Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/359

Rh AY A L P L E 335 court, George Montagu, one of his earliest friends, Conway, and Sir Horace Mann. With most of these friends he quarrelled, but the friendship of the last two, in the former case through genuine liking, and in the latter through his fortunate absence from England, was never interrupted. The Letters were published at different dates, but the standard collection is that by Peter Cunningham (9 vols., 1857-59), and to it should be added the vol umes of the letters addressed to Walpole by his old friend Madame du Defraud (1810, 4 vols.), and the publication of Dr Doran, Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence, which is founded on the epistles sent in return to Walpole by the envoy-extraordinary. A handsome little volume, Horace Walpole and his World, con sisting of select passages from his letters, extracted and strung together in a simple narrative by Mr L. B. Seeley, was issued in 1884. Walpole has been called &quot;the best letter- writer in the English language&quot;; and few indeed are the names, possibly none save Swift and Cowper, which can compare with his. In these compositions his very foibles are penned for our amusement, and his love of trifles for, in the words of another Horace, he was ever &quot; nescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in illis&quot; minister to our instruction. To these friends he communicated every fashionable scandal, every social event, and the details of every political struggle in English life. The politicians and the courtiers of his day were more akin to his character than were the chief authors of his age, and the weakness of his intellectual perceptions stands out most prominently in his estimates of such writers as Johnson and Goldsmith, Gibbon and Hume. On many occasions he displayed great liberality of disposition, and he bitterly deplored for the rest of his days his neglect of the unhappy Chatterton. Abundant information about Horace Walpole will be found in the Memoirs of him and of his contemporaries edited by Eliot Warburton, Jesse s George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, and the extracts from the journals and correspondence of Miss Berry; and it would be unpardonable to omit mention of Macanlay s sketch of Walpole s life and character. (W. P. C.) WALPOLE, SIR ROBERT, EARL OF ORFORD (1676- 1745), prime minister of England from 1721 to 1742, was the third but eldest surviving son of Robert Walpole, M.P., of Houghton in Norfolk, 1 by Mary, only daughter and heiress of Sir Jeff ery Burwell, of Rougham, in Suffolk. The father, a jolly old squire who revelled in outdoor sport and the pleasures of the table, transmitted to his son the chief traits in his own character. The future statesman was born at Houghton on 26th August 1676, and was sent to Eton and to King s College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as scholar on 22d April 1696. At this time he was destined, as a younger son, for the church, but his two elder brothers died young and he became the heir to an estate producing about 2000 a year, whereupon in May 1698 he resigned his fellowship, and was soon afterwards withdrawn by his father from the university. His education lasted sufficiently long, however, to enable him to gratify the tastes of the county members in parliament with the usual quotations from Horace, though in classical attainments he was excelled by Pulteney, Carteret, and many others of his contem poraries in politics. On his father s decease the electors of the family borough of Castle Rising returned him in January 1701 to the House of Commons as their repre sentative, but after two short-lived parliaments he sought the suffrages of the more important constituency of King s Lynn (1702), and was elected as its member at every subsequent dissolution until he left the Lower House. From the first he took a keen interest in the business of the House, and not many months passed away before his shrewdness in counsel and his zeal for the interests of the Whigs were generally recognized. In March 1705, accord ing to the statement of Archdeacon Coxe, he was appointed one of the council to Prince George of Denmark, the inactive husband of Queen Anne, and then lord high admiral of England. Complaints against the administra tion of the navy were then loud and frequent (Burton s Queen Anne, ii. 22-31), and the responsibilities of his new position tested his capacity for public life. His abilities proved equal to the occasion, and justified his advancement, 1 The head of a family whose ancestors and descendants are recorded in an elaborate pedigree published in the Proceedings of the Norfolk a.nd Norwich ArchfeoL Soc., i. 363-79. in succession to his life-long rival Henry St John, to the more important position of secretary-at-war (February 1708), an office of recent creation but in time of war of great responsibility, which brought him into immediate contact with the duke of Marlborough and the queen. With this post he held for a short time (1710) the treasurership of the navy, and by the discharge of his official duties and by his skill in debate became admitted to the inmost councils of the ministry. He could not succeed, however, in diverting Godolphin from the great error of that statesman s career, the impeachment of Sacheverell, and when the committee was appointed for elaborating the articles of impeachment Walpole was called upon to act as one of the managers for the House of Commons. On the wreck of the Whig party which ensued upon this fatal mistake, Walpole shared in the general misfortune, but neither cajolery nor menace could induce him to retain office, and he took his place with his friends in opposition. His energies now shone forth with irre sistible vigour ; both in debate and in the pamphlet press he took up the cause of the ejected ministry, and in revenge for his zeal his political opponents brought against him an accusation of personal corruption. On these charges, now universally acknowledged to have proceeded from party animosity, he was in the spring of 1712 expelled from the House and committed to the Tower. His prison cell now became the rendezvous of the Whigs among the aristocracy, while the populace heard his praises commemorated in the ballads of the streets. The ignominy which the Tories had endeavoured to inflict upon him was turned into augmented reputation. At the dissolution of 1713 the faithful electors of King s Lynn again placed their trust in him, and during this parliament, the last summoned by Queen Anne, he took the leading part in defence of Steele against the attacks of the Tories. With the accession of George, the Whigs regained their supremacy, and for nearly half a century they retained the control of English politics. The prizes fell to the victors, and Walpole obtained the lucrative if unimportant post of paymaster-general of the forces in the administration which was formed under the nominal rule of Lord Halifax, but of which Stanhope and Townshend were the guiding spirits. A committee of secrecy was appointed to inquire into the acts of the late ministry, and especially into the peace of Utrecht, and to Walpole was entrusted the place of chairman. Most of his colleagues in office were members of the House of Lords, and the lead in the Commons quickly became the reward of his talents and assiduity. Halifax died, and after a short interval Walpole was exalted into the conspicuous position of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer (llth October 1715). Jealousies, however, prevailed among the Whigs, and the German favourites of the new monarch quickly showed their discontent with the heads of the ministry. Townshend was forced into resigning his secretaryship of state for the dignified exile of viceroy of Ireland, but he never crossed the sea to Dublin, and the support which Sunderland and Stanhope, the new advisers of the king, received from him and from Walpole was so grudging that Townshend was dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy (April 1717), and Walpole on the next morning withdrew from the ministry. They plunged into opposition with unflag ging energy, and in resisting the measure by which it was proposed to limit the royal prerogative in the creation of peerages Walpole exerted all his powers. This display of ability brought about a partial reconciliation of the two parties among the Whigs. To Townshend was given the presidency of the council, and Walpole once again assumed the pay mastership of the forces (June 1720). On the financial crash which followed the failure of the South