WALPOLIANA.

XXXI. ADELA, A TALE.

I have been amusing myself with a history of Picardy, and shall read you off a short tale that struck me.

Thomas de St Valery was travelling with his wife, Adela, daughter of a Count de Ponthieu. They were attacked near a forest by eight armed men. St Valery, after a severe struggle, was seized, bound, and thrown into a thicket. His wife was carried off, exposed to the brutality of the banditti, and afterwards dismissed in a state of nudity. She, however, sought for, and found her husband, and they returned together.

They were soon after met by their servants, whom they had left at an inn, and returned to their father's castle at Abbeville. The barbarous Count, full of false ideas of honour, proposed, some days after, to his daughter, a ride to his town of Rue, on the sea-shore. There they entered a bark, as if to sail about for pleasure; and they had stood out three leagues from the shore, when the Count de Ponthieu, starting up, said, with a terrible voice, "Lady, death must now efface the shame which your misfortune has brought on all your family."

The sailors, previously instructed, instantly seized her, shut her up into a hogshead, and threw her into the sea, while the bark regained the coast.

Happily a Flemish vessel passing near the coast, the crew observed the floating hogshead, and, expecting a prize of good wine, took it up, opened it, and, with great surprise, found a beautiful woman. She was, however, almost dead, from terror and want of air; and, at her earnest entreaty, the honest Flemings sent a boat ashore with her. She gained her husband's house, who was in tears for her supposed death. The scene was extremely affecting but Adela only survived it a few hours.

John, Count of Ponthieu, repenting of his crime, gave to the monks of St Valery the right of fishing three days in the year, in and about the spot where his daughter had been thrown overboard.

XXXII. AKENSIDE AND ROLT.

Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination attracted -much notice on the first appearance, from the elegance of its language, and the warm colouring of the descriptions. But the Platonic fanaticism of the foundation injured the general beauty of the edifice. Plato is indeed the philosopher of imagination; but is not this saying that he is no philosopher at all? I have been told that Rolt, who afterwards wrote many books, was in Dublin when that poem appeared, and actually passed a whole year there, very comfortably, by passing for the author.

XXXIII. ANECDOTES OF THE STREETS.

There is a French book called Anecdotes des Rues de Paris. I had begun a similar work, "Anecdotes of the Streets of London." I intended, in imitation of the French original, to have

pointed out the streets and houses where any remarkable incident had happened. But I found the labour would be too great, in collecting materials from various resources; and I abandoned the design, after having written about ten or twelve pages.

XXXIV. ARTFUL QUESTION.

Dominico, the harlequin, going to see Louis XIV. at supper, fixed his eye on a dish of partridges. The King, who was fond of his acting, said, “ Give that dish to Dominico." "And the partridges too, sire?" Louis, penetrating his art, replied, " And the partridges too." The dish was gold.

XXXV. AUTHORS AND ARTISTS.

I have always rather tried to escape the acquaintance and conversation of authors. An author, talking of his own works, or censuring those of others, is to me a dose of ipecacuanha. I like only a few, who can in company forget their authorship, and remember plain sense.

The conversation of artists is still worse. Vanity and envy are the main ingredients. One detests vanity because it shocks one's own vanity.

Had I listened to the censures of artists, there is not a good piece in my collection. One blames one part of a picture, another attacks another. Sir Joshua is one of the most candid; yet he blamed the stiff drapery of my Henry VII. in the state bed-chamber, as if good drapery could be expected in that age of painting.

XXXVI. AUTHORS IN FLOWER-MYSTERIOUS

MOTHER.

At Strawberry-hill, 19th September, 1784, Mr Walpole remarked that, at a certain time of their lives, men of genius seemed to be in flower. Gray was in flower three years, when he wrote his Odes,

&c. This starting the idea of the American aloe, some kinds of which are said to flower only once in a century, he observed, laughing, that had Gray lived an hundred years longer, perhaps he would have been in flower again. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams bore only one blossom; he was in flower only for one ode.

Next evening, about eleven o'clock, Mr Walpole gave me the Mysterious Mother to read, while he went to Mrs Clive's for an hour or two. The date was remarkable, as the play hinges on an anniversary twentieth of September.

-but often as returns

The twentieth of September, &c.

This odd circumstance conspired, with the complete solitude of the Gothic apartments, to lend an additional impression to the superstitious parts of that tragedy. In point of language, and the true expression of passion and feeling, the new and just delineation of monastic fraud, tyranny, and cruelty, it deserves the greatest praise. But it is surprising that a man of his taste and judgment should have added to the improbability of the tale, instead of mellowing it with softer shades. This might be cured by altering one page of the countess's confession in the last act. The story, as told in Luther's Table Walk, seems more ancient than that in the Tales of the Queen of Navarre.

On Mr Walpole's return, he said he had printed a few copies of this tragedy at Strawberry-hill, to give to his friends. Some of them falling into improper hands, two surreptitious editions were advertised. Mr W. in consequence, desired Dodsley to print an edition 1781, and even caused it to be advertised. But finding that the stolen impressions R 2

were of course dropped, he ordered his not to be issued, and none were ever sold.

XXXVII. BEAUTIFUL PROVERBS.

Proverbs not only present "le bon gros sens qui court les rues," but sometimes are expressed in elegant metaphor. I was struck with an oriental one of this sort, which I met with in some book of travels: "With time and patience the leaf of the mulberry-tree becomes satin."

XXXVIII. BERNIS AND FLEURY.

Cardinal de Bernis, when only an Abbé, solicited Cardinal Fleury, then four-score, for some preferment. Fleury told him fairly, he should never have anything in his time: Bernis replied, "Monseigneur, j'attendrai."*

XXXIX. BIOGRAPHIA.

I had happened to say that the Biographia Britannica was an apology for everybody. This reached the ears of Dr Kippis, who was publishing a new edition; and who retorted that the life of Sir Robert Walpole should prove that the Biographia was not an apology for everybody. Soon after I was surprised with a visit from the doctor, who came to solicit materials for my father's life. You may guess I very civilly refused.

XL. DUCHESS OF BOLTON.

The Duchess Dowager of Bolton, who was natural daughter to the Duke of Monmouth, used to divert George I. by affecting to make blunders. Once when she had been at the play of " Love's Last Shift," she called it, La dernière Chémise de l'Amour. Another time she pretended to come to court in a great fright, and the King asking the cause, she said she had been at Mr Whiston's, who

* My lord, I shall wait.