Horace Walpole

“ Every reader of taste knows the falseness of the criticism, and how heartless the polished cynicism that could dare it. I repeat, what I have elsewhere said, that Horace Walpole had something in his composition more predominant than his wit, a cold, unfeeling disposition, which contemned all literary men, at the moment his heart secretly panted to partake of their fame. ”

“ A man who, if in an amateur and dandified way, assisted the advance in literature, was the son of the famous and far from literary Whig Minister of George I. and George II., Sir Robert Walpole. Born at the end of September, 1717, Horace Walpole went to Eton in 1727, where he won the friendship of Gray and prided himself on avoiding cricket and fights with bargees. ”

“ Horace Walpole was educated at Eton, where he formed a school friendship with Thomas Gray, who was but a few months older. In 1739 Gray was travelling-companion with Walpole in France and Italy until they differed and parted; but the friendship was afterwards renewed, and remained firm to the end. Horace Walpole went from Eton to King’s College, Cambridge, and entered Parliament in 1741, the year before his father’s final resignation and acceptance of an earldom. His way of life was made easy to him. ”

“ Horace Walpole lived in friendship with Fox, in harmony with Pitt, and rather thought better of the conduct of the latter. Having declared openly against the treaties, he would not turn with Fox to a defence of them, and had surprised, by deserting him. He had now been desirous of showing that that separation had been only temporary, and yet he could not resist paying greater compliments to Pitt in the very speech intended for support [170] of Fox; but Walpole always leaned most to a man in Opposition. ”

“ Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, was third son of the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole. He was born on the 5th of October, 1717, and brought into Parliament in 1741, for the borough of Callington. At the general election in 1747, he was returned a second time for the same borough; and in 1754 he came into Parliament for Castle [xiii] Rising. ”

“ Horace Walpole, who knows, as we all do, the mad life Braddock has led in London, says: “He is a very Iroquois in disposition, and so, I suppose, fit to fight his kind.” Horace is making himself merry over the appointment, and the Colonial helping he is to have. But it is the fashion here to laugh at Colonials, and not for the world would Horace be out of the fashion. I wish the General may have good fortune, but I fear the matching of drill and pipe-clay against the wiles of the woods; as sensible would it be to set a fencing-master with a rapier to fight a tiger in a jungle. ”

“ Perhaps no name of modern times is productive of so many pleasant associations as that of Horace Walpole, and certainly no name was ever more intimately connected with so many different subjects of importance in connection with literature, art, fashion, and politics. ”

“ Horace Walpole was not a man of genius,—his most pleasing, if not his great talent, lay in letter-writing; here he was 44 without a rival; [33] but he probably divined, when he condescended to become an author, that something more was required than the talents he exactly possessed. In his latter days he felt this more sensibly, which will appear in those confessions which I have extracted from an unpublished correspondence.
Conscious of possessing the talent which amuses, yet feeling his deficient energies, he resolved to provide various substitutes for genius itself ”

“ It has been said by that brilliant satirist Horace Walpole, that every man has his price. I never did believe so evil a thing; I have been too conversant with the great and good to believe this libel; and I doubt not there are others beside Mr. Calhoun who value truth and honor above all price or office.
Highly as our great statesman regarded appreciation, yet he could endure to be misrepresented. While his glorious eye would light with more brilliant lustre at the greeting of friendship or the earnest expression of confidence, he rose superior to abuse or censure. ”

“ The position of various members of his family connecting Horace Walpole with the cabinet, the court, and the legislature, his own intercourse with those characters who became remarkable for brilliant social and intellectual qualities, and his reputation as a wit, a scholar, and a virtuoso, cannot fail, it is hoped, to render his memoirs equally amusing and instructive. ”

“ It was difficult for men to grumble where, as under Walpole, each harvest brought them greater prosperity, or where, as under Chatham, they leaped from victory to victory. Something of the exhilaration of these years we can still catch in the letters which show the effort made by the jaded Horace Walpole to turn off with easy laughter his deep sense of pride. In the House of Commons, indeed, there is nothing, until the Wilkes case, to show that a new age has come. ”

“ Sir Robert Walpole loved magnificence, and was generous to a fault: the other had neither ostentation nor avarice, and yet had little generosity. The one was profuse to his family and his friends, liberal indiscriminately, unbounded to his tools and spies: the other loved his family and his friends, and enriched them as often as he could steal an opportunity from his extravagant bounty to his enemies and antagonists. Indifferent people were too indifferent to him; and for intelligence, it was one of the greatest blemishes of his Administration, he wanted it so entirely—not resolution more! ”

“ And Horace Walpole being also present—he never omitted being present at a Royal Society dinner, when it was possible for him to go—overhearing the talk and the name, said (we may fancy) , "Bless me, young Chatterton, to be sure!—I had some correspondence with the young man; nice poems—but apocryphal—poor fellow; dead is he—starved, eh? dear me?—shocking—quite so!" and I suppose that he took snuff and dusted his ruffles thereafter, and then toyed with his delicate glass of fine old Sercial Madeira. ”

“ There was a library, and—what must have had even stronger attractions for Horace Walpole—that magnificent and almost unique collection of pictures which under a later member of the family, the third Earl of Orford, passed to Catherine of Russia. For years Lord Orford, with unwearied diligence and exceptional opportunities, had been accumulating these treasures. Mann in Florence, Vertue in England, and a host of industrious foragers had helped to bring together the priceless canvases which crowded the rooms of the Minister's house next the Treasury at Whitehall. ”

“ The kinship with Horace Walpole which has frequently been claimed for Mann has no existence. He was, however, and associate of Walpole as a young man, and it was entirely owing to this intimacy that he was in 1737 offered by Sir Robert Walpole the post of assistant to 'Mr. Fane,' envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the court of Florence. ”

“ Pelham honest till he was in power; the other never was thought so till he was out.
Both were fortunate in themselves, unhappy in their brothers. With unbounded thirst for politics, the Duke of Newcastle and Horace Walpole were wretched politicians: each inferior to their brothers in everything laudable; each assuming and jealous of their own credit, though [neither] the Duke nor Horace could ever have been considerable, but by the fortune of their brothers. The one childish and extravagant, the other a buffoon and avaricious; Horace sunk into contempt when his brother fell with honour ”

“ I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of either's frankness. Instead of politics, therefore, I shall amuse you to-day with a fairy tale.
I was desired to be at my Lady Suffolk's on New-year's morn, where I found Lady Temple and others. ”

“ All the morning I play with my workmen or animals, go regularly every evening to the meadows with Mrs. Clive, or sit with my Lady Suffolk, and at night scribble my Painters-What a journal to send you! I write more trifling letters than any man living; am ashamed of them, and yet they are expected of me. You, my Lady Ailesbury, your brother, Sir Horace Mann, George Montagu, Lord Strafford-all expect I should write—Of what? I live less and less in the world, care for it less and less, and yet am thus obliged to inquire what it is doing. ”

“ The terror I am under of a new fit has kept me from almost seeing any thing. The damps and fogs are full as great and frequent here as in London; but there is a little frost to-day, and I shall begin my devotions tomorrow. It is not being fashionable to visit churches: but I am de la vieille cour; and I beg your ladyship to believe that I have no youthful pretensions. The Duchess of Richmond tells me that they have made twenty foolish stories about me in England; and say that my person is admired here. I cannot help what is said without foundation ”

“ Yesterday, Sir, I received the favour of your letter with the inclosed prologue, (451) and am extremely pleased with it; not only as it omits mention of me, for which I give you my warmest thanks, but as a composition. The thoughts are just and happily expressed; and the conclusion is so lively and well conceived, that Mr. Harris, to whom I carried it this morning, thinks it will have great effect. We are very sorry you have not sent us an epilogue too; but, before I touch on that, I will be more regular in my details. Miss Younge has accepted the part very gracefully ”

“ Kirkbridge, Yorkshire 16 March 1763; travelled on the Continent 1783–85 and 1802; became acquainted with Horace Walpole 1788 who left her at his death 2 March 1797 sum of £4000 and house called Little Strawberry Hill; engaged to General O’Hara 1796; edited The works of Horace Walpole 5 vols. 1798 on which her father’s name appears as editor; author of Fashionable Friends, a comedy in 5 acts produced at Drury Lane theatre 22 April 1802; A comparative view of the social condition of England and France 1828 ”

“ Fox applied to Horace Walpole, and told him, that as soon as he should be ready to break with Newcastle, he would desire him to acquaint Mr. Pitt that he should be willing to unite with him. Walpole, who by no means approved [255] the adoption of such Pelham politics, as acting with a man only till an opportunity offered of undermining him; and who had for some time withdrawn himself from all participation of measures which he thought neither fair nor wise, replied, “That it was true, he admired Mr. Pitt, though he had not the honour of his friendship ”

“ Neither does the fact of Walpole's being by no means a bigot in the matter of truth-telling interfere with his real value. He lies consciously and with a set purpose here and there; he is unconsciously and even inevitably veracious in the main. There are some points, observes Mr. Bagehot, on which almost everybody's letters are true. "The delineation of a recurring and familiar life is beyond the reach of a fraudulent fancy. Horace Walpole was not a very scrupulous narrator, yet it was too much trouble, even for him, to tell lies on many, things. ”

“ Unhappy Prince that I am! cried Manfred—Holy Father! will you not assist me with your prayers? My Lord, replied Jerome, heaven is no doubt displeased with your mockery of its servants. Submit yourself to the church; and cease to persecute her ministers. Dismiss this innocent youth; and learn to respect the holy character I wear: Heaven will not be trifled with: you see—the trumpet sounded again. I acknowledge I have been too hasty: said Manfred. Father, do you go to the wicket, and demand who is at the gate. Do you grant me the life of Theodore? replied the Friar. I do; said Manfred ”

“ There seems nothing in all this to excite the wrath of the most atrabilious Liberal. The truth appears to be that, in the Whig circles of Macaulay’s time, there existed a traditional grudge against Horace Walpole. In the “Memorials of Charles James Fox,” which were arranged by Lord Vassall-Holland, and edited by Lord John Russell, both the noble commentators speak of Horace in terms of undisguised bitterness. Nor is the cause very far to seek. In politics, Conway was under the dominion of Walpole ”

“ The Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely graced with living genius—there the greatest was Horace Walpole himself; but he had been too long waiting to see realised a magical vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic fiction of his own romance, that “the owner should grow too large for his house.” After many years, having discovered that he still retained his mediocrity, he could never pardon the presence of that preternatural being whom the world considered a GREAT MAN.—Such was the feeling which dictated the close of the above letter ”

“ When the Peers were going to vote, Lord Foley withdrew, as too well a wisher; Lord Moray, as nephew of Lord Balmerino—and Lord Stair,—as, I believe, uncle to his great-grandfather. Lord Windsor, very affectedly, said, "I am sorry I must say, guilty upon my honour." Lord Stamford would not answer to the name of Henry, having been christened Harry—what a great way of thinking on such an occasion! I was diverted too with old Norsa, the father of my brother's concubine, an old Jew that kept a tavern; my brother [Orford] , as Auditor of the Exchequer, has a gallery along one whole side of the court ”