r something more
than two years; but at the end of that time they separated, and in the
spring of 1741 Gray returned to England. The cause of their parting was
never distinctly avowed; Walpole took the blame, if blame there was, on
himself; but, in fact, it probably lay in an innate difference of
disposition, and consequently of object. Walpole being fond of society,
and, from his position as the Minister's son, naturally courted by many
of the chief men in the different cities which they visited; while Gray
was of a reserved character shunning the notice of strangers, and fixing
his attention on more serious subjects than Walpole found attractive.

In the autumn of the same year Walpole himself returned home. He had
become a member of Parliament at the General Election in the summer, and
took his seat just in time to bear a part in the fierce contest which
terminated in the dissolution of his father's Ministry. His maiden
speech, almost the only one he ever made, was in defence of the
character and policy of his father, who was no longer in the House of
Commons to defend himself.[1] And the result of the conflict made no
slight impression on his mind; but gave a colour to all his political
views.

He began almost immediately to come forward as an author: not, however,
as--

Obliged by hunger and request of friends;

for in his circumstances he was independent, and even opulent; but
seeking to avenge his father by squibs on Mr. Pulteney (now Lord Bath),
as having been the leader of the attacks on him, and on the new Ministry
which had succeeded him. In one respect that age was a happy one for
ministers and all connected with them. Pensions and preferments were
distributed with a lavish hand; and, even while he was a schoolboy, he
had received more than one "patent place," as such were called, in the
Exchequer, to which before his father's resignation others were added,
which after a time raised his income to above L5,000 a year, a fortune
which in those times was exceeded by comparatively few, even of those
regarded as wealthy. So rich, indeed, was he, that before he was thirty
he was able to buy Strawberry Hill, "a small house near Twickenham," as
he describes it at first, but which he gradually enlarged and
embellished till it grew into something of a baronial castle on a small
scale, somewhat as, under the affectionate diligence of a greater man,
Abbotsford in the present century became one of the lions of th