so various and different as to ensure a variety
in his letters. Some were politicians, ministers at home, or envoys
abroad; some were female leaders of fashion, planning balls and
masquerades, summoning him to join an expedition to Ranelagh or
Vauxhall; others were scholars, poets, or critics, inviting comments on
Gray's poems, on Robertson's style, on Gibbon's boundless learning; or
on the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton; others, again, were
antiquarians, to whom the helmet of Francis, or a pouncet-box of the
fair Diana, were objects of far greater interest than the intrigues of a
Secretary of State, or the expedients of a Chancellor of the Exchequer;
and all such subjects are discussed by him with evidently equal
willingness, equal clearness, and liveliness.
It would not be fair to regard as a deduction from the value of those
letters which bear on the politics of the day the necessity of confessing
that they are not devoid of partiality--that they are coloured with his
own views, both of measures and persons. Not only were political
prejudices forced upon him by the peculiarities of his position, but it
may be doubted whether any one ever has written, or can write, of
transactions of national importance which are passing under his own
eyes, as it were, with absolute impartiality. It may even be a question
whether, if any one did so, it would not detract from his own character,
at least as much as it might add to the value of his writings. In one of
his letters, Byron enumerates among the merits of Mitford's "History of
Greece," "wrath and partiality," explaining that such ingredients make a
man write "in earnest." And, in Walpole's case, the dislike which he
naturally felt towards those who had overthrown his father's
administration by what, at a later day, they themselves admitted to have
been a factious and blamable opposition, was sharpened by his
friendship for his cousin Conway. At the same time we may remark in
passing that his opinions and prejudices were not so invincible as to
blind him to real genius and eminent public services; and the admirers
of Lord Chatham may fairly draw an argument in favour of his policy
from Walpole's admission of its value in raising the spirit of the people;
an admission which, it may be supposed, it must have gone against his
grain to make in favour of a follower of Pulteney.
But from his letters on other topics, on literature and art, no such
deduction has to be made. His judgement was generally sound and
discriminating. He could appreciate the vast learning and stately
grandiloquence of Gibbon, and the widely different style of Robertson.
Nor is it greatly to his discredit that his disgust at what he considers
Hume's needless parade of scepticism and infidelity, which did honour
to his heart, blinded him in a great degree to the historian's unsurpassed
acuteness and insight, and (to borrow the eulogy of Gibbon) "the
careless inimitable felicities" of his narrative. He was among the first to
recognize the peculiar genius of Crabbe, and to detect the impostures of
Macpherson and Chatterton, while doing full justice to "the astonishing
prematurity" of the latter's genius. And in matters of art, so independent
as well as correct was his taste, that he not only, in one instance,
ventured to differ from Reynolds, but also proved to be right in his
opinion that a work extolled by Sir Joshua, was but a copy, and a poor
one.
On his qualifications to be a painter of the way of life, habits, and
manners (quorum pars magna fuit) of the higher classes in his day, it
would be superfluous to dwell. Scott, who was by no means a warm
admirer of his character, does not hesitate to pronounce him "certainly
the best letter-writer in the English language;" and the great poet who,
next to Scott, holds the highest place in the literary history of the last
two centuries, adds his testimony not only to the excellence of his
letters, but also to his general ability as that of a high order. "It is the
fashion to underrate Horace Walpole, firstly, because he was a
nobleman, and, secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say
nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters and of 'The
Castle of Otranto,' he is the 'Ultimus Romanorum,' the author of 'The
Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling
love-play. He is the father of the first romance, and the last tragedy in
our language; and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer,
be he who he may."[1]
[Footnote 1: Byron, Preface to "Marino Faliere." But in the last
sentence the poet certainly exaggerated his admiration for Walpole;
since it is sufficiently notorious from
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.