DEAR SIR, Miss H. More to Mr. Walpole. Cowslip Green, June, 1787. It is no encouragement to be good, when it is so profitable to do evil: and I shall grow wicked upon principle, and ungrateful by system. If I thought that not answering one letter would always procure me two such, I would be as silent as ingratitude, bad taste, and an unfeeling heart can cause the most undeserving to be, I did, indeed, receive your first obliging letter, and intended, in ́ the true spirit of a Bristol trader, to send you some of my worthless beads and bits of glass, in exchange for your ivory and gold-dust, but a very tedious nervous headache has made me less than ever qualified to traffic with you in this dishonest way, and I have been so little accustomed to connect your idea with that of pain and uneasiness, that I know not how to set about the strange association; but I am now better, and would not have named being sick at all, if there were any other apology in the world that would have justified my not writing. Mrs. Carter and I have a thousand times agreed that your wit was by no means the cause of our esteem for you: because you cannot help having it if you would; and I never in my life could be attached to any one for their wit, if wit was the best thing they had. It is an established maxim with me, that, the truest objects of warm attachment are the small parts of great characters, I never considered the patriotic Brutus with any delight as the assertor of freedom, and as "refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate;" no, it is the gentle, compassionate Brutus that engages my affection, who refused to disturb the slumbers of the poor boy who attended him in that anxious night, when he destroyed himself, and so much needed his services. So when I sit in a little hermitage I have built in my garden, not to be melancholy in, but to think upon my friends, and to read their works-and their letters, Mr. Walpole seldomer presents himself to my mind as the man of wit than as the tender-hearted and humane friend of my dear, infirm, broken-spirited Mrs. Vesey. One only admires talents, and admiration is a cold sentiment, with which affection, has commonly nothing to do; but one does more than admire them when they are devoted to such gentle pur. poses. My very heart is softened when I consider that she is now out of the way of your kind attentions, and I fear that nothing else on earth gives her the smallest pleasure. But I shall make you sad, and myself too, if I talk any longer in this strain, for I do love her with a tender affection, and cannot but take a warm interest in every thing that is either useful or pleasant to her. Even in this affecting decay of her sweet mind, her heart retains all its unimpaired amiableness. Her purity rather resembles that innocence which is the ignorance of evil, than that virtue which is the conquest over it. But I am running on just as if you did not know and love her as well as I do; I hope she is gone to Tunbridge, which will amuse her a little, though it can do her no good, I am become a perfect outlaw from all civil society and orderly life. I spend almost my whole time in my little garden, which "mocks my scant manuring." From "morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve," I am employed in raising dejected pinks, and reforming disorderly honeysuckles. Yours, dear sir, very faithfully, H. M Mr. H. Walpole to Miss H. More. Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1787. In your note, on going out of town, you desired me to remember you; but as I do not like the mere servile merit of obedience, I took time, my dear madam, to try to forget you; and having failed as to my wish, I have the free-born pleasure of thinking of you in spite of my teeth, and without any regard to your injunction. No queen upon earth, as fond as royal persons are of their prerogative, but would prefer being loved for herself rather than for her power; and I hope you have not more majesty "Than a whole race of queens." Perhaps the spirit of your command did not mean that I should give you such manual proof of my remembrance, and you may not know what to make of a subject that avows a mutinous spirit, and at the same time exceeds the measure of his duty. It is, I own, a kind of Irish loyalty; and, to keep up the Irish character, I will confess that I never was disposed to be so loyal to any sovereign that was not a subject. If you collect from all this galimatas that I am cordially your humble servant, I shall be content. The Irish have the best hearts in the three kingdoms, and they never blunder more than when they attempt to express their zeal and affections; the reason, I suppose is, that cool sense never thinks of attempting impossibilities; but a warm heart feels itself ready to do more than is possible for those it loves. I am sure our poor friend in Clarges-street would subscribe to this last sentence. What English heart ever excelled hers? I should almost have said equalled, if I were not writing to one that rivals her. The last time I saw her before I left London, Miss Burney passed the evening there, looking quite recovered and well, and so cheerful and agreeable, that the court seems only to have improved the ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserye on it, as I feared; but what slight graces it can give will not compensate to us and the world for the loss of her company and her writings-not but some young ladies who can write can stifle their talent as much as if they were under lock and key in the royal library. I do not see but a cottage is as pernicious to genius as the queen's waiting-room. Why should one remember people that forget themselves? Oh! I am sorry I used that expression, as it is commonly applied to such self-oblivion as Mrs. —, and light and darkness are not more opposite than the forgetfulness to which I alluded and hers. The former forgetfulness can forget its own powers and the injuries of others; the latter can forget its own defects and the obligations and services it has received. How poor is language that has not distinct terms for modesty and virtue, and for excess of vanity and ingratitude! The Arabic tongue, I suppose, has specific words for all the shades of oblivion, which, you see, has its extremes. I think I have heard that there are some score of different terms for a lion in Arabic, each expressive of a different quality, and consequently its generosity and its appetite for blood are not confounded in one general word. But if an Arabian vocabulary were as numerous in proportion for all the qualities that can enter into a human composition, it would be more difficult to be learned therein than to master all the charac ters of the Chinese. You did me the honour of asking me for my "Castle of Otranto" for your library at Cowslip Green. May I, as a printer, rather than as an author, beg leave to furnish part of a shelf there? and as I must fetch some of the books from Strawberry Hill, will you wait till I can send them all together? And will you be so good as to tell me whither I shall send them, or how direct and convey them to you at Bristol? I shall have a satisfaction in thinking that they will remain in your rising cottage (in which, I hope, you will enjoy a long series of happy hours), and that they will sometimes, when they and I shall be forgotten in other places, recall to Miss More's memory Her very sincere humble servant, Mrs. Chapone to Miss More. DEAR MADAM, 1790. THE same good gentleman who some time ago gave his excellent thoughts to "the Great" has again made a powerful effort for their reformation. which they receive with as much avidity as if they meant to be amended by it; indeed he has wisely recommended it to their taste by every charm and ornament of eloquence. He has been so obliging as to send me a copy of his admirable book, and as I do not know his name and address, I take the liberty of applying to you (who are, I believe pretty well acquainted with him, though probably not aware of half his merits), to beg you will convey to him my grateful acknow. |