Chapter I: Part 1

LETTERS

OF

HORACE WALPOLE

SELECTED AND EDITED BY

CHARLES DUKE YONGE, M.A.

AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF FRANCE UNDER THE BOURBONS," "A LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE," ETC., ETC.

WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

London

T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

NEW YORK: G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

MDCCCXC

CONTENTS.

1736-1764.

1. TO MONTAGU, _May_ 2, 1736.--Marriage of the Princess of Wales--Very lively

2. TO THE SAME, _May_ 6, 1736.--Fondness for Old Stories--Reminiscences of Eton, etc.

3. TO THE SAME, _March_ 20, 1737.--Wish to Travel--Superiority of French Manners to English in their manner to Ladies

4. TO WEST, _April_ 21, 1739.--Theatres at Paris--St. Denis--Fondness of the French for Show, and for Gambling--Singular Signs--The Army the only Profession for Men of Gentle Birth--Splendour of the Public Buildings

5. TO THE SAME, 1739.--Magnificence of Versailles--The Chartreux Relics

6. TO THE SAME, _February_ 27, 1740.--The Carnival--The Florentines Civil, Good-natured, and Fond of the English--A Curious Challenge

7. TO THE SAME, _June_ 14, 1740.--Herculaneum--Search should be made for other Submerged Cities--Quotations from Statius

8. TO CONWAY, _July_ 5, 1740.--Danger of Malaria--Roman Catholic Relics--"Admiral Hosier's Ghost"--Contest for the Popedom

9. TO THE SAME, _July_ 9, 1740

10. TO WEST, _Oct._ 2, 1740.--A Florentine Wedding--Addison's Descriptions are Borrowed from Books--A Song of Bondelmonti's, with a Latin Version by Gray, and an English One by the Writer

11. TO MANN, _Jan._ 22, 1742.--Debate on Pulteney's Motion for a Committee on Papers Relating to the War--Speeches of Pulteney, Pitt, Sir R. Walpole, Sir W. George, etc.--Smallness of the Ministerial Majority

12. TO THE SAME, _May_ 26, 1742.--Ranelagh Gardens Opened--Garrick, "A Wine-merchant turned Player"--Defeat of the Indemnity Bill

13. TO THE SAME, _Dec._ 9, 1742.--Debate on Disbanding the Hanoverian Troops--First Speech of Murray (afterwards Earl of Mansfield)--_Bon Mot_ of Lord Chesterfield

14. TO THE SAME, _Feb._ 24, 1743.--King Theodore--Handel Introduces Oratorios

15. TO THE SAME, _July_ 4, 1743.--Battle of Dettingen--Death of Lord Wilmington

16. TO THE SAME, _Sept._ 7, 1743.--French Actors at Clifden--A new Roman Catholic Miracle--Lady Mary Wortley

17. TO THE SAME, _March_ 29, 1745.--Death of his Father--Matthews and Lestock in the Mediterranean--Thomson's "Tancred and Sigismunda"--Akenside's Odes--Conundrums in Fashion

18. TO THE SAME, _May_ 11, 1745.--Battle of Fontenoy--The Ballad of the Prince of Wales

19. TO MONTAGU, _August_ 1, 1745.--M. De Grignan--Livy's Patavinity--The Maréchal De Belleisle--Whiston Prophecies the Destruction of the World--The Duke of Newcastle

20. TO MANN, _Sept._ 6, 1745.--Invasion of Scotland by the Young Pretender--Forces are said to be Preparing in France to join him

21. TO THE SAME, _Sept._ 20, 1745.--This and the following Letters give a Lively Account of the Progress of the Rebellion till the Retreat from Derby, after which no particular interest attaches to it

22. TO THE SAME, _Sept._ 27, 1745.--Defeat of Cope

23. TO THE SAME, _Oct._ 21, 1745.--General Wade is Marching to Scotland--Violent Proclamation of the Pretender

24. TO THE SAME, _Nov._ 22, 1745.--Gallant Resistance of Carlisle--Mr. Pitt attacks the Ministry

25. TO THE SAME, _Dec._ 9, 1745.--The Rebel Army has Retreated from Derby--Expectation of a French Invasion

26. TO THE SAME, _April_ 25, 1746.--Battle of Culloden

27. TO THE SAME, _Aug._ 1, 1746.--Trial of the Rebel Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock

28. TO THE SAME, _Oct._ 14, 1746.--The Battle of Rancoux

29. TO CONWAY, _Oct._ 24, 1746.--On Conway's Verses--No Scotch_man_ is capable of such Delicacy of Thought, though a Scotchwoman may be--Akenside's, Armstrong's, and Glover's Poems

30. TO THE SAME, _June_ 8, 1747.--He has bought Strawberry Hill

31. TO THE SAME, _Aug._ 29, 1748.--His Mode of Life--Planting--Prophecies of New Methods and New Discoveries in a Future Generation

32. TO MANN, _May_ 3, 1749.--Rejoicings for the Peace--Masquerade at Ranelagh--Meeting of the Prince's Party and the Jacobites--Prevalence of Drinking and Gambling--Whitefield

33. TO THE SAME, _March_ 11, 1750.--Earthquake in London--General Panic--Marriage of Casimir, King of Poland

34. TO THE SAME, _April_ 2, 1750.--General Panic--Sherlock's Pastoral Letter--Predictions of more Earthquakes--A General Flight from London--Epigrams by Chute and Walpole himself--French Translation of Milton

35. TO THE SAME, _April_ 1, 1751.--Death of Walpole's Brother, and of the Prince of Wales--Speech of the young Prince--Singular Sermon on His Death

36. TO THE SAME, _June_ 18, 1751.--Changes in the Ministry and Household--The Miss Gunnings--Extravagance in London--Lord Harcourt, Governor of the Prince of Wales

37. TO THE SAME, _June_ 12, 1753.--Description of Strawberry Hill--Bill to Prevent Clandestine Marriages

38. TO MONTAGU, _May_ 19, 1756.--No News from France but what is Smuggled--The King's Delight at the Vote for the Hanover Troops--_Bon Mot_ of Lord Denbigh

39. TO THE SAME, _Oct._ 17, 1756.--Victory of the King of Prussia at Lowositz--Singular Race--Quarrel of the Pretender with the Pope

40. TO THE SAME, _Nov._ 4, 1756.--Ministerial Negotiations--Loss of Minorca--Disaster in North America

41. TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD, _July_ 4, 1757.--The King of Prussia's Victories--Voltaire's "Universal History"

42. TO ZOUCH, _August_ 3, 1758.--His own "Royal and Noble Authors"

43. TO THE SAME, _Oct._ 21, 1758.--His "Royal and Noble Authors"--Lord Clarendon--Sir R. Walpole and Lord Bolingbroke--The Duke of Leeds

44. TO MANN, _Oct._ 24, 1758.--Walpole's Monument to Sir Horace's Brother--Attempted Assassination of the King of Portugal--Courtesy of the Duc D'Aiguillon to his English Prisoners

45. TO ZOUCH, _Dec._ 9, 1758.--A New Edition of Lucan--Comparison of "Pharsalea"--Criticism on the Poet, with the Aeneid--Helvetius's Work, "De L'Esprit"

46. TO CONWAY, _Jan._ 19, 1759.--State of the House of Commons

47. TO DALRYMPLE, _Feb._ 25, 1759.--Robertson's "History of Scotland"--Comparison of Ramsay and Reynolds as Portrait-Painters--Sir David's "History of the Gowrie Conspiracy"

48. TO THE SAME, _July_ 11, 1759.--Writers of History: Goodall, Hume, Robertson--Queen Christina

49. TO CONWAY, _Aug._ 14, 1759.--The Battle of Minden--Lord G. Sackville

50. TO MANN, _Sept._ 13, 1759.--Admiral Boscawen's Victory--Defeat of the King of Prussia--Lord G. Sackville

51. TO MONTAGU, _Oct._ 21, 1759.--A Year of Triumphs

52. TO THE SAME, _Nov._ 8, 1759.--French Bankruptcy--French Epigram

53. TO THE SAME, _Jan._ 7, 1760.--He lives amongst Royalty--Commotions in Ireland

54. TO THE SAME, _Jan._ 14, 1760.--Severity of the Weather--Scarcity in Germany--A Party at Prince Edward's--Charles Townsend's Comments on La Fontaine

55. TO MANN, _Feb._ 28, 1760.--Capture of Carrickfergus

56. TO DALRYMPLE, _April_ 4, 1760.--The Ballad of "Hardyknute"--Mr. Home's "Siege of Aquileia"--"Tristram Shandy"--Bishop Warburton's Praise of it

57. TO THE SAME, _June_ 20, 1760.--Erse Poetry--"The Dialogues of the Dead"--"The Complete Angler"

58. TO MONTAGU, _Sept._ 1, 1760.--Visits in the Midland Counties--Whichnovre--Sheffield--The new Art of Plating--Chatsworth--Haddon Hall--Hardwicke--Apartments of Mary Queen of Scots--Newstead--Althorp

59. TO THE SAME, _April_ 16, 1761.--Gentleman's Dress--Influence of Lord Bute--Ode by Lord Middlesex--G. Selwyn's Quotation

60. TO THE SAME, _May_ 5, 1761.--Capture of Belleisle--Gray's Poems--Hogarth's Vanity

61. TO THE SAME, _May_ 22, 1761.--Intended Marriage of the King--Battles in Germany--Capture of Pondicherry--Burke

62. TO MANN, _Sept._ 10, 1761.--Arrival of the Princess of Mecklenburgh--The Royal Wedding--The Queen's Appearance and Behaviour

63. TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY, _Sept._ 27, 1761.--The Coronation and subsequent Gaieties

64. TO THE SAME, _Nov._ 28, 1761.--A Court Ball--Pamphlets on Mr. Pitt--A Song by Gray

65. TO MANN, _Jan._ 29, 1762.--Death of the Czarina Elizabeth--The Cock-lane Ghost--Return to England of Lady Mary Wortley

66. TO ZOUCH, _March_ 20, 1762.--His own "Anecdotes of Painting"--His Picture of the Wedding of Henry VII.--Burnet's Comparison of Tiberius and Charles II.--Addison's "Travels"

67. TO MANN, _Aug._ 12, 1762.--Birth of the Prince of Wales--The Czarina--Voltaire's Historical Criticisms--Immense Value of the Treasures brought over in the _Hermione_

68. TO CONWAY, _Sept._ 9, 1762.--Negotiations for Peace--Christening of the Prince of Wales

69. TO MANN, _Oct._ 3, 1762.--Treasures from the Havannah--The Royal Visit to Eton--Death of Lady Mary--Concealment of Her Works--Voltaire's "Universal History"

70. TO THE SAME, _April_ 30, 1763.--Resignation of Lord Bute--French Visitors--Walpole and No. 45

71. TO MONTAGU, _May_ 17, 1763.--A Party at "Straberri"--Work of his Printing Press--Epigrams--A Garden Party at Esher

72. TO CONWAY, _May_ 21, 1763.--General Character of the French--Festivities on the Queen's Birthday

73. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD, _Dec._ 29, 1763.--The ordinary way of Life in England--Wilkes--C. Townshend--Count Lally--Lord Clive--Lord Northington--Louis Le Bien Aimé--The Drama in France

74. TO MONTAGU, _Jan._11, 1764.--A New Year's Party at Lady Suffolk's--Lady Temple, Poetess Laureate to the Muses

75. TO MANN, _Jan._ 18, 1764.--Marriage of the Prince of Brunswick: His Popularity

76. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD, _Feb._ 6, 1764.--Gambling Quarrels--Mr. Conway's Speech

77. TO THE SAME, _Feb._ 15, 1764.--Account of the Debate on the General Warrant

78. TO MANN, _June_ 8, 1764.--Lord Clive--Mr. Hamilton, Ambassador to Naples--Speech of Louis XV.

79. TO THE SAME, _Aug._ 13, 1764.--The King of Poland--Catherine of Russia

80. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD, _Oct._ 5, 1764.--Madame De Boufflers' Writings--King James's Journal

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

I. HORACE WALPOLE

From an engraving after a sketch by Sir THOS. LAWRENCE, P.R.A.

II. SIR HORACE MANN

III. STRAWBERRY HILL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST

IV. GEORGE MONTAGU

V. THE LIBRARY, STRAWBERRY HILL

VI. HORACE WALPOLE

From a picture in the National Portrait Gallery, by NATHANIEL HONE, R.A.

INTRODUCTION.

It is creditable to our English nobility, and a feature in their character that distinguishes them from their fellows of most other nations, that, from the first revival of learning, the study of literature has been extensively cultivated by men of high birth, even by many who did not require literary fame to secure them a lasting remembrance; and they have not contented themselves with showing their appreciation of intellectual excellence by their patronage of humbler scholars, but have themselves afforded examples to other labourers in the hive, taking upon themselves the toils, and earning no small nor undeserved share of the honours of authorship. The very earliest of our poets, Chaucer, must have been a man of gentle birth, since he was employed on embassies of importance, and was married to the daughter of a French knight of distinction, and sister of the Duchess of Lancaster. The long civil wars of the fifteenth century prevented his having any immediate followers; but the sixteenth opened more propitiously. The conqueror of Flodden was also "Surrey of the deathless lay";[1] and from his time to the present day there is hardly a break in the long line of authors who have shown their feeling that noble birth and high position are no excuses for idleness, but that the highest rank gains additional illustration when it is shown to be united with brilliant talents worthily exercised. The earliest of our tragic poets was Sackville Earl of Dorset. The preux chevalier of Elizabeth's Court, the accomplished and high-minded Sidney, took up the lyre of Surrey: Lord St. Albans, more generally known by his family name of Bacon, "took all learning for his province"; and, though peaceful studies were again for a while rudely interrupted by the "dark deeds of horrid war," the restoration of peace was, as it had been before, a signal for the resumption of their studies by many of the best-born of the land. Another Earl of Dorset displayed his hereditary talent not less than his martial gallantry. Lord Roscommon well deserved the praises which Dryden and Pope, after his death, liberally bestowed. The great Lord Chancellor Clarendon devoted his declining years to a work of a grander class, leaving us a History which will endure as long as the language itself; while ladies of the very highest rank, the Duchess of Newcastle and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, vindicated the claims of their sex to share with their brethren the honours of poetical fame.

[Footnote 1: "Lay of the Last Minstrel," vi. 14.]

Among this noble and accomplished brotherhood the author of these letters is by general consent allowed to be entitled to no low place. Horace Walpole, born in the autumn of 1717, was the youngest son of that wise minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who, though, as Burke afterwards described him, "not a genius of the first class," yet by his adoption of, and resolute adherence to a policy of peace throughout the greater part of his administration, in which he was fortunately assisted by the concurrence of Fleury of France, contributed in no slight degree to the permanent establishment of the present dynasty on the throne. He received his education at the greatest of English schools, Eton, to which throughout his life he preserved a warm attachment; and where he gave a strong indication of his preference for peaceful studies and his judicious appreciation of intellectual ability, by selecting as his most intimate friend Thomas Gray, hereafter to achieve a poetical immortality by the Bard and the Elegy. From Eton they both went to Cambridge, and, when they quitted the University, in 1738, joined in a travelling tour through France and Italy. They continued companions for something more than two years; but at the end of that time they separated, and in the spring of 1741 Gray returned to England. The cause of their parting was never distinctly avowed; Walpole took the blame, if blame there was, on himself; but, in fact, it probably lay in an innate difference of disposition, and consequently of object. Walpole being fond of society, and, from his position as the Minister's son, naturally courted by many of the chief men in the different cities which they visited; while Gray was of a reserved character shunning the notice of strangers, and fixing his attention on more serious subjects than Walpole found attractive.

In the autumn of the same year Walpole himself returned home. He had become a member of Parliament at the General Election in the summer, and took his seat just in time to bear a part in the fierce contest which terminated in the dissolution of his father's Ministry. His maiden speech, almost the only one he ever made, was in defence of the character and policy of his father, who was no longer in the House of Commons to defend himself.[1] And the result of the conflict made no slight impression on his mind; but gave a colour to all his political views.

He began almost immediately to come forward as an author: not, however, as--

Obliged by hunger and request of friends;

for in his circumstances he was independent, and even opulent; but seeking to avenge his father by squibs on Mr. Pulteney (now Lord Bath), as having been the leader of the attacks on him, and on the new Ministry which had succeeded him. In one respect that age was a happy one for ministers and all connected with them. Pensions and preferments were distributed with a lavish hand; and, even while he was a schoolboy, he had received more than one "patent place," as such were called, in the Exchequer, to which before his father's resignation others were added, which after a time raised his income to above £5,000 a year, a fortune which in those times was exceeded by comparatively few, even of those regarded as wealthy. So rich, indeed, was he, that before he was thirty he was able to buy Strawberry Hill, "a small house near Twickenham," as he describes it at first, but which he gradually enlarged and embellished till it grew into something of a baronial castle on a small scale, somewhat as, under the affectionate diligence of a greater man, Abbotsford in the present century became one of the lions of the Tweed.

[Footnote 1: The speech was made March 23, 1742; but Sir Robert had resigned office, and been created Earl of Orford in the February preceding.]

From this time forth literary composition, with the acquisition of antiques and curiosities for the decoration of "Strawberry" occupied the greater part of his life. He erected a printing press, publishing not only most of his own writings, but some also of other authors, such as poems of Gray, with whom he kept up uninterrupted intercourse. But, in fact, his own works were sufficiently numerous to keep his printers fully employed. He was among the most voluminous writers of a voluminous age. In the course of the next twenty years he published seven volumes of memoirs of the last ten years of the reign of George II. and the first ten of George III.; five volumes of a work entitled "Royal and Noble Authors;" several more of "Anecdotes of Painting;" "The Mysterious Mother," a tragedy; "The Castle of Otranto," a romance; and a small volume to which he gave the name of "Historic Doubts on Richard III." Of all these not one is devoid of merit. He more than once explains that the "Memoirs" have no claim to the more respectable title of "History"; and he apologises for introducing anecdotes which might be thought inconsistent with what Macaulay brands as "a vile phrase," the dignity of history. He excuses this, which he looked on as a new feature in historical composition, on the ground that, if trifles, "they are trifles relating to considerable people; such as all curious people have ever loved to read." "Such trifles," he says, "are valued, if relating to any reign one hundred and fifty years ago; and, if his book should live so long, these too might become acceptable." Readers of the present day will not think such apology was needed. The value of his "trifles" has been proved in a much shorter time; for there is no subsequent historian of that period who has not been indebted to him for many particulars of which no other trustworthy record existed. Walpole had in a great degree a historical mind; and perhaps there are few works which show a keener critical insight into the value of old traditions than the "Historic Doubts," directed to establish, not, indeed, Richard's innocence of the crimes charged against him, but the fact that, with respect to many of them, his guilt has never been proved by any evidence which is not open to the gravest impeachment. His "Royal and Noble Authors," and his "Anecdotes of Painting" are full of entertainment, not unmixed with instruction. "The Mysterious Mother" was never performed on the stage, nor is it calculated for representation; since he himself admits that the subject is disgusting. But dramas not intended for representation, and which therefore should perhaps be more fitly called dramatic poems, were a species of composition to which more than one writer of reputation had lately begun to turn their attention; though dramas not designed for the stage seem to most readers defective in their very conception, as lacking the stimulus which the intention of submitting them to the extemporaneous ocular judgement of the public can alone impart. Among such works, however, "The Mysterious Mother" is admitted to rank high for vigorous description and poetic imagery. A greater popularity, which even at the present day has not wholly passed away, since it is still occasionally reprinted, was achieved by "The Castle of Otranto," which, as he explains it in one of his letters, owed its origin to a dream. Novels had been a branch of literature which had slumbered for several years after the death of Defoe, but which the genius of Fielding and Smollett had again brought into fashion. But their tales purported to be pictures of the manners of the day. This was rather the forerunner of Mrs. Radcliffe's[1] weird tales of supernatural mystery, which for a time so engrossed the public attention as to lead that "wicked wag," Mr. George Coleman, to regard them as representatives of the class, and to describe how--

A novel now is nothing more
Than an old castle and a creaking door;
A distant hovel;
Clanking of chains, a gallery, a light,
Old armour, and a phantom all in white,
And there's a novel.

[Footnote 1: "'The Castle of Otranto' was the father of that marvellous series which once overstocked the circulating library, and closed with Mrs. Radcliffe."--D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature," ii. 115.]

He had published it anonymously as a tale that had been found in the library of an ancient family in the North of England; but it was not indebted solely to the mystery of its authorship for its favourable reception--since, after he acknowledged it as his own work in a second edition, the sale did not fall off. And it deserved success, for, though the day had passed when even the most credulous could place any faith in swords that required a hundred men to lift, and helmets which could only fit the champion whose single strength could wield such a weapon, the style was lively and attractive, and the dialogue was eminently dramatic and sparkling.

But the interest of all these works has passed away. The "Memoirs" have served their turn as a guide and aid to more regular historians, and the composition which still keeps its author's fame alive is his Correspondence with some of his numerous friends, male and female, in England or abroad, which he maintained with an assiduity which showed how pleasurable he found the task, while the care with which he secured the preservation of his letters, begging his correspondents to retain them, in case at any future time he should desire their return, proves that he anticipated the possibility that they might hereafter be found interesting by other readers than to those to whom they were addressed.

But he did not suffer either his writings or the enrichment of "Strawberry" with antiquarian treasures to engross the whole of his attention. For the first thirty years and more of his public life he was a zealous politician. And it is no slight proof how high was the reputation for sagacity and soundness of judgement which he enjoyed, that in the ministerial difficulties caused by Lord Chatham's illness, he was consulted by the leaders of more than one section of the Whig party, by Conway, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Holland, and others; that his advice more than once influenced their determinations; and that he himself drew more than one of the letters which passed between them. Even the King himself was not ignorant of the weight he had in their counsels, and, on one occasion at least, condescended to avail himself of it for a solution of some of the embarrassments with which their negotiations were beset.

But after a time his attendance in Parliament, which had never been very regular, grew wearisome and distasteful to him. At the General Election of 1768 he declined to offer himself again as a candidate for Lynn, which he had represented for several years. And henceforth his mornings were chiefly occupied with literature; the continuation of his Memoirs; discussion of literary subjects with Gibbon, Voltaire, Mason, and others, while his evenings were passed in the society of his friends, a mode of enjoying his time in which he was eminently calculated to shine, since abundant testimony has come down to us from many competent judges of the charm of his conversation; the liveliness of his disposition acting as a most attractive frame to the extent and variety of his information.

Among his distractions were his visits to France, which for some time were frequent. He had formed a somewhat singular intimacy with a blind old lady, the Marquise du Deffand, a lady whose character in her youth had been something less than doubtful, since she had been one of the Regent Duc d'Orléans's numerous mistresses; but who had retained in her old age much of the worldly acuteness and lively wit with which she had borne her part in that clever, shameless society. Her _salon_ was now the resort of many personages of the highest distinction, even of ladies themselves of the most unstained reputation, such as the Duchesse de Choiseul; and the rumours or opinions which he heard in their company enabled him to enrich his letters to his friends at home with comments on the conduct of the French Parliament, of Maupéon, Maurepas, Turgot, and the King himself, which, in many instances, attest the shrewdness with which he estimated the real bearing of the events which were taking place, and anticipated the possible character of some of those which were not unlikely to ensue.

Thus, with a mind which, to the end, was so active and so happily constituted as to be able to take an interest in everything around him, and, even when more than seventy years old, to make new friends to replace those who had dropped off, he passed a long, a happy, and far from an useless life. When he was seventy-four he succeeded to his father's peerage, on the death of his elder brother; but he did not long enjoy the title, by which, indeed, he was not very careful to be distinguished, and in the spring of 1797 he died, within a few months of his eightieth birthday.

A great writer of the last generation, whose studies were of a severer cast, and who, conscious perhaps of his own unfitness to shine at the tea-table of fashionable ladies, was led by that feeling to undervalue the lighter social gifts which formed conspicuous ingredients in Walpole's character, has denounced him not only as frivolous in his tastes, but scarcely above mediocrity in his abilities (a sentence to which Scott's description of him as "a man of great genius" may be successfully opposed); and is especially severe on what he terms his affectation in disclaiming the compliments bestowed on his learning by some of his friends. The expressed estimate of his acquirements and works which so offended Lord Macaulay was that "there is nobody so superficial, that, except a little history, a little poetry, a little painting, and some divinity, he knew nothing; he had always lived in the busy world; had always loved pleasure; played loo till two or three in the morning; haunted auctions--in short, did not know so much astronomy as would carry him to Knightsbridge; not more physic than a physician; nor, in short, anything that is called science. If it were not that he laid up a little provision in summer, like the ant, he should be as ignorant as the people he lived with."[1] In Lord Macaulay's view, Walpole was never less sincere than when pronouncing such a judgement on his works. He sees in it nothing but an affectation, fishing for further praises; and, fastening on his account of his ordinary occupations, he pronounces that a man of fifty should be ashamed of playing loo till after midnight.

[Footnote 1: Letter to Mann, Feb. 6, 1760.]

In spite, however, of Lord Macaulay's reproof, something may be said in favour of a man who, after giving his mornings to works which display no little industry as well as talent, unbent his bow in the evening at lively supper-parties, or even at the card-table with fair friends, where the play never degenerated into gambling. And his disparagement of his learning, which Lord Macaulay ridicules as affectation, a more candid judgement may fairly ascribe to sincere modesty. For it is plain from many other passages in his letters, that he really did undervalue his own writings; and that the feeling which he thus expressed was genuine is to a great extent proved by the patience, if not thankfulness, with which he allowed his friend Mann to alter passages in "The Mysterious Mother," and confessed the alterations to be improvements. It may be added that Lord Macaulay's disparagement of his judgement and his taste is not altogether consistent with his admission that Walpole's writings possessed an "irresistible charm" that "no man who has written so much is so seldom tiresome;" that, even in "The Castle of Otranto," which he ridicules, "the story never flags for a moment," and, what is more to our present purpose, he adds that "his letters are with reason considered his best performance;" and that those to his friend at Florence, Sir H. Mann, "contain much information concerning the history of that time: the portion of English History of which common readers know the least."

Of these letters it remains for us now to speak. The value of such _pour servir_, to borrow a French expression, that is to say, to serve as materials to supply the historian of a nation or an age with an acquaintance with events, or persons, or manners, which would be sought for in vain among Parliamentary records, or ministerial despatches, has long been recognised.[1] Two thousand years ago, those of the greatest of Roman orators and statesmen were carefully preserved; and modern editors do not fear to claim for them a place "among the most valuable of all the remains of Roman literature; the specimens which they give of familiar intercourse, and of the public and private manners of society, drawing up for us the curtain from scenes of immense historical interest, and laying open the secret workings, the complications, and schemes of a great revolution period."[2] Such a description is singularly applicable to the letters of Walpole; and the care which he took for their preservation shows that he was not without a hope that they also would be regarded as interesting and valuable by future generations. He praises one of his correspondents for his diligence in collecting and publishing a volume of letters belonging to the reigns of James I. and Charles I., on the express ground that "nothing gives so just an idea of an age as genuine letters; nay, history waits for its last seal from them." And it is not too much to say that they are superior to journals and diaries as a mine to be worked by the judicious historian; while to the general public they will always be more attractive, from the scope they afford to elegance of style, at which the diary-keeper does not aim; and likewise from their frequently recording curious incidents, fashions, good sayings, and other things which, from their apparently trifling character, the grave diarist would not think worth preserving.

[Footnote 1: D'Israeli has remarked that "the _gossiping_ of a profound politician, or a vivacious observer, in one of their letters, often by a spontaneous stroke reveals the individual, or by a simple incident unriddles a mysterious event;" and proceeds to quote Bolingbroke's estimate of the importance, from this point of view, of "that valuable collection of Cardinal d'Ossat's Memoirs" ("Curiosities of Literature," iii. p. 381).]

[Footnote 2: The Rev. J.E. Yonge, Preface to an edition of "Cicero's Letters."]

He, however, was not the first among the moderns to achieve a reputation by his correspondence. In the generation before his birth, a French lady, Madame de Sévigné, had, with an affectionate industry, found her chief occupation and pleasure in keeping her daughters in the provinces fully acquainted with every event which interested or entertained Louis XIV. and his obsequious Court; and in the first years of the eighteenth century a noble English lady, whom we have already mentioned, did in like manner devote no small portion of her time to recording, for the amusement and information of her daughter, her sister, and her other friends at home, the various scenes and occurrences that came under her own notice in the foreign countries in which for many years her lot was cast, as the wife of an ambassador. In liveliness of style, Lady Mary Montague is little if at all inferior to her French prototype; while, since she was endowed with far more brilliant talents, and, from her foreign travels, had a wider range of observation, her letters have a far greater interest than could attach to those of a writer, however accomplished and sagacious, whose world was Paris, with bounds scarcely extending beyond Versailles on one side, and Compiègne on the other. To these fair and lively ladies Walpole was now to succeed as a third candidate for epistolary fame; though, with his habit of underrating his own talents, he never aspired to equal the gay Frenchwoman; (the English lady's correspondence was as yet unknown). There is evident sincerity in his reproof of one of his correspondents who had expressed a most flattering opinion: "You say such extravagant things of my letters, which are nothing but gossiping gazettes, that I cannot bear it; you have undone yourself with me, for you compare them to Madame de Sévigné's. Absolute treason! Do you know there is scarcely a book in the world I love so much as her letters?"

Yet critics who should place him on an equality with her would not be without plausible grounds for their judgement. Many circumstances contributed to qualify him in a very special degree for the task which, looking at his letters in that light, he may be said to have undertaken. His birth, as the son of a great minister; his comparative opulence; even the indolent insignificance of his elder brothers, which caused him to be looked upon as his father's representative, and as such to be consulted by those who considered themselves as the heirs of his policy, while the leader of that party in the House of Commons, General Conway, was his cousin, and the man for whom he ever felt the strongest personal attachment,--were all advantages which fell to the lot of but few. And to these may be added the variety of his tastes, as attested by the variety of his published works. He was a man who observed everything, who took an interest in everything. His correspondents, too, were so various and different as to ensure a variety in his letters. Some were politicians, ministers at home, or envoys abroad; some were female leaders of fashion, planning balls and masquerades, summoning him to join an expedition to Ranelagh or Vauxhall; others were scholars, poets, or critics, inviting comments on Gray's poems, on Robertson's style, on Gibbon's boundless learning; or on the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton; others, again, were antiquarians, to whom the helmet of Francis, or a pouncet-box of the fair Diana, were objects of far greater interest than the intrigues of a Secretary of State, or the expedients of a Chancellor of the Exchequer; and all such subjects are discussed by him with evidently equal willingness, equal clearness, and liveliness.

It would not be fair to regard as a deduction from the value of those letters which bear on the politics of the day the necessity of confessing that they are not devoid of partiality--that they are coloured with his own views, both of measures and persons. Not only were political prejudices forced upon him by the peculiarities of his position, but it may be doubted whether any one ever has written, or can write, of transactions of national importance which are passing under his own eyes, as it were, with absolute impartiality. It may even be a question whether, if any one did so, it would not detract from his own character, at least as much as it might add to the value of his writings. In one of his letters, Byron enumerates among the merits of Mitford's "History of Greece," "wrath and partiality," explaining that such ingredients make a man write "in earnest." And, in Walpole's case, the dislike which he naturally felt towards those who had overthrown his father's administration by what, at a later day, they themselves admitted to have been a factious and blamable opposition, was sharpened by his friendship for his cousin Conway. At the same time we may remark in passing that his opinions and prejudices were not so invincible as to blind him to real genius and eminent public services; and the admirers of Lord Chatham may fairly draw an argument in favour of his policy from Walpole's admission of its value in raising the spirit of the people; an admission which, it may be supposed, it must have gone against his grain to make in favour of a follower of Pulteney.

But from his letters on other topics, on literature and art, no such deduction has to be made. His judgement was generally sound and discriminating. He could appreciate the vast learning and stately grandiloquence of Gibbon, and the widely different style of Robertson. Nor is it greatly to his discredit that his disgust at what he considers Hume's needless parade of scepticism and infidelity, which did honour to his heart, blinded him in a great degree to the historian's unsurpassed acuteness and insight, and (to borrow the eulogy of Gibbon) "the careless inimitable felicities" of his narrative. He was among the first to recognize the peculiar genius of Crabbe, and to detect the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton, while doing full justice to "the astonishing prematurity" of the latter's genius. And in matters of art, so independent as well as correct was his taste, that he not only, in one instance, ventured to differ from Reynolds, but also proved to be right in his opinion that a work extolled by Sir Joshua, was but a copy, and a poor one.

On his qualifications to be a painter of the way of life, habits, and manners (_quorum pars magna fuit_) of the higher classes in his day, it would be superfluous to dwell. Scott, who was by no means a warm admirer of his character, does not hesitate to pronounce him "certainly the best letter-writer in the English language;" and the great poet who, next to Scott, holds the highest place in the literary history of the last two centuries, adds his testimony not only to the excellence of his letters, but also to his general ability as that of a high order. "It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole, firstly, because he was a nobleman, and, secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters and of 'The Castle of Otranto,' he is the 'Ultimus Romanorum,' the author of 'The Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance, and the last tragedy in our language; and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may."[1]

[Footnote 1: Byron, Preface to "Marino Faliere." But in the last sentence the poet certainly exaggerated his admiration for Walpole; since it is sufficiently notorious from his own letters, and from more than one passage in his works, as where he ranks Scott as second to Shakespeare alone, that he deservedly admired him more than all their contemporaries put together.]

And it seems not unnatural to entertain a hope that a selection from a correspondence which extorted such an eulogy from men whose own letters form no small part of the attraction of Lockhart's and Moore's biographies, will be acceptable to many who, while lacking courage, or perhaps leisure, to grapple with publications in many volumes, may welcome the opportunity thus here afforded them of forming an acquaintance, however partial, with works which, in their entire body, are deservedly reckoned among the masterpieces of our literature.[1]

[Footnote 1: It may be proper to point out that, in some few instances, a letter is not given in its entirety; but, as in familiar correspondence, it must constantly happen that, while the incidents mentioned in one portion of a letter are full of interest, of others--such as marriages, deaths, &c.--the importance is of the most temporary and transitory character. It may be hoped that the liberty taken of leaving out such portions will be regarded as, if not commendable, at the least excusable.]

A SELECTION

FROM THE

LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE.

_MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS OF WALES--VERY LIVELY._[1]

[Footnote 1: This letter, written before he was nineteen, is worth noticing as a proof how innate was his liveliness of style, since in that respect few of the productions of his maturer age surpasses it. It also shows how strong already was his expectations that his letters would hereafter be regarded as interesting and valuable.]

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.[1]

[Footnote 1: George Montagu, Esq., of Roel, in the county of Gloucester, son of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu, and long M.P. for Northampton. He was the grandnephew of the first Earl of Halifax of the Montagu family, the statesman and poet, and was the contemporary at Eton of Walpole and Gray. When his cousin, the Earl of Halifax, was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he was his secretary; and when Lord North was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he occupied the same position with him. He died May 10, 1780, leaving the bulk of his fortune to Lord North. Walpole's letters to him, 272 in number, and dating between 1736 and 1770, were first published in 1818, "from the Originals in the possession of the Editor." There was a coolness between Walpole and Montagu several years before the latter's death, the correspondence dropping very abruptly. The cause is explained by Walpole in a letter to Cole, dated May 11, 1780. Mr. Montagu's brother, Edward, was killed at Fontenoy. His sister, Arabella, was married to a Mr. Wetenhall--a relation of the Wetenhall mentioned in De Grammont. "Of Mr. Montagu, it is only remembered that he was a gentleman-like body of the _vieille cour_, and that he was usually attended by his brother John (the Little John of Walpole's correspondence), who was a midshipman at the age of sixty, and found his chief occupation in carrying about his brother's snuff-box" (_Quarterly Rev._ for _April_, 1818, p. 131).]

KING'S COLLEGE, _May_ 2, 1736.

Dear Sir,--Unless I were to be married myself, I should despair ever being able to describe a wedding so well as you have done: had I known your talent before, I would have desired an epithalamium. I believe the Princess[1] will have more beauties bestowed on her by the occasional poets, than even a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope, that all they have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, having heard it was rude to talk Latin before women, propose complimenting her in English; which she will be much the better for. I doubt most of them, instead of fearing their compositions should not be understood, should fear they should: they write they don't know what, to be read by they don't know who. You have made me a very unreasonable request, which I will answer with another as extraordinary: you desire I would burn your letters: I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge threepence for a halfpenny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear George, and dear Harry [Conway]; not as formally as if we were playing a game at chess in Spain and Portugal; and Don Horatio was to have the honour of specifying to Don Georgio, by an epistle, whither he would move. In one point I would have our correspondence like a game at chess; it should last all our lives--but I hear you cry check; adieu!

Dear George, yours ever.

[Footnote 1: Augusta, younger daughter of Frederic II., Duke of Saxe-Gotha, married (27th April, 1736) to Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III.

In 1736, I wrote a copy of Latin verses, published in the "Gratulatio Acad. Cantab.," on the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales.--_Walpole_ (_Short Notes_).]

_FONDNESS FOR OLD STORIES--REMINISCENCES OF ETON, ETC._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

KING'S COLLEGE, _May_ 6, 1736.

Dear George,--I agree with you entirely in the pleasure you take in talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet every day with new circumstances, which will be still more pleasure to me to recollect. I think at our age 'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over past happinesses, that it is still in our power to enjoy as great. Narrations of the greatest actions of other people are tedious in comparison of the serious trifles that every man can call to mind of himself while he was learning those histories. Youthful passages of life are the chippings of Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottoes; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable.--Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes, and policies engage their thoughts; and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age; and old men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater truth from any one cause, than their living over again their childhood in imagination. To reflect on the season when first they felt the titillation of love, the budding passions, and the first dear object of their wishes! how unexperienced they gave credit to all the tales of romantic loves! Dear George, 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_. I wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. 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. I was sometimes troubled with a rough creature or two from the plough; one, that one should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as his hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of yourself, Charles, and

Your sincere friend.

_WISH TO TRAVEL--SUPERIORITY OF FRENCH MANNERS TO ENGLISH IN THEIR MANNER TO LADIES._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

KING'S COLLEGE, _March_ 20, 1737.

Dear George,--The first paragraph in my letter must be in answer to the last in yours; though I should be glad to make you the return you ask, by waiting on you myself. 'Tis not in my power, from more circumstances than one, which are needless to tell you, to accompany you and Lord Conway to Italy: you add to the pleasure it would give me, by asking it so kindly. You I am infinitely obliged to, as I was capable, my dear George, of making you forget for a minute that you don't propose stirring from the dear place you are now in. Poppies indeed are the chief flowers in love nosegays, but they seldom bend towards the lady; at least not till the other flowers have been gathered. Prince Volscius's boots were made of love-leather, and honour leather; instead of honour, some people's are made of friendship: but since you have been so good to me as to draw on this, I can almost believe you are equipped for travelling farther than Rheims. 'Tis no little inducement to make me wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach-horses, and have not half the regard for them that they have for themselves. The little freedoms you tell me you use take off from formality, by avoiding which ridiculous extreme we are dwindled into the other barbarous one, rusticity. If you had been at Paris, I should have inquired about the new Spanish ambassadress, who, by the accounts we have thence, at her first audience of the queen, sat down with her at a distance that suited respect and conversation.

Adieu, dear George,

Yours most heartily.

_THEATRES AT PARIS--ST. DENIS--FONDNESS OF THE FRENCH FOR SHOW, AND FOR GAMBLING--SINGULAR SIGNS--THE ARMY THE ONLY PROFESSION FOR MEN OF GENTLE BIRTH--SPLENDOUR OF THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS._

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

PARIS, _April_ 21, N.S. 1739.[1]

[Footnote 1: He is here dating according to the French custom. In England the calendar was not rectified by the disuse of the "Old Style" till 1752.]

Dear West,--You figure us in a set of pleasures, which, believe me, we do not find; cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb all variation of pleasures. The operas, indeed, are much frequented three times a week; but to me they would be a greater penance than eating maigre: their music resembles a gooseberry tart as much as it does harmony. We have not yet been at the Italian playhouse; scarce any one goes there. Their best amusement, and which, in some parts, beats ours, is the comedy; three or four of the actors excel any we have: but then to this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights; and then they go, be the play good or bad--except on Molière's nights, whose pieces they are quite weary of. Gray and I have been at the Avare to-night: I cannot at all commend their performance of it. Last night I was in the Place de Louis le Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and the houses handsome, though not so large as Golden Square), to see what they reckoned one of the finest burials that ever was in France. It was the Duke de Tresmes, governor of Paris and marshal of France. It began on foot from his palace to his parish-church, and from thence in coaches to the opposite end of Paris, to be interred in the church of the Celestins, where is his family-vault. About a week ago we happened to see the grave digging, as we went to see the church, which is old and small, but fuller of fine ancient monuments than any, except St. Denis, which we saw on the road, and excels Westminster; for the windows are all painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortalized, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots; nothing but

friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.

This godly ceremony began at nine at night, and did not finish till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it wakened them. The French love show; but there is a meanness reigns through it all. At the house where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the dishes is patched up with salads, butter, puff-paste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes; but their coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would laugh extremely at their signs: some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and some at the sucking cat. You would not easily guess their notions of honour: I'll tell you one: it is very dishonourable for any gentleman not to be in the army, or in the king's service as they call it, and it is no dishonour to keep public gaming-houses: there are at least a hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, and find hazard, pharaoh, &c. The men who keep the hazard-table at the Duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the privilege. Even the princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them; but they are not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper dye than other women, though all use it extravagantly.