The printed correspondence of Lord Orford contains allusions to this work. In a letter written in 1752,[2] he informs Mr. Montagu, that “his Memoirs of last year are quite finished,” but that he means to “add some pages of notes that will not want anecdotes;” and in answer to that gentleman,[3] who had threatened him in jest with a Messenger from the Secretary’s Office to seize his papers, after a ludicrous account of the alarm into which he had been thrown by the actual arrival of a King’s Messenger at his door, he adds, “however, I have buried the Memoirs under the oak in my garden, where they are to be found a thousand years hence, and taken, perhaps, for a Runic history in rhyme.”
The Postscript, printed in this edition at the end of the Preface, but annexed by the Author to his Memoirs of the year 1751, evidently implies, that what he had then written was destined for publication. It is addressed in the usual style of an author to his reader, and contains an answer to objections that might be made to him. In this answer or apology for his work he justifies the freedom of his strictures on public men, vindicates the impartiality of his characters and narrative, claims the merit of care and fidelity in his reports of parliamentary proceedings, and explains the sources of information from which he derived his knowledge of the many private anecdotes and transactions he relates.
In the beginning of his Memoirs of 1752, he again speaks of his work as one ultimately destined for the public. “I sit down,” he says, “to resume a task, for which I fear Posterity will condemn the Author, at the same time that they feel their curiosity gratified.”
Many other passages might be quoted that imply he wrote for Posterity, with an intention that at some future time his work should be given to the public. “These sheets,” he remarks, “were less intended for a history of war than for civil annals. Whatever tends to a knowledge of the characters of remarkable persons, of the manners of the age, and of its political intrigues, comes properly within my plan. I am more attentive to deserve the thanks of Posterity than their admiration.”—“I am no historian,” he observes in another place; “I write casual memoirs, I draw characters, I preserve anecdotes, which my superiors, the historians of Britain, may enchase into their mighty annals, or pass over at pleasure.”—“To be read for a few years is immortality enough for such a writer as me.”—“Posterity, this is an impartial picture.”
At the conclusion of his Memoirs of 1758, where the Author makes a pause in his work, and seems uncertain whether he should ever resume it or not, he again addresses himself to his readers in the style of an author looking forward to publication. If he should ever continue his work, he warns his readers “not to expect so much intelligence and information in any of the subsequent pages as may have appeared in the preceding.”—“During the former period,” he goes on to observe, “I lived in the centre of business, was intimately acquainted with many of the chief actors, was eager in politics, indefatigable in heaping up knowledge and materials for my work. Now, detached from these busy scenes, with many political connexions dropped or dissolved, indifferent to events, and indolent, I shall have fewer opportunities of informing myself or others.”
He then proceeds to give a character of himself, and to “lay open to his readers his nearest sentiments.” He acknowledges some enmities and resentments, confesses that he has been injured by some, and treated by others with ingratitude, but assures his readers, as he probably thought himself, that he has written without bias or partiality, “that affection and veneration for truth and justice have preponderated above all other considerations,” and that when he has expressed himself of particular men with a severity that may appear objectionable, it was “the unamiableness of the characters he blames that imprinted the dislikes,” to which he pleads guilty. Can it be supposed, he asks, that “he would sacrifice the integrity of these Memoirs, his favourite labour, to a little revenge that he shall never taste?” Whatever may be thought of the soundness of this reasoning, and whatever opinion may be formed of the impartiality of his work, it seems impossible that anything short of a positive injunction to commit his Memoirs to the Press could have conveyed a stronger indication of the intention and desire of the Author, that, at some future period after his decease, this his favourite labour should be communicated to the public.
The extraordinary pains taken by Lord Orford to correct and improve his Memoirs, and prepare them for publication, afford no less convincing proof of his intentions in the legacy of his work. The whole of the Memoirs now published have been written over twice, and the early part three times. The first sketches or foul copies of the work are in his own hand-writing; then follows what he calls the corrected and transcribed copy, which is also written by himself; and this third or last copy, extending to the end of 1755, is written by his secretary or amanuensis, Mr. Kirkgate, with some corrections by himself, and the notes on the blank pages, opposite to the fair copy, entirely in his own hand. This last copy was bound into two regular volumes, with etchings from designs furnished by Bentley and Muntz, to serve as a frontispiece to the whole work, and as head-pieces for each chapter, explanations of which were subjoined at the end.
So much for the authenticity of the present work, and obvious intention of the Author that after a sufficient lapse of years it should be published. Of the Author himself, so well known by his numerous publications, little need be said, except to give the dates of his entrance into Parliament, and of his retirement from public life, with some few observations on his political character and connexions.
Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, was third son of the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole. He was born on the 5th of October, 1717, and brought into Parliament in 1741, for the borough of Callington. At the general election in 1747, he was returned a second time for the same borough; and in 1754 he came into Parliament for Castle Rising. On the death of his uncle, Lord Walpole, of Wolterton, in 1757, he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, in order to succeed his cousin, become Lord Walpole, in the representation of Lynn Regis, “the Corporation of which had such reverence for his father’s memory, that they would not bear distant relations while he had sons living.”[4] At the general election for 1761, he was again returned for Lynn without opposition; but being threatened with a contested election, and heartily tired of politics, from which he had in a great measure withdrawn after the accession of his friends to office in 1765, he voluntarily retired from Parliament in 1768. In 1791 he succeeded his nephew as Earl of Orford, and died on the 2nd of March, 1797, in the eightieth year of his age.
The House of Commons, in which Mr. Walpole first sat, was the one that overturned his father’s Administration. In the very first week of the session, the Minister was left in a minority. He still, however, kept his place, and so nearly were parties balanced, that for two months he maintained, with alternate victories and reverses, a contest with his adversaries. At length, secretly betrayed by some of his colleagues, who had entered into private engagements with his enemies, and defeated in an election question, which had been made a trial of strength between Ministry and Opposition, he retired from office, and became Earl of Orford.