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Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume II by Horace Walpole
page 25 of 309 (08%)
elocution, and when he heard how generally his young sovereign was
praised for the grace and dignity of his delivery of his speech to his
Parliament, he boasted, "Ah, it was I taught the boy to speak."]

[Footnote 4: Garrick was not only a great actor, but also a great
reformer of the stage. He seems to have excelled equally both in tragedy
and comedy, which makes it natural to suppose that in some parts he may
have been excelled by other actors; though he had no equal (and perhaps
never has had) in both lines. He was also himself the author of several
farces of more than average merit.]

Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Baume de vie, for which she gives
you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.

We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena[1] in
the Gevaudan; but our fox-hunters despise you: it is exactly the
enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known its history a few
months ago, I believe it would have appeared in the "Castle of
Otranto,"--the success of which has, at last, brought me to own it,
though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid; but it was
comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the
author: indeed, it met with too much honour far, for at first it was
universally believed to be Mr. Gray's. As all the first impression is
sold, I am hurrying out another, with a new preface, which I will send
you.

[Footnote 1: A wolf of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular
conformation, which for a long time ravaged the Gevaudan; it was, soon
after the date of this letter, killed, and Mr. Walpole saw it in Paris.]

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