in appearace like an old French hotel--being too valuable for the relic
of bygone times to be spared. The panelled chambers, the fine staircase,
certain pictures--one by Wright of Derby, of him--one of Miss
Walkinshaw--have all disappeared.

Of the capture, the trial, the death of his adherents, Horace Walpole
has left the most graphic and therefore touching account that has been
given; whilst he calls a 'rebellion on the defensive' a 'despicable
affair.' Humane, he reverted with horror to the atrocities of General
Hawley, 'the Chief Justice,' as he was designated, who had a 'passion
for frequent and sudden executions.' When this savage commander gained
intelligence of a French spy coming over, he displayed him at once
before the army on a gallows, dangling in his muff and boots. When one
of the surgeons begged for the body of a deserter to dissect, 'Well,'
said the wretch, 'but you must let me have the skeleton to hang up in
the guard-room,' Such was the temper of the times; vice, childishness,
levity at court, brutality in the camp, were the order of the day.
Horace, even Horace, worldly in all, indifferent as to good and bad,
seems to have been heart sick. His brother's matrimonial infidelity
vexed him also sorely. Lady Orford, 'tired,' as he expresses it, of
'sublunary affairs,' was trying to come to an arrangement with her
husband, from whom she had been long separated; the price was to be, he
fancied, £2,000 a year. Meantime, during the convulsive state of
political affairs, he interested himself continually in the improvement
of Strawberry Hill. There was a rival building, Mr. Bateman's Monastery,
at Old Windsor, which is said to have had more uniformity of design than
Strawberry Hill. Horace used indeed to call the house of which he became
so proud a paper house; the walls were at first so slight, and the roof
so insecure in heavy rains. Nevertheless, his days were passed as
peacefully there as the premature infirmities which came upon him would