ish, obsequious, and
versatile as to incur universal opprobrium; he had also another
misfortune for a man of society,--he became fat and lethargic. 'My
brother Ned' Horace Walpole remarks, 'says he is grown of less
consequence, though more weight.' And on another occasion, speaking of a
majority in the House of Lords, he adds, 'I do not count Dodington, who
must now always be in the minority, for no majority will accept him.'

Whilst, however, during the factious reign of George II., the town was
declared, even by Horace to be wondrous dull; operas unfrequented, plays
not in fashion, and amours old as marriages. Bubb Dodington, with his
wealth and profusion, contrived always to be in vogue as a host, while
he was at a discount as a politician. Politics and literature are the
highroads in England to that much-craved-for distinction, an admittance
into the great world; and Dodington united these passports in his own
person: he was a poetaster, and wrote political pamphlets. The latter
were published and admired: the poems were referred to as 'very pretty
love verses,' by Lord Lyttelton, and were never published--and never
ought to have been published, it is stated.

His _bon mots_, his sallies, his fortunes and places, and continual
dangling at court, procured Bubo, as Pope styled him, one pre-eminence.
His dinners at Hammersmith were the most _recherches_ in the metropolis.
Every one remembers Brandenburgh House, when the hapless Caroline of
Brunswick held her court there, and where her brave heart,--burdened
probably with some sins, as well as with endless regrets,--broke at
last. It had been the residence of the beautiful and famous Margravine
of Anspach, whose loveliness in vain tempts us to believe her innocent,
in despite of facts. Before those eras--the presence of the Margravine,
whose infidelities were almost avowed, and the abiding of the queen,
whose errors had, at all events, verged on the very confines of
guilt--the house was owned by Dodington. There he gave dinners; there he
gratified a passion for display, which was puerile; there he indulged in
eccentricities which almost implied insanity; there he concocted his
schemes for court advancement; and there, later in life, he contributed
some of the treasures of his wit to dramatic literature. 'The Wishes,' a
comedy, by Bentley, was supposed to owe much of its point to the
brilliant wit of Dodington[14].

[14: See Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors']

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