s still in a declining way." Lady Mary did not
like Lady Hervey, the beautiful "Molly" Lepell, whom Gay eulogised:

"Hervey, would you know the passion
You have kindled in my breast?
Trifling is the inclination
That by words can be expressed.

In my silence see the lover;
True love is by silence known;
In my eyes you'll best discover,
All the power of your own."

[Footnote 7: The Hon. John Hervey (1696-1743), younger son of John,
first Earl of Bristol; known as Lord Hervey after the death of his elder
brother Carr in 1723; Vice-Chamberlain of George II's Household, 1730;
created Baron Hervey of Ickworth, 1733, Lord Privy Seal, 1740-1742.]

For Hervey, however, Lady Mary came to have a strong liking that many
believed to have, as she would have said, bordered upon "the tender";
although it is on record that she once remarked that she divided the
human race into men, women, and Herveys. They met whenever they could;
when they could not meet they corresponded. Pope bitterly resented the
intimacy between Lady Mary and Hervey, and in the _Epistle of Arbuthnot_
gave vent to the malignity with which his soul had been for years
overflowing:

"P. Let Sporus tremble.

A. What? That thing of silk;
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly on the wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted Child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve,[8] familiar toad.
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In pun, or politics, or tales, or lies.
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all see-saw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now make up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart;
Fop at the hostel, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a Lord.