ADVERTISEMENT.

To the first edition of Lord Orford's works, which was published the year after he died, no memoir of his life was prefixed: his death was too recent, his life and character was too well known, his works too popular, to require it. His political Memoirs, and the collections of his Letters which have been subsequently published, were edited by persons, who, though well qualified for their task in every other respect, have failed in their account of his private life, and their appreciation of his individual character, from the want of a personal acquaintance with their author.

The life contained in Sir Walter Scott's Biographical Sketches of the English Novelists labours under the same disadvantages. He had never seen Lord Orford, nor even lived with such of his intimates and contemporaries in society as survived him.

Lord Dover, who has so admirably edited the first part of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, knew Lord Orford only by having been carried sometimes, when a boy, by his father Lord Clifden to Strawberry Hill. His editorial labours with these letters were the last occupation of his accomplished mind, and were pursued while his body was fast sinking under the complication of disease, which so soon after deprived Society Of One Of its most distinguished members, the arts of an enlightened patron, and his intimates of an amiable and attaching friend. Of the meagreness and insufficiency of his memoir of Lord Orford's life prefixed to the letters, he was himself aware, and expressed to the author of these pages his inability then to improve it, and his regret that circumstances had deprived him, while it was yet time, of the assistance of those who could have furnished him with better materials. His account of the latter part of Lord Orford's life is deficient in details, and sometimes erroneous as to dates. He appears likewise to have been unacquainted with some of his writings, and the circumstances which led to and accompanied them. In the present publication those deficiencies are supplied from notes, in the hands of the writer, left by Lord Orford, of the dates of the principal events of his own life, and of the writing and publication of all his works. It is only to be regretted that his autobiography is so short, and so entirely confined to dates. In estimating the character of Lord Orford, and in the opinion which he gives of his talents, Lord Dover has evinced much candour and good taste. He praises with discrimination, and draws no unfair inferences from the peculiarities of a character with which he was not personally acquainted.

It is by the Review of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, that the severest condemnation has been passed and the most unjust impressions given, not only of the genius and talents, but of the heart and character, of Lord Orford. The mistaken opinions of the eloquent and accomplished author (5) of that review are to be traced chiefly to the same causes which defeated the intentions of the two first biographers. In his case, these causes were increased, not only by no acquaintance with his subject, but by still farther removal from the fashions, the social habits, the little minute details, of the age to which Horace Walpole belongs,-an age so essentially different from the business, the movement, the important struggles, of that which claims the critic as one of its most distinguished ornaments. A conviction that these reasons led to his having drawn up, from the supposed evidence of Walpole's works alone, a character of their author so entirely and offensively unlike the original, has forced the pen into the feeble and failing hand of the writer of these pages,-has imposed the pious duty of attempting to rescue, by incontrovertible facts, acquired in long intimacy, the memory of an old and beloved friend, from the giant grasp of an author and a critic from whose judgment, when deliberately formed, few can hope to appeal with success. The candour, the good-nature of this critic,-the inexhaustible stores of his literary acquirements, which place him in the first rank of those most distinguished for historical knowledge and critical acumen,-will allow him, I feel sure, to forgive this appeal from his hasty and general opinion, to the judgment of his better informed mind, on the peculiarities of' a character often remarkably dissimilar from that of his works.

Lord Dover has justly and forcibly remarked, "that what did the most honour both to the head and the' heart of Horace Walpole, was the friendship which he bore to Marshal Conway; a man who, according to all the accounts of him that have come down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a decree of affection." (6) He then quotes the character given of him by the editor of Lord Orford's works in 1798. This character of Marshal Conway was a portrait drawn from the life, and, as it proceeded from the same pen which now traces these lines, has some right to be inserted here. "It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public conduct, and into the inmost recesses of his private life, who 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 of 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 ribbons-unsophisticated by public life, and unwearied by retirement."

To this man, Lord Orford's attachment, from their boyish days at Eton school to the death of Marshal Conway in 1795, is already a circumstance of sufficiently rare occurrence among men of the world. Could such a man, of whom the foregoing lines are an unvarnished sketch-of whose character, simplicity was one of the distinguished ornaments-could such a man have endured the intimacy of such an individual as the reviewer describes Lord Orford to have been? Could an intercourse of uninterrupted friendship and undiminished confidence have existed between them during a period of nearly sixty years, undisturbed by the business and bustle of middle life, so apt to cool, and often to terminate, youthful friendships? Could such an intercourse ever have existed, with the supposed selfish indifference, and artificial coldness and conceit of Lord Orford's character?

The last correspondence included in the present publication will, it is presumed, furnish no less convincing proof, that the warmth of his feelings, and his capacity for sincere affection, continued unenfeebled by age. It is with this view, and this alone, that the correspondence alluded to is now, for the first time, given to the public. It can add nothing to the already established epistolary fame of Lord Orford, and the public can be as little interested in his sentiments for the two individuals addressed. But, in forming a just estimate of his character, the reader will hardly fail to observe that those sentiments were entertained at a time of life when, for the most part, the heart is too little capable of expansion to open to new attachments. The whole tone of these letters must prove the unimpaired warmth of his feelings, and form a striking contrast to the cold harshness of which he has been accused, in his intercourse with Madame du Deffand, at an earlier period of his life. This harshness, as was noticed by the editor of Madame du Deffand's letters, in the preface to that publication, proceeded solely from a dread of ridicule, which formed a principal feature of Mr. Walpole's character, and which, carried, as in his case, to excess, must be called a principal weakness. "This accounts for the ungracious language in which he so often replies to the importunities of her anxious affection; a language so foreign to his heart, and so contrary to his own habits in friendship." (7)

Is this, then, the man who is supposed to be "the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of mortals? -his mind a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations-his features covered with mask within mask, which, when the outer disguise of obvious affectation was removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing the real man."-"Affectation is the essence of the man. It pervades all his thoughts and all his expressions. If it were taken away, nothing would be left." (8)

He affected nothing; he played no part; he was what he appeared to be. Aware that he was ill qualified for politics, for public life, for parliamentary business, or indeed for business of any sort, the whole tenor of his life was consistent with this opinion of himself. Had he attempted to effect what belongs only to characters of another stamp -had he endeavoured to take a lead in the House of Commons-had he sought for place, dignity, or office-had he aimed at intrigue, or attempted to be a tool for others-then, indeed, he might have deserved the appellation of artificial, eccentric, and capricious.

>From the retreat of his father, which happened the year after he entered parliament, the only real interest he took in politics was when their events happened immediately to concern the objects of his private friendships. He occupied himself with what really amused him. If he had affected any thing, it would certainly not have been a taste for the trifling occupations with which he is reproached. Of no person can it be less truly said, that "affectation was the essence of the man." What man, or even what woman, ever affected to be the frivolous being he is described? When his critic says, that he had "the soul of a gentleman-usher," he was little aware that he only repeated what Lord Orford often said of himself-that from his knowledge of old ceremonials and etiquettes, he was sure that in a former state of existence, he must have been a gentleman-usher,-about the time of Elizabeth.

In politics, he was what he professed to be, a Whig, in the sense which that denomination bore in his younger days,-never a Republican.

In his old and enfeebled age, the horrors of the first French revolution made him a Tory; while he always lamented, as one of the worst effects of its excesses, that they must necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and establishment of civil liberty. But why are we to believe his contempt for crowned heads should have prevented his writing a memoir of "Royal and Noble Authors?" Their literary labours, when all brought together by himself, would not, it is believed, tend much to raise, or much to alter his opinion of them.

In his letters from Paris, written in the years 1765, 1766, 1767 and 1771, it will be seen, that so far from being infinitely more occupied with "the fashions and gossip of Versailles and Marli than with a great moral revolution which was taking place in his sight," he was truly aware of the state of the public mind, and foresaw all that was coming on.

Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more, and that he judged him more accurately, than Mr. Hume, and many others who were then duped by his mad pride and disturbed understanding.

Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of vain lies in the intercourse he sought with Mr. Walpole. The details of this transaction, and the letters which passed at the time, are already printed in the quarto edition of his works. In the short notes of his life left by himself, and from which all the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus mentioned:

"Although Voltaire, with whom I had never had the least acquaintance, had voluntarily written to me first, and asked for my book, he wrote a letter to the Duchesse de Choiseul, in which, without saying a syllable of his having written to me first, he told her I had officiously sent him my works, and declared war with him in defence 'de ce bouffon de Shakspeare,' whom in his reply to me he pretended so much to admire. The Duchesse sent me Voltaire's letter; which gave me such a contempt for his disingenuity, that I dropped all correspondence with him."

When he spoke with contempt of d'Alembert, it was not of his abilities; of which he never pretended to judge. Professor Saunderson had long before, when he was a lad at Cambridge, assured him, that it would be robbing him to pretend teaching him mathematics, of which his mind was perfectly incapable, so that any comparison of the intellectual powers of the two men" would indeed be as "exquisitely ridiculous" as the critic declares it. But lord Orford, speaking of d'Alembert, complains of the overweening importance which he, and all the men of letters of those days in France, attributed to their squabbles and disputes. The idleness to which an absolute government necessarily condemns nine-tenths of its subjects, sufficiently accounts for the exaggerated importance given to and assumed by the French writers, even before they had become, in the language of the Reviewer, "the interpreters between England and mankind:" he asserts, "that all the great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in political science, are ours but no foreign nation, except France, has received them from us by direct communication: isolated in our situation, isolated by our manners, we found truth, but did not impart it." (9) It may surely be asked, whether France will subscribe to this assertion of superiority, in the whole range of science! If she does, her character has undergone an even greater change, than any she has yet experienced in the course of all her revolutions.

lord Orford is believed by his critic to have "sneered" at every body. sneering was not his way of showing dislike. He had very strong prejudices, sometimes adopted on very insufficient grounds, and he therefore often made great mistakes in the appreciation of character; but when influenced by such impressions, he always expressed his opinions directly, and often too violently.

The affections of his heart were bestowed on few; for in early life they had never been cultivated, but they were singularly warm, pure, and constant; characterized not by the ardour of passion, but by the constant preoccupation of real affection. He had lost his mother, to whom he was fondly attached, early in life; and with his father, a man of coarse feelings and boisterous manners, he had few sentiments in common. Always feeble in constitution, he was unequal to the sports of the field, and to the drinking which then accompanied them, so that during his father's retreat at Houghton, however much he respected his abilities and was devoted to his fame, he had little sympathy in his tastes, or pleasure in his society. To the friends of his own selection his devotion was not confined to professions or words: on all occasions of difficulty, of whatever nature, his active affection came forward in defence of their character, or assistance in their affairs.

When his friend Conway, as second in command under Sir John Mordaunt, in the expedition to St. Maloes, partook in some degree of the public censure called forth by the failure of these repeated ill-judged attempts on the coasts of France, Walpole's pen was immediately employed in rebutting the accusations of the popular pamphlet of the day on this subject, And establishing his friend's exemption from any responsibility in the failure. When, on a more important occasion, Mr. Conway was not only dismissed from being Equerry to the King, George III., but from the command of his regiment, for his constitutional conduct and votes in the House of Commons, in the memorable affair of the legality of General Warrants for the seizure of persons and papers, Walpole immediately stepped forward, not with cold commendations of his friend's upright and spirited conduct, but with all the confidence Of long-tried affection, and all the security of noble minds incapable of misunderstanding each other, he insisted on being allowed to share in future his fortune with his friend, and thus more than repair the pecuniary loss he had incurred. Mr. Conway, in a letter to his brother, Lord Hertford, of this period, says "Horace Walpole has on this occasion shown that warmth of friendship that you know him capable of so, strongly, that I want words to express my sense of it;" (10) thus proving the justice he did to Walpole's sentiments and intentions.

In the case of General Conway's near relationship and intimacy from childhood, the cause in which his fortunes were suffering might have warmed a colder heart, and opened a closer hand, than Mr. Walpole's: but Madame du Deffand was a recent acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the pleasure he received from her society, and his desire that her blind and helpless old age might not be deprived of any of the comforts and alleviations of which it was capable. When by the financial arrangements of the French government, under the unscrupulous administration of the Abb`e Terray, the creditors of the state were considerably reduced in income, Mr. Walpole, in the most earnest manner, begged to prevent the unpleasantness of his old friend's exposing her necessities, and imploring aid from the minister of the day, by allowing him to make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, Or in any manner that would be most satisfactory to her. The loss, after all, did not fall on that stock from which she derived her income, and the assistance was not accepted; but Madame du Deffand's confidence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in her letters.

During his after life, although no ostentatious contributor to public charities and schemes of improvement, the friends in whose opinion he knew he could confide, had always more difficulty to repress than to excite his liberality.

That he should have wished his friend Conway to be employed as commander on military expeditions, which, as a soldier fond of his profession, he naturally coveted, although Mr. Walpole might disapprove of the policy of the minister in sending out such expeditions, surely implies neither disguise, nor contradiction in his opinions.

The dread which the reviewer supposes him to have had, lest he should lose caste as a gentleman, by ranking as a wit and an author, he was much too fine a gentleman to have believed in the possibility of feeling. He knew he had never studied since he left college; he knew that he was not at all a learned man: but the reputation he had acquired by his wit and by his writings, not only among fine gentlemen, but with society in general, made him nothing loath to cultivate every opportunity of increasing it. The account he gave of the idleness of his life to Sir Horace Mann, when he disclaims the title of "the learned gentleman," was literally true; and it is not easy to imagine any reason why a man at the age of forty-three, who admits that he is idle, and who renounces being either a learned man or a politician, should be "ashamed" of playing loo in good company till two or three o'clock in the morning, if he neither ruins himself nor others. (11) He wrote his letters as rapidly as his disabled fingers would allow him to form the characters of a remarkably legible hand. No rough draughts or sketches of familiar letters were found amongst his papers at Strawberry Hill: but he was in the habit of putting down on the backs of letters or on slips of paper, a note of facts, of news, of witticisms, or of any thing he wished not to forget, for the amusement of his correspondents.

After reading "The Mysterious Mother," who will accede to the opinion, that his works are "destitute of every charm that is derived from elevation, or from tenderness of sentiment?" (12)

But, with opinions as to the genius, the taste, or the talents of Lord Orford, this little notice has nothing to do. It aims solely at rescuing his individual character from misconceptions. Of the means necessary for this purpose, its writer, by the "painful preeminence" of age, remains the sole depositary, and being so, has submitted to the task of repelling such misconceptions. It is done with the reluctance which must always be experienced in differing from, or calling in question, the opinions of a person, for whom is felt all the admiration and respect due to super-eminent abilities, and all the grateful pride and affectionate regard inspired by personal friendship.

M. B. October 1840.

(5) T. Babbington Macaulay.

(6) Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, by Lord Dover. See vol. i.

(7) See Preface to Madame du Deffand's Letters, p. xi.; and vol. ii. of this collection.

(8) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 233.

(9) Edinburgh Review, vol, lviii. p. 233.

(10) See vol. iii.

(11) See Edinburgh Review, vol. lviii. p. 232.

(12) Ibid., p. 237.

Second Advertisement

THE last volume will be found to contain upwards of one hundred letters, introduced into no former edition of the Correspondence of Horace Walpole. The greater part of them were written between the years 1789 and 1797, and were addressed to the Miss Berrys, during their residence in Italy. They embrace most of the leading events of the first five years of the French Revolution; and wherever the facts detailed in the letters have appeared to require elucidation or confirmation, the Editor has generally had recourse to M. Thiers's useful "History" of that great event; which has recently appeared in an English dress, accompanied with notes and illustrations, drawn from the most authentic sources.

While the last volume was at press, the Editor was favoured with a letter from the Right Honourable Sir Charles Grey, relative to the share which he considers Mr. Walpole to have had in the composition and publication of the Letters of Junius.

Albany Street, Regent's Park, October 28, 1840.