Horace Walpole - Horace Walpole and his World

“The Duke of Cumberland told the King that himself and Lady Augusta were sleepy. The Queen was very averse to leave the company, and at last articled that nobody should accompany her but the Princess of Wales and her own two German women, and that nobody should be admitted afterwards but the King—they did not retire till between two and three.

“The next morning the King had a Levee. After the Levee there was a Drawing-Room; the Queen stood under the throne: the women were presented to her by the Duchess of Hamilton, and then the men by the Duke of Manchester; but as she knew nobody, she was not to speak. At night there was a ball, drawing-rooms yesterday and to-day, and then a cessation of ceremony till the Coronation, except next Monday, when she is to receive the address of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, sitting on the throne attended by the bridesmaids. A ridiculous circumstance happened yesterday; Lord Westmoreland, not very young nor clear-sighted, mistook Lady Sarah Lenox for the Queen, kneeled to her, and would have kissed her hand if she had not prevented him. People think that a Chancellor of Oxford was naturally attracted by the blood of Stuart. It is as comical to see Kitty Dashwood, the famous old beauty of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, living in the palace as Duenna to the Queen. She and Mrs. Broughton, Lord Lyttelton’s ancient Delia, are revived again in a young court that never heard of them. There, I think you could not have had a more circumstantial account of a royal wedding from the Heralds’ Office. Adieu!

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“The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, edited by Peter Cunningham.”

A second edition was published in 1866.

E.g. , in Jesse’s “Memoirs of George III.”

Or in 1732, if the dates of some letters published in Notes and Queries , 4th Series, vol. iii., p. 2, can be trusted. But as the second of these letters, the date of which is given as Sep. 18, 1732, refers to the death of Walpole’s mother, and as we know, from his own statement, that Lady Walpole died Aug. 20, 1737, there seems to be an error.

The story that Horace was of Hervey blood was first published in some Introductory Anecdotes prefixed to the later editions of the works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. These anecdotes were contributed by Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of Lord Bute, the Prime Minister, and grand-daughter of Lady Mary. Her statement about Walpole, though generally accepted, has perhaps received more credit than it deserves, but se non è vero, è ben trovato . The similarity, both in matter and composition, between the memoirs of Lord Hervey and those of Horace Walpole is certainly remarkable.

Born in July, 1719. He was second son of the first Lord Conway by his third wife, Charlotte Shorter, sister of Lady Walpole. He was Secretary in Ireland during the vice-royalty of William, fourth Duke of Devonshire; then Groom of the Bedchamber to George II. and to George III.; became Secretary of State in 1765; Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in 1770; Commander-in-Chief in 1782; and was created a Field-Marshal in 1793. He married the Dowager Countess of Aylesbury, by whom he had an only child, Mrs. Damer, the sculptor, to whom Walpole left Strawberry Hill.

One of his papers in The World contains an account of an escape which he had, in 1749, of being shot by highwaymen in Hyde Park. His face was grazed by a ball from the pistol of one of his assailants, which went off accidentally before aim had been taken. An allusion to this adventure will be found in one of our extracts.

Letter to John Pinkerton, Dec. 26, 1791.

“I have been called a Republican; I never was quite that.”—Walpole to Lady Ossory, July 7, 1782.

Letter to Mann, July 10, 1782.

Letter to Lady Ossory, July 7, 1782.

Miss Berry.

Letter to Sir Horace Mann.

Letter to Sir Horace Mann, July 1, 1762.

Son of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu, and nephew to the second Earl of Halifax. He was member of Parliament for Northampton, usher of the Black Rod in Ireland during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Halifax, ranger of Salsey Forest, and private secretary to Lord North when Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Had Chatterton appealed simply to Walpole’s charity, he would not have been rejected. This was the opinion of those who knew Horace best. But, apart from the imposture sought to be palmed on him, Walpole did not profess to be a patron of literature or the arts. An artist has pencils, he would say, and an author has pens, and the public must reward them as it sees fit.

Thus described by Walpole in his account of the pictures at Houghton: “The Virgin and Child, a most beautiful, bright, and capital picture, by Dominichino: bought out of the Zambeccari Palace at Bologna by Horace Walpole, junior.”

The Princess of Campoflorido.

Lord Orford’s successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

When he [Kilmarnock] beheld the fatal scaffold covered with black cloth; the executioner, with his axe and his assistants; the saw-dust, which was soon to be drenched with his blood; the coffin, prepared to receive the limbs which were yet warm with life; above all, the immense display of human countenances which surrounded the scaffold like a sea, all eyes being bent on the sad object of the preparation,—his natural feelings broke forth in a whisper to the friend on whose arm he leaned, “Home, this is terrible!” No sign of indecent timidity, however, affected his behaviour.— Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of my Grandfather.

Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Walpole had a strong and unreasonable prejudice against him.

Thomas Sherlock, Master of the Temple; first, Bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards of London.—Walpole.

She was daughter of the Duke of Grafton.

His gait was so singular, that he was called Peter Shamble.

Mrs. Lloyd of Spring Gardens, to whom the Earl of Haddington was married this year.

An Irish adventurer, whose fine person had induced the Dowager Duchess of Manchester to marry him. He was afterwards created Earl of Beaulieu. O’Brien, it seems, was even taller than Hussey.