Perhaps no name of modern times is productive of so many pleasant
associations as that of "Horace Walpole," and certainly no name was ever
more intimately connected with so many different subjects of importance
in connexion with Literature, Art, Fashion, and Politics. The position
of various members of his family connecting Horace Walpole with the
Cabinet, the Court, and the Legislature--his own intercourse with those
characters who became remarkable for brilliant social and intellectual
qualities--and his reputation as a Wit, a Scholar, and a Virtuoso,
cannot fail to render his Memoirs equally amusing and instructive. They
nearly complete the chain of mixed personal, political, and literary
history, commencing with "Evelyn" and "Pepys," carried forward by
"Swift's Journal and Correspondence," and ending almost in our own day
with the histories of Mr. Macaulay and Lord Mahon.
"These Memoirs form a necessary addition to the library of every English
gentleman. Besides its historical value, which is very considerable, the
work cannot be estimated too highly as a book of mere
amusement."--_Standard._