ut him; she confided in him; her daughter loved him;
and his influence in that court was too powerful for Walpole to dispense
with an aid so valuable to his own plans. Some episodes in a life thus
frittered away, until, too late, promotion came, alleviated his
existence, and gave his wife only a passing uneasiness, if even indeed
they imparted a pang.

One of these was his dangerous passion for Miss Vane; another, his
platonic attachment to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

Whilst he lived on the terms with his wife which is described even by
the French as being a '_Menage de Paris_,' Lord Hervey, found in another
quarter the sympathies which, as a husband, he was too well-bred to
require. It is probable that he always admired his wife more than any
other person, for she had qualities that were quite congenial to the
tastes of a wit and a beau in those times. Lady Hervey was not only
singularly captivating, young, gay, and handsome; but a complete model
also of the polished, courteous, high-bred woman of fashion. Her manners
are said by Lady Louisa Stuart to have 'had a foreign tinge, which some
called affected; but they were gentle, easy, and altogether exquisitely
pleasing.' She was in secret a Jacobite--and resembled in that respect
most of the fine ladies in Great Britain. Whiggery and Walpolism were
vulgar: it was _haut ton_ to take offence when James II. was
anathematized, and quite good taste to hint that some people wished well
to the Chevalier's attempts: and this way of speaking owed its fashion
probably to Frederick of Wales, whose interest in Flora Macdonald, and
whose concern for the exiled family, were among the few amiable traits
of his disposition. Perhaps they arose from a wish to plague his
parents, rather than from a greatness of character foreign to this
prince.

Lady Hervey was in the bloom of youth, Lady Mary in the zenith of her
age, when they became rivals: Lady Mary had once excited the jealousy of
Queen Caroline when Princess of Wales.

'How becomingly Lady Mary is dressed to-night,' whispered George II. to
his wife, whom he had called up from the card-table to impart to her
that important conviction. 'Lady Mary always dresses well,' was the cold
and curt reply.

Lord Hervey had been married about seven years when Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu re-appeared at the court of Queen Caroline, after her long
residence in Turkey. Lord Hervey was thirty-three years of age; Lady
Mary was verging on forty. Sh