The Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II | Page 8

also himself
the author of several farces of more than average merit.]
Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Baume de vie, for which she
gives you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.
We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena[1]
in the Gevaudan; but our fox-hunters despise you: it is exactly the
enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known its history a few
months ago, I believe it would have appeared in the "Castle of
Otranto,"--the success of which has, at last, brought me to own it,
though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid; but it was

comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the
author: indeed, it met with too much honour far, for at first it was
universally believed to be Mr. Gray's. As all the first impression is sold,
I am hurrying out another, with a new preface, which I will send you.
[Footnote 1: A wolf of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular
conformation, which for a long time ravaged the Gevaudan; it was,
soon after the date of this letter, killed, and Mr. Walpole saw it in
Paris.]
RIOTS OF WEAVERS--MINISTERIAL CHANGES--FACTIOUS
CONDUCT OF MR. PITT.
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, May 25, 1765, sent by way of Paris.
My last I think was of the 16th. Since that we have had events of
almost every sort. A whole administration dismissed, taken again,
suspended, confirmed; an insurrection; and we have been at the eve of a
civil war. Many thousand Weavers rose, on a bill for their relief being
thrown out of the House of Lords by the Duke of Bedford. For four
days they were suffered to march about the town with colours displayed,
petitioning the King, surrounding the House of Lords, mobbing and
wounding the Duke of Bedford, and at last besieging his house, which,
with his family, was narrowly saved from destruction. At last it grew a
regular siege and blockade; but by garrisoning it with horse and foot
literally, and calling in several regiments, the tumult is appeased. Lord
Bute rashly taking advantage of this unpopularity of his enemies,
advised the King to notify to his Ministers that he intended to dismiss
them,--and by this step, no succedaneum being prepared, reduced his
Majesty to the alternative of laying his crown at the foot of Mr. Pitt, or
of the Duke of Bedford; and as it proved at last, of both. The Duke of
Cumberland was sent for, and was sent to Mr. Pitt, from whom, though
offering almost carte blanche, he received a peremptory refusal. The
next measure was to form a Ministry from the Opposition. Willing
were they, but timid. Without Mr. Pitt nobody would engage. The King
was forced to desire his old Ministers to stay where they were. They,

who had rallied their very dejected courage, demanded terms, and hard
ones indeed--promise of never consulting Lord Bute, dismission of his
brother, and the appointment of Lord Granby to be Captain-General--so
soon did those tools of prerogative talk to their exalted sovereign in the
language of the Parliament to Charles I.
The King, rather than resign his sceptre on the first summons,
determined to name his uncle Captain-General. Thus the commanders
at least were ready on each side; but the Ministers, who by the Treaty
of Paris showed how little military glory was the object of their
ambition, having contented themselves with seizing St. James's without
bloodshed. They gave up their General, upon condition Mr. Mackenzie
and Lord Holland were sacrificed to them, and, tacitly, Lord
Northumberland, whose government they bestow on Lord Weymouth
without furnishing another place to the earl, as was intended for him.
All this is granted. Still there are inexplicable riddles. In the height of
negotiation, Lord Temple was reconciled to his brother George, and
declares himself a fast friend to the late and present Ministry. What part
Mr. Pitt will act is not yet known--probably not a hostile one; but here
are fine seeds of division and animosity sown!
I have thus in six words told you the matter of volumes. You must
analyse them yourself, unless you have patience to wait till the
consequences are the comment. Don't you recollect very similar
passages in the time of Mr. Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord
Granville, and Mr. Fox? But those wounds did not penetrate so deep as
these! Here are all the great, and opulent noble families engaged on one
side or the other. Here is the King insulted and prisoner, his Mother
stigmatised, his Uncle affronted, his Favourite persecuted. It is again a
scene of Bohuns, Montforts, and Plantagenets.
While I am writing, I received yours of the 4th, containing the
revolutions in the fabric and pictures of the palace