Horace and he went hand in hand in song.'
The dedications poured in thickly. Steele, Tickell, Philips, Smith, and a crowd of lesser lights, raised my lord each one on a higher pinnacle; and in return the powerful minister was not forgetful of the douceur which well-tuned verses were accustomed to receive. He himself had tried to be a poet, and in 1703 wrote verses for the toasting-cups of the Kit-kat. His lines to a Dowager Countess of ——, are good enough to make us surprised that he never wrote any better. Take a specimen:—
'Fair Queen of Fop-land in her royal style;
Fop-land the greatest part of this great isle!
Nature did ne'er so equally divide
A female heart 'twixt piety and pride:
Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day,
And all in order at her toilet lay
Prayer-books, patch-boxes, sermon-notes, and paint,
At once t'improve the sinner and the saint.'