[Footnote 1:  The speech was made March 23, 1742; but Sir Robert had resigned office, and been created Earl of Orford in the February preceding.]

From this time forth literary composition, with the acquisition of antiques and curiosities for the decoration of “Strawberry” occupied the greater part of his life.  He erected a printing press, publishing not only most of his own writings, but some also of other authors, such as poems of Gray, with whom he kept up uninterrupted intercourse.  But, in fact, his own works were sufficiently numerous to keep his printers fully employed.  He was among the most voluminous writers of a voluminous age.  In the course of the next twenty years he published seven volumes of memoirs of the last ten years of the reign of George II. and the first ten of George III.; five volumes of a work entitled “Royal and Noble Authors;” several more of “Anecdotes of Painting;” “The Mysterious Mother,” a tragedy; “The Castle of Otranto,” a romance; and a small volume to which he gave the name of “Historic Doubts on Richard III.”  Of all these not one is devoid of merit.  He more than once explains that the “Memoirs” have no claim to the more respectable title of “History”; and he apologises for introducing anecdotes which might be thought inconsistent with what Macaulay brands as “a vile phrase,” the dignity of history.  He excuses this, which he looked on as a new feature in historical composition, on the ground that, if trifles, “they are trifles relating to considerable people; such as all curious people have ever loved to read.”  “Such trifles,” he says, “are valued, if relating to any reign one hundred and fifty years ago; and, if his book should live so long, these too might become acceptable.”  Readers of the present day will not think such apology was needed.  The value of his “trifles” has been proved in a much shorter time; for there is no subsequent historian of that period who has not been indebted to him for many particulars of which no other trustworthy record existed.  Walpole had in a great degree a historical mind; and perhaps there are few works which show a keener critical insight into the value of old traditions than the “Historic Doubts,” directed to establish, not, indeed, Richard’s innocence of the crimes charged against him, but the fact that, with respect to many of them, his guilt has never been proved by any evidence which is not open to the gravest impeachment.  His “Royal and Noble Authors,” and his “Anecdotes of Painting” are full of entertainment, not unmixed with instruction.  “The Mysterious Mother” was never performed on the stage, nor is it calculated for representation; since he himself admits that the subject is disgusting.  But dramas not intended for representation, and which therefore should perhaps be more fitly called dramatic poems, were a species of composition to which more than one writer of reputation had lately begun to turn their attention; though dramas not designed for the stage