when in repose, indicated the sympathising, yet, at the
same time, satirical character of one who won the affections, perhaps
unconsciously, of the amiable Princess Caroline, the favourite daughter
of George II.

A general air of languor, ill concealed by the most studied artifice of
countenance, and even of posture, characterizes Lord Hervey. He would
have abhorred robustness; for he belonged to the clique then called
Maccaronis; a set of fine gentlemen, of whom the present world would not
be worthy, tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty
in a stage coach; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine for
the common usages of society; _point-device_, not only in every curl and
ruffle, but in every attitude and step; men with full satin roses on
their shining shoes; diamond tablet rings on their forefingers; with
snuff-boxes, the worth of which might almost purchase a farm; lace
worked by the delicate fingers of some religious recluse of an
ancestress, and taken from an altar-cloth; old point-lace, dark as
coffee-water could make it; with embroidered waistcoats, wreathed in
exquisite tambour-work round each capricious lappet and pocket; with cut
steel buttons that glistened beneath the courtly wax-lights: with these
and fifty other small but costly characteristics that established the
reputation of an aspirant Maccaroni. Lord Hervey was, in truth, an
effeminate creature: too dainty to walk; too precious to commit his
frame to horseback; and prone to imitate the somewhat recluse habits
which German rulers introduced within the court: he was disposed to
candle-light pleasures and cockney diversions; to Marybone and the Mall,
and shrinking from the athletic and social recreations which, like so
much that was manly and English, were confined almost to the English
squire _pur et simple_ after the Hanoverian accession; when so much
degeneracy for a while obscured the English character, debased its tone,
enervated its best races, vilified its literature, corrupted its morals,
changed its costume, and degraded its architecture.

Beneath the effeminacy of the Maccaroni, Lord Hervey was one of the few
who united to intense _finery_ in every minute detail, an acute and
cultivated intellect. To perfect a Maccaroni it was in truth advisable,
if not essential, to unite some smattering of learning, a pretension to
wit, to his super-dandyism; to be the author of some personal squib, or
the translator of some c