in Kent, and grand-daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London in 1688. (22) She died in 1736; and her youngest son, who always professed the greatest veneration for her memory, erected a monument to her in Westminster Abbey, in one of the side aisles of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel.  Horace Walpole had also a half-sister, the natural daughter of his father, by his mistress, Maria Skerrett, whom he afterwards married.  She also was named Mary Walpole, and married Colonel Charles Churchill, the natural son of General Churchill; who was himself a natural son of an older brother of the great Duke of Marlborough.

Horace Walpole was born October 5th, 1717 (23) and educated a Eton School, and at King’s College, Cambridge.  Upon leaving the latter place, he set out on his travels on the Continent, in company with Gray the poet, with whom he had formed a friendship at school.  They commenced their journey in March 1739, and continued abroad above two years.  Almost the whole of this time was spent in Italy, and nearly a year of it was devoted to Florence; where Walpole was detained by the society of his friends, Mr. Mann, Mr. Chute, and Mr. Whithed.  It was in these classic scenes, that his love of art, and taste for elegant and antiquarian literature, became more developed; and that it took such complete possession of him as to occupy the whole of his later life, diversified only by the occasional amusement of politics, or the distractions of society.  Unfortunately, the friendship of Walpole and his travelling companion could not survive two years of constant intercourse:  they quarrelled and parted at Reggio, in July 1741, and afterwards pursued their way homewards by different routes. (24)

Walpole arrived in England in September 1741, at which time his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann commences.  He had been chosen member for Callington, in the parliament which was elected in June of that year, and arrived in the House of Commons just in time to witness the angry discussions which preceded and accompanied the downfall of his father’s administration.  He plunged at once into the excitement of political partisanship with all the ardour of youth, and all the zeal which his filial affection for his father inspired.  His feelings at this period are best explained by a reference to his letters in the following collection.  Public business and attendance upon the House of Commons, apart from the interest attached to peculiar questions, he seems never to have liked.  He consequently took very little part either in debates or committees.  In March 1742, on a motion being made for an inquiry into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole for the preceding ten years, he delivered his maiden speech; (25) on which he was complimented by no less a judge of oratory than Pitt.  This speech he has preserved in his letter to Sir Horace Mann, of March 24th, 1742.  He moved the Address in 1751; and in 1756 made a speech on the question