Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/379

 9- s. V.MAY 12, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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presence only of the men mounting guard on that day, or in presence only of the company to which the culprit belonged, was confined to garrisons, and arose in a somewhat curious way, which is thus adverted to by Humphrey Bland in his ' Treatise of Military Discipline,' fourth edition, 1740, p. 197 :

"No colonel can order his regiment under arms, either for exercise, punishing offenders, or other- wise, without having leave every time from the Governour : therefore, it is usual to punish the soldier on the regimental parade in the presence of the men who mount the guard in the morning, unless the sentence directs any one to run the gantlet thorough the regiment."

w. s.

HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS EDITORS.

(Continued from p. 283.)

LETTER 709, addressed to Montagu and dated^ 7 March, 1761 (Cunningham's ed., vol. iii. p. 381), is evidently wrongly dated as regards the month. This appears from the following considerations :

1. Walpole writes of the reverses of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, " Prince Ferdinand has been obliged to raise the siege of Cassel, and to retire to Paderborn ; the Hereditary Prince having been again defeated." It will be seen from Carlyle's ' Frederick the Great ' (ed. 1873, vol. ix. p. 118) that these events did not take place till after 21 March, 1761. Horace Walpole obviously could not men- tion on 7 March events which did not occur till the end of that month. His letter to Mann of 10 April, giving an almost identical account of these incidents, makes it evident that the intelligence was not received in Eng- land until the beginning of April : "All Prince Ferdinand's visionary vivacities are vanished into smoke; his nephew is again beaten, himself retired to Paderborn, and the siege of Cassel raised."

2. Walpole further says, "We are in the utmost hopes of a peace ; a congress is agreed upon at Augsbourg, but yesterday's mail brought bad news" (*'.., the ill-successes of Prince Ferdinand mentioned above). In his letter to Mann of 10 April Walpole writes, " Blessed be Providence ! we are going to have peace It is to be treated here the con- gress will be afterwards held, for form, at Augsbourg."

There can be little doubt, therefore, that Horace Walpole must, by a slip of the pen, have dated his letter March instead of April.

This inference is confirmed by Walpole's references, in this same letter, to Con way and Montagu.

3. He writes, " Mr. Conway is gone to the army." Conway was appointed in March to

command in Germany under Lord Granby. In a letter to Montagu of 25 March, after describing his feelings on re visiting Hough ton, Walpole writes, "My mind was extremely pre- pared for all this gloom by parting with Mr.

Conway yesterday morning [March 24] He

is going to Germany." This sentence shows Conway did not leave England till 24 March at the earliest, so that Horace Walpole could not have stated on 7 March that he was "gone to the army " (already in Germany).

4. Horace Walpole congratulates Montagu on his appointment as Usher of the Black Rod in Ireland. This appointment was con- ferred upon Montagu by the new viceroy, his cousin Lord Halifax. The latter's ap- pointment was announced to Montagu by Horace Walpole in his letter of 13 March (wrongly dated by Cunningham 19 March) : " I can now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin is certainly named lord -lieutenant. I wish you joy." At the end of the letter he adds, "I shall be impatient to hear some con- sequence of my first paragraph." The " con- sequence" anticipated by Walpole was obviously some office for Montagu at the vice-regal court.

As, therefore, this letter belongs to April, it should be placed among letters of that month, and should be between No. 715 (of 25 March) and No. 716 (of 10 April) in vol. iii.

In a letter to the Earl of Hertford, dated 3 Dec., 1764 (Cunningham's ed., vol. iv. p. 301), Walpole writes : " Mr. Sarjent sent me this evening from you 'Les Considerations sur les Mceurs' and 'Le Testament Politique.'" Croker states in a note that the latter was "a French forgery called l Le Testament Politique du Chevalier Robert Walpole,' of which Mr. Walpole drew up an exposure, which is to be found in the second volume of his works." Only a portion of this note is correct, as the 'Testament Politique du Chevalier Walpole' was not published until February, 1767, when its appearance is men- tioned % Grimm in his Correspondance Litteraire.' Walpole's expose of the forgery is dated 16 Feb., 1767, and at the beginning of his remarks he writes, " I have just turned over a spurious production called ' Testament Politique du Chevalier Walpoole,' " &c. The ' Testament Politique ' mentioned in Walpole's letter was not, therefore, as Croker asserts, and as Wright and Cunningham repeat, the so-called ' Testament ' of Sir Robert Walpole. HELEN TOYNBEE.

LONDON VOLUNTEERS IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. This following extract in our volunteering times may interest the