kinds. Something very nearly resembling the shock of an earthquake which occurred at Strawberry Hill in the summer of 1783, appears to have roused him into a greater degree of activity, and he entertained more than one party of distinguished visitors with his usual urbanity. He was often solicited to lend his press to bring out the works of amateur authors, but invariably declined.* In September, 1785, he brought out a French translation by his friend, the Duc de Nivernois, of his (Walpole's) "Essay on Gardening," printing an edition of four hundred copies, half of which he sent to France. If the essay was much admired in the original language, and it did receive and deserved the commendation of such a critic as Mathias, the French version met with admirers scarcely less numerous. In the following year his press produced "Christine de Pise."

*He tells Pinkerton, who had solicited this favour, that he had denied it to Lord Harwicke, Lady Mary Forbes, and the Countess of Aldborough. "Walpole Letters." Vol. vi. p. 254.

†Thomas Pitt, first Lord Camelford, writing on November 17, 1789, to his friend Judge Hardinge, on the Duke de Nivernois' translation, says, "I shall be glad to see the work of M. de Nivernois, if it answers at all to the specimen you have sent me. The truth is, that as Mr. Horace Walpole always thinks in French, he ought never to write in English; and I dare be sworn Nivernois' translation will appear much the more original work of the two." "Nichols' Illustrations of Literature in the 18th Century." Vol. vi. p. 118. Walpole's brochure first appeared in the quarto volume of the "Anecdotes of Painting," printed at Strawberry Hill, in 1771, and was reprinted at the same press, in quarto, with the Duke's translation in 1785.

CHAPTER VI.

WALPOLE IN PARIS.

BETWEEN the years 1765 and 1775 Horace Walpole paid several visits to France-some of long duration. In the French capital he made acquaintances which led to more than one correspondence. He entered into French society, he acquired French manners, he studied the literature, the institutions, and the character of the French people, and became so mixed up with the history of more than one of the existing celebrities of France, that the introduction into this work of the more remarkable features in the social aspect that country presented to him, is essential to a perfect knowledge both of his character and career; for the effects of these visits to France may be traced through the whole of his subsequent life. Moreover, we shall have occasion to notice instances of the attention with which he regarded the vast changes that were almost secretly proceeding in that country, and the sagacity of the conclusions he drew from his observations.

The higher classes in the capital at this period indulged in a perpetual Belshazzar's feast, and would not have attended to the warning had he ventured to point out the handwriting on the wall which, to his view, so clearly doomed them to destruction.

The rule of the Regent, Duc d'Orleans, accorded that supremacy to profligacy for which it had been striving throughout the reign of Louis XIV.* In literature, in art, and in science there was the same character of voluptuous folly which had hitherto been kept in restraint by what remained of the public sense of decency which the vices of the higher orders could not entirely eradicate from the community. The government of society appeared to be entrusted to an oligarchy of Aspasias, and the whole intelligence of a great nation lay prostrate at the feet of its courtezans.

No feature is more remarkable in the organization of French society at this period, and during the reign of Louis XV, than the degree of artificial respect accorded to those who had become eminent in vice. We shall have occasion to refer to more

Miss Berry says, "The Regent's government had hurried on the fate of France, beyond the natural and inevitable progression of circumstances. His unbridled profligacy had loosened every moral restraint; and his weak belief that there was a royal way to national wealth, a short cut which left both industry and economy far behind, not only precipitated the ruin and confiscation of the national resources, but completed that of the honour and moral character of the people." "A Comparative View of Social Life in England and France." Vol. 1, p.

260.

than one royal mistress who appears to have been generally treated as if she were a model of propriety-to whom divines, philosophers, poets, artists, and men of science, thronged to offer homage and profess respect. This was the proper atmosphere for Voltaires and Rousseaus, and we cannot feel surprised that such intellects should have flourished in a soil so admirably adapted to their culture.

By the time Walpole had attained to manhood, the greatness of his mother's guest had extended itself very much, even beyond the vast limits which his juvenile admirers at Eton had accorded to it. Indeed, the reign of Louis XV produced no writer so widely known or generally appreciated as Voltaire ; his disciples claiming for him these several distinctions-a great poet, a great critic, a great historian, and a great philosopher. The justice of this excessive liberality has, in the age that succeeded them, been pretty generally questioned, and probably Voltaire's reputation will suffer seriously from the ill effects of the exaggerated praises of his contemporaries. A few remarks are all that can be ventured upon in a subject suggestive of so much reflection as the claims to eminence of this remarkable man; and they shall be directed to each distinction with which his admiring countrymen have thought proper to invest his name.

There are few, even among the most distinguished members of the great commonwealth of literature, who have laboured so diligently over so many different

fields of thought. In tragedy we are, however, far from disposed to afford him the highest position; for the French drama of the last century can only be regarded in the light of an intellectual hybrid, half Greek, half French; neither faithfully representing the one nor the other; and fated, thank heaven, to be without the power of perpetuating its species. The dramatic works of Voltaire, though ostensibly formed on a classical model, convey as imperfect a view of society in the classic era, as they do of popular feeling in France about the period in which they appeared. They merely costume the play after the ancients, and render the dialogue a vehicle for the expression of modern thoughts and feelings.

The author of "Zaïre," severely censured Shakspere, to whose "Othello" he was under no ordinary obligations; and this attack on the best interpreter of Nature, made considerable impression on the mind of Horace Walpole. An opportunity was afforded him of entering upon this subject, when publishing a work of an imaginative character; and he referred to it in a manner that proved how little disposed he was to acknowledge the Frenchman's authority, or to allow his opinion to pass unchallenged. In this matter Walpole showed good sense and strong feelings, and though he subsequently entered into a friendly intimacy with the man whom he then so freely handled, he boldly avowed his previous hostility, and would retract nothing, and alter nothing of his previous censure.