Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford

Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797), was an English writer, collector and politician, author of the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764) and of the great series of Letters. He built Strawberry Hill and wrote graceful occasional verse.

The 2 poems here are the pieces printed under his name in Frederick Locker's Lyra Elegantiarum (London: E. Moxon, 1867), an anthology of vers de société and vers d'occasion by deceased authors; the texts follow that first edition.