Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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"Although Voltaire, with whom I had never had the least
acquaintance, had voluntarily written to me first, and asked
for my book, he wrote a letter to the Duchesse de Choiseul, in
which, without saying a syllable
of his having written to me first, he told her I had
officiously sent him my works, and declared war with him in
defence 'de ce bouffon de Shakspeare,' whom in his reply to
me he pretended so much to admire. The Duchesse sent me
Voltaire's letter; which gave me such a contempt for his
disingenuity, that I dropped all correspondence with him."

When he spoke with contempt of d'Alembert, it was not of his
abilities; of which he never pretended to judge. Professor
Saunderson had long before, when he was a lad at Cambridge,
assured him, that it would be robbing him to pretend teaching
him mathematics, of which his mind was perfectly incapable, so
that any comparison of the intellectual powers of the two men"
would indeed be as "exquisitely ridiculous" as the critic
declares it. But lord Orford, speaking of d'Alembert,
complains of the overweening importance which he, and all the
men of letters of those days in France, attributed to their
squabbles and disputes. The idleness to which an absolute
government necessarily condemns nine-tenths of its subjects,
sufficiently accounts for the exaggerated importance given to
and assumed by the French writers, even before they had
become, in the language of the Reviewer, "the interpreters
between England and mankind:" he asserts, "that all the great
discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in political science,
are ours but no foreign nation, except France, has received
them from us by direct communication: isolated in our
situation, isolated by our manners, we found truth, but did
not impart it." (9) It may surely be asked, whether France
will subscribe to this assertion of superiority, in the whole
range of science! If she does, her character has undergone an
even greater change, than any she has yet experienced in the
course of all her revolutions.

lord Orford is believed by his critic to have "sneered" at
every body. sneering was not his way of showing dislike. He
had very strong prejudices, sometimes adopted on very
insufficient grounds, and he therefore often made great
mistakes in the appreciation of character; but when influenced
by such impressions, he always expressed his opinions
directly, and often too violently.

The affections of his heart were bestowed on few; for in early
life they had never been cultivated, but they were singularly
warm, pure, and constant; characterized not by the ardour of
passion, but by the constant preoccupation of real affection.
He had lost his mother, to whom he was fondly attached, early
in life; and with his father, a man of coarse feelings and
boisterous manners, he had few sentiments in common. Always
feeble in constitution, he was unequal to the sports of the
field, and to the drinking which then accompanied them, so
that during his father's retreat at Houghton, however much he
respected his abilities and was devoted to his fame, he had
little sympathy in his tastes, or pleasure in his society. To
the friends of his own selection his devotion was not confined
to professions or words: on all occasions of difficulty, of
whatever nature, his active affection came forward in defence
of their character, or assistance in their affairs.

When his friend Conway, as second in command under Sir John
Mordaunt, in the expedition to St. Maloes, partook in some
degree of the public censure called forth by the failure of
these repeated ill-judged attempts on the coasts of France,
Walpole's pen was immediately employed in rebutting the
accusations of the popular pamphlet of the day on this
subject, And establishing his friend's exemption from any
responsibility in the failure. When, on a more important
occasion, Mr. Conway was not only dismissed from being Equerry
to the King, George III., but from the command of his
regiment, for his constitutional conduct and votes in the
House of Commons, in the memorable affair of the legality of
General Warrants for the seizure of persons and papers,
Walpole immediately stepped forward, not with cold
commendations of his friend's upright and spirited conduct,
but with all the confidence Of long-tried affection, and all
the security of noble minds incapable of misunderstanding each
other, he insisted on being allowed to share in future his
fortune with his friend, and thus more than repair the
pecuniary loss he had incurred. Mr. Conway, in a letter to
his brother, Lord Hertford, of this period, says "Horace
Walpole has on this occasion shown that warmth of friendship
that you know him capable of so, strongly, that I want words
to express my sense of it;" (10) thus proving the justice he
did to Walpole's sentiments and intentions.

In the case of General Conway's near relationship and intimacy
from childhood, the cause in which his fortunes were suffering
might have warmed a colder heart, and opened a closer hand,
than Mr. Walpole's: but Madame du Deffand was a recent
acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the pleasure he
received from her society, and his desire that her blind and
helpless old age might not be deprived of any of the comforts
and alleviations of which it was capable. When by the
financial arrangements of the French government, under the
unscrupulous administration of the Abb`e Terray, the creditors
of the state were considerably reduced in income, Mr. Walpole,
in the most earnest manner, begged to prevent the
unpleasantness of his old friend's exposing her necessities,
and imploring aid from the minister of the day, by allowing
him to make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, Or in
any manner that would be most satisfactory to her. The loss,
after all, did not fall on that stock from which she derived
her income, and the assistance was not accepted; but Madame du
Deffand's confidence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in
her letters.

During his after life, although no ostentatious contributor to
public charities and schemes of improvement, the friends in
whose opinion he knew he could confide, had always more
difficulty to repress than to excite his liberality.

That he should have wished his friend Conway to be employed as
commander on military expeditions, which, as a soldier fond of
his profession, he naturally coveted, although Mr. Walpole
might disapprove of the policy of the minister in sending out
such expeditions, surely implies neither disguise, nor
contradiction in his opinions.

The dread which the reviewer supposes him to have had, lest he
should lose caste as a gentleman, by ranking as a wit and an
author, he was much too fine a gentleman to have believed
in the possibility of feeling. He knew he had never studied
since he left college; he knew that he was not at all a
learned man: but the reputation he had acquired by his wit and
by his writings, not only among fine gentlemen, but with
society in general, made him nothing loath to cultivate every
opportunity of increasing it. The account he gave of the
idleness of his life to Sir Horace Mann, when he disclaims the
title of "the learned gentleman," was literally true; and it
is not easy to imagine any reason why a man at the age of
forty-three, who admits that he is idle, and who renounces
being either a learned man or a politician, should be
"ashamed" of playing loo in good company till two or three
o'clock in the morning, if he neither ruins himself nor
others. (11) He wrote his letters as rapidly as his disabled
fingers would allow him to form the characters of a remarkably
legible hand. No rough draughts or sketches of familiar
letters were found amongst his papers at Strawberry Hill: but
he was in the habit of putting down on the backs of letters or
on slips of paper, a note of facts, of news, of witticisms, or
of any thing he wished not to forget, for the amusement of his
correspondents.

After reading "The Mysterious Mother," who will accede to the
opinion, that his works are "destitute of every charm that is
derived from elevation, or from tenderness of sentiment?" (12)

But, with opinions as to the genius, the taste, or the talents
of Lord Orford, this little notice has nothing to do. It aims
solely at rescuing his individual character from
misconceptions. Of the means necessary for this purpose, its
writer, by the "painful preeminence" of age, remains the sole
depositary, and being so, has submitted to the task of
repelling such misconceptions. It is done with the reluctance
which must always be experienced in differing from, or calling
in question, the opinions of a person, for whom is felt all
the admiration and respect due to super-eminent abilities, and
all the grateful pride and affectionate regard inspired by
personal friendship.

M. B. October 1840.

(5) T. Babbington Macaulay.

(6) Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, by Lord Dover. See
vol. i.

(7) See Preface to Madame du Deffand's Letters, p. xi.; and
vol. ii. of this collection.

(8) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 233.

(9) Edinburgh Review, vol, lviii. p. 233.

(10) See vol. iii.

(11) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 232.

(12) Ibid., p. 237.

Second Advertisement

THE last volume will be found to contain upwards of one hundred
letters, introduced into no former edition of the Correspondence
of Horace Walpole. The greater part of them were written between
the years 1789 and 1797, and were addressed to the Miss Berrys,
during their residence in Italy. They embrace most of the
leading events of the first five years of the French Revolution;
and wherever the facts detailed in the letters have appeared to
require elucidation or confirmation, the Editor has generally had
recourse to M. Thiers's useful "History" of that great event;
which has recently appeared in an English dress, accompanied with
notes and illustrations, drawn from the most authentic sources.

While the last volume was at press, the Editor was favoured with
a letter from the Right Honourable Sir Charles Grey, relative to
the share which he considers Mr. Walpole to have had in the
composition and publication of the Letters of Junius.

Albany Street, Regent's Park,
October 28, 1840.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE,
EARL OF ORFORD.

Sir,

1. Before your last volume is published, I am desirous of stating
to you some of the considerations which, more than seventeen
years ago, led me to the belief I still entertain, that Walpole
had a principal share in the composition and publication of the
Letters of Junius: though I think it likely that Mason, or some
other friend corrected the style, and gave precision and force to
the most striking passages.

2. It was in 1823, whilst I was residing in India, that Lord
Holland's edition of Walpole's Memoires of the Last Ten Years of
the Reign of George the Second suggested to me this notion; and
it was shortly afterwards communicated to several of my friends.
The edition of Junius which I had with me, was that of Mr.
Woodfall the younger, in three volumes; and I am not at present
by any means satisfied that all the letters which the editor
assigns to Junius were written by him: but in this hasty notice I
must proceed upon the supposition that they were.

3. It will be remembered that the Memoires were composed by
Walpole in secrecy, and that he left them in a sealed box, which,
by his will, was forbidden to be opened till many years after his
death. The letters from which the corresponding passages are
given below are all published as Letters of Junius by Mr.
Woodfall, and are of dates later than the time when Walpole wrote
his Memoires; but half a century earlier than the time when they
were printed.

Note by the transcriber: there follows a table, in which letters
of Junius are presented for comparisons side by side with
writings
of Walpole. I have changed the format to present them in
sequence. Return to text.

Junius:
I own, my lord, that yours is not an uncommon character. Women,
and men like women, are timid, vindictive, and irresolute.
Woodfall's Junius, vol. ii, p. 168.

Walpole:
As it is observed that timorous natures like those of women are
generally cruel, Lord mansfield might easily slide into rigour,
etc.-Walpole's Memoires, vol. ii. p. 175.

Junius:
Without openly supporting the person, you (Lord Mansfield) have
done essential service to the cause; and consoled yourself for
the loss of a favourite family by reviving and establishing the
maxims of their government.-vol. ii, p. 182.

Walpole:
The occasions of the times had called him (Lord Mansfield) off
from principles that favoured an arbitrary king-he still leaned
towards an arbitrary government.-vol. ii. p. 266.

Junius:
You (Lord Mansfield) would fain be thought to take no share in
government, while in reality you are the mainspring of the
machine.-vol. ii. p. 179.

Walpole:
Pitt liked the dignity of despotism; Lord Mansfield the
reality.-Vol. ii. p. 274.

Junius:
You secretly engross the power, while you decline the title of
minister.-vol. ii. p.179.

Walpole:
He was timid himself, and always waving what he was always
courting.-Vol. ii. p. 336.

Junius:
In council he generally affects to take a moderate part.-vol. ii.
p. 354.
At present there is something oracular in the delivery of my
opinion. I speak from a recess which no human curiosity can
penetrate.-vol. i. p. 314.

Walpole:
The conduct was artful, new and grand: secluded from all eyes,
his (Lord Chatham's) orders were received as oracles.-vol. ii. p.
347.

Junius:
Our enemies treat us as the cunning trader does the unskilful
Indian. they magnify their generosity when they give us baubles
of no proportionate value for ivory and gold.-vol. ii. p. 359.

Walpole:
They made a legal purchase to all eternity of empires and
posterity, from a parcel of naked savages, for a handful of glass
beads and baubles.-Vol. i. p. 343.

Junius:
If you deny him the cup, there will be no keeping him within the
pale of the ministry.-vol. ii. p. 249.

Walpole:
Where I believe the clergy do not deny the laity the cup.-Letter
to Montague.
He took care to regulate his patron's warmth within the pale of
his own advantage.-Memoires, vol. ii. p. 197.
Come over to the pale of loyalty.-vol. i. p. 282.

Junius:
Honour and justice must not be renounced although a thousand
modes of right and wrong were to occupy the degrees of morality
between Zeno and Epicurus. The fundamental principles of
Christianity may still be preserved.-vol. ii. p. 346.

Walpole:
The modes of Christianity were exhausted.-Vol. ii. p. 282
To mark how much the modes of thinking change, and that
fundamentals themselves can make no impression.-vol. ii. p. 265.

Junius:
He (the duke of Bedfor) would not have betrayed such ignorance or
such contempt of the constitution as openly to avow in a court of
judicature the purchase and sale of a borough.
Note.- In an answer in chancery in a suit against him to recover
a large sum paid him by a person whom he had undertaken to return
to parliament for one of his Grace's boroughs. He was compelled
to repay the money.-vol. i. p. 576.

Walpole:
Corruption prevailed in the House of Commons. Instances had been
brought to our courts of judicature how much it prevailed in our
elections.
Note.-The Duke of Bedford had received 1500 pounds for electing
Jefrery French at one of his boroughs in the west; but he dying
immediately, his heir sued the Duke for the money, who paid it,
rather than let the cause be heard.

Junius:
The Princess Dowager made it her first care to inspire her son
with horror against heresy, and with a respect for the church.
His mother took more pains to form his beliefs than either his
morals or his understanding.-vol. iii. p. 408.

Walpole:
>From the death of the Prince the object of the Princess Dowager
had been the government of her son; and her attention had
answered. She had taught him great devotion, and she had taken
care that he should be taught nothing else.-Vol. i. p. 396.

Junius:
That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to
blush for his own ignorance and want of education, which had been
wilfully neglected by his mother and her minion.

Walpole:
Martin spoke for the clause, and said, "The King could not have a
separate interest from his people, the Princess might; witness
Queen Isabella and her minion Mortimer."-Vol. i. p. 118.

Transcriber's note: the following paragraph is surrounded by
asterisks. it appears to be a comment by the letter writer, sir
charles Grey, rather than either Junius or Walpole.

Our great Edward, too, at an early period, had sense enough to
understand the nature of the connexion between his abandoned
mother and the detested Mortimer.

Junius:
when it was proposed to settle the present King's household as
Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was
forced into it in direct contradiction to the late King's
inclination. vol. ii. .-

Walpole:
Fox had an audience. The monarch was sour, but endeavoured to
keep his temper, yet made no concessions; no request to the
retiring minister to stay. At last he let slip the true cause of
his indignation: "You," said he, "have made me make that puppy
Bute groom of the
stole."-Vol. ii. p. 92.

Though too long to be cited in these hurried notes, there are
several other passages in which the coincidence of sentiment and
expression and of the order in which the thoughts and arguments
are ranged, is very remarkable: and the difficulty of accounting
otherwise for such coincidences between the Letters of Junius and
the unpublished and secret Memoires of Walpole, first made me
suspect that the two names might belong to one and the same
person-Horace Walpole the younger.

4. Being led by this conjecture to examine the other works of
Walpole, I found, in them also, many echoes, as it were, of the
voice of Junius, which it is singular should not have been more
observed. No One, I think, can collate the concluding portion of
Walpole's letter to Lord Bute, of February 15, 1762, and the
latter part of the eulogium of Junius on Lord Chatham, without
being struck by the similarity of manner and tone; and by the
identity of that feeling, which, in both cases, prompts the
writer, whilst he is elaborating compliments, to defend himself
jealously against all suspicion of flattery or interested
motives.

Transcriber's note: there follows a comparison of material from
Junius and Walpole, set out in parallel columns. I have changed
these to a sequential arrangement.

Junius:
I did not intend to make a public declaration of the respect I
bear Lord Chatham. I well knew what unworthy conclusions would
be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver my opinion,
and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Home to deter
me from doing signal justice to a man who, I confess, has grown
upon my esteem. As for the common, sordid views of avarice, or
any purpose of vulgar ambition, I question whether the applause
of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. My vote will
hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or to a seat
in the Cabinet. But if his ambition be upon a level with his
understanding; if he judges of what is truly honourable for
himself with the same superior genius which animates and directs
him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the pen
of Junius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded honour shall
gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid
fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I am not
conversant in the language of panegyric. These praises are
extorted from me; but they will wear well, for they have been
dearly earned.-Vol. ii. p. 310.

WALPOLE.
I did not purpose to tempt again the patience of mankind. But
the case is very different with regard to my trouble. My whole
fortune is from the bounty of the Crown and from the public: it
would ill become me to spare any pains for the King's glory, or
for the honour and satisfaction of my country; and give me leave
to add, my lord, it would be an ungrateful return for the
distinction with which your lordship has condescended to honour
me if I withheld such trifling aid as mine, when it might in the
least tend to adorn your lordship's administration. From me, my
lord, permit me to say these are not words of course, or of
compliment, this is not the language of flattery: your lordship
knows I have no views; perhaps knows that, insignificant as it
is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have
raised, as I trust you will, real monuments of glory, the most
contemptible characters in the inscription dedicated by your
country, may not be the testimony of, my lord, your lordship's
most obedient humble servant.-Letters, vol. iii.

I have neither time nor space for going much farther into this
part of the subject; but there is one circumstance which, in its
application to the supposition that Francis was Junius, is too
remarkable to be passed over. Sir Philip Francis supplied Mr.
Almon with reports of two speeches of Lord Chatham, in one of
which there is this passage, "The Americans had Purchased their
liberty at a dear rate, since they had quitted their native
country and gone in search of freedom to a desert." Junius,
about three weeks before, had said, "They left their native land
in search of freedom, and found it in a desert;" and it has been
inferred from this, that the words in the speech were not Lord
Chatham's, but the reporter's, and that Sir Philip Francis was
Junius. But it happens that Walpole, in his Royal and Noble
Authors, some years earlier than either the letter of Junius or
the speech of Lord Chatham, had said of Lord Brooke, that he was
on the point "Of seeking liberty in the forests of America."

5. If we turn from a recollection of the words to a consideration
of the peculiarities of the style of Junius, I think it will be
agreed that the most remarkable of all is that species of irony
which consists in equivocal compliment. Walpole also excelled in
this; and prided himself upon doing so. Are we not justified in
saying, that of all who, in the eighteenth century, cast their
thoughts on public occurrences into the form of letters, Junius
and Walpole are the most distinguished! that the works of no
other prose writer of their time exhibit a zest for political
satire equal to that which is displayed in the Letters of Junius,
and in the Memoires and Political Letters of Walpole and that
the sarcasm of equivocal praise was the favourite weapon in the
armoury of each, though it certainly appears to have been
tempered, and sharpened, and polished with additional care for
the hand of Junius? When did Francis ever deal in compliment or
in equivoque? In his vituperation there was always more of fury
than of malice: but Junius and Walpole were cruel. Madame du
Deffand says to the latter, "Votre plume est de fer tremp`e dans
de fiel." I have sometimes thought that clever old woman either
knew or suspected him to be Junius. She uses in one place the
unusual expression, "Votre `ecrit de Junius:" and if Walpole was
Junius, some of the most carefully composed letters in 1769 and
1771 were written in Paris ; where, indeed, it would seem that
Junius, whoever he was, collected the materials for the
accusation with which he threatened the Duke of Bedford, and
which he evidently knew to be untrue.

6. It has sometimes been said, that the Letters of Junius must
have been written by a lawyer, and they were at one time
attributed even to Mr. Dunning. The mistakes which I am about to
notice, trifling as they may be, make it impossible that any
lawyer should have been the author; and it appears to me that not
only is there a considerable resemblance in those mistakes which
I adduce of Walpole's, but that the affectation in both of
employing legal terms with which they were not familiar, and of
which they did not distinctly apprehend the meaning, is very
remarkable. Junius thought De Lolme's Essay deep," (13) and
talks of property which "savours of the reality:" (14) he
misapplies that trite expression of the courts, bona fide: (15)
misunderstands mortmain, (16) and supposes that an inquisitio
post mortem was an inquiry how the deceased came by his death.
(17) Walpole talks of "the purparty of a wife's lands;" of
"tenures against which, of all others, quo warrantos are sure to
take place;" (18) of the days of soccage," which he supposes to
be obsolete; and of a fera naturae.

Transcriber's note: Again there are a few passages from Junius
and Walpole compared in parallel columns, which I present below
in sequence.

Junius:
You say the facts on which you reason are universally admitted: a
gratis dictum which I flatly deny.-vol. ii. p. 143.

Walpole:
This circumstance is alleged against them as an incident
contrived to gain belief, as if they had been in danger of their
lives. The argument is gratis dictum.-Works, vol. ii. p. 568.