ransformations as these poor plains have in my idea. At first I was
contented with tending a visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name
to the echo of the cascade under the bridge ... As I got further into
Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden
of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the _Capitoli
immobile saxum_.'

Horace Walpole's humble friend Assheton was another of those Etonians
who were plodding on to independence, whilst he, set forward by fortune
and interest, was accomplishing reputation. Assheton was the son of a
worthy man, who presided over the Grammar School at Lancaster, upon a
stipend of L32 a year. Assheton's mother had brought to her husband a
small estate. This was sold to educate the 'boys:' they were both clever
and deserving. One became the fellow of Trinity College; the other, the
friend of Horace, rose into notice as the tutor of the young Earl of
Plymouth; then became a D.D., and a fashionable preacher in London; was
elected preacher at Lincoln's Inn; attacked the Methodists; and died, at
fifty-three, at variance with Horace--this Assheton, whom once he had
loved so much.

Horace, on the other hand, after having seen during his travels all that
was most exclusive, attractive, and lofty, both in art and nature, came
home without bringing, he declares, 'one word of French or Italian for
common use.' He professed, indeed, to prefer England to all other
countries. A country tour in England delighted him: the populousness,
the ease in the people also, charmed him. 'Canterbury was a paradise to
Modena, Reggio, or Parma.' He had, before he returned, perceived that
nowhere except in England was there the distinction of 'middling
people;' he now found that nowhere but in England were middling houses.
'How snug they are!' exclaims this scion of the exclusives. Then he runs
on into an anecdote about Pope and Frederick, Prince of Wales. 'Mr.
Pope, said the prince, 'you don't love princes.' 'Sir, I beg your
pardon.' 'Well, you don't love kings, then.' 'Sir, I own I like the lion
better before his claws are grown.' The 'Horace Walpole' began now to
creep out: never was he really at home except in a court atmosphere.
Still he assumed, even at twenty-four, to be the boy.

'You won't find me,' he writes to Harry Conway, 'much altered, I
believe; at least, outwardly. I am not grown a bit shorter or fatter,
but am just the same long, lean creature as usual. T