HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD,

*Born in the Year 1716.*

THE younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister to George the First and George the Second, by his first wife Catherine daughter of Robert Shorter, Esq. of Baybrook in Kent. He was sometime at Eton, from whence he removed to Cambridge.

In 1757 he established a printing press at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham,
from whence he gave to the world, among other productions:

A Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors;
Anecdotes of Painting in England;
The Tragedy of the Mysterious Mother;
and
The Castle of Otranto.

In the early part of his life he was a Member of the House of Commons during
several Parliaments, but retired from political life in the beginning of the present reign,
from which period he confined himself wholly to literary pursuits.

Upon the death of his nephew, George the third Earl of Orford in 1791, he
succeeded to the title and estates of his Family.

He died a martyr to the gout March 2, 1797.

EPILOGUE
TO THE
COMEDY OF THE FASHIONABLE FRIENDS,

Performed at *Strawberry Hill*,

1801,

*Written by the Hon. William Lamb, & Spoken by the Hon. Anne S. Damer,*

IN THE
CHARACTER OF LADY SELINA VAPOUR,

AH e'er I sail for Naples, to attend
The last sad moments of my dearest friend,
Tho' full of tears, my fond impatient heart
Heaves in my breast and prompts me to depart,
I must suppress the sigh, and hush the tear,
And steal from woe some precious moments here.
Altho' your smiles, I own it with delight,
Have told us that we have not fail'd to night;
Have not entirely fail'd to entertain;
Our scene not tiresome, nor our efforts vain.
Yet think me not too bold, if I demand
A higher praise for our theatric band,
And ask, if midst the laugh of humour gay
You have not reap'd instruction from our play?
For, say the wisest critics of the pit,
Authors should mingle wisdom with their wit;
And we should draw, as erst they did in Greece,
A sage good moral from the lightest piece—

Some here I see to whom I dare not preach,
They know already more than I can teach—
But from the younger sort some thanks we claim,
For painting out the path to honest fame—
Does not our play with pow'rful int'rest tend
To teach our Being's greatest aim, and end ?
To form the infant mind, and to explode
The old morality's mistaken code—
To teach what friendship means, in modish life,
A passion for her husband, or his wife;
And to set forth, in love's important trade,
The whole advantage of a masquerade—
But above all, by me be warn'd, ye fair,
Avoid my ruin, of my fate beware;
For I, alas! by sad example shew
What woes from letters wrong directed flow—
This is my last injunction, more I'd say,
But ev'ry moment's fatal while I stay—
My friend may die, and I, alas! shall miss
The mournful pleasure of the parting kiss,
With all the death-bed horrors that combine,
To sooth a soul susceptible as mine—
But this depend on, ye, who now I fear,
Despise me for my stupid errors here,
If to her spouse I feel inclin'd to write,
I will not blunder as I did to-night.

J. BARFIELD, Printer, No. 91, Wardour-Street, Soho.