man,' whilst they were the objects of general admiration. These charming
women survived until our own time: the centre of a circle of the leading
characters in literature, politics, art, rank, and virtue. They are
remembered with true regret. The fulness of their age perfected the
promise of their youth. Samuel Rogers used to say that they had lived in
the reign of Queen Anne, so far back seemed their memories which were so
coupled to the past; but the youth of their minds, their feelings, their
intelligence, remained almost to the last.

For many years Horace Walpole continued, in spite of incessant attacks
of the gout, to keep almost open house at Strawberry; in short, he said,
he kept an inn--the sign, the Gothic Castle! 'Take my advice,' he wrote
to a friend, 'never build a charming house for yourself between London
and Hampton Court; everybody will live in it but you.'

The death of Lady Suffolk, in 1767, had been an essential loss to her
partial, and not too rigid neighbours. Two days before the death of
George II. she had gone to Kensington not knowing that there was a
review there. Hemmed in by coaches, she found herself close to George
II. and to Lady Yarmouth. Neither of them knew her--a circumstance which
greatly affected the countess.

Horace Walpole was now desirous of growing old with dignity. He had no
wish 'to dress up a withered person, nor to drag it about to public
places;' but he was equally averse from 'sitting at home, wrapped up in
flannels,' to receive condolences from people he did not care for--and
attentions from relations who were impatient for his death. Well might a
writer in the 'Quarterly Review' remark that our most useful lessons in
reading Walpole's Letters are not only derived from his sound sense, but
from 'considering this man of the world, full of information and
sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed, and apprehending all
the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude and deserted solitude.' His
later years had been diversified by correspondence with Hannah More, who
sent him her poem of the _Bas Bleu_, into which she had introduced his
name. In 1786 she visited him at Strawberry Hill. He was then a martyr
to the gout, but with spirits gay as ever: 'I never knew a man suffer
pain with such entire patience,' was Hannah More's remark. His
correspondence with her continued regularly; but that with the charming
sisters was delightfully interrupted by their residence at little