July 27, 2025 • 16 mins
Immerse yourself in Georgian England as depicted through the charming and witty letters of Horace Walpole, the 4th Earl of Orford. An active participant and keen observer of social and political life, Walpoles letters offer a vivid snapshot of the era. Virginia Woolf described him as a man who could beautifully capture every gift and foible of his time - his long life reflecting a panorama of houses, friends, wars, snuff boxes, revolutions, and lap dogs, all playing out against the serene blue sky. Join us as we delve into these valuable historical documents, brought to life by Barbara2.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section seventeen of Horace Wall Pulse Letters a selection. This
is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. Moralizes on the deaths of Gray to John shoot,
a Squire, Paris, August thirteen, seventeen seventy one. I have
I own been much shocked at reading Gray's death and papers.
(00:25):
Tis an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint,
especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from
thirteen years old. A self lies so rooted in self
no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke
recoil to my own breast. And having so little expected
(00:45):
his death, it is plain how little I expect my own.
Yet to you, who of all men living, are the
most forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel.
I fear most men ought to apologize for their want
of feeling, instead of palliating that sensation when they have it.
(01:07):
I thought that what I had seen of the world
had hardened my heart, but I find that it had
formed my language, not extinguished my tenderness. In short, I
am really shocked. Nay, I am hurt at my own weakness,
as I perceive that when I love anybody, it is
for my life, and I've had too much reason not
(01:31):
to wish that such a disposition may very seldom be
put to the trial. You at least are the only
person whom I would venture to make such a confession.
Marriage of the Pretender Fox is eloquence. The East India
Company and its sequel Tisyrus Man, Arlington Street, April the nine,
(01:52):
seventeen seventy two. It is uncommon for me to send
you news of the Pretender. He has been married in
Paris by proxy to a Princess of Stalberg. All that
I can learn of her is that she is a
niece to a Princess of Salm, whom I knew there
without knowing any more of her. The new pretendress is
(02:15):
said to be but sixteen and a Lutheran. I doubt
the latter. If the former is true, I suppose they
mean to carry on the breed in the way it
began by a spurious child. A Fitz pretender is an
excellent continuation of the patriarchal line. Mister Schute says, when
(02:37):
the royal family are prevented from marrying, it is a
right time for the Stuarts to marry. This event seems
to explain the pretender's disappearance last autumn, and though they
sent him back from Paris, they may not dislike the
propagation of thorns in our side ellipses. The House of
(03:01):
Commons is embarked on the ocean of Indian affairs and
will probably make a long session. I went thither the
other day to hear Child's Fox, contrary to a resolution
I had made of never setting my foot there again.
It is strange how disuse makes one awkward. I felt
(03:23):
a palpitation, as if I were going to speak there myself.
The object answered, Fox's abilities are amazing at so very
early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a
dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat
up drinking all night, and had not been in bed.
(03:46):
How such talents make one laugh at Tully's rules for
an orator and his indefatigable application. His labored orations are
puerile in comparison with this, Bore is manly reason. We
beat Row in eloquence and extravagance, and Spain in avarice
(04:08):
and cruelty, And like both we shall only serve to
terrify schoolboys and for lessons of morality. Here stood Saint
Stephen's chapel. Here Young Catalines spoke he was Lord Clive's
diamond house. This is Leadenhall Street, and this broken column
(04:33):
was part of the palace of a company of merchants
who were sovereigns of Bengall. They starved millions in India
by monopolism plunder, and almost raised a famine at home
by the luxury occasioned by their opulents, and by the
opulence raising the price of everything till Lapour could not
purchase bread. Conquest, usurpation, wealth, luxury, famine. One knows how
(05:05):
little father the genealogy has to go. If you like
better in scripture phrase here it is Lord Chatham begot
the East India Company. The East India Company begot Lord Clive.
Lord Clive begot the macaronies, and they begot poverty. All
Nares are still living, just as Clodius was born before
(05:26):
the death of Julius Caesar. There is nothing more like
than two ages that are very like, Which is all
that whoso meant by saying, give him an account of
any great metropolis, and he will foretell its fate a dieu.
The Beauty Room at Strawberry Hill A bit of self
(05:49):
analysis to the Honorable Agious Conway Strawberry Hill during the
twentieth seventeen seventy six. I was very glad to receive
your letter, not only because always most glad to hear
of you, but because I wished to write to you
and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something
to answer. I've lain but two nights in town since
(06:12):
I saw you. Have been else constantly here, very much employed,
though doing hearing knowing exactly nothing. I've had a Gothic
architect from Cambridge to design me a gallery which will
end in a mouse that is in an exagon closet
of seven feet diameter. I have been making a beauty room,
(06:36):
which was affected by buying two dozen small copies of
Sir Bitter Leiley and hanging them up. And I have
been making hay, which is not made because I put
it off for three days, as I chose it should
adorn the landscape when I was to have company, and
so the rain has come and has drounded. However, as
(06:57):
I can even turn calculator, it is to comfort me
for not minding my interest. I have discovered that it
is five to one better for me that my hay
shall be spoiled than not, for as the cars will
eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not.
And as I had five cars and but one horse,
(07:18):
is it not plain that the worse my hay is
the better. Do not you, with your refining head, go
and out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy
my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a
rich man, and yet have so little philosophy that I
might rather be content than be in the right. Mister
(07:43):
Beauclaire and Lady die have been here four or five days,
so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy.
I wish Lady Aylesbury was as fortunate. The Pembroke's churchills
that Texier as you will have heard, and the Garricks
have been with as Perhaps if alone I might have
(08:04):
come to you, But you are all too healthy and harmonious.
I can neither walk, nor sing, nor indeed am fit
for anything but to amuse myself in a sedentary, trifling way.
What I have most certainly not been doing is writing anything.
A truth I say to you, but do not desire
(08:26):
you to repeat, I deign to satisfy scarce. Anybody else
whoever reported that I was writing anything must have been
so totally unfounded that they either blundered by guessing without reason,
or knew they lied, And that could not be with
any kind intention. Though saying I am going to do
(08:48):
what I am not going to do is wretched enough,
whatever is said of me without truth, anybody is welcome
to believe the pleases. In fact, though I have scarce
a settled purpose about anything, I think I shall never
write any more. I have written a great deal too
(09:11):
much unless I had written better, and I know I
should now only write still worse. One's talent, whatever it is,
does not improve at near sixty. Yet if I liked it,
I daresay a good reason would not stop my inclination.
But I am grown most indolent in that respect, and
most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet without
(09:37):
vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous. I
have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise
their approbation. The applause of slaves of the foolish mad
is below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient
Briton that cannot write what would please this age, and
(09:59):
would not if he could. Whatever happens in America, this
country is undone. I desire to be reckoned at the
last stage, and to be thought to have lived, to
be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for
the few I value. I cannot aspire to be produced
(10:23):
like Algernon Sidney, and content myself with sacrificing to him
amongst my laris, unalterable in my principles, careless about most
things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating
myself by choice, but dreading folly at an unseemly age,
(10:47):
I contrived to pass my time agreeably enough yet to
see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true
picture of my mind, and it must be true, because
druined for you, whom I would not deceive, and could
not if I would. Your question on my being writing
(11:08):
to it forth, though with more seriousness than the report deserved.
Your talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor
out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I
have always contented myself with your being perfect, or if
your modesty demands a mitigated term. I will say unexceptionable.
(11:35):
It is comical to be sure to have always been
more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about
one's own. Yet I repeat it, you are my apology,
though I never was so unreasonable as to make you
answerable for my faults. In return, I take them wholly
to myself. But enough of this, when I know my
(11:59):
own mind. For hitherto I have settled no plan for
my summer. I will come to you adieu. His relations
with Chatterton to the Reverend William Cole Strawberry Hildo in
the nineteen seventeen seventy seven I thank you for your notices,
dear sir, and shall remember that on Prince William I
(12:20):
did see monthly Review. But hope what is not guilty
of the death of every man who does not make
one the dupe of a forgery? I believe Macpherson's success
with Ossium was more the ruin of Chatterton than I.
Two years passed between my doubting the authenticity of Roly's
poems and his death. I never knew he had been
(12:44):
in London till some time after he had undone and
poisoned himself there. The poems he sent me were transcripts
in his own hand, And even in that circumstance he
told a lie. He said he had them from the
very person of Bristol, to whom he had given them.
(13:06):
If any man was to tell you that Monkish rhymes
had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several
centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it.
Just the reverse is the case of Rolli's pretended poems.
They have all the elegance of Wolorant prior, and more
than Lord Surry. But I have no objection to anybody
(13:29):
believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an
astonishing genius, But I cannot think that Rolli foresaw meters
that were invented long after he was dead, or that
our language was more refined at Bristol in the reign
of Henry the fifth than it was at court under
Henry the eighth. One of the chaplains of the Bishop
(13:52):
of Exeter has found a line of Roley in Eudebras.
The monk might foresee that too. The prebaturity of Chatterton's
genius is however, full as wonderful as that such a
prodigy as Rolly should never have been heard of until
the eighteenth century. The youth and industry of the former
(14:13):
are miracles too, yet still more credible. There is not
a symptom in the poems of the old words that
savors of Rowley's age change the old words for modern
And the whole construction is of yesterday. Death of Lord
(14:34):
Chatham to Shuri's Man Strawberry Hill made the thirty first,
seventeen seventy eight. I am forced to look at the
dates I keep of my letters to see what events
I have I have not told you, For at this crisis,
something happens every day, though nothing very striking since the
death of Lord Chatham with which I closed my last No. Yes,
(14:59):
but the all England which had abandoned him, found out
the moment his eyes were closed, that nothing but Lord
Chatham could have preserved them. How lucky for him that
the experiment cannot be made. Grief is fond and grief
(15:20):
is generous. The Parliament will bury him, the city begs
the honor of being his grave, and the important question
is not yet decided whether he is to light at
Westminster or in Saint Paul's, on which it was well
said that it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
An annuity of four thousand pounds is settled on the
(15:43):
title of Chatham, and twenty thousand pounds allotted to pay
his debts. The opposition and the administration disputed zeal And.
Neither care is straw about him. He is already as
much forgotten as John of God. End of Section seventeen
Section seventeen of Horace Wall Pulse Letters a selection. This
is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. Moralizes on the deaths of Gray to John shoot,
a Squire, Paris, August thirteen, seventeen seventy one. I have
I own been much shocked at reading Gray's death and papers.
(00:25):
Tis an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint,
especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from
thirteen years old. A self lies so rooted in self
no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke
recoil to my own breast. And having so little expected
(00:45):
his death, it is plain how little I expect my own.
Yet to you, who of all men living, are the
most forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel.
I fear most men ought to apologize for their want
of feeling, instead of palliating that sensation when they have it.
(01:07):
I thought that what I had seen of the world
had hardened my heart, but I find that it had
formed my language, not extinguished my tenderness. In short, I
am really shocked. Nay, I am hurt at my own weakness,
as I perceive that when I love anybody, it is
for my life, and I've had too much reason not
(01:31):
to wish that such a disposition may very seldom be
put to the trial. You at least are the only
person whom I would venture to make such a confession.
Marriage of the Pretender Fox is eloquence. The East India
Company and its sequel Tisyrus Man, Arlington Street, April the nine,
(01:52):
seventeen seventy two. It is uncommon for me to send
you news of the Pretender. He has been married in
Paris by proxy to a Princess of Stalberg. All that
I can learn of her is that she is a
niece to a Princess of Salm, whom I knew there
without knowing any more of her. The new pretendress is
(02:15):
said to be but sixteen and a Lutheran. I doubt
the latter. If the former is true, I suppose they
mean to carry on the breed in the way it
began by a spurious child. A Fitz pretender is an
excellent continuation of the patriarchal line. Mister Schute says, when
(02:37):
the royal family are prevented from marrying, it is a
right time for the Stuarts to marry. This event seems
to explain the pretender's disappearance last autumn, and though they
sent him back from Paris, they may not dislike the
propagation of thorns in our side ellipses. The House of
(03:01):
Commons is embarked on the ocean of Indian affairs and
will probably make a long session. I went thither the
other day to hear Child's Fox, contrary to a resolution
I had made of never setting my foot there again.
It is strange how disuse makes one awkward. I felt
(03:23):
a palpitation, as if I were going to speak there myself.
The object answered, Fox's abilities are amazing at so very
early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a
dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat
up drinking all night, and had not been in bed.
(03:46):
How such talents make one laugh at Tully's rules for
an orator and his indefatigable application. His labored orations are
puerile in comparison with this, Bore is manly reason. We
beat Row in eloquence and extravagance, and Spain in avarice
(04:08):
and cruelty, And like both we shall only serve to
terrify schoolboys and for lessons of morality. Here stood Saint
Stephen's chapel. Here Young Catalines spoke he was Lord Clive's
diamond house. This is Leadenhall Street, and this broken column
(04:33):
was part of the palace of a company of merchants
who were sovereigns of Bengall. They starved millions in India
by monopolism plunder, and almost raised a famine at home
by the luxury occasioned by their opulents, and by the
opulence raising the price of everything till Lapour could not
purchase bread. Conquest, usurpation, wealth, luxury, famine. One knows how
(05:05):
little father the genealogy has to go. If you like
better in scripture phrase here it is Lord Chatham begot
the East India Company. The East India Company begot Lord Clive.
Lord Clive begot the macaronies, and they begot poverty. All
Nares are still living, just as Clodius was born before
(05:26):
the death of Julius Caesar. There is nothing more like
than two ages that are very like, Which is all
that whoso meant by saying, give him an account of
any great metropolis, and he will foretell its fate a dieu.
The Beauty Room at Strawberry Hill A bit of self
(05:49):
analysis to the Honorable Agious Conway Strawberry Hill during the
twentieth seventeen seventy six. I was very glad to receive
your letter, not only because always most glad to hear
of you, but because I wished to write to you
and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something
to answer. I've lain but two nights in town since
(06:12):
I saw you. Have been else constantly here, very much employed,
though doing hearing knowing exactly nothing. I've had a Gothic
architect from Cambridge to design me a gallery which will
end in a mouse that is in an exagon closet
of seven feet diameter. I have been making a beauty room,
(06:36):
which was affected by buying two dozen small copies of
Sir Bitter Leiley and hanging them up. And I have
been making hay, which is not made because I put
it off for three days, as I chose it should
adorn the landscape when I was to have company, and
so the rain has come and has drounded. However, as
(06:57):
I can even turn calculator, it is to comfort me
for not minding my interest. I have discovered that it
is five to one better for me that my hay
shall be spoiled than not, for as the cars will
eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not.
And as I had five cars and but one horse,
(07:18):
is it not plain that the worse my hay is
the better. Do not you, with your refining head, go
and out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy
my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a
rich man, and yet have so little philosophy that I
might rather be content than be in the right. Mister
(07:43):
Beauclaire and Lady die have been here four or five days,
so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy.
I wish Lady Aylesbury was as fortunate. The Pembroke's churchills
that Texier as you will have heard, and the Garricks
have been with as Perhaps if alone I might have
(08:04):
come to you, But you are all too healthy and harmonious.
I can neither walk, nor sing, nor indeed am fit
for anything but to amuse myself in a sedentary, trifling way.
What I have most certainly not been doing is writing anything.
A truth I say to you, but do not desire
(08:26):
you to repeat, I deign to satisfy scarce. Anybody else
whoever reported that I was writing anything must have been
so totally unfounded that they either blundered by guessing without reason,
or knew they lied, And that could not be with
any kind intention. Though saying I am going to do
(08:48):
what I am not going to do is wretched enough,
whatever is said of me without truth, anybody is welcome
to believe the pleases. In fact, though I have scarce
a settled purpose about anything, I think I shall never
write any more. I have written a great deal too
(09:11):
much unless I had written better, and I know I
should now only write still worse. One's talent, whatever it is,
does not improve at near sixty. Yet if I liked it,
I daresay a good reason would not stop my inclination.
But I am grown most indolent in that respect, and
most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet without
(09:37):
vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous. I
have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise
their approbation. The applause of slaves of the foolish mad
is below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient
Briton that cannot write what would please this age, and
(09:59):
would not if he could. Whatever happens in America, this
country is undone. I desire to be reckoned at the
last stage, and to be thought to have lived, to
be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for
the few I value. I cannot aspire to be produced
(10:23):
like Algernon Sidney, and content myself with sacrificing to him
amongst my laris, unalterable in my principles, careless about most
things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating
myself by choice, but dreading folly at an unseemly age,
(10:47):
I contrived to pass my time agreeably enough yet to
see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true
picture of my mind, and it must be true, because
druined for you, whom I would not deceive, and could
not if I would. Your question on my being writing
(11:08):
to it forth, though with more seriousness than the report deserved.
Your talking to one's dearest friend is neither wrong nor
out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I
have always contented myself with your being perfect, or if
your modesty demands a mitigated term. I will say unexceptionable.
(11:35):
It is comical to be sure to have always been
more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about
one's own. Yet I repeat it, you are my apology,
though I never was so unreasonable as to make you
answerable for my faults. In return, I take them wholly
to myself. But enough of this, when I know my
(11:59):
own mind. For hitherto I have settled no plan for
my summer. I will come to you adieu. His relations
with Chatterton to the Reverend William Cole Strawberry Hildo in
the nineteen seventeen seventy seven I thank you for your notices,
dear sir, and shall remember that on Prince William I
(12:20):
did see monthly Review. But hope what is not guilty
of the death of every man who does not make
one the dupe of a forgery? I believe Macpherson's success
with Ossium was more the ruin of Chatterton than I.
Two years passed between my doubting the authenticity of Roly's
poems and his death. I never knew he had been
(12:44):
in London till some time after he had undone and
poisoned himself there. The poems he sent me were transcripts
in his own hand, And even in that circumstance he
told a lie. He said he had them from the
very person of Bristol, to whom he had given them.
(13:06):
If any man was to tell you that Monkish rhymes
had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several
centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it.
Just the reverse is the case of Rolli's pretended poems.
They have all the elegance of Wolorant prior, and more
than Lord Surry. But I have no objection to anybody
(13:29):
believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an
astonishing genius, But I cannot think that Rolli foresaw meters
that were invented long after he was dead, or that
our language was more refined at Bristol in the reign
of Henry the fifth than it was at court under
Henry the eighth. One of the chaplains of the Bishop
(13:52):
of Exeter has found a line of Roley in Eudebras.
The monk might foresee that too. The prebaturity of Chatterton's
genius is however, full as wonderful as that such a
prodigy as Rolly should never have been heard of until
the eighteenth century. The youth and industry of the former
(14:13):
are miracles too, yet still more credible. There is not
a symptom in the poems of the old words that
savors of Rowley's age change the old words for modern
And the whole construction is of yesterday. Death of Lord
(14:34):
Chatham to Shuri's Man Strawberry Hill made the thirty first,
seventeen seventy eight. I am forced to look at the
dates I keep of my letters to see what events
I have I have not told you, For at this crisis,
something happens every day, though nothing very striking since the
death of Lord Chatham with which I closed my last No. Yes,
(14:59):
but the all England which had abandoned him, found out
the moment his eyes were closed, that nothing but Lord
Chatham could have preserved them. How lucky for him that
the experiment cannot be made. Grief is fond and grief
(15:20):
is generous. The Parliament will bury him, the city begs
the honor of being his grave, and the important question
is not yet decided whether he is to light at
Westminster or in Saint Paul's, on which it was well
said that it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
An annuity of four thousand pounds is settled on the
(15:43):
title of Chatham, and twenty thousand pounds allotted to pay
his debts. The opposition and the administration disputed zeal And.
Neither care is straw about him. He is already as
much forgotten as John of God. End of Section seventeen
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!