This one end—all that remains of the old red-brick mansion—has been raised a storey, but otherwise stands almost as when Walpole lived here from 1723 to 1746, and from its chambers ruled England through his subjects George I. and George II., whom he allowed to reign. It was from this room that he rushed out on the arrival of the express with the news of the death of the first George. He left his dinner-table at three p.m. on the 14th June, 1727, and took horse at once:—so riding that he “killed two horses under him,” says his son Horace:—and was the first to reach the Prince of Wales at Richmond with the news. To Walpole House used to drive, from her palace at Kensington, the wife of this same Prince of Wales; who, now become George II., cheered her solitude by writing to her long letters from his residence at Hanover, filled with praises of his latest lady-love. These epistles the fair-haired, blue-eyed, sweet-voiced woman would bring weeping to Walpole, in search of the comfort which he graciously gave, by assuring her that now that she was growing old she must expect this sort of thing! A little later Walpole drove from here to Kensington, and stood beside the King at her deathbed; Caroline commending to Walpole’s protection her husband and his monarch! Here came Bolingbroke on his return from his exile in France, to dine at the invitation of his great rival, whom he hated and envied. It was not a joyful dinner for him, and Horace Walpole tells us that “the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from the table and leave the room for some minutes. I never heard of their meeting more.” Here Swift used to stride into dinner, studying his host for the _rôle_ of Flimnap in his “Gulliver,” which he was then writing. Here fat John Gay, then secretary or steward to Lady Monmouth, a little farther on in Chelsea, swaggered in his fine clothes, and being snubbed by his cynical host, put him on the stage as “Macheath” in his “Beggar’s Opera.” Pope used to drive over in his little trap from Twickenham, before his friend Bolingbroke’s return, to entertain Sir Robert with the details of his row about Lady Mary Wortley Montague with Lord Hervey; that be-rouged fop whom he pilloried in his rage, as “This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings.”