ts.--Why did he not Marry?--
'Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders.'--Catherine Hyde, Duchess of
Queensberry.--Anecdote of Lady Granville.--Kitty Clive.--Death of Horatio
Walpole.--George, third Earl of Orford.--A Visit to Houghton.--Family
Misfortunes.--Poor Chatterton.--Walpole's Concern with Chatterton.--
Walpole in Paris.--Anecdote of Madame Geoffrin.--'Who's that Mr.
Walpole?'--The Miss Berrys.--Horace's two 'Straw Berries.'--Tapping a New
Reign.--The Sign of the Gothic Castle.--Growing Old with Dignity.--
Succession to an Earldom.--Walpole's Last Hours.--Let us not be
Ungrateful.

Had this elegant writer, remarks the compiler of 'Walpoliana,' composed
memoirs of his own life, an example authorized by eminent names, ancient
and modern, every other pen must have been dropped in despair, so true
was it that 'he united the good sense of Fontenelle with the Attic salt
and graces of Count Anthony Hamilton.'

But 'Horace' was a man of great literary modesty, and always undervalued
his own efforts. His life was one of little incident: it is his
character, his mind, the society around him, the period in which he
shone, that give the charm to his correspondence, and the interest to
his biography.

Besides, he had the weakness common to several other fine gentlemen who
have combined letters and _haut ton_, of being ashamed of the literary
character. The vulgarity of the court, its indifference to all that was
not party writing, whether polemical or political, cast a shade over
authors in his time.

Never was there, beneath all his assumed Whig principles, a more
profound aristocrat than Horace Walpole. He was, by birth, one of those
well-descended English gentlemen who have often scorned the title of
noble, and who have repudiated the notion of merging their own ancient
names in modern titles. The commoners of England hold a proud
pre-eminence. When some low-born man entreated James I. to make him a
gentleman, the well-known answer was, 'Na, na, I canna! I could mak thee
a lord, but none but God Almighty can mak a gentleman.'

Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards minister to George II., and eventually
Lord Orford, belonged to an ancient family in Norfolk; he was a third
son, and was originally destined for the Church, but the death of his
elder brethren having left him heir to the family estate, in 1698, he
succeeded to a property which ought to have yielded him L2,000 a year,
but which was crippled with various encumbrances. I