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FIELDING SETS OUT FOR LISBON

adding, by way of postscript, that judges, to whom the manuscripts had been submitted, were by no means thoroughly convinced of their antiquity. Two letters from Chatterton followed,-one (the first) dejected and seemingly acquiescent; the other, a week later, curtly demanding the restoration of his papers, the genuineness of which he re-affirmed. These communications Walpole, by his own account, either neglected to notice, or overlooked. After an interval of some weeks arrived a final missive, the tone of which he regarded as "singularly impertinent." Snapping up both poems and letters in a pet, he scribbled a hasty reply, but, upon reconsideration, enclosed them to their writer without comment, and thought no more of him or them. It was not until about a year and a half afterwards that Goldsmith told him, at the first Royal Academy dinner, that Chatterton had come to London and destroyed himself—an announcement which seems to have filled him with unaffected pity.

(Horace Walpole-A Memoir.)

HENRY FIELDING SETS OUT

FOR LISBON

NOT far from where these lines are written, on the righthand side of the road from Acton to Ealing, stands1 a house called Fordhook. Shut in by walls, and jealously guarded by surrounding trees, it offers itself but furtively to the incurious passer by. Never1 This was written over thirty years ago.

FIELDING SETS OUT FOR LISBON

theless, it has traditions which might well give him pause. Even in this century, it enjoyed the distinction of belonging to Lady Byron, the poet's wife; and in its existing drawing-room "Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart," was married to William, Earl of Lovelace. But an earlier and graver memory than this lingers about the spot. More than one hundred and forty-three years ago, on a certain Wednesday in June, the cottage which formerly occupied the site was the scene of one of the saddest leave-takings in literature. On this particular day had gathered about its door a little group of sympathetic friends and relatives, who were evidently assembled to bid sorrowful good-bye to some one, for whom, as the clock was striking twelve, a coach had just drawn up. Presently a tall man, terribly broken and emaciated, but still wearing the marks of dignity and kindliness on his once handsome face, made his appearance, and was assisted, with some difficulty (for he had practically lost the use of his limbs), into the vehicle. An elderly, homely-looking woman, and a slim girl of seventeen or eighteen, took their seats beside him without delay; and, amid the mingled tears and good wishes of the spectators, the coach drove off swiftly in the direction of London. The sick man was Henry Fielding, the famous novelist; his companions, his second wife and his eldest daughter. He was dying of a complication of diseases; and, like Peterborough and Doddridge before him, was setting out in the forlorn hope of finding life and health at Lisbon.

(Eighteenth Century Vignettes. First Series.)

HORACE WALPOLE AND MACAULAY

IN THE BELFRY

WRITTEN UNDER RETHEL'S “DEATH, THE FRIEND

TOLL! Is it night, or daylight yet?
Somewhere the birds seem singing still,
Though surely now the sun has set.

Toll! But who tolls the Bell once more?
He must have climbed the parapet.

Did I not bar the belfry door?

Who can it be ?-the Bernardine,
That wont to pray with me of yore?
No,-for the monk was not so lean.

This must be He who, legend saith,
Comes sometimes with a kindlier mien
And tolls a knell.-This shape is Death!

Good-bye, old Bell! So let it be.
How strangely now I draw my breath!
What is this haze of light I see? . . .

IN MANUS TUAS, DOMINE!

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HORACE WALPOLE AND MACAULAY

WHEN, in October, 1833, Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay completed for the Edinburgh his review of Lord Dover's edition of Walpole's letters to Sir Horace Mann, he had apparently performed to his entire satisfaction the operation known, in the workmanlike vocabulary of the time, as "dusting the jacket " of his unfortunate reviewee.

HORACE WALPOLE AND MACAULAY

44

Among those who occupy themselves in such enquiries, it has been matter for speculation what particular grudge Macaulay could have cherished against Horace Walpole when, to use his own expression, he laid it on him "so unsparingly." To this his correspondence affords no clue. Mr. Cunningham holds that he did it "to revenge the dislike which Walpole bore to the Bedford faction, the followers of Fox and the Shelburne school." It is possible, as another authority has suggested, that “* in the Whig circles of Macaulay's time, there existed a traditional grudge against Horace Walpole," owing to obscure political causes connected with his influence over his friend Conway. But these reasons do not seem relevant enough to make Macaulay's famous onslaught a mere vendetta. It is more reasonable to suppose that between his avowed delight in Walpole as a letter-writer and his robust contempt for him as an individual, he found a subject to his hand, which admitted of all the brilliant antithesis and sparkle of epigram which he lavished upon it. Walpole's trivialities and eccentricities, his whims and affectations, are seized with remorseless skill, and presented with all the rhetorical advantages with which the writer so well knew how to invest them. As regards his literary estimate, the truth of the picture can scarcely be gainsaid; but the personal character, as Walpole's surviving friends felt, is certainly too much en noir. Miss Berry, indeed, in her "Advertisement" to Vol. vi. of Wright's edition of the Letters, raised a gentle cry of expostulation against the entire representation. She laid stress upon the fact that Macaulay had not known Walpole in the

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STOWE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

44

flesh (a disqualification to which too much weight may easily be assigned); she dwelt upon the warmth of Walpole's attachments; she contested the charge of affectation, and, in short, made such a gallant attempt at a defence as her loyalty to her old friend enabled her to offer. Yet, if Macaulay had never known Walpole at all, she herself, it might be urged, had only known him in his old age. Upon the whole, with due allowance for a spice of critical pepper on one hand, and a handful of friendly rosemary on the other," as Croker says, both characters are substantially true." Under Macaulay's brush Walpole is depicted as he appeared to that critic's masculine and (for the nonce) unsympathetic spirit; in Miss Berry's picture, the likeness is touched with a pencil at once grateful, affectionate, and indulgent. The biographer of to-day who is neither endeavouring to portray Walpole in his most favourable aspect, nor preoccupied (as Cunningham supposed the great Whig essayist to have been) with what would be thought of his work "at Woburn, at Kensington, and in Berkeley Square," may safely borrow details from the delineation of either artist.

(Horace Walpole-A Memoir.)

STOWE AS IT WAS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

To the attentive student of the excellent plan and views which are contained in Seeley's charming little quarto of 1797, dedicated floridly to George Gren

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