Wit kindled by the fulph'rous breath of Vice, Burns clear and conftant, like the fource of day: 491 495 This Praise, immortal POPE, to thee be giv'n: Did FRIENDSHIP e'er mislead thy wand'ring Mufe? Error like this ev'n Truth can scarce reprove; 'Tis almost Virtue when it flows from Love. you infpire, Ye deathless Names, ye Sons of endless praise, 506 510 515 In In her bold numbers chain the Tyrant's rage, 520 To court no Friend, nor own a Foe but thine. But if her giddy eye fhould vainly quit Thy facred paths, to run the maze of wit; If her apoftate heart should e'er incline 525 To offer incenfe at Corruption's fhrine; Urge, urge thy pow'r, the black attempt confound, And dash the fmoaking Cenfer to the ground. Thus aw'd to fear, inftructed Bards may fee, That Guilt is doom'd to fink in Infamy. 530 A LETTER. то A NOBLE LORD', ON OCCASION OF SOME LIBELS WRITTEN AND PROPAGATED AT COURT, IN THE YEAR 1732-3. MY LORD, Nov. 30, 1733. YOUR Lordship's epistle has been published some days, but I had not the pleasure and pain of feeing it till yesterday: Pain, to think your Lordship should attack me at all; Pleasure, to find that you This Letter (which was first printed in the Year 1733) bears the fame place in our Author's profe that the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot does in his poetry. They are both Apologetical, repelling the libellous flanders on his Reputation: with this difference, that the Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot, his friend, was chiefly directed against Grub-street Writers, and this Letter to the Noble Lord, his enemy, against Court Scribblers. For the reft, they are both Master-pieces in their kinds; That in verse, more grave, moral, and fublime; This in profe, more lively, critical, and pointed; but equally conducive to what he had moft at heart, the vindication of his moral Character: the only thing he thought worth his care in literary altercations; and the first thing he would expect from the good offices of a furviving Friend. WARBURTON. Lord Hervey, who, together with Lady M. W. Montagu, had written fome fevere lines on him, but certainly after provocation on his part. Lord Hervey is fatirized by him under the name of Lord Fanny, and Sporus. He was certainly affected. In one of his Letters from Bath, he fays, "The Duchefs of Marlborough, you can attack me fo weakly. As I want not the humility, to think myself in every way but one your inferior, it seems but reasonable that I should take the only method either of self-defence or retaliation, that is left me against a person of your quality and power. And Marlborough, Congreve, and Lady Rich, are the only people whofe faces I know, whose names I ever heard, or who, I believe, have any names belonging to them. The rest are a fwarm of wretched beings, fome with half-limbs, fome with none, the ingredients of Pandora's Box PERSONIFIED," &c. Again, "I do not meet a creature without faying to myself, as Lady - did of her femme de chambre, Regardez cet animal, confiderez ce neant, voila un bel ame pour etre immortel !” He was also very effeminate in perfon, and ufed paint. His fpeeches in Parliament prove he had more than "florid impotence." He was Vice-Chamberlain and Privy-Seal to George II. There was an excellent caricature-print published of the combatants, when he fought with Pulteney. Sir Robert Walpole was drawn ftanding as Lord Hervey's Second. For further particulars of this Nobleman, I must refer to Mr. Coxe's Memoirs. Intitled, An Epifle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court, Aug. 28, 1733, and printed the November following for J. Roberts. Fol., The following advertisement appeared in the Papers, 1733, refpecting this Letter: a "Whereas a great demand hath been made for an Answer to certain fcurrilous Epiftle from a Nobleman to Dr. Sh-r-n; "this is to acquaint the Public, that it hath been hitherto hin"dered by what seemed a denial of that Epistle by the Noble "Lord, in the Daily Courant of Nov. 22., affirming that no fuch Epiftle was written by him. But whereas that declaration hath "fince been undeclared by the Courant; this is to certify, that "unlefs the faid Noble Lord fhall this next week, in a manner as 66 public as the injury, deny the said Poem to be his, or contra"dict the afperfions therein contained, there will with all speed be published, a most proper reply to the same. "1733." |