had built a palace, and had made a fine collection of pictures,
which were sold by his grandson George, third Earl of Orford, to
the Empress Catherine of Russia. This work, which is, in fact, a
mere catalogue of pictures, first showed the peculiar talent of
Horace Walpole for enlivening, by anecdote and lightness of
style, a dry subject. This was afterwards still more exemplified
in his "Anecdotes of Painting in England," of which the different
volumes were published in 1761, 1763, and 1771; and in the
"Catalogue of Engravers," published in 1763. These works were
compiled from papers of Vertue, the engraver; but Walpole, from
the stores of his own historical knowledge, from his taste in the
fine arts, and his happy manner of sketching characters, rendered
them peculiarly his own. But his masterpiece in this line was
his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," originally published
in 1758. It is very true, as Walter Scott observes, that "it
would be difficult, by any process or principle of subdivision,
to select a list of so many plebeian authors, containing so very
few whose genius was worthy of commemoration." (38) But this
very circumstance renders the merit of Walpole the greater, in
having, out of such materials, composed a work which must be read
with amusement and interest, as long as liveliness of diction and
felicity in anecdote are considered ingredients of amusement in
literature.

In 1757 Walpole established a private printing-press at
Strawberry Hill, and the first work he printed at it was the Odes
of Gray, with Bentley's prints and vignettes. Among the
handsomest and most valuable volumes which subsequently issued
from this press, in addition to Walpole's own Anecdotes of
Painting, and his description of Strawberry Hill, must be