This is the renowned Strawberry-hill, a villa still standing on the banks of the Thames, between Teddington and Twickenham, but now despoiled of the large collection of pictures, curiosities, and articles of vertu so assiduously collected by Walpole during a long life. The ground on which it stands was originally partially occupied by a small cottage, built by a nobleman’s coachman for a lodging-house, and occupied by a toy-woman of the name of Chevenix. Hence Walpole says of it, in a letter to General Conway, “it is a little plaything house that I got out of Mrs. Chevenix’s shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw.”—Ed.
Walpole’s characters are not often to be relied on, witness his injustice to Hogarth as a painter, and his insolent calumny of Charles I. His literary opinions of James I. and of Sidney might have been written without any acquaintance with the works he has so maliciously criticised. In his account of Sidney he had silently passed over the “Defence of Poetry;” and in his second edition has written this avowal, that “he had forgotten it; a proof that I at least did not think it sufficient foundation for so high a character as he acquired.” How heartless was the polished cynicism which could dare to hazard this false criticism! Nothing can be more imposing than his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I., yet he had probably never opened that folio he so poignantly ridicules. He doubts whether two pieces, “The Prince’s Cabala,” and “The Duty of a King in his Royal Office,” were genuine productions of James I. The truth is that both these works are nothing more than extracts printed with those separate titles and drawn from the king’s “Basilicon Doron.” He had probably neither read the extracts nor the original.
It was such a person as Cole of Milton, his correspondent of forty years, who lived at a distance, and obsequious to his wishes, always looking up to him, though never with a parallel glance—with whom he did not quarrel, though if Walpole could have read the private notes Cole made in his MSS. at the time he was often writing the civilest letters of admiration,—even Cole would have been cashiered from his correspondence. Walpole could not endure equality in literary men.—Bentley observed to Cole, that Walpole’s pride and hauteur were excessive; which betrayed themselves in the treatment of Gray who had himself too much pride and spirit to forgive it when matters were made up between them, and Walpole invited Gray to Strawberry-hill. When Gray came, he, without any ceremony, told Walpole that though he waited on him as civility required, yet by no means would he ever be there on the terms of their former friendship, which he had totally cancelled.—From Cole’s MSS.
It is curious to observe that Kippis, who classifies with the pomp of enumeration his heap of pamphlets, imagines that, as Blackmore’s Epic is consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be the criticism, which, however, he confesses he could never meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis’s works: his criticism on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have survived his criticisms.
See in Dennis’s “Original Letters” one to Tonson, entitled, “On the conspiracy against the reputation of Mr. Dryden.” It was in favour of folly against wisdom, weakness against power, &c.; Pope against Dryden. He closes with a well-turned period. “Wherever genius runs through a work, I forgive its faults; and wherever that is wanting, no beauties can touch me. Being struck by Mr. Dryden’s genius, I have no eyes for his errors; and I have no eyes for his enemies’ beauties, because I am not struck by their genius.”