pardon of his judges for having used the plea of madness. But if his life was odious, and during his life his cowardice notorious, he showed at his death that he did not want sense, resolution, or temper. He bore the ignominy of his fate like a philosopher, and went to meet it with the ease of a gentleman. In the tedious passage of his conveyance from the Tower to Tyburn, which was impeded by the crowds that assembled round his coach, he dropped not a rash word, nor one that had not sense and thought in it. Little was wanting to grace his catastrophe but less resentment to his wife, the peculiarity of being executed in his wedding-habit too strongly marking that he imputed his calamity to that source. His relation, Lady Huntingdon, the metropolitan of the Methodists, had laboured much in his last hours to profit of his fears for the honour of her sect; but, having renounced the plea of madness, he did not choose to resign his intellects to folly.-Pp. 434, 435.

There are, as we have said, fewer anecdotes interspersed through this work than one would expect from the gossipping propensities of the author. Some there are, however, of course,-or the book would not be written by Horace Walpole. There is a very entertaining account of Doddington, with several amusing instances of his wit.-The following is, perhaps, the best:

Doddington was very lethargic: falling asleep one day after dinner, with Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, the General, the latter reproached Doddington with his drowsiness; Doddington denied having been asleep, and to prove he had not, offered to repeat all Lord Cobham had been saying. Cobham challenged him to do so; Doddington repeated a story, and Lord Cobham owned he had been telling it. "Well," said Doddington," and yet I did not hear a word of it; but I went to sleep because I knew that about this time of day you would tell that story."

The following is a curious scrap of parliamentary anecdote :

Townshend was obliged to yield, that the inquiries should commence on the 19th of April, the first day after the recess

of Easter. Sir Francis Dashwood said, that day would interfere with the meeting at Newmarket, and proposed a later time. Fox said, there would be a second meeting with which a later day would equally clash. I blush to repeat these circumstances, was it a greater proof of the levity of our character, or of the little that was to be expected from the inquiries, when a senate sat weighing horse races against national resentment and justice.

These volumes are embellished with plates, which represent the most conspicuous persons of whom they treat. They are drawn, with slight exception, by Bentley, one of the thousand and one artists alternately patronised and abused by Walpole. The drawings are executed with some fancy, and a great deal of affectation-for the portrait is surrounded by all sorts of emblems, which the author considered symbolical of the character of the person painted. These plates have each a formal description, and it is well that they have, for we would defy any human being otherwise to divine their meaning:-for a taste:

MR. PITT. The caduceus, cap of liberty, cornucopia, and the cornet's guerdon. Demosthenes and Cicero reading, with astonishment, the Duchess of Marlborough's will, and legacy of 10,000l. to Mr. Pitt, and seeming to say, "We never got any thing like this by our eloquence."

In closing this book, we cannot but remark on the crude, and often incorrect, style in which it is composed. Walpole's Letters, and other lighter works, are written with ease and flowingness; but the style of these Memoires is harsh, involved, and frequently ungrammatical. On the whole, if this work do not give much real additional information concerning the history of the period to which it relates, it is a light and amusing commentary on graver chronicles, and furnishes

much entertaining illustration of known events. But its
chief interest and merit lie in the individual portraits
with which it abounds. These are drawn with great
animation and skill, and certainly make their subjects
much more accurately known to us than they have ever
hitherto been. The author himself appears but little
on the scene, which takes from the book the character
of egotism, which one would, at first, expect it to pos-
sess. Still his personal character will occasionally peep
out:-in recording the mots of Doddington and Charles
Townshend, he betrays his fondness for small wit; and
his anecdotes of court scandal give us a frequent glimpse
of his known old-maidenish propensities.

It appears that he has left other historical works be-
hind him; but concerning what date they treat, or whe-
ther or not they will be published, the Editor does not
disclose. The events immediately succeeding the ac-
cession of the late King, and the period of the Ameri-
can war, are, in our view, much more interesting than
"the last ten years of the reign of George the Second;"
but at that time Walpole's political connexions were,
in great measure, broken through, and his remarks on
the latter years of his life, would possibly, like the ho-
milies of the Archbishop of Granada, smack strongly of
declining age. We should be glad, however, we con-
fess, to see more of the contents of the "wainscot
chest;" for, though the showman be not a very dignified
or amiable person, he moves his wires well, and imparts
to his exhibition a considerable degree of interest and
amusement.

FAITHFUL AND FORSAKEN, A DRAMATIC SKETCH............ 235 ON ANCIENT AND MODERN ELOQUENCE

THE IDRIAN MINER'S WIFE. By the Author of May You Like It.... 334