Queen Caroline, and what was of infinitely more value, the anxious tenderness of Hervey's excellent father and the sorely tried but faithful affection of his wife.

Their marriage, in accordance with what almost amounted to a fashion at that time, was not at first avowed. Contemporary publications state that it took place in the autumn of 1720, but in the spring of 1719 a letter from Lord Bristol affectionately claims Molly Lepell as his daughter, though speaking of her marriage as "secret." Croker says that the private marriage of another maid of honor, Mary Bellenden, to Colonel Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll, was made public at the same time, and his theory is that

as much to avoid their persecutions as for my own health.

Hervey would indeed have been hard to please had he shown early and confirmed neglect of such a wife. Lady Louisa herself concedes that

by the attractions she retained in age she must have been singularly captivating when young, gay, and handsome; and never was there so perfect a model of the finely polished, highbred, genuine woman of fashion. Her manners had a foreign tinge which some called affected, but they were gentle, easy, dignified, and altogether exquisitely pleasing.

And Lord Chesterfield said the word "pleasing" always reminded him of her, "who not only pleased herself, but was the cause of pleasing in others."

they influenced each other... all parties
might be fearful of having offended by making
a choice without the consent of their royal
patrons, and they for mutual support agreed
to brave the storm together, and announced the humors of the place.
their marriages and consequent resignations
just previous to the courtly epoch of the birth-
day.f

Like all "sprigs of quality" in those days, the Herveys were often at Bath, and some of Lady Hervey's † letters to Mrs. Howard give amusing glimpses of

Molly Lepell's marriage was happier than might have been anticipated from the character of the bridegroom. Lady Louisa Stuart in her "Introductory Anecdotes" to her grandmother's letters, says that the young couple "lived together on very amicable terms, as well-bred as if not married at all,' but without any strong sympathies, and more like a French couple than an English one;" as if the average "English couple " of those days, especially when moving in fashionable circles, had been so very tender and domestic! But the letters themselves show that for some time, at all events, this polite indifference did not exist. In July, 1721, we find Lady Mary quite out of patience with their conjugal affection:

Mrs. Hervey and her dear spouse [she writes to her sister Lady Mar] visited me twice or thrice a day, and were perpetually cooing in my rooms. I was complaisant a great while; but (as you know) my talent has never lain much that way. I grew at last so weary of those birds of paradise, I fled to Twickenham

The "inscrutable" Caroline, who ridiculed her husband, hated some of her children and coldly tolerated others, and dropped friend after friend when each had served her turn, showed positive fondness for Lord Hervey up to the last hours of her life. She called him "her child, her pupil, her charge." She frankly avowed that she could not bear him out of her sight, adding, "It is well I am so old," she was then fiftyone, and fourteen years Hervey's senior, "or I should be talked of for this creature." " (Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. i., p. 382.)

↑ Introduction to Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. i., P. 25.

Lord Peterborough is here [she writes in June, 1725] and has been so some time, though by his dress one would believe he had not designed to make any stay, for he wears boots all day, and as I hear must do so, having brought no shoes with him. [Boots were then consid ered only suitable for riding-gear.] It is a comical sight to see him, with his blue ribbon and star, and a cabbage under each arm, or a chicken in his hand, which, after he himself has purchased at market, he carries home for

his dinner.

Some months later she gives the same correspondent a little family news:

I tell you that Bab, our own lean, pale-faced Arm yourself with faith to believe me when Bab [her sister-in-law, Lady Barbara Hervey] has been queen of a ball, and has been the object of sighs, languishments, and all things proper on such occasions: and to surprise you yet more, I must inform you that her flirt is master of ten thousand pounds a year. I do not doubt but that Lady Bristol will tell you of it, for she is brimful of that (and cases of quadrille).‡

Lady Bristol, who had an imperious and uncertain temper, and piqued herself on her power of saying sharp things, was no doubt occasionally dictatorial to her beautiful daughter-in-law, who may not always have taken her caprices patiently. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu puts the case after her own peculiar fashion: "All

• Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, vol. i., p. 457.

↑ In 1723 her husband succeeded to the title by the death of his brother Carr.

Letters to and from Henrietta Countess of Suffolk, vol. i., p. 195.

means of restoring my spirits than the exercise and hartshorn I now make use of. I do not suppose that name still subsists; but pray let me know if the thing itself does, and if they meet in the same cheerful manner to sup as formerly. . . . I pass my mornings at present as much like those at Hampton Court as I can, for I divide them between walking and the people of the best sense of their time. But the difference is, my present companions are dead, and the others were quite alive.

our acquaintances are now mad," she tells her sister: "they do such things! such monstrous and stupendous things! Lady Hervey and Lady Bristol have quarrelled in such a polite manner that they have given one another all the titles so liberally bestowed amongst the ladies at Billingsgate." It would take a less "lively " pen than Lady Mary's to convince us that Lady Hervey, whose perfect good breeding and gracious dignity are recorded by all who knew her, ever descended to "BilIn Mrs. Howard's reply she says: lingsgate," and if so, no further faith can "Hampton was very different from the be put in physiognomy. For never was place you knew. frizelation, flirtation, sweeter or more gentle expression than and dangleation are now no more, and that of her smiling face in the Strawberry nothing less than a Lepell can restore Hill miniature. But that she did occa- them to life. To tell you my opinion freesionally retaliate on Lady Bristol by aly, the people you now converse with " little malicious teasing, we have her own testimony: "Pray, when you are so kind as to write to me," she asks Mrs. Howard, "get sometimes one body, sometimes another to direct your letters. For curiosity being one of the reigning passions in a certain person" [Lady Bristol], "I love prodigiously both to excite and to baffle it."

In 1728 Lord Hervey tried to relieve the ill-health which was constitutional with him (but which his father attributed to the use of "that detestable and poisonous plant, tea,") by a journey to Italy - Lady Hervey and four young children remaining with Lord Bristol at Ickworth. In this seclusion she heard from Mrs. How ard, who was then at Hampton Court, and says in reply:

The place your letter was dated from recalled a thousand agreeable things to my remembrance. I wish I could persuade myself that you regret them, or that you could think the tea-table more welcome if attended as formerly by the Schatz [a nickname shared by Lord and Lady Hervey]. If that were possible, it would be the means (and the only one at this time) to make me wish to exchange Ickworth for any other dwelling in England. I really believe a frizelation would be a surer

• His complaint was epilepsy; and to ward off its attacks he adopted that strict regimen to which Pope cruelly alludes in his "Sporus," as, to disguise its traces, he is said to have painted his face. Lord Hailes (preface to the Duchess of Marlborough's "Opinions") describes Hervey's "daily food" as a small quantity of asses' milk and a flour biscuit; once a week he indulged himself with eating an apple." His own statement to Dr. Cheyne, his physician, is—"I never take any liquid but water or milk-tea; I eat no meat but the whitest, youngest, and tenderest-nine times in ten,

nothing but chicken. I seldom eat any supper; if any, nothing absolutely but bread and water. Two days in the week I eat no flesh; my breakfast is dry biscuit, not sweet, and green tea. I have left off butter as bilious. I eat no salt, nor any sauce but bread sauce ... the attacks made upon me by ignorance, impertinence and gluttony are innumerable and incredible."

...

[her books] "are much more alive than any of your old acquaintance." In Lady Hervey's rejoinder, we see something of that home life at Ickworth which gives so much more true a clue to her character than the youthful gaieties with which she is generally associated : –

-

I have had frequent accounts from my lord of his being very much out of order abroad, [she writes]; and at home I have had the pain of seeing and the fatigue of nursing Lady Ann [her sister-in-law] in a violent and for a great while dangerous distemper. I pass twelve or her bedside at seven or eight o'clock at night. thirteen hours a day in her room, and dine by

I can never leave her whilst her fever is upon her, for she will take nothing but from me, nor do anything but at my request. Lord and Lady Bristol are in the greatest concern for her. The latter has been herself so ill that for many days she has not been able to bear going into her daughter's room. My spirits, which you know were once very good, are so much impaired, that I question if even Hampton Court breakfasts could recover them, or revive the Schatz who is extinguished in a fatigued nurse, a grieved sister, and a melancholy wife.*

In a later letter Lady Hervey recommends Mrs. Howard to read "Cabala,” which she says contains some "mighty pretty letters from the famous Earl of Essex; and very artful, clever ones from Sir Francis Bacon, who, though a sad fellow in his practice, was a very great man in theory."

Then in 1732 we have tidings of a startling reformation:

Perhaps you imagine you can receive no news out of the country, but I shall convince you to the contrary by informing you that Lady Bristol has lived with me a whole fort. night with all civility and kindness. I have become first favorite. It would puzzle a poet

• Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i., p. 325.

to find anything soft, kind, and sweet enough to liken her to-down, turtle-doves, and honey are faint images of her disposition.

A collection of Lady Hervey's letters to a very different correspondent, the Rev. Edmund Morris, a country clergy. man, tutor to her sons, was published by Murray in 1821. The first letter, written in 1742, is from Ickworth, which was almost always her home, and tells her correspondent that she has read Young's "Night Thoughts," recommended by him, and, though she admires the book, she does not mean to look at it again. I do

not like to look on the dark side of life,"

remarks

66

Lady Hervey writes to Mr. Morris on every subject that can interest an intelligent woman. Politics, home and foreign; divinity, literature, her own classical stud ies, of which she modestly says she shall only peep into the vestibule open to the profane, all are discussed in turn, together old court friends, or a motherly message that dear Frederick (afterwards the most about her children. She is glad to hear ir-reverend Bishop of Derry) rides with his tutor: "There is nothing so likely to keep you both well as riding. I have found great benefit by it and therefore persist in it, though both the horse and the weather are very bad; the one is too calm, the other not calm enough."

with an occasional reminiscence of her

Weeping philosophers have never been wanting; in September, 1744, Lady Hervey tells Mr. Morris he is "in a patriot fright," adding:—

she adds, "and shall always be thankful to those who turn the bright side of that lantern to me." In the following spring, she tells Mr. Morris she is impatient to hear his "approbation" of Oldcastle's on Bolingbroke's History." "Perhaps I should have said thoughts," she continues, "but in this place I think I wish you were here! You would make a those words synonymous. If they are not trio in the pathetic political performance I so I shall be disappointed and sorry, I hear every noon, which I sometimes hiss and sometimes parody, "what should be great I don't say mortified, because Lord Hervey's turn to farce;" if I did not, the tragedy would commendations (to whom I am now read-be too deep to bear repeated every day. ing it) have put me above that." She was above five-and-twenty years ago I heard the soon to lose this much prized companion- same dreadful prophecies, from the same dreadship-the judgment and the ability to ful prophets, therefore, dum spiro, sperabo; my which she had so long and so unaffectedly reason, my experience, and my spirits (which looked up. Lord Hervey died in August, latter, I thank God, are not English), all conand in the following October his wife cur in enabling me to do so. Had I cried for my country as long as Lord Bristol has been telling me I ought, I should not by this time have an eye left to cry with. And now I have two, and a mouth to laugh, which I am resolved to make use of as long as I can.... When I remind Lord Bristol how long it is since he bespoke my tears for my ruined coun

writes:

I see and feel the greatness of this last misfortune in every light, but I will struggle to the utmost; and though I know, at least I think, I can never be happy again, yet I will be as little miserable as possible, and will make use of the reason I have to soften, not to aggra-try, he shakes his head, and says: "Ay, Madvate, my affliction.

It was chiefly for the sake of her chil. dren that Lady Hervey thus exerted herself; and some of them, at all events, repaid her passionate affection. Her eldest daughter, Lepel, at this time married to Constantine Phipps, afterwards Baron Mulgrave, was her pride and comfort. When she especially enjoys a book she recommends it to Mrs. Phipps, saying:

I should grudge myself anything so good without her participation. I hear from many people of her good looks and good spirits; of every other good that belongs to her I want neither information nor confirmation. May she have as much happiness as she deserves! This sounds very just, but is far from being very reasonable, considering the small stock of happiness there seems to be in the world: for I am wishing her much more than a Benjamin's portion.

am! But it is nearer and nearer, and must

happen at last." According to his method, one should begin to weep for one's children as soon as they are born; for they must die at last, and every day brings them nearer to it.

To Lord Bristol, who had always loved her, she was a true and devoted daughter: she read to him, wrote for him, nursed him, drew him into playful discussions

which she referred to her friends' arbitration, thus giving him a share in her correspondence; in short, she was the life of Ickworth, though herself, from a very early age, frequently suffering from severe attacks of hereditary gout.

She did not hesitate to give her rever- it. Next, having apparently disposed of end correspondent a little common-sense the ancients, Lady Hervey attacks the advice now and then. In 1745 he was "vulgarisms" of some of her “moderns." presented to the living of Nutshalling, Hants, and she rejoiced warmly in his good fortune and admired his description of his new house and neighborhood. "I approve of flowers and sweet shrubs for your garden," she adds, "but pray what have you to do with exotics? They are things of little beauty, great expense, and only matters of curiosity. Pray stick to what will make your parterre gay to the eye and sweet to the nose."

Lady Hervey's letters to Mr. Morris from the spring of 1745 to the autumn of 1747 were unfortunately lost. In October of the latter year we find her busy in her own garden, and her remarks give a clear idea of the progress of floriculture since

her time:

For the last three weeks I have been stuck as deeply in my garden as any of the plants I have set there, and I wish they may flourish half as well for though I can't say I have run up in height, yet I have spread most luxuriantly. I have made a rosery. Perhaps you will ask what that is: it is a collection of all the sorts of roses there are, which amount to

*

fifty. This rosery perhaps may bring me to an untimely end, but it is a very pretty thing I have made the whole design of it myself. In the middle of it, raised above all the others, is one of the most beautiful kind, who, conscious of the right to possess that place, does not blush in doing so.

Besides gardening at Ickworth, Lady Hervey soon had building in London on her hands. She was altering her house in the Green Park after her own fancy; she had made the plan "entirely herself," she says in 1748, and it was to be executed in April.

Perhaps you'll think I ought to begin on the first day of the month, but though it may be, and certainly is, contrary to all palladian rules, I think I ought to consider my own convenience and taste. I hope, out of the ashes of my old house will soon arise a Phoenix house, where you will often eat as plain a dinner, see as fine a prospect, and as beautiful a verdure as at Nutshalling.

the most polite people of the age, such as are
No one who has lived and conversed with
Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Chesterfield, and
such, I may say, as was Lord Hervey, but will
wish, when they meet with those little vulgar-
isms, that they had been left out. . . . I would
not have a word or an expression made use of
that must have been picked up from the illit-
erate or the vulgar, or perhaps retained from
the nursery; and of that kind are, under the
sun in life - upon the face of the earth
the world cracking about our ears.

Lady Hervey, it will be seen, carried a little of her fine ladyism into her love of letters. But the mother in her warm heart triumphed over both the critic and the fine lady. "When I tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Phipps are here, yes, actually here," she writes a little later,

you will not be surprised, sir, that I do not answer your last letter, or think of politics friendship I am too happy with the present to and controversy. When I enjoy society and look back to the past, and can think of no words but such as they utter, or can best prove my affection for them. They have a boy, too, who is the most surprising child I ever knew, though I remember what his mother was. short, there is nothing wanting to my present happiness but the thoughts of its continuance. I leave to make it even thus long, and then .. If you think my letter short, think what conclude that I am your sincere friend.

In

Her new house still occupies her; most people tell her she has done an indiscreet thing, and spent more money in building than her fortune warranted. "But it is for what I like better than any other expense whatever. If I am contented with two dishes rather than four, and with four ser

vants rather than eight, and choose to make that diminished expense into a good house, I please myself and injure no one." She finds time, however, to be a little satirical at the expense of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his family. She never frequented Leicester House when in their occupation; she could not forgive their undutiful behavior to her old master and mistress (though it was but a reproduction of the quarrels of her Prince and Princess of Wales with George 1.), and she had no respect for their abilities:

Still she has time and thoughts to spare for study. She asks Mr. Morris "who are properly to be reckoned the ancients?" Who is the last author he would call ancient and the first he would call modern? Swift's "Battle of the Books" had set her wondering, and Lord Bristol could not help her; he had never thought about lived in an age where awfully jolly" was uttered by

• What would this bright and refined lady say if she ladies pretending to breeding, or where "thanks" is thrown at you like victuals to a dog? She would have Her anonymous editor observes that in 1821 the been "quite too utterly" upset by such vulgarisms. varieties numbered nearly five hundred.

ED.

The Prince's family is an example of inno- | strikes my ear in the morning is their melody. cent and cheerful amusement. All this last... I will enjoy this sweet place and quiet summer they played abroad; and now, in the way of living as long as Lord Bristol lives, and winter, in a large room, they divert themselves am preparing a dwelling that will suit better at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, with my purse, though not so well with my inschoolboys are well acquainted with. The la- clination. I have paid dear to make that dies as well as gentlemen join in this amuse- dwelling look as like the country as I can; but ment; and the latter return the compliment, I have been too much used to grass and trees in the evening, by playing for an hour at the to bear changing them for bricks and dust. old and innocent game of push pin, at which they chiefly excel (if they are not flattered) who ought in everything to precede. This innocence and excellence must needs give great joy, as well as great hopes, to all real lovers of their country and posterity.