Horace Walpole to George Montagu-Victories. "Young Mr. Burke."

and flung himself back in a stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass, to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay, attended by mourners with * lights. Clavering, the groom of the bedchamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King's order.

I have nothing more to tell you but a trifle, a very trifle. The King of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun. This, which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is nothing to-day; it only takes its turn among the questions, "Who is to be groom of the bedchamber? What is Sir T. Robinson to have?" I have been to Leicester Fields to-day; the crowd was immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so. Good-night. Yours ever.

XIX.--VICTORIES-" YOUNG MR. BURKE."

Horace Walpole to George Montagu.

STRAWBERRY HILL, July 22d, 1761.

For my part, I believe Mademoiselle Scuderi drew the plan of this year. It is all royal marriages, coronations, and victories. They come tumbling so over one another from distant parts of the globe, that it looks just like the handiwork of a lady romance writer, whom it costs nothing but a little false geog

Horace Walpole to George Montagu-Victories. "Young Mr. Burke."

raphy to make the great Mogul in love with a Princess of Mecklenburg, and defeat two marshals of France as he rides post on an elephant to his nuptials. I don't know where I am. I had scarce found Mecklenburg-Strelitz with a magnifying glass, before I am whisked to Pondicherri. Well, I take it and rase it. I begin to grow acquainted with Col. Coote, and to figure him packing up chests and diamonds, and sending them to his wife against the King's wedding. Thunder go the tower guns, and behold Broglio and Soubise are totally defeated. If the mob have not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherri in Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglio and Soubise, united, attacked our army on the 15th, but were repulsed; the next day, the Prince Mahomet Ali Cawn-no, no, I mean Prince Ferdinand-returned the attack, and the French threw down their arms and fled, run over my Lord Harcourt, who was going to fetch the new Queen; in short, I don't know how it was, but Mr. Conway is safe, and I am as happy as Mr. Conway himself. We have only lost a Lieutenant-Colonel, Keith; Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend are wounded. I could beat myself for not having a flag ready to display on my round tower, and guns mounted on all my battlements. Instead of that I have been foolishly trying on my new pictures upon my gallery. However, the oratory of our Lady of Strawberry shall be dedicated next year, on the anniversary of Mr. Conway's safety. Think, with his intrepidity and delicacy of honor wounded, what I had to apprehend; you shall absolutely be here on the sixteenth of

Horace Walpole to George Montagu-Lady Wortley Montagu.

next July. Mr. Hamilton tells me your King does not set out for his new dominions till the day after the coronation. If you will come to it, I can give you a very good place for the procession; where, is a profound secret, because if known, I should be teased to death, and none but my first friends shall be admitted. I dined with your secretary yesterday; there were Garrick, and a young Mr. Burke, who wrote a book in the style of Lord Bolingbroke that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will know better one of these days. I like Hamilton's little Marly; we walked in the great allée, and drank tea in the arbor of treillage; they talked of Shakspeare and Booth, of Swift and my Lord Bath, and I was thinking of Madame Sévigné. Good-night. I have a dozen other letters to write; I must tell my friends how happy I am, not as an Englishman, but as a cousin.

XX-LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU-VISIT TO THE COCK LANE

GHOST.

Horace Walpole to George Montagu.

ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 2d, 1762.

I scolded you in my last, but I shall forgive you if you return soon to England, as you talk of doing; for though you are an abominable correspondent, and only write to beg letters, you are good company, and I have a notion I shall still be glad

to see you.

Lady Mary Wortley is arrived; I have seen her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity are all increased. Her

* Vindication of Natural Society.

Horace Walpole to George Montagu-Lady Wortley Montagu.

dress, like her language, is a galamatias of several countriesthe groundwork rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman's coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a dimity petticoat is deputy, and officiates for the fourth; and slippers act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she was expected there, we were drawing sortes Virgili-anas for her. We literally drew:

Insanam vatem aspicies.

It would have been a stronger prophecy now, even than it was then.

You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton, and I have a great mind to be as coolly indolent about our famous ghost in Cock lane. Why should one steal half an hour from one's amusements to tell a story to a friend in another island? I could send you volumes on the ghost, and I believe, if I were to stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my Lord Dartmouth, by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on without saving the least appearances. The archbishop who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the Methodists, permits this farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland House, the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord

Horace Walpole to George Montagu-Lady Wortley Montagu.

Hertford, and I, all in one hackney coach, and drove to the spot; it rained torrents, yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in; at last they discovered it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable. When we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow-candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts? We had nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only 'prentices and old women. We stayed, however, till half an hour after one. The Methodists have promised them contributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the taverns and ale-houses in the neighborhood make fortunes. The most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be found out, as if there was any thing to find out; as if the actors would make their noises when they can be discovered. However, as this pantomime cannot last much longer, I hope Lady Fanny Shirley will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and that you shall hear one. The Methodists, as Lord Aylesford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at Lord Dacres', have attempted ghosts three times in Warwickshire.

how good I am.*

There,

* The history of the Cock lane ghost, which for a considerable time kept all London in commotion, and which was finally exposed in an action for a conspiracy against the authors of the deception, is given in Dr. Mackay's. Memoirs of Popular Delusions.-H.