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as no heathen philosopher ever before possessed. His own candid and manly understanding is, we have no doubt, well prepared for the more full reception of the Truth; and in him, we would fain hope, Providence has at last raised up one destined to work great things for India.

NINE UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF
HORACE WALPOLE.

THE recent publication of Horace Walpole's correspondence with his friend, a man of fashion, which soon excited curiosity, at the same time highly gratified public taste. That exquisite letter-writer, in a manner quite his own, "caught the Cynthia of the minute;" events so fugitive, that they scarcely can be deemed events, and personages of such slight appearances, that they would have proved impalpable under a less ethereal pen. With a truth of nature he has communicated just that sort of interest which we cannot refuse him. More or less had been fatal: less, and all would have been flatness; more, and he would have turned out that most intolerable of all triflers, a serious one. There is a feminine delicacy in the character of our letter-writer, for which we might distinguish him as the Madame Sevigné of men; but his abounding wit, his polished sarcasm, and the entire absence of all sympathy for any human being, has enabled him to prove at once his sex and his originality. But we must not forget that Horace Walpole was a literary character, and we regretted a deficiency, in that volume, of his literary correspondence. We wish to see it supplied, because we have reason to be lieve the thing is obtainable. We have already had specimens of this nature, which have only whetted our appetite. These will be found published about four years ago in Mr D'Israeli's "Calamities of Authors." In that work, among many other original discoveries concerning those authors who formed the subjects of his inquiries, we find the literary character of Horace Walpole struck out with great originality and truth, from a perusal of a considerable correspondence Walpole held for twenty years with the literary antiquary Cole, who left his collections, where all such

collections ought to be left, to our great national depositary, the British Museum. It is but justice to Mr D'Israeli, to acknowledge, that he appears to have been the first who discovered the peculiar talent of our letter-writer; for, after rather a severe estimate of his literary character, he adds: "His most pleasing, if not his great talent, lay in letter-writing: here he was without a rival." We may consider this critical decision as a sort of prophecy, which the large volume, recently published, has most amply verified.

We have just received some of these letters, transcribed from their originals; but we observe, that none of them appear to have been those from which Mr D'Israeli offers so many passages to shew "how he delighted to ridicule authors, and to starve the miserable artists he so grudgingly paid;" and how "barrelled with and ridiculed every man of genius he personally knew ;" and how "he who had contemned Sidney, &c. at length came to scorn himself."* There must therefore remain behind these no inconsiderable number: the admirable one in our last appears to have been drawn from the same source.

Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. DEAR SIR,-I had time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto.

Your partiality to me and Strawberry, have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of this place. When you read of the picture quitting its pannel, did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland all in white in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you what was the origin of this romance? I waked one morning in the beginning of last June from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head, filled, like mine, with gothic story), and that in the uppermost bannister of a great staircase, I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sate down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work

* See the whole character, designed to illustrate the pains of fastidious egotism," in "Calamities of Authors." Vol. i. p. 100.

grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it.-Add, that I was very glad to think of any thing rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months*, that one evening I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour af ter one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left off Matilda and Isabella talking in the middle of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you, by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as idle as you please.

My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that Zongs to them. Ma dame Danois, in the fairy tales, used to tapestry them with jonquils, but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback. I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old fashioned galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you and I and Tom Hearne know was a labyrinth; but as my territory will admit of a very short clue, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation, though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know and don't know what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories and drawling stanzas to get at a picture † ; but good night! See how

In a little volume entitled Walpoliana, edited by Mr Pinkerton, and probably containing some, perhaps many genuine things which fell from Walpole in conversation, he is made to say, "I wrote the Castle of Otranto in eight days, or rather eight nights, for my general hours of composition are from ten o'clock at night till two in the morning, when I am sure not to be disturbed by visitants." Thus are wonderful stories propagated in conversation by the vanity of the author, and the wondering of the literati, that serve for Anas! or printed

conversaziones.

To judge by the intolerable mediocrity of Walpole's own verses, one conceives how such a man might be afraid to go and read Spenser, the poet of poets!

one gossips when one is alone and quiet on one's own dunghill. Well, it may be trifling, yet it is such trifling as ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower. Yours ever,

H. W.

1769.

"HAVE you seen Granger's Supplement? Methinks it grows too diffuse. I have hinted to him that fewer panegyrics from funeral sermons would not hurt it. There are few copies printed but on one side of the leaf. To my mortification, though I have four thousand heads, I find, upon a rough calculation, that I still want three or four hundred."

It appears that Granger received only £100, to the times of Charles I.

and the rest to depend on public favour, for the continuation. Walpole seems to have been doubtful of its success, from the small number of collectors then, though he hopes that the anecdotic part of it will make it more known and tasted."

After the death of Granger, he writes, "Granger's papers have been purchased by Lord Mountstuart, who has the portrait-frenzy as well as I; and though I am the head of the sect, I have no longer the rage of propagating it; nor would I on any account take the trouble of revising and publishing the MSS.

drowned his taste for portraits in the Mr Granger has ocean of biography; and though he began with elucidating prints, he at last only sought prints, that he might write the lives of those they represented. His work was grown, and growing so voluminous, that an abridgement only could have made it useful to collectors."*

Arington Street, Jan. 28, 1772. MR MASON has shewn me the relicks of poor Mr Gray. I am sadly disappointed at finding them so very y incon

* An abridgement of Granger would only have been committing an injury with, Granger; but the desired object for the mere collector, has since been obtained by Bromby's "Catalogue of Engraved Portraits," a valuable book for its size and completeness.

even a scrap.

no.

siderable. He always persisted, when
I enquired about his writings, that he
had nothing by him. I own I doubt
ed. I am grieved he was so very near
exact. Since given to the world for 12
guineas! Gray valued them as
thing," and Mason would not publish
I speak of my own satis-
faction. As to his genius, what he pub-
lished during his life will establish his
fame as long as our language lasts, and
there is a man of genius left. There
is a silly fellow, I do not know who,
that has published a volume of letters
on the English nation, with characters
of our modern authors. He has talk-
ed such nonsense of Mr Gray, that I
have no patience with the compliments
he has paid me. He must have an
excellent taste! and gives me a woful
opinion of my own trifles, when he
likes them, and cannot see the beau-
ties of a poet that ought to be ranked
in the first line. I am more humbled
by any applause in the present age,
than by hosts of such critics as Dr
Mills. Is not Garrick reckoned a to-
lerable author, though he has proved
how little sense is necessary to form a
great actor! His Cymon, his prologues
and epilogues, and forty such pieces of
trash, are below mediocrity, and yet
delight the mob in the boxes, as well
as in the footman's gallery. I do not
mention the things written in his
praise, because he writes most of them
himself. But you know any one po-
pular merit can confer all merit. Two
women talking of Wilkes, one said he
squinted; the other replied, "Well,
if he does, it is not more than a man
should squint." For my part, I can
see extremely well how Garrick acts,
without thinking him six feet high.
It is said that Shakspeare was a bad
actor. Why do not his divine plays
make our wise judges conclude that
he was a good one? They have not a
proof of the contrary as they have in
Garrick's works-but what is it to you
or me what he is? We may see him
act with pleasure, and nothing obliges
us to read his writings. Adieu, dear
sir, yours most truly,
H. W.

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artful and judicious: He has framed
the fragments, as a person said, so
well, that they are fine drawings, if
not finished pictures. For my part I
am so interested in it, that I shall cer-
I do not
tainly read it over and over.
find that this is likely to be the case
with many yet. Never was a book
which people pretended to expect with
so much impatience, less devoured-
at least in London, where quartos are
not of quick digestion. Faults are
found, I hear, at Eton, with the Latin
poems for false quantities-no matter,
they are equal to the English. Can
one say more?

"At Cambridge, I should think, the book would offend much, and please, at least if they are sensible to humour, as to ill-humour. And there is orthodoxy enough to wash down a camel. The Scotch, or the Reviewers will be still more angry, and the latter have not a syllable to pacify them ; so they who wait for their decisions, will probably miss of reading one of the most entertaining books in the world-a punishment which they who trust to such wretched judges deserve; for who are more contemptible than such judges, but they who give their faith to them?"

In a subsequent letter, Horace Walpole adds on Gray:

I find more people like the grave letters than those of humour; and some think the latter a little affected, which is as wrong judgment as they could make; for Gray never wrote any thing easily, but things of humour.Humour was his natural and original turn, and though, from his childhood, he was grave and reserved, his genius led him to see things ludicrously and satyrically, and though his health and dissatisfaction gave him low spirits, his melancholy turn was much more affected than his pleasantry in writing. You knew him enough to know I am in the right; but the world, in general, always wants to be told how to think, as well as what to think.

It

"The print, I agree with you, though like, is a very disagreeable likeness, and the worst likeness of him. gives the primness he had when under constraint. It just serves to help the reader to an image of the person, whose genius and integrity they must admire, if they are so happy as to have a taste for either."

H. W.

Cole had observed of Gray's print, "It gives him a sharpness, a snappishness, a fierceness, that was not his common feature, though it might occasionally be so. The print of him by Mr Mason, and since copied by Henshaw, conveys a much stronger idea of him.

May 22, 1777. "THE beauty of Kings College, Cambridge, now it is restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it. Though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasure, or rather pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, still books, antiquity, and virtue, kept hold of a corner of my heart, and since necessity has forced me of late years to be a man of business, my disposition tends to be a recluse for what remains -but it will not be my lot. And though there is some excuse for the young doing what they like, I doubt an old man should do nothing but what he ought; and I hope doing one's duty is the best preparation for death. Sitting with one's arms folded to think about it, is a very long way of preparing for it. If Charles V. had

resolved to make some amends for his abominable ambition, by doing good (his duty as a king), there would have been infinitely more merit, than going to doze in a convent. One may avoid active guilt in a sequestered life, but the virtue of it is merely negative, though innocence is beautiful.

"Were my course to recommence, and could one think in youth as one does at 65, I have a notion that I should have courage to appear as an author. Do you know, too, that I look on fame now, as the idlest of all

visions? but this theme would lead me too far. I have always lived post, and shall now die before I can bait.

H. WALPOLE."

Strawberry Hill, March 28, 1779. I HAVE been much amused with new travels through Spain, by a Mr Swinburne at least with the account of the Alhambra, of the minor parts of which there are two beautiful prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had most taste, of any people in the Gothic ages, and I hate the knave Ferdinand and his bigotted queen for destroying them. These new travels VOL. IV.

are simple, and do tell one a little more than late voyagers, by whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but Muleteers and Fandangos. In truth, there does not seem to be much worth seeing but prospectsand those, unless I were a bird, I would never visit, when the accommodations are so wretched.

Mr Cumberland has given the town a masque, called Calypso, which is a prodigy of dulness. Would you believe that such a sentimental writer would be so gross as to make Cantharides one of the ingredients of the love potion for enamouring Telemayou think I exaggerate, here

chus? If

are the lines,

To these the hot Hispanian fly Shall bid his languid pulse beat high. Proteus and Antiope are Minerva's missioners for securing the prince's virtue, and, in recompense, they are married and crowned king and queen. fine design of a chimney piece, by I have bought at Hudson's sale a Holbein, for Henry 8th. If I had a

room left I would erect it. It is cerHolbein-room, but there is a great tainly not so Gothic as that in my deal of taste for that bastard style.

I do intend, under Mr Essex's inspection, to begin my offices next to return to brick and mortar, but I spring. It is late in my day, I confess, shall be glad to perfect my plan, or the next possessor will marry my castle to a Doric stable. There is a perin the Alhambra, that might easily be spective through two or three rooms improved into Gothic, though there seems but small affinity between them, and they might be finished within bits of ordinary marble, as there must with Dutch tiles and painting, or been their chief ornament, for walls, be gilding. Mosaic seems to have Ceilings, and floors. Fancy must sport in the furniture, and mottoes might be gallant, and would be very Arabesque. I would have a mixture of colours, but with strict attention to harmony and taste; and some one should predominate, as supposing it to be the favourite colour of the lady who was sovereign of the knight's affections who built the house. Carpets are classically Mahometan, and Fountains,—but alas! our climate, till last summer, was never romantic! Were I not so old, I would at least build-a Moorish

U

novel-for you see my head runs on Granada-and by taking the most picturesque parts of the Mahometan and Catholic religions, and with the mixture of African and Spanish names, one might make something very agreeable,—at least, I will not give the hint to Mr Cumberland. Adieu!

Berkeley Square, Feb. 5, 1780. I HAVE been turning over the new second volume of the Biographia, and find the additions very poor and lean performances. The lives, entirely new, are partial and flattering, being contributions of the friends of those whose lives are recorded. This publication, made at a time when I have lived to see several of my contemporaries deposited in this national temple of Fame, has made me smile, and made me reflect that many preceding authors, who have been installed there with much respect, may have been as trifling personages as those we have known, and now behold consecrated to memory. Three or four have struck me particularly, as Dr Birch, who was a worthy good-natured soul, full of industry and activity, and running about, like a young setting-dog, in quest of any thing new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment. Then there is Dr Blackwell, the most impertinent literary coxcomb upon earth. But the editor has been so just, as to insert a very merited satire on his Court of Augustus. The third is Dr Browne, that mountebank, who for a little time made as much noise by his Estimate, as ever quack did by a nostrum. I do not know whether I ever told you how much I was struck the only time I ever saw him. You know one object of the anathemas of his Estimate, was the Italian opera. Yet did I find him, one evening in Passion week, accompanying some of the Italian singers at a concert at Lady Carlisle's. A clergyman, no doubt, is not obliged to be on his knees the whole week before Easter, and music and a concert are harmless amusements; but when Cato or Calvin are out of character, reformation becomes ridiculous. But poor Dr Browne was mad, and therefore might be in earnest, whether he played the fool or the reformer.

You recollect, perhaps, the threat of Dr Kippis to me, which is to be executed on my father, for my calling

the first edition of the Biographia the Vindicatio Britannica. But observe how truth emerges at last! In this new volume, he confesses that the article of Lord Arlington, which I had specified as one of the most censurable, is the one most deserving that censure, and that the character of Lord Arlington is palliated beyond all truth or reason. Words stronger than mine. Yet mine deserved to draw vengeance on my father! So a presbyterian divine invents divine judgment, and visits the sins of the children on the parents!

Cardinal Beaton's character, softened in the first edition, gentle Dr Kippis pronounces extremely detestable. Yet was I to blame for hinting at such defects in that work! and yet my words are quoted to shew that Lord Orrery's poetry was ridiculously bad. In like manner, Mr, Dr Cumberland, who assumes the whole honour of publishing his grandfather's Lucan, and does not deign to mention its being published at Strawberry Hill, (though, by the way, I believe it will be oftener purchased for having been printed there, than for wearing Mr Cumberland's name to the dedication.) And yet he quotes me for having praised his ancestor in one of my publications. These little instances of pride and spleen divert me, and then make me sadly reflect on human weaknesses. I am very apt myself to like what flatters my opinions or passions, and to reject scornfully what thwarts them, even in the same persons. The longer one lives, the more one discovers one's own uglinesses in the features of others.-Yours ever, H. WALPOLE.

P. S.-I remember two other instances where my impartiality, or at least my sincerity, have exposed me to double censure. Many, perhaps you, condemned my severity on Charles I. Yet the late Mr Hollis wrote against me in the newspapers, for condemning the republicans for their destruction of ancient monuments. Some blamed me for undervaluing the Flemish and Dutch painters in my preface to the Edes Walpolianæ. Barry, the painter, because I laughed at his extravagancies, says, in his rejection of that school, "But I leave them to be admired by the Hon. H. W. and such judges." Would not one think I had been their champion?

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