Page images
PDF
EPUB

to its back. I have had a fire these three days. In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will affect to have a summer, and we have no title to any such thing. Our poets learnt their trade of the Romans, and so adopted the terms of their masters. They talk of shady groves, purling streams, and cooling breezes, and we get sore throats and agues with attempting to realize these visions. Master Damon writes a song, and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and not a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr is a north east wind, which makes Damon button up to the chin, and pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; and then they cry, this is a bad summer, as if we ever had any other. The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other. We ruin ourselves with inviting over foreign trees, and make our houses clamber up hills to look at prospects. How our ancestors would laugh at us, who knew there was no being comfortable, unless you had a high hill before your nose, and a thick warm wood at your back! Taste is too freezing a commodity for us, and, depend upon it, will go out of fashion again.

There is indeed a natural warmth in this country, which, as you say, I am very glad not to enjoy any longer. I mean the hothouse in St. Stephen's Chapel. My own sagacity makes me very vain, though there was very little merit in it. I had seen so much of all parties, that I had little esteem left for any; it is most indifferent to me who is in or who is out, or which is set in the pillory, Mr. Wilkes or my Lord Mansfield. I see the country

going to ruin, and no man with brains enough to save it. That is mortifying; but what signifies who has the undoing of it? I seldom suffer my. self to think on the subject: my patriotism could do no good, and my philosophy can make me be at peace.

I am sorry that you are likely to lose your poor cousin, Lady Hinchinbrook; I heard a very bad account of her when I was last in town. Your let ter to Madame Roland shall be taken care of; but as you are so scrupulous of making me pay postage, I must remember not to overcharge you, as I can frank my idle letters no longer! therefore, good night! Yours ever,

H. WALPOLE.

From H. More to her sister.

Adelphi, Feb. 2, 1779.

WE (Miss Cadogan and myself) went to Charing-cross to see the melancholy procession. Just as we got there, we received a ticket from the Bishop of Rochester to admit us into the abbey. No admittance could be obtained but under his hand. We hurried away in a hackney-coach, dreading to be too late. The bell of St. Martin's and the abbey gave a sound that smote upon my very soul. When we got to the cloisters we found multitudes striving for admittance. We gave our ticket, and were let in, but unluckily we ought to have kept it. We followed the man, who unlocked a door of iron, and directly closed it upon us, and two or three others, and we found ourselves in a tower, with a dark winding staircase, consisting of half a hundred stone steps. When we got to the top there were no way out; we ran down again, called,

and beat the door till the whole pile resounded with our cries. Here we staid half an hour in perfect agony; we were sure it would be all over; nay, we might never be let out; we might starve; we might perish. At length our clamours brought an honest man,-a guardian angel I then thought him. We implored him to take care of us, and get us into a part of the abbey whence we might see the grave. He asked for the Bishop's ticket: we had given it away to the wrong person; and he was not obliged to believe we ever had one; yet he saw so much truth in our grief that, though we were most shabby, and a hundred fine people were soliciting the same favour, he took us under each arm-carried us safely through the crowd, and put us in a little gallery directly over the grave, where we could see and hear every thing as distinctly as if the abbey had been a parlour. Little things sometimes affect the mind strongly. We were no sooner recovered from the fresh burst of grief than I cast my eyes, the first thing, on Handel's monument, and read the scroll in his hand, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Just at three, the great doors burst open, with a noise that shook the roof; the organ struck up, and the whole choir, in strains only less solemn than the "archangel's trump," began Handel's fine anthem. The whole choir advanced to the grave, in hoods and surplices, singing all the way; then Sheridan, as chief mourner; then the body (alas! whose body!) with ten noblemen and gentlemen, pall-bearers; then the rest of the friends and mourners; hardly a dry eye -the very players, bred to the trade of counterfeiting, shed genuine tears.

As soon as the body was let down, the bishop began the service, which he read in a low, but

Such an awful still

solemn and devout manner. ness reigned, that every word was audible. How I felt it! Judge if my heart did not assent to the wish, that the soul of our dear brother now departed was in peace. And this is all of Garrick! Yet a very little while, and he shall "say to the worm, Thou art my brother; and to corruption, Thou art my mother and my sister." So passes away the fashion of this world. And the very night he was buried, the playhouses were as full, and the Pantheon was as crowded, as if no such thing had happened; nay, the very mourners of the day partook of the revelrics of the night;—the same night too!

As soon as the crowd was dispersed, our friend came to us with an invitation from the bishop's lady, to whom he had related our disaster, to come into the deanery. We were carried into her dressing room, but being incapable of speech, she very kindly said she would not interrupt such sorrow, and left us; but sent up wine, cakes, and all manner of good things, which was really well-timed. I caught no cold, notwithstanding all I went through.

On Wednesday night we came to the Adelphi, -to this house! She bore it with great tranquillity; but what was my surprise to see her go alone into the chamber and bed in which he had died that day fortnight. She had a delight in it beyond expression. I asked her the next day how she went through it? She told me very well; that she first prayed with great composure, then went and kissed the dear bed, and got into it with a sad pleasure.

From Miss H. More to Mrs. Boscawen.-Describing the true epistolary style.

MY DEAR MADAM,

Hampton, 1786.

SOME little contre tems has detained us here a fortnight beyond our bargain; we propose, however, certainly to be in town by the beginning of next week. I have been amusing myself, during a part of our solitude, with reading some of Madame de Sevigne's letters, and you cannot imagine, my dear madam, what a fund of entertainment I find as I go along in drawing a parallel between them and those of a certain lady, whom it is one of my greatest honours to be permitted to call my friend: the same admirable turn of expression, the same ease which when imitated is so stiff, and when natural is so full of grace: the same philanthropy, the same warm feelings, and, above all, the same excess of maternal tenderness-the same art of dignifying subjects in themselves of little moment, but which become amiable and interesting by some true, though seemingly random and careless, stroke, which shows the hand of a master, but of a master sketching for his amusement, and not finishing for the public. This rage for finishing may produce good essays and fine orations, but it makes frigid letters. For this reason, I think Voiture's letters are in bad taste; he always intends to be brilliant, and therefore is almost always affected-every passage seems written in its very best manner. Now to me the epistolary style is what it ought to be, when the writer, by a happy and becoming negligence, has the art of making you believe that he could write a great deal better if he would, but that he has too much judg

« PreviousContinue »