Walpole, Horace
(London 1717-1797 London) : Schriftsteller, Kunsthistoriker, Politiker, Gelehrter
Name Alternative(s)
Walpole, Horace 4th Earl of Orford
Subjects
Index of Names : Occident
/
Literature : Occident : Great Britain
Chronology Entries (20)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1735 | Horace Walpole erhält im ersten Jahr seines Studium in Cambridge von Lord John Hervey eine Kopie von General description of China von Jean Baptiste Du Halde. |
|
| 2 | 1745 |
Brief von Lord John Hervey an Horace Walpole. Er schreibt : "I am extremely glad to hear the History of China [Du Halde] has so strong an effect upon you. You describe in a very entertaining manner the change it has made in you." |
|
| 3 | 1750 | Horace Walpole calls the goldfish pond at Strawberry Hill 'Po Yang' after a reference in Du Haldes Description to a lake in Jiangxi province celebrated for its many fish. |
|
| 4 | 1750 |
Brief von Horace Walpole aus Strawberry Hill an Horace Mann. (2 Aug.) Er schreibt : "I wish you could see the villas and seats here ! The country wears a new face ; every body is improving their places, and as they don't fortify their plantations with entrenchments of walls ande high hedges, one has the benefit of them even in passing by. The dispersed buildings, I mean, temples, bridges, etc. are generally Gothic of Chinese and give a shimsical air of novelty that is very pleasing." |
|
| 5 | 1750 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an Horace Mann. (25 Febr.) Er schreibt : "Columns and all their beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when corwded into a closet or a cheesecake house. The variety is little, and admits no charming irregularities. I am almost as fond of the Sharawaggi, or Chinese want of symmetry, in buildings, as in grounds or gardens. I am sure whenever you come to England, you will be pleased with the liberty of tase into which we are struck, and of which you can have no idea." |
|
| 6 | 1752 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an Richard Bentley. (5 Aug.) Walpole describes a pyramid he had seen at Lord Westmorland's Mereworth estate, "which by a most unnatural copulation is at once a grotto and a greenhouse. Does it not put you in mind of the proposal for your drawing a garden-seat, Chinese on one side and Gothic on the other ?" |
|
| 7 | 1755 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an Richard Bentley. (4 Aug.) Er schreibt : "When I every day see Greek and Roman and Italian and Chinese and Gothic architecture embroidered and inlaid upon one another, or called by each other's names, I couldn't help thinking that the grace and simplicity and truth of your taste, in whichever you undertake, is real taste." |
|
| 8 | 1755 |
Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill : http://richmond.gov.uk/gu/local_history_h_walpole.pdf. The ground floor room, which had originally served as a kitchen was, in 1755, transformed into a China Closet or China Room. |
|
| 9 | 1756 | Horace Walpole composes two unpublished letters for The world upon the story of a notorious book-burning Chinese emperor to mount a playfully satire assault on the excesses of the publishing industry. |
|
| 10 | 1757 |
Walpole, Horace. A letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend Lien Chi, at Peking [ID D26894]. I have told thee, this People are incomprehensible ; not only they differ from us ; they are unlike the rest of the Western World ; a Frenchman has Prejudices, has Caprices ; but they are the Prejudices of his Nation, they are the Caprices of his Age. A Frenchman has settled Ideas, though built on false Foundations ; an Englishman has no fixed Ideas : His Prejudices are not of his Country, but against some particular Parts or Maxims of his Coungry ; his Caprices are his own ; they are the essential Proofs of his Literty. In France they have a high Notion of their King ; they will stab him, but they will not hate him. An Englishman loves or hates his King once or twice in a Winter, and that for no Reason, but because he loves or hates the Ministry in being. They do not oppose their King from Dislike of Royal Power, but to avail themselves of his Power ; they try to level it till they can mount upon it. They are as little in Earnest about Liberty. To have the Nation free ! Nobody means it. To have the Country enslaved ; they desire it not : Were there Vassals, they would be the Vassals of the Crown, or of the Nobels ; while all are free to sell their Liberty, the richest or crastiest may purchase it. I have said, that they have no general Ideas ; they have not ; but they have general Names. Formerly they had two Parties ; now they have three Factions, and each of those Factions has something of the Name, or something of the Principles of each of those Parties. In my last I told thee, that the second Faction in Magnitude had displaced the least Faction, and that a new Ministry would immediately be appointed. I deceived thee ; I was deceived. I did not believe so because I was told so : Here one is told someting every day ; the People demand to be told something, no Matter what : If a Politician, a Minister, a Member of their Assembly was mysterious and refused to impart something to an Enquirer, he would make an Enemy : If he tells a Lie, it is no Offence ; he is communicative ; that is sufficient to a free People : All they ask is News ; a Falsehood is as much News as Truth. Why I believed a Ministry would soon be names, was ; I thought that in a Country where the wole real Business of their General Assembly was to chuse Ministers, they could never be withoug : I was deceived. I thought that when a Prince dismissed one Minister, he would take another : I was deceived. I thought when a Nation was engaged in a great War with a superior Power, that they must have Council ; I was deceived : Reason in China is not Reason in England. An Officer of the Treasury may be displaced, and a Judge can execute his Office. Their High-Priest died lately ; I waited to see from what Profession, which had nothing to do with Religion, his Successor would be chosen. When a Day or two had passed, I asked when a new Ministry would be named ; I heard several ask the same Question. I was told, when the Enquiries were over. I found this satisfied every Body but me. I asked what the Enquiries were. By the scanty Knowledge I have of their Language, I concluded it signified, an Enquiry who was fit to be Minister – No such Thing – They never enquire beforehand. Sometimes, as in the present Case, they enquire whether a former Minister had been fit to be so. Know, that last Year the English lost a valuable Istand : The People were enraged ; they blamed the Admiral who commanded their Fleet ; the Admiral who directed their Fleet, their chief Judge, their chief Treasurer, their chief Secretary. The first Admiral was imprisoned ; the rest quarrelled and gave up their Employments. The chief Man of the little Faction was made Minister, and his Friends got Places ; yet the Friends of the other two Factions retained theirs. An Enquiry or Trial of the late Ministers was determined ; The imprisoned Admiral was tried, acquitted, condemned an4 put to Death. The Trials of the others were delayed. At last they were tried Not as I expected, whether they were guilty, but whether they should be Ministers again or not. If the executed Admiral had lived, he too might be a Minister. Just as this Trial began, the new Head of the Admiralty forgot to make a Bow to the King—Upon which he and all his Friends were displaced. I understood this : As the English are more free than we are, I conceived that this was a Punishment proportioned to their Ideas of offended Majesty, and reflected how severely one os our Countrymen would be dealt with, who should affront the Dignity of our August Emperor. I was again deceived ; this Mandarin is likely to be again a Minister. As his Friends have great Weight in the General Assembly where the Trials are held, I concluded they would persecute their Antagonists, and I deplored the Fate of those unhappy Men who would be at the Mercy of their bitterest Enemies. There is no Rule for judging of this People. The third Faction who were in the Nature of Judges, would only try Facts and not Persons; and even if they could have punished Facts, they showed they were not unmerciful. I do not understand this Nation. What will surprize thee more, the chief Men of the Capital have bestowed high Honours on the third Faction for being dismissed from the Government : And the Honours they have bestowed are a Permission to exercise a Trade, which the Persons so distinguished would think exceedingly beneath them to follow. Dost thou comprehend this ? But the Enquiries are finished Thou wilt ask me, how! I know not—Only I have been told that the General Assembly affirmed that certain Things, which all the Land knew before, did or did not happen. Thou will attribute this ridiculous Account to my Ignorance of the Language or Manners of the Country ; in Truth I am not Master of either ; but 1 know the Language of the French; these very Relations that I fend thee, are translated into French, and the English scruple not to send them all over Europe, where the French Language is understood. Now thou wilt say, my Friend Xo Ho, leave these Things which thou dost not understand, or canst not explain ; and pass on to Facts : Tell me, thou wilt say, now the Trials are finished, who are the new Ministers ? From which Faction are they chosen ?;—By Cong-fou-tse'e, thou wilt believe as little what I shall tell thee, as what I have already delivered. Their King, who dismissed a whole Ministry, because one of them did not humble himself enough before the Throne, is gone into the Country, without knowing who are to be his Ministers—How ! how ! Thou wilt cry ; their Monarch left his Capital, without appointing a Ministry ! For what is he gone into the Country ? To visit his Provinces ? To distribute Justice ? To muster his Army ? —Alas ! alas ! dear Lien Chi ; England is not China— Hear, and I will tell thee briefly. The English have no Sun, no Summer as we have, at least their Sun does not scorch like ours. They content themselves with Names : At a certain Time of the Year they leave their Capital, and that makes Summer ; they go out of the City, and that makes the Country. Their Monarch, when he goes into the Country, pastes in his Calash by a Row of high Trees, goes along a Gravel Walk, crosses one of the chief Streets, is driven by the Side of a Canal between two Rows of Lamps, at the End of which he has a small House, and then he is supposed to be in the Country. I saw this Ceremony Yesterday ; as soon as he was gone, the Men put on under Vestments of white Linnen, and the Women left off those vast Draperies, which they call Hoops, and which I have described to thee ; and then all the Men and all the Women said it was hot. If thou wilt believe me, I am now writing to thee before a Fire. At the Top of the Gravel Walk, as their King pasted, was a large Company of Youths and Boys, newly clad as Mariners, who are cloathed by private Contributions ; for private Persons are rich, the Public is poor ; and nothing is well done, but by these Starts and Devices. The King has given a thousand Pieces of Gold to this Institution, not as King, but in his private Capacity, which here they distinguish. Is he had given them a thousand Pieces of his public Money, not one half would have come to the Youths, but would have been embezzled by the Officers of the Revenue. These Youths were commanded by no Officer in the Sea-Service, but by the only civil Magistrate they have; and he is totally blind. He commands their Charities, instead of being the Object of them. Every Thing here is reversed. Thou wilt be impatient to hear why the King has appointed no Ministry ; if I may believe a Man who has always hitherto told me Truth, the King has no more to do with the Choice of his Ministry, than thou with that of our serene Emperor. Thou wilt reply; but can the King of England unmake his Ministers, and not make them ? Truly I know not how that is. He has left the Town, and when a Ministry is formed, he is to be made acquainted with it. The three Factions are dealing with each other to come to some Agreement, and to whatever they agree, the King must. Thou wilt say ; then he is no King. I answer ; not according to thy Ideas : The English think differently. Well! wilt thou say ; but in thy other Letters thou hast described the People os England as not so easily satisfied : Will they suffer three Factions of different Merits and Principles to lord it over both King and People ? Will those who value royal Authority, not regret the Annihilation of it ? Will those who think the ancient Ministers guilty, not be offended, if they are again employed ? Will those who rewarded the least Faction for being dismissed, not resent their uniting with those who contributed to their Expulsion ? My Friend Lien Chi I tell thee Things as they are ; I pretend not to account for the Conduct of Englihmen ; I told thee before, they are incomprehensible. It is but lately that a Man entered into the King's Service, and vacated his Seat in the General Assembly by it : The King punished him for it, and would not let him be re-admitted into the General Assembly—yet the Man who bowed not to the King may be rewarded for it. Farewell. Sekundärliteratur Willy Richard Berger : Der Brief reagiert in satirischer Form auf eine spezifische Situation des Siebenjährigen Krieges, auf die innenpolitische Krise, die nach dem Verlust Menorcas and die Franzosen, nach dem Rücktritt der Regierung Newcastle, der Erschiessung des Admirals Byng und der Entlassung der ersten Regierung des älteren William Pitt (1757) entstanden war. In England ist das Werk in kürzester Zeit in fünf Auflagen erschienen. Walpoles Kritik steht ganz im Zeichen des aktuellen politischen Anlasses ; Kulturkritisches läuft nur am Rande mit, marginal zu dem handfest sich ins Tagesgeschehen einmischenden Gebrauchscharakter der Schrift. Ohne sich für oder gegen eine bestimmte Partei besonders zu engagieren, beurteilt Walpoles 'Chinese philosopher' in seinem Brief an den Freund in Peking die Lage vor allem vom Standpunkt nationaler englischer Interessen aus. Die Hinrichtung des Admirals wird verurteilt, die Regierung Newcastle kritisiert, die ihn vors Kriegsgericht gestellt, der König, der die Begnadigung abgelehnt hatte. Pitt, als politischer Gegner von Walpoles Vater jahrelang erbittert bekämpft, kommt erstaunlich glimpflich davon. Vor allem aber wundert sich der chinesische Korrespondent darüber, dass dieses Land es sich mitten im erbitterten See- und Kolonialkrieg mit Frankreich leisten kann, ohne Regierung zu sein, während der König gleichzeitig seinen Sommeraufenthalt auf dem Land nimmt. Einem Freund gegenüber hat Walpole selbst 'the ridiculous situation of his country' als Anlass des Xo Ho genannt ; der Chinese, Sprachrohr des Autors, sieht sich einer ins Vernunftlose verkehrten Welt gegenüber, über die er sich mit gelindem Spott lustig macht. Exotisch ist auch hier nicht das Fremde, sondern das Nahe, Vertraute, wie es sich in der distanzierten Sicht des Exoten darbietet. Im ganzen aber hat sich Walpole wenig Mühe mit der Ausarbeitung der fremden Perspektive gemacht ; bei dieser schnell heruntergeschriebenen politischen Streitschrift musste das allgemeinste Klischee vom Chinesen als dem Vertreter mustergültiger politischer Vernunft herhalten für die literarische Fiktion. Nichs in diesem aufs geistreich-witzige Paradox zugespitzten Werk deutet auf ein näheres Verhältnis der Verfassers zu China hin, nichts auch keine exotische Raffinesse. |
|
| 11 | 1759 | Johann Heinrich Müntz fertigt das Deckengemälde im 'China Room' von Horace Walpole. |
|
| 12 | 1769 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an Horace Mann (May 11, 1769). Er schreibt : "Don't you love the Chinese ? Czernichew, her sumptuous minister here, was named for the Embassy to China, but the emperor said he would not receive an ambassador from a murderess. How often what we call barbarians make Europeans blush !" |
|
| 13 | 1771 |
Walpole, Horace. The history of the modern taste in gardening. In : Walpole, Horace. Anecdotes of painting in England : with some account of the principal artists. Vol. 1-4. (Strawberry Hill : Printed for Thomas Farmer, 1762-1771). Vol. 4 (1771). In the first edition Walpole had caricatured Chinese gardens as marred by excessive artificiality and 'unsubstantial tawdriness' in an early attempt to discredit this putative model for English innovations. |
|
| 14 | 1772 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an William Mason. (25 May). Walpole's response to the Dissertation by William Chambers within weeks of its publication : "I have read Chamber's book. It is more extravagant than the worst Chinese paper, and is written in wild revenge against Brown". The book "is laughed at and it is not likely to be adopted, as I expected, for nothing is to tempting to fools, as advice to deprave taste". |
|
| 15 | 1772-1779 |
Mason, William. The English garden : a poem [ID D26953]. Note H. Page 165. The respect Mr. Gray had for the Art of Gardening, appears in his letter to Mr. How, to which I have before referred my readers, (see Note B. p. 102) but which I shall here insert at large, because I have since been informed that a Poem on the same subject has been lately published in France, and is there highly esteemed, in which the Author, like the rest of his countrymen, ascribe the origin of our Gardens to the Chinese. “He (Count Algarotti) is highly civil to our nation, but there is one point in which he does not do us justice ; I am the more solicitous about it, because it relates to the only taste we can call our own ; the only proof of our original talent in matter of pleasure, I mean our skill in Gardening, or rather laying out grounds : and this is no small honour to us, since neither France nor Italy have ever had the least notion of it, nor yet do at all comprehend it when they see it. That the Chinese have this beautiful art in high perfection seems very probable from the Jesuit's Letters, and more from Chambers's little discourse published some years ago ; but it is very certain we copied nothing from them, nor had any thing but Nature for our model. It is not forty years since the Art was born among us, and as sure we then had no information on this head from China at all.” (See Memoirs of Mr. Gray, Section v. Letter VIII). In the last smaller Edition of Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of painting, the reader will also find a very entertaining and important addition made to his history of Gardening on this very subject (see vol. IV p. 283) which puts the matter out of all doubt. Yet it is to be observed, that Mr. Gray and Mr. Walpole differ in their ideas of Chinese perfection in this Art : But had Mr. Gray lived to see what he calls Chambers's 'little discours' enlarged into a 'dissertation on oriental Gardening', by Sir William Chambers, Knight, it is more than probable he would have come over to his friend's sentiments ; certain it is he would never have agreed with the French, in calling this species of Gardening 'Le gout Anglo-Chinois'. |
|
| 16 | 1773 |
Mason, William. An heroic epistle [ID D27198]. "Knight of the Polar Star! by Fortune plac'd To shine the Cynosure of British taste ; Whose orb collects, in one refulgent view, The scatter’d glories of Chinese Virth ; And spread their lustre in so broad a blaze, That Kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze..." Horace Walpole schreibt dazu : "Sir William Chambers, who was far from wanting taste in architecture, fell into the mistake of the French, who suppose that the Chinese had discovered the true style in gardens long before Kent ; and in order to deprive him and England of the honour of originality, the French call our style the Anglo-chinois Garden : whereas, the Chinese wander as far from nature as the French themselves, tho in opposite extremes. Regularity, Uniformity, Formality and Sameness are the characteristics of all French gardens : Irregularity and Extravagance of the Chinese... The imitation of nature in gardens is indisputably English." Wittkower, Rudolf. Allegorie und der Wandel der Symbole in Antike und Renaissance.(Köln : Dumont, 1984). (DuMont-Taschenbücher ; 142). Er schreibt : Obwohl Chambers' Buch [Dissertation on Oriental gardening] auf dem Kontinent einen gewaltigen Einfluss ausübte, galt es in England als Anachronismus ; es wurde angegriffen und lächerlich gemacht. Gewandt verlieh der Dichter William Mason der Stimmung des Publikums in seiner Satire 'An heroic epistle to Sir William Chambers' Ausdruck. Horace Walpole schrieb über diese Satire : "Ich lachte, bis mir die Tränen kamen, und je öfter ich sie las, desto besser gefiel sie mir." |
|
| 17 | 1775 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an William Mason. (6 Sept.) Walpole complains "that by the help of Sir William Chambers's lunettes have detected us for having stolen our gardens from the Chinese". |
|
| 18 | 1777 |
Brief von Horace Walpole an Horace Mann. (Oct. 26). Er schreibt : "It is not shocking that the law of nations and the law of politeness, should not yet have abrogated the laws of justice and good sense in a nation reckoned so civilised as the Chinese ?" |
|
| 19 | 1782 |
Walpole, Horace. The history of the modern taste in gardening (1782 ed.). Er schreibt : "The French have of late years adopted our style in gardens, but chusing to be fundamentally obliged to more remote rivals, they deny us half the merit, or rather the originality of the invention, by ascribing the discovery to the Chinese, and by calling our taste in gardening 'Le gout anglo-chinois'. I think I have shewn that this is a blunder." |
|
| 20 | 1785 |
Walpole, Horace. Mi Li, a Chinese fairy tale [ID D26928]. Mi Li, prince of China, was brought up by his godmother the fairy Hih, who was famous for telling fortunes with a tea-cup. From that unerring oracle she assured him, that he would be the most unhappy man alive unless he married a princess whose name was the same with her father's dominions. As in all probability there could not be above one person in the world to whom that accident had happened, the prince thought there would be nothing so easy as to learn who his destined bride was. He had been too well educated to put the question to his godmother, for he knew when she uttered an oracle, that it was with intention to perplex, not to inform; which has made people so fond of consulting all those who do not give an explicit answer, such as prophets, lawyers, and any body you meet on the road, who, if you ask the way, reply by desiring to know whence you came. Mi Li was no sooner returned to his palace than he sent for his governor, who was deaf and dumb, qualities for which the fairy had selected him, that he might not instil any bad principles into his pupil; however, in recompence, he could talk upon his fingers like an angel. Mi Li asked him directly who the princess was whose name was the same with her father's kingdom? This was a little exaggeration in the prince, but nobody ever repeats any thing just as they heard it: besides, it was excusable in the heir of a great monarchy, who of all things had not been taught to speak truth, and perhaps had never heard what it was. Still it was not the mistake of kingdom for dominions that puzzled the governor. It never helped him to understand any thing the better for its being rightly stated. However, as he had great presence of mind, which consisted in never giving a direct answer, and in looking as if he could, he replied, it was a question of too great importance to be resolved on a sudden. How came you to know that? Said the prince—This youthful impetuosity told the governor that there was something more in the question than he had apprehended; and though he could be very solemn about nothing, he was ten times more so when there was something he did not comprehend. Yet that unknown something occasioning a conflict between his cunning and his ignorance, and the latter being the greater, always betrayed itself, for nothing looks so silly as a fool acting wisdom. The prince repeated his question; the governor demanded why he asked—the prince had not patience to spell the question over again on his fingers, but bawled it as loud as he could to no purpose. The courtiers ran in, and catching up the prince's words, and repeating them imperfectly, it soon flew all over Pekin, and thence into the provinces, and thence into Tartary, and thence to Muscovy, and so on, that the prince wanted to know who the princess was, whose name was the same as her father's. As the Chinese have not the blessing (for aught I know) of having family surnames as we have, and as what would be their christian-names, if they were so happy as to be christians, are quite different for men and women, the Chinese, who think that must be a rule all over the world because it is theirs, decided that there could not exist upon the square face of the earth a woman whose name was the same as her father's. They repeated this so often, and with so much deference and so much obstinacy, that the prince, totally forgetting the original oracle, believed that he wanted to know who the woman was who had the same name as her father. However, remembring there was something in the question that he had taken for royal, he always said the king her father. The prime minister consulted the red book or court-calendar, which was his oracle, and could find no such princess. All the ministers at foreign courts were instructed to inform themselves if there was any such lady; but as it took up a great deal of time to put these instructions into cypher, the prince's impatience could not wait for the couriers setting out, but he determined to go himself in search of the princess. The old king, who, as is usual, had left the whole management of affairs to his son the moment he was fourteen, was charmed with the prince's resolution of seeing the world, which he thought could be done in a few days, the facility of which makes so many monarchs never stir out of their own palaces till it is too late; and his majesty declared, that he should approve of his son's choice, be the lady who she would, provided she answered to the divine designation of having the same name as her father. The prince rode post to Canton, intending to embark there on board an English man of war. With what infinite transport did he hear the evening before he was to embark, that a sailor knew the identic lady in question. The prince scalded his mouth with the tea he was drinking, broke the old china cup it was in, and which the queen his mother had given him at his departure from Pekin, and which had been given to her great great great great grandmother queen Fi by Confucius himself, and ran down to the vessel and asked for the man who knew his bride. It was honest Tom O'Bull, an Irish sailor, who by his interpreter Mr. James Hall, the supercargo, informed his highness that Mr. Bob Oliver of Sligo had a daughter christened of both his names, the fair miss Bob Oliver. The prince by the plenitude of his power declared Tom a mandarin of the first class, and at Tom's desire promised to speak to his brother the king of Great Ireland, France and Britain, to have him made a peer in his own country, Tom saying he should be ashamed to appear there without being a lord as well as all his acquaintance. The prince's passion, which was greatly inflamed by Tom's description of her highness Bob's charms, would not let him stay for a proper set of ladies from Pekin to carry to wait on his bride, so he took a dozen of the wives of the first merchants in Canton, and two dozen virgins as maids of honour, who however were disqualified for their employments before his highness got to St. Helena. Tom himself married one of them, but was so great a favourite with the prince, that she still was appointed maid of honour, and with Tom's consent was afterwards married to an English duke. Nothing can paint the agonies of our royal lover, when on his landing at Dublin he was informed that princess Bob had quitted Ireland, and was married to nobody knew whom. It was well for Tom that he was on Irish ground. He would have been chopped as small as rice, for it is death in China to mislead the heir of the crown through ignorance. To do it knowingly is no crime, any more than in other countries. As a prince of China cannot marry a woman that has been married before, it was necessary for Mi Li to search the world for another lady equally qualified with miss Bob, whom he forgot the moment he was told he must marry somebody else, and fell equally in love with somebody else, though be knew not with whom. In this suspence he dreamt, "that he would find his destined spouse, whose father had lost the dominions which never had been his dominions, in a place where there was a bridge over no water, a tomb where nobody ever was buried nor ever would be buried, ruins that were more than they had ever been, a subterraneous passage in which there were dogs with eyes of rubies and emeralds, and a more beautiful menagerie of Chinese pheasants than any in his father's extensive gardens." This oracle seemed so impossible to be accomplished, that he believed it more than he had done the first, which shewed his great piety. He determined to begin his second search, and being told by the lord lieutenant that there was in England a Mr. Banks, who was going all over the world in search of he did not know what, his highness thought he could not have a better conductor, and sailed for England. There he learnt that the sage Banks was at Oxford, hunting in the Bodleian library for a MS. voyage of a man who had been in the moon, which Mr. Banks thought must have been in the western ocean, where the moon sets, and which planet if he could discover once more, he would take possession of in his majesty's name, upon condition that it should never be taxed, and so be lost again to this country like the rest of his majesty's dominions in that part of the world. Mi Li took a hired post-chaise for Oxford, but as it was a little rotten it broke on the new road down to Henley. A beggar advised him to walk into general Conway's, who was the most courteous person alive, and would certainly lend him his own chaise. The prince travelled incog. He took the beggar's advice, but going up to the house was told the family were in the grounds, but he should be conducted to them. He was led through a venerable wood of beeches, to a menagerie commanding a more glorious prospect than any in his father's dominions, and full of Chinese pheasants. The prince cried out in extasy, Oh! potent Hih! my dream begins to be accomplished. The gardiner, who knew no Chinese but the names of a few plants, was struck with the similitude of the sounds, but discreetly said not a word. Not finding his lady there, as he expected, he turned back, and plunging suddenly into the thickest gloom of the wood, he descended into a cavern totally dark, the intrepid prince following him boldly. After advancing a great way into this subterraneous vault, at last they perceived light, when on a sudden they were pursued by several small spaniels, and turning to look at them, the prince perceived their eyes shone like emeralds and rubies. Instead of being amazed, as Fo-Hi, the founder of his race, would have been, the prince renewed his exclamations, and cried, I advance! I advance! I shall find my bride! great Hih! thou art infallible! Emerging into light, the imperturbed gardiner conducted his highness to a heap of artificial ruins, beneath which they found a spacious gallery or arcade, where his highness was asked if he would not repose himself; but instead of answering he capered like one frantic, crying out, I advance! I advance! great Hih! I advance!—The gardiner was amazed, and doubted whether he was not conducting a madman to his master and lady, and hesitated whether he should proceed—but as he understood nothing the prince said, and perceiving he must be a foreigner, he concluded he was a Frenchman by his dancing. As the stranger too was so nimble and not at all tired with his walk, the sage gardiner proceeded down a sloping valley, between two mountains cloathed to their summits with cedars, firs, and pines, which he took care to tell the prince were all of his honour the general's own planting: but though the prince had learnt more English in three days in Ireland, than all the French in the world ever learnt in three years, he took no notice of the information, to the great offence of the gardiner, but kept running on, and increased his gambols and exclamations when he perceived the vale was terminated by a stupendous bridge, that seemed composed of the rocks which the giants threw at Jupiter's head, and had not a drop of water beneath it—Where is my bride, my bride? cried Mi Li—I must be near her. The prince's shouts and cries drew a matron from a cottage that stood on a precipice near the bridge, and hung over the river—My lady is down at Ford-house, cried the good woman, who was a little deaf, concluding they had called to her to know. The gardiner knew it was in vain to explain his distress to her, and thought that if the poor gentleman was really mad, his master the general would be the properest person to know how to manage him. Accordingly turning to the left, he led the prince along the banks of the river, which glittered through the opening fallows, while on the other hand a wilderness of shrubs climbed up the pendent cliffs of chalk, and contrasted with the verdant meads and fields of corn beyond the stream. The prince, insensible to such enchanting scenes, galloped wildly along, keeping the poor gardiner on a round trot, till they were stopped by a lonely tomb, surrounded by cypress, yews, and willows, that seemed the monument of some adventurous youth who had been lost in tempting the current, and might have suited the gallant and daring Leander. Here Mi Li first had presence of mind to recollect the little English he knew, and eagerly asked the gardiner whose tomb he beheld before him. It is nobody's—before he could proceed, the prince interrupted him, And will it never be any body's?—Oh! thought the gardiner, now there is no longer any doubt of his phrenzy—and perceiving his master and the family approaching towards them, he endeavoured to get the start, but the prince, much younger, and borne too on the wings of love, set out full speed the moment he saw the company, and particularly a young damsel with them. Running almost breathless up to lady Ailesbury, and seizing miss Campbell's hand—he cried, Who she? who she? Lady Ailesbury screamed, the young maiden squalled, the general, cool but offended, rushed between them, and if a prince could be collared, would have collared him—Mi Li kept fast hold with one arm, but pointing to his prize with the other, and with the most eager and supplicating looks intreating for an answer, continued to exclaim, Who she? who she? The general perceiving by his accent and manner that he was a foreigner, and rather tempted to laugh than be angry, replied with civil scorn, Why she is miss Caroline Campbell, daughter of lord William Campbell, his majesty's late governor of Carolina—Oh, Hih! I now recollect thy words! cried Mi Li—And so she became princess of China. Sekundärliteratur Rosalind Ballaster : The hieroglyphic tales were written between 1766 and 1772 for the amusements of his friends after Walpole's retirement from politics. The collection consists of six tales which demonstrate the enormous hybridity of the eighteenth-century tale as well as Walpole's own eccentric, sometimes vicious, but usually delightful, humour : they satirize the clergy and the literary establishment, play with the reputation of his friends and deploy his antiquarian knowledge, mixing elements from 'The Arabian nights entertainments', fairy tales, Shakespeare, the Bible, and travel literature. The story allows Walpole to pursue his enthusiasm for debates about gardening and his fluctuating attitude to the cult for Chinoiserie in mid-eighteenth-century England. An early enthusiast for this craze for porcelain, tea, lacquer-work, and architectural imitation of Chinese forms, Walpole called his goldfish pond at his home in Strawberry Hill Po Yang in reference to a lake in Kiangsi province celebrated for its fish. He counted a number of works about China in his extensive library and received with especial delight a French copy of Du Halde's General description of China from Lord Hervey in 1735. Beyond the specific critique of styles in gardening, the tale illustrates the complexity and attractiveness of China in the western imagination of the eighteenth century. Walpole captures precisely the paradoxial representation of China. Its image as a territory associated through Jesuit account of Confucianism and the longevity of absolutism with hyper-rationalism, conflicts with an equally strong image, prompted by the importation of luxury goods from the region and an ensuing reputation for aesthetic eccentricity, with excesses of fancy bordering on madness. Walple's tale is itself a piece of Chinoiserie, a nonsensical fragment which mixes Chinese and European elements like the much-coveted porcelain prepared for the export market which depicted English hunting scenes in the familiar blue-and-white pattern. Like the hero of the tale, whose name Mi Li indicates to the reader that he is a mere fabrication, Chineseness is 'lost in translation', becoming an incomprehensible but fascinating sign of otherness. It is not coincidental that this talbe about errors in language transmission also exploits the common representation of Chinese language as just such a non-signifying sign system. Walpole mocks not China but 'Chinoiserie', and with it the superficial learning of travel-writing and the oriental tale in the period. He provides footnotes that assert authenticity rather than demonstrate it and authorial interventions that expose rather than dispel ignorance. Paul Nash : The tale is a satire, directed at the East India Company's pursuit of profit and Britain's transforming mercantile-colonial enterprise after the American revolutionary war. Once the tale is situated in the early 1870s, the pieces of its satiric puzzle come into sharper relief. The two young lovers are associated with two major forces transforming Britain's global enterprise. Caroline with the loss of the American colonies and Mi Li with Britain's growing commercial attraction to China. After the American revolutionary war the East India Company redirected its commercial ambitions away from the Western hemisphere towards the potentialities of the East : to India and the lucrative China trade in tea. Walpole understood that the idea of China was growing antagonistic in Britain. By the early 1780s the China trade was expanding with greater rapidity than even before, and China's recalcitrant attitude to the Company's commercial initiative appeared in many respects unlike anything it had experienced elsewhere. While the tale's ending holds out the prospect that Britain and China might be able to connect on human ground away from the potential tyranny of mercantile capitalism or imperial dominion, Mi Li's failure to fulfill his oracle suggests this may not happen. Mi Li's attempt to find happiness by connecting with the English can only lead to unhappiness, and his luck is identified with imprudence. |
|
Bibliography (3)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1757 |
Walpole, Horace. A letter from Xo Ho a Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend Lien Chi at Peking. (London : Printed for N. Middleton, 1757). http://books.google.com/books?id=uGX0F_p9f5oC&printsec= frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v= onepage&q&f=false. |
Publication / Walp1 |
|
| 2 | 1785 |
Walpole, Horace. Mi Li, a Chinese fairy tale. In : Walpole, Horace. Hieroglyphic tales (Strawberry-Hill : Printed by T. Kirgate, 1785). Tale V. [Geschrieben zwischen 1766-1772]. http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a1634.pdf. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14098/14098-h/14098-h.htm. |
Publication / Walp3 |
|
| 3 | 1997 |
[Walpole, Horace]. Aotelang tuo bao. Huaerpuer. (Beijing : Zhongguo dui wai fan yi chu ban gong si, 1997). Übersetzung von Walpole, Horace. The castle of Otranto : a story. (London : Printed for Tho. Lownds, 1764). 奥特朗托堡 |
Publication / Walp6 |
|
Secondary Literature (5)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1998 |
The vision of China in the English literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ed. by Adrian Hsia. (Hong Kong : Chinese University press, 1998). [Enthält] : Qian, Zhongshu. China in the English literature of the seventeenth century. In : Quarterly bulletin of Chinese bibliography ; vol. 1 (1940). Fan, Cunzhong. The beginnings of the influence of Chinese culture in England. In : Wai guo yu ; no 6 (1982). Chen, Shouyi. John Webb : a forgotten page in the early history of sinology in Europe. In : The Chinese social and political review ; vol. 19 (1935-1936). Qian, Zhongshu. China in the English literature of the eighteenth century. In : Quarterly bulletin of Chinese bibliography ; vol. 2 (1941). Chen, Shouyi. Daniel Defoe, China's severe critic. In : Nankai social and economic quarterly ; vol. 8 (1935). Fan, Cunzhong. Chinese fables and anti-Walpole journalism. In : The review of English studies ; vol. 25 (1949). Fan, Cunzhong. Dr. Johnson and Chinese culture. In : Quarterly bulletin of Chinese bibliography ; vol. 5 (1945). Chen, Shouyi. Oliver Goldsmith and his Chinese letters. In : T'ien hsia monthly ; vol. 8 (1939). Chen, Shouyi. Thomas Percy and his Chinese studies. In : The Chinese social and political science review ; vol. 20 (1936-1937). Fan, Cunzhong. William Jones's Chinese studies. In : The review of English studies ; vol. 22 (1946). Chen, Shouyi. The Chinese garden in eighteenth century England. In : T'ien hsia monthly ; vol. 2 (1936). Chen, Shouyi. The Chinese orphan : a Yuan play. In : T'ien hsia monthly ; vol. 4 (1936). [Ji, Junxiang. Zhao shi gu'er]. Hsia, Adrian. The orphan of the house Zhao in French, English, German, and Hong Kong literature. In : Comparative literature studies ; vol. 25 (1988). [Ji, Junxiang. Zhao shi gu'er]. |
Publication / Hsia8 |
|
| 2 | 1999 | Porter, David. From Chinese to Goth : Walpole and the gothic repudiation of chinoiserie. In : Eighteenth-century life ; vol. 23, no 1 (1999). | Publication / Walp2 |
|
| 3 | 2005 |
Ballaster, Rosalind. Fables of the East : selected tales, 1662-1785. (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005). http://books.google.ch/books?id=7AGgvaKED7cC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq= Walpole,+Horace.+Mi+Li,+a+Chinese+fairy+tale&source=bl&ots=iYmsQweaft&sig =f3Lwx5opx5P_AlWkQ2GA1x922O8&hlde&ei=Z4eBToeZGuOp0QWRsfGrAQ&sa =X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAg#vonepage&q= Walpole%2C%20Horace.%20Mi%20Li%2C%20a%20Chinese%20fairy%20tale&f=false. |
Publication / Walp4 |
|
| 4 | 2009 |
Nash, Paul. 'Mi Li' revisited : Horace Walpole and the idea of China. In : Journal for eighteenth-century studies ; vol. 32, issue 2 (2009). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-0208.2009.00100.x/pdf |
Publication / Walp5 |
|
| 5 | 2010 | Porter, David. The Chinese taste in eighteenth-century England. (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010). | Publication / PorD1 |