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 £5,000 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 the Tweed.
[Footnote 1: The speech was made March 23, 1742; but Sir Robert had resigned office, and been created Earl of Orford in the February preceding.]
From this time forth literary composition, with the acquisition of antiques and curiosities for the decoration of "Strawberry" occupied the greater part of his life. He erected a printing press, publishing not only most of his own writings, but some also of other authors, such as poems of Gray, with whom he kept up uninterrupted intercourse. But, in fact, his own works were sufficiently numerous to keep his printers fully employed. He was among the most voluminous writers of a voluminous age. In the course of the next twenty years he published seven volumes of memoirs of the last ten years of the reign of George II. and the first ten of George III.; five volumes of a work entitled "Royal and Noble Authors;" several more of "Anecdotes of Painting;" "The Mysterious Mother," a tragedy; "The Castle of Otranto," a romance; and a small volume to which he gave the name of "Historic Doubts on Richard III." Of all these not one is devoid of merit. He more than once explains that the "Memoirs" have no claim to the more respectable title of "History"; and he apologises for introducing anecdotes which might be thought inconsistent with what Macaulay brands as "a vile phrase," the dignity of history. He excuses this, which he looked on as a new feature in historical composition, on the ground that, if trifles, "they are trifles relating to considerable people; such as all curious people have ever loved to read." "Such trifles," he says, "are valued, if relating to any reign one hundred and fifty years ago; and, if his book should live so long, these too might become acceptable." Readers of the present day will not think such apology was needed. The value of his "trifles" has been proved in a much shorter time; for there is no subsequent historian of that period who has not been indebted to him for many particulars of which no other trustworthy record existed. Walpole had in a great degree a historical mind; and perhaps there are few works which show a keener critical insight into the value of old traditions than the "Historic Doubts," directed to establish, not, indeed, Richard's innocence of the crimes charged against him, but the fact that, with respect to many of them, his guilt has never been proved by any evidence which is not open to the gravest impeachment. His "Royal and Noble Authors," and his "Anecdotes of Painting" are full of entertainment, not unmixed with instruction. "The Mysterious Mother" was never performed on the stage, nor is it calculated for representation; since he himself admits that the subject is disgusting. But dramas not intended for representation, and which therefore should perhaps be more fitly called dramatic poems, were a species of composition to which more than one writer of reputation had lately begun to turn their attention; though dramas not designed for the stage seem to most readers defective in their very conception, as lacking the stimulus which the intention of submitting them to the extemporaneous ocular judgement of the public can alone impart. Among such works, however, "The Mysterious Mother" is admitted to rank high for vigorous description and poetic imagery. A greater popularity, which even at the present day has not wholly passed away, since it is still occasionally reprinted, was achieved by "The Castle of Otranto," which, as he explains it in one of his letters, owed its origin to a dream. Novels had been a branch of literature which had slumbered for several years after the death of Defoe, but which the genius of Fielding and Smollett had again brought into fashion. But their tales purported to be pictures of the manners of the day. This was rather the forerunner of Mrs. Radcliffe's[1] weird tales of supernatural mystery, which for a time so engrossed the public attention as to lead that "wicked wag," Mr. George Coleman, to regard them as representatives of the class, and to describe how—
A novel now is nothing more
Than an old castle and a creaking door;
A distant hovel;
Clanking of chains, a gallery, a light,
Old armour, and a phantom all in white,
And there's a novel.
[Footnote 1: "'The Castle of Otranto' was the father of that marvellous series which once overstocked the circulating library, and closed with Mrs. Radcliffe."—D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature," ii. 115.]
He had published it anonymously as a tale that had been found in the library of an ancient family in the North of England; but it was not indebted solely to the mystery of its authorship for its favourable reception—since, after he acknowledged it as his own work in a second edition, the sale did not fall off. And it deserved success, for, though the day had passed when even the most credulous could place any faith in swords that required a hundred men to lift, and helmets which could only fit the champion whose single strength could wield such a weapon, the style was lively and attractive, and the dialogue was eminently dramatic and sparkling.
But the interest of all these works has passed away. The "Memoirs" have served their turn as a guide and aid to more regular historians, and the composition which still keeps its author's fame alive is his Correspondence with some of his numerous friends, male and female, in England or abroad, which he maintained with an assiduity which showed how pleasurable he found the task, while the care with which he secured the preservation of his letters, begging his correspondents to retain them, in case at any future time he should desire their return, proves that he anticipated the possibility that they might hereafter be found interesting by other readers than to those to whom they were addressed.