Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Name: Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters
Author: Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 -- Correspondence

“I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not
    border a little upon Moorfields.[40] The gallery where they
    danced was very cold. Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I, retired
    into a little room, and sat comfortably by the fire. The
    Duchess looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take
    the hinges of the door off. We understood the hint, and left
    the room, and so did the smith the door. This was pretty
    legible.”--_Walpole to Lord Hertford, March 11, 1764._

A little later on we have more gossip about the humours of the day and
of Lady Queensberry. Writing to the same correspondent, under date of
February 12, 1765, Horace says:

    “If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an
    entertaining petition[41] of the periwig-makers to the King,
    in which they complain that men will wear their own hair.
    Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate,
    that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no
    demand for wooden legs? Apropos, my Lady Hertford’s friend,
    Lady Harriot Vernon, has quarrelled with me for smiling at the
    enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came
    one night to Northumberland-house with such display of friz,
    that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to
    say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before
    marriage, and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now.
    This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was
    reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As
    she never found fault with anybody herself, I excuse her! You
    will be less surprised to hear that the Duchess of Queensberry
    has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at
    Court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel. The
    same day the Guerchys made a dinner for her, and invited Lord
    and Lady Hyde, the Forbes’s, and her other particular friends:
    in the morning she sent word she was to go out of town, but as
    soon as dinner was over, arrived at Madame de Guerchy’s, and
    said she had been at Court.”

On February 14th, he adds in the same letter:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His LettersWalpole, Horace

General

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 -- Correspondence

“I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not
    border a little upon Moorfields.[40] The gallery where they
    danced was very cold. Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I, retired
    into a little room, and sat comfortably by the fire. The
    Duchess looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take
    the hinges of the door off. We understood the hint, and left
    the room, and so did the smith the door. This was pretty
    legible.”--_Walpole to Lord Hertford, March 11, 1764._

A little later on we have more gossip about the humours of the day and
of Lady Queensberry. Writing to the same correspondent, under date of
February 12, 1765, Horace says:

    “If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an
    entertaining petition[41] of the periwig-makers to the King,
    in which they complain that men will wear their own hair.
    Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate,
    that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no
    demand for wooden legs? Apropos, my Lady Hertford’s friend,
    Lady Harriot Vernon, has quarrelled with me for smiling at the
    enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came
    one night to Northumberland-house with such display of friz,
    that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to
    say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before
    marriage, and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now.
    This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was
    reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As
    she never found fault with anybody herself, I excuse her! You
    will be less surprised to hear that the Duchess of Queensberry
    has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at
    Court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel. The
    same day the Guerchys made a dinner for her, and invited Lord
    and Lady Hyde, the Forbes’s, and her other particular friends:
    in the morning she sent word she was to go out of town, but as
    soon as dinner was over, arrived at Madame de Guerchy’s, and
    said she had been at Court.”

On February 14th, he adds in the same letter:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters

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