Search -
A Book for a Corner, Or, Selection in Prose and Verse From Authors the Best Suited to That Mode of Enjoyment
A Book for a Corner Or Selection in Prose and Verse From Authors the Best Suited to That Mode of Enjoyment Author:Leigh Hunt General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1852 Original Publisher: Putnam Subjects: English literature Literature Literary Collections / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of... more » the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: A LETTER FEOM HOEACE WALPOLE TO HIS FBIEND GEOBGE MONTAGU. George Montagu, one of Horace Walpole's schoolfellows at Eton, was of the Halifax branch of the family of that name. He became Member of Parliament for Northampton, and Private Secretary to Lord Iforth while Chancellor of the Exchequer. Walpole, who was now at Cambridge, in his nineteenth year, doe8 not write so correctly as he did afterwards; yet the germ of his wit is very evident in this letter; also of his foppery or effeminacy; and some may think, of his alleged heartlessuess. A wit he was of the first water; effeminate too, no doubt, though he prided himself on his open-breasted waistcoats in his old age, and possessed exquisite good sense and discernment where party-feelings did not blind him. But of the charge of heartlessness, his zeal and painstaking in behalf of a hundred people, and his beautiful letter to his friend Conway in particular, offering, in a way not to be doubted, to share his fortune with him (see Correspondence, vol. i. p. 358), ought to acquit him by acclamation. The letter, here presented to the reader, is (with some qualification as to prettiness of manner) a perfect exhibition of the thoughts and feelings that go through the mind of a romantic schoolboy. How good is his wishing to have had a kingdom, " only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and living disguised in an humble vale 1" King's...« less