CHAPTER X.

Macaulay on Walpole.--Effect of the _Edinburgh_ Essay.--Macaulay and Mary Berry.--Portraits of Walpole.--Miss Hawkins's Description.--Pinkerton's Rainy Day at Strawberry.--Walpole's Character as a Man; as a Virtuoso; as a Politician; as an Author and Letter-writer.

When, in October, 1833, Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay completed for the _Edinburgh_ his review of Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to Sir Horace Mann, he had apparently performed to his entire satisfaction the operation known, in the workmanlike vocabulary of the time, as 'dusting the jacket' of his unfortunate reviewee. 'I was up at four this morning to put the last touch to it,' he tells his sister Hannah. 'I often differ with the majority about other people's writings, and still oftener about my own; and therefore I may very likely be mistaken; but I think that this article will be a hit.... Nothing ever cost me more pains than the first half; I never wrote anything so flowingly as the latter half; and I like the latter half the best. [The latter half, it should be stated, was a rapid and very brilliant sketch of Sir Robert Walpole; the earlier, which involved so much labour, was the portrait of Sir Robert's youngest son.] I have laid it on Walpole [_i. e._, Horace Walpole] so unsparingly,' he goes on to say, 'that I shall not be surprised if Miss Berry should cut me.... Neither am I sure that Lord and Lady Holland will be well pleased.'[193]

[193] Trevelyan's _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, ch. v.

His later letters show him to have been a true prophet. Macvey Napier, then the editor of the 'Blue and Yellow,' was enthusiastic, praising the article 'in terms absolutely extravagant.' 'He says that it is the best that I ever wrote,' the critic tells his favourite correspondent,--a statement which at this date must be qualified by the fact that he penned some of his most famous essays subsequent to its appearance. On the other hand, Miss Berry resented the review so much that Sir Stratford Canning advised its author not to go near her. But apparently her anger was soon dispelled, for the same letter which makes this announcement relates that she was already appeased. Lady Holland, too, was 'in a rage,' though with what part of the article does not transpire, while her good-natured husband told Macaulay privately that he quite agreed with him, but that they had better not discuss the subject. Lady Holland's irritation was probably prompted by her intimacy with the Waldegrave family, to whom the letters edited by Lord Dover belonged, and for whose benefit they were published. But, as Macaulay said justly, his article was surely not calculated to injure the sale of the book. Her imperious ladyship's displeasure, however, like that of Miss Berry, was of brief duration. Macaulay was too necessary to her _réunions_ to be long exiled from her little court.

Among those who occupy themselves in such enquiries, it has been matter for speculation what particular grudge Macaulay could have cherished against Horace Walpole when, to use his own expression, he laid it on him 'so unsparingly.' To this his correspondence affords no clue. Mr. Cunningham holds that he did it 'to revenge the dislike which Walpole bore to the Bedford faction, the followers of Fox and the Shelburne school.' It is possible, as another authority has suggested, that 'in the Whig circles of Macaulay's time, there existed a traditional grudge against Horace Walpole,' owing to obscure political causes connected with his influence over his friend Conway. But these reasons do not seem relevant enough to make Macaulay's famous onslaught a mere _vendetta_. It is more reasonable to suppose that between his avowed delight in Walpole as a letter-writer, and his robust contempt for him as an individual, he found a subject to his hand, which admitted of all the brilliant antithesis and sparkle of epigram which he lavished upon it. Walpole's trivialities and eccentricities, his whims and affectations, are seized with remorseless skill, and presented with all the rhetorical advantages with which the writer so well knew how to invest them. As regards his literary estimate, the truth of the picture can scarcely be gainsaid; but the personal character, as Walpole's surviving friends felt, is certainly too much _en noir_. Miss Berry, indeed, in her 'Advertisement' to vol. vi. of Wright's edition of the _Letters_, raised a gentle cry of expostulation against the entire representation. She laid stress upon the fact that Macaulay had not known Walpole in the flesh (a disqualification to which too much weight may easily be assigned); she dwelt upon the warmth of Walpole's attachments; she contested the charge of affectation; and, in short, made such a gallant attempt at a defence as her loyalty to her old friend enabled her to offer. Yet, if Macaulay had never known Walpole at all, she herself, it might be urged, had only known him in his old age. Upon the whole, 'with due allowance for a spice of critical pepper on one hand, and a handful of friendly rosemary on the other,' as Croker says, both characters are 'substantially true.' Under Macaulay's brush Walpole is depicted as he appeared to that critic's masculine and (for the nonce) unsympathetic spirit; in Miss Berry's picture, the likeness is touched with a pencil at once grateful, affectionate, and indulgent. The biographer of to-day, who is neither endeavouring to portray Walpole in his most favourable aspect, nor preoccupied (as Cunningham supposed the great Whig essayist to have been) with what would be thought of his work 'at Woburn, at Kensington, and in Berkeley Square,' may safely borrow details from the delineation of either artist.

Of portraits of Walpole (not in words) there is no lack. Besides that belonging to Mrs. Bedford, described at p. 11, there is the enamel by Zincke painted in 1745, which is reproduced at p. 71 of vol. i. of Cunningham's edition of the letters. There is another portrait of him by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. A more characteristic presentment than any of these is the little drawing by Müntz which shows his patron sitting in the Library at Strawberry, with the Thames and a passing barge seen through the open window. But his most interesting portraits are two which exhibit him in manhood and old age. One is the half-length by J. G. Eckardt which once hung in its black-and-gold frame in the Blue Bedchamber, near the companion pictures of Gray and Bentley.[194] Like these, it was 'from Vandyck,' that is to say, it was in a costume copied from that painter, and depicts the sitter in a laced collar and ruffles, leaning upon a copy of the _Ædes Walpolianæ_, with a view of part of the Gothic castle in the distance. The canvas bears at the back the date of 1754, so that it represents him at the age of seven-and-thirty. The shaven face is rather lean than thin, the forehead high, the brown hair brushed back and slightly curled. The eyes are dark, bright, and intelligent, and the small mouth wears a slight smile. The other, a drawing made for Samuel Lysons by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is that of a much older man, having been executed in 1796. The eyelids droop wearily, the thin lips have a pinched, mechanical urbanity, and the features are worn by years and ill-health. It was reproduced by T. Evans as a frontispiece for vol. i. of his works. There are other portraits by Reynolds, 1757 (which McArdell and Reading engraved), by Rosalba, Falconet, and Dance;[195] but it is sufficient to have indicated those mentioned above.

[194] This is engraved in vol. ix. of Cunningham, facing the Index; while the Müntz, above referred to, forms the frontispiece to vol. viii.

[195] The writer of the obituary notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for March, 1797, says that Dance's portrait is 'the only faithful representation of him [Walpole].' Against this must be set the fact that it was not selected by the editor of his works; and, besides being in profile, it is certainly far less pleasing than the Lawrence.

Of the Walpole of later years there are more descriptions than one, and among these, that given by Miss Hawkins, the daughter of the pompous author of the _History of Music_, is, if the most familiar, also the most graphic. Sir John Hawkins was Walpole's neighbour at Twickenham House, and the _History_ is said to have been undertaken at Walpole's instance. Miss Hawkins's description is of Walpole as she recalled him before 1772. 'His figure,' she says, '... was not merely tall, but more properly _long_ and slender to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness.... His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively; his voice was not strong, but his tones were extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not remember his common gait;[196] he always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy, which fashion had then made almost natural,--_chapeau bras_ between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm, knees bent, and feet on tip-toe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember when a child, thinking him very much under-dressed if at any time, except in mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer no powder, but his wig combed straight, and showing his very smooth pale forehead, and queued behind; in winter powder.'[197]

[196] It must, by his own account, have been peculiar. 'Walking is not one of my excellences,' he writes. 'In my best days Mr. Winnington said I tripped like a peewit; and if I do not flatter myself, my march at present is more like a dabchick's' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 18 August, 1775).

[197] _Anecdotes, etc._, by L. M. Hawkins, 1822, pp. 105-6.

Pinkerton, who knew Walpole from 1784 until his death, and whose disappointment of a legacy is supposed, in places, to have mingled a more than justifiable amount of gall with his ink, has nevertheless left a number of interesting particulars respecting his habits and personal characteristics. They are too long to quote entire, but are, at the same time, too picturesque to be greatly compressed. He contradicts Miss Hawkins in one respect, for he says Walpole was 'short and slender,' but 'compact and neatly formed,'--an account which is confirmed by Müntz's full-length. 'When viewed from behind, he had somewhat of a boyish appearance, owing to the form of his person, and the simplicity of his dress.' None of his pictures, says Pinkerton, 'express the placid goodness of his eyes,[198] which would often sparkle with sudden rays of wit, or dart forth flashes of the most keen and intuitive intelligence. His laugh was forced and uncouth, and even his smile not the most pleasing.'

[198] 'I have lately become acquainted with your friend Mr. Walpole, and am quite charmed with him.'--writes Malone to Lord Charlemont in 1782. 'There is an unaffected benignity and good nature in his manner that is, I think, irresistibly engaging' (_Hist. MSS. Commission, 12th Rept., App._, Pt. x., 1891, p. 395).

'His walk was enfeebled by the gout; which, if the editor's memory do not deceive, he mentioned that he had been tormented with since the age of twenty-five; adding, at the same time, that it was no hereditary complaint, his father, Sir Robert Walpole, who always drank ale, never having known that disorder, and far less his other parent. This painful complaint not only affected his feet, but attacked his hands to such a degree that his fingers were always swelled and deformed, and discharged large chalk-stones once or twice a year; upon which occasions he would observe, with a smile, that he must set up an inn, for he could chalk up a score with more ease and rapidity than any man in England.'

After referring to the strict temperance of his life, Pinkerton goes on:--

'Though he sat up very late, either writing or conversing, he generally rose about nine o'clock, and appeared in the breakfast room, his constant and chosen apartment, with fine vistos towards the Thames. His approach was proclaimed, and attended, by a favourite little dog, the legacy of the Marquise du Deffand,[199] and which ease and attention had rendered so fat that it could hardly move. This was placed beside him on a small sofa; the tea-kettle, stand, and heater were brought in, and he drank two or three cups of that liquor out of most rare and precious ancient porcelain of Japan, of a fine white, embossed with large leaves. The account of his china cabinet, in his description of his villa, will show how rich he was in that elegant luxury.... The loaf and butter were not spared, ... and the dog and the squirrels had a liberal share of his repast.[200]

[199] Tonton. See note to p. 250.

[200] Another passage in the _Walpoliana_ (i. 71-2) explains this: 'Regularly after breakfast, in the summer season, at least, Mr. Walpole used to mix bread and milk in a large bason, and throw it out at the window of the sitting-room, for the squirrels; who, soon after, came down from the high trees, to enjoy their allowance.'

'Dinner [his hour for which was four] was served up in the small parlour, or large dining room, as it happened: in winter generally the former. His valet supported him downstairs;[201] and he ate most moderately of chicken, pheasant, or any light food. Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison pye. Never, but once that [201] 'I cannot go up or down stairs without being led by a servant. It is _tempus abire_ for me: _lusi satis_' (_Walpole to Pinkerton_, 15 May, 1794).

he drank two glasses of white-wine, did the editor see him taste any liquor, except ice-water. A pail of ice was placed under the table, in which stood a decanter of water, from which he supplied himself with his favourite beverage....

'If his guest liked even a moderate quantity of wine, he must have called for it during dinner, for almost instantly after he rang the bell to order coffee upstairs. Thither he would pass about five o'clock; and generally resuming his place on the sofa, would sit till two o'clock in the morning, in miscellaneous chit-chat, full of singular anecdotes, strokes of wit, and acute observations, occasionally sending for books or curiosities, or passing to the library, as any reference happened to arise in conversation. After his coffee he tasted nothing; but the snuff box of _tabac d'étrennes_ from Fribourg's was not forgotten, and was replenished from a canister lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour.

'Such was a private rainy day of Horace Walpole. The forenoon quickly passed in roaming through the numerous apartments of the house, in which, after twenty visits, still something new would occur; and he was indeed constantly adding fresh acquisitions. Sometimes a walk in the grounds would intervene, on which occasions he would go out in his slippers through a thick dew; and he never wore a hat. He said that, on his first visit to Paris, he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every little meagre Frenchman, whom even he could have thrown down with a breath, walking without a hat, which he could not do, without a certainty of that disease, which the Germans say is endemial in England, and is termed by the natives _le-catch-cold_.[202] The first trial cost him a slight fever, but he got over it, and never caught cold afterwards: draughts of air, damp rooms, windows open at his back, all situations were alike to him in this respect. He would even show some little offence at any solicitude, expressed by his guests on such an occasion, as an idea arising from the seeming tenderness of his frame; and would say, with a half smile of good-humoured crossness, "My back is the same with my face, and my neck is like my nose."[203] His iced water he not only regarded as a preservative from such an accident, but he would sometimes observe that he thought his stomach and bowels would last longer than his bones; such conscious vigour and strength in those parts did he feel from the use of that beverage.'[204]

[202] 'I have persisted'--he tells Gray from Paris in January, 1766--'through this Siberian winter in not adding a grain to my clothes and in going open-breasted without an under waistcoat.'

[203] He was probably thinking of _Spectator_, No. 228: 'The _Indian_ answered very well to an _European_, who asked him how he could go naked: I am all Face.' Lord Chesterfield wished his little godson to have the same advantage. 'I am very willing that he should be _all face_,' he says in a letter to Arthur Stanhope of 19th October, 1762.

[204] _Walpoliana_, i. xi-xiv.

The only particular that Cunningham adds to this chronicle of his habits is one too characteristic of the man to be omitted. After dinner at Strawberry, he says, the smell was removed by 'a censer or pot of frankincense.' According to the _Description_, etc., there was a tripod of ormolu kept in the Breakfast Room for this purpose. It is difficult to identify the 'ancient marble urn of great thickness' in which the snuff was stored; but it may have been that 'of granite, brought from one of the Greek Islands, and given to Sir Robert Walpole by Sir Charles Wager,' which also figures in the Catalogue.

Walpole's character may be considered in a fourfold aspect, as a man, a virtuoso, a politician, and an author. The first is the least easy to describe. What strikes one most forcibly is, that he was primarily and before all an aristocrat, or, as in his own day he would have been called, a 'person of quality,' whose warmest sympathies were reserved for those of his own rank. Out of the charmed circle of the peerage and baronetage, he had few strong connections; and although in middle life he corresponded voluminously with antiquaries such as Cole and Zouch, and in the languor of his old age turned eagerly to the renovating society of young women such as Hannah More and the Miss Berrys, however high his heart may have placed them, it may be doubted whether his head ever quite exalted them to the level of Lady Caroline Petersham, or Lady Ossory, or Her Grace of Gloucester. In a measure, this would also account for his unsympathetic attitude to some of the great _literati_ of his day. With Gray he had been at school and college, which made a difference; but he no doubt regarded Fielding and Hogarth and Goldsmith and Johnson, apart from their confessed hostility to 'high life' and his beloved 'genteel comedy,' as gifted but undesirable outsiders,--'horn-handed breakers of the glebe' in Art and Letters,--with whom it would be impossible to be as intimately familiar as one could be with such glorified amateurs as Bunbury and Lady Lucan and Lady Di. Beauclerk, who were all more or less born in the purple. To the friends of his own class he was constant and considerate, and he seems to have cherished a genuine affection for Conway, George Montagu, and Sir Horace Mann. With regard to Gray, his relations, it would seem, were rather those of intellectual affinity and esteem than downright affection. But his closest friends were women. In them, that is, in the women of his time, he found just that atmosphere of sunshine and _insouciance_,--those conversational 'lilacs and nightingales,'--in which his soul delighted, and which were most congenial to his restless intelligence and easily fatigued temperament. To have seen him at his best, one should have listened to him, not when he was playing the antiquary with Ducarel or Conyers Middleton, but gossipping of ancient green-room scandals at Cliveden, or explaining the mysteries of the 'Officina Arbuteana' to Madame de Boufflers or Lady Townshend, or delighting Mary and Agnes Berry, in the half-light of the Round Drawing Room at Strawberry, with his old stories of Lady Suffolk and Lady Hervey, and of the monstrous raven, under guise of which the disembodied spirit of His Majesty King George the First was supposed to have revisited the disconsolate Duchess of Kendal. Comprehending thoroughly that cardinal precept of conversation,--'never to weary your hearer,'--he was an admirable _raconteur_; and his excellent memory, shrewd perceptions, and volatile wit--all the more piquant for its never-failing mixture of well-bred malice--must have made him a most captivating companion. If, as Scott says, his temper was 'precarious,' it is more charitable to remember that in middle and later life he was nearly always tormented with a malady seldom favourable to good humour, than to explain the less amiable details of his conduct (as does Mr. Croker) by the hereditary taint of insanity. In a life of eighty years many hot friendships cool, even with tempers not 'precarious.' As regards the charges sometimes made against him of coldness and want of generosity, very good evidence would be required before they could be held to be established; and a man is not necessarily niggardly because his benefactions do not come up to the standard of all the predatory members of the community. It is besides clear, as Conway and Madame du Deffand would have testified, that he could be royally generous when necessity required. That he was careful rather than lavish in his expenditure must be admitted. It may be added that he was very much in bondage to public opinion, and morbidly sensitive to ridicule.

As a virtuoso and amateur, his position is a mixed one. He was certainly widely different from that typical art connoisseur of his day,--the butt of Goldsmith and of Reynolds,--who travelled the Grand Tour to litter a gallery at home with broken-nosed busts and the rubbish of the Roman picture-factories. As the preface to the _Ædes Walpolianæ_ showed, he really knew something about painting, in fact was a capable draughtsman himself; and besides, through Mann and others, had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for procuring genuine antiques. But his collection was not so rich in this way as might have been anticipated; and his portraits, his china, and his miniatures were probably his best possessions. For the rest, he was an indiscriminate rather than an eclectic collector; and there was also considerable truth in that strange 'attraction from the great to the little, and from the useful to the odd,' which Macaulay has noted. Many of the marvels at Strawberry would never have found a place in the treasure-houses--say of Beckford or Samuel Rogers. It is difficult to fancy Bermingham's fables in paper on looking-glass, or Hubert's cardcuttings, or the fragile mosaics of Mrs. Delany either at Fonthill or St. James's Place. At the same time, it should be remembered that several of the most trivial or least defensible objects were presents which possibly reflected rather the charity of the recipient than the good taste of the giver. All the articles over which Macaulay lingers--Wolsey's hat, Van Tromp's pipe-case, and King William's spurs--were obtained in this way; and (with a laugher) Horace Walpole, who laughed a good deal himself, would probably have made as merry as the most mirth-loving spectator could have desired. But such items gave a heterogeneous character to the gathering, and turned what might have been a model museum into an old curiosity-shop. In any case, however, it was a memorable curiosity-shop, and in this modern era of _bric-à-brac_ would probably attract far more serious attention than it did in those practical and pre-æsthetic days of 1842, when it fell under the hammer of George Robins.[205]

[205] See Mr. Robins's _Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill_, etc. (1842), 4to. It is compiled in his well-known grandiloquent manner; but includes an account of the Castle by Harrison Ainsworth, together with many interesting details. It gave rise to a humorous squib by Crofton Croker, entitled _Gooseberry Hall_, with 'Puffatory Remarks,' and cuts.

Walpole's record as a politician is a brief one, and if his influence upon the questions of his time was of any importance, it must have been exercised unobtrusively. During the period of the 'great Walpolean battle,' as Junius styled the struggle that culminated in the downfall of Lord Orford, he was a fairly regular attendant in the House of Commons; and, as we have seen, spoke in his father's behalf when the motion was made for an enquiry into his conduct. Nine years later, he moved the address, and a few years later still, delivered a speech upon the employment of Swiss Regiments in the Colonies. Finally he resigned his 'senatorial dignity,' quitting the scene with the valediction of those who depreciate what they no longer desire to retain. 'What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same knaveries, that I have seen their fathers and grandfathers act? Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to Charles Townshend's? Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of beings?'[206] In his earlier days he was a violent Whig,--at times almost a Republican' (to which latter phase of his opinions must be attributed the transformation of King Charles's death-warrant into 'Major Charta'); 'in his old and enfeebled age,' says Miss Berry, 'the horrors of the first French Revolution made him a Tory; while he always lamented, as one of the worst effects of its excesses, that they must necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and establishment of religious liberty.' He deplored the American War, and disapproved the Slave Trade; but, in sum, it is to be suspected that his main interest in politics, after his father's death, and apart from the preservation throughout an 'age of small factions' of his own uncertain sinecures, was the good and ill fortune of the handsome and amiable, but moderately eminent statesman, General Conway. It was for Conway that he took his most active steps in the direction of political intrigue; and perhaps his most important political utterance is the _Counter Address to the Public on the late Dismission of a General Officer_, which was prompted by Conway's deprivation of his command for voting in the opposition with himself in the debate upon the illegality of general warrants. Whether he would have taken office if it had been offered to him, may be a question; but his attitude, as disclosed by his letters, is a rather hesitating _nolo episcopari_. The most interesting result of his connection with public affairs is the series of sketches of political men dispersed through his correspondence, and through the posthumous _Memoirs_ published by Lord Holland and Sir Denis Le Marchant. Making every allowance for his prejudices and partisanship (and of neither can Walpole be acquitted), it is impossible not to regard these latter as highly important contributions to historical literature. Even Mr. Croker admits that they contain 'a considerable portion of voluntary or involuntary truth;' and such an admission, when extorted from Lord Beaconsfield's 'Rigby,' of whom no one can justly say that he was ignorant of the politics of Walpole's day, has all the weight which attaches to a testimonial from the enemy.[207]

[206] _Walpole to Montagu_, 12 March, 1768.

[207] The full titles of these memoirs are _Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of King George II._ Edited by Lord Holland. 2 vols. 4to., 1822; and _Memoirs of the Reign of King George III._ Edited, with Notes, by Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. 4 vols. 8vo., 1845. Both were reviewed, _more suo_, by Mr. Croker in the _Quarterly_, with the main intention of proving that all Walpole's pictures of his contemporaries were coloured and distorted by successive disappointments arising out of his solicitude concerning the patent places from which he derived his income,--in other words (Mr. Croker's words!), that 'the whole is "a copious polyglot of spleen."' Such an investigation was in the favourite line of the critic, and might be expected to result in a formidable indictment. But the best judges hold it to have been exaggerated, and to-day the method of Mr Croker is more or less discredited. Indeed, it is an instance of those quaint revenges of the whirligig of Time, that some of his utterances are really more applicable to himself than to Walpole. 'His [Walpole's] natural inclination [says Croker] was to grope an obscure way through mazes and _souterrains_ rather than walk the high road by daylight. He is never satisfied with the plain and obvious cause of any effect, and is for ever striving after some tortuous solution.' This is precisely what unkind modern critics affirm of the Rt. Honourable John Wilson Croker.

This mention of the _Memoirs_ naturally leads us to that final consideration, the position of Walpole as an author. Most of the productions which fill the five bulky volumes given to the world in 1798 by Miss Berry's pious care have been referred to in the course of the foregoing pages, and it is not necessary to recapitulate them here. The place which they occupy in English literature was never a large one, and it has grown smaller with lapse of time. Walpole, in truth, never took letters with sufficient seriousness. He was willing enough to obtain repute, but upon condition that he should be allowed to despise his calling and laugh at 'thoroughness.' If masterpieces could have been dashed off at a hand-gallop; if antiquarian studies could have been made of permanent value by the exercise of mere elegant facility; if a dramatic reputation could have been secured by the simple accumulation of horrors upon Horror's head,--his might have been a great literary name. But it is not thus the severer Muses are cultivated; and Walpole's mood was too variable, his industry too intermittent, his fine-gentleman self-consciousness too inveterate, to admit of his producing anything that (as one of his critics has said) deserves a higher title than '_opuscula_.' His essays in the _World_ lead one to think that he might have made a more than respectable essayist, if he had not fallen upon days in which that form of writing was practically outworn; and it is manifest that he would have been an admirable writer of familiar poetry if he could have forgotten the fallacy (exposed by Johnson)[208] that easy verse is easy to write. Nevertheless, in the Gothic romance which was suggested by his Gothic castle--for, to speak paradoxically, Strawberry Hill is almost as much as Walpole the author of the _Castle of Otranto_--he managed to initiate a new form of fiction; and by decorating 'with gay strings the gatherings of Vertue' he preserved serviceably, in the _Anecdotes of Painting_, a mass of curious, if sometimes uncritical, information which, in other circumstances, must have been hopelessly lost. If anything else of his professed literary work is worthy of recollection, it must be a happy squib such as the _Letter of Xo Ho_, a fable such as _The Entail_, or an essay such as the pamphlet on Landscape Gardening, which even Croker allows to be 'a very elegant history and happy elucidation of that charming art.'[209]

[208] _Idler_, No. lxxvii. (6 Oct., 1759).

[209] See Appendix, p. 320. To the advocates of the rival school Walpole's utterance, perhaps inevitably, appears in a less favourable light. 'Horace Walpole published an _Essay on Modern Gardening_ in 1785, in which he repeated what other writers had said on the subject. This was at once translated, and had a great circulation on the Continent. The _jardin à l'Anglaise_ became the rage; many beautiful old gardens were destroyed in France and elsewhere; and Scotch and English gardeners were in demand all over Europe to renovate gardens in the English manner. It is not an exhilarating thought that in the one instance in which English taste in a matter of design has taken hold on the Continent, it has done so with such disastrous results' (_The Formal Garden in England_, 2nd edn., 1892, p. 86).

But it is not by his professedly literary work that he has acquired the reputation which he retains and must continue to retain. It is as a letter-writer that he survives; and it is upon the vast correspondence, of which, even now, we seem scarcely to have reached the limits, that is based his surest claim _volitare per ora virum_. The qualities which are his defects in more serious productions become merits in his correspondence; or, rather, they cease to be defects. No one looks for prolonged effort in a gossipping epistle; a weighty reasoning is less important than a light hand; and variety pleases more surely than symmetry of structure. Among the little band of those who have distinguished themselves in this way, Walpole is in the foremost rank,--nay, if wit and brilliancy, without gravity or pathos, are to rank highest, he is first. It matters nothing whether he wrote easily or with difficulty; whether he did, or did not, make minutes of apt illustrations or descriptive incidents: the result is delightful. For diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, for the constant surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns of phrase, for graphic characterization and clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing in English like his correspondence. And when one remembers that, in addition, this correspondence constitutes a sixty-years' social chronicle of a specially picturesque epoch by one of the most picturesque of picturesque chroniclers, there can be no need to bespeak any further suffrage for Horace Walpole's 'incomparable letters.'

APPENDIX.

BOOKS PRINTED AT THE STRAWBERRY HILL PRESS.

⁂ The following list contains all the books mentioned in the _Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole_, etc., 1784, together with those issued between that date and Walpole's death. It does _not_ include the several title-pages and labels which he printed from time to time, or the quatrains and verses purporting to be addressed by the Press to Lady Rochford, Lady Townshend, Madame de Boufflers, the Miss Berrys, and others. Nor does it comprise the pieces struck off by Mr. Kirgate, the printer, for the benefit of himself and his friends. On the other hand, all the works enumerated here are, with three exceptions, described from copies either in the possession of the present writer, or to be found in the British Museum and the Dyce and Forster Libraries at South Kensington.

1757.

Odes by Mr. Gray. [Greek: Phônanta synethoisi]--Pindar, Olymp. II. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, MDCCLVII._

Half-title, 'Odes by Mr. Gray. [Price one Shilling.]'; Title as above; Text, pp. 5-21. 4to. 1,000 copies printed. 'June 25th [1757], I erected a printing-press at my house at Strawberry Hill.' 'Aug. 8th, I published two Odes by Mr. Gray, the first production of my press' (_Short Notes_). 'And with what do you think we open? _Cedite, Romani Impressores_,--with nothing under _Graii Carmina_. I found him [Gray] in town last week: he had brought his two Odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands' ... (_Walpole to Chute_, 12 July, 1757). 'I send you two copies (one for Dr. Cocchi) of a very honourable opening of my press,--two amazing Odes of Mr. Gray; they are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime! consequently, I fear, a little obscure' (_Walpole to Mann_, 4 Aug., 1757). 'You are very particular, I can tell you, in liking Gray's Odes; but you must remember that the age likes Akenside, and did like Thomson! Can the same people like both?' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 25 Aug., 1757).

To Mr. Gray, on his Odes. [By David Garrick.]

Single leaf, containing six quatrains (24 lines). 4to. Only six copies are said to have been printed; but it is not improbable that there were more. There is a copy in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington.

A Journey into England. By Paul Hentzner, in the year M.D.XC.VIII. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLVII._

Title, Dedication (2 leaves); 'Advertisement,' i-x; half-title; Latin and English Text on opposite pages, 1 to 103 (double numbers). Sm. 8vo. 220 copies printed. 'In Oct., 1757, was finished at my press an edition of Hentznerus, translated by Mr. Bentley, to which I wrote an advertisement. I dedicated it to the Society of Antiquaries, of which I am a member' (_Short Notes_). 'An edition of Hentznerus, with a version by Mr. Bentley, and a little preface of mine, were prepared [_i. e._, as the first issue of the press], but are to wait [for Gray's _Odes_]' (_Walpole to Chute_, 12 July, 1757).

1758.

A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, with Lists of their Works. _Dove, diavolo! Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante coglionerie?_ Card. d'Este, to Ariosto. Vol. i. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII._

---- Vol. ii. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII._

Vol. i.,--Title; Dedication of 2 leaves to Lord Hertford; Advertisement, pp. i-viii; half-title; Text, pp. 1-219, and unpaged Index. There is also a frontispiece engraved by Grignion. Vol. ii.,--Half-title; Title; Text, pp. 1-215, and unpaged Index. 8vo. 300 copies issued. A second edition, 'corrected and enlarged,' was printed in 1758 (but dated 1759), in two vols. 8vo., 'for R. and J. Dodsley, in Pallmall; and J. Graham in the Strand.' According to Baker (_Catalogue of Books, etc., printed at the Press at Strawberry Hill_ [1810]), 40 copies of a supplement or Postscript to the _Royal and Noble Authors_ were printed by Kirgate in 1786. 'In April, 1758, was finished the first impression of my "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," which I had written the preceding year in less than five months' (_Short Notes_). 'My book is marvellously in fashion, to my great astonishment. I did not expect so much truth and such notions of liberty would have made their fortune in this our day' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 4 May, 1758). 'Dec. 5th [1758] was published the second edition of my "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." Two thousand were printed, but _not_ at Strawberry Hill' (_Short Notes_). 'I have but two motives for offering you the accompanying trifle [_i. e._, the Postscript above referred to].... Coming from my press, I wish it may be added to your Strawberry editions. It is so far from being designed for the public that I have printed but forty copies' (_Walpole to Hannah More_, 1 Jan., 1787).

An Account of Russia as it was in the Year 1710. By Charles Lord Whitworth. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLVIII._

Title, 'Advertisement' pp. i-xxiv; Text, pp. 1-158; Errata, one page. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies printed. 'The beginning of October [1758] I published Lord Whitworth's account of Russia, to which I wrote the advertisement' (_Short Notes_). 'A book has been left at your ladyship's house; it is Lord Whitworth's Account of Russia' (_Walpole to Lady Hervey_, 17 Oct., 1758). Mr. (afterwards Lord) Whitworth was Ambassador to St. Petersburg in the reign of Peter the Great.

The Mistakes; or, the Happy Resentment. A Comedy. By the late Lord * * * * [Henry Hyde, Lord Hyde and Cornbury.] _London: Printed by S. Richardson, in the Year 1758._

Title; List of Subscribers, pp. xvi; Advertisement, Prologue, and _Dramatis Personæ_, 2 leaves; Text, 1-83; Epilogue unpaged. Baker gives the following particulars from the _Biographia Dramatica_ as to this book: 'The Author of this Piece was the learned, ingenious, and witty LORD CORNBURY, but it was never acted. He made a present of it to that great Actress, Mrs. PORTER, to make what Emolument she could by it. And that Lady, after his Death, published it by Subscription, at Five Shillings, each Book, which was so much patronized by the Nobility and Gentry that Three Thousand Copies were disposed of. Prefixed to it is a Preface, by Mr. HORACE WALPOLE, at whose Press at Strawberry-Hill it was printed.' Baker adds, 'Mr. Yardley, who when living, kept a Bookseller's Shop in New-Inn-Passage, confirmed this account, by asserting, that he assisted in printing it at that Press.' But Baker nevertheless prefixes an asterisk to the title, which implies that it was 'not printed for Mr. Walpole,' and this probably accounts for Richardson's name on the title-page. By the subscription list, the Hon. Horace Walpole took 21 copies, David Garrick, 38, and Mr. Samuel Richardson, of Salisbury Court, 4. All Walpole says is, 'About the same time [1758] Mrs. Porter published [for her benefit] Lord Hyde's play, to which I had written the advertisement' (_Short Notes_).

A Parallel; in the Manner of Plutarch: between a most celebrated Man of Florence; and One, scarce ever heard of, in England. By the Reverend Mr. Spence. '--_Parvis componere magna_'--Virgil. [Portrait in circle of Magliabecchi.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, by William Robinson; and Sold by Messieurs Dodsley, at Tully's-Head, Pall-Mall; for the Benefit of Mr. Hill. M.DCC.LVIII._

Title; Text, pp. 4-104. Sm. 8vo. 700 copies printed. '1759. Feb. 2nd. I published Mr. Spence's Parallel of Magliabecchi and Mr. Hill, a tailor of Buckingham; calculated to raise a little sum of money for the latter poor man. Six hundred copies were sold in a fortnight, and it was reprinted in London' (_Short Notes_). 'Mr. Spence's Magliabecchi is published to-day from Strawberry; I believe you saw it, and shall have it; but 'tis not worth sending you on purpose' (_Walpole to Chute_, 2 Feb., 1759).

Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose. _Pereunt et imputantur._ [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLVIII._

Title; Dedication and 'Table of Contents,' iii-vi; Text, 1-219. Sm. 8vo. 200 copies printed. 'In the summer of 1758, I printed some of my own Fugitive Pieces, and dedicated them to my cousin, General Conway' (_Short Notes_). 'March 17 [1759]. I began to distribute some copies of my "Fugitive Pieces," collected and printed together at Strawberry Hill, and dedicated to General Conway' (_ibid._). One of these, which is in the Forster Collection at South Kensington, went to Gray. 'This Book [says a MS. inscription] once belonged to Gray the Poet, and has his autograph on the Title-page. I [_i. e._, George Daniel, of Canonbury] bought it at Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson's Sale Rooms for £1. 19 on Thursday, 28 Augt. 1851, from the valuable collection of Mr. Penn of Stoke.'

1760.

Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the Holbein Chamber at Strawberry Hill. _Strawberry-Hill, 1760._

Pp. 8. 8vo. [Lowndes.]

Catalogue of the Collection, of Pictures of the Duke of Devonshire, General Guise, and the late Sir Paul Methuen. _Strawberry-Hill, 1760._

Pp. 44. 8vo. 12 copies, printed on one side only. [Lowndes.]

M. Annæi Lucani Pharsalia cum Notis Hugonis Grotii, et Richardi Bentleii. _Multa sunt condonanda in opere postumo._ In Librum iv, Nota 641. [Emblematical vignette.] _Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLX._

Title, Dedication (by Richard Cumberland to Halifax), and Advertisement (_Ad Lectorem_), 3 leaves; Text, pp. 1-525. 4to. 500 copies printed. Cumberland took up the editing when Bentley the younger resigned it. 'I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and emendations on the first seven books' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 9 Dec., 1758). 'I would not _alone_ undertake to correct the press; but I am so lucky as to live in the strictest friendship with Dr. Bentley's only son, who, to all the ornament of learning, has the amiable turn of mind, disposition, and easy wit' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 12 Jan., 1759). 'Lucan is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a succession of bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth book. It will scarce appear before next winter' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 23 Dec., 1759). 'My Lucan is finished, but will not be published till after Christmas' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 27 Nov., 1760). 'I have delivered to your brother ... a Lucan, printed at Strawberry, which, I trust, you will think a handsome edition' (_Walpole to Mann_, 27 Jan., 1761).

1762.

Anecdotes of Painting in England; with some Account of the principal Artists; and incidental Notes on other Arts; collected by the late Mr. George Vertue; and now digested and published from his original MSS. By Mr. Horace Walpole. _Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere._ Vol. I. [Device with Walpole's crest.] _Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXII._

------ _Le sachant Anglois, je crus qu'il m'alloit parler d'edifices et de peintures._ Nouvelle Eloise, vol. i. p. 245. Vol. II. [Device with Walpole's crest.] _Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXII._

------ Vol. III. (Motto of six lines from Prior's _Protogenes and Apelles_.) _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII._

------ To which is added the History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. _The Glory of_ Lebanon _shall come unto thee, the Fir-tree, the Pine-tree, and the Box together, to beautify the Place of my Sanctuary, and I will make the Place of my Feet glorious_. Isaiah, lx. 13. Volume the Fourth and last. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, MDCCLXXI._

Vol. i.,--Title, Dedication, Preface, pp. i-xiii; Contents; Text, pp. 1-168, with Appendix and Index unpaged. Vol. ii.,--Title; Text, pp. 1-158, with Appendix, Index, and 'Errata' unpaged; and 'Additional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of Painting in England,' pp. 1-12. Vol. iii.,--Title; pp. 1-155, with Appendix and Index unpaged; and 'Additional Lives to the First Edition of Anecdotes of Painting in England,' pp. 1-4. Vol. iv.,--Title, Dedication, Advertisement (dated October 1, 1780), pp. i-x; Contents; Text, pp. 1-151 (dated August 12, 1770); 'Errata;' pp. x-52; Appendix of one leaf ('Prints by or after Hogarth, discovered since the Catalogue was finished'), and Index unpaged. The volumes are 4to., with many portraits and plates. 600 copies were printed. The fourth volume was in type in 1770, but not issued until Oct., 1780. It was dedicated to the Duke of Richmond,--Lady Hervey, to whom the three earlier volumes had been inscribed, having died in 1768. A second edition of the first three volumes was printed by Thomas Kirgate at Strawberry Hill in 1765. 'Sept. 1st [1759]. I began to look over Mr. Vertue's MSS., which I bought last year for one hundred pounds, in order to compose the Lives of English Painters' (_Short Notes_). '1760, Jan. 1st. I began the Lives of English Artists, from Vertue's MSS. (that is, "Anecdotes of Painting," etc.)' (_ibid._). 'Aug. 14th. Finished the first volume of my "Anecdotes of Painting in England." Sept. 5th, began the second volume. Oct. 23d, finished the second volume' (_ibid._). '1761, Jan. 4th, began the third volume' (_ibid._). 'June 29th, resumed the third volume of my "Anecdotes of Painting," which I had laid aside after the first day' (_ibid._). 'Aug. 22nd, finished the third volume of my "Anecdotes of Painting"' (_ibid._). 'The "Anecdotes of Painting" have succeeded to the press: I have finished two volumes; but as there will at least be a third, I am not determined whether I shall not wait to publish the whole together. You will be surprised, I think, to see what a quantity of materials the industry of one man [Vertue] could amass!' (_Walpole to Zouch_, 27 Nov., 1760.) 'You drive your expectations much too fast, in thinking my "Anecdotes of Painting" are ready to appear, in demanding three volumes. You will see but _two_, and it will be February first' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 30 Dec., 1761). 'I am now publishing the third volume, and another of Engravers' (_Walpole to Dalrymple_, 31 Jan., 1764). 'I have advertised my long-delayed last volume of "Painters" to come out, and must be in town to distribute it' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 23 Sept., 1780). 'I have left with Lord Harcourt for you my new old last volume of "Painters"' (_Walpole to Mason_, 13 Oct., 1780).

1763.

A Catalogue of Engravers, who have been born, or resided in England; digested by Mr. Horace Walpole from the MSS. of Mr. George Vertue; to which is added an Account of the Life and Works of the latter. _And Art reflected Images to Art...._ Pope. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIII._

Title; pp. 1-128, last page dated 'Oct. 10th, 1762;' 'Life of Mr. George Vertue' pp. 1-14; 'List of Vertue's Works,' pp. 1-20, last page dated 'Oct. 22d, 1762;' Index of Names of Engravers, unpaged. 4to. There are several portraits, including one of Vertue after Richardson. 'Aug. 2nd [1762], began the "Catalogue of Engravers." October 10th, finished it' (_Short Notes_). 'The volume of Engravers is printed off, and has been some time; I only wait for some of the plates' (_Walpole to Cole_, 8 Oct., 1763). 'I am now publishing the third volume [of the 'Anecdotes of Painting'], and another of "Engravers"' (_Walpole to Dalrymple_, 31 Jan., 1764).

1764.

Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple. [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIV._

Title, Verses signed 'Horace Walpole, January 26th, 1764,' Text, 1-34 in all. 4to. 100 copies printed by Prat. 'I shall send you, too, Lady Temple's Poems' (_Walpole to Montagu_, 16 July, 1764).

The Magpie and her Brood, a Fable, from the Tales of Bonaventure des Periers, Valet de Chambre to the Queen of Navarre; addressed to Miss Hotham.

4 pp., containing 72 lines,--initialed 'H. W.' 4to. 'Oct. 15th, [1764] wrote the fable of "The Magpie and her Brood" for Miss [Henrietta] Hotham, then near eleven years old, great niece of Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk. It was taken from _Les Nouvelles Récréations de Bonaventure des Periers_, Valet-de-Chambre to the Queen of Navarre' (_Short Notes_).

The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, written by Himself. [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Prat in the Year MDCCLXIV._

Title, Dedication, and Advertisement, 5 leaves; Text, pp. 1-171. Folding plate portrait. 4to. 200 copies printed. '1763. Beginning of September wrote the Dedication and Preface to Lord Herbert's Life' (_Short Notes_). 'I have got a most delectable work to print, which I had great difficulty to obtain, and which I must use while I can have it. It is the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury' (_Letter to the Bishop of Carlisle_, 10 July, 1763). 'It will not be long before I have the pleasure of sending you by far the most curious and entertaining book that my press has produced.... It is the life of the famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and written by himself,--of the contents I will not anticipate one word' (_Letter to Mason_, 29 Dec., 1763). 'The thing most in fashion is my edition of Lord Herbert's Life; people are mad after it, I believe because only two hundred were printed' (_Letter to Montagu_, 16 Dec., 1764). 'This singular work was printed from the original MS. in 1764, at Strawberry-hill, and is perhaps the most extraordinary account that ever was given seriously by a wise man of himself' (Walpole, _Works_, 1798, i. 363).

1768.

Cornélie, Vestale. Tragédie. [By the President Hénault.] _Imprimée à Strawberry-Hill, MDCCLXVIII._

Title; Dedication '_à Mons. Horace Walpole_,' dated '_Paris ce 27 Novembre, 1767_,' pp. iii-iv; 'Acteurs;' Text, 1-91. 8vo. 200 copies printed; 150 went to Paris. Kirgate printed it. 'My press is revived, and is printing a French play written by the old President Hénault. It was damned many years ago at Paris, and yet I think is better than some that have succeeded, and much better than any of _our_ modern tragedies. I print it to please the old man, as he was exceedingly kind to me at Paris; but I doubt whether he will live till it is finished. He is to have a hundred copies, and there are to be but an hundred more, of which you shall have one' (_Letter to Montagu_, 15 April, 1768). President Hénault died November, 1770, aged eighty-six.

The Mysterious Mother. A Tragedy. By Mr. Horace Walpole. _Sit mihi fas audita loqui!_ Virgil. _Printed at Strawberry-Hill: MDCCLXVIII._

Title, 'Errata,' 'Persons' (2 leaves); Text, pp. 1-120, with Postscript, pp. 1-10 (which see for origin of play). Sm. 8vo. 50 copies issued. _The Mysterious Mother_ is reprinted in Walpole's _Works_, 1798, i., pp. 37-129. 'March 15 [1768]. I finished a tragedy called "The Mysterious Mother," which I had begun Dec. 25, 1766' (_Short Notes_). 'I thank you for myself, not for my Play.... I accept with great thankfulness what you have voluntarily been so good as to do for me; and should the Mysterious Mother ever be performed when I am dead, it will owe to you its presentation' (_Walpole to Mason_, 11 May, 1769).

1769.

Poems by the Reverend Mr. Hoyland. _Printed at Strawberry Hill: MDCCLXIX._

Title, Advertisement [by Walpole], pp. i-iv; Text, 1-19. 8vo. 300 copies printed. In the British Museum is a copy which simply has 'Printed in the Year 1769.' 'I enclose a short Advertisement for Mr. Hoyland's poems. I mean by it to tempt people to a little more charity, and to soften to him, as much as I can, the humiliation of its being asked for him; if you approve it, it shall be prefixed to the edition' (_Walpole to Mason_, 5 April, 1769).

1770.

Reply to the Observations of the Rev. Dr. Milles, Dean of Exeter, and President of the Society of Antiquaries, on the Ward Robe Account.

Pp. 24. Six copies printed, dated 28 August, 1770 [Baker]. 'In the summer of this year [1770] wrote an answer to Dr. Milles' remarks on my "Richard the Third"' (_Short Notes_).

1772.

Copies of Seven Original Letters from King Edward VI. to Barnaby Fitzpatrick. _Strawberry-Hill._ _Printed_ in the Year _M.DCC.LXXII_.

Pp. viii-14. 4to. 200 copies printed. '1771. End of September, wrote the Advertisement to the "Letters of King Edward the Sixth"' (_Short Notes_). 'I have printed "King Edward's Letters," and will bring you a copy' (_Walpole to Mason_, 6 July, 1772).

Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of Curious Papers: either republished from _scarce Tracts_, or now first printed from _original_ MSS. Number I. To be continued occasionally. _Invenies illic et festa domestica vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus Avus._ Ovid. Fast. Lib. 1. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXII._

Title, 'Advertisement,' pp. i-iv; Text, 1-48. 4to. 500 copies printed. 'I have since begun a kind of Desiderata Curiosa, and intend to publish it in numbers, as I get materials; it is to be an Hospital of Foundlings; and though I shall not take in all that offer, there will be no enquiry into the nobility of the parents; nor shall I care how heterogeneous the brats are' (_Walpole to Mason_, 6 July, 1772). 'By that time too I shall have the first number of my "Miscellaneous Antiquities" ready. The first essay is only a republication of some tilts and tournaments' (_Walpole to Mason_, 21 July, 1772).

Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a Collection of Curious Papers: either republished from _scarce Tracts_, or now first printed from _original_ MSS. Number II. To be continued occasionally. _Invenies illic et festa domestica vobis. Sæpe tibi Pater est, sæpe legendus Avus._ Ovid. Fast. Lib. i. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate_, M.DCC.LXXII.

Title and Text, pp. 1-62. 500 copies printed. 'In July [1772] wrote the "Life of Sir Thomas Wyat [the Elder]," No. II. of my edition of "Miscellaneous Antiquities"' (_Short Notes_).

Memoires du Comte de Grammont, par Monsieur le Comte Antoine Hamilton. Nouvelle Edition, augmentée de Notes & d'Eclaircissemens, necessaires, par M. Horace Walpole. _Des gens qui écrivent pour le Comte de Grammont, peuvent compter sur quelque indulgence._ V. l'Epitre prelim. p. xviii. _Imprimée à Strawberry-Hill, M.DCC.LXXII._

Title, Dedication, 'Avis de L'Editeur,' 'Avertissement,' 'Epitre à Monsieur le Comte de Grammont,' 'Table des Chapitres,' 'Errata,' pp. xxiv; Text, pp. 1-290: 'Table des personnes,' 3 pp. Portraits of Hamilton, Mdlle. d'Hamilton, and Philibert Comte de Grammont. 4to. 100 copies printed; 30 went to Paris. It was dedicated to Madame du Deffand, as follows: '_L'Editeur vous consacre cette Edition, comme un monument de son Amitié, de son Admiration, & de son Respect; à Vous, dont les Grâces, l'Esprit, & le Goût retracent au siecle présent le siecle de Louis quatorze & les agremens de l'Auteur de ces Mémoires._' 'I want to send you these [the _Miscellaneous Antiquities_] ... and a "Grammont," of which I have printed only a hundred copies, and which will be extremely scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France' (_Walpole to Cole_, 8 Jan., 1773).

1774.

A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole. [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate_, M.DCC.LXXIV.

Two titles; Text, pp. 1-119. 4to. 100 copies printed, 6 on large paper. Many copies have the following: 'Appendix. Pictures and Curiosities added since the Catalogue was printed,' pp. 121-145; 'List of the Books printed at Strawberry-Hill,' unpaged; 'Additions since the Appendix,' pp. 149-152; 'More Additions,' pp. 153-158. Baker speaks of an earlier issue of 65 pp. which we have not met with. Lowndes (_Appendix to Bibliographer's Manual_, 1864, p. 239) states that it was said by Kirgate to have been used by the servants in showing the house, and differed entirely from the editions of 1774 and 1784.

1775.

To Mrs. Crewe. [Verses by Charles James Fox.] N.D.

Pp. 2. Single leaf. 4to. 300 copies printed. Walpole speaks of these in a letter to Mason dated 12 June, 1774; and he sends a copy of them to him, 27 May, 1775. Mrs. Crewe, the Amoret addressed, was the daughter of Fulke Greville, and the wife of J. Crewe. She was painted by Reynolds as an Alpine shepherdess.

Dorinda, a Town Eclogue. [By the Hon. Richard Fitzpatrick, brother of the Earl of Ossory.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate. M.DCC.LXXV._

Title; Text, 3-8. 4to. 300 copies printed. 'I shall send you soon Fitzpatrick's "Town Eclogue," from my own furnace. The verses are charmingly smooth and easy....' 'P.S. Here is the Eclogue' (_Letter to Mason_, 12 June, 1774).

1778.

The Sleep-Walker, a Comedy: in two Acts. Translated from the French [of Antoine de Ferriol, Comte de Pont de Veyle], in March, M.DCC.LXXVIII. [By Elizabeth Lady Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXVIII._

Title, Quatrain, Prologue, Epilogue, Persons, pp. i-viii; Text, 1-56. 8vo. 75 copies printed. The quatrain is by Walpole to Lady Craven, 'on her Translation of the Somnambule.' 'I will send ... for yourself a translation of a French play.... It is not for your reading, but as one of the Strawberry editions, and one of the rarest; for I have printed but seventy-five copies. It was to oblige Lady Craven, the translatress ...' (_Walpole to Cole_, 22 Aug., 1778).

1779.

A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate_, M.DCC.LXXIX.

Half-title; Title; Text, pp. 1-55. The letter is dated at end: 'May 23, 1778.' 8vo. 200 copies printed. '1779. In the preceding autumn had written a defence of myself against the unjust aspersions in the Preface to the Miscellanies of Chatterton. Printed 200 copies at Strawberry Hill this January, and gave them away. It was much enlarged from what I had written in July' (_Short Notes_).

1780.

To the Lady Horatia Waldegrave, on the Death of the Duke of Ancaster. [Verses by Mr. Charles Miller.] N. D.

Pp. 3, dated at end 'A.D. 1779.' 4to. 150 copies printed. 'I enclose a copy of verses, which I have just printed at Strawberry, only a few copies, and which I hope you will think pretty. They were written three months ago by Mr. Charles Miller, brother of Sir John, on seeing Lady Horatia at Nuneham. The poor girl is better' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 29 Jan., 1780). Lady Horatia Waldegrave was to have been married to the Duke of Ancaster, who died in 1779.

1781.

The Muse recalled, an Ode, occasioned by the Nuptials of Lord Viscount Althorp and Miss Lavinia Bingham, eldest daughter of Charles Lord Lucan, March vi., M.DCC.LXXXI. By William Jones, Esq. [afterwards Sir William Jones]. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXI._

Title; pp. 1-8. 4to. 250 copies printed. There is a well-known portrait of Lavinia Bingham by Reynolds, in which she wears a straw hat with a blue ribbon.

A Letter from the Honourable Thomas Walpole, to the Governor and Committee of the Treasury of the Bank of England. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXI._

Title, and pp. 16 (last blank). 4to. 120 copies printed.

1784.

A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, at Strawberry-Hill near Twickenham, Middlesex. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXIV._

Title; 'Preface.' i-iv; Text, pp. 1-88. 'Errata, etc.,' 'Appendix,' pp. 89-92; 'Curiosities added,' etc., 93-4; 'More Additions,' 95-6. 27 plates. 4to. 200 copies printed. 'The next time he [Sir Horace Mann's nephew] visits you, I may be able to send you a description of my _Galleria_,--I have long been preparing it, and it is almost finished,--with some prints, which, however, I doubt, will convey no very adequate idea of it' (_Walpole to Mann_, 30 Sept., 1784). 'In the list for which Lord Ossory asks, is the Description of this place; now, though printed, I have entirely kept it up [i. e., _held it back_], and mean to do so while I live' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 15 Sept., 1787).

1785.

Hieroglyphic Tales. _Schah Baham ne comprenoit jamais bien que les choses absurdes & hors de toute vraisemblance._ Le Sopha, p. 5. _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by T. Kirgate, M.DCC.LXXXV._

Title; 'Preface,' iii-ix; Text, pp. 50; 'Postscript.' 8vo. Walpole's own MS. note in the Dyce example says, 'Only six copies of this were printed, besides the revised copy.' '1772. This year, the last, and sometime before, wrote some Hieroglyphic Tales. There are only five' (_Short Notes_). 'I have some strange things in my drawer, even wilder than the 'Castle of Otranto,' and called 'Hieroglyphic Tales;' but they were not written lately, nor in the gout, nor, whatever they may seem, written when I was out of my senses' (_Walpole to Cole_, 28 Jan., 1779), 'This [he is speaking of Darwin's _Botanic Garden_] is only the Second Part; for, like my King's eldest daughter in the 'Hieroglyphic Tales,' the First Part is not born yet: no matter' (_Walpole to the Miss Berrys_, 28 April, 1789). In 1822, the _Hieroglyphic Tales_ were reprinted at Newcastle for Emerson Charnley.

Essay on Modern Gardening, by Mr. Horace Walpole. [Strawberry Hill Bookplate.] Essai sur l'Art des Jardins Modernes, par M. Horace Walpole, traduit en François by M. le Duc de Nivernois, en MDCCLXXXIV. _Imprimé à Strawberry-Hill, par T. Kirgate_, MDCCLXXXV.

Two titles; English and French Text on opposite pages, 1-94. 4to. 400 copies printed. 'How may I send you a new book printed here?... It is the translation of my 'Essay on Modern Gardens' by the Duc de Nivernois.... You will find it a most beautiful piece of French, of the genuine French spoken by the Duc de la Rochefoucault and Madame de Sévigné, and not the metaphysical galimatias of La Harpe and Thomas, &c., which Madame du Deffand protested she did not understand. The versions of Milton and Pope are wonderfully exact and poetic and elegant, and the fidelity of the whole translation, extraordinary' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 17 Sept., 1785). The original MS. of the Duc de Nivernois--'a most exquisite specimen of penmanship'--was among the papers at Strawberry.

1789.

Bishop Bonner's Ghost. [By Hannah More.] [Plate of Strawberry Hill.] _Strawberry-Hill: Printed by Thomas Kirgate, MDCCLXXXIX._

Title and argument, 2 leaves; Text, pp. 1-4. 4to. 96 copies printed, 2 on brown paper, one of which was at Strawberry. It was written when Hannah More ('my _imprimée_,' as Walpole calls her) was on a visit to Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, at his palace at Fulham, June, 1789. 'I will forgive all your enormities if you will let me print your poem. I like to filch a little immortality out of others, and the Strawberry press could never have a better opportunity' (_Walpole to Hannah More_, 23 June, 1789). 'The enclosed copy of verses pleased me so much, that, though not intended for publication, I prevailed on the authoress, Miss Hannah More, to allow me to take off a small number.' ... 'I have been disappointed of the completion of "Bonner's Ghost," by my rolling press being out of order, and was forced to send the whole impression to town to have the copper-plate taken off.... Kirgate has brought the whole impression, and I shall have the pleasure of sending your Ladyship this with a "Bonner's Ghost" to-morrow morning' (_Walpole to Lady Ossory_, 16-18 July, 1789).

The History of Alcidalis and Zelida. A tale of the Fourteenth Century. [By Vincent de Voiture.] _Printed at Strawberry-Hill. MDCCLXXXIX._

Title; Text, pp. 3-96. 8vo. This is a translation of Voiture's unfinished _Histoire d'Alcidalis et de Zelide_. (See _Nouvelles Oeuvres de Monsieur de Voiture. Nouvelle Edition. A Paris, Chez Louis Bilaine, au Palais, au second Pilier de la grand' Salle, à la Palme & au Grand Cesar_, MDCLXXII.) There is a copy in the Dyce Collection. Another was sold in 1823 with the books of John Trotter Brockett, in whose catalogue it was said to be 'surreptitiously printed.' Kirgate had a copy, although Baker does not mention it.

Doubtful Date.

Verses sent to Lady Charles Spencer [Mary Beauclerc, daughter of Lord Vere, and wife of Lord Charles Spencer] with a painted Taffety, occasioned by saying she was low in Pocket and could not buy a new Gown.

Single leaf. Baker says these were by Anna Chamber, Countess Temple.

Besides the above, Walpole printed at his press in 1770 vols. i. and ii. of a 4to edition of his works.

INDEX

A.

_Ædes Walpolianæ_, the, 75-77, 288.

Amelia, the Princess, 171, 228, 234.

American Colonies, the war with the, 252, 291.

_An Account of the Giants_, 189.

_Anecdotes of Painting_, 142, 150, 241, 295.

Ashe, Miss, 127-130.

Ashton, Thomas, 16-19, 58, 59.

B.

Balmerino, Lord, trial and execution of, 93-97.

Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 159, 161, 193, 243, 260, 286.

_Beauties, The_, 104.

Beauty Room, the, 211.

Benedict XIV., Pope, 50.

Bentley, Richard, 136, 137, 146, 148, 161, 214, 224.

Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, 233, 235, 244, 259-263, 265, 285, 286, 291.

Bland, Henry, 12.

Bologna, visited by Walpole, 42, 43.

Bracegirdle, Anne, 83.

Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, 16, 175.

Burney, Frances, 193, 257.

Byng, Admiral, 142, 143.

C.

_Castle of Otranto, The_, 161, 163, 164, 168, 192, 195.

_Catalogue of Engravers_, 155.

_Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_, 142, 149-152.

_Catalogue of Strawberry Hill_, 262.

Charles X. (Comte d'Artois), 172.

Chartreuse, La Grande, visited by Walpole and Gray, 38.

Chartreux, Convent of the, described by Walpole, 34, 35.

Chatterton, Thomas, 196-200.

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, 86, 131, 177; his _Letters_ parodied by Walpole, 236.

Choiseul, Madame la Duchesse de, 174, 176, 177, 180, 212.

Christopher Inn, the, 17.

Chudleigh, Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston, 230.

Churchill, Lady Mary (Maria), 49, 63, 67, 100.

Chute, John, 52, 68, 118, 134, 171, 208.

Clement XII., Pope, 45.

Clinton, Henry, Earl of Lincoln, 56.

Clive, Kitty, 83, 121, 133, 140, 143, 192; _bon mot_ of, 181; allusions to, 213, 217; death of, 255.

Cocchi, Dr. Antonio, 56.

Coke, Lady Mary, 169.

Cole, William, 13, 19, 161, 206, 285.

Congreve, William, 83.

Conway, Henry, 12, 31, 35, 36, 38, 40, 82, 87, 91, 105, 108, 150, 182, 201.

Cope, Gen. Sir John, 89.

Crawford, James, 179.

Culloden Moor, the battle of, 91, 92.

Cumberland, William, Duke of, 19, 86, 91, 92, 99, 108, 120, 122, 171.

Cunningham, Peter, 10; his account of a drive with Walpole, 227, 229, 231; his specimens of Walpole's letters, 255; quoted, 212, 231.

D.

Damer, Anna (Miss Conway), 203, 242, 270.

Deffand, Madame du (Marie de Vichy-Chamrond), 177, 212; Walpole's first impression of, 177, 178; her conquest of Walpole, 178; Walpole's letter to Gray concerning, 178, 179; her fondness for Walpole, 179, 180; the episode of the snuff-box, 180; Walpole's second visit to, 187, 188; death of, 252; Walpole's letters to, 248, 249; Walpole's adieu to, 251; will of, 252.

_Delenda est Oxonia_, 124.

Dodington, Bubb, 92, 120.

Dryden, John, imitated by Walpole, 60; claimed as great-uncle by Catherine Shorter, 210.

E.

Easton Neston (Northamptonshire), 23.

_Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris_, 264.

Eton College, 11-17.

F.

Falkirk, the battle of, 91.

Fielding, Henry, 79, 83, 160, 161, 230, 285.

Fielding, William, 160.

Florence, visited by Walpole and Gray, 43-45.

Fontenoy, the battle of, 87, 88, 104.

Foote, Samuel, 173.

Forcalquier, Madame de, 174.

Fortescue, Lucy, 105.

Fox, Charles James, his verses on Mrs. Crewe, 240.

Francklin, Richard, 111, 123.

Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, 97.

Frederick, Prince of Wales. (_See_ Wales.)

Freethinking in France, 167, 170.

French court, presentation of Walpole at the, 171, 172.

G.

Garrick, David, 83, 140, 146, 186.

Genlis, Stéphanie Félicité, Madame de, 173, 257.

Geoffrin, Madame, 175, 182.

George I., Walpole's visit to, 8-10; the story of the raven, 286. (_See_ Reminiscences.)

George II., 63. (_See_ Reminiscences.)

George III. (_See_ Memoirs.)

Goldsmith, Oliver, 19, 32, 105, 143, 198, 242; Walpole's contempt for, 238, 285.

Gordon Riots, the, 253.

Granby, Lord, 129, 131.

Gray, Thomas, at Eton, 16, 19, 22, 25; travels with Walpole, 29-32; Versailles described by, 32, 33; at Rheims, 35; at Lyons, 38; at La Grande Chartreuse, 38; in Italy, 40-44, 49, 50, 53, 57; his misunderstanding with Walpole, 52-55; subsequent reconciliation, 55, 135; praises Walpole's verse, 59; quoted, 25, 30-34, 37, 38, 51, 59, 83, 97, 105, 115, 134, 135, 137, 148, 149, 219; resumes his intimacy with Walpole, 103, 106, 173; visits Strawberry Hill, 135; his indebtedness to Walpole, 135; his Elegy published by Dodsley, 135; the _Poemata-Grayo-Bentleiana_, 137; publication of the _Odes_ at Strawberry Hill, 142-148; detects the Rowley forgeries, 197; portrait of, 213; Walpole's relations with, 285.

Grenville, George, 290.

H.

Harrison, Audrey, Lady Townshend, 101, 156.

Hawkins, Miss, 160, 244; her description of Walpole, 277-279.

Hénault, Charles-Jean-François, President, 177, 183, 188, 195, 212.

Hervey, Baron, 123; said to be Walpole's father, 4.

Hervey, Lady, 120, 171, 175, 201, 224.

Hill, Robert, the learned tailor, 150.

_Historic Doubts on Richard III._, 190, 191, 237.

Hogarth, William, 69, 79, 161, 213, 222, 242.

Houghton, the seat of the Walpoles, 1, 24, 65, 66, 69, 71, 80, 81; the Houghton pictures sold to Catherine of Russia, 69, 246, 247; Walpole buried at, 268.

Hume, David, 167, 171, 181-185.

Hyde Park, robbers in, 125, 126.

I.

Inn, the Christopher, 16, 17.

_Inscription for the Neglected Column_, 61.

J.

Jennings, Frances, Duchess of Tyrconnell, anecdote of, 7; head of, 222.

Jenyns, Soame, quoted, 127, 131.

Jephson, Capt. Robert, 237, 239.

Johnson, Samuel, 55, 84, 236, 285.

K.

Kendal, the Duchess of, 8, 228, 287.

Ker, Lord Robert, 91.

Kilmarnock, Earl, 92; trial and execution of, 93-98.

King's College, Cambridge, 18-20, 28.

Kirgate, Thomas, 150, 195, 235.

L.

Lens, Bernard, 19.

_Lessons for the Day_, 75.

_Letter from Xo Ho_, 143, 144, 295.

Louis XVI. (Duc de Berry), 172.

Louis XVIII. (Comte de Provence), 172.

M.

Macaulay, Lord, 229; reviews Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to Mann, 271-273; letters to Hannah Macaulay quoted, 271, 272; Lady Holland irritated by, 272; his opinion of Walpole, 273-275.

McLean, James, robs Walpole, 125, 126; is imprisoned, 126; becomes a fashionable lion, 126; is executed, 126.

Mann, Sir Horace, 43, 44, 47, 61, 69, 201, 254; death of, 255; Walpole's affection for, 286.

Mason, Rev. William, 53, 197, 202.

_Memoirs of the Reign of King George III._, 189, 292.

Middleton, Dr. Conyers, 286; praises Walpole's attainments, 57, 58.

Montagu, Lieut.-Gen. Charles, K. C. B., 14.

Montagu, Brig-Gen. Edward, 14.

Montagu, George, M. P., 14, 17, 21, 29, 187, 201, 286.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 4, 48, 133; described by Walpole, 49-51; quoted, 50, 102.

Mont Cenis, 40.

Moore, Edward, 131.

More, Hannah, 258, 264, 285.

Müntz (German artist), 138, 142, 146, 210, 279.

_Mysterious Mother, The_, 190-193; Byron's praise of, 193; printed at the Strawberry Hill Press, 195; illustrated by Lady Di. Beauclerk, 243.

N.

_Nature will Prevail_, 239.

Neale, Betty, 130.

Neuhoff, Baron ('Theodore, King of Corsica'), 132, 142.

Nolkejumskoi. (_See_ Cumberland, William, Duke of.)

O.

Officina Arbuteana. (_See_ Strawberry Hill.)

Orford, George, third Earl of (nephew of Horace Walpole), 69, 141, 202, 245, 247, 263.

Orford, Horace, fourth Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Horace.)

Orford, Robert, first Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Sir Robert.)

Orford, Robert, second Earl of. (_See_ Walpole, Robert.)

Ossory, Lady, 202; letters of Walpole to, 207, 233, 246, 247, 252, 260, 266.

P.

Paris, Walpole's first visit to, 31, 32; state of society in, 166-168; second visit to, 169, 173-181; third visit to, 186, 187, 189; fourth visit to, 249.

_Parish Register of Twickenham, The_, 158, 160, 161, 245.

Parodies by Walpole, 77, 236.

Patapan, 66.

Petersham, Lady Caroline, 127-130, 285.

Picture Gallery at Houghton, 69, 71, 246, 247.

Pinkerton, John, his _Walpoliana_ quoted, 3, 10, 84, 220, 258, 279, 280, 281; a favourite of Walpole, 256; his description of Walpole, 279-282.

Pomfret, Lady, 47-50, 101.

Pope, Alexander, 103, 109, 139, 216.

Preston Pans, the battle of, 89.

Prévost d'Exiles, M. l'Abbé Antoine-François, 31.

Prior, Matthew, criticised by Walpole, 76, 77.

Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath, 62, 64, 151, 228.

Q.

Quadruple Alliance, the, 14; ended, 18, 19.

Queensberry, the Duke of, 231.

Quinault, Jeanne-Françoise, 32.

R.

Radnor, Lord, his Chinese summer-house, 119.

Ranelagh Gardens, the, 85, 86.

_Reminiscences of the Courts of George the I. and II._, written for the Misses Berry, 262.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 241.

Richardson, Samuel, 167, 171.

Robinson, William, 146, 147, 150, 156.

Rochford, Lady, 156, 157.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 181, 182; sham letter from Frederick the Great to, 182, 183; anger of, 184; his quarrel with Hume, 184.

S.

Saint-Cyr, Walpole's visit to, 188.

Saunderson, Professor Nicholas, 20.

Scott, Samuel, 139.

Scott, Sir Walter, his study of the _Castle of Otranto_, 164, 165.

Selwyn, George Augustus, 13, 138, 168, 231.

_Sermon on Painting, The_, 71-76.

Shenstone, William, 149.

Shirley, Lady Fanny, 160.

Shirley, the Hon. Sewallis, 102, 103, 202.

Shorter, Catherine (Lady Walpole), 3, 4, 210; death of, 24; burial of, 25; Dryden claimed as great-uncle to, 210.

Shorter, Sir John, Lord Mayor of London, 3.

_Short Notes_, Walpole's, quoted, 5, 11, 17, 35, 56, 80, 124, 152, 189, 239.

Skerret, Maria, 4, 49, 63, 210.

Smollett, Tobias, 101, 105.

Spence, Professor Joseph, 50, 55, 56, 150.

Sterne, Laurence, 173.

Strawberry Hill (Twickenham), Walpole removes to, 86; description of, 107-124, 146, 147, 208; previous tenants of, 109, 110; additions to, 111, 204, 205; the Gothic castle at, 113-119; views executed by Müntz, 138; private printing-press at, 142, 145, 146; described by William Robinson, 146-148; works published at the Officina Arbuteana, 149-151 (_see_ Appendix), 152; _Description of the Villa at_, 195, 201, 208; fêtes at, 205, 206; ground plan of the villa at, 208; China Closet and China Room at, 210; the Yellow Bedchamber (Beauty Room), 211; Breakfast Room, 212, 213; plan of principal floor, 212; Green Closet, 213; Library, 214; Blue Bedchamber, 214; Armoury, 214; the Red Bedchamber, 216; the Holbein Chamber, 216; the Star Chamber, 217; the Gallery, 204, 218; the Round Tower, 220; the Cabinet (Tribune), 220; collection of rarities, 220, 221; the Great North Bedchamber, 218, 221; the Great Cloister, 223; the Chapel, 223; the Flower Garden, 112, 224; Gothicism of the villa, 225, 226; bequeathed to Mrs. Damer, 270; subsequent disposal of, 270.

Stuart, Prince Charles Edward (the Chevalier), his descent on Scotland, 88, 96; temporary success of, 90, 91, 96; escape of, 91.

Stuart, Lady Louisa, her _Introductory Anecdotes_ quoted, 14-16, 22, 23.

Suffolk, the Countess of (Mrs. Howard), 9, 122, 139, 157, 201.

Swift, Jonathan, 19, 103, 139.

T.

Townshend, Charles, Viscount, 6, 156.

Townshend, Lady. (_See_ Harrison, Audrey.)

Tragedy in England, Walpole's opinion of, 194, 195.

Triumvirate, the, 14.

Twickenham. (See Strawberry Hill.)

V.

Vane, Henry, Earl of Darlington, 128.

Vauxhall, 84, 128-131.

Versailles, visited by Walpole, 32, 171-173.

_Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion_, 98-100.

Vertue, George, the engraver, 69, 70, 77, 154, 216.

Voltaire, François-Marie-Arouet de, 178, 190.

W.

Wales, Frederick, Prince of, 24, 61, 86, 87; composes a _chanson_ on the battle of Fontenoy, 87; wins £800 from Lord Granby, 131.

Walpol, Sir Henry de, 1.

Walpole, Dorothy, Lady Townshend, 6, 210.

Walpole, Sir Edward, Knight of the Bath, 2.

----, Sir Edward (brother of Horace), 100, 202, 203; the daughters of, 203; death of, 256.

----, George (third Earl of Orford), 141, 202, 245.

----, Horace (Horatio), his ancestry, 1-4; scandal regarding his birth, 3, 4; early childhood, 5-10; his visit to George I., 9; his appearance as a boy, 11; his school-days at Eton, 11-17; his scholarship, 12, 19, 20; his companions at Eton, 13-16; enters Lincoln's Inn, 16; enters King's College, Cambridge, 18; his university studies, 19, 20; the 'triumvirate,' 19; the 'quadruple alliance,' 18, 19; literary productions at Cambridge, 24; appointed Inspector of Imports and Exports, 27; becomes Usher of the Exchequer, Controller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats, 27, 28; leaves college, 28; travels with Gray, 29; visits France, 30-39; in Switzerland, 39; crosses the Alps, 40; in Italy, 41-56; his description of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 49; his misunderstanding with Gray, 52-55; his illness in Florence, 55; his return to England, 56; becomes Member of Parliament for Callington, 56; poetical _Epistle to Thomas Ashton_, 58, 59; praised by Gray, 59; his letters to Mann, 61, 65, 88; his first speech in Parliament, 64; his _Sermon on Painting_, 71-75; the _Ædes Walpolianæ_, 75-77; his parodies, 78, 236; his paper against Lord Bath, 78; his father's death, 79, 80; receives legacy from his father, 80, 81; his criticism of Mrs. Woffington and of Garrick, 83; removes to Twickenham, 86; his _Verses on the Suppression of the Late Rebellion_, 98, 99; epilogue to _Tamerlane_, 98; marriage of his sisters, 100; his criticism of Lady Orford, 101, 102; his contributions to _The Museum_, 103; his poem, _The Beauties_, 104, 105; resides at Windsor, 106; his description of Strawberry Hill, 107-120, 147, 195, 205, 206, 227 (_see_ Strawberry Hill); his papers in _The Remembrancer_, 124; his tract, _Delenda est Oxonia_, 124; is robbed in Hyde Park, 125, 126; his account of Vauxhall, 128-131; his papers in _The World_, 131; his reconciliation with Gray, 134; his admiration of Gray's poetry, 135-137; is chosen Member of Parliament for Castle Rising, 141; for Lynn, 142; his _Castle of Otranto_, 142, 163, 168, 169; publishes Gray's _Odes_, 142, 148; his _Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_, 142, 149, 151; his first _Memoirs_, 142; his _Letter from Xo Ho_, 143, 145, 295; his other _Catalogues_, 145, 149, 151; establishes the Officina Arbuteana, 145; his publications, 149-151 (_see_ Appendix), 153, 154, 165; his _Catalogue of Engravers_, 155; his _Anecdotes of Painting_, 152, 156, 241, 243; his occasional pieces (_The Magpie and her Brood_, _Dialogue between two Great Ladies_, _The Garland_, _The Parish Register_), 157, 158, 245; his second visit to Paris, 167-181; is presented to the royal family, 171-173; sham letter to Rousseau, 182; visits Bath, 186; his third visit to Paris, 187; his _Account of the Giants_, 189; begins his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III._, 189; retires from Parliament, 189; his letters to the _Public Advertiser_, 190; his _Historic Doubts on Richard III._, 190, 191; his tragedy, _The Mysterious Mother_, 191, 192, 195; his relations with Chatterton, 196-200; his fondness for his nieces, 203; his correspondence, 235; his minor writings, 236-239; his _Nature will Prevail_, 239; his fourth visit to Paris, 249; his correspondence in French, 248; his farewell to Madame du Deffand, 251, 252; his acquaintance with Hannah More, 258; his friendship with the Misses Berry, 259-263, 265, 286, 291; his _Reminiscences_, 262; his _Catalogue of Strawberry Hill_, 262; succeeds his nephew as Earl of Orford, 263; his _Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris_, 264; his last letter to Lady Ossory, 267, 268; his death and burial, 268; disposal of his estate, 269, 270; Lord Macaulay's criticism of, 271-276; portraits and descriptions of, 276-278; Pinkerton's reminiscences of, 280-282; his character as a man, 284-287; as a virtuoso, 288, 289; as a politician, 290-292; as an author, 293, 294.

---- of Walterton, Horatio, Baron, 6, 219.

----, Maria (Lady Waldegrave), 203, 205.

----, Lady Mary (Countess of Cholmondeley), 67, 100.

----, Reginald de, 1.

----, Sir Robert (first Earl of Orford), ancestry of, 1, 2; first marriage of, 3; second marriage of, 49; decline of his political power, 61, 62; resigns the premiership, 63; is created Earl of Orford, 63; intrigues against Pulteney, 64; prevents his own disgrace, 64, 65; death of, 78-80; will of, 81.

----, Robert (second Earl of Orford), 85, 102, 129.

----, Lady Robert (Countess of Orford), 48, 101, 102, 202; death of, 256.

----, Col. Robert, M. P., 2.

----, William, 3.

Walpoles of Houghton, pedigree of the, 1; spelled Walpol, 1.

_Walpoliana_, Pinkerton's, 3, 10, 84, 256, 258, 279-282.

Walsingham, Melusina de Schulemberg, Countess of, 9.

Wesley, John, Walpole's description of, 186.

West, Richard, 15, 16, 103.

Whitehead, Paul, 139.

Wilkes, John, 173.

Williams, George James, 138, 168, 203.

Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, 13, 131.

William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, marries Maria Walpole, 203.

Woffington, Margaret, 83.

X.

_Xo Ho, Letter of_, 143, 144.

Y.

Yarmouth, the Countess of (Madame de Walmoden), 9.

Z.

Zouch, Rev. Henry, 196; Walpole's letters to, quoted, 152-155, 285.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, inconsistent punctuation, and other inconsistencies.

Obvious printer’s errors corrected.