No wine was drunk after dinner, when the host of Strawberry Hill called instantly to some one to ring the bell for coffee.  It was served upstairs, and there, adds the same writer, ’he would pass about five o’clock, and generally resuming his place on the sofa, would sit till two in the morning, in miscellaneous chit-chat, full of singular anecdotes, strokes of wit, and acute observations, occasionally sending for books, or curiosities, or passing to the library, as any reference happened to arise in conversation.  After his coffee, he tasted nothing; but the snuff-box of tabac d’etrennes, from Fribourg’s, was not forgotten, and was replenished from a canister lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour.’

In spite of all his infirmities, Horace Walpole took no care of his health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned.  His friends beheld him with horror go out on a dewy day:  he would even step out in his slippers.  In his own grounds he never wore a hat:  he used to say, that on his first visit to Paris he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every meagre little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a certainty of taking the disease which the Germans say is endemical in England, and which they call to catch cold.  The first trial, he used to tell his friends, cost him a fever, but he got over it.  Draughts of air, damp rooms, windows open at his back, became matters of indifference to him after once getting through the hardening process.  He used even to be vexed at the officious solicitude of friends on this point, and with half a smile would say, ’My back is the same as my face, and my neck is like my nose.’  He regarded his favourite iced-water as a preservative to his stomach, which, he said, would last longer than his bones.  He did not take into account that the stomach is usually the seat of disease.

One naturally inquires why the amiable recluse never, in his best days, thought of marriage:  a difficult question to be answered.  In men of that period, a dissolute life, an unhappy connection, too frequently explained the problem.  In the case before us no such explanation can be offered.  Horace Walpole had many votaries, many friends, several favourites, but no known mistress.  The marks of the old bachelor fastened early on him, more especially after he began to be governed by his valet de chambre.  The notable personage who ruled over the pliant Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb.  This domestic tyrant was despotic; if Horace wanted a tree to be felled, Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded.  Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in manner.  The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as it still does among the French.  Those who recollect Dr. Parr will remember how stern a rule his factotum Sam exercised over him.  Sam put down what wine he chose, nay, almost invited the guests; at all events, he had his favourites among them.  And in the same way as Sam ruled at Hatton, Colomb was, de facto, the master of Strawberry Hill.