French invasion, 1704.
 
 1783] FROM DUSSELDORF TO COLOGNE. 21 
 
 side and low on the other, so that we seemed every 
 moment oversetting. Arrived at Aix about eleven at 
 night. 
 
 Sunday, 29th. Left Aix; came by Juliers (a wretched 
 old walled town, guarded by some as wretched-looking 
 troops) to Dusseldorf, the residence of the Elector-Palatine; 
 crossed the Rhine about two miles before Dusseldorf, not 
 less (I think) than half a mile over. 
 
 Monday, 30</i. The town of Dusseldorf is ill built, 
 poor, and without manufactures, but is distinguished and 
 much visited for its magnificent cabinet of pictures in the 
 Electoral Palace.* They fill five large rooms, one of 
 which, called the Salle de Eubens, is entirely occupied by 
 the works of that great master: the largest canvass he 
 ever drew (The Last Judgment) is among them. The 
 Elector, who began this collection, got it from a church 
 of the Jesuits. The other four rooms are filled with 
 noble examples of the Dutch, Flemish, and Roman 
 schools. To see a collection of this sort as it deserves, 
 one should not attempt to comprehend it all at once, but 
 return day after day to its various beauties. To see it, as 
 we did, in two or three hours, surprises and fatigues the 
 mind more than it can be properly said either to entertain 
 or improve it. The rest of the apartments of the palace 
 have, I fancy, nothing to boast of, for they are not shown, 
 and their outward appearance is not very prepossessing ; 
 they are, however, undergoing a considerable repair. 
 
 Left Dusseldorf at two o'clock ; crossed the Rhine again 
 three miles from the town (as broad as the Thames at 
 Greenwich) in a large vessel, or rather raft fixed upon 
 two boats, and swung over by the rapidity of the 
 stream. Arrived at Cologne at 8 P.M. Cologne is a 
 remarkably ill-paved town, but seems to have some 
 
 * One wing alone remains of the palace built by the Elector John 
 William. The main edifice was destroyed by the bombardment of the 
 French in 1794. It formerly contained a famous collection of pictures.
 
 22 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [KSS 
 
 business going on in it.* Vessels of some burthen are 
 drawn up thus far on the Khine by horses ; further the 
 rapidity of the stream renders it impossible, for it may be 
 truly said of this noble river . 
 
 Facilis descensiis . . . 
 Sed revocare gradum, . . . 
 Hoc opus, hie labor est. 
 
 Tuesday ', July 1st. Arrived at Bonn ; the road the 
 whole way along the banks of the Ehine, which here 
 begin to lose the flat appearance they had about Dussel- 
 dorf. Went to see the palace of the Elector of Cologne, 
 who resides here.f It is almost the greatest extent of 
 building, and assuredly the very largest palace I ever 
 saw, and is just as unfit for the Elector of Cologne as 
 the small house of Windsor is for the King of Great 
 Britain ; it is divided into long suites of apartments, one 
 of which, together with a tennis court, were entirely dis- 
 mantled by a fire about seven years ago, and are now 
 repairing ; but of the other suites, some apartments are 
 furnished with much clumsy old-fashioned magnificence, 
 and some hardly furnished at all. There is a picture gallery, 
 200 feet long, filled with vile daubings of a number of 
 reigning princes ; a music room, 100 feet long, and a 
 complete theatre, in which German plays are acted three 
 times a week, at the Elector's expense. 
 
 Left Bonn at three o'clock ; arrived at Andernach, a 
 little village on the banks of the Ehine, about ten. Bonn 
 is surrounded by vineyards, and the road from thence to 
 Eemagen, and from Eemagen to Andernach, is most 
 
 * It is evident, from Miss Berry's making no mention of the Cathedral at 
 Cologne, that it was not in those days regarded as one of the most indis- 
 pensable, as well as one of the most beautiful sights in a tour on the 
 Rhine. ED. 
 
 t The Electors of Cologne removed their court from Cologne to Bonn as 
 early as 1268. The palace now contains the university (established by the 
 King of Prussia in 1818), lecture-room, library, academical hall, and 
 museum of Rhenish antiquities.
 
 1788] COBLEXTZ. 23 
 
 beautiful and romantic ; the whole way entirely upon the 
 banks of the Ehine, which rise into mountains on each 
 side covered almost to the top with vineyards, diversified 
 every here and there with wood, and very often crowned 
 with the ruins of an old castle, or rather beacon, for one 
 should hardly think castles could have been at any time 
 of use in such situations. For some miles before Ander- 
 nach the road seemed to have been cut out of the rock, 
 which rose almost perpendicularly on our right hand, and 
 every here and there adorned with little crucifixes and 
 Jesu-Marias placed in hollows in the rock, some painted 
 and curiously dressed up for their reception. Between 
 Bonn and Eemagen, a convent of nuns, beautifully situated 
 on an island in the Ehine. 
 
 Wednesday, "2nd. Breakfasted at Coblentz, the road 
 hilly and bad. Coblentz is large, but ill built ; it is the 
 residence of the Elector of Treves, whose palace is most 
 romantically situated opposite the town, on the other side 
 of the Ehine, and immediately under a very high hill, or 
 rather rock, the top of which is covered by a large for- 
 tress or castle, and barracks for soldiers. Nothing can 
 be more romantic than the palace when viewed from Cob- 
 lentz, the rock covered mostly by shrub-wood and crowned 
 by the castle,* with its batteries jutting out one beneath 
 another. Left Coblentz, crossed the Ehine : the road from 
 thence to Montabaur is through a most beautiful wood 
 and corn country, but the road so bad that we were five 
 hours going eleven miles. 
 
 From Montabaur to Limburg the same pretty country, 
 and the same tedious travelling. ^ 
 
 Limburg is a large wretched village, enclosed within 
 walls : it contains eight or ten thousand inhabitants, has 
 no sort of manufacture, and every appearance of poverty 
 
 * The original castle of the Elector of Treves, "built 1558, is now cou- 
 verted into a manufactory.
 
 24 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ITSS 
 
 and idleness ; the people, too, had the most untidy appear- 
 ance of any I have yet seen in Germany. 
 
 Thursday, 3rd. Breakfasted at Wiergis ; between 
 Limburg and Wiergis passed the famous spring of Selt- 
 zer ; it belongs to the Elector of Treves, and is guarded by 
 some of his troops, for the country people are only allowed 
 to take the water away in broken cruches, that they may 
 not sell or export it. The Elector has a paltry house and 
 garden close by the spring. The dexterity of the people 
 in filling, waxing, and corking the cruches amused me. 
 From Limburg to Konigstein and Frankfort, the road 
 throughout the worst imaginable ; but, let me add, through 
 the most beautiful country. 
 
 Frankfort is a large populous, busy town, but not in 
 general well built, though there are some good houses in 
 it ; they are mostly painted on the outside some of the 
 older ones very whimsically with festoons, pots of flowers, 
 and various devices. The Maison Rouge, the inn we 
 were at, is I believe the largest in Europe ; the present 
 landlord pulled down the old house and built this, round 
 the three sides of a long square ; it contains ninety-two 
 apartments, besides accommodation for servants, and great 
 cellars under the whole building, in which the landlord, 
 who is likewise a wine merchant, has 200 tonneaux of 
 hock, each tonneau contains eight ohens. 
 
 Friday, kth. I saw the church in which the emperor 
 is crowned King of the Eomans. It is the plainest and 
 the worst-paved Roman Catholic church I have yet been 
 in : in one of the altars the glory round our Saviour was 
 expressed by yellow glass in the window behind, which I 
 thought had an excellent effect. Left Frankfort ; slept at 
 Gerau, a small neat village belonging to the Prince of 
 Hesse ; the road from Frankfort very sandy ; half the way 
 through a fine enclosed forest, or deer park, of the Prince 
 of Hesse. Saw a very large wild boar, which, walking
 
 1783] MAXIIEIM. 25 
 
 peaceably in his native woods, is by no means the fierce- 
 looking animal he is represented by Snyders. 
 
 Saturday, bth. Crossed the Ehine ; breakfasted at 
 Worms ; dined at Manheim, the capital of the Elector- 
 Palatine's dominions. It is by far the prettiest town I 
 have seen in Germany ; all the streets are broad and at 
 right angles, and all the houses white. When I said the 
 palace at Bonn was the largest I had ever seen, I had not 
 been at Manheim.* The palace here is I think little less 
 than Greenwich Hospital ; it has an air of grandeur from 
 its immense extent of front and the large court before it ; 
 but no architectural beauty, nor is it built according to 
 any of the Grecian orders, but is merely a body and wings, 
 containing long ranges of windows, adorned with fancy 
 stone ornaments. It contains, besides the apartments for 
 accommodation, a suite of nine rooms filled with pictures ; 
 a tenth with drawings and the collection of prints ; three 
 with a cabinet of natural history ; an opera house ; a 
 gallery of antiquities ; a tennis court ; a noble library ; 
 and a chapel. 
 
 The cabinet of natural history is prettily arranged : it 
 seemed to contain fine specimens of ores, crystals, and 
 spars, and some very good shells. The library is a mag- 
 nificent and gay-looking room, 100 feet long, 50 broad, 
 and 36 high, with three rows of galleries around it, and 
 contains 80,000 volumes, and a very pretty painted ceil- 
 ing by a young German who had studied at Dusseldorf. 
 Having seen the cabinet at Dusseldorf, I confess I expected 
 little from that at Manheim, supposing that the master of 
 the former could not have much more to boast of in the 
 way of pictures ; but I was mistaken : for though the 
 finest pieces of Eubens and of the Italian school are at 
 
 * The palace was erected by the Elector Palatine, Karl ^Philip, when 
 he removed his court from Heidelberg and made Manheim his capital 
 in 1720.
 
 26 MISS BEERY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Dusseldorf, there are in every one of the nine rooms at 
 Manheim several very interesting pictures, and a fine col- 
 lection of the Dutch school. Two heads in particular of 
 an old man and an old woman, as large as life, by Denner, 
 of Hamburgh, so minutely and so accurately finished, that 
 the nearer one applied a magnifying glass to them the 
 more one was tempted to believe them alive. The Elec- 
 toral troops at Manheim, the best-looking and best-dressed 
 I have seen in Germany. In spite of all the magnificence 
 of Manheim and the pictures of Dusseldorf, the Elector 
 slights them both, and lives almost entirely at Munich, 
 another Electoral town, where the librarian told us he had 
 still a larger collection of books than at Manheim. The 
 Electress spends the winter at Manheim and the summer 
 at a country-house about a league from thence. The ap- 
 proach on every side is by beautiful avenues of Italian 
 poplars, and the road from Gerau excellent. Slept at 
 Spires : the aisle of the church there one of the loftiest I 
 have seen. 
 
 Sunday, Qth. Arrived at Strasbourg, a large, populous, 
 busy, ill-built town. The front of the cathedral church is 
 one of the most highly finished and beautiful, in the Gothic 
 style. The spire too is beautiful, but loses some of its effect 
 by the church, or rather belfry, coming up too high against 
 it, and making it appear not high enough for the rest of 
 the building. Saw the monument to the memory of 
 Marechal Saxe in the Lutheran church of St. Thomas. 
 The design is interesting and the effect excellent. The 
 expression in the figure of France is particularly happy ; 
 but the sculpture and execution, though done at the ex- 
 pense of the king and by one of the first artists in France, 
 struck me as by no means equal to that of many of our 
 capital ones in Westminster Abbey. I could not help ob- 
 serving with pleasure, that among the emblems of the 
 different nations with whom he fought and conquered, 
 while the German Eagle is overthrown and the Eussian
 
 1783] FROM STRASBOURG TO GEXBVA. 27 
 
 Bear sprawling on the ground, the British Lion is only 
 turning sulkily away. The road from Spires to Stras- 
 bourg like the finest turnpike in England, the third stage 
 entirely through one great and beautiful forest of oak, 
 beech, birch, and firs ; observed strawberries, raspberries, 
 gooseberries, and barberries, all growing in it. 
 
 Monday, 7th. Slept at Neuve Brisac, built by Louis 
 XIV. At the Peace of Eyswick the possession of Alsace 
 was confirmed to him ; he destroyed the fortifications of 
 old Brisac, a German town exactly opposite on the other 
 side of the Ehine, arid built this. It is a fortification of 
 Vauban's, is surrounded by four fosses, and has every 
 appearance of great strength. The streets are neat, all 
 tire a cordeau, and there is a large square in the middle 
 of the town, which consists entirely of such houses as one 
 can suppose brought together to supply the want of a 
 number of soldiers. The garrison at present consists of 
 1,200 men, including a regiment of cavalry. 
 
 Tuesday, 8th. Arrived at Basle ; the streets much up 
 and down hill, but most romantically situated on the 
 banks of the Ehine. 
 
 Wednesday, 9th. Left Basle with a voiturier, who 
 agreed to carry us to Lausanne in three days and a half, 
 with four horses for the coach and one for the servant, for 
 ten louis. 
 
 Saturday, ~L2th. Arrived between nine and ten at 
 night at Lausanne. The country the whole way most 
 romantically beautiful, and the weather most intolerably 
 hot. 
 
 Sunday, August Wth. Left Lausanne; passed through 
 Merges, Eolle, and Myon, and arrived at Geneva. The 
 road from Lausanne to Geneva great part of the way 
 upon the very edge of the lake. Morges is a fine open 
 broad street, the prettiest town I have seen in the Pays de 
 Vaud. The streets of Geneva are narrow and not well 
 built, but the whole town has the greatest appearance of
 
 28 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1783 
 
 business and population, and being Sunday evening, we 
 saw crowds of people of all sorts both in the streets and 
 upon the ramparts, which are one of their public walks, 
 bordered with a row of trees. 
 
 Monday, ~l.\th. Left Geneva ; baited the horses at 
 Bonneville, a poor town upon the banks of the Arve, sur- 
 rounded by Alps. Dined upon plums and bread and 
 butter, not liking to attempt anything else at such an inn, 
 the dirtiest and only bad one I have yet seen. The stair- 
 case was of rough and broken stones, perfectly dark, with 
 a door half-way up it into the stable, where, indeed, the 
 horses seemed to be better lodged than their masters ; 
 the bare walls of the room where we sat were covered 
 with splashes of dirt of all sorts and colours ; the floor had 
 surely never felt water since the time of its being laid, 
 and had the accumulated dirt of years upon it ; and the 
 beds, ' where dingy yellow strove with dirty red,' were 
 quite of a piece with the room ; it was, indeed, only a 
 comfortable habitation for vermin, which abounded in 
 numbers. The road from Bonneville to Sallenches beau- 
 tifully wild, winding along the valley of the Arve, in some 
 places so narrow as only to admit the river and a narrow 
 road for a carriage, walled in on each side by immense 
 mountains, cultivated almost higher up than one could 
 suppose them accessible, and their craggy tops fringed with 
 firs ; from the winding of the valley the mountains seem 
 in many places entirely to shut up the end. Baited the 
 horses at Cluse, a larger town than one could expect to 
 find in the midst of mountains, and apparently swarming 
 with inhabitants. The appearance of a postchaise and two 
 ladies in strange dresses drew all the people to their 
 doors, a train of children after us walking the street, and 
 a crowd of all ages round the carriage, who kept their 
 eyes fixed upon us and examined us with a stare of as 
 much admiration as if we had been the inhabitants of 
 another planet. The other villages through which we
 
 1783] FROM GENEVA TO GHAMOUXI. 29 
 
 passed were only a few scattered rude cottages built of 
 and covered with planks of fir, and ill calculated to keep 
 out either heat or cold, but they are covered in summer 
 by the shade of fruit trees, and warmed in winter by the 
 cattle, which are all brought under the same roof. Every 
 cottage, and in general the sides of the road, are sur- 
 rounded with plum, pear, and apple trees ; the fruit 
 being dried, in the winter forms a part of the food of the 
 inhabitants. The plum-trees were so loaded with fruit that 
 the leaves were hardly distinguishable ; they were of two 
 kinds, a small purple and a small yellow. Crossed the 
 Arve at Sallenches, where we arrived about eight o'clock. 
 The inn decent, and the fleas less troublesome than at 
 Bonneville. Much amused all the evening by the patois 
 songs of a voiturier in the next room to us. Eained all 
 night. 
 
 Tuesday, 12/A. As it still continued raining we could 
 not mount our char-a-banc till near nine o'clock to 
 proceed to Chamouni. These cars have little resemblance 
 to the carriages we generally call by that name, and in 
 which we represent gods and heroes, being nothing more 
 than three or four planks fastened between four low 
 wheels, and on which you sit sideways about two foot and 
 a half from the ground ; from these planks is suspended 
 another bit of board by two chains to put the feet on by 
 way of stirrup or foot-board. It being wet weather, we 
 had a canvass roof, supported upon four sticks ; and how- 
 ever mean it may appear in description, it is an excellent 
 carriage for the roads it is intended to go on, as it cannot 
 be overturned (the shafts forming part of the carriage), 
 and is much less jolting than one would suspect. 
 
 The whole road from Geneva to Sallenches is perfectly 
 good for any carriage. Beyond Sallenches nobody takes 
 their carriage, as the road becomes impassable except for 
 a char-k-banc or horses. One here leaves the Arve, the 
 current of which is confined to very narrow limits by
 
 30 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 mountains rising perpendicularly from its edge. The 
 scenes presented to the eye are the most sublime that 
 imagination can form. They fill the mind with great 
 ideas, and leave it impressed with a degree of admiration 
 which attempts not to express itself by words. I ex- 
 perienced this so forcibly that when I arrived at Cha- 
 mouni, after being for nearly six hours surrounded by 
 these new and astonishing views of nature, I sat down 
 perfectly absorbed in a confusion of ideas, every one 
 of which seemed too great for my mind, and could 
 neither speak myself nor wish to hear others on the 
 subject. 
 
 Baited the horses at a little wooden village, where there 
 are lead and silver mines, which a company of German 
 and French have undertaken to work. The house that 
 was building for the superintendent of the mines, from 
 having plastered walls and glass windows, had the appear- 
 ance of comfort in a place where the house of the cure 
 consisted of nothing but r deal planks rudely enough put 
 together. After passing through about two leagues of the 
 valley of Chamouni arrived at our inn, the interior of which 
 had a semblance of decent accommodation, at once pleasing 
 and unexpected in so remote a place. The village of 
 Chamouni consists of about twenty or thirty houses, a 
 very neat church and cure-house, and both the cottages 
 and inhabitants have a much greater appearance of com- 
 fort than those of any other village through which we 
 have passed. 
 
 Wednesday, \%th. Eained the whole forenoon so vio- 
 lently that we could not stir out. About four o'clock the 
 rain abating, went upon mules to see the source of the 
 Arveron (a small river which joins the Arve at Chamouni), 
 in the Glacier de Boisson. The river runs from under a 
 large cave or arch of ice in the lowest part of the glacier, 
 which rises sloping up between two immense hills. 
 The ice is for ever falling in large bodies from the mouth
 
 1733] CHAMOUXI. 31 
 
 of the cave from whence the river proceeds ; it is of the 
 most beautiful greenish-blue colour, which it loses after 
 having been for some time exposed to the air. Our mules 
 carried us to within a quarter of a mile of the ice. We 
 then clambered over a number of large pieces of rock, 
 left by former glaciers, to the edge of the water, where we 
 stood upon large blocks of ice that had fallen at different 
 times from the great body of the glaciers which rose on 
 one side like an immense wall above us, while on the other 
 the river rushed from under its blue caves over masses of 
 rock and ice. 
 
 Thursday, 14#A. Still much rain, and fog that entirely 
 covered three parts of the mountains. Went to the mu- 
 seum of a peasant in the village. It consisted of some 
 pretty crystals and two very well-stuffed chamois and a 
 bouquetin. The man himself had been all his life a guide 
 to the strangers who visited the valley ; and from that and 
 from the company he had kept, he had acquired ideas and 
 conversation far above his situation. He remembered the 
 arrival of Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Pococke,* the two first 
 
 * Messrs. "Wyndham and Pococke's excursion to Chamouni, and their 
 report of it, led, by its publication in the Mercure de Suisse in the months of 
 May and June 1741, to the excitement of great interest in those retired 
 wilds, amidst the most sublime scenery in nature, and at the foot of the 
 loftiest mountains of Europe. Murray's Handbook. 
 
 ' Quelque incroyable que la chose puisse paroitre, cette vallee si singu- 
 lierement interessante, dans laquelle on voit la montagne la plus e"leve"e de 
 1'ancien monde, est demeuree entierement inconnue jusqu'en 1741. Ce fut 
 alors que le c4lebre voyageur Pocock et un autre Anglais nonimg M. Wind- 
 ham le visiterent et donnerent a 1'Europe et au monde entier les premieres 
 notions d'une contre"e qui n'est qu'a 18 lieues de distance de Geneve. M. 
 Baulacre, bibliothe'caire de Geneve, fut le premier qui fit connoJtre la vallee 
 de Chamouny par une relation abre'ge'e de ce voyage qu'il publia dans le 
 Mercure de Suisse pour les niois de mai et de juin de 1'an 1743.' Ebel, 
 Manuel du Voyayeur en Suisse, vol. ii. p. 255. 
 
 To this account M. Ebel adds the following note: 
 
 f Comme tout le monde croyoit que cette valle"e e"toit un repaire de 
 brigands et de peuples barbares et sauvages, on blamait ge"neralement leur 
 resolution, on leur conseilla si se'rieusement de bien se tenir sur leur garde, 
 qu'ils partirent de Geneve arme"s j usqu' aux dents avec un nombre de do- 
 mestiques egalement arme's ; ils n'oserent entrer dans aucune uiaison, ils
 
 32 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1783 
 
 strangers that ever visited the glacier from curiosity, to 
 whom his father had served as guide ; and the consterna- 
 tion of the inhabitants of the valley, who, seeing two 
 strangers, with several attendants, horses, and firearms, 
 pitching a tent in their village, were persuaded they 
 came with an hostile intention, till informed by the cure 
 of the real motive of their journey. Went into the inside 
 of the church. Much neater than we could expect ; 
 adorned with a number of pictures not quite of the sign- 
 post kind, and a profusion of gilt wooden figures about the 
 altars. About eleven o'clock, the weather clearing up a 
 little, we mounted our mules, accompanied by two guides 
 on foot, to ascend Montanvert. The road the mules picked 
 out upon the almost perpendicular side of the mountain, 
 over and between immense masses of rock, loose stones, 
 and roots of trees, astonished me ; but as I had before 
 heard of their sagacity and steadiness when left to them- 
 selves, I did not experience the least degree of fear even 
 in those places where a slip would have been fatal, but 
 putting the bridle upon the mule's back, took care only 
 not to slip off his tail, which the steepness of the ascent 
 often rendered possible. When we had got about a third 
 part of the mountain, as high as the mules could carry us, 
 the rain and fog were so great that, by the advice of our 
 guides, we submitted to the mortifying necessity of return- 
 ing. They could give us no hopes of better weather, and 
 declared if we went to the top of the mountain we should 
 see nothing from the thickness of the fog. We descended 
 on foot, and I found myself much more apt to stumble, 
 and the road much more difficult to pick than my mule 
 had done. Gathered a number of plants. The side of 
 
 camperent sous des tentes, et tinrent des feux et des sentinelles en garde 
 pendant toute la nuit. Lesmontagnes des environs e"toient alors connues 
 sous le nora de " Montagues inedites." ' 
 
 It was not till 17GO thatM. Saussure first visited the Valley of Chamouni, 
 when it was still regarded as a dangerous journey.
 
 1783] ASCEND THE GLACIER BE BOISSON. 33 
 
 the mountain abounds in bilberries, cranberries, and straw- 
 berries. Found our mules waiting for us at the foot of 
 the mountain. Seized the first fair moment to go to the 
 Glacier de Boisson, which, about a league from the inn, 
 descends quite into the valley of Chamouni. The mules 
 carried us to within what appeared a few steps of the ice, 
 but these steps were so rugged and upon so perpendicular 
 an ascent, that we were yet half an hour before we found 
 ourselves upon the moraine, a sort of wall or mound of 
 gravel and stones, which runs parallel with the length of 
 the glacier. From hence we descended to the edge of the 
 body of ice, in the side of which one of our guides cut two 
 or three notches with a hatchet by way of steps, to enable 
 us to get up so slippery a surface. They then gave us 
 light fir poles, shod with iron, which we could fix into 
 the ice, and my father a small piece of leather, with iron 
 spikes fastened in it, to buckle round each foot. These 
 they call grimpons. Thus equipped, and with the help of 
 our guides, one of whom took me by the arm, and the 
 other my sister, we passed the ice with perfect ease, 
 and without even the fear of tumbling. Our guides were 
 so accustomed to treading upon ice that, though without 
 any precaution but a pole, they never made a false step ; 
 took us over that part of the glacier where the surface 
 was least unequal, and where we were not stopped by any 
 of those dreadful chasms so much talked of by travellers. 
 
 Monday, 13#A. Left Lausanne, reached Geneva. 
 
 Wednesday, \bth. Dined at Lord Grandison's,* at the 
 Chateau de Coppet. 
 
 Thursday, IQth. Left Geneva with a voiturier for 
 
 * George Earl of Grandison, son of Lady Elizabeth Villiers, daughter of 
 James, first Earl of Grandison. In consequence of the death of her two 
 brothers, Lady Elizabeth Villiers was created Viscountess and Countess of 
 Grandison ; and dying 1782, was succeeded by her son George, born 1750, 
 married February 1772 to Lady Gertrude Conway ; ob. 1800, leaving one 
 daughter, Lady Gertrude Villiers, married to Lord Henry Stuart. The 
 title of Earl of Grandison ceased, and the Viscounty descended to the Earls 
 of Jersey. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Turin, who agreed to carry us three, with three ser- 
 vants, to pay all the bills on the road, and all expenses in 
 crossing Mont Cenis in short, to set us down at Turin 
 for 24 louis. The bargain was thought a good one. We 
 were asked 38/. for the same journey from Lausanne. 
 But this man was at any rate returning to Turin. We 
 did not arrive at Eemilly till past ten at night, our horses 
 never going out of a walk nor ever making out a league 
 in an hour. 
 
 Friday ', 6th. Breakfasted at Aix les Bains, at the post- 
 house, a wretched hole. 
 
 The baths are in a handsome edifice, begun by the 
 present King of Sardinia in 1773,* and hardly yet finished ; 
 they are numerous and well contrived ; the water is much 
 warmer than that of Bath, and has a sulphureous smell not 
 much less disagreeable than that of Harrowgate ; the town, 
 or rather village, is poor. 
 
 Dined at Chambery, the capital of Savoy. It is a walled 
 town, garrisoned with Piedmontese troops ; its situation 
 beautiful, in a fine valley, surrounded by mountains with a 
 number of picturesque chateaux and country-houses scat- 
 tered upon their sides ; the streets are narrow, but it has 
 more an air of business and population than any of the 
 other towns in Savoy ; the best auberge very bad. Left 
 Chambery, arrived at Mont Melian at seven ; the people 
 very civil ; the room we slept in was tolerably clean. 
 
 Saturday, Ylth. Dined at Aiguebelle. Arrived at La 
 Chambre between eight and nine. The road the whole 
 way from Mont Melian most romantic and beautiful, 
 along a narrow but cultivated valley, watered by the 
 rapid and turbulent Arche, and bounded on every side by 
 lofty Alps, on the tops of many of which some spots of snow 
 were already to be seen, while their sides, to an astonish- 
 ing height, were covered with vines, apparently growing 
 
 * Victor Amadeus III. succeeded his father Charles Emmanuel III. in 
 1773. His reign was unfortunate; he lost Savoy; died 1706.
 
 1783] SWISS VILLAGES. 35 
 
 upon the bare rock. Mont Melian is surrounded by 
 vineyards, and its wine much in esteem, but the pleasure 
 one everywhere receives from the sublime beauties of the 
 country is much diminished by the appearance of extreme 
 poverty in the people, and the perfect wretchedness of 
 their cottages and villages. The cottages are generally a 
 parcel of loose stones, put together without even mortar, 
 over which a number of wooden planks or pieces of flat 
 stone are thrown by way of roof ; two or three little 
 holes with iron bars before them for windows, often with- 
 out either paper or glass. Their villages consist of about 
 eighty or a hundred such houses placed together in a 
 street hardly ever more than nine feet wide, which keeps 
 it at all times of the year equally dirty, wet, and dark. 
 The church (with which they are all provided) is the only 
 building which possesses the luxury of a few panes of glass. 
 The inhabitants, in every respect, too well correspond 
 with these wretched dwellings. In one or two villages 
 between Aiguebelle and La Chambre, almost every crea- 
 ture we saw had a goitre, and most of them that humi- 
 liating appearance of stupidity and idiotism which is 
 observed to accompany that malady. L'Ecu de France, 
 at La Chambre, dirty. Two French travellers had got 
 possession of the only decent room before we arrived, 
 which, however, they gave up to us ; there were three 
 beds in it, one of which my father was obliged to occupy. 
 
 Sunday r , 18^. Dined at St. Michel, a wretched vil- 
 lage, enclosed with a wall ; from hence we had four horses 
 added to those of the voiturier, to draw us up a very long 
 and very steep hill about a league from Modane. 
 
 The whole road from La Chambre to Modane, still 
 through the valley of the Arche, was at every step more 
 and more sublimely beautiful. The vine cultivated about 
 all the houses and high up upon the sunny sides of the 
 mountains. 
 
 Monday, 19th. Left Modane ; arrived at Lanslebourg 
 
 u 2
 
 36 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 at the foot of Mont Cenis before eleven. The road from 
 Modane to Lanslebourg a continual ascent and descent 
 along the side of the mountains, the Arche rolling below 
 in a very narrow rocky channel. At Lanslebourg one is 
 surrounded with the porters of the mountain, but we had 
 agreed with the voiturier for our transport, and had 
 nothing to do with the bargain which after much cla- 
 mour was made with them. At half-past twelve three 
 chairs were prepared for my sister, myself, and our maid, 
 a mule for my father and another for one of the ser- 
 vants, while the other was left to come over with the car- 
 riage. 
 
 Just before we set out, a chair arrived from the other 
 side of the mountain with a gentleman whom I imme- 
 diately knew to be Cozens the painter's son,* and sur- 
 prised him by saluting him by his name, as he was step- 
 ping out of his chair. An unexpected meeting in such a 
 place, even with a person in whom one is little interested 
 or acquainted, is very pleasant. 
 
 Left Lanslebourg ; stopped at La Saverne, on the plain 
 of Mont Cenis, for twenty minutes, to rest the chairmen ; 
 and arrived at Novaleze, the village on this side the 
 mountain, before 5 P.M. The pace at which these chair- 
 men carry one, and the dexterity with which they take 
 the poles from one another without stopping, is truly 
 astonishing ; down the deepest and ruggedest part of the 
 road they went for two leagues without intermission, 
 much quicker than my father could possibly follow, 
 though carrying no weight, and taking always a shorter 
 way than the winding of the road allowed them to do. 
 
 * John Cozens, son of Alexander Cozens, followed the same profession as 
 his father. He produced some drawings of great merit, executed by a 
 process that may be considered as tinted chiaro oscuro. In the year 1794 he 
 became insane, and died 1790. His father, by birth a Russian, was a land- 
 scape painter, but chiefly practised as a drawing-master ; he was also the 
 author of some works connected with art. Died 1786. Edwards' Anecdotes 
 of Painting.
 
 1783] ST. AMBROISE. 37 
 
 The road is in no respect dangerous, though in some 
 parts amazingly steep, but the way is always wide enough 
 to admit half a dozen chairs or mules abreast, and the 
 chairs are carried so near the ground, that were the 
 porters to fah 1 (which they never do) one could hardly be 
 hurt. The views of the surrounding Alps noble, and 
 the cascade formed by the torrent of Cenis one of the 
 finest I ever saw. Though much snow had fallen on the 
 mountain about ten days before, a few small spots only 
 remained on the northern side. . 
 
 The auberge at Novaleze the dirtiest and worst we 
 have yet been in. 
 
 Tuesday, 2(M. At St. Antoine began to lose the 
 mountains and get into the plain of Lombardy. The 
 mulberry begins here to be cultivated ; the trees are all 
 pollarded and kept low, to force young shoots for leaves, 
 and are far from picturesque. Slept at St. Ambroise, a 
 large village situated under a high rock, on the summit 
 of which is a beautiful castle, formerly a monastery ; at 
 present there is but one pretre or monk, who performs 
 service in the chapel there. 
 
 Wednesday r , 2lst. Left St. Ambroise; arrived at 
 Turin between twelve and one. The road from Eivoli to 
 Turin (two leagues) through one continued avenue of 
 elms. The Duke of Savoy's palace at Eivoli a great 
 ugly brick building. 
 
 Mr. Pitt,* and the Mr. Ashetons,f Sir James Graham,J 
 and Mr. Brand supped with us. 
 
 * Mr. Pitt's name, though constantly mentioned in Miss Berry's journal 
 during this first tour, never occurs again till in the year 1809, -when, staying 
 in the neighbourhood of West Moulsey, she finds her old acquaintance, Mr. 
 Thomas Pitt, residing near there with his grown-up family. 
 
 t Of the Mr. Ashetons it is difficult to obtain any account. The Eev. 
 Thomas Asheton, Rector of St. Botolph, and the friend of Horace Walpole 
 and Mason, died 1775, leaving two sons. Query, if they. 
 
 J Sir James Graham, Bart., of Netherby, (father of the late Right Hon. 
 Sir James Graham), created a baronet in 1782 ; married, 1785, Catherine, 
 eldest daughter of John Earl of Galloway ; died 1824. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Brand took a high degree in mathematics at Cam-
 
 38 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Thursday ', 22nd. Saw the palace and the Great 
 Theatre. The palace is built of brick and intended to be 
 stuccoed, which not being yet done gives it a mean, 
 unfinished appearance ; it is divided into fine suites of 
 summer and winter apartments. Much gilding and a 
 great deal of looking-glass, and a number of pleasing 
 pictures: A Youth caressing a Dog, by Cignani, beautiful; 
 and a Group of Cows, by P. Potter, nature itself; the 
 Femme Hydropique, by Gerard Dow, for which the late 
 king gave 1,500/. sterling, did not strike me much ; I 
 think I have seen many of the cabinet pictures in Flan- 
 ders much more highly finished ; the same subject, in the 
 gallery at Dusseldorf, far superior to it. 
 
 The Great Theatre joins to the palace by a long gallery. 
 There are only performances in it at the carnival or on the 
 occasion of some prince visiting the Court of Turin, when 
 it is illuminated with 2,000 lights in the boxes, and must 
 make a brilliant appearance ; we saw it by daylight, and 
 all in rubbish. It is considerably larger than our Opera 
 House in London, contains 182 boxes, in six rows, ex- 
 clusive of the king's, which is ornamented with glass, and 
 occupies the centre of the second and third rows. During 
 the carnival they say it is always full. 
 
 The buildings and streets of Turin disappointed me ; 
 they are, to be sure, at right angles, and the buildings 
 regular, but the finest and newest streets have almost a 
 ruinous appearance, from being of that rough sort of 
 brickwork, with the holes of the scaffolding left, intended 
 to be covered with stucco, but it will be long, if ever, 
 before it is done. The Strada del Po, the finest street, is 
 in this condition, and it takes off the beauty which its 
 regularity, height, arcades on each side, and gate at the 
 bottom would otherwise give. 
 
 bridge ; married, in 1798, daughter of Dr. Wharton, of Old Park, Co. 
 Durham; died Rector of Wath, near Ripon, and Canon Residentiary of the 
 Cathedral of Ripon. His wife survived him many years.
 
 1783] TURIN. 39 
 
 The palace of the Dukes of Savoy is the only building 
 that has a front much ornamented. The king's palace is 
 like the streets, all unstuccoed and unfinished. The town 
 has a great air of business, bustle, and population ; the 
 streets are full of men walking about in full dress, for 
 every creature here above the commonest shopkeepers 
 wears a bag, a sword, and a suit of clothes. Went in the 
 evening to the Theatre de Carignan, where an opera bufia 
 is performed all the summer. It appears as wide, but not 
 so deep, as Drury Lane ; the Prince of Carignan's box 
 occupies the place of the king's at the other house. The 
 king never comes to this. The dancing consists almost 
 entirely of feats of agility worthy of Sadler's Wells, 
 continued vaulting into the air, and the higher they 
 jump the more bravos or bravas they receive from the 
 delighted pit. The dresses elegant and various, and the 
 stage well filled. 
 
 Friday, 23rd. Day rainy. In the evening paid our 
 compliments to Mr.* and Mrs. Trevor, to whom we had a 
 letter from Count Walmoden. 
 
 Saturday, 24#A. Saw the museum at the University. 
 The museum, besides the famous Isiac table,f contains 
 some pretty Eoman busts, and a number of lamps, small 
 bronze figures, and earthenware, most of them found at 
 Industria,J the remains of the Eoman town that was 
 
 * Mr. John Trevor, Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Sardinia in 
 February 1783, and Minister Plenipotentiary to the same court in June 1789. 
 
 t A tablet of bronze of about 4 ft. by 3 ft., with figures engraved of Egyp- 
 tian deities and hieroglyphics. It went to Paris with other stolen goods, 
 and has been restored to Turin. 
 
 J Near Verolongo, but on the opposite side of the Po, is Montea del Po, 
 occupying the site of the Roman City of Industria. This city, mentioned 
 by Pliny and other ancient writers, had been in a manner lost. Many anti- 
 quarians supposed that Casale bad risen upon its ruins ; but in 1744 the 
 discovery of Roman remains on this spot, and some fragments of inscrip- 
 tions, led to the supposition that this was the site, and further excavations 
 were made. The result proved that this soil covered a very rich mine of 
 antiquities, and produced many of the finest articles in the museum at 
 Turin. Murray's Handbook.
 
 40 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 discovered near Turin, some very clear glass cups, and 
 a glass bottle corked, containing a liquor they take to 
 have been milk. The chapel of the Saint Sudario joins 
 the palace to the cathedral. The cathedral is an ugly 
 old building, hung with bad tapestry ; the chapel of the 
 S. S. is singular and beautiful, it is lined through with 
 black marble, and supported on black marble pillars. 
 The holy cloth is kept in a large crystal case, with a brass 
 grating before it, upon an altar. 
 
 Sunday., 2bth. Left Turin ; slept at Casale. The road 
 through the rich flat of Piedmont very populous, and a 
 considerable appearance of comfort. Came the first three 
 or four stages as fast as we could have posted in England. 
 At Casale a clean auberge. 
 
 Monday, 2Qth. The people broke the carriage in 
 pushing it out of the inn yard, which delayed our de- 
 parture till near 10 A.M. Slept at Novi. 
 
 Tuesday, 27tk. Passed the Bochetta, between Novi 
 and Ottaggio. The morning was cloudy ; when at the 
 summit of the hill we came into a beam of bright sun- 
 shine, while rain and thick clouds were below us. The 
 road makes a thousand turns round the side of the 
 mountain to avoid different gullies and torrents from the 
 mountains ; it is all paved, and in some places supported 
 against the rock by masonry and piles of wood. In one 
 part it had fallen in, and, though sufficiently repaired for 
 carriages to pass, was rather frightful and dangerous. 
 The lower part of the Apennines is covered with chestnut 
 trees ; higher up and near the top there is neither wood 
 nor cultivation, but bleak and bare, without either the 
 beauty or sublimity of the Alps. From Campomarone to 
 Genoa (eleven miles) a magnificent road, made entirely 
 at the expense of the Marquis Carnbiaso, in consequence 
 of a vow made when his wife was ill that if ever she 
 recovered he would make such a road ; it is very broad, 
 with a row of elm trees on each side and a very low stone
 
 1783] GEXOA. 41 
 
 wall ; it was finished only in 1776. Nothing can be more 
 like fairyland than the whole road between Campoma- 
 rone and Genoa ; the sides of the hills are covered with 
 country-houses, gardens, and vineyards, forming the 
 gayest scenes imaginable ; for above three miles before 
 arriving at Genoa it is one continual row of houses, which 
 join to the faubourg of San Pietro d'Arena. The view of 
 the town, the hills behind it, the harbour, and the moles, 
 from the point of the Lanterna on entering the town, 
 most striking and beautiful. 
 
 Wednesday, 2Sth. Sent our letter to the consul ; re- 
 ceived a visit from his partner, Mr. Brame ; walked 
 through the principal streets. The Strada Nuova a row 
 of palaces, but so narrow that much of the magnificence 
 of its effect is lost ; and yet, except the Strada Balbi, it is 
 the widest street in the town. The rest are no broader 
 than a court in London, paved almost entirely with flat 
 stones, and very pleasant for walking. A street of silver- 
 smiths, the shops nearly as showy as those in London. 
 From the narrowness of the streets carriages are hardly 
 ever used, except when the families are going into the 
 country. All the people of fashion in town go in chairs, 
 with two or three footmen ; the gentlemen often walk, 
 their chair and footmen always following them ; the 
 chairs sometimes very handsome. Mr. Pitt and the 
 Mr. Ashetons, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Brand arrived 
 in the evening, and all took up their lodgings in the same 
 inn. 
 
 Thursday, 2$th. Went all out in a felucca of eight 
 oars to view the town from the sea. I think upon the 
 whole it is not more striking than on entering it by land 
 frorn the point of the Lanterna. My father, my sister, 
 and myself went afterwards to the Albergo dei Poveri, an 
 immense building which serves both for a hospital and 
 house of correction. An end to one wing is still wanting 
 tj make it regular. It is built upon rock, which juts out
 
 42 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1783 
 
 immediately behind the building. It contains 1,080 per- 
 sons 780 women, and 300 men and boys. The boys 
 are put out to trades ; the women, if- they do not marry 
 or find a service, may remain there all their li ves. Great 
 defalcations made from its revenue by those who have 
 the administration of it. There are six of them, not 
 places for life, but appointed at pleasure by the reigning 
 people in power. The revenues of the house are large 
 enough to admit of all the people being perfectly well 
 fed, but they are not, and have a very scanty allowance 
 both of bread, wine, and meat. 
 
 Saw the church of the Annunciata, entirely covered 
 in the inside with gilding, painting, and marble, in a very 
 gaudy taste. 
 
 Went to the opera. There is a sort of gallery or bal- 
 cony before the first row of boxes, very convenient for 
 the gentlemen, and what I never saw before. 
 
 Friday, 30^A. Saw the Palazzo Brignole, Chiesa Cari- 
 gnano, Doge's palace, and the Doge himself, attended by 
 all the senators, coming from the council-chambers. The 
 two new council-chambers most magnificent and elegant. 
 
 Saturday, 3~Lst. Palazzo Durazzo, Palazzo Balbi, and 
 the church of St. Filippo Neri. 
 
 Sunday, November 1st. Gardens of Andrea Doria, 
 Palazzo Dominico Serra, the new Grande Salle very mag- 
 nificent in gilding and glass. 
 
 Madame Durazzo has 200 livres of Genoa an hour 
 (29 livres in a louis). 
 
 The house of Cambiasi, consisting of three families, 
 have 1,800,000 livres a year rent among them. No hotel 
 or auberge allowed to keep wine in their houses ; the 
 state are the wine-merchants and bakers of the town. 
 
 More monks of every sort in Genoa, and more con- 
 tinual services going on in their churches, than I have 
 seen in any other town in Italy. Left Genoa. 
 
 Monday, 2nd. Left Campomarone. Between Ottagio
 
 1783] NO VI. 43 
 
 and Novi they gave us six sucli tired horses that, going 
 up-hill, they refused three or four times to draw, and, in 
 spite of all our efforts, stood still for a quarter of an hour 
 at a time ; this, together with fording the river, which was 
 very much swelled with the rain of the night before, pre- 
 vented our getting to Novi till three o'clock. More than 
 an hour was taken up in getting our baggage put on, and 
 we did not leave Novi till past four, in a heavy rain, to go 
 to Tortona, with the Scrivia to pass. By the time we 
 arrived at the bank of the river it was dark, and the rain 
 continued to pour. We called in vain for the boatmen ; 
 the boat was there, but the men were gone home for the 
 night. Our postilions were desired to carry us to the 
 first house that would take us in ; it was about half a mile 
 off the Eivalto di Scrivia, a poor village of a dozen 
 houses. After hard knocking for about five minutes, we 
 at last got admittance into a sort of auberge. Here we 
 found a place to sit in, which had acorns spread in one 
 part of the floor, and a wine-trough in another ; it was, 
 however, decently clean, and the people civil. We got a 
 fire made felt ourselves thankful to get housed and 
 were soon very comfortable. Above we found two beds 
 for ourselves and Hannah, and my father had a mattress 
 put upon the table in the room below. Eained all night. 
 Tuesday, 4th. Left Eivalto di Scrivia. - When we 
 arrived at the passage of the river, we had the greatest 
 reason to be thankful that the absence of boatmen had 
 prevented our attempting to cross it in the dark. Two 
 days' and a night's rain had swelled a shallow stream into 
 a broad and rapid river, and the boat, a small and bad one, 
 was unaccustomed to carry carriages, which, except in cases 
 like the present, always ford the stream. We passed our- 
 selves first, then our six horses ; and afterwards our two 
 servants with the assistance of half a dozen other men, 
 were employed for nearly two hours in getting the coach 
 put in and taken out of the boat, we looking on, and
 
 44 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [nss 
 
 expecting every moment it was to be broken in pieces. 
 By good luck, however, it escaped both from the embarka- 
 tion and afterwards from some of the worst road I ever 
 saw on this side the ferry. The road was close upon the 
 edge of the river, and portions of it had been newly 
 carried away by the rapidity of the water ; it was also 
 full of great holes, where trees had been dug up, and 
 large stumps of others which had been cut down. We 
 got out, and the servants supported the carriage on each 
 side. I never was better pleased than when I saw it 
 upon smooth ground, with only the loss of a trifling 
 screw. 
 
 At Novi we left all mountains, and found ourselves in 
 the rich plain of Lombardy great cornfields, and vine- 
 yards with mulberry trees planted in rows round them ; 
 the vines in rows, at a considerable distance from one 
 another, and corn between them. The roads broad and 
 good. Arrived at Broni. Clean auberge. 
 
 Wednesday ', bth Arrived at Piacenza about midday. 
 The road still a rich plain of uninterrupted cultivation 
 of corn and vine ; notwithstanding which the inhabitants 
 of all the small towns and villages are idle and wretched 
 to the last degree. 
 
 Starve in the midst of Nature's bounty, cursed, 
 And midst the loaded vineyard die of thirst, 
 
 is a true and poetical description of the effects of the 
 slavery and idleness in which their religion and govern- 
 ment keep them. 
 
 The moment a carriage stops at the post it is surrounded 
 by a crowd of idle wretches wrapped up in large cloaks, 
 which serve to cover the rags beneath, and who, having 
 apparently no other occupation than that of walking up 
 one street and down another, seem happy in having some- 
 thing more than their accustomed walls to gaze at ; every 
 creature who passes through the street joins this set, so
 
 1783] PIACENZA. 45 
 
 that, before the horses are put to and the former postilions 
 paid (about which there is always a squabble), one has 
 been as thoroughly stared at, and as closely examined, as 
 at the entrance of a masquerade in London. Two miles 
 from Piacenza, the Trebia is crossed in a boat. The water 
 was considerably swelled by the quantity of rain that 
 had fallen, and crossing rivers is always troublesome ; the 
 boats are small and bad, the boatmen awkward, and the 
 postilions noisy and quarrelsome. Piacenza is a great 
 half-inhabited-looking town ; the streets are tolerably 
 wide and in general straight, but consisting of mean 
 irregular houses, interspersed with the long dead walls of 
 monasteries, and here and there a palace going to decay. 
 The Strada Grande, which is of a great length, broad, and 
 tiree a cordon, is overrun with grass, and looks more 
 like the approach to a great town than a street in the 
 town itself. The Piazza Grande, where are the statues of 
 Alexander Farnese and his son,* is the green market, 
 consequently very dirty, and consists entirely of mean 
 shops. The equestrian statues are noble, whether they 
 are done by John of Bologna or his scholar Francesco 
 Mocchi.f That of Eanuccio Farnese struck me upon the 
 whole as the finest. 
 
 The cathedral is a great building supported on stone 
 pillars. The pictures by L. Caracci are so black that 
 one can hardly make out the subject, far less the beauties. 
 In the cupola, painted in fresco by Guercino, one can 
 admire the grandeur and grace of some of the heads, but 
 they are too high to give pleasure upon a cursory view. 
 
 * Alexander Farnese, third Duke of Parma and Placentia, was the eldest 
 son of Octavius Farnese and Margaret of Austria; born 1555; married, at 
 ten years old, to Mary, niece of the King of Portugal. He was wounded at 
 Caudebec, 1592, and died from the effects of his wound at the age of forty- 
 
 Ranuccio Farnese married Margaret Aldobrandini ; died 1G22. 
 t These statues were designed by Francesco Mocchi, a scholar of John of 
 Bologna. Handbook.
 
 46 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 The church of St. Augustin, built by Vignola,* new and 
 elegant, has five aisles, supported on Doric pillars which 
 struck me as being too low.f They took us to the church 
 of St. John to see a monument of one of the family of 
 Scoto,J which is not worth the trouble of the walk. 
 
 Thursday r , 6th. Left Piacenza ; arrived at Parma. 
 The roads good, through the same rich plain, except im- 
 mediately in the neighbourhood of Parma, ah 1 corn land 
 and vineyards, much less pasture than one would expect 
 to see in so great a dairy country ; the post here well 
 served. Five miles from Parma crossed the Taro, but 
 without any trouble ; the stream is narrow, the boat large, 
 and the people used to the business. 
 
 Friday, 1th. Saw the church of St. Antoine, built by 
 the Pope for a convent of nuns ; it is small but very pretty. 
 It has two arched roofs, the first of stone perforated, and 
 so light that it is with difficulty one can believe it is not 
 of wood ; through the perforations are seen the paintings 
 of the second roof, which represent our Saviour, angels, 
 &c., &c., in the clouds : it has a good effect, though perhaps 
 more like a coup de theatre than the decorations of a 
 church. The church of San Sepolcro has a picture of Cor- 
 reggio the Virgin, our Saviour, and Joseph, with angels 
 in the air offering palms ; Joseph's head beautiful ; the Ma- 
 donna struck me as without any dignity or much grace ; 
 the Bambino not like an infant, and in a very distorted 
 attitude. Also a picture of the Holy Family of Parmegiano, 
 the Bambino beautiful. The church of St. John large, 
 dark, and dirty ; the cupola painted by Correggio so dark 
 
 * Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, born 1507 at Vignola in Modena ; much 
 patronised by Cardinal Alexander Farnese ; appointed architect of St. 
 Peter's on the death of Michael Angelo, 1664 ; he died 1573. 
 
 t ' Now desecrated and closed, and in danger of demolition.' Murray's 
 Handbook. 
 
 J Church of San Giovanni in Canale, founded by the Knights Templars. 
 There is a very fine tomb of the Count of Montalbo, Orazio Scotli, l>y 
 Algardi. Murray's Handbook. 
 
 A magnificent bridge was begun by Marie Louise in 1816, and completed 
 in 1821. Rid.
 
 J783] PARMA. 47 
 
 and small that one could hardly have seen the pictures the 
 day they were put up, far less now when they are faded 
 and dirty. The two pictures of Correggio in the same 
 church of a dead Christ and the martyrdom of a monk 
 were too brown and faded for me to discover their beau- 
 ties ; in the first the drawing strikingly incorrect, both of 
 the arm of the Christ and of the Madonna. 
 
 The palace is a great unfinished brick building, the 
 windows small and shabby ; a space remains in front where 
 a new palace was intended to be built. 
 
 The Eoyal Academy of Painting and Sculpture is at- 
 tached to the palace. In the gallery they have models of 
 all the remains of antiquity for the use of the students, 
 and some few ancient statues. A female figure in dra- 
 pery, though without either head or arms, most beautiful, 
 found at Velleia,* and a bust of Vitellius in white marble, 
 much smaller than life, which had all the expression of 
 painting. 
 
 The chef d'aeuvre of Correggio is likewise preserved 
 here (the Madonna and Child, with St. Jerome and Mary 
 Magdalen) ; it is the first picture of his I have seen that gave 
 me real pleasure ; it is in excellent preservation, the colours 
 fresh. The Madonna's head is said to be too dark, but 
 the longer one looks at it the more beauty and grace is to 
 be discovered ; the head of the angel beautiful ; the Child 
 like a child, though neither a dignified nor lovely child. In 
 another apartment of the Academy is preserved the patent 
 or charter of Trajan to the Velleians, found at Velleia; it 
 is upon a copper plate about 6ft. long with a copper border 
 like a frame round it; it is broken into a number of pieces, 
 but is perfectly legible, though the engraving of the cha- 
 racters is what we should now call very bad. There are 
 
 * Velleia, though it must have been a city of considerable note, is nowhere 
 directly mentioned in any existing ancient writers. The subterranean trea- 
 sures were first obscurely known in the 17th century. In 1760, the Infante 
 Don Philip, then Duke of Parma, ordered excavations to be scientifically 
 begun. The excavations have not been regulaily continued since 1700. 
 
 Murray's ILmdlook.
 
 48 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ITSS 
 
 likewise a number of Eoman antiquities, such as lamps, in- 
 scriptions, &c., &c., all found at Velleia. 
 
 The cathedral large and dark; the cupola byCorreggio, 
 like the other, so high and so much spoilt that I could 
 neither see nor admire it. A head of Correggio by himself. 
 The church called La Steccatta, belonging to the King of 
 Naples, magnificent in the decorations of the altar : the 
 cupola by Parmegiano, a transfiguration of the Virgin, 
 God the Father receiving her, surrounded by an infinity 
 of angels ; the colours were less gone than those of Oorreg- 
 gio's, and the grouping seemed grand, but it is much too 
 high to be examined with pleasure. The Baptistery, a 
 very old Gothic building, octagon, with a roof very like, 
 but not so pretty as, the Chapter House at York. 
 
 Being a fast day, we could get nothing but birds in the 
 town, and not many of them. 
 
 The Great Theatre (the largest in Europe) a great ruin; 
 it is above fifty years since there has been any represen- 
 tation in it, and in all probability there will never be an- 
 other, as it would cost more to clean and repair it than 
 ever the state of Parma will have to bestow. It seems an 
 attempt to unite an ancient amphitheatre with a modern 
 theatre ; the space usually occupied by the parterre is flat, 
 and paved like an arena ; when the theatre was in use, they 
 told us, water used to be introduced and sea-fights repre- 
 sented. Eound it are rows of seats, one above another, 
 for spectators, and above them two rows of arches the 
 boxes, and above them a gallery. The distance of the 
 stage from the boxes is great, and yet we could perfectly 
 well hear a man speaking in an ordinary voice. It could 
 contain 12,000 or 14,000 people. Mr. Pitt and the Mr. 
 Ashetons arrived; Sir James Graham, Mr. Brand, and 
 Captain Coussmaker in the evening. 
 
 Saturday, 8th. Left Parma. The road good through 
 a continued flat to Modena. The vines were trained up 
 high trees, generally elm, planted in rows in the fields ;
 
 1783] MODENA. 49 
 
 the vines hanging in festoons from one to another, and 
 twisting up almost every tree by the roadside. When 
 the fruit is ripe the effect must be beautiful. On enter- 
 ing the states of Modena, the population seems to be 
 greater, and the people more in comfort, than those of 
 Parma, who bear great marks of poverty and wretched- 
 ness. Their soldiers are the best-dressed and most com- 
 fortable-looking people among them ; there are about 
 2,000 between Parma and Piacenza, by far the best-look- 
 ing troops we have seen in Italy. Modena is a pretty 
 town, and clean for Italy. The front of the duke's 
 palace is handsome. The four orders of architecture sup- 
 port a sort of clumsy pediment in the middle. Walking 
 in the garden (a Dutch parterre) behind the palace, we 
 saw the duke's carriage waiting to take him up at the 
 garden door ; it was one of the very oldest, plainest, 
 shabbiest chariots I ever saw, and would not have sold 
 for fifty shillings ; the horses were like old broken-down 
 hacks, and the harness and coachman exactly of a piece 
 with them. We saw him and another gentleman get into 
 the carriage, behind which two servants mounted, whom 
 for liveries and appearance any country parson in England 
 would have been ashamed to own ; yet in his stables we 
 saw above ninety good-looking, well-fed horses. The 
 duke* is old, rich, and close ; his only legitimate child is 
 married to the Duke of Milan, f He lives with a mistress 
 by whom he has a son ; his duchess (a Princess Massa 
 Carrara) has been long parted from him, and lives at 
 
 * Ercole Rinaldo, the last Duke of the House of Este. He married Maria 
 Theresa Cibo, sovereign princess of Massa Carrara. He was deprived of his 
 dominions by the French invasion. A principality was offered to him in the 
 Brisgau, but he would not accept this compensation, and died in retirement 
 at Treviso, October 1803. Murray's Handbook. 
 
 t Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, son of the Emperor Francis and the 
 Empress Maria Theresa, married Mary Beatrice of Este, daughter and heiress 
 of Ercole Rinaldo ; died 1806. The duchy waa secured to her by the 
 Treaty of Versailles. She died at Versailles, 1829. 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Eeggio.* Saw the orphan hospital, a plain handsome 
 building, clean and proper in the inside, contains 300 
 boys and 300 girls ; the boys kept till they are sixteen, 
 the girls twenty; some of them we saw employed in 
 gauze and riband weaving, and preparing silk. Opposite 
 to this orphan-house there is another large handsome 
 building, which contains under the same roof a hospital 
 for the state in general, and another for the troops. The 
 troops ill-clothed and shabby. The cathedral a very ugly 
 Grseco-Gothic building. 
 
 Sunday, $th. Intended to have set off early for Bologna, 
 but all the post-horses were stopped for the Duchess of 
 Parma and her suite going to Naples ; were obliged, there- 
 fore, to spend another day at Modena. 
 
 Monday, 10^. Left Modena, arrived at Bologna ; still 
 the same rich, flat country, vines all twining up high elm 
 trees, and hanging in festoons from one to another. Mr. 
 Pitt and the Mr. Ashetons arrived at Bologna with us ; 
 Captain Coussmaker in the evening. 
 
 Tuesday, llth. Walked to the Chiesa di Santa Maria 
 di Luca ; it is a league from the town, upon the top of a 
 hill called Monte della Guardia ; the walk is up the steepest 
 part of the hill by a number of steps, and the whole way 
 under a colonnade. This great work was begun in 1674, 
 and carried on at the expense of all orders of people at 
 Bologna, in days when the belief and confidence in the 
 wonders worked by this pilgrimage were so great, that 
 not only all rich individuals contributed according to their 
 ability in building three or four or more arches, but so- 
 cieties of artisans and menial servants associated together 
 to save their souls by building an arch. In every one is 
 the arms, device, or name of the person or society of 
 persons who built it. Several of them near the top are 
 
 * The Duchess of Parma was buried at Reggro. A fine monumental 
 bust was erected to her memory in 1820, by her daughter Mary Beatrice. 
 
 Murray's Handbook.
 
 1783] BOLOGNA. 51 
 
 inscribed Da vendere that is to say, for so much money 
 you may have the honour of placing your name and arms 
 on the wall, and the reputation of having contributed to 
 the holy work. The price of this was formerly fifty se- 
 quins, but has since fallen to ten. 
 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, by Titian ; Abram and Hagar, 
 by Guercino ; a Group of Children, by Albano ; and a 
 Man receiving his Sight at the Tomb of a Saint, a large 
 picture by Cigoli, all in the Palazzo Zampiari,* are the 
 pictures which pleased me most in Bologna. The palaces 
 at Bologna are cold, half-furnished, uncomfortable-looking 
 places ; indeed, they never show but the suites of apart- 
 ments which contain the pictures, and which, I believe, 
 are very seldom used by the families who inhabit them ; 
 many of them, too, have sold all their originals, but have 
 still the walls of their apartments covered with bad copies 
 adorned with the names of great masters of whom they 
 once possessed the originals. 
 
 The serious opera is performed in a small theatre. In 
 the new theatre we saw the tragedy of Tamerlane, but as 
 the piece was not printed, I could not tell whether it had 
 any resemblance to ours of the same name ; what most 
 delighted the people was a battle upon the stage, which 
 lasted nearly a quarter of an hour with unremitted ardour, 
 and concluded with the slaughter of eight or ten men 
 left dead upon the stage. All Italian actors, I am told, 
 are very bad, because dramatic performances are not the 
 taste of the upper ranks, who relish and encourage nothing 
 but the opera. These were called superlatively bad ; they 
 had much less action than I expected. 
 
 Bologna is one of the towns in Italy where there are 
 
 * The famous pictures of its once celebrated gallery have been sold ; the 
 greater part have been transferred to the Brera at Milan. Its fine ceilings 
 and chimney-pieces, by the Caracci and Guercino, are well preserved. See 
 Murray's Handbook. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ms 
 
 the most frequent attempts to murder and stab people 
 our books of travel said much above a hundred every 
 year. Everybody we questioned upon the subject owned 
 there might be above fifty or sixty. We tried in vain to 
 buy a stiletto, but their sale is prohibited, and we could 
 not meet with one. 
 
 Bought a piece of crape at the manufacturer's at two 
 paoli and a half the braccia, about two shillings the 
 English yard. The peasants in the neighbourhood of 
 Bologna have an air of poverty in spite of the richness 
 of the country and the epithet of Bologna la grassa, to 
 which the Italians add, ma non per chi passa. 
 
 Monday, ~L7th. Slept at Feligara; the hills quite barren 
 and having the appearance of old volcanic matter, or of 
 some effect of fire. 
 
 Tuesday, 18th. Passed the mountain on the side of 
 which is Pietra Mala ; before it was light it seemed from 
 the road like two broad steady flames joined together, 
 clear and bright as that of a candle rising from the 
 ground, and might at a distance in the night-time be 
 mistaken for a forge or large fire. Broke one of 
 the springs of our carriage about thirty miles from 
 Florence, came with it the whole way tied up with 
 leather straps and cords. Had the happiness of finding 
 a dozen letters for me, besides those to my father, on the 
 table in our apartment. The delight of hearing of the 
 welfare of most of our friends, of receiving letters after 
 being so long deprived of them, of hearing of the safe 
 arrival and happiness of my grandmother in Ireland, 
 joined to the comfort of finding ourselves in an excellent 
 inn, surrounded by English people, after a long tedious 
 day's journey in a bad day, with a broken carriage, my 
 father, myself, and the maid all ill, will make me ever 
 remember with pleasure the evening of our arrival at 
 Florence. 
 
 Monday, December Ibth. Left Florence at 10 o'clock
 
 1783] SIENNA. 53 
 
 A.M., with a voiturier and four mules, who agreed to 
 carry us to Eome in five days and a half for thirty 
 sequins, and arrived at Poggibonsi. The view of Florence 
 three or four miles from the hills most beautiful. 
 
 Tuesday, \th. Dined at Sienna ; saw the cathedral, 
 the hospital, and the library. The front of the cathedral 
 is Gothic, much ornamented, but in very bad taste ; the 
 acanthus leaves of the Corinthian capital are placed upon 
 the top of cluster pillars and a crowd of Gothic ornaments. 
 The library adjoining the church contains some finely 
 illuminated missals. The marble group of the three 
 Graces,* standing upon a pedestal in the middle of it, are 
 in my opinion clumsy, bad workmanship, and, though 
 antique, never could have been called good. The walls 
 are covered with very old fresco paintings, which they 
 say were designed by Eaphael, and painted by Perugino 
 and Pinturiccio ; they are as fresh as if done yesterday, 
 and the drawing may be good, but they are stiff. The 
 hospital we only looked into the wards ; they were mostly 
 full, but seemed very clean and orderly. Left Sienna, 
 arrived at the auberge at Buono Convento. Here we were 
 ushered through the stable (the end of which formed the 
 kitchen) up some broken brick steps into a room, the only 
 one in the house which contained a place for fire ; it was 
 furnished with a long table and benches, at the end of 
 which three or four women were at work by the light 
 of a lamp. From hence we ascended some more steps to 
 see our bed-rooms. The walls were only white enough 
 to make the dirt upon them more visible, the floors much 
 worse paved than any stable I ever saw in England, and 
 to the full as dirty, and the beds with quilts that did not 
 touch the edge any way. After the view of these com- 
 fortable chambers we returned to the room below ; with 
 much difficulty we got a fire made with wet wood. The 
 
 * This group was copied by Canova. Raphael made a sketch of it, still 
 preserved in the Academy at Venice.
 
 54 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [i?83 
 
 women continued working at the end of the room, and 
 were joined by several others and by a man, whom at last 
 they left sleeping upon one of the benches. As this room 
 was a general passage to all the- upper part of the house, 
 there were men, women, children, dogs, and cats con- 
 tinually going to and fro ; it was like Noah's ark, on the 
 side of the unclean animals. We begged the people 
 would not trouble themselves to bring any other supper 
 than eggs, and upon which, with the help of some chest- 
 nuts and apples, we made a very good supper, and had 
 three hours' sound sleep (in our clothes) upon a bed which 
 would perhaps have turned our stomachs in England. 
 
 Wednesday, 17 'th. Left Buono Convento at 2 A.M., in 
 order to reach Aquapendente, forty-four miles distant, at 
 night. Dined at Eicorsi in a hayloft, underneath which 
 was, as usual, the stable and kitchen. Before we came to 
 Aquapendente, there was a very steep hill to ascend ; it 
 was slippery with the frost, and the mules, being tired, 
 were unable either to draw the carriage or to keep their 
 feet. We all got out to walk. After walking about half 
 a mile without either seeing or hearing anything of the 
 carriage, there being hardly light for us to pick our 
 steps, and nobody to show us the way either to the 
 town or to the inn, we thought it advisable to turn back, 
 and found the carriage exactly in the same situation as 
 when we left it. The mules, assisted by three others, 
 could not move it ; and after standing nearly half an hour 
 in the dark and cold, preaching to the people not to break 
 the carriage (which they seemed in a fair way of doing), 
 we were obliged to leave it to their mercy, and, taking one 
 of the servants and a lamp from the carriage, made the 
 best of our way to the town. We kept ourselves warm 
 by walking, but when we arrived we knew not which 
 way to turn, and were obliged to knock at the first door 
 for information. The people were civil, and offered us a 
 guide, by whose assistance we at last reached a miserable
 
 1783] ROME. 55 
 
 auberge, where, instead of a civil waiter, we were saluted 
 by the barking of a large hungry mastiff, who would not 
 suffer us to come up the stairs. At last, however, we 
 made good our entry into an apartment, which, after a 
 long walk in a cold night, was welcome if not comfortable, 
 and thus ended the adventures of a tedious day. 
 
 Thursday, 18th. Left Aquapendente ; arrived in twelve 
 hours at Viterbo, five miles from Aquapendente ; passed 
 through Nuovo San Lorenzo* a regular village or small 
 town built by Pope Ganganelli. It is the only new build- 
 ing of that sort I have yet seen in Italy ; a neat octagon, 
 traversed by the road, and open to another street, at the 
 end of which is a church, and opposite to that another 
 dedicated to St. Lorenza. In the octagon, the view from 
 thence of the Lake Bolsena beautiful. The road from 
 Montefiascone to Viterbo very good. 
 
 Friday, 19^. The road from Viterbo to Eonciglione 
 the whole way through an ugly, wretched country, appa- 
 rently without either cultivation or inhabitants ; bare hills 
 covered with fern, except those surrounding a lake. Ob- 
 served broad-leaved laurel growing in the hedges, and 
 yesterday a species of jasmine. The auberge very bad, as 
 usual. 
 
 Saturday, 20th. Arrived at Home at twelve o'clock. 
 The approach to it by no means agreeable. All the 
 houses in the faubourg without the gates wretched. Found 
 the lasciar passare lying for us at the gate ; a note from 
 Mr. Brand directing us to the lodgings he had taken for 
 us at Madame Trufina's, Strada San Sebastianello. They 
 consisted of an ante-chamber, dining-room, two bedcham- 
 bers for ourselves, besides rooms for the servants above, 
 neatly and elegantly furnished for twenty sequins a month, 
 including the use of linen and silver. 
 
 * Built by Pope Pius VI., at his own cost, as an asylum for the inha- 
 bitants of the old town, which was afflicted with malaria. Murray's Hand- 
 book.
 
 56 MISS BEERY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 In the evening Mr. Coussmaker, Mr. Pitt, the Mr. Ashe- 
 tons, Sir J. Graham, and Mr. Brand called upon us. 
 
 Sunday, 2 1st. Went to St. Peter's. The approach to 
 it most magnificent and- striking, not from the immense 
 size of the building, which, it has been often and most 
 justly observed, does not at first strike you as very extra- 
 ordinary, but from its regularity and the beauty and rich- 
 ness of its front. The same is observable in the inside ; 
 the grandeur of the coup d'ceil does not seem to proceed 
 from its immense length, but the magnificence and sym- 
 metry of the ornaments. Walked through the great aisles, 
 merely to get a general idea of the whole. Sent our 
 letters from Miss Gore to Baroness Dieden. In the even- 
 ing to the Comtesse Scarowska,* Madame Navasittzoff, 
 and Mons. Santini ; Sir George and Lady Warren, f Mr. 
 Coussmaker, Baron and Baroness Dieden, Mr. Hallet, 
 Mr. Pettingal, Mr. Eepington, Sir J. Graham, and Mr. 
 Brand. 
 
 Monday, 22nd. Went to the Campidoglio. In the 
 evening visited Lady Knight,J Madame Scarowska, Lady 
 Warren. 
 
 Tuesday, %3rd. In the morning at St. Peter's and to 
 see Angelica Kauffman's pictures. In the evening, at the 
 Princess Santa Croce's conversazione, we were presented by 
 
 * It is probable that Miss Berry may have written this name of Scarowska 
 for that of Skavronsky, well known in the history of Russia. In 1791 
 the Russian minister at Naples was Count Paul Skavronsky. 
 
 f Sir George Warren, made K.B. 1761 ; married Jane, daughter of 
 Thomas Revel, Esq., East Mitcham, Surrey. Their only daughter and heir 
 married, in 1777, Viscount Bulkeley ; died 1826. 
 
 J Mother of Miss Cornelia Knight, whose ' Memoirs ' were published in 
 1861. 
 
 Mary Angelica Kauffman, bora 1740, at Coire in Switzerland. She 
 was instructed in painting by her father, who took her for further improve- 
 ment to Italy. From Venice she accompanied Lady Wentworth to England, 
 where she received the most liberal patronage, and became a Member of the 
 Royal Academy. She married, 1781, A. Zucchi, a Venetian artist; died at 
 Rome, 1807. During Joseph II.'s visit to Rome, he purchased two pictures 
 from this celebrated artist, Biographic Universelle.
 
 1783] VISIT ST. PETER'S. 57 
 
 Lady Warren to Cardinal Bernis.* The emperor f there; 
 he had arrived about midday in Borne without any cou- 
 rier, entirely unexpected either by the pope or -by his 
 own minister. Half an hour after he arrived he had a 
 long conference with the pope, and went with him and 
 prayed in St. Peter's. Two cushions were put down for 
 them, side by side ; the emperor put his aside, and knelt 
 upon the bare stones. His countenance is lively and 
 pleasing, and his manner easy and affable ; his whole 
 deportment, however, is not, I think, without a degree of 
 pride which would prevent one's ever forgetting the 
 emperor is Oomte Falkenstein. Supped at Lady War- 
 ren's with a number of English. Began Italian with 
 Signer Dalmazzoni, at six sequins a month, to come every 
 day to one or other of us. 
 
 Thursday, 25th. Went to St. Peter's with the Coun- 
 tess Scarowska to see the pope perform high mass. A 
 part of the choir was divided from the rest by hangings 
 
 * Bernis, Francis Joachim de Pierres, Count of Lyons, and a cardinal and 
 statesman of France, born at Marcel de 1'Ardeche, 1715, of an ancient family, 
 patronised by Cardinal de Fleury, then prime minister, but refused promo- 
 tion on account of his indifferent morals. ' You can have no expectation of 
 promotion while I live,' said the Cardinal. ' Sir, I can wait,' replied the 
 young abbe", making a profound bow. He was afterwards introduced by 
 Madame Pompadour to Louis XV. He was ambassador from France to 
 Venice ; but, falling out of favour, resigned his mission, and went into exile ; 
 returned to France in 1704, and was made archbishop of Alby; and, five 
 years afterwards, was sent ambassador to the court of Rome. During his 
 residence there, his house was the general rendezvous of strangers of dis- 
 tinction, and many English travellers bore testimony to his hospitality. In 
 1791 the aunts of Louis XVI., driven from their country by the Revolution, 
 took up their abode for a time with him. The Revolution robbed him also 
 of his possessions, as he refused to take the oaths then required. The court 
 of Spain settled a pension on him. He died at Rome, November 1794, in 
 the 80th year of his age. His poems gave him admission into the French 
 Academy before he rose in the world. Frederick the Great ridiculed his 
 poetry in the following line : 'Evitez de Bernis la sterile abondance.' Vol- 
 taire had a high opinion of Bernis' talents ; their correspondence was pub- 
 lished in 1799. The cardinal's works, in verse and in prose, have been often 
 printed. Extracted from Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary. 
 
 f The Emperor of Germany, Joseph, second son of Francis and Maria 
 Theresa.
 
 58 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ms 
 
 of crimson velvet, fringed with gold, at the upper end of 
 which was the pope's throne, under a canopy of the same 
 materials, and opposite to it the altar under the great 
 baldequin. On one side was another great chair, up 
 several steps under a canopy, in which the pope first 
 made his appearance and dressed himself before he went 
 to the throne. The floor was covered with green cloth, 
 and the steps up to the altar with a very fine carpet, 
 embellished with the present pope's arms ; and on each 
 side, from the chair where he was dressed up to the 
 throne, were three rows of benches for the cardinals, 
 bishops, and prelates. The cardinals sat in the second, 
 and under them the prelates, who each held the mitre of 
 the cardinals under whom they sat. 
 
 The emperor and the King of Sweden,* who had 
 arrived the night before, were both there. There was a 
 gallery prepared for them, but they did not choose to 
 make use of it, and stood together against one of the 
 pillars of the great baldequin facing the pope's throne. 
 The emperor's deportment was the most serious and 
 respectful that can be imagined ; he spoke very little, 
 was attentive to what was going on, knelt- when the 
 rest of the people knelt, crossed himself twice, and had 
 every external mark of decent devotion. The King of 
 Sweden talked a great deal, was more eager to see every 
 part of the show, knelt more awkwardly, and bowed less 
 low. It is impossible for me to remember in their order, 
 or attempt to describe, the various manoeuvres of the 
 grandest and best-acted pantomime that can be imagined. 
 The pope, after he had had a robe of some sort of 
 light white silver tissue and several other habiliments 
 
 * Gustavus III., born 1746, ascended the throne 1771. A conspiracy 
 was formed against him by Counts Horn and Ribbing, Colonel Lilienhorn, 
 and a nobleman named Ankerstroem, who undertook to murder him ; he 
 chose a masked ball at Stockholm as the best opportunity for carrying out 
 his intention, and on the 10th March, 1792, he shot the king through the 
 body. He expired on March 29th.
 
 1783] HIGH MASS AT ST. PETER'S. 59 
 
 put upon him in the chair on one side, and a mitre 
 (exactly like one of gilt paper) upon his head, went up 
 to his throne, his train borne by four prelates. Here 
 he chanted a part of the service in a very audible voice, 
 one man, upon his knees, supporting the book before 
 him ; another, kneeling (though it is broad daylight), 
 holding a large lighted taper ; a third standing by to 
 prompt him, in case his infallibility should go wrong ; 
 and a fourth to turn the leaves of the book, for he is al- 
 lowed to do no one thing for himself. His mitre is taken 
 off his head always before he begins to pray or read, and 
 replaced when he has done. His petticoats are settled 
 about his feet every time he gets up or sits down ; his 
 gloves are pulled off and put on for him ; and when he 
 held out his hands to give a blessing, the sleeve of his 
 robe was held out of his way. Two priests of the Greek 
 Church read a part of the service, standing on one side, 
 and holding their book in their hands, and then, after 
 kneeling two or three times, kissed the pope's foot (as did 
 the prelates), and then seated themselves round the lowest 
 step of his throne. The cardinals, when they approached 
 him, he crossed and embraced. The only man seated 
 near him was the cardinal archbishop assistant, who sits 
 upon a sort of stool with a low back close by the throne. 
 Three times in the course of the ceremony the pope 
 washed his hands. Water was brought him in a gold 
 basin, covered with a white satin mantle, and preceded 
 by two people with maces in their hands, and followed 
 by two more with napkins. After chanting and praying 
 by turns several times, and performing various other cere- 
 monies, he went to the altar, elevated the host, and took 
 the sacrament himself. In the meantime the cardinal- 
 assistant went round with the incense to all the other car- 
 dinals ; to each separately he made a bow, which was 
 returned ; then giving him three or four puffs of the 
 incense, another mutual bow, and then on to the next.
 
 60 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 When he had gone round, he gave the incense to some 
 bishop or prelate, who went through the same ceremony 
 with him. The pope then returned to his throne, where 
 the wafer and wine were brought to him, and he admi- 
 nistered the sacrament first to the cardinals, represented by 
 so many of them ; then to the Roman princes, represented 
 by Prince Colonna, whose duty is always to be by the 
 throne of the pope ; and then to the populus Romanus, 
 represented by four people (of what sort I know not) in 
 yellow and red robes quantum mutatus ab illo I After 
 this he read a Latin homily, which lasted about ten 
 minutes ; he looked very little at his book, and delivered 
 himself with great expression and vehemence. He then 
 went again to the altar and prayed, had the tiara or triple 
 crown put upon his head, prayed again, and then was 
 seated in a chair placed upon poles, and carried by ten or 
 twelve men dressed in crimson, preceded by his guards, 
 down the middle aisle of the church. By this time he 
 was so completely tired with the long operations he had 
 gone through, that he could hardly lift up his hand to 
 give his benedictions to the crowd which surrounded him. 
 
 There are two rows of benches for ladies placed on 
 one side within the circle of guards ; the gentlemen stand 
 on each side about the pillars of the baldequin ; every- 
 body is obliged to have their heads dressed, and the 
 ladies are all in veils. We saw so ill from the benches, 
 that we got permission to go up into one of the galleries 
 over the four great niches of the dome, where we had a 
 perfect view of everything that was going on. 
 
 This gallery, which appeared from the body of the 
 church as if fifty steps would have conducted us to it, 
 was at a very considerable height ; the people in the body 
 of the church looked quite little from it ; but the view of 
 that noble building, with an immense crowd of people, 
 though not a quarter filling the great aisle, was a magni- 
 ficent spectacle, and gave one some idea of its enormous
 
 1783] THE PALAZZO COLONNA. 61 
 
 size. Mass was performed at the same time at almost 
 every chapel in the church, but they seemed to have no 
 more to do with the business that was going on at the 
 great altar than if they had been in another part of the 
 town. 
 
 Went afterwards to Santa Maria Maggiore, where a 
 piece of the creche in which our Saviour was born is 
 always exposed for so many days at Christmas on the 
 great altar, in a fine gilt case, in which through glass you 
 see the pieces of holy wood ; it is in general kept in a 
 subterraneous chapel, and is carried with great pomp and 
 a long function at midnight on Christmas Eve, and placed 
 on the great altar. The church is beautiful ; the great 
 aisle put me something in mind of the Assembly Koom 
 at York, though it is in much superior taste ; the church 
 being dressed, the beautiful marble pillars were all 
 covered with crimson damask. 
 
 Went to the church of a convent at the Capitol, where 
 was a representation of our Saviour in the manger and 
 the adoration of the shepherds, by very well-dressed 
 puppets half as large as life ; the church was darkened, 
 and the scenery behind the show all lighted up in the 
 exact style of a punchinello theatre. Eeturned home as 
 heartily tired with staring and standing as ever I remem- 
 ber to have been in my life. 
 
 Mr. Eepington, Sir James Graham, Mr. Brand, Mr. 
 Pitt, and the Mr. Ashetons dined with us an English 
 Christmas dinner. 
 
 Friday, 26th. Went to Moore, the landscape painter,* 
 to the Palazzo Colonna; the gallery magnificent, orna- 
 mented with statues and busts alternately, and a vast 
 number of pictures, some of the pictures beautiful. In 
 
 * Jacob Moore, a native of Edinburgh. He went to Rome about the 
 year 1773, and there acquired a great reputation. His works were much 
 overrated when compared to the productions of Claude Lorraine. Edwards's 
 Anecdotes of Painters.
 
 62 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ms 
 
 the evening a conversazione and concert at Cardinal de 
 Bernis'. As the emperor and king were both to be there, 
 the crowd assembled was immense ; the street was illumi- 
 nated near his house, and the house completely so on the 
 outside from top to bottom ; large rooms were crowded. 
 The king had dined there and came early ; the emperor 
 not till late, stayed above an hour, and then seized an 
 opportunity when he was speaking to no one, and darted 
 off faster than anybody could attempt to follow him. He 
 was as usual in his green regimentals, undistinguished by 
 any star, and spoke to everybody he knew most affably, 
 not much to the king, but a great deal to the cardinal. 
 There was a supper for the king, and some of his suite ; 
 very few ladies, and no English. 
 
 Saturday, 27th. Saw the Pantheon, the Stanze di 
 Eafaelli in the Vatican, and St. Peter's for the fourth 
 time. The portico of the Pantheon so surrounded with 
 beggars and wretched objects of every sort, that it 
 is with the greatest difficulty one can stand to admire 
 the size of the columns ; the shape of the Eotunda is 
 beautiful. 
 
 The Stanze, painted by Eaphael, astonished me more 
 than I expected, perhaps because I had been told they 
 would not strike me at first. Fresco paintings have 
 always a lightness and beauty peculiar to themselves ; and 
 these have such a superiority in grouping, expression, and 
 grace, as must strike the most ignorant beholder who will 
 take the trouble to consider them. 
 
 The room in which is the School of Athens is that 
 which has suffered most by time and ill-usage. It is said 
 to have been used as a guard-room for the Duke of Bour- 
 bon's soldiers, and that they made a fire in the middle of 
 the room, there being no chimney. A group of Apollo, 
 surrounded by all the most eminent poets of antiquity 
 and those of his own time in Italy, most beautiful ; it is 
 painted in a space which is cut by the aperture of a large
 
 1783] THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY AT ST. PETER'S. 63 
 
 window. It is wonderful how he managed, on all these 
 occasions, to group and connect his figures so as to make 
 them all appear concerned in the action he means to repre- 
 sent. The Angel delivering St. Paul from Prison, painted 
 in the same situation, has an astonishing effect of light and 
 shade ; the glory and' supernatural light which surrounds 
 the angel, seen through the prison bars, has the exact 
 effect of a transparent painting, and it is with difficulty one 
 can persuade oneself it is not so. The paintings under 
 Eaphael's pictures, in chiaro oscuro, all done after his 
 design, and wonderfully executed. 
 
 This suite of rooms have no other furniture whatsoever, 
 and are dark and dirty ; they are those the pope passes 
 through every day in going from the chapel to his apart- 
 ments. He passed while we were there ; we pulled off 
 our riding-hats, made an inclination towards kneeling, and 
 received a particular benediction. 
 
 Walked in St. Peter's ; the oftener one enters this build- 
 ing, the more one is struck with the magnificence of the 
 whole, and the proportion and beauty of the component 
 parts. Went down to the tomb of St. Peter and St. Paul ; 
 it is lined with the finest marbles, and there are six lamps 
 always burning within the cupboard where the silver-gilt 
 box is kept, in which are the ashes of the two apostles. 
 The emperor, with one attendant only, was walking 
 about, staring like ourselves ; having seen us the night 
 before, he came up and spoke to us for about ten 
 minutes. The people about soon discovered who he 
 was, and he had immediately a train of three or four 
 hundred beggars after him, which speedily drove him out 
 of the church ; he had given sequins to some of them, 
 which raised the whole community, and he had a crowd 
 for ever round his lodgings, an indifferent house at the 
 corner of the Piazza di Spagna. He refused to lodge at 
 his own minister's, and would neither dine nor sup with 
 anybody.
 
 64: MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Sunday, 28th. Went to the Colosseum ; it is sur- 
 rounded by turf, and, though within the walls of Eome, 
 seems to be quite in the country. Its size, though I had 
 seen models arid views of it, and expected it great, sur- 
 prised me one can easily conceive it holding ' uncrowded 
 nations in its womb.' The arena is covered with turf, 
 and there is a large cross in the middle, and I know not 
 how many little chapels all round it, to sanctify and make 
 it holy ground. The Arch of Constant] ne is close by, the 
 bassi relievi upon the upper part very little damaged, and 
 most beautiful ; the ground is so much raised about it, 
 that half the bases of the columns are buried. 
 
 Walked from thence by the Arch of Titus, through the 
 Campo Vaccino (the Forum of the Eomans), to the Arch 
 of Severus ; the ground here is so much raised, that in 
 Severus's Arch half the shafts of the columns are buried, 
 and the three pillars of Jupiter Tonans, just by it, are not 
 a fourth part out of the ground. In the Campo Vaccino 
 one more especially feels oneself in ancient Eome, sur- 
 rounded at every turn by monuments of Eoman grandeur. 
 The three admired columns of Jupiter Stator stand in the 
 midst of much dirt ; neither their base nor plinth is above 
 ground. They have put iron round and between them, 
 that they may as long as possible escape the injuries of 
 time. 
 
 Monday, 29th. Walked through the Vatican library ; 
 the keeper not being there, we could only look with as- 
 tonishment at the range of apartments in which it is con- 
 tained. The rooms are all plain, one excepted, painted in 
 
 fresco by ,* and the books are ah 1 in painted wooden 
 
 presses. 
 
 The Sistine Chapel is where the pope hears mass every 
 Sunday. The ceiling is painted by Michael Angelo with 
 stories from the Old Testament, and the whole side 
 
 * Scipione Cajetani, Paris Nogari, Ceeare Nebbia.
 
 1783] TRAJAN'S COLUMN. 65 
 
 of the chapel is covered with his famous Last Judgment, 
 it has almost lost its colours ; and though the ideas and 
 imagination of such a piece are astonishing, and the ana- 
 tomy of the figures immediately strike one as remarkable, 
 one wonders, but is not charmed. 
 
 In the evening, the Opera Alberti. Theatre much 
 ornamented, and cleaner than most Italian theatres ; the 
 scenery excellent. Had I not before known that no 
 women are admitted upon the stage in Eome, I should 
 not perhaps have found it out ; the men who act there 
 are so well dressed, and made up with red and white, and 
 are so much less awkward than might be expected ; the 
 danseuses detestable. King of Sweden sat above half an 
 hour in our box. 
 
 Tuesday, 3(M. Went to the top of Trajan's Column, 
 160 steps. They are hewn out of the same block with 
 the Pillar, and neither dark nor dirty. The base of the 
 column is above twenty feet below the surface of the 
 street where it stands. It is enclosed with a modern 
 brick wall, like a well, round it, the base beautifully 
 ornamented with military trophies ; and the basso-relievos 
 upon the pillar, in spite of the injuries of time, won- 
 derful. 
 
 Palazzo Eospigliosi. On the ceiling of a casino in the 
 garden is Guide's famous Aurora, painted in fresco ; it is 
 in good preservation, and its grace, gaiety, and appear- 
 ance of motion exceed either imagination or description. 
 In another room in the same casino, a large picture 
 by Domenichino David, Saul, and a group of females ; 
 the figure of David dignified and beautiful. In the 
 palace, Guido's Andromeda chained to the Eock ; heads 
 of the Twelve Apostles, and our Saviour, by Eubens ; and 
 the Five Senses of Carlo Cignani, expressed by a female 
 figure with five children one she is suckling, another 
 holds a rose to her nose, a third rings a little bell at her 
 ear, &c. Opera at the Argentina. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1733 
 
 Saw the ancient granite Obelisk, which is taken from 
 the mausoleum of Augustus, and going to be erected 
 between the two horses on Monte Cavallo, with a foun- 
 tain before it ; and for which purpose the horses have 
 been turned, from standing thus | | , side by side, to 
 stand / \ .* Workmen were polishing the pillar, and 
 mending it where it had been broken. 
 
 Went through the Colonna Gardens.f There remain 
 in the gardens two immense blocks of white marble, 
 pieces of a frieze and cornice belonging to the ancient 
 building, the size and workmanship of which may serve 
 to give an idea of its former magnificence. 
 
 * Mr. Murray states, in his ' Handbook of Home/ that this obelisk was 
 here erected in 1786, by Antinori, in the pontificate of Pius VI. He also 
 mentions that ' the statues were restored and placed as we now see them 
 by Antinori, in the time of Pius VI.' It would appear, by Misa Berry's 
 journal, that both changes were made in 1783. 
 
 f The Colonna Palace was begun by Otto Colonna. He was elected pope 
 on St. Martin's Day, and took the name of Martin V.
 
 1784] PRESENTED TO THE POPE. 67 
 
 JOUKNAL. 
 1784. 
 
 Thursday, January 1, 1784. Presented to the Pope 
 by the Princess Santa Croce, together with the Marquise 
 Montefermeil and the Comtesse Stolberg, a Danish cha- 
 noinesse. We were all full dressed with black gauze veils. 
 We were to have been in St. Peter's before twelve o'clock, 
 but one of the ladies not being ready, we did not get 
 there till near one, and were therefore obliged to wait in 
 the chapel of the St. Sacramento till the Pope had done 
 his prayers in the church. He passes through this chapel 
 every day to the Vatican : when he came we stood in a 
 row, Princess Santa Croce made a curtsey, then went 
 down upon her knees, and made a motion with her hands 
 as if to touch his foot : he immediately said e Alza, alza] 
 and she rose. We then, one after another, did the same 
 as she named our names : he then stood and talked to us, 
 or rather to her, in Italian for seven or eight minutes, 
 asked if we could speak Italian, supposed we were learn- 
 ing it, we should find it easy, how long we had been 
 here, &c. As we were none of us good Italians, most of 
 these questions were addressed to and answered by 
 Princess Santa Croce. He then said he would not de- 
 tain us longer ; we made low curtseys, and he departed 
 without giving us the blessing which I expected. He was 
 attended by a number of monsignors, &c., who permitted 
 nobody to come into the chapel but ourselves. 
 
 Dined at the Senator's : a large party. After coffee, 
 Sante played and sang some of the airs out of his own 
 Olympiade with wonderful expression and taste.
 
 68 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 Friday, 2nd. In the morning, the Villa Borghese ; 
 the outside covered with ancient basso-relievos and statues 
 in niches, the inside so rich in statues, mosaics, marbles, 
 pictures, and every species both of ancient and modern 
 magnificence that, at the first cursory view, one is dazzled 
 and lost in the number of things worthy of observation. 
 The ornamenting the rooms all done by the present 
 prince, who though, I am told, not a man of taste, has 
 now a sort of pride in making it the first thing of the 
 kind in Europe, and lays by a sum of money to be yearly 
 expended, during his lifetime, in its embellishment ; and 
 he is employing all the celebrated modern artists to fit up 
 rooms for him. Hamilton * is doing one with the story 
 of Paris, beginning with his birth and ending with his 
 death. Moore another, with landscapes. Hack ertf another, 
 in the same way. The painting and fitting up of the 
 Fighting Gladiators' room cost 36,000 crowns, and that of 
 the gallery 52,000 crowns. The gardens perfectly adapted 
 to the climate, fine avenues of evergreen oaks and fountains, 
 all ornamented with numbers of ancient statues ; they are 
 much frequented as a public walk : the day we were there, 
 three or four carriages were waiting at the doors. The 
 prince never goes there but to look how the workmen are 
 going on ; lives almost entirely in Kome. In the evening, 
 Cardinal Bernis' conversazione. 
 
 Saturday, 3rd. Went to St. John Lateran the aisles 
 too narrow. The Borghese Chapel most beautiful. The 
 
 * Gavin Hamilton was descended from an ancient Scottish family. He 
 resided at Rome the greater part of his life He was distinguished as a 
 promoter of art, a collector of antiquities, and as an artist. His hest pictures 
 are taken from the Iliad. He published an interesting work, entitled 
 ' Schola Italica Picturse,' to show the progress of art from the time of Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci to that which succeeded the school of the Caracci in 1797. 
 Eryan's Dictionary of Painters. 
 
 t James Philip Hackert, a Prussian painter and engraver, born 1734, 
 studied landscape under Le Sueur, went to Italy in 1765, resided many years 
 at Rome, where he painted views of the environs. The King of Naples ap- 
 pointed him his principal painter. Ibid.
 
 1784] ST. JOHN LATERAN. 69 
 
 Scala Santa, in a separate building near the church, with 
 a chapel at the top, which no woman ever enters, and 
 which is generally locked. We saw two poor men, one 
 like a countryman, the other like a servant out of place, 
 ascend the stairs with every mark of humiliation and 
 great inward contrition and misery; they said a short 
 prayer at every step, and kissed every place marked by a 
 cross where they supposed the blood had fallen ; but, to 
 the disgrace of this enlightened age, or rather of the 
 Roman Catholic religion, this ceremony is still performed 
 by people who ought, by their education, to be above 
 such fooleries or supposing them agreeable to the Creator. 
 The Princess D. and her daughter (a young girl) were seen 
 by the King of Sweden ascending these steps upon their 
 knees, praying, kissing the cross, &c., their footman be- 
 hind going through the same operation. It must be re- 
 membered, however, that the Princess D. is a notorious 
 bigot, and for these some years past has been entirely 
 governed by a mean and ignorant priest, who has made 
 himself more master of the palace than the prince him- 
 self, and amassed a considerable fortune, and yet is such a 
 perfect blackguard that he does not even make his ap- 
 pearance when there is company in the house. 
 
 Sunday, kth. Palazzo Justiniani : the suites of apart- 
 ments shown are not better kept than an auberge ; fine 
 pictures, all dust, against bare walls, without frames, and 
 good busts in little niches, in windows where they cannot 
 be seen, and placed without any order upon the floor 
 round the room : a Saint fed by Ravens, beautiful, by 
 Guido ; St. John writing his Gospel, by Domenichino 
 the book supported by an angel, the drapery fine the 
 face of St. John full of enthusiasm ; a small group of the 
 Murder of the Innocents, by one of the Caracci, ill drawn, 
 but the expression wonderful one could not look at it 
 without pain. In the well on the staircase, a basso- 
 relievo, Amalthea feeding the infant Jupiter out of her
 
 70 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 cornucopia ; the figure and drapery of Amalthea and the 
 ease and nature of the infant beautiful. 
 
 To the Pantheon a second time : the ancient brass and 
 other metal, which covered the upper part between the 
 top of the pillars of the recesses to the arch of the rotunda 
 remained till Pope Barberini had it stripped off, and was 
 going to apply it to his own private use ; but the clamour 
 was so great that he was obliged to put the money 
 into the public treasury. The following words appeared 
 upon Pasquin on the subject : ' Quod non fecerunt Bar- 
 bari fecerunt Barberini.'' Supped at the Maltese ambas- 
 sador's. 
 
 Monday, 5th. Saw the pictures and drawings of La- 
 bruzzo,* a young Italian landscape painter ; his drawings 
 seem good, his pictures too green and gaudy. Supped at 
 Cardinal Bernis'. 
 
 Tuesday, 6th. In the evening a conversazione at the 
 Princess Doria's, at which was present the Duchess of 
 Parma f (who had arrived in Eome from Naples the 
 night before), as well as the King of Sweden : the whole 
 first story was open and lighted up, the company for the 
 most part in the galleries, which were filled but not 
 crowded by so great a number of people. We were 
 presented to the Duchess by the Princess Santa Croce. 
 She is tall, well-made, like the emperor, but not near so 
 well-looking, ill and oddly dressed, rather masculine in 
 her voice and manner, mixed with a considerable degree 
 of hauteur. The king and she played a great pool at 
 commerce, and afterwards went to a supper at Cardinal 
 Bernis'. 
 
 Wednesday, 7th. Went with Mr. Moore, the painter, 
 
 * Pietro Labruzzi, or Labrosse, historical and landscape painter, brother 
 of Carlo Labnizzi, also an artist. 
 
 t Maria Amelia, daughter of the Emperor Francis and the Empress Maria 
 Theresa, sister to the Emperor Joseph II., here mentioned, and to the Queen 
 of Naples. Married the Puke of Parma ; died 1815. Duke of Parma died 
 1802.
 
 1784] RAPHAEL'S ASCENSION. 71 
 
 to Mr. Dernot's, a history-painter, to Mr. Hamilton's, &c., 
 and to a painter of fans. Bought two of the rains of 
 Eome for a sequin apiece. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Asheton, and 
 Mr. Moore dined with us. 
 
 Thursday, %th. The evening, supper at the Portuguese 
 ambassador's. 
 
 Friday, th. St. Peter in Montorio, where is Eaphael's 
 famous picture of the Ascension. Like all Eaphael's 
 pictures, the longer you consider, the more you admire 
 it. In a side altar of the same church is a picture by 
 Fiamengo (the putting our Saviour into the sepulchre) ; 
 the light and shade of the body, and the expression of 
 the two men supporting it, wonderful. The church 
 belongs to a convent of Franciscans, in which there are 
 no less than eighty. In a court of the convent is a little 
 round temple, with a colonnade round it supported on 
 granite pillars, erected by Philip III., King of Spain, on 
 the spot where 'tis said St. Paul was crucified.* The 
 building is pretty much like a temple in a garden in 
 England. 
 
 Saturday, 1(M. Saw the pictures in the Capitol ; many 
 seemed to me very bad. Guide's Fortune flying over 
 the Globe a boy endeavouring in vain to retain her, a 
 crown in one hand, a sceptre and palm leaves in the 
 other beautiful ; the Wolf suckling Eomulus and Eemus 
 Eubens the wolf life itself; a St. Sebastian, Guido 
 the expression of enthusiasm and beauty in the face, ex- 
 quisite ; Guido's Bacchus and Ariadne the figures of 
 Ariadne, Venus, and the head of Bacchus exquisite. This 
 picture, like many of his, has certainly been left un- 
 finished ; some of the boys in the background are all of 
 one colour, and the ground and rocks are a sort of grey, 
 instead of their natural colours. It is said the original 
 of this picture was lost on board a ship, in being trans- 
 
 * This is stated in ' Murray's Handbook ' to have been built by Ferdinand 
 of Spain.
 
 72 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 ported from some place to another, and that this was a 
 copy made by Guido assisted by his pupils. The Sibylla 
 Persica, by Guercino beautiful, but not so charming as 
 that at Florence. 
 
 In the evening, the Teatro della Valle, where there is 
 an Italian comedy of three acts, and an intermezzo of 
 music, that is to say, an opera buffa between the acts ; the 
 music was some of the prettiest of the kind I ever heard. 
 The comedy, if one might judge from the bursts of laugh- 
 ing it excited, very droll ; but between the noise made in 
 the house and my imperfect knowledge of the language, 
 I lost much of it. 
 
 Villa Borghese. Apollo and Daphne in the hall ; Catius, 
 a basso-relievo, exquisite ; Silenus embracing an infant 
 Bacchus; Centaur with Cupid ; Fighting Gladiators one 
 arm broke in two places, the other at the shoulder ; a 
 Muse leaning upon a pillar of rock ; basso-relievo of Venus 
 and Cupid rising from the sea, &c. &c. The gallery lined 
 and paved with the finest marbles. Busts of Juba, Bere- 
 nice, Cleopatra, Lucius Verus. 
 
 The painting the gallery in the Farnese Palace is sup- 
 posed to have partly caused the death of Caracci. With- 
 out fixing any price he set about it, and employed both 
 himself and all his best pupils Domenichino, Albano, 
 &c. &c. nearly seven years in perfecting the work, never 
 doubting that the Farnese family, who had employed 
 him, would settle a pension upon him, or keep him in 
 their service. When finished, instead of paying him ac- 
 cording to the excellence of the work, some greedy people 
 without taste advised them, as no price had been agreed 
 on, to make a valuation of his labour and time, and pay 
 him as you would pay a house painter. This ill usage 
 is said* to have so deeply affected him, that he took to 
 drinking, and never painted anything great afterwards.* 
 
 * He was paid only 500 gold crowns, or 120/., for his labours. Murray's 
 Handbook.
 
 1784] VISIT TO THE FARNESE PALACE. 73 
 
 Sunday, llth. Saw the Farnese Palace; the apart- 
 ments dismantled ; nothing remains but a few ceilings 
 painted in fresco, which could not be removed ; that of 
 the gallery, certainly the most perfect I ever saw, by 
 A. Caracci, assisted by Domenichino, &e. ; not only all the 
 great compartments^ but all the small divisions, thermes, 
 ornaments, &c., exquisitely painted. The imitations of 
 stucco figures wonderful. Of the large pictures, the 
 Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, Hercules and lole, 
 Aurora in her Car with Cephalus, Mercury giving the 
 Apple to Paris, those that p]eased me most. In the court 
 of this palace are the two famous statues of the Flora and 
 the Hercules Farnese ; they are both much larger than life. 
 The Flora, an easy graceful figure, and the drapery, which 
 is beautiful, shows the whole form without affected plaits.* 
 The Hercules, though appearing overcharged in the 
 muscles for a man, may justly represent a demi-god im- 
 mortalised on account of his strength. There is another 
 Hercules exactly in the same attitude on the other side 
 the door, called the Nemean Hercules, from having the 
 mane of the lion on his club. This is said to be a modern 
 one, made before the other was found from Pliny's de- 
 scription ; if true, 't is wonderful how exactly the artists 
 have agreed in their ideas. The ancient Hercules was 
 found f without legs. Guglielmo della Porta was employed 
 to restore them ; in which he succeeded so perfectly that, 
 when the original legs were afterwards found, M. Angelo 
 declared it was unnecessary to replace them,J and they 
 still remain. The Toro Farnese is in a shed behind the 
 palace, much too small to allow it to be seen to advantage ; 
 
 * Found in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla ; now in the Museo 
 Borbonico at Naples. 
 
 t Found in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in 1540. 
 
 | Della Porta executed and added the missing limbs, from models in terra 
 cotta by Michael Angelo. The original legs were discovered twenty years 
 later in a well ; they are now restored to the statue. 
 
 Removed to Naples in 1786.
 
 74 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 it was intended to have been put in the gardens, but the 
 palace being no longer inhabited, it has never been re- 
 moved. The block of marble most astonishing. Saw the 
 Farnesina, a lesser palace of the King of Naples, which is 
 exactly in the same state of ruin as the other ; the ceiling 
 of the vestibule, painted by Eaphael and his pupils, beau- 
 tiful as to design and grouping ; but Carlo Maratti,* who 
 was employed to repair them, put so deep a ground of 
 blue that it has given the pictures a harshness of outline 
 not natural to them. In another room is the Venus Cal- 
 lipygos,f a much-admired statue : the attitude to me is 
 not a pleasant one, the drapery very pretty. A Head in 
 chalk by M. Angelo, sketched upon the wall in the same 
 room. 
 
 Tuesday, \%th. Dined with the Countess Scarowsky, 
 and set off all together at 2 o'clock P.M. for Naples, with 
 a voiturier : we paid sixteen sequins for four mules for 
 our carriage. 
 
 Arrived at Prince Ghigi's palace at Lerici, eighteen miles 
 from Eome, at 7 o'clock, permission having been obtained 
 from the prince for us to have beds and everything we 
 should want there. It is a noble house, delightfully 
 situated a mile beyond Albano ; the rooms are furnished 
 almost like an English villa, and surrounded by a large 
 deer-park full of fine wood. 
 
 Wednesday, l&th. Left the palace, dined in our car- 
 riages at Torre di Quattro Ponti, where the mules stopped 
 to rest at a miserable inn. The new road to Terracina 
 is excellent. Terracina . (the Anxur of the ancients) is a 
 beautiful town, close upon the sea-shore, with fine white 
 rocks rising behind it. 
 
 Thursday, Ibth. Dined at Mola di Gaeta, situated im- 
 
 * Carlo Maratti, born 1625, pupil of Andrea Sacchi ; died president of the 
 Academy of St. Luke, at Rome, at the age of eighty-eight, in 1713. 
 t Now in the Museum at Naples.
 
 1784] CAPUA NAPLES. 75 
 
 mediately upon the sea, which here forms a fine bay, 
 hills rising behind it, and surrounded by fine orange 
 gardens, and large olive trees growing almost to the water 
 edge. The auberge wretched : all the poor people in the 
 town were trooping into a room there, where a man was 
 showing the representation of a saint in wax : it was the 
 figure of a poor wretched sickly-looking man, almost in 
 rags, standing with a book in his hand, most admirably 
 done in wax ; there was a light burning before him, and 
 all the people were on their knees at a rail round the 
 figure. 
 
 Arrived at Sta. Agata before 7. The whole way from 
 Terracina most beautiful, the mountains all covered with 
 myrtle bushes ; the road, great part of the way, through 
 hedges composed of myrtle, laurestinas, arbutus, phyllarea, 
 a broad-leaved jasmine, and a bush I was not acquainted 
 with. Picked crocuses and anemones by the road-side, and 
 observed in a grass-field the polyanthus, narcissus in full 
 bloom, and in the hedges several eglantine roses in blow. 
 
 Friday, \th. Dined at Capua ; all the rooms in the 
 auberge having an abominable smell, we mounted up a 
 sort of ladder from the upper story to the top of the 
 house, where we had chairs and a table brought, and 
 dined en pleine air : the sun shone, and it was so warm, 
 that the water we were drinking soon became unpleasantly 
 heated. 
 
 Arrived at Naples about 5 P.M. The country near it 
 all in the highest cultivation, fine corn-fields, full of vines 
 trained up large elm-trees, and often twisted in festoons 
 from one to another. The approach to Naples has every 
 appearance of that to a populous and great metropolis. 
 Above two miles from it you enter a string of houses which 
 join to the suburb ; the road is full of carriages, and people 
 and everything looked gay and bustling. We had written 
 to have lodgings taken for us, and to have a letter left at
 
 76 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 the gate, saying where we were to go ; but gates there 
 are none, so we entered the town, not knowing where to 
 go, and were obliged to wait in the Grande Place till 
 Stuart found some of the English servants : from them 
 we learnt that our letter had never been received, and no 
 lodgings taken for us, but that we could have apartments 
 in the house where Sir G. Warren was lodged. It was by 
 this time dark ; it was above a mile and a half off, and I 
 began to think we should never arrive there. Sir G. and 
 Lady Warren came to see us ; Mr. Brand and Sir J. Graham, 
 Mr. Pitt, and the Ashetons. 
 
 Saturday, 17th. Out all the morning looking for 
 lodgings, of which there were few unengaged, and all 
 very bad : fixed at last in the Hotel de France, St. Lucia, 
 the rooms dirty and indifferently furnished. In the 
 evening Mr. Clark and Lady Warren called. Left 
 our three letters to Marchese Ferrante, Duchessa Castel 
 Pagano, and Princessa Belmonte. Called on Madame 
 Scarowsky. 
 
 Sunday, 18th. A most violent storm of wind and rain ; 
 it blew in and broke all the windows in our apartments, 
 which looked to the sea ; we were obliged to shut the 
 blinds and dress by candlelight. Dined at Lord Tylney's* 
 with most of the English who were in Naples, it being 
 our queen's birthday. Came home after dinner and put 
 on our bahuts, and went with Lady Warren to Princess 
 Belmonte's box at the Florentine theatre, where an opera 
 buffa is represented. The house is small, but gay 
 and light, almost every box having candles in it. The 
 opera : most pleasing music of the lively sort. After it 
 was over, to a masked ball at the Great Theatre. The pit, 
 boarded over, makes a magnificent salle, which is illumi- 
 
 * Richard Child Tylney, Viscount Castlemain, Baron Newtown ; succeeded 
 in 1750, and was the son of Richard, the first Earl, and of Dorothy, daughter 
 of Francis Tylney, of Rotherwick, co. Southampton. The name was 
 changed from Child to Tylney, 1735; title extinct. Seat, Wanstead 
 House.
 
 1784] CAPO DI MONTE. 77 
 
 nated by a vast number of chandeliers and large wax 
 candles placed before looking-glass, round the whole six 
 rows of boxes. As the weather was very bad, there were 
 not above 300 or 400 people exclusive of those in the 
 boxes, which were almost ah 1 occupied. After taking a 
 turn below stairs, we went up to Princess Behnonte's 
 box, and then supped, near thirty people, in a salle behind, 
 of which Prince Belmonte, as being grand maitre to the 
 king, has the use. 
 
 Monday, 19^. In the morning, went with a number 
 of English to Capo di Monte. The hill is so steep that, 
 having only two horses to the carriage, we were obliged 
 to walk up. No beauty about the architecture ; within 
 is a labyrinth of quite unfurnished rooms, of which the 
 bare walls are covered with innumerable pictures, some 
 good, some bad, and many indifferent, all without 
 frames, placed without order, and most wretchedly 
 neglected ; a portrait of Parmigiano's Maid, by him- 
 self, a most pleasing picture ; the Deposition in the 
 Sepulchre, by A. Caracci ; a Magdalen, by Guido ; and a 
 Saint, by Guercino. In this palace is the collection of 
 medals, some fine cameos and intaglios, and the famous 
 Agate Gup, with the Medusa's head on one side and figures 
 on the other, the workmanship of which, and the natural 
 beauty of the stone, exceed description. There is like- 
 wise a large collection of drawings, and so many pictures, 
 that before I had got above half through the apartments 
 I lost all power of observing anything particularly. In 
 the evening, called on Madame Scarowsky ; went to 
 Princess Belmonte's assembly ; myself the only English 
 person in the room. 
 
 Tuesday, 20th. A violent storm of rain and wind ; 
 this is the fourth day of the continuance of incessant 
 rain, accompanied by the highest wind I ever heard. 
 
 Wednesday, 21st. The rain and wind continuing as 
 violent as ever, we did not attempt stirring out ; in the
 
 78 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 evening called on Madame Eeventlow, Lady Warren, and 
 Madame Scarowsky. 
 
 Thursday, 22nd. Went to the courts of justice ; heard 
 pleadings in three civil and one criminal court. The last 
 very interesting, as the plaintiff spoke very distinctly, and 
 I understood for the most part what he said. They all 
 spoke with great vehemence and gesticulation, but gene- 
 rally very ungraceful; all, however, with fluency and 
 without any hesitation or stammering. There are said 
 to be 40,000 people belonging to the law in Naples ; go 
 to the courts of justice, and one can easily believe it. 
 The crowds of wretched starved faces to be seen there in 
 bands and black gowns is astonishing : it was with diffi- 
 culty, though attended by several gentlemen, we could 
 push our way through them. In the courts that were 
 sitting the judges were very polite to us : we stood behind 
 their chairs, between their table and the bar. Women, 
 I fancy, very rarely make a part of their audience, for 
 every creature seemed to look round with astonishment 
 at us. 
 
 In the evening, called on Madame Scarowsky ; went 
 to the Teatro di Fondo with Princess Belmorite ; it was 
 three boxes laid together; they can at any time take 
 down the partitions, which are only hooked on. The 
 Teatro di Fondo is a comic opera, performed for the 
 benefit of a fund pensioning the widows of officers. The 
 music pretty, but none of the voices remarkable. 
 
 Friday, 23rd. In the morning, at the Museum at 
 Portici. We had time only to take a cursory view of the 
 rooms. The household utensils, &c., &c., are prettily 
 arranged. We spent the longest time amongst the pic- 
 tures, all of them pieces of the wall at Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii, which have with great care and pains been cut 
 out and placed in cases with glass before them. They 
 are to me an incontestable proof that the ancients had 
 carried the art of painting to almost as high a degree of
 
 1784] THE MUSEUM AT POETICI. 79 
 
 perfection as that of sculpture. The expression, grace, 
 and grouping of their figures are astonishing. Their 
 drawing is for the most part not strictly correct ; but 
 we must suppose that the first-rate artists were not em- 
 ployed to paint the walls in a little country town. The 
 two equestrian statues in stone of Balbus and his 
 son, who were proconsuls of Herculaneum. and who on 
 account of their good administration had these statues 
 erected for them in the town, were found very little 
 damaged. They are now placed in the open arcade of 
 the palace at Portici opposite one another. They are, in 
 the ease and spirit both of the horse and rider, most 
 beautiful equestrian statues; both exactly in the same 
 dress and attitude. 
 
 In the evening to the Academy. This is a great meet- 
 ing, but the company are divided into so many rooms at 
 play, that the music room is never too crowded ; it is 
 upon an easy, excellent plan ; nobody sitting in rows, 
 even in the music room, but in little parties and circles, 
 as they find it agreeable. Too much noise made to hear 
 the music. 
 
 Saturday., "24tth. At shops in the morning. 
 
 Evening, at home. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Asheton called, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Sunday, 25th. In the morning to see the Cathedral, a 
 veiy bad sort of Gothic, without any beauty whatsoever. 
 The Chapel of St. Januarius wonderfully fine, but being 
 Sunday there were so many people there that we could 
 not well see it. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 in the front of which are two columns ; they formerly 
 made part of the "pediment of the temple of Castor and 
 Pollux, which was overturned by an earthquake in 1686. 
 They are white marble fluted, with fine Corinthian capi- 
 tals. In the front of the building are two torsos of 
 ancient statues, belonging to the same temple, and which 
 the Neapolitans have stupidly sunk in the wall. In the
 
 80 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 evening, at a small concert given by Count Rosamnofsky, 
 the Russian minister. Millico* and La Balducci sang. 
 Afterwards to the Festino ; supped in Princess Belrnonte's 
 box. 
 
 Monday ', 26th. In the morning, Portici. Evening, 
 the Florentine Theatre ; the opera (' Che d' Altrui si veste 
 presto si spoglia '), the prettiest of comic operas, and La 
 Cottellina the first comic actress. 
 
 Tuesday, 27th. In the morning to the Grotto del Cane, 
 a small hollow in the side of the mountain, shut up with 
 a door ; a peasant keeps the key, and has a dog always 
 ready to undergo the experiment of being put into the 
 vapour. This poor animal has already had three years 
 of it, and, at a moderate computation, he has been killed 
 a hundred times a year. In about three or four minutes' 
 time, being held down to the steam, he is in violent convul- 
 sions, and immediately afterwards has every appearance 
 of being dead : upon being brought again into the air, 
 his lungs begin to play violently, and in four or five 
 minutes' time he is perfectly recovered. The steam rises 
 about seven or eight inches from the ground ; above that, 
 gunpowder will take fire, a candle burn, and the air, is 
 not pernicious. The steam, and the ground from whence 
 it rises, is so warm that standing on it is like being over 
 the steam of warm water. ( The Lake Agnano (near 
 the Grotto del Cane) is indisputably the crater of an old 
 volcano : it is one of the finest situations imaginable, 
 surrounded with sloping hills beautifully clothed with 
 wood. It is full of water-fowl of every kind, kept for 
 the diversion of the king ; it is the punishment of the 
 galleys for life if anybody fires a gun in that neigh- 
 bourhood. Walked from thence to Astroni, the crater of 
 
 * Giuseppe Millico, well known as a singer and as a composer, born 1750. 
 In 1774 he sang in London with great success. In 1780 he was attached at 
 the court of Naples as singer to the king. 
 
 f Grotto del Cane, Far. therm. 74.
 
 1784] HOT SPRINGS OF THE PISCIARELLJ. 81 
 
 another volcano ; it is now walled in, and made a park 
 for the king's hunting. It is a hoUow, four miles round, 
 covered with fine wood, and the hills rising percipitately 
 on every side. The inner cone, always observable in 
 volcanos, still remains in the middle of the hollow, and is 
 now covered with fine trees. 
 
 From thence to what the Neapolitans called the 
 Pisciarelli. In the side of the mountain, at every cre- 
 vice, there gushes out a smoking vapour, so hot that 
 it is impossible to keep the hand near it. At one cavity, 
 larger than the rest, is heard the water boiling up with 
 the greatest violence, as if it were close to the ear, and 
 there runs from it a small stream of boiling hot water. 
 There are several little puddles in which Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer rose to the height of boiling spirits. The 
 edges of all the crevices from whence the vapour issues 
 are encrusted with nitre, and the boiling water is of a 
 white milky colour. 
 
 In the evening at the Academy. The ball nights are 
 upon the same easy footing as the concert everyone 
 making their own little party. 
 
 Wednesday, 28th. In the morning with Madame Sca- 
 rowsky to see two Precipios. These are representations 
 of the Nativity of our Saviour, the adoration of the Magi, 
 &c., &c., by little figures about eight inches high, made 
 of terra cotta coloured to the life, and dressed more neatly 
 than I ever saw a milliner's model. These are made 
 about Christmas time by societies of people, or some- 
 times by individuals, as a sort of act of devotion ; every- 
 body has liberty to come and see them. They remain 
 till the next Christmas, when they newly group, add to, 
 and differently arrange the same figures. It is impossible 
 to give an idea how much these things please by the 
 expression thrown into the figures, the neatness of their 
 dress, and the perfect proportion between them and the 
 objects about them buildings, ruins, caves, cattle, horses, 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 MISS BEEEY'S JOUENAL. [1784 
 
 fruit, pots and pans, &c., &c. The perspective, too, is 
 wonderful, for the scene is generally carried on upon the 
 flat tops of two or three houses, and you see a distant 
 view, apparently as far as your eye can reach, of build- 
 ings, figures, and cattle, all in nice proportion ; the fore- 
 ground figures admirably grouped, and much expression 
 and spirit both in their faces and attitudes. In the even- 
 ing, Theatre St. Carlo. 
 
 Thursday r , 29^. In the evening went with Princess 
 Belmonte to pay our respects to the grande maitresse of 
 the ceremony an attention always observed before one 
 is presented. 
 
 Friday, 3(M. Set out between 8 and 9 A.M. for Pom- 
 peii,* with Sir George and Lady Warren, Mr. Musgrave, Mr. 
 Coussmaker, Mr. Brand, and Mr. Clark. Spent four hours 
 and a half in visiting the interesting remains of this town, 
 which are a good deal dispersed, as they have dug first 
 at one end and then at another, and left the middle still 
 covered with its shower of ashes, upon the top of which 
 are now flourishing vineyards. 
 
 This inscription is upon a stone tablet on the lesser 
 theatre at Pompeii : 
 
 C. QUINCTIUS C. F. VADQ. 
 
 M. PORCIUS M. F. 
 
 DUO VIR. DEC. DECK. 
 
 THEATRUM. TECTUM 
 
 FAG LOCAR FIDEMQ. PROB. 
 
 Inscription upon a funeral monument, close on the 
 road-side, nearly opposite the entrance into the Casino at 
 Pompeii. The last line in much smaller letters than the 
 other two, except the T marked larger in Magister : 
 
 M. ARRICS S. L. DIOMEDES 
 
 SIBI, SUIS. MEMORISE 
 MAGISTER. TAG. ANG. FELIX SUB. URB. 
 
 * Pompeii was destroyed A.D. 79. Excavations were first begun in 1755.
 
 1784] PRESENTATION TO THE QUEEN. 83 
 
 Dined under the trees. The peasants of a little cottage 
 in the vineyard brought us a bench and chairs, some 
 wine, water, and two or three plates and an omelette. 
 It was one of the finest days I ever beheld. The road 
 to Pompeii is very pleasant, quite round the Bay of 
 Naples. About seven miles from Naples crossed a stream 
 of lava, about half a mile broad, which ran from Vesu- 
 vius in 1760, for seven months, on the south side of the 
 great mountain. It has, as yet, hardly a quarter of an 
 inch of soil upon it, and is perfectly bare, black, and 
 rugged, giving one a clear idea of the perfect devastation 
 these dreadful streams carry along with them, and, at the 
 same time, of the length of time it requires to re-fertilise 
 the soil. 
 
 Saturday, 31st. Eeceived a note from Princess Bel- 
 monte at 9 in the morning, saying we were to be presented 
 to the queen* at four that day. Neither gowns nor trim- 
 mings were begun to be made. Set the rnantua-maker 
 and milliner to work directly, and we were ready before 
 four in gowns, which were untouched at 10 o'clock in 
 the morning. Went with Princess Belmonte and Ma- 
 dame Eeventlow (who was likewise to be presented) to 
 the palace, where we waited for about a quarter of an 
 hour in an antechamber, when Princess Belmonte was 
 called forward to the queen, who stood just within the 
 door of an apartment, too distant from us. After she 
 had spoken to her for a minute or two, she returned 
 and took in Madame Eeventlow, who had an audience 
 of about ten minutes ; when she came back, we went in 
 together, and stayed near a quarter of an hour. The 
 queen spoke a great deal to us ; she is very gracious in 
 her manner, and very ready at the conversation necessary 
 
 * Caroline, wife of Ferdinand IV., daughter of the Emperor Francis 
 Joseph II. and the Empress Maria Theresa, 
 o 2
 
 84 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 upon such an occasion. She was quite alone, the attending 
 ladies being in an outward room, and stood the whole 
 time just at the door. After we came out, Lady Eliza- 
 beth Foster * was presented by Princess Ferrolita, and 
 Madame Scarowsky and her niece by the Duchesse Cast el 
 Pagano ; but they had much shorter audiences than ours. 
 Eeturned home ; changed our dress, and went to St. 
 Carlo. 
 
 Sunday, February 1st. In the evening at the Floren- 
 tine Theatre, afterwards to the Festino ; supped in Prin- 
 cess Belmonte's box with the King of Sweden; waited 
 upon by soldiers, which is likewise the custom at all the 
 courts, dinners, and entertainments. They were very 
 shabbily dressed, which one would suppose soldiery often 
 about the person of a king ought not to be. 
 
 Monday, 2nd. Dined at Mr. Morier's, in the evening 
 St. Carlo, and afterwards to a supper for the King of 
 Sweden at the Eussian minister's. 
 
 Tuesday, 3rd. A ball at court, at which everybody is 
 obliged to be in domino, most of which were bespoken 
 in such a hurry that they were not brought home till the 
 moment before they were wanted. The suite of apart- 
 ments was magnificent and well lighted ; the queen sat 
 for about an hour in the dancing-room, and then went 
 into another room and played vingt-un with the King of 
 Sweden, foreign ministers, Lady Warren, Princess Bel- 
 monte, &c., &c. The King of Naples was very little in 
 the ball-room, but played inacao in another room. Lord 
 Tylney was of his party. Before the queen went to 
 cards she walked round the room and spoke to us all, 
 and after cards were over she again walked about the 
 dancing room, and spoke much to everybody. The king 
 
 * Daughter to Frederick Augustus Hervey, Lord Bishop of Deny, and 
 fourth Earl of Bristol. Married first to John Thomas Foster, Esq. ; se- 
 condly, to William, fifth Duke of Devonshire, Oct. 1809. Died 30th March, 
 1824.
 
 1784] CASERTA. 85 
 
 too returned to the ball-room, but spoke very little to 
 anybody. There was a supper, to which no strangers 
 were asked but the King of Sweden and his suite. 
 
 Wednesday ', th. Supper for the King of Sweden at 
 Prince Belmonte's after the opera ; between forty and 
 fifty people there. 
 
 Thursday, &th. Supper at the Imperial minister's 
 after the opera. 
 
 Friday, 6th. The Academia, at which there was both 
 a concert and a ball. The Queen of Naples and the 
 King of Sweden were there. There could not be less 
 than a thousand people. The queen moved about 
 a good deal, and spoke to everybody. There was after- 
 wards a private supper at court for the king and his 
 suite. 
 
 Saturday, 1th. Set out for Caserta with Sir G. and 
 Lady Warren, Mr. Musgrave, Mr, Eepington, and Mr. 
 Clerk. The palace there the largest, I believe, in Eu- 
 rope the architecture not in good taste. In the great 
 front the pediment is too small. The grand staircase is 
 under the centre of arches, which unite the four quad- 
 rangles of which the building is composed, and is mag- 
 nificent. Not an eighth part of the building finished in 
 the inside ; they are going on with it by slow degrees. 
 The furniture of the king and queen's apartments neat 
 and elegant, all covered with English carpets. The 
 theatre of the palace, which was the part first finished, 
 very gay with gilding and painting. The great chapel 
 not finished ; it is all magnificence of marble and paint- 
 ing, but, like everything else, in bad taste. The pedestal 
 of the columns almost half their length. 
 
 It rained so uninterruptedly, that though we went to 
 the aqueduct, it was impossible for the ladies to get out 
 of the carriages. It is thrown over a deep valley five 
 miles from Caserta, to convey the water from Spezzia, 
 thirty-one miles distant from the palace. It was finished
 
 86 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 in 1752, by the present King of Spain,* and consists 
 of three rows of arches, on the top of which the water 
 runs in a covered channel. Eat our cold dinner in a 
 clean apartment in the palace belonging to a civil woman, 
 who gave us plates, &c., &c. 
 
 Eeturned to Naples before 7 P.M. in a continued 
 deluge of rain. The road from Naples to Caserta excel- 
 lent, and through a very rich country, producing at the 
 same time wine and corn the vines growing up and 
 twisted from tree to tree, and the corn growing beneath. 
 The trees planted for the vines in the neighbourhood of 
 Naples are poplars, placed so near one another that in 
 summer a vineyard must be a complete forest. Went 
 to a supper at the Marchese Lambucca's the first minister 
 of finance ; it was numerous more Italians there than at 
 any of the other suppers. 
 
 Monday, 9th. In the morning, Virgil's tomb. The 
 ground on which it stands is laid in vineyards ; it is 
 situated upon the very edge of the rock, and as the 
 grotto of Pausilippo is supposed to be much deeper now 
 than it was formerly, it might at one time have been, like 
 most ancient tombs, by the road side ; everything about 
 it is romantic and beautiful. The tomb is of ancient 
 brickwork, and there are still within, little niches for the 
 deposition of sepulchral urns, though it is highly pro- 
 bable much more ignoble ashes than those of Virgil have 
 reposed there, for there is no satisfactory reason given 
 for supposing this to be his tomb, and the want of faith 
 took away much of my enthusiasm in seeing it. Upon 
 the summit, which is reached by a broken ladder, is a 
 variety of shrubs and plants, among which the laurel 
 certainly does not flourish. Whether it disdains by its 
 evidence to confirm a falsity, or is constantly destroyed 
 by the too great veneration of the pilgrims to this spot, I 
 cannot take upon me to determine. 
 
 * Charles III., son of Philip V. Died 1788.
 
 1784] THE CATACOMBS. 87 
 
 The church of Sanazzar, where is the tomb of the poet 
 Sanazzar,* upon which is a tortured epitaph by Bembo.f 
 The tomb badly executed. In the evening, supper at the 
 Portuguese minister's. 
 
 Tuesday r , 10th. Theatre St. Carlo, and a supper at 
 Lord Tylney's, to which all the Englishmen were in- 
 vited. 
 
 Wednesday, llth. Supper at the Maltese minister's. 
 
 Thursday, 12th. Dined at the Eussian minister's villa 
 at Portici. The King of Sweden and his suite went that 
 day to Pompeii, and the dinner was prepared for him on 
 his return. The house is ornamented with prints almost 
 like an English villa, and the party remarkably pleasant, 
 perhaps because it was without form, and we were all in 
 riding habits and great coats. When we returned be- 
 tween eight and nine, paid a visit to Princess Belrnonte, 
 who was sick and received company : she was then upon 
 a couch, but the night before the King of Sweden and 
 all his suite had been to pay their compliments to her 
 in bed. 
 
 Saturday, l^th. In the morning to see the Catacombs, 
 and an immense building called the Studio Pubblico, to 
 which all the museum from Portici, and all the books, 
 pictures, medals, cameos, &c., &c., from Capo di Monti 
 are to be removed. The library is nearly finished. 
 
 The Catacombs, interesting and curious ; not a doubt 
 can remain in one's mind but that they were at first the 
 necessary excavations made for building and repairing a 
 great city, and afterwards continued to form subterraneous 
 passages ; a custom much in vogue in a country where the 
 heat of the climate rendered them particularly useful, 
 
 * Jacobo Sanazzaro, poet ; born at Naples, 1458. His family of Spanish 
 origin. His chief work in Italian is the ' Arcadia/ and in Latin, ' De Partu 
 Virginia.' Died 1530. 
 
 t Cardinal Bembo. Born at Venice, 1470. The author of a work on the 
 Italian language, and other works in prose and verse. Died at Venice, 1552.
 
 88 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 and the matter they had to penetrate was particularly 
 soft : one of the passages is said to have gone from 
 Naples to a distance of fifteen miles : they are all now 
 bricked up, and one entrance only left, as they used to 
 be a refuge for thieves, &c., &c. The sides of the walls 
 are full of niches for coffins of all sizes. By the infinite 
 numbers, one would suppose that a nation had been 
 buried there. The silence and darkness which reign in 
 these souterrains, together with the idea of their being 
 a place of tombs, make a strong impression upon the 
 mind. A large cave, used for rope-making, is a great 
 excavation in solid tufa. 
 
 Sunday, 15th. Pozzuoli, with Baron Amfelt and M. 
 De la Grange. The road from Naples excellent, almost 
 the whole way, along the edge of the Gulf of Pozzuoli, 
 the most beautiful view imaginable : upon the right hand 
 Cape Misenum, on the left the islands of Nisida and 
 the Lazzaretto. At Pozzuoli, the Temple of Jupiter Se- 
 rapis ; an amphitheatre ; an ancient statue in the street, 
 and the pedestal of another, with some pretty figures in 
 basso-relievo, much defaced ; three or four marble Corin- 
 thian columns, the remains of a temple of Juno, which 
 now form a part of the wall of the principal church ; 
 the mole, or, as it is vulgarly called, the Ponte di Caligula. 
 The Temple of Serapis is a curious relic of antiquity ; 
 great pieces of the marble frieze are proofs of its former 
 magnificence. The three standing pillars which remain 
 are unequal both in their height and circumferences, 
 though no part but the capital is wanting to make them 
 complete. About the middle of the columns there is a 
 space of five or six feet much corroded, and full of those 
 holes and perforations which we know are made by a 
 soft sea- worm, and which gives reason to suppose that at 
 some period this temple, though now half a quarter of a 
 mile from the sea, must have been overflowed when the 
 lower part of the columns were buried in the earth. The
 
 1784] THE SOLPATERRA. 89 
 
 rest of the columns of the temple that are thrown down 
 and lying about have all the same marks of having been 
 in part exposed to the effects of the sea. 
 
 The amphitheatre is as large as the Colosseum at Eome ; 
 nothing now remains but the outer walls and the colon- 
 nade where the animals were kept, which are a quarter 
 of a mile round; the arena is now a vineyard; all the 
 seats, &c., are entirely destroyed. 
 
 Went from Pozzuoli to Solfaterra, upon a hill above 
 it. It is the crater of an ancient volcano, which preserves 
 its form entire, but has ceased burning: its sides still 
 smoke through many crevices, and there is one large hole 
 under which can be heard the water running and boiling ; 
 the same surely which boils up at the Pisciarelli, upon the 
 other side of the hills which form the mouth of this 
 crater. A large stone thrown with violence upon the 
 ground makes a report exactly like distant artillery, 
 proving the ground to be hollow. The middle of the 
 crater is still without cultivation, perfectly flat, and white 
 like the floor of a room. 
 
 Tuesday, \lth. Ball at court. The three eldest prin- 
 cesses and the eldest prince were present, and, in compli- 
 ment to the King of Sweden, in the Swedish dress. 
 
 Wednesday, 18^. Went to Baia with the King of 
 Sweden. The day turned out too bad to make a tour of 
 the antiquities that remain there, and what we did see 
 was in continued rain. The king's good humour, con- 
 versation, and little attention to the weather, and the 
 necessary inconveniences attending it, very pleasing. 
 Supped at the Eussian minister's. 
 
 Thursday, 19$. To the Lago d' Agnano and the 
 Pisciarelli in a phaeton, with my father and sister. In 
 the evening, the Florentine Theatre ; at the Festino, in 
 Princess Belmonte's box, to see a ballet by ladies and 
 gentlemen. 
 
 Friday, 20th, In the morning at Cuma, with Sir G.
 
 90 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1794 
 
 and Lady Warren, Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Eepington, Mr. 
 Coussmaker, Mr. Brooke and Parkinson, Mr. Pitt and 
 Mr. Asheton. Went all in open carriages, and dined upon 
 the side of the bank overlooking Lake Avernus. 
 
 Saturday, 2\st. In the morning at Castel St. Elmo, a 
 castle upon a rock behind the town ; the view on all sides 
 superb, particularly that towards Baia and the Gulf of 
 Pozzuoli. In the evening, a ball at court. 
 
 Sunday, 22nd. The Corso, which was crowded ; the 
 view up the Toledo of all the balconies and windows, 
 crowded with heads, striking. Drank tea with Madame 
 Eeventlow. Florentine Theatre and afterwards Festino, at 
 which there was a grand ballet of twenty-four cavaliers 
 and twelve ladies, meant to represent some of the gym- 
 nastic games of Greece. They were very well dressed, 
 and performed their parts well. The conqueror pre- 
 sented his crowns of victory to the queen ; he was very 
 gracefully raised upon the backs of the others to reach 
 her box. 
 
 Monday, 23rd. Went to the Festino, at which there 
 were two ballets, one before supper and the other after. 
 In that before supper the queen was dressed as Ceres, 
 accompanied by Princess Belmonte as Minerva, and the 
 Duke St. dementi as Mars, and two groups of peasants, 
 the one supposed to be Neapolitans, the other Swedes : 
 these, after dancing together, the queen seemed to unite ; 
 and then Ceres, Minerva, and Mars placed, each of them, 
 a garland upon the spear of Mars, which Ceres pointed 
 him to offer to the King of Sweden ; they were accord- 
 ingly handed up to his box upon the point of the spear. 
 The garlands were wreaths of artificial flowers with a 
 motto twisted in with each of them : Au Sauveur de 
 sa Patrie. Au Protecteur des Beaux Arts. A V Alliance 
 perpetuelle. There were besides some complimentary 
 verses printed upon white satin. After supper, both the 
 kings performed in a ballet, which consisted of eighteen
 
 1784] VESUVIUS. 91 
 
 men and six bears. They were supposed to represent 
 the hunters of Lapland. Their dresses were very elegant 
 and at the same time in character, and both kings, men, 
 and bears performed their parts admirably. It concluded 
 by handing up to the queen in her box some garlands of 
 flowers, and a large parcel of Swedish gloves. During 
 the whole time we were in the King of Sweden's box, 
 under which, as next to the queen's, they danced. The 
 crowd below was monstrous, and the whole six rows of 
 boxes, presenting a front of faces all round that magnifi- 
 cent house, were striking. After the queen's ballet there 
 was a shower of verses.* 
 
 Wednesday, 25#A. Set out at 8.30 A.M. for Vesuvius, 
 with Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Coussmaker, and Mr. Clerk. 
 Went to Eesina in our carriages. Went down into Hercu- 
 laneum.f Nothing is to be seen but the theatre, as they 
 have filled up as they went on digging. It is all buried 
 seventy-five feet in a solid body of tufa : part of the ar- 
 cades and the orchestra are cleared out, and narrow pas- 
 sages through the stone, that one can walk the length of 
 what was the stage, and into some of the dressing-rooms, 
 where some pretty stucco painting yet remains. Out of 
 this theatre one of the equestrian statues of the Balbi, 
 now at Portici, was taken. There was likewise a statue 
 at each end of the orchestra. The inscription upon the 
 pedestal still remains ; they show likewise the impression 
 of the head of a bust in the tufa, so sharp it might almost 
 serve for a model. From Eesina we rode for about two 
 
 * It is rather strange that these extraordinary exhibitions of kings and 
 queens, nobles and ladies, dancing on the stage to a public audience, should 
 be mentioned in Miss Berry's journal unaccompanied by any observations. 
 The ceremonious, formal court of George III. and Queen Charlotte certainly 
 could not have familiarised her with the idea of such performances ! It 
 must, therefore, be supposed that it was sufficiently the habit at Naples not 
 to draw forth any remarks on the want of dignity and decorum of such 
 amusements. ED. 
 
 t Herculaneum was destroyed A.D. 79, and re-discovered in 1713 by the 
 sinking of a well.
 
 92 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 hours upon mules, then one must either walk or be carried 
 in a chair on the shoulders of four men. My sister and 
 I were obliged to adopt the last mode. We afterwards 
 walked, but the excessive steepness of the ascent and the 
 cinders on which one has to tread, whence one loses more 
 than half one's steps, is a fatigue which seems to pump the 
 breath out of the body in five minutes' time. Arrived at 
 the top, we were most amply repaid for any trouble the 
 ascent had cost. We were two hours at the edge of the 
 crater. During the whole of that time it threw up red- 
 hot stones and scoriae, and the wind for the most part 
 blowing the smoke the other way, we saw continual 
 volumes of flame, and looked quite down to the mouth of 
 the crater. The surface of the present cone of Vesuvius 
 is entirely the production of the last eruption : it is full of 
 large cracks, out of all of which issues continued smoke. 
 We crossed several of them in walking round the edge of 
 the crater to that part where the last eruption broke 
 through. We dined upon the very edge of the crater, 
 where we could look down into the fiery gulph and enjoy 
 the noble fireworks with which it continued to treat us. 
 The smoke which the wind every now and then brought 
 over to our side was so full of sand, that it much incom- 
 moded our eyes, and was so impregnated with sulphur 
 that it made us all cough. I descended from the crater 
 to where our mules awaited us on foot, in, I believe, half 
 an hour's time. The descent is most rapid, but, as the 
 material on which one treads is soft, with the help of a 
 stick or taking hold of an arm, one can jump forward 
 without much fatigue. The views of Naples and its 
 environs and of the Campagna Felice from the top and 
 sides of Mount Vesuvius are most beautiful. The dif- 
 ferent lavas that have run from the mountain we counted 
 to the number of seven or eight, and looking thus down 
 upon them their course is to be seen like that of rivers
 
 1734] A NEAPOLITAN BATTUE. 93 
 
 upon a map. Eeturned to Naples between six and seven. 
 All the English drank tea with us. 
 
 Thursday, 2Qth. Went to Astroni, where the King of 
 Naples himself, without the assistance of any general 
 officer, reviewed his regiment of Liparoti ; the exercise 
 was very tolerably performed, the manual exercise per- 
 formed to music, beautiful. I am told the manoeuvres 
 were old-fashioned. After the review was over, the men 
 put off their regimentals, got on short jackets, and, with 
 hatchets in their hands, went up the sides of the hills, and 
 enclosing a great space, drove all the boars and deer 
 down to where the crowd was. As they came down the 
 hill they were fired at from different stands of hurdles, 
 where were the King of Sweden, queen, &c. At the 
 same time they were followed by a number of dogs, and 
 when fear drove them into the plain below, pursued by 
 several of the Swedes, &c., on horseback, with spears. 
 A more barbarous amusement never was practised by the 
 savages of America. The creatures, who are in great 
 quantities, are monstrously fat and almost tame, being 
 fed every day at a particular place by the gamekeepers. 
 They have no possible means either of escaping or oppo- 
 sing their numerous enemies, but are driven to certain 
 inglorious slaughter, without any sort of risk or danger 
 upon the part of their barbarous pursuers. They first 
 enclosed one side of the hill and then the opposite one. 
 The hunt was not called successful, and they killed forty- 
 eight boars and three deer. The King of Naples is a 
 very bad shot. The King of Sweden never either hunts 
 or shoots ; he stood the whole time by the queen, and 
 now and then fired a piece without any hopes of killing. 
 
 After the hunt was over, everybody was asked to 
 dinner in three large marquees, in one of which were the 
 two kings, the queen, the ministers, the English ladies, 
 &c., in all about thirty people. After dinner we all
 
 94 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 returned to Naples, the queen very politely desiring us to 
 go up the hill in one of the court caleches, as our own 
 carriage was left on the outside of the park. The weather 
 remarkably fine, and the day altogether very pleasant. The 
 view of a number of people, carriages, and the tents in 
 that fine plain surrounded by wooded hills, charming. 
 
 Friday, 27th. Employed all day in paying farewell 
 visits and packing. Went to Dr. Cerillo's garden. 
 
 Saturday, 28th. Left Naples. Dined at Capua; lay 
 at St. Agata, where we met Comte Levis* and his son and 
 the three Chevaliers de Malthe all going to Kome, and 
 the Spanish ambassador, Comte Hareha, on his road to 
 Naples. Supped altogether. 
 
 Sunday, March 1st. Lay at Terraeina. 
 
 Monday, 2nd. Dined upon the grass at Torre di 
 Quattro Ponti. Came by the new road made by the 
 present pope through the Pontine Marshes, which he is 
 attempting to drain. The road is excellent, with a canal 
 for several miles on each side. There are very good 
 houses built for the post at certain distances, but they are 
 not yet inhabited. Lay at Velletri. 
 
 Tuesday, 3rd. Arrived at Koine. Our lodgings at 
 the ScufFerina's, the corner of the Piazza di Spagna. All 
 our friends in the evening. 
 
 Friday, 6th. In the evening, Cardinal Bernis'. 
 
 Sunday, 8th. In the evening with the Princess Santa 
 Croce at Madame Pelluccia's, where there is every Sunday 
 a dance. Both people of fashion and some of the bour- 
 geoisie go to it. The dancing is all in the Italian manner, 
 and most laughable. 
 
 Monday, $th. Dined at Cardinal de Bernis'. Went 
 in the evening to see the Colosseum by moonlight. It 
 looks larger by this light than at any other time, and the 
 strong lights and shades on its broken parts have a 
 
 * MartSchal de Levis, afterwards Due de Levis. .
 
 1784] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND ANTIQUITIES. 95 
 
 wonderful effect. It is, upon the whole, one of the most 
 striking and interesting objects one can imagine. 
 
 Tuesday, IQth. Began to visit the different parts of 
 Eome regularly, seeing what is worth notice in the 
 different rioni one after another. Began by the Eione 
 de 'Monti,* Villa Negroni. The gardens extensive, in the 
 Italian taste ; entirely gone to ruins. In the house front- 
 ing the Piazza dei Termini, one pretty draperied statue of 
 a woman with a diadem ; in the vestibule of the other, 
 two figures sitting in consular chairs, one called Marius, 
 the head a little stooping, and a very thoughtful expres- 
 sion of countenance life itself; a Neptune striding a 
 Triton, spirited. In a waste part of the garden they have 
 dug and are digging for antiquities. The whole soil, at 
 about ten or twelve feet deep, is a mass of old materials 
 and buildings. They have got out a number of broken 
 columns, pieces of marble, and some medals. When we 
 saw them digging, they had got thirty-five palmi deep, 
 and had come to partition walls of apartments and arches. 
 They are to go ten palmi deeper, when, if they do not 
 find more marble and other valuable materials, they will 
 begin again in some other part. The sale of the old 
 bricks they find, in all these adventures, pays the charge 
 of digging. 
 
 The Arch of Gallienus, plain and not very interest- 
 ing ; its only ornament are two Corinthian pilasters on 
 each side, the whole of white marble; the size of the 
 blocks astonishing. They say what remains is only the 
 middle. In the vineyard belonging to the Convent of 
 Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme are some ruins, which are 
 called a temple of Venus and Cupid. Nothing remains but 
 some broken arches, the walls of an immense thickness. 
 The remains of the Amphitheatre Castrense is likewise 
 in this garden ; but as we were women, they would not 
 let us in to see it. 
 
 * Rome is divided into fourteen rioni or quarters.
 
 96 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 The Temple of Minerva Medica is a picturesque and 
 beautiful ruin, standing in a vineyard ; more than half of 
 its cupola remains, but none of its marble ornaments. 
 
 The Porta Maggiore, formerly Porta Prsenestina, one of 
 the ancient gates of Eome, is, like all the others, built of 
 immense blocks of travertine. The road within not 
 running straight to it, and a number of shabby buildings 
 being placed against it, entirely takes off all its effect. 
 In the same vineyard with the Temple of Minerva Medica 
 are two ancient sepulchres ; one, from the inscriptions,* 
 known to be that of the family of Lucius Arruntius, 
 the consul. On the arched roof there still remain some 
 stucco ornaments and fresco painting. The other has 
 been that of the slaves, freedmen, &c., &c., of the same 
 family. It is without ornament ; round the Avail are little 
 niches in rows, in each of which, built into the wall, is an 
 earthen pot for their ashes, all of which still remain ; and 
 underneath is a little marble tablet with the name of the 
 person. 
 
 Wednesday, \\th. The Madonna degli Angeli is the 
 finest church I have seen at Eome after St. Peter's, built in 
 the ruins of the Thermes of Titus. It is a Greek cross ; 
 four enormous red granite pillars support the roof, and 
 stand in their original places ; but as the floor has been 
 considerably raised by time and the fall of rubbish, &c., 
 the bases of the columns were buried, and they have 
 been obliged to put bases round the column, which are 
 not therefore in exact proportion; but the eye is not 
 offended. 
 
 The Fontana di Mose is grand, from the abundance of 
 water which rushes out of three large apertures. The 
 design of the whole rather heavy. 
 
 Palazzo Albani, a Judith with the head of Holofernes, 
 by Caravaggio,f wonderful for nature and effect. 
 
 * This inscription was found over the entrance in 1736. 
 
 t Polidoro di Caravaggio, born 1495, originally a mason's labourer, em-
 
 1784] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND ANTIQUITIES. 97 
 
 Palazzo Eospigliosi. The lovely Andromeda of Guido* 
 improves upon one the oftener and longer one looks at 
 it. The Twelve Apostles of Eubens noble heads. 
 
 Thursday, 12th. Chiesa St. Pietro in Vincoli. Nothing 
 remarkable but the mausoleum of Pope Julius II. Moses, 
 in the middle niche, by Michael Angelo, in a noble style ; 
 though the head has, as has been often observed, more the 
 air of a river-god than of a legislator. 
 
 Of the remains of the Thermes of Titus we could only 
 get admittance to see the Sette Sale, which are nine large 
 uninteresting arched vaults, formerly the reservoirs of 
 water. 
 
 The Orti Farnesiarii have been very pretty in the 
 style of statues, fountains, &c., but are now entirely 
 neglected. They occupy the Palatine Hill, where stood 
 formerly the Palace of the Emperors. In a terrace in the 
 gardens they have thrown together a number of pieces of 
 friezes, capitals of pillars, &c., found in digging among 
 the ruins, which give one the highest idea of their excel- 
 lent taste and workmanship in marble. On every side 
 one is surrounded with the remains of the magnificent 
 building they once adorned. 
 
 Here, too, one is shown what are called the Baths of 
 Livia ; they are now underground, and one descends into 
 little chambers, the roofs of which are covered with 
 delicate stucco ornaments, and painted with a running 
 pattern of gold and little round and lozenge-shaped pic- 
 tures at equal distances : these have been carried away. 
 One still sees the hollow in the wall where the pipes lay 
 for conveying the water. 
 
 The Church of St. Cosmo and St. Damiano, they say, 
 was a temple to Eomulus and Eemus ; and one is taken 
 down to a subterraneous church below it, and shown the 
 
 ployed in the Vatican, 1512, as one of Raphael's assistants ; murdered at 
 the instigation of his own servant for the sake of his money, 1543. 
 * Guido Reni, born near Bologna, 1515 j died 1642. 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 walls of old brickwork which might or might not belong 
 to a temple to Eomulus. Its great door is of ancient 
 bronze, the only one that exists ; it has holes at regular 
 distances near the edge, where probably some ornaments 
 have been fastened. It was in this church that the 
 ancient plan of Eome, cut in marble, was found ; it is now 
 placed in the wall all up the staircase at the Capitol, but 
 in such broken pieces that nobody has been able to put 
 it in any manner distinctly together. 
 
 Villa Aldobrandini. The gardens pretty. In a pavi- 
 lion in the garden is the famous old painting called the 
 Nozze Aldobrandini. After seeing all the paintings at 
 Portici, it did not strike me so much as I expected ; the 
 colours are much more gone than many of them, and the 
 drawing, I think, not more correct than some. 
 
 Friday, 13^/i. In the evening, Cardinal Bernis', who is 
 to have a concert every Friday and a supper every night 
 whilst the King of Sweden stays. A large party of Eng- 
 lish dined with us. 
 
 Saturday, ~L4tth. Palazzo Barberini. It is a labyrinth 
 of rooms ; they say there are no less than 4,000, in which 
 there are too many good things mixed with too many 
 bad to see them with any pleasure. 
 
 The Church of St. Eomualdo. The altar-piece describes 
 this saint who, it seems, was a hermit expatiating to 
 four of his followers on the charms of solitude. All the 
 five figures are in white, the dress of his order. It is 
 esteemed one of the chefs d'ceuvre of Andrea Sacchi, and 
 is quite superior to any of the rest of his works. 
 
 Sunday, \bth. Villa Albani. The apartments orna- 
 mented with an immense quantity of ancient marble and 
 statuary. Cardinal-Archbishop Albani* had the best 
 opportunities of procuring them, as he was a man of taste 
 and learning, knew their value, and had hired for ten 
 
 * It was built by that cardinal in the middle of the last century, and 
 plandered by the French during the invasion under Napoleon.
 
 1784] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND ANTIQUITIES. 99 
 
 years the ground at Tivoli where stood the famous Villa 
 of Adrian, from which source he drew almost all the 
 ancient magnificence with which he adorned his villa. 
 In a small passage-room on the ground-floor is an ala- 
 baster column in one piece, twenty English feet high. A 
 basso-relievo of Antinous crowned with flowers ex- 
 quisite. 
 
 Monday r , 16 th. Pope's Palace at Monte Cavallo, In 
 the first great salle is Gruercino's famous picture of Sta. 
 Petronilla. The chapel entirely in fresco by Guido, and 
 also the altar-piece an Annunciation. 
 
 Tuesday, 17 th. Went with Mr. Bononi to visit some 
 of the principal antiquities, with which he is perfectly 
 acquainted, having measured them all for Mr. Adams in 
 England. Saw a bit of the old aqueduct, which conveys 
 what is called the * aqua vergine;'* it is buried up to the 
 cornice, which is now enclosed in the little back-yard of 
 a mean house. The cornice is stone, and is supposed to 
 be of as high antiquity as the Eepublic. 
 
 Beautiful remains of the Temple of Minerva ; all the 
 ornaments exquisitely worked. 
 
 Arch of Titus. The figures of Victory over the arch 
 have been worked out of the stone after they were put 
 up, being in one piece with them ; an ornament of leaves 
 begun to be worked upon the cornice of the arch left 
 unfinished. Arch of Constantine. Chiefly composed of 
 basso-relievos and ornaments taken from the arches of 
 Trajan. They relate to his actions and victories ; those 
 executed in the time of Constantine miserable. 
 
 St. Stefano Eotondo. This is in truth an ancient 
 building, and called a temple of Janus, but with greater 
 probability supposed to be a church, built, about the time 
 of Constantine, out of the debris of other temples dedi- 
 cated to paganism, which were then no longer respected. 
 
 * Constructed by Agrippa for the use of his baths. 
 H 2
 
 100 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 Everything bears marks of its having been put together 
 with old materials. 
 
 The Vivarium of Domitian are arched recesses, where 
 the wild beasts for the use of his amphitheatre are sup- 
 posed to have been kept. Near this place is an ancient 
 rustic fa$ade of arches, upon which the upper stories of a 
 monastery are now built. It is called the remains of 
 the Curia Hostilii, or Courts of Justice built by Tullus 
 Hostilius." 
 
 Thursday, 19th. With Mr. Bononi. Thermes of Titus, 
 Temple of Vesta, &c., &c. Pontius Pilate's House ; a 
 small building which has received this name (volgare), 
 I know not for what reason. It is composed of a 
 number of beautiful and richly-ornamented fragments of 
 other buildings, pillars, friezes, cornices, put together in 
 the most Gothic manner, without any regard to sym- 
 metry, proportion, or unity, and was probably so put at 
 a time when the fine fragments of which it is composed 
 were more easily come at for building than new bricks. 
 
 Theatre of Mareellus ; the first stone theatre in Eome. 
 Arch of Severus ; erected to him by the goldsmiths. It 
 is too small, and hardly deserves the name of an arch, 
 but is prettily ornamented. 
 
 Friday, 20th. To the Tarpeian Rock. I believe one 
 might almost be thrown down with impunity, the lower 
 part is so much raised and the upper part so much 
 sunk. It is all covered with mean houses, so that there 
 is no particular spot to which one can address one's 
 veneration. 
 
 Temple of Concord. Frieze in the inside of the Temple 
 of Concord the same as that of Lord Shelburne in 
 Berkeley Square, but larger, which one can hardly be- 
 lieve. Tomb of Caius Sextus. When built, without the 
 walls, half enclosed by those of Aurelian. 
 
 Monte Testaccio ; a hill near 151 feet high, and more 
 than three-quarters of a mile round, entirely composed of
 
 1784] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND ANTIQUITIES. 101 
 
 ancient fragments of earthenware. As it is not mentioned 
 by any ancient authors, all the antiquaries are puzzled 
 how to account for its existence, and, in my opinion, leave 
 it an enigma. Some say all the potters in Borne lived near 
 this place, and that this hill is composed of their rubbish ; 
 but to suppose that they would all bring it to the exact 
 same place, or that all together it would make so con- 
 siderable an eminence, seems- ridiculous. Mr. Byres says 
 there is good reason to believe that it did not exist in the 
 time of Aurelian ; for that if it had, the emperor would 
 certainly have made use of it in building his walls, in- 
 stead of sending, as it is known he did, to Tivoli for 
 broken bricks and rubbish. He supposes it to have been 
 placed there some time between the reigns of Constantine 
 and Justinian ; that as in those later times they became 
 more curious and informed upon the subjects of physic 
 and natural philosophy, some enlightened persons might 
 have convinced the government of the unwholesomeness 
 of keeping their wine in earthenware, which was sup- 
 posed to be one of the great causes of so frequently 
 giving the gout and other obstructions, and prevailed 
 upon the emperor to issue an order commanding all the 
 earthen wine-vessels in Eome to be broken and deposited 
 in this place, which was waste ground near the banks of 
 the Tiber. 
 
 Church of St. Paolo fuori le Muro ;* built by Con- 
 stantine large and noble. 
 
 Sunday, 22nd. St. Peter's. Saw the Pope pray for 
 five minutes, standing, with his head at the St. Peter's foot. 
 
 Monday, 23rd. Tomb of Bibulus. Nobody was al- 
 lowed to be buried within the gates of Borne but the 
 emperors and vestals. Bibulus, an asdile of the people, 
 was alone allowed this honour, on account of his good 
 
 * Burnt down 16th July, 1824, and now rebuilt.
 
 102 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [i784 
 
 administration. The tomb still remains, now forming a 
 part of the wall of a house. Tomb of Scipio ; lately dis- 
 covered.* Arch of Drusus, without the old walls of 
 Eome, within those of Aurelian. Tomb of Cecilia Me- 
 tella, called Capo di Bove, from the ornaments of bulls' 
 heads in the frieze round the mausoleum. Koom in the 
 middle, the shape of an inverted funnel. 
 
 Thursday, 26th. Went at nine o'clock to the King of 
 Sweden's Palace, to see the Pope pass in procession, with 
 all the cardinals, &c., from St. Peter's to the Church of the 
 Madonna sopra Minerva. He was in a great state coach, 
 with two cardinals drawn by six white horses, not driven 
 by a coachman, but by two postilions with great wigs, and 
 their hats off. Several of the Eoman princes attended 
 him on horseback, and the chief officers of his household 
 and a number of monsignores mounted on mules. After 
 the procession had passed the King of Sweden's, and we had 
 all partaken of the breakfast prepared there, we went with 
 Princess Santa Croce to a shop in the Piazza di Minerva to 
 see the procession arrive at the church. We then went 
 into a sort of covered box in the church itself, prepared 
 for the King ; but he stood most part of the time in the 
 front of the crowd. After the function was over, which 
 lasted above two hours, we all went into a gallery opposite 
 to the church belonging to the Eoman College, from 
 whence we saw the Pope again resume his carriage. All 
 the Italians were remarking how little the crowd took 
 notice of the Pope or demanded his benedictions : it 
 would seem a happy omen that he is going out of fashion 
 even with the lowest orders of people. 
 
 Saturday, 28th. With Mr. Bononi to a sculptor's who 
 is making a monument for Pope Ganganelli. He is a 
 
 * The sarcophagus was first opened in 1781, upwards of 2000 years after 
 the death of Scipio Barbatus. The skeleton was found entire, with a ring 
 upon one of its fingers. The ring was brought to England in the Earl of 
 Beverley's collection.
 
 1784] PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND ANTIQUITIES. 103 
 
 young man who was the son of a peasant near Venice. 
 Untaught, he did wonders in the way of sculpture ; he has 
 been but two years in Eome, and has already made such 
 progress as surprises everybody of his profession. A 
 Theseus sitting triumphantly over the Minotaur might 
 almost rival some of the chefs d'ceuvre of antiquity.* 
 
 Tuesday, 30th. Church of St. Eusebio. In the ceiling 
 is a picture, by Mengs, of the Saint. It was the first public 
 work done by Mengs, and what first gained him reputa- 
 tion. It is much in the style of Sir Joshua Eeynolds. 
 
 To the Capitol. The colossal foot in the court-yard, 
 supposed to have belonged to the statue of Nero which 
 stood before the Flavian Amphitheatre, and gave it the 
 name of the Colosseum, exactly the length of Mr. E. 
 Conway's height,f and the great toe the thickness of his 
 body. In the apartments of the officers called ' gli con- 
 servatori ' (who are four cavaliers elected every month, 
 to settle the price of all the eatables in Eome bread, 
 meat, wine, &c. according to the quantity that comes to 
 market) is the famous bronze Wolf suckling Eomulus 
 and Eemus, said to have been struck with lightning when 
 Julius Caesar was killed. 
 
 Wednesday, 31st With Mr. Eonconi, Mr. Conway, 
 and General 0'Hara,J to the upper parts of St. Peter's, 
 We spent five hours in this wonderful building. 
 
 Thursday, April 1st. To several artists': Mr. Tres- 
 ham, who has published a series of drawings, the history 
 
 * This young artist was no other than Canova. 
 
 t The Hon. and Rev. Edward Conway, son of the Earl of Hertford, 
 Canon of Christ Church ; died 1785. 
 
 t General O'Hara was the intimate friend of Marshal Conway and his 
 family, and is frequently mentioned, and always favourably, in Horace 
 Walpole's letters. He was a distinguished officer, and died in command at 
 Gibraltar, 1802. Miss Berry's acquaintance with him appears to have com- 
 menced at this time. 
 
 Henry Tresham, Esq., R.A., a native of Ireland. He repaired at an 
 early age to Italy. His drawings in pen-and-ink and black chalk were better 
 than his oil pictures. He was considered a great connoisseur in art, and 
 purchased for 100/. Etruscan vases, turned out by Mr. Hope, half of which
 
 104 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 of Sappho ; to a statuary in the Corso, who is repairing a 
 statue of Venus lately found, for the Pope ; to Mr. Hewit- 
 son, a statuary several good busts, portraits, but Rome is 
 not a place in which to admire modern busts. After- 
 wards to Lady E. Foster, to hear Bianchi * play over some 
 of the airs of his last opera. 
 
 Friday, 2nd. In the hall of the Palazzo Spada is a 
 statue of Pompey, the same, it is said, at the foot of which 
 Caesar fell. It is colossal, but not very good." In the 
 gallery, the Eape of Helen, by Guido. The idea of Helen 
 carrying her dog, squirrel, and dwarf along with her, 
 ridiculous and mean. Death of Dido, by Guercino, a fine 
 picture but much spoilt : the canvass seems to have been 
 originally primed with black, and all the shades are ter- 
 ribly dark. 
 
 Sunday, 4th. Palm Sunday. Into the King of Swe- 
 den's box in the Sistine Chapel, to see the Pope bless and 
 deliver the palms : those given to the cardinals were 
 curiously twisted together like a large staff. The function 
 altogether is a long and tiresome one. 
 
 Tuesday, Qth. The statues in the Capitol. Statue of 
 Pyrrhus in the vestibule, remarkable for the fine work- 
 manship of the armour ; it may be called a general in 
 complete uniform. The legs were shockingly restored 
 too short by half for the figure and, by its fresh and 
 perfect appearance in every part, I should suppose a great 
 deal of it had been worked over. The Dying Gladiator, 
 perhaps the statue of antiquity that most interests upon 
 
 were purchased by Mr. Rogers for 8QOL, and the remainder by lord Car- 
 lisle. He was a member of the Academies of Rome and Bologna. He 
 died 1814. 
 
 * Francesco Bianchi, musician, born at Cremona, 1752 ; composed about 
 fifty operas and two oratorios ; appointed Vice-Maestro di Capella at St. 
 Ambrogio, Milan, and also to a post in the Scala, 1784. Came to London, 
 1793 ; was engaged at the King's Theatre till 1820. Committed suicide at 
 Hammersmith, Nov. 1810. There is a monument to him in Kensington 
 Churchyard. From Dictionary of Universal Biography, Glasgow.
 
 1784] THE COLOSSEUM. 105 
 
 repeated examination ; not only the face, but every part 
 of the body expresses a man dying in great pain with 
 calm resignation. View it first even from behind, one 
 would know it was not a figure reposing. It excels, 
 too, in being a representation of vulgar nature ; it is 
 neither a god nor a gentleman, but it is a man and 
 nature. The expression is the more wonderful as it is 
 by no means highly finished. It was found between the 
 Pincian and Quirinal Hills. 
 
 Wednesday, 1th. Colosseum. Eighty arcades in the 
 circumference of it, four entrances dividing it into four 
 equal parts, the arcades all going to a centre, excepting 
 the four entrances, which are made parallel. That for the 
 emperors, upon the north side, consisted of three arches 
 finely ornamented, some of which yet remain. From 
 thence there was a bridge over to the Thermes of Titus. 
 In all the upper colonnades, against the piers of the 
 arches, the marks of where stone balustrades were for- 
 merly fixed are still visible. The windows are alternately 
 built up and left open ; by some supposed to have been 
 closed boxes for the noble ladies, where they could see 
 without being much seen. The truth of the matter is, 
 there are a number of parts in these noble remains which 
 all the antiquaries are puzzled to make out. Each has 
 his supposition, and Vun vaut bien I'autre. There is 
 every visible proof of its having been built in a great 
 hurry, which we know from history it was. In the con- 
 struction of the walls there are several pieces of stone cut 
 round, and others that have been in other buildings. 
 
 In the Vatican Library, 40,000 manuscripts, 28,000 
 printed books. A fund of 600 crowns for buying from 
 year to year the best editions of books. The four cases 
 for the medals in an apartment in the Vatican Library 
 cost 3,000 sequins. 
 
 In the evening, to the King of Sweden's box in the 
 Sistine Chapel, to hear the ' Miserere.' There is a long
 
 106 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 service chaunted before it begins. Charming as it is, it 
 did not perhaps quite answer my expectations ; because 
 when one sets one's imagination to work, one can always 
 surpass anything that really exists. The scene around, 
 too, is not imposing ; it is small and crowded with people, 
 who are many of them moving about and making a 
 noise. 
 
 Afterwards, to see the pilgrims sup. There are many 
 hundreds both of men and women, who sup separately. 
 Among the men I saw two cardinals ; and, attending the 
 women, some of the finest and gayest ladies in Eome, in 
 a sort of undress, with a cloth apron before them, 
 changing the plates of ragged wretches who scarce know 
 how to hold a knife and fork. 
 
 Thursday, 8th. At nine o'clock, to the Sistine Chapel, 
 where there was a long function ; after which we went to 
 the windows of Cardinal Negroni's apartments to see the 
 Pope give the benediction from the middle window. 
 The crowd in the Piazza was less than I expected, but 
 the sight altogether is a noble one. Afterwards, in an 
 apartment of the Vatican, the Pope, in imitation of Our 
 Saviour, washes the feet of twelve poor priests, who are 
 to represent the Apostles. The Apostles, however, this 
 year were counted by what they call in England a baker's 
 dozen, for there were thirteen of them. They were 
 ranged upon a bench along the side of the room, dressed 
 from head to foot in very pretty white flannel dresses. 
 The Pope, after some short prayers, comes in a simple 
 dress of white linen, and washes one of each of their feet 
 (which, however, are made thoroughly clean beforehand), 
 dries it with a finely folded-up towel, and kisses it. He 
 afterwards gives the man the towel, and a nosegay, made 
 of some white flowers ; then washes his own hands, and 
 goes out to prepare to serve them at table. 
 
 Their table is in another apartment, very prettily ar- 
 ranged. They are all seated on one side. The Pope walks
 
 1784] CEREMONIES AT THE VATICAN. 107 
 
 down the other side, and hands them over all their plates, 
 one after another, five successively to each person a very 
 good maigre dinner of soup, fish, and vegetables, served 
 upon plate. He afterwards pours out wine and water for 
 every one of them to drink. His figure, standing at the 
 top of the table in his white dress, with a girdle round 
 his waist, waiting till they had eaten some off their plates, 
 was not unlike that of a jolly cook with his apron before 
 him ; though it must be owned that this Pope performs 
 all these ceremonies with as much grace and dignity as 
 such operations will admit of. 
 
 Afterwards we went to another apartment, where the 
 cardinals dined together. Their table I thought not so 
 pretty as the pilgrims'. There were a number of covers, 
 but only eight dined. 
 
 In the evening to hear the ' Miserere ' again : I 
 thought it better to-night than last night. Afterwards, to 
 the Pauline Chapel, which is magnificently lighted up in 
 commemoration of Our Saviour's sepulchre. The altar 
 was a perfect blaze of light up to the ceiling. The 
 painting of the dead body on the fore-part of the altar 
 has a fine effect. From thence to St. Peter's, to see the 
 illumination of the cross : though eighteen feet high, it 
 looks small and not magnificent in that building. One 
 sees, too, the ropes that fasten it, which takes off from 
 the idea of its being suspended in the air ; but the light 
 it throws upon the different parts of the church is charm- 
 ing. The great shadows give one a just idea of the size 
 of everything around. The baldequin in particular looked 
 twice as high by this light as it had appeared before. 
 The church was full of people ; and every half-hour 
 three priests from a little balcony in one of the great piers 
 of the cupola showed the relics when everybody was on 
 their knees. They were at such a height, that it is im- 
 possible to see anything but the looking-glass which sur- 
 rounds them.
 
 108 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Friday, 9th. At 9 o'clock A.M. a long function in 
 the Sistine Chapel, which concludes with uncovering the 
 crucifix, which is covered in all Eoman Catholic churches, 
 and laying it upon a cushion on the steps before the altar, 
 when first the Pope, and then the cardinals, all without 
 their shoes, walk up, kneel before it and kiss it ; then 
 follow a long train of inonsignores and priests of all sorts, 
 who do the same thing, but with their shoes on. I could 
 not find out the reason of this. 
 
 To the King of Sweden's apartments, to see the series 
 of gold and silver Swedish medals he is to present to the 
 Pope, contained in three large and elegantly inlaid wooden 
 boxes. 
 
 In the evening, the ' Miserere ' again ; and afterwards 
 St. Peter's, which continues illuminated with the cross two 
 nights. 
 
 To the Academy of Arcadians, which was a great 
 crowd of abbati in a room much too small for the com- 
 pany. The subject for that evening was the passion of 
 Our Saviour. I heard a number of sonnets read : one 
 treated the subject in a ludicrous style, and the whole 
 room went into repeated roars of laughter. Eeturned 
 home tired to death with the pleasures of the day. 
 
 Saturday, 1.0th. Villa Ludovisi. A standing Mercury, 
 easy and elegant. Famous group of Arria and Pastus, one 
 of the most interesting groups I have seen in Eome. The 
 drooping figure of Arria supported only by the arm of 
 Paetus, admirable : the expression of resolution in his face 
 excellent ; it is an attitude evidently chosen by the sculp- 
 tor for great expression of muscle ; a man could not 
 naturally think of killing himself by running his sword in 
 at his collar-bone. 
 
 Sunday, lllh. High Mass by the Pope in St, Peter's ; 
 in my opinion, the finest of all the church-shows. The 
 crowd in the church I think greater than on Christmas- 
 day. Afterwards to Cardinal Negroni's apartments, to
 
 17841 THE VILLA CORSINI. 109 
 
 see the benediction given. The number both of people 
 and carriages in the place, and as far as one could see 
 towards the bridge, was much greater than on Thursday. 
 Altogether 't is a striking sight ; but one loses the Pope 
 in the grandeur of the scene around him. Man ! man ! is 
 too small an animal to attempt blessing the world from 
 St. Peter's ! 
 
 Monday, 12th. In the evening to Cardinal Salviati's, to 
 see the Girandola. The King was there, and it was a most 
 numerous and brilliant conversazione, all the ladies being 
 in gala, it being the eve of the Pope's coronation, which 
 during this reign, luckily for the strangers, happens 
 early in the year ; the great gerbe de feu with which the 
 Girandola begins and ends is noble, and may perhaps, 
 as it is said, give some faint idea of an irruption of 
 Vesuvius : the intermediate figures of fire are not par- 
 ticularly fine. 
 
 Wednesday, \kih. Villa Corsini. Gallery : a portrait 
 of Eembrandt, by himself. Jesus Christ and the Woman 
 of Samaria, by Guercino : the figure of Our Saviour 
 beautiful ; the woman well painted, but vulgar. Venus 
 dressing, by Albani, excellent. A Herodias with the head 
 of John the Baptist, by Guido : the countenance of the 
 head beautiful, but the coiffure too much like a modern 
 nightcap. A bedchamber in which Christina, Queen of 
 Sweden, died.* Innocent X., by Velasquez, a good por- 
 trait. A Madonna and Child by Murillo, charmingly 
 painted. Supped with Cardinal Bernis. 
 
 Friday, IQth. Artists, with Mr. Moore. The French 
 Academy a noble institution : the rooms for the students 
 are lined with beautiful Gobelins tapestry ; they are full 
 of models of all the finest statues of antiquity. Anybody, 
 as well as the French artists, may draw from them. 
 
 * Christina, Queen of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, born 
 1626. She abdicated the throne in 1654; died at Rome in 1689; was 
 buried in St. Peter's, the Pope himself writing her epitaph.
 
 110 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 Sunday p , ~L8th. In the morning to St. Peter's the 
 Sistine Chapel to see the two daughters of the Vene- 
 tian ambassador confirmed. The ceremony, much like 
 ours, was performed by the Pope himself; and after- 
 wards he said mass and administered the sacrament to 
 them like any other simple priest. They continued kneel- 
 ing before the altar during the whole ceremony. Their 
 dress, which was very elegant all white, with large white 
 veils gave them a very graceful appearance. They 
 were attended by all their friends. Princess Santa Croce 
 officiated as their mother, and knelt by them at the 
 altar. 
 
 In the evening, an illumination of St. Peter's. We went 
 between seven and eight o'clock to the Piazza, where 
 there was a crowd of people : it was then illuminated 
 with lanthorns, which cast a dim steady light on every 
 part of it ; they even contrive to place them in capitals of 
 Corinthian pillars ; and when every part is thus surrounded 
 by a line of fire, they say it looks almost like a traced 
 drawing. About nine, upon the signal of a bell tolling, 
 in two minutes' time (by all our watches), the church, 
 from the top of the cross to the end of the colonnade, 
 was in a blaze of light. A more magnificent spectacle 
 can hardly be imagined ; it greatly exceeded my expecta- 
 tions : the whole Piazza, even beyond the colonnade, is as 
 light as day, and the magnificent building in seen to the 
 greatest advantage. The lanthorns continued after the 
 great illumination, with the pans of fire. After taking 
 two or three turns round the Piazza, we went to the 
 Trinita de Monti ; but the wind was so high that a number 
 of the lamps of the dome and colonnade were extin- 
 guished. From the Trinita de Monti I returned to the 
 Piazza of St. Peter's, hoping to have another look at the 
 fa9ade in its splendour, but already the wind had extin- 
 guished nearly half of the pans of fire : the Piazza, which 
 half an hour before we had seen full of people and of
 
 1784] MUSEUM CLEMENTINUM. Ill 
 
 carriages, now was deserted. 'Twas a melancholy scene 
 of quickly past grandeur. 
 
 Monday, 19#A. To the Pope's manufactory "of printed 
 linen. About a hundred men employed ; but they cannot 
 make it answer, and they say it must be given up : it is a 
 pity, for they have great conveniences in the building for 
 carrying on any manufacture, and their patterns, particu- 
 larly those for furniture, taken from the Arabesques, very 
 elegant ; the best, printed upon tolerably fine calico, cost 
 about five shillings a yard English. King of Sweden left 
 Eome. 
 
 Tuesday, 20th. Villa Albani. A Jupiter Serapis in 
 basalt : noble character reckoned one of the best things 
 in the collection. 
 
 Wednesday, 21st. Almost all the English in Eome 
 dined together at the Villa Madonna, belonging to the 
 Medici family, about two miles from Eome ; it is a most 
 delightful situation, but is quite gone to ruin. There 
 were twenty-three or twenty-four at dinner. 
 
 Thursday, 22nd. Museum Clementinum. The cortile 
 of the Belvidere is an irregular octagon court, with an 
 arcade round it, in the niches of which are the famous 
 Apollo, the Laocoon, Venus and Cupid, the torso of M. 
 Angelo (not in a niche), a Hercules holding an Infant in 
 his hand, a mutilated figure called Antinous (the coun- 
 tenance that of Meleager, and only called otherwise be- 
 cause found at Adrian's Villa), and a Lucius Verus. The 
 countenance of the Apollo most remarkable ; it is not so 
 handsome, I think, as the Antinous, but it has an unex- 
 ampled and inimitable dignity about it which marks a 
 god. The marble, too, is uncommonly happy; it has a 
 fine polish upon it, which seems to suit the elegance of 
 the figure. Altogether it does not astonish at first sight. 
 It must be viewed and reviewed to be enjoyed, like all 
 chefs dceuvre in art. The Laocoon, even upon considera- 
 tion, astonishes more than it charms. The expression in the
 
 112 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 father's face and muscles wonderful: the sons have been 
 observed, with justice, to be little men, not boys; but the 
 delicacy of their limbs is beautiful : the arm of the father, 
 which is above his head, with the serpent round it, was 
 restored by Bernini, and is only plaster ; those of the sons 
 are in marble, and badly done. The torso may be fine ; 
 it can give nobody but a statuary or an anatomist plea- 
 sure. The Antinous, or rather Meleager, a sweet figure ; 
 one arm is broken at the shoulder, and the other at the 
 wrist, and they are not yet restored. The armour of the 
 Lucius Verus magnificent. 
 
 In the long vestibule is a collection of all sorts of 
 animals in marble ; and in a niche at the end is the statue 
 of Meleager, with the dog and boar's head : it is, in 
 my opinion, one of the most beautiful of antiquity. 
 Among the animals, a greyhound, admirable. 
 
 In an octagon room built by the present Pope, the Nine 
 Muses, found about eight years ago in Adrian's Villa. The 
 Tragic Muse very fine, crowned with vines, mask and 
 sword in her hand, leaning with her arm upon her knee, 
 which is supported on a rock. 
 
 Friday, 23rd. Set off at 7 o'clock A.M., with Mr. Mar- 
 chant, for Tivoli. Stopped to look at the large bed of 
 reeds with a very thick coat of petrifaction over them : 
 almost all lying upright. Arrived at Tivoli : were lodged 
 at the house of an Abbate Franci. Went on foot, with 
 Donati, the cicerone of the place, to the Villa d' Este. 
 The house was built in the year 1549, by a cardinal of 
 that family;* belongs to the Duke of Modena ; nobody 
 has lived in it since the old Duke of Modena [Francis 
 HL] in the year 1745. The gardens are pretty terraces 
 fringed with trees, one below another, but are most re- 
 markable for the number of fountains, jets d'eau, and 
 artifices with water, that they contain. A number of 
 
 * Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II., son of Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara.
 
 1784] PALAZZO MATTEI VILLY BORGHESE. 113 
 
 Dutch tricks with concealed pipes, which they call the 
 girandola, is really pretty a large body of water thrown 
 up a considerable height in one great gerbe. From 
 thence to Maecenas' villa, delightfully situated upon the 
 brink of the hill just over the cascatelle. Nothing remains 
 but two stories of arches. 
 
 Sibyls' Temple. The pillars of Tiburtine stone, which 
 is ah 1 a petrifaction of reeds, still visible in the pillars, 
 though covered with a thick coat of plaster. 
 
 Saturday., 24/A. Made the tour of the valley upon 
 asses. Dined at the inn with Sir G. and Lady Warren, 
 Mr. Eepington, and Mr. Brooke. About 3 P.M. set out for 
 Eome ; on our way went to Adrian's villa, about two miles 
 from Tivoli, and further on to a lake about a quarter of 
 a mile from the road, which is sulphurous and always 
 warmish. In it are several floating islands that is to say, 
 collections of reeds, mud, &c., large and strong enough for 
 four or five men to stand upon. There was a man upon 
 one of them in the middle of the lake when we were there, 
 whom the wind in a little time brought to the edge, where 
 we were standing. 
 
 Monday, 26^A. Palazzo Mattei. In the gallery a bust 
 of Cicero, the only one in Eome with the ancient name 
 on it; the nose, mouth, and chin are all modern, and 
 as it does not resemble that in the Capitol, or that at 
 Florence, which are both finer busts, its authenticity is 
 disputed. 
 
 Villa Borghese. The Apollo and Daphne, maniere, but 
 the transformation of Daphne charmingly treated, her 
 figure better than the Apollo, which has little of the manly 
 beauty of the antique. Bernini* was only twenty-two 
 when he executed this group. 
 
 Tuesday, 27th. Museum Clementinum. In the evening 
 
 * Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, born 1598, acquired a considerable reputa- 
 tion as painter, architect, and sculptor. His talent was very early developed. 
 At eight years old, he actually designed a group, which afterwards proved 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 to see the statues by torchlight. Nobody that has not 
 seen it can have an idea of the excellent effect of this 
 light, thrown upon them at pleasure ; every statue ap- 
 peared much more beautiful than I had ever seen it by 
 daylight. 
 
 Wednesday, 28th. Capitol, to see the statues by torch- 
 light ; the effect is equally good ; it is the only method 
 of having a true idea of the beauty of these admirable 
 statues, for both here and in the museum they are mostly 
 ill-placed as to light. 
 
 Thursday, 29th. Artists all the morning. 
 
 Friday, 30#A. Cardinal de Bernis in the evening. 
 
 Saturday, May 1st. With Bononi to Palazzo Altieri . In 
 the first room a machine for perpetual motion, with two 
 balls. I understand its principle, but cannot describe it. 
 
 Monday, 3rd. Dined at the villa of M. Santini, with 
 Comte Scarowsky, his mother, her niece, Prince Esterhazy, 
 &c. In the evening the whole music of the Trescatava 
 was performed ; Comte Scarowsky the first violin. 
 
 Tuesday, 4:th. Palazzo Barberini. The famous Gioca- 
 tori of Caravaggio; the colouring and the nature, and above 
 all the expression of this picture, strike me as inimitable. 
 The Magdalen of Guido, sitting, looking up to two angels 
 in the air. A portrait of Eaphael by himself on wood, 
 sweet expression of countenance, but, from time, the tints 
 grown all equally brown. There is not one bad picture in 
 this room a very uncommon circumstance even in Eome. 
 A number of excellent portraits by Titian ; farther on, a 
 dead Christ supported under the arms by the Madonna, 
 M. Angelo Buonarotti ; the attitude and expression won- 
 derful ; it makes one shudder. Two large and two small 
 landscapes by C. Lorraine, both much cracked, but beau- 
 
 his best work ' Apollo and Daphne.' His fluttering mannerism in sculpture 
 was on the whole injurious to the taste in art of his time. Died 1680. Im- 
 perial Dictionary of Universal Biography.
 
 1784] VILLA ALDOBRANDINI. 115 
 
 tiful. An ancient bronze figure of S. Severus ; ancient 
 bronze whole figures are rare. 
 
 Set out at 8 o'clock to Frescati. In the Villa Monte 
 Dragone, which belongs to P. Borghese, a colossal bust 
 of Antinous, one of the most perfect remains of antiquity, 
 not even the nose restored, the countenance very fine, the 
 hair rather affected, or at least very foppishly arranged, 
 two little curls hanging at each ear. Behind the Villa 
 Dragone are some remains of buildings, called the Tus- 
 culum of Tully, and on the other side of the villa that of 
 Portius Cato. 
 
 Villa Aldobrandini, fine situation. At the back of the 
 house is a circular fa9ade of building, in which there are 
 fountains and Gioco d'Acqua. A room on one side, called 
 the ladies' bath, with a trumpery representation of Parnas- 
 sus at the end of it ; a sort of rock, on which are little 
 figures of the Muses and Apollo, with the pipes of an organ 
 in their mouths, which plays by the water. Dined upon 
 our cold dinner in a room at the Villa Bracciano, which is 
 finely situated, well kept, the rooms furnished with printed 
 calicos, and has the appearance of a comfortable English 
 country house. 
 
 After dinner, stopped in our way to Castel-Gandolfo at 
 a village called Grotta Ferrata, to see a chapel of a church 
 belonging to a monastery, painted in fresco by Domeni- 
 chino ; one of the subjects a miracle performed on a 
 demoniac by a monk of the monastery. It is one of 
 the finest pictures I know, the simplicity and expression 
 of the figures, and particularly of the boy possessed, most 
 interesting ; he is stretched backwards on his tip-toes, in 
 the arms of his father, with his eyes distorted upwards. 
 
 Wednesday, 5th. Arrived at Mr. Jenkins' house at 
 Castel-Gandolfo. 
 
 Thursday, 6th. Walked to Albano, to the Doria villa, 
 formerly Pompey's ; the Barberini villa, formerly Domi- 
 tian's ; in the gardens the remains of a very long colon- 
 
 i 2
 
 116 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 nade, with niches. Walked down to the lake to the 
 emissary, a stone channel cut through the hill by the 
 Eomans, to prevent the water rising above a certain height. 
 The man who showed it set two or three little candles 
 upright upon a board, which, as it sailed through the 
 channel, we saw for near half a mile. The lake was for- 
 merly encompassed with a low stone parapet, seven miles 
 round. It served for a naumachia for Domitian's villa, 
 who there had mock sea-fights. 
 
 Sunday, 9th. In the morning walked to the Ponte 
 Molle, where the battle between Constantine and Maxen- 
 tius was fought. 
 
 Monday, 10/A. Palazzo Colonn a. Titian's famous Venus 
 and Adonis ; its companion, the Ganymede, carried up to 
 heaven by the eagle, spirited and admirable. Luther and 
 Calvin, by Titian; wonderful portraits. A cabinet of 
 ebony, with ivory basso-relievos, representing scripture 
 histories, a most delicate and exquisite work of the kind ; 
 it was bought from our Charles I. In the gallery, the 
 statue of Germanicus, with his hand up ready to throw it 
 out, as playing at moro, a game which, it is said, he 
 invented to amuse his army. The Madonna finding the 
 Dead Body of Jesus (Guercino), the best painted, best 
 treated, and most affecting of that sort I have seen ; it 
 is striking for the simplicity of the composition, the dead 
 body sitting supported by a stone, and the animated atti- 
 tude and grief of the Madonna ; the drapery is rich and 
 simple ; the scene of the cave or sepulchre, and the 
 distant view of the cross, upon a wild heath, all conspire 
 to add to the melancholy and wonderful effect of the 
 picture. 
 
 In another apartment, the famous portrait of the Cenci, 
 in the dress in which (they say) she was executed ; it 
 is called by Guido, but is not in his manner ; the real 
 painter is probably unknown. The expression of the face 
 is most beautiful, and the history makes it affecting. I
 
 1784J FAKEWELL VISITS. 117 
 
 never saw one of all its numerous copies that gave at all 
 the tone, expression, or grace of the countenance. 
 
 In the evening drank tea at Villa Madonna with Mr. 
 'Con way, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Meares, Mr. Bemington, Mr. 
 GiiFard, Mr. Byres, and Mr. Tresham. 
 
 Wednesday, 12th. Borghese Palace. Among the pic- 
 tures, Domenichino's Sibyl, or St. Cecilia, a small St. 
 Catherine, standing leaning against the wheel, by Raphael, 
 Titian's Three Graces binding Cupid, were amongst those 
 that struck me most. The boys are more graceful than 
 the Graces. 
 
 In the afternoon, to the Villa Marafosci, to see a statue 
 of a sleeping figure, called an Endymion, lately found in a 
 cave at Adrian's villa. The figure is lying at length and 
 in perfect repose. 
 
 Thursday, 13th. Went to see Prince Piombini's col- 
 lections of gems. Among a great many bad ones, there 
 are some few very pretty ; a large head of Augustus in 
 cameo, a group fighting for the dead body of Patroclus, 
 in intaglio. 
 
 The English dined with us in the evening. 
 
 Friday, llth. In the evening to Madame d' Albany's.* 
 
 Monday, 17th. In the morning went to take leave of 
 the Museum Clementinum ; saw the sarcophagus of St. 
 Helena, the mother of Constantine, which is repairing for 
 the Pope : the design of the sculpture is odd. Armed 
 men on horseback galloping over the heads of prisoners 
 on their knees. 
 
 Tuesday, 18th. To take leave of the Capitol and the 
 Colosseum, with Canova the sculptor. f 
 
 * Louisa Maximiliana de Stolberg, afterwards known by the name of 
 Countess of Albany, wife of the Pretender. After the death of Charles 
 Edward in 1788, she travelled in Italy and France, with Alfieri the 
 poet, to whom she was supposed to be married. She resided in Paris until 
 driven by the Revolution to take refuge in England. ( Walpotes Letters, 
 p. 316.) In 1820 she was supposed to be married to John Fabre", a French 
 painter of talent. P. 322. Cunningham's edit, of H. Walpole's Letters. 
 
 t Antonio Canova, the son and grandson of a sculptor, was born 1757, at
 
 118 MISS BEREY'S JOUBNAL. [1734 
 
 In the evening, to take leave at Madame d' Albany's, 
 at Princess Santa Croce's, and at Lady Murray's. 
 
 Wednesday, 19th. In the evening, St. Peter's to take 
 leave. All our English friends with us till past 10 ; % 
 afterwards called upon Madame Scarowsky and Lady 
 Elizabeth Foster. 
 
 Thursday, 20th. Left Eome between 4 and 5 o'clock 
 A.M. with a voiturier for Florence, by Terni. Arrived 
 at Civita Castellana ; it is a small town and fortress of 
 the Pope's, in a most romantic situation. The Pope's 
 garrison in the present fortress consists only of thirty 
 men. 
 
 Friday, 2~Lst. Arrived at Terni. General O'Hara and 
 Mr. Conway passed us upon the road ; spent the evening 
 with us. 
 
 Saturday, 22nd. The General and Mr. Conway break- 
 fasted with us between 4 and 5 o'clock, and set out 
 with us immediately afterwards in two caleches to see the 
 cascade ; it is five miles from Terni. From the rock there 
 is a good view of it, and one little lodge with steps down 
 the hill was built for the present Pope, but he has never 
 been there yet. The country all about the cascade is most 
 romantic. We returned in our caleches to Papigno, a village 
 in the road to Terni, from whence we set out on foot to 
 view the cascade from below ; it is a walk of four good miles 
 there and back again ; it was hot and was rather fatiguing, 
 but we were well compensated not only by the grand ap- 
 pearance of the cascade, but by the beauty of the walk 
 itself. The banks are well wooded down to the water's 
 
 Possagno, a village at the foot of the Venetian Alps. He was an orphan at 
 three years old, and was instructed in his art by his grandfather. He first 
 visited Rome in 1780. His first work there was ' Theseus conquering the 
 Minotaur.' From that time his fame was established. He settled at Rome 
 in 1783. His genius secured him the admiration of the civilised world, and 
 his kind and gentle virtues the respect and admiration of all who knew him. 
 He died at Venice October 1822.
 
 1784] ARRIVAL AT PERUGIA. 119 
 
 edge, or rather into the water, which runs round the roots 
 of many of the trees, forming little islands. Counting 
 from the level of the valley, it falls 367 feet (according to 
 the people of the place), but not in one fall ; after the first 
 great pitch it runs sloping over two great shelves of rock. 
 A more beautiful subject for the pencil can hardly be con- 
 ceived : the froth rises like thick smoke far above the 
 top, and at the water's edge. We should have been wet 
 to the skin had we stayed five minutes. Eeturned to our 
 carriages at Papigno, much fatigued with the heat ; got 
 back to Terni about 11 o'clock. The people had told us 
 it would take three hours to see the cascade ; we were 
 much above six. Mr. Conway and General O'Hara set off 
 for Foligno, and we for Spoleto. 
 
 Sunday, 2 3 re?. Dined at Foligno. Saw Eaphael's altar- 
 piece in the church of the Franciscans ; the composition 
 is arranged in the regular form and manner of his master, 
 P. Perugino ; in the middle, the Madonna and Child in 
 the heavens two saints on each side, one kneeling and 
 one standing, and a cherubim supporting a tablet in the 
 middle. Stopped at Chiesa Nuova, near the town of 
 Assisi, to see an immense large church belonging to a 
 convent of Franciscans, in which there are no less than 
 142 of that order. In the middle of the church is a little 
 chapel, where St. Francis used to pray, and near the choir 
 another little hovel, where he died,* which is the reason 
 the church was placed here. Arrived at Perugia between 
 7 and 8 P.M. Perugia is a more comfortable-looking town 
 than any I have seen in the Pope's dominions. 
 
 Monday, 24#A. Walked into the cathedral at Perugia ; 
 it is a large half-Gothic building, the roof now painting 
 very prettily in fresco by a native of the town. The lake 
 is a noble piece of water the people say forty miles 
 
 * St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the order of Franciscans, born 1182 ; 
 died 1224.
 
 120 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 round ; there are three islands, on one of which is a 
 convent. 
 
 Arrived at Camucia, a poor inn in a poor village, under 
 the hill, upon which Cortona stands. 
 
 Tuesday, 2 bth. Breakfasted at Arezzo; the houses and 
 people have a better appearance than those in the Pope's 
 dominions. Arrived at Levane ; inn very bad. 
 
 Wednesday, 26th. Arrived at Pian della Fonte in six 
 hours ; the auberge most wretched. The landlady's 
 daughters two very handsome girls, in the little hats, 
 white loose sleeves, and graceful dress of the country. 
 Arrived at Florence about 7 P.M. 
 
 Thursday, 27th. Went to the gallery and some shops 
 in the morning. In the evening Miss Gore came and sat 
 with us, afterwards carried us to Teatro Nuovo ; Lady 
 Cowper's box. 
 
 Florence : Saturday, 29th. Palazzo Pitti. Paul III., by 
 Titian, an admirable portrait ; its pendant a Dutchman 
 in a black dress, by Vandyck, almost as good ; they are 
 both chefs-d'oeuvre. A portrait of a woman by Titian, 
 the same he painted as his famous Venus. In the third 
 room, Raphael's celebrated Madonna della Sedia. It 
 pleased me still more now than it did before ; both the 
 lines and colouring of it are beautiful. Above it, Leo X,., 
 with two cardinals, by the same painter, in a colouring 
 as rich and deep as Titian's. Four burgomasters, or 
 councillors, sitting at a table, by Rubens, one of the 
 clearest and most lively pictures I ever saw. Julius II., 
 by Raphael, wonderfully coloured. Cardinal Bentivo- 
 glio, by Vandyck, a fine portrait, the countenance one 
 of the most penetrating I ever beheld. Under it a por- 
 trait by Paul Veronese, in a black robe lined with fur, 
 which is wonderfully well expressed in a very rude manner. 
 A portrait of a young boy of the House of Medici, 
 Vandyck, beautiful countenance. A Madonna and Child 
 in her arms, attended by two saints on each side, and two
 
 1784] GINORI'S CHINA MANUFACTORY. 121 
 
 angels in front reading a scroll, by Baphael in his first 
 manner, in my opinion, more pleasing than his second, 
 though in general the grouping of the figures is arranged 
 with the regularity of dishes upon a table. The Eeturn 
 of the Prodigal Son, by Bronzino, a fine picture : the 
 father is receiving him out of a boat an uncommon idea 
 of the subject. Calvin and Luther, by Georgione di Castel- 
 franco, finely painted, though turned brown. 
 
 In the evening Lady Cowper and Miss Gore carried us 
 to Sir H. Mann's. 
 
 Sunday, 3(M. Walking in the cascini with Miss Gore, 
 afterwards to the Pergola theatre. 
 
 Monday, 31st. In the morning to 'Ginori's china 
 manufactory, about five miles from Florence. The road 
 to it is through a country cultivated like a garden, with 
 every sign of plenty and comfort in the people. The 
 painting of the china is neatly executed, though not in 
 general happy in their patterns. The clay, too, is heavy. 
 About eight men employed in the manufactory.* 
 
 Dined at Lord Cowper's. 
 
 Tuesday, Junelst. Miss Gore called for us in a phaeton. 
 Went to a villa upon the side of a hill about three miles 
 from Florence, which belonged to the late Lady Orford,f 
 and which she left to her cavalier servente. It is elegantly 
 furnished, and kept in as nice order as any country house 
 in England ; it has a charming view over the whole vale of 
 the Arno ; it is one stretch of the richest cultivation, thickly 
 
 * In the beginning of the 18th century, when the Duke of Lorraine ac- 
 quired the dukedom of Tuscany, Charles Marquis Ginori established on his 
 own account, after the example of the petty sovereigns of Germany, a large 
 manufactory of pottery (terraglia) and porcelain, at Doceia, near Florence, 
 
 which met with great success At the sale at Strawberry Hill there 
 
 were many specimens which had been sent home by Sir Horace Mann to 
 Horace Walpole about 1760 ; it was described and sold as Oriental. Pottery 
 and Porcelain, by J. Marryat, p. 211-12. 
 
 t Lady Orford, daughter of Samuel Eolle, Esq., of Haynton, county 
 Devon, married in 1724 to Robert, second Earl of Orford, who died 1751 ; 
 married, secondlv, the Hon. Sewallis Shirley ; became Baroness Clinton ; 
 died 1781.
 
 122 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 spotted with white houses and villages as far as the eye 
 can reach. 
 
 In the afternoon went with Miss G. and Prince Chymee 
 to the Sta. Maria Novella to see an illumination on account 
 of the first celebration of a new saint's day ; it was the 
 best-dressed church I ever saw, entirely covered with new 
 crimson damask and gold lace, and, being a sort of half- 
 Gothic architecture, did not lose by its finery. 
 
 Wednesday, 2nd. Breakfasted at Lord Cowper's, in 
 the cabinet, an apartment of five small rooms elegantly 
 fitted up with the finest instruments for experiments in 
 all the different branches of natural philosophy : one is 
 dedicated to electricity, a second a laboratory, a third for 
 optics, a fourth for hydraulic experiments, a fifth for air. 
 Took leave of Lady Cowper and Miss Gore. 
 
 Set out post for Leghorn ; great part of the way along 
 the banks of the Arno, and the whole of it through a 
 most richly cultivated country. Lastra, the first post on 
 this side Florence, is where a vast many straw hats are 
 made, but they are also made in Florence and through 
 the whole country between that and Leghorn. At 
 Florence only you can buy good ones. 
 
 Thursday r , 3rd Travelled all night; arrived at Leg- 
 horn. In the evening to the new Mole, which I was told 
 by some of our navy people is very badly constructed ; 
 the streets are noisy and bustling, full of shops and 
 people ; put me so exactly in mind of Portsmouth, Ply- 
 mouth, or any other seaport town in England, that I could 
 not fancy myself in Italy. 
 
 Friday, 4th. All the morning at shops : they are very 
 good, but not cheap. Dined at Otto Franc's the banker's ; 
 went after dinner with Mrs. Franc to a coral manufactory. 
 This is a great business at Leghorn, carried on by the 
 Jews, who work, cut, and polish the coral, and send it to 
 England and other places to go to the East Indies ; saw 
 some beautiful natural specimens as it comes out of the 
 water. The price enormous when cut and polished and
 
 1784] FALLING TOWER OP PISA. 123 
 
 made into beads. We saw a long string of large beads, 
 which they said was worth more than 1,200/. sterling. 
 
 Saturday, bth. Went aboard the English men-of-war 
 lying in the harbour, for all of which we had letters to 
 the captains from Florence. Went out in a barge of 
 Capt. Waghorn, of the Trusty, the commodore's ship, of 
 50 guns ; admirably fitted up for accommodation, the 
 commodore's lady having accompanied him in the cruise. 
 Went on board the Thetis, Capt. Blankett, a beautiful 
 38-gun frigate, and the Eattlesnake, of 12 guns, Capt. 
 Melcomb. 
 
 Lieutenant Forbes, of the Trusty, and Mr. Preston, of 
 the Sphinx, dined with us. Left Leghorn for Pisa ; the 
 road good, and part of it through a country like the New 
 Forest between Lymington and Lyndhurst. The inn at 
 Leghorn good, kept by an Englishwoman, Mrs. Cain. 
 
 The Piazza Grande, a fine long square, with well-built 
 houses, and much appearance of business and population. 
 
 Sunday, 6th. The part of Pisa near the Arno is 
 beautiful ; the three bridges all handsome. There are 
 fine long streets with good houses, but they look per- 
 fectly deserted. In Leghorn there are 48,000 inhabi- 
 tants ; in Pisa, which is above twice as large, there are 
 only 16,000. 
 
 The falling tower, which is a belfry, is a foolish bizarre 
 idea, of which the architects of Italy some centuries ago 
 seem to have been very fond. Their total want of fitness 
 occasions rather a disagreeable sensation than otherwise ; 
 that of Pisa has a clumsy look too, from being much too 
 thick for its height. The Campo Santo is a fine long 
 square surrounded by a broad Gothic arcade, built by 
 Giovanni Pisano, finished in the year 1283. The earth 
 in the middle, they think, was brought from Jerusalem. 
 It is a burying-place, where every noble Pisan had a vault ; 
 but the present Grand Duke * has prohibited anybody 
 
 * Peter Leopold succeeded his brother as Emperor of Austria, 1790.
 
 124 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 being buried within the town. The walls of the arcade 
 are curiously painted with scripture subjects by very old 
 artists, the best by Benozzi, a Florentine painter who died 
 in 1478, of some of which I have seen copies in England. 
 In the afternoon, went in a biroccio to Pisa baths, four miles 
 distant, the road through a rich country ; there is a canal 
 by its side exactly like one in Holland, the water above the 
 level of the road. At the baths is a very large corps de 
 logis, which is let out in different apartments. The great 
 building and the baths were begun by the viceroy or 
 governor of Tuscany in the time of the late emperor. 
 The public bath is lined with fine marble, has a little 
 gallery with marble balustrades, in which one can walk. 
 I tasted the water ; it is a little warmer than new milk, 
 and has no disagreeable taste. Eeturned to Pisa. 
 
 Monday ', 1th. Left Pisa; crossed the Serchio in a 
 boat. Between Sarzana and Lerici crossed another river 
 in a small inconvenient boat. It was a holiday, and 
 on the bank by the river, under the shade of festoons of 
 vines hanging from tree to tree, was a group of peasants 
 dancing to the music of a violin and tambour de basque. 
 This sounds charming, and the scene around was truly so. 
 I went up to the dancers, hoping to see that real gaiety 
 and allegresse in all their motions that unaffected un- 
 spoilt beauty and grace in their persons, which one is 
 told is only to be met with in the native dances of 
 peasants, and in comparison with which our beauties in 
 ball-rooms are cold and insipid ; but truth, irresistible 
 truth, with her broad mirror, too often destroys every gay 
 fictitious image half-formed in my imagination. If real 
 beauty and unaffected gaiety are not to be found in a ball- 
 room, I am sure they did not exist among these peasants : 
 they were most of them old and very plain, and danced 
 with such a dullness and gravity that one would have 
 supposed they had been celebrating funeral games. 
 
 Arrived at Lerici : it is a poor town close upon the sea,
 
 1784] ARRIVAL AT GENEVA. 125 
 
 inhabited by felucca people. We came to Lerici at an 
 unlucky time, for there were very few feluccas, many 
 having been taken to Toulon with the King of Sweden. 
 After some difficulty, we made a bargain for two small 
 ones for eight sequins ; each boat had five rowers, but 
 were too small to be comfortable. The one we were in 
 just admitted the body of the carriage put across the 
 boat, in which we all sat ; the train of the carriage was 
 in the other with one of the servants. Sailed before 8 
 o'clock P.M. ; we were all monstrously sick all night, 
 though there was but a moderate wind. 
 
 Tuesday, 8th. Landed at Genoa about 10 : our boats 
 did not sail well. 
 
 In the evening took a little walk in the town : the 
 palaces struck me as magnificent, even after those of 
 Borne. 
 
 Wednesday, 9th. Walked through the mercantile part 
 of the town, saw the Palazzo Durazzo. Three noble 
 large pictures by Luca Giordano, the subject from Tasso. 
 Two rooms hung with silk, painted (they say) with the 
 juice of herbs, by Eomanetti, the design from scrip- 
 ture history, good. The Capo d' Opera of P. Veronese 
 the Woman washing Our Saviour's Feet a great num- 
 ber of figures admirably grouped together, the heads 
 charmingly painted, but the draperies, though gaily 
 coloured, in my idea want relief : all the figures in the 
 group round our Saviour seem equally prominent. Left 
 Genoa ; lay at Campo Marrone. 
 
 Thursday, 1(M. Passed the Scrivia (where we had 
 been so plagued in the winter), without the least 
 trouble ; also crossed the Po upon a pont volant. On 
 entering Pavia crossed the Tesin on a bridge with a tiled 
 roof, supported upon awkward sort of square stone 
 pillars. It was a great gala day, the Fete-Dieu : I was 
 amazed to see the number of carriages the town of Pavia 
 mustered together.
 
 126 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 Friday, \\th. Walked into the courts of the Univer- 
 sity, two handsome quadrangles. Went to the botanic 
 gardens, made within these four years ; it is arranged after 
 the Linnaaan system ; a number of the South Sea plants. 
 
 N.B. The gardener told me that exotic ericas would 
 not live at Pavia : that they had often tried to no pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The present barrack for the troops is a great brick 
 building, half Gothic, half Grecian, formerly the palace 
 of the Lombard kings. Left Pavia arrived at Milan. 
 Found at the Auberge Imperiale Sir G. and Lady War- 
 ren, Mr. Brooke, and Mr. Parkinson. 
 
 Saturday, 12th. Went to the cathedral,* which is an 
 enormous large Gothic building of five aisles, it is yet un- 
 finished, and, although they are laying out money upon it 
 every year, will probably ever continue so ; it is a mixture 
 of Grecian and Gothic, both bad, and rendered worse 
 by being united. The numberless statues on the outside are 
 a great deformity, and entirely take off the lightness and 
 beauty of Gothic pillars and pinnacles ; only a little bit 
 of the floor is paved with marble, the rest very irregularly 
 with brick and small stones. 
 
 Monday, I4:th. In the evening the Marchesina Litta 
 called upon us and carried us to the corso and to the 
 theatre ; it is little less than St. Carlo at Naples. The old 
 Marchesa Litta 's box had on its summer dress : dimity or 
 white linen, with a border ; looking-glasses, doors, &c. 
 Belonging to the theatre is a salle redoute, three or four 
 rooms handsomely furnished, where there is always a faro 
 table, and people at play. This theatre was built by sub- 
 scription, and I understand ihefonds of all the boxes was 
 very considerable that of the Marchesa Litta, a large 
 one, 1,000 louis, besides a rent of 200 or 300 livres a year. 
 
 * The first stone was laid by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, March 15, 1386. 
 The central tower and spire were completed in 1772. The works were con- 
 tinued by Napoleon in 1806.
 
 1784] ARRIVAL AT TURIN. 127 
 
 Tuesday ', 15#A. In the morning went to the Echo 
 Simonetta ; it is at the country house of a Marchesa 
 Simonetta, about two miles from town. The house has 
 two wings ; from a window in the upper story of one the 
 echo is heard. We fired several pistols : they say it 
 repeats forty times, which I can easily believe ; but I have 
 heard far clearer echoes, as this returns no sound dis- 
 tinctly, and when given more than one word at a time all 
 is confusion. 
 
 Afterwards to the Sta. Maria delle Grazie. In the 
 refectory the Last Supper, by L. da Vinci, covering the 
 whole end of the room. It is by far the finest picture of 
 his I have seen the only one of composition : it is per- 
 haps more like three groups put together than one, but 
 the heads are fine, and struck me both in expression and 
 colouring, like Eaphael. 
 
 Thursday, Ylth. Left Milan ; lay at Novara. 
 
 Friday, ~\.&th. On leaving Novara, just without the 
 gates of the town, our axle-tree snapped in two and over- 
 turned the carriage. A parapet wall at the side of the 
 road broke the fall of the coach and prevented its coming 
 entirely to the ground. As it fell gently, we were none 
 of us hurt, and got out with tolerable ease, and returned 
 quietly to our inn, from which I did not expect to get 
 away for a couple of days ; but the blacksmith fixed it 
 together, and enabled us to set out before 3 in the after- 
 noon. Arrived at Chevasio, two posts from Turin. 
 
 Saturday, 19th. Arrived at Turin. Found that Mr. 
 and Mrs. Trevor were out of town, Mr. Conway ill in the 
 auberge. 
 
 Sunday, 20th. In the evening, out of the gates to the 
 Valentino, a small campagne of the king's, most delight- 
 fully situated upon the very edge of the Po, which here 
 keeps within its banks. A gentle hill rises on the 
 opposite side, covered with trees and vines, and spotted 
 with white houses. This place, approached by different
 
 128 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 avenues of trees, is the corso for the carriages every even- 
 ing, and a prettier one can hardly be imagined. After 
 several turns here, they go to another avenue within the 
 walls near the citadel, where the promenade finishes ; it is 
 generally quite full of carriages and walkers on each side 
 the carriages not near so handsome as those of Milan. 
 
 To Mrs. Trevor's box in the great opera house, which 
 after Naples and Milan did not strike me much. Both 
 the opera and ballets were by far the grandest and best- 
 dressed I have anywhere seen. In the ballet not less 
 than 200 people appeared, all superbly dressed, and 36 
 horses in two troops, differently caparisoned and well 
 arranged. After an attack of the cavalry and a long 
 engagement of the .infantry, they all joined in a triumphal 
 procession, in which the general appeared in a quadriga, 
 drawn by four handsome brown horses, who performed 
 their parts to admiration. 
 
 Monday ,%\.st. Evening to the Carignano theatre, where 
 there is an Italian comedy : in Prince Usoupoff's box, the 
 Russian minister, whom we had known at Naples and 
 Eome. 
 
 Tuesday, 22nd. Intended leaving Turin at 4 in the 
 morning, but were delayed by the axle-tree of our carriage 
 wanting again to be repaired. Lay at Suze, There were 
 so many bugs in the bed that I found it impossible to 
 shut my eyes, and before 1 o'clock in the morning got 
 up, dressed myself, waited till 4, when we set off. 
 
 Wednesday, 23rd Arrived at Novaleze about 6. Set 
 out in chairs to cross the mountain between 7 and 8, 
 arrived at the hospital at the top about 10, took a 
 lone walk about the edges of the lake. The whole plain 
 is enamelled with flowers, of which there is a much 
 greater variety than I ever saw elsewhere. I had heard 
 much of this, but their beauty, variety, and profusion 
 exceeded all my expectations. The Prete in the mean- 
 time prepared us an excellent dinner two very large
 
 1784] ST. JEAN DE MAURIENNE GENEVA CHAMOUNI. 129 
 
 trout, spinach, salad, and a great bowl of the finest cream, 
 besides some foreign rarities for a dessert, such as candied 
 fruits, biscuits, and nuts. 
 
 Left 1'Hopital about 3 P.M., and arrived at Lanslebourg 
 about 5. The Due de Ghablais' gardes de corps going 
 to Evian before him had got the best rooms, but we had 
 no bugs, thank heaven ! The difference of the climate on 
 this side the mountain and the other is wonderful. At 
 Turin it was midsummer for the heat ; here I felt most 
 uncomfortably cold ; glad of all the covering they gave 
 to my bed, and found a linen . habit much too light a 
 dress. 
 
 Thursday, 24:th. Lay at St. Jean de Maurienne. 
 
 Friday, 25th. On this side St. Jean de Maurienne the 
 vine begins again to be cultivated, and about Aiguebelle 
 the mountains begin to be less stupendous and the valley 
 somewhat wider. Lay at Charnbery. The inn there and 
 at Aiguebelle clean and neat. 
 
 Saturday, 26th. Lay at Frangi. 
 
 Sunday, 27th. Arrived at Geneva before 12. In the 
 evening Sir James Graham and Mr. Brand called ; took a 
 long walk with them. 
 
 Monday, 28th. Went out between 6 and 7 to Mont 
 Saleve, a high rock about three miles from Geneva, 
 with Sir James and Mr. Brand. Went to Vevay in a 
 carriage ; from thence mounted a very steep ascent on 
 foot. An old woman in the neighbourhood furnished us 
 w r ith an excellent breakfast, which we ate under a great 
 shelving out of the rock. In the evening, my father and 
 I went to the play with Sir James Graham, Mr. Brand, 
 Sir James Hall, and Mr. Dawkins. 
 
 Tuesday, 29th. Set out for Chamouni in a hired post- 
 chaise. Sent our own carriage with the servants and 
 baggage to Lausanne. Dined on bread and butter at 
 Bonneville (the inn much improved). Lay at Sallenches. 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 130 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 At the other auberge were General O'Hara, with Lady 
 Pembroke, and a large party returning from Chamoum. 
 
 Wednesday, 3(M. Left Sallenches in a char-a-banc ; 
 Agnes and my father on horseback. Stopped at Asservo, 
 the mining village. Arrived at Chamouni. Were delayed 
 in crossing the torrent between Sallenches and Asservo, it 
 having made very great debordemens. These deborde- 
 mens are a curious phenomenon, which I wish much to 
 hear accounted for. They do not come from the source, 
 and are neither occasioned by great rains nor the melting 
 of snows, happening often in dry cool weather, as this had 
 done. A quantity of water, little less thick than liquid 
 mud, accompanied by large stones, is thrown out of 
 cavities in the rock, far beneath the source of the stream, 
 which falls perfectly clear from the top of a mountain. 
 These streams of mud take various courses in the broad 
 stony channel of the torrent, and in colour and appear- 
 ance put me something in mind of miniature representa- 
 tions of streams of lava. 
 
 Thursday, July 1st. Set out early for the Montanvert, 
 with Victor and Paschard for our guides, and near a 
 dozen children, who followed us up with milk and straw- 
 berries to sell at the top. Arrived at the little hovel 
 called Blair's Hospital.* Here we refreshed ourselves 
 with our provisions. This little place, though on the 
 summit of that part of the mountain from which one 
 descends to the great Mer de Glace, is covered with 
 rhododendrons, and there is very good pasturage for 
 the cattle brought up there in the summer. From hence 
 we made a steep descent to the moraine f of the Mer de 
 Glace. It has been justly called a sea, for it has exactly 
 
 * An inn or pavilion affording sleeping accommodation has succeeded to 
 the rude hut, composed of a boulder stone and dry wall turfed over, beneath 
 which Saussure slept, and to the regularly-built cabin called Chateau de 
 Blair, from the Englishman who erected it, 1778-81. Murray's Handbook. 
 
 t The rocks and stones that are thrust forward by the ice and form an 
 embankment to the glacier. Ibid.
 
 1784] CHAMOUNI. 131 
 
 the appearance of a violently-agitated ocean suddenly 
 arrested. When upon it, the waves (if one may call them 
 so) are little mountains, over whose heads one cannot 
 see, and one walks in valleys and upon the side of these 
 hills of ice. Eeturned to Blair's Hospital, where we again 
 reposed before our descent. The rafters of this little 
 hovel, though it has only been erected seven or eight 
 years, are so covered with English and French names and 
 verses, that one can hardly distinguish the one from the 
 other. Came down the mountain on that side next the 
 source of the Arveron, and arrived at Chamouni about 
 4 o'clock. The ascent I thought very little of. One makes 
 nearly half of it on mules, and the rest, though extremely 
 steep, I did not find so fatiguing as I expected ; but the 
 descent is much more rapid, and should only be attempted 
 by those who are used to walking and to mountains. 
 
 Friday, 2nd. In the morning rode to the Glacier de 
 Boissons. Walked to the top of the moraine. The ice 
 is many feet lower than it was last August, when we 
 walked across this glacier. The guides of Chamouni 
 make this observation general, and assured us all glaciers 
 are much lower at present than they were any part of 
 last year. Eeturned to Chamouni ; crossed several tor- 
 rents on the backs of the mules, which upon any other 
 creatures or at any other place would probably have 
 frightened me. 
 
 In the afternoon, took a delightful walk in the woods 
 opposite Chamouni. If anything could inspire an un- 
 poetic imagination, it would surely be the scenes which 
 surround this delightful valley ; and let me add, too, the 
 simple, plain, ingenuous manners of its inhabitants. I am 
 anything but romantic, God knows ! and am far from 
 supposing that there anywhere exists a society of men 
 free from the mean passions and frailties incident to 
 human nature ; but the inhabitants of Chamouni appear 
 to me more in good fellowship with one another, more 
 
 K 2
 
 132 MISS BEKEY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 charitable and benevolent, and less envious, tricky, and 
 avaricious, than any other society of people that has fallen 
 under my observation ; better informed they certainly are, 
 for the greater part of the men, following in the summer 
 the profession of guide to strangers who visit the glaciers, 
 all of whom are of the better sort, and many of them 
 travelling with philosophical views, they have acquired 
 ideas and language entirely above their station, and which 
 upon the subject of the natural history of their mountains 
 would indeed do credit to anyone. During the winters, 
 which are very long, the children are all taught to read 
 and write. In the summer there is no more school, and 
 they are constantly employed, as soon as they can crawl, 
 in carrying their cattle up the mountains to pasture 
 during the day and bringing them down in the evening. 
 
 Saturday, 3rd. Left Chamouni at 7 A.M., upon mules, 
 and, accompanied by our two guides, ascended the Col 
 de Balme, to the highest point to which one can ride. 
 It is all turf and pasturage for cows to the very top. 
 Immediately below the summit we stopped at a chalet, 
 a number of wooden huts near together, resembling 
 both outside and inside the views and descriptions of 
 houses in the South Sea Islands. Here we dined on 
 the turf, the people of the chalet bringing us out most 
 delicious cream in a large pail, from which we all served 
 ourselves with a ladle into little wooden bowls. The mules 
 in the meantime, with their saddles on, grazed by our 
 sides. In the chalet were four men, chosen to take the 
 charge of 160 cows belonging to different villages during 
 the summer. In the highest parts of the mountain they 
 make two large cheeses every day. From the top of the 
 Col de Balme one may indeed be said to have a view of 
 the Alps, being entirely surrounded by summits of moun- 
 tains, one rising behind the other on every side as far as 
 the eye can reach. Here we were obliged to quit the 
 mules and descend on foot for above two hours. The
 
 1784] BEX LAUSANNE. 133 
 
 descent is very steep to the valley and village of Tours, 
 which consists of just a few wooden huts, and the valley 
 so narrow that they are often shut up by snow for weeks 
 in the winter from the rest of the world. 
 
 Here we again mounted the mules, and rode for more 
 than an hour up the opposite side of the valley. From 
 thence there is a continued descent to the plain of Mar- 
 tigny. Here we again walked for another hour, and re- 
 mounted the mules in the plain about a league from 
 Martigny, where we arrived tired, but not fatigued, with 
 a delightful day's journey through the most picturesque 
 and romantic country I ever saw. The inn at Martigny 
 much less dirty than I expected. 
 
 Sunday, kth. Intended to have gone to Bex in a 
 caleche belonging to the innkeeper ; but his horses were 
 pasturing on the mountains, and were not to be caught. 
 After having despatched several messengers in search of 
 them (all of whom seemed to have lost themselves in the 
 pursuit), we found it was too late to await their return. 
 
 Set off on the Chamouni mules for Bex, only four 
 leagues' distance ; but we could only go at a foot's-pace, 
 and were unexpectedly detained by a great fall of rock, 
 which had destroyed the old road. We got too far 
 entangled amidst great masses of rock to return, but were 
 obliged to dismount, and both our mules and ourselves 
 scrambled over as well as we and they could. 
 
 Arrived at Bex. The whole road, particularly near St. 
 Maurice and Bex, most beautiful Went in a char-a-banc 
 to the salt works I mean the gradation houses which 
 are about half a league distant. We were too late to see 
 the Souterrains. 
 
 Monday, bth. Arrived about 7 at Lausanne, which we 
 approached with joy. 
 
 Left Lausanne. Stopped at Secheron, expecting to find 
 Miss Gore ; she had left that morning for Spa. 
 
 It was during this visit to Lausanne that Miss Be r r first
 
 134 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 became acquainted with Madame de Stael ; there is no mention 
 of her in the journal, but in a little memorandum-book con- 
 taining * Notes of my acquaintance with Madame de Stael,' the 
 following entry is made of this year : ' I saw her first at 
 Lausanne in 1784. We had returned from Italy in the June 
 of that year. I was twenty, and she was sixteen years old. At 
 
 a soiree given by the to the Prince Henri de Prusse 
 
 the young English there, to her utter surprise, much neglecting 
 her from the boldness of her manners.' 
 
 Thursday, August 12;A. Left Geneva. Stopped be- 
 tween Collonges and Bellegarde, to see where the Khone 
 is said to lose itself in the ground. It is nothing more 
 than the river running for about 150 yards under large 
 masses of rocks ; there is a wooden bridge thrown over 
 just at this point, from whence you see it both run in and 
 out. The surrounding scene is picturesque and pretty 
 enough. A little farther on, and immediately upon the 
 high-road, one passes a bridge over a large rivulet, which 
 bursts at once from under a rock, and which seems to 
 me both more curious and prettier than the * Perte du 
 Khone.' 
 
 Arrived at Nantua. 
 
 Friday, 13th. Left Nantua. The road round the little 
 lake, on which the town is situated, very pretty. Arrived 
 at Lyons. 
 
 Saturday, 14$. Mr. Giffard and Mr. Eemington sat 
 with us in the morning. Went to the theatre in the 
 evening. The play was ' Alzire,' which character was 
 performed by Madame Vestris ; * she spoke it well, but 
 her action, in my opinion, both inelegant and affected. 
 
 Saturday, 15th. Walked before breakfast upon the 
 Quai du Khone a fine long range of buildings, inhabited 
 by manufacturers and low people, consequently very dirty, 
 
 * Madame Vestris, wife of Paco Vestris, brother of the celebrated dancer 
 of that name. She first appeared in 1768, was highly successful as a tragic 
 actress, and was well known for her vehement quarrels with two other 
 actresses of the name of Sainval, in which the public and those in authority 
 took part.
 
 1784] LYONS. 135 
 
 even on the outside. In the evening the public walks 
 were crowded with smartly-dressed people rouge, gauze, 
 and ribbon from one end to the other. 
 
 Monday, IQth. Went in the morning to several manu- 
 facturers, to silk mills, and to see cut velvet wove the 
 most complicated of all the looms. A weaver working 
 assiduously from 5 in the morning to 9 at night cannot 
 make above half a yard and a quarter a day of a stuff for 
 which they are paid by the mercers eight livres a yard. 
 A weaver of brocaded gold-stuff, working the same 
 number of hours, cannot make above half a yard, and the 
 payment uncertain. All these weavers, lodged up in the 
 fourth and fifth stories of dirty stinking houses, surprised 
 me by the propriety and civility of their manner, and their 
 readiness to satisfy all our questions. 
 
 Tuesday, \lth. In the morning at different manufac- 
 turers. To a weaver of gold-lace. Of a lace about two 
 inches broad, a person working well can make about two 
 yards or two yards and a half a day, for which they are 
 paid eight or ten louis a yard by the merchant who gives 
 them the gold to work. To a great manufacturer of 
 gauze. There are two horses up in the fifth story of the 
 houses, turning silk mills, which wind I know not how 
 many bobbins at once. The women who watch these, 
 to arrange them, and take up the threads that break, are 
 there from 5 in the morning till 9 at night for twelve 
 sous. 
 
 Wednesday, 18th. At the manufactory of all the very 
 rich stuffs for furniture and for very fine embroidery. A 
 very richly-embroidered satin suit of clothes for men, 
 about seventeen or eighteen louis. We saw the pattern 
 of one velvet, with false stones set in silver, like dia- 
 monds disposed upon it like embroidery, which they had 
 made for Prince Potemkin, and had cost 1,000 louis ; 
 it must have, been frightfully heavy. They showed us 
 velvet for hangings ; a white ground with bunches of
 
 136 MISS BEREY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 flowers and a running pattern wove in it, every skein of 
 silk being dyed for that pattern, and so arranged in the 
 loom that it is wove like a piece of velvet, without any 
 pattern at all. It was at eight louis a yard. In the 
 evening the theatre. 
 
 Friday, 20th. Embarked on the Saone in a large boat 
 with our carriage and servants, for Avignon. These boats 
 are nothing more than so many fir planks, nailed together 
 in the rudest manner that can be imagined. They float 
 down by the rapidity of the stream at the rate of between 
 three and four miles an hour, assisted by two or three 
 oars, which are just fir-trees made a little flat at one end ; 
 they never return up the river, but are sold for timber 
 when they reach the place of their destination. Our 
 boat cost, the people told us, four louis ; we gave seven 
 for the hire of it to Avignon, navigated by three men, so 
 that it is surely a very good adventure for the owner. 
 The banks of the Ehone are beautiful. On both sides, 
 within the first three or four leagues of Lyons, they are 
 covered with campagnes, and, farther on, with villages, 
 vineyards, and much picturesque inequality of ground. 
 
 Stopped at Vienne, a small town, or rather village, 
 where a very handsome quay is just finished to the 
 Ehone. Dined in the coach. Travelled all night. 
 
 Saturday, 2~Lst Passed Valence, a considerable town. 
 At 7 went ashore, and breakfasted at Pouzan, an incon- 
 siderable village. The banks of the river less pretty lower 
 down ; the hills more distant from the edge of the river 
 and less wooded. Between 4 and 5 P.M. passed under 
 the Pont St. Esprit, a beautiful bridge of twenty-six elliptic 
 arches.* Though very long, it has the appearance of 
 lightness, there being a small arch in the upper part of 
 every pier. It is a work worthy the Eomans, though 
 begun in the dark times of 1265 and finished in 1309. 
 It was built by the offerings made to a famous shrine of 
 
 * It was the only bridge over the Rhone till 1806.
 
 1784] AVIGNON VAUCLUSE. 137 
 
 the St. Esprit, which had performed many miracles, in 
 order to preserve the devoted pilgrims who crossed the 
 Eh one from the accidents which were occasioned by the 
 rapidity of the stream. The evening -was so rainy, with 
 continued thunder and lightning, that about 7 o'clock the 
 boatmen thought it better to stop at a small inn, or rather 
 farm-house, than to proceed in the dark, as we should 
 not have arrived till midnight at Avignon. The room we 
 had to sleep in was just large enough to contain four beds 
 and a table ; the latter we were obliged to move, in order 
 to place a mattress upon the floor, as all the beds were 
 plentifully stocked with bugs. 
 
 Sunday, 22nd. Arrived at Avignon. Walked about 
 the town. It is in a low, flat, unpleasant situation, en- 
 closed in a very pretty embattled wall, with towers at 
 certain distances. Without the walls are public walks, 
 with rows of trees. 
 
 In a chapel belonging to an hospital for mad people 
 are some pictures, by Mignard and other French artists, 
 and a Judith with the head of Holofernes, by Rubens. 
 Bound a court are the cachots of the lunatics. They had 
 each a hole in their door, through which one could see 
 and speak to them. Their rooms were very good, with 
 a window near the ceiling, and a clean-looking bed. 
 
 Monday, 23rd. Went in a caleche to the fountain of 
 Vaucluse, fifteen miles distant from Avignon, through a 
 perfectly flat country, vineyards, or stubble fields, without 
 a tree, except little stunted mulberries. Vaucluse is at 
 the foot of those mountains which bound this great plain, 
 and appears surrounded by them. We walked about 
 half a mile up the course of the stream, between the 
 rocks. From these rocks the stream bursts forth from a 
 number of very strong springs. What is called the source 
 is a pool of the clearest water, in a large cavern in the 
 rock. The people as usual call it unfathomable ; indeed, 
 it would be very difficult to try, for one sees through the
 
 138 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1734 
 
 clearness of the water that it is a great gouffre, lined with 
 escarped rocks. It certainly communicates with the 
 stream, which rises from springs 300 or 400 yards' dis- 
 tance : for at certain times of the year the people said 
 generally about Easter the water in the cave rises so 
 high as to run over the rocks in front and join the stream 
 below. The rise cannot, I think, be less than twenty per- 
 pendicular yards. 
 
 Walked up to the ruins of an old castle on the rock, 
 above the village, from whence there is a pretty view of 
 the little valley through which the stream passes, which 
 is kept green by its waters, and is bordered by some 
 poplar trees ; everything else around barren and rocky. 
 The people of the village call this ruin (the remains of 
 some little fortress) le chateau de Madame Laure, and a 
 little hovel near it la maison de Mons. Petrarque. 
 
 Tuesday, 24^/i. Arrived at Nismes. Just before we 
 reached the last post we went about a mile and a half 
 out of the way to see what is called Pont du Gard. It 
 is a beautiful Eoman aqueduct thrown over the valley ; 
 it is composed of three rows of arches, immediately over 
 which is the channel for the water. This aqueduct now 
 serves for a bridge over the Eiver Gard. In the year 
 1743 the arches of the lower piers were doubled, that is 
 to say, they applied a bridge to the side of the aqueduct, 
 the arches of which are equal in height to the first row of 
 the aqueduct, and has not a bad effect. In this monu- 
 ment, as in almost all others of the Eomans, there are 
 wonderful and unaccountable irregularities, such as large 
 rude stones sticking out every here and there, and the 
 cornice of the arches being never the same height. 
 
 Wednesday, 2bth. All the morning seeing the town of 
 Nismes and the Eoman antiquities. All the streets are 
 small, dirty, and not paved ; but it looks lively, well- 
 peopled, and busy. There is a great manufactory here 
 of silk stockings and cotton stuffs, and shops well fur-
 
 1784] NISMES. 139 
 
 nished of all kinds. The fountain is built upon ruins of 
 Roman baths : there was not a drop of water in it, on 
 account of the great drought from which they have been 
 lately suffering. There has been no considerable rain for 
 six months. 
 
 The Amphitheatre is a fine remain of Roman grandeur ; 
 it is nearly as large in dimensions and much less in ruins 
 than the Colosseum at Rome, but it had not that magni- 
 ficent and imposing air, being raised only two stories of 
 arcades, and the inside is all filled with mean houses, 
 crossed by little narrow dirty streets, so that one cannot 
 imagine oneself in the interior of an amphitheatre till, 
 mounting the corridor of the first story, there one gets out 
 at the vomitoires to the seats, of which twelve of the 
 highest rows still exist ; * it is more an ellipse than that at 
 Rome, and could contain, as they say, 15,000 persons. The 
 outward wall has lost nothing of its height, and one sees 
 where they placed poles to stretch a covering to protect 
 the spectators from the sun or weather. There is every 
 appearance that this building was constructed, or at least 
 finished in haste : in about half of the exterior the friezes, 
 the cornices, the capitals of the columns, are only as it were 
 sketched through ; in the other half they are very well 
 carved. The architecture is neither of the Tuscan nor of 
 the Doric order, but between the two ; it has ah 1 that 
 grandeur, that simple and manly taste, that always dis- 
 tinguishes the works of the Romans ; it is not known by 
 whom, or at what time, this amphitheatre was built. 
 
 La Maison Quarree is the most perfect and most orna- 
 mented model of a Roman temple that has escaped the 
 ravages of time : it is of Corinthian order, and built of the 
 stone that is found in the environs of Nismes ; it is perfectly 
 well preserved, the roof excepted, which was probably re- 
 newed when it was turned into a Christian church. The 
 
 * The buildings which obstructed it both within and without are now 
 removed.
 
 140 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [i784 
 
 columns are fluted and the frieze carved ; all the ornaments 
 are beautifully worked and in excellent taste ; nothing is 
 misplaced, nothing overcharged. There is upon the fron- 
 ton the most beautiful female Greek I ever saw ; on the 
 frieze of the fa$ade there are still to be seen the mark of 
 the nails that fastened the letters of the inscription, and 
 by the examination of which M. Seguier thinks he has 
 found the words that composed it, and given it to the 
 public. The idea is certainly very ingenious ; but as one 
 might easily be mistaken, and it is often necessary to have 
 recourse to the imagination to supply what is deficient, it 
 is difficult to feel sure of the correctness of such an ex- 
 planation. The Maison Quarree as well as the Amphi- 
 theatre are in the middle of the town; there is not 
 enough space to obtain a good view of them. It is a 
 small church, rather mean ; and as it is only lighted by one 
 window above the door, it is very dark, and has nothing 
 of the grandeur of the exterior.* 
 
 There are also at Nismes considerable remains of an- 
 other Eoman temple, near to the public fountain, gene- 
 rally called the Temple of Diana. There still remain 
 four walls and three recesses. Some people have thought 
 that this temple was formerly subterranean, that is to say, 
 built under a hill, like those two temples seen on Lake 
 Albano, and many others in the environs of Naples. 
 The interior of this building is filled with various re- 
 mains of antiquity, that are found wherever they dig at 
 Nismes. There are many inscriptions, the remains of 
 many statues, some fine pieces of friezes and marble 
 
 * Originally a temple, afterwards a Christian church, and in the eleventh 
 century the Hotel de Ville ; still later it was converted into a stable ; and 
 its owner, to extend his space, built walls between the pillars of the portico, 
 and pared away the flutings of the central columns, to allow his carts to 
 pass; it then became attached to the Augustine convent, and was used as 
 a tomb-house for burial. Its next changes were into a revolutionary 
 tribunal and corn warehouse, and finally it was converted into a museum. 
 
 Murray's Handbook.
 
 1784] LEAVE MONTPELIER FOR NISMES. 141 
 
 cornices, much ornamented and beautifully worked, many 
 pieces of columns of different kinds, in white marble, and 
 of an enormous size giving a grand idea of the building 
 of which they made a part. We went also to see, in the 
 cellar of a merchant, a very beautiful mosaic in black and 
 white, without figures, but like marqueterie, very well 
 done. It was found in building the house, and makes 
 a part of the floor of the cellar. They told us that 
 others had been found in other places, that were of many 
 colours and represented figures. 
 
 No journal has been preserved of the four months spent by 
 the Miss Berrys and their father at Montpelier. Amongst 
 those who were residing there at the end of 1784 and at the 
 beginning of the next year, 1785, were M. and Madame de 
 Necker and their daughter. ' There, in their first exile, and 
 occupying,' as Miss Berry says, ' a country house in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Montpelier, whilst we lived in the town.' It is 
 clear, however, from Miss Berry's next entry in her journal, 
 that, notwithstanding this proximity to what might have been 
 an agreeable society, the residence at Montpelier left no pleasing 
 recollection on her mind. 
 
 Friday, December Slst We left Montpelier for 
 Nismes. I leave Montpelier without the slightest feeling 
 of that regret which one generally experiences on leaving 
 a place where one has stayed four months, and that one 
 sees, perhaps, for the last time. That is the advantage 
 of not having formed friendships, and having scarcely 
 seen any one person that I could regard with less indif- 
 ference than another ; but these are advantages of which 
 I am hardly ambitious, and I would rather a thousand 
 times be enduring at this moment all that depression, 
 sadness, and regret which one suffers in parting from 
 dear friends, than this present state of cheerless indiffer- 
 ence and cold tranquillity. 
 
 ' Monsieur , de 1' Academic des Sciences a Mont-
 
 142 MISS BEERY'S JOURNAL. [1784 
 
 pelier, disant a Monsieur d'Alembert que 1'Academie, dont 
 il etait membre, se plaisait d'etre considered comme la 
 fille ainee de celle de Paris, "Ah! c'est une brave fille," 
 reprit Monsieur d'Alembert, " elle ne fait point parler 
 d'eUe.'"
 
 143 
 
 J U K N A L. 
 
 1785. 
 
 Saturday, Jan. \st. We revisited La Maison Quarree 
 and the Temple of Diana. The beauty of the former 
 struck me more than ever : it is the most perfect specimen 
 which has escaped the ravages of time and weather ; not 
 a stone is wanting ; all is so well worked, all the parts so 
 well filled, so ornamented, without the least overloading, 
 that one is never tired of admiring the pure taste which 
 reigns throughout. On seeing it a second time, I am 
 confirmed in my opinion that this temple has been sub- 
 terranean, with the fa9ade only above ground. Even now 
 it is placed with its bank against the rock, which could 
 not have been less considerable than it is now, and pro- 
 bably was much more so. 
 
 In the afternoon received an unexpected visit from 
 Comte Melzi, a Milanese, whom we had seen at Madame 
 Litta's at Milan ; he sat the whole evening with us. The 
 meeting was agreeable : we spoke of Italy, pictures, fine 
 arts ; he has observation and taste ; he is now going to 
 Spain, where he has a sister settled. 
 
 Sunday, 2nd. Left Nismes. We passed the Ehone in 
 a boat from Beaucaire to Tarascon ; it is generally passed 
 by a bridge of boats, but it was taken up, the river having 
 been frozen, which happens very rarely. 
 
 At St. Eeniy all the young people of the town were 
 dancing in the faubourg. For the first time in my life I 
 saw small bourgeois servants and peasants dancing with 
 natural grace and signs of real gaiety :they wanted no 
 dancing-master to show them the figures. For half an 
 hour they danced the figure of a quarree, and were never
 
 144 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1735 
 
 wrong in a single step, and always with a grace and gaiety 
 that one sometimes vainly looks for in our dress-ball rooms. 
 Their band was a tambourine and a fife ; they danced 
 quarrees, a Peregordine, and a dance they called the 
 matelot, which was very like our English country dances. 
 The peasant women in this part of Provence have a 
 peculiar costume, and which to my taste is very pretty. 
 The corsage and sleeves are generally of scarlet cloth, 
 flowered silk, &c., and the petticoat of some other gay 
 colour, over which they have a sort of loose robe, made 
 behind like what we used to call in England a Polonaise 
 or Circassian. It hangs loose from their shape behind, and 
 is pinned like a Polonaise before ; it is generally black 
 and lined with scarlet or crimson ; their petticoats short, 
 and their head-dress a sort of mob-cap, generally black. 
 
 We slept at Pont Koyal, a lonely post-house, where 
 everything was clean ; good beds and honest people. 
 Monday, 3rd. Arrived at Aix. 
 
 Friday, 1th. In the morning we had a visit from 
 Count de Gallifel, to whom we had a letter from his uncle 
 the Comte de Levis. 
 
 Tuesday, \\th. There are more agreeable walks in the 
 environs here than I have seen in France. 
 
 Wednesday, ~\.2th. We left for Marseilles ; the roads 
 abominable. The narrow wheels of the loaded charrettes 
 of this country would spoil the best road in a short time, 
 and the more so from the heavy weights being placed 
 upon two instead of upon four wheels. 
 
 The country between Aix and Marseilles is not half so 
 cultivated or rich as Languedoc, but more diversity of 
 land, rocks, and meadows, more olive trees, fewer vines, 
 some trees in the valley, some pines here and there upon 
 the mountains. In the environs of Marseilles all is sur- 
 rounded by walls ; we travelled between two walls for 
 more than a league on approaching the town. The road 
 was filled with carriages, and all betokens a commercial 
 and a large population.
 
 1785] ARRIVAL AT ORANGE AND MOXTfiLIMART. 145 
 
 Thursday ', 13#A. We drove round the town. The street 
 which leads from the port to the cours, and the cours 
 itself, are almost as thronged with people as the streets of 
 London. The cours is the public walk in summer, the 
 port is that of winter ; there are always so many vessels, 
 that one can see scarcely anything else on one side, and 
 houses on the other ; and as this is the place where all 
 the trade of the town is carried on, the pavement is too 
 narrow to move at ease it is a perpetual mob, and very 
 unpleasant for those who go there only to walk. 
 
 Saturday, loth. I went to see an apartment in the 
 Eue de Paradis, which suited us very well ; it was the pri- 
 vate house of a Chevalier de Malthe (M. Eicard), in a 
 good quarter. He asked fifteen or eighteen louis a month ; 
 we agreed for twelve. 
 
 Wednesday, March 9th. We left Marseilles, returned to 
 Aix, arrived at the Pont Eoyal before six. The weather 
 dark, rainy, and very disagreeable ; the roads no better 
 than when we passed in the month of January. 
 
 Thursday, 10th. At two posts from Orange there was 
 mud half way-up the wheels ; they had had rain here for 
 the last five days. On our arrival at Orange, we walked 
 to see the ancient triumphal arch,* situated near the inn, 
 in a field at the side of the road ; it is much upon the same 
 plan as ah 1 the arches in Eome a large arch between two 
 small ones ; it is of the Corinthian order, and the fa9ade 
 very pretty, but it bears marks dei bassi tempi. There is 
 a large bas-relief representing an encounter of cavalry 
 above the middle arch on each fa9ade, occupying the part 
 where the inscription is usually placed between. 
 
 Friday, \\th. Arrived at Montelimart. The road so 
 extremely bad, that we went for the most part of the way 
 a foot's-pace. We had no idea of sleeping at Montelimart ; 
 
 * The generally-received opinion at present refers this arch to the reign 
 of Marcus Aurelius, and to his successes on the Danube and in Germany. 
 
 Murray's Handbook. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [ms 
 
 but one of the postilions having quarrelled with Samuel, 
 the master of the post sent to ask us to return to arrange 
 the dispute : it was then too late to start again for Oriol. 
 We were well off at Montelimart. 
 
 Saturday, 12th. Arrived at St. Vallier. The country 
 everywhere very fine ; on one side the Ehone, and on 
 the other rocks and very picturesque chateaux. 
 
 Sunday, 13th. The weather had entirely changed 
 since last night ; it began to snow, and continued without 
 the slightest intermission during all the day. By the time 
 we arrived at Lyons (at eight o'clock in the evening) there 
 was at least six or seven inches of snow upon the road 
 and in the streets. I have rarely felt it so cold in England 
 at Christmas. 
 
 Monday, l&th. We stayed at home to rest ; it was too 
 cold to leave the fire. 
 
 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We 
 spent the morning at different shops. This pastime is 
 nowhere so thoroughly disagreeable as at Lyons. They 
 do not show their best stuffs nothing but what is ab- 
 solutely asked for and for everything they demand an 
 exorbitant price, and even with the least dishonest you 
 must haggle during half an hour for the smallest pur- 
 chase. 
 
 Tuesday evening we spent very agreeably with Lady 
 E. Foster, who by the merest accident we found was at 
 Lyons, on her way with Lord and Lady Harvey * for 
 Turin. 
 
 Thursday. Mr. De Denezy and a Dutch officer, his 
 travelling companion, dined with us, and in the evening 
 we called on Madame Casanove at the Hotel d'Artois. 
 
 Saturday, 19th. We left Lyons for Paris. The frost 
 
 * Lord Harvey, eldest son of Frederick, fourth Earl of Bristol, died 1796. 
 He married Elizabeth, daughter of Drummond, Esq., by whom he had 
 a daughter, Elizabeth Catherine Caroline, born 1780, died 1803, having 
 married Charles Rose Ellis, Esq., afterwards Lord Seaford.
 
 1785] REMAINS AT PARIS. 147 
 
 continued, but as we advanced we found less snow, and 
 the roads pretty good ; but so many people left Lyons the 
 same day we did, that we were obliged to wait at each 
 post for horses, and at the Maison Blanche there were 
 none : thus we were forced to sleep at the H6tel de 
 Bourgogne. 
 
 The only memorandum left of the time now spent at Paris is 
 the following entry respecting M. de StaeTs marriage : 
 
 , 17S5. From our great acquaintance in Italy 
 with the King of Sweden, Gustavus III., we became very 
 intimate with his ambassador at Paris, M. de Stael. He 
 spoke to me in all confidence about his intended mar- 
 riage with Mdlle. Necker. Asked my opinion, and con- 
 sulted me on the subject ; but the match was settled.' 
 
 Miss Berry remained at Paris with her father and sister from 
 the 20th of March till the June following; and it is much to be 
 regretted that the journal here ceases, and that none of her 
 letters at that period can now be recovered. The melancholy 
 with which Miss Berry's character was so deeply dyed through 
 life is strongly exhibited in the following reflections. Madame 
 Eoland's * posthumous works were published by her daughter's 
 husband in the year 1800 ; and Miss Berry appears to have been 
 sufficiently struck with the similarity of their feelings at nearly 
 the same age as to have transcribed the following passage as a 
 parallel to her own reflections : 
 
 M. B. AT 22. MME. EOLAND AT 23. 
 
 C'est fait done denies voyages. Helas ! 1'exercice penible de 
 
 Me voici a 1'extremite de la la sensibilite, pourroit-il 1'afFai- 
 
 France, je vois de loin les rives blir et 1'eteindre chez moi ? La 
 
 de ma patrie ; trois heures scene magnifique de 1'univers 
 
 d'un vent favorable et je m'y paroit couverte d'un voile a 
 
 * Madame Roland fell a victim to the guillotine November 9, 1793, at 
 the age of thirty-nine, and her husband committed suicide seven days 
 afterwards. Their only daughter married M. Champagneux ; the first 
 edition of Madame Roland's memoirs was published by him in 1800, under 
 the title of ' Appel au Peuple.' 
 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 [1785 
 
 retrouve. Mais ou sont ces 
 douces sensations, ces larmes 
 de joie, ce sentiment pro fond 
 et tendre que j'ai toujours 
 espere d'eprouver dans un 
 moment qui devroit toujours 
 m'etre cher ? Je ne les eprouve 
 pas. Tu ne les eprouves pas ! 
 Malheureuse ! et pourquoi ? 
 Comment as-tu pu perdre le 
 plus doux, le plus naturel, le 
 plus delicieux de tous les en- 
 thousiasmes ? Tu 1'as perdu ! 
 et qu'as-tu gagne a la place ? 
 Une triste assurance que le 
 bonheur n'est d'aucim pays, 
 que son germe existe en nous- 
 memes et que tu ne 1'as pas; 
 que ton ame fiere, ta sensi- 
 bilite immoderee Font detruit ; 
 que tu as perdu les aimables 
 faiblesses, les douces erreurs, 
 les heureux prejuges de ton 
 age et de ton sexe, sans 
 avoir acquis cette force d'ame, 
 ces lurnieres sures et eten- 
 dues enfm, cette vertu su- 
 perieure qui seule peut se 
 passer d'agremens, et seule ca- 
 pable d'elever nos ames au 
 niveau de sa propre grandeur, 
 sait se faire aimer, meme de 
 ceux qui ne lui ressemblent 
 
 pas Je te parle 
 
 franchement parceque j e t'aime, 
 je sais que la nature t'avoit 
 enrichie de tous ses dons, je 
 me souviens de ton enfance, 
 je connais ton coeur, je me 
 suis aussi aperpue de la source, 
 du principe de toutes tea er- 
 
 mes yeux fatigues. Je ne sais 
 quel brouillard, semblable a 
 celui des matinees de 1'au- 
 tomne, environne et confond 
 les objets sur lesquels je vou- 
 drois fixer mes regards ; je ne 
 recois deja que des sensations 
 
 languissantes 
 
 Mes idees se succedent sans 
 chaleur; j'existe sans passions 
 et sans gout; je suis de venue 
 etrangere aux transports de 
 renthousiasme, aux dechire- 
 mens de la compassion, aux 
 elans de 1'amitie. Kien, ce 
 me semble, desormais, ne pour- 
 roit me causer de 1'etonne- 
 ment ou de 1'effroi ! Sans 
 haine du genre humain, sans 
 estime pour lui, sans desirs et 
 presque sans regrets, j'use de 
 la vie avec indifference, et 
 je la perdrois sans douleur. 
 Triste fruit de la reflexion et 
 de la connaisance des hommes ! 
 je n'ai encore que viugt-trois 
 ans, deja les plus douces 
 illusions sont evanouies pour 
 moi, avant que j'ai goute tous 
 leurs charmes. Trop tot eclairee 
 par des epreuves affligeantes, 
 premunie contre les sentimens 
 qui me restoient a concevoir, 
 j'ai perdu, avec mes plus cheres 
 erreurs, jusqu'a la faculte d'etre 
 abusee dadvantage. . . . La 
 nature m'a trahie\ 1'amour 
 vaudroit-il mieux qu'elle ? . . 
 . . . Si jamais 1'aigreur ou 
 le degout venoit empoisonner 
 mes jours et declarer mon
 
 1785] TRANSCRIPT. 149 
 
 reurs. Tu es encore capable cceur, amitie sainte ! divinite" 
 de beaucoup; je veux te ren- bienfaisante a qui je dois mon 
 dre a toi-meme, te retirer du bonheur, hates-toi de me re- 
 precipice ou tu t'achemines, te concilier avec mes semblables, 
 sauver de cette afFreuse apathie avec moi-meme et avec la vie- 
 ou tes erreurs, ton esprit, ta (Reverie du Bois de Vin- 
 sensibilite meme te condui- cennes. Mrae. Roland, vol. iii. 
 sent. (Written in June 1785, p. 157.) 
 at Dessin's at Calais, while 
 waiting for a wind.)
 
 150 LETTERS. [1788 
 
 LETTEES. 
 
 1788-9. 
 
 FKOM the time of Miss Berry's return to England in June 
 1785, up to the period of her acquaintance with Horace 
 Walpole in the winter of 1788, there is no journal pre- 
 served and no letters are to be found that can throw any 
 light on her thoughts or pursuits at that time : all that re- 
 mains is a memorandum of their yearly movements, from 
 which is to be derived, for 1786, the scanty information 
 that they went to Scotland, and on their return from Scot- 
 land stopped en route in Yorkshire ; that they hired a 
 house in Somerset Street, and were met in London by their 
 grandmother, who came from her daughter Cayley. 
 
 In 1787: 'Very comfortable in London. Summer: 
 Isle of Wight. Visit the Pepys.' 
 
 In 1788 : c In the winter made Mr. Walpole's acquaint- 
 ance. Took a house at Twickenham Common. Went to 
 Yorkshire to the Cayleys at Middleton.' 
 
 It was in the winter of 1788, and at the house of his 
 friend Lady Herries,* that Mr. Walpole became first ac- 
 quainted with the Miss Berrys, but it was not till they 
 were his neighbours at Twickenham in the autumn of 
 the same year that any mention is made of them in his 
 published letters ; but from that time till his death in 1797 
 the great solace and interest of his declining life appears 
 to have been derived from his constant social intercourse 
 and frequent correspondence with the young ladies upon 
 whom he lavished, at times, the tender epithets of wives, 
 children, friends. It is in Horace Walpole's letter to Lady 
 
 * Wife of the banker in St. James's Street.
 
 1788] HORACE WALPOLE TO LADY OSSORY. 151 
 
 Ossory, dated October 11, 1788, that we find his first 
 impressions of his new acquaintances, with some account 
 of their history and circumstances. 
 
 [If I have picked up no recent anecdotes on our common 
 (writes he), I have made a much more, to me, precious acquisi- 
 tion. It is the acquaintance of two young ladies of the name of 
 Berry, whom I first saw last winter, and who accidentally took 
 a house here with their father for the season, &c. &c. Their 
 story is singular enough to entertain you. The grandfather,* a 
 Scot, had a large estate in his own country 5,000. a year, it is 
 said and a circumstance I shall tell you makes it probable. 
 The eldest son married for love a woman with no fortune. The 
 old man was enraged, and would not see him. His wife died, 
 and left these two young ladies. The grandfather wished for an 
 heir male, and pressed the widower to remarry, but could not 
 prevail, the son declaring he would consecrate himself to his 
 daughters and their education. The old man did not break 
 with him again, but, much worse, totally disinherited him, and 
 left all to his second son, who very handsomely gave up 8001. 
 a year to his elder brother. Mr. Berry has since carried his 
 daughters for two or three years to France and Italy, and they 
 are returned the best-informed and the most perfect creatures I 
 ever saw at their age. They are exceedingly sensible, entirely 
 natural and unaffected, frank, and, being qualified to talk on 
 any subject, nothing is so easy and agreeable as their conversa- 
 tion, nor more apposite than their answers and observations. 
 The eldest, I discovered by chance, understands Latin, and is a 
 perfect Frenchwoman in her language. The younger draws 
 charmingly, and has copied admirably Lady D.'s Gipsies, which 
 I lent, though for the first time of her attempting colours. They 
 are of pleasing figures. Mary, the eldest, sweet, with fine dark 
 eyes, that are very lively when she speaks, with a symmetry of 
 face that is the more interesting from being pale ; Agnes, the 
 younger, has an agreeable sensible countenance, hardly to be 
 called handsome, but almost. She is less animated than Mary, 
 but seems, out of deference to her sister, to speak seldomer, for 
 they dote on each other, and Mary is always praising her sister's 
 
 * Mr. Walpole was mistaken in this. It was their granduncle. not their 
 grandfather, from whom Mr. Berry had expected to inherit.
 
 152 LETTERS. [1788 
 
 talents. I must even tell you they dress within the bounds of 
 fashion, though fashionably ; but without the excrescences and 
 balconies with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade 
 their persons in short, good sense, information, simplicity, and 
 ease characterise the Berrys. And this is not particularly mine, 
 who am apt to be prejudiced, but the universal voice of all who 
 know them. The first night I met them I would not be ac- 
 quainted with them, having heard so much in their praise that 
 I concluded they would be all pretension. The second time, in 
 a very small company, I sat next to Mary, and found her an 
 angel both inside and out. Now, I do not know which I like 
 best ; except Mary's face, which is formed for a sentimental novel, 
 but it is ten times better for a fifty times better thing genteel 
 comedy. This delightful family comes to me almost every Sun- 
 day evening, as our region is too proclamatory to play at cards 
 on the seventh day. ... I forgot to tell you that Mr. 
 Berry is a little merry man, with a round face, and you would 
 not suspect him of so much feeling and attachment. I make no 
 excuse for such minute details ; for if your ladyship insists on 
 hearing the humours of my district, you must for once indulge 
 me with sending you two pearls that I found in my path.] * 
 
 On October 19 he again wrote to Lady Ossory, on the 
 subject of his new acquaintances. 
 
 [It stands me upon, Madame, to hurry my answer, when I 
 have to thank you for your very pretty and very flattering 
 poetry. Little did I think that my two strawberries would 
 prove muses at Farming Woods. I sent your ladyship an ac- 
 count of them from absolute dearth of subjects, when you had 
 commanded me to write again ; and when I had done so, I 
 repented, and thought you would laugh at me in your mind's 
 mouth, for troubling you with an idle description of two girls 
 with whom I have happened to get acquainted. Luckily your 
 ladyship and our lord were at that moment full as much a man 
 and woman of the woods as any marquis in Christendom ; and 
 as you are there still, I shall venture to proceed, and to send 
 you, not an adequate return (as far as my part goes) for your 
 
 * The passages included in brackets have been before published, and are 
 here inserted to give continuity to the narrative.
 
 1788] HORACE WALPOLE TO LADY OSSORY. 153 
 
 verses, but some of les amusemens des eaux de strawberri ; but 
 beseech that they may go no further, for trifles that egayent a 
 little private society, are ridiculous if they get abroad, especially 
 from a septuagenary rhymer. 
 
 The Berrys were to. come over and see my printing press. I 
 recollected my gallantry of former days, and they found these 
 stanzas ready set : 
 
 To Mary's lips has ancient Eome 
 
 Her purest language taught, 
 And from the modern city home 
 
 Agnes its pencil brought. 
 
 Home's ancient Horace sweetly chants 
 
 Such maids with lyric fire ; 
 Albion's old Horace sings nor paints- - 
 
 He only can admire. 
 
 Still would his press their fame record, 
 
 So amiable the pair is ! 
 But ah ! how vain to think his word 
 
 Can add a straw to Berrys ! 
 
 The next morning the Latin nymph sent me these lines : 
 
 Had Eome's famed Horace thus addrest 
 
 His Lydia or his Lyce, 
 He 'd ne'er complained, to him their breast 
 
 So oft was cold and icy. 
 
 But had they sought their joy t' explain, 
 
 Or praise their gen'rous bard, 
 Perhaps like me they 'd tried in vain, 
 
 And felt the task too hard.] 
 
 This rejoinder was thus acknowledged by Horace 
 Walpole : 
 
 To Miss Mary Ben*y, on her Stanzas in ansiver to his from 
 the Press at Strawbei^ry Hill. 
 
 I will certainly not contend when I am so glad to be foiled, 
 as I am in every sense of the word ; for you perceive my great 
 ambition is to set you off; and since clinquant is of no other
 
 154 LETTERS. [1788 
 
 use, and as Strawberry Hill is the lowest in all the parish of 
 Parnassus, I hope you will allow me the honour of being your 
 Phebus entitled office ; tho' I shall be the reverse of all De- 
 puties, for my charge will be a sinecure, as my Principal, the 
 force Inspirer, will, I am persuaded, always execute his office 
 himself, and leave on the superannuated list, 
 
 Yr. devoted Servant, 
 
 Ho. WALPOLE. 
 
 The verses addressed by the Strawberry Press to the 
 Miss Berrys appear to have provoked others on their name, 
 of which these lines, by Mr. Richard Owen Cambridge,* 
 are an example : 
 
 To sound your praises I dare not try, 
 
 My pen so prone to err is ; 
 I tremble whilst I write, lest I 
 
 Should add a goose to Berries. 
 
 In consequence of these various effusions, Miss Berry 
 addressed to Horace Walpole the following letter, en- 
 closing her playful yet modest lines on the same theme. 
 
 Twickenham Common : Saturday morning, Nov. 1, 1788. 
 As an apology for the enclosed, I must tell you that your 
 verses to us have occasioned half a dozen others (some of them 
 by people whom we never saw), in which our name and praises 
 have been played upon a thousand different ways. Our senti- 
 ment upon them I have ventured to express to you in the follow- 
 ing lines. Khyming seems to be catching ; but I fear I have 
 got the disorder of a bad sort. 
 
 I have the honour to be much yours, 
 
 M. BERRY. 
 
 * Richard Owen Cambridge. This gentleman, of an opulent and ancient 
 Gloucestershire family, was distinguished by his wit in conversation, no less 
 than by his taste and talents in literature. He wrote a burlesque poem 
 called the ' Scribleriad,' and was a principal contributor to the periodical 
 paper called the 'World.' He died aged eighty-five, at his seat near 
 Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames, in the year 1802, leaving a 
 widow, two sons, and a daughter. His works were collected and re- 
 published by his younger son. Biographical Notices to Vol. II. of Diary 
 and Letters of Mm Burney.
 
 1788] MISS BERRY TO HORACE WALPOLE. 155 
 
 To THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE. 
 
 Far in a wood, not much exposed to view, 
 
 With other forest fruit two Berries grew ; 
 
 Unheeded in their native shade they lay, 
 
 Nor courting much, nor too much shunning day. 
 
 A wandering sage, whose footsteps oft had roam'd 
 
 Out of the beaten track that fashion own'd, 
 
 Observ'd these Berries half-concealed from sight, 
 
 And, or from chance, or whim, or his delight 
 
 Of bringing unregarded worth to light, 
 
 Tasted the fruit, and in a lucky hour, 
 
 Finding it neither vapid yet, nor sour, 
 
 A sort of lively rather pleasant taste, 
 
 A flavour, which he thought he lik'd at last, 
 
 Something, perhaps, upon the strawberry cast, 
 
 The new-found fruit with partial care he prais'd, 
 
 And so the Berries' reputation raised. 
 
 Others their taste cried up, their goodness sung 
 
 In various verse their name and virtues rung : 
 
 Some call'd them food for gods and heroes fit, 
 
 While some forgot their theme to show their wit. 
 
 The Berries, conscious all this sudden name 
 
 Prov'd not their value, but their Patron's fame 
 
 Conscious they only could aspire to please 
 
 Some simple palates satisfied with ease ; 
 
 But if with nobler, finer fruit compared, 
 
 They many faults and few perfections shar'd 
 
 Wisely determin'd still to court the shade, 
 
 To those that sought them only pleasing made ; 
 
 No greater honours anxious to obtain, 
 
 But still your fav'rite Berries to remain. 
 
 The following verses from Mr. Walpole also produced 
 a rejoinder from Miss Berry in the same modest tone of 
 self-depreciation : 
 
 To Miss MART BEKRY. 
 
 Thine beauty, learning, eloquence, 
 With every grace of social sense,
 
 156 LETTEKS. [1788 
 
 And all with unaffected ease, 
 
 Without pretensions sure to please ; 
 
 With every virtue that endears, 
 
 Why raise my wishes less than fears ? 
 
 'T is nought that heaven denied thee wealth ; 
 
 Ah, why withhold its dearer blessing health ? 
 
 EEPLY. 
 
 Tho' pain with unrelenting sway 
 
 My languid frame subdues, 
 Can I with common thanks repay 
 
 The wishes of thy Muse ? 
 
 Ah no ! my heart no languor knows ; 
 
 In every feeling strong, 
 Dwells with delight on all it owes, 
 
 Thy converse, friendship's song : 
 
 The voice of praise still charms my ear, 
 
 Yet not deceived I see ; 
 Thy lines but tell in language clear 
 
 What I should strive to be. 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR Miss BERET'S PALENESS, IN IMITATION OF 
 WALLER. BY H. W. 
 
 True on her cheek the Damask rose 
 Too seldom or too faintly blows ; 
 Less does the venal mimic art 
 To that fair cheek its dyes impart, 
 E'en Hebe-'s bloom would ill replace 
 The sensibility and grace 
 That sweetly beams from Mary's face : 
 As the white lily would but lose 
 If tinged by Flora's brightest hues. 
 Dec. 1789. 
 
 Amongst the most cherished of the Miss Berry's relations 
 appears to have been their cousin, Miss Bab. Seton, after- 
 wards married to Mr. Bannister. The following verses
 
 1788] MISS SETON'S LINES TO THE 'TEA-CADDY.' 157 
 
 addressed to the ' Tea-Caddy,' over which she had been 
 presiding during a three months' visit, give a pleasing and 
 pointed description of the society she had just quitted 
 with regret : 
 
 Dear Caddy, since DO more from thee 
 I now shall draw each morning's tea, 
 This envied place no more be mine, 
 And I, like ministers, resign ; 
 Since from these scenes I must retire 
 To humble Causham's cottage fire, 
 Where dog, and cat, and I, and mother, 
 Sit and make much of one another ; 
 And quit this house where best I see 
 The charms of true society ; 
 Where flirting, scandal, affectation, 
 Are banished from the conversation ; 
 Where Pepys' taste refin'd, discerning, 
 Displays the charms of polish'd learning, 
 Makes obsolete all jokes on college, 
 And separates pedantry from knowledge ; 
 Where Grarrick charms without pretence, 
 In native humour, grace, and sense; 
 And More but I'll not touch her name 
 Tis her own works best speak her fame ; 
 Or Walpole, whose most liberal spirit, 
 Calls from oblivion long-lost merit, 
 Eevives the painter and the poet, 
 Searches for genius, but to show it, 
 Writes to make others' laurels known, 
 While wit and learning plant his own ; 
 These and some others I could name, 
 Whom better pens will give to fame, 
 With my dear Berrys' form a set, 
 Which I can't quit without regret : 
 For tho' (I say 't between us snugly) 
 I know I am both dull and ugly, 
 And that with these to say one's good, 
 Still makes one little more than wood ; 
 For not e'en Walpole ('t was no sham) 
 Could make me make an epigram :
 
 158 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 But yet with pleasure I confess 
 I love the wit I don't possess 
 Love to see others' talents shine, 
 Nor envy tho' I wish them mine. 
 But now three months too quickly o'er, 
 I can enjoy these scenes no more, 
 My last desire you can perform, 
 Which is at each returning morn, 
 When Agnes comes to make the tea 
 (Which she don't do so well as me), 
 When by her side she places you, 
 
 Keep me in mind when not in view, 
 
 And give to every flowing cup 
 
 1 he pow'r to make each difference up ; 
 
 Soften the fire of Mary's eyes, 
 
 Make Agnes calm e'er she replies ; 
 
 Add (if you can) one charm the more 
 
 Where Nature 's done so much before ; 
 
 So shall no breakfast here be eaten, 
 
 But you shall make them think of 
 
 SETON. 
 Feb. 23, 1788. 
 
 It was during the autumn of this year that Horace Wai- 
 pole wrote, ' for the amusement of Miss Berry and Miss 
 Agnes Berry,' his ' Eeminiscences of the Courts of George I. 
 and II.' These reminiscences were begun on October 31, 
 1788, and finished January 13, 1789, and were the result 
 of the interest shown by his young friends in his stories of 
 bygone days. 
 
 There is no trace of any correspondence this year 
 (1788) between Mr. Walpole and the Miss Berrys, when 
 the latter were on a visit in Yorkshire, and the first of the 
 series of those letters that have been published is dated 
 February 1789 ; and in this, as in all succeeding letters, 
 may be traced the constant struggle that was going on in 
 his mind between the tenderness with which he dwells on 
 the pleasure of their society and the fear of its expres- 
 sion making him ridiculous as the septuagenarian admirer
 
 1789] HORACE WALPOLE TO MISS BERRY. 159 
 
 of youth and beauty. His letter is dated February 2, 
 17, and 71 alluding to his own age and concludes with 
 the following passage : 
 
 [I am afraid of protesting how much I delight in your 
 society, lest I should seem to affect being gallant ; but if two 
 negatives make an affirmative, why may not two ridicules com- 
 pose one piece of sense ? And, therefore, as I am in love with 
 you both, I trust it is a proof of the good sense of your 
 devoted, H. WALPOLE.] 
 
 On March 25 he writes in the same strain : 
 
 March 25, 1789. 
 
 You have not half the quickness that I thought you had 
 or, which is much more probable, I suspect that I am a little 
 in love, and you are not, for I think I should have understood 
 you in two syllables, which has not been your case. I had sealed 
 my note, and was going to send it when yours arrived with the 
 invitation for Saturday. I was to dine abroad, and had not 
 time to break open my note or write it again, and so lifted up 
 a corner and squeezed in / will. What could those syllables 
 mean, but that I will do whatever you please ? Yes, you may 
 keep them as a note of hand, always payable at sight of your 
 commands or your sister's ; for I am not less in love with my 
 wife Rachel than my wife Leah ; and tho' I had a little for- 
 gotten my matrimonial vows at the beginning of this note, and 
 was awkward, and haggled a little about owning my passion, 
 now I recollect that I have taken a double dose, I am mighty 
 proud of it ; and being more in the right than ever lover was, 
 and twice as much in the right too, I avow my sentiments, har- 
 diment, and am, 
 
 HYMEN, HYMEN^E ! 
 
 In Miss Berry's memoranda the events of this year are 
 entered. 
 
 Introduced by Mr. W. to Lady Ailesbury * and Mrs. D.f Visit 
 
 * Caroline, "widow of Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin, and 
 only daughter of Lieut.-General John Campbell, fourth Duke of Argyle, 
 married afterwards to Marshal Henry Seymour Conway. 
 
 t Anne, only daughter of Lady Ailesbury and Marshal Conway, born 
 1748 j married, June 1767, to John, eldest son of Joseph Darner, Lord
 
 160 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 the Cay leys in Yorkshire. Visit at Park Place* and at Mr. 
 Martin's. Gro to Lymington for some weeks ; to Yorkshire ; 
 afterwards to house at the end of Teddington. 
 
 For this introduction to his friend and relation, Lady 
 Ailesbury, we find Mr. Walpole making an appointment 
 in his letter to the Miss Berrys, March 20, 1789 
 
 [. . . I hope you are not engaged this day se'nnight, but 
 will allow me to wait on you to Lady Ailesbury, which I will 
 settle with her when I have her answer. I did mention it to 
 her in general, but have no day free before Friday next, except 
 Thursday, when, if there is no other illumination,! as is threat- 
 ened, we should neither get thither nor thence, especially not the 
 latter if the former is impracticable. 
 
 Quicquid delirant Reges plectuntur Achivi.] 
 
 The intimacy with Mr. Walpole now determined the 
 acquaintances, the friendships, and often the place of resi- 
 dence of the Miss Berrys. His friends became their friends, 
 his neighbours their neighbours. They formed an integral 
 part of the society collected round this oracle of literature, 
 wit, and taste; and long after death had swept away all 
 who were known as the guests of Strawberry Hill, or the 
 recipients of Horace Walpole's letters, the Miss Berrys 
 alone remained as a link between those other days and 
 the present time. It was fifty-two years after the period 
 of their introduction to Mr. Walpole that Miss Berry, 
 writing to rescue his character from misconception, 
 says : 
 
 Of the means necessary for this purpose, the writer, by 
 the painful pre-eminence of age, remains the sole depositary, 
 
 Milton, afterwards Earl of Dorchester. Nine years after their marriage he 
 shot himself at a London tavern, and she was left a widow in 1776. She 
 obtained a high reputation during her life as a sculptress ; amongst those 
 whose portraits she executed in marble were Mr. Fox, Lord Nelson, 
 George IV., Miss Berry, &c. She died May 1826, aged eighty. 
 
 * The seat of Marshal Conway, near Henley. Oxfordshire. 
 
 t Alluding to the rejoicings on George III. recovering from his first 
 illness in 1788. Cunningham's edit., vol. ix. p. 176.
 
 1789] DARWIN'S ' BOTANIC GARDEN.' 161 
 
 and being so, has submitted to the task of repelling such mis- 
 conceptions.* --, x 
 
 The next letter in date to Miss Berry is a sample of 
 the playful manner in which Mr. Walpole was in the habit 
 of treating the trivial occurrences of the day. 
 
 April 14, 1789. 
 Suavissima Maria, 
 
 I could not answer y r note yesterday, for I was at dinner, 
 as I do not wait till the Great Mogul, Fashion, gives me leave 
 to sit down to table. Besides, I was to go to the play, and like 
 to see the beginning as well as the end. 
 
 I pray that our Papa may find a house at Twickenham, 
 Hampton Court is half way to Switzerland. 
 
 I am not asked to Lady Juliana's, and therefore must give 
 you up for this week as vagrants ; but when you are passed 
 back to y r parish, I will certainly see you, especially on this day 
 se'nnight. 
 
 In the middle of the last act last night there was an interlude 
 of a boxing match, but it was in the front boxes. The folks in 
 the pit, who could not see behind them better than they gene- 
 rally can before them thro' domes and pyramids of muslin, hinted 
 to the combatants to retire, which they did into the lobby, 
 where a circle was made, and there the champions pulled one 
 another's hair, and a great deluge of powder ensued ; but being 
 well greased like Grecian pugilists, not many curls were shed. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 About a fortnight later Mr. Walpole writes as follows 
 on the subject of Dr. Darwin's poem, ' The Botanic 
 Garden : ' 
 
 [April 28, at night, 1789. 
 
 . . . I send you the most delicious poem upon earth. If 
 you do not know what it is all about, or why, at least you will 
 find glorious similes about everything in the world, and I defy 
 you to discover three bad verses in the whole stock. Dryden 
 was but the prototype of the 'Botanic Garden' in his charming 
 * Flower and Leaf;' and if he had less meaning, it is true he had 
 
 * See Advertisement to vol. vi. of 'Letters by Horace Walpole,' pub- 
 lished 1840. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 more plan, and I must own that his white velvets and green 
 velvets, and rubies and emeralds, were much more virtuous gen- 
 tlefolks than most of the flowers of the creation, who seem to 
 have no fear of Doctors' Commons before their eyes. This is 
 only the Second Part ; for like my king's eldest daughter in the 
 Hieroglyphic Tales, the First Part is not born yet. No matter, 
 I can read this over and over again for ever ; for though it is so 
 excellent, it is impossible to remember anything so disjointed, 
 except you consider it as a collection of short enchanting poems 
 as the Circe at her tremendous devilries in a church ; the in- 
 trigue of the dear nightingale and rose, and the description of 
 Medea ; the episode of Mr. Howard, which ends with the most 
 sublime of lines. In short, all, all, all is the most lovely poetry. 
 And then one sighs that such profusion of poetry, magnificent 
 and tender, should be thrown away on what neither interests 
 nor instructs, and with all the pains the notes take to explain, 
 is scarce intelligible. How strange it is that a man should have 
 been inspired with such enthusiasm of poetry by peering through 
 a microscope, and peeping through the key-holes of all the se- 
 raglios of all the flowers of the universe ! I hope his discoveries 
 may leave any impression but of the universal polygamy going 
 on in the vegetable world, where, however, it is more gallant 
 than amongst the human race ; for you will find that they are 
 the botanic ladies who keep harems, and not the gentlemen. 
 Still / will maintain that it is much better that we should have 
 two wives than your sex two husbands. So, pray, don't mind 
 Linnaeus and Dr. Darwin. Dr. Madan had ten times more 
 sense. Adieu ! * 
 
 Your doubly constant 
 
 THELYPHTHORUS.] 
 Miss Berry's reply : 
 
 Somerset Street, Wednesday morning. 
 
 A thousand thanks for the * Botanic Garden.' The first 
 thirty lines, which I have just read, are delicious, and make me 
 quite anxious to go on ; for I must at last own with blushes 
 what I have hitherto concealed, perhaps improperly, from my 
 husband, but as I am married, it must at last come out, that I 
 
 * Vide edit. 1850, vol. ix. p. 178.
 
 1789] CARDINAL DE BERNIS. 163 
 
 was early initiated into all the amours and loose manners of the 
 plants by that very guilty character Dr. Solander,* and passed 
 too much time in the society and observance of some of the most 
 abandoned vegetable coquettes. 
 
 I hope my having long entirely forsaken all such odd com- 
 pany, and lived a very regular life, will in some degree apolo- 
 gise to you for my having been early led astray. We rejoice in 
 the hopes of seeing you to-morrow evening. 
 
 M. BERRY. 
 
 From Miss Berry to Mr. Walpole : 
 
 Somerset Street, Wednesday night. 
 
 You will oblige us by honouring this portrait of Cardinal de 
 Bernis with a place among your prints ; we happen to have two 
 or three impressions of it. 
 
 Could I borrow for a moment the lively language, elegant 
 expression, and polished wit which in conversation animates 
 these vulgar heavy features, I would thank you in such terms as 
 the subject deserves for your company last night, and the many 
 pleasant hours we have passed in your society ; but as there is 
 no borrowing abilities, even upon usury, I must content myself 
 with reminding you that, as in this portrait, a most heavy un- 
 promising countenance conceals an active intelligent mind, so 
 the homeliest expression of thanks often accompanies the truest 
 sense of obligation. 
 
 M. BERRY. 
 
 Many passages in the letters already printed having 
 been suppressed some probably for the sake of brevity, 
 and some perhaps from a wish on the part of the Miss 
 Berrys to avoid a too frequent repetition of their own 
 praises may now without scruple be published. 
 
 At the end of June the Miss Berrys left London for 
 Yorkshire, and Mr. Walpole is full of anxiety and alarm 
 because the letter to be written on their journey had not 
 
 * Dr. Solander, a Swedish writer on Natural History, a pupil of Linnaeus ; 
 born 1736, died 1782.
 
 461 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 been received, and full of affectionate regret for the loss 
 of their company. In his letter dated Strawberry Hill, 
 Tuesday, June 23, 1789, he writes : 
 
 [I am not at all consoled for my double loss : my only comfort 
 is that I flatter myself the journey and air will be of service to 
 you both. The latter has been of use to me, though the part of 
 the element of air has been chiefly acted by the element of 
 water, as my poor haycocks feel ! Tonton * does not miss you 
 so much as I do, not having so good a taste ; for he is growu 
 very fond of me, and I return it for your sakes, though he de- 
 serves it too, for he is perfectly goodnatured and tractable ; but 
 he is not beautiful, like his ' god-dog,' as Mr. Selwyn, who dined 
 here on Saturday, called my poor late favourite,f especially as I 
 have had him clipped. The shearing has brought to light a nose 
 an ell long ; and as he has now nasum rhinocerotis, I do not 
 doubt but he will be a better critic in poetry than Dr. Johnson, 
 who judged of harmony by the principles of an author, and 
 judged, or wished to make others believe, that no Jacobite could 
 write bad verses, nor a Whig good.] 
 
 I passed so many evenings of the last fortnight with you, that 
 I almost preferred it to our two honeymoons, and consequently 
 am the more sensible to the deprivation ; and how dismal was 
 Sunday evening, compared to those of last autumn ! If you 
 both felt as I do, we might surpass any event in the annals of 
 Dunmow. Oh ! what a prodigy it would be if a husband and 
 two wives should present themselves and demand the flitch of 
 bacon, on swearing that not one of the three in a year and a 
 day wished to be unmarried ! For my part, I know that my 
 affection has done nothing but increase ; though were there but 
 one of you, I should be ashamed of being so strongly attached 
 at my age ; being in love with both, I glory in my passion, and 
 think it a proof of my sense. Why should not two affirmatives 
 make a negative, as well as the reverse ? and then a double love 
 will be wisdom for what is wisdom in reality but a negative ? 
 It exists but by correcting folly, and when it has peevishly pre- 
 
 * A dog of the Miss Berrys', left in Mr. Walpole's care during their 
 absence in Yorkshire. M.JB. 
 
 t The dog which had been bequeathed to Mr. Walpole by Mrs. du Deffand 
 at her death ; likewise called Tonton. M.B.
 
 1789] THE OPERA HOUSE BURNT DOWN. 165 
 
 vailed on us to abstain from something we have a mind to, it 
 gives itself airs, and in action pretends to be a personage, a 
 nonentity sets up for a figure of importance ! It is the case of 
 most of those phantoms, called virtues, which, by smothering 
 poor vices, claim a reward as thief-takers. Do you know, I 
 have a partiality for drunkenness, though I never practised it : 
 it is a reality, but what is sobriety, only the absence of drunken- 
 ness. However, mes cheres femmes, I make a difference be- 
 tween women and men, and do not extend my doctrine to your 
 sex. Everything is excusable in us, and nothing in you. And 
 pray remember that I will not lose my flitch of bacon 
 though. 
 
 [Have you shed a tear over the Opera House, or do you agree 
 with me that there is no occasion to rebuild it?* The nation 
 has long been tired of operas, and has now a good opportunity 
 of dropping them. Dancing protracted their existence for some 
 time, but the room after was the real support of both, and was 
 like what has been said of your sex, that they never speak their 
 true meaning but in the postscript of their letters. Would not 
 it be sufficient to build another after-room on the whole em- 
 placement, to which people might resort from all assemblies? 
 It would be a codicil to all the diversions of London ; and the 
 greater the concourse, the more excuse there would be for stay- 
 ing all night, from the impossibility of ladies getting their 
 coaches to drive up. To be crowded to death in a waiting- 
 room at the end of an entertainment is the whole joy ; for 
 who goes to any diversion till the-last minute of it? I am per- 
 suaded that instead of retrenching St. Athanasius's Creed, as 
 the Duke of Grafton proposed, in order to draw good company 
 to church, it would be more efficacious if the congregation were 
 to be indulged with an after-room in the vestry; and instead of 
 two or three being gathered together, there would be all the 
 luoi^ld before prayers would be quite over.] 
 
 Wednesday. I calculated too rightly ; no letter to-day ! yet 
 I am not proud of my computation, I had rather have heard of 
 you to-day ; it would have looked like keeping your promise, 
 it has a bad air your forgetting me so early; nay, and after 
 your scoffing me for supposing you would not write till your 
 
 * On the night of the 17th, the Opera House was entirely destroyed by 
 fire. Wright.
 
 166 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 arrival I don't know where. You see I think of yon, and write 
 every day, though I cannot despatch my letter till you have sent 
 me a direction. Much the better I am indeed for your not 
 going to Switzerland. Yorkshire is in the glaciers for me, and 
 
 you are as cold as Mr. . Miss Agnes was coy, and was not 
 
 so flippant of promising me letters ; well, but I do trust she will 
 write, and then, Madam, she and I will go to Dunmow without 
 you. 
 
 Apropos, as Mrs. Cambridge's beauty has kept so unfaded, 
 and Mr. Cambridge's passion so undiminished, and as they are 
 good economists, I am astonished they have laid in no stock of 
 bacon, when they could have it for the asking. 
 
 [Thursday night. 
 
 Despairing beside a clear stream 
 A shepherd forsaken was laid. 
 
 Not very close to the stream, but within doors in sight of it, for 
 in this damp weather, a lame old Colin cannot lie and despair 
 without any comfort on a wet bank. ... I dread one of 
 you being ill. Mr. Batt* and the Abbe Nicholls} dined with 
 me to-day, and I could talk of you en pais de connoissance. 
 They tried to persuade me that I have no cause to be in a fright 
 about you, but I have such perfect faith in the kindness of both 
 of you, as I have in your possessing every other virtue, that I 
 cannot believe but some sinister accident must have prevented 
 my hearing from you ; I wish Friday was come !] 
 
 Friday, 26th. Still I have no letter; you cannot all three 
 be ill, and if any one is, I should natter myself another would 
 have written. Next to your having met with some ill luck, I 
 should be mortified at being forgotten so suddenly. Of any 
 other vexation I have no fear : so much goodness and good sense 
 as you both possess, would make me perfectly easy if I were 
 really your husband. I must then suspect some accident, and 
 shall have no tranquillity till a letter puts me out of pain. 
 Jealous I am not, for two young ladies cannot have run away 
 with their father to Gretna Green. Hymen, Hymenoee ! 
 
 * Thomas Batt, Esq., then one of the Commissioners for auditing the 
 public accounts. Wright. 
 
 t The Rev. Norton Nicholls, Rector of Norfolk. M.S. The 
 
 friend and correspondent of Gray. Cunningham.
 
 1789] WALPOLE'S SOLICITUDE. 167 
 
 bring me good news to-morrow, and a direction too, or you do 
 nothing. 
 
 Saturday. At last I have got a letter, and you are all well ! 
 I am so pleased, that I forget the four uneasy days I have passed. 
 At present I have neither time nor paper to say more, for our 
 post turns on its heel and goes out the instant it is come in. 
 Do not be frightened at the enormity of this, I do not mean to 
 continue so fourpaginous in every letter. Mr. C. has this instant 
 come in, and would damp me if I were going to scribble more. 
 Adieu, adieu, adieu all three. 
 
 Your dutiful son-in-law and most affectionate husband, 
 
 H. W. 
 
 Addressed to Miss Mary Berry, Thomas Cayley's, Esq., 
 Middleton, near Pickering. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1789. 
 
 I am more of an old fondle-wife than I suspected when I 
 could put myself into such a fright on not hearing from you 
 exactly on the day when I had settled I should ; but you had 
 promised to write on the road ; and though you did, your letter 
 was not sent to the post at the first stage, as Almighty Love con- 
 cluded it would be, and as Almighty Love would have done ; 
 and so he imagined some dreadful calamity must have happened 
 to you. But you are safe under grandmaternal wings, and I 
 will say no more on what has happened. Pray present my duty 
 to grandmamma, and let her know what a promising young 
 grandson she has got. [Were there any such thing as sympathy 
 at a distance of two hundred miles, you would have been in a 
 mightier panic than I was ; for on Saturday se'nnight, going to 
 open the glass case in the tribune, my foot caught in the carpet, 
 and I fell with my whole weight [si weight q. a.~\ against the 
 corner of the marble altar on my side, and bruised the muscles 
 so badly, that for two days I could not move without screaming. 
 I am convinced I should have broken a rib, but I fell on the 
 cavity whence two of my ribs had been removed that are gone 
 to Yorkshire. I am much better both of my bruise and of my 
 lameness, and shall be ready to dance at my own wedding when 
 my wives return.] 
 
 Philip, who has been prowling about by my order, has found 
 a clean house, but it is on Ham Common that is too far off;
 
 168 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 and I think Papa Berry does not like that side of the water, 
 and he is in the right. Philip shall hunt again and again, till 
 he puts up better game : and now to answer your letter. 
 
 [You are not the first Eurydice that has sent her husband to 
 the devil, as you have kindly proposed to me ; but I will not 
 undertake the jaunt : for if old Nicholas Pluto should enjoin me 
 not to look back to you, I should certainly forget the prohibi- 
 tion, like my predecessor. Besides, I am a little too old to take 
 a voyage twice, which I am so soon to repeat, and should be 
 laughed at by the good folks on the other side of the water, if I 
 proposed coming back for a twinkling only. No, I chuse as long 
 as I can 
 
 Still with my fav'rite Berries to remain. 
 
 So you was not quite satisfied, though you ought to have been 
 transported with King's College Chapel, because it has no aisles 
 like every common cathedral. I suppose you would object to a 
 ' bird of paradise ' because it has no legs, but shoots up to heaven 
 in a trail, and does not to rest on earth. Criticism and compa- 
 rison spoil many tastes ; you should admire all bold and unique 
 essays that resemble nothing else. The ' Botanic Garden,' ' The 
 Arabian Nights,' and King's Chapel are above all rules ; and 
 how preferable is what no one can imitate to all that is imitated, 
 even from the best models ! Your partiality to the pageantry of 
 popery I do approve; and I doubt whether the world will not be 
 a loser (in its visionary enjoyments) by the extinction of that 
 religion, as it was by the decay of chivalry and the proscription 
 of the heathen deities. Keason has no invention ; and as plain 
 sense will never be the legislator of human affairs, it is fortunate 
 when taste happens to be regent.] 
 
 But now I must talk of family affairs. I am delighted that 
 my next letter is to come from wife the second. I love her as 
 much as you, and I am sure you like that I should. I should 
 not love either so much, if your affection for each other were not 
 so mutual ; I observe and watch all your ways and doings, and 
 the more I observe you, the more virtues I discover in both 
 nay, depend upon it, if I discover a fault, you shall hear of it. 
 You came too perfect into my hands, to let you be spoilt by in- 
 dulgence. All the world admires you, yet you have contracted 
 no vanity, advertised no pretensions, are simple and good as 
 nature made you, in spite of all your improvements mind, you
 
 1789] THE MISS BERRYS' DOG 'TONTON.' 1G9 
 
 and yours are always, from my lips and pen, of what gramma- 
 rians call the common of two, and signify both, so I shall re- 
 peat that memorandum no more. Your friends Lady Harriet 
 Conyers and Lady Juliana Penn have again settled in our envi- 
 rons, the former within a few paces of Lady Cecilia,* in the 
 parsonage of Hanworth, where she must be content to remain in 
 an evening with the House of St. Albans, who are not quite her 
 style : for the Heath at night will terrify all the lozenges in the 
 neighbourhood. Your friends are charming, but will not com- 
 fort me for what I have lost ! 
 
 Mrs. Anderson, who you know arrived too late, described the 
 adventure of Major Dixon to the Dss. of Gloucester, and diverted 
 her with it exceedingly ; but I immediately found out that she 
 had related it as if he had talked French the whole time, tho' 
 not a word had passed in that language. This showed her parts 
 and invention. 
 
 What a confusion of seasons ! the haymakers are turning my 
 soaked hay, which is fitter for a water souchy, and I sit by the 
 fire every night when I come home. Adieu ! I dare not top a 
 fourth page, for when talking to you I know not how to stop. 
 
 In Mr. Walpole's letter of June 23, he tells the Miss 
 Berry s that their dog Tonton, left in his care, has been 
 clipped, and that the shearing has brought to light ' a 
 nose an ell long,' and that he has now 'nasum rhino- 
 cerotis.' In his letter of July 6,f he says : 
 
 Tonson's nose is not, I believe, grown longer, but only come 
 to light by being clipped, and when his beard is recovered, I 
 dare to say, he will be as comely as my Jupiter Serapis. In his 
 taste he is much improved, for he eats strawberries, and is fond 
 of them, and yet they never were so insipid from want of sun 
 and constant rain. One may eat roses and small cherries, and 
 
 * Henrietta Cecilia West, eldest daughter of John Lord De la Warr, by 
 the Lady Charlotte McCarthy, daughter of Donogh, Earl of Clancarty, was 
 born in February 1727, and was considered one of the finest amateur 
 musicians of her day. She married Colonel Johnston in 1762, and was called 
 by her friends the divine Cecilia and St. Cecilia. 
 
 t This letter was again addressed to the Miss Berrys at Mr. Thomas 
 Cayley's, Middleton ; the short passages here given being all that were 
 omitted when published, it is unnecessary to repeat the whole letter.
 
 170 LETTEKS. [1789 
 
 not perceive the difference from want of flavour. If tulips were 
 in season, I would make a rainbow of them to give other flowers 
 hopes of not being drowned again. ... I am glad you are 
 to go to Mrs. Cholmeley, she is extremely sensible and agree- 
 able but I think all your particular friends that I have seen 
 
 Mr. Walpole had undertaken to look out for a house 
 for his friends ; in his letter of June 30, he speaks of 
 ' Philip's ' efforts to find such as might suit them ; and on 
 July 10, he again writes on the same subject, making 
 many lamentations over his having missed an opportunity 
 of securing them one that might have met their wishes. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, July 10, 1789. 
 
 How angry you will be with me, and how insineere you will 
 think all my professions ! Why, here is Lady Dudley's house 
 let under my nose, let in my own lane, and for a song ! c Pa- 
 zienza, mie care ! ' I am as white as snow. It had no bill upon 
 it, though it was advertised, but not in my newspaper, and who 
 knows truth or falsehood but from their own paper ? And who, 
 of all the birds in the air, do you think has got it? Only the 
 Pepys's.* It is true too, that had I had any inkling of the mat- 
 ter, 1 should not have inquired about it, for the rent asked was 
 two hundred a-year but a Master in Chancery, having a nose 
 longer than himself, went to the executors and struck a bargain 
 of 701. for four months. The land would pay the rent ; but 
 then you must have got your hay in before the rains, and you 
 must have been wiser than I to have done that, and in hay con- 
 cerns I don't know that the heads of two wives are better than 
 that of one husband ; and after all, had you not been shrewder 
 than a Master in Chancery, it would have cost you three hun- 
 dred pounds extraordinary before you could have shown your 
 faces, as I am sure, at least 1 should chuse to have my wives 
 appear. Why, there is poor Mrs. Pepys with not a rag of linen 
 but the shift on her back. They sent their whole history by 
 water. It was a most tempestuous night ; the boatmen, dreading 
 a shipwreck, cast anchor in Chelsea Reach, intending to put to 
 
 * William Walter Pepys, Esq., afterwards made a baronet, father to the 
 late Lord Chancellor Cottenhnm.
 
 J789] STATE OF PARIS. 171 
 
 sea the next morning but before daybreak pirates had carried 
 off the whole cargo to the value, Mr. Cambridge* says, of said 
 three hundred pounds. Now, am I as false and negligent as I 
 thought I was ? You both, and Papa Berry together, could not 
 be so mad as I was at myself at first, when I suspected that I 
 had missed Palazzo Dudley for you. 
 
 As 1 keep a letter constantly on the anvil going on for you, 
 I shall, before this gets its complement, tell you what I know 
 more. The House of Edgcumbe set out in perilous haste to 
 prepare the Mount for the reception of their majesties if they 
 are so inclined,f but were stopped at Pool for want of post- 
 horses, all being retained for the service of the Court. The 
 royal personages arrived, and Lady Mount | was in the midst of 
 the reiteration of her curtsies, when the mob gathering and 
 pressing on her, she was seized with a panic, clung to her Lord, 
 and screamed piteously, till a country-fellow said to her, ' What 
 dost thee make such a noise for ? Why, nobody will touch 
 thee.' 
 
 Passons a Paris. All I have yet learnt further is, that the 
 populace were going to burn the house of Monsieur d'Espremes- 
 nil, a Royalist. A cobler, getting on a stand, begged their low- 
 mightinesses to hear four reasons against wilful fire-raising: 
 the first was, L'hotel n'etoit point a M. d'Espremesnil ; second, 
 Les livres n'etoient pas a lui ; third, Les enfans n'etoient pas a 
 lui ; fourth and last, Sa femme etoit au public. The pathetic 
 justice of those arguments saved the hotel, and Monsieur d'E. 
 keeps all those goods that do not belong to him. 
 
 I am sorry we have refused to supply their wants ; I am for 
 heaping coals of corn on the heads of our enemies but truth is, 
 it looks as if it would not be quite prudent to be so generous. 
 The incessant and heavy rains are alarming ; the corn begins to 
 be laid, and fair weather is now wanted as much for use as for 
 pleasure. It costs me a pint of wine a day to make my servants 
 amends for being wet to the skin every time I go abroad. Lord 
 
 * Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., then living in the house on the 
 Twickenham side of Richmond bridge, now inhabited by Mr. Be van. 
 
 t King George III. and his queen were then on a progress to Ply- 
 mouth. 
 
 J Emma, Countess of Mount Edgecumbe, daughter of Gilbert, Archbishop 
 of York, married 1761; great -grandmother of the present earl.
 
 172 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 and Lady Waldegrave* have been with me for two days, and 
 could not set their foot out of doors. I drank tea at Mrs. Grar- 
 rick'sf with the Bishop of London and Mrs. Porteous, Mr. Batt, 
 and Dr. Cadogan and his daughter, and they were all in the 
 same predicament. 
 
 Apropos to the Bishop, I enclose a most beautiful copy of 
 verses which Miss H. More wrote very lately when she was with 
 him at Fulham, on his opening a walk to a bench called Bon- 
 ner's. Mrs. Boscawen showed them to me, and I insisted on 
 printing them. Only 200 copies are taken off, half for her and 
 half for the printer, and you have one of the first. How unlike 
 are these lines to the chymical preparations of our modern 
 poetasters, cock and hen ! who leave one with no images but 
 of garlands of flowers and necklaces of coloured stones. Every 
 stanza in ' Bonner's Grhost ' furnishes you with a theme of ideas. 
 I have read them twenty times, and every time they improve 
 on me. How easy, how well kept up the irony ! how sensible 
 the satire ! how delicate and genteel the compliments ! I hold 
 Jekyll and Bonnets Ghost perfect compositions, in their dif- 
 ferent kinds a great deal to say, when poetry has been so much 
 exhausted. 
 
 Wednesday, 15tb. 
 
 My motive for sending this away is, not to delay giving you 
 an account of the news I heard this morning. Mr. MackinsyJ 
 and Lady Betty were with me this morning, and he showed 
 me a letter he had just received from Monsieur Dutens: 
 a courier arrived yesterday with prodigious expedition from 
 the Duke of Dorset Necker had been dismissed and was 
 thought set out for Geneva ; an offer of his post was gone to 
 Breteuil, who is in the country. Everything at Paris was in 
 
 * Laura, Countess of Waldegrave, was great-niece to Lord Orford, being 
 one of the granddaughters of his brother, Sir Edward Walpole. 
 
 f The widow of David Garrick, then inhabiting the house he had built at 
 Hampton. 
 
 | James Stuart Mackenzie, only brother to the Minister Earl of Bute. 
 He was married to the Lady Elizabeth Campbell, second daughter of John 
 the first Duke of Argyll. M.B. 
 
 A French Protestant clergyman, who was chaplain in the family of the 
 Duke of Northumberland, and had been Secretary to Mr. Mackenzie in his 
 mission to the Court of Turin. He wrote an 'Itinerary of Europe' (the first 
 book of that kind), ' Les Me'moii-es d'un Voyageur qui se repose/ &c. M.Ii.
 
 1789] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 173 
 
 the utmost confusion, and firing of cannon for four hours there 
 had been heard on the road. All this is confirmed by a courier 
 from the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire who were setting out 
 precipitately : that messenger had been stopped three times on 
 his route, being taken for a courier from that Court, but was 
 released on pretending to be dispatched by the Tiers Etat. 
 Madame de Calonne told Dutens yesterday that the newly 
 encamped troops desert by hundreds but if the firing of cannon 
 was from the Bastile, and whence else it should proceed I know 
 not, it looks as if the King were not quite abandoned. Oh ! but 
 what a scene! How many lives of quiet innocent persons may 
 have been sacrificed, if the artillery of the Bastile raked that 
 multitudinous city ! I check myself, for what million of reflec- 
 tions present themselves. 
 
 We have no open enemy but St. Swithin ; but if he persists in 
 his quarantaine, he will be a very serious one. The Pepysian 
 robbery was exaggerated ; it is difficult to get at truth, even at 
 a stone's throw off. 
 
 I have scarce left myself any room for conjugal douceurs : 
 but as you see how very constantly you are in my thoughts, I 
 am at least not fickle on the contrary, I am rather disposed 
 to jealousy. You have written to Mr. Pepys, and he will have 
 anticipated my history of his being established in Palazzo 
 Dudley ; and that will make this letter more and more 
 wrinkled well ! he cannot send you ' Bonner's Ghost,' and I 
 shall have the satisfaction of tantalizing you four or five days 
 longer if this is not love, the deuce is in it : does one grudge 
 that the beloved object should be pleased by any one but one's 
 self, unless beloved object there be? Do not be terrified how- 
 ever ; jealousy most impartially divided between Two can never 
 come to great violence. Wife Agnes has indeed given me no 
 cause, but my affection for both is so compounded into one 
 love, that I can think of neither separately. Frenchmen often 
 call their mistress mes Amours, which would be no Irish in me. 
 Apropos, Lady Lucan told me t'other day of two young Irish 
 couple who ran away from Dublin, and landed in Wales, and 
 were much surprised to find that Holyhead was not Gretna 
 Green. Adieu ! Mes Amours ! 
 
 P.S. Well, are not you charmed with * Bonner's Ghost ! ' 
 Oh ! I forget ; you have not seen it yet how tantalizing !
 
 174 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 Ex Officina Arbutiana, July 19, 1789. 
 
 Such unwriting wives I never knew ! and a shame it is for 
 an Author, and what is more, for a Printer, to have a Couple 
 so unlettered. I can find time amidst all the hurry of my shop 
 to write small quartos to them continually. In France, where 
 nuptiality is not the virtue most in request, a wife will write 
 to her consort, tho' the doux billet should contain but two sen- 
 tences, of which I will give you a precedent. A lady sent the 
 following to her spouse : * Je vous ecris, parceque je n'ai rien a 
 faire ; et je finis, parceque je n'ai rien a vous dire.' I do not wish 
 for quite so laconic a poulet ; besides, your Ladyships can write. 
 Mrs. Darner dined here yesterday, and had just heard from you. 
 Brevity, Mes Dames, may be catching don't pretend not to care, 
 for you are dying for news from France, but not a spoonfull shall 
 you have from me to-day ; and if I was not a man of honour, 
 tho' a Printer, and had not promised you ' Bonner's Ghost,' I 
 would be as silent as if I were in Yorkshire. Eemember too, 
 that Miss Hannah More, though not so proper for the French 
 Embassador's Fete as Miss Gunning, can teach Greek and 
 Latin as well as any young lady in the North of England, 
 and might make as suitable a companion for a typographer. I 
 will say no more, for this shall be a short note. 
 
 Sunday night, late. 
 
 I break my word to myself, tho' you do not deserve it, for I have 
 had no letter to-day from either of you, and now can have none 
 till Tuesday ; but I am just come from Eichmond, where I have 
 seen an authentic account of the horrible scene at Paris. There 
 had been dismal accounts for three days, but 1 hoped they had 
 been exaggerated ! They are too true. The Due de Luxem- 
 bourg and his family are arrived in London, having escaped 
 with difficulty, 300,000 livres being set on his head, as the 
 same sum is on Marshal Broglie's, and 500,000 on the Comte 
 d'Artois's. The people rose on this day se'nnight, seized all 
 the arms they could find, searched convents, found stores of 
 corn, and obliged the monks to deal it out at reasonable prices. 
 They have beheaded the Lieutenant de Police, or the Prevot des 
 Marchands, or both, and attacked the Bastile, which the gover- 
 nor refused to surrender ; and on the populace rushing in, he 
 fired on them with four great guns leaded with nails, and killed 
 3 or 400, but they mastered him, and dragged him and his
 
 1789] PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 175 
 
 major to the Place de Greve, and chopped off their hands and 
 heads. The Bourgeoisie, however, have disarmed the mob, but 
 have seized the arsenal, and the Hotel de Ville and the treasure 
 there, which they destine to pay the sums for the heads of the 
 proscribed. 
 
 On Wednesday, the King with only his two brothers went to 
 the Assemblee National e, and offered to concur with them in 
 any measures for restoring order. They returned him an answer 
 by 80 Deputies, but the result is not known. The Duke of Dor- 
 set's courier is not arrived, nobody, it is supposed, being suffered 
 to go out of the city. 
 
 Marshal Broglie is encamped before Versailles with 25,000 
 men, who are said to be ready to support the King. 
 
 You will want to ask a thousand questions, which I could not 
 answer nor will I when I can, if neither of you will write to me. 
 
 I dined to-day at Mrs. Walsingham's with the Pen-hood, and 
 to-morrow I am to carry thirty Gkosts to the Bishop of London. 
 So I am finishing this at past midnight, and shall send it before 
 I go to Mr. Ellis to be franked. 
 
 These two days have been very fine, and I trust have restored 
 Riding in Yorkshire. If I ever do receive another letter, I hope 
 it will give me an account of restored health, for my anger is 
 but a grain of mustard in comparison of my solicitude, (rood 
 night ! good night ! 
 
 Mr. Walpole's next letter was addressed to the Miss 
 Berrys at Wheldrake, York. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1789. 
 
 I have received two dear letters from you of the 28th and 29th, 
 and tho' you do not accuse me, but say a thousand kind things 
 to me in the most agreeable manner, I allow my ancientry, and 
 that I am an old fond, jealous, and peevish husband, and quar- 
 rel with you, if I do not receive a letter exactly at the moment 
 I please to expect one. You talk of mine, but if you knew how 
 I like yours, you would not wonder that I am impatient, and 
 even unreasonable in my demands. However, tho' I own my 
 faults, I do not mean to correct them. I have such pleasure in 
 your letter (I am sorry I am here forced to speak in the sin- 
 gular number, which by the way is an Iricism), that I will be 
 cross if you do not write to me perpetually. . .]
 
 176 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 The first object in my thoughts being a house for you, which 
 I cannot find yet, I will only say that Lady Cecilia tells me that 
 she has acquainted you that that at Bushygate may be had 
 most reasonably pho ! but when ? at the end of September ! 
 I told her she was horridly mistaken, and that it is by the end 
 of August you will want one. She would not have been in such 
 an error if she had calculated by a certain almanack in my 
 heart. Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury are to be with her 
 to-day, and Mrs. Darner to-morrow ; but by General Conway's 
 indecision, and not knowing when they should come this way- 
 wards, I shall not see them on either of these days, having 
 invited my sister, Mr. Churchill, and their daughter Sophia and 
 Mr. Walpole, to come to me precisely for these two days ; nay, 
 and on Friday I am to dine with the Bishop of London. 
 
 [Of French news I can give you no fresher or more authentic 
 account than you can collect in general from the newspapers ; 
 but my present visitants and everybody else confirm the vera- 
 city of Paris being in that anarchy that speaks the populace 
 domineering in the most cruel and savage manner, and which a 
 servile multitude broken loose calls liberty, and which in all pro- 
 bability will end, when their Massaniello-like reign is over, in 
 their being more abject slaves than ever, and chiefly by the 
 crime of their Etats, who, had they acted with temper and pru- 
 dence, might have obtained from their poor undesigning King 
 a good and permanent constitution. Who may prove their 
 tyrant, if reviving loyalty does not in a new phrenzy force him 
 to be so, it is impossible to foresee, but much may happen first.] 
 You asked me in one of y r letters who La Chalotais was. I 
 answer, Premier President or Avocat-General, I forget which, of 
 the Parliament of Bretagne, a great, able, honest, and most vir- 
 tuous man, who opposed the Jesuits and the tyranny of the Due 
 d'Aiguillon but he was as indiscreet as he was good. Calonne 
 was his friend and confident, to whom the imprudent patriot 
 trusted by letter his further plan of opposition and designs. The 
 wretch pretended to have business with, or to be sent for by, the 
 Due de la Vrilliere, Secretary of State, a courtier-wretch, whose 
 mistress used to sell lettres de cachet for a louis. Calonne was 
 left to wait in the antichamber, but being, as he said, suddenlj 7 
 called in to the minister, as he was reading (a most natural soil 
 for such a lecture) the letter of his friend, he by a second
 
 1789] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 177 
 
 natural inadvertence left the fatal letter on the chimneypiece. 
 The consequence, much more natural, was that La Chalotais 
 was committed to the Chateau du Taureau, a horrible dungeon 
 on a rock in the sea, with his son, whose legs mortified there, 
 and the father was doomed to the scaffold ; but the Due de 
 Choiseul sent a counter-reprieve by an express and a crossroad 
 and saved him. At the beginning of this reign he was restored. 
 Paris, however, was so indignant at the treachery, that this 
 Calonne was hissed out of the theatre, when I was in that capi- 
 tal. When I heard some years after that a Calonne was made 
 controleur-general, I concluded it must be a son-, not conceiving 
 that so reprobated a character could emerge to such a height ; 
 but asking my sister/ who has been in France since I was, she 
 assured me it was not only the identic being, but that when she 
 was at Metz, where I think he was intendant, the officers in 
 garrison would not dine with him. When he fled hither for an 
 asylum, I did not talk of his story, till I saw it in one of the 
 pamphlets that were written against him in France and that 
 came over hither. 
 
 Friday night, 31st. 
 
 Mrs. Boscawen saw a letter from Paris to Miss Sayer this 
 morning, which says Necker's son-in-law was arrived, and had 
 announced his father-in-law's promise of return from Basle. I 
 do not know whether his honour or ambition prompts this com- 
 pliance surely not his discretion. I am much acquainted 
 with him, and do not hold him great and profound enough to 
 quell the present anarchy. If he attempts to moderate for the 
 King, I shall not be surprised if he falls another victim to 
 tumultuary jealousy and outrage. All accounts agree in the 
 violences of the mob against the inoffensive as well as against 
 the objects of their resentment, and in the provinces, where even 
 women are not safe in their houses. The hotel of the Due du 
 Chatelet, lately built and superb, has been assaulted and the fur- 
 niture sold by auction ; but a most shocking act of a royalist in 
 Burgundy, who is said to have blown up a committee of 40 per- 
 sons, will probably spread the flames of outrage much wider. 
 When I redde the account, I did not believe it ; but the Bishop 
 says he hears the Etats have required the King to write to 
 
 * Lady Mary Churchill. 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 every foreign power not to harbour the execrable author, who is 
 fled. I fear this conflagration will not end as rapidly as that in 
 Holland.] 
 
 I have left myself no room but for a codocil of scraps. Mrs. 
 Darner will be with me to-morrow. With the Pepys's I have 
 had small dealings yet, from his Chancery and the House of 
 Lords. Lady Jul. Penn had a very bad fall downstairs about a 
 week ago at Windsor, and was much bruised, but with no other 
 bad consequences. The wife Agnes's pen lies fallow, I hope her 
 pencil does not. I will write but to one if but one will write to 
 me, and I will not keep a new name I have just assumed, that 
 of HORACE FONDLEWIVES. 
 
 Strawk, Thursday night, Aug. 6, 1789. 
 
 By your letter of 1st and 3rd, which I received this morning, 
 you surprise me by complaining of my silence, when I thought 
 I had talked y r eyes to death. If I did pause, it was to give 
 you time to answer. Here is a list of talks since you left Lon- 
 don : June 27, 30, July 3, 4 (to Miss A.), 9, 16, 19, 31. If 
 eight letters,* and those no scraps, in less than 40 days, are not 
 the deeds of something more than a correspondent, I wish I 
 may never be in love again. If you have not received all these, 
 the devil take the post-house at York ! 
 
 I am not going to complain again, but to lament. I now 
 find I shall not see you before the end of September a month 
 later than I expected would be nothing to an old husband, but 
 it is a century to a husband that is old. Mrs. Darner (who 
 passed Saturday and Sunday here, with her parents), and I, 
 settled it with them that Mr. Berry and you two should meet 
 us at Park-place the beginning of September. Now you will 
 make me hate that month more than ever. Long evenings 
 without a fire are tiresome, and without two wives insupport- 
 able! 
 
 Major Dixon was here too and on Sunday the Johnstones 
 and Mrs. Grenville dined and passed the whole day with us. 
 On Monday the Conways went to Baling : the Dukef is gone to 
 Inverary, but returns the beginning of ugly September to carry 
 
 * Only six letters out of the eight remain. 
 
 t John, fifth Duke of Argyll, born 1720, died 1806.
 
 1789] GENERAL FITZWILLIAM'S WILL. 179 
 
 the Duchess* to Italy ; and she, \vho, poor woman, loves a train, 
 carries Lady Augusta and Mrs. Clavering with them. She is 
 very ill indeed. 
 
 I have not a penfull of news for you ; no, tho' Mr. Cam- 
 bridge was here this morning. The arrival of Necker, I sup- 
 pose, has suspended the horrors of Paris for a moment, till the 
 mob find that he does not propose to crown them all in the 
 room of their late King. I shall go to London to-morrow for 
 one night, yet I am not likely to see anybody that knows much 
 authentic. 
 
 General Fitzwilliam is dead, at Richmond; extremely rich. 
 He has not, I believe, extremely disappointed his nephew the 
 Viscount, who did not depend upon hopes that had been thrown 
 out to him, nor is much surprised that the General's upper ser- 
 vant and his late wife's woman are the principal heirs, as the 
 Abbe Nichols and others long foresaw. Lord Fitzwilliam has 
 only an estate of 5501. a-year. The man-servant, whom he 
 originally took a shoeless boy in Wales playing on the harp, 
 will have above forty thousand pds. : the woman 300L a yr. in 
 long annuities. A will, however, pleases one, you know, if it 
 pleases one any how. To General Con way (an old fellow- 
 servant in the late Duke of Cumberland's family, as were Lord 
 Dover and Lord Frederic Cavendish, similar legatees) he has 
 given 5001. This is so much to my mind, that I shall not 
 haggle about the rest of the will 
 
 I am rejoiced that you do not go to York races. Whatever I 
 do myself, I should not like to have the P. of Wales have two 
 or three wives. Believe me, who have some cause for knowing, 
 there is nothing so transitory as the happiness of red liveries ! 
 
 It is not to fill up the page that I now advert to the weather, 
 which at last is become fine, and tolerably warm ; but I enjoy 
 it, as it will favour your riding, and both, I trust, will give you 
 full health and spirits by the ugly month's end. Your old 
 rapacious landlord, I flatter myself, will be reasonable when it 
 is in vain to be otherwise. I should not like the house by 
 Bushy Park for you, tho' better than none. The personage 
 that will gain most by your delay will be Tonton, whose long 
 nose begins to recover its curled rotundity. It is the best- 
 
 * Elizabeth Gunning, relict of the Duke of Hamilton, married the Duke 
 of Argyll 1759. 
 
 v 2
 
 180 LETTEBS. [1789 
 
 tempered quiet animal alive, which is candid in me to own, as 
 he, as long as it is light, prefers my footboy, or a bone on the 
 lawn, to my company. In the evening, as I allow him to lay on 
 every couch and chair, he thinks me agreeable enough. I must 
 celebrate the sense of Fidele, Mrs. Darner's terrier. Without 
 making the slightest gesture, her mistress only said to her, 
 'Now, Fidele, you may here jump on any chair you please.' 
 She instantly jumped on the sette ; and so she did in every 
 room for the whole two days she staid. This is another demon- 
 stration to me that dogs understand even language, as far as it 
 relates to their own affairs. 
 
 Now I have cleared my character, and that harmony is quite 
 re-established, I will not attempt to eke out my letter, only to 
 say that I am sorry there is but one pen in y r family. I 
 hinted in my last that I would compound for a pencil. Of all 
 y r visits, that cost me a month, I grudge the least that to your 
 grandmother and aunt, as I can judge how happy you make 
 them. It is a good symptom, too, for y r husband. Duty and 
 gratitude to parents are seldom, I believe, ingredients in bad 
 wives. Adieu ! 
 
 Yrs. most cordially and constantly, 
 
 H. W. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Aug. 13, 1789. 
 
 I have received at once most kind letters from you both ; toe 
 kind, for you both talk of gratitude. Mercy on me ! Which is 
 the obliged, and which is the gainer? Two charming beings, 
 whom everybody likes and approves, and who yet can be pleased 
 with the company and conversation and old stories of a Methu- 
 palem ? or I, who at the end of my days have fallen into more 
 agreeable society than ever I knew at any period of my life ? 
 I will say nothing of y r persons, sense, or accomplishments ; 
 but where, united with all those, could I find so much sim- 
 plicity, void of pretensions and affectation ? This from any 
 other man would sound like compliment and flattery ; but in 
 me, who have appointed myself your guardian, it is a duty to 
 tell you of y r merits, that you may preserve and persevere in 
 them. If I ever descry any faults, I will tell you as freely of 
 them. Be just what you are, and you may dare my reproofs. 
 
 I will restrain even reproaches, tho' in jest, if it puts my 
 sweet Agnes to the trouble of writing when she does not care
 
 1789] LORD CAMELFORD. 181 
 
 for it. It is the extreme equality of my affection for both that 
 makes me jealous if I do not receive equal tokens of friendship 
 from both ; and though nothing is more just than the observa- 
 tion of two sisters repeating the same ideas, yet never was that 
 remark so ill applied. Tho' y r minds are so congenial, I have 
 long observed how originally each of you expresses her thoughts. 
 I could repeat to you expressions of both, which I remember as 
 distinctly as if I had only known either of you. For the future 
 there shall be perfect liberty amongst us. Either of you shall 
 write when she pleases; while my letters are inseparably meant 
 to both, tho' the direction may contain but one name, lest the 
 postman should not comprehend a double address. 
 
 I can tell you nothing new from France, that is authentic, 
 only that the explosion at Besan9on, I am assured, was a fable, 
 grounded on an accident that happened to a man who, going to 
 see a train laid for blowing up a hill, and having a pipe in his 
 mouth, some sparks fell, and, setting fire, blew up him, his wife, 
 and child. 
 
 The death of the Abbess of Montmartre was false, too, tho' 
 written by Mrs. r Swinburn to her husband ! What, then, can 
 one believe ? Nothing. Nay, I can prove that there is a man 
 living who believes his ears against bis own eyes. Listen ! The 
 minister of our parish told me t'other day that Lord Camelford 
 was not the author of a pamphlet of which there has been much 
 talk lately. I s d , ' S r , I doubt you are mistaken.' He replied, 
 ' S r , I assure you Mr. Cambridge told me an hour ago that he 
 had just seen the D. of Queensberry, who had affirmed to him 
 that the pamphlet is not Ld. C.'s.' I lifted up my eye to the 
 third heaven ! Mr. C. told you HO?' 'Yes, S r ,Mr. CV 'Bless 
 my soul, S r ,' said I, 'why, but four days ago Mr. C., in this 
 room, told me Mr. Of. Hardinge had shown him the pamphlet, 
 and told him he had received it from Lord C., the author. Mr. 
 C. had read it, and gave me a minute account of the six letters 
 it contained.' 
 
 Was ever so strange a story? Lo ! what a thirst of news can 
 do ! it can efface one's memory in four days, and leave no more 
 impression than if one's memory could not contain a tittle but 
 what it has received last. 
 
 I do not vouch for my next story, but, true or coined, the 
 answer was good. 
 
 The King of Spain consulted his minister whether he should
 
 182 LETTEBS. [1789 
 
 march 40,000 men into France at the requisition of Louis 
 Seize. 'I can send them if your Majesty commands me,' 
 replied the minister, ' but if I do, y r Majesty will soon want 
 them at home.' 
 
 The flame does seem spreading, and no doubt will rage in 
 Austrian Flanders, where a more real tyrant than poor Louis 
 has justly provoked them. 
 
 I have not seen Mrs. A. very lately, but sh d , like you, much 
 disapprove jesting on such dreadful calamities. I am shocked 
 at a brutality that disgraces us. In London a caricature print 
 has been published against M. de Luxembourg and some of the 
 unhappy fugitives, and the Queen of France. 
 
 I approve of your suspending a new offer to y r late land- 
 lord till quite necessary ; nay, I have heard of a house at Ted- 
 dington likely to be vacant by your time, and have ordered an 
 indirect inquiry to be made. It is much nearer to Twickenham 
 than t'other side of Bushy Park. Of the Pepys's I have seen 
 very little yet. I called on them t'other day to ask them to 
 dine here ; but one of their little boys has broken his arm, and 
 the mother will not leave him, nor the husband her. 
 
 I have been at Lady Cecilia's this evening since I wrote the 
 first part of my letter. Mr. Wheler is there, and Mrs. Ander- 
 son, who has seen, as she told you, swarms of refugees at the 
 French Embassador's, especially the Lieutenant de Police, 
 Monsr. de Crosne, who had the rope round his neck, but made 
 his escape while a new tumult arose. They are savages, who 
 have known so little of liberty that they take murder for it. 
 Good night ! 
 
 The two following letters, addressed to Miss Berry from 
 Mr. Eichard Owen Cambridge, allude to some of the 
 incidents which at this time interested the society of 
 Twickenham : 
 
 General Fitzwil Ham's will is a disgrace to misanthropy. 
 Some large and useless legacies to people who neither want nor 
 will be thankful, consume such a portion of his large wealth as 
 would have made some others (L d Herbert, for instance) com- 
 fortable. To him not a farthing. To L d Fitz 5001. a-year 
 
 in Northamp 1 " 6 . His servant, Harper Tom Jones, residuary 
 
 legatee, above 40,OOOZ. He came to L d Fitz ; said he was 
 
 overpower'd ; wish'd he had had only a suitable provision ; did
 
 1789] LETTER FROM AIR. R. 0. CAMBRIDGE. 183 
 
 not know what to do with his fortune ; had no friend ; beg'd 
 his Ld p ' 8 protection ; offered all the books and pictures, and 
 
 anything else his Ld p w d accept. L d F said to me : If the 
 
 Gen 1 had known he w d have behaved so, he w d not have 
 left it him. I dare say if he looks upon Eichmond from his 
 present situation, he is mortified to find his purpose is but half 
 executed if misbehaviour is not added to privation. 
 
 I hate to converse with you so abruptly, but I have writ the 
 main substance, and, tho' in haste to go out, I must use this 
 day's frank, for Selwyn won't return till Saturday. He lent me 
 a book explaining proverbs, which I caution you against buying, 
 for it is not satisfactory. He had not read, but just bought it 
 for the design, which is good, but the execution tiresome and 
 not conclusive. 
 
 Pepys has been very unfortunate. His sweet patient boy's 
 arm was broke. A thief in his house (I wont say of which sex) 
 has taken more linen. It shews, however, the first was ap- 
 proved, and as the sample was good the customers encrease. 
 He received this nonsense with great good humour as he call'd 
 on me yesterday, 
 
 And sat like Patience on a spavin'd poney 
 
 Smiling at Theft. 
 
 Saturday night, Aug. 15. 
 
 This morning Lord Dover enquired after you and y r sister, 
 and where you were, with so much interest that one would have 
 thought there had been no such thing as beauty or parts in 
 Holland. To try his sincerity, and to prove to you that it 
 is true that he shew'd this interest, I told him he must give it 
 under his hand, which he has done on the direction of this 
 letter, and thereby made me the less reluctant to force upon you 
 whatever nonsense may come into my head to blot this fair 
 paper with. But first let me copy what is worth your seeing if 
 you have paid any attention to the assertions, and then to the 
 false insinuations of the ' Morning Post ' : 
 
 Extract of a letter dated Brussels, Aug. 7th. 
 1 1 certainly never wrote, much less published, any pamphlet 
 in France, or about French Politics. You will, therefore, on 
 this authority, have the goodness to contradict the report, &c. 
 
 * CAMELFORD.'
 
 184 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 Pray tell your father I send him no politics, because there 
 are more than enough from France in all the papers. I wish I 
 c d distinguish what is true. You may, however, credit much 
 of robbery and plunder by these words, w h the D. of Dorset 
 spoke to a friend of mine last Friday. There are at this time 
 twelve million of men arm'd in France. You'll say, how can 
 they be kept in order till disarm'd, and may they not do all 
 they are said to be doing ? 
 
 Monday, 17th. 
 
 I beg my best comp 8 to Mr. Berry, which is all I can write 
 this morn., being interrupted. 
 
 I am, d r Madam, most sincerely y 1 " 9 , 
 
 E. 0. CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Mr. Walpole's search for a house was at length suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Thursday night, Aug. 20, 1789. 
 
 If the worst comes to the worst, I think I can secure you a 
 house at Teddington, a very comfortable one, very reasonably, 
 and a more agreeable one than the Cecilian destination at Bushy- 
 gate ;* at least, more agreeable to my Lord Castlecomer, for it is 
 nearer to me by half. That Strawberry proverb I must explain 
 to you for your future use. There was an old Lady Castlecomer, 
 who had an only son, and he had a tutor called Koberts, who 
 happened to break his leg. A visitant lam en ted the accident to 
 her ladyship. The old Rock replied, ' Yes, indeed, it is very in- 
 convenient to my Lord Castlecomer!' This saying was adopted 
 40 years ago into the phraseology of Strawberry, and is very 
 expressive of the selfish apathy towards others, which refers 
 everything to its own centre, and never feels any shock that does 
 not vibrate to its own interest. 
 
 The house in question is at the entrance of Teddington. You 
 may shake hands with Mr. Pepys out of the window. A Mrs. 
 Armstrong took it for one year at fourscore pounds, but is tired 
 of making hay, and minded to leave it at Michaelmas; but says 
 that her landlord has behaved so well towards her, that tho' she 
 will pay the whole, she will give it up to him at quitting it. I 
 sent to him to inquire what he would ask for October and 
 November. He replied I should name my own price, and I am 
 
 * Lady Cecilia had informed Miss Berry that a house was to be let on 
 reasonable terms at Bushy, at the end of September,
 
 1789] HOUSE AT TEDDINGTON. 185 
 
 to have the refusal. I think he cannot expect above 201. at 
 most. All I now dread is Mad. Armstrong's loitering into Octo- 
 ber. Tell me your pleasure on this. Let the Duke of Nor- 
 thumberland's steward rust with his avarice ! 
 
 I know nothing, nothing at all. Indeed, I am too much 
 engrossed by a sad misfortune too likely to fall on my family 
 and me ! Dear Lady Dysart is in the utmost danger. Her case 
 is pronounced to be water on her breast, and every day may be 
 her last ! She suffers considerably, but with her unalterable 
 patience ! But I will not afflict your tender hearts with dwelling 
 on so melancholy a subject. 
 
 Lady Juliana Penn is still lying on "a couch. What she 
 thought a bruise on her leg has by neglect become a wound. 
 Her sister, Lady Harriet, was here the other morning with her 
 daughters, and I showed them the whole house myself, as they 
 are excellent people, and the daughters have taste. The young- 
 est especially struck me by her knowledge of pictures, which she 
 immediately showed she understood. This of my house being 
 shown is a dangerous subject for me to tap, such a grievance is 
 it become ; I have actually tickets given out till the middle 
 of the week after next. I write two or three every day, or 
 as many excuses. Pray come, and make my evenings at least 
 pleasant, 
 
 Summer is arrived at last, tho' as much after due time as if 
 it was one of the Ton. It is more bounteous, however, and will 
 bless the poor by lowering bread. The whole face of the coun- 
 try is spread with luxurious harvests and gilt with shining suns. 
 
 The Johnstones are gone to Park-place, where Lady Dysart's 
 situation prevented my meeting them. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson 
 are cooing tete-a-tete^ at Hampton, as if they were Venus's own 
 turtles left at home in her stable. They told me that on Tues- 
 day night the Duchess of Argyle walked into old Bushy's as- 
 sembly at Hampton Court, but did look too like an apparition ! 
 
 I have exhausted all my nothings, and if I have no letter 
 from you, shall send this away, meager as it is, because I want 
 to know your will about the Teddingtonian Villa. 
 
 Friday afternoon. 
 
 Monsieur de Teddington has been with me, and is all accom- 
 modating if Mrs. Armstrong will not stay till after the first week 
 in October. I asked the price ; he said, should you think ten 
 guineas a month too much, if I did, he would lower. Therefore,
 
 186 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 no doubt you may have it for eighteen for the two months, and 
 you may tell me to offer sixteen. Pray let me have an answer 
 soon, for I will convey to Mrs. A. that she will hurt her landlord 
 if she lingers beyond St. Michaelmas. 
 
 I think, if my account should suit you, the best way will be, 
 as soon as you arrive in town, for Mr. Berry and you two to 
 come and lodge with me for a day or two, and then you can go 
 and view your future nest at your leisure, and that you may 
 insert, with a little cavil at the price, in your answer [to me, 
 which will make your assent conditional. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 I have no letter, so this departs ; but pray answer it directly. 
 
 Mr. Walpole thus expresses his delight at the approval 
 of his negotiations for a house : 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Thursday evening, Aug. 27, 1789. 
 
 I jumped for joy; that is, my heart did, which is all the 
 remain of me that is in statu jumpante, at the receipt of your 
 letter this morning, which tells me you approve of the house at 
 Teddington. How kind you was to answer so incontinently ! I 
 believe you borrowed the best steed from the races. I have sent 
 to the landlord to come to me to-morrow. 
 
 You ask how you have deserved such attentions why, by 
 deserving them ; by every kind of merit, and by that superlative 
 one to me, your submitting to throw away so much time on a 
 forlorn antique ; you two, who without specifying particulars 
 (and you must at least be conscious that you are not two frights) 
 might expect any fortune and distinctions, and do delight all 
 companies. On which side lies the wonder ? Ask me no more 
 such questions, or I will cram you with reasons. 
 
 I had promised Mr. Barrett to make a visit to my gothic child 
 his house on Sunday, but I have written to-day to excuse myself; 
 so I have to the Duchess of Eichmond,* who wanted me to meet 
 her mother, sister,f and General Conway, at Goodwood next 
 week. 
 
 * Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Ailesbury, by Caroline 
 Campbell, daughter of General John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle. 
 
 t Anne Seymour Conway, only child of the Dowager Countess of Ailes- 
 bury, by Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, her second husband ; she was 
 thus half-sister to the Duchess of Richmond,
 
 1789] THE HOUSE SECURED. 187 
 
 I wish Lady Fitzwilliam * may not hear the same bad news 
 as I expect, in the midst of her royal visitors. Her sister, the 
 Duchess of St. Albans, is dying in the same way as Lady Dysart, 
 and for some days has not been in her senses. 
 
 How charming you are to leave those festivities for your good 
 parents, who I do not wonder are impatient for you ! I, who am 
 old enough to be your great grandmother, know one needs not 
 be your near relation to long for your return. Of all your tour, 
 next to your duteous visits, I must approve the jaunt to the sea ; 
 I believe in its salutary air more than in the whole College and 
 all its works.] 
 
 Mrs. Armstrong's secession is doubly fortunate. Your last 
 year's mansion is actually taken by Lord Cathcart, and what is 
 incredible, his wife is to lie in there. It must be in the round 
 summer-house. 
 
 [Friday. 
 
 Well, I have seen him, and nobody was ever so accommoda- 
 ting ! He is as courteous as a candidate for a county. You may 
 stay in his house till Christmas if you please, and shall pay but 
 twenty pounds : and if more furniture is wanting, it shall be 
 supplied.] 
 
 Mrs. Armstrong talks of not quitting but the first week in 
 October ; but as she is prodigiously timorous about her health, 
 he thinks the first round shower will send her to London. In 
 any case you know you may come and stay in your conjugal 
 castle till the house of y r separate maintenance is vacant for 
 you. I was curious to learn whence Mr. Wickes contracted all 
 this honnetete. I do not believe I have discovered, for all I can 
 trace of his history is, that he married a dowager mistress of 
 General Harvey, whom the General called Monimia, though not 
 the meekest of her calling, and with whom (Wickes) she did 
 not at all agree. I am sure she was the aggressor, as he has 
 captivated Mrs. Armstrong and me by his flowing benignity. 
 Besides, I have no notion how one can use one's wife ill, even if 
 one has two. 
 
 Berkley Square, August 29. 
 
 You will laugh at me, for I have just come to town, though it 
 
 * Charlotte Ponsonby, daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, wife of Earl 
 Fitzwilliam. George IV., when Prince of Wales, and his brother the 
 Duke of York, who this day attended York races, were going to receive a 
 great entertainment at Wentworth House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, in 
 Yorkshire.
 
 188 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 is the first real summer day we have had ; but I had a little 
 business, and return to-morrow. As this very fine weather is 
 arrived so late, I suppose it is some fugitive heat that has 
 escaped from the troubles on the Continent, which are spreading 
 along the Ehine. I hope it has left its sting behind it, and will 
 not affect us who have every reason to be happy. Adieu. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1789. 
 
 I am charmed that Mr. Berry ratifies my negotiation for the 
 house at Teddington ; and I do not doubt now but Mrs. Arm- 
 strong will quit it even before Michaelmas : for, though Satur- 
 day last was so glorious, it was the setting not the rising sun of 
 summer. It rained a torrent all Sunday evening; so it has 
 done almost every day since, and did last night, and does at this 
 instant. I grieve for the incomplete harvest ; but, as it is an 
 ill-rain that brings nobody good, I must rejoice if it washes 
 away Dame Armstrong. Mr. Wickes I am sure will give me 
 the earliest notice of her departure, for, as Spenser says, 
 
 A semely man our host& is withal 
 To ben a marshal in a lordis hall. 
 
 [You ask whether I will call you wise or stupid for leaving 
 York races in the middle neither : had you chosen to stay, you 
 would have done rightly. The more young persons see, where 
 there is nothing blameable, the better, as increasing the stock 
 of ideas early will be a resource for age. To resign pleasure to 
 please tender relations is amiable, and superior to wisdom : for 
 wisdom, however laudable, is but a selfish virtue. But I do 
 decide peremptorily that it was very prudent to decline the in- 
 vitation to Wentworth House, which was obligingly given ; but 
 as I am very proud for you, I should have disliked your being 
 included in a mobbish kind of cohue. You two are not to go 
 where any other two Misses would have been equally priees ; 
 and where people would have been thinking of the Princes more 
 than of the Berries. Besides, Princes are so rife now, that be- 
 sides my sweet nephew * in the Park, we have another at Rich- 
 mond. The Duke of Clarence has taken Mr. Henry Hobart's 
 house, point-blank over against Mr. Cambridge's, which will 
 
 * William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother to George III. and father 
 to the last Duke. He had married the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave, 
 niece to Lord Orford.
 
 1789] WENTWORTH CASTLE. 189 
 
 make the good woman of that mansion cross herself piteously, 
 and stretch the throats of the Blatant beast at Sudbrook,* and 
 of all the other pious matrons a la ronde: for his R. H., to divert 
 loneliness, has brought with him [a Miss Polly Finch], who 
 being still more averse to solitude, declares that any tempter 
 would make even Paradise more agreeable than a constant 
 tete-a-tete. 
 
 Gra'mercy for your intention of seeing Wentworth Castle ; it 
 is my favourite of all great seats : such a variety of ground, of 
 wood and water ; and almost all executed and disposed with so 
 much taste by the present earl ! Mr. Grilpin sillily could see 
 nothing but faults there ! The new front is in my opinion one 
 of the lightest and most beautiful buildings on earth and pray 
 like the little gothic edifice and its position in the menagerie ; 
 I recommended it, and had it drawn by Mr. Bentley from Chi- 
 chester Cross. Do not bring me a pair of scissars from Sheffield ; 
 I am determined nothing shall cut our loves, tho' I should live 
 out the rest of Methusalem's term as you kindly wish, and as I 
 can believe, though you are my wives, for I am persuaded my 
 Agnes wishes so too, don't you ? 
 
 At night. 
 
 I am just come from Cambridge's, where I have not been in 
 an evening time out of mind. Major Dixon, alias the 'charm- 
 ing man,'f is there, but I heard nothing of the emperor's 
 rickets; | a great deal and many horrid stories of the violences 
 in France: for his brother, the Chevalier Jerningham, is just 
 arrived from Paris. You have heard of the destruction of 
 32 chateaux in Burgundy, at the instigation of a demon, who 
 has since been broken on the rack. There is now assembled near 
 Paris a body of 16,000 deserters, daily increasing, who they 
 fear will encamp and dictate to the capital, in spite of their 
 
 * Caroline Campbell, Baroness Greenwich. 
 
 t Edward Jerningham, Esq., of Cossey in Norfolk, uncle to the present 
 Lord Stafford. He wes distinguished in his day by the name of 'Jerning- 
 ham the poet ; ' but it was an unpoetical day ; the stars of Byron, of 
 Baillie, and of Scott had not risen on the horizon. The more merited dis- 
 tinction of Jemingham was the friendship, affection, and intimacy which his 
 amiable character had inspired to the author and all of his society mentioned 
 in these letters. M.B. 
 
 } This alluded to something said in a character which Jerningham had 
 assumed for the amusement of a society some time before at Marshal 
 Conway's. M.B.
 
 190 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 militia of 20,000 bourgeois. It will SOOD, I suppose, ripen to 
 several armies and a civil war : a'fine acheminement to liberty. 
 
 My poor niece* is still alive, though weaker every day, and 
 pronounced irrecoverable. Still she is calm, and behaves with 
 the patience of a martyr.] 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1789. 
 
 I don't wonder that y r grandmother is unwilling to part with 
 you, when you sacrifice the amendment of y r health to her, and 
 give up bathing for her satisfaction ; but, between ourselves, I 
 do not admire her for accepting the sacrifice. You bid me be 
 very kind to make up for your parting with her and your 
 friends. I am like poor Cordelia : 
 
 I am sure my love's 
 More pond'rous than my tongue. 
 
 She reserved half her affection from her father for her husband. 
 I will keep none of mine from my wives for my grandmother; 
 but I promise nothing. Come and try. 
 
 I will see Mr. Wickes and know more particularly about Mrs. 
 Armstrong's motions. I shall be a little fearful of haggling with 
 him, lest I should sour his complaisance, which hitherto has been 
 all sugar. Still I will not be grandmaternal, and prefer myself 
 to your interest. 
 
 I have had a most melancholy scene with the loss of dear 
 Lady Dysart, and the affliction of the family, tho' her release 
 was to be wished, and for which she wished earnestly herself. We 
 have the comfort of finding that she is full as much regretted as 
 she was known ; indeed, a more faultless being exists not within 
 my knowledge. I will transcribe some lines that I have written 
 on her, which have not the merit of poetry, but a much more 
 uncommon one, that of being an epitaph in which there is no 
 exaggeration ; however, I beg you will not give a copy of it: 
 Adieu ! sweet shade I complete was thy career, 
 Tho' lost too soon, and premature thy bier ; 
 For each fair character adorned thy life 
 Of daughter, sister, friend, relation, wife. 
 Yet, lest unaltered fortune should have seem'd 
 The source whence virtues so benignly beam'd, 
 Long-mining illness prov'd thy equal soul, 
 And patience, like a martyr's, crown'd the whole. 
 
 * Charlotte Walpole, Countess of Dysart, daughter of Sir Edward 
 Walpole.
 
 1789] EPITAPH ON LADY DYSART. 191 
 
 Pain could not sour, whom blessings had not spoil 'd ; 
 Nor death affright, whom not a vice had soil'd. 
 
 You shall hear no more on this sad subject, tho' I have 
 nothing else that will much amuse you : for, besides confinement 
 with my relations, I have been a prisoner in my own house for 
 some days, in consequence of a violent fall I had last week, in 
 which it is wonderful that I lost nor life, nor limb, nor even a bone. 
 I went to sit with my cousins, the three Philips's, on Hampton 
 Court Green ; it was dusk ; there was a very low step at the door, 
 I did not see it: it tripped me up. I fell headlong on the 
 stones, and against the frame of a table at the door, and bat- 
 tered myself so much, that my whole hip is as black as my shoe 
 for above half a yard long and a quarter wide, besides bruising 
 one hand, both knees, and my left elbow, into which it brought 
 the gout next day. Now, pray admire my lightness : if I had 
 weighed a straw, what mischief might not have happened to 
 me ? nay, I have had very little pain ; and the gout, not to be 
 out of the fashion, is gone too : and I should have been abroad 
 this morning, if I had not preferred writing to you. 
 
 I shall go to Park-place on Monday next for two or three days, 
 and then come back to be ready to receive you ; but you have not 
 been very gracious, nor said a word of accepting my invitation 
 till the house at Teddington is ready for you. Pray let me know 
 when I may expect you, that I may not enter into any engage- 
 ment, even for the evening. 
 
 As the hour of my seeing you again approaches, and as I have 
 nothing of the least import to tell, I shall not try to lengthen this 
 to its usual complement, though the verses have saved some of 
 my paper. Essays, that act the part of letters, are mighty in- 
 sipid things, and when one has nothing occasional to say, it is 
 better to say nothing. 
 
 The weather has been so cold since Monday, that for these 
 two days I have had the carpenter stopping chinks in window 
 frames, and listing the door of the blue room, which I destine 
 to wife Agnes. Winds will get into these old castles. Sultana 
 Maria is to sleep in the red room, where the Sultan himself 
 resides when he has the gout, and which his haughtiness always 
 keeps very comfortable. Adieu ! 
 
 The following letter, addressed to Somerset Street, to 
 greet Miss Berry on her return from the country, is the
 
 192 LETTERS. [1789 
 
 last written to her and her sister before their taking 
 possession of the house Mr. Walpole had secured for their 
 occupation at Teddington : 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, Sept. 30, 1789. 
 
 When an ancient gentleman marries, it is his best excuse that 
 he wants a nurse, which I suppose was the motive of Solo- 
 mon, who was the wisest of mortals, and a most puissant and 
 opulent monarch, for marrying a thousand wives in his old age 
 when, I conclude, he was very gouty. I, in humble imitation of 
 that sapient king, and no mines of Ophir flowing into my exche- 
 quer, espoused a couple of helpmates, but being less provident 
 than the son of David, suffered both to ramble into the land of 
 Groshen when I most wanted their attendance. I tell a great 
 story : I did not want you : on the contrary, I am delighted that 
 you did not accept my invitation. I should have been mortified 
 to the death to have had you in my house when I am lying help- 
 lessly on my couch, or going to bed early from pain. In short, I 
 came from Park-place last Thursday, suffered a good deal yes- 
 terday evening, and blessed myself you were not here. Did you 
 ever think it would come to that ? I am a great deal better to- 
 day ; but I fear it will scarce be possible for me to be in town 
 by Saturday. In the mean time here is the state of affairs : 
 Mr. Wickes goes into Norfolk to-morrow for three weeks to 
 shoot. I told him you was much displeased at his asking new 
 terms, and that till you should come to town I could say nothing 
 positive to him, and he must not depend on anything till then. 
 He was all penitence and complaisance. I told him I must have 
 a lease signed ; he said there was no necessity for it. ' Oh, yes,' 
 I said, ' but there is.' He answered, if I would send one down 
 to him, signed by Mr. Berry, he would sign it too ; but what I 
 shall do when I know y r determination is to send to Mr. Wickes 
 a copy of the few lines which Mr. Pepys, whom I have consulted 
 twice, had from Lady Dudley, and which shall specify that you 
 are to pay but 20L, in full of all demands, from the time you 
 shall take possession of the house to December 25th, and when 
 Wickes returns that agreement signed, Mr. Berry will sign it 
 too. Thus, you see, I have acted with the utmost caution, nor 
 have been to the house, nor sent anybody to see it, that Wickes 
 might not say we had taken possession. 
 
 Now, hold a council incontinently, uiid let me know its decree ;
 
 1789] LINES INSCRIBED TO THE MISS BERRYS. 193 
 
 or why should not Mr. Berry come to me immediately, if I 
 cannot come, as I fear ? You know here is a dinner and a bed 
 always at his service, which will save you a great deal of time. 
 
 I am not quite for having your house in town new painted at 
 this time of year when it cannot dry fast. There is nothing so 
 very unwholesome as the smell of wet paint. Cannot you make 
 shift as it is for another year ? I never perceived its wanting 
 it : you do not propose to give assemblies and concerts. 
 
 If I hear nothing on Sunday morning, I shall conclude you 
 arrived too late. Thus I think I have foreseen and said all that 
 can be necessary, and perhaps more like a nurse than a person 
 that wants one. 
 
 Be sure that I find you both looking remarkably well ; not 
 that I have any reason for desiring it, but as I am not able to 
 nurse you. Adieu ! 
 
 It was at the close of this year that Mr. Walpole thus 
 inscribed his Catalogue of Strawberry Hill to the Miss 
 Berrys : 
 
 [TO 
 THE DEAR SISTERS 
 
 MARY AND AGNES BERRY 
 
 THIS DESCRIPTION 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS VILLA AT STRAWBERRY HILL, 
 
 WHICH THEY OFTEN MADE DELIGHTFULL 
 
 BY THEIR COMPANY. CONVERSATION, AND TALENTS, 
 
 BY 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE, 
 
 FROM A HEART OVERFLOWING WITH 
 ADMIRATION, ESTEEM, AND FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 HOPING 
 
 THAT LONG AFTER HE SHALL BE NO MORE 
 
 IT MAY, WHILE AMUSING THEM, 
 
 RECALL SOME KIND THOUGHTS 
 
 OF A MOST DEVOTED 
 AND AFFECTIONATE HUMBLE SERVANT. 
 
 December, 1789.] 
 
 Lines inscribed by Mr. Walpole in a copy of his Catalogue of Strawberry 
 Hill given to M. and A. Berry long before it was published. M.B. 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 1790. 
 
 Miss BERRY'S entry for the year 1790 is l Summer for 
 three weeks in Montpelier Eow. Go abroad in October ; 
 winter between Florence and Pisa.' 
 
 How long Mr. Berry and his daughters remained at 
 Teddington does not appear, but letters from their friend 
 Mrs. Cholmley * were addressed to Miss Berry in Somer- 
 set Street as early in the year as the month of February 
 1790. 
 
 Mrs. Cholmley was one of Miss Berry's early and 
 intimate friends, and seems to have been well aware of 
 the melancholy which pervaded her character, though 
 little perceived by those who saw only the genial warmth 
 and intelligent vivacity which distinguished her manner in 
 society. In a letter dated Brandsby, May 25, she says : 
 
 Your letter has grieved my heart and yet relieved part of 
 its anxiety, which had been directed to some more embodied 
 grief than you have to complain of. ... The dear Agnes' 
 better health and looks will revive you, and when your mind 
 has had its own melancholy swing, I trust it will settle again to 
 its usual balance. You are naturally deeply thoughtful ; such 
 a mind as yours can, indeed, scarce be otherwise. 
 
 The following letters from Mr. Walpole were addressed 
 to Miss Berry at Lymington, where they passed a short 
 time during the summer : 
 
 * Mrs. Cholmley, sister to Sir Harry Englefield, married to Mr. Cholmley 
 of Brandsby, Yorkshire.
 
 1790] FRENCH NEWS. 195 
 
 Strawberry Hill, July 26, 1790. 
 
 I wrote a bit of a letter to you t'other day in such a hurry, 
 that I don't know what I said tho' I fear more than I intended 
 but no more of that. 
 
 My neighbourhood, tho' Richmond is brimfull both of French 
 and English, furnishes no more entertainment than usual, for 
 which I am much more sorry on your account than on my own, 
 for my letters will not be amusing. My personal history is 
 short and dull. I have made my chief visits; my offices advance, 
 and I have got in most of my hay, and such a quantity, that I 
 believe, it will pay for half a yard of my building. All news 
 have centered in elections ; I care about none, nor have listened 
 to any. They and the pressgangs have swept the roads of foot- 
 pads and highwaymen, who hide themselves, or are gone to 
 vote. Whether they who used to come to see my house are of 
 either complexion, I don't know, but I have had less demand 
 for tickets than usual what else can I tell you ? 
 
 I am glad you staid long enough at Park-place to see all its 
 beauties. The cottage and all its purlieus are delicious, so is 
 the bridge and Isis, and the Druids' Temple seems to have been 
 born and bred on the spot where it stands. I wish you had 
 seen Nuneham too, which is another of my first favourites. 
 
 Mr. Berry will want news of the Spanish War, but I can send 
 him none, nor do I at all believe that it will come to a head. 
 France seems more likely to ripen to confusion ; they go on 
 levelling so madly, that I shall wonder if everybody does not 
 think himself loosened from all restraints and bound to conform 
 to none. A pretty experiment to throw society, with all its 
 improved vices and desires, into a state of nature, which in its 
 outset had many of them to discover, and no worse instrument 
 than the awbone of an ass to execute mischief with. That 
 serene Prince the Duke of Orleans has bowed to the abolition 
 of titles, and calls himself Monsr. Capet, from whom he may be 
 descended, if he is not from the Bourbons ; but as he has failed 
 in being such another usurper, I wonder he did not avoid the 
 allusion. 
 
 Since I began my letter, I have called on Madame de 
 
 Bouffiers, and heard but too much news. Monsr. Dolan, a 
 
 worthy man, and nephew of my dear friend Mad. du Deffand, 
 
 has been taken out of his bed, to which he was confined by the 
 
 o2
 
 196 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 gout, at Avignon, and hanged by the mob ! I have said for 
 this year that I am happy she is dead : and now how much that 
 reflection is fortified ! The Prime Minister of Spain has been 
 stabbed by a Frenchman, but is not dead the wretch is taken. 
 I hope Mr. Berry will cease to reckon me a Royalist, because I 
 do not think that liberty is cheaply purchased by murders and 
 every kind of violence and injustice. 
 
 You must tack this half letter to that of t'other day, and call 
 it a whole one. You are sure I must want matter, not inclina- 
 tion, when I don't send you what pedants call a just volume. 
 Pray return from Lymington with blooming countenances ; you 
 must sit for your pictures before your long journey. I have 
 not mentioned that article lately, because you have both looked 
 so pale, nor indeed has the subject been so agreeable as when I 
 first proposed it ; portraits are but melancholy pleasures in long 
 absence. With what different emphasis does one say adieu ! for 
 a month, and for a year. I scarce guess how one can say the 
 latter alas ! I must learn. 
 
 Mr. Berry and his daughters had made their arrange- 
 ments for a tour on the Continent, and Mr. Walpole's 
 sadness at the thoughts of parting with his friends for a 
 twelvemonth is very apparent in the following letter ; but 
 his regret was much increased by the most unbounded 
 alarm at the prospect of their going abroad, and he used 
 every argument founded on the state of the Continent to 
 dissuade them from undertaking so hazardous a journey. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, July 3, 1790. 
 How kind to write the very moment you arrived ! but pray 
 do not think that, welcome as your letters are, I would purchase 
 them at the price of any fatigue to you a proviso I put in 
 already against moments when you may be more weary than 
 by a journey to Lymington. You make me happy by the good 
 accounts of Miss Agnes ; and I should be completely so, if the 
 air of the sea could be so beneficial for you both, as to make 
 your farther journey unnecessary to your healths, at least for 
 some time; for and I protest solemnly that not a personal 
 thought enters into the consideration I shall be excessively
 
 1790] FRENCH JUBILEE BANQUET. 197 
 
 alarmed at your going to the Continent, when such a frenzy has 
 seized it. You see by the papers that the flame has burst out 
 at Florence can Pisa then be secure ? Flanders can be no safe 
 road, and is any part of France so ? I told you in my last of the 
 horrors at Avignon. At Madrid the people are riotous against 
 the war with us, and py .touted I am persuaded it will not be; 
 but the demon of Gaui -j busy everywhere nay, its imps are 
 here.] 
 
 Home Tooke declared on the hustings t'other day, that he 
 would exterminate those locusts the nobility. Lord Lansdowne, 
 whose family name I suspect to have been Petit (a French one), 
 not Petty, is suspected to have set Tooke at work, and, like 
 Monsr. Capet, would waive his Marquisate to compass a revolu- 
 tion. Capet is gone to the new St. Barthelemi or Jubilee on 
 the 14th. The banquet-tables, it is said, are to extend a ligue, 
 for league is not French enough ; the King is to be declared 
 Emperor of the Franks, but the dignity . not to be hereditary, 
 that Polish massacres may be so. 
 
 [The Etats, who are as foolish as atrocious, have printed lists 
 of the surnames which the late noblesse are to assume or resume, 
 as if people did not know their own names. 
 
 Mrs. Darner tells me in a letter to-day, that Lady Ailesbury 
 was charmed with you both (which did not surprise either of 
 us), and says, she never saw two persons have so much taste for 
 the country, who have no place of their own. It may be so, 
 but begging her ladyship's pardon and yours, I think that 
 people who have a place of their own are mighty apt not to like 
 any other. 
 
 I feel all the kindness of your determination of coming to 
 Twickenham in August, and shall certainly say no more against 
 it, tho' I am certain that I shall count every day that passes, 
 and when they are passed, they will leave a melancholy im- 
 pression on Strawberry, that I had rather have affixed to London. 
 The two last summers were infinitely the pleasantest I ever 
 passed here, for I never before had an agreeable neighbourhood. 
 Still I loved the place, and had no comparisons to draw. Now, 
 the neighbourhood will remain, and will appear ten times worse, 
 with the aggravation of remembering two months that may have 
 some transient roses, but I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell 
 me I do not write with my usual spirits at least! will suppress
 
 198 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 as much as I can, the want of them, tho' I am a bad dis- 
 sembler.] 
 
 Miss Cambridge told me you had charged her to search for 
 a house for you. I did bid Philip, but I believe not with the 
 eagerness of last year, and I am persuaded she will execute 
 your commission punctually. 
 
 The home-chapter will be dull as usual. The Boydels and 
 Nichols's breakfasted here yesterday, in return for their civilities 
 at the Shakespeare Gallery. On Tuesday is to come Lady 
 Herries and her clan. 
 
 It has rained all day, and I have not been out of my house. 
 In the morning I had three or four visitors, particularly my 
 nephew, George Cholrnondeley, with an account of his marriage 
 settlements and the toothache. To-night I am writing to you 
 comfortably by the fireside, for we are forced to raise an English 
 July in a hot-house, like grapes. Pray tell me much of your 
 personal history, and what company you have. I care much 
 more about Lymington than all the elections in the kingdom, 
 and I seem to think that you interest yourself as much about 
 les amusemens des eaux de Strawberri. Good night. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Friday night, July 10, 1790. 
 
 I begin my letter to-night, but shall not send it away till I 
 hear again from you, that our letters may not jostle without 
 answering one another ; but how can I pass my solitary evenings 
 so well as by talking to you ? I laid on my couch for three 
 days, but, as never was so tractable a gout as mine, I have 
 walked all over the house to-day without assistance. I did long 
 to peep at my building, but as it has been a cold dog-day, I 
 would not risk a relapse, and about dinner we had a smart 
 shower. Well, you cry, and was it worth while to write only to 
 tell me it is cold ? We know that at Lymington. Oh yes ! it 
 was to tell you other guess news than of heat or cold overhead. 
 In short, as whatever may directly or indirectly affect you 
 and your sister, is my principal occupation at present, I must 
 transcribe two passages from The Times of the day before 
 yesterday. 
 
 'The subjects of Leopold have assumed the cockade in Leg- 
 horn, and delivered to the Regency a Bill of Rights.' 
 
 <0n the 31st of May, the people in a tumultuous manner 
 broke open two churches at Leghorn. They then advanced to
 
 1790] STATE OF THE CONTINENT. 199 
 
 the quarter of the Jews, threatening entirely to extirpate them. 
 Some soldiers were hastily assembled and ordered to fire on 
 the mutineers. Six were killed and a great number wounded. 
 Still however the disturbances continued. They have opened 
 other churches, and converted them into magazines, and have 
 assumed the red and white cockade. The senate and governor 
 have endeavoured to persuade them to adopt peaceable measures. 
 They have answered by a memorial, stating their civil and 
 religious grievances and demanding redress.' 
 
 Thus Pisa, you see, is no sojourning place for you. Indeed, 
 as I told Miss Agnes in my last, till some of the ferment in 
 Europe subsides, it would be very unadvised to change this 
 country for any other. Mrs. Boscawen, who came to visit my 
 gout this morning, told me that Mr. Prescot, coming from 
 Avignon, where poor Monsr. Dolan and four other persons have 
 been hanged for refusing to disavow the Pope, was thrown into 
 prison in France, and detained there all night, before suffered 
 to prosecute his journey through France. The Duchess of 
 Gloucester, who called on me afterwards, says, the like troubles 
 are broken out in Switzerland. Surely this is not a season for 
 expeditions to the Continent. 
 
 Monsr. Capet has been twice at Brighthelmstone, and had 
 sent Madame Buffon before to feel his way. She and others 
 have warned him not to embark ; he has given it up, has sent 
 for his pictures for sale, and perhaps with them may buy an 
 Irish Peerage. Lord Carlisle and Lord William Gordon were 
 going to Paris for the 1 4th, but hear it would be too perilous 
 a service il riy feroit pas bon pour tout aristocrat! 
 
 General Conway in his last letter asked me if it was not a 
 theme to moralise on, this earthquake that has swallowed up all 
 Montmorencis, Guises, Birons, and great names ? I reply, it 
 makes me immoralize ; I am outrageous at the destruction of 
 all the visions that make history delectable : without some 
 romance it is but a register of crimes and calamities, and the 
 French seem preparing to make their country one universal St. 
 Bartelimi : they are instructing the populace to lay everything 
 waste ! What is to restrain them ? Will they obey those masters 
 who tell them, preach to them, that all are equal ; but who, 
 good men ! pay themselves twelve livres a-day for propagating 
 that doctrine ? I shall wonder if their equals do not recollect
 
 200 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 having an equal right to twelve livres a-day ! Oh ! go not into 
 that conflagration, nor whither its sparks extend ! Come to the 
 banks of the gentle placid Thames, nor strew its shores with 
 alarm and anxiety by leaving them. How I wished for you 
 to-day yes, don't you believe me ? and particularly at three 
 o'clock ! Mrs. Boscawen was sitting with me here in the blue 
 bow-window; in a moment the river was covered with little 
 yachts and boats, the road and the opposite meadow with 
 coaches, chaises, horsemen, women, and children. Mr. George 
 Hardinge had given three guineas to be rowed for by four two- 
 oared boats from his Kagman's castle to Lady Dudley's and 
 back, so we saw the conflux go and return. I had not heard of 
 it, but all Kichmond had, and was descended from its heights. 
 Mrs. Boscawen says you have at Weymouth the Dowager 
 Duchess Plantagenet, or, as I translate her, Broomstick ; beau- 
 coup d'honneur, but I don't believe she enlivens you like a 
 boat-race. Adieu, jusqu'au resum. 
 
 12th. 
 
 It is but Monday evening, and I expect no letter till to- 
 morrow, but I must go on ; I have new horrors and dangers to 
 relate. Monsr. Cordon, who was Sardinian Minister here, and 
 now at Paris, fell under the displeasure of the new despots, the 
 mob ; they met a man whom they took for Cordon, and sans 
 dire gare! hanged him. Madame de St. Alban, who you know 
 is a pinchbeck -piece of mine, was returning to Ld. Cholmondeley 
 from Paris, but was arrested at the gate, and had all her papers 
 seized and examined. While I was writing this paragraph, Mrs. 
 Grenville called to see me, and had just seen a Mrs. Hamlyn, 
 lately returned from Italy with her husband ; between Boulogne 
 and Calais they were stopped seven times by vagabonds liberty- 
 drunk, and obliged to drink with them ; and yesterday I heard 
 of a Mr. Prescot being stopped in France and imprisoned for a 
 night ; but 't is for Wednesday that everybody trembles. The 
 son of Mad. de Boufflers has written to his mother in a style of 
 taking leave of her and his wife and child, as not knowing if he 
 shall ever see them again. I do not coin these tragedies to 
 frighten you, but they will terrify me if you still think of 
 setting your foot on French ground. 
 
 What say you to that mischievous lunatic Lord Stanhope,* 
 * Charles, third Earl of Stanhope, died 181G.
 
 1790] CORRECTION OP AN OLD PROVERB. 201 
 
 who is to celebrate the French jubilee at the Crown and Anchor ? 
 I was told to-day, but have not seen it, of an excellent advertise- 
 ment against him from the oysterwomen of Billingsgate, pro- 
 fessing their disloyalty, and desiring to be associated to his 
 banquet. 
 
 I am still confined, but, like others who are well, sitting by 
 the fire in short, one must have fire-summer if sun-summer is 
 not at hand. Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Wheeler called on me 
 this morning from Hampton ; she looks lean and ill, and goes 
 to Ramsgate; her parents next week to Tunbridge fora month. 
 One would think all the English were ducks, they are for ever 
 waddling to the water. But I must stop, I shall not have an 
 inch of paper for to-morrow. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 It is past twelve and no post yet, and ours go away at one. 
 Lady Valetort was brought to bed of a dead daughter yesterday, 
 but Lady Mt. Edgcumbe is more likely to die of the mis- 
 carriage than she. Here is y r letter, I do not like y r resolution 
 not being shaken. I will say no more, but that I have not 
 invented one of the circumstances I have stated in this or my 
 last. I am grieved that Miss Agnes does not advance. About 
 me you may be quite easy ; my lameness is no bigger than a 
 limp. I only do not go out because I dread a relapse ; and as 
 I have company quantum sufficit in a morning, and can write 
 to you all the evening, I do not mind voluntary confinement. 
 It rains again this minute cold rain. I am sorry your coast 
 is as bad. 
 
 I have nothing to add to my letter but a new edition or 
 correction of an old proverb, that I made this morning on Lady 
 Cecilia's and everybody's jaunts to watering-places ; Home is 
 never Home, thd 1 ever so comely. Mrs. Udney is just come in, 
 the post is just going out; I must finish abruptly if my letters 
 ever do finish. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Saturday, July 17, 1790. 
 
 I have received yours of the 1 4th, and since you seem so 
 determined on y r journey, I shall say little more on the sub- 
 ject; tho' if my arguments have no weight, yours, I assure you, 
 are as far from convincing me. That Miss Crawford or Mrs. 
 Lockart may have met with no disturbances on their routes is 
 probably true, but proves nothing as to safety ; nor, when there
 
 202 LETTEKS. [1790 
 
 is so much danger, does it become a jot wiser to run the con- 
 trary risk. That our papers are very untrue, is certain ; but 
 nothing on earth is less true than that they have exaggerated 
 the barbarities in France they have not specified an hundredth 
 part of them ! They have not mentioned a third part of the 
 chateaux that have been burnt. Have they said a syllable of 
 the murder of poor Monsr. Dolan, or of five nuns massacred 
 there, or of a young man j ust going to be married to a pretty 
 young woman with whom he was in love, and whom they hanged 
 before her window ? Will Miss Crawford deny these facts, or 
 Mrs. Lockart deny the disturbances in Tuscany, of which I do 
 know the Government received an account ? I have heard 
 that they are pacified so were the disturbances in Hungary said 
 to be but they have broken out again. 
 
 You need not have the most trifling apprehension of what I 
 said I could not write. It is merely a project for suspending 
 y r journey till you see a little farther, and that you shall know 
 when I see you. 
 
 It is said that an account has come in 48 hours that every- 
 thing of St. Bartelemi's Jubilee passed tranquilly the first day, 
 and I did suppose that the fears of the Etats would make them 
 take all manner of precautions ; but my notion all along has 
 been that the greater danger of confusion will be when the 
 deputies, double-poisoned by the levellers, shall return into 
 their several provinces. The Duke of Orleans, after much 
 fluctuation, did go to Paris, and made a speech to the Etats, as 
 you will see in our papers; but it is said to have been ill 
 received. This is all I know des parties d'outremer. We seem 
 to be very preparatory for war with Spain, but still I have no 
 faith in its taking place. Lord Camelford has at last heard of 
 his son's safety and there ends all my knowledge. 
 
 My gout did not last so long as a common cold. I was at 
 Hampton on Friday, and at Richmond last night, making visits, 
 but found nobody at home ; it was the first tolerable evening, 
 and every body had flown out. To-day it has been warmer, but 
 as moist as if a sirocco. 
 
 Thus, you see, Lymington is not more eventless. The two 
 male Edgcumbes and Mr. Williams were with me this morning, 
 and the two Lysons's dined with me, and Gen. Conway break- 
 fasted with me on Thursday morning on his way from town, so
 
 1790] THE ' QUIET PEACEABLE FEENCH.' 203 
 
 if there were a wherewithal of news, I might have learnt some. 
 To-morrow I go to London ; on Tuesday, to Mr. Barrett's in 
 Kent ; and on Friday, I shall be here again. 
 
 My week of confined evenings has been employed in writing 
 notes to Mr. Pennant's London. Ever since the appearance of 
 Les Rues de Pans I had been collecting notices for such a 
 work, tho' probably now should not have executed it. When 
 Mr. Pennant had something of such an idea the winter before 
 last, I told him such hints as I recollected ; but as he is more 
 impetuous than digestive, I had not looked out my memoran- 
 dums, and lie has made such a bungling use of those I gave 
 him (for instance, in calling the Dss. of Tirconnel the white 
 milliner instead of the ^uhite widow}, that I am glad I fur- 
 nished him with no more. 
 
 What can I say more? Nothing to-night, but that both 
 Philip and I have looked and inquired, and can find nothing 
 here that even calls itself a ready-furnished house. I am per- 
 suaded, tho' Miss Cambridge did not tell you so, that she had 
 inquired, and knows there is not one. 
 
 This being such a chip in paper, I willl carry it with me to 
 town to-morrow, and even keep it back till after Monday even- 
 ing, when I may possibly be able to satisfy y r curiosity about 
 the quiet peaceable French, and their modest jubilee, in honour 
 of their destroying tyranny and restoring liberty to everybody 
 of hanging whom they please without trial. 
 
 Monday, 19th. 
 
 I came to town yesterday, and at the door my maid told me 
 that two persons had called to inquire, who had heard that I 
 was dangerously ill, and even reported dead. To be sure at 
 my age that would be no miracle ; but as upon my honour, I 
 have seen myself every day, and know nothing of any illness I 
 have had but a fillip of gout, I cannot believe there is any truth 
 in those reports. 
 
 I supped at my sister's last night, with several Churchills, 
 Miss Carter, and Mr. Fawkener, Clerk of the Council, and even 
 he had only heard that the Wednesday you wot of passed at 
 Paris without disturbance. If I hear more of it this evening, 
 you shall know. I did hear a deal about Lord Barrymore and 
 theatres he is building; and of Ld. Salisbury's licence to
 
 204 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 O'Keilly for operas at the Pantheon, but caring nothing about 
 those matters, I did not listen. 
 
 To-night. I have seen Madame de Villegagnon-Walpole * and 
 Madame de la Villebaque this evening, and all they have heard 
 yet is, that the Wednesday passed quietly, except that one 
 cannon burst and killed five or six persons but lives go for 
 nothing upon good occasions. The King tramped on foot on 
 the left hand of his superior the President of the Assembly ; the 
 Queen was so lucky as to be worse treated, and was not forced 
 to be present ! There, I think Miss Crawford cannot send you a 
 more peaceable or a more inviting account. Oh yes ! had you 
 been at Lyons lately, you might have been obliged to receive 
 most condescending civilities from two of the greatest personages 
 in France. Lady Eivers has written to my sister that she was 
 at Lyons when two Amazons arrived there, deputed by their 
 legislative body, Mesdames les Poissardes, to invite the late 
 Comtesse d'Artois to return to Paris ; and these two ambassa- 
 dresses lodged in the same hotel. Lady K. was told she ought 
 to wait on them not she indeed. Oh ! yes, you had much 
 better and so she found she had. They received her very 
 graciously, and said, 'Nous nous reverrons.' How could I ima- 
 gine that it is not charming travelling thro' France ! I go into 
 Kent to-morrow; how will you envy me if I meet a detach- 
 ment of Poissardes on the road to Chevening to create Earl 
 Stanhope no peer ! Good night. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Friday night, July 23, 1790. 
 
 I arrived at Lee on the day and hour T had promised to Mr. 
 Barrett ; returned to town on the day and hour I had promised 
 myself, and was back here as punctually in my promise to Straw- 
 berry. Nothing in this was extraordinary, as I have always had 
 the felicity of knowing my own mind ; but the marvel was, that 
 I, who have not been farther than Park-place these four years, 
 and am moreover four years older and have had half a dozen 
 more fits of gout, was not at all fatigued by an hundred and 
 twenty miles in three days, was new dressed by seven yesterday 
 evening, went to Madame Walpole's, and then supped at Lady 
 M. Churchill's.t In short, I am so proud of all these feats of 
 
 * Madame de Villegagnon-Walpole, a French lady, married to Mr. 
 Thomas Walpole, younger son of the first Lord Walpole, of Woolterton. 
 t A daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by Miss Sherret, the lady he- after-
 
 1790] THE FRENCH JUBILEE. 205 
 
 activity, that if you two should elope, I will say like portly Hal 
 the moment he had beheaded Anne Boleyn, 
 
 Cock's bones ! now again I stand 
 The j oiliest batchelor i' th' land, 
 
 and I will marry two more wives the next day so at y r peril 
 be it! 
 
 I found Mr. Barrett's house complete, and the most perfect 
 thing ever formed ! Such taste, every inch so well finished, and 
 the drawing-room and eating-room so magnificent ! I think if 
 Strawberry were not its parent, it would be jealous. My jour- 
 ney, too, delighted me : such a face of plenty and beauty ; the 
 corn, the hay harvest, the cherry orchards, the hop grounds, all 
 in their different ages so promising or so fulfilling ! All the 
 farms and hedges so tight and neat, and such rows of houses 
 tacking themselves on to every town, that every five miles were 
 an answer to Dr. Price f and Lord Stanhope ; and on t'other side 
 what an answer is coming from France ! But I must keep to a 
 little regularity. 
 
 The day of the Jubilee was a deluge, and, like Noah's flood 
 and the Etats, almost swept away everything ; it rained fourteen 
 hours, and not a dry thread but on the Queen (who was there), 
 and had an awning for her and a few ladies, behind the King. 
 The rest you know but now list! When Philippe d'Orleans 
 waited on the still King, M. Gouvion (second under La Fay ette) 
 jostled him, and said, ' If you do not resent this, you are a 
 scoundrel ' ce n'est pas tout five and twenty of the Garde 
 Nationale have bound themselves to fight the aforesaid Philippe, 
 provided that like a bowl he can tip down Gouvion and the first 
 four-and-twenty. I left London on tiptoe for the event, and 
 Mr. Lenox, I suppose, is not one of the least impatient. 
 
 The 27th is to be the octave to the 14th, and is expected to 
 produce fearful events. On that day La Fayette's commission 
 is to be renewed, or a successor appointed. But all this is 
 nothing to an event that has happened, and the detail of which 
 
 wards married. When Sir Robert was created Earl of Orford, this daughter 
 had the king's letter to rank as an earl's daughter. She married Charles 
 Churchill, Esq., himself a natural son of the General Churchill of Marl- 
 borough's wars, by Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress. 
 
 * Richard Price, an eminent dissenting minister and political writer, 
 born 1723, died 1791.
 
 206 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 I saw last night in a letter to Mad. Walpole from her sister at 
 Paris, and which Mr. Fawkener had heard, tho' not quite so 
 circumstantially. 
 
 On the 13th arrived at Paris fifteen hundred Bretons on foot, 
 the commander alone mounted. They marched to the Pont- 
 tournant of the Tuileries. The Garde Nationale would have 
 stopped them, and have obliged the commander to dismount 
 point du tout. They advanced into the garden under the win- 
 dows of the King, who appeared in the balcony, and gracieused 
 them. They demanded admission to him, and were admitted, 
 when the commandant, bending one knee, laid his sword at the 
 King's feet, and said, ' Sire, je suis charge par la nation Bretonne 
 de venir jurer amour et fidelite a votre Majeste, et je verserai la 
 flerniere goutte de mon sang pour vous, pour la Reine et pour 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin.' The King embraced him. The whole 
 troop then went to a little garden parted off for the Dauphin on 
 the terrace of the Tuileries, where he was gathering flowers. The 
 pretty boy gave a flower as long as they lasted to everyBreton, and 
 then gathered lilac leaves, and for fear they should not last, tore 
 them in two, and gave half a leaf a piece to the rest. And what, 
 you will cry, were their majesties the Etats doing all this time. 
 Oh ! I suppose they had more important business on their hands, 
 and were consulting metaphysically where they should deposit 
 that old rag the Oriflamme, for they are exceedingly attentive 
 to making laws for types and symbols, and probably are as much 
 afraid of the Bretons as they are of Myladies the Poissardes ; 
 but I do not add a tittle to my text, and thus leave these chap- 
 ters in the middle. Our papers say the Margrave of Anspach 
 is dead suddenly so Lady Craven is widow, tho' still wife. 
 
 I went to carry my niece, Sophia Walpole, home last night 
 from her mother's, and found Little Burlington-street blocked 
 up by coaches. Lord Barrymore, his sister Lady Caroline, and 
 Mrs. Goodall the actress, were performing the Beaux Stratagem 
 in Squib's auction-room, which his lordship has converted into 
 a theatre. I do not know the rest of the company, nor are you 
 probably curious. Having now emptied my pouch of news, I 
 will come to y r letter of the 20th, which I have received. 
 
 I thank you for saying at least that you will take time to con- 
 sider before you finally determine on y r journey. I do not pro- 
 mise myself much from that consideration, for if you can still
 
 1790] PROPOSED CONTINENTAL TOUR. 207 
 
 hesitate, it must be by the coup de baguette of some guardian 
 angel that the face of Europe can be tranquillized in two months. 
 The position of France, indeed, may be much worse ; but the 
 talisman which I conclude you possess, and that is to convey 
 you invulnerable or invisible thro' that nation of barbarians, 
 must have as much virtue as it had a fortnight ago, and as I 
 have no amulet that can lull asleep my fears for you, I am not 
 at all comforted nor quieted by the composing draught you have 
 sent me. Those alarms have set me on considering too, and 
 unless you have reasons that are unknown to me, those you did 
 give me appear by no means adequate to so strange a fancy as 
 that of leaving your country again, when it is, and appears to 
 everybody else, the only country in Europe at present that one 
 would wish to be in. I fear my dread of letting my self-love 
 preponderate over my attachment to dear you and dear Agnes 
 made me too rashly forbear to contend against your scheme. I 
 heartily repent of my acquiescence, which was as full of self- 
 love as opposition would have been. In the cooler moments I 
 have had since, it appears to me a wild uncomfortable plan, 
 that will not produce one of the purposes you seem to propose 
 by it, and I therefore ascribe it to a volatile roving humour, or 
 to some motive of which I am ignorant, and into which I have 
 no right to inquire. 
 
 Any amendment in y r sister that you announce is always the 
 most grateful part of your letters, agreeable as they are to me. 
 Dull they cannot be when one is so interested as I am. It is for 
 y r sake, not my own, that I wish you better amused. Of whom, 
 were all the world at Lymington, could you talk, that would 
 engage my attention so much, as what you tell me about your- 
 selves ? Good night. Don't forget to tell me when I am to 
 change my direction. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Thursday, July 29, 1790. 
 
 If you give yourself an air and pretend to write dull letters, 
 which I defy you to do when they are to pass thro' the medium 
 of my eyes, I will lay you a wager that this shall beat you 
 hollow, and even please Mr. Cumberland, who told me it was 
 pity Mr. Gray's letters had been printed ; and consequently, I 
 suppose, poor gentleman ! he thinks private letters ought to be 
 as insipid as his own comedies. One comfort is, that if I have 
 nothing to say, I trust it will be the last that you will receive
 
 208 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 till I see you, and therefore if it is as dull as the last scene in 
 any comedy, no matter. 
 
 Yours of the 26th, that I have just received, tells me you will 
 be in town by Thursday at farthest so will I, certainly, and 
 call on you in the evening. I have most seriously been house- 
 hunting for you. I saw bills on two doors in Montpellier-row, 
 but neither are furnished. Yesterday to a larger at Teddington, 
 but it was not only stark naked, but tumbling down. You 
 shall come to me, and then we will see what can be done. 
 
 I do hope you will be staggered about a longer journey for 
 some time. But two days ago I saw a new paragraph of Tuscan 
 disturbances. Every paper talks of horrid ones at Lyons ; but 
 I will say no more now, as you promise to be guided by farther 
 accounts. 
 
 I have learnt nothing fresher from Paris, only that all the 
 letters talk of repeated insults to the Duke of Orleans, and it is 
 thought he will return hither. Nor of the Bretons, non plus. 
 
 The Duchesse de Biron and the Boufflers's are to dine here 
 on Saturday, and the Edgcumbes. The Duchess returns to 
 Paris next week, but as she must leave her duchy behind, why 
 should not Lord Abercorn desire the King to seize it as a wreck, 
 and give it to Lady Cecilia Hamilton ? 
 
 The Argyles are returned, the Duchess, I hear, looking very 
 ill. They have got a foolish notion at Kichmond that Lord 
 Blandford is to marry Miss Gunning; an idea so improbable 
 that even the luck of the Gunnings cannot make one believe it. 
 
 You are in the right to look better, and I would advise Agnes 
 to do so too as fast as possible, for, to tell you the truth, I feel 
 myself growing inconstant. I have seen Mrs. Udney. Oh ! she 
 is charming, looks so sensible, and, unluckily, so modest; but 
 then, as Mr. Udney looks as old and decrepit as I do, there may 
 be some hopes. 
 
 At night. 
 
 Mr. Lysons the divine and I have been this evening to see 
 the late Duke of Montagu's at Kichmond, where I had not been 
 for many years. Formerly I was much there, but her grace 
 broke with me on what I said in my * Noble Authors ' of her 
 grandfather Marlborough, as if I had been the first to propagate 
 his avarice ! I softened it in the second edition to please her, 
 but not being the most placable of her soft sex, she never for-
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S FEARS FOR THE MISS BERRYS' SAFETY. 209 
 
 gave it. The new garden that clambers up the hill is delightful, 
 and disposed with admirable taste and variety. It is perfectly 
 screened from human eyes, tho' in the bosom of so populous 
 a village ; and you climb till at last, treading the houses under 
 foot, you recover the Thames and all the world at a little dis- 
 tance. I am amazed that it is not more talked of, and I am 
 glad Mrs. Udney did not see me in my ascent or descent. I 
 was no very graceful figure as Mr. Lysons was dragging me up 
 and down. I will take care to make love on plain ground ; and 
 things do go on well, for at my return I found a note from Mrs. 
 Udney to -invite me to a concert on Sunday, so I must have 
 made some impression, for I never saw her till yesterday 
 morning. 
 
 While I write, Mr. Lysons has been turning over Le Neve's* 
 ' Monumenta Anglicana,' and has found that nine aldermen of 
 London died in one year. I concluded it must have been in one 
 of the years of the Plague. No, it was in 1711. Then it cer- 
 tainly was in 1711 that turtles were first imported. 
 
 Adieu ! How glad I am to have no more of these empty 
 letters to write ! Don't you think it tiresome to write letters at 
 all ? Pray let us have no more occasion to write any. 
 
 P.S. Mr. Lysons was last Monday at Mrs. Piozzi's fete at 
 Streathara. Five and forty persons sat down to dinner. In 
 the evening was a concert, and a little hopping, and a supper. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Monday night, Aug. 2, 1790. 
 
 By yours of Friday, which I received yesterday, I find you 
 got one from me on Wednesday, and I hope one on Friday too. 
 
 I shall certainly see you in Somerset-street on Thursday 
 evening. I have changed my language, not my wishes ; and 
 scarce a morsel of my opinion about your going abroad, tho', as 
 I have told you, I did at first acquiesce, because I knew how 
 much my own happiness was at stake, and I would not suffer that 
 to preponderate with me. But oh ! my beloved friend, can I be 
 so interested about you and not be alarmed ? Every day I hear 
 new causes of terror. Lyons is all tumult and violence. The 
 Duke of Argyle, who is just arrived, had his chaise pelted, and 
 the coronet over his arms rubbed out. Miss Cheap, whom I 
 
 * Inscriptions on the Monuments of Eminent Persons deceased from 1700 
 to 1715, by John le Neve. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 LETTEES. [1790 
 
 met last night at a concert at Mrs. Udney's, is frightened for you, 
 like me, and very sorry for your project. She told me she has 
 just received a letter from an English family abroad, whom pro- 
 bably you know, who are longing to come home, but dare not 
 venture. Are these vain terrors in me ? And tho' I did not 
 remonstrate at first, can I love you and be silent now? 
 
 Tho' I cannot yet believe it will be, there is certainly much 
 more probability than I thought of another (running becoming 
 a duchess. Gen. Conway wrote to me that it is all settled, and 
 that she is to have the same jointure as the Duchess of Marl- 
 borough ; but Lady Clackmannan, who has questioned (you 
 may be sure) both the Duke and Lord Lome, says the former 
 answered coolly, ' They tell me it is to be,' but the other told her 
 he knew nothing of the matter, and that he had even not seen 
 Lord Blandford. The Dss. of Gloucester says that Mrs. Howe, 
 who is apt to be well informed, does not believe it. My incre- 
 dulity is still better founded, and hangs on the Duchess of 
 Marlborough's wavering weathercockhood, which always rests at 
 forbidding the bans. 
 
 My dinner for the Biron and Boufflers went off agreeably. 
 Yesterday I had Mr. Thomas Walpole, his French wife, who is 
 most amiable, and his sister and daughters, and that too passed 
 well. The Bretons, who are party per pale, loyal and levellers, 
 have promised the Seigneur de Chilly to burn his chateau at 
 their return, if they find a souppon of any seigneurial marks 
 remaining. They joined in the Jubilee with alacrity, and yet 
 since have quelled a mob who were proceeding to great lengths 
 against Le Capet for not taking the oath on the altar. The 
 Queen they call nothing but la Dame Capet, as in the Fronde 
 Anne of Austria was Dame Anne. 
 
 It has rained all day. I had ordered my coach to go to Eich- 
 mond in the evening, but had it set up again, and preferred 
 having the fires lighted, and writing to you comfortably. 
 
 Miss Cheap is certainly your true friend, for she told me that 
 Mrs. Udney, whom I took for two and twenty, is eight and 
 thirty. There I found the Abbe singing glees with the Abra- 
 hams. He came to Mr. Barrett's a day later than he had pro- 
 mised. I insisted that he had been warbling. at the Worcester 
 and Gloucester music meeting. 
 
 My nephew, George Cholmondeley, is to be married on
 
 1790] LETTERS FROM MISS BERRY TO WALPOLE. 211 
 
 Saturday.* Good night ! I am glad I shall say so in person 
 on Thursday. 
 
 Mr. Berry and his daughters had promised Mr. Walpole 
 to pass some time in August at Twickenham ; and to his 
 exertions in obtaining a house for them the following note 
 from Miss Berry appears to refer, though no date of 
 month is affixed : 
 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 A thousand thanks, my good Sir, for your earnestness last 
 night, and your kind attention this morning ahout a house for 
 us. My father goes to Twickenham to-morrow or next day, 
 and carries with him our best wishes to find a place in that 
 neighbourhood ; he will enquire after the house you mention, 
 the situation of which I do not immediately recollect, but be 
 assured a short distance from Strawberry Hill will be one of the 
 first recommendations to us. To our many obligations to you 
 we must add that of the very agreeable evening we spent last 
 night. I fear we shall not meet often this week, except you 
 are to be at Lady J. Penn's on Wednesday ; perhaps not at all, 
 for we go on Thursday to the Duke of Argyll's, and shall 
 probably stay till Saturday. Allow us, therefore, to lay a plan 
 already for next week, and to beg the favour of seeing you to- 
 morrow se'nnight, which will be the 21st. Without a little 
 arrangement and consideration beforehand, I find one's time 
 passes away in London * nee recte, nee suaviter,' while we ensure 
 both when we are lucky enough to spend the evening with you. 
 
 M. BERRY. 
 
 P.S. Do tell me where Mrs. Darner lives ; though we are 
 not to have the pleasure of being admitted till next week, we 
 wish no longer to delay leaving our name at her door. 
 
 The note subjoined is also without date of month : 
 
 Saturday afternoon. 
 
 Was I to begin thanking you, when should I have done ? 
 and what is three tickets, or three dozen tickets for any show 
 upon earth in comparison of my other obligations to you, in 
 
 * To Miss Pitt. 
 p 2
 
 212 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 comparison of that flattering regard, that lively interest, that real 
 friendship, with which upon every occasion you act towards us ? 
 Believe me, and it is all I feel able to say, it is not lost upon 
 us ; we feel it all, and the impossibility of ever thanking you 
 for such obligations. For tickets to the trial,* to anybody else I 
 could write a fine note, to you it is impossible. M. B. 
 
 On the 10th of October Mr. Berry and his daughters 
 left England, and the letter of that day is too touchingly 
 descriptive of the writer's feelings not to be here inserted, 
 though it is amongst the few that are already printed 
 without omissions. 
 
 [Sunday, Oct. 10, 1790 ; the day of y r departure. 
 
 Is it possible to write to my beloved friends and refrain from 
 speaking of my grief for losing you, though it is but the con- 
 tinuation of what I have felt ever since I was stunned by your 
 intention of going abroad this autumn. Still I will not tire 
 you with it often. In happy days I smiled and called you 
 my dear wives now, I can only think on you as darling 
 children, of whom I am bereaved ! As such I have loved and do 
 love you ; and charming as you both are, I have had no occasion 
 to remind myself that I am past 73. Your hearts, your under- 
 standings, your virtues, and the cruel injustice of your fate, have 
 interested me in everything that concerns you ; and so far from 
 having occasion to blush for any unbecoming weakness, I am 
 proud of my affection for you, and very proud of your con- 
 descending to pass so many hours with a very old man, when 
 everybody admires you, and the most insensible allow that your 
 good sense and information (I speak of both) have formed you to 
 converse with the most intelligent of our sex as well as your own ; 
 and neither can tax you with airs of pretension or affectation. 
 Your simplicity and natural ease set off all your other merits 
 all these graces are lost to me, alas ! when I have no time to lose ! 
 
 Sensible as I am to my loss, it will occupy but part of my 
 thoughts till I know you safely landed, and arrived safely at 
 Turin. Not till you are there, and I learn so, will my anxiety 
 subside and settle into steady selfish sorrow. I looked at every 
 
 * Trial, probably, of Warren Hastings.
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S KEGEET AT THE BERRYS' DEPARTURE. 213 
 
 weathercock as I came along the road to-day, and was happy to 
 see every one point north-east may they do so to-morrow ! 
 
 I found here the frame for Wolsey,* and to-morrow morning 
 Kirgate will place him in it, and then I shall begin pulling the 
 little parlour to pieces that it may be hung anew to receive 
 him. I have also obeyed Miss Agnes, tho' with regret, for on 
 trying it I found her Arcadia would fit the place of the picture 
 she condemned, which shall, therefore, be hung in its room, 
 tho' the latter should give way to nothing else, nor shall be laid 
 aside, but shall hang where I shall see it almost as often. I 
 long to hear that its dear paintfess is well; I thought her not 
 at all so last night. You will tell me the truth, though she in 
 her own case, and in that alone, allows herself mental reserva- 
 tion. 
 
 Forgive me for writing nothing to-night but about you two 
 and myself. Of what can I have thought else? I have not 
 spoken to a single person but my own servants since we parted 
 last night. I found a message here from Miss Howef to invite 
 me for this evening. Do you think I have not preferred staying 
 at home to write to you, as this must go to London to-morrow 
 morning by the coach to be ready for Tuesday's post? My 
 future letters shall talk of other things, whenever I know any- 
 thing worth repeating or perhaps any trifle, for I am deter- 
 mined to forbid myself lamentations that would weary you; and 
 the frequency of my letters will prove there is no forgetfulness. 
 If I live to see you again, you will then judge whether I am 
 changed but a friendship so rational and so pure as mine is, and 
 so equal for both, is not likely to have any of the fickleness of 
 youth, when it has none of its other ingredients. It was a sweet 
 consolation to the short time that I may have left, to fall into 
 such a society no wonder then that I am unhappy at that con- 
 solation being abridged. I pique myself on no philosophy but 
 what a long use and knowledge of the world had given me, the 
 philosophy of indifference to most persons and events. I do 
 pique myself on not being'ridiculous at this very late period of 
 my life ; but when there is not a grain of passion in my affection 
 for you two, and when you both have the good sense not to be 
 displeased at my telling you so (though I hope you would have 
 
 * Drawing by Miss Agnes Berry. 
 
 f An unmarried sister of the first Earl Howe, then living at Richmond,
 
 214 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. Ll7!K> 
 
 despised me for the contrary), I am not ashamed to say that 
 your loss is heavy to me ; and that I am only reconciled to it by 
 hoping that a winter in Italy, and the journies and sea air will 
 be very beneficial to two constitutions so delicate as yours. 
 Adieu ! my dearest friends. It would be tautology to subscribe 
 a name to a letter, every line of which would suit no other man 
 in the world but the writer.] 
 
 JOUKNAL. 
 
 London: 1790. 
 
 Sunday, October 10th. Left North Audley Street at 
 half-past 11 A.M. ; arrived at the Old Ship at Brighthelm- 
 stone at half-past eight.* 
 
 Monday , llth. Sailed at 6 P.M. on board the Speedwell 
 sloop of forty tons, Captain Lyn, which we hired, paying 
 eight guineas and a half; the captain put our carriage 
 and baggage aboard. The wind fair, and we got over to 
 the coast of France in little more than twelve hours, but 
 were twenty-four before we made Dieppe. 
 
 Tuesday, 12th. Arrived at the Hotel du Grand Cerf 
 a Dieppe, having been exactly twenty-four hours on board 
 our vessel. I went to bed the instant we got aboard, and 
 never moved hand or foot till I got into the boat to be 
 landed at Dieppe. The inn much better than I expected. 
 We got tea and supper, and to bed as fast as we could. 
 
 I had heard Dieppe spoken of as much the dirtiest town 
 in France : it certainly by no means deserves that descrip- 
 tion ; the streets are straight and tolerably wide, the houses 
 for the most part ill-built, and immediately after leaving 
 English neatness, give one the idea of being half in ruins. 
 There is a fine sea view from an old castle f guarded by 
 some invalids, to which my father and I walked. 
 
 * A journey of nine hours, now performed in one hour and a half. 
 
 f This castle afforded a refuge to Henri IV. when retreating before the 
 army of the League. In IGoO the Duchess de Longueville took refuge here 
 when pursued by the vengeance of Mazarin and Anne of Austria. The 
 castle has been repaired, arid is used as a barrack. Murray's Handbook.
 
 1790] ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 215 
 
 Wednesday, I3th. Arrived at 1'Hotel Vatel at Kouen. 
 The road excellent, and we went nearly as fast as we should 
 have posted in England. Kouen is a large populous town, 
 the streets remarkably narrow even for this country. The 
 Quay to the Seine, which is here as broad as the Thames 
 at Kew Bridge and crowded with vessels, must be above 
 a mile long, full of people and business, and very broad, 
 gay, and bustling. The cathedral a noble Gothic building, 
 highly ornamented on the outside, and within inferior to 
 nothing I have ever seen except York Minster. The 
 choir enclosed with a polished brass open screen, the 
 great west door of the church has the same impropriety 
 (but without any of the same beauty to apologise for it), 
 as our cathedral at Winchester, viz., a front of Grecian 
 architecture. The shops in Eouen are all open to the 
 street, without windows or any sort of defence from the 
 weather, and the women by whom they are universally 
 served sit there from morning to night, at all seasons 
 with a little chauffette under their feet. Here we found 
 ourselves obliged to alter our intended course; for our 
 bankers, Garvie & Co., could not give us 51. in money 
 instead of 60/. which we wanted as much as we pleased 
 in assignats of 800 florins each, but money of any sort 
 was not to be had at Eouen ; so that instead of going 
 from St. Germains to Versailles, and avoiding Paris, we 
 were obliged to go there in search of money that one 
 thing needful, above all on a journey. 
 
 Thursday, 14#A. Left Eouen ; the road along the 
 banks of the Seine beautiful. At Gaillon is a magnificent 
 old chateau, in the real castle style, with turrets, &c., &c., 
 belonging to the Archbishop of Eouen, the Cardinal de la 
 Eochefoucauld, who from 20,000/. a year, half of which 
 they own he gave in charity, is reduced to 1,500/. Lay 
 at Mantes. 
 
 Friday, ~\.bth. Arrived at Paris ; drove to the H6tel 
 d'Orleans, Eue des Petits Augustins ; took the apartment au
 
 216 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 second at 12fl. per day. Found a laquais de place, known 
 to the house, ready for us on the staircase ; got a very 
 good dinner from, a traiteur in less than an hour, and found 
 ourselves as well arranged and as much at home as if we 
 had been here a month. I know no other place where 
 one can have so many comforts in so short a time. The 
 approach to Paris from St. Germain-en-Laye, and more 
 particularly from the beautiful Pont de Neuilly, is worthy 
 to lead to what the people of this country delight to call 
 the first city in the world. The first city in the world is 
 at present much in deshabille ; for what with the number 
 of emigrants caused by the violence and prejudices of the 
 people, the number of others who, without being actually 
 in danger, choose to stand aloof, and see how matters will 
 go, together with another description of people, perhaps 
 not less numerous, who from motives of economy and 
 quiet have retired to their own country-houses, or to those 
 of their relations, or to the provincial towns the streets of 
 Paris, the Palais Eoyal, the Tuileries in short, all places 
 of public resort, exhibit a very different appearance, and 
 seem filled with very different people, from what I re- 
 member them five years ago. The streets are full of fiacres 
 and carts, hardly a gentleman's carriage or a voiture de 
 remise to be seen, at least not one for twenty, and the 
 Palais Royal and Tuileries filled with people of the lowest 
 class, with a very small proportion of those one can sup- 
 pose above it. 
 
 Saturday, 16^. Monsieur de Levis,* to whom we had 
 
 * Le Due Pierre Marc-Gastin de Levis, son of Marshal Levis, was chosen 
 Depute" de la Noblesse of Dijon at the age of twenty-five. He adopted the 
 principles of the Revolution, hut always with great moderation. After the 
 events of the 10th of August, 1792, he quitted Paris and joined the army of 
 the Princes, where he served as a private soldier. He was wounded in the 
 Quiberon expedition, and came over to England, where he published a 
 funeral oration on Louis XVI. and on Marie Antoinette. He returned to 
 France after the 18th Rrumaire, 1808, but occupied himself only with litera- 
 ture. In 1814 he was included in the first promotion of Peers, and again 
 took part in public affairs, as well as in literary pursuits : died Feb. 1830. 
 Biog. Nouvelle des Cantemporains.
 
 1790] PARIS THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 217 
 
 sent, called upon us in the morning. Agreed to meet 
 him upon the terrace of the Tuileries at half-past two 
 o'clock, to go, if possible, into the National Assembly. 
 In the meantime drove to the Porte St. Antoine. Saw 
 the remains of the Bastile; it is now levelled with the 
 bottom of the fosse, and the stones piled up upon every 
 side. There are stiU a number of people at work digging 
 up the foundations. It is, they say, to be levelled to the 
 surface of the ground, and a Place built, to be called that 
 of Louis Seize. 
 
 From the Porte St. Antoine, drove round the Boule- 
 vards, which, in spite of their natural gaiety, have the same 
 neglected look with the rest of the town. The Ambigu 
 Comique, the Theatre Lyrique, and all the little Spectacles 
 of the Boulevards, have got new fronts to their theatres 
 all of them architectural, all of them after the antique, and 
 by no means in bad taste ; indeed, I cannot help thinking 
 the taste for architecture at present in Paris much better 
 than ours in London. All their late buildings are divided 
 into few and large parts, and have an air of grandeur that 
 we have never yet been able to attain in London. Wit- 
 ness that enormous mass of littlenesses at Somerset House. 
 The colonnade of the gay and beautiful fa$ade of the Place 
 de Louis Quinze struck me, however, upon this second 
 view of it, as somewhat meagre, and liable to the very 
 objection I have just been making to our buildings 
 that of being divided into too small parts. 
 
 At half-past two found M. de Levis waiting for us in 
 the Terrace des Feuillans in the Tuileries. The Salle of 
 the National Assembly joins it, and is what was formerly 
 a Manege. We entered it under the auspices of our friend 
 M. de Levis, who is Depute de la Noblesse de Dijon. 
 
 The members have all in their turn, alphabetically, so 
 many tickets to give away. It was not his turn, but as 
 the debate was a dry one upon the equal taxation of 
 different sorts of biens fonciers many people had left
 
 218 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 the gallery, and we got very good places. The room is 
 long, very commodiously fitted up for the purpose, with 
 six or seven rows of benches, one above another, all round, 
 and covered with green cloth, and a door, such as is in our 
 Westminster Hall fitted up for a court of justice. In the 
 middle of one side sits the President at a small table, 
 elevated as high as the last row of benches ; and under 
 him is another larger table, at which sit the clerks and 
 short-hand writers. Opposite the President is a sort of 
 pulpit, in which those who wish to make a speech place 
 themselves; those who have only an amendment to move, 
 an objection to make, or only wish to say a few words, 
 speak in their place. While we were present, there were 
 seldom fewer than three or four speaking at once often 
 many more with such a noise that it was impossible 
 anything could, be heard ; the President in vain ringing a 
 great bell, which stands by him on the table, by way of 
 enforcing silence or drowning other noises, and the criers 
 in vain demanding it ; and when at last some one with 
 strong lungs and much perseverance overcame the rest, 
 he never got a hearing for more than three or four sen- 
 tences, in the course of which something was sure to 
 occur which met with the approbation, or blame, of the 
 major part of the Assembly, and was expressed in an 
 equally vociferous manner by every individual according 
 to his own particular sentiments. Their appearance is 
 not more gentlemanlike than their manner of debating 
 such a set of shabby, ill-dressed, strange-looking people I 
 hardly ever saw together. Our House of Commons is not 
 half so bad. The aristocratical party for such a party 
 there is even in the National Assembly, and a party which, 
 after the present rage for reformation is over, and the 
 people have found that their representatives have destroyed 
 much without having established anything in its place 
 will then come forward, and perhaps have it in their 
 power (if really good patriots) to settle a good constitution,
 
 1790] VISIT TO THE CHAMP DE MARS. 219 
 
 and to restore the degraded monarch to that degree of 
 power which, in a great country like this, it is perhaps 
 necessary he should have, to secure the liberties of the 
 people.* When the Assemblee broke up at four o'clock, 
 we returned to our hotel. 
 
 After dinner, went to the Champ de Mars, now called 
 Le Champ de la Confederation. M. de Levis, who had 
 much recommended our seeing it, called upon us just as 
 we were stepping into the carriage, and accompanied us, 
 which was pleasant, as he explained where everybody sat, 
 how they came in, &c., &c. I should indeed have been 
 sorry not to have seen what I think more truly in good 
 taste and in great style of anything I ever saw in France. 
 The sort of covered pavilion, under which sat the king, 
 the Etats, &c., &c., groups so well with the higher edifice 
 of the Ecole Militaire, which it joins by a covered passage ; 
 the enclosure is so large and so well encadre by the 
 trees round it, and the altar in the middle, though only 
 composed of canvass and boards, is in such perfect good 
 taste, that it puts one in mind of N. Poussin's fine ideal 
 landscapes of Greece. We saw it all by the finest moon- 
 light that ever was, which perhaps was not without its 
 effect upon the whole scene. 
 
 * The following extraordinary performance, that took place in the Na- 
 tional Assembly a few months earlier, presents even a stronger picture of 
 the wild absurdities into which men in a deliberative assembly could be led 
 by the excitement which then prevailed over reason and sense : 
 
 ' L' ASSEMBLES NATIONALS. 
 
 ' Le President annonce qu'une deputation va paroitre, et qu'elle est com- 
 pose"e d'Anglois, de Prusses, d'Hollandois, de Russes, de Polonois, d'Alle- 
 mands, de Suedois, d'ltaliens, d'Espagnols, de Brabancons, de Lie"gois, 
 d'Avignonais, de Suisses, de Genevois, d'Indiens, d'Arabes, et de Chalde"es.' 
 They were headed by a Baron de Cloots du Val de Grace, who acted as 
 ' leur orateur.' They demanded to have a place allotted for them on the 
 day of the Confederation in the Champs de Mars, which was granted by 
 acclamation, and their speaker from that day received the title of TOrateur 
 du Genre ITumain.' 
 
 N.B. His name was Baptiste Cloots, but he called himself afterwards 
 Anacharsis, to avoid a Scriptural name.
 
 220 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1700 
 
 Sunday, Ylth. Left Paris, very much satisfied with 
 the few hours we spent there, and glad to have seen Paris 
 in the very particular situation to which the present state 
 of France has reduced it. At Ponthierry, on the opposite 
 bank of the river Yonne, stands the fine gay-looking 
 chateau of the Duke of Orleans at St. Assis. There are 
 fine woods about it, and the country and banks of the 
 river very beautiful. At Chailly, a post and a half from 
 Fontainebleau, we observed that the bed of the carriage 
 was broken. After some delay, continued our route, and 
 arrived at Fontainebleau ; the roads perfectly good, and 
 they drive faster than in England. The Foret de Fontaine- 
 bleau is one of the most romantic and beautiful parks 
 imaginable, and singular from the large abrupt masses of 
 rocks scattered everywhere in the midst of a flat country. 
 It always puts me in mind of Plumpton, in Yorkshire ; 
 but the rocks here are more considerable, and all covered 
 with common and weeping birches, which add much to 
 their beauty. The Hotel du Grand Cerf inconceivably 
 bad in a town where, from being the occasional residence 
 of the court, a number of strangers of distinction must 
 sometimes lodge. Walked in the gardens of the chateau : 
 these were full of ah 1 sorts of people, in their holiday 
 clothes, which the moment a French man or woman put 
 on, they are anxious to show themselves. In the park, 
 just without the garden, there was a large sort of tem- 
 porary building, where not less than three or four hundred 
 of the common people were dancing away most merrily, 
 both French and English country dances ; and though 
 without much grace, better than any other common people 
 in the world dance. We did not go into the apartments 
 of the chateau, which we had formerly visited; it is 
 an enormous building, and is computed to have 8,600 
 chimneys. 
 
 Monday, ISth. The Charron at Fontainebleau, as 
 usual, not getting his work done as soon as he promised,
 
 1790J NEVERS. 221 
 
 we could not leave Fontainebleau till twelve o'clock ; the 
 first two posts to Nemours, through the forest, and beau- 
 tiful. Slept at Nogent, a poor little village. 
 
 Tuesday, 19^. At Briare, we came upon the banks 
 of the Loire, which runs through a large and highly cul- 
 tivated valley. At Cosne and Pouilly, two wretched little 
 towns or bourgs, they plague you to buy knives and 
 gloves they manufacture their importunity is excessive 
 at the door of the carriage. The people in the neighbour- 
 hood of La Charite were in the middle of their vendange, 
 
 o ' 
 
 and the postilions we got from thence to Pougues were 
 drunk (an uncommon case in France), and nearly over- 
 turned and broke our carriage to pieces in galloping out 
 of the town. Lay at Pougues ; tolerable inn, civil people. 
 Wednesday, 20th. The road from Pougues to Nevers 
 through a rich enclosed country, very like the best part 
 of England. Nevers is a considerable town. We were 
 obliged to stop for nearly an hour, to get the sabot of our 
 carriage mended. The streets through which we passed 
 were ah 1 up hill and down, and, after a long course of 
 fine dry weather, were as wet as if the middle of winter. 
 There is a great manufacture of the very coarsest sort of 
 faience and earthenware at Nevers, which is sent down 
 the river. The women make and bring to the inn bead- 
 work, baskets, and little toys, which they call de Vouvrage 
 a petits grains. The town in general has the appearance 
 of much poverty. One passes a long stone bridge over 
 the Loire, but the country hereabouts all corn-fields and 
 pasturage, enclosed with hedges ; no vines from the south 
 of Pougues till near Eoanne. Moulins is a wretched-look- 
 ing town. The tomb of the Duke of Montmorency, be- 
 headed in the time of Louis Treize,* and which his wife, 
 Marie Orsini, erected to his memory twenty years after 
 his death, in the church of the Visitandines, to which 
 she retired, is grand. The sarcophagus of black marble 
 
 * Executed at Toulouse in 1632.
 
 222 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 upon which the figure of the Duke reposes is noble from 
 its size and colour ; but that of his wife, who is in a weep- 
 ing attitude behind him, does not group with it : still less 
 do the figures of Strength and Liberality, which are sitting 
 in niches far below the sarcophagus, and do not seem to 
 have anything to do with the principal figure, but the 
 sculpture of the Hercules, representing Strength, is very 
 good. Seeing this tomb, and some delay about horses, 
 detained us at Moulins for above an hour, and we did not 
 arrive at La Varenne till near nine o'clock. 
 
 Thursday, 2lst. The country about La Palisse and 
 Droiturier finely waved and covered with low woods. At 
 La Palisse, a romantic old chateau belonging to and in- 
 habited by an old Marquis de la Palisse. The Loire is 
 first navigable at Eoanne, and covered with large roughly 
 constructed boats, which are all sold and broken up down 
 the river. 
 
 Friday, 22nd. From St. Symphorien to La Fontaine, 
 from La Fontaine to Tarare, cross the mountain of Tarare, 
 one of the longest hills I ever saw ; bullocks, as well as 
 horses, are obliged to be put to the carriage. The country 
 hereabouts, and indeed from Eoanne, like the lowest re- 
 gion of the Alps ; flat-topped houses and villages perched 
 upon hills, more like the paysage of Italy than any other 
 part of France that I have seen. The environs to Lyons, 
 by whichever way it is approached, are beautiful. Ar- 
 rived at the Hotel de Provence, and were much disap- 
 pointed at finding our old acquaintance, Mme. Giraud, 
 had left that house and kept another hotel of the same 
 name; we agreed for a salle and three bedrooms, at 
 twelve livres a day. 
 
 Saturday, 23rd. Sent for M. Fels, the civil little banker 
 from whom we had formerly got money, and went to 
 several shops, and in the evening to the play, where 
 Mdlle. St. Val happens to be acting for a few nights. She 
 pleased me much, though in an uninteresting character
 
 1790] BOURGOIN. 223 
 
 in Crebillon's ' Ehadamiste et Zenobie.' She has a charm- 
 ing tone of voice, speaks well, without either ranting or 
 affectation ; her figure and face not remarkable ni en 
 lien, ni en mal. 
 
 Sunday, 2th. It rained ah 1 day. Spoke to two or three 
 different voituriers, all so unreasonable in their demands, 
 asking us nearly the double of what we had formerly paid. 
 
 Monday, 2oth. The voituriers refusing to go for less 
 than thirty-six louis, setting us down at Turin, we deter- 
 mined to take the post to Chambery. Slept at Bourgoin, 
 a poor little town. 
 
 Tuesday, 2Qth. The postilion, in leaving Bourgoin, 
 stopped us at a corps de garde nationale, where our passe- 
 port was demanded, which was one from the French 
 Ambassador in London, which had been signed by the 
 Mayor at Lyons. Our carriage was immediately sur- 
 rounded by a number of people without uniforms or 
 anything else to distinguish them, who, whilst they were 
 examining our passeport and asking eagerly if we were 
 French people, told us they must search our. trunks ' pas 
 pour la contrebande, mais pour des papiers.' This wise 
 demand, an officer of the regular troops told us, there was 
 no avoiding ; when he went into the guard-room with us 
 he told us he saw all the folly, and wished he could pre- 
 vent what they were doing, but did not dare, for fear they 
 should fall upon him, or complain he did not do his duty. 
 Two or three of them immediately mounted upon the back 
 of the carriage and began rummaging over everything in 
 the large trunk behind, where, certainly, if we had been 
 conspirators, it would have been mighty likely we should 
 put our papers ! One of them a saucy lad who called 
 himself a corporal, and was foremost in turning everything 
 dessus dessous when I asked him if he was content, re- 
 plied in the most impertinent manner, ' Non, je ne suis pas 
 content, et ne parlez pas tant vous, cela ne vous fera aucun 
 bien.' Another of -them, observing something sticking
 
 224 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 out of our courier's pocket, came behind him and took 
 them out ; they happened to be bills of the hotel at Lyons, 
 which, I hope, relieved the fears of the patriot. Upon the 
 officers coming out again, and telling them that our passe- 
 port was a perfectly good one, that they saw, or rather 
 heard, we were English, and that having searched our 
 trunk they need not look farther, we were allowed to pro- 
 ceed ; the officer having put upon our passeport ' vu et 
 fouille,' which he said would prevent our being searched 
 again at the Pont de Beauvoisin. I really began to dread 
 being searched at every village. No such thing, however, 
 happened ; and at the Pont, our passeport was only shown 
 to the commandant, and no further trouble given us about 
 papers ; our trunks and imperial were just opened at the 
 douane. At the Pont of Beauvoisin, one passes the Guiers, 
 which separates France from Savoy. From thence one soon 
 gets into Alpine scenery, mounting up the side of the hill 
 with the stream running in some places at an immense 
 depth below. Between Les Echelles and St. Jean des Coups 
 one passes by Le Chemin de la Grotte, a curious passage cut 
 through the solid rock by Emanuel, Duke of Savoy,* in I 
 forget what year. There is an inscription at the entrance, 
 saying when and by whom done, and mentioning it as a 
 work f Romanis intentatum ceteris desperatum. It is ex- 
 cessively steep and narrow, paved with stones, and winds 
 through the steep bare rock which rises like a wall on each 
 side, and seems to shut up both ends ; our six wretched 
 post-horses absolutely refused drawing the carriage, and we 
 were indebted to the assistance of a number of peasants 
 pushing behind, who I fancy attend all carriages they see 
 going up the mountain. Arrived at Chambery. 
 
 Wednesday, 27th. After much talking and trouble, we 
 settled with a voiturier to carry us to Turin, with four 
 horses for our carriage and a bidet for one of the servants, 
 
 * Duke Charles Emanuel of Savoy, in 1670. 
 
 t Written by the Abbe" St. Real, born at Chambery, 1639.
 
 1790] CHAMBERY. 225 
 
 for twenty-six louis d'or, as much as we paid five years 
 ago from Turin to Geneva, a two days' longer journey ; but, 
 before our agreement was drawn up, the man said that we 
 could only make half a day's journey, which would bring 
 us to bad inns every night. Having once before expe- 
 rienced the inconveniences of this, we did not set out till 
 the next morning. I walked all over the town of Cham- 
 bery with my father, over the shoes in mud. Saw the 
 Palace,* a large castle sort of building, round an irregular 
 court. The king's apartment is demeuble every winter, 
 and in this condition we saw it. In the evening, walked 
 through the mud to the theatre ; it would have held 
 Drury Lane within it. There was a large box in the 
 middle for the court, but so empty a theatre I think I 
 never saw : there might be about thirty people in the pit, 
 not near a dozen in the boxes, including ourselves, and 
 yet we had ' Les Deux Nieces' and ' L'Amant Bourru,' very 
 tolerably acted; and a very tolerable orchestra, com- 
 posed, I fancy, of the band of the regiment. In the next 
 box to us sat a French cordon-bleu, and another gentle- 
 man, with whom I had some conversation. I found he 
 was an officer in the French Garde du Corps, and had 
 escaped from Paris after the memorable days of October 
 last. He said he had been at Chambery ever since, and 
 that it was wonderful the number of French scattered all 
 over Savoy and Piedmont. 
 
 Thursday, 28th. Left Chambery. The day was very 
 fine, and we walked, I dare say, four or five miles. It is 
 impossible to describe the sublime beauties of every inch 
 of the road, which made a hardly less strong impression 
 upon me at this third view than they did the first time. 
 
 Friday, 29th. Left Aiguebelle at 6 A.M. ; arrived at La 
 Chambre about ten. Finding we made our first stage 
 
 * Several towers and other fragments exist of the ancient castle of the 
 Dukes of Savoy. The Gothic chapel built within its enclosure, 1415, sur- 
 vived the conflagration of 1798. Murray's Handbook. 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL, [1790 
 
 so easily, we begged our voiturier to change the dinner 
 into a breakfast giving oread, butter, and milk, instead 
 of roasts and bouillies. It rained violently all the early 
 part of the morning ; turned out a fine afternoon, which 
 we enjoyed by taking a long walk. We were joined 
 by a young peasant coming from the fair at St. Jean 
 Maurienne. He gave us a great deal of information, in 
 his way, about the country : he said that the French 
 people, who used to come and buy great quantities of cattle 
 at their fair, now brought it to sell ; so that there was 
 more cattle to sell, and less sold, than ever had been re- 
 membered. We were much amused at St. Jean Maurienne 
 at driving through the fair, which is held on the outside 
 of the town ; it was entirely for cattle and for selling 
 ready-made clothes to the people. The road, for two 
 leagues on each side of the town, was enlivened by strings 
 of peasants bringing their cattle from the market mostly 
 goats and sheep which they buy at this season, to kill 
 and salt for the winter : and some, but few, pigs. The 
 pigs cost 40 livres of this country (21. English), and the 
 goats about 5s. : the prices seem to me to bear no pro- 
 portion to each other. Arrived at St. Michel. The au- 
 berge bad ; but I must observe that they are all greatly 
 improved since we were here six years ago. 
 
 Saturday, 30th. Eoad from St. Michel often upon 
 the edge of precipices, which, in any other place, might 
 make one tremble ; but here one is never afraid ; the road 
 in general well made. All the little villages, without 
 exception, through which we passed, are so miserably 
 paved, and the streets so narrow and often so steep, that it 
 is wonderful how any carriage, however strong, holds to- 
 gether passing over them. I thought them worse now than 
 they even were formerly ; and the voiturier said that, the 
 princes of Piedmont not having come this way for these 
 two years past, they had been shamefully neglected. In 
 coming through St. Andre, one of the worst and steepest
 
 1790] LANSLEBOUEG. 227 
 
 of these miserable places, the street was so narrow, and the 
 jolts so violent, that our imperial hit against the project- 
 ing roof of a house, and brought down one of the great 
 stones with which they are covered ; this stone tore off 
 two of the staples which fastened the imperials, broke one 
 of the check-braces, and took off the top of one of the 
 lanterns. Arrived at Lanslebourg. 
 
 Sunday, 31st. Left Lanslebourg at half-past 7 A.M. 
 Our carriage had been all taken to pieces the night 
 before, and ought to have started long before us ; but it 
 was Sunday, and though we paid forty shillings to have a 
 mass said at five o'clock for the carriers, they did not set 
 out above an hour before our chairs, and we soon passed 
 them upon the road. We were lucky in having exceed- 
 ingly fine weather, and found this crossing the mountain, 
 as we always have done, a most agreeable day's journey. 
 We got to the Hospital, about the middle of the plain at 
 the summit, in an hour and a half, and found our old 
 friend the pretre, with whom we had formerly dined, 
 recollecting us perfectly, and very glad to see us again. 
 His house is much improved ; he has now a very comfort- 
 able, clean, whitewashed room, hung with maps, by way 
 of salon, and two or three very decent beds in other rooms, 
 and a good kitchen. I found that, since we saw him, Mr. 
 Trevor and several other people had at different times 
 stayed several days with him, and indeed I should think, in 
 the middle of summer, nothing could be pleasanter, or 
 more conducive to health. We were served by a very 
 clean woman, who brought us excellent cream, bread and 
 butter, eggs, a couple of boiled trout from the lake, which 
 are famous, apples and grapes (which are foreign luxuries), 
 and, in short, everything that is necessary to make an ex- 
 cellent meal in that keen mountain air. We found no 
 snow upon Mont Cenis, but a very considerable degree of 
 frost and snow upon all the mountains above the plain ; 
 and the north wind, to which we luckily had turned our 
 
 Q2
 
 228 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 backs, was piercing. We left the top of the mountain about 
 eleven, and got to La Novalese at one o'clock ; arrived at 
 Susa soon after four. Walked to the remains of the Arch of 
 Triumph erected to Augustus.* From the description of 
 it, I expected to see a mere skeleton, but was agreeably 
 surprised to find a very beautiful shaped arch, supported 
 by two Corinthian pillars, and an enriched frieze in quite 
 as good preservation as any of those at Eome ; it stands 
 in the garden of the Governor's house, and is joined to 
 another more modern, though hardly less curious, ruin of 
 a castle of the middle ages. Susa appeared to us, after the 
 towns of Savoy, magnificent ; the streets are tolerably wide, 
 some of them with arcades, and (for Italy) rather clean. 
 
 Monday, November 1st. Left Susa. We have found 
 all the road upon this route much worse than formerly, 
 owing, the people say, to none of the princes having been 
 in Savoy for these two years past ; we went a snail's pace, 
 and were jumbled to pieces. When we got to Turin, we 
 went first to the Auberge Eoyale, which was quite full ; 
 then to the Armes d'Angleterre, the next best hotel. Here 
 they showed us two rooms only, very bad accommodation, 
 for which they asked ten livres a day. Thought we should 
 do better at La Bonne Femme, and found all full there, 
 and returned to the Armes d'Angleterre, but were stopped 
 from driving into the court : a gentleman had in the 
 meantime taken the rooms. We were now at a loss what 
 to do. I knew of no other hotels in Turin ; the people 
 mentioned an Hotel de Provence, a vile place which my 
 father went to look at, arid which luckily was quite full. In 
 the meantime the voiturier and a civil coffee-house man 
 
 * Erected by Julius Cottius, son of King Donnus, about 8 B.C., in honour 
 of Augustus. This chieftain of the Alpine tribes, having submitted to the 
 Roman authority, records his dignity under the humbler character of Pre- 
 fect ; the inscription, now nearly defaced, states the names of his fifteen 
 mountain clans, whilst the basso-relievos represent the sacrifices (suove- 
 taurilia) and other ceremonies by which the treaty was ratified and con- 
 cluded. Murray's Handbook.
 
 1790] LETTERS FROM ME. WALPOLE. 229 
 
 proposed our going to the Dogana Vecchia, an auberge 
 I had never even heard of ; thither we went, and found 
 room enough, but not a bit better accommodated than 
 we should have been in one of the smallest towns in 
 Italy common brick floors, doors and windows that 
 would not shut, dishes full of oil and garlic, &c. After all 
 this trouble in lodging ourselves, we had the much greater 
 annoyance of being disappointed of the letters we ex- 
 pected, and for which we sent in vain to the post and to 
 the banker's. I cannot describe, and I am sure I do not 
 wish anybody to experience, the regret and discomfort we 
 felt. We had desired everybody to direct to us at Turin, 
 and expected a large bundle of letters, but having foolishly 
 forgotten to desire our friends to put ' par Paris ' on the 
 address, they had all gone round by Germany, and we had 
 arrived before them. This the banker told us the next 
 morning, and comforted us as to the safety of our letters, 
 but still we must wait for them a cruel time. 
 
 Amongst the letters expected in 'the large bundle,' 
 and soon after recovered, were certainly those from Mr. 
 Walpole. The three following, directed to Miss Berry 
 at Turin, have happily been preserved : . 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1790. 
 
 Yesterday was so serene, and the wind so favorable, that I 
 hoped the pacquet was ready and that you sailed. To-day is 
 blowing, and more to the south. I wish for a brisk wind to 
 carry you swiftly ; yet, if I could hold the bag, I should open it 
 so timorously, that Boreas would not be able to squeeze his 
 puffed cheeks thro' the vent, tho' I might hear of you sooner. 
 Then I shall long for a line from Kouen, and then from Lyons, 
 and most of all from Turin. Oh ! how you have made me long 
 to dip deep into the almanac, and even into that of next year, 
 tho' it is most prodigal in me to be willing to hurry away a day, 
 who may have so few in bank. 
 
 Yesterday morning I had just framed Wolsey, and hung 
 him over the chimney of the little parlour, when the D M of
 
 230 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 Gloucester came, and could scarce be persuaded it was the work 
 of Agnes; but who else could have painted it? Melbourne, who is 
 here drawing from some of my pictures for his prints to Shake- 
 speare, cried out at it as the finest piece of water-colours he ever 
 beheld, before he knew whose work it is. This was my employ- 
 ment yesterday, but not the only one ; for I had my lawyer with 
 me to prepare for securing Cliveden, if I should not have ano- 
 ther almanac ; and he's to bring me a proper clause on Monday 
 next. 
 
 At night. 
 
 The wind has been so high since noon that I should have been 
 very uneasy if it were not full south-west, with which I think 
 you could not sail. I have been fully apprehensive about the 
 whole of your journey, but had not foreseen that I should be 
 alarmed about your voyage. Now I am impatient for a letter 
 from Dieppe! 
 
 I have dined to-day at Bushy with the Gruilfords, where were 
 only the two daughters, Mr. Storer, and Sir Harry Englefield, 
 who performed en professeur at the game I thought Turkish, 
 but which sounds Moorish ; he calls it, Bandalore. I had written 
 a note to Mrs. Grrenville to inquire its name, but I think this 
 will serve, as you only wanted to be told some name, no matter 
 what, as one does about a new face : ' Who is that ? ' One cares 
 not whether the reply is Thompson or Johnson. 
 
 This will be only a journal of scraps till you are settled some- 
 where, and I can write regularly. Moreover, it is the only way 
 of filling random letters unless I were to indulge myself on the 
 theme that for your sakes I will avoid. I am little likely here 
 to learn or do anything worth repeating ; yet, if you will be 
 content with trifles, my wanting better subjects shall not be an 
 excuse for not writing. It is a common plea with the unwilling; 
 and persons abroad, I know, are often told by their correspondents, 
 who have not the grace of friendship before their eyes, that 
 they did not send them news, concluding they had better infor- 
 mation. I may apologize for writing too often, but have too 
 much pleasure in conversing with you in any manner, to lose 
 the opportunity, provided I can hope to give you the least enter- 
 tainment. Kemember, however, that I ask no punctuality of 
 replies nay, beg you to restrain them. You are young, have 
 much to revisit, many pleasures, I fervently hope, to enjoy;
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S KIND CONSIDERATION. 231 
 
 many friends besides to write to, and your healths to re-establish. 
 I certainly have nothing to do that I like half so well as writing 
 to you two. Do but tell me in short notes y r stations, y r motions 
 and intentions, and particularly how you both do, and I shall be 
 content : I do give you my word I shall. Writing is bad for 
 delicate constitutions ; in the day you must sacrifice some 
 sight or amusement ; at night you may be writing too late, or 
 fatiguing y r self when you should repose. Never, 1 beseech you, 
 let the person who studies y r well-being the most be accessory 
 to causing you the least trouble, disquiet or disorder. This is a 
 positive injunction. Good night. 
 
 Wednesday night, 13th. 
 
 I received y r kind letter from Brighth. this morning, and give 
 you a million of thanks for it. It gives me some hopes that you 
 might be landed on Tuesday morning before the wind changed 
 and rose ; but it revived a thousand more anxieties. I do not 
 like a vessel smaller than the pacquet; and the tempestuous 
 wind of yesterday shocks me, lest it should have overtaken you 
 at sea. That good soul Miss Seton walked over from Eichmond 
 to communicate her letter to me how I love her for it ! And she 
 had previously called at Cambridge's to consult him, when his 
 son George, who has often crossed to Dieppe, assured her the 
 vessel wonld put back to England, or put into Boulogne on 
 change of the wind. It may be so, but I cannot get out of my 
 head the storm of yesterday, every blast of which made me 
 quake and tremble more now lest you should have been in its 
 power ! Oh ! when shall I hear you are safe ? I have written 
 to Mrs. D., and told her y r being summoned on board suddenly 
 prevented y r writing to her. 
 
 As you desire my second letter might be directed to Turin, I 
 have settled with good Miss S. that she shall write this next Fri- 
 day to Lyons, and that I will defer this till Tuesday for Turin ; 
 that you may be sure of a letter either at the one or the other, 
 and know why you do not hear from us both at once. I hope 
 in Grod you are safe, and that my fears are groundless ! All my 
 letters and fears are for both, which I will not repeat any more. 
 As I shall always I find be writing, you will order any letters to 
 be sent after you from Turin, till I know how to direct farther 
 on. When you are settled anywhere, I shall be more composed, 
 and will think of the more insignificant things of the world.
 
 232 LETTEKS. [1790 
 
 Friday, 15th. 
 
 Words cannot tell what I have felt, and do now feel ! The 
 storm on Tuesday terrified me beyond measure, and so I have 
 remained till this minute, that Mrs. D. has most humanely sent 
 me an express to tell me you are landed. I must send him 
 back with this, and will instantly send to Miss Seton to tell her 
 the happy news, and to Cambridge. I am not composed enough 
 to say anything else; but I will write again on Tuesday. 
 Heaven preserve you all ! 
 
 I have not got my letter yet, but am easy for the present. 
 
 Saturday night, Oct. 16, 1790. 
 
 The hurry and confusion in which I finished my letter this 
 morning which I had prepared for the post, will have told you 
 better than I can describe the terror I have been under from 
 the storm of Tuesday, and ever since, and the transport of a 
 line from Mrs. D. to tell me you are landed. I will not dwell but 
 on one circumstance, but a dreadful one ! I saw in yesterday's 
 newspaper that two boys had been lost off Plymouth on Tuesday 
 night. You, I believe, know how affection's imagination travels 
 on such an occasion ! My letter from you I have not yet received, 
 but expect to-morrow morning, and then will resume the subject 
 of y r voyage. Now my fears are returning to land. 
 
 This will not depart till Tuesday ; yet I have chosen to stay 
 at home and write to you, for my thoughts are not resettled 
 enough for anything else. I met Gr. H. on Wednesday, who 
 was beginning to condole with me on losing you, but the storm 
 was in my head and I cut him short crossly, for as you are no 
 longer my wives but my children, I can talk of you to nobody 
 but those who love you almost as much as I do. 
 
 Not having been out of my house these three days, nor scarce 
 seen a soul in it, I am not yet come to my worldly talk, but hope 
 to be able to entertain you a little soon arrive but at Turin. 
 I know nothing but two events, not likely to please you. 
 
 Poor Mr. Ogilvie* has been near killed at Groodwood by an 
 astonishing indiscretion of his own. He went, yes, and with 
 one of his daughters, and without even a stick, into an inclosure 
 where the duke keeps an elk. The animal attacked him, threw 
 
 * Ogilvie, Esq., who was married to the Duchess Dowager of 
 
 Leinster, sister to the Duke of Richmond.
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S ANXIETY ABOUT THE BERRYS. 233 
 
 him down, gored him, bruised him in short, he is not yet out 
 of danger. 
 
 Boyd is made governor of Gibraltar, and somebody, I know not 
 whom, is appointed lieutenant-governor in the place of y r friend 
 O'Hara I know not how or why, but shall be sorry if he is 
 mortified, and you consequently. 
 
 I believe I have one or two nephews in war going with the 
 guards to the West Indies, and therefore one or two nieces that 
 are mourning brides but I do not inquire, for I should be a 
 poor comforter just now. The proclamation is out for the Parl. 
 meeting the 25th of next month ; but the definitive Porter from 
 Spain, that is to open or shut Janus's gates, is not expected 
 back till the 27th of this. That is all I can tell Mr. Berry. 
 
 Sunday, noon. 
 
 Here is y r letter from Dieppe as I expected, and strange it 
 is, that as much as I abhor sea-sickness myself, I am very hard- 
 hearted about yours to have been only less sick than usual, 
 when I would have compounded for y r both rivalling the cascades 
 of St. Cloud, if I could have been certain that you would soon 
 be as dusty as those of Versailles. Oh ! don't talk of it but 
 what harlequin of a Triton whisked y r vessel about so as to escape 
 the tempest, tho' you were 27 hours at sea? nay, are not you 
 silent about it, lest you should give me a posthumous panic ? 
 Thank Grod you are all safe! 1 will say no more of the storm, 
 tho' I shall not forget it, nor recover soon of that sea-sickness. 
 
 I think it probable that good Miss Seton* may take a walk 
 hither after church, as October is dressed out in all its diamonds ; 
 I have my coach ready to convey her back if she does if not, 
 I will call on her this evening ; we must drink the health of y r 
 sea-sickness. 
 
 I have seen nothing of the Hamptonians ; I could not bear 
 to go to them, while my mind was so agitated consequently I 
 know nothing of the person who was to come to town yesterday, 
 to be married on the 20th ; but I do know that his aunt at the 
 foot of yonder hill had heard nothing of it four days ago, nor 
 believes a word of it nor has her brother been near town these 
 two months. 
 
 * A cousin of Miss Berry's then on a visit in the neighbourhood of 
 Strawberry Hill. M. B.
 
 234 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 Mrs. D. dines here to-morrow, and will probably carry this to 
 town with her for Tuesday's post but I may add a few words. 
 
 Sunday night. 
 
 If I could continue to predict as well as I have done to-day, 
 I would turn prophet, and I know what I would foretell. Miss 
 S. did come to me, and we had an hour and half of comfortable 
 conversation, and nobody interrupted us, nor would any mortal 
 have been welcome. You may guess the topics the storm 
 was not forgot. We saw Wolsey over his chimney in a comely 
 frame of black and gold, and to-morrow the paper-man cornes 
 to new hang the room in sober brown suiting the occasion. As 
 she was going she desired me to read to her Prior's * Turtle and 
 Sparrow,' and his 'Apollo and Daphne,' with which you were so 
 delighted, and which, tho' scarce known, are two of his wittiest 
 and genteelest poems. There should be new way-posts on our 
 common roads to some of our best poets, since Dr. Johnson, 
 from want of taste and ear, and from mean party-malice, 
 defaced the old indexes as the mob do milestones. 
 
 I have heard at Eichmond this evening that at Baling the 
 match is talked of as indubitable ; yet yesterday morning the 
 old gran dam in Pallmall disavowed it, and laid the invention 
 on L. M. C. From all this you will not much expect to hear 
 the ceremony is performed. L d Stopford marries the D. of 
 Buccleugh's eldest daughter ; the D 98 gives her 20,000?., the 
 Duke 10,OOOL, and they settle 15 more. 
 
 Oct. 22, 1790. 
 
 Though Mrs. D. and Mrs. B. recommended y r going thro* 
 Paris, I should have had a new alarm could I have known you 
 would be reduced to take that route but you had left it before 
 I had any apprehension of it, and I hope are actually at Lyons, 
 or beyond it. Still I shall not feel comfortably till I hear from 
 Turin and what an age that will be ! 
 
 I was in town yesterday ; passed the evening with Mrs. D., 
 where were Mrs. B. and the Charming Man ; I did not see 
 another creature, and returned hither to-day, but I shall go 
 again on Thursday to take leave of Mrs. D., who sets out on 
 Saturday. She writes to you to-night, for which reason I 
 agreed I would not till Tuesday and indeed I have already 
 said all I have to say, or at least all I will say. Three days may 
 furnish something. The Johnstones have been at Nuneham, and
 
 1790] THE PENNS LADY GOODERE. 235 
 
 are actually at Park Place, or I might have heard more of 
 Marchioness to be or not to be, for those I saw in town knew 
 not a tittle more of the matter, yet the Ides of March, i. e. the 
 20th of October, are come and gone ! consequently Faith 
 minifies, instead of increasing; and unless Lord Abercorn insists 
 upon the King's declaring that she was born a marchioness, I 
 doubt whether she ever will be one. 
 
 My dates hitherto have been, of the 12th, to Lyons ; of 16th, 
 19th, and this, to Turin. Whither I am to direct next I shall 
 not know till you tell me. 
 
 Sunday, 24th, after dinner. 
 
 I should be tired of talking of the silly Miss and her match, 
 and of inquiring about them, if you had not charged me to send 
 you the progress of a history that at the eve of y r departure 
 revived so strangely, without having had a beginning. In its 
 present stage it is a war of duchesses. The bride's aunt firmly 
 asserts it is to be ; the bridegroom's grandmother positively 
 denies it and she ought to know as first inventress. In the 
 mean time no sposo appears, nor his parents, M house 
 wanting repainting in short, everybody but the ducal aunt 
 suspects Hie letter was fictitious somewhence or other. 
 
 I have called twice on Miss Seton at Kichmond, and made 
 her very happy by your safe arrival at Paris. I went afterwards 
 to Lady Betty Mackinsey, where the Comtesse Emilie played 
 admirably on the harp. The Penns were there, and delighted 
 to hear of you. Lady Dillon told me she heard Lady Groodere 
 say that I have been mighty obliging, and offered to buy the 
 furniture if she and her knight would stay in my house. I am 
 rejoiced at having been so civil, without having said or intended 
 any such thing. I have agreed to buy the furniture, but I do not 
 believe it is for the Gooderes, tho' it may be for the good year. 
 I wish I was as sure that the one is true, as I am certain that 
 the other is false ! 
 
 I can tell Mr. B. nothing about War or Peace. We have a 
 fleet mighty enough to take, aye, and bring home, Peru and 
 Mexico, and deposit them in a West India warehouse vis a vis 
 that in Leadenhall Street. Tho' we should come by them a 
 little more honestly than we did by the diamonds of Bengal, I 
 shall not be sorry if we make peace and condescend to leave the 
 new world where it was.
 
 236 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 Mr. Burke's pamphlet is at last literally advertised for the 
 first of November. 
 
 Monday, 25th. 
 
 The little parlour is new hung, and Wolsey has been installed 
 this morning, and proclaimed president of all the waterworks 
 in the world, with shouts of Viva Santa Agnese ! With these 
 festivities I must conclude for this post. Disposed as I am to 
 be always writing to you two, be sure matter, outward matter, 
 only is wanting. I send you heaps of trifles, lest I should omit 
 anything you might like to know, especially as I know not 
 when you will see an English newspaper. You are not to answer 
 any of these trumpery articles let me write, it amuses me ; but 
 remember you are gone for your healths, and are not to be 
 sitting against the edge of a table. Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. I have just permitted four foreigners to see my house, 
 tho' past the season, because all their names end in i's, and I 
 must propitiate Italians, when you are, as I hope, on Hesperian 
 ground. 
 
 JOUKNAL. 
 
 Tuesday, 2nd. We sent a civil note to Mrs. Trevor, 
 asking her commands for Florence. She answered us 
 that she was at home till the hour of the opera, and 
 hoped to see us, and sent us the key of a box, which we 
 declined, but went to her soon after five in our riding 
 habits. Several people came in, all French, of whom her 
 society at present chiefly consists. She said so much 
 about our going to the opera, and that there was no im- 
 propriety in our dress, that we stayed till between eight 
 and nine, when her whist party was finished, and then 
 accompanied her to the Carignano Theatre. It has been 
 burnt down and rebuilt since we saw it last, and is much 
 neater arid prettier no gilding, but the boxes painted 
 like stucco ornaments, upon a pale green ground, in very 
 good taste. The opera, 'La Zingara in Fiera,' very pretty ; 
 the prima donna an admirable singer. I asked in vain for
 
 1790] FROM TURIN TO FLORENCE. 237 
 
 her name : she was La Prima Donna, and nobody knew 
 more of her. The theatre crowded with French people. 
 Our box was full of them the whole night ; among others 
 the Due de Bourbon,* who seems a civil, good-humoured, 
 gentlemanlike, stupid man. The Trevors pressed us much 
 to stay and see the hunt at Stupinigi the next day, offer- 
 ing to carry us first there, and then to Moncalieri (the 
 first post on our journey onwards), and where (they said) 
 our carriage might meet us. We therefore agreed, if my 
 father permitted us, to accept the proposal. 
 
 Wednesday, 3rd. We had intended leaving Turin by 
 the post, but the voiturier who brought us from Cham- 
 bery persuaded my father that he would carry us as well. 
 I confess, after having had the experience of a long jour- 
 ney, with one very stupid servant and another very use- 
 less one, I was not sorry to be saved the trouble of all 
 the bargains, &c., necessary at Italian inns and Italian 
 rivers, &c., &c. He was to carry us from Turin to Flo- 
 rence in ten days, stopping half a day at Parma and a 
 whole day at Bologna, we paying all expenses of crossing 
 rivers, &c., for thirty-two louis d'or. At eleven o'clock 
 
 * Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon and Prince de 
 Cond^, born April 1756, married, April 1770, Marie-Thdrese d'Orleans, who 
 died in January 1822. He was the son of Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, 
 who died 1818, and was the father of the unfortunate Due d'Enghien. In 
 1770 he fought a duel with the Comte d'Artois, on account of a quarrel 
 which had taken place at a masquerade. In 1789 the Duke quitted France 
 with the rest of the family of the Prince de Conde", and retired to Brussels. 
 In 1793 he, with the Due d'Enghien, joined the Prince de Conde in the 
 Black Forest, where three generations were seen combating together. After 
 the campaign of 1800 he accompanied his father to England, and was 
 residing at Wanstead House, in Essex, at the time of the murder of his 
 son in 1804. In 1814 he returned to France. In August, 1830, at his 
 Chateau de St. Leu, he was found suspended by his own neckerchief to the 
 iron central fastening of the window. The body was quite cold when the 
 attendants forced their way into the room. His fortune passed to the Due 
 d'Aumale, with enormous legacies to Dame Sophia Dawes, Baroness of 
 Feucheres, with whom he lived, and who was in the house at the time of 
 his death. Thus perished the last member of the House of Conde". Ann. 
 Register.
 
 238 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 we went from Mr. Trevor's in his coach-and-four to Stu- 
 pinigi, where we found relays, and dogs, and horses, and 
 people wandering, but heard nothing of the chase. Here 
 Mr. Trevor mounted his horse and joined the hunt, we 
 continuing in the carriage and driving about till we heard 
 the stag was killed ; then our carriage drew up in an allee, 
 through which ah 1 the princes and their suites on horse- 
 back, and all the ladies in carriages, passed us. The 
 king* rode up and spoke to Mrs. Trevor; he is a very 
 gentlemanlike old man, easy and dignified in his manner. 
 The Prince de Piedmont is the oddest, ugliest-looking 
 being I ever beheld, il abuse du privilege non settlement 
 qu'ont les homines, mais les princes, d'etre laids. They say 
 he has a great deal of natural wit, penetration, and clever- 
 ness. The Prince de Carignan seems grown a great awk- 
 ward ill-looking young man ; his mother was ill, and not 
 there. The Comte d'Artois, a great deal fatter and better- 
 looking than when we saw him at Paris ; his two sons,f 
 charming, pretty boys, on horseback. They were all in 
 uniforme de chasse, red, faced with blue, and a broad 
 silver lace, ugly in itself, but gay and pretty in the field. 
 After passing us, they went to the Curee, where all the 
 carriages were drawn up. We avoided as much as we 
 could so disgusting a sight. Afterwards, all the court, 
 princes, &c., &c., went to Stupinigi in their carriages ; 
 we followed, and then went in for a moment with Mr. 
 Trevor to the Great Hall, where the guards, officers, ladies, 
 &c., were waiting. Without being in good and true taste, 
 the Palace of Stupinigi is gay-looking and magnificent, 
 the hall particularly so exactly like a fine opera scene. 
 We returned to our carriage, and there sat till all the court 
 
 * Vittorio Amedeo HI. 
 
 t Due d'Angouleme (afterwards Dauphin) and the Due de Berri, sons of 
 the Comte d'Artois and of Marie-Th^rese of Savoy. The Due d'Angouleme 
 accompanied his father to Turin in 1789, and spent there more than a year 
 with his grandfather, the King of Sardinia. The Due de Berri, born 1778, 
 was sent to Turin for his education. Chalme>-is Biographical Dictionary.
 
 1790] FROM TURIN TO FLORENCE. 239 
 
 passed to go to the Palace at Montcaillier, whither we 
 followed them. I neglected to count the carriages, but I 
 think there were certainly above a dozen all atteles de 
 six chevaux, and near a hundred people on horseback 
 ecuyers, pages, &c., &c. accompanying them. At Mont- 
 caillier there was a fair through which the court passed, 
 and the number of people which this had brought together 
 was uncommonly gay and pretty. We were told that 
 almost every horse in Turin was there, and that for saddle- 
 horses people had given as much as forty livres. We 
 left Mrs. Trevor at the Minister's house, much pleased with 
 our morning entertainment, and with her and Mr. Trevor's 
 politeness to us. We left Montcaillier in our own carriage 
 about three o'clock, and reached Villa Nuova at seven ; 
 the night was very fine, so we were not discomposed 
 at being above an hour in the dark. 
 
 Thursday, kth. Left Villa Nuova. Asti, a comfortable, 
 bustling-like town. Between Asti and Felizano they are 
 now making a fine new road, at a great expense in le- 
 velling the ground ; it will save a considerable detour. 
 Arrived at Felizano ; a wretched inn, where I was eaten 
 up with fleas. 
 
 Friday, 5th. Arrived at Alessandria. Walked about 
 with my father. It is a considerable town. The place 
 in which the fair is held (which lasts for eighteen days 
 twice a year, in May and October) is a large square, 
 covered in, and divided into streets of shops, like the 
 Palais Eoyal. When full of people, and lighted up, it 
 must look very gay and pretty. It belongs to the town. 
 The shops are let, many of them, for 400 or 500 florins 
 a year that is to say, 20/. or 25Z. a year. There are 
 about thirteen or fourteen Palazzi Cavalieri in Alessan- 
 dria two in particular, belonging to a Marchese Gillini 
 and a Marchese Cassini, are in a style of magnificence 
 with respect to outward appearance, to size, entry, and 
 staircase, of which London, and I had almost said Paris,
 
 240 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 has no idea. On the other side of Tortona we crossed 
 the Scrivia, of which I have always retained a disagree- 
 able impression, from the danger and plague we once 
 had upon its banks. It was now very quiet, and we 
 got over without difficulty in the carriage, though the 
 boat seems neither larger nor more convenient than when 
 we first passed. Between Tortona and Voghera we also 
 passed another little river the Corion the channel much 
 narrower, but, from the appearance of the banks and a 
 strange awkward-looking boat lying upon them, I should 
 suppose it might sometimes be troublesome. Getting in 
 and out of the broad stony channels of these rivers, even 
 where the waters themselves are passed without difficulty, 
 is always a disagreeable job, and should be avoided in the 
 dark. Voghera is a neat little town, enclosed with an 
 old wall. 
 
 Saturday, Qth. Arrived at Castel S. Giovanni. It had 
 frozen, and been excessively cold, in the early part of the 
 morning. The sun was so powerful by the time we 
 arrived that, after breakfast, we sat and wrote and drew 
 in the loggia or open gallery of the inn. 
 
 Arrived at Piacenza at 5 P.M. All about Piacenza great 
 flat grass fields, at this time of the year beautifully green, 
 and in which are pasturing those fine white-and-dun- 
 coloured cattle peculiar to this country, and which I think 
 the handsomest in the world. Before Piacenza, crossed 
 the Trebia : the channel, I am sure, cannot be less than 
 three-quarters of a mile wide ; the stream itself is consi- 
 derable, though we passed it with ease a gue. 
 
 Walked out to the Piazza to look at the two equestrian 
 statues ; that of Eanuzio [Farneze] is the best, but they 
 are both too much in the French flattering manner, and 
 neither of them very good, though their effect is fine 
 from size and situation. The bronze basso-relievos upon 
 the pedestals, which I do not recollect remarking for- 
 merly, are good ; they are executed in a singular
 
 1790] FROM TURIN TO FLORENCE. 241 
 
 manner. There is a new fagade of buildings, built by 
 the town, for shops and private houses ; the Duke of 
 Parma gave 400 sequins towards it. In the middle is a 
 corps de garde. Walked to the Corso, which is really a 
 noble street, to see Vignola's fine church, to which they 
 are putting a new front, or rather finishing it ; it is 
 doing at the expense of the chapter it belongs to, the 
 architect a Cav r Morigi. It has been five years in pro- 
 gress, is to be finished in two more, and to cost 14,000 
 sequins.* The Palazzo Scotti, one of the largest and 
 finest in Piacenza, has been all painted and repaired 
 since we were last here ; and, indeed, Piacenza in gene- 
 ral, and all the towns we have passed through in Italy, 
 strike me as much improved less dirty and more com- 
 fortable -than they appeared formerly. Whether this is 
 really so, or is only the effect of coming direct from France 
 to Italy, which we did not before, I know not; certain it 
 is that every little Italian town is a paradise in com- 
 parison to places of the same size in France. Here the 
 streets are always straight, well paved, and clean, and 
 there is always much space both within and without, 
 which is seldom the case in France. In Piacenza, one of 
 the most wretched large towns I know in Italy, there are 
 a number of magnificent-looking palaces, and a hundred 
 private carriages are kept. The common people in the 
 town certainly have the appearance of great poverty, and 
 probably are poor, having no manufactures, little foreign 
 commerce, and living one upon another; but the country 
 people are all well clothed, and look fat and fair and com- 
 fortable, even to English eyes. 
 
 Sunday, 1th. Left Piacenza ; Arrived at Borgo S. Do- 
 nino. It has rained every day, more or less, for this 
 
 * Church of San Agostino, desecrated and closed, and in danger of demo- 
 lition. This church, by Vignola, is a very noble fabric. The nave is sup- 
 ported by thirty-four Doric columns. Murray's Handbook. 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1790 
 
 month past. At Fierenzuola we passed the Lara, a great 
 channel, with hardly any water in it ; there is a brick 
 bridge, to cross where there is too much water. The 
 country the same uninterrupted rich grass and corn-fields, 
 with rows of vines down them and along every hedge. 
 
 Monday, 8th. Left Borgo S. Donino for Parma. After 
 breakfast, went to the Academia, the Teatro Grande, 
 and the Campanile Eeale, which are all under one roof. 
 Correggio does not delight me more than formerly ; his 
 boasted grace is to me affectation has no simplicity, no 
 dignity about it, and never touches me. I thought more 
 than ever of the great theatre. If one can fancy such a ruin 
 new and clean, it must have been magnificent, but, like 
 many of the great works of little man, much too big for him. 
 From the boxes the figures of persons upon the stage are 
 lost, but their voices, from its admirable construction, are 
 heard, without the least elevation, from one end to the other. 
 At the printing-office they go on very slowly, but their 
 work is excellent : they had just finished an impression of 
 three hundred copies of the ' Castle of Otranto,' for Ed wards 
 the bookseller in London, and five copies upon vellum. 
 With the director (Bodoni), who seems to be a clever man 
 and fond of his art, I had a good deal of conversation in a 
 bookseller's shop. Few books, I fancy, are sold at Parma ; 
 the shop we were in, though the principal one, poorly 
 supplied. They are furnishing another long gallery with 
 books at the Eoyal Library, which is open to everybody. 
 The church of S. Antonio, which I remember pleased 
 me much formerly, had not the same effect ; it is gay, 
 but gewgaw and trumpery. 
 
 Tuesday, 9th. It had rained all night, and continued 
 pouring; heard it would be impossible to cross the Secchia 
 and get to Modena at night. We resolved, however, to get 
 to Eeggio. The rain still pouring, crossed upon a brick 
 bridge a river which divides the states of Parma from 
 Modena; it entirely filled its wide channel, and was rush-
 
 1790] PROM TURIN TO FLORENCE. 243 
 
 ing like a torrent, every ditch was a considerable stream, 
 and many of the fields overflowed. In the midst of all 
 this rain, there were three or four lively flashes of light- 
 ning, and loud thunder at a distance. Arrived at Eeggio 
 at 4 P.M. 
 
 Wednesday, Wth. We were destined to stay here the 
 whole day. After breakfast walked ah 1 over the town of 
 Eeggio ; it is not well built (for Italy), though there are 
 some handsome palaces. In the Duomo there is a monu- 
 ment to a bishop* a single figure sitting upon a sarco- 
 phagus of no contemptible sculpture. The shops poor, and 
 many beggars. The Duchess of Modena, separated from 
 her husband, the duke,f for these twenty-five or twenty- six 
 years, has lived here constantly. Her palace by no means 
 a fine one, just under the ramparts. She is dying of a 
 complication of disorders. 
 
 Thursday, \\th. Left Eeggio for Modena. We passed 
 the Secchia in a good boat; the river had got back into its 
 usual course, but had completely filled its channel, which 
 was now mud and pools of water ; the boatman said no 
 creature had passed it the day before. There is a new 
 brick bridge built over the river here ; it has been finished 
 these three years, but nobody is yet allowed to pass over 
 it, nor will not, they say, till the spring ; the road is 
 raised up to the bridge at each end, so that it is impos- 
 sible in future that the river should ever stop the road. 
 There is a wooden bridge, a post and a half up the river, 
 which can be crossed when the boat cannot pass. The 
 courier from Bologna came that way yesterday ; a Swiss 
 family did the same, from Eeggio, last night. The road to 
 it very bad, they say. I always remembered Modena as 
 a remarkably pretty, neat town, and was not disappointed 
 in it. Went to see the duke's palace, which, when here 
 
 * The tomb of Ugo R.'tr goni, Bishop of Reggio. 
 t Hercule III. 
 
 H 2
 
 244 MISS BEEEY'S JOUENAL. [1790 
 
 before, was not to be seen. The outside front by Dulens, 
 famous for its four orders of architecture, is magnificent. 
 In the apartments are some very fine pictures, which the 
 duke has collected from all the churches in his dominions, 
 giving them copies. The recesses of all the windows are 
 hung with drawings, some very fine. The ball-room is 
 monstrously heavy. The duke never inhabits this apart- 
 ment ; it is kept, the custode told us, for foreign princes 
 visiting him, which I fancy never happens, except the 
 Duke of Milan and his daughter, who come to see him 
 every year for a day or two. 
 
 Friday, ~L2th. Left Modena. Before Samoggia we 
 passed the Panaro in a boat ; it is a deep, narrow, rapid 
 river, the banks steep, and consequently there is a great 
 difficulty in getting in and out of the boat. Close by the 
 ferry there was a bridge, which the stream had carried 
 away, and is now rebuilding ; it has four sorts of square 
 towers, one at each corner, which looks handsome ; when 
 finished, the access to Modena on both sides can never 
 again be interrupted by weather. At entering the Pope's 
 dominions, they ask for contrebande only to get two or 
 three paoli ; there is no examination bulletin or other 
 trouble. 
 
 Arrived at Bologna before 3 P.M. Bologna struck me 
 as looking dirty and dark after the great regularity of 
 Modena, but it is a bustling place, with more appearance 
 of business and population than almost any other town in 
 Italy that I know. We found the Pellegrino still an ex- 
 cellent inn ; our bill there for dinner, beds, &c., fifty-three 
 paoli. We walked to the Sampieri Palace, or Galleria, as 
 it is called, for the pictures are in an unfurnished terreno 
 apartment of a palace which the family do not inhabit. 
 Albani's 'Children' did not delight me quite so much as 
 formerly Guercino's 'Abraham and Hagar,' if possible 
 more than ever. The 'St. Peter and St. Paul' is a won- 
 derful painting ; it is Guido with the colouring of Titian,
 
 1790] FROM TURIN TO FLORENCE. 245 
 
 but it is a picture that never gave me great pleasure. 
 This fine collection is so settled by the family to whom it 
 belongs, that it never can be sold. Failing male heirs, it 
 goes to the Institute, or Public Academy. 
 
 Saturday, 13th. Left Bologna. The Apennines I think 
 less disagreeable upon this second view of them than I 
 did formerly ; they are mostly covered with chesnut woods, 
 which, though generally small and stunted, are here and 
 there fine picturesque trees. The inhabitants seem pecu- 
 liarly wretched and poor. Arrived at Cavagliajo before 
 six. At the Dogana di Pietra Mala, our trunks, &c., were 
 sealed and a bulletin given, which carries us into Florence. 
 Paid only six baiocchi from hence to Cavagliajo. The 
 roads well kept. An almost continual descent. The vol- 
 cano we did not see ; either from the great fog, or from 
 the quantities of rain lately fallen, it may be extinguished 
 for a time, which they say often happens. 
 
 Sunday, 14#A. Left Cavagliajo. The views beautiful. 
 Arrived at Maget's, at Florence ; took possession of the 
 same apartment we had occupied there six years before. 
 Found ourselves again disappointed in our hopes of re- 
 ceiving letters, and were very melancholy. 
 
 The following letter from Mr. Berry to his friend Mr. 
 Bertie Greathead* explains the motives that determined 
 his leaving Florence. It was at Florence, upon a former 
 occasion, that Miss Berry says, in her autobiography, that 
 she first felt how entirely dependent she was on her own 
 resources for her conduct, respectability, and success. It 
 would seem by the following letter that the change from 
 Florence to Pisa was the result of his daughter's prudence 
 
 * Bertie Greathead, Esq., son of Samuel Greathead of Guy's Cliff, near 
 Warwick, by Mary, daughter of the second Duke of Ancaster. When in 
 Italy, in 1785, he was one of the contributors to the 'Florence Miscellany.' 
 He was also the author of a tragedy called ' The Regent.' The ' Florence 
 Miscellany ' was unsparingly attacked by Gifford in his ' Baviad and 
 Mteviad.' Ann. Register:
 
 246 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 on the subject of the society collected together at the 
 former : 
 
 Florence, 7th December, 1790. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have delayed thanking you for your kind com- 
 munications to us before we set out, and for your letter to Prince 
 Corsini, till I could give you some satisfactory account of our- 
 selves, and of our motions past and intended. Here we have 
 been above three weeks, after an agreeable enough journey 
 through France and Savoy, without meeting with any mishap 
 worth mentioning. Since our arrival our time has been spent, 
 as you may suppose, in reviewing with fresh pleasure the many 
 productions of the fine arts here that since our first visit had 
 left on us an impression of their beauty. Here, at first, we 
 thought of establishing ourselves for good, but the mildness of 
 the climate of Pisa, and my daughters not choosing to form any 
 liaison with some of our countrywomen who happen to be here 
 at present, nor to give offence by shunning their company, 
 made us resolve to spend the three winter months there, and to 
 return to Florence in March. 
 
 Your letter has procured us every kind civility and attention 
 from the Corsini family. Not many hours after I left my card 
 at le Palais Corsini, the Grand Priore called and sat an hour 
 with us. Many enquiries were made after you and your family. 
 He then invited us two days after to a ballet champetre, which 
 every Sunday evening he gives to the peasants in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Fiesoli, where he has a country house and sleeps 
 every night. To his ball the girls and I went, and much enter- 
 tained we were with the perfect ease, and at the same time good 
 behaviour, of the contadini, and of the kind affability of II 
 Grand Priore towards them. My daughter Mary danced the 
 whole evening with these happy and seemingly innocent country 
 lads and lasses, with one of whom II Principe himself, though 
 as you know a little stricken in years, danced down a country 
 dance. We have since dined with them in a family way most 
 agreeably. The Prince and Princesse Corsini, his brother, with 
 Don Tomaso, the son and heir of the family, with two friends 
 of the family, were the whole company. Madame la Princesse 
 has since called on my daughters, and introduced us to the 
 Cassine, where you know the noblesse here meet every evening 
 to walk about, play at cards, &c., which, though tiresome enough
 
 1790] THE CORSINT FAMILY. 247 
 
 to us, is no less obliging in the kind Corsinis for wishing and 
 taking pains to contribute to our amusement. I mention these 
 circumstances to show the attention that has been paid to your 
 letter, and to let you know how much we think ourselves obliged 
 to you for it. 
 
 Mrs. Greathead and you will be pleased to hear that my 
 daughters have already reaped benefit from the change of air 
 and exercise since they left England. Agnes has recovered her 
 complexion, and I trust in Grod they will both return to England 
 in better health than when they left it. They desire me to tell 
 you that Italy charms them on a second visit as much as it did 
 on the first. Quieter, as you observe, it certainly is, but not 
 less attractive, and we are now more at leisure to observe its 
 beauties of art and nature. 
 
 But, as even the charms of Arno's Vale cannot for any length 
 of time compensate the loss of social joys, with much pleasure 
 we look forward to the winter following, when we hope to 
 return home, and flatter ourselves that you and Mrs. Grreathead 
 will often find leisure to cheer our fireside in North Audley 
 Street, where I hope you will sometimes find a small circle of 
 friends with souls congenial to your own. . . . 
 
 I ever am, my dear Sir, your faithful, humble servant, 
 
 E. BEERY. 
 
 Amongst the letters addressed to the Miss Berrys at 
 Florence, and of which they were disappointed on first 
 arriving, were those from Mr. Walpole and from Mrs. 
 Darner. Notwithstanding Mr. Walpole's fears for the 
 safety of his friends, their journey through France was 
 accomplished without danger ; but of his grief at losing 
 those loved companions, and his constant anxiety about 
 them during their absence, there can be no doubt. They are 
 thus feelingly described by Mrs. Darner, who was herself 
 on the point of leaving England for Lisbon, on account of 
 her health : 
 
 Thursday, Oct. 30, 1790. 
 
 . . . Mr. W. comes to-day. I know how melancholy 
 he will be, for we have no letters from you yet, and I fear that 
 I shall leave London without hearing again. . . Jerningham
 
 248 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 told me that the night Mr. W. was here (he set Mrs. B. and 
 him down), when he got into the coach he could not contain 
 himself. There was nothing melancholy he did not say. He 
 was quite in an agony. I have not written to him for fear that, 
 seeing a letter come from me, he should be disappointed in find- 
 ing that I had no news from France. 
 
 Hertford Bridge, Oct. 30, 1790. 
 
 ... I left Mr. W., I really think, in health well ; but he 
 receives no degree of comfort as to his fears, nor will, till he 
 hears and receives letters from another country. The interest 
 and tenderness he shows makes me feel infinitely more sensibly 
 giving him any additional pain, and depriving him of the satis- 
 faction he may, heaven knows ! indulge with me of saying all 
 he thinks. 
 
 The three following letters from Mr. Walpole were 
 addressed to the Miss Berrys at Florence : 
 
 [Str., Sunday, Oct. 31, 1790. 
 
 Perhaps I am unreasonably impatient, and expect letters 
 before they can come. ... I have got one to-day, but 
 alas! from Pougues only, 11^ posts short of Lyons! Well! 
 I must be happy for the past, and that you had such delight- 
 full weather, and but one little accident to y r carriage. We 
 have had equal summer till Wednesday last, when it blew a 
 hurricane. I said to it, * Blow, blow, thou winter wind, I don't 
 mind you now.' But I have not forgotten Tuesday, 12th. And 
 now I hope it will be as calm as it is to-day on Wednesday 
 next, when Mrs. Darner is to sail. I was in town on Thursday 
 and Friday, and so were her parents, to take our leaves, as we 
 did on Friday night, supping all at Eichmond House. She set 
 out yesterday morning, and I returned hither. 
 
 I am glad you had the amusement of seeing the National 
 Assembly. Did Mr. B. find it quite so august as he intended 
 it should be ? Burke's pamphlet is to appear to-morrow, and 
 Calonne has published a thumping one of 440 pages.* I have 
 but begun it, for there is such a quantity of calculations, and 
 one is forced to bate so often to boil milliards of livres down to 
 
 * Lettre sur 1'fitat de la France, present et a venir.
 
 1790] WALPOLE TO THE MISS BEKEYS. 249 
 
 a rob of p ds sterling, that my head is only filled with figures 
 instead of arguments, and I understand arithmetic less than 
 logic. 
 
 Our war still hangs by a hair, they say, and that this ap- 
 proaching week must terminate its fluctuations. Brabant, I am 
 told, is to be pacified by negotiations at the Hague. Tho' I 
 talk like a newspaper, I do not assume their airs, nor give my 
 intelligence of any sort for authentic, unless when the 'Gazette' 
 endorses the articles. Thus Lord Louvain is made Earl of 
 Beverley, and Lord, Earl of, Digby ; but in no Gazette, tho' 
 still in the Songs of Sion, do I find that Miss Gr.* is a marchion- 
 ess. It is not that I suppose you care who gains a step in the 
 aristocracy, but I tell you those trifles to keep you au courant, 
 and that at y r return you may not make only a baronial curtsy, 
 when it should be lower by two rows of ermine to some new- 
 hatched countess. This is all the news-market furnishes. 
 
 Your description of the National Assembly and of the Champ 
 de Mars were both admirable ; but the altar of boards and 
 canvass seems a type of their perishable constitution, as their 
 air-balloons were before. French visions are generally full of 
 vapour, and terminate accordingly. . . .] 
 
 You licence me to direct this to Bologna, but I prefer Flo- 
 rence, and always think that the less complicated the manoeuvres 
 of the post, the safer. 
 
 You say nothing of y r healths how are Miss Agnes's 
 teeth? Don't omit such essential articles. Miss Seton has 
 called here again to-day, and was delighted to see y r letter 
 which I had just received. She does not leave Eichmond till 
 Tuesday, and is to write to me for news of you, if she is long 
 without hearing from one or other of you. I proposed this 
 to her, not only for her satisfaction, but that you may not 
 be worn out by writing. For this reason I make my letters 
 shorter, to set you the example, tho' I promise not to omit a 
 tittle that I can think you would like to know ; and in that 
 light nothing will seem too insignificant to tell you. Even arti- 
 cles that would scarce do for home consumption acquire a value, 
 I know, by coming from home. Besides, Lord Hervey, I think, 
 is not at present at Florence, and you may not see a newspaper. 
 
 * Meaning the reported marriage of Miss Gunning to the Marquis of 
 Blandford.
 
 250 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 Those wretched Tatlers, that one so justly despises on their 
 own dunghill, are welcome abroad in hopes of finding a barley- 
 corn or two that are eatable. 
 
 I shall go to Park Place next Saturday, 6th. You know why 
 I postponed my visit so long. I announce it to you now, 
 because I shall probably not write on the following Tuesday, 
 but wait till Friday, 12th, when I shall be returned hither, for 
 I do not love letters taking so many hops before they get into 
 the high post road. 
 
 P.S. Monday. No letter from Lyons. It may be in B. Sq., 
 and I may get it to-morrow ; but it will be after this is gone by 
 the coach to my servant in town. If I do get it, it will not 
 damp my impatience for one from Turin, nor that extinguish the 
 same eagerness for one from Florence in short, I shall not be 
 perfectly indifferent till I know you settled somewhere. 
 
 [Park Place, Nov. 8, 1790. 
 
 No letter since Pougues ! I think you can guess how uneasy 
 I am ! It is not the fault of the wind, which has blown from 
 every quarter. To-day I cannot hear, for no post comes in on 
 Mondays. What can have occasioned my receiving no letter 
 from Lyons, when on the 18th of last month you were within 
 twelve posts of it ? I am now sorry I came hither, lest by my 
 change of place a letter may have shuttlecocked about, and not 
 have known where to find me. 
 
 The first and great piece of news is the pacification with 
 Spain. The courier arrived on Thursday morning with a most 
 acquiescent answer to our ultimatum what that was I don't 
 know, nor much care ; peace contents me, and for my part I 
 shall not haggle about the terms. 
 
 The pacification of Brabant is likely to be Volume the Second. 
 The Emperor and their Majesties of Great Britain and Prussia, 
 and his Serene Highness the Eepublic of Holland have sent a 
 card to his turbulent Lowness of Brabant that they allow him 
 but three weeks to submit to his old Sovereign, on promise of a 
 general pardon, or the choice of threescore thousand men ready 
 to march without a pardon. 
 
 The Third Volume expected, but not yet in the press is a 
 counter-revolution in France. ... In this country the stock 
 of the National Assembly is fallen down to bankruptcy. Their
 
 1790] CONTINENTAL IMPOSITIONS. 251 
 
 only renegade aristocrat Earl Stanhope has (with Lord W. 
 Kussell) scratched his name out of the ^Revolution Club, but 
 the fatal blow has been at last given by Mr. Burke. His 
 pamphlet carne out this day se'nnight, and is far superior to 
 what was expected even by his warmest admirers. I have redde 
 it twice, and tho' of 350 pages, I wish I could repeat every 
 page by heart. It is sublime, profound, and gay. The wit and 
 satire are equally brilliant, and the whole is wise, tho' in some 
 points he goes too far ; yet in general there is far less want 
 of judgment than could be expected from him. If it could be 
 translated, which from the wit and metaphors and allusions is 
 almost impossible, I should think it would be a classic book in 
 all countries, except in present France. To their Tribunes it 
 speaks daggers, tho', unlike them, it uses none. Seven thou- 
 sand copies have been taken off by the booksellers already, and 
 a new edition is preparing. I hope you will see it soon. There 
 ends my gazette.] 
 
 To-day is very line, and the wind has been favourable these two 
 days for Mrs. Darner. I am out of humour with Miss Foldson.* 
 Tho' paid for, she has not yet sent y r pictures, and has twice 
 broken her promise of finishing them. 
 
 I have taken a great liberty, which I hope Mr. B. will for- 
 give, tho' a breach of trust. Having only a coach myself, and 
 Saturday being very wet, and being afraid of a bad hired chaise, 
 I did allow myself to use his hither. I will do so no more. 
 
 I reserve the rest of my paper for, I hope, an answer. ! I 
 do hope so. 
 
 [Str., 9th, at night. 
 
 This morning, before I left Park-place, I had the relief and joy 
 of receiving your letter of Oct. 29 from Lyons. It would have 
 been still more welcome if dated from Turin ; but as you have 
 met with no impediments so far, I trust you got out of France 
 as well as through it, I do hope too that Miss Agnes is better, 
 as you say ; but when one is very anxious about a person, cre- 
 dulity does not take long strides in proportion. I am not sur- 
 prised at your finding voiturins or anybody or anything dearer. 
 Where all credit and all controul are swept away, every man 
 will be a tyrant in proportion to his necessities and his strength. 
 Societies were invented to temperate force ; but it seems force 
 * Afterwards Mrs. Mee.
 
 252 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 was liberty ; and much good may it do the French with being 
 delivered from everything but violence ! which, I believe, they 
 will soon taste pro and con.] For the impositions on you there 
 is a remedy at Charing-cross. 
 
 I have received all your five letters. / have sent three to 
 Turin of 16, 19, 25 of Oct., and one of Nov. 2 to Florence. 
 
 To-day's paper says the ratification of the peace with Spain is 
 arrived. The Stocks are extremely pleased with it. 
 
 I thought in one of my last that Lord Hervey was in England, 
 but it is only my Lady, as his cousins told me yesterday at P. P. 
 
 [You make me smile by desiring me to continue my affec- 
 tion. Have I so much time left for inconstancy ? For three 
 score years and ten I have not been very fickle in my friendships 
 in all those years I never found such a pair as you and y r 
 sister. Should I meet with a superior pair but then they must 
 not be deficient in any one of the qualities which I found in you 
 two why perhaps I may change ; but with that double mort- 
 gage on my affections, I do not think you are in much danger 
 of losing them. You shall have timely notice if a second couple 
 drops out of the clouds and falls in my way. 
 
 Nov. llth. 
 
 I had a letter from Mrs. Darner at Falmouth. She suffered 
 much by cold and fatigue, and probably sailed on Saturday 
 evening last, and may be at Lisbon by this time, as you, I trust, 
 are in Italy. 
 
 Mr. Burke's pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price's head. He 
 got upon a table at their club, toasted to our Parl. becoming a 
 National Assembly, and to admitting no more peers of their 
 assembly having lost the only one they had. They themselves 
 are very like the French Etats. Two more members got on 
 the table (their pulpit) and broke it down. So be it! 
 
 The Marquisate * is just where it was. To be and not to be. 
 Dss. Argyll is said to be worse. Delia Crusca f has published a 
 poem called the Laurel of Liberty, which, like the Enrages, 
 has confounded and overturned all ideas. There are gossamery 
 tears and silky oceans. The first time to be sure that anybody 
 
 * The reported marriage of Miss Gunning to the Marquis of Blandford. 
 t Robert Merry, Esq., tho object of the caustic satire of Mr. Gifford in 
 the Baviad and Moeviad.
 
 1790] ANIMOSITY OP THE FJJENCH. 253 
 
 ever wied cobwebs, or that the sea was made of Padua soy. 
 There is besides a violent tirade against a considerable person- 
 age, who, it is supposed, the author was jealous of as too much 
 favoured a few years ago by a certain countess. You may guess 
 why I am not more explicit ; for the same reason I beg you not 
 to mention it at all ; it would be exceedingly improper.] 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Nov. 13, 1790. 
 
 Oh ! yes, yes, Chambery is more welcome than Turin, tho' I 
 thought nothing could make me so happy as a letter from the 
 latter ; but Chambery is nearer, and has made me easy sooner. 
 What a melancholy forlorn object did I think that antique capi- 
 tal of a dismal dutchy formerly ! It looked like a wife who had 
 been deserted by her husband for many years, and kept at his 
 old mansion at Westmorland, while he was living with an 
 actress in London. Now I am surprised the King of Sardinia 
 does not return to that delightful spot, which appears to me 
 like the palace of the sun, diffusing light and warmth even to 
 the northern islands. With what anxiety did I read your letter 
 while you were in the hands of the savages at Burgoin ! I 
 figured them with scalping knives and setting up a war-whoop ! 
 But you are all safe, and I shall not have another panic till you 
 are returning, which I hope will not be thro' European Abys- 
 sinia, that land of hysenas ! Pray burn all my letters ; I trem- 
 bled when they were ransacking y r trunks, lest they should meet 
 with any of them ; for tho' I was very cautious while you were 
 in France, I was afraid that my eagerness to learn y r arrival at 
 Turin might be misinterpreted, tho' meaning nothing but impa- 
 tience to know you out of France, into which I hope you will never 
 set y r feet more, but return home thro' Switzerland and Flanders, 
 which I conclude will be resettled shortly. At any rate, I insist 
 on y r burning this, that you may not forget it and have it in y r 
 trunk. I was the more alarmed, as I have lately heard that 
 Lord Bruce* and Mr. Locke,f whom Miss Agnes has rivalled, 
 riding out in Languedoc, escorted by two national guards, and 
 the former spitting, the wind carried the spittle on one of those 
 heroes, on which they seized our countrymen and imprisoned 
 them all night in a sentry-box, for imprisonment is the charac- 
 teristic of liberty, and when all men are equal, accidents are 
 
 * The late Marquis of Ailesbury. 
 
 t William Locke, Esq., of Norbury, in Surrey.
 
 254 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 punished as only crimes used to be ; which makes it delicious 
 to live in a state of nature ! I am so relieved by y r letter that I 
 do not believe I shall be uneasy about you again this month. 
 About Miss Agnes, yes, unless I hear she is as well as if every day 
 was a Chambery-day. By the way, you affront my dear city 
 by calling it a dirty place. So far from that, it is snug, beau- 
 tiful, sublimibus alta columnis, and deserves to be the metro- 
 polis of Europe. 
 
 You must have been charmed at the comedie. I was, 
 tho' not there, and prefer Mdlle. (what is her name?) to the 
 Sainval. In short, I am so content that I shall not inquire 
 any more about the foreign post, nor care whether you write to 
 me or not ; at least, pray don't plague me with long letters the 
 moment you arrive anywhere fatigued and cold. Seriously, I do 
 beg of you not to write long letters ; let me chatter to you as 
 much as I will. My mind is at peace, which it has not been 
 at all since the first moment you talked of passing thro' 
 France, and I was not the happiest man in the world from the 
 day Mr. Batt told me of y r intention of going abroad. After 
 both came the storm the day } T OU sailed. Chambery has made 
 amends for a good deal, and I will pass a few oh ! I fear more 
 than a few months contentedly ; but then there is to come a 
 journey back not through France, I hope : the sea to cross, 
 which I shall not leave out of my reckoning a second time ! All 
 may be forgotten, if I see you next autumn at Cliveden, at y r 
 own Cliveden, alias little Chambery. 
 
 I know nothing, nothing at all ; but I go to town to-morrow 
 for two days, and may pick up something; but I could not help 
 indulging my joy by writing this against Tuesday's post, tho' I 
 wrote but yesterday. For the future I will not be so intempe- 
 rate. I have sent a line from Chambery to Miss Seton, and 
 shall dispatch another by the first packet to Lisbon, for I am 
 not so very particular. Others can be anxious about you as well 
 as I. 
 
 [Berkeley Square for now you are clear of the Abyssinians, 
 no place is afraid of signing its own name Tuesday, 15th. 
 
 I might as well be in a country village. You will not be a 
 tittle the wiser for my being in London, which is still a solitude. 
 I have not heard a syllable of news. I supped at Miss Farren's * 
 
 * Afterwards Countess of Derby.
 
 1790] DELAYS OF THE POST. 255 
 
 last night. There were only Lord Derby and Lady Milner ; * 
 the latter produced a letter from her sister-in-law, Mrs. Sturt, 
 where Lord Blandford is and has been these three months. She 
 says he has heard of his pretended letter, f laughs at it, and pro- 
 tests it is not his, nor is there the least foundation for it. 
 
 Mrs. Darner did not sail so soon as she expected ; at least, 
 the wind was contrary both on the Saturday and Sunday ; but it 
 has been favourable since, and I hope she is at Chambery poh ! 
 I mean Lisbon. 
 
 If I learn nothing before to-morrow, when I shall return to 
 Strawberry, I shall let this amble to Florence without a word 
 more. Adieu !] 
 
 Saturday,, Ilth December. (Journal.) Left Florence as 
 soon as the gates opened, which was only at seven o'clock. 
 The road to Pisa excellent, mostly along the banks of the 
 Arno. 
 
 Miss Berry's correspondence with Mr. Walpole in Eng- 
 land, and with Mrs. Darner in Portugal, was subject to 
 many disappointments, and the letters as well as jour- 
 nals contain often-repeated lamentations on the vexatious 
 delays of the post. The extracts here given from Mrs. 
 Darner's letters, together with Mr. Walpole's letters, were 
 received by Miss Berry during their residence at Pisa. 
 
 From Mr. Walpole. 
 
 [Str., Thursday, Nov. 18, 1790. 
 
 On Tuesday morning, after my letter was gone to the post, I 
 received y rs of the 2nd (as I have all the rest) from Turin. 
 You will find my Tuesday's letter, if ever you receive it, in- 
 toxicated with Chambery, for which and all your kind per- 
 sonality I give you a million of thanks. But how cruel to find 
 that you found none of my letters at Turin ! There ought to 
 have been two at least, of Oct. 16th and 19th ; but alas ! from 
 ignorance, there was par Paris on none of them, and the Lord 
 
 * Diana Sturt ; married to Sir William Milner, of Nunappleton, in 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 t Relative to the pretended marriage with Miss Gunning.
 
 256 LETTEBS. [1790 
 
 knows at how many little German courts they may have been 
 baiting ! Eepose you will have at Florence, but I shall fear the 
 winter for you there. I suffered more there by cold than by 
 any place in my life, and never came home at night without a 
 pain in my breast, which I never felt elsewhere ; yet then I was 
 very young and in perfect health. If either of you suffer there 
 in any shape I hope you will retire to Pisa. 
 
 My inquietude, that presented so many alarms to me before 
 you set out, has, I find, and am grieved for it, not been quite 
 in the wrong. Some inconveniences, I am persuaded, you have 
 sunk ; yet the difficulty of arriving at Dieppe, and the ransack 
 of y r poor harmless trunks at Burgoin, and the wretched 
 lodgings with which you were forced to take up at Turin, count 
 deeply with me, and I had much rather have lost all credit as a 
 prophet, since I could not prevent y r journey. May it answer 
 for y r healths ! I doubt it will not in any other respect, as you 
 have already found by the voiturins. In point of pleasure, is 
 it possible to divest myself so radically of all self-love as to wish 
 you may find Italy as agreeable as you did formerly ? In all 
 other lights I do most fervently hope there will be no draw- 
 backs to your plan. Should you be disappointed any way, you 
 know what a warm heart is open to receive you back, and so 
 will your own Cliveden be too. 
 
 I am glad you met the Bishop of Arras,* and am much pleased 
 that he remembers me. I saw him very frequently at my dear 
 old friend's, and liked him the best of all the Frenchmen I 
 ever knew. He is extremely sensible, easy, lively, and void of 
 prejudices. Should he fall in y r way again, I beg you will tell 
 him how sincere a regard I have for him. He live:! in the 
 strictest union with his brother, the Archbishop of Tours, whom 
 I was much less acquainted with, nor know if he be living. 
 
 Miss Foldson has not yet sent me y r pictures. I was in 
 town on Monday, and sent to reproach her with having twice 
 broken her promise. Her mother told my servant that Miss 
 was at Windsor, drawing the Queen and Princesses. That is 
 not the work of a moment. I am glad all the Princes are not 
 on the spot.] The Chaiming Man passed Tuesday here, and 
 
 * M. de Couzies. In 1801 he declined the Archbishopric of Paris, offered 
 him by Bonaparte, and died in London in the year 1804, in the arms of the 
 Comte d'Artois. Wright .
 
 1790] LATE HOURS. 257 
 
 part of yesterday, and I carried him back to Lady Mount Edg- 
 cumbe ; to-day he goes to Park-place, and thence to Nuneham. 
 Old Brutus was at the point of death the night before last ; I 
 have not heard of her since. 
 
 [I think of continuing here till the weather grows very bad, 
 which it has not been at all yet, tho' not equal to what I am 
 rejoiced you have found. I have no Somerset or Audley Street 
 to receive me. Mrs. Darner is gone, too ; the Con ways remain 
 at Park-place till after Christmas. It is entirely out of fashion 
 for women to grow old and stay at home in the evening. They 
 invite you, indeed, now and then, but do not expect to see you 
 till midnight, which is rather too late to begin the day, unless 
 one was born but 20 years ago. I do not condemn any fashions 
 which the young ought to set, for the old certainly ought not; 
 but an oak that has been going on in its old way for an hundred 
 years cannot shoot into a Maypole in three years, because it is 
 the mode to plant Lombardy poplars. What I should have 
 suffered if your letters, like mine, had wandered thro' Ger- 
 many ! I, you was sure, had written, and was in no danger. 
 Dr. Price, who had whetted his ancient talons last year to no 
 purpose, has had them all drawn by Burke ; and the Revolution 
 Club is as much exploded as the Cock Lane Ghost ; but you, in 
 order to pass a quiet winter in Italy, would pass through a fiery 
 furnace. Fortunately you have not been singed, and the letter 
 from Chambery has composed all my panics, but has by no 
 means convinced me that I was not perfectly in the right to 
 endeavour to keep you at home. One does not put one's hand 
 in the fire to burn off a hangnail ; and, tho' health is delightful, 
 neither of you were out of order enough to make a rash experi- 
 ment. I w d not be so absurd as to revert to old arguments, 
 that happily proved no prophecies, if my great anxiety about 
 you did not wish in time to persuade you to return thro' Swis- 
 serland and Flanders, if the latter is pacified and France is not, 
 of which I see no likelihood. Pray forgive me, if parts of my 
 letters are sometimes tiresome; but can I appear only and 
 always cheerful when you two are absent, and have another 
 long journey to make aye, and the sea to cross again ? My 
 fears cannot go to sleep, like a paroli at faro, till there is a 
 new deal, in which even then I should not be sure of winning. 
 If I see you again, I will think I have gained another milleleva, 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 LETTEES. [1790 
 
 as I literally once did, with this exception, that I was vehe- 
 mently against risking a doit at the game of travelling. Adieu !] 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Friday night, Nov. 27, 1790. 
 
 I am waiting for a letter from Florence, not with perfect 
 patience, tho' I could barely have one, even if you did arrive as 
 you intended, on the 12th. But twenty temptations might have 
 occurred to detain you in that land of eye and ear-sight. My 
 chief eagerness is to learn that you have received at least some 
 of my letters. I wish too to know, tho' I cannot yet, whether 
 you would have me direct par Paris, or as I did before. In 
 this state of uncertainty, I did not prepare this to depart this 
 morning ; nor, tho' the Parliament met yesterday, have I a syl- 
 lable of news for you, as there will be no debate till all the 
 members have been sworn, which takes two or three days. 
 Moreover, I am still here ; the weather, tho' very rainy, is quite 
 warm, and I have much more agreeable society at Eichmond, 
 with small companies and better hours than in town, and shall 
 have till after Christmas, unless great cold drives me thither. 
 Lady Di, Selwyn, the Penns, the Onslows, Douglas's, Mackinsys, 
 Keenes, Lady Mt. Edgcumbe, all stay, and some of them meet 
 every evening. The Boufflers's, too, are constantly invited, and 
 the Comtesse Emilie sometimes carries her harp, on which they 
 say she plays better than Orpheus ; but as I never heard him on 
 earth, nor chez Proserpine, I do not pretend to decide. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam * has been here too, but was in the utmost 
 danger of being lost on Saturday night, in a violent storm be- 
 tween Calais and Dover, as the captain confessed to him when 
 they were landed. Do you think I did not ache at the recollec- 
 tion of a certain Tuesday, when you were sailing to Dieppe ?] 
 
 .Mr. Cambridge sent me notice yesterday that he and his 
 daughter have let y r house very favorably for five months, 
 will you forgive me when I own I was glad it was for no longer ? 
 His Parnassian vein is opened again ; it is full moon. 
 
 Particularly to Miss Agnes. 
 
 [Sunday, 28th. 
 Tho' I write to both at once, and reckon your letters to come 
 
 * Richard, seventh and last Viscount Fitzwilliam, the munificent bene- 
 factor to the University of Cambridge, died 1816.
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S OPINION OF COREEGGIO'S WORKS. 259 
 
 equally from both, yet I delight in seeing y r hand with a pen 
 as well as with a pencil, and you express yourself as well with 
 the one as with the other. Your part in that which I have been 
 so happy as to receive this moment has singularly obliged me, 
 by your having saved me the terror of knowing you had a tor- 
 rent to cross after heavy rain. No cat is so afraid of water for 
 herself as I am grown to be for you. That panic, which will 
 last for many months, adds to my fervent desire of your return- 
 ing early in the autumn, that you may have neither fresh water 
 nor the silky ocean to cross in winter. Precious as our insular 
 situation is, I am ready to wish, with the Frenchman, that you 
 could somehow or other get to it by land ' Oui, c'est une isle 
 toujours, je le sjais bien ; mais, par exemple, en allant d'alentour, 
 n'y auroit-il pas moyen d'y arriver par terre ? '] 
 
 I was delighted, too, to hear yesterday from Mr. C., from y r 
 sister's letter, that you had recovered your healthy looks ; pray 
 bring them back with you. Y r house is let for six months, and 
 at seven guineas a week. This and the rest is to both, and in 
 answer. 
 
 [Correggio never pleased me in proportion to his fame. His 
 Grace touches upon grimace ; the mouth of the beautiful angel 
 at Parma curls up almost into a half moon. Still I prefer 
 Correggio to the lourd want of grace in Guercino, who is to me 
 a German edition of Guido. I am sorry the bookseller would 
 not let you have an * Otranto.' Edwards told me above two 
 months ago that he every day expected the whole impression, 
 and he has never mentioned it waiting for my corrections. I 
 will make Kirgate write to him, for I have told you that I am 
 still here. We have had much rain but no flood, and yesterday 
 and to-day have exhibited Florentine skies. 
 
 From town I know nothing but that on Friday, after the 
 King's speech, Earl Stanhope made a most frantic speech on the 
 National Assembly, and against Calonne's book, which he wanted 
 to have taken up for high treason. He was every minute in- 
 terrupted by loud bursts of laughter, which was all the answer 
 he received or deserved. His suffragan, Price, has published 
 a short, sneaking, equivocal answer to Burke, in which he pre- 
 tends his triumph over the King of France alluded to July, 
 not to October, tho' his sermon was preached in November. 
 Credat but not Judseus Apella as Mr. Burke FO wittily says 
 a 2
 
 260 LETTEES. [1796 
 
 of the assignats. Mr. Grenville, the Secretary of State, is made 
 a peer ; they say to assist the Chancellor * in the House of Lords 
 Yet the papers pretend the Chancellor is out of humour and 
 will resign ; the first may be true, the latter probably not. 
 
 Kichmond, my metropolis, flourishes exceedingly. The D. of 
 Clarence arrived at his palace there last night, between eleven 
 and twelve, as I came from Lady Douglas. His eldest brother 
 and Mrs. Fitzherbert dine there to-day, with the D. of Queens- 
 bury, as his Grace, who called here this morning, told me, on 
 the very spot where lived Charles I., and where are the portraits 
 of his principal courtiers, from Cornbury. Q. has taken to that 
 place at last, and has frequently company and music there in 
 an evening. I intend to go.] 
 
 The very old uncle of the Abbe Nichols is dead, and, as he 
 tells me, has left well to his mother and him, and be is come to 
 live there with her, and I shall hear him sing, I conclude, at the 
 Duke's concerts. The Gunning match remains, I believe, in statu 
 quo non. My coachman does air y r chaise : have you received 
 my letter which tells you how much Liberty I took in airing it ? 
 
 Two mails have arrived at Falmouth this week from Lisbon, 
 and yet I have not yet heard of Mrs. D.'s arrival there, but I 
 conclude her father has. 
 
 Monday, 29th. 
 
 I am going to dine at Hampton with Lady Cecilia Johnstone, 
 and am to attend her in the evening to Lady Mary Duncan's, 
 Monday, whom I never happened to visit before, tho' we have 
 been so long inhabitants of the same planet. I hope not to 
 pass so many evenings out of my own parish this time twelve- 
 month ! Old Brutus is still alive, but almost insensible. 
 
 [I suppose none of my Florentine acquaintance are still upon 
 earth. The handsomest woman there of my days was a Madame 
 Grifoni, my fair Geraldine. She would now be a Methusalem- 
 ess, and much more like a frightful picture I have of her by 
 a one-eyed German painter. I lived there with Sir Horace 
 Mann, in Casa Mannetti, in Via de' Santi Apostoli, by the Ponte 
 de Trinita. Pray worship the works of Masaccio, if any remain, 
 tho' I think the best have been burnt in a church. Raphael 
 himself borrowed from him. Fra Bartolommeo, too, is one of 
 my standards for great ideas ; and Benvenuto Cellini's ' Perseus ' 
 * Lord Thurlow.
 
 1790] DELAYS OF THE POST. 261 
 
 a rival of the antique, tho' Mrs. D. will not allow it. Over 
 against the Perseus is a beautiful small front of a house, with 
 only three windows, designed by Raphael ; and another, I think, 
 near the Porta San Grallo, and I believe called Casa Panciatici, 
 or Pandolfini.] 
 
 I hope to-morrow or next day to receive y r letter from 
 Florence, but am forced to send this to town to-night. If you 
 have not received all my letters, you will not understand some 
 passages in this. You have, I trust, recovered the fatigues of 
 y r journey. Adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Thursday at midnight, Dec. 10, 1790. 
 
 After receiving yours from Bologna ten days ago, I expected 
 another from Florence in three days, as you promised to write 
 thence on y r arrival, but I have none till this minute, that on 
 returning from Richmond, I find one on my table dated as long 
 ago as the 16th of last month, and what, alas ! has it told me 
 but y r utter disappointment and most natural vexation at the 
 loss, at least at the want, of any one letter, but, Mrs. D.'s, from 
 England. Oh! how shall -I expect you to receive any, if all 
 have miscarried ; how shall I direct mine ? Till you told me to 
 put par Paris, I did direct like Mrs. D., yet you have not 
 received them. I know but one consolation to offer to you, and 
 that is, all failing, you have no reason to be alarmed particularly 
 for any of y r friends ; and for a succedaneum to y r loss of the 
 thread of domestic occurrences, I will keep a minute journal of 
 all I know and hear, and keep it till I can send it by some 
 secure hand or method. In my present distress for you and 
 myself on this cruel disappointment and uncertainty, I cannot 
 recollect anything I have said, and I must send this away to 
 town to-morrow in time, or it will not set out before Tuesday, 
 by which time I will try to remember what events have hap- 
 pened, tho' at this moment I cannot recall a single one of any 
 consequence. How happy shall I be if by that day I can learn 
 that your letters have at last reached you ! 
 
 This being but a momentary essay to see if you can get a line 
 from me, and half in despair at the sad cruel prospect of our 
 correspondence being cut off, I will say but few words more, to 
 assure you I am perfectly well, and will search every method 
 upon earth of conveying letters to you. I have not heard from
 
 262 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 Mrs. D. yet, but conclude her parents have, as I see by the 
 papers two packets have arrived from Lisbon, and the last I 
 conclude since she must have landed there. That letters to you, 
 two private young Englishwomen, going to Italy for health, 
 and connected with nobody ministerial here, and corresponding 
 with nobody but persons involved in no party, and writing 
 about nothing political, should be opened in France, and still 
 more wonderful, should continue to be opened there and not 
 forwarded, is quite astonishing ! I should rather suspect they 
 have gone by Flanders and been lost in the confusions there ; 
 but as the Emperor is now in possession again of that country, 
 I hope our terrible interruption will cease. 
 
 If you receive this, you may be satisfied that y r grandmother 
 has heard of you, as I have received every one of yours. Why 
 yours should come, and ours be stopped or retarded, is incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 I could write on this subject all night, but as it is so late, and 
 Philip must carry this to town by eight to-morrow, 1 will con- 
 clude for the present, after telling you that I wrote to you, 
 directed to Turin, Oct. 16, 19, 25, and to Florence, Nov. 2, 11, 
 16th, and thither, par Pan's, 19th and 29th. How I do hope 
 you have got some at least ! Adieu, adieu ! 
 
 Berkeley Square, Dec. 16, 1790. 
 
 I am still infinitely distressed about your receiving no letters 
 from England, and still ignorant whether you have yet received 
 any. Your last was from Florence of the 16th of last month, 
 and you promised to write again immediately ; but the strong 
 westerly winds (which on Sunday night blew a tempest, and 
 broke off a considerable branch of my beautiful ivied walnut- 
 tree at Strawberry) have prevented (and I hope nothing else 
 has) our receiving any letters from the Continent. My best 
 consolation has been from Miss Penn, who tells me her brother, 
 now at Florence, was some time without letters, but then did 
 receive them. May this have been your case you may ask 
 him. I desired her to write to him to acquaint you that Miss 
 Seton and I have received all your letters regularly, consequently 
 y r grandmother has not been alarmed. 
 
 In this suspense I only write, that if our letters do find 
 passage to you, you may have no interval ; tho' till I hear they
 
 1790] CLIVEDEN SECURED. 263 
 
 do, I cannot write comfortably. Should any French have 
 stopped them, surely they must have discovered by this time 
 that they might as well have a curiosity about letters to 
 Abyssinia! But how unpleasant that you cannot, not only 
 hear the common chit-chat of y r own country, but receive no 
 account of y r own private affairs. You perhaps do not yet 
 know that y r house is let for six months at seven guineas a- 
 week. I called on Mr. Cambridge on Sunday evening ; his son 
 George, as well as I, have sent you notice of it, and the latter 
 too of what I did not know, that he has sold Mr. Berry's horse. 
 If you have received our letters, these will be unnecessary 
 repetitions ; but I want so much to give such satisfactory in- 
 formation, that I shall not spare redits till I am sure you are 
 informed. 
 
 In mine of last week I was so confounded at y r disappoint- 
 ment, that I forgot to give you, as you desired, the direction to 
 Mrs. D. It is ' Aux Soins de Messieurs Mellish et de Visme, a 
 Lisbon.' I have heard from her thence ; she had a passage but 
 of seven days. 
 
 I came to town yesterday purely on y r account, and return 
 to-morrow. Cliveden was this morning secured to you and y r 
 sister in form. 
 
 Poor Lady Herries has lost the use of her limbs, and is at 
 Bath in a melancholy way. I called on Mrs. Buller last night, 
 and unluckily found seven persons who had dined with her : so 
 you may imagine my visit was short. Lord Bute has had a fall 
 from his own cliff of 28 feet, sprained his ankle, and broke the 
 little bone of it, but, tho' 77, is recovering. 
 
 The Opposition seem very temperate and tame, and the 
 Court's majorities are great. The three Garters were given away 
 yesterday to the Duke of Saxe Gotha, the Duke of Leeds, and 
 Lord Chatham. All this perhaps you will learn earlier from 
 our newspapers. Of private news I do not know a tittle, but I 
 would try once more to acquaint you with y r own affairs by the 
 common post. If none of these succeed, I will try some other 
 channel, for I cannot bear your living ignorant of all that con- 
 cerns you. I will write round by Russia, and beg the Empress 
 to make it a condition of peace, that the Grand Signor shall 
 send a zebecque to Leghorn with my letters. Adieu ! for the 
 present.
 
 264 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 P.S. I am sorry I was so much in the right, when I endea- 
 voured to dissuade y r journey, from the various inconveniences 
 I foresaw, tho' I own loss of letters was not one of the number. 
 
 Strawb., Friday night,.Dec. 17, 1790. 
 
 My letters set out on the back of one another. I wish I 
 could know that any one of them, but that at Lyons, had 
 reached you! I sent off the llth from London this morning, 
 but here is a new and great distress ! Last week I received y r 
 first from Florence, with an account of y r shocking disappoint- 
 ment in finding no letters from England there or at Turin, tho' 
 all yours have come regularly to me and Miss Seton, and I 
 conclude to others, so you may be satisfied that y r grandmother 
 has been under no alarm about you. Y r Florentine letter pro- 
 mised another, in which I trusted I should learn that your 
 letters had followed you, as Mr. Perm's have done him ; but 
 alas ! if you have sent such a letter, I shall probably never 
 receive it, for a French pacquet from Calais to Dover sank in 
 the great storm on Tuesday with all the crew, 30 persons, and 
 I suppose the mails too, for the English pacquet escaped at the 
 same time, and yet I have no letter, which I must have had 
 to-night, for Kirgate followed me by the evening coach. One 
 great consolation he has brought me, a permission to send this 
 in Lord Hervey's packet, which sets me to writing with confi- 
 dence. 
 
 The Parliament has been moderate, and the Court's majorities 
 considerable. The chief difficulty is, whether Hastings's trial is 
 to proceed, and that point is not yet settled. The Duke of Mont- 
 rose is master of the horse ; Mr. W. Grenville a peer. . . . The 
 famous letter, and another to the same purport, of which we 
 were told the night before you set out, is discovered to be a 
 forgery, but the writer not found out, yet supposed to be the 
 very person who repeated it to us ; but do not write this back 
 to England, nor mention it where you are, I beg. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons is playing again to crowded houses. 
 
 For my own history, I am still resident here. We have had 
 several beautiful days, a vast deal of rain and high winds, but 
 scarce any cold. Richmond is still full, and will be so till after 
 Christmas. The Duke of Clarence is there, and every night at 
 Mrs. Bouverie's, Lady Di's, at home, or at the Duke of Queens-
 
 1790] WALPOLE'S ANXIETY ABOUT HIS FRIENDS. 265 
 
 bury's, with suppers that finish at twelve. I have been at three, 
 but I do not think seventy-three just suited to twenty-five, and 
 therefore have excused myself from as many, and believe I 
 shall settle in town before New Year's Day, tho' the hours in 
 London, even -of old folks, are not half so reasonable as those of 
 this young Prince, who never drinks or games, and is extremely 
 good humoured and well bred. 
 
 If I have anything more to tell you before Sunday morning, 
 when this must go to town for Tuesday's post, I will add it ; 
 but still trusting that you may at last have received my former 
 letters, I have been very brief on what I have mentioned in 
 them. One thing I must repeat with emphasis : I implore you 
 not to return thro' France, especially as Flanders is now re- 
 settled. I as earnestly beseech you to be in England by the 
 end of September. I never shall forget the storm in which 
 you so narrowly escaped going to Dieppe, and this last Tuesday 
 has been still more tremendous. Torrents in Italy too ! For 
 France, the horrors increase. The son of a friend of mine 
 called on me yesterday ; he is of Cambridge, and told me that 
 two lords of his acquaintance had the curiosity to go to France 
 this summer, and he was on the point of going with them, but 
 was prevented. At Lyons they were seized for spies, and had 
 the rope about their necks ; but a man of letters coming by, 
 they explained themselves to him in Latin, which they had not 
 been able to do sufficiently in French, and he saved them. I 
 know how well you speak Latin and French too, but as tKe 
 benefit of clergy is so lately taken away in that country, I beg 
 you will never set y r foot in it, but, seriously and most seriously, 
 spare me more alarms ! I shall have no tranquillity till you are 
 safe in England again. I know I have no right to ask you to 
 sacrifice your own satisfactions to mine ; but mine are not the 
 sole ; yourselves have been suffering for what you thought y r 
 grandmother must have felt on y r accounts. The present state 
 of France, and surely it is not mending, has already caused 
 you many inconveniences. At Eouen you could get nothing 
 but paper it is ten times worse now. What if you should not 
 be able to proceed from want of assistance from bankers, who 
 could come to relieve you ! nay, should we be sure of getting y r 
 letters ? Oh ! ponder these things, and listen to me at least for 
 y r return ! I will not look back, but I must look forward, while
 
 266 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 I am on earth to study y r happiness and security. That cannot 
 be long but should I fail before y r return, who will be equally 
 active for y r service ? You have been so kind as to tell me I 
 am y r true friend ; should I be so if I did not labour to prevent 
 dangers for you, and did not warn you of them ? I write so 
 freely and warmly, as sure of y r receiving this, tho' not certain 
 I shall have leave to make use of the same conveyance often. 
 Cultivate L d Hervey ; he may perhaps allow you to receive Miss 
 Seton's and my letters in his packets but keep that a secret. 
 I could write all night, but surely you must see that my fears 
 are neither ill-founded nor selfish. Good night ! may Heaven 
 preserve you ! 
 
 Saturday night. 
 
 I have nothing to add, but that I am persuaded the mail is 
 lost, for I have no letter, and have written to Miss Seton to 
 acquaint her with my suspicion that she may tranquillize y r 
 grandmother. This is a vile sheet of paper and sucks up the 
 ink, and I have not time to transcribe it. 
 
 Poor Lady Douglas (Lady Frances Scott) was brought to bed 
 ten days ago ; is most dangerously ill, and this morning's mes- 
 sage said the fever no better. 
 
 I fear a particular passage to Miss Agnes in answer to her 
 kind scrap must have been amongst the letters whose fate is 
 still unknown to me but all mine are equally to both, as 
 Cliveden is ; and for fear of mistakes or y r removal, I make the 
 address of this double. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Dec. 20, 1790, very late at night. 
 
 This being a duplicate or rather a codicil to one that goes 
 away to-morrow from the Secretary's Office in Lord Hervey's 
 packet, I do not put any numero to it, and as it must go 
 hence to-morrow very early by the coach, I write a few lines 
 just to contradict what I have said about lost letters in the letter 
 you will receive from our Minister. 
 
 [The French pacquet that was said to be lost on Tuesday last, 
 and which did hang out signals of distress, was saved, but did 
 not bring any letters ; but three Flemish mails that were due, 
 are arrived, and did bring letters, and, to my inexpressible joy, 
 two from you of the 22nd and 29th of last month, telling me 
 that you have received as far as N 4 and 5 of mine. I am
 
 1790] SATISFACTORY CORRESPONDENCE. 267 
 
 ashamed to say that with this there are eight more arrived or on 
 the road. Y rs received to-night are 10 and 11. I conclude 
 Miss Seton will receive one or two from one of you to-morrow at 
 farthest, as I am sorry to say she has one from me this morning, 
 I suppose, lamenting the loss of the French pacquet. Thank all 
 the stars in HerschelPs telescope or beyond its reach, that our 
 correspondence is out of the reach of France and all its ravages !] 
 
 I truly have been in such distress and confusion about y r 
 finding no letters at Florence, that I have scarce thought or 
 talked of anything else but contrivances to remedy that disaster. 
 Y r two letters have made me quite easy, and I shall fall into our 
 natural commerce again. 
 
 Y r letters, tho' I still maintain longer than I wish you to 
 write, contain everything I like to know except the last article, 
 but the uppermost in my thoughts, y r drinking whey from 
 having been overheated by y r journey. I hope y r next will 
 be as minute, on that article, and as satisfactory as y r account 
 of Miss Agnes, which doubles the pleasure the arrival of 
 these letters has given me. I rejoice that Mr. Berry continues 
 so well. 
 
 After a deluge of letters for some days, I have not left myself 
 a tittle to tell you. Nay, doubting whether any w d reach you, 
 I have repeated three or four times every tittle I wanted you 
 to know. 
 
 [Thank you a million of times for all y r details about your- 
 selves. Whenever the apprehension of any danger disquiets me 
 so much, judge whether I do not interest myself in every parti- 
 cular of y r pleasures and amusements. Florence was my delight 
 as it is yours ; but I don't know how I wish you did not like 
 it quite so much ! And after the Gallery how will my silver- 
 penny of a gallery look ? Indeed for y r Boboli, which I thought 
 horrible even fifty years ago, before Shepherds had seen the star 
 of taste in the West, and glad tidings were proclaimed to their 
 flocks, I do think there is not an acre on the banks of the 
 Thames that should vail the bonnet to it. 
 
 Of Mr. Burke's book, if I have not yet told you my opinion, 
 I do now that it is one of the finest compositions in print. 
 There is reason, logic, wit, truth, eloquence, and enthusiasm in 
 the brightest colours. That it has given a mortal stab to sedi- 
 tion I believe and hope, because the fury of the Brabanters,
 
 268 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 whom, however, as having been aggrieved, I pity and distinguish 
 totally from the savage G-auls, and the unmitigated and exe- 
 crable injustices of the latter, have made almost any state pre- 
 ferable to such anarchy and desolation that increases every day. 
 
 Admiring thus as I do, I am very far from subscribing to the 
 extent of almost all Mr. Burke's principles. The work I have no 
 doubt will hereafter be applied to support very high doctrines, 
 and to you I will say, that I think it an Apocrypha, that in 
 many a council of bishops will be added to the Old Testament. 
 Still such an Almanzor was wanting at this crisis, and his foes 
 show how deeply they are wounded by their abusive pamphlets. 
 Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay * and the 
 virago Barbauld,f whom Mr. Burke calls our Poissardes, spit 
 their rage at eighteen pence a head, and will return to Fleet 
 Ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors 
 immortalized in the ' Dunciad.' 
 
 I must now bid you good night, and night it is to the tune of 
 morning. Adieu all three !] 
 
 P.S. I am glad you did not get a Parmesan Otranto. A copy 
 is come so full of faults, that it is not fit to be sold here. 
 
 To Mr. Berry. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1790. 
 
 DEAR SIR, If your letter did not give me so much plea- 
 sure from many particulars I should be vexed at y r thinking it 
 necessary to thank me for an affection, by which I am cer- 
 tainly by far the greatest gainer. At my great age, and 
 decrepit as I am, what could happen so fortunate to me in the 
 dregs of life as to meet with you and your daughters, those very 
 pretty young women, universally admired, and all the more 
 for their virtues, sweet tempers, knowledge, and such funds of 
 good sense, as make them company for the most sensible of 
 both sexes, as you constantly have seen. Was not this an 
 acquisition to value as I do, when you allowed me to enjoy so 
 much of y r society ? Indeed, I sometimes reproach myself, and 
 
 * A pamphlet entitled ' Observations on the Right Honourable Edmund 
 Burke on the Revolution in France,' in a letter to Earl Stanhope, was 
 attributed to Mrs. Macaulay. 
 
 t Anna Laetitia Barbauld wrote some political pamphlets.
 
 1790] LETTER TO MR. BERRY. 269 
 
 say, Did not I engross too much of their time, and may not my 
 blind self-love have contributed to deprive me of that blessing ? 
 Yes, I know it was unreasonable, and may never be so happy 
 again ! Can I at past 73 depend on a year's life ? I am not so 
 vainly sanguine. Nay, can I be so unjust as to wish to shorten 
 their stay in a country to which they are so partial? Yet 
 human nature, tho' worn out, cannot with all its reason, philo- 
 sophy, and what is much stronger in me, friendship, put itself 
 so entirely out of the question, as to eradicate every hope, that 
 they may have a wish to return home ; tho' you alarm me, S r , 
 when you speak hypothetically of being in England by the 
 annual period of y r setting out should there be an If in the 
 case, I doubt there will be no If for me. Forgive my returning 
 y r favour by this melancholy strain. I am too weak to command 
 myself, and the best advice I can give to y r daughters is to 
 gratify their own, and so reasonable, inclinations, and ascribe 
 my grief to what I should think myself and would allow to 
 be dotage, if there were one spark of ridiculous love in my 
 affection for y r daughters, and which is equal for both. I am 
 most happy in the accounts you and they give of their health 
 and looks. 
 
 On reading what I have been writing, I perceive I had omitted 
 half my words. In fact your letter arrived at nine to-night, 
 and affected me so much that I began to answer it the instant I 
 had read it, and have written in great precipitation. I will 
 now turn to subjects less interesting, as indeed to me almost all 
 other subjects are. I will only first say, that I know y r daugh- 
 ters have friendships in Swisserland that may detain them ; but 
 on that point I most assuredly prefer your safeties to the whole 
 mass of my personalities, and implore again and again that you 
 will cross to Flanders, and avoid fatal France. 
 
 The Duchess of Argyle died the day before yesterday. She 
 had kept her bed for some days. 
 
 Poor Lady Douglas has been twice thought out of danger, 
 but is relapsed and in extreme danger. This would make ano- 
 ther gap in my society : she is very sensible and amiable. 
 
 Thursday, 23rd. 
 
 My head was so confused last night, and I have made so 
 many interlineations, that I can scarce read it myself if you 
 cannot, you will have no loss.
 
 270 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 When I went to bed, the wind was very high, yet I got to 
 sleep. At half an hour after four I was waked by such vollies 
 of thunder, lightening, hail, and then a torrent of rain, as I be- 
 lieve was never known in this temperate clime two days before 
 Christmas. I thought my little castle would be crushed under 
 the bombardment. The lightening darted down the chimney, 
 thro' the crevices of the shutters and the linen curtains of my 
 bed. Some of my servants and others of the village got off 
 their beds yet I find no mischief done here, nor yet anywhere 
 else ; and with this no accident I must supply part of my letter 
 for want of more important news. The debates in Parliament on 
 the Spanish Peace and the new taxes have produced some long 
 days, but less heat than ever, and hitherto most decided majori- 
 ties. About Hastings's trial they are more puzzled than angry. 
 
 I propose settling in town the beginning of next week, and 
 after the holidays shall probably be less sterile. 
 
 Give me leave to finish with an observation, that for three, 
 not new, travellers, you seem not to chuse the most judicious 
 months for your journeys : the coldest and the hottest can not 
 both be the most suitable. You went to Florence in November, 
 and propose setting out for Swisserland towards the middle of 
 June- -surely May would be preferable ! 
 
 Adieu ! dear S r . I shall always be happy to hear from you, 
 if without thanks. Y r daughters seem to write too much for 
 their delicate breasts why not take it by turns ? 
 
 Y most cordially, 
 
 H. W. 
 
 Letters from Mrs. Damer, from Lisbon. 
 
 Nov. 21, 1790. 
 
 . . . You cannot form to yourself any idea of the Portu- 
 guese, their indolence or indifference ; neither money nor en- 
 treaty will bring them ; till it may suit their own particular 
 convenience, there is no getting even the commonest workman 
 near you. When I came I found two panes of glass broken, and 
 for five days, tho' the master of the house and my own servants 
 went twenty times a day after the people, I could not have 
 them put in. I can divest myself with all distresses of this sort 
 except cold ones. ... I dined at our Minister's last Thurs- 
 day with I know not how many English, of that sort no foreign
 
 1790] LETTER FROM MRS. DAMER. 271 
 
 town is free from, fat vulgar women, and scowling unknown 
 men, consuls, and some of the Factory. In the evening we had 
 the French Ambassadress (Madame de Chalons), and all the 
 Corps Diplomatique. ... I should like to see something 
 of the Portuguese, which is not easy for foreigners. 
 
 Mr. Walpole * is to carry me to a grand fete at a Portuguese 
 house, given on the marriage of a great heiress, who has mar- 
 ried her uncle, as she could find no one great enough to marry 
 out of her own family. 
 
 Lisbon, Dec. 2, 1790. 
 
 . . . . Nothing can he more civil and attentive than the 
 people in general are to me here ; Mr. Walpole, our Minister, 
 in particular, and his wife. . . . But going out at Lisbon is 
 really an operation. . . . There are in general only two- 
 wheeled chaises, open before, with leathern curtains that draw : 
 you set out as if you went on a journey, and go nodding along 
 over the worst pavement commonly, or the worst road, and up 
 and down the very steep hills on which this town stands ; yet 
 these chaises are actually the vehicle best calculated for this 
 town, and far from unpleasant when one is not obliged to be 
 much dressed ; but you may guess how it is when you are to 
 scramble up into such a carriage in rainy weather with a gauze 
 petticoat and a dressed head. A four-wheeled carriage is so un- 
 easy ; it is, I think, scarcely bearable. These are used (but not 
 without four mules) by ministers and great persons, and here 
 and there a foreigner ; but there is no such thing to be hired 
 unless by chance. My own coach, were it here, might be drawn 
 up the hills by six mules ; but could never be kept back by 
 two, such as they have for the town. You will imagine that all 
 this diverts more than it disturbs me : I make, however, my 
 
 necessary visits. On Monday in the evening Mrs. , wife 
 
 of one of the Factory, sees company ; on Wednesday, a Portu- 
 guese house, the Marquis D'Abrantes, is open ; on Thursday, 
 Mrs. Walpole's ; on Friday, the long room (an assembly and 
 ball) ; on Saturday, the French Ambassadress ; and on Sunday, 
 the opera and a Portuguese play, if one chooses to go : omnia 
 habes, except some dinners. The hours are early; sometimes 
 they begin to make visits at five o'clock, and everything ends 
 at latest, unless it be some fete, by eleven. . . . 
 * English Minister at Lisbon.
 
 272 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 The weather was soft this morning, and I went in my chaise 
 to see an acqueduct some way off, yet close to this straggling 
 town on one side ; but here you have a corn-field, an orange- 
 garden, a church, and then a house, just as it happens, all 
 jumbled in the oddest queerest manner that I ever yet saw. The 
 acqueduct may be called magnificent; but the arches are, I 
 think, too close, the height in one part immense, it looks rather 
 thin and poor than light ... the place is wild and rocky, 
 with some gardens of orange-trees, now ripening, and some olive 
 trees. I do not love comparisons ; bat there is no seeing this 
 place without thinking of the Pont du Grard, and sadly indeed 
 it loses by such a comparison, though the one is in all its glory, 
 and the other but a ruin. 
 To Miss Berry, Pisa. 
 
 Lisbon, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 1790. 
 
 I went yesterday to a concert and ball given by the Due de 
 Cadaval ... I am glad to pass this evening at home and 
 in my cabinet, of which I wish I could give you a complete 
 id ea : Jt, is very small, whitewashed, and a sort of farmhouse 
 chimney occupies one half of it, high, and formed with large 
 rough stones, some shelves, two tables, &c., many chairs ; here 
 I have my books and my writing, and my ideas are not at least 
 outwardly frozen. . . . Their substitutes for fires are large 
 cloaks, of the form you see at Florence, which they wear very 
 gracefully men and women. They are eternally wrapped up 
 in them, riding, walking, hanging over a balcony when the sun 
 shines, or sitting at home in a state of idleness, a state to which 
 they seem to have a great propensity, by what I hear and 
 by the little I have seen. . . . It is very lately that even 
 the nobility, any part of it, have quitted these and other good 
 customs. To this day the ladies of the vieille cour plump down 
 on the floor and sit with their legs crossed without a chair in 
 their rooms. I do assure you that I myself at one of their as- 
 semblies saw a woman of the first rank, who from misfortune 
 did not choose to appear among the company, sitting in deep 
 mourning on the floor, just within the door of the next room with 
 the maids. I wish they had not begun to improve, they would be 
 much more entertaining, tho' indeed no stranger would be likely 
 to be much the better for it, as part of the ceremony is to live
 
 1790] SOCIETY AT LISBON. 273 
 
 quite shut up with their own families, and the women separately 
 from the men, even near relations must not go into their rooms, 
 nor speak to them, in strictness ; particularly a futur a young 
 man who imagined that he was to marry a cousin of his, whom 
 he had attended and followed properly, knew that the match 
 was broken off because one evening the lady asked him how he 
 did. I am telling literally what I hear, and from a person whom 
 I believe. The Due de Cadaval is the first nobleman of Por- 
 tugal and a prince of the blood, and yesterday was the first en- 
 tertainment that he ever gave ; but it not being the old etiquette 
 even for married women to go to the house of an unmarried 
 man, tho' two of his aunts assisted in doing the honours and 
 were there to receive the company, many of the starch ones 
 would not go, or were not suffered to go, tho' their husbands 
 were there dancing away and enjoying the fete. I would have 
 nations polish, but I wish the polish could be given to their 
 own national customs and manners, and not the manners of 
 other nations always attempted, for if manque nothing can be 
 worse. 
 
 Lisbon, Dec. 25, 1790. 
 
 On Thursday morning I took a second view of the acqueduct, 
 walked over it and under it, and one must stand under one arch 
 of 240 feet to have an idea of the effect ; that is, they say, the 
 height of the principal arch, and I fancy there is not such ano- 
 ther in the world. The building consists of one tier, with a 
 gallery on each side of where the water flows at the top. The 
 niches are in proportion extremely narrow, Gothic, except the 
 end ones, which, for what reason I know not, as it gives an ap- 
 pearance of patchwork, the architect has made elliptic; but, 
 whatever faults the building may have, there is no seeing it in 
 a fine day with a bright sun without being much struck ; or, I 
 doubt not, with a bright moon, as you saw the Champ de Mars. 
 It seemed to me that I owed it this reparation d'honneur, as I 
 believe my first account to you was not favourable. ... I 
 have been learning Portuguese, and it only deserves the name 
 of a dialect, and to those who have learned other languages is 
 ridiculously easy. I am told, too, that when 1 learn Portuguese, 
 I shall be able to read Spanish, as they all do, without learning 
 
 it I cannot help thinking of poor dear Mr. W., if his 
 
 mind was tolerably at ease about you, and that he could turn it 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 LETTERS. [1790 
 
 to any other object. What a fuss he must have been in about 
 his letters! he has always a horror of his letters being seen 
 except by those they are intended for ; and though I dare say 
 he took care to put no politics in them, I should not wonder if 
 his imagination presented them to him read aloud in the 
 Assemblee Nationale. Still no packets, and it is an age since 
 I have heard from him, and my last letters from England are 
 of above a month. Farewell !
 
 1791] LETTERS. 275 
 
 LETTERS. 
 1791. 
 
 Miss BERRY'S entry in her memorandum-book for this 
 year is 'After winter between Florence and Pisa, re- 
 turn home in November, take possession of little Straw- 
 berry Hill.' 
 
 In the month of January Mr. Walpole addressed five 
 letters to Miss Berry at Pisa. The three following have 
 not been published before. 
 
 " Strawberry Hill, Jan. 2, 1791. 
 
 I doubt the letter I wrote last week to Mr. B. was both con- 
 fused and illegible for the latter, no matter. The truth is, I 
 had got the gout in my left hand ; and whenever a fit comes, I 
 suppose it may be my last ; and the consequence of that idea 
 was, the thought that I might never see you more ! I had just 
 been delighting myself with having settled Cliveden then came 
 Mr. B.'s letter, which after relating y r plan, and mentioning y r 
 intention of being at home by the period of y r setting out, 
 talked of a visit to Swisserland, which I dreaded w d detain you, 
 and then said, ' all subject to connection and alteration.' Those 
 words went to my heart, as if threatening prolongation of y r 
 term, tho' perhaps meaning only the intervening time in short, 
 I quite despaired ! 
 
 I have had the gout in my hand for above a fortnight now ; 
 but I have been much worse with the rheumatism, which joined 
 it, and still possesses that whole arm and shoulder. I have been 
 quite immoveable, but by two servants; and this is the first 
 day I have been able to attempt writing to you. I have no 
 fever, my appetite quite perfect, and my sleep so excellent, that 
 I do little else but sleep. The exact state of my case is, that I 
 
 T2
 
 276 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 do not recover so fast as I used to do, which is not at all sur- 
 prising at my age ; nor perhaps so soon as I should in town ; 
 but I dread a relapse ; and besides, as my greatest danger 
 always lies in the weakness of my breast, I am safer here, 
 where I see nobody, and cannot be made to talk. I have 
 written all this in my lap without stopping, so you may be sure 
 I am not very bad I could not have done as much yesterday, 
 but I certainly am better to-day than I have been at all. Now 
 I will rest. 
 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 Having written enough with my own hand to convince you 
 that I am not very ill, I will, for ease, let Kirgate continue. I 
 received yours, No. 12, of December the 6 th , two days ago, a 
 long time coming ! However, if this is as slow, you will be 
 pretty sure that 1 am well when you receive it. 
 
 I am glad you are going to Pisa ; Florence is too cold for you. 
 You divert me with the account of the Charming 's brother being 
 a democrat: upon my word, the transition from an English 
 Catholic non-juror to a French leveller is Pindaric enough. 
 Still it does not look well for the National Assembly when their 
 proselytes fly the country as well as those they persecute. That 
 Synod has lately ordered 500,000. sterling to be issued to the 
 famished in the provinces. They ask for bread., and they have 
 given them paper. They might as well have sent the useless 
 clergy, 
 
 And helpt to bury those they helpt to starve. 
 
 The Duchess of Biron is returned to London, where, with her 
 spirit, I am sure she is better than at Paris : she was at the play 
 there, and a song applicable to the Queen being encored as a 
 compliment, and the duchess applauding with her fan on the 
 box, a shower of apples flew at her, and with them a penknife 
 that hardly missed her. She took it away with her, and the 
 next morning sent it to La Fayette, and desired he would lay 
 it on the altar of liberty, and then came away. 
 
 I have little or no English news for you. Lady Douglas, after 
 so many struggles, will live. It is declared that Mrs. Child is 
 going to marry Lord Ducie ; as they are both fifty, nobody can 
 have any objection, if they have not themselves. She gives him 
 ten thousand pounds ; and they are to live on her twenty thousand
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S GROWING INFIRMITIES. 277 
 
 pounds a year from the shop, and she reserves in her own power 
 70,OOOL that she has saved ; my lord laying up his own estate 
 for his two sons. 
 
 Monday, 3rd. 
 
 I chuse to finish with my own hand, that you may not think 
 me worse : indeed I am better, but the amendment is very slow ; 
 but the swelling of my left hand remains, and the elbow and 
 shoulder are still lame. This is the whole truth. 
 
 Lady Mt. Edgcumbe and Mad. de la Villebague have been 
 here from Kichmond this morning, and say Mrs. Siddons has 
 suffered so much by her late exertions that she has relapsed, 
 and they think must quit the stage. They told me nothing 
 else, and so I will conclude. My next week's letter will I trust 
 be more satisfactory. Adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Jan. 9, 1791. 
 
 I am unfortunate, for when I want most to satisfy you by 
 writing with my own hand, I am least able to do so comfortably, 
 for the rheumatism is got into my right elbow too, and nothing 
 can be more awkward than my writing at all. You may be 
 assured now, that tho' my disorder began with a little gout, it is 
 a decided rheumatism, which I think much worse, as it is not 
 so sure of quitting its hold. My best prospect is being carried 
 to town, but I do not think I could yet bear a carriage. All I 
 have done yet is to walk with a little help from the red bed- 
 chamber to the blue room that is, down three steps ; and that 
 journey contains my daily and whole history. 
 
 Now I have satisfied you that my handwriting is alive, it 
 shall act by proxy ; but it will not be like a King that says a 
 few words, and then tells the assembly that his Chancellor will 
 deliver the rest ; now it happens that Chancellor Kirgate has 
 nothing to deliver, for he nor his Majesty know a word of 
 news. 
 
 I am glad you are pleased with your lodgings at Pisa, and 
 think you shall like the company. It is a novelty to me that 
 you have put up some learned men there ; Mr. Pinkerton, who 
 is of no great authority with you, has often talked to me of the 
 mighty science and learning of the Italians. They may live at 
 Pisa for what I know ; Mr. Parsons was out of luck to live so
 
 278 LETTEES. [1791 
 
 long at Florence, and be forced to go to search for the wise men 
 in Germany. I shall rest at present, and finish this to-morrow 
 evening. 
 
 Monday, 10th. 
 
 I try to write a little myself, and you see I can, but it shall 
 be only to tell you my exact case, in which I have not deceived 
 you. It is most clearly rheumatism, all over my left hand, arm, 
 and shoulder, which I do not find mend at all, and for the last 
 two nights the right elbow has been bad too. I rise every day 
 and sit in the blue room till eleven at night ; but the weather is 
 most unfortunate for me, either tempests or rains the meadows 
 quite overflowed. I will undoubtedly be carried to town the 
 moment it is possible. 
 
 I hope I shall be able to give you a better account next week ; 
 and that shows my confidence that you will be wishing for a 
 better account, I mean, all Three. Adieu, all Three ! 
 
 Berkeley Square, Jan. 15, 1791. 
 
 If I had not promised to write again this post, I should have 
 been disinclined to it, for I cannot give you a better account of 
 myself. The first amendment I perceived was on Tuesday 
 morning last, and I really thought the worst over, but after 
 dinner the gout came into my right hand, and has taken pos- 
 session of that whole arm too, while the left hand and arm are 
 so very little better that I have scarce any use from either. In 
 this most uncomfortable state I did determine to come to town, 
 and here I actually arrived yesterday: I bore the journey very 
 well, and had a better night after it than I had had for some 
 time ; so that probably the warmth of London has contributed 
 a little already, and may in time do more. You see I do not 
 make the case better than it is danger there is none but the 
 case of the sufferer is not much mitigated by that consideration. 
 
 Sunday, 16th. 
 
 Tho' I have had a good night, my journal does not yet 
 improve ; not one of my limbs mends, and I have the additional 
 dread of the gout coming into one of my knees. In this de- 
 plorable state you may imagine I scarce see anybody, nor can 
 have anything almost to talk of but my suffering helpless self. 
 It is vexatious to give you such an account, but I am sure you
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S GROWING INFIRMITIES. 279 
 
 had rather receive this true than a fictitious one ; besides, you 
 may reasonably conclude that by the time you receive this letter 
 there may be some considerable amendment in me. 
 
 Yesterday I received your No. 14, of the 22nd of last month, 
 with an account of your Pisan life and acquaintance ; just what 
 I wanted to know, yet you call it a dull detail : think, then, 
 what I send you in return, the journal of a sick room ! Thank 
 you for the memoirs of the Grifonis, and for Miss Agnes's horse. 
 Now I will bate a little. 
 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 I do think I begin to use a finger or two of my left hand, 
 which is a great event in this room, as I admit no others. The 
 Edgcumbes and Johnstones, and a few more have called here 
 this morning, but I could not see them. Lady Mary and Mr. 
 Churchill are almost the only persons I do receive, and 
 Jerningham I have seen once. The town, they say, is quite 
 empty, but probably will be fuller by Tuesday, for the Queen's 
 birthday. I shall leave a little of my paper for my progress to- 
 morrow, if I make any : this bulletin is long enough already. 
 
 Monday, 17th. 
 
 I am reduced to make bonfires for negatives ; the gout is not 
 come into my knee, and I must rejoice that I have 1 - no other 
 matter of triumph, as I have not recovered one joint in either 
 arm or hand ; so I will finish this letter, as I shall have certainly 
 nothing better to tell you by this post. Adieu ! 
 
 Tuesday morning, 18th. 
 
 I just add one line before this goes to the post to say that I 
 have had another very good night, and yet, alas I I do not find 
 any amendment ; what time may do I do not know. 
 
 [Berkeley Square, Sat., Jan 22, 1791. 
 
 I have been most unwillingly forced to send you such bad ac- 
 counts of myself by my two last letters, but as I could not conceal 
 all, it was best to tell you the whole truth. Tho' I did not know 
 that there was any real danger, I could not be so blind to my 
 own age and weakness, as not to think that with so much gout 
 and fever the conclusion might very probably be fatal, and 
 therefore it was better you should be prepared for what might 
 happen. The danger appears to be entirely over ; there seems
 
 280 LETTERS. 11791 
 
 no more gout to come ; I have no fever, have a very good 
 appetite, and sleep well. Mr. Watson,* who is all tenderness 
 and attention, is persuaded to-day that I shall recover the use 
 of my left hand, of which I despaired much more than of the 
 right, as having been seized three weeks earlier. Emaciated 
 and altered I am incredibly, as you would find were you ever 
 to see me again. But this illness has dispelled all visions ! 
 And as I have so little prospect of passing another happy 
 autumn, I must wean myself from whatever would embitter my 
 remaining time by disappointments. 
 
 Your No. 15 came two days ago, and gives me the pleasure 
 of knowing that you both are the better for riding, which I hope 
 you will continue. I am glad, too, that you are pleased with 
 your Duchess of Fleury and your Latin Professor ; but I own, 
 except your climate with the 600 camels, you seem to me to 
 have met with no treasure which you might not have found 
 here without going twenty miles ; and even the camels, accord- 
 ing to Soame Jenyns's spelling, were to be had from Carrick 
 and other places. 
 
 I doubt you apply Tully de Amicitia too favourably at least, 
 I fear, there is no paragraph that countenances 73 and 27.] 
 
 I wonder you have not heard oftener from Lisbon. She 
 (Mrs. Darner) seems perfectly well, and to have settled her 
 return, which is to be thro' Spain : after the 20th of February 
 our letters are to be directed to Madrid. She is in great distress, 
 and I heartily pity her, about Fidele,f which seems dying. 
 
 [Monday, 24th. 
 
 I think I shall give you pleasure by telling you that I am 
 very sure now of recovering from the present fit. It has almost 
 always happened to me, in my considerable fits of the gout, to 
 have one critical night that celebrates its departure : at the end 
 of two different fits I each time slept eleven hours : Morpheus 
 is not quite so young nor so generous now, but with the inter- 
 ruption of a few mimites, he presented me with eight hours last 
 night, and thence I shall date my recovery. 
 
 I shall now begin to let in a little company, and as the 
 
 * His surgeon. 
 
 f Mrs. Darner's dog ; it died at Lisbon.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S LONGING FOR THE BERRYS' RETURN. 281 
 
 Parliament will meet in a week, my letters will probably not be 
 so dull as they have been, nor shall I have occasion, nor be 
 obliged to talk so much of myself, of which I am sure others 
 must be tired, when I am so much tired myself. 
 
 Tuesday, 25th. 
 
 I have had another good night, and clearly do mend. I even 
 hope that in a fortnight I shall be able to write a few lines with 
 my own hand. 
 
 [Old Mrs. French * is dead at last ; and I am on the point of 
 losing, or have lost, my oldest acquaintance and friend, George 
 Selwyn, who was yesterday at the extremity. These misfortunes, 
 tho' they can be so but for a short time, are very sensible to the 
 old ; but him I really loved, not only for his infinite wit, but for 
 a thousand good qualities. 
 
 The Gunnings are still playing the fool, and perhaps some- 
 body with them, but I cannot tell you the particulars now. 
 Adieu !] 
 
 Mr. Walpole's letter of January 22 is in his secretary's 
 (Kirgate's) handwriting. 
 
 In his letter of the 29th to the Miss Berrys, he writes, 
 confirming the account of his recovery, and in tolerably 
 cheerful spirits ; but far other was the tone of the next 
 letter, dated February 4, and which begins with this 
 melancholy sentence : 
 
 [Last post I sent you as cheerful a letter as I could, to con- 
 vince you I was recovering. This will be less gay, because I have 
 much more pain in my mind than in my limbs. I see and thank 
 you for all the kindness of your intention ; but as it has the 
 contrary effect from what you expect, I am forced for my own 
 peace to beseech you not to continue a manoeuvre that only 
 tantalises and wounds me. In your last you put together many 
 friendly words to give me hopes of your return ; but can I be so 
 blind as not to see that they are vague words ? Did you mean 
 to return in autumn, would you not say so ? Would the most 
 
 * An Irish lady who, during the latter part of her life, had a country 
 house at Hampton Court. M.B,
 
 282 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 artful arrangement of words be so kind as those few simple 
 ones ? In fact I have for some time seen how little you mean 
 it, and for your sakes, I cease to desire it.] 
 
 This sudden burst of wounded and irritable feeling 
 was in consequence of Mrs. Darner having written him 
 word that he must not expect the Miss Berrys' return till 
 the following spring. The rest of the letter is in the same 
 strain, and must have been at once painful and gratifying 
 to them to receive, as, even in the bitter and somewhat 
 unreasonable expression of his disappointment at their 
 prolonged absence, they could not fail to see in every 
 line of his reproachful regret how necessary their presence 
 was to his comfort arid happiness. 
 
 In his letter of February 12, he thus declines their offer 
 of shortening their tour : 
 
 [Berkeley Square, Feb. 12, 1791. 
 
 I have received y r two letters of Jan. 17 th and 27 th , with an 
 account of your objects and plans, and the latter are very much 
 what I expected, as before you receive this, you will have seen 
 by my last, No. 18. Indeed, you most kindly offer to break so 
 far into y r plan as to return at the beginning of next winter ; 
 but as that would, as you say, not only be a sacrifice, but risk 
 y r healths, can anything upon earth be more impossible than for 
 me to accept or consent to such a sacrifice? Were I even 
 in love with one of you, could I agree to it ? and being only a 
 most zealous friend, do you think I will hear of it ? Should 
 I be a friend at all, if I wished you, for my sake, to travel in 
 winter over mountains, or risk the storms at sea, that I have not 
 forgotten when you went away ? Can I desire you to derange a 
 reasonable plan of economy, that would put you quite at your 
 ease at y r return ? Have I any pretensions for expecting, still 
 less for asking, such or any sacrifices ? Have I interested my- 
 self in y r affairs only to embarrass them ?] 
 
 The only point on which I can make a shadow of complaint, 
 is y r talking of what I did to assist y r going, as a reason for y r 
 wishing to stay longer abroad; that would be hard indeed
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S GROWING INFIRMITIES. 283 
 
 on me, and would be punishing me severely for doing you 
 a trifling service! But when you have other and substantial 
 reasons for not returning before spring twelvemonth, it is useless 
 to talk on the other. 
 
 [I do in the most positive and solemn manner refuse to accept 
 the smallest sacrifice of any part of y r plan (but the single point 
 that would be so hard upon me). I will say not a word more 
 on y r return, and beg y r pardon for having been so selfish as to 
 desire it. My only request now is that we may say no more 
 about it. I am grieved that the great distance we are at must 
 make me still receive letters about it for some weeks. I shall 
 not forget how very unreasonable I have been myself, nor shall 
 I try to forget it, lest I should be so silly again ; but I earnestly 
 desire to be totally silent on a subject that I have totally aban- 
 doned, and which it is not at all improbable I may never have 
 occasion to renew.] 
 
 Y r other letter talks as kindly as possible on my illness, on 
 which I am sure I have not deceived you, tho' I have talked too 
 much on it ; and on which, to satisfy you, I will still be particu- 
 lar. A fortnight ago I had every reason to think myself quite 
 recovering, but in my left hand ; then my pains returned for a 
 week : they are again gone but in my left wrist, which to-day is 
 uneasy enough. One comfort, however, I have, which is the 
 conviction that all my pains have been and are gouty, not 
 rheumatic, which I dread much more as less likely to leave me. 
 The moment I lie down in bed, I go to sleep, and often sleep 
 five, nay, seven hours together without waking. But there lies 
 my whole strength. A lover, especially one of 73, would not 
 give you these details. But, tho' I have been unreasonable, and 
 I suspect vain, I am not ridiculous. Let us pass to better, that 
 is, to any other subjects. 
 
 Miss Foldson is a prodigy of dishonest impertinence. I sent 
 her word a week ago, by Kirgate, that I was glad she had so 
 much employment, but wished she w d recollect that y r pictures 
 had been paid for these four months. She was such a fool as to 
 take the compliment seriously, and to thank me for it, but ver- 
 bally, and I have heard no more ; so I suppose she thinks me 
 as drunk with her honours as she is. I shall undeceive her, by 
 sending for the pictures again, and telling her I can get twenty 
 persons to finish them as well as she can ; and so they could the
 
 284 LETTEES. [1791 
 
 likenesses, and, I doubt, better. What glories have befallen 
 Mrs. Buller I know not, but I have not heard a word more of 
 her! 
 
 [The flirts towards anarchy here have no effect at all. Home 
 Tooke before Christmas presented a saucy libel to the House of 
 Commons as a petition on his election. The House contemp- 
 tuously voted it only frivolous and vexatious, and disappointed 
 him of a ray of martyrdom; but his fees, &c., will cost him 
 three or four hundred p ds , which never go into a mob's calcu- 
 lation of the ingredients of martyrdom.] 
 
 I believe I am rather worse than I know (and yet you need 
 not be alarmed), for some of my relations, who never troubled 
 themselves much about me, grow very attentive, and send me 
 game and sweetmeats, which rather do me good, for they make 
 me smile ; and tho' this fit may be going, they are sure I can- 
 not grow younger. 
 
 [Monday morning, 14th. 
 
 I have a story to tell you much too long to add to this, which 
 I will send next post, unless I have leisure enough to-day from 
 people that call on me to finish it to-day (having begun it last 
 night), and in that case I will direct it to Miss Agnes.] 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 I have finished my narrative, and it goes to-night with this. 
 I have been without pain these two days. Adieu ! 
 
 In his letter of the 13th, he gives the Miss Berrys a 
 playful narrative of what he terms the l Gunninghiad,' a 
 confused and mysterious piece of gossip in which Mr. 
 Walpole was much interested, and which related to the 
 reported marriage of Miss Gunning and Lord Blandford. 
 
 He also adds a better account of his health. 
 
 In his letter to the two sisters, dated February 20, 
 he tells Miss Berry that 
 
 [O'Hara is come to town, and you will love him better than
 
 1791] AN ANECDOTE. 285 
 
 ever ; he persuaded the captain of the ship, whom you will love 
 for being persuaded, to stop at Lisbon that he might see Mrs. 
 Darner. O'Hara has been shockingly treated.] 
 
 In his letter of the 28th, he says 
 
 I wish in No. 20 you had not again named October or 
 November. I have quite given up those months, and am vexed 
 I ever pressed for them, as they would break into your reason- 
 able plans, for which I abandon any foolish ones of my own. 
 But I am a poor philosopher, or rather am like all philosophers, 
 have no presence of mind, and must study my part before I 
 can act it. I have now settled myself not to expect you this 
 year ; do not unsettle me ; I dread a disappointment as I do a 
 relapse of the gout, and therefore cut this article short, that I 
 may not indulge vain hopes.] 
 
 On the 5th of March he writes in his more usual 
 tone : 
 
 [Berkeley Square, March 5, 1791. 
 
 One may live in a vast capital, and know no more of three 
 parts of it than of Carthage. When I was at Florence, I have 
 surprised some Florentines by telling them that London was 
 built like their city (where you often cross the bridges several 
 times in a day) on each side of the river, and yet that I had 
 never been but on one side, for then I had never been in 
 Southwark. When I was very young, and in the height of 
 the opposition to my father, my mother wanted a large parcel 
 of bugles, for what use I forget. As they were then out of 
 fashion, she could get none. At last she was told of a quantity 
 in a little shop in an obscure alley in the City : we drove 
 thither, found a great stock ; she bought it, and bad the pro- 
 prietor send it home. He said, Whither ? ' ' To S r Robert 
 Walpole's.' He asked coolly, Who is S r Robert Walpole ? ' 
 
 This is very like Cambridge, who tells you three stories to 
 make you understand a fourth.] 
 
 Good Hannah More is labouring to amend our religion, and 
 has just published a book called ' An Estimate of the Religion of 
 the Fashionable World.' It is prettily written, but her enthu- 
 siasm increases ; and when she comes to town, I shall tell her
 
 286 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 that if she preaches to people of fashion, she will be a bishop 
 in partibus infidelium. 
 
 Lady Cecilia's disorder has literally terminated in the gout 
 in her foot. I called on her this evening, but as she was in her 
 bedchamber up two pair of stairs, my gout would not let me be 
 so clamberaceous ; and indeed, she sent Miss Johnstone down 
 to the coach to me to desire I would not attempt it. I think, 
 if the remedy is not as bad, that the gout may relieve her 
 headaches. 
 
 [Grood night ! I have two days to wait for a letter that I may 
 answer. Stay ! I should tell you that I have been at S r Joseph 
 Bank's literary saturnalia, where was a Parisian watchmaker, 
 who produced the smallest automaton that I suppose was ever 
 created. It was a rich snuffbox, not too large for a woman. 
 On opening the lid, an enamelled bird started up, sat on the 
 rim, turned round, fluttered its wings, and piped in a delight- 
 ful tone the notes of different birds, particularly the jug, jug 
 of the nightingale. It is the prettiest plaything you ever saw 
 the price tempting only five hundred p d8 . That economist 
 the P. of W. could not resist it, and has bought one of those 
 dickybirds. If the maker finds such customers, he will not end 
 like one of his profession here, who made the serpent in 
 * Orpheus and Eurydice,' * and who fell so deeply in love with 
 his own works, that he did nothing afterwards but make ser- 
 pents of all sorts and sizes, till he was ruined and broke.] 
 
 It is six o'clock of Monday evening the 7th, and no letters 
 from Pisa ; but I will not seal this till to-morrow noon, in hopes 
 otherwise I have not a tittle to add, but that Lady Mary 
 Palk is dead in childbed : I think I have heard you mention 
 her, or I should not, for I did not know her. 
 
 The Mesdames are said to be safely out of France, after being 
 stopped 3 times. There have been great mobs at the Luxem- 
 bourg and the Tuileries, and La Fayette is said rather to have 
 acted the royalist. The provinces grow turbulent, but you must 
 hear French news sooner and more authentically than I do. Of 
 the Gunning not a word since my last ; nor of Mrs. Buller, tho' 
 I have called on her ; nor of the righteous Miss Foldson. 
 
 [The Lord Mayor did not fetch Mad. du Barry in the city- 
 
 * A celebrated opera.
 
 1791] RETURN OF THE GOUT. 287 
 
 royal coach, but kept her to dinner. She is gone, but returns 
 in April.* 
 
 Tuesday morning. 
 
 I find y r No. 21 on my table, but as it only talks of y r life at 
 Pisa, and of the community of apartments, which appears as 
 bad as Buxton or Harrowgate, I have nothing to add but to 
 wonder how any one can seek such an uncomfortable life a 
 second time. Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. I should not wonder if Italians flock hither, for Car- 
 navali, the exhibitor of the Fantoccini, has got one of the 
 20,000^. in the lottery but had, unluckily for him, sold two- 
 thirds of it. 
 
 On the llth, the 13th, and 14th, included in one letter, 
 Mr. W. writes as follows : 
 
 Berkeley Square, March 11, 1791. 
 
 I usually begin my letters to you on Fridays, but to-day for 
 a different reason, not because I have anything to say, but like 
 the French lady to her husband, because I have nothing to do. 
 In short, I have got a little codicil to my gout. It returned 
 into my ankle on Monday and Tuesday, left it on Wednesday, 
 and yesterday came into my knee. I have no pain, unless I 
 attempt to walk ; so have been forced just now to send an 
 excuse to Lady Louisa Macdonald,f where I was to have been 
 to-night and so must amuse myself en fa/mille. 
 
 The Gunnings continue to supply me with matter. As it 
 is now known that two of the Minifry have been mad, I should 
 conclude the mother and daughter were so, if two persons could 
 lose their senses at the same period, and on the same subject. 
 Well, these two outpensioners of Bedlam have sent a new narra- 
 tive to the Duke of Maryborough, wherein the infanta maintains 
 to his grace's face, that she passed three days with him and the 
 D ss this summer at Sion, tho' it was but three hours ; and cites 
 a kind speech of his to her, for the truth of which she appeals 
 to S r John Kiddel, who was present and heard it. The duke, 
 doubting his own eyes or memory, questions S r John, who, 
 
 * She never returned, but perished on the guillotine. 
 
 t Daughter to Earl Gower, and sister to the first Duke of Sutherland.
 
 288 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 equally amazed, says, ' Y r grace knows I had not the honour of 
 being with you at Sion when Miss Gunning was there.' All 
 this is a new style of romancing, and tho' I repeat it, I can 
 scarce believe it while I repeat it. 
 
 The letter to the Duke of Argyll is to appear next week. 
 Somebody has sent a proof of the frontispiece to the Duke, who 
 showed it to Gen. Conway, as Lord Lorn has to Mrs. Anderson. 
 There is a medallion of Guanilda supported by two Cupids, not 
 marquisses, her name, and 4 verses beneath. The D 8S of Bed- 
 ford has written to Lord Lorn, begging him to intercede for his 
 cousin, for the sake of his dear mother * who doated on her, and 
 which dear mother she, D 8S Gertrude, introduced into the world. 
 If Pisa or Florence produce more diversion than London, you 
 have but to say so. 
 
 The Haymarket Theatre opened last night with an opera 
 gratis. It is computed that four thousand persons accepted 
 the favour, and the theatre is allowed to be the most splendid 
 and convenient, let Naples say what it will ; the singers very 
 indifferent; the dancers (Vestris and Hilsberg) and the dances 
 charming. Still it is probable there will be no more represen- 
 tations, for people cannot get much by giving operas for nothing. 
 
 I have got a solution of Miss Foldson : she has a mother 
 and eight brothers and sisters, who make her work incessantly 
 to maintain them, and who reckon it loss of time to them if 
 she finishes any pictures that are paid for beforehand. That, 
 however, is so very uncommon that I should not think the family 
 would be much the richer. I do know that L d Carlisle paid 
 for the portraits of his children last July, and cannot get them 
 from her ; at that rate I maysee you before your pictures ! 
 
 I have not so clear an exposition of Mrs. Buller's behaviour, 
 yet some suspicion. She is grown extremely Germanized and 
 of whom did I hear extremely intimate in a private party at her 
 house a few nights ago, but one who lives in the street directly 
 behind hers,f and whom I should be as sorry to meet there 
 or anywhere, as he could be to meet me ? These Germans remind 
 
 * Elizabeth Gunning, first married in 1752 to the Duke of Hamilton, 
 and then, in 1759, to John, Duke of Argyll. 
 
 t He means William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother to George III., 
 who had married his (Mr. Walpole's) niece, the Countess Dowager of 
 Waldegrave.
 
 1791] 'ON BITS' OF THE DAY. 289 
 
 me that I saw in to-day's newspaper, that the wife of the 
 Margrave of Anspach is dead. Courage, Milady Craven ! donnez- 
 nous une nouvelle edition des aventuresde Madame la Duchesse 
 de Kingston ! et depechez vous ; car on dit que Milord Craven 
 se meurt. II seroit indigne de vous que d'attendre la main 
 gauche, et un mariage estime legilime. 
 
 Lady Beaumont * called on me two days ago, and inquired 
 after you kindly. The rest of my letter must depend on one 
 from you, or on the town and the (runnings. There is published 
 a grub print not void of humour, called the New Art of Gunning ; 
 Miss, astride a cannon, is firing a volley of forged letters at the 
 Castle of Blenheim, and old Gertrude, emaciated and withered, 
 and very like, Lifting up her hoop to shelter injured innocence, 
 as she calls her. 
 
 Sunday, 13th. 
 
 Yesterday I had the misfortune of hearing of the death of my 
 oldest remaining friend, Lord Straff ord,f whom I knew from 
 the time he was twelve years old, and who was invariably kind 
 and obliging to me. This is the heavy tax one pays for living 
 long ! but as it is not a language necessary to be talked to y r 
 time of life, I shall keep my moralising for my own use, and 
 collect for yours only what will amuse you ; tho' as I gather 
 from hearsay, I must often send you false reports ; still I take 
 care they should only be on trifles of no consequence. Thus I 
 told you old French had funded her legacies on her collection ; 
 but luckily for her legatees she had money enough in the stocks 
 to discharge the 6,000. : or her bequests would have fallen 
 wofully short. Three or four years ago, she had wanted to sell 
 her pictures to the Czarina for 1,200. a year, estimating her 
 own life, she said, but at two years' purchase. Well, her pictures, 
 with the addition of her bronzes, china, &c., were sold by auction 
 yesterday and Friday, and produced but 978?.; and yet the 
 pictures went for more than they were worth. 
 
 Monday, 14th. 
 
 Your No. 23 d , which I received this morning at breakfast, 
 whets no reply, being merely carnivalesque ; but you are going 
 
 * Mary Willes, the wife of the late Sir George Beaumont, 
 t The last Earl of Strafford of the family of Wentworth. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 to more royal festivities at Florence with their Neapolitan and 
 Tuscan majesties and dukedoms. 
 
 The Great Turk at Petersburg has sent us rather a de haul em 
 bos anwer to our proposal of mediating to hinder her removing 
 to Constantinople ; we have frowned at the rate of eighteen men 
 of war still, keeping up our dignity costs us so dear, that I 
 hope we shall let her go to the Black Sea and be d d ! 
 
 Mesdames de Biron and Cambis have taken houses on Kich- 
 mond Green as well as Les Boufflers and Mad. de Poncherolles, 
 so it will be petty France. Such swarms of Franks have left 
 the country, that I wonder the National Assembly, which de- 
 lights in wasting time on reviving old names, do not call their 
 sovereign king of Graul instead of king of the French. On the 
 contrary, Mesdames Adelaide and Victoire, formidable as the 
 latter name is, will not put the Eomans much in mind of their 
 precursor Brennus. 
 
 I have cancelled my codicil of gout, and shall issue forth 
 again this evening, and perhaps at the end of the week go to 
 Strawberry for a day or two, as the weather lately has been 
 uncommonly fine. Adieu I 
 
 On the 19th and 21st of March he writes a most 
 touching letter, in acknowledgment of that he had re- 
 ceived from Miss Berry in answer to his. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Saturday, March 19, 1791. 
 
 The town lies fallow not an incident worth repeating as far 
 as I know. Parliament manufactures only bills, not politics. I 
 never understood anything useful, and now that my time and 
 connections are shrunk to so narrow a compass, what business 
 have I with business ? As I had mended considerably for the 
 last four days, and as we have had a fortnight of soft warm 
 weather, and a south-west wind to-day, I have ventured hither 
 for change of air, and to give orders about some repairs at 
 Cliveden, which, by the way, Mr. H. Bunbury two days ago 
 proposed to take off my hands for his life. I really do not 
 think I accepted his offer. I shall return to town on Monday, 
 and hope to find a letter to answer, or what will this do ?] 
 
 Apropos, as the town stands stock still, I believe I shall 
 change my post days from Tuesdays to Fridays at least when
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S IMPROVED STATE OF HEALTH. 291 
 
 I am as barren as at this moment. However, when you do 
 not hear from me by the former, be assured you will wait but 
 four days longer ; besides as I shall now be frequently coming 
 hither, I may have more to say at the end of the week than at 
 the beginning. 
 
 I met Mrs. Buller t'other night at Lady M* Edgcumbe's, and 
 she lays all her omissions on the * chamiing man,' who mentioned 
 my message so slightly that she did not comprehend it. I 
 huffed her worse for her bad taste in sending for double Glo'ster 
 cheese in an evening, and vowed I will never enter her doors, if 
 smelling of it. I have a notion her son is of a regiment that 
 eats of it. The Greatheds are in Mrs. Darner's house. I hope 
 they will not be there six weeks. 
 
 [B. Sq., Monday evening. 
 
 I am returned, and find the only letter I dreaded, and the only 
 one I trust that I shall ever not be impatient to receive from 
 you. Tho' ten thousand times kinder than I deserve, it wounds 
 my heart, as I find I have hurt two of the persons I love the 
 best upon earth, and whom I am most constantly studying to 
 please and serve. That I soon repented of my murmurs you 
 have seen by my subsequent letters. The truth, as you may 
 have perceived, tho' no excuse, was, that I had thought myself 
 dying and should never see you more ; that I was extremely 
 weak and low when Mrs. D.'s letter arrived, and mentioned her 
 supposing I should not see you till spring twelvemonth. That 
 terrible sentence recalled Mr. Batt's being the first to assure me 
 of y r going abroad, when I had concluded you had laid aside 
 the design. I did sincerely allow that in both instances you 
 had acted from tenderness in concealing y r intentions ; but as I 
 knew I could better bear the information from yourselves than 
 from others, I thought it unfriendly to let me learn from others 
 what interested me so deeply. Yet I do not in the least excuse 
 my conduct, No, I condemn it in every light, and shall never 
 forgive myself if you do not promise me to be guided entirely 
 by your own convenience and inclinations about your return. 
 
 I am perfectly well again, and just as likely to live one year 
 
 as half an one. Indulge y r pleasure in being abroad while you 
 
 are there. I am now reasonable enough to enjoy y r happiness 
 
 as my own ; and since you are most kind when I least deserve 
 
 D 2
 
 292 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 it, how can I express my gratitude for giving up the scruple that 
 was so distressing to me ! Convince me you are in earnest by 
 giving me notice that you will write to Charing-cross while the 
 Neapolitans are at Florence.* I will look on that as a clearer 
 proof of y r forgiving my criminal letter than your return before 
 you like it. It is most sure that nothing is more solid or less 
 personal than my friendship for you two ; and even my com- 
 plaining letter, tho' unjust and unreasonable, proved that the 
 nearer I thought myself to quitting the world, the more my 
 heart was set on my two friends. Nay, they had occupied the 
 busiest moments of my illness as well as the most fretful ones. 
 
 Forgive then, my dearest friends, what could proceed from 
 nothing but too impatient affection. You say most truly you 
 did not deserve my complaints. Your patience and temper 
 under them make me but the more in the wrong ; and to have 
 hurt you, who have known but too much grief, is such a contra- 
 diction to the whole turn of my mind ever since I knew you, 
 that I believe my weakness from illness was beyond even what 
 I suspected. It is sure that when I am in my perfect senses, 
 the whole bent of my thoughts is to promote your and y r sister's 
 felicity, and you know nothing can give me satisfaction like your 
 allowing me to be of use to you. I speak honestly, notwith- 
 standing my unjust letter, I had rather serve you than see you. 
 Here let me finish this subject : I do not think I shall be faulty 
 with you again. 
 
 That ever 1 should give you Two an uneasy moment ! Oh ! 
 forgive me yet I do not deserve pardon in my own eyes, and 
 less in my own heart.] 
 
 The next letter was as follows : 
 
 Berkeley Square, Thursday, March 31, 1791. 
 
 I postpone my further answers to y r last till I have satisfied 
 Mr. Berry's curiosity about the war with Semiramis. The 
 King's martial message was adopted on Tuesday by both Houses ; 
 
 * His correspondents, to settle his mind as to the certainty of their 
 return at the time they had promised, had assured him that no financial 
 difficulties should stand in the way : which is what he means by sending to 
 Charing Cross (to Drummond, his banker). No such difficulties occurred. 
 The correspondence, therefore, with Charing Cross never took place. M.B. 
 Vide Horace Walpole's Letters.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S SELF-SACRIFICE. 293 
 
 but the measure is exceedingly unpopular, and even some im- 
 pression was made on the court troops. The ministerialists 
 affect to give out that matters will not ripen to war, as if our 
 blustering would terrify a woman in whom fear of no sort seems 
 to predominate. More this deponent knows not. 
 
 Now, my dearest friends, I turn to you, and do most cordially 
 implore you both not to bind yourselves nor to hold yourselves 
 bound to me by any promise ab* y r return. Let it depend en- 
 tirely on y r own inclinations and convenience. I cannot forgive 
 my sickly impatience in writing that peevish letter which vexed 
 you : it has vexed me more. Are you to be pleased only by 
 what would please me ? What claim have I to any sacrifice ? 
 and why should you make me any ? or think you that I cannot 
 sacrifice my own wishes to y r content ? Oh ! indeed but I can, 
 and wish to do so ! These are my earnest sentiments, and I 
 could but repeat them in various words were I to continue 
 writing all night. 
 
 We have no other positive news since my Tuesday's letter. 
 There is no peace between the Opera Theatres ; the Haymarket 
 rather triumphs. They have opened twice, taking money in an 
 evasive manner, pretending themselves concerts; the singers are 
 in their own clothes, the dancers drest, and no recitative a 
 sort of opera in deshabille. Threats of arrest have been thown 
 out, but no coup de main. Some think the return of the Judges 
 from the circuit is awaited ; but perhaps the Court is sensible 
 of having begun by being in the wrong. 
 
 I never mention France, concluding you more a portee to 
 know. The hideous barbarity at Pouai, where they have frac- 
 tured a man's skull, and then taken him out of bed, and hanged 
 him after he had been trepanned ; while the prisons are over- 
 stuffed, after they found but six prisoners in the Bastile, does 
 not convince me yet that they have got a milder government. 
 
 How sorry I am that you have lost the satisfaction of being 
 with your friend Mrs. Cholmeley in town this season. I doubt 
 two courts will not make you amends. 
 
 I feel every week the disagreeableness of the distance between 
 us : each letter is generally three weeks on its passage, and we 
 receive answers to what one must often forget one has said ; 
 and cannot under six weeks learn what one is anxious to know. 
 Balloons, had they succeeded, would have prodigiously abridged
 
 294 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 delays ; but French discoveries are not, I believe, endowed with 
 duration ; when they have broken necks, and cut throats, they 
 find the world forced to content itself with old inventions. 
 French society never takes disappointment into calculations. 
 
 This must be a short letter, for even London, you see, now 
 the Gunnings are gone, cannot furnish a whole sheet once a 
 week : however, I had rather leave half my paper blank than 
 have any campaign-work to fill it with. Europe at present is 
 in a strange ferment, distracted between the daemons of repub- 
 licanism and universal monarchy at least Prussia and we say 
 that Semiramis aims at the latter; if she does, we at least 
 might wish her removed to Constantinople : she would be farther 
 off. Nay, I am so ignorant to imagine, that, if there, she 
 would cultivate and restore Greece, &c., and be a better custo- 
 mer than the Turks. Nor am I disposed to think Prussia a sub- 
 stantial ally : it is a fictitious power that would have shrunk to 
 little again with its creator, had the successor been an inactive 
 prince. Attention, treasures, and a most formidable army lie has, 
 but if war dissipates his hoards, and diminishes his force, which 
 the squander of his wealth will weaken too, adieu ! panier, ven- 
 danges sont faites. These are my speculations : I don't know 
 whether they have come into the head of anybody else, nor care 
 whether they deserve it. I write to amuse you and myself, and 
 only reason, because I have nothing better to send you. I am 
 far from fond of dissertationary letters, which present themselves 
 humbly, but hope to rank as essays. I must be in sad want of 
 nonsense when I talk seriously of general topics, and I hope that, 
 except when you were in a storm, or travelling thro' the land 
 of anarchy, or when I was in terror of seeing you no more, or 
 not for an age, you will not charge me with any gravity. I have 
 gossipped to anybody's heart's wish ; and the deuce is in it, if 
 any letters are worth receiving that have the fear of Wisdom 
 before their eyes. Adieu to Arno's vale till next Friday. 
 
 It was in the month of March that Miss Berry met 
 with an accident, which might have proved serious, and 
 of which she wrote the exact truth to her anxious friend, 
 that his imagination might not exaggerate the danger. 
 She had fallen down a bank in the neighbourhood of 
 Pisa, and received a deep cut on the nose.
 
 1791] MISS BERRY HAS AN ACCIDENT. 295 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, April 3, 1791. 
 
 Oh ! what a shocking accident ! Oh ! how I detest your going 
 abroad more than I have done yet in my Grossest mood ! You 
 escaped the storm on the 10th of October that gave me such an 
 alarm ; you passed unhurt thro' the cannibals of France and 
 their republic of Ladrones and Poissardes, who terrified me 
 sufficiently but I never expected that you would dash y r self 
 to pieces at Pisa ! You say I love truth, and that you have told 
 me the exact truth but how can fear believe ?] You say you 
 slept part of the night after y r fall oh ! but the other part ! 
 Was not you feverish? How can I wait above a month for 
 answers to an hundred questions I want to ask ; and how a 
 week for another letter ? A little comfort I have had even since 
 I received the horrid account; I have met Mrs. Lockart at 
 Lady Hesketh's, and she has assured me that there is a very 
 good surgeon at Pisa if he is, he must have blooded you 
 directly. How could you be well enough to write the next 
 day ? Why did not Miss Agnes for you ? But I conclude she 
 was not recovered enough by y r fall. When I am satisfied that 
 you have not hurt yourself more than you own, I will indulge 
 my concern about the outside of y r nose, about which I shall 
 not have your indifference. I am not in love with you, yet 
 fully in love enough not to bear any damage done to that 
 perfect nose, or to any of all y r beautiful features ; then, too, I 
 shall scold at y r thoughtlessness. 
 
 [How I hate a party of pleasure ! it never turns out well ; 
 fools fall out, and sensible people fall down ! Still I thank 
 you a million of times for writing y r self ; if Miss Agnes had 
 written for you, I confess I should have been ten times more 
 alarmed than I am, and yet I am alarmed enough.] My sweet 
 Agnes, I feel for you too, tho' you have not the misery of being 
 a thousand miles from y r wounded sister, nor are waiting for 
 a second account. The quantity of blood she lost has, I trust, 
 prevented any fever. I would ask for every tiny circumstance, 
 but alas ! I must wait above a month for an answer. 
 
 . . . . I received the account two days sooner than the 
 letters generally arrive, and the day after my last was gone, 
 so I can have nothing to add, nor indeed, do I think of any- 
 thing but the fall at Pisa, of which I went full to Lady
 
 296 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 Hesketh's last night, and there were so many of y r friends, that 
 my sad news seemed like throwing a bomb into the room. You 
 would have been flattered at the grief it occasioned; there 
 were Mrs. Lockart, the Pepys's, Mrs. Buller, Lady Herries, 
 Geo. Cambridge, the Abbe Nichols, Mrs. Carter, and some who 
 scarce know you, who yet found they w d be very unfashionable 
 if they did not join in the concern for you and in y r panegyric. 
 Cambridge had received a letter too, but three days earlier in 
 date. Mr. Pepys desired me to tell you that he had written 
 to you a folio of news, but you never received it. However, I 
 am sure I have not let you starve, unless you are curious about 
 suits in chancery. 
 
 [Not to torment you more with my fears when I hope you 
 are almost recovered, I will answer the rest of y r letter. General 
 O'Hara I have unluckily not met yet ; he is so dispersed, and I 
 am so confined in my resorts, and so seldom dine from home, 
 that I have not seen him even at General Conway's. When I 
 do, can you imagine that we shall not talk of you two ? Yes, 
 and y r accident I am sure will be the chief topic. As our fleets 
 are to dethrone Catherine Petruchia, O'Hara will probably not 
 be sent to Siberia.* Apropos to Catherine and Petruchio, I 
 supped with their representatives, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, 
 t'other night at Miss Farren's ; the Hothams f were there too, 
 and Mrs. Anderson, who treated the players with acting as 
 many characters as ever they did, particularly Gunnilda and 
 Lady Clackmannan. Mrs. Siddons is leaner, but looks well ; 
 
 * In Mr. Walpole's letter of the 27th, he says : ' Mr. Pitt has notified 
 that he is to deliver a message from the King, to-morrow, to the House of 
 
 Commons, on the situation of Europe I am sorry to say that 
 
 I fear it is to be a warlike one. The Autocratrix swears she will hack 
 her way to Constantinople through the blood of one hundred thousand more 
 Turks, and that we are very impertinent for sending her a card with a sprig 
 of olive. On the other hand, Prussia bounces and huffs, and claims our 
 promise of helping him to make peace by helping him to make war ; and so, 
 in the most charitable and pacific way in the world, we are, they say, to send 
 twenty ships to the Baltic, and half as]many to the Black Sea.' Vide Horace 
 Walpole's Letters. 
 
 t Sir Charles Hotham Thompson, married to Lady Dorothy Hobart, 
 sister of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire. Wright. 
 
 \ Mrs. Anderson, daughter of Lady Cecilia Johnstone, married to a 
 brother of Lord Yarborough. Wright. 
 
 A nickname given by the writer to a lady of the society. Wright.
 
 1791] MRS. SIDDONS DEATH OF M1RABEAU. 297 
 
 she has played Jane Shore and Desdemona, and is to play in ' The 
 Gamester ; ' all the parts she will act this year. Kemble, they 
 say, shone in Othello. 
 
 Mrs. Darner has been received at Elvas with all military 
 honours and a banquet, by order of Mello, formerly embassador 
 here. It was handsome in him, but must have distressed her 
 who is so void of ostentation and love of show. 
 
 Miss Boyle,* who, no more than Miss Pulteney,f has let her- 
 self be snapped up by lovers of her fortune, is going to Italy 
 for a year with Lord and Lady Maiden.] 
 
 I return to town to-morrow morning, with a faint hope of 
 receiving another letter about your fall, and will reserve the 
 rest of my paper for anything I may hear before noon on Tues- 
 day. I will not peremptorily fix my days of writing to Tuesdays 
 and Fridays, but write as you mend, or as I find matter ; there- 
 fore do not suspect gout if I am not punctual; I am more 
 likely, I think, to be intercalary than remiss. This morning 
 has been as warm as if the day had been born at Pisa ; and 
 Cliveden, where I have been giving some orders, did not look 
 
 ugly- 
 
 [B. Square, Monday, after dinner. 
 
 Mirabeau is dead aye, miraculously, for it was of a putrid 
 fever (that began in his heart). Dr. Price is dying also J fortu- 
 nate omens for those who hope to die in their beds too. I think 
 alike of such incendiaries, whose lessons tend to blood, whether 
 their stilettoes have taken place or not. That Mr. Berry, with 
 so much good nature and good sense, should be staggered, I do 
 not wonder. Nobody is more devoted to liberty than I am. It is 
 therefore that I abhor the National Assembly, whose outrageous 
 violence has given, I fear, a lasting wound to the cause ; for 
 anarchy is despotism in the hands of thousands. A lion attacks 
 but when hungry or provoked ; but who can live in a desert 
 full of hyaenas ? Nobody but Mr. Bruce and we have only his 
 word for it. Here is started up another corsair, one Paine from 
 America, who has published an answer to Mr. Burke, that 
 
 * Miss Boyle, afterwards Lady H. Fitzgerald, 
 t Miss Pulteney, married to Sir James Murray, 
 t Dr. Price died soon after.
 
 298 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 deserves a putrid fever.* His doctrines go to the extremity of 
 levelling, and his style is so coarse, that you would think he 
 means to degrade the language as much as the Government.] 
 
 Monday night. 
 
 I am come home early from the Bishop of London's for the 
 chance of finding another letter from one of you. But ah ! you 
 did not know my anxiety ! March 16 th will be a blacker day in 
 my almanac than Oct. 10 th . I hope after nineteen days, without 
 reckoning the time this will be travelling to you, you w d at 
 this moment be capable of laughing at my alarm. Alas ! it is 
 no jest to me ! 
 
 I learnt nothing new for you, but that Lord Strathaven f was 
 married this morning to Miss Cope $ not at Grretna Green, for 
 they have been asked in church. Adieu ! you bid me have no 
 more gout this year pray do you have no more falls. 
 
 The next letter shows that his mind was still agitated 
 on the subject of Miss Berry's fall : 
 
 Berkeley Square, April 10, 1791. 
 
 It is Sunday, but no letter ! I did hope for one yesterday, as 
 the preceding Saturday had brought me the miserable news of 
 y r fall, and this I flattered myself would make me amends by a 
 favourable account but Saturday I see is one of the Dies nefastos 
 carbone notandos, and a pupil of March 16 th . If to-morrow 
 bring good news, I will prefer Mondays, tho' two days later. I 
 have little news for you, tho' I begin writing to-day. If any- 
 body asks me for news, I answer, * Yes, and very bad ; Miss 
 Berry has had a terrible fall, and cut her beautiful nose ! ' 
 
 What novelties there are I will despatch, for if I have not a 
 most prosperous account to-morrow, I shall forget anything I 
 have heard at present my gazette would lie in a nutshell ; and 
 were it not for the oddity of what happened to myself for two 
 days together, my intelligence would be like to the common 
 articles of a newspaper. On Wednesday, my nephew, L d Chol- 
 mondeley, came and acquainted me that he is going to be mar- 
 
 * The first part of the * Rights of Man.' 
 t Afterwards Marquis of Huntley. 
 t Daughter of Sir Charles Cope, Bart.
 
 1791] HOME NEWS. 299 
 
 ried to Lady Charlotte Bertie, who had accepted of him ( But,' 
 says he, ' you will be so good as not to mention it yet, for I am 
 now going to the Duchess of Ancaster to ask her consent ' 
 which she did not refuse. 
 
 The next day Captain Waldegrave came, and almost in the 
 same words, the parties excepted, notified a match between his 
 sister, Lady Elizabeth, and Lord Cardigan, e But you must not 
 mention it yet, for the Earl is only now gone into the King to 
 ask his leave,' I did not know I was so proper a Cato to be 
 trusted with love-tales. I doubt George Ch. and his new wife, 
 and the mothers of both are not delighted with the former 
 match ; and Brudenel and his mother will be terribly disap- 
 pointed with the latter, after the old Earl had lain fallow so 
 long. I remember when he married his former wife, they both 
 looked so antique, that I said, they may have grandchildren, but 
 they certainly will have no children now it seems his lordship 
 means to have a great-grandson. I was to have met the mother, 
 Mrs. Cholmondeley, last Friday at Mrs. Buller's, but the latter 
 turned a very small party into a ball, and I desired to be ex- 
 cused, for tho' I have married two wives at once, when many 
 years older than L d Cardigan, I did not chuse to jig with Master 
 Buller's friends the officers of the guards. 
 
 I can tell Mr. Berry nothing more of our Russian war, but 
 that it is most exceedingly unpopular, and that it is supposed 
 Mr. Pitt will avoid it if he possibly can. You know I do not 
 love Catherine Petruchia Slay czar, yet I have no opinion of our 
 fleet dethroning her. 
 
 An odd adventure has happened. The Primate of Poland has 
 been here, the King's brother. He bought some scientific toys 
 at Merlin's, paid 15 guineas for them in the shop, and was to 
 pay as much more. Merlin pretends he knew him only for a 
 foreigner who was going away in two days, and literally had 
 his holy highness arrested and carried to a spunging house ; for 
 which the Chancellor has struck the attorney off the list. But 
 hear the second part. The King of Poland had desired the Pri- 
 mate to send him some English books, who for one sent the Law 
 of Arrests. The King wrote, * This is not so useless a book to 
 me as some might think ; for when I was in England, I was 
 arrested ' before the letter arrived, the Archbishop himself was 
 in limbo.
 
 300 LETTERS [1791 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Last night I was at Mr. Pepys's, where was Lady Juliana 
 Penn, who alarmed me exceedingly, for she had received a letter 
 from her son in Italy, when I had had none but this morning 
 I have received a comfortable one, which I hope is perfectly 
 true for you must forgive me, if I cannot help fearing y r kind- 
 ness for me softens y r accident and its consequences. You did 
 not sleep for some nights, your nerves were shaken. I know that 
 from the 25 th of March to the 1 1 th of April is above a fortnight, 
 and yet I shall think it above a fortnight to this day sevennight, 
 when I hope for a still better account ; for tho' a little easier, I 
 am far from satisfied and not yet at all arrived at grieving for 
 a mark on y r nose, as I shall do till I actually see you, when the 
 joy of y r return will drown less considerations. How good you 
 are to reassure me on that subject ! The Abbe has come in and 
 distracted me with news for which I do not care a straw, nor 
 w d have listened to, but that you like my telling you all I hear 
 but what are all those marriages to me who am separated 
 from both my wives ? or Miss Bingham's no-marriage with 
 Lord (jrey, for which L d Stamford has forbid the bans? or 
 the Marquis of Worcester's with L d Stafford's daughter, Lady 
 M. M. or N. N. Leveson, which is declared ? or the D 9S of Rut- 
 land's with L d Paget, forbidden by his father, yet to be or not 
 to be something. Ma d du Barry is again come, and Lady St. 
 Asaph died yesterday of a second miscarriage, leaving four young 
 children, a most fond husband, and the families on both sides 
 much afflicted. So much for the Abbe's Morning Herald, and 
 I return to y r nose and your nerves how could you write so 
 much, when they are not well and to be thinking of my gout, 
 and recommending care of myself I am perfectly recovered of 
 everything but your fall. 
 
 I had a letter two days ago from Mrs. Damer then at Grenada ; 
 she had suffered from the snow on the mountains. Her parents 
 have been in town these two months, and very well. I supped 
 there last night with the Duchess of Richmond and Mrs. Pom- 
 poustown Hervey. 
 
 Your acquaintance Mrs. Horace Churchill, one of my seventy 
 and I don't know how many nephews and nieces, has just pre- 
 sented me with one more of the first gender : Ma d de St. Alban
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S ANXIETIES RESPECTING MISS BERRY. 301 
 
 gave me two of the other but perhaps might as justly have 
 bestowed them on somebody not so rich in nepotism. 
 
 I must have an attestation under the hand of Agnes auxjoues 
 de rose that you have no fever left, that your nerves are re- 
 braced, and I will bear an oath from any rival that your nose is 
 as perfect as ever. 
 
 Your letter of this morning is an answer to mine of Feb. 28, 
 to Florence how vexatious such a distant correspondence ! If 
 I to-day say ' How do you do ? ' it will be one or two and forty 
 days before you answer, * Very well thank you.' 
 
 Monday night. 
 
 I am just come from Lady Herries, who with Mrs. Hunter 
 charged me to tell you how glad they are to hear you are better 
 of y r fall. I said you had just desired me to thank all who are 
 so kind as to inquire after you : I wish I could answer their 
 inquiries oftener ! 
 
 You will, I trust, be at Florence when you receive this, but it 
 will be May before I know so, which is sad, as it will be a better 
 proof than all you can say, that your face is recovered. I shall 
 apply what was said to one of the sable Finches, ' Sir, if you 
 was to swear till you are white in the face,' &c. that is, I must 
 have collateral proofs, for my fears are stronger than my faith. 
 Adieu ! may Heaven preserve you both ! and may I have no more 
 days to stigmatize in my almanac ! 
 
 In his letter of April 15th he says : 
 
 [I cannot help having that nose a little upon my spirits, 
 though if it were flat I should love it as much as ever for the 
 sake of the head and heart that belong to it.] 
 
 I don't know what business you had to carry it to the moutli 
 of the Arno and throw it down a precipice. I go to Straw- 
 berry to-morrow, in this jubilee spring that comes but once in 
 fifty years, and shall return on Monday, trusting to be met 
 by a letter from Pisa, with a prosperous account of all I wot 
 of. 
 
 [I have seen O'Hara with his face as ruddy and black and his 
 teeth as white as ever, and as fond of you two, and as grieved 
 for your fall as anybody but I. He has got a better regi- 
 ment,]
 
 302 LETTERS [1791 
 
 [Berkeley Square, Monday, 18. 
 
 Oh ! what a dear letter have I found ! and from both at once, 
 and with such a delightful bulletin.] I have but one doubt, and 
 that is from the delay of going to Florence, which I hope is to 
 be placed only to the article of the becoming. 
 
 [I should not be pleased with the idleness of the pencil, were 
 it not owing to the chapter of health, which I prefer to every- 
 thing,] high as I hold the Death of Wolsey. The moment I 
 enter Strawberry I hasten into the little parlour, which I have 
 new hung for his reception, with Lady Di's Gipsies * and Mrs. 
 Darner's Dogs.f I defy your favourite Italy to produce three 
 such monuments of female genius. 
 
 The rest of this letter, together with that of the 23rd, 
 is, as usual, a chronicle of all the floating news, both 
 political and social, he could collect to send them. On 
 the 25th of April he writes from Berkeley Square : 
 
 Monday, in the Square. 
 
 I have found a letter from you as I expected, but there were 
 three pages before I found a word of y r nose. You give a good 
 account of it yet, as you have again deferred your journey to 
 Florence, tho' but for a day or two, I do not quite trust to your 
 deposition. Produce your nose to Kings and Emperors or I 
 shall not be satisfied. I know you are not eager for puppet 
 shows ; yet your being at a fete would convince me more than 
 the attestation of a surgeon. 
 
 You kindly desire me not to go to Strawberry for fear of 
 relapse but this is the case of so distant a correspondence ! I 
 have been there four or five times without the smallest incon- 
 venience : besides, it has been summer all winter. You desire 
 me too to continue to write punctually. I do not seem to be in 
 danger of relaxing at least, not before I am settled in the 
 country ; and then indeed I may want matter but the town 
 goes so late out of itself, that I dare say it will furnish me with 
 something or other for these two months ; and then in two 
 
 * Drawing by Lady Diana Beauclerc. 
 t Dogs sculptured by Mrs. Darner.
 
 1791] THE COUNTESS OP ALBANY. 303 
 
 months more I trust you will be on the road and then why 
 then, in two months more I hope I shall have no occasion to 
 write to you ! Six months of y r absence are nearly gone, and I 
 am trying as much as I can to anticipate the other six ! 
 
 Berkeley Square, May 4, 1791. 
 
 Tho' I have changed my post days to Fridays, as better 
 market days for news, the first-fruits do not answer indeed, on 
 Tuesday I should not have had a paragraph to send you ; and 
 now my articles will rather be talkables than events, for I know 
 not one that has happened, except the change of weather, 
 January having succeeded to April but what signifies how the 
 weather was, when you hear it three weeks afterwards ? 
 
 Nothing more is known of the Eussian War, or the new 
 Secretary of State, nor why the last resigned. The Duke of 
 York is gone to Berlin, and the press continues alert. That 
 looks all martial but the stocks are philosophic and keep their 
 temper. The Prince of Wales is much out of order, spits blood, 
 and fainted away after his levee on Monday. 
 
 General Conway has had a great escape ; he was reviewing his 
 Blues on Friday, previous to their being reviewed yesterday by 
 the King. The ground was so slippery, for we have had much 
 rain, that his horse fell down and rolled over him, and he only 
 had his arm and leg much bruised; yet so much bruised, that 
 yesterday he was forced to write to the King to excuse his 
 appearance, and last night he was lamer than I am. 
 
 Mrs. Darner has written that we may expect her by the 10th. 
 I shall allow two or three days for disappointments. 
 
 Here is arrived the Pinchbeck Queen Dowager of England, 
 alias the Countess of Albany. I have not much royal curiosity 
 left yet I have to see her, and it will be satisfied for as she 
 is great niece to Lady Ailesbury, and cousin of the Duchess of 
 Richmond, they must visit her, and they will make some 
 assembly or private party for her. At present they say she is 
 going to see Mrs. Swinburn in Yorkshire, who it seems is the 
 friend of all sorts of queens. 
 
 We have received besides a pacquet of French Dukes, the late 
 G-entilhommes de la Chambre, Richelieu, Villequier, and Duras; 
 the last narrowly escaped with his life at the late violence about
 
 304 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 the King's journey to St. Cloud; the first is returned to Paris 
 at the King's own request. The National Assembly have added 
 new persecution to the fugitives or to the embassadors, for- 
 bidding these to receive those but are the former obliged t/o 
 remain embassadors ? 
 
 You will have heard that La Fayette has resumed his com- 
 mand; which I think an ambitious weakness, and a second 
 tome to Necker's return. A general, who has lost command 
 and authority over his troops, will not recover it for long by 
 imposing an oath on them. The Parisian mob are mounted to 
 the highest note of the gamut of riot, and whoever plays to 
 them in that key, will make them caper away from their com- 
 mander, or lead them against him. 
 
 I am sorry to say that we have discordant people amongst us, 
 who are trying to strike up the same tune here. One Paine, an 
 American, has published the most seditious pamphlet ever seen 
 but in open rebellion : thousands of copies of it have been dis- 
 persed ; and the Revolution-Clubs threaten farther hostilities. 
 We have gained the happiest constitution upon earth by many 
 storms ; I trust we shall not lose it by one ! nor change it for 
 anarchy, which always ends in despotism, which I am persuaded 
 will be the consequence of the intemperate proceedings in 
 France, and in the end will be fatal to liberty in general ; as 
 mankind will dread buying even reformation too dear. 
 
 Apropos (an odd apropos, but you will see it's descent), the 
 Countess Stanhope,* to-night inquired in the kindest and most 
 interested manner after you both; so did Hannah More last 
 night at White Pusaetfs.} 
 
 Friday, noon, Ctli. 
 
 I must finish my letter, tho' my cargo is so small ; regular 
 stage-coaches, you know, set out, whether full or not. I have 
 not sent you so short a gazette yet. 
 
 I hope to-morrow or Monday to hear that your nose has exhi- 
 bited itself openly at Florence ; and as certain cheeks have got 
 natural roses, will not the pencil resume its practice ? The 
 Prince of Wales is better, and in a way to recover by an erup- 
 tion. Adieu ! all three ! 
 
 * Louisa Grenville, the grandmother of the present Earl Stanhope, 
 t Elizabeth Gary, wife of Lord Atnherat.
 
 1791] BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 305 
 
 In Mr. Walpole's letter of May 12th* he mentions 
 Mrs. Darner's return to England and her arrival at her 
 uncle's (Lord Frederick Campbell) house,' where he and 
 her parents were passing the evening. 
 
 In his letter, dated May 19th,* he gives an account of 
 the arrival of the Countess of Albany in England, and of 
 her presentation at court. 
 
 f [I have had (says he) an exact account of the interview of 
 the two Queens from one who stood close to them. The Dow- 
 ager was announced as Princess of Stolberg. She was well 
 dressed, and not at all embarrassed. The King talked to her a 
 good deal ; but about her passage, the sea, and general topics. 
 The Queen in the same way but less. Then she stood between 
 the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, and had a good deal of 
 conversation with the former ; who perhaps may have met her 
 in Italy. Not a word between her and the Princesses. . . . The 
 Queen looked at her earnestly.] 
 
 He concludes his letter with the announcement that 
 Boswell had just published his long-promised Life of 
 Johnson, in two volumes quarto. Mr. Walpole had a 
 great repugnance to Dr. Johnson, and says, when 
 noticing this work, in his letter of the 26th May,* that 
 he would never be the least acquainted with him. 
 
 [Johnson's blind Toryism and known brutality kept me aloof; 
 nor did I ever exchange a syllable with him : nay, I do not 
 think I was in a room with him six times in my days.] 
 
 The first time, I think, was at the Royal Academy. Sir 
 Joshua said, ' Let me present D r Goldsmith to you : ' he did. 
 ' Now I will present D r Johnson to you.' ' No,' said I, f Sir 
 Joshua ; for D r Goldsmith, pass but you shall not present D r 
 Johnson to me.' 
 
 In Mr. Walpole's letter of June 2nd, he says : 
 
 * Published in 1846. 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 [Berkeley Square, June 2, 1791. 
 
 Well ! I have seen Madam D' Albany, who has not a ray of 
 royalty about her. She has good eyes and teeth ; but I think 
 can have no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is 
 civil and easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Ailesbury 
 made a small assemblage for her on Monday, and my curiosity 
 was satisfied. Mr. Conway and Lady A., L d and Lady Frederick 
 Campbell, and Mrs. E. Hervey, and Mrs. Hervey * breakfasted 
 with me that morning at Strawberry.] 
 
 I have had no letter from you since Monday se'nnight, but 
 as I had three almost at once, and as Mrs. Darner received one 
 two days ago, I am in no fright about you; indeed I do not 
 like y r sitting and writing so much, which is bad for you. All 
 the difference now is, that I have nothing to answer ; and having 
 nothing to tell, this will be very brief. 
 
 [Mrs. Darner, who returned in such Spanish health, has al- 
 ready caught an English north-eastern cold, with pains in all 
 her limbs and a little fever ; and yesterday was not above two 
 hours out of bed. Her father came to me from her before 
 dinner, and left her better, and I shall go to her presently. 
 These two days may boldly assume the name of June without 
 the courtesy of England. Such weather makes me wish myself 
 at Strawberry.] 
 
 Next week I must go to Doctors' Commons don't be alarmed 
 I have not heard a syllable against either of you; but a 
 poor old gentlewoman in the country has made me her ex- 
 ecutor and trustee for her two daughters and they need not 
 alarm you neither tho' somehow or other there was a connec- 
 tion between the families, which it is not proper to explain by 
 the post, and I must repair into the city to prove the will. 
 Some trouble I shall have, for there are disagreeable circum- 
 stances attending both daughters, who are not of the compos-ite 
 order. Well ! one must do the best one can, and make the best 
 of everything. 'It is a chequered world, and surely I have no 
 reason to complain of my lot in it I a truly hard fate is that of 
 two of the most amiable young women in the world, punished 
 without a fault, and before they were capable of having a 
 fault, not for the fault, but for the virtues of their father ! But 
 justice is not only blind, as she ought to be, when sitting on the 
 * Elizabeth, a niece of Alderman Beckford.
 
 1791] KING AND QUEEN OF FEANCE ARRESTED. 307 
 
 bench in her scarlet robe and furs, but when she is at home en 
 famille. 
 
 Friday, noon, 3rd. 
 
 I sat with Mrs. D. an hour last night, and found her much 
 mended. To-day the message is, 'much better,' and if she 
 proved so, she told me she would ask y r friend Mrs. Chol'meley 
 to meet me there this evening. Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. Hastings made his defence yesterday, but the trial is 
 put off till the next session, as the Parl. is to be prorogued next 
 week. Nothing decided about the Russian War, nor a Secretary 
 of State yet, but Dundas, it is said, is to be the man. 
 
 His letters of June 8th, 14th, and 23rd, already pub- 
 lished, are an amusing chronicle of all he hears and sees. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1791. 
 
 I am glad you recovered my stray letter, because one lost 
 leaves a gap in a correspondence that one thinks might contain 
 something material, which I do not believe was the case. You 
 was right in concluding I should disapprove of y r visiting hos- 
 pitals. One ought to surmount disgust where it is one's duty, 
 or one can do any good, or perform an act of friendship ; but it 
 is a rule with me to avoid any disagreeable object or idea, where 
 I have not the smallest power of redress or remedy. I would 
 not read any of the accounts of the earthquakes in Sicily and 
 Calabria ; and when I catch a glimpse of a report of condemned 
 malefactors to the Council, I clap my finger on the paragraph, 
 that I may not know when they are to suffer, and have it run 
 in my head. It is worse to go into hospitals there is contagion 
 into the bargain. I have heard of a French princess, who had 
 a taste for such sights, and once said, ' II faut avouer, que j'ai 
 vu aujourd'hui une agonie magnifique.' Your tender nature is 
 not made for such spectacles ; and why attrist it, without doing 
 any service ? One needs not recur to the index of the book of 
 creation to hunt for miserable sufferers. What would I give 
 not to have heard the calamities fallen on the heads of the King 
 and Queen of France ! I know no more yet than of their being 
 betrayed and stopped at Clermont, and ordered back to Paris, 
 with their children I What superabundance of woe ! To expect 
 insult, ignominy, a prison, perhaps separation or death, without 
 x2
 
 308 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 a ray of comfortable hope for their infants. That their im- 
 prisonment and danger should have been grievous, I do not 
 wonder but to await dissention amongst their tyrants and 
 anarchy, was the best chance the King and Queen had in store ; 
 but tho' both will still happen in time, I still believe, what 
 advantage either or both will produce to those victims may be 
 very doubtful. That their flight was ill-advised is plain, from 
 that wofully false step of leaving his recantation behind him, 
 before he was safely out of the country. It was strange that his 
 intention being divulged, he should not have learnt the pre- 
 parations made to prevent it, and desisted ! It is equally 
 strange that he should have escaped, tho' so watched and 
 guarded ! 
 
 Wednesday, 29th. 
 
 I received y r No. 36 on Monday, to which I have partly been 
 replying ; and to-day I have been so happy as to get No. 37 too, 
 to which I will now answer, as I have heard nothing more yet 
 of the poor French Royalties, who must already have felt a 
 thousand times worse than ever, after a glimpse of safety, and 
 then expecting everything that brutal barbarity can inflict, and 
 which nobody but French and Dr. Price could be so shameless 
 as to enjoy. 
 
 I am glad you escaped from the hospital without infection ; 
 and I will trust to your sweet feelings for y r never going again 
 unnecessarily to view 800 persons in pain and misery. 
 
 I have told you, and can only repeat, that I did admire Mrs. 
 Chomley much, as I did formerly. It is a very clear, sound, 
 well-informed understanding, as far as I saw ; but that was but 
 four or five times at most, and chiefly in company, where there 
 were not many of quite her calibre. She seemed to me rather 
 modestly proper and reserved, but not out of spirits. 
 
 I am assured, as you justly guessed, that the pamphlet which 
 Mons r de Lally showed to you is by no means Mr. Burke's 
 genuine second pamphlet, but a spurious one fabricated at 
 Paris, and spread about there, to hurt his credit. This I heard 
 last Friday, five days before I received y r letter ; so if M. de 
 Lally answers it, he will be the dupe of his own enemies. Mr. B. 
 lias advertised a new letter to-day to the Whigs, but I have not 
 yet seen it. 
 
 Your Italian paper is thin, but perfectly good. Cliveden will
 
 1791] HOME AND FOREIGN NEWS. 309 
 
 look beautiful with your Narcissuses. I wish you were all there 
 to-day, for we are again soused into Florentine weather, and have 
 scarce had a teacup of rain, which makes us not look so green 
 as the Cascines, tho' generally we have fifty thousand acres of 
 such verdure thus I have answered y r chief articles. 
 
 Late at night. 
 
 I have been at Eichmond, where I have seen a letter from 
 good authority. The King and Queen were brought to Paris 
 amidst numerous thousands, and without much insult ; but 
 they have been separated, and the Queen has been confined at 
 the Val de Grace, where she was to be examined two days ago ; 
 and they talk of bringing her to trial for carrying away the 
 Child of the State, whom the Assembly wish to crown under a 
 regent, while the Jacobins are for a republic. I soon after saw 
 a gentleman from town, on whose intelligence I do not always 
 depend. He says the King lost six unnecessary hours on the 
 road in eating and drinking ; and that Mess rs de Choiseul and 
 Damas, who, I suppose, attended the King, are brought, not 
 only in chains to Paris, but with each a grenadier sitting in his 
 lap the whole way such unnecessary torture, that it must be 
 the taste of the nation to inflict it, if true. 
 
 All this, and fifty times more, true and false, you will hear 
 long before you receive this ; but of what can one talk else ? 
 Kate Macaulay was so unlucky as to die a few days ago ; but 
 she will gossip over it with Dr. Price. 
 
 Frank North, tho' abroad, has a musical comedy acting at the 
 little Haymarket, and coldly received. His friends say the 
 music was ill-chosen or the singers unequal to it. I had had 
 great expectations, for he certainly has much humour and wit. 
 I have seen excellent verses of his in that style. His brother 
 Frederic was stopped from going to Constantinople by the 
 plague, and is supposed on his road home. 
 
 Mrs. Darner is to come to me on Friday for a few days ; and 
 Madame D' Albany, at her own desire, is to breakfast here on 
 Saturday ; and, at" her desire, Altieri too. Whatever her feel- 
 ings are here, she must rejoice at having been only titular 
 Queen of France ! 
 
 Nine months are gone and over. 1 trust there are but four 
 to come ere we meet. Do not set a foot amongst the Basilis- 
 sophagi ! Monsieur and Madame have done right in retiring ;
 
 310 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 none of the family should stay in Paris, but a paltry Duke of 
 Orleans with his affected trull, Mad. de Sillery and I should 
 not be sorry if they were pelted out of it with contempt. 
 
 Lady Clackmannan was here this morning ; puss jumped into 
 her lap. I said * Mad m , do you dislike cats ? ' * Oh, no ! I like 
 all dumb creatures.' Aye, thought I, and so do I, but I am not 
 the better. 
 
 France, it seems, will supply my letters with matter, and I 
 shall not be reduced to village-chat yet I had rather have no 
 letters to write. Adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Monday, July 4, 1791. 
 
 Mrs. Darner has been here on Friday and Saturday, and 
 returned to town yesterday. She has already repaired the 
 eagle's beak with wax, so that he can again receive company ; 
 but as that has not force enough to execute the commands of 
 Jove, nor to crush the fingers of those who presume to touch 
 \ his sacred person, he will soon have another of marble. Madame 
 D'Albany and her cicisbeo breakfasted with us on Saturday, 
 and seemed really delighted consequently ' c'est la plus grande 
 reine du monde.' I really found she has more sense than I 
 had thought the first time I saw her ; but she had like to have 
 undone all, for when I showed her the ' Death of Wolsey,' with 
 which Mrs. D. is anew enchanted, and told her it was painted 
 by her acquaintance, Miss Agnes Berry, she recollected neither 
 of you but at last it came out that she had called you Miss 
 Barrys. I cannot say that whitewashed her much in my eyes : 
 how anything approaching to the sound would strike me at any 
 distance of time which, I trust, will never, while I exist, exceed 
 four months. Apropos, t'other night I visited at the foot of 
 Richmond Bridge, and found a whole circle of old and young 
 gossips. Miss assured me you are to be back in October, which 
 I do not repeat as if violating my promise of contenting myself 
 with the very commencement of November, but to give an 
 opportunity of saying that Cliveden will be quite ready to 
 receive you in October; and, as I conclude the lease of y r 
 house in town will not be out then, your best way will be not 
 to stop a moment in London, but to drive directly hither, and 
 stay all three, &c., with me till you can settle yourselves in 
 Cliveden. This will not only be the most convenient to your- 
 selves, but you are sure the most agreeable to me ; and thus
 
 1791] SYMPATHY FELT FOR MARIE ANTOINETTE. 311 
 
 you will have time to unpack and arrange yourselves, without 
 being broken in upon for some days by visits, nor expected to 
 make them. With all my warmth for those I love, I have a 
 rebuffing coldness, that does not glue people to a chair in my 
 house. 
 
 Miss Au-pres-du-pont told me Miss A. had written to her of 
 my misery about your nose. I was sorry, as that family is in 
 daily and hourly commerce of tattle with all the world, and 
 all the Grimalkins in the parish will conclude I am in love 
 with your nose, which I vow I am not ; but if I love you both 
 most affectionately, as I do, can either of you wound her nose 
 by a dreadful fall, and I not feel for it? Miss Dupont soon 
 quitted the subject to put such a volume of interrogations to 
 me about L d Strafford's will, that at last I was forced to say, 
 1 Madam, indeed I cannot answer all those questions ; ' on which 
 she did close her incessant lips, and the ball was resumed by 
 the Signora Madre. Oh ! those righteous scorpions, that will 
 not touch a card, but meddle with everybody's affairs with 
 which they have nothing to do, and never ask themselves 
 whether what they hear is true or false, but 'repeat both as 
 conscientiously as the postman delivers letters without knowing 
 what they contain. Thus every falsehood is propagated, like 
 seeds that birds drop out of their bills. For Truth I believe 
 she died a maid, and left no issue. 
 
 Thence I will not talk on France, for one is overwhelmed 
 with reports contradicting one another, according to the pro- 
 pensities of the senders and receivers. Of one thing I am 
 certain, of pitying the Queen ; which was so generally felt here 
 as soon as the reverse of her escape was known, that I was told 
 that, if money could serve her, an hundred thousand p* 18 would 
 have been subscribed in a quarter of an hour at Loyd's Coffee- 
 house. There is a wretch, a quondam Prince du Sang, who has 
 snapped at this moment for making himself more ridiculously 
 contemptible than ever, by protesting he does not wish for the 
 Eegency, which, I suppose, would as soon be offered to me. I 
 remember an old French refugee here, a Marquise de Montandre 
 (the Mademoiselle Spanheim of the ' Spectator ') who, on the 
 strength of her pinchbeck marquisat, pretended to precede our 
 sterling countesses ; but being sure of it's not being allowed, 
 she thus entered her claim. When at a visit, tea was brought 
 in ; before the groom of the chambers could offer it to anybody,
 
 312 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 she called out, ' I would not have any tea ; ' and then, when she 
 kad thus saved her dignity, she said to him, after others had 
 been served, *I have betought myself; I tink I will have 
 one cup.' 
 
 Berkeley Square, Thursday evening, 7th. 
 
 I might as well write of French affairs, as I have nothing else 
 to write. Apropos, we have had such violent west winds, that 
 I have no letter from you this week. A disagreeable affair, 
 with which I will not tire you long, brought me to town on 
 Tuesday. My disordered ward, whom I mentioned to you, was 
 to come to me on Tuesday from Chichester; I was to bring 
 her to town yesterday, and send her with Kirgate and his 
 daughter to-day into Kent, where I had found a private lodging 
 for her with excellent people, who had a poor gentleman, in 
 the same way, with them, and had treated him with the utmost 
 tenderness. She had consented and promised to come, with a 
 worthy lawyer, employed by the D. of Richmond, and his 
 daughter, who had submitted to attend her ; but on Monday 
 night she changed her mind and would not stir. I sat till 
 eleven at night expecting her every minute, and starting up 
 at the rattle of every chaise that past. The same next morning 
 till the post came in, when a letter from the lawyer acquainted 
 me she was so disordered, that he had called in the apothecary, 
 who declared compulsion must be used. To that I have posi- 
 tively refused my consent, unless to prevent her from destroying 
 herself; and have ordered all the gentlest methods to be used 
 as long as possible, and to offer her to settle herself wherever 
 she likes best for she is not constantly out of her mind. It is 
 a most unfortunate history, and I find will give one great 
 trouble. I was forced to come to consult Mr. Churchill, joint 
 trustee with me. 
 
 Last night I supped at Mrs. Darner's (who goes to Park 
 Place to-morrow for three weeks), with Madame D'Albany, 
 the D. and Dss. of Richmond, the men Mt. Edgcumbes, Mrs. 
 Buller, and 'the charming man,' and to-morrow return to 
 Strawberry. 
 
 The Gunnings are not only resettled in St. James's Street as 
 boldly as ever, but constantly with old Bedford, who exults in 
 having regained them; but their place in the town-talk is 
 occupied by Lady Mary Duncan, who, on receiving tickets for
 
 1791] HOME NEWS. olo 
 
 his benefit from Badini, at the Pantheon, where Pacchierotti 
 does not sing, she returned them with a most* abusive letter, 
 calling him impudent monster and wretched poet. This has 
 given somebody an opportunity of returning an answer (in his 
 name) ten times more scurrilous, and which is cried up as full 
 of humour ; but by what has been repeated to me out of it, I 
 only found it exceedingly coarse and indelicate. However, she 
 cannot be pitied, having committed herself by being the 
 aggressor towards such a fellow. Adieu ! I have exhausted my 
 small sack of gatherings. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Tuesday night, July 12, 1791. 
 
 I had had no letter from you for ten days, I suppose from 
 west winds, but did receive one this morning, which had been 
 three weeks on the road and a charming one it was. Mr. Batt, 
 who dined with me yesterday, and stayed till after breakfast to- 
 day, being here, I redde part of it to him, and he was as much 
 delighted as I was with y r happy quotation of Incedit Regina. 
 If I could spare so much room, I might fill this paper with all 
 he said of you both, and with all the friendly kind things he 
 begged me to say to both from him. Last night I redde to 
 him certain reminiscences, and this morning he slipped from 
 me and walked over to Cliveden and hopes to see it again 
 much more agreeably. I hope so too and that I shall be with 
 him.] Now to answer you. 
 
 The Duke of Argyll and Lady Charlotte are at Inverary, and 
 he, they say, is very low, and not at all well. Lady Derby is at 
 Eichmond I hear, much as usual. Mrs. D. is at Park -place 
 for three weeks, has been here as I told you in my last, is per- 
 fectly well, and looks better than ever I saw her. Mrs. Hervey 
 is gone thither to-day from Hampton, where she has been two 
 or three days with the Johnstones (I did not know of such 
 intimacy) ; they all and Mrs. Anderson were here yesterday 
 morning, and I dined with all but Mrs. Hervey at Mrs. Grarrick's 
 last Saturday. Mr. Batt and Clackmannan were there too. 
 
 [I wish there were not so many fetes at Florence ; they are 
 worse for you both than Italian sultriness ; but if you do go to 
 them, I am glad you have more northern weather. 
 
 News I have none, but that Calonne arrived in London 
 on Sunday you may be sure I do not know for what in a
 
 314 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 word, I have no more opinion of his judgment, than of his 
 integrity. 
 
 Now I must say a syllable about myself but don't be alarmed ! 
 it is not the gout ; it is worse, it is the rheumatism, which I 
 have had in my shoulder ever since it attended the gout last 
 December. It was almost gone till last Sunday, when, the 
 Bishop of London [Porteous] preaching a charity sermon in our 
 church, whither I very, very seldom venture to hobble, I would go 
 to hear him, both out of civility, and as I am very intimate with 
 him. The church was crammed, and tho' it rained, every window 
 was open. However, at night I went to bed and to sleep ; but 
 waked with such exquisite pain in my rheumatic right shoulder, 
 that I think I scarce ever felt greater torture from the gout.] 
 
 It was so grievous, that I considered whether I should not 
 get out of bed but the thought that I might kill myself, and 
 consequently not live to Cliveden-tide, checked me upon my 
 honour this is true I lay not still, but writhing about, till 
 about five o'clock, when I fell asleep. I have had but very 
 moderate pain since. I own I did tremble at night, but I had 
 my usual comfortable night composed of one whole dose of sleep, 
 and could not be very bad yesterday, as I could read to Mr. Batt 
 for two hours and half without reposing, nor worse to-day, when 
 I have been writing this prolix syllable to you, in my lap in- 
 deed, without deputing Kirgate. Tho' the gout could never 
 subdue my courage, nor make me take any precaution against 
 catching cold, the rheumatism and Cliveden have made a 
 coward of me. I now draw up my coach glasses, button my 
 breast, and put a hat on the back of my head, for I cannot yet 
 bear it to touch my forehead, when I go into the garden. You 
 charged me to be particular when I am not well I think I 
 have been circumstantial enough ! If I am in love with your 
 nose, and long to see it, quite recovered, take root at Cliveden, 
 at least your Corydon does not forget that he is seventy-four, 
 nor conceal one particle of his rheumatism. His dread of being 
 gone before November does not look as if he thought himself 
 immortal and yet as a true knight, no Orondates ever suffered 
 more for his mistress, than I did heroically on Sunday night 
 in not getting out of bed. 
 
 Thursday evening. 
 
 I cannot finish this with my own hand, for yesterday morning
 
 1791] RETURN OP GOUT. 315 
 
 I had a good deal of pain, the incorporated society of rheumatism 
 and gout have got down to my elbow and wrist, and I cannot 
 move my arm at all however, as the pain is locomotive, I trust 
 it will soon go quite away. I will write again on Tuesday, tho' 
 a hors-d'oeuvre ; and I could have wished to write more myself 
 to-day, for this morning I received another charming letter from 
 you, with a most picturesque description of the Great Duke's 
 Inthrvnization in the Pan-Athenion in the Piazza del Grran 
 Duea there, there are as many long words as Dr. Johnson's ! 
 and you may roll them out to the bottom of the page, since I 
 cannot give it its usual complement, for tho' the spirit is willing, 
 the flesh is weak. Adieu ! 
 
 Mr. Walpole continued too much disabled to write, but 
 dictated the two following letters to Kirgate : 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, July 17, 1791. 
 
 Next to being better I am rather a little glad I am worse, 
 i.e. the gout is come to assert his priority of right to me, and 
 when he has expelled the usurper, I trust he will retire quietly 
 too ; in the meanwhile, my case is party per pale good and bad : 
 I slept last night without waking, but if I want still more gout, 
 I think I can draw upon my right knee, where there seems to 
 be a little in store Tor me. In good earnest, the rapid shifting 
 of my complaint makes me flatter myself that it will not be 
 permanent. 
 
 I have not said a word to you of the apprehensions that had 
 been conceived of some mischief to happen on Thursday last, 
 the second intended celebration of the French Eevolution. I 
 thought you might be alarmed, and remain anxious for a fort- 
 night ; now I can tell you that it totally miscarried. The Re- 
 volution Club wished to hold their Jubilee at the Opera-house 
 or Eanelagh, both were refused; they had intended to have 
 exhibited flags and National cockades sent from France, but 
 those sent thence were stopt at the Custom House; and tho' 
 some cockades were exhibited in a shop or two, nobody wore 
 one. Numbers of Paine's pamphlet were distributed, but 
 equally without success. At last the meeting was fixed at the 
 Crown and Anchor, and circular letters of invitation were sent 
 to all sorts of persons, and at most did not produce a thousand 
 head : Mr. Fox was sounded, but declined ; then, even their
 
 316 LETTEES. [1791 
 
 solitary peer, Lord Stanhope, withdrew. Mr. Sheridan was 
 persuaded not to go, and they had not one man of consequence 
 but Mr. Pigot the Prince's Solicitor, who has not made his 
 court by it. In short, it ended with contempt and ridicule, and 
 without any disturbance, except that at eleven at night some 
 glaziers and tallow-chandlers broke a few windows in the Strand 
 and Cheapside, to force people to put out lights, but all was 
 immediately suppressed by the magistrates. 
 
 There has been a much worse tumult at Birmingham on the 
 same day. The Faction had stuck up most treasonable papers 
 with long extracts from Dr. Price's sermon, but as soon as the 
 people perceived the drift of them, they arose with indignation 
 and demolished two or three meeting-houses, and the evening 
 papers of last night said, Dr. Priestley's * house too, but I was 
 told before dinner that the last is not true. 
 
 A remarkable circumstance has happened : somebody has 
 found and reprinted a sermon by Dr. Price, preached some 
 years ago, in which he displays at length the superior happiness 
 of this country to all others, particularly by the increase of 
 liberty from taking off general warrants, &c. 
 
 I am tired, and will say no more now ; but will reserve the 
 rest of my paper till to-morrow, when I hope to give you a 
 better account of myself, and as good of the" public. 
 
 Monday evening. 
 
 I have bad another good night. I have nothing to do but to 
 recover as fast as any tortoise in Christendom. News I have 
 none to send you, nor desire to have, of home manufacture. In 
 France, I believe, they will hare enough to do to consume their 
 own, without seeing their fashions adopted, as they used to be, 
 by other countries. Adieu I my good Friend. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Wednesday evening, July 20th, 1791. 
 
 Tho' a supernumerary letter set out for you from London but 
 
 yesterday evening, yet I will not lose my ordinary Friday's post, 
 
 and begin this now for two reasons ; first, I am sure you will be 
 
 glad to hear that I am much better, tho' an accident that hap- 
 
 * Dr. Priestley, a distinguished dissenting divine, born 1733 ; died 1804. 
 He wrote 'A Discourse on the Death of Dr. Price,' and ' An Appeal to the 
 Public on the Subject of the Riot at Birmingham,' &c. &c.
 
 1791] A MISTAKE. 317 
 
 pened to me on Monday night might have had ugly consequences. 
 Having had a good deal of fever, I take saline draughts : a fresh 
 parcel came on Sunday night, with a bottle in a separate paper, 
 which I concluded was hartshorn, which I had wanted. They 
 were laid on the window, and next morning I bade James give 
 me one of the draughts : he thinking it one of the former 
 parcel, gave me the separate draught, and I swallowed it direct- 
 ly, but instantly found it was something very different, and sent 
 for the apothecary to know what I had taken ; yet before he 
 could arrive, I found upon enquiry, and by the effects, that it 
 was a vomit designed for one of the maids to be sure, in pain 
 and immoveable all down my right side, it was not a pleasant 
 adventure, but it had not the least bad effect, and I dictated 
 the conclusion of my letter to you that very night, tho' I 
 would not then mention the accident, lest you might suspect me 
 poisoned before this could arrive to convince you of the con- 
 trary. I was very well all yesterday, and so I am to-day, and 
 should have walk'd about the house but have had company 
 the whole of the day. Before I arose Gen. Conway came to 
 breakfast with me from London, on his way back to Park Place : 
 then came Lady Charlotte North and Mrs. G. Cholmondeley, 
 from Bushy; Mrs. Grenville from Hampton Court, and the 
 Mount Edgecumbes from Richmond, whilst three different com- 
 panies were seeing the house by a confusion I had made during 
 
 my pain in giving out three tickets for the same day all this 
 
 is a trumpery story, but at least will show you that I am very 
 well now. 
 
 My second reason for writing now is, that I received yesterday 
 a most kind letter from your father, for which I give him a 
 thousand thanks ; particularly for the good account he gives me 
 of your nose ; and, as he desires, I blend my answer, with this 
 to you too : he also hints at what I expected, and do not dislike, 
 that he finds Florence not more delightful than England, and 
 shall not be sorry, for which I again thank him, to set up his 
 staff at Cliveden. 
 
 Gen. Conway told me that the latest accounts last night in 
 Town from Birmingham were, that all was quieted there on the 
 arrival of the military, but that the populace were gone into 
 Worcestershire, some said in pursuit of Dr. Priestley ; and that 
 they had threatened Kagley, Lord Beauchamp's Seat, in their
 
 318 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 own county, for his having been for taking off the Test Act; 
 but as the Edgecumbes were here at three o'clock and had heard 
 nothing new, I conclude and hope all is over. Great mischief 
 has been done at Birmingham, and indeed the provocations there 
 and in London, and in other places, have been grievous. Vast 
 numbers of Paine's pamphlet were distributed both to regiments 
 and ships, but were given up voluntarily to the officers, and 
 even money was tried on the guards, but to no purpose : the most 
 seditious hand-bills were stuck up in London and Birmingham, 
 and Dr. Priestley is said to have boasted that at the latter, he 
 could raise 20,000 men; and so indeed he has, but against 
 himself. 
 
 As not the least spirit of disaffection lias appeared any- 
 where, I trust the French Kevolutionists will not hazard any 
 more attempts : nor is France at all likely to emerge out of its 
 own dreadful calamities, which will now tempt no other nations 
 to imitate them. I inclose the best printed account, I have 
 seen, of the riots at Birmingham from yesterday's paper. 
 
 Thursday evening. 
 
 The moment I had finished dictating this last night, I received 
 yours with the continuation of y r fetes; the conflagration of 
 the ball-room at the Cascines, and y r first news of the flight of 
 the poor French Majesties, to all which I have left myself no 
 paper to answer : but I have written these three lines with my 
 own hand, which I am vain enough to think will satisfy you 
 more. Thrice, Adieu ! 
 
 The letter of July 26th is again in his own hand- 
 writing, and was followed by those of August 3rd, 8th, 
 and 10th. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, July 26, 1791. 
 
 Lady Cecilia tells me that her nephew, Mr. West,* who was 
 with you at Pisa, declares he is in love with you both so I am 
 not singular. You two may like to hear this, tho' no novelty 
 to you, but it will not satisfy Mr. Berry, who will be impatient 
 for news from Birmingham, but there are no more, nor any 
 whence else. There has not been another riot in any of the 
 three kingdoms. The villain Paine came over for the Crown 
 
 * The Hon. Septimus West, uncle to the present Lord De la Warre. He 
 died the year after.
 
 1791] RIOTS IN THE PROVINCES. 319 
 
 and Anchor, but finding that his pamphlet had not set a straw 
 on fire, and that the 14 th of July was as little in fashion as the 
 ancient Gunpowder Plot, he dined at another tavern with a few 
 quaking conspirators, and probably is returned to Paris, where 
 he is engaged in a controversy with the Abbe Sieyes about the 
 plus or minus of rebellion. The rioters in Worcestershire, 
 whom I mentioned in my last, were not a detachment from 
 Birmingham, but volunteer incendiaries from the capital, who 
 went, according to the rights of men, with the mere view of 
 plunder, and threatened gentlemen to burn their houses, if not 
 ransomed. Eleven of these disciples of Paine are in custody ; 
 and Mr. Merry, Mrs. Barbauld, and Miss Helen Williams will 
 probably have subjects for elegies. Deborah and Jael, I believe, 
 were invited to the Crown and Anchor, and had let their nails 
 grow accordingly ; but some how or other no Poissonnieres were 
 there, and the two prophetesses had no opportunity that day of 
 exercising their talents or talons. Their French allies, cock 
 and hen, have a fairer field open, and the Jacobins, I think, will 
 soon drive the National Assembly to be better Eoyalists than 
 ever they were, in self-defence.] 
 
 I know nothing else, but it is early in the week. Yes, Mrs. 
 Keppel has let her house at Isleworth to Sheridan, for 400. a 
 year an immense rate and yet far from a wise bargain. He 
 has been just forced out of his house in Bruton-street by his 
 landlord, who could get no rent from him : almost the night he 
 came to Isleworth, he gave a ball there, which will not pre- 
 cipitate Mrs. K.' s receipts. 
 
 Wednesday evening, 27th. 
 
 This morning I received yours of the 12th, so it was but a 
 fortnight on its journey I wish all journeys from Florence 
 could be as rapid. I am now beginning my fears about roads, 
 bad inns, accidents and winds at sea ; and they will increase 
 from the first of September. 
 
 [You have indeed surprised me by y r account of the strange 
 credulity on poor King Louis's escape in safety! In these 
 villages, we heard of his flight * late in the evening, and the 
 very next morning of his being retaken. Much as he at least 
 the Queen has suffered, I am persuaded the adventure has 
 hastened general confusion, and will increase the Royal party ; 
 * To Varennes.
 
 320 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 tho' perhaps their Majesties, for their personal safeties, had 
 better have awaited the natural progress of anarchy. The 
 enormous deficiency in money, and the total insubordination of 
 the army, both apparent and uncontradicted from the reports 
 made to the National Assembly, show what is coming. Into 
 what such a chaos will subside, it would be silly to attempt to 
 guess. Perhaps it is not wiser in the exiles to expect to live to 
 see a resettlement in their favour. One thing I have for these 
 two years thought probable to arrive a division, at least a dis- 
 memberment, of France. Despotism could no longer govern so 
 unwieldy a machine ; a republic would be still less likely to 
 hold it together. If Foreign Powers should interfere, they will 
 take care to pay themselves with what is a leur bienseance, and 
 that in reality would be serving France too. So much for my 
 speculations, and they have never varied. 
 
 We are so far from intending to new model our Government, 
 and dismiss the Koyal Family, annihilate the Peerage, cashier 
 the Hierarchy, and lay open the land to the first occupier, as 
 Dr. Priestley and Tom Paine, and the Eevolution Club humbly 
 proposed, that we are even encouraging the breed of Princes. 
 It is generally believed that the Duke of York is going to 
 marry the Princess of Prussia, the King's daughter by his first 
 wife, and his favourite child. I do not affirm it, but many 
 others do.] 
 
 You will be sorry for Mr. Batt: when he left me, he was 
 going to L d Frederic Campbell's, but was sent for to Oxford, 
 where his only brother, a clergyman, was dying, and is dead, of 
 a putrid fever. He was fifteen years younger than Mr. Batt, 
 and much beloved by him. Mrs. Garrick came and told me of 
 it in tears. Another person has told me that in point of circum- 
 stances it may enrich Mr. Batt ; they have a very rich old uncle, 
 whose partiality was for the younger. 
 
 Thank you for remembering the Cardinal of York's medal ; 
 how welcome it will be, for from what hand am I to receive it ! 
 There is another dear hand from which I wish I sometimes saw 
 a line. I can and do write to both at once, and think to and of 
 both at once ; but methinks letters all from one hand are not 
 the same thing. I shall not think I am equally dear to both 
 as they are to me, if I never hear but from one. Mary is con- 
 stant, but I shall fear Martha is busy about many other things ! 
 Mr. Berry is so good as to write to me. I say no more.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S ANXIETIES FOR HIS FRIENDS. 321 
 
 Thursday night, late. 
 
 I heard nothing at my dinner, but I have since been at 
 Eichmond, and heard that Lady Valetort is brought to bed of a 
 daughter, so this time Lady Mount will cry with but one eye. 
 [But Lady Di has told me an extraordinary fact. Catherine 
 Slayczar* sent for Mr. Fawkener, and desired he will order for 
 her a bust of Charles Fox, and she will place it between 
 Demosthenes and Cicero (pedantry she learnt from her French 
 authors, and which our schoolboys would be above using), for 
 his eloquence has saved two great nations from a war, by bis 
 opposition to it : s'entend so the peace is no doubt made. She 
 could not have addressed her compliment worse than to Mr. 
 Fawkener, sent by Mr. Pitt, and therefore so addressed, and who 
 of all men does not love Mr. Fox and Mr. Fox, who has 
 no vain glory, will not care a straw for the flattery, and will 
 understand it too. Grood night.] 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Aug. 3, 1791. 
 
 How cruel to know you ill at such a distance ! how shocking 
 to must have patience, when one has none ! I do hope I shall have 
 another line this week, and yet the wind is westwardly ! Your 
 fever, I am persuaded, was no slight one. Your fetes and balls 
 and the heat have occasioned your illness; you both left England 
 in search of health, and yet have done as much as you could have 
 performed in London, where at least the cold can tolerate crowds 
 and fatigue. Nor have you been temperate even since your 
 fever ; you have aired too long, and why see four or five persons 
 so soon, and sit up with them till eleven ? All this kind Agnes 
 has owned, tho' she says she is perfectly easy about you can I 
 be so, who may be a week without knowing whether you have 
 had no return ? I longed to see Agnes's writing, and she never 
 could have sent it more apropos, since there was occasion for it 
 you yourself were both kind and unkind to write so much 
 but burn the French ! why write so much about them ? For 
 heaven's sake be more careful; you are both of you delicate 
 and far from strong. You bid me take care of myself to what 
 purpose do I cocker myself against November, if you two fling 
 away your healths nay, I will now not look so early as to 
 
 * The Empress Catherine II. 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 November. Do not, I implore you, set out in great heats. 
 Fatigue and hot bad inns may lay you up where there is no 
 assistance. Oh! I now feel again all the aversion I felt last year 
 to y r journey! Travel slowly, I beseech you ; I had rather wait 
 months for you, than have you run any risk. Surely you will 
 keep very quiet till you begin y r journey, and perfectly recruit 
 your health. Dear Mr. Berry, exert your authority, and do not 
 suffer them to be giddy and rash, nor plunge into any more 
 diversions. 
 
 I cannot write about the French, nor think about them now, 
 tho' I heard of nothing else all yesterday, for Petty France 
 dined here yesterday, and I went back with them to Eichmond. 
 They firmly believed that all Europe in arms will march to 
 Paris by Tuesday se'nnight, drive the Assembly and the Jacobins 
 into the Eed Sea, and borrow our fleet to replace the exiles 
 here in their own hotels sur le quai. I forget why they believe 
 all this, nor shall I recollect why till I have another letter from 
 you. I believe too that I have not heard a tittle of news, but 
 that you have had a fever at Florence, and that y r bedchamber 
 is very noisy oh ! how quiet you would have been at Cliveden 
 and that Mr. and Mrs. Legge have been divinely kind, and 
 lent you one more tranquil; what charming people they 
 must be ' 
 
 Mrs. Darner passed Sunday with me ; her leg is not well 
 again; she goes to Goodwood on Friday, and thence to the 
 
 Thursday, noon. 
 
 I am not at all more easy, tho' I have slept since I heard of 
 your fever. Your journey haunts me; you will not be strong 
 enough to undertake it so soon as you intended ; you w d begin 
 it when the weather is too hot, and finish it when too cold. 
 No, I had rather you did not set out till March tho' I might 
 never see you more; it had better be prevented by my exit 
 than by yours. Everything terrifies me for you ; tho' I have 
 little faith in a speedy invasion of France, yet I believe it when 
 you may be to pass thro' armies and camps. My dear, dear 
 wives, be cautious ! no risks by land or sea ! in short, I am 
 unquiet to the greatest degree. I had almost forgot to thank 
 you about the medals: bring me but yourselves safe and in
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S ANXIETIES FOE HIS FRIENDS. 323 
 
 good health, and I care about nothing else yes, I do, for 
 another letter. I ought, when you desire it and are not well, 
 to try to amuse you ; but seriously, if I have heard any news, I 
 have forgot it but I think I have heard nothing, but that Lord 
 Henry Fitzgerald and Miss Boyle are to be married to-day; 
 and that Miss Ogilvie's match with the rich Irish heir apparent 
 is off; her brother Lord Edward carried her dismission of him, 
 and did not deliver it in dulcet words. 
 
 If I receive good accounts from Florence, my next letter 
 shall tell you anything I learn; if I persisted in adding to 
 this, I could only specify a million more of apprehensions and 
 execrations of your journey, from the 10th of October to the 
 16th of March, when you had y r fall, and then to y r fetes and 
 fever in July. St. James's day has been my only holiday in 
 ten months do not give him a post-vigil that may destroy his 
 festival. Adieu ! adieu ! what would I not give for another 
 letter this moment ! 
 
 P.S. My dearest Agnes, tho' you have no fever, yet as you 
 have undergone the same heats and fatigues with Mary, I 
 entreat you to take four or five grains of St. James', that if 
 you have any lurking disorder, it may remove it before you set 
 out, and prevent y r falling on the road, which I dread tho' I 
 wish y r journey to be delayed. If you are quite well, the 
 powder will have no effect at all. I hope you will all three 
 observe a very strict regimen before you set out for at least ten 
 days ; I have not forgotten Italian inns, and how totally void 
 they are of comforts and assistance. This fever has frightened 
 me horridly. 
 
 Monday night, Aug. 8, 1791. 
 
 I have received no second letter, but Mrs. Darner had one on 
 Saturday, which says you go on as well as possible. Perhaps 
 I may have one to-morrow. I have been in twenty minds 
 whether I should write again before my usual Friday, for I feel 
 I shall only tire you with an anxiety about a fever that I 
 hope will have been quite gone a fortnight at least before you 
 receive my letter : yet write I must. I am sure you have been 
 very ill, and now I dread your setting out too soon, as much as 
 I was afraid of your not coming at the time you had fixed; 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 and I was tolerably uneasy about the last. To know you in 
 bad inns, and not even know where ! fearful of not receiving y r 
 letters regularly uncertain whether you will get mine. Well, 
 only determine on the most prudent and safe measures that can 
 be taken, and I shall forget all when I see you return well, 
 how long soever it be first. I give up, I disclaim, I protest 
 against all promises, that could make you think of setting out 
 one instant before you are fit for it. I have been too selfish 
 already ; I have not an atom of self-love when your health is 
 in question. 
 
 My poor letters that you say are not so barren as I foretold 
 they would be in summer, will now I doubt have the additional 
 desagrement of being teazing and full of repetitions. Can one 
 attend to or inquire after news, when one's mind is occupied 
 about one family and anxious about every step they take ? Can 
 one relate with interest what does not interest one ? Will it 
 amuse you to be told daily that I went to Boyle-farm this morning 
 to visit Lord Henry Fitzgerald and his bride, and carried in my 
 coach an old lady Clifden (oh ! not a Cliveden), her aunt, who 
 is at Mr. Ellis's, and told me a whole chronicle, about which I 
 did not care a straw, of the no-match of Miss Ogilvie ? Then 
 I went and dined at Mr. Grarrick's with Les Boufflers, Madame 
 de Cambis and the Johnstones, and Mrs. Anderson, and the 
 French being afraid of the highwaymen, would not return over 
 the common, and desired me to convoy them through Bushy- 
 park, which I did. They wished me to return with them to 
 Eichmond, but I chose to alight here, and write to you, 
 tho' I had nothing better to send you than this dull day's 
 work. 
 
 Mr. Lenox has got a son. There is to be a ball at Windsor 
 on Friday for the Prince's birthday, which has not lately been 
 noticed there. Lord Lorn and seven other young men of fashion 
 were invited to it. It seems they now crop their hair short 
 and wear no powder, which not being the etiquette yet, the 
 youths, instead of representing that they are not fit to appear 
 so docked, sent excuses that they were going out of town, or 
 were unavoidably engaged, a message one w d think dictated 
 by Old Prynne or Tom Paine, and certainly unparalleled in all 
 the books in the L d Chamberlain's office. 
 
 This being the sum total of my gazette's knowledge, I will not
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S ANXIETIES FOR HIS FRIENDS. 325 
 
 trust my pen with the rest of my paper, which you may guess 
 how it would fill if I gave a loose to it. I will suffer it to ask 
 but one question Shall you not recollect Charing-cross before 
 you set out ? It would give me a pleasure that would balance 
 my not seeing you as soon as I expected, and you owe me a par- 
 ticular mark of friendship for the uneasiness y r fever has given 
 me. Adieu ! adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Aug. 10, 1791. 
 
 Your letter of the 25th of last month, which I received yes- 
 terday, assures me that you are completely recovered nay, 
 better than before y r fever. I do my utmost to believe so ; but 
 belief is not like faith, one cannot swallow it whole at a gulp 
 without proof, and alas ! I am at too great a distance to receive 
 them ! I am persuaded you have been very ill ; and by the 
 better than before, that your fever was generating. Your good 
 nature induces you to make me as easy as you can ; but how 
 can I be easy, when you are so far off, have been very weak, 
 have such a journey to take, and while I am uncertain when I 
 shall see you again or, if ever ! I do not recant a word in my 
 two last. I wish you to decide on your return from the state of 
 your health, strength, and inclination. The great blow to me 
 was your going abroad at all, and I interested myself in it much 
 more than I had any right to do. It has been followed by all 
 kind of disquiets, which I will not recapitulate. Your last gives 
 me a new alarm. I had flattered myself with your coming 
 directly to Cliveden. I now see a hitch even in that ! I must 
 be obstinate and foolish indeed if I nurse any more visions, and 
 attempt to harmonise ages so dissonant as yours and mine, and 
 attempt to make their purposes coincide : yet I declare, tho' 
 my 6wn happiness has a great share in my plan, its ultimate 
 object is to make you two a little more comfortable when I 
 shall be out of the question. If you have any speculations 
 more rational, I relinquish mine with pleasure. One point 
 I can by no means abandon ; set not your feet on French 
 ground ; I hear daily of insults and violence offered to English 
 travelling to or through that frantic country : a Lady Webster 
 was lately illused on the frontiers of Swisserland, and her 
 packets would have been ransacked, had not her husband inter- 
 posed roughly. You cannot have a lower opinion of that whole 
 nation than I have : the residents are barbarians, the exiles
 
 326 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 have wanted spirit, and neither have any sense. Impatience 
 I have none for Lally's book ; like Necker, he imagines Europe 
 occupied about him, or would make it so. Miss Gunning acted 
 fainting t'other* night at the play on Lord Lorn entering the 
 next box ; but momentary meteors have no second benefit. 
 
 The Emperor, by rejecting Noailles now, will have acted 
 sillily, if he does not do more. Had he refused to receive him 
 at first, very well ; it would have been condemning rebellion, 
 and would have called for no more, if he did not chuse to make 
 war ; but now, when the King is not a whit more a prisoner 
 than he was two years ago, it will be the anger of a tame eagle. 
 Still I think the distresses and calamities of France will present 
 more favourable moments than even the present, tho' I believe 
 the National Assembly frightened almost into their senses. 
 
 The Duke of York's marriage is certain ; the Duke of Clarence 
 told me so himself yesterday. He graciously came hither yes- 
 terday, tho' I had not been to pay my court : indeed I concluded 
 he had forgotten me, as at his age was very natural. Not having 
 cropt my hair, I went to-day to thank him. He could not see 
 me, but sent to desire I would call on him to-morrow. I asked 
 the page at what hour it would be proper ; he answered, * be- 
 tween ten and eleven.' Mercy on me ! to be dressed and at 
 Petersham before eleven ! I am not got down to modern hours ; 
 but neither am I reverted to those of Queen Elizabeth, nor 
 to those of Louis Douze, who is said to have hastened his 
 death by condescending, in complaisance to his young Queen 
 Mary Tudor, to dine at so late an hour as eleven in the morn- 
 ing. I at least, before I am so rakish, will wait the arrival of 
 my own Queen Mary. 
 
 Mrs. Buller a month ago told me she should pass a fortnight 
 here at Twickenham in her sister Lady Basset's house yonder, 
 you know. Her son was ill, and she came not till last Sunday, 
 and then only for a night with him and Miss Wilkes. They 
 came and drank tea here. 
 
 As I wrote to you but three nights ago, I will make no excuse 
 for the brevity of this, which is only to acknowledge yours, and 
 to fall in with my own Friday. If you are really quite well, 
 and set out nearly to the time you intended, I expect that 
 our correspondence will be much deranged. News you will 
 not lose of consequence September is most inactive but against
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S IMPATIENCE FOR HIS FRIENDS' RETURN. 327 
 
 poor partridges, and in horseraces, neither of which have places 
 in my gazettes. Adieu ! 
 
 Mr. Walpole's letter of August 17th has only been 
 published in part, and without the verses to which he 
 alludes, and which are here included. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Aug. 17, 1791. 
 
 No letter from Florence this post, tho' I am wishing for one 
 every day ! The illness of a friend is bad, but is augmented 
 by distance. I don't write with any view to hastening that, 
 which I trust will entirely depend on the state of y r health 
 and strength nay, I depend on Mr. Berry's not leaving 
 it to your own discretion but I am impatient to know y r 
 intentions : in short, I feel that from this time to y r arrival 
 my letters will grow very tiresome. I can think of nothing 
 but y r journey, which fills me with fears. I have heard to-day 
 that Lord * and Lady Sheffield, who went to visit Mr. Gibbon 
 at Lausanne, met with great trouble and impertinence at almost 
 every post in France. In Swisserland there is a furious spirit 
 of democracy or demonocracy ; they made great rejoicings on 
 the re-capture of the King of France. Oh ! when will you sit 
 down on the quiet banks of the Thames ? 
 
 Wednesday night. 
 
 Since I began my letter, I have received yours of the 2 d 
 two days later than usual, and a most comfortable one it is ! 
 My belief and my faith are now of the same religion I do 
 believe you quite recovered. 
 
 The stocks are transported with the pacification with Kussia, 
 and do not care for what it has cost to bully the Empress to no 
 purpose, and say we can afford it ; nor can Paine and Priestley 
 persuade them, that France is much happier than we are by 
 having ruined itself. The poor French here are in hourly 
 expectation of as rapid a counter revolution, as what happened 
 two years ago. Have you seen the King of Sweden's letter to 
 his minister, enjoining him to look dismal, and to take care 
 not to be knocked on the head for so doing ? It deserves to be 
 framed with M. de Bouille's bravado.] 
 
 Mr. Grilpin was here on Saturday, and desired me to say a 
 
 * The father of the present Earl of Sheffield.
 
 328 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 thousand civil things from him. Lord Derby and the Farrens 
 were to dine here to-morrow, but the Earl has got the gout, 
 and the party is put off. Our weather for this week has been 
 worthy of Florence, with large showers, very reputable lighten- 
 ing, and a decent proportion of thunder, and yet the warmth 
 has stood the shock bravely. I wish it may keep up its courage 
 till next Monday, when Lord Kob. Spencer is to give a cup for 
 a sailing match at Eichmond in honour of the Duke of 
 Clarence's birth-day. I beg y r pardons, but I don't think Lord 
 Dysart's and Cambridge's meadows* on such an occasion, will 
 yield the apple to the Cascines. 
 
 [You say you will write me longer letters when you know I 
 am well : your recovery has quite the contrary effect on me ; 
 I could scarce restrain my pen while I had apprehensions about 
 you now you are well, the goose-quill has not a word to say 
 one would think it had belonged to a physician. 
 
 I shall fill my vacuum with some lines that General Conway 
 has sent me, written by I know not whom, on Mrs. Harte, 
 Sir W. Hamilton's pantomime mistress or wife, who acts all 
 the antique statues in an Indian shawl. I have not seen her 
 yet, so am no judge, but people are mad about her wonderful 
 expression, which I do not conceive, so few antique statues 
 having any expression at all nor being designed to have it.] 
 Here are the verses: 
 
 ATTITUDES-A SKETCH. 
 
 To charm the sense, the taste to guide, 
 Sculpture and Painting long had tried : 
 Both call'd ideal beauty forth ; 
 Both claim'd a disputable worth : 
 "When Nature, looking down on Art, 
 Made a new claim, and show'd us Harte ; 
 All of Correggio's faultless line : 
 Of Guido's air and look divine ; 
 All that arose to mental view 
 When Raphael his best angels drew : 
 The artist's spell, the poet's thought, 
 By her to beauteous life ie brought. 
 The gazer sees each feature move, 
 Each grace awake and breathing love ; 
 From parts distinct a matchless whole : 
 She finds the form, and gives the soul. 
 
 * The meadows on each side of the Thames immediately above Rich- 
 mond Bridge.
 
 1791] PISA. 329 
 
 Altogether it is a pretty little poem enough, tho' not very 
 poetically expressed, hut Dr. Darwin has destroyed my admira- 
 tion for any poetry but his own do you recollect how he has 
 described some antique statues? lhat Canto is not yet 
 published. 
 
 The letter of the 23rd * of August was an account of 
 his having been to the Duke of Queensbury's, and met 
 Sir William Hamilton and Mrs. Harte (afterwards Lady 
 Hamilton), of whose grace and singing he writes in 
 raptures. He had also been in company there with Madame 
 du Barry, and he recounts the visit to England of the 
 soi-disante Margravine of Anspach, and of his Highness 
 the Margrave having informed her brother, Lord Berke- 
 ley ,f that they have an usage in his country of taking a 
 wife with the left hand, that he had espoused Ms lord- 
 ship's sister in that manner, and that when she became a 
 widow he would marry her with the right hand also. 
 
 Thus end the letters addressed to the Miss Berrys by 
 Mr. Walpole during their residence at Florence and at 
 Pisa. Unfortunately the letters from the Miss Berrys to 
 Mr. Walpole have been sought for in vain, and were 
 probably destroyed by themselves after his death. 
 
 Miss Berry's Journal must now be resumed from 
 February 8th, at Pisa. 
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 February 8th. The Duomo at Pisa was built in the be- 
 ginning of the eleventh century by Breschetto da Dulichio, 
 as most people think a Greek by birth, and about a century 
 or more afterwards the Battisterio, built by Dioti Savi de 
 
 * Published. 
 
 t Lord Craven died September 1791 ; and his widow, the soi-disante Mar- 
 gravine, married the Margrave at Lisbon, on the 30th October of the same 
 year. She died in 1828.
 
 330 JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 Petroni ; both of them astonishing buildings for the time 
 of day, and unrivalled for above two centuries afterwards. 
 
 In the outside wall of the Duomo are inserted many 
 pieces of ornaments of ancient sculpture, having evidently 
 belonged to some magnificent buildings, probably at the 
 time when Pisa was a flourishing Eoman colony. 
 
 Epitaph upon the monument of the famous Marie 
 Mancini, in the church of the S. Sepulcro in Pisa. It is 
 upon a marble in the pavement above her arms. 
 * Marie Mancini Columnia, 
 
 Pulvis et Cinis.' 
 
 Below the arms it says that her son, the Cardinal Colonna, 
 put this humble epitaph by his mother's express desire. 
 She died in the year 1715. 
 
 Monday, April ~LSth. Left Pisa this morning ; stopped 
 at Lucca : the town has altogether the air of a capital, 
 though the streets in themselves are neither wide nor long. 
 The Duomo is in the same style of architecture as that of 
 Pisa, though I do not know its date. It has a fine modern 
 mosaic pavement. The walls which surround the town are 
 planted with trees, and the bastions at certain distances 
 are little groves. The view is charming from hence of a 
 small, well cultivated plain, surrounded, by mountains. 
 
 From Lucca we took six horses to Borgo k Buggiano, 
 for the road is hilly, rough, and stony, but the country 
 uniformly beautiful. 
 
 At Borgo a Buggiano we were obliged to rest our 
 horses, all those at the post having been sent for upon the 
 road to Koine to forward the Queen of Naples. 
 
 Pistoja is a handsome town, with very fine, wide, long 
 streets. They say it is not half peopled (from want of 
 manufactures, I suppose) : of this I could be no judge. 
 At Prato, a large Borgo, the post-house is in a square, or 
 what we should call a green. When we passed a little 
 before sunset, all the people were out amusing themselves, 
 and the scene was gay and beautiful.
 
 1791] THE LAURENTIAN LIBRARY. 331 
 
 We arrived at Florence by the finest moonlight that 
 ever was, which I should have enjoyed much, had it not 
 been for a cruel head-ache which made me the more re- 
 gret to find the Porta del Prato shut, as is the custom, 
 about half an hour after sunset, and we were obliged to go 
 round to another gate, making a difference of not less than 
 a couple of miles. 
 
 From Pisa to Florence, including delays, about thirteen 
 hours. In a light carriage, it might be done in much less. 
 
 Wednesday, 27th. Florence. Went to see the Lau- 
 rentian Medicean Library. It is in a long gallery, built by 
 Michael Angelo, for the reception of these valuable manu- 
 scripts : the vestibule is likewise of his architecture, and 
 though the upper part is unfinished, it is admirable. 
 Though small (it is only 30 feet English by 30 or 32), 
 from being divided into large parts and not overcharged 
 with ornaments, it has an air of grandeur. The ornaments 
 are all executed in a dark-coloured stone, and the masonry 
 admirable. In the Library, everything, even to the orna- 
 ments of the desks where the books are kept, and the 
 design which is executed in the brick floor, are by Michael 
 Angelo ; the ceiling, too, is fine, carved wood, but being 
 of its natural brown colour and not arched, has to me 
 a heavy effect. The books are all manuscripts, of which 
 there are* placed upon and under desks, like pews 
 
 in a church going up each side of the long gallery, at 
 which one can sit to read. 
 
 The librarian, a very civil Canonico Bandini, showed us 
 the Virgil of the fourth century, which they call the oldest 
 existing ; it is very fairly written, but less easy to read 
 than the one in the Vatican. We saw, too, the Horace 
 that belonged to Petrarch, with some notes in it by his 
 own hand. It is in large quarto, and not a beautiful 
 manuscript from the number of notes and scholiastes 
 interrupting and confusing the text. The librarian is 
 
 * 9,000. Murray's Handbook.
 
 332 JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 educating a little boy, an orphan, who now, at twelve 
 years old, reads and understands Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew, from which last language he explained to us a 
 part of the Bible. 
 
 In this library is the famous original copy of Justinian's 
 Pandects, which we are to see another day. 
 
 From the Laurentian we went to the Marucelliana Li- 
 brary, another public collection of books left to the public 
 by Marucellia, a lawyer, in the year * . It contains a 
 very considerable collection of prints, a complete collec- 
 tion of the works of M. Antonio, chiefly, I fancy, of use to 
 artists. 
 
 August. Memoranda: Florence. In the palace of 
 the Duke of Strozzi, one exquisite picture, a portrait by 
 Titian of a child of the family about five or six years old, 
 leaning against a table and feeding a dog with a biscuit, 
 dressed in white with curling hair: the colouring and 
 composure of the infantine expression is charming. 
 
 In the Palazzo Attorite, a portrait of Eaphael by him- 
 self an undoubted original, as he was known to be pro- 
 tected by the family, and to have given them his picture. 
 It is a head and shoulders in his last and most finished 
 manner ; it most resembles the portrait of himself which 
 he has put into his School of Athens, but is much hand- 
 somer than that or any of the other pictures of him. It 
 is a countenance of much genius and expression. 
 
 The outside of the Palazzo Attorite is adorned with 
 marble thermes en pilaster with heads in profile ; they 
 have a very ugly effect, but curious from being all por- 
 traits of the family one of the oldest of the republic. 
 
 In the Palazzo Gerardi a most numerous collection of 
 pictures. Those that struck me most were the Vulture 
 preying upon Prometheus, by Salvator Eosa, a wonderful 
 picture for expression, but the attitude ungraceful at a 
 little distance the figure looks like the Duke of Atholl's 
 
 * Died in 1703. Library opened in 1752.
 
 1791] LETTER FKOM MRS. DAMER. 333 
 
 arms ; * and The Crucifying St. Andrea, a group in small 
 whole-length, by Carlo Dolce, of which Mr. Duncornb has 
 either a copy or a duplicate. 
 
 In the cloisters of the convent of Sante Croce, a beauti- 
 ful portico by Brunelleschi,^ which has many faults in 
 detail, but altogether an air of grandeur which will stamp 
 a character of excellence upon any architecture to which 
 it belongs. 
 
 The Eoyal Academy consists of seven schools of paint- 
 ing, sculpture, architecture, ornament, design, &c. &c. 
 
 With these memoranda of Florence the journal of their 
 residence alternately at Florence and at Pisa terminates. 
 
 Mr. Walpole's were not the only letters of interest ad- 
 dressed to the Miss Berrys at this time, which have been 
 preserved. The following extracts from Mrs. Darner's 
 letters give a lively and interesting description of her life 
 at Lisbon, and of her journey home ; and a letter from Mr. 
 Brand, whose name appears in Miss Berry's journal of 
 1784, must also have been received just before they left 
 Florence. 
 
 Lisbon, Jan. 20, 1791. 
 
 . . . Though there are not many things to see at Lisbon, 
 there are some some respectable Grothic churches in particular 
 which will bear seeing more than once. One of the most ancient 
 it is horrid to look at almost totally destroyed by the earth- 
 quake, little else but the outward walls standing. This church 
 they are slowly attempting to rebuild in the Gothic style, but I 
 doubt the success. The Castle, formerly a Moorish palace, was 
 nearly made a ruin. You see here and there a bit of column, 
 &c. stuck in little better than a mud wall, but this her Majesty 
 does not think of rebuilding. She has at immense expense 
 built a church, called the Convento Nuovo or the Coracao de 
 Jesu (the heart of Jesus), in the worst taste, adorned by many 
 colossal statues in the style of Bernini exaggerated. The works 
 
 * Miss Berry must allude to the Manx Arms of the three legs quartered 
 by the Duke of Atholl. 
 
 t Philip Brunelleschi, bom 1377 ; died 1446.
 
 334 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 of a Portuguese artist in this church, the great altar-piece, and 
 several others, are painted by Pompeo. One, by the Princesses 
 
 . In this convent is the Queen's great favourite, a nun 
 
 recommended to her by her late confessor as a santa ; they say 
 really a shrewd, sensible woman, and spoken well of. There 
 were, they say, many fine pictures by the best masters, most of 
 them swallowed up or destroyed, some stolen and sold. At the 
 Marquis Pamela's there is one called a Eaphael, which it may 
 be ; it is very fine, but has been miserably painted over, which 
 I gained much credit by finding out, though it is as plain as the 
 nose in one's face. For to-day, farewell ! 
 
 Lisbon, Jan. 31, 1791. 
 
 I returned from the morning party as much fatigued and no 
 more amused than I expected. It was to see armouries and 
 founderies, all of which I have seen and re-seen at other places. 
 I could not avoid going, as among other things I was to be 
 shown the model of the statue in the Great Place here. The 
 statue is colossal, of bronze, of Joseph I., the late King. It was 
 modelled and cast at Lisbon, and though heavy, really is not 
 without merit. 
 
 Monday morning. 
 
 Yesterday I got some letters by one packet, the other, as they 
 say, is coming. None from Mr. Wai pole, and what Jerningham 
 writes to me quite sinks my spirits. The letter is of the 18th 
 Jan. He says that Mr. W. was detained at Strawberry by the 
 gout ; that he does not suffer, but that his hands are numbed, 
 and that he has no use of them. What his not suffering is 
 often, I know, and the rest is a sad uncomfortable account. 
 Why would he not let Kirgate write me a line from himself? 
 This is the last date I can have now, and I may not hear again 
 before I leave Lisbon. I do hope to (rod that' you will go to 
 him in the autumn. The thoughts of that will support him. 
 If you can, I know that you will. ... It will not now be 
 long before I leave this place, and all the first part of my jour- 
 ney I hope even to find the climate better than this. I mean 
 to set out the 21st ; to go to Seville and Granada, see Cordova 
 and Toledo, the Escurial and Ildefonso. These are my chief 
 objects in this journey. 
 
 I rejoice that you follow your Latin so closely, and for your
 
 1791] LIFE IN LISBON. 335 
 
 stupidity I shall say nothing. Even two months, with what 
 you already know, will do much. How very few ever read the 
 books most worth reading except at an age when they are not 
 capable of receiving any real satisfaction from them. Many 
 construe Homer, Virgil, Plato, and Cicero, but few read them. 
 With your taste, this will be a constant source to you even of 
 something more than amusement. 
 
 Lisbon, Feb. 17, 1791. 
 
 . . . My mules are on the road, and will be ready on 
 Monday next, and that evening or Tuesday I shall probably 
 cross the water, and begin my journey, and from the time I 
 leave Lisbon, till I arrive at Madrid, I shall not have a single 
 letter. 
 
 . . . I will not talk of Mr. W.'s silence I cannot; cer- 
 tain it is I pity him from my soul. He must have suffered 
 much. The letter you say you wrote to him he must have got 
 soon after I heard last from England. That will comfort him, 
 for I think that he will not pay much attention to your reasons 
 for staying in Italy, and though there is eight months of absence 
 to come, the hope of seeing you six months sooner, and not 
 passing another melancholy winter without you, will quite revive 
 his spirits. I am certain, whatever may be the event of this 
 miserable illness, that you will feel infinite satisfaction in the 
 marks of affection and friendship that you have shown him. . . 
 One suffers here so much unnecessarily from cold that it is quite 
 provoking ; for even now there are often hours in the day when 
 walking in the shelter, with the heat of the sun it is pleasant, 
 could one come home or go out to a good fire, but the houses 
 are insufferably cold. Every one complains, and no one attempts 
 a remedy. It is difficult to give an idea how much behindhand 
 we are here with the rest of Europe. You ask me in what their 
 luxuries consist. In sitting wrapped up in their cloaks almost 
 the whole day, playing with their maids and attendants, many 
 of whom are of a something better sort, like retainers bred in 
 the families from father to son, not forgetting dwarfs, foundlings, 
 and natural children. Such tribes ! there are many in the great 
 houses, eating comfortably many times in the day, exempli gratia 
 cold fowls and hams in the morning, not forgetting the mirenda 
 in the evening, which, with the addition of dinner and supper, 
 helps to make the day pass ; growing fat of course, which all the
 
 336 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 young women do at four or five and twenty. ... In gene- 
 ral, there is, I believe, no harm in them. They seem very good- 
 natured, and ivould be civil if they knew how ; but, as I have 
 before said, they leave their own national manners, and attempt, 
 most awkwardly, those of other nations. I like to see them, as 
 1 have, sitting cross-legged in numbers in the churches, with their 
 nets, and their fine hair combed partly over their faces, and the 
 men, with their cloaks thrown gracefully over their shoulders, 
 leaning against the walls, or standing by them. Coming to 
 Portugal is really instructive to one who sees things with the 
 eye of an artist or an observer. 
 
 Vendas Novas, Feb. 25, 1791. 
 
 . . . Yesterday, I passed the water in the evening, as the 
 tide served at that time, and arrived at a small place called 
 Aldega Galega, on the coast, at sunset. The inn being bad, I 
 was recommended to a private house. No house ever deserved 
 the epithet less, for my room was full, from the moment I came 
 till I got away, of the whole family, the padrone (a little shop- 
 keeper), the padrona de casa, all the children, and all the 
 maids, talking to me, staring at me, or kissing my hand. As I 
 turned them out of their room, and everything they wanted was 
 in that room, even when they would consent to leave me, there 
 was every instant something to be fetched out of a drawer, or a 
 closet. To-day, drawn by seven mules, I have been composedly 
 travelling along an immense sandy plain sometimes through 
 woods of the most beautiful pines, always shrubs and plants, 
 that only really grow in fine climates. I am now settled in a 
 room where (to be sure) there is not much furniture; but I think 
 rather upon the whole better than one often finds in Italy. 
 
 Badajoz, Tuesday evening, March 1st. 
 
 I write to you from the first Spanish town and a dismal place 
 it is with neglected walls, from whence there is a distant view, 
 and ruined towers and castles of the Moors. Within these walls, 
 considerable remains at the top of the hill, that seem to have 
 been left and never repaired. To make up for this, there is a 
 beautiful bridge of twenty-nine arches over the Guadiana. It is 
 simple and noble, built by the Komans. Elvas, the last town in 
 Portugal, is in perfect repair, to appearance, and a remarkably 
 pretty town. I wonder this does not make the Spaniards a little
 
 1791] SEVILLE. 337 
 
 ashamed of this place, for these two towns are looking at each 
 other, and not above eight or nine miles distant. I arrived 
 here this morning without accident or difficulty, or any serious 
 distress. My calessiere I like of all things; he drives with 
 Spanish dexterity, and as to the carriage, with English care. I 
 can just keep up with my mules for an hour or so on foot. 
 
 Seville, Sunday morning, March 6. 
 
 I have been wishing for these two days to write to you, but I 
 have felt so fatigued with my journey through the Sierra Morena 
 that I could not take out my letter. I feel ashamed when I 
 complain, because this being a mere voluntary journey, the 
 answer must be, * Tu 1'a voulu, George Dandin.' However, the 
 real truth is, that I did not know the roads were impassable for 
 a carriage with four wheels. Nobody told me that there was any 
 real difficulty, otherwise, for a journey of mere amusement, I 
 would not have undertaken it ; but now it is over, I am glad. 
 My carriage has escaped, I hope, any very essential mischief that 
 may stop my progress, and I have seen some of the most beau- 
 tiful wild scenes that can be imagined, which, con rispetto, are 
 of all scenes those that delight me most. If there are moments 
 in my life when I breathe freely, without the oppression of pain- 
 ful reflections when the world seems nothing to me, and the 
 idea of those I love everything it is in walks when I can undis- 
 turbed enjoy what is grand, beautiful, and awful in nature. 
 
 For near twelve miles before coming to a poor small village, 
 called Santa Oleia, was the Sierra Morena. Nothing can exceed 
 the beauty of the mountains. They are not very high, but rocky, 
 covered with shrubs, heaths, plants, and flowers, growing to a 
 wonderful height and size, and numbers of clear streams rolling 
 among the rocks and stones. It gives one the idea of an eternal 
 spring. You then come to an open forest of neglected cork 
 trees and Ilex, with such rocks, and such picturesque masses ! 
 formed evidently of the sand worn into a thousand shapes by 
 the streams of water and torrents, in a course of ages far, far 
 beyond our pitiful annals. The evening was delightful, and I 
 walked till I could walk no longer. The inn was a miserable 
 place. That I should not have minded, but so troublesome were 
 the people, and so noisy, that I got little repose till towards 
 morning, when it was nearly time to set out, for a sad day, most 
 of which I was obliged to walk, and not paid for the trouble, as 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 there is no beauty in the views. Such roads I really never saw. 
 Men, mules, everything were ready to die, and the expectation 
 of seeing the carriage broken to pieces, in an actual desert as 
 to assistance, was really quite disagreeable. However, owing to 
 the skill of the best driver, without exception, I ever saw, we 
 arrived last night safely at another small village, called Castello 
 Blanco, and this evening at Seville, all the bad road over. The 
 town, the dresses, the look of the people all is as completely 
 different from anything I have ever seen, as I can wish, and as 
 diverting. 
 
 Granada, March 19, 1791. 
 
 I stayed one day longer at Seville than I intended, left it on 
 the 10th, and got here last night this, partly wishing to recover 
 my fatigues of the Sierra Moreiia, and partly from being charmed 
 with the town and the softness of the climate. Its known an- 
 tiquity is interesting. The cathedral I think very line ; it is 
 gloomy, and the Gothic architecture simple ; full of the most 
 beautiful windows of painted glass. I happened by chance to 
 hear some good music there, which as it was by chance was the 
 more striking for, if I am to be dressed, stuck up, and stuffed 
 up to hear or see anything adieu all effect for me ! 
 
 I was much pleased also with the Alcazar or Palace : the 
 Moorish part is admirable, and I feel myself at open war with 
 Mr. Swinburne,* whom I now think a very inaccurate writer, at 
 least as to his descriptions ; his history may be right for what 
 I know. Granada and the Alhainbra by no means answer to his 
 account, I mean merely according to matter of fact, taste out 
 of the question. What the Alhambra has been it is easy still 
 to see, and it still is admirable, but miserably ruined, out of 
 all repair, and neglected. By his account I imagined that I 
 was to have seen great part of it as if the Moorish kings and 
 their queens had, hand in hand, just walked out of their palace. 
 There cannot be a greater admirer of Moorish style for the in- 
 side of houses than I am. Were I a great king in a fine climate 
 I should copy it for my palace in the summer. However, 
 though Granada is not now all it has been, it is well worth the 
 sacrifice of a week to see, which is about the difference of time 
 it makes to me. 
 
 * Henry Swinburne, Esq., a traveller, wrote ' Travels through Spain ' in 
 1775, illustrated by drawings on the spot ; died 1803.
 
 1791] GRANADA. 339 
 
 I shall only stay to-morrow, but must return for two days by 
 the same road I came. I am in the greatest admiration of 
 many parts of Andalusia, and have found no difficulties since 
 Seville. The road really may be called good, except here and 
 there where it is rocky, and where torrents are quicker in their 
 operations than the king's officers in their reparations you 
 know how that is in many parts of Italy. I have had many 
 charming solitary walks, I may almost call them ; for when I 
 can walk away from the carriage I forget it. Of the minor 
 evils, want of rest is the only serious complaint. The inns are 
 often very noisy. After being up ages before daylight, tired and 
 jumbled, one comes into an inn that looks uninhabited: four 
 white walls, a chair or two at most, and a deal table, on which 
 they set a lamp. One thinks it hard, by the time one's bed is 
 set up, one's things ready, that the house should grow lively, 
 voices and noises of various sorts continue till within a few hours 
 of the time to set out the next day. Yet this is really the 
 case, and whatever travellers may say, the roads and inns are 
 much frequented. I have found it to my cost. One night, when 
 I thought I was to sleep quietly, arrived, after I was in bed, the 
 Corregidor de Granada, his wife, I know not how many signoras, 
 and a dozen servants, as many little dogs with bells, four or five 
 carriages : their supper was to be prepared. The talking, scream- 
 ing, and scolding was beyond imagination ; and then the next 
 morning, as I went down to my carriage, there was the Cor- 
 regidor and his wife waiting at the door to see me, and expect- 
 ing that I should make them a compliment hope that they 
 had slept well, and wish them a good journey, which, as well as 
 I could, I did not omit. Everything, high and low in Spain, 
 expects to be spoken to ; they are not satisfied with a bow if you 
 are near them. No matter what one says, which for me is lucky 
 in Spanish, though indeed, with Italian and a little Portuguese, 
 one is sure to be understood. I confess that there is a cordiality 
 in this that I think pleasing, and there is something so dignified 
 and fine in the look of the common people, that I like to hear 
 them say to me, Condios, which I translate, Grod bless you ; and 
 then they seem so pleased with the same attention. When I 
 say that the people are good looking, I mean the men ; they 
 are uncommonly genteel, and I admire their dress. In Andalusia, 
 they wear Montero cap and cloaks, and the same in Grranada. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 The women a black or white piece of silk or stuff over their 
 heads, much as they do at Venice. I find a great difference of cli- 
 mate between this place and Seville, a sharpness in the air to which 
 I am always sensible, and this must be the case, for the town is 
 almost close to that immense chain of mountains, the Sierra 
 Nevada, the tops of which are always covered with snow. . . . 
 
 Ilerrera, March 19th. 
 
 I left Granada, as I proposed, the day before yesterday. 
 Having in a second visit passed some hours in the Alhambra, 
 and examined everything over and over, I do not change my 
 opinion : it is curious and beautiful in its way, must have been 
 in its glory delightful, but is miserably ruined and neglected ; 
 the only very evident repair is whitewashing, which without 
 the least mercy they have done in many and many parts, where- 
 ever the gilding and colours were less fresh. If the governors 
 take to this mode much oftener, those who wish to judge of 
 Moorish plaster-work and carving must make haste and take 
 their journey to Granada. ... I saw not a creature at 
 Granada, except a Spanish banker for five minutes. I have had 
 letters for all the places I was to stop at, but have avoided as 
 much as possible giving them ; the Portuguese and Spanish are 
 so very civil on these occasions I find, that it is to me of all 
 things the most embarrassing. However, I must, for the sake of 
 truth, say that, at Seville, I saw a gentleman who was very little 
 trouble, and gave me much real information ; but this cannot 
 happen often. I did not tell you what gave me a more than 
 common horror of being shown civilities. Elvas being the 
 frontier town in Portugal, I was told to ask for a letter to the 
 Governor, that my baggage might not be stopped. This hap- 
 pened to be a brother of old Mello's, who was in England many 
 years, and much at my father's house before you were born. 
 Besides giving me a letter, he chose by way of a fine thing to 
 write to the Governor his brother, who chose to order that I 
 should be received with the honours of ivar. Some miles from 
 the town I met a guard of thirty horsemen who escorted me, 
 and I came into the town, drums beating, trumpets sounding, 
 and cannon firing (it is literally true), was dragged to the 
 Governor's house instead of going quietly to my inn, and sat 
 down almost instantaneously to a great dinner with a dozen or 
 fourteen officers ; they carried me all over the town, and with
 
 1791] ARANJUEZ. 341 
 
 the greatest difficulty I got rid of the company in the evening 
 by saying, what was too true, that I was so much fatigued I 
 must go to my bed. 
 
 Aranjuez, March 30, 1791. 
 
 I have since I last wrote crossed the Sierra Morena, but by a 
 most magnificent winding road, began and made (they say) 
 within these ten years : it is cut in the solid rock, and I think 
 the finest thing of the sort that I have seen : how long it may 
 remain in this state of perfection, or rather how short a time, 
 I will not answer, for when rocks and torrents are concerned you 
 know how it is ; and in Spain they make a road and then leave 
 it, which ill agrees with the mutable state of this world. I have, 
 in general, dragged along a road sometimes, indeed, sandy and 
 sometimes stony, but of which there is nothing to complain, 
 since Cordova, and not much to admire; at Anducar, however, 
 where I arrived early in the evening, I saw a fine ancient bridge 
 of sixteen arches, over the Guadalquivir, of which I had never 
 heard a single word, and some very curious remains of Moorish 
 towns, and walls round the towns. For four days I travelled 
 through La Mancha, which is, without exception, the most 
 odious, frightful country I ever yet saw ; a nasty, dusty, sandy 
 plain, without tree or shrub, with bare mountains that scarcely 
 deserve the name. Here I arrived last night, within a day's 
 journey of Madrid. 
 
 I have seen some charming antique statues in the garden of 
 this palace, treasures unnoticed and neglected here. There is 
 no expressing the fool I am when I see anything very fine quite 
 by surprise, which is much the case in Spain, for you are shown 
 nothing, nor can you get the least degree of information where 
 the arts are concerned. It has been the fashion in this garden 
 to make everything or anything serve as the ornament of a 
 fountain, and to my astonishment, sitting in the middle of a 
 large marble bason of water, did I see the most beautiful little 
 Etruscan bronze figure : it is one of those often repeated, which 
 I am sure you recollect, the boy taking a thorn out of his foot, 
 but far superior to any I have seen. In another there was a 
 Venus, which they call Diana ; another, the fountain of Apollo, 
 because all the figures and relievos represent the labours of 
 Hercules (this is modern) ; and so they go on.
 
 342 LETTEES. [1791 
 
 Madrid, April 1, Friday morning. 
 
 I was interrupted by L d St. Helen's,* our Minister, and then 
 the Consul : the first is an agreeable man ; I have seen him 
 formerly at different times and places ; he is civil and obliging 
 and not in a troublesome way. Thank heaven ! I have had a 
 letter from Mr. W., in his own hand, and I do believe that he is 
 recovering. I hear of him from all, and satisfactory accounts. 
 Poor dear man ! he says, * I am afraid to flatter myself again 
 about October ; ' and then that he shall say no more about it, 
 and would not interrupt your content ; but he does flatter him- 
 self, whether he knows it or not, by the indication of his spirits 
 flatter, it is not, I am well assured. I am glad you like the 
 Andrea so much, I always thought it one of the most delicate 
 and most elegant of compositions, and therefore one of the most 
 touching. "When you have leisure, read some of Cicero's letters 
 to Atticus, his friend; they are very curious, from being, at 
 least in my opinion, so clearly written without an idea of ever 
 being made public ; and so natural, there you see him with all 
 his weaknesses and without disguise. 
 
 Escurial, April 10, 1791. 
 
 "Waiting for a permission from Court to see this monastery, 
 and settling with my muleteers, delayed me till to-day. 
 
 . . . Such a detestable climate as Madrid, from what I saw, and 
 from what I heard, I believe would be difficult to find. I must 
 say that the ton of the society to which I found myself admitted 
 at Madrid was very grateful to my ears : this, perhaps, struck me 
 the more as (to you I may say it) there was scarcely anything 
 where I passed the winter that had not a tinge of vulgarity or 
 barbarism. 
 
 Valladolid, 16th. 
 
 I have been walking about the town, and by dint of civil looks 
 I suppose, for my speeches are, as you may think, tres-bornes in 
 Spanish, making my way into the cloister of a monastery of 
 Dominican Friars, where I saw some fine Gothic architecture 
 and other curious things, at the Escurial some divine pictures, 
 and at St. Ildefonso some first-rate statues, besides the place 
 
 * Alleyne FitzIIerbert, created Baron St. Helen's, in Ireland, 1791 ; and 
 Baron St. Helen's, in England, 1801 ; was employed in many diplomatic 
 situations of high importance in several of the European Courts.
 
 1791] SPANISH MANNERS. 343 
 
 itself, which I think delightful like an enchanted castle. Had 
 you crossed Spain in my carriage, you would have been pleased, 
 and I do believe have thought little of inconveniences : I think 
 I could venture a journey with you. The elements have been 
 making such a pother over my head, such a storm of thunder 
 but it seems over the weather has been for some days soft and 
 charming. I am really now tired of seeing, which I cannot 
 help doing with attention, and should to the last, and tired of 
 travelling : I wish for quiet. Yet I am diverted with the idea 
 of passing through France, and curious to see it in its new state 
 (tecum loquor) : I shall be just as careful not to run my head 
 into any scrape, should the possibility occur, as if I was fright- 
 ened out of my senses. 
 
 Vittoria in Biscay, Wednesday, April 20, 1791. 
 
 ... I have not found the roads by any means what they were 
 represented : the magnificent road they talk of is only made, 
 that is, finished here and there, for a few leagues, and then you 
 come plump down, and are dragged through sands, or jumbled 
 over stones, for I know not how many miles more. The inns are 
 infinitely better, some really good, and the one I now write from 
 particularly so. A good room, a good fire, and a good bed, and 
 I shall for the first time quit my pallet since I left Lisbon. I 
 have now, I think, done with seeing in Spain, at least buildings. 
 The cathedral at Burgos is famous, as you probably know. 
 Wishing to see it thoroughly, and particularly the cloister, and 
 not being sure of the same indulgence I met with from my 
 Dominican Friars at Valladolid, I went in L y Spencer's fashion, 
 but did not write my name : this dress, with the large cloak and 
 boots, is what, in point of decency, the bench of bishops could 
 not object to, and the next thing, comparatively, to the ring of 
 Gryges which, if I mistake not, made the wearer invisible, for you 
 pass unnoticed ; but an unfortunate Lady is persecuted to death. 
 I believe I never told you how I have been tormented, because I 
 often sit down to tell you one thing and a thousand others crowd 
 in upon my mind. ... At Seville, the first day, I went out 
 dressed like a Portuguese, exactly as the women there walk : 
 they called me Francese, ran after me, and put me in no small 
 passion. The next day I met, as I told you, with my ephemerid 
 friend, who carried me all about in the Intendant's coach. Since 
 that I have commonly gone about in one of their vile mantillas,
 
 344 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 a piece of silk or linen thrown over the head and then crossed 
 and twisted round the waist, and let to hang down ; without this 
 no woman, in Spain, can go into a church, or indeed walk about 
 a town. What provokes me is, that putting on this odious thing, 
 that you can scarcely see or turn your head with, does not always 
 do : the moment you examine anything with the least attention, 
 or look higher than your head, which I suppose Spanish women 
 never do, you are discovered to be foreign, and a foreign Lady 
 is so great a wonder, that, from that instant, they follow you, get 
 before you, pursue and persecute you in a manner that far ex- 
 ceeds anything of the sort that I have ever seen in any other 
 country. The people in Spain do not seem to gain by civiliza- 
 tion ; for away from great towns, their manner is quite engaging. 
 I must return to my cathedral at Burgos, and tell you that 
 there are the finest remains of Gothic architecture I believe in 
 the world, at least of Gothic sculpture ; there is stone worked, 
 and that particularly in the cloister, in a manner and with a 
 sharpness and spirit that I did not think the material admitted 
 of, and two heads that are really fine ; foliage, without end, that is 
 quite admirable. I think I took a sort of lesson. Many things 
 in the carvings in wood, and in stone, that one sees in all old 
 Gothic, incomprehensibly strange and impossible to describe. 
 
 Bayonne, Sunday, April 24th. 
 
 I was interrupted by the most ridiculous personage that can 
 be imagined, a sort of Ragotin in figure, round, fat, with the 
 tightest silk dress, not a tooth, a mouth that went every way, 
 and the voice of a frog. 'Madame, je suis le Banquier, je 
 m'appelle de Broc, Maire de la ville.' Maire de la ville, and 
 Ipse Rex, for without this creature I could neither have money, 
 passport, horses, nor permission to go out of the town. I saw 
 how it was, from his manner of announcing himself, and imme- 
 diately knew beforehand all his power and consequence. Before 
 the visit was over we were such friends that he gave me some of 
 his verses on C. Fox, and if there is a corner in this letter, I 
 must send them to you, for I was delighted and desired to have 
 them. He is gone, he says, pour se mettre en quatre (which I 
 think he can well afford) for my service, and if possible I shall 
 be furnished with the means of setting out to-morrow morning 
 early. I am much fatigued with the last days passed of my
 
 1791] LINES TO MR. FOX. 345 
 
 journey. The roads in Biscay, so much praised, are dreadfully 
 jumbling, almost entirely a sort of pavement; and a pavement 
 is not only particularly disagreeable when rough, but really affects 
 me ; and what made this worse was the weather being cold with 
 an incessant rain ; it seemed as if for these two months it had 
 saved itself and been collecting to pour deluges with greater 
 violence. This made it impossible for me to walk at all. . . . 
 Seven or eight days will bring me to Paris, where I shall hear 
 from you, and know if your horrid accident has had no further 
 consequence. I had no letter here from Mr. W., but a confirma- 
 tion of his good health from his sister, with whom he had dined. 
 I really think that he tries to persuade himself and you that 
 he can bear a longer absence in order to leave you at liberty 
 indeed he said what is to that effect in one of his last letters. 
 You understand that I mean by leaving you, at liberty, that he 
 wishes not to take advantage of your kindness and good nature, 
 which he thinks may make you for his sake do what you dislike. 
 What is in my power you know that you may depend on. I 
 will endeavour to make him enjoy, by anticipation, the satis- 
 faction you prepare for him. 
 
 Bordeaux, Thursday morning, April 28th. 
 
 ... I only got here last night, owing still to the roads. Every- 
 thing seems perfectly quiet. Some bustle there has been at 
 Paris, but nothing to affect an insignificant traveller 
 
 P.S. A L'OKATEUR Fox. 
 
 Tel qu'un aerostat occupant 1'horizon, 
 
 Fox occupe au Senat le barre de Polymnee ; 
 L'un captive le feu, dans le char d'Uranie, 
 
 Et 1'autre le reprend dans la belle oraison. 
 
 My little Kagotin I cannot think of without an inclination to 
 laugh. Among other things, he told me that he had some very 
 fine tea, some of which he should send me ; then looking up, 
 and considering a moment, quite gravely added, 'Mais du 
 ponche je n'en ai pas, j'ai peur, je ne sais pas comment nous 
 ferons.' I assured him that I never drank punch, and was 
 remarkably fond of tea, which, however, luckily he never sent, 
 nor a national cockade which he offered. In the evening he 
 returned, and brought one of his clerks to read the gazette to
 
 346 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 me, who read through his nose in the most ridiculous manner, 
 and he kept screaming to him, ' Plus haut, monsieur plus 
 haut.' Quite a mistake I thought. 
 
 Paris, Tuesday night, May 3, 1791. 
 
 I tried to persuade myself that I was less alarmed about your 
 fall, because I so plainly saw the care and pains you took to 
 prevent my anxiety ; but your image, pale and bleeding, has 
 been continually before my eyes. I calculate the time when 
 it happened, and exactly believe that you think yourself no 
 worse than you say, and from thence derive much comfort. My 
 reason trusts that the danger of the accident is over .... 
 When 1 talked of being here by the 2 nd , I had, I know not 
 how, given April 31 days. I have made all the diligence I 
 could ; indeed I scarcely dare tell you that, for these five days, 
 I have been thirteen and fifteen hours de suite in my carriage, 
 after your kind injunction not to travel too fast, even when I 
 could, clattering and tearing along to the sound of words nobody 
 understands, instead of Jesu Maria, and the Santa VirgiDe, with 
 a bow to St. Antonio upon a pinch. 
 
 Wednesday morning. 
 
 I this moment received your two letters. I wish that I could 
 express to you the satisfaction they give me. I do now feel 
 easy about your accident; your health is better; and every- 
 thing you say is calculated to please and comfort me 
 
 I rejoice that you have a letter so pleasing, from dear Mr. W. 
 You say most truly of friendship when the vas est sincerum, 
 nil acescit, and all comes right, when explained, because all 
 is meant right. I too have had a charming letter from him, 
 mostly on your subject. He says of your fall, *I am persuaded 
 all danger is over of any bad consequence, and that even the 
 scar on the sweetest of all earthly noses (I never saw the houris) 
 will scarce be discernible by the first of November, by which 
 day they have vowed their return.' You see that you have 
 convinced him ; that difficulty is taken off my hands, and you 
 see the effect of that conviction by the return of his own lively 
 style . . . My telling you a foolish story of my Ragotin at 
 Bayonne was at that time a little like les enfants qui chantent 
 la nuit quand ils out peur ; but if you could laugh at my other 
 stories, I think you will at that. I am quite pleased that any
 
 1791] THE POISSARDES OF PARIS. 347 
 
 of them should have diverted you both (when you learn Greek 
 you will know a certain dual number that would here be most 
 
 elegant) I made more visits yesterday evening than 
 
 I thought I had to make. Found for a long time only an old 
 grumpy man, who did not talk ce rietait pas mon affaire. 
 At last I went to Mad me de Balbi, whom I found a sa toilette, sur- 
 rounded by I know not how many people 1'Abbe Mauri among 
 others and talking of everything just as I could wish. Things 
 are essentially quiet at present; little local disturbances as, 
 for example, the Pope was bui^ned two days ago, dans toutes les 
 /o?mes, and the Spanish ambassador, who happened to pass, 
 desired to contribute to the bonfire, which he generously did, 
 and passed on. Many supposed the Nonce will leave Paris on 
 this ; others that he will not ; others that he need not, as it was 
 only le peuple. 
 
 M. Le La Fayette, as you probably know, after that dis- 
 turbance which was about the King's going to St. Cloud, when 
 they imagined he meant to make ses paques in his own way 
 with the non-jurant priests, has again accepted. All these 
 things pass, and I am told nobody minds them. They go about 
 Paris, walk the streets, return at all hours, and no harm 
 happens; indeed I see nothing for strangers to apprehend. 
 Paris is much as usual, I think more entertaining, though many 
 certainly have left it, and are leaving it. I do not pretend to 
 say what it will or may be, but, for some time I fancy, much as 
 it now is. I shall go and look at the Champ de la Federation 
 from your descriptions, and to-morrow Mad me de Balbi has 
 offered to carry me to the Assemblee Nationale, which, you may 
 guess, I have not refused. I was determined to see that some- 
 how or other. 
 
 Calais, Tuesday morning, May 10, 1791. 
 
 I will finish my Paris history. Soon after I sent you my 
 letter from thence, I received a visit I little expected, and for 
 which I was quite unprepared. I had not even had time to dress 
 myself on account of my letters ; in this state I heard a violent 
 noise in the ante-room of strange, vociferous sounds, and a pro- 
 digious bustle. The Poissardes, my maid, who looked not a little 
 alarmed, told me, were there and insisted on coming in ; they 
 had brought me a bouquet and see me they would, and there 
 they were at the door. I guessed that a return for the bouquet
 
 348 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 was the object, which my hair-dresser confirmed, and out I went 
 to them. Of the two evils the least, so I thought I had a better 
 chance of retreating than getting them out of my room. I con- 
 fess, as I have a horror of these illustrious personages, that 
 interieurement I felt much discomposed, however I thought, I 
 must put on a good face upon the occasion. I gave them six 
 f 08 , which they desired to have doubled, and then I hoped I was 
 off ; but my amabilite I suppose was so great, that one of them 
 proposed to embrace me, and I really did not dare refuse, and 
 thanked my stars when it was over, that I was not to run the 
 gauntlet, for there were six or seven there, and I know not how 
 many in the court below. It seems that these ladies now make 
 a practice of going about where or to whom they please, toutes 
 les fois que cela leur passe par la tete, and neither porters nor 
 servants dare stop them, for reasons I need not enumerate. 
 They go, and I suppose will go, to travellers in this way to get 
 money. The other day there being a report that Monsieur was 
 going away, they went to him in a body, in number forty, to 
 know if this was true ; he was obliged to come out to them and 
 assured them, foi de Prince., that it was no such thing : with 
 this they were so much pleased that they all embraced him, 
 and insisted on seeing Madame and performing the same cere- 
 mony, which was granted. I was assured of the truth of this ; 
 and a French lady I cannot doubt, told me that they often came 
 to her, and she gave them something more to be excused ; that 
 I would willingly have done, you may believe, but my thoughts 
 were not so bright. 
 
 I went to the Champ de Mars ; but all is destroyed, and a 
 new altar, &c., for the annual ceremony just beginning. In 
 the evening I went to the Theatre de Monsieur. Pray, if 
 you have not already, see it; I mean for the coup d'ceil-, it 
 is remarkably elegant, and out of the common way, and some 
 of the figures, though I believe executed in paper, finely 
 modelled. The next day, thanks to Mad me de Balbi, who 
 has been so uncommonly civil to me without my having the 
 least right or title to expect it, I saw the Assemblee Nationale 
 without trouble or fatigue, on which to you I need make no 
 comments. Most extremely glad I am to have seen it, for it is, 
 as you observed, what one cannot form any idea of. She had 
 invited me to dinner, and afterwards a friend of hers came in,
 
 1791] MRS. DAMER'S RETURN. 349 
 
 whom I had not seen since the first time I was at Paris. He 
 remembered that I had seen him and where, a sort of memory 
 that I believe belongs to that station ; his manner is obliging 
 and gentle, and he seems not to be without information : all 
 this together made me feel a great degree of pity. Her house 
 or appartement is of that degree of perfection, for taste and con- 
 venience, that you have seen at Paris, but never elsewhere so 
 completely. Afterwards in a drive, which I took by myself to 
 the ruins of the Bastile, I made many reflections on all that had 
 passed before my eyes that day ; returned to my hotel, and the 
 next day set out. If I did not tell you, you will see by my 
 account, that I found all those I knew at all particularly, gone. 
 They say that Paris in point of numbers is not much diminished, 
 but it is much changed in that of names. I began to think 
 yesterday that my adventures were not over, for on the road 
 and at Boulogne they told me that there was a quarrel here 
 between the English and French captains of the packets, and 
 that none of ours were suffered to take passengers ; others, that 
 none were there ; and, in short, a thousand things, that there was 
 no making head or tail of. .... 
 
 London, Friday morning, May 13. 
 
 Waiting a day at Calais, and a long passage the next, pre- 
 vented my getting here till last night. I got to town between 
 ten and eleven, stayed at my father's, where I had been figuring 
 to myself that I should find them either at home, or expected to 
 supper. Perhaps dear Mr. Walpole alone, sitting by the fire, as 
 I often have, 'waiting their arrival. I drove up to the door ; 
 out came my mother's maid, saying, * Nobody at home ! ' they 
 were gone to my uncle Frederick's to pass the evening, and the 
 carriage not ordered there till twelve. This was not what I 
 wished ; but still I could not give up seeing them, and go com- 
 posedly home to bed. I was in a state when no fatigue is felt. 
 Away I drove to Arlington Street. How many coaches I saw 
 there I cannot tell, but so many that I began to be doubtful 
 what I should do : half vexed, half angry, that things went so 
 little to my fancy, to consider if I should go up stairs, or not, 
 among so many people. A loud knock, which my servant gave 
 at the door, without my order, brought Lady Frederick down 
 stairs ; in an instant out I flew, my mother and father followed
 
 350 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 her, and at the top I saw' Mr. Walpole. He seemed and is as 
 well as ever ; / perceive no difference, not thinner, less lively, 
 or less all that you left him, or all that you can wish, so at 
 least he appeared to me last night. If I see any reason to 
 change my opinions I will tell you with sincerity ; you never 
 shall have a sort of management from me, that I dislike so 
 much myself from those and about those I love. 
 
 From Mr. Brand : 
 
 Mentz, Mayence, Magonza, August 19, 1791. 
 
 It is true that I began to be very impatient at not hearing 
 from you, and was actually stepping into the carriage on leaving 
 Carlsruhe when I receiv'd your letter. I was very much con- 
 cerned to find you had been so ill. Heaven avert relapses 1 
 
 I need not assure you how happy your letter made me. I 
 prefer such insipid stuff, as you modestly call it, to all the 
 accuracy and elegance of your Cicero to his Atticus. The least 
 vibration of the heart is worth the completest gratification of 
 the understanding. Before I venture on anything that may 
 seduce me into long descriptions and digressions, I shall give 
 you an account of our probable motions, in hopes that we may 
 be able to fix our rendezvous. We leave this place to-morrow, 
 and shall get to Munich about the 31 st . We shall stay there a 
 fortnight, and after that at Salzburg, which will bring us to 
 Inspruck about the 22 nd of September. We can either wait 
 there till your arrival, or meet you at Verona. Verona will be 
 the most likely place to meet you. Indeed, I should prefer it. 
 The country of Catullus and Paolo Cagliari, and Komeo and 
 Lance is infinitely better suited to our elegant minds than a 
 vile German town, which can never have produced anything 
 beyond an abbess or a commentator, a juris-consult or a music- 
 master to a piping-bullfinch. Yet dare not I promise too much 
 for my young lordling, who will perhaps be impatient to run 
 away from Munich as he was from Carlsruhe, from his unfortu- 
 nate anxiety to try whether a new place can dispel his constant 
 ennui. We are now at the most northern point of our tour. I 
 feel a powerful attraction towards England, but alas! Diis 
 aliter visum. 
 
 Frankfort, 21st. 
 
 We have here found letters which will probably oblige us to
 
 1791] ENGLISH VISITORS AT FRANKFORT. 351 
 
 stay a few days at Katisbon, but this will make very little 
 difference in our plan, as it may perhaps abridge our stay at 
 Munich. 
 
 After I wrote to you from Zurich or Lucerne, we had most 
 wretched weather, which not only made the remainder of our 
 scheme uncomfortable, but even prevented a material part of 
 it, the passage of the Monte Aquila from Feldkirch to Inspruck. 
 We were therefore obliged to take the direct road of Augsburg, 
 where we found the little Baron, who was most active in showing 
 us civility, gave us sour krout and chevreuil, and introduc'd 
 us, not only to his own chapter, but to a chapter of Chanoinesses. 
 On these chapters I could write a curious chapter, but it would 
 perhaps be as well suppress'd. We stopp'd a day at Stutgard, 
 where we saw a regiment of meagre ill-made giants, none less 
 than 7 feet high, and vast repositories of horses, carriages, and 
 Traineaux. The last are worthy of curiosity. They are made 
 in every sort of whimsical form, and the caparisons of the horses 
 of heavy embroidery, surrounded with thousands of little silver 
 bells, put you in mind of the pomp of Amadis and Esplandion, 
 or the dreams of Comte Hamilton. We were unlucky at 
 Carlsruhe. The Margrave and all the family were on the 
 point of leaving it for some time, but we had two dinners and 
 a supper before they went. Much as I detest Courts, I re- 
 gretted their departure. The Margrave speaks English as well 
 as you or I, and with the language seems to have imbib'd the 
 steady sense and simplicity of the nation, not but that he has 
 had his travers, and had I not seen and conversed with him, I 
 should have been tempted to insert his name in the registers of 
 Moria, for he was once tinctured with magnetism and Lavaterism, 
 but good sense prevail'd, and he now blushes at the name of 
 Mesmer, and perhaps still more at that of Gablia-dord. Per- 
 haps you are unacquainted with this gentleman or lady, for I 
 know not of which sex it is, or whether of any. But it is the 
 name of Mr. Lavater's familiar, his sylph, the regulator of his 
 sympathetic correspondence with the true ' Illumines,' &c. &c. ! 
 I felt great attraction towards the Hereditary Princess, not from 
 her beauty, but from her ease, affability, and good sense. You 
 would take her daughters for charming Englishwomen they 
 might be your sisters ; and the young Julius is as fine a cuii'd- 
 pated wild nankin boy as ever you saw roll on an English
 
 352 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 carpet or frisk upon a lawn. We found there two English 
 families, a Col. and Mrs. Gibbs and two Miss Gibbs, good un- 
 affected people, and a Mrs. Philips and her daughters, who are 
 collecting flames in Germany to set Bath in a future blaze ! 
 But the most valuable acquaintance I made was a Prussian 
 lady, whom I admire much, and for whom I conceiv'd that 
 delicious sentiment which is more moderate than love and 
 warmer than friendship, the same which I have long felt for 
 other worthy personages in a still greater degree, tho' they 
 neither of them speak so well the language of music, that lan- 
 guage so persuasive to my frame, as Madame de Madeweis. . . . 
 Ainsi soit-il! Carlsrhue and its environs are very pleasant, 
 but horribly infested with gnats, not that they are the worst 
 plagues which torment the Margrave and his first-born. A 
 swarm of more offensive insects have beset him, and tho' I dare 
 say, like the Pharaoh of Egypt, he would part with his jewels 
 of silver and jewels of gold to drive them into the wilderness, it 
 is impossible. Need I say that these are the Refugies aristo- 
 crafs ? All we had seen in Italy, compared to those of Carlsruhe, 
 are Platos in reasoning and Socrateses in moderation ! The 
 whole country from thence to Mayence is full of white cockades, 
 but they are all officers, and there is not even a shadow of that 
 cmny which sounds so formidable on the other side of the Alps. 
 They seem to me to wait for the contre-revolution as Jews for 
 the coming of the Messiah ! We spent three days very pleasantly 
 at Mayence, where we were recommended to Comte Stadion, a 
 Chanoine of the metropole, by his brother the Imperial Minister 
 in England. Were all canons like this, my chapter would be 
 worth reading ! 
 
 Tho' there is little faith to be put in the accounts we hear, 
 yet I believe you had better not venture thro' France. The 
 article of money is very troublesome ; you can get none, and you 
 can carry none away. My paper fails me, or I could tell you 
 of the great Tun at Heidelburg, of an English youth who made 
 a German commit suicide from jealousy, &c. &c. . . . As we 
 did not go to Inspruck, I could not execute Gianfigliazzi's 
 commission there. I will beg you to tell him that the inn- 
 keeper at Coire will take care to procure L d Clive some seeds of 
 the pine he mentioned, but they will not be ripe time enough 
 to send them by you
 
 1791] JOURNAL. 353 
 
 I must put this in a cover. I believe it will not cost a baiocco 
 more ; if it does, I will give you a choice anecdote of the K. of 
 Naples richly worth it. The Due of Wurtemberg, among his 
 other treasures at Stutgard and the neighbourhood, has a re- 
 markably fine breed of cattle in one of his parks. They had 
 the honour of a visit from their Neapolitan Majesties, with a 
 vast suite of hommes and dames d'honneur of Naples and 
 Wurtemberg. Lo Re was in extasy ! * Dio benedetto ! ' says he, 
 and in the enthusiasm of admiration, ran to a very beautiful 
 cow, seized her dug with rapture, and whilst the Queen was 
 blushing with shame and indignation, and the Wurtembergers 
 were ready to die of stifled laughter . . . the cow was most 
 royally milked ! ! What a pendant for Cincinnatus with a plough 
 in his hands ! 
 
 My best comp 18 to M r Berry. . . . Adieu, my dear friends ! 
 Accept my thanks for your correspondence, and my sincerest 
 wishes for your happiness. Yours most faithfully, 
 
 T. B. 
 
 Miss Berry's journal of their return home from Florence 
 is little more than travelling notes, which show the facili- 
 ties and difficulties of travelling on the Continent at that 
 time. 
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 Saturday, September 17 th. Left Florence with a voi- 
 turier. The view from Maschiere beautiful. The voiturier 
 engaged to cany us to Bologna in two days. 
 
 Sunday, l&th. About a mile and a half from Loiana 
 the perch of our carriage broke almost in two ; luckily 
 the body only fell forward upon the box, and we all got 
 out without being either frightened or hurt; luckily, 
 also, there was a sort of blacksmith's shop a solitary 
 cottage in a valley just below where the accident 
 happened, and from thence the people came running up 
 with wood and cord, and they and the voiturier, and 
 some occasional passengers upon the road, helped to get 
 
 VOL. i. A A
 
 354 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 it tied up together, so as to be able to drag it along. 
 This operation lasted nearly three hours, during which 
 time we were sitting guarding the trunks and luggage by 
 the wayside. When at last it was en etat de marche, we 
 walked on before to Loiana, and, finding it was impossible 
 it could bear our weight within, we took at the post two 
 little sort of caleches, such as the peasants use to go to 
 market, and, after a thousand delays, got post-horses to 
 these conveyances, leaving one servant to come on slowly 
 with the coach, my father and I, with Joseph, in one, and 
 my sister and the maid in the other. We proceeded to 
 Pianosa, and from thence to Bologna, where we arrived 
 about eleven o'clock at night. 
 
 We were kept near an hour at the gates, till the keys 
 were sent for to the vice-legate a ceremony which 
 seems to mean nothing more than giving five pauls to the 
 corporal upon guard, which I should think might be con- 
 trived in a manner less troublesome to travellers. 
 
 Monday, ~LQth. Our carriage came up at eight o'clock 
 in the morning, and not more broken, which was all we 
 could expect. In the evening arrived Mr. and Mrs. Legge 
 and Mr. Gianfigliazzi, to comfort us in our misfortunes. 
 Sent to the Chevalier Poggelini, whom we had seen at 
 Florence, to recommend a coachmaker to us. Came 
 himself, and offered us his services. The man he 
 recommended was out of town, and did not return till 
 the next day (Tuesday), and the day after (Wednesday) 
 being a fete, it could not be touched till Thursday ; he 
 promised, however, to let us have it on Saturday even- 
 ing, and, contrary to my expectations, on Saturday 
 evening it came, finished, to the inn. We made no 
 bargain beforehand, as our friend the chevalier pro- 
 mised to settle that matter for us. The man's bill was 
 thirty-two sequins we paid twenty-seven ; for this 
 country it was tolerably reasonable. 
 
 Monday, 2Qth. Left Bologna for Ferrara ; the roads,
 
 1791] PROM PADUA TO STERZJNG. 355 
 
 after the twenty-four hours' rain, heavy stiff mud, in a 
 country as flat as Leicestershire. At Cento we were 
 obliged to wait till the horses were refreshed, as there 
 were none others, and the poor tired beasts could hardly 
 even make a trot, the road worse and worse near 
 Ferrara. 
 
 Tuesday, 27th. Eeached Padua. After crossing the 
 river, the clay was half-way up to the axles of the wheels ; 
 the six horses never went out of a walk. We were six 
 hours and a quarter coming eighteen miles. 
 
 Thursday, 29th. Left Padua. Arrived at Venice in a 
 barge, drawn by a horse on the bank, till we came to 
 Fusina, when another lighter bark, with four rowers, took 
 us in tow. Much time lost on the canal at the different 
 locks, of which there are five or six. 
 
 Thursday, October 6th. The road from Padua to 
 Vicenza good. The inn at Vicenza very good ; paid for 
 the apartment fifteen pauls. Inn at Verona very good. 
 
 Sunday, 9th. Left Verona. Between Volargone and 
 Peri ascended a very steep hill, the Clusi, with an old 
 ruined fort at the bottom, which in fact shuts up the 
 valley. Between Peri and Ala twice stopped by the 
 custom-house. The Venetians have no right to demand 
 anything on going out of their dominions ; on entering 
 those of the emperor, they give a bulletin for four or five 
 pauls, and search nothing. Arrived at Trent.* 
 
 Monday, 1(M. Left Trent about 7 A.M. No horses 
 to be had at Botzen ; f obliged to stay there all night. 
 
 Tuesday, \\th. From Botzen to SterzingJ the road 
 so excellent, that with anything but German postilions one 
 might go eighty or ninety miles a day. The road from 
 
 * One of the most important cities in the Tyrol the Tridentum of the 
 Romans. The chief products around it are wine and silk. 
 
 t Now one of the most flourishing commercial towns in the Tyrol. 
 \ A very ancient town, on the site of the Roman station Vipitenum. 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 Botzen beautifully romantic, always winding round the 
 bottom of a highly-cultivated and much-peopled valley, 
 with a river, sometimes narrow, sometimes broad, running 
 through. 
 
 Wednesday, 12th. Left Sterzing. Arrived at Inspruck. 
 The country, the whole way from Botzen, becomes at 
 every step more strikingly beautiful ; the road good, and 
 no great ascent till Sterzing. From thence to Brenner is 
 a continual steep ascent, for which we were obliged to 
 take six horses. The situation of Inspruck, in a large and 
 richly-cultivated valley, as seen from the mountain we 
 descended, very beautiful. The town itself has a sort of 
 air of German magnificence wide streets and large un- 
 couth palaces. 
 
 Saturday., l&th. Left Inspruck. Arrived, in twelve 
 hours, at Leermoos. Detained at Nassereit for want of 
 horses. The country from Inspruck more beautiful and 
 romantic than any other part of the Tyrol that I have 
 seen. 
 
 Left Leermoos. Arrived at Kaufbeeren in eleven 
 hours. At Fussen a large convent.* On the other side of 
 Fiissen we passed a gateway and sort of fortification 
 which shuts up the pass of the mountains. The moun- 
 tains here begin gradually to diminish, and after Stettin 
 the country is open and only gently waved. We set out 
 with four horses, but between Fussen and Stettin took 
 two more from a village. 
 
 Sunday, 16th. Arrived at Augsburg about mid- 
 day. The road, the whole way, through a beautifully- 
 cultivated and much-peopled country ; the villages 
 frequent, all clean, well built, and with an appearance 
 of perfect comfort ; and in each village is to be seen one 
 or more large good-looking inns. 
 
 * The most remarkable building in the town is the sequestered Abbey of 
 St. Magnus, now the property of Prince Wallenstein. Vide Murray's 
 Handbook.
 
 1791] ULM. 357 
 
 The whole Tyrol, indeed, is most justly celebrated as 
 well for the beauty of the country as for the comfortable 
 appearance of the inhabitants. If its mountains are less 
 sublime than those of Savoy, they are more cheerful and 
 better cultivated. There is a ruined castle upon the 
 top of a little island in a small lake, surrounded by high 
 wooded mountains, between Nassereit and Leermoos, 
 that is fit for the residence of an enchanted princess in 
 a romance. As the road winds round, one sees it in a 
 thousand different and picturesque points of view. 
 
 There is another castle,* upon a hill between Fiissen 
 and Stettin, less ruinous but fully as romantic. The cul- 
 tivation in the Tyrol is so neat, and the turf so beauti- 
 fully fine, that the road for many miles between Inspruck 
 to Augsburg looks like a drive through the best-kept 
 park one ever saw. No vines after leaving Sterzing. 
 
 Tuesday, 18th. Left Augsburg.f Arrived at Ulm in 
 ten hours ; the road excellent, through a finely- waved, 
 open, well-cultivated, and much-inhabited country; the 
 pavement of all the little towns abominable. Baron 
 d'Hornstein had left Augsburg, and got to the first post in 
 time to have breakfast prepared for us. 
 
 Ulm is a considerable old town, most of the houses what 
 is called in England post and pan ; the streets wide, but 
 very irregular and horridly paved. The cathedral, which 
 is a Lutheran church, is in the inside very pretty Gothic, 
 and imposing from its great length ; J the spiral sort of 
 ornament over the pulpit beautiful. 
 
 Wednesday, 19& Left Ulm. Arrived at Moeskirch 
 
 * The Castle of the Bishops of Augsburg stands on a rocky height ; it is 
 still tolerably perfect, retaining much of the splendour of a baronial resi- 
 dence of the 14th century. It now belongs to the king. Murray's Hand- 
 book. 
 
 t A city now of upwards of 31,000 inhabitants : above 18,000 Roman 
 Catholics, and above 11,000 Protestants. 
 
 | Considered one of the six finest Gothic cathedrals in Germany ; begun 
 in 1377, and continued down to 1488. Murray's Handbkoo.
 
 358 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 in twelve hours ; the road very rough, and through a 
 flat uninteresting country ; the posts, too, are badly served. 
 
 Thursday, 20th. Arrived at Schaffhausen. The road 
 from Moeskirch to Stockach * very rough and bad, and 
 through an ugly country ; we did not go three miles an 
 hour. Stockach is a clean-looking town ; the road better, 
 and the country finely wooded. Vines again cultivated ; 
 great level vineyards about Schaffhausen. 
 
 Friday, 21st. Left Schaffhausen at 8 A.M. ; arrived at 
 Waldshut f about 4 P.M. The situation of Schaffhausen is 
 romantic and beautiful ; the ground rises round it on 
 every side. About half a mile from the town, turned out 
 of the road to go to the famous fall of the Ehine. Being 
 in our own loaded carriage, we did not carry it farther 
 than the village, about half a mile out of the road. A 
 caleche, or any light carriage, may go down quite to the 
 water's edge. We walked, and looked at it first from 
 above and then from below ; and then walked round the 
 sort of bay that it makes to the spot where there are two 
 or three strange uncouth coggling sort of boats to ferry 
 over to the other side. Here one mounts a very steep 
 bank to a chateau situated directly over the fall, and 
 which, indeed, greatly adds to the beauty of the scene. 
 From the summer-house of this chateau is seen a view of 
 the fall from above ; but the really striking, the truly 
 magnificent, view is from a little sort of redoubt under 
 the high bank on which the chateau stands, ana from 
 which the water is precipitated. One is here in a manner 
 under the fall, and sees it passing with a degree of violence 
 and rapidity which at first almost turns one's head ; but 
 it is by far the most splendid view the only one, indeed, 
 where one has a just idea of the whole, and the only one 
 where one has a just idea of the prodigious body and 
 
 * A town of 1,300 inhabitants, three miles distant from the Lake of 
 Constance. 
 
 t A walled town on the outskirts of the Black Forest.
 
 1791] FROM BASLE TO LANGRES. 359 
 
 force of water. It is, I think, certainly less beautiful, less 
 picturesque, than that of Terni or even of Tivoli, and 
 certainly gave me less pleasure ; but from this point more 
 sublime and more magnificent. The water, they said, was 
 uncommonly low, which of course makes a considerable 
 difference. 
 
 Saturday, 22nd. Arrived at Basle. 
 Monday, 24th. Left Basle. About a league from Basle 
 we were stopped and asked if we had no contraband ; 
 and on answering in the negative, and giving the man 
 half-a-crown, were allowed to proceed ; no passport or 
 permission asked for anywhere, nor who or what we 
 were. The posts well served, and the road, though hilly, 
 good. Belfort is a smah 1 ville de guerre,* at which we 
 saw all sorts of uniforms. Eeached Lure. 
 
 Tuesday, 25th. Arrived at Fayl Billot in eleven hours 
 and a half. The roads from Lure to Pont-sur-Saone 
 abominable, with great holes and large pieces of rock 
 lying in them ; it is wonderful how any carriage escapes 
 breaking. 
 
 Vesoul, the only town we passed to-day, a neatish- 
 looking small place. All the villages particularly ragged 
 and wretched-looking, and the country open and un- 
 interesting, f 
 
 Wednesday, 26th. From Fayl Billot to Bar-sur-Aube 
 in twelve hours and a half. They have the best materials 
 for making roads upon the whole route ; and if they had 
 not been much neglected for these two years past, would 
 be some of the finest in France. Langres is a considerable 
 town, mean, and badly built. J The country this whole 
 day bare and uninteresting, the cottages and villages very 
 thinly scattered and very miserable. 
 
 * Fortified by Vauban. 
 
 t Vesoul is now a town of more than 6,000 inhabitants. 
 J Langres is an ancient town, mentioned by Ceesar. It is now a sort of 
 French Sheffield, and produces the best French cutlery.
 
 360 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 Thursday, 27th. From Bar-sur-Aube to Nogent in 
 eleven hours and a half ; the roads admirable. At Granges 
 the pave begins. Troyes is a large old-fashioned ill-built 
 town, with a finely-ornamented front to the Gothic cathe- 
 dral.* Between Pont-sur-Saone and Nogent are two fine 
 chateaux, and these, with another shabby one we passed 
 yesterday, are the only chateaux within sight on the 
 whole road from Basle. 
 
 Friday, 28th. Left Nogent at half-past 4 A.M., and we 
 should have arrived at Paris by 2 P.M., for the roads were 
 good, the posts short, and the driving quick ; but at 
 Guignes the fore-axle was discovered to be broken nearly 
 through ; it was vilely patched together with two iron 
 hoops, which broke before we had gone two miles, and we 
 were then obliged to get out to relieve the coach of our 
 weight; the weak part was bound up with straps and 
 ropes, and sent on slowly to the next post (Brie-C te -Eobert), 
 whilst we walked to Coubert, the first village, above a 
 league distant. There we waited in a little auberge till 
 a cabriolet from the post was sent, and into this we all 
 four crammed ourselves, and arrived at Brie about four 
 o'clock. Finding our coach had got on so far without 
 breaking more, we agreed with the post-mistress for four 
 horses to carry it on slowly into Paris with one servant, 
 and taking her cabriolet for ourselves, with the other 
 servant on horseback. We arrived in this conveyance at 
 half-past seven at the door of the Hotel d'Orleans at 
 Paris. Here I thought all our troubles would end, and 
 that we were sure of an apartment point du tout. It 
 was all full. I then bethought me of the Hotel de Bourbon 
 close by, in the Eue Jacob : thither we drove, and got a 
 comfortable enough apartment au premier, consisting of 
 three pieces and an ante-chamber, at the rate of three 
 and a half louis a week. 
 
 * In this cathedral, May 20, 1420, our King Henry V. was affianced to 
 the Princess Catherine ; and on the following day was signed the Treaty of 
 Tropes. Murray's Handbook.
 
 1791] LETTER FROM MR. WALPOLE. 361 
 
 On the 17th of September, according to Miss Berry's 
 Journal, they had left Florence. The first letter addressed 
 to them by Mr. Walpole on their homeward journey was 
 dated September 5th, and directed to Venice. 
 
 Strawberry HiU, Sept. 5, at night, 1791. 
 
 I write on rny intermediate post-day, both to overtake you, 
 and to apologize for the lamentations in my last, tho' I had not 
 even imputed the cause of them to you. That letter perhaps 
 you will not receive.* On Friday the 2 d , the morning on which 
 my letter had gone to town, I received y of the 7 th and 9 th 
 of August, with the very order for changing my direction, but 
 it was too late to recall mine ; I am less surprised at y re being 
 so long as 23 or 24 days on the road, for I believe it had been 
 opened, the seal being quite flat, and scarcely any mark of im- 
 pression left. Another proof of its having been delayed, is, that 
 on Saturday I received a second of the 15 th of August, and they 
 certainly ought to have arrived at once. 
 
 The last contains a charming letter from my Agnes, and both 
 this and the former contain deserved encomiums on Mr. Lock,f to 
 which I totally agree. He has as much modesty as genius, which 
 is saying that he is the most modest genius in the world ; and his 
 virtues are as uncommon as both. I am overjoyed you have 
 met him ; and now I shall be impatient to have him see the 
 copy of his Wolsey, which I am sure will surprise and strike 
 him, as much as the original did us. He little thinks that his 
 new scholar is worthy of being his rival. In y r letter of the 9 th 
 there was a word which I could not read, or at least under- 
 stand. You say Mr. Lock coloured a drawing in black lead 
 with a stump, or a thump, and advised Miss Agnes to use the 
 same method either nostrum applied to the black lead, I 
 suppose, had the effect of Prussian blue, and made the drawing 
 black and blue, which may assist connoisseurs in knowing 
 hands; but I own I do not wish to have y r sister practise that 
 mode of sketching ; nor should like to be told, ' I am sure this 
 was done by your wife's fist? It would not be of a piece with 
 her or Mr. Lock's indolence. Hers I certainly would not have 
 
 * This letter, numbered by Mr. Walpole 50, was perhaps never received, 
 as it is neither in the printed nor in the MS. collection. 
 t Mr. Lock of Norbury.
 
 362 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 her conquer at the price of a headache ; nor would have you both 
 venture travelling too soon in the great heats. Great as my 
 impatience to see you both, you surely know that my impa- 
 tience is doubled by my alarms about y r journey. 
 
 Lally s'est ravise prudently in suppressing his pamphlet ; it 
 would not be popular here, where Uhe Demonocratic Stock is 
 wofully fallen. The sober Presbytyrants are ashamed of Priestley 
 and his imps ; and tho' they would burn the houses of others, 
 they would not like to venture their own ; nor is the distress of 
 France inviting. Barnave and Lameth may have tried to nego- 
 tiate with the Princes, but having miscarried, if they did attempt 
 it, their being desperate will produce more violence. I should 
 think they had tried, as I see Lameth has lately been outrageous 
 yet I am told that when the Chevalier de Coigny presented 
 himself (on that errand) to the Cointe de Provence, whom he 
 found in a circle of exiles, and desired a private audience, 
 Monsieur said, ' Tous ces Messieurs sont mes amis, et je leur 
 dirois d'abord tout ce que vous me diriez.' 
 
 Madame de Stael is returned to Paris ; her husband an- 
 nounced his King's commands of affecting tristesse : elle s'en 
 est moquee and sees everybody. Her father is said to be follow- 
 ing her with a new plan of Constitution and Finance, both 
 which no doubt he can more easily settle now that both are 
 fifty times more difficult than he could at first when he had all 
 the power of the Crown, or the second time when he was the 
 idol of the people. Everybody has seen his incapacity but 
 himself, and his restless vanity and ambition of a name will 
 make his name a proverb of ridicule. He always puts me in 
 mind of the (runnings. The D ss of B. is having her house new- 
 painted, and retired to her niece Mad. de Kutzleben. The 
 Gunnings went and took her away, and have carried her to 
 their lodging in St. James's Street ; yet cannot make even the 
 newspapers talk of them. 
 
 As this departs on Tuesday, it is not likely I shall have any- 
 thing to add on Friday; therefore my next you will probably 
 find at Basle ; as you had better wait a few days and find one 
 arrived before you, than wait longer for one to recall, or to be 
 sent after you. I fear we must mutually prepare for disappoint- 
 ments while you are on the road, and I will remember, if I can, 
 to be prepared ; but I think impatience about you two is the
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S SOLICITUDE. 363 
 
 quality on which 74 has had the least effect ! I wonder you 
 had not heard of y r tenant's retreat, for your housekeeper told 
 Philip ten days ago that y r house was ready for you and so 
 will Cliveden be. 
 
 I assure you the provocations given by the Revolutionists 
 were so far from being exaggerated by the newspapers on the 
 Court's side, that much worse was suppressed than has been ever 
 told, nor was any other care taken by the Government till the 
 approach of the 14 th of July had made every precaution neces- 
 sary, and had even kept away from the Crown and Anchor every 
 man of any consequence, even of the Opposition. All the coun- 
 try newspapers and evening posts had been hired by the Faction. 
 Remember, I never warrant my news, unless I speak very posi- 
 tively : I have told you that Truth died a virgin, and left no 
 children ; and often when she herself in said to be here or there, 
 it is as untrue as that King Arthur is still alive, or St. John in the 
 Isle of Patmos. I did, I think, everything but prove that Perkin 
 Warbeck was the true Duke of York, and had not been mur- 
 dered in the Tower ; but as he was beheaded afterwards as pub- 
 lickly as the Duke of Monmouth, I do not believe he is still 
 living, tho' Mons r de Saintfoix chose the latter should have been 
 the Masque de fer, but forgot the best argument in defence of 
 that hypothesis, which was, that the Masque de fer was to con- 
 ceal the loss of the Duke's real head. Adieu ! 
 
 The next, dated September llth,* is directed to Basle, 
 and full of anxiety as to their journey : ' Accidents, 
 inns, roads, mountains, and the sea are all in my map ; 
 but I hope no slopes to be run down, nor fetes for a grand 
 duke.' 
 
 Those of September 16th and 25th, also directed to 
 Basle, have only been published in part. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Friday night late, Sept. 16, 1791. 
 
 Yesterday was red-lettered in the almanacks of Strawberry and 
 
 Cliveden, supposing you set out towards them as you intended. 
 
 The sun shone all day, and the moon all night, and all nature 
 
 for three miles round looked gay. Indeed, we have had nine or 
 
 * Published in 1846.
 
 364 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 ten days of such warmth and serenity (here called heat\ as I 
 scarce remember when the year begins to have grey, or rather 
 
 yellow, hairs The setting sun and long autumnal shades 
 
 enriched the landscape to a Claude Lorraine. Guess whether I 
 hoped to see such a scene next year. If I do not, may you ! 
 at least, it will make you talk of me !] 
 
 The Johnstonehood dined here on Wednesday, and Lady 
 Clack, and some Eichmondians. The first family depart for 
 Bath tomorrow : the good general is not at all well, and falls 
 away much. The Marchioness of Abercorn is dead, and the 
 Marquis of Blandford literally married,* malgre the duchess. 
 The papers of to-day say Mons r de la Luzerne is dead, but 
 Madame de Boufflers did not know it last night. I have heard 
 nothing, nor probably shall learn more in town on Monday, 
 whither I shall go for two nights on business. 
 
 The gorgeous season and poor partridges I hear have 
 emptied London entirely, and yet Drury-lane is removed to 
 the Opera-house. Do you know that Mrs. Jordan is acknow- 
 ledged to be Mrs. Ford, and Miss Brunton to be Mrs. Merry, 
 but neither quits the stage. The latter's captain, I think, 
 might quit his poetic profession without loss to the public. 
 My gazettes will have kept you so much au courant, that you 
 will be as ready for any conversation at y r return, as if you had 
 only been at a watering-place in short, a votre intention, and 
 to make my letters as welcome as I can, I listen to and bring 
 home a thousand things, which otherwise I should not know I 
 heard. . . . 
 
 Sunday, noon. 
 
 I this moment receive y rs of Aug. 29th, in which you justly re- 
 prove my jealousies and suspicions of y r delaying y r return, at the 
 moment you are preparing to make such a sacrifice to me, as I am 
 sensible it is. I do not defend or excuse myself; but alas! is it 
 possible not to have doubts sometimes, when I am not only on the 
 very verge of 75, but, if I have a grain of sense left, must know 
 how very precariously I retain this shattered frame ? Nay, my 
 dragging you from the country you prefer, would be inexcusable 
 were self my only motive. No, beloved friends, I am neither in 
 
 * George Marquis of Blandford, afterwards 4th Duke of Marlborough, 
 married September 15, 1791, to Susan, daughter of John Earl of Galloway.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S FEARS FOR HIS FRIENDS. 365 
 
 love with either of you, nor, tho' doating on y r society, so 
 personal as to consult my own transitory felicity to y r amuse- 
 ment. The scope of all I think and do is, to make y r lives more 
 comfortable when I shall be no more ; and if I do suffer the 
 selfish wish of seeing you take possession, to enter into my plan, 
 forgive it ! Mr. Berry does not as a father meditate y r happi- 
 ness more than I do, nor has purer affection for you both ; nor, 
 tho' a much younger man, has he less of that weakness that often 
 exposes old men. I am vain of my attachment to two such un- 
 derstandings and hearts ; and the cruel injustice of fortune 
 makes me proud of trying to smooth one of her least-rugged 
 frowns ; but even this theme I must drop, as you have raised a 
 still more cruel fear ! You talk uncertainly of y r route thro' 
 France or its borders, and you bid me not be alarmed ! Oh ! 
 can you conjure down that apprehension ! I have scarce a grain 
 of belief in German armies marching against the French, yet 
 what can I advise who know nothing but from the loosest 
 reports? Oh! I shall abhor myself yes, abhor myself if I 
 have drawn you from the security of Florence to the smallest 
 risk, or even inconvenience. My dearest friends, return thither, 
 stay there, stop in Swisserland, do anything but hazard y r selves. 
 I beseech you, I implore you, do not venture thro' France, for 
 tho' you may come from Italy, and have no connection of any 
 sort on the whole Continent, you may meet with incivilities and 
 trouble, which even pretty women, that are no politicians, may 
 be exposed to in a country so unsettled as France is at present. 
 If there is truth in my soul, it is that I w d give up all my hopes 
 of seeing you again, rather than have you venture on the least 
 danger of any sort. When a storm could terrify me out of my 
 senses last year, do you think, dearest souls, that I can have any 
 peace till I am sure of y r safety ? and to risk it for me ! Oh ! 
 horrible ! I cannot bear the idea ! 
 
 [Berkeley Square, Monday night, 19th. 
 
 I have been making all the inquiries I could amongst the 
 foreign Ministers at Richmond and here in town, and I cannot 
 find any belief of the march of armies towards France. Nay, 
 the Comte d'Artois is said to be gone to Petersburg, and he 
 must bring back forces in a balloon, if he can be in time enough 
 to interrupt your passage thro' Flanders. One thing I must
 
 366 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 premise, if, which I deprecate, you should set foot in France, I 
 beg you to burn and not bring a scrap of paper with you. Mere 
 travelling ladies, as young as you, I know have been stopped, 
 and rifled and detained in France to have their papers examined, 
 and one was rudely treated, because the name of a French lady 
 of her acquaintance was mentioned in a private letter to her, 
 tho' in no political light. Calais is one of the worst places ) T OU 
 can pass, for as they suspect money being remitted thro' that 
 town to England, the search and delays there are extremely 
 strict and rigorous. . . 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 I am told that on the King's acceptance of the constitution, 
 there is a general amnesty published, and passports taken off. 
 If this be true, the passage thro' France for mere foreigners and 
 strangers may be easier and safer ; but be assured of all. I w d 
 not embarraes y r journey unnecessarily, but, for heaven's sake, 
 be well informed. I advise nothing. I dread everything where 
 your safeties are in question, and I hope Mr. Berry is as timor- 
 ous as I am. My very contradictions prove the anxiety of my 
 mind, or I should not torment those I love so much ; but how not 
 love those who sacrifice so much for me, and who, I hope, for- 
 give all my unreasonable inconsistencies. Adieu ! adieu !] 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Sept. 25, 1791. 
 
 How I love to see my numeros increase ! * I trust they will 
 not reach 60 ! ... 
 
 It is now, I think, certain that there will no attempt against 
 France be made this year still I trust that you will not decide 
 till you are assured that you may come thro' France without 
 trouble or molestation ; and I still prefer Germany, tho' it will 
 protract y r absence.] 
 
 Pray write me nothing but notes on y r journey, with * We 
 arrived here last night perfectly well ; have caught no colds nor 
 accidents ; and set out to-morrow for our next stage.' Adven- 
 tures, I hope, you will have none to relate ; and you shall not 
 be writing when you are fatigued, very hot, very cold, or very 
 hungry. This civility calls itself a prayer, but is a command 
 and if I open a letter, and see more than three lines, I shall be 
 
 * Mr. Walpole had numbered all his letters written to Miss Berry while 
 abroad.
 
 1791] WALPOLE ON TEAVELLING. 367 
 
 alarmed, and think some mischief has happened, and then I 
 shall not know what I read, till I read the whole letter over 
 again, which has been the case several times since you went, 
 as after the storm, after y r fall, after your fever and I believe 
 oftener but those are the great epochs in my almanack. 
 
 Mrs. Darner came hither from Goodwood last Thursday, staid 
 all Friday, went to town yesterday, returns hither next Friday, 
 takes Madame de Cambis to Park-place on Saturday, and the 
 next day I shall follow them thither. This is the sum total of 
 my history, and I believe everybody's else at least, to my 
 knowledge. I have not a paragraph of politics for Mr. Berry 
 nay, I am sure there is none, for my neighbour at the foot of 
 the bridge was here this morning, and had nothing to tell me, 
 but that Mr. Stevens is just coming out with his Shakespear. 
 I said ' S r , if he does not come in, it is perfectly indifferent to 
 me when he comes out.'' 
 
 [I was sorry you was disappointed of going to Vallombrosa. 
 Milton has made everybody wish to have seen it ; which is my 
 wish ; for though I was thirteen months at Florence (at twice), 
 I never did see it in fact I was so tired of seeing when I was 
 abroad, that I have several of those pieces of repentance on my 
 conscience when they come into my head and yet I saw too 
 much, for the quantity left such a confusion in my head, that I 
 do not remember a quarter clearly. Pictures, statues, and 
 buildings were always so much my passion, that for the time I 
 surfeited myself; especially as one is carried to see a vast deal 
 that is not worth seeing. . . .] 
 
 Monday, 26th. 
 
 I am alarmed again ! I heard at Eichmond last night that 
 Ld. Binning has a relation just come thro' France, who was 
 searched and very ill-treated, so I revert to y r coming thro' 
 Germany, whence I am persuaded there will be no movement, 
 all the rodomontades issuing, I believe, from Calonne's brain, 
 which can produce armed Minervas, but not one Mars. I repeat 
 it, and you may be confident of it, that I had rather hear you 
 was returned to Florence, than have you expose yourselves to 
 any risk anywhere and I do now heartily repent my soliciting 
 y r return. I wish I had prevailed as little there as I did against 
 your journey! but you have friends in Swisserland why not 
 remain with them for some time ? France may grow tranquil
 
 368 LETTEKS. [1791 
 
 on the King's acceptance and the general amnesty ; and as En- 
 gland is at perfect peace with them, and will certainly remain 
 so, they will undoubtedly encourage, not discourage, English 
 travellers. Well ! may you be inspired with what is best for 
 you ! I shall only weary you with my anxiety. Adieu ! 
 
 The next letter, of October 3rd, was addressed to 
 Augsburg. 
 
 Park Place, Monday, Oct. 3, 1791. 
 
 I had exhausted Basle, was at the end of my map, and did 
 not know a step of my way farther, when on Saturday I was so 
 happy as to receive two letters at once, bidding my pen drive to 
 Augsburg. Your dates were of the llth and 16th September, 
 and you was to leave Florence on the morrow. I do not won 
 der at Mrs. Legge* for liking to accompany you to Bologna ; 
 buttho' my justice can excuse her, I do not love her a bit the 
 better for detaining you two days, for which I am sure of being out 
 of pocket in November. With more days I shall part with plea- 
 sure, if, as you seem to intend, you prefer the road thro' Grer- 
 many, provided Brussels is quite tranquil, which the newspapers, 
 which I never believe but quand il s'agit de vous, represent as 
 still growling. I hope Mr. Berry has no more courage than I 
 have, but will listen, like a hare in its form, to every yelp even 
 of a puppy. 
 
 I trust you have received my letter in which I explained that 
 I never thought of your settling at Cliveden in November. 
 When I proposed your landing at Strawberry, it was because I 
 thought your house in Audley Street was let till Christmas ; and 
 I remembered your description (for what do I forget that you 
 have told me ?) of how uncomfortable you found yourselves aty r 
 last arrival from abroad. A house in which you would be as 
 much at home as in your own, would be preferable to an hotel 
 mais voila qui est fini. I did, and certainly do still hope, that 
 when you shall have unpacked y r selves, shall have received and 
 returned some dozen of double kisses from and to all that are 
 delighted to see you again, or are not, you will give a couple of 
 days at Strawberry, that on the morning of the second I may 
 
 * Wife of Heneage Legge, Esq., of Aston in Staffordshire. She, with, 
 her husband, had been spending all the summer at Florence and in its 
 immediate neighbourhood. M, B.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S HOPES AND FEAKS. 369 
 
 carry you to, and install and invest you with, Cliveden. To that 
 day I own I look with an eagerness of impatience that no words 
 would convey, unless they could paint the pulse of fifteen when 
 it has been promised some untasted joy, for which it had long 
 hoped and been denied, and which seldom answers half the ex- 
 pectation ; and there I shall have the advantage, if I live to 
 attain it for my felicity cannot but be complete if that day 
 arrives ! 
 
 Here is nobody but Mrs. Darner and Madame de Cambis, and 
 I am glad there is not. I shall return home on Wednesday, and at 
 the end of the week shall hope to receive a direction farther, but 
 scarce, I doubt, shall know so soon that your final determination 
 on y r route is fixed. The company is come in from walking, 
 and I should not have time to write more if I had wherewithal, 
 but the totality of my intelligence is bounded to the death of 
 Lord Craven, who this morning's Eeading paper says is dead, of 
 which an express came last night, and it is probably credible, 
 as his house is so near Heading. The moment the courier 
 arrives at Lisbon, I suppose the new Margravine * will notify 
 her marriage and accession to the devout Queen of Portugal, 
 who will bless herself that she is made an honest woman if 
 a heretic can be so. Adieu ! adieu ! 
 
 In the last published letter of Mr. Walpole's to the 
 Miss Berrys on their journey, dated October 9th, f and 
 directed to Augsburg, he sums up his great anxieties ; to 
 which he adds : 
 
 [It will be a year to-morrow since you set out. ... I 
 have still a month of apprehensions to come for both ! All 
 this mass of vexation and fears is to be compensated by the 
 transport of your return, and by the complete satisfaction on 
 your installation at Cliveden. But could I have believed that 
 when my clock had struck 74, I could pass a year in such 
 agitations !] 
 
 On the 28th of October Mr. Berry and his daughters 
 reached Paris, and here, unfortunately, during their short 
 
 * Elizabeth Berkeley, Lady Craven, 
 t Published in 1846. 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 stay, the Journal ceases: The only entry made in one of 
 Miss Berry's note-books, relating to Madame de Stael, 
 betrays some little feelings of mortification at the change 
 that had taken place in her former acquaintance's manner. 
 
 We returned from Italy to Paris the end of October 1791, 
 and found her the Swedish Ambassadress in the Eue de 
 Bac, in the height of her passion for Talleyrand. Sup at her 
 house, invited by her husband, who sees us every day. She, 
 too much occupied with her passion de s'apercevoir de mon 
 existence. 
 
 The two following letters were directed to Brussels, and 
 forwarded to Paris ; the third and last was addressed to 
 Paris. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Oct. 16, 1791. 
 
 You had said you would write from Padua if you found a good 
 opportunity ; but I have not received a letter thence. I am not 
 much disappointed, as I saw I had only a chance ; and besides 
 have prepared myself for miscarriages, while you are on the 
 road, resting my consolation on the trust of seeing you soon, and 
 knowing that from Venice every mile will bring you nearer. I 
 call a month soon, but only with reference to the twelve that 
 are gone. That month may be composed of five or six weeks 
 and my impatience is not apt to treat my Almanac with super- 
 numerary days but I will add a codicil of philosophy to the 
 eagerness I have betrayed, in hopes of effacing some of it, and 
 making a better impression against we meet ! 
 
 Having no letter, and no direction beyond Augsburg, this 
 will be an adventurer without credentials, and will take its 
 chance for your finding it at Brussels. Having no other busi- 
 ness than merely to welcome you so far, it shall be brief. News 
 I have none, nor will you have missed any by being on the 
 road. 
 
 The dowager Lady Effmgham is dead, and makes a vacancy in 
 the Queen's bedchamber, which it is supposed will be filled by 
 the younger Lady Ailesbury, Lady Cardigan, or Lady Howe. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, whom Mr. Ford had declared his wife, and pre- 
 sented as such to some ladies at Richmond, has resumed her 
 former name, and is said to be much at a principal villa at
 
 1791] WALPOLE ROBBED BY A SERVANT. 371 
 
 Petersham, which I do not affirm far be it from me to vouch 
 a quarter of what I hear. If I let my memory listen, it is that 
 I may have some ingredients for my letters, and to which you 
 are apprised not to give too much credit, tho', while absent, it 
 is natural to like to hear the breath of the day, which at home 
 you despise, as it commonly deserves. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Tuesday, 18th. 
 
 I am come to town suddenly and unexpectedly ; my footman 
 John had pawned a silver strainer and spoon, which not being 
 found out till now, as it had been done here, he ran away in the 
 night, and I have been forced to come and see if he had done no 
 worse, which I do not find he has and I want another footman 
 in his room. I received yours from Padua and Venice last night, 
 but with no further direction. I had begun this, and now cannot 
 finish it, for the post is going out, and by coming so unexpected, 
 I have neither ink nor pen to write with, as you perceive but I 
 will write again on Friday if I receive any direction. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Oct. 20, 1791. 
 
 I wrote to you a very bit of a letter, but two days ago, in a great 
 hurry from being in fear of being too late for the post from 
 various clashing circumstances. This therefore is but the second 
 part of that letter, or rather an explanation of it. I think I did 
 tell you that I was come to town on a sudden, one of my footmen 
 having pawned a little of my plate and run away this was very 
 true, and a woful story, as you will hear but I had other mo- 
 tives. I have had for some time a very troublesome erysipelas 
 on my left arm. Mr. Grilchrist, my apothecary at Twickenham, is 
 dangerously ill at Tunbridge. Dreading to be laid up where I 
 had no assistance nor advice, I determined to come away and 
 did which has proved fortunate. Mr. Watson, my oracle, at- 
 tends my arm, and it is so much better that I passed the evening 
 yesterday at Mrs. Darner's with Lord and Lady Frederic Camp- 
 bell, Mrs. and Miss Farren, Lord Derby, and Miss Jennings, 
 and staid there till past twelve but now comes the dreadful 
 part of my story ! 
 
 As I rose out of bed, Philip told me he would not disturb my 
 rest last night, but before I came home, a messenger had arrived 
 from Strawberry to say that at five yesterday in the evening one
 
 372 LETTERS. 
 
 of my gardener's men had in my wood-walk discovered my poor 
 servant John's body hanged in a tree near the chapel and already 
 putrefied ! so he must have dispatched himself on the Friday 
 morning on which he disappeared I had then learnt to my 
 astonishment that he had not even taken away his hat with him, 
 and had dropped down from the library window, a dangerous 
 height ! All this it seems was occasioned by the housekeeper, as 
 she always does, locking all the doors below as soon as she knows 
 everybody is in bed and thus he could not get his hat out of the 
 servants' hall if, poor soul ! he did look for it probably not! 
 
 This remain of shame and principle goes to my heart ! 
 happily for me, I had not even mentioned to him the discovery 
 that had been made of his pawning my plate, and Philip and 
 Kirgate had urged him in the kindest manner to confess it on 
 Thursday evening, which he then would not but a few hours 
 afterwards owned it to the coachman, and told him he would go 
 away. I since hear that he had contracted other debts, and 
 probably feared all would be found out that he should be 
 arrested and thrown into prison by me I am sure he would not, 
 for I had not even thought of discharging him but should rather 
 have tried by pardoning to reclaim him, for I do not think he 
 was more than eighteen ! nay, on Thursday evening, after I 
 knew the story, I had let him go behind my coach to Kichmond 
 as he used to do, and had not spoken a harsh word to him. 
 
 I beg y r pardon for dwelling on this melancholy detail, but 
 you may imagine how much it has affected me. It is fortunate 
 for me I was absent from Strawb: when the body was found. Kir- 
 gate is gone thither this evening to meet the coroner to-morrow ; 
 the corpse was carried into my chapel in the garden I shall cer- 
 tainly not return thither before Monday at soonest. My greatest 
 comfort is that I cannot on the strictest inquiry find that even 
 an angry word had been used towards the poor young man. I 
 may be blamed for taking his fault so calmly but I know how 
 my concern would be aggravated if a bitter syllable from me had 
 contributed to his despair ! 
 
 I have written all this, that you may know the exact situation 
 of my mind, and because I conceal nothing from you, and lest 
 from the abrupt conclusion of my last, you should suspect I was 
 ill. The impression of the unhappy accident will wear off, as 
 I neither contributed to it, nor could foresee it nor prevent it.
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S ANTICIPATIONS AND PEARS. 373 
 
 I talk of nothing else to you, because, except of you, as you 
 see, and of y r journey, I have for these five last days been 
 occupied only by that adventure, and by my own arm. I write 
 to Brussels still, as I compute that this must arrive there before 
 you ; but to-morrow or Saturday I shall hope for another letter ; 
 and amidst my distresses I am not insensible to the hope of 
 November having a most happy sera in store for me ! Adieu ! 
 Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. As I understand that you do not go to Basle, but have 
 ordered the letters sent thither to meet you at Augsburg, here 
 are my dates, that you may know whether you receive all. To 
 Venice, Sept. 6 ; to Basle, Sept. 12, 20, 27 ; to Augsburg, Oct. 
 4, 11 ; to Brussels, 18, 20. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Oct. 27, 1791. 
 
 Nobody could be more astonished than I was last night ! Mr. 
 C. and Lady A. are in town for a few days, and I was to sup 
 with them after the play at Mrs. D.'s, whither I went at nine, 
 and found her reading a letter from you, saying that you should 
 be at Paris to-day, the 27th. I did not know whether her eyes 
 or my ears had lost their senses ! I had had no letter from you 
 after your first from Venice, and was reckoning that you would 
 be at Brussels by the beginning of next week. To think you 
 are so near me to-day gave me a burst of pleasure ; but it was 
 soon checked. I am not sure you are there ! Can I be sure 
 you have arrived there without any embarrass ? can I be certain 
 that while you stay there everything will remain as quiet as it 
 has done lately ? I have no reason, it is true, to apprehend the 
 contrary ; but Eeason's logic is lost against Affection's assertions, 
 and you may guess whether I can be overjoyed at y r being at 
 Paris or anywhere that is not as tranquil as the Fortunate 
 Islands ! 
 
 My next surprise, tho' marvellously inferior, is, that tho' you 
 have received all my letters, even the 5th, you should still ask 
 Mrs. D. whether I wish you to land at Strawberry Hill first. I 
 think I have over and over explained that I do not wish it ; 
 nay, thought it would be very uncomfortable to you, till you had 
 unpacked y r selves, seen some few persons, adjusted y r family, 
 &c. ; nay, if your arrival were known, and that you are not in 
 London, you would be tormented with letters, notes, questions, 
 and after that be still to rest and settle y r selves. To-day I have
 
 374 MISS BERRY'S JOURNAL. [1791 
 
 had the satisfaction of three letters at once from you, from 
 Venice, Inspruck, Augsburg. Mr. Watson has consented to let 
 me go to Strawberry for two or three days, where I have left 
 my family, my bills unpaid, &c. ; and if I did not settle those 
 things before the moments of expecting you, I should be in a 
 confusion very inconvenient and distressing. I shall now finish 
 all my business, return to Mr. Watson, and be well and quiet, 
 and fit to receive you, first here in town, and then at Straw- 
 berry, and have the installation. Be assured that this plan is the 
 safest and best I can form ; and as you know how earnest I am 
 to be well at y r return, you may be certain I would do nothing 
 to counteract a plan that has been rooted in my head and heart 
 for twelve months. Pray do not reprove me for it ; your reproof 
 would not be in time to stop me ; and as I trust you will find 
 me quite well, tho' much older than you would expect in a year, 
 let all my faults and impatience be forgotten, that our meeting 
 again, which I doubted might not happen, may be as cloudless, 
 as to me, I am sure, it will be much greater happiness than I 
 thought could fall to the lot of seventy-five ! 
 
 I reserve all answer to y r three last letters till we meet, when 
 we may talk of them and of all you have seen and done. At 
 present nothing occupies me but y r actual residence and 
 route home, and y r passage from Calais to Dover : we have had 
 tremendous storms lately ! I shall grow very sea-sick towards 
 the tenth of next month. Adieu ! I hope this will be my last to 
 the Continent, and that I shall not even reach to No. 60. 
 
 JOUKNAL. 
 
 Monday, November 1th. Left Paris at half-past 6 A.M. 
 Eeached Breteuil at 4 P.M. ; the road the whole way very 
 good. A number of handsome chateaux on every side 
 between Clermont and Paris. Met three English carriages 
 going to Paris. 
 
 Tuesday, Sth. Left Breteuil. Eeached Montreuil in thir- 
 teen hours ; the roads excellent, and the posts well served. 
 
 Wednesday, 9th. Left Montreuil. Arrived at Boulogne
 
 1791] SAFE RETURN HOME. 375 
 
 in four hours and a half. The master of the hotel there 
 persuaded us that, both the wind and tide being fair for 
 us, we should have a shorter passage thence than from 
 Calais ; we stopped, therefore, at his house, but we had 
 missed the morning tide by about an hour, and must 
 therefore wait till between ten and eleven o'clock at night, 
 so we resolved to go on to Calais. Finding the wind 
 tolerably fair, and it being full moon and a fine night, 
 agreed to sail at eleven o'clock, when the tide served. 
 
 Left the Lion d'Argent at half-past nine, as one cannot 
 get out of the gates, even on foot, after that hour. Sat 
 about an hour in a little dirty house on the port. Entered 
 our vessel a few minutes before eleven ; got under way. 
 The wind fell about midnight, and we were obliged to lay 
 too for a considerable time. Landed at Dover pier at half- 
 past nine o'clock on Thursday morning. Paid for the 
 packet five guineas and one guinea for the carriage ; gave 
 two guineas to the captain (Sayer) and crew. Left Dover 
 at 3 P.M. ; arrived at Canterbury at six. 
 
 Friday, llth. Eeached North Audley Street in about 
 ten hours. 
 
 Mr. Walpole's anxiety for the return of his friends had 
 induced them to alter their plans and give up their inten- 
 tion of remaining abroad during the winter. It was a 
 kind sacrifice ; and even if he had been a little unreason- 
 able in his wish for their return, it was a very proper 
 sacrifice for those in the flower of youth to make to the 
 feelings of so warm a friend, on whom the infirmities of 
 age and disease had sorely pressed during their absence. 
 
 Mr. Walpole had provided for their reception the former 
 abode of his Mend and neighbour Kitty Clive ; and 
 ' Cliveden,' as he calls it in his letters, though better known 
 now by the name of Little Strawberry Hill, became from 
 that time till long after his death the country residence of 
 the Miss Berrys and their father.
 
 376 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 On December 5th, the month following their return, 
 Mr. Walpole's nephew George, third Earl of Orford, died, 
 and the title, ' with a small estate loaded with debt/ 
 devolved upon him. The inheritance was far from wel- 
 come. In a letter to a friend, he says he does not under- 
 stand the management of such an estate, and is too old to 
 learn. 
 
 [A source of lawsuits amongst my near relations, endless 
 conversations with lawyers and packets of letters to read every 
 day, and answers, all this weight of new business is too much 
 for the rag of life that yet hangs about me.]* 
 
 . Mr. Walpole's (now Lord Orford) anxious wish for the 
 return of his friends, and for their establishment at Clive- 
 den, appears to have been made the subject of some 
 offensive observations in a newspaper. The anonymous 
 writer evidently inflicted much pain by this unprovoked 
 attack on those whose lives and actions were as strictly 
 private as they were blameless ; and the correspondence 
 to which these paragraphs gave rise are touching proofs 
 of the deep and delicate affection entertained by Lord 
 Orford for his young friends, and of the high-spirited 
 indignation with which Miss Berry repudiated, for herself 
 and family, such unworthy or interested motives as had 
 apparently been attributed to then: friendship for one to 
 whom every grateful attention on their part was due. 
 
 From Lord Orford. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 You have hurt me excessively 1 We had passed a most agree- 
 able evening, and then you poisoned all by one cruel word. I 
 see you are too proud to like to be obliged by me, tho' you see 
 that my greatest, and the only pleasure I have left, is to make 
 you and y r sister a little happier if I can ; and now, when it is 
 a little more in my power, you cross me in trifles even, that 
 would compensate for the troubles that are fallen on me. I 
 
 * Vide Letter to John Pinkerton, Esq., Dec. 26, 1791.
 
 1791] MISS BERRY'S INDEPENDENT SPIRIT. 377 
 
 thought my age would allow me to have a friendship that con- 
 sisted in nothing but distinguishing merit you allow the vilest 
 of all tribunals, the newspapers, to decide how short a way 
 friendship may go ! Where is your good sense in this conduct ? 
 and will you punish me, because what you nor mortal being 
 can prevent, a low anonymous scribbler pertly takes a liberty 
 with y r name ? I cannot help repeating that you have hurt me ! 
 To Miss Mary Berry. 
 
 From, Miss Berry. 
 
 Friday night, Oct. 12. 
 
 I did not like to show you, nor did I myself feel while with 
 you, Jwiv much I was hurt by the newspaper. To be long 
 honoured with your friendship and remain unnoticed, I knew 
 was impossible, and laid my account with ; but to have it 
 imagined, implied, or even hinted, that the purest friendship 
 that ever actuated human bosoms should have any possible 
 foundation in, or view to interested motives; and that we, whose 
 hereditary neglect of fortune has deprived us of what might, 
 and ought to have been our own, that we should ever afterwards 
 be supposed to have it in view, or be described in a situation, 
 which must mislead the world both as to our sentiments and 
 our conduct, while our principles they cannot know, and if they 
 could, would not enter into all this I confess I cannot bear ; 
 not even your society can make up to me for it. 
 
 Would to Grod we had remained abroad, where we might 
 still have enjoyed as much of your confidence and friendship, 
 as ignorance and impertinence seem likely to allow us here. 
 
 Even Cliveden, which sensible as I am to the compliment of 
 settling us near you, I declare I consider as our least obligation 
 to you, if it is always to be foremost in the eyes of the world, 
 and considered as the cause of our affection for, and attentions 
 to you. If our seeking your society is supposed by those igno- 
 rant of its value, to be with some view beyond its enjoyment, 
 and our situation represented as one, which will aid the belief 
 of this to a mean and interested world, I shall think we have 
 perpetual reason to regret the only circumstance in bur lives 
 that could be called fortunate. Excuse the manner in which I 
 write, and in which I feel. My sentiments on newspaper notice 
 have long been known to you, with regard to all who have
 
 378 LETTERS. [1791 
 
 not so honourably distinguished themselves, as to feel above such 
 feeble, but venomed shafts. 
 
 Do not plague yourself by answering this. The only conso- 
 lation I can have is in the knowledge of your sentiments, of 
 which I need no conviction. I am relieved by writing, and 
 shall sleep the sounder for having thus unburdened my heart, 
 (rood night, 
 
 From Lord Orford. 
 
 Dec. 13, 1791. 
 
 MY DEAREST ANGEL, I had two persons talking law to me, 
 and was forced to give an immediate answer, so that I could not 
 even read y r note till I had done and now I do read it, it 
 breaks my heart ! If my most pure affection has brought grief 
 and mortification on you, I shall be the most miserable of men. 
 My nephew's death has already brought a load upon me that I 
 have not strength to bear, as I seriously told General Conway 
 this morning. Vexation and fatigue have brought back the 
 eruption in my arm, and I have been half an hour under Mr. 
 Watson's hands since breakfast; my flying gout has fallen into 
 my foot ; I shall want but your uneasiness to finish me. You 
 know I scarce wish to live but to carry you to Cliveden ! But I 
 talk of myself when I should speak to your mind. Is all your 
 felicity to be in the power of a newspaper ? who is not so ? Are 
 your virtue and purity, and my innocence about you ; are our 
 consciences no shield against anonymous folly or envy ? Would 
 you only condescend to be my friend if I were a beggar ? The 
 Duchess of Gloucester, when she heard my intention about 
 Cliveden, came and commended me much for doing some little 
 justice to injured merit. For your own sake, for poor mine, 
 combat such extravagant delicacy, and do not poison the few 
 days of a life, which you and you only can sweeten. I am too 
 exhausted to write more ; but let y r heart and y r strong under- 
 standing remove such chimeras. How could you say you wish 
 you had not returned ! 
 
 To Miss Mary Berry. 
 
 I am in the utmost anxiety to know how you do. I dread 
 lest what I meant kindly should have made you ill. I saw the 
 struggle of both y r noble minds in submitting to oblige me, 
 and therefore all the obligation is on my side. You both have
 
 1791] WALPOLE'S GENEROSITY. 379 
 
 made the greatest sacrifice to me ; I have made none to you 
 on the contrary, I relieve my own mind whenever I think I can 
 ward off any future difficulty from you, tho' not a ten thousandth 
 part of what I would do were it in my power. All I can say is, 
 that you must know by your own minds how happy you have 
 made mine, and sure you will not regret bestowing happiness 
 on one so attached to you, and attached so reasonably; for 
 where could I have made so just a choice, or found two such 
 friends ? What did I not feel for both ! Tour tears and Agnes's 
 agitation, divided between the same nobleness, and her misery 
 for your sufferings, which is ever awake, would attach me more 
 to both, if that were possible. Dearest souls, do not regret 
 obliging one so devoted to you it is the only sincere satisfaction 
 I have left ; and be assured that till to-day, I have, tho' I said 
 nothing, had nothing but anxiety since y r father's illness, so 
 impatient have I been for what I received but yesterday ! 
 Adieu ! 
 
 To Miss Berry.
 
 380 LETTERS. [1792 
 
 LETTEES. 
 1792. 
 
 Miss BERRY'S only entry for the years 1792 and 1793 
 is ' Eemaining generally at Little Strawberry. Went in 
 the summer for three months to Yorkshire, to see my 
 grandmother.' 
 
 In the month of May 1792, Lord Orford, writing to 
 Lady Ossory, speaks thus of his favourites, Miss Berrys : 
 
 [May 29, 1792. 
 
 I am indeed much obliged for the transcript of the letter on 
 my * wives.' Miss Agnes has a finesse in her eyes and counte- 
 nance that does not propose itself to you, but is very engaging 
 on observation, and has often made itself preferred to her sister, 
 who has the most exactly fine features, and only wants colour 
 to make her face as perfect as her graceful person : indeed, 
 neither has good health, nor the air of it. Miss Mary's eyes 
 are grave, but she is not so herself; and having much more 
 application than her sister, she converses readily, and with great 
 intelligence, on all subjects. Agnes is more reserved, but her 
 compact sense very striking and always to the purpose. In 
 short, they are extraordinary beings, and I am proud of my 
 partiality for them ; and since the ridicule can only fall on me, 
 and not on them, I care not a straw for its being said that I am 
 in love with one of them people shall choose which ; it is as 
 much with both as either, and I am infinitely too old to regard 
 the qtfon dit-on."] 
 
 The same fear of being supposed to have any intention 
 of marrying gave rise to the following lines : 
 
 EPITAPHIUM VIVI AUCTORIS, 1792. 
 An estate and an earldom at seventy-four ! -j 
 
 Had 1 sought them or wish'd them, 'twould add one fear more L 
 That of making a Countess when almost fourscore.
 
 1792] PARODY ON THE CREED. 381 
 
 But Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of season, 
 Though unkind to my limbs, has still left me my reason ; 
 And whether she lowers or lifts me, I'll try ~| 
 
 In the plain simple style I have liv'd in> to die : r 
 For ambition too humble for meanness too high. J 
 
 Miss Berry warmly participated in the sentiments of 
 horror and indignation, so vividly expressed on all occa- 
 sions by Horace Walpole, at the atrocities of the French 
 Eevolution ; and though the taste of parodying the Creed 
 can only be excused by the general laxity of expression in 
 those days on serious subjects, the point and justice of its 
 well- merited satire cannot be denied. 
 
 [August, 1792. 
 
 I believe in the French, the makers of all fashions. I ac- 
 knowledge their superiority in conversation, and their supremacy 
 in dancing. I believe in their fanaticism for what is new, not 
 in their enthusiasm for what is great, and I expect neither con- 
 sistency in their plans nor constancy in their sentiments. I 
 believe in the King, the weakest and most injured of mortals, 
 and in the Queen, as equal to him in sufferings and surpassing 
 him in understanding ; and in the Dauphin, whose kingdom 
 will never come. I believe equally in the folly of the Princes, 
 the baseness of their counsellors, and the cruelty and madness 
 of their enemies. 
 
 I expect neither the resurrection of order, nor the regene- 
 ration of morals, and I look neither for the coming of liberty, 
 nor the permanence of their constitution. Amen !]
 
 382 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 LETTEES. 
 1793. 
 
 LORD ORFORD'S letters of this year to the Miss Berrys have 
 been preserved, and, with the exception of the following, 
 dated May 29th, were addressed to them during their 
 visit of three months to their relatives in Yorkshire : 
 
 Berkeley Square, April 1 (old style), May 29 (new style). 
 
 ' Tenez, mon Enfant, il n'y a que Moi qui ai toujours raison.' 
 Was not I in the right to take a fancy to Dumourier ? He has 
 declared himself Duke of Albemarle ; and sent to the Eegicides, 
 that all the armies France can raise now w d not be able to 
 resist the mighty powers coming against them ; that there must 
 be an end of folly, and kingly government must be restored. 
 The Municipality got wind of his intentions, and stormed the 
 National Assembly, demanding vengeance on Dumourier. They 
 answered they were apprised of his treachery, and had actually 
 named Commissioners to fetch him to justice, with many bloody 
 resolutions. Those five Commissioners, of whom Bournonville 
 was the chief, arrived, and were instantly clapped in chains by 
 Moncke the second, and sent by him, with his compliments, to 
 General Clairfait, only desiring a receipt for them, which he 
 granted, and has sent them to Mons. 
 
 Dumourier harangued his army, whose pulses, to be sure, 
 he had previously felt ; and tearing his tricolor cockade out 
 of his hat, took a white "one from his pocket, and hoisted it 
 above his damaged laurels, and was followed by the whole army, 
 at least with bits of white paper ; and he and they are on full trot 
 to Paris, denouncing bitter revenge for any mischief that may 
 ensue there. I hope this menace will not have the conse- 
 quences that the Duke of Brunswick's had ! The notorious chiefs 
 will probably prefer the Dauphin for King to the Pinchbeck 
 Regent, or carry him and the Queen away as hostages to the 
 South ; but what may one not fear from the brutal madness of 
 the mob !
 
 1793] WALPOLE'S ELATION AT FRENCH NEWS. 383 
 
 You may depend on what I have been relating. Gen. Conway 
 heard the particulars from S r Rob. Keith, who has seen L d 
 Auckland's letter, which cites Clairfait's dispatch to Metternich, 
 Governor of Brussels. Macbride has sent the same account from 
 Ostend, and a like is come from Dunkirk. 
 
 As soon as I heard the news, I went to the Due de Fleury, and 
 to the Duchesse de la Tremouille, who was dressing, but her 
 servant said the Due de Choiseul had been before me, and I met 
 Mad. de Gand going to her. I called on Mrs. Buller, too, but 
 she and her bishop are gone to Windsor. On you, you may 
 swear, I called, not expecting to find you, but as you are to 
 come at six I shall come up to you soon after, but write this for 
 you to find, that I may have the pleasure of being the first to 
 acquaint you with such welcome news. Oh, it is not the small- 
 est part of my joy that the brave et loyale Noblesse Francoise 
 will now leave us. I hope ive shall not be to help reinstate 
 them ; nor desire to have Aquitaine and Normandy again when 
 the High Allies are paying themselves for their trouble and 
 expense by dismembering that Monarchy, as I am persuaded and 
 trust they will do, especially as the King of Prussia and Dantzig 
 lias declared he will not. A bauble or two, such as a Pitt's 
 Diamond, might be accepted here, if they were not already gone 
 the Lord knows whither. Adieu ! for half an hour. 
 
 In spite of Lord Orford's frequent asseverations that his 
 admiration and affection for the Miss Berrys never passed 
 the boundaries of friendship, it was hardly to be expected 
 that he should always make others view his devotion to 
 their society in the same light. The following extracts of 
 Miss Berry's letter at this time to a friend show how 
 warmly she rejected the idea of ever acting against those 
 high principles of honour and disinterestedness by which 
 she had hitherto been guided ; and in doing so she makes 
 the first allusion to be found in any of her papers and 
 journals, of that dangerous incense of flattery, which had 
 been so freely offered on past occasions, and which, 
 having failed to satisfy her judgment or gratify her heart, 
 had left a taint of bitterness to succeed its ephemeral 
 sweetness.
 
 384 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 August 20, 1793. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I was thinking of writing to you to-day 
 when I received your letter of the 1 7th, which puts the pen im- 
 mediately into my hand. Your saying that some circumstances 
 you had heard from your mother and brother had made you 
 * very thoughtful' on my subject, leads me to suppose that you 
 are not so well informed as I thought you were (as I thought I 
 had myself informed you) of our situation. As good fortune is 
 always exaggerated, so bad is often made worse, and ill nature 
 is perhaps more frequently concerned in this exaggeration than 
 the other, for which reason I will, when we meet, enter into every 
 particular on the subject. At present, suffice it to say that when 
 we lose my father, we lose with him the annuity of a thousand 
 a year settled on him by that brother who has robbed him of 
 everything but the peace of mind attendant on a guiltless con- 
 science. There will then remain to us an income of 7001. a 
 year, or to one of us remaining unmarried (which is the proper 
 light for ME to consider the subject) of half that sum. Do not 
 suppose that I have not considered, and accustomed myself to 
 consider, aye, and exerted much philosophy in considering, how 
 little can be done with such a sum, and to what insignificance 
 it reduces. Be assured no mortification, no inconveniences 
 arising from it, 
 
 Nova mi fades inopinave surget. 
 Omnia prsecepi atque animo mecum ante peregi. 
 
 And yet, after all, of how little will it deprive me ! I shall 
 still be welcome, and be dear to the warm hearts of one or 
 two people who really know me, and neglected by all the 
 world beside. And what have I ever been while feeling myself 
 the (often envied) possessor of natural advantages, which wealth 
 could not purchase, and rank sighed for in vain ? I write 
 proudly, for I feel so. You, my dear friend, have not fol- 
 lowed me through life ; you neither saw nor knew me in bril- 
 liant scenes, made more dazzling by their novelty, receiving 
 homage the more intoxicating as it was purely personal, sur- 
 rounded and encouraged by worldly principles and worldly 
 examples; in most seducing circumstances acting always up 
 to those high-flown principles of honour and integrity, to that 
 scrupulous delicacy of mind, of which others contented them- 
 selves with talking. . . . Forgive the burst of feeling, such
 
 1793] MISS BEERY'S NOBLENESS OF MIND. 385 
 
 as can only be poured into the bosom of partial friendship, and 
 which often overcharges my own. Do not think me romantic. 
 Nobody is farther removed from it, nor do I now at all approve 
 my conduct, whatever pride I may feel in my principles. It has 
 led to nothing but mortification, neglect, and misunderstanding. 
 . . . But alas ! I fear were I now to abandon my principles 
 I should only have the humiliating feeling of apostacy, without 
 either the cleverness or the confidence to profit by it. You 
 will easily see how all this applies. Besides, although I have 
 no doubt that Lord Orford said to Lady D. every word that she 
 repeated to your brother for last winter, at the time the C.'s 
 talked about the matter, he went about saying all this and more 
 to everybody that would hear him but I always thought it 
 rather to frighten and punish them than seriously wishing it 
 himself. And why should he ? when, without the ridicule or the 
 trouble of a marriage, he enjoys almost as much of my society, 
 and every comfort from it, that he could in the nearest connec- 
 tion? As the willing offering of a grateful and affectionate 
 heart, the time and attentions I bestow upon him have hitherto 
 given me pleasure. Were they to become a duty, and a duty to 
 which the world would attribute interested motives, they would 
 become irksome. Of the world, its meanness, its total indiffer- 
 ence to everything but interest, in some shape or other, be as- 
 sured you cannot think so badly nor so truly as I do. ' They 
 best ' believe it who have felt it most.' 
 
 In Lord Orford's letter to the Miss Berrys, dated 
 September 17th, he thus affectionately alludes to the great 
 addition to his happiness produced by his friendship with 
 them, and also of his motives for allowing some to think 
 that he had other views at heart towards them : 
 
 [I have been threescore years and ten looking for a society that 
 I perfectly like, and at last there dropped out of the clouds into 
 Lady Herries' room two young gentlewomen, who I so little 
 thought were sent thither on purpose for me, that when I was 
 told they were the charming Miss Berrys I would not even go to 
 the side of the chamber where they sat. But as Fortune never 
 throws anything at one's head without hitting one, I soon found 
 that the charming Berrys were precisely ce qiCil me falloit, 
 
 VOL. I. C C
 
 386 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 and that tho' young enough to be my great-granddaughters, 
 lovely enough to turn the heads of all our youths, and sensible 
 enough, if said youths have any brains, to set all their heads to 
 rights again yes, sweet damsels, I have found that you can 
 bear to pass half your time with an ante-diluvian without disco- 
 vering any ennui or disgust, tho' his greatest merit towards you 
 is that he is not one of those old fools who fancy they are in 
 love in their dotage. I have no such vagary, tho' I am not sorry 
 that some folks think I am so absurd, since it frets their 
 selfishness.] 
 
 Lord Orford's correspondence with the Miss Berrys 
 was very frequent during their absence in Yorkshire. 
 The three following letters are amongst those addressed to 
 them in September : 
 
 Tuesday, 3 o'clock, Sept. 24, 1793. 
 
 You ordered me to write to-morrow, that you may receive this 
 on Friday. I begin to obey you on St. Morrow's vigil a good 
 deal out of humour not with you, more than I always am, but 
 
 with that Hen-Belial, Mrs. A . As the busybody had told 
 
 me that the Duchess of York talked of coming hither to-day, 
 I could not help being prepared, tho' I did not trust to such 
 authority, and had received no formal notice as I had been pro- 
 mised. In short, I was ready by noon, my fires lighted, and my 
 whole house made as spruce as beer. You will scold me for 
 having believed what I did not believe, for can any truth come 
 out of Nazareth ? But consider, I had a better motive for cre- 
 dulity than young Nick's. I had been told the visit should be 
 made at the end of last week, or at the beginning of this. Now, 
 pray, ladies, when a week never yet contained more than seven 
 days, by what almanack can its beginning last longer than 
 Tuesday ? Wednesday or Thursday may quarrel for the middle, 
 but should it be given even for the former, y r argument will not 
 be a jot the better, for here at a good three of the clock, I have 
 received no notice to expect her Royal Highness to-morrow, and 
 which of the three last days are to be created the first, I do not 
 pretend to guess. The sum total is, that I am extremely dis- 
 tressed and kept in suspense, and cannot go to town, as I want 
 to do, and yet must wait till I am delivered of my princess. 
 
 The Grazette will reach you sooner than this, and will have 
 told several welcome articles, as Elphinstone's noble preserva-
 
 1793] CAPTUKE OF THE FRENCH FLEET AT TOULON. 387 
 
 tion of 'Toulon, the reprisal of Menin, and the reveil of the Duke 
 of Brunswick, whom the French were so silly as to awaken by a 
 drum at his ear, and paid for disturbing him. To-day's True 
 Briton says O'Hara is to command at Toulon. No mortal more 
 fit, but I hope he will not be wanted. The honest men of the 
 Convention, who speak truth as conscientiously as Mrs. A., have 
 told the Parisians that Carteaux * was marching to the relief 
 of Toulon with forty thousand men. Capt. Elphinstone, who 
 had no very obvious reason for depreciating his own victory, 
 reduces that beaten army to about eight hundred. One may 
 presume that the Convention are a little nearer to the truth 
 when they paint so deplorably the annihilation of their marine 
 by the capture of their fleet at Toulon. 
 
 This is all I know or am likely to know before this sets out 
 to-morrow. I do not mind its brevity; you will have long 
 ones enough before two months are gone and over ! 
 
 I am impatient for the account of your journey. It rained 
 outrageously yesterday from two to four, and has not been dry 
 this afternoon. How did Agnes bear travelling ? Well, I long 
 to hear. How did you find good grandmama ? f 
 
 Well, I will add no more, when I have really nothing to say ; 
 but let it be a precedent, when you have anything better or else 
 to do as you must have I have not; and when I take up 
 so much of y r time here, it would be most unjust and unfair to 
 keep you employed when in the midst of y r family and old 
 friends, of whom you see so little. Adieu ! 
 
 Ditto, P.S. at night. 
 
 Just as I had begun my dinner, I received a note from General 
 Bude to tell me the D 88 of York was but then returned from 
 Windsor (whither, I suppose, she had been to see her Augustan 
 'and Adolphian brother-in-law), and, recollecting her engage- 
 ment with me, would come to-morrow about noon, if not a very 
 
 * On August SOtli the French republican General Carteaux appeared 
 with a force of 800 men, some cavalry, and 10 pieces of cannon, at two 
 places about six miles from Toulon. Captain Elphinstone, R.N., with a 
 force of 600, dislodged them, capturing their cannon, ammunition, flags, &c, 
 
 Ann. Reg. 
 
 t Mrs. Seton, Miss Berry's grandmother, then living with her daughter, 
 Lady Cayley, of Brompton in Yorkshire, to whom the Miss Berrys had gone 
 to make a visit. M.B. 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 LETTERS [1793 
 
 bad morning, and if not inconvenient to me. Padrona, but I 
 shall pray for fair weather, for it will be sad to put off my 
 going to London again. I tried at my dessert to have eaten y r 
 healths in your melon. I hope they are better than it, for it 
 was as hard as a stone and as white. I did not attempt to save 
 the ^seeds, for I believe they would thrive nowhere but in a 
 quarry. 
 
 P.S. the I don't know how manyth. I had a few lines to-day 
 
 from your Philander, Mr. P . He wants me to assist him in 
 
 consulting Bishop Douglas about some point of Scottish history. 
 
 There, thank my stars, my whole commission ends ; 
 Salisbury and I are luckily no friends ! 
 
 He does not notify his marriage to me, nor begs my interest 
 with any wife of mine. 
 
 Should to-morrow be ever so brilliant, I shall scarce have time, 
 before the post goes out, to give you an account of the Royal 
 visit. It has rained again all the evening ; I hope instead of to- 
 morrow. I am sitting at home comfortably, writing postscripts 
 to Yorkshire without end. 
 
 Pray, grandmama, pray to God to bless me and make me a 
 good boy ! and pray keep my wives as long as you please, and 
 pray send them directly. 
 
 On the 25th of September he writes them an account 
 of the visit to Strawberry Hill from the Duchess of York ; 
 on the 27th and 29th, the following accounts of all he has 
 seen and heard : 
 
 Sept. 27, Thursday evening. 
 
 Don't be frightened ; I am not going to send this away this 
 evening, having already sent one to you this morning; but I 
 find I cannot reconcile myself to y r absence, unless I am always 
 talking to you, and that is not so comfortable as your talking 
 to me. 
 
 I have been at Oatlands this morning, but the Duchess was 
 gone to the Drawing-room at St. James's, as in truth I hoped 
 she would be, unless prevented by her foot ; yet as fairy as it is, 
 it is well again. On the lawn before the palace I found Bude 
 and young N'lck just going to mount their horses. I suppose 
 she had come to learn the particulars of yesterday, that she may
 
 1793] PORTRAIT OF MADAME DU DEFFAND. 389 
 
 pretend at the Pavilions to have been of the party, as she did 
 about Jerningham. I am sorry for Bude; she probably will 
 hook him into some scrape by lies that she will tell him, or say 
 that he told her. 
 
 Just as I was setting out I received a note from the Princesse 
 d'Hennin, desiring to come to me with a niece of hers just 
 arrived from Paris, who had brought something for me that the 
 Prince de Beauvau had ordered by his will to be delivered to 
 me. Surprised and impatient as I was to know what, I was 
 forced to beg to be excused till I should have made my court, 
 but went the moment I got back to Twickenham. 
 
 What ! thought I to myself, has he been seized with a peni- 
 tent pang, and restored the papers of which he defrauded me 
 on Madame du Deffand's death ? I beg pardon of a Frenchman 
 for suspecting him of conscience, or of doing justice to an 
 Englishman. I never knew one of the nation but that dear old 
 woman who thought there was any more justice due to us 
 than at last, they have shown they think they owe to one 
 another. 
 
 So you have been guessing at my legacy never were two 
 young ladies wider from the mark. The Princess and the 
 Prince de Poix, putting on funeral faces for the loss of so 
 worthy a relation as the Marechal, for whose death you know 
 they have not been sorry this month, delivered me a transcript 
 of the article of the will and a picture. It is an indifferent 
 copy of the washed drawing that I have of Madame du 
 Deffand (but which copy the judicious testator calls a print), 
 but instead of the figure of the Duchess of Choiseul in the 
 original, there is a servant in livery presenting to my dear old 
 friend a portrait of the Marechal de Beauvau, not a whit the 
 better, as she was stone blind, for its being very like but in 
 short it was a present to himself of his own resemblance, and 
 now one to me, who value it no more than if I were blind too. 
 Here are the words of the curious bequest : 
 
 * J'ai a coeur que Ton fasse tenir par la premiere occasion a 
 Mons r Valpol une estampe representant Madame du Deffand 
 qui est a cote de la cheminee de ma chambre : on mandera a 
 Mons r Valpole, que cette dame nous ayant aimes tous deux, 
 et ayant ete aimee de nous, j'ai pense que son image devoit 
 appartenir au survivant.' I loved her writings too, and she
 
 390 LETTEES. [1793 
 
 left them all to me ; the Prince, it seems, loved them better, 
 detained several, and did not think that the survivor ought to 
 have them even after him. 
 
 Sept. 27, 1793, at night. 
 
 In my disconsolate widowhood I have been this evening with 
 the Cambridges, and I am glad I have, for I have transacted 
 important business with them. George was at home, and he 
 as well as the farrier are decidedly of opinion that Agnes's mare, 
 which is worse for going to London, will infallibly relapse if 
 she sets out for Yorkshire before next Wednesday ; and then all 
 riding would be lost during your journey, from which I hope so 
 much benefit to your sister. I, as lord and master in my own 
 domestic, have authorised Mr. George to lay an embargo on the 
 mare's progress till further orders and advice of the faculty ; 
 and I think this order of council of so much consequence, that 
 I shall send this away to-morrow, tho' I had intended to reserve 
 it till I had collected some news for you in town, whither I go 
 to-morrow. 
 
 I have heard no more of Besanpon, and therefore doubt of 
 its revolt; but Miss Cambridge told me news, for which I am 
 truly concerned. That loveliest and perfectest of all ancient 
 mansions, Cowdry, was on Monday night last totally burnt to 
 the ground in six hours ! The Dowager Lady Montagu was at 
 Brighthelmstone, the young lord abroad, and probably- only a 
 few unintelligent servants in the house. It is a grievous loss to 
 us Goths I 
 
 This summer, the sweetest-tempered ever born in England, 
 lias quite recovered its good humour, and to-day been enchant- 
 ing with primaeval verdure. I hope it has accompanied you to 
 Brompton. I long to hear of y r being arrived there. Good- 
 night. I finish without any douceurs ; my letters par cy, par la, 
 have enough of them, I believe. 
 
 Friday morning, half-past ten. 
 
 P.S. Oh, thank you, thank you! I this moment receive y r 
 note from Ferrybridge ; y r half delights me, the other half afflicts 
 me. to find my sweet Agnes is not better, but worse for travel- 
 ling. How I wish her under the wing of grandmama ! who I 
 hope will send her back to me quite well again. 
 
 The post-office, I believe, will think it our honeymoon still : 
 you have been gone but five days, and I have written to you on
 
 1793] WALPOLE'S SOLICITUDE. 391 
 
 three of them running. As you know I am not partial to the 
 moon, I shall desire to christen the sera of my double marriage 
 our honey sun ; but then you must both be in good health, and 
 that, alas ! both of you seldom are for two days together ! As 
 y r last night's letter will arrive here to-morrow when I shall 
 be in town, I leave orders for it to be sent after me by the 
 coach. 
 
 Sunday night, Sept. 29, 1793. 
 
 Having written to the bone all I had to say, I have let my 
 pen rest for three days aye, but why ? Not from a fit of idleness, 
 but I have not received your second letter, and which now I 
 cannot get before Tuesday. I expected it yesterday, and your 
 servant expected one too, but neither arrived. He may bear 
 his disappointment as stoically as he pleases, I have no such 
 apathy. You know how apt I am to be alarmed when I do not 
 hear from you at the moment I intend ; I imagine that one of 
 you is ill, or that both have been overturned. I can no more 
 persuade myself out of all fears than anyone else could persuade 
 me out of them, nobody's reasons being half so eloquent as one's 
 own feelings ; for words only go into the ear, die of their own 
 sound, and never sink to the heart. The post never miscarries, 
 but when it has nothing to carry, tho' persons pretend to have 
 written when they have not. As you promised to write again 
 as soon as you arrived at Brompton, I can only suppose that 
 something (the Lord knows what) detained you, and that you 
 did not get thither till Friday, too late to save the post ; or that 
 it is too far from the post-town ; or that a Yorkshire Sunday is 
 as prudish as Mrs. Cambridge, and will let nobody move hand 
 or foot, tho' the tongue may gallop as fast as it lists, and fetch 
 and carry scandal all over the parish. My chief dread is lest 
 Agnes should have been forced to stop on the road : the moment 
 your letter comes my eye will hurry over it to look for her 
 name ; and as usual, till I read it a second time, I shall scarce 
 know what it contains. 
 
 I went to town on Friday to give orders about new papering 
 and distempering my dining room, and it would be finished in 
 ten days, if there were one tradesman in London that ever 
 spoke truth. In half an hour after my landing, walked into my 
 room General Conway, come only for a single day. In the 
 evening we went together to Miss Farren's, and besides her
 
 392 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 duenna-mother, found her at piquet with her unalterable Earl 
 (of Derby). Apropos, I have observed of late years, that when 
 Earls take strong attachments, they are more steady than other 
 men. 
 
 The next evening I sat with Mrs. Buller above two hours ; 
 there was her Unique,* who soon went down to his violin, and 
 Mr. Cocks, a banker. Mr. Churchill called on me before 
 dinner; but from none did I gather one tittle of news, military 
 or naval. Eumours there have been for some days, and still 
 are, of overtures having been made from Brest to Lord Howe 
 but his lordship is not rapid ; he moves like a king at chess at 
 the end of a game, one square inch from Torbay, and the next- 
 back again. I do not love to censure men of a profession I do 
 not at all understand, and therefore suppose there are good 
 reasons for his stationary inactivity. Our friend O'Hara is 
 certainly made Governor at Toulon. Good-night for to-night 
 I hope some of the most unimportant of my guesses at having 
 no letter may be the true one ! 
 
 Monday night. 
 
 Y r man James has been here how I thank him ! and has 
 relieved my mind, and will send me tranquil to bed. He had 
 been in town this morning, and before seven this evening 
 brought me y r letter to him, which mentioning no mishap, I 
 trust none happened ; and now I am confident of receiving a 
 letter myself to-morrow, and will reserve the rest of my paper 
 for answering that. 
 
 Tuesday morning, 10 o'clock, Oct. 1. 
 
 The letter is come, and tells me all I wished to hear, except 
 of Agnes's cold ; however, as she carried it with her, I hope the 
 country will soon cure it, and do everything else it possibly can 
 for you both. Don't purloin much of y r time from y r good 
 family for me. My numerous letters to you are my chief 
 amusement, and rob nobody of anything that is at their service. 
 You can have few events to relate that I am curious to hear, 
 but what regards y r selves, and those are of consequence to me 
 to know. All Europe is engaged to furnish me with articles 
 it has not presented me with one to-day yet. The changes you 
 wot of were of the town's making, not the King's. Nobody is 
 
 * Her only child.
 
 1793] MISS AGNES'S MARE FORWARDED TO HER. 393 
 
 gone out or in, but S r Gilbert Elliot, and he is made commis- 
 sioner at Toulon. 
 
 I am glad you approve of our transactions about the mare. 
 James thought last night that she will be able to set out on 
 Wednesda} 7 , but he is to call on me after seeing the Cambridge 
 Junto, and then I shall know more, which shall be in the post- 
 script. Adieu ! mes belles voyageuses I 
 Y r devoted 
 
 Le survivant de M. le Marechal de Beauvau 
 His principality I outlived four years ago.* 
 P.S. James is come, and the Savii hold that the mare may 
 safely go to London on Wednesday, and set out for Brompton 
 on Thursday; but the Infallible is to be at Twickenham to- 
 night, and to decide on the soundity or risk of the journey 
 but all that you will learn fully from Miss Cambridge's letter 
 to y r sister, which she has sent me to frank, as I have. 
 
 In the month of October the correspondence is still 
 more full. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Oct. 2, 1793. 
 
 James brought me most favorable testimonials of the mare 
 this morning, and Mr. George Infallible came afterwards and 
 confirmed the report, and gave very prudent directions, and it 
 was settled that she should go gingerly to London this evening, 
 and proceed to you by easy stages, which may take up about ten 
 days. All this I determined to notify to you to-day. It was as 
 fine a morning for writing as heart could wish ; but trifling away 
 the time in reading the newspaper, and finding nothing to-day 
 to tell you from it, the neat old Lady Murrays came, and brought 
 their friend Lady Charlotte Wentworth, with whom I was ac- 
 quainted vicesimo sexto Georgii Secundi, to show her my house; 
 but before I could begin my tale, hark ! a most violent clap of 
 thunder came out of an extempore dark cloud, intended no doubt, 
 for the sultry weather in July, or that should have fallen on the 
 French Convention, and such swinging hail and rain, that we 
 could scarce see one another. However, according to the unex- 
 ampled good humour of this singular year, it grew fine again, 
 and they saw the house. By that time the post was gone, and 
 
 * He means by the abolition of nobility in France. M.B.
 
 394 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 luckily, for behold, I have not a word more to say, and my letter 
 must wait till some good Christian tells me some truth or lie, 
 which you shall have faithfully without addition or diminution. 
 
 Thursday night, 3rd. 
 
 Your letter of the 30 th , and not of this month, for a certain 
 reason that shall be nameless, arrived this morning in statutable 
 time ; yet I could not continue this. First came my steward 
 from Crostwick with accounts and a lease to be signed. Then 
 the good Wheelers from Eichmond, where they are to stay 
 about a week, and then she goes to the sea-side ; and last, the 
 Duchess of Gloucester and Lady Mary Mordaunt. The former 
 told me she had sent to invite you two to the Pavilions about a 
 week ago, but found you were going to Yorkshire, whither I 
 think I remember you talked of going. By the time I became 
 alone again, the post must have been got half way to London, 
 and there did not seem anything so important in this letter, or 
 likely to be in it, as to create a necessity of sending a messenger 
 to town with it, notwithstanding my alacrity at sending one ; 
 but I should have been ashamed now, when I had so heroically 
 conquered that inclination last week, on being disappointed 
 for two days of your first letter from Yorkshire. You have 
 accounted for that delay pretty much as I did ; and therefore, 
 having discovered that I have a little sense of reasoning when 
 I allow myself time, I will try my hand at it another time 
 tho' I had rather have no occasion for it. 
 
 How very happy I am that you think my dear Agnes a little 
 mended already, and that even your kind grandmother, who is 
 too fond not to have keen eyes, found her much less altered than 
 you expected but you are like me, and too easily alarmed for 
 those you love so much. ' Mrs. Seton is like me too (in short, 
 there is a sort of family likeness amongst us) in consenting so 
 readily to parting with you to Scarborough. I hope it will 
 answer to her, and am persuaded it will. I have experienced 
 such benefit, and so astonishingly sudden, from sea-air, that I 
 have great trust in it being salutary to y r sister. 
 
 Don't talk of sending me letters not worth a farthing. What 
 are any letters worth but according to the person from whom 
 they come ? Do you think that if I had expected last week 
 one of the best letters that Madame de Sevigne ever wrote, and
 
 1793] NEWS FROM FRANCE. 395 
 
 that I had never seen, but had heard it was coming, I should 
 have been wretched for two days because it was not arrived ? 
 pho ! don't tell me of letters not worth a farthing let me but 
 have those I desire, and leave it to me to see the value of them. 
 
 If the want of matter and news, and everything foreign to 
 the writer and receiver, constitutes a trumpery letter, behold 
 one that John Nichols would not print in the ' London Maga- 
 zine,' where he has condescended to preserve even Dr. Johnson's 
 notes to his printer, with a number of others equally illustrating 
 nothing. It is certain that from the different persons that I 
 have seen for these two days I have not learnt a single new fact, 
 either from London or the Continent ; but from their own papers 
 I have seen "articles proposed in the Convention that stiffen one 
 with horror. Would you have believed, even three months ago, 
 that that repairs of two-legged hya?nas could have invented new 
 atrocities to add to their mass of crimes ? Oh ! but they could, 
 they have ! have proposed to thrust all suspected persons that 
 is, all against whom they have no proofs into large buildings 
 undermined on purpose for blowing them up if a counter-revo- 
 lution happens ! I hope this Pandasmoniac proposal was sug- 
 gested by the last sob of despair ! 
 
 How mankind is improved in the manufacture of malice and 
 mischief since the Greeks, inspired by the Groddess of Wisdom 
 herself, contrived so silly and untoward a project as to present 
 to a besieged town of their enemies a Brobdignag mare full of 
 armed men ! 
 
 Well, to-morrow is a new day, and the True Briton may help 
 me to something more to say ; if not, dixi. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1793. 
 
 As far as I can foresee, this will be a dwarf letter in propor- 
 tion to its predecessors, for I do not know a haputh of news, 
 and only begin mine to tell you I have just received yours of 
 Sunday last from Scarborough, and it gives me vast pleasure to 
 hear y r sister continues to mend, tho' her mare be not arrived. 
 I calculate that she will have it by Saturday at farthest, and I 
 hope, in good rideability. In consideration of their zeal about 
 her, I went again last night to the Cambridges, but found him 
 alone. His wife was confined above in her own cherry tree, 
 with her rheumatism and an additional fever.
 
 396 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 To my home-gazette I have but one article to add : while it 
 lasted it was vexatious. The panic or blunder Master-general 
 had asked me for a ticket for some French, tho' it is a fortnight 
 past my exhibitory season, but said, with a petitioning face, * I 
 think you allow only four at a time.' * Why,' said I, ' my lord, 
 to tell you the truth, I am not so strict about foreigners ; they 
 may have but a day or two, and may not know our rules ' in 
 short, I allowed him to add to four give him an inch, and 
 guess how many ells he will take five, six, seven and when 
 you have counted seventeen you will not have exceeded the 
 number ! Nanny's cap stood on end ! I thought the invasion 
 of 100,000, that the Convention have decreed, were come over 
 in balloons, as they formerly intended. The little parlour would 
 not hold them, the green closet less, the star-chamber still less 
 and the poor cabinet ! I trembled, and so had Nanny : for 
 the moment they were gone, she came running to me, and said, 
 * Well, they have broke nothing ! ' Recollect that these seven- 
 teen dozen have passed the whole summer at Eichmond, and 
 might have come in detail. 
 
 Ah ! your good grandmother ! I shall be jealous, and think 
 she loves you both better than I do but come, I will be noble 
 too, and think you ought to stay longer in the North, and repay 
 her the fortnight you have filched from her. 
 
 Pray was not your sea-monster like the Duke of Orleans, or 
 one of the Convention ? 
 
 At night. 
 
 I have been at Lady Betty Mackinsy's, where were both poli- 
 ticians and French, but I did not learn one new military event. 
 The poor old Due de Nivernois was ten days under arrest, but 
 has been acquitted and released. The Duchesse de Grammont 
 and Mad. du Chatelet, the latter in a bad state of health, are 
 seized also. All these, it is supposed, it was only meant to 
 squeeze. It is hoped they will soon squeeze the plunderers 
 'amongst themselves, and spare them no more than they do their 
 own generals. You justly scoff at their re-baptizing the days 
 of the week ; but in everything they do is there not a layer of 
 horror and a layer of folly ? I hope they have opened the eyes 
 of mankind, and that it will be remarked at last that the na- 
 tion never did possess sound sense. Their egregious vanity was 
 the consequence of their extreme ignorance. They would not
 
 1793] PR1NCESSE D'HENNIN PRINCE DE POIX. 397 
 
 condescend to know what was out of their own country, scarce 
 what was out of Paris ; and each Frenchman, master of their 
 own usages, thought himself qualified to dictate to the rest 
 of the world. They sent dolls dressed in their own fashions to 
 other countries, and imagined they were communicating uni- 
 versal knowledge; and indeed there was little difference be- 
 tween the jointed baby and the prototype. The memoires of 
 Mous r de Maurepas, so veteran a minister, show of what shreds, 
 and patches, and trifles, like a harlequin's jacket, a French 
 statesman's head is composed. Their women, who had sense, 
 found out the futility of the men, and governed them uni- 
 versally ; but they were French women, and le pays s'en res- 
 sent oit. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 My letter shall set out, for probably it has got its complement. 
 The Prince of Cobourg is endeavouring to hem in the French 
 army at Maubeuge, and the King of Prussia is returned to 
 Berlin. I hope he has not taken or given the Duke of Brunswick 
 another sleeping draught ! 
 
 John St. John is dead. I expect Stumpety Stump to dine 
 with me to-day and stay till to-morrow, and the Churchills on 
 Sunday are not these very important pieces of intelligence to 
 send to the North of England ? It is making bricks with 
 straws. Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. My sweet Agnes, Mrs. Seton is not happier than I am 
 that you took this journey, since Scarborough agrees so well 
 with you. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Tuesday evening, 8 o'clock, Oct. 15, 1793. 
 
 I called on the Princesse d'Hennin, who has been in town 
 a week. I found her quite alone, and I thought she did not 
 answer quite clearly about her two knights. The Prince de 
 Poix has taken a lodging in town, and she talks of letting her 
 house here if she can in short, I thought she had a little of 
 an Ariadne air but this was not what I was in such a hurry 
 to tell you. She showed me several pieces of letters, I think 
 from the Duchesse de Bouillon; one says, the poorDuchesse de 
 Biron* is again arrested and at the Jacobins, and with her une 
 
 * The Duchess was guillotined the following year.
 
 398 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 jeune etourdie qui ne fait que chanter toute la journee; and 
 who think you may that be ? only our pretty little wicked 
 Duchesse de Fleury ! . . . 
 
 My poor old friend the D Me de la Valiere, past ninety and 
 stone deaf, has a guard set upon her, but in her own house ; 
 her daughter the D sse de Chatillon, mother of the D sse de la 
 Tremouille, is arrested, and thus the last, with her attachment 
 to the Queen, must be miserable indeed. But one would think I 
 feel for nothing but duchesses : the crisis has crowded them toge- 
 ther into my letter, and into prison ; and to be prisoner among 
 cannibals is pitiable indeed !] 
 
 Wednesday morning, 11 o'clock. 
 
 As the summer improves every day this autumn, I have just 
 been at Cliveden, lest it should grow so hot that I should be 
 tanned if I stayed till November. I went to see the second 
 festoon over Agnes's door, and am glad I did, for it is much too 
 small and too faint. Kirgate will carry both to the poor Painter 
 at Kichmond, and have them made to resemble. Cliveden never 
 looked more like Paradise, and Mrs. Eichardson,* with all her 
 poultry about her, made a very matron-like Eve. I received 
 y r father's letter, and franked and forwarded it as you ordered. 
 
 The Nymph of the Cherry tree f continues ill, and I think 
 her mate looks on her as in a declining way. 
 
 I have had a letter from the Bishop of Dromore of seven 
 sides of paper, the object of which was, to induce me to add to 
 my Noble Authors some meditations by a foolish Countess of 
 Northumberland, and to set me to inquire after a MS. Tract of 
 Earl Algernon; with neither of which I have complied or shall. 
 The Bishop having created himself a Percy, is gone mad about 
 that family, tho' the Percys are more remembered for having 
 lost their heads, than for ever having had a head that was a loss 
 to lose. 
 
 Thursday morning, 17th, past 10. 
 
 I assure my Twin Wives that much as I delight in their being 
 and likely to be at Cliveden, I am much happier in having 
 contributed to persuade their northern journey. What can 
 please me so much as to see them return in health ! The safe 
 
 * Miss Berry's housekeeper. 
 
 t Mrs. Cambridge, so called from a joke of society not worth recalling. 
 M.B.
 
 1793] IMPROVED HEALTH OF THE MISS BERRYS. 399 
 
 arrival of the mare is a great codicil to my satisfaction, and 
 with a longer stay at Scarborough, which I beg may be pro- 
 tracted as long as this miraculous season will please to last, I 
 shall hope that you will both be fortified to support a winter 
 campaign in London. Surely the good Grandam will come to 
 you. I will send you to her no more if she prefers anything to 
 re-establishing your healths. 
 
 You are very kind in being content with my letters, unin- 
 teresting as they are, for here I learn nothing till it has been 
 mangled in the newspapers, and commonly proved to have been 
 false there. To-day's True Briton talks of prodigious success 
 crowning the Eoyalists in Bretagne. Yesterday there seemed 
 to be some stop put to the breaking up of our camps, but no 
 reason assigned. The papers chuse to make the Prince de Saxe 
 Coburg meditate an attack on the strong camp at Maubeuge ; 
 but I have been told, and think it more probable, that he will 
 endeavour to starve them to a surrender. He did not approve 
 of the last vivacity at Dunkirk ; and as the French affairs be- 
 come more desperate every day, some patience may be the 
 wisest measure ; but I will not reason upon what I do not 
 understand, nor on what I do not know authentically. I see I 
 mistake something or other every post. I thought the King of 
 Prussia going off to-day he has made a new treaty with us 
 if that is any security. Adieu ! 
 
 To Miss Agnes Berry. 
 
 Thursday evening, Oct. 17, 1793. 
 
 MY SWEET LAMB, I am not content with having only thanked 
 you in my bigamy-letter, which was almost finished when your 
 postscript arrived, which made me so happy, and for which I am 
 the more obliged, as you do not love writing. Your great 
 amendment I fully believe, for y r sister assures me of it too. 
 She is more apt to be alarmed about you than anybody, and 
 would not be satisfied with a trifling improvement. I rejoice in 
 the arrival of your mare ; yet I have still more confidence in 
 the sea-air, and shall now be impatient to hear Mrs. Seton has 
 joined you at Scarborough, where I hope she will keep you as 
 long as the weather remains tolerable. You say kindly, you 
 hope I am not better pleased with y r absence than I was : indeed 
 and in good deed but I am, since it has had such prosperous
 
 400 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 effect. Tho' it should last longer than I expected, as I now 
 most seriously wish it may, I shall be amply repaid by seeing 
 you both return looking perfectly well. Absence is charming 
 to lament in ditties of Lovers, but when founded on the best 
 reasons, it goes to none of Friendship's tunes. I can quote 
 but one poetic line that suits my present mood, and to which I 
 hope you will bring back the most satisfactory answer : 
 
 Rose, what is become of your delicate hue ? 
 
 REPLY: Lavoici. 
 
 Whether I am as comfortable as when you are at Cliveden, you 
 may judge by my innumerable letters. Mary cites an authority, 
 that I have not the assurance to adopt, that a man proves his 
 affection to a woman that gives up his time to her. Ah ! me ! 
 I doubt my being constantly writing to you both entertains 
 myself much more than it does you two. In short, I feel con- 
 versing with you, and prefer it to going to Richmond and 
 Hampton Court, which used to be my resources formerly, when 
 I was tired of sitting whole evenings alone. I now return to 
 my letters of the common of Two Genders. 
 
 Miss Hotharo has given warning to Mr. Pigou to quit the 
 smaller and far more beautiful house at Marble Hill, intending 
 to inhabit it herself. Poor S r Charles does not come to town 
 this winter, thinking himself too ill ; but his staying where he 
 is and leading the dismal life he does, is, I believe his chief 
 illness : but am not I sending you coals to Newcastle ? I will 
 pause till I have better fuel. 
 
 Friday morning, after breakfast. 
 
 J?he coach has just brought me from Park -place a grove of 
 lavender plants for you, of which Mrs. Darner had given me 
 notice. My gardener is gone to distribute them about Cliveden, 
 which I hope next summer will be as odoriferous as Mount 
 Carmel. They have brought to my recollection the tag of an 
 old song that I learnt in my first babyhood, that I am sure has 
 not been in my head these threescore years and ten, but suits 
 incomparably with my second infancy : 
 
 Rosemary's green, diddle diddle, lavender's blue ; 
 If you'll love me, diddle diddle, I will love you. 
 
 Were Mrs. Stanhope to know what pretty things I say to my
 
 1793] DEATH OF DR. HUNTER. 401 
 
 wives, I believe she would not covet such a superannuated 
 galant ; but you will not expose our curtain-douceurs ! 
 
 At noon. 
 
 I have had no letters to-day, and the newspaper tells nothing, 
 but new distresses announced to the vile Convention, and which 
 they only pretend to combat by new bravados, yet evidently 
 tremble for Maubeuge. I trust their inhuman career approaches 
 to its termination ! 
 
 This is a hors-d'oeuvre, and so shall go away. Adieu, Both ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Oct. 19, 1793. 
 
 As I wrote to Agnes and you yesterday, and to you and Agnes 
 the day before, I shall say but few words now, and only in an- 
 swer to yours of Wednesday last about my health. Trifles seem 
 serious at a distance, and one is receiving and writing letters 
 about them after one has forgot them. I am quite vexed that 
 Mrs. Darner sent you word of my disorder, having begged her 
 not. I did go to Lady Betty Mackinsy's as soon as I was better, 
 but surely that was very different from going to Park -place, 
 naturally the coldest house in the world, and now unroofed and 
 uncieled, and whither you know I had no mind to go this year, 
 and which I hope I shall avoid, as they are gone to Nuneham 
 to-day ; and next week Mr. Conway must go and kiss hands for 
 his idle Truncheon,* and by that time I conclude this immortal 
 summer will go into winter quarters, and I shall have no incli- 
 nation to commence a campaign in November. You will smile 
 at my remedy ; but I was cured by port wine, which is as nau- 
 seous to me as anything from the apothecary's, and therefore I 
 suppose it succeeded. 
 
 I have just heard that Dr. Hunter f is dead suddenly at St. 
 George's Hospital in a fit, to which he was subject. It is a 
 great blow to his family, as he was in such repute. 1 am 
 heartily concerned for her, who you know is a great favourite 
 with me. You will not see me soon sitting between Lady 
 Louisa | and Mrs. Carter ! 
 
 * He was appointed a Field Marshal. 
 t Dr. John Hunter. 
 
 t Lady Louisa Macdonald, sister to the first Duke of Sutherland, 
 married to Sir Archibald Macdonald, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
 The translator of Epictetus. 
 
 VOL. I. D D
 
 402 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 The Churchills dined here last Sunday, but could not stay, as 
 they have bought a house at Lewisham, in Kent, and were to go 
 to it next morning. Lady Mount Edgcumbe is to have a pap- 
 party on Monday, as it will be my god-daughter's first birthday 
 that can be kept. 
 
 Little edge, 
 
 Can I hedge 
 
 In a rhyme 
 
 By that time ? 
 
 If you cry, 
 
 Granny and I 
 Will sing nought hut Lullaby. 
 
 I know nothing else, as you may have perceived by all my late 
 silly letters. I have a true regard for nonsense, on which I have 
 lived man and boy for longer than I will say ; but as you are 
 worthy of better food, I had rather have something to tell yon 
 that you would care to read. The newspaper is just come, and 
 brings not a tittle. Adieu ! 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 22, 1703. 
 
 I am glad for your sakes, since you would not complain of it 
 yourselves, that I am grown tired of my own nonsense ; for the 
 future I will send you nothing but matters of fact, that is, while 
 they remain matters of fact, which indeed they seldom do longer 
 than a rainbow. Last night, as I told you I should, I went to 
 the birthday of the youngest Edging. I found dismal coun- 
 tenances ! The panic master had just heard that the siege of 
 Maubeuge was raised, and Lyons taken neither entirely true 
 nor false. Mackinsy came in, who had dined with Dundas, 
 * No, no, the siege is not raised ; but part of the Austrian army 
 has been attacked, and somewhat beaten.' 
 
 Of Lyons the story is strange indeed ! not taken, but eva- 
 cuated by thirty thousand whether men or persons I don't 
 know, and with all their artillery, ammunition and goods. They 
 are marched to the Gevaudam and then I know nothing 
 more but this is called good news. When I can tell why, I 
 will tell you. 
 
 A Don Uicardos, who sounds like a hero out of a comedy of 
 Mrs. Behn, has slain 7000 French and taken ten pieces of canon. 
 I hope he is an officer of the St. Herman dad, who pursue and 
 hang the banditti they may have fine sport at Paris.
 
 1793J EXECUTION OF MAKIE ANTOINETTE. 403 
 
 There is again a notion of great anti-revolutionary distur- 
 bances at Brest. I have not settled my creed about all these 
 articles, so believe them or not, as you please. Lord George 
 Con way has galloped home with some success of General 
 Wurmser, who is as punctual and circumstantial as an English 
 member of parliament who sends his constituents a faithful! ac- 
 count of every step he takes. 
 
 I shall go to town to-morrow to see my room, the papering 
 and painting of which is finished, and, as the weather has not 
 frowned yet, I shall return hither on Friday. 
 
 As I was finishing the last line, the Princess and Lally came 
 in ; they know and comprehend the evacuation of Lyons no more 
 than I do ; nay, the convention stares as much as we do, for in 
 the fact everybody agrees, as if it was common for a whole large 
 city to be turned inside outwards I How many hundred generals 
 will be guillotined for it ! 
 
 Lady Mount Edgcumbe had sent her coach this morning to 
 Madame de Cambis to come to the Princesse d'Hennin ; but sent 
 for it back in great haste, having received an account of her 
 Lord being very ill, and she is going to him at the Mount. I 
 am alarmed for him ; he has had some bad attacks of late. 
 
 Lally inquired with interest about you both. I had the satis- 
 faction of telling him that one is quite well, and the other much 
 better I hope I spoke exact truth; I never wished less to 
 deceive. 
 
 Wednesday, 3 o'clock, Berkeley Square. 
 
 I am just arrived. Nobody that can give me any certain 
 information on anything, especially on what I am infinitely 
 anxious to know, the fate of the Queen of France 1 The True 
 Briton, before I came away, had told me she had been tried, 
 acquitted, and massacred by the mob. My servants, whom I 
 have sent about to learn what they could, bring me word that 
 she was tried on the 15th, and executed on the 16th. I am 
 so wretched for her, that it will be a kind of relief to know 
 that she is dead, and at the period of her miseries the most 
 dreadful that ever human being suffered for so long a term ! 
 
 I must send away my letter, or it will be too late for the 
 post, but I will write again to-morrow, when I may be able to 
 know better what I say. 
 
 There was a long gazette last night, making the most of 
 D D 2
 
 404 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 Wurmser's success mumbling about Maubeuge, silent about 
 Lyons, and assuring us about Toulon, which seems to have been 
 in peril but I have not time for details, and you will see the 
 gazette in to-morrow's paper. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Oct. 24, 1793. 
 
 The horrible tragedy of the Queen of France is but too true ! 
 Our Royal Family put off going to the play last night, and the 
 Queen has no drawing-room to-day as was appointed. I do not 
 know any of the shocking circumstances. I saw nobody last 
 night but Lady Bute, whom I found confined to her room with 
 the gout, and old Mrs. Walkinshaw with her, and they knew no 
 particulars in truth, now the protracted martyrdom is com- 
 pleted, I shall be curious to learn nothing of that bloody and 
 atrocious nation but its punishment indeed they seem to 
 meditate it themselves, and to intend to lay it waste it is fit for 
 nothing but a desert inhabited by wild beasts Lyons they have 
 ordered to be destroyed of that history 'I am as ignorant as I 
 was yesterday. The siege of Maubeuge the True Briton owns 
 is raised. I expect Marshal Con way in town to-day; he was to 
 have kissed the Queen's hand presently, but will find himself 
 disappointed. If he calls here before half an hour after four 
 (when our letters go to the post) and has picked up anything 
 material, I will keep this open to add it, and I will not go out 
 before dinner lest I should miss him. 
 
 The Duchess of Ancaster died at Lausanne on the 7 th of this 
 month : her daughter and Lord Cholmondeley are on their road 
 to England. 
 
 The Marshall has been here. He believes the convention's 
 account of Lyons, and that the fugitives far from being multi- 
 tudes, were pursued, and cut to pieces the siege of Maubeuge 
 is oh ! no, not raised see how big my pen is grown in a 
 moment before I could write is raised. Mr. Conway who had 
 left me but while I wrote those two lines and a half, stepped 
 back to tell me much better news before he had got out of the 
 square the Prince of Wales, whom with his blindness he did not 
 know, but took for his nephew Lord George, stopped him, took 
 him by the hand and wished him joy, telling him an officer is 
 just arrived from the Prince of Saxe-Cobourg who has compleatly 
 defeated the army of the French The True Briton said so this
 
 1793] RUMOURS FROM THE CONTINENT. 405 
 
 morning but who dares believe anything under a Prince of 
 Wales ? Oh ! I should be transported if I could in a moment 
 forget the Queen of France but grief and joy cannot so soon 
 mix, and her sufferings will long lie heavy at my heart. I will 
 this evening go and inquire after the Duchesse de la Tremouille 
 who is almost the sole French person that I had almost rather 
 never behold again I have not a moment for more. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Oct. 25, 1793. 
 
 I have abjured nonsense, and now I think I shall renounce 
 my senses. In this romancing age it is not safe to believe any- 
 thing under a King ; and when I believe one of them, it shall 
 not be him of Prussia, who has sworn like an Irish evidence thro' 
 thick and Poland, and perjured himself in every article. I 
 observe it is the universal usage to say, search for truth, which 
 implies that truth is, or was, a simple individual, extremely 
 concealed, and who was either never found, or died a virgin 
 and left no progeny. We do know who was the Adam to that 
 Eve, the Father of Lies, but as the marriage was never solem- 
 nized, it must be his bastards who have stocked the globe. Those 
 imps have misled me, who have been one of the fools in search 
 of truth, to pester you with daily letters for this last week 
 not so much even for the sake of sending you events, as to con- 
 tradict the falsehoods I had too impatiently dispatched, from 
 eagerness to communicate with you any momentary pleasure I 
 tasted. I must now lower your victorious sails, and recall the 
 Prince of Cobourg's laurels. It is certain that they were most 
 generally believed all yesterday, not only by the source of my 
 information, but by very cool reasoners ; and a brother of Lord 
 Mornington was cited as the express he was come, but was 
 messenger of nothing, and early this morning the Flanders mail 
 is arrived, and has not brought a leaf that would cover a silver 
 penny. 
 
 Well, here I disclaim gazetteering. The worst news of all, 
 the death of the Queen of France, is true the particular 
 horrors I do not know but as the execrable hyenas cannot 
 staunch their thirst of innocent blood, they have offerred a large 
 reward for discovering (with dispersing his likeness) Edgworth, 
 the excellent confessor of the murdered king. Louis and 
 Antoinette are butchered, Catherine Slayczar and Prussian
 
 406 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 Frederic live and triumph ! It is a pity that they are not King 
 and Queen of France, then the sovereigns and nations would 
 be properly adapted. Well ! I will endeavour to remove these 
 horrible images which haunt my imagination, and will talk only 
 within my own little sphere. 
 
 Last night I supped with the first Marshal at my sister's 
 besides her and her husband, there were her daughter Sophia, 
 Mr. Fawkener, Lady Englefield and S r Harry. Her I am 
 always glad to see, and was particularly so last night, as she 
 has so lately left you two. She said she left you both very 
 well, and as a proof, that she had seen you at a ball the 
 evidence did not entirely convince me, I have known you both 
 go to balls when not remarkably in health the proof grew still 
 weaker when I came home at twelve and found your letter 
 of the 21 st , in which you do not speak so sanguinely of y r 
 sister's looks but your constant anxiety about her is apt to 
 make you think her worse than she is, and I trust to those who 
 do not see her so constantly as you do. Still I wish Mrs. Seton 
 had not been so impatient for your leaving Scarborough. I, 
 who will not allow that she loves you better than I do, would 
 gladly consent to her paying herself for your longer stay there, 
 by deducting from y r return as much time as you should stay 
 more than you intended near the sea. I fear I am too late to 
 propose this now, but I did hint it before. 
 
 I own I was exceedingly vexed at Mrs. D.' s acquainting you 
 with rny transient indisposition. She and you have both hand- 
 somely confessed that you had exacted the promise from her. 
 Where could be the use or good of acquainting two persons, who 
 were gone a long journey, partly for health, and who were very 
 happy and gay, with the indisposition of one whom I am con- 
 vinced they love yes I am and who was sure of being soon 
 recovered from a temporary disorder. 
 
 I found my room quite finished, and clean and snug but I 
 have found the town so totally empty, that I shall return to 
 Strawberry to-morrow ; and nobody's bible oath shall make me 
 believe any news again, till St. Thomas, who was no giddy 
 credulous person, assures me he has had digital proof of the fact. 
 Adieu !
 
 1793] WALPOLE'S EULOGY OF MAKIE ANTOINETTE. 407 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1793. 
 
 I have just received y rs of the 26th, and begin to answer it 
 directly, tho' not knowing when I shall dispatch it, as I cannot 
 satisfy you nor myself in half one wants to know about the most 
 interesting of all events, and my greatest astonishment consists 
 in the execrable monsters having let enough be known to conse- 
 crate Marie Antoinette to immortal glory, and to devote Paris 
 and all its fiends to the horror and detestation of posterity. 
 
 You bid me go to the P rsse d'Hennin and learn what I can. No, 
 indeed ; I must be well convinced of the purity of sentiments 
 of any French man or woman, before I would go to them. I 
 would rather fly their sight ! yet mine is not grief now. No, 
 it is all admiration and enthusiasm. The last days of that un- 
 paralleled princess were so superior to any death ever exhibited 
 or recorded, that for the sake of her glory, I think, unless I could 
 restore her to happiness, to her children, to her untainted friends, 
 and could see her triumph over the murderous mobs that have 
 massacred her, I would not revive her if I could. When did 
 there ever exist sucli august simplicity ! What mind was ever, 
 I will not say so firm, but so perfectly mistress of its own 
 thoughts and intentions, that could be attentive to every cir- 
 cumstance and distracted by none ? Think of all that was com- 
 prehended in that question to the monsters called her counsel- 
 lors, but certainly allotted to her as defamatory spies, ' Had she 
 assumed too much dignity, as she passed to her trial, for she 
 had noticed one of the juries, who s d , " How proud she is." ' It 
 proved her unaltered presence of mind, and that she was ready 
 to condescend, if it would better become her. What philosopher 
 or martyr had equal possession of himself in similar moments ? 
 None, none, not one ! And then recollect the length of her suf- 
 ferings, her education, exaltation to happiness, and supreme 
 power, her sudden fall, the disappointments she had met, the 
 ingratitude and treachery she had experienced, the mortifica- 
 tions and insults heaped upon her, and studiously, maliciously, 
 aggravated for five years together ; the murder of husband, the 
 miseries of and terrors for her children : the total deprivation of 
 all decent comforts, and, perhaps the greatest cruelty of all, not 
 to have had one friend; but a thousand times worse, to have 
 fear at every moment in the hands of the most unfeeling jailors.
 
 408 LETTERS. [1798 
 
 Sum up all this mass of woes, and perhaps thousands more of 
 which we have never heard, and then see this phoenix rise 
 superior to hosts of torturing spiteful fiends, and hear her pro- 
 nounce the most sublime word that ever passed thro' human lips. 
 When they (I have no adequate epithet for them) had declared 
 sentence and asked her what she had to say, she said, * Rien.' 
 Too calm, too sensible, too collected, and unshaken, she was 
 above fear, indignation, and sollicitation, and accountable only 
 to herself, she showed that such a host of miscreants was not 
 worthy of knowing a syllable of what passed in perhaps the 
 greatest mind that ever existed. Her invisible patience was all 
 that appeared, and that was a negative, but as unvaried as all 
 her illustrious virtues, and great qualities, on which rancour and 
 persecution have not been able to fix a speck of stain let history 
 or legend produce a similar model ! 
 
 These are the effusions of my heart, not dictated by the im- 
 pulse of the moment, but the result of my cool reflections of 
 three days. I trust them in perfect confidence to your honour, 
 ynd exact from the fidelity of your friendship that you will not 
 communicate nor read them to any mortal but your father and 
 sister, nor let this paper pass out of your own hands, nor suffer 
 a tittle of it to be transcribed. I like that you two should know 
 my sentiments on all important topics, but I extend this confi- 
 dence not a jot farther. I firmly believe every word I have as- 
 serted, because all the facts come from the barbarians themselves 
 but as I cannot be positively sure they are true I will not 
 place my veracity on a possibility of having been misinformed 
 and therefore I depend on your not committing me by showing 
 my letter I repeat it earnestly, to nobody but your father and 
 sister, and beg you will assure me that you have not. I do not 
 mind your reading trifles out of my dispatches, though certainly 
 calculated for nobody but you two but this letter I do most 
 seriously restrain from all other eyes. 
 
 Midnight. 
 
 Mrs. Darner came to me at dinner to-day, and goes to London 
 to-morrow. I was engaged to Lady Betty Mackinsy, and she 
 went thither with me in the most deplorable of all nights as bad 
 as that when the Conways and I were detained so late at Cliveden 
 and I stepped over my shoes into the water. We heard no-
 
 1793] WALPOLE'S ANXIETY ABOUT THE BERRYS. 409 
 
 thing quite new : Nieuport is reckoned safe and Ostend safer, 
 both which were reported taken. Mr. Batt, whom I met last 
 night at Cambridge's, is as confident of the safety of Toulon. He, 
 not Lord Hood, inquired much after you, Lord Mount Edgcumbe 
 is recovered. The chai^ming man has actually a tragedy just 
 coming forth at Covent garden. 
 
 I like your account of yourselves but hope your grandam 
 will not sit too close, but let you both have air and exercise 
 enough. In evei^y thing else I quite agree with her. 
 
 Lady Waldegrave and her daughter come to me to-day from 
 the Pavilions, where they have been this week, and will stay till 
 next morning. Good night. 
 
 P.S. I fear you have lost y r poor friend Mr. Sept. West. 
 
 Lord Orford's strict injunctions that his letter of the 
 29th should be confined only to the perusal of the Miss 
 Berrys and their father, might have raised a question as 
 to the propriety of including it amongst those that are 
 now published upwards of seventy years after this was 
 written ; but as he gives as the reason for this injunction 
 the fear lest his ' facts ' should not be true, and that he 
 will not place his veracity on a possibility of having been 
 misinformed, the reason for its suppression has ceased ; 
 and though there may be some exaggeration in the tone 
 of his enthusiastic eulogy of the unfortunate Queen of 
 France, who would not sympathise with the feelings 
 inspired at the time by her cruel and unmerited sufferings ? 
 
 The letters from Lord Orford during the month of 
 November were still addressed to the Miss Berrys in 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Nov. 5, 1793. 
 
 You can, I trust, guess how happy your letter of Friday last 
 makes me, by telling me how much better you are. I am not 
 weaning myself, but I do wish you to stay in Yorkshire as long 
 as you continue to find any amendment. I will even call it a 
 selfish wish, for it certainly is misery to me to see you both so 
 perpetually indisposed. Can I love you so much, and so sincerely,
 
 410 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 and not be anxious in the very first place for your healths ? I 
 continually reproach myself with having drawn you from Italy 
 sooner than you intended I had indeed some strong reasons 
 then yet I shall not repeat that eagerness. 
 
 Enjoy the fine weather as long as it will meet you half 
 way. Unless great rains or snow come, I shall remain here, 
 where I am warm and comfortable. Tho' I pass three evenings 
 in four quite alone, they are not at all irksome, which they 
 would be in London, where I have neither acquaintance nor 
 amusements. 
 
 Since the most deplorable of all tragedies, I have heard no 
 great event. The wolves, in great droves, came out and at- 
 tempted Nieuport and Ostend, but were driven back. The 
 Convention pretends that the Koyalists in La Vendee are 
 utterly defeated, but I do not receive assignats at first sight. 
 It is true that there was great slaughter of French noblesse 
 under the Prince of Conde, when Wurmser stormed the lines 
 of Weissemberg. This was more to their credit than haggling 
 for rank. To-day's paper is not come in yet, so my intelligence 
 is not very fresh but I will wait for it before I send this to the 
 post. The Convention have lost a good friend Lord George 
 Gordon. 
 
 Mrs. Darner passed Tuesday with me, and Lady Waldegrave 
 and her daughter two days. General Johnstone is returned 
 from camp ; he and Lady Cecilia and Mrs. Johnstone were here 
 on Monday. These lean articles are all I have to send. 
 
 What cousin of yours is wounded ? is it S r G. Cayley's 
 brother ? whichever, I hope he will do well. 
 
 You have had such a mass of my letters lately, that I hope 
 you will not catch cold with receiving only this thin one. In 
 truth, my mind is not at all in tune. The Queen of France is 
 never for three minutes out of my head. Long as I have lived, 
 I had not conceived that human nature was capable of such 
 execrable barbarity and meditated wanton malice as the French 
 have committed within these five years. As little, indeed, did 
 I conceive that one human mind could rise to so exalted a pitch 
 as that supernatural woman's ! No legendary writer, no epic 
 poet, could have dared to draw so perfect a character with such 
 excellent sense ! What propriety in her every answer I and how 
 accurate a memory of every circumstance that was necessary
 
 1793] DOMESTIC NEWS. 411 
 
 for her to recollect, with no confusion even of dates. The 
 monsters her murderers have made her some amends by de- 
 posing a thousand times more truth than could have been 
 believed had it come only from her friends. I have no longer 
 any doubt what her bitterest foes report must be true. It 
 was their business to blacken her they have made her im- 
 mortal. 
 
 The paper is arrived. You will see several advantages gained 
 by us and allies. The Duke of York has had good success, and 
 our prospect is better than you thought. 1 have not time to 
 say more, if I had wherewithal. Adieu ! 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Nov. 7, 1793. 
 
 I often lay the egg of my journals two or three days before 
 they are hatched. This may make some of my articles a little 
 stale before you get them ; but then you know they are the 
 more authentic if the echo has not told me to unsay them. 
 And if a Prince of Wales drops a thumping victory at my door 
 as he goes by, you have it hot out of the oven, tho', as happened 
 lately, not half baked. . . . 
 
 Domestic news are scanty, but dismal ; and you have seen 
 them anticipated as the loss of the young Lord Montague and 
 Mr. Burdett,* drowned in a cataract in Swisserland, by their 
 own obstinate folly.] 
 
 When you return to London, if you spy from Highgate a 
 vast edifice peeping over the shoulder of St. Paul's, don't imagine 
 that the Pope has sent St. Peter's over hither to secure it from 
 French atheists. No, it is the new Temple of Venus in Drury- 
 lane. I assure you that Lord Derby told me a fortnight ago 
 that he had seen it that morning from Westminster-bridge 
 towering above all the buildings but St. Paul's. They say the 
 frontispiece of the scaffolding is a most beautiful sight. 
 
 Nov. 10. 
 
 I do confirm my assent to y r staying in Yorkshire as long 
 as either of you is the better for it. As for the horse, I am 
 not so fond of young ladies riding in the king's roads. Mr. 
 
 * Geo. S. Viscount Montague, b. 1769, only son of Anthony, 7th Viscount. 
 Chas. Sedley Burdett, brother of the late Sir Francis Burdett.
 
 412 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 c, the uncle, was once, in a high chaise, near over- 
 setting the Duchess of Queensberry, who was on horseback there, 
 and she called out, ' Oh, pray, Mr. ^K^patrick, don't ride over 
 me.' 
 
 [I am not so consentful about going to town myself yet. 
 What could I do with myself in London ? All my playthings 
 are here, and I have no playfellows left there ! Lady Herries's 
 and poor Mrs. Hunter's * are shut up. Even the one game more 
 at ci4bbage^ after supper is on table, and which is not my 
 supreme felicity, tho' accompanied by the Tabor and Pipe,| is 
 in the country or, to say all in a word, North Audley Street 
 is in Yorkshire. Reading composes little of my pastime either 
 in town or country. A catalogue of books and prints, or a dull 
 history of a county, amuse me sufficiently ; for now I cannot 
 open a French book, as it w d keep alive ideas that I want to 
 banish from my thoughts.] 
 
 Monday Morning, llth. 
 
 L. says S r Charles Blagdon is arrived, having been very ill, 
 and looking so ; the Palmerstons remain in Italy. 
 
 [Mrs. Piozzi is going to publish a book on English Synonymes. 
 Methinks she had better have studied them before she stuffed 
 her travels with so many vulgarisms !] 
 
 One o'clock. 
 
 No newspaper is come, whether a symptom of no news, or 
 rather of some very fresh, how can I tell ? whichever, you must 
 wait another day, for this must go to the post; and if you 
 receive no codicil to it the next morning, you will be sure I had 
 nothing more recent to send. Adieu ! 
 
 P.S. By a symptom of no news, I mean that the news- 
 writer was waiting for a mail, and that none was arrived ; but 
 it is not utterly impossible that the newspaper itself may have 
 failed, a case that happened before to-day. 
 
 * Widow of Dr. John Hunter. 
 
 t A manner of designating the Countess of Ailesbury. Wright. 
 
 t Two old ladies of his society whom he thus called. Wriyht.
 
 1793] WALPOLE'S HORROR OF FRENCH EXCESSES. 413 
 
 Strawb., Thursday, Nov. 14, 1793. 
 
 Were the time ever so fertile in entertaining events, still I 
 had much rather talk them over with you than send them in 
 journals. How irksome then must it be to interrupt y r amuse- 
 ments by afflicting details ! Not that I am now going to grieve 
 you by any new specific horror, tho' some are apprehended ; and 
 the countenance of the age is so gloomy, that one can scarce 
 expect to be the messenger of glad tidings. Nay, I am shocked 
 at being forced to speak of butcheries as welcome news. Yet 
 what but the French turning their massacres on themselves can 
 put a period to their frenzy and abominations ? Every day 
 they invent and propose crimes so incredible, that nobody can 
 believe they will be practised till it is known that they have 
 been committed. When rage has mounted to that excess, who 
 can be sorry to hear that the savage Convention has at once 
 destroyed one-and-twenty of their own murderers ? And how 
 striking, that seventeen of those twenty-one beheaded had, not 
 eleven months ago, voted for the death of the King ! At the 
 same time, who can comprehend their proceedings ? Several of 
 those sacrificed regicides died praying for the republic so the 
 woman who stabbed Marat seemed to be of the same faction, or 
 near it. What does it show, but that the nation holds assassi- 
 nation due to the slightest variation in a neighbour's creed from 
 the opinion of him who has a dagger in his pocket ? In such a 
 conflagration of all virtues, all feeling, all humanity, all justice, 
 and of all religion, who can dare to flatter himself that the 
 angelic Madame Elizabeth will escape ? Oh ! nothing but the 
 monsters making their tyranny intolerable, even to one another, 
 will extirpate the hydra. Poor Mad. de Biron is still in prison, 
 and is not allowed even a maid servant. It has been proposed 
 to force every single woman to accept any man who offers to 
 marry her; and this diabolic project is supposed to be aimed at 
 the violation of the innocent young Princess, sister of the young 
 King. But I load you with too many horrors but alas ! you 
 would read them in the papers ! 
 
 At iiight 
 
 I have been with the Cambridge's, and saw him and both 
 sons ; * the hens were at roost, and did not appear. George had 
 
 * Richard and George Cambridge. The latter became Archdeacon of 
 Middlesex.
 
 414 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 just heard that Egalite is actually beheaded ; comfortable news 
 for the doctors of his sect, who may see that no crimes are a 
 protection. Well, there is another atonement to the King and 
 the Princesse de Lamballe, and no cordial to Mad. de Sillery 
 and Pamela Fitzgerald.* No bloodshed, however, allays the 
 national frenzy : they have now declared war with the Genoese. 
 Oh ! the more enemies they create the better but I was grieved 
 this morning to read in the papers that poor Jardin and his 
 family have been taken by a French privateer, as they were 
 going to Corunna. 
 
 I wish I could revive y r spirits by any gayer scenes, but where 
 to seek them, or how to blend them with the daily tragedies, 
 with some of which one is forced to pay one's self for those one 
 laments ! Oh yes, one tragedy will furnish an agreeable para- 
 graph. George Cambridge was last night at the first represen- 
 tation of Jerningham's new play, and I was delighted to hear 
 that it was received with great applause and complete success, 
 being very interesting. The Baviad has been useful to it, for 
 there is no love in it. Mr. Cambridge desired me to tell you 
 that there was one deficiency in it, i.e., y r cousin Miss Set on 
 should have played in it, for a Governor Seton, and his wife 
 and two sons, are the principal personages.f 
 
 You will perhaps ask why I am still here in the middle of 
 November ? because in any other year, such a day as this four- 
 teenth of November would have been thought very fine and 
 warm in the end of August. I remember that at Florence they 
 used to boast of their Stagione di San Martino well, to be 
 sure, the mornings were very clear and bright, but as cold and 
 sharp as Greenland. Apropos, I see Lord Hood has been 
 lecturing the little great Duke very proper I wish he had 
 not been complaisant to that dirty fellow Paoli. I would not 
 send a man to the latter, unless it were his panegyrist Bos well, 
 whose pigmies always are giants, as the geese of others are 
 swans. 
 
 * Widow of Lord Edw. Fitzgerald, married, secondly, to Mr. Titcairn, 
 American consul at Hamburg, where she took refuge after the death of her 
 first husband. It was said that she was the daughter of Madame de Uenlis. 
 She died in 1831. 
 
 t It waa called 'The Siege of Berwick,' founded on the story of a 
 remarkable siege of that place in early Scottish history, when it was 
 valiantly defended by an ancestor of the name and family of Seton.
 
 1793] DEATH OP LADY WESTMORLAND. 415 
 
 When your codicil of visits begins, I suppose you will prepare 
 me for altering my directions. If I have no letter tomorrow, as 
 I have no particular reason for expecting one, I shall send this 
 away on its old route. 
 
 Friday noon. 
 
 I must close my letter, for I have none from you. nor is even 
 the newspaper come yet ; but what signifies whether the True 
 Briton or I confirm or postpone the execution of Orleans ? 
 Stay, the paper arrives and says he is dead ah! and so is a 
 happy beauty at the top of her prosperity, Lady Westmorland.* 
 The Doylies told me of her danger two days ago. I am sorry 
 for her; I knew her a little before she went to Ireland, by 
 seeing her often with my niece Lady Waldegrave, and liked her 
 good humour, as well as admired her great beauty ; but there is 
 no moralizing more on change of fortune, after the enormous 
 excess of it in the case of the Queen of France. Adieu ! 
 
 Tuesday morning, Nov. 19, 1793. 
 
 As fast as I hear events that are worth sending to you, I 
 begin my next letter : that not having been the case since my 
 last, I this moment receive yours of the 16th, which sets me to 
 answering I suppose you expected it would set me to crying, 
 but I shall disappoint you. In short, without grimace or forced 
 irony, I approve of your protracting your stay, and giving so 
 much pleasure to y r good family. 
 
 My own motions are undecided yet. I was to have gone to 
 Hampton last Saturday evening, the Johnstones celebrating 
 their second grandson's baptism no great occasion of joy, I 
 think ; but it rained so hard, and was so foggy, that I did not 
 chuse a voyage over the heath. Sunday was as bad, and I 
 resolved to go to London on Thursday ; but yesterday and to- 
 day have fallen on their knees, and beseeched me to stay a 
 week longer, promising to be as fine as it has been these six 
 months, and so indeed they are as soft, and of a rich golden 
 colour over all the trees, that Grolconda is not more magnificent : 
 however, Nolito Frondi credere I will determine nothing, I 
 will wait and see, and the delay in your return does not increase 
 my impatience to be in town. 
 
 * Sarah Child, the first wife of the grandfather of the present Earl of 
 Westmorland.
 
 416 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 I am very sorry the papers have been so spitefull to the 
 house of Seton; I have seen none of those criticisms; at Rich- 
 mond all the reports have been very favorable. 
 
 The story of the Frenchman murdered and drowned is not 
 fact, tho' founded in fact ; but you know that I maintain that 
 three parts in four of the articles in our newspapers are lies ; 
 and if the writers do get hold of a truth, they are sure of mixing 
 it up with a blunder. The case was this : a young Frenchman 
 with a portmanteau came to Richmond (not to Cross-deep), and 
 wanted to go to Kingston, but did not know the way ; two or 
 three blackguards offered to show him the road, but when out 
 of the town, robbed him of his knapsack, which frighting him, 
 and he being strong and active, ran away as hard as he could, 
 and saved himself, if they did intend worse. 
 
 I have answered y r letter, and Mr. Berry I see grows im- 
 patient for news, but as I said in the beginning, I know nothing 
 specific : the True Briton is not come in, and I dread it, 
 expecting nothing but new murders and massacres. There is a 
 French gentleman at Richmond, who had remained quiet at 
 Paris till just now, but perceiving the destroying angel abroad, 
 applied to Barrere, with whom he had been inornate, for a 
 passport ; Barrere, surprised at seeing him still there, felt a drop 
 of pity on his red-hot heart, gave him the pass, but added, 
 * Depart directly, for we have gone so far, that now we must 
 go throughV How far that may be, Moloch himself cannot 
 guess. Of Orleans's exit I know no particulars, nor am I curious 
 about so foul a wretch. The beheaded Sillery * was husband 
 of the too well known woman of that name ; she is in Switzer- 
 land, and so is that monster Condorcet, one of the worst of all, 
 if there are any shades left in the hue of infernals. 
 
 It is believed that the Royalists in La Vendee have gained 
 considerable advantages, tho' Barrere lately pronounced them 
 demolished; but the Convention never utters a sentence of 
 truth but when they publish their own barbarities. Lord 
 Moira is said to be going on a secret expedition, and it is sup- 
 posed to be to the coast of France, in hopes of assisting the 
 Avengers. 
 
 The aspect northward is not so propitious. The King of 
 Prussia is much suspected of being cooled; L d Malmsberry 
 
 * Marquis de Sillery, Comte de Genlis, was executed Oct. 31, 1793.
 
 1793] PROSPECTS OF THE WAK. 417 
 
 is going to him, but if he does not carry more weight than the 
 French can send, I shall not expect much from his address. I 
 shall be glad not to prove a true prophet, tho' I have appre- 
 hended these six months, that unless very substantial acquisi- 
 tions were made that would compensate the expence, a grand 
 alliance would not hold out another year. I shall lament any 
 disunion, yet one must not judge immediately from events : 
 how did we grieve last year for the Duke of Brunswick's pause, 
 yet by the tedious difficulty we have had in taking Valenciennes 
 and Conde, and in not taking Dunkirk and Maubeuge, is not it 
 plain that if that Duke (whom still I do not admire) had 
 attempted to march to Paris, he w d either never have gotten 
 thither, or never have gotten back ; yet there is no excuse to 
 be made for his sacrificing the Emperor and so his highness 
 seems to think himself, for he has made none. 
 
 O'Hara is arrived at Toulon ; and if it can be preserved, he 
 will keep it. 
 
 The True Briton is come in, but without an important 
 article. 
 
 I have written to my last minute, and told you all I know. 
 Lady Westmorland's vast, enormously vast fortune, goes to her 
 eldest daughter,* and will make Miss Scott but a middling 
 heiress. Adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2 o'clock, 1793. 
 There has been some delay or neglect, I don't know where or 
 in whom, that I doubt may have occasioned some confusion. I 
 received here on Tuesday last yours of the 1 6 th announcing your 
 present of yourselves to y r Grr. M. for a week longer ; I answered 
 it with my approbation that very day, and told you I should go 
 to London the next day but one for a couple of days ; so I did, 
 and am this moment returned, when I find on my table yours 
 of the 14th, dirty and a little tumbled so what happened to 
 it, poor dear thing, I cannot tell ; but suppose the postman 
 or some servant had kept it in his pocket and forgotten it for 
 half a week. It would be in vain to inquire ; one never gets 
 anything but lies on such accidents. I am glad at least that it 
 has reached me at last ! without it I should not have known 
 
 * Sarah Sophia, afterwards Countess of Jersey. 
 VOL. I. E E
 
 418 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 that I am to direct this to Bransby and super all, I would not 
 lose one of y r letters. I want no news ; what I contrive to 
 learn is more than half for y r sases, and what I wish from you 
 is to be told that you ride and are both better. My Agnes, I 
 trust, continues improving, tho' 1 wish you had told me so 
 oftener of late. 
 
 My jaunt to town seemed at first to have been barren indeed. 
 I called at Mrs. Darner's. She was gone to the play with the 
 Marshal her father then to the Churchills ; they were at their 
 new purchase at Lewisham then to Mrs. Buller, not at home 
 then to Miss Farren ; found her and La Signora Madre only. 
 From them to Lady Bute, and there only Lady Lonsdale and 
 old Lady Clavering, and for a moment Lady Erskine and her 
 daughter. With y r leave I thought I might as well have staid 
 here. Tilings mended at night. I had been told in Sackvill 
 Street that Mrs. Darner would probably bring her' parent home 
 to supper and she did. Soon after arrived Oh no ! I have 
 jumbled the two evenings on Thursday there were only father 
 and daughter ; it was last night that the latter had collected the 
 rest for me, who were, my niece Sophia, Mrs. Buller and her 
 son, * Mistress Buller,' and the Charming Man ; and we had a 
 pleasant supper. I congratulated the Charming highly on the 
 success of his tragedy, and on his prologue, which I had seen in 
 the papers and like ; the epilogue they say is still better. All 
 this put him in great spirits, and once or twice, a propos de 
 rien, he blurted out one or two of his gross naivetes. I believe 
 you read nothing in your Yorkshire but Jacobin papers, for I 
 have not seen a word against the tragedy or the Story of y r 
 Ancestors, and Mrs. D. says it has been abused only in two 
 papers of that dye ; and because there are compliments in the 
 play or epilogue to the Duke of York, so Fame's quota is hand- 
 some. The Substantial I fear will answer worse. Mrs. Pope's 
 illness has interrupted the career. That is a disadvantage ; and 
 Harris the manager has behaved most shabbily, and allows the 
 poet but the sixth night instead of the third and sixth, because 
 forsooth there are but four acts ! This is an unprecedented 
 innovation, to which the Charming should not have yielded; 
 but he certainly was not born to squabble with a Jew and 
 besides, I could swear, would have given his play for nothing 
 rather than not have it represented. It is to be played again
 
 1793] EXPEDITION UXDER LORD MOIRA. 419 
 
 on Wednesday, and the Marshall and I are to go to town on 
 purpose ; Mrs. Darner will have a box. 
 
 You will be happy, I am sure, to know perhaps have seen in 
 the papers already, unless you see none but Jacobin prints that 
 poor Jardin and his family were retaken by a Spanish privateer 
 from the French one who had taken them, and have been carried 
 to the spot of their destination, Corunna vulgarice, the Groyne. 
 
 Well ! but do I say nothing of the war ? What cares Mr. 
 Berry how many visits I made and found nobody at home? he 
 had rather I had gone to the coffee-house or to Lord Onslow 
 patience, my good S r . To-night is but the vigil of a great deal. 
 It has been known for some days that, tho' the foul fiend Barrere 
 proclaimed to the Pandemonium above a fortnight ago that the 
 Royalists in La Vendee were totally demolished, they have a 
 very large army and have taken some important places. Our 
 Ministers probably know much more than I do, for to-morrow 
 Lord Moira is to sail with a great force for the coast of France. 
 St. Malo is supposed the object, but no doubt that has not been 
 told. He certainly carries ten thousand men and 400 emigres 
 from Jersey ; General Conway goes with him ; I heard of no 
 other of the refugees. What fleet, military stores, &c., the 
 papers will tell you; I cannot, who neither love details, nor 
 remember them. Most anxious I shall be, and most zealous 
 I am for the event yet I am not sanguine. The Ministers 
 seem to have waited till the crisis was mature the measure of 
 iniquity was certainly full, and I would hope has shocked thou- 
 sands and ten thousands. Some of the wretches in the Conven- 
 tion you see have said they think they have gone far enough 
 I do not think they have, while they suffer one another to 
 breathe ; however, they have made a good beginning with 
 Orleans, Brissot, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 Lord Moira's behaviour is noble ; he offered himself for this 
 service some months ago, and he has not, since his father's death, 
 less, with the estates of Huntingdon, than 18,OOOL a y r . Oh! 
 but it is a joke to talk of a great fortune why, Miss Scott's is 
 sunk to be of the second rate. The whole property of the Childs 
 vests now in Lord Westmorland's eldest daughter ; and Dent, 
 Child's partner, says before she is of age (and she is not above 
 six) the savings will be above a million, tho' Osterley and the 
 seat in Staffordshire are to be kept up at the same great expense
 
 420 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 as in Mr. Child's life the shop pays 25,000?. a year. I am 
 glad the expence will continue, as the money will circulate, but 
 I hope Catherine and the King of Prussia will not attempt a 
 partition of the property. 
 
 Madame D'Arblay has written a pamphlet for the French 
 clergy. I sent for it in town, and then forgot to bring it with 
 me. I shall wait with patience till I go back, for Mrs. D. says 
 it is a mere nothing. 
 
 Sunday night, 10 o'clock. 
 
 It cannot rain, but it thunders. I have had another letter 
 from you to-day, and there is strong presumption that Lord 
 Howe has taken six or seven French men-of-war of the line. 
 My heart takes joy on the first, and my head will on the second, 
 if confirmed ; for they are in different departments, my heart 
 presiding over home affairs, and my head over foreign. Void 
 the marrow of the rumour. A Lieutenant arrived yesterday at 
 the Admiralty from L d Howe, who, learning that part of the 
 Brest fleet had sailed to meet and convoy their West Indiamen, 
 his lordship, 26 strong, had set out post, and had actually got 
 between the French and their coast, and last night and this 
 morning all London was expecting a second dispatch, at least 
 this evening. All I can do here is to listen for ringing of bells 
 they do not ring yet. 
 
 Well, now for your letter, which, in compliment to your 
 curiosity, I postponed answering till I had tapped Lord Howe. 
 
 Y r dear good Grrandam ! I hope you have told her over and 
 over how much I approved of your visit to her ; how constantly 
 I have recommended y r staying longer. Y r gratitude and affec- 
 tion for her have always charmed me ; and it is very natural 
 that I should admire how two young women can show and feel 
 such kindness and attentions to antediluvians ! 
 
 Our weather it seems still continues better than yours ; yester- 
 day was as mild as April ought always to be, and to-day is better 
 than most English Junes. The leaves all went at once, but 
 being of so rich a hue, the garden looks like the country of El 
 Dorado. You seem to apprehend that it will not be found 
 intrinsically resembling ; but I find that in y r Riding of York- 
 shire they read nothing but Jacobin journals. I like the account 
 of y r horse much better than of your politics. I shall not be able 
 to report his health to y r friends near the ferry, whom I am not
 
 1793] REPORTED NAVAL VICTORY. 421 
 
 likely to see again this season. I am still less likely to connect 
 with y r Mrs. Osbaldiston mercy on us ! why she has ten children 
 I would as soon visit a boarding dame at Eton School. Lady 
 Poulet's house would not hold her and her brood, so she has hired 
 Dr. DuvaFs parsonage, which is much less, so her progeny, I sup- 
 pose, are to go to grass upon the glebe. She can have the house 
 but for seven months, and pays extravagantly for it, 100 guineas. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 I have waited to the last minute of the post time for news or 
 the newspaper, and neither come. Is this a good symptom or 
 a bad one ? 
 
 Berkeley Square, Nov. 30, 1793. 
 
 I will send you no more victories of Lord Howe till he sends 
 them himself. In what a hubbub have we been kept aye, and 
 still are, ever since this day se'nnight, when we were told he was 
 catching six of the Brest fleet. Every moment we expected to 
 see him sailing into St. James's with six French men-of-war tied 
 to his chariot's wheels, and dragging their West India fleet in 
 tow. Then came an account from two of his own squadron that 
 had left him actually boxing with two French ships, and then 
 and then a dead silence. Not a cockboat as big as you can 
 see from Dover Cliff has come in with a syllable for five days ! All 
 the town has been running about, asking, guessing, conjecturing, 
 and spreading imaginary reports. ' Any news of Lord Howe ? 
 What ! no news yet ! ' Well ! this morning a Danish or Dutch 
 ship has told somebody, who has told everybody, who have told 
 the True Briton, who has just told me, that Lord Howe has taken 
 five men-of-war, and will be here with them presently. If they 
 come by here before this must go to the post, you shall know; 
 if not, you must scold the east wind, they say, or learn what you 
 can from y r Jacobin newspapers, who will not tell you a word 
 of truth as long as they can help it. I must go talk of some- 
 thing that interests me more than random rumours. 
 
 I have seen y r servant John, who gives me an excellent ac- 
 count of you both, and last night I received y r short letter of 
 the 25th. I thank you most cordially for letting me hear so 
 frequently. My Agnes I know does not love writing, yet me- 
 thinks I should like now and then to see a line from her dear
 
 422 LETTEBS. [1793 
 
 hand, were it but in a postscript. The volumes I send you are 
 my great occupation, yet I shall be most heartily glad when I 
 shall have no longer occasion to dispatch them ; besides the best 
 cause of their cessation, my poor lame fingers have no great 
 delight in the business. I supped at Mrs. Darner's last night 
 with the D 8S of Richmond, Lord Derby, the Farrens, and y r 
 grandsire's historian,* and shall go to Lady Lucan'sf this even- 
 ing to meet Mr. Burke and Mr. Gibbon, I will not indulge 
 its unwillingness, tho' I plead it to any other occasional corre- 
 spondent and employ Kirgate ; but I really should be ashamed 
 to dictate even to him all the trumpery that I write to you, 
 because I write to you two just as I should talk the only com- 
 fortable kind of letters. 
 
 Poor Lady Harriot Conyers is dead. S r Charles Blagdon is 
 returned alone, having been extremely ill. He looks ill, and is 
 much emaciated, yet recovered. He inquired after you both 
 with great zeal, which I liked. 
 
 The night before last I met at Lady Bute's the Pope's Nuncio, 
 Mr. Erskine, who told us this story. The Roman mob last year, 
 when threatened by the fiends at Paris, rose and murdered a 
 Frenchman. His Holiness sent a monsignore in his coach to 
 appease the tumult, but he could not prevail. The people 
 insisted on the expulsion of all the Grauls, and a very sensible 
 tribune leant on the window of the coach, and argued with the 
 Legate, who at last said, ' But you should not confound all the 
 French together ; there are some good and some bad.' ' Very 
 well,' said the plebeian orator, ' but you must tell our holy Fa- 
 ther, that unless he sends away all the French, we will dispatch 
 them, and send the good to heaven and the bad to the devil.' 
 
 As soon as -we find Lord Howe, we shall transfer our anxiety 
 and curiosity to Lord Moira. An English captain of a sloop, 
 who was one of the 250 prisoners of ours that were transferred 
 from Diuant to St. Malo before they were sent away to Guernsey, 
 has deposed before our Cabinet that, complaining of the badness 
 of the bread with which they were fed while confined at the 
 latter, the chief of the guard said, ' You are not worse treated 
 than we ourselves,' and showed him a black loaf composed half 
 of sand. 
 
 * Meaning Mr. Jerningham, author of ' The Siege of Berwick.' 
 t Grandmother of the present Earl of Lucnn. 

 
 1793] LAST LETTER TO BKANSBY. 423 
 
 Half an hour after Three. 
 
 I have this moment seen a person who has just been at the 
 Secretary's Office, where they know no more of Lord Howe than 
 the man in the moon, or perhaps not so much, for there they 
 say all Lost things are deposited. So I will go and be dressed, 
 and you must satisfy yourself with being sure that you know 
 as much as all London. Adieu ! 
 
 [Berkeley Square, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 1793. 
 
 I begin my last letter to Bransby that I may have it ready to 
 send away the moment I shall have anything worth telling. 
 What is become of Lord Howe and Co. you may guess if you 
 please, as everybody is doing. 
 
 I am weary of conjectures, 
 
 but shall not end them like Cato, because I take the fate of a 
 whole fleet a little more likely to come to a solution than doubts 
 in metaphysics ; and if Lord Howe should at last bring home 
 two or three French men-of-war, one would not be out of the 
 way to receive them. In the mean time let us chat as if the 
 destiny of half Europe were not at this moment in agitation. 
 
 On Sunday night I found the Comte de Coigni* at Lady 
 Lucan's He was to set out the next morning with Lord Moira's 
 expedition as a common soldier. This sounded decent and 
 well ; but you may guess that he had squeezed a little French- 
 ism into his intention, and had asked for a vessel and some 
 soldiers to attend him. I don't know whether he has conde- 
 scended to go without them. I asked him about his daughter ; f 
 he said he did not believe she is in prison : others say it is the 
 Duchess de Fleury, her mother-in-law. I have been surprised 
 at not seeing or hearing anything of poor Fleury,J but I am 
 told he has been forced to abscond, having narrowly escaped 
 being arrested by a coachmaker to whom he owed 5001. for 
 carriages, which, to be sure, he must have had, or bespoken at 
 Paris before the Eevolution.] 
 
 Just as I had written the above, a ridiculous accident hap- 
 pened. The postman brought me a letter, directed as he thought 
 
 * Younger brother to the Due de Coigni, the Grand Ecuyer of Marie 
 Antoinette, and great uncle to the present Due de Coigni. M.B. 
 t The Duchess de Fleury. 
 \ The Due de Fleury, the Comte de Coigni's son-in-law.
 
 424 LETTEES. [1793 
 
 to me, the predominant feature on which was Berkeley Square, 
 with my name not quite so distinct. I opened, and found an- 
 other within for Lady Orford, so plain as I thought, that tho' 
 my surprise made me look at it again, I still saw nothing but to 
 Lady Orford. You know my extreme stupidity when I have 
 taken anything into my head or my eyes. I had no more doubt 
 of having seen Lady Orford than if I had written those words 
 designedly myself. The next step was to conclude that this was 
 some joke, and that you was the person meant. I tore it open, 
 and tho' in the second line stood Lady Oxford, so strongly had 
 my fancy taken possession of me, that tho' the letter consisted 
 of four sides of congratulations on her ladyship's recent marriage, 
 I could perceive nothing but a dull joke, as I still supposed it, 
 till in the fourth page appeared Lady Oxford in still larger 
 letters than all the rest. I have no excuse for my blunders, but 
 that on both directions the x was so ill marked, or rather only 
 half of it, that it looked on a reinspection more like an r than 
 an a 1 , and being coupled with Berkeley Square, where L d Oxford 
 does not reside, it appeared indubitably designed for me : nor 
 indeed did Lord Oxford, whom I never saw, nor ever heard 
 mentioned, and whose late marriage I think I did see in the 
 papers, but did not in the least recollect, come into my head ; 
 tho' above a year ago something of the same kind happened, 
 when his steward sent me accounts of the races at Hereford : 
 but I am not apt to recollect things and people about whom I 
 don't care a straw ; for you are sensible how much I care, or not 
 at all. I bundled up my blunders with a million of humble 
 excuses to their lordship and ladyship; but I wish the man 
 would have a house in London, or I am very capable of being in 
 the scrape again, as I seldom remember to read a direction, nor 
 can treasure up in mind I don't know who's colts or weddings. 
 
 Sophia came to me just after I had sent my packet to the 
 post. Had she arrived half an hour earlier, would it have been 
 very unlike me to imagine that the letter to Lady Orford was 
 wit of hers, and that she came to see what effect it had ? I am 
 very glad I did not make that mistake too ; I fear I should not 
 have been so indifferent about it. 
 
 [Thursday, noon. 
 
 Yesterday came a letter to the Admiralty from Penzance, 
 notifying that Lord Howe has taken five of the Brest squadron.
 
 1793] MR. JEKNINGHAM'S PLAY. 425 
 
 3 o'clock. 
 
 Another account is come to Mrs. Nugent * from her husband, 
 with the same story of the five captive French men-of-war, and 
 so that reading is admitted ; but for my part, I will admit 
 nothing but under Lord Howe's own hand. It is tiresome to be 
 like the scene in ' Amphitryon,' and cry one minute, ' Obvious, 
 obvious,' and the next, ' Dubious, dubious.' Such fluctuability 
 is fit only for a stockjobber. Adieu ! I must dress and dine, 
 or I shall not be ready to wait on y r grandfather Seton.] 
 
 Wednesday, past 11 at night, Dec. 6, 1793. 
 
 That there may have been such persons as King Arthur, and 
 the Wandering Jew, and Lord Howe and his fleet, I will not 
 take on me to deny ; yet as History is silent on what became of 
 them, I will not easily credit their re-existence. I know I 
 have been told late this evening that signals of a fleet have 
 been seen off Plymouth, supposed to be Lord Howe's ; but as it 
 is also supposed that he had no French captures with him, I 
 don't see why this should be imagined, unless more is known 
 than has come to my knowledge ; and there I must leave this 
 mystery till to-morrow. 
 
 I hope to have a letter from you then with a new direction, 
 for that to Bransby f I trust is obsolete. As no grandmother 
 is any longer an obstacle, I unchain my impatience, which has 
 behaved like an angel, and I shall begin to look for signals from 
 Highgate Hill. 
 
 I went last night to the Charming's tragedy,! and most 
 sincerely found it much superior to my expectation. The lan- 
 guage is very good ; there are pretty similes and allusions, no 
 bombast, nothing low, and the ordonnance well contrived. It 
 seldom languishes, and a scene of generous contention between 
 your two uncles really fine. Mrs. Pope plays admirably, and 
 was extremely applauded; the men do not shine, but the whole 
 was well received, without a single murmur against any part. 
 Y r pretty friend Mrs. Stanhope was in our box, and supped 
 with us afterwards at Mrs. Darner's, charging me to say much 
 for her to you. Well! there have I been twice at the play 
 
 * The wife of Admiral Nugent. M.B. 
 
 f The seat of Francis Cholmeley, Esq., in Yorkshire. M.B. 
 
 \ He means Mr. Jerningham's play, 'The Siege of Berwick.' M.B.
 
 426 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 this week! I confess I felt very comfortably this morning, 
 knowing I was not to go to the play again to-night. I had not 
 the least difficulty in getting in or out at either theatre, nor was 
 fatigued ; but I do not like exhibiting my antiquity in public : 
 it looks as if I forgot it. 
 
 Monday morning. 
 
 I had no letter from you on Saturday as I expected, with 
 directions for a new direction ; and if I receive none to-day, as 
 I begin to fear I shall not, it being past twelve, I shall not 
 venture this till to-morow, not being sure where you are, tho' 
 Mrs. D. risked one on Saturday to York with the newspaper, 
 and I desired her to say I would write to-day. If I do not, it 
 is your fault who promised me a direction. 
 
 This letter, tho' begun three days ago, will clear up no 
 mystery, for no news yet from Lord Howe. All we know is, 
 that he did not get up with the five French ships, for they 
 escaped him and are returned to Brest. You may perhaps ex- 
 pect a little from Lord Moira, the French having had time to 
 guard all the coast, and the Koyalists of La Vendee, tho' they 
 have twice again very lately beaten the Republicans, being 
 retired to the Loire. Not a tittle do I know of other news of 
 foreign or home consumption. 
 
 Past one. 
 
 I this moment receive the double letter from Dear Both 
 but suppose I shall be able to say little to it, tho' its Doublicity 
 (for I had rather forge a word than use one so repugnant to our 
 triple veracity as Duplicity) makes it twice as welcome as its 
 predecessors ; but it is the hour when my coifee-house generally 
 opens, and I expect to be interrupted, and have heard nothing 
 to add within this half hoiir. My Agnes's letter is exactly like 
 her modesty about her own drawings, always depreciating herself; 
 but I am not blind to the merit of her pencil or pen, as I was 
 to the letter for Lady Oxford, who I am told is not yet so. 
 Had I known the marriage not yet solemnized, I should have 
 been still more persuaded that it was levelled at one of you. 
 
 You bid me direct to the post office at York. Hark I some- 
 body knocks ! It was the Duchess of Gloucester,* and she has 
 staid so late, I must hurry and finish, only that I cannot forget 
 
 * His niece, one of the daughters of his brother, Sir Edward Walpole.
 
 1793] LORD HOWE. 427 
 
 what it is so important to me to ask you bid me direct to 
 York till I direct my coachman to Audley Street. Why ? are 
 you to arrive in a balloon ! are you to stop no where ? You 
 tell me to expect you on Wednesday or Thursday sevennight ; 
 but there is no date to Agnes's or your half of the double letter, 
 which I conclude was written on Saturday, but by not mention- 
 ing on what day you are to set out, nor how long you propose 
 being on the road, can I guess how long I may direct to York ? 
 I am to sup in Sackville Street * to-night, and will learn, if I 
 can, greater certainty. Well, the middle or end of next week 
 (for I will allow for accidental delays) will I trust put an end 
 to difficulties of correspondence, and to correspondence by 
 letters. Adieu ! 
 
 [Dec. 13, 1793. 
 
 You will not wonder at my dullness about the time of y r 
 setting out, and of the gites you are to make on the road ; you 
 are used to my fits of incomprehension; and, as is natural at 
 my age, I believe they increase. If I believed Lord Howe's 
 success too rapidly, you have seen by all the newspapers that 
 both the Ministers and the public were equally credulous from 
 the collateral channels that imported such assertions. Well ! 
 if you have been disappointed of capturing five or six French 
 men-of-war, you must at present stay y r appetite by some 
 handsome slices of St. Domingo, and by plentiful goblets of 
 French blood shed by the Duke of Brunswick, which we firmly 
 believe, tho' the official intelligence was not arrived last night 
 (Thursday). His Highness, who has been so serene for above 
 a year, seems to have waked to some purpose ; and, which is 
 not less propitious, his victory indicates that his principal, the 
 King of Prussia, has added no more French jewels to his regalia. 
 I shall like to heat the National Convention accuse him of being 
 bribed by a contrary Pitt's diamond.] 
 
 If you have seen in the papers the relation of Lady Wallace's 
 brutality to Lady Dashwood, you know how well qualified she 
 was to be an advocate for Durnourier : at Paris she might have 
 been aide-de-camp to Mile. Theroign. Are such furies of the 
 same species, of the same sex with the unparalleled Marie 
 Antoinette ? 
 
 [I have a card from the Margravine to sup at Hammersmith 
 
 * Where Mrs. Darner then lived.
 
 428 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 on Tuesday, whither I shall certainly not go. Do you think, 
 if the whole circle of Princes in Westphalia were to ask me for 
 next Thursday evening* that I would accept the invitation ?] 
 
 You will wonder perhaps that I have tumbled to tittle-tattle, 
 and not dropped a syllable on Lord Moira and Toulon : in fact 
 I know nothing positive about either am very sanguine about 
 neither. My hopes are that the Convention will be distracted, 
 and not know which of their armies they may venture to di- 
 minish to support the most urgent. 
 
 [Saturday, Dec. 14, 1793. 
 
 I am not going to dis-laurel the Duke of Brunswick, but not 
 a sprig is yet come in confirmation. Military critics even con- 
 jecture, by the journals from Manheim and Francfort, that the 
 German victories have not been much more than repulses of 
 the French, and have been bought dearly. I confess my best 
 hopes are from the Factions at Paris if the gangrene does not 
 gain the core, how calculate the duration ? One wonders now 
 that France, in its totality, was not more fatal to Europe than 
 even it was. Is not it astonishing that after five years of such 
 havoc, such emigrations, expulsions, massacres, annihilation of 
 commerce, evanition of specie, and real or impending famine, 
 they can still furnish and support armies against us and the 
 Austrians in Flanders, against the Duke of Brunswick and 
 Wurmser, against us at Toulon, against the King of Sardinia, 
 against Spain, against the Eoyalists in La Vendee, and along the 
 coast, against our expedition under Lord Moira; and tho' we 
 have got fifteen of their men-of-war at Toulon, they have six- 
 teen or more at Brest, and are still impertinent with a fry of 
 privateers. Consider too that all this spirit is kept up by the 
 most extravagant lies, delusions, rodomontade; by the extir- 
 pation of the usual root of enthusiasm, religion, and by the 
 terror of murder, that ought to revolt all mankind. If such a 
 system of destruction does not destroy itself, there is an end of 
 that ignis fatuus; human reason and French policy must 
 govern, or exterminate mankind. 
 
 I this moment received your Thursday's note, and with those 
 sweet words ' You need not leave a card, we shall be at home.' 
 I do not believe I shall send you an excuse. 
 
 * The evening the Miss Berrys were to arrive.
 
 1793] LORD ORFORD'S LINES TO MISS BERRY. 429 
 
 The Marshal (Conway) has stepped in to tell me he has just 
 met his nephew L d Yarmouth, who has received a letter from a 
 foreign Minister at Manheim, who asserts all the D. of Bruns- 
 wick's victories and the destruction or dispersion of the French 
 army in that quarter. The Earl maintains that the King of 
 Prussia's politics are totally changed to the right, and that 18,000 
 more of his troops have joined the Allies. I should like to 
 know and to have the Convention know that the murder of the 
 Queen of France has operated this revulsion. . . . 
 
 There ! there end my volumes to my great satisfaction ! If 
 we are to have any bonfires or illuminations, you will be here 
 to light them yourselves. Adieu to Yorkshire !] 
 
 P.S. As I was going to fold my letter, Lord Derby and 
 Miss Farren came in : from good breeding I was dumb on 
 politics ; at last, she asked me if any news ? I said coolly, as if 
 relating some trifle, ' The D. of Brunswick has totally dispersed 
 the French army.' The Earl's circular face became oblong. I 
 added with the same composure, ' and the King of Prussia has 
 taken his part decidedly.' The Earl said, 1 1 suppose he is well 
 paid for it.' And then to comfort himself, added, ' Macbride 
 says L d Moira must return,' which I do not believe. 
 
 In the month of December this active correspondence 
 closed between Lord Orford and the Miss Berrys ; and the 
 following lines, signed ' 0,' though not dated, were pro- 
 bably addressed to his pen on this occasion : 
 
 TO 
 
 MY PEN, 
 
 ON THE CESSATION OF OTJR CORRESPONDENCE BY HER RETURN. 
 
 I. Here rest thou, faithful servant of my heart ! 
 
 With thanks I quit thee, though rejoic'd to part. 
 Thou kind one, hast a tongue to absence lent, 
 And almost chear'd regret into content, 
 For while each thought of mine thou hast conveyed, 
 A pen still kinder has each note repaid ; 
 And thus, while distance urg'd its tyrant laws, 
 Our converse scarce appeared to feel a 'pause; 
 Yet now thy freedom I with joy restore, 
 And thy fond service hope to ask no more. 
 To Miss B. 0.
 
 430 LETTERS. [1793 
 
 The lines addressed to one of Miss Berry's own pens, 
 by Mr. Edward Jerningham,* may properly be here intro- 
 duced, though written on new year's day. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN BY ONE OF HER OWN PENS. 
 
 TO MISS BEKKT. 
 
 Though wit's bright sun your sportful thoughts display, 
 And through your converse dart a dazzling ray ! 
 Yet still we praise thy magic's softer pow'r 
 When easy friendship smooths the social hour ! 
 When o'er another's pain you pour the balm, 
 And round your bow'r diffuse a heartfelt calm ! 
 Thus in your summer mind at once are seen 
 Italia's skies and Albion's soothing green ! 
 
 Jan. 1, 1793. 
 
 * Edward Jerningham, so often alluded to as 'the charming man,' was 
 born 1727, of a Roman Catholic family. He was educated at Douay and at 
 Paris. His first work was the poem in favour of the Magdalen Hospital ; 
 his best was the ' Rise and Progress of Scandinavian Poetry.' A collection 
 of his poetical dramas was published in 1806. Died 1812. He lived in 
 intimacy with the most distinguished literary men of his times. Imperial 
 Dictionary of Universal Biography.
 
 1794] LETTER FROM LORD ORFORD. 431 
 
 LETTERS. 
 1794. 
 
 Miss BERRY'S entry for this year is 'Agnes went to 
 Cheltenham with Mrs. Lockhart. We were a month at 
 Prospect House, Isle of Thanet.' 
 
 The correspondence with Lord Orford continued fre- 
 quent as ever, when, by his removal to London, or by 
 their excursions elsewhere, the inmates of Strawberry 
 Hill and its little appendage were separated. The first 
 of these epistles is dated April 16th.* The two next are 
 as follows : 
 
 April 21, 1794. 
 
 You are most kind indeed in offering to come to town for 
 me, but you certainly shall not. I will not inveigle you from 
 Cliveden when the verdure, blossoms, and weather are in per- 
 fection. In this country we should always take summer by 
 its forelock, tho' it may claim its waiting, like the groom of 
 the stole, out of the regular course. We may have no more 
 sunshine before our faithfull October. I can force myself to 
 go out in an evening if I will. I was at Mrs. Darner's last night, 
 and staid till they went to supper, and was not fatigued. 
 There were her parents, the House of Argyll, the Greatheads, 
 Mrs. Hervey, and the Charming Man and not a spoonfull of 
 news. To-day I have seen nobody yet, but it is only one 
 o'clock, and I have been airing in my coach as far as 
 Fulham. 
 
 I have found on my table a rhapsody in verse on my re- 
 covery, so extravagant that, added to the post-mark Isleworth, 
 it can come from no mortal but our neighbour whose Cupid 
 from the top of his gazebo was drowned. I must give you a 
 slight sketch : Science begs Jove to spare my life ; Jove is very 
 
 * Published in 1846.
 
 432 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 willing ; but not being so omnipotent as Science and you perhaps 
 imagined, he calls for his household gods, his Lares ; and who 
 do you think they were ? why Chiron and Esculapius, and 
 Hermes (it is lucky for my reputation, as Mr. Courtney talks 
 of the fire of my old age, that he did not call Mercury) ! The 
 Trinity of Lares herbalize the plains of Thessaly, but find no 
 plants good against gout. 
 
 So, while such pagan efforts fruitless prove, 
 The God of Mercy pities feeble Jove. 
 
 I am really ashamed to transcribe such abominable nonsense. 
 The conclusion is as absurd, but not so entertaining ; it says, I 
 
 Each theologic sect can calmly view, 
 And, uncorrupted, relish but the true, &c. 
 
 It is refreshing to read Mr. Courtney's satire after such flattery. 
 Marshal Conway came in as 
 
 My bane and antidote were both before ine ; 
 
 I showed him both, and he would have had a copy of the 
 panegyric, as perfect in its kind,, but I thought it not fair to 
 expose my poet laureat farther. The Marshal bids me tell 
 you that however proud you may be of your nightingales, 
 they have as large a colony at Park Place. He brought me 
 the complete conquest of Martinico, with the capture of an 
 hundred merchantmen and other vessels, and an enormous 
 quantity of stores. 
 
 There I I shall wait for nothing more. I think I send you 
 enough, as my Advertiser is daily. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, May Day, 1794. 
 
 I will come out of town ten times to my going thither once 
 (as a tutor at Cambridge said to his pupils, scolding them for 
 leaving their chambers and studies so often, and going out of 
 college), if it brings such good luck and good news. Yesterday, 
 as I got into my coach, I received the extraordinary gazette, 
 without a mouthful of success, and a miscarriage of half the 
 victory by the non-arrival of General Mansel, who at last, poor 
 man ! I find came too soon for himself. At night, John had 
 been in Twickenham, and heard that a courier galloped thro' 
 the village as fast as he could considering that he was loaded
 
 1794] LETTER TO MISS AGNES BEEKY. 433 
 
 with a stack of laurels that he was carrying to the Duchess of 
 York to make bonfires at Oatlands. I knew not for what, till 
 on my breakfast table just now I found y r welcome letter, and 
 another from Marshal Conway confirming the great victory, the 
 prodigious number of cannon taken, our small loss, and the 
 capture of the French general as fortunate for him as Mansel 
 was unlucky, for the Jacobin commander would certainly have 
 been guillotined. As their attack was meant to save the town, 
 I conclude Lendrecies will be as Mrs. Piozzi calls everything 
 that is not so, the exergue of our victory. As I have bushels of 
 may tho' no milkmaids as you are not at Cliveden, I shall make 
 a garland for myself; and as I cannot yet dance, I shall sit and 
 hear the nightingale sing its country dance, as I did last night. 
 
 The Abbe Nichols is in favour with me for carrying the good 
 news to you. Did he not seem quite an emigre, hoping he 
 should soon be restored to his chanoinie at Paris ? I shall not 
 carry my congratulations to the water-side here. I believe Lally 
 is already restored to more than he -ever had. 
 
 I shall be glad to hear what you have learnt of Mr. Gibbon's 
 MSS. ; but that will not be before Saturday. Tho' the verdure 
 is not brilliant from want of rain, I do not think of returning 
 sooner. That evening, I conclude, you will go to hear the 
 Banti but perhaps you may call for a moment. I am so de- 
 lighted with being here again, that I do not like to lessen my 
 term. Adieu ! 
 
 That of July 31st is addressed to Miss Agnes, then 
 on a visit to Cheltenham. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, July 31, 1794. 
 
 The longer I know you, my sweet Agnes, the more I find new 
 reasons for loving you, as I do most cordially. You threatened 
 not to write, and I have already received a charming letter from 
 you ; and now, as you never disimprove, I am confident you will 
 let me hear from you sometimes, tho- 1 will not be exacting, nor 
 expect you to do what you do not love, especially as I shall hear 
 accounts of you from Mary ; for you cannot help writing to one 
 you have constantly talked to ever since you was born. What 
 I shall most and earnestly wish to hear is, that you mend fast 
 and then I shall not regret your absence. 
 
 Y r father and sister arrived soon after seven yesterday even- 
 
 VOL. I. F P
 
 434 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 ing. I did not expect them so soon, concluding they would be 
 pressed to stay longer at Park Place, and would be frail. They 
 have, found the alterations to the house advanced rapidly but 
 those details I shall leave to Mary. 
 
 I am quite happy with the favorable account you received of 
 dear grandmama. I have received no letters for either of you 
 since, but yours for Mary to-day. Nor have I a tittle to tell 
 you, but that I dined with Lady Cecilia at Hampton on Tuesday, 
 with Mesdames Wray and Jefferies and the Wheelers, who re- 
 turned to Eichmond by 8 o'clock in dread of Lady Bute's foot- 
 pads, who have scared the whole neighbourhood. In the evening- 
 came a whole cacklehood from the Palace. 
 
 Y r sister is as much delighted with Oxford as I expected she 
 would be, struck with profound respect for Blenheim as was fit, 
 but not a quarter so delighted with Nuneham as I am and she 
 forgot to ask to see the room with my tapestry. 
 
 I am glad you are comfortably lodged, and don't much lament 
 your want of prospect. You will return with the more satis- 
 faction to Cliveden. 
 
 Your pussy is enchanting. With all the graces of her kind, 
 she has all the sense of a dog. She literally comes when I call 
 her, tho' above stairs, follows me wherever I go without being- 
 called, and meets me when I come home. Still I shall wean 
 myself from her, as it is time for me to do from everything, if 
 I can, but shall not restore her till you are resettled at least, 
 not till the workmen are out of your house. 
 
 I know nothing from the Continent, but that armies retire 
 before the infernals, and that there has been a new butchery at 
 Paris, in which, amongst more than 40, the Princess d'Hennin's 
 husband has lost his head but I will say no more of those 
 horrors ; I wish I could help thinking on them ! 
 
 Y r sister will tell you, with truth, that I am quite well, and 
 enjoy this immortal summer, tho' we have lost all verdure and 
 a great many leaves. We have had some hours of rain on 
 Sunday, but it made no impression on the turf. 
 
 My duty to my silent humble relation, and my love to her 
 really good daughter, tho' I don't insist on your delivering 
 either. I say nothing as a conclusion from myself, for I trust 
 all my actions and all my letters tell you how much I am 
 
 Y r S 
 
 0.
 
 1794] MR. AND MRS. GREATHEAD. 435 
 
 Iii September, the Miss Berrys took up their residence 
 at Prospect House, near Broadstairs. Miss Berry's first 
 letter from thence to Mrs. Darner alludes to their meeting 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Greathead* (of Guy's Cliff, Warwick- 
 shire), of whom she often makes mention in subsequent 
 letters and journals, and whose friendship she so highly 
 valued through life. 
 
 From Miss Berry to a Friend. 
 
 Prospect House, Sept. 1, 1794. 
 
 What jolly souls, as you truly say, are the Grreatheads ! We 
 dined with them yesterday with such an Irish, vulgar, acting 
 Capt. Ashe ! who we are to see act f Hamlet,' at the Margate 
 Theatre on Tuesday next. Such singing, such wit, such laugh- 
 ter, and they, good-humoured creatures, so enjoying it ! But 
 do not pity me and suppose that I did otherwise. When I am 
 neither morally nor physically unwell, as few people observe 
 more, so nobody can be more entertained with this sort of acci- 
 dental society marked with any character of any kind. It is 
 all food for my mind, and while I can have the blessing of being 
 able to digest that food, with one or two kindred souls, whose 
 perfections it enables me the more truly to appreciate, and the 
 more highly to value, I trust I shall never lose my taste for it. 
 
 The first letters preserved from Lord Orford to the 
 Miss Berrys of the month of September are of the 21st 
 and 24th. 
 
 Sunday, Sept. 21, 1794. 
 
 I begin my Journal to-day, tho' only the eve of its departure, 
 and tho' I have nothing new to tell you from Europe or from 
 Strawberry-hill, but much from the circumambient district, for 
 the marauders have begun their courses again. A young Mr. 
 Digby, who lodges in Twickenham near Mrs. Duane, was, with 
 another gentleman in a post-chaise robbed at one o'clock at 
 noon by two footpads on the heath just beyond Whitton. The 
 son of the maltster here by the post-house, ditto robbed by 
 
 * Mr. Berry appears to have been on terms of intimacy with Mr. Great- 
 head as far back as 1790, when he writes to him from Florence. 
 F F 2
 
 436 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 ditto; but, on inquiry, this happened at Kennington Com- 
 mon, where they are more apt to be hanged than to rob 
 however, I shall grow uneasy when you return. 
 
 My nieces the Lisles and Miss Hotham dined here yesterday, 
 as you knew they were to do, and I had judged well, for the 
 last saved me all expence in conversation. At night I went to 
 Lady Onslow's, at Kichmond, and came back unrobbed. There 
 I found the elder, not Agnes's, Darrel who was very civil about 
 her, but, unlike his brother, was much more struck with her 
 companion, whom he took for her aunt, and thought extremely 
 agreeable. I cannot say I ever was of his opinion, was I ? 
 even before she spoiled our meeting at Park Place. 
 
 Ten at night. 
 
 Yesterday was most tempestuously windy, but to-day has been 
 warm and fine, and I trust you have had a pleasant journey. 
 Tell me how you like your new habitation, and if you find it 
 comfortable ; but do not go and prefer the ocean to the poor 
 Thames ! 
 
 Maugre banditti, I have been at Lady Bute's door this even- 
 ing, but she was not well enough to see me ; and I returned with 
 my purse and watch in my pocket. Since that I have been 
 sitting with the Doyleys and there must end my letter, for I 
 shall certainly .hear nothing to-morrow before the post goes out, 
 and only write now in husbandly obedience, as I will again, as 
 soon as I know anything that will give body to a paragraph. 
 
 I beg of you both to return revived and looking as fresh as 
 Agnes did from Cheltenham, and then I shall not lament my 
 involuntary widowhood, for I do not wish, as Lady Wish fort 
 says, for any iteration of nuptials, nor to have an opportunity of 
 expressing myself like a tender husband of whom I have just 
 been reading in Lysons, who set up as a tomb for his wife with 
 this epitaph, * Joan le Feme Thomas de Frowicke gist iqy, et le 
 dit Thomas pense de giser aveque luy.' You see folks were not 
 so delicate in that age as we are, tho' to sleep with the departed 
 would have been even a more scriptural phrase, and more in the 
 style of our good ancestors, qui n'entendoient pas raillerie en 
 tout, as the French have done of late years. Good night, sans 
 raillerie, le feme Marie and le feme Agnes, &c. 
 
 HORACE DE OXFORD.
 
 1794] SUCCESSES OF THE FRENCH. 437 
 
 Monday morning. 
 
 In the new edition of the History of Highwaymen, for Mr. 
 Digby & Co., * Kobbed in a post-chaise by two footpads ; ' read, 
 * Robbed as he was walking alone on the heath by two high- 
 waymen.' As truth lies at the bottom of a well, the first who 
 dips for her seldom lets the bucket down low enough. 
 
 Wedn., Sept. 24, 1794, near one. 
 
 I have received y r long letter from Prospect -house and thank 
 you most kindly for it, but cannot answer it now, for the 
 Clmrchills are here in the room while I write ; it has rained 
 heavily ever since breakfast, and they can neither go out in their 
 chaise which they had ordered, nor into the garden ; and just as 
 I was going to begin my letter, the newspaper came in, and he 
 has been reading it aloud to us paragraph by paragraph, half 
 of which are full of bad news of retreats of our army, of the 
 capture of our Mediterranean fleet by the French, and, what I 
 think as bad as anything for Europe, of the King of Prussia 
 having been forced to raise the siege of Warsaw. Before I 
 could digest half this, he came to a sale of milch cows I don't 
 mean the King of Prussia, nor that we are again one of his 
 milch cows ; but Mr. Churchill, who wants some for Lewisham, 
 and has been reading of them to his wife, till I have not a clear 
 idea left, but about y r bad post-horses, and y r liking y r new 
 residence, at which I rejoice. Canterbury I know by heart. It 
 was the chief fund of my chimney-pieces and other morsels. 
 The tomb of the Black Prince I have no doubt being of the 
 time ; his father's and mother's figures in the Abbey are also 
 bronze and well executed, and the first posterior to his son's, as 
 also that of Eichard Ilnd and of Henry IVth, that you saw at 
 Canterbury. By St. Austin's gate I constantly passed as I went 
 to Mr. Barrett's, and admired as you do so justly. 
 
 Horace Churchill dined and supped with us yesterday. This 
 evening we shall go to the Doyleys, so I shall not have a moment 
 to myself to do what I like best writing to you. My kin leave 
 me to-morrow, and the Marshal, who has been in town to embark 
 some more of his men for Holland to make a better mouthful 
 for the French, is to come to me till next morning, and on 
 Friday I shall go to town myself to receive my money, so I 
 know not when I shall be able to write before Saturday or
 
 438 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 Sunday and oh ! alas ! here is Mrs. Wheeler and her sister, 
 and I must finish, assuring you I am perfectly well, as I hope 
 you both are. Adieu ! 
 
 In his letter of the 27th, he adverts to that constant 
 theme of his advancing age the fear of being too ex- 
 acting in his wonted tone of half melancholy, half 
 pleasantry. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, Saturday night, 1794. 
 
 I am now alone, having reserved this evening to answer your 
 long and Agnes's short letters, but in this single one to both, 
 for I have not matter enough for a separate maintenance. 
 
 I went yesterday evening to Mrs. Damer, and had a glimpse 
 of her new house literally a glimpse, for I saw but one room 
 on the first floor, where she had lighted a fire, that I might not 
 mount two flights ; and as it was eight o'clock, and quite dark, 
 she only opened a door or two, and gave me a cat's eye view 
 into them. One blemish I had descried at first the house has 
 a corner arrival like her father's. Ah me ! who do not love to 
 be led thro' the public ! I did see the new bust of Mrs. Siddons, 
 and a very mistressly performance it is indeed.] 
 
 Apropos, Miss Farren is missing. She is known to have 
 landed last Sunday not a word from her since, which makes 
 one ay, and two fear that she is ill on the road. Were it 
 her mother, she herself would have written. 
 
 From Mrs. D. I went to my sister's, where I found Sophia, 
 Lady Englefield, Mrs. and Miss Egerton, and Mr. Falkener. 
 Played cribbage with them, and sat by while they supped. This 
 is not only the whole of my private history, but of the world's 
 too, as far as it has informed me, except that Lord Southampton 
 does not go to fetch the future Princess of Wales, precedents 
 having sworn that by their books, it is clear that it must be her 
 chamberlain, tho' she has none before she is she ; and he, they 
 say, is to be Lord Pembroke a very good choice. Lady 
 Worcester, Lady Weymouth, and Lady Parker are kissing the 
 public's hand for the bedchamber, and the two first will probably 
 kiss tout de bon of the third's chance I know nothing. 
 
 [Mrs. D. was surprised at my saying I should expect you after 
 another week. She said you had not talked of returning near 
 so soon. I did not mention this as if to gainsay your intention,
 
 1794] LETTER TO THE MISS BERRYS. 439 
 
 on the contrary, I hope and beg you will stay as long as either 
 of you thinks she finds the least benefit from it and after that 
 too, as long as you both like to stay. . . . It is natural for 
 me to delight in your company, but I do not even wish for it 
 if it lays you under any restraint. I have lived a thousand 
 years to little purpose if I have not learnt that half a century 
 more than the age of one's friends is not an agrement de 
 plus."] 
 
 Tho' I should not doctrinate myself with these wholesome 
 reflections, as I think you will do me the justice to own I am 
 frequently doing, (tho' perhaps I may not practise all I preach 
 to myself,) still I should not want monitors, who ever and 
 again cry 
 
 Poor Anacreon, thou'rt grown old ! 
 
 I was diverted a few days ago with a paragraph in the True 
 Briton, which, supposing that the Prince is to reside at Hampton 
 Court, said that as there is a theatre and a tennis court in the 
 Palace, Twickenham will not want a succession of company 
 even when the venerable Earl of Orford shall be no more. I 
 little thought I was as attractive as a theatre or a tennis court, 
 or served in lieu of them. Pray, Lady Leah and Lady Kachel, 
 venerate y r Methusalem ! 
 
 What an odd creature Mr. Ehymer is ! I am glad he did 
 not propose again that his Dollyhymnia should dine with 
 you too. 
 
 I wish you had seen Canterbury some years ago, before they 
 whitewashed it; for it is so coarsely daubed, and thence the 
 gloom is so totally destroyed, and so few tombs remain for so 
 vast a mass, that I was shocked at the nudity of the whole. 
 
 [Sunday night, 28. 
 
 I have received another letter from dear Mary of the 26 th , 
 and here is one for sweet Agnes inclosed. By her account of 
 Broadstairs, I thought you at the North Pole ; but if you are, 
 the whales must be metamorphosed into gigs and whiskies, or 
 split into them, as heathen gods would have done, or Eich the 
 harlequin. You talk of Margate, but say nothing of Kings- 
 gate, where Charles Fox's father scattered buildings of all sorts,
 
 440 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 but in no style of architecture that ever appeared before or has 
 since, and with no connection with or to one another; and 
 in all directions ; and yet the oddity and number made that 
 naked tho' fertile soil smile and look cheerful.] Do you 
 remember Gray's bitter lines on him, and his vagaries and 
 history ? 
 
 [I wish on your return, if in good weather, you would contrive 
 to visit Mr. Barrett's, at Lee ; it is but four miles from Canter- 
 bury. You will see a child of Strawberry prettier than the 
 parent, and so executed and so finished ! There is a delicious 
 closet too, so nattering to me ! and a prior's library so antique, 
 and that does such honour to Mr. Wyat's taste ! Mr. Barrett, 
 I am sure, would be happy to show his house to you ; and I 
 know if you tell him that I beg it, he will produce the portrait 
 of Anne of Cleves by Holbein, in the identic ivory box turned, 
 like a Provence rose, as it was brought over for Henry 8 th . It 
 will be a great favour, and it must be a fine day, for it lives in 
 cotton and clover, and he justly dreads exposing it to any damp. 
 He has some other good pictures, and the whole place is very 
 pretty, tho' retired. 
 
 The Sunday's paper announces a dismal defeat of Clairfait 
 and now, if true, no doubt the French will drive the Duke of 
 York into Holland, and then into the sea ! ora pro nobis ! ] 
 
 The following letter from Miss Berry bears the same 
 date as the preceding one from Lord Orford. The same 
 paragraph in the newspaper respecting the Prince of 
 Wales seems to have equally amused Lord Orford and 
 his correspondent. 
 
 Prospect House, Sunday night, Sept 28, 1794. 
 
 I did not suppose that the Prince of Wales was likely to be- 
 come your successor in anything, till the newspapers told me so. 
 The enclosed paragraph, which we cut out of the Tinnes the 
 other day, amused us all not a little. 
 
 The storm has at last ceased here, and we have seen one fine 
 calm day, which, I assure you, appears to great advantage on 
 our boundless prospect. We were at Eamsgate in the morning, 
 which is, of all the gates in this neighbourhood, by far the 
 prettiest, I think; and since dinner have walked to one of
 
 1794] LETTER FROM MISS BERRY. 441 
 
 Lord Holland's strange, would-be Grothick buildings at Kings- 
 gate. We are so far both from the two metropolises of Margate 
 and Ramsgate, that having as yet had no inducement strong- 
 enough to take- us out three miles in cold dark nights, we have 
 spent every evening at home and alone, except last night, when 
 we dined at Broadstairs, our nearest town, with a Scotch Lord 
 and L y Balgonie, people who we never visited before ; but as 
 they belong to the county in Scotland to which we ought to 
 have belonged, and have been very civil to us, we wished to be 
 the same. Your favourite, L d Galloway, was one of the party, 
 and I have got a headache to-day by dancing Scotch reels with 
 him and one of his daughters. Mr. Parsons, that high priest of 
 ennui, is in this part of the world ; and I meet every day 
 hundreds of other faces that I know, in our airings of a 
 morning; but we are so penitus toto divisos orbe, at this 
 North Foreland, that they can none of them trouble us. Mrs. 
 Fitzherbert is at Margate driving away sorrow in a phaeton 
 and four, and the Dss. of Rutland at Ramsgate, being driven 
 after by a man of the name of Devisme, or Devel, who, with- 
 out knowing her, professes the most ardent passion for her, 
 and literally follows her wherever she goes. His carriage is 
 always at the tail of hers ; when she stops, he stops, and when 
 she goes on, he pursues. You may guess what a noise a cir- 
 cumstance of this sort must make in a place like this, where the 
 man, who seems to be not at all known, has acquired the name 
 of Mcdvolio. 
 
 There was a report yesterday in Margate of a great defeat of 
 Clairfait ; but as Mrs. Darner says not a word of it in her 
 letter of to-day, I trust it is not true. Our situation in 
 Flanders needs not this, I fear, to make it worse than it is. 
 How Holland is now to be saved I do not see ; and how we are 
 to be safe when it is gone, I as little see; and how and why 
 the D. of York stays to have half his army destroyed, and the 
 other half driven home, I still less see. I will not ask you to 
 answer as many questions as the Marshal. But do put on your 
 spectacles, and if you see anything good that I don't see, 
 candidus imperti. If you were in the Isle of Thanet, you 
 would never guess that anybody ever looked that way, or 
 suspect that we were in the midst of a war such as Europe 
 never saw before. Here everybody is riding and driving, and
 
 442 LETTEES. [1794 
 
 phaetoning and curricling away at such a rate, as always 
 recalls to my mind the odd but clever phrase of your friend, 
 George Montague 'Well, I am glad I have such rich re- 
 lations.' 
 
 We can have no letters from you now till Tuesday, nor did 
 I indeed expect them, as you mentioned being in town on Friday 
 night. However, I shall send you this to-morrow, as I hope 
 you will be wanting to hear from us. 
 
 Monday morning. 
 
 And the finest morning that ever was seen a bright sun, 
 calm air, and smooth sea ; we mean to be out as much as pos- 
 sible to enjoy it Farewell, and let us hear from you very soon. 
 Agnes has just brought this great bumbling letter, which obliges 
 me to a great waste of paper. She requests you to direct and 
 forward it. 
 
 From Lord Orford. 
 
 Sept. 29, 1794, 3 o'clock. 
 Codicil to my letter of this morning. 
 
 Yes, it is very true the plot, and it is not true, at least not 
 known yet, that Clairfait has been so thoroughly defeated, tho' 
 forced to retreat ; and it is not true that Lord Cholmondeley is at 
 Cowes, for he was in this room at one o'clock, and confirms the 
 truth of the intended assassination of the King by a poisoned 
 arrow thro' a reed, and it was to have been on the Terrace at 
 Windsor yesterday se'nnight, but the arrow was not ready so 
 you see murder is not dead with Robespierre. The Duchess of 
 Gloster has been here till this moment, and my letter must wait 
 till to-morrow, for the post is gone. 
 
 L d Cholmondeley came to acquaint me that the Prince of 
 Wales had sent an express for him, and told him, that being on 
 the brink of marriage, he should set him and Lady Cholm. at 
 the head of his family ; and as yet had named nobody else so 
 perhaps my report of L d Pembroke is not true. The D M says 
 L d Southampton does go for the Princess I tell you what I 
 hear, but answer for nothing ; I have no more right to know 
 truth than the rest of the world, who do not care a straw whether 
 what they tell be truth or not. L d Cholm. heard yesterday from 
 Townshend, the factotum of the police, that he himself seized
 
 1794] PLOT TO SHOOT THE KING. 443 
 
 the two assassins of the Old Man of the Mountain, and is in 
 chace after a third ; and the D ss had heard of the plot too. For 
 example, everybody has affirmed for this last week that the 
 King is building a superb palace at Kew, and has begun pulling 
 down houses reduced to a simple fact, a couple of rooms are 
 erecting there for Prince Ernest. 
 
 L d Cholm. told me what touches me much more ! He once 
 hired Prospect House, and says it is a single house and the very 
 temple of the winds, and that he once rose out of bed thinking 
 a troop of them were coming to eject him I hope they will 
 give you warning without filing a bill ; and I am afraid to men- 
 tion it lest you should think me impatient to bring you back 
 not in the least go any whither, where you can be safe, but do 
 not be blown into the chops of a French privateer. 
 
 Eeport a mighty newsmonger with whom I deal lavishly 
 when you are absent, but of whom I have a bad opinion, and do 
 not delight to let within my doors at other seasons, informs me 
 that Mr. Douglas, Lady Catherine's husband, is to be Chancellor 
 of Ireland, where there is going to be a prodigious remue-menage, 
 that Lord Mansfield is to be President of the Council here, in 
 the room of the new Viceroy L d Fitzwilliam, and the orator 
 Grattan Chancellor of the Exchequer to the latter. 
 
 Don't you pity Margaret Nicholson ? She came before her 
 time or she might have been entitled to the honours of sepulture 
 with Mirabeau, Marat, and other felons of this consecrating age. 
 Poor woman! She is forgotten but indeed so are Jacques 
 Clement, Ravaillac, and Damien, and even the Convention's ally, 
 Ankerstrom apropos Mrs. Ankerstrom's mother is not returned 
 yet but in truth, she is so gentle, humane, and agreeable, that 
 nobody can part with her her daughter alone is more amiable. 
 
 Eleven at night. 
 
 I have been at Lady Douglas's, where the Mackinsys, Onslows, 
 and everybody agreed in the reality of the plot. The known 
 criminals are three young apprentices, two of whom are in 
 custody. The plan was to raise a riot in the playhouse to occupy 
 attention, and during the confusion, to shoot the King. A 
 watchmaker, who was employed on the fabrication of the dart, 
 discovered the design. I pretend to no further intelligence yet. 
 
 A story of very different complexion is arrived to-day, when 
 Lord Leicester has received a letter from the post office (his new
 
 444 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 bureau) informing him that two Frenchmen have escaped from 
 Dieppe and bring an account of Tallien having proclaimed the 
 young King in Paris not to be credited easily. I send you 
 accounts from commissions of Dyer but you will wait for those 
 of Terminer, which seldom acord. 
 
 The Comte d'Artois is certainly with the Duke of York ; Prince 
 William's letters say so. The Comte de Provence is settled at 
 Venice, and receives a pension from the senate. The Cardinal 
 de Bernis is dead. Dixi. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Oct. 1, 1794. 
 
 My letters are continually giving themselves the lie ; but I 
 have warned you, when I tell you news, to ivait for the echo. 
 This is a favourite proverb with me, but I except Prospect House 
 out of my injunction, for when the wind blows there I beseech 
 you not to wait for the echo, but to descend to the plain. 
 Clairfait has not been defeated from anything we know ; and 
 whether poor young Louis XVII. is alive or not, it is not pro- 
 bable that he has been restored but to raise our Stocks. Mr. 
 Mackinsy observed to me justly, that it was very unlikely that 
 two French royalists should escape from France if royalty was 
 reestablished. 
 
 The assassination plot here is universally believed, and no 
 doubt had deep root. Three young English apprentices were 
 not likely to have had zeal enough of themselves to meditate 
 royal murder. It tells me that our Jacobin Clubs having been 
 checked by the seizure of so many of their instruments, have 
 been working under ground. I wonder what diabolic sacraments 
 they have invented to bind their devotee, since the Pandse- 
 monium has abolished all religion. 
 
 I have received y r Sunday's dispatch, and begin this answer 
 before dinner against to-morrow, lest I should be interrupted 
 then. Where is Lord P., that he leaves the whole coast open 
 to Malvolio ! And so you have Mrs. Fitzherbert ! I suppose 
 our countesses (I don't mean my two, but), especially our latest, 
 are now thinking on, or ordering their robes, since Mrs. F. has 
 waved her claim to Ich Dien, tho' the Catholics, they say, are 
 going to be admitted ad eundem in Ireland. I see Mr. Berry 
 frown hither yet I own I am rather for those who prefer three 
 Gods to none : and I abhor a system of liberty established by 
 guillotines, and daggers, and poisoned arrows. The French have
 
 1794] CHANGE IN FASHIONABLE HOURS. 445 
 
 equalled the horrors of the Inquisition in Peru and Mexico : 
 Atabalipa's bed of roses was momentary in comparison of what 
 Marie Antoinette suffered from the moment she was stopped 
 on her escape and carried back to Versailles. 
 
 I went to Bushy this morning, and not finding Lady Gruilford 
 returned by Cliveden to look after your new plant shed. It is 
 quite finished except glazing, and the garden is as fine as that 
 in Milton's ' Allegro,' and much prettier, tho' not so immortal. 
 
 The Divine is come back ; I shall propitiate her tomorrow by 
 a couple of partridges, as you are not here to accept my roasted 
 offerings. 
 
 Lady Bute I doubt is going. It will be very inconvenient to 
 my Lord Castlecomer, for her house you know was my resource 
 in winter evenings. I have outlived almost all my acquaintance 
 of my own century, or the remainder are grown too young again 
 ever to be in their own houses, unless they expect half the town, 
 and that at midnight. I came into the world when there were 
 such seasons as afternoons and evenings, but the breed is lost ! 
 and if any of them did exist, they would be of no more use than 
 an old almanack. I believe Hannah More herself will soon be 
 obliged to keep saints' nights instead of saints' days. 
 
 Ten at night. 
 
 Well ! well ! well ! and so at last I fib, when I think I am 
 most sure of my veracity ! I have been with the Doyley's, who 
 have had two officers from London with them this morning, who 
 say the plot is now disbelieved in town, and that nothing will be 
 made out no, then 1 am sure the Ministers have acted sillily 
 in publishing it before they were certain of their ground. I have 
 a mind to send you no more news, for what can one believe ? 
 And yet what can I do ? I had rather write what others invent, 
 than be forced to invent myself. Pussy and I have no adventures : 
 now and then a little squabble about biting and scratching, but 
 no more entertaining in a letter than the bickerings between 
 any husband and wife. 
 
 They say (my best authority) that the packet is supposed to 
 be taken, as no mail has arrived for so long a time, and Pichegru 
 may be Stadtholder for ought we know. Good night ! I am 
 disgusted with the falsehoods I have told you, and I am not at 
 all in a humour to add to the number you may as well rely on 
 the daily papers and dispense with me as your gazetteer.
 
 446 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 Thursday morning. 
 
 I have received the thumping letter, sealed with a foreign 
 coronet, which accompanies this for you, sweet Agnes, but not 
 inclosed in it. The True Briton is not arrived, but I have had 
 a note from the Pavilions with a letter to be franked, and as 
 the duchess tells me nothing new, I suppoes there is nothing. 
 
 I cannot tell how y r weather is on Mount Ararat, but my little 
 hill only hops, which I conclude in the Hebrew only means 
 charming, and October but just shows those marks of a green 
 old age that become so beautiful a summer, like that good sort 
 of old men whose oeconomy begins to take a tinge of gold. 
 
 The newspaper is come in, but tells one neither yes nor no on 
 anything that signifies, so my veracity is in no danger. Adieu ! 
 
 The following letter from Miss Berry appears to have 
 been of the same date as Lord Orford's last. 
 
 Prospect House, Wednesday morning, Oct. 1, 1794. 
 In vain you may say ' Begone my cares , I give you to the 
 winds J we shall certainly not be blown away from you, for it has 
 been the finest calm, clear weather for these last three days at 
 the Prospect House, that can be conceived, and the sea is so 
 covered with our vessels, of all sizes, from seventy-fours to 
 fishing-boats, that you have as little chance of getting rid of us 
 by a French privateer ; tho' at this instant, from my window, 
 I can clearly see that hostile coast. I always long to exclaim 
 to it, in the words of Dante 
 
 Francia, Francia, vituperio delle gente ! 
 
 an epithet which may certainly now be applied to it, with more 
 justice, than to the former peccadillos of poor, little, insignifi- 
 cant Pisa, to whom the author addressed it. With a glass I can 
 discern several high buildings near the coast, the situation of a 
 village and a windmill ; and at Ramsgate they say they have 
 seen the tri-coloured flag flying in a camp near Calais. 
 
 With respect to our return, you are exactly as I could wisli 
 you very anxious to get us back, but not at all displeased at 
 our staying a little longer while the good weather lasts. 
 
 L d Cholmondeley, in spite of the bad character he gives the 
 Prospect House, inhabits the next house, within fifty yards of it,
 
 1794] FROM MISS BERRY TO LORD ORFORD. 447 
 
 in just the same exposed position, where he is expected to return 
 to-morrow evening. The little boy, L d Malpas, who has con- 
 tinued here, is as fine a stout, healthy child as you ever saw, and 
 the image of his father. That L d Choi, is to be put at the head 
 of the Prince's family is really news, as everybody has been 
 anxiously making out lists of his household, and L d and L 7 Choi, 
 were in none that I have either made or heard made ; tho' I 
 think them perfectly proper people for such a situation, and 
 only wonder nobody thought of them before. We say at Broad- 
 stairs that L d Sutherland is to go over with L d Southampton to 
 fetch the P ss , in which case, I should suppose, she must be 
 intended to continue in her household. Much as attendance 
 on princes and places at court are laughed at and abused (by 
 those who can't obtain them), so desirable do I think any sort 
 or shadow of occupation for women, that I should think any 
 situation, that did not require constant attendance, a very 
 agreeable thing. 
 
 What a strange business is this plot of assassination ! But I 
 cannot help thinking it will be found never to have gone fur- 
 ther than the mad heads of these three or four poor apprentices, 
 led astray by the nonsensical and pernicious doctrines they hear 
 in their clubs and societies, and pushed on and encouraged by 
 much more profligate villains, who would willingly make use of 
 their feeble arm to create a confusion, which, in some way or 
 other, they suppose (and perhaps too truly) they could turn to 
 account. 
 
 I heartily wish the story f 111 Dieppe might prove true, because 
 I think an obligation for a civil war to call off their troops, is 
 the only thing that can save us and Holland ; and besides, if they 
 must go on filling the world with crimes and carnage, while they 
 are committed among and upon one another they are certainly 
 doing the least possible mischief, and nine times in ten, I am 
 convinced, their punishments will fall on the guilty, let them 
 be inflicted by and on whatsoever party. 
 
 Mr. Douglas has, and dare say will bustle well for himself; 
 whether he can bustle himself into the Chancellorship of Ireland 
 I know not ; but I know he bullied himself into the Secretary- 
 ship, a method, I believe, much oftener successful with Ministers 
 than used by those who deserve to be so. 
 
 Talking of Ireland puts me in mind of poor L y Lynnot, who
 
 448 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 has been so extremely ill that it seems almost settled that she 
 is to come to us for advice and change of air. If she comes, 
 she comes alone, in which case I shall be much mistaken if you do 
 not find her much less disagreeable than you suppose, or at least 
 in no respect the trouble-fete that she appeared to you last year. 
 
 I am sorry that you would, and did, see Mrs. Darner's house 
 before it was ready to be seen, for fear that f seeing nothing 
 well but its only defect (the corner entry), you should take one 
 of your sudden prepossessions, which you say yourself (tho' in 
 all cases I won't allow it) totally deprives you of future judg- 
 ment. 
 
 The Greatheads are returned to Margate, and we are going to 
 dine with them to-morrow. This is our first gaiety, for, except 
 our dinner at Broadstairs, we have spent every evening at home 
 and alone. But the rides and drives here in fine weather are 
 really charming and almost infinite, for the Country, tho' not 
 without trees, is so perfectly open and unfenced and unditched, 
 that one may steer to almost any part of the Island with a com- 
 pass in hand, without meeting the smallest obstacle to turn you 
 half a yard out of your course. The unaccountable colony of 
 buildings at Kingsgate exactly answers your description. Alto- 
 gether they are an ornament to an open country, tho' separately 
 they are one worse than another. But it is really very odd that 
 any man should have had the rage of building so much, and in 
 so many different styles, without ever deviating into any one ever 
 seen before, or worthy to be seen again. Mr. Coutts at present 
 inhabits the large house the Italian Villa as it is called the 
 front of which is in much purer taste than many Italian villas ; 
 but I should think the very large pediment and colonnade not 
 projecting, but sunk into the house, must make it a bad and 
 inconvenient dwelling. If the weather should be fine when we 
 leave this, and we find it compatible with our journeying with 
 our own horses, we will certainly go and see Mn Barrett's, in 
 which case I shall beg you to advertize him of our visit, that we 
 may not be taken as swindlers come to steal his Anne of Cleves, 
 or to see his house under false pretences. 
 
 And now farewell ! I shall leave a corner for my last words 
 to-morrow morning. 
 
 Thursday morning. 
 
 I would not seal my letter till the post came, in case it
 
 1794] LOED ORFORD TO MISS BERRY. 449 
 
 might produce anything to add; but I have nothing but a 
 letter f" 1 Mrs. D., just setting out for Goodwood. Fare-well, then, 
 for the present, and let us hear f you soon, for I like your 
 letters when you have nothing to say, almost better than when 
 you have much. 
 
 It is no small proof of the extraordinary sensitiveness 
 of Lord Orford, both to the welfare and to the possible 
 wishes of Miss Berry, that he should, on expressions so 
 general as those contained in this letter of October 1st, in 
 favour of a situation at court, have been fired with alarm 
 at the idea that she wished for such an occupation for 
 herself or for her sister, and at the same time be long- 
 ing to be the means of gratifying any wish she might 
 entertain. 
 
 Saturday, Oct. 2, 1794. 
 
 I received y r letter of Wednesday but this moment, and not 
 having a tittle of news to tell you, and receiving at the same 
 time one from Mrs. Darner that gives an account of her sister, 
 who is so dear to me, I shall defer replying to yours till I have 
 more to say. I only see that Tallien has been nearer to being 
 treated like a king than to restoring one, and that the Conven- 
 tion and the Jacobin Club are advancing towards a civil war, 
 and much harm may it do to either or to both ! 
 
 I have been writing to Mr. Barrett, but cannot help adding 
 a word on a passage in y r letter, on which I had determined to 
 meditate till to-morrow ; but lest you should think that you can 
 drop a word or hint a wish that does not make an impression 
 on me, I must add a few lines, tho' I have scarce time. To my 
 extreme astonishment you speak with approbation of a place at 
 Court ! Is it possible you should like one ! or can I assist such 
 a wish ! Interest I have none upon earth anywhere, nor if I 
 had, w d condescend to employ it for any one but for you or y r 
 sister. I have been rummaging my head, and can see no glim- 
 mering but one : my telling you of L d Cholm. perhaps led you 
 to think I might try thro' him. For you I would. Maid of 
 honour I can scarce induce myself to believe you w d submit to : 
 bedchamber- woman you may perhaps mean destined they 
 most probably are by this time ; but if you have such a wish, it 
 VOL. I. G G
 
 450 LETTEES. [1794 
 
 shall not fail thro' my neglect. Therefore make me an imme- 
 diate answer, and a direction to him, if you wish I should write 
 to him. 
 
 From Miss Berry. 
 
 Prospect House, Oct. 5, 1794. 
 
 Mr DEAR FRIEND, Your letter, which I have just received, 
 would make me laugh, if your kind affecting attention to my 
 every supposed wish was not much nearer making me cry. 
 
 The sentiments I expressed in my last with respect to places 
 at court, were merely general, and occurred to me from having 
 heard them laughed at and abused by those to whose idleness 
 and insignificance no court could add. Your letter first sug- 
 gested the possibility of their application to ourselves, and at 
 the same time a probable means of success. But as for myself, 
 I feel to belong so entirely to the two or three people in this 
 world in and by whose affection, friendship, and society I alone 
 support a sickly existence, that any situation that in any degree 
 separated me from them, were it that of the Princess herself, 
 instead of that of her attendant, would by me be shunned as a 
 misfortune. As to my sister, I trust I shall see her happily 
 established in a respectable marriage, the best and most de- 
 sirable of all settlements for a young woman. 
 
 I know you are aware, and do me the justice to feel, how 
 little the native pride and independence of my mind has ever, 
 in any circumstances, been swayed by motives of interest, and 
 tliat from principle, and not from any romantic contempt for 
 the goods of this world, or of ignorant insensibility to their 
 advantages. You cannot wonder, therefore, that I should 
 sometimes cast an anxious thought towards the possibility of 
 my sister's feeling, in more advanced life, the evils of a narrow 
 fortune, to the thoughts of which it is not without effort that I 
 have accustomed myself. I am writing in a hurry for the post 
 of to-day, but I think I have said enough to convince you how 
 exactly my sentiments are your own on this subject. I wish I 
 had said or could say enough to satisfy my own heart with 
 respect to you to your offering that interest which I know 
 you not only never prostituted to power, but never condescended 
 to employ, even for those who had every claim upon you, except 
 those of the heart.
 
 1794] LETTER FROM MISS BERRY TO LORD ORFORD. 451 
 
 While I retain these, be assured your interest will be a sine- 
 cure with respect to my further demands upon it. 
 
 Farewell. 
 To the Earl of Orford. 
 
 From the Same. 
 
 Prospect House, Monday, Oct. 6, 1794. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I feel not to have said half enough to 
 you in my hurried letter of yesterday, and yet I know not in 
 what stronger terms to express your total misapprehension of 
 ray meaning. Can you possibly conceive me a bedehamber- 
 woman dawdling away my time in waiting-rooms, and stuck 
 up with people who might probably as heartily despise me as I 
 should them, 
 
 Far from all joys that with my soul agree 
 From taste, from learning, very far from thee ! 
 
 No, my dear friend, my attendance shall be of a very different 
 sort, and the willing homage of a grateful heart to a character, 
 which courts could never either captivate or corrupt. I should 
 not think it necessary again to mention this subject, because I 
 am sure a moment's thought will convince you what must be 
 both my own and my sister's ideas upon it in every light, but 
 that I know how difficult it sometimes is, to erase a first impres- 
 sion from your mind. 
 
 It blew last night what the sailors call a capfull of wind, 
 after several perfectly calm days ; and we have just heard the 
 melancholy tidings that two small vessels were wrecked between 
 this and Kamsgate. These incidents are so common on every 
 coast, that they make but little impression except upon us 
 inland people. And when do you turn your faces inland again ? 
 I hear you say why certainly the beginning of next week, or 
 sooner if the weather should become bad ; for all comfort and 
 amusement here depends upon the weather. A vile situation 
 for this climate you will say. I have made a sketch of the 
 Prospect House for you, that you may yourself judge of the 
 snug retreat we have been inhabiting. L d Cholmondeley's 
 house, much as he abuses the situation, is within fifty yards of 
 ours, and much civil parley has taken place between us. They 
 G G 2
 
 452 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 have with them a Mr. Lee, an old acquaintance of ours, who the 
 other day gave us a long account of all the particular civilities 
 that accompanied the Prince's interview with L d Choi., and his 
 desiring him and L d Choi, to be at the head of the new house- 
 hold. He says L y Choi, declined going to fetch the P ss , which 
 the Prince wished him to do, because during the time of his 
 embassy he must be considered as receiving orders from and 
 acting under the Ministry with which he wished to have nothing 
 to do, and made a sort of proviso for the future freedom of his 
 political conduct and sentiments. This is attempting to thread a 
 needle, which, I should think, he will find impossible. 
 
 I have not heard from Mrs. D. since she got to Goodwood, 
 therefore your letter was the first that informed me of the D 88 ' 8 
 continued illness, for which I am really sorry on every account. 
 
 We are going to-morrow to the play at Margate with the 
 Greatheads, to see Hamlet acted by a gentleman; and very 
 gentleman-like acting I dare say it will be, but I expect to be 
 much amused. Mrs. Siddons left this the very day after we 
 called upon her, so that we were none the better for her neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 Farewell ! Your little scrap yesterday I hardly consider as a 
 letter, and therefore hope to hear from you very soon again. 
 Once more farewell ! 
 
 The correspondence on this subject would be incom- 
 plete without Lord Orford's letter of October 7,* which 
 has already been published in part. 
 
 [Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1794. 
 
 Your answer, which I own arrived a day sooner than I flattered 
 myself it would, I wish it could have told me how you passed 
 the storm of Sunday night ! has not only relieved me from all 
 anxiety on the subject, but has made me exceedingly happy ; 
 for tho' I mistook you for a moment, it has proved to me that I 
 had judged perfectly rightly of your excellent and most uncom- 
 mon understanding. Astonished I was no doubt while I con- 
 ceived that you wished to be placed in a situation so unworthy 
 of your talents and abilities and knowledge, and powers of con- 
 
 * Published in part in 1846.
 
 1794] LORD ORFORD TO MISS BERRY. 453 
 
 versation. I never was of a court myself, but from my birth 
 and the position of my father could but, for my first twenty 
 years, know much of the nature of the beast; and from my 
 various connections since I have seldom missed farther oppor- 
 tunities of keeping up my acquaintance with the interior. The 
 world in general is not ignorant of the complexion of most courts, 
 tho' ambition, interest, and vanity are always willing to leap 
 over their information, or to fancy they can counteract it ; but I 
 have no occasion to probe that delusion, nor to gainsay your 
 random opinion that a court life may be eligible for women 
 yes, for the idle ones you specify, perhaps so, for respectable 
 women, I think, much less than even for men. I do not mean 
 with regard to what is called their character,, as if there were 
 but one virtue with which women have any concern. I speak of 
 their understanding and consequential employment of their time. 
 In a court there must be much idleness even without dissipation, 
 and amongst the female constituents much self-importance ill 
 founded, some ambition, jealousy, envy, and thence hatred, in- 
 sincerity, little intrigues for credit, and but I am talking as if 
 there were any occasion to dissuade you from what you despise, 
 and I have only stated what occasioned my surprise at your 
 thinking of what you never did think at all. 
 
 Still, while I did suppose that in any pore of y r heart there 
 did lurk such a wish, I did give a great gulp and swallowed down 
 all attempts to turn y r thoughts aside from it, and why ? Yes, 
 and you must be ready to ask me how such a true friend could 
 give in to the hint without stating such numerous objections to 
 a plan so unsuitable for you. Oh ! for strong reasons too. In 
 the first place, I was sure that, without my almost century of 
 experience, your good sense must have anticipated all my argu- 
 ments ; you often confute my desultory logic on points less im- 
 portant, as I frequently find; but the true cause of my assenting 
 without suffering a sigh to escape me, was because I was conscious 
 that I would not dissuade you fairly without a grain or more 
 of self mixing in the argument : I would not trust myself with 
 myself; I would not act again as I did when you was in Italy, 
 and answered you as fast as I could, lest self should relapse. 
 Yet, tho' it did not last an hour, what a combat it was ! What 
 a blow to my dream of happiness should you be attached to a 
 court ! for tho' you probably w d not desert Cliveden entirely,
 
 454 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 how distracted would y r time be ! But I will not enter into the 
 detail of my thoughts ; you know how many posts they travel 
 in a moment when my brain is set at work, and how firmly it 
 believes all it imagines. Besides the defalcation of y r society, I 
 saw the host of your porphyrogeniti from top to bottom bursting 
 on my tranquillity. But enough I conquered all these dangers ; 
 and still another objection arose. When I had discovered the 
 only channel I could open to y r satisfaction, I had no little re- 
 pugnance to the emissary I was to employ.* Tho' it is my 
 intention to be equitable to him, I should be extremely sorry to 
 give him a shadow of claim on me ; and you know those who 
 might hereafter be glad to conclude that it was no wonder they 
 should be disappointed, when gratitude on your account had 
 been my motive. But my cares are at an end, and tho' I have 
 laboured thro' two painful days, the thorns of which were 
 sharpened, not impeded by the storm, I am rejoiced at the 
 blunder I made, as it has procured me the kindest and most 
 heart-dictated and most heartfelt letter that ever was written, 
 for which I give you millions of thanks. Forgive my injurious 
 surmise ; for you see that tho' you can wound my affection, you 
 cannot allay its eagerness to please you at the expense of my 
 own satisfaction and peace. 
 
 Having stated with most precise truth all I thought related to 
 yourself, I do resume and repeat all I have said both in this and 
 my former letter, and renew exactly the same offers to my sweet 
 Agnes, if she has the least wish for what I supposed you wished. 
 Nay, I owe still more to her, for I think she left Italy more 
 Tin willingly than you .did, and gratitude to either is the only cir- 
 cumstance that can add to my affection for either. I can 
 swallow my objections to trying my nephew as easily for her as 
 for you ; but having had two days and a half for thinking the 
 case over, I have no sort of doubt but the whole establishment 
 must be completely settled by this time, or that at most, if any 
 places are not fixed yet, it must be from the strength and variety 
 of contending interests ; and besides, the new Princess will have 
 fewer of each class of attendants than a queen, and I shall not 
 be surprised if there should already be a brouillerie between the 
 two Courts about some or many of the nominations. And tho' 
 the interest I thought of trying was the only one I could pitch 
 
 * His nephew, Lord Cholmondeley. Wriglit.
 
 1794] LORD ORFORD TO MISS BERRY. 455 
 
 upon, I do not on reflection suppose that a person just favoured 
 lias favour enough already to recommend others. Hereafter 
 that may be better; and a still more feasible method, I think, 
 would be to obtain a promise against a vacancy, which at this 
 great open moment nobody will think of asking, when the present 
 is so uppermost in their minds. And now my head is cool, 
 perhaps I could strike out more channels, sh d your sister be so 
 inclined ; but of that we will talk when we meet.] 
 
 Eleven at night. 
 
 I could not possibly, from different intermissions, get my 
 letter finished before the post went out. I shall hope to hear, on 
 its arrival to-morrow, that you have not been carried off either 
 by Sunday's hurricane or by a privateer. 
 
 I see with pleasure that the Convention and the Jacobins 
 have been breaking tho' perhaps patched together a,gain for the 
 present. It will break out again. The former are wofully 
 uneasy. They complain of factions everywhere, tho' trying to 
 conceal their disasters by boasting of victories ; but they display 
 their wants and their deficits lament the loss of their commerce 
 and manufactures which themselevs have destroyed. They 
 tremble at the crowds in Paris, and wish to thin them ; are sick 
 of anarchy; but their efforts to disperse the former, and to 
 lessen the latter, will disperse the dissatisfaction thro' the pro- 
 vinces, and augment the latter. It is plain they fear not being 
 able to retain the capital in obedience ; and if they fail there, 
 who is to govern the armies ? These grievances will, I think, 
 produce a civil war, or some kind of counter-revolution. So be 
 it ! Neither will settle the country soon, nor is it to be wished 
 it should be. It will require time to amend Frenchmen or 
 Frenchwomen, were the task possible. 
 
 Our footpads seem dispersed. I believe they no longer met 
 with game; our old does took the alarm, and kept close in 
 their burrows. I have been in their warren at Eichmond for 
 the two last evenings ; so they will have no claims on me when 
 you return. Good night ! I reserve a morsel of my paper in 
 case of having anything to answer. Methinks my whole time is 
 employed in writing to you, or in being frightened about you. 
 Pray come back, that I may have time to think on other 
 people.
 
 456 LETTEES, [1794 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1794. 
 
 I hope it was diversion that had diverted you, for you was 
 not very clear when you wrote your last. It was dated on 
 Thursday the 9th, and I received it this morning, the 14th. I 
 did on Saturday expect a letter to tell me when I might expect 
 you, and I did hint at my disappointment in the cover of a 
 letter I enclosed for Agnes. 
 
 With the lingering note of the 9th I received y r orders for 
 Mrs. Eichardson. I have desired her to tell you that you will 
 hear from me to-morrow morning (by the coach too) ; and this 
 is what you will hear. 
 
 I am rejoiced you have been at Mr. Barrett's tho' it will 
 have made Strawberry sink in y r eyes, Lee is so purely Gothic, 
 and every inch of it so well finished. I am still more glad that 
 your visit thither instead of hurrying you, has not made you 
 risk Shooter's Hill and Blackheatli. Well, I hope on Thursday 
 all my alarms will be at an end, and that I shall neither dread 
 tempests, nor privateers, nor highwaymen. Come and enjoy 
 your own balcony and little conservatory, and a friend who hopes 
 to see you looking much better for y r expedition, and Agnes as 
 charmingly as she returned from Herts, and who always wishes 
 to have you both pleased, tho' your absence always fills him 
 with fear of one sort or other. 
 
 I have been at Bichmond this morning to inquire after the 
 eldest girl of the poor Valetorts, who has a scarlet fever of the 
 worst kind, and of whom Dundas had no hopes on Sunday. 
 S r George Baker has been down, and there are rather better 
 symptoms. They have moved into another lodging; but the 
 poor mother is in a piteous way, within a month of her time, 
 and dreading the arrival of the grandmother post on hearing of 
 the danger. 
 
 Lady A. has been at Goodwood, and returns to-day. The 
 Marshal tells me from town, that the D M is better. I wish fer- 
 vently it may be so, but I expect that they only wrote so to 
 prevent the visitation tho' in vain. 
 
 The public's scarlet fever is bad indeed, from Clairfait's 
 copious bleeding, and the spreading of the contagion every- 
 where 1 
 
 Lady Douglas called here yesterday and desired me to bring 
 you to her on Saturday evening, which I hope you will let me do.
 
 1794] LORD OKFOKD TO MISS BEERY. 457 
 
 Adieu ! How glad I shall be to write you no more letters ! 
 Humpity comes to me to-morrow : his second volume, which I 
 have had, tho' not quite complete, is still more entertaining than 
 the first. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Oct. 15, 1794. 
 
 I can bear disappointments patiently, when it is for your 
 health or pleasure ; I consult both, and do not allow myself to 
 reason against y r reasons. If you call the weather settled, I will 
 call it so too. It is enough that you can amuse yourself where 
 you are your liking to stay longer contents me. 
 
 Mrs. Eichardson is gone to Audley-street with a note from 
 me to you. The state of public affairs is too bad and too volu- 
 minous to discuss. The True Briton of Oct. 13th is a day I 
 doubt we shall have cause to remember as a date ! 
 
 I shall be glad to hear your opinions on Lee, and am pleased 
 that I contributed to y r seeing it, both for your sakes and Mr. 
 Barrett's, to whom I owe the greatest gratitude for his too great 
 partiality to me. 
 
 When you see the note in Mrs. Eichardson's hands, you will 
 find by what accident it happened that you had no letter from 
 me on Saturday. I cannot say more now. Adieu ! 
 
 Lord Orford's letter of October 17th* appears to be the 
 last of this year addressed to the Miss Berrys, their return 
 to Little Strawberry having superseded the necessity of 
 further correspondence. 
 
 Oct. 17, 1794. 
 
 I did not indeed know the arrangements of the future court, 
 nor had the least curiosity about what concerns me so little, and 
 of which there is mighty little probability of my seeing more 
 than the outset. Indeed, I did not suppose that it would affect 
 me in any manner, and yet I am very glad that Mrs. Fitzroy f 
 and Mrs. Stanhope % will be of it. They will be of credit to it, 
 as well as great ornaments. 
 
 [I had not the least doubt of Mr. Barrett's showing you the 
 
 * Published in part in 1846. 
 
 t Mrs. Fitzroy. Miss Warren, an heiress, the wife of the first Lord 
 Southampton. 
 
 I Wife of Col. Stanhope, only brother to the late Earl of Harington.
 
 458 LETTEES. [1794 
 
 greatest attention ; he is a most worthy man, and has a most 
 sincere friendship for me, and I was sure would mark it to any 
 persons that I love. I don't guess what your criticisms on his 
 library will be ; I do not think we shall agree in them, for to me 
 it seems the most perfect thing I ever saw, and has the most the 
 air it was intended to have, that of an abbot's library, supposing 
 it could have been so exquisitely finished three hundred years 
 ago. My closet is as perfect in its way as the library, and it 
 would be difficult to suspect that it had not been a remnant 
 of the ancient convent only newly painted and gilt. My 
 cabinet, nay, nor house, convey any conception ; every true Groth 
 must perceive that they are more the works of fancy than of 
 imitation. ... Y r devoted 
 
 OEFORD.] 
 
 P.S. The little Edgcumbe they hope is out of danger. I 
 called there last night as I went to Ly. B. Machinsy, who had 
 sent to me to invite you if you had been returned. 
 
 The letter of a gentleman of the name of Benwell,* 
 dated November 27th, shows the interest Miss Berry was 
 known to take in the classics. 
 
 Trinity College, Nov. 27, 1794. 
 
 MY DEAR MADAM, I was very sorry to hear from Miss 
 Loveday that you had been ill. I sincerely hope that this will 
 find you better, and that the literary business with which I am 
 going to trouble you, will not be an unseasonable intrusion. I 
 have just received a packet from your friend Canon Bandini, 
 containing some collations of Xenophon, together with a most 
 obliging letter, in which he requests me to communicate the 
 contents of the enclosed paper to any of the English booksellers 
 that I know. Eecollecting your acquaintance with Edwards, I 
 have taken the liberty of forwarding this paper to you, in case you 
 should have any opportunity either of speaking or writing to him 
 on the subject. That you may not have the trouble of translating 
 for Mr. Edwards, though I know you to be full as capable of 
 
 * There is reason to suppose, from some passages in Miss Berry's Journal, 
 that Mr. Benwell afterwards man-led the friend of her early youth, Miss 
 Loveday.
 
 1794] LETTEE PROM MR. BENWELL. 459 
 
 it, or more so, than myself, I will just set down the principal 
 contents, which are, that having formerly published a catalogue 
 of the Gr., Latin, and Italian MSS. of the Medicean Library in 
 8 volumes folio, he has within these four or five years published 
 3 vols. more in the same form, containing an account of MSS. 
 from different collections, that have since been added to the 
 Medicean Library. That these three supplemental volumes 
 may be purchased for one sequin each volume, or one sequin 
 and a half for the large paper copies. That he has also by him 
 (or had when this paper was printed, April 1793) 29 complete 
 parts of the first eight volumes, which may be purchased for 10 
 sequins each part, and that he has besides upwards of 200 parts 
 wanting only the first volume of each, which may be purchased, 
 by those who are already in possession of the first volume. In 
 addition to these he has several copies of the Annales Juntarum 
 to dispose of at the very reasonable rate of 5 pauls, or about 
 2s. 6d. each. As it would give me much pleasure to render 
 any little service to Mr. Bandini, after his great civility to me, 
 and as I know you will feel the wish still stronger than myself, 
 I trouble you with the above particulars. Mr. Edwards may 
 probably know some gentleman who would like to purchase the 
 Catalogue ; and at all events I should think the Annales would 
 sell very well in town. Mr. Fletcher, of Oxford, would like to 
 have 20 copies, and if Mr. Edwards is willing to take any 
 number, I could write to Mr. Bandini for them. I quote from 
 the letter I have received the following passage relating to 
 yourself: 'Nunquam mihi dubium fuit, quin lectissima et lit- 
 terarum amantissima puella Maria Berry memoriam mei quam- 
 vis absens firmam animo suo retineret ; perspexi autem nunc id 
 maxime, postquam tanto locorum intervallo a me sejuncta, re- 
 cordatur tamen consuetudinem nostram, neque hoc tantum 
 benevole atque amanter facit, verum etiam, quod proprium est 
 fidelis et verse amicitise, studet mihi parare amicos ejus generis 
 homines, quibus ego plurimum delector. Quare ipsi gratias 
 quam maximas meo nomine pro tarn effusa in me humanitate 
 et benevolentia reddas, oro et obtestor.' I should be much 
 obliged to you if, when you see Mr. Edwards, you would beg 
 of him to enquire among any English gentlemen he knows 
 who collect books, or among his correspondents abroad, for the 
 two following books : ' Xenophontis Memorabilia, 4to. Paris
 
 460 LETTERS. [1794 
 
 apud Nic. Bogardum 1541.' 'Brodsei Annotationes in Xeno- 
 phontem, Basil, apud Nic. Brylingerum 1559.' 
 
 If I could be favoured with the loan of these books for a 
 month, I should be very glad. 
 
 I hope Miss Agnes is as well as when she left Cheltenham. 
 Forgive, my dear Madam, the liberty I take in troubling 
 you with this, and believe me with the greatest respect and 
 regard, Your obliged Servant, 
 
 W. BENWELL.
 
 1795] LETTER FROM LORD ORFORD TO MISS BERRY. 461 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 1795-96. 
 
 THE following note of April 7th is the only one remain- 
 ing addressed to Miss Berry by Lord Orford at this time, 
 when she was living at little Strawberry Hill : 
 
 Tuesday morning. 
 
 I dispatch two snipes as my deputies to receive and welcome 
 you at y r return. 
 
 The Princess arrived at St. James's on Sunday at three o'clock. 
 Madame des Ursins was not arrested, and sent out of the kingdom 
 full dressed with all her old diamonds new-set ; nor do I believe 
 that Mrs. Fitzherbert will forbid the banns, for she has taken 
 Marble Hall, and proposes to b' ve very platonically under the 
 devout wing of Mrs. Cambridge. 
 
 Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary, who were at Lewisham, went 
 to Greenwich, and saw the Princess show herself at a window, 
 and bow exceedingly to the people, as she has since done at St. 
 James's, till the Prince shut the window, and made excuses of 
 her being fatigued. Everybody speaks most favorably of her 
 face as being most pleasing, tho' with too much rouge ; she is 
 plump, and by no means tall. The marriage is not till to- 
 morrow. 
 
 Mrs. Lockart and Mrs. Palmer are to be with me this evening. 
 I am not sure of any other company but Mr. Palmer. Do you 
 know of any I shall have ? 
 
 Miss Berry. 
 
 This year brought with it much sorrow to those with 
 whom Miss Berry was living in habitual intercourse, and 
 it also gave birth to happy expectations for herself which 
 were never destined to be fulfilled. The death of Field- 
 Marshal Henry Conway, the father of Mrs. Darner and
 
 462 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 the dearly-loved relation and friend of Lord Orford, 
 must have spread for a while a deep shade of melancholy 
 on the Strawberry Hill society. He died at Park Place, 
 and, according to Mrs. Darner's account to Miss Berry, 
 very suddenly. 'He had been remarkably well and 
 cheerful at supper ' on the evening of July 8th, and was 
 dead between four and five o'clock the following morn- 
 ing, owing, in a great measure, as she says, ' to his im- 
 prudence in exposing himself to cold and damp.' In 
 announcing his death to Miss Berry, Mrs. Darner expresses 
 her solicitude for Lord Orford, asking her to give some 
 account of him, adding, ' he seemed never to apprehend 
 this ! ' There was probably no particular reason for 
 apprehension till the fatal moment came ; and Lord Orford 
 had indeed written to Marshal Conway, on the 2nd of 
 June, telling him of the intended visit of Queen Charlotte, 
 her six daughters, the Duchess of York and the Princess 
 of Orange, and again on the 7th, giving a playful account 
 of their reception, in which he had been aided by his 
 daughter Mrs. Darner. 
 
 In Miss Berry's spirited vindication of Lord Orford, in 
 answer to the article in the ' Edinburgh Eeview,' she 
 adverts to the attachment that had subsisted between 
 him and Marshal Conway, from their boyish days at Eton 
 to the death of the Marshal, as one of rare occurrence 
 between men of the world, and as creditable to both. 
 Miss Berry avows herself in this Advertisement to have 
 been the author of a character given of Marshal Conway 
 in Lord Orford's works, nominally edited by her father 
 in 1798, and which may claim to be here repeated as a 
 tribute to one whose death must at that time have caused 
 so sad a blank in the little society in which he was so 
 highly valued. 
 
 * To his public conduct on many great occasions the political 
 and military history of his country will bear honourable testi- 
 mony. His opinions and conduct with respect to America have
 
 1795] CHAEACTER OP MARSHAL CONWAY. 463 
 
 already received that sanction of applause from all parties which 
 the soundest policy as well as the most perfect probity, often 
 obtain only from distant posterity. The part he took on the 
 memorable repeal of the Stamp Act, when considered as the 
 efficient Minister in the House of Commons, is happily not in- 
 trusted to the indiscriminate relation of some future half-informed 
 historian, but is circumstantially recorded in the glowing, sub- 
 lime, and immortal eloquence of a contemporary ( Burke 's 
 Speech 19th April, 1774). The reputation of Marshal Conway 
 as a public man may be safely rested upon such evidence.' 
 
 'It is only those who, like the Editor, have had the oppor- 
 tunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his (Marshal 
 Conway's) public conduct and into the inmost recesses of his 
 private life, who can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his 
 character who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, 
 retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and of a states- 
 man to the calm enjoyments of private life; happy in the re- 
 sources of his own mind, and in cultivation of useful science, 
 in the bosom of domestic peace unenriched by pensions or 
 places, undistinguished by titles or ribbons, unsophisticated by 
 public life and unwearied by retirement.' 
 
 The two fragments by Lord Orford upon the life and 
 character of Marshal Conway, now for the first time pub- 
 lished, were doubtless written with the intention of serving 
 as a monumental inscription. 
 
 CHARACTER OF MARSHAL CONWAY. 
 An assemblage of dauntless and even of thoughtless intrepidity 
 
 clothed in mildness, patience, and unaffected temper ; 
 Of benevolence and generous charity, founded on good nature 
 
 and extended beyond considerate economy ; 
 
 Of most graceful eloquence sometimes too refining from his 
 
 tenderness of conscience, but capable, tho' rarely, of being 
 
 ruffled by injustice into pointed spirit; 
 
 Of disinterestedness, superior to all temptations of fortune or 
 ambition, which he trampled under foot, when in 
 
 competition with his honor. 
 
 Indefatigable in whatever he undertook, and fonder of employ- 
 ments that fed his love of science in his profession, than of 
 greater offices that opened the secrets of politics ;
 
 464 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 Of greater and more useful knowledge in military architecture 
 
 than perhaps was possessed by any man of his time ; 
 
 Of deep insight into chemistry and natural philosophy, which 
 
 he displayed by useful experiments and successful 
 
 discoveries ; 
 
 Of original taste in architecture, particularly in the construction 
 of bridges, and in ornamenting grounds in a style equally 
 
 unborrowed and admired ; 
 
 Of felicity in writing verse, a talent which he exercised but late 
 in his life, and possessed of wit which appeared only 
 
 occasionally and unsought. 
 All these endowments formed the singular and most amiable 
 
 character of Marshal Conway, 
 And the whole assemblage was united to a soul of untainted 
 
 virtue, 
 And was venerated to his last hours as it had been through his 
 
 whole life 
 By the esteem of all who knew, or had examined the composition 
 
 of so excellent a man. 
 Such a character was slightly shaded, not clouded, by trifling 
 
 imperfections. 
 
 He was subject to absence of mind, either natural or from the 
 
 plenitude of its occupations, as acute logic led him to 
 
 dispute .... 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARSHAL CONWAY. 
 
 Henry Seymour Conway, born in July 1 7 1 9, at Beaufort House, 
 Chelsea, was second son of S. C. L d Conway by his third wife, 
 Charlotte, second daughter of John Shorter, Esq., of Bybrook, 
 in Kent, and youngest sister of Catherine Lady Walpole. Henry 
 was bred at Eton School, and from thence removed to Geneva. 
 
 In 1742 he was chosen into Parliament, and in 1744 was 
 appointed Aide-de-Camp to His R. H. William Duke of Cumber- 
 land. He was present in the actions of Dettingen, Loffelt, and 
 Fontenoy, at the latter of which he was taken prisoner; in 1748 
 he was second in command in the attempt on Rochfort, when he v 
 as before, gave remarkable instances of his valour, as he did of 
 his talents as an author in a noble defence of General Mordaunt 
 and himself, on the miscarriage of that expedition, as he had 
 in various instances as an orator in England and Ireland, in
 
 1795] MAKSHAL CONWAY. 465 
 
 which last kingdom he had been Secretary of State to William 
 fourth Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 In the reign of George the Third he continued Groom of the 
 Bedchamber to His Majesty, as he had been to George the 
 Second, and Colonel of a regiment till 1765, when he was dis- 
 missed from both those preferments for his constitutional resist- 
 ance of war, and for his still more constitutional rejection of all 
 offers of corruption and threats from the Minister, G. Grenville. 
 On the change of the Ministry he was appointed Secretary of 
 State, in which post he was entreated by Mr. P. to remain, but 
 resigned it after all manner of persuasion had been employed to 
 retain him in it, when he was made Lieut.-General of the 
 Ordnance, and afterwards Governor of Jersey, where &c. 
 
 In the published correspondence of Lord Orford there 
 are but six letters, written to different persons, in 1795, 
 and none bearing date nearer the time of Marshal Con- 
 way's death than those addressed to Lady Ossory in 
 December. 
 
 Miss Berry's entry in her short diary of this year 
 (1795) is ' We went to Cheltenham. 0. H. came there. 
 We met afterwards at Park Place. Came from Little 
 Strawberry to settle in town in November.' 
 
 The correspondence between Lord Orford and the 
 Miss Berrys was commenced on their going to Chelten- 
 ham, and many of the letters of this year have been 
 preserved, though till now they have remained unpub- 
 lished. 
 
 Aug. 19. 
 
 About an hour after you was set out on Tuesday, I found the 
 above paragraph in the newspaper. I foresaw that Mr. Walter * 
 would not lie dormant when he was become so near a neighbour 
 to us ! A writer of a newspaper, I suppose, like what is said of 
 the Astracan Lamb, devours all the plants that grow within his 
 atmosphere. The * charming man's ' visit to him t'other day 
 no doubt inspired the panegyric on you two, and as certainly 
 
 * Mr. Walter, the editor of the Times newspaper, then living at the 
 Villa at Twickenham, next to Strawberry Hill. 
 VOL. I. H H
 
 466 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 was the echo of what he had said of you. In any great dearth 
 of news, shall you wonder if the public is acquainted how finely 
 you work hammercloths ? When Mr. Walter had made a will 
 for me, he might have been content to let my living ashes rest 
 in peace. Well, when he has exhausted us, I trust he will extend 
 his appetite and browse on the House of Orange and the Pavi- 
 lions nobler forage than quiet us.* 
 
 When you return, remember to make me show you a message 
 that a former Swiss footman of mine delivered to me in his 
 broken English from Mrs. Ellis, which I had totally forgotten, 
 but tho' not a bon mot, is worth all your collection, and which 
 I found in the letters you have lately been reading. I know 
 how impatient for it you will be, but it would be most improper 
 for me to write to you. Lupino is nothing to it ; it makes me 
 laugh while I am writing. 
 
 Holbein Chamber, Strawb. Hill, Wedn. night, Aug. 19, 1795. 
 I put myself in mind of a scene in one of Lord Lansdown's 
 plays, where two ladies being on the stage and one going off, 
 the other says, ' Lord, she is gone ! well, I must go and write to 
 her.' This was just my case yesterday: you had been gone 
 but a few hours, when I thought I could amuze or amuzle, 
 myself better by sitting and thinking of you, than by going out 
 I did not care whither ; so I began this for the post to-morrow, 
 tho' I had not a word to say but Mr. Walter's paragraph, as I 
 soon found ; so I went to the returned letters, where I recovered 
 David's delightful message, which you will know some day or 
 other. 
 
 Intellectual Mr. Bush has been here this morning; as I 
 doubted whether Nanny's intellects, high as she holds them, 
 were mounted to an unison with his, I ordered Kirgate, for 
 want of you, to accompaDy him about the house, that I might 
 have a faithful account of his sententious reflexions. He 
 brought with him, as I concluded, another intellectual cock and 
 two hens ; but alack ! they did not lay one egg worth sitting on 
 or sending to you : chanticleer himself is ancient and formal, 
 the others mere barn-door fowl. 
 
 * The Prince and Princess of Orange were then living in Hampton Court 
 Palace, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester at two small buildings 
 called the Pavilions, in Hampton Court Park.
 
 1795] HOME NEWS. 467 
 
 The Mendips * are expected to-morrow ; so we shall be as 
 lively as soups, and removes, and entrees and pools at cribbage 
 set to clarionettes can make us. Moreover, 'I shall learn for 
 your edification all that the Corps Diplomatique knows or is 
 ordered to disperse ; as from another quarter I shall be informed 
 how all the Princes and Princesses in Europe do. Can I miss 
 you, when my time may pass as merrily as if I were at the 
 Diet of Katisbon ! 
 
 To-day you have had charming weather for travelling ; not 
 sultry for certain, and not a drop of rain. The corn I hope you 
 found most levelled ! The papers talk of such prodigious plenty, 
 that one w d imagine there were danger of our being devoured 
 by wheat and barley, and that the farmers and Jacobins would 
 raise a clamour on that score ! 
 
 Wednesday night. 
 
 I have been with Lady Di, and voici what I heard. Nel of 
 Clarence plays Ophelia to-night at Kichmond. Miss Hotham 
 has issued cards for a tea on Friday. I have not received one, 
 tho' last year she sivore by me ; but this has not noticed me. I 
 shall not break my heart. 
 
 There ! I think, considering how small and close my writing 
 is, and that we have been parted not quite two days, this is a 
 tolerably long letter in the Charming's Uncial Letters it would 
 fill two folio sheets. I trust, too, that it is as full of nothing as 
 the heart of Agnes can desire. Good night, both I 
 
 Thursday, one o'clock. 
 
 I have detained my letter till the newspaper and post were 
 arrived : in the former is nothing of consequence ; by the latter 
 no letters for any of you but I have received one myself, which 
 I will- keep to show you. It is to inquire who put into the 
 paper my ' Settlement of Lord Hertford ' ? You may guess at 
 the writer from the indecency and folly of the inquiry. Don't 
 take notice of this in your answer. Adieu ! 
 
 Strawberry Hill, Aug. 22, 1795. 
 
 Tho' I persuaded you to go to Cheltenham, and am happy 
 you are there, I little imagined I should rejoice at your not 
 
 * Welbore-EUis Agar, the first Lord Mendip. 
 
 HH2
 
 468 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 being here ; yet I do, at least I did yesterday, when we had an 
 outrageous storm of thunder that would have frightened you 
 terribly : I thought it directly over the blue-room, and it was 
 so near that it did fall on Davenport's field, over against the 
 Round Tower, and reduced a shock of corn to powder. Lady 
 Cecilia (her first visit since her return) was with me, and tho' 
 so apt to be frightened out of her senses when not in the least 
 alarmed, was not at all dismayed, for she was frying Lady J., 
 and had no leisure to be terrified. 
 
 I have trusted with my anger at the paragraph about my 
 
 will, that she may betray me, and report what I said, that they 
 who make wills for me would be much disappointed ; but that I 
 should not have wondered if people had concluded that instead 
 of his nephew if I should have designed his uncle for my prin- 
 cipal heir. This sentence I am determined shall by some channel 
 or other be conveyed to those who are so impatient for my 
 succession, and so indelicate as to let me see it on all occasions. 
 
 Yesterday, just as I had breakfasted in my closet where your 
 bust is, I saw the Kingston Fencibles pass by on the river. They 
 were standing in rows on a high platform in a western barge, 
 with colours and music. They saluted my castle with three guns 
 unfortunately I had no cannon mounted on my battlements 
 to return it then they gave Mrs. Osbaldiston seven, who, I 
 suppose, was standing in her garden on the shore, and repaid 
 the compliment with seven bowls of punch, and perhaps had 
 invited company for the spectacle, as she did when she imagined 
 the Queen was to come in a barge to breakfast with me. I 
 hope I shall have a letter to-morrow to notify your safe arrival 
 at the Fountain here is a letter for my t'other half. Adieu ! 
 
 Str. Aug. 23, 1795. 
 
 Tho' I have already written twice to you in four days, I must 
 postscribe a few more lines to-day, as I have this instant received 
 your first, which does not please me at all, from the disagreeable 
 accounts you give both of your own health and of Mrs. Darner's. 
 For yours, I am delighted that I persuaded you to go to Chel- 
 tenham, and that you are actually there. I have vast hopes in 
 the waters, and some in the change of air, and in a variety of 
 amusements without late hours. 
 
 How extremely silly is Lady C. in venting her malice so un-
 
 1795] HOME NEWS. 469 
 
 guardedly ! but is not that indiscretion a providential antidote 
 to ill-nature? It would be useless to detail to her all the 
 virtues, all the sense, all the qualifications I find in you two ; 
 her narrow mind, that never cultivated any seed but that of 
 wormwood, would not be capable of conceiving what I think 
 and should say of you ; but I could tell her another reason for 
 my loving you both so extremely : in neither do I find a mixture 
 of pride and selfish meanness ; no, nor envy, malice, and all 
 imcharitableness. Foh ! but she is below one's anger ; nor can 
 she have a worse tormentor than the spiteful temper that 
 inhabits her own bosom. She and her daughter are like Scylla 
 and Charybdis nobody can pass near them without being 
 barked at. 
 
 I shall long for Tuesday, in hope of hearing that you are 
 quite recovered. Name your company ; have not you the quiet 
 Murrays and the undancing Barrels ? is the august and serene 
 Mrs. K. at Cheltenham this year ? There is a more august and 
 as serene a personage, who some day or other, I believe, will not 
 l)e more disposed to curtsie to either of you than the former to 
 Agnes last year. 
 
 I must go to town on Wednesday to receive some money 
 not for Mr. Walter's nominee, Lord H., nor for Lord H.'s self- 
 appointed competitor. Do you wonder I am offended at being 
 laid out so often to my face ? yet I will act as I always do in 
 such cases, I will change in nothing which I once thought right 
 but hola! there. 
 
 P.S. Pray keep the parcel of letters till you can bring them 
 yourself; you must have a voracious appetite if you can digest 
 more than one every day. 
 
 Strawb., Aug. 25, 1795. 
 
 Here is your letter, and luckily (which I ought not to say) I 
 shall have time to answer it incontinently, which I thought I 
 should not have, for Mrs. Doyley was to bring her friend Mrs. 
 Sloane to see my house, but the former is unluckily indisposed, 
 and I am at liberty to follow my wicked inclinations. 
 
 Take care you both return in perfect health, and both illu- 
 minated by as many roses as Agnes brought back last year, or 
 I shall repent of my self-denying ordinance which sent you to 
 Cheltenham. I do not grow at all reconciled to your absence ; 
 pis-allers are the worst allers in the world, and when the coach
 
 470 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 comes to the door at eight o'clock, and is not to carry me to 
 Cliveden, I grow peevish and almost wish that Fons Bandusiae 
 were fragilior Vitro, and had been smashed to pieces some 
 years ago in one of his moods when it flew into the most 
 religious and gracious head upon earth. No I don't ; it agreed 
 with sweet Agnes, and I trust will be as salutiferous to sweet 
 Mary 
 
 Fair Bessy Bell I loo'd yestreen, 
 And thought I ne'er could alter 
 
 and if ye find benefit, what signifies a month of insipid even- 
 ings? 
 
 Of news I have not heard a tittle. Lord Gruilford's match is 
 avowed.* They accept joy at Bushy. I was at Lord Mendip's 
 last night, when Gunning, his surgeon, came in, and after ex- 
 amining his foot, declared it quite healed ; so I suppose he will 
 frisk to Hampshire next month as usual, for he never falls to 
 the earth, but, like Antseus, he springs up again with all his 
 spirits. 
 
 On Sunday, as it was a most comely evening, I returned the 
 anti-divine Cecilia's visit,f concluding she would be on the ter- 
 race of the Palace sidling towards the Oranges.t I had guessed 
 rightly. Then I called on Mrs. Garrick, and to my surprise 
 was for the first time in my life let in, tho' uninvited. She met 
 me at the door, and told me she had an hundred head of nieces 
 with her and in truth so I found; there were six gentlewomen, 
 a husband of one of them, and two boys. An elderly fat dame 
 affected at every word to call her Aunt. However, they were 
 quiet enough, and did not cackle much, and even the lads were 
 tame, and did not stare at my limping skeleton as I expected, 
 and which I do not love to expose to GKggledom. 
 
 I can coin no more nothings without straw, and this assignat 
 is not worth a farthing more than a French one, and those I 
 see with pleasure sink every day, notwithstanding the Convention 
 
 * With the eldest daughter of Mr. Coutts the banker. 
 
 t Lady Cecilia Johnston. 
 
 I The Stadtholder's family, then established in Hampton Court Palace. 
 
 The widow of David Garrick, a native of Vienna, married 1749, who 
 continued to reside at Hampton till her death in 1822, in her ninety-seventh 
 year, having survived her husband forty-three years.
 
 1795] COURT OF BRIGHTIIELMSTONE, ETC. 471 
 
 lias bought peace with so many kings whom they had devoted 
 to destruction. Adieu ! I told you I shall be in London to- 
 morrow, and mayhap I may not write to you again for I don't 
 know how many minutes to come. 
 
 Berkeley Square, Wedn. after dinner, Aug. 26, 1795. 
 
 Here I am, with no earthly whither to go but to my sister's 
 at supper-time ; then why should I not go on writing to you, 
 which I like better than anything when I am not with you, 
 especially as I have some nothingly scraps to send you ? I called 
 on poor Stumpity, and found him sick and very yellow he 
 goes to Bath on Friday ; this will delay his peregrination of the 
 rest of his parishes, for which I am sorry. 
 
 Mrs. Molyneux, grandmother of the present late Princess of 
 Wales, is dead ; they call it suddenly, tho' she was above ninety 
 years of age before this impromptu came into her head. 
 
 The court of Brighthelmstone furnishes the idle of this town 
 with the chief topics of conversation. Mr. Tyrwhit, a favourite 
 of no ancient date, is gathered to his numberless predecessors, 
 for having roundly lectured Lady J. on her want of reverence 
 for the legal Princess, and the poor injured lady had no way to 
 escape but by inventing a swoon, in the height of which came 
 in the Prince, who, learning the cause, dismissed Nathan. 
 Miss Vanneck is come away furious also,"_on never being asked 
 to play at cards ; nay, she was desired for her amusement to 
 bring her spinning-wheel into the play-room, where I suppose 
 she banged and bungled the instrument like Lady Loverule. 
 The J.'s do not go into the house in Warwick Street some say 
 on a remonstrance of the present, others of the last chancellor. 
 They are to have the house of Lord William Russell, which was 
 his grandmother Bedford's in Pall Mall still harping on 
 Carleton House. Don't mention these ouidires (for the truth 
 of not one of which I will be responsible) on the green or pan- 
 tiles of Cheltenham, which I repeat merely to divert you, with- 
 out caring a straw about the dramatis personse. My next 
 paragraph the Darrels probably know, and may have told you : 
 it was printed at the bottom of the playbills at Richmond last 
 week, that Mrs. Jordan would not perform, as it was the birth- 
 day of his R. H. the Duke of Clarence no, to be sure she
 
 472 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 could not, for the Prince of Orange was to dine with him, and 
 she did the honours at the head of the table no, the Princesses 
 were not there. 
 
 Well, come, this shall be a complete royal letter: they 
 say that honest gentleman, the King of Prussia, does not 
 pay the Margrave his annuity; Dame Cowslip, I doubt, will 
 not bring grist enough to the theatrical mill to keep it 
 going. 
 
 How very foolish is the tedious wise letter of the new King 
 of France ! What business had he to make promises and 
 threats ? The former will not restore him an hour sooner nor 
 be believed; the latter will be believed, and will hurt him. 
 Poor M. de Sombreuil's is a most melancholy story. He was in 
 church here at the instant he was going to be married to a 
 young woman with whom he was in love and in love with him, 
 when the courier arrived to summon him for the expedition to 
 Bretagne : ' Then,' said he, * I must go ! ' The 'ceremony was 
 deferred for ever ! 
 
 Miss Hotham is to have another tea on Friday, and has not 
 only sent me a card for it, but has written to the anti-divine to 
 beg her to press me to be at it. I shall be exceedingly un- 
 willing, and have not promised, for I have heard that on Monday 
 she had Miss Tag, and Miss Rag, and Miss Bobtail, and I 
 suppose will have as many next time. 
 
 Lord Lucan is made Earl of the Ilk no wonder. Lady 
 Camden the Vice-Queen, is, you know, Lady Lucan's niece. 
 
 The weather is as gorgeous as in the Summer Islands I 
 hope you have your full share of it. The verdure is luxuriant, 
 from the snow of the winter and the rains of the summer it is 
 pity we must buy fine autumns so dear. Methinks when the 
 Parliament brought the months eleven days forwarder it should 
 have ordered that the commencement of summer should not 
 date till after the deluges of St. Swithin. Good night for the 
 present ; all I have been saying will keep cold for two or three 
 
 Strawb. 27th. 
 
 The Churchills were not in town, nor could I find a creature 
 but old Pompey, and of him I soon grew tired, and came 
 home at nine o'clock, and this morning returned hither. The 
 Bower you are bigging on yon burn brae advances rapidly,
 
 1795] HOME NEWS. 473 
 
 but the new road across your field is not begun for want 
 of hands ; they are all cutting wheat, which, as nurses say to 
 children, cries * Come eat me ! ' Our dreaded famine is turned 
 into exuberance, every road and lane is filled by loads of corn 
 crossing in every direction, yet such a panic is gone forth 
 that every common is going to be ploughed up and applied 
 to tillage. I received a printed card from the Duke of 
 Northumberland to-day to invite me to meet him and the 
 neighbouring gentry at Isleworth to consider of breaking up 
 Hounslow Heath ; his Grace disapproves, to be popular with the 
 cottagers. 
 
 A droll idea is started into my head for a drawing by Agnes ; 
 but I shall not tap it till you return, for tho' I think it will 
 divert us amongst ourselves, yet, as it is not a good-natured 
 thought, I should be afraid of its getting into the printshops. 
 Another good night ! This is such a heap of trumpery, that I 
 will wait a day or two for something more worth sending; yet 
 at this season what can one have to talk of but weather and 
 harvests or of French horrors ? 
 
 28th, eleven at night. 
 
 Well, I have been at Miss Hotham's in a bright but most 
 chill moonlight. The assemblage was not so ungain as I ex- 
 pected, for tho' there were some of the clan of the Bobtails, 
 there were several I knew, as the Guilfords, Mount Edgcumbes, 
 the Yonges, the Cunninghams, Lady Mary Duncan, Lady Mary 
 Fordyce, and a few more. I played with Lady Cecilia, Lady 
 Guilford, and Mr. Sutton ; and Mrs. Button, with a thousand 
 civilities, invited me to Molesey for Tuesday next, and I will 
 certainly go, as they are of y r acquaintance. 
 
 This morning I received y r letter, and have great comfort in 
 hearing that the fountain agrees with you ; how I shall applaud 
 myself if you find essential benefit ! I am glad, too, that you 
 have such an excellent cicerone as Lysons ; if you have time 
 when at Gloucester, make him carry you to the Bishop's palace 
 and to George Selwyn's late house at Matson, a beautiful situa- 
 tion, and to Prinhnage [?] on the hill to which, in a cottage, I 
 purchased for five shillings a most venerable and most ancient 
 cradle of wood, exactly like one in the Gentleman's Magazine,' 
 that saved Edward II., and then I was ashamed to bring it away,
 
 474 LETTEKS. [1795 
 
 as having no babe to put into it ; I should be more ashamed now 
 that I have two wives and yet no progeny. Adieu ! 
 
 Str., Sept. 1, 1795. 
 
 I am resolved to correct my hand, for my writing was grown 
 so small and so close, that I myself could scarce read over my 
 last letter ; and tho' your eyes are fifty years younger, I believe 
 you found difficulty to decypher it. At present I have so little 
 to say, that I had better make my alphabet as tall as Jerning- 
 ham's, tho' I have not his happy facility of making every 
 sentence a double entendre. Mercy on us if he and S. were to 
 correspond ! They would have occasion, to use an expression 
 of Lord Bacon's, to speak without fig-leaves. Some say the 
 charming will succeed Tommy Tyrrwhit.* I wish with all my 
 heart he may. He will not offend by leaving his old friend 
 Madame de Maintena?i, nor displease by his abrupt sophisms, 
 congenial enough to the climate. 
 
 After all his vast profusions Lord Moira's expeditions are 
 given over, and he is retired to Donington Castle, carrying with 
 him his first aide-de-camp, the Due d'Angouleme, son of Mon- 
 sieur, who is gone to tap another attempt on Bretagne. How 
 those two rejetons of the Plantagenets and Bourbons will sym- 
 pathise on their vanished grandeurs ! This is all I know beyond 
 the next milestone. 
 
 Lord Clifden is returned from Ireland, and has been three 
 days at his uncle's, but he and the silent woman and the old 
 bittern are gone to Eamsgate for two months. I am sorry, for 
 my lord is very agreeable. The Archbishop of Cashell is 
 arrived too, but the Patriarch of the Agars is so much recovered 
 that I believe he will soon remove to Hampshire. Every ab- 
 sentee makes a gap now in my narrow beat ; but at the end of 
 the month I trust I shall miss nobody, nor care who leaves the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Did not I hear some time ago that Mr. May was gone to 
 Cheltenham? If he is there, I hope he will be as zealous 
 about my wives as he was last winter about me, and address 
 some more irresistible verses to God, beseeching Him to order 
 Jupiter to restore you two to perfect health. Had his Cupid 
 not been blown from the top of his summer-house into the 
 
 * As Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales.
 
 1795] GENERAL O'HARA. 475 
 
 Thames, perhaps he would have been so gallant as to have sent 
 the urchin on the errand in an ode, and directed him to wait on 
 the Virgin Mary and entreat her to lay her commands on her 
 friend Venus for that purpose. 
 
 I was last night at Mrs. Sutton's. There was not an in- 
 undation of people, as I feared, chiefly Hampton courtiers and 
 its excrescences, Dutch and French. There was a little music, 
 and Miss Broadie sung and played, and so did another, a man, 
 and there was a large supper, at which I left them. The situation 
 seems handsome, the house extremely pretty and in very pure 
 taste ; there is a lovely little gallery painted in treillage, rather 
 prettier than a paper of that gender, which I have seen some- 
 where or other, I forget where. Mrs. Sutton's own landscapes, 
 as far as I could judge by candlelight, seem very good. I like 
 her herself and her husband too ; he is the civilest of men. I 
 recollect the terror I felt last Christmas when you was to return 
 from a ball there at three o'clock in the snow. I had concluded 
 you was to ferry, and had quite forgot the bridge at Hampton 
 Court ; you know I sometimes have such inveterate distractions. 
 
 Thus far I had written after breakfast, but tho' I then received 
 y r Monday's letter I could not finish mine, for I had promised 
 Mrs. Doyley to show my house to her, Mrs. Sloane, and a dowager, 
 Miss Agar, who is at Pope's ; and they being old women who do 
 not live at the brink of fashion, they came in sunny time, and 
 not three hours after it was pitch dark, as fine ladies would have 
 done who hope to be immortal by always being too late for every 
 diversion they may be supposed to like. Before the trio were 
 gone arrived my niece Lady Horatia with her two glorious 
 eldest boys ; * the second, especially, is a bold miniature of his 
 mother, and consequently beautiful. They staid with me till 
 dinner-time ; Lady Lincoln has lent her house at Putney, while 
 she is at Tunbridge, to Horatia, who expects Lord Hugh soon 
 from sea. Now I will answer you. 
 
 I am delighted that you have got 0'Hara.f How he must 
 feel his felicity in being at liberty to rove about as much as he 
 
 * George Francis, afterwards Admiral Sir George Seymour ; Hugh 
 Henry, afterwards Lieut.-Col. in the army, died 1821. 
 
 t General Charles O'Hara, who had just been freed from a French prison, 
 subsequent to his having been wounded and taken prisoner at the siege of 
 Toulon.
 
 476 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 likes ! Still I shall not admire his volatility if he quits you 
 soon. I am sorry he thinks Lady Ailesbury so much changed, 
 yet how amazing it would be if such a loss as she has had made 
 no visible impression a husband who, living and dying, seemed 
 to have thought only of her ! 
 
 The success of the water on you both charms me, and tho' I 
 am very unked without you, I enjoin you not to think of coming 
 away. 
 
 Another command I have to give you, and like most, I hope, 
 of my ordinances, not originating in self; it is, not to write me 
 such long letters. I have always heard that writing is preju- 
 dicial in a course of waters. Besides, it takes up an uncon- 
 scionable portion of your time, which I wish to have constantly 
 diverted. Don't measure your letters by mine ; I have no 
 other occupation which I like a quarter so well as conversing 
 with you. I wish to amuse your idle moments, but not to 
 misemploy them ; and is it fit that your youth should be con- 
 fined to the entertainment of your great-grandfather ? Let me 
 babble, but don't reply. Adieu ! 
 
 Str., Sunday night, Sept 6, 1795. 
 
 I sent two letters to-day, one for y r father, the other for y r 
 sister, and two to Audley-street, but none from myself, for I 
 had not a morsel of news in the house, and this letter perhaps 
 will wait for a supply ; our region is quite dry, unless I were 
 to send to the scandal-pump at Hampton Court, with which 
 you like to deal as little as I. In our village I suppose I am 
 thought grown very sociable, unless they suspect the true cause, 
 for I call every now and then (at my vacant eight o'clock) 
 on the few I do visit ; last night a second time at the foot of 
 the bridge,* where indeed they are very zealous about the 
 Clivedenites. I am a little tired of the clan at Pope's, of the 
 formality and cribbage, and formality again I T'other night 
 there was an Irish miss, who is thought a prodigy in music ; 
 and indeed she did belabour the harpsichord as if it had no 
 more feeling than a kettledrum. 
 
 I sent the Udneys | half a buck : they wanted me to partake 
 
 * Mr. Cambridge's family. 
 
 t Mr. Udney had been formerly Consul at Leghorn. He had made a 
 large collection of pictures in Italy, and at this time inhabited a house at 
 Teddington.
 
 1795] LOED OEFORD'S DEAETH OF NEWS. 477 
 
 of it, which luckily I declined ; and well it was I did, for they had 
 invited that surfeiting flatterer, Lady E., and such a hogshead 
 of sweet sauce would have overloaded any stomach that has not 
 a royal digestion. Not that I have escaped, for alas ! she is 
 there still, which I, not knowing, went thither this evening, and 
 fell into her mouth. Oh, how she crammed me with all that 
 the Queen and Princesses had said to her about their breakfast 
 here, and how they every day recollect something new that they 
 admired. I fear I did not offer her to come and see how she 
 would like the house. Mrs. Leneve formerly advised me never 
 to begin with civilities to people I don't like ; * for,' said she, 
 * you soon let them see that, and then they are more offended 
 than they would have been by coldness at first.' You will bear 
 me witness that I did not sniff up the Countess's incense kindly 
 the first time it was offered to me. 
 
 Monday night. 
 
 The day has produced nothing that will help my letter a step 
 forwarder. I have not seen a soul except Lady Horatia and her 
 two Cupids, who dined with me, and half our conversation has 
 rolled on panegyrics of the weather, which continues as fine, 
 and warm, and summerly as if all the snow and rain in the 
 skies had been let out to clear the complexion of September ; 
 the sun himself is as constant as Lord Derby. Apropos, Lady 
 Betty and her Cole were here this morning to see the house, 
 according to your order. Twill talk no more of the weather but 
 to tell you that I, who used to delight in a storm of lightning 
 and thunder, am grown, since I saw your fright at Bichinond, 
 to dread a threatening appearance of a tempest, and watch 
 whether it points Cheltenhamhoy. I wish I were always as clear 
 about everything that relates to you, but you know that some- 
 times my etourderie is inconceivable. So it was yesterday : the 
 two letters that I imagined came to me by the post were only 
 sent to me from Cliveden for y r servant William Croft, with a 
 view of my transmitting them to Cheltenham. You may tran- 
 quillise him about them if you have alarmed him, for having 
 occasion to send Kirgate to town yesterday, I delivered them to 
 him, to be left in Audley-street, where the mystery was cleared 
 up, and whence he brought them back to-day ; and they will 
 depart franked to-morrow under y r colours, and if there was 
 any sweethearting in the case, William, I hope, will excuse rny 
 occasioning him two sleepless nights.
 
 478 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 If I receive no letter to answer to-morrow, these two poor 
 homely pages must set as good a face upon the matter as they 
 can, but will own honestly that for these last three weeks the 
 gentleman who sends them has not been at all the man he was, 
 is pleased with nothing he does, nor tells them a syllable that in 
 their humble opinion is worth y r ladyship's reading, tho' he 
 pretends our successors will be much more entertaining than we 
 are, quod est demonstrandum (they say, Madam, you speak 
 Latin as well as Madame Darner, the great statue-iuoman}, but 
 for our parts we confess we should no more have thought of 
 acting the part of a letter than of pretending to as much wit as 
 Mr. Congreve, y r ladyship's favourite author. 
 
 Tuesday morning. 
 
 Yes, here is your letter, and I like all it tells me, that you 
 have chained y r general * to y r car, tho' you could not make him 
 enter the prison with you, and no wonder that even the divine 
 Mr. Howard's luxuries of a dungeon are not an antidote to the 
 diabolic infection of Eobespierre's and Charrier's refinements on 
 barbarity. I like y r jaunts, and that they answer so well, and 
 I hope they will be as beneficial as the waters to both of you. 
 I suppose you will advertise me when I am to change my 
 direction, tho'. unless the public is more prolific of events than 
 it has been for this last week, Twickenham is not likely to pro- 
 voke me to write soon. Adieu ! 
 
 Tuesday evening, Sept. 8, 1795. 
 
 This is a mere codicil of business to my morning's letter. I 
 have been to survey the works at Cliveden. Imprimis : the new 
 road is not begun. Nobody, they said, had received specific 
 orders about it. I specified them to no purpose. Chapman was 
 there, and imagined there was to be a double ditch and rail 
 no such thing a simple path of gravel for a coach : what a fright 
 would there be from Agnes's balcony ! 
 
 The two rooms are covered in ; the scaffolding will be struck 
 to-night. I clambered to the top of the stairs and peeped in, tho' 
 the steps are not placed yet ; they will be pretty chambers. 
 
 Mr.' Berry's rick is almost finished. 
 
 I found poor Muff bad, not with his eyes, but his back very 
 mangy. I have ordered him to be entirely clipped, and dipped 
 at the powdermills. 
 
 * General O'Hara.
 
 1795] REASONS FOR MISS BERRY'S RETURN. 479 
 
 As the letter to the gardener only affected to have been 
 wafered, but came open, I looked to see whether I could expe- 
 dite any orders. I found that your favourite gardener is leaving 
 you. I asked wherefore; he replied the wages are too low. 
 Pray suspend that decree if you wish to keep him. I think I 
 could accommodate that impediment. 
 
 I have given orders for a new gigantic ice-house, that you 
 may not want a profusion, if there should ever be such afeel- 
 omenon as a hot summer. 
 
 Strawb., Sept. 10, 1795. 
 
 The postman at Cheltenham may growl as much as he pleases, 
 or make as ill-natured glosses as he has a mind, on my writing 
 to you almost every day : as long as y r servant fetches the letters 
 from the office, what has the man to do but to receive them ? If 
 Kirgate, who is forced to put my letters into the post so very 
 often, were to complain, and demand an increase of his wages, 
 I should not wonder, tho' since my press has stopped, he has 
 scarce anything else to do ; or if you, the greatest sufferer of all, 
 were to lament being obliged to read such heaps of insipid 
 scribbles, it^" would be no marvel ; but till I receive some re- 
 monstrance of that kind, I shall persist to the last drop of the 
 next fortnight. I trust I am still in a free country, and not in 
 one where everybody that is below me is much above me, and 
 has a right to tell me what I shall not do, when I have nothing 
 at all to do, and when, as at this present writing, no mortal can 
 take upon himself to say that I am doing anything at all. 
 
 Having thus confuted the postman, and asserted my natural 
 liberty as a Peer of England of being as foolish as I please, I 
 come to the next important article of my present life, which is 
 very necessary for you to know, or you would be entirely ignorant 
 of one trifling event of my actual existence. The House of 
 North and by Douglas * dined here to-day, and I could not get 
 a soul to meet them : the Keenes are at Tunbridge ; I sent to 
 the Mount Edgcumbes, but they are gone this blessed day, he 
 to the Mount and she to Norfolk, while the Dowager is merry- 
 making with Lord Cardigan in Northampton. Having mounted 
 quantum in auras a3therias of Eichmond Hill, I tantum in 
 Tartara tendebam, and invited the Mother Ankerstrom and 
 
 * Lady Guilford and family : her eldest daughter married Sylvester 
 Douglas.
 
 480 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 her daughter-in-law, and they also would not come ; so not 
 being able to make a party for Lady Guilford, she and her 
 younger daughters (the elder and her Strephon to love and a 
 cottage) went after tea to Pope's to visit Mrs. Arch-Cashel,* 
 who, by the way, is created Lady Somerton, for Irishwomen 
 turn to peeresses as easily as the figurantes at the Opera who 
 form shepherdesses in the first dance, are changed in the next 
 to graces and goddesses. So being left alone on my own shore, 
 what could I do but fling myself into the Thames or write to 
 you ? Now you see and rue the consequences of leaving me by 
 myself in this depopulated region ! Another danger is, that if 
 you don't return soon, I shall be devoured by venison, and hares, 
 and partridges, and pheasants from Houghton. I am forced to 
 water all my neighbourhood with game : to Lady Anne I shall 
 be supposed to be making court for a legacy, though it is only 
 gratitude for the large cabinet of gold and silver medals which 
 she insisted on giving to me, and which I was so overjoyed when 
 authorised to send back to her. 
 
 Saturday morning, 12th. 
 
 Thank all the stars in which I have any friends, for bringing 
 me yours of Thursday last at this instant, when I had not a 
 word to say, nor could have made out the semblance of a letter, 
 had I not had this antecedent piece ready cut and dried in my 
 writing-box, tho', as you justly say, when my pen gets a drop of 
 ink in its eye, it cannot help chattering (to you s'entend) as 
 fast as Miss Hotham. 
 
 If you have gulped enough of the fountain tho' I fear not, 
 nor conceive that water can work miracles in three weeks I like 
 your journeyings about and diverting yourselves with sights. 
 Of Sudeley Castle, the principal point to tell you is, that there is 
 a print of the beautiful chapel, in which but a few years ago 
 was found the tomb of Catherine Parr, the castle then belonging 
 to her last husband, Admiral Seymour; and as I am descended 
 from her by her first, I would you had been advertised to say a 
 mass for y r great-grandmother. 
 
 I do not wonder that Madame K. ordered the windows to be 
 shut when the weather was sultry it was to display her dignity 
 or to increase the volume of her noisy voice, which she always 
 
 * Wife of Charles Agar, Archbishop of Cashel, created Baroness Somerton 
 1795.
 
 1755] LORD ORFORD TO THE MISS BERRYS. 481 
 
 exerts for the same reason. I wish they had been gentlewomen, 
 and then they would not have always aimed at being princesses. 
 
 I will say nothing about y r gardener nor Cliveden now. I 
 believe you will think my pen more fuddled this morning than 
 it was two nights ago, for this part of my letter is much worse 
 written than the former the truth is, I am very nervous to- 
 day, and my hand shakes, yet I am otherwise quite well, as 
 Mrs. Darner will testify, for I expect her by dinner on her return 
 from London, and she is to stay with me till to-morrow, of which 
 I am very glad. 
 
 The out-pensioner of Bedlam, Gr. H., whom I hoped I had 
 offended in the spring by refusing him a plenary indulgence, 
 wrote to me last night to dine with him on Tuesday next with 
 the Archbishop of Cashel. I knew this was to imply, ' my 
 cousin is Lord-Lieutenant' with all my heart! Accept I did 
 not; however as it showed good humour, I sent a very civil 
 sorrowful fib in return, and pleaded having engaged company 
 myself for that day. You know I never enter into dinner-parties 
 that have a round of consequences. Adieu ! 
 
 Str., Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1795. 
 
 I this moment receive the dear double letter (for I am always 
 delighted when I find even a few lines of my sweet Agnes's 
 writing and yet I am not ungrateful for the many that sweet 
 Mary writes, tho' against my orders ; but tho' I love both - so 
 much and so equally together, I am still always wishing to 
 show a whole affection to each separately ; but as two wholes 
 are impossible, I must go on in the old manner, and only make 
 a distinction whenever either of you lets me discover an 
 individual wish that I can gratify, and then I am sure that 
 there is no preference I show in complying). Well! after 
 this endless parenthesis, I begin in obedience to y r commands 
 to write this for y r reception, though I have heard nor done 
 anything worth repeating since Saturday, when Mrs. Darner 
 came to me, and gave me the only very agreeable day that 
 I have passed since you left me. Her lameness is greatly better 
 than I expected, and not to be perceived unless one is ap- 
 prised of it. I settled with her, and by her mother's request, 
 to meet you at Park Place, and you must let me know when 
 that is to be. 
 
 I can now do no more than answer y r paragraphs, tho' I 
 VOL. I. 1 1
 
 482 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 must jump to the one that pleases me the most, your finding 
 yourself so well; my having persuaded you to the journey 
 infinitely overpays all the ennui it has occasioned to myself. I 
 only wonder how I endured so many summers and autumns 
 here before I knew two persons in whom some folks can dis- 
 cover nothing so extraordinary ! 
 
 My next, and a great satisfaction too, is your purchase of a 
 horse if it be a sure-footed one but I do not love a cheap 
 horse ; pray let it try anybody's neck before yours. 
 
 To your friends at Bushy I went last night, but found no 
 soul but the mother and two daughters the second son was in 
 the house, but would not condescend to appear I suppose I 
 am not mauvais ton enough for him. To gratify my lady, 
 who loves cribbage as well as Lady A. or Lady Mendip, we 
 played four rubbers, to the joy of poor Lady Anne as little as 
 to mine ! It was near eleven before I got home. 
 
 This is the whole of my diary, except fifty frets and torments 
 about tickets for seeing the house ; and yesterday, tho' I am 
 forced to keep a list of those I have given out, I had made a 
 confusion, and given two for the same day: this I had dis- 
 covered, as I hoped in time, and wrote on Saturday to a clergy- 
 man at Norwood, one of Nanny's customers, to change the day, 
 but he had not returned home, and consequently, had not 
 received my letter, and so both companies arrived within three 
 minutes of each other, and I was forced to admit both, only 
 substituting Kirgate to conduct one set, and charging Nanny 
 to be as tedious as she could with the other, that they might 
 not jostle in the gallery 'Yes, yes, my lord, I'll palaver 'em 
 enough in the blue room ' and with such a plenary indulgence 
 to that perpetual motion her tongue, I do not doubt but she 
 told them ten times instead of three, 'that that on the staircase, 
 gentlemen, is the armour of Francis I.' 
 
 The newspaper is not arrived tho' near one, and I do not 
 know a syllable of truth or falsehood, nor whether the Conven- 
 tion are murdering or murdered. Adieu I both ! and a thousand 
 million of thanks my sweetest Agnes for your kind postscript ! it 
 is not thrown away on me ! Eeturn looking as well as last year, 
 and you know how happy it will make me. 
 
 The visit to Cheltenham being over, Lord Orford's last
 
 1795] SPLENDID WEATHER. 483 
 
 letter of the month of September was addressed to Miss 
 Berry, at Mr. Coxe's, Quarley, near Andover. 
 
 Friday night, Sept. 18, 1795. 
 
 I mean this shall meet you at Mr. Coxe's on Sunday, and am 
 quite happy that you have had and have such a posthumous 
 summer for your travels. To-day has been the Phoenix of 
 days, so bright, so clear, so soft, and warm enough to be called 
 hot by the courtesy of England. I am obliged to the weather 
 too for furnishing me with a beginning, for the trade of corre- 
 spondence is low indeed ! I went to the palace at Fulham this 
 morning, and have been at Lady Di's and Lady Betty's this 
 evening, and could not bring away a scrap of novelty, but that 
 the Parliament is to meet on the 29th of next month. What 
 care you or I ? 
 
 T'other morning Lady Horatia brought me her new sister and 
 my new cousin Lady George Seymour * to see me. I found 
 her much better than I expected ; her person I had heard com- 
 mended, never her face, yet that I found extremely well, with 
 good complexion and a lively and sensible look. 
 
 The best news I can tell you is, that that public nuisance of 
 this district, Davensport, seems growing quite frantic ; lie has 
 quarrelled with his protector the Duke of Northumberland's 
 steward, and has driven a cart across his hedge; and he not 
 the steward, but Devilport has beaten a poor woman that he 
 found gleaning on his field unmercifully. Such rich upstarts 
 are apt to grow tirannoni. In France he would have guillotined 
 her and her whole family, for gold petrifies dunghills sooner 
 than it does velvets. 
 
 The emigrants of Eichmond are beginning to return. The 
 Dowager Mount Edgcumbe is arrived at her son's villa. These 
 scraps are all I can sweep together. Were you to be absent 
 another fortnight, I should be reduced to have recourse to Mrs. 
 Wright at Hampton Court, to learn what all the inhabitants of 
 the neighbourhood have had for dinner every day this week. 
 
 Saturday morn. 
 
 Oh ! thank you, and so does my letter, for it was quite ex- 
 hausted, and here is yours of 17th to set it going again ! Now 
 
 * Daughter of the Hon. and Rev. George Hamilton. 
 II 2
 
 484 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 I shall be impatient for the next from Mr. Coxe's. Yes, I will 
 certainly come to you at Park Place, but as I know I should 
 take fright and conclude you ill, were I not to find you there, 
 I will allow for accidental delays, and will not be there myself 
 till Sunday the 27th, or Monday 28th ; if I hear that you have 
 met with any remora not by y r cold I hope but how can it 
 last in this celestial weather, which ought to operate all the 
 miracles in Pope's * Messiah ' ought I don't say does, for tho' 
 I am certainly lame enough for a marvellous experiment, I am 
 so far from finding I can 
 
 Leap exulting like the bounding roe, 
 
 that last night I was near tumbling headlong down Lady Di's 
 steps, as I got out of my coach, but her footman caught me in 
 his arms. Well ! to-day is yesterday's twin, and as like as any 
 two Hobarts or Forbes's. The cream was actually turned this 
 morning at breakfast; what a phenomenon on the 19th of 
 September ! 
 
 I wish every Jacobiterian that would lay waste the face of 
 this beautiful rich country were to taste a few not a quarter, 
 which would be too many for one human being to wish to 
 another, of the horrors that General O'Hara beheld in France 
 and where excess of reformation has now produced a system 
 of despotic impudence that surpasses even the triple partition of 
 Poland. Their unchristened month of Fructidor will retain 
 its denomination in the memory of mankind by the fruits it 
 has generated in its decree of perpetuating two-thirds of the 
 Convention. We shall see how blessed they will be by esta- 
 blishing the power of such a host of tyrannical monsters ! 
 Adieu ! 
 
 A friendly letter from Professor Playfair* written at 
 this time shows the estimation in which he held the 
 
 * John Playfair, an eminent Scotch mathematician, born 1748. Member 
 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1784; in 1789 became its president; in 
 1785 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edin- 
 burgh. In 1805 he was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy. He 
 published an edition of Euclid with notes and a supplement. He took a 
 strong interest in geology and philosophy. He travelled in the Alps and in 
 Italy to study the geology of those regions. He was much loved and re- 
 spected. Died 1819. A monument to his memory is erected on the Calton 
 Hill.
 
 1795] LETTER FROM PROFESSOR PLAYFAIR. 485 
 
 society of the Miss Berrys. How long the acquaintance 
 had been formed does not appear, but the friendship 
 lasted for the remainder of his life. 
 
 London, Sept. 4, 1795, London-street, No. 42. 
 
 DEAR MADAM, I cannot leave London without accounting to 
 you for my not having revisited Twickenham before you left it. 
 The truth is I had it not in my power, for I never have been at 
 any time less master of my own actions than this summer. The 
 principal object of my visit to London was the settling of the 
 affairs of my brother's family, and this being a work in itself 
 not very simple, has afforded to one who has no great aptitude 
 for business a very complete and sometimes even a laborious 
 occupation. There is no advantage or pleasure, however, of 
 which it has deprived me, that I so much lament the loss of, as 
 not having had it in my power to enjoy more of the elegant 
 and rational entertainment that the society of your family 
 affords above anything I have ever met with, or can hope to 
 find in any other place. The only consolation I have is, that I 
 have now succeeded pretty nearly in the main object of my 
 long stay in London. Such is the true solution of the problem, 
 that I understood from Mrs. Cholmeley you was so good as to 
 expect from me ; and, to express it mathematically, I should 
 say that the phenomenon in question arose not from any weak- 
 ness of the attracting force at Twickenham, nor from the inertia 
 of the body attracted, but from the violent and irregular action 
 of a disturbing force. 
 
 I am now going to retire within the Arctic circle for the 
 winter, and must request that from that frozen region you will 
 have the goodness to permit me sometimes to address you in 
 a few lines. It is so terrible not to hear a word of the motions, 
 employments, or even health of those in whom one takes a 
 certain interest, and I have so long experienced this evil with 
 respect to your sister and you, that it will be an act of the 
 greatest charity to relieve me from it. I will not be very 
 troublesome, for I know how much the exchange must run in 
 my favour, and I would not wish to be too selfish. From me 
 you can expect to hear only of Lines or of Angles, or perhaps 
 of those metaphysical speculations that are almost as natural 
 to Scotland as her heaths and her snows. Among the many
 
 486 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 interesing topics of which you can speak, I must remind you of 
 one in particular, the production that I listened to with so 
 much pleasure when I saw you last, and in whose fate I shall 
 always have a deep concern.* 
 
 I see Mrs. Cholmeley frequently, always with much pleasure 
 and increased esteem. I was glad to learn from her that your 
 party at Cheltenham is agreeable, and has lately received the 
 great addition of General O'Hara. Farewell ! I leave this on 
 the 8th, and wherever I am, will not cease to remain, with the 
 purest esteem, 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 JOHN PLAYFAIR. 
 
 The following letters are all that remain of Lord 
 Orford's correspondence with the Miss Berrys for the 
 year 1795 the two first directed to Park Place, the rest 
 to North Audley Street : 
 
 Friday night, 9 o'clock, Oct. 6, 1795. 
 
 A storm is something, and in a village a big event, and so I 
 have now a wherewithal for writing. We had a tremendous 
 tempest of wind this morning before five o'clock ; it did not 
 wake me till the close, tho' it had done me mischief. It has 
 levelled the two tall elms in the meadow beyond the clump of 
 walnut trees, and snapped two others short in the grove near the 
 terrace ; it ripped off the tiles from the corner of the printing- 
 house, and Kirgate rose in a panic. It demolished some large 
 trees in the angle of the common, and threw down one of the 
 vast old elms before Hardinge's door, but it fortunately fell 
 towards the river, or had crushed Bagman's Castle, and perhaps 
 some of the inhabitants. At Lord Dysart's it has felled sixteen 
 trees, which I suppose will only improve the prospect, which he 
 always made keep its distance. Havroc, too, I hear, is made in 
 
 * The production to which he alludes was a play written by Miss Berry; 
 probably that entitled ' Fashionable Friends.' Mrs. Darner says in a letter 
 that she is glad that Miss Berry had shown her play to Playfair, ' but,' adds 
 she, ' if I could be diverted just now I should, for you put me in mind of the 
 Persian, in I know not what tales, always looking for something or some- 
 body not to be found, and you are looking for one that does not admire your 
 play, on whom you mean to pin your faith, and then, I suppose, burn your 
 books, not exactly the case with authors in general.'
 
 1795] VIOLENT HURRICANE. 487 
 
 Bushy Park other distant mails are not yet arrived. This 
 hurricane, I hope, did not extend to any of our fleets ! 
 
 My fillip of gout is nearly gone as I expected, nor have I 
 stirred from the chimney-corner these three days. Your father, 
 sister, and Miss Dilkes came and sat with me yesterday even- 
 ing : the two last are gone to-night to the dancing Darrels and 
 to Miss Flora Raphael. 
 
 I am impatient to hear the result of Lord Malmesbury's 
 review, and not a little for an authentic confirmation of Clair- 
 fait's and Wurmser's victories, which tho' everybody believes, 
 do not yet seem substantiated. 
 
 I will keep this unsealed till one o'clock to-morrow, in case 
 I should have any casualties to add to the Twickenham Daily 
 Post. Mr. Walter, our neighbour, I suppose, will be prolix on 
 them in the Times. Good night ! 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 Good morrow ! One of the bricklayers, who is at work on 
 our new icehouse, says that there has been a great slaughter of 
 chimneys in London, which I conclude will raise the price of 
 smoke, like everything else; and that two houses have been 
 blown down, but as truth does not know where, it was probably 
 her toadeater, Mrs. Theysay who told her so. 
 
 Pray tell Mr. Hoper, who will be with you to-morrow, that I 
 thank him for his letter, and am not sorry that Thelusson has 
 withdrawn. Lord Malmesbury, I hope, is no banker, and does 
 not propose to buy the most beautiful villa in England to make 
 money of it. 
 
 Lady Betty has just been here to visit my goutling, and says 
 Mr. Pitt has written to the Post Office to confirm the Austrian 
 victories I know not to what amount, nor can tell but what I 
 am told nor shall save the post if I write a word more. 
 
 Wednesday, Novr. 4th, 1795. 
 
 You commanded me, mighty princess, to write to you, and 
 said I write best when I 'have nothing to say' no flattery 
 to the moments when I have anything to relate. However, 
 were the case so, this letter would be perfection ! Lord 
 Rochester, indeed, thought non-entity so fruitful a subject that 
 he wrote an ode on Nothing (though he generally chose more 
 productive themes), and I think called Nothing the elder
 
 488 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 brother of Shade, which I apprehend was false genealogy, for 
 tho' they might be twins, I should suppose Master Light 
 appeared before Master Shade, and that the pre-Adamite 
 Nothing was only a false conception. I therefore, who am a 
 rigid genealogist, shall attempt to deduce no progeny from a 
 miscarriage; though I could point out a suitable match for 
 that non-apparent heir, Nothing, in my own Princess Royal who 
 never was born. 
 
 Thursday, 5. 
 
 You ! you are no more a judge of what makes a good letter 
 than Dame Piozzi, who writes bad English when she ought to 
 be exactly accurate, but mistakes vulgarisms for synonymons 
 to elegancies. Hear the oracle Lear not in Ireland's spurious 
 transcript 
 
 Nothing can come of Nothing speak again. 
 
 So I will, when I really have anything to say. At present, 
 not rinding the inspirer Nothing very procreative, I shall only 
 tell you that I have a little gout in my right foot, and though 
 I had ordered the coach for Cliveden last night, I could not go, 
 nor shall to Lady Betty's to-night ; though I am easier to-day, 
 and think it will not be a fit, but I shall propose to my Agnes 
 and Co. to come to me. She has been here, and will come, and 
 sends you this inclosed. Adieu ! 
 
 Straw. Hill, Nov. 22, 1795. 
 
 I have heard Nothing, know Nothing. These two negatives 
 not having, according to the proverb, gotten my pen with child 
 of anything, will assuredly not engender an entertaining letter, 
 and I only write a line as you desired, but did hope it would 
 be in answer to another from you, telling me how poor Horace 
 Churchill is. 
 
 The night you left me, I went to Cambridge's to advance 
 my fiO^. for the potatoes for the poor here. He told me a 
 curious circumstance, that the great elm which fell into the 
 Thames at Marble Hill in the late hurricane killed several 
 fishes. It is new for gudgeons to be knocked on the head by a 
 tree in their own element ; if a dolphin got into the boughs, or 
 a boar into the current, a la bonne heure ! 
 
 As Mr. C. was peroring to me, I did not hear his boy, who
 
 1795] FROM THE EARL OF ORFORD. 489 
 
 entered at nine to tell me my coach was come, so I trespassed 
 half an hour on the prayers. I did not stay till one in the 
 morning, as with you at Teddington. I think I should have 
 found out the length of the time ; indeed, I did now wonder 
 that nine o'clock came so slowly, and did ring the bell. How- 
 ever, old Cherrytree was very good-humoured and gracious 
 about my having entrenched on the canonical hour. 
 
 As my own stock of Nothing is so unproductive, I will, while 
 expecting Marchand, who is to call to see my Jupiter, tran- 
 scribe the wonderful Sanscrit paragraph which you found t' other 
 morning in Murphy's ' Portugal,' and which you will like to 
 
 ' From whose splendid virtues, the great men, who delight to 
 sport in the atoms which float in the beams of light issuing 
 from the beauty of the leaf of the sleepy Katahee of the diadem 
 of the goddess Saraskatee, went to adorn the females of the 
 eight points.' 
 
 Such are the treasures of Eastern literature which we are so 
 proud of importing, and which will tend to improve us about as 
 much as the Infantheof and Outfantheof of our Saxon ances- 
 tors ! or as the ferociser, sausculotiser, pantheoniser, &c., of 
 French neologisme ! Adieu ! 
 
 Wedn., Nov. 23, '95. 
 
 I thank you much for your note, tho' it gives me so unsatis- 
 factory an account of you ; yet I own I should have been alarmed, 
 if I had not seen your own hand. Still, as you have had a little 
 sleep, I will command myself, and will hope for better news to- 
 morrow. I am even resolved not to see you till Saturday, to 
 leave you to recover entirely by repose; if I come to you 
 to-morrow, as I am much inclined to do, I might draw you too 
 soon out of y r room, or disturb you by my anxiety. Therefore 
 I wave my own uneasiness to weigh what is best for you. Nay, 
 if you are not quite well again, I promise you not to be more 
 frightened, even if Agnes writes instead of you, and can tell me 
 with truth that you are better. I will say no more now, not 
 to provoke you to write yourself. 
 
 Straw., Nov. 24, 1795. 
 
 By not receiving a word from you yesterday, I own I was a 
 little afraid that you was out of order again ; and now I find 
 that I guessed too justly ! Would I knew how or what to 
 
 VOL. I. K K
 
 490 LETTEKS. [1795 
 
 advise you ! Alas ! I can only be meanly personal, and say to 
 myself, ' At least she does not suffer by my persuading her to 
 stay in the country, I did not attempt it ; ' but is that a com- 
 fort ? Do I feel your pain the less for not having contributed 
 to it ? Gone I trust it is by this time, and that hope I can 
 enjoy ; * but such consolations are of short duration.' You .are 
 both so delicate, that to-morrow, perhaps, I may hear that 
 Agnes is ill ! 
 
 I do not like the Churchills being still in the country ; it does 
 not look as if Horace were in a good way. 
 
 My own story will be very brief. Being a very fine evening, 
 I did go last night to Lady Juliana and delivered your excuse. 
 There was one large bouncing woman that I wish you had seen: 
 she was all in the reigning white, but with an ample stream of 
 blood-coloured ribband flowing from her chin to what would 
 have been her knees, had they not spread. . . . 
 
 There I heard of the conquest of the Cape of Good Hope. 
 I always direct myself to believe in good omens, and never in 
 bad ; so this is of the propitious side. It will keep up the 
 credit of our navy a little, which has been sadly hurri caned, 
 and we shall have many trinkets to go to market with at the 
 peace ; yet I had rather we had taken one seaport in France 
 than all the Capes and Corsicas in the ocean. 
 
 My former old gardener, who lives near the church and is 
 superannuated, t'other day, in a feverish delirium, flung himself 
 out of a window thirteen feet from the ground, and yet was but 
 little bruised. 
 
 Kirgate shall certainly make the cases you want, because you 
 desire it ; but how ridiculous for me to be ordering still more 
 great-coats for my own letters ! I shall say, like St. John, ' the 
 world will not hold them all.' However, you shall wait a little 
 for the next liberator (to talk in my exchequer style) till 
 Kirgate can get better parchment in town. I do think of 
 going thither on Saturday myself for a couple of days, as I have 
 business with Mr. Blake, but shall return hither on Monday 
 for a few more days to pay my bills, and settle my potatoes 
 with George Cambridge, who will not be at Twickenham till 
 Sunday next. 
 
 Mr. Coxe comes to me to-morrow, to read some more chapters 
 of my father's life to me. I am exceedingly pleased at its
 
 1795] MISS BERRY'S DELICATE HEALTH. 491 
 
 being undertaken by so very able a hand ; but I shall wish it 
 not to be published till I am gone. As there will not be a 
 sentence of my writing in it, tho' I have given him some in- 
 formation, I should be sorry to have a tittle imputed to my 
 partiality, tho' I have religiously told him nothing but truth. 
 Even when he consulted me on his memoirs of my uncle, I 
 said to him, * Tho' I acknowledge I had the strongest reason 
 for having great prejudices to my uncle, I will not suffer those 
 prejudices to influence me in what I shall say to you of him ; ' 
 and, indeed, I believe you will not find in Mr. Coxe's account 
 of that man one hint of the injuries he did me, of which I have 
 told you, nor of his base ingratitude to his brother in regard to 
 the descendants of the latter : but keep all this part of my 
 letter to yourself at present. 
 
 I am impatient for to-morrow's letter, to confirm y r recovery. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 Thursday, half after noon, Nov. 27, '95. 
 
 MY SWEETEST, Mr. Coxe, whom I could not dismiss, has 
 staid reading to me till this instant, till I can scarce save the 
 post. Thank Grod for a little better account of dearest Mary ; 
 yet it is not near good enough. Still, as you say she must be 
 kept quiet, I will suppress my impatience, and will not see her 
 till Saturday evening. Yet I shall long to receive a more com- 
 fortable letter to-morrow morning. I dare not stay to write a 
 syllable more. Adieu, adieu. 
 
 Strawb., Dec. 1, 1795. 
 
 I am rejoiced that you are free from pain. However, I do 
 beg you will, at least to oblige me, once more consult Sir George 
 Baker, and learn his opinion, whether there is no regimen to 
 which he could advise you. I, who am so ignorant in physical 
 cases, shall indubitably not be prescribing for you. I hope the 
 reasonableness of what I say will make impression on you. 
 
 Though so wet, yesterday was quite warm. To-day is soft as 
 possible. 
 
 I found my poor old gardener dead. I can have nothing else 
 to tell in so short a space of time. 
 
 Dec. 3, J795. 
 
 The note y r father has brought gives me great comfort by 
 telling me y r pain is gone. Still, I must repeatedly implore
 
 492 LETTERS. [1795 
 
 you to talk to Sir George Baker. Your headaches return so 
 very frequently, and yet you do nothing that even pretends to 
 guard against relapses, or even to mitigate them. 
 
 The weather is so soft and mild, that while it lasts so I must 
 stay here a few days longer. However, I shall probably be in 
 town on Monday or Tuesday next. 
 
 I have heard nothing, but the Prince is to dine this week at 
 Lady Dancinda Darrell's, who, I suppose, is again to be dis- 
 appointed. Adieu ! 
 
 Sunday, Dec. 6, 1795. 
 
 It will be impossible for me to be in town before Tuesday, 
 and I must want the sight of you for a day longer. I shall 
 certainly come on Tuesday, for I have various threats of the 
 gout. I suppose you will think I have stayed too long in the 
 country, and caught cold, which is far from being the case. 
 The weather has been soft as in the beginning of autumn, 
 and I have not been out of these two rooms since Wednesday 
 morning last. Can I, old and broken, and full of cracks as 
 I am, expect that pain will not enter into some of them? 
 Yes ; entirely free I never am ; and as I hate to trouble others 
 with complaints of natural infirmities, and perceive how sensibly 
 I decay, I like to be much alone, and care not how few I see, 
 except the very, very few that I really love. I am expecting 
 Mr. Blake on business, and therefore will say no more now. 
 Adieu till Tuesday ! 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 !; ' VI I I. BY 8FOTTI8WOODZ AS I. CO. 
 KKW-8TBBKT SQUABS
 
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 INDEX. 
 
 ABSGTT on Sight ami Touch .............. 6 
 
 ACTON'S Modern Cookery ................ 18 
 
 AIKIN'S Select British Poets .............. 17 
 
 - Memoirs and Remains ............ 3 
 
 ALCOCK'S Residence in Japan .............. 15 
 
 ALLIES on Formation of Christianity ...... 13 
 
 Alpine Guide (The) ........................ 15 
 
 - Journal (The) ...................... 20 
 
 APJOHN'S Manual of the Metalloids ........ 8 
 
 ARAGO'S Biographies of Scientific Men .... 4 
 
 - Popular Astronomy .............. 7 
 
 - Meteorological Essays' ............ 7 
 
 A RXOLD'S Manual of English Literature. ... 5 
 
 ARNOTT'S Elements of Physics ............ 8 
 
 Arundines Caml .......................... 17 
 
 Atherst one Priory ........................ 16 
 
 ATKINSON'S Papinian .................... 4 
 
 Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson .... 6 
 
 AYRE'S Treasury of Bible Knowledge ...... 13 
 
 B ABB AGE'S Life of a Philosopher .......... 3 
 
 BACON'S Essays, hy WHATELY ............ 4 
 
 --- Life and Letters, by SPEDDING. ... 3 
 
 -- Works, by ELLIS, SPEDDING, and 
 
 II EATH .................................. 4 
 
 BAIN on the Emotions and Will ............ 6 
 
 - on t'.ie Senses and Intellect .......... 6 
 
 - on the Study of Character ........... 6 
 
 BAINES'S Explorations iu S.W. Africa .... 15 
 
 BALL'S Guide to the Central Alps .......... 15 
 
 - Guide to the Western Alps ........ 15 
 
 BAYLDON'S Rents and Tillages ............ 12 
 
 BLACK'S Treatise on Brewing .............. 19 
 
 BLACKLEY and FRIEDLANDER'S German 
 
 and English Dictionary .................. 5 
 
 ELAINE'S Rural Sports .................... 17 
 
 BLIGHT'S Week at the Land's End ........ 16 
 
 BONN EY'S Alps of Dauphine 1 .............. 15 
 
 Bou RN E'S Catechism of the Steam Engine. . 12 
 
 -- Handbook of Steam Engine ---- 12 
 
 -- Treatise on the Steam Engine ---- 11 
 
 BOWDLER'S Family SHAKSPEARE ...... ... .. 17 
 
 BOYD'S Manual for Naval Cadets .......... 18 
 
 BRAMLEY-MOORE'S Six Sisters of the Valleys 16 
 BRANDE'S Dictionary of Science, Literature, 
 
 andArt ................................. 9 
 
 BRAY'S (C.) Education of the Feelings ...... 7 
 
 -- Philosophyof Necessity ........ 7 
 
 -- (Mrs.) British Empire ............ 7 
 
 BREWER'S Atlas of History and Geography 19 
 
 BRIM TON on Food and Digestion .......... 19 
 
 BRISTOW'S Glossary of Mineralogy ........ 8 
 
 BRODib's (Sir C. B.) Psychological Inquiries 7 
 
 --- Works ................ 10 
 
 ---- Autobiography ........ 10 
 
 BROWNE'S Ice Caves of France and Switzer- 
 
 land .................................... 15 
 
 BROWNE'S Exposition 39 Articles 13 
 
 Pentateuch ] 3 
 
 BUCKLE'S History of Civilization a 
 
 BULL'S Hiutsto Mothers 19 
 
 Maternal Management of Children.. 19 
 
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