Eighteenth century vignettes . IVTOT for a moment to leave the reader at a^ loss in presence of an ambiguous title, letus hasten to copy a passage from that cornucopiaof small talk — the correspondence of HoraceWalpole. He is writing in the summer of 1755to Richard Bentley (son of the famous Masterof Trinity), concerning his neighbours at Twick-enham. We shall be, says he, as celebratedas Baiae or Tivoli; and, if we have not suchsonorous names as they boast, we have veryfamous people : Clive and Pritchard, actresses ;Scott and Hudson painters ; my Lady Suffolk,famous in her time ; Mr. H[ickey]
Eighteenth century vignettes . IVTOT for a moment to leave the reader at a^ loss in presence of an ambiguous title, letus hasten to copy a passage from that cornucopiaof small talk — the correspondence of HoraceWalpole. He is writing in the summer of 1755to Richard Bentley (son of the famous Masterof Trinity), concerning his neighbours at Twick-enham. We shall be, says he, as celebratedas Baiae or Tivoli; and, if we have not suchsonorous names as they boast, we have veryfamous people : Clive and Pritchard, actresses ;Scott and Hudson painters ; my Lady Suffolk,famous in her time ; Mr. H[ickey], the impu-dent lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against;Whitehead, the poet — and (the italics areours) Cambridge, the everything. Most ofthese names need little explanation. CatherineClive and Hannah Pritchard have long sincebeen offered up to the dramatic biographer;Lady Suffolk — perhaps more easily recognizedas the Mrs. Howard of Pope and Gay — ispart of the history of George II.; Hudson and Richard Owen Cambridge, the EverytUng. 179 Scott are still remembered — one as the masterof Reynolds, the other as the English Cana-letto ; while Hickey and Paul Whitehead re-spectively have been preserved for posterity,with more or less distinction, in the Retalia-tion of Goldsmith and the Conference ofChurchill. It is only the last of Walpoles list —and strangely enough the very one upon whomhis complimentary pen confers universality ofmerit — who now requires the assistance of thecommentator. And yet, as the friend of Ches-terfield and Johnson, as the author of a oricecommended mock-heroic poem, as a valued con-tributor to Dodsleys society paper, as a witand man of the world who had enjoyed the fullestopportunities for studying what the Fine Ladyin Lethe calls the Quincettence and Emptilyof things, Richard Owen Cambridge certainlyseems to merit something more than the formalfootnote of the forgotten. We purpose, there-fore, to repair this injustice by offering
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectenglishliterature
