WALPOLE 280 WALPITRGA he succeeded his nephew in the peerage. He never took his seat in the House of Lords, and appears to have avoided using his title. The works of Horace Walpole are numerous; but his fame as a writer rests on his "Letters" and "Memoirs." The former are held to be unsurpassed HORACE WALPOLE in the English language, and both are highly interesting and valuable as a storehouse of the more evanescent traits of contemporary history. His romance, "The Castle of Otranto," is also well known. He died in London, March 2, 1797. WALPOLE, HUGH SEYMOUR, a British author, born in 1884, son of the Bishop of Edinburgh. He finished his education at Cambridge University, and almost immediately took up literature as his life vocation, publishing his first novel, "The Wooden Horse," at the age of twenty-five. After the outbreak of the World War he went to Russia as a member of the Red Cross, where he incidentally gathered the material for the novel which gained him his first wide popularity among intellectual readers, "The Secret City" (1919), the city indi- cated in the title being Petrograd. He has also written, "Maradick at Forty" (1910); "The Prelude to the Adven- ture" (1912); "The Dark Forest" (1916); and "Jeremy" (1919). WALPOLE, SIR ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD, an English statesman; younger son Sir Robert Walpole; born in Houghton, England, Aug. 26, 1676; was educated at Eton, and at King's College, Cambridge; succeeded to the paternal estate in 1700, and entered Parliament as member for Castle Rising. In 1702 he was elected for King's Lynn, became an active member of the Whig party, and soon distinguished himself by his business capacity, and by his debates. In 1712 he was expelled from Parliament for breach of trust and corruption, and sent to the Tower, but was returned to his seat the following year. He was Secre- tary of War and leader in the House of Commons in 1708, paymaster of the forces in 1714 and 1720, and first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the ex- chequer in 1715, and again in 1721, and prime minister from 1715-1717 and from 1721-1742. During his long administra- tion the Hanoverian succession, to which he was zealously attached, became firmly established, a result to which his pru- dence and political sagacity largely con- tributed. He relieved the weight of tax- ation by many improvements in the tariff. In 1724 he was made a Knight of the Bath, in 1726 a Knight of the Garter, and in 1742 was created Earl of Orford. An able monograph on Walpole has been published by John Morley. He died in Houghton, England, March 18, 1745. WALPURGA, WALBURGA, or WAL- PURGIS, a female saint; born in Eng* land early in the 8th century, died 779. She was for many years a nun in a Dorsetshire convent. As a niece of St. Boniface, and sister of St. Willibald, first bishop of Eichstadt, Bavaria (741- 786), she was induced to proceed to Ger- many to found convents, and in 754 she SIB ROBERT WALPOLE became abbess of Heidenheim, a con- vent within her brother's bishopric. She died at the latter place, but was buried at Eichstadt, and her shrine was visited by many pilgrims and was the scene of
