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See him at once with life and vigour blest;
So glowed the transport in Ulysses' breast,
Joyous he thought his labours now no more,
And plied each nerve to gain the wish'd-for shore,
But when as near as human voice can reach,
He heard the surge loud thundering on the beach.
Instead of bay and friendly port, he found
Vast pointed rocks, and breakers all around.
Deep ran the surf, and dangerous every way,

The cliffs were cover'd high with foam and spray.

"There is something particular in this description: for the Poet mentions vnveμía, or the dying away of the wind; and afterwards says 'Pox¤î yàp μéya kîμa, the sea still rages, and breaks. Nobody but a person who had been conversant with the sea, would have been apprised of this heavy swell which continues upon a sudden calm. The description is true, and founded upon experience.

"I must repeat, what I said above, that whoever wrote these lines, had often experienced the terrors of the deep, and knew well the fatal consequences of a lee-shore. In another part of his poems, he gives a fine description of a night scene, in which a ship is carried away by a storm; and the mariners in their distress see a fire upon a hill inland, lighted up by some shepherds, and look up with longing eyes to be in such a place of security:

Ὡς δ ̓ ὅταν ἐκ πόντοιο σέλας ναύτῃσι φανείῃ
Καιομένοιο πυρὸς, τὸ δὲ καίεται ὕψοθ ̓ ὄρεσφι
Σταθμῷ ἐν οἰοπόλῳ· τοὺς δ ̓ οὐκ ἐθέλοντας ἄελλαι
Πόντον ἐπ ̓ ἰχθυόεντα φίλων ἀπάνευθε φέρουσιν.

As when by night a fire is seen afar,

II. T. v. 375.

By shepherds lighted near their fleecy care,
Driv'n at the will of winds across the main,

The mariners look up, but look in vain.

Loud, and more loud, the tempest howls, while they
Far from their best loved friends are borne away.

"I am led to think, when I read this affecting description, that Homer was one of those, who looked up in that disastrous season, and partook of those dangers which he so pathetically describes. All those feelings, which he so intimately imparts, he had experienced. He had often heard the deafening surge break upon the shore, and passed with extreme hazard, those rocks, and shoals, with which the sea-coast abounds. He mentions the Aápos and Alovia, together with other birds of the ocean; and describes their

flight, and manner of fishing, and the very motion of their wings. This may be seen in the description given of Mercury, when he flew downwards from the mountain Pieria :

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"When he alludes to a person who had been lost in the seas, he does not barely mention the circumstance of his being drowned, but brings the sad event before our eyes; and points to the bones, which lie whitening upon the strand—

̓Ανέρος, οὗ δή που λεύκ ̓ ὀστέα πύθεται ὄμβρῳ,
Κείμεν ̓ ἐπ' ἠπείρου.

These ideas could not be borrowed: they are too strong, and vivid, and too particular, to be copies; they proceeded from his own recollection; and were the result of sad experience."

HORACE WALPOLE.

HORACE WALPOLE may perhaps be esteemed fortunate in having met with two such biographers as Sir Walter Scott and Lord Dover. But it would have been peculiarly hard, if an author, who has done so much to throw light on the memoirs of so many of his contemporaries, had himself failed in receiving the attention of the ablest writers of the following generation.

Sir Walter Scott, in his "Lives of the Novelists," deals with Horace Walpole principally as the author of the "Castle of Otranto." Lord Dover's elegant and accurate memoir traces his career throughout his long life, and brings before the reader's notice all the varied productions of Horace Walpole's keen and graceful pen.

Lord Dover's diligence, candour, and good taste, as the biographer and editor of Horace Walpole, have been generally and justly eulogised; and instead of endeavouring to compete with what I heartily admire, and thoroughly agree with, I shall, in the follow

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ing sketch, largely adopt his Lordship's performance, availing myself, at every opportunity, of Sir Walter Scott's collateral narrative; and also of an able though severe review of Horace Walpole's life and character, by a writer in one of our principal periodicals.R

Horace Walpole was the third and youngest son 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." (These are Lord Dover's words.)

Horace Walpole was born October 5th, 1717, and educated on the foundation at Eton. In 1734 he went to King's College, Cambridge, as a Fellow-Commoner. Walpole formed at Eton a warm friendship with Gray, West, and Ashton (afterwards Fellow of Eton), which they called the Quadruple Alliance. Walpole, like his friends, was not only a good classical scholar, but a sincere lover of the study. In one of his first letters, after leaving Eton for Cambridge, he proposes to his friend West, who had gone to the sister university, "to hold a classical correspondence." He says, "I can never forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in reading Horace and Virgil; and I think they are topics which will never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire, and cultivate two barbarous towns,' o'errun with rusticity and mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle, that they plod on in the same eternal round, with their whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars ;

Their time a moment, and a point their space.'

'Orabunt causas melius, cœlique meatus
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent :
Te coluisse novem Musas, Romane, memento;
Hæ tibi erunt artes."

"We have not the least poetry here; for I can't call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of January by that name,-more than four lines on a chapter in the New Testament is an epigram. Tydeus rose and set at Eton: he is only known here to be a scholar at King's. Oromasdes and Almanzors are just the same; that is, I am almost the only person they are acquainted with, and 9 i. e. Oxford and Cambridge.

8 Quarterly Review, vol. xix. p. 9.

consequently the only person acquainted with their excellencies. Plato improves every day; so does my friendship with him. These three divide my whole time, though I believe you will guess there is no quadruple alliance: that was a happiness I only enjoyed when you was at Eton. A short account of the Eton people at Oxford would much oblige,

"My dear West,

"Your faithful friend,
"H. WALPOLE."

There are several other letters of Walpole's which prove him to have been a zealous Etonian. Some of his critics have said, that his affection for General Conway was the only instance in which he ever showed the least warmth of heart. I think that his grateful love for Eton might have been referred to as one instance

more.

In 1736, he thus commences a letter to West :

"DEAR WEST,

"TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

"KING'S COLLEGE, Aug. 17, 1736.

"Gray is at Burnham, and, what is surprising, has not been at Eton. Could you live so near it, without seeing it? That dear scene of our quadruple alliance would furnish me with the most agreeable recollections. 'Tis the head of our genealogical table, that is since sprouted out into the two branches of Oxford and Cambridge."

In the next year he realised the anticipations above expressed, of the pleasure of revisiting the "dear scene," and thus described to another friend, an old schoolfellow, George Montagu, what he felt at finding himself once more at "The Christopher," which then stood on the classic side of the Rubicon; that is to say, was within bounds close to the College, and not, as at present, far on the barbaric side of Barnes-pool.

"TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

"CHRISTOPHER INN, ETON.

"THE Christopher; Lord! how great I used to think anybody just arrived at the Christopher! But there are no boys for me to

send for here I am, like Noah, just returned into his old world again, with all sorts of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound. I recollect so much, and remember so little-and want to play about-and am so afraid of my playfellows-and am ready to shirk Ashton-and can't help making fun of myself—and envy a dame over the way, that has just locked in her boarders, and is going to sit down in a little hot parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably! and I could be so jolly a dog if I did not fat, which, by the way, is the first time the word was ever applicable to me. In short, I should be out of all bounds if I was to tell you half I feel,-how young again I am one minute, and how old the next. But do come and feel with me, when you will-to-morrow-Adieu! If I don't compose myself a little more before Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach, I shall certainly be in the bill for laughing in church; but how to help it, to see him in the pulpit, when, the last time I saw him here, he was standing up, funking over against a conduct to be catechised.

"Good night! yours."

Walpole had, while at Cambridge, kept up his old school friendship with Gray, and they determined to make the usual tour on the Continent together.

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They commenced their journey in March, 1739, and continued abroad above two years. Almost the whole of this time was spent in Italy, and nearly a year of it was devoted to Florence; where Walpole was detained by the society of his friends, Mr. Mann, Mr. Chute, and Mr. Whithed. It was in these classic scenes that his love of art and taste for elegant and antiquarian literature became more developed; and that it took such complete possession of him as to occupy the whole of his long life, diversified only by the occasional amusement of politics, or the distractions of society. Unfortunately, the friendship of Walpole and his travelling companion could not survive two years of constant intercourse: they quarrelled and parted at Reggio, in July, 1741, and afterwards pursued their way homewards by different routes.

"Walpole arrived in England in September, 1741, at which time his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann commences. He had been chosen member for Callington, in the Parliament which was elected in June of that year; and arrived in the House of Commons just in time to witness the angry discussions which preceded and

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