Horatio Walpole , 4th Earl of Orford 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797, better so-called as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian in addition to Whig politician.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving a Gothic kind some decades ago his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the number one Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto 1764, as well as his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They make-up been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published.
The youngest son of the number one British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford on his nephew's death in 1791. His barony of Walpole descended to his first cousin once removed of the same realize but Baron Walpole of Wolterton. Horatio Walpole the younger was later created a new Earl of Orford.
Later life: 1768–1788
Without a seat in Parliament, Walpole recognised his limitations as to political influence.
He wrote to Mann critical of the activities of the East India Company on 13 July 1773:
What is England now? – A sink of Indian wealth, filled by nabobs and emptied by Maccaronis! A senate sold and despised! A country overrun by horse-races! A gaming, robbing, wrangling, railing nation without principles, genius, portion of reference or allies.
He opposed the recent Catholic accommodative measures, writing to Mann in 1784: "You know I have ever been averse to toleration of an intolerant religion". He wrote to the same correspondent in 1785 that "as there are continually allusions to parliamentary speeches and events, they are often obscure to me till I get them explained; and besides, I do not know several of the satirized heroes even by sight". His political sympathies were with the Foxite Whigs, the successors of the Rockingham Whigs, who were themselves the successors of the Whig Party as revived by Walpole's father. He wrote to William Mason, expounding his political philosophy:
I have for five and forty years acted upon the principles of the constitution as it was settled at the puissant free kingdom, threw away one predominant address of our potency by aspiring to enslave America—and would now compensate for that blunder and its consequence by assuming a despotic tone at home. It has found a tool in the light and juvenile son of the great minister who carried our glory to its highest pitch—but it shall never have the insignificant approbation of an old and worn out son of another minister, who though less brilliant, maintain this country in the enjoyment of the twenty happiest years that England ever enjoyed.