l’est, mais je vous jure qu’elle ne retranchera rien, pas m`eme sur mes amusemens.  La prendriez vous de la main de la grandeur, et la refuseriez vous de moi?  Vous me connaissez:  faites ce sacrifice `a mon orgueil, qui serait enchants de vous avoir emp`ech`ee de vous abaisser jusqu’`a la sollicitation.  Votre m`emoire me blesse.  Quoi! vous, vous, r`eduite `a repr`esenter vos malheurs!  Accordez moi, je vous conjure, la grace que je vous demande `a genoux, et jouissez de la satisfaction de vous dire, J’ai un ami qui ne permettra jamais que je me jette aux pieds des grands.  Ma Petite, j’insiste.  Voyez, si vous aimez mieux me faire le plaisir le plus sensible, ou de devoir une grace qui, ayant `et`e sollicit`ee, arrive toujours trop tard pour contanter l’amiti`e.  Laissez moi go`uter la joie la plus pure, de vous avoir mise `a votre aise, et que cette joie soit un secret profond entre nous deux.”  See Letters of the Marquise de Deffand to the Honourable Horace Walpole.-It was impossible to make a pecuniary offer with more earnestness or greater delicacy; and Madame du Deffand’s not having found it necessary subsequently to accept it, in no degree diminishes the merit of the proffered gift.

(29) See letter, dated Monday, five o’clock, Feb. 1761.

(30) See letter, dated April 19th, 1764.

(31) See letter to Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 25, 1750.

(32) Catherine Hyde, the eccentric friend of Pope and Gay.  She was, at this time, living in a small house in Ham Walks.  Walpole, having found her out airing in her Carriage, one day that he had called on her, there addressed the following lines to her:—­

’To many a Kitty, Love his car
Would for a day engage;
But Prior’s Kitty, ever fair,
Retains it for an age.”

(33) Letter of June 8th, 1747.

(34) Lee, in Kent.

(35) Letter of June 5th, 1788.

(36) George James Williams, Esq.

(37) In his vers de soci`et`e we perpetually discover a laborious effort to introduce the lightness of the French badinage into a masculine and somewhat rough language."-Quart.  Rev. vol. xix. p. 122.

(38) Lives of the Novelists, Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 304, ed. 1834.

(39) Chalmer’s Biographical Dictionary, article Walpole.

(40) “The Mysterious Mother” was printed in that year:  but was never published till after the death of Walpole.

(41) Lord Byron, Preface to Mtrino Faliero.”

(42) Lives of the Novelists, Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 313.

(43) Shortly after the appearance of this romance, the following high encomium was passed upon it by Bishop Warburton:-"We have been lately entertained with what I will venture to call a masterpiece in the fable, and a new species likewise.  The piece I mean is laid in Gothic chivalry, where a beautiful imagination, supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the author to go beyond his subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient tragedy; that is, to purge the passions by pity and terror, in colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best dramatic writers."-E.