Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

H >> Horace Walpole >> The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67

Junius:
They are the trustees, not the owners of the estate. the fee
simple is in us.- vol.-vol. i. p. 345.

Walpole:
Do you think we shall purchase the fee simple of him for so many
years?-Letters, vol. ii.

7. Walpole's time of life, his station in society, means of
information, and habits of writing much, and anonymously, and in
concealment, all tally with the supposition of his being Junius.
So do his places of residence, when that part of the subject is
carefully examined.

8. It is an odd circumstance that Walpole, who makes remarks on
every thing, makes no remark on Junius. If he ever expressed an
opinion of him in his letters to any of his numerous
correspondents, those letters have been suppressed. There are
fewer letters of his in the years during which Junius was
writing, than in any others.

9. Walpole's quarrel with the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and
The party whom he calls "the Bedford court," and Junius "the
Bloomsbury gang," would account for the rancour of the letters of
the latter to the Duke.

10. Walpole's dislike and opinion of the Duke of Grafton, which
is nowhere more remarkably expressed than in a letter published
for the first time in your third volume, coupled with his
friendship for the first Duchess of Grafton, fall in with the
attacks of Junius on the Duke.

11. The Memoires of Walpole show an enmity to Lord Mansfield
almost equal to that of Junius.

12. Turning from these to a person in a different station, we
find, on the part of Walpole, (and, by-the-by, of Mason too,) a
sort of spite against Dr. Johnson; and in the works of Walpole,
selected by himself for publication after his death,' there is a
high-wrought criticism and condemnation of the style of Johnson,
which I cannot help believing to have been conceived in revenge
of the well-known handling of Junius in Johnson's pamphlet on the
Falkland Islands. "Let not injudicious admiration mistake the
venom of the shift for the vigour of the bow," is said by Johnson
of Junius: and Walpole says of Johnson, that "he destroys more
enemies by the weight of his shield, than with the point of his
spear."

13. There is a host of small facts which might be adduced in
support of what I have advanced. Any one who has leisure to
examine the voluminous works of Walpole, and who can lend his
mind to the inquiry, will find them crowd upon him. Let me
mention one well known occurrence.

Junius says, in the postscript of a private note to Mr. Woodfall,
Beware of David Garrick. He was sent to pump you, and went
directly to Richmond to tell the King I should write no more." He
then directed Woodfall to send the following note to Garrick, but
not in the handwriting of Junius:-"I am very exactly informed of
your impertinent inquiries, and of the information you so busily
sent to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation it was
received. I knew every particular of it the next day. Now, mark
me, vagabond! Keep to your pantomimes, or be assured you shall
hear of it. Meddle no more, thou busy informer! It is in my
power to make you curse the hour in which you dared to interfere
with Junius." (19)

Mr. Woodfall remarks on this, that Garrick had received a letter
from Woodfall, (the editor of the newspaper in which the letters
of Junius first appeared,) before the above-note of Junius was
sent to the printer, in which Garrick was told, in confidence,
that there were some doubts whether Junius would continue to
write much longer. Garrick flew with the intelligence to Mr.
Remus, one of the pages to the King, who immediately conveyed it
to his Majesty, at that time residing at Richmond; and from the
peculiar sources of information that were open to this
extraordinary writer, Junius was apprised of the whole
transaction on the ensuing morning, and wrote the above
postscript, and the letter that follows it, in consequence. Now
all that appears to Mr. Woodfall the younger. to be so wonderful
in these circumstances is very easily explained, if we suppose
Walpole to have been Junius. Strawberry Hill is very near
Richmond Park, and Walpole had many acquaintances amongst those
who were about the King; whilst his friend, Mrs. Clive, the
actress, who lived in the adjoining house to his own, and her
brother, Mr. Raftor, who frequently visited her, both belonged to
Garrick's company.

But I have extended this letter too far. My purpose was merely
to invite your attention to a subject of some literary interest,
which you have peculiar opportunities of examining; and to enable
you, if you should think fit, to draw to it the attention of the
public also. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, CHAS. EDW. GREY.
20.
Albemarle Street, October 24, 1840.

(13) Woodfall's Junius, vol. i. p. 385.

(14) Ibid. p. 312.

(15) Ibid. p. 311.

(16) Ibid., vol. ii. p. 131.

(17) Ibid.,vol. i. p. 454.

(18) Walpole's Works, vol. iv. p. 361.

(19) Junius, Vol. i. P. 228.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE of HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD:
BY LORD DOVER. (20)

Any one who attempts to become a biographer of Horace Walpole
must labour under the disadvantage of following a greater master
in the art; namely, Sir Walter Scott, whose lively and agreeable
account of this Author, contained in his "Lives of the
Novelists," is well known and deservedly admired. As, however,
the greater part of Walter Scott's pages is devoted to a very
able criticism of the only work of fiction produced by Walpole,
"The Castle of Otranto," it has been thought, that a more general
sketch of his life and writings might not prove unacceptable to
the reader.

Horace Walpole was the third and youngest son (21) of that
eminent minister, Sir Robert Walpole-the glory of the Whigs, the
preserver of the throne of these realms to the present Royal
Family, and under whose fostering rule and guidance the country
flourished in peace for more than twenty years. The elder
brothers of Horace were, Robert, Lord Walpole, so created in
1723, who succeeded his father in the Earldom of Orford in 1745,
and died in 1751; and Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the Bath,
whose three natural daughters were, Mrs. Keppel, wife to the
Honourable Frederick Keppel, Bishop of Exeter; the Countess of
Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester; and the Countess of
Dysart. Sir Edward Walpole died in 1784. His sisters were,
Catherine, who died of consumption at the age of nineteen; and
Mary, married to George, Viscount Malpas, afterwards third Earl
of Cholmondeley: she died in 1732. The mother of Horace, and of
his brothers and sisters here mentioned, was Catherine Shorter,
daughter of John Shorter, Esq. of Bybrook, in Kent, and grand-
daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London in 1688. (22)
She died in 1736; and her youngest son, who always professed the
greatest veneration for her memory, erected a monument to her in
Westminster Abbey, in one of the side aisles of Henry the
Seventh's Chapel. Horace Walpole had also a half-sister, the
natural daughter of his father, by his mistress, Maria Skerrett,
whom he afterwards married. She also was named Mary Walpole, and
married Colonel Charles Churchill, the natural son of General
Churchill; who was himself a natural son of an older brother of
the great Duke of Marlborough.

Horace Walpole was born October 5th, 1717 (23) and educated a
Eton School, and at King's College, Cambridge. Upon leaving the
latter place, he set out on his travels on the Continent, in
company with Gray the poet, with whom he had formed a friendship
at school. They commenced their journey in March 1739, and
continued abroad above two years. Almost the whole of this time
was spent in Italy, and nearly a year of it was devoted to
Florence; where Walpole was detained by the society of his
friends, Mr. Mann, Mr. Chute, and Mr. Whithed. It was in these
classic scenes, that his love of art, and taste for elegant and
antiquarian literature, became more developed; and that it took
such complete possession of him as to occupy the whole of his
later life, diversified only by the occasional amusement of
politics, or the distractions of society. Unfortunately, the
friendship of Walpole and his travelling companion could not
survive two years of constant intercourse: they quarrelled and
parted at Reggio, in July 1741, and afterwards pursued their way
homewards by different routes. (24)

Walpole arrived in England in September 1741, at which time his
correspondence with Sir Horace Mann commences. He had been
chosen member for Callington, in the parliament which was elected
in June of that year, and arrived in the House of Commons just in
time to witness the angry discussions which preceded and
accompanied the downfall of his father's administration. He
plunged at once into the excitement of political partisanship
with all the ardour of youth, and all the zeal which his filial
affection for his father inspired. His feelings at this period
are best explained by a reference to his letters in the following
collection. Public business and attendance upon the House of
Commons, apart from the interest attached to peculiar questions,
he seems never to have liked. He consequently took very little
part either in debates or committees. In March 1742, on a motion
being made for an inquiry into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole
for the preceding ten years, he delivered his maiden speech; (25)
on which he was complimented by no less a judge of oratory than
Pitt. This speech he has preserved in his letter to Sir Horace
Mann, of March 24th, 1742. He moved the Address in 1751; and in
1756 made a speech on the question of employing Swiss regiments
in the colonies. This speech he has also himself preserved in
the second volume of his "Memoires." In 1757 he was active in
his endeavours to save the unfortunate Admiral Byng. Of his
conduct upon this occasion he has left a detailed account of his
"Memoires." This concludes all that can be collected of his
public life, and at the general election of 1768 (26) he finally
retired from parliament.

Upon this occasion he writes thus to George Montagu,-" As my
senatorial dignity is gone, I shall not put you to the expense of
a cover; and I hope the advertisement will not be taxed, as I
seal it to the paper. In short, I retain so much iniquity from
the last infamous parliament, that, you see, I would still cheat
the public. The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here,
instead of being at Lynn, in the high fever of a contested
election, which, at best, Would end in my being carried about
that large town, like a figure of a pope at a bonfires is very
great. I do not think, when that function is over, that I shall
repent my resolution. What could I see but sons and grandsons
playing over the same knaveries that I have seen their fathers
and grandfather's act? Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord
Chatham's? Will there ever be parts equal to Charles Towns@ends?
Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of beings?"
(27)

>From this time Walpole devoted himself more than ever to his
literary and antiquarian pursuits; though the interest he still,
in society at least, took in politics, is obvious, from the
frequent reference to the subject in his letters.

In the course of his life, his political opinions appear to have
undergone a great change. In his youth, and indeed till his old
age, he was not only a strenuous Whig, but, at times, almost a
Republican. How strong his opinions were in this sense may be
gathered, both from the frequent confessions of his political
faith, which occur in his letters, and from his reverence for the
death-warrant of Charles the First, of which he hung up the
engraving in his bed-room, and wrote upon it with his own hand
the words "Major Charta." The horrors of the French Revolution
drove him, in the latter period of his life, into other views of
politics; and he seems to have become, in theory at least, a
Tory, though he probably would have indignantly repudiated the
appellation, had it been applied to him.

Even during the earlier part of his career, his politics had
varied a good deal (as, indeed, in a long life, whose do not?);
but, in his case, the cause of variation was a most amiable one.
His devoted attachment to Marshal Conway, which led him, when
that distinguished man was turned out of his command of a
regiment, and of his place at court, in 1764, (28) to offer, with
much earnestness, to divide his fortune with him caused him also
to look with a favourable eye upon the government of the day,
whenever Mr. Conway was employed, and to follow him implicitly in
his votes in the House of Commons. Upon this subject he writes
thus to Conway, who had not told him beforehand of a speech he
made on the Qualification Bill, in consequence of which Walpole
was absent from the House of Commons upon that occasion--"I don't
suspect you of any reserve to me; I only mention it now for an
occasion Of telling YOU, that I don't like to have any body think
that I would not do whatever you do. I am of no consequence;
but, at least, it would give me some to act invariably with you,
and that I shall most certainly be ever ready to do." (29) Upon
another occasion he writes again in a similar strain:-"My only
reason for writing is, to repeat to you, that whatever you do, I
shall act with you. I resent any thing done to you as to myself.
My fortunes shall never be separated from yours, except that,
some day or other, I hope yours will be great, and I am content
with mine." (30)

Upon one political point Horace Walpole appears to have
entertained from the first the most just views, and even at a
time when such were not sanctioned by the general opinion of the
nation. From its very commencement, he objected to that
disastrous contest the American war, which, commenced in ignorant
and presumptuous folly, was prolonged to gratify the wicked
obstinacy of individuals, and ended, as Walpole had foretold it
would, in the discomfiture of its authors, and the national
disgrace and degradation, after a profuse and useless waste of
blood and treasure. Nor must his sentiments upon the Slave Trade
be forgotten-sentiments which he held, too, in an age when, far
different from the present one, the Assiento Treaty, and other
horrors of the same kind, were deemed, not only justifiable, but
praiseworthy. "We have been sitting," he writes, on the 25th of
February 1750, "this fortnight on the African Company. We, the
British Senate, that temple of Liberty, and bulwark of Protestant
Christianity, have, this fortnight, been considering methods to
make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes. It
has appeared to us, that six-and-forty thousand of these wretches
are sold every year to our plantations alone! It chills one's
blood-I would not have to say I voted for it, for the continent
of America! The destruction of the miserable inhabitants by the
Spaniards was but a momentary misfortune that flowed from the
discovery of the New World, compared to this lasting havoc which
it brought upon Africa. We reproach Spain, and yet do not even
pretend the nonsense of butchering the poor creatures for the
good of their souls." (31)

One of the most favourite pursuits of Walpole was the building
and decoration of his Gothic villa of Strawberry Hill. It is
situated at the end of the village of Twickenham, towards
Teddington, on a slope, which gives it a fine view of the reach
of the Thames and the opposite wooded hill of Richmond Park. He
bought it in 1747, of Mrs. Chenevix, the proprietress of a
celebrated toy-shop. He thus describes it in a letter of that
year to Mr. Conway. "You perceive by my date that I am got into
a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little
plaything-house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is
the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled
meadows, with filigree hedges:-

'A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little finches wave their wings of gold.'

Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me
continually with coaches and chaises; barges, as solemn as barons
of the exchequer, move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham
Walks bound my prospects; but, thank God! the Thames is between
me and the Duchess of Queensberry. (32) Dowagers, as plenty as
flounders, inhabit all around; and Pope's ghost is just now
skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight." (33)

He commenced almost immediately adding to the house, and
Gothicizing it, assisted by the taste and designs of his friend
Mr. Bentley; till, in the end, the cottage of Mrs. Chenevix had
increased into the castellated residence we now behold. He also
filled it with collections of various sorts-books, prints,
pictures, portraits, enamels, and miniatures, antiquities, and
curiosities of all kinds. Among these miscellaneous hoards are
to be found some fine works of art, and many things most valuable
in an historical and antiquarian point of view. For these
various expenses he drew upon his annual income, which arose from
three patent places conferred on him by his father, of which the
designations were, Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the
Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats. As early as the year 1744,
these sinecures produced to him, according to his own account,
nearly two thousand a-year; and somewhat later, the one place of
Usher of Exchequer rose in value to double this sum. This
income, with prudent management, sufficed for the gratification
of his expensive tastes of building and collecting, to which his
long life was devoted.

With regard to the merits of Strawberry Hill, as a building, it
is perhaps unfair, in the present age, when the principles of
Gothic architecture have been so much studied, and so often put
in practice, to criticise it too severely. Walpole himself, who,
in the earlier part of his life, seems to have had an unbounded
admiration for the works of his own hands, appears in later times
to have been aware of the faults in style of which he had been
guilty; for, in a letter to Mr. Barrett, in 1788, he says, "If
Mr. Matthews was really entertained" (with seeing Strawberry
Hill), "I am glad. But Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth
not to have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my
attempts; for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the
science, and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider
that I should please myself more by allowing time, than by
hurrying my plans into execution before they were ripe. My
house, therefore, is but a sketch for beginners; yours (34) is
finished by a great master; and if Mr. Matthews liked mine, it
was en virtuose, who loves the dawnings of an art, or the
glimmerings of its restoration." (35)

In fact, the building of Strawberry Hill was "the glimmering of
the restoration" of gothic architecture, which had previously,
for above a century, been so much neglected that its very
principles seemed lost. If we compare the Gothic of Strawberry
Hill with that of buildings about the same period, or a little
anterior to it, we shall see how vastly superior it is to them,
both in its taste and its decorations. If we look at some of the
restorations of our churches of the beginning of the eighteenth
century , we shall find them a most barbarous mixture of Gothic
forms and Grecian and Roman ornaments. Such are the western
towers of Westminster Abbey, designed by Wren; the attempts at
Gothic, by the same architect, in one or two of his City
churches; Gibbs's quadrangle of All Souls' College, Oxford; and
the buildings in the same style of Kent, Batty, Langley, etc. To
these Strawberry is greatly superior: and it must be observed,
that Walpole himself, in his progressive building, went on
improving and purifying his taste. Thus the gallery and
round-tower at Strawberry Hill, which were among his latest
works, are incomparably the best part of the house; and in their
interior decorations there is very little to be objected to, and
much to be admired.

It were to be wished, indeed, that Walpole's haste to finish, to
which he alludes in the letter just quoted, and perhaps also, in
some degree, economy, had not made him build his castle, which,
with all its faults, is a curious relic of a clever and ingenious
man, with so little solidity, that it is almost already in a
state of decay. Lath and plaster, and wood, appear to have been
his favourite materials for construction; which made his friend
Williams (36) say of him, towards the end of his life, "that he
had outlived three sets of his own battlements." It is somewhat
curious, as a proof of the inconsistency of the human mind, that,
having built his castle with so little view to durability,
Walpole entailed the perishable possession with a degree of
strictness, which would have been more fitting for a baronial
estate. And that, too, after having written a fable entitled
"The Entail," in consequence, of some one having asked him
whether he did not intend to entail Strawberry Hill, and in
ridicule of such a proceeding.

Whether Horace Walpole conferred a benefit upon the public by
setting the fashion of applying the Gothic style of architecture
to domestic purposes, may be doubtful; so greatly has the example
he gave been abused in practice since. But, at all events, he
thus led the professors of architecture to study with accuracy
the principles of the art, which has occasioned the restoration
and preservation in such an admirable manner of so many of our
finest cathedrals. colleges, and ancient Gothic and conventual
buildings. This, it must be at least allowed, was the fortunate
result of the rage for Gothic, which succeeded the building of
Strawberry Hill. For a good many years after that event, every
new building was pinnacled and turreted on all sides, however
little its situation, its size, or its uses might seem to fit it
for such ornaments. Then, as fashion is never constant for any
great length of' time, the taste of the public rushed at once
upon castles; and loopholes, and battlements, and heavy arches,
and buttresses appeared in every direction. Now the fancy of the
time has turned as madly to that bastard kind of architecture,
possessing, however, many beauties, which compounded of the
Gothic, Castellated, and Grecian or Roman, is called the
Elizabethan, or Old English. No villa, no country-house, no
lodge in the outskirts of London, no box of a retired tradesman
is now built, except in some modification of this style. The
most ludicrous situations and the most inappropriate destinations
do not deter any one from pointing his gables, and squaring his
bay-windows, in the most approved Elizabethan manner. And this
vulgarizing and lowering Of the Old English architecture, by over
use, is sure, sooner or later, to lose its popularity, and to
cause it to be contemned and neglected, like its predecessors.
All these different styles, if properly applied, have their
peculiar merits. In old English country-houses, which have
formerly been conventual buildings, the gothic style may be, with
great propriety, introduced. On the height of Belvoir or in
similar situations, nothing could be devised so appropriate as
the castellated; and in additions to, or renovations of old
manor-houses the Elizabethan may be, with equal advantage,
adopted. It is the injudicious application of all three which
has been, and is sure to be, the occasion of their fall in public
favour.

The next pursuit of Walpole, to -which it now becomes desirable
to advert, are his literary labours, and the various publications
with which, at different periods of his life, he favoured the
world. His first effort appears to have been a copy of verses,
written at Cambridge. His poetry is generally not of a very high
order; lively, and with happy turns and expressions, but injured
frequently by a sort of quaintness, and a somewhat inharmonious
rhythm. Its merits, however, exactly fitted it for the purpose
which it was for the most part intended for; namely, as what are
called vers de soci`et`e." (37) Among the best of his verses may
be mentioned those "On the neglected Column in the Place of St.
Mark, at Florence," which contains some fine lines; his
"Twickenham Register;" and "The Three Vernons."

In 1752 he published his "Edes Walpolianae," or description of
the family seat' of Houghton Hall, in Norfolk, where his father
had built a palace, and had made a fine collection of pictures,
which were sold by his grandson George, third Earl of Orford, to
the Empress Catherine of Russia. This work, which is, in fact, a
mere catalogue of pictures, first showed the peculiar talent of
Horace Walpole for enlivening, by anecdote and lightness of
style, a dry subject. This was afterwards still more exemplified
in his "Anecdotes of Painting in England," of which the different
volumes were published in 1761, 1763, and 1771; and in the
"Catalogue of Engravers," published in 1763. These works were
compiled from papers of Vertue, the engraver; but Walpole, from
the stores of his own historical knowledge, from his taste in the
fine arts, and his happy manner of sketching characters, rendered
them peculiarly his own. But his masterpiece in this line was
his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," originally published
in 1758. It is very true, as Walter Scott observes, that "it
would be difficult, by any process or principle of subdivision,
to select a list of so many plebeian authors, containing so very
few whose genius was worthy of commemoration." (38) But this
very circumstance renders the merit of Walpole the greater, in
having, out of such materials, composed a work which must be read
with amusement and interest, as long as liveliness of diction and
felicity in anecdote are considered ingredients of amusement in
literature.