you why I never replied to those verses on the imitation of Horace: they regarded nothing but my figure, which I set no value upon; and my morals, which I knew needed no defence. Any honest man has the pleasure to be conscious that it is out of the power of the wittiest, nay, of the greatest person in the kingdom, to lessen him in that way, but at the expense of his own truth, honour, and justice." Of this letter Pope appears to have thought well as a composition. To one of his friends he writes, "There is a woman's war declared against me by a certain Lord; his weapons are the same which women and children

* At the period when this was written, the character of Sporus had not yet been given to the public. It is inserted, as is well-known, in one of Pope's finest productions, the "Epistle to Arbuthnot," or, as this poem is sometimes absurdly styled, the "Prologue to the Satires." Pope, in his advertisement to the "Epistle," observes,-" This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thought of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune [the authors of Verses to the Imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity, from a Nobleman at Hampton Court,] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family; whereof to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle." The best advice that was ever given to Pope, in regard to his literary quarrels, was that of Swift;"Give me a shilling," he said, "and I will ensure you that posterity shall never know you had one single enemy excepting those whose memory you have preserved."

use, a pin to scratch, and a squirt to bespatter. I writ a sort of answer, but was ashamed to enter the lists with him, and, after showing it some people, suppressed it: otherwise it was such as was worthy of him and worthy of me." Pope, indeed, suppressed the letter at the time, and it was not published till after his death and that of his rival: according to his own account, it was because he was ashamed to "enter the lists" with an unworthy rival; but, if we are to believe Tyers, it was at the express desire of Queen Caroline, who feared lest, by the publication of this eloquent appeal to public taste and public feeling, her favourite, Lord Hervey, should be rendered contemptible in the eyes of the world. According to Horace Walpole, Lord Hervey "pretended not to thank" Pope for the suppression.*

There is another poet, though of less note, whose name is intimately connected with that of Lord Hervey; and, as the history of the person in question forms an almost romantic episode in the history of real life, it may not be uninteresting to introduce a few words respecting him. We allude to James Hammond, the author of the "Love Elegies," whose subsequent aberration of mind and untimely death may be indirectly traced to his connection with Lord Hervey.

The Delia of Hammond, is known to have been Miss Catherine Dashwood, a young lady of considerable mental and personal accomplish

* Walpole's Letters, vol. ii. p. 391.

ments. She was a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen of George the Second, and a ward of Lord Hervey. The young poet became deeply enamoured of her, and in the course of a long courtship, which was distinguished by the customary characteristics of hope and despondency, addressed to her his graceful loveelegies, which are the more interesting from their being intended for the eye alone of the person to whom they were addressed, and, consequently, describing real and not imaginary ills. "Sincere in his love as in his friednship," says Lord Chesterfield, "he wrote to his mistresses as he spoke to his friends, nothing but the true genuine sentiments of his heart. He sat down to write what he thought, not to think what he should write it was nature and sentiment only that dictated to a real mistress, not youthful and poetic fancy to an imaginary one."

Miss Dashwood returned the love of the poet, and the only obstacle to their union arose from the cold obduracy and determined opposition of Lord Hervey. The reason which the latter gave for witholding his consent, was the inadequate means of the lovers to support themselves creditably in life. Hammond, however, is known to have possessed a private income of four hundred pounds a year, besides the salary which he drew as equerry to the Prince of Wales: moreover, he was regarded in the House of Commons, as a young man of great promise, and lived on intimate terms with several of the most influential

persons of the day. The real fact appears to have been that a wide difference of political opinion, and the terms of intimacy subsisting between Hammond and the leaders of the party opposed to Lord Hervey, were the secret of the latter refusing his consent to the match.

The sequel of the story may be soon told. Hammond, on Lord Hervey finally rejecting his overtures, fell seriously ill. His intellects became disordered, and on the 7th of June, 1742, he closed his life, in his thirty-third year, at the classical seat of his friend, Lord Cobham, at Stowe. Miss Dashwood remained true to his memory. She rejected several advantageous opportunities of entering the marriage-state, and though she survived her lover as many as thirtyfive years, she retained to the last a tender recollection of his romantic devotedness, and was ever sensibly affected by any allusion to their youthful loves. But we must return to the subject of the present memoir.

To give any correct idea of the character of Lord Hervey appears to be an impracticable task. Dr. Middleton, indeed, in dedicating to him his "Life of Cicero," not only dwells in the most glowing terms on his temperance, his high breeding, and sound sense; but, in speaking of him as a writer, an orator, and a patriot, seems almost to prefer him to the illustrious Roman of whom he writes. When Dr. Middleton, however, in the innocence of his heart, drops for a moment the higher tone of encomium, to

speak of his "constant admission" to Lord Hervey on his morning visits, and more especially to thank him for the number of subscribers which he had procured for his work, we guess to what such extraordinary praises owe their birth. The whole, indeed, is a pedantic hyperbole, in which we distrust the truth of the panegyric from its very fulsomeness. It very properly obtained for Middleton a place in the Dunciad :

"Narcissus, praised with all a parson's power,

Looked a white lily sunk beneath a shower.”

Lord Hervey, at best, appears to have been an unamiable character; his contemporaries generally speak of him with dislike, and still more frequently with contempt. "His defects," says

Archdeacon Coxe, "were extreme affectation, bitterness of invective, prodigality of flattery, and great servility to those above him." It was by the exercise of the last of these qualities, that he seems to have insinuated himself into the affections of George the Second, when, as the Duchess of Marlborough expresses it," It was not above six months ago that the King hated him so that he would not suffer him to be one in his diversions at play." It could not, however, have been by servility and adulation alone that Lord Hervey overcame the prejudices of his Sovereign. He unquestionably possessed the art of pleasing in a very high degree; his repartees were once famous; and though frequently sarcastic and illnatured in his remarks, he could be agreeable and even fascinating when he chose. Queen