y, selfishness, servility to the
great, contempt for the humble, are among the qualities his opponents
ascribe to him. According to his friends, his cynicism was a mere
affectation to hide a sensitive and generous nature; his bitterness
arose from his disappointment at finding so few men or women who came
up to a really high standard of nobleness; his homage of the great was
but the half-disguised mockery of a scornful philosopher. Probably the
picture drawn by the friends is on the whole more near to life than
that painted by the enemies. 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. At this time Hervey
was but little over thirty years of age. He was the son of the first
Earl of Bristol by a second marriage, had been educated at Westminster
School and at Clare Hall, Cambridge; had gone early through the usual
round of Continental travels, and became a friend of George the First's
grandson, now Prince of Wales, at Hanover. This friendship not merely
did not endure, but soon turned into hate. Hervey was an admirer of
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and was admired by her; but her own
assurances, which may be trusted to, declared that there had been
nothing warmer than friendship between them. Lady Mary afterwards
{308} maintained that the relationship between Hervey and her
established the possibility of "a long and steady friendship subsisting
between two persons of different sexes without the least admixture of
love." Hervey was in his day a somewhat free and liberal lover of
women, and it is not surprising that the world should have regarded his
acquaintanceship with Lady Mary as something warmer than mere
friendship. We shall have occasion to refer to Hervey's memoirs of the
reign of George the Second more than once hereafter, and may perhaps
now cite a few words which Hervey himself says in vindication of their
sincerity and their historical accuracy; "No one who did not live in
these times will, I dare say, believe but some of those I describe in
these papers must have had some hard features and deformities
exaggerated and heightened by the malice and ill-nature of the painter
who drew them. Others, perhaps, will say that at least no painter is
obliged to draw every wart or wen or humpback in its full proportions,
and that I might have softened these blemishes where I found them. But
I am determined to