July 27, 2025 • 15 mins
Immerse yourself in Georgian England as depicted through the charming and witty letters of Horace Walpole, the 4th Earl of Orford. An active participant and keen observer of social and political life, Walpoles letters offer a vivid snapshot of the era. Virginia Woolf described him as a man who could beautifully capture every gift and foible of his time - his long life reflecting a panorama of houses, friends, wars, snuff boxes, revolutions, and lap dogs, all playing out against the serene blue sky. Join us as we delve into these valuable historical documents, brought to life by Barbara2.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section sixteen of Horace Worpole's Letters a selection. This is
a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
At a masquerade tis a Horace Man, Arlington Street, February
twenty seven, seventeen seventy. Is very lucky, seeing how much
of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there
(00:24):
should be a good nose of the monkey too. If
Esop had not lived so many centuries before the introduction
of masquerades and operas, he would certainly have anticipated my
observation and worked it up into a capital fable. As
we still trade upon the stock of the ancients, we
(00:47):
seldom deal in any other manufacture. And though nature, after
new combinations, lets forth new characteristics, it is very rarely
that they are added to the old fund. Else how
could so striking a remark of escape being made as
mine on the joint ingredients of tiger a monkey. In
(01:10):
France the latter predominates in England the former, but like
a Rosmides and Armanius, they get the better by turns.
The bankruptcy of France and the riggers of the new
Controller General are half forgotten in the expectation of a
new opera at the theater. Our civil war has been
(01:33):
lulled asleep by a subscription masquerade, for which the House
of Commons literally adjourned yesterday. Instead of Fairfaxes under Cromwell's
we have had a crowd of Henry Yates, Wolsey's Van Dykes,
and Harlequins. And because Wilkes was not mask enough, we
(01:53):
had a man dressed like him, with the visor and
imitation of his squint, and a cap of liberty on
a pole. In short sixteen or eighteen young lords have
given the town a masquerade, and politics for the last
fortnight were forced to give way to habit makers. Ellipses,
(02:18):
as one of my ancient passions formerly was masquerades. I
had a large trunk of dresses by me. I dressed
out a thousand young Conways and Chumneys, and went with
more pleasure to see them pleased than when I formerly
delighted in that diversion myself. It has cost me a
(02:39):
great headache, and I shall probably never go to another.
A symptom appeared of the change that has happened in
the people. The mob was beyond all belief. They held
flambo to the windows of every coach and demanded to
have the masks pulled off and put on it their leisure,
(03:01):
but with extreme good humor and civility. I was with
my Lady Hartford and two of her daughters in their coach.
The mob took me for Lord Hartford, and hassired and
blessed me. One fellow cried out, are you for Wilkes?
Another said, damn you, you fool. What is Wilkes to
(03:22):
do with the masquerade? In good truth, that stock is
fallen very low. The Court has recovered a majority of
seventy five in the House of Commons, and the Party
has succeeded so well in the Lords that my Lord
Chatham has betaken himself to the gout and appears no more.
(03:45):
What Wilkes may do at his enlargement in April, I
don't know, but his star is certainly much dimmed. The
distress of France, the injustice they happen induced to commit
on public credit, immense bankruptcies, and great bankers hanging and
(04:06):
drowning themselves are comfortable objects in our prospect. For one
tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his tale. Wilkes
a political forecast. The growth of extravagance to asharras Man
Strawberry Hill made the sixth seventeen seventy. I don't know
(04:29):
whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for
the rising of Parliament to take the field, or whether
his dignity of aldermen has dulled him into prudence and
the love of feasting. But hitherto he has done nothing
but go to city banquets and sermons, and sit at
Guildhall as a sober magistrate Ellipses. But there is another
(04:56):
scene opened of a very different aspect. You have seen
counts from Boston. The Tocsin seems to be sounded to America.
I have many visions about that country, and fancy I
see twenty empires and republics forming upon vast scales all
over that continent, which is growing too mighty to be
(05:20):
kept in subjection to half a dozen exhausted nations in Europe.
As the latter sinks and the others rise, they who
in between the errors, will be a sort of Noah's
witnesses to the period of the Old world and origin
of the New. I entertain myself with the idea of
(05:41):
a future senate in Carolina and Virginia, where their future
patriots will harangue on the austere and incorruptible virtue of
the ancient English, will tell their auditors of our disinterestedness
and scorn of bribes and pensions, and make us blush
and our graves at their ridiculous panegyrics. Who knows, but
(06:05):
even our Indian usurpations and villanies may become topics of
praise to American schoolboys. As I believe our virtues are
extremely like those of our predecessors, the Romans, so I
am sure our luxury and extravagance are too. What do
(06:25):
you think of a winter ranula in square brackets? The
pantheon erecting in Oxford Road at the expense of sixty
thousand pounds. The new bank, including the value of the
ground and of the houses demolished to make room for it,
will cost three hundred thousand pounds and erected as my
lady town, they says by sober citizens too. I have
(06:51):
touched before to you on the incredible profusion of our
young men of fashion. I know a younger brother who
literally gives a flower woman half a guinea every morning
for a bunch of roses for the nosegay in his buttonhole.
There has lately been an auction of stuffed birds, and
(07:12):
as natural history is in fashion, there are physicians and
others who paid forty and fifty guineas for a single
Chinese pheasant. You may buy a live one for five
After this. It is not extraordinary that pictures should be dear.
We have at present three exhibitions. One West, who paints
(07:34):
history in the taste of Poussain, gets three hundred pounds
for a piece not too large to hang over chimney.
He has merit, but it is hard and heavy, and
far unworthy of such prices. The rage to see these
exhibitions is so great that sometimes one cannot pass through
(07:55):
the streets where they are. But it is incredible what
sums are raised by mere exhibitions of anything a new fashion,
and to enter, at which you pay a shimming or
half a crown. Another rage is for prince of English portraits.
(08:15):
I have been collecting them above thirty years, and originally
never gave for a metza tinto or above one or
two shillings. The lowest are now crown. Most from half
a guinea to a guinea. Lately I assisted a clergyman
in square brackets Granger in compiling a catalog of them.
(08:37):
Since the publication scarce heads in books not worth ribbons
will self of five guineas. Then we have a trusk
in vases made of rthen wear in Stafford shirt in
square brackets wedgewood from two to five guineas, and ormolu
never made here before, which succeeds so well did it
(09:00):
tea kettle which the inventor offered for one hundred guineas
sold by auction for one hundred thirty. In short, we
are at the height of extravagance and improvements. For we
do improve rapidly in taste as well as in the former.
I cannot say so much, for our genius poetry is
(09:23):
gone to bed or into our prose. We alight the
Romans in that too. We have the arts of the Antonines.
We have the Fustium. Also masquerades in Vogue, a ladies
club to George Montagu's Squire's Strawberry Hill made the sixth
(09:44):
seventeen seventy. Masquerades proceed in spite of Church and King
that knave for the Bishop of London persuaded that good
soul the archbishop to remonstrate against them. But happily the
age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and dominoes conde
(10:06):
raison carry it against lawn sleeves. There is a new
institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will
make a considerable noise. It is a club of both
sexes to be erected at all makes on the model
of that of the men at Whites. Missus Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke,
(10:31):
Missus Maynold, Lady Molineux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd are
the found dresses. I am ashamed to say I am
of so young and fashionable society. But as they are
people I live with, I choose to be idle rather
than morose. I can go to a young supper without
(10:52):
forgetting how much sand has run out of the eyeglass.
Yet I shall never pass a tryst old age. In
turn the psalms into Latin or English verse. My plan
is to pass away, calmly, cheerfully, if I can, sometimes
to amuse myself with the rising generation, but to take
(11:14):
care not to fatigue them, nor weary them with old
stories which will not interest them as their adventures do
not interest me. Age would indulge prejudices if it did
not sometimes polish itself against a younger acquaintance. But it
must be the work of folly if one hopes to
(11:36):
contract friendships with them, or desires it, or thinks that
one can become the same follies, or expects that they
should do more than bear one for one's good humor.
In short, there are pleasant medicine that one should take
care not to grow fond of medicines hurt when habit
(11:57):
has annihilated their force. You see, I am in no danger.
I intend, by degrees to decrease my opium instead of
augmenting the dose. French startled by English luxury. Two compliments
to the Duchess of Queensbury. Tisahraceman, Arlington Street, April twenty sixth,
(12:20):
seventeen seventy one. If we laugh at the French, they
stare at us. Our enormous luxury and expense astonishes them.
I carried their ambassador in a compe de Lavy the
other morning to see the new winter runner up in
Square Braggets the Pantheon in Oxford Road, which is almost finished.
(12:46):
It amazed me myself. Imagine Baubeck in all its glory.
The pillars are of artificial jallo antiquo. The ceilings even
of the passages of the most beautiful Struccos, in the
best taste of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball rooms
and the panels painted like Raphael's lodges in the Vatican,
(13:11):
a dome like the Pantheon glazed. It is to cost
fifty thousand pounds. Monsieur Ghen said to me, Snecker, alondre
compeferre tousla. It is not quite a proof of the
same taste that two views of Arona by Canileetti have
(13:33):
been sold by auction for five hundred and fifty guineas.
And what is worse, it has come out that they
are copies by Marlowe, a disciple of Scott. Both master
and scholar are indeed better painters than the Venetian. But
the purchases did not mean to be so well cheated.
(13:56):
The papers would have told you that the wheel of
fortune has again brought up Lord Holdiness, who was made
governor of the Prince of Wales. The Duchess of Queensburry
are much older. Veteran is still figuring in the world.
Not only by giving frequent balls, but really by her beauty,
(14:17):
reflect that she was a goddess in Prior's days. I
could not help adding these lines on her you know
his end. Kitty at heart's desire obtained the chariot for
a day and set the world on fire. This was
some fifty six years ago or more. I gave her
(14:38):
this stanza to many you kitty love his car will
for a day engage. But Prior's kitty, ever fair, obtained
it for an age, and she is old enough to
be pleased with the compliment. Shall I send away this
(14:58):
short scroll, reserve it to the end of the session. No,
it is already somewhat obviosieved. It shall go, and another
short letter shall be the other half of it. So
good night. End of section sixteen.
Section sixteen of Horace Worpole's Letters a selection. This is
a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
At a masquerade tis a Horace Man, Arlington Street, February
twenty seven, seventeen seventy. Is very lucky, seeing how much
of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there
(00:24):
should be a good nose of the monkey too. If
Esop had not lived so many centuries before the introduction
of masquerades and operas, he would certainly have anticipated my
observation and worked it up into a capital fable. As
we still trade upon the stock of the ancients, we
(00:47):
seldom deal in any other manufacture. And though nature, after
new combinations, lets forth new characteristics, it is very rarely
that they are added to the old fund. Else how
could so striking a remark of escape being made as
mine on the joint ingredients of tiger a monkey. In
(01:10):
France the latter predominates in England the former, but like
a Rosmides and Armanius, they get the better by turns.
The bankruptcy of France and the riggers of the new
Controller General are half forgotten in the expectation of a
new opera at the theater. Our civil war has been
(01:33):
lulled asleep by a subscription masquerade, for which the House
of Commons literally adjourned yesterday. Instead of Fairfaxes under Cromwell's
we have had a crowd of Henry Yates, Wolsey's Van Dykes,
and Harlequins. And because Wilkes was not mask enough, we
(01:53):
had a man dressed like him, with the visor and
imitation of his squint, and a cap of liberty on
a pole. In short sixteen or eighteen young lords have
given the town a masquerade, and politics for the last
fortnight were forced to give way to habit makers. Ellipses,
(02:18):
as one of my ancient passions formerly was masquerades. I
had a large trunk of dresses by me. I dressed
out a thousand young Conways and Chumneys, and went with
more pleasure to see them pleased than when I formerly
delighted in that diversion myself. It has cost me a
(02:39):
great headache, and I shall probably never go to another.
A symptom appeared of the change that has happened in
the people. The mob was beyond all belief. They held
flambo to the windows of every coach and demanded to
have the masks pulled off and put on it their leisure,
(03:01):
but with extreme good humor and civility. I was with
my Lady Hartford and two of her daughters in their coach.
The mob took me for Lord Hartford, and hassired and
blessed me. One fellow cried out, are you for Wilkes?
Another said, damn you, you fool. What is Wilkes to
(03:22):
do with the masquerade? In good truth, that stock is
fallen very low. The Court has recovered a majority of
seventy five in the House of Commons, and the Party
has succeeded so well in the Lords that my Lord
Chatham has betaken himself to the gout and appears no more.
(03:45):
What Wilkes may do at his enlargement in April, I
don't know, but his star is certainly much dimmed. The
distress of France, the injustice they happen induced to commit
on public credit, immense bankruptcies, and great bankers hanging and
(04:06):
drowning themselves are comfortable objects in our prospect. For one
tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his tale. Wilkes
a political forecast. The growth of extravagance to asharras Man
Strawberry Hill made the sixth seventeen seventy. I don't know
(04:29):
whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for
the rising of Parliament to take the field, or whether
his dignity of aldermen has dulled him into prudence and
the love of feasting. But hitherto he has done nothing
but go to city banquets and sermons, and sit at
Guildhall as a sober magistrate Ellipses. But there is another
(04:56):
scene opened of a very different aspect. You have seen
counts from Boston. The Tocsin seems to be sounded to America.
I have many visions about that country, and fancy I
see twenty empires and republics forming upon vast scales all
over that continent, which is growing too mighty to be
(05:20):
kept in subjection to half a dozen exhausted nations in Europe.
As the latter sinks and the others rise, they who
in between the errors, will be a sort of Noah's
witnesses to the period of the Old world and origin
of the New. I entertain myself with the idea of
(05:41):
a future senate in Carolina and Virginia, where their future
patriots will harangue on the austere and incorruptible virtue of
the ancient English, will tell their auditors of our disinterestedness
and scorn of bribes and pensions, and make us blush
and our graves at their ridiculous panegyrics. Who knows, but
(06:05):
even our Indian usurpations and villanies may become topics of
praise to American schoolboys. As I believe our virtues are
extremely like those of our predecessors, the Romans, so I
am sure our luxury and extravagance are too. What do
(06:25):
you think of a winter ranula in square brackets? The
pantheon erecting in Oxford Road at the expense of sixty
thousand pounds. The new bank, including the value of the
ground and of the houses demolished to make room for it,
will cost three hundred thousand pounds and erected as my
lady town, they says by sober citizens too. I have
(06:51):
touched before to you on the incredible profusion of our
young men of fashion. I know a younger brother who
literally gives a flower woman half a guinea every morning
for a bunch of roses for the nosegay in his buttonhole.
There has lately been an auction of stuffed birds, and
(07:12):
as natural history is in fashion, there are physicians and
others who paid forty and fifty guineas for a single
Chinese pheasant. You may buy a live one for five
After this. It is not extraordinary that pictures should be dear.
We have at present three exhibitions. One West, who paints
(07:34):
history in the taste of Poussain, gets three hundred pounds
for a piece not too large to hang over chimney.
He has merit, but it is hard and heavy, and
far unworthy of such prices. The rage to see these
exhibitions is so great that sometimes one cannot pass through
(07:55):
the streets where they are. But it is incredible what
sums are raised by mere exhibitions of anything a new fashion,
and to enter, at which you pay a shimming or
half a crown. Another rage is for prince of English portraits.
(08:15):
I have been collecting them above thirty years, and originally
never gave for a metza tinto or above one or
two shillings. The lowest are now crown. Most from half
a guinea to a guinea. Lately I assisted a clergyman
in square brackets Granger in compiling a catalog of them.
(08:37):
Since the publication scarce heads in books not worth ribbons
will self of five guineas. Then we have a trusk
in vases made of rthen wear in Stafford shirt in
square brackets wedgewood from two to five guineas, and ormolu
never made here before, which succeeds so well did it
(09:00):
tea kettle which the inventor offered for one hundred guineas
sold by auction for one hundred thirty. In short, we
are at the height of extravagance and improvements. For we
do improve rapidly in taste as well as in the former.
I cannot say so much, for our genius poetry is
(09:23):
gone to bed or into our prose. We alight the
Romans in that too. We have the arts of the Antonines.
We have the Fustium. Also masquerades in Vogue, a ladies
club to George Montagu's Squire's Strawberry Hill made the sixth
(09:44):
seventeen seventy. Masquerades proceed in spite of Church and King
that knave for the Bishop of London persuaded that good
soul the archbishop to remonstrate against them. But happily the
age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and dominoes conde
(10:06):
raison carry it against lawn sleeves. There is a new
institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will
make a considerable noise. It is a club of both
sexes to be erected at all makes on the model
of that of the men at Whites. Missus Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke,
(10:31):
Missus Maynold, Lady Molineux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd are
the found dresses. I am ashamed to say I am
of so young and fashionable society. But as they are
people I live with, I choose to be idle rather
than morose. I can go to a young supper without
(10:52):
forgetting how much sand has run out of the eyeglass.
Yet I shall never pass a tryst old age. In
turn the psalms into Latin or English verse. My plan
is to pass away, calmly, cheerfully, if I can, sometimes
to amuse myself with the rising generation, but to take
(11:14):
care not to fatigue them, nor weary them with old
stories which will not interest them as their adventures do
not interest me. Age would indulge prejudices if it did
not sometimes polish itself against a younger acquaintance. But it
must be the work of folly if one hopes to
(11:36):
contract friendships with them, or desires it, or thinks that
one can become the same follies, or expects that they
should do more than bear one for one's good humor.
In short, there are pleasant medicine that one should take
care not to grow fond of medicines hurt when habit
(11:57):
has annihilated their force. You see, I am in no danger.
I intend, by degrees to decrease my opium instead of
augmenting the dose. French startled by English luxury. Two compliments
to the Duchess of Queensbury. Tisahraceman, Arlington Street, April twenty sixth,
(12:20):
seventeen seventy one. If we laugh at the French, they
stare at us. Our enormous luxury and expense astonishes them.
I carried their ambassador in a compe de Lavy the
other morning to see the new winter runner up in
Square Braggets the Pantheon in Oxford Road, which is almost finished.
(12:46):
It amazed me myself. Imagine Baubeck in all its glory.
The pillars are of artificial jallo antiquo. The ceilings even
of the passages of the most beautiful Struccos, in the
best taste of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball rooms
and the panels painted like Raphael's lodges in the Vatican,
(13:11):
a dome like the Pantheon glazed. It is to cost
fifty thousand pounds. Monsieur Ghen said to me, Snecker, alondre
compeferre tousla. It is not quite a proof of the
same taste that two views of Arona by Canileetti have
(13:33):
been sold by auction for five hundred and fifty guineas.
And what is worse, it has come out that they
are copies by Marlowe, a disciple of Scott. Both master
and scholar are indeed better painters than the Venetian. But
the purchases did not mean to be so well cheated.
(13:56):
The papers would have told you that the wheel of
fortune has again brought up Lord Holdiness, who was made
governor of the Prince of Wales. The Duchess of Queensburry
are much older. Veteran is still figuring in the world.
Not only by giving frequent balls, but really by her beauty,
(14:17):
reflect that she was a goddess in Prior's days. I
could not help adding these lines on her you know
his end. Kitty at heart's desire obtained the chariot for
a day and set the world on fire. This was
some fifty six years ago or more. I gave her
(14:38):
this stanza to many you kitty love his car will
for a day engage. But Prior's kitty, ever fair, obtained
it for an age, and she is old enough to
be pleased with the compliment. Shall I send away this
(14:58):
short scroll, reserve it to the end of the session. No,
it is already somewhat obviosieved. It shall go, and another
short letter shall be the other half of it. So
good night. End of section sixteen.
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