The Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II | Page 5

not a man can open
his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown
charm, when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who
triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to
swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how

great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see
those insulted who have brought such shame upon us. 'Tis poor amends
to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his
country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered
to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious of former days; but
the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible. That goes to my
heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations
upon earth!--Good night!--I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn
in triumph; and then I will go to Paris, and dream I am pro-consul there:
pray, take care not to let me be awakened with an account of an
invasion having taken place from Dunkirk![3] Yours ever, H.W.
[Footnote 1: This was the last occasion on which the punishment of the
pillory was inflicted.]
[Footnote 2: A scandal, for which there was no foundation, imputed to
the Princess of Wales an undue intimacy with John Earl of Bute; and
with a practical pun on his name the mob in some of the riots which
were common in the first years of his reign showed their belief in the
lie by fastening a jack-boot and a petticoat together and feeding a
bonfire with them.]
[Footnote 3: One article in the late treaty of peace had stipulated for the
demolition of Dunkirk.]
HIS "CASTLE OF OTRANTO"--BISHOP PERCY'S COLLECTION OF
OLD BALLADS.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.
STRAWBERRY HILL, March 9, 1765.
Dear Sir,--I had time to write but a short note with the "Castle of
Otranto," as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was
going to dine abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope,
inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even have
found some traits to put you in mind of this place. When you read of
the picture quitting its panel, did not you recollect the portrait of Lord

Falkland, all in white, in my Gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what
was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning
of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover was, that I had
thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head
filled like mine with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister
of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat
down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended
to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it--add,
that I was very glad to think of anything, rather than politics. In short, I
was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two
months, that one evening, I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea,
about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my
hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish
the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a
paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you,
by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content,
and give you leave to think me idle as you please....
Lord Essex's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return for your
obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful publication of this
winter, "A Collection of Old Ballads and Poetry," in three volumes,
many from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge. There were three such
published between thirty and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and
wanting many in this set: indeed, there were others, of a looser sort,
which the present editor [Dr. Percy[1]], who is a clergyman, thought it
decent to omit....
[Footnote 1: Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, in Ireland, was the heir
male of the ancient Earls of Northumberland, and the title of his
collection was "Reliques of English Poetry." He was also himself the
author of more than one imitation of the old ballads, one of which is
mentioned by Johnson in a letter to Mr. Langton: "Dr. Percy has written
a long ballad in many fits [fyttes]. It is pretty enough: he has printed
and will soon publish it" (Boswell, iii.,