The Press. — London, England, 1857-04-25 00:00:00

APRIL 25, 1857. Wales, and died mad, 9 Feb., 1781. She was buried at Kensington. " If the new servant of the Princess is the Miss l'itt I know, lam sorry for it. lam afraid I know her very well....she hos wit, but—."—Lady Mary IV. Montagu to her daughter, Sept. 10, 1733. Compare Walpole's " Memoirs of George III.," vol. i., p. 85, and Walyule's note on letter to Mann of Oct. 27, 1733. CUNNINGHAM. That characterisation of " Dame Anne Pitt" (as she was eAlled in the Civil List) is too curt. Lord Bolingbroke said that he had never met any person with such natural eloquence ; and she had talents far above ordinary women. Her insight into the defects of her great brother proved her to be a woman of deep penetration. The tact of her dying mad is circumstantial evidence (with other facts) that the Great Commoner may be sup posed to have been not sane on some occa sions. Alluding to the death of Mr. Pelham, Wal pole writes, "He is certainly dead far from " rich," and Mr. Cunningham subjoins:— Walpole, almost the only author who has treated the memory of Mr. Pe'ham with disrespect, mentions to his honour, " that he lived without abusing his power, and died poor." See " MCmoires," vol. i. p. 322. Bv this ex pression, says Coze, the reader will be reminded of a curious coincidence, in the concluding lines of the eulogiuni inscribed on the base of Mr. Pitt's statue, by his friend and pupil, the Right Honourable George Canning, "Dispensing, fur more than twenty years, the favours of the Crown, ho lived without ostentation, and he died poor."—lVilloter. And will remind others of the alder man who suggested an alteration in Canning'a epitaph on Pitt of the expression poor into " indifferent circuit). wances."—Ct7NNINGHAJI. That is a superfluous note. The phrase of Canning, " He died poor," is an imitation, or rather translation, from ancient eloquence. On a monument in " the City" it was, certainly, a nobly bold expression. The following note is worth having. On the mention of Sir Thomas Bootle's name in the text the editor says : Sir Thomas Bootle, knight, Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal, to Frederick, Prince of Wales. He died 23 December, 1753. He had lent the Prince large sums of m mey which were never repaid: King George 111. re. membering, it is said, his father's debt, promised a peerage to Sir Thomas's great nephew, Edward Bootle Wilbraham, but never made road his promise. But the promise was kept in the t ext reign, when in 1828 Edward Bootle Wilbraham, Esq., was created Baron Skelmersdale, of Skelmersdale in the county of Lancaster.—CUNNINGHANI. But it must be recollected that the Wilbraham family supported Mr. Pitt's Government, and voted with the Liverpool and Wellington Ministries—considerations which might have aided in the (alleged) promise having been kept. With his mixture of wit and affectation, Walpole writes : Gray says ( very justly), that learning never should be encouraged, it only draws out fools from their obscurity : and you know I have always thought a running footman as meritorious a being as a learned man. Way is there more merit in having travelled one's eyes over so many reams of papers, than in having carried one's legs over so many acres or ground? It was a trick of Walpole to be witty in a question. " Why cannot we see history with as much impartiality as we read it ?" is one of his questions called to mind by the inter rogation in the foregoing passage. On " the running footman" allusion Mr. Cunningham subjoins : Like running footmen before coaches, To tell the tun whet Lord approaohas.—Swift. Vpirn snrprised that Mr. Croker (mutiny so well in formed in the manners and customs of the English) failed in finding ont the meaning of a leading coach (see Lord Hervey's Memoirs.)—C UN N ING HAM. There is no necessary connection between a " leading coach " and a " running footman." We have not the passage from Lord Hervey's letters before us, but we think that Mr. Croker will not he much pleased with that note ; and it might have been better taste in Mr. Cunningham to have avoided the mention of his triumphant " surprise." The new letters in this volume are not of much importance. Here is the commence ment of one to Harry Conway:— Dear Harry,—When I left London, I piqued myself upon paying my court to Lady Caroline [Fitzroy] by some present that should make her think me a reasonable creature, and capable of entertaining myself without music, which I don't love, and without seeing a thousand people for whom I don't care a straw; but having been so unfortunate as neither to kill a brace of partridges, nor hook a dish of whitings, I am reduced to flatter her in a way as extraordinary as the other of recommending one's self by being natural and unaffected, to a woman who has been bred up in the kingdom of lierveys,! Diveses, and THE PRESS. Queensburys. Lady Caroline will give me leave to wonder at her being so awkward as to like to hear L tdy Emily Lenox] commecded rather than herself; and even you who are so fond of that uncouth sense of hers, may be amazed that she thinks her sister handsomer than her self; but since she is so ungenteel, and has so many of those strange properties called good qualities, which being out of fashion and out of character, I can't help reckoning a want of knowing the world, I have e'en humoured her in her own way, and said of her sister what, if she had been like other people, I should naturally have said of herself. wish, my dear Harry, you loved Lady Emily as well as your wife does, and then 1 should have no excuses to make for sending you the inclosed lines, which I command La ly Caroline to like on pain of Dayrolles's eternal dis pleasure, but as a fit of poetry is a distemper which I am never troubled with but in the country, you will have no reason to apprehend much trouble of th's sort : the trees at Vauxhall and purling basins of gold fish never in spire me. The next is better, and is more in the true ‘Valpolian vein _ _ _ Dear Sir,—You frighten me out of my wits, which is, indeed, a fair step towards making me in earnest a poet, a title I should dread more than that of patriot, and which I should certainly get into no wills by. I will be so honest as to own that the obliging things you say to me please me vastly. I find I have enough of the author in me to be ex• tre:nely sensible to flattery, and were I far enough gone to publish a miscellany, there would certainly be one copy to my honoured friend Henry Fox on his commending my verses. But seriously, my dear sir, you alarm me, with talking of making those I sent you public. I never thought poetry excusable but in the manner I sent you mine, just to divert anybody one loves for half an hour— and I know I must love anybody, to put myself so much in their power for their diversion. But to make anything one writes, especially poetry, public, is giving everybody leave undtr one's own hand to call one foul. You think me modesty, but all my modesty is pride; while I am unknown, I am as great as my own imagination pleases to make me, the instant I get into that dreadful Court of Requests you talk of, I am as silly a fellow as Thomson or Glover—you even reduce me to plead that foolish excuse against being published which authors make to excuse themselves when they have published—that their composi tions were made in a hurry or extempore. Rigby will assure you that what I sent you was literally wrote in leas than three hours ; and, my dear Harry, I ant not vain enough to think that I can write in three hours what would deserve to live three days. I will give you two more very material reasons for your suppressing my verses, and have done : one is, I don't care to make all the women in England my enemies, bnt sixteen, as their resentments would probably hurt me more than the gratitude of my goddesses would do me good, with all their charms ; and the other reason is, that the conclusion of the poem is more particular than I would choose pub licly to subscribe to. The following letter, addressed to Mr. Pelham, will explain itself. It shows Horace Walpole in a supplicatory mood, and is altogether out of h►s usual style. It is too long, but it bears the stamp of personal petitions in that age. In the present time such a request should be condensed into a third of the space. We print the letter in extenso Sir,—When I did myself the honour to apply to you last, to beg your interest with the King, that I might obtain the enjoyment of the patent for my own life, which now depends upon that of my brother, you told me, that if I could prevail upon my brother to consent that his life might be changed for mine, you would willingly under take to serve me: and you added very kindly (for which, sir, whatever success I may have, I must always thank you) that no interest of your own should interfere with my suit. Indeed, sir, the consideration of that would have prevented me, who am neither apt to ask, nor disposed to think that I have much title to favours, from troubling you at first, if I had not reflected that what I begged was not so unreasonable, either from my brother's life being as good as my own, or at least if the event should happen of his death before mine, that the other large reversions attending it, would make the emolument which I must be obliged to hope to receive from it, appear of the less value to you. I do not mean, sir, to detract from the very handsome manner in which you treated it, though I am desirous of not being thought to prefer an extravagant suit. My reason for troubling you again, sir, is to represent to you how impossible it will be for me to make any advan tage of the method you proposed, as I cannot undertake the necessary steps. As the patent now stands, it is for my brother's life, but far the greater profits are given to me. If he dies. the whole drops : if I d ie first, the whole falls to him What, therefore, I must have asked of him would be, not only to risk upon my life what he now enjoys for his own, but to resign his chance of the great benefit which he would reap from my death : in short, I must ask him to run all the risk instead of me. This, sir, would be difficult to ask of any brother or any friend ; un reasonable, I am afraid, to ask of one who has a large family; and impracticable, I sin very sure, to obtain from one who, though I believe he loves me very well, I have no reason to think prefers me to himself. You will excuse my stating the case thus plainly, sir, hich, after long consideration, I think myself obliged to do, lest you should suppose that I have neglected to make advantage of your kindness to me. I hope you gee that it is out of my power to obtain the previous conditions. If without them you will be so good as to serve me by adding my life, a request which I again make to you, there is nobody will be more pleased to be, sir, your much obliged and upst obedient servant, Hoa. WALPOLE. 413 And upon this elaborate production we have the following hearty letter from Henry Fos. It is also now printed for the first time : Dear Hori,—l return you your very proper and genteel application to Mr. Pelham, which appears to me such, that I really think it will succeed, so far at least as that he will try it with the King. I have been in doubt whether men tioning the very little self denial that his getting this for you would be, was right. But you do it very civilly, sad I am not sure that, without cmsidering the matter, he may not think it a great one. Adieu! I heartily wish you success. H. Fox. The chronological arrangement of the letters adds great value to this edition ; and the editor, on the whole, deserves the praise of painstaking research. We hope that an edition of the select letters will yet be given to the public. The literary merit of Walpole, his subtle vivacity, and animated fancy, appear more conspicuous than ever in turning over his collected compositions. The Night Side of London. By J. Ewing Ritchie, Author of " The London Pulpit," do. London: Tweedie. THE school of literary humanitarianism intro duced by Mr. Dickens, and some other popular writers, is gradually dying out, in consequence of c-rtain evils which it had an undesigned tendency to foster. Twenty years since people were pleased with the novelty of introduction to the low classes of Loudon life, described with pathos and humour, and curiosity was roused about " Sam Wellers " and their com rades. A fashion of talking, writing, and preaching about" low life" flourished, and bulky volumes were written to justify the fanciful sketches of brilliant fictionists, whom their too panegyrical critics used to call " great ob " servers." Unfortunately the classes of " low " life" which most require the inspection of true lovers of humanity are those to which the ge neral public cannot be introduced without har rowing the feelings and at the same time im perilling morality, by making things notorious which ought to be left in the shade. We doubt much whether " Mayhewism " is beneficial to public morality. A morbid sense of social pollution is apt to take hold of the imagination of some minds after long contemplation of the horrors of " Blue hooks." Pope's lines ought to be weighed more carefully:— Vice is a monster of such hideous mien As to be hated needs but to be seen. The poet does not stop there, though the quo• tations often do. He continues, and expresses a profound troth:— But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, next pity, then embrace. After experience of the evils produced by Eugene Sue and other writers, we think that society is agreed on the evil of detailed publi cations of " low life" under the plea of super ficial philanthropy. Mr. Thackeray, in " The Newcotnes," merely glanced at the " Cave of Harmony." He did not dwell upon it, nor did he conduct his heroes or his readers through many similar scenes. In defence of wilting a book like the present the author says : It offends our modern sense of propriety to speak of such matters. English people only see what they wish to see. If you are true—if you look at real life and say What you think of it, you shock our modern sense of propriety. We may talk about drainage and ventilation, and the ad vantages of soap, but there we must stop. Keep the out- side clean, but don't look within. Thus is it our writer* make such blunders. It does offend our sense of propriety to speak of such matters, and it is proper, as society now is, that such should be the case. The plea, " If you are true, if you look at real life," &c., is a mero piece of cant and sophistry. The most detestable kinds of literature might be sanctioned under such a dangerous form of excuse. It is not possible to address with benefit the general public on questions which in volve the considerations of dissipation and vice, and where reprobate classes must figure prominently. It is obvious that no skill in literary treatment, or taste in coin position, could render " The Night Side of " London" here depicted at all suitable for popular authorship, aiming at wide circu lation. " The Town," under some of its most hideously repulsive aspects, is neces sarily suggested by chapters treating of