
The biographers of Gray (and for a man who lived such an uneventfullife he has had a great many) give much space to his early letters to Walpole and their two friends of the 'Quadruple Alliance' at Eton. This partiality is not hard to understand: the letters of Gray, Walpole, West, and Ashton bring back the friendships of one's own school days, or, rather, glorify them; what other schoolboys ever put into letters so much humour, criticism, sentiment, and affection? These precocious boys-of whom one was to write the most beloved poem of the century and another to give posterity the history of his time-admit us into their company. As we read their letters we are mindful of what the ministers of fate had in store for the writers, and the reading is wistful and pleasant and sad.
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1717–1797
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), also known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, *The Castle of Otranto* (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. He was the son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. As Horace Walpole was childless, on his death his barony of Walpole descended to his cousin of the same surname, who was created the new Earl of Orford. **Source**: [Horace Walpole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole) on Wikipedia.
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