ower arts of success; their sense of honour
disqualifies them for all those services which require flexibility of
conscience; and their sensibility to injustice makes them retort public
injury, by disdainfully abandoning the struggle, and retiring from the
vulgar bustle of the world.

Let such men, then, glance over the pages of Walpole, and see how
productive may be made the hours of obscurity; how vigorously the
oblivion of one generation may be redeemed by the honours of another;
and how effectively the humble man of genius may survive the glaring
favourites of an ephemeral good fortune.

Walpole, in his lifetime, was either pitied as a disappointed official,
or laughed at as a collector of cracked china; but who either pities or
laughs at him now? Posterity delights in the products of his study,
while the prosperous tribe of his parliamentary day are forgotten, or
remembered only through those products of his study. The Pulteneys,
Granvilles, Lyttletons, and Wyndhams, are extinguished, and their chief
interest now arises from Walpole's fixing their names in his works; as
an architect uses the busts and masks of antiquity to decorate the
gates, or crowns the buttresses of his temple.

Lord Holland's preface contains the following brief statement relative
to the present publication.

Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord
Orford, was the following memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which
was written, "Not to be opened till after my will."

"In my library, at Strawberry Hill, are two wainscot chests or boxes,
the larger marked with an A, the lesser with a B. I desire that, as soon
as I am dead, my executor and executrix will cord up strongly and seal
the larger box marked A, and deliver it to the Honourable Hugh Conway
Seymour; to be kept by him unopened and sealed, till the eldest son of
Lady Waldegrave, or whichever of her sons, being Earl of Waldegrave,
shall attain the age of twenty-five years, when the said chest, with
whatever it contains, shall be delivered to him for his own."

The rest of the order refers simply to the keeping of the key in the
interim. The date is August 19, 1796.

Lord Holland then argues, with a rather unnecessary waste of argument,
that the history contained within this chest was intended for
publication, which, of course, it must have been.

In his private correspondence, Walpole frequently alludes to his
preparation of the present work. In a lette