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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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