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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80ef1eb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53649 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53649) diff --git a/old/53649-0.txt b/old/53649-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 85d7461..0000000 --- a/old/53649-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8271 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Horace Walpole, by Austin Dobson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Horace Walpole - A memoir - -Author: Austin Dobson - -Release Date: December 4, 2016 [EBook #53649] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE WALPOLE *** - - - - -Produced by Clarity, Christopher Wright, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -HORACE WALPOLE - -_After Rosalba_ - - - - -HORACE WALPOLE - -_A MEMOIR_ - -WITH AN APPENDIX OF BOOKS PRINTED AT THE STRAWBERRY-HILL PRESS - -BY - -AUSTIN DOBSON - - NEW YORK - DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY - - PUBLISHERS - - - - - _Copyright, 1890_, - BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY. - - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAPTER I. - - PAGE - - The Walpoles of Houghton.--Horace Walpole born, 24 - September, 1717.--Lady Louisa Stuart's Story.--Scattered - Facts of his Boyhood.--Minor Anecdotes--'La - belle Jennings.'--The Bugles.--Interview with - George I. before his Death.--Portrait at this time.--Goes - to Eton, 26 April, 1727.--His Studies and Schoolfellows.--The - 'Triumvirate,' the 'Quadruple Alliance.'--Entered - at Lincoln's Inn, 27 May, 1731.--Leaves - Eton, September, 1734.--Goes to King's College, Cambridge, - 11 March, 1735.--His University Studies.--Letters - from Cambridge.--Verses in the _Gratulatio_.--Verses - in Memory of Henry VI.--Death of Lady Walpole, - 20 August, 1737 1 - - - CHAPTER II. - - Patent Places under Government.--Starts with Gray on the - Grand Tour, March, 1739.--From Dover to Paris.--Life - at Paris.--Versailles.--The Convent of the Chartreux.--Life - at Rheims.--A _Fête Galante_.--The - Grande Chartreuse.--Starts for Italy.--The tragedy - of Tory.--Turin; Genoa.--Academical Exercises at - Bologna.--Life at Florence.--Rome; Naples: Herculaneum.--The - Pen of Radicofani.--English at Florence.--Lady - Mary Wortley Montagu.--Preparing for Home.--Quarrel - with Gray.--Walpole's Apologia; his Illness, - and return to England. 27 - - - CHAPTER III. - - Gains of the Grand Tour.--'Epistle to Ashton.'--Resignation - of Sir Robert Walpole, who becomes Earl of - Orford.--Collapse of the Secret Committee.--Life at - Houghton.--The Picture Gallery.--'A Sermon on - Painting.'--Lord Orford as Moses.--The 'Ædes - Walpolianæ.'--Prior's 'Protogenes and Apelles.'--Minor - Literature.--Lord Orford's Decline and Death; - his Panegyric.--Horace Walpole's Means. 57 - - - CHAPTER IV. - - Stage-gossip and Small-talk.--Ranelagh Gardens.--Fontenoy - and Leicester House.--Echoes of the '45.--Preston - Pans.--Culloden.--Trial of the Rebel Lords.--Deaths - of Kilmarnock and Balmerino.--Epilogue - to _Tamerlane_--Walpole and his Relatives.--Lady - Orford.--Literary Efforts.--The Beauties.--Takes a - House at Windsor. 82 - - - CHAPTER V. - - The New House at Twickenham.--Its First Tenants.--Christened - 'Strawberry Hill.'--Planting and Embellishing.--Fresh - Additions.--Walpole's Description - of it in 1753.--Visitors and Admirers.--Lord Bath's - Verses.--Some Rival Mansions.--Minor Literature.--Robbed - by James Maclean.--Sequel from _The - World_.--The Maclean Mania.--High Life at Vauxhall.--Contributions - to _The World_.--Theodore of - Corsica.--Reconciliation with Gray.--Stimulates his - Works.--The _Poëmata-Grayo-Bentleiana_.--Richard - Bentley.--Müntz the Artist.--Dwellers at Twickenham.--Lady - Suffolk and Mrs. Clive. 107 - - - CHAPTER VI. - - Gleanings from the _Short Notes_.--_Letter from Xo Ho._--The - Strawberry Hill Press.--Robinson the Printer.--Gray's - _Odes_.--Other Works.--_Catalogue of Royal - and Noble Authors._--_Anecdotes of Painting._--Humours - of the Press.--_The Parish Register of - Twickenham._--Lady Fanny Shirley.--Fielding.--_The - Castle of Otranto._ 141 - - - CHAPTER VII. - - State of French Society in 1765.--Walpole at Paris.--The - Royal Family and the Bête du Gévaudan.--French - Ladies of Quality.--Madame du Deffand.--A Letter - from Madame de Sévigné.--Rousseau and the King of - Prussia.--The Hume-Rousseau Quarrel.--Returns to - England, and hears Wesley at Bath.--Paris again.--Madame - du Deffand's Vitality.--Her Character.--Minor - Literary Efforts.--The _Historic Doubts_.--The - _Mysterious Mother_.--Tragedy in England.--Doings - of the Strawberry Press.--Walpole and Chatterton. 166 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - PAGE - - Old Friends and New.--Walpole's Nieces.--Mrs. - Damer.--Progress of Strawberry Hill.--Festivities - and Later Improvements.--_A Description_, etc., 1774.--The - House and Approaches.--Great Parlour, Waiting - Room, China Room, and Yellow Bedchamber.--Breakfast - Room.--Green Closet and Blue Bedchamber.--Armoury - and Library.--Red Bed-chamber, Holbein - Chamber, and Star Chamber.--Gallery.--Round - Drawing Room and Tribune.--Great North Bed-chamber.--Great - Cloister and Chapel.--Walpole on - Strawberry.--Its Dampness.--A Drive from Twickenham - to Piccadilly. 201 - - - CHAPTER IX. - - Occupations and Correspondence.--Literary Work.--Jephson - and the Stage.--_Nature will Prevail._--Issues - from the Strawberry Press.--Fourth Volume - of the _Anecdotes of Painting_.--The Beauclerk Tower - and Lady Di.--George, third Earl of Orford.--Sale - of the Houghton Pictures.--Moves to Berkeley Square.--Last - Visit to Madame du Deffand.--Her Death.--Themes - for Letters.--Death of Sir Horace Mann.--Pinkerton, - Madame de Genlis, Miss Burney, Hannah - More.--Mary and Agnes Berry.--Their Residence at - Twickenham.--Becomes fourth Earl of Orford.--_Epitaphium - vivi Auctoris._--The Berrys again.--Death - of Marshal Conway.--Last Letter to Lady Ossory.--Dies - at Berkeley Square, 2 March, 1797.--His Fortune - and Will.--The Fate of Strawberry. 232 - - - CHAPTER X. - - Macaulay on Walpole.--Effect of the _Edinburgh_ Essay.--Macaulay - and Mary Berry.--Portraits of Walpole.--Miss - Hawkins's Description.--Pinkerton's Rainy - Day at Strawberry.--Walpole's Character as a Man; - as a Virtuoso; as a Politician; as an Author and Letter-writer. 271 - - - APPENDIX 299 - - INDEX 325 - - - - -HORACE WALPOLE: - -A Memoir. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - The Walpoles of Houghton.--Horace Walpole born, 24 September, - 1717.--Lady Louisa Stuart's Story.--Scattered Facts of - his Boyhood.--Minor Anecdotes.--'La belle Jennings.'--The - Bugles.--Interview with George I. before his Death.--Portrait - at this time.--Goes to Eton, 26 April, 1727.--His Studies and - Schoolfellows.--The 'Triumvirate,' the 'Quadruple Alliance.'--Entered - at Lincoln's Inn, 27 May, 1731.--Leaves Eton, September, 1734.--Goes - to King's College, Cambridge, 11 March, 1735.--His University - Studies.--Letters from Cambridge.--Verses in the _Gratulatio_.--Verses - in Memory of Henry VI.--Death of Lady Walpole, 20 August, 1737. - - -The Walpoles of Houghton, in Norfolk, ten miles from King's Lynn, -were an ancient family, tracing their pedigree to a certain Reginald -de Walpole who was living in the time of William the Conqueror. Under -Henry II. there was a Sir Henry de Walpol of Houton and Walpol; and -thenceforward an orderly procession of Henrys and Edwards and Johns -(all 'of Houghton') carried on the family name to the coronation of -Charles II., when, in return for his vote and interest as a member of -the Convention Parliament, one Edward Walpole was made a Knight of the -Bath. This Sir Edward was in due time succeeded by his son, Robert, who -married well, sat for Castle Rising,[1] one of the two family boroughs -(the other being King's Lynn, for which his father had been member), -and reputably filled the combined offices of county magnate and colonel -of militia. But his chief claim to distinction is that his eldest -son, also a Robert, afterwards became the famous statesman and Prime -Minister to whose 'admirable prudence, fidelity, and success' England -owes her prosperity under the first Hanoverians. It is not, however, -with the life of 'that corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute -tipsy cynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great -citizen, patriot, and statesman,'--to borrow a passage from one of Mr. -Thackeray's graphic vignettes,--that these pages are concerned. It -is more material to their purpose to note that in the year 1700, and -on the 30th day of July in that year (being the day of the death of -the Duke of Gloucester, heir presumptive to the crown of England), -Robert Walpole, junior, then a young man of three-and-twenty, and late -scholar of King's College, Cambridge, took to himself a wife. The lady -chosen was Miss Catherine Shorter, eldest daughter of John Shorter, -of Bybrook, an old Elizabethan red-brick house near Ashford in Kent. -Her grandfather, Sir John Shorter, had been Lord Mayor of London under -James II., and her father was a Norway timber merchant, having his -wharf and counting-house on the Southwark side of the Thames, and his -town residence in Norfolk Street, Strand, where, in all probability, -his daughter met her future husband. They had a family of four sons -and two daughters. One of the sons, William, died young. The third -son, Horatio,[2] or Horace, born, as he himself tells us, on the 24th -September, 1717, O. S., is the subject of this memoir. - -[1] Another member for Castle Rising was Samuel Pepys, the Diarist. - -[2] The name of _Horatio_ I dislike. It is theatrical, and not English. -I have, ever since I was a youth, written and subscribed _Horace_, an -English name for an Englishman. In all my books (and perhaps you will -think of the _numerosus Horatius_) I so spell my name.--_Walpoliana_, -i. 62. - -With the birth of Horace Walpole is connected a scandal so -industriously repeated by his later biographers that (although it has -received far more attention than it deserves) it can scarcely be -left unnoticed here. He had, it is asserted, little in common, either -in tastes or appearance, with his elder brothers Robert and Edward, -and he was born eleven years after the rest of his father's children. -This led to a suggestion which first found definite expression in -the _Introductory Anecdotes_ supplied by Lady Louisa Stuart to Lord -Wharncliffe's edition of the works of her grandmother, Lady Mary -Wortley Montagu.[3] It was to the effect that Horace was not the son -of Sir Robert Walpole, but of one of his mother's admirers, Carr, Lord -Hervey, elder brother of Pope's 'Sporus,' the Hervey of the _Memoirs_. -It is advanced in favour of this supposition that his likeness to the -Herveys, both physically and mentally, was remarkable; that the whilom -Catherine Shorter was flighty, indiscreet, and fond of admiration; and -that Sir Robert's cynical disregard of his wife's vagaries, as well -as his own gallantries (his second wife, Miss Skerret, had been his -mistress), were matters of notoriety. On the other hand, there is no -indication that any suspicion of his parentage ever crossed the mind -of Horace Walpole himself. His devotion to his mother was one of the -most consistent traits in a character made up of many contradictions; -and although between the frail and fastidious virtuoso and the -boisterous, fox-hunting Prime Minister there could have been but little -sympathy, the son seems nevertheless to have sedulously maintained a -filial reverence for his father, of whose enemies and detractors he -remained, until his dying day, the implacable foe. Moreover, it must be -remembered that, admirable as are Lady Louisa Stuart's recollections, -in speaking of Horace Walpole she is speaking of one whose caustic pen -and satiric tongue had never spared the reputation of the vivacious -lady whose granddaughter she was. - -[3] It is also to be found asserted as a current story in the _Note -Books_ (unpublished) of the Duchess of Portland, the daughter of Edward -Harley, second Earl of Oxford, and the 'noble, lovely little Peggy' of -her father's friend and _protégé_, Matthew Prior. - -With this reference to what can be, at best, but an insoluble question, -we may return to the story of Walpole's earlier years. Of his childhood -little is known beyond what he has himself told in the _Short Notes -of my Life_ which he drew up for the use of Mr. Berry, the nominal -editor of his works.[4] His godfathers, he says, were the Duke of -Grafton and his father's second brother, Horatio, who afterwards became -Baron Walpole of Wolterton. His godmother was his aunt, the beautiful -Dorothy Walpole, who, escaping the snares of Lord Wharton, as related -by Lady Louisa Stuart, had become the second wife of Charles, second -Viscount Townshend. In 1724, he was 'inoculated for the small-pox;' and -in the following year, was placed with his cousins, Lord Townshend's -younger sons, at Bexley, in Kent, under the charge of one Weston, -son to the Bishop of Exeter of that name. In 1726, the same course -was pursued at Twickenham, and in the winter months he went to Lord -Townshend's. Much of his boyhood, however, must have been spent in -the house 'next the College' at Chelsea, of which his father became -possessed in 1722. It still exists in part, with but little alteration, -as the infirmary of the hospital, and Ward No. 7 is said to have been -its dining-room.[5] With this, or with some other reception-chamber -at Chelsea, is connected one of the scanty anecdotes of this time. -Once, when Walpole was a boy, there came to see his mother one of those -formerly famous beauties chronicled by Anthony Hamilton,--'la belle -Jennings,' elder sister to the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, and -afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnell. At this date she was a needy Jacobite -seeking Lady Walpole's interest in order to obtain a pension. She no -longer possessed those radiant charms which under Charles had revealed -her even through the disguise of an orange-girl; and now, says Walpole, -annotating his own copy of the _Memoirs of Grammont_, 'her eyes -being dim, and she full of flattery, she commended the beauty of the -prospect; but unluckily the room in which they sat looked only against -the garden-wall.'[6] - -[4] These, hereafter referred to as the _Short Notes_, are the chief -authority for three parts of Walpole's not very eventful life. They -were first published with the concluding series of his _Letters to -Sir Horace Mann_, 2 vols., 1844, and are reprinted in Mr. Peter -Cunningham's edition of the _Correspondence_, vol. i. (1857), pp. -lxi-lxxvii. - -[5] Martin's _Old Chelsea_, 1889, p. 82; Beaver's _Memorials of Old -Chelsea_, 1892, p. 291. - -[6] Cunningham, v. 36, and ix. 519. The Duchess of Tyrconnell's -portrait, copied by Milbourn from the original at Lord Spencer's, was -one of the prominent ornaments of the Great Bedchamber at Strawberry -Hill. (See _A Description of the Villa_, etc., 1774, p. 138.) There -are some previously unpublished particulars respecting her as 'Mlle. -Genins' in M. Jusserand's extremely interesting _French Ambassador at -the Court of Charles the Second_, 1892, pp. 153 _et seq._, 170, 182. - -Another of the few events of his boyhood which he records, illustrates -the old proverb that 'One half of the world knows not how the other -half lives,' rather than any particular phase of his biography. Going -with his mother to buy some bugles (beads), at the time when the -opposition to his father was at its highest, he notes that having made -her purchase,--beads were then out of fashion, and the shop was in some -obscure alley in the City, where lingered unfashionable things,--Lady -Walpole bade the shopman send it home. Being asked whither, she -replied, 'To Sir Robert Walpole's.' 'And who,' rejoined he coolly, 'is -Sir Robert Walpole?'[7] But the most interesting incident of his youth -was the visit he paid to the King, which he has himself related in -Chapter I. of the _Reminiscences_. How it came about he does not know, -but at ten years old an overmastering desire seized him to inspect -His Majesty. This childish caprice was so strong that his mother, who -seldom thwarted him, solicited the Duchess of Kendal (the _maîtresse -en titre_) to obtain for her son the honour of kissing King George's -hand before he set out upon that visit to Hanover from which he was -never to return. It was an unusual request, but being made by the Prime -Minister's wife, could scarcely be refused. To conciliate etiquette -and avoid precedent, however, it was arranged that the audience -should be in private and at night. 'Accordingly, the night but one -before the King began his last journey [_i. e._, on 1 June, 1727], my -mother carried me at ten at night to the apartment of the Countess of -Walsingham [Melusina de Schulemberg, the Duchess's reputed niece], -on the ground floor, towards the garden at St. James's, which opened -into that of her aunt, ... apartments occupied by George II. after his -Queen's death, and by his successive mistresses, the Countesses of -Suffolk [Mrs. Howard] and Yarmouth [Madame de Walmoden]. Notice being -given that the King was come down to supper, Lady Walsingham took me -alone into the Duchess's ante-room, where we found alone the King and -her. I knelt down, and kissed his hand. He said a few words to me, and -my conductress led me back to my mother. The person of the King is as -perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an -elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins; -not tall; of an aspect rather good than august; with a dark tie-wig, -a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with -stockings of the same colour, and a blue ribband over all. So entirely -was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the Duchess; -but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember -that just beyond His Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old -lady; but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know -what the colour of her dress was.'[8] In the _Walpoliana_ (p. 25)[9] -Walpole is made to say that his introducer was his father, and that -the King took him up in his arms and kissed him. Walpole's own written -account is the more probable one. His audience must have been one of -the last the King granted, for, as already stated, it was almost on the -eve of his departure; and ten days later, when his chariot clattered -swiftly into the courtyard of his brother's palace at Osnabruck, he lay -dead in his seat, and the reign of his successor had begun. - -[7] _Walpole to the Miss Berrys_, 5 March, 1791. - -[8] _Reminiscences of the Courts of George the First and Second_, in -Cunningham's _Corr._, i. xciii-xciv. - -[9] The book referred to is a 'little lounging miscellany' of notes -and anecdotes by John Pinkerton, and was printed, soon after Walpole's -death, by Bensley, who lived in Johnson's old house, No. 8 Bolt Court. -It requires to to be used with caution (see _Quarterly Review_, vol. -lxxii., No. cxliv.), and must not be confused with Lord Hardwicke's -privately printed _Walpoliana_, which relate to Sir Robert Walpole. - - -Although Walpole gives us a description of George I., he does not, -of course, supply us with any portrait of himself. But in Mr. Peter -Cunningham's excellent edition of the _Correspondence_ there is a copy -of an oil-painting belonging (1857) to Mrs. Bedford of Kensington, -which, upon the faith of a Cupid who points with an arrow to the -number ten upon a dial, may be accepted as representing him about -the time of the above interview. It is a full length of a slight, -effeminate-looking lad in a stiff-skirted coat, knee-breeches, and -open-breasted laced waistcoat, standing in a somewhat affected attitude -at the side of the afore-mentioned sundial. He has dark, intelligent -eyes, and a profusion of light hair curling abundantly about his ears -and reaching to his neck. If the date given in the _Short Notes_ -be correct, he must have already become an Eton boy, since he says -that he went to that school on the 26th April, 1727, and he adds in -the _Reminiscences_ that he shed a flood of tears for the King's -death, when, 'with the other scholars at Eton College,' he walked in -procession to the proclamation of his successor. Of the cause of this -emotion he seems rather doubtful, leaving us to attribute it partly to -the King's condescension in gratifying his childish loyalty, partly -to the feeling that, as the Prime Minister's son, it was incumbent on -him to be more concerned than his schoolfellows; while the spectators, -it is hinted, placed it to the credit of a third and not less cogent -cause,--the probability of that Minister's downfall. Of this, however, -as he says, he could not have had the slightest conception. His tutor -at Eton was Henry Bland, eldest son of the master of the school. 'I -remember,' says Walpole, writing later to his relative and schoolfellow -Conway, 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me an extraordinary -task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it -was not immediately my school business. What, learn more than I was -absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that, for I -was a blockhead, and pushed up above my parts.' That, as the son of -the great Minister, he was pushed, is probably true; but, despite his -own disclaimer, it is clear that his abilities were by no means to be -despised. Indeed, one of the _pièces justificatives_ in the story of -Lady Louisa Stuart, though advanced for another purpose, is distinctly -in favour of something more than average talent. Supporting her theory -as to his birth by the statement that in his boyhood he was left so -entirely in the hands of his mother as to have little acquaintance with -his father, she goes on to say that 'Sir Robert Walpole took scarcely -any notice of him, till his proficiency at Eton School, when a lad of -some standing, drew his attention, and proved that whether he had -or had not a right to the name he went by, he was likely to do it -honour.'[10] Whatever this may be held to prove, it certainly proves -that he was not the blockhead he declares himself to have been. - -[10] This is quoted by Mr. Hayward and others as if the last words were -Sir Robert Walpole's. But Lady Louisa Stuart says nothing to indicate -this (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's _Letters_, etc., 1887, i. xciii). - -Among his schoolmates he made many friends. For his cousins, Henry -(afterwards Marshal) Conway and Lord Hertford, Conway's elder brother, -he formed an attachment which lasted through life, and many of his -best letters were written to these relatives. Other associates were -the later lyrist, Charles Hanbury Williams, and the famous wit, George -Augustus Selwyn, both of whom, if the child be father to the man, must -be supposed to have had unusual attractions for their equally witty -schoolmate. Another contemporary at school, to whom, in after life, he -addressed many letters, was William Cole, subsequently to develop into -a laborious antiquary, and probably already exhibiting proclivities -towards 'tall copies' and black letter. But his chiefest friends, no -doubt, were grouped in the two bodies christened respectively the -'triumvirate' and the 'quadruple alliance.' - -Of these the 'triumvirate' was the less important. It consisted of -Walpole and the two sons of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu. George, -the elder, afterwards M.P. for Northampton, and the recipient of some -of the most genuine specimens of his friend's correspondence, is -described in advanced age as 'a gentleman-like body of the _vieille -cour_,' usually attended by a younger brother, who was still a -midshipman at the mature age of sixty, and whose chief occupation -consisted in carrying about his elder's snuff-box. Charles Montagu, -the remaining member of the 'triumvirate,' became a Lieut.-General -and Knight of the Bath. But it was George, who had 'a fine sense of -humour, and much curious information,' who was Walpole's favourite. -'Dear George,'--he writes to him from Cambridge,--'were not the -playing fields at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old maid's -gown, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King -James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as those -poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a -visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the -cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to have had -a kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and living -disguised in an humble vale! As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I -found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw -Windsor Castle in no other view than the _Capitoli immobile saxum_.' -Further on he makes an admission which need scarcely surprise us. 'I -can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition -against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to -recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very -near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the -asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and -pummelling King Amulius's herdsmen.'[11] The description seems to -indicate a schoolboy of a rather refined and effeminate type, who would -probably fare ill with robuster spirits. But Walpole's social position -doubtless preserved him from the persecution which that variety -generally experiences at the hands--literally the hands--of the tyrants -of the playground. - -[11] _Letter to Montagu_, 6 May, 1736. - -The same delicacy of organisation seems to have been a main connecting -link in the second or 'quadruple alliance' already referred to,--an -alliance, it may be, less intrinsically intimate, but more obviously -cultivated. The most important figure in this quartet was a boy as -frail and delicate as Walpole himself, 'with a broad, pale brow, sharp -nose and chin, large eyes, and a pert expression,' who was afterwards -to become famous as the author of one of the most popular poems in the -language, the _Elegy written in a Country Church Yard_. Thomas Gray was -at this time about thirteen, and consequently somewhat older than his -schoolmate. Another member of the association was Richard West, also -slightly older, a grandson of the Bishop Burnet who wrote the _History -of My Own Time_, and son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. West, a -slim, thoughtful lad, was the most precocious genius of the party, -already making verses in Latin and English, and making them even in -his sleep. The fourth member was Thomas Ashton, afterwards Fellow of -Eton College and Rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate. Such was the group -which may be pictured sauntering arm in arm through the Eton meadows, -or threading the avenue which is still known as the 'Poet's Walk.' Each -of the four had his nickname, either conferred by himself or by his -schoolmates. Ashton, for example, was Plato; Gray was Orosmades. - -On 27 May, 1731, Walpole was entered at Lincoln's Inn, his father -intending him for the law. 'But'--he says in the _Short Notes_--'I -never went thither, not caring for the profession.' On 23 September, -1734, he left Eton for good, and no further particulars of his -school-days remain. That they were not without their pleasant memories -may, however, be inferred from the letters already quoted, and -especially from one to George Montagu written some time afterwards -upon the occasion of a visit to the once familiar scenes. It is dated -from the Christopher Inn, a famous old hostelry, well known to Eton -boys,--'The Christopher. How great I used to think anybody just landed -at the Christopher! But here are no boys for me to send for; there I -am, like Noah, just returned into his old world again, with all sorts -of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked -sound; I recollect so much, and remember so little; and want to play -about; and am so afraid of my playfellows; and am ready to shirk -Ashton; and can't help _making fun_ of myself; and envy a dame over the -way, that has just locked in her boarders, and is going to sit down in -a little hot parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably! And I could -be so jolly a dog if I did not _fat_,--which, by the way, is the first -time the word was ever applicable to me. In short, I should be out of -all _bounds_ if I was to tell you half I feel,--how young again I am -one minute, and how old the next. But do come and feel with me, when -you will,--to-morrow. Adieu! If I don't compose myself a little more -before Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach ['Plato' at the date -of this letter had evidently taken orders], I shall certainly _be in -a bill for laughing at church_; but how to help it, to see him in the -pulpit, when the last time I saw him here was standing up funking over -against a conduit to be catechised.'[12] - -[12] _Walpole to Montagu._ Cunningham, 1857, i. 15. - -This letter, of which the date is not given, but which Cunningham -places after March, 1737, must have been written some time after the -writer had taken up his residence at Cambridge in his father's college -of King's.[13] This he did in March, 1735, following an interval of -residence in London. By this time the 'quadruple alliance' had been -broken up by the defection of West, who, much against his will, had -gone to Christ Church, Oxford. Ashton and Gray had, however, been a -year at Cambridge, the latter as a fellow-commoner of Peterhouse, -the former at Walpole's own college, King's. Cole and the Conways -were also at Cambridge, so that much of the old intercourse must have -been continued. Walpole's record of his university studies is of the -most scanty kind. He does little more than give us the names of his -tutors, public and private. In civil law he attended the lectures of -Dr. Dickens of Trinity Hall; in anatomy, those of Dr. Battie. French, -he says, he had learnt at Eton. His Italian master at Cambridge was -Signor Piazza (who had at least an Italian name!), and his instructor -in drawing was the miniaturist Bernard Lens, the teacher of the Duke of -Cumberland and the Princesses Mary and Louisa. Lens was the author of a -_New and Complete Drawing Book for curious young Gentlemen and Ladies -that study and practice the noble and commendable Art of Drawing, -Colouring, etc._, and is kindly referred to in the later _Anecdotes -of Painting_. In mathematics, which Walpole seems to have hated as -cordially as Swift and Goldsmith and Gray did, he sat at the feet of -the blind Professor Nicholas Saunderson, author of the _Elements of -Algebra_.[14] Years afterwards (_à propos_ of a misguided enthusiast -who had put the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid into Latin verse) -he tells one of his correspondents the result of these ministrations: -'I ... was always so incapable of learning mathematics that I could -not even get by heart the multiplication table, as blind Professor -Saunderson honestly told me, above threescore years ago, when I went -to his lectures at Cambridge. After the first fortnight he said to -me, 'Young man, it would be cheating you to take your money; for you -can never learn what I am trying to teach you.' I was exceedingly -mortified, and cried; for, being a Prime Minister's son, I had firmly -believed all the flattery with which I had been assured that my parts -were capable of anything. I paid a private instructor for a year; -but, at the year's end, was forced to own Saunderson had been in -the right.'[15] This private instructor was in all probability Mr. -Trevigar, who, Walpole says, read lectures to him in mathematics and -philosophy. From other expressions in his letters, it must be inferred -that his progress in the dead languages, if respectable, was not -brilliant. He confesses, on one occasion, his inability to help Cole in -a Latin epitaph, and he tells Pinkerton that he never was a good Greek -scholar. - -[13] Mr. D.C. Tovey (_Gray and his Friends_, 1890, 3 n.) thinks that -Ashton probably never preached at Eton before he was made Fellow, in -December, 1745,--which would greatly advance the date of Walpole's -communication. But it is cited here solely for its reminiscences of his -school-days. - -[14] Saunderson had lost both his eyes in infancy from small-pox. This, -however, did not prevent him from lecturing on Newton's _Optics_, -and becoming Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Another -undergraduate who attended his lectures was Chesterfield. (See Letter -to Jouneau, 12 Oct., 1712.) There is an interesting account of -Saunderson by a former pupil, together with an excellent portrait, in -the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for September, 1754. - -[15] _Walpole to Miss Berry_, 16 Aug., 1796. - -His correspondence at this period, chiefly addressed to West and -George Montagu, is not extensive, but it is already characteristic. In -one of his letters to Montagu he encloses a translation of a little -French dialogue between a turtle-dove and a passer-by. The verses are -of no particular merit, but in the comment one recognizes a cast of -style soon to be familiar. 'You will excuse this gentle nothing, I -mean mine, when I tell you I translated it out of pure good-nature for -the use of a disconsolate wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a -widow by the barbarity of a gun. She coos and calls me so movingly, -'twould touch your heart to hear her. I protest to you it grieves me -to pity her. She is so allicholly[16] as any thing. I'll warrant you -now she's as sorry as one of us would be. Well, good man, he's gone, -and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate woman, but she must -have patience.'[17] In another letter to West, after expressing his -astonishment that Gray should be at Burnham in Buckinghamshire, and -yet be too indolent to revisit the old Eton haunts in his vicinity, -he goes on to gird at the university curriculum. At Cambridge, he -says, they are supposed to betake themselves 'to some trade, as logic, -philosophy, or mathematics.' But he has been used to the delicate -food of Parnassus, and can never condescend to the grosser studies of -Alma Mater. 'Sober cloth of syllogism colour suits me ill; or, what's -worse, I hate clothes that one must prove to be of no colour at all. If -the Muses _cœlique vias et sidera monstrent_, and _quâ vi maria alta -tumescant_; why _accipiant_: but 'tis thrashing, to study philosophy -in the abstruse authors. I am not against cultivating these studies, -as they are certainly useful; but then they quite neglect all polite -literature, all knowledge of this world. Indeed, such people have not -much occasion for this latter; for they shut themselves up from it, -and study till they know less than any one. Great mathematicians have -been of great use; but the generality of them are quite unconversible: -they frequent the stars, _sub pedibusque vident nubes_, but they can't -see through them. I tell you what I see; that by living amongst them, -I write of nothing else: my letters are all parallelograms, two sides -equal to two sides; and every paragraph an axiom, that tells you -nothing but what every mortal almost knows.'[18] In an earlier note he -has been on a tour to Oxford, and, with a premonition of the future -connoisseur of Strawberry Hill, criticises the gentlemen's seats on the -road. 'Coming back, we saw Easton Neston [in Northamptonshire], a seat -of Lord Pomfret, where in an old greenhouse is a wonderful fine statue -of Tully, haranguing a numerous assemblage of decayed emperors, vestal -virgins with new noses, Colossus's, Venus's, headless carcases and -carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and hieroglyphics.'[19] A little -later he has been to his father's seat at Houghton: 'I am return'd -again to Cambridge, and can tell you what I never expected,--that -I like Norfolk. Not any of the ingredients, as Hunting or Country -Gentlemen, for I had nothing to do with them, but the county; which -a little from Houghton is woody, and full of delightfull prospects. -I went to see Norwich and Yarmouth, both which I like exceedingly. I -spent my time at Houghton for the first week almost alone. We have -a charming garden, all wilderness; much adapted to my Romantick -inclinations.' In after life the liking for Norfolk here indicated -does not seem to have continued, especially when his father's death -had withdrawn a part of its attractions. He 'hated Norfolk,'--says Mr. -Cunningham. 'He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk -dumplings, or Norfolk turkeys. Its flat, sandy, aguish scenery was not -to his taste.' He preferred 'the rich blue prospects' of his mother's -county, Kent. - -[16] Indeed, she is given too much to allicholly and musing.--_Merry -Wives of Windsor_, act i. sc. iv. - -[17] _Walpole to Montagu_, 30 May, 1736. - -[18] _Walpole to West_, 17 Aug., 1736. - -[19] _Walpole to Montagu_, 20 May, 1736. - -Of literary effort while at Cambridge, Walpole's record is not great. -In 1736, he was one of the group of university poets--Gray and West -being also of the number--who addressed congratulatory verses to -Frederick, Prince of Wales, upon his marriage with the Princess Augusta -of Saxe-Gotha; and he wrote a poem (which is reprinted in vol. i. of -his works) to the memory of the founder of King's College, Henry VI. -This is dated 2 February, 1738. In the interim Lady Walpole died. Her -son's references to his loss display the most genuine regret. In a -letter to Charles Lyttelton (afterwards the well-known Dean of Exeter, -and Bishop of Carlisle), which is not included in Cunningham's edition, -and is apparently dated in error September, 1732, instead of 1737,[20] -he dwells with much feeling on 'the surprizing calmness and courage -which my dear Mother show'd before her death. I believe few women wou'd -behave so well, & I am certain no man cou'd behave better. For three or -four days before she dyed, she spoke of it with less indifference than -one speaks of a cold; and while she was sensible, which she was within -her two last hours, she discovered no manner of apprehension.' That his -warm affection for her was well known to his friends may be inferred -from a passage in one of Gray's letters to West: 'While I write to you, -I hear the bad news of Lady Walpole's death on Saturday night last [20 -Aug., 1737]. Forgive me if the thought of what my poor Horace must feel -on that account, obliges me to have done.'[21] Lady Walpole was buried -in Westminster Abbey, where, on her monument in Henry VIIth's Chapel, -may be read the piously eulogistic inscription which her youngest son -composed to her memory,--an inscription not easy to reconcile in all -its terms with the current estimate of her character. But in August, -1737, she was considerably over fifty, and had probably long outlived -the scandals of which she had been the subject in the days when Kneller -and Eckardt painted her as a young and beautiful woman. - -[20] _Notes and Queries_, 2 Jan., 1869. - -[21] Gray's _Works_, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 9. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - Patent Places under Government.--Starts with Gray on the Grand Tour, - March, 1739.--From Dover to Paris.--Life at Paris.--Versailles.--The - Convent of the Chartreux.--Life at Rheims.--A _Fête Galante_.--The - Grande Chartreuse.--Starts for Italy.--The tragedy of Tory.--Turin; - Genoa.--Academical Exercises at Bologna.--Life at Florence.--Rome; - Naples; Herculaneum.--The Pen of Radicofani.--English at - Florence.--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.--Preparing for Home.--Quarrel - with Gray.--Walpole's Apologia; his Illness, and Return to England. - - -That, in those piping days of patronage, when even very young ladies -of quality drew pay as cornets of horse, the son of the Prime Minister -of England should be left unprovided for, was not to be expected. -While he was still resident at Cambridge, lucrative sinecures came to -Horace Walpole. Soon after his mother's death, his father appointed him -Inspector of Imports and Exports in the Custom House,--a post which he -resigned in January, 1738, on succeeding Colonel William Townshend as -Usher of the Exchequer. When, later in the year, he came of age (17 -September), he 'took possession of two other little patent-places -in the Exchequer, called Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the -Estreats,' which had been held for him by a substitute. In 1782, when -he still filled them, the two last-mentioned offices produced together -about £300 per annum, while the Ushership of the Exchequer, at the -date of his obtaining it, was reckoned to be worth £900 a year. 'From -that time [he says] I lived on my own income, and travelled at my own -expense; nor did I during my father's life receive from him but £250 -at different times,--which I say not in derogation of his extreme -tenderness and goodness to me, but to show that I was content with what -he had given to me, and that from the age of twenty I was no charge to -my family.'[22] - -[22] _Account of my Conduct_, etc., _Works_, 1798, ii. 363-70. - -He continued at King's College for some time after he had attained -his majority, only quitting it formally in March, 1739, not without -regretful memories of which his future correspondence was to bear -the traces. If he had neglected mathematics, and only moderately -courted the classics, he had learnt something of the polite arts and -of modern Continental letters,--studies which would naturally lead -his inclination in the direction of the inevitable 'Grand Tour.' Two -years earlier he had very unwillingly declined an invitation from -George Montagu and Lord Conway to join them in a visit to Italy. -Since that date his desire for foreign travel, fostered no doubt by -long conversations with Gray, had grown stronger, and he resolved -to see 'the palms and temples of the south' after the orthodox -eighteenth-century fashion. To think of Gray in this connection was but -natural, and he accordingly invited his friend (who had now quitted -Cambridge, and was vegetating rather disconsolately in his father's -house on Cornhill) to be his travelling companion. Walpole was to act -as paymaster; but Gray was to be independent. Furthermore, Walpole -made a will under which, if he died abroad, Gray was to be his sole -legatee. Dispositions so advantageous and considerate scarcely admitted -of refusal, even if Gray had been backward, which he was not. The -two friends accordingly set out for Paris. Walpole makes the date of -departure 10 March, 1739; Gray says they left Dover at twelve on the -29th. - -The first records of the journey come from Amiens in a letter written -by Gray to his mother. After a rough passage across the Straits, they -reached Calais at five. Next day they started for Boulogne in the then -new-fangled invention, a post-chaise,--a vehicle which Gray describes -'as of much greater use than beauty, resembling an ill-shaped chariot, -only with the door opening before instead of [at] the side.' Of -Boulogne they see little, and of Montreuil (where later Sterne engaged -La Fleur) Gray's only record, besides the indifferent fare, is that -'Madame the hostess made her appearance in long lappets of bone lace, -and a sack of linsey-woolsey.' From Montreuil they go by Abbeville to -Amiens, where they visit the cathedral, and the chapels of the Jesuits -and Ursuline Nuns. But the best part of this first letter is the little -picture with which it (or rather as much of it as Mason published) -concludes. 'The country we have passed through hitherto has been flat, -open, but agreeably diversified with villages, fields well cultivated, -and little rivers. On every hillock is a windmill, a crucifix, or -a Virgin Mary dressed in flowers and a sarcenet robe; one sees not -many people or carriages on the road; now and then indeed you meet a -strolling friar, a countryman with his great muff, or a woman riding -astride on a little ass, with short petticoats, and a great head-dress -of blue wool.'[23] - -[23] Gray's _Works_, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 18-19. - -The foregoing letter is dated the 1st April, and it speaks of reaching -Paris on the 3rd. But it was only on the evening of Saturday the -9th that they rolled into the French capital, 'driving through the -streets a long while before they knew where they were.' Walpole had -wisely resolved not to hurry, and they had besides broken down at -Luzarches, and lingered at St. Denis over the curiosities of the abbey, -particularly a vase of oriental onyx carved with Bacchus and the -nymphs, of which they had dreamed ever since. At Paris, they found a -warm welcome among the English residents,--notably from Mason's patron, -Lord Holdernesse, and Walpole's cousins, the Conways. They seem to -have plunged at once into the pleasures of the place,--pleasures in -which, according to Walpole, cards and eating played far too absorbing -a part. At Lord Holdernesse's they met at supper the famous author of -_Manon Lescaut_, M. l'Abbé Antoine-François Prévost d'Exilles, who -had just put forth the final volume of his tedious and scandalous -_Histoire de M. Cléveland, fils naturel de Cromwel_. They went to the -spectacle of _Pandore_ at the Salle des Machines of the Tuileries; -and they went to the opera, where they saw the successful _Ballet de -la Paix_,--a curious hotchpot, from Gray's description, of cracked -voices and incongruous mythology. With the Comédie Française they were -better pleased, although Walpole, strange to say, unlike Goldsmith -ten years later, was not able to commend the performance of Molière's -_L'Avare_. They saw Mademoiselle Gaussin (as yet unrivalled by the -unrisen Mademoiselle Clairon) in La Noue's tragedy of _Mahomet Second_, -then recently produced, with Dufresne in the leading male part; and -they also saw the prince of _petits-maîtres_, Grandval, acting with -Dufresne's sister, Mademoiselle Jeanne-Françoise Quinault (an actress -'somewhat in Mrs. Clive's way,' says Gray), in the _Philosophe marié_ -of Nericault Destouches,--a charming comedy already transferred to the -English stage in the version by John Kelly of _The Universal Spectator_. - -Theatres, however, are not the only amusements which the two travellers -chronicle to the home-keeping West. A great part of their time is -spent in seeing churches and palaces full of pictures. Then there -is the inevitable visit to Versailles, which, in sum, they concur -in condemning. 'The great front,' says Walpole, 'is a lumber of -littleness, composed of black brick, stuck full of bad old busts, and -fringed with gold rails.' Gray (he says) likes it; but Gray is scarcely -more complimentary,--at all events is quite as hard upon the _façade_, -using almost the same phrases of depreciation. It is 'a huge heap of -littleness,' in hue 'black, dirty red, and yellow; the first proceeding -from stone changed by age; the second, from a mixture of brick; and -the last, from a profusion of tarnished gilding. You cannot see a more -disagreeable _tout ensemble_; and, to finish the matter, it is all -stuck over in many places with small busts of a tawny hue between every -two windows.' The garden, however, pleases him better; nothing could be -vaster and more magnificent than the _coup d'œil_, with its fountains -and statues and grand canal. But the 'general taste of the place' is -petty and artificial. 'All is forced, all is constrained about you; -statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar-loaves -and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting _jets -d'eau_, besides a great sameness in the walks,--cannot help striking -one at first sight; not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, and all -Æsop's fables in water.'[24] 'The garden is littered with statues and -fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the -elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, -in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are -avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up -cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child.'[25] The day -following, being Whitsunday, they witness a grand ceremonial,--the -installation of nine Knights of the Saint Esprit: 'high mass celebrated -with music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames, -Cardinals, and Court; Knights arrayed by His Majesty; reverences before -the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among the -ladies; trumpets, kettle-drums, and fifes.'[26] - -[24] _Gray to West_, 22 May, 1739. - -[25] _Walpole to West_, no date, 1739. - -[26] _Gray to West_, 22 May, 1739. - -It is Gray who thus summarises the show. But we must go to Walpole -for the account of another expedition, the visit to the Convent of -the Chartreux, the uncouth horror of which, with its gloomy chapel -and narrow cloisters, seems to have fascinated the Gothic soul of the -future author of the _Castle of Otranto_. Here, in one of the cells, -they make the acquaintance of a fresh initiate into the order,--the -account of whose environment suggests retirement rather than solitude. -'He was extremely civil, and called himself Dom Victor. We have -promised to visit him often. Their habit is all white: but besides this -he was infinitely clean in his person; and his apartment and garden, -which he keeps and cultivates without any assistance, was neat to a -degree. He has four little rooms, furnished in the prettiest manner, -and hung with good prints. One of them is a library, and another a -gallery. He has several canary-birds disposed in a pretty manner in -breeding-cages. In his garden was a bed of good tulips in bloom, -flowers and fruit-trees, and all neatly kept. They are permitted at -certain hours to talk to strangers, but never to one another, or to -go out of their convent.' In the same institution they saw Le Sueur's -history (in pictures) of St. Bruno, the founder of the Chartreux. -Walpole had not yet studied Raphael at Rome, but these pictures, he -considered, excelled everything he had seen in England and Paris.[27] - -[27] _Walpole to West_, no date, 1739. - -'From thence [Paris],' say Walpole's _Short Notes_, 'we went with -my cousin, Henry Conway, to Rheims, in Champagne, [and] staid there -three months.' One of their chief objects was to improve themselves -in French. 'You must not wonder,' he tells West, 'if all my letters -resemble dictionaries, with French on one side, and English on t'other; -I deal in nothing else at present, and talk a couple of words of each -language alternately from morning till night.'[28] But he does not -seem to have yet developed his later passion for letter-writing, and -the 'account of our situation and proceedings' is still delegated to -Gray, some of whose despatches at this time are not preserved. There -is, however, one from Rheims to Gray's mother which gives a vivid idea -of the ancient French Cathedral city, slumbering in its vast vine-clad -plain, with its picturesque old houses and lonely streets, its long -walks under the ramparts, and its monotonous frog-haunted moat. They -have no want of society, for Henry Conway procured them introductions -everywhere; but the Rhemois are more constrained, less familiar, less -hospitable, than the Parisians. Quadrille is the almost invariable -amusement, interrupted by one entertainment (for the Rhemois as a rule -give neither dinners nor suppers); to wit, a five o'clock _goûter_, -which is 'a service of wine, fruits, cream, sweetmeats, crawfish, and -cheese,' after which they sit down to cards again. Occasionally, -however, the demon of impromptu flutters these 'set, gray lives,' and -(like Dr. Johnson) even Rheims must 'have a frisk.' 'For instance,' -says Gray, 'the other evening we happened to be got together in a -company of eighteen people, men and women of the best fashion here, at -a garden in the town, to walk; when one of the ladies bethought herself -of asking, Why should we not sup here? Immediately the cloth was laid -by the side of a fountain under the trees, and a very elegant supper -served up; after which another said, Come, let us sing; and directly -began herself. From singing we insensibly fell to dancing, and singing -in a round; when somebody mentioned the violins, and immediately a -company of them was ordered. Minuets were begun in the open air, and -then came country dances, which held till four o'clock next morning; -at which hour the gayest lady there proposed that such as were weary -should get into their coaches, and the rest of them should dance before -them with the music in the van; and in this manner we paraded through -all the principal streets of the city, and waked everybody in it.' -Walpole, adds Gray, would have made this entertainment chronic. But -'the women did not come into it,' and shrank back decorously 'to their -dull cards, and usual formalities.'[29] - -[28] _Walpole to West_, 18 June, 1739. - -[29] Gray's _Works_, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 30. - -At Rheims the travellers lingered on in the hope of being joined by -Selwyn and George Montagu. In September they left Rheims for Dijon, -the superior attractions of which town made them rather regret their -comparative rustication of the last three months. From Dijon they -passed southward to Lyons, whence Gray sent to West (then drinking the -Tunbridge waters) a daintily elaborated conceit touching the junction -of the Rhone and the Saône. While at Lyons they made an excursion to -Geneva to escort Henry Conway, who had up to this time been their -companion, on his way to that place. They took a roundabout route in -order to visit the Convent of the Grande Chartreuse, and on the 28th -Walpole writes to West from 'a Hamlet among the mountains of Savoy -[Echelles].' He is to undergo many transmigrations, he says, before -he ends his letter. 'Yesterday I was a shepherd of Dauphiné; to-day -an Alpine savage; to-morrow a Carthusian monk; and Friday a Swiss -Calvinist.' When he next takes up his pen, he has passed through his -third stage, and visited the Chartreuse. With the convent itself -neither Gray nor his companions seem to have been much impressed, -probably because their expectations had been indefinite. For the -approach and the situation they had only enthusiasm. Gray is the -accredited landscape-painter of the party, but here even Walpole breaks -out: 'The road, West, the road! winding round a prodigious mountain, -and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured -with pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent breaking through -cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks! Sheets of cascades -forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hastening -into the roughened river at the bottom! Now and then an old foot -bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin -of an hermitage! This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that -has not seen it, too cold for one that has. If I could send you my -letter post between two lovely tempests that echoed each other's wrath, -you might have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were -reading it. Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but without any -prospect, stands the Chartreuse.'[30] - -[30] _Walpole to West_, Sept. 28-2 Oct., 1739. - -The foregoing passage is dated Aix-in-Savoy, 30 September. Two days -later, passing by Annecy, they came to Geneva. Here they stayed a week -to see Conway settled, and made a 'solitary journey' back to Lyons, -but by a different road, through the spurs of the Jura and across -the plains of La Bresse. At Lyons they found letters awaiting them -from Sir Robert Walpole, desiring his son to go to Italy,--a proposal -with which Gray, only too glad to exchange the over-commercial city -of Lyons for 'the place in the world that best deserves seeing,' was -highly delighted. Accordingly, we speedily find them duly equipped -with 'beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and -bear-skins' _en route_ for the Alps. At the foot of Mont Cenis their -chaise was taken to pieces and loaded on mules, and they themselves -were transferred to low matted legless chairs carried on poles,--a -not unperilous mode of progression, when, as in this case, quarrels -took place among the bearers. But the tragedy of the journey happened -before they had quitted the chaise. Walpole had a fat little black -spaniel of King Charles's breed, named Tory, and he had let the little -creature out of the carriage for the air. While it was waddling along -contentedly at the horses' heads, a gaunt wolf rushed out of a fir -wood, and exit poor Tory before any one had time to snap a pistol. -In later years, Gray would perhaps have celebrated this mishap as -elegantly as he sang the death of his friend's favourite cat; but -in these pre-poetic days he restricts himself to calling it an 'odd -accident enough.'[31] - -[31] Tory, however, was not _illachrymabilis_. He found his _vates -sacer_ in one Edward Burnaby Greene, once of Bennet College; and in -referring to this, thirty-five years later, Walpole explains how -Tory got his name. 'His godmother was the widow of Alderman Parsons -[Humphrey Parsons, of Goldsmith's 'black champagne'], who gave him at -Paris to Lord Conway, and he to me' (_Walpole to Cole_, 10 Dec., 1775). - -'After eight days' journey through Greenland,'--as Gray puts it to -West,--they reached Turin, where among other English they found -Pope's friend, Joseph Spence, Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Beyond -Walpole's going to Court, and their visiting an extraordinary play -called _La Rappresentazione dell' Anima Dannata_ (for the benefit of -an Hospital), a full and particular account of which is contained in -one of Spence's letters to his mother,[32] nothing remarkable seems -to have happened to them in the Piedmontese capital. From Turin they -went on to Genoa,--'the happy country where huge lemons grow' (as Gray -quotes, not textually, from Waller),--whose blue sea and vine-trellises -they quit reluctantly for Bologna, by way of Tortona, Piacenza, Parma -(where they inspect the Correggios in the Duomo), Reggio, and Modena. -At Bologna, in the absence of introductions, picture-seeing is their -main occupation. 'Except pictures and statues,' writes Walpole, 'we are -not very fond of sights.... Now and then we drop in at a procession, -or a high mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the -foul monkhood. Last week was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. -On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical -exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, -that treated one another with _illustrissima_ and brown kisses, the -vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate ... is -a young personable person of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty -cardinal-kind of habit; 'twou'd make a delightful masquerade dress. -We asked his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate? -_Signor, no; ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa._ He sat on the -right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite -was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the -Gelati;[33] and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the -head of the Academy, between the orator and the first poet. At two -semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent -among many candles. The chief made a little introduction, the orator a -long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, the poets,--who -were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old abbé, and three lay,--read their -compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the town. -As we came out of the church, we found all the convent and neighbouring -houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two -bonfires.'[34] - -[32] Spence's _Anecdotes_, by Singer, 2d ed., 1858, pp. 305-8. - -[33] Jarchius has taken the trouble to give us a list of those clubs, -or academies [i. e., _the academies of Italy_], which amount to five -hundred and fifty, each distinguished by somewhat whimsical in the -name. The academicians of Bologna, for instance, are divided into the -Abbandonati, the Ausiosi, Ociosi, Arcadi, Confusi, Dubbiosi, etc. There -are few of these who have not published their Transactions, and scarce -a member who is not looked upon as the most famous man in the world, at -home.--GOLDSMITH, in _The Bee_, No. vi., for 10 November, 1759. - -[34] _Walpole to West_, no date, 1739. - -In the Christmas of 1739, the friends crossed the Apennines, and -entered Florence. If they had wanted introductions at Bologna, there -was no lack of them in Tuscany, and they were to find one friend who -afterwards figured largely in Walpole's correspondence. This was Mr. -(afterwards Sir Horace) Mann, British Minister Plenipotentiary at the -Court of Florence. 'He is the best and most obliging person in the -world,' says Gray, and his house, with a brief interval, was their -residence for fifteen months. Their letters from Florence are less -interesting than those from which quotations have already been made, -while their amusements seem to have been more independent of each other -than before. Gray occupied himself in the galleries taking the notes of -pictures and statuary afterwards published by Mitford, and in forming -a collection of MS. music; Walpole, on the other hand, had slightly -cooled in his eagerness for the antique, which now 'pleases him -calmly.' 'I recollect'--he says--'the joy I used to propose if I could -but see the Great Duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little -emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a congregation of -good sort of people that I have a great deal of unruffled regard for.' -The fact was, no doubt, that society had now superior attractions. -As the son of the English Prime Minister, and with Mann, who was a -relation,[35] at his elbow, all doors were open to him. A correct -record of his time would probably show an unvaried succession of -suppers, balls, and masquerades. In the carnival week, when he snatches -'a little unmasqued moment' to write to West, he says he has done -nothing lately 'but slip out of his domino into bed, and out of bed -into his domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian; all -the morn one makes parties in masque to the shops and coffee-houses, -and all the evening to the operas and balls.' If Gray was of these -junketings, his letters do not betray it. He was probably engaged in -writing uncomplimentary notes on the Venus de' Medici, or transcribing -a score of Pergolesi. - -[35] Dr. Doran ('_Mann_' and _Manners at the Court of Florence_, 1876, -i. 2) describes this connection as 'a distant cousinship.' - -The first interruption to these diversions came in March, when they -quitted Florence for Rome in order to witness the coronation of the -successor of Clement XII., who had died in the preceding month. On -their road from Siena they were passed by a shrill-voiced figure in a -red cloak, with a white handkerchief on its head, which they took for -a fat old woman, but which afterwards turned out to be Farinelli's -rival, Senesino. Rome disappointed them,--especially in its inhabitants -and general desolation. 'I am very glad,' writes Walpole, 'that I see -it while it yet exists;' and he goes on to prophesy that before a -great number of years it will cease to exist. 'I am persuaded,' he -says again, 'that in an hundred years Rome will not be worth seeing; -'tis less so now than one would believe. All the public pictures are -decayed or decaying; the few ruins cannot last long; and the statues -and private collections must be sold, from the great poverty of the -families.' Perhaps this last consideration, coupled with the depressing -character of Roman hospitality ('Roman conversations are dreadful -things!' he tells Conway), revived his virtuoso tastes. 'I am far gone -in medals, lamps, idols, prints, etc., and all the small commodities -to the purchase of which I can attain; I would buy the Coliseum if I -could.' Meanwhile as the cardinals are quarrelling, the coronation is -still deferred; and they visit Naples, whence they explore Herculaneum, -then but recently exposed and identified. But neither Gray nor Walpole -waxes very eloquent upon this theme,--probably because at this time the -excavations were only partial, while Pompeii was, of course, as yet -under ground. Walpole's next letter is written from Radicofani,--'a -vile little town at the foot of an old citadel,' which again is at -'the top of a black barren mountain;' the whole reminding the writer -of 'Hamilton's Bawn' in Swift's verses. In this place, although the -traditional residence of one of the Three Kings of Cologne, there is -but one pen, the property of the Governor, who when Walpole borrows -it, sends it to him under 'conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss,' with -special injunctions as to its restoration,--a precaution which in -Walpole's view renders it worthy to be ranked with the other precious -relics of the poor Capuchins of the place, concerning which he -presently makes rather unkindly fun. A few days later they were once -more in the Casa Ambrosio, Mann's pleasant house at Florence, with -the river running so close to them that they could fish out of the -windows. 'I have a terreno [ground-floor] all to myself,' says Walpole, -'with an open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you [_i. -e._, Conway]. Over against me is the famous Gallery; and, on either -hand, two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool?' Add to which, -on the bridges aforesaid, in the serene Italian air, one may linger -all night in a dressing-gown, eating iced fruits to the notes of a -guitar. But (what was even better than music and moonlight) there is -the society that was the writer's 'fitting environment.' Lady Pomfret, -with her daughters, Lady Charlotte, afterwards governess to the -children of George III., and the beauty Lady Sophia, held a 'charming -conversation' once a week; while the Princess Craon de Beauvau has 'a -constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's -ease.' Another lady-resident, scarcely so congenial to Walpole, was -his sister-in-law, the wife of his eldest brother, Robert, who, with -Lady Pomfret, made certain (in Walpole's eyes) wholly preposterous -pretentions to the yet uninvented status of blue-stocking. To Lady -Walpole and Lady Pomfret was speedily added another 'she-meteor' in the -person of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. - -When Lady Mary arrived in Florence in the summer of 1740, she -was a woman of more than fifty, and was just entering upon that -unexplained exile from her country and husband which was prolonged for -two-and-twenty years. Her brilliant abilities were unimpaired; but it -is probable that the personal eccentricities which had exposed her to -the satire of Pope, had not decreased with years. That these would -be extenuated under Walpole's malicious pen was not to be expected; -still less, perhaps, that they would be treated justly. Although, -as already intimated, he was not aware of the scandal respecting -himself which her descendants were to revive, he had ample ground for -antipathy. Her husband was the bitter foe of Sir Robert Walpole; and -she herself had been the firm friend and protectress of his mother's -rival and successor, Miss Skerret.[36] Accordingly, even before her -advent, he makes merry over the anticipated issue of this portentous -'triple alliance' of mysticism and nonsense, and later he writes to -Conway: 'Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my -Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole -town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one -that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover -her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an -old mazarine blue wrapper, that gaps open and discovers a canvas -petticoat.... In three words, I will give you her picture as we drew it -in the _Sortes Virgilianæ_,--_Insanam vatem aspicies_. I give you my -honour we did not choose it; but Gray, Mr. Coke, Sir Francis Dashwood, -and I, with several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for -different people.'[37] In justice to Lady Mary it is only fair to say -that she seems to have been quite unconscious that she was an object of -ridicule, and was perfectly satisfied with her reception at Florence. -'Lord and Lady Pomfret'--she tells Mr. Wortley--'take pains to make -the place agreeable to me, and I have been visited by the greatest -part of the people of quality.'[38] But although Walpole's portrait is -obviously malicious (some of its details are suppressed in the above -quotation), it is plain that even unprejudiced spectators could not -deny her peculiarities. 'Lady Mary,' said Spence, 'is one of the most -shining characters in the world, but shines like a comet; she is all -irregularity, and always wandering; the most wise, the most imprudent; -loveliest, most disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in the -world: "all things by turns, but nothing long."'[39] - -[36] Shortly after Lady Walpole's death, Sir Robert Walpole married his -mistress, Maria Skerret, who died 4 June, 1738, leaving a daughter, -Horace Walpole's half-sister, subsequently Lady Mary Churchill. - -[37] _Walpole to Conway_, 25 September, 1740. - -[38] _Letters_, etc., of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ii. 325. - -[39] _Spence's Anecdotes_, by Singer, 2nd edn., 1858, p. xxiii. - -By this time the new pope, Benedict XIV., had been elected. But -although the friends were within four days journey of Rome, the fear -of heat and malaria forced them to forego the spectacle of the -coronation. They continued to reside with Mann at Florence until May -in the following year. Upon Gray the 'violent delights' of the Tuscan -capital had already begun to pall. It is, he says, 'an excellent place -to employ all one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to -one's rational powers.' Walpole, on the other hand, is in his element. -'I am so well within and without,' he says in the same letter which -sketches Lady Mary, 'that you would scarce know me: I am younger than -ever, think of nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round of -pleasures. We have operas, concerts, and balls, mornings and evenings. -I dare not tell you all of one's idlenesses; you would look so grave -and senatorial at hearing that one rises at eleven in the morning, -goes to the opera at nine at night, to supper at one, and to bed at -three! But literally here the evenings and nights are so charming and -so warm, one can't avoid 'em.' In a later letter he says he has lost -all curiosity, and 'except the towns in the straight road to Great -Britain, shall scarce see a jot more of a foreign land.' Indeed, -save a sally concerning the humours of 'Moll Worthless' (Lady Mary) -and Lady Walpole, and the record of the purchase of a few pictures, -medals, and busts,--one of the last of which, a Vespasian in basalt, -was subsequently among the glories of the Twickenham Gallery,--his -remaining letters from Florence contain little of interest. Early in -1741, the homeward journey was mapped out. They were to go to Bologna -to hear the Viscontina sing, they were to visit the Fair at Reggio, and -so by Venice homewards. - -But whether the Viscontina was in voice or not, there is, as far as -our travellers are concerned, absence of evidence. No further letter -of Gray from Florence has been preserved, nor is there any mention -of him in Walpole's next despatch to West from Reggio. At that place -a misunderstanding seems to have arisen, and they parted, Gray going -forward to Venice with two other travelling companions, Mr. John Chute -and Mr. Whitehed. In the rather barren record of Walpole's story, this -misunderstanding naturally assumes an exaggerated importance. But it -was really a very trifling and a very intelligible affair. They had -been too long together; and the first fascination of travel, which -formed at the outset so close a bond, had gradually faded with time. As -this alteration took place, their natural dispositions began to assert -themselves, and Walpole's normal love of pleasure and Gray's retired -studiousness became more and more apparent. It is probable too, that, -in all the Florentine gaieties, Gray, who was not a great man's son, -fell a little into the background. At all events, the separation was -imminent, and it needed but a nothing--the alleged opening by Walpole -of a letter of Gray[40]--to to bring it about. Whatever the proximate -cause, both were silent on the subject, although, years after the -quarrel had been made up, and Gray was dead, Walpole took the entire -blame upon himself. When Mason was preparing Gray's _Memoirs_ in 1773, -he authorized him to insert a note by which, in general terms, he -admitted himself to have been in fault, assigning as his reason for not -being more explicit, that while he was living it would not be pleasant -to read his private affairs discussed in magazines and newspapers. But -to Mason personally he was at the same time thoroughly candid, as well -as considerate to his departed friend: 'I am conscious,' he says, 'that -in the beginning of the differences between Gray and me, the fault was -mine. I was too young, too fond of my own diversions, nay, I do not -doubt, too much intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of -my situation, as a Prime Minister's son, not to have been inattentive -and insensible to the feelings of one I thought below me; of one, I -blush to say it, that I knew was obliged to me; of one whom presumption -and folly perhaps made me deem not my superior _then_ in parts, though -I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him. I treated him -insolently: he loved me, and I did not think he did. I reproached him -with the difference between us when he acted from conviction of knowing -he was my superior; I often disregarded his wishes of seeing places, -which I would not quit other amusements to visit, though I offered to -send him to them without me. Forgive me, if I say that his temper was -not conciliating. At the same time that I will confess to you that he -acted a more friendly part, had I had the sense to take advantage of -it; he freely told me of my faults. I declared I did not desire to hear -them, nor would correct them. You will not wonder that with the dignity -of his spirit, and the obstinate carelessness of mine, the breach must -have grown wider till we became incompatible.'[41] - -[40] This rests upon the authority of a shadowy Mr. Roberts of the -Pell-office, who told it to Isaac Reed in 1799, more than half a -century after the event. The subject is discussed at some length, but -of necessity inconclusively, by Mr. D. C. Tovey in his interesting -_Gray and his Friends_, 1890. Mr. Tovey thinks that Ashton was -obscurely connected with the quarrel. - -[41] _Walpole to Mason_, 2 March, 1773. The letters to Mason were first -printed in 1851 by Mitford. But Pinkerton, in the _Walpoliana_, i. -95, had reported much the same thing. 'The quarrel between Gray and -me [Walpole] arose from his being too serious a companion. I had just -broke loose from the restraints of the university, with as much money -as I could spend, and I was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for -antiquities, etc., while I was for perpetual balls and plays. The fault -was mine.' - -'Sir, you have said more than was necessary' was Johnson's reply to a -peace-making speech from Topham Beauclerk. It is needless to comment -further upon this incident, except to add that Walpole's generous words -show that the disagreement was rather the outcome of a sequence of -long-strained circumstances than the result of momentary petulance. For -a time reconciliation was deferred, but eventually it was effected by -a lady, and the intimacy thus renewed continued for the remainder of -Gray's life. - -Shortly after Gray's departure in May, Walpole fell ill of a quinsy. -He did not, at first, recognise the gravity of his ailment, and -doctored himself. By a fortunate chance, Joseph Spence, then travelling -as governor to the Earl of Lincoln, was in the neighbourhood, and, -responding to a message from Walpole, 'found him scarce able to -speak.' Spence immediately sent for medical aid, and summoned from -Florence one Antonio Cocchi, a physician and author of some eminence. -Under Cocchi's advice, Walpole speedily showed signs of improvement, -though, in his own words in the _Short Notes_, he 'was given over -for five hours, escaping with great difficulty.' The sequel may be -told from the same source. 'I went to Venice with Henry Clinton, Earl -of Lincoln, and Mr. Joseph Spence, Professor of Poetry, and after a -month's stay there, returned with them by sea from Genoa, landing -at Antibes; and by the way of Toulon, Marseilles, Aix, and through -Languedoc to Montpellier, Toulouse, and Orléans, arrived at Paris, -where I left the Earl and Mr. Spence, and landed at Dover, September -12th, 1741, O. S., having been chosen Member of Parliament for -Kellington [Callington], in Cornwall, at the preceding General Election -[of June], which Parliament put a period to my father's administration, -which had continued above twenty years.' - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - Gains of the Grand Tour.--'Epistle to Ashton.'--Resignation of Sir - Robert Walpole, who becomes Earl of Orford.--Collapse of the Secret - Committee.--Life at Houghton.--The Picture Gallery.--'A Sermon on - Painting.'--Lord Orford as Moses.--The 'Ædes Walpolianæ.'--Prior's - 'Protogenes and Apelles.'--Minor Literature.--Lord Orford's Decline - and Death; his Panegyric.--Horace Walpole's Means. - - -Although, during his stay in Italy, Walpole had neglected to accumulate -the store of erudition which his friend Gray had been so industriously -hiving for home consumption, he can scarcely be said to have learned -nothing, especially at an age when much is learned unconsciously. His -epistolary style, which, with its peculiar graces and pseudo-graces, -had been already formed before he left England, had now acquired a -fresh vivacity from his increased familiarity with the French and -Italian languages; and he had carried on, however discursively, -something more than a mere flirtation with antiquities. Dr. Conyers -Middleton, whose once famous _Life of Cicero_ was published early -in 1741, and who was himself an antiquary of distinction, thought -highly of Walpole's attainments in this way,[42] and indeed more than -one passage in a poem written by Walpole to Ashton at this time could -scarcely have been penned by any one not fairly familiar with (for -example) the science of those 'medals' upon which Mr. Joseph Addison -had discoursed so learnedly after his Italian tour:-- - - 'What scanty precepts! studies how confin'd! - Too mean to fill your comprehensive mind; - Unsatisfy'd with knowing when or where - Some Roman bigot rais'd a fane to FEAR; - On what green medal VIRTUE stands express'd, - How CONCORD'S pictur'd, LIBERTY how dress'd; - Or with wise ken judiciously define - When Pius marks the honorary coin - Of CARACALLA, or of ANTONINE.'[43] - -[42] Juvenis, non tam generis nobilitate, ac paterni nominis gloriâ, -quam ingenio, doctrinâ, et virtute propriâ illustris. Ille vero -haud citius fere in patriam reversus est, quam de studiis meis, ut -consuerat, familiariter per literas quærens, mihi ultro de copiâ suâ, -quicquid ad argumenti mei rationem, aut libelli ornamentum pertineret, -pro arbitrio meo utendum obtulit.--_Pref. ad Germana quædam Antiq. -Monumenta_, etc., p. 6 (quoted in Mitford's _Corr. of Walpole and -Mason_, 1851, i. x-xi). - -[43] Walpole's _Works_, 1798, i. 6. - -The poem from which these lines are taken--_An Epistle from Florence. -To Thomas Ashton, Esq., Tutor to the Earl of Plimouth_--extends -to some four hundred lines, and exhibits another side of Walpole's -activity in Italy. 'You have seen'--says Gray to West in July, -1740--'an Epistle to Mr. Ashton, that seems to me full of spirit -and thought, and a good deal of poetic fire.' Writing to him ten -years later, Gray seems still to have retained his first impression. -'Satire'--he says--'will be heard, for all the audience are by nature -her friends; especially when she appears in the spirit of Dryden, -with his strength, and often with his versification, such as you have -caught in those lines on the Royal Unction, on the Papal dominion, and -Convents of both Sexes; on Henry VIII. and Charles II., for these are -to me the shining parts of your Epistle. There are many lines I could -wish corrected, and some blotted out, but beauties enough to atone for -a thousand worse faults than these.'[44] Walpole has never been ranked -among the poets; but Gray's praise, in which Middleton and others -concurred, justifies a further quotation. This is the passage on the -Royal Unction and the Papal Dominion:-- - -[44] Gray's _Works_, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 221. - - 'When at the altar a new monarch kneels, - What conjur'd awe upon the people steals! - The chosen He adores the precious oil, - Meekly receives the solemn charm, and while - The priest some blessed nothings mutters o'er, - Sucks in the sacred grease at every pore: - He seems at once to shed his mortal skin, - And feels divinity transfus'd within. - The trembling vulgar dread the royal nod, - And worship God's anointed more than God. - - 'Such sanction gives the prelate to such kings! - So mischief from those hallow'd fountains springs. - But bend your eye to yonder harass'd plains, - Where king and priest in one united reigns; - See fair Italia mourn her holy state, - And droop oppress'd beneath a papal weight; - Where fat celibacy usurps the soil, - And sacred sloth consumes the peasant's toil: - The holy drones monopolise the sky, - And plunder by a vow of poverty. - The Christian cause their lewd profession taints, - Unlearn'd, unchaste, uncharitable saints.'[45] - -[45] Walpole's _Works_, 1798, i. 8-9. - -That the refined and fastidious Horace Walpole of later years should -have begun as a passable imitator of Dryden is sufficiently piquant. -But that the son of the great courtier Prime Minister should have -distinguished himself by the vigour of his denunciations of kings and -priests, especially when, as his biographers have not failed to remark, -he was writing to one about to take orders, is more noticeable still. -The poem was reprinted in his works, but he makes no mention of it -in the _Short Notes_, nor of an _Inscription for the Neglected Column -in the Place of St. Mark at Florence_, written at the same time, and -characterized by the same anti-monarchical spirit. - -His letters to Mann, his chief correspondent at this date, are -greatly occupied, during the next few months, with the climax of -the catastrophe recorded at the end of the preceding chapter,--the -resignation of Sir Robert Walpole. The first of the long series was -written on his way home in September, 1741, when he had for his -fellow-passengers the Viscontina, Amorevoli, and other Italian singers, -then engaged in invading England. He appears to have at once taken up -his residence with his father in Downing Street. Into the network of -circumstances which had conspired to array against the great peace -Minister the formidable opposition of disaffected Whigs, Jacobites, -Tories, and adherents of the Prince of Wales, it would here be -impossible to enter. But there were already signs that Sir Robert was -nodding to his fall; and that, although the old courage was as high -as ever, the old buoyancy was beginning to flag. Failing health added -its weight to the scale. In October Walpole tells his correspondent -that he had 'been very near sealing his letter with black wax,' for -his father had been in danger of his life, but was recovering, though -he is no longer the Sir Robert that Mann once knew. He who formerly -would snore before they had drawn his curtains, now never slept above -an hour without waking; and 'he who at dinner always forgot that he was -Minister,' now sat silent, with eyes fixed for an hour together. At -the opening of Parliament, however, there was an ostensible majority -of forty for the Court, and Walpole seems to have regarded this as -encouraging. But one of the first motions was for an inquiry into the -state of the nation, and this was followed by a division upon a Cornish -petition which reduced the majority to seven,--a variation which sets -the writer nervously jesting about apartments in the Tower. Seven -days later, the opposition obtained a majority of four; and although -Sir Robert, still sanguine in the remembrance of past successes, -seemed less anxious than his family, matters were growing grave, and -his youngest son was reconciling himself to the coming blow. It came -practically on the 21st January, 1742, when Pulteney moved for a secret -committee, which (in reality) was to be a committee of accusation -against the Prime Minister. Walpole defeated this manœuvre with his -characteristic courage and address, but only by a narrow majority of -three. So inconsiderable a victory upon so crucial a question was -perilously close to a reverse; and when, in the succeeding case of the -disputed Chippenham Election, the Government were defeated by one, he -yielded to the counsels of his advisers, and decided to resign. He was -thereupon raised to the peerage as Earl of Orford, with a pension of -£4,000 a year,[46] while his daughter by his second wife, Miss Skerret, -was created an Earl's daughter in her own right. His fall was mourned -by no one more sincerely than by the master he had served so staunchly -for so long; and when he went to kiss hands at St. James's upon taking -leave, the old king fell upon his neck, embraced him, and broke into -tears. - -[46] He gave this up at first, but afterwards, when his affairs became -involved, reclaimed it (Cunningham's _Corr._, i. 126 n.). - -The new Earl himself seems to have taken his reverses with his -customary equanimity, and, like the shrewd 'old Parliamentary hand' -that he was, to have at once devoted himself to the difficult task of -breaking the force of the attack which he foresaw would be made upon -himself by those in power. He contrived adroitly to foster dissension -and disunion among the heterogeneous body of his opponents; he secured -that the new Ministry should be mainly composed of his old party, the -Whigs; and he managed to discredit his most formidable adversary, -Pulteney. One of the first results of these precautionary measures was -that a motion by Lord Limerick for a committee to examine into the -conduct of the last twenty years was thrown out by a small majority. A -fortnight later the motion was renewed in a fresh form, the scope of -the examination being limited to the last ten years. Upon this occasion -Horace Walpole made his maiden speech,--a graceful and modest, if not -very forcible, effort on his father's side. In this instance, however, -the Government were successful, and the Committee was appointed. Yet, -despite the efforts to excite the public mind respecting Lord Orford, -the case against him seems to have faded away in the hands of his -accusers. The first report of the Committee, issued in May, contained -nothing to criminate the person against whom the inquiry had been -directly levelled; and despite the strenuous and even shameless efforts -of the Government to obtain evidence inculpating the late Minister, the -Committee were obliged to issue a second report in June, of which,--so -far as the chief object was concerned,--the gross result was nil. -By the middle of July, Walpole was able to tell Mann that the 'long -session was over, and the Secret Committee already forgotten,'--as much -forgotten, he says in a later letter, 'as if it had happened in the -last reign.' - -When Sir Robert Walpole had resigned, he had quitted his official -residence in Downing Street (which ever since he first occupied it -in 1735 has been the official residence of the First Lord of the -Treasury), and moved to No. 5, Arlington Street, opposite to, but -smaller than, the No. 17 in which his youngest son had been born, -and upon the site of which William Kent built a larger house for Mr. -Pelham. No. 5 is now distinguished by a tablet erected by the Society -of Arts, proclaiming it to have been the house of the ex-Minister. From -Arlington Street, or from the other home at Chelsea already mentioned, -most of Walpole's letters were dated during the months which succeeded -the crisis. But in August, when the House had risen, he migrated with -the rest of the family to Houghton,--the great mansion in Norfolk -which had now taken the place of the ancient seat of the Walpoles, -where during the summer months his father had been accustomed in his -free-handed manner to keep open house to all the county. Fond of -hospitality, fond of field-sports, fond of gardening, and all out-door -occupations, Lord Orford was at home among the flat expanses and -Norfolk turnips. But the family seat had no such attractions to his -son, fresh from the multi-coloured Continental life, and still bearing -about him, in a certain frailty of physique and enervation of spirit, -the tokens of a sickly childhood. 'Next post'--he says despairingly -to Mann--'I shall not be able to write to you; and when I am there -[at Houghton], shall scarce find materials to furnish a letter above -every other post. I beg, however, that you will write constantly to -me; it will be my only entertainment; for I neither hunt, brew, drink, -nor reap.' 'Consider'--he says again--'I am in the barren land of -Norfolk, where news grows as slow as anything green; and besides, I -am in the house of a fallen minister!' Writing letters (in company -with the little white dog 'Patapan'[47] which he had brought from -Rome as a successor to the defunct Tory), walking, and playing comet -with his sister Lady Mary or any chance visitors to the house, seem -to have been his chief resources. A year later he pays a second visit -to Houghton, and he is still unreconciled to his environment. 'Only -imagine that I here every day see men, who are mountains of roast -beef, and only just seem roughly hewn out into the outlines of human -form, like the giant-rock at Pratolino! I shudder when I see them -brandish their knives in act to carve, and look on them as savages -that devour one another.' Then there are the enforced civilities to -entirely uninteresting people,--the intolerable female relative, -who is curious about her cousins to the fortieth remove. 'I have an -Aunt here, a family piece of goods, an old remnant of inquisitive -hospitality and economy, who, to all intents and purposes, is as beefy -as her neighbours. She wore me so down yesterday with interrogatories -that I dreamt all night she was at my ear with "who's" and "why's," -and "when's" and "where's," till at last in my very sleep I cried out, -"For heaven's sake, Madam, ask me no more questions."' And then, in his -impatience of bores in general, he goes on to write a little essay upon -that 'growth of English root,' that 'awful yawn, which sleep cannot -abate,' as Byron calls it,--Ennui. 'I am so far from growing used to -mankind [he means 'uncongenial mankind'] by living amongst them, that -my natural ferocity and wildness does but every day grow worse. They -tire me, they fatigue me; I don't know what to do with them; I don't -know what to say to them; I fling open the windows, and fancy I want -air; and when I get by myself, I undress myself, and seem to have had -people in my pockets, in my plaits, and on my shoulders! I indeed find -this fatigue worse in the country than in town, because one can avoid -it there, and has more resources; but it is there too. I fear 'tis -growing old; but I literally seem to have murdered a man whose name was -Ennui, for his ghost is ever before me. They say there is no English -word for _ennui_; I think you may translate it most literally by what -is called "entertaining people" and "doing the honours:" that is, you -sit an hour with somebody you don't know and don't care for, talk about -the wind and the weather, and ask a thousand foolish questions, which -all begin with, "I think you live a good deal in the country," or "I -think you don't love this thing or that." Oh, 'tis dreadful!'[48] - -[47] Patapan's portrait was painted by John Wootton, who illustrated -Gay's _Fables_ in 1727 with Kent. It hung in Walpole's bedroom at -Strawberry, and now (1892) belongs to Lord Lifford. In 1743 Walpole -wrote a Fable in imitation of La Fontaine, to which he gave the title -of _Patapan; or, the Little White Dog_. It was never printed. - -[48] _Walpole to Chute_, 20 August, 1743. Mr. John Chute was a friend -whom Walpole had made at Florence, and with whom, as already stated -in Chapter II., Gray had travelled when they parted company. Until, by -the death of a brother, he succeeded to the estate called The Vyne, -in Hampshire, he lived principally abroad. His portrait by Müntz, -after Pompeio Battoni, hung over the door in Walpole's bedchamber at -Strawberry Hill. An exhaustive _History of The Vyne_ was published in -1888 by the late Mr. Chaloner W. Chute, at that time its possessor. - -But even Houghton, with its endless 'doing the honours,' must have had -its compensations. There was a library, and--what must have had even -stronger attractions for Horace Walpole--that magnificent and almost -unique collection of pictures which under a later member of the family, -the third Earl of Orford, passed to Catherine of Russia. For years Lord -Orford, with unwearied diligence and exceptional opportunities, had -been accumulating these treasures. Mann in Florence, Vertue in England, -and a host of industrious foragers had helped to bring together the -priceless canvases which crowded the rooms of the Minister's house -next the Treasury at Whitehall. And if he was inexperienced as a -critic, he was far too acute a man to be deceived by the shiploads -of 'Holy Families, Madonnas, and other dismal dark subjects, neither -entertaining nor ornamental,' against which the one great native artist -of his time,--the painter of the 'Rake's Progress,' so persistently -inveighed. There was no doubt about the pedigrees of the Wouvermanns -and Teniers, the Guidos and Rubens, the Vandykes and Murillos, which -decorated the rooms at Downing Street and Chelsea and Richmond. From -the few records which remain of prices, it would seem that, in addition -to the merit of authenticity, many of the pictures must have had the -attraction of being 'bargains.' In days when £4,000 or £5,000 is no -extravagant price to be given for an old master, it is instructive -to read that £750 was the largest sum ever given by Lord Orford for -any one picture, and Walpole himself quotes this amount as £630. For -four great Snyders, which Vertue bought for him, he only paid £428, -and for a portrait of Clement IX. by Carlo Maratti no more than £200. -Many of the other pictures in his gallery cost him still less, being -donations--no doubt sometimes in gratitude for favours to come--from -his friends and adherents. The Earl of Pembroke, Lord Waldegrave, the -Duke of Montagu, Lord Tyrawley, were among these. But, upon the whole, -the collection was gathered mainly from galleries like the Zambecari at -Bologna, the Arnaldi Palace at Florence, the Pallavicini at Rome, and -from the stores of noble collectors in England. - -In 1743, the majority of these had apparently been concentrated at -Houghton, where there was special accommodation for them. 'My Lord,' -says Horace, groaning over a fresh visit to Norfolk, 'has pressed me -so much that I could not with decency refuse: he is going to furnish -and hang his picture-gallery, and wants me.' But it is impossible to -believe that he really objected to a duty so congenial to his tastes. -In fact, he was really greatly interested in it. His letters contain -frequent references to a new Domenichino, a Virgin and Child, which -Mann is sending from Florence, and he comes up to London to meet this -and other pictures, and is not seriously inconsolable to find that -owing to the quarantine for the plague on the Continent, he is detained -for some days in town. One of the best evidences of his solicitude -in connection with the arrangements of the Houghton collection is, -however, the discourse which he wrote in the summer of 1742, under the -title of a _Sermon on Painting_, and which he himself tells us was -actually preached by the Earl's chaplain in the gallery, and afterwards -repeated at Stanno, his elder brother's house. The text was taken from -Psalm CXV.: 'They have Mouths, but they speak not: Eyes have they, but -they see not: neither is there any Breath in their Nostrils;' and the -writer, illustrating his theme by reference to the pictures around his -audience in the gallery, or dispersed through the building, manages to -eulogize the painter's art with considerable skill. He touches upon the -pernicious effect which the closely realized representation of popish -miracles must have upon the illiterate spectator, and points out how -much more commendable and serviceable is the portraiture of benignity, -piety, and chastity,--how much more instructive the incidents of the -Passion, where every 'touch of the pencil is a lesson of contrition, -each figure an apostle to call you to repentance.' He lays stress, as -Lessing and other writers have done, on the universal language of the -brush, and indicates its abuse when restricted to the reproduction of -inquisitors, visionaries, imaginary hermits, 'consecrated gluttons,' -or 'noted concubines,' after which (as becomes his father's son) he -does not fail to disclose its more fitting vocation, to perpetuate the -likeness of William the Deliverer, and the benign, the honest house of -Hanover. _The Dives and Lazarus_ of Veronese and the _Prodigal Son_ of -Salvator Rosa, both on the walls, are pressed into his service, and the -famous _Usurers_ of Quentin Matsys also prompt their parable. Then, -after adroitly dwelling upon the pictorial honours lavished upon mere -asceticism to the prejudice of real heroes, taking Poussin's picture of -_Moses Striking the Rock_ for his text, he winds into what was probably -the ultimate purpose of his discourse, a neatly veiled panegyric of Sir -Robert Walpole under guise of the great lawgiver of the Israelites, -which may be cited as a favourable sample of this curious oration: - -'But it is not necessary to dive into profane history for examples of -unregarded merit; the Scriptures themselves contain instances of the -greatest patriots, who lie neglected, while new-fashioned bigots or -noisy incendiaries are the reigning objects of public veneration. See -the great Moses himself,--the lawgiver, the defender, the preserver of -Israel! Peevish orators are more run after, and artful Jesuits more -popular. Examine but the life of that slighted patriot, how boldly -in his youth he understood the cause of liberty! Unknown, without -interest, he stood against the face of Pharaoh! He saved his countrymen -from the hand of tyranny, and from the dominion of an idolatrous king. -How patiently did he bear for a series of years the clamours and cabals -of a factious people, wandering after strange lusts, and exasperated -by ambitious ringleaders! How oft did he intercede for their pardon, -when injured himself! How tenderly deny them specious favours, which -he knew must turn to their own destruction! See him lead them through -opposition, through plots, through enemies, to the enjoyment of peace, -and to the possession of _a land flowing with milk and honey_. Or with -more surprise see him in the barren desert, where sands and wilds -overspread the dreary scene, where no hopes of moisture, no prospect of -undiscovered springs, could flatter their parching thirst; see how with -a miraculous hand-- - - '"He struck the rock, and straight the waters flowed."' - -Whoever denies his praises to such evidences of merit, or with jealous -look can scowl on such benefits, is like the senseless idol, that _has -a mouth that speaks not, and eyes that cannot see_.' - -If, in accordance with some perverse fashion of the day, the foregoing -production had not been disguised as a sermon, and actually preached -with the orthodox accompaniment of bands and doxology, there is no -reason why it should not have been regarded as a harmless and not -unaccomplished essay on Art. But the objectionable spirit of parody -upon the ritual, engendered by the strife between 'high' and 'low' -(Walpole himself wrote some _Lessons for the Day_, 1742, which are to -be found in the works of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams), seems to have -dictated the title of what in other respects is a serious _Spectator_, -and needed no spice of irreverence to render it palatable. The _Sermon_ -had, however, one valuable result, namely, that it suggested to its -author the expediency of preparing some record of the pictorial -riches of Houghton upon the model of the famous _Ædes Barberini_ and -_Giustinianæ_. As the dedication of the _Ædes Walpolianæ_ is dated -24 August, 1743, it must have been written before that date; but it -was not actually published until 1747, and then only to give away. -Another enlarged and more accurate edition was issued in 1752, and it -was finally reprinted in the second volume of the _Works_ of 1798, pp. -221-78, where it is followed by the _Sermon on Painting_. Professing -to be more a catalogue of the pictures than a description of them, it -nevertheless gives a good idea of a collection which (as its historian -says) both in its extent and the condition of its treasures excelled -most of the existing collections of Italy. In an 'Introduction,' -the characteristics of the various artists are distinguished with -much discrimination, although it is naturally more sympathetic than -critical. Perhaps one of its happiest pages is the following excursus -upon a poem of Prior: 'I cannot conclude this topic of the ancient -painters without taking notice of an extreme pretty instance of Prior's -taste, and which may make an example on that frequent subject, the -resemblance between poetry and painting, and prove that taste in -the one will influence in the other. Everybody has read his tale of -Protogenes and Apelles. If they have read the story in Pliny they will -recollect that by the latter's account it seemed to have been a trial -between two Dutch performers. The Roman author tells you that when -Apelles was to write his name on a board, to let Protogenes know who -had been to inquire for him, he drew an exactly straight and slender -line. Protogenes returned, and with his pencil and another colour, -divided his competitor's. Apelles, on seeing the ingenious minuteness -of the Rhodian master, took a third colour, and laid on a still finer -and indivisible line. But the English poet, who could distinguish the -emulation of genius from nice experiments about splitting hairs, took -the story into his own hands, and in a less number of trials, and with -bolder execution, comprehended the whole force of painting, and flung -drawing, colouring, and the doctrine of light and shade into the noble -contention of those two absolute masters. In Prior, the first wrote -his name in a perfect design, and - - '"----with one judicious stroke - On the plain ground Apelles drew - A circle regularly true."' - -Protogenes knew the hand, and showed Apelles that his own knowledge of -colouring was as great as the other's skill in drawing. - - '"Upon the happy line he laid - Such obvious light and easy shade - That Paris' apple stood confest, - Or Leda's egg, or Chloe's breast."'[49] - -[49] Mr. Vertue the engraver made a very ingenious conjecture on this -story; he supposes that Apelles did not draw a straight line, but the -outline of a human figure, which not being correct, Protogenes drew -a more correct figure within his; but that still not being perfect, -Apelles drew a smaller and exactly proportioned one within both the -former.--_Walpole's note._ - -Apelles acknowledged his rival's merit, without jealously persisting to -refine on the masterly reply:-- - - '"Pugnavere pares, succubuere pares"'[50] - -[50] Walpole's _Works_, 1798, ii. 229-30. The final quotation is from -Martial. - -Among the other efforts of his pen at this time were some squibs -in ridicule of the new Ministry. One was a parody of a scene in -_Macbeth_; the other of a scene in Corneille's _Cinna_. He also wrote a -paper against Lord Bath in the _Old England Journal_. - -In the not very perplexed web of Horace Walpole's life, the next -occurrence of importance is his father's death. When, as Sir Robert -Walpole, he had ceased to be Prime Minister, he was sixty-five years -of age; and though his equanimity and wonderful constitution still -seemed to befriend him, he had personally little desire, even if -the ways had been open, to recover his ancient power. 'I believe -nothing could prevail on him to return to the Treasury,' writes his -son to Mann in 1743. 'He says he will keep the 12th of February--the -day he resigned--with his family as long as he lives.' He continued -nevertheless, to assist his old master with his counsel, and more than -one step of importance by which the King startled his new Ministry owed -its origin to a confidential consultation with Lord Orford. When, in -January, 1744, the old question of discontinuing the Hanoverian troops -was revived with more than ordinary insistence, it was through Lord -Orford's timely exertions, and his personal credit with his friends, -that the motion was defeated by an overwhelming majority. On the other -hand, a further attempt to harass him by another Committee of Secret -Inquiry was wholly unsuccessful, and signs were not wanting that his -old prestige had by no means departed. Towards the close of 1744, -however, his son begins to chronicle a definite decline in his health. -He is evidently suffering seriously from stone, and is forbidden to -take the least exercise by the King's serjeant-surgeon, that famous -Mr. Ranby who was the friend of Hogarth and Fielding.[51] In January -of the next year, he is trying a famous specific for his complaint, -Mrs. Stephens's medicine. Six weeks later, he has been alarmingly ill -for about a month; and although reckoned out of absolute danger, is -hardly ever conscious more than four hours out of the four-and-twenty, -from the powerful opiates he takes in order to deaden pain. A month -later, on the 18th March, 1745, he died at Arlington Street, in his -sixty-ninth year. At first his son dares scarcely speak of his loss, -but a fortnight afterwards he writes more fully. After showing that -the state of his circumstances proved how little truth there had been -in the charges of self-enrichment made against him, Walpole goes on -to say: 'It is certain, he is dead very poor: his debts, with his -legacies, which are trifling, amount to fifty thousand pounds. His -estate, a nominal eight thousand a year, much mortgaged. In short, his -fondness for Houghton has endangered him. If he had not so overdone it, -he might have left such an estate to his family as might have secured -the glory of the place for many years: another such debt must expose -it to sale. If he had lived, his unbounded generosity and contempt of -money would have run him into vast difficulties. However irreparable -his personal loss may be to his friends, he certainly died critically -well for himself: he had lived to stand the rudest trials with honour, -to see his character universally cleared, his enemies brought to infamy -for their ignorance or villainy, and the world allowing him to be -the only man in England fit to be what he had been; and he died at a -time when his age and infirmities prevented his again undertaking the -support of a government, which engrossed his whole care, and which -he foresaw was falling into the last confusion. In this I hope his -judgment failed! His fortune attended him to the last, for he died of -the most painful of all distempers, with little or no pain.'[52] - -[51] Ranby wrote a _Narrative of the last Illness of the Earl of -Orford_, 1745, which provoked much controversy. - -[52] _Walpole to Mann_, 15 April, 1745. - -From the _Short Notes_ we learn further: 'He [my father] left me the -house in Arlington-street in which he died, £5000 in money, and £1000 a -year from the Collector's place in the Custom-house, and the surplus to -be divided between my brother Edward and me.' - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - Stage-gossip and Small-talk.--Ranelagh Gardens.--Fontenoy and - Leicester House.--Echoes of the '45.--Preston Pans.--Culloden.--Trial - of the Rebel Lords.--Deaths of Kilmarnock and Balmerino.--Epilogue - to _Tamerlane_.--Walpole and his Relatives.--Lady Orford.--Literary - Efforts.--The Beauties.--Takes a House at Windsor. - - -During the period between Walpole's return to England and the death of -Lord Orford, his letters, addressed almost exclusively to Mann, are -largely occupied with the occurrences which accompanied and succeeded -his father's downfall. To Lord Orford's _protégé_ and relative these -particulars were naturally of the first importance, and Walpole's -function of 'General Intelligencer' fell proportionately into the -background. Still, there are occasional references to current events of -a merely social character. After the Secret Committee, he is interested -(probably because his friend Conway was pecuniarily interested) in -the Opera, and the reception by the British public of the Viscontina, -Amorevoli, and the other Italian singers whom he had known abroad. -Of the stage he says comparatively little, dismissing poor Mrs. -Woffington, who had then just made her appearance at Covent Garden, as -'a bad actress,' who, nevertheless, 'has life,'--an opinion in which -he is supported by Conway, who calls her 'an impudent, Irish-faced -girl.' In the acting of Garrick, after whom all the town is (as Gray -writes) 'horn-mad' in May, 1742, he sees nothing wonderful, although -he admits that it is heresy to say so, since that infallible stage -critic, the Duke of Argyll, has declared him superior to Betterton. But -he praises 'a little simple farce' at Drury Lane, _Miss Lucy in Town_, -by Henry Fielding, in which his future friend, Mrs. Clive, and Beard -mimic Amorevoli and the Muscovita. The same letter contains a reference -to another famous stage-queen, now nearing eighty, Anne Bracegirdle, -who should have had the money that Congreve left to Henrietta, Duchess -of Marlborough. 'Tell Mr. Chute [he says] that his friend Bracegirdle -breakfasted with me this morning. As she went out, and wanted her -clogs, she turned to me, and said, "I remember at the playhouse, they -used to call, Mrs. Oldfield's chair! Mrs. Barry's clogs! and Mrs. -Bracegirdle's pattens!"'[53] One pictures a handsome old lady, a -little bent, and leaning on a crutch stick as she delivers this parting -utterance at the door.[54] - -[53] _Walpole to Mann_, 26 May, 1742. - -[54] According to Pinkerton, another anecdote connects Mrs. Bracegirdle -with the Walpoles. 'Mr. Shorter, my mother's father [he makes Horace -say], was walking down Norfolk Street in the Strand, to his house -there, just before poor Mountfort the player was killed in that street, -by assassins hired by Lord Mohun. This nobleman, lying in wait for -his prey, came up and embraced Mr. Shorter by mistake, saying, 'Dear -Mountfort!' It was fortunate that he was instantly undeceived, for Mr. -Shorter had hardly reached his house before the murder took place' -(_Walpoliana_, ii. 96). Mountfort, it will be remembered, owed his -death to Mrs. Bracegirdle's liking for him. - -Among the occurrences of 1742 which find fitting record in the -correspondence, is the opening of that formidable rival to Vauxhall, -Ranelagh Gardens. All through the spring the great Rotunda, with its -encircling tiers of galleries and supper-boxes,--the _coup d'œil_ of -which Johnson thought was the finest thing he had ever seen,--had -been rising slowly at the side of Chelsea Hospital. In April it was -practically completed, and almost ready for visitors. Walpole, of -course, breakfasts there, like the rest of the _beau monde_. 'The -building is not finished [he says], but they get great sums by people -going to see it and breakfasting in the house; there were yesterday -no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteenpence -a-piece. You see how poor we are, when, with a tax of four shillings -in the pound, we are laying out such sums for cakes and ale.'[55] A -week or two later comes the formal inauguration. 'Two nights ago [May -24] Ranelagh-gardens were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, Princess, -Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, were there. There is a -vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, painted, and illuminated, into which -everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is -admitted for twelvepence. The building and disposition of the gardens -cost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a week there are to be Ridottos at -guinea-tickets, for which you are to have a supper and music. I was -there last night [May 25],'--the writer adds,--'but did not find the -joy of it,'[56] and, at present, he prefers Vauxhall, because of the -approach by water, that '_trajet du fleuve fatal_,'--as it is styled -in the _Vauxhall de Londres_ which a French poet dedicated in 1769 -to M. de Fontenelle. He seems, however, to have taken Lord Orford to -Ranelagh, and he records in July that they walked with a train at -their heels like two chairmen going to fight,--from which he argues a -return of his father's popularity. Two years later Fashion has declared -itself on the side of the new garden, and Walpole has gone over to -the side of Fashion. 'Every night constantly [he tells Conway] I go -to Ranelagh; which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes anywhere -else,--everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it that -he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither. If you -had never seen it, I would make you a most pompous description of it, -and tell you how the floor is all of beaten princes; that you can't set -your foot without treading on a Prince of Wales or Duke of Cumberland. -The company is universal: there is from his Grace of Grafton down to -children out of the Foundling Hospital; from my Lady Townshend to -the kitten; from my Lord Sandys to your humble cousin and sincere -friend.'[57] - -[55] _Walpole to Mann_, 22 April, 1742. - -[56] _Walpole to Mann_, 26 May, 1742. - -[57] _Walpole to Conway_, 29 June, 1744. - -After Lord Orford's death, the next landmark in Horace Walpole's life -is his removal to the house at Twickenham, subsequently known as -Strawberry Hill. To a description of this historical mansion the next -chapter will be in part devoted. In the mean time we may linger for a -moment upon the record which these letters contain of the famous '45. -No better opportunity will probably occur of exhibiting Walpole as -the reporter of history in the process of making. Much that he tells -Mann and Montagu is no doubt little more than the skimming of the last -_Gazette_; but he had always access to trustworthy information, and is -seldom a dull reporter, even of newspaper news. Almost the next letter -to that in which he dwells at length upon the loss of his father, -records the disaster of Tournay, or Fontenoy, in which, he tells Mann, -Mr. Conway has highly distinguished himself, magnificently engaging--as -appears from a subsequent communication--no less than two French -Grenadiers at once. His account of the battle is bare enough; but what -apparently interests him most is the patriotic conduct of the Prince of -Wales, who made a _chanson_ on the occasion, after the fashion of the -Regent Orléans:-- - - 'VENEZ, mes chères Déesses, - Venez calmer mon chagrin; - Aidez, mes belles Princesses, - A le noyer dans le vin. - Poussons cette douce Ivresse - Jusqu'au milieu de la nuit, - Et n'écoutons que la tendresse - D'un charmant vis-à-vis. - - * * * * * - - 'Que m'importe que l'Europe - Ait un ou plusieurs tyrans? - Prions seulement Calliope, - Qu'elle inspire nos vers, nos chants. - Laissons Mars et toute la gloire; - Livrons nous tous à l'amour; - Que Bacchus nous donne à boire; - A ces deux fasions [_sic_] la cour.' - -The goddesses addressed were Lady Catherine Hanmer, Lady Fauconberg, -and Lady Middlesex, who played Congreve's _Judgment of Paris_ at -Leicester House, with his Royal Highness as Paris, and Prince Lobkowitz -for Mercury. Walpole says of the song that it 'miscarried in nothing -but the language, the thoughts, and the poetry.' Yet he copies the -whole five verses, of which the above are two, for Mann's delectation. - -A more logical sequence to Fontenoy than the lyric of Leicester House -is the descent of Charles Edward upon Scotland. In August Walpole -reports to Mann that there is a proclamation out 'for apprehending -the Pretender's son,' who had landed in July; in September he is -marching on Edinburgh. Ten days later the writer is speculating half -ruefully upon the possibilities of being turned out of his comfortable -sinecures in favour of some forlorn Irish peer. 'I shall wonderfully -dislike being a loyal sufferer in a threadbare coat, and shivering -in an ante-chamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach Latin and English -to the young princes at Copenhagen. The Dowager Strafford has already -written cards for my Lady Nithsdale, my Lady Tullibardine, the Duchess -of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite them -to play at whisk, Monday three months; for your part, you will divert -yourself with their old taffeties, and tarnished slippers, and their -awkwardness, the first day they go to Court in shifts and clean linen. -Will you ever write to me in my garret at Herrenhausen?'[58] Then upon -this come the contradictions of rumour, the 'general supineness,' -the raising of regiments, and the disaster of Preston Pans, with -its inevitable condemnation of Cope. 'I pity poor him, who, with no -shining abilities, and no experience, and no force, was sent to fight -for a crown! He never saw a battle but that of Dettingen, where he -got his red ribbon; Churchill, whose led-captain he was, and my Lord -Harrington, had pushed him up to this misfortune.[59] We have lost all -our artillery, five hundred men taken--and _three_ killed, and several -officers, as you will see in the papers. This defeat has frightened -everybody but those it rejoices, and those it should frighten most; but -my Lord Granville still buoys up the King's spirits, and persuades him -it is nothing.'[60] - -[58] _Walpole to Montagu_, 17 Sept., 1745. - -[59] Walpole later revised this verdict: 'General Cope was tried -afterwards for his behaviour in this action, and it appeared very -clearly that the Ministry, his inferior officers, and his troops, were -greatly to blame; and that he did all he could, so ill-directed, so -ill-supplied, and so ill-obeyed.' - -[60] _Walpole to Mann_, 27 Sept., 1745. - -Nothing, indeed, it proved in the issue. But Walpole was wiser in his -immediate apprehensions than King George's advisers, who were not wise. -In his subsequent letters we get scattered glimpses of the miserable -story that ended in Culloden. Towards the end of October he is auguring -hopefully from the protracted neglect of the rebels to act upon their -success. In November they are in England. But the backwardness of -the Jacobites to join them is already evident, and he writes 'in the -greatest confidence of our getting over this ugly business.' Early in -December they have reached Derby, only to be soon gone again, miserably -harassed, and leaving their sick and cannon behind. With the new year -come tidings to Mann that the rebellion is dying down in England, -and that General Hawley has marched northward to put it quite out. -Once more, on the 23rd February, it flares fitfully at Falkirk, and -then fades as suddenly. The battle that Walpole hourly expects, not -without some trepidation, for Conway is one of the Duke of Cumberland's -aides-de-camp, is still deferred, and it is April before the two armies -face each other on Culloden Moor. Then he writes jubilantly to his -Florentine correspondent: 'On the 16th, the Duke, by forced marches, -came up with the rebels a little on this side Inverness,--by the way, -the battle is not christened yet; I only know that neither Preston Pans -nor Falkirk are to be god-fathers. The rebels, who had fled from him -after their victory [of Falkirk], and durst not attack him, when so -much exposed to them at his passage of the Spey, now stood him, they -seven thousand, he ten. They broke through Barril's regiment and killed -Lord Robert Kerr, a handsome young gentleman, who was cut to pieces -with about thirty wounds; but they were soon repulsed, and fled; the -whole engagement not lasting above a quarter of an hour. The young -Pretender escaped, Mr. Conway says, he hears, wounded: he certainly -was in the rear. They have lost above a thousand men in the engagement -and pursuit; and six hundred were already taken; among which latter -are their French Ambassador and Earl Kilmarnock. The Duke of Perth -and Lord Ogilvie are said to be slain.... Except Lord Robert Kerr, we -lost nobody of note: Sir Robert Rich's eldest son has lost his hand, -and about a hundred and thirty private men fell. The defeat is reckoned -total, and the dispersion general; and all their artillery is taken. It -is a brave young Duke! The town is all blazing round me [_i. e._, at -Arlington Street] as I write, with fireworks and illuminations: I have -some inclination to wrap up half-a-dozen sky-rockets, to make you drink -the Duke's health. Mr. Dodington [in Pall Mall], on the first report, -came out with a very pretty illumination,--so pretty that I believe he -had it by him, ready for _any_ occasion.'[61] - -[61] _Walpole to Mann_, 25 April, 1746. - -Walpole's account of these occurrences is, of course, hearsay, -although, as regards Culloden, he probably derived the details from -Conway, who was present. But in some of the events which ensued, he is -either actually a spectator himself, or fresh from direct communication -with those who have been spectators. One of the most graphic passages -in his entire correspondence is his description of the trial of the -rebel lords, at which he assisted; and another is his narrative of the -executions of Kilmarnock and Balmerino, written down from the relation -of eye-witnesses. It is hardly possible to get much nearer to history. - -'I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most -melancholy scene I ever yet saw! You will easily guess it was the -Trials of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it -was the most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all -the splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes -and engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday; three parts of -Westminster-hall were inclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet; -and the whole ceremony was conducted with the most awful solemnity -and decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at -the bar, amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the -witnesses who had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to -their own House to consult. No part of the royal family was there, -which was a proper regard to the unhappy men, who were become their -victims.... I had armed myself with all the resolution I could, with -the thought of their crimes and of the danger past, and was assisted -by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian in weepers for his son [Lord -Robert Kerr], who fell at Culloden; but the first appearance of the -prisoners shocked me! their behaviour melted me.' After going on to -speak of Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Cromartie (afterwards reprieved), -he continues: 'For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old -fellow I ever saw: the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. -At the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man; in the intervals of -form, with carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his -wife, his pretty Peggy [Margaret Chalmers], with him in the Tower, -Lady Cromartie only sees her husband through the grate, not choosing -to be shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve him better by her -intercession without: she is big with child and very handsome: so -are their daughters. When they were to be brought from the Tower in -separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go: old -Balmerino cried, 'Come, come, put it with me.' At the bar he plays with -his fingers upon the axe, while he talks to the gentleman-gaoler; and -one day somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade and held it -like a fan between their faces. During the trial, a little boy was near -him, but not tall enough to see; he made room for the child, and placed -him near himself.'[62] - -[62] _Walpole to Mann_, 1 Aug., 1746. - -Balmerino's gallant demeanour evidently fascinated Walpole. In his -next letter he relates how on his way back to the Tower the sturdy -old dragoon had stopped the coach at Charing Cross to buy some -'honey-blobs' (gooseberries); and when afterwards he comes to write his -account of the execution, although he tells the story of Kilmarnock's -death with feeling, the best passage is given to his companion in -misfortune. He describes how, on the fatal 15th August, before he left -the Tower, Balmerino drank a bumper to King James; how he wore his -rebellious regimentals (blue and red) over a flannel waistcoat and -his shroud; how, embracing Lord Kilmarnock, he said, 'My Lord, I wish -I could suffer for both.' Then followed the beheading of Kilmarnock; -and the narrator goes on: 'The scaffold was immediately new-strewed -with sawdust, the block new covered, the executioner new-dressed, and -a new axe brought. Then came old Balmerino, treading with the air of a -general. As soon as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription -on his coffin, as he did again afterwards: he then surveyed the -spectators, who were in amazing numbers, even upon masts upon ships in -the river; and pulling out his spectacles, read a treasonable speech, -which he delivered to the Sheriff, and said, the young Pretender was -so sweet a Prince that flesh and blood could not resist following him; -and lying down to try the block, he said, 'If I had a thousand lives, -I would lay them all down here in the same cause.' He said if he had -not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down -Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill-usage of him. He -took the axe and felt it, and asked the headsman how many blows he had -given Lord Kilmarnock; and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen, who -attended him, coming up, he said, 'No, gentlemen, I believe you have -already done me all the service you can.' Then he went to the corner -of the scaffold, and called very loud for the warder, to give him his -perriwig, which he took off, and put on a night-cap of Scotch plaid, -and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down; but being told -he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign -by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He -received three blows; but the first certainly took away all sensation. -He was not a quarter of an hour on the scaffold; Lord Kilmarnock above -half a one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepidity of a hero, -but the insensibility of one too. As he walked from his prison to -execution, seeing every window and top of house filled with spectators, -he cried out, "Look, look, how they are all piled up like rotten -oranges."'[63] - -[63] _Walpole to Mann_, 21 August, 1746. Gray, who was at the trial, -also mentions Balmerino, not so enthusiastically. 'He is an old -soldier-like man, of a vulgar manner and aspect, speaks the broadest -Scotch, and shews an intrepidity, that some ascribe to real courage, -and some to brandy' (_Letter to Wharton_, August). 'Old Balmerino, -when he had read his paper to the people, pulled off his spectacles, -spit upon his handkerchief, and wiped them clean for the use of his -posterity; and that is the last page of his history' (_Letter to -Wharton_, 11 Sept., 1746). - -In the old print of the execution, the scaffold on Tower Hill is shown -surrounded by a wide square of dragoons, beyond which the crowd--'the -immense display of human countenances which surrounded it like a sea,' -as Scott has it--are visible on every side. No. 14 Tower Hill is said -to have been the house from which the two lords were led to the block, -and a trail of blood along the hall and up the first flight of stairs -was long shown as indicating the route by which the mutilated bodies -were borne to await interment in St. Peter's Chapel. A few months -later Walpole records the execution in the same place of Simon Fraser, -Lord Lovat, the cunning old Jacobite, whose characteristic attitude -and 'pawky' expression live for ever in the admirable sketch which -Hogarth made of him at St. Albans. He died (says Walpole) 'extremely -well, without passion, affectation, buffoonery, or timidity.' But he is -not so distinguished as either Kilmarnock or Balmerino, and, however -Roman his taking-off, the chief memorable thing about it is, that it -was happily the last of these sanguinary scenes in this country. The -only other incident which it is here needful to chronicle in connection -with the 'Forty Five' is Walpole's verses on the Suppression of the -late Rebellion. On the 4th and 5th November, the anniversaries of -King William's birth and landing, it was the custom to play Rowe's -_Tamerlane_, and this year (1746) the epilogue spoken by Mrs. Pritchard -'in the Character of the Comic Muse' was from Walpole's pen. According -to the writer, special terrors had threatened the stage from the advent -of 'Rome's young missionary spark,' the Chevalier, and the Tragic -Muse, raising, 'to eyes well-tutor'd in the trade of grief,' 'a small -and well-lac'd handkerchief,' is represented by her lighter sister as -bewailing the prospect to her 'buskined progeny' after this fashion:-- - - 'Ah! sons, our dawn is over-cast; and all - Theatric glories nodding to their fall. - From foreign realms a bloody chief is come, - Big with the work of slav'ry and of Rome. - A general ruin on his sword he wears, - Fatal alike to audience and to play'rs. - For ah! my sons, what freedom for the stage - When bigotry with sense shall battle wage? - When monkish laureats only wear the bays, - Inquisitors lord chamberlains of plays? - Plays shall be damn'd that 'scap'd the critic's rage, - For priests are still worse tyrants to the stage. - Cato, receiv'd by audiences so gracious, - Shall find ten Cæsars in one St. Ignatius, - And god-like Brutus here shall meet again - His evil genius in a capuchin. - For heresy the fav'rites of the pit - Must burn, and excommunicated wit; - And at one stake, we shall behold expire - My Anna Bullen, and the Spanish Fryar.'[64] - -[64] Walpole's _Works_, 1798, i. 25-7. - -After this the epilogue digresses into a comparison of the Duke of -Cumberland with King William. Virgil, Juvenal, Addison, Dryden, and -Pope, upon one of whose lines on Cibber Walpole bases his reference -to the Lord Chamberlain, are all laid under contribution in this -performance. It 'succeeded to flatter me,' he tells Mann a few days -later,--a Gallicism from which we must infer an enthusiastic reception. - -Walpole's personal and domestic history does not present much interest -at this period. His sister Mary (Catherine Shorter's daughter), who -had married the third Earl of Cholmondeley, had died long before her -mother. In February, 1746, his half-sister, Lady Mary, his playmate at -comet in the Houghton days, married Mr. Churchill,--'a foolish match,' -in Horace's opinion, to which he will have nothing to say. With his -second brother, Sir Edward Walpole, he seems to have had but little -intercourse, and that scarcely of a fraternal character. In 1857, -Cunningham published for the first time a very angry letter from Edward -to his junior, in which the latter was bitterly reproached for his -interference in disposing of the family borough of Castle Rising, and -(incidentally) for his assumption of superiority, mental and otherwise. -To this communication Walpole prepared a most caustic and categorical -answer, which, however, he never sent. For his nieces, Edward Walpole's -natural daughters, of whom it will be more convenient to speak later, -Horace seems always to have felt a sincere regard. But although his -brother had tastes which must have been akin to his own, for Edward -Walpole was in his way an art patron (Roubillac the sculptor, for -instance, was much indebted to him) and a respectable musician, no -real cordiality ever existed between them. 'There is nothing in the -world'--he tells Montagu in May, 1745--'the Baron of Englefield has -such an aversion for as for his brother.'[65] - -[65] Englefield, _i. e._ Englefield Green, in Berkshire, on the summit -of Cooper's Hill, near Windsor, where Edward Walpole lived. - -For his eldest brother's wife, the Lady Walpole who had formed one -of the learned trio at Florence, he entertained no kind of respect, -and his letters are full of flouts at her Ladyship's manners and -morality. Indeed, between _préciosité_ and 'Platonic love,' her life -does not appear to have been a particularly worshipful one, and her -long sojourn under Italian skies had not improved her. At present -she was Lady Orford, her husband, who is seldom mentioned, and from -whom she had been living apart, having succeeded to the title at his -father's death. From Walpole's letters to Mann, it seems that in April, -1745, she was, much to the dismay of her relatives, already preening -her wings for England. In September, she has arrived, and Walpole is -maliciously delighted at the cold welcome she obtains from the Court -and from society in general, with the exception of her old colleague, -Lady Pomfret, and that in one sense congenial spirit, Lady Townshend. -Later on, a definite separation from her husband appears to have -been agreed upon, which Walpole fondly hopes may have the effect of -bringing about her departure for Italy. 'The Ladies O[rford] and -T[ownshend]'--he says--'have exhausted scandal both in their persons -and conversations.' However much this may be exaggerated (and Walpole -never spares his antipathies), the last we hear of Lady Orford is -certainly on his side, for she has retired from town to a villa near -Richmond with a lover for whom she has postponed that southward flight -which her family so ardently desired. This fortunate Endymion, the Hon. -Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl Ferrers, had already been -one of the most favoured lovers of the notorious 'lady of quality' -whose memoirs were afterwards foisted into _Peregrine Pickle_. To Lady -Vane now succeeded Lady Orford, as eminent for wealth--says sarcastic -Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--as her predecessor had been for beauty, -and equal in her 'heroic contempt for shame.' This new connection was -destined to endure. It was in September, 1746, that Walpole chronicled -his sister-in-law's latest frailty, and in May, 1751, only a few -weeks after her husband's death,[66] she married Shirley at the Rev. -Alexander Keith's convenient little chapel in May Fair.' - -[66] Robert Walpole, second Earl of Orford, Horace Walpole's eldest -brother, died in March, 1751. - -In 1744, died Alexander Pope, to be followed a year later by the great -Dean of St. Patrick's. Neither of these events leaves any lasting -mark in Walpole's correspondence,--indeed of Swift's death there is -no mention at all. A nearer bereavement was the premature loss of -West, which had taken place two years before, closing sorrowfully with -faint accomplishment a life of promise. _Vale, et vive paulisper cum -vivis_,--he had written a few days earlier to Gray,--his friend to the -last. With Gray, Walpole's friendship, as will be seen presently, had -been resumed. His own literary essays still lie chiefly in the domain -of squib and _jeu d'esprit_. In April, 1746, over the appropriate -signature of 'Descartes,' he printed in No. II. of _The Museum_ a -'Scheme for Raising a Large Sum of Money for the Use of the Government, -by laying a tax on Message-Cards and Notes,' and in No. V. a pretended -Advertisement and Table of Contents for a _History of Good Breeding, -from the Creation of the World_, by the Author of the Whole Duty of -Man. The wit of this is a little laboured, and scarcely goes beyond the -announcement that 'The Eight last Volumes, which relate to _Germany_, -may be had separate;' nor does that of the other exceed a mild -reflection of Fielding's manner in some of his minor pieces. Among -other things, we gather that it was the custom of the fine ladies of -the day to send open messages on blank playing-cards; and it is stated -as a fact or a fancy that 'after the fatal day of Fontenoy,' persons -of quality 'all wrote their notes on Indian paper, which, being red, -when inscribed with Japan ink made a melancholy military kind of elegy -on the brave youths who occasioned the fashion, and were often the -honourable subject of the epistle.' The only remaining effort of any -importance at this time is the little poem of _The Beauties_, somewhat -recalling Gay's Prologue to the _Shepherd's Week_, and written in July, -1746, to Eckardt the painter. Here is a specimen:-- - - In smiling CAPEL'S bounteous look - Rich autumn's goddess is mistook. - With poppies and with spiky corn, - Eckardt, her nut-brown curls adorn; - And by her side, in decent line, - Place charming BERKELEY, Proserpine. - Mild as a summer sea, serene, - In dimpled beauty next be seen - AYLESB'RY, like hoary Neptune's queen. - With her the light-dispensing fair, - Whose beauty gilds the morning air, - And bright as her attendant sun, - The new Aurora, LYTTELTON. - Such Guido's pencil, beauty-tip'd, - And in ethereal colours dip'd, - In measur'd dance to tuneful song - Drew the sweet goddess, as along - Heaven's azure 'neath their light feet spread, - The buxom hours the fairest led.'[67] - -[67] Walpole's _Works_ 1798, i. 21-2. - -'Charming Berkeley,' here mentioned, afterwards became the third wife -of Goldsmith's friend, Earl Nugent, and the mother of the little girl -who played tricks upon the author of _She Stoops to Conquer_ at her -father's country seat of Gosfield; 'Aylesb'ry, like hoary Neptune's -queen,' married Walpole's friend, Conway, and 'the new Aurora, -Lyttelton,' was that engaging Lucy Fortescue upon whose death in 1747 -her husband wrote the monody so pitilessly parodied by Smollett.[68] -Lady Almeria Carpenter, Lady Emily Lenox, Miss Chudleigh (afterwards -the notorious Duchess of Kingston), and many other well-known names, -_quos nunc perscribere longum est_, are also celebrated. - -[68] Writing to Walpole in March, 1751, Gray says: 'In the last volume -[of _Peregrine Pickle_] is a character of Mr. Lyttleton [_sic_], under -the name of "Gosling Scrag," and a parody of part of his Monody, under -the notion of a Pastoral on the death of his grandmother' (_Works_ by -Gosse, 1884, ii. 214). - -In August, 1746, Walpole announces to Mann that he has taken a pretty -house within the precincts of the castle at Windsor, to which he is -going for the remainder of the summer. In September he has entered -upon residence, for Gray tells Wharton that he sees him 'usually once -a week.' 'All is mighty free, and even friendly more than one could -expect,'--and one of the first things posted off to Conway, is Gray's -_Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College_, which the sender desires -he 'will please to like excessively.' He is drawn from his retreat by -the arrival of a young Florentine friend, the Marquis Rinuncini, to -whom he has to do the London honours. 'I stayed literally an entire -week with him, carried him to see palaces and Richmond gardens and -park, and Chenevix's shop, and talked a great deal to him _alle -conversazioni_.'[69] 'Chenevix's shop' suggests the main subject of the -next chapter,--the purchase and occupation of Strawberry Hill. - -[69] _Walpole to Mann_ 15 Sept., 1746. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - The New House at Twickenham.--Its First Tenants.--Christened - 'Strawberry Hill.'--Planting and Embellishing.--Fresh - Additions.--Walpole's Description of it in 1753.--Visitors and - Admirers.--Lord Bath's Verses.--Some Rival Mansions.--Minor - Literature.--Robbed by James Maclean.--Sequel from _The World_.--The - Maclean Mania.--High Life at Vauxhall.--Contributions to _The - World_.--Theodore of Corsica.--Reconciliation with Gray.--Stimulates - his Works.--The _Poëmata-Grayo-Bentleiana_.--Richard Bentley.--Müntz - the Artist.--Dwellers at Twickenham.--Lady Suffolk and Mrs. Clive. - - -On the 5th of June, 1747, Walpole announces to Mann that he has taken -a little new farm, just out of Twickenham. 'The house is so small -that I can send it to you in a letter to look at: the prospect is as -delightful as possible, commanding the river, the town [Twickenham], -and Richmond Park; and, being situated on a hill, descends to the -Thames through two or three little meadows, where I have some Turkish -sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours for becoming the -view. This little rural _bijou_ was Mrs. Chenevix's, the toy woman _à -la mode_,[70] who in every dry season is to furnish me with the best -rain water from Paris, and now and then with some Dresden-china cows, -who are to figure like wooden classics in a library; so I shall grow as -much a shepherd as any swain in the Astræa.' Three days later, further -details are added in a letter to Conway, then in Flanders with the Duke -of Cumberland: 'You perceive by my date [Twickenham, 8 June] that I am -got into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little -play-thing-house, that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is the -prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with -filagree hedges: - - '"A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, - And little finches wave their wings in gold."'[71] - -[70] She was the sister of Pope's Mrs. Bertrand, an equally fashionable -toy-woman at Bath. Her shop, according to an advertisement in the -_Daily Journal_ for May 24, 1733, was then 'against Suffolk Street, -Charing Cross.' It is mentioned in Fielding's _Amelia_. When, in Bk. -viii., ch. i., Mr. Bondum the bailiff contrives to capture Captain -Booth, it is by a false report that his Lady has been 'taken violently -ill, and carried into Mrs. _Chenevix's_ Toy-shop.' It is also mentioned -in the Hon. Mrs. Osborne's _Letters_, 1891, p. 73; and again by Walpole -himself in the _World_ for 19 Dec., 1754. - -[71] This is slightly varied from ll. 29, 30, of Pope's fifth _Moral -Essay_ ('To Mr. Addison: Occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals'). - -'Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me continually -with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as Barons of the Exchequer -move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospect; -... Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope's -ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical -moonlight. I have about land enough to keep such a farm as Noah's, when -he set up in the ark with a pair of each kind; but my cottage is rather -cleaner than I believe his was after they had been cooped up together -forty days. The Chenevixes had tricked it out for themselves: up two -pair of stairs is what they call Mr. Chenevix's library, furnished -with three maps, one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and a lame -telescope without any glasses. Lord John Sackville _predecessed_ me -here, and instituted certain games called _cricketalia_, which have -been celebrated this very evening in honour of him in a neighbouring -meadow.'[72] - -[72] _Walpole to Conway_, 8 June, 1747. - -The house thus whimsically described, which grew into the Gothic -structure afterwards so closely associated with its owner's name, was -not, even at this date, without its history. It stood on the left bank -of the Thames, at the corner of the Upper Road to Teddington, not -very far from Twickenham itself. It had been built about 1698 as a -'country box' by a retired coachman of the Earl of Bradford, and, from -the fact that he was supposed to have acquired his means by starving -his master's horses, was known popularly as Chopped-Straw Hall. Its -earliest possessor not long afterwards let it out as a lodging-house, -and finally, after several improvements, sub-let it altogether. One -of its first tenants was Colley Cibber, who found it convenient when -he was in attendance for acting at Hampton Court; and he is said to -have written in it the comedy called _The Refusal; or, the Ladies' -Philosophy_, produced at Drury Lane in 1721. Then, for eight years, it -was rented by the Bishop of Durham, Dr. Talbot, who was reported to -have kept in it a better table than the extent of its kitchen seemed, -in Walpole's judgement, to justify. After the Bishop came a Marquis, -Henry Bridges, son of the Duke of Chandos; after the Marquis, Mrs. -Chenevix, the toy-woman, who, upon her husband's death, let it for -two years to the nobleman who _predecessed_ Walpole, Lord John Philip -Sackville. Before this, Mrs. Chenevix had taken lodgers, one of whom -was the celebrated theologian, Père Le Courrayer. At the expiration -of Lord John Sackville's tenancy, Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. -Chenevix's lease; and in 1748 had grown to like the situation so much -that he obtained a special act to purchase the fee simple from the -existing possessors, three minors of the name of Mortimer. The price -he paid was £1356 10_s._ Nothing was then wanting but the name, and in -looking over some old deeds this was supplied. He found that the ground -on which it stood had been known originally as 'Strawberry-Hill-Shot.' -'You shall hear from me,' he tells Mann in June, 1748, 'from STRAWBERRY -HILL, which I have found out in my lease is the old name of my house; -so pray, never call it Twickenham again.' - -The transformation of the toy-woman's 'villakin' into a Gothic -residence was not, however, the operation of a day. Indeed, at first, -the idea of rebuilding does not seem to have entered its new owner's -mind. But he speedily set about extending his boundaries, for before 26 -December, 1748, he has added nine acres to his original five, making -fourteen in all,--a 'territory prodigious in a situation where land -is so scarce.' Among the tenants of some of the buildings which he -acquired in making these additions was Richard Francklin, the printer -of the _Craftsman_, who, during Sir Robert Walpole's administration, -had been taken up for printing that paper. He occupied a small house in -what was afterwards known as the Flower Garden, and Walpole permitted -him to retain it during his lifetime. Walpole's letters towards the -close of 1748 contain numerous references to his assiduity in planting. -'My present and sole occupation' he says in August, 'is planting, in -which I have made great progress, and talk very learnedly with the -nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce run to seed overturns -all my botany, as I have more than once taken it for a curious West -Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation with which trees grow -is extremely inconvenient to my natural impatience.' Two months later -he is 'all plantation, and sprouts away like any chaste nymph in -the _Metamorphosis_.' In December, we begin to hear of that famous -lawn so well known in the later history of the house. He is 'making -a terrace the whole breadth of his garden on the brow of a natural -hill, with meadows at the foot, and commanding the river, the village -[Twickenham], Richmond-hill, and the park, and part of Kingston' A year -after this (September, 1749), while he is still 'digging and planting -till it is dark,' come the first dreams of building. At Cheney's, in -Buckinghamshire, he has seen some old stained glass, in the windows of -an ancient house which had been degraded into a farm, and he thinks -he will beg it of the Duke of Bedford (to whom the farm belongs), as -it would be 'magnificent for Strawberry-castle.' Evidently he has -discussed this (as yet) _château en Espagne_ with Montagu. 'Did I tell -you [he says] that I have found a text in Deuteronomy to authorise my -future battlements? "When thou buildest a new house, then shalt thou -make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy -house, if any man fall from thence."' In January, the new building is -an established fact, as far as purpose is concerned. In a postscript to -Mann he writes: 'I must trouble you with a commission, which I don't -know whether you can execute. _I am going to build a little gothic -castle at Strawberry Hill._ If you can pick me up any fragments of old -painted glass, arms, or anything, I shall be excessively obliged to -you. I can't say I remember any such things in Italy; but out of old -chateaus, I imagine, one might get it cheap, if there is any.' - -From a subsequent letter it would seem that Mann, as a resident in -Italy, had rather expostulated against the style of architecture which -his friend was about to adopt, and had suggested the Grecian. But -Walpole, rightly or wrongly, knew what he intended. 'The Grecian,' he -said, was 'only proper for magnificent and public buildings. Columns -and all their beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when crowded 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 taste into which we are struck, and of which you can -have no idea.' The passage shows that he himself anticipated some -of the ridicule which was levelled by unsympathetic people at the -'oyster-grotto-like profanation' which he gradually erected by the -Thames. In the mean time it went on progressing slowly, as its progress -was entirely dependent on his savings out of income; and the references -to it in his letters, perhaps because Mann was doubtful, are not -abundant. 'The library and refectory, or great parlour,' he says in -his description, 'were entirely new built in 1753; the gallery, round -tower, great cloyster, and cabinet, in 1760 and 1761; and the great -north bedchamber in 1770.' To speak of these later alterations would -be to anticipate too much, and the further description of Strawberry -Hill will be best deferred until his own account of the house and -contents was printed in 1774, four years after the last addition above -recorded. But even before he made the earliest of them, he must have -done much to alter and improve the aspect of the place, for Gray, more -admiring than Mann, praises what has been done. 'I am glad,' he tells -Wharton, 'that you enter into the spirit of Strawberry-castle. It has -a purity and propriety of Gothicism in it (with very few exceptions) -that I have not seen elsewhere;' and in an earlier letter he implies -that its 'extreme littleness' is its chief defect. But here, before -for the moment leaving the subject, it is only fair to give the -proprietor's own description of Strawberry Hill at this date, _i. e._, -in June, 1753. After telling Mann that it is 'so monastic' that he -has 'a little hall decked with long saints in lean arched windows and -with taper columns, which we call the Paraclete, in memory of Eloisa's -cloister,'[73] he sends him a sketch of it, and goes on: 'The enclosed -enchanted little landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill.... This view of -the castle is what I have just finished [it was a view of the south -side, towards the north-east], and is the only side that will be at all -regular. Directly before it is an open grove, through which you see a -field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and -flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn before the house is situated -on the top of a small hill, from whence to the left you see the town -and church of Twickenham encircling a turn of the river, that looks -exactly like a sea-port in miniature. The opposite shore is a most -delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the -noble woods of the park to the end of the prospect on the right, where -is another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily -placed as Twickenham is on the left: and a natural terrace on the brow -of my hill, with meadows of my own down to the river, commands both -extremities. Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must figure that -all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of boats and barges, -and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, waggons, -and horsemen constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, -horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow window -below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper -and Jackson's Venetian prints,[74] which I could never endure while -they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after Titian, etc., but -when I gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to -a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they -contain the history of Attila or Tottila done about the very æra. From -hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, -which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular -and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with (I call -it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to represent) -Gothic fretwork: the lightest Gothic balustrade to the staircase, -adorned with antelopes (our supporters) bearing shields; lean windows -fattened with rich saints in painted glass, and a vestibule open with -three arches on the landing place, and niches full of trophies of old -coats of mail, Indian shields made of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, -quivers, long-bows, arrows, and spears,--all _supposed_ to be taken -by Sir Terry Robsart [an ancestor of Sir Robert Walpole] in the holy -wars. But as none of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pass -to that. The room on the ground floor nearest to you is a bedchamber, -hung with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner, invented -by Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders printed. Over -this is Mr. Chute's bed-chamber, hung with red in the same manner. The -bow-window room one pair of stairs is not yet finished; but in the -tower beyond it is the charming closet where I am now writing to you. -It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; has two windows: -the one in the drawing looks to the garden, the other to the beautiful -prospect; and the top of each glutted with the richest painted glass -of the arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces of -green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, that the -castle, when finished, will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with -painted glass. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's College of Arms, -are two presses of books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sévigné's -Letters, and any French books that relate to her and her acquaintance. -Out of this closet is the room where we always live, hung with a blue -and white paper in stripes adorned with festoons, and a thousand plump -chairs, couches, and luxurious settees covered with linen of the same -pattern, and with a bow window commanding the prospect, and gloomed -with limes that shade half each window, already darkened with painted -glass in chiaroscuro, set in deep blue glass. Under this room is a cool -little hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper to imitate Dutch -tiles. - -[73] In the Tribune (see chap. viii.) was a drawing by Mr. Bentley, -representing two lovers in a church looking at the tombs of Abelard and -Eloisa, and illustrating Pope's lines:-- - - 'If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings - To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs,' etc. - - -[74] The chiaroscuros of John Baptist Jackson, published at Venice in -1742. At this date he had returned to England, and was working in a -paper-hanging manufactory at Battersea. - -'I have described so much that you will begin to think that all the -accounts I used to give you of the diminutiveness of our habitation -were fabulous; but it is really incredible how small most of the rooms -are. The only two good chambers I shall have are not yet built: they -will be an eating-room and a library, each twenty by thirty, and the -latter fifteen feet high. For the rest of the house, I could send it to -you in this letter as easily as the drawing, only that I should have -nowhere to live until the return of the post. The Chinese summer-house, -which you may distinguish in the distant landscape, belongs to my Lord -Radnor.[75] We pique ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, and have -no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayings, or tawdry businesses.'[76] - -[75] Lord Radnor's fantastic house on the river, which Walpole -nicknamed Mabland, came between Strawberry Hill and Pope's Villa, and -is a conspicuous object in old views of Twickenham, notably in that, -dated 1757, by Müntz, a Jersey artist for some time domiciled at -Strawberry Hill (_see_ p. 138). It was in the garden of Radnor House -that Pope first met Warburton. - -[76] _Walpole to Mann_, 12 June, 1753. - -From this it will appear that in June, 1753, the library and refectory -were not yet built, so that when he says, in the printed description, -that they were new built in 1753, he must mean no more than that they -had been begun. In a later letter, of May, 1754, they were still -unfinished. Meanwhile the house is gradually attracting more and more -attention. George Montagu comes, and is 'in raptures and screams, -and hoops, and hollas, and dances, and crosses himself a thousand -times over.' The next visitor is 'Nolkejumskoi,'--otherwise the Duke -of Cumberland,--who inspects it much after the fashion of a gracious -Gulliver surveying a castle in Lilliput. Afterwards, attracted by the -reports of Lady Hervey and Mr. Bristow (brother of the Countess of -Buckingham), arrives my Lord Bath, who is stirred into celebrating -it to the tune of a song of Bubb Dodington on Mrs. Strawbridge. His -Lordship does not seem to have got further than two stanzas; but -Walpole, not to leave so complimentary a tribute in the depressed -condition of a fragment, discreetly revised and completed it himself. -The lines may fairly find a place here as an example of his lighter -muse. The first and third verses are Lord Bath's, the rest being -obviously written in order to bring in 'Nolkejumskoi' and some personal -friends:-- - - 'Some cry up Gunnersbury, - For Sion some declare; - And some say that with Chiswick-house - No villa can compare: - But ask the beaux of Middlesex, - Who know the county well, - If Strawb'ry-hill, if Strawb'ry-hill - Don't bear away the bell? - - 'Some love to roll down Greenwich-hill - For this thing and for that; - And some prefer sweet Marble-hill, - Tho' sure 'tis somewhat flat: - Yet Marble-hill and Greenwich-hill, - If Kitty Clive can tell, - From Strawb'ry-hill, from Strawb'ry-hill - Will never bear the bell. - - 'Tho' Surrey boasts its Oatlands, - And Clermont kept so jim, - And some prefer sweet Southcote's, - 'Tis but a dainty whim; - For ask the gallant Bristow, - Who does in taste excell, - If Strawb'ry-hill, if Strawb'ry-hill - Don't bear away the bell - - 'Since Denham sung of Cooper's, - There's scarce a hill around, - But what in song or ditty - Is turn'd to fairy-ground,-- - Ah, peace be with their memories! - I wish them wond'rous well; - But Strawb'ry-hill, but Strawb'ry-hill - Must bear away the bell. - - 'Great William dwells at Windsor, - As Edward did of old; - And many a Gaul and many a Scot - Have found him full as bold. - On lofty hills like Windsor - Such heroes ought to dwell; - Yet little folks like Strawb'ry-hill, - Like Strawb'ry-hill as well.'[77] - -[77] The version here followed is that given in _A Description of the -Villa_, etc., 1774, pp. 117-19. - -Cumberland Lodge, where, say the old guide-books, the hero of Culloden -'reposed after victory,' still stands on the hill at the end of the -Long Walk at Windsor; and at 'Gunnersbury' lived the Princess Amelia. -All the other houses referred to are in existence. 'Sweet Marble-hill,' -which, like Strawberry, was not long ago put up for sale, had at this -date for mistress the Countess Dowager of Suffolk (Mrs. Howard), for -whom it had been built by her royal lover, George II.; and Chiswick -House, (now the Marquis of Bute's), that famous structure of Kent which -Lord Hervey said was 'too small to inhabit, and too large to hang -to one's watch,' was the residence of Richard, Earl of Burlington. -Claremont 'kept so jim' [neat], was the seat of the Duke of Newcastle -at Esher; Oatlands, near Weybridge, belonged to the Duke of York, and -Sion House, on the Thames, to the Duke of Northumberland. Walpole and -his friends, it will be perceived, did not shrink from comparing small -things with great. But perhaps the most notable circumstance about this -glorification of Strawberry is that it should have originated with its -reputed author. 'Can there be,' says Walpole, 'an odder revolution -of things, than that the printer of the _Craftsman_ should live in a -house of mine, and that the author of the _Craftsman_ should write -a panegyric on a house of mine?' The printer was Richard Francklin, -already mentioned as his tenant; and Lord Bath, if not the actual, was -at least the putative, writer of most of the _Craftsman's_ attacks upon -Sir Robert Walpole. It is possible, however, that, as with the poem, -part only of this honour really belonged to him. - -Strawberry Hill and its improvements have, however, carried us far -from the date at which this chapter begins, and we must return to -1747. Happily the life of Walpole, though voluminously chronicled in -his correspondence, is not so crowded with personal incident as to -make a space of six years a serious matter to recover, especially -when tested by the brief but still very detailed record in the _Short -Notes_ of what he held to be its conspicuous occurrences. In 1747-49 -his zeal for his father's memory involved him in a good deal of party -pamphleteering, and in 1749, he had what he styles 'a remarkable -quarrel' with the Speaker, of which one may say that, in these days, -it would scarcely deserve its qualifying epithet, although it produced -more paper war. 'These things [he says himself] were only excusable -by the lengths to which party had been carried against my father; or -rather, were not excusable even then.' For this reason it is needless -to dwell upon them here, as well as upon certain other papers in _The -Remembrancer_ for 1749, and a tract called _Delenda est Oxonia_, -prompted by a heinous scheme, which was meditated by the Ministry, of -attacking the liberties of that University by vesting in the Crown the -nomination of the Chancellor. This piece [he says], which I think -one of my best, was seized at the printer's and suppressed.' Then in -November, 1749, comes something like a really 'moving incident,'--he -is robbed in Hyde Park. He was returning by moonlight to Arlington -Street from Lord Holland's, when his coach was stopped by two of the -most notorious of 'Diana's foresters,'--Plunket and James Maclean; -and the adventure had all but a tragic termination. Maclean's pistol -went off by accident, sending a bullet so nearly through Walpole's -head that it grazed the skin under his eye, stunned him, and passed -through the roof of the chariot. His correspondence contains no more -than a passing reference to this narrow escape,--probably because it -was amply reported (and expanded) in the public prints. But in a paper -which he contributed to the _World_ a year or two later, under guise -of relating what had happened to one of his acquaintance, he reverts -to this experience. 'The whole affair [he says] was conducted with the -greatest good-breeding on both sides. The robber, who had only taken -a purse _this way_, because he had that morning been disappointed of -marrying a great fortune, no sooner returned to his lodgings, than he -sent the gentleman [_i. e._, Walpole himself] two letters of excuses, -which, with less wit than the epistles of Voiture, had ten times more -natural and easy politeness in the turn of their expression. In the -postscript, he appointed a meeting at Tyburn at twelve at night, where -the gentleman might _purchase again_ any trifles he had lost; and my -friend has been blamed for not accepting the rendezvous, as it seemed -liable to be construed by ill-natured people into a doubt of the -_honour_ of a man who had given him all the satisfaction in his power -for having _unluckily_ been near shooting him through the head.'[78] - -[78] _World_, 19 Dec., 1754 (_Works_, 1798, i. 177-8). - -The 'fashionable highwayman' (as Mr. Maclean was called) was taken soon -afterwards, and hanged. 'I am honourably mentioned in a Grub-street -ballad [says Walpole] for not having contributed to his sentence;' and -he goes on to say that there are as many prints and pamphlets about -him as about that other sensation of 1750, the earthquake. Maclean -seems nevertheless to have been rather a pinchbeck Macheath; but for -the moment, in default of larger lions, he was the rage. After his -condemnation, several thousand people visited him in his cell at -Newgate where he is stated to have fainted twice from the heat and -pressure of the crowd. And his visitors were not all men. In a note to -_The Modern Fine Lady_, Soame Jenyns says that some of the brightest -eyes were in tears for him; and Walpole himself tells us that he -excited the warmest commiseration in two distinguished beauties of the -day, Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe.[79] - -[79] Another instance of Maclean's momentary vogue is given by -Cunningham. He is hitched into Gray's _Long Story_, which was written -at the very time he was taken: - - 'A sudden fit of ague shook him, - He stood as mute as poor _Macleane_.' - -This couplet has been recently explained by Gray's latest editor, Dr. -Bradshaw, to be a reference to Maclean's only observation when called -to receive sentence. 'My Lord [he said], I _cannot speak_.' - -Miss Ashe, of whom we are told mysteriously by the commentators that -she 'was said to have been of very high parentage,' and Lady Caroline -Petersham, a daughter of the Duke of Grafton, figure more pleasantly -in another letter of Walpole, which gives a glimpse of some of those -diversions with which he was wont to relieve the gothicising of his -villa by the Thames. In a sentence that proves how well he understood -his own qualities, he says he tells the story 'to show the manners of -the age, which are always as entertaining to a person fifty miles off -as to one born an hundred and fifty years after the time.' We have -not yet reached the later limit; but there is little doubt as to the -interest of Walpole's account of his visit in the month of June, 1750, -to the famous gardens of Mr. Jonathan Tyers. He got a card, he says, -from Lady Caroline to go with her to Vauxhall. He repairs accordingly -to her house, and finds her 'and the little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe, -as they call her,' having 'just finished their last layer of red, and -looking as handsome as crimson could make them.' Others of the party -are the Duke of Kingston; Lord March, of Thackeray's _Virginians_; -Harry Vane, soon to be Earl of Darlington; Mr. Whitehead; a 'pretty -Miss Beauclerc,' and a 'very foolish Miss Sparre.' As they sail up the -Mall, they encounter cross-grained Lord Petersham (my lady's husband) -shambling along after his wont,[80] and 'as sulky as a ghost that -nobody will speak to first.' He declines to accompany his wife and her -friends, who, getting into the best order they can, march to their -barge, which has a boat of French horns attending, and 'little Ashe' -sings. After parading up the river, they 'debark' at Vauxhall, where -at the outset they narrowly escape the excitement of a quarrel. For -a certain Mrs. Lloyd, of Spring Gardens, afterwards married to Lord -Haddington, observing Miss Beauclerc and her companion following Lady -Caroline, says audibly, 'Poor girls, I am sorry to see them in such -bad company,'--a remark which the 'foolish Miss Sparre' (she is but -fifteen), for the fun of witnessing a duel, endeavours to make Lord -March resent. But my Lord, who is not only 'very lively and agreeable,' -but also of a nice discretion, laughs her out of 'this charming frolic, -with a great deal of humour.' Next they pick up Lord Granby, arriving -very drunk from 'Jenny's Whim,' at Chelsea, where he has left a mixed -gathering of thirteen persons of quality playing at Brag. He is in the -sentimental stage of his malady, and makes love to Miss Beauclerc and -Miss Sparre alternately, until the tide of champagne turns, and he -remembers that he is married. 'At last,' says Walpole,--and at this -point the story may be surrendered to him entirely,--'we assembled -in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front, with the visor of her hat -erect, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She had fetched my -brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with -his _petite partie_, to help us to mince chickens. We minced seven -chickens into a china dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with -three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring and rattling and -laughing, and we every minute expecting to have the dish fly about -our ears. She had brought Betty, the fruit girl,[81] with hampers of -strawberries and cherries from Rogers's, and made her wait upon us, -and then made her sup by us at a little table. The conversation was -no less lively than the whole transaction. There was a Mr. O'Brien -arrived from Ireland, who would get the Duchess of Manchester from Mr. -Hussey, if she were still at liberty. I took up the biggest hautboy -in the dish, and said to Lady Caroline, "Madam, Miss Ashe desires you -would eat this O'Brien strawberry;" she replied immediately, "I won't, -you hussey." You may imagine the laugh this reply occasioned. After -the tempest was a little calmed, the Pollard said, "Now, how anybody -would spoil this story that was to repeat it, and say, "I won't, you -jade." In short, the whole air of our party was sufficient, as you will -easily imagine, to take up the whole attention of the garden; so much -so that from eleven o'clock till half an hour after one we had the -whole concourse round our booth: at last, they came into the little -gardens of each booth on the sides of our's, till Harry Vane took up a -bumper, and drank their healths, and was proceeding to treat them with -still greater freedom. It was three o'clock before we got home.' He -adds a characteristic touch to explain Lord Granby's eccentricities. He -had lost eight hundred pounds to the Prince of Wales at Kew the night -before, and this had a 'little ruffled' his lordship's temper.[82] - -[80] He was popularly known as 'Peter Shamble.' He afterwards became -Earl of Harrington. - -[81] Elizabeth Neale, here referred to, was a well-known personage -in St. James's Street, where, for many years, she kept a fruit shop. -From Lady Mary Coke's _Letters and Journals_, 1889, vol. ii., p. 427, -Betty appears to have assiduously attended the debates in the House -of Commons being characterized as a 'violent Politician, & always in -the opposition.' In Mason's _Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, -Knight_, she is spoken of as 'Patriot Betty.' She survived until 1797, -when her death, at the age of 67, is recorded in the _Gentleman's -Magazine_. - -[82] _Walpole to Montagu_, 23 June, 1750. - -Early in 1753, Edward Moore, the author of some _Fables for the Female -Sex_, once popular enough to figure, between Thomson and Prior, in -Goldsmith's _Beauties of English Poesy_, established the periodical -paper called _The World_, which, to quote a latter-day definition, -might fairly claim to be 'written by gentlemen for gentlemen.' -Soame Jenyns, Cambridge of the _Scribleriad_ (Walpole's Twickenham -neighbour), Hamilton Boyle, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, and Lord -Chesterfield were all contributors. That Walpole should also attempt -this 'bow of Ulysses, in which it was the fashion for men of rank and -genius to try their strength,' goes without saying. His gifts were -exactly suited to the work, and his productions in the new journal are -by no means its worst. His first essay was a bright little piece of -persiflage upon what he calls the return of nature, and proceeds to -illustrate by the introduction of 'real water' on the stage, by Kent's -landscape gardening, and by the fauna and flora of the dessert table. -A second effort was devoted to that extraordinary adventurer, Baron -Neuhoff, otherwise Theodore, King of Corsica, who, with his realm for -his only assets, was at this time a tenant of the King's Bench prison. -Walpole, with genuine kindness, proposed a subscription for this -bankrupt Belisarius, and a sum of fifty pounds was collected. This, -however, proved so much below the expectations of His Corsican Majesty -that he actually had the effrontery to threaten Dodsley, the printer of -the paper, with a prosecution for using his name unjustifiably. 'I have -done with countenancing kings,' wrote Walpole to Mann.[83] Others of -his _World_ essays are on the Glastonbury Thorn; on Letter-Writing,--a -subject of which he might claim to speak with authority; on old women -as objects of passion; and on politeness, wherein occurs the already -quoted anecdote of Maclean the highwayman. His light hand and lighter -humour made him an almost ideal contributor to Moore's pages, and it -is not surprising to find that such judges as Lady Mary approved his -performances, or that he himself regarded them with a complacency which -peeps out now and again in his letters. 'I met Mrs. Clive two nights -ago,' he says, 'and told her I had been in the meadows, but would walk -no more there, for there was all the world. "Well," says she, "and -don't you like _The World_? I hear it was very clever last Thursday."' -'Last Thursday' had appeared Walpole's paper on elderly 'flames.' - -[83] Nevertheless, when this '_Roi en Exil_' shortly afterwards died, -Walpole erected a tablet in St. Anne's Churchyard, Soho, to his memory, -with the following inscription:-- - - 'Near this place is interred - Theodore, King of Corsica; - Who died in this parish, Dec. 11, 1756, - Immediately after leaving the King's-Bench-Prison, - By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency; - In consequence of which he registered - His Kingdom of Corsica - For the use of his Creditors. - - 'The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings - Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and Kings. - But Theodore this moral learn'd, ere dead; - Fate pour'd its lessons on his _living_ head, - Bestow'd a kingdom, and denied him bread.' - -Theodore's Great Seal, and 'that very curious piece by which he took -the benefit of the Act of Insolvency,' and in which he was only styled -Theodore Stephen, Baron de Neuhoff, were among the treasures of the -Tribune. (See Chapter VIII.) - -During the period covered by this chapter the _redintegratio amoris_ -with Gray, to which reference has been made, became confirmed. Whether -the attachment was ever quite on the old basis, may be doubted. -Gray always poses a little as the aggrieved person who could not -speak first, and to whom unmistakable overtures must be made by the -other side. He as yet 'neither repents, nor rejoices over much, but -is pleased,'--he tells Chute in 1750. On the other hand, Walpole, -though he appears to have proffered his palm-branch with very genuine -geniality, and desire to let by-gones be by-gones, was not above -very candid criticism of his recovered friend. 'I agree with you -most absolutely in your opinion about Gray,' he writes to Montagu -in September, 1748: 'he is the worst company in the world. From a -melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much -dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and -chosen, and formed into sentences; his writings are admirable; he -himself is not agreeable.' Meantime, however, the revived connection -went on pleasantly. Gray made flying visits to Strawberry and Arlington -Street, and prattled to Walpole from Pembroke between whiles. And -certainly, in a measure, it is to Walpole that we owe Gray. It was -Walpole who induced Gray to allow Dodsley to print in 1747, as an -attenuated _folio_ pamphlet, the _Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton -College_; and it was the tragic end of one of Walpole's favourite -cats in a china tub of gold-fish (of which, by the way, there was a -large pond called Po-yang at Strawberry) which prompted the delightful -occasional verses by Gray beginning:-- - - ''Twas on a lofty vase's side, - Where china's gayest art had dy'd - The azure flow'rs that blow; - Demurest of the tabby kind, - The pensive Selima reclin'd, - Gaz'd on the lake below,'-- - -a stanza which, with trifling verbal alterations, long served as a -label for the 'lofty vase' in the Strawberry Hill collection. To -Walpole's officious circulation in manuscript of the famous _Elegy -written in a Country Church-Yard_ must indirectly be attributed its -publication by Dodsley in February, 1751; to Walpole also is due -that typical piece of _vers de société_, the _Long Story_, which -originated in the interest in the recluse poet of Stoke Poges with -which Walpole's well-meaning (if unwelcome) advocacy had inspired -Lady Cobham and some other lion-hunters of the neighbourhood. But -his chief enterprise in connection with his friend's productions was -the edition of them put forth in March, 1753, with illustrations by -Richard Bentley, the youngest child of the famous Master of Trinity. -Bentley possessed considerable attainments as an amateur artist, and as -a scholar and connoisseur had just that virtuoso _finesse_ of manner -which was most attractive to Walpole, whose guest and counsellor he -frequently became during the progress of the Strawberry improvements. -Out of this connection, which, in its hot fits, was of the most -confidential character, grew the suggestion that Bentley should make, -at Walpole's expense, a series of designs for Gray's poems. These, -which are still in existence,[84] were engraved with great delicacy by -two of the best engravers of that time, Müller and Charles Grignion; -and the _Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana_, as Walpole christened them, became -and remains one of the most remarkable of the illustrated books of -the last century. Gray, as may be imagined, could scarcely oppose -the compliment; and he seems to have grown minutely interested in -the enterprise, rewarding the artist by some commendatory verses, -in which he certainly does not deny himself--to use a phrase of Mr. -Swinburne--'the noble pleasure of praising.'[85] But even over this -book the sensitive ligament that linked him to Walpole was perilously -strained. Without consulting him, Walpole had his likeness engraved -as a frontispiece,--a step which instantly drew from Gray a wail of -nervous expostulation so unmistakably heartfelt that it was impossible -to proceed with the plate. Thus it came about that _Designs by Mr. R. -Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray_ made its appearance without the -portrait of the poet. - -[84] A copy of the poems, 'illustrated with the original designs of Mr. -Richard Bentley, ... and also with Mr. Gray's original sketch of Stoke -House, from which Mr. Bentley made his finished pen drawing,' was sold -at the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842 to H. G. Bohn for £8 8_s._ - -[85] The verses include this magnificent stanza:-- - - 'But not to one in this benighted age - Is that diviner inspiration giv'n, - That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page, - The pomp and prodigality of heav'n.' - - -Bentley's ingenious son was not the only person whom the decoration of -Strawberry pressed into the service of its owner. Selwyn, the wit, -George James (or 'Gilly') Williams, a connoisseur of considerable -ability, and Richard, second Lord Edgecumbe, occasionally sat as -a committee of taste,--a function commemorated by Reynolds in a -conversation-piece which afterwards formed one of the chief ornaments -of the Refectory;[86] and upon Bentley's recommendation Walpole invited -from Jersey a humbler guest in the person of a German artist named -Müntz,--'an inoffensive, good creature,' who would 'rather ponder -over a foreign gazette than a palette,' but whose services kept him -domiciled for some time at the Gothic castle. Müntz executed many -views of the neighbourhood, which are still, like that of Twickenham -already referred to,[87] preserved in contemporary engravings. And -besides the persons whom Walpole drew into his immediate circle, the -'village,' as he called it, was growing steadily in public favour. -'Mr. Müntz'--writes Walpole in July, 1755--'says we have more coaches -than there are in half France. Mrs. Pritchard has bought Ragman's -Castle, for which my Lord Litchfield could not agree. We shall be as -celebrated as Baiæ or Tivoli; and if we have not as sonorous names as -they boast, we have very famous people: Clive and Pritchard, actresses; -Scott and Hudson, painters; my Lady Suffolk, famous in her time; -Mr. H[ickey], the impudent Lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against; -Whitehead, the poet; and Cambridge, the everything.' Cambridge has -already been referred to as a contributor to _The World_, and the -Whitehead was the one mentioned in Churchill's stinging couplet:-- - - 'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) - Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul,' - -who then lived on Twickenham Common. Hickey, a jovial Irish attorney, -was the legal adviser of Burke and Reynolds, and the 'blunt, pleasant -creature' of Goldsmith's 'Retaliation.' Scott was Samuel Scott, the -'English Canaletto;' Hudson, Sir Joshua's master, who had a house on -the river near Lord Radnor's. But Walpole's best allies were two of the -other sex. One was Lady Suffolk, the whilom friend (as Mrs. Howard) -of Pope and Swift and Gay, whose home at Marble Hill is celebrated in -the Walpole-cum-Pulteney poem; the other was red-faced Mrs. Clive, -who occupied a house known familiarly as 'Clive-den,' and officially -as Little Strawberry. She had not yet retired from the stage. Lady -Suffolk's stories of the Georgian Court and its scandals, and Mrs. -Clive's anecdotes of the green-room, and of their common neighbour at -Hampton, the great 'Roscius' himself (with whom she was always at war), -must have furnished Walpole with an inexhaustible supply of just the -particular description of gossip which he most appreciated. - -[86] It is copied in Cunningham, vol. iii. p. 475. It was sold for £157 -10_s._ at the Strawberry Hill sale, and passed into the collection of -the late Lord Taunton. - -[87] See p. 192 n. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - Gleanings from the _Short Notes_.--_Letter from Xo Ho._--The - Strawberry Hill Press.--Robinson the Printer.--Gray's _Odes_.--Other - Works.--_Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors._--_Anecdotes - of Painting._--Humours of the Press.--_The Parish Register of - Twickenham._--Lady Fanny Shirley.--Fielding.--_The Castle of Otranto._ - - -In order to take up the little-variegated thread of Walpole's life, we -must again resort to the _Short Notes_, in which, as already stated, he -has recorded what he considered to be its most important occurrences. -In 1754, he had been chosen member, in the new Parliament of that year, -for Castle Rising, in Norfolk. In March, 1755, he says, he was very -ill-used by his nephew, Lord Orford [_i. e._, the son of his eldest -brother, Robert], upon a contested election in the House of Commons, -'on which I wrote him a long letter, with an account of my own conduct -in politics.' This letter does not seem to have been preserved, and -it is difficult to conceive that its theme could have involved very -lengthy explanations. In February, 1757, he vacated his Castle Rising -seat for that of Lynn, and about the same time, he tells us, used his -best endeavours, although in vain, to save the unfortunate Admiral -Byng, who was executed, _pour encourager les autres_, in the following -March. But with the exception of his erection of a tablet to Theodore -of Corsica, and the dismissal, in 1759, of Mr. Müntz, with whom his -connection seems to have been exceptionally prolonged, his record for -the next decade, or until the publication of the _Castle of Otranto_, -is almost exclusively literary, and deals with the establishment of -his private printing press at Strawberry Hill, his publication thereat -of Gray's _Odes_ and other works, his _Catalogue of Royal and Noble -Authors_, his _Anecdotes of Painting_, and his above-mentioned romance. -This accidental absorption of his chronicle by literary production will -serve as a sufficient reason for devoting this chapter to those efforts -of his pen which, from the outset, were destined to the permanence of -type. - -Already, as far back as March, 1751, he had begun the work afterwards -known as the _Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of George -II._, to the progress of which there are scattered references in the -_Short Notes_. He had intended at first to confine them to the history -of one year, but they grew under his hand. His first definite literary -effort in 1757, however, was the clever little squib, after the model -of Montesquieu's _Lettres Persanes_, entitled _A Letter from Xo Ho, -a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien Chi, at Peking_, -in which he ingeniously satirizes the 'late political revolutions' -and the inconstant disposition of the English nation, not forgetting -to fire off a few sarcasms _à propos_ of the Byng tragedy. The piece, -he tells Mann, was written 'in an hour and a half' (there is always a -little of Oronte's _Je n'ai demeuré qu'un quart d'heure à le faire_ -about Walpole's literary efforts), was sent to press next day, and ran -through five editions in a fortnight.[88] Mrs. Clive was of opinion -that the rash satirist would be sent to the Tower; but he himself -regarded it as 'perhaps the only political paper ever written, in which -no man of any party could dislike or deny a single fact;' and Henry -Fox, to whom he sent a copy, may be held to confirm this view, since -his only objection seems to have been that it did not hit some of the -_other_ side a little harder. It would be difficult now without long -notes to make it intelligible to modern readers; but the following -outburst of the Chinese philosopher respecting the variations of the -English climate has the merit of enduring applicability. '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, passes in his calash[89] 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 [Kensington Palace], 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 linen, 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 [in May] writing to thee before a fire.'[90] - -[88] It may be observed that when Walpole's letter was published, it -was briefly noticed in the _Monthly Review_, where at this very date -Oliver Goldsmith was working as the hind of Griffiths and his wife. -It is also notable that the name of Xo Ho's correspondent, Lien Chi, -seems almost a foreshadowing of Goldsmith's Lien Chi Altangi. Can it -be possible that Walpole supplied Goldsmith with his first idea of the -_Citizen of the World_? - -[89] A four-wheeled carriage with a movable hood. Cf. Prior's _Down -Hall_: 'Then answer'd Squire Morley: Pray get a _calash_, That in -summer may burn, and in winter may splash,' etc. - -[90] _Works_, 1798, i. 208. - -In the following June Walpole had betaken himself to the place he -'loved best of all,' and was amusing himself at Strawberry with his -pen. The next work which he records is the publication of a Catalogue -of the Collection of Pictures, etc., of [_i. e._, belonging to] Charles -the First, for which he prepared 'a little introduction.' This, and -the subsequent 'prefaces or advertisements' to the Catalogues of the -Collections of James the Second, and the Duke of Buckingham, are to be -found in vol. i., pp. 234-41, of his works. But the great event of 1757 -is the establishment of the _Officina Arbuteana_, or private printing -press, of Strawberry Hill. 'Elzevir, Aldus, and Stephens,' he tells -Chute in July, 'are the freshest personages in his memory,' and he -jestingly threatens to assume as his motto (with a slight variation) -Pope's couplet:-- - - 'Some have at first for wits, then poets pass'd; - Turn'd _printers_ next, and proved plain fools at last.' - -'I am turned printer,' he writes somewhat later, 'and have converted a -little cottage into a printing-office. My abbey is a perfect college or -academy. I keep a painter [Müntz] in the house, and a printer,--not to -mention Mr. Bentley, who is an academy himself.' William Robinson, the -printer, an Irishman with noticeable eyes which Garrick envied ('they -are more Richard the Third's than Garrick's own,' says Walpole), must -have been a rather original personage, to judge by a copy of one of -his letters which his patron incloses to Mann. He says he found it in -a drawer where it had evidently been placed to attract his attention. -After telling his correspondent in bad blank verse that he dates from -the 'shady bowers, nodding groves, and amaranthine shades (?)' of -Twickenham,--'Richmond's near neighbour, where great George the King -resides,'--Robinson proceeds to describe his employer as 'the Hon. -Horatio Walpole, son to the late great Sir Robert Walpole, who is -very studious, and an admirer of all the liberal arts and sciences; -amongst the rest he admires printing. He has fitted out a complete -printing-house at this his country seat, and has done me the favour -to make me sole manager and operator (there being no one but myself). -All men of genius resorts his house, courts his company, and admires -his understanding: what with his own and their writings, I believe -I shall be pretty well employed. I have pleased him, and I hope to -continue so to do.' Then, after reference to the extreme heat,--a -heat by which fowls and quarters of lamb have been roasted in the -London Artillery grounds 'by the help of glasses,' so capricious was -the climate over which Walpole had made merry in May,--he proceeds to -describe Strawberry. 'The place I am now in is all my comfort from -the heat; the situation of it is close to the Thames, and is Richmond -Gardens (if you were ever in them) in miniature, surrounded by bowers, -groves, cascades, and ponds, and on a rising ground not very common in -this part of the country; the building elegant, and the furniture of -a peculiar taste, magnificent and superb.' At this date poor Robinson -seems to have been delighted with the place and the fastidious master -whom he hoped 'to continue to please.' But Walpole was nothing if not -mutable, and two years later he had found out that Robinson of the -remarkable eyes was 'a foolish Irishman who took himself for a genius,' -and they parted, with the result that the _Officina Arbuteana_ was -temporarily at a standstill. - -For the moment, however, things went smoothly enough. It had been -intended that the maiden effort of the Strawberry types should have -been a translation by Bentley of Paul Hentzner's curious account of -England in 1598. But Walpole suddenly became aware that Gray had -put the penultimate, if not the final, touches to his painfully -elaborated Pindaric Odes, the _Bard_ and the _Progress of Poesy_, and -he pounced upon them forthwith; Gray, as usual, half expostulating, -half overborne. 'You will dislike this as much as I do,'--he writes to -Mason,--'but there is no help.' 'You understand,' he adds, with the -air of one resigning himself to the inevitable, 'it is he that prints -them, not for me, but for Dodsley.' However, he persisted in refusing -Walpole's not entirely unreasonable request for notes. 'If a thing -cannot be understood without them,' he said characteristically, 'it -had better not be understood at all.' Consequently, while describing -them as 'Greek, Pindaric, sublime,' Walpole confesses under his breath -that they are a little obscure. Dodsley paid Gray forty guineas for -the book, which was a large, thin quarto, entitled _Odes by Mr. Gray; -Printed, at Strawberry Hill, for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall_. -It was published in August, and the price was a shilling. On the -title-page was a vignette of the Gothic castle at Twickenham. From a -letter of Walpole to Lyttelton it would seem that his apprehensions as -to the poems being 'understanded of the people' proved well founded. -'They [the age] have cast their eyes over them, found them obscure, and -looked no further; yet perhaps no compositions ever had more sublime -beauties than are in each,'--and he goes on to criticise them minutely -in a fashion which shows that his own appreciation of them was by no -means unqualified. But Warburton and Garrick and the 'word-picker' Hurd -were enthusiastic. Lyttelton and Shenstone followed more moderately. -Upon the whole, the success of the first venture was encouraging, and -the share in it of 'Elzevir Horace,' as Conway called his friend, was -not forgotten. - -Gray's _Odes_ were succeeded by Hentzner's _Travels_, or, to speak more -accurately, by that portion of Hentzner's _Travels_ which refers to -England. In England Hentzner was little known, and the 220 copies which -Walpole printed in October, 1757, were prefaced by an Advertisement -from his pen, and a dedication to the Society of Antiquaries, of which -he was a member. After this came, in 1758, his _Catalogue of Royal and -Noble Authors_; a collection of _Fugitive Pieces_ (which included his -essays in the _World_), dedicated to Conway;[91] and seven hundred -copies of Lord Whitworth's _Account of Russia_. Then followed a book by -Joseph Spence, _the Parallel of Magliabecchi and Mr._ [Robert] _Hill_, -a learned tailor of Buckingham, the object of which was to benefit -Hill,--an end which must have been attained, as six out of seven -hundred copies were sold in a fortnight, and the book was reprinted in -London. Bentley's _Lucan_, a quarto of five hundred copies, succeeded -Spence, and then came three other quartos of _Anecdotes of Painting_, -by Walpole himself. The only other notable products of the press -during this period are the Autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, -quarto, 1764, and one hundred copies of the _Poems_ of Lady Temple. -This, however, is a very fair record for seven years' work, when it -is remembered that the Strawberry Hill staff never exceeded a man and -a boy. As already stated, the first printer, Robinson, was dismissed -in 1759. His place, after a short interval of 'occasional hands,' was -taken by Thomas Kirgate, whose name thenceforth appears on all the -Twickenham issues, with which it is indissolubly connected. Kirgate -continued, with greater good fortune than his predecessors, to perform -his duties until Walpole's death. - -[91] These, though printed in 1758, were not circulated until 1759. -See, at end, 'Appendix of Books printed at the Strawberry Hill Press,' -which contains ample details of all these publications. - -In the above list there are two volumes which, in these pages, deserve -a more extended notice than the rest. _The Catalague of Royal and -Noble Authors_ had at least the merit of novelty, and certainly a -better reason for existing than some of the works to which its author -refers in his preface. Even the performances of Pulteney, Earl of -Bath, and the English rondeaus of Charles of Orleans are more worthy -of a chronicler than the lives of physicians who had been poets, of -men who had died laughing, or of Frenchmen who had studied Hebrew. -Walpole took considerable pains in obtaining information, and his book -was exceedingly well received,--indeed, far more favourably than he -had any reason to expect. A second edition, which was not printed at -Strawberry Hill, speedily followed the first, with no diminution of -its prosperity. For an effort which made no pretensions to symmetry, -which is often meagre where it might have been expected to be full, -and is everywhere prejudiced by a sort of fine-gentleman disdain of -exactitude, this was certainly as much as he could anticipate. But he -seems to have been more than usually sensitive to criticism, and some -of the amplest of his _Short Notes_ are devoted to the discussion of -the adverse opinions which were expressed. From these we learn that -he was abused by the _Critical Review_ for disliking the Stuarts, -and by the _Monthly_ for liking his father. Further, that he found -an apologist in Dr. Hill (of the _Inspector_), whose gross adulation -was worse than abuse; and lastly, that he was seriously attacked -in a Pamphlet of _Remarks on Mr. Walpole's 'Catalogue of Royal and -Noble Authors'_ by a certain Carter, concerning whose antecedents his -irritation goes on to bring together all the scandals he can collect. -As the _Short Notes_ were written long after the events, it shows how -his soreness against his critics continued. What it was when still -fresh may be gathered from the following quotation from a letter to -Rev. Henry Zouch, to whom he was indebted for many new facts and -corrections, especially in the second edition, and who afterwards -helped him in the _Anecdotes of Painting_: 'I am sick of the character -of author; I am sick of the consequences of it; I am weary of seeing -my name in the newspapers; I am tired with reading foolish criticisms -on me, and as foolish defences of me; and I trust my friends will be -so good as to let the last abuse of me pass unanswered. It is called -"Remarks" on my Catalogue, asperses the Revolution more than it does my -book, and, in one word, is written by a non-juring preacher, who was a -dog-doctor. Of me, he knows so little that he thinks to punish me by -abusing King William!'[92] - -[92] _Walpole to Zouch_, 14 May, 1759. - -In a letter of a few months earlier to the same correspondent, he -refers to another task, upon which, in despite of the sentence just -quoted, he continued to employ himself. 'Last summer'--he says--'I -bought of Vertue's widow forty volumes of his MS. collections relating -to English painters, sculptors, gravers, and architects. He had -actually begun their lives: unluckily he had not gone far, and could -not write grammar. I propose to digest and complete this work.'[93] -The purchases referred to had been made subsequent to 1756, when -Mrs. Vertue applied to Walpole, as a connoisseur, to buy from her -the voluminous notes and memoranda which her husband had accumulated -with respect to art and artists in England. Walpole also acquired at -Vertue's sale in May, 1757, a number of copies from Holbein and two -or three other pictures. He seems to have almost immediately set about -arranging and digesting this unwieldy and chaotic heap of material,[94] -much of which, besides being illiterate, was also illegible. More than -once his patience gave way under the drudgery; but he nevertheless -persevered in a way that shows a tenacity of purpose foreign, in this -case at all events, to his assumption of dilettante indifference. -His progress is thus chronicled. He began in January, 1760, and -finished the first volume on 14 August. The second volume was begun in -September, and completed on the 23rd October. On the 4th January in -the following year he set about the third volume, but laid it aside -after the first day, not resuming it until the end of June. In August, -however, he finished it. Two volumes were published in 1762, and a -third, which is dated 1763, in 1764. As usual, he affected more or -less to undervalue his own share in the work; but he very justly laid -stress in his 'Preface' upon the fact that he was little more than the -arranger of data not collected by his own exertions. 'I would not,' he -said to Zouch, 'have the materials of forty years, which was Vertue's -case, depreciated in compliment to the work of four months, which is -almost my whole merit.' Here, again, the tone is a little in the Oronte -manner; but, upon the main point, the interest of the work, his friends -did not share his apprehensions, and Gray especially was 'violent -about it.' Nor did the public show themselves less appreciative, for -there was so much that was new in the dead engraver's memoranda, and -so much which was derived from private galleries or drawn from obscure -sources, that the work could scarcely have failed of readers even if -the style had been hopelessly corrupt, which, under Walpole's revision, -it certainly was not. In 1762, he began a _Catalogue of Engravers_, -which he finished in about six weeks as a supplementary volume, and in -1765, still from the Strawberry Press, he issued a second edition of -the whole.[95] - -[93] _Walpole to Zouch_, 12 January, 1759. - -[94] 'Mr. Vertue's Manuscripts, in 28 vols.,' were sold at the Sale of -Rare Prints and Illustrated Works from the Strawberry Hill Collection -on Tuesday, 21 June, 1842, for £26 10_s._ Walpole says in the _Short -Notes_ that he paid £100. The Vertue MSS. are now in the British -Museum, which acquired them from the Dawson Turner collection. - -[95] _The Anecdotes of Painting_ was enlarged by the Rev. James -Dallaway in 1826-8, and again revised, with additional notes, by Ralph -N Wornum in 1839. This last, in three volumes, 8vo is the accepted -edition. - -After the appearance of the second edition of the _Anecdotes of -Painting_, a silence fell upon the _Officina Arbuteana_ for three -years, during the earlier part of which time Walpole was at Paris, as -will be narrated in the next chapter. His press, as may be guessed, -was one of the sights of his Gothic castle, and there are several -anecdotes showing how his ingenious fancy made it the vehicle of -adroit compliment. Once, not long after it had been established, -my Lady Rochford, Lady Townshend (the witty Ethelreda, or Audrey, -Harrison),[96] and Sir John Bland's sister were carried after dinner -into the printing-room to see Mr. Robinson at work. He immediately -struck off some verse which was already in type, and presented it to -Lady Townshend:-- - - -THE PRESS SPEAKS: - - From me wits and poets their glory obtain; - Without me their wit and their verses were vain. - Stop, Townshend, and let me but paint[97] what you say, - You, the fame I on others bestow, will repay. - -[96] She was married to Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend in 1723, and -was the mother of Charles Townshend, the statesman. She died in 1788. -There was an enamel of her by Zincke after Vanloo in the Tribune at -Strawberry Hill, which is engraved at p 150 of Cunningham's second -volume. - -[97] _Sic. in orig._; but query 'print.' - -The visitors then asked, as had been anticipated to see the actual -process of setting up; and Walpole ostensibly gave the printer four -lines out of Rowe's _Fair Penitent_. But, by what would now be styled a -clever feat of prestidigitation, the forewarned Robinson struck off the -following, this time to Lady Rochford:-- - - -THE PRESS SPEAKS. - - In vain from your properest name you have flown, - And exchanged lovely Cupid's for Hymen's dull throne; - By my art shall your beauties be constantly sung, - And in spite of yourself, you shall ever be _young_. - -Lady Rochford's maiden name, it should be explained, was 'Young.' Such -were what their inventor call _les amusements des eaux de Straberri_ in -the month of August and the year of grace 1757. - -Beyond the major efforts already mentioned, the _Short Notes_ contain -references to various fugitive pieces which Walpole composed, some of -which he printed, and some others of which have been published since -his death. One of these, _The Magpie and her Brood_, was a pleasant -little fable from the French of Bonaventure des Periers, rhymed for -Miss Hotham, the youthful niece of his neighbour Lady Suffolk; another, -a _Dialogue between two Great Ladies_. In 1761, he wrote a poem on -the King, entitled _The Garland_, which first saw the light in the -_Quarterly_ for 1852 [No. CLXXX.]. Besides these were several epigrams, -mock sermons, and occasional verses. But perhaps the most interesting -of his productions in this kind are the octosyllabics which he wrote in -August, 1759, and called _The Parish Register of Twickenham_. This is a -metrical list of all the remarkable persons who ever lived there, for -which reason a portion of it may find a place in these pages:-- - - 'Where silver Thames round Twit'nam meads - His winding current sweetly leads; - Twit'nam, the Muses' fav'rite seat, - Twit'nam, the Graces' lov'd retreat; - There polish'd Essex wont to sport, - The pride and victim of a court! - There Bacon tun'd the grateful lyre - To soothe Eliza's haughty ire; - --Ah! happy had no meaner strain - Than friendship's dash'd his mighty vein! - Twit'nam, where Hyde, majestic sage, - Retir'd from folly's frantic stage, - While his vast soul was hung on tenters - To mend the world, and vex dissenters - Twit'nam, where frolic Wharton revel'd, - Where Montagu, with locks dishevel'd - (Conflict of dirt and warmth divine), - Invok'd--and scandaliz'd the Nine; - Where Pope in moral music spoke - To th' anguish'd soul of Bolingbroke, - And whisper'd, how true genius errs, - Preferring joys that pow'r confers; - Bliss, never to great minds arising - From ruling worlds, but from despising: - Where Fielding met his bunter Muse, - And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice, - Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit - With inimaginable wit: - Where Suffolk sought the peaceful scene, - Resigning Richmond to the queen, - And all the glory, all the teasing, - Of pleasing one not worth the pleasing: - Where Fanny, "ever-blooming fair," - Ejaculates the graceful pray'r, - And 'scap'd from sense, with nonsense smit, - For Whitefield's cant leaves Stanhope's wit: - Amid this choir of sounding names - Of statesmen, bards, and beauteous dames, - Shall the last trifler of the throng - Enroll his own such names among? - --Oh! no--Enough if I consign - To lasting types their notes divine: - Enough, if Strawberry's humble hill - The title-page of fame shall fill.'[98] - -[98] _Works_, 1798, vol. iv., pp. 382-3. - -In 1784, Walpole added a few lines to celebrate a new resident and -a new favourite, Lady Di. Beauclerk, the widow of Johnson's famous -friend.[99] Most of the other names which occur in the _Twickenham -Register_ are easily identified. 'Fanny, "ever-blooming fair,"' was the -beautiful Lady Fanny Shirley of Phillips' ballad and Pope's epistle, -aunt of that fourth Earl Ferrers who in 1760 was hanged at Tyburn for -murdering his steward. Miss Hawkins remembered her as residing at a -house now called Heath Lane Lodge, with her mother, 'a very ancient -Countess Ferrers,' widow of the first Earl. Henry Fielding, to whom -Walpole gives a quatrain, the second couplet of which must excuse the -insolence of the first, had for some time lodgings in Back Lane, whence -was baptised in February, 1748, the elder of his sons by his second -wife, the William Fielding who, like his father, became a Westminster -magistrate. It is more likely that _Tom Jones_ was written at -Twickenham than at any of the dozen other places for which that honour -is claimed, since the author quitted Twickenham late in 1748, and his -great novel was published early in the following year. Walpole had only -been resident for a short time when Fielding left, but even had this -been otherwise, it is not likely that, between the master of the Comic -Epos (who was also Lady Mary's cousin!) and the dilettante proprietor -of Strawberry, there could ever have been much cordiality. Indeed, for -some of the robuster spirits of his age Walpole shows an extraordinary -distaste, which with him generally implies unsympathetic, if not -absolutely illiberal, comment. Almost the only important anecdote of -Fielding in his correspondence is one of which the distorting bias is -demonstrable;[100] and to Fielding's contemporary, Hogarth, although as -a connoisseur he was shrewd enough to collect his works, he scarcely -ever refers but to place him in a ridiculous aspect,--a course which -contrasts curiously with the extravagant praise he gives to Bentley, -Bunbury, Lady Di. Beauclerk, and some other of the very minor artistic -lights in his own circle. - -[99] See chapter ix. - -[100] Cf. chapter vi. of _Fielding_, by the present writer, in the _Men -of Letters_ series, 2nd edition, 1889, pp. 145-7. - -It is, however, possible to write too long an excursus upon the -_Twickenham Parish Register_, and the last paragraphs of this chapter -belong of right to another and more important work,--_The Castle -of Otranto_. According to the _Short Notes_, this 'Gothic romance' -was begun in June, 1764, and finished on the 6th August following. -From another account we learn that it occupied eight nights of this -period from ten o'clock at night until two in the morning, to the -accompaniment of coffee. In a letter to Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, -with whom Walpole commenced to correspond in 1762, he gives some -further particulars, which, because they have been so often quoted, -can scarcely be omitted here: 'Shall I even confess to you what was -the origin of this romance? I waked one morning, in the beginning of -last June, from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I -had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a -head filled, like mine, with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost -bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the -evening I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least -what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew -fond of it,--add that I was very glad to think of anything, rather than -politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed -in less than two months, that one evening I wrote from the time I had -drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the -morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary that I could not hold -the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, -in the middle of a paragraph.'[101] - -[101] _Letter to Cole_, 9 March, 1765. - -The work of which the origin is thus described was published in -a limited edition on the 24th December, 1764, with the title of -_The Castle of Otranto, a Story, translated by William Marshal, -Gent., from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the -Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto_. The name of the alleged Italian -author is sometimes described as an anagram from Horace Walpole,--a -misconception which is easily demonstrated by counting the letters. The -book was printed, not for Walpole, but for Lownds, of Fleet Street, -and it was prefaced by an introduction in which the author described -and criticised the supposed original, which he declared to be a -black-letter printed at Naples in 1529. Its success was considerable. -It seems at first to have excited no suspicion as to its authenticity, -and it is not clear that even Gray, to whom a copy was sent immediately -after publication, was in the secret. 'I have received the _Castle -of Otranto_,' he says, 'and return you my thanks for it. It engages -our attention here [at Cambridge], makes some of us cry a little, and -all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights.' In the second edition, -which followed in April, 1765, Walpole dropped the mask, disclosing -his authorship in a second preface of great ability, which, among -other things, contains a vindication of Shakespeare's mingling of -comedy and tragedy against the strictures of Voltaire,--a piece of -temerity which some of his French friends feared might prejudice him -with that formidable critic. But what is even more interesting is his -own account of what he had attempted. He had endeavoured to blend -ancient and modern romance,--to employ the old supernatural agencies -of Scudéry and La Calprenède as the background to the adventures of -personages modelled as closely upon ordinary life as the personages of -_Tom Jones_. These are not his actual illustrations, but they express -his meaning. 'The actions, sentiments, conversations, of the heroes and -heroines of ancient days were as unnatural as the machines employed to -put them in motion.' He would make his heroes and heroines natural in -all these things, only borrowing from the older school some of that -imagination, invention, and fancy which, in the literal reproduction of -life, he thought too much neglected. - -His idea was novel, and the moment a favourable one for its -development. Fluently and lucidly written, the _Castle of Otranto_ set -a fashion in literature. But, like many other works produced under -similar conditions, it had its day. To the pioneer of a movement which -has exhausted itself, there comes often what is almost worse than -oblivion,--discredit and neglect. A generation like the present, for -whom fiction has unravelled so many intricate combinations, and whose -Gothicism and Mediævalism are better instructed than Walpole's, no -longer feels its soul harrowed up in the same way as did his hushed -and awe-struck readers of the days of the third George. To the critic -the book is interesting as the first of a school of romances which had -the honour of influencing even the mighty 'Wizard of the North,' who, -no doubt in gratitude, wrote for _Ballantyne's Novelist's Library_ a -most appreciative study of the story. But we doubt if that many-plumed -and monstrous helmet, which crashes through stone walls and cellars, -could now give a single shiver to the most timorous Cambridge don, -while we suspect that the majority of modern students would, like -the author, leave Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a -paragraph, but from a different kind of weariness. _Autres temps, -autres mœurs_,--especially in the matter of Gothic romance. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - State of French Society in 1765.--Walpole at Paris.--The Royal Family - and the Bête du Gévaudan.--French Ladies of Quality.--Madame du - Deffand.--A Letter from Madame de Sévigné.--Rousseau and the King of - Prussia.--The Hume-Rousseau Quarrel.--Returns to England, and hears - Wesley at Bath.--Paris again.--Madame du Deffand's Vitality.--Her - Character.--Minor Literary Efforts.--The _Historic Doubts_.--The - _Mysterious Mother_.--Tragedy in England.--Doings of the Strawberry - Press.--Walpole and Chatterton. - - -When, towards the close of 1765, Walpole made the first of several -visits to Paris, the society of the French capital, and indeed French -society as a whole, was showing signs of that coming _culbute générale_ -which was not to be long deferred. The upper classes were shamelessly -immoral, and, from the King downwards, _liaisons_ of the most open -character excited neither censure nor comment. It was the era of -Voltaire and the Encyclopædists; it was the era of Rousseau and the -Sentimentalists; it was also the era of confirmed Anglomania. While -we, on our side, were beginning to copy the _comédies larmoyantes_ -of La Chaussée and Diderot, the French in their turn were acting -_Romeo and Juliet_, and raving over Richardson. Richardson's chief -rival in their eyes was Hume, then a _chargé d'affaires_, and, in -spite of his plain face and bad French, the idol of the freethinkers. -He 'is treated here,' writes Walpole, 'with perfect veneration;' and -we learn from other sources that no lady's toilette was complete -without his attendance. 'At the Opera,'--says Lord Charlemont,--'his -broad, unmeaning face was usually seen _entre deux jolis minois_; -the ladies in France gave the _ton_, and the _ton_ was Deism.' Apart -from literature, irreligion, and philosophy, the chief occupation was -cards. 'Whisk and Richardson' is Walpole's later definition of French -society; 'Whisk and disputes,' that of Hume. According to Walpole, a -kind of pedantry and solemnity was the characteristic of conversation, -and 'laughing was as much out of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. -Good folks, they have no time to laugh. There is God and the King to -be pulled down first; and men and women, one and all, are devoutly -employed in the demolition.' How that enterprise eventuated, history -has recorded. - -It is needless, however, to rehearse the origins of the French -Revolution, in order to make a background for the visit of an English -gentleman to Paris in 1765. Walpole had been meditating this journey -for two or three years; but the state of his health, among other -things (he suffered much from gout), had from time to time postponed -it. In 1763, he had been going next spring;[102] but when next spring -came he talked of the beginning of 1765. Nevertheless, in March of -that year, Gilly Williams writes to Selwyn: 'Horry Walpole has now -postponed his journey till May,' and then he goes on to speak of the -_Castle of Otranto_ in a way which shows that all the author's friends -were not equally enthusiastic respecting that ingenious romance. 'How -do you think he has employed that leisure which his political frenzy -has allowed of? In writing a novel, ... and such a novel that no -boarding-school miss of thirteen could get through without yawning. It -consists of ghosts and enchantments; pictures walk out of their frames, -and are good company for half an hour together; helmets drop from the -moon, and cover half a family. He says it was a dream, and I fancy -one when he had some feverish disposition in him.'[103] May, however, -had arrived and passed, and the _Castle of Otranto_ was in its second -edition, before Walpole at last set out, on Monday, the 9th September, -1765. After a seven hours' passage, he reached Calais from Dover. Near -Amiens he was refreshed by a sight of one of his favourites, Lady Mary -Coke,[104] 'in pea-green and silver;' at Chantilly he was robbed of -his portmanteau. By the time he reached Paris, on the 13th, he had -already 'fallen in love with twenty things, and in hate with forty.' -The dirt of Paris, the narrowness of the streets, the 'trees clipped to -resemble brooms, and planted on pedestals of chalk,' disgust him. But -he is enraptured with the _treillage_ and fountains, 'and will prove -it at Strawberry.' He detests the French opera, though he loves the -French _opéra-comique_, with its Italian comedy and his passion,--'his -dear favourite harlequin.' Upon the whole, in these first impressions -he is disappointed. Society is duller than he expected, and with -the staple topics of its conversation,--philosophy, literature, and -freethinking,--he is (or says he is) out of sympathy. 'Freethinking -is for one's self, surely not for society.... I dined to-day with -half-a-dozen _savans_, and though all the servants were waiting, the -conversation was much more unrestrained, even on the Old Testament, -than I would suffer at my own table in England if a single footman was -present. For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else -to do. I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed -professedly; and, besides, in this country one is sure it is only the -fashion of the day.' And then he goes on to say that the reigning -fashion is Richardson and Hume.[105] - -[102] It is curious to note in one of his letters at this date a _mot_ -which may be compared with the famous 'Good Americans, when they die, -go to Paris.' Walpole is more sardonic. 'Paris,' he says, '... like -the description of the grave, is the way of all flesh' (_Walpole to -Mann_, 30 June, 1763). - -[103] _Gilly Williams to Selwyn_, 19 March, 1765. - -[104] Lady Mary Coke, to whom the second edition of the Gothic romance -was dedicated, was the youngest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll and -Greenwich. At this date, she was a widow,--Lord Coke having died in -1753. Two volumes of her _Letters and Journals_, with an excellent -introduction by Lady Louisa Stuart, were printed privately at -Edinburgh in 1889 from MSS. in the possession of the Earl of Home. A -third volume, which includes a number of epistles addressed to her -by Walpole, found among the papers of the late Mr. Drummond Moray of -Abercairny, was issued in 1892. Walpole's tone in these documents is -one of fantastic adoration; but the pair ultimately (and inevitably) -quarrelled. There is a well-known mezzotint of Lady Mary by McArdell -after Allan Ramsay, in which she appears in white satin, holding a tall -theorbo. The original painting is at Mount Stuart, and belongs to Lord -Bute. - -[105] _Walpole to Montagu_, 22 September, 1765. - -One of his earliest experiences was his presentation at Versailles to -the royal family,--a ceremony which luckily involved but one operation -instead of several, as in England, where the Princess Dowager of Wales, -the Duke of Cumberland, and the Princess Amelia had all their different -levees. He gives an account of this to Lady Hervey; but repeats it -on the same day with much greater detail in a letter to Chute. 'You -perceive [he says] that I have been presented. The Queen took great -notice of me [for which reason, in imitation of Madame de Sévigné, he -tells Lady Hervey that she is _le plus grand roi du monde_]; none of -the rest said a syllable. You are let into the King's bedchamber just -as he has put on his shirt; he dresses, and talks good-humouredly to -a few, glares at strangers, goes to mass, to dinner, and a-hunting. -The good old Queen, who is like Lady Primrose in the face, and Queen -Caroline in the immensity of her cap, is at her dressing-table, -attended by two or three old ladies.... Thence you go to the Dauphin, -for all is done in an hour. He scarce stays a minute; indeed, poor -creature, he is a ghost, and cannot possibly last three months. [He -died, in fact, within this time, on the 20th December.] The Dauphiness -is in her bed-chamber, but dressed and standing; looks cross, is -not civil, and has the true Westphalian grace and accents. The four -Mesdames [these were the _Graille_, _Chiffe_, _Coche_, and _Loque_ of -history], who are clumsy, plump old wenches, with a bad likeness to -their father, stand in a bedchamber in a row, with black cloaks and -knotting-bags, looking good-humoured, [and] not knowing what to say.... -This ceremony is very short; then you are carried to the Dauphin's -three boys, who, you may be sure, only bow and stare. The Duke of -Berry [afterwards Louis XVI.] looks weak and weak-eyed; the Count de -Provence [Louis XVIII.] is a fine boy; the Count d'Artois [Charles -X.] well enough. The whole concludes with seeing the Dauphin's little -girl dine, who is as round and as fat as a pudding.'[106] Such is -Walpole's account of the royal family of France on exhibition. In the -Queen's ante-chamber he was treated to a sight of the famous _bête du -Gévaudan_, a hugeous wolf, of which a highly sensational representation -had been given in the _St. James's Chronicle_ for June 6-8. It had just -been shot, after a prosperous but nefarious career, and was exhibited -by two chasseurs 'with as much parade as if it was Mr. Pitt.'[107] - -[106] _Walpole to Chute_, 3 October, 1765. - -[107] Madame de Genlis mentions this fearsome monster in her -_Mémoires_: 'Tout le monde a entendu parler de la hyène de Gévaudan, -qui a fait tant de ravages.' The point of Walpole's allusion to Pitt -is explained in one of his hitherto unpublished letters to Lady Mary -Coke at this date: 'I had the fortune to be treated with the sight -of what, next to Mr. Pitt, has occasioned most alarm in France, the -Beast of the Gévaudan' (_Letters and Journals_, iii. [1892], xvii). In -another letter, to Pitt's sister Ann, maid of honour to Queen Caroline, -he says: 'It is a very large wolf, to be sure, and they say has twelve -teeth more than any of the species, and six less than the Czarina' -(_Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. Commission, 13th Rept., App._ iii., 1892, -i. 147). - -When he had been at Paris little less than a month, he was laid up with -the gout in both feet. He was visited during his illness by Wilkes, -for whom he expresses no admiration. From another letter it appears -that Sterne and Foote were also staying in the French capital at this -time. In November he is still limping about, and it is evident that -confinement in 'a bedchamber in a _hôtel garni_, ... when the court -is at Fontainebleau,' has not been without its effect upon his views -of things in general. In writing to Gray (who replies with all sorts -of kindly remedies), he says, 'The charms of Paris have not the least -attraction for me, nor would keep me an hour on their own account. -For the city itself, I cannot conceive where my eyes were: it is the -ugliest, beastliest town in the universe. I have not seen a mouthful of -verdure out of it, nor have they anything green but their _treillage_ -and window shutters.... Their boasted knowledge of society is reduced -to talking of their suppers, and every malady they have about them, or -know of.' A day or two later his gout and his stick have left him, and -his good humour is coming back. Before the month ends, he is growing -reconciled to his environment; and by January 'France is so agreeable, -and England so much the reverse,'--he tells Lady Hervey,--'that he -does not know when he shall return.' The great ladies, too, Madame -de Brionne, Madame d'Aiguillon, Marshal Richelieu's daughter, Madame -d'Egmont (with whom he could fall in love if it would break anybody's -heart in England), begin to flatter and caress him. His 'last new -passion' is the Duchess de Choiseul, who is so charming that 'you would -take her for the queen of an allegory.' 'One dreads its finishing, as -much as a lover, if she would admit one, would wish it should finish.' -There is also a beautiful Countess de Forcalquier, the 'broken music' -of whose imperfect English stirs him into heroics too Arcadian for the -matter-of-fact meridian of London, where Lady Hervey is cautioned not -to exhibit them to the profane.[108] - -[108] Of Mad. de Forcalquier it is related that, entering a theatre -during the performance of Gresset's _Le Méchant_, just as the line -was uttered, '_La faute est aux dieux, qui la firent si belle_,' the -applause was so great as to interrupt the play. The point of this, -in a recent repetition of the anecdote, was a little blunted by the -printer's substitution of '_bête_' for '_belle_.' - -In a letter of later date to Gray, he describes some more of these -graceful and witty leaders of fashion, whose '_douceur_' he seems to -have greatly preferred to the pompous and arrogant fatuity of the men. -'They have taken up gravity,'--he says of these latter,--'thinking it -was philosophy and English, and so have acquired nothing in the room of -their natural levity and cheerfulness.' But with the women the case is -different. He knows six or seven 'with very superior understandings; -some of them with wit, or with softness, or very good sense.' His -first portrait is of the famous Madame Geoffrin, to whom he had been -recommended by Lady Hervey, and who had visited him when imprisoned in -his _chambre garni_. He lays stress upon her knowledge of character, -her tact and good sense, and the happy mingling of freedom and severity -by which she preserved her position as 'an epitome of empire, -subsisting by rewards and punishments.' Then there is the Maréchale de -Mirepoix, a courtier and an _intrigante_ of the first order. 'She is -false, artful, and insinuating beyond measure when it is her interest, -but indolent and a coward,' says Walpole, who does not measure his -words even when speaking of a beauty and a Princess of Lorraine. -Others are the _savante_, Madame de Boufflers, who visited England -and Johnson, and whom the writer hits off neatly by saying that you -would think she was always sitting for her picture to her biographer; -a second _savante_, Madame de Rochfort, 'the _decent_ friend' of -Walpole's former guest at Strawberry, the Duc de Nivernais;[109] the -already mentioned Duchess de Choiseul, and Madame la Maréchale de -Luxembourg, whose youth had been stormy, but who was now softening down -into a kind of twilight melancholy which made her rather attractive. -This last, with one exception, completes his list. - -[109] Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini-Mazarini, Duc de Nivernais (1716-98), -who had visited Twickenham three years earlier, when he was Ambassador -to England. He was a man of fine manners, and tastes so literary that -his works fill eight volumes. They include a translation of Walpole's -_Essay on Modern Gardening_ (see appendix at end). In his letters to -Miss Ann Pitt at this date, Walpole speaks of the Duke's clever fables, -by which he is now best remembered. Lord Chesterfield told his son in -1749 that Nivernais was 'one of the prettiest men he had ever known,' -and in 1762 his opinion was unaltered. '_M. de Nivernais est aimé, -respecté, et admiré par tout ce qu' il y a d'honnêtes gens à la cour -et à la ville_,' he writes to Madame de Monconseil. The Duke's end was -worthy of Chesterfield himself, for he spent some of his last hours in -composing valedictory verses to his doctor. (See 'Eighteenth Century -Vignettes,' second series, pp. 107-137.) - -The one exception is a figure which henceforth played no inconsiderable -part in Walpole's correspondence,--that of the brilliant and witty -Madame du Deffand. As Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, she had been married at -one-and-twenty to the nobleman whose name she bore, and had followed -the custom of her day by speedily choosing a lover, who had many -successors. For a brief space she had captivated the Regent himself, -and at this date, being nearly seventy and hopelessly blind, was -continuing, from mere force of habit, a 'decent friendship' with the -deaf President Hénault. At first Walpole was not impressed with her, -and speaks of her, disrespectfully, as 'an old blind debauchee of wit.' -A little later, although he still refers to her as the 'old lady of the -house,' he says she is very agreeable. Later still, she has completed -her conquest by telling him he has _le fou mocquer_; and in the letter -to Gray above quoted, it is plain that she has become an object of -absorbing interest to him, not unmingled with a nervous apprehension of -her undisguised partiality for his society. In spite of her affliction -(he says) she 'retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, -passions, and agreeableness. She goes to Operas, Plays, suppers, and -Versailles; gives suppers twice a week; has every thing new read to -her; makes new songs and epigrams, ay, admirably,[110] and remembers -every one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds -with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, -is no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at the clergy and -the philosophers. In a dispute, into which she easily falls, she is -very warm, and yet scarce ever in the wrong; her judgment on every -subject is as just as possible; on every point of conduct as wrong as -possible: for she is all love and hatred, passionate for her friends -to enthusiasm, still anxious to be loved, I don't mean by lovers, -and a vehement enemy, but openly. As she can have no amusement but -conversation, the least solitude and ennui are insupportable to her, -and put her into the power of several worthless people, who eat her -suppers when they can eat nobody's of higher rank; wink to one another -and laugh at her; hate her because she has forty times more parts, and -venture to hate her because she is not rich.'[111] In another letter, -to Mr. James Crawford of Auchinames (Hume's _Fish_ Crawford), who was -also one of Madame du Deffand's admirers, he says, in repeating some -of the above details, that he is not 'ashamed of interesting himself -exceedingly about her. To say nothing of her extraordinary parts, she -is certainly the most generous, friendly being upon earth.' Upon her -side, Madame du Deffand seems to have been equally attracted by the -strange mixture of independence and effeminacy which went to make up -Walpole's character. Her attachment to him rapidly grew into a kind of -infatuation. He had no sooner quitted Paris, which he did on the 17th -April, than she began to correspond with him; and thenceforward, until -her death in 1780, her letters, dictated to her faithful secretary, -Wiart, continued, except when Walpole was actually visiting her (and -she sometimes wrote to him even then), to reach him regularly. Not long -after his return to England, she made him the victim of a charming -hoax. He had, when in Paris, admired a snuff-box which bore a portrait -of Madame de Sévigné, for whom he professed an extravagant admiration. -Madame du Deffand procured a similar box, had the portrait copied, and -sent it to him with a letter, purporting to come from the dateless -Elysian Fields and 'Notre Dame de Livry' herself, in which he was -enjoined to use his present always, and to bring it often to France and -the Faubourg St. Germain. Walpole was completely taken in, and imagined -that the box had come from Madame de Choiseul; but he should have known -at first that no one living but his blind friend could have written -'that most charming of all letters.' The box itself, the memento of so -much old-world ingenuity, was sold (with the pseudo-Sévigné epistle) -at the Strawberry Hill sale for £28 7_s._ When witty Mrs. Clive heard -of the last addition to Walpole's list of favourites, she delivered -herself of a good-humoured _bon mot_. There was a new resident at -Twickenham,--the first Earl of Shelburne's widow. 'If the new Countess -is but lame,' quoth Clive (referring to the fact that Lady Suffolk -was deaf, and Madame du Deffand blind), 'I shall have no chance of -ever seeing you.' But there is nothing to show that he ever relaxed -in his attentions to the delightful actress, whom he somewhere styles -_dimidium animæ meæ_.[112] - -[110] One of her _logogriphes_, or enigmas, is as follows:-- - - '_Quoique je forme un corps, je ne suis qu'une idée; - Plus ma beauté vieillit, plus elle est décidée: - Il faut, pour me trouver, ignorer d'où je viens: - Je tiens tout de lui, qui reduit tout à rien._' - -The answer is _noblesse_. Lord Chesterfield thought it so good that he -sent it to his godson (Letter 166). - -[111] _Walpole to Gray_, 25 January, 1766. - -[112] He was malicious enough to add, 'a pretty round half.' In middle -life Mrs. Clive, like her Twickenham neighbour, Mrs. Pritchard, grew -excessively stout; and there is a pleasant anecdote that, on one -occasion, when the pair were acting together in Cibber's _Careless -Husband_, the audience were regaled by the spectacle of two leading -actresses, neither of whom could manage to pick up a letter which, by -ill-luck, had been dropped upon the ground. - -One of the other illustrious visitors to Paris during Walpole's stay -there was Rousseau. Being no longer safe in his Swiss asylum, where the -curate of Motiers had excited the mob against him, that extraordinary -self-tormentor, clad in his Armenian costume, had arrived in December -at the French capital, and shortly afterwards left for England, under -the safe-conduct of Hume, who had undertaken to procure him a fresh -resting-place. He reached London on the 14th January, 1766. Walpole -had, to use his own phrase, 'a hearty contempt' for the fugitive -sentimentalist and his grievances; and not long before Rousseau's -advent in Paris, taking for his pretext an offer made by the King of -Prussia, he had woven some of the light mockery at Madame Geoffrin's -into a sham letter from Frederick to Jean-Jacques, couched in the true -Walpolean spirit of persiflage. It is difficult to summarize, and may -be reproduced here as its author transcribed it on the 12th January, -for the benefit of Conway:-- - -LE ROI DE PRUSSE À MONSIEUR ROUSSEAU. - - MON CHER JEAN-JACQUES,--Vous avez renoncé à Génève votre patrie; vous - vous êtes fait chasser de la Suisse, pays tant vanté dans vos écrits; - la France vous a décrété. Venez donc chez moi; j'admire vos talens; je - m'amuse de vos rêveries, qui (soit dit en passant) vous occupent trop, - et trop longtems. Il faut à la fin être sage et heureux. Vous avez - fait assez parler de vous par des singularités peu convenables à un - véritable grand homme. Démontrez à vos ennemis que vous pouvez avoir - quelquefois le sens commun: cela les fachera, sans vous faire tort. - Mes états vous offrent une retraite paisible; je vous veux du bien, et - je vous en ferai, si vous le trouvez bon. Mais si vous vous obstiniez - à rejetter mon secours, attendez-vous que je ne le dirai à personne. - Si vous persistez à vous creuser l'esprit pour trouver de nouveaux - malheurs, choisissez les tels que vous voudrez. Je suis roi, je puis - vous en procurer au gré de vos souhaits: et ce qui sûrement ne vous - arrivera pas vis à vis de vos ennemis, je cesserai de vous persécuter - quand vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire à l'être. - - Votre bon ami, - - FRÉDÉRIC. - -This composition, the French of which was touched up by Helvétius, -Hénault, and the Duc de Nivernais, gave extreme satisfaction to all the -anti-Rousseau party.[113] While Hume and his _protégé_ were still in -Paris, Walpole, out of delicacy to Hume, managed to keep the matter a -secret; and he also abstained from making any overtures to Rousseau, -whom, as he truly said, he could scarcely have visited cordially, with -a letter in his pocket written to ridicule him. But Hume had no sooner -departed than Frederick's sham invitation went the round, ultimately -finding its way across the Channel, where it was printed in the _St. -James's Chronicle_. Rousseau, always on the alert to pose as the victim -of plots and conspiracies, was naturally furious, and wrote angrily -from his retreat at Mr. Davenport's in Derbyshire to denounce the -fabrication. The worst of it was, that his morbid nature immediately -suspected the innocent Hume of participating in the trick. 'What -rends and afflicts my heart [is],' he told the _Chronicle_, 'that the -impostor hath his accomplices in England;' and this delusion became -one of the main elements in that 'twice-told tale,'--the quarrel of -Hume and Rousseau. Walpole was called upon to clear Hume from having -any hand in the letter, and several communications, all of which are -printed at length in the fourth volume of his works, followed upon the -same subject. Their discussion would occupy too large a space in this -limited memoir.[114] It is, however, worth noticing that Walpole's -instinct appears to have foreseen the trouble that fell upon Hume. -'I wish,' he wrote to Lady Hervey, in a letter which Hume carried to -England when he accompanied his untunable _protégé_ thither, 'I wish -he may not repent having engaged with Rousseau, who contradicts and -quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain their admiration.'[115] -He certainly, upon the present occasion, did not belie this -uncomplimentary character. - -[113] In a recently printed letter to Miss Ann Pitt, 19 Jan., 1766, -Walpole makes reference to the popularity which this _jeu d'esprit_ -procured for him. 'Everybody wou'd have a copy [of course he encloses -one to his correspondent]; the next thing was, everybody wou'd see the -author.... I thought at last I shou'd have a box quilted for me, like -Gulliver, be set upon the dressing-table of a maid of honour, and fed -with bonbons.... If, contrary to all precedent, I shou'd exist in vogue -a week longer, I will send you the first statue that is cast of me in -_bergamotte_ or _biscuite porcelaine_' (_Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. -Commision, 13th Rept., App. iii._ [1892], i, 153). - -[114] Hume's narrative of the affair may be read in _A Concise and -Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume and Mr. Rousseau: with -the Letters that passed between them during their Controversy. As also, -the Letters of the Hon. Mr. Walpole, and Mr. D'Alembert, relative to -this extraordinary Affair. Translated from the French. London. Printed -for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, near Surry-street, in the Strand, -MDCCLXVI._ - -[115] _Walpole to Lady Hervey_, 2 January, 1766. In a letter to -Lady Mary Coke, dated two days later, he says: 'Rousseau set out -this morning for England. As He loves to contradict a whole Nation, -I suppose he will write for the present opposition.... As he is to -live at Fulham, I hope his first quarrel will be with his neighbour -the Bishop of London, who is an excellent subject for his ridicule' -(_Letters and Journals_, iii. 1892, xx). - -Before the last stages of the Hume-Rousseau controversy had been -reached, Hume was back again in Paris, and Walpole had returned to -London. Upon the whole, he told Mann, he liked France so well that -he should certainly go there again. In September, 1766, he was once -more attacked with gout, and at the beginning of October went to -Bath, whose Avon (as compared with his favourite Thames) he considers -'paltry enough to be the Seine or Tyber.' Nothing pleases him much at -Bath, although it contained such notabilities as Lord Chatham, Lord -Northington, and Lord Camden; but he goes to hear Wesley, of whom he -writes rather flippantly to Chute. He describes him as 'a lean, elderly -man, fresh-coloured, his hair smoothly combed, but with a _soupçon_ -of curl at the ends.' 'Wondrous clean,' he adds, 'but as evidently an -actor as Garrick. He spoke his sermon, but so fast, and with so little -accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a -lesson. There were parts and eloquence in it; but towards the end he -exalted his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm; decried learning, -and told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his college, who said, -'I _thanks_ God for everything.'[116] He returned to Strawberry Hill -in October. In August of the next year he again went to Paris, going -almost straight to Madame du Deffand's, where he finds Mademoiselle -Clairon (who had quitted the stage) invited to declaim Corneille in -his honour, and he sups in a distinguished company. His visit lasted -two months; but his letters for this period contain few interesting -particulars, while those of the lady cease altogether, to be resumed -again on the 9th October, a few hours after his departure. Two years -later he travels once more to Paris and his blind friend, whom he finds -in better health than ever, and with spirits so increased that he tells -her she will go mad with age. 'When they ask her how old she is, she -answers, "_J'ai soixante et mille ans_."' Her septuagenarian activity -might well have wearied a younger man. 'She and I,' he says, 'went -to the Boulevard last night after supper, and drove about there till -two in the morning. We are going to sup in the country this evening, -and are to go to-morrow night at eleven to the puppet-show.' In a -letter to George Montagu, which adds some details to her portrait, he -writes: 'I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, on all -sorts of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong.[117] She humbles -the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for -everybody. Affectionate as Madame de Sévigné, she has none of her -prejudices, but a more universal taste; and, with the most delicate -frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill -me, if I was to continue here.... I had great difficulty last night -to persuade her, though she was not well, not to sit up till between -two and three for the comet; for which purpose she had appointed an -astronomer to bring his telescopes to the President Hénault's, as -she thought it would amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so -excessive that I feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a -round of diversions, which I have quitted at home.'[118] One of the -other amusements which she procured for him was the _entrée_ of the -famous convent of St. Cyr, of which he gives an interesting account. He -inspects the pensioners, and the numerous portraits of the foundress, -Madame de Maintenon. In one class-room he hears the young ladies sing -the choruses in _Athalie_; in another sees them dance minuets to the -violin of a nun who is not precisely St. Cecilia. In the third room -they act _proverbes_, or conversations. Finally, he is enabled to -enrich the archives of Strawberry with a piece of paper containing a -few sentences of Madame de Maintenon's handwriting. - -[116] _Walpole to Chute_, 10 October, 1766. - - -[117] Lady Mary Coke testifies to the charm of her conversation: 'In -the evening I made a visit to Madame du Deffan [_sic_]. She talks so -well that I wish'd to write down everything She said, as I thought I -shou'd have liked to have read it afterwards' (_Letters and Journals_, -iii. [1892], 233). - -[118] _Walpole to Montagu_, 7 September, 1769. - -Walpole's literary productions for this date (in addition to the -letter from the King of Prussia to Rousseau) are scheduled in the -_Short Notes_ with his usual minuteness. In June, 1766, shortly -after his return from Paris, he wrote a squib upon Captain Byron's -description of the Patagonians, entitled, _An Account of the Giants -lately discovered_, which was published on the 25th August. On 18 -August he began his _Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third_; -and, in 1767, the detection of a work published at Paris in two volumes -under the title of the _Testament du Chevalier Robert Walpole_, and -'stamped in that mint of forgeries, Holland.' This, which is printed -in the second volume of his works, remained unpublished during his -lifetime, as no English translation of the _Testament_ was ever -made. His next deliverance was a letter, subsequently printed in the -_St. James's Chronicle_ for 28 May, in which he announced to the -Corporation of Lynn, in the person of their Mayor, Mr. Langley, that -he did not intend to offer himself again as the representative in -Parliament of that town. A wish to retire from all public business, -and the declining state of his health, are assigned as the reasons for -his thus breaking his Parliamentary connection, which had now lasted -for five-and-twenty years. Following upon this comes the already -mentioned account of his action in the Hume and Rousseau quarrel, and -a couple of letters on _Political Abuse in Newspapers_. These appeared -in the _Public Advertiser_. But the chief results of his leisure in -1766-8 are to be found in two efforts more ambitious than any of those -above indicated,--the _Historic Doubts on Richard the Third_, and the -tragedy of _The Mysterious Mother_. The _Historic Doubts_ was begun in -the winter of 1767, and published in February, 1768; the tragedy in -December, 1766, and published in March, 1768. - -The _Historic Doubts_ was an attempt to vindicate Richard III. from his -traditional character, which Walpole considered had been intentionally -blackened in order to whiten that of Henry VII. '_Vous seriez un -excellent attornei général_,'--wrote Voltaire to him,--'_vous pesez -toutes les probabilités_.' He might have added that they were all -weighed on one side. Gray admits the clearness with which the principal -part of the arguments was made out; but he remained unconvinced, -especially as regards the murder of Henry VI. Other objectors speedily -appeared, who were neither so friendly nor so gentle. _The Critical -Review_ attacked him for not having referred to Guthrie's _History -of England_, which had in some respects anticipated him; and he was -also criticised adversely by the _London Chronicle_. Of these attacks -Walpole spoke and wrote very contemptuously; but he seems to have been -considerably nettled by the conduct of a Swiss named Deyverdun, who, -giving an account of the book in a work called _Mémoires Littéraires -de la Grande Bretagne_ for 1768, declared his preference for the -views which Hume had expressed in certain notes to the said account. -Deyverdun's action appears to have stung Walpole into a supplementary -defence of his theories, in which he dealt with his critics generally. -This he did not print, but set aside to appear as a postscript in his -works. In 1770, however, his arguments were contested by Dr. Milles, -Dean of Exeter, to whom he replied; and later still, another antiquary, -the Rev. Mr. Masters, came forward. The last two assailants were -members of the Society of Antiquaries, from which body Walpole, in -consequence, withdrew. But he practically abandoned his theories in a -final postscript, written in February, 1793, which is to be found in -the second volume of his works. - -Concerning the second performance above referred to, _The Mysterious -Mother_, most of Walpole's biographers are content to abide in -generalities. That the proprietor of Gothic Strawberry should have -produced _The Castle of Otranto_ has a certain congruity; but one -scarcely expects to find the same person indulging in a blank-verse -tragedy sombre enough to have taxed the powers of Ford or Webster. It -is a curious example of literary reaction, and his own words respecting -it are doubtful-voiced. To Montagu and to Madame du Deffand he writes -apologetically. '_Il ne vous plairoit pas assurément_,' he informs the -lady; '_il n'y a pas de beaux sentiments. Il n'y a que des passions -sans envelope_, _des crimes_, _des repentis_, _et des horreurs_;'[119] -and he lays his finger on one of its gravest defects when he goes on -to say that its interest languishes from the first act to the last. -Yet he seems, too, to have thought of its being played, for he tells -Montagu a month later that though he is not yet intoxicated enough -with it to think it would do for the stage, yet he wishes to see it -acted,--a wish which must have been a real one, since he says further -that he has written an epilogue for Mrs. Clive to speak in character. -The postscript which is affixed to the printed piece contradicts the -above utterances considerably, or, at all events, shows that fuller -consideration has materially revised them. He admits that _The -Mysterious Mother_ would not be proper to appear upon the boards. 'The -subject is so horrid that I thought it would shock rather than give -satisfaction to an audience. Still, I found it so truly tragic in -the two essential springs of terror and pity that I could not resist -the impulse of adapting it to the scene, though it should never be -practicable to produce it there.' After his criticism to Madame du -Deffand upon the plot, it is curious to find him later on claiming that -'every scene tends to bring on the catastrophe, and [that] the story -is never interrupted or diverted from its course.' Notwithstanding its -imaginative power, it is impossible to deny that the author's words as -to the repulsiveness of the subject are just. But it is needless to -linger longer upon a dramatic work which had such grave defects as to -render its being acted impossible, and concerning the literary merit of -which there will always be different opinions. Byron spoke of it as 'a -tragedy of the highest order,'--a judgment which has been traversed by -Macaulay and Scott; Miss Burney shuddered at its very name; while Lady -Di. Beauclerk illustrated it enthusiastically with a series of seven -designs in 'sut-water,'[120] for which the enraptured author erected -a special gallery.[121] Meanwhile, we may quote, from the close of the -above postscript, a passage where Walpole is at his best. It is a rapid -and characteristic _aperçu_ of tragedy in England: - -'The excellence of our dramatic writers is by no means equal in number -to the great men we have produced in other walks. Theatric genius -lay dormant after Shakespeare; waked with some bold and glorious, -but irregular and often ridiculous, flights in Dryden; revived in -Otway; maintained a placid, pleasing kind of dignity in Rowe, and even -shone in his _Jane Shore_. It trod in sublime and classic fetters in -_Cato_, but void of nature, or the power of affecting the passions. -In Southerne it seemed a genuine ray of nature and Shakespeare; but, -falling on an age still more Hottentot, was stifled in those gross and -barbarous productions, tragi-comedies. It turned to tuneful nonsense -in the _Mourning Bride_; grew stark mad in Lee, whose cloak, a little -the worse for wear, fell on Young, yet in both was still a poet's -cloak. It recovered its senses in Hughes and Fenton, who were afraid it -should relapse, and accordingly kept it down with a timid but amiable -hand; and then it languished. We have not mounted again above the two -last.'[122] - -[119] _Letters of Madame du Deffand_, 1810, i. 211 n. - -[120] _i. e._ Soot-water. There were two landscapes in soot-water by -Mr. Bentley in the Green Closet at Strawberry. - -[121] See chapter ix. - -[122] _Works_, 1798, i. 129. - -The _Castle of Otranto_ and the _Historic Doubts_ were not printed by -Mr. Robinson's latest successor, Mr. Kirgate. But the Strawberry Press -had by this time resumed its functions, for _The Mysterious Mother_, of -which 50 copies were struck off in 1768, was issued from it. Another -book which it produced in the same year was _Cornélie_, a youthful -tragedy by Madame du Deffand's friend, President Hénault. Walpole's -sole reason for giving it the permanence of his type appears to have -been gratitude to the venerable author, then fast hastening to the -grave, for his kindness to himself in Paris. To Paris three-fourths of -the impression went. More important reprints were Grammont's _Memoirs_, -a small quarto, and a series of _Letters of Edward VI._; both printed -in 1772. The list for this period is completed by the loose sheets of -_Hoyland's Poems_, 1769, and the well-known, but now rare, _Description -of the Villa of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill_, 1774, 100 copies -of which were printed, six being on large paper. To an account of -this patchwork edifice, the ensuing chapter will be chiefly devoted. -The present may fitly be concluded with a brief statement of that -always-debated passage in Walpole's life, his relations with the -ill-starred Chatterton. - -Towards the close of 1768, and early in 1769, Chatterton, fretting -in Mr. Lambert's office at Bristol, and casting about eagerly for -possible clues to a literary life, had offered some specimens of the -pseudo-Rowley to James Dodsley of Pall-Mall, but apparently without -success. His next appeal was made to Walpole, and mainly as the -author of the _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. What documents he -actually submitted to him, is not perfectly clear; but they manifestly -included further fabrications of monkish verse, and hinted at, or -referred to, a sequence of native artists in oil, hitherto wholly -undreamed of by the distinguished virtuoso he addressed. The packet was -handed to Walpole at Arlington Street by Mr. Bathoe, his bookseller -(notable as the keeper of one of the first circulating libraries in -London); and, incredible to say, Walpole was instantly 'drawn.' He -despatched without delay to his unknown Bristol correspondent such -a courteous note as he might have addressed to Zouch or Ducarel, -expressing interest, curiosity, and a desire for further particulars. -Chatterton as promptly rejoined, forwarding more extracts from -the Rowley poems. But he also, from Walpole's recollection of his -letter, in part unbosomed himself, making revelation of his position -as a widow's son and lawyer's apprentice, who had 'a taste and turn -for more elegant studies,' which inclinations, he suggested, his -illustrious correspondent might enable him to gratify. Upon this, -perhaps not unnaturally, Walpole's suspicions were aroused, the more -so that Mason and Gray, to whom he showed the papers, declared them -to be forgeries. He made, nevertheless, some private inquiry from an -aristocratic relative at Bath as to Chatterton's antecedents, and found -that, although his description of himself was accurate, no account of -his character was forthcoming. He accordingly--he tells us--wrote him -a letter 'with as much kindness and tenderness as if he had been his -guardian,' recommending him to stick to his profession, and adding, -by way of postscript, that judges, to whom the manuscripts had been -submitted, were by no means thoroughly convinced of their antiquity. -Two letters from Chatterton followed,--one (the first) dejected and -seemingly acquiescent; the other, a week later, curtly demanding the -restoration of his papers, the genuineness of which he re-affirmed. -These communications Walpole, by his own account, either neglected -to notice, or overlooked.[123] After an interval of some weeks -arrived a final missive, the tone of which he regarded as 'singularly -impertinent.' Snapping up both poems and letters in a pet, he scribbled -a hasty reply, but, upon reconsideration, enclosed them to their writer -without comment, and thought no more of him or them. It was not until -about a year and a half afterwards that Goldsmith told him, at the -first Royal Academy dinner, that Chatterton had come to London and -destroyed himself,--an announcement which seems to have filled him -with unaffected pity. 'Several persons of honour and veracity,' he -says, 'were present when I first heard of his death, and will attest my -surprise and concern.'[124] - -[123] He says he 'was going to Paris in a day or two.' But his memory -must have deceived him, for Chatterton's last letter is dated July -24th, 1769, and, according to Miss Berry, Walpole's visit to Paris -lasted from the 18th August to the 5th October, 1769; and this is -confirmed by his correspondence. - -[124] _Works_, 1798, iv. 219. In the above summary of the story we have -relied by preference on the fairly established facts of the case, which -is full of difficulties. The most plausible version of it, as well as -the most fair to Walpole, is given in Prof. D. Wilson's _Chatterton_, -1869. - -The apologists of the gifted and precocious Bristol boy, reading -the above occurrences by the light of his deplorable end, have -attributed to Walpole a more material part in his misfortunes than -can justly be ascribed to him; and the first editor of Chatterton's -_Miscellanies_ did not scruple to emphasize the current gossip, which -represented Walpole as 'the primary cause of his [Chatterton's] -dismal catastrophe,'[125]--an aspersion which drew from the Abbot of -Strawberry the lengthy letter on the subject which was afterwards -reprinted in his _Works_.[126] So long a vindication, if needed then, -is scarcely needed now. Walpole, it is obvious, acted very much as he -might have been expected to act. He had been imposed upon, and he was -as much annoyed with himself as with the impostor. But he was not harsh -enough to speak his mind frankly, nor benevolent enough to act the -part of that rather rare personage, the ideal philanthropist. If he -had behaved less like an ordinary man of the world; if he had obtained -Chatterton's confidence, instead of lecturing him; if he had aided and -counselled and protected him,--Walpole would have been different, and -things might have been otherwise. As they were, upon the principle that -'two of a trade can ne'er agree,' it is difficult to conceive of any -abiding alliance between the author of the fabricated _Tragedy of Ælla_ -and the author of the fabricated _Castle of Otranto_. - -[125] An example of this is furnished by Miss Seward's -_Correspondence_. 'Do not expect [she writes] that I can learn to -esteem that fastidious and unfeeling being, to whose insensibility we -owe the extinction of the greatest poetic luminary [Chatterton], if we -may judge from the brightness of its dawn, that ever rose in our, or -perhaps in any other, hemisphere' (_Seward to Hardinge_, 21 Nov., 1787). - -[126] _Works_, 1798, iv. 205-45. See also Bibliographical Appendix to -this volume. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - Old Friends and New.--Walpole's Nieces.--Mrs. Damer.--Progress - of Strawberry Hill.--Festivities and Later Improvements.--_A - Description_, etc., 1774.--The House and Approaches.--Great Parlour, - Waiting Room, China Room, and Yellow Bedchamber.--Breakfast - Room.--Green Closet and Blue Bedchamber.--Armoury and Library.--Red - Bedchamber, Holbein Chamber, and Star Chamber.--Gallery.--Round - Drawing Room and Tribune.--Great North Bedchamber.--Great Cloister - and Chapel.--Walpole on Strawberry.--Its Dampness.--A Drive from - Twickenham to Piccadilly. - - -In 1774, when, according to its title-page, the _Description of -Strawberry Hill_ was printed, Walpole was a man of fifty-seven. During -the period covered by the last chapter, many changes had taken place -in his circle of friends. Mann and George Montagu (until, in October, -1770, his correspondence with the latter mysteriously ceased) were -still the most frequent recipients of his letters, and next to these, -Conway, and Cole the antiquary. But three of his former correspondents, -his deaf neighbour at Marble Hill, Lady Suffolk,[127] Lady Hervey -(Pope's and Chesterfield's Molly Lepel, to whom he had written much -from Paris), and Gray, were dead. On the other hand, he had opened -what promised to be a lengthy series of letters with Gray's friend and -biographer, the Rev. William Mason, Rector of Aston, in Yorkshire; -with Madame du Deffand; and with the divorced Duchess of Grafton, who -in 1769 had married his Paris friend, John Fitzpatrick, second Earl -of Upper Ossory. There were changes, too, among his own relatives. By -this time his eldest brother's widow, Lady Orford, had lost her second -husband, Sewallis Shirley, and was again living, not very reputably, -on the Continent. Her son George, who since 1751 had been third Earl -of Orford, and was still unmarried, was eminently unsatisfactory. -He was shamelessly selfish, and by way of complicating the family -embarrassments, had taken to the turf. Ultimately he had periodical -attacks of insanity, during which time it fell to Walpole's fate to -look after his affairs. With Sir Edward Walpole, his second brother, he -seems never to have been on terms of real cordiality; but he made no -secret of his pride in his beautiful nieces, Edward Walpole's natural -daughters, whose charms and amiability had victoriously triumphed -over every prejudice which could have been entertained against their -birth. Laura, who was the eldest, had married a brother of the Earl of -Albemarle, subsequently created Bishop of Exeter; Charlotte, the third, -became Lady Huntingtower, and afterwards Countess of Dysart; while -Maria, the _belle_ of the trio, was more fortunate still. After burying -her first husband, Lord Waldegrave, she had succeeded in fascinating H. -R. H. William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the King's own brother, and -so contributing to bring about the Royal Marriage Act of 1772. They -were married in 1766; but the fact was not formally announced to His -Majesty until September, 1772.[128] Another marriage which must have -given Walpole almost as much pleasure was that of General Conway's -daughter to Mr. Damer, Lord Milton's eldest son, which took place in -1767. After the unhappy death of her husband, who shot himself in a -tavern ten years later, Mrs. Damer developed considerable talents as a -sculptor, and during the last years of Walpole's life was a frequent -exhibitor at the Royal Academy. _Non me Praxiteles finxit, at Anna -Damer_, wrote her admiring relative under one of her works, a wounded -eagle in terra-cotta;[129] and in the fourth volume of the _Anecdotes -of Painting_, he likens 'her shock dog, large as life,' to such -masterpieces of antique art as the Tuscan boar and the Barberini goat. - -[127] Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk, died in July, -1767. Her portrait by Charles Jervas, with Marble Hill in the -background, hung in the Green Bed-chamber in the Round Tower at -Strawberry. It once belonged to Pope, who left it to Martha Blount; and -it is engraved as the frontispiece of vol. ii. of Cunningham's edition -of the _Letters_. - -[128] 'The Duke of Gloucester'--wrote Gilly Williams to Selwyn, as -far back as December, 1764--'has professed a passion for the Dowager -Waldegrave. He is never from her elbow. This flatters Horry Walpole not -a little, though he pretends to dislike it.' - -[129] The idea was borrowed from an inscription upon a statue at Milan: -'Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit Agrati!' - -It is time, however, to return to the story of Strawberry itself, -as interrupted in Chapter V. In the introduction to Walpole's -_Description_ of 1774, a considerable interval occurs between the -building of the Refectory and Library in 1753-4, and the subsequent -erection of the Gallery, Round Tower, Great Cloister, and Cabinet, or -Tribune, which, already in contemplation in 1759, were, according to -the same authority, erected in 1760 and 1761. But here, as before, -the date must rather be that of the commencement than the completion -of these additions. In May, 1763, he tells Cole that the Gallery is -fast advancing, and in July it is almost 'in the critical minute of -consummation.' In August, 'all the earth is begging to come to see -it.' A month afterwards, he is 'keeping an inn; the sign, "The Gothic -Castle."' His whole time is passed in giving tickets of admission to -the Gallery, and hiding himself when it is on view. 'Take my advice,' -he tells Montagu, 'never build a charming house for yourself between -London and Hampton-court; everybody will live in it but you.' A year -later he is giving a great fête to the French and Spanish Ambassadors, -March, Selwyn, Lady Waldegrave, and other distinguished guests, which -finishes in the new room. 'During dinner there were French horns and -clarionets in the cloister,' and after coffee the guests were treated -'with a syllabub milked under the cows that were brought to the brow -of the terrace. Thence they went to the Printing-house, and saw a new -fashionable French song printed. They drank tea in the Gallery, and at -eight went away to Vauxhall.' - -This last entertainment, the munificence of which, he says, the -treasury of the Abbey will feel, took place in June, 1764; and it -is not until four years later that we get tidings of any fresh -improvements. In September, 1768, he tells Cole that he is going on -with the Round Tower, or Chamber, at the end of the Gallery, which, in -another letter, he says 'has stood still these five years,' and he is, -besides, '_playing_ with the little garden on the other side of the -road' which had come into his hands by Francklin's death. In May of the -following year he gives another magnificent _festino_ at Strawberry, -which will almost mortgage it, but the Round Tower still progresses. -In October, 1770, he is building again, in the intervals of gout; this -time it is the Great Bedchamber,--a 'sort of room which he seems likely -to inhabit much time together.' Next year the whole piecemeal structure -is rapidly verging to completion. 'The Round Tower is finished, and -magnificent; and the State Bedchamber proceeds fast.' In June he is -writing to Mann from the delicious bow window of the former, with -Vasari's Bianca Capello (Mann's present) over against him, and the -setting sun behind, 'throwing its golden rays all round.' Further -on, he is building a tiny brick chapel in the garden, mainly for the -purpose of receiving 'two valuable pieces of antiquity,'--one being a -painted window from Bexhill of Henry III. and his Queen, given him by -Lord Ashburnham; the other Cavalini's Tomb of Capoccio from the Church -of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, which had been sent to him by Sir -William (then Mr.) Hamilton, the English Minister at Naples. In August, -1772, the Great Bedchamber is finished, the house is complete, and he -has 'at last exhausted all his hoards and collections.' Nothing remains -but to compile the _Description and Catalogue_, concerning which he had -written to Cole as far back as 1768, and which, as already stated, he -ultimately printed in 1774. - -As time went on, his fresh acquisitions obliged him to add several -_Appendices_ to this issue; and the copy before us, although dated -1774, has supplements which bring the record down to 1786. A fresh -edition, in royal quarto, with twenty-seven plates, was printed in -1784;[130] and this, or an expansion of it, reappears in vol. ii. of -his _Works_. With these later issues we have little to do; but with the -aid of that of 1774, may essay to give some brief account of the long, -straggling, many-pinnacled building, with its round tower at the end, -the east and south fronts of which are figured in the black-looking -vignette upon the title-page. The entrance was on the north side, from -the Teddington and Twickenham road, here shaded by lofty trees; and -once within the embattled boundary wall, covered by this time with ivy, -the first thing that struck the spectator was a small oratory inclosed -by iron rails, with saint, altar, niches, and holy-water basins -designed _en suite_ by Mr. Chute. On the right hand--its gaily-coloured -patches of flower-bed glimmering through a screen of iron work copied -from the tomb of Roger Niger, Bishop of London, in old St. Paul's--was -the diminutive Abbot's, or Prior's, Garden, which extended in front of -the offices to the right of the principal entrance.[131] This was along -a little cloister to the left, beyond the oratory. The chief decoration -of this cloister was a marble _bas-relief_, inscribed 'Dia Helionora,' -being, in fact, a portrait of that Leonora D'Esté who turned the head -of Tasso. At the end was the door, which opened into 'a small gloomy -hall' united with the staircase, the balustrades of which, designed -by Bentley, were decorated with antelopes, the Walpole supporters. -In the well of the staircase was a Gothic lantern of japanned tin, -also due to Bentley's fertile invention. If, instead of climbing the -stairs, you turned out of the hall into a little passage on your left, -you found yourself in the Refectory, or Great Parlour, where were -accumulated the family portraits. Here, over the chimney-piece, was the -'conversation,' by Sir Joshua Reynolds, representing the triumvirate -of Selwyn, Williams, and Lord Edgcumbe, already referred to at p. 138; -here also were Sir Robert Walpole and his two wives, Catherine Shorter -and Maria Skerret; Robert Walpole the second, and his wife in a white -riding-habit; Horace himself by Richardson; Dorothy Walpole, his aunt, -who became Lady Townshend;[132] his sister, Lady Maria Churchill; and -a number of others. In the Waiting Room, into which the Refectory -opened, was a stone head of John Dryden, whom Catherine Shorter claimed -as great-uncle; next to this again was the China Closet, neatly lined -with blue and white Dutch tiles, and having its ceiling painted by -Müntz, after a villa at Frascati, with convolvuluses on poles. In the -China Room, among great stores of Sèvres and Chelsea, and oriental -china, perhaps the greatest curiosity was a couple of Saxon tankards, -exactly alike in form and size, which had been presented to Sir Robert -Walpole at different times by the mistresses of the first two Georges, -the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Yarmouth. To the left of the -China Closet, with a bow window looking to the south, was the Little -Parlour, which was hung with stone-coloured 'gothic paper' in imitation -of mosaic, and decorated with the 'wooden prints' already referred to, -the chiaroscuros of Jackson;[133] and at the side of this came the -Yellow Bedchamber, known later, from its numerous feminine portraits, -as the Beauty Room. The other spaces on the ground floor were occupied, -towards the Prior's Garden, by the kitchen, cellars, and servants' -hall, and, at the back, by the Great Cloister, which went under the -Gallery. - -[130] From a passage in a letter of 15 Sept., 1787, to Lady Ossory, -it appears that this, though printed, was withheld, on account of -certain difficulties caused by the over-weening curiosity of Walpole's -'customers' (as he called them), the visitors to Strawberry. According -to the sheet of regulations for visiting the house, it was to be seen -between the 1st of May and the 1st of October. Children were not -admitted; and only one company of four on one day. - -[131] 'It is not much larger than an old lady's flower-knot in -Bloomsbury,' said Lady Morgan in 1826. - -[132] See p. 6. - -[133] See p. 117 n. - -[Illustration: - - A Great Parlour or Refectory. - B Waiting Room. - C China Room. - D Little Parlour. - E Yellow Bedchamber. - F Hall. - G Pantry. - H Servants' Hall. - I Passage. - K Great Cloister. - L Wine Cellar. - M Beer Cellar. - N Kitchen. - O Oratory. - -STRAWBERRY HILL: GROUND PLAN--1781.] - -Returning to the staircase, where, in later years, hung Bunbury's -original drawing[134] for his well-known caricature of 'Richmond -Hill,' you entered the Breakfast Room on the first floor, the window -of which looked towards the Thames. It was pleasantly furnished with -blue paper, and blue and white linen, and contained many miniatures -and portraits, notable among which were Carmontel's picture of Madame -du Deffand and the Duchess de Choiseul;[135] a print of Madame du -Deffand's room and cats, given by the President Hénault; and a view -painted by Raguenet for Walpole in 1766 of the Hôtel de Carnavalet, the -former residence of Madame de Sévigné.[136] - -[134] It was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1781, and was -Bunbury's acknowledgment of the praise given him by Walpole in the -'Advertisement' to the fourth volume of the _Anecdotes of Painting_, -1 Oct., 1780. A copy of it was shown at the Exhibition of English -Humourists in Art, June, 1889. - -[135] In a note to Madame du Deffand's _Letters_, 1810, i. 201, the -editor, Miss Berry, thus describes this picture: It was 'a washed -drawing of Mad. la Duchesse de Choiseul and Mad. du Deffand, under -their assumed characters of grandmother and granddaughter; Mad. de -Choiseul giving Mad. du Deffand a doll. The scene the interior of -Mad. du Deffand's sitting-room. It was done by M. de Carmontel, an -amateur in the art of painting. He was reader to the Prince of Condé, -and author of several little Theatrical pieces.' It is engraved as -the frontispiece of vol. vii. of Walpole's _Letters_, by Cunningham, -1857-59. Mad. du Deffand's portrait was said to be extremely like; that -of the Duchess was not good. - -[136] 'It is now the Musée Carnavalet, and contains numberless -souvenirs of the Revolution, notably a collection of china plates, -bearing various dates, designs, and inscriptions applicable to the -Reign of Terror' (_Century_ _Magazine_, Feb., 1890, p. 600). A washed -drawing of Madame de Sévigné's country house at Les Rochers, 'done on -the spot by Mr. Hinchcliffe, son of the Bishop of Peterborough, in -1786,' was afterwards added to this room. - -The Breakfast Room opened into the Green Closet, over the door of which -was a picture by Samuel Scott of Pope's house at Twickenham, showing -the wings added after the poet's death by Sir William Stanhope. On -the same side of the room hung Hogarth's portrait of Sarah Malcolm -the murderess, painted at Newgate a day or two before her execution -in Fleet Street.[137] Here also was 'Mr. Thomas Gray; etched from his -shade [silhouette]; by Mr. W. Mason.' There were many other portraits -in this room, besides some water colours on ivory by Horace himself. -In a line with the Green Closet, and looking east, was the Library; -and at the back of it, the Blue Bedchamber, the toilette of which was -worked by Mrs. Clive, who, since her retirement from the stage in 1769, -had lived wholly at Twickenham. The chief pictures in this room were -Eckardt's portraits of Gray in a Vandyke dress and of Walpole himself -in similar attire.[138] There were also by the same artist pictures of -Walpole's father and mother, and of General Conway and his wife, Lady -Ailesbury. - -[137] Both these pictures are in existence. The Scott belongs to Lady -Freake, and was exhibited in the Pope Loan Museum of 1888. - -[138] Both these are engraved in Cunningham's edition of the _Letters_, -the former in vol. iv., p. 465, the latter in vol. ix., p. 529. - -Facing the Blue Bedchamber was the Armoury, a vestibule of three Gothic -arches, in the left-hand corner of which was the door opening into the -Library, a room twenty-eight feet by nineteen feet six, lighted by a -large window looking to the east, and by two smaller rose-windows at -the sides. The books, arranged in Gothic arches of pierced work, went -all round it. The chimney-piece was imitated from the tomb of John of -Eltham in Westminster Abbey, and the stone work from another tomb at -Canterbury. Over the chimney-piece was a picture (which is engraved in -the _Anecdotes of Painting_) representing the marriage of Henry VI. -Walpole and Bentley had designed the ceiling,--a gorgeous heraldic -medley surrounding a central Walpole shield. Above the bookcases -were pictures. One of the greatest treasures of the room was a clock -given by Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn. Of the books it is impossible to -speak in detail. Noticeable among them, however, was a Thuanus in -fourteen volumes, a very extensive set of Hogarth's prints, and all -the original drawings for the _Ædes Walpolianæ_. Vertue, Hollar, and -Faithorne were also largely represented. Among special copies, were the -identical _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ from which Pope made his translations -of Homer,[139] a volume containing Bentley's original designs for -Gray's _Poems_, and a black morocco pocket-book of sketches by Jacques -Callot. In a rosewood case in this room was also a fine collection of -coins, which included the rare silver medal struck by Gregory XIII. on -the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. - -[139] This was the Amsterdam edition of 1707, in 2 vols. 12mo., -inscribed 'E libris, A. Pope, 1714;' and lower down, 'Finished ye -translation in Feb. 1719-20, A. Pope.' It also contained a pencil -sketch by the poet of Twickenham Church. - -[Illustration: - - A Round Drawing Room. - B Cabinet or Tribune. - C Great North Bedchamber. - D Gallery. - E Holbein Chamber. - F Library. - G Beauclerk Closet or Cabinet. - H Armoury. - I China Closets. - K Back Stairs. - L Passage. - M Star Chamber. - N Red Bedchamber. - O Blue Bedchamber. - P Breakfast Room. - Q Green Closet. - -STRAWBERRY HILL: PRINCIPAL FLOOR--1781.] - -Concerning the Red Bedchamber, the Star Chamber, and the Holbein -Chamber, which intervened between the rest of the first floor and the -latest additions, there is little to say. In the Red Bedchamber, the -most memorable things (after the chintz bed on which Lord Orford died) -were some pencil sketches of Pope and his parents by Cooper and the -elder Richardson. In the Holbein Chamber, so called from a number of -copies on oil-paper by Vertue from the drawings of Holbein in Queen -Catherine's Closet at Kensington, were two of those 'curiosities' which -represent the Don Saltero, or Madame Tussaud, side of Strawberry, viz., -a tortoise-shell comb studded with silver hearts and roses which was -said to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and (later) the red -hat of Cardinal Wolsey. The pedigree of the hat, it must, however, be -admitted, was unimpeachable. It had been found in the great wardrobe by -Bishop Burnet when Clerk of the Closet. From him it passed to his son -the Judge (author of that curious squib on Harley known as the _History -of Robert Powel the Puppet-Show-Man_), and thence to the Countess -Dowager of Albemarle, who gave it to Walpole. A carpet in this room -was worked by Mrs. Clive, who seems to have been a most industrious -decorator of her friend's mansion museum.[140] The Star Chamber was but -an ante-room powdered with gold stars in mosaic, the chief glory of -which was a stone bust of Henry VII. by Torregiano. - -[140] Walpole wrote an epilogue--not a very good one--for Mrs. Clive -when she quitted the stage; and in the same year, 1769, the _Town and -Country Magazine_ linked their names in its '_Tête-à-Têtes_' as 'Mrs. -Heidelberg' (Clive's part in the _Clandestine Marriage_) and 'Baron -Otranto' (a name under which Chatterton subsequently satirized Walpole -in this identical periodical). See _Memoirs of a Sad Dog_, Pt. 2, July, -1770. - -With these three rooms, the first floor of Strawberry, as it existed -previous to the erection of the additions mentioned in the beginning -of this chapter,--namely, the Gallery, the Round Tower, the Tribune, -and the Great North Bedchamber,--came to an end. But it was in these -newer parts of the house that some of its rarest objects of art were -assembled. The Gallery, which was entered from a gloomy little passage -in front of the Holbein Chamber, was a really spacious room, fifty-six -feet by thirteen, and lighted from the south by five high windows. -Between these were tables laden with busts, bronzes, and urns; on the -opposite side, fronting the windows, were recesses, finished with gold -network over looking-glass, between which stood couch-seats, covered, -like the rest of the room, with crimson Norwich damask. The ceiling was -copied from one of the side aisles of Henry VII.'s Chapel; the great -door at the western end, which led into the Round Tower, was taken -from the north door of St. Albans. A long carpet, made at Moorfields, -traversed the room from end to end. In one of the recesses--that to the -left of the chimney-piece, which was designed by Mr. Chute and Mr. -Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc,--stood one of the finest surviving pieces of -Greek sculpture, the Boccapadugli eagle, found in the precinct of the -Baths of Caracalla,--a _chef-d'œuvre_ from which Gray is said to have -borrowed the 'ruffled plumes, and flagging wing' of the _Progress of -Poesy_; to the right was a noble bust in basalt of Vespasian, which -had been purchased from the Ottoboni collection. Of the pictures it -is impossible to speak at large; but two of the most notable were Sir -George Villiers, the father of the Duke of Buckingham, and Mabuse's -_Marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York_. Of Walpole's own -relatives, there were portraits by Ramsay of his nieces, Mrs. Keppel -(the Bishop's wife) and Lady Dysart, and of the Duchess of Gloucester -(then Lady Waldegrave) by Reynolds. There were also portraits of Henry -Fox, Lord Holland, of George Montagu, of Lord Waldegrave, and of -Horace's uncle, Lord Walpole of Wolterton.[141] - -[141] Horatio, brother of Sir Robert Walpole, created Baron Walpole of -Wolterton in 1756. He died in 1757. His _Memoirs_ were published by -Coxe in 1802. - -Issuing through the great door of the Gallery, and passing on the -left a glazed closet containing a quantity of china which had once -belonged to Walpole's mother, a couple of steps brought you into the -pleasant Drawing Room in the Round Tower, the bow window of which, -already mentioned, looked to the south-west. Like the Gallery, this -room was hung with Norwich damask. Its chief glory was the picture of -Bianca Capello, of which Walpole had written to Mann. To the left of -this room, at the back of the Gallery, and consequently in the front -of the house, was the Cabinet, or Tribune, a curious square chamber -with semicircular recesses, in two of which, to the north and west, -were stained windows. In the roof, which was modelled on the chapter -house at York, was a star of yellow glass throwing a soft golden glow -over all the room. Here Walpole had amassed his choicest treasures, -miniatures by Oliver and Cooper, enamels by Petitot and Zincke,[142] -bronzes from Italy, ivory bas-reliefs, seal-rings and reliquaries, -caskets and cameos and filigree work. Here, with Madame du Deffand's -letter inside it,[143] was the 'round white snuff-box' with Madame de -Sévigné's portrait; here, carven with masks and flies and grasshoppers, -was Cellini's silver bell from the Leonati Collection, at Parma, a -masterpiece against which he had exchanged all his collection of Roman -coins with the Marquis of Rockingham. A bronze bust of Caligula with -silver eyes; a missal with reputed miniatures by Raphael; a dagger of -Henry VIII.,[144] and a mourning ring given at the burial of Charles -I.,--were among the other show objects of the Tribune, the riches of -which occupy more space in their owner's Catalogue than any other part -of his collections. - -[142] 'The chief boast of my collection,' he told Pinkerton, 'is -the portraits of eminent and remarkable persons, particularly the -miniatures and enamels; which, so far as I can discover, are superior -to any other collection whatever. The works I possess of Isaac and -Peter Oliver are the best extant; and those I bought in Wales for 300 -guineas [_i.e._, the Digby Family, in the Breakfast Room] are as well -preserved as when they came from the pencil (_Walpoliana_, ii. 157). - -[143] It is printed in both the Catalogues. - -[144] At the sale in 1842, King Henry's dagger was purchased for -£54 12_s._ by Charles Kean the actor, who also became the fortunate -possessor, for £21, of Cardinal Wolsey's hat. - -With the Great North Bedchamber, which adjoined the Tribune, and -filled the remaining space at the back of the Gallery, the account of -Strawberry Hill, as it existed in 1774, comes to an end; for the Green -Chamber in the Round Tower over the Drawing Room, and 'Mr. Walpole's -Bedchamber, two pair of stairs' (which contained the Warrant for -beheading King Charles I., inscribed 'Major Charta,' so often referred -to by Walpole's biographers),[145] may be dismissed without further -notice. The Beauclerk Closet, a later addition, will be described in -its proper place. Over the chimney-piece in the Great North Bedchamber -was a large picture of Henry VIII. and his children, a recent purchase, -afterwards remanded to the staircase to make room for a portrait of -Catherine of Braganza, sent from Portugal previous to her marriage -with Charles II. Fronting the bed was a head of Niobe, by Guido, -which in its turn subsequently made way for _la belle Jennings_.[146] -Among the pictures on the north or window side of the room was the -original sketch by Hogarth of the _Beggar's Opera_, which Walpole had -purchased at the sale of Rich, the fortunate manager who produced Gay's -masterpiece at Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was exhibited at Manchester -in 1857, being then the property of Mr. Willett, who had bought it -at the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842. Another curious oil painting in -this room was the _Rehearsal of an Opera_ by the Riccis, which included -caricature portraits of Nicolini (of _Spectator_ celebrity), of the -famous Mrs. Catherine Tofts, and of Margherita de l'Epine. In a nook -by the window there was a glazed china closet, with a number of minor -curiosities, among which were conspicuous the speculum of cannel coal -with which Dr. Dee was in the habit of gulling his votaries,[147] and -an agate puncheon with Gray's arms which his executors had presented to -Walpole. - -[145] Here is his own reference to this, in a letter to Montagu of 14 -Oct., 1756: 'The only thing I have done that can compose a paragraph, -and which I think you are Whig enough to forgive me, is, that on -each side of my bed I have hung MAGNA CHARTA, and the Warrant for -King Charles's execution, on which I have written Major Charta; as I -believe, without the latter, the former by this time would be of very -little importance.' - -[146] See p. 7 n. - -[147] 'Dr Dee's black stone was named in the catalogue of the -collection of the Earls of Peterborough, whence it went to Lady Betty -Germaine. She gave it to the last Duke of Argyle, and his son, Lord -Frederic, to me' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 12 Jan., 1782) - - -A few external objects claim a word. In the Great Cloister under the -Gallery was the blue and white china tub in which had taken place -that tragedy of the 'pensive Selima' referred to at p. 135 as having -prompted the muse of Gray.[148] The Chapel in the Garden has already -been sufficiently described.[149] In the Flower Garden across the road -was a cottage which Walpole had erected upon the site of the building -once occupied by Francklin the printer, and which he used as a place of -refuge when the tide of sight-seers became overpowering. It included a -Tea Room, containing a fair collection of china, and hung with green -paper and engravings, and a little white and green Library, of which -the principal ornament was a half-length portrait of Milton.[150] A -portrait of Lady Hervey, by Allan Ramsay, was afterwards added to its -decorations.[151] - -[148] This was afterwards moved to the Little Cloister at the entrance, -where it appears in the later Catalogue. At the sale of 1842 the bowl, -with its Gothic pedestal, was purchased by the Earl of Derby for £42. - -[149] Not far from the Chapel was 'a large seat in the form of a shell, -carved in oak from a design by Mr. Bentley.' It must have been roomy, -for in 1759 the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury -(the last two, daughter and mother), occupied it together. 'There never -was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell,' -says the delighted Abbot of Strawberry. (_Walpole to Montagu_, 2 June.) - -[150] In a note to the obituary notice of Walpole in the _Gentleman's -Magazine_ for March, 1797, p. 260, it is stated that this library was -'formed of all the publications during the reigns of the three Georges, -or Mr. W.'s own time.' - -[151] This was exhibited at South Kensington in 1867 by Viscount -Lifford, and is now (1892) at Austin House, Broadway, Worcester. - -Many objects of interest, as must be obvious, have remained undescribed -in the foregoing account, and those who seek for further information -concerning what its owner called his 'paper fabric and assemblage of -curious trifles' must consult either the Catalogue of 1774 itself, -or that later and definitive version of it which is reprinted in -Volume II. of the _Works_ (pp. 393-516). The intention in the main has -here been to lay stress upon those articles which bear most directly -upon Walpole's biography. It will also be observed that, during the -prolonged progress of the house towards completion, his experience and -his views considerably enlarged, and the pettiness and artificiality -of his first improvements disappeared. The house never lost, and -never could lose, its invertebrate character; but the Gallery, the -Round Tower, and the North Bedchamber were certainly conceived in -a more serious and even spacious spirit of Gothicism than any of -the early additions. That it must, still, have been confined and -needlessly gloomy, may be allowed; but as a set-off to some of those -accounts which insist so pertinaciously upon its 'paltriness,' its -'architectural solecisms,' and its lack of beauty and sublimity, it is -only fair to recall a few sentences from the preface which its owner -prefixed to the _Description_ of 1784. It was designed, he says of the -Catalogue, to exhibit 'specimens of Gothic architecture, as collected -from standards in cathedrals and chapel-tombs,' and to show 'how -they may be applied to chimney-pieces, ceilings, windows, balustrades, -loggias, etc.' Elsewhere he characterizes the building itself as -candidly as any of its critics. He admits its diminutive scale and -its unsubstantial character (he calls it himself, as we have seen, a -'paper fabric'), and he confesses to the incongruities arising from -an antique design and modern decorations. 'In truth,' he concludes, -'I did not mean to make my house so Gothic as to exclude convenience, -and modern refinements in luxury.... It was built to please my own -taste, and in some degree to realize my own visions. I have specified -what it contains; could I describe the gay but tranquil scene where it -stands, and add the beauty of the landscape to the romantic cast of the -mansion, it would raise more pleasing sensations than a dry list of -curiosities can excite,--at least the prospect would recall the good -humour of those who might be disposed to condemn the fantastic fabric, -and to think it a very proper habitation of, as it was the scene that -inspired, the author of the _Castle of Otranto_.'[152] As one of his -censors has remarked, this tone disarms criticism; and it is needless -to accumulate proofs of peculiarities which are not denied by the -person most concerned. - -[152] _Works_, 1798, ii. 395-98. - -In spite of its charming situation, Strawberry Hill was emphatically -a summer residence; and there is more than one account in Walpole's -letters of the sudden floods which, when Thames flowed with a -fuller tide than now, occasionally surprised the inhabitants of the -pleasant-looking villas along its banks. It was decidedly damp, and -its gouty owner had sometimes to quit it precipitately for Arlington -Street, where, he says, 'after an hour,' he revives, 'like a member -of parliament's wife.' His best editor, Mr. Peter Cunningham, whose -knowledge as an antiquary was unrivalled,--for was he not the author -of the _Handbook of London_?--has amused himself, in an odd corner of -one of his prefaces, by retracing the route taken in these townward -flights. The extract is so packed with suggestive memories that no -excuse is needed for reproducing it (with a few now necessary notes) as -the tail-piece of the present chapter. - -'At twelve his [Walpole's] light bodied chariot was at the door, with -his English coachman and his Swiss valet [Philip Colomb].... In a few -minutes he left Lord Radnor's villa to the right, rolled over the -grotto of Pope, saw on his left Whitton, rich with recollections of -Kneller and Argyll, passed Gumley House, one of the country seats of -his father's opponent and his own friend, Pulteney, Earl of Bath, and -Kendal House,[153] the retreat of the mistress of George I., Ermengard -de Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal. At Sion, the princely seat of the -Percys, the Seymours, and the Smithsons, he turned into the Hounslow -Road, left Sion on his right, and Osterly, not unlike Houghton, on his -left, and rolled through Brentford,-- - - "Brentford, the Bishopric of Parson Horne,"[154] - -then, as now, infamous for its dirty streets, and famous for its -white-legged chickens.[155] Quitting Brentford, he approached the woods -that concealed the stately mansion of Gunnersbury, built by Inigo Jones -and Webb, and then inhabited by the Princess Amelia, the last surviving -child of King George II.[156] Here he was often a visitor, and seldom -returned without being a winner at silver loo. At the Pack Horse[157] -on Turnham Green he would, when the roads were heavy, draw up for a -brief bait. Starting anew, he would pass a few red brick houses on -both sides, then the suburban villas of men well to do in the Strand -and Charing Cross. At Hammersmith, he would leave the church[158] on -his right, call on Mr. Fox at Holland House, look at Campden House, -with recollections of Sir Baptist Hickes,[159] and not without an -ill-suppressed wish to transfer some little part of it to his beloved -Strawberry. He was now at Kensington Church, then, as it still is, an -ungraceful structure,[160] but rife with associations which he would -at times relate to the friend he had with him. On his left he would -leave the gates of Kensington Palace, rich with reminiscences connected -with his father and the first Hanoverian kings of this country. On -his right he would quit the red brick house in which the Duchess of -Portsmouth lived,[161] and after a drive of half a mile (skirting a -heavy brick wall), reach Kingston House,[162] replete with stories of -Elizabeth Chudleigh, the bigamist maid of honour, and Duchess-Countess -of Kingston and Bristol. At Knightsbridge (even then the haunt of -highwaymen less gallant than Maclean) he passed on his left the little -chapel[163] in which his father was married. At Hyde Park Corner he -saw the Hercules Pillars ale-house of Fielding and Tom Jones,[164] and -at one door from Park Lane would occasionally call on old "Q" for the -sake of Selwyn, who was often there.[165] The trees which now grace -Piccadilly were in the Green Park in Walpole's day; they can recollect -Walpole, and that is something. On his left, the sight of Coventry -House[166] would remind him of the Gunnings, and he would tell his -friend the story of the "beauties;" with which (short story-teller as -he was) he had not completed when the chariot turned into Arlington -Street on the right, or down Berkeley Street into Berkeley Square, on -the left.'[167] In these last lines Mr. Cunningham anticipates our -story, for in 1774, Walpole had not yet taken up his residence in -Berkeley Square. - -[153] Kendal House now no longer exists. - -[154] _An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers_, _Knight_, 1773. - -[155] - - '---- _Brandford's_ tedious town, - For dirty streets, and white-leg'd chickens known.' - - Gay's _Journey to Exeter_. - - -[156] Gunnersbury House (or Park), a new structure, now belongs to Lord -Rothschild. - -[157] The Old Pack Horse, somewhat modernized by red-brick additions, -still (1892) stands at the corner of Turnham Green. It is mentioned in -the _London Gazette_ as far back as 1697. The sign, a common one for -posting inns in former days, is on the opposite side of the road. - -[158] Hammersmith church was rebuilt in 1882-3. - -[159] Sir Baptist Hickes, once a mercer in Cheapside, and afterwards -Viscount Campden, erected it _circa_ 1612. At the time to which -Mr. Cunningham is supposed to refer, it was a famous ladies' -boarding-school, kept by a Mrs. Terry, and patronized by Selwyn and -Lady Di. Beauclerk. - -[160] The (with all due deference to the writer) quaint and picturesque -old church of St. Mary the Virgin, in Kensington High Street, at which -Macaulay, in his later days, was a regular attendant, gave way, in -1869, to a larger and more modern edifice by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A. - -[161] Old Kensington House, as it was called, has also been pulled -down. One of its inmates, long after the days of 'Madam Carwell,' was -Elizabeth Inchbald, the author of _A Simple Story_, who died there in -1821. - -[162] Now Lord Listowel's. It stands near the Prince's Gate into Hyde -Park. - -[163] Restored and remodelled in 1861, and now the Church of the Holy -Trinity. - -[164] The Hercules Pillars, where Squire Western put up his horses when -he came to town, stood just east of Apsley House, 'on the site of what -is now the pavement opposite Lord Willoughby's.' - -[165] The Duke of Queensberry's house afterwards became 138 and 139 -Piccadilly. - -[166] This is No. 106,--the present St. James's Club. It was built in -1764 by George, sixth Earl of Coventry, some years after the death of -his first wife, the elder Miss Gunning. - -[167] _Letters_, by Cunningham, 1857-9, ix. xx.-xxi. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - - Occupations and Correspondence.--Literary Work.--Jephson and - the Stage.--_Nature will Prevail._--Issues from the Strawberry - Press.--Fourth Volume of the _Anecdotes of Painting_.--The Beauclerk - Tower and Lady Di.--George, third Earl of Orford.--Sale of the - Houghton Pictures.--Moves to Berkeley Square.--Last Visit to Madame - du Deffand.--Her Death.--Themes for Letters.--Death of Sir Horace - Mann.--Pinkerton, Madame de Genlis, Miss Burney, Hannah More.--Mary - and Agnes Berry.--Their Residence at Twickenham.--Becomes fourth Earl - of Orford.--_Epitaphium vivi Auctoris._--The Berrys again.--Death of - Marshal Conway.--Last Letter to Lady Ossory.--Dies at Berkeley Square, - 2 March, 1797.--His Fortune and Will.--The Fate of Strawberry. - - -After the completion of Strawberry Hill and the printing of the -_Catalogue_, Walpole's life grows comparatively barren of events. -There are still four volumes of his _Correspondence_, but they take -upon them imperceptibly the nature of _nouvelles à la main_, and are -less fruitful in personal traits. Between his books and his prints, -his time passes agreeably, 'but will not do to relate.' Indeed, from -this period until his death, in 1797, the most notable occurrences -in his history are his friendship with the Miss Berry's in 1787-8, -and his belated accession to he Earldom of Orford. Both at Strawberry -and Arlington Street, his increasing years and his persistent malady -condemn him more and more to seclusion and retirement. He is most at -Strawberry, despite its dampness, for in the country he holds 'old, -useless people ought to live.' 'If you were not to be in London,' he -tells Lady Ossory in April, 1774, 'the spring advances so charmingly, I -think I should scarce go thither. One is frightened with the inundation -of breakfasts and balls that are coming on. Every one is engaged -to everybody for the next three weeks, and if one must hunt for a -needle, I had rather look for it in a bottle of hay in the country -than in a crowd.' 'By age and situation,' he writes from Strawberry -in September, 'at this time of the year I live with nothing but old -women. They do very well for me, who have little choice left, and who -rather prefer common nonsense to wise nonsense,--the only difference -I know between old women and old men. I am out of all politics, and -never think of elections, which I think I should hate even if I -loved politics,--just as, if I loved tapestry I do not think I could -talk over the manufacture of worsteds. Books I have almost done with -too,--at least, read only such as nobody else would read. In short, -my way of life is too insipid to entertain anybody but myself; and -though I am always employed, I must own I think I have given up every -thing in the world, only to be busy about the most arrant trifles.' -His London life was not greatly different. 'How should I see or know -anything?' he says a year later, apologizing for his dearth of news. -'I seldom stir out of my house [at Arlington Street] before seven in -the evening, see very few persons, and go to fewer places, make no new -acquaintance, and have seen most of my old wear out. Loo at Princess -Amelie's, loo at Lady Hertford's, are the capital events of my history, -and a Sunday alone, at Strawberry, my chief entertainment. All this -is far from gay; but as it neither gives me _ennui_, nor lowers my -spirits, it is not uncomfortable, and I prefer it to being _déplacé_ in -younger company.' Such is his account of his life in 1774-5, when he is -nearing sixty, and it probably represents it with sufficient accuracy. -But a trifling incident easily stirs him into unwonted vivacity. While -he is protesting that he has nothing to say, his letters grow under -his pen, and, almost as a necessary consequence of his leisure, they -become more frequent and more copious. In the edition of Cunningham, up -to September, 1774, they number fourteen hundred and fifty. Speaking -roughly, this represents a period of nearly forty years. During the -two-and-twenty years that remained to him, he managed to swell them by -what was, proportionately, a far greater number. The last letter given -by Cunningham is marked 2665; and this enumeration does not include -a good many letters and fragments of letters belonging to this later -period, which were published in 1865 in Miss Berry's _Journals and -Correspondence_. Nevertheless, as stated above, they more and more -assume what he somewhere calls 'their proper character of newspapers.' - -During the remainder of his life, they were his chief occupation, and -his gout was seldom so severe but that he could make shift to scribble -a line to his favourite correspondents, calling in his printer Kirgate -as secretary in cases of extremity.[168] Of literature generally he -professed to have taken final leave. 'I no longer care about fame,' -he tells Mason in 1774; 'I have done being an author.' Nevertheless, -the _Short Notes_ piously chronicle the production of more than one -trifle, which are reprinted in his _Works_. When, in the above year, -Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son were published, Walpole began -a parody of that famous performance in a _Series of Letters from a -Mother to a Daughter_, with the general title of the _New Whole Duty of -Woman_. He grew tired of the idea too soon to enable us to judge what -his success might have been with a subject which, in his hands, should -have been diverting as a satire; for, although he was a warm admirer of -Chesterfield's parts, as he had shown in his character of him in the -_Royal and Noble Authors_, he was thoroughly alive to the assailable -side of what he styles his 'impertinent institutes of education.'[169] -Another work of this year was a reply to some remarks by Mr. Masters -in the _Archæologia_ upon the old subject of the _Historic Doubts_, -which calls for no further notice. But early in 1775 he was persuaded -into writing an epilogue for the _Braganza_ of Captain Robert Jephson, -a maiden tragedy of the _Venice Preserved_ order, which was produced at -Drury Lane in February of that year, with considerable success. In a -correspondence which ensued with the author, Walpole delivered himself -of his views on tragedy for the benefit of Mr. Jephson, who acted upon -them, but not (as his Mentor thought) with conspicuous success, in his -next attempt, the _Law of Lombardy_. Jephson's third play, however, the -_Count of Narbonne_, which was well received in 1781, had a natural -claim upon Walpole's good opinion, since it was based upon the _Castle -of Otranto_.[170] Besides the above letters on tragedy, Walpole wrote, -'in 1775 and 1776,' a rather longer paper on comedy, which is printed -with them in the second volume of his works (pp. 315-22). He held, as -he says, 'a good comedy the _chef-d'œuvre_ of human genius;' and it -is manifest that his keenest sympathies were on the side of comic art. -His remarks upon Congreve are full of just appreciation. Yet, although -he mentions the _School for Scandal_ (which, by the way, shows that he -must have written rather later than the dates given above), he makes no -reference to the most recent development, in _She Stoops to Conquer_, -of the school of humour and character, and he seems rather to pose as -the advocate of that genteel or sentimental comedy which Foote and -Goldsmith and Sheridan had striven to drive from the English stage. -When his prejudices are aroused, he is seldom a safe guide, and in -addition to his personal contempt for Goldsmith,[171] that writer had -irritated him by his reference to the Albemarle Street Club, to which -many of his friends belonged. It was an additional offence that the -'Miss Biddy [originally Miss Rachael] Buckskin' of the comedy was said -to stand for Miss Rachael Lloyd, long housekeeper at Kensington Palace, -and a member of the club well known both to himself and to Madame du -Deffand.[172] - -[168] Kirgate, who will not be again mentioned, fared but ill at -his master's decease, receiving no more than a legacy of £100,--a -circumstance which Pinkerton darkly attributes to 'his modest merit' -having been 'supplanted by intriguing impudence' (_Walpoliana_, i. -xxiv). There is a portrait of him, engraved by William Collard, after -Sylvester Harding, the Pall Mall miniature painter, who also wrote in -1797 for Kirgate some verses in which he is made to speak of himself as -'forlorn, neglected, and forgot.' He had an unique collection of the -Strawberry Press issues, which was dispersed at his death, in 1810. - -[169] It was his good sense rather than his inclination that made him -condemn one with whom he had many points of sympathy. Speaking of the -quarrel of Johnson and Chesterfield, he says, 'The friendly patronage -[_i. e._ of the earl] was returned with ungrateful rudeness by the -proud pedant; and men smiled, without being surprised, at seeing a bear -worry his dancing-master.' - -[170] 'Jephson's _Count of Narbonne_ has been more admired than any -play I remember to have appeared these many years. It is still [Jan., -1782] acted with success to very full houses' (_Malone to Charlemont, -Hist. MSS. Commission, 12th Rept., App._, Pt. x., 1891, p. 395). Malone -wrote the epilogue. - - -[171] 'Silly Dr. Goldsmith' he calls him to Cole in April, 1773. -'Goldsmith was an idiot, with once or twice a fit of parts,' he says -again to Mason in October, 1776. - -In the second of the letters to Mr. Jephson, Walpole refers to his -own efforts at comedy, and implies that he had made attempts in this -direction even before the tragedy of _The Mysterious Mother_. He had -certainly the wit, and much of the gift of direct expression, which -comedy requires. But nothing of these earlier essays appears to have -survived, and the only dramatic effort included among his _Works_ (his -tragedy excepted) is the little piece entitled _Nature will Prevail_, -which, with its fairy machinery, has something of the character of such -earlier productions of Mr. W. S. Gilbert as the _Palace of Truth_. -This he wrote in 1773, and, according to the _Short Notes_, sent it -anonymously to the elder Colman, then manager of Covent Garden. Colman -(he says) was much pleased with it, but regarding it as too short for -a farce, wished to have it enlarged. This, however, its author thought -too much trouble 'for so slight and extempore a performance.' Five -years after, it was produced at the little theatre in the Haymarket, -and, being admirably acted,--says the _Biographia Dramatica_,--met with -considerable applause. But it is obviously one of those works to which -the verdict of Goldsmith's critic, that it would have been better if -the author had taken more pains, may judiciously be applied. It is more -like a sketch for a farce than a farce itself; and it is not finished -enough for a _proverbe_. Yet the dialogue is in parts so good that one -almost regrets the inability of the author to nerve himself for an -enterprise _de longue haleine_. - -[172] The rules of the so-called _Female Coterie_ in Albemarle Street, -together with the names of the members, are given in the _Gentleman's -Magazine_ for 1770, pp. 414-5. Besides Walpole and Miss Lloyd, Fox, -Conway, Selwyn, the Waldegraves, the Damers, and many other 'persons of -quality' belonged to it. - -Between 1774 and 1780 the Strawberry Hill Press still now and then -showed signs of vitality. In 1775, it printed as a loose sheet some -verses by Charles James Fox,--celebrating, as Amoret, that lover of -the Whigs, the beautiful Mrs. Crewe,--and three hundred copies of an -Eclogue by Mr. Fitzpatrick,[173] entitled _Dorinda_, which contains the -couplet,-- - -[173] The Hon. Richard Fitzpatrick, Lord Ossory's brother. He -afterwards became a General, and Secretary at War. At this time he -was a captain in the Grenadier Guards. As a _littérateur_ he had -written _The Bath Picture; or, a Slight Sketch of its Beauties_; and -he was later one of the chief contributors to the _Rolliad_. Besides -being the life-long friend of Fox, he was a highly popular wit and -man-of-fashion. Lord Ossory put him above Walpole and Selwyn; and Lady -Holland is said to have thought him the most agreeable person she had -ever known. He died in 1813.] - - 'And oh! what Bliss, when each alike is pleas'd, - the Hand that squeezes, and the Hand that's squeez'd.' - -These were followed, in 1778, by the _Sleep Walker_, a comedy from the -French of Madame du Deffand's friend Pont de Veyle, translated by Lady -Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach, and played for a charitable -purpose at Newbury. A year later came the vindication of his conduct to -Chatterton, already mentioned at pp. 196-200; and after this a sheet of -verse by Mr. Charles Miller to Lady Horatia Waldegrave,[174] a daughter -of the Duchess of Gloucester by her first husband. The last work of -any importance was the fourth volume of the _Anecdotes of Painting_, -which had been printed as far back as 1770, but was not issued until -Oct., 1780. This delay, the Advertisement informs us, arose 'from -motives of tenderness.' The author was 'unwilling [he says] to utter -even gentle censures, which might wound the affections, or offend the -prejudices, of those related to the persons whom truth forbad him to -commend beyond their merits.'[175] But despite his unwillingness to -'dispense universal panegyric,' and the limitation of his theme to -living professors, he manages, in the same Advertisement, to distribute -a fair amount of praise to some of his particular favourites. Of H. W. -Bunbury, the husband of Goldsmith's 'Little Comedy,' he says that he is -the 'second Hogarth,' and the 'first imitator who ever fully equalled -his original,'--which is sheer extravagance. He lauds the miniature -copying of Lady Lucan, as almost depreciating the 'exquisite works' of -the artists she follows,--to wit, Cooper and the Olivers; and he speaks -of Lady Di. Beauclerk's drawings as 'not only inspired by Shakespeare's -insight into nature, but by the graces and taste of Grecian artists.' -After this, the comparison of Mrs. Damer with Bernini seems almost tame. - -[174] One of the three beautiful sisters painted by -Reynolds,--Elizabeth Laura, afterwards Viscountess Chewton; Charlotte -Maria, afterwards Countess of Euston; and Anne Horatia, who married -Captain Hugh Conway. 'Sir Joshua Reynolds gets avaricious in his old -age. My picture of the young ladies Waldegrave is doubtless very fine -and graceful, but it cost me 800 guineas' (_Walpoliana_, ii. 157). - -[175] He was not successful as regards Hogarth, whose widow was sorely -and justly wounded by his coarse treatment of _Sigismunda_, which is -said to have been a portrait of herself. The picture is now in the -National Gallery. - -Yet her works 'from the life are not inferior to the antique, and -those ... were not more like.' One can scarcely blame Walpole severely -for this hearty backing of the friends who had added so much to the -attractions of his Gothic castle; but the value of his criticisms, in -many other instances sound enough, is certainly impaired by his loyalty -to the old-new practice of 'log-rolling.' - -Lady Di. Beauclerk, whose illustrations to Dryden's _Fables_ are still -a frequent item in second-hand catalogues, has a personal connection -with Strawberry through the curious little closet bearing her name, -which, with the assistance of Mr. Essex, a Gothic architect from -Cambridge, Walpole in 1776-8 managed to tuck in between the Cabinet -and the Round Tower. It was built on purpose to hold the 'seven -incomparable drawings,' executed in a fortnight, which her Ladyship -prepared, to illustrate _The Mysterious Mother_. These were the designs -to which he refers in the _Anecdotes of Painting_, and, in a letter to -Mann, says could not be surpassed by Guido and Salvator Rosa. They were -hung on Indian blue damask, in frames of black and gold; and Clive's -friend, Miss Pope, the actress, when she dined at Strawberry, was -affected by them to such a degree that she shed tears, although she -did not know the story,--an anecdote which may be regarded either as a -genuine compliment to Lady Di., or a merely histrionic tribute to her -entertainer. 'The drawings,' Walpole says, 'do not shock and disgust, -like their original, the tragedy;' but they were not to be shown to the -profane. They were, nevertheless, probably exhibited pretty freely, as -a copy of the play, carefully annotated in MS. by the author, and bound -in blue leather to match the hangings, was always kept in a drawer of -one of the tables, for the purpose of explaining them.[176] Walpole -afterwards added one or two curiosities to this closet. It contained, -according to the last edition of the _Catalogue_, a head in basalt of -Jupiter Serapis, and a book of Psalms illuminated by Giulio Clovio, the -latter purchased for £168 at the Duchess of Portland's sale in May, -1786. There was also a portrait by Powell, after Reynolds, of Lady Di. -herself, who lived for some time at Twickenham in a house now known as -Little Marble Hill, many of the rooms of which she decorated with her -own performances. These were apparently the efforts which prompted the -already mentioned postscript to the _Parish Register of Twickenham_: - - "Here Genius in a later hour - Selected its sequester'd bow'r, - And threw around the verdant room - The blushing lilac's chill perfume. - So loose is flung each bold festoon, - Each bough so breathes the touch of noon, - The happy pencil so deceives, - That Flora, doubly jealous, cries, - 'The work's not mine,--yet, trust these eyes, - 'T is my own Zephyr waves the leaves.'"[177] - -[176] Miss Hawkins (_Anecdotes_, etc., 1822, p. 103) did not think -highly of these performances: 'Unless the proportions of the human -figure are of no importance in drawing it, these 'Beauclerk drawings' -can be looked on only with disgust and contempt.' But she praises the -gipsies hereafter mentioned (p. 260 n.) as having been copied by Agnes -Berry. - -[177] See pp. 158, 159. - -Mention has been made of the intermittent attacks of insanity to -which Walpole's nephew, the third Earl of Orford, was subject. At the -beginning of 1774, he had returned to his senses, and his uncle, on -whom fell the chief care of his affairs during his illnesses, was, -for a brief period, freed from the irksome strain of an uncongenial -and a thankless duty. In April, 1777, however, Lord Orford's malady -broke out again, with redoubled severity. In August, he was still -fluctuating 'between violence and stupidity;' but in March, 1778, a -lucid interval had once more been reached, and Walpole was relieved of -the care of his person. Of his affairs he had declined to take care, as -his Lordship had employed a lawyer of whom Walpole had a bad opinion. -'He has resumed the entire dominion of himself,' says a letter to -Mann in April, 'and is gone into the country, and intends to command -the militia.' One of the earliest results of this 'entire dominion' -was a step which filled his relative with the keenest distress. He -offered the famous Houghton collection of pictures to Catherine of -Russia,--'the most signal mortification to my idolatry for my father's -memory that it could receive,' says Walpole to Lady Ossory. By August, -1779, the sale was completed. 'The sum stipulated,' he tells Mann, -'is forty or forty-five thousand pounds,[178] I neither know nor care -which; nor whether the picture merchant ever receives the whole sum, -which probably he will not do, as I hear it is to be discharged at -three payments,--a miserable bargain for a mighty empress!... Well! -adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself -more.... Since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a -straw what he does with the stone or the acres!'[179] - -[178] The exact sum was £40,555. Cipriani and West were the valuers. -Most of the family portraits were reserved; but so many of the pictures -were presents that it is not easy to estimate the actual profit over -their first cost to the original owner. - -[179] _Walpole to Mann_, 4 Aug., 1779. - -Not very long after the date of the above letter Walpole made what -was, for him, an important change of residence. The lease of his -house in Arlington Street running out, he fixed upon a larger one -in the then very fashionable district of Berkeley Square. The house -he selected, now (1892) numbered 11, was then 40,[180] and he had -commenced negotiations for its purchase as early as November, 1777, -when, he tells Lady Ossory, he had come to town to take possession. But -difficulties arose over the sale, and he found himself involved in a -Chancery suit. He was too adroit, however, to allow this to degenerate -into an additional annoyance, and managed (by his own account) to -turn what promised to be a tedious course of litigation into a combat -of courtesy. Ultimately, in July, 1779, he had won his cause, and -was hurrying from Strawberry to pay his purchase money and close the -bargain. Two months later, he is moving in, and is delighted with his -acquisition. He would not change his two pretty mansions for any in -England, he says. On the 14th October, he took formal possession, upon -which day--his 'inauguration day'--he dates his first letter 'Berkeley -Square.' 'It is seeming to take a new lease of life,' he tells Mason. -'I was born in Arlington Street, lived there about fourteen years, -returned thither, and passed thirty-seven more; but I have sober -monitors that warn me not to delude myself.' He had still a decade and -a half before him. - -[180] This, according to Harrison's _Memorable Houses_, 3rd ed., 1890, -p. 62, is Lord Orford's number as given in _Boyle's Court Guide_ for -1796. - -Little more than twelve months after he had settled down in his new -abode, he lost the faithful friend at Paris, to whom, for the space -of fifteen years, he had written nearly once a week. By 1774, he had -become somewhat nervous about this accumulated correspondence in a -language not his own. For an Englishman, his French was good, and, as -might be expected of anything he wrote, characteristic and vivacious. -But, almost of necessity, it contained many minor faults of phraseology -and arrangement, besides abounding in personal anecdote; and he became -apprehensive lest, after Madame du Deffand's death, his utterances -should fall into alien hands. General Conway, who visited Paris in -October, 1774, had therefore been charged to beg for their return--a -request which seems at first to have been met by the reply on the -lady's part that sufficient precautions had already been taken for -ensuring their restoration. Ultimately, however, they were handed to -Conway.[181] It was in all probability under a sense of this concession -that Walpole once more risked a tedious journey to visit his blind -friend. In the following year he went to Paris, to find her, as usual, -impatiently expecting his arrival. She sat with him until half-past -two, and before his eyes were open again, he had a letter from her. -'Her soul is immortal, and forces her body to keep it company.' A -little later he complains that he never gets to bed from her suppers -before two or three o'clock. 'In short,' he says, 'I need have the -activity of a squirrel, and the strength of a Hercules, to go through -my labours,--not to count how many _démêlés_ I have had to _raccommode_ -and how many _mémoires_ to present against Tonton,[182] who grows the -greater favourite the more people he devours.' But Tonton's mistress is -more worth visiting than ever, he tells Selwyn, and she is apparently -as tireless as of yore. 'Madame du Deffand and I [says another letter] -set out last Sunday at seven in the evening, to go fifteen miles to a -ball, and came back after supper; and another night, because it was -but one in the morning when she brought me home, she ordered the -coachman to make the tour of the Quais, and drive gently because it -was so early.' At last, early in October, he tears himself away, to be -followed almost immediately by a letter of farewell. Here it is:-- - -'Adieu, ce mot est bien triste; souvenez-vous que vous laissez ici -la personne dont vous êtes le plus aimé, et dont le bonheur et le -malheur consistent dans ce que vous pensez pour elle. Donnez-moi de vos -nouvelles le plus tôt qu'il sera possible. - -'Je me porte bien, j'ai un peu dormi, ma nuit n'est pas finie; je serai -très-exacte au régime, et j'aurai soin de moi puisque vous vous y -intéressez.' - -[181] According to a note in the selection from Madame du Deffand's -Correspondence with Walpole, published in 1810, iii. 44, these letters -were at that date extant. But all the subsequent letters were burnt by -her at Walpole's earnest desire--those only excepted which she received -during the last year of her life, and these, also, were sent back when -she died. - -[182] Tonton was a snappish little dog belonging to Madame du Deffand, -which, when in its mistress's company, must have been extremely -objectionable. In January, 1778, the Maréchale de Luxembourg presented -her old friend with Tonton's portrait in wax on a gold snuff-box, -together with the last six volumes of Madame du Deffand's favourite, -Voltaire, adding the following epigram by the Chevalier de Boufflers:-- - - 'Vous les trouvez tous deux charmans, - Nous les trouvons tous deux mordans: - Voilà la ressemblance; - L'un ne mord que ses ennemis, - Et l'autre mord tous vos amis: - Voilà la différence.' - -At Madame du Deffand's death, both dog and box passed to Walpole, the -latter finding an honoured place among the treasures of the Tribune. -(See _A Description of the Villa_, etc., 1774, p. 137, _Appendix of -Additions_.) - -The correspondence thus resumed was continued for five years more. -Walpole does not seem to have visited Paris again, and the references -to Madame du Deffand in his general correspondence are not very -frequent. Towards the middle of 1780, her life was plainly closing in. -In July and August, she complained of being more than usually languid, -and in a letter of the 22nd of the latter month intimates that it may -be her last, as dictation grows painful to her. 'Ne vous devant revoir -de ma vie,'--she says pathetically,--'je n'ai rien à regretter.' -From this time she kept her bed, and in September Walpole tells Lady -Ossory that he is trembling at every letter he gets from Paris. 'My -dear old friend, I fear, is going!... To have struggled twenty days at -eighty-four shows such stamina that I have not totally lost hopes.' On -the 24th, however, after a lethargy of several days, she died quietly, -'without effort or struggle.' 'Elle a eu la mort la plus douce,'--says -her faithful and attached secretary, Wiart,--'quoique la maladie ait -été longue.' She was buried, at her own wish, in the parish church of -St. Sulpice. By her will she made her nephew, the Marquis d'Aulan, her -heir. Long since, she had wished Walpole to accept this character. -Thereupon he had threatened that he would never set foot in Paris again -if she carried out her intention; and it was abandoned. But she left -him the whole of her manuscripts[183] and books. - -As his own letters to her have not been printed, her death makes no -difference in the amount of his correspondence. The war with the -American Colonies, of which he foresaw the disastrous results, and -the course of which he follows to Mann with the greatest keenness, -fully absorbs as much of his time as he can spare from the vagaries of -the Duchess of Kingston and the doings of the Duchess of Gloucester. -Not many months before Madame du Deffand died had occurred the famous -Gordon Riots, which, as he was in London most of the time, naturally -occupy his pen. It was General Conway who, as the author of _Barnaby -Rudge_ has not forgotten, so effectively remonstrated with Lord George -upon the occasion of the visit of the mob to the House of Commons; -and four days later Walpole chronicles from Berkeley Square the -events of the terrible 'Black Wednesday.' From the roof of Gloucester -House he sees the blazing prisons,--a sight he shall not soon forget. -Other subjects for which one dips in the lucky bag of his records -are the defence of Gibraltar, the trial of Warren Hastings, the loss -of the _Royal George_. But it is generally in the minor chronicle -that he is most diverting. The last _bon mot_ of George Selwyn or -Lady Townshend, the newest 'royal pregnancy,' the details of court -ceremonial, the most recent addition to Strawberry, the endless stream -of anecdote and tittle-tattle which runs dimpling all the way,--these -are the themes he loves best; this is the element in which his easy -persiflage delights to disport itself. He is, above all, a _rieur_. -About his serious passages there is generally a false ring, but -never when he pours out the gossip that he loves, and of which he -has so inexhaustible a supply. 'I can sit and amuse myself with my -own memory,' he says to Mann in February, 1785, 'and yet find new -stores at every audience that I give to it. Then, for private episodes -[he has been speaking of his knowledge of public events], varieties -of characters, political intrigues, literary anecdotes, etc., the -profusion that I remember is endless; in short, when I reflect on all -I have seen, heard, read, written, the many idle hours I have passed, -the nights I have wasted playing at faro, the weeks, nay months, I have -spent in pain, you will not wonder that I almost think I have, like -Pythagoras, been Panthoides Euphorbus, and have retained one memory in -at least two bodies.' - -[183] The MSS., which included eight hundred of Madame du Deffand's -letters, were sold in the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842 for £157 10_s._ - -He was sixty-eight when he wrote the above letter. Mann was -eighty-four, and the long correspondence--a correspondence 'not to be -paralleled in the annals of the Post Office'--was drawing to a close. -'What Orestes and Pylades ever wrote to each other for four-and-forty -years without meeting?' Walpole asks. In June, 1786, however, the last -letter of the eight hundred and nine specimens printed by Cunningham -was despatched to Florence.[184] In the following November, Mann died, -after a prolonged illness. He had never visited England, nor had -Walpole set eyes upon him since he had left him at Florence in May, -1741. His death followed hard upon that of another faithful friend -(whose gifts, perhaps, hardly lay in the epistolary line),--bustling, -kindly Kitty Clive. Her cheerful, ruddy face, 'all sun and vermilion,' -set peacefully in December, 1785, leaving Cliveden vacant, not, as we -shall see, for long.[185] Earlier still had departed another old ally, -Cole, the antiquary, and the lapse of time had in other ways contracted -Walpole's circle. In 1781, Lady Orford had ended her erratic career at -Pisa, leaving her son a fortune so considerable as to make his uncle -regret vaguely that the sale of the Houghton pictures had not been -delayed for a few months longer. Three years later, she was followed by -her brother-in-law, Sir Edward Walpole,--an occurrence which had the -effect of leaving between Horace Walpole and his father's title nothing -but his lunatic and childless nephew. - -[184] Walpole, as in the case of Madame du Deffand, had taken the -precaution of getting back his letters, and at his friend's death not -more than a dozen of them were still in Mann's possession. According to -Cunningham (_Corr._, ix. xv), Mann's letters to Walpole are 'absolutely -unreadable.' An attempt to skim the cream of them (such as it is) was -made by Dr. Doran in two volumes entitled _'Mann' and Manners at the -Court of Florence_, 1740-1786, Bentley, 1876. - -[185] Mrs. Clive is buried at Twickenham, where a mural slab was -erected to her in the parish church by her _protégée_ and successor, -Miss Jane Pope, the clever actress who shed tears over the Beauclerk -drawings (see p. 244). Her portrait by Davison, which is engraved as -the frontispiece to Cunningham's fourth volume, hung in the Round -Bedchamber at Strawberry. It was given to Walpole by her brother, James -Raftor. - -If his relatives and friends were falling away, however, their -places--the places of the friends, at least--were speedily filled -again; and, as a general rule, most of his male favourites were -replaced by women. Pinkerton, the antiquary, who afterwards published -the _Walpoliana_, is one of the exceptions; and several of Walpole's -letters to him are contained in that book, and in the volumes of -Pinkerton's own correspondence published by Dawson Turner in 1830. -But Walpole's appetite for correspondence of the purely literary kind -had somewhat slackened in his old age, and it was to the other sex -that he turned for sympathy and solace. He liked them best; his style -suited them; and he wrote to them with most ease. In July, 1785, -he was visited at Strawberry by Madame de Genlis, who arrived with -her friend Miss Wilkes and the famous Pamela,[186] afterwards Lady -Edward Fitzgerald. Madame de Genlis at this date was nearing forty, -and had lost much of her good looks. But Walpole seems to have found -her less _précieuse_ and affected than he had anticipated, and she -was, on this occasion, unaccompanied by the inevitable harp. A later -visit was from Dr. Burney and his daughter Fanny,--'Evelina-Cecilia' -Walpole calls her,--a young lady for whose good sense and modesty he -expresses a genuine admiration. Miss Burney had not as yet entered -upon that court bondage which was to be so little to her advantage. -Another and more intimate acquaintanceship of this period was with -Miss Burney's friend, Hannah More. Hannah More ultimately became one -of Walpole's correspondents, although scarcely 'so corresponding' as -he wished; and they met frequently in society when she visited London. -On her side, she seems to have been wholly fascinated by his wit -and conversational powers; he, on his, was attracted by her mingled -puritanism and vivacity. He writes to her as 'St. Hannah;' and she, in -return, sighs plaintively over his lack of religion. Yet (she adds) -she 'must do him the justice to say, that except the delight he has -in teasing me for what he calls over-strictness, I have never heard -a sentence from him which savoured of infidelity.'[187] He evidently -took a great interest in her works, and indeed in 1789 printed at his -press one of her poems, _Bonner's Ghost_.[188] His friendship for her -endured for the remainder of his life; and not long before his death he -presented her with a richly bound copy of Bishop Wilson's _Bible_, with -a complimentary inscription which may be read in the second volume of -her Life and Correspondence. - -[186] 'Whom she [Madame de Genlis] has educated to be very like -herself in the face,' says Walpole, referring to a then current -scandal. At this date, however, it is but just to add that the recent -investigations of Mr. J. G. Alger, as embodied in vol. xix. of the -_Dictionary of National Biography_, tend to show that it is by no means -certain that Pamela was the daughter of the accomplished lady whom -Philippe _Egalité_ entrusted with the education of his sons. - -[187] He is not explicit as to his creed. 'Atheism I dislike,' he said -to Pinkerton. 'It is gloomy, uncomfortable; and, in my eye, unnatural -and irrational. It certainly requires more credulity to believe that -there is no God, than to believe that there is' (_Walpoliana_, i. -75-6). But Pinkerton must be taken with caution. (Cf. _Quarterly -Review_, 1843, lxxii. 551.) - -[188] In 1786 she had dedicated to him her _Florio, A Tale_, etc., with -a highly complimentary Preface, in which she says: 'I should be unjust -to your very engaging and well-bred turn of wit, if I did not declare -that, among all the lively and brilliant things I have heard from you, -I do not remember ever to have heard an unkind or an ungenerous one.' - -It was, however, neither the author of _Evelina_ nor the author of -_The Manners of the Great_ who was destined to fill the void created -by the death of Madame du Deffand. In the winter of 1787-8, he had -first seen, and a year later he made the formal acquaintance of, 'two -young ladies of the name of Berry.' They had a story. Their father, -at this time a widower, had married for love, and had afterwards been -supplanted in the good graces of a rich uncle by a younger brother who -had the generosity to allow him an annuity of a thousand a year. In -1783, Mr. Berry had taken his daughters abroad to Holland, Switzerland, -and Italy, whence, in June, 1785, they had returned, being then -highly cultivated and attractive young women of two-and-twenty and -one-and-twenty respectively. Three years later, Walpole met them for -the second time at the house of a Lady Herries, the wife of a banker -in St. James's Street. The first time he saw them he 'would not be -acquainted with them, having heard so much in their praise that he -concluded they would be all pretension.' But on the second occasion, -'in a very small company,' he sat next the elder, Mary, 'and found her -an angel both inside and out.' 'Her face'--he tells Lady Ossory--'is -formed for a sentimental novel, but it is ten times fitter for a fifty -times better thing, genteel comedy.' The other sister was speedily -discovered to be nearly as charming. 'They are exceedingly sensible, -entirely natural and unaffected, frank, and, being qualified to talk on -any subject, nothing is so easy and agreeable as their conversation, -nor more apposite than their answers and observations. The eldest, I -discovered by chance, understands Latin, and is a perfect Frenchwoman -in her language. The younger draws charmingly, and has copied admirably -Lady Di.'s gipsies,[189] which I lent, though for the first time of her -attempting colours. They are of pleasing figures: Mary, the eldest, -sweet, with fine dark eyes that are very lively when she speaks, with -a symmetry of face that is the more interesting from being pale; -Agnes, the younger, has an agreeable, sensible countenance, hardly to -be called handsome, but almost. She is less animated than Mary, but -seems, out of deference to her sister, to speak seldomer; for they -dote on each other, and Mary is always praising her sister's talents. -I must even tell you they dress within the bounds of fashion, though -fashionably; but without the excrescences and balconies with which -modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons. In short, good -sense, information, simplicity, and ease characterize the Berrys; and -this is not particularly mine, who am apt to be prejudiced, but the -universal voice of all who know them.'[190] - -[189] This (we are told) was Lady Di.'s _chef-d'œuvre_. It was a -water-colour drawing representing 'Gipsies telling a country-maiden -her fortune at the entrance of a beech-wood,' and hung in the Red -Bedchamber at Strawberry. - -[190] _Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 11 Oct., 1788. - -'This delightful family,' he goes on to say, 'comes to me almost every -Sunday evening. [They were at the time living on Twickenham Common.] Of -the father not much is recorded beyond the fact that he was 'a little -merry man with a round face,' and (as his eldest daughter reports) -'an odd inherent easiness in his disposition,' who seems to have -been perfectly contented in his modest and unobtrusive character of -paternal appendage to the favourites. Walpole's attachment to his new -friends grew rapidly. Only a few days after the date of the foregoing -letter, Mr. Kirgate's press was versifying in their honour, and they -themselves were already 'his two Straw Berries,' whose praises he sang -to all his friends. He delighted in devising new titles for them,--they -were his 'twin wives,' his 'dear Both,' his 'Amours.' For them in this -year he began writing the charming little volume of _Reminiscences -of the Courts of George the 1st and 2nd_, and in December, 1789, he -dedicated to them his _Catalogue of Strawberry Hill_. It was not long -before he had secured them a home at Teddington and finally, when, in -1791, Cliveden became vacant, he prevailed upon them to become his -neighbours. He afterwards bequeathed the house to them, and for many -years after his death, it was their summer residence. On either side -the acquaintance was advantageous. His friendship at once introduced -them to the best and most accomplished fashionable society of their -day, while the charm of their 'company, conversation and talents' must -have inexpressibly sweetened and softened what, on his part, had begun -to grow more and more a solitary, joyless, and painful old age. - -His establishment of his 'wives' in his immediate vicinity was not, -however, accomplished without difficulty. For a moment some ill-natured -newspaper gossip, which attributed the attachment of the Berry family -to interested motives, so justly aroused the indignation of the elder -sister that the whole arrangement threatened to collapse. But the -slight estrangement thus caused soon passed away; and at the close of -1791, they took up their abode in Mrs. Clive's old house, now doubly -honoured. On the 5th of the December in the same year, after a fresh -fit of frenzy, Walpole's nephew died, and he became fourth Earl of -Orford. The new dignity was by no means a welcome one, and scarcely -compensated for the cares which it entailed. 'A small estate, loaded -with debt, and of which I do not understand the management, and am too -old to learn; a source of law suits amongst my near relations, though -not affecting me; endless conversations with lawyers, and packets of -letters to read every day and answer,--all this weight of new business -is too much for the rag of life that yet hangs about me, and was -preceded by three weeks of anxiety about my unfortunate nephew, and a -daily correspondence with physicians and mad-doctors, falling upon me -when I had been out of order ever since July.'[191] 'For the other -empty metamorphosis,' he writes to Hannah More, 'that has happened to -the outward man, you do me justice in concluding that it can do nothing -but tease me; it is being called names in one's old age. I had rather -be my Lord Mayor, for then I should keep the nickname but a year; and -mine I may retain a little longer,--not that at seventy-five I reckon -on becoming my Lord Methusalem.' For some time he could scarcely -bring himself to use his new signature, and occasionally varied it by -describing himself as 'The uncle of the late Earl of Orford.' In 1792, -he delivered himself, after the fashion of Cowley, of the following -_Epitaphium vivi Auctoris_:-- - - 'An estate and an earldom at seventy-four! - Had I sought them or wished them, 'twould add one fear more,-- - That of making a countess when almost four-score. - But Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of season, - Though unkind to my limbs, has still left me my reason; - And whether she lowers or lifts me, I'll try, - In the plain simple style I have lived in, to die: - For ambition too humble, for manners too high.' - -[191] _Walpole to Pinkerton_, 26 Dec., 1791. - -The last line seems like another of the many echoes of Goldsmith's -_Retaliation_. As for the fear indicated in the third, it is hinted -that this at one time bade fair to be something more than a poetical -apprehension. If we are to credit a tradition handed down by Lord -Lansdowne, he had been willing to go through the form of marriage with -either of the Berrys, merely to secure their society, and to enrich -them, as he had the power of charging the Orford estate with a jointure -of £2000 per annum. But this can only have been a passing thought at -some moment when their absence, in Italy or elsewhere, left him more -sensitive to the loss of their gracious and stimulating presence. He -himself was far too keenly alive to ridicule, and too much in bondage -to _les bienséances_, to take a step which could scarcely escape -ill-natured comment; and Mary Berry, who would certainly have been his -preference, was not only as fully alive as was he to the shafts of the -censorious, but, during the greater part of her acquaintanceship with -him, was, apparently with his knowledge, warmly attached to a certain -good-looking General O'Hara, who, a year before Walpole's death, -in November, 1796, definitely proposed. He had just been appointed -Governor of Gibraltar, and he wished Miss Berry to marry him at once, -and go out with him. This, 'out of consideration for others,' she -declined to do. A few months later the engagement was broken off, and -she never again saw her soldier admirer. Whether Lord Orford's comfort -went for anything in this adjournment of her happiness, does not -clearly appear; but it is only reasonable to suppose that his tenacious -desire for her companionship had its influence in a decision which, -however much it may have been for the best (and there were those of her -friends who regarded it as a providential escape), was nevertheless a -lifelong source of regret to herself. When, in 1802, she heard suddenly -at the Opera of O'Hara's death, she fell senseless to the floor. - -The 'late Horace Walpole' never took his seat in the House of Lords. He -continued, as before, to divide his time between Berkeley Square and -Strawberry, to eulogize his 'wives' to Lady Ossory, and to watch life -from his beloved Blue Room. Now and then he did the rare honours of his -home to a distinguished guest,--in 1793, it was the Duchess of York; in -1795, Queen Charlotte herself. In the latter year died his old friend -Conway, by this time a Field-Marshal; and it was evident at the close -of 1796 that his faithful correspondent would not long survive him. -His ailments had increased, and in the following January, he wrote his -last letter to Lady Ossory:-- - - Jan. 15, 1797. - - MY DEAR MADAM,-- - - You distress me infinitely by showing my idle notes, which I cannot - conceive can amuse anybody. My old-fashioned breeding impels me every - now and then to reply to the letters you honour me with writing, but - in truth very unwillingly, for I seldom can have anything particular - to say; I scarce go out of my own house, and then only to two or three - very private places, where I see nobody that really knows anything, - and what I learn comes from Newspapers, that collect intelligence from - coffee-houses, consequently what I neither believe nor report. At home - I see only a few charitable elders, except about four-score nephews - and nieces of various ages, who are each brought to me about once - a-year, to stare at me as the Methusalem of the family, and they can - only speak of their own contemporaries, which interest me no more than - if they talked of their dolls, or bats and balls. Must not the result - of all this, Madam, make me a very entertaining correspondent? And can - such letters be worth showing? or can I have any spirit when so old, - and reduced to dictate? - - Oh! my good Madam, dispense with me from such a task, and think how - it must add to it to apprehend such letters being shown. Pray send me - no more such laurels, which I desire no more than their leaves when - decked with a scrap of tinsel, and stuck on twelfth-cakes that lie - on the shop-boards of pastry-cooks at Christmas. I shall be quite - content with a sprig of rosemary thrown after me, when the parson of - the parish commits my dust to dust. Till then, pray, Madam, accept the - resignation of your - - Ancient servant, - ORFORD. - -Six weeks after the date of the above letter, he died at his house -in Berkeley Square, to which he had been moved at the close of the -previous year. During the latter days of his life, he suffered from a -cruel lapse of memory, which led him to suppose himself neglected even -by those who had but just quitted him. He sank gradually, and expired -without pain on the 2nd of March, 1797, being then in his eightieth -year. He was buried at the family seat of Houghton. - -His fortune, over and above his leases, amounted to ninety-one thousand -pounds. To each of the Miss Berrys he left the sum of £4000 for their -lives, together with the house and garden of 'Little Strawberry' -(Cliveden), the long meadow in front of it, and all the furniture. He -also bequeathed to them and to their father his printed works and his -manuscripts, with discretionary power to publish. It was understood -that the real editorship was to fall on the elder sister, who forthwith -devoted herself to her task. The result was the edition, in five quarto -volumes, of Lord Orford's _Works_, which has been so often referred -to during the progress of these pages, and which appeared in 1798. It -was entirely due to Mary Berry's unremitting care, her father's share -being confined to a final paragraph in the preface, in which she is -eulogized.[192] - -[192] Mary Berry died 20th Nov., 1852; Agnes Berry, Jan., 1852. They -were buried in one grave in Petersham churchyard, 'amidst scenes'--says -Lord Carlisle's inscription--'which in life they had frequented & -loved.' H. F. Chorley (_Autobiography_, etc., 1873, vol. i., p. 276) -describes them as 'more like one's notion of ancient Frenchwomen than -anything I have ever seen; rouged, with the remains of some beauty, -managing large fans like the Flirtillas, etc., etc., of Ranelagh.' -See also _Extracts from Miss Berry's Journals and Correspondence_, -1783-1852, edited by Lady Theresa Lewis, 1865. - -Strawberry Hill passed to Mrs. Damer for life, together with £2000 to -keep it in repair. After living in it for some years, she resigned it, -in 1811, to the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, in whom the remainder -in fee was vested. It subsequently passed to George, seventh Earl of -Waldegrave, who sold its contents in 1842. At his death, in 1846, he -left it to his widow, Frances, Countess of Waldegrave, who married the -Rt. Hon. Chichester S. Parkinson-Fortescue, later Lord Carlingford. -Lady Waldegrave died in 1879; but she had greatly added to and extended -the original building, besides restoring many of the objects by which -it had been decorated in Walpole's day. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - - Macaulay on Walpole.--Effect of the _Edinburgh_ Essay.--Macaulay - and Mary Berry.--Portraits of Walpole.--Miss Hawkins's - Description.--Pinkerton's Rainy Day at Strawberry.--Walpole's - Character as a Man; as a Virtuoso; as a Politician; as an Author and - Letter-writer. - - -When, in October, 1833, Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay completed for the -_Edinburgh_ his review of Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to -Sir Horace Mann, he had apparently performed to his entire satisfaction -the operation known, in the workmanlike vocabulary of the time, as -'dusting the jacket' of his unfortunate reviewee. 'I was up at four -this morning to put the last touch to it,' he tells his sister Hannah. -'I often differ with the majority about other people's writings, -and still oftener about my own; and therefore I may very likely be -mistaken; but I think that this article will be a hit.... Nothing -ever cost me more pains than the first half; I never wrote anything -so flowingly as the latter half; and I like the latter half the best. -[The latter half, it should be stated, was a rapid and very brilliant -sketch of Sir Robert Walpole; the earlier, which involved so much -labour, was the portrait of Sir Robert's youngest son.] I have laid it -on Walpole [_i. e._, Horace Walpole] so unsparingly,' he goes on to -say, 'that I shall not be surprised if Miss Berry should cut me.... -Neither am I sure that Lord and Lady Holland will be well pleased.'[193] - -[193] Trevelyan's _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, ch. v. - -His later letters show him to have been a true prophet. Macvey -Napier, then the editor of the 'Blue and Yellow,' was enthusiastic, -praising the article 'in terms absolutely extravagant.' 'He says that -it is the best that I ever wrote,' the critic tells his favourite -correspondent,--a statement which at this date must be qualified by -the fact that he penned some of his most famous essays subsequent to -its appearance. On the other hand, Miss Berry resented the review so -much that Sir Stratford Canning advised its author not to go near her. -But apparently her anger was soon dispelled, for the same letter which -makes this announcement relates that she was already appeased. Lady -Holland, too, was 'in a rage,' though with what part of the article -does not transpire, while her good-natured husband told Macaulay -privately that he quite agreed with him, but that they had better not -discuss the subject. Lady Holland's irritation was probably prompted -by her intimacy with the Waldegrave family, to whom the letters edited -by Lord Dover belonged, and for whose benefit they were published. -But, as Macaulay said justly, his article was surely not calculated -to injure the sale of the book. Her imperious ladyship's displeasure, -however, like that of Miss Berry, was of brief duration. Macaulay was -too necessary to her _réunions_ to be long exiled from her little court. - -Among those who occupy themselves in such enquiries, it has been matter -for speculation what particular grudge Macaulay could have cherished -against Horace Walpole when, to use his own expression, he laid it on -him 'so unsparingly.' To this his correspondence affords no clue. Mr. -Cunningham holds that he did it 'to revenge the dislike which Walpole -bore to the Bedford faction, the followers of Fox and the Shelburne -school.' It is possible, as another authority has suggested, that 'in -the Whig circles of Macaulay's time, there existed a traditional grudge -against Horace Walpole,' owing to obscure political causes connected -with his influence over his friend Conway. But these reasons do -not seem relevant enough to make Macaulay's famous onslaught a mere -_vendetta_. It is more reasonable to suppose that between his avowed -delight in Walpole as a letter-writer, and his robust contempt for him -as an individual, he found a subject to his hand, which admitted of -all the brilliant antithesis and sparkle of epigram which he lavished -upon it. Walpole's trivialities and eccentricities, his whims and -affectations, are seized with remorseless skill, and presented with -all the rhetorical advantages with which the writer so well knew how -to invest them. As regards his literary estimate, the truth of the -picture can scarcely be gainsaid; but the personal character, as -Walpole's surviving friends felt, is certainly too much _en noir_. Miss -Berry, indeed, in her 'Advertisement' to vol. vi. of Wright's edition -of the _Letters_, raised a gentle cry of expostulation against the -entire representation. She laid stress upon the fact that Macaulay had -not known Walpole in the flesh (a disqualification to which too much -weight may easily be assigned); she dwelt upon the warmth of Walpole's -attachments; she contested the charge of affectation; and, in short, -made such a gallant attempt at a defence as her loyalty to her old -friend enabled her to offer. Yet, if Macaulay had never known Walpole -at all, she herself, it might be urged, had only known him in his old -age. Upon the whole, 'with due allowance for a spice of critical pepper -on one hand, and a handful of friendly rosemary on the other,' as -Croker says, both characters are 'substantially true.' Under Macaulay's -brush Walpole is depicted as he appeared to that critic's masculine -and (for the nonce) unsympathetic spirit; in Miss Berry's picture, -the likeness is touched with a pencil at once grateful, affectionate, -and indulgent. The biographer of to-day, who is neither endeavouring -to portray Walpole in his most favourable aspect, nor preoccupied (as -Cunningham supposed the great Whig essayist to have been) with what -would be thought of his work 'at Woburn, at Kensington, and in Berkeley -Square,' may safely borrow details from the delineation of either -artist. - -Of portraits of Walpole (not in words) there is no lack. Besides that -belonging to Mrs. Bedford, described at p. 11, there is the enamel by -Zincke painted in 1745, which is reproduced at p. 71 of vol. i. of -Cunningham's edition of the letters. There is another portrait of him -by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. A more -characteristic presentment than any of these is the little drawing by -Müntz which shows his patron sitting in the Library at Strawberry, -with the Thames and a passing barge seen through the open window. But -his most interesting portraits are two which exhibit him in manhood -and old age. One is the half-length by J. G. Eckardt which once hung -in its black-and-gold frame in the Blue Bedchamber, near the companion -pictures of Gray and Bentley.[194] Like these, it was 'from Vandyck,' -that is to say, it was in a costume copied from that painter, and -depicts the sitter in a laced collar and ruffles, leaning upon a copy -of the _Ædes Walpolianæ_, with a view of part of the Gothic castle in -the distance. The canvas bears at the back the date of 1754, so that -it represents him at the age of seven-and-thirty. The shaven face is -rather lean than thin, the forehead high, the brown hair brushed back -and slightly curled. The eyes are dark, bright, and intelligent, and -the small mouth wears a slight smile. The other, a drawing made for -Samuel Lysons by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is that of a much older man, -having been executed in 1796. The eyelids droop wearily, the thin -lips have a pinched, mechanical urbanity, and the features are worn by -years and ill-health. It was reproduced by T. Evans as a frontispiece -for vol. i. of his works. There are other portraits by Reynolds, 1757 -(which McArdell and Reading engraved), by Rosalba, Falconet, and -Dance;[195] but it is sufficient to have indicated those mentioned -above. - -[194] This is engraved in vol. ix. of Cunningham, facing the Index; -while the Müntz, above referred to, forms the frontispiece to vol. viii. - -[195] The writer of the obituary notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ -for March, 1797, says that Dance's portrait is 'the only faithful -representation of him [Walpole].' Against this must be set the fact -that it was not selected by the editor of his works; and, besides being -in profile, it is certainly far less pleasing than the Lawrence. - -Of the Walpole of later years there are more descriptions than one, and -among these, that given by Miss Hawkins, the daughter of the pompous -author of the _History of Music_, is, if the most familiar, also the -most graphic. Sir John Hawkins was Walpole's neighbour at Twickenham -House, and the _History_ is said to have been undertaken at Walpole's -instance. Miss Hawkins's description is of Walpole as she recalled -him before 1772. 'His figure,' she says, '... was not merely tall, -but more properly _long_ and slender to excess; his complexion, and -particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness.... His eyes were -remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively; his voice -was not strong, but his tones were extremely pleasant, and, if I may -so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not remember his common gait;[196] -he always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy, which -fashion had then made almost natural,--_chapeau bras_ between his hands -as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm, knees bent, and -feet on tip-toe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting -was most usually, in summer when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the -waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked -in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles -and frill generally lace. I remember when a child, thinking him -very much under-dressed if at any time, except in mourning, he wore -hemmed cambric. In summer no powder, but his wig combed straight, and -showing his very smooth pale forehead, and queued behind; in winter -powder.'[197] - -[196] It must, by his own account, have been peculiar. 'Walking is not -one of my excellences,' he writes. 'In my best days Mr. Winnington -said I tripped like a peewit; and if I do not flatter myself, my march -at present is more like a dabchick's' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 18 -August, 1775). - -[197] _Anecdotes, etc._, by L. M. Hawkins, 1822, pp. 105-6. - -Pinkerton, who knew Walpole from 1784 until his death, and whose -disappointment of a legacy is supposed, in places, to have mingled a -more than justifiable amount of gall with his ink, has nevertheless -left a number of interesting particulars respecting his habits and -personal characteristics. They are too long to quote entire, but -are, at the same time, too picturesque to be greatly compressed. He -contradicts Miss Hawkins in one respect, for he says Walpole was 'short -and slender,' but 'compact and neatly formed,'--an account which is -confirmed by Müntz's full-length. 'When viewed from behind, he had -somewhat of a boyish appearance, owing to the form of his person, and -the simplicity of his dress.' None of his pictures, says Pinkerton, -'express the placid goodness of his eyes,[198] which would often -sparkle with sudden rays of wit, or dart forth flashes of the most keen -and intuitive intelligence. His laugh was forced and uncouth, and even -his smile not the most pleasing.' - -[198] 'I have lately become acquainted with your friend Mr. Walpole, -and am quite charmed with him.'--writes Malone to Lord Charlemont in -1782. 'There is an unaffected benignity and good nature in his manner -that is, I think, irresistibly engaging' (_Hist. MSS. Commission, 12th -Rept., App._, Pt. x., 1891, p. 395). - -'His walk was enfeebled by the gout; which, if the editor's memory do -not deceive, he mentioned that he had been tormented with since the age -of twenty-five; adding, at the same time, that it was no hereditary -complaint, his father, Sir Robert Walpole, who always drank ale, -never having known that disorder, and far less his other parent. This -painful complaint not only affected his feet, but attacked his hands -to such a degree that his fingers were always swelled and deformed, -and discharged large chalk-stones once or twice a year; upon which -occasions he would observe, with a smile, that he must set up an inn, -for he could chalk up a score with more ease and rapidity than any man -in England.' - -After referring to the strict temperance of his life, Pinkerton goes -on:-- - -'Though he sat up very late, either writing or conversing, he generally -rose about nine o'clock, and appeared in the breakfast room, his -constant and chosen apartment, with fine vistos towards the Thames. His -approach was proclaimed, and attended, by a favourite little dog, the -legacy of the Marquise du Deffand,[199] and which ease and attention -had rendered so fat that it could hardly move. This was placed beside -him on a small sofa; the tea-kettle, stand, and heater were brought -in, and he drank two or three cups of that liquor out of most rare and -precious ancient porcelain of Japan, of a fine white, embossed with -large leaves. The account of his china cabinet, in his description of -his villa, will show how rich he was in that elegant luxury.... The -loaf and butter were not spared, ... and the dog and the squirrels had -a liberal share of his repast.[200] - -[199] Tonton. See note to p. 250. - -[200] Another passage in the _Walpoliana_ (i. 71-2) explains this: -'Regularly after breakfast, in the summer season, at least, Mr. Walpole -used to mix bread and milk in a large bason, and throw it out at the -window of the sitting-room, for the squirrels; who, soon after, came -down from the high trees, to enjoy their allowance.' - -'Dinner [his hour for which was four] was served up in the small -parlour, or large dining room, as it happened: in winter generally -the former. His valet supported him downstairs;[201] and he ate most -moderately of chicken, pheasant, or any light food. Pastry he disliked, -as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison -pye. Never, but once that [201] 'I cannot go up or down stairs without -being led by a servant. It is _tempus abire_ for me: _lusi satis_' -(_Walpole to Pinkerton_, 15 May, 1794). - -he drank two glasses of white-wine, did the editor see him taste any -liquor, except ice-water. A pail of ice was placed under the table, in -which stood a decanter of water, from which he supplied himself with -his favourite beverage.... - -'If his guest liked even a moderate quantity of wine, he must have -called for it during dinner, for almost instantly after he rang the -bell to order coffee upstairs. Thither he would pass about five -o'clock; and generally resuming his place on the sofa, would sit -till two o'clock in the morning, in miscellaneous chit-chat, full -of singular anecdotes, strokes of wit, and acute observations, -occasionally sending for books or curiosities, or passing to the -library, as any reference happened to arise in conversation. After -his coffee he tasted nothing; but the snuff box of _tabac d'étrennes_ -from Fribourg's was not forgotten, and was replenished from a canister -lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the -window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour. - -'Such was a private rainy day of Horace Walpole. The forenoon quickly -passed in roaming through the numerous apartments of the house, in -which, after twenty visits, still something new would occur; and he -was indeed constantly adding fresh acquisitions. Sometimes a walk in -the grounds would intervene, on which occasions he would go out in his -slippers through a thick dew; and he never wore a hat. He said that, -on his first visit to Paris, he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he -saw every little meagre Frenchman, whom even he could have thrown down -with a breath, walking without a hat, which he could not do, without -a certainty of that disease, which the Germans say is endemial in -England, and is termed by the natives _le-catch-cold_.[202] The first -trial cost him a slight fever, but he got over it, and never caught -cold afterwards: draughts of air, damp rooms, windows open at his back, -all situations were alike to him in this respect. He would even show -some little offence at any solicitude, expressed by his guests on such -an occasion, as an idea arising from the seeming tenderness of his -frame; and would say, with a half smile of good-humoured crossness, -"My back is the same with my face, and my neck is like my nose."[203] -His iced water he not only regarded as a preservative from such an -accident, but he would sometimes observe that he thought his stomach -and bowels would last longer than his bones; such conscious vigour and -strength in those parts did he feel from the use of that beverage.'[204] - -[202] 'I have persisted'--he tells Gray from Paris in January, -1766--'through this Siberian winter in not adding a grain to my clothes -and in going open-breasted without an under waistcoat.' - -[203] He was probably thinking of _Spectator_, No. 228: 'The _Indian_ -answered very well to an _European_, who asked him how he could go -naked: I am all Face.' Lord Chesterfield wished his little godson to -have the same advantage. 'I am very willing that he should be _all -face_,' he says in a letter to Arthur Stanhope of 19th October, 1762. - -[204] _Walpoliana_, i. xi-xiv. - -The only particular that Cunningham adds to this chronicle of his -habits is one too characteristic of the man to be omitted. After dinner -at Strawberry, he says, the smell was removed by 'a censer or pot of -frankincense.' According to the _Description_, etc., there was a tripod -of ormolu kept in the Breakfast Room for this purpose. It is difficult -to identify the 'ancient marble urn of great thickness' in which the -snuff was stored; but it may have been that 'of granite, brought from -one of the Greek Islands, and given to Sir Robert Walpole by Sir -Charles Wager,' which also figures in the Catalogue. - -Walpole's character may be considered in a fourfold aspect, as a man, -a virtuoso, a politician, and an author. The first is the least easy -to describe. What strikes one most forcibly is, that he was primarily -and before all an aristocrat, or, as in his own day he would have -been called, a 'person of quality,' whose warmest sympathies were -reserved for those of his own rank. Out of the charmed circle of the -peerage and baronetage, he had few strong connections; and although -in middle life he corresponded voluminously with antiquaries such as -Cole and Zouch, and in the languor of his old age turned eagerly to -the renovating society of young women such as Hannah More and the Miss -Berrys, however high his heart may have placed them, it may be doubted -whether his head ever quite exalted them to the level of Lady Caroline -Petersham, or Lady Ossory, or Her Grace of Gloucester. In a measure, -this would also account for his unsympathetic attitude to some of -the great _literati_ of his day. With Gray he had been at school and -college, which made a difference; but he no doubt regarded Fielding -and Hogarth and Goldsmith and Johnson, apart from their confessed -hostility to 'high life' and his beloved 'genteel comedy,' as gifted -but undesirable outsiders,--'horn-handed breakers of the glebe' in Art -and Letters,--with whom it would be impossible to be as intimately -familiar as one could be with such glorified amateurs as Bunbury and -Lady Lucan and Lady Di. Beauclerk, who were all more or less born -in the purple. To the friends of his own class he was constant and -considerate, and he seems to have cherished a genuine affection for -Conway, George Montagu, and Sir Horace Mann. With regard to Gray, his -relations, it would seem, were rather those of intellectual affinity -and esteem than downright affection. But his closest friends were -women. In them, that is, in the women of his time, he found just that -atmosphere of sunshine and _insouciance_,--those conversational 'lilacs -and nightingales,'--in which his soul delighted, and which were most -congenial to his restless intelligence and easily fatigued temperament. -To have seen him at his best, one should have listened to him, not when -he was playing the antiquary with Ducarel or Conyers Middleton, but -gossipping of ancient green-room scandals at Cliveden, or explaining -the mysteries of the 'Officina Arbuteana' to Madame de Boufflers or -Lady Townshend, or delighting Mary and Agnes Berry, in the half-light -of the Round Drawing Room at Strawberry, with his old stories of Lady -Suffolk and Lady Hervey, and of the monstrous raven, under guise of -which the disembodied spirit of His Majesty King George the First -was supposed to have revisited the disconsolate Duchess of Kendal. -Comprehending thoroughly that cardinal precept of conversation,--'never -to weary your hearer,'--he was an admirable _raconteur_; and his -excellent memory, shrewd perceptions, and volatile wit--all the more -piquant for its never-failing mixture of well-bred malice--must have -made him a most captivating companion. If, as Scott says, his temper -was 'precarious,' it is more charitable to remember that in middle -and later life he was nearly always tormented with a malady seldom -favourable to good humour, than to explain the less amiable details of -his conduct (as does Mr. Croker) by the hereditary taint of insanity. -In a life of eighty years many hot friendships cool, even with tempers -not 'precarious.' As regards the charges sometimes made against him -of coldness and want of generosity, very good evidence would be -required before they could be held to be established; and a man is not -necessarily niggardly because his benefactions do not come up to the -standard of all the predatory members of the community. It is besides -clear, as Conway and Madame du Deffand would have testified, that he -could be royally generous when necessity required. That he was careful -rather than lavish in his expenditure must be admitted. It may be -added that he was very much in bondage to public opinion, and morbidly -sensitive to ridicule. - -As a virtuoso and amateur, his position is a mixed one. He was -certainly widely different from that typical art connoisseur of his -day,--the butt of Goldsmith and of Reynolds,--who travelled the -Grand Tour to litter a gallery at home with broken-nosed busts and -the rubbish of the Roman picture-factories. As the preface to the -_Ædes Walpolianæ_ showed, he really knew something about painting, -in fact was a capable draughtsman himself; and besides, through Mann -and others, had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for procuring -genuine antiques. But his collection was not so rich in this way as -might have been anticipated; and his portraits, his china, and his -miniatures were probably his best possessions. For the rest, he was -an indiscriminate rather than an eclectic collector; and there was -also considerable truth in that strange 'attraction from the great -to the little, and from the useful to the odd,' which Macaulay has -noted. Many of the marvels at Strawberry would never have found a -place in the treasure-houses--say of Beckford or Samuel Rogers. It -is difficult to fancy Bermingham's fables in paper on looking-glass, -or Hubert's cardcuttings, or the fragile mosaics of Mrs. Delany -either at Fonthill or St. James's Place. At the same time, it should -be remembered that several of the most trivial or least defensible -objects were presents which possibly reflected rather the charity of -the recipient than the good taste of the giver. All the articles over -which Macaulay lingers--Wolsey's hat, Van Tromp's pipe-case, and King -William's spurs--were obtained in this way; and (with a laugher) Horace -Walpole, who laughed a good deal himself, would probably have made as -merry as the most mirth-loving spectator could have desired. But such -items gave a heterogeneous character to the gathering, and turned what -might have been a model museum into an old curiosity-shop. In any case, -however, it was a memorable curiosity-shop, and in this modern era of -_bric-à-brac_ would probably attract far more serious attention than -it did in those practical and pre-æsthetic days of 1842, when it fell -under the hammer of George Robins.[205] - -[205] See Mr. Robins's _Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry -Hill_, etc. (1842), 4to. It is compiled in his well-known grandiloquent -manner; but includes an account of the Castle by Harrison Ainsworth, -together with many interesting details. It gave rise to a humorous -squib by Crofton Croker, entitled _Gooseberry Hall_, with 'Puffatory -Remarks,' and cuts. - -Walpole's record as a politician is a brief one, and if his influence -upon the questions of his time was of any importance, it must have been -exercised unobtrusively. During the period of the 'great Walpolean -battle,' as Junius styled the struggle that culminated in the downfall -of Lord Orford, he was a fairly regular attendant in the House of -Commons; and, as we have seen, spoke in his father's behalf when the -motion was made for an enquiry into his conduct. Nine years later, he -moved the address, and a few years later still, delivered a speech upon -the employment of Swiss Regiments in the Colonies. Finally he resigned -his 'senatorial dignity,' quitting the scene with the valediction of -those who depreciate what they no longer desire to retain. 'What could -I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same knaveries, that I -have seen their fathers and grandfathers act? Could I hear oratory -beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to Charles -Townshend's? Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of -beings?'[206] In his earlier days he was a violent Whig,--at times -almost a Republican' (to which latter phase of his opinions must be -attributed the transformation of King Charles's death-warrant into -'Major Charta'); 'in his old and enfeebled age,' says Miss Berry, -'the horrors of the first French Revolution made him a Tory; while he -always lamented, as one of the worst effects of its excesses, that -they must necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and -establishment of religious liberty.' He deplored the American War, and -disapproved the Slave Trade; but, in sum, it is to be suspected that -his main interest in politics, after his father's death, and apart -from the preservation throughout an 'age of small factions' of his own -uncertain sinecures, was the good and ill fortune of the handsome and -amiable, but moderately eminent statesman, General Conway. It was for -Conway that he took his most active steps in the direction of political -intrigue; and perhaps his most important political utterance is the -_Counter Address to the Public on the late Dismission of a General -Officer_, which was prompted by Conway's deprivation of his command for -voting in the opposition with himself in the debate upon the illegality -of general warrants. Whether he would have taken office if it had been -offered to him, may be a question; but his attitude, as disclosed -by his letters, is a rather hesitating _nolo episcopari_. The most -interesting result of his connection with public affairs is the series -of sketches of political men dispersed through his correspondence, -and through the posthumous _Memoirs_ published by Lord Holland and -Sir Denis Le Marchant. Making every allowance for his prejudices -and partisanship (and of neither can Walpole be acquitted), it is -impossible not to regard these latter as highly important contributions -to historical literature. Even Mr. Croker admits that they contain 'a -considerable portion of voluntary or involuntary truth;' and such an -admission, when extorted from Lord Beaconsfield's 'Rigby,' of whom no -one can justly say that he was ignorant of the politics of Walpole's -day, has all the weight which attaches to a testimonial from the -enemy.[207] - -[206] _Walpole to Montagu_, 12 March, 1768. - -[207] The full titles of these memoirs are _Memoires of the last Ten -Years of the Reign of King George II._ Edited by Lord Holland. 2 vols. -4to., 1822; and _Memoirs of the Reign of King George III._ Edited, with -Notes, by Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. 4 vols. 8vo., 1845. Both were -reviewed, _more suo_, by Mr. Croker in the _Quarterly_, with the main -intention of proving that all Walpole's pictures of his contemporaries -were coloured and distorted by successive disappointments arising -out of his solicitude concerning the patent places from which he -derived his income,--in other words (Mr. Croker's words!), that -'the whole is "a copious polyglot of spleen."' Such an investigation -was in the favourite line of the critic, and might be expected to -result in a formidable indictment. But the best judges hold it to -have been exaggerated, and to-day the method of Mr Croker is more or -less discredited. Indeed, it is an instance of those quaint revenges -of the whirligig of Time, that some of his utterances are really -more applicable to himself than to Walpole. 'His [Walpole's] natural -inclination [says Croker] was to grope an obscure way through mazes and -_souterrains_ rather than walk the high road by daylight. He is never -satisfied with the plain and obvious cause of any effect, and is for -ever striving after some tortuous solution.' This is precisely what -unkind modern critics affirm of the Rt. Honourable John Wilson Croker. - -This mention of the _Memoirs_ naturally leads us to that final -consideration, the position of Walpole as an author. Most of the -productions which fill the five bulky volumes given to the world in -1798 by Miss Berry's pious care have been referred to in the course -of the foregoing pages, and it is not necessary to recapitulate them -here. The place which they occupy in English literature was never a -large one, and it has grown smaller with lapse of time. Walpole, in -truth, never took letters with sufficient seriousness. He was willing -enough to obtain repute, but upon condition that he should be allowed -to despise his calling and laugh at 'thoroughness.' If masterpieces -could have been dashed off at a hand-gallop; if antiquarian studies -could have been made of permanent value by the exercise of mere elegant -facility; if a dramatic reputation could have been secured by the -simple accumulation of horrors upon Horror's head,--his might have -been a great literary name. But it is not thus the severer Muses are -cultivated; and Walpole's mood was too variable, his industry too -intermittent, his fine-gentleman self-consciousness too inveterate, to -admit of his producing anything that (as one of his critics has said) -deserves a higher title than '_opuscula_.' His essays in the _World_ -lead one to think that he might have made a more than respectable -essayist, if he had not fallen upon days in which that form of writing -was practically outworn; and it is manifest that he would have been -an admirable writer of familiar poetry if he could have forgotten the -fallacy (exposed by Johnson)[208] that easy verse is easy to write. -Nevertheless, in the Gothic romance which was suggested by his Gothic -castle--for, to speak paradoxically, Strawberry Hill is almost as -much as Walpole the author of the _Castle of Otranto_--he managed to -initiate a new form of fiction; and by decorating 'with gay strings -the gatherings of Vertue' he preserved serviceably, in the _Anecdotes -of Painting_, a mass of curious, if sometimes uncritical, information -which, in other circumstances, must have been hopelessly lost. If -anything else of his professed literary work is worthy of recollection, -it must be a happy squib such as the _Letter of Xo Ho_, a fable such as -_The Entail_, or an essay such as the pamphlet on Landscape Gardening, -which even Croker allows to be 'a very elegant history and happy -elucidation of that charming art.'[209] - -[208] _Idler_, No. lxxvii. (6 Oct., 1759). - -[209] See Appendix, p. 320. To the advocates of the rival school -Walpole's utterance, perhaps inevitably, appears in a less favourable -light. 'Horace Walpole published an _Essay on Modern Gardening_ in -1785, in which he repeated what other writers had said on the subject. -This was at once translated, and had a great circulation on the -Continent. The _jardin à l'Anglaise_ became the rage; many beautiful -old gardens were destroyed in France and elsewhere; and Scotch and -English gardeners were in demand all over Europe to renovate gardens in -the English manner. It is not an exhilarating thought that in the one -instance in which English taste in a matter of design has taken hold -on the Continent, it has done so with such disastrous results' (_The -Formal Garden in England_, 2nd edn., 1892, p. 86). - -But it is not by his professedly literary work that he has acquired -the reputation which he retains and must continue to retain. It -is as a letter-writer that he survives; and it is upon the vast -correspondence, of which, even now, we seem scarcely to have reached -the limits, that is based his surest claim _volitare per ora virum_. -The qualities which are his defects in more serious productions become -merits in his correspondence; or, rather, they cease to be defects. -No one looks for prolonged effort in a gossipping epistle; a weighty -reasoning is less important than a light hand; and variety pleases more -surely than symmetry of structure. Among the little band of those who -have distinguished themselves in this way, Walpole is in the foremost -rank,--nay, if wit and brilliancy, without gravity or pathos, are to -rank highest, he is first. It matters nothing whether he wrote easily -or with difficulty; whether he did, or did not, make minutes of apt -illustrations or descriptive incidents: the result is delightful. For -diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, for the constant -surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns -of phrase, for graphic characterization and clever anecdote, for -playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing in English -like his correspondence. And when one remembers that, in addition, -this correspondence constitutes a sixty-years' social chronicle of -a specially picturesque epoch by one of the most picturesque of -picturesque chroniclers, there can be no need to bespeak any further -suffrage for Horace Walpole's 'incomparable letters.' - - - - -APPENDIX. - - -BOOKS PRINTED AT THE STRAWBERRY HILL PRESS. - -⁂ The following list contains all the books mentioned in the -_Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole_, etc., 1784, together -with those issued between that date and Walpole's death. It does _not_ -include the several title-pages and labels which he printed from -time to time, or the quatrains and verses purporting to be addressed -by the Press to Lady Rochford, Lady Townshend, Madame de Boufflers, -the Miss Berrys, and others. Nor does it comprise the pieces struck -off by Mr. Kirgate, the printer, for the benefit of himself and his -friends. On the other hand, all the works enumerated here are, with -three exceptions, described from copies either in the possession of the -present writer, or to be found in the British Museum and the Dyce and -Forster Libraries at South Kensington. - - -1757. - - Odes by Mr. Gray. [Greek: Phônanta synethoisi]--Pindar, Olymp. II. - [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, for R. and - J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, MDCCLVII._ - - Half-title, 'Odes by Mr. Gray. [Price one Shilling.]'; Title as - above; Text, pp. 5-21. 4to. 1,000 copies printed. 'June 25th [1757], - I erected a printing-press at my house at Strawberry Hill.' 'Aug. - 8th, I published two Odes by Mr. Gray, the first production of my - press' (_Short Notes_). 'And with what do you think we open? _Cedite, - Romani Impressores_,--with nothing under _Graii Carmina_. I found him - [Gray] in town last week: he had brought his two Odes to be printed. - I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands' ... (_Walpole to Chute_, 12 - July, 1757). 'I send you two copies (one for Dr. Cocchi) of a very - honourable opening of my press,--two amazing Odes of Mr. Gray; they - are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime! consequently, I - fear, a little obscure' (_Walpole to Mann_, 4 Aug., 1757). 'You are - very particular, I can tell you, in liking Gray's Odes; but you must - remember that the age likes Akenside, and did like Thomson! Can the - same people like both?' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 25 Aug., 1757). - - To Mr. Gray, on his Odes. [By David Garrick.] - - Single leaf, containing six quatrains (24 lines). 4to. Only six copies - are said to have been printed; but it is not improbable that there - were more. There is a copy in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington. - - A Journey into England. By Paul Hentzner, in the year M.D.XC.VIII. - [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLVII._ - - Title, Dedication (2 leaves); 'Advertisement,' i-x; half-title; Latin - and English Text on opposite pages, 1 to 103 (double numbers). Sm. - 8vo. 220 copies printed. 'In Oct., 1757, was finished at my press an - edition of Hentznerus, translated by Mr. Bentley, to which I wrote - an advertisement. I dedicated it to the Society of Antiquaries, of - which I am a member' (_Short Notes_). 'An edition of Hentznerus, with - a version by Mr. Bentley, and a little preface of mine, were prepared - [_i. e._, as the first issue of the press], but are to wait [for - Gray's _Odes_]' (_Walpole to Chute_, 12 July, 1757). - - -1758. - - A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, with Lists of - their Works. _Dove, diavolo! Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante - coglionerie?_ Card. d'Este, to Ariosto. Vol. i. [Strawberry Hill - Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII._ - - ---- Vol. ii. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at - Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII._ - - Vol. i.,--Title; Dedication of 2 leaves to Lord Hertford; - Advertisement, pp. i-viii; half-title; Text, pp. 1-219, and unpaged - Index. There is also a frontispiece engraved by Grignion. Vol. - ii.,--Half-title; Title; Text, pp. 1-215, and unpaged Index. 8vo. - 300 copies issued. A second edition, 'corrected and enlarged,' was - printed in 1758 (but dated 1759), in two vols. 8vo., 'for R. and J. - Dodsley, in Pallmall; and J. Graham in the Strand.' According to Baker - (_Catalogue of Books, etc., printed at the Press at Strawberry Hill_ - [1810]), 40 copies of a supplement or Postscript to the _Royal and - Noble Authors_ were printed by Kirgate in 1786. 'In April, 1758, was - finished the first impression of my "Catalogue of Royal and Noble - Authors," which I had written the preceding year in less than five - months' (_Short Notes_). 'My book is marvellously in fashion, to my - great astonishment. I did not expect so much truth and such notions - of liberty would have made their fortune in this our day' (_Walpole - to Montagu_, 4 May, 1758). 'Dec. 5th [1758] was published the second - edition of my "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." Two thousand - were printed, but _not_ at Strawberry Hill' (_Short Notes_). 'I have - but two motives for offering you the accompanying trifle [_i. e._, the - Postscript above referred to].... Coming from my press, I wish it may - be added to your Strawberry editions. It is so far from being designed - for the public that I have printed but forty copies' (_Walpole to - Hannah More_, 1 Jan., 1787). - - An Account of Russia as it was in the Year 1710. By Charles Lord - Whitworth. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. - MDCCLVIII._ - - Title, 'Advertisement' pp. i-xxiv; Text, pp. 1-158; Errata, one - page. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies printed. 'The beginning of October [1758] - I published Lord Whitworth's account of Russia, to which I wrote - the advertisement' (_Short Notes_). 'A book has been left at your - ladyship's house; it is Lord Whitworth's Account of Russia' (_Walpole - to Lady Hervey_, 17 Oct., 1758). Mr. (afterwards Lord) Whitworth was - Ambassador to St. Petersburg in the reign of Peter the Great. - - The Mistakes; or, the Happy Resentment. A Comedy. By the late Lord * - * * * [Henry Hyde, Lord Hyde and Cornbury.] _London: Printed by S. - Richardson, in the Year 1758._ - - Title; List of Subscribers, pp. xvi; Advertisement, Prologue, and - _Dramatis Personæ_, 2 leaves; Text, 1-83; Epilogue unpaged. Baker - gives the following particulars from the _Biographia Dramatica_ as to - this book: 'The Author of this Piece was the learned, ingenious, and - witty LORD CORNBURY, but it was never acted. He made a present of it - to that great Actress, Mrs. PORTER, to make what Emolument she could - by it. And that Lady, after his Death, published it by Subscription, - at Five Shillings, each Book, which was so much patronized by the - Nobility and Gentry that Three Thousand Copies were disposed of. - Prefixed to it is a Preface, by Mr. HORACE WALPOLE, at whose Press at - Strawberry-Hill it was printed.' Baker adds, 'Mr. Yardley, who when - living, kept a Bookseller's Shop in New-Inn-Passage, confirmed this - account, by asserting, that he assisted in printing it at that Press.' - But Baker nevertheless prefixes an asterisk to the title, which - implies that it was 'not printed for Mr. Walpole,' and this probably - accounts for Richardson's name on the title-page. By the subscription - list, the Hon. Horace Walpole took 21 copies, David Garrick, 38, and - Mr. Samuel Richardson, of Salisbury Court, 4. All Walpole says is, - 'About the same time [1758] Mrs. Porter published [for her benefit] - Lord Hyde's play, to which I had written the advertisement' (_Short - Notes_). - - A Parallel; in the Manner of Plutarch: between a most celebrated - Man of Florence; and One, scarce ever heard of, in England. By the - Reverend Mr. Spence. '--_Parvis componere magna_'--Virgil. [Portrait - in circle of Magliabecchi.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, by William - Robinson; and Sold by Messieurs Dodsley, at Tully's-Head, Pall-Mall; - for the Benefit of Mr. Hill. M.DCC.LVIII._ - - Title; Text, pp. 4-104. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies printed. '1759. Feb. 2nd. - I published Mr. Spence's Parallel of Magliabecchi and Mr. Hill, a - tailor of Buckingham; calculated to raise a little sum of money for - the latter poor man. Six hundred copies were sold in a fortnight, - and it was reprinted in London' (_Short Notes_). 'Mr. Spence's - Magliabecchi is published to-day from Strawberry; I believe you saw - it, and shall have it; but 'tis not worth sending you on purpose' - (_Walpole to Chute_, 2 Feb., 1759). - - Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose. _Pereunt et imputantur._ - [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLVIII._ - - Title; Dedication and 'Table of Contents,' iii-vi; Text, 1-219. Sm. - 8vo. 200 copies printed. 'In the summer of 1758, I printed some of my - own Fugitive Pieces, and dedicated them to my cousin, General Conway' - (_Short Notes_). 'March 17 [1759]. I began to distribute some copies - of my "Fugitive Pieces," collected and printed together at Strawberry - Hill, and dedicated to General Conway' (_ibid._). One of these, which - is in the Forster Collection at South Kensington, went to Gray. 'This - Book [says a MS. inscription] once belonged to Gray the Poet, and - has his autograph on the Title-page. I [_i. e._, George Daniel, of - Canonbury] bought it at Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson's Sale Rooms for - £1. 19 on Thursday, 28 Augt. 1851, from the valuable collection of Mr. - Penn of Stoke.' - - -1760. - - Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the Holbein Chamber at - Strawberry Hill. _Strawberry-Hill, 1760._ - - Pp. 8. 8vo. [Lowndes.] - - Catalogue of the Collection, of Pictures of the Duke of Devonshire, - General Guise, and the late Sir Paul Methuen. _Strawberry-Hill, 1760._ - - Pp. 44. 8vo. 12 copies, printed on one side only. [Lowndes.] - - M. Annæi Lucani Pharsalia cum Notis Hugonis Grotii, et Richardi - Bentleii. _Multa sunt condonanda in opere postumo._ In Librum iv, Nota - 641. [Emblematical vignette.] _Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLX._ - - Title, Dedication (by Richard Cumberland to Halifax), and - Advertisement (_Ad Lectorem_), 3 leaves; Text, pp. 1-525. 4to. 500 - copies printed. Cumberland took up the editing when Bentley the - younger resigned it. 'I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my - friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and - emendations on the first seven books' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 9 Dec., - 1758). 'I would not _alone_ undertake to correct the press; but I am - so lucky as to live in the strictest friendship with Dr. Bentley's - only son, who, to all the ornament of learning, has the amiable turn - of mind, disposition, and easy wit' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 12 Jan., - 1759). 'Lucan is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a - succession of bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth book. It - will scarce appear before next winter' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 23 Dec., - 1759). 'My Lucan is finished, but will not be published till after - Christmas' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 27 Nov., 1760). 'I have delivered to - your brother ... a Lucan, printed at Strawberry, which, I trust, you - will think a handsome edition' (_Walpole to Mann_, 27 Jan., 1761). - - -1762. - - Anecdotes of Painting in England; with some Account of the principal - Artists; and incidental Notes on other Arts; collected by the late - Mr. George Vertue; and now digested and published from his original - MSS. By Mr. Horace Walpole. _Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere._ - Vol. I. [Device with Walpole's crest.] _Printed by Thomas Farmer at - Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXII._ - - ------ _Le sachant Anglois, je crus qu'il m'alloit parler d'edifices - et de peintures._ Nouvelle Eloise, vol. i. p. 245. Vol. II. [Device - with Walpole's crest.] _Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry-Hill, - MDCCLXII._ - - ------ Vol. III. (Motto of six lines from Prior's _Protogenes and - Apelles_.) _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII._ - - ------ To which is added the History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. - _The Glory of_ Lebanon _shall come unto thee, the Fir-tree, the - Pine-tree, and the Box together, to beautify the Place of my - Sanctuary, and I will make the Place of my Feet glorious_. Isaiah, lx. - 13. Volume the Fourth and last. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas - Kirgate, MDCCLXXI._ - - Vol. i.,--Title, Dedication, Preface, pp. i-xiii; Contents; Text, pp. - 1-168, with Appendix and Index unpaged. Vol. ii.,--Title; Text, pp. - 1-158, with Appendix, Index, and 'Errata' unpaged; and 'Additional - Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of Painting in England,' pp. - 1-12. Vol. iii.,--Title; pp. 1-155, with Appendix and Index unpaged; - and 'Additional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of Painting - in England,' pp. 1-4. Vol. iv.,--Title, Dedication, Advertisement - (dated October 1, 1780), pp. i-x; Contents; Text, pp. 1-151 (dated - August 12, 1770); 'Errata;' pp. x-52; Appendix of one leaf ('Prints - by or after Hogarth, discovered since the Catalogue was finished'), - and Index unpaged. The volumes are 4to., with many portraits and - plates. 600 copies were printed. The fourth volume was in type in - 1770, but not issued until Oct., 1780. It was dedicated to the Duke - of Richmond,--Lady Hervey, to whom the three earlier volumes had been - inscribed, having died in 1768. A second edition of the first three - volumes was printed by Thomas Kirgate at Strawberry Hill in 1765. - 'Sept. 1st [1759]. I began to look over Mr. Vertue's MSS., which I - bought last year for one hundred pounds, in order to compose the Lives - of English Painters' (_Short Notes_). '1760, Jan. 1st. I began the - Lives of English Artists, from Vertue's MSS. (that is, "Anecdotes of - Painting," etc.)' (_ibid._). 'Aug. 14th. Finished the first volume of - my "Anecdotes of Painting in England." Sept. 5th, began the second - volume. Oct. 23d, finished the second volume' (_ibid._). '1761, Jan. - 4th, began the third volume' (_ibid._). 'June 29th, resumed the third - volume of my "Anecdotes of Painting," which I had laid aside after - the first day' (_ibid._). 'Aug. 22nd, finished the third volume of - my "Anecdotes of Painting"' (_ibid._). 'The "Anecdotes of Painting" - have succeeded to the press: I have finished two volumes; but as - there will at least be a third, I am not determined whether I shall - not wait to publish the whole together. You will be surprised, I - think, to see what a quantity of materials the industry of one man - [Vertue] could amass!' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 27 Nov., 1760.) 'You - drive your expectations much too fast, in thinking my "Anecdotes of - Painting" are ready to appear, in demanding three volumes. You will - see but _two_, and it will be February first' (_Walpole to Montagu_, - 30 Dec., 1761). 'I am now publishing the third volume, and another of - Engravers' (_Walpole to Dalrymple_, 31 Jan., 1764). 'I have advertised - my long-delayed last volume of "Painters" to come out, and must be in - town to distribute it' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 23 Sept., 1780). - 'I have left with Lord Harcourt for you my new old last volume of - "Painters"' (_Walpole to Mason_, 13 Oct., 1780). - - -1763. - - A Catalogue of Engravers, who have been born, or resided in England; - digested by Mr. Horace Walpole from the MSS. of Mr. George Vertue; to - which is added an Account of the Life and Works of the latter. _And - Art reflected Images to Art...._ Pope. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in - the Year MDCCLXIII._ - - Title; pp. 1-128, last page dated 'Oct. 10th, 1762;' 'Life of Mr. - George Vertue' pp. 1-14; 'List of Vertue's Works,' pp. 1-20, last page - dated 'Oct. 22d, 1762;' Index of Names of Engravers, unpaged. 4to. - There are several portraits, including one of Vertue after Richardson. - 'Aug. 2nd [1762], began the "Catalogue of Engravers." October 10th, - finished it' (_Short Notes_). 'The volume of Engravers is printed off, - and has been some time; I only wait for some of the plates' (_Walpole - to Cole_, 8 Oct., 1763). 'I am now publishing the third volume [of the - 'Anecdotes of Painting'], and another of "Engravers"' (_Walpole to - Dalrymple_, 31 Jan., 1764). - - -1764. - - Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple. [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] - _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIV._ - - Title, Verses signed 'Horace Walpole, January 26th, 1764,' Text, 1-34 - in all. 4to. 100 copies printed by Prat. 'I shall send you, too, Lady - Temple's Poems' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 16 July, 1764). - - The Magpie and her Brood, a Fable, from the Tales of Bonaventure des - Periers, Valet de Chambre to the Queen of Navarre; addressed to Miss - Hotham. - - 4 pp., containing 72 lines,--initialed 'H. W.' 4to. 'Oct. 15th, [1764] - wrote the fable of "The Magpie and her Brood" for Miss [Henrietta] - Hotham, then near eleven years old, great niece of Henrietta Hobart, - Countess Dowager of Suffolk. It was taken from _Les Nouvelles - Récréations de Bonaventure des Periers_, Valet-de-Chambre to the Queen - of Navarre' (_Short Notes_). - - The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, written by Himself. - [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Prat in the - Year MDCCLXIV._ - - Title, Dedication, and Advertisement, 5 leaves; Text, pp. 1-171. - Folding plate portrait. 4to. 200 copies printed. '1763. Beginning of - September wrote the Dedication and Preface to Lord Herbert's Life' - (_Short Notes_). 'I have got a most delectable work to print, which I - had great difficulty to obtain, and which I must use while I can have - it. It is the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury' (_Letter - to the Bishop of Carlisle_, 10 July, 1763). 'It will not be long - before I have the pleasure of sending you by far the most curious and - entertaining book that my press has produced.... It is the life of - the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and written by himself,--of the - contents I will not anticipate one word' (_Letter to Mason_, 29 Dec., - 1763). 'The thing most in fashion is my edition of Lord Herbert's - Life; people are mad after it, I believe because only two hundred were - printed' (_Letter to Montagu_, 16 Dec., 1764). 'This singular work - was printed from the original MS. in 1764, at Strawberry-hill, and is - perhaps the most extraordinary account that ever was given seriously - by a wise man of himself' (Walpole, _Works_, 1798, i. 363). - - -1768. - - Cornélie, Vestale. Tragédie. [By the President Hénault.] _Imprimée à - Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXVIII._ - - Title; Dedication '_à Mons. Horace Walpole_,' dated '_Paris ce 27 - Novembre, 1767_,' pp. iii-iv; 'Acteurs;' Text, 1-91. 8vo. 200 copies - printed; 150 went to Paris. Kirgate printed it. 'My press is revived, - and is printing a French play written by the old President Hénault. - It was damned many years ago at Paris, and yet I think is better than - some that have succeeded, and much better than any of _our_ modern - tragedies. I print it to please the old man, as he was exceedingly - kind to me at Paris; but I doubt whether he will live till it is - finished. He is to have a hundred copies, and there are to be but an - hundred more, of which you shall have one' (_Letter to Montagu_, 15 - April, 1768). President Hénault died November, 1770, aged eighty-six. - - The Mysterious Mother. A Tragedy. By Mr. Horace Walpole. _Sit mihi fas - audita loqui!_ Virgil. _Printed at Strawberry-Hill: MDCCLXVIII._ - - Title, 'Errata,' 'Persons' (2 leaves); Text, pp. 1-120, with - Postscript, pp. 1-10 (which see for origin of play). Sm. 8vo. 50 - copies issued. _The Mysterious Mother_ is reprinted in Walpole's - _Works_, 1798, i., pp. 37-129. 'March 15 [1768]. I finished a tragedy - called "The Mysterious Mother," which I had begun Dec. 25, 1766' - (_Short Notes_). 'I thank you for myself, not for my Play.... I accept - with great thankfulness what you have voluntarily been so good as to - do for me; and should the Mysterious Mother ever be performed when I - am dead, it will owe to you its presentation' (_Walpole to Mason_, 11 - May, 1769). - - -1769. - - Poems by the Reverend Mr. Hoyland. _Printed at Strawberry Hill: - MDCCLXIX._ - - Title, Advertisement [by Walpole], pp. i-iv; Text, 1-19. 8vo. 300 - copies printed. In the British Museum is a copy which simply has - 'Printed in the Year 1769.' 'I enclose a short Advertisement for - Mr. Hoyland's poems. I mean by it to tempt people to a little more - charity, and to soften to him, as much as I can, the humiliation of - its being asked for him; if you approve it, it shall be prefixed to - the edition' (_Walpole to Mason_, 5 April, 1769). - - -1770. - - Reply to the Observations of the Rev. Dr. Milles, Dean of Exeter, and - President of the Society of Antiquaries, on the Ward Robe Account. - - Pp. 24. Six copies printed, dated 28 August, 1770 [Baker]. 'In the - summer of this year [1770] wrote an answer to Dr. Milles' remarks on - my "Richard the Third"' (_Short Notes_). - - -1772. - - Copies of Seven Original Letters from King Edward VI. to Barnaby - Fitzpatrick. _Strawberry-Hill._ _Printed_ in the Year _M.DCC.LXXII_. - - Pp. viii-14. 4to. 200 copies printed. '1771. End of September, wrote - the Advertisement to the "Letters of King Edward the Sixth"' (_Short - Notes_). 'I have printed "King Edward's Letters," and will bring you a - copy' (_Walpole to Mason_, 6 July, 1772). - - Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of Curious Papers: either - republished from _scarce Tracts_, or now first printed from _original_ - MSS. Number I. To be continued occasionally. _Invenies illic et festa - domestica vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus Avus._ Ovid. Fast. - Lib. 1. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXII._ - - Title, 'Advertisement,' pp. i-iv; Text, 1-48. 4to. 500 copies printed. - 'I have since begun a kind of Desiderata Curiosa, and intend to - publish it in numbers, as I get materials; it is to be an Hospital - of Foundlings; and though I shall not take in all that offer, there - will be no enquiry into the nobility of the parents; nor shall I care - how heterogeneous the brats are' (_Walpole to Mason_, 6 July, 1772). - 'By that time too I shall have the first number of my "Miscellaneous - Antiquities" ready. The first essay is only a republication of some - tilts and tournaments' (_Walpole to Mason_, 21 July, 1772). - - Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of Curious Papers: either - republished from _scarce Tracts_, or now first printed from _original_ - MSS. Number II. To be continued occasionally. _Invenies illic et - festa domestica vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus Avus._ - Ovid. Fast. Lib. i. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate_, - M.DCC.LXXII. - - Title and Text, pp. 1-62. 500 copies printed. 'In July [1772] wrote - the "Life of Sir Thomas Wyat [the Elder]," No. II. of my edition of - "Miscellaneous Antiquities"' (_Short Notes_). - - Memoires du Comte de Grammont, par Monsieur le Comte Antoine Hamilton. - Nouvelle Edition, augmentée de Notes & d'Eclaircissemens, necessaires, - par M. Horace Walpole. _Des gens qui écrivent pour le Comte de - Grammont, peuvent compter sur quelque indulgence._ V. l'Epitre prelim. - p. xviii. _Imprimée à Strawberry-Hill, M.DCC.LXXII._ - - Title, Dedication, 'Avis de L'Editeur,' 'Avertissement,' 'Epitre à - Monsieur le Comte de Grammont,' 'Table des Chapitres,' 'Errata,' pp. - xxiv; Text, pp. 1-290: 'Table des personnes,' 3 pp. Portraits of - Hamilton, Mdlle. d'Hamilton, and Philibert Comte de Grammont. 4to. - 100 copies printed; 30 went to Paris. It was dedicated to Madame du - Deffand, as follows: '_L'Editeur vous consacre cette Edition, comme un - monument de son Amitié, de son Admiration, & de son Respect; à Vous, - dont les Grâces, l'Esprit, & le Goût retracent au siecle présent le - siecle de Louis quatorze & les agremens de l'Auteur de ces Mémoires._' - 'I want to send you these [the _Miscellaneous Antiquities_] ... and a - "Grammont," of which I have printed only a hundred copies, and which - will be extremely scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France' - (_Walpole to Cole_, 8 Jan., 1773). - - -1774. - - A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole. [Plate of Strawberry - Hill.] A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, youngest son - of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill, near - Twickenham. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, - &c. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate_, M.DCC.LXXIV. - - Two titles; Text, pp. 1-119. 4to. 100 copies printed, 6 on large - paper. Many copies have the following: 'Appendix. Pictures and - Curiosities added since the Catalogue was printed,' pp. 121-145; 'List - of the Books printed at Strawberry-Hill,' unpaged; 'Additions since - the Appendix,' pp. 149-152; 'More Additions,' pp. 153-158. Baker - speaks of an earlier issue of 65 pp. which we have not met with. - Lowndes (_Appendix to Bibliographer's Manual_, 1864, p. 239) states - that it was said by Kirgate to have been used by the servants in - showing the house, and differed entirely from the editions of 1774 and - 1784. - - -1775. - - To Mrs. Crewe. [Verses by Charles James Fox.] N.D. - - Pp. 2. Single leaf. 4to. 300 copies printed. Walpole speaks of these - in a letter to Mason dated 12 June, 1774; and he sends a copy of - them to him, 27 May, 1775. Mrs. Crewe, the Amoret addressed, was the - daughter of Fulke Greville, and the wife of J. Crewe. She was painted - by Reynolds as an Alpine shepherdess. - - Dorinda, a Town Eclogue. [By the Hon. Richard Fitzpatrick, brother of - the Earl of Ossory.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate. M.DCC.LXXV._ - - Title; Text, 3-8. 4to. 300 copies printed. 'I shall send you soon - Fitzpatrick's "Town Eclogue," from my own furnace. The verses are - charmingly smooth and easy....' 'P.S. Here is the Eclogue' (_Letter to - Mason_, 12 June, 1774). - - -1778. - - The Sleep-Walker, a Comedy: in two Acts. Translated from the - French [of Antoine de Ferriol, Comte de Pont de Veyle], in March, - M.DCC.LXXVIII. [By Elizabeth Lady Craven, afterwards Margravine of - Anspach.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXVIII._ - - Title, Quatrain, Prologue, Epilogue, Persons, pp. i-viii; Text, 1-56. - 8vo. 75 copies printed. The quatrain is by Walpole to Lady Craven, - 'on her Translation of the Somnambule.' 'I will send ... for yourself - a translation of a French play.... It is not for your reading, but - as one of the Strawberry editions, and one of the rarest; for I have - printed but seventy-five copies. It was to oblige Lady Craven, the - translatress ...' (_Walpole to Cole_, 22 Aug., 1778). - - -1779. - - A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton. - _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate_, M.DCC.LXXIX. - - Half-title; Title; Text, pp. 1-55. The letter is dated at end: 'May - 23, 1778.' 8vo. 200 copies printed. '1779. In the preceding autumn - had written a defence of myself against the unjust aspersions in the - Preface to the Miscellanies of Chatterton. Printed 200 copies at - Strawberry Hill this January, and gave them away. It was much enlarged - from what I had written in July' (_Short Notes_). - - -1780. - - To the Lady Horatia Waldegrave, on the Death of the Duke of Ancaster. - [Verses by Mr. Charles Miller.] N. D. - - Pp. 3, dated at end 'A.D. 1779.' 4to. 150 copies printed. 'I enclose - a copy of verses, which I have just printed at Strawberry, only a few - copies, and which I hope you will think pretty. They were written - three months ago by Mr. Charles Miller, brother of Sir John, on seeing - Lady Horatia at Nuneham. The poor girl is better' (_Walpole to Lady - Ossory_, 29 Jan., 1780). Lady Horatia Waldegrave was to have been - married to the Duke of Ancaster, who died in 1779. - - -1781. - - The Muse recalled, an Ode, occasioned by the Nuptials of Lord Viscount - Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest daughter of Charles Lord - Lucan, March vi., M.DCC.LXXXI. By William Jones, Esq. [afterwards - Sir William Jones]. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, - M.DCC.LXXXI._ - - Title; pp. 1-8. 4to. 250 copies printed. There is a well-known - portrait of Lavinia Bingham by Reynolds, in which she wears a straw - hat with a blue ribbon. - - A Letter from the Honourable Thomas Walpole, to the Governor and - Committee of the Treasury of the Bank of England. _Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXI._ - - Title, and pp. 16 (last blank). 4to. 120 copies printed. - - -1784. - - A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir - Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill near Twickenham, - Middlesex. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, - &c. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXIV._ - - Title; 'Preface.' i-iv; Text, pp. 1-88. 'Errata, etc.,' 'Appendix,' - pp. 89-92; 'Curiosities added,' etc., 93-4; 'More Additions,' 95-6. - 27 plates. 4to. 200 copies printed. 'The next time he [Sir Horace - Mann's nephew] visits you, I may be able to send you a description - of my _Galleria_,--I have long been preparing it, and it is almost - finished,--with some prints, which, however, I doubt, will convey no - very adequate idea of it' (_Walpole to Mann_, 30 Sept., 1784). 'In the - list for which Lord Ossory asks, is the Description of this place; - now, though printed, I have entirely kept it up [i. e., _held it - back_], and mean to do so while I live' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 15 - Sept., 1787). - - -1785. - - Hieroglyphic Tales. _Schah Baham ne comprenoit jamais bien que les - choses absurdes & hors de toute vraisemblance._ Le Sopha, p. 5. - _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXV._ - - Title; 'Preface,' iii-ix; Text, pp. 50; 'Postscript.' 8vo. Walpole's - own MS. note in the Dyce example says, 'Only six copies of this were - printed, besides the revised copy.' '1772. This year, the last, and - sometime before, wrote some Hieroglyphic Tales. There are only five' - (_Short Notes_). 'I have some strange things in my drawer, even - wilder than the 'Castle of Otranto,' and called 'Hieroglyphic Tales;' - but they were not written lately, nor in the gout, nor, whatever - they may seem, written when I was out of my senses' (_Walpole to - Cole_, 28 Jan., 1779), 'This [he is speaking of Darwin's _Botanic - Garden_] is only the Second Part; for, like my King's eldest daughter - in the 'Hieroglyphic Tales,' the First Part is not born yet: no - matter' (_Walpole to the Miss Berrys_, 28 April, 1789). In 1822, the - _Hieroglyphic Tales_ were reprinted at Newcastle for Emerson Charnley. - - Essay on Modern Gardening, by Mr. Horace Walpole. [Strawberry Hill - Bookplate.] Essai sur l'Art des Jardins Modernes, par M. Horace - Walpole, traduit en François by M. le Duc de Nivernois, en MDCCLXXXIV. - _Imprimé à Strawberry-Hill, par T. Kirgate_, MDCCLXXXV. - - Two titles; English and French Text on opposite pages, 1-94. 4to. - 400 copies printed. 'How may I send you a new book printed here?... - It is the translation of my 'Essay on Modern Gardens' by the Duc de - Nivernois.... You will find it a most beautiful piece of French, of - the genuine French spoken by the Duc de la Rochefoucault and Madame de - Sévigné, and not the metaphysical galimatias of La Harpe and Thomas, - &c., which Madame du Deffand protested she did not understand. The - versions of Milton and Pope are wonderfully exact and poetic and - elegant, and the fidelity of the whole translation, extraordinary' - (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 17 Sept., 1785). The original MS. of the - Duc de Nivernois--'a most exquisite specimen of penmanship'--was among - the papers at Strawberry. - - -1789. - - Bishop Bonner's Ghost. [By Hannah More.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] - _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, MDCCLXXXIX._ - - Title and argument, 2 leaves; Text, pp. 1-4. 4to. 96 copies printed, - 2 on brown paper, one of which was at Strawberry. It was written when - Hannah More ('my _imprimée_,' as Walpole calls her) was on a visit to - Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, at his palace at Fulham, June, - 1789. 'I will forgive all your enormities if you will let me print - your poem. I like to filch a little immortality out of others, and - the Strawberry press could never have a better opportunity' (_Walpole - to Hannah More_, 23 June, 1789). 'The enclosed copy of verses pleased - me so much, that, though not intended for publication, I prevailed - on the authoress, Miss Hannah More, to allow me to take off a small - number.' ... 'I have been disappointed of the completion of "Bonner's - Ghost," by my rolling press being out of order, and was forced to - send the whole impression to town to have the copper-plate taken - off.... Kirgate has brought the whole impression, and I shall have - the pleasure of sending your Ladyship this with a "Bonner's Ghost" - to-morrow morning' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 16-18 July, 1789). - - The History of Alcidalis and Zelida. A tale of the Fourteenth Century. - [By Vincent de Voiture.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLXXXIX._ - - Title; Text, pp. 3-96. 8vo. This is a translation of Voiture's - unfinished _Histoire d'Alcidalis et de Zelide_. (See _Nouvelles - Oeuvres de Monsieur de Voiture. Nouvelle Edition. A Paris, Chez - Louis Bilaine, au Palais, au second Pilier de la grand' Salle, à - la Palme & au Grand Cesar_, MDCLXXII.) There is a copy in the Dyce - Collection. Another was sold in 1823 with the books of John Trotter - Brockett, in whose catalogue it was said to be 'surreptitiously - printed.' Kirgate had a copy, although Baker does not mention it. - - -Doubtful Date. - - Verses sent to Lady Charles Spencer [Mary Beauclerc, daughter of - Lord Vere, and wife of Lord Charles Spencer] with a painted Taffety, - occasioned by saying she was low in Pocket and could not buy a new - Gown. - - Single leaf. Baker says these were by Anna Chamber, Countess Temple. - - Besides the above, Walpole printed at his press in 1770 vols. i. and - ii. of a 4to edition of his works. - - - - -INDEX - - - A. - - _Ædes Walpolianæ_, the, 75-77, 288. - - Amelia, the Princess, 171, 228, 234. - - American Colonies, the war with the, 252, 291. - - _An Account of the Giants_, 189. - - _Anecdotes of Painting_, 142, 150, 241, 295. - - Ashe, Miss, 127-130. - - Ashton, Thomas, 16-19, 58, 59. - - - B. - - Balmerino, Lord, trial and execution of, 93-97. - - Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 159, 161, 193, 243, 260, 286. - - _Beauties, The_, 104. - - Beauty Room, the, 211. - - Benedict XIV., Pope, 50. - - Bentley, Richard, 136, 137, 146, 148, 161, 214, 224. - - Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, 233, 235, 244, 259-263, 265, 285, - 286, 291. - - Bland, Henry, 12. - - Bologna, visited by Walpole, 42, 43. - - Bracegirdle, Anne, 83. - - Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, 16, 175. - - Burney, Frances, 193, 257. - - Byng, Admiral, 142, 143. - - - C. - - _Castle of Otranto, The_, 161, 163, 164, 168, 192, 195. - - _Catalogue of Engravers_, 155. - - _Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_, 142, 149-152. - - _Catalogue of Strawberry Hill_, 262. - - Charles X. (Comte d'Artois), 172. - - Chartreuse, La Grande, visited by Walpole and Gray, 38. - - Chartreux, Convent of the, described by Walpole, 34, 35. - - Chatterton, Thomas, 196-200. - - Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, 86, 131, 177; - his _Letters_ parodied by Walpole, 236. - - Choiseul, Madame la Duchesse de, 174, 176, 177, 180, 212. - - Christopher Inn, the, 17. - - Chudleigh, Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston, 230. - - Churchill, Lady Mary (Maria), 49, 63, 67, 100. - - Chute, John, 52, 68, 118, 134, 171, 208. - - Clement XII., Pope, 45. - - Clinton, Henry, Earl of Lincoln, 56. - - Clive, Kitty, 83, 121, 133, 140, 143, 192; - _bon mot_ of, 181; - allusions to, 213, 217; - death of, 255. - - Cocchi, Dr. Antonio, 56. - - Coke, Lady Mary, 169. - - Cole, William, 13, 19, 161, 206, 285. - - Congreve, William, 83. - - Conway, Henry, 12, 31, 35, 36, 38, 40, 82, 87, 91, 105, 108, 150, - 182, 201. - - Cope, Gen. Sir John, 89. - - Crawford, James, 179. - - Culloden Moor, the battle of, 91, 92. - - Cumberland, William, Duke of, 19, 86, 91, 92, 99, 108, 120, 122, - 171. - - Cunningham, Peter, 10; - his account of a drive with Walpole, 227, 229, 231; - his specimens of Walpole's letters, 255; - quoted, 212, 231. - - - D. - - Damer, Anna (Miss Conway), 203, 242, 270. - - Deffand, Madame du (Marie de Vichy-Chamrond), 177, 212; - Walpole's first impression of, 177, 178; - her conquest of Walpole, 178; - Walpole's letter to Gray concerning, 178, 179; - her fondness for Walpole, 179, 180; - the episode of the snuff-box, 180; - Walpole's second visit to, 187, 188; - death of, 252; - Walpole's letters to, 248, 249; - Walpole's adieu to, 251; - will of, 252. - - _Delenda est Oxonia_, 124. - - Dodington, Bubb, 92, 120. - - Dryden, John, imitated by Walpole, 60; - claimed as great-uncle by Catherine Shorter, 210. - - - E. - - Easton Neston (Northamptonshire), 23. - - _Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris_, 264. - - Eton College, 11-17. - - - F. - - Falkirk, the battle of, 91. - - Fielding, Henry, 79, 83, 160, 161, 230, 285. - - Fielding, William, 160. - - Florence, visited by Walpole and Gray, 43-45. - - Fontenoy, the battle of, 87, 88, 104. - - Foote, Samuel, 173. - - Forcalquier, Madame de, 174. - - Fortescue, Lucy, 105. - - Fox, Charles James, his verses on Mrs. Crewe, 240. - - Francklin, Richard, 111, 123. - - Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, 97. - - Frederick, Prince of Wales. (_See_ Wales.) - - Freethinking in France, 167, 170. - - French court, presentation of Walpole at the, 171, 172. - - - G. - - Garrick, David, 83, 140, 146, 186. - - Genlis, Stéphanie Félicité, Madame de, 173, 257. - - Geoffrin, Madame, 175, 182. - - George I., Walpole's visit to, 8-10; - the story of the raven, 286. - (_See_ Reminiscences.) - - George II., 63. (_See_ Reminiscences.) - - George III. (_See_ Memoirs.) - - Goldsmith, Oliver, 19, 32, 105, 143, 198, 242; - Walpole's contempt for, 238, 285. - - Gordon Riots, the, 253. - - Granby, Lord, 129, 131. - - Gray, Thomas, at Eton, 16, 19, 22, 25; - travels with Walpole, 29-32; - Versailles described by, 32, 33; - at Rheims, 35; - at Lyons, 38; - at La Grande Chartreuse, 38; - in Italy, 40-44, 49, 50, 53, 57; - his misunderstanding with Walpole, 52-55; - subsequent reconciliation, 55, 135; - praises Walpole's verse, 59; - quoted, 25, 30-34, 37, 38, 51, 59, 83, 97, 105, 115, 134, 135, 137, - 148, 149, 219; - resumes his intimacy with Walpole, 103, 106, 173; - visits Strawberry Hill, 135; - his indebtedness to Walpole, 135; - his Elegy published by Dodsley, 135; - the _Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana_, 137; - publication of the _Odes_ at Strawberry Hill, 142-148; - detects the Rowley forgeries, 197; - portrait of, 213; - Walpole's relations with, 285. - - Grenville, George, 290. - - - H. - - Harrison, Audrey, Lady Townshend, 101, 156. - - Hawkins, Miss, 160, 244; - her description of Walpole, 277-279. - - Hénault, Charles-Jean-François, President, 177, 183, 188, 195, 212. - - Hervey, Baron, 123; - said to be Walpole's father, 4. - - Hervey, Lady, 120, 171, 175, 201, 224. - - Hill, Robert, the learned tailor, 150. - - _Historic Doubts on Richard III._, 190, 191, 237. - - Hogarth, William, 69, 79, 161, 213, 222, 242. - - Houghton, the seat of the Walpoles, 1, 24, 65, 66, 69, 71, 80, 81; - the Houghton pictures sold to Catherine of Russia, 69, 246, 247; - Walpole buried at, 268. - - Hume, David, 167, 171, 181-185. - - Hyde Park, robbers in, 125, 126. - - - I. - - Inn, the Christopher, 16, 17. - - _Inscription for the Neglected Column_, 61. - - - J. - - Jennings, Frances, Duchess of Tyrconnell, anecdote of, 7; - head of, 222. - - Jenyns, Soame, quoted, 127, 131. - - Jephson, Capt. Robert, 237, 239. - - Johnson, Samuel, 55, 84, 236, 285. - - - K. - - Kendal, the Duchess of, 8, 228, 287. - - Ker, Lord Robert, 91. - - Kilmarnock, Earl, 92; - trial and execution of, 93-98. - - King's College, Cambridge, 18-20, 28. - - Kirgate, Thomas, 150, 195, 235. - - - L. - - Lens, Bernard, 19. - - _Lessons for the Day_, 75. - - _Letter from Xo Ho_, 143, 144, 295. - - Louis XVI. (Duc de Berry), 172. - - Louis XVIII. (Comte de Provence), 172. - - - M. - - Macaulay, Lord, 229; - reviews Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to Mann, 271-273; - letters to Hannah Macaulay quoted, 271, 272; - Lady Holland irritated by, 272; - his opinion of Walpole, 273-275. - - McLean, James, robs Walpole, 125, 126; - is imprisoned, 126; - becomes a fashionable lion, 126; - is executed, 126. - - Mann, Sir Horace, 43, 44, 47, 61, 69, 201, 254; - death of, 255; - Walpole's affection for, 286. - - Mason, Rev. William, 53, 197, 202. - - _Memoirs of the Reign of King George III._, 189, 292. - - Middleton, Dr. Conyers, 286; - praises Walpole's attainments, 57, 58. - - Montagu, Lieut.-Gen. Charles, K. C. B., 14. - - Montagu, Brig-Gen. Edward, 14. - - Montagu, George, M. P., 14, 17, 21, 29, 187, 201, 286. - - Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 4, 48, 133; - described by Walpole, 49-51; - quoted, 50, 102. - - Mont Cenis, 40. - - Moore, Edward, 131. - - More, Hannah, 258, 264, 285. - - Müntz (German artist), 138, 142, 146, 210, 279. - - _Mysterious Mother, The_, 190-193; - Byron's praise of, 193; - printed at the Strawberry Hill Press, 195; - illustrated by Lady Di. Beauclerk, 243. - - - N. - - _Nature will Prevail_, 239. - - Neale, Betty, 130. - - Neuhoff, Baron ('Theodore, King of Corsica'), 132, 142. - - Nolkejumskoi. (_See_ Cumberland, William, Duke of.) - - - O. - - Officina Arbuteana. (_See_ Strawberry Hill.) - - Orford, George, third Earl of (nephew of Horace Walpole), 69, 141, - 202, 245, 247, 263. - - Orford, Horace, fourth Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Horace.) - - Orford, Robert, first Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Sir Robert.) - - Orford, Robert, second Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Robert.) - - Ossory, Lady, 202; - letters of Walpole to, 207, 233, 246, 247, 252, 260, 266. - - - P. - - Paris, Walpole's first visit to, 31, 32; - state of society in, 166-168; - second visit to, 169, 173-181; - third visit to, 186, 187, 189; - fourth visit to, 249. - - _Parish Register of Twickenham, The_, 158, 160, 161, 245. - - Parodies by Walpole, 77, 236. - - Patapan, 66. - - Petersham, Lady Caroline, 127-130, 285. - - Picture Gallery at Houghton, 69, 71, 246, 247. - - Pinkerton, John, his _Walpoliana_ quoted, 3, 10, 84, 220, 258, 279, - 280, 281; - a favourite of Walpole, 256; - his description of Walpole, 279-282. - - Pomfret, Lady, 47-50, 101. - - Pope, Alexander, 103, 109, 139, 216. - - Preston Pans, the battle of, 89. - - Prévost d'Exiles, M. l'Abbé Antoine-François, 31. - - Prior, Matthew, criticised by Walpole, 76, 77. - - Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath, 62, 64, 151, 228. - - - Q. - - Quadruple Alliance, the, 14; - ended, 18, 19. - - Queensberry, the Duke of, 231. - - Quinault, Jeanne-Françoise, 32. - - - R. - - Radnor, Lord, his Chinese summer-house, 119. - - Ranelagh Gardens, the, 85, 86. - - _Reminiscences of the Courts of George the I. and II._, written for - the Misses Berry, 262. - - Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 241. - - Richardson, Samuel, 167, 171. - - Robinson, William, 146, 147, 150, 156. - - Rochford, Lady, 156, 157. - - Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 181, 182; - sham letter from Frederick the Great to, 182, 183; - anger of, 184; - his quarrel with Hume, 184. - - - S. - - Saint-Cyr, Walpole's visit to, 188. - - Saunderson, Professor Nicholas, 20. - - Scott, Samuel, 139. - - Scott, Sir Walter, his study of the _Castle of Otranto_, 164, 165. - - Selwyn, George Augustus, 13, 138, 168, 231. - - _Sermon on Painting, The_, 71-76. - - Shenstone, William, 149. - - Shirley, Lady Fanny, 160. - - Shirley, the Hon. Sewallis, 102, 103, 202. - - Shorter, Catherine (Lady Walpole), 3, 4, 210; - death of, 24; - burial of, 25; - Dryden claimed as great-uncle to, 210. - - Shorter, Sir John, Lord Mayor of London, 3. - - _Short Notes_, Walpole's, quoted, 5, 11, 17, 35, 56, 80, 124, 152, - 189, 239. - - Skerret, Maria, 4, 49, 63, 210. - - Smollett, Tobias, 101, 105. - - Spence, Professor Joseph, 50, 55, 56, 150. - - Sterne, Laurence, 173. - - Strawberry Hill (Twickenham), Walpole removes to, 86; - description of, 107-124, 146, 147, 208; - previous tenants of, 109, 110; - additions to, 111, 204, 205; - the Gothic castle at, 113-119; - views executed by Müntz, 138; - private printing-press at, 142, 145, 146; - described by William Robinson, 146-148; - works published at the Officina Arbuteana, 149-151 (_see_ - Appendix), 152; - _Description of the Villa at_, 195, 201, 208; - fêtes at, 205, 206; - ground plan of the villa at, 208; - China Closet and China Room at, 210; - the Yellow Bedchamber (Beauty Room), 211; - Breakfast Room, 212, 213; - plan of principal floor, 212; - Green Closet, 213; - Library, 214; - Blue Bedchamber, 214; - Armoury, 214; - the Red Bedchamber, 216; - the Holbein Chamber, 216; - the Star Chamber, 217; - the Gallery, 204, 218; - the Round Tower, 220; - the Cabinet (Tribune), 220; - collection of rarities, 220, 221; - the Great North Bedchamber, 218, 221; - the Great Cloister, 223; - the Chapel, 223; - the Flower Garden, 112, 224; - Gothicism of the villa, 225, 226; - bequeathed to Mrs. Damer, 270; - subsequent disposal of, 270. - - Stuart, Prince Charles Edward (the Chevalier), his descent on - Scotland, 88, 96; - temporary success of, 90, 91, 96; - escape of, 91. - - Stuart, Lady Louisa, her _Introductory Anecdotes_ quoted, 14-16, 22, - 23. - - Suffolk, the Countess of (Mrs. Howard), 9, 122, 139, 157, 201. - - Swift, Jonathan, 19, 103, 139. - - - T. - - Townshend, Charles, Viscount, 6, 156. - - Townshend, Lady. (_See_ Harrison, Audrey.) - - Tragedy in England, Walpole's opinion of, 194, 195. - - Triumvirate, the, 14. - - Twickenham. (See Strawberry Hill.) - - - V. - - Vane, Henry, Earl of Darlington, 128. - - Vauxhall, 84, 128-131. - - Versailles, visited by Walpole, 32, 171-173. - - _Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion_, 98-100. - - Vertue, George, the engraver, 69, 70, 77, 154, 216. - - Voltaire, François-Marie-Arouet de, 178, 190. - - - W. - - Wales, Frederick, Prince of, 24, 61, 86, 87; - composes a _chanson_ on the battle of Fontenoy, 87; - wins £800 from Lord Granby, 131. - - Walpol, Sir Henry de, 1. - - Walpole, Dorothy, Lady Townshend, 6, 210. - - Walpole, Sir Edward, Knight of the Bath, 2. - - ----, Sir Edward (brother of Horace), 100, 202, 203; - the daughters of, 203; - death of, 256. - - ----, George (third Earl of Orford), 141, 202, 245. - - ----, Horace (Horatio), his ancestry, 1-4; - scandal regarding his birth, 3, 4; - early childhood, 5-10; - his visit to George I., 9; - his appearance as a boy, 11; - his school-days at Eton, 11-17; - his scholarship, 12, 19, 20; - his companions at Eton, 13-16; - enters Lincoln's Inn, 16; - enters King's College, Cambridge, 18; - his university studies, 19, 20; - the 'triumvirate,' 19; - the 'quadruple alliance,' 18, 19; - literary productions at Cambridge, 24; - appointed Inspector of Imports and Exports, 27; - becomes Usher of the Exchequer, Controller of the Pipe, and Clerk - of the Estreats, 27, 28; - leaves college, 28; - travels with Gray, 29; - visits France, 30-39; - in Switzerland, 39; - crosses the Alps, 40; - in Italy, 41-56; - his description of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 49; - his misunderstanding with Gray, 52-55; - his illness in Florence, 55; - his return to England, 56; - becomes Member of Parliament for Callington, 56; - poetical _Epistle to Thomas Ashton_, 58, 59; - praised by Gray, 59; - his letters to Mann, 61, 65, 88; - his first speech in Parliament, 64; - his _Sermon on Painting_, 71-75; - the _Ædes Walpolianæ_, 75-77; - his parodies, 78, 236; - his paper against Lord Bath, 78; - his father's death, 79, 80; - receives legacy from his father, 80, 81; - his criticism of Mrs. Woffington and of Garrick, 83; - removes to Twickenham, 86; - his _Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion_, 98, 99; - epilogue to _Tamerlane_, 98; - marriage of his sisters, 100; - his criticism of Lady Orford, 101, 102; - his contributions to _The Museum_, 103; - his poem, _The Beauties_, 104, 105; - resides at Windsor, 106; - his description of Strawberry Hill, 107-120, 147, 195, 205, 206, - 227 (_see_ Strawberry Hill); - his papers in _The Remembrancer_, 124; - his tract, _Delenda est Oxonia_, 124; - is robbed in Hyde Park, 125, 126; - his account of Vauxhall, 128-131; - his papers in _The World_, 131; - his reconciliation with Gray, 134; - his admiration of Gray's poetry, 135-137; - is chosen Member of Parliament for Castle Rising, 141; - for Lynn, 142; - his _Castle of Otranto_, 142, 163, 168, 169; - publishes Gray's _Odes_, 142, 148; - his _Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_, 142, 149, 151; - his first _Memoirs_, 142; - his _Letter from Xo Ho_, 143, 145, 295; - his other _Catalogues_, 145, 149, 151; - establishes the Officina Arbuteana, 145; - his publications, 149-151 (_see_ Appendix), 153, 154, 165; - his _Catalogue of Engravers_, 155; - his _Anecdotes of Painting_, 152, 156, 241, 243; - his occasional pieces (_The Magpie and her Brood_, _Dialogue between - two Great Ladies_, _The Garland_, _The Parish Register_), 157, - 158, 245; - his second visit to Paris, 167-181; - is presented to the royal family, 171-173; - sham letter to Rousseau, 182; - visits Bath, 186; - his third visit to Paris, 187; - his _Account of the Giants_, 189; - begins his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III._, 189; - retires from Parliament, 189; - his letters to the _Public Advertiser_, 190; - his _Historic Doubts on Richard III._, 190, 191; - his tragedy, _The Mysterious Mother_, 191, 192, 195; - his relations with Chatterton, 196-200; - his fondness for his nieces, 203; - his correspondence, 235; - his minor writings, 236-239; - his _Nature will Prevail_, 239; - his fourth visit to Paris, 249; - his correspondence in French, 248; - his farewell to Madame du Deffand, 251, 252; - his acquaintance with Hannah More, 258; - his friendship with the Misses Berry, 259-263, 265, 286, 291; - his _Reminiscences_, 262; - his _Catalogue of Strawberry Hill_, 262; - succeeds his nephew as Earl of Orford, 263; - his _Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris_, 264; - his last letter to Lady Ossory, 267, 268; - his death and burial, 268; - disposal of his estate, 269, 270; - Lord Macaulay's criticism of, 271-276; - portraits and descriptions of, 276-278; - Pinkerton's reminiscences of, 280-282; - his character as a man, 284-287; - as a virtuoso, 288, 289; - as a politician, 290-292; - as an author, 293, 294. - - ---- of Walterton, Horatio, Baron, 6, 219. - - ----, Maria (Lady Waldegrave), 203, 205. - - ----, Lady Mary (Countess of Cholmondeley), 67, 100. - - ----, Reginald de, 1. - - ----, Sir Robert (first Earl of Orford), ancestry of, 1, 2; - first marriage of, 3; - second marriage of, 49; - decline of his political power, 61, 62; - resigns the premiership, 63; - is created Earl of Orford, 63; - intrigues against Pulteney, 64; - prevents his own disgrace, 64, 65; - death of, 78-80; - will of, 81. - - ----, Robert (second Earl of Orford), 85, 102, 129. - - ----, Lady Robert (Countess of Orford), 48, 101, 102, 202; - death of, 256. - - ----, Col. Robert, M. P., 2. - - ----, William, 3. - - Walpoles of Houghton, pedigree of the, 1; - spelled Walpol, 1. - - _Walpoliana_, Pinkerton's, 3, 10, 84, 256, 258, 279-282. - - Walsingham, Melusina de Schulemberg, Countess of, 9. - - Wesley, John, Walpole's description of, 186. - - West, Richard, 15, 16, 103. - - Whitehead, Paul, 139. - - Wilkes, John, 173. - - Williams, George James, 138, 168, 203. - - Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, 13, 131. - - William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, marries Maria Walpole, 203. - - Woffington, Margaret, 83. - - - X. - - _Xo Ho, Letter of_, 143, 144. - - - Y. - - Yarmouth, the Countess of (Madame de Walmoden), 9. - - - Z. - - Zouch, Rev. Henry, 196; - Walpole's letters to, quoted, 152-155, 285. - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - -Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired. - -Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as -possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, inconsistent -punctuation, and other inconsistencies. - -Obvious printer’s errors corrected. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Horace Walpole, by Austin Dobson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE WALPOLE *** - -***** This file should be named 53649-0.txt or 53649-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/6/4/53649/ - -Produced by Clarity, Christopher Wright, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- padding: 0; - width: 95%; - } - - .poetry - { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; - } - - /* Images - ePub format */ - - img {max-width: 100%; height: auto;} - - .figcenter { - margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; - margin-top: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; - text-align: center; - clear: both; - padding: 3px; - } -} - -@media print -{ - -/* Images - ePub format */ - - img {max-width: 100%; height: auto;} - - .figcenter { - margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; - margin-top: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; - text-align: center; - clear: both; - padding: 3px; - } -} - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Horace Walpole, by Austin Dobson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Horace Walpole - A memoir - -Author: Austin Dobson - -Release Date: December 4, 2016 [EBook #53649] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE WALPOLE *** - - - - -Produced by Clarity, Christopher Wright, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="Frontispiece - Portrait of Walpole" /> -</div> - - - - -<p class="ph2">HORACE WALPOLE</p> - -<p class="ph3"><em>After Rosalba</em></p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<h1><span class="smcap">Horace Walpole</span></h1> - -<p class="ph3"><em>A MEMOIR</em></p> - -<p class="ph3">WITH AN APPENDIX OF BOOKS PRINTED AT -THE STRAWBERRY-HILL PRESS</p> - -<p class="ph4">BY</p> - -<p class="ph2">AUSTIN DOBSON</p> - -<p class="ph3"> -NEW YORK<br /> -DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY<br /> -</p> -<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Publishers</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<p class="center"> -<i>Copyright, 1890</i>,<br /> -<span class="smcap">By Dodd, Mead and Company</span>.</p> -<p class="mt4 center"><span class="oldeng">University Press:</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.</span> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - -<table class="toc" summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER I.</td> - <td class="pag"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chaptitle">The Walpoles of Houghton.—Horace Walpole born, 24 - September, 1717.—Lady Louisa Stuart's Story.—Scattered - Facts of his Boyhood.—Minor Anecdotes—'La - belle Jennings.'—The Bugles.—Interview with - George I. before his Death.—Portrait at this time.—Goes - to Eton, 26 April, 1727.—His Studies and Schoolfellows.—The - 'Triumvirate,' the 'Quadruple Alliance.'—Entered - at Lincoln's Inn, 27 May, 1731.—Leaves - Eton, September, 1734.—Goes to King's College, Cambridge, - 11 March, 1735.—His University Studies.—Letters - from Cambridge.—Verses in the <cite>Gratulatio</cite>.—Verses - in Memory of Henry VI.—Death of Lady Walpole, - 20 August, 1737</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER II.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - - <td class="chaptitle">Patent Places under Government.—Starts with Gray on the - Grand Tour, March, 1739.—From Dover to Paris.—Life - at Paris.—Versailles.—The Convent of the Chartreux.—Life - at Rheims.—A <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fête Galante</i>.—The - Grande Chartreuse.—Starts for Italy.—The tragedy - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>of Tory.—Turin; Genoa.—Academical Exercises at - Bologna.—Life at Florence.—Rome; Naples: Herculaneum.—The - Pen of Radicofani.—English at Florence.—Lady - Mary Wortley Montagu.—Preparing for Home.—Quarrel - with Gray.—Walpole's Apologia; his Illness, - and return to England.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER III.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - - <td class="chaptitle">Gains of the Grand Tour.—'Epistle to Ashton.'—Resignation - of Sir Robert Walpole, who becomes Earl of - Orford.—Collapse of the Secret Committee.—Life at - Houghton.—The Picture Gallery.—'A Sermon on - Painting.'—Lord Orford as Moses.—The 'Ædes - Walpolianæ.'—Prior's 'Protogenes and Apelles.'—Minor - Literature.—Lord Orford's Decline and Death; - his Panegyric.—Horace Walpole's Means.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER IV.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - - <td class="chaptitle">Stage-gossip and Small-talk.—Ranelagh Gardens.—Fontenoy - and Leicester House.—Echoes of the '45.—Preston - Pans.—Culloden.—Trial of the Rebel Lords.—Deaths - of Kilmarnock and Balmerino.—Epilogue - to <cite>Tamerlane</cite>—Walpole and his Relatives.—Lady - Orford.—Literary Efforts.—The Beauties.—Takes a - House at Windsor.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER V.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - - <td class="chaptitle">The New House at Twickenham.—Its First Tenants.—Christened - 'Strawberry Hill.'—Planting and Embellishing.—Fresh - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>Additions.—Walpole's Description - of it in 1753.—Visitors and Admirers.—Lord Bath's - Verses.—Some Rival Mansions.—Minor Literature.—Robbed - by James Maclean.—Sequel from <cite>The - World</cite>.—The Maclean Mania.—High Life at Vauxhall.—Contributions - to <cite>The World</cite>.—Theodore of - Corsica.—Reconciliation with Gray.—Stimulates his - Works.—The <cite>Poëmata-Grayo-Bentleiana</cite>.—Richard - Bentley.—Müntz the Artist.—Dwellers at Twickenham.—Lady - Suffolk and Mrs. Clive.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VI.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - - <td class="chaptitle">Gleanings from the <cite>Short Notes</cite>.—<cite>Letter from Xo Ho.</cite>—The - Strawberry Hill Press.—Robinson the Printer.—Gray's - <cite>Odes</cite>.—Other Works.—<cite>Catalogue of Royal - and Noble Authors.</cite>—<cite>Anecdotes of Painting.</cite>—Humours - of the Press.—<cite>The Parish Register of - Twickenham.</cite>—Lady Fanny Shirley.—Fielding.—<cite>The - Castle of Otranto.</cite></td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VII.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - - <td class="chaptitle">State of French Society in 1765.—Walpole at Paris.—The - Royal Family and the Bête du Gévaudan.—French - Ladies of Quality.—Madame du Deffand.—A Letter - from Madame de Sévigné.—Rousseau and the King of - Prussia.—The Hume-Rousseau Quarrel.—Returns to - England, and hears Wesley at Bath.—Paris again.—Madame - du Deffand's Vitality.—Her Character.—Minor - Literary Efforts.—The <cite>Historic Doubts</cite>.—The - <cite>Mysterious Mother</cite>.—Tragedy in England.—Doings - of the Strawberry Press.—Walpole and Chatterton.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VIII.</td><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chaptitle">Old Friends and New.—Walpole's Nieces.—Mrs. - Damer.—Progress of Strawberry Hill.—Festivities - and Later Improvements.—<cite>A Description</cite>, etc., 1774.—The - House and Approaches.—Great Parlour, Waiting - Room, China Room, and Yellow Bedchamber.—Breakfast - Room.—Green Closet and Blue Bedchamber.—Armoury - and Library.—Red Bed-chamber, Holbein - Chamber, and Star Chamber.—Gallery.—Round - Drawing Room and Tribune.—Great North Bed-chamber.—Great - Cloister and Chapel.—Walpole on - Strawberry.—Its Dampness.—A Drive from Twickenham - to Piccadilly.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER IX.</td><td> </td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chaptitle">Occupations and Correspondence.—Literary Work.—Jephson - and the Stage.—<cite>Nature will Prevail.</cite>—Issues - from the Strawberry Press.—Fourth Volume - of the <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>.—The Beauclerk Tower - and Lady Di.—George, third Earl of Orford.—Sale - of the Houghton Pictures.—Moves to Berkeley Square.—Last - Visit to Madame du Deffand.—Her Death.—Themes - for Letters.—Death of Sir Horace Mann.—Pinkerton, - Madame de Genlis, Miss Burney, Hannah - More.—Mary and Agnes Berry.—Their Residence at - Twickenham.—Becomes fourth Earl of Orford.—<cite>Epitaphium - vivi Auctoris.</cite>—The Berrys again.—Death - of Marshal Conway.—Last Letter to Lady Ossory.—Dies - at Berkeley Square, 2 March, 1797.—His Fortune - and Will.—The Fate of Strawberry.</td> - <td class="pag"> <a href="#Page_232">232</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER X.</td><td> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="chaptitle">Macaulay on Walpole.—Effect of the <cite>Edinburgh</cite> Essay.—Macaulay - and Mary Berry.—Portraits of Walpole.—Miss - Hawkins's Description.—Pinkerton's Rainy - Day at Strawberry.—Walpole's Character as a Man; - as a Virtuoso; as a Politician; as an Author and Letter-writer.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht"><span class="smcap">Appendix</span></td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="cht"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap break-before" /> - - -<p class="ph2">HORACE WALPOLE:</p> - -<p class="ph3">A Memoir.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The Walpoles of Houghton.—Horace Walpole born, 24 September, -1717.—Lady Louisa Stuart's Story.—Scattered -Facts of his Boyhood.—Minor Anecdotes.—'La belle -Jennings.'—The Bugles.—Interview with George I. before -his Death.—Portrait at this time.—Goes to Eton, 26 April, -1727.—His Studies and Schoolfellows.—The 'Triumvirate,' -the 'Quadruple Alliance.'—Entered at Lincoln's Inn, -27 May, 1731.—Leaves Eton, September, 1734.—Goes to -King's College, Cambridge, 11 March, 1735.—His University -Studies.—Letters from Cambridge.—Verses in the <cite>Gratulatio</cite>.—Verses -in Memory of Henry VI.—Death of Lady -Walpole, 20 August, 1737.</p></div> - - -<p>The Walpoles of Houghton, in Norfolk, ten -miles from King's Lynn, were an ancient -family, tracing their pedigree to a certain Reginald -de Walpole who was living in the time of -William the Conqueror. Under Henry II. -there was a Sir Henry de Walpol of Houton -and Walpol; and thenceforward an orderly procession -of Henrys and Edwards and Johns (all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -'of Houghton') carried on the family name to -the coronation of Charles II., when, in return -for his vote and interest as a member of the -Convention Parliament, one Edward Walpole -was made a Knight of the Bath. This Sir -Edward was in due time succeeded by his son, -Robert, who married well, sat for Castle Rising,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -one of the two family boroughs (the other being -King's Lynn, for which his father had been -member), and reputably filled the combined -offices of county magnate and colonel of militia. -But his chief claim to distinction is that his -eldest son, also a Robert, afterwards became -the famous statesman and Prime Minister to -whose 'admirable prudence, fidelity, and success' -England owes her prosperity under the -first Hanoverians. It is not, however, with the -life of 'that corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute -tipsy cynic, that courageous lover of peace -and liberty, that great citizen, patriot, and statesman,'—to -borrow a passage from one of Mr. -Thackeray's graphic vignettes,—that these pages -are concerned. It is more material to their purpose -to note that in the year 1700, and on the -30th day of July in that year (being the day of the -death of the Duke of Gloucester, heir presump<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>tive -to the crown of England), Robert Walpole, -junior, then a young man of three-and-twenty, -and late scholar of King's College, Cambridge, -took to himself a wife. The lady chosen was -Miss Catherine Shorter, eldest daughter of John -Shorter, of Bybrook, an old Elizabethan red-brick -house near Ashford in Kent. Her grandfather, -Sir John Shorter, had been Lord Mayor -of London under James II., and her father was -a Norway timber merchant, having his wharf -and counting-house on the Southwark side of -the Thames, and his town residence in Norfolk -Street, Strand, where, in all probability, his -daughter met her future husband. They had -a family of four sons and two daughters. One -of the sons, William, died young. The third -son, Horatio,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> or Horace, born, as he himself -tells us, on the 24th September, 1717, O. S., is -the subject of this memoir.</p> - -<p>With the birth of Horace Walpole is connected -a scandal so industriously repeated by -his later biographers that (although it has -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>received far more attention than it deserves) it -can scarcely be left unnoticed here. He had, -it is asserted, little in common, either in tastes -or appearance, with his elder brothers Robert -and Edward, and he was born eleven years after -the rest of his father's children. This led to a -suggestion which first found definite expression -in the <cite>Introductory Anecdotes</cite> supplied by Lady -Louisa Stuart to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of -the works of her grandmother, Lady Mary -Wortley Montagu.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It was to the effect that -Horace was not the son of Sir Robert Walpole, -but of one of his mother's admirers, Carr, Lord -Hervey, elder brother of Pope's 'Sporus,' the -Hervey of the <cite>Memoirs</cite>. It is advanced in -favour of this supposition that his likeness to -the Herveys, both physically and mentally, was -remarkable; that the whilom Catherine Shorter -was flighty, indiscreet, and fond of admiration; -and that Sir Robert's cynical disregard of his -wife's vagaries, as well as his own gallantries -(his second wife, Miss Skerret, had been his -mistress), were matters of notoriety. On the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>other hand, there is no indication that any suspicion -of his parentage ever crossed the mind of -Horace Walpole himself. His devotion to his -mother was one of the most consistent traits in -a character made up of many contradictions; -and although between the frail and fastidious -virtuoso and the boisterous, fox-hunting Prime -Minister there could have been but little sympathy, -the son seems nevertheless to have sedulously -maintained a filial reverence for his father, -of whose enemies and detractors he remained, -until his dying day, the implacable foe. Moreover, -it must be remembered that, admirable as -are Lady Louisa Stuart's recollections, in speaking -of Horace Walpole she is speaking of one -whose caustic pen and satiric tongue had never -spared the reputation of the vivacious lady -whose granddaughter she was.</p> - -<p>With this reference to what can be, at best, -but an insoluble question, we may return to the -story of Walpole's earlier years. Of his childhood -little is known beyond what he has himself -told in the <cite>Short Notes of my Life</cite> which -he drew up for the use of Mr. Berry, the nominal -editor of his works.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> His godfathers, he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>says, were the Duke of Grafton and his father's -second brother, Horatio, who afterwards became -Baron Walpole of Wolterton. His godmother -was his aunt, the beautiful Dorothy -Walpole, who, escaping the snares of Lord -Wharton, as related by Lady Louisa Stuart, -had become the second wife of Charles, second -Viscount Townshend. In 1724, he was 'inoculated -for the small-pox;' and in the following -year, was placed with his cousins, Lord Townshend's -younger sons, at Bexley, in Kent, under -the charge of one Weston, son to the Bishop of -Exeter of that name. In 1726, the same course -was pursued at Twickenham, and in the winter -months he went to Lord Townshend's. Much -of his boyhood, however, must have been spent -in the house 'next the College' at Chelsea, of -which his father became possessed in 1722. It -still exists in part, with but little alteration, as -the infirmary of the hospital, and Ward No. 7 is -said to have been its dining-room.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> With this, -or with some other reception-chamber at Chelsea, -is connected one of the scanty anecdotes of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>this time. Once, when Walpole was a boy, -there came to see his mother one of those formerly -famous beauties chronicled by Anthony -Hamilton,—'la belle Jennings,' elder sister to -the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, and -afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnell. At this date -she was a needy Jacobite seeking Lady Walpole's -interest in order to obtain a pension. She -no longer possessed those radiant charms which -under Charles had revealed her even through -the disguise of an orange-girl; and now, says -Walpole, annotating his own copy of the <cite>Memoirs -of Grammont</cite>, 'her eyes being dim, and -she full of flattery, she commended the beauty -of the prospect; but unluckily the room in -which they sat looked only against the garden-wall.'<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> - -<p>Another of the few events of his boyhood -which he records, illustrates the old proverb -that 'One half of the world knows not how the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>other half lives,' rather than any particular phase -of his biography. Going with his mother to buy -some bugles (beads), at the time when the opposition -to his father was at its highest, he notes -that having made her purchase,—beads were -then out of fashion, and the shop was in some -obscure alley in the City, where lingered unfashionable -things,—Lady Walpole bade the -shopman send it home. Being asked whither, -she replied, 'To Sir Robert Walpole's.' 'And -who,' rejoined he coolly, 'is Sir Robert Walpole?'<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> -But the most interesting incident of -his youth was the visit he paid to the King, -which he has himself related in Chapter I. of -the <cite>Reminiscences</cite>. How it came about he does -not know, but at ten years old an overmastering -desire seized him to inspect His Majesty. -This childish caprice was so strong that his -mother, who seldom thwarted him, solicited the -Duchess of Kendal (the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">maîtresse en titre</i>) to -obtain for her son the honour of kissing King -George's hand before he set out upon that visit -to Hanover from which he was never to return. -It was an unusual request, but being made by -the Prime Minister's wife, could scarcely be refused. -To conciliate etiquette and avoid precedent, -however, it was arranged that the audience -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>should be in private and at night. 'Accordingly, -the night but one before the King began -his last journey [<i>i. e.</i>, on 1 June, 1727], my -mother carried me at ten at night to the apartment -of the Countess of Walsingham [Melusina -de Schulemberg, the Duchess's reputed niece], -on the ground floor, towards the garden at -St. James's, which opened into that of her -aunt, ... apartments occupied by George II. -after his Queen's death, and by his successive -mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk [Mrs. -Howard] and Yarmouth [Madame de Walmoden]. -Notice being given that the King was -come down to supper, Lady Walsingham took -me alone into the Duchess's ante-room, where -we found alone the King and her. I knelt down, -and kissed his hand. He said a few words to -me, and my conductress led me back to my -mother. The person of the King is as perfect -in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. -It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and -exactly like his pictures and coins; not tall; of -an aspect rather good than august; with a dark -tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of -snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same -colour, and a blue ribband over all. So entirely -was he my object that I do not believe I once -looked at the Duchess; but as I could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember -that just beyond His Majesty stood a -very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady; but I did -not retain the least idea of her features, nor -know what the colour of her dress was.'<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> In -the <cite>Walpoliana</cite> (p. 25)<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Walpole is made to say -that his introducer was his father, and that the -King took him up in his arms and kissed him. -Walpole's own written account is the more -probable one. His audience must have been -one of the last the King granted, for, as already -stated, it was almost on the eve of his departure; -and ten days later, when his chariot clattered -swiftly into the courtyard of his brother's palace -at Osnabruck, he lay dead in his seat, and the -reign of his successor had begun.</p> - -<p>Although Walpole gives us a description of -George I., he does not, of course, supply us -with any portrait of himself. But in Mr. Peter -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>Cunningham's excellent edition of the <cite>Correspondence</cite> -there is a copy of an oil-painting belonging -(1857) to Mrs. Bedford of Kensington, -which, upon the faith of a Cupid who points -with an arrow to the number ten upon a dial, -may be accepted as representing him about the -time of the above interview. It is a full length -of a slight, effeminate-looking lad in a stiff-skirted -coat, knee-breeches, and open-breasted -laced waistcoat, standing in a somewhat affected -attitude at the side of the afore-mentioned sundial. -He has dark, intelligent eyes, and a profusion -of light hair curling abundantly about his -ears and reaching to his neck. If the date given -in the <cite>Short Notes</cite> be correct, he must have -already become an Eton boy, since he says that -he went to that school on the 26th April, 1727, -and he adds in the <cite>Reminiscences</cite> that he shed a -flood of tears for the King's death, when, 'with -the other scholars at Eton College,' he walked -in procession to the proclamation of his successor. -Of the cause of this emotion he seems -rather doubtful, leaving us to attribute it partly -to the King's condescension in gratifying his -childish loyalty, partly to the feeling that, as the -Prime Minister's son, it was incumbent on him -to be more concerned than his schoolfellows; -while the spectators, it is hinted, placed it to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -credit of a third and not less cogent cause,—the -probability of that Minister's downfall. Of -this, however, as he says, he could not have had -the slightest conception. His tutor at Eton -was Henry Bland, eldest son of the master -of the school. 'I remember,' says Walpole, -writing later to his relative and schoolfellow -Conway, 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland -had set me an extraordinary task, I used sometimes -to pique myself upon not getting it, -because it was not immediately my school business. -What, learn more than I was absolutely -forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning -that, for I was a blockhead, and pushed up -above my parts.' That, as the son of the great -Minister, he was pushed, is probably true; but, -despite his own disclaimer, it is clear that his abilities -were by no means to be despised. Indeed, -one of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pièces justificatives</i> in the story of -Lady Louisa Stuart, though advanced for another -purpose, is distinctly in favour of something -more than average talent. Supporting her theory -as to his birth by the statement that in his boyhood -he was left so entirely in the hands of his -mother as to have little acquaintance with his -father, she goes on to say that 'Sir Robert -Walpole took scarcely any notice of him, till his -proficiency at Eton School, when a lad of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -standing, drew his attention, and proved that -whether he had or had not a right to the name -he went by, he was likely to do it honour.'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> -Whatever this may be held to prove, it certainly -proves that he was not the blockhead he declares -himself to have been.</p> - -<p>Among his schoolmates he made many friends. -For his cousins, Henry (afterwards Marshal) -Conway and Lord Hertford, Conway's elder -brother, he formed an attachment which lasted -through life, and many of his best letters were -written to these relatives. Other associates -were the later lyrist, Charles Hanbury Williams, -and the famous wit, George Augustus Selwyn, -both of whom, if the child be father to the -man, must be supposed to have had unusual -attractions for their equally witty schoolmate. -Another contemporary at school, to whom, in -after life, he addressed many letters, was William -Cole, subsequently to develop into a laborious -antiquary, and probably already exhibiting -proclivities towards 'tall copies' and black -letter. But his chiefest friends, no doubt, -were grouped in the two bodies christened -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>respectively the 'triumvirate' and the 'quadruple -alliance.'</p> - -<p>Of these the 'triumvirate' was the less important. -It consisted of Walpole and the two sons of -Brigadier-General Edward Montagu. George, -the elder, afterwards M.P. for Northampton, -and the recipient of some of the most genuine -specimens of his friend's correspondence, is -described in advanced age as 'a gentleman-like -body of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vieille cour</i>,' usually attended by a -younger brother, who was still a midshipman at -the mature age of sixty, and whose chief occupation -consisted in carrying about his elder's -snuff-box. Charles Montagu, the remaining -member of the 'triumvirate,' became a Lieut.-General -and Knight of the Bath. But it was -George, who had 'a fine sense of humour, and -much curious information,' who was Walpole's -favourite. 'Dear George,'—he writes to him -from Cambridge,—'were not the playing fields -at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old -maid's gown, though it had been tormented -into all the fashions from King James to King -George, ever underwent so many transformations -as those poor plains have in my idea. At first -I was contented with tending a visionary flock, -and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of -the cascade under the bridge. How happy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -should I have been to have had a kingdom only -for the pleasure of being driven from it, and -living disguised in an humble vale! As I got -further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself -transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; -and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than -the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Capitoli immobile saxum</i>.' Further on he -makes an admission which need scarcely surprise -us. 'I can't say I am sorry I was never quite -a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, -or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things -to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember -things that are very near as pretty. The -beginning of my Roman history was spent in -the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed -grove; not in thumping and pummelling King -Amulius's herdsmen.'<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The description seems -to indicate a schoolboy of a rather refined and -effeminate type, who would probably fare ill with -robuster spirits. But Walpole's social position -doubtless preserved him from the persecution -which that variety generally experiences at the -hands—literally the hands—of the tyrants of -the playground.</p> - -<p>The same delicacy of organisation seems to -have been a main connecting link in the second -or 'quadruple alliance' already referred to,—an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>alliance, it may be, less intrinsically intimate, but -more obviously cultivated. The most important -figure in this quartet was a boy as frail and delicate -as Walpole himself, 'with a broad, pale -brow, sharp nose and chin, large eyes, and a -pert expression,' who was afterwards to become -famous as the author of one of the most popular -poems in the language, the <cite>Elegy written in -a Country Church Yard</cite>. Thomas Gray was at -this time about thirteen, and consequently somewhat -older than his schoolmate. Another -member of the association was Richard West, -also slightly older, a grandson of the Bishop -Burnet who wrote the <cite>History of My Own -Time</cite>, and son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. -West, a slim, thoughtful lad, was the -most precocious genius of the party, already -making verses in Latin and English, and making -them even in his sleep. The fourth member -was Thomas Ashton, afterwards Fellow of Eton -College and Rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate. -Such was the group which may be pictured -sauntering arm in arm through the Eton meadows, -or threading the avenue which is still -known as the 'Poet's Walk.' Each of the four -had his nickname, either conferred by himself -or by his schoolmates. Ashton, for example, -was Plato; Gray was Orosmades.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<p>On 27 May, 1731, Walpole was entered at -Lincoln's Inn, his father intending him for the -law. 'But'—he says in the <cite>Short Notes</cite>—'I -never went thither, not caring for the profession.' -On 23 September, 1734, he left Eton -for good, and no further particulars of his school-days -remain. That they were not without their -pleasant memories may, however, be inferred -from the letters already quoted, and especially -from one to George Montagu written -some time afterwards upon the occasion of a -visit to the once familiar scenes. It is dated -from the Christopher Inn, a famous old hostelry, -well known to Eton boys,—'The Christopher. -How great I used to think anybody just landed -at the Christopher! But here are no boys for -me to send for; there I am, like Noah, just -returned into his old world again, with all sorts -of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock -strikes the old cracked sound; I recollect so -much, and remember so little; and want to -play about; and am so afraid of my playfellows; -and am ready to shirk Ashton; and -can't help <em>making fun</em> of myself; and envy a -dame over the way, that has just locked in her -boarders, and is going to sit down in a little hot -parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably! -And I could be so jolly a dog if I did not <em>fat</em>,—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>which, -by the way, is the first time the word was -ever applicable to me. In short, I should be -out of all <em>bounds</em> if I was to tell you half I -feel,—how young again I am one minute, and -how old the next. But do come and feel with -me, when you will,—to-morrow. Adieu! If -I don't compose myself a little more before -Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach -['Plato' at the date of this letter had evidently -taken orders], I shall certainly <em>be in a bill for -laughing at church</em>; but how to help it, to see -him in the pulpit, when the last time I saw him -here was standing up funking over against a -conduit to be catechised.'<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> - -<p>This letter, of which the date is not given, -but which Cunningham places after March, -1737, must have been written some time after -the writer had taken up his residence at Cambridge -in his father's college of King's.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> This -he did in March, 1735, following an interval of -residence in London. By this time the 'quad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>ruple -alliance' had been broken up by the -defection of West, who, much against his will, -had gone to Christ Church, Oxford. Ashton -and Gray had, however, been a year at Cambridge, -the latter as a fellow-commoner of -Peterhouse, the former at Walpole's own college, -King's. Cole and the Conways were -also at Cambridge, so that much of the old intercourse -must have been continued. Walpole's -record of his university studies is of the most -scanty kind. He does little more than give us -the names of his tutors, public and private. In -civil law he attended the lectures of Dr. Dickens -of Trinity Hall; in anatomy, those of Dr. Battie. -French, he says, he had learnt at Eton. His -Italian master at Cambridge was Signor Piazza -(who had at least an Italian name!), and his -instructor in drawing was the miniaturist Bernard -Lens, the teacher of the Duke of Cumberland -and the Princesses Mary and Louisa. Lens -was the author of a <cite>New and Complete Drawing -Book for curious young Gentlemen and Ladies -that study and practice the noble and commendable -Art of Drawing, Colouring, etc.</cite>, and is -kindly referred to in the later <cite>Anecdotes of -Painting</cite>. In mathematics, which Walpole seems -to have hated as cordially as Swift and Goldsmith -and Gray did, he sat at the feet of the blind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -Professor Nicholas Saunderson, author of the -<cite>Elements of Algebra</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Years afterwards (<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à -propos</i> of a misguided enthusiast who had put -the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid into -Latin verse) he tells one of his correspondents -the result of these ministrations: 'I ... was -always so incapable of learning mathematics -that I could not even get by heart the multiplication -table, as blind Professor Saunderson honestly -told me, above threescore years ago, when -I went to his lectures at Cambridge. After the -first fortnight he said to me, 'Young man, it -would be cheating you to take your money; for -you can never learn what I am trying to teach -you.' I was exceedingly mortified, and cried; -for, being a Prime Minister's son, I had firmly -believed all the flattery with which I had been -assured that my parts were capable of anything. -I paid a private instructor for a year; but, at -the year's end, was forced to own Saunderson -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>had been in the right.'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> This private instructor -was in all probability Mr. Trevigar, who, -Walpole says, read lectures to him in mathematics -and philosophy. From other expressions -in his letters, it must be inferred that his progress -in the dead languages, if respectable, was -not brilliant. He confesses, on one occasion, -his inability to help Cole in a Latin epitaph, and -he tells Pinkerton that he never was a good -Greek scholar.</p> - - -<p>His correspondence at this period, chiefly -addressed to West and George Montagu, is -not extensive, but it is already characteristic. -In one of his letters to Montagu he encloses a -translation of a little French dialogue between -a turtle-dove and a passer-by. The verses are -of no particular merit, but in the comment one -recognizes a cast of style soon to be familiar. -'You will excuse this gentle nothing, I mean -mine, when I tell you I translated it out of -pure good-nature for the use of a disconsolate -wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a -widow by the barbarity of a gun. She coos -and calls me so movingly, 'twould touch your -heart to hear her. I protest to you it grieves -me to pity her. She is so allicholly<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> as any -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>thing. I'll warrant you now she's as sorry as -one of us would be. Well, good man, he's -gone, and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate -woman, but she must have patience.'<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In -another letter to West, after expressing his -astonishment that Gray should be at Burnham -in Buckinghamshire, and yet be too indolent to -revisit the old Eton haunts in his vicinity, he -goes on to gird at the university curriculum. -At Cambridge, he says, they are supposed to -betake themselves 'to some trade, as logic, -philosophy, or mathematics.' But he has been -used to the delicate food of Parnassus, and -can never condescend to the grosser studies -of Alma Mater. 'Sober cloth of syllogism -colour suits me ill; or, what's worse, I hate -clothes that one must prove to be of no colour -at all. If the Muses <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">cœlique vias et sidera -monstrent</i>, and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">quâ vi maria alta tumescant</i>; -why <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">accipiant</i>: but 'tis thrashing, to study -philosophy in the abstruse authors. I am not -against cultivating these studies, as they are -certainly useful; but then they quite neglect all -polite literature, all knowledge of this world. -Indeed, such people have not much occasion for -this latter; for they shut themselves up from it, -and study till they know less than any one. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>Great mathematicians have been of great use; -but the generality of them are quite unconversible: -they frequent the stars, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sub pedibusque -vident nubes</i>, but they can't see through -them. I tell you what I see; that by living -amongst them, I write of nothing else: my letters -are all parallelograms, two sides equal to -two sides; and every paragraph an axiom, -that tells you nothing but what every mortal -almost knows.'<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> In an earlier note he has -been on a tour to Oxford, and, with a premonition -of the future connoisseur of Strawberry -Hill, criticises the gentlemen's seats on -the road. 'Coming back, we saw Easton -Neston [in Northamptonshire], a seat of Lord -Pomfret, where in an old greenhouse is a -wonderful fine statue of Tully, haranguing a -numerous assemblage of decayed emperors, vestal -virgins with new noses, Colossus's, Venus's, -headless carcases and carcaseless heads, pieces -of tombs, and hieroglyphics.'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> A little later -he has been to his father's seat at Houghton: -'I am return'd again to Cambridge, and can -tell you what I never expected,—that I like -Norfolk. Not any of the ingredients, as Hunting -or Country Gentlemen, for I had nothing to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>do with them, but the county; which a little -from Houghton is woody, and full of delightfull -prospects. I went to see Norwich and -Yarmouth, both which I like exceedingly. I -spent my time at Houghton for the first week -almost alone. We have a charming garden, all -wilderness; much adapted to my Romantick -inclinations.' In after life the liking for Norfolk -here indicated does not seem to have -continued, especially when his father's death -had withdrawn a part of its attractions. He -'hated Norfolk,'—says Mr. Cunningham. -'He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk -turnips, Norfolk dumplings, or Norfolk turkeys. -Its flat, sandy, aguish scenery was not to his -taste.' He preferred 'the rich blue prospects' -of his mother's county, Kent.</p> - -<p>Of literary effort while at Cambridge, Walpole's -record is not great. In 1736, he was one -of the group of university poets—Gray and -West being also of the number—who addressed -congratulatory verses to Frederick, Prince of -Wales, upon his marriage with the Princess -Augusta of Saxe-Gotha; and he wrote a poem -(which is reprinted in vol. i. of his works) to -the memory of the founder of King's College, -Henry VI. This is dated 2 February, 1738. -In the interim Lady Walpole died. Her son's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -references to his loss display the most genuine -regret. In a letter to Charles Lyttelton (afterwards -the well-known Dean of Exeter, and -Bishop of Carlisle), which is not included in -Cunningham's edition, and is apparently dated -in error September, 1732, instead of 1737,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> -he dwells with much feeling on 'the surprizing -calmness and courage which my dear Mother -show'd before her death. I believe few women -wou'd behave so well, & I am certain no man -cou'd behave better. For three or four days -before she dyed, she spoke of it with less -indifference than one speaks of a cold; and -while she was sensible, which she was within -her two last hours, she discovered no manner -of apprehension.' That his warm affection for -her was well known to his friends may be -inferred from a passage in one of Gray's letters -to West: 'While I write to you, I hear the -bad news of Lady Walpole's death on Saturday -night last [20 Aug., 1737]. Forgive me if the -thought of what my poor Horace must feel on -that account, obliges me to have done.'<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Lady -Walpole was buried in Westminster Abbey, -where, on her monument in Henry VIIth's -Chapel, may be read the piously eulogistic -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>inscription which her youngest son composed -to her memory,—an inscription not easy to -reconcile in all its terms with the current -estimate of her character. But in August, -1737, she was considerably over fifty, and had -probably long outlived the scandals of which -she had been the subject in the days when -Kneller and Eckardt painted her as a young -and beautiful woman.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Patent Places under Government.—Starts with Gray on the -Grand Tour, March, 1739.—From Dover to Paris.—Life -at Paris.—Versailles.—The Convent of the Chartreux.—Life -at Rheims.—A <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fête Galante</i>.—The Grande Chartreuse.—Starts -for Italy.—The tragedy of Tory.—Turin; Genoa.—Academical -Exercises at Bologna.—Life at Florence.—Rome; -Naples; Herculaneum.—The Pen of Radicofani.—English -at Florence.—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.—Preparing -for Home.—Quarrel with Gray.—Walpole's Apologia; -his Illness, and Return to England.</p></div> - - -<p>That, in those piping days of patronage, -when even very young ladies of quality -drew pay as cornets of horse, the son of the -Prime Minister of England should be left unprovided -for, was not to be expected. While -he was still resident at Cambridge, lucrative -sinecures came to Horace Walpole. Soon -after his mother's death, his father appointed -him Inspector of Imports and Exports in the -Custom House,—a post which he resigned in -January, 1738, on succeeding Colonel William -Townshend as Usher of the Exchequer. When, -later in the year, he came of age (17 September), -he 'took possession of two other little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -patent-places in the Exchequer, called Comptroller -of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats,' -which had been held for him by a substitute. -In 1782, when he still filled them, the two -last-mentioned offices produced together about -£300 per annum, while the Ushership of the -Exchequer, at the date of his obtaining it, -was reckoned to be worth £900 a year. -'From that time [he says] I lived on my -own income, and travelled at my own expense; -nor did I during my father's life receive from -him but £250 at different times,—which I say -not in derogation of his extreme tenderness -and goodness to me, but to show that I was -content with what he had given to me, and -that from the age of twenty I was no charge -to my family.'<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> - -<p>He continued at King's College for some -time after he had attained his majority, only -quitting it formally in March, 1739, not without -regretful memories of which his future -correspondence was to bear the traces. If -he had neglected mathematics, and only moderately -courted the classics, he had learnt -something of the polite arts and of modern -Continental letters,—studies which would naturally -lead his inclination in the direction of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>the inevitable 'Grand Tour.' Two years -earlier he had very unwillingly declined an -invitation from George Montagu and Lord -Conway to join them in a visit to Italy. Since -that date his desire for foreign travel, fostered -no doubt by long conversations with Gray, -had grown stronger, and he resolved to see -'the palms and temples of the south' after -the orthodox eighteenth-century fashion. To -think of Gray in this connection was but -natural, and he accordingly invited his friend -(who had now quitted Cambridge, and was -vegetating rather disconsolately in his father's -house on Cornhill) to be his travelling companion. -Walpole was to act as paymaster; -but Gray was to be independent. Furthermore, -Walpole made a will under which, if he -died abroad, Gray was to be his sole legatee. -Dispositions so advantageous and considerate -scarcely admitted of refusal, even if Gray had -been backward, which he was not. The two -friends accordingly set out for Paris. Walpole -makes the date of departure 10 March, 1739; -Gray says they left Dover at twelve on the -29th.</p> - -<p>The first records of the journey come from -Amiens in a letter written by Gray to his -mother. After a rough passage across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -Straits, they reached Calais at five. Next day -they started for Boulogne in the then new-fangled -invention, a post-chaise,—a vehicle -which Gray describes 'as of much greater use -than beauty, resembling an ill-shaped chariot, -only with the door opening before instead of -[at] the side.' Of Boulogne they see little, -and of Montreuil (where later Sterne engaged -La Fleur) Gray's only record, besides the -indifferent fare, is that 'Madame the hostess -made her appearance in long lappets of bone -lace, and a sack of linsey-woolsey.' From -Montreuil they go by Abbeville to Amiens, -where they visit the cathedral, and the chapels -of the Jesuits and Ursuline Nuns. But the -best part of this first letter is the little picture -with which it (or rather as much of it as -Mason published) concludes. 'The country -we have passed through hitherto has been -flat, open, but agreeably diversified with villages, -fields well cultivated, and little rivers. -On every hillock is a windmill, a crucifix, or -a Virgin Mary dressed in flowers and a sarcenet -robe; one sees not many people or -carriages on the road; now and then indeed -you meet a strolling friar, a countryman with -his great muff, or a woman riding astride on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -little ass, with short petticoats, and a great -head-dress of blue wool.'<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> - -<p>The foregoing letter is dated the 1st April, -and it speaks of reaching Paris on the 3rd. -But it was only on the evening of Saturday -the 9th that they rolled into the French -capital, 'driving through the streets a long -while before they knew where they were.' -Walpole had wisely resolved not to hurry, -and they had besides broken down at Luzarches, -and lingered at St. Denis over the -curiosities of the abbey, particularly a vase of -oriental onyx carved with Bacchus and the -nymphs, of which they had dreamed ever -since. At Paris, they found a warm welcome -among the English residents,—notably from -Mason's patron, Lord Holdernesse, and Walpole's -cousins, the Conways. They seem to -have plunged at once into the pleasures of the -place,—pleasures in which, according to Walpole, -cards and eating played far too absorbing a -part. At Lord Holdernesse's they met at supper -the famous author of <cite>Manon Lescaut</cite>, M. l'Abbé -Antoine-François Prévost d'Exilles, who had -just put forth the final volume of his tedious -and scandalous <cite>Histoire de M. Cléveland, fils -naturel de Cromwel</cite>. They went to the spec<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>tacle -of <cite>Pandore</cite> at the Salle des Machines of -the Tuileries; and they went to the opera, -where they saw the successful <cite>Ballet de la Paix</cite>,—a -curious hotchpot, from Gray's description, -of cracked voices and incongruous mythology. -With the Comédie Française they were better -pleased, although Walpole, strange to say, unlike -Goldsmith ten years later, was not able to commend -the performance of Molière's <cite>L'Avare</cite>. -They saw Mademoiselle Gaussin (as yet unrivalled -by the unrisen Mademoiselle Clairon) -in La Noue's tragedy of <cite>Mahomet Second</cite>, then -recently produced, with Dufresne in the leading -male part; and they also saw the prince of -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petits-maîtres</i>, Grandval, acting with Dufresne's -sister, Mademoiselle Jeanne-Françoise Quinault -(an actress 'somewhat in Mrs. Clive's -way,' says Gray), in the <cite>Philosophe marié</cite> of -Nericault Destouches,—a charming comedy -already transferred to the English stage in the -version by John Kelly of <cite>The Universal -Spectator</cite>.</p> - -<p>Theatres, however, are not the only amusements -which the two travellers chronicle to -the home-keeping West. A great part of -their time is spent in seeing churches and -palaces full of pictures. Then there is the -inevitable visit to Versailles, which, in sum,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -they concur in condemning. 'The great -front,' says Walpole, 'is a lumber of littleness, -composed of black brick, stuck full of -bad old busts, and fringed with gold rails.' -Gray (he says) likes it; but Gray is scarcely -more complimentary,—at all events is quite -as hard upon the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">façade</i>, using almost the -same phrases of depreciation. It is 'a huge -heap of littleness,' in hue 'black, dirty red, -and yellow; the first proceeding from stone -changed by age; the second, from a mixture -of brick; and the last, from a profusion of -tarnished gilding. You cannot see a more -disagreeable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout ensemble</i>; and, to finish the -matter, it is all stuck over in many places -with small busts of a tawny hue between -every two windows.' The garden, however, -pleases him better; nothing could be vaster -and more magnificent than the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup d'œil</i>, with -its fountains and statues and grand canal. But -the 'general taste of the place' is petty and -artificial. 'All is forced, all is constrained -about you; statues and vases sowed everywhere -without distinction; sugar-loaves and -minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and -little squirting <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jets d'eau</i>, besides a great sameness -in the walks,—cannot help striking one at -first sight; not to mention the silliest of laby<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>rinths, -and all Æsop's fables in water.'<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> 'The -garden is littered with statues and fountains, -each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, -the elementary god of fire solaces himself -in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a -mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. -There are avenues of water-pots, who disport -themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. -In short, 'tis a garden for a great child.'<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> -The day following, being Whitsunday, they -witness a grand ceremonial,—the installation -of nine Knights of the Saint Esprit: 'high -mass celebrated with music, great crowd, much -incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames, -Cardinals, and Court; Knights arrayed by His -Majesty; reverences before the altar, not bows, -but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among -the ladies; trumpets, kettle-drums, and fifes.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> - -<p>It is Gray who thus summarises the show. -But we must go to Walpole for the account of -another expedition, the visit to the Convent of -the Chartreux, the uncouth horror of which, -with its gloomy chapel and narrow cloisters, -seems to have fascinated the Gothic soul of the -future author of the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>. Here, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>in one of the cells, they make the acquaintance -of a fresh initiate into the order,—the account -of whose environment suggests retirement rather -than solitude. 'He was extremely civil, and -called himself Dom Victor. We have promised -to visit him often. Their habit is all white: but -besides this he was infinitely clean in his person; -and his apartment and garden, which he keeps -and cultivates without any assistance, was neat -to a degree. He has four little rooms, furnished -in the prettiest manner, and hung with good -prints. One of them is a library, and another a -gallery. He has several canary-birds disposed -in a pretty manner in breeding-cages. In his -garden was a bed of good tulips in bloom, -flowers and fruit-trees, and all neatly kept. -They are permitted at certain hours to talk to -strangers, but never to one another, or to go -out of their convent.' In the same institution -they saw Le Sueur's history (in pictures) of St. -Bruno, the founder of the Chartreux. Walpole -had not yet studied Raphael at Rome, but -these pictures, he considered, excelled everything -he had seen in England and Paris.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> - -<p>'From thence [Paris],' say Walpole's <cite>Short -Notes</cite>, 'we went with my cousin, Henry Conway, -to Rheims, in Champagne, [and] staid there three -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>months.' One of their chief objects was to -improve themselves in French. 'You must not -wonder,' he tells West, 'if all my letters resemble -dictionaries, with French on one side, and -English on t'other; I deal in nothing else at -present, and talk a couple of words of each -language alternately from morning till night.'<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> -But he does not seem to have yet developed -his later passion for letter-writing, and the -'account of our situation and proceedings' is -still delegated to Gray, some of whose despatches -at this time are not preserved. There -is, however, one from Rheims to Gray's mother -which gives a vivid idea of the ancient French -Cathedral city, slumbering in its vast vine-clad -plain, with its picturesque old houses and lonely -streets, its long walks under the ramparts, and -its monotonous frog-haunted moat. They have -no want of society, for Henry Conway procured -them introductions everywhere; but the -Rhemois are more constrained, less familiar, less -hospitable, than the Parisians. Quadrille is the -almost invariable amusement, interrupted by one -entertainment (for the Rhemois as a rule give -neither dinners nor suppers); to wit, a five -o'clock <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">goûter</i>, which is 'a service of wine, -fruits, cream, sweetmeats, crawfish, and cheese,' -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>after which they sit down to cards again. Occasionally, -however, the demon of impromptu -flutters these 'set, gray lives,' and (like Dr. -Johnson) even Rheims must 'have a frisk.' -'For instance,' says Gray, 'the other evening -we happened to be got together in a company -of eighteen people, men and women of the best -fashion here, at a garden in the town, to walk; -when one of the ladies bethought herself of -asking, Why should we not sup here? Immediately -the cloth was laid by the side of a fountain -under the trees, and a very elegant supper -served up; after which another said, Come, let -us sing; and directly began herself. From -singing we insensibly fell to dancing, and singing -in a round; when somebody mentioned the -violins, and immediately a company of them was -ordered. Minuets were begun in the open air, -and then came country dances, which held till -four o'clock next morning; at which hour the -gayest lady there proposed that such as were -weary should get into their coaches, and the rest -of them should dance before them with the -music in the van; and in this manner we paraded -through all the principal streets of the city, -and waked everybody in it.' Walpole, adds Gray, -would have made this entertainment chronic. -But 'the women did not come into it,' and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -shrank back decorously 'to their dull cards, and -usual formalities.'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> - -<p>At Rheims the travellers lingered on in the -hope of being joined by Selwyn and George -Montagu. In September they left Rheims for -Dijon, the superior attractions of which town -made them rather regret their comparative rustication -of the last three months. From Dijon -they passed southward to Lyons, whence Gray -sent to West (then drinking the Tunbridge -waters) a daintily elaborated conceit touching -the junction of the Rhone and the Saône. -While at Lyons they made an excursion to -Geneva to escort Henry Conway, who had up -to this time been their companion, on his way -to that place. They took a roundabout route -in order to visit the Convent of the Grande -Chartreuse, and on the 28th Walpole writes to -West from 'a Hamlet among the mountains of -Savoy [Echelles].' He is to undergo many transmigrations, -he says, before he ends his letter. -'Yesterday I was a shepherd of Dauphiné; -to-day an Alpine savage; to-morrow a Carthusian -monk; and Friday a Swiss Calvinist.' -When he next takes up his pen, he has passed -through his third stage, and visited the Chartreuse. -With the convent itself neither Gray -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>nor his companions seem to have been much -impressed, probably because their expectations -had been indefinite. For the approach and the -situation they had only enthusiasm. Gray is the -accredited landscape-painter of the party, but -here even Walpole breaks out: 'The road, -West, the road! winding round a prodigious -mountain, and surrounded with others, all -shagged with hanging woods, obscured with -pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent -breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through -fragments of rocks! Sheets of cascades forcing -their silver speed down channelled precipices, -and hastening into the roughened river at the -bottom! Now and then an old foot bridge, -with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or -the ruin of an hermitage! This sounds too -bombast and too romantic to one that has not -seen it, too cold for one that has. If I could -send you my letter post between two lovely tempests -that echoed each other's wrath, you might -have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as -you were reading it. Almost on the summit, -upon a fine verdure, but without any prospect, -stands the Chartreuse.'<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> - -<p>The foregoing passage is dated Aix-in-Savoy, -30 September. Two days later, passing by -Annecy, they came to Geneva. Here they -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>stayed a week to see Conway settled, and made -a 'solitary journey' back to Lyons, but by a -different road, through the spurs of the Jura -and across the plains of La Bresse. At Lyons -they found letters awaiting them from Sir Robert -Walpole, desiring his son to go to Italy,—a proposal -with which Gray, only too glad to exchange -the over-commercial city of Lyons for 'the -place in the world that best deserves seeing,' -was highly delighted. Accordingly, we speedily -find them duly equipped with 'beaver bonnets, -beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and -bear-skins' <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en route</i> for the Alps. At the foot -of Mont Cenis their chaise was taken to pieces -and loaded on mules, and they themselves were -transferred to low matted legless chairs carried -on poles,—a not unperilous mode of progression, -when, as in this case, quarrels took place -among the bearers. But the tragedy of the -journey happened before they had quitted the -chaise. Walpole had a fat little black spaniel -of King Charles's breed, named Tory, and he -had let the little creature out of the carriage for -the air. While it was waddling along contentedly -at the horses' heads, a gaunt wolf rushed -out of a fir wood, and exit poor Tory before -any one had time to snap a pistol. In later -years, Gray would perhaps have celebrated this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -mishap as elegantly as he sang the death of his -friend's favourite cat; but in these pre-poetic -days he restricts himself to calling it an 'odd -accident enough.'<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> - -<p>'After eight days' journey through Greenland,'—as -Gray puts it to West,—they -reached Turin, where among other English -they found Pope's friend, Joseph Spence, Professor -of Poetry at Oxford. Beyond Walpole's -going to Court, and their visiting an extraordinary -play called <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">La Rappresentazione dell' -Anima Dannata</i> (for the benefit of an Hospital), -a full and particular account of which is contained -in one of Spence's letters to his mother,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> -nothing remarkable seems to have happened -to them in the Piedmontese capital. From -Turin they went on to Genoa,—'the happy -country where huge lemons grow' (as Gray -quotes, not textually, from Waller),—whose -blue sea and vine-trellises they quit reluctantly -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>for Bologna, by way of Tortona, Piacenza, -Parma (where they inspect the Correggios in -the Duomo), Reggio, and Modena. At Bologna, -in the absence of introductions, picture-seeing -is their main occupation. 'Except -pictures and statues,' writes Walpole, 'we -are not very fond of sights.... Now and then -we drop in at a procession, or a high mass, -hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate -the foul monkhood. Last week was the feast -of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve -we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the -academical exercises. There were moult and -moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that -treated one another with <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">illustrissima</i> and brown -kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and -some senate. The vice-legate ... is a young -personable person of about twenty, and had on -a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twou'd -make a delightful masquerade dress. We asked -his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the -cardinal-legate? <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Signor, no; ma credo che gli -sia qualche cosa.</i> He sat on the right hand -with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. -Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, -with the device of the Academy, the Gelati;<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, -in black, the head of the Academy, between -the orator and the first poet. At two semicircular -tables on either hand sat three poets and -three; silent among many candles. The chief -made a little introduction, the orator a long -Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, -the poets,—who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, -an old abbé, and three lay,—read their -compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in -all parts of the town. As we came out of the -church, we found all the convent and neighbouring -houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red -and yellow paper, and two bonfires.'<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> - -<p>In the Christmas of 1739, the friends crossed -the Apennines, and entered Florence. If they -had wanted introductions at Bologna, there was -no lack of them in Tuscany, and they were to -find one friend who afterwards figured largely -in Walpole's correspondence. This was Mr. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>(afterwards Sir Horace) Mann, British Minister -Plenipotentiary at the Court of Florence. 'He -is the best and most obliging person in the -world,' says Gray, and his house, with a brief -interval, was their residence for fifteen months. -Their letters from Florence are less interesting -than those from which quotations have already -been made, while their amusements seem to -have been more independent of each other than -before. Gray occupied himself in the galleries -taking the notes of pictures and statuary afterwards -published by Mitford, and in forming a -collection of MS. music; Walpole, on the other -hand, had slightly cooled in his eagerness for -the antique, which now 'pleases him calmly.' -'I recollect'—he says—'the joy I used to -propose if I could but see the Great Duke's -gallery; I walk into it now with as little -emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The -statues are a congregation of good sort of -people that I have a great deal of unruffled -regard for.' The fact was, no doubt, that -society had now superior attractions. As the -son of the English Prime Minister, and with -Mann, who was a relation,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> at his elbow, all -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>doors were open to him. A correct record of -his time would probably show an unvaried -succession of suppers, balls, and masquerades. -In the carnival week, when he snatches 'a little -unmasqued moment' to write to West, he says -he has done nothing lately 'but slip out of his -domino into bed, and out of bed into his -domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, -bacchanalian; all the morn one makes parties -in masque to the shops and coffee-houses, and -all the evening to the operas and balls.' If -Gray was of these junketings, his letters do not -betray it. He was probably engaged in writing -uncomplimentary notes on the Venus de' -Medici, or transcribing a score of Pergolesi.</p> - -<p>The first interruption to these diversions came -in March, when they quitted Florence for -Rome in order to witness the coronation of the -successor of Clement XII., who had died in -the preceding month. On their road from Siena -they were passed by a shrill-voiced figure in a -red cloak, with a white handkerchief on its head, -which they took for a fat old woman, but which -afterwards turned out to be Farinelli's rival, -Senesino. Rome disappointed them,—especially -in its inhabitants and general desolation. -'I am very glad,' writes Walpole, 'that I see -it while it yet exists;' and he goes on to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -prophesy that before a great number of years it -will cease to exist. 'I am persuaded,' he says -again, 'that in an hundred years Rome will not -be worth seeing; 'tis less so now than one -would believe. All the public pictures are -decayed or decaying; the few ruins cannot last -long; and the statues and private collections -must be sold, from the great poverty of -the families.' Perhaps this last consideration, -coupled with the depressing character of Roman -hospitality ('Roman conversations are dreadful -things!' he tells Conway), revived his -virtuoso tastes. 'I am far gone in medals, -lamps, idols, prints, etc., and all the small commodities -to the purchase of which I can attain; -I would buy the Coliseum if I could.' Meanwhile -as the cardinals are quarrelling, the -coronation is still deferred; and they visit -Naples, whence they explore Herculaneum, -then but recently exposed and identified. But -neither Gray nor Walpole waxes very eloquent -upon this theme,—probably because at this -time the excavations were only partial, while -Pompeii was, of course, as yet under ground. -Walpole's next letter is written from Radicofani,—'a -vile little town at the foot of an old -citadel,' which again is at 'the top of a black -barren mountain;' the whole reminding the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -writer of 'Hamilton's Bawn' in Swift's verses. -In this place, although the traditional residence -of one of the Three Kings of Cologne, there -is but one pen, the property of the Governor, -who when Walpole borrows it, sends it to him -under 'conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss,' -with special injunctions as to its restoration,—a -precaution which in Walpole's view renders -it worthy to be ranked with the other precious -relics of the poor Capuchins of the place, -concerning which he presently makes rather -unkindly fun. A few days later they were -once more in the Casa Ambrosio, Mann's -pleasant house at Florence, with the river -running so close to them that they could fish -out of the windows. 'I have a terreno [ground-floor] -all to myself,' says Walpole, 'with an -open gallery on the Arno, where I am now -writing to you [<i>i. e.</i>, Conway]. Over against -me is the famous Gallery; and, on either hand, -two fair bridges. Is not this charming and -cool?' Add to which, on the bridges aforesaid, -in the serene Italian air, one may linger all night -in a dressing-gown, eating iced fruits to the -notes of a guitar. But (what was even better -than music and moonlight) there is the society -that was the writer's 'fitting environment.' Lady -Pomfret, with her daughters, Lady Charlotte,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -afterwards governess to the children of George -III., and the beauty Lady Sophia, held a -'charming conversation' once a week; while -the Princess Craon de Beauvau has 'a constant -pharaoh and supper every night, where one is -quite at one's ease.' Another lady-resident, -scarcely so congenial to Walpole, was his -sister-in-law, the wife of his eldest brother, -Robert, who, with Lady Pomfret, made certain -(in Walpole's eyes) wholly preposterous pretentions -to the yet uninvented status of -blue-stocking. To Lady Walpole and Lady -Pomfret was speedily added another 'she-meteor' -in the person of the celebrated Lady -Mary Wortley Montagu.</p> - -<p>When Lady Mary arrived in Florence in the -summer of 1740, she was a woman of more -than fifty, and was just entering upon that -unexplained exile from her country and husband -which was prolonged for two-and-twenty -years. Her brilliant abilities were unimpaired; -but it is probable that the personal eccentricities -which had exposed her to the satire -of Pope, had not decreased with years. That -these would be extenuated under Walpole's -malicious pen was not to be expected; still -less, perhaps, that they would be treated justly. -Although, as already intimated, he was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -aware of the scandal respecting himself which -her descendants were to revive, he had ample -ground for antipathy. Her husband was the -bitter foe of Sir Robert Walpole; and she -herself had been the firm friend and protectress -of his mother's rival and successor, Miss -Skerret.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Accordingly, even before her advent, -he makes merry over the anticipated issue of -this portentous 'triple alliance' of mysticism -and nonsense, and later he writes to Conway: -'Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? -She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my -Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole -town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence -must amaze any one that never heard her -name. She wears a foul mob, that does not -cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, -never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue -wrapper, that gaps open and discovers a canvas -petticoat.... In three words, I will give you -her picture as we drew it in the <cite>Sortes Virgilianæ</cite>,—<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Insanam -vatem aspicies</i>. I give you -my honour we did not choose it; but Gray, -Mr. Coke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and I, with -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand -for different people.'<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> In justice to Lady Mary -it is only fair to say that she seems to have -been quite unconscious that she was an object -of ridicule, and was perfectly satisfied with her -reception at Florence. 'Lord and Lady Pomfret'—she -tells Mr. Wortley—'take pains -to make the place agreeable to me, and I have -been visited by the greatest part of the people -of quality.'<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> But although Walpole's portrait -is obviously malicious (some of its details are -suppressed in the above quotation), it is plain -that even unprejudiced spectators could not -deny her peculiarities. 'Lady Mary,' said -Spence, 'is one of the most shining characters -in the world, but shines like a comet; she -is all irregularity, and always wandering; the -most wise, the most imprudent; loveliest, most -disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in -the world: "all things by turns, but nothing -long."'<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> - -<p>By this time the new pope, Benedict XIV., -had been elected. But although the friends -were within four days journey of Rome, the -fear of heat and malaria forced them to forego -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>the spectacle of the coronation. They continued -to reside with Mann at Florence until -May in the following year. Upon Gray the -'violent delights' of the Tuscan capital had -already begun to pall. It is, he says, 'an -excellent place to employ all one's animal -sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's -rational powers.' Walpole, on the other hand, -is in his element. 'I am so well within and -without,' he says in the same letter which -sketches Lady Mary, 'that you would scarce -know me: I am younger than ever, think of -nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round -of pleasures. We have operas, concerts, and -balls, mornings and evenings. I dare not tell -you all of one's idlenesses; you would look so -grave and senatorial at hearing that one rises at -eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine -at night, to supper at one, and to bed at three! -But literally here the evenings and nights are so -charming and so warm, one can't avoid 'em.' -In a later letter he says he has lost all curiosity, -and 'except the towns in the straight road to -Great Britain, shall scarce see a jot more of a -foreign land.' Indeed, save a sally concerning -the humours of 'Moll Worthless' (Lady Mary) -and Lady Walpole, and the record of the purchase -of a few pictures, medals, and busts,—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>one -of the last of which, a Vespasian in basalt, -was subsequently among the glories of the -Twickenham Gallery,—his remaining letters -from Florence contain little of interest. Early -in 1741, the homeward journey was mapped out. -They were to go to Bologna to hear the -Viscontina sing, they were to visit the Fair -at Reggio, and so by Venice homewards.</p> - -<p>But whether the Viscontina was in voice or -not, there is, as far as our travellers are concerned, -absence of evidence. No further letter -of Gray from Florence has been preserved, nor -is there any mention of him in Walpole's next -despatch to West from Reggio. At that place -a misunderstanding seems to have arisen, and -they parted, Gray going forward to Venice with -two other travelling companions, Mr. John -Chute and Mr. Whitehed. In the rather barren -record of Walpole's story, this misunderstanding -naturally assumes an exaggerated importance. -But it was really a very trifling and a very intelligible -affair. They had been too long together; -and the first fascination of travel, which formed -at the outset so close a bond, had gradually -faded with time. As this alteration took place, -their natural dispositions began to assert themselves, -and Walpole's normal love of pleasure -and Gray's retired studiousness became more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -and more apparent. It is probable too, that, -in all the Florentine gaieties, Gray, who was -not a great man's son, fell a little into the -background. At all events, the separation was -imminent, and it needed but a nothing—the -alleged opening by Walpole of a letter of Gray<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>—to -to bring it about. Whatever the proximate -cause, both were silent on the subject, although, -years after the quarrel had been made up, and -Gray was dead, Walpole took the entire blame -upon himself. When Mason was preparing -Gray's <cite>Memoirs</cite> in 1773, he authorized him to -insert a note by which, in general terms, he -admitted himself to have been in fault, assigning -as his reason for not being more explicit, -that while he was living it would not be pleasant -to read his private affairs discussed in magazines -and newspapers. But to Mason personally he -was at the same time thoroughly candid, as well -as considerate to his departed friend: 'I am -conscious,' he says, 'that in the beginning of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>the differences between Gray and me, the fault -was mine. I was too young, too fond of my -own diversions, nay, I do not doubt, too much -intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the -insolence of my situation, as a Prime Minister's -son, not to have been inattentive and -insensible to the feelings of one I thought -below me; of one, I blush to say it, that I -knew was obliged to me; of one whom presumption -and folly perhaps made me deem not -my superior <em>then</em> in parts, though I have since -felt my infinite inferiority to him. I treated -him insolently: he loved me, and I did not think -he did. I reproached him with the difference -between us when he acted from conviction of -knowing he was my superior; I often disregarded -his wishes of seeing places, which I -would not quit other amusements to visit, -though I offered to send him to them without -me. Forgive me, if I say that his temper was -not conciliating. At the same time that I will -confess to you that he acted a more friendly -part, had I had the sense to take advantage of -it; he freely told me of my faults. I declared -I did not desire to hear them, nor would correct -them. You will not wonder that with the -dignity of his spirit, and the obstinate care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>lessness -of mine, the breach must have grown -wider till we became incompatible.'<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> - -<p>'Sir, you have said more than was necessary' -was Johnson's reply to a peace-making speech -from Topham Beauclerk. It is needless to -comment further upon this incident, except to -add that Walpole's generous words show that -the disagreement was rather the outcome of a -sequence of long-strained circumstances than -the result of momentary petulance. For a time -reconciliation was deferred, but eventually it -was effected by a lady, and the intimacy thus -renewed continued for the remainder of Gray's -life.</p> - -<p>Shortly after Gray's departure in May, Walpole -fell ill of a quinsy. He did not, at first, -recognise the gravity of his ailment, and doctored -himself. By a fortunate chance, Joseph -Spence, then travelling as governor to the Earl -of Lincoln, was in the neighbourhood, and, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>responding to a message from Walpole, 'found -him scarce able to speak.' Spence immediately -sent for medical aid, and summoned from Florence -one Antonio Cocchi, a physician and author -of some eminence. Under Cocchi's advice, -Walpole speedily showed signs of improvement, -though, in his own words in the <cite>Short Notes</cite>, -he 'was given over for five hours, escaping with -great difficulty.' The sequel may be told from -the same source. 'I went to Venice with Henry -Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, and Mr. Joseph -Spence, Professor of Poetry, and after a -month's stay there, returned with them by sea -from Genoa, landing at Antibes; and by the -way of Toulon, Marseilles, Aix, and through -Languedoc to Montpellier, Toulouse, and -Orléans, arrived at Paris, where I left the -Earl and Mr. Spence, and landed at Dover, -September 12th, 1741, O. S., having been -chosen Member of Parliament for Kellington -[Callington], in Cornwall, at the preceding -General Election [of June], which Parliament -put a period to my father's administration, -which had continued above twenty years.'</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Gains of the Grand Tour.—'Epistle to Ashton.'—Resignation -of Sir Robert Walpole, who becomes Earl of Orford.—Collapse -of the Secret Committee.—Life at Houghton.—The -Picture Gallery.—'A Sermon on Painting.'—Lord Orford -as Moses.—The 'Ædes Walpolianæ.'—Prior's 'Protogenes -and Apelles.'—Minor Literature.—Lord Orford's -Decline and Death; his Panegyric.—Horace Walpole's -Means.</p></div> - - -<p>Although, during his stay in Italy, -Walpole had neglected to accumulate the -store of erudition which his friend Gray had -been so industriously hiving for home consumption, -he can scarcely be said to have learned -nothing, especially at an age when much is -learned unconsciously. His epistolary style, -which, with its peculiar graces and pseudo-graces, -had been already formed before he left -England, had now acquired a fresh vivacity -from his increased familiarity with the French -and Italian languages; and he had carried on, -however discursively, something more than a -mere flirtation with antiquities. Dr. Conyers -Middleton, whose once famous <cite>Life of Cicero</cite> -was published early in 1741, and who was him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>self -an antiquary of distinction, thought highly -of Walpole's attainments in this way,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> and indeed -more than one passage in a poem written -by Walpole to Ashton at this time could scarcely -have been penned by any one not fairly familiar -with (for example) the science of those 'medals' -upon which Mr. Joseph Addison had discoursed -so learnedly after his Italian tour:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'What scanty precepts! studies how confin'd!</div> - <div class="verse">Too mean to fill your comprehensive mind;</div> - <div class="verse">Unsatisfy'd with knowing when or where</div> - <div class="verse">Some Roman bigot rais'd a fane to <span class="smcap">Fear</span>;</div> - <div class="verse">On what green medal <span class="smcap">Virtue</span> stands express'd,</div> - <div class="verse">How <span class="smcap">Concord's</span> pictur'd, <span class="smcap">Liberty</span> how dress'd;</div> - <div class="verse">Or with wise ken judiciously define</div> - <div class="verse">When Pius marks the honorary coin</div> - <div class="verse">Of <span class="smcap">Caracalla</span>, or of <span class="smcap">Antonine</span>.'<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The poem from which these lines are taken—<cite>An -Epistle from Florence. To Thomas -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>Ashton, Esq., Tutor to the Earl of Plimouth</cite>—extends -to some four hundred lines, and exhibits -another side of Walpole's activity in Italy. -'You have seen'—says Gray to West in July, -1740—'an Epistle to Mr. Ashton, that seems -to me full of spirit and thought, and a good -deal of poetic fire.' Writing to him ten years -later, Gray seems still to have retained his first -impression. 'Satire'—he says—'will be -heard, for all the audience are by nature her -friends; especially when she appears in the -spirit of Dryden, with his strength, and often -with his versification, such as you have caught in -those lines on the Royal Unction, on the Papal -dominion, and Convents of both Sexes; on -Henry VIII. and Charles II., for these are to -me the shining parts of your Epistle. There -are many lines I could wish corrected, and some -blotted out, but beauties enough to atone for a -thousand worse faults than these.'<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Walpole -has never been ranked among the poets; but -Gray's praise, in which Middleton and others -concurred, justifies a further quotation. This is -the passage on the Royal Unction and the Papal -Dominion:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'When at the altar a new monarch kneels,</div> - <div class="verse">What conjur'd awe upon the people steals!</div> - <div class="verse">The chosen He adores the precious oil,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> - <div class="verse">Meekly receives the solemn charm, and while</div> - <div class="verse">The priest some blessed nothings mutters o'er,</div> - <div class="verse">Sucks in the sacred grease at every pore:</div> - <div class="verse">He seems at once to shed his mortal skin,</div> - <div class="verse">And feels divinity transfus'd within.</div> - <div class="verse">The trembling vulgar dread the royal nod,</div> - <div class="verse">And worship God's anointed more than God.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Such sanction gives the prelate to such kings!</div> - <div class="verse">So mischief from those hallow'd fountains springs.</div> - <div class="verse">But bend your eye to yonder harass'd plains,</div> - <div class="verse">Where king and priest in one united reigns;</div> - <div class="verse">See fair Italia mourn her holy state,</div> - <div class="verse">And droop oppress'd beneath a papal weight;</div> - <div class="verse">Where fat celibacy usurps the soil,</div> - <div class="verse">And sacred sloth consumes the peasant's toil:</div> - <div class="verse">The holy drones monopolise the sky,</div> - <div class="verse">And plunder by a vow of poverty.</div> - <div class="verse">The Christian cause their lewd profession taints,</div> - <div class="verse">Unlearn'd, unchaste, uncharitable saints.'<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>That the refined and fastidious Horace Walpole -of later years should have begun as a passable -imitator of Dryden is sufficiently piquant. But -that the son of the great courtier Prime Minister -should have distinguished himself by the -vigour of his denunciations of kings and priests, -especially when, as his biographers have not -failed to remark, he was writing to one about -to take orders, is more noticeable still. The -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>poem was reprinted in his works, but he makes -no mention of it in the <cite>Short Notes</cite>, nor of an -<cite>Inscription for the Neglected Column in the Place -of St. Mark at Florence</cite>, written at the same -time, and characterized by the same anti-monarchical -spirit.</p> - -<p>His letters to Mann, his chief correspondent -at this date, are greatly occupied, during the -next few months, with the climax of the catastrophe -recorded at the end of the preceding -chapter,—the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole. -The first of the long series was written on his -way home in September, 1741, when he had for -his fellow-passengers the Viscontina, Amorevoli, -and other Italian singers, then engaged in invading -England. He appears to have at once taken -up his residence with his father in Downing -Street. Into the network of circumstances which -had conspired to array against the great peace -Minister the formidable opposition of disaffected -Whigs, Jacobites, Tories, and adherents of the -Prince of Wales, it would here be impossible -to enter. But there were already signs that -Sir Robert was nodding to his fall; and that, -although the old courage was as high as ever, -the old buoyancy was beginning to flag. Failing -health added its weight to the scale. In -October Walpole tells his correspondent that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -he had 'been very near sealing his letter with -black wax,' for his father had been in danger -of his life, but was recovering, though he is no -longer the Sir Robert that Mann once knew. -He who formerly would snore before they had -drawn his curtains, now never slept above an -hour without waking; and 'he who at dinner -always forgot that he was Minister,' now sat -silent, with eyes fixed for an hour together. At -the opening of Parliament, however, there was -an ostensible majority of forty for the Court, -and Walpole seems to have regarded this as -encouraging. But one of the first motions was -for an inquiry into the state of the nation, and -this was followed by a division upon a Cornish -petition which reduced the majority to seven,—a -variation which sets the writer nervously jesting -about apartments in the Tower. Seven days -later, the opposition obtained a majority of four; -and although Sir Robert, still sanguine in the -remembrance of past successes, seemed less -anxious than his family, matters were growing -grave, and his youngest son was reconciling -himself to the coming blow. It came practically -on the 21st January, 1742, when Pulteney -moved for a secret committee, which (in reality) -was to be a committee of accusation against -the Prime Minister. Walpole defeated this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -manœuvre with his characteristic courage and -address, but only by a narrow majority of three. -So inconsiderable a victory upon so crucial a -question was perilously close to a reverse; and -when, in the succeeding case of the disputed -Chippenham Election, the Government were -defeated by one, he yielded to the counsels of -his advisers, and decided to resign. He was -thereupon raised to the peerage as Earl of -Orford, with a pension of £4,000 a year,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> while -his daughter by his second wife, Miss Skerret, -was created an Earl's daughter in her own -right. His fall was mourned by no one more -sincerely than by the master he had served so -staunchly for so long; and when he went to -kiss hands at St. James's upon taking leave, -the old king fell upon his neck, embraced him, -and broke into tears.</p> - -<p>The new Earl himself seems to have taken -his reverses with his customary equanimity, and, -like the shrewd 'old Parliamentary hand' that -he was, to have at once devoted himself to the -difficult task of breaking the force of the attack -which he foresaw would be made upon himself -by those in power. He contrived adroitly to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>foster dissension and disunion among the heterogeneous -body of his opponents; he secured -that the new Ministry should be mainly composed -of his old party, the Whigs; and he -managed to discredit his most formidable adversary, -Pulteney. One of the first results of -these precautionary measures was that a motion -by Lord Limerick for a committee to examine -into the conduct of the last twenty years was -thrown out by a small majority. A fortnight -later the motion was renewed in a fresh form, -the scope of the examination being limited to -the last ten years. Upon this occasion Horace -Walpole made his maiden speech,—a graceful -and modest, if not very forcible, effort on his -father's side. In this instance, however, the -Government were successful, and the Committee -was appointed. Yet, despite the efforts to -excite the public mind respecting Lord Orford, -the case against him seems to have faded away -in the hands of his accusers. The first report -of the Committee, issued in May, contained -nothing to criminate the person against whom -the inquiry had been directly levelled; and -despite the strenuous and even shameless efforts -of the Government to obtain evidence inculpating -the late Minister, the Committee were -obliged to issue a second report in June, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -which,—so far as the chief object was concerned,—the -gross result was nil. By the -middle of July, Walpole was able to tell Mann -that the 'long session was over, and the Secret -Committee already forgotten,'—as much forgotten, -he says in a later letter, 'as if it had -happened in the last reign.'</p> - -<p>When Sir Robert Walpole had resigned, he -had quitted his official residence in Downing -Street (which ever since he first occupied it in -1735 has been the official residence of the First -Lord of the Treasury), and moved to No. 5, -Arlington Street, opposite to, but smaller than, -the No. 17 in which his youngest son had been -born, and upon the site of which William Kent -built a larger house for Mr. Pelham. No. 5 is -now distinguished by a tablet erected by the -Society of Arts, proclaiming it to have been the -house of the ex-Minister. From Arlington -Street, or from the other home at Chelsea -already mentioned, most of Walpole's letters -were dated during the months which succeeded -the crisis. But in August, when the House had -risen, he migrated with the rest of the family -to Houghton,—the great mansion in Norfolk -which had now taken the place of the ancient -seat of the Walpoles, where during the summer -months his father had been accustomed in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -free-handed manner to keep open house to all -the county. Fond of hospitality, fond of field-sports, -fond of gardening, and all out-door -occupations, Lord Orford was at home among -the flat expanses and Norfolk turnips. But the -family seat had no such attractions to his son, -fresh from the multi-coloured Continental life, -and still bearing about him, in a certain frailty -of physique and enervation of spirit, the tokens -of a sickly childhood. 'Next post'—he says despairingly -to Mann—'I shall not be able to write -to you; and when I am there [at Houghton], -shall scarce find materials to furnish a letter -above every other post. I beg, however, that -you will write constantly to me; it will be my -only entertainment; for I neither hunt, brew, -drink, nor reap.' 'Consider'—he says again—'I -am in the barren land of Norfolk, where -news grows as slow as anything green; and -besides, I am in the house of a fallen minister!' -Writing letters (in company with the little white -dog 'Patapan'<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> which he had brought from -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>Rome as a successor to the defunct Tory), -walking, and playing comet with his sister Lady -Mary or any chance visitors to the house, seem -to have been his chief resources. A year later -he pays a second visit to Houghton, and he is -still unreconciled to his environment. 'Only -imagine that I here every day see men, who are -mountains of roast beef, and only just seem -roughly hewn out into the outlines of human -form, like the giant-rock at Pratolino! I shudder -when I see them brandish their knives in -act to carve, and look on them as savages that -devour one another.' Then there are the enforced -civilities to entirely uninteresting people,—the -intolerable female relative, who is curious about -her cousins to the fortieth remove. 'I have an -Aunt here, a family piece of goods, an old remnant -of inquisitive hospitality and economy, -who, to all intents and purposes, is as beefy as -her neighbours. She wore me so down yesterday -with interrogatories that I dreamt all -night she was at my ear with "who's" and -"why's," and "when's" and "where's," till at -last in my very sleep I cried out, "For heaven's -sake, Madam, ask me no more questions."' And -then, in his impatience of bores in general, he -goes on to write a little essay upon that 'growth -of English root,' that 'awful yawn, which sleep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -cannot abate,' as Byron calls it,—Ennui. 'I am -so far from growing used to mankind [he means -'uncongenial mankind'] by living amongst them, -that my natural ferocity and wildness does but -every day grow worse. They tire me, they -fatigue me; I don't know what to do with them; -I don't know what to say to them; I fling open -the windows, and fancy I want air; and when I -get by myself, I undress myself, and seem to -have had people in my pockets, in my plaits, -and on my shoulders! I indeed find this fatigue -worse in the country than in town, because one -can avoid it there, and has more resources; but -it is there too. I fear 'tis growing old; but I -literally seem to have murdered a man whose -name was Ennui, for his ghost is ever before -me. They say there is no English word for -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>; I think you may translate it most literally -by what is called "entertaining people" and -"doing the honours:" that is, you sit an hour -with somebody you don't know and don't care -for, talk about the wind and the weather, and -ask a thousand foolish questions, which all begin -with, "I think you live a good deal in the country," -or "I think you don't love this thing or -that." Oh, 'tis dreadful!'<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> - -<p>But even Houghton, with its endless 'doing -the honours,' must have had its compensations. -There was a library, and—what must have had -even stronger attractions for Horace Walpole—that -magnificent and almost unique collection -of pictures which under a later member of the -family, the third Earl of Orford, passed to -Catherine of Russia. For years Lord Orford, -with unwearied diligence and exceptional opportunities, -had been accumulating these treasures. -Mann in Florence, Vertue in England, and a -host of industrious foragers had helped to bring -together the priceless canvases which crowded -the rooms of the Minister's house next the -Treasury at Whitehall. And if he was inexperienced -as a critic, he was far too acute a man -to be deceived by the shiploads of 'Holy -Families, Madonnas, and other dismal dark -subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental,' -against which the one great native artist of his -time,—the painter of the 'Rake's Progress,' so -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>persistently inveighed. There was no doubt -about the pedigrees of the Wouvermanns and -Teniers, the Guidos and Rubens, the Vandykes -and Murillos, which decorated the rooms at -Downing Street and Chelsea and Richmond. -From the few records which remain of prices, -it would seem that, in addition to the merit of -authenticity, many of the pictures must have had -the attraction of being 'bargains.' In days -when £4,000 or £5,000 is no extravagant price -to be given for an old master, it is instructive to -read that £750 was the largest sum ever given -by Lord Orford for any one picture, and Walpole -himself quotes this amount as £630. For four -great Snyders, which Vertue bought for him, he -only paid £428, and for a portrait of Clement -IX. by Carlo Maratti no more than £200. -Many of the other pictures in his gallery cost -him still less, being donations—no doubt sometimes -in gratitude for favours to come—from -his friends and adherents. The Earl of Pembroke, -Lord Waldegrave, the Duke of Montagu, -Lord Tyrawley, were among these. But, -upon the whole, the collection was gathered -mainly from galleries like the Zambecari at -Bologna, the Arnaldi Palace at Florence, the -Pallavicini at Rome, and from the stores of -noble collectors in England.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>In 1743, the majority of these had apparently -been concentrated at Houghton, where there -was special accommodation for them. 'My -Lord,' says Horace, groaning over a fresh visit -to Norfolk, 'has pressed me so much that I -could not with decency refuse: he is going to -furnish and hang his picture-gallery, and wants -me.' But it is impossible to believe that he -really objected to a duty so congenial to his -tastes. In fact, he was really greatly interested -in it. His letters contain frequent references -to a new Domenichino, a Virgin and Child, -which Mann is sending from Florence, and he -comes up to London to meet this and other -pictures, and is not seriously inconsolable to -find that owing to the quarantine for the plague -on the Continent, he is detained for some days -in town. One of the best evidences of his -solicitude in connection with the arrangements -of the Houghton collection is, however, the -discourse which he wrote in the summer of -1742, under the title of a <cite>Sermon on Painting</cite>, -and which he himself tells us was actually -preached by the Earl's chaplain in the gallery, -and afterwards repeated at Stanno, his elder -brother's house. The text was taken from -Psalm CXV.: 'They have Mouths, but they -speak not: Eyes have they, but they see not:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -neither is there any Breath in their Nostrils;' and -the writer, illustrating his theme by reference to -the pictures around his audience in the gallery, -or dispersed through the building, manages to -eulogize the painter's art with considerable skill. -He touches upon the pernicious effect which -the closely realized representation of popish -miracles must have upon the illiterate spectator, -and points out how much more commendable -and serviceable is the portraiture of benignity, -piety, and chastity,—how much more instructive -the incidents of the Passion, where every -'touch of the pencil is a lesson of contrition, -each figure an apostle to call you to repentance.' -He lays stress, as Lessing and other writers -have done, on the universal language of the -brush, and indicates its abuse when restricted -to the reproduction of inquisitors, visionaries, -imaginary hermits, 'consecrated gluttons,' or -'noted concubines,' after which (as becomes -his father's son) he does not fail to disclose its -more fitting vocation, to perpetuate the likeness -of William the Deliverer, and the benign, the -honest house of Hanover. <cite>The Dives and Lazarus</cite> -of Veronese and the <cite>Prodigal Son</cite> of -Salvator Rosa, both on the walls, are pressed -into his service, and the famous <cite>Usurers</cite> of -Quentin Matsys also prompt their parable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -Then, after adroitly dwelling upon the pictorial -honours lavished upon mere asceticism to the -prejudice of real heroes, taking Poussin's picture -of <cite>Moses Striking the Rock</cite> for his text, he -winds into what was probably the ultimate purpose -of his discourse, a neatly veiled panegyric -of Sir Robert Walpole under guise of the great -lawgiver of the Israelites, which may be cited as -a favourable sample of this curious oration:</p> - -<p>'But it is not necessary to dive into profane -history for examples of unregarded merit; the -Scriptures themselves contain instances of the -greatest patriots, who lie neglected, while new-fashioned -bigots or noisy incendiaries are the -reigning objects of public veneration. See the -great Moses himself,—the lawgiver, the defender, -the preserver of Israel! Peevish orators -are more run after, and artful Jesuits more popular. -Examine but the life of that slighted patriot, -how boldly in his youth he understood the -cause of liberty! Unknown, without interest, -he stood against the face of Pharaoh! He -saved his countrymen from the hand of tyranny, -and from the dominion of an idolatrous king. -How patiently did he bear for a series of years -the clamours and cabals of a factious people, -wandering after strange lusts, and exasperated -by ambitious ringleaders! How oft did he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -intercede for their pardon, when injured himself! -How tenderly deny them specious favours, -which he knew must turn to their own destruction! -See him lead them through opposition, -through plots, through enemies, to the enjoyment -of peace, and to the possession of <em>a land -flowing with milk and honey</em>. Or with more -surprise see him in the barren desert, where -sands and wilds overspread the dreary scene, -where no hopes of moisture, no prospect of -undiscovered springs, could flatter their parching -thirst; see how with a miraculous hand—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'"He struck the rock, and straight the waters flowed."'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Whoever denies his praises to such evidences -of merit, or with jealous look can scowl on such -benefits, is like the senseless idol, that <em>has a -mouth that speaks not, and eyes that cannot -see</em>.'</p> - -<p>If, in accordance with some perverse fashion -of the day, the foregoing production had not -been disguised as a sermon, and actually preached -with the orthodox accompaniment of bands and -doxology, there is no reason why it should not -have been regarded as a harmless and not unaccomplished -essay on Art. But the objectionable -spirit of parody upon the ritual, engendered by -the strife between 'high' and 'low' (Walpole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -himself wrote some <cite>Lessons for the Day</cite>, 1742, -which are to be found in the works of Sir -Charles Hanbury Williams), seems to have dictated -the title of what in other respects is a -serious <cite>Spectator</cite>, and needed no spice of irreverence -to render it palatable. The <cite>Sermon</cite> had, -however, one valuable result, namely, that it -suggested to its author the expediency of preparing -some record of the pictorial riches of -Houghton upon the model of the famous <cite>Ædes -Barberini</cite> and <cite>Giustinianæ</cite>. As the dedication -of the <cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite> is dated 24 August, -1743, it must have been written before that date; -but it was not actually published until 1747, and -then only to give away. Another enlarged and -more accurate edition was issued in 1752, and it -was finally reprinted in the second volume of the -<cite>Works</cite> of 1798, pp. 221-78, where it is followed -by the <cite>Sermon on Painting</cite>. Professing to be -more a catalogue of the pictures than a description -of them, it nevertheless gives a good idea -of a collection which (as its historian says) both -in its extent and the condition of its treasures -excelled most of the existing collections of Italy. -In an 'Introduction,' the characteristics of the -various artists are distinguished with much -discrimination, although it is naturally more -sympathetic than critical. Perhaps one of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -happiest pages is the following excursus upon -a poem of Prior: 'I cannot conclude this topic -of the ancient painters without taking notice of -an extreme pretty instance of Prior's taste, and -which may make an example on that frequent -subject, the resemblance between poetry and -painting, and prove that taste in the one will -influence in the other. Everybody has read his -tale of Protogenes and Apelles. If they have -read the story in Pliny they will recollect that -by the latter's account it seemed to have been -a trial between two Dutch performers. The -Roman author tells you that when Apelles was -to write his name on a board, to let Protogenes -know who had been to inquire for him, he drew -an exactly straight and slender line. Protogenes -returned, and with his pencil and another colour, -divided his competitor's. Apelles, on seeing -the ingenious minuteness of the Rhodian master, -took a third colour, and laid on a still finer and -indivisible line. But the English poet, who -could distinguish the emulation of genius from -nice experiments about splitting hairs, took the -story into his own hands, and in a less number -of trials, and with bolder execution, comprehended -the whole force of painting, and flung -drawing, colouring, and the doctrine of light -and shade into the noble contention of those two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -absolute masters. In Prior, the first wrote his -name in a perfect design, and</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'"——with one judicious stroke</div> - <div class="verse">On the plain ground Apelles drew</div> - <div class="verse">A circle regularly true."'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Protogenes knew the hand, and showed Apelles -that his own knowledge of colouring was as -great as the other's skill in drawing.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'"Upon the happy line he laid</div> - <div class="verse">Such obvious light and easy shade</div> - <div class="verse">That Paris' apple stood confest,</div> - <div class="verse">Or Leda's egg, or Chloe's breast."'<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Apelles acknowledged his rival's merit, without -jealously persisting to refine on the masterly -reply:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'"Pugnavere pares, succubuere pares"'<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Among the other efforts of his pen at this -time were some squibs in ridicule of the new -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Ministry. One was a parody of a scene in -<cite>Macbeth</cite>; the other of a scene in Corneille's -<cite>Cinna</cite>. He also wrote a paper against Lord -Bath in the <cite>Old England Journal</cite>.</p> - -<p>In the not very perplexed web of Horace -Walpole's life, the next occurrence of importance -is his father's death. When, as Sir Robert -Walpole, he had ceased to be Prime Minister, -he was sixty-five years of age; and though -his equanimity and wonderful constitution still -seemed to befriend him, he had personally little -desire, even if the ways had been open, to -recover his ancient power. 'I believe nothing -could prevail on him to return to the Treasury,' -writes his son to Mann in 1743. 'He says -he will keep the 12th of February—the day -he resigned—with his family as long as he -lives.' He continued nevertheless, to assist -his old master with his counsel, and more than -one step of importance by which the King -startled his new Ministry owed its origin to -a confidential consultation with Lord Orford. -When, in January, 1744, the old question of -discontinuing the Hanoverian troops was revived -with more than ordinary insistence, it was -through Lord Orford's timely exertions, and his -personal credit with his friends, that the motion -was defeated by an overwhelming majority. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -the other hand, a further attempt to harass him -by another Committee of Secret Inquiry was -wholly unsuccessful, and signs were not wanting -that his old prestige had by no means departed. -Towards the close of 1744, however, his son -begins to chronicle a definite decline in his -health. He is evidently suffering seriously from -stone, and is forbidden to take the least exercise -by the King's serjeant-surgeon, that famous -Mr. Ranby who was the friend of Hogarth and -Fielding.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> In January of the next year, he is -trying a famous specific for his complaint, Mrs. -Stephens's medicine. Six weeks later, he has -been alarmingly ill for about a month; and -although reckoned out of absolute danger, is -hardly ever conscious more than four hours out -of the four-and-twenty, from the powerful opiates -he takes in order to deaden pain. A month later, -on the 18th March, 1745, he died at Arlington -Street, in his sixty-ninth year. At first his son -dares scarcely speak of his loss, but a fortnight -afterwards he writes more fully. After showing -that the state of his circumstances proved how -little truth there had been in the charges of self-enrichment -made against him, Walpole goes on -to say: 'It is certain, he is dead very poor: -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>his debts, with his legacies, which are trifling, -amount to fifty thousand pounds. His estate, -a nominal eight thousand a year, much mortgaged. -In short, his fondness for Houghton has -endangered him. If he had not so overdone it, -he might have left such an estate to his family as -might have secured the glory of the place for -many years: another such debt must expose it to -sale. If he had lived, his unbounded generosity -and contempt of money would have run him into -vast difficulties. However irreparable his personal -loss may be to his friends, he certainly died -critically well for himself: he had lived to stand -the rudest trials with honour, to see his character -universally cleared, his enemies brought to -infamy for their ignorance or villainy, and the -world allowing him to be the only man in -England fit to be what he had been; and he -died at a time when his age and infirmities -prevented his again undertaking the support of -a government, which engrossed his whole care, -and which he foresaw was falling into the last -confusion. In this I hope his judgment failed! -His fortune attended him to the last, for he died -of the most painful of all distempers, with little -or no pain.'<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> - -<p>From the <cite>Short Notes</cite> we learn further: -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>'He [my father] left me the house in Arlington-street -in which he died, £5000 in money, -and £1000 a year from the Collector's place -in the Custom-house, and the surplus to be -divided between my brother Edward and me.'</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Stage-gossip and Small-talk.—Ranelagh Gardens.—Fontenoy -and Leicester House.—Echoes of the '45.—Preston Pans.—Culloden.—Trial -of the Rebel Lords.—Deaths of Kilmarnock -and Balmerino.—Epilogue to <cite>Tamerlane</cite>.—Walpole -and his Relatives.—Lady Orford.—Literary Efforts.—The -Beauties.—Takes a House at Windsor.</p></div> - - -<p>During the period between Walpole's -return to England and the death of Lord -Orford, his letters, addressed almost exclusively -to Mann, are largely occupied with the occurrences -which accompanied and succeeded his -father's downfall. To Lord Orford's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i> -and relative these particulars were naturally of -the first importance, and Walpole's function of -'General Intelligencer' fell proportionately into -the background. Still, there are occasional references -to current events of a merely social -character. After the Secret Committee, he is -interested (probably because his friend Conway -was pecuniarily interested) in the Opera, and -the reception by the British public of the -Viscontina, Amorevoli, and the other Italian -singers whom he had known abroad. Of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -stage he says comparatively little, dismissing -poor Mrs. Woffington, who had then just made -her appearance at Covent Garden, as 'a bad -actress,' who, nevertheless, 'has life,'—an -opinion in which he is supported by Conway, -who calls her 'an impudent, Irish-faced girl.' -In the acting of Garrick, after whom all the -town is (as Gray writes) 'horn-mad' in May, -1742, he sees nothing wonderful, although he -admits that it is heresy to say so, since that -infallible stage critic, the Duke of Argyll, has -declared him superior to Betterton. But he -praises 'a little simple farce' at Drury Lane, -<cite>Miss Lucy in Town</cite>, by Henry Fielding, in -which his future friend, Mrs. Clive, and Beard -mimic Amorevoli and the Muscovita. The -same letter contains a reference to another -famous stage-queen, now nearing eighty, Anne -Bracegirdle, who should have had the money -that Congreve left to Henrietta, Duchess of -Marlborough. 'Tell Mr. Chute [he says] that -his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this -morning. As she went out, and wanted her -clogs, she turned to me, and said, "I remember -at the playhouse, they used to call, Mrs. -Oldfield's chair! Mrs. Barry's clogs! and -Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens!"'<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> One pictures -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>a handsome old lady, a little bent, and leaning -on a crutch stick as she delivers this parting -utterance at the door.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> - -<p>Among the occurrences of 1742 which find -fitting record in the correspondence, is the -opening of that formidable rival to Vauxhall, -Ranelagh Gardens. All through the spring the -great Rotunda, with its encircling tiers of galleries -and supper-boxes,—the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup d'œil</i> of which -Johnson thought was the finest thing he had -ever seen,—had been rising slowly at the side -of Chelsea Hospital. In April it was practically -completed, and almost ready for visitors. -Walpole, of course, breakfasts there, like the -rest of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau monde</i>. 'The building is not -finished [he says], but they get great sums by -people going to see it and breakfasting in the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>house; there were yesterday no less than three -hundred and eighty persons, at eighteenpence -a-piece. You see how poor we are, when, with -a tax of four shillings in the pound, we are laying -out such sums for cakes and ale.'<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> A week -or two later comes the formal inauguration. -'Two nights ago [May 24] Ranelagh-gardens -were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, Princess, -Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, -were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely -gilt, painted, and illuminated, into which everybody -that loves eating, drinking, staring, or -crowding, is admitted for twelvepence. The -building and disposition of the gardens cost -sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a week there -are to be Ridottos at guinea-tickets, for which -you are to have a supper and music. I was -there last night [May 25],'—the writer adds,—'but -did not find the joy of it,'<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> and, at present, -he prefers Vauxhall, because of the approach by -water, that '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trajet du fleuve fatal</i>,'—as it is -styled in the <cite>Vauxhall de Londres</cite> which a -French poet dedicated in 1769 to M. de -Fontenelle. He seems, however, to have taken -Lord Orford to Ranelagh, and he records in -July that they walked with a train at their heels -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>like two chairmen going to fight,—from which -he argues a return of his father's popularity. -Two years later Fashion has declared itself on -the side of the new garden, and Walpole has -gone over to the side of Fashion. 'Every night -constantly [he tells Conway] I go to Ranelagh; -which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes -anywhere else,—everybody goes there. My -Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it that he says -he has ordered all his letters to be directed -thither. If you had never seen it, I would make -you a most pompous description of it, and tell -you how the floor is all of beaten princes; that -you can't set your foot without treading on -a Prince of Wales or Duke of Cumberland. -The company is universal: there is from his -Grace of Grafton down to children out of the -Foundling Hospital; from my Lady Townshend -to the kitten; from my Lord Sandys to your -humble cousin and sincere friend.'<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> - -<p>After Lord Orford's death, the next landmark -in Horace Walpole's life is his removal to the -house at Twickenham, subsequently known as -Strawberry Hill. To a description of this historical -mansion the next chapter will be in part -devoted. In the mean time we may linger for -a moment upon the record which these letters -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>contain of the famous '45. No better opportunity -will probably occur of exhibiting Walpole -as the reporter of history in the process of -making. Much that he tells Mann and Montagu -is no doubt little more than the skimming -of the last <cite>Gazette</cite>; but he had always access to -trustworthy information, and is seldom a dull -reporter, even of newspaper news. Almost the -next letter to that in which he dwells at length -upon the loss of his father, records the disaster -of Tournay, or Fontenoy, in which, he tells -Mann, Mr. Conway has highly distinguished -himself, magnificently engaging—as appears -from a subsequent communication—no less than -two French Grenadiers at once. His account of -the battle is bare enough; but what apparently -interests him most is the patriotic conduct of -the Prince of Wales, who made a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanson</i> on -the occasion, after the fashion of the Regent -Orléans:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'<span class="smcap">Venez</span>, mes chères Déesses,</div> - <div class="verse">Venez calmer mon chagrin;</div> - <div class="verse">Aidez, mes belles Princesses,</div> - <div class="verse">A le noyer dans le vin.</div> - <div class="verse">Poussons cette douce Ivresse</div> - <div class="verse">Jusqu'au milieu de la nuit,</div> - <div class="verse">Et n'écoutons que la tendresse</div> - <div class="verse">D'un charmant vis-à-vis.</div> -</div> -<hr class="tb" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Que m'importe que l'Europe</div> - <div class="verse">Ait un ou plusieurs tyrans?</div> - <div class="verse">Prions seulement Calliope,</div> - <div class="verse">Qu'elle inspire nos vers, nos chants.</div> - <div class="verse">Laissons Mars et toute la gloire;</div> - <div class="verse">Livrons nous tous à l'amour;</div> - <div class="verse">Que Bacchus nous donne à boire;</div> - <div class="verse">A ces deux fasions [<i>sic</i>] la cour.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The goddesses addressed were Lady Catherine -Hanmer, Lady Fauconberg, and Lady -Middlesex, who played Congreve's <cite>Judgment -of Paris</cite> at Leicester House, with his Royal -Highness as Paris, and Prince Lobkowitz for -Mercury. Walpole says of the song that it -'miscarried in nothing but the language, the -thoughts, and the poetry.' Yet he copies the -whole five verses, of which the above are two, -for Mann's delectation.</p> - -<p>A more logical sequence to Fontenoy than -the lyric of Leicester House is the descent of -Charles Edward upon Scotland. In August -Walpole reports to Mann that there is a proclamation -out 'for apprehending the Pretender's -son,' who had landed in July; in September he -is marching on Edinburgh. Ten days later the -writer is speculating half ruefully upon the possibilities -of being turned out of his comfortable -sinecures in favour of some forlorn Irish peer. -'I shall wonderfully dislike being a loyal suf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>ferer -in a threadbare coat, and shivering in an -ante-chamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach -Latin and English to the young princes at Copenhagen. -The Dowager Strafford has already -written cards for my Lady Nithsdale, my Lady -Tullibardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, -and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite -them to play at whisk, Monday three months; -for your part, you will divert yourself with their -old taffeties, and tarnished slippers, and their -awkwardness, the first day they go to Court in -shifts and clean linen. Will you ever write to -me in my garret at Herrenhausen?'<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Then -upon this come the contradictions of rumour, the -'general supineness,' the raising of regiments, -and the disaster of Preston Pans, with its inevitable -condemnation of Cope. 'I pity poor him, -who, with no shining abilities, and no experience, -and no force, was sent to fight for a crown! -He never saw a battle but that of Dettingen, -where he got his red ribbon; Churchill, whose -led-captain he was, and my Lord Harrington, -had pushed him up to this misfortune.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> We -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>have lost all our artillery, five hundred men -taken—and <em>three</em> killed, and several officers, as -you will see in the papers. This defeat has -frightened everybody but those it rejoices, and -those it should frighten most; but my Lord -Granville still buoys up the King's spirits, and -persuades him it is nothing.'<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> - -<p>Nothing, indeed, it proved in the issue. But -Walpole was wiser in his immediate apprehensions -than King George's advisers, who were -not wise. In his subsequent letters we get -scattered glimpses of the miserable story that -ended in Culloden. Towards the end of October -he is auguring hopefully from the protracted -neglect of the rebels to act upon their success. -In November they are in England. But the -backwardness of the Jacobites to join them is -already evident, and he writes 'in the greatest -confidence of our getting over this ugly business.' -Early in December they have reached Derby, -only to be soon gone again, miserably harassed, -and leaving their sick and cannon behind. With -the new year come tidings to Mann that the -rebellion is dying down in England, and that -General Hawley has marched northward to put -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>it quite out. Once more, on the 23rd February, -it flares fitfully at Falkirk, and then fades as suddenly. -The battle that Walpole hourly expects, -not without some trepidation, for Conway is -one of the Duke of Cumberland's aides-de-camp, -is still deferred, and it is April before the -two armies face each other on Culloden Moor. -Then he writes jubilantly to his Florentine correspondent: -'On the 16th, the Duke, by -forced marches, came up with the rebels a little -on this side Inverness,—by the way, the battle -is not christened yet; I only know that neither -Preston Pans nor Falkirk are to be god-fathers. -The rebels, who had fled from him after their -victory [of Falkirk], and durst not attack him, -when so much exposed to them at his passage -of the Spey, now stood him, they seven thousand, -he ten. They broke through Barril's -regiment and killed Lord Robert Kerr, a handsome -young gentleman, who was cut to pieces -with about thirty wounds; but they were soon -repulsed, and fled; the whole engagement not -lasting above a quarter of an hour. The young -Pretender escaped, Mr. Conway says, he -hears, wounded: he certainly was in the rear. -They have lost above a thousand men in the -engagement and pursuit; and six hundred were -already taken; among which latter are their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -French Ambassador and Earl Kilmarnock. The -Duke of Perth and Lord Ogilvie are said to be -slain.... Except Lord Robert Kerr, we lost -nobody of note: Sir Robert Rich's eldest son -has lost his hand, and about a hundred and -thirty private men fell. The defeat is reckoned -total, and the dispersion general; and all their -artillery is taken. It is a brave young Duke! -The town is all blazing round me [<i>i. e.</i>, at -Arlington Street] as I write, with fireworks and -illuminations: I have some inclination to wrap -up half-a-dozen sky-rockets, to make you drink -the Duke's health. Mr. Dodington [in Pall -Mall], on the first report, came out with a very -pretty illumination,—so pretty that I believe he -had it by him, ready for <em>any</em> occasion.'<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> - -<p>Walpole's account of these occurrences is, of -course, hearsay, although, as regards Culloden, -he probably derived the details from Conway, -who was present. But in some of the events -which ensued, he is either actually a spectator -himself, or fresh from direct communication -with those who have been spectators. One of -the most graphic passages in his entire correspondence -is his description of the trial of the -rebel lords, at which he assisted; and another -is his narrative of the executions of Kilmarnock -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>and Balmerino, written down from the relation -of eye-witnesses. It is hardly possible to get -much nearer to history.</p> - -<p>'I am this moment come from the conclusion -of the greatest and most melancholy scene I -ever yet saw! You will easily guess it was -the Trials of the rebel Lords. As it was the -most interesting sight, it was the most solemn -and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and -all the splendour of it idle; but this sight at -once feasted one's eyes and engaged all one's -passions. It began last Monday; three parts -of Westminster-hall were inclosed with galleries, -and hung with scarlet; and the whole -ceremony was conducted with the most awful -solemnity and decency, except in the one point -of leaving the prisoners at the bar, amidst the -idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the -witnesses who had sworn against them, while -the Lords adjourned to their own House to consult. -No part of the royal family was there, -which was a proper regard to the unhappy men, -who were become their victims.... I had -armed myself with all the resolution I could, -with the thought of their crimes and of the -danger past, and was assisted by the sight of -the Marquis of Lothian in weepers for his son -[Lord Robert Kerr], who fell at Culloden;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -but the first appearance of the prisoners shocked -me! their behaviour melted me.' After going -on to speak of Lord Kilmarnock and Lord -Cromartie (afterwards reprieved), he continues: -'For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural -brave old fellow I ever saw: the highest intrepidity, -even to indifference. At the bar he -behaved like a soldier and a man; in the intervals -of form, with carelessness and humour. -He pressed extremely to have his wife, his -pretty Peggy [Margaret Chalmers], with him in -the Tower, Lady Cromartie only sees her -husband through the grate, not choosing to be -shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve -him better by her intercession without: she is -big with child and very handsome: so are their -daughters. When they were to be brought from -the Tower in separate coaches, there was some -dispute in which the axe must go: old Balmerino -cried, 'Come, come, put it with me.' -At the bar he plays with his fingers upon the -axe, while he talks to the gentleman-gaoler; -and one day somebody coming up to listen, he -took the blade and held it like a fan between -their faces. During the trial, a little boy was -near him, but not tall enough to see; he made -room for the child, and placed him near himself.'<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> -<p>Balmerino's gallant demeanour evidently fascinated -Walpole. In his next letter he relates -how on his way back to the Tower the sturdy -old dragoon had stopped the coach at Charing -Cross to buy some 'honey-blobs' (gooseberries); -and when afterwards he comes to write -his account of the execution, although he tells -the story of Kilmarnock's death with feeling, -the best passage is given to his companion in -misfortune. He describes how, on the fatal -15th August, before he left the Tower, Balmerino -drank a bumper to King James; how he wore -his rebellious regimentals (blue and red) over a -flannel waistcoat and his shroud; how, embracing -Lord Kilmarnock, he said, 'My Lord, I -wish I could suffer for both.' Then followed -the beheading of Kilmarnock; and the narrator -goes on: 'The scaffold was immediately -new-strewed with sawdust, the block new covered, -the executioner new-dressed, and a new -axe brought. Then came old Balmerino, treading -with the air of a general. As soon as he -mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription on -his coffin, as he did again afterwards: he then -surveyed the spectators, who were in amazing -numbers, even upon masts upon ships in the -river; and pulling out his spectacles, read a -treasonable speech, which he delivered to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -Sheriff, and said, the young Pretender was so -sweet a Prince that flesh and blood could not -resist following him; and lying down to try the -block, he said, 'If I had a thousand lives, I -would lay them all down here in the same -cause.' He said if he had not taken the sacrament -the day before, he would have knocked -down Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower, -for his ill-usage of him. He took the axe and -felt it, and asked the headsman how many blows -he had given Lord Kilmarnock; and gave him -three guineas. Two clergymen, who attended -him, coming up, he said, 'No, gentlemen, I -believe you have already done me all the service -you can.' Then he went to the corner of the -scaffold, and called very loud for the warder, to -give him his perriwig, which he took off, and -put on a night-cap of Scotch plaid, and then -pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down; -but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted -round, and immediately gave the sign by tossing -up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for -battle. He received three blows; but the first -certainly took away all sensation. He was not -a quarter of an hour on the scaffold; Lord -Kilmarnock above half a one. Balmerino certainly -died with the intrepidity of a hero, but -the insensibility of one too. As he walked from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -his prison to execution, seeing every window -and top of house filled with spectators, he cried -out, "Look, look, how they are all piled up -like rotten oranges."'<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> - -<p>In the old print of the execution, the scaffold -on Tower Hill is shown surrounded by a wide -square of dragoons, beyond which the crowd—'the -immense display of human countenances -which surrounded it like a sea,' as Scott has it—are -visible on every side. No. 14 Tower -Hill is said to have been the house from which -the two lords were led to the block, and a trail -of blood along the hall and up the first flight of -stairs was long shown as indicating the route by -which the mutilated bodies were borne to await -interment in St. Peter's Chapel. A few months -later Walpole records the execution in the same -place of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the cunning -old Jacobite, whose characteristic attitude and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>'pawky' expression live for ever in the admirable -sketch which Hogarth made of him at St. -Albans. He died (says Walpole) 'extremely -well, without passion, affectation, buffoonery, -or timidity.' But he is not so distinguished as -either Kilmarnock or Balmerino, and, however -Roman his taking-off, the chief memorable thing -about it is, that it was happily the last of these -sanguinary scenes in this country. The only -other incident which it is here needful to chronicle -in connection with the 'Forty Five' is -Walpole's verses on the Suppression of the late -Rebellion. On the 4th and 5th November, the -anniversaries of King William's birth and landing, -it was the custom to play Rowe's <cite>Tamerlane</cite>, -and this year (1746) the epilogue spoken -by Mrs. Pritchard 'in the Character of the -Comic Muse' was from Walpole's pen. According -to the writer, special terrors had threatened -the stage from the advent of 'Rome's young missionary -spark,' the Chevalier, and the Tragic -Muse, raising, 'to eyes well-tutor'd in the trade -of grief,' 'a small and well-lac'd handkerchief,' -is represented by her lighter sister as bewailing -the prospect to her 'buskined progeny' after -this fashion:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Ah! sons, our dawn is over-cast; and all</div> - <div class="verse">Theatric glories nodding to their fall.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> - <div class="verse">From foreign realms a bloody chief is come,</div> - <div class="verse">Big with the work of slav'ry and of Rome.</div> - <div class="verse">A general ruin on his sword he wears,</div> - <div class="verse">Fatal alike to audience and to play'rs.</div> - <div class="verse">For ah! my sons, what freedom for the stage</div> - <div class="verse">When bigotry with sense shall battle wage?</div> - <div class="verse">When monkish laureats only wear the bays,</div> - <div class="verse">Inquisitors lord chamberlains of plays?</div> - <div class="verse">Plays shall be damn'd that 'scap'd the critic's rage,</div> - <div class="verse">For priests are still worse tyrants to the stage.</div> - <div class="verse">Cato, receiv'd by audiences so gracious,</div> - <div class="verse">Shall find ten Cæsars in one St. Ignatius,</div> - <div class="verse">And god-like Brutus here shall meet again</div> - <div class="verse">His evil genius in a capuchin.</div> - <div class="verse">For heresy the fav'rites of the pit</div> - <div class="verse">Must burn, and excommunicated wit;</div> - <div class="verse">And at one stake, we shall behold expire</div> - <div class="verse">My Anna Bullen, and the Spanish Fryar.'<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>After this the epilogue digresses into a comparison -of the Duke of Cumberland with King -William. Virgil, Juvenal, Addison, Dryden, -and Pope, upon one of whose lines on Cibber -Walpole bases his reference to the Lord Chamberlain, -are all laid under contribution in this -performance. It 'succeeded to flatter me,' he -tells Mann a few days later,—a Gallicism from -which we must infer an enthusiastic reception.</p> - -<p>Walpole's personal and domestic history does -not present much interest at this period. His -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>sister Mary (Catherine Shorter's daughter), who -had married the third Earl of Cholmondeley, -had died long before her mother. In February, -1746, his half-sister, Lady Mary, his playmate -at comet in the Houghton days, married Mr. -Churchill,—'a foolish match,' in Horace's -opinion, to which he will have nothing to say. -With his second brother, Sir Edward Walpole, -he seems to have had but little intercourse, and -that scarcely of a fraternal character. In 1857, -Cunningham published for the first time a very -angry letter from Edward to his junior, in which -the latter was bitterly reproached for his interference -in disposing of the family borough of -Castle Rising, and (incidentally) for his assumption -of superiority, mental and otherwise. To -this communication Walpole prepared a most -caustic and categorical answer, which, however, -he never sent. For his nieces, Edward -Walpole's natural daughters, of whom it will be -more convenient to speak later, Horace seems -always to have felt a sincere regard. But -although his brother had tastes which must have -been akin to his own, for Edward Walpole was -in his way an art patron (Roubillac the sculptor, -for instance, was much indebted to him) and a -respectable musician, no real cordiality ever -existed between them. 'There is nothing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -the world'—he tells Montagu in May, 1745—'the -Baron of Englefield has such an aversion -for as for his brother.'<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> - -<p>For his eldest brother's wife, the Lady -Walpole who had formed one of the learned -trio at Florence, he entertained no kind of -respect, and his letters are full of flouts at her -Ladyship's manners and morality. Indeed, -between <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">préciosité</i> and 'Platonic love,' her -life does not appear to have been a particularly -worshipful one, and her long sojourn under -Italian skies had not improved her. At present -she was Lady Orford, her husband, who is seldom -mentioned, and from whom she had been -living apart, having succeeded to the title at his -father's death. From Walpole's letters to Mann, -it seems that in April, 1745, she was, much to -the dismay of her relatives, already preening -her wings for England. In September, she has -arrived, and Walpole is maliciously delighted at -the cold welcome she obtains from the Court -and from society in general, with the exception -of her old colleague, Lady Pomfret, and that -in one sense congenial spirit, Lady Townshend. -Later on, a definite separation from her hus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>band -appears to have been agreed upon, which -Walpole fondly hopes may have the effect of -bringing about her departure for Italy. 'The -Ladies O[rford] and T[ownshend]'—he says—'have -exhausted scandal both in their persons -and conversations.' However much this -may be exaggerated (and Walpole never spares -his antipathies), the last we hear of Lady -Orford is certainly on his side, for she has -retired from town to a villa near Richmond with -a lover for whom she has postponed that -southward flight which her family so ardently -desired. This fortunate Endymion, the Hon. -Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl -Ferrers, had already been one of the most -favoured lovers of the notorious 'lady of quality' -whose memoirs were afterwards foisted into -<cite>Peregrine Pickle</cite>. To Lady Vane now succeeded -Lady Orford, as eminent for wealth—says -sarcastic Lady Mary Wortley Montagu—as -her predecessor had been for beauty, and equal -in her 'heroic contempt for shame.' This new -connection was destined to endure. It was in -September, 1746, that Walpole chronicled his -sister-in-law's latest frailty, and in May, 1751, -only a few weeks after her husband's death,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>she married Shirley at the Rev. Alexander -Keith's convenient little chapel in May Fair.'</p> - -<p>In 1744, died Alexander Pope, to be followed -a year later by the great Dean of St. -Patrick's. Neither of these events leaves any -lasting mark in Walpole's correspondence,—indeed -of Swift's death there is no mention at -all. A nearer bereavement was the premature -loss of West, which had taken place two years -before, closing sorrowfully with faint accomplishment -a life of promise. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vale, et vive paulisper cum -vivis</i>,—he had written a few days earlier -to Gray,—his friend to the last. With Gray, -Walpole's friendship, as will be seen presently, -had been resumed. His own literary essays -still lie chiefly in the domain of squib and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeu -d'esprit</i>. In April, 1746, over the appropriate -signature of 'Descartes,' he printed in No. II. of -<cite>The Museum</cite> a 'Scheme for Raising a Large Sum -of Money for the Use of the Government, -by laying a tax on Message-Cards and Notes,' -and in No. V. a pretended Advertisement and -Table of Contents for a <cite>History of Good Breeding, -from the Creation of the World</cite>, by the -Author of the Whole Duty of Man. The wit -of this is a little laboured, and scarcely goes -beyond the announcement that 'The Eight last -Volumes, which relate to <em>Germany</em>, may be had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -separate;' nor does that of the other exceed a -mild reflection of Fielding's manner in some of -his minor pieces. Among other things, we -gather that it was the custom of the fine ladies -of the day to send open messages on blank playing-cards; -and it is stated as a fact or a fancy -that 'after the fatal day of Fontenoy,' persons -of quality 'all wrote their notes on Indian paper, -which, being red, when inscribed with Japan ink -made a melancholy military kind of elegy on the -brave youths who occasioned the fashion, and -were often the honourable subject of the epistle.' -The only remaining effort of any importance at -this time is the little poem of <cite>The Beauties</cite>, -somewhat recalling Gay's Prologue to the -<cite>Shepherd's Week</cite>, and written in July, 1746, to -Eckardt the painter. Here is a specimen:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">In smiling <span class="smcap">Capel's</span> bounteous look</div> - <div class="verse">Rich autumn's goddess is mistook.</div> - <div class="verse">With poppies and with spiky corn,</div> - <div class="verse">Eckardt, her nut-brown curls adorn;</div> - <div class="verse">And by her side, in decent line,</div> - <div class="verse">Place charming <span class="smcap">Berkeley</span>, Proserpine.</div> - <div class="verse">Mild as a summer sea, serene,</div> - <div class="verse">In dimpled beauty next be seen</div> - <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Aylesb'ry</span>, like hoary Neptune's queen.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With her the light-dispensing fair,</div> - <div class="verse">Whose beauty gilds the morning air,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> - <div class="verse">And bright as her attendant sun,</div> - <div class="verse">The new Aurora, <span class="smcap">Lyttelton</span>.</div> - <div class="verse">Such Guido's pencil, beauty-tip'd,</div> - <div class="verse">And in ethereal colours dip'd,</div> - <div class="verse">In measur'd dance to tuneful song</div> - <div class="verse">Drew the sweet goddess, as along</div> - <div class="verse">Heaven's azure 'neath their light feet spread,</div> - <div class="verse">The buxom hours the fairest led.'<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>'Charming Berkeley,' here mentioned, afterwards -became the third wife of Goldsmith's -friend, Earl Nugent, and the mother of the little -girl who played tricks upon the author of <cite>She -Stoops to Conquer</cite> at her father's country seat -of Gosfield; 'Aylesb'ry, like hoary Neptune's -queen,' married Walpole's friend, Conway, and -'the new Aurora, Lyttelton,' was that engaging -Lucy Fortescue upon whose death in 1747 her -husband wrote the monody so pitilessly parodied -by Smollett.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Lady Almeria Carpenter, Lady -Emily Lenox, Miss Chudleigh (afterwards the -notorious Duchess of Kingston), and many -other well-known names, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">quos nunc perscribere -longum est</i>, are also celebrated.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> -<p>In August, 1746, Walpole announces to Mann -that he has taken a pretty house within the precincts -of the castle at Windsor, to which he is -going for the remainder of the summer. In -September he has entered upon residence, for -Gray tells Wharton that he sees him 'usually -once a week.' 'All is mighty free, and even -friendly more than one could expect,'—and -one of the first things posted off to Conway, is -Gray's <cite>Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College</cite>, -which the sender desires he 'will please -to like excessively.' He is drawn from his -retreat by the arrival of a young Florentine -friend, the Marquis Rinuncini, to whom he has -to do the London honours. 'I stayed literally -an entire week with him, carried him to see -palaces and Richmond gardens and park, and -Chenevix's shop, and talked a great deal to him -<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">alle conversazioni</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> 'Chenevix's shop' suggests -the main subject of the next chapter,—the purchase -and occupation of Strawberry Hill.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The New House at Twickenham.—Its First Tenants.—Christened -'Strawberry Hill.'—Planting and Embellishing.—Fresh -Additions.—Walpole's Description of it in 1753.—Visitors -and Admirers.—Lord Bath's Verses.—Some Rival -Mansions.—Minor Literature.—Robbed by James Maclean.—Sequel -from <cite>The World</cite>.—The Maclean Mania.— High -Life at Vauxhall.—Contributions to <cite>The World</cite>.—Theodore -of Corsica.—Reconciliation with Gray.—Stimulates -his Works.—The <cite>Poëmata-Grayo-Bentleiana</cite>.—Richard -Bentley.—Müntz the Artist.—Dwellers at Twickenham.—Lady -Suffolk and Mrs. Clive.</p></div> - - -<p>On the 5th of June, 1747, Walpole announces -to Mann that he has taken a little new -farm, just out of Twickenham. 'The house is -so small that I can send it to you in a letter to -look at: the prospect is as delightful as possible, -commanding the river, the town [Twickenham], -and Richmond Park; and, being situated on a -hill, descends to the Thames through two or -three little meadows, where I have some Turkish -sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours -for becoming the view. This little rural <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bijou</i> -was Mrs. Chenevix's, the toy woman <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</i>,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>who in every dry season is to furnish me with -the best rain water from Paris, and now and -then with some Dresden-china cows, who are -to figure like wooden classics in a library; so I -shall grow as much a shepherd as any swain in -the Astræa.' Three days later, further details -are added in a letter to Conway, then in -Flanders with the Duke of Cumberland: -'You perceive by my date [Twickenham, 8 -June] that I am got into a new camp, and have -left my tub at Windsor. It is a little play-thing-house, -that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, -and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is -set in enamelled meadows, with filagree hedges:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'"A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,</div> - <div class="verse">And little finches wave their wings in gold."'<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Two delightful roads, that you would call -dusty, supply me continually with coaches and -chaises; barges as solemn as Barons of the -Exchequer move under my window; Richmond -Hill and Ham Walks bound my prospect; ... -Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all -around, and Pope's ghost is just now skimming -under my window by a most poetical moonlight. -I have about land enough to keep such -a farm as Noah's, when he set up in the ark -with a pair of each kind; but my cottage is -rather cleaner than I believe his was after they -had been cooped up together forty days. The -Chenevixes had tricked it out for themselves: -up two pair of stairs is what they call Mr. -Chenevix's library, furnished with three maps, -one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and a -lame telescope without any glasses. Lord John -Sackville <em>predecessed</em> me here, and instituted -certain games called <em>cricketalia</em>, which have -been celebrated this very evening in honour of -him in a neighbouring meadow.'<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> - -<p>The house thus whimsically described, which -grew into the Gothic structure afterwards so -closely associated with its owner's name, was -not, even at this date, without its history. It -stood on the left bank of the Thames, at the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>corner of the Upper Road to Teddington, not -very far from Twickenham itself. It had been -built about 1698 as a 'country box' by a -retired coachman of the Earl of Bradford, and, -from the fact that he was supposed to have -acquired his means by starving his master's -horses, was known popularly as Chopped-Straw -Hall. Its earliest possessor not long afterwards -let it out as a lodging-house, and finally, -after several improvements, sub-let it altogether. -One of its first tenants was Colley Cibber, who -found it convenient when he was in attendance -for acting at Hampton Court; and he is said -to have written in it the comedy called <cite>The -Refusal; or, the Ladies' Philosophy</cite>, produced -at Drury Lane in 1721. Then, for eight years, -it was rented by the Bishop of Durham, Dr. -Talbot, who was reported to have kept in it a -better table than the extent of its kitchen -seemed, in Walpole's judgement, to justify. After -the Bishop came a Marquis, Henry Bridges, -son of the Duke of Chandos; after the Marquis, -Mrs. Chenevix, the toy-woman, who, upon -her husband's death, let it for two years to the -nobleman who <em>predecessed</em> Walpole, Lord John -Philip Sackville. Before this, Mrs. Chenevix -had taken lodgers, one of whom was the celebrated -theologian, Père Le Courrayer. At the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -expiration of Lord John Sackville's tenancy, -Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chenevix's -lease; and in 1748 had grown to like the situation -so much that he obtained a special act to -purchase the fee simple from the existing possessors, -three minors of the name of Mortimer. -The price he paid was £1356 10<i>s.</i> Nothing -was then wanting but the name, and in looking -over some old deeds this was supplied. He -found that the ground on which it stood had -been known originally as 'Strawberry-Hill-Shot.' -'You shall hear from me,' he tells Mann in -June, 1748, 'from <span class="smcap">Strawberry Hill</span>, which I -have found out in my lease is the old name of -my house; so pray, never call it Twickenham -again.'</p> - -<p>The transformation of the toy-woman's 'villakin' -into a Gothic residence was not, however, -the operation of a day. Indeed, at first, the -idea of rebuilding does not seem to have -entered its new owner's mind. But he speedily -set about extending his boundaries, for before -26 December, 1748, he has added nine acres to -his original five, making fourteen in all,—a 'territory -prodigious in a situation where land is so -scarce.' Among the tenants of some of the -buildings which he acquired in making these -additions was Richard Francklin, the printer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -of the <cite>Craftsman</cite>, who, during Sir Robert -Walpole's administration, had been taken up -for printing that paper. He occupied a small -house in what was afterwards known as the -Flower Garden, and Walpole permitted him to -retain it during his lifetime. Walpole's letters -towards the close of 1748 contain numerous -references to his assiduity in planting. 'My -present and sole occupation' he says in August, -'is planting, in which I have made great -progress, and talk very learnedly with the -nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce -run to seed overturns all my botany, as I have -more than once taken it for a curious West -Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation -with which trees grow is extremely inconvenient -to my natural impatience.' Two months -later he is 'all plantation, and sprouts away like -any chaste nymph in the <cite>Metamorphosis</cite>.' In -December, we begin to hear of that famous -lawn so well known in the later history of the -house. He is 'making a terrace the whole -breadth of his garden on the brow of a natural -hill, with meadows at the foot, and commanding -the river, the village [Twickenham], Richmond-hill, -and the park, and part of Kingston' A -year after this (September, 1749), while he is -still 'digging and planting till it is dark,' come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -the first dreams of building. At Cheney's, in -Buckinghamshire, he has seen some old stained -glass, in the windows of an ancient house which -had been degraded into a farm, and he thinks -he will beg it of the Duke of Bedford (to -whom the farm belongs), as it would be 'magnificent -for Strawberry-castle.' Evidently he -has discussed this (as yet) <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">château en Espagne</i> -with Montagu. 'Did I tell you [he says] that -I have found a text in Deuteronomy to authorise -my future battlements? "When thou buildest -a new house, then shalt thou make a battlement -for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy -house, if any man fall from thence."' In January, -the new building is an established fact, as -far as purpose is concerned. In a postscript to -Mann he writes: 'I must trouble you with a -commission, which I don't know whether you -can execute. <em>I am going to build a little gothic -castle at Strawberry Hill.</em> If you can pick me -up any fragments of old painted glass, arms, or -anything, I shall be excessively obliged to you. -I can't say I remember any such things in Italy; -but out of old chateaus, I imagine, one might -get it cheap, if there is any.'</p> - -<p>From a subsequent letter it would seem that -Mann, as a resident in Italy, had rather expostulated -against the style of architecture which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -his friend was about to adopt, and had suggested -the Grecian. But Walpole, rightly -or wrongly, knew what he intended. 'The -Grecian,' he said, was 'only proper for magnificent -and public buildings. Columns and all -their beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when -crowded into a closet or a cheesecake-house. -The variety is little, and admits no charming -irregularities. I am almost as fond of the -<em>Sharawaggi</em>, 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 taste into which we -are struck, and of which you can have no idea.' -The passage shows that he himself anticipated -some of the ridicule which was levelled by unsympathetic -people at the 'oyster-grotto-like -profanation' which he gradually erected by the -Thames. In the mean time it went on progressing -slowly, as its progress was entirely -dependent on his savings out of income; and the -references to it in his letters, perhaps because -Mann was doubtful, are not abundant. 'The -library and refectory, or great parlour,' he says -in his description, 'were entirely new built in -1753; the gallery, round tower, great cloyster, -and cabinet, in 1760 and 1761; and the great -north bedchamber in 1770.' To speak of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -later alterations would be to anticipate too -much, and the further description of Strawberry -Hill will be best deferred until his own account -of the house and contents was printed in 1774, -four years after the last addition above recorded. -But even before he made the earliest of them, -he must have done much to alter and improve -the aspect of the place, for Gray, more admiring -than Mann, praises what has been done. -'I am glad,' he tells Wharton, 'that you enter -into the spirit of Strawberry-castle. It has a -purity and propriety of Gothicism in it (with -very few exceptions) that I have not seen elsewhere;' -and in an earlier letter he implies that -its 'extreme littleness' is its chief defect. But -here, before for the moment leaving the subject, -it is only fair to give the proprietor's own -description of Strawberry Hill at this date, <i>i. e.</i>, -in June, 1753. After telling Mann that it is -'so monastic' that he has 'a little hall decked -with long saints in lean arched windows and -with taper columns, which we call the Paraclete, -in memory of Eloisa's cloister,'<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> he sends -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>him a sketch of it, and goes on: 'The enclosed -enchanted little landscape, then, is Strawberry -Hill.... This view of the castle is what I -have just finished [it was a view of the south -side, towards the north-east], and is the only -side that will be at all regular. Directly before -it is an open grove, through which you see a -field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood -of all kind of trees, and flowering shrubs, and -flowers. The lawn before the house is situated -on the top of a small hill, from whence to -the left you see the town and church of Twickenham -encircling a turn of the river, that looks -exactly like a sea-port in miniature. The opposite -shore is a most delicious meadow, bounded -by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the -noble woods of the park to the end of the prospect -on the right, where is another turn of the -river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily -placed as Twickenham is on the left: and a -natural terrace on the brow of my hill, with -meadows of my own down to the river, commands -both extremities. Is not this a tolerable -prospect? You must figure that all this is perpetually -enlivened by a navigation of boats and -barges, and by a road below my terrace, with -coaches, post-chaises, waggons, and horsemen -constantly in motion, and the fields speckled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall -walk into the house. The bow window below -leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour -Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian -prints,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> which I could never endure while they -pretended, infamous as they are, to be after -Titian, etc., but when I gave them this air of -barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: -it is impossible at first sight not to conclude -that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila -done about the very æra. From hence, under -two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and -staircase, which it is impossible to describe to -you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty -of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with -(I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in -perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the -lightest Gothic balustrade to the staircase, -adorned with antelopes (our supporters) bearing -shields; lean windows fattened with rich saints -in painted glass, and a vestibule open with three -arches on the landing place, and niches full of -trophies of old coats of mail, Indian shields made -of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, long-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>bows, -arrows, and spears,—all <em>supposed</em> to be -taken by Sir Terry Robsart [an ancestor of Sir -Robert Walpole] in the holy wars. But as none -of this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pass -to that. The room on the ground floor nearest -to you is a bedchamber, hung with yellow paper -and prints, framed in a new manner, invented by -Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white -borders printed. Over this is Mr. Chute's bed-chamber, -hung with red in the same manner. -The bow-window room one pair of stairs is not -yet finished; but in the tower beyond it is the -charming closet where I am now writing to you. -It is hung with green paper and water-colour -pictures; has two windows: the one in the -drawing looks to the garden, the other to the -beautiful prospect; and the top of each glutted -with the richest painted glass of the arms of -England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces -of green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell -you, by the way, that the castle, when finished, -will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with -painted glass. In this closet, which is Mr. -Chute's College of Arms, are two presses -of books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame -Sévigné's Letters, and any French books that -relate to her and her acquaintance. Out of this -closet is the room where we always live, hung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -with a blue and white paper in stripes adorned -with festoons, and a thousand plump chairs, -couches, and luxurious settees covered with -linen of the same pattern, and with a bow -window commanding the prospect, and gloomed -with limes that shade half each window, already -darkened with painted glass in chiaroscuro, set -in deep blue glass. Under this room is a cool -little hall, where we generally dine, hung with -paper to imitate Dutch tiles.</p> - -<p>'I have described so much that you will begin -to think that all the accounts I used to give -you of the diminutiveness of our habitation -were fabulous; but it is really incredible how -small most of the rooms are. The only two -good chambers I shall have are not yet built: -they will be an eating-room and a library, each -twenty by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet -high. For the rest of the house, I could send -it to you in this letter as easily as the drawing, -only that I should have nowhere to live until -the return of the post. The Chinese summer-house, -which you may distinguish in the distant -landscape, belongs to my Lord Radnor.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> We -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>pique ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, -and have no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayings, -or tawdry businesses.'<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> - -<p>From this it will appear that in June, 1753, -the library and refectory were not yet built, so -that when he says, in the printed description, -that they were new built in 1753, he must mean -no more than that they had been begun. In -a later letter, of May, 1754, they were still -unfinished. Meanwhile the house is gradually -attracting more and more attention. George -Montagu comes, and is 'in raptures and screams, -and hoops, and hollas, and dances, and crosses -himself a thousand times over.' The next visitor -is 'Nolkejumskoi,'—otherwise the Duke -of Cumberland,—who inspects it much after the -fashion of a gracious Gulliver surveying a castle -in Lilliput. Afterwards, attracted by the reports -of Lady Hervey and Mr. Bristow (brother of -the Countess of Buckingham), arrives my Lord -Bath, who is stirred into celebrating it to the -tune of a song of Bubb Dodington on Mrs. -Strawbridge. His Lordship does not seem to -have got further than two stanzas; but Walpole, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>not to leave so complimentary a tribute in the -depressed condition of a fragment, discreetly -revised and completed it himself. The lines -may fairly find a place here as an example of -his lighter muse. The first and third verses are -Lord Bath's, the rest being obviously written -in order to bring in 'Nolkejumskoi' and some -personal friends:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Some cry up Gunnersbury,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For Sion some declare;</div> - <div class="verse">And some say that with Chiswick-house</div> - <div class="verse indent2">No villa can compare:</div> - <div class="verse">But ask the beaux of Middlesex,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who know the county well,</div> - <div class="verse">If Strawb'ry-hill, if Strawb'ry-hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Don't bear away the bell?</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Some love to roll down Greenwich-hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For this thing and for that;</div> - <div class="verse">And some prefer sweet Marble-hill,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Tho' sure 'tis somewhat flat:</div> - <div class="verse">Yet Marble-hill and Greenwich-hill,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">If Kitty Clive can tell,</div> - <div class="verse">From Strawb'ry-hill, from Strawb'ry-hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Will never bear the bell.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Tho' Surrey boasts its Oatlands,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And Clermont kept so jim,</div> - <div class="verse">And some prefer sweet Southcote's,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">'Tis but a dainty whim;</div> - <div class="verse">For ask the gallant Bristow,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Who does in taste excell,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> - <div class="verse">If Strawb'ry-hill, if Strawb'ry-hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Don't bear away the bell</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Since Denham sung of Cooper's,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There's scarce a hill around,</div> - <div class="verse">But what in song or ditty</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is turn'd to fairy-ground,—</div> - <div class="verse">Ah, peace be with their memories!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">I wish them wond'rous well;</div> - <div class="verse">But Strawb'ry-hill, but Strawb'ry-hill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Must bear away the bell.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Great William dwells at Windsor,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As Edward did of old;</div> - <div class="verse">And many a Gaul and many a Scot</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Have found him full as bold.</div> - <div class="verse">On lofty hills like Windsor</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Such heroes ought to dwell;</div> - <div class="verse">Yet little folks like Strawb'ry-hill,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Like Strawb'ry-hill as well.'<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Cumberland Lodge, where, say the old guide-books, -the hero of Culloden 'reposed after -victory,' still stands on the hill at the end of -the Long Walk at Windsor; and at 'Gunnersbury' -lived the Princess Amelia. All the other -houses referred to are in existence. 'Sweet -Marble-hill,' which, like Strawberry, was not -long ago put up for sale, had at this date for -mistress the Countess Dowager of Suffolk (Mrs. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>Howard), for whom it had been built by her -royal lover, George II.; and Chiswick House, -(now the Marquis of Bute's), that famous -structure of Kent which Lord Hervey said was -'too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to -one's watch,' was the residence of Richard, -Earl of Burlington. Claremont 'kept so jim' -[neat], was the seat of the Duke of Newcastle -at Esher; Oatlands, near Weybridge, belonged -to the Duke of York, and Sion House, on the -Thames, to the Duke of Northumberland. -Walpole and his friends, it will be perceived, -did not shrink from comparing small things with -great. But perhaps the most notable circumstance -about this glorification of Strawberry is -that it should have originated with its reputed -author. 'Can there be,' says Walpole, 'an odder -revolution of things, than that the printer of -the <cite>Craftsman</cite> should live in a house of mine, -and that the author of the <cite>Craftsman</cite> should -write a panegyric on a house of mine?' The -printer was Richard Francklin, already mentioned -as his tenant; and Lord Bath, if not the -actual, was at least the putative, writer of most -of the <cite>Craftsman's</cite> attacks upon Sir Robert -Walpole. It is possible, however, that, as -with the poem, part only of this honour really -belonged to him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> - -<p>Strawberry Hill and its improvements have, -however, carried us far from the date at which -this chapter begins, and we must return to -1747. Happily the life of Walpole, though -voluminously chronicled in his correspondence, -is not so crowded with personal incident as to -make a space of six years a serious matter to -recover, especially when tested by the brief -but still very detailed record in the <cite>Short Notes</cite> -of what he held to be its conspicuous occurrences. -In 1747-49 his zeal for his father's -memory involved him in a good deal of party -pamphleteering, and in 1749, he had what he -styles 'a remarkable quarrel' with the Speaker, -of which one may say that, in these days, it -would scarcely deserve its qualifying epithet, -although it produced more paper war. 'These -things [he says himself] were only excusable by -the lengths to which party had been carried -against my father; or rather, were not excusable -even then.' For this reason it is needless -to dwell upon them here, as well as upon certain -other papers in <cite>The Remembrancer</cite> for -1749, and a tract called <cite>Delenda est Oxonia</cite>, -prompted by a heinous scheme, which was meditated -by the Ministry, of attacking the liberties -of that University by vesting in the Crown the -nomination of the Chancellor. This piece [he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -says], which I think one of my best, was seized -at the printer's and suppressed.' Then in November, -1749, comes something like a really -'moving incident,'—he is robbed in Hyde -Park. He was returning by moonlight to -Arlington Street from Lord Holland's, when his -coach was stopped by two of the most notorious -of 'Diana's foresters,'—Plunket and James -Maclean; and the adventure had all but a tragic -termination. Maclean's pistol went off by accident, -sending a bullet so nearly through -Walpole's head that it grazed the skin under -his eye, stunned him, and passed through the -roof of the chariot. His correspondence contains -no more than a passing reference to this -narrow escape,—probably because it was amply -reported (and expanded) in the public prints. -But in a paper which he contributed to the -<cite>World</cite> a year or two later, under guise of -relating what had happened to one of his -acquaintance, he reverts to this experience. -'The whole affair [he says] was conducted with -the greatest good-breeding on both sides. The -robber, who had only taken a purse <em>this way</em>, -because he had that morning been disappointed -of marrying a great fortune, no sooner returned -to his lodgings, than he sent the gentleman -[<i>i. e.</i>, Walpole himself] two letters of excuses,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -which, with less wit than the epistles of Voiture, -had ten times more natural and easy politeness in -the turn of their expression. In the postscript, -he appointed a meeting at Tyburn at twelve -at night, where the gentleman might <em>purchase -again</em> any trifles he had lost; and my friend has -been blamed for not accepting the rendezvous, -as it seemed liable to be construed by ill-natured -people into a doubt of the <em>honour</em> of a man -who had given him all the satisfaction in his -power for having <em>unluckily</em> been near shooting -him through the head.'<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> - -<p>The 'fashionable highwayman' (as Mr. -Maclean was called) was taken soon afterwards, -and hanged. 'I am honourably mentioned -in a Grub-street ballad [says Walpole] -for not having contributed to his sentence;' and -he goes on to say that there are as many prints -and pamphlets about him as about that other -sensation of 1750, the earthquake. Maclean -seems nevertheless to have been rather a pinchbeck -Macheath; but for the moment, in default -of larger lions, he was the rage. After his condemnation, -several thousand people visited him -in his cell at Newgate where he is stated to -have fainted twice from the heat and pressure -of the crowd. And his visitors were not all -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>men. In a note to <cite>The Modern Fine Lady</cite>, -Soame Jenyns says that some of the brightest -eyes were in tears for him; and Walpole himself -tells us that he excited the warmest commiseration -in two distinguished beauties of the -day, Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> - -<p>Miss Ashe, of whom we are told mysteriously -by the commentators that she 'was said to -have been of very high parentage,' and Lady -Caroline Petersham, a daughter of the Duke -of Grafton, figure more pleasantly in another -letter of Walpole, which gives a glimpse of some -of those diversions with which he was wont to -relieve the gothicising of his villa by the Thames. -In a sentence that proves how well he understood -his own qualities, he says he tells the -story 'to show the manners of the age, which -are always as entertaining to a person fifty miles -off as to one born an hundred and fifty years -after the time.' We have not yet reached the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>later limit; but there is little doubt as to the -interest of Walpole's account of his visit in -the month of June, 1750, to the famous gardens -of Mr. Jonathan Tyers. He got a card, he says, -from Lady Caroline to go with her to Vauxhall. -He repairs accordingly to her house, and finds -her 'and the little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe, -as they call her,' having 'just finished their last -layer of red, and looking as handsome as crimson -could make them.' Others of the party -are the Duke of Kingston; Lord March, of -Thackeray's <cite>Virginians</cite>; Harry Vane, soon to -be Earl of Darlington; Mr. Whitehead; a -'pretty Miss Beauclerc,' and a 'very foolish -Miss Sparre.' As they sail up the Mall, they -encounter cross-grained Lord Petersham (my -lady's husband) shambling along after his wont,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> -and 'as sulky as a ghost that nobody will speak -to first.' He declines to accompany his wife -and her friends, who, getting into the best order -they can, march to their barge, which has a boat -of French horns attending, and 'little Ashe' -sings. After parading up the river, they 'debark' -at Vauxhall, where at the outset they narrowly -escape the excitement of a quarrel. For a certain -Mrs. Lloyd, of Spring Gardens, afterwards -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>married to Lord Haddington, observing Miss -Beauclerc and her companion following Lady -Caroline, says audibly, 'Poor girls, I am sorry -to see them in such bad company,'—a remark -which the 'foolish Miss Sparre' (she is but -fifteen), for the fun of witnessing a duel, -endeavours to make Lord March resent. But -my Lord, who is not only 'very lively and agreeable,' -but also of a nice discretion, laughs her -out of 'this charming frolic, with a great deal of -humour.' Next they pick up Lord Granby, -arriving very drunk from 'Jenny's Whim,' at -Chelsea, where he has left a mixed gathering -of thirteen persons of quality playing at Brag. -He is in the sentimental stage of his malady, -and makes love to Miss Beauclerc and Miss -Sparre alternately, until the tide of champagne -turns, and he remembers that he is married. -'At last,' says Walpole,—and at this point the -story may be surrendered to him entirely,—'we -assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the -front, with the visor of her hat erect, and looking -gloriously jolly and handsome. She had -fetched my brother Orford from the next box, -where he was enjoying himself with his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite -partie</i>, to help us to mince chickens. We -minced seven chickens into a china dish, which -Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring -and rattling and laughing, and we every minute -expecting to have the dish fly about our ears. -She had brought Betty, the fruit girl,<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> with -hampers of strawberries and cherries from -Rogers's, and made her wait upon us, and then -made her sup by us at a little table. The conversation -was no less lively than the whole -transaction. There was a Mr. O'Brien arrived -from Ireland, who would get the Duchess of -Manchester from Mr. Hussey, if she were still -at liberty. I took up the biggest hautboy in -the dish, and said to Lady Caroline, "Madam, -Miss Ashe desires you would eat this O'Brien -strawberry;" she replied immediately, "I won't, -you hussey." You may imagine the laugh this -reply occasioned. After the tempest was a -little calmed, the Pollard said, "Now, how -anybody would spoil this story that was to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>repeat it, and say, "I won't, you jade." In short, -the whole air of our party was sufficient, as you -will easily imagine, to take up the whole attention -of the garden; so much so that from eleven -o'clock till half an hour after one we had the -whole concourse round our booth: at last, they -came into the little gardens of each booth on the -sides of our's, till Harry Vane took up a bumper, -and drank their healths, and was proceeding to -treat them with still greater freedom. It was -three o'clock before we got home.' He adds a -characteristic touch to explain Lord Granby's -eccentricities. He had lost eight hundred -pounds to the Prince of Wales at Kew the night -before, and this had a 'little ruffled' his lordship's -temper.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> - -<p>Early in 1753, Edward Moore, the author of -some <cite>Fables for the Female Sex</cite>, once popular -enough to figure, between Thomson and Prior, -in Goldsmith's <cite>Beauties of English Poesy</cite>, established -the periodical paper called <cite>The World</cite>, -which, to quote a latter-day definition, might -fairly claim to be 'written by gentlemen for -gentlemen.' Soame Jenyns, Cambridge of the -<cite>Scribleriad</cite> (Walpole's Twickenham neighbour), -Hamilton Boyle, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, -and Lord Chesterfield were all contributors. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>That Walpole should also attempt this 'bow of -Ulysses, in which it was the fashion for men -of rank and genius to try their strength,' goes -without saying. His gifts were exactly suited -to the work, and his productions in the new -journal are by no means its worst. His first -essay was a bright little piece of persiflage upon -what he calls the return of nature, and proceeds -to illustrate by the introduction of 'real water' -on the stage, by Kent's landscape gardening, -and by the fauna and flora of the dessert table. -A second effort was devoted to that extraordinary -adventurer, Baron Neuhoff, otherwise -Theodore, King of Corsica, who, with his realm -for his only assets, was at this time a tenant of -the King's Bench prison. Walpole, with genuine -kindness, proposed a subscription for this -bankrupt Belisarius, and a sum of fifty pounds -was collected. This, however, proved so much -below the expectations of His Corsican Majesty -that he actually had the effrontery to threaten -Dodsley, the printer of the paper, with a prosecution -for using his name unjustifiably. 'I -have done with countenancing kings,' wrote -Walpole to Mann.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Others of his <cite>World</cite> -essays are on the Glastonbury Thorn; on -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>Letter-Writing,—a subject of which he might -claim to speak with authority; on old women -as objects of passion; and on politeness, wherein -occurs the already quoted anecdote of -Maclean the highwayman. His light hand and -lighter humour made him an almost ideal contributor -to Moore's pages, and it is not surprising -to find that such judges as Lady Mary -approved his performances, or that he himself -regarded them with a complacency which peeps -out now and again in his letters. 'I met Mrs. -Clive two nights ago,' he says, 'and told her I -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>had been in the meadows, but would walk no -more there, for there was all the world. "Well," -says she, "and don't you like <cite>The World</cite>? I -hear it was very clever last Thursday."' 'Last -Thursday' had appeared Walpole's paper on -elderly 'flames.'</p> - -<p>During the period covered by this chapter -the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">redintegratio amoris</i> with Gray, to which -reference has been made, became confirmed. -Whether the attachment was ever quite on the -old basis, may be doubted. Gray always poses -a little as the aggrieved person who could not -speak first, and to whom unmistakable overtures -must be made by the other side. He as -yet 'neither repents, nor rejoices over much, -but is pleased,'—he tells Chute in 1750. On -the other hand, Walpole, though he appears -to have proffered his palm-branch with very -genuine geniality, and desire to let by-gones -be by-gones, was not above very candid criticism -of his recovered friend. 'I agree with -you most absolutely in your opinion about -Gray,' he writes to Montagu in September, -1748: 'he is the worst company in the world. -From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, -and from a little too much dignity, he never -converses easily; all his words are measured -and chosen, and formed into sentences; his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -writings are admirable; he himself is not agreeable.' -Meantime, however, the revived connection -went on pleasantly. Gray made flying -visits to Strawberry and Arlington Street, and -prattled to Walpole from Pembroke between -whiles. And certainly, in a measure, it is to -Walpole that we owe Gray. It was Walpole -who induced Gray to allow Dodsley to print in -1747, as an attenuated <em>folio</em> pamphlet, the <cite>Ode -on a Distant Prospect of Eton College</cite>; and it -was the tragic end of one of Walpole's favourite -cats in a china tub of gold-fish (of which, by -the way, there was a large pond called Po-yang -at Strawberry) which prompted the delightful -occasional verses by Gray beginning:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">''Twas on a lofty vase's side,</div> - <div class="verse">Where china's gayest art had dy'd</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The azure flow'rs that blow;</div> - <div class="verse">Demurest of the tabby kind,</div> - <div class="verse">The pensive Selima reclin'd,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Gaz'd on the lake below,'—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>a stanza which, with trifling verbal alterations, -long served as a label for the 'lofty vase' in -the Strawberry Hill collection. To Walpole's -officious circulation in manuscript of the famous -<cite>Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard</cite> must -indirectly be attributed its publication by Dodsley -in February, 1751; to Walpole also is due that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -typical piece of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vers de société</i>, the <cite>Long Story</cite>, -which originated in the interest in the recluse -poet of Stoke Poges with which Walpole's well-meaning -(if unwelcome) advocacy had inspired -Lady Cobham and some other lion-hunters of -the neighbourhood. But his chief enterprise -in connection with his friend's productions was -the edition of them put forth in March, 1753, -with illustrations by Richard Bentley, the youngest -child of the famous Master of Trinity. -Bentley possessed considerable attainments as -an amateur artist, and as a scholar and connoisseur -had just that virtuoso <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">finesse</i> of manner -which was most attractive to Walpole, whose -guest and counsellor he frequently became -during the progress of the Strawberry improvements. -Out of this connection, which, in its -hot fits, was of the most confidential character, -grew the suggestion that Bentley should make, -at Walpole's expense, a series of designs for -Gray's poems. These, which are still in existence,<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> -were engraved with great delicacy by two -of the best engravers of that time, Müller and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Charles Grignion; and the <cite>Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana</cite>, -as Walpole christened them, became -and remains one of the most remarkable of the -illustrated books of the last century. Gray, as -may be imagined, could scarcely oppose the -compliment; and he seems to have grown -minutely interested in the enterprise, rewarding -the artist by some commendatory verses, in -which he certainly does not deny himself—to -use a phrase of Mr. Swinburne—'the noble -pleasure of praising.'<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> But even over this book -the sensitive ligament that linked him to Walpole -was perilously strained. Without consulting him, -Walpole had his likeness engraved as a frontispiece,—a -step which instantly drew from Gray -a wail of nervous expostulation so unmistakably -heartfelt that it was impossible to proceed with -the plate. Thus it came about that <cite>Designs by -Mr. R. Bentley for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray</cite> -made its appearance without the portrait of -the poet.</p> - -<p>Bentley's ingenious son was not the only person -whom the decoration of Strawberry pressed -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>into the service of its owner. Selwyn, the wit, -George James (or 'Gilly') Williams, a connoisseur -of considerable ability, and Richard, second -Lord Edgecumbe, occasionally sat as a committee -of taste,—a function commemorated by -Reynolds in a conversation-piece which afterwards -formed one of the chief ornaments of the -Refectory;<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> and upon Bentley's recommendation -Walpole invited from Jersey a humbler guest -in the person of a German artist named Müntz,—'an -inoffensive, good creature,' who would -'rather ponder over a foreign gazette than a -palette,' but whose services kept him domiciled -for some time at the Gothic castle. Müntz -executed many views of the neighbourhood, -which are still, like that of Twickenham already -referred to,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> preserved in contemporary engravings. -And besides the persons whom Walpole -drew into his immediate circle, the 'village,' -as he called it, was growing steadily in public -favour. 'Mr. Müntz'—writes Walpole in -July, 1755—'says we have more coaches than -there are in half France. Mrs. Pritchard has -bought Ragman's Castle, for which my Lord -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>Litchfield could not agree. We shall be as celebrated -as Baiæ or Tivoli; and if we have not -as sonorous names as they boast, we have very -famous people: Clive and Pritchard, actresses; -Scott and Hudson, painters; my Lady Suffolk, -famous in her time; Mr. H[ickey], the impudent -Lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against; -Whitehead, the poet; and Cambridge, the everything.' -Cambridge has already been referred -to as a contributor to <cite>The World</cite>, and the -Whitehead was the one mentioned in Churchill's -stinging couplet:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?)</div> - <div class="verse">Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>who then lived on Twickenham Common. -Hickey, a jovial Irish attorney, was the legal -adviser of Burke and Reynolds, and the 'blunt, -pleasant creature' of Goldsmith's 'Retaliation.' -Scott was Samuel Scott, the 'English Canaletto;' -Hudson, Sir Joshua's master, who had -a house on the river near Lord Radnor's. But -Walpole's best allies were two of the other sex. -One was Lady Suffolk, the whilom friend (as -Mrs. Howard) of Pope and Swift and Gay, -whose home at Marble Hill is celebrated in the -Walpole-cum-Pulteney poem; the other was -red-faced Mrs. Clive, who occupied a house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -known familiarly as 'Clive-den,' and officially -as Little Strawberry. She had not yet retired -from the stage. Lady Suffolk's stories of the -Georgian Court and its scandals, and Mrs. -Clive's anecdotes of the green-room, and of their -common neighbour at Hampton, the great -'Roscius' himself (with whom she was always -at war), must have furnished Walpole with an -inexhaustible supply of just the particular description -of gossip which he most appreciated.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Gleanings from the <cite>Short Notes</cite>.—<cite>Letter from Xo Ho.</cite>—The -Strawberry Hill Press.—Robinson the Printer.—Gray's -<cite>Odes</cite>.—Other Works.—<cite>Catalogue of Royal and Noble -Authors.</cite>—<cite>Anecdotes of Painting.</cite>—Humours of the Press.—<cite>The -Parish Register of Twickenham.</cite>—Lady Fanny -Shirley.—Fielding.—<cite>The Castle of Otranto.</cite></p></div> - - -<p>In order to take up the little-variegated thread -of Walpole's life, we must again resort to -the <cite>Short Notes</cite>, in which, as already stated, he -has recorded what he considered to be its most -important occurrences. In 1754, he had been -chosen member, in the new Parliament of that -year, for Castle Rising, in Norfolk. In March, -1755, he says, he was very ill-used by his -nephew, Lord Orford [<i>i. e.</i>, the son of his eldest -brother, Robert], upon a contested election in -the House of Commons, 'on which I wrote -him a long letter, with an account of my own -conduct in politics.' This letter does not seem -to have been preserved, and it is difficult to -conceive that its theme could have involved -very lengthy explanations. In February, 1757,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -he vacated his Castle Rising seat for that of -Lynn, and about the same time, he tells us, -used his best endeavours, although in vain, to -save the unfortunate Admiral Byng, who was -executed, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour encourager les autres</i>, in the -following March. But with the exception of -his erection of a tablet to Theodore of Corsica, -and the dismissal, in 1759, of Mr. Müntz, with -whom his connection seems to have been exceptionally -prolonged, his record for the next -decade, or until the publication of the <cite>Castle -of Otranto</cite>, is almost exclusively literary, and -deals with the establishment of his private printing -press at Strawberry Hill, his publication -thereat of Gray's <cite>Odes</cite> and other works, his -<cite>Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors</cite>, his -<cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, and his above-mentioned -romance. This accidental absorption of his -chronicle by literary production will serve as -a sufficient reason for devoting this chapter to -those efforts of his pen which, from the outset, -were destined to the permanence of -type.</p> - -<p>Already, as far back as March, 1751, he had -begun the work afterwards known as the -<cite>Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of -George II.</cite>, to the progress of which there are -scattered references in the <cite>Short Notes</cite>. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -had intended at first to confine them to the -history of one year, but they grew under his -hand. His first definite literary effort in 1757, -however, was the clever little squib, after the -model of Montesquieu's <cite>Lettres Persanes</cite>, entitled -<cite>A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher -at London, to his Friend Lien Chi, at -Peking</cite>, in which he ingeniously satirizes the -'late political revolutions' and the inconstant -disposition of the English nation, not forgetting -to fire off a few sarcasms <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à propos</i> of the Byng -tragedy. The piece, he tells Mann, was written -'in an hour and a half' (there is always a little -of Oronte's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je n'ai demeuré qu'un quart d'heure -à le faire</i> about Walpole's literary efforts), was -sent to press next day, and ran through five -editions in a fortnight.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Mrs. Clive was of -opinion that the rash satirist would be sent to -the Tower; but he himself regarded it as 'perhaps -the only political paper ever written, in -which no man of any party could dislike or -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>deny a single fact;' and Henry Fox, to whom -he sent a copy, may be held to confirm this -view, since his only objection seems to have -been that it did not hit some of the <em>other</em> side -a little harder. It would be difficult now without -long notes to make it intelligible to modern -readers; but the following outburst of the -Chinese philosopher respecting the variations -of the English climate has the merit of enduring -applicability. '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, passes in his calash<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> 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 [Kensington -Palace], 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 vest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>ments -of white linen, and the women left off -those vast draperies, which they call <em>hoops</em>, and -which I have described to thee; and then all the -men and all the women said <em>it was hot</em>. If thou -wilt believe me, I am now [in May] writing to -thee before a fire.'<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> - -<p>In the following June Walpole had betaken -himself to the place he 'loved best of all,' and -was amusing himself at Strawberry with his pen. -The next work which he records is the publication -of a Catalogue of the Collection of -Pictures, etc., of [<i>i. e.</i>, belonging to] Charles -the First, for which he prepared 'a little introduction.' -This, and the subsequent 'prefaces -or advertisements' to the Catalogues of the -Collections of James the Second, and the Duke -of Buckingham, are to be found in vol. i., pp. -234-41, of his works. But the great event of -1757 is the establishment of the <cite>Officina Arbuteana</cite>, -or private printing press, of Strawberry -Hill. 'Elzevir, Aldus, and Stephens,' he tells -Chute in July, 'are the freshest personages in -his memory,' and he jestingly threatens to assume -as his motto (with a slight variation) Pope's -couplet:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Some have at first for wits, then poets pass'd;</div> - <div class="verse">Turn'd <em>printers</em> next, and proved plain fools at last.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> -<p>'I am turned printer,' he writes somewhat -later, 'and have converted a little cottage into -a printing-office. My abbey is a perfect college -or academy. I keep a painter [Müntz] in the -house, and a printer,—not to mention Mr. -Bentley, who is an academy himself.' William -Robinson, the printer, an Irishman with noticeable -eyes which Garrick envied ('they are more -Richard the Third's than Garrick's own,' says -Walpole), must have been a rather original personage, -to judge by a copy of one of his letters -which his patron incloses to Mann. He says -he found it in a drawer where it had evidently -been placed to attract his attention. After -telling his correspondent in bad blank verse -that he dates from the 'shady bowers, nodding -groves, and amaranthine shades (?)' of Twickenham,—'Richmond's -near neighbour, where great -George the King resides,'—Robinson proceeds -to describe his employer as 'the Hon. Horatio -Walpole, son to the late great Sir Robert Walpole, -who is very studious, and an admirer of -all the liberal arts and sciences; amongst the -rest he admires printing. He has fitted out a -complete printing-house at this his country seat, -and has done me the favour to make me sole -manager and operator (there being no one but -myself). All men of genius resorts his house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -courts his company, and admires his understanding: -what with his own and their writings, I -believe I shall be pretty well employed. I have -pleased him, and I hope to continue so to do.' -Then, after reference to the extreme heat,—a -heat by which fowls and quarters of lamb have -been roasted in the London Artillery grounds -'by the help of glasses,' so capricious was -the climate over which Walpole had made merry -in May,—he proceeds to describe Strawberry. -'The place I am now in is all my comfort from -the heat; the situation of it is close to the -Thames, and is Richmond Gardens (if you were -ever in them) in miniature, surrounded by -bowers, groves, cascades, and ponds, and on -a rising ground not very common in this part -of the country; the building elegant, and the -furniture of a peculiar taste, magnificent and -superb.' At this date poor Robinson seems to -have been delighted with the place and the -fastidious master whom he hoped 'to continue -to please.' But Walpole was nothing if not -mutable, and two years later he had found out -that Robinson of the remarkable eyes was 'a -foolish Irishman who took himself for a genius,' -and they parted, with the result that the <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Officina -Arbuteana</i> was temporarily at a standstill.</p> - -<p>For the moment, however, things went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -smoothly enough. It had been intended that -the maiden effort of the Strawberry types -should have been a translation by Bentley of -Paul Hentzner's curious account of England in -1598. But Walpole suddenly became aware -that Gray had put the penultimate, if not the -final, touches to his painfully elaborated Pindaric -Odes, the <cite>Bard</cite> and the <cite>Progress of Poesy</cite>, -and he pounced upon them forthwith; Gray, as -usual, half expostulating, half overborne. 'You -will dislike this as much as I do,'—he writes to -Mason,—'but there is no help.' 'You understand,' -he adds, with the air of one resigning -himself to the inevitable, 'it is he that prints -them, not for me, but for Dodsley.' However, -he persisted in refusing Walpole's not entirely -unreasonable request for notes. 'If a thing -cannot be understood without them,' he said -characteristically, 'it had better not be understood -at all.' Consequently, while describing -them as 'Greek, Pindaric, sublime,' Walpole -confesses under his breath that they are a little -obscure. Dodsley paid Gray forty guineas for -the book, which was a large, thin quarto, entitled -<cite>Odes by Mr. Gray; Printed, at Strawberry -Hill, for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall</cite>. It -was published in August, and the price was a -shilling. On the title-page was a vignette of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -the Gothic castle at Twickenham. From a letter -of Walpole to Lyttelton it would seem that his -apprehensions as to the poems being 'understanded -of the people' proved well founded. -'They [the age] have cast their eyes over them, -found them obscure, and looked no further; yet -perhaps no compositions ever had more sublime -beauties than are in each,'—and he goes on to -criticise them minutely in a fashion which shows -that his own appreciation of them was by no -means unqualified. But Warburton and Garrick -and the 'word-picker' Hurd were enthusiastic. -Lyttelton and Shenstone followed more -moderately. Upon the whole, the success of -the first venture was encouraging, and the share -in it of 'Elzevir Horace,' as Conway called his -friend, was not forgotten.</p> - -<p>Gray's <cite>Odes</cite> were succeeded by Hentzner's -<cite>Travels</cite>, or, to speak more accurately, by that -portion of Hentzner's <cite>Travels</cite> which refers -to England. In England Hentzner was little -known, and the 220 copies which Walpole printed -in October, 1757, were prefaced by an Advertisement -from his pen, and a dedication to the -Society of Antiquaries, of which he was a -member. After this came, in 1758, his <cite>Catalogue -of Royal and Noble Authors</cite>; a collection -of <cite>Fugitive Pieces</cite> (which included his essays in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -the <cite>World</cite>), dedicated to Conway;<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> and seven -hundred copies of Lord Whitworth's <cite>Account -of Russia</cite>. Then followed a book by Joseph -Spence, <cite>the Parallel of Magliabecchi and Mr.</cite> -[Robert] <cite>Hill</cite>, a learned tailor of Buckingham, -the object of which was to benefit Hill,—an end -which must have been attained, as six out of -seven hundred copies were sold in a fortnight, -and the book was reprinted in London. Bentley's -<cite>Lucan</cite>, a quarto of five hundred copies, -succeeded Spence, and then came three other -quartos of <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, by Walpole -himself. The only other notable products of -the press during this period are the Autobiography -of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, quarto, -1764, and one hundred copies of the <cite>Poems</cite> of -Lady Temple. This, however, is a very fair -record for seven years' work, when it is remembered -that the Strawberry Hill staff never -exceeded a man and a boy. As already stated, -the first printer, Robinson, was dismissed in -1759. His place, after a short interval of 'occasional -hands,' was taken by Thomas Kirgate, -whose name thenceforth appears on all the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>Twickenham issues, with which it is indissolubly -connected. Kirgate continued, with -greater good fortune than his predecessors, to -perform his duties until Walpole's death.</p> - -<p>In the above list there are two volumes -which, in these pages, deserve a more extended -notice than the rest. <cite>The Catalague of Royal -and Noble Authors</cite> had at least the merit of -novelty, and certainly a better reason for existing -than some of the works to which its author -refers in his preface. Even the performances -of Pulteney, Earl of Bath, and the English -rondeaus of Charles of Orleans are more -worthy of a chronicler than the lives of -physicians who had been poets, of men who -had died laughing, or of Frenchmen who had -studied Hebrew. Walpole took considerable -pains in obtaining information, and his book -was exceedingly well received,—indeed, far -more favourably than he had any reason to -expect. A second edition, which was not -printed at Strawberry Hill, speedily followed -the first, with no diminution of its prosperity. -For an effort which made no pretensions to -symmetry, which is often meagre where it -might have been expected to be full, and is -everywhere prejudiced by a sort of fine-gentleman -disdain of exactitude, this was cer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>tainly -as much as he could anticipate. But -he seems to have been more than usually -sensitive to criticism, and some of the amplest -of his <cite>Short Notes</cite> are devoted to the discussion -of the adverse opinions which were -expressed. From these we learn that he was -abused by the <cite>Critical Review</cite> for disliking -the Stuarts, and by the <cite>Monthly</cite> for liking -his father. Further, that he found an apologist -in Dr. Hill (of the <cite>Inspector</cite>), whose gross -adulation was worse than abuse; and lastly, -that he was seriously attacked in a Pamphlet -of <cite>Remarks on Mr. Walpole's 'Catalogue of -Royal and Noble Authors'</cite> by a certain Carter, -concerning whose antecedents his irritation -goes on to bring together all the scandals he -can collect. As the <cite>Short Notes</cite> were written -long after the events, it shows how his soreness -against his critics continued. What it was -when still fresh may be gathered from the following -quotation from a letter to Rev. Henry -Zouch, to whom he was indebted for many -new facts and corrections, especially in the -second edition, and who afterwards helped -him in the <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>: 'I am sick -of the character of author; I am sick of the -consequences of it; I am weary of seeing my -name in the newspapers; I am tired with read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>ing -foolish criticisms on me, and as foolish -defences of me; and I trust my friends will -be so good as to let the last abuse of me pass -unanswered. It is called "Remarks" on my -Catalogue, asperses the Revolution more than -it does my book, and, in one word, is written -by a non-juring preacher, who was a dog-doctor. -Of me, he knows so little that he thinks to -punish me by abusing King William!'<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> - -<p>In a letter of a few months earlier to the -same correspondent, he refers to another task, -upon which, in despite of the sentence just -quoted, he continued to employ himself. 'Last -summer'—he says—'I bought of Vertue's -widow forty volumes of his MS. collections -relating to English painters, sculptors, gravers, -and architects. He had actually begun their -lives: unluckily he had not gone far, and could -not write grammar. I propose to digest and -complete this work.'<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> The purchases referred -to had been made subsequent to 1756, when -Mrs. Vertue applied to Walpole, as a connoisseur, -to buy from her the voluminous notes and -memoranda which her husband had accumulated -with respect to art and artists in England. -Walpole also acquired at Vertue's sale in May, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>1757, a number of copies from Holbein and -two or three other pictures. He seems to have -almost immediately set about arranging and -digesting this unwieldy and chaotic heap of -material,<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> much of which, besides being illiterate, -was also illegible. More than once his -patience gave way under the drudgery; but -he nevertheless persevered in a way that shows -a tenacity of purpose foreign, in this case at all -events, to his assumption of dilettante indifference. -His progress is thus chronicled. He -began in January, 1760, and finished the first -volume on 14 August. The second volume was -begun in September, and completed on the 23rd -October. On the 4th January in the following -year he set about the third volume, but laid it -aside after the first day, not resuming it until -the end of June. In August, however, he -finished it. Two volumes were published in -1762, and a third, which is dated 1763, in 1764. -As usual, he affected more or less to undervalue -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>his own share in the work; but he very justly -laid stress in his 'Preface' upon the fact that -he was little more than the arranger of data -not collected by his own exertions. 'I would -not,' he said to Zouch, 'have the materials of -forty years, which was Vertue's case, depreciated -in compliment to the work of four months, -which is almost my whole merit.' Here, again, -the tone is a little in the Oronte manner; but, -upon the main point, the interest of the work, -his friends did not share his apprehensions, and -Gray especially was 'violent about it.' Nor -did the public show themselves less appreciative, -for there was so much that was new in the dead -engraver's memoranda, and so much which was -derived from private galleries or drawn from -obscure sources, that the work could scarcely -have failed of readers even if the style had been -hopelessly corrupt, which, under Walpole's -revision, it certainly was not. In 1762, he -began a <cite>Catalogue of Engravers</cite>, which he -finished in about six weeks as a supplementary -volume, and in 1765, still from the Strawberry -Press, he issued a second edition of the -whole.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> - -<p>After the appearance of the second edition -of the <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, a silence fell upon -the <cite>Officina Arbuteana</cite> for three years, during -the earlier part of which time Walpole was at -Paris, as will be narrated in the next chapter. -His press, as may be guessed, was one of the -sights of his Gothic castle, and there are several -anecdotes showing how his ingenious fancy -made it the vehicle of adroit compliment. -Once, not long after it had been established, -my Lady Rochford, Lady Townshend (the -witty Ethelreda, or Audrey, Harrison),<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> and Sir -John Bland's sister were carried after dinner -into the printing-room to see Mr. Robinson at -work. He immediately struck off some verse -which was already in type, and presented it to -Lady Townshend:—</p> - - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Press speaks</span>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">From me wits and poets their glory obtain;</div> - <div class="verse">Without me their wit and their verses were vain.</div> - <div class="verse">Stop, Townshend, and let me but paint<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> what you say,</div> - <div class="verse">You, the fame I on others bestow, will repay.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> - -<p>The visitors then asked, as had been anticipated -to see the actual process of setting up; -and Walpole ostensibly gave the printer four -lines out of Rowe's <cite>Fair Penitent</cite>. But, by -what would now be styled a clever feat of prestidigitation, -the forewarned Robinson struck off -the following, this time to Lady Rochford:—</p> - - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Press speaks.</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">In vain from your properest name you have flown,</div> - <div class="verse">And exchanged lovely Cupid's for Hymen's dull throne;</div> - <div class="verse">By my art shall your beauties be constantly sung,</div> - <div class="verse">And in spite of yourself, you shall ever be <em>young</em>.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Lady Rochford's maiden name, it should be -explained, was 'Young.' Such were what their -inventor call <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les amusements des eaux de Straberri</i> -in the month of August and the year of -grace 1757.</p> - -<p>Beyond the major efforts already mentioned, -the <cite>Short Notes</cite> contain references to various -fugitive pieces which Walpole composed, some -of which he printed, and some others of which -have been published since his death. One of -these, <cite>The Magpie and her Brood</cite>, was a pleasant -little fable from the French of Bonaventure -des Periers, rhymed for Miss Hotham, the -youthful niece of his neighbour Lady Suffolk; -another, a <cite>Dialogue between two Great Ladies</cite>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -In 1761, he wrote a poem on the King, entitled -<cite>The Garland</cite>, which first saw the light in the -<cite>Quarterly</cite> for 1852 [No. <span class="smcap">CLXXX.</span>]. Besides -these were several epigrams, mock sermons, -and occasional verses. But perhaps the most -interesting of his productions in this kind are -the octosyllabics which he wrote in August, -1759, and called <cite>The Parish Register of -Twickenham</cite>. This is a metrical list of all -the remarkable persons who ever lived there, -for which reason a portion of it may find a place -in these pages:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Where silver Thames round Twit'nam meads</div> - <div class="verse">His winding current sweetly leads;</div> - <div class="verse">Twit'nam, the Muses' fav'rite seat,</div> - <div class="verse">Twit'nam, the Graces' lov'd retreat;</div> - <div class="verse">There polish'd Essex wont to sport,</div> - <div class="verse">The pride and victim of a court!</div> - <div class="verse">There Bacon tun'd the grateful lyre</div> - <div class="verse">To soothe Eliza's haughty ire;</div> - <div class="verse">—Ah! happy had no meaner strain</div> - <div class="verse">Than friendship's dash'd his mighty vein!</div> - <div class="verse">Twit'nam, where Hyde, majestic sage,</div> - <div class="verse">Retir'd from folly's frantic stage,</div> - <div class="verse">While his vast soul was hung on tenters</div> - <div class="verse">To mend the world, and vex dissenters</div> - <div class="verse">Twit'nam, where frolic Wharton revel'd,</div> - <div class="verse">Where Montagu, with locks dishevel'd</div> - <div class="verse">(Conflict of dirt and warmth divine),</div> - <div class="verse">Invok'd—and scandaliz'd the Nine;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> - <div class="verse">Where Pope in moral music spoke</div> - <div class="verse">To th' anguish'd soul of Bolingbroke,</div> - <div class="verse">And whisper'd, how true genius errs,</div> - <div class="verse">Preferring joys that pow'r confers;</div> - <div class="verse">Bliss, never to great minds arising</div> - <div class="verse">From ruling worlds, but from despising:</div> - <div class="verse">Where Fielding met his bunter Muse,</div> - <div class="verse">And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice,</div> - <div class="verse">Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit</div> - <div class="verse">With inimaginable wit:</div> - <div class="verse">Where Suffolk sought the peaceful scene,</div> - <div class="verse">Resigning Richmond to the queen,</div> - <div class="verse">And all the glory, all the teasing,</div> - <div class="verse">Of pleasing one not worth the pleasing:</div> - <div class="verse">Where Fanny, "ever-blooming fair,"</div> - <div class="verse">Ejaculates the graceful pray'r,</div> - <div class="verse">And 'scap'd from sense, with nonsense smit,</div> - <div class="verse">For Whitefield's cant leaves Stanhope's wit:</div> - <div class="verse">Amid this choir of sounding names</div> - <div class="verse">Of statesmen, bards, and beauteous dames,</div> - <div class="verse">Shall the last trifler of the throng</div> - <div class="verse">Enroll his own such names among?</div> - <div class="verse">—Oh! no—Enough if I consign</div> - <div class="verse">To lasting types their notes divine:</div> - <div class="verse">Enough, if Strawberry's humble hill</div> - <div class="verse">The title-page of fame shall fill.'<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In 1784, Walpole added a few lines to celebrate -a new resident and a new favourite, Lady -Di. Beauclerk, the widow of Johnson's famous -friend.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> Most of the other names which occur -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>in the <cite>Twickenham Register</cite> are easily identified. -'Fanny, "ever-blooming fair,"' was the -beautiful Lady Fanny Shirley of Phillips' ballad -and Pope's epistle, aunt of that fourth Earl -Ferrers who in 1760 was hanged at Tyburn -for murdering his steward. Miss Hawkins -remembered her as residing at a house now -called Heath Lane Lodge, with her mother, -'a very ancient Countess Ferrers,' widow of -the first Earl. Henry Fielding, to whom Walpole -gives a quatrain, the second couplet of -which must excuse the insolence of the first, -had for some time lodgings in Back Lane, -whence was baptised in February, 1748, the -elder of his sons by his second wife, the -William Fielding who, like his father, became -a Westminster magistrate. It is more likely -that <cite>Tom Jones</cite> was written at Twickenham -than at any of the dozen other places for which -that honour is claimed, since the author quitted -Twickenham late in 1748, and his great novel -was published early in the following year. -Walpole had only been resident for a short time -when Fielding left, but even had this been -otherwise, it is not likely that, between the -master of the Comic Epos (who was also Lady -Mary's cousin!) and the dilettante proprietor -of Strawberry, there could ever have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -much cordiality. Indeed, for some of the -robuster spirits of his age Walpole shows an -extraordinary distaste, which with him generally -implies unsympathetic, if not absolutely -illiberal, comment. Almost the only important -anecdote of Fielding in his correspondence is -one of which the distorting bias is demonstrable;<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> -and to Fielding's contemporary, Hogarth, -although as a connoisseur he was shrewd -enough to collect his works, he scarcely ever -refers but to place him in a ridiculous aspect,—a -course which contrasts curiously with the -extravagant praise he gives to Bentley, Bunbury, -Lady Di. Beauclerk, and some other of the -very minor artistic lights in his own circle.</p> - -<p>It is, however, possible to write too long an -excursus upon the <cite>Twickenham Parish Register</cite>, -and the last paragraphs of this chapter belong -of right to another and more important work,—<cite>The -Castle of Otranto</cite>. According to the -<cite>Short Notes</cite>, this 'Gothic romance' was begun -in June, 1764, and finished on the 6th August -following. From another account we learn that -it occupied eight nights of this period from ten -o'clock at night until two in the morning, to the -accompaniment of coffee. In a letter to Cole, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>the Cambridge antiquary, with whom Walpole -commenced to correspond in 1762, he gives some -further particulars, which, because they have -been so often quoted, can scarcely be omitted -here: 'Shall I even confess to you what was -the origin of this romance? I waked one -morning, in the beginning of last June, from a -dream, of which all I could recover was, that I -had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very -natural dream for a head filled, like mine, with -Gothic story), and that on the uppermost bannister -of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand -in armour. In the evening I sat down and -began to write, without knowing in the least -what I intended to say or relate. The work -grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it,—add -that I was very glad to think of anything, rather -than politics. In short, I was so engrossed -with my tale, which I completed in less than -two months, that one evening I wrote from the -time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till -half an hour after one in the morning, when my -hand and fingers were so weary that I could not -hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left -Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a -paragraph.'<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> - -<p>The work of which the origin is thus de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>scribed -was published in a limited edition on -the 24th December, 1764, with the title of <cite>The -Castle of Otranto, a Story, translated by William -Marshal, Gent., from the original Italian of Onuphrio -Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. -Nicholas at Otranto</cite>. The name of the alleged -Italian author is sometimes described as an anagram -from Horace Walpole,—a misconception -which is easily demonstrated by counting the -letters. The book was printed, not for Walpole, -but for Lownds, of Fleet Street, and it was -prefaced by an introduction in which the author -described and criticised the supposed original, -which he declared to be a black-letter printed -at Naples in 1529. Its success was considerable. -It seems at first to have excited no suspicion -as to its authenticity, and it is not clear -that even Gray, to whom a copy was sent immediately -after publication, was in the secret. -'I have received the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>,' he -says, 'and return you my thanks for it. It engages -our attention here [at Cambridge], makes -some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid -to go to bed o' nights.' In the second edition, -which followed in April, 1765, Walpole dropped -the mask, disclosing his authorship in a second -preface of great ability, which, among other -things, contains a vindication of Shakespeare's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -mingling of comedy and tragedy against the -strictures of Voltaire,—a piece of temerity -which some of his French friends feared might -prejudice him with that formidable critic. But -what is even more interesting is his own account -of what he had attempted. He had endeavoured -to blend ancient and modern romance,—to employ -the old supernatural agencies of Scudéry -and La Calprenède as the background to the -adventures of personages modelled as closely -upon ordinary life as the personages of <cite>Tom -Jones</cite>. These are not his actual illustrations, -but they express his meaning. 'The actions, -sentiments, conversations, of the heroes and -heroines of ancient days were as unnatural as -the machines employed to put them in motion.' -He would make his heroes and heroines natural -in all these things, only borrowing from the -older school some of that imagination, invention, -and fancy which, in the literal reproduction of -life, he thought too much neglected.</p> - -<p>His idea was novel, and the moment a favourable -one for its development. Fluently and -lucidly written, the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite> set a -fashion in literature. But, like many other -works produced under similar conditions, it had -its day. To the pioneer of a movement which -has exhausted itself, there comes often what is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -almost worse than oblivion,—discredit and -neglect. A generation like the present, for -whom fiction has unravelled so many intricate -combinations, and whose Gothicism and Mediævalism -are better instructed than Walpole's, no -longer feels its soul harrowed up in the same -way as did his hushed and awe-struck readers -of the days of the third George. To the critic -the book is interesting as the first of a school of -romances which had the honour of influencing -even the mighty 'Wizard of the North,' who, -no doubt in gratitude, wrote for <cite>Ballantyne's -Novelist's Library</cite> a most appreciative study of -the story. But we doubt if that many-plumed -and monstrous helmet, which crashes through -stone walls and cellars, could now give a single -shiver to the most timorous Cambridge don, -while we suspect that the majority of modern -students would, like the author, leave Matilda -and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph, -but from a different kind of weariness. -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Autres temps, autres mœurs</i>,—especially in the -matter of Gothic romance.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>State of French Society in 1765.—Walpole at Paris.—The -Royal Family and the Bête du Gévaudan.—French Ladies -of Quality.—Madame du Deffand.—A Letter from Madame -de Sévigné.—Rousseau and the King of Prussia.—The -Hume-Rousseau Quarrel.—Returns to England, and hears -Wesley at Bath.—Paris again.—Madame du Deffand's -Vitality.—Her Character.—Minor Literary Efforts.—The -<cite>Historic Doubts</cite>.—The <cite>Mysterious Mother</cite>.—Tragedy in -England.—Doings of the Strawberry Press.—Walpole -and Chatterton.</p></div> - - -<p>When, towards the close of 1765, -Walpole made the first of several -visits to Paris, the society of the French capital, -and indeed French society as a whole, was -showing signs of that coming <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">culbute générale</i> -which was not to be long deferred. The upper -classes were shamelessly immoral, and, from the -King downwards, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">liaisons</i> of the most open -character excited neither censure nor comment. -It was the era of Voltaire and the Encyclopædists; -it was the era of Rousseau and the Sentimentalists; -it was also the era of confirmed -Anglomania. While we, on our side, were beginning -to copy the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">comédies larmoyantes</i> of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -La Chaussée and Diderot, the French in their -turn were acting <cite>Romeo and Juliet</cite>, and raving -over Richardson. Richardson's chief rival in -their eyes was Hume, then a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chargé d'affaires</i>, -and, in spite of his plain face and bad French, -the idol of the freethinkers. He 'is treated -here,' writes Walpole, 'with perfect veneration;' -and we learn from other sources that no -lady's toilette was complete without his attendance. -'At the Opera,'—says Lord Charlemont,—'his -broad, unmeaning face was usually seen -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entre deux jolis minois</i>; the ladies in France -gave the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ton</i>, and the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ton</i> was Deism.' Apart -from literature, irreligion, and philosophy, the -chief occupation was cards. 'Whisk and -Richardson' is Walpole's later definition of -French society; 'Whisk and disputes,' that of -Hume. According to Walpole, a kind of pedantry -and solemnity was the characteristic of -conversation, and 'laughing was as much out -of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks, -they have no time to laugh. There is God and -the King to be pulled down first; and men and -women, one and all, are devoutly employed in -the demolition.' How that enterprise eventuated, -history has recorded.</p> - -<p>It is needless, however, to rehearse the origins -of the French Revolution, in order to make a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -background for the visit of an English gentleman -to Paris in 1765. Walpole had been meditating -this journey for two or three years; but -the state of his health, among other things (he -suffered much from gout), had from time to time -postponed it. In 1763, he had been going -next spring;<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> but when next spring came he -talked of the beginning of 1765. Nevertheless, -in March of that year, Gilly Williams writes to -Selwyn: 'Horry Walpole has now postponed -his journey till May,' and then he goes on to -speak of the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite> in a way which -shows that all the author's friends were not -equally enthusiastic respecting that ingenious -romance. 'How do you think he has employed -that leisure which his political frenzy has allowed -of? In writing a novel, ... and such -a novel that no boarding-school miss of thirteen -could get through without yawning. It consists -of ghosts and enchantments; pictures walk out -of their frames, and are good company for half -an hour together; helmets drop from the moon, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>and cover half a family. He says it was a -dream, and I fancy one when he had some -feverish disposition in him.'<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> May, however, -had arrived and passed, and the <cite>Castle of -Otranto</cite> was in its second edition, before -Walpole at last set out, on Monday, the 9th -September, 1765. After a seven hours' passage, -he reached Calais from Dover. Near Amiens -he was refreshed by a sight of one of his favourites, -Lady Mary Coke,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> 'in pea-green and -silver;' at Chantilly he was robbed of his port<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>manteau. -By the time he reached Paris, on the -13th, he had already 'fallen in love with twenty -things, and in hate with forty.' The dirt of -Paris, the narrowness of the streets, the 'trees -clipped to resemble brooms, and planted on -pedestals of chalk,' disgust him. But he is -enraptured with the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">treillage</i> and fountains, -'and will prove it at Strawberry.' He detests -the French opera, though he loves the French -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">opéra-comique</i>, with its Italian comedy and his -passion,—'his dear favourite harlequin.' Upon -the whole, in these first impressions he is disappointed. -Society is duller than he expected, -and with the staple topics of its conversation,—philosophy, -literature, and freethinking,—he is -(or says he is) out of sympathy. 'Freethinking -is for one's self, surely not for society.... I -dined to-day with half-a-dozen <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">savans</i>, and though -all the servants were waiting, the conversation -was much more unrestrained, even on the -Old Testament, than I would suffer at my own -table in England if a single footman was present. -For literature, it is very amusing when -one has nothing else to do. I think it rather -pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed -professedly; and, besides, in this country one is -sure it is only the fashion of the day.' And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -then he goes on to say that the reigning fashion -is Richardson and Hume.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> - -<p>One of his earliest experiences was his presentation -at Versailles to the royal family,—a -ceremony which luckily involved but one operation -instead of several, as in England, where the -Princess Dowager of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, -and the Princess Amelia had all their -different levees. He gives an account of this -to Lady Hervey; but repeats it on the same -day with much greater detail in a letter to -Chute. 'You perceive [he says] that I have -been presented. The Queen took great notice -of me [for which reason, in imitation of Madame -de Sévigné, he tells Lady Hervey that she is <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le -plus grand roi du monde</i>]; none of the rest said -a syllable. You are let into the King's bedchamber -just as he has put on his shirt; he -dresses, and talks good-humouredly to a few, -glares at strangers, goes to mass, to dinner, and -a-hunting. The good old Queen, who is like -Lady Primrose in the face, and Queen Caroline -in the immensity of her cap, is at her dressing-table, -attended by two or three old ladies.... -Thence you go to the Dauphin, for all is done in -an hour. He scarce stays a minute; indeed, -poor creature, he is a ghost, and cannot possibly -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>last three months. [He died, in fact, within -this time, on the 20th December.] The -Dauphiness is in her bed-chamber, but dressed -and standing; looks cross, is not civil, and has -the true Westphalian grace and accents. The -four Mesdames [these were the <cite>Graille</cite>, <cite>Chiffe</cite>, -<cite>Coche</cite>, and <cite>Loque</cite> of history], who are clumsy, -plump old wenches, with a bad likeness to their -father, stand in a bedchamber in a row, with -black cloaks and knotting-bags, looking good-humoured, -[and] not knowing what to say.... -This ceremony is very short; then you are carried -to the Dauphin's three boys, who, you may be -sure, only bow and stare. The Duke of Berry -[afterwards Louis XVI.] looks weak and weak-eyed; -the Count de Provence [Louis XVIII.] -is a fine boy; the Count d'Artois [Charles X.] -well enough. The whole concludes with seeing -the Dauphin's little girl dine, who is as round and -as fat as a pudding.'<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> Such is Walpole's account -of the royal family of France on exhibition. In -the Queen's ante-chamber he was treated to a -sight of the famous <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bête du Gévaudan</i>, a hugeous -wolf, of which a highly sensational representation -had been given in the <cite>St. James's Chronicle</cite> -for June 6-8. It had just been shot, after a -prosperous but nefarious career, and was ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>hibited -by two chasseurs 'with as much parade -as if it was Mr. Pitt.'<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> - -<p>When he had been at Paris little less than a -month, he was laid up with the gout in both -feet. He was visited during his illness by -Wilkes, for whom he expresses no admiration. -From another letter it appears that Sterne and -Foote were also staying in the French capital -at this time. In November he is still limping -about, and it is evident that confinement in 'a -bedchamber in a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">hôtel garni</i>, ... when the -court is at Fontainebleau,' has not been without -its effect upon his views of things in general. -In writing to Gray (who replies with all sorts -of kindly remedies), he says, 'The charms of -Paris have not the least attraction for me, nor -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>would keep me an hour on their own account. -For the city itself, I cannot conceive where my -eyes were: it is the ugliest, beastliest town in -the universe. I have not seen a mouthful of -verdure out of it, nor have they anything green -but their <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">treillage</i> and window shutters.... -Their boasted knowledge of society is reduced -to talking of their suppers, and every malady -they have about them, or know of.' A day or -two later his gout and his stick have left him, -and his good humour is coming back. Before -the month ends, he is growing reconciled to his -environment; and by January 'France is so -agreeable, and England so much the reverse,'—he -tells Lady Hervey,—'that he does not know -when he shall return.' The great ladies, too, -Madame de Brionne, Madame d'Aiguillon, -Marshal Richelieu's daughter, Madame d'Egmont -(with whom he could fall in love if it -would break anybody's heart in England), begin -to flatter and caress him. His 'last new passion' -is the Duchess de Choiseul, who is so -charming that 'you would take her for the -queen of an allegory.' 'One dreads its finishing, -as much as a lover, if she would admit one, -would wish it should finish.' There is also a -beautiful Countess de Forcalquier, the 'broken -music' of whose imperfect English stirs him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -into heroics too Arcadian for the matter-of-fact -meridian of London, where Lady Hervey is -cautioned not to exhibit them to the profane.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> - -<p>In a letter of later date to Gray, he describes -some more of these graceful and witty leaders -of fashion, whose '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">douceur</i>' he seems to have -greatly preferred to the pompous and arrogant -fatuity of the men. 'They have taken up -gravity,'—he says of these latter,—'thinking -it was philosophy and English, and so have -acquired nothing in the room of their natural -levity and cheerfulness.' But with the women -the case is different. He knows six or seven -'with very superior understandings; some of -them with wit, or with softness, or very good -sense.' His first portrait is of the famous -Madame Geoffrin, to whom he had been -recommended by Lady Hervey, and who had -visited him when imprisoned in his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chambre -garni</i>. He lays stress upon her knowledge of -character, her tact and good sense, and the -happy mingling of freedom and severity by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>which she preserved her position as 'an epitome -of empire, subsisting by rewards and -punishments.' Then there is the Maréchale -de Mirepoix, a courtier and an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">intrigante</i> of the -first order. 'She is false, artful, and insinuating -beyond measure when it is her interest, -but indolent and a coward,' says Walpole, -who does not measure his words even when -speaking of a beauty and a Princess of Lorraine. -Others are the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">savante</i>, Madame de Boufflers, -who visited England and Johnson, and whom -the writer hits off neatly by saying that you -would think she was always sitting for her -picture to her biographer; a second <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">savante</i>, -Madame de Rochfort, 'the <em>decent</em> friend' of -Walpole's former guest at Strawberry, the Duc -de Nivernais;<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> the already mentioned Duchess -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>de Choiseul, and Madame la Maréchale de -Luxembourg, whose youth had been stormy, -but who was now softening down into a kind -of twilight melancholy which made her rather -attractive. This last, with one exception, completes -his list.</p> - -<p>The one exception is a figure which henceforth -played no inconsiderable part in Walpole's -correspondence,—that of the brilliant -and witty Madame du Deffand. As Marie de -Vichy-Chamrond, she had been married at -one-and-twenty to the nobleman whose name -she bore, and had followed the custom of her -day by speedily choosing a lover, who had -many successors. For a brief space she had -captivated the Regent himself, and at this date, -being nearly seventy and hopelessly blind, was -continuing, from mere force of habit, a 'decent -friendship' with the deaf President Hénault. -At first Walpole was not impressed with her, -and speaks of her, disrespectfully, as 'an old -blind debauchee of wit.' A little later, although -he still refers to her as the 'old lady of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>house,' he says she is very agreeable. Later -still, she has completed her conquest by telling -him he has <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le fou mocquer</i>; and in the letter to -Gray above quoted, it is plain that she has -become an object of absorbing interest to him, -not unmingled with a nervous apprehension of -her undisguised partiality for his society. In -spite of her affliction (he says) she 'retains all -her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passions, -and agreeableness. She goes to Operas, Plays, -suppers, and Versailles; gives suppers twice -a week; has every thing new read to her; -makes new songs and epigrams, ay, admirably,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> -and remembers every one that has been made -these fourscore years. She corresponds with -Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts -him, is no bigot to him or anybody, -and laughs both at the clergy and the philosophers. -In a dispute, into which she easily falls, -she is very warm, and yet scarce ever in the -wrong; her judgment on every subject is as -just as possible; on every point of conduct as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>wrong as possible: for she is all love and -hatred, passionate for her friends to enthusiasm, -still anxious to be loved, I don't mean -by lovers, and a vehement enemy, but openly. -As she can have no amusement but conversation, -the least solitude and ennui are insupportable -to her, and put her into the power -of several worthless people, who eat her suppers -when they can eat nobody's of higher rank; -wink to one another and laugh at her; hate -her because she has forty times more parts, -and venture to hate her because she is not -rich.'<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> In another letter, to Mr. James Crawford -of Auchinames (Hume's <cite>Fish</cite> Crawford), -who was also one of Madame du Deffand's -admirers, he says, in repeating some of the -above details, that he is not 'ashamed of interesting -himself exceedingly about her. To -say nothing of her extraordinary parts, she is -certainly the most generous, friendly being upon -earth.' Upon her side, Madame du Deffand -seems to have been equally attracted by the -strange mixture of independence and effeminacy -which went to make up Walpole's character. -Her attachment to him rapidly grew into a -kind of infatuation. He had no sooner quitted -Paris, which he did on the 17th April, than she -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>began to correspond with him; and thenceforward, -until her death in 1780, her letters, -dictated to her faithful secretary, Wiart, continued, -except when Walpole was actually visiting -her (and she sometimes wrote to him even -then), to reach him regularly. Not long after -his return to England, she made him the victim -of a charming hoax. He had, when in Paris, -admired a snuff-box which bore a portrait of -Madame de Sévigné, for whom he professed an -extravagant admiration. Madame du Deffand -procured a similar box, had the portrait copied, -and sent it to him with a letter, purporting to -come from the dateless Elysian Fields and -'Notre Dame de Livry' herself, in which he -was enjoined to use his present always, and -to bring it often to France and the Faubourg -St. Germain. Walpole was completely taken -in, and imagined that the box had come from -Madame de Choiseul; but he should have -known at first that no one living but his blind -friend could have written 'that most charming -of all letters.' The box itself, the memento of -so much old-world ingenuity, was sold (with the -pseudo-Sévigné epistle) at the Strawberry Hill -sale for £28 7<i>s.</i> When witty Mrs. Clive heard -of the last addition to Walpole's list of favourites, -she delivered herself of a good-humoured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon mot</i>. There was a new resident at Twickenham,—the -first Earl of Shelburne's widow. -'If the new Countess is but lame,' quoth Clive -(referring to the fact that Lady Suffolk was deaf, -and Madame du Deffand blind), 'I shall have -no chance of ever seeing you.' But there is -nothing to show that he ever relaxed in his -attentions to the delightful actress, whom he -somewhere styles <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">dimidium animæ meæ</i>.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> - -<p>One of the other illustrious visitors to Paris -during Walpole's stay there was Rousseau. Being -no longer safe in his Swiss asylum, where -the curate of Motiers had excited the mob -against him, that extraordinary self-tormentor, -clad in his Armenian costume, had arrived in -December at the French capital, and shortly -afterwards left for England, under the safe-conduct -of Hume, who had undertaken to procure -him a fresh resting-place. He reached London -on the 14th January, 1766. Walpole had, to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>use his own phrase, 'a hearty contempt' for the -fugitive sentimentalist and his grievances; and -not long before Rousseau's advent in Paris, -taking for his pretext an offer made by the King -of Prussia, he had woven some of the light -mockery at Madame Geoffrin's into a sham letter -from Frederick to Jean-Jacques, couched in the -true Walpolean spirit of persiflage. It is difficult -to summarize, and may be reproduced here as its -author transcribed it on the 12th January, for -the benefit of Conway:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p class="indent smcap">Le Roi de Prusse à Monsieur Rousseau.</p> - - <p><span class="smcap">Mon cher Jean-Jacques</span>,—Vous avez renoncé - à Génève votre patrie; vous vous êtes - fait chasser de la Suisse, pays tant vanté dans - vos écrits; la France vous a décrété. Venez - donc chez moi; j'admire vos talens; je m'amuse - de vos rêveries, qui (soit dit en passant) vous - occupent trop, et trop longtems. Il faut à la - fin être sage et heureux. Vous avez fait assez - parler de vous par des singularités peu convenables - à un véritable grand homme. Démontrez - à vos ennemis que vous pouvez avoir quelquefois - le sens commun: cela les fachera, sans vous - faire tort. Mes états vous offrent une retraite - paisible; je vous veux du bien, et je vous en - ferai, si vous le trouvez bon. Mais si vous vous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> - obstiniez à rejetter mon secours, attendez-vous - que je ne le dirai à personne. Si vous persistez - à vous creuser l'esprit pour trouver de nouveaux - malheurs, choisissez les tels que vous - voudrez. Je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer - au gré de vos souhaits: et ce qui sûrement ne - vous arrivera pas vis à vis de vos ennemis, je - cesserai de vous persécuter quand vous cesserez - de mettre votre gloire à l'être.</p> - - <p class="indent"> - Votre bon ami,</p> - <p class="indentmore"> - <span class="smcap">Frédéric</span>. - </p> -</div> - -<p>This composition, the French of which was -touched up by Helvétius, Hénault, and the Duc -de Nivernais, gave extreme satisfaction to all -the anti-Rousseau party.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> While Hume and -his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i> were still in Paris, Walpole, out of -delicacy to Hume, managed to keep the matter -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>a secret; and he also abstained from making any -overtures to Rousseau, whom, as he truly said, -he could scarcely have visited cordially, with a -letter in his pocket written to ridicule him. -But Hume had no sooner departed than Frederick's -sham invitation went the round, ultimately -finding its way across the Channel, where it was -printed in the <cite>St. James's Chronicle</cite>. Rousseau, -always on the alert to pose as the victim of -plots and conspiracies, was naturally furious, and -wrote angrily from his retreat at Mr. Davenport's -in Derbyshire to denounce the fabrication. -The worst of it was, that his morbid nature immediately -suspected the innocent Hume of participating -in the trick. 'What rends and afflicts -my heart [is],' he told the <cite>Chronicle</cite>, 'that the -impostor hath his accomplices in England;' and -this delusion became one of the main elements -in that 'twice-told tale,'—the quarrel of Hume -and Rousseau. Walpole was called upon to -clear Hume from having any hand in the letter, -and several communications, all of which are -printed at length in the fourth volume of his -works, followed upon the same subject. Their -discussion would occupy too large a space in -this limited memoir.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> It is, however, worth -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>noticing that Walpole's instinct appears to have -foreseen the trouble that fell upon Hume. -'I wish,' he wrote to Lady Hervey, in a letter -which Hume carried to England when he accompanied -his untunable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i> thither, 'I -wish he may not repent having engaged with -Rousseau, who contradicts and quarrels with all -mankind, in order to obtain their admiration.'<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> -He certainly, upon the present occasion, did not -belie this uncomplimentary character.</p> - -<p>Before the last stages of the Hume-Rousseau -controversy had been reached, Hume was back -again in Paris, and Walpole had returned to -London. Upon the whole, he told Mann, he -liked France so well that he should certainly go -there again. In September, 1766, he was once -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>more attacked with gout, and at the beginning -of October went to Bath, whose Avon (as compared -with his favourite Thames) he considers -'paltry enough to be the Seine or Tyber.' -Nothing pleases him much at Bath, although it -contained such notabilities as Lord Chatham, -Lord Northington, and Lord Camden; but he -goes to hear Wesley, of whom he writes rather -flippantly to Chute. He describes him as 'a -lean, elderly man, fresh-coloured, his hair -smoothly combed, but with a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">soupçon</i> of curl -at the ends.' 'Wondrous clean,' he adds, 'but -as evidently an actor as Garrick. He spoke -his sermon, but so fast, and with so little -accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, -for it was like a lesson. There were parts and -eloquence in it; but towards the end he exalted -his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm; decried -learning, and told stories, like Latimer, of -the fool of his college, who said, 'I <em>thanks</em> God -for everything.'<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> He returned to Strawberry -Hill in October. In August of the next year he -again went to Paris, going almost straight to -Madame du Deffand's, where he finds Mademoiselle -Clairon (who had quitted the stage) -invited to declaim Corneille in his honour, and -he sups in a distinguished company. His visit -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>lasted two months; but his letters for this period -contain few interesting particulars, while those -of the lady cease altogether, to be resumed -again on the 9th October, a few hours after his -departure. Two years later he travels once -more to Paris and his blind friend, whom he -finds in better health than ever, and with spirits -so increased that he tells her she will go mad -with age. 'When they ask her how old she -is, she answers, "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">J'ai soixante et mille ans</i>."' -Her septuagenarian activity might well have -wearied a younger man. 'She and I,' he says, -'went to the Boulevard last night after supper, -and drove about there till two in the morning. -We are going to sup in the country this evening, -and are to go to-morrow night at eleven to the -puppet-show.' In a letter to George Montagu, -which adds some details to her portrait, he -writes: 'I have heard her dispute with all sorts -of people, on all sorts of subjects, and never -knew her in the wrong.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> She humbles the -learned, sets right their disciples, and finds -conversation for everybody. Affectionate as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>Madame de Sévigné, she has none of her prejudices, -but a more universal taste; and, with -the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her -through a life of fatigue that would kill me, if I -was to continue here.... I had great difficulty -last night to persuade her, though she was not -well, not to sit up till between two and three -for the comet; for which purpose she had appointed -an astronomer to bring his telescopes to -the President Hénault's, as she thought it would -amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so -excessive that I feel unashamed at producing -my withered person in a round of diversions, -which I have quitted at home.'<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> One of the -other amusements which she procured for him -was the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entrée</i> of the famous convent of St. Cyr, -of which he gives an interesting account. He -inspects the pensioners, and the numerous portraits -of the foundress, Madame de Maintenon. -In one class-room he hears the young ladies -sing the choruses in <cite>Athalie</cite>; in another sees -them dance minuets to the violin of a nun who -is not precisely St. Cecilia. In the third room -they act <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">proverbes</i>, or conversations. Finally, he -is enabled to enrich the archives of Strawberry -with a piece of paper containing a few sentences -of Madame de Maintenon's handwriting.</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> - -<p>Walpole's literary productions for this date (in -addition to the letter from the King of Prussia -to Rousseau) are scheduled in the <cite>Short Notes</cite> -with his usual minuteness. In June, 1766, -shortly after his return from Paris, he wrote a -squib upon Captain Byron's description of the -Patagonians, entitled, <cite>An Account of the Giants -lately discovered</cite>, which was published on the -25th August. On 18 August he began his -<cite>Memoirs of the Reign of King George the -Third</cite>; and, in 1767, the detection of a work -published at Paris in two volumes under the -title of the <cite>Testament du Chevalier Robert -Walpole</cite>, and 'stamped in that mint of forgeries, -Holland.' This, which is printed in the -second volume of his works, remained unpublished -during his lifetime, as no English translation -of the <cite>Testament</cite> was ever made. His next -deliverance was a letter, subsequently printed -in the <cite>St. James's Chronicle</cite> for 28 May, in -which he announced to the Corporation of -Lynn, in the person of their Mayor, Mr. Langley, -that he did not intend to offer himself again as -the representative in Parliament of that town. -A wish to retire from all public business, and the -declining state of his health, are assigned as the -reasons for his thus breaking his Parliamentary -connection, which had now lasted for five-and-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>twenty -years. Following upon this comes the -already mentioned account of his action in the -Hume and Rousseau quarrel, and a couple of -letters on <cite>Political Abuse in Newspapers</cite>. These -appeared in the <cite>Public Advertiser</cite>. But the -chief results of his leisure in 1766-8 are to be -found in two efforts more ambitious than any of -those above indicated,—the <cite>Historic Doubts -on Richard the Third</cite>, and the tragedy of <cite>The -Mysterious Mother</cite>. The <cite>Historic Doubts</cite> was -begun in the winter of 1767, and published in -February, 1768; the tragedy in December, 1766, -and published in March, 1768.</p> - -<p>The <cite>Historic Doubts</cite> was an attempt to vindicate -Richard III. from his traditional character, -which Walpole considered had been intentionally -blackened in order to whiten that of Henry -VII. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vous seriez un excellent attornei général</i>,'—wrote -Voltaire to him,—'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vous pesez toutes -les probabilités</i>.' He might have added that -they were all weighed on one side. Gray -admits the clearness with which the principal -part of the arguments was made out; but he -remained unconvinced, especially as regards -the murder of Henry VI. Other objectors -speedily appeared, who were neither so friendly -nor so gentle. <cite>The Critical Review</cite> attacked -him for not having referred to Guthrie's <cite>History<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -of England</cite>, which had in some respects anticipated -him; and he was also criticised adversely -by the <cite>London Chronicle</cite>. Of these attacks -Walpole spoke and wrote very contemptuously; -but he seems to have been considerably nettled -by the conduct of a Swiss named Deyverdun, -who, giving an account of the book in a work -called <cite>Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne</cite> -for 1768, declared his preference for the -views which Hume had expressed in certain -notes to the said account. Deyverdun's action -appears to have stung Walpole into a supplementary -defence of his theories, in which he dealt -with his critics generally. This he did not print, -but set aside to appear as a postscript in his -works. In 1770, however, his arguments were -contested by Dr. Milles, Dean of Exeter, to -whom he replied; and later still, another antiquary, -the Rev. Mr. Masters, came forward. -The last two assailants were members of the -Society of Antiquaries, from which body Walpole, -in consequence, withdrew. But he practically -abandoned his theories in a final postscript, written -in February, 1793, which is to be found in -the second volume of his works.</p> - -<p>Concerning the second performance above -referred to, <cite>The Mysterious Mother</cite>, most of -Walpole's biographers are content to abide in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -generalities. That the proprietor of Gothic -Strawberry should have produced <cite>The Castle -of Otranto</cite> has a certain congruity; but one -scarcely expects to find the same person indulging -in a blank-verse tragedy sombre enough to -have taxed the powers of Ford or Webster. It -is a curious example of literary reaction, and -his own words respecting it are doubtful-voiced. -To Montagu and to Madame du Deffand he -writes apologetically. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il ne vous plairoit pas -assurément</i>,' he informs the lady; '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">il n'y a -pas de beaux sentiments. Il n'y a que des passions -sans envelope</i>, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">des crimes</i>, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">des repentis</i>, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">et des -horreurs</i>;'<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> and he lays his finger on one of its -gravest defects when he goes on to say that its -interest languishes from the first act to the last. -Yet he seems, too, to have thought of its being -played, for he tells Montagu a month later that -though he is not yet intoxicated enough with it -to think it would do for the stage, yet he wishes -to see it acted,—a wish which must have been -a real one, since he says further that he has -written an epilogue for Mrs. Clive to speak -in character. The postscript which is affixed to -the printed piece contradicts the above utterances -considerably, or, at all events, shows that -fuller consideration has materially revised them. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>He admits that <cite>The Mysterious Mother</cite> would -not be proper to appear upon the boards. 'The -subject is so horrid that I thought it would -shock rather than give satisfaction to an audience. -Still, I found it so truly tragic in the -two essential springs of terror and pity that I -could not resist the impulse of adapting it to the -scene, though it should never be practicable to -produce it there.' After his criticism to Madame -du Deffand upon the plot, it is curious to find -him later on claiming that 'every scene tends -to bring on the catastrophe, and [that] the story -is never interrupted or diverted from its course.' -Notwithstanding its imaginative power, it is -impossible to deny that the author's words as to -the repulsiveness of the subject are just. But -it is needless to linger longer upon a dramatic -work which had such grave defects as to render -its being acted impossible, and concerning the -literary merit of which there will always be different -opinions. Byron spoke of it as 'a tragedy -of the highest order,'—a judgment which has -been traversed by Macaulay and Scott; Miss -Burney shuddered at its very name; while Lady -Di. Beauclerk illustrated it enthusiastically with -a series of seven designs in 'sut-water,'<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> for -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>which the enraptured author erected a special -gallery.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> Meanwhile, we may quote, from the -close of the above postscript, a passage where -Walpole is at his best. It is a rapid and characteristic -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">aperçu</i> of tragedy in England:</p> - -<p>'The excellence of our dramatic writers is -by no means equal in number to the great men -we have produced in other walks. Theatric -genius lay dormant after Shakespeare; waked -with some bold and glorious, but irregular and -often ridiculous, flights in Dryden; revived in -Otway; maintained a placid, pleasing kind of -dignity in Rowe, and even shone in his <cite>Jane -Shore</cite>. It trod in sublime and classic fetters -in <cite>Cato</cite>, but void of nature, or the power of -affecting the passions. In Southerne it seemed -a genuine ray of nature and Shakespeare; but, -falling on an age still more Hottentot, was stifled -in those gross and barbarous productions, tragi-comedies. -It turned to tuneful nonsense in -the <cite>Mourning Bride</cite>; grew stark mad in Lee, -whose cloak, a little the worse for wear, fell on -Young, yet in both was still a poet's cloak. It -recovered its senses in Hughes and Fenton, who -were afraid it should relapse, and accordingly -kept it down with a timid but amiable hand; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>and then it languished. We have not mounted -again above the two last.'<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> - -<p>The <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite> and the <cite>Historic -Doubts</cite> were not printed by Mr. Robinson's -latest successor, Mr. Kirgate. But the Strawberry -Press had by this time resumed its functions, -for <cite>The Mysterious Mother</cite>, of which -50 copies were struck off in 1768, was issued -from it. Another book which it produced in -the same year was <cite>Cornélie</cite>, a youthful tragedy -by Madame du Deffand's friend, President -Hénault. Walpole's sole reason for giving it -the permanence of his type appears to have -been gratitude to the venerable author, then -fast hastening to the grave, for his kindness to -himself in Paris. To Paris three-fourths of the -impression went. More important reprints were -Grammont's <cite>Memoirs</cite>, a small quarto, and a -series of <cite>Letters of Edward VI.</cite>; both printed -in 1772. The list for this period is completed -by the loose sheets of <cite>Hoyland's Poems</cite>, 1769, -and the well-known, but now rare, <cite>Description -of the Villa of Horace Walpole at Strawberry -Hill</cite>, 1774, 100 copies of which were printed, -six being on large paper. To an account of -this patchwork edifice, the ensuing chapter will -be chiefly devoted. The present may fitly be -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>concluded with a brief statement of that always-debated -passage in Walpole's life, his relations -with the ill-starred Chatterton.</p> - -<p>Towards the close of 1768, and early in -1769, Chatterton, fretting in Mr. Lambert's -office at Bristol, and casting about eagerly -for possible clues to a literary life, had offered -some specimens of the pseudo-Rowley to -James Dodsley of Pall-Mall, but apparently -without success. His next appeal was made -to Walpole, and mainly as the author of the -<cite>Anecdotes of Painting in England</cite>. What -documents he actually submitted to him, is not -perfectly clear; but they manifestly included -further fabrications of monkish verse, and hinted -at, or referred to, a sequence of native artists -in oil, hitherto wholly undreamed of by the -distinguished virtuoso he addressed. The -packet was handed to Walpole at Arlington -Street by Mr. Bathoe, his bookseller (notable -as the keeper of one of the first circulating -libraries in London); and, incredible to say, -Walpole was instantly 'drawn.' He despatched -without delay to his unknown Bristol -correspondent such a courteous note as he -might have addressed to Zouch or Ducarel, -expressing interest, curiosity, and a desire for -further particulars. Chatterton as promptly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -rejoined, forwarding more extracts from the -Rowley poems. But he also, from Walpole's -recollection of his letter, in part unbosomed -himself, making revelation of his position as -a widow's son and lawyer's apprentice, who -had 'a taste and turn for more elegant studies,' -which inclinations, he suggested, his illustrious -correspondent might enable him to gratify. -Upon this, perhaps not unnaturally, Walpole's -suspicions were aroused, the more so that -Mason and Gray, to whom he showed the -papers, declared them to be forgeries. He -made, nevertheless, some private inquiry from -an aristocratic relative at Bath as to Chatterton's -antecedents, and found that, although his description -of himself was accurate, no account -of his character was forthcoming. He accordingly—he -tells us—wrote him a letter 'with -as much kindness and tenderness as if he had -been his guardian,' recommending him to stick -to his profession, and adding, by way of postscript, -that judges, to whom the manuscripts had -been submitted, were by no means thoroughly -convinced of their antiquity. Two letters from -Chatterton followed,—one (the first) dejected -and seemingly acquiescent; the other, a week -later, curtly demanding the restoration of his -papers, the genuineness of which he re-affirmed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -These communications Walpole, by his own -account, either neglected to notice, or overlooked.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> -After an interval of some weeks -arrived a final missive, the tone of which he -regarded as 'singularly impertinent.' Snapping -up both poems and letters in a pet, he -scribbled a hasty reply, but, upon reconsideration, -enclosed them to their writer without -comment, and thought no more of him or them. -It was not until about a year and a half afterwards -that Goldsmith told him, at the first -Royal Academy dinner, that Chatterton had -come to London and destroyed himself,—an -announcement which seems to have filled him -with unaffected pity. 'Several persons of -honour and veracity,' he says, 'were present -when I first heard of his death, and will attest -my surprise and concern.'<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> - -<p>The apologists of the gifted and precocious -Bristol boy, reading the above occurrences by -the light of his deplorable end, have attributed -to Walpole a more material part in his -misfortunes than can justly be ascribed to -him; and the first editor of Chatterton's <cite>Miscellanies</cite> -did not scruple to emphasize the -current gossip, which represented Walpole as -'the primary cause of his [Chatterton's] dismal -catastrophe,'<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a>—an aspersion which drew -from the Abbot of Strawberry the lengthy -letter on the subject which was afterwards -reprinted in his <cite>Works</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> So long a vindication, -if needed then, is scarcely needed now. -Walpole, it is obvious, acted very much as he -might have been expected to act. He had -been imposed upon, and he was as much -annoyed with himself as with the impostor. -But he was not harsh enough to speak his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>mind frankly, nor benevolent enough to act the -part of that rather rare personage, the ideal -philanthropist. If he had behaved less like an -ordinary man of the world; if he had obtained -Chatterton's confidence, instead of lecturing -him; if he had aided and counselled and -protected him,—Walpole would have been -different, and things might have been otherwise. -As they were, upon the principle that 'two of -a trade can ne'er agree,' it is difficult -to conceive of any abiding alliance between -the author of the fabricated <cite>Tragedy of Ælla</cite> -and the author of the fabricated <cite>Castle of -Otranto</cite>.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Old Friends and New.—Walpole's Nieces.—Mrs. Damer.—Progress -of Strawberry Hill.—Festivities and Later Improvements.—<cite>A -Description</cite>, etc., 1774.—The House and Approaches.—Great -Parlour, Waiting Room, China Room, and -Yellow Bedchamber.—Breakfast Room.—Green Closet and -Blue Bedchamber.—Armoury and Library.—Red Bedchamber, -Holbein Chamber, and Star Chamber.—Gallery.—Round -Drawing Room and Tribune.—Great North Bedchamber.—Great -Cloister and Chapel.—Walpole on Strawberry.—Its -Dampness.—A Drive from Twickenham to -Piccadilly.</p></div> - - -<p>In 1774, when, according to its title-page, the -<cite>Description of Strawberry Hill</cite> was printed, -Walpole was a man of fifty-seven. During the -period covered by the last chapter, many -changes had taken place in his circle of friends. -Mann and George Montagu (until, in October, -1770, his correspondence with the latter mysteriously -ceased) were still the most frequent -recipients of his letters, and next to these, Conway, -and Cole the antiquary. But three of his -former correspondents, his deaf neighbour at -Marble Hill, Lady Suffolk,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> Lady Hervey -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>(Pope's and Chesterfield's Molly Lepel, to -whom he had written much from Paris), and -Gray, were dead. On the other hand, he had -opened what promised to be a lengthy series -of letters with Gray's friend and biographer, -the Rev. William Mason, Rector of Aston, in -Yorkshire; with Madame du Deffand; and -with the divorced Duchess of Grafton, who in -1769 had married his Paris friend, John Fitzpatrick, -second Earl of Upper Ossory. There -were changes, too, among his own relatives. -By this time his eldest brother's widow, Lady -Orford, had lost her second husband, Sewallis -Shirley, and was again living, not very reputably, -on the Continent. Her son George, who -since 1751 had been third Earl of Orford, and -was still unmarried, was eminently unsatisfactory. -He was shamelessly selfish, and by way -of complicating the family embarrassments, had -taken to the turf. Ultimately he had periodical -attacks of insanity, during which time it fell to -Walpole's fate to look after his affairs. With -Sir Edward Walpole, his second brother, he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>seems never to have been on terms of real -cordiality; but he made no secret of his pride -in his beautiful nieces, Edward Walpole's -natural daughters, whose charms and amiability -had victoriously triumphed over every prejudice -which could have been entertained against their -birth. Laura, who was the eldest, had married -a brother of the Earl of Albemarle, subsequently -created Bishop of Exeter; Charlotte, the third, -became Lady Huntingtower, and afterwards -Countess of Dysart; while Maria, the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">belle</i> of -the trio, was more fortunate still. After burying -her first husband, Lord Waldegrave, she -had succeeded in fascinating H. R. H. William -Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the King's own -brother, and so contributing to bring about the -Royal Marriage Act of 1772. They were -married in 1766; but the fact was not formally -announced to His Majesty until September, -1772.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> Another marriage which must have -given Walpole almost as much pleasure was -that of General Conway's daughter to Mr. -Damer, Lord Milton's eldest son, which took -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>place in 1767. After the unhappy death of her -husband, who shot himself in a tavern ten years -later, Mrs. Damer developed considerable talents -as a sculptor, and during the last years of Walpole's -life was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal -Academy. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Non me Praxiteles finxit, at Anna -Damer</i>, wrote her admiring relative under -one of her works, a wounded eagle in terra-cotta;<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> -and in the fourth volume of the <cite>Anecdotes -of Painting</cite>, he likens 'her shock dog, -large as life,' to such masterpieces of antique -art as the Tuscan boar and the Barberini goat.</p> - -<p>It is time, however, to return to the story of -Strawberry itself, as interrupted in Chapter V. -In the introduction to Walpole's <cite>Description</cite> of -1774, a considerable interval occurs between -the building of the Refectory and Library in -1753-4, and the subsequent erection of the -Gallery, Round Tower, Great Cloister, and -Cabinet, or Tribune, which, already in contemplation -in 1759, were, according to the same -authority, erected in 1760 and 1761. But here, -as before, the date must rather be that of the -commencement than the completion of these -additions. In May, 1763, he tells Cole that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>the Gallery is fast advancing, and in July it is -almost 'in the critical minute of consummation.' -In August, 'all the earth is begging to come to -see it.' A month afterwards, he is 'keeping an -inn; the sign, "The Gothic Castle."' His -whole time is passed in giving tickets of admission -to the Gallery, and hiding himself when it -is on view. 'Take my advice,' he tells Montagu, -'never build a charming house for yourself -between London and Hampton-court; -everybody will live in it but you.' A year later -he is giving a great fête to the French and -Spanish Ambassadors, March, Selwyn, Lady -Waldegrave, and other distinguished guests, -which finishes in the new room. 'During -dinner there were French horns and clarionets -in the cloister,' and after coffee the guests -were treated 'with a syllabub milked under the -cows that were brought to the brow of the -terrace. Thence they went to the Printing-house, -and saw a new fashionable French song -printed. They drank tea in the Gallery, and at -eight went away to Vauxhall.'</p> - -<p>This last entertainment, the munificence of -which, he says, the treasury of the Abbey will -feel, took place in June, 1764; and it is not -until four years later that we get tidings of any -fresh improvements. In September, 1768, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -tells Cole that he is going on with the Round -Tower, or Chamber, at the end of the Gallery, -which, in another letter, he says 'has stood -still these five years,' and he is, besides, '<em>playing</em> -with the little garden on the other side of -the road' which had come into his hands by -Francklin's death. In May of the following -year he gives another magnificent <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">festino</i> at -Strawberry, which will almost mortgage it, but -the Round Tower still progresses. In October, -1770, he is building again, in the intervals of -gout; this time it is the Great Bedchamber,—a -'sort of room which he seems likely to inhabit -much time together.' Next year the -whole piecemeal structure is rapidly verging -to completion. 'The Round Tower is finished, -and magnificent; and the State Bedchamber -proceeds fast.' In June he is writing to Mann -from the delicious bow window of the former, -with Vasari's Bianca Capello (Mann's present) -over against him, and the setting sun behind, -'throwing its golden rays all round.' Further -on, he is building a tiny brick chapel in the -garden, mainly for the purpose of receiving -'two valuable pieces of antiquity,'—one being -a painted window from Bexhill of Henry III. -and his Queen, given him by Lord Ashburnham; -the other Cavalini's Tomb of Capoccio from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, -which had been sent to him by Sir William (then -Mr.) Hamilton, the English Minister at Naples. -In August, 1772, the Great Bedchamber is finished, -the house is complete, and he has 'at -last exhausted all his hoards and collections.' -Nothing remains but to compile the <cite>Description -and Catalogue</cite>, concerning which he had -written to Cole as far back as 1768, and which, -as already stated, he ultimately printed in 1774.</p> - -<p>As time went on, his fresh acquisitions -obliged him to add several <cite>Appendices</cite> to this -issue; and the copy before us, although dated -1774, has supplements which bring the record -down to 1786. A fresh edition, in royal quarto, -with twenty-seven plates, was printed in 1784;<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> -and this, or an expansion of it, reappears in -vol. ii. of his <cite>Works</cite>. With these later issues -we have little to do; but with the aid of that -of 1774, may essay to give some brief account -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>of the long, straggling, many-pinnacled building, -with its round tower at the end, the east -and south fronts of which are figured in the -black-looking vignette upon the title-page. The -entrance was on the north side, from the Teddington -and Twickenham road, here shaded by -lofty trees; and once within the embattled -boundary wall, covered by this time with ivy, -the first thing that struck the spectator was a -small oratory inclosed by iron rails, with saint, -altar, niches, and holy-water basins designed -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en suite</i> by Mr. Chute. On the right hand—its -gaily-coloured patches of flower-bed glimmering -through a screen of iron work copied from -the tomb of Roger Niger, Bishop of London, -in old St. Paul's—was the diminutive Abbot's, -or Prior's, Garden, which extended in front of -the offices to the right of the principal entrance.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> -This was along a little cloister to the left, -beyond the oratory. The chief decoration of -this cloister was a marble <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bas-relief</i>, inscribed -'Dia Helionora,' being, in fact, a portrait of -that Leonora D'Esté who turned the head of -Tasso. At the end was the door, which opened -into 'a small gloomy hall' united with the staircase, -the balustrades of which, designed by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a><br /><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>Bentley, were decorated with antelopes, the -Walpole supporters. In the well of the staircase -was a Gothic lantern of japanned tin, also -due to Bentley's fertile invention. If, instead -of climbing the stairs, you turned out of the -hall into a little passage on your left, you found -yourself in the Refectory, or Great Parlour, -where were accumulated the family portraits. -Here, over the chimney-piece, was the 'conversation,' -by Sir Joshua Reynolds, representing -the triumvirate of Selwyn, Williams, and Lord -Edgcumbe, already referred to at p. <a href="#Page_138">138</a>; here -also were Sir Robert Walpole and his two wives, -Catherine Shorter and Maria Skerret; Robert -Walpole the second, and his wife in a white -riding-habit; Horace himself by Richardson; -Dorothy Walpole, his aunt, who became Lady -Townshend;<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> his sister, Lady Maria Churchill; -and a number of others. In the Waiting Room, -into which the Refectory opened, was a stone -head of John Dryden, whom Catherine Shorter -claimed as great-uncle; next to this again was -the China Closet, neatly lined with blue and -white Dutch tiles, and having its ceiling painted -by Müntz, after a villa at Frascati, with convolvuluses -on poles. In the China Room, -among great stores of Sèvres and Chelsea, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>oriental china, perhaps the greatest curiosity -was a couple of Saxon tankards, exactly alike -in form and size, which had been presented to -Sir Robert Walpole at different times by the -mistresses of the first two Georges, the Duchess -of Kendal and the Countess of Yarmouth. To -the left of the China Closet, with a bow window -looking to the south, was the Little Parlour, -which was hung with stone-coloured 'gothic -paper' in imitation of mosaic, and decorated -with the 'wooden prints' already referred to, -the chiaroscuros of Jackson;<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> and at the side -of this came the Yellow Bedchamber, known -later, from its numerous feminine portraits, as -the Beauty Room. The other spaces on the -ground floor were occupied, towards the Prior's -Garden, by the kitchen, cellars, and servants' -hall, and, at the back, by the Great Cloister, -which went under the Gallery.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/illus_220.jpg" alt="Ground Plan of Strawberry Hill" /> -<p class="caption"> -A Great Parlour or Refectory.<br /> -B Waiting Room.<br /> -C China Room.<br /> -D Little Parlour.<br /> -E Yellow Bedchamber.<br /> -F Hall.<br /> -G Pantry.<br /> -H Servants' Hall.<br /> -I Passage.<br /> -K Great Cloister.<br /> -L Wine Cellar.<br /> -M Beer Cellar.<br /> -N Kitchen.<br /> -O Oratory.<br /> -<br /> - -<span class="smcap">Strawberry Hill: Ground Plan</span>—1781. -</p> -</div> - -<p>Returning to the staircase, where, in later -years, hung Bunbury's original drawing<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> for his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>well-known caricature of 'Richmond Hill,' you -entered the Breakfast Room on the first floor, -the window of which looked towards the -Thames. It was pleasantly furnished with blue -paper, and blue and white linen, and contained -many miniatures and portraits, notable among -which were Carmontel's picture of Madame du -Deffand and the Duchess de Choiseul;<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> a print -of Madame du Deffand's room and cats, given -by the President Hénault; and a view painted -by Raguenet for Walpole in 1766 of the Hôtel -de Carnavalet, the former residence of Madame -de Sévigné.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Breakfast Room opened into the Green -Closet, over the door of which was a picture -by Samuel Scott of Pope's house at Twickenham, -showing the wings added after the poet's -death by Sir William Stanhope. On the same -side of the room hung Hogarth's portrait of -Sarah Malcolm the murderess, painted at Newgate -a day or two before her execution in -Fleet Street.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Here also was 'Mr. Thomas -Gray; etched from his shade [silhouette]; by -Mr. W. Mason.' There were many other -portraits in this room, besides some water -colours on ivory by Horace himself. In a line -with the Green Closet, and looking east, was -the Library; and at the back of it, the Blue -Bedchamber, the toilette of which was worked -by Mrs. Clive, who, since her retirement from -the stage in 1769, had lived wholly at Twickenham. -The chief pictures in this room were -Eckardt's portraits of Gray in a Vandyke dress -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>and of Walpole himself in similar attire.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> There -were also by the same artist pictures of Walpole's -father and mother, and of General Conway and -his wife, Lady Ailesbury.</p> - -<p>Facing the Blue Bedchamber was the -Armoury, a vestibule of three Gothic arches, -in the left-hand corner of which was the door -opening into the Library, a room twenty-eight -feet by nineteen feet six, lighted by a large -window looking to the east, and by two smaller -rose-windows at the sides. The books, arranged -in Gothic arches of pierced work, went all -round it. The chimney-piece was imitated from -the tomb of John of Eltham in Westminster -Abbey, and the stone work from another tomb -at Canterbury. Over the chimney-piece was a -picture (which is engraved in the <cite>Anecdotes of -Painting</cite>) representing the marriage of Henry -VI. Walpole and Bentley had designed the -ceiling,—a gorgeous heraldic medley surrounding -a central Walpole shield. Above the bookcases -were pictures. One of the greatest -treasures of the room was a clock given by -Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn. Of the books -it is impossible to speak in detail. Noticeable -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a><br /><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>among them, however, was a Thuanus in -fourteen volumes, a very extensive set of -Hogarth's prints, and all the original drawings -for the <cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite>. Vertue, Hollar, -and Faithorne were also largely represented. -Among special copies, were the identical <cite>Iliad</cite> -and <cite>Odyssey</cite> from which Pope made his translations -of Homer,<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> a volume containing Bentley's -original designs for Gray's <cite>Poems</cite>, and a black -morocco pocket-book of sketches by Jacques -Callot. In a rosewood case in this room was -also a fine collection of coins, which included -the rare silver medal struck by Gregory XIII. -on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/illus_226.jpg" alt="Principal Floor Plan of Strawberry Hill" /> -<p class="caption"> -A Round Drawing Room.<br /> -B Cabinet or Tribune.<br /> -C Great North Bedchamber.<br /> -D Gallery.<br /> -E Holbein Chamber.<br /> -F Library.<br /> -G Beauclerk Closet or Cabinet.<br /> -H Armoury.<br /> -I China Closets.<br /> -K Back Stairs.<br /> -L Passage.<br /> -M Star Chamber.<br /> -N Red Bedchamber.<br /> -O Blue Bedchamber.<br /> -P Breakfast Room.<br /> -Q Green Closet.<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Strawberry Hill: Principal Floor</span>—1781. -</p> -</div> - -<p>Concerning the Red Bedchamber, the Star -Chamber, and the Holbein Chamber, which -intervened between the rest of the first floor -and the latest additions, there is little to say. -In the Red Bedchamber, the most memorable -things (after the chintz bed on which Lord -Orford died) were some pencil sketches of -Pope and his parents by Cooper and the elder -Richardson. In the Holbein Chamber, so -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>called from a number of copies on oil-paper by -Vertue from the drawings of Holbein in Queen -Catherine's Closet at Kensington, were two of -those 'curiosities' which represent the Don -Saltero, or Madame Tussaud, side of Strawberry, -viz., a tortoise-shell comb studded with -silver hearts and roses which was said to have -belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and (later) -the red hat of Cardinal Wolsey. The pedigree -of the hat, it must, however, be admitted, was -unimpeachable. It had been found in the -great wardrobe by Bishop Burnet when Clerk -of the Closet. From him it passed to his son -the Judge (author of that curious squib on -Harley known as the <cite>History of Robert Powel -the Puppet-Show-Man</cite>), and thence to the -Countess Dowager of Albemarle, who gave it -to Walpole. A carpet in this room was worked -by Mrs. Clive, who seems to have been a most -industrious decorator of her friend's mansion -museum.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> The Star Chamber was but an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>ante-room powdered with gold stars in mosaic, -the chief glory of which was a stone bust of -Henry VII. by Torregiano.</p> - -<p>With these three rooms, the first floor of -Strawberry, as it existed previous to the erection -of the additions mentioned in the beginning -of this chapter,—namely, the Gallery, the -Round Tower, the Tribune, and the Great -North Bedchamber,—came to an end. But it -was in these newer parts of the house that -some of its rarest objects of art were assembled. -The Gallery, which was entered from a gloomy -little passage in front of the Holbein Chamber, -was a really spacious room, fifty-six feet by -thirteen, and lighted from the south by five high -windows. Between these were tables laden -with busts, bronzes, and urns; on the opposite -side, fronting the windows, were recesses, -finished with gold network over looking-glass, -between which stood couch-seats, covered, like -the rest of the room, with crimson Norwich -damask. The ceiling was copied from one of -the side aisles of Henry VII.'s Chapel; the -great door at the western end, which led into -the Round Tower, was taken from the north -door of St. Albans. A long carpet, made at -Moorfields, traversed the room from end to -end. In one of the recesses—that to the left of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -the chimney-piece, which was designed by -Mr. Chute and Mr. Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc,—stood -one of the finest surviving pieces of -Greek sculpture, the Boccapadugli eagle, found -in the precinct of the Baths of Caracalla,—a -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef-d'œuvre</i> from which Gray is said to have -borrowed the 'ruffled plumes, and flagging -wing' of the <cite>Progress of Poesy</cite>; to the right -was a noble bust in basalt of Vespasian, which -had been purchased from the Ottoboni collection. -Of the pictures it is impossible to speak -at large; but two of the most notable were -Sir George Villiers, the father of the Duke of -Buckingham, and Mabuse's <cite>Marriage of Henry -VII. and Elizabeth of York</cite>. Of Walpole's -own relatives, there were portraits by Ramsay -of his nieces, Mrs. Keppel (the Bishop's wife) -and Lady Dysart, and of the Duchess of -Gloucester (then Lady Waldegrave) by Reynolds. -There were also portraits of Henry -Fox, Lord Holland, of George Montagu, of -Lord Waldegrave, and of Horace's uncle, Lord -Walpole of Wolterton.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> - -<p>Issuing through the great door of the Gallery, -and passing on the left a glazed closet con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>taining -a quantity of china which had once belonged -to Walpole's mother, a couple of steps -brought you into the pleasant Drawing Room in -the Round Tower, the bow window of which, -already mentioned, looked to the south-west. -Like the Gallery, this room was hung with -Norwich damask. Its chief glory was the picture -of Bianca Capello, of which Walpole had -written to Mann. To the left of this room, at -the back of the Gallery, and consequently in the -front of the house, was the Cabinet, or Tribune, -a curious square chamber with semicircular recesses, -in two of which, to the north and west, -were stained windows. In the roof, which was -modelled on the chapter house at York, was a -star of yellow glass throwing a soft golden glow -over all the room. Here Walpole had amassed -his choicest treasures, miniatures by Oliver and -Cooper, enamels by Petitot and Zincke,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> bronzes -from Italy, ivory bas-reliefs, seal-rings and reli<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>quaries, -caskets and cameos and filigree work. -Here, with Madame du Deffand's letter inside -it,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> was the 'round white snuff-box' with -Madame de Sévigné's portrait; here, carven -with masks and flies and grasshoppers, was -Cellini's silver bell from the Leonati Collection, -at Parma, a masterpiece against which he had -exchanged all his collection of Roman coins with -the Marquis of Rockingham. A bronze bust of -Caligula with silver eyes; a missal with reputed -miniatures by Raphael; a dagger of Henry VIII.,<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> -and a mourning ring given at the burial of -Charles I.,—were among the other show objects -of the Tribune, the riches of which occupy more -space in their owner's Catalogue than any other -part of his collections.</p> - -<p>With the Great North Bedchamber, which -adjoined the Tribune, and filled the remaining -space at the back of the Gallery, the account of -Strawberry Hill, as it existed in 1774, comes to -an end; for the Green Chamber in the Round -Tower over the Drawing Room, and 'Mr. Walpole's -Bedchamber, two pair of stairs' (which -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>contained the Warrant for beheading King -Charles I., inscribed 'Major Charta,' so often -referred to by Walpole's biographers),<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> may be -dismissed without further notice. The Beauclerk -Closet, a later addition, will be described -in its proper place. Over the chimney-piece in -the Great North Bedchamber was a large picture -of Henry VIII. and his children, a recent purchase, -afterwards remanded to the staircase to -make room for a portrait of Catherine of Braganza, -sent from Portugal previous to her marriage -with Charles II. Fronting the bed was -a head of Niobe, by Guido, which in its turn -subsequently made way for <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la belle Jennings</i>.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> -Among the pictures on the north or window side -of the room was the original sketch by Hogarth -of the <cite>Beggar's Opera</cite>, which Walpole had purchased -at the sale of Rich, the fortunate manager -who produced Gay's masterpiece at Lincoln's -Inn Fields. It was exhibited at Manchester in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>1857, being then the property of Mr. Willett, -who had bought it at the Strawberry Hill sale of -1842. Another curious oil painting in this room -was the <cite>Rehearsal of an Opera</cite> by the Riccis, -which included caricature portraits of Nicolini -(of <cite>Spectator</cite> celebrity), of the famous Mrs. -Catherine Tofts, and of Margherita de l'Epine. -In a nook by the window there was a glazed -china closet, with a number of minor curiosities, -among which were conspicuous the speculum of -cannel coal with which Dr. Dee was in the -habit of gulling his votaries,<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> and an agate puncheon -with Gray's arms which his executors had -presented to Walpole.</p> - -<p>A few external objects claim a word. In the -Great Cloister under the Gallery was the blue -and white china tub in which had taken place -that tragedy of the 'pensive Selima' referred to -at p. <a href="#Page_135">135</a> as having prompted the muse of Gray.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> -The Chapel in the Garden has already been -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>sufficiently described.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> In the Flower Garden -across the road was a cottage which Walpole -had erected upon the site of the building once -occupied by Francklin the printer, and which he -used as a place of refuge when the tide of sight-seers -became overpowering. It included a Tea -Room, containing a fair collection of china, and -hung with green paper and engravings, and a little -white and green Library, of which the principal -ornament was a half-length portrait of Milton.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> -A portrait of Lady Hervey, by Allan Ramsay, -was afterwards added to its decorations.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p> - -<p>Many objects of interest, as must be obvious, -have remained undescribed in the foregoing -account, and those who seek for further infor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>mation -concerning what its owner called his -'paper fabric and assemblage of curious trifles' -must consult either the Catalogue of 1774 itself, -or that later and definitive version of it which is -reprinted in Volume II. of the <cite>Works</cite> (pp. 393-516). -The intention in the main has here been -to lay stress upon those articles which bear most -directly upon Walpole's biography. It will also -be observed that, during the prolonged progress -of the house towards completion, his experience -and his views considerably enlarged, and the -pettiness and artificiality of his first improvements -disappeared. The house never lost, and -never could lose, its invertebrate character; but -the Gallery, the Round Tower, and the North -Bedchamber were certainly conceived in a more -serious and even spacious spirit of Gothicism -than any of the early additions. That it must, -still, have been confined and needlessly gloomy, -may be allowed; but as a set-off to some of -those accounts which insist so pertinaciously -upon its 'paltriness,' its 'architectural solecisms,' -and its lack of beauty and sublimity, it is only -fair to recall a few sentences from the preface -which its owner prefixed to the <cite>Description</cite> of -1784. It was designed, he says of the Catalogue, -to exhibit 'specimens of Gothic architecture, as -collected from standards in cathedrals and chapel-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>tombs,' -and to show 'how they may be applied -to chimney-pieces, ceilings, windows, balustrades, -loggias, etc.' Elsewhere he characterizes -the building itself as candidly as any of -its critics. He admits its diminutive scale and -its unsubstantial character (he calls it himself, -as we have seen, a 'paper fabric'), and he confesses -to the incongruities arising from an antique -design and modern decorations. 'In truth,' he -concludes, 'I did not mean to make my house so -Gothic as to exclude convenience, and modern -refinements in luxury.... It was built to please -my own taste, and in some degree to realize my -own visions. I have specified what it contains; -could I describe the gay but tranquil scene -where it stands, and add the beauty of the landscape -to the romantic cast of the mansion, it -would raise more pleasing sensations than a dry -list of curiosities can excite,—at least the prospect -would recall the good humour of those who -might be disposed to condemn the fantastic fabric, -and to think it a very proper habitation of, as it -was the scene that inspired, the author of the -<cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>.'<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> As one of his censors has -remarked, this tone disarms criticism; and it -is needless to accumulate proofs of peculiarities -which are not denied by the person most -concerned.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> -<p>In spite of its charming situation, Strawberry -Hill was emphatically a summer residence; -and there is more than one account in -Walpole's letters of the sudden floods which, -when Thames flowed with a fuller tide than -now, occasionally surprised the inhabitants of -the pleasant-looking villas along its banks. It -was decidedly damp, and its gouty owner had -sometimes to quit it precipitately for Arlington -Street, where, he says, 'after an hour,' he -revives, 'like a member of parliament's wife.' -His best editor, Mr. Peter Cunningham, whose -knowledge as an antiquary was unrivalled,—for -was he not the author of the <cite>Handbook -of London</cite>?—has amused himself, in an odd -corner of one of his prefaces, by retracing the -route taken in these townward flights. The -extract is so packed with suggestive memories -that no excuse is needed for reproducing it -(with a few now necessary notes) as the tail-piece -of the present chapter.</p> - -<p>'At twelve his [Walpole's] light bodied -chariot was at the door, with his English coachman -and his Swiss valet [Philip Colomb].... -In a few minutes he left Lord Radnor's villa -to the right, rolled over the grotto of Pope, -saw on his left Whitton, rich with recollections -of Kneller and Argyll, passed Gumley House,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -one of the country seats of his father's opponent -and his own friend, Pulteney, Earl of -Bath, and Kendal House,<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> the retreat of the -mistress of George I., Ermengard de Schulenburg, -Duchess of Kendal. At Sion, the princely -seat of the Percys, the Seymours, and the -Smithsons, he turned into the Hounslow -Road, left Sion on his right, and Osterly, not -unlike Houghton, on his left, and rolled through -Brentford,—</p> - -<p> -"Brentford, the Bishopric of Parson Horne,"<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a><br /> -</p> - -<p>then, as now, infamous for its dirty streets, and -famous for its white-legged chickens.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> Quitting -Brentford, he approached the woods that -concealed the stately mansion of Gunnersbury, -built by Inigo Jones and Webb, and then inhabited -by the Princess Amelia, the last surviving -child of King George II.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> Here he was -often a visitor, and seldom returned without -being a winner at silver loo. At the Pack -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>Horse<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> on Turnham Green he would, when the -roads were heavy, draw up for a brief bait. -Starting anew, he would pass a few red brick -houses on both sides, then the suburban villas -of men well to do in the Strand and Charing -Cross. At Hammersmith, he would leave the -church<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> on his right, call on Mr. Fox at Holland -House, look at Campden House, with -recollections of Sir Baptist Hickes,<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> and not -without an ill-suppressed wish to transfer some -little part of it to his beloved Strawberry. He -was now at Kensington Church, then, as it still -is, an ungraceful structure,<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> but rife with associations -which he would at times relate to the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>friend he had with him. On his left he would -leave the gates of Kensington Palace, rich with -reminiscences connected with his father and -the first Hanoverian kings of this country. On -his right he would quit the red brick house in -which the Duchess of Portsmouth lived,<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> and -after a drive of half a mile (skirting a heavy -brick wall), reach Kingston House,<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> replete -with stories of Elizabeth Chudleigh, the bigamist -maid of honour, and Duchess-Countess -of Kingston and Bristol. At Knightsbridge -(even then the haunt of highwaymen less -gallant than Maclean) he passed on his left -the little chapel<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> in which his father was -married. At Hyde Park Corner he saw the -Hercules Pillars ale-house of Fielding and -Tom Jones,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> and at one door from Park Lane -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>would occasionally call on old "Q" for the -sake of Selwyn, who was often there.<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> The -trees which now grace Piccadilly were in the -Green Park in Walpole's day; they can recollect -Walpole, and that is something. On his -left, the sight of Coventry House<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> would remind -him of the Gunnings, and he would tell his -friend the story of the "beauties;" with which -(short story-teller as he was) he had not completed -when the chariot turned into Arlington -Street on the right, or down Berkeley Street -into Berkeley Square, on the left.'<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> In these -last lines Mr. Cunningham anticipates our story, -for in 1774, Walpole had not yet taken up his -residence in Berkeley Square.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Occupations and Correspondence.—Literary Work.—Jephson -and the Stage.—<cite>Nature will Prevail.</cite>—Issues from the -Strawberry Press.—Fourth Volume of the <cite>Anecdotes of -Painting</cite>.—The Beauclerk Tower and Lady Di.—George, -third Earl of Orford.—Sale of the Houghton Pictures.—Moves -to Berkeley Square.—Last Visit to Madame du -Deffand.—Her Death.—Themes for Letters.—Death of -Sir Horace Mann.—Pinkerton, Madame de Genlis, Miss -Burney, Hannah More.—Mary and Agnes Berry.—Their -Residence at Twickenham.—Becomes fourth Earl of Orford.—<cite>Epitaphium -vivi Auctoris.</cite>—The Berrys again.—Death -of Marshal Conway.—Last Letter to Lady Ossory.—Dies -at Berkeley Square, 2 March, 1797.—His Fortune and Will.—The -Fate of Strawberry.</p></div> - - -<p>After the completion of Strawberry Hill -and the printing of the <cite>Catalogue</cite>, Walpole's -life grows comparatively barren of events. -There are still four volumes of his <cite>Correspondence</cite>, -but they take upon them imperceptibly -the nature of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nouvelles à la main</i>, and are less -fruitful in personal traits. Between his books -and his prints, his time passes agreeably, 'but -will not do to relate.' Indeed, from this period -until his death, in 1797, the most notable occurrences -in his history are his friendship with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -Miss Berry's in 1787-8, and his belated accession -to he Earldom of Orford. Both at -Strawberry and Arlington Street, his increasing -years and his persistent malady condemn -him more and more to seclusion and retirement. -He is most at Strawberry, despite its dampness, -for in the country he holds 'old, useless people -ought to live.' 'If you were not to be in -London,' he tells Lady Ossory in April, 1774, -'the spring advances so charmingly, I think I -should scarce go thither. One is frightened -with the inundation of breakfasts and balls that -are coming on. Every one is engaged to everybody -for the next three weeks, and if one must -hunt for a needle, I had rather look for it in a -bottle of hay in the country than in a crowd.' -'By age and situation,' he writes from Strawberry -in September, 'at this time of the year I -live with nothing but old women. They do very -well for me, who have little choice left, and who -rather prefer common nonsense to wise nonsense,—the -only difference I know between old -women and old men. I am out of all politics, -and never think of elections, which I think I -should hate even if I loved politics,—just as, if -I loved tapestry I do not think I could talk over -the manufacture of worsteds. Books I have -almost done with too,—at least, read only such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -as nobody else would read. In short, my way -of life is too insipid to entertain anybody but -myself; and though I am always employed, I -must own I think I have given up every thing -in the world, only to be busy about the most -arrant trifles.' His London life was not greatly -different. 'How should I see or know anything?' -he says a year later, apologizing for his -dearth of news. 'I seldom stir out of my -house [at Arlington Street] before seven in the -evening, see very few persons, and go to fewer -places, make no new acquaintance, and have -seen most of my old wear out. Loo at Princess -Amelie's, loo at Lady Hertford's, are the -capital events of my history, and a Sunday alone, -at Strawberry, my chief entertainment. All this -is far from gay; but as it neither gives me <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>, -nor lowers my spirits, it is not uncomfortable, -and I prefer it to being <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déplacé</i> in younger company.' -Such is his account of his life in 1774-5, -when he is nearing sixty, and it probably represents -it with sufficient accuracy. But a trifling -incident easily stirs him into unwonted vivacity. -While he is protesting that he has nothing to -say, his letters grow under his pen, and, almost -as a necessary consequence of his leisure, they -become more frequent and more copious. In -the edition of Cunningham, up to September,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -1774, they number fourteen hundred and fifty. -Speaking roughly, this represents a period of -nearly forty years. During the two-and-twenty -years that remained to him, he managed to -swell them by what was, proportionately, a -far greater number. The last letter given by -Cunningham is marked 2665; and this enumeration -does not include a good many letters and -fragments of letters belonging to this later -period, which were published in 1865 in Miss -Berry's <cite>Journals and Correspondence</cite>. Nevertheless, -as stated above, they more and more -assume what he somewhere calls 'their proper -character of newspapers.'</p> - -<p>During the remainder of his life, they were -his chief occupation, and his gout was seldom -so severe but that he could make shift to scribble -a line to his favourite correspondents, calling -in his printer Kirgate as secretary in cases -of extremity.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> Of literature generally he pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>fessed -to have taken final leave. 'I no longer -care about fame,' he tells Mason in 1774; 'I -have done being an author.' Nevertheless, the -<cite>Short Notes</cite> piously chronicle the production -of more than one trifle, which are reprinted in -his <cite>Works</cite>. When, in the above year, Lord -Chesterfield's letters to his son were published, -Walpole began a parody of that famous performance -in a <cite>Series of Letters from a Mother -to a Daughter</cite>, with the general title of the <cite>New -Whole Duty of Woman</cite>. He grew tired of the -idea too soon to enable us to judge what his -success might have been with a subject which, -in his hands, should have been diverting as a -satire; for, although he was a warm admirer of -Chesterfield's parts, as he had shown in his character -of him in the <cite>Royal and Noble Authors</cite>, he -was thoroughly alive to the assailable side of -what he styles his 'impertinent institutes of -education.'<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> Another work of this year was a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>reply to some remarks by Mr. Masters in the -<cite>Archæologia</cite> upon the old subject of the <cite>Historic -Doubts</cite>, which calls for no further notice. -But early in 1775 he was persuaded into writing -an epilogue for the <cite>Braganza</cite> of Captain Robert -Jephson, a maiden tragedy of the <cite>Venice Preserved</cite> -order, which was produced at Drury Lane -in February of that year, with considerable success. -In a correspondence which ensued with -the author, Walpole delivered himself of his -views on tragedy for the benefit of Mr. Jephson, -who acted upon them, but not (as his Mentor -thought) with conspicuous success, in his next -attempt, the <cite>Law of Lombardy</cite>. Jephson's third -play, however, the <cite>Count of Narbonne</cite>, which -was well received in 1781, had a natural claim -upon Walpole's good opinion, since it was based -upon the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> Besides the above -letters on tragedy, Walpole wrote, 'in 1775 -and 1776,' a rather longer paper on comedy, -which is printed with them in the second volume -of his works (pp. 315-22). He held, as he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>says, 'a good comedy the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef-d'œuvre</i> of -human genius;' and it is manifest that his keenest -sympathies were on the side of comic art. -His remarks upon Congreve are full of just -appreciation. Yet, although he mentions the -<cite>School for Scandal</cite> (which, by the way, shows -that he must have written rather later than the -dates given above), he makes no reference to -the most recent development, in <cite>She Stoops to -Conquer</cite>, of the school of humour and character, -and he seems rather to pose as the advocate -of that genteel or sentimental comedy which -Foote and Goldsmith and Sheridan had striven -to drive from the English stage. When his prejudices -are aroused, he is seldom a safe guide, -and in addition to his personal contempt for -Goldsmith,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> that writer had irritated him by his -reference to the Albemarle Street Club, to -which many of his friends belonged. It was -an additional offence that the 'Miss Biddy -[originally Miss Rachael] Buckskin' of the -comedy was said to stand for Miss Rachael -Lloyd, long housekeeper at Kensington Palace, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>and a member of the club well known both to -himself and to Madame du Deffand.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> - -<p>In the second of the letters to Mr. Jephson, -Walpole refers to his own efforts at comedy, -and implies that he had made attempts in this -direction even before the tragedy of <cite>The Mysterious -Mother</cite>. He had certainly the wit, and -much of the gift of direct expression, which -comedy requires. But nothing of these earlier -essays appears to have survived, and the only -dramatic effort included among his <cite>Works</cite> (his -tragedy excepted) is the little piece entitled -<cite>Nature will Prevail</cite>, which, with its fairy -machinery, has something of the character of -such earlier productions of Mr. W. S. Gilbert -as the <cite>Palace of Truth</cite>. This he wrote in -1773, and, according to the <cite>Short Notes</cite>, sent -it anonymously to the elder Colman, then -manager of Covent Garden. Colman (he says) -was much pleased with it, but regarding it -as too short for a farce, wished to have it -enlarged. This, however, its author thought -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>too much trouble 'for so slight and extempore -a performance.' Five years after, it was produced -at the little theatre in the Haymarket, and, -being admirably acted,—says the <cite>Biographia -Dramatica</cite>,—met with considerable applause. -But it is obviously one of those works to which -the verdict of Goldsmith's critic, that it would -have been better if the author had taken more -pains, may judiciously be applied. It is more -like a sketch for a farce than a farce itself; and -it is not finished enough for a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">proverbe</i>. Yet -the dialogue is in parts so good that one almost -regrets the inability of the author to nerve himself -for an enterprise <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de longue haleine</i>.</p> - -<p>Between 1774 and 1780 the Strawberry Hill -Press still now and then showed signs of vitality. -In 1775, it printed as a loose sheet some verses -by Charles James Fox,—celebrating, as Amoret, -that lover of the Whigs, the beautiful Mrs. -Crewe,—and three hundred copies of an -Eclogue by Mr. Fitzpatrick,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> entitled <cite>Dorinda</cite>, -which contains the couplet,—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'And oh! what Bliss, when each alike is pleas'd,</div> - <div class="verse">the Hand that squeezes, and the Hand that's squeez'd.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>These were followed, in 1778, by the <cite>Sleep -Walker</cite>, a comedy from the French of Madame -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>du Deffand's friend Pont de Veyle, translated -by Lady Craven, afterwards Margravine of -Anspach, and played for a charitable purpose -at Newbury. A year later came the vindication -of his conduct to Chatterton, already mentioned -at pp. <a href="#Page_196">196-200</a>; and after this a sheet of verse -by Mr. Charles Miller to Lady Horatia Waldegrave,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> -a daughter of the Duchess of Gloucester -by her first husband. The last work of any -importance was the fourth volume of the <cite>Anecdotes -of Painting</cite>, which had been printed as far -back as 1770, but was not issued until Oct., -1780. This delay, the Advertisement informs -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>us, arose 'from motives of tenderness.' The -author was 'unwilling [he says] to utter even -gentle censures, which might wound the affections, -or offend the prejudices, of those related -to the persons whom truth forbad him to commend -beyond their merits.'<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> But despite his -unwillingness to 'dispense universal panegyric,' -and the limitation of his theme to living professors, -he manages, in the same Advertisement, -to distribute a fair amount of praise to some of -his particular favourites. Of H. W. Bunbury, -the husband of Goldsmith's 'Little Comedy,' he -says that he is the 'second Hogarth,' and the -'first imitator who ever fully equalled his original,'—which -is sheer extravagance. He lauds -the miniature copying of Lady Lucan, as almost -depreciating the 'exquisite works' of the artists -she follows,—to wit, Cooper and the Olivers; -and he speaks of Lady Di. Beauclerk's drawings -as 'not only inspired by Shakespeare's -insight into nature, but by the graces and taste -of Grecian artists.' After this, the comparison -of Mrs. Damer with Bernini seems almost tame.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> - -<p>Yet her works 'from the life are not inferior to -the antique, and those ... were not more -like.' One can scarcely blame Walpole severely -for this hearty backing of the friends who had -added so much to the attractions of his Gothic -castle; but the value of his criticisms, in many -other instances sound enough, is certainly -impaired by his loyalty to the old-new practice -of 'log-rolling.'</p> - -<p>Lady Di. Beauclerk, whose illustrations to -Dryden's <cite>Fables</cite> are still a frequent item in -second-hand catalogues, has a personal connection -with Strawberry through the curious -little closet bearing her name, which, with the -assistance of Mr. Essex, a Gothic architect -from Cambridge, Walpole in 1776-8 managed -to tuck in between the Cabinet and the Round -Tower. It was built on purpose to hold the -'seven incomparable drawings,' executed in -a fortnight, which her Ladyship prepared, to -illustrate <cite>The Mysterious Mother</cite>. These were -the designs to which he refers in the <cite>Anecdotes -of Painting</cite>, and, in a letter to Mann, says -could not be surpassed by Guido and Salvator -Rosa. They were hung on Indian blue -damask, in frames of black and gold; and -Clive's friend, Miss Pope, the actress, when -she dined at Strawberry, was affected by them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -to such a degree that she shed tears, although -she did not know the story,—an anecdote -which may be regarded either as a genuine -compliment to Lady Di., or a merely histrionic -tribute to her entertainer. 'The drawings,' -Walpole says, 'do not shock and disgust, like -their original, the tragedy;' but they were not -to be shown to the profane. They were, nevertheless, -probably exhibited pretty freely, as a -copy of the play, carefully annotated in MS. -by the author, and bound in blue leather to -match the hangings, was always kept in a -drawer of one of the tables, for the purpose of -explaining them.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> Walpole afterwards added -one or two curiosities to this closet. It contained, -according to the last edition of the -<cite>Catalogue</cite>, a head in basalt of Jupiter Serapis, -and a book of Psalms illuminated by Giulio -Clovio, the latter purchased for £168 at the -Duchess of Portland's sale in May, 1786. There -was also a portrait by Powell, after Reynolds, -of Lady Di. herself, who lived for some time -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>at Twickenham in a house now known as -Little Marble Hill, many of the rooms of -which she decorated with her own performances. -These were apparently the efforts -which prompted the already mentioned postscript -to the <cite>Parish Register of Twickenham</cite>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"Here Genius in a later hour</div> - <div class="verse">Selected its sequester'd bow'r,</div> - <div class="verse">And threw around the verdant room</div> - <div class="verse">The blushing lilac's chill perfume.</div> - <div class="verse">So loose is flung each bold festoon,</div> - <div class="verse">Each bough so breathes the touch of noon,</div> - <div class="verse">The happy pencil so deceives,</div> - <div class="verse">That Flora, doubly jealous, cries,</div> - <div class="verse">'The work's not mine,—yet, trust these eyes,</div> - <div class="verse">'T is my own Zephyr waves the leaves.'"<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Mention has been made of the intermittent -attacks of insanity to which Walpole's nephew, -the third Earl of Orford, was subject. At the -beginning of 1774, he had returned to his senses, -and his uncle, on whom fell the chief care -of his affairs during his illnesses, was, for a -brief period, freed from the irksome strain of an -uncongenial and a thankless duty. In April, -1777, however, Lord Orford's malady broke -out again, with redoubled severity. In August, -he was still fluctuating 'between violence and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>stupidity;' but in March, 1778, a lucid interval -had once more been reached, and Walpole -was relieved of the care of his person. Of his -affairs he had declined to take care, as his -Lordship had employed a lawyer of whom -Walpole had a bad opinion. 'He has resumed -the entire dominion of himself,' says a letter -to Mann in April, 'and is gone into the -country, and intends to command the militia.' -One of the earliest results of this 'entire dominion' -was a step which filled his relative with -the keenest distress. He offered the famous -Houghton collection of pictures to Catherine -of Russia,—'the most signal mortification to -my idolatry for my father's memory that it -could receive,' says Walpole to Lady Ossory. -By August, 1779, the sale was completed. -'The sum stipulated,' he tells Mann, 'is forty -or forty-five thousand pounds,<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> I neither know -nor care which; nor whether the picture -merchant ever receives the whole sum, which -probably he will not do, as I hear it is to be -discharged at three payments,—a miserable -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>bargain for a mighty empress!... Well! -adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I -shall never trouble myself more.... Since -he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not -care a straw what he does with the stone or -the acres!'<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> - -<p>Not very long after the date of the above -letter Walpole made what was, for him, an -important change of residence. The lease of -his house in Arlington Street running out, he -fixed upon a larger one in the then very -fashionable district of Berkeley Square. The -house he selected, now (1892) numbered 11, -was then 40,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> and he had commenced negotiations -for its purchase as early as November, -1777, when, he tells Lady Ossory, he had -come to town to take possession. But difficulties -arose over the sale, and he found himself -involved in a Chancery suit. He was too -adroit, however, to allow this to degenerate -into an additional annoyance, and managed -(by his own account) to turn what promised -to be a tedious course of litigation into a combat -of courtesy. Ultimately, in July, 1779, he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>had won his cause, and was hurrying from -Strawberry to pay his purchase money and -close the bargain. Two months later, he is -moving in, and is delighted with his acquisition. -He would not change his two pretty -mansions for any in England, he says. On -the 14th October, he took formal possession, -upon which day—his 'inauguration day'—he -dates his first letter 'Berkeley Square.' 'It -is seeming to take a new lease of life,' he tells -Mason. 'I was born in Arlington Street, -lived there about fourteen years, returned -thither, and passed thirty-seven more; but I -have sober monitors that warn me not to delude -myself.' He had still a decade and a half -before him.</p> - -<p>Little more than twelve months after he had -settled down in his new abode, he lost the -faithful friend at Paris, to whom, for the space -of fifteen years, he had written nearly once a -week. By 1774, he had become somewhat -nervous about this accumulated correspondence -in a language not his own. For an Englishman, -his French was good, and, as might be expected -of anything he wrote, characteristic and vivacious. -But, almost of necessity, it contained -many minor faults of phraseology and arrangement, -besides abounding in personal anecdote;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -and he became apprehensive lest, after Madame -du Deffand's death, his utterances should fall -into alien hands. General Conway, who visited -Paris in October, 1774, had therefore been -charged to beg for their return—a request -which seems at first to have been met by the -reply on the lady's part that sufficient precautions -had already been taken for ensuring their -restoration. Ultimately, however, they were -handed to Conway.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> It was in all probability -under a sense of this concession that Walpole -once more risked a tedious journey to visit his -blind friend. In the following year he went to -Paris, to find her, as usual, impatiently expecting -his arrival. She sat with him until half-past -two, and before his eyes were open again, he -had a letter from her. 'Her soul is immortal, -and forces her body to keep it company.' A -little later he complains that he never gets to bed -from her suppers before two or three o'clock. -'In short,' he says, 'I need have the activity -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>of a squirrel, and the strength of a Hercules, -to go through my labours,—not to count how -many <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">démêlés</i> I have had to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">raccommode</i> and -how many <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mémoires</i> to present against Tonton,<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> -who grows the greater favourite the more people -he devours.' But Tonton's mistress is more -worth visiting than ever, he tells Selwyn, -and she is apparently as tireless as of yore. -'Madame du Deffand and I [says another letter] -set out last Sunday at seven in the evening, -to go fifteen miles to a ball, and came back after -supper; and another night, because it was but -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>one in the morning when she brought me home, -she ordered the coachman to make the tour of -the Quais, and drive gently because it was so -early.' At last, early in October, he tears himself -away, to be followed almost immediately -by a letter of farewell. Here it is:—</p> - -<p>'Adieu, ce mot est bien triste; souvenez-vous -que vous laissez ici la personne dont vous êtes -le plus aimé, et dont le bonheur et le malheur -consistent dans ce que vous pensez pour elle. -Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles le plus tôt qu'il -sera possible.</p> - -<p>'Je me porte bien, j'ai un peu dormi, ma nuit -n'est pas finie; je serai très-exacte au régime, -et j'aurai soin de moi puisque vous vous y -intéressez.'</p> - -<p>The correspondence thus resumed was continued -for five years more. Walpole does not -seem to have visited Paris again, and the references -to Madame du Deffand in his general -correspondence are not very frequent. Towards -the middle of 1780, her life was plainly closing -in. In July and August, she complained of -being more than usually languid, and in a letter -of the 22nd of the latter month intimates that -it may be her last, as dictation grows painful to -her. 'Ne vous devant revoir de ma vie,'—she -says pathetically,—'je n'ai rien à regretter.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -From this time she kept her bed, and in September -Walpole tells Lady Ossory that he is -trembling at every letter he gets from Paris. -'My dear old friend, I fear, is going!... -To have struggled twenty days at eighty-four -shows such stamina that I have not totally lost -hopes.' On the 24th, however, after a lethargy -of several days, she died quietly, 'without effort -or struggle.' 'Elle a eu la mort la plus douce,'—says -her faithful and attached secretary, -Wiart,—'quoique la maladie ait été longue.' -She was buried, at her own wish, in the parish -church of St. Sulpice. By her will she made -her nephew, the Marquis d'Aulan, her heir. -Long since, she had wished Walpole to accept -this character. Thereupon he had threatened -that he would never set foot in Paris again if -she carried out her intention; and it was abandoned. -But she left him the whole of her -manuscripts<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> and books.</p> - -<p>As his own letters to her have not been -printed, her death makes no difference in the -amount of his correspondence. The war with -the American Colonies, of which he foresaw -the disastrous results, and the course of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>which he follows to Mann with the greatest -keenness, fully absorbs as much of his time -as he can spare from the vagaries of the -Duchess of Kingston and the doings of the -Duchess of Gloucester. Not many months -before Madame du Deffand died had occurred -the famous Gordon Riots, which, as he was -in London most of the time, naturally occupy -his pen. It was General Conway who, as the -author of <cite>Barnaby Rudge</cite> has not forgotten, -so effectively remonstrated with Lord George -upon the occasion of the visit of the mob to -the House of Commons; and four days later -Walpole chronicles from Berkeley Square the -events of the terrible 'Black Wednesday.' -From the roof of Gloucester House he sees -the blazing prisons,—a sight he shall not soon -forget. Other subjects for which one dips in -the lucky bag of his records are the defence -of Gibraltar, the trial of Warren Hastings, the -loss of the <cite>Royal George</cite>. But it is generally -in the minor chronicle that he is most diverting. -The last <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon mot</i> of George Selwyn or -Lady Townshend, the newest 'royal pregnancy,' -the details of court ceremonial, the -most recent addition to Strawberry, the endless -stream of anecdote and tittle-tattle which -runs dimpling all the way,—these are the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -themes he loves best; this is the element in -which his easy persiflage delights to disport -itself. He is, above all, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rieur</i>. About his -serious passages there is generally a false -ring, but never when he pours out the gossip -that he loves, and of which he has so inexhaustible -a supply. 'I can sit and amuse -myself with my own memory,' he says to -Mann in February, 1785, 'and yet find new -stores at every audience that I give to it. Then, -for private episodes [he has been speaking of -his knowledge of public events], varieties of -characters, political intrigues, literary anecdotes, -etc., the profusion that I remember is endless; -in short, when I reflect on all I have seen, -heard, read, written, the many idle hours I have -passed, the nights I have wasted playing at -faro, the weeks, nay months, I have spent -in pain, you will not wonder that I almost -think I have, like Pythagoras, been Panthoides -Euphorbus, and have retained one memory in -at least two bodies.'</p> - -<p>He was sixty-eight when he wrote the above -letter. Mann was eighty-four, and the long -correspondence—a correspondence 'not to be -paralleled in the annals of the Post Office'—was -drawing to a close. 'What Orestes and -Pylades ever wrote to each other for four-and-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>forty -years without meeting?' Walpole asks. -In June, 1786, however, the last letter of the -eight hundred and nine specimens printed by -Cunningham was despatched to Florence.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> In -the following November, Mann died, after a -prolonged illness. He had never visited England, -nor had Walpole set eyes upon him since -he had left him at Florence in May, 1741. -His death followed hard upon that of another -faithful friend (whose gifts, perhaps, hardly -lay in the epistolary line),—bustling, kindly -Kitty Clive. Her cheerful, ruddy face, 'all -sun and vermilion,' set peacefully in December, -1785, leaving Cliveden vacant, not, as we -shall see, for long.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> Earlier still had departed -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>another old ally, Cole, the antiquary, and the -lapse of time had in other ways contracted -Walpole's circle. In 1781, Lady Orford had -ended her erratic career at Pisa, leaving her -son a fortune so considerable as to make his -uncle regret vaguely that the sale of the -Houghton pictures had not been delayed for -a few months longer. Three years later, she -was followed by her brother-in-law, Sir Edward -Walpole,—an occurrence which had the effect -of leaving between Horace Walpole and his -father's title nothing but his lunatic and childless -nephew.</p> - -<p>If his relatives and friends were falling -away, however, their places—the places of the -friends, at least—were speedily filled again; -and, as a general rule, most of his male favourites -were replaced by women. Pinkerton, -the antiquary, who afterwards published the -<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, is one of the exceptions; and -several of Walpole's letters to him are contained -in that book, and in the volumes of -Pinkerton's own correspondence published by -Dawson Turner in 1830. But Walpole's appetite -for correspondence of the purely literary -kind had somewhat slackened in his old age, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>and it was to the other sex that he turned for -sympathy and solace. He liked them best; -his style suited them; and he wrote to them -with most ease. In July, 1785, he was visited -at Strawberry by Madame de Genlis, who -arrived with her friend Miss Wilkes and the -famous Pamela,<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> afterwards Lady Edward Fitzgerald. -Madame de Genlis at this date was -nearing forty, and had lost much of her good -looks. But Walpole seems to have found her -less <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">précieuse</i> and affected than he had anticipated, -and she was, on this occasion, unaccompanied -by the inevitable harp. A later -visit was from Dr. Burney and his daughter -Fanny,—'Evelina-Cecilia' Walpole calls her,—a -young lady for whose good sense and -modesty he expresses a genuine admiration. -Miss Burney had not as yet entered upon that -court bondage which was to be so little to -her advantage. Another and more intimate -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>acquaintanceship of this period was with Miss -Burney's friend, Hannah More. Hannah -More ultimately became one of Walpole's -correspondents, although scarcely 'so corresponding' -as he wished; and they met frequently -in society when she visited London. -On her side, she seems to have been wholly -fascinated by his wit and conversational -powers; he, on his, was attracted by her -mingled puritanism and vivacity. He writes to -her as 'St. Hannah;' and she, in return, sighs -plaintively over his lack of religion. Yet (she -adds) she 'must do him the justice to say, -that except the delight he has in teasing me -for what he calls over-strictness, I have never -heard a sentence from him which savoured of -infidelity.'<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> He evidently took a great interest -in her works, and indeed in 1789 printed at -his press one of her poems, <cite>Bonner's Ghost</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>His friendship for her endured for the remainder -of his life; and not long before his death he -presented her with a richly bound copy of -Bishop Wilson's <cite>Bible</cite>, with a complimentary -inscription which may be read in the second -volume of her Life and Correspondence.</p> - -<p>It was, however, neither the author of <cite>Evelina</cite> -nor the author of <cite>The Manners of the -Great</cite> who was destined to fill the void created -by the death of Madame du Deffand. In the -winter of 1787-8, he had first seen, and a year -later he made the formal acquaintance of, 'two -young ladies of the name of Berry.' They had -a story. Their father, at this time a widower, -had married for love, and had afterwards been -supplanted in the good graces of a rich uncle -by a younger brother who had the generosity -to allow him an annuity of a thousand a year. -In 1783, Mr. Berry had taken his daughters -abroad to Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, -whence, in June, 1785, they had returned, being -then highly cultivated and attractive young -women of two-and-twenty and one-and-twenty -respectively. Three years later, Walpole met -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>them for the second time at the house of a Lady -Herries, the wife of a banker in St. James's -Street. The first time he saw them he 'would -not be acquainted with them, having heard so -much in their praise that he concluded they -would be all pretension.' But on the second -occasion, 'in a very small company,' he sat next -the elder, Mary, 'and found her an angel both -inside and out.' 'Her face'—he tells Lady -Ossory—'is formed for a sentimental novel, -but it is ten times fitter for a fifty times better -thing, genteel comedy.' The other sister was -speedily discovered to be nearly as charming. -'They are exceedingly sensible, entirely natural -and unaffected, frank, and, being qualified to -talk on any subject, nothing is so easy and agreeable -as their conversation, nor more apposite -than their answers and observations. The eldest, -I discovered by chance, understands Latin, and -is a perfect Frenchwoman in her language. The -younger draws charmingly, and has copied -admirably Lady Di.'s gipsies,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> which I lent, -though for the first time of her attempting -colours. They are of pleasing figures: Mary, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>the eldest, sweet, with fine dark eyes that are -very lively when she speaks, with a symmetry -of face that is the more interesting from being -pale; Agnes, the younger, has an agreeable, sensible -countenance, hardly to be called handsome, -but almost. She is less animated than Mary, -but seems, out of deference to her sister, to -speak seldomer; for they dote on each other, -and Mary is always praising her sister's talents. -I must even tell you they dress within the bounds -of fashion, though fashionably; but without the -excrescences and balconies with which modern -hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons. -In short, good sense, information, simplicity, -and ease characterize the Berrys; and this is -not particularly mine, who am apt to be prejudiced, -but the universal voice of all who know -them.'<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p> - -<p>'This delightful family,' he goes on to say, -'comes to me almost every Sunday evening. -[They were at the time living on Twickenham -Common.] Of the father not much is recorded -beyond the fact that he was 'a little merry man -with a round face,' and (as his eldest daughter -reports) 'an odd inherent easiness in his disposition,' -who seems to have been perfectly -contented in his modest and unobtrusive char<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>acter -of paternal appendage to the favourites. -Walpole's attachment to his new friends grew -rapidly. Only a few days after the date of the -foregoing letter, Mr. Kirgate's press was versifying -in their honour, and they themselves were -already 'his two Straw Berries,' whose praises -he sang to all his friends. He delighted in devising -new titles for them,—they were his 'twin -wives,' his 'dear Both,' his 'Amours.' For -them in this year he began writing the charming -little volume of <cite>Reminiscences of the Courts of -George the 1st and 2nd</cite>, and in December, 1789, -he dedicated to them his <cite>Catalogue of Strawberry -Hill</cite>. It was not long before he had -secured them a home at Teddington and finally, -when, in 1791, Cliveden became vacant, he prevailed -upon them to become his neighbours. -He afterwards bequeathed the house to them, -and for many years after his death, it was their -summer residence. On either side the acquaintance -was advantageous. His friendship at once -introduced them to the best and most accomplished -fashionable society of their day, while -the charm of their 'company, conversation and -talents' must have inexpressibly sweetened and -softened what, on his part, had begun to grow -more and more a solitary, joyless, and painful -old age.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> - -<p>His establishment of his 'wives' in his immediate -vicinity was not, however, accomplished -without difficulty. For a moment some ill-natured -newspaper gossip, which attributed the -attachment of the Berry family to interested -motives, so justly aroused the indignation of the -elder sister that the whole arrangement threatened -to collapse. But the slight estrangement -thus caused soon passed away; and at the close -of 1791, they took up their abode in Mrs. -Clive's old house, now doubly honoured. On -the 5th of the December in the same year, after -a fresh fit of frenzy, Walpole's nephew died, and -he became fourth Earl of Orford. The new -dignity was by no means a welcome one, and -scarcely compensated for the cares which it -entailed. 'A small estate, loaded with debt, -and of which I do not understand the management, -and am too old to learn; a source of law -suits amongst my near relations, though not -affecting me; endless conversations with lawyers, -and packets of letters to read every day -and answer,—all this weight of new business -is too much for the rag of life that yet hangs -about me, and was preceded by three weeks of -anxiety about my unfortunate nephew, and a -daily correspondence with physicians and mad-doctors, -falling upon me when I had been out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -of order ever since July.'<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> 'For the other -empty metamorphosis,' he writes to Hannah -More, 'that has happened to the outward man, -you do me justice in concluding that it can do -nothing but tease me; it is being called names -in one's old age. I had rather be my Lord -Mayor, for then I should keep the nickname -but a year; and mine I may retain a little -longer,—not that at seventy-five I reckon on -becoming my Lord Methusalem.' For some -time he could scarcely bring himself to use his -new signature, and occasionally varied it by -describing himself as 'The uncle of the late -Earl of Orford.' In 1792, he delivered himself, -after the fashion of Cowley, of the following -<cite>Epitaphium vivi Auctoris</cite>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'An estate and an earldom at seventy-four!</div> - <div class="verse">Had I sought them or wished them, 'twould add one fear more,—</div> - <div class="verse">That of making a countess when almost four-score.</div> - <div class="verse">But Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of season,</div> - <div class="verse">Though unkind to my limbs, has still left me my reason;</div> - <div class="verse">And whether she lowers or lifts me, I'll try,</div> - <div class="verse">In the plain simple style I have lived in, to die:</div> - <div class="verse">For ambition too humble, for manners too high.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The last line seems like another of the many -echoes of Goldsmith's <cite>Retaliation</cite>. As for the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>fear indicated in the third, it is hinted that this -at one time bade fair to be something more -than a poetical apprehension. If we are to -credit a tradition handed down by Lord Lansdowne, -he had been willing to go through the -form of marriage with either of the Berrys, -merely to secure their society, and to enrich -them, as he had the power of charging the -Orford estate with a jointure of £2000 per -annum. But this can only have been a passing -thought at some moment when their absence, -in Italy or elsewhere, left him more sensitive -to the loss of their gracious and stimulating -presence. He himself was far too keenly alive -to ridicule, and too much in bondage to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les -bienséances</i>, to take a step which could scarcely -escape ill-natured comment; and Mary Berry, -who would certainly have been his preference, -was not only as fully alive as was he to the -shafts of the censorious, but, during the greater -part of her acquaintanceship with him, was, -apparently with his knowledge, warmly attached -to a certain good-looking General -O'Hara, who, a year before Walpole's death, -in November, 1796, definitely proposed. He -had just been appointed Governor of Gibraltar, -and he wished Miss Berry to marry him at -once, and go out with him. This, 'out of con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>sideration -for others,' she declined to do. A -few months later the engagement was broken -off, and she never again saw her soldier admirer. -Whether Lord Orford's comfort went for anything -in this adjournment of her happiness, does -not clearly appear; but it is only reasonable to -suppose that his tenacious desire for her companionship -had its influence in a decision which, -however much it may have been for the best -(and there were those of her friends who regarded -it as a providential escape), was nevertheless -a lifelong source of regret to herself. -When, in 1802, she heard suddenly at the -Opera of O'Hara's death, she fell senseless to -the floor.</p> - -<p>The 'late Horace Walpole' never took his -seat in the House of Lords. He continued, -as before, to divide his time between Berkeley -Square and Strawberry, to eulogize his 'wives' -to Lady Ossory, and to watch life from his -beloved Blue Room. Now and then he did -the rare honours of his home to a distinguished -guest,—in 1793, it was the Duchess of York; -in 1795, Queen Charlotte herself. In the -latter year died his old friend Conway, by -this time a Field-Marshal; and it was evident -at the close of 1796 that his faithful correspondent -would not long survive him. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -ailments had increased, and in the following -January, he wrote his last letter to Lady -Ossory:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -Jan. 15, 1797.<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">My dear Madam</span>,—<br /> -</p> - -<p>You distress me infinitely by showing my idle -notes, which I cannot conceive can amuse anybody. -My old-fashioned breeding impels me -every now and then to reply to the letters you -honour me with writing, but in truth very unwillingly, -for I seldom can have anything -particular to say; I scarce go out of my own -house, and then only to two or three very -private places, where I see nobody that really -knows anything, and what I learn comes from -Newspapers, that collect intelligence from -coffee-houses, consequently what I neither -believe nor report. At home I see only a -few charitable elders, except about four-score -nephews and nieces of various ages, who are -each brought to me about once a-year, to stare -at me as the Methusalem of the family, and -they can only speak of their own contemporaries, -which interest me no more than if -they talked of their dolls, or bats and balls. -Must not the result of all this, Madam, make -me a very entertaining correspondent? And -can such letters be worth showing? or can I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -have any spirit when so old, and reduced to -dictate?</p> - -<p>Oh! my good Madam, dispense with me -from such a task, and think how it must add -to it to apprehend such letters being shown. -Pray send me no more such laurels, which I -desire no more than their leaves when decked -with a scrap of tinsel, and stuck on twelfth-cakes -that lie on the shop-boards of pastry-cooks -at Christmas. I shall be quite content -with a sprig of rosemary thrown after me, when -the parson of the parish commits my dust to -dust. Till then, pray, Madam, accept the -resignation of your</p> - -<p> -Ancient servant,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Orford</span>. -</p></div> - -<p>Six weeks after the date of the above letter, -he died at his house in Berkeley Square, to -which he had been moved at the close of the -previous year. During the latter days of his -life, he suffered from a cruel lapse of memory, -which led him to suppose himself neglected -even by those who had but just quitted him. -He sank gradually, and expired without pain -on the 2nd of March, 1797, being then in his -eightieth year. He was buried at the family -seat of Houghton.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> - -<p>His fortune, over and above his leases, -amounted to ninety-one thousand pounds. -To each of the Miss Berrys he left the sum -of £4000 for their lives, together with the -house and garden of 'Little Strawberry' -(Cliveden), the long meadow in front of it, -and all the furniture. He also bequeathed to -them and to their father his printed works -and his manuscripts, with discretionary power -to publish. It was understood that the real -editorship was to fall on the elder sister, who -forthwith devoted herself to her task. The -result was the edition, in five quarto volumes, -of Lord Orford's <cite>Works</cite>, which has been so -often referred to during the progress of these -pages, and which appeared in 1798. It was -entirely due to Mary Berry's unremitting care, -her father's share being confined to a final paragraph -in the preface, in which she is eulogized.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> -<p>Strawberry Hill passed to Mrs. Damer for -life, together with £2000 to keep it in repair. -After living in it for some years, she resigned -it, in 1811, to the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, -in whom the remainder in fee was -vested. It subsequently passed to George, -seventh Earl of Waldegrave, who sold its contents -in 1842. At his death, in 1846, he left -it to his widow, Frances, Countess of Waldegrave, -who married the Rt. Hon. Chichester S. -Parkinson-Fortescue, later Lord Carlingford. -Lady Waldegrave died in 1879; but she had -greatly added to and extended the original -building, besides restoring many of the objects -by which it had been decorated in Walpole's -day.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Macaulay on Walpole.—Effect of the <cite>Edinburgh</cite> Essay.—Macaulay -and Mary Berry.—Portraits of Walpole.—Miss -Hawkins's Description.—Pinkerton's Rainy Day at Strawberry.—Walpole's -Character as a Man; as a Virtuoso; as a -Politician; as an Author and Letter-writer.</p></div> - - -<p>When, in October, 1833, Lord (then Mr.) -Macaulay completed for the <cite>Edinburgh</cite> -his review of Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's -letters to Sir Horace Mann, he had apparently -performed to his entire satisfaction the operation -known, in the workmanlike vocabulary of -the time, as 'dusting the jacket' of his unfortunate -reviewee. 'I was up at four this morning -to put the last touch to it,' he tells his sister -Hannah. 'I often differ with the majority -about other people's writings, and still oftener -about my own; and therefore I may very likely -be mistaken; but I think that this article will -be a hit.... Nothing ever cost me more -pains than the first half; I never wrote anything -so flowingly as the latter half; and I like the -latter half the best. [The latter half, it should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -be stated, was a rapid and very brilliant sketch -of Sir Robert Walpole; the earlier, which -involved so much labour, was the portrait of -Sir Robert's youngest son.] I have laid it on -Walpole [<i>i. e.</i>, Horace Walpole] so unsparingly,' -he goes on to say, 'that I shall not be -surprised if Miss Berry should cut me.... -Neither am I sure that Lord and Lady Holland -will be well pleased.'<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p> - -<p>His later letters show him to have been a -true prophet. Macvey Napier, then the editor -of the 'Blue and Yellow,' was enthusiastic, -praising the article 'in terms absolutely extravagant.' -'He says that it is the best that I -ever wrote,' the critic tells his favourite correspondent,—a -statement which at this date must -be qualified by the fact that he penned some -of his most famous essays subsequent to its -appearance. On the other hand, Miss Berry -resented the review so much that Sir Stratford -Canning advised its author not to go near her. -But apparently her anger was soon dispelled, -for the same letter which makes this announcement -relates that she was already appeased. -Lady Holland, too, was 'in a rage,' though -with what part of the article does not transpire, -while her good-natured husband told Macaulay -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>privately that he quite agreed with him, but that -they had better not discuss the subject. Lady -Holland's irritation was probably prompted by -her intimacy with the Waldegrave family, to -whom the letters edited by Lord Dover belonged, -and for whose benefit they were published. -But, as Macaulay said justly, his -article was surely not calculated to injure the -sale of the book. Her imperious ladyship's -displeasure, however, like that of Miss Berry, -was of brief duration. Macaulay was too -necessary to her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">réunions</i> to be long exiled -from her little court.</p> - -<p>Among those who occupy themselves in such -enquiries, it has been matter for speculation -what particular grudge Macaulay could have -cherished against Horace Walpole when, to -use his own expression, he laid it on him 'so -unsparingly.' To this his correspondence affords -no clue. Mr. Cunningham holds that -he did it 'to revenge the dislike which Walpole -bore to the Bedford faction, the followers -of Fox and the Shelburne school.' It is possible, -as another authority has suggested, that -'in the Whig circles of Macaulay's time, there -existed a traditional grudge against Horace -Walpole,' owing to obscure political causes -connected with his influence over his friend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -Conway. But these reasons do not seem -relevant enough to make Macaulay's famous -onslaught a mere <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vendetta</i>. It is more reasonable -to suppose that between his avowed -delight in Walpole as a letter-writer, and his -robust contempt for him as an individual, he -found a subject to his hand, which admitted -of all the brilliant antithesis and sparkle of -epigram which he lavished upon it. Walpole's -trivialities and eccentricities, his whims -and affectations, are seized with remorseless -skill, and presented with all the rhetorical -advantages with which the writer so well knew -how to invest them. As regards his literary -estimate, the truth of the picture can scarcely -be gainsaid; but the personal character, as -Walpole's surviving friends felt, is certainly -too much <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en noir</i>. Miss Berry, indeed, in her -'Advertisement' to vol. vi. of Wright's edition -of the <cite>Letters</cite>, raised a gentle cry of expostulation -against the entire representation. She -laid stress upon the fact that Macaulay had -not known Walpole in the flesh (a disqualification -to which too much weight may easily -be assigned); she dwelt upon the warmth of -Walpole's attachments; she contested the -charge of affectation; and, in short, made such -a gallant attempt at a defence as her loyalty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -to her old friend enabled her to offer. Yet, if -Macaulay had never known Walpole at all, -she herself, it might be urged, had only known -him in his old age. Upon the whole, 'with -due allowance for a spice of critical pepper -on one hand, and a handful of friendly rosemary -on the other,' as Croker says, both -characters are 'substantially true.' Under -Macaulay's brush Walpole is depicted as he -appeared to that critic's masculine and (for the -nonce) unsympathetic spirit; in Miss Berry's -picture, the likeness is touched with a pencil at -once grateful, affectionate, and indulgent. The -biographer of to-day, who is neither endeavouring -to portray Walpole in his most favourable -aspect, nor preoccupied (as Cunningham supposed -the great Whig essayist to have been) -with what would be thought of his work 'at -Woburn, at Kensington, and in Berkeley -Square,' may safely borrow details from the -delineation of either artist.</p> - -<p>Of portraits of Walpole (not in words) there -is no lack. Besides that belonging to Mrs. -Bedford, described at p. <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, there is the enamel -by Zincke painted in 1745, which is reproduced -at p. 71 of vol. i. of Cunningham's edition -of the letters. There is another portrait of him -by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., in the National<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -Portrait Gallery. A more characteristic presentment -than any of these is the little drawing by -Müntz which shows his patron sitting in the -Library at Strawberry, with the Thames and a -passing barge seen through the open window. -But his most interesting portraits are two which -exhibit him in manhood and old age. One is -the half-length by J. G. Eckardt which once -hung in its black-and-gold frame in the Blue -Bedchamber, near the companion pictures of -Gray and Bentley.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> Like these, it was 'from -Vandyck,' that is to say, it was in a costume -copied from that painter, and depicts the sitter -in a laced collar and ruffles, leaning upon a copy -of the <cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite>, with a view of part -of the Gothic castle in the distance. The -canvas bears at the back the date of 1754, so -that it represents him at the age of seven-and-thirty. -The shaven face is rather lean than thin, -the forehead high, the brown hair brushed back -and slightly curled. The eyes are dark, bright, -and intelligent, and the small mouth wears a -slight smile. The other, a drawing made for -Samuel Lysons by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is that -of a much older man, having been executed in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>1796. The eyelids droop wearily, the thin lips -have a pinched, mechanical urbanity, and the -features are worn by years and ill-health. It -was reproduced by T. Evans as a frontispiece -for vol. i. of his works. There are other portraits -by Reynolds, 1757 (which McArdell and -Reading engraved), by Rosalba, Falconet, and -Dance;<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> but it is sufficient to have indicated -those mentioned above.</p> - -<p>Of the Walpole of later years there are more -descriptions than one, and among these, that -given by Miss Hawkins, the daughter of the -pompous author of the <cite>History of Music</cite>, is, if -the most familiar, also the most graphic. Sir -John Hawkins was Walpole's neighbour at -Twickenham House, and the <cite>History</cite> is said to -have been undertaken at Walpole's instance. -Miss Hawkins's description is of Walpole as -she recalled him before 1772. 'His figure,' -she says, ' ... was not merely tall, but more -properly <em>long</em> and slender to excess; his complexion, -and particularly his hands, of a most -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>unhealthy paleness.... His eyes were remarkably -bright and penetrating, very dark and -lively; his voice was not strong, but his tones -were extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, -highly gentlemanly. I do not remember his -common gait;<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> he always entered a room in -that style of affected delicacy, which fashion -had then made almost natural,—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chapeau bras</i> -between his hands as if he wished to compress -it, or under his arm, knees bent, and feet on -tip-toe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress -in visiting was most usually, in summer when I -most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat -embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk -worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, -and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. -I remember when a child, thinking him very -much under-dressed if at any time, except in -mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer -no powder, but his wig combed straight, -and showing his very smooth pale forehead, and -queued behind; in winter powder.'<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> - -<p>Pinkerton, who knew Walpole from 1784 -until his death, and whose disappointment of a -legacy is supposed, in places, to have mingled -a more than justifiable amount of gall with his -ink, has nevertheless left a number of interesting -particulars respecting his habits and personal -characteristics. They are too long to quote -entire, but are, at the same time, too picturesque -to be greatly compressed. He contradicts -Miss Hawkins in one respect, for he says -Walpole was 'short and slender,' but 'compact -and neatly formed,'—an account which -is confirmed by Müntz's full-length. 'When -viewed from behind, he had somewhat of a -boyish appearance, owing to the form of his -person, and the simplicity of his dress.' None -of his pictures, says Pinkerton, 'express the -placid goodness of his eyes,<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> which would often -sparkle with sudden rays of wit, or dart forth -flashes of the most keen and intuitive intelligence. -His laugh was forced and uncouth, and -even his smile not the most pleasing.'</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> -<p>'His walk was enfeebled by the gout; -which, if the editor's memory do not deceive, -he mentioned that he had been tormented -with since the age of twenty-five; adding, -at the same time, that it was no hereditary -complaint, his father, Sir Robert Walpole, -who always drank ale, never having known -that disorder, and far less his other parent. -This painful complaint not only affected his -feet, but attacked his hands to such a degree -that his fingers were always swelled and deformed, -and discharged large chalk-stones once -or twice a year; upon which occasions he -would observe, with a smile, that he must -set up an inn, for he could chalk up a score -with more ease and rapidity than any man in -England.'</p> - -<p>After referring to the strict temperance of -his life, Pinkerton goes on:—</p> - -<p>'Though he sat up very late, either writing -or conversing, he generally rose about nine -o'clock, and appeared in the breakfast room, -his constant and chosen apartment, with fine -vistos towards the Thames. His approach -was proclaimed, and attended, by a favourite -little dog, the legacy of the Marquise du -Deffand,<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> and which ease and attention had -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>rendered so fat that it could hardly move. -This was placed beside him on a small sofa; -the tea-kettle, stand, and heater were brought -in, and he drank two or three cups of that -liquor out of most rare and precious ancient -porcelain of Japan, of a fine white, embossed -with large leaves. The account of his china -cabinet, in his description of his villa, will -show how rich he was in that elegant luxury.... -The loaf and butter were not spared, ... -and the dog and the squirrels had a liberal -share of his repast.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p> - -<p>'Dinner [his hour for which was four] was -served up in the small parlour, or large dining -room, as it happened: in winter generally the -former. His valet supported him downstairs;<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> -and he ate most moderately of chicken, pheasant, -or any light food. Pastry he disliked, as -difficult of digestion, though he would taste a -morsel of venison pye. Never, but once that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -he drank two glasses of white-wine, did the -editor see him taste any liquor, except ice-water. -A pail of ice was placed under the -table, in which stood a decanter of water, from -which he supplied himself with his favourite -beverage....</p> - -<p>'If his guest liked even a moderate quantity -of wine, he must have called for it during -dinner, for almost instantly after he rang the -bell to order coffee upstairs. Thither he -would pass about five o'clock; and generally -resuming his place on the sofa, would sit till -two o'clock in the morning, in miscellaneous -chit-chat, full of singular anecdotes, strokes of -wit, and acute observations, occasionally sending -for books or curiosities, or passing to the -library, as any reference happened to arise -in conversation. After his coffee he tasted -nothing; but the snuff box of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tabac d'étrennes</i> -from Fribourg's was not forgotten, and was -replenished from a canister lodged in an ancient -marble urn of great thickness, which stood -in the window seat, and served to secure its -moisture and rich flavour.</p> - -<p>'Such was a private rainy day of Horace -Walpole. The forenoon quickly passed in -roaming through the numerous apartments -of the house, in which, after twenty visits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -still something new would occur; and he was -indeed constantly adding fresh acquisitions. -Sometimes a walk in the grounds would intervene, -on which occasions he would go out -in his slippers through a thick dew; and he -never wore a hat. He said that, on his first -visit to Paris, he was ashamed of his effeminacy, -when he saw every little meagre Frenchman, -whom even he could have thrown down -with a breath, walking without a hat, which -he could not do, without a certainty of that -disease, which the Germans say is endemial -in England, and is termed by the natives -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le-catch-cold</i>.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> The first trial cost him a slight -fever, but he got over it, and never caught -cold afterwards: draughts of air, damp rooms, -windows open at his back, all situations were -alike to him in this respect. He would even -show some little offence at any solicitude, -expressed by his guests on such an occasion, -as an idea arising from the seeming tenderness -of his frame; and would say, with a half smile -of good-humoured crossness, "My back is the -same with my face, and my neck is like my -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>nose."<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> His iced water he not only regarded -as a preservative from such an accident, but he -would sometimes observe that he thought his -stomach and bowels would last longer than his -bones; such conscious vigour and strength in -those parts did he feel from the use of that -beverage.'<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p> - -<p>The only particular that Cunningham adds to -this chronicle of his habits is one too characteristic -of the man to be omitted. After dinner at -Strawberry, he says, the smell was removed by -'a censer or pot of frankincense.' According -to the <cite>Description</cite>, etc., there was a tripod of -ormolu kept in the Breakfast Room for this -purpose. It is difficult to identify the 'ancient -marble urn of great thickness' in which the -snuff was stored; but it may have been that 'of -granite, brought from one of the Greek Islands, -and given to Sir Robert Walpole by Sir Charles -Wager,' which also figures in the Catalogue.</p> - -<p>Walpole's character may be considered in a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>fourfold aspect, as a man, a virtuoso, a politician, -and an author. The first is the least easy to -describe. What strikes one most forcibly is, -that he was primarily and before all an aristocrat, -or, as in his own day he would have been -called, a 'person of quality,' whose warmest -sympathies were reserved for those of his own -rank. Out of the charmed circle of the peerage -and baronetage, he had few strong connections; -and although in middle life he corresponded -voluminously with antiquaries such as Cole and -Zouch, and in the languor of his old age turned -eagerly to the renovating society of young -women such as Hannah More and the Miss -Berrys, however high his heart may have placed -them, it may be doubted whether his head ever -quite exalted them to the level of Lady Caroline -Petersham, or Lady Ossory, or Her Grace of -Gloucester. In a measure, this would also -account for his unsympathetic attitude to some -of the great <em>literati</em> of his day. With Gray he -had been at school and college, which made a -difference; but he no doubt regarded Fielding -and Hogarth and Goldsmith and Johnson, apart -from their confessed hostility to 'high life' and -his beloved 'genteel comedy,' as gifted but undesirable -outsiders,—'horn-handed breakers of -the glebe' in Art and Letters,—with whom it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -would be impossible to be as intimately familiar -as one could be with such glorified amateurs as -Bunbury and Lady Lucan and Lady Di. Beauclerk, -who were all more or less born in the -purple. To the friends of his own class he was -constant and considerate, and he seems to have -cherished a genuine affection for Conway, -George Montagu, and Sir Horace Mann. With -regard to Gray, his relations, it would seem, -were rather those of intellectual affinity and -esteem than downright affection. But his closest -friends were women. In them, that is, in the -women of his time, he found just that atmosphere -of sunshine and <em>insouciance</em>,—those conversational -'lilacs and nightingales,'—in which -his soul delighted, and which were most congenial -to his restless intelligence and easily -fatigued temperament. To have seen him at -his best, one should have listened to him, not -when he was playing the antiquary with Ducarel -or Conyers Middleton, but gossipping of ancient -green-room scandals at Cliveden, or explaining -the mysteries of the 'Officina Arbuteana' to -Madame de Boufflers or Lady Townshend, or -delighting Mary and Agnes Berry, in the half-light -of the Round Drawing Room at Strawberry, -with his old stories of Lady Suffolk and -Lady Hervey, and of the monstrous raven, under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -guise of which the disembodied spirit of His -Majesty King George the First was supposed -to have revisited the disconsolate Duchess of -Kendal. Comprehending thoroughly that cardinal -precept of conversation,—'never to weary -your hearer,'—he was an admirable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">raconteur</i>; -and his excellent memory, shrewd perceptions, -and volatile wit—all the more piquant for its -never-failing mixture of well-bred malice—must -have made him a most captivating companion. -If, as Scott says, his temper was 'precarious,' -it is more charitable to remember that in middle -and later life he was nearly always tormented -with a malady seldom favourable to good -humour, than to explain the less amiable details -of his conduct (as does Mr. Croker) by the -hereditary taint of insanity. In a life of eighty -years many hot friendships cool, even with -tempers not 'precarious.' As regards the -charges sometimes made against him of coldness -and want of generosity, very good evidence -would be required before they could be held to -be established; and a man is not necessarily -niggardly because his benefactions do not come -up to the standard of all the predatory members -of the community. It is besides clear, as Conway -and Madame du Deffand would have testified, -that he could be royally generous when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -necessity required. That he was careful rather -than lavish in his expenditure must be admitted. -It may be added that he was very much in -bondage to public opinion, and morbidly sensitive -to ridicule.</p> - -<p>As a virtuoso and amateur, his position is a -mixed one. He was certainly widely different -from that typical art connoisseur of his day,—the -butt of Goldsmith and of Reynolds,—who travelled -the Grand Tour to litter a gallery at home -with broken-nosed busts and the rubbish of the -Roman picture-factories. As the preface to the -<cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite> showed, he really knew -something about painting, in fact was a capable -draughtsman himself; and besides, through Mann -and others, had enjoyed exceptional opportunities -for procuring genuine antiques. But his -collection was not so rich in this way as might -have been anticipated; and his portraits, his -china, and his miniatures were probably his best -possessions. For the rest, he was an indiscriminate -rather than an eclectic collector; and there -was also considerable truth in that strange 'attraction -from the great to the little, and from -the useful to the odd,' which Macaulay has -noted. Many of the marvels at Strawberry -would never have found a place in the treasure-houses—say -of Beckford or Samuel Rogers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -It is difficult to fancy Bermingham's fables in -paper on looking-glass, or Hubert's cardcuttings, -or the fragile mosaics of Mrs. Delany either at -Fonthill or St. James's Place. At the same -time, it should be remembered that several of -the most trivial or least defensible objects were -presents which possibly reflected rather the -charity of the recipient than the good taste of -the giver. All the articles over which Macaulay -lingers—Wolsey's hat, Van Tromp's pipe-case, -and King William's spurs—were obtained in -this way; and (with a laugher) Horace Walpole, -who laughed a good deal himself, would probably -have made as merry as the most mirth-loving -spectator could have desired. But such items -gave a heterogeneous character to the gathering, -and turned what might have been a model -museum into an old curiosity-shop. In any -case, however, it was a memorable curiosity-shop, -and in this modern era of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bric-à-brac</i> -would probably attract far more serious attention -than it did in those practical and pre-æsthetic -days of 1842, when it fell under the hammer of -George Robins.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> -<p>Walpole's record as a politician is a brief one, -and if his influence upon the questions of his -time was of any importance, it must have been -exercised unobtrusively. During the period of -the 'great Walpolean battle,' as Junius styled -the struggle that culminated in the downfall of -Lord Orford, he was a fairly regular attendant -in the House of Commons; and, as we have -seen, spoke in his father's behalf when the -motion was made for an enquiry into his conduct. -Nine years later, he moved the address, -and a few years later still, delivered a speech -upon the employment of Swiss Regiments in the -Colonies. Finally he resigned his 'senatorial -dignity,' quitting the scene with the valediction -of those who depreciate what they no longer -desire to retain. 'What could I see but sons -and grandsons playing over the same knaveries, -that I have seen their fathers and grandfathers -act? Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord -Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to -Charles Townshend's? Will George Grenville -cease to be the most tiresome of beings?'<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> In -his earlier days he was a violent Whig,—at -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>times almost a Republican' (to which latter -phase of his opinions must be attributed the -transformation of King Charles's death-warrant -into 'Major Charta'); 'in his old and enfeebled -age,' says Miss Berry, 'the horrors of the -first French Revolution made him a Tory; -while he always lamented, as one of the worst -effects of its excesses, that they must necessarily -retard to a distant period the progress -and establishment of religious liberty.' He -deplored the American War, and disapproved -the Slave Trade; but, in sum, it is to be suspected -that his main interest in politics, after -his father's death, and apart from the preservation -throughout an 'age of small factions' of -his own uncertain sinecures, was the good and -ill fortune of the handsome and amiable, but -moderately eminent statesman, General Conway. -It was for Conway that he took his most active -steps in the direction of political intrigue; and -perhaps his most important political utterance is -the <cite>Counter Address to the Public on the late -Dismission of a General Officer</cite>, which was -prompted by Conway's deprivation of his command -for voting in the opposition with himself -in the debate upon the illegality of general warrants. -Whether he would have taken office if -it had been offered to him, may be a question;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -but his attitude, as disclosed by his letters, is a -rather hesitating <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">nolo episcopari</i>. The most interesting -result of his connection with public affairs -is the series of sketches of political men dispersed -through his correspondence, and through -the posthumous <cite>Memoirs</cite> published by Lord -Holland and Sir Denis Le Marchant. Making -every allowance for his prejudices and partisanship -(and of neither can Walpole be acquitted), -it is impossible not to regard these latter as -highly important contributions to historical literature. -Even Mr. Croker admits that they -contain 'a considerable portion of voluntary or -involuntary truth;' and such an admission, when -extorted from Lord Beaconsfield's 'Rigby,' of -whom no one can justly say that he was ignorant -of the politics of Walpole's day, has all -the weight which attaches to a testimonial from -the enemy.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> - -<p>This mention of the <cite>Memoirs</cite> naturally leads -us to that final consideration, the position of -Walpole as an author. Most of the productions -which fill the five bulky volumes given to -the world in 1798 by Miss Berry's pious care -have been referred to in the course of the foregoing -pages, and it is not necessary to recapitulate -them here. The place which they occupy -in English literature was never a large one, -and it has grown smaller with lapse of time. -Walpole, in truth, never took letters with -sufficient seriousness. He was willing enough -to obtain repute, but upon condition that he -should be allowed to despise his calling and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>laugh at 'thoroughness.' If masterpieces could -have been dashed off at a hand-gallop; if -antiquarian studies could have been made of -permanent value by the exercise of mere -elegant facility; if a dramatic reputation could -have been secured by the simple accumulation -of horrors upon Horror's head,—his might have -been a great literary name. But it is not thus -the severer Muses are cultivated; and Walpole's -mood was too variable, his industry too -intermittent, his fine-gentleman self-consciousness -too inveterate, to admit of his producing -anything that (as one of his critics has said) -deserves a higher title than '<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">opuscula</i>.' His -essays in the <cite>World</cite> lead one to think that he -might have made a more than respectable -essayist, if he had not fallen upon days in -which that form of writing was practically -outworn; and it is manifest that he would -have been an admirable writer of familiar -poetry if he could have forgotten the fallacy -(exposed by Johnson)<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> that easy verse is easy -to write. Nevertheless, in the Gothic romance -which was suggested by his Gothic castle—for, -to speak paradoxically, Strawberry Hill is -almost as much as Walpole the author of the -<cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>—he managed to initiate a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>new form of fiction; and by decorating 'with -gay strings the gatherings of Vertue' he preserved -serviceably, in the <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, -a mass of curious, if sometimes uncritical, information -which, in other circumstances, must -have been hopelessly lost. If anything else -of his professed literary work is worthy of -recollection, it must be a happy squib such as -the <cite>Letter of Xo Ho</cite>, a fable such as <cite>The Entail</cite>, -or an essay such as the pamphlet on Landscape -Gardening, which even Croker allows to be 'a -very elegant history and happy elucidation of -that charming art.'<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> - -<p>But it is not by his professedly literary work -that he has acquired the reputation which he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>retains and must continue to retain. It is -as a letter-writer that he survives; and it is -upon the vast correspondence, of which, even -now, we seem scarcely to have reached the -limits, that is based his surest claim <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">volitare -per ora virum</i>. The qualities which are his -defects in more serious productions become -merits in his correspondence; or, rather, they -cease to be defects. No one looks for prolonged -effort in a gossipping epistle; a weighty -reasoning is less important than a light hand; -and variety pleases more surely than symmetry -of structure. Among the little band of -those who have distinguished themselves in -this way, Walpole is in the foremost rank,—nay, -if wit and brilliancy, without gravity or -pathos, are to rank highest, he is first. It -matters nothing whether he wrote easily or -with difficulty; whether he did, or did not, -make minutes of apt illustrations or descriptive -incidents: the result is delightful. For -diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, -for the constant surprises of an unique -species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns -of phrase, for graphic characterization and -clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, -irony, persiflage, there is nothing in English -like his correspondence. And when one re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>members -that, in addition, this correspondence -constitutes a sixty-years' social chronicle of a -specially picturesque epoch by one of the most -picturesque of picturesque chroniclers, there -can be no need to bespeak any further suffrage -for Horace Walpole's 'incomparable letters.'</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>APPENDIX.</h2> -</div> - - -<h3>BOOKS PRINTED AT THE STRAWBERRY -HILL PRESS.</h3> - -<p>⁂ The following list contains all the books -mentioned in the <cite>Description of the Villa of Mr. -Horace Walpole</cite>, etc., 1784, together with those -issued between that date and Walpole's death. -It does <em>not</em> include the several title-pages and -labels which he printed from time to time, or -the quatrains and verses purporting to be -addressed by the Press to Lady Rochford, -Lady Townshend, Madame de Boufflers, the -Miss Berrys, and others. Nor does it comprise -the pieces struck off by Mr. Kirgate, the -printer, for the benefit of himself and his -friends. On the other hand, all the works -enumerated here are, with three exceptions, -described from copies either in the possession -of the present writer, or to be found in the -British Museum and the Dyce and Forster -Libraries at South Kensington.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>1757.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Odes by Mr. Gray. Φωνἁντα συνετοῖσι—Pindar, -Olymp. II. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] -<i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill, for R. -and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, MDCCLVII.</i></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Half-title, 'Odes by Mr. Gray. [Price one Shilling.]'; - Title as above; Text, pp. 5-21. 4to. 1,000 - copies printed. 'June 25th [1757], I erected a - printing-press at my house at Strawberry Hill.' - 'Aug. 8th, I published two Odes by Mr. Gray, the - first production of my press' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'And - with what do you think we open? <cite>Cedite, Romani - Impressores</cite>,—with nothing under <cite>Graii Carmina</cite>. - I found him [Gray] in town last week: he had - brought his two Odes to be printed. I snatched - them out of Dodsley's hands' ... (<cite>Walpole to - Chute</cite>, 12 July, 1757). 'I send you two copies (one - for Dr. Cocchi) of a very honourable opening of - my press,—two amazing Odes of Mr. Gray; they - are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime! - consequently, I fear, a little obscure' (<cite>Walpole to - Mann</cite>, 4 Aug., 1757). 'You are very particular, I - can tell you, in liking Gray's Odes; but you must - remember that the age likes Akenside, and did like - Thomson! Can the same people like both?' (<cite>Walpole - to Montagu</cite>, 25 Aug., 1757).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>To Mr. Gray, on his Odes. [By David Garrick.]</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Single leaf, containing six quatrains (24 lines). - 4to. Only six copies are said to have been printed;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> - but it is not improbable that there were more. - There is a copy in the Dyce Collection at South - Kensington.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>A Journey into England. By Paul Hentzner, - in the year M.D.XC.VIII. [Strawberry - Hill Bookplate.] <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill, - MDCCLVII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Dedication (2 leaves); 'Advertisement,' - i-x; half-title; Latin and English Text on opposite - pages, 1 to 103 (double numbers). Sm. 8vo. 220 - copies printed. 'In Oct., 1757, was finished at my - press an edition of Hentznerus, translated by Mr. - Bentley, to which I wrote an advertisement. I - dedicated it to the Society of Antiquaries, of which - I am a member' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'An edition of - Hentznerus, with a version by Mr. Bentley, and a - little preface of mine, were prepared [<i>i. e.</i>, as the - first issue of the press], but are to wait [for Gray's - <cite>Odes</cite>]' (<cite>Walpole to Chute</cite>, 12 July, 1757).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1758.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of - England, with Lists of their Works. <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Dove, - diavolo! Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante - coglionerie?</i> Card. d'Este, to Ariosto. Vol. i. - [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] <i>Printed at - Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII.</i></p> - - <p>---- Vol. ii. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] - <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII.</i></p> - - <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Vol. i.,—Title; Dedication of 2 leaves to Lord - Hertford; Advertisement, pp. i-viii; half-title; - Text, pp. 1-219, and unpaged Index. There is - also a frontispiece engraved by Grignion. Vol. ii.,—Half-title; - Title; Text, pp. 1-215, and unpaged - Index. 8vo. 300 copies issued. A second edition, - 'corrected and enlarged,' was printed in 1758 (but - dated 1759), in two vols. 8vo., 'for R. and J. Dodsley, - in Pallmall; and J. Graham in the Strand.' - According to Baker (<cite>Catalogue of Books, etc., printed - at the Press at Strawberry Hill</cite> [1810]), 40 copies of - a supplement or Postscript to the <cite>Royal and Noble - Authors</cite> were printed by Kirgate in 1786. 'In - April, 1758, was finished the first impression of my - "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," which I - had written the preceding year in less than five - months' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'My book is marvellously - in fashion, to my great astonishment. I did not - expect so much truth and such notions of liberty - would have made their fortune in this our day' - (<cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 4 May, 1758). 'Dec. 5th - [1758] was published the second edition of my - "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." Two - thousand were printed, but <em>not</em> at Strawberry Hill' - (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'I have but two motives for offering - you the accompanying trifle [<i>i. e.</i>, the Postscript - above referred to].... Coming from my press, I - wish it may be added to your Strawberry editions. - It is so far from being designed for the public that - I have printed but forty copies' (<cite>Walpole to Hannah - More</cite>, 1 Jan., 1787).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>An Account of Russia as it was in the Year - 1710. By Charles Lord Whitworth. [Straw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>berry - Hill Bookplate.] <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill. - MDCCLVIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, 'Advertisement' pp. i-xxiv; Text, pp. - 1-158; Errata, one page. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies - printed. 'The beginning of October [1758] I published - Lord Whitworth's account of Russia, to - which I wrote the advertisement' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). - 'A book has been left at your ladyship's house; - it is Lord Whitworth's Account of Russia' (<cite>Walpole - to Lady Hervey</cite>, 17 Oct., 1758). Mr. (afterwards - Lord) Whitworth was Ambassador to St. - Petersburg in the reign of Peter the Great.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>The Mistakes; or, the Happy Resentment. - A Comedy. By the late Lord * * * * - [Henry Hyde, Lord Hyde and Cornbury.] - <i>London: Printed by S. Richardson, in the - Year 1758.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; List of Subscribers, pp. xvi; Advertisement, - Prologue, and <em>Dramatis Personæ</em>, 2 leaves; - Text, 1-83; Epilogue unpaged. Baker gives the - following particulars from the <cite>Biographia Dramatica</cite> - as to this book: 'The Author of this Piece - was the learned, ingenious, and witty <span class="smcap">Lord Cornbury</span>, - but it was never acted. He made a present - of it to that great Actress, Mrs. <span class="smcap">Porter</span>, to make - what Emolument she could by it. And that Lady, - after his Death, published it by Subscription, at - Five Shillings, each Book, which was so much - patronized by the Nobility and Gentry that Three - Thousand Copies were disposed of. Prefixed to it - is a Preface, by Mr. <span class="smcap">Horace Walpole</span>, at whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> - Press at Strawberry-Hill it was printed.' Baker - adds, 'Mr. Yardley, who when living, kept a Bookseller's - Shop in New-Inn-Passage, confirmed this - account, by asserting, that he assisted in printing - it at that Press.' But Baker nevertheless prefixes - an asterisk to the title, which implies that it was - 'not printed for Mr. Walpole,' and this probably - accounts for Richardson's name on the title-page. - By the subscription list, the Hon. Horace Walpole - took 21 copies, David Garrick, 38, and Mr. Samuel - Richardson, of Salisbury Court, 4. All Walpole - says is, 'About the same time [1758] Mrs. Porter - published [for her benefit] Lord Hyde's play, to - which I had written the advertisement' (<cite>Short - Notes</cite>).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>A Parallel; in the Manner of Plutarch: between - a most celebrated Man of Florence; - and One, scarce ever heard of, in England. - By the Reverend Mr. Spence. '—<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Parvis componere - magna</i>'—Virgil. [Portrait in circle - of Magliabecchi.] <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill, - by William Robinson; and Sold by Messieurs - Dodsley, at Tully's-Head, Pall-Mall; - for the Benefit of Mr. Hill. M.DCC.LVIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; Text, pp. 4-104. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies - printed. '1759. Feb. 2nd. I published Mr. - Spence's Parallel of Magliabecchi and Mr. Hill, a - tailor of Buckingham; calculated to raise a little - sum of money for the latter poor man. Six hundred - copies were sold in a fortnight, and it was reprinted - in London' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'Mr. Spence's Magliabecchi - is published to-day from Strawberry; I be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>lieve - you saw it, and shall have it; but 'tis not - worth sending you on purpose' (<cite>Walpole to Chute</cite>, - 2 Feb., 1759).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pereunt - et imputantur.</i> [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] - <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLVIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; Dedication and 'Table of Contents,' iii-vi; - Text, 1-219. Sm. 8vo. 200 copies printed. 'In - the summer of 1758, I printed some of my own - Fugitive Pieces, and dedicated them to my cousin, - General Conway' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'March 17 [1759]. - I began to distribute some copies of my "Fugitive - Pieces," collected and printed together at Strawberry - Hill, and dedicated to General Conway' - (<i>ibid.</i>). One of these, which is in the Forster Collection - at South Kensington, went to Gray. 'This - Book [says a MS. inscription] once belonged to - Gray the Poet, and has his autograph on the Title-page. - I [<i>i. e.</i>, George Daniel, of Canonbury] bought - it at Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson's Sale Rooms - for £1. 19 on Thursday, 28 Augt. 1851, from the - valuable collection of Mr. Penn of Stoke.'</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1760.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the - Holbein Chamber at Strawberry Hill. <i>Strawberry-Hill, - 1760.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. 8. 8vo. [Lowndes.]</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>Catalogue of the Collection, of Pictures of the - Duke of Devonshire, General Guise, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> - late Sir Paul Methuen. <i>Strawberry-Hill, - 1760.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. 44. 8vo. 12 copies, printed on one side - only. [Lowndes.]</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>M. Annæi Lucani Pharsalia cum Notis Hugonis - Grotii, et Richardi Bentleii. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Multa sunt condonanda - in opere postumo.</i> In Librum iv, - Nota 641. [Emblematical vignette.] <i>Strawberry-Hill, - MDCCLX.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Dedication (by Richard Cumberland to - Halifax), and Advertisement (<cite>Ad Lectorem</cite>), 3 - leaves; Text, pp. 1-525. 4to. 500 copies printed. - Cumberland took up the editing when Bentley the - younger resigned it. 'I am just undertaking an - edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in - his possession his father's notes and emendations - on the first seven books' (<cite>Walpole to Zouch</cite>, 9 Dec., - 1758). 'I would not <em>alone</em> undertake to correct the - press; but I am so lucky as to live in the strictest - friendship with Dr. Bentley's only son, who, to all - the ornament of learning, has the amiable turn of - mind, disposition, and easy wit' (<cite>Walpole to Zouch</cite>, - 12 Jan., 1759). 'Lucan is in poor forwardness. I - have been plagued with a succession of bad printers, - and am not got beyond the fourth book. It will - scarce appear before next winter' (<cite>Walpole to - Zouch</cite>, 23 Dec., 1759). 'My Lucan is finished, but - will not be published till after Christmas' (<cite>Walpole - to Zouch</cite>, 27 Nov., 1760). 'I have delivered to - your brother ... a Lucan, printed at Strawberry, - which, I trust, you will think a handsome edition' - (<cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 27 Jan., 1761).</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>1762.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Anecdotes of Painting in England; with some - Account of the principal Artists; and incidental - Notes on other Arts; collected by the - late Mr. George Vertue; and now digested - and published from his original MSS. By - Mr. Horace Walpole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Multa renascentur quæ - jam cecidere.</i> Vol. I. [Device with Walpole's - crest.] <i>Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry-Hill, - MDCCLXII.</i></p> - - <p>------ <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le sachant Anglois, je crus qu'il m'alloit - parler d'edifices et de peintures.</i> Nouvelle - Eloise, vol. i. p. 245. Vol. II. [Device - with Walpole's crest.] <i>Printed by Thomas - Farmer at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXII.</i></p> - - <p>------ Vol. III. (Motto of six lines from - Prior's <cite>Protogenes and Apelles</cite>.) <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII.</i></p> - - <p>------ To which is added the History of the - Modern Taste in Gardening. <i>The Glory of</i> - Lebanon <i>shall come unto thee, the Fir-tree, the - Pine-tree, and the Box together, to beautify - the Place of my Sanctuary, and I will make - the Place of my Feet glorious</i>. Isaiah, lx. 13. - Volume the Fourth and last. <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate, MDCCLXXI.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Vol. i.,—Title, Dedication, Preface, pp. i-xiii; - Contents; Text, pp. 1-168, with Appendix and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> - Index unpaged. Vol. ii.,—Title; Text, pp. 1-158, - with Appendix, Index, and 'Errata' unpaged; and - 'Additional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of - Painting in England,' pp. 1-12. Vol. iii.,—Title; - pp. 1-155, with Appendix and Index unpaged; and - 'Additional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes - of Painting in England,' pp. 1-4. Vol. iv.,—Title, - Dedication, Advertisement (dated October 1, 1780), - pp. i-x; Contents; Text, pp. 1-151 (dated August - 12, 1770); 'Errata;' pp. x-52; Appendix of one leaf - ('Prints by or after Hogarth, discovered since the - Catalogue was finished'), and Index unpaged. The - volumes are 4to., with many portraits and plates. - 600 copies were printed. The fourth volume was - in type in 1770, but not issued until Oct., 1780. It - was dedicated to the Duke of Richmond,—Lady - Hervey, to whom the three earlier volumes had - been inscribed, having died in 1768. A second - edition of the first three volumes was printed by - Thomas Kirgate at Strawberry Hill in 1765. 'Sept. - 1st [1759]. I began to look over Mr. Vertue's MSS., - which I bought last year for one hundred pounds, - in order to compose the Lives of English Painters' - (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). '1760, Jan. 1st. I began the Lives - of English Artists, from Vertue's MSS. (that is, - "Anecdotes of Painting," etc.)' (<i>ibid.</i>). 'Aug. 14th. - Finished the first volume of my "Anecdotes of - Painting in England." Sept. 5th, began the second - volume. Oct. 23d, finished the second volume' - (<i>ibid.</i>). '1761, Jan. 4th, began the third volume' - (<i>ibid.</i>). 'June 29th, resumed the third volume of - my "Anecdotes of Painting," which I had laid aside - after the first day' (<i>ibid.</i>). 'Aug. 22nd, finished - the third volume of my "Anecdotes of Painting"' - (<i>ibid.</i>). 'The "Anecdotes of Painting" have suc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>ceeded - to the press: I have finished two volumes; - but as there will at least be a third, I am not determined - whether I shall not wait to publish the - whole together. You will be surprised, I think, to - see what a quantity of materials the industry of one - man [Vertue] could amass!' (<cite>Walpole to Zouch</cite>, - 27 Nov., 1760.) 'You drive your expectations - much too fast, in thinking my "Anecdotes of Painting" - are ready to appear, in demanding three volumes. - You will see but <em>two</em>, and it will be February - first' (<cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 30 Dec., 1761). 'I am - now publishing the third volume, and another of - Engravers' (<cite>Walpole to Dalrymple</cite>, 31 Jan., 1764). - 'I have advertised my long-delayed last volume of - "Painters" to come out, and must be in town to - distribute it' (<cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 23 Sept., - 1780). 'I have left with Lord Harcourt for you my - new old last volume of "Painters"' (<cite>Walpole to - Mason</cite>, 13 Oct., 1780).</p> - </div> -</div> - -<p>1763.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>A Catalogue of Engravers, who have been born, - or resided in England; digested by Mr. - Horace Walpole from the MSS. of Mr. George - Vertue; to which is added an Account of the - Life and Works of the latter. <em>And Art reflected - Images to Art....</em> Pope. <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; pp. 1-128, last page dated 'Oct. 10th, - 1762;' 'Life of Mr. George Vertue' pp. 1-14; - 'List of Vertue's Works,' pp. 1-20, last page dated - 'Oct. 22d, 1762;' Index of Names of Engravers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> - unpaged. 4to. There are several portraits, including - one of Vertue after Richardson. 'Aug. 2nd - [1762], began the "Catalogue of Engravers." October - 10th, finished it' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'The volume - of Engravers is printed off, and has been some - time; I only wait for some of the plates' (<cite>Walpole - to Cole</cite>, 8 Oct., 1763). 'I am now publishing the - third volume [of the 'Anecdotes of Painting'], and - another of "Engravers"' (<cite>Walpole to Dalrymple</cite>, - 31 Jan., 1764).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1764.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple. - [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed in the Year MDCCLXIV.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Verses signed 'Horace Walpole, January - 26th, 1764,' Text, 1-34 in all. 4to. 100 copies - printed by Prat. 'I shall send you, too, Lady - Temple's Poems' (<cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 16 July, - 1764).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>The Magpie and her Brood, a Fable, from the - Tales of Bonaventure des Periers, Valet de - Chambre to the Queen of Navarre; addressed - to Miss Hotham.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>4 pp., containing 72 lines,—initialed 'H. W.' - 4to. 'Oct. 15th, [1764] wrote the fable of "The - Magpie and her Brood" for Miss [Henrietta] - Hotham, then near eleven years old, great niece of - Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk. - It was taken from <cite>Les Nouvelles Récréations de - Bonaventure des Periers</cite>, Valet-de-Chambre to the - Queen of Navarre' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>).</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, - written by Himself. [Plate of Strawberry - Hill.] <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Prat in - the Year MDCCLXIV.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Dedication, and Advertisement, 5 leaves; - Text, pp. 1-171. Folding plate portrait. 4to. 200 - copies printed. '1763. Beginning of September - wrote the Dedication and Preface to Lord Herbert's - Life' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'I have got a most delectable - work to print, which I had great difficulty to - obtain, and which I must use while I can have it. - It is the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury' - (<cite>Letter to the Bishop of Carlisle</cite>, 10 July, - 1763). 'It will not be long before I have the pleasure - of sending you by far the most curious and entertaining - book that my press has produced.... It is - the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury, - and written by himself,—of the contents I will not - anticipate one word' (<cite>Letter to Mason</cite>, 29 Dec., - 1763). 'The thing most in fashion is my edition - of Lord Herbert's Life; people are mad after it, I - believe because only two hundred were printed' - (<cite>Letter to Montagu</cite>, 16 Dec., 1764). 'This singular - work was printed from the original MS. in 1764, at - Strawberry-hill, and is perhaps the most extraordinary - account that ever was given seriously by a - wise man of himself' (Walpole, <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, - i. 363).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1768.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>Cornélie, Vestale. Tragédie. [By the President - Hénault.] <i>Imprimée à Strawberry-Hill, - MDCCLXVIII.</i></p> - - <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; Dedication '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à Mons. Horace Walpole</i>,' - dated '<em>Paris ce 27 Novembre, 1767</em>,' pp. iii-iv; - 'Acteurs;' Text, 1-91. 8vo. 200 copies printed; - 150 went to Paris. Kirgate printed it. 'My press - is revived, and is printing a French play written by - the old President Hénault. It was damned many - years ago at Paris, and yet I think is better than - some that have succeeded, and much better than - any of <em>our</em> modern tragedies. I print it to please - the old man, as he was exceedingly kind to me at - Paris; but I doubt whether he will live till it is - finished. He is to have a hundred copies, and - there are to be but an hundred more, of which you - shall have one' (<cite>Letter to Montagu</cite>, 15 April, 1768). - President Hénault died November, 1770, aged - eighty-six.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>The Mysterious Mother. A Tragedy. By - Mr. Horace Walpole. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sit mihi fas audita - loqui!</i> Virgil. <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill: - MDCCLXVIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, 'Errata,' 'Persons' (2 leaves); Text, pp. - 1-120, with Postscript, pp. 1-10 (which see for origin - of play). Sm. 8vo. 50 copies issued. <cite>The Mysterious - Mother</cite> is reprinted in Walpole's <cite>Works</cite>, - 1798, i., pp. 37-129. 'March 15 [1768]. I finished - a tragedy called "The Mysterious Mother," which I - had begun Dec. 25, 1766' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>). 'I thank - you for myself, not for my Play.... I accept with - great thankfulness what you have voluntarily been - so good as to do for me; and should the Mysterious - Mother ever be performed when I am dead, - it will owe to you its presentation' (<cite>Walpole to - Mason</cite>, 11 May, 1769).</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>1769.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Poems by the Reverend Mr. Hoyland. <i>Printed - at Strawberry Hill: MDCCLXIX.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Advertisement [by Walpole], pp. i-iv; - Text, 1-19. 8vo. 300 copies printed. In the British - Museum is a copy which simply has 'Printed - in the Year 1769.' 'I enclose a short Advertisement - for Mr. Hoyland's poems. I mean by it to - tempt people to a little more charity, and to soften - to him, as much as I can, the humiliation of its - being asked for him; if you approve it, it shall be - prefixed to the edition' (<cite>Walpole to Mason</cite>, 5 April, - 1769).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1770.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Reply to the Observations of the Rev. Dr. - Milles, Dean of Exeter, and President of - the Society of Antiquaries, on the Ward Robe - Account.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. 24. Six copies printed, dated 28 August, - 1770 [Baker]. 'In the summer of this year [1770] - wrote an answer to Dr. Milles' remarks on my - "Richard the Third"' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1772.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Copies of Seven Original Letters from - King Edward VI. to Barnaby Fitzpatrick. - <i>Strawberry-Hill.</i> <i>Printed</i> in the Year - <i>M.DCC.LXXII</i>.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. viii-14. 4to. 200 copies printed. '1771. - End of September, wrote the Advertisement to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> - "Letters of King Edward the Sixth"' (<cite>Short - Notes</cite>). 'I have printed "King Edward's Letters," - and will bring you a copy' (<cite>Walpole to Mason</cite>, - 6 July, 1772).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of - Curious Papers: either republished from - <em>scarce Tracts</em>, or now first printed from <em>original</em> - MSS. Number I. To be continued occasionally. - <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Invenies illic et festa domestica - vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus - Avus.</i> Ovid. Fast. Lib. 1. <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, 'Advertisement,' pp. i-iv; Text, 1-48. - 4to. 500 copies printed. 'I have since begun a - kind of Desiderata Curiosa, and intend to publish - it in numbers, as I get materials; it is to be an - Hospital of Foundlings; and though I shall not - take in all that offer, there will be no enquiry into - the nobility of the parents; nor shall I care how - heterogeneous the brats are' (<cite>Walpole to Mason</cite>, - 6 July, 1772). 'By that time too I shall have the - first number of my "Miscellaneous Antiquities" - ready. The first essay is only a republication of - some tilts and tournaments' (<cite>Walpole to Mason</cite>, - 21 July, 1772).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of - Curious Papers: either republished from - <em>scarce Tracts</em>, or now first printed from <em>original</em> - MSS. Number II. To be continued - occasionally. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Invenies illic et festa domestica<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> - vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus - Avus.</i> Ovid. Fast. Lib. i. <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate</i>, - M.DCC.LXXII.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title and Text, pp. 1-62. 500 copies printed. - 'In July [1772] wrote the "Life of Sir Thomas - Wyat [the Elder]," No. II. of my edition of "Miscellaneous - Antiquities"' (<cite>Short Notes</cite>).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Memoires du Comte de Grammont, par Monsieur - le Comte Antoine Hamilton. Nouvelle - Edition, augmentée de Notes & d'Eclaircissemens, - necessaires, par M. Horace Walpole. - <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Des gens qui écrivent pour le Comte de Grammont, - peuvent compter sur quelque indulgence.</i> - V. l'Epitre prelim. p. xviii. <i>Imprimée à - Strawberry-Hill, M.DCC.LXXII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Dedication, 'Avis de L'Editeur,' 'Avertissement,' - 'Epitre à Monsieur le Comte de Grammont,' - 'Table des Chapitres,' 'Errata,' pp. xxiv; - Text, pp. 1-290: 'Table des personnes,' 3 pp. Portraits - of Hamilton, Mdlle. d'Hamilton, and Philibert - Comte de Grammont. 4to. 100 copies printed; 30 - went to Paris. It was dedicated to Madame du - Deffand, as follows: '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L'Editeur vous consacre - cette Edition, comme un monument de son Amitié, de - son Admiration, & de son Respect; à Vous, dont les - Grâces, l'Esprit, & le Goût retracent au siecle présent - le siecle de Louis quatorze & les agremens de - l'Auteur de ces Mémoires.</i>' 'I want to send you - these [the <cite>Miscellaneous Antiquities</cite>] ... and a - "Grammont," of which I have printed only a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> - hundred copies, and which will be extremely - scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France' - (<cite>Walpole to Cole</cite>, 8 Jan., 1773).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1774.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole. - [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] A Description - of the Villa of Horace Walpole, youngest son - of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at - Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham. With - an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, - &c. <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by - Thomas Kirgate</i>, M.DCC.LXXIV.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Two titles; Text, pp. 1-119. 4to. 100 copies - printed, 6 on large paper. Many copies have the - following: 'Appendix. Pictures and Curiosities - added since the Catalogue was printed,' pp. 121-145; - 'List of the Books printed at Strawberry-Hill,' - unpaged; 'Additions since the Appendix,' pp. - 149-152; 'More Additions,' pp. 153-158. Baker - speaks of an earlier issue of 65 pp. which we have - not met with. Lowndes (<cite>Appendix to Bibliographer's - Manual</cite>, 1864, p. 239) states that it was said by - Kirgate to have been used by the servants in showing - the house, and differed entirely from the - editions of 1774 and 1784.</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1775.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>To Mrs. Crewe. [Verses by Charles James - Fox.] N.D.</p> - - <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. 2. Single leaf. 4to. 300 copies printed. Walpole - speaks of these in a letter to Mason dated 12 - June, 1774; and he sends a copy of them to him, - 27 May, 1775. Mrs. Crewe, the Amoret addressed, - was the daughter of Fulke Greville, and the wife - of J. Crewe. She was painted by Reynolds as an - Alpine shepherdess.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Dorinda, a Town Eclogue. [By the Hon. - Richard Fitzpatrick, brother of the Earl of - Ossory.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate. - M.DCC.LXXV.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; Text, 3-8. 4to. 300 copies printed. 'I - shall send you soon Fitzpatrick's "Town Eclogue," - from my own furnace. The verses are charmingly - smooth and easy....' 'P.S. Here is the - Eclogue' (<cite>Letter to Mason</cite>, 12 June, 1774).</p></div> -</div> - - -<h4>1778.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>The Sleep-Walker, a Comedy: in two Acts. - Translated from the French [of Antoine de - Ferriol, Comte de Pont de Veyle], in March, - M.DCC.LXXVIII. [By Elizabeth Lady - Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach.] - <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, - M.DCC.LXXVIII.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, Quatrain, Prologue, Epilogue, Persons, pp. - i-viii; Text, 1-56. 8vo. 75 copies printed. The - quatrain is by Walpole to Lady Craven, 'on her - Translation of the Somnambule.' 'I will send ... - for yourself a translation of a French play.... It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> - is not for your reading, but as one of the Strawberry - editions, and one of the rarest; for I have - printed but seventy-five copies. It was to oblige - Lady Craven, the translatress ...' (<cite>Walpole to - Cole</cite>, 22 Aug., 1778).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1779.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of - Thomas Chatterton. <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed - by T. Kirgate</i>, M.DCC.LXXIX.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Half-title; Title; Text, pp. 1-55. The letter is - dated at end: 'May 23, 1778.' 8vo. 200 copies - printed. '1779. In the preceding autumn had - written a defence of myself against the unjust - aspersions in the Preface to the Miscellanies of - Chatterton. Printed 200 copies at Strawberry - Hill this January, and gave them away. It was - much enlarged from what I had written in July' - (<cite>Short Notes</cite>).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1780.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>To the Lady Horatia Waldegrave, on the - Death of the Duke of Ancaster. [Verses by - Mr. Charles Miller.] N. D.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Pp. 3, dated at end 'A.D. 1779.' 4to. 150 copies - printed. 'I enclose a copy of verses, which I have - just printed at Strawberry, only a few copies, and - which I hope you will think pretty. They were - written three months ago by Mr. Charles Miller, - brother of Sir John, on seeing Lady Horatia at - Nuneham. The poor girl is better' (<cite>Walpole to - Lady Ossory</cite>, 29 Jan., 1780). Lady Horatia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> - Waldegrave was to have been married to the Duke - of Ancaster, who died in 1779.</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1781.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>The Muse recalled, an Ode, occasioned by the - Nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss - Lavinia Bingham, eldest daughter of Charles - Lord Lucan, March vi., M.DCC.LXXXI. - By William Jones, Esq. [afterwards Sir - William Jones]. <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by - Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXI.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; pp. 1-8. 4to. 250 copies printed. There - is a well-known portrait of Lavinia Bingham by - Reynolds, in which she wears a straw hat with a - blue ribbon.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>A Letter from the Honourable Thomas Walpole, - to the Governor and Committee of the - Treasury of the Bank of England. <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate, - M.DCC.LXXXI.</i></p> - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title, and pp. 16 (last blank). 4to. 120 copies - printed.</p></div> -</div> - - -<h4>1784.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace - Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole - Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill near - Twickenham, Middlesex. With an Inventory - of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, - &c. <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas - Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXIV.</i></p> - - <p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; 'Preface.' i-iv; Text, pp. 1-88. 'Errata, - etc.,' 'Appendix,' pp. 89-92; 'Curiosities added,' - etc., 93-4; 'More Additions,' 95-6. 27 plates. - 4to. 200 copies printed. 'The next time he [Sir - Horace Mann's nephew] visits you, I may be able - to send you a description of my <em>Galleria</em>,—I have - long been preparing it, and it is almost finished,—with - some prints, which, however, I doubt, will - convey no very adequate idea of it' (<cite>Walpole to - Mann</cite>, 30 Sept., 1784). 'In the list for which - Lord Ossory asks, is the Description of this place; - now, though printed, I have entirely kept it up - [i. e., <em>held it back</em>], and mean to do so while I live' - (<cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 15 Sept., 1787).</p></div> -</div> - -<h4>1785.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Hieroglyphic Tales. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Schah Baham ne comprenoit - jamais bien que les choses absurdes & hors - de toute vraisemblance.</i> Le Sopha, p. 5. - <i>Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, - M.DCC.LXXXV.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title; 'Preface,' iii-ix; Text, pp. 50; 'Postscript.' - 8vo. Walpole's own MS. note in the - Dyce example says, 'Only six copies of this were - printed, besides the revised copy.' '1772. This - year, the last, and sometime before, wrote some - Hieroglyphic Tales. There are only five' (<cite>Short - Notes</cite>). 'I have some strange things in my drawer, - even wilder than the 'Castle of Otranto,' and called - 'Hieroglyphic Tales;' but they were not written - lately, nor in the gout, nor, whatever they may - seem, written when I was out of my senses' (<cite>Wal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>pole - to Cole</cite>, 28 Jan., 1779), 'This [he is speaking - of Darwin's <cite>Botanic Garden</cite>] is only the Second - Part; for, like my King's eldest daughter in the - 'Hieroglyphic Tales,' the First Part is not born - yet: no matter' (<cite>Walpole to the Miss Berrys</cite>, 28 - April, 1789). In 1822, the <cite>Hieroglyphic Tales</cite> were - reprinted at Newcastle for Emerson Charnley.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>Essay on Modern Gardening, by Mr. Horace - Walpole. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] Essai - sur l'Art des Jardins Modernes, par M. - Horace Walpole, traduit en François by M. - le Duc de Nivernois, en MDCCLXXXIV. - <i>Imprimé à Strawberry-Hill, par T. Kirgate</i>, - MDCCLXXXV.</p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Two titles; English and French Text on opposite - pages, 1-94. 4to. 400 copies printed. - 'How may I send you a new book printed here?... - It is the translation of my 'Essay on Modern - Gardens' by the Duc de Nivernois.... You will - find it a most beautiful piece of French, of the - genuine French spoken by the Duc de la Rochefoucault - and Madame de Sévigné, and not the - metaphysical galimatias of La Harpe and Thomas, - &c., which Madame du Deffand protested she did - not understand. The versions of Milton and Pope - are wonderfully exact and poetic and elegant, and - the fidelity of the whole translation, extraordinary' - (<cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 17 Sept., 1785). The - original MS. of the Duc de Nivernois—'a most - exquisite specimen of penmanship'—was among - the papers at Strawberry.</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>1789.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Bishop Bonner's Ghost. [By Hannah More.] - [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] <i>Strawberry-Hill: - Printed by Thomas Kirgate, - MDCCLXXXIX.</i></p> - - <div class="blockquot"> - - <p>Title and argument, 2 leaves; Text, pp. 1-4. - 4to. 96 copies printed, 2 on brown paper, one of - which was at Strawberry. It was written when - Hannah More ('my <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">imprimée</i>,' as Walpole calls - her) was on a visit to Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop - of London, at his palace at Fulham, June, 1789. - 'I will forgive all your enormities if you will let - me print your poem. I like to filch a little immortality - out of others, and the Strawberry press could - never have a better opportunity' (<cite>Walpole to - Hannah More</cite>, 23 June, 1789). 'The enclosed - copy of verses pleased me so much, that, though - not intended for publication, I prevailed on the - authoress, Miss Hannah More, to allow me to take - off a small number.' ... 'I have been disappointed - of the completion of "Bonner's Ghost," - by my rolling press being out of order, and was - forced to send the whole impression to town to - have the copper-plate taken off.... Kirgate has - brought the whole impression, and I shall have the - pleasure of sending your Ladyship this with a - "Bonner's Ghost" to-morrow morning' (<cite>Walpole - to Lady Ossory</cite>, 16-18 July, 1789).</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The History of Alcidalis and Zelida. A tale of -the Fourteenth Century. [By Vincent -de Voiture.] <i>Printed at Strawberry-Hill. -MDCCLXXXIX.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Title; Text, pp. 3-96. 8vo. This is a translation -of Voiture's unfinished <cite>Histoire d'Alcidalis et -de Zelide</cite>. (See <cite>Nouvelles Œuvres de Monsieur de -Voiture. Nouvelle Edition. A Paris, Chez Louis -Bilaine, au Palais, au second Pilier de la grand' -Salle, à la Palme & au Grand Cesar</cite>, MDCLXXII.) -There is a copy in the Dyce Collection. Another -was sold in 1823 with the books of John Trotter -Brockett, in whose catalogue it was said to be -'surreptitiously printed.' Kirgate had a copy, -although Baker does not mention it.</p></div> -</div> - - -<h4>Doubtful Date.</h4> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Verses sent to Lady Charles Spencer [Mary -Beauclerc, daughter of Lord Vere, and wife -of Lord Charles Spencer] with a painted -Taffety, occasioned by saying she was low -in Pocket and could not buy a new Gown.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Single leaf. Baker says these were by Anna -Chamber, Countess Temple.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Besides the above, Walpole printed at his press -in 1770 vols. i. and ii. of a 4to edition of -his works.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>INDEX</h2> -</div> - -<ul class="index"> - -<li class="ifrst">A.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite>, the, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Amelia, the Princess, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">American Colonies, the war with the, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>An Account of the Giants</cite>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ashe, Miss, <a href="#Page_127">127-130</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ashton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_16">16-19</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">B.</li> - -<li class="indx">Balmerino, Lord, trial and execution of, <a href="#Page_93">93-97</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Beauclerk, Lady Diana, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Beauties, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Beauty Room, the, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Benedict XIV., Pope, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bentley, Richard, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259-263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bland, Henry, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bologna, visited by Walpole, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bracegirdle, Anne, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burney, Frances, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Byng, Admiral, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">C.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Castle of Otranto, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Catalogue of Engravers</cite>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149-152</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Catalogue of Strawberry Hill</cite>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Charles X. (Comte d'Artois), <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chartreuse, La Grande, visited by Walpole and Gray, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chartreux, Convent of the, described by Walpole, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_196">196-200</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Letters</cite> parodied by Walpole, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Choiseul, Madame la Duchesse de, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Christopher Inn, the, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chudleigh, Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Churchill, Lady Mary (Maria), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chute, John, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clement XII., Pope, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clinton, Henry, Earl of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clive, Kitty, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon mot</i> of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></li> -<li class="isub1">allusions to, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cocchi, Dr. Antonio, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coke, Lady Mary, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cole, William, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Congreve, William, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Conway, Henry, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cope, Gen. Sir John, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Crawford, James, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Culloden Moor, the battle of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cumberland, William, Duke of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cunningham, Peter, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his account of a drive with Walpole, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his specimens of Walpole's letters, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">D.</li> - -<li class="indx">Damer, Anna (Miss Conway), <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Deffand, Madame du (Marie de Vichy-Chamrond), <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's first impression of, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her conquest of Walpole, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's letter to Gray concerning, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her fondness for Walpole, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the episode of the snuff-box, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's second visit to, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's letters to, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's adieu to, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">will of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Delenda est Oxonia</cite>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dodington, Bubb, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dryden, John, imitated by Walpole, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">claimed as great-uncle by Catherine Shorter, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">E.</li> - -<li class="indx">Easton Neston (Northamptonshire), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris</cite>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Eton College, <a href="#Page_11">11-17</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">F.</li> - -<li class="indx">Falkirk, the battle of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fielding, Henry, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fielding, William, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Florence, visited by Walpole and Gray, <a href="#Page_43">43-45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fontenoy, the battle of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Foote, Samuel, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Forcalquier, Madame de, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fortescue, Lucy, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fox, Charles James, his verses on Mrs. Crewe, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Francklin, Richard, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Frederick, Prince of Wales. (<em>See</em> Wales.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Freethinking in France, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">French court, presentation of Walpole at the, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">G.</li> - -<li class="indx">Garrick, David, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Genlis, Stéphanie Félicité, Madame de, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Geoffrin, Madame, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">George I., Walpole's visit to, <a href="#Page_8">8-10</a>;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></li> -<li class="isub1">the story of the raven, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1">(<em>See</em> Reminiscences.)</li> - -<li class="indx">George II., <a href="#Page_63">63</a>. (<em>See</em> Reminiscences.)</li> - -<li class="indx">George III. (<em>See</em> Memoirs.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's contempt for, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gordon Riots, the, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Granby, Lord, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gray, Thomas, at Eton, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">travels with Walpole, <a href="#Page_29">29-32</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Versailles described by, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Rheims, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Lyons, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at La Grande Chartreuse, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Italy, <a href="#Page_40">40-44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his misunderstanding with Walpole, <a href="#Page_52">52-55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">subsequent reconciliation, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">praises Walpole's verse, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30-34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resumes his intimacy with Walpole, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits Strawberry Hill, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his indebtedness to Walpole, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his Elegy published by Dodsley, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the <cite>Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana</cite>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">publication of the <cite>Odes</cite> at Strawberry Hill, <a href="#Page_142">142-148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">detects the Rowley forgeries, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">portrait of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's relations with, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Grenville, George, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">H.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harrison, Audrey, Lady Townshend, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hawkins, Miss, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">her description of Walpole, <a href="#Page_277">277-279</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hénault, Charles-Jean-François, President, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hervey, Baron, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">said to be Walpole's father, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hervey, Lady, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hill, Robert, the learned tailor, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Historic Doubts on Richard III.</cite>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hogarth, William, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Houghton, the seat of the Walpoles, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Houghton pictures sold to Catherine of Russia, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole buried at, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hume, David, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181-185</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hyde Park, robbers in, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">I.</li> - -<li class="indx">Inn, the Christopher, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Inscription for the Neglected Column</cite>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">J.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jennings, Frances, Duchess of Tyrconnell, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">head of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jenyns, Soame, quoted, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jephson, Capt. Robert, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">K.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kendal, the Duchess of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ker, Lord Robert, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></li> - -<li class="indx">Kilmarnock, Earl, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trial and execution of, <a href="#Page_93">93-98</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">King's College, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_18">18-20</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirgate, Thomas, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">L.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lens, Bernard, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Lessons for the Day</cite>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Letter from Xo Ho</cite>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Louis XVI. (Duc de Berry), <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Louis XVIII. (Comte de Provence), <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">M.</li> - -<li class="indx">Macaulay, Lord, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reviews Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to Mann, <a href="#Page_271">271-273</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters to Hannah Macaulay quoted, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Lady Holland irritated by, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his opinion of Walpole, <a href="#Page_273">273-275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">McLean, James, robs Walpole, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is imprisoned, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">becomes a fashionable lion, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is executed, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mann, Sir Horace, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's affection for, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mason, Rev. William, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Memoirs of the Reign of King George III.</cite>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Middleton, Dr. Conyers, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">praises Walpole's attainments, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montagu, Lieut.-Gen. Charles, K. C. B., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montagu, Brig-Gen. Edward, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montagu, George, M. P., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described by Walpole, <a href="#Page_49">49-51</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quoted, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mont Cenis, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moore, Edward, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">More, Hannah, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Müntz (German artist), <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Mysterious Mother, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_190">190-193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Byron's praise of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">printed at the Strawberry Hill Press, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">illustrated by Lady Di. Beauclerk, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">N.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Nature will Prevail</cite>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Neale, Betty, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Neuhoff, Baron ('Theodore, King of Corsica'), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nolkejumskoi. (<em>See</em> Cumberland, William, Duke of.)</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">O.</li> - -<li class="indx">Officina Arbuteana. (<em>See</em> Strawberry Hill.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Orford, George, third Earl of (nephew of Horace Walpole), <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Orford, Horace, fourth Earl of. (<em>See</em> Walpole, Horace.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Orford, Robert, first Earl of. (<em>See</em> Walpole, Sir Robert.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Orford, Robert, second Earl of. (<em>See</em> Walpole, Robert.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Ossory, Lady, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">letters of Walpole to, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">P.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></li> - -<li class="indx">Paris, Walpole's first visit to, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">state of society in, <a href="#Page_166">166-168</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">second visit to, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">third visit to, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fourth visit to, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Parish Register of Twickenham, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Parodies by Walpole, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Patapan, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Petersham, Lady Caroline, <a href="#Page_127">127-130</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Picture Gallery at Houghton, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pinkerton, John, his <cite>Walpoliana</cite> quoted, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">a favourite of Walpole, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his description of Walpole, <a href="#Page_279">279-282</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pomfret, Lady, <a href="#Page_47">47-50</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pope, Alexander, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Preston Pans, the battle of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Prévost d'Exiles, M. l'Abbé Antoine-François, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Prior, Matthew, criticised by Walpole, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Q.</li> - -<li class="indx">Quadruple Alliance, the, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ended, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Queensberry, the Duke of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Quinault, Jeanne-Françoise, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">R.</li> - -<li class="indx">Radnor, Lord, his Chinese summer-house, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ranelagh Gardens, the, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Reminiscences of the Courts of George the I. and II.</cite>, written for the Misses Berry, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Robinson, William, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rochford, Lady, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sham letter from Frederick the Great to, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">anger of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his quarrel with Hume, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">S.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saint-Cyr, Walpole's visit to, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saunderson, Professor Nicholas, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scott, Samuel, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, his study of the <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Selwyn, George Augustus, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Sermon on Painting, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_71">71-76</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shenstone, William, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shirley, Lady Fanny, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shirley, the Hon. Sewallis, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shorter, Catherine (Lady Walpole), <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">burial of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Dryden claimed as great-uncle to, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shorter, Sir John, Lord Mayor of London, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Short Notes</cite>, Walpole's, quoted, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Skerret, Maria, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smollett, Tobias, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spence, Professor Joseph, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sterne, Laurence, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Strawberry Hill (Twickenham), Walpole removes to, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></li> -<li class="isub1">description of, <a href="#Page_107">107-124</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">previous tenants of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">additions to, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Gothic castle at, <a href="#Page_113">113-119</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">views executed by Müntz, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">private printing-press at, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described by William Robinson, <a href="#Page_146">146-148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">works published at the Officina Arbuteana, <a href="#Page_149">149-151</a> (<em>see</em> Appendix), <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><cite>Description of the Villa at</cite>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fêtes at, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ground plan of the villa at, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">China Closet and China Room at, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Yellow Bedchamber (Beauty Room), <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Breakfast Room, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">plan of principal floor, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Green Closet, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Library, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Blue Bedchamber, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Armoury, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Red Bedchamber, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Holbein Chamber, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Star Chamber, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Gallery, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Round Tower, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Cabinet (Tribune), <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">collection of rarities, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Great North Bedchamber, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Great Cloister, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Chapel, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the Flower Garden, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Gothicism of the villa, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bequeathed to Mrs. Damer, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">subsequent disposal of, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stuart, Prince Charles Edward (the Chevalier), his descent on Scotland, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">temporary success of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">escape of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stuart, Lady Louisa, her <cite>Introductory Anecdotes</cite> quoted, <a href="#Page_14">14-16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Suffolk, the Countess of (Mrs. Howard), <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">T.</li> - -<li class="indx">Townshend, Charles, Viscount, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Townshend, Lady. (<em>See</em> Harrison, Audrey.)</li> - -<li class="indx">Tragedy in England, Walpole's opinion of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Triumvirate, the, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Twickenham. (See Strawberry Hill.)</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">V.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vane, Henry, Earl of Darlington, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vauxhall, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128-131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Versailles, visited by Walpole, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171-173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion</cite>, <a href="#Page_98">98-100</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vertue, George, the engraver, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Voltaire, François-Marie-Arouet de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">W.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wales, Frederick, Prince of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">composes a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanson</i> on the battle of Fontenoy, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wins £800 from Lord Granby, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walpol, Sir Henry de, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walpole, Dorothy, Lady Townshend, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walpole, Sir Edward, Knight of the Bath, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span></li> - -<li class="indx">——, Sir Edward (brother of Horace), <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the daughters of, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, George (third Earl of Orford), <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Horace (Horatio), his ancestry, <a href="#Page_1">1-4</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">scandal regarding his birth, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">early childhood, <a href="#Page_5">5-10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his visit to George I., <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his appearance as a boy, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his school-days at Eton, <a href="#Page_11">11-17</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his scholarship, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his companions at Eton, <a href="#Page_13">13-16</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">enters Lincoln's Inn, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">enters King's College, Cambridge, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his university studies, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the 'triumvirate,' <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the 'quadruple alliance,' <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">literary productions at Cambridge, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appointed Inspector of Imports and Exports, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">becomes Usher of the Exchequer, Controller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves college, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">travels with Gray, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits France, <a href="#Page_30">30-39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Switzerland, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">crosses the Alps, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in Italy, <a href="#Page_41">41-56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his description of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his misunderstanding with Gray, <a href="#Page_52">52-55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his illness in Florence, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his return to England, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">becomes Member of Parliament for Callington, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">poetical <cite>Epistle to Thomas Ashton</cite>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">praised by Gray, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his letters to Mann, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his first speech in Parliament, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Sermon on Painting</cite>, <a href="#Page_71">71-75</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the <cite>Ædes Walpolianæ</cite>, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his parodies, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his paper against Lord Bath, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his father's death, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receives legacy from his father, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his criticism of Mrs. Woffington and of Garrick, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">removes to Twickenham, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion</cite>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">epilogue to <cite>Tamerlane</cite>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marriage of his sisters, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his criticism of Lady Orford, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his contributions to <cite>The Museum</cite>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his poem, <cite>The Beauties</cite>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resides at Windsor, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his description of Strawberry Hill, <a href="#Page_107">107-120</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a> (<em>see</em> Strawberry Hill);</li> -<li class="isub1">his papers in <cite>The Remembrancer</cite>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his tract, <cite>Delenda est Oxonia</cite>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is robbed in Hyde Park, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his account of Vauxhall, <a href="#Page_128">128-131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his papers in <cite>The World</cite>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his reconciliation with Gray, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his admiration of Gray's poetry, <a href="#Page_135">135-137</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is chosen Member of Parliament for Castle Rising, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">for Lynn, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Castle of Otranto</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">publishes Gray's <cite>Odes</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his first <cite>Memoirs</cite>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Letter from Xo Ho</cite>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his other <cite>Catalogues</cite>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">establishes the Officina Arbuteana, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his publications, <a href="#Page_149">149-151</a> (<em>see</em> Appendix), <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Catalogue of Engravers</cite>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></li> -<li class="isub1">his occasional pieces (<cite>The Magpie and her Brood</cite>, <cite>Dialogue between two Great Ladies</cite>, <cite>The Garland</cite>, <cite>The Parish Register</cite>), <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his second visit to Paris, <a href="#Page_167">167-181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is presented to the royal family, <a href="#Page_171">171-173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sham letter to Rousseau, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits Bath, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his third visit to Paris, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Account of the Giants</cite>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">begins his <cite>Memoirs of the Reign of George III.</cite>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">retires from Parliament, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his letters to the <cite>Public Advertiser</cite>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Historic Doubts on Richard III.</cite>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his tragedy, <cite>The Mysterious Mother</cite>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his relations with Chatterton, <a href="#Page_196">196-200</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his fondness for his nieces, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his correspondence, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his minor writings, <a href="#Page_236">236-239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Nature will Prevail</cite>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his fourth visit to Paris, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his correspondence in French, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his farewell to Madame du Deffand, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his acquaintance with Hannah More, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his friendship with the Misses Berry, <a href="#Page_259">259-263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Reminiscences</cite>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Catalogue of Strawberry Hill</cite>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">succeeds his nephew as Earl of Orford, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his <cite>Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris</cite>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his last letter to Lady Ossory, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death and burial, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">disposal of his estate, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Lord Macaulay's criticism of, <a href="#Page_271">271-276</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">portraits and descriptions of, <a href="#Page_276">276-278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Pinkerton's reminiscences of, <a href="#Page_280">280-282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his character as a man, <a href="#Page_284">284-287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a virtuoso, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as a politician, <a href="#Page_290">290-292</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as an author, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">—— of Walterton, Horatio, Baron, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Maria (Lady Waldegrave), <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Lady Mary (Countess of Cholmondeley), <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Reginald de, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Sir Robert (first Earl of Orford), ancestry of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">first marriage of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">second marriage of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">decline of his political power, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resigns the premiership, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is created Earl of Orford, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">intrigues against Pulteney, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">prevents his own disgrace, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_78">78-80</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">will of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Robert (second Earl of Orford), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Lady Robert (Countess of Orford), <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death of, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, Col. Robert, M. P., <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">——, William, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walpoles of Houghton, pedigree of the, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">spelled Walpol, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Walpoliana</cite>, Pinkerton's, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279-282</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walsingham, Melusina de Schulemberg, Countess of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wesley, John, Walpole's description of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">West, Richard, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whitehead, Paul, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wilkes, John, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, George James, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, marries Maria Walpole, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span></li> - -<li class="indx">Woffington, Margaret, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">X.</li> - -<li class="indx"><cite>Xo Ho, Letter of</cite>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Yarmouth, the Countess of (Madame de Walmoden), <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Z.</li> - -<li class="indx">Zouch, Rev. Henry, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walpole's letters to, quoted, <a href="#Page_152">152-155</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.</li> -</ul> - - - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Another member for Castle Rising was Samuel Pepys, -the Diarist.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The name of <cite>Horatio</cite> I dislike. It is theatrical, and -not English. I have, ever since I was a youth, written -and subscribed <em>Horace</em>, an English name for an Englishman. -In all my books (and perhaps you will think of the -<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">numerosus Horatius</i>) I so spell my name.—<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, -i. 62.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It is also to be found asserted as a current story in -the <cite>Note Books</cite> (unpublished) of the Duchess of Portland, -the daughter of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, -and the 'noble, lovely little Peggy' of her father's friend -and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</i>, Matthew Prior.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> These, hereafter referred to as the <cite>Short Notes</cite>, are -the chief authority for three parts of Walpole's not very -eventful life. They were first published with the concluding -series of his <cite>Letters to Sir Horace Mann</cite>, 2 vols., -1844, and are reprinted in Mr. Peter Cunningham's edition -of the <cite>Correspondence</cite>, vol. i. (1857), pp. lxi-lxxvii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Martin's <cite>Old Chelsea</cite>, 1889, p. 82; Beaver's <cite>Memorials -of Old Chelsea</cite>, 1892, p. 291.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Cunningham, v. 36, and ix. 519. The Duchess of -Tyrconnell's portrait, copied by Milbourn from the original -at Lord Spencer's, was one of the prominent ornaments -of the Great Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill. -(See <cite>A Description of the Villa</cite>, etc., 1774, p. 138.) There -are some previously unpublished particulars respecting -her as 'Mlle. Genins' in M. Jusserand's extremely interesting -<cite>French Ambassador at the Court of Charles the Second</cite>, -1892, pp. 153 <i>et seq.</i>, 170, 182.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to the Miss Berrys</cite>, 5 March, 1791.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <cite>Reminiscences of the Courts of George the First and -Second</cite>, in Cunningham's <cite>Corr.</cite>, i. xciii-xciv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The book referred to is a 'little lounging miscellany' -of notes and anecdotes by John Pinkerton, and was -printed, soon after Walpole's death, by Bensley, who lived -in Johnson's old house, No. 8 Bolt Court. It requires to -to be used with caution (see <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, vol. lxxii., -No. cxliv.), and must not be confused with Lord Hardwicke's -privately printed <cite>Walpoliana</cite>, which relate to Sir -Robert Walpole.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> This is quoted by Mr. Hayward and others as if the -last words were Sir Robert Walpole's. But Lady Louisa -Stuart says nothing to indicate this (Lady Mary Wortley -Montagu's <cite>Letters</cite>, etc., 1887, i. xciii).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <cite>Letter to Montagu</cite>, 6 May, 1736.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu.</cite> Cunningham, 1857, i. 15.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mr. D.C. Tovey (<cite>Gray and his Friends</cite>, 1890, 3 n.) -thinks that Ashton probably never preached at Eton -before he was made Fellow, in December, 1745,—which -would greatly advance the date of Walpole's communication. -But it is cited here solely for its reminiscences of -his school-days.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Saunderson had lost both his eyes in infancy from -small-pox. This, however, did not prevent him from -lecturing on Newton's <cite>Optics</cite>, and becoming Lucasian -Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Another undergraduate -who attended his lectures was Chesterfield. (See -Letter to Jouneau, 12 Oct., 1712.) There is an interesting -account of Saunderson by a former pupil, together -with an excellent portrait, in the <cite>Gentleman's Magazine</cite> -for September, 1754.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Miss Berry</cite>, 16 Aug., 1796.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Indeed, she is given too much to allicholly and -musing.—<cite>Merry Wives of Windsor</cite>, act i. sc. iv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 30 May, 1736.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, 17 Aug., 1736.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 20 May, 1736.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <cite>Notes and Queries</cite>, 2 Jan., 1869.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Gray's <cite>Works</cite>, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <cite>Account of my Conduct</cite>, etc., <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, ii. 363-70.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Gray's <cite>Works</cite>, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 18-19.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <cite>Gray to West</cite>, 22 May, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, no date, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <cite>Gray to West</cite>, 22 May, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, no date, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, 18 June, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Gray's <cite>Works</cite>, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 30.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, Sept. 28-2 Oct., 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Tory, however, was not <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">illachrymabilis</i>. He found -his <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vates sacer</i> in one Edward Burnaby Greene, once of -Bennet College; and in referring to this, thirty-five -years later, Walpole explains how Tory got his name. -'His godmother was the widow of Alderman Parsons -[Humphrey Parsons, of Goldsmith's 'black champagne'], -who gave him at Paris to Lord Conway, and he to me' -(<cite>Walpole to Cole</cite>, 10 Dec., 1775).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Spence's <cite>Anecdotes</cite>, by Singer, 2d ed., 1858, pp. 305-8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Jarchius has taken the trouble to give us a list of -those clubs, or academies [i. e., <em>the academies of Italy</em>], -which amount to five hundred and fifty, each distinguished -by somewhat whimsical in the name. The academicians of -Bologna, for instance, are divided into the Abbandonati, -the Ausiosi, Ociosi, Arcadi, Confusi, Dubbiosi, etc. There -are few of these who have not published their Transactions, -and scarce a member who is not looked upon as the most -famous man in the world, at home.—<span class="smcap">Goldsmith</span>, in <cite>The -Bee</cite>, No. vi., for 10 November, 1759.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to West</cite>, no date, 1739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Dr. Doran ('<cite>Mann</cite>' and <cite>Manners at the Court of -Florence</cite>, 1876, i. 2) describes this connection as 'a distant -cousinship.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Shortly after Lady Walpole's death, Sir Robert Walpole -married his mistress, Maria Skerret, who died 4 June, -1738, leaving a daughter, Horace Walpole's half-sister, -subsequently Lady Mary Churchill.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Conway</cite>, 25 September, 1740.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <cite>Letters</cite>, etc., of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ii. 325.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <cite>Spence's Anecdotes</cite>, by Singer, 2nd edn., 1858, p. xxiii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> This rests upon the authority of a shadowy Mr. -Roberts of the Pell-office, who told it to Isaac Reed in -1799, more than half a century after the event. The -subject is discussed at some length, but of necessity inconclusively, -by Mr. D. C. Tovey in his interesting <cite>Gray -and his Friends</cite>, 1890. Mr. Tovey thinks that Ashton -was obscurely connected with the quarrel.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mason</cite>, 2 March, 1773. The letters to -Mason were first printed in 1851 by Mitford. But Pinkerton, -in the <cite>Walpoliana</cite>, i. 95, had reported much the same -thing. 'The quarrel between Gray and me [Walpole] -arose from his being too serious a companion. I had -just broke loose from the restraints of the university, with -as much money as I could spend, and I was willing to -indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, etc., while I was -for perpetual balls and plays. The fault was mine.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Juvenis, non tam generis nobilitate, ac paterni nominis -gloriâ, quam ingenio, doctrinâ, et virtute propriâ -illustris. Ille vero haud citius fere in patriam reversus -est, quam de studiis meis, ut consuerat, familiariter per -literas quærens, mihi ultro de copiâ suâ, quicquid ad argumenti -mei rationem, aut libelli ornamentum pertineret, -pro arbitrio meo utendum obtulit.—<cite>Pref. ad Germana -quædam Antiq. Monumenta</cite>, etc., p. 6 (quoted in Mitford's -<cite>Corr. of Walpole and Mason</cite>, 1851, i. x-xi).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Walpole's <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Gray's <cite>Works</cite>, by Gosse, 1884, ii. 221.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Walpole's <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 8-9.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> He gave this up at first, but afterwards, when his -affairs became involved, reclaimed it (Cunningham's -<cite>Corr.</cite>, i. 126 n.).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Patapan's portrait was painted by John Wootton, -who illustrated Gay's <cite>Fables</cite> in 1727 with Kent. It hung -in Walpole's bedroom at Strawberry, and now (1892) -belongs to Lord Lifford. In 1743 Walpole wrote a Fable -in imitation of La Fontaine, to which he gave the title of -<cite>Patapan; or, the Little White Dog</cite>. It was never printed.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Chute</cite>, 20 August, 1743. Mr. John Chute -was a friend whom Walpole had made at Florence, and -with whom, as already stated in Chapter II., Gray had -travelled when they parted company. Until, by the death -of a brother, he succeeded to the estate called The Vyne, -in Hampshire, he lived principally abroad. His portrait -by Müntz, after Pompeio Battoni, hung over the door in -Walpole's bedchamber at Strawberry Hill. An exhaustive -<cite>History of The Vyne</cite> was published in 1888 by the late -Mr. Chaloner W. Chute, at that time its possessor.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Mr. Vertue the engraver made a very ingenious conjecture -on this story; he supposes that Apelles did not -draw a straight line, but the outline of a human figure, -which not being correct, Protogenes drew a more correct -figure within his; but that still not being perfect, Apelles -drew a smaller and exactly proportioned one within both -the former.—<cite>Walpole's note.</cite></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Walpole's <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, ii. 229-30. The final quotation -is from Martial.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Ranby wrote a <cite>Narrative of the last Illness of the Earl -of Orford</cite>, 1745, which provoked much controversy.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 15 April, 1745.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 26 May, 1742.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> According to Pinkerton, another anecdote connects -Mrs. Bracegirdle with the Walpoles. 'Mr. Shorter, my -mother's father [he makes Horace say], was walking -down Norfolk Street in the Strand, to his house there, -just before poor Mountfort the player was killed in that -street, by assassins hired by Lord Mohun. This nobleman, -lying in wait for his prey, came up and embraced Mr. -Shorter by mistake, saying, 'Dear Mountfort!' It was -fortunate that he was instantly undeceived, for Mr. Shorter -had hardly reached his house before the murder took -place' (<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, ii. 96). Mountfort, it will be remembered, -owed his death to Mrs. Bracegirdle's liking for -him.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 22 April, 1742.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 26 May, 1742.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Conway</cite>, 29 June, 1744.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 17 Sept., 1745.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Walpole later revised this verdict: 'General Cope -was tried afterwards for his behaviour in this action, and -it appeared very clearly that the Ministry, his inferior -officers, and his troops, were greatly to blame; and that -he did all he could, so ill-directed, so ill-supplied, and so -ill-obeyed.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 27 Sept., 1745.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 25 April, 1746.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 1 Aug., 1746.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 21 August, 1746. Gray, who was -at the trial, also mentions Balmerino, not so enthusiastically. -'He is an old soldier-like man, of a vulgar manner -and aspect, speaks the broadest Scotch, and shews an -intrepidity, that some ascribe to real courage, and some -to brandy' (<cite>Letter to Wharton</cite>, August). 'Old Balmerino, -when he had read his paper to the people, pulled off his -spectacles, spit upon his handkerchief, and wiped them -clean for the use of his posterity; and that is the last page -of his history' (<cite>Letter to Wharton</cite>, 11 Sept., 1746).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Walpole's <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 25-7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Englefield, <i>i. e.</i> Englefield Green, in Berkshire, on the -summit of Cooper's Hill, near Windsor, where Edward -Walpole lived.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Robert Walpole, second Earl of Orford, Horace -Walpole's eldest brother, died in March, 1751.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Walpole's <cite>Works</cite> 1798, i. 21-2.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Writing to Walpole in March, 1751, Gray says: 'In -the last volume [of <cite>Peregrine Pickle</cite>] is a character of Mr. -Lyttleton [<i>sic</i>], under the name of "Gosling Scrag," and a -parody of part of his Monody, under the notion of a Pastoral -on the death of his grandmother' (<cite>Works</cite> by Gosse, -1884, ii. 214).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite> 15 Sept., 1746.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> She was the sister of Pope's Mrs. Bertrand, an equally -fashionable toy-woman at Bath. Her shop, according to -an advertisement in the <cite>Daily Journal</cite> for May 24, 1733, -was then 'against Suffolk Street, Charing Cross.' It is -mentioned in Fielding's <cite>Amelia</cite>. When, in Bk. viii., ch. i., -Mr. Bondum the bailiff contrives to capture Captain -Booth, it is by a false report that his Lady has been 'taken -violently ill, and carried into Mrs. <em>Chenevix's</em> Toy-shop.' -It is also mentioned in the Hon. Mrs. Osborne's <cite>Letters</cite>, -1891, p. 73; and again by Walpole himself in the <cite>World</cite> -for 19 Dec., 1754.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> This is slightly varied from ll. 29, 30, of Pope's fifth -<cite>Moral Essay</cite> ('To Mr. Addison: Occasioned by his Dialogues -on Medals').</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Conway</cite>, 8 June, 1747.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> In the Tribune (see chap. viii.) was a drawing by -Mr. Bentley, representing two lovers in a church looking -at the tombs of Abelard and Eloisa, and illustrating Pope's -lines:— -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'If ever chance two wand'ring lovers brings</div> - <div class="verse">To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs,' etc.</div> -</div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> The chiaroscuros of John Baptist Jackson, published -at Venice in 1742. At this date he had returned to England, -and was working in a paper-hanging manufactory -at Battersea.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Lord Radnor's fantastic house on the river, which -Walpole nicknamed Mabland, came between Strawberry -Hill and Pope's Villa, and is a conspicuous object in old -views of Twickenham, notably in that, dated 1757, by -Müntz, a Jersey artist for some time domiciled at Strawberry -Hill (<em>see</em> p. <a href="#Page_138">138</a>). It was in the garden of Radnor -House that Pope first met Warburton.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 12 June, 1753.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> The version here followed is that given in <cite>A Description -of the Villa</cite>, etc., 1774, pp. 117-19.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <cite>World</cite>, 19 Dec., 1754 (<cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 177-8).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Another instance of Maclean's momentary vogue is -given by Cunningham. He is hitched into Gray's <cite>Long -Story</cite>, which was written at the very time he was taken: -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'A sudden fit of ague shook him,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">He stood as mute as poor <em>Macleane</em>.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p> -This couplet has been recently explained by Gray's latest -editor, Dr. Bradshaw, to be a reference to Maclean's only -observation when called to receive sentence. 'My Lord -[he said], I <em>cannot speak</em>.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> He was popularly known as 'Peter Shamble.' He -afterwards became Earl of Harrington.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Elizabeth Neale, here referred to, was a well-known -personage in St. James's Street, where, for many years, -she kept a fruit shop. From Lady Mary Coke's <cite>Letters -and Journals</cite>, 1889, vol. ii., p. 427, Betty appears to have -assiduously attended the debates in the House of Commons -being characterized as a 'violent Politician, & -always in the opposition.' In Mason's <cite>Heroic Epistle to Sir -William Chambers, Knight</cite>, she is spoken of as 'Patriot -Betty.' She survived until 1797, when her death, at the -age of 67, is recorded in the <cite>Gentleman's Magazine</cite>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 23 June, 1750.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Nevertheless, when this '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roi en Exil</i>' shortly afterwards died, -Walpole erected a tablet in St. Anne's -Churchyard, Soho, to his memory, with the following -inscription:— -</p> -<p class="center"> -'Near this place is interred<br /> -Theodore, King of Corsica;<br /> -Who died in this parish, Dec. 11, 1756,<br /> -Immediately after leaving the King's-Bench-Prison,<br /> -By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency;<br /> -In consequence of which he registered<br /> -His Kingdom of Corsica<br /> -For the use of his Creditors.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings</div> - <div class="verse">Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and Kings.</div> - <div class="verse">But Theodore this moral learn'd, ere dead;</div> - <div class="verse">Fate pour'd its lessons on his <em>living</em> head,</div> - <div class="verse">Bestow'd a kingdom, and denied him bread.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p> -Theodore's Great Seal, and 'that very curious piece by -which he took the benefit of the Act of Insolvency,' -and in which he was only styled Theodore Stephen, -Baron de Neuhoff, were among the treasures of the -Tribune. (See Chapter VIII.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> A copy of the poems, 'illustrated with the original -designs of Mr. Richard Bentley, ... and also with Mr. -Gray's original sketch of Stoke House, from which Mr. -Bentley made his finished pen drawing,' was sold at the -Strawberry Hill sale of 1842 to H. G. Bohn for £8 8<i>s.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> The verses include this magnificent stanza:— -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'But not to one in this benighted age</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Is that diviner inspiration giv'n,</div> - <div class="verse">That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The pomp and prodigality of heav'n.'</div> -</div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> It is copied in Cunningham, vol. iii. p. 475. It was -sold for £157 10<i>s.</i> at the Strawberry Hill sale, and passed -into the collection of the late Lord Taunton.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> See p. <a href="#Page_192">192</a> n.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> It may be observed that when Walpole's letter was -published, it was briefly noticed in the <cite>Monthly Review</cite>, -where at this very date Oliver Goldsmith was working as -the hind of Griffiths and his wife. It is also notable that -the name of Xo Ho's correspondent, Lien Chi, seems -almost a foreshadowing of Goldsmith's Lien Chi Altangi. -Can it be possible that Walpole supplied Goldsmith with -his first idea of the <cite>Citizen of the World</cite>?</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> A four-wheeled carriage with a movable hood. Cf. -Prior's <cite>Down Hall</cite>: 'Then answer'd Squire Morley: -Pray get a <em>calash</em>, That in summer may burn, and in -winter may splash,' etc.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 208.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> These, though printed in 1758, were not circulated -until 1759. See, at end, 'Appendix of Books printed -at the Strawberry Hill Press,' which contains ample -details of all these publications.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Zouch</cite>, 14 May, 1759.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Zouch</cite>, 12 January, 1759.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> 'Mr. Vertue's Manuscripts, in 28 vols.,' were sold at -the Sale of Rare Prints and Illustrated Works from the -Strawberry Hill Collection on Tuesday, 21 June, 1842, -for £26 10<i>s.</i> Walpole says in the <cite>Short Notes</cite> that he -paid £100. The Vertue MSS. are now in the British -Museum, which acquired them from the Dawson Turner -collection.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> <cite>The Anecdotes of Painting</cite> was enlarged by the Rev. -James Dallaway in 1826-8, and again revised, with additional -notes, by Ralph N Wornum in 1839. This last, -in three volumes, 8vo is the accepted edition.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> She was married to Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend -in 1723, and was the mother of Charles Townshend, -the statesman. She died in 1788. There was an enamel -of her by Zincke after Vanloo in the Tribune at Strawberry -Hill, which is engraved at p 150 of Cunningham's -second volume.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>Sic. in orig.</i>; but query 'print.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, vol. iv., pp. 382-3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> See chapter ix.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Cf. chapter vi. of <cite>Fielding</cite>, by the present writer, in -the <cite>Men of Letters</cite> series, 2nd edition, 1889, pp. 145-7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <cite>Letter to Cole</cite>, 9 March, 1765.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> It is curious to note in one of his letters at this date -a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mot</i> which may be compared with the famous 'Good -Americans, when they die, go to Paris.' Walpole is more -sardonic. 'Paris,' he says, ' ... like the description -of the grave, is the way of all flesh' (<cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, -30 June, 1763).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <cite>Gilly Williams to Selwyn</cite>, 19 March, 1765.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Lady Mary Coke, to whom the second edition of the -Gothic romance was dedicated, was the youngest daughter -of John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich. At this date, -she was a widow,—Lord Coke having died in 1753. Two -volumes of her <cite>Letters and Journals</cite>, with an excellent -introduction by Lady Louisa Stuart, were printed privately -at Edinburgh in 1889 from MSS. in the possession of the -Earl of Home. A third volume, which includes a number -of epistles addressed to her by Walpole, found among -the papers of the late Mr. Drummond Moray of Abercairny, -was issued in 1892. Walpole's tone in these -documents is one of fantastic adoration; but the pair -ultimately (and inevitably) quarrelled. There is a well-known -mezzotint of Lady Mary by McArdell after Allan -Ramsay, in which she appears in white satin, holding a -tall theorbo. The original painting is at Mount Stuart, -and belongs to Lord Bute.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 22 September, 1765.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Chute</cite>, 3 October, 1765.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Madame de Genlis mentions this fearsome monster -in her <cite>Mémoires</cite>: 'Tout le monde a entendu parler de -la hyène de Gévaudan, qui a fait tant de ravages.' The -point of Walpole's allusion to Pitt is explained in one -of his hitherto unpublished letters to Lady Mary Coke -at this date: 'I had the fortune to be treated with the -sight of what, next to Mr. Pitt, has occasioned most alarm -in France, the Beast of the Gévaudan' (<cite>Letters and Journals</cite>, -iii. [1892], xvii). In another letter, to Pitt's sister -Ann, maid of honour to Queen Caroline, he says: 'It is -a very large wolf, to be sure, and they say has twelve teeth -more than any of the species, and six less than the -Czarina' (<cite>Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. Commission, 13th -Rept., App.</cite> iii., 1892, i. 147).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Of Mad. de Forcalquier it is related that, entering a -theatre during the performance of Gresset's <cite>Le Méchant</cite>, -just as the line was uttered, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La faute est aux dieux, -qui la firent si belle</i>,' the applause was so great as to interrupt -the play. The point of this, in a recent repetition of -the anecdote, was a little blunted by the printer's substitution -of '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bête</i>' for '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">belle</i>.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini-Mazarini, Duc de Nivernais -(1716-98), who had visited Twickenham three years -earlier, when he was Ambassador to England. He was -a man of fine manners, and tastes so literary that his -works fill eight volumes. They include a translation of -Walpole's <cite>Essay on Modern Gardening</cite> (see appendix at -end). In his letters to Miss Ann Pitt at this date, -Walpole speaks of the Duke's clever fables, by which he -is now best remembered. Lord Chesterfield told his son -in 1749 that Nivernais was 'one of the prettiest men he -had ever known,' and in 1762 his opinion was unaltered. -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">M. de Nivernais est aimé, respecté, et admiré par tout ce qu' -il y a d'honnêtes gens à la cour et à la ville</i>,' he writes to -Madame de Monconseil. The Duke's end was worthy of -Chesterfield himself, for he spent some of his last hours in -composing valedictory verses to his doctor. (See 'Eighteenth -Century Vignettes,' second series, pp. 107-137.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> One of her <em>logogriphes</em>, or enigmas, is as follows:— -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quoique je forme un corps, je ne suis qu'une idée;</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Plus ma beauté vieillit, plus elle est décidée:</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut, pour me trouver, ignorer d'où je viens:</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je tiens tout de lui, qui reduit tout à rien.</i>'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p> -The answer is <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">noblesse</i>. Lord Chesterfield thought it so -good that he sent it to his godson (Letter 166).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Gray</cite>, 25 January, 1766.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> He was malicious enough to add, 'a pretty round -half.' In middle life Mrs. Clive, like her Twickenham -neighbour, Mrs. Pritchard, grew excessively stout; and -there is a pleasant anecdote that, on one occasion, when -the pair were acting together in Cibber's <cite>Careless Husband</cite>, -the audience were regaled by the spectacle of two leading -actresses, neither of whom could manage to pick up a -letter which, by ill-luck, had been dropped upon the -ground.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> In a recently printed letter to Miss Ann Pitt, 19 Jan., -1766, Walpole makes reference to the popularity which -this <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeu d'esprit</i> procured for him. 'Everybody wou'd -have a copy [of course he encloses one to his correspondent]; -the next thing was, everybody wou'd see the -author.... I thought at last I shou'd have a box quilted -for me, like Gulliver, be set upon the dressing-table of a -maid of honour, and fed with bonbons.... If, contrary -to all precedent, I shou'd exist in vogue a week longer, I -will send you the first statue that is cast of me in <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bergamotte</i> -or <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">biscuite porcelaine</i>' (<cite>Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. -Commision, 13th Rept., App. iii.</cite> [1892], i, 153).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Hume's narrative of the affair may be read in <cite>A Concise -and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume -and Mr. Rousseau: with the Letters that passed between -them during their Controversy. As also, the Letters of the -Hon. Mr. Walpole, and Mr. D'Alembert, relative to this -extraordinary Affair. Translated from the French. -London. Printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, near -Surry-street, in the Strand, MDCCLXVI.</cite></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Lady Hervey</cite>, 2 January, 1766. In a letter -to Lady Mary Coke, dated two days later, he says: 'Rousseau -set out this morning for England. As He loves to -contradict a whole Nation, I suppose he will write for the -present opposition.... As he is to live at Fulham, I hope -his first quarrel will be with his neighbour the Bishop of -London, who is an excellent subject for his ridicule' -(<cite>Letters and Journals</cite>, iii. 1892, xx).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Chute</cite>, 10 October, 1766.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Lady Mary Coke testifies to the charm of her conversation: -'In the evening I made a visit to Madame du -Deffan [<i>sic</i>]. She talks so well that I wish'd to write -down everything She said, as I thought I shou'd have -liked to have read it afterwards' (<cite>Letters and Journals</cite>, -iii. [1892], 233).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 7 September, 1769.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> <cite>Letters of Madame du Deffand</cite>, 1810, i. 211 n.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> <i>i. e.</i> Soot-water. There were two landscapes in soot-water -by Mr. Bentley in the Green Closet at Strawberry.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> See chapter ix.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, i. 129.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> He says he 'was going to Paris in a day or two.' -But his memory must have deceived him, for Chatterton's -last letter is dated July 24th, 1769, and, according to Miss -Berry, Walpole's visit to Paris lasted from the 18th -August to the 5th October, 1769; and this is confirmed -by his correspondence.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, iv. 219. In the above summary of the -story we have relied by preference on the fairly established -facts of the case, which is full of difficulties. The most -plausible version of it, as well as the most fair to Walpole, -is given in Prof. D. Wilson's <cite>Chatterton</cite>, 1869.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> An example of this is furnished by Miss Seward's -<cite>Correspondence</cite>. 'Do not expect [she writes] that I can -learn to esteem that fastidious and unfeeling being, to -whose insensibility we owe the extinction of the greatest -poetic luminary [Chatterton], if we may judge from the -brightness of its dawn, that ever rose in our, or perhaps -in any other, hemisphere' (<cite>Seward to Hardinge</cite>, 21 Nov., -1787).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, iv. 205-45. See also Bibliographical -Appendix to this volume.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk, -died in July, 1767. Her portrait by Charles Jervas, with -Marble Hill in the background, hung in the Green Bed-chamber -in the Round Tower at Strawberry. It once -belonged to Pope, who left it to Martha Blount; and it -is engraved as the frontispiece of vol. ii. of Cunningham's -edition of the <cite>Letters</cite>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> 'The Duke of Gloucester'—wrote Gilly Williams -to Selwyn, as far back as December, 1764—'has professed -a passion for the Dowager Waldegrave. He is -never from her elbow. This flatters Horry Walpole not -a little, though he pretends to dislike it.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> The idea was borrowed from an inscription upon a -statue at Milan: 'Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit -Agrati!'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> From a passage in a letter of 15 Sept., 1787, to Lady -Ossory, it appears that this, though printed, was withheld, -on account of certain difficulties caused by the over-weening -curiosity of Walpole's 'customers' (as he called them), -the visitors to Strawberry. According to the sheet of -regulations for visiting the house, it was to be seen -between the 1st of May and the 1st of October. Children -were not admitted; and only one company of four on one -day.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> 'It is not much larger than an old lady's flower-knot -in Bloomsbury,' said Lady Morgan in 1826.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> See p. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> See p. <a href="#Page_117">117</a> n.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> It was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1781, and -was Bunbury's acknowledgment of the praise given him -by Walpole in the 'Advertisement' to the fourth volume -of the <cite>Anecdotes of Painting</cite>, 1 Oct., 1780. A copy of it -was shown at the Exhibition of English Humourists in -Art, June, 1889.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> In a note to Madame du Deffand's <cite>Letters</cite>, 1810, i. 201, -the editor, Miss Berry, thus describes this picture: It -was 'a washed drawing of Mad. la Duchesse de Choiseul -and Mad. du Deffand, under their assumed characters -of grandmother and granddaughter; Mad. de Choiseul -giving Mad. du Deffand a doll. The scene the interior -of Mad. du Deffand's sitting-room. It was done by M. de -Carmontel, an amateur in the art of painting. He was -reader to the Prince of Condé, and author of several little -Theatrical pieces.' It is engraved as the frontispiece of -vol. vii. of Walpole's <cite>Letters</cite>, by Cunningham, 1857-59. -Mad. du Deffand's portrait was said to be extremely like; -that of the Duchess was not good.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> 'It is now the Musée Carnavalet, and contains -numberless souvenirs of the Revolution, notably a collection -of china plates, bearing various dates, designs, and -inscriptions applicable to the Reign of Terror' (<cite>Century Magazine</cite>90, p. 600). A washed drawing of -Madame de Sévigné's country house at Les Rochers, -'done on the spot by Mr. Hinchcliffe, son of the Bishop -of Peterborough, in 1786,' was afterwards added to this -room.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Both these pictures are in existence. The Scott -belongs to Lady Freake, and was exhibited in the Pope -Loan Museum of 1888.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Both these are engraved in Cunningham's edition of -the <cite>Letters</cite>, the former in vol. iv., p. 465, the latter in vol. -ix., p. 529.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> This was the Amsterdam edition of 1707, in 2 vols. -12mo., inscribed 'E libris, A. Pope, 1714;' and lower -down, 'Finished ye translation in Feb. 1719-20, A. Pope.' -It also contained a pencil sketch by the poet of Twickenham -Church.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Walpole wrote an epilogue—not a very good one—for -Mrs. Clive when she quitted the stage; and in the -same year, 1769, the <cite>Town and Country Magazine</cite> linked -their names in its '<cite>Tête-à-Têtes</cite>' as 'Mrs. Heidelberg' -(Clive's part in the <cite>Clandestine Marriage</cite>) and 'Baron -Otranto' (a name under which Chatterton subsequently -satirized Walpole in this identical periodical). See -<cite>Memoirs of a Sad Dog</cite>, Pt. 2, July, 1770.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Horatio, brother of Sir Robert Walpole, created -Baron Walpole of Wolterton in 1756. He died in 1757. -His <cite>Memoirs</cite> were published by Coxe in 1802.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> 'The chief boast of my collection,' he told Pinkerton, -'is the portraits of eminent and remarkable persons, particularly -the miniatures and enamels; which, so far as I -can discover, are superior to any other collection whatever. -The works I possess of Isaac and Peter Oliver are -the best extant; and those I bought in Wales for 300 -guineas [<i>i.e.</i>, the Digby Family, in the Breakfast Room] -are as well preserved as when they came from the pencil -(<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, ii. 157).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> It is printed in both the Catalogues.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> At the sale in 1842, King Henry's dagger was purchased -for £54 12<i>s.</i> by Charles Kean the actor, who also -became the fortunate possessor, for £21, of Cardinal -Wolsey's hat.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Here is his own reference to this, in a letter to Montagu -of 14 Oct., 1756: 'The only thing I have done that -can compose a paragraph, and which I think you are -Whig enough to forgive me, is, that on each side of my -bed I have hung <span class="smcap">Magna Charta</span>, and the Warrant for -King Charles's execution, on which I have written Major -Charta; as I believe, without the latter, the former by -this time would be of very little importance.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> See p. <a href="#Page_7">7</a> n.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> 'Dr Dee's black stone was named in the catalogue of -the collection of the Earls of Peterborough, whence it -went to Lady Betty Germaine. She gave it to the last -Duke of Argyle, and his son, Lord Frederic, to me' -(<cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 12 Jan., 1782)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> This was afterwards moved to the Little Cloister at -the entrance, where it appears in the later Catalogue. At -the sale of 1842 the bowl, with its Gothic pedestal, was -purchased by the Earl of Derby for £42.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Not far from the Chapel was 'a large seat in the -form of a shell, carved in oak from a design by Mr. Bentley.' -It must have been roomy, for in 1759 the Duchesses -of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury (the last -two, daughter and mother), occupied it together. 'There -never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting -in the shell,' says the delighted Abbot of Strawberry. -(<cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 2 June.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> In a note to the obituary notice of Walpole in the -<cite>Gentleman's Magazine</cite> for March, 1797, p. 260, it is stated -that this library was 'formed of all the publications during -the reigns of the three Georges, or Mr. W.'s own time.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> This was exhibited at South Kensington in 1867 by -Viscount Lifford, and is now (1892) at Austin House, -Broadway, Worcester.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <cite>Works</cite>, 1798, ii. 395-98.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Kendal House now no longer exists.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> <cite>An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers</cite>, <cite>Knight</cite>, -1773.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent4">'—— <em>Brandford's</em> tedious town,</div> - <div class="verse">For dirty streets, and white-leg'd chickens known.'</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p class="center"> -Gay's <cite>Journey to Exeter</cite>. -</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Gunnersbury House (or Park), a new structure, now -belongs to Lord Rothschild.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> The Old Pack Horse, somewhat modernized by red-brick -additions, still (1892) stands at the corner of Turnham -Green. It is mentioned in the <cite>London Gazette</cite> as far -back as 1697. The sign, a common one for posting inns -in former days, is on the opposite side of the road.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Hammersmith church was rebuilt in 1882-3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Sir Baptist Hickes, once a mercer in Cheapside, and -afterwards Viscount Campden, erected it <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">circa</i> 1612. At -the time to which Mr. Cunningham is supposed to refer, -it was a famous ladies' boarding-school, kept by a Mrs. -Terry, and patronized by Selwyn and Lady Di. Beauclerk.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> The (with all due deference to the writer) quaint and -picturesque old church of St. Mary the Virgin, in Kensington -High Street, at which Macaulay, in his later days, -was a regular attendant, gave way, in 1869, to a larger and -more modern edifice by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Old Kensington House, as it was called, has also -been pulled down. One of its inmates, long after the -days of 'Madam Carwell,' was Elizabeth Inchbald, the -author of <cite>A Simple Story</cite>, who died there in 1821.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Now Lord Listowel's. It stands near the Prince's -Gate into Hyde Park.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Restored and remodelled in 1861, and now the Church -of the Holy Trinity.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> The Hercules Pillars, where Squire Western put up -his horses when he came to town, stood just east of -Apsley House, 'on the site of what is now the pavement -opposite Lord Willoughby's.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> The Duke of Queensberry's house afterwards became -138 and 139 Piccadilly.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> This is No. 106,—the present St. James's Club. It -was built in 1764 by George, sixth Earl of Coventry, some -years after the death of his first wife, the elder Miss -Gunning.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <cite>Letters</cite>, by Cunningham, 1857-9, ix. xx.-xxi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Kirgate, who will not be again mentioned, fared but -ill at his master's decease, receiving no more than a legacy -of £100,—a circumstance which Pinkerton darkly attributes -to 'his modest merit' having been 'supplanted by -intriguing impudence' (<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, i. xxiv). There is a portrait -of him, engraved by William Collard, after Sylvester -Harding, the Pall Mall miniature painter, who also wrote -in 1797 for Kirgate some verses in which he is made to -speak of himself as 'forlorn, neglected, and forgot.' He -had an unique collection of the Strawberry Press issues, -which was dispersed at his death, in 1810.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> It was his good sense rather than his inclination that -made him condemn one with whom he had many points -of sympathy. Speaking of the quarrel of Johnson and -Chesterfield, he says, 'The friendly patronage [<i>i. e.</i> of the -earl] was returned with ungrateful rudeness by the proud -pedant; and men smiled, without being surprised, at seeing -a bear worry his dancing-master.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> 'Jephson's <cite>Count of Narbonne</cite> has been more admired -than any play I remember to have appeared -these many years. It is still [Jan., 1782] acted with success -to very full houses' (<cite>Malone to Charlemont, Hist. -MSS. Commission, 12th Rept., App.</cite>, Pt. x., 1891, p. 395). -Malone wrote the epilogue.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> 'Silly Dr. Goldsmith' he calls him to Cole in -April, 1773. 'Goldsmith was an idiot, with once or -twice a fit of parts,' he says again to Mason in October, -1776.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> The rules of the so-called <em>Female Coterie</em> in Albemarle -Street, together with the names of the members, -are given in the <cite>Gentleman's Magazine</cite> for 1770, pp. 414-5. -Besides Walpole and Miss Lloyd, Fox, Conway, Selwyn, -the Waldegraves, the Damers, and many other 'persons -of quality' belonged to it.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> The Hon. Richard Fitzpatrick, Lord Ossory's -brother. He afterwards became a General, and Secretary -at War. At this time he was a captain in the Grenadier -Guards. As a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">littérateur</i> he had written <cite>The Bath Picture; -or, a Slight Sketch of its Beauties</cite>; and he was later -one of the chief contributors to the <cite>Rolliad</cite>. Besides -being the life-long friend of Fox, he was a highly popular -wit and man-of-fashion. Lord Ossory put him above -Walpole and Selwyn; and Lady Holland is said to have -thought him the most agreeable person she had ever -known. He died in 1813.</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> One of the three beautiful sisters painted by Reynolds,—Elizabeth -Laura, afterwards Viscountess Chewton; -Charlotte Maria, afterwards Countess of Euston; -and Anne Horatia, who married Captain Hugh Conway. -'Sir Joshua Reynolds gets avaricious in his old age. My -picture of the young ladies Waldegrave is doubtless very -fine and graceful, but it cost me 800 guineas' (<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, -ii. 157).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> He was not successful as regards Hogarth, whose -widow was sorely and justly wounded by his coarse -treatment of <cite>Sigismunda</cite>, which is said to have been a -portrait of herself. The picture is now in the National -Gallery.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Miss Hawkins (<cite>Anecdotes</cite>, etc., 1822, p. 103) did not -think highly of these performances: 'Unless the proportions -of the human figure are of no importance in -drawing it, these 'Beauclerk drawings' can be looked on -only with disgust and contempt.' But she praises the -gipsies hereafter mentioned (p. <a href="#Page_260">260</a> n.) as having been -copied by Agnes Berry.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> -See pp. <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> The exact sum was £40,555. Cipriani and West -were the valuers. Most of the family portraits were -reserved; but so many of the pictures were presents that -it is not easy to estimate the actual profit over their first -cost to the original owner.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> -<cite>Walpole to Mann</cite>, 4 Aug., 1779.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> This, according to Harrison's <cite>Memorable Houses</cite>, 3rd -ed., 1890, p. 62, is Lord Orford's number as given in -<cite>Boyle's Court Guide</cite> for 1796.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> According to a note in the selection from Madame -du Deffand's Correspondence with Walpole, published -in 1810, iii. 44, these letters were at that date extant. But -all the subsequent letters were burnt by her at Walpole's -earnest desire—those only excepted which she received -during the last year of her life, and these, also, were sent -back when she died.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Tonton was a snappish little dog belonging to Madame -du Deffand, which, when in its mistress's company, must -have been extremely objectionable. In January, 1778, the -Maréchale de Luxembourg presented her old friend with -Tonton's portrait in wax on a gold snuff-box, together -with the last six volumes of Madame du Deffand's favourite, -Voltaire, adding the following epigram by the Chevalier -de Boufflers:— -</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'Vous les trouvez tous deux charmans,</div> - <div class="verse">Nous les trouvons tous deux mordans:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Voilà la ressemblance;</div> - <div class="verse">L'un ne mord que ses ennemis,</div> - <div class="verse">Et l'autre mord tous vos amis:</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Voilà la différence.'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p> -At Madame du Deffand's death, both dog and box passed -to Walpole, the latter finding an honoured place among -the treasures of the Tribune. (See <cite>A Description of the -Villa</cite>, etc., 1774, p. 137, <cite>Appendix of Additions</cite>.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> The MSS., which included eight hundred of Madame -du Deffand's letters, were sold in the Strawberry Hill -sale of 1842 for £157 10<i>s.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Walpole, as in the case of Madame du Deffand, had -taken the precaution of getting back his letters, and at -his friend's death not more than a dozen of them were -still in Mann's possession. According to Cunningham -(<cite>Corr.</cite>, ix. xv), Mann's letters to Walpole are 'absolutely -unreadable.' An attempt to skim the cream of them -(such as it is) was made by Dr. Doran in two volumes -entitled <cite>'Mann' and Manners at the Court of Florence</cite>, -1740-1786, Bentley, 1876.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Mrs. Clive is buried at Twickenham, where a mural -slab was erected to her in the parish church by her -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i> and successor, Miss Jane Pope, the clever actress -who shed tears over the Beauclerk drawings (see p. <a href="#Page_244">244</a>). -Her portrait by Davison, which is engraved as the frontispiece -to Cunningham's fourth volume, hung in the -Round Bedchamber at Strawberry. It was given to -Walpole by her brother, James Raftor.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> 'Whom she [Madame de Genlis] has educated to be -very like herself in the face,' says Walpole, referring -to a then current scandal. At this date, however, it is -but just to add that the recent investigations of Mr. J. G. -Alger, as embodied in vol. xix. of the <cite>Dictionary of -National Biography</cite>, tend to show that it is by no means -certain that Pamela was the daughter of the accomplished -lady whom Philippe <em>Egalité</em> entrusted with the education -of his sons.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> He is not explicit as to his creed. 'Atheism I dislike,' -he said to Pinkerton. 'It is gloomy, uncomfortable; -and, in my eye, unnatural and irrational. It certainly -requires more credulity to believe that there is no God, -than to believe that there is' (<cite>Walpoliana</cite>, i. 75-6). But -Pinkerton must be taken with caution. (Cf. <cite>Quarterly -Review</cite>, 1843, lxxii. 551.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> In 1786 she had dedicated to him her <cite>Florio, A Tale</cite>, -etc., with a highly complimentary Preface, in which she -says: 'I should be unjust to your very engaging and -well-bred turn of wit, if I did not declare that, among all -the lively and brilliant things I have heard from you, I -do not remember ever to have heard an unkind or an -ungenerous one.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> This (we are told) was Lady Di.'s <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef-d'œuvre</i>. It -was a water-colour drawing representing 'Gipsies telling -a country-maiden her fortune at the entrance of a beech-wood,' -and hung in the Red Bedchamber at Strawberry.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 11 Oct., 1788.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Pinkerton</cite>, 26 Dec., 1791.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Mary Berry died 20th Nov., 1852; Agnes Berry, -Jan., 1852. They were buried in one grave in Petersham -churchyard, 'amidst scenes'—says Lord Carlisle's -inscription—'which in life they had frequented & loved.' -H. F. Chorley (<cite>Autobiography</cite>, etc., 1873, vol. i., p. 276) -describes them as 'more like one's notion of ancient -Frenchwomen than anything I have ever seen; rouged, -with the remains of some beauty, managing large fans like -the Flirtillas, etc., etc., of Ranelagh.' See also <cite>Extracts -from Miss Berry's Journals and Correspondence</cite>, 1783-1852, -edited by Lady Theresa Lewis, 1865.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Trevelyan's <cite>Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay</cite>, ch. v.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> This is engraved in vol. ix. of Cunningham, facing -the Index; while the Müntz, above referred to, forms the -frontispiece to vol. viii.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> The writer of the obituary notice in the <cite>Gentleman's -Magazine</cite> for March, 1797, says that Dance's portrait is -'the only faithful representation of him [Walpole].' -Against this must be set the fact that it was not selected -by the editor of his works; and, besides being in profile, -it is certainly far less pleasing than the Lawrence.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> It must, by his own account, have been peculiar. -'Walking is not one of my excellences,' he writes. 'In my -best days Mr. Winnington said I tripped like a peewit; -and if I do not flatter myself, my march at present is more -like a dabchick's' (<cite>Walpole to Lady Ossory</cite>, 18 August, -1775).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <cite>Anecdotes, etc.</cite>, by L. M. Hawkins, 1822, pp. 105-6.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> 'I have lately become acquainted with your friend -Mr. Walpole, and am quite charmed with him.'—writes -Malone to Lord Charlemont in 1782. 'There is an unaffected -benignity and good nature in his manner that is, I -think, irresistibly engaging' (<cite>Hist. MSS. Commission, -12th Rept., App.</cite>, Pt. x., 1891, p. 395).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Tonton. See note to p. <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Another passage in the <cite>Walpoliana</cite> (i. 71-2) explains -this: 'Regularly after breakfast, in the summer season, -at least, Mr. Walpole used to mix bread and milk in a -large bason, and throw it out at the window of the sitting-room, -for the squirrels; who, soon after, came down from -the high trees, to enjoy their allowance.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> 'I cannot go up or down stairs without being led by -a servant. It is <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tempus abire</i> for me: <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">lusi satis</i>' (<cite>Walpole -to Pinkerton</cite>, 15 May, 1794).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> 'I have persisted'—he tells Gray from Paris in -January, 1766—'through this Siberian winter in not -adding a grain to my clothes and in going open-breasted -without an under waistcoat.'</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> He was probably thinking of <cite>Spectator</cite>, No. 228: -'The <em>Indian</em> answered very well to an <em>European</em>, who -asked him how he could go naked: I am all Face.' -Lord Chesterfield wished his little godson to have the same -advantage. 'I am very willing that he should be <em>all -face</em>,' he says in a letter to Arthur Stanhope of 19th -October, 1762.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <cite>Walpoliana</cite>, i. xi-xiv.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> See Mr. Robins's <i>Catalogue of the Classic Contents of -Strawberry Hill</i>, etc. (1842), 4to. It is compiled in his -well-known grandiloquent manner; but includes an account -of the Castle by Harrison Ainsworth, together with -many interesting details. It gave rise to a humorous squib -by Crofton Croker, entitled <i>Gooseberry Hall</i>, with 'Puffatory -Remarks,' and cuts.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <cite>Walpole to Montagu</cite>, 12 March, 1768.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> The full titles of these memoirs are <cite>Memoires of the -last Ten Years of the Reign of King George II.</cite> Edited -by Lord Holland. 2 vols. 4to., 1822; and <cite>Memoirs of the -Reign of King George III.</cite> Edited, with Notes, by Sir -Denis Le Marchant, Bart. 4 vols. 8vo., 1845. Both were -reviewed, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">more suo</i>, by Mr. Croker in the <cite>Quarterly</cite>, with -the main intention of proving that all Walpole's pictures -of his contemporaries were coloured and distorted by -successive disappointments arising out of his solicitude -concerning the patent places from which he derived his -income,—in other words (Mr. Croker's words!), that -'the whole is "a copious polyglot of spleen."' Such an -investigation was in the favourite line of the critic, and -might be expected to result in a formidable indictment. -But the best judges hold it to have been exaggerated, and -to-day the method of Mr Croker is more or less discredited. -Indeed, it is an instance of those quaint revenges -of the whirligig of Time, that some of his utterances are -really more applicable to himself than to Walpole. 'His -[Walpole's] natural inclination [says Croker] was to grope -an obscure way through mazes and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">souterrains</i> rather than -walk the high road by daylight. He is never satisfied -with the plain and obvious cause of any effect, and is -for ever striving after some tortuous solution.' This is -precisely what unkind modern critics affirm of the Rt. -Honourable John Wilson Croker.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <cite>Idler</cite>, No. lxxvii. (6 Oct., 1759).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> See Appendix, p. <a href="#Page_320">320</a>. To the advocates of the -rival school Walpole's utterance, perhaps inevitably, -appears in a less favourable light. 'Horace Walpole -published an <cite>Essay on Modern Gardening</cite> in 1785, in -which he repeated what other writers had said on the -subject. This was at once translated, and had a great -circulation on the Continent. The <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jardin à l'Anglaise</i> -became the rage; many beautiful old gardens were -destroyed in France and elsewhere; and Scotch and -English gardeners were in demand all over Europe to -renovate gardens in the English manner. It is not an -exhilarating thought that in the one instance in which English -taste in a matter of design has taken hold on the -Continent, it has done so with such disastrous results' -(<cite>The Formal Garden in England</cite>, 2nd edn., 1892, p. 86).</p></div></div> - - -<div class='transnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> - <p>Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.</p> - <p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, inconsistent punctuation, and other inconsistencies.</p> - <p>Obvious printer's errors corrected.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Horace Walpole, by Austin Dobson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE WALPOLE *** - -***** This file should be named 53649-h.htm or 53649-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/6/4/53649/ - -Produced by Clarity, Christopher Wright, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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