take a cynical view of his
contemporaries generally, he turned for amusement to antiquarianism, and
was the first to set modern art and literature masquerading in the
antique dresses. That he was quite conscious of the necessity for more
serious study, appears in his letters, in one of which, for example, he
proposes a systematic history of Gothic architecture, such as has since
been often enough executed. It does not, it may be said, require any
great intellect, or even any exquisite taste, for a fine gentleman to
strike out a new line of dilettante amusement. In truth Walpole has no
pretensions whatever to be regarded as a great original creator, or even
as one of the few infallible critics. The only man of his time who had
some claim to that last title was his friend Gray, who shared his Gothic
tastes with greatly superior knowledge. But he was indefinitely superior
to the great mass of commonplace writers, who attain a kind of bastard
infallibility by always accepting the average verdict of the time;
which, on the principle of the _vox populi_, is more often right than
that of any dissenter. There is an intermediate class of men who are
useful as sensitive barometers to foretell coming changes of opinion.
Their intellects are mobile if shallow; and, perhaps, their want of
serious interest in contemporary intellects renders them more accessible
to the earliest symptoms of superficial shiftings of taste. They are
anxious to be at the head of the fashions in thought as well as in
dress, and pure love of novelty serves to some extent in place of
genuine originality. Amongst such men Walpole deserves a high place; and
it is not easy to obtain a high place even amongst such men. The people
who succeed best at trifles are those who are capable of something
better. In spite of Johnson's aphorism, it is the colossus who, when he
tries, can cut the best heads upon cherry-stones, as well as hew statues
out of rock. Walpole was no colossus; but his peevish anxiety to affect
even more frivolity than was really natural to him, has blinded his
critics to the real power of a remarkably acute, versatile, and original
intellect. We cannot regard him with much respect, and still less with
much affection; but the more we examine his work, the more we shall
admire his extreme cleverness.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] It is odd that in one of these papers Walpole proposes, in jest,
precisely our modern system of postage cards, only charging a penn