Horace Walpole took no care of his
health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned. His friends beheld
him with horror go out on a dewy day: he would even step out in his
slippers. In his own grounds he never wore a hat: he used to say, that
on his first visit to Paris he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he
saw every meagre little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a
breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a certainty
of taking the disease which the Germans say is endemical in England, and
which they call _to catch cold_. The first trial, he used to tell his
friends, cost him a fever, but he got over it. Draughts of air, damp
rooms, windows open at his back, became matters of indifference to him
after once getting through the hardening process. He used even to be
vexed at the officious solicitude of friends on this point, and with
half a smile would say, 'My back is the same as my face, and my neck is
like my nose.' He regarded his favourite iced-water as a preservative to
his stomach, which, he said, would last longer than his bones. He did
not take into account that the stomach is usually the seat of disease.

One naturally inquires why the amiable recluse never, in his best days,
thought of marriage: a difficult question to be answered. In men of that
period, a dissolute life, an unhappy connection, too frequently
explained the problem. In the case before us no such explanation can be
offered. Horace Walpole had many votaries, many friends, several
favourites, but no known mistress. The marks of the old bachelor
fastened early on him, more especially after he began to be governed by
his _valet de chambre_. The notable personage who ruled over the pliant
Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb. This domestic tyrant was despotic; if
Horace wanted a tree to be felled, Colomb opposed it, and the master
yielded. Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in
ours, but they differed in manner. The old familiarity had not gone out,
but existed as it still does among the French. Those who recollect Dr.
Parr will remember how stern a rule his factotum Sam exercised over him.
Sam put down what wine he chose, nay, almost invited the guests; at all
events, he had his favourites among them. And in the same way as Sam
ruled at Hatton, Colomb was, _de facto,_ the master of Strawberry Hill.

With all its defects, the little 'plaything house' as Horace Walpole
called it, must have been a charmi