Had I been an ambitious or an interested man, I certainly have had eminent opportunities of indulging either passion. At the begining of the present reign, an overture presented itself to me, which a more selfish man would have thought flattering to his views.

I may be allowed to say that I have waived more substantial and real offers. Twice I have been offered what I was over-persuaded to ask of Mr. Pelham. Twice I have been offered to have my share of the patent, which I now hold only during my brother's life, conferred on me for my own. Both times I positively refused to accept that offer. Having rejected a certainty of 1400% per annum for own life instead of holding it during the life of one eleven years older, I hope I shall not be thought a very interested man.

I will now explain the nature of my office of Usher of the Exchequer, stated by the Commissioners of Accounts to render to me clear 42007. a-year, and which I said was given to me as producing but 9001. -ayear, and which, on an additional tax being laid on places, I gave in as producing 18004. a-year, and which, had it been adverted to, would make me seem to have given in a very fraudulent estimate; but I am so conscious of my innocence and integrity in that respect, that I choose -perhaps out of vanity-to recollect that circumstance myself, as it certainly reflects no dishonour on me. When I was called on to give in the value of my place, I took my book of accounts and receipts for the last twelve years, and gave in the medium of those twelve years, which was 18001. a-year. As mine has been an increasing place by three wars and other circumstances, and as for the first years of my holding that place, it was much less, the medium sum would have been less than 1800l. a-year, if I had taken my receipts farther back than twelve years; so that I plainly exaggerated, instead of diminishing, what I had received annually from my first nomination to the office. If I have enjoyed too much, as I confess I have, at least I have not sought to increase my income by any indirect or dirty methods.

The duty of my office is to shut the gates of the Exchequer, and to furnish paper, pens, ink, wax, sand, tape, penknives, scissors, parchment, and a great variety of other articles, to the Exchequer, Treasury, and their offices, and to pay the bills of the workmen and tradesmen who serve those offices. Many of the articles specified are stated in a very ancient table of rates in the Exchequer (I think of the time of Edward the Third, so that my office, is, if a grievance, no very novel one ;) and, on thosc, large profits are allowed to the Usher, whence my profit arises, and whence, if it is largely augmented of late years, a candid examiner will observe that that increase proceeds from the prodigious additional consumption of paper, pens, ink, wax, which the excessive increase of business at the Treasury must occasion; and, therefore, should a much less quantity of those implements be employed, my profits would decrease in proportion. When, therefore, I am charged as receiver of 42001. a-year, it should be remembered, that though I was so in the year 1780, (though

I shall show that even that is an arbitrary statement, not calculated on any medium,) yet I cannot equitably be reckoned ammunibus annis to receive so large a sum. I have shown that 18007. a-year was the medium on twelve years, and those not of my last receipts.

It is very difficult to state my case, and not seem to defend it. But I am telling the truth, and not pleading for favour; at least, my object is to attain a favourable opinion of my character. I am far more indifferent about my fortune. But surely any impartial man will reflect how grievous it must be to a disinterested mind to be held up to the public as a blood-sucker, under the invidious name of a placeman; to be one of those pointed at by County Associations as grievances that call for speedy correction and removal; in short, to be confounded with contractors and other leeches, that have grown out of the profusions and abuses of the time; though my office has existed from the oldest times, and has existed under the best Government. Public distress demands economy and correction. Be they exercised; I desire no exception. But being guilty of no servile, of no indirect means in obtaining, augmenting, or retaining my office, 1 am ready to resign that office; but I will prove (and defy all mankind to detect me in a single falsehood) that I have held my place with honour, and have nothing to palliate or conceal in my execution of it.

The place is held under many disagreeable circumstances. I advance money to the tradesmen and workmen. I contract to pay the principal merchant with whom I deal for paper, though I should never be repaid. There is no specific time appointed for my being paid; it depends on the good pleasure of the First Lord of the Trea sury; and yet, though a mere tradesman in that respect, I believe no man will accuse me of having ever paid court, or even attendance, on a First Lord of the Treasury. I was once, forty years ago, at the late Duke of Newcastle's levée, the only Minister's levée at which I ever was present except my own father's. Yet with very few havel had cause not to be content in my own particular: if I have been proud, they have been just.* Yet some of my predecessors have met with harder fates. Mr. Naylor, my immediate predecessor but one, lost 20,000l. by the death of Queen Anne.

Risks by prudent men are calculated as drawbacks; but where advantage preponderates, even the terrors of calculation are surmounted. More prudent men than I am would have combated those risks, by making the most of their advantages. I have ever disdained that pitiful arithmetic. All the goods I furnish have always been purchased by me at the highest prices; and never came a complaint from the Treasury that was not instantly remedied by my order. In

* From Lord North I always received regular justice and civility, though I never paid any court to him, nor disguised my disinclination to his measures. This com. pliment, which now cannot be misinterpreted, is due to him, and is an unsuspicious evidence of his good-humour and averseness from all malignity. When I am grateful to the living for civilities, I scorn to recollect the rancour of the dead.

more than forty years I have never received an important complaint, nor given occasion to one.

Having said that there is no certain time settled for my being paid, and as I have sometimes had large arrears due, and, consequently, as one year frequently runs into another, and thence I may in one year receive four or five thousand, pounds, because in the preceding I did not receive half so much, the Commissioners of Accounts, having examined my deputy but on a single year, were just in their report of what I received that year; but had they gone farther back, would certainly not have given in 42001. as my receipt communibus annis. This unintended misrepresentation* I bore in silence; it having been my steadfast purpose not to interfere with the public examination of places, nor take the smallest step to mitigate my own fate, which I submit implicitly to the discretion of the Legislature. What I hold, I hold by law; if the law deprives me, I have too much reverence for the laws of my country to complain. No man ever heard me utter a syllable in my own behalf. My nearest friends know that I have required them not to interpose to save me. dread of seeming to make interest to save my place, preponderated with me to appear grateful for a time, lest it should look like a selfish compliment. I have never yet thanked Mr. Burke for the overflowing pleasure he gave my heart, when, on moving his bill, he paid that just compliment to the virtues of my honest, excellent father. This acknowledgment I hope he will accept as a proof that, though silent, I was not insensible to the obligation. Just praise out of his mouth is an epitaph of sterling value, and, standing in his printed speech on that occasion, will enjoy an immortality which happens to few epitaphs.

This

This apology for my conduct will, I hope, be accepted from a man who has nothing to boast but his disinterestedness, and is grievously wounded by standing in a light of one by whom the public suffers. Were my place worth double 4000l., I could resign it cheerfully, at the demand of my country; but having never flattered the Ministers I disapproved, nor profited to the value of a shilling by my dearest friends when in power,-which they have been twice of late years, -(and having so much reason to be proud of their friendship, why should I not name two such virtuous upright men as the Duke of Richmond and General Conway?) I cannot bear to appear in the predicament of one enriched to the detriment of the country. This stab has been given to my peace; and the loss of my place will find, not cause, the wound, nor will the retention of the place heal it. It

*My deputy received my positive orders to give to the Commissioners the most particular detail of my profits, and to offer them in my name my account-books of all my receipts, which they declined accepting, and which would have shown them a very different state of the medium of my place. Had they accepted those books, I intended to send them word that they were welcome to examine my receipts, but that I hoped, as they were gentlemen, they would not look at the foolish manner in which I had flung away most of what I had received.

is this most scrupulous state of facts that alone can rehabilitate me in the eyes of the public, if any thing can; and though nothing would have drawn a vain detail from me, unprovoked, it cannot be thought arrogant to endeavour to wipe off reproach, nor impertinent to aim at negative merit with the public, instead of submitting to undeserved and invidious obloquy.

March 30th, 1782.

HORACE WALPOLE.

SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE.*

BY HORACE WALPOLE.

I was born in Arlington Street, near St. James's, London, September 24th, 1717, O. S. My godfathers were Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, and my uncle Horatio Walpole; my godmother, my aunt Dorothy, Lady Viscountess Townshend.

I was inoculated for the small-pox in 1724.

In 1725 I went to Bexley, in Kent, with my cousins, the four younger sons of Lord Townshend, and with a tutor, Edward Weston, one of the sons of Stephen, Bishop of Exeter; and continued there some months. The next summer I had the same education at Twickenham, Middlesex; and the intervening winters I went every day to study under Mr. Weston, at Lord Townshend's. April 26th, 1727, I went to Eton school, where Mr. Henry Bland (since Prebendary of Durham,) eldest son of Dr. Henry Bland, master of the school, and since Dean of Durham and Provost of Eton, was my

tutor.

I was entered at Lincoln's Inn, May 27th, 1721, my father intending me for the law; but I never went thither, not caring for the profession.

I left Eton school September 23rd, 1734; and, March 11th, 1735, went to King's College, Cambridge. My public tutor was Mr. John Smith; my private, Mr. Anstey: afterwards Mr. John Whaley was my tutor. I went to lectures in civil law to Dr. Dickins, of Trinityhall; to mathematical lectures, to blind Professor Saunderson, for a short time; afterwards, Mr. Trevigar read lectures to me in Mathematics and philosophy. I heard Dr. Battie's anatomical lectures. I had learned French at Eton. I learned Italian at Cambridge, of Signor Piazza. At home I learned to dance and fence; and to draw, of Bernard Lens, master to the Duke and Princesses.

In 1736 I wrote a copy of Latin verses, published in the Gratu latio Acad. Cantab., on the marriage of Frederic, Prince of Wales. My mother died August 20th, 1737.

Soon after, my father gave me the place of Inspector of the Imports

*These memoranda were probably not intended for publication; but as they furnish dates and some other interesting particulars, it has been thought desirable to insert them here.-ED.