The account which Walpole himself gives of the circumstances which led to the composition of "The Castle of Otranto," of his fancy of the portrait of Lord Deputy Falkland, in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, walking Out of its frame; and of his dream of a gigantic hand in armour on the banister of a great staircase, are well known. Perhaps it may be objected to him, that he makes too frequent use of supernatural machinery in his romance; but, at the time it was written, this portion of his work was peculiarly acceptable to the public. We have since, from the labours of the immense tribe of his followers and imitators of different degrees of merit, "supped so full of horrors," that we are become more fastidious upon these points; and even, perhaps, unfairly so, as at the present moment the style of supernatural romances in general is rather fallen again Into neglect and disfavour. "If," concludes Walter Scott, in his criticism on this work, (and the sentiments expressed by him are so fair and just, that it is impossible to forbear quoting them,) "Horace Walpole, who led the way in this new species of literary composition, has been surpassed by some of his followers in diffuse brilliancy of composition, and perhaps in the art of detaining the mind of the reader in a state of feverish and anxious suspense through a protracted and complicated narrative, more will yet remain with him than the single merit of originality and invention. The applause due to chastity of style—to a happy combination of supernatural agency with human interest-to a tone of feudal manners and language, sustained by characters strongly marked and well discriminated,-and to unity of action, producing scenes alternately of interest and grandeur,-the applause, in fine, which cannot be denied to him who can excite the passions of fear and pity must be awarded to the author of the Castle of Otranto." (44)
"The Mysterious Mother," is a production of higher talent and more powerful genius than any other which we owe to the pen of Horace Walpole; though, from the nature of its subject, and the sternness of its character, it is never likely to compete in popularity with many of his other writings. The story is too horrible almost for tragedy. It is, as Walpole himself observes,"more truly horrid even than that of Oedipus." He took it from a history which had been told him, and which he thus relates: "I had heard, when very Young, that a gentlewoman, under uncommon agonies of mind, had waited on Archbishop Tillotson, and besought his counsel. Many years before, a damsel that served her, had acquainted her that she was importuned by the gentlewoman's son to grant him a private meeting. The mother ordered the maiden to make the assignation, when, she said, she would discover herself, and reprimand him for his criminal passion: but, being hurried away by a much more criminal passion herself, she kept the assignation without discovering herself. The fruit of this horrid artifice was a daughter, whom the gentlewoman caused to be educated very privately in the country: but proving very lovely, and being accidentally met by her father-brother, who had never had the slightest suspicion of the truth, he had fallen in love with and actually married her. The wretched, guilty mother, learning what had happened, and distracted with the consequence of her crime, had now resorted to the archbishop, to know in what manner she should act. The prelate charged her never to let her son or daughter know what had passed, as they were innocent of any criminal intention. For herself he bade her almost despair." (45) Afterwards, Walpole found out that a similar story existed in the Tales of the Queen of Navarre, and also in Bishop Hall's works. In this tragedy the dreadful interest is well sustained throughout, the march of the blank verse is grand and imposing, and some of the scenes are worked up with a vigour and a pathos, which render it one of the most powerful dramatic efforts of which our language can boast.
The next publication of Walpole, was his "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third," one of the most ingenious historical and antiquarian dissertations which has ever issued from the press. He has collected his facts with so much industry, and draws his arguments and inferences from them with so much ability, that if he has not convinced the public of the entire innocence of Richard, he has, at all events, diminished the number of his crimes, and has thrown a doubt over his whole history, as well as over the credibility of his accusers, which is generally favourable to his reputation. This work occasioned a great sensation in the literary world, and produced several replies, from F. Guydickens, Esq., Dean Milles, and the Rev. Mr. Masters, and others. These works, however, are now gathered to "the dull of ancient days;" while the book they were intended to expose and annihilate remains an instructive and amusing volume; and, to say the least of it, a most creditable monument of its author's ingenuity.
The remainder of the works of Walpole, published or printed in his lifetime, consist of minor, or, as he calls them, Fugitive pieces." Of these the most remarkable are his papers in "The World," and other periodicals; " A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher, in London," on the politics of the day; the "Essay on Modern Gardening;" the pamphlet called "A Counter Address," on the dismissal of Marshal Conway from his command of a regiment; the fanciful, but lively "Hieroglyphic Tales;" and "The Reminiscences," or Recollections of Court and Political Anecdotes; which last he wrote for the amusement of the Miss Berrys. All of these are marked with those peculiarities, and those graces of style, which belonged to him; and may still be read, however various their subjects, with interest and instruction. The Reminiscences are peculiarly curious; and may, perhaps, be stated to be, both in manner and matter, the very perfection of anecdote writing. We may, indeed, say, with respect to Walpole, what can be advanced of but few such voluminous authors, that it is impossible to open any part of his works without deriving entertainment from them; so much do the charms and liveliness of his manner of writing influence all the subjects he treats of.
Since the death of Walpole, a portion of his political Memoires, comprising the History of the last ten years of the Reign of George the Second, has been published, and has made a very remarkable addition to the historical information of that period. At the same time it must be allowed, that this work has not entirely fulfilled the expectation which the public had formed of it. Though full of curious and interesting details; it can hardly be said to form a very interesting whole; while in no other of the publications of the author do his prejudices and aversions appear in so strong and unreasonable a light. His satire also, and we might even call it by the stronger name of abuse, is too general, and thereby loses its effect. Many of the characters are probably not too severely drawn; but some evidently are, and this circumstance shakes our faith in the rest. We must, however, remember that the age he describes was one of peculiar corruption; and when the virtue and character of public men were, perhaps, at a lower ebb than at any other period since the days of Charles the Second. The admirably graphic style of Walpole, in describing particular scenes and moments, shines forth in many parts of the Memoires: and this, joined to his having been an actor in many of the circumstances he relates and a near spectator of all, must ever render his book one of extreme value to the politician and the historian.
But, the posthumous works of Walpole, upon which his lasting fame with posterity will probably rest, are his "incomparable LETTERS." (46) Of these, a considerable portion was published in the quarto edition of his works in 1798: since which period two quarto volumes, containing his letters to George Montagu, Esq. and the Rev. William Cole; and another, containing those to Lord Hertford and the Rev. Henry Zouch, have been given to the world; and the present publication of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann completes the series, which extends from the year 1735 to the commencement of 1797, within six weeks of his death-a period of no less than fifty-seven years.
A friend of Mr. Walpole's has observed, that "his epistolary talents have shown our language to be capable of all the grace and all the charms of the French of Madame de S`evign`e;" (47) and the remark is a true one, for he is undoubtedly the author who first proved the aptitude of our language for that light and gay epistolary style, which was before supposed peculiarly to belong to our Gallic neighbours. There may be letters of a higher order in our literature than those of Walpole. Gray's letters, and perhaps Cowper's, may be taken as instances of this; but where shall we find such an union of taste, humour, and almost dramatic power of description and narrative, as in the correspondence of Walpole? Where such happy touches upon the manners and characters of the time? Where can we find such graphic scenes, as the funeral of George the Second; as the party to Vauxhall with Lady Harrington; as the ball at Miss Chudleigh's, in the letters already published; or as some of the House of Commons' debates and many of the anecdotes of society in those now offered to the world? Walpole's style in letter-writing is occasionally quaint, and sometimes a little laboured; but for the most part he has contrived to throw into it a great appearance of ease, as if he wrote rapidly and without premeditation. This, however, was by no means the case, as he took great pains with his letters, and even collected, and wrote down beforehand, anecdotes, with a view to their subsequent insertion. Some of these stores have been discovered among the papers at Strawberry Hill. The account of the letters of Walpole leads naturally to some mention of his friends, to whom they were addressed. These were, Gray the poet, Marshal Conway, his elder brother, Lord Hertford, George Montagu, Esq., the Rev. William Cole, Lord Strafford, Richard Bentley, Esq., John Chute, Esq., Sir Horace Mann, Lady Hervey, and in after-life, Mrs. Hannah More, Mrs. Damer, and the two Miss Berrys. His correspondence with the three latter ladies has never been published; but his regard for them, and intimacy with them, are known to have been very great. Towards Mrs. Damer, the only child of the friend of his heart, Marshal Conway, he had an hereditary feeling of affection; and to her he bequeathed Strawberry Hill. To the Miss Berrys he left, in conjunction with their father, the greater part of his papers, and the charge of collecting and publishing his works, a task which they performed with great care and judgment. To these friends must be added the name of Richard West, Esq., a young man of great promise, (only son of Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by the daughter of Bishop Burnet,) who died in 1742, at the premature age of twenty-six.
Gray had been a school friend of Walpole, as has been before mentioned, they travelled together, and quarrelled during the Journey. Walter Scott suggests as a reason for their differences, "that the youthful vivacity, and perhaps aristocratic assumption, of Walpole, did not agree with the somewhat formal opinions and habits of the professed man of letters." (48) This conjecture may very possibly be the correct one; but we have no clue to guide us with certainty to the causes of their rupture. In after-life they were reconciled, though the intimacy of early friendship never appears to have been restored between them. (49) Scott says of Walpole, that , his temper was precarious;" and we may, perhaps, affirm the same of Gray. At all events, they were persons of such different characters, that their not agreeing could not be surprising. What could be more opposite than "the self-sequestered, melancholy Gray," and the eager, volatile Walpole, of whom Lady Townshend said, when some one talked of his good spirits, "Oh, Mr. Walpole is spirits of hartshorn." When Mason was writing the life of Gray, Walpole bade him throw the whole blame of the quarrel upon him. This might be mere magnanimity, as Gray was then dead; what makes one most inclined to think it was the truth, is the fact, that Gray was not the only intimate friend of Walpole with whom he quarrelled. He did so with Bentley, for which the eccentric conduct of that man of talent might perhaps account. But what shall we say to his quarrel with the good-humoured, laughing George Montagu, with whom for the last years of the life of the latter, he held no intercourse? It is true, that in a letter to Mr. Cole, Walpole lays the blame upon Montagu, and says, "he was become such an humourist;" but it must be remembered that we do not know Montagu's version of the story; and that undoubtedly three quarrels with three intimate friends rather support the charge, brought by Scott against Walpole, of his having "a precarious temper."
The friendship, however, which does honour both to the head and heart of Horace Walpole, was that which he bore to Marshal Conway; a man who, accordant to all the accounts of him that have come down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a degree of affection. Burke's panegyric (50)upon his public character and conduct is well-known; while the Editor of Lord Orford's Works thus most justly eulogizes his private life. "It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public conduct and the inmost recesses of his private life, that can do real justice to the unsullied purity of his character-who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and a statesman, to the calm enjoyments of private life, happy in the resources of his own mind, and in the cultivation of useful science, in the bosom of domestic peace-unenriched by pensions or places, undistinguished by titles or ribands, unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by retirement." The offer of Walpole to share his fortune with Conway, when the latter was dismissed from his places, an offer so creditable to both parties, has been already mentioned; and if we wish to have a just idea of the esteem in which Marshal Conway was held by his contemporaries, it is only necessary to mention, that upon the same occasion, similar offers were pressed upon him by his brother Lord Hertford, and by the Duke of Devonshire, without any concert between them.
The rest of' Walpole's friends and correspondents it is hardly necessary to dwell upon; they are many of them already well known to the public from various causes. it may, however, be permitted to observe, that, they were, for the most part, persons distinguished either by their taste in the fine arts, their love of antiquities, their literary attainments, or their conversational talents. To the friends already mentioned, but with whom Walpole did not habitually correspond, must be added, Mason the poet, George Selwyn, Richard second Lord Edgecumbe, George James Williams, Esq. Lady Suffolk, and Mrs. Clive the actress.