The principal incident of his advanced years was his succession in 1791, on the death of his nephew, to the title of Earl of Orford. This elevation seems to have given him more trouble than satisfaction, and made no alteration in his manner of living and habitual pursuits. He continued to amuse himself with occasional jeux d'esprit, and with adding to the treasures and decorations of Strawberry-hill, where, in 1795, he had the honour of being visited by the Queen and Princesses. A constitutional gout, which habitual temperance was unable to subdue, gradually rendered him a cripple, and debilitated his frame, but without unfitting him for society; and great care spun out the thread of life to March 1797, when he quietly expired, in his 79th year. He bequeathed all his printed and manuscript writings to Robert Berry, Esq. and his two daughters, of which a collective edition was published in 1798, in 5 vols, 4to. The most valuable addition to what had formerly appeared consisted of a great number of letters to different correspondents, written with true epistolary ease and vivacity, and highly entertaining from the anecdotes and pictures of the times with which they are replete. Horace Walpole, though forming his plan of life chiefly upon a system of personal enjoyment, possessed kind and social affections, and was capable of very generous actions to his friends. He had seen too much of the world to give easy credit to professions and appearances; but he respected virtue, and had warm feelings for the rights and interests of mankind. As an author, if he does not merit a place in the higher ranks, he has done enough to preserve his name from oblivion. He was a votary rather of curious than of profound literature'; and he served the cause not only by his own writings, but as an editor at his private press of various works in the class of historical antiquity and biographical anecdotes. The next celebrated wit and elegant writer who contributed to the World, that we shall notice, is SOAME JENYNS. He was the author of five papers in this periodical work, highly distinguished by humour and vivacity. SOAME JENYNS was born in London in 1704, and educated at a private school, from whence he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1728 he published a poem on the Art of Dancing. He was elected into parliament in 1741, and enjoyed a seat in that house till 1780. In 1755 he was appointed one of the lords of trade, which place he held till that board was abolished. He was twice married. He died, without issue, in December, 1787, at the age of eighty-three. As a writer, he attained no small share of celebrity. The EARLS OF BATH AND CORK were also contributors to the World; as were likewise SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, and the Rev. JOHN DUNCOMBE. Indeed, we find Mr. More, the ostensible author, reaping considerable emolument from the benevolent assistance of these men of fame and fashion, and of high rank in the state, that we have enumerated, who cheerfully undertook, as friends of Lord Lyttleton, who was the patron of Moore, to supply the paper, while Moore reaped the emolument, and perhaps for a time enjoyed the reputation of the whole. THE WORLD. No. 1. THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1753. Nihil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere LUCRET. 'AT the village of Aronche, in the province of Estremadura (says an old Spanish author) lived Gonzales de Castro, who, from the age of twelve to fifty-two, was deaf, dumb, and blind. His cheerful submission to so deplorable a misfortune, and the misfortune itself, so endeared him to the village, that to worship the holy Virgin, and to love and serve Gonzales, were considered as duties of the same importance; and to neglect the latter was to offend the former. 'It happened one day, as he was sitting at his door, and offering up his mental prayers to St. Jago, that he found himself, on a sudden, restored to all the privileges he had lost. The news ran quickly through the village, and old and young, rich and VOL. I. B poor, the busy and the idle, thronged round him with congratulations. But as if the blessings of this life were only given us for afflictions, he began in a few weeks to lose the relish of his enjoyments, and to repine at the possession of those faculties, which served only to discover to him the follies and disorders of his neighbours, and to teach him that the intent of speech was too often to deceive. He 6 Though the inhabitants of Aronche were as honest as other villagers, yet Gonzales, who had formed his ideas of men and things from their natures and uses, grew offended at their manners. saw the avarice of age, the prodigality of youth, the quarrels of brothers, the treachery of friends, the frauds of lovers, the insolence of the rich, the knavery of the poor, and the depravity of all. These, as he saw and heard, he spoke of with complaint; and endeavoured by the gentlest admonitions to excite men to goodness. From this place the story is torn out to the last paragraph; which says, That he lived to a comfortless old age, despised and hated by his neighbours for pretending to be wiser and better than themselves; and that he breathed out his soul in these memorable words, that He who would enjoy many friends, and live happy in the world, should be deaf, dumb, and blind to the follies and vices of it. If candour, humility, and an earnest desire of instruction and amendment, were not the distinguishing characteristics of the present times, this simple story had silenced me as an author. But when every day's experience shows me, that our young gentlemen of fashion are lamenting at every tavern the frailties of their natures, and confessing to one another whose daughters they have ruined, and whose wives they have corrupted; not by way of boasting, |