EVERY reader of taste will feel regret on arriving at the close of the foregoing pages ;-the quantity is, indeed, so small, as scarcely to make a volume. To this edition are therefore added, the LETTERS (not being found in the larger collections of his Correspondence) which are scattered up and down the WALPOLIANA; and the remainder of that work has, with some trifling exceptions, and a slight change of arrangement, been printed as a companion to the REMINISCENCES.

London, April, 1819.

LETTERS.

I.

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.

Berkeley-square, Dec. 1st, 1781.

I AM truly sensible of, and grateful for, your lordship's benevolent remembrance of me, and shall receive with great respect and pleasure the collection your lordship has been pleased to order to be sent to me. I must admire too, my lord, the generous assistance that you have lent to your adopted children; but more forcibly than all I feel your pathetic expressions on the distress of the public, which is visible even in this extravagant and thoughtless city. The number of houses to be let in every street, whoever runs may read. At the time of your writing your letter, your lordship did not know the accumulation of misfortune and dis. grace that has fallen on us; nor should I wish to be the trumpeter of my country's calamities. Yet as they must float on the surface of the mind, and blend their hue with all its emanations, they suggest this reflection, that there can be no time so proper for the institution of inquiries into past story as

the moment of the fall of an empire-a nation becomes a theme for antiquaries when it ceases to be one for an historian !—and while its ruins are fresh and in legible preservation.

I congratulate your lordship on the discovery of the Scottish monarch's portrait in Suabia, and am sorry you did not happen to specify of which; but I cannot think of troubling your lordship to write again on purpose; I may probably find it mentioned in some of the papers I shall receive.

There is one passage in your lordship's letter, in which I cannot presume to think myself included; and yet, if I could suppose I was, it would look like most impertinent neglect and unworthiness of the honour that your lordship and the society has done me, if I did not at least offer very humbly to obey it. You are pleased to say, my lord, that the members, when authors, have agreed to give copies of such of their works as any way relate to the objects of the institution. Amongst my very trifling publications, I think there are none that can pretend even remotely to that distinction but the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, and the Anecdotes of Painting, in each of which are Scottish authors or artists. If these should be thought worthy of a corner on any shelf of the society's library, I should be proud of sending, at your lordship's command, the original edition of the first. Of the latter I have not a single set left but my own. But I am printing a new edition in octavo, with many additions and corrections, though without cuts, as the former edition was too dear for many artists to purchase. The new I will send when finished, if I could hope it would be accept

able, and your lordship would please to tell me by what channel.

I am ashamed, my lord, to have said so much, or any thing, relating to myself. I ask your pardon too for the slovenly writing of my letter, but my hand is both lame and shaking, and I should but write worse if I attempted transcribing. I have the honour to be, with great respect,

My lord,

Your lordship's most obedient

and obliged humble servant,

HORACE WALPOLE.

P. S. It has this moment started into my mind, my lord, that I have heard that at the old castle at Aubigny, belonging and adjoining to the duke of Richmond's house, there are historic paintings or portraits of the ancient house of Lenox. I recollect too that father Gordon, superior of the Scots, college at Paris, showed me a whole length of queen Mary, young, and which he believed was painted while she was queen of France. He showed me too the original letter she wrote the night before her execution, some deeds of Scottish kings, and one of king (I think Robert) Bruce, remarkable for having no seal appendent, which, father Gordon said, was executed in the time of his so great distress that he was not possessed of a seal. I shall be happy if these hints lead to any investigation of

use.

II.

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.

MY LORD,

Strawberry-hill, May 12, 1783.

I DID not know, till I received the honour of your lordship's letter, that any obstruction had been given to your charter. I congratulate your lordship and the society on the defeat of that opposition, which does not seem to have been a liberal one. The pursuit of national antiquities has rarely been an object, I believe, with any university why should they obstruct others from marching in that track? I have often thought the English Society of Antiquaries have gone out of their way when they meddled with Roman remains, especially if not discovered within our island. Were I to speak out, I should own that I hold most relics of the Romans, that have been found in Britain, of little consequence, unless relating to such emperors as visited us. Provincial armies, stationed in so remote and barbarous a quarter as we were then, acted little, produced little worth being remembered. Tombstones erected to legionary officers and their families, now dignified by the title of Inscriptions; and banks and ditches that surrounded camps, which we understand much better by books and plans than by such faint fragments, are given with much pomp, and tell us nothing new.

Your lordship's new foundation seems