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WALPOLE, HORACE. 



WALSINGHAM, SIR FRANCIS. 



508 



Strawberry Hill must be referred to the novelty of the attempt to 

 apply to a modern domestic residence the characteristics of an ancient 

 Btyle. He collected works of art and curiosities of every description 

 to ornament his house and gratify his taste prints, pictures, minia- 

 tures, armour, books, and manuscripts. He was enabled to indulge in 

 these expensive pursuits by the profits of three sinecure offices which 

 his father had obtained for him, namely, usher of the exchequer, 

 comptroller of the pipe, and clerk of the estreats. 



To the tastes of a virtuoso he added those of a man of letters. 

 His earliest compositions were in verse, and though many of them are 

 sprightly and agreeable, they are not imaginative, and evince but little 

 aptness for versification. In 1752 he published hia '^Edes Walpo- 

 liana),' a work of little pretension, being in fact a catalogue of his 

 father's pictures at the family seat of Houghton Hall in Norfolk ; but, 

 like other literary works of the same author, il was consistent with his 

 favourite pursuits and studies, while it ministered to his family pride. 

 In 1761 he commenced the publication of 'Anecdotes of Painting in 

 England,' which were not completed until 1771; and in 1763 he 

 added a 'Catalogue of Engravers.' Both these works were founded 

 upon materials supplied by Vertue, the celebrated engraver, which 

 Walpole worked up into several entertaining volumes of anecdote and 

 criticism upon the fine arts. In 1758 he published his ' Catalogue of 

 Royal and Noble Authors.' In this work he contrived to enliven a 

 long list of peculiarly dull writers with agreeable anecdotes, and a 

 smart and happy style of writing, for which he is remarkable. 



Walpole's celebrated novel, the 'Castle of Otranto,' appeared in 

 1764, as a translation, by William Marshall, from the Italian, of 

 Onuphrio Muralto, which the author intended as an anagram of his 

 own name. This romance, being in a new style, excited various 

 opinions at the time, but it was, on the whole, eminently popular and 

 successful, and is still read with interest as one of our standard novels. 

 Four years later, another work of imagination was published. The 

 tragedy of 'The Mysterious Mother' is founded upon a disgusting 

 tale of incest " more truly horrid even than that of CEdipus," as Walpole 

 himself describes it, and is worked up with great dramatic spirit. 



His next publication was the ' Historic Doubts on the Life and 

 Reign of King Richard III.,' an ingenious and acute examination of 

 the evidence upon which historians have founded their accounts of the 

 principal events of that period. Besides these larger works, he was 

 continually publishing minor compositions, such as various papers in 

 the ' World ' and other periodicals, his ' Essay on Modern Garden- 

 ing,' the 'Hieroglyphic Tales,' and ' Reminiscences of the Courts of 

 George I. and II.' He also prepared ' Memoirs ' of the last ten years 

 of the reign of George II., which were not published until after his 

 death ; and of the first twelve years of the reign of George III., which 

 first appeared, in 4 vols. 8vo, in 1844, &c., under the editorship of Sir 

 Denis lo Marchant. These contain many curious events not recorded 

 elsewhere, but little reliance can bo placed upon them as an historical 

 work, for the author's prejudices and political partialities are too open 

 to entitle his evidence or judgment to much weight. 



But the cleverest aud certainly the most entertaining of all Walpole's 

 writings are his letters, addressed to various friends, collected by him- 

 self, and published at different times since his death. Walter Scott 

 calls him "the best letter-writer in the English language," and Byron 

 speaks of his letters as " incomparable." Another writer remarks that 

 " his epistolary talents have shown our language to be capable of all 

 the charms of the French of Madame de Se'vigne'." No one indeed 

 can fail to be entertained by the inexhaustible fund of anecdote, of 

 gossip, of lively and fanciful conceits, of scandal, and bous-mots, with 

 which nearly every page is enriched. The style is gay and sprightly, 

 and admirably suited for correspondence. Had his letters been the 

 spontaneous communications of a friend unbending his mind in 

 familiar intercourse with another, and writing without forethought or 

 labour, they could only have been the work of a man of the highest 

 talent ; but a less exalted opinion is necessarily formed of the man, 

 when we discover that the ease and freedom of style which we have 

 been entrapped into admiring as natural, were the result of laborious 

 care aud study. He was always on the alert collecting anecdotes, and 

 dressing up epigrams which he afterwards inserted in his letters as if 

 they had occurred to him at the moment. And, both in his Letters 

 and his History " his want of accuracy, or veracity, or both, is," as 

 Mr. Hallam very justly remarks, ('Constitutional Hist.,' iii. 383,) "so 

 palpable (above all in his verbal communications), that no great stress 

 can be laid upon his testimony." Many of his letters were published 

 in the 4to. edition of his works in 1798, and subsequently his letters 

 to Mr. Montagu and Mr. Cole, to Lord Hertford and the Rev. Henry 

 Zouch, aud to Sir Horace Mann, have appeared at different times. 

 The whole of the letters of Horace Walpole have since been collected, 

 and were published, in six volumes, octavo ; and a new and complete 

 edition of the ' Entire Correspondence of Horace Walpole ' is now in 

 course of publication under the editorship of Mr. Peter Cunningham. 

 The series comprises a period of more than sixty years, from 1735 

 to 1797. 



Horace Walpole had not been contented with collecting rare and 

 curious books aud publishing his own works, but, still further to 

 gratify his literary tastea, he established in 1757 a private printing- 

 press at Strawberry Hill. Here he printed the Odes of Gray with 

 Beutley's illustrations ; his own ' Anecdotes of Faulting : ' a ' Descrip- 



tion of Strawberry Hill ; ' a quarto edition of ' Lucan,' with the notes 

 of Grotius and Bentley ; a ' Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,' by 

 himself; Hentzner'a 'Travels;' and Lord Whitworth's 'Account of 

 Russia.' He had also, so early &a the year 1768, formed an intention 

 of printing a quarto edition of his own works, which he soon after- 

 wards commenced. But he never proceeded beyond the second 

 volume, in consequence (as his editor, in 1798, says) of his " frequent 

 indispositions, and the unimportant light in which, notwithstanding 

 the very flattering reception they had met with from the world, he 

 always persisted in considering his own works." 



In 1791 he succeeded his nephew, George, third earl of Orford, in 

 the title and estates of his family, and it is curious that, notwithstand- 

 ing his high respect for rank and title, he was not gratified by his 

 accession of dignity. Ho never even took his seat in the House of 

 Lords, and rarely used the title when he could avoid it. Some of his 

 letters after that period were signed by "the uncle of the late earl of 

 Orford." He lived for six years afterwards, in the full possession of 

 all his faculties, though his limbs had been paralysed by the frequent 

 attacks of the gout, from which he had suffered. He died in the 

 eightieth year of his age, at his house in Berkeley-square, on the 2nd 

 of March 17 97. 



Horace Walpole cannot be regarded either as a wise or as a great 

 man. Weakness, vanity, and inconsistency were prominent features of 

 his mind, and his works do not prove it to have been susceptible of 

 great elevation of thought or principle. He had a natural taste for 

 small and trifling things, and an aversion to the more important 

 business of life ; but then it is true that he always professed to be a 

 gentleman of ease and fashion, whose literary efforts were undertaken 

 not for fame, but for recreation. He affected to disclaim the cha- 

 racter of a man of letters, but was acutely sensitive to criticism, greedy 

 of praise, and envious of the fame .of others. He pretended to 

 despise the court, yet all his thoughts were of kings, princes, aud 

 courtiers. He was a republican and an aristocrat. He worshipped 

 rank, yet when it fell to his lot was reluctant to assume it. In private 

 life he showed no remarkable virtues, nor is he chargeable with 

 any serious faults. 



WALSINGHAM, or WALSYNGHAM, SIR FRANCIS, an English 

 statesman of distinguished ability, was descended from an aucient 

 family, and was born at Chiselhurst in Kent, it is commonly stated in 

 the year 1536. The authority for this date we believe to be an 

 account, transmitted by a correspondent to the publishers of a work 

 called ' British Biography,' vol. iii., 8vo, London, 1767, of an original 

 picture of Walsiugham painted in 1578, making him then forty-two 

 years of age. (See note to p. 295.) He was the third and youngest 

 son of William Walsingham, Esq. of Scadbury, in the parish of Chisel- 

 hurst; and of Joice, daughter of Edmund Denny, Esq. of Cheshunt 

 in Hertfordshire. 



After studying at King's College, Cambridge, Walsingham went to 

 travel on the Continent ; and he remained abroad, making active use 

 of his opportunities of examining the state of foreign countries and 

 acquiring their languages, till after the accession of Elizabeth. On his 

 return to England his accomplishments recommended him to the 

 notice of Cecil, under whom he was soon introduced to high and con- 

 fidential employment in the public service. His first important 

 mission is generally assumed to have been to France in the earlier part 

 of the reign of Charles IX., but nothing further is known of it than 

 what is stated in his epitaph, that after reaching the age of manhood 

 (matura jam setate) he was Queen Elizabeth's orator, or representative, 

 at the court of the King of Franca (apud Gallum), for several years, 

 in a most turbulent time. But it does not appear why the words in 

 the epitaph may not refer to what is generally called Walsinghaui's 

 second French embassy, upon which we know that he was sent in 

 August 1570, and which detained him at Paris till April 1573. On 

 his return home he was appointed one of the principal secretaries of 

 state and sworn of the Privy Council ; aud soon after he was knighted. 

 In 1578 he was sent as ambassador to the Netherlands; in 1581 again 

 to France; and in 1583 to Scotland. In October 1586, having had Jill 

 along the chief direction of the measures that were taken for the 

 detection of Babington's conspiracy, he served as one of the commia- 

 sioners at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. Soon after this, accord- 

 ing to his epitaph, he was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster ; 

 but he appears to have still occupied himself chiefly with the conduct 

 of foreign affairs, and it must have been in 1587 that, if we are to 

 believe a story which is commonly told, he managed to retard for a 

 whole year tho preparation of the Spanish Armada, by getting the bills 

 upon which the money was to be raised protested at Genoa, through 

 the agency of Suttou, the founder of the Charter House, having pre- 

 viously discovered the design of the King of Spain in fitting out that 

 armament by having the letter of his majesty to the pope, in which 

 the secret was intimated, stolen from the cabinet in which it was 

 locked up, through the medium of a Venetian priest retained as hia 

 spy at Rome, who got a gentleman of the bedchamber to take the key 

 out of his holiness's pocket while he was asleep. Such a proceeding, 

 strange as it now sounds, was not at all foreign to the spirit or practice 

 of the statesmanship of that age, and was quite after the manner of 

 Walsingham, whoso system was founded upon and maintained by 

 bribery, espionage, and all the forms of deception. "To him," says 

 his warm admirer and panegyrist, Lloyd, " men's faces spake as much 



