Nevertheless, there was something of _bonhommie_ in the character of
George I. that one misses in his successor. His love of punch, and his
habit of becoming a little tipsy over his private dinners with Sir
Robert Walpole, were English as well as German traits, and were regarded
almost as condescensions; and then he had a kind of slow wit, that was
turned upon the venial officials whose perquisites were at their
disgraceful height in his time.

'A strange country this,' said the monarch, in his most clamorous
German: 'one day, after I came to St. James's, I looked out of the
window, and saw a park, with walks, laurels, &c.; these they told me
were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of _my_ park, sends me
a brace of carp out of my canal; I was told, thereupon, that I must give
five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's porter for bringing me my _own_ fish,
out of my _own_ canal, in my _own_ park!' In spite of some agreeable
qualities, George I. was, however, anything but a 'good sort of man.' It
is difficult how to rank the two first Georges; both were detestable as
men, and scarcely tolerable as monarchs. The foreign deeds of George I.
were stained with the supposed murder of Count Konigsmark: the English
career of George II. was one of the coarsest profligacy. Their example
was infamous.

His father's only sister having become the second wife of Charles Lord
Townshend, Horace was educated with his cousins; and the tutor selected
was Edward Weston, the son of Stephen, Bishop of Exeter; this preceptor
was afterwards engaged in a controversy with Dr. Warburton, concerning
the 'Naturalization of the Jews.' By that learned, haughty disputant, he
is termed 'a gazetteer by profession--by inclination a Methodist.' Such
was the man who guided the dawning intellect of Horace Walpole. Under
his care he remained until he went, in 1727, to Eton. But Walpole's was
not merely a scholastic education: he was destined for the law--and, on
going up to Cambridge, was obliged to attend lectures on civil law. He
went from Eton to King's College--where he was, however, more disposed
to what are termed accomplishments than to deep reading. At Cambridge he
even studied Italian; at home he learned to dance and fence; and took
lessons in drawing from Bernard Lens, drawing-master to the Duke of
Cumberland and his sisters. It is not to be wondered at that he left
Cambridge without taking a degree.

But fortune was lying, as it were, in wait for h