THIS agreeable Historical Tale has hitherto been secluded from the eye of the general reader, in the retirement of five quarto volumes. The present editor has frequently contemplated an impression detached from the other works of the Noble Author; and as the public attention has recently been directed to his name by an additional volume of his Letters, it was thought that it could not pass the press at a better opportunity than the present.

LONDON, APRIL, 1818.

His (Horace Walpole's) Reminiscences of the reigns of George I. and II. make us better acquainted with the manners of these princes and their courts than we should be after perusing an hundred heavy historians; and futurity will long be indebted to the chance which threw into his vicinity, when age rendered him communicative, the accomplished ladies to whom these anecdotes were communicated. His certainty of success with posterity indeed will rest upon his Letters and his Reminiscences. Quarterly Review, Sept. 1818.

HORACE WALPOLE's

REMINISCENCES.

CHAPTER I.

;

You were both so entertained with the old stories I told you one evening lately, of what I recollected to have seen and heard from my childhood of the courts of king George the first, and of his son the prince of Wales, afterwards George the second; and of the latter's princess, since queen Caroline and you expressed such wishes that I would commit those passages (for they are scarce worthy of the title even of anecdotes) to writing; that, having no greater pleasure than to please you both, nor any more important or laudable occupation, I will begin to satisfy the repetition of your curiosity.—But observe, I promise no more than to begin; for I not only cannot answer that I shall have patience to continue, but my memory is still so fresh, or rather so retentive of trifles which first made impression on it, that it is very possible my life, (turned of seventy-one) may be exhausted before my stock of remembrances; especially as I am sensible of the