: Horace Walpole and His World: Select Passages from His Letters by Walpole Horace Seeley L B Leonard Benton Editor - Walpole Horace 1717-1797 Correspondence

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Introduction--Birth and Parentage--Education--Appointments--Travels--Parliamentary Career--Retirement--Fortune--Strawberry Hill--Collections--Writings--Printing Press--Accession to Title--Death--Character--Political Conduct and Opinions--The Slave Trade--Strikes--Views of Literature--Friendships--Charities--Chatterton--Letters 1

Country Life--Ranelagh Gardens--The Rebel Lords--The Earthquake--A Frolic at Vauxhall--Capture of a Housebreaker--Strawberry Hill--The Beautiful Gunnings--Sterne 33

General Taste for Pleasure--Entertainments at Twickenham and Esher--Miss Chudleigh's Ball--Masquerade at Richmond House--The Gallery at Strawberry Hill--Balls--The Duchess of Queensberry--Petition of the Periwig-makers--Ladies' Head-gear--Almack's--"The Castle of Otranto"--Plans for a Bower--A late Dinner--Walpole's Idle Life--Social Usages 78

The Gout--Visits to Paris--Bath--John Wesley--Bad Weather--English Summers--Quitting Parliament--Madame du Deffand--Human Vanity--The Banks of the Thames--A Subscription Masquerade--Extravagance of the Age--The Pantheon--Visiting Stowe with Princess Amelia--George Montagu--The Countess of Ossory--Powder-Mills Blown up at Hounslow--Distractions of Business and Pleasure 99

Lord Nuneham--Madame de S?vign?--Charles Fox--Mrs. Clive and Cliveden--Goldsmith and Garrick--Dearth of News--Madame de Trop--A Bunch of Grapes--General Election--Perils by Land and Water--Sir Horace Mann--Lord Clive--The History of Manners--A Traveller from Lima--The S?avoir Vivre Club--Reflections on Life--The Pretender's Happiness--Paris Fashions--Madame du Deffand ill--Growth of London--Sir Joshua Reynolds--Change in Manners--Our Climate 124

The American War--Irish Discontent--Want of Money--The Houghton Pictures sold--Removal to Berkeley Square--Ill-health--A Painting by Zoffani--The Rage for News--The Duke of Gloucester--Wilkes--Fashions, Old and New--Mackerel News--Pretty Stories--Madame de S?vign?'s Cabinet--Picture of his Waldegrave Nieces--The Gordon Riots--Death of Madame du Deffand--The Blue Stockings 151

Lady Correspondents--Madame de Genlis--Miss Burney and Hannah More--Deaths of Mrs. Clive and Sir Horace Mann--Story of Madame de Choiseul--Richmond--Queensberry House--Warren Hastings--Genteel Comedy--St. Swithin--Riverside Conceits--Lord North--The Theatre again--Gibbon's History--Sheridan--Conway's comedy--A Turkish War--Society Newspapers--The Misses Berry--Bonner's Ghost--The Arabian Nights--King's College Chapel--Richmond Society--New Arrivals--The Berrys visit Italy--A Farewell Letter 221

Walpole's Love of English Scenery--Richmond Hill--Burke on the French Revolution--The Berrys at Florence--Death of George Selwyn--London Solitude--Repairs at Cliveden--Burke and Fox--The Countess of Albany--Journal of a Day--Mrs. Hobart's Party--Ancient Trade with India--Lady Hamilton--A Boat Race--Return of the Berrys--Horace succeeds to the Peerage--Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris--His Wives--Mary Berry--Closing Years--Love of Moving Objects--Visit from Queen Charlotte--Death of Conway--Final Illness of Horace--His last Letter 262

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HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS WORLD.

Introduction.--Birth and Parentage.--Education.--Appointments.--Travels.--Parliamentary Career.--Retirement.--Fortune.--Strawberry Hill.--Collections.--Writings.--Printing Press.--Accession to Title.--Death.--Character.--Political Conduct and Opinions.--The Slave-Trade.--Strikes.--Views of Literature.--Friendships.--Charities.--Chatterton.--Letters.

We offer to the general reader some specimens of Horace Walpole's correspondence. Students of history and students of literature are familiar with this great mine of facts and fancies, but it is too extensive to be fully explored by those who have not both ample leisure and strong inclination for such employment. Yet most persons, we imagine, would be glad to have some acquaintance with the prince of English letter-writers. Many years have passed since Walter Scott pronounced Walpole's letters to be the best in our language, and since Lord Byron declared them to be incomparable. The fashion in style and composition has changed during the interval almost as often as the fashion in dress: other candidates, too, for fame in the same department have come forward; but no one, we think, has succeeded in setting aside the verdict given, in the early part of our century, by the two most famous writers of their time. Meanwhile, to the collections of letters by Walpole that were known to Scott and Byron have been added several others, no way inferior to the first, which have been published at different periods; besides numerous detached letters, which have come to light from various quarters. In the years 1857-9, appeared a complete edition of Walpole's letters in nine large octavo volumes. The editor of this expressed his confidence that no additions of moment would afterwards be made to the mass of correspondence which his industry had brought together. Yet he proved to be mistaken. In 1865 came out Miss Berry's Journals and Correspondence, containing a large quantity of letters and parts of letters addressed to her and her sister by Walpole, which had not previously been given to the world, as well as several interesting letters to other persons, the manuscripts of which had passed into and remained in Miss Berry's possession. Other letters, too, have made their appearance, singly and incidentally, in more recent publications. The total number of Walpole's published letters cannot now fall much short of three thousand; the earliest of these is dated in November, 1735, the latest in January, 1797. Throughout the intervening sixty years, the writer, to use his own phrase, lived always in the big busy world; and whatever there passed before him, his restless fingers, restless even when stiffened by the gout, recorded and commented on for the amusement of his correspondents and the benefit of posterity. The extant results of his diligence display a full picture of the period, distorted indeed in many places by the prejudices of the artist, but truthful on the whole, and enlivened everywhere by touches of genius. From this mass of narratives and descriptions, anecdotes and good-sayings, criticisms, reflections and raillery, we shall endeavour to make as representative a selection as our limits will permit.

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