hardly think of her clothes--allowing for her age I never saw so
_beautiful a creature_.'

Meantime, Houghton was shut up: for its owner died £50,000 in debt, and
the elder brother of Horace, the second Lord Orford, proposed, on
entering it again, after keeping it closed for some time, to enter upon
'new, and then very unknown economy, for which there was great need:'
thus Horace refers to the changes.

It was in the South Sea scheme that Sir Robert Walpole had realized a
large sum of money, by selling out at the right moment. In doing so he
had gained 1000 per cent. But he left little to his family, and at his
death, Horace received a legacy only of £5,000, and a thousand pounds
yearly, which he was to draw (for doing nothing) from the collector's
place in the Custom House; the surplus to be divided between his brother
Edward and himself: this provision was afterwards enhanced by some money
which came to Horace and his brothers from his uncle Captain Shorter's
property; but Horace was not at this period a rich man, and perhaps his
not marrying was owing to his dislike of fortune-hunting, or to his
dread of refusal.

Two years after his father's death, he took a small house at Twickenham:
the property cost him nearly £14,000; in the deeds he found that it was
called Strawberry Hill. He soon commenced making considerable additions
to the house--which became a sort of raree-show in the latter part of
the last, and until a late period in this, century.

Twickenham--so called, according to the antiquary Norden, because the
Thames, as it flows near it, seems from the islands to be divided into
two rivers,--had long been celebrated for its gardens, when Horace