Gay, in his fine copy of verses entitled "Welcome from Greece to Mr. Pope upon finishing his Translation of the Iliad," describes the poet as welcomed by his beautiful friend; "Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well, With thee, youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepel. burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. It was on this occasion, that the Duchess of St. Albans, chiding her for her irreverence, and telling her "she could not do a worse thing," "I beg your grace's pardon," she replied, "but I can do a great many worse things." The betrayer of Miss Howe was Anthony Lowther, brother of Henry, Viscount Lonsdale. In Sir Charles Hanbury Williams' poem, describing the "Mourning" of Isabella, Duchess of Manchester, General Churchill thus introduces the story to a circle of listening gossips : "The General found a lucky minute now : To speak.—“Ah, maʼam, you did not know Miss Howe !" At this, Charles Stanhope gaped extremely wide, She could not bear the absence of her love: Miss Howe is known to have been the heroine of Lord Hervey's poetical epistle from Monimia to Philocles, where she pours forth a long complaint against her lover's cruelty, in lines which have little pathos and less poetry. She died, apparently of a broken heart, in 1726, having survived the loss of her reputation only a very few years. But perhaps the most remarkable tribute paid to her charms was by Voltaire, who did her the singular honour of celebrating her beauty in English verse: his lines, which will be found in Dodsley's collection, are as follow: "TO LADY HERVEY. “ Hervey, would you know the passion, That by words can be expressed. In my silence see the lover; True love is by silence known; In noticing the various compliments paid to Lady Hervey by her contemporaries, the eulogiums heaped on her taste and accomplishments by so celebrated an arbiter of taste and fashion as Lord Chesterfield, must not be passed over in silence. He writes to his son 22nd of October, 1750,-"Lady Hervey, to my great joy, because to your great advantage, passes all this winter at Paris. She has been bred all her life at Courts, of which she has acquired all the easy good breeding and politeness, without the frivolousness. She has all the reading that a woman should have, and more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely conceals it. No woman ever had, more than she has,-le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manières engageantes, et le je ne sçais quoi qui plait. Desire her to reprove and correct any, and every, the least error and inaccuracy in your manner, air, address, &c., no woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner." Again Lord Chesterfield writes to his son on the 28th of February following: "The word pleasing, always puts one in mind of Lady Hervey pray tell her, that I declare her responsible to me for your pleasing; that I consider her as a pleasing Falstaff, who not only pleases herself, but is the cause of pleasing in others.” We will conclude our notices of the encomiums heaped on Miss Lepel, with the following lively verses believed to be the joint composition of Lords Chesterfield and Bath. The reader will perceive that they are singularly characteristic of the manners of the last age, inasmuch as a lady of the present day would probably be more ready to denounce them for their impropriety, than to value them as a panegyric. "The Muses quite jaded with rhyming, To Molly Mogg bid a farewell; Bright Venus yet never saw bedded So powerful her charms, and so moving, He would follow dear Molly Lepel. If to the seraglio you brought her, Where for slaves their maidens they sell, I'm sure tho' the Grand Seignior bought her, He'd soon turn a slave to Lepel. Had I Hanover, Bremen, and Verden, Or were I the King of Great Britain, And support the throne that I sit on, Of all the bright beauties so killing, What man would not give the great Ticket, To be but one hour in a thicket, Should Venus now rise from the ocean, Old Orpheus, that husband so civil, Her lips and her breath are much sweeter, In a bed Would you have seen pinks and roses; you know a more delicate smell, 'Tis a maxim most fit for a lover, Heaven keep our good king from a rising, If Curll would print me this sonnet, He can never find fault with Lepel. Then Handel to music shall set it; To sing to the praise of Lepel. On the 25th of October, 1720, when in her twentieth year, Miss Lepel accepted the hand of the celebrated John, Lord Hervey. About the period of their marriage, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes to her sister, Lady Mar, "The most considerable incident that has happened a good while was the ardent affection that Mrs. Hervey, and her dear spouse,* took to me. * Lord Hervey at this period had not attained to the title. His elder brother, Carr, Lord Hervey, survived till the 15th November, 1723. |