[252] The large mass of important documents in the National
State-paper Office has recently been made available to the use of
the historic student, with the best results, and cannot fail to have
important influence on the future historic literature of the
country.
[253] See what I have said of "Suppressors and Dilapidators of
Manuscripts," vol. ii. p. 443.
[254] The "Conway Papers" remain unpublished. From what I have
already been favoured with the sight of, I may venture to predict
that our history may receive from them some important accession. The
reader may find a lively summary of the contents of these Papers in
Horace Walpole's account of his visit to Ragley, in his letter to
George Montague, 20th August, 1758. The Right Hon. John Wilson
Croker, with whom the Marquis of Hertford had placed the disposal of
the Conway Papers, is also in possession of the Throckmorton Papers,
of which the reader may likewise observe a particular notice in Sir
Henry Wotton's will, in Izaak Walton's Lives. Unsunned treasures lie
in the State-paper office.
[255] Since this article has been sent to press I rise from reading
one in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Orford's and Lord Waldegrave's
Memoirs. This is one of the very rare articles which could only come
from the hand of a master long exercised in the studies he
criticises. The critic, or rather the historian, observes, that "of
a period remarkable for the establishment of our present system of
government, no authentic materials had yet appeared. Events of
public notoriety are to be found, though often inaccurately told, in
our common histories; but the secret springs of action, the private
views and motives of individuals, &c., are as little known to us as
if the events to which they relate had taken place in China or
Japan." The clear, connected, dispassionate, and circumstantial
narrative, with which he has enriched the stores of English history,
is drawn from _the sources of_ SECRET HISTORY; from _published
memoirs_ and _contemporary correspondence_.