Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/210

 and despatch of a counting-house (ib. ii. 607;, Memoirs, i. 23). His speeches were of the same character. ‘An artful rather than an eloquent speaker,’ says Chesterfield (Letters, iii. 1417). His speech on the Sacheverell trial has been quoted by Burke for its exposition of constitutional principle. He rarely attempted the higher flights of oratory, in this approaching the parliamentary speakers of our own day more nearly than did the debaters of that and the next generation. The speeches attributed to him in the parliamentary history have, unfortunately, been transmuted into the turgid rhetoric of Johnson (, Life, ed. G. B. Hill, iv. 314). This indisposition to eloquence in part arose from indifference to literature. ‘I totally neglected reading when I was in business,’ he said to Henry Fox at Houghton, ‘and to such a degree that I cannot now read a page’ (Life of Shelburne, i. 37). He declined to read Butler's ‘Analogy’ to please the queen. The only book he read in his retirement was Sydenham [] (, Life of E. Malone, p. 387). His house was no rendezvous of literary men, though he entertained Pope, to whose ‘Odyssey’ he subscribed ten guineas. He also himself introduced the ‘Dunciad’ to the notice of the king and queen (, Works, iv. 5). He was on friendly terms with Addison, to whom he presented a Latin translation by Dr. Bland, provost of Eton. Steele was a political ally. Congreve he made a commissioner of customs; to Gay he gave a commissionership in the lottery for 1722; to Young a pension. He patronised Ephraim Chambers [q. v.] and Joseph Mitchell [q. v.], known as ‘Sir Robert Walpole's poet.’ There is some truth in Swift's sarcasm that he had ‘none but beasts and blockheads for his penmen’ (Works, xvi. 107). His memory was ‘prodigious’ (, Memoirs, i. 23). He quoted Virgil and Horace (ib. ii. 356, iii. 273), and, as his son says, ‘governed George I in Latin, the king not speaking English and his minister no German, nor even French’ (, Reminiscences, i. xcv). If a story told by Horace Walpole (Letters, iii. 226) is to be relied upon, he must have had some slight knowledge of Italian. He himself never attempted any literary composition beyond political pamphlets (see, ‘Royal and Noble Authors’ in Works, i. 447, ed. 1798). In religion, if we may judge from the anecdote related by Lord Hervey respecting the attendance of Archbishop Potter at the queen's death, Walpole was a sceptic, though in the previous year he had spoken of himself in the House of Commons as ‘a sincere member of the Church of England’ (debate on the motion for repeal of the Test Act, 12 March 1736, Parl. Hist. ix. 1052).

His recreation was in field sports. He is said always to have opened first the letters from his huntsman (, Walpoliana, 1783, p. 10). He kept a pack of harriers at Houghton (Carlisle MSS. p. 85), and a pack of beagles at his house in the New Park, Richmond, where he used to hunt one day in the middle of the week, and also on a Saturday (, Reminiscences, p. xcvi), the origin of the modern weekly parliamentary holiday. He attributed his strength to this exercise (Pope to Fortescue, 31 July 1738; Works, ix. 142). Every November he held at Houghton a ‘hunting congress’ of the neighbouring gentry (, Memoirs, ii. 211), of which Horace Walpole has left an entertaining description (Letters, i. 284). A detailed and appreciative account of his magnificent mansion at Houghton, the construction of which occupied from 1722 to 1735 (Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ii. 144), is to be found in a letter from Sir T. Robinson to Lord Carlisle, dated 9 Dec. 1731 (Carlisle MSS. pp. 85, 86). His profusion not only furnished the opposition with a constant theme for declamation against the alleged malversation of public money; it also provoked the jealousy of his neighbour, Lord Townshend. It was said that he had spent 100,000l. upon his collection of pictures, but a more sober estimate, taking note of the fact that many of them were presents to him, puts their cost at less than 30,000l. (see, Lit. Anecd. viii. 643). He also spent 14,000l. on his hunting lodge in Richmond New Park (, Reminiscences, vol. i. p. xcvii). Besides these he maintained establishments in Chelsea and London. He was, in fact, reckless of expenditure, while ‘deceiving himself with the thoughts of his economy’ (, Letters, iii. 390). His means were derived from three sources: first, his landed estate, the rent-roll of which is computed to have risen from 2,000l. a year when he succeeded to it, to 5,000l.—8,000l. a year in 1740; secondly, the large fortune he made by the sale of South Sea stock at a thousand per cent. profit; thirdly, from official sources, estimated at about 9,000l. a year (see, pp. 135–8). He had also realised considerable profits while paymaster (, Letters, viii. 423). In conformity with the practice of that and later times, he provided for his family by placing them in profitable offices (ib. vol. i. pp. lxxviii–lxxxv). He