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Serendipity, Horace Walpole, and Me

By Victoria Hinshaw

I love the word – and the concept of – Serendipity. The word was invented by one of the 18th century’s most interesting characters, Horace Walpole (1717-97), whose life neatly spanned the century and, to my mind, rather defined the times.

Serendipity means discovering connections between thoughts or objects by happy accident. I first learned the word when I had a most pleasant meal on E. 60th Street in New York City at a charming restaurant named Serendipity. It was a serendipitous event! The discovery of a new concept while in the act of enjoying a new place (this was a very long time ago).

Recently, while working on a piece for this blog (see posts of March 29 and 31) on William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne (1737 – 1805), who was The Earl of Shelburne and Prime Minister 1782-1783, I learned that Walpole, himself an opinionated and eccentric character, did not like Shelburne, also famously opinionated and eccentric. How serendipitous, I thought, for I was also planning to do a piece on Walpole and the upcoming exhibitions of his treasures at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Which reminded me of the restaurant in New York; when I Googled it, I happily found it still prospering. Then I read that Walpole had coined the word Serendipity.

Amazing.

All of which is a long and involved introduction to my little essay on Horace Walpole, architect, author, collector, raconteur, bon vivant, and writer of 48 printed volumes of correspondence.

Horace was a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, and England’s first Prime Minister during the reign of the first two Georges. Horace received an ideal gentleman’s education at Eton and Cambridge followed by a Grand Tour. He had wide ranging interests and made many friends, devoting himself to arts and culture. Though he served as a member of the House of Commons, he had an independent income which enabled him to pursue his eclectic interests by collecting and carefully developing his tastes. Widely considered a superb connoisseur, he and his friends spent years converting his villa in Twickenham into a neo-Gothic structure.

Strawberry Hill

My immediate interest is in the exhibition which, according to reports, recreates the ambience of the actual house: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. Kristine has already seen the entire show when it was at the Yale Center for British Art, in New Haven, Connecticut. Her report: “I loved it. Many dark gothic-looking pieces he’d collected.” I can’t wait to see it in June in London.

In her review of the V and A Exhibition, Amanda Vickery quotes Michael Snodin, curator of the exhibition. He writes: Walpole “as a lively and incisive commentator shaped the way we see 18th-century politics and society. As the most important collector of his time he created a form of thematised historical display which prefigured modern museums. And Strawberry Hill was the most influential building of the early Gothic revival.” Her full review here.

The house itself, along with its collections, was developed over a period of years, adding or redoing a room from time to time, between 1747 and 1790. Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill is published by Yale University Press in association with the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University; the Yale Center for British Art; and the V and A. The catalogue is edited by the exhibition curators, Michael Snodin of the V and A and Cynthia Roman of the Lewis Walpole Library.

It was at Strawberry Hill that Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, the prototype for the Gothick novel boom that consumed popular literature for several succeeding decades.

Here is another aside: Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is a parody of Gothick novels that always featured an innocent young lady at peril in an old castle or ruined religious structure, fearing at every moment the mysterious rattle of chains, the gloomy wailing of the winds and the sinister dark males that threaten A Fate Worse Than Death. Rather reminds me of the current crazes for vampires, werewolves and zombies.

Walpole, or his housekeeper for the less exalted tourists, often gave tours to visitors. He created and printed a guidebook to the house and its collections. After he died in 1797, the house was left to his friend and relative Lady Anne Seymour Damer, a renowned scupltor in her own right. She died without issue and their mutual relatives, the Waldegraves, took over. In 1842, the contents of the house were auctioned. The exhibition brings together for the first time since then almost 300 items from Walpole’s collections and furnishings. The Strawberry Hill house is being renovated and will reopen soon.

One of the highlights is a suit of gilded parade armour. Walpole

believed it belonged to King Francis I of France but the V and A curators date it about 1600.

Horace Walpole’s intimate personal life has fascinated fellow dilettantes as well as scholars and literary analysts. He never married and was known for effeminate behavior. He numbered many man and also many women among his closest and most intimate friends. But no one has proven anything; perhaps the best answer is that he was asexual, turning his energies to his collections and other artistic interests.

Among Horace Walpole’s greatest achievements are the many insights his letters and other writings give into the society politics and culture of 18th Century Britain.

He was witty, erudite and voluble. Just reading a few letters makes one long for just an hour of his time to enjoy the conversation in person rather than on the page. Some have called him pretentious, effete, arrogant and peculiar. Perhaps those qualities only added to his charm.

Right, Strawberry Hill interior

To conclude, where did Horace Walpole come up with that word SERENDIPITY? He found it in a Persian story, once the name for Sri Lanka. Here is a quotation from a letter he wrote in 1754 to Horace Mann, an English friend who lived in Florence:

“It was once when I read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a camel blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon’s, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table.”

If you are fortunate enough to be in London in the next few months (6 March-4 July, 2010), I hope you will join the V and A and me in celebrating the fascinating, serendipitous Horace Walpole.

Living With the Duke of Wellington

I’ve been living with the Duke of Wellington for nigh on thirty years now – reading about him, researching him and, perhaps most fun, collecting items associated with him. The first portrait of the Duke I ever bought is pictured at right. If you can believe it, I stumbled upon it in a thrift store in Florida and paid just $99 for it. Afterwards, I brought a photo of it with me to London and took it to Grosvenor Prints in Seven Dials and asked the gentleman there what he thought it was worth. He hemmed and hawed on giving me an appraisal without actually seeing the piece, but did tell me that mine was one of a series of eight engravings done shortly after the Duke’s death to commemorate the high points thereof. My engraving shows the Duke being installed as Chancellor of Oxford University and the frame is rosewood. When I told the man how much, or how little, I’d paid for the piece, he peered at me over the top of his glasses and said, “Madam, you got yourself a bargain.”

The next portrait I bought was this reproduction of Thomas Phillips’s 1814 painting of the Duke. Unfortunately, there isn’t an amusing story attached to this purchase, just ordered it through the mail, took it to be framed and matted and hung it above my fireplace. I must say, though, Artie looks tres festive when wreathed in garland at the holidays! My father bought the pheasant at an auction decades ago and when he returned home with it, both my mother and myself thought he was crazy. However, now I’m ever so glad he found it, as it’s so veddy Victorian in appearance and goes quite well on the mantle, non?

On a subsequent trip to London, I returned to Grosvenor Prints and spent quite a few hours perusing their Duke of Wellington stock, finally choosing this engraving because it seemed to match the first engraving in size and subject composition. It’s a contemporary engraving of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1821 portrait of the Duke, with Copenhagen’s head visible in the lower left corner. I had it matted and framed to match the first engraving.

On that same visit, I also bought this engraving of Elizabeth Hay, 2nd Duchess of Wellington and favorite daughter-in-law of the Duke. I also have an engraving of the Duke showing Elizabeth over the field of Waterloo on horseback. My husband tries to make me understand that these pictures should all be hung together, museum-like in a large room or gallery and not ranged over every conceivable bit of wall space in a smallish family home in which current day people actually live. I told him that I agreed. The collection as a whole would look infinitely better in a townhouse in Bath’s Royal Crescent or a Grade II listed period home in, say, Gloucestershire. I further told him that as soon as he bought me one or the other I would move each and every picture and knick knack to our new house. No need to tell you that I’m still waiting for word that our Georgian manor home has been purchased.

One wall in my office is taken up with various prints and here hangs Sir Thomas Lawrence’s most iconic image of the Duke, as well as the engraving on the field of Waterloo I mentioned earlier at bottom left. The framed document in the middle is a land indenture and the document at top right is an edition of the London Chronicle from 1771. Prince Leopold (or Leopold, King of the Belgians) is matted in red top left. Can I tell you how much enjoyment my passion for the past has afforded me over the years, giving me the excuse to visit bookshops, printsellers, antique shops and stalls and the like? While I love each find, I think my favorite piece of Wellington memorabilia is one of his handwritten envelopes, seal still intact, that I found on Ebay!

And, of course, all the book finds, whether associated with the Duke or not. Here are but a few. It always makes me chuckle when people ask me whether I’ve actually read them all. Obviously, these people are a breed apart from you and I. So, that’s a quick tour of my Wellington collection. When we go to London in June, Victoria and I plan to visit Grosvenor Prints and the bookstores in Charing Cross Road and Cecil Court. No doubt we’ll be coming home with more finds.

I can hear my husband groaning now.

The Year Without a Summer

In light of Iceland’s volcano grounding UK flights, we thought it would be appropriate to remind everyone of 1816, the year that England, and much of the rest of the world, experienced the “Year Without a Summer,” which was caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. You can read about it here, here and here. Victoria and I can only hope that the ash clears up by June to allow us to reach England as scheduled, and that it does not extend into the summer – quelle horror!

Do You Know About Doc Martin?

In Doc Martin, Martin Clunes plays the town of Portwenn’s local GP, Martin Ellingham, who was once a brilliant and highly successful London surgeon until he developed a phobia of blood that prevented him conducting operations. After retraining as a GP, he applied for a post in the sleepy Cornish village of Portwenn, where he had spent childhood holidays.

Much of the show’s humour revolves around Ellingham’s clumsy interactions with the local villagers. Despite his surgical brilliance, Ellingham lacks vital personal skills and any semblance of a bedside manner and is often clueless as to the feelings of others. Much to his disgust, Dr Ellingham (referred arrives in town to find a surgery is in disarray, the medical equipment atniquated and the patients’ records a mess. He also inherits an incompetent receptionist, Elaine Denham, who would rather spend her day at work playing gambling games on the office computer.

The community is united in horror at their “misery guts” of a new GP.

Martin is joined by a cast which includes the perennially favorite actress Stephanie Cole as his aunt, Joan Norton, who provides him with emotional support in the face of the disquiet among the villagers. Caroline Catz plays opinionated primary school teacher (later headmistress) Louisa Glasson. Doc Martin is attracted to her, but finds himself unable to express this. Louisa appears to share this mutual attraction, but finds their personalities often too different, while she is caring and nurturing, Martin is emotionally detached and at times neurotic.

While much of the above might not sound like the ideal premise for a comedic television show, I assure you that it works splendidly – viewing numbers peaked at 9 million for the last series. Doc Martin is addictive. And ITV announced that Martin Clunes has reprised his role as the curmudgeonly GP in a new eight-part drama series that was filmed in Cornwall by Buffalo Pictures last Spring. So, prepare for these new episodes by watching the old – available via Netflix, Blockbuster and some local libraries. Or, you can watch previous episodes here.

Beautiful Belvoir, Home of the Dukes of Rutland

by Victoria Hinshaw

His Grace the 11th Duke of Rutland and his lovely Duchess have celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Manners family at Belvoir Castle (pronounced Bee-ver). In 1509, Sir Robert Manners married Eleanor de Ros, heiress of the property, and from that time forward, it has been passed down through the Manners family. Another heiress, Dorothy Vernon, also married into the Manners family and brought her inheritance of Haddon Hall along with her. See my previous post on Haddon Hall on this blog April 8, 2010.

The property was already ancient when the Manners arrived. The first castle, almost a thousand years ago, was built overlooking the Vale of Belvoir after the Norman Conquest by Robert de Todeni, standard bearer for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The present castle, remodeled and rebuilt beginning in 1799, is the fourth to stand here. Designed in the popular Regency-era style of Gothick Revival, Belvoir has turrets, towers and battlements that serve no purpose beyond decoration.

I visited a few years ago with Kristine Hughes, and several good friends who love the Regency era. Upon our approach, we were accosted by a pair of highwaymen who abducted Kristine’s daughter, Brooke, and writer Diane Gaston, captured in the pictures.

Highwaymen abducting Brooke Hughes at Belvoir Castle

Ready to carry off Diane Gaston

How we pleaded and offered our treasures to the miscreants before they relented and posed for pictures with all of us. If you want to be treated to such an interlude, the castle can make the arrangements.

Upon entry, one is confronted with the gateroom, a vast collection of spears, swords, muskets, hatchets, shields, and armor. Very impressive.

Many thanks to Photographer Richard A. Higgins for permission to use his excellent picture

of the Guard Room. See more of his work here.

In one of the hallways, there is a long row of leather buckets, for use in putting out fires. The Bucket Brigade.

The castle houses priceless collections of artwork and decorative objects. Among my favorites are the magnificent family portraits by Gainsborough, Reynolds and Lawrence.

Many of the rooms are splendid beyond belief, the very height of Regency elegance. In fact, scenes in The Young Victoria were filmed here, as a stand-in for Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.