who were then inferior in intelligence | Lord Dover performed his part dilito decent shopkeepers or farmers of gently, judiciously, and without the our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson slightest ostentation. He had two Trulliber, Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir merits which are rarely found together Francis Wronghead, Squire Western, in a commentator. He was content to Squire Sullen, such were the people be merely a commentator, to keep in who composed the main strength of the background, and to leave the forethe Tory party during the sixty years ground to the author whom he had which followed the Revolution. It is undertaken to illustrate. Yet, though true that the means by which the willing to be an attendant, he was by Tories came into power in 1710 were no means a slave; nor did he consider most disreputable. It is true that the it as part of his duty to see no faults manner in which they used their power in the writer to whom he faithfully was often unjust and cruel. It is true and assiduously rendered the humblest that, in order to bring about their literary offices. favourite project of peace, they resorted The faults of Horace Walpole's head to slander and deception, without the and heart are indeed sufficiently glarslightest scruple. It is true that they ing. His writings, it is true, rank as passed off on the British nation a re-high among the delicacies of intellecnunciation which they knew to be in- tual epicures as the Strasburg pies valid. It is true that they gave up the among the dishes described in the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip, in Almanach des Gourmands. But as the a manner inconsistent with humanity | pâté-de-foie-gras owes its excellence to and national honour. But on the great the diseases of the wretched animal question of Peace or War, we cannot which furnishes it, and would be good but think that, though their motives for nothing if it were not made of may have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was beneficial to the

state.

But we have already exceeded our limits. It remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily farewell, and to assure him that, whatever dislike we may feel for his political opinions, we shall always meet him with pleasure on the neutral ground of literature.

HORACE WALPOLE.

(OCTOBER, 1833.) Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany. Now first pubJished from the Originals in the Possession of the Earl of WALDGRAVE. Edited by LORD DOVER. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1833.

WE cannot transcribe this titlepage without strong feelings of regret. 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,

livers preternaturally swollen, so none but an unhealthy and disorganised mind could have produced such literary luxuries as the works of Walpole.

He was, unless we have formed a very erroneous judgment of his character, the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of men. His mind was a

bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations. His features were covered by mask within mask. When the outer disguise of obvious affectation was removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing the real man. He played innumerable parts, and over-acted them all. When he talked misanthropy, he out-Timoned Timon. When he talked philanthropy, he left Howard at an immeasurable distance. He scoffed at courts, and kept a chronicle of their most trifling scandal; at society, and was blown about by its slightest veerings of opinion; at literary fame, and left fair copies of his private letters, with copious notes, to be published after his decease; at rank, and never for a moment forgot that he was an Honourable; at the practice of entail, and tasked the ingenuity of conveyancers

to tie up his villa in the strictest settle

ment.

glass, and from setting up memorials of departed cats and dogs. While he was fetching and carrying the gossip of Kensington Palace and Carlton House, he fancied that he was engaged in politics, and when he recorded that gossip, he fancied that he was writing history.

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little. Serious business was a trifle to him, and trifles were his serious business. To chat with blue stockings, to write little copies of com- He was, as he has himself told us, plimentary verses on little occasions, to fond of faction as an amusement. He superintend a private press, to preserve loved mischief: but he loved quiet; from natural decay the perishable topics and he was constantly on the watch of Ranelagh and White's, to record di- for opportunities of gratifying both his vorces and bets, Miss Chudleigh's ab- tastes at once. He sometimes consurdities and George Selwyn's good trived, without showing himself, to sayings, to decorate a grotesque house disturb the course of ministerial negotiwith pie-crust battlements, to procure ations, and to spread confusion through rare engravings and antique chimney- the political circles. He does not himboards, to match odd gauntlets, to lay self pretend that, on these occasions, out a maze of walks within five acres he was actuated by public spirit; nor of ground, these were the grave em- does he appear to have had any private ployments of his long life. From these advantage in view. He thought it a he turned to politics as to an amuse- good practical joke to set public men ment. After the labours of the print-together by the ears; and he enjoyed shop and the auction-room, he unbent their perplexities, their accusations, his mind in the House of Commons. and their recriminations, as a mali. And, having indulged in the recreation cious boy enjoys the embarrassment of of making laws and voting millions, a misdirected traveller. he returned to more important pursuits, to researches after Queen Mary's comb, Wolsey's red hat, the pipe which Van Tromp smoked during his last sea-fight, and the spur which King William struck into the flank of Sorrel.

About politics, in the high sense of the word, he knew nothing, and cared nothing. He called himself a Whig. His father's son could scarcely assume any other name. It pleased him also to affect a foolish dislike of kings as In every thing in which Walpole kings, and a foolish love and admibusied himself, in the fine arts, in lite- ration of rebels as rebels; and perhaps, rature, in public affairs, he was drawn while kings were not in danger, and by some strange attraction from the while rebels were not in being, he really great to the little, and from the useful believed that he held the doctrines to the odd. The politics in which he which he professed. To go no further took the keenest interests, were politics than the letters now before us, he is scarcely deserving of the name. The perpetually boasting to his friend Mann growlings of George the Second, the of his aversion to royalty and to royal flirtations of Princess Emily with the persons. He calls the crime of Damien Duke of Grafton, the amours of Prince" that least bad of murders, the murder Frederic and Lady Middlesex, the of a king." He hung up in his villa squabbles between Gold Stick in wait- an engraving of the death-warrant of ing and the Master of the Buckhounds, Charles, with the inscription “ Major the disagreements between the tutors Charta." Yet the most superficial of Prince George, these matters en- knowledge of history might have taught gaged almost all the attention which him that the Restoration, and the Walpole could spare from matters more crimes and follies of the twenty-eight important still, from bidding for Zinckes years which followed the Restoration, and Petitots, from cheapening frag-were the effects of this Greater Charter. ments of tapestry and handles of old Nor was there much in the means by lances, from joining bits of painted which that instrument was obtained

that could gratify a judicious lover of had acquired the language of these liberty. A man must hate kings very men, and he repeated it by rote, though bitterly, before he can think it desirable it was at variance with all his tastes that the representatives of the people and feelings; just as some old Jacobite should be turned out of doors by dra- families persisted in praying for the goons, in order to get at a king's head. Pretender, and in passing their glasses Walpole's Whiggism, however, was of over the water decanter when they a very harmless kind. He kept it, as drank the King's health, long after he kept the old spears and helmets at they had become loyal supporters of Strawberry Hill, merely for show. He the government of George the Third. would just as soon have thought of He was a Whig by the accident of hetaking down the arms of the ancient reditary connection; but he was essenTemplars and Hospitallers from the tially a courtier; and not the less a walls of his hall, and setting off on a courtier because he pretended to sneer cru ade to the Holy Land, as of acting at the objects which excited his admiin the spirit of those daring warriors ration and envy. His real tastes perand statesmen, great even in their petually show themselves through the errors, whose names and seals were thin disguise. While professing all affixed to the warrant which he prized the contempt of Bradshaw or Ludlow so highly. He liked revolution and for crowned heads, he took the trouble regicide only when they were a hundred to write a book concerning Royal Auyears old. His republicanism, like the thors. He pryed with the utmost anxcourage of a bully, or the love of a iety into the most minute particulars fribble, was strong and ardent when relating to the Royal family. When there was no occasion for it, and sub- he was a child, he was haunted with a sided when he had an opportunity of longing to see George the First, and bringing it to the proof. As soon as gave his mother no peace till she had the revolutionary spirit really began to found a way of gratifying his curiosity. stir in Europe, as soon as the hatred of The same feeling, covered with a thoukings became something more than a sand disguises, attended him to the sonorous phrase, he was frightened into grave. No observation that dropped a fanatical royalist, and became one of from the lips of Majesty seemed to the most extravagant alarmists of those him too trifling to be recorded. The wretched times. In truth, his talk French songs of Prince Frederic, comabout liberty, whether he knew it or positions certainly not deserving of not, was from the beginning a mere preservation on account of their incant, the remains of a phraseology trinsic merit, have been carefully prewhich had meant something in the served for us by this contemner of mouths of those from whom he had royalty. In truth, every page of Wallearned it, but which, in his mouth, pole's works bewrays him. This Diomeant about as much as the oath by genes, who would be thought to prefer which the Knights of some modern his tub to a palace, and who has nothing orders bind themselves to redress the to ask of the masters of Windsor and wrongs of all injured ladies. He had Versailles but that they will stand out been fed in his boyhood with Whig of his light, is a gentleman-usher at speculations on government. He must heart. often have seen, at Houghton or in Downing Street, men who had been Whigs when it was as dangerous to be a Whig as to be a highwayman, men who had voted for the Exclusion Bill, who had been concealed in garrets and cellars after the battle of Sedgemoor, and who had set their names to the declaration that they would live and die with the Prince of Orange. He

His

He had, it is plain, an uneasy consciousness of the frivolity of his favourite pursuits; and this consciousness produced one of the most diverting of his ten thousand affectations. busy idleness, his indifference to matters which the world generally regards as important, his passion for trifles, he thought fit to dignify with the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself as of

a man whose equanimity was proof to faisait apporter chez lui, et en donnait ambitious hopes and fears, who had à ses amis pour de l'argent." There learned to rate power, wealth, and are several amusing instances of Walfame at their true value, and whom the pole's feeling on this subject in the conflict of parties, the rise and fall of letters now before us. Mann had statesmen, the ebb and flow of public complimented him on the learning opinion, moved only to a smile of which appeared in the "Catalogue of mingled compassion and disdain. It Royal and Noble Authors;" and it is was owing to the peculiar elevation of curious to see how impatiently Walpole his character that he cared about a bore the imputation of having attended pinnacle of lath and plaster more than to any thing so unfashionable as the about the Middlesex election, and about | improvement of his mind. "I know a miniature of Grammont more than nothing. How should I? I who have about the American Revolution. Pitt always lived in the big busy world; and Murray might talk themselves who lie a-bed all the morning, calling hoarse about trifles. But questions of it morning as long as you please; who government and war were too insig-sup in company; who have played at faro nificant to detain a mind which was occupied in recording the scandal of club-rooms and the whispers of the back-stairs, and which was even capable of selecting and disposing chairs of ebony and shields of rhinocerosskin.

half my life, and now at loo till two and three in the morning; who have always loved pleasure; haunted auctions.... How I have laughed when some of the Magazines have called me the learned gentleman. Pray don't be like the Magazines." This folly might be pardoned in a boy. But a man between forty and fifty years old, as Walpole then was, ought to be quite as much ashamed of playing at loo till three every morning as of being that vulgar thing, a learned gentleman.

One of his innumerable whims was an extreme unwillingness to be considered a man of letters. Not that he was indifferent to literary fame. Far from it. Scarcely any writer has ever troubled himself so much about the appearance which his works were to The literary character has undoubtedmake before posterity. But he had ly its full share of faults, and of very seset his heart on incompatible objects.rious and offensive faults. If Walpole He wished to be a celebrated author, had avoided those faults, we could and yet to be a mere idle gentleman, have pardoned the fastidiousness with one of those Epicurean gods of the earth who do nothing at all, and who pass their existence in the contemplation of their own perfections. He did not like to have any thing in common with the wretches who lodged in the little courts behind St. Martin's Church, and stole out on Sundays to dine with their bookseller. He avoided the society of authors. He spoke with lordly contempt of the most distinguished among them. He tried to find out some way of writing books, as M. Jourdain's father sold cloth, without derogating from his character of Gentilhomme. "Lui, marchand? C'est pure médisance: il ne l'a jamais été. Tout ce qu'il faisait, c'est qu'il était fort obligeant, fort officieux; et comme il se connaissait fort bien en étoffes, il en allait choisir de tous les côtés, les

which he declined all fellowship with men of learning. But from those faults Walpole was not one jot more free than the garreteers from whose contact he shrank. Of literary meannesses and literary vices, his life and his works contain as many instances as the life and the works of any member of Johnson's club. The fact is, that Walpole had the faults of Grub Street, with a large addition from St. James's Street, the vanity, the jealousy, the irritability of a man of letters, the affected superciliousness and apathy of a man of ton.

His judgment of literature, of contemporary literature especially, was altogether perverted by his aristocratical feelings. No writer surely was ever guilty of so much false and absurd criticism. He almost invariably

pox in three days." "It will now be scen whether he or they are most patriot."

His love of the French language was of a peculiar kind. He loved it as having been for a century the vehicle of all the polite nothings of Europe, as the sign by which the freemasons of fashion recognised each other in every capital from Petersburgh to Naples, as the language of raillery, as the language of anecdote, as the language of memoirs, as the language of correspondence. Its higher uses he altogether disregarded. The literature of France has been to ours what Aaron was to Moses, the expositor of great truths which would else have perished for want of a voice to utter them with distinctness. The relation which existed between Mr. Bentham and M. Dumont is an exact illustration of the intellectual relation in which the two countries stand to each other. The great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in political But scarcely any

speaks with contempt of those books | is more deeply tainted with Gallician. which are now universally allowed to than that of any other English writer be the best that appeared in his time; with whom we are acquainted. His and, on the other hand, he speaks of composition often reads, for a page writers of rank and fashion as if they together, like a rude translation from were entitled to the same precedence the French. We meet every minute in literature which would have been with such sentences as these, "One allowed to them in a drawing-room. knows what temperaments Annibal In these letters, for example, he says Caracci painted." "The impertinent that he would rather have written the personage!" "She is dead rich." most absurd lines in Lee than Thom-"Lord Dalkeith is dead of the smallson's Seasons. The periodical paper called "The World," on the other hand, was by "our first writers." Who, then, were the first writers of England in the year 1753? Walpole has told us in a note. Our readers will probably guess that Hume, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Johnson, Warburton, Collins, Akenside, Gray, Dyer, Young, Warton, Mason, or some of those distinguished men, were in the list. Not one of them. Our first writers, it seems, were Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bath, Mr. W. Whithed, Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Of these seven personages, Whithed was the lowest in station, but was the most accomplished tuft-hunter of his time. Coventry was of a noble family. The other five had among them two seats in the House of Lords, two seats in the House of Commons, three seats in the Privy Council, a baronetcy, a blue riband, a red riband, about a hundred thousand pounds a year, and not ten pages that are worth reading. The science, are ours. writings of Whithed, Cambridge, Co-foreign nation except France has reventry, and Lord Bath are forgotten.ceived them from us by direct com. Soame Jenyns is remembered chiefly munication. Isolated by our situation, by Johnson's review of the foolish isolated by our manners, we found Essay on the Origin of Evil. Lord truth, but we did not impart it. Chesterfield stands much lower in the France has been the interpreter beestimation of posterity than he would tween England and mankind. have done if his letters had never been published. The lampcons of Sir Charles Williams are now read only by the curious, and, though not with-in proclaiming through Europe the out occasional flashes of wit, have always seemed to us, we must own, very poor performances.

Walpole judged of French literature after the same fashion. He understood and loved the French language. Indeed, he loved it too well. His style

In the time of Walpole, this process of interpretation was in full activity. The great French writers were busy

names of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke. The English principles of toleration, the English respect for personal liberty, the English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good, were making rapid progress. There is scarcely any thing in history so in