REMOTE STORAGE- university OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Class B Ja 09-20M Book Volume ‘X > - LIBRARY OF,T«£ UN'sYlRSS JY Of. ILLINOIS i If//; , wi n i // 1) Jr/ « i£ i m i § / \ — v Mo race COa//ur(e. ajfh ci \ ' cmrr&n c<‘ . Horace Walpole A Memoir London Mdcccxciii ' ' 1 ' 1 ' HORACE WALPOLE A MEMOIR WITH AN APPENDIX OF BOOKS PRINTED AT THE STRAWBERRY HILL PRESS BY AUSTIN DOBSON LONDON JAMES R. OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 45 ALBEMARLE STREET 1893 REMOTE ST ORAG Second Edition. uJ uJ o lu 4r PREFATORY NOTE . O 0 * V° N A O © m < HORACE WALPOLE : 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 1 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.” 2 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 Collec- tion 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 1 A four-wheeled carriage get a calash , That in summer with a movable hood. Cf. may burn, and in winter may Prior’s Down Hall: — “Then splash,” etc. answer'd Squire Morley : Pray 2 Works, 1798, i. 208. A MEMOIR. 149 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 [Muntz] 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 encloses 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 HORACE WALPOLE: I S° 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 print- ing-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 A MEMOIR. 151 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 him- self for a genius,” and they parted, with the result that the Officina Arbuteana was tem- porarily 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 Pin- daric 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 under- stand,” 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 under- stood 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 152 HORACE WALPOLE: the book, which was a large, thin quarto, en- titled Odes by Mr. Gray ; Printed at Straw- berry 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 composi- tions 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 un- qualified. But Warburton, and Garrick, and the “word-picker” Hurd were enthusiastic. Lyttelton and Shenstone followed more mode- rately. 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 dedi- cation to the Society of Antiquaries, of which A MEMOIR. i53 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 Con- way; 1 and seven hundred copies of Lord Whitworth’s Account of Russia . Then fol- lowed a book by Joseph Spence, the Parallel of M agliabecchi 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 hun- dred copies were sold in a fortnight, and the book was reprinted in London. Bentley’s Lucan , a quarto of 500 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, 4to, 1764, and 100 copies of the Poems of Lady Temple. This, however, is a very fair record for seven years’ work, when it is remembered that the Straw- berry 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 1 These, though printed in Strawberry Hill Press,” which 1758, were not circulated until contains ample details of all 1759. See at end, — “Appen- these publications, dix of Books printed at the iS4 HORACE WALPOLE: 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. In the above list there are two volumes which, in these pages, deserve a more extended notice than the rest. The Catalogue 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-gen- tleman disdain of exactitude — this was cer- tainly as much as he could anticipate. But he seems to have been more than usually A MEMOIR. 155 sensitive to criticism, and some of the amplest of his Short Notes are devoted to the discus- sion of the adverse opinions which were ex- pressed. 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 apolo- gist 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 Car- ter, concerning whose antecedents his irrita tion 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 the Rev. Henry Zouch, to whom he was in- debted 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, as- HORACE WALPOLE: 156 perses 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 ! M1 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, sculp- tors, 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.” 2 The purchases referred to had been made sub- sequent 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, 3 much of which, besides being illite- 1 Walpole to Zouch, 14 May, 3 “Mr. Vertue’s Manu- 1759. scripts, in 28 vols” — were 2 Walpole to Zouch, 12 Jan- sold at the Sale of Rare uary, 1759. Prints and Illustrated Works A MEMOIR. 157 rate, 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 dilet- tante indifference. His progress is thus chro- nicled. 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, depreci- ated 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 in- from the Strawberry Hill Col- lection on Tuesday, 21 June, 1842, for ^26 ioj. 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. HORACE WALPOLE: j 58 terest 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 supplemen- tary volume, and in 1765, still from the Straw- berry Press, he issued a second edition of the whole. 1 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 1 The Anecdotes of Painting was enlarged by the Rev. James Dallaway in 1826-8. and again revised, with ad- ditional notes, by Ralph N. Wornum in 1839. This last in three volumes, 8vo, is the accepted edition. A MEMOIR. 159 witty Ethelreda or Audrey Harrison), 1 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 2 what you say ; You, the fame I on others bestow, will repay. The visitors then asked, as had been anti- cipated, 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 prestidi- gitation, 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 1 She was married to Charles, 3rd Viscount Townshend, in 1723, and was the mother of Charles Townshend, the states- man. She died in 1788. There was an enamel of her by Zincke after Vanloo in the Tribune at Strawberry Hill, which is en- graved at p. 150 of Cunning- ham’s second volume. 2 Sic in orig. ; but query “ print.” 160 HORACE WALPOLE : their inventor calls 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 produc- tions in this kind are the octosyllabics which he wrote in August, 1759, and called TheParish Register of Twickenham . This is a metricallist 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 A MEMOIR. 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.” 1 1 Works, 1798, vol. iv. , pp. 382-3. M 162 HORACE WALPOLE: In 1784, Walpole added a few lines to cele- brate a new resident and a new favourite, Lady Di. Beauclerk, the widow of Johnson’s famous friend. 1 Most of the other names which occur in the Twickenham Register are easily identi- fied. “Fanny, ‘ ever-blooming fair,’ ” was the beautiful Lady Fanny Shirley of Philips’ 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 Wal- pole 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 follow- ing 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 1 See Chapter ix. A MEMOIR. 163 was also Lady Mary’s cousin !) and the dilet- tante proprietor of Strawberry, there could ever have been much cordiality. Indeed, for some of the robuster spirits of his age Wal- pole 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 j 1 and to Fielding’s con- temporary 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. It is, however, possible to write too long an excursus upon the Twickenham Parish Re- gister , and the last paragraphs of this chapter belong of right to another and more impor- tant 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. 1 Cf. Chapter vi. of Field- the Men of Letters series, 2nd ing, by the present writer, in edition, 1889, pp. 145-7. HORACE WALPOLE: 164 In a letter to Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, with whom Walpole commenced to corre- spond in 1762, he gives some further particu- lars, 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 any- thing, 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.” 1 The work of which the origin is thus de- scribed was published in a limited edition on 1 Letter to Cole , 9 Mar. , 1765. A MEMOIR. 165 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 Mur alto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. The name of the alleged Italian author is sometimes de- scribed as an anagram for 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 authen- ticity, and it is not clear that even Gray, to whom a copy was sent immediately after pub- lication, was in the secret. “ I have received the Castle of Otranto ,” — he says, — “and re- turn 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 Shake- speare’s mingling of comedy and tragedy against the strictures of Voltaire — a piece of temerity which some of his French friends HORACE WALPOLE: 1 66 feared might prejudice him with that formid- able critic. But what is even more in- teresting 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 Scudery and La Calprenede as the background to the adven- tures 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 bor- rowing 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 in- tricate combinations, and whose Gothicism A MEMOIR. 167 and Medievalism 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 moeurs , — es- pecially in the matter of Gothic romance. CHAPTER VII ; State of French Society in 1765 ; Walpole at Paris ; the Royal Family and the bet edit Gevaudan ; French ladies of quality ; Madajne du Deffand ; a letter from Madame de Sevigne ; 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 u Historic Doubts'''' ; the “ Mysterious Mother ”; tragedy in England; doings of the Strawberry Press ; Walpole and Chatterton. 3p^ try fy~ ^ }t/o A u^jof- fly jha/'f/-' ] jhp 'vH Ct&r fM-CmP] Po »C CbfCAw-JjLj jfc//fi' p3Pf~4 •C h) PwCtbMj'ajKJ 3° fh'Pdtyfi tUL^y h&Vf ’0J 33c r furu? f-o a# &*y ij?33tA*~1.Pf<. * vt/ecH.. 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(d^vi/l bb) eJ~Jp/b /<> /) f /bc_ /cby /C**byyb vrr\, /airffc'T-rtyb VII. HEN, towards the close of 1765, Wal- pole 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 generate 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 Encyclopaedists ; it was the era of Rousseau and the Sentimen- talists ; it was also the era of confirmed Anglo- mania. While we, on our side, were beginning to copy the comedies larmoy antes of La Chaussee 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 charge d'affaires , and in spite of his plain face and bad French, the idol of the freethinkers. He “is treated here,” 172 HORACE WALPOLE : 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 gentle- man to Paris in 1765. Walpole had been medi- tating 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 ; 1 but when next spring came he 1 It is curious to note in one the famous * ‘ Good Americans, of his letters at this date a mot when they die, go to Paris.” which may be compared with Walpole is more sardonic. A MEMOIR. 173 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.” 1 May, however, had arrived and passed, and the Castle of Otranto was in its second edition, before Wal- pole at last set out, on Monday, the 9th Sep- tember, 1765. After a seven hours’ passage, he reached Calais from Dover. Near Amiens he was refreshed by a sight of one of his fa- vourites, Lady Mary Coke, 2 “ in pea-green and “Paris,” he says, . . . “like the description of the grave, is the way of all flesh ” ( Wal- pole to Mann, 30 June, 1763). 1 Gilly Williams to Selwyn, 19 March, 1765. 2 Lady Mary Coke, to whom the second edition of the Gothic romance was dedi- cated, was the youngest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich. At this date, she was a widow, — Lord Coke having djed in 1753. Two volumes of her Letters and Journals, with an 174 HORACE WALPOLE : silver ” ; at Chantilly he was robbed of his portmanteau. By the time he reached Paris on the 1 3th, 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 opera-comique with its Italian comedy and hispassion — “his dear favouriteharlequin.” Upon the whole, in these first impressions he is disappointed. Society is duller than he ex- pected, and with the staple topics of its con- versation, philosophy, literature, and freethink- ing, 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 wait- ing, the conversation was much more unre- strained, even on the Old Testament, than I excellent introduction by Lady Louisa Stuart, were printed privately at Edinburgh jn 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. Drum- mond Moray of Abercairny, was issued in 1892. Walpole’s tone in these documents is one of fantastic adoration ; but the pair ultimately (and inevit- ably) 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 paint- ing is at Mount Stuart, and belongs to Lord Bute. A MEMOIR. 175 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 . 1 One of his earliest experiences was his pre- sentation at Versailles to the royal family, a ceremony which luckily involved but one opera- tion instead of several as in England, where the Princess Dowager of Wales, the Duke of Cum- berland, 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 Sevigne, 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 bed- chamber 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 1 Walpole to Montagu , 22 September, 1765. 176 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 20 th De- cember.] The Dauphiness is in her bedcham- ber, 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 Pro- vence [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.” 1 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 bete du Gevaudan , a hugeous wolf of which a highly sensational representation had been given in the St. James s Chronicle for June 6-8. 1 Walpole to Chute , 3 October, 1765. A MEMOIR. 1 77 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 .” 1 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 hotel garni . . . when the court is at Fontainebleau,” has not been with- out 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 1 Madame de Genlis men- tions this fearsome monster in her Mimoires : — “Tout le monde a entendu parler de la hyene de G^vaudan, qui a fait tant de ravages.” The point of Walpole’s allusion to Pitt is explained in one of his hither- to 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 Gevaudan ” (. 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, 13 th Kept., App. iii., 1892, i. 147). i 7 8 HORACE WALPOLE: town in the universe. I have not seen a mouth- ful of verdure out of it, nor have they anything green but their treillage and window shutters. . . . Their boasted knowledge of society is re- duced 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 recon- ciled 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 Forcal- quier, 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 . 1 1 Of Mad. de Forcalquier it theatre during the perfor- is related that, entering a mance of Gresset’s Le Mi- A MEMOIR. 179 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 epi- tome of empire, subsisting *by rewards and punishments.” Then there is the Marechale 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 speak- chant, just as the line was ut- of this, in a recent repetition tered — l ‘Lafauleestauxdieux, of the anecdote, was a little qui la Jirent si belle" the ap- blunted by the printer’s sub- plause was so great as to in- stitution of “ bite " for “ belle." terrupt the play. The point i8o HORACE WALPOLE: ing 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 Due de Nivernois ; 1 the already mentioned Duchess de Choiseul, and Madame la Mare- chale 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 excep- tion, completes his list. The one exception is a figure which hence- forth played no inconsiderable part in Wal- pole’s correspondence — that of the brilliant and witty Madame du Deffand. As Marie de 1 Louis-Jules-Barbon-Man- cini-Mazarini, Due de Niver- nois (1716-98), who had visited Twickenham three years ear- lier, 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 trans- lation of Walpole’s Essay on Modern Gardening (see Ap- pendix 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 Nivernois was “ one of the prettiest men he had ever known,” and in 1762, his opinion was unaltered. ‘ ‘ M. de Nivernois est aunt, respeett, et admirt par tout ce quit y a d'honnetes gens a la cour et a la ville," he writes to Madame de Monconseil. The Duke’s end was worthy of Chesterfield him- self, for he spent some of his last hours in composing valedictory verses to his doctor, which are said to have been “ pleins de sentiments affectueux. A MEMOIR. 181 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 Henault. At first Walpole was not impressed with her, and speaks of her, dis- respectfully, 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 com- pleted 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 un- mingled 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 , 1 1 One of her logogriphes or enigmas is as follows : — “ Quoique je forme un corps, je nesuis qu'une idde ; Plus ma beautd vieillit, plus elle est ddcidde : II faut, pour me trouver, ignorer d'oii je viens : Je tiens tout de lui, qui reduit tout d rien .” 182 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 any- body, 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 .” 1 In another letter to Mr. James Crawford, of Auchinames (Hume’s Fish Craw- ford), who was also one of Madame du Def- fand’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 The answer is noblesse. Lord Chesterfield thought it so good that he sent it to his godson (Letter 166). 1 Walpole to Gray, 25 Jan., 1766. A MEMOIR. 83 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 S£vigne, for whom he professed an extravagant admira- tion. 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 Prance and the Faubourg St. Germain. Wal- pole 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 let- 184 HORACE WALPOLE: ters.” The box itself, the memento of so much old-world ingenuity, was sold (with the pseudo- S£vign 6 epistle) at the Strawberry Hill sale for £ 28 ys. 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 (re- ferring 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 animce meoe} 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-tor- mentor, 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 1 He was malicious enough to add — ‘ ' a pretty round half. ” In middle life Mrs. Clive, like her Twickenham neighbour, Mrs. Pritchard, grew exces- sively stout; and there is a pleasant anecdote that, on one occasion, when the pair were acting together in Cibber’s Careless Husband, the audi- ence were regaled by the spec- tacle of two leading actresses, neither of whom couldmanage to pick up a letter which, by ill-luck, had been dropped upon the ground. A MEMOIR. 185 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 Wal- polean 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 a Monsieur Rousseau. Mon cher Jean Jacques, Vous avez renonc£ k Geneve votre patrie ; vous vous etes fait chasser de la Suisse, pays tant vante dans vos ecrits ; la France vous a decrete. Venez done chez moi ; j’admire vos talens ; je m’amuse de vos reveries, qui (soit dit en passant) vous occupent trop, et trop-long terns. II faut k la fin etre sage et heureux. Vous avez fait assez parler de vous par des singularites peu con- venables a un veritable grand homme. Demontrez k vos ennemis que vous pouvez avoir quelquefois le sens commun : cela les fachera, sans vous faire tort. Mes etats 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 k rejetter mon secours, attendez- vous que je ne le dirai k personne. Si vous persistez k vous creuser l’esprit pour trouver de nouveaux mal- heurs, choisissez les tels que vous voudrez. Je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer au gre de vos souhaits : et ce qui surement ne vous arrivera pas vis k vis de vos HORACE WALPOLE: 1 86 ennemis, je cesserai de vous persecuter quand vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire k l’etre. Votre bon ami, Fr£d£ric. This composition, the French of which was touched up by Helvetius, Henault, and the Due de Nivernois, gave extreme satisfaction to all the anti-Rousseau party. 1 While Hume and his protege 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 de- parted, 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 con- spiracies, was naturally furious, and wrote angrily from his retreat at Mr. Davenport’s in Derbyshire to denounce the fabrication. The 1 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, con- trary 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 bergaviotte or biscuite porcelaine" ( Fortes - cue Corr., Hist. MSS. Com- mission , 13^ Rept . , App. iii., 1892, i. 153). A MEMOIR. 187 worst of it was, that his morbid nature im- mediately 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. 1 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 protege thither, “ I wish he may not repent having engaged with Rousseau, who con- tradicts and quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain their admiration.” 2 He cer- 1 Hume’s narrative of the French. London. Prhited for affair may be read in A Concise T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, and Genuine Account of the near Surry -street, in the Dispute between Mr. Hume Strand , MDCCLX VI. and Mr. Rousseau : with the 2 Walpole to Lady Hervey, Letters that passed between them 2 January, 1766. In a letter to during their Controversy. As Lady Mary Coke, dated two also, the Letters of the Hon. Mr. days later, he says : — “ Rous- Walpole, and Mr. D' Alembert, seau set out this morning for relative to this extraordinary England. As He loves to con- Affair. Translated from the tradict a whole Nation, I sup- i88 HORACE WALPOLE: tainly, upon the present occasion, did not belie this uncomplimentary character. 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 soup^on of curl at the ends.” “ Won- drous 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 to- wards the end he exalted his voice, and acted very -ugly enthusiasm ; decried learning, and pose 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 ridi- cule” {Letters and Journals, iii. (1892), xx). A MEMOIR. 189 told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his college, who said, “ I thanks God for every- thing.” J 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 Made- moiselle 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 r 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 1 Walpole to Chute, io Oct. , 1766. HORACE WALPOLE : 190 wrong . 1 She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for every- body. Affectionate as Madame de Sevign£, she has none of her prejudices, but a more uni- versal 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 Henault’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 .” 2 One of the other amusements which she procured for him was the entree 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 1 Lady Mary Coke testifies thing She said, as I thought to the charm of her conversa- I shou’d have liked to have tion:— “ In the evening I made read it afterwards” ( Letters a visit to Madame du Deffan and Journals, iii. (1892), 233). [sic]. She talks so well that I 2 Walpole to Montagu, 7 wish’d to write down every September, 1769. A MEMOIR. 191 act proverbes or conversations. Finally, he is enabled to enrich the archives of Strawberry with apiece of paper containing a few sentences of Madame de Maintenon’s handwriting. 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 descrip- tion of the Patagonians, entitled An Account of the Giants lately discovered, which was pub- lished 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. fames's Chronicle for 28 May, in which he announced to the Corpora- tion of Lynn, in the person of their Mayor, Mr. Langley, that he did not intend to offer himself again as the representative in Parlia- ment 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 192 HORACE WALPOLE: breaking his Parliamentary connection, which had now lasted for five-and-twenty years. Following upon this comes the already men- tioned account of his action in the Hume and Rousseau quarrel, and a couple of letters on Political A buse 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 general ,” — wrote Voltaire to him, — “ vous pesez toutes les probability sC 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 A MEMOIR. 93 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, givingan account of the book in a work called Memoires Littc- raires 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 O 194 HORACE WALPOLE : 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. “// ne vous plairoit pas assurement ; ” — he informs the lady — “ il riy a pas de beaux sentiments . II ny a que des passions sans envelope , des crimes , des repentis , et des horreurs ; ” 1 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 con- siderably, 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 1 Letters of Madame du Deffand , 1810, i. 21 1 n. A MEMOIR. 195 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.” Not- withstanding its imaginative power, it is im- possible 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 con- cerning the literary merit of which there will always be different opinions. Byron spoke of it as “ a tragedy of the highest order,” a judg- ment 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 ” 1 for which the enraptured author erected a special gallery . 2 Meanwhile, we may quote, from the close of the above post- script, a passage where Walpole is at his best. It is a rapid and characteristic aper^u of tragedy in England : — 1 i.e. Soot- water. There water by Mr. Bentley in the were two landscapes in soot- Green Closet at Strawberry. 2 See Chapter ix. HORACE WALPOLE: 196 “The excellence of our dramatic writers is by no means equal in number to the great men we have produced in other walks. Thea- tric genius lay dormant after Shakespeare ; waked with some bold and glorious, but irre- gular 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 Shake- speare ; but falling on an age still more Hot- tentot, w T as stifled in those gross and barbarous productions, tragi-comedies. It turned to tune- ful 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.” 1 The Castle of Otranto and the Historic Doubts were not printed by Mr. Robinson’s latest successor, Mr. Kirgate. But the Straw- berry Press had by this time resumed its functions, for The Mysterious Mother , of which 50 copies were struck off in 1768, was issued 1 Works, 1798, i. 129. A MEMOIR. 197 from it. Another book which it produced in the same year was Cornelie , a youthful tragedy by Madame du Deffand’s friend, President Henault. 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 en- suing 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 198 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 Arling- ton Street by Mr. Bathoe, his bookseller (also notable as the keeper of the first circulating library in London) ; and, incredible to say, Walpole was instantly “drawn.” He des- patched 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 enquiry from an aristocratic relative at Bath as to A MEMOIR. r 99 Chatterton’s antecedents, and found that, al- though 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 anti- quity. Two letters from Chatterton followed, — one (the first) dejected and seemingly ac- quiescent ; 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 . 1 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, en- closed them to their writer without comment, and thought no more of him orthem. Itwas not until about a year and a half afterwards that Goldsmith told him, at the first Royal Academy 1 He says he “was going to Miss Berry, Walpole’s visit to Paris in a day or two.” to Paris lasted from the 18th But his memory must have August to the 5th October, deceived him, for Chat- 1769; and this is confirmed by terton’s last letter is dated his correspondence. July 24th, 1769, and, according 200 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 vera- city,” he says, “were present when I first heard of his death, and will attest my surprise and concern.” 1 The apologists of the gifted and precocious Bristol boy, reading the above occurrences by the light of his deplorable end, have attri- buted to Walpole a more material part in his misfortunes than can justly.be ascribed to him ; and the first editor of Chatterton’s Mis- cellanies did not scruple to emphasize the current gossip which represented Walpole as “the primary cause of his [Chatterton’s] dis- mal catastrophe,” 2 — an aspersion which drew from the Abbot of Strawberry the lengthy letter on the subject which was afterwards reprinted in his Works . 3 So long a vindi- 1 Works, 1798, iv. 219. In the above summary of the story we have relied by prefe- rence on the fairly established facts of the case, which is full of difficulties. The most plau- sible version of it, as well as the most fair to Walpole, is given in Prof. D. Wilson’s Chatterton, 1869. 2 An example of this is fur- nished by Miss Seward’s Corre- spondence. * * Do not expect (she wrifes) that I can learn to esteem that fastidious and unfeeling being, to whose in- sensibility we owe the extinc- tion 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 Har- dinge , 21 Nov., 1787). 3 Works, 1798, iv. 205-45. See also Bibliographical Ap- pendix to this volume. A MEMOIR. 201 cation, 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 other- wise. 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 TElla and the author of the fabricated Castle of Otranto . CHAPTER VIII. Old friends and new ; Walpole's nieces ; Mrs. Darner; Progress of Strawberry Hill ; festivities and later improvements; “ A Description f etc., 1774 ; the house and approaches ; Great Parlour , Waiting Room , China Room , and Yellow Bedchamber ; Breakfast Room; Green Closet and Blue Bed- chamber; 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 Twicken- ham to Piccadilly. VIII. I N 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 chap- ter, 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, 1 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 1 Henrietta Hobart, Coun- tess Dowager of Suffolk, died in July, 1767. Her portrait by Charles Jervas, with Marble Hill in the background, hung in the Green Bedchamber in the Round Tower at Straw- berry. 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. 206 HORACE WALPOLE: had opened what promised to be a lengthy series of letters with Gray’s friend and bio- grapher, the Rev. William Mason, Rector of Aston in Yorkshire ; with Madame du Def- fand ; and with the divorced Duchess of Graf- ton, who, in 1769, had married his Paris friend, John Fitzpatrick, second Earl of Upper Ossory. There were changes, too, among his own rela- tives. 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 emi- nently unsatisfactory. He was shamelessly selfish, and by way of complicating the family embarrassments, had taken to the turf. Ulti- mately he had periodical attacks of insanity, during which time it fell to Walpole’s fate to look after his affairs. With Sir Edward Wal- pole, 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, the eldest, had married a brother of Lord Albemarle, subsequently created Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry ; Charlotte, the third, became Lady Huntingtower and A MEMOIR. 207 afterwards Countess of Dysart ; while Maria, the belle of the trio, was more fortunate still. After burying her first husband, Lord Walde- grave, 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 Sep- tember, 1772. 1 Another marriage which must have given Walpole almost as much pleasure was that of General Conway’s daughter to Mr. Darner, 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. Darner developed consider- able 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, 2 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. 1 ‘ ‘ The Duke of Glouces- ter,” — wrote Gilly Williams to Selwyn, as far back as Decem- ber, 1764, — “has professed a passion for the Dowager Wal- degrave. He is never from her elbow. This flatters Horry Walpole not a little, though he pretends to dislike it.” 2 The idea was borrowed from an inscription upon a statue at Milan: — “Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit Agrati ! ” 208 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 1 75 3-4, and the subsequent erection of the Gallery, Round Tower, Great Cloister, and Cabinet or Tribune, which, already in contem- plation 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 consum- mation.” 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 ad- vice,” he tells Montagu, “never build a charm- ing house for yourself between London and Hampton-court : everybody will live in it but you.” A year later he is giving a great fete to the French and Spanish Ambassadors, March, Selwyn, Lady Waldegrave, and other distin- guished 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 A MEMOIR. 209 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 in- habit 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, 210 HORACE WALPOLE: A MEMOIR. “throwing its golden rays all round.” Fur- ther 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 Ashburn- ham ; 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 1 774, has supplements which bring the record down to 1786. A fresh edition, in royal quarto, with twenty-seven plates, was printed in 1784, 1 and this, or an expansion of it, re- 1 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 diffi- culties caused by the over- weening curiosity of Walpole’s “ customers ” (as he called them), the visitors to Straw- berry. According to the sheet of regulations for visiting the house, it was to be seen be- tween the 1st of May and the 1 st of October. Children were not admitted ; and only one company of four on one day. Q < O 555- Cipriani and West is not easy to estimate the were the valuers. Most of actual profit over their first the family portraits were re- cost to the original owner, served ; but so many of the 248 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 ! ” 1 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, 2 and he had commenced nego- tiations for its purchase as early as November, 1777, when, he tells Lady Ossory, he had come to town to take possession. But diffi- culties arose over the sale, and he found him- self 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 com- bat 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 1 Walpole to Mann, 4 Aug., ed., 1890, p. 62, is Lord Or- 1779. ford’s number as given in 2 This, according to Har- Boyle's Court Guide for 1796. rison’s Memorable Houses, 3rd A MEMOIR. 249 moving in, and is delighted with his acquisi- tion. 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 de- lude myself.” He had still a decade and a half before him. 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 correspon- dence 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 abound- ing in personal anecdote ; and he became ap- prehensive 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 250 HORACE WALPOLE: first to have been met by the reply on the lady’s part that sufficient precautions had already been taken for ensuring their restora- tion. Ultimately, however, they were handed to Conway . 1 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 demetis I have had to raccommode and how many memoir es to present against Ton- ton , 2 who grows the greater favourite the more 1 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 ex- cepted which she received dur- ing the last year of her life, and these, also, were sent back when she died. 2 Tonton was a snappish little dog belonging to Ma- dame du Deffand which, when in its mistress’s company, must have been extremely objectionable. In January, 1778, the Mar^chale de Luxembourg presented her old friend with Tonton’s por- trait 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 dc Boufflers: — A MEMOIR. 251 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 even- ing, 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 im- mediately by a letter of farewell. Here it is : — Adieu, ce mot est bien triste ; souvenez-vous que vous laissez ici la personne dont vous etes le plus aime, et dont le bonheur et le malheur consistent dans ce que vous pensez pour elle. Donnez-moi de vos nou- velles le plus tot qu’il sera possible. Je me porte bien, j’ai un peu dormi, ma nuit n’est pas finie ; je serai tr&s-exacte au regime, et j’aurai soin de moi puisque vous vous y intdressez. The correspondence thus resumed was con- tinued for five years more. Walpole does not seem to have visited Paris again, and the refe- “ Vous les trouvez tous deux charmans, Nous les trouvons tous deux mordans ; Voila la ressemblance : L’un ne mord que ses ennemis, Et l’autre mord tous vos amis ; Voil& la difference. ” At Madame du Deffand’s among the treasures of the death, both dog and box Tribune. (See A Description passed to Walpole, the latter of the Villa , etc., 1774, p. 137, finding an honoured place Appendix of Additions.) 252 HORACE WALPOLE: rences to Madame du Deffand in his general correspondence are not very frequent. To- wards the middle of 1780, her life was plainly closing in. In July and August, she com- plained 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 a 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, how- ever, 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 ete longue.” She was buried, at her own wish, in the parish church of St. Sul- pice. 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 1 and books. 1 The MSS., which included 800 of Madame du Deffand’s letters, were sold in the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842 for ^157 10 s. A MEMOIR. 2 53 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 Defifand 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 divert- ing. The last bon mot of George Selwyn or Lady Townshend, the newest “royal preg- nancy,” the details of court ceremonial, the most recent addition to Strawberry, the end- 254 HORACE WALPOLE: less 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 inex- haustible 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 cha- racters, political intrigues, literary anecdotes, &c., 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.” 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. A MEMOIR. 255 In June, 1786, however, the last letter of the eight hundred and nine specimens printed by Cunningham was despatched to Florence. 1 In the following November, Mann died, after a prolonged illness. He had never visited Eng- land, 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 Decem- ber, 1785, leaving Cliveden vacant, not, as we shall see, for long. 2 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 1 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 Cun- ningham (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 Man- ners at the Court of Florence , 1740-1786, Bentley, 1876. 2 Mrs. Clive is buried at Twickenham, where a mural slab was erected to her in the parish church by her protdgte and successor, Miss Jane Pope, the clever actress who shed tears over the Beauclerk drawings (see p. 245). Her portrait by Davison, which is engraved as the frontispiece to Cunning- ham’s fourth volume, hung in the Round Bedchamber at Strawberry. It was given to Walpole by her brother, James Raftor. 256 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 child- less nephew. 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 fa- vourites were replaced by women. Pin kerton , the antiquary, who afterwards published the Walpoliana , is one of the exceptions ; and several of Walpole’s letters to him are con- tained in that book, and in the volumes of Pinkerton’s own correspondence published by Dawson Turner in 1830. But Walpole’s ap- petite 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, 1 afterwards Lady Edward Fitz- gerald. Madame de Genlis at this date was 1 “ Whom she [Madame de very like herself in the face ” Genlis] has educated to be — says Walpole, referring to a A MEMOIR. 257 nearing forty, and had lost much of her good looks. But Walpole seems to have found her less prfcieuse and affected than he had anti- cipated, and she was, on this occasion, un- accompanied 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 mo- desty 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 ac- quaintanceship of this period was with Miss Burney’s friend, Hannah More. Hannah More ultimately became one of Walpole’s correspondents, although scarcely “so corre- sponding ” as he wished ; and they met fre- quently 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 then current scandal. At this date, however, it is but just to add that the recent inves- tigations of Mr. J. G. Alger, as embodied in vol. xix. of the “Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,” tend to show that it is by no means certain that Pamela was the daughter of the accomplished lady whom Philippe Egalitfz. ntrusted with the education of his sons. HORACE WALPOLE: 258 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.” 1 He evidently took a great interest in her works, and indeed in 1789 printed at his press one of her poems, “Bonner’s Ghost.” 2 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. It was, however, neither the author of Eve- lina 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 after- 1 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 ir- rational. 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. Quar- terly Review, 1843, Ixxii. 551.) 2 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.” A MEMOIR. 259 wards 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, Swit- zerland, 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 preten- sion.” 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 agree- able 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, 26 o HORACE WALPOLE: and has copied admirably Lady Di.’s gipsies , 1 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 in- teresting 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 excres- cences and balconies with which modern hoy- dens 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 pre- judiced, but the universal voice of all who know them .” 2 “ 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 1 This (we are told) was at the entrance of a beech- Lady Di.’s chef-d'oeuvre. It wood,” and hung in the Red was a water-colour drawing Bedchamber at Strawberry, representing “Gipsies telling 2 Walpole to Lady Ossory, a country-maiden her fortune n Oct., 1788. A MEMOIR. 261 man with a round face,” and (as his eldest daughter reports) “ an odd inherent easiness in his disposition,” who seems to have been per- fectly contented in his modest and unobtrusive character of paternal appendage to the fa- vourites. 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 2 nd , 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 ac- quaintance 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, con- versation and talents ” must have inexpressibly sweetened and softened what, on his part, had 262 HORACE WALPOLE: begun to grow more and more a solitary, joy- less, and painful old age. His establishment of his “ wives ” in his im mediate vicinity was not, however, accom- plished without difficulty. For a moment some ill-natured newspaper gossip, which at- tributed 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 Decem- ber in the same year, after a fresh fit of frenzy, Walpole’s nephew died, and he be- came 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 affect- ing 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 A MEMOIR. 263 of order ever since July.” 1 “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, 5 t would 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.” 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 Walpole to Pinkerton , 26 Dec., 17Q1. 264 HORACE WALPOLE: credit a tradition handed down by Lord Lans- downe, 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 bienseances , 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 at- tached to a certain good-looking General O’Hara, who, a year before Walpole’s death, in November, 1796, definitely proposed. He had just been appointed Governor of Gibraltar, and he wished Miss Berry to marry him at once and go out with him. This, “out of con- sideration for others,” she declined to do. A few months later the engagement was broken off, and she never again saw her soldier ad- mirer. Whether Lord Orford’s comfort went for anything in this adjournment of her happi- ness, does not clearly appear ; but it is only A MEMOIR. 265 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 es- cape), 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 corre- spondent 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 266 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 enter- taining 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 A MEMOIR. 267 on the 2nd 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 para- graph in the preface, in which she is eulogized. 1 Strawberry Hill passed to Mrs. Darner for 1 Mary Berry died 20th Nov. , 1852 ; Agnes Berry, Jan. , 1852. They were buried in one grave in Petersham church- yard, “amidst scenes” — says Lord Carlisle’s inscription — “which in life they had fre- quented & 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. , ofRanelagh.” See dlsoExtracts from Miss Berry's Journals and Correspondence, 1783-1852, edited by Lady Theresa Lewis, 1865. 268 HORACE WALPOLE: A MEMOIR. life, together with £2000 to keep it in repair. After living in it for some years, she resigned it, in 18 1 1, to the Countess Dowager of Wal- degrave, in whom the remainder in fee was vested. It subsequently passed to George, seventh Earl of Waldegrave, who sold its con- tents in 1842. At his death, in 1846, he left it to his widow, Frances, Countess of Walde- grave, who subsequently married the Rt. Hon. Chichester S. Parkinson-Fortescue, now Lord Carlingford. Lady Waldegrave died in 1879 J 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 j Miss Hawkins's description ; Pinkerton? s rainy day at Strawberry j Walpole's character as a man ; as a virtuoso; as a politician; as an author and letter-writer. X. HEN, in October, 1833, Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay completed for the Edin- burgh 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 vo- cabulary 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 there- fore 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 272 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 .” 1 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 extra- vagant.” “ He says that it is the best that I ever wrote,” the critic tells his favourite corre- spondent, 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 Strat- ford 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 Trevelyan’s Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ch. v. A MEMOIR. 273 edited by Lord Dover belonged, and for whose benefit they were published. But, as Macaulay said justly, Jiis 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 reunions to be long exiled from her little court. Among those who occupy themselves in such enquiries, it has been matter for specu- lation 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 Wal- pole bore to the Bedford faction, the followers of Fox and the Shelburne school.” It is pos- sible, 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 reason- able to suppose that between his avowed de- light 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 274 HORACE WALPOLE: epigram which he lavished upon it. Wal- pole’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 expos- tulation against the entire representation. She laid stress upon the fact that Macaulay had not known Walpole in the flesh (a disquali- fication 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 rose- mary 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 A MEMOIR. 275 Berry’s picture, the likeness is touched with a pencil at once grateful, affectionate, and in- dulgent. 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. 1 1, there is the enamel by Zincke painted in 1745, which is repro- duced at p. 71 of Vol. i. of Cunningham’s edition of the letters. There is another por- trait of him by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. A more charac- teristic presentment than any of these is the little drawing by Mlintz 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 Bed- chamber, near the companion pictures of Gray and Bentley. 1 Like these, it was “from Van- 1 This is engraved in vol. ix. referred to, forms the frontis- of Cunningham, facing the piece to vol. viii. Index, while the Miintz, above 276 HORACE WALPOLE: dyck,” 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 Aides Walpoliance , with a view of part of the Gothic castle in the dis- tance. 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 intel- ligent, 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 1 796. 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 frontis- piece for Vol. i. of his works. There are other portraits by Reynolds, 1757 (which McArdell and Reading engraved), by Rosalba, Fal- conet, and Dance ; l but it is sufficient to have indicated those mentioned above. Of the Walpole of later years there are more descriptions than one, and among these, 1 The writer of the obituary this must be set the fact that notice in the Gentleman' s it was not selected by the Magazine for March, 1797, editor of his works ; and, be- says that Dance’s portrait is sides being in profile, it is ' ‘ the only faithful representa- certainly far less pleasing than tion of him [Walpole].” Against the Lawrence. A MEMOIR. 277 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 ; 1 he al- ways 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 1 It must, by his own ac- and if I do not flatter myself, count, have been peculiar. my march at present is more “Walking is not one pf my like a dabchick’s” ( Walpole excellences,” he writes. “In to Lady Ossory , 18 August, my best days Mr. Winnington 1775). said I tripped like a peewit ; 278 HORACE WALPOLE: 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.” 1 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 inte- resting 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 Muntz’s full-length. “ When viewed from behind, he had some- what of a boyish appearance, owing to the form of his person, and the simplicity of his dress.” None of his pictures, says Pin- kerton, “ express the placid goodness of his eyes, 2 which would often sparkle with 1 Anecdotes, etc., by L. M. quainted with your friend, Mr. Hawkins, 1822, pp. 105-6. Walpole, and am quite charmed 2 “ I have lately become ac- with him,” — writes Malone to A MEMOIR. 279 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.” “ 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 de- formed, 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 Lord Charlemont in 1782. sistibly engaging ” {Hist. MSS. 1 ‘ There is an unaffected benig- Commission, xith Rept. , App . , nity and good-nature in his Pt. x., 1891, p, 395). manner that is, I think, irre- a8o HORACE WALPOLE: vistos towards the Thames. His approach was proclaimed, and attended, by a favourite little dog, the legacy of the Marquise du Deffand ; 1 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 . 2 “ 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 ; 3 and he ate most moderately of chicken, phea- sant, or any light food. Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison pye. Never, but once that 1 Tonton. See note to pp. 250-251. 2 Another passage in the Wcilpoliana (i. 71-2) explains this : — ‘ ‘ Regularly after break- fast, 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. ” 3 “ 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). A MEMOIR. 281 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 quan- tity 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 send- ing 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'etrennes 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 in- 282 HORACE WALPOLE: tervene, 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 effemi- nacy, when he saw every little meagre French- man, 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 en- demial in England, and is termed by the natives le-catch-cold} 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 situa- tions 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 .’ 1 2 His iced water he not only regarded as a preservative from such an acci- 1 "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.” 2 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. A MEMOIR. 283 dent, 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 .” 1 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 ormoulu 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 poli- tician, 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 Walpoliana, i. xl-xlv. 284 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 con- fessed 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 A MEMOIR. 285 intellectual affinity and esteem than down- right affection. But his closest friends were women. In them, that is in the women of his time, he found just that atmosphere of sun- shine 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 greenroom 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 tho- roughly 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 286 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 expendi- ture 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 dif- ferent 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 JEdes Walpoliance showed, he really knew something about paint- A MEMOIR. 287 ing, in fact was a capable draughtsman him- self, and besides, through Mann and others, had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for pro- curing 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 indis- criminate 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 Macau- lay has noted. Many of the marvels at Straw- berry 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 de- fensible 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 288 HORACE WALPOLE: heterogeneous character to the gathering, and turned what might have been a model museum into an old curiosity-shop. In any case, how- ever, it was a memorable curiosity-shop, and in this modern era of bric-a-brac would pro- bably attract far more serious attention than it did in those practical and pre-aesthetic days of 1842 when it fell under the hammer of George Robins. 1 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 1 See Mr. Robins’s Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Straw- berry Hill , etc. [1842], 4to. It is compiled in his well-known grandiloquent manner ; but in- cludes an account of the Castle by Harrison Ainsworth, to- gether with many interesting details. It gave rise to a humorous squib by Crofton Croker, entitled Gooseberry Hall , with “ Puffatory Re- marks,” and cuts. A MEMOIR. 289 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 ?” 1 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 trans- formation 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 neces- sarily 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 sus- pected that his main interest in politics, after . his father’s death, and apart from the preserva- tion 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 Con- way. It was for Conway that he took his most active steps in the direction of political intrigue ; and perhaps his most important 1 Walpole to Montagu , 12 March, 1768. U 290 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 interest- ing result of his connection with public affairs is the series of sketches of political men dis- persed through his correspondence, and through the posthumous Memoirs published by Lord Holland and Sir Denis Le Marchant. Making every allowance for his prejudices and partisan- ship (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 igno- rant of the politics of Walpole’s day, has all the weight which attaches to a testimonial from the enemy . 1 1 The full titles of these 1822 ; and Memoirs of the memoirs are Memoires of the Reign of King George III. last Te?i Years of the Reign of Edited, with Notes, by Sir King George II. Edited by Denis Le Marchant, Bart. 4 Lord Holland. 2 vols. 4to. , vols. 8vo. , 1845. Both were A MEMOIR. 291 This mention of the Memoirs naturally leads us to that final consideration, the position of Walpole as an author. Most of the produc- tions 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 fore- going pages, and it is not necessary to recapi- tulate 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 reviewed, more suo, by Mr. Croker in the Quarterly, with the main intention of proving that all Walpole’s pictures of his contemporaries were co- loured and distorted by succes- sive disappointments arising out of his solicitude concern- ing the patent places from which he derived his income, — in other words (Mr. Croker’s words ! ), that ‘ 4 the whole is 4 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 dis- credited. Indeed, it is an instance of those quaint re- venges of the whirligig of Time, that some of his utterances are really more applicable to him- self 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 day- light. 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. 292 HORACE WALPOLE: 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 Wal- pole’s mood was too variable, his industry too intermittent, his fine-gentleman self-conscious- ness 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) 1 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 pre- served serviceably, in th z. Anecdotes of Painting, a mass of curious, if sometimes uncritical in- formation which, in other circumstances must 1 Idler, No. Ixxvii. (6 Oct., 1759) A MEMOIR. 293 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.” 1 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 pro- longed effort in a gossipping epistle ; a weighty reasoning is less important than a light hand ; 1 See Appendix, p. 313. 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 cir- culation on the continent. The jardin a 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 Eng- lish manner. It is not an ex- hilarating 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). 294 HORACE WALPOLE: A MEMOIR. and variety pleases more surely than sym- metry 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 descrip- tive incidents : the result is delightful. For diversity of interest and perpetual entertain- ment, for the constant surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns of phrase, for graphic characterization and clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing in English like his correspondence. And when one re- members that, in addition, this correspondence constitutes a sixty-years’ social chronicle of a specially picturesque epoch by one of the most picturesque of picturesque chroniclers, there can be no need to bespeak any further suffrage for Horace Walpole’s “incomparable letters.” APPENDIX. 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, de- scribed 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. 298 APPENDIX. 1757 - Odes by Mr. Gray. Quivavra ovvtTo'igi — Pindar, Olymp. 1 1. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] Printed at Straw- berry Hill , for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall , MDCCL VII. Half-title, “ Odes by Mr. Gray. [Price one Shilling.]”; Title as above; Text, pp. 5-21. 4to. i,qoo copies printed. “June 25th [1757], I erected a printing-press at my house at Strawberry Hill.’’ “Aug. 8 th, I pub- lished 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 open- ing of my press — two amazing Odes of Mr. Gray ; they are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime ! con- sequently 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, MDCCL VII. 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 APPENDIX. 299 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 ta?ite coglionerie f Card. d’Este, to Ariosto. Vol. i. [Straw- berry Hill Bookplate.] Printed at Strawberry-Hill. M DC CL VIII. Vol. ii. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII. Vol. i., — Title ; Dedication of 2 leaves to Lord Hert- ford ; Advertisement, pp. i-viii ; half-title ; Text, pp. x-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) m two y ols. 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 offer- ing you the accompanying trifle [i.e. the Postscript 300 APPENDIX. 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 , i Jan., 1787). An Account of Russia as it was in the Year 1710. By Charles Lord Whitworth. [Strawberry Hill Book- plate.] Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCL VIII. 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 Ambas- sador 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 Combury.] London : Printed by S. Richardson , in the Year 1758. Title ; List of Subscribers, pp. xvi ; Advertisement, Prologue, and Dramatis Personce , 2 leaves ; Text, 1-83 ; Epilogue unpaged. Baker gives the following parti- culars 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 Sub- scription, 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 im- APPENDIX. 301 plies 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 Wal- pole 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 Tullfs-Head , Pall-Mall j for the Benefit of Mr. Hill. M.DCC.L VIII. 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 Buck- ingham ; 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 Con- way’’ (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 3° 2 APPENDIX. 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 £i. 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 Collections 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. Annsei Lucani Pharsalia cum Notis Hugonis Grotii, et Richardi Bentleii. Multa sunt condonanda hi opere postumo. In Librum iv, Nota 641. [Em- blematical 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 y 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 Zouchy 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 APPENDIX. 303 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 quce jain cecidere . Vol. I. [Device with Walpole’s crest.] Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry- Hill , MDCCLXJI. Le sachant A nglois, je crus qu'il nUalloit fiarler 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 Kir gate, 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 “Ad- ditional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of Painting in England,” pp. 1-12. Vol. iii. , — Title; pp. 1-155, Appendix and Index unpaged; and “Ad- ditional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of 304 APPENDIX. Painting in England,” pp. 1-4. Vol. iv., — Title, Dedi- cation, 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). 1 ‘ 1760, Jan. 1st. 1 began the Lives of Eng- lish Artists, from Vertue’s MSS. (that is, ' Anecdotes of Painting,’ &c.) ” (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 Paint- ing’” [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 i ” ( 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 En- gravers ” [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). APPENDIX. 305 * 7 6 3 - A Catalogue of Engravers, who have been born, or resided in England ; digested by Mr. Horace Wal- pole 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 ‘ Cata- logue 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 publish- ing 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 : Prmted in the Year MDCCLX1V. 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 ” ( Wal- pole 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, X 306 APPENDIX. Countess Dowager of Suffolk. It was taken from Les Nouvelles R deviations 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 LWd 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 pro- duced. ... 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. Cornelie,Vestale. Tragedie. [By the President Henault.] Imprimee a Strawberry-Hill , MDCCLXVI1I. Title; Dedication ‘ ‘ a 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 APPENDIX. 3 °7 Hdnault. 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). Presi- dent Hinault died November, 1770, aged eighty-six. The Mysterious Mother. A Tragedy. By Mr. Horace Walpole. Sitmihi fas audita loqiii! Virgil. Printed at Strawberry-Hill : MDCCLXVI1I. 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. 1 ‘ 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. Prmted at Strawberry-Hill : M DC C LX IX. 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 , S April, 1769). 308 APPENDIX. I77O. 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 4 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.LXXIJ. Pp. viii-14. 4to. 200 copies printed. “ 1771. End of September, wrote the Advertisement to the 4 Letters of King Edward the Sixth’” (Short Notes). 44 1 have printed 4 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 . Scepe tibi Pater est, scepe legendus Avus. Ovid. Fast. Lib. 1. Strawberry-Hill : Prmted by Thomas Kir gate, M.DCC.LXXII. Title, 44 Advertisement,” pp. i-iv ; Text, 1-48. 4to. 500 copies printed. 4 4 1 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). 4 4 By that time too I shall have the first number of my 4 Miscellaneous Antiquities ’ ready. The first essay is only a republication of some tilts and tournaments ’ ( Walpole to Mason , 21 July, 1772). APPENDIX. 309 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. Scepe tibi Pater est , scepe legendus Avus. Ovid. Fast. Lib. 1. Strawberry- Hill : Pruited 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 Anti- quities ’ ” ( Short Notes). Memoires du Comte de Grammont, par Monsieur le Comte Antoine Hamilton. Nouvelle Edition, aug- mentee de Notes & d’Eclaircissemens necessaires, par M. Horace Walpole. Des gens qui ecrivent pour le Comte de Grammont , peuvent compter sur quelque indulgence. V. l’Epitre prelim, p. xviii. lm- primee ct Strawberry -Hill, M.DCC.LXXII. Title, Dedication, “Avis de L’Editeur,” “ Avertisse- ment,” “ Epitre k 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’ Editeurvous consacre cette Edition , comme un monu- ment de son Amitti, deson Admiration , & de son Respect ; a, Vous, dont les Grdces, V Esprit, & le Golit retracent au siecle present le siecle de Louis quatorzedf les agremens de l' Auteur de ces Mhnoires." * ‘ 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). * 774 - A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole. [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] A Description of the Villa of 3io APPENDIX. Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill, near Twicken- ham. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. Strawberry-Hill : Printed by Thomas Kir gate, 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. Wal- pole 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 Fitz- patrick, 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. ‘ 1 1 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). APPENDIX. 3 11 1778. The Sleep-Walker, a Comedy : in two Acts. Trans- lated 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. Kir- gate, , 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 “AD. 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 312 APPENDIX. 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 Nup- tials 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, Curio- sities, &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 APPENDIX. 3*3 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 lack], and mean to do so while I live ” ( Walpole to Lady Ossory, 15 Sept., 1787). 1785- Hieroglyphic Tales. Schah Baham ne comprenoit jamais bieii que les choses absurdes hors de tonte vraisemblance. Le Sopha, p. 5. Strawberry -Hill : Printed by T. Kir gate , 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 some- time 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 speak- ing of Darwin’s Botanic Garden] is only the Second Part ; for, like my King’s eldest daughter in the ‘ Hiero- glyphic 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 New- castle 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 Francois by M. le Due de Nivernois, en MDCCLXXXIV. Imprime a Strawberry- Hill par T. Kir gate, MDCCLXXXV. Two titles ; English and French Text on opposite pages, 1-94. 4to. 400 copies printed. “How may I 314 APPENDIX. send you a new book printed here? ... It is the transla- tion of my ‘ Essay on Modern Gardens ’ by the Due de Nivernois. . . . You will find it a most beautiful piece of French, of the genuine French spoken by the Due de la Rochefoucault and Madame de S£vign6, and not the metaphysical galimatias of La Harpe and Thomas, &c., which Madasne du Deffand protested she did not under- stand. 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 Due de Nivernois — “a most exquisite specimen of penman- ship ” — was among the papers at Strawberry. 1789- Bishop Bonner’s Ghost. [By Hannah More.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] Strawberry -Hill : Printed by Thomas Kir gate ^ 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 imprimde" 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 Hamiah 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. APPENDIX. 3 T 5 Title ; Text, pp. 3-96. 8vo. This is a translation of Voiture’s unfinished Histoire d' Alcidalis et de Zelide. (See Nouvelles CEuvres de Monsieur de Voiture. Nou- velle Edition. A Paris , Chez Louis Bilaine , au Palais, au second Pilier de la grand' Salle, a 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 say- ing 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. ■s INDEX. INDEX. PEdes Walpoliance , The , 75, 286. Alcidalis and Zelida , History of . i 314- Amelia, Princess, 175, 292, 237 . American Colonies, War with the, 253, 289. An Account of the Giants , 191. Anecdotes of Painting , 146, 153, 218, 243, 292, 303. Ashe, Miss, 129, 130, 131, 132 , 133- Ashton, Thomas, 17, 18, 19, 52 n., 60. Authors , Royal and Noble , Catalogue of 153, 154-6, 299- Balmerino, Lord, trial and execution of, 95-99. Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 162, 163, 195, 244, 245, 246, 284. Beauties , The, 105-6. Beauty Room, the, 214. Benedict XIV., Pope, 50. Bentley, Richard, 137, 138, 139 , 149 , I 5 I > j 63> 218, 225 n. Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, 235, 237, 258-262, 2 67, 272, 273, 274, 285, 289, 291. Bishop Bonner's Ghost , 314. Bland, Henry, 12, 13. Bologna, visited by Walpole, 42 , 43 , 44 - Bracegirdle, Anne, 86, 87 n. Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, 16, 219. Burney, Frances, 195, 257. Byng, Admiral, 145. Castle of Otranto, The, 163-7, 173 , 196 . Catalogue of Engravers, 1 58, 305 - Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, 153, 154-6, 299. Catalogue of Strawberry Hill, 197, 205, 210, 261, 309, 312. 320 INDEX. Charles X. (Comte d’Artois), 176. Chartreuse, La Grande, visited by Walpole and Gray, 39-40. Chartreux, Convent of the, described by Walpole, 35-6. Chatterton, Thomas, 197- 201, 311. Chenevix, Mrs., 107, in, 1 12, 1 1 3. Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, 88, 133, 180 n., 182 n. ; his Letters parodied by Walpole, 238. Choiseul, Mme. la Duchesse de, 178, 180, 183, 216. Christopher Inn, 17. Chudleigh, Elizabeth, Duch- ess of Kingston, 231. Churchill, Lady Mary( Maria), 49 n., 64, 68, 101, 212. Chute, John, 52, 69-70 n., 121, 136, 175, 212. Clement XII., Pope, 46. Clinton, Henry, Earl of Lin- coln, 55. Clive, Kitty, 33, 86, 124, 135, 140, 141, 147, 194; bon mot of, 184 ; allusions to, 217, 219; death of, 255. Cocchi, Dr. Antonio, 55. Coke, Lady Mary, 173, 177m, 187 n., 190 n. Cole, William, 14, 19, 164, 205, 209, 284. Congreve, William, 86. Conway, Henry, 14, 30, 37, 39, 40, 85, 86, 89, 93, 94, 106, 1 12, 153, 185, 205, 253, 265, 286. Cope, Gen. Sir John, 91-2. Come lie, Vest ale, 197, 306. Crawford, James, 182. Crewe, Mrs., Verses of Fox to, 242, 310. Culloden Moor, the battle of, 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 - Cumberland, William, Duke of, 19, 93, 94, 101, 1 12, 123, 125, 175. Cunningham, Peter, 7 ; his account of Walpole’s drive to London, 228-232 ; quo- ted, 283. Darner, Anna (Miss Con- way), 207, 244, 267. Deffand, Mme. du (Marie de Vichy - Chamrond), 180, 216 ; Walpole’s first im- pression of, 180, 181 ; her conquest of Walpole, 181 ; Walpole’s letter to Gray concerning, 181-2 ; her fondness for Walpole, 183 ; the episode of the snuff- box, 183 ; Walpole’s second visit to, 189-190; death of, 252 ; Walpole’s letters to, 249, 252 n. ; her adieu to Walpole, 251 ; will of, 252. Delenda est Oxonia , 127. Dodington, Bubb, 94, 123. Dorinda , Fitzpatrick’s, 242, 310. Dryden, John, imitated by Walpole, 60 ; claimed as great-uncle by Catherine Shorter, 213. Ducarel, Dr., 198, 285. INDEX. 3 2r Easton Neston (Northamp- tonshire), 23. Edward VI., Letters of, 308. Epitaphium vivi Auctoris, 263. Eton College, 12-17. Falkirk, the battle of, 93. Fielding, Henry, 79, 86, 16 1, 162-3, 231, 284. Fielding, William, 162. Florence, visited by Walpole and Gray, 44-51. Fontenoy, the battle of, 89, 91, 105. Foote, Samuel, 177. . Forcalquier, Mme. de, 178. Fortescue, Lucy, 106. F ox, Charles J ames, his verses on Mrs. Crewe, 242, 310. Francklin, Richard, 115, 126, 209, 225. Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, 99- Frederick, Prince of Wales. (See Wales.) Freethinking in France, 172, 174. French Court, presentation of Walpole at the, 175-7. Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose , 153, 301. Gardening, Modern , Essay on, 293, 313. Garrick, David, 86, 141, 149 ; on Gray’s Odes , 298. Genlis, Stephanie Felicite, Mme. de, 177 m, 256-257. Geoffrin, Madame, 179,185. George I., Walpole’s visit to, 9-1 1 ; the story of the raven, 285. (See Remi- niscences. ) George II., 65. (See Remi- niscences. ) George III. (See Memoirs. ) Goldsmith, Oliver, 20, 33, 106,147 n., : 99> 244; Wal- pole’s contempt for, 240, 284. Gordon Riots, the, 253. Grammont’s Memoirs, 309. Granby, Lord, 13 1, 133. Gray, Thomas, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25 ; travels with Walpole, 30 ; Versailles described by, 34 ; at Rheims, 37 ; at Lyons, 39 ; at La Grande Chartreuse, 40 ; in Italy, 42 ; his mis- understanding with Wal- pole, 52-55 ; subsequent reconciliation, 55, 136 ; praises Walpole’s verse, 60-61 ; quoted, 25, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 41, 42, 44, 60, 61, 86, 98 n., 107, 1 18, 136, 137, I38n., 151,221 ; resumes his intimacy with Walpole, 104, 107, 177; visits Strawberry Hill, 136; his indebtedness to Wal- pole, 136; his Elegy pub- lished by Dodsley, 137 ; the Poemata- Grayo-Bentle- iana , 1 38 ; publication of the Odes at Strawberry Hill, 146, 151, 298; de- tects the Rowley forgeries, 198; portrait of, 217 ; Wal- pole’s relations with, 284. 3 22 INDEX. Grenville, George, 289. Harrison, Ethelreda or Au- drey, Lady Townshend, 103, 158, 159. Hawkins, Miss, 162, 245 n., her description of Walpole, 276-278. Henault, Charles Jean Fran- cis, President, 181, 186, 190, 197, 216, 3b6. Hentzner’s Journey into Eng- land , 152, 298. Herbert of Cherbury , Life of Lord , 153, 306. Hervey, Carr, Lord, said to be Walpole’s father, 5. Hervey, Lady, 123,175, 178, 179, 206. Hieroglyphic Tales , 313. Hill, Robert, “the learned tailor,” 153, 301. Historic Doubts on Richard ILL., 192- 193, 239. Hogarth, William, 70, 79, 163, 216, 218, 224, 243 m Houghton, the seat of the Walpoles, 3, 23, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 75, 80; the Houghton pictures sold to Catherine of Russia, 70, 247-248 ; Walpole buried at, 267. Hoyland’s Poems , 307. Hume, David, 171, 175, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188. Hyde Park, robbers in, 127. Inn, the Christopher, 17. Lnscription for the Neglected Column, etc., 62. Jennings, Frances, Duchess of Tyrconnell, anecdote of, 8 ; head of, 224. Jenyns, Soame, quoted, 129, 133 - Jephson, Capt. Robert, 239, 241. Johnson, Samuel, 54, 87, 239 m, 284. Kendal, the Duchess of, 9, 229, 285. Kerr, Lord Robert, 93, 94, 95 - Kilmarnock, Earl, 94 ; trial and execution of, 96, 97, ' 98, 99. King’s College, Cambridge, 18, 19, 30. Kirgate, Thomas, 153, 196, 238. Lens, Bernard, 19. Lessons for the Day, 75. Letter from Xo Ho, 146-8, 293 - Louis XVI. (Due de Berry), 176. Louis XVIII. (Comte de Provence), 176. Lucan (Bentley’s), 153, 302. Macaulay, Lord, 230 n. ; re- views Lord Dover’s edition of Walpole’s letters to Mann, 271-274; letters to Hannah Macaulay quoted, 271, 272; Lady Holland irritated by, 272 ; his opin- ion of Walpole, 273- 275 - INDEX. 323 Maclean, James, robs Wal- pole, 127, 128, 129 ; is imprisoned, 129 ; becomes a fashionable lion, 129, is executed, 129. Magpie and her Brood , The , 305 - “Major Charta,” 223, 289. Mann, Sir Horace, 44, 45, 47, 62, 70, 205, 254; death of, 255 ; Walpole’s affection for, 284. Mason, Rev. William, 53, 198, 206. Memoirs of the Reign of King George III. , 19 1, 290. Middleton, Dr. Conyers, 285 ; praises Walpole’s attainments, 59. Miscellaneous A ntiquities , 308, 309. Mistakes , The; or, the Happy Resentment , 300. Montagu, Lieut. - Gen. Charles, K.C.B., 15. Montagu, Brig. -Gen. Ed- ward, 14. Montagu, George, M.P., 14, 15, 17, 21, 30, 189, 205, 284. Montagu, Lady Mary Wort- ley, 5, 48, 162 ; described by Walpole, 49, 51 ; quoted, 50, 104. Mont Cenis, 41. Moore, Edward, 133. More, Hannah, 257, 258, 263, 284. Muntz the artist, I22n., 139, 146, 149, 213, 278. Muse recalled , The , 312. Mysterious Mother, The, 192, 193-196; Byron’s praise of, J 95 J printed at the Strawberry Hill Press, 196, 307; illustrated by Lady Di Beauclerk, 195. Nature will Prevail, 241. Neale, Betty, 132. Neuhoff, Baron ( “ Theodore, King of Corsica”), 134, 146. Nivernois, Louis Jules Mon- cini, Due de, 180, 313. Nolkejumskoi. (See Cum- berland, William, Duke of. ) Officina Arbuteana. (See Strawberry Hill.) Orford, George, 3rd Earl of (nephew of Horace Wal- pole), 70, 145, 206, 246, 247, 262. Orford, Horace, 4th Earl of. (See Walpole, Horace.) Orford, Robert, 1st Earl of (See Walpole, Sir Robert.) Orford, Robert, 2nd Earl of. (See Walpole, Robert. ) Ossory, Lady, 206 ; letters of Walpole to, 225, 235, 247, 248, 252, 259, 265, 284. Pamela, 256. Parallel in the Manner of Plutarch, A, 153, 301. Paris, Walpole’s first visit to, 32-6; state of society in,. 1 7 1-2; second visit to, 1 7^3-188 ; third visit to, 189; fourth visit to, 189- 91; fifth visit to, 250-251. 3 2 4 INDEX. Parish Register of Twicken- ham, The , 160-163, 246. Parodies by Walpole, 78,238. Patapan (the dog), 67. Petersham, Lady Caroline, 129, 130, 131, 132, 284. Picture Gallery at Houghton, 70-75, 247. Pinkerton, John : his Wal- poliana quoted, 5, 11, 86, 256, 258 n. ; a favourite of Walpole, 256 ; his descrip- tion of Walpole, 278-283. Pomfret, Lady, 48, 49, 50, 103. Pope, Alexander, 104, 112, 141, 216, 218. Preston Pans, the battle of, 9i- Prevost d’ Exiles, M. l’Abbe Antoine Franjois, 33. Pritchard, Mrs., 140, 184 n. Prior, Matthew, criticised by Walpole, 76-78. Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath, 64, 65, 154, 229. ■Quadruple Alliance, The, 16; ended, 19. Q'ueensberry, the Duke of, 231. Quinault, Jeanne-Franjoise, 33- Radnor, Lord, his “ Chinese summer house,” 122. Ranelagh Gardens, 87-9. Reminiscences of the Courts of George the 1 st and 2nd, written for the Misses Berry, 9, 261. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 243 n. Richardson, Samuel, 17 1, 175 . Robinson, William, 149, 150, I5L 153, 159. Rochford, Lady, 159. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 184, 185; sham letter from Frederick the Great to, 185-6; anger of, 186; his quarrel with Hume, 187. Russia , Account of 152, 300. Saint Cyr, Walpole’s visit to, 190- 1. Saunderson, Professor Nicho- las, 20. Scott, Samuel, 140. Scott, Sir Walter, his study of the Castle of Otranto , 167. Selwyn, George Augustus, 23, 139, 173, 231. Sermon on Painting , The , 72-5- Shenstone, William, 152. Shirley, Lady Fanny, 16 1, 162. Shirley, the Hon. Sewallis, 103, 104, 206. Shorter, Catherine (Lady Walpole), 4, 6, 213; death of, 24, 25; burial of, 25; Dryden claimed as great uncle to, 213. Shorter, John, 4, 86 n. Shorter, Sir John, Lord Mayor of London, 4. Short Notes , Walpole’s quoted, 7, 12, 1 7, 37, 55, 81, 126, 145, 155, 241. INDEX. 325 Skerret, Maria, 6, 49, 64, 248. Sleep-Walker , The , 242, 31 1. Smollett, Tobias, 103, 106. Spence, Joseph, 50, 55, 153. Sterne, Laurence, 177. Strawberry Hill (Twicken- ham), Walpole removes to, 89 ; description of, 1 1 1 - 1 26, 149, 150,212-226; previous tenants of, 1 13-14 ; ad- ditions to, 1 15, 208; the Gothic castle at, 117- 123; views executed by Muntz, i2on.; private prin- ting press at, 146, 149, 150, 1 80 ; described by William Robinson, 150; works printed at the Officina Ar- buteana, 15 1, 152, 153 (see Appendix), 158, 159; Description of the Villa at , 197, 205, 210, 309, 312; fetes at, 208, 209; ground plan of the villa at, 21 1 ; China Closet at, 213; the Yellow Bed- chamber (Beauty Room), 214; Breakfast Room, 214, 216; plan of principal floor, 215; Green? Closet, 216; Library, 217; Blue Bed- chamber, 217; Armoury, 217; the Red Bedchamber, 219; the Holbein Cham- ber, 219; the Star Cham- ber, 219; the Gallery, 208, 220; the Round Tower, 222 ; the Cabinet (Tri- bune), 222; collection of rarities, 222, 223; the Great North Bedchamber, 209, 223 ; the Great Clois- ter, 225; the Chapel, 210: the Flower Garden, 115, 225 ; Gothicism of the villa, 226, 227 ; bequeathed to Mrs. Darner, 267; sub- sequent disposal of, 268. Stuart, Prince Charles Ed- ward (the Chevalier), his descent on Scotland, 91 ; temporary success of, 92, escape of, 93. Stuart, Lady Louisa, her Introductory Anecdotes quoted, 5, 6, 7, 13; Intro- duction to Lady Mary Coke’s Letters, etc. , 174 m Suffolk, the Countess of (Mrs. Howard), 10, 125, 140, 141, 160, 205. Swift, Jonathan, 20, 104, 141. Temple, Countess, Poems by, I 53 > 305. Tonton (the dog), 250, 280. Townshend, Charles, 2nd Viscount, 7. Townshend, Charles, 3rd Viscount, 1 59 n. Townshend, Lady. (See Harrison, Audrey.) Townshend, Lady. (See Walpole, Dorothy.) Tragedy in England, Wal- pole’s opinion of, 195-6. Triumvirate, the, 14-15. Twickenham. (See Straw- berry Hill.) Vane, Henry, Earl of Dar- lington, 130. 326 INDEX. Vauxhall, 87, 130-3. Versailles, visited by Wal- pole, 34, 175 - 7 - Verses on the Suppression op the Late Rebellion, 100-1. Vertue, George, the en- graver, 70, 71, 77 n., 156, 157, 219. Voltaire, Fra^ois Marie Arouetde, 165, 182, 192. Waldegrave, Lady Horatia, Miller’s lines to, 31 1. Wales, Frederick, Prince of, 24, 63, 87, 89; composes a chanson on the battle of Fontenoy, 90; wins ^800 from Lord Granby, 1 33. Walpol, Sir Henry de, 3. Walpole, Dorothy, Lady Townshend, 7, 213. , Sir Edward, Knight of the Bath, 3. , Sir Edward (brother of Horace), 101, 102, 206, the daughters of, 206-207 J death of, 25 6. , George (3rd Earl of Orford), 145, 206, 256, 262. , Horace (Horatio), his ancestry, 3, 4, 5 ; scan- dal regarding his birth, 5-6; early childhood, 7- 1 1 ; his visit to George I. , 9-1 1 ; his appearance as a boy, 1 1 - 1 2 ; his schooldays at Eton, 12-17; his scholar- ship, 12-13; com- panions at Eton, 14-17; entered at Lincoln’s Inn, 17 ; enters King’s College, Cambridge, 18; his uni- versity studies, 19-21 ; the “triumvirate,” 14-15; the “quadruple alliance,” 16- 17, 19; literary productions at Cambridge, 24 ; appoint- ed Inspector of Imports and Exports, 29 ; becomes Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats, 29 ; leaves college, 30 ; travels with Gray, 30; visits France, 32-39; in Switzerland, 40-1 ; crosses the Alps, 41 ; in Italy, 42- 55 ; his description of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 49; his misunderstanding with Gray, 52-55 ; his ill- ness in Reggio, 55; his return to England, 55-6 ; becomes member of Parlia- ment for Callington, 56; poetical Epistle to Thomas Ashton , 60-62 ; praised by Gray, 60-61 ; his letters to Mann, 62, 67, 86 ; his first speech in Parliament, 65 ; his Sermon on Painting , , 72-75; the sEdes Wal- ■ poliance , 75-8; his paro- dies, 78, 277; his paper against Lord Bath, 78 ; his father’s death, 79-81; receives legacy from his father, 81 ; his criticism of Mrs. Woffington and of Garrick, 85-86; removes to Twickenham, 89; his Verses on the Suppression INDEX. 3 2 7 Walpole, Horace, continued, of the Late Rebellion , ioo- ioi ; epilogue to Tamer- lane , ioo-ioi; marriage of his sister, ioi ; his criti- cism of Lady Orford, 102- 104; his contributions to The Museum , 104; his poem, The Beauties , 105- 107 ; resides at Windsor, 107; his description of Strawberry Hill, 1 11-126 (see Strawberry Hill); his papers in The Remem- brancer , 127; his tract Delenda est Oxonia , 127; is robbed in Hyde Park, 127-128; his account of Vauxhall, * 129- 133; his papers in The World, 133- 135; his reconciliation with Gray, 136; his admi- ration of Gray’s poetry, 137-8; is chosen member of Parliament for Castle Rising, 145 ; for Lynn, 145 ; his Castle of Otranto , 146, 163-167, 173; pub- lishes Gray’s Odes , 151- 152; his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors , 146, 153, 154-156; his first Memoirs , 146; his Letter from Xo Ho, 146- 148; his other Catalogues, 148-149; establishes the Officina Arbuteana, 149; his publications, 151-158 (see Appendix) ; his Cata- logue of Engravers, 158; his Anecdotes of Painting, 153 , 155 , 156-158, 292; his occasional pieces {The Magpie and her Brood, Dialogue between two Great Ladies, The Gar- land, The Parish Regis- ter of Twickenham ), 160- 163, 246; his second visit to Paris, 173-188; is pre- sented to the royal family, 1 75- 1 77; sham letter to Rousseau, 185-186; visits Bath, 188; his third visit to Paris, 189; his Account of the Giants , 191 ; begins his Memoirs of the Reign of George HI., 191 ; retires from Parliament, 191 ; his letters to the Public Advertiser , 192; his His- toric Doubts on Richard III., 192- 193; his tragedy, The Mysterious Mother, 1 93- 1 95 5 his relations with Chatterton, 197-201 ; his fondness for his nieces, 206; his correspondence, 237; his minor writings, 238-240; his Nature will Prevail, 241 ; his fourth visit to Paris, 250; his correspondence in French, 249; Mme. du Deffand’s farewell, 251; his ac- quaintance with Hannah More, 257; his friendship wit> the Misses Berry, 25^-265 ; his Remini- scences, 261 ; his Catalogue of Strawberry Hill, 261 ; succeeds his nephew as 328 INDEX. Walpole, Horace, continued. Earl of Orford, 262; his Epitaphium vivi Auctoris, 263 ; his last letter to Lady Ossory, 265 ; his death and burial, 2 66, 267; dis- posal of his estate, 267; Lord Macaulay’s criticism of, 271-275; portraits and descriptions of, 275-283; Pinkerton’s reminiscences of, 278-283; his character as a man, 283-286; as a virtuoso and amateur, 286- 288 ; as a politician, 288- 290; as an author, 291-294. of Wolterton, Hora- tio, Baron, 7, 221. , Maria (Lady Wal- degrave), 206, 221. , Reginald de, 3. , Sir Robert (first Earl of Orford, ancestry of, 3, 4; first marriage of, 4; second marriage of, 49 ; decline of his political power, 63-64; resigns the premiership, 64 ; is created Earl of Orford, 64; in- trigues against Pulteney, 65 ; prevents his own disgrace, 65 ; death of, 79; will of, 81. , Robert (second Earl of Orford), 104, 132. , Lady (Countess of Orford), 48, 49, 102, 103, 104, 206; death tof, 255. Walpole, Col. Robert, M.P., 3 - , William, 5. Walpoles of Houghton, pedi- gree of the, 3 ; spelled Walpol, 3. Walpoliana, Pinkerton’s, 5, 11, 86, 256, 258 n., 278- 283. Walsingham, Melusina de Schulemberg, Countess of, 10. Wesley, John, Walpole’s de- scription of, 188-189. West, Richard, 16, 17, 21, 39, 104. Whitehead, Paul, 140. Wilkes, John, 177. Williams, George James, or “ Gilly,” 139, 173, 213. Williams, Sir Charles Han- bury, 14, 133. William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, marries Maria Walpole (Lady Walde- grave), 207. Woffington, Margaret, 85-6. Xo Ho, Letter of, 146-148. Yarmouth, the Countess of (Mme. de Walmoden), 10, 214. Zouch, Rev. Henry, 198; Walpole’s letters to, quo- ted, 155, 156 nn., 157, 284. CHISWICK PRESS : — C. WH1TTINGH AM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. f\ I