The duchess told the vice-chamberlain to take the letter to the King at once; the vice-chamberlain read it, and thought it so disrespectful that he begged her to reconsider the matter. Thereupon she sat down and wrote a second letter which was even worse, so he took the first after all. The King was beside himself with passion when he received it, and uttered the most appalling threats. But the duchess went about unharmed, and laughed him to scorn. She was glad to have this opportunity of showing her contempt for the “German Court,” as she called it, and her husband supported her action by resigning his office of Vice-Admiral of Scotland. Poor Mrs. Howard was the only sufferer, for Gay and the duchess were both her friends, and she therefore got the full brunt of the King’s ill temper. Most people took the duchess’s part, thinking that the court had been impolitic in noticing her action on behalf of Gay, who became for the moment a popular martyr. “He has got several turned out of their places,” wrote Arbuthnot to Swift, “the greatest ornament of the Court banished from it for his sake, and another great lady (Mrs. Howard) in danger of being chassée likewise, about seven or eight duchesses pushing forward like the ancient circumcelliones in the church to see who shall suffer martyrdom on his account first; he is the darling of the city.”[80]
Gay certainly did not suffer from the Lord Chamberlain’s action, for the subscriptions to Polly brought him in £1,200, whereas by The Beggars’ Opera, with all its success, he had only gained £400. Therefore, as Dr. Johnson says, “What he called oppression ended in profit”.
The Queen’s difference with Pope arose out of the political exigencies of the hour. Unlike Swift and Gay he expected nothing from her, and had therefore no disappointment. As a Roman Catholic he was debarred from all places of honour and emolument, though in the reign of George the First Secretary Craggs offered him a pension of £300 a year, to be paid from the secret service money. Pope had been a familiar figure at Leicester House and Richmond Lodge. He was a great friend of Mrs. Howard, and a favourite with the maids of honour. Caroline, as Princess of Wales, had shown him many courtesies, and recognised his genius and admired his work. But Pope’s friendship with Bolingbroke and hatred of Walpole necessarily led to a breach between him and the Queen. As Mrs. Howard’s influence waned and Walpole’s became greater, Pope came no more to court, and had nothing for the Queen but sneers and ridicule.
His famous quarrel with Lord Hervey also did much to widen the breach, for the Queen naturally took her favourite’s side. A friend of Lord Hervey’s in the House of Commons spoke of Pope as “a lampooner who scattered his ink without fear or decency”. This was true of both combatants, who showed in a most unamiable light in this sordid quarrel. The origin of the feud is involved in obscurity, but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was undoubtedly in part responsible for it.
Lady Mary, since her return from Constantinople in 1718, had occupied a unique position in society. She was a chartered libertine, her conversation grew broader with advancing years, and her wit had more licence. Between her and Lord Hervey there existed one of those curious friendships which may sometimes be witnessed between an effeminate man and a masculine woman, and there seems no doubt that it was of the kind which is known as “Platonic,” for, after Lord Hervey’s death, when his eldest son sealed up and sent Lady Mary the letters she had written to his father, assuring her that he had not looked at them, she wrote to say that she almost regretted he had not, as it would have proved to him what most young men disbelieved, “the possibility of a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes without the least mixture of love”.
Lady Mary took a house at Twickenham not far from Pope’s beautiful villa, and, though she was warned not to have anything to do with “the wicked wasp of Twickenham,” she renewed her friendship with the poet, and became as intimate with him as before. “Leave him as soon as you can” wrote Addison to her, “he will certainly play you some devilish trick else.” But Lady Mary took no heed, perhaps the danger of the experiment tempted her, and she fooled the little poet to the top of his bent. Pope, with all his genius, had an undue reverence for rank; he was flattered by the notice which this clever woman extended to him, and he genuinely admired her wit and vivacity. Lady Mary’s house was the rendezvous of many of the courtiers and wits of the day, and here Pope often met Lord Hervey. Lady Mary delighted in the homage the poet gave to her ungrudgingly; it flattered her vanity that such a genius should be at her feet. She wrote to him effusive letters, and in one of them declared that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone, “since by making the Iliad pass through your poetical grasp into an English form, without losing aught of its original beauty, you have drawn the golden current from Patoclus to Twickenham”. Pope also wrote her the most extravagant epistles. In one, referring to her portrait, which had been painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, he says: “This picture dwells really at my heart, and I made a perfect passion of preferring your present face to your past”. Again he tells her, “I write as if I were drunk; the pleasure I take in thinking of your return transports me beyond the bounds of common decency”.
After a time Lady Mary began to grow rather weary of her poet, but he, on the contrary, became even more arduous, and was at last led into making her a passionate declaration of love. She received it by laughing in his face. Pope was keenly sensitive to ridicule, his deformity made him more so than most men; he was of a highly strung disposition, and Lady Mary’s outburst of hilarity was a thing he could neither forget nor forgive. He withdrew deeply mortified and offended. His vanity could not understand how the beautiful Lady Mary could reject him with such disdain if another had not stolen her from him. He formed the idea that Lord Hervey was his rival, and against him therefore directed all his malice, spleen and hatred. A scurrilous paper war began. Lord Hervey dabbled in poetry, not of great merit, and Pope savagely attacked it. Speaking of one of his own satires, against which he pretended a charge of weakness had been brought, he says:—
The lines are weak, another’s pleased to say,
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
And again:—