2.  His letters to George Montagu, Esq. from 1738 to 1770, which formed one quarto volume, published in 1818.

3.  His letters to the Rev. William Cole and others, from 1745 to 1782, published in the same form and year.

4.  His letters to the Earl of Hertford, during his lordship’s embassy to Paris, and also to the Rev. Henry Zouch, which appeared in quarto, in 1825.

And 5.  His letters to Sir Horace Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany, from 1741 to 1760, first published in 1833, in three volumes octavo, from the originals in the possession of the Earl of Waldegrave; edited by Lord Dover, with an original memoir of the author.

To the above are now added several hundred letters, which have hitherto existed Only in manuscript, or made their appearance singly and incidentally in other works.  In this new collection, besides the letters to Miss Berry, are some to the Hon. H. S. Conway, and John Chute, Esq. omitted In former editions; and many to Lady Suffolk, his brother-in-law, Charles Churchill, Esq., Captain Jephson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, the Earl of Buchan, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, George Hardinge, Esq., Mr. Pinkerton, and other distinguished characters.  The letters to the Rev. William Cole have been carefully examined with the originals, and many explanatory notes added, from the manuscript collections of that indefatigable antiquary, deposited in the British museum.

Besides being the only complete edition ever published of the incomparable letters of this “prince of epistolary writers,” as he has been designated by an eminent critic, the present work possesses the further advantage of exhibiting the letters themselves in chronological order.  Thus the whole series forms a lively and most interesting commentary on the events of the age, as well as a record of the most important transactions, invaluable to the historian and politician, from 1735 to 1797-a period of more than sixty years.

To Lord Dover’s description of these letters (1) little need be added.  Of Horace Walpole it is not too much to say, that he knew more of the Courts of George I., George ii., and George iii., during the early years of the last monarch, than any other individual; and, though he lived to an extreme age, the perpetual youthfulness of his disposition rendered him as lively a chronicler when advanced in life, as when his brilliant career commenced.  It is to this unceasing spring, this unfading juvenility of spirit, that the world is indebted for the gay colours with which Walpole invests every thing he touches.  If the irresistible court beauties-the Gunnings, the Lepels, and others-have been compelled, after their hundred conquests, to yield to the ungallant liberties of Time, and to Death, the rude destroyer, it is a delight to us to know that their charms are destined to bloom for ever in the sparkling graces