Such was the mode in which the younger sons were then provided for by a minister; nor has the unworthy system died out in our time, although greatly modified.

Horace was growing up meantime, not an awkward, but a somewhat insignificant youth, with a short, slender figure:  which always retained a boyish appearance when seen from behind.  His face was common-place, except when his really expressive eyes sparkled with intelligence, or melted into the sweetest expression of kindness.  But his laugh was forced and uncouth:  and even in his smile there was a hard, sarcastic expression that made one regret that he smiled.

He was now in possession of an income of L1,700 annually, and he looked naturally to the Continent, to which all young members of the aristocracy repaired, after the completion of their collegiate life.

He had been popular at Eton:  he was also, it is said, both beloved and valued at Cambridge.  In reference to his Etonian days he says, in one of his letters, ’I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy:  an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as pretty.  The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria’s hallowed grove; not in thumping and pummelling King Amulius’s herdsmen.[1]

[1:  Life by Warburton, p 70.]

‘I remember,’ he adds, ’when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business.  What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn!  I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, and pushed above my parts.’[2]

[2:  Life of Warburton, p. 63.]

Popular amongst his schoolfellows, Horace formed friendships at Eton which mainly influenced his after-life.  Richard West, the son of West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the grandson, on his mother’s side, of Bishop Burnet; together with a youth named Assheton—­formed, with the poet Gray, and Horace himself, what the young wit termed the ’Quadruple Alliance.’  Then there was the ‘triumvirate,’ George Montagu, Charles Montagu, and Horace:  next came George Selwyn and Hanbury Williams; lastly, a retired, studious youth, a sort of foil to all these gay, brilliant young wits—­a certain William Cole, a lover of old books, and of quaint prints.  And in all these boyish friendships, some of which were carried from Eton to Cambridge, may be traced the foundation of the Horace Walpole, of Strawberry Hill and of Berkeley Square.  To Gray he owed his ambition to be learned, if possible—­poetical, if nature had not forbidden; to the Montagus, his dash and spirit; to Sir Hanbury Williams, his turn for jeux d’esprit, as a part of the completion of a fine gentleman’s education; to George Selwyn, his appreciation of what was then considered wit—­but which we moderns are not worthy to appreciate.  Lord Hertford and Henry Conway, Walpole’s cousins, were also his schoolfellows; and for them he evinced throughout his long life a warm regard.  William Pitt, Lord Chatham—­chiefly remembered at Eton for having been flogged for being out of bounds—­was a contemporary, though not an intimate, of Horace Walpole’s at Eton.