The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-14 00:00:00

Some could rate the " Mr. Rigby " alluded to
by Walpole even lower than " the second
class."
Some of the notes by "Croker in these
volumes, if exposed to Lord Macaulay's criti-
cal battery, would undoubtedly receive a
sharp volley. Mr. Croker was fond of lashing
authors because they did not express them-
selves with the most critical accuracy ; and i n
the review of " Boswell's Johnson' bis own
style of composition was tried by Lord Macau-
lay according to Mr. Croker's own standard.
At page 1:37 in the fourth of these volumes,
alluding to Charles Townshend, there is a note
by " Croker :
Mr. Burke's beautiful, but, perhaps, too favourable
character of Charles Townshend will immortalise the
writer and the subject.—Cnok.m.
Mr. Croker, as a reviewer, would have leant
heavily on any one who cited " the writer." It
was in a speech, in the House of Commons,
that Burke alluded to " that prodigy" Charles
Townshend ; and Burke the " writer " and
Burke the debater are not to be confounded.
Though the mistake is a trivial one, and
though the meaning is obvious, Mr. Croker
would have chastised its commission.
Under date of 17(17 Walpole writes of the
father of the first Lord Sidmouth :
But there is a misfortune not so easily to be surmounted,
the state of Lord Chatham's health, who now does not
only not see the Ministers, but even does not receive
letters. The world, on the report of the Opposition,
believe his head disordered, and there is so far a kind of
colour for this rumour, that he has lately taken Dr. Ad-
dington, a physician in vogue, who originally was a mad
doctor. 'rho truth I believe is, that Addington, who is a
kind of empiric, has forbidden his doing the least business,
though he hes out of town, and everybody sees him pass in
his coach along the streets.
To which Mr. Cunningham appends the
note :
Little did Walpole or anybody else foresee that the son
of this empiric should within a very few years after Wal-
pole's death be Prime Minister of England, and that his
cant-appellation ifrom his father's profession) would be
that of " The Doctor."—.CUNNlNGit
If Mr. Cunningham will consult the " Gren-
ville Correspondence " he will find that " the
empiric" in twenty years afterwards was sent
for to attend at Windsor Castle, and that his
prescription of a pillow of hops was of great
use to Khig George 111.
Walpole writes to the Rev. W. Cole
(176E9 :
I have long had thoughts of drawing up something for
London like St. Foil's Rues de Paris, and have made some
collections. I wish you would be so good, in the course of
your reading, to mark down any passage to that end : as
where any great houses of the nobility were situated; or in
what street any memorable event happened.
The work which Walpole has indicated has
since been ably performed, though no mention
of it, from modesty, is made by " Cunning-
ham."

Walpole, as we have observed on former
occasions, was an admirably graphic describer
of English "interiors." A few of those de-
scriptions are still faithful portraitures of the
special lociilities, but others (like that of
Stowe) are entirely inapplicable to our time.
Amongst the former class is the following de-
scription of Ham house near Richmond, which
reads as if it were written yesterday :
Close to the Thames, in the centre of all rich and ver-
Rant beauty, it is so blocked up and hatricaded with walls,
vast trees, and gates, that you think yourself an hundred
miles off and an hundred years back. The old furniture
is so magnificently ancient, dreary and decayed, that at
every step one's spirits sink, and all my passion for an-
tiquity could not keep them up. Every minute I expected
to see ghosts sweeping by ; ghosts I would not give six-
pence to see, Lauderdales, Tollemaches, and Maitlands.
There is one old brown gallery full of Vandycks and Lelys,
charming miniatures, delightful Wouvermans, and Polem-
burghs, china, japan, bronzes, ivory cabinets, and silver
dogs, pokers, bellows, Sze., without end. One pair of bel-
lows is of filigree. In this state of pomp Will tatters my
nephew intends it shall remain, and is so religions an
observer of the venerable rites of his house, that because
the gates never were opened by his father but once for the
late Lord Granville, you are locked out and locked in, and
after journeying all round the house, as you do round an
old French fortified town, you are at last admitted through
to creep along a dark passage by the house-
, and so by a back door into the great hall.
much afraid of water as a cat; for though
joy the Thames from every window of three
hous t, you may tninlile into it before 3011
it is there. In short, our ancestors had so
'taste and beauty, that I should not have been
they had hung their pictures with the painted
wall. Think of such a palace commanding all
Richmond and Twickenham, with a domain
of Richmond-hill to Kingston .bridge, and

then imagine its being as dismal and prospectless as if it
stood
On Stanmore's wintry wild!
It is not many days since we were ourselves
examining those parts of Ham-house which
are visible to the public, and we can verify the
force of the foregoing description. Many,
however, would object to Walpole's recom-
mendation of cutting down the timber. The
long and stately avenues are in artistic har-
mony with the grand old house, which would
j appear extremely bare if denuded of its ver-
dant alleys ; and the trees are so disposed
that partial vistas, while disfiguring the
avenues, would not admit the prospect. The
gate is still kept closed as in the days when
the above letter was written. The following
note is givm by Mr. Cunningham front

" Crokcr MS." :
So it is when one dines there up to this day ( MI6).
The iron gate is never opened except for royalty. I have
often dined there,—more than once with the Duke of
Wellington, anu even for him 1 don't think that avenue
was opened.
Hain house has recently undergone extensive
repairs, and is a first-class specimen of man-
sions of its particular era.
In a few letters afterwards Walpole alludes
to Stowe, and the contrast between Stowe as
it is now and as it was then must occur to
every reader:—
The number of buildings and variety of scenes in the
garden made each day different from the rest, and my
meditations on so historic a spot prevented my being
tired. Every acre brings to one 'a mind some instance of
the parts or pedantry, of the taste or want of taste, of the
ambition or love of fame, or greatness or miscarriages, of
those that have inhabited, decorated, planned, or visited the
place. Pope, Congreve, Vaubrugh, Kent, Gibbs, Lord
Cobham, Lord Chesterfield, the mob of nephews, the
tteltons, Grenvilles, \Vests, Leonidas Glover, and Wilkes,
the late Prince of Wales, the King of Denmark, Princess
Amelia, and the proud monuments of Lord Chatham's
services, now enshrined there, then anathematised there,
and now again commanding there, with the Temple of
Friendship, like the Temple of Janus, sometimes open to
war, and sometimes shut up in factions cabals—all these
images crowd upon one's memory, and add visionary per-
sonages to the charming scenes, that are so enriched with
fanes and temples that the real prospects are little less
than visions themselves.
A history of Stowe—its rise, decline, and fall
—would be almost a fitting subject for a clas-
sical pen. A witty Frenchman called Abbots-
ford "a romance in stone and mortar." Stowe
and its associations suggest a century of
history.
When Walpole alludes to " poplar-pines,"
we find this note :
The first poplar-pine (or,as they have since been called,
Lombardy poplar) planted in England was that at Park-
place, on the bank of the river near the great arch. It was
as a cutting brought from Turin by the late Lord Ilochford
in his carriage, and planted by General Conway's own.
hand.—BERRY. Can this be so? I remember three Loin
hardy poplars at Blenheim, that in 1800 looked eighty
yearn old --Croke/. .11.5.--CUNNISOHAM.
The note of Mr. Croker is characteristic.
He had a passion for dates. He fixes the
time when he saw the poplars at Blenheim,
and when they " looked" eighty years old !
Mr. Cunningham plunges into so many
details that he is often inexact in trifles. 'The
following note about Mrs. Abington is erro-
neous :

..--..... .
Frances Barton ( Mrs. Abington), celebrated as Lady
Teazle, was born in London in 1731, and made her first
appearance in 1751, at the Haymarket Theatre. In 1799
she retreated to private life, and died March 4, 1815.—CUS.
MNGIIANI.
Mrs. Abington certainly was not " celebrated"
as Lady Teazle, nor, judging by her tradi-
tional reputation, would we suppose her to
have filled that part in brilliant style. Her
Widoe Baotou!, (in The Way to Keep Him) was
the part in which she was justly celebrated,
and no one is believed ever to have played
that part with such effect. Lady Townly and
Lady Racket were her other great parts.
There are many passages in these volumes
which ask for a more critical style of annota-
tion than is hero given to them. Walpole,
1 writing to Voltaire, says :
Nor do I fear yon, sir, only as the first genius in Europe,
who haft illustrated every science ; I have a more intimate
dependence on you than you suspect. Without knowing
it, you have been my master, and perhaps the sole merit
that may be found in my writings is owing to my having
studied yours; so far, sir, am I from living in that state of
barbarism and ignorance with which you tax me when you
say que nous neeles peut•elre ineunnu.
We allow for the flattery, but we believe that
Walpole uttered the truth when he acknow-

ledged this intense admiration for Voltaire.
In reading Walpole's letters we are perpe-
Wally reminded of Voltaire's style, not only
in its piquant and inherent levity, but in tho
nimbleness of the thoughts and the condensed
power of narrative. The mere structure of
the sentences, also, is constantly Voltairian ;
and the ease with which an old topic is slipped
away from and a new subject entered upon,
constantly reminds us that the gossip of Straw-
berry-hill was habitually familiar with the
writings of the philosopher of Ferney.
The fifth of these volumes ranges from 1766
to 1773, which more than includes the Junius
period (1767-17772). It is surprising how
little notice Walpole has given to Junius.
One might have thought that the personality,
scandal, and even mystery of those letters
would have had some interest for Walpole.
" Single-Speech Hamilton was Walpole's
candidate for the laurels of the man iu the
mask. But it is only on two or three occa-
sions that Walpole alludes to Junius in these
I letters.

The Home Affections. Portrayed by the
Poets. Selected and Edited by Charles
Mackay. With One Hundred Engravings.
London : Itoutledge.
THIS is the earliest of the book annuals that
herald the approach of Christmas, when tokens
of affection are given in so many pleasing
forms. It is a splendidly hound volume, and
has a union of artistic and literary beauties,
the letterpress being nearly all taken from
standard minor poems which have become
household lyrics. The editor has shown much
practical skill in selecting his pieces, as there
is something fur everyone in the book. It is
dedicated to " Love" in its purest form, and
Dr. Mackay must be allowed to express his
views in compiling this attractive volume :
To Poetry more especially belongs the duty of celebrating
the beauty and the purity of Affection, anti of linking
together the two great principles of Love to God and Love
to Man. In the poetry of no language have the freshness,
and it may be said the holiness, of this sentiment, and the
paramount beauty of the Howe Affections, been more
exquisitely portrayed than in that of England ; and the
poets of the last sixty or seventy years may be truly said
to have surpassed ell their predecessors—Shakspeare and
Milton alone excepted—in the tenderness and beauty of
their illustrations of this great passion, and the multi-
farious incidents of joy and sorrow which mark its pro-
gress. In the less advanced period of literature which
intervened between the days of Milton anti those of
Wordsworth and his great contemporaries, Love was too
commonly treated by the rhymers and versifiers, and even
by those worthy of the higher name of poets, in a Greek
and Roman, and consequently a Heathen spirit. Cupid,
Venus, and Hymen were as pertinaciously and unwarrant-
ably introduced, as if Christian readers believed in these
names, or could be moved in the most infinitesimal degree
by them ; and the poetry of Love, or that single exempti'
fieation of the feeling which may be best described by
the word amatory, became a mere play of the fancy. AA
it did not spring from the hearts of the writersh, it could
not touch the hearts of the readers. But as the public
taste improved, anti new and great poets arose (as they
did so plentifully at the end of the last anti beginning of
the present century), these inane compositions fell into
well-merited contempt; and Love in its widest and most
universal acceptation,—the Love of Home, of Country,
anti of Kind,—Love in innocent childhood, Love in court-
ship and youth, Love in matrimony and middle age, and
Love on the confines of the tomb--embracing as these du
all possible varieties of human relationship—found poets
worthy to celebrate the name.
it is from the works of those poets of the last
sixty years, living or dead, that the extracts
are taken. The exaltation of the domestic
affections is the object kept in view by Dr.
Mackay, but we are afraid that he has inserted
too many pieces of a mournful character, and
he himself has anticipated this opinion in his
preface. There are several pieces in which
the lost and gone are poetically lamented, and
some of these, though melancholy. are well
calculated to apply balm to bruised minds.
Thus the anonymous poem of " The Lust
Little One " has much nature in it:—
We miss her footfall on the floor,
Amidst the nursery din,
her tip-tap at our bedroom door,
Her bright face peeping in.
And when to Heaven's high court above
Aacends our social prayer,
Though there are voices that we love,
One sweet voice is not there.
And dreary seem the hours, and lone,
That drag themselves along,
Now from our board her smile is gone,
And from our hearth her song.

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