Apollo of Belvedere, and the Venus of Medicis; and your faces so finished, that neither sickness or passion can deprive them of Colour; I will allow your own in particular to be the finest that ever Man was blest with: preserve it, my Lord, and reflect, that to be a Critic, would cost it too many frowns, and to be a Statesman, too many wrinkles! I farther confess, I am now somewhat old; but so your Lordship and this excellent Lady, with all your beauty, will (I hope) one day be. I know your Genius and hers so perfectly tally, that you cannot but join in admiring each other, and by consequence in the contempt of all such as myself. You have both, in my regard, been like-(your Lordship, I know, loves a Simile, and it will be one suitable to your Quality)—you have been like Two Princes, and I like a poor Animal sacrificed between them to cement a lasting league: I hope I have not bled in vain; but that such an amity may endure for ever! For though it be what common understandings would hardly conceive, Two Wits however may be persuaded, that it is in friendship as in enmity, The more danger the more honour. Give me the liberty, my Lord, to tell you, why I never replied to those Verses on the Imitator 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 the Greatest Person in the kingdom, to lessen him that way, but at the expense of his own Truth, Honour, or Justice. But though I declined to explain myself just at the time when I was sillily threatened, I shall now give your Lordship a frank account of the offence you imagined to be meant to you. Fanny (my Lord) is the plain English of Fannius, a real person, who was a foolish Critic, and an enemy of Horace: perhaps a Noble one, so (if your Latin be gone in earnest) I must acquaint you, the word Beatus may be construed; Beatus Fannius! ultro This Fannius was, it seems, extremely fond both of his Poetry and his Person, which appears by the pictures and Statues he caused to be made of himself, and by his great diligence to propagate bad Verses at Court, and get them admitted into the library of Augustus. He was moreover of a delicate or effeminate complexion, and constant at the Assemblies and Operas of those days, where he took it into his head to slander poor Horace; Ineptus Fannius, Hermogenis lædat conviva Tigelli; till it provoked him at last just to name him, give him a lash, and send him whimpering to the Ladies. Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. So much for Fanny, my Lord. The word spins (as Dr. Freind or even Dr. Sherwin could assure you), was the literal translation of deduci; a metaphor taken from a Silk-worm, my Lord, to signify any slight, silken, or (as your Lordship and the Ladies call it) flimsy piece of work. I presume your Lordship has • All I learn'd from Dr. Freind at school, Has quite deserted this poor John Trot-head, And left plain native English in its stead.-Epist. p. 2. ? Weak texture of his flimsy brain. enough of this, to convince you there was nothing personal but to that Fannius, who (with all his fine accomplishments) had never been heard of, but for that Horace he injured. In regard to the right honourable Lady, your Lordship's friend, I was far from designing a person of her condition by a name so derogatory to her, as that of Sappho; a name prostituted to every infamous Creature that ever wrote Verse or Novels. I protest I never applied that name to her in any verse of mine, public or private; (and I firmly believe) not in any Letter or Conversation. Whoever could invent a Falsehood to support an accusation, I pity; and whoever can believe such a Character to be theirs, I pity still more. God forbid the Court or Town should have the complaisance to join in that opinion! Certainly I meant it only of such modern Sapphos, as imitate much more the Lewdness than the Genius of the ancient one; and upon whom their wretched brethren frequently bestow both the Name and the Qualification there mentioned1. There was another reason why I was silent as to that paper--I took it for a Lady's (on the printer's word in the title page), and thought it too presuming, as well as indecent, to contend with one of that Sex in altercation: For I never was so mean a creature as to commit my Anger against a Lady to paper, though but in a private Letter. But soon after, her denial of it was brought to me by a Noble 'From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, Pox'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate. VOL. III. Z 1 Sat. B. ii. Họr. person of real Honour and Truth. Your Lordship indeed said you had it from a Lady, and the Lady said it was your Lordship's; some thought the beautiful by-blow had Two Fathers, or (if one of them will hardly be allowed a man) Two Mothers; indeed I think both sexes had a share in it, but which was uppermost, I know not: I pretend not to determine the exact method of this Witty Fornication: and if I call it Yours, my Lord, it is only because, whoever got it, you brought it forth. Here, my Lord, allow me to observe, the different proceeding of the Ignoble Poet, and his Noble Enemies, What he has written of Fanny, Adonis, Sap All the topics of contempt, ridicule, and satire that are used in this letter against Lord Hervey, had been used before, 1731, by the Author of a Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel : particularly the topics of the delicacy of his manners, and the foppery of his dress, and effeminacy of his person. He is there said, “to be such a composition of the two sexes, that it is difficult to distinguish which is most predominant." My friend Horace hath described him much better than I can: "Quem si puellarum insereres choro, Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu." And it is added, "Though it would be barbarous to handle such a delicate hermaphrodite, such a pretty little master-miss, too roughly, yet you must give me leave, my dear, to give you a little gentle correction for your good." Page 6. Lord Hervey left behind him Memoirs of his own Times, said to be full of curious matter, and which it is to be hoped will one day be published: Mr. Hans Stanley told me he had read them. In the second volume of the Letters of Voltaire, page 305, is a very long and curious letter to Lord Hervey, full of high encomiums on this Peer, and still higher of Louis XIV. and his reign. From whence it appears that Lord Hervey had made pho, or who you will, he owned he published, he set his name to: What they have published of him, they have denied to have written; and what they have written of him, they have denied to have published. One of these was the case in the past Libel, and the other in the present. For though the parent has owned it to a few choice friends, it is such as he has been obliged to deny in the most particular terms, to the great person whose opinion concerned him most. Yet, my Lord, this Epistle was a piece not written in haste, or in a passion, but many months after all pretended provocations; when you was at full leisure at Hampton-court, and I the object singled, like a Deer out of Season, for so ill-timed and ill-placed a diversion. It was a deliberate work, directed to a Reverend Person3, of the most serious and sacred character, with whom you are known to cultivate a strict correspondence, and to whom it will not be doubted but you open your secret Sentiments, and deliver your real judgment of men and things. This, I say, my Lord, with submission, could not but awaken all my Reflection and Attention. Your Lordship's opinion of me as a Poet, I cannot help; it is yours, my Lord, and that were enough to mortify a poor man; but it is not yours alone, you must be content to share it with the Gentlemen of the Dunciad, and (it may with many more innocent and ingenious men. be) If your some objections to this work of Voltaire; and particularly for his entitling it, The Age of Louis XIV. In a celebrated pamphlet, entitled, the Court Secret, written on occasion of the death of Lord Scarborough, Lord Hervey was very severely satirized under the name of Ibrahim. 8vo. 1791. Dr. Sherwin. |