the man should have shot me, or I him, who should have dared to affront me in the person of my master by showing me such insolent nonsense!' 'I have never told your Majesty that it was a man,' said my Lord, coolly; when his wrathful Majesty turned from him, and never spoke to or noticed him for some months afterwards.

The cause of Lord Hervey's duel took place a few years after this. Some pamphlets were showered on the town, attacking Pulteney and Bolingbroke, which the former believed were from Lord Hervey's pen, and in return wrote 'A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel.' This abused the king, his prime minister, and, in most virulent and coarse terms, Lord Hervey. The result was that the latter sent a message to Pulteney, wishing to know if he was the writer of the pamphlet; and received an answer from that gentleman that he would not give him satisfaction on this point until he knew if Lord Hervey had written the first pamphlet. Lord Hervey sent back word that he had not, by his friend, Mr. Fox, who asked Pulteney again if he were the author of 'A Proper Reply to a Scurril

LORD HERVEY'S DUEL.

ous Libel;' and was answered that, whether he was the author or not, he was ready to justify and stand by the truth of any part of it at what time or wherever Lord Hervey wished. This last message,' says Mr. Thomas Phelam, who relates the story, 'was the occasion of the duel; and, accordingly, on Monday, at between three and four o'clock, they met in Upper St. James's Park' (now Green Park), 'behind Arlington Street, with their two seconds, who were Mr. Fox and Sir J. Rushout. The two combatants were each of them slightly wounded, but Mr. Pulteney had once so much the advantage of Lord Hervey that he would have infallibly run my lord through the body, if his foot had not slipped; and then the seconds took an occasion to part them. Upon which Mr. Pulteney embraced Lord Hervey, and expressed a great deal of concern at the accident of their quarrel, promising at the same time that he would never personally attack him again, either with his mouth or his pen. Lord Hervey made him a bow without giving him any sort of answer, and (to use the common expression) thus they parted.'

It was reserved for Lord Hervey to have the bitterest vials of Pope's wrath and satire poured upon his head. It is unpleasant to think that so much petty spite and cool malignity could lurk with a genius such as this poet possessed. Mr. Fox, in the House of Commons, spoke of him as a lampooner who scattered his ink without fear or decency,' and this statement is at least correct so far as his treatment of Lord Hervey is concerned. With this quarrel, the name of a woman, of course-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu-is inextricably mixed.

She had been all her life time a friend of the Hervey family, and her natural brilliancy, her wit and talents, must have brought her in close connection with the courtier. This friendship, however, was not shared with Lady Hervey, who had but little intercourse with this distinguished woman. Both of these ladies seem to have lived on terms of well-bred indifference with their husbands, as was fashionable in those days. Lady Mary had, at the time when her quarrel with Pope occurred, returned from the Turkish capital, and her sojourn there, as well as her previous travels, and consequent

KINDRED SPIRITS.

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interchange of thought with some of the most famous men of the day, had given her ideas a breadth, and her speech a freedom, that permitted grounds for uncharitable surmises regarding her acts. Lady Mary, however, rather gloried in the fame she had acquired, and was no worse than those who surrounded her, though she may have laughed louder at a double entendre, or called a spade a spade, and not an agricultural instrument. She was some years older than Lord Hervey, and on that account may have allowed her friendship for him to become more confidential; but there is no trace of their intimacy crossing the bounds of friendliness. In taste they thoroughly agreed. To write a lampoon or court ballad was a labour of love to both; each was a wit, a satirist, a sceptic, and the common bond was probably strengthened between them from the fact that his delicacy, hidden from the world, gave him a claim to the strong sympathy that lay under the polished surface of her manner. They corresponded continually, and when, after Lord Hervey's death, his eldest son sealed up and sent Lady Mary her letters, she being then settled abroad, assuring

her that they had not been read or opened, she, on writing to thank him, said she almost regretted he had not looked over a correspondence which would have revealed to him what as a young man he might feel inclined to doubtthe possibility of a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes without the least mixture of love.'

Lady Mary was a woman born to attract and enjoy admiration, and amongst those who felt the fascination which she exercised was Pope, whose heart, never given to tenderness, became most susceptible to the charms of her vivaciousness, wit, and learning. There is no doubt she received his attentions with pleasure, and flattered him, as may be seen from her correspondence. In one of her letters she assures him he has discovered the philosopher's stone, since by making the Iliad pass through your poetical crucible into an English form without losing aught of its original beauty, you have drawn the golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham.’ The poet, in responding, was not less complimentary. When he wrote to her concerning her portrait, then being painted by Sir Godfrey