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RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,

Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.

M.DCCC.XLIV.

210. L.41.

LONDON:

Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, & FLEY,

Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

ADVERTISEMENT

BY THE EDITOR.

In a late number of the Quarterly Review, in an article entitled "Horace Walpole," the Reviewer, in the course of an estimate which he makes of the character and talents of Walpole, takes the opportunity of indulging in some strictures on what he calls "his scandalous attempts at increasing his already enormous sinecure income;" observing, "so completely had this man, so shrewd and sharpsighted in detecting the follies of others, blinded himself, or fancied he had blinded the world to his real motives, that we find that during the long life in which he enjoyed five sinecure offices, producing him at least six thousand three hundred pounds a year, he was not ashamed to inveigh bitterly against the abuses of Ministerial patronage, and to profess with astonishing effrontery, that the one virtue which he possessed in a singular degree, was disinterestedness and contempt of money." How far this censure was merited, both as regards the number of places held and the amount of public money received by Horace Walpole (for the whole of which he was solely indebted to his father Sir Robert), and especially as

VOL. III.

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regards the spirit in which he viewed the matter himself, will be seen by the detailed account of his income given in the Fourth Volume of this series of letters. As Walpole may fairly be presumed to be the best judge of the extent of his own ways and means, his statement, plain and straightforward as it is, will, we take for granted, be considered quite sufficient refutation. With regard to the assertion that "Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle forfeited his favour by refusing to do a very profligate pecuniary job for him," it will be found that in the Memoir to which we have just been alluding, mention is made of this "job;" and certainly, as Walpole states it, we can discover nothing "profligate" in the character of the transaction.

But inaccuracy of statement is not the only defect to be found in the Reviewer's article. Speaking of the peculiarities of Horace Walpole's Letters, he likens them, among other productions, to the "Annual Register," and "Hansard's Debates!" And yet, in the very same page in which he institutes this strange comparison, he confesses that "no painter was ever more ready to sacrifice accuracy of details to a tone of colour than Walpole, and he carries this system of embellishment to a degree that diminishes, even in indifferent matters, our confidence in his veracity. Whenever he takes offence, he distorts facts, discolours motives, and disparages persons with the most ingenious and inveterate malignity." In another page it is added, "to look to Walpole for strict

accuracy and impartiality would be to expect from a harlequin the gait and garb of an undertaker." Now, it is well known, that the chief—and indeed the sole merit of the "Annual Register," and more especially of" Hansard's Debates," is that they uniformly maintain a tone of scrupulous impartiality, and are mere matter-of-fact chronicles, nothing more. And yet the Works of a man who, we are told, "sacrifices accuracy of details to a system of embellishment," and whose " veracity" cannot be relied on, are coolly and gravely compared to these two most rigidly faithful records of modern times!

LONDON, April, 1844.

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