Walpole's defense of the historical Richard III over the Shakespearian villanization is one of his most famous works and solicited a great deal of notoriety in its day with responses from such notables as Gibbon and David Hume."In his eager advocacy of Richard, H(orace) W(alpole) was a better apologist than historian..But what he wrote he wrote well," Hazen. Walpole founded the "Miscellaneous Antiquities" to publish scarce tracts and previously unprinted manuscripts.