And that's when the Walpole versus Pulteney choice happens. Pulteney doesn't take it well. He actually slanders Hervey in print: But you seem , pretty Sir, Pulteney now writes, 'to take the Word Corruption in a limited Sense and confine it to the Corrupter-- Give me Leave to illustrate This by a parallel Case – There is a certain , unnatural, reigning Vice (indecent and almost shocking to mention) . It is well known that there must be two Parties in this Crime; the Pathick and the Agent; both equally guilty. Ineed not explain These any farther.' In other words,having called Hervey a hermaphrodite the eighteenth -century term for homosexual — Pulteney now , by innuendo, accuses him of homosexual practices.
This is serious. Not least because yes, it takes two parties, and Hervey is hanging out with the Prince of Wales. And homosexuality at least according to the law is still a crime punishable by the death penalty. So ignoring and doing nothing is not an option if he wants to keep his office with the Queen. So he challenges Pulteney to a duel - with swords, not pistols - and they go through with it, which ends in a stalmate where both parties are injured and declare themselves satisfied. However, Pulteney is not yet done, because now Hervey gets satirized as someone who doesn't have the guts for a manly killing. This, presumably, is another reason why he's so touchy when Fritz of Wales, simultanously called impotent by his parents (according to Horowitz, Halsband doesn't point this out), starts an affair with Hervey's mistress (whom he had in addition to everyone else), Miss Vane. Cue illegitimate kid, Hervey mortally insulted, and the Fritz of Wales relationship ended. Fritz of Wales is now the worst, and Hervey completely sympathizes with Queen Caroline on this account.
The relationship with Stephen Fox, otoh, remains solid until Stephen needs to do something about his finances, about a decade after he and Hervey have cemented their relationship by going to Italy together. Stephen gets married to a thirteen years old heiress. Unlike poor Barbara Mitchell, this child bride doesn't give birth until more than a decade later, so let's hope the marriage wasn't consumated until then, either. But this marriage does start the point where Hervey and Stephen become more friends than lovers. Otoh, Hervey's friendship with Lady Mary intensifies, not least because they both gets attacked by Alexander Pope and team up with a counter satire (see Lady Mary's biography).
Incidentally, as an example of Hervey's style as a poet: For Courts are only larger Familys, The Growth of each , few Truths, & many Lyes; Likeyou we lounge, & feast , & play, & chatter; In private Satirize , in Publick flatter .
When Hervey isn't getting cursed by his mother, he's comiserating with Queen Caroline about her cursed son or exchanging quips with Lady Mary. And then there's Voltaire:
Hervey's friendship for Voltaire the man did not prevent him from criticizing Voltaire the writer. When he read the tragedy Zaire (early in 1733) and sent a copy to Henry Fox , he was certain that like himself Fox would "have some Compassion for a silly Christian [heroine) as well as the greatest regard, Esteem , & Affection for a noble, good, tender & charming Mahometan' who through a tragic misunderstanding kills her. He was irritated , though, by Voltaire's dedication of the play to Edward Falkener, English merchant. In France it was regarded as scandalous because it was addressed not only to a commoner but to a foreign one at that . Hervey told Henry Fox that he thought it "bad, false, & impertinent ... by a superficial Frenchman to an Englishman , & the Dedicator pretends to be better acquainted with our Country, our Manners, our Laws, & even our Language than the Dedicatee'. What could have aroused such a violentopinion ? In the dedicatory epistle , after praising the high rank and regard the mercantile class enjoyed in England, Voltaire continues : 'I know very well that this profession is despised by our petits-maîtres ; but you also know that our petits -maîtres and yours are the most ridiculous species that proudly crawl on the face of the earth '. This , rather than the general remarks about French and English theatre, could have been offensive to one who was certainly closer to being a petit-maître than a man of commerce.
No kidding. Voltaire: never fails to piss people off. However, he writes rec letters for visiting Italians, and lo, Algarotti enters the scene. Love triangle ensues. Hervey's side of it is far less self assured than one would think, having read through Lady Mary's letters. ' In any case,' he assures him , 'if you stay or if you go, do not forget me, my dear, for I will never forget you all my life ... you are too clear-sighted to have any need of instruction in things less obvious than the affection I feel for you , & I will not say more than you know , but much less than I feel, when I assure you simply that at present the thing in the world that I wish most for is to be able to keep you in England for the rest of your life, with the same advantage & pleasure to you that I would find here myself. (...)
To celebrate Algarotti's last evening in London he invited him to supper, but Algarotti declined because (he said ) he had promised to sup with Martin Folkes. But Àlgarotti lied , perhaps to spare his friend any pangs of jealousy . He spent his last evening in London with Lady Mary . After Algarotti's departure Hervey suffered so keenly that his friends complained ofhis moodiness, and he frankly admitted the cause . He was annoyed besides that Algarotti had lied about the supper on the eve of his departure. For Lady Mary now boasted to everybody , Hervey reports to him , that she had been like Caesar in her conquest - which was, he adds, an insult to Algarotti's mcmory . Instead of resenting Algarotti's duplicity he resented Lady Mary's having benefited by it. Her physical charms were far inferior to her intellectual ones, he reminds him . 'How fortunate you are then to be gone ! The absence that brings sadness to every other Lover will fulfill your Happiness, for she will speak to your Eyes & not appea rbefore them ; she will not destroy with her countenance the impression she will make by her mind . “But I am speaking too much of her ,' he checks himself,‘now I must say a word about myself. I cannot say anything, however, on this Subject but what you already know , that is to say that I love you with all my Heart, & I beg you never to forget the affection Ihave for you ,nor to let the affection you have for me grow weaker.' Yet how differently Lady Mary regarded herself !-- not as conquering Caesar but as Dido abandoned by her wandering Aeneas. “ I am a thousand times more to be pitied than the sad Dido, and I have a thousand more reasons to kill myself ', she tells Algarotti in her second letter soon after his departure . (...)
What could have been Algarotti's thoughts upon receiving such effusions from his two English admirers ? He did not have to send letters to keep the flames of their love ablaze. A fortnight after his departure Hervey still missed him so painfully that he mourned his great loss to Henry Fox, hardly disguising his emotions, while staying at Kensington ' in this House ( triste Sejour) & generally seeing or thinking of the same thing . Adieu . I write like a Fool, think like a Fool, talk like a Fool, act like a Fool, & have every thing of a Fool but the Content of one.' (...) The passion that Hervey and Lady Mary felt for Algarotti aroused in them very different feelings towards each other , jealousy on his part , helplessness on hers .He boasted to her that Algarotti had written to him from Francc, while she had not heard from him two weeks later, although he had promised to write from Calais. 'How unhappy I am ! she exclaims to him (in her fourth letter), and what a stroke of Mercy a stroke of Lightning would be at this moment!' More calmly, she tells him thatshe will see Lord Hervey , who should have had news of him . When she tried several times to arrange an appointment with Hervey he cruelly evaded her, until by accident hemet her at Lady Stafford's , where she extracted from him a promise to meet her in two days' time. Although he again tricd to put her off, on the appointed evening she appcared (with a little ugly singer as chaperone ), and stayed until one in the morning. 'While she was with me,' Hervey tells Algarotti, "she tried thousands of different ways to make me talk of you, & I would not even mention your name. At the same time she told me a thousand deliberate lies & a thousand accidental truths ; & instead of finding out several things without saying anything, as she intended , she told me all without learning anything.' Nor does he forget to reassure Algarotti that however ridiculous and unstable Lady Mary is ( she was as drunk before as wine can make one, & you have added Gin ”), he himself is unswerving in his devotion . 'Adieu . Preserve me in your esteem . I love you too much ,my dear, not to strive all my life to deserve you.' How much more generous, in this instance, was Lady Mary in telling Algarotti of that same evening :when she had sent word to Lord Hervey that she wished to speak to him , 'You may believe (with his politeness) I saw him soon after, and then I was in allmost as much difficulty to draw from him what I had a mind to know ; that is, whither you were arriv'd safe at Paris ?' Hervey told her 'that after so much neglect as I had shewn him he could not fancy I would honnour him with a message, except I had some thing to demand of him that I thought of importance to myselfe , and very generously made me all sort of offers of Services and assurances of obeying my commands, reasonable or unreasonable '
It is really a relief when Hervey gets a grip on himself again. Helped, no doubt, by Algarotti visiting England after Lady Mary had gone to Italy to reunite with him, but Hervey - still agog about Algarotti - now is kind and without unbecoming Schadenfreude in his letters. However: FW dies, Fritz writes, and Algarotti leaves so quickly that half his luggage has to be sent after him. Hervey won't see him again.
He also loses his royal patron, Queen Caroline, in the aftermath of Fritz of Wales producing his first legitimate offspring (remember the saga of the birth at St. James to avoid his parents being present?). Hervey is not yet out of a job; grieving G2 even makes him the Lord Privy Seal, which is a major promotion. But this doesn't last forever, for Robert Walpole finally is ousted as PM, and that means a reshuffling of the entire cabinet. G2, to his credit, tries to sweeten Hervey's departure first by offering him some nice retirement honors. Hervey wants to remain Lord Privy Seal. (That was Thomas Cromwell's title in Henry VIII's day!) After various attempts at persuasion, G2 gets angry, argument ensues, and Hervey is fired without retirement honors. Writing secret trashy tell all memoirs is only so much help, especially since his relationships first with Henry and then Stephen Fox fall apart as well, and his physical health, never great, goes to ruin entirely. The relationship with Lady Mary, post initial Algarotti triangle, remains good, but she's far away (currently in Avignon), and letters take so long. Hervey dies in bitterness, but not before dictating his last will (see earlier comment). Our biographer points out his memoirs are still the best, and then gives us an "where are they now?" culminating with the Lady Mary letter to Algarotti and the comforting idea of Hervey's version of paradise.
In conclusion: Lehndorff had far less personal drama, but I think he had the better life, for all the unfilfilled ambition. But Hervey is certainly story worthy, and also quite quotable.
Lord Hervey (II)
This is serious. Not least because yes, it takes two parties, and Hervey is hanging out with the Prince of Wales. And homosexuality at least according to the law is still a crime punishable by the death penalty. So ignoring and doing nothing is not an option if he wants to keep his office with the Queen. So he challenges Pulteney to a duel - with swords, not pistols - and they go through with it, which ends in a stalmate where both parties are injured and declare themselves satisfied. However, Pulteney is not yet done, because now Hervey gets satirized as someone who doesn't have the guts for a manly killing. This, presumably, is another reason why he's so touchy when Fritz of Wales, simultanously called impotent by his parents (according to Horowitz, Halsband doesn't point this out), starts an affair with Hervey's mistress (whom he had in addition to everyone else), Miss Vane. Cue illegitimate kid, Hervey mortally insulted, and the Fritz of Wales relationship ended. Fritz of Wales is now the worst, and Hervey completely sympathizes with Queen Caroline on this account.
The relationship with Stephen Fox, otoh, remains solid until Stephen needs to do something about his finances, about a decade after he and Hervey have cemented their relationship by going to Italy together. Stephen gets married to a thirteen years old heiress. Unlike poor Barbara Mitchell, this child bride doesn't give birth until more than a decade later, so let's hope the marriage wasn't consumated until then, either. But this marriage does start the point where Hervey and Stephen become more friends than lovers. Otoh, Hervey's friendship with Lady Mary intensifies, not least because they both gets attacked by Alexander Pope and team up with a counter satire (see Lady Mary's biography).
Incidentally, as an example of Hervey's style as a poet:
For Courts are only larger Familys,
The Growth of each , few Truths, & many Lyes;
Likeyou we lounge, & feast , & play, & chatter;
In private Satirize , in Publick flatter .
When Hervey isn't getting cursed by his mother, he's comiserating with Queen Caroline about her cursed son or exchanging quips with Lady Mary. And then there's Voltaire:
Hervey's friendship for Voltaire the man did not prevent him from criticizing Voltaire the writer. When he read the
tragedy Zaire (early in 1733) and sent a copy to Henry Fox , he was certain that like himself Fox would "have some Compassion for a silly Christian [heroine) as well as the greatest regard, Esteem , & Affection for a noble, good, tender & charming Mahometan' who through a tragic misunderstanding kills her. He was irritated , though, by Voltaire's dedication of the play to Edward Falkener, English merchant. In France it was regarded as scandalous because it was addressed not only to a commoner but to a foreign one at that . Hervey told Henry Fox that he thought it "bad, false, & impertinent ... by a superficial Frenchman to an Englishman , & the Dedicator pretends to be better acquainted with our Country,
our Manners, our Laws, & even our Language than the Dedicatee'.
What could have aroused such a violentopinion ? In the dedicatory epistle , after praising the high rank and regard the mercantile class enjoyed in England, Voltaire continues : 'I know very well that this profession is despised by our petits-maîtres ; but you also know that our petits -maîtres and yours are the most ridiculous species that proudly crawl on the face of the earth '. This , rather than the general remarks about French and English theatre, could have been offensive to one who was certainly closer to being a petit-maître than a man of commerce.
No kidding. Voltaire: never fails to piss people off. However, he writes rec letters for visiting Italians, and lo, Algarotti enters the scene. Love triangle ensues. Hervey's side of it is far less self assured than one would think, having read through Lady Mary's letters.
' In any case,' he assures him , 'if you stay or if you go, do not forget me, my dear, for I will never forget you
all my life ... you are too clear-sighted to have any need of instruction in things less obvious than the affection I feel for you , & I will not say more than you know , but much less than I feel, when I assure you simply that at present the thing in the world that I wish most for is to be able to keep you in England for the rest of your life, with the same advantage & pleasure to you that I would find here myself. (...)
To celebrate Algarotti's last evening in London he invited him to supper, but Algarotti declined because (he said ) he had promised to sup with Martin Folkes. But Àlgarotti lied , perhaps to spare his friend any pangs of jealousy . He spent his last evening in London with Lady Mary . After Algarotti's departure Hervey suffered so keenly that his friends complained ofhis moodiness, and he frankly admitted the cause . He was annoyed besides that Algarotti had lied about the supper on the eve of his departure. For Lady Mary now boasted to everybody , Hervey reports to him , that she had been like
Caesar in her conquest - which was, he adds, an insult to Algarotti's mcmory . Instead of resenting Algarotti's duplicity he
resented Lady Mary's having benefited by it. Her physical charms were far inferior to her intellectual ones, he reminds him . 'How fortunate you are then to be gone ! The absence that brings sadness to every other Lover will fulfill your Happiness, for she will speak to your Eyes & not appea rbefore them ; she will not destroy with her countenance the impression she will make by her mind . “But I am speaking too much of her ,' he checks himself,‘now I must say a word about myself. I cannot say anything, however, on this Subject but what you already know , that is to say that I love you with all my Heart, & I beg you never to forget the affection Ihave for you ,nor to let the affection you have for me grow weaker.'
Yet how differently Lady Mary regarded herself !-- not as conquering Caesar but as Dido abandoned by her wandering Aeneas.
“ I am a thousand times more to be pitied than the sad Dido, and I have a thousand more reasons to kill myself ', she tells Algarotti in her second letter soon after his departure . (...)
What could have been Algarotti's thoughts upon receiving such effusions from his two English admirers ? He did not have to
send letters to keep the flames of their love ablaze. A fortnight after his departure Hervey still missed him so painfully that he mourned his great loss to Henry Fox, hardly disguising his emotions, while staying at Kensington ' in this House ( triste Sejour) & generally seeing or thinking of the same thing . Adieu . I write like a Fool, think like a Fool, talk like a Fool, act like a Fool, & have every thing of a Fool but the Content of one.'
(...)
The passion that Hervey and Lady Mary felt for Algarotti aroused in them very different feelings towards each other ,
jealousy on his part , helplessness on hers .He boasted to her that Algarotti had written to him from Francc, while she had not heard from him two weeks later, although he had promised to write from Calais. 'How unhappy I am ! she exclaims to him (in her fourth letter), and what a stroke of Mercy a stroke of Lightning would be at this moment!' More calmly, she tells him thatshe will see Lord Hervey , who should have had news of him .
When she tried several times to arrange an appointment with Hervey he cruelly evaded her, until by accident hemet her at Lady Stafford's , where she extracted from him a promise to meet her in two days' time. Although he again tricd to put her off, on the appointed evening she appcared (with a little ugly singer as chaperone ), and stayed until one in the morning. 'While she was with me,' Hervey tells Algarotti, "she tried thousands of different ways to make me talk of you, & I would not even mention your name. At the same time she told me a thousand deliberate lies & a thousand accidental truths ; & instead of finding out several things without saying anything, as she intended , she told me all without learning anything.' Nor does he forget to reassure Algarotti that however ridiculous and unstable Lady Mary is ( she was as drunk before as wine can make one, & you have added Gin ”), he himself is unswerving in his devotion . 'Adieu . Preserve me in your esteem . I love you too much ,my dear, not to strive all my life to deserve you.'
How much more generous, in this instance, was Lady Mary in telling Algarotti of that same evening :when she had sent word to Lord Hervey that she wished to speak to him , 'You may believe (with his politeness) I saw him soon after, and then I was in allmost as much difficulty to draw from him what I had a mind to know ; that is, whither you were arriv'd safe at Paris ?' Hervey told her 'that after so much neglect as I had shewn him he could not fancy I would honnour him with a message, except I had some thing to demand of him that I thought of importance to myselfe , and very generously made me all sort of offers of Services and assurances of obeying my commands, reasonable or unreasonable '
It is really a relief when Hervey gets a grip on himself again. Helped, no doubt, by Algarotti visiting England after Lady Mary had gone to Italy to reunite with him, but Hervey - still agog about Algarotti - now is kind and without unbecoming Schadenfreude in his letters. However: FW dies, Fritz writes, and Algarotti leaves so quickly that half his luggage has to be sent after him. Hervey won't see him again.
He also loses his royal patron, Queen Caroline, in the aftermath of Fritz of Wales producing his first legitimate offspring (remember the saga of the birth at St. James to avoid his parents being present?). Hervey is not yet out of a job; grieving G2 even makes him the Lord Privy Seal, which is a major promotion. But this doesn't last forever, for Robert Walpole finally is ousted as PM, and that means a reshuffling of the entire cabinet. G2, to his credit, tries to sweeten Hervey's departure first by offering him some nice retirement honors. Hervey wants to remain Lord Privy Seal. (That was Thomas Cromwell's title in Henry VIII's day!) After various attempts at persuasion, G2 gets angry, argument ensues, and Hervey is fired without retirement honors. Writing secret trashy tell all memoirs is only so much help, especially since his relationships first with Henry and then Stephen Fox fall apart as well, and his physical health, never great, goes to ruin entirely. The relationship with Lady Mary, post initial Algarotti triangle, remains good, but she's far away (currently in Avignon), and letters take so long. Hervey dies in bitterness, but not before dictating his last will (see earlier comment). Our biographer points out his memoirs are still the best, and then gives us an "where are they now?" culminating with the Lady Mary letter to Algarotti and the comforting idea of Hervey's version of paradise.
In conclusion: Lehndorff had far less personal drama, but I think he had the better life, for all the unfilfilled ambition. But Hervey is certainly story worthy, and also quite quotable.