CHAPTER XX
HE town rang and buzzed to some purpose next day and the wits were busy indeed. ’Twas an opportunity to be clever they could by no means miss and some of the lampoons might have been writ by the Yahoos themselves had they turned their talents that way. But the Duchess’s party was not silent neither. Dr. Swift took pen in hand and writ a paper that assailed the lampooners with a virulence not inferior to their own and a wit so far superior as left them gasping. This heavy artillery was followed by Mr. Pope’s light skirmishing tactics, which harassed and annoyed the enemy beyond bearing and strewed the field of battle with moribund and slaughtered reputations. Had the two gentlemen been so minded they might have adorned their wigwams with more scalps than any Indian brave, and indeed their war-whoops were terrific.
In a while they penetrated even the chaste precincts of Kensington Palace where her Majesty followed the attack and defence with most searching interest in hopes to find the Duchess of Queensbury among the slain, and had instead the mortification to see her enthroned sublime on the piled fragments of her enemies. ’Twas only the Queen’s high gust of humour, that laughed at all wit no matter the source, which softened the blow.
“That woman has the good fortune of her father the devil,” says she to Mrs. Howard at the toilette—the chaplain at his prayers without her door. “Had I undertook to protect a common little wanton like Polly, Swift’s bludgeon had been on my head and Pope’s rapier through my heart ere I could cry for mercy. ’Tis as much as I can do to make our Kensington amours pass muster.”
She shot a side-glance at the unfortunate Mrs. Howard who between the brow-beatings of her Sultan and the darts of the Queen was more to be pitied than envied on her glittering eminence. The lady curtseyed meekly. ’Twas not a subject she could handle with freedom. The Queen continued:
“But is’t not a scandalous business that a person of her rank should announce her protection for a libertine and a——?”
The chaplain’s loud Amen drowned the epithet in sanctity, and her Majesty and the prayers pursued their respective ways.
“A bishopric would buy Swift,—he was always for sale in the late Queen’s day, and were it not that the man, though well enough as a lampooner, turns my stomach as a divine I would buy him tomorrow. But though not too squeamish myself I protest I can’t swallow him. This paper he has writ on Bolton is as fine as I have seen anywhere, if ’twere not disgraceful a man of his cloth should further such an intrigue. ’Tis plain he hath abandoned all hope of a bishopric or he had not done it. The raillery is excellent.”
She picked up the paper from her table and read aloud—