Horace Walpole, without the least tincture of ambition, had a propensity to faction, and looked on the mischief of civil disturbances as a lively amusement. Indignation at the persecution raised against his father, and prejudices contracted by himself, conspired with his natural impetuosity of temper to nourish this passion. But coming into the world when the world was growing weary of faction, and some of the objects dying or being removed, against whom his warmth had been principally directed, maturity of reason and sparks of virtue extinguished this culpable ardour. Balanced for a few years between right and wrong, happily for him virtue preponderated early enough to leave him some merit in the option. Arts, books, painting, architecture, antiquities, and those amiable employments of a tranquil life, to which in the warmest of his political hours he had been fondly addicted, assumed an entire empire over him. The circumstances too of the times contributed to make him withdraw from the scene of business. With Newcastle he had determined never to connect: Fox’s behaviour on the case of Mr. Byng had rooted out his esteem, and the coldness discovered by Fox on Walpole’s refusing to concur in all his politics, had in a manner dissolved their friendship. Of Pitt he retained the best opinion; but the wanton exposure of so many lives at the affair of St. Cas, and in those other visionary attempts on the coast of France, had painted Pitt on his mind as a man whose thirst of glory was inconsistent with humanity; and being himself strongly tinctured with tenderness, he avoided any further intercourse with a Minister, who was Great with so little reluctance.