letters to the Rev. William Cole have been carefully examined
with the originals, and many explanatory notes added, from the
manuscript collections of that indefatigable antiquary,
deposited in the British museum.

Besides being the only complete edition ever published of the
incomparable letters of this "prince of epistolary writers,"
as he has been designated by an eminent critic, the present
work possesses the further advantage of exhibiting the letters
themselves in chronological order. Thus the whole series
forms a lively and most interesting commentary on the events
of the age, as well as a record of the most important
transactions, invaluable to the historian and politician, from
1735 to 1797-a period of more than sixty years.

To Lord Dover's description of these letters (1) little need
be added. Of Horace Walpole it is not too much to say, that
he knew more of the Courts of George I., George II., and
George III., during the early years of the last monarch, than
any other individual; and, though he lived to an extreme age,
the perpetual youthfulness of his disposition rendered him as
lively a chronicler when advanced in life, as when his
brilliant career commenced. It is to this unceasing spring,
this unfading juvenility of spirit, that the world is indebted
for the gay colours with which Walpole invests every thing he
touches. If the irresistible court beauties-the Gunnings, the
Lepels, and others-have been compelled, after their hundred
conquests, to yield to the ungallant liberties of Time, and to
Death, the rude destroyer, it is a delight to us to know that
their charms are destined to bloom for ever in the sparkling