of continuing a family as one of the vainest of mortal prospects. "Tho' Solomon with a thousand wives, To get a wise successor strives, But one, and he a fool, survives." The Procurator of St. Mark has desired his compliments to you whenever I write. TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. [Venice] Jan. 25 [1740]. I WROTE to you last post; but as I do not know whether I was particular enough in answering all the questions you asked me, I add the following account, which I do not wonder will surprise you, since both the Procurator Grimani and the Abbé Conti tell me often that these last twenty years have so far changed the customs of Venice, that they hardly know it for the same country. Here are several foreign ladies of quality, I mean Germans, and from other parts of Italy; here not being one Frenchwoman. They are all well received by the gentil donnas, who make a vanity in introducing them to the assemblies and other public diversions, though all those ladies, as well as myself, go frequently to the Princess of Campo Florida's (the Spanish ambassadress) assembly. She is in a very particular manner obliging to me, and is, I really think, one of the best sort of women I ever knew. The Neapolitan (though he has been here some months) makes his public entry to-day, which I am to go [to] see about an hour hence. He gives a great entertainment at night, where all the noble Venetians of both sexes will be in masque. I am engaged to go with Signora Justiniani Gradinego, who is one of the first ladies here. The Prince of Saxony has invited me to come into his box at the opera; but I have not yet accepted of it, he having always the four ladies with him that are wives to the four senators deputed to do the honours of Venice; and I am afraid they should think I interfere with them in the honour of his conversation, which they are very fond of, and have behaved very coldly to some other noble Venetian ladies that have taken the liberty of his box. I will be directed in this (as I am in all public matters) by the Procurator Grimani. My letter is shortened by the arrival of the signora. I have received my Christmas quarter, for which I thank you. TO THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET. [Venice, about Feb. 17, 1740.] I MUST begin my letter, dear madam, with asking pardon for the peevishness of my last. I confess I was piqued at yours, and you should not wonder I am a little tender on that point. To suspect me of want of desire to see you, is accusing at once both my taste and my sincerity; and you will allow that all the world are sensible upon these subjects. But you have now given me an occasion to thank you, in sending me the most agreeable young man I have seen in my travels. I wish it was in my power to be of use to him; but what little services I am able to do him, I shall not fail of performing with great pleasure. I have already received a very considerable one from him in a conversation where you was the subject, and I had the satisfaction of hearing him talk of you in a manner that agreed with my own way of thinking. I wish I could tell you that I set out for Florence next week; but the winter is yet so severe, and by all report, even that of our friends, the roads so bad, it is impossible to think of it. We are now in the midst of carnival amusements, which are more than usual, for the entertainment of the Electoral Prince of Saxony, and I am obliged to live in a hurry very inconsistent with philosophy, and extreme' different from the life I projected to lead. But 'tis long since I have been of Prior's opinion, who, I think, somewhere compares us to cards, who are but played with, do not play. At least such has been my destiny from my youth upwards; and neither Dr. Clarke or Lady Sundon 2 could ever convince me that I was a free agent; for I have always been disposed of more by little 1 "Extreme" for the adverb was in common use in colloquial writing of the time.--T. 2 This alludes to Queen Caroline and her confidante, who dabbled in accidents, than either my own inclinations or interest. I believe that affairs of the greatest importance are carried the same way. I seriously assure you (as I have done before) I wish nothing more than your conversation; and am downright enraged that I can appoint no time for that happiness; which, however, I hope will not be long delayed, and is impatiently waited for by, dear madam, Your ladyship's, &c. TO THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET. [Venice, about Feb., 1740.] I CANNOT deny your ladyship's letter gave me a great deal of pleasure; but you have seasoned it with a great deal of pain, in the conclusion (after the many agreeable things you have said to me) that you are not entirely satisfied with me: you will not throw our separation on ill fortune; and I will not renew the conversation of the fallen angels in Milton, who in contesting on predestination and free will, we are told, "They of the vain dispute could know no end." Yet I know that neither my pleasures, my passions, nor my interests, have ever disposed of me, so much as little accidents, which, whether from chance or destiny, have always determined my choice. Here is weather, for example, which, to the shame of all almanacks, keeps on the depth of winter in the beginning of spring; and makes it as much impossible for me to pass the mountains of Bologna, as it would be to wait on you in another planet, if you had taken up your residence in Venus or Mercury. However, I am fully determined to give myself that happiness; but when is out of my power to decide. You may imagine, apart from the gratitude I owe you and the inclination I philosophy and metaphysics, and were at one time very fond of Dr. Clarke, with whom they affected to study. Pope's line may be remembered: "Nor in an hermitage set Dr. Clarke.”—W. [See "Moral Essays," iv. 1. 78. Dr. Samuel Clarke dedicated his discussions with Leibnitz on Natural Philosophy and Religion to Queen Caroline, 1717.] feel for you, that I am impatient to hear good sense pronounced in my native tongue; having only heard my language out of the mouths of boys and governors 1 for these five months. Here are inundations of them broke in upon us this carnival, and my apartment must be their refuge; the greater part of them having kept an inviolable fidelity to the languages their nurses taught them; their whole business abroad (as far as I can perceive) being to buy new clothes, in which they shine in some obscure coffee-house, where they are sure of meeting only one another; and after the important conquest of some waiting gentlewoman of an opera queen, whom perhaps they remember as long as they live, return to England excellent judges of men and manners. I find the spirit of patriotism so strong in me every time I see them, that I look on them as the greatest blockheads in nature; and, to say truth, the compound of booby and petit maître makes up a very odd sort of animal. I hope we shall live to talk all these things over, and ten thousand more, which I reserve till the hour of meeting; which that it may soon arrive is the zealous wish of Your ever faithful, &c. &c. TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAgu. [Venice] March 29 [1740]. I SEND you the enclosed, which came to me the last post, to show you that my bill of credit is of no further use to me, and if you think it proper I should have one, Mr. Child should send me one on his correspondent here, though I do not foresee any occasion I shall have for it. I think Mr. Waters seems dissatisfied with my letters being directed to him. Those he mentions were from my son, pretty much in the usual style; he desires to leave the town where he now is, because he says there is no temptation to riot, and he would show how able he is to resist it: I answer him 1 The term Governor, as applied to tutors who accompanied young nobles and gentlemen on their travels, is now almost forgotten. Horace Walpole was one of these "boys" at this time travelling in Italy with Gray the poet. Lady Mary met him at Florence.-T. this post, and shall endeavour mildly to show him the necessity of being easy in his present situation. Lord Granby leaves this place to-morrow, to set out for Constantinople; the Prince of Saxony stays till the second of May; in the meantime there are entertainments given him almost every day of one sort or other, and a regatta preparing, which is expected by all strangers with great impatience. He went to see the arsenal three days ago, waited on by a numerous nobility of both sexes; the Bucentaur was adorned and launched, a magnificent collation given, and we sailed a little way in it: I was in company with the Signora Justiniani Gradinego, and Signora Marina Crizzo. As you have been at Venice, there is no occasion of describing those things to you. There were two cannons founded in his presence, and a galley built and launched in an hour's time. Last night there was a concert of voices and instruments at the Hospital of the Incurabili, where there were two girls that, in the opinion of all people, excel either Faustina or Cuzzoni," but you know they are never permitted to sing on any theatre. Lord Fitzwilliam is expected in this town to-night, on his return to England, as I am told. The prince's behaviour is very obliging to all, and in no part of it liable to censure, though I think there is nothing to be said in 1 John Marquis of Granby, afterwards commander-in-chief of the British army in Germany, born January 2, 1721.-T. 2 Two celebrated Italian singers of the opera in London. Cuzzoni afterwards married Signor Sandoni, and was tried and condemned to death for poisoning her husband, but the punishment was remitted. She was famed for her extravagance. When her popularity declined and her voice failed, she was seen, it is said, selling greens in the streets of Bologna. The rivalries of these two singers long divided the town into parties, and gave rise to numberless squibs and epigrams. Lady Mary's acquaintance, Miss Howe, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, was accused of "catcalling" Faustina. A poem called " Faustina, or the Roman Songstress; or, the Luxury and Effeminacy of the Age," published in 1726, when these feuds were at their height, bears the following motto: "Cuzzoni can no longer charm, And we must buy her pipe so clear Or else our skulls are wondrous empty."-T. |