might have warmed a colder heart, and opened a closer hand,
than Mr. Walpole's: but Madame du Deffand was a recent
acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the pleasure he
received from her society, and his desire that her blind and
helpless old age might not be deprived of any of the comforts
and alleviations of which it was capable. When by the
financial arrangements of the French government, under the
unscrupulous administration of the Abb`e Terray, the creditors
of the state were considerably reduced in income, Mr. Walpole,
in the most earnest manner, begged to prevent the
unpleasantness of his old friend's exposing her necessities,
and imploring aid from the minister of the day, by allowing
him to make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, Or in
any manner that would be most satisfactory to her. The loss,
after all, did not fall on that stock from which she derived
her income, and the assistance was not accepted; but Madame du
Deffand's confidence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in
her letters.

During his after life, although no ostentatious contributor to
public charities and schemes of improvement, the friends in
whose opinion he knew he could confide, had always more
difficulty to repress than to excite his liberality.

That he should have wished his friend Conway to be employed as
commander on military expeditions, which, as a soldier fond of
his profession, he naturally coveted, although Mr. Walpole
might disapprove of the policy of the minister in sending out
such expeditions, surely implies neither disguise, nor
contradiction in his opinions.