in his head and it is 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. I think 'tis possible that sir Robert Walpole may make some use of him at first, and perhaps the other may have vanity enough to imagine that he may work himself up to be a great man; but that is too mad, I think, to be ever effected, because all the world except sir Robert abhors him, and notwithstanding all the mischiefs sir Robert has done the nation, and myself in particular, which people generally resent in the first place, I had much rather he should continue in power than my lord Hervey.MARLBOROUGH, SARAH JENNINGS DUCHESS, 1737, Opinions, ed. Hales, p. 44.

The last stages of an infirm life are filthy roads, and like all other roads I find the farther one goes from the capital the more tedious the miles grow and the more rough and disagreeable the way. I know of no turnpikes to mend them; medicine pretends to be such, but doctors who have the management of it, like the comissioners for most other turnpikes, seldom execute what they undertake: they only put the toll of the poor cheated passenger in their pockets, and leave every jolt at least as bad as they found it, if not worse. "May all your ways (as Solomon says of wisdom) be ways of pleasantness, and all your paths peace;" and when your dissolution must come may it be like that of your lucky workman. Adieu!-HERVEY, JOHN LORD, 1743, Letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, June 18.

You will see in the papers that Lord Hervey is dead-luckily, I think, for himself; for he had outlived his last inch of character.-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1743, To Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 14; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. 1, p. 264.

Beneath the effeminacy of the Maccaroni, Lord Hervey was one of the few who united to intense finery in every minute detail, an acute and cultivated intellect. To perfect a Maccaroni it was in truth advisable, if not essential, to unite some smattering of learning, a pretension to wit, to his super-dandyism; to be the author of some personal squib, or the translator of some classic. Queen Caroline was too cultivated herself to suffer fools about her, and Lord Hervey was a man after her own taste: as a courtier he

was essentially a fine gentleman; and, more than that, he could be the most delightful companion, the most sensible adviser, and the most winning friend in the court. His ill health, which he carefully concealed, his fastidiousness, his ultra delicacy of habits, formed an agreeable contrast to the coarse robustness of "Sir Robert," and constituted a relief after the society of the vulgar, strongminded minister, who was born for the hustings and the House of Commons rather than for the courtly drawing-room.— THOMSON, KATHARINE AND J. C. (GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON), 1860, The Wits and Beaux of Society.

Hervey was a remarkable man. His physical frame was as feeble as that of Voltaire. He suffered from epilepsy and a variety of other ailments. He had to live mainly on a dietary of ass's milk. His face was so meagre and so pallid, or rather livid, that he used to paint and make up like an actress or a fine lady. Pope, who might have been considerate to the weak of frame, was merciless in his ridicule of Hervey. He ridiculed him as Sporus, who could neither feel satire nor sense, and as Lord Fanny. Yet Hervey could appreciate satire and sense; could write satire and sense. He was a man of very rare capacity. He had already distinguished himself as a debater in the House of Commons, and was afterwards to distinguish himself as a debater in the House of Lords. He wrote pretty verses and clever pamphlets, and he has left to the world a collection of "Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second," which will always be read for its vivacity, its pungency, its bitterness, and its keen, penetrating good-sense. Hervey succeeded in obtaining the hand of one of the most beautiful women of the day, the charming Mary Lepell, whose name has been celebrated in more than one poetical panegyric by Pope, and he captivated the heart of one of the royal princesses. The historical reader must strike a sort of balance for himself in getting at an estimate of Hervey's character. No man has been more bitterly denounced by his enemies or more warmly praised by his friends. MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1884, A History of the Four Georges, vol. I.

We have said that Lord Hervey was a man of considerable parts, a wit, a ready

writer, a keen and amusing observer of character, but when this has been said all has been said. In a lax age his profligacy was notorious. He was a sceptic, and took the greatest delight in wounding the religious susceptibilities of those he came across. In his creed there was nothing great, nothing noble, nothing of good report; all was hollow, artificial, and insincere. As a necessary consequence of his distorted faith, he believed in nothing, except perhaps himself, and in nobody, except perhaps Queen Caroline. -EWALD, ALEXANDER CHARLES, 1885, Studies Re-Studied, p. 330.

Hervey was a clever and unprincipled man, of loose morals and sceptical opinions. He was an effective though somewhat pompous speaker, a ready writer, and a keen observer of character. His wit and charm of manner made him a special favourite of women.—BARKER, G. F. RUSSELL, 1891, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXVI, p. 285.

As long as the loathsome traits which are delineated in the character of "Sporus" repel and sicken mankind, so long will the name of John Lord Hervey be infamous. Of the impotence of truth to contend with the fiction of so great an artist as Pope, the result of Mr. Croker's attempt to vindicate Hervey's fame is a striking illustration. In 1848 Mr. Croker published that nobleman's "Memoirs, prefixing an Introduction, in which he proved, as indeed the "Memoirs" themselves proved, that the original of Pope's picture was a man whose genius and temper had been cast rather in the mould of St. Simon and Tacitus than in that of the foppish and loathsome hermaphrodite with whom he had been associated. But the popular estimate of Hervey remains unchanged. He was "Sporus" to our ancestors, who had neither his "Memoirs" nor Mr. Croker's Introduction before them, and he is "Sporus" to us who have both, but who, unfortunately for Hervey, care for neither, and know Pope's verses by heart.-COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON, 1895, The Porson of Shakspearian Criticism, Essays and Studies, p. 265.

One has certainly to fortify oneself by the recollection of Horace and his sic visum Veneri. Everything that one hears of the brilliant and cynical John Hervey, with his "coffin-face" and his painted

cheeks, his valetudinarian, anaemic beauty, and his notorious depravity of life, makes it difficult to understand what particular qualities in him-apart from opportunity and proximity-could possibly have attracted the affection of a young and a very charming woman, who was besides far in advance of her contemporaries in parts and education. Yet it must be remembered that "-when Hervey the handsome was wedded To the beautiful Molly Lepell"

(as the ballad has it), he was only fourand twenty.-DOBSON, AUSTIN, 1896, Eighteenth Century Vignettes, Third Series, p. 301.

MEMOIRS OF THE REIGN OF
GEORGE II

Lord Hervey himself fairly admits that impartiality in such cases as his is not to be expected, and he justifies that confession to its fullest extent; but though we see that his colouring may be capricious and exaggerated-no one can feel the least hesitation as to the substantial and, as to mere facts, the minute accuracy of his narrative. He may, and I have no doubt too often does, impute a wrong motive to an act, or a wrong meaning to a speech; but we can have no doubt that the act or the speech themselves are related as he saw and heard them: and there are many indications that the greater part was written from day to day as the events occurred. I know of no such near and intimate picture of the interior of a court; no other memoirs that I have ever read bring us so immediately, so actually into not merely the presence, but the company of the personages of the royal circle. Lord Hervey is, may I venture to say, almost the Boswell of George II. and Queen Caroline-but Boswell without his good nature. He seems to have taken perhaps under the influence of that "wretched health" of which he so frequently complained-a morbid view of mankind, and to have had little of the milk of human kindness in his temper.CROKER, JOHN WILSON, 1848, ed., Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, Prefatory and Biographical Notice, vol. 1, p. 49.

Lord Hervey, for we put aside his poetical effusions, gave to our own day a present which, one may say, has enriched the treasury of our social literature with

some very bad coin. For years his "Diary" was buried; until, at last, the late Mr. Croker, on whose shoulders the mantle of the bitter satirist had fallen, exhumed it and gave it, slightly mangled, to the world. His Lordship's "Diary" is very clever, very revolting, and, we fear, very true. At all events, it is the report of an anatomist who has made deep and daily search into the physiology of princes, princesses, statesmen, and courtiers. He has thoroughly dissected their hearts; and he knows every throb, and its consequence. He has left a picture such as no human skill could have invented nor conceived, and which we must therefore believe to be accurate; but it is told in such cold-blooded terms, it is so dark with the endless delineations of selfishness and turpitude, that we would willingly believe that "Lady Fanny's" mind was diseased, had we not other proofs that the revelations are essentially veracious.THOMSON, KATHERINE (Grace WHARTON), 1862, The Literature of Society, vol. II, p.

232.

Lord Hervey was a person whom the world never appreciates, and does not like. To the English reading public, a courtier and a hater of the clergy is always unacceptable. This antiecclesiastical eighteenth century tone is not forgiven either in Gibbon or in Adam Smith, and to its presence in Lord Hervey's "Memoirs" we must ascribe the fact that they are so little relished. They are, even in the mutilated state in which we have them, one of the best productions in our language of a kind of writing in which the French are so rich, and we so poor. No parallel is intended between Pope's "Satires" and Lord Hervey's "Memoirs" on any other point but the one of flashing a vivid light upon their surroundings during a period little otherwise illuminated. The two books have no other resemblance, and may be obviously contrasted. Lord Hervey paints the Court from St. James's; Pope, at Twickenham, vents the spleen of the opposition. Lord Hervey relates matter of fact in simple prose; Pope deals in distant allusions and veiled sneers. ever, such as they are, the two together, Pope and Lord Hervey, mortal foes as they were, are the two most important witnesses of the period in question. PATTISON, MARK, 1872-89, Pope and His

Editors, Essays, ed. Nettleship, vol. II, p. 352.

Though the portrait of Sporus is described by Johnson as the meanest part of this Epistle, it is difficult to suppose that such would have been his deliberate judgment if he had not been prejudiced in favour of Lord Hervey. The morals of the latter, as displayed by himself in his "Memoirs of the Reign of George II." show that Pope's satire is as just as it is ardent and poetical.-ELWIN, WHITWELL AND COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1881, eds., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. III, p. 265, notes.

The world owes him some thanks for a

really interesting book, the very boldness

and bitterness of which enhance to a certain extent its historical value.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1884, A History of the Four Georges, vol. I, chap. XX.

Of all these Mémoires pour servir there are few that can compare, in novelty of information, in humour, in mordant descriptions of character, in hate and cynicism, with the pages of John, Lord Hervey. Throughout the pages

of his "Memoirs" detraction is the principal feature. His enemies are of course painted in the blackest colours, their characters picked out in the aqua fortis of hate; but even in his descriptions of his friends there is always something spiteful and malicious, which casts into the shade the praise that may have been bestowed. Everybody is a knave or a sycophant; the world revolves upon the axis of humbug, and between the poles of venality and corruption. A politician is one who identifies his own interests with those of the country; a priest is a scheming hypocrite who makes the best of both worlds, and who would sell his soul for a mitre; justice, truth, morality, and all the other attributes of virtue, are only so many masks to conceal motives and to further the cause of self-advancement. We rise from the splenetic pages of Lord Hervey with the feelings of a sane man who has been shut up with the afflicted in mind, and who longs to mix again with his sound and healthy fellows, so as to dispel the morbid associations of the past; or with the feelings of one confined in a hothouse, and who craves for the inspiriting breezes of the moorland.-EWALD, ALEXANDER CHARLES, 1885, Studies Re-Studied, pp. 325, 330.

Where can he hope for pity, peace or rest, Who moves no softness-in a mother's breast? Custom, law, reason, all! my cause forsake; And nature sleeps, to keep my woes awake! Crimes, which the cruel scarce believe can be, The kind are guilty of, to ruin me!

E'en she who bore me blasts me with her hate,

And, meant my fortune, makes herself my fate!"

-HILL, AARON, c1740, Verses made for Mr. Savage, and sent to Lady Macclesfield, His Mother.

of manners. His walk was slow, and his voice tremulous and mournful. He was easily excited to smiles, but very seldom provoked to laughter. His mind was in an uncommon degree vigorous and active. His judgment was accurate, his apprehension quick, and his memory so tenacious that he was frequently observed to know what he had learned from others in a short time, better than those by whom he was informed, and could frequently recollect incidents, with all their combination of circumstances, which few would have regarded at the present time, but which the quickness of his apprehension impressed upon him. He had the art of escaping from his own reflections, and accommodating himself to every new scene.

I must be sincere with you, as our correspondence is now likely to be closed. Your language is really too high, and what I am not used to from my superiors; much too extraordinary for me, at least sufficiently so to make me obey your commands, and never more presume to advise or meddle in your affairs, but leave your own conduct entirely to your own judgment. It is with concern I find so much misconstruction joined with so much resentment in your nature. You still injure some whom you had known many years as friends, and for whose intentions I would take upon me to answer; but I have no weight with you, and cannot tell how soon (if you have not already) you may misconstrue all I can say or do; and I see in the case how unforgiving your are, I desire to prevent this in time.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1743, Letter to Savage, Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. x, p. 102.

Wherever he came his address secured him friends, whom his necessities soon alienated; so that he had, perhaps, a more numerous acquaintance than any man ever before attained, there being scarcely any person eminent on any account to whom he was not known, or whose character he was not in some degree able to delineate. He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mein, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness

of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage.

Poor Savage was well remembered to have been as inconsiderate, inconsistent, and inconstant a mortal as ever existed, what he might have said carried but little weight; and, as he would blow both hot and cold, nay, too frequently, to gratify the company present, would sacrifice the absent, though his best friend. . . . I met Savage one summer, in a condition too melancholy for description. He was starving; I supported him, and my father cloathed him, 'till his tragedy was brought on the stage, where it met with success in the representation, tho' acted by the young part of the company, in the summer season; whatever might be the merit of his play, his necessities were too pressing to wait 'till winter for its performance. CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 213, note.

a

He was, however, undoubtedly a man of excellent parts; and, had he received the full benefits of a liberal education, and had his natural talents been cultivated to the best advantage, he might have made respectable figure in life. He was happy in an agreeable temper, and a lively flow of wit, which made his company much coveted; nor was his judgment, both of writing and of men, inferior to his wit; but he was too much a slave to his passions, and his passions were too easily excited. He was warm in his friendships, but implacable in his enmity; and his greatest fault, which is indeed the greatest of all faults, was ingratitude. He seemed to suppose everything due to his