To EDWARDS 12 MARCH 1794 249 Berkeley Square, March 12th, 1794. LORD ORFORD feels himself most sensibly obliged by Mr Ed- J wards, for allowing Miss Berry to communicate to him the frag­ ment of The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici1—Lord O. has not enjoyed so much and such unexpected pleasure a long time, as from this most able, informing and entertaining work—which, though it will leave a most agreeable impression on his mind, gives him great inquietude too, as he does not think that it will appear very soon—an afflicting cir­ cumstance to Lord O.—as very soon may be of great consequence to a very infirm man of 76, and who has no hopes of being so well amused as he should be by reading the completion of this work, for the sight of which he again thanks Mr Edwards.

To , Wednesday 19 March 1794 Printed for the first time from transcript of MS in the possession of Lindsay Flem­ ing, Esq., Aldwick Grange, Bognor Regis, . MS given by Lysons to James Dallaway, who pasted it in his copy of his Inquiries (see n. 1 below), which passed to his grandson, Canon W. L. Grane; sold by Hodgson and Co., 1928, to Mr Fleming. Address: To Samuel Lysons, Esq., in the King's Bench Walk, Temple. Note in Dallaway's hand: 'This autograph of the Rt Honble Horace Walpole, the last Earl of Orford, was kindly given me by S. Lysons, F.R. and A.S. It was written on the 18th March 1794. In his familiar letters he usually subscribed him­ self with an "O." for Orford. James Dallaway. E[arl] Marshal's] Secretary, Heralds' College, 1797.' Since the 18th was a Tuesday, Dallaway presumably should have written '19th.' Wednesday evening. SINCE I left you, I have done nothing but examine Mr Dallaway's • book,1 and am delighted with it; but as you told me that he is going to Constantinople,2 and you yourself out of town, I lose no time to ask 1. William Roscoe's biography of Lo­ signs, by the Rev. James Dallaway (1763- renzo de' Medici (1449-92), published Feb. 1834), topographer and historian, and edi­ 1796 (title-page reads '1795'). It was printed tor (1826-8) of HW's Anecdotes of Painting. by John MacCreery of Liverpool, the first His Inquiries was printed at sheets having gone to press in the fall of and published in London 2 Dec. 1793 1793. The following spring, the sheets of a (London Chronicle 31 Oct.-2 Nov. 1793, portion of the first volume were transmitted Ixxiv. 427). HW's copy was sold London to Edwards, the publisher of the book 1098 (SH vii. 53). It reappeared in the (Henry Roscoe, The Life of William Ros­ Earl of Gosford sale at Puttick and Simp­ coe, 1833, i. 152-4). See post March 1795. son's, April 1884, lot 889, where it was de­ scribed as being bound in green morocco 1. Inquiries into the Origin and Progresswit h HW's arms on the sides—a binding of the Science of Heraldry in , with that proves his interest in the book. Explanatory Observations on Armorial En­ 2. Through the influence of the Duke