Where ev'ry grace with every virtue's join'd;
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe,
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,
And the whole princess in my work should shine."

Mrs. Howard, afterwards the Countess of Suffolk, was a neighbour from
1723, when the Prince of Wales, whose mistress she was, provided her
with funds for the purchase of Marble Hill. However, though, of course,
she and Lady Mary were acquainted, there was at no time any intimacy
between them. Lady Mary, in fact, does not appear to have liked
Henrietta Howard. At least she on more than one occasion tittle-tattled
about her. "The most surprising news is Lord Bathurst's assiduous court
to their Royal Highnesses, which fills the coffee-houses with profound
speculations. But I, who smell a rat at a profound distance, do believe
in private that Mrs. Howard and his lordship have a friendship that
borders upon 'the tender.'

"And though in histories, learned ignorance
Attributes all to cunning or to chance,
Love in that grave disguise does often smile,
Knowing the cause was kindness all the while."

So Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar in 1724, and shortly after returned to
the subject in another epistle: "You may remember I mentioned in my last
some suspicions of my own in relation to Lord Bathurst, which I really
never mentioned, for fifty reasons, to anyone whatsoever; but, as there
is never smoke without some fire, there is very rarely fire without some
smoke. These smothered flames, though admirably covered with whole heaps
of politics laid over them, were at last seen, felt, heard, and
understood; and the fair lady given to understand by her commanding
officer, that if she showed under other colours, she must expect to have
her pay retrenched. Upon which the good Lord was dismissed, and has not
attended the drawing-room since. You know one cannot help laughing, when
one sees him next, and I own I long for that pleasurable moment."

To Twickenham came Philip, Duke of Wharton, and leased a villa, later
called The Grove, at the farther end of the hamlet from London. Of all
the lads of the village there was none for wildness like unto him. Born
in 1698, and therefore nine years younger than Lady Mary, he had at an
early age made himself conspicuous by unbridled excesses. Soon after the
death of his father, Thomas, first Marquess of Wharton, in 1715, his
conduct created so much scandal