t Walpole
was the most prominent person in the country. He went about publicly
with his mistress, and entertained his friends at his country-seat with
orgies which disturbed the whole neighborhood. When the queen died he
urged the princesses to get their father some new mistress to distract
him. Lord Hervey says that Lady Sundon "had sense enough to perceive
what black and dirty company, by living in a court, she was forced to
keep."[123] Lady Deloraine, who was suspected of being the king's
mistress, "when she spoke seriously to Sir Robert Walpole, pretended
not to have yet yielded; and said 'she was not of an age like a vain or
a loving fool, but that if she did consent, that she would be well
paid.'"[124] "She told Lady Sundon, with whom she was very little
acquainted, that the king had been very importunate these two years;
and had often told her how unkind she was to refuse him; that it was
mere crossness, for that he was sure her husband would not take it at
all ill."[125] The looseness of the marriage tie had been a prevailing
evil ever since the Restoration. Steele wrote in the _Tatler_ in 1710:
"The wits of this island for above fifty years past, instead of
correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
stage scribbler hath found his account in; for whenever there is an
occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to
raise it. This hath been attended with very pernicious consequences.
Many a country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has
gone home in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband
hath been looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic annual
unfit for the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short,
separate beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced
by your men of wit and pleasure of the age."[126]

The prevailing immorality and coarseness were in keeping with the
absence of sympathy with all elevation of thought and sentiment. "If a
man of any delicacy were to attend the discourses of the young fellows
of this age," wrote Steele, "he would believe that there were none but
prostitutes to make the objects of passion."[127] "Every woman is at
heart a rake," thought Pope. Women were generally treated with
disrespect, and distinctively female virtues were almost without
appreciation. It is instructive to contrast the deeds o