his learning, which Lord Macaulay ridicules as affectation, a more
candid judgement may fairly ascribe to sincere modesty. For it is plain
from many other passages in his letters, that he really did undervalue
his own writings; and that the feeling which he thus expressed was
genuine is to a great extent proved by the patience, if not
thankfulness, with which he allowed his friend Mann to alter passages in
"The Mysterious Mother," and confessed the alterations to be
improvements. It may be added that Lord Macaulay's disparagement of his
judgement and his taste is not altogether consistent with his admission
that Walpole's writings possessed an "irresistible charm" that "no man
who has written so much is so seldom tiresome;" that, even in "The
Castle of Otranto," which he ridicules, "the story never flags for a
moment," and, what is more to our present purpose, he adds that "his
letters are with reason considered his best performance;" and that those
to his friend at Florence, Sir H. Mann, "contain much information
concerning the history of that time: the portion of English History of
which common readers know the least."

Of these letters it remains for us now to speak. The value of such _pour
servir_, to borrow a French expression, that is to say, to serve as
materials to supply the historian of a nation or an age with an
acquaintance with events, or persons, or manners, which would be sought
for in vain among Parliamentary records, or ministerial despatches, has
long been recognised.[1] Two thousand years ago, those of the greatest
of Roman orators and statesmen were carefully preserved; and modern
editors do not fear to claim for them a place "among the most valuable
of all the remains of Roman literature; the specimens which they give of
familiar intercourse, and of the public and private manners of society,
drawing up for us the curtain from scenes of immense historical
interest, and laying open the secret workings, the complications, and