The Letters of Horace Walpole: Earl of Orford: Including Numerous Letters Now First Published from the Original Manuscripts ...

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Lea and Blanchard, 1842

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Page 137 - I dined with your secretary yesterday ; there were Garrick and a young Mr. Burke/ who wrote a book in the style of lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will know better one of these days.
Page 379 - I was very glad to think of anything rather than politics - In short I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph.
Page 116 - I doated, and who doated on me ! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too lies he who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.
Page 117 - I have chosen to sit in my father's little dressingroom, and am now by his scrutoire, where, in the height of his fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us, with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and how weak ! For what has he built Houghton? For his grandson to annihilate, or for his son to mourn over?
Page 103 - Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble.
Page 64 - In short, the whole external evidence would make one believe these fragments (for so he calls them, though nothing can be more entire) counterfeit : but the internal is so strong on the other side, that I am resolved to believe them genuine, spite of the Devil and the Kirk.
Page 378 - I waked one morning in the beginning of last June from a dream, of which all I could recover was that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head filled, like mine, with Gothic story) and that, on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase, I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate.
Page 517 - I am not yet intoxicated enough with it to think it would do for the stage, though I wish to see it acted ; but, as Mrs. Pritchard leaves the stage next month, I know nobody could play the Countess; nor am I disposed...
Page 29 - Hay says, it will soon be as shameful to beat a Frenchman as to beat a woman. Indeed, one is forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of missing one.
Page 529 - I came to town to see the Danish King. He is as diminutive as if he came out of a kernel in the Fairy Tales. He is not ill made, nor weakly made, though so small ; and though his face is pale and delicate, it is not at all ugly, yet has a strong cast of the late King, and enough of the late Prince of Wales to put one upon one's guard not to be prejudiced in his favour. Still he has more royalty than folly in his air ; and, considering he is not twenty, is as well as one expects any king in a puppet-show...

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