but it may preserve men of genius from becoming dull men. It
might have afforded Dryden that studious leisure which he ever wanted,
and which would have given us not imperfect tragedies, and uncorrected
poems, but the regulated flights of a noble genius. It might have
animated Gainsborough to have created an English school in landscape,
which I have heard from those who knew him was his favourite yet
neglected pursuit. But Walpole could insult that genius, which he
wanted the generosity to protect!

The whole spirit of this man was penury. Enjoying an affluent
income he only appeared to patronise the arts which amused his
tastes,--employing the meanest artists, at reduced prices, to
ornament his own works, an economy which he bitterly reprehends in
others who were compelled to practise it. He gratified his avarice
at the expense of his vanity; the strongest passion must prevail.
It was the simplicity of childhood in Chatterton to imagine Horace
Walpole could be a patron--but it is melancholy to record that a
slight protection might have saved such a youth. Gray abandoned
this man of birth and rank in the midst of their journey through
Europe; Mason broke with him; even his humble correspondent Cole,
this "friend of forty years," was often sent away in dudgeon; and
he quarrelled with all the authors and artists he had ever been
acquainted with. The Gothic castle at Strawberry-hill was rarely
graced with living genius--there the greatest was Horace Walpole
himself; but he had been too long waiting to see realised a
magical vision of his hopes, which resembled the prophetic fiction of
his own romance, that "the owner should grow too large for his
house." After many years, having discovered that he still retained his
mediocrity, he could never pardon the presence of that preternatural
being whom the world considered a GREAT MAN.--Such was the feeling
which dictated the close of the above letter; Johnson and Goldsmith
were to be "scorned," since Pope and Gray were no more within the
reach of his envy and his fear.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] He was the youngest son of the celebrated minister, Sir Robert
Walpole.--ED.

[32] In his letters there are uncommon instances of vivacity,
whenever pointed against authors. The following have not yet
met the public eye. What can be more maliciously pungent
than this on Spence? "As I know Mr. J. Spence, I do not
think I should have been so muc