The Poems of Alexander Pope, A one-volume edition of the Twickenham text with selected annotations, p215. Walpole's sybaritic description of his new abode must have offered a sharp contrast with a soldier's life in the field.

* Note: Col the Hon Henry Seymour Conway, Walpole's cousin, was at this time experiencing campaign life in Flanders during the war of the Austrian succession, with France. Later in the same letter Walpole wrote that Pope's ghost is just now skimming under the window by a most poetical moonlight.” Well he might! Walpole then had to convert imperial Roman eagles into finches. Without appreciating, or possibly caring, that Pope was describing military victories struck (roll'd) on a gold coin (piece), rather than a piece of land with its bird-life.

He needed, too, to alter what Pope had written, which was:Ī small Euphrates through the piece is roll'dĪnd little Eagles wave their wings in gold. Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:Īlthough set in the letter in a fashion suggesting that they were a quotation, Walpole did not acknowledge that the lines were Pope's, on a totally different subject. The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame, The lines used by Walpole were extracted from a passage commemorating the conquests of various Caesars in the region of the Rhine, the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers: This poem is about the images of the departed Roman empire as depicted on ancient medals and coins:Ĭon vinc'd, she now contracts her vast design Walpole did not write the lines himself: they were adapted from Alexander Pope's Epistle To Mr Addison, occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals and first published in 1720. It is actually no more than an example of his tendency to plagiarise. This romantic description, with its arcadian undertones, is often taken as an example of Walpole's facility for elegant description. (Note: Sometimes written as of gold when quoted by later writers.) He described the place and the stream which ran through it in some detail as:Ī small Euphrates through the piece is roldĪnd little finches wave their wings in gold.

Horace Walpole wrote to his cousin Henry Conway* on 8 June 1747, shortly after he had taken possession of Strawberry Hill still known then as 'Chopped Straw Hall'.

The castle of horace walpole