general Correspondence of Horace Walpole with his political and spring

out of the very rocks; and at the brow is the den, but not spacious literary friends. Its chief characteristics are the omission of certain this line, so exactly it answers to the picture— passages that might be esteemed too plain for modern refinement, - tht rifted tucks the dragon's hie abodes." and the addition of numerous notes, originally poured from the I wanted to ask if Pope had not visited Lady Mary Wortley here during their memory of the writer to amuse a sick friend (and himself ?) in intimacy ; but could one put that question toAvidiea himself? the country, and subsequently enlarged from various sources whenPITT TILE ELDER.

the idea of their publication was entertained. And of this new matter we may observe, that all is useful, and much curiously en- the debataf other day on the 'Treaties. His antagonists endeavoured to disarm

The Letters themselves have been published too loog to be new, yet not long enough to be forgotten by the light readers of' the day ; and they have been criticized, commented upon, and praised, to an extent that has deprived us of courage to attempt a continuous perusal. But we have turned over the pages, read- ing when our eye lighted upon any thing that took us ; and, fresh as we were from Lady MARY MONTAGU, we must confess that vre rate HORACE WALPOLE lower as an epistolary writer than we did. He wants the life, the variety, the matter, the earnestness, and even the worldly sense of the "female wit." Compared with her drawing-room versions of stories she had evidently persuaded herself were truths, his scandalous tales appear like heartless ma- lignancy. In the varying Sappho, the mixture of fashions, courtly historiettes, and private or public reflections, appear native : in the sensitive fine gentleman, the medley of trifles treated seriously, and serious things as trifles, is at least incongruous. The mind of the woman, too, was much the soonest developed. After her first few girlish letters, Lady MARY always writes as if she had got something to say. It was some time before WALPOLE could always secure this essential in epistolary correspondence ; so that, in the earlier periods, he often wrote as if he were bent on saying some- thing. After all, however, it must be cheerfully conceded, that, as JOHNSON said of SOMERVILLE, " he wrote very well for a gen-

tleman." •

But this collection has a higher interest than that of mere lite- rary merit. It is a chronicle of scandal, fashion, literature, and polities, for upwards of sixty years, by a man actively engaged in the first three and closely watching the last. And what a suc- cession of various and important events passed before him ! what a contrast between his oponing and his closing letter! AY hen the first was written, two of the foremost wits of the Augustan age, POPE and SWIFT, were still alive and hearty ; JOHNSON was un-

known, save to his neighbours and the boys he was occupied in Nothiug indeed is more common than to hear ADMIC:MS themselves aver, birching; and GOLDSMITH was an urchin at an Irish country

that " there is a great deal of aristocracy in their country, of which Europeans school. Before the last epistle was penned, WORDSWORTH, ROGERS, generally are entirely unaware." Now I have remained nearly fifteen years in tee United States ; but I have never been able to discover this aristoeracy; nor and CAMPBELL, had risen above the literary horizon. When its trapplogs, power, influence, or worshippers. I have, usauredly, known a W ALPOLE and GRAY the poet started on their Continental tour, variety of fashionable coteries—at least what in Ametica would be called Spain was " Spain with both the Indies ;" the territory of France fashionable; composed of highly respectable merchants, lien ary and professional in America exceeded ours, and outs was the present United States; men, politicians and others, who, it was evident, considered themselves the no- whilst in India we had nothing save a few forts. Ere the corre- sentiments and pretensiona in public ; and have, of I .te, been as much excluded spondent died, he had laughed at "rho Forty-five;" had been con- from the government of the country as they avoided being cenfeunded with the temporary with Cnivg and Fitansnsiets. the Great ; had sat in rest of their fellow citizens. On the other hand, I have had an opportunity of Parliament with the elder PITT, predicted the greatness of his olaset wing a class of society, again composed of highly respectable merchants, son, and lived to witness it ; had seen France shorn of the Ca- literary and professional men, politicians, and others, who never exhibited the nadas, and England of her Colonies par excellence ; had sym- acknowledged themselves to be public servants, paid and provided for by the pathized with the slow nisi, death, and exile of his old bugbears the peuele ; and who, in fact, possessed considerable more power and influence than French Bourbons—been horrified by the excesses of Jacobinisna- their aristocratic neighbours with the exclusive sentiments. One party was scandalized, Infidel as he was, at the public establishment of Lill-

always dreaming of influence and distinction ; the other actually possessed delity—and witnessed the appearance of that military meteor then. This is all the difference I have ever knows: between the aristocracy and whose glory dawned indeed at Toulon, but did not emerge in full We will close with a powerful, just, and philosophic passage on We take our extracts upon the same plan as we pursued in Democratic institutions. reading—just as they happened to strike us. Here is a sketch of Democratic institutions, as they exist iu America, are without a precedent in the rival with whom we have compared him—the " charming history-. The ancients never dreamed of a government similar to that of the Mary Montagu," when she was turned of fifty, and was, it seems, United States; and its vety existence was precluded by the ignorance of the

at large participated in or assumed the government of a state. All the argu• But for the Academy, I ant not of it, but frequently in company with it : 'ti ments in the world in favour or against Democracy must, therefore, remain con- all disjointed. Madam ***, who, thought a learned lady, has not lust her mo- jectures, till time shall have solved the prubleao '1 he question, in America, is destv and character, is exte emely scandalized with the other two dames, espe- no longer Outlier Democracy is to be established, but whether it is to be (daffy with Mull Worthless, who knows no bounds. She is at rivalry with Lady domed. It exists there already, and cannot be abolished without a most dans Walpole for a certain Mr. 4 " *, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford. if you gerous and violent revolution. The 'furies are the Revolutionists in America ; did not, I'll tell you : lie is a grave young man by temper, and a rich one by the Democrats, are the Conservatives and adhere to the government. The point constitution ; a shallow creature by nature, but a wit by the grace of our at issue is, whether the latter are to give up a form of government under which women here; whom he deals with as of old with the Oxford toasts. Ile fell they have prospered and made such immense improvements, merely because into sentiments with my Lady W., and was happy to catch her at Platonic doubts are entertained as to the possibility of retaining it for ever?—whether love ; but as she seldom stops there, the poor man will be frightened out of his they shall aurrender a power which, once departed Lean them, will never return senses, when she shall break the matter to hint ; for he never dreamt that her to its source, and to obtain which they would have to make new and additional purposes were so naughty. Lady Mary in so far gone, that to get him flout the eacrifiees ? mouth of her antagonist, she literally took him out to dance country-dances last The face of the world is changed ; why should the old forms of government be nightlat a formal ball ; where there %V AS no measure kept in laughing at her old, the only Ones, adapted to its new character ? The people have acquired infora foul, tawdry, painted, plastered personage. She played at pharaoh two or 'nation and power ; why should they not use them in the establishment of three times at Princess Cramil, where she cheats horse and foot. She is really governments, when they can do so without committing an act of injustice to entertaining. I have been reading her works, which she lends out in menu- others? Democracy in America is a legitimate and Mato; kat form of govern- script ; but they are too womanish : I like few of her performances. I forgot went, anti does net clash with the established manners and customs of the to tell you a good answer of Lady Pomfret to Mr. ''' , who asked her if she country. The notst perfect despotism—that of China—has lasted for thousands did not approve Platonic love? Lord, Sir, says she, I am sure any one that of years ; why should liberty alone be for ever banished from the earth ? If knows me never heard that I had any love but one, and there s:t two proofs of tyranny could find such a basis, should justice be built in the air? I much it—pointing to her two daughters. rather believe that the liberty of the ancients was not established on a basis sof. The following pendant, a character of Mr. WORTLEY himself, their republics was chiefly owing to the little power which was vested in the and his place, now Wharneliffis Lodge, was penned some sixteen tereets, and cannot be bribed by a party. 'f ke people may make faults; but Well, you have had enough of magnificence ; you shall repose in a desert. they have always the power of repairing them, and where they have a share iu Old Wortley Montague lives on the very spot where the dragon of \t ant did the government, are identified with its continuance and progress. If it be true —only I believe the latter was much better lodged. You never saw such a that " universal history contains the judgment of the world," we must consider wretched hovel, lean, unpainted, and half its nakedness barely shaded with the downfil of Rome as the punishment of its political crimes, and may hope harateen, stretched till it cracks. Here the miser hoards health and money, for the freedom of America as long as her people shall be worthy of it. his only two objects; he has chronicles iu behalf of the air, and battens on

Tokay, his single indulgence, as he has heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste : it is tumbled with

WALPOLE'S CORRESPONDENCE. flogtnents of mountains, that look ready laid for building the world. One MR. COLBURN has obliged the public with a new edition of the scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain-ashes and various trees general Correspondence of Horace Walpole with his political and spring out of the very rocks; and at the brow is the den, but not spacious

euough for such an inmate. However, I ant persuaded it furnished Pope with

passages that might be esteemed too plain for modern refinement, - tht rifted tucks the dragon's hie abodes." and the addition of numerous notes, originally poured from the I wanted to ask if Pope had not visited Lady Mary Wortley here during their I never heard as much wit, except in a speech with which Mr. Pitt concluded

matter we may observe, that all is useful, and much curiously en- the debataf other day on the 'Treaties. His antagonists endeavoured to disarm him; but as fast as they deprive him of one weapon, he finds a better. I never

tertaining. suspected him of sah au universal armoury ; 1 knew he had a Gorgon'e head

les

comeosed of bayo .ets and pistols, but little thought that he could tickle to death with a feather. On the first debate on these fawns treaties, last Wed- nesday, Hume Campbell, whom the Duke of Newcastle had retained as the most abusive counsel he could find against Pitt, (and hereafter perhaps against Fox,) attacked the former for eternal invectives. Oh ! since the last Philippic, of Billingsgate memory, you never heard such an invective as Pitt returned ; Hume Campbell was annihilated. Pitt, like an angry wasp, seems to have left his sting in the wound, and_ has since assumed a style of delicate ridicule and repartee. But think how charming a ridicule must that be that lasts and rises, flash after flash, for an hour and a half! Some day other, perhaps, you will see some of the glittering splinters that 1 ga.hered up.

AN AUTHOR ON MANAGERS, THE PUBLIC, AND THE REVIEWS.

I have finished my tragedy ; but as you would not bear the subject, I will say no more of it, but that Mr. Chute, who is not easily pleased, likes it; and Gray, who is still more difficult, approves it. I am not yet intoxicated enough with it to think it would do for the stage, though I wish to see it acted ; but as Mrs. Pritchard leaves the stage next month, I know nobody could play the Countess; nor am I disposed to expose myself to the impertinences of that jackanapes Garrick, who lets nothing appear but his own wretched stuff, or

that of creatures still duller, who suffer him to alter their pieces as be pleases. • •

I am sorry those boys got at my tragedy. I beg you would keep it under lock and key ; it is not at all food for the public ; at least not till I am "food far worms, good Percy." Nay, it is not the age to encourage anybody, that has the least vanity, to step forth. There is a total extinction of all taste ; our authors are vulgar, gross, illiberal; the theatre swarms with wretched trans- lations and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but improving abuse. I have blushed at Paris, when the papers came over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable nonsense about Shakspeare. As that man's writings

will be preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable actor • r,•

I have not seen the Review you mention, nor ever do but when something particular is pointed out to me. Literary. squabbles I know preserve one's name when one's work will not ; but I despise the fame that depends on scold- ing till one is remembered, and remembered by whom ?—The scavengers of literatere. Reviewers are like sextons, who, in a charnel-house, can tell you to what John Thompson or to what Tom Matthews such a scull or such be- longed; but who wishes to know ? The fame that is only to be found in such vaults, is like the fires that burn unknown in tombs, and go out as fast as they are discovered.

In a continued series of letters, extending over a period almost as long as the usual space allotted by the Psalmist to the life of

man, one point, though obvious and to be expected, may yet be noted,—and that is, the biographical picture which the correspon- dence pre'.ents. The reader traces the gradual change of fashions and of feelings ; the lively buoyancy of youthful sprightliness turning to solidity, and at last to sadness, though, in WALPOLE, still enlivened by the animal spirits of a happy constitution ; the dropping off of contemporaries— "The death of friends, and that which slays e'en more, The death of friendship "- the loneliness of mind and heart that comes upon a man who has outlived the companions of his youth and manhood, with whom the age has nothing in common, and who has nothing in common with the age, till life at last must become wearisome, and death wel- come as a relief. Let us pause to point two tnorals,—(1) that exist- ence would not have been bearable to old IloR.AcE WALPOLE, but for his tastes in literature and art; (2) that Mr. FARR is right when he opines that apoplexy is the euthanasia of the intellectual,—and then close with a couple of extracts indicative of points that have been glanced at.

FRIENDSHIP AT SIXTP.FOUR.

Dlr. Godfrey, the engraver, told me yesterday that Mr. Tyson is dead. I am sorry for it, though he had left me off. A much older friend of mine died yesterday, but of whom I must say the same, George Montagu, whom you must remember at Eton and Cambridge. I should have been exceedingly concerned for him a few years ago ; but he had dropped me, partly from politics, and:partly from caprice, for we never had any quarrel; but he was grown an excessive humorist, and had shed almost all his friends as well as me. He had parts, and infinite vivacity and originality, till of late years ; and it grieved me much that be had changed towards me, after a friendship of between thirty and furty

years.

THE LAST LETTER—LIFE AT EICIITT-ONE. TO THE COUNTESS OW • • • •,

13th January 1;97.

You distress me infinitely by showing my idle notes, which 1 cannot conceive can amuse anybody. My old-fashioned breeding. impels me every now and then to reply to the letters you honour me with writing; but in truth very un- willingly, for I seldom can have any thing particular to say. I scarce go out of my own house, and then only to two or three very private places, where I bee nobody that really knows any thing; and what I learn comes from newspapers, that collect intelligence from coffeehouses, consequently what I neither believe nor report. At home I see only is few charitable elders, except about foarscore nephews and nieces of various ages, who are each brought to me once a year, to stare at me as the Methusalem of the family : and they can only speak of their own contemporaries, which interest me no more than if they talked of their dolls or bats and balls. Must not the result of all this, Madam, make me a very entertaining correspondent? and can such letters be worth showing ? or can I have any spirit when so old, and reduced to dictate? Oh, my good Madam, dispense with me from such a task ; and think bow it must add to it to appteliend such letters being shown. Pray send me no mote such laurels, which I desire no more than their leaves when decked with a scrap of tinsel and stuck on twelfth-cakes that lie on the shophoards of pastry cooks at Christ- mas. I shall be quite content with a sprig of rosemary thrown after me, when the parson of the parish commits my dust to debt. Till then, pray, Madam,

accept the resignation of Your ancient servant.

There is one letter we have passed, but which no reader of the book should omit, out of justice to WALPOLE'S character. It will be ft and at page 66 of the first volume : it is addressed to his re- lative Mr. CONWAY, on an early attachment that gentleman had thoughts of breaking off; and is equally to be admired for the firmness and honourable spirit of the advice, the delicacy with which it was urged, and the generous offer by which it was ac- companied. •