Delighting in his various subjects’ real life passions, amours, free spirits, patriotisms and willingness to make war, he reserves special admiration and attention for those who display willingness to guard their honour with a penchant for duelling. Walpole’s affections are less generous however, towards any of his subjects known to flirt with, or have had any association with, “the evils of Popery”.

Horace Walpole’s playful review of the literary achievements of the great and the good, for the most part favourably examines selections of his eponymous subjects’ works, before afterward turning his attentions to their characters. Walpole however assures us that his work is merely calculated to amuse, and that anyone who takes offence to his words “will never make me so serious as to defend it”.