(which stood near the castle, and came back open- mouthed,...)
which stood near the castle, and came back open- mouthed, declaring that the helmet was missing from Alfonso's statue. Manfred, at this news, grew perfectly frantic; and, as if he sought a subject on which to vent the tempest within him, he rushed again on the young peasant, crying - "Villain! Monster! Sorcerer! 'tis thou hast done this! 'tis thou hast slain my son!" The mob, who wanted some object within the scope of their capacities, on whom they might discharge their bewildered reasoning, caught the words from the mouth of their lord, and re- echoed - "Ay, ay; 'tis he, 'tis he: he has stolen the helmet from good Alfonso's tomb, and dashed out the brains of our young Prince with it," never reflecting how enormous the disproportion was between the marble helmet that had been in the church, and that of steel before their eyes; nor how impossible it was for a youth seemingly not twenty, to wield a piece of armour of so prodigious a weight The folly of these ejaculations brought Manfred to himself
(A new and newly annotated selection of letters--the only ...)
A new and newly annotated selection of letters--the only selected edition available in hardcover--from the English eighteenth-century historian, novelist, and politician whose correspondence is one of the most admired in English literature.
Author of the first gothic novel and son of the first prime minister of Great Britain, Horace Walpole had wide-ranging interests that included literature, politics, world affairs, collecting, antiquities, and architecture. He wrote to his numerous correspondents on these and other topics in prose that is celebrated for its charm, eloquence, and wit. This new Everyman's edition offers an extensive selection of Walpole's letters, helpfully arranged by subject so the reader can choose from themes including social life, the Court, politics, literature, and the evolution of his Gothic castle and art and book collections at Strawberry Hill. This edition offers new annotations throughout, with introductions to its various sections and a general introduction on Walpole as a letter writer. In addition, the text of the letters has been corrected and previously excised passages have been restored.
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford , also known as Horace Walpole, was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.
Background
He was born in London on 24 September, 1717 and was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole. He was the youngest of the five children of the 1st earl of Orford (Sir Robert Walpole) by Catherine Shorter, but by some of the scandal-mongers of a later age, Carr, Lord Hervey, half-brother of John, Lord Hervey, afterwards second earl of Bristol, has been called his father.
To his mother he erected a monument, with an inscription couched in terms of sincere affection, in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey, and from the beginning to the end of his public life his sarcasms never spared the Newcastles and the Hardwickes, who had shown, as he thought, lukewarmness in support of his father's ministry.
Education
Horace Walpole was educated at Eton, where he became a lifetime friend of Thomas Gray, and at King's College, Cambridge.
Leaving college in 1739, he toured on the Continent with Gray.
Career
He was reconciled with Gray in 1745 and later published his friend's Pindaric odes, as well as many first editions of his own works from the private printing press he started at Strawberry Hill in 1757.
More than 3, 000 of his correspondences are extant and cover a period extending from 1732 to 1797.
Walpole succeeded to the earldom of Orford in 1791.
with his Gothic romance The Castle of Otranto (1765).
His other important works include Historic Doubts on Richard III (1768), an attempt to rehabilitate the character of Richard; Anecdotes of Painting in England (4 vol. , 1762–71); and posthumous works, Reminiscences (1798) and memoirs of the reigns of George II (1822) and George III (1845, 1859).
At Cambridge Walpole came under the influence of Conyers Middleton, an unorthodox theologian.
Walpole came to accept the sceptical nature of Middleton's attitude to some essential Christian doctrines for the rest of his life, including a hatred of superstition and bigotry.
Politics
At the 1741 general election Walpole was elected Whig Member of Parliament for Callington, Cornwall.
Views
Besides his enthusiasm for medieval architecture and trappings, he anticipated the romanticism of the 19th cent.
Quotations:
"How merry my ghost will be, " he once wrote, "and shake its ears to hear itself quoted as a person of consummate prudence!"
In 1756 he wrote:
"I am sensible that from the prostitution of patriotism, from the art of ministers who have had the address to exalt the semblance while they depressed the reality of royalty, and from the bent of the education of the young nobility, which verges to French maxims and to a military spirit, nay, from the ascendant which the nobility itself acquires each day in this country, from all these reflections, I am sensible, that prerogative and power have been exceedingly fortified of late within the circle of the palace; and though fluctuating ministers by turns exercise the deposit, yet there it is; and whenever a prince of design and spirit shall sit in the regal chair, he will find a bank, a hoard of power, which he may lay off most fatally against this constitution. [I am] a quiet republican, who does not dislike to see the shadow of monarchy, like Banquo's ghost, fill the empty chair of state, that the ambitious, the murderer, the tyrant, may not aspire to it; in short, who approves the name of a King, when it excludes the essence. "
He wrote to William Mason, expounding his political philosophy:
"I have for five and forty years acted upon the principles of the constitution as it was settled at the Revolution, the best form of government that I know of in the world, and which made us a free people, a rich people, and a victorious people, by diffusing liberty, protecting property and encouraging commerce; and by the combination of all, empowering us to resist the ambition of the House of Bourbon, and to place ourselves on a level with that formidable neighbour. The narrow plan of royalty, which had so often preferred the aggrandizement of the Crown to the dignity of presiding over a great and puissant free kingdom, threw away one predominant source of our potency by aspiring to enslave America—and would now compensate for that blunder and its consequence by assuming a despotic tone at home. It has found a tool in the light and juvenile son of the great minister who carried our glory to its highest pitch—but it shall never have the insignificant approbation of an old and worn out son of another minister, who though less brilliant, maintained this country in the enjoyment of the twenty happiest years that England ever enjoyed. "
Membership
He was a member of the British Parliament for Castle Rising.
Connections
He never married, engaging in a succession of unconsummated flirtations with unmarriageable women, and counted among his close friends a number of women such as Anne Seymour Damer and Mary Berry named by a number of sources as lesbian.