the greater part of Walter Scott's pages is devoted to a very
able criticism of the only work of fiction produced by Walpole,
"The Castle of Otranto," it has been thought, that a more general
sketch of his life and writings might not prove unacceptable to
the reader.

Horace Walpole was the third and youngest son (21) of that
eminent minister, Sir Robert Walpole-the glory of the Whigs, the
preserver of the throne of these realms to the present Royal
Family, and under whose fostering rule and guidance the country
flourished in peace for more than twenty years. The elder
brothers of Horace were, Robert, Lord Walpole, so created in
1723, who succeeded his father in the Earldom of Orford in 1745,
and died in 1751; and Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the Bath,
whose three natural daughters were, Mrs. Keppel, wife to the
Honourable Frederick Keppel, Bishop of Exeter; the Countess of
Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester; and the Countess of
Dysart. Sir Edward Walpole died in 1784. His sisters were,
Catherine, who died of consumption at the age of nineteen; and
Mary, married to George, Viscount Malpas, afterwards third Earl
of Cholmondeley: she died in 1732. The mother of Horace, and of
his brothers and sisters here mentioned, was Catherine Shorter,
daughter of John Shorter, Esq. of Bybrook, in Kent, and grand-
daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London in 1688. (22)
She died in 1736; and her youngest son, who always professed the
greatest veneration for her memory, erected a monument to her in
Westminster Abbey, in one of the side aisles of Henry the
Seventh's Chapel. Horace Walpole had also a half-sister, the
natural daughter of his father, by his mistress, Maria Skerrett,
whom he afterwards married. She also was named Mary Walpole, and