That thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of asses’ milk;
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel,
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
A. Pope, Prologue to the Satires (1734).
⁂ This Lord John Hervey married the beautiful Molly Lapel; hence Pope says:
So perfect a beau and a belle
As when Hervey, the handsome, was wedded
To the beautiful Molly Lapel.
S.P.Q.R., the Romans. The letters are the initials of Senatus Populus-Que Romanus.