LETTER CCCXV.

Berkeley Square, Oct. 14, 1779. I HAVE been desired, and never acquiesced with more pleasure, both for the sake of the recommended and of yours, to give a recommendatory letter to you for Mr. Windham, a gentleman of large fortune in Norfolk, who is obliged to go to Italy for the recovery of his health, which I most earnestly wish he may retrieve there.* He is

*William Windham, Esq., of Felbrigg in the county of Norfolk, the subject of this high but strictly merited culogium, was born in London in 1750, and sent in his seventh year to Eton; whence he was removed in 1766 to the University of Glasgow, and in the following year to University College, Oxford. In 1773 his love of adventure and thirst of knowledge induced him to accompany his friend, Constantine Lord Mulgrave, in his voyage towards the North Pole; but sea-sickness compelled him to land in Norway, and abandon his purpose. The ill-health referred to by Walpole, was occasioned by riding, in a sort of frolic, through a deep rivulet, and remaining for several hours in wet clothes. With a view to its restoration, he, in 1779, proceeded to the Continent; where he remained for two years. In 1782, he came into Parliament; where he sat for twenty-eight years. In 1783, he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; upon which occasion, on his expressing to Dr. Johnson, of whose Literary Club he was a member, some doubts that he should be called on in his new office to sanction practices of which he could not approve, "Don't be afraid, sir," said the Doctor, with a smile, "you will soon make a very pretty rascal." It appears that Mr. Windham's doubts were not ill-founded, as he yielded up his secretaryship four months after his appointment. He sided with Opposition until the celebrated secession from the Whig party in 1793; when he followed the lead of Mr. Burke. In 1794, he was appointed Secretary at War, with a seat in the cabinet. In the same year, he took his degree of LL.D. at Oxford; upon which occasion, on his entering the theatre, the whole assembly rose, and greeted him with loud acclamations. When Mr. Pitt resigned, in 1801, Mr. Windham retired from office; but on the death of that great man, in 1806, he again took it, as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and on the dismissal of the Grenville Administration, returned to the ranks of Opposition which he never afterwards quitted. His death was occasioned by the following circumstance. About midnight, on the 8th of July 1809, in walking home from an evening party, he observed a house in Conduit Street on fire. He hastened to the spot to render his assistance, and found that the House in flames was so near to that of his friend, the Honourable Frederick North, (afterwards fifth earl of Guildford,) as to threaten its destruction. Knowing that his friend possessed a very valuable library, Mr. Windham determined, with the assistance of persons whom he selected from the crowd, to make an effort for the preservation of it. After four hours' labour four-fifths of the books were saved; nor did he quit the house till the flames, which finally consumed it, had rendered farther exertions highly dangerous. Unfortunately, by a fall, he received a blow on his hip. He took no notice of the accident, until an indolent tumour had been formed, which at length compelled him to submit to a most painful and dangerous operation. The tumour was removed with success on the 17th of May, 1810; but unfavourable symptoms soon afterwards appeared, and he expired on the 4th of the following month. A Collection of his Speeches in Parliament, in three volumes, to which is prefixed a Biographical Sketch of his Life, was published in 1812 by his friend, Thomas Amyot, Esq. His talents, accomplishments, and virtues have been happily summed up, by describing him as the true model of an English gentleman; and it has been well observed, that if this country had been required to produce, in a trial of strength with another nation, some individual who was at

young, but full of virtues, knowledge, and good sense; and, in one word, of the old rock-of which so few gems are left in this wretched country! His ill-health has prevented my being much acquainted with him, which I regret; but I well know his worth, and respect him exceedingly. In short, this is not a common letter of recommendation, but one that I shall confirm in my next by the post. I do not beg attentions for him; those you have even for the least deserving, from your own good nature: but I intreat and advise you to get acquainted with Mr. Windham as fast as you can; your friendship will soon follow, and then he can want nothing in my power to ask,-unless his modesty should prevent his pressing you for letters of recommendation to other parts of Italy, and therefore I beg them for him, and indeed every service you can perform for him. My unlimited expressions will tell you how confident I am that your goodness will not be misplaced, as it has often been on travelling boys and their more unlicked governors. Mr. Windham is not so young as to want to be formed, nor so old as to be insensible to the merit of others; and, therefore, I trust you will both be mutually pleased with each other. I envy him a little the satisfaction of visiting you; and, as he is a genuine Englishman, should lament his being forced to leave his own country, if I thought its honour or principles retrievable; and if I was not sure, by what I feel myself, that his health would be but more prejudiced by his remaining spectator of its blindness and disgraces.

LETTER CCCXVI.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 31, 1779. YOUR last letter was so full of encomiums on my tragedy, that, veteran author as I am, it made me blush. But I recollected your partiality, and then I accepted the motive with pleasure, though I must decline the exaggerations. It is plain that I am sincerely modest about it, for I not only never thought of its appearing on the stage, but have not published it. It has indeed received greater honour than any of its superiors; for Lady Di. Beauclerc has drawn seven scenes of it, that would be fully worthy of the best of Shakspeare's plays-such drawings, that Salvator Rosa and Guido could not surpass their expression and beauty. I have built a closet on purpose for them here at Strawberry Hill. It is called the Beauclerc Closet; and whoever sees the drawings allows that no description comes up to their merit-and then, they do not shock and disgust, like their original, the tragedy.*

once eminent for learning, taste, eloquence, wit, courage, and personal accomplishments, the choice must have fallen upon Mr. Windham.-ED.

The following is Walpole's account of these drawings in his Description of Strawberry Hill:-"The beauty and grace of the figures and of the children are

I am heartily glad you have had your nephew; I speak in the past tense, for he will certainly be set out on his return before this can reach Florence. It was uncommon merit to take so long a journey for a moment. I have sent you one to replace him, not to compensate; for a stranger cannot rival or equal your nephew: but one who, as soon as you are acquainted with him, will be a great comfort to you, from his virtues, sense, and manners. It is a young Mr. Windham, a gentleman of Norfolk, of a very considerable estate, who is in a bad state of health, and travels for it. I am not so much acquainted with him as with his character, which is excellent; and then he is a Whig of the stamp that was current in our country in my father's time. I do not always send you a tally to the letters of recommendation I am sometimes forced to give; but that which he carries to you, I confirm by this in all points. I advise you to be intimate with him; I will warrant the safety of his connexion, and I beg you to assist him with recommendations wherever you can. He is a particular friend of my great-nephew,* Lord Cholmondeley's cousin; but one I should have liked for my own friend, if the disparity of our ages would have allowed it or if it were a time for me to make friends, when I could only leave them behind me.

Well; but you had rather I had been talking politics, or telling you news. The scene is not mended, for another is opened. Ireland, taking advantage of the moment, and of forty thousand volunteers that they have in arms and regimented, has desired-that is, demanded-free trade. If we are not cured of our American visions at last, I hope we have learnt wisdom enough to perceive that prerogative is the weakest of all chimeras when opposed by free men in arms; it has cost us the diadem of the Colonies, as it did James II. those of three kingdoms; and therefore I trust we shall have more sense in Ireland. We still kick at the independence of America, though we might as well pursue our title to the crown of France.

Our fleet is at sea, and a most noble one. They still talk of the reappearance of the combined fleets from Brest. It is probable that the winds of November will be the most considerable victors; for the season has been so very serene in general, that I think the equinoc

inimitable; the expression of the passions most masterly, particularly in the devo tion of the Countess with the Porter, of Benedict in the scene with Martin, and the tenderness, despair, and resolution of the Countess in the last scene; in which is a new stroke of double passion in Edmund, whose right hand is clenched and ready to strike with anger, the left relents. In the scene of the children, some are evidently vulgar; the others children of rank; and the first child, that pretends to look down and does leer upwards, is charming. Only two scenes are represented in all the seven, and yet all are varied; and the ground in the first by a very uncommon effect, evidently descends and rises again. These sublime drawings, the first histories Lady Di. ever attempted were all conceived and executed in a fortnight."-ED.

*George, son of Robert Cholmondeley, second son of George Earl of Cholmondeley, by Elizabeth Woffington, sister of the distinguished actress of that name: who left the whole of her fortune, acquired by her talents, to her nephew, the person here mentioned.-ED.

tial tempests, like the squadrons, have passed the autumn in harbour, and that they will all come forth together.

Lord Stormont has got the late Lord Suffolk's seals of Secretary. There were to have been other arrangements, but they are suspended; and it is said this new preferment is more likely to produce resignations than settlement: but I only tell you common report; which is not at all favourable to Lord Stormont's promotion. He has a fair character, and is a friend of General Conway; but he is a Scot, and Lord Mansfield's nephew, which the people mind much more than his character: the other advantage they will certainly pay no regard to at all. It is great pity unpopular things are done at such a mo

ment!

Well! I trust I shall see General Conway within a week; I go to town to-morrow expecting him. He has acted in his diminutive islet with as much virtue and popularity as Cicero in his large Sicily, and with much more ability as a soldier, and a commander-I am heartily glad he was disappointed of showing how infinitely more he is a hero. The conclusion of my letter on Tuesday from London.

Nov. 1, Berkeley Square.

My letter is concluded, for I have nothing to add, but that the town says Lord Gower, President of the Council, will resign. Mind, I do not warrant this, nor any thing that is not actually past.

LETTER CCCXVII.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 12, 1779.

I WENT this morning to Zoffadi's, to see his picture or portrait of the Tribune at Florence; and though my letter will not put on its boots these three days, I must write while the subject is fresh in my head. The first thing I looked for, was you-and I could not find you. At last I said, "Pray, who is that Knight of the Bath?""Sir Horace Mann."-" Impossible!" said I. My dear sir, how you have left me in the lurch!-you are grown fat, jolly, young; while I am become the skeleton of Methusalem!

The idea I always thought an absurd one. It is rendered more so by being crowded with a flock of travelling boys, and one does not know nor care whom. You and Sir John Dick, as Envoy and Consul, are very proper. The Grand-Ducal family would have been so too. Most of the rest are as impertinent as the names of churchwardens stuck up in parishes whenever a country-church is repaired and white-washed.

* Zoffani having expressed a desire of visiting Italy, George III. is said to have kindly interested himself so far as to give directions for his being recommended to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. Whilst he was at Florence he painted his celebrated picture of the Florence gallery, here spoken of by Walpole.-ED.

The execution is good; most of the styles of painters happily imitated; the labour and finishing infinite; and no confusion, though such a multiplicity of objects and colours. The Titian's Venus, as the principal object, is the worst finished; the absence* of the Venus of Medici is surprising; but the greatest fault is in the statues. To distinguish them, he has made them all of a colour, not imitating the different hues of their marbles; and thus they all look alike, like casts in plaster of Paris: however, it is a great and curious work—though Zoffani might have been better employed. His talent is representing natural humour: I look upon him as a Dutch painter polished or civilized. He finishes as highly, renders nature as justly, and does not degrade it, as the Flemish school did, who thought a man vomiting, a good joke; and would not have grudged a week on finishing a belch, if mere labour and patience could have compassed it.

Mr. Windham, who I thought half-way to Florence, did not set out till last Monday. Of martial and political news I can tell you nothing new and positive. It does not appear that the combined fleets have come forth again. The mortality, I believe, has been great amongst them, and disagreement. The Spanish Admiral would not cede the post to Du Chaffaut.† Daranda and Monsieur de Sartines were forced to go to Brest to obtain precedence for the latter. These two Civil Ministers have been principal incendiaries of the war. The present rumour is, that D'Estaing has taken Long Island, and blocked up Admiral Arbuthnot ;--but the account comes from France.

The Irish seem more temperate; and, if we are so, it is to be hoped that harmony will be restored.

There have been no more resignations or promotions. Some changes are expected-but you will have no "Anticipation" from my shop; I deal only in past wares-and even those one cannot always procure genuine. The Parliament is at hand, and may be a busy I have had the sense to make it a season of repose to myself. It is the summer that in time of war is the high-tide of anxiety to me: then I am trembling for my friends.

scene.

Well! but are you really so portly a personage as Zoffani has represented you? I envy you. Every body can grow younger and plump, but I. My brother is as sleek as an infant, and, though seventy-three, is still quite beautiful. He has a charming colour, and not a wrinkle. I told him, when Lord Orford was in danger, that he might think what he would, but I would carry him into the court of

*This was an oversight; the Venus is in the picture.

Immediately on his return with his fleet to Brest harbour, Vice-Admiral Count D'Orvilliers sent in his resignation, which was accepted. "Il est extrêmement regretté," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole on the 2nd of October, " de toute la marine c'est M. du Chaffaut qui le remplace."-Ed.

The Spanish Ambassador at Paris.

French Minister of the Marine.

In the preceding year, Tickell's pamphlet by that title, giving drafts of speeches that would probably be made in the Parliament, and burlesquing most of the speakers, was published just before the meeting.