Yep. If Lady Mary's biography quotes a lot of misogyny slander and phobia of the (aging) female body in satire against her, Lord Hervey's shows what you had to put up with even in the privileged position of aristocrat and friend of the royal family. One satirist calls him "Lord Fanny", Pope calls him "Sporus", Pulteney attacked him both on grounds of androgyny and soft skin in the big outburst, and Horace Walpole (he who also had a go at Lady Mary) wrote after Hervey had died "he died after every inch of his character had already gone". Which sounds as if Hervey was a turncoat to modern readers, but from what I could see in Halsband's biography, he wasn't. Once he'd made his political choice of Robert Walpole over Pulteney, he stuck with it, and that's one reason why he didn't survive Walpole's fall for all.
Lol, Voltaire, never change!
Voltaire: I have a great admiration for the art of making money, and was perfectly willing to be frank about both French and English aristocracts being equally ridiculous. What's wrong with that?
I can see why Fritz thought the people-pleasing was a fault, and I'm inclined to agree.
It certainly did not stop him from leaving emotional damage, no matter how little he intended to do so. Certainly with hindsight, Lady Mary would have been far better off if he'd told her from the get go that she didn't appeal to him sexually, and all he was available for was friendship. Mind you, the Hervey bio told me Algarotti was as late with his letters to Hervey sometimes as he was with his to Lady Mary, but Hervey still had at that point other people in his life:
By then Algarotti was in Milan revising his Newtonian dialogues for the printer; and when Hervey received a reply (two months later) it said nothing of the book , but its other news was pleasing enough to him . He answered it the same day it came: 'As to all you say of the regard you retain for me, whether it be the effect of your Taste your Partiallity Imust either way be pleased with it', for he regards Algarotti as 'one whom of all the men I ever was acquainted with I should most wish to engage ' and the best Companion I ever met with . His long letter, full of strained wit, Latin quotations, and English verse, ends simply and personally with ‘Adio Carissimo'. His other friend whom he had once called Carissimo was not so distant as the Italian . Although Stephen Fox, who was not yet living with his child -wife, stayed in Somerset, Hervey kept their friendship alive with his letters— chatty or motherly or gossipy. Once he was stung to stronger expression when Stephen asked whether he felt neglected or forgotten . No, he insists, for he should certainly impute it to chance , inadvertence, or laziness . 'I have loved you ever since I knew you ,' he continues, 'which is now many years, so much better than most People are capable of loving any thing, that for your own sake at least, you would not nor could not, I am sure--there is so great a Pleasure in being so well beloved -be insensible of it & consequently not desire to preserve it.' His declaration breathes an air of sincerity : 'I only wish it was in my power to show you how well I love you , that all your Pleasures & Wishes depended on me only, & if they did you would find your-self never deprived of the one, or disappointed of the other.' Compared to Algarotti, Stephen was closer to the core of his emotionalbeing ; and although they had grown apart their love was firmly rooted. Hervey's nature and tastes were ample enough to encompass such intense friendships with two such disparate men .
Heinrich: I emphathize! Lehndorff: *sigh*
Oh, and because the initial write up doesn't include just how dysfunctional the Hannover soap gets, have this (and keep in mind Halsband never doubts that Hervey's is the true version of the tale):
On his expulsion from his father's palaces in September 1737 the Prince of Wales rented a house in St. James's Square and for his summer residence Cliveden in Buckinghamshire. His followers, as much as they could, tried to make political capital of his situation . Ata performance of Cato that he attended at Drury Lane ( on 4 October) he was loudly cheered ; and that frigid tragedy was warmed by politics as it had been during its first run on the eve of the Hanoverian succession . The letters he had written to his parents were circulated in slightly edited versions to show him in a more sympathetic light. To counteract this propaganda, his parents determined to print all the letters and messages that had passed between them since the night of the Princess's accouchement; and at the Queen's request Hervey translated them from French into English , accomplishing his task in one day. He was particularly gratified to beable to prove, by authority of the Government, that the Prince was a liar.(...)
(Voltaire doctoring his Madame Denis letters re: Fritz: in the best royal tradition.) Then Caroline dies, but not without this bit of emotional bloodletting:
From the Prince of Wales came messages, which were relayed through Hervey, asking if he might see his mother . The King, when he found out, was indignant - a scoundrel's trick , he raged, the Prince wanted to insult his poor dying mother. 'No, no ! he shall not come and act any of his silly plays here, false , lying, cowardly, nauseous, puppy.' (...) The Queen had no desire to see her hateful son , and even made the King promise that should she ever talk of seeing him the King must assume that she was not in her right mind and refuse her request. When she talked of dying, she sometimes exclaimed , 'At least I shall have one comfort in having my eyes eternally closed I shall never see that monster again.' That, at least , is Hervey's version of this startling illustration of how imminent death did not dissolve the Queen's hatred .Or perhaps it did, for another account alters the picture without necessarily contradicting Hervey's : that the Queen sent her blessing and a message of forgiveness to her son , at the same time telling Walpole that she would have been pleased to see him but feared it might embarrass and irritate the King.
Fritz: See, and you all sniggered when I told Mitchell how much more harmonious our family is when compared to the Hannover cousins. At least Dad called me his worthy successor when he was dying, and Mom adored me.
Oh, have some more quotes, from when Fritz enters the saga:
Algarotti and Frederick , of equal ages and similar tastes , were immediately attracted to each other. The Prince was 'the lover and the favourite of the Muses', Algarotti boasted to Hervey , and ' the most intelligent and most amiable ofmen ', who when he ascended the throne would prove to be one of the greatest of sovereigns. The two travellers then made their way to Hamburg to board the Augusta for their return to England . Algarotti had time for a last letter to Hervey : 'I fervently invoke that blustering East wind , so much an enemy to your countrymen , to blow soon , and waft me speedily to your Lordship at St. James's. I believe,my Lord , that I do not presume too much upon your friendship for me, in flattering myself, that, in your fine Park, " a votive heifer is fattening against (my] return."
(Bear in mind that he simultanously writes to Mitchell wanting him to be the tastiest dish at supper.) And then FW dies:
My dear Algarotti,' wrote the new King of Prussia a few days later,'my destiny has changed. I await you impatiently ; don't let me languish for you .' The intimate , impatient summons made deep impression on Algarotti. (He did not know , however, that Frederick had sent exactly the same note to his old tutor.) But the handsome Baron Keyserlingk , Frederick's prime favourite, added some verse to Algarotti's summons:
Come, Algarotti, from the shores of the Thames, To share with us our fortunate destiny . Hasten your journey to these agreeable places; You will find here Liberty as the motto .
Algarotti departed for Berlin in such haste that he left some of his belongings at Hervey's house, clothes as well as furs (probably acquired during his visit to Russia ); and since his funds were low, he borrowed money from Lady Hervey for his journey.
So not even Hervey but Hervey's wife paid for the journey. You can't make this people up.
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Re: Lord Hervey (II)
Date: 2020-09-13 04:34 pm (UTC)Yep. If Lady Mary's biography quotes a lot of misogyny slander and phobia of the (aging) female body in satire against her, Lord Hervey's shows what you had to put up with even in the privileged position of aristocrat and friend of the royal family. One satirist calls him "Lord Fanny", Pope calls him "Sporus", Pulteney attacked him both on grounds of androgyny and soft skin in the big outburst, and Horace Walpole (he who also had a go at Lady Mary) wrote after Hervey had died "he died after every inch of his character had already gone". Which sounds as if Hervey was a turncoat to modern readers, but from what I could see in Halsband's biography, he wasn't. Once he'd made his political choice of Robert Walpole over Pulteney, he stuck with it, and that's one reason why he didn't survive Walpole's fall for all.
Lol, Voltaire, never change!
Voltaire: I have a great admiration for the art of making money, and was perfectly willing to be frank about both French and English aristocracts being equally ridiculous. What's wrong with that?
I can see why Fritz thought the people-pleasing was a fault, and I'm inclined to agree.
It certainly did not stop him from leaving emotional damage, no matter how little he intended to do so. Certainly with hindsight, Lady Mary would have been far better off if he'd told her from the get go that she didn't appeal to him sexually, and all he was available for was friendship. Mind you, the Hervey bio told me Algarotti was as late with his letters to Hervey sometimes as he was with his to Lady Mary, but Hervey still had at that point other people in his life:
By then Algarotti was in Milan revising his Newtonian dialogues for the printer; and when Hervey received a reply (two months later) it said nothing of the book , but its other news was pleasing enough to him . He answered it the same day it came:
'As to all you say of the regard you retain for me, whether it be the effect of your Taste your Partiallity Imust either way be pleased with it', for he regards Algarotti as 'one whom of all the men I ever was acquainted with I should most wish to engage ' and the best Companion I ever met with . His long letter, full of strained wit, Latin quotations, and English verse, ends simply and personally with ‘Adio Carissimo'.
His other friend whom he had once called Carissimo was not so distant as the Italian . Although Stephen Fox, who was not yet living with his child -wife, stayed in Somerset, Hervey kept their friendship alive with his letters— chatty or motherly or gossipy. Once he was stung to stronger expression when Stephen asked whether he felt neglected or forgotten . No, he insists, for he should certainly impute it to chance , inadvertence, or laziness .
'I have loved you ever since I knew you ,' he continues, 'which is now many years, so much better than most People are capable of loving any thing, that for your own sake at least, you would not nor could not, I am sure--there is so great a Pleasure in being so well beloved -be insensible of it & consequently not desire to preserve it.' His declaration breathes an air of sincerity : 'I only wish it was in my power to show you how well I love you , that all your Pleasures & Wishes depended on me only, & if they did you would find your-self never deprived of the one, or disappointed of the other.' Compared to Algarotti, Stephen was closer to the core of his emotionalbeing ; and although they had grown apart their love was firmly rooted. Hervey's nature and tastes were ample enough to encompass such intense friendships with two such disparate men .
Heinrich: I emphathize!
Lehndorff: *sigh*
Oh, and because the initial write up doesn't include just how dysfunctional the Hannover soap gets, have this (and keep in mind Halsband never doubts that Hervey's is the true version of the tale):
On his expulsion from his father's palaces in September 1737 the Prince of Wales rented a house in St. James's Square and for his summer residence Cliveden in Buckinghamshire. His followers, as much as they could, tried to make political capital of his situation . Ata performance of Cato that he attended at Drury Lane ( on 4 October) he was loudly cheered ; and that frigid tragedy was warmed by politics as it had been during its first run on the eve of the Hanoverian succession . The letters he had written to his parents were circulated in slightly edited versions to show him in a more sympathetic light. To counteract this propaganda, his parents determined to print all the letters and messages that had passed between them since the night of the Princess's accouchement; and at the Queen's request Hervey translated them from French into English , accomplishing his task in one day. He was particularly gratified to beable to prove, by authority of the Government, that the Prince was a liar.(...)
(Voltaire doctoring his Madame Denis letters re: Fritz: in the best royal tradition.)
Then Caroline dies, but not without this bit of emotional bloodletting:
From the Prince of Wales came messages, which were relayed through Hervey, asking if he might see his mother . The King, when he found out, was indignant - a scoundrel's trick , he raged, the Prince wanted to insult his poor dying mother. 'No, no ! he shall not come and act any of his silly plays here, false , lying, cowardly, nauseous, puppy.' (...)
The Queen had no desire to see her hateful son , and even made the King promise that should she ever talk of seeing him the King must assume that she was not in her right mind and refuse her request. When she talked of dying, she sometimes exclaimed , 'At least I shall have one comfort in having my eyes eternally closed I shall never see that monster again.' That, at least , is Hervey's version of this startling illustration of how imminent death did not dissolve the Queen's hatred .Or perhaps it did, for another account alters the picture without necessarily contradicting Hervey's : that the Queen sent her blessing and a message of forgiveness to her son , at the same time telling Walpole that she would have been pleased to see him but feared it might embarrass and irritate the King.
Fritz: See, and you all sniggered when I told Mitchell how much more harmonious our family is when compared to the Hannover cousins. At least Dad called me his worthy successor when he was dying, and Mom adored me.
Oh, have some more quotes, from when Fritz enters the saga:
Algarotti and Frederick , of equal ages and similar tastes , were immediately
attracted to each other. The Prince was 'the lover and the favourite of the Muses', Algarotti boasted to Hervey , and ' the most intelligent and most amiable ofmen ', who when he ascended the throne would prove to be one of the greatest of sovereigns. The two travellers then made their way to Hamburg to board the Augusta for their return to England . Algarotti had time for a last letter to Hervey : 'I fervently invoke that blustering East wind , so much an enemy to your countrymen , to blow soon , and waft me speedily to your Lordship at St. James's. I believe,my Lord , that I do not presume too much upon your friendship for me, in flattering myself, that, in your fine Park, " a votive heifer is fattening against (my] return."
(Bear in mind that he simultanously writes to Mitchell wanting him to be the tastiest dish at supper.) And then FW dies:
My dear Algarotti,' wrote the new King of Prussia a few days later,'my destiny has changed. I await you impatiently ; don't let me languish for you .' The intimate , impatient summons made deep impression on Algarotti. (He did not know , however, that Frederick had sent exactly the same note to his old tutor.) But the handsome Baron Keyserlingk , Frederick's prime favourite, added some verse to Algarotti's summons:
Come, Algarotti, from the shores of the Thames,
To share with us our fortunate destiny .
Hasten your journey to these agreeable places;
You will find here Liberty as the motto .
Algarotti departed for Berlin in such haste that he left some of his belongings at Hervey's house, clothes as well as furs (probably acquired during his visit to Russia ); and since his funds were low, he borrowed money from Lady Hervey for his journey.
So not even Hervey but Hervey's wife paid for the journey. You can't make this people up.