Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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"The answers of Sir Horace Mann are also preserved at
Strawberry Hill: they are very voluminous, but particularly
devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry heavy style,
and consist almost entirely of trifling details of forgotten
Florentine society, mixed with small portions of Italian
political news of the day, which are even still less amusing
than the former topic. They have, however, been found useful
to refer to occasionally, in order to explain allusions in the
letters of Walpole.

"Sir Horace Mann was a contemporary and early friend of Horace
Walpole. (2) He was the second son of Robert Mann, of Linton,
in the county of Kent, Esq. He was appointed in 1740 minister
plenipotentiary from England to the court of Florence-a post
he continued to occupy for the long period of forty-six years,
till his death, at an advanced age, November 6, 1786. In 1755
he was created a baronet, with remainder to the issue of his
brother Galfridus Mann, and, in the reign of George the Third,
a knight of the Bath. It will be observed that Walpole calls
his correspondent Mr. Mann, whereas the title-pages of' these
volumes, and all the notes which have been added by the editor
designate him as Sir Horace Mann. This latter appellation is
undoubtedly, in the greater part of the correspondence, an
anachronism, as Sir Horace Mann was not made a baronet till
the year 1755; but, as he is best known to the world under
that designation, it was considered better to allow him the
title, by courtesy, throughout the work.

"As the following letters turn much upon the politics of the
day, and as the ignoble and unstable Governments which
followed that of Sir Robert Walpole are now somewhat
forgotten, it may not be unacceptable to the reader to be
furnished with a slight sketch of the political changes which
took place from the year 1742 to the death of George the
Second.

"At the general election of 1741, immense efforts were made by
the Opposition to the Walpole administration to strengthen
their phalanx-great sums were spent by their leaders in
elections, and an union was at length effected between the
Opposition or 'Patriots,' headed by Pulteney, and the Tories
or Jacobites, who had hitherto, though opposed to Walpole,
never acted cordially with the former.

"Sir Robert, upon the meeting of Parliament, exerted himself
with almost more than his usual vigour and talent, to resist
this formidable band of opponents; but the chances were
against him. The timidity of his friends, and, if we may
believe Horace Walpole, the treachery of some of his
colleagues, and finally the majority in the House of Commons
against him, compelled him at length to resign; which he did
in the beginning of February, 1742. Upon this step being
taken, and perhaps even before it, the Duke of Newcastle and
Lord Hardwicke, the two most influential members of Sir Robert
Walpole's cabinet, entered into communication with Mr.
Pulteney and Lord Carteret, the leaders of the regular
Opposition, with a view of forming a government, to the
exclusion of the Tories and Jacobites, and even of part of Mr.
Pulteney's own party. The negotiation was successful; but it
was so at the expense of the popularity, reputation, and
influence of Pulteney, who never recovered the disgrace of
thus deserting his former associates.

"In consequence of these intrigues, the King agreed to send
for Lord Wilmington, and to place him at the head of the
ministry. It is remarkable that this man, who was a mere
cipher, should have been again had recourse to, after his
failure in making a government at the very commencement of
the reign of George the Second, when his manifest incapacity,
and the influence of Queen Caroline, had occasioned the
remaining of his opponent Sir Robert Walpole in power. With
Lord Wilmington came in Lord Harrington, as president of the
council; Lord Gower, as privy seal; Lord Winchilsea, as first
lord of the admiralty; Lord Carteret as secretary of state;
the other secretary being the Duke of Newcastle, who had been
so under Walpole; Lord Hardwicke continued chancellor; and
Samuel Sandys was made chancellor of the exchequer. Several
of the creatures of Pulteney obtained minor offices: but he
himself, hampered by his abandonment of many of his former
friends, took no place; but Only obtained a promise of an
earldom, whenever he might wish for it.

"These arrangements produced, as was natural, a great schism
in the different parties, which broke out at a meeting at the
Fountain Tavern, on the 12th of February, where the Duke of
Argyll declared himself in opposition to the new government,
upon the ground of the unjust exclusion of the Tories. The
Duke of Argyll subsequently relented, and kissed hands for the
master-generalship of the ordnance, upon the understanding,
that Sir John Hinde Cotton, a notorious Jacobite, was to have
a place. This the King refused; upon which the Duke finally
subsided into Opposition. Lord Stair had the ordnance, and
Lord Cobham was made a field-marshal and commander of the
forces in England. This latter event happened at the end of
the session of 1742, when Lord Gower and Lord Bathurst, and
one or two other Jacobites, were promoted. It was at this
period (July, 1742), that the King, by the advice of Sir
Robert Walpole, who saw that such a step would complete the
degradation Of Pulteney, insisted upon his taking out the
patent for his earldom and quitting the House of Commons;
which he did with the greatest unwillingness.

"On the death of Lord Wilmington, in July 1743, Mr. Pelham
was made first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the
exchequer (from which office Sandys was dismissed), by the
advice of Sir Robert Walpole, and instead of Lord Bath, who
now found that his adversary had really turned the key upon
him, (3) and that the door of the cabinet was never to be
unlocked to him. The ministry was at this time, besides its
natural feebleness, rent by internal dissensions; for Lord
Carteret, who, as secretary of state, had accompanied the King
abroad in 1743, had acquired great influence over his royal
master,-and trusting to this, and to the superiority of his
talents over his colleagues, his insolence to them became
unbounded. The timid and time-serving Pelhams were quite
ready to humble themselves before him; but Lord Carteret was
not content with this: he was not content, unless he showed
them, and made them feel, all the contempt he entertained for
them. In addition to these difficulties, Lord Gower resigned
the privy-seal in December 1743, upon the plea that no more
Tories were taken into office; but probably more from
perceiving that the administration could not go on. Lord
Cobham also resigned, and went again into opposition.

"Finally, in November 1744, the greater part of the cabinet
having previously made their arrangements with the Opposition)
joined in a remonstrance to the King against Lord Carteret,
and offered, if he was not dismissed, their own resignations.
After some resistance, the King, again by the advice of Lord
Orford, yielded. Lord Carteret and his adherents, and those
of Lord Bath, were dismissed, and a mixed government of Whigs
and Tories was formed. Mr. Pelham continued first minister;
the Duke of Dorset was made president of the council; Lord
Gower again took the privy-seal, which had been held for a few
months by Lord Cholmondeley; the Duke of Bedford became first
lord of' the admiralty; Lord Harrincton secretary of state;
Lord Chesterfield, Lord Sandwich, George Grenville,
Doddington, and Lyttelton, and Sir John Hinde Cotton, Sir John
Philipps, and some other Tories, had places. But though the
King had dismissed Lord Carteret (now become Earl of
Granville) from his councils, he had not from his confidence.
He treated his new ministers with coldness and incivility, and
consulted Lord Granville secretly upon all important points.

"At length, in the midst of the Rebellion, in August 1746, the
ministry went to the King, and gave him the option of taking
Pitt into office, which he had previously refused, or
receiving their resignations. After again endeavouring in
vain to form an administration through the means of Lord
Granville and Lord Bath, the King was obliged to consent to
the demands of his ministers-and here may be said to commence
the leaden rule of the Pelhams, which continued to influence
the councils of this country, more or less, for so many years.
Pitt took the inferior, but lucrative office of paymaster; and
from this time no material change took place till the death of
Mr. Pelham, in March 1754, unless we except the admission of
Lord Granville to the cabinet in 1751, as president of the
council; an office which he contrived, with an interested
prudence very unlike his former conduct, to retain during all
succeeding ministries-and the getting rid of the Duke of
Bedford and Lord Sandwich, of whom the Pelhams had become
jealous.

The death of Pelham called into evidence the latent divisions
and hatreds of public Men, who had been hitherto acting in
concert. Fox and Pitt were obviously the two persons, upon
one of whom the power of Pelham must eventually fall. But the
intriguing Duke of Newcastle hated, and was jealous of both.
He, therefore, placed Sir Thomas Robinson in the House of
Commons, as secretary of state and leader, and made Henry
Bilson Legge chancellor of the exchequer, while he himself
took the treasury-leaving Fox (4) and Pitt in the subordinate
situations they had hitherto held. The incapacity of Sir
Thomas Robinson became, however, soon so apparent, that a
change was inevitable. This was hastened by a temporary
coalition between Fox and Pitt, which was occasioned,
naturally enough, by the ill-treatment they had both received
from the Duke of Newcastle.

"At length the latter reluctantly consented to admit Fox into
the cabinet, in 1755. Upon this, Pitt again broke with Fox,
and went with his friends into opposition, with the exception
of Sir George Lyttelton, who became chancellor of the
exchequer. The new government, however, lasted but one
session of parliament-its own dissensions, the talents of its
opponents, and the dissatisfaction of the King, who had been
thwarted in his German subsidiary treaties, aiding in its
downfall.

"The Duke of Devonshire, who had been very active in the
previous political negotiations, was now commissioned, in
1756, by the King to form a government. The Duke of Newcastle
and Fox were turned out, and Pitt became lord of the
ascendant. But the King's aversion to his new ministers was
even greater than it had been to his old; and in February
1757, he commissioned Lord Waldegrave to endeavour to form a
government, with the assistance of Newcastle and Fox. In this
undertaking he failed, very mainly through the irresolutions
and jealousies of Newcastle. Thus circumstanced, the King,
however unwillingly, was obliged to deliver himself up into
the hands of Pitt, Who (in June, 1757) succeeded in forming
that administration, which was destined to be one of the most
glorious ones England has ever seen. He placed himself at the
head of it, holding the situation of secretary of state and
leader of the House of Commons, leaving the Duke of Newcastle
at the head of the treasury, and placing Legge again in the
exchequer. This administration lasted till the reign of the
succeeding sovereign."

To his edition of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, Lord Dover
appended illustrative notes, which are retained in the
present. Of the manner in which his lordship executed the
office of editor and annotator, the Edinburgh Review thus
speaks, in a brilliant article on those Letters, which
appeared in the number of that work for January 1834:-"The
editing of these volumes was the last of the useful and modest
services rendered to literature by a nobleman of amiable
manners, of untarnished public and private character, and of
cultivated mind. On this, as on other occasions, Lord Dover
performed his part diligently, judiciously, and without the
slightest ostentation. He had two merits, both of which are
rarely found together in a commentator: he was content to be
merely a commentator,-to keep in the background, and to leave
the foreground to the author whom he had undertaken to
illustrate. yet, though willing to be an attendant, he was by
no means a slave; nor did he consider it as part of his
editorial duty to see no faults in the writer to whom he
faithfully and assiduously rendered the humblest literary
offices."

It remains only to add, that the original notes of Horace
Walpole are throughout retained, undistinguished by any
signature; whereas, those of the various editors are
indicated by a characteristic initial, which is explained in
the progress of the work.

January, 1840.
(1) Sketch of the Life, etc.

(2) The coincidence of remarkable names in the two families of
Mann and Walpole, would lead one to imagine that there was
also some connection of relationship between them-and yet none
is to be traced in the pedigree of either family. Sir Robert
Walpole had two brothers named Horace and Galfridus-and Sir
Horace Mann's next brother was named Galfridus Mann. If such
a relationship did exist, it probably came through the
Burwells, the family of Sir Robert Walpole's mother.
(3) "Sir Robert Walpole's expression, when he found that
Pulteney had consented to be made Earl of Bath."

(4) "Fox was secretary at war."

ADVERTISEMENT.

To the first edition of Lord Orford's works, which was
published the year after he died, no memoir of his life was
prefixed: his death was too recent, his
life and character was too well known, his works
too popular, to require it. His political Memoirs, and
the collections of his Letters which have been subsequently
published, were edited by persons, who, though well qualified
for their task in every other respect, have failed in their
account of his private life, and their
appreciation of his individual character, from the want of a
personal acquaintance with their author.

The life contained in Sir Walter Scott's Biographical Sketches
of the English Novelists labours under the same disadvantages.
He had never seen Lord Orford, nor even lived with such of his
intimates and contemporaries in society as survived him.

Lord Dover, who has so admirably edited the first part of his
correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, knew Lord Orford only by
having been carried sometimes, when a boy, by his father Lord
Clifden to Strawberry Hill. His editorial labours with these
letters were the last occupation of his accomplished mind, and
were pursued while his body was fast sinking under the
complication of disease, which so soon after deprived Society
Of One Of its most distinguished members, the arts of an
enlightened patron, and his intimates of an amiable and
attaching friend. Of the meagreness and insufficiency of his
memoir of Lord Orford's life prefixed to the letters, he was
himself aware, and expressed to the author of these pages his
inability then to improve it, and his regret that
circumstances had deprived him, while it was yet time, of the
assistance of those who could have furnished him with better
materials. His account of the latter part of Lord Orford's
life is deficient in details, and sometimes erroneous as to
dates. He appears likewise to have been unacquainted with
some of his writings, and the circumstances which led to and
accompanied them. In the present publication those
deficiencies are supplied from notes, in the hands of the
writer, left by Lord Orford, of the dates of the principal
events of his own life, and of the writing and publication of
all his works. It is only to be regretted that his
autobiography is so short, and so entirely confined to dates.
In estimating the character of Lord Orford, and in the opinion
which he gives of his talents, Lord Dover has evinced much
candour and good taste. He praises with discrimination, and
draws no unfair inferences from the peculiarities of a
character with which he was not personally acquainted.

It is by the Review of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, that
the severest condemnation has been passed and the most unjust
impressions given, not only of the genius and talents, but of
the heart and character, of Lord Orford. The mistaken
opinions of the eloquent and accomplished author (5) of that
review are to be traced chiefly to the same causes which
defeated the intentions of the two first biographers. In his
case, these causes were increased, not only by no acquaintance
with his subject, but by still farther removal from the
fashions, the social habits, the little minute details, of the
age to which Horace Walpole belongs,-an age so essentially
different from the business, the movement, the important
struggles, of that which claims the critic as one of its most
distinguished ornaments. A conviction that these reasons led
to his having drawn up, from the supposed evidence of
Walpole's works alone, a character of their author so
entirely and offensively unlike the original, has forced the
pen into the feeble and failing hand of the writer of these
pages,-has imposed the pious duty of attempting to rescue, by
incontrovertible facts, acquired in long intimacy, the memory
of an old and beloved friend, from the giant grasp of an
author and a critic from whose judgment, when deliberately
formed, few can hope to appeal with success. The candour, the
good-nature of this critic,-the inexhaustible stores of his
literary acquirements, which place him in the first rank of
those most distinguished for historical knowledge and critical
acumen,-will allow him, I feel sure, to forgive this appeal
from his hasty and general opinion, to the judgment of his
better informed mind, on the peculiarities of' a character
often remarkably dissimilar from that of his works.

Lord Dover has justly and forcibly remarked, "that what did
the most honour both to the head and the' heart of Horace
Walpole, was the friendship which he bore to Marshal Conway; a
man who, according to all the accounts of him that have come
down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a decree of
affection." (6)
He then quotes the character given of him by the editor of
Lord Orford's works in 1798. This character of Marshal Conway
was a portrait drawn from the life, and, as it proceeded from
the same pen which now traces these lines, has some right to
be inserted here. "It is only those who have had the
opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his
public conduct, and into the inmost recesses of his private
life, who can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his
character;-who saw and knew him in the evening of his days,
retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and of a
statesman, to the calm enjoyments of private -life; happy in
the resources of his own mind, and in the cultivation of
useful science, in the bosom of domestic peace-unenriched by
pensions or places-undistinguished by titles or
ribbons-unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by
retirement."

To this man, Lord Orford's attachment, from their boyish days
at Eton school to the death of Marshal Conway in 1795, is
already a circumstance of sufficiently rare occurrence among
men of the world. Could such a man, of whom the foregoing
lines are an unvarnished sketch-of whose character, simplicity
was one of the distinguished ornaments-could such a man have
endured the intimacy of such an individual as the reviewer
describes Lord Orford to have been? Could an intercourse of
uninterrupted friendship and undiminished confidence have
existed between them during a period of nearly sixty
years, undisturbed by the business and bustle of
middle life, so apt to cool, and often to terminate, youthful
friendships? Could such an intercourse ever have existed, with
the supposed selfish indifference, and artificial coldness and
conceit of Lord Orford's character?

The last correspondence included in the present publication
will, it is presumed, furnish no less convincing proof, that
the warmth of his feelings, and his capacity for sincere
affection, continued unenfeebled by age. It is with this
view, and this alone, that the correspondence alluded to is
now, for the first time, given to the public. It can add
nothing to the already established epistolary fame of Lord
Orford, and the public can be as little interested in his
sentiments for the two individuals addressed. But, in forming
a just estimate of his character, the reader will hardly fail
to observe that those sentiments were entertained at a time of
life when, for the most part, the heart is too little capable
of expansion to open to new attachments. The whole tone of
these letters must prove the unimpaired warmth of his
feelings, and form a striking contrast to the cold harshness
of which he has been accused, in his
intercourse with Madame du Deffand, at an earlier period of
his life. This harshness, as was noticed by the editor of
Madame du Deffand's letters, in the preface to that
publication, proceeded solely from a dread of ridicule, which
formed a principal feature of Mr. Walpole's character, and
which, carried, as in his case, to excess, must be called a
principal weakness. "This accounts for the ungracious
language in which he so often replies to the importunities of
her anxious affection; a language so foreign to his heart, and
so contrary to his own habits in friendship." (7)

Is this, then, the man who is supposed to be "the most
eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most
capricious of mortals? -his mind a bundle of inconsistent
whims and affectations-his features covered with mask within
mask, which, when the outer disguise of obvious affectation
was removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing the
real man."-"Affectation is the essence of the man. It pervades
all his thoughts and all his expressions. If it were taken
away, nothing would be left." (8)

He affected nothing; he played no part; he was what he
appeared to be. Aware that he was ill qualified for politics,
for public life, for parliamentary business, or indeed for
business of any sort, the whole tenor of his life was
consistent with this opinion of himself. Had he attempted to
effect what belongs only to characters of another stamp -had
he endeavoured to take a lead in the House of Commons-had he
sought for place, dignity, or office-had he aimed at intrigue,
or attempted to be a tool for others-then, indeed, he might
have deserved the appellation of artificial, eccentric, and
capricious.

>From the retreat of his father, which happened the year after
he entered parliament, the only real interest he took in
politics was when their events happened immediately to concern
the objects of his private friendships. He occupied himself
with what really amused him. If he had affected any thing, it
would certainly not have been a taste for the trifling
occupations with which he is reproached. Of no person can it
be less truly said, that "affectation was the essence of the
man." What man, or even what woman, ever affected to be the
frivolous being he is described? When his critic says, that
he had "the soul of a gentleman-usher," he was little aware
that he only repeated what Lord Orford often said of
himself-that from his knowledge of old ceremonials and
etiquettes, he was sure that in a former state of existence,
he must have been a gentleman-usher,-about the time of
Elizabeth.

In politics, he was what he professed to be, a Whig, in the
sense which that denomination bore in his younger days,-never
a Republican.

In his old and enfeebled age, 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 civil liberty. But why are we to believe his
contempt for crowned heads should have prevented his writing a
memoir of "Royal and Noble Authors?" Their literary labours,
when all brought together by himself, would not, it is
believed, tend much to raise, or much to alter his opinion of
them.

In his letters from Paris, written in the years 1765, 1766,
1767 and 1771, it will be seen, that so far from being
infinitely more occupied with "the fashions and gossip of
Versailles and Marli than with a great moral revolution which
was taking place in his sight," he was truly aware of the
state of the public mind, and foresaw all that was coming on.

Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more, and that he
judged him more accurately, than Mr. Hume, and many others who
were then duped by his mad pride and disturbed understanding.

Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of vain lies in
the intercourse he sought with Mr. Walpole. The details of
this transaction, and the letters which passed at the time,
are already printed in the quarto edition of his works. In
the short notes of his life left by himself, and from which
all the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus mentioned: