WALPOLE, worpol, Horace, EARL OF OR FORD, English wit and letter-writer: b. London, 5 Oct. 1717; d. there, 2 March 1797. He was the fourth son of Sir Robert Walpole (q.v.). He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, on leaving which (1739) he traveled two years on the Continent Returning in 1741 he took his seat in the House of Commons as member for Callington, Cornwall, and sat for various constituencies up to his resignation in 1767. He always took a lively but superficial interest in politics, inclining sentimentally to extreme opinions. His parliamentary career requires no particular record, but it may be mentioned that in 1757 he exerted himself earnestly in behalf of Admiral Byng (see BY NG, Joutz). In 1747 fie purchased Straw berry Hill, near Twickenham, where he erected a Gothic villa, laid out the grou0s with minute ingenuity, and made it a principal busi ness of his life to adorn and furnish it accord ing to a fantastic but refined and educated taste, with objects of curiosity and antiquarian interest, rare prints, pictures, boolcs and manu scripts. His maintenance was provided for by some sinecure appointments. To his antiquarian taste he added authorship, first in verse and afterward more extensively in prose, and in 1757 established a private printing-press at Strawberry Hill, at which he printed not only his own works but those of others, his editions often selling at very high prices on account of the small number printed. In 1791 he suc ceeded his nephew in the peerage. He never took his seat in the House of Lords, and ap pears to have avoided using his title. His works are numerous. His first publication was a description of Sir Robert Walpole's pictures, printed privately in 1747, under the title of (.1Edes Walpoliante.' In 1757 a popular satire appeared called 'A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien-Chi, at Peking.' 'Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose,' and 'Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England,' with lists of their works, appeared in 1758. 'Anecdotes of Paint ing in England' were published in 1762-71. 'The Castle of Otranto' (1764), a romance, regarded as the prototype of the work of the (School of Terror,' which subsequently became popular, is very variously estimated. Praised
by Byron and Sir Walter Scott, it is pro nounced by Hazlitt dry, meagre and without effect. (The Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy, and (Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III,' appeared in 1768. The works on which his reputation now chiefly rests are his (Letters,' of which the best edition is that edited by Peter Cunningham (1857-59), and (Memoirs' and 'Journal,' a series embracing the reigns ot George II and III from 1751 to 17133. Walpole is almost unanimously pro nounced the best of English letter-writers, whose unfailing ease and vivacity in treating of politics, art, foreign affairs and other topics are unlike anything else iu English literature. The memoirs are more bitter and cynical, but both are valued as a storehouse of the more evanescent traits of contemporary history, be ing full of passing topics and occurrences, anecdotes, characters and portraits. Though keen and able, he was not an accurate or im partial observer. Want of depth and earnest ness 'in his own character, his party prejudices, his vanity and love of effect, tenipered all he wrote, and detract from the weight of his evidence. Few writers, however, are more uni formly entertaining. Walpole's manners were affected, both personally and as a writer. He was as fastidiously aristocratic in his personal notions as he was sentimentally liberal in his opimons, and in both he was probably conventional rather than sincere. Of the value of his writings as a chronicle of current events much has been made, but there is a tendency to ascribe to him elegance alonet to the neglect ot his substantial literary merits. The com plete works appeared in an edition of 1798. Consult Cunningham's edition of the