BIB_ID
136601
Accession number
MA 497.26
Creator
Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797
Display Date
1784 Feb. 2.
Credit line
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan before 1904.
Description
1 item (3 p.), bound ; 20.3 cm
Notes
Part of a collection of the correspondence of Horace Walpole to various recipients including Henry Seymour Conway, Benjamin Ibbot and Horace Mann and with a small number of miscellaneous writings and copies of the writings of others. Items in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Walpole has written "My answer to the rev'd Wm. Mason" at the top of this letter.
Walpole has written "My answer to the rev'd Wm. Mason" at the top of this letter.
Provenance
Given by Mary Berry to Sir Frankland Lewis; by descent to his daughter-in-law Lady Theresa Lewis; by descent to her son Sir Thomas Villiers Lister; by descent to his wife Lady Lister; acquired by Pierpont Morgan before 1904.
Summary
Thanking him for his condolences on the death of his brother and a subsequent loss of income; commenting on Lord Harcourt and saying that ..."in truth I concern myself in no man's politics but my own; first because I have no more right to dictate to others, than I allow anybody to dictate to me: and secondly, because I can see into no heart but my own, nor know its real motives of action. My own point has been to be consistent ever since I first thought on politics, which was five and forty years ago; and I feel a satisfaction in having been so steady, because it seems to me, if I do not deceive or flatter myself, that it is a proof that I have acted on principle, and not from disappointment, resentment, passion, interest, or fickleness;" adding that "What miracles the new set of men that are to arise are to achieve, I neither know nor care; I shall be out of the question before that blessed millennium arrives."
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