“A VERY ODD CHARACTER”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21668, 11 June 1932, Page 4

“A VERY ODD CHARACTER”

MR GWYNN’S LIFE OF WALPOLE " The Life of Horace Walpole.” By Stephen Gwynn Illustrated. London: Thornton Butterworth. (15s net.) Horace Walpole’s legacy to the Eng-lish-speaking world, and one that has survived for more than two centuries, is that prodigious scries of letters, nearly 3000, which give such a perceptive, lively picture of the times of the lord of Strawberry Hill. Mr Gwynn recognises that few people to-day could have the curiosity or the patience to read the 18-voiume definitive edition of these, or even Cunningham’s only less intimidating nine volumes. His biography is for those readers - who, less courageous tuan himself, demand a full but not an exhaustive study. The letters, however, must provide the great part of the original material for any life of Walpole, and we are pleased to find that Mr Gwynn makes the best use of them. This is important from the social student’s viewpoint, and even more so from that of the literary reader, for, as we have suggesti , Walpole’s most lasting contribution to our literature is not within his published works. “ The Castle of Otranto ” is the only book that can be said to have survived, and that to no small extent because it was the first of the romances of terror which Mrs Radcliffe and “ Monk ” Lewis capitalised, and have their prototype in fiction today. But some will doubt whether the setting of that fashion is an achievement for which we should feel grateful to Walpole. Mr Gwynn discusses at some length that interesting subject for speculation, Walpole’s parentage. The scandalmongers of his day averred that his father was Carr, Lord-* Hervey, but Walpole, so far as is known—and he has told us most things about himself —had no suspicions, and was always a loyal son to the coarse grained Sir Robert. 'There is certainly room for doubt, and Mr Gwynn makes a good case for his assumption that Carr, Lord Hervey, was Walpole’s parent. When he was young Sir Robert neglected him, though later, as the cdrrupt ruler of England, he gave him lucrative appointments. Horace Walpole was physically and mentally unlike Sir Robert, whereas he was extremely like the Herveys, who were bookish, lean in physique, and adept in “ a profusion of rather spiteful, finepointed wit.” The explanation certainly would account for much that is otherwise strangely at variance in the characters of the Walpoles, father and son. It offers, Mr Gwynn believes, a reply to “much in the man that challenges inquiry, as if a mastiff sire were supposed to have produced an elegant greyhound.” It may be urged against Mr Gwynn's biography that he treats of Walpole too much from a detached, even a mildly patronising eminence, as a “ very odd character.” Yet Walpole was indeed an eccentric, and he is most interesting to the present-day reader for his definite peculiarities,, his queer twists of mind Through him’we learn a great deal_ about every sort of unusual manifestation in English society in the eighteenth century —the scandals, the suicides, the gaming, the' procession of beauties, the triumphant oratory of the day. If, in reading of these things, we may lose touch to some, extent with the very charming man that he must have been, we have still to thanx Mr Gwynn for his reconstruction of the diverting pageant in which Horace W alpole played a memorable part. “The Life, of Horace. Walpole” contains interesting illustrations.' J. M.