There was a certain ‘black woman,’ as Horace Walpole calls a Mrs. Strawbridge, whom Bubb Dodington admired.  This handsome brunette lived in a corner house of Saville Row, in Piccadilly, where Dodington visited her.  The result of their intimacy was his giving this lady a bond of ten thousand pounds to be paid if he married any one else.  The real object of his affections was a Mrs. Behan, with whom he lived seventeen years, and whom, on the death of Mrs. Strawbridge, he eventually married.

Among Bubb Dodington’s admirers and disciples was Paul Whitehead, a wild specimen of the poet, rake, satirist, dramatist, all in one; and what was quite in character, a Templar to boot.  Paul—­so named from being born on that Saint’s day—­wrote one or two pieces which brought him an ephemeral fame, such as the ‘State Dunces,’ and the ’Epistle to Dr. Thompson,’ ‘Manners,’ a satire, and the ‘Gymnasiad,’ a mock heroic poem, intended to ridicule the passion for boxing, then prevalent.  Paul Whitehead, who died in 1774, was an infamous, but not, in the opinion of Walpole, a despicable poet, yet Churchill has consigned him to everlasting infamy as a reprobate, in these lines:—­

  ’May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?)
  Be born a Whitebread, and baptised a Paul.’

Paul was not, however, worse than his satirist Churchill; and both of these wretched men were members of a society long the theme of horror and disgust, even after its existence had ceased to be remembered, except by a few old people.  This was the ‘Hell-fire Club,’ held in appropriate orgies at Medmenham Abbey, Buckinghamshire.  The profligate Sir Francis Dashwood, Wilkes, and Churchill, were amongst its most prominent members.

With such associates, and living in a court where nothing but the basest passions reigned and the lowest arts prevailed, we are inclined to accord with the descendant of Bubb Dodington, the editor of his ‘Diary,’ Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, who declares that all Lord Melcombe’s political conduct was ’wholly directed by the base motives of vanity, selfishness, and avarice.’  Lord Melcombe seems to have been a man of the world of the very worst calibre; sensual, servile, and treacherous; ready, during the lifetime of his patron, Frederick, Prince of Wales, to go any lengths against the adverse party of the Pelhams, that Prince’s political foes—­eager, after the death of Frederick, to court those powerful men with fawning servility.

The famous ‘Diary’ of Bubb Dodington supplies the information from which these conclusions have been drawn.  Horace Walpole, who knew Dodington well, describes how he read with avidity the ‘Diary,’ which was published in 1784.

’A nephew of Lord Melcombe’s heirs has published that Lord’s “Diary.”  Indeed it commences in 1749, and I grieve it was not dated twenty years later.  However, it deals in topics that are twenty times more familiar and fresh to my memory than any passage that has happened within these six months I wish I could convey it to you.  Though drawn by his own hand, and certainly meant to flatter himself, it is a truer portrait than any of his hirelings would have given.  Never was such a composition of vanity, versatility, and servility.  In short, there is but one feature wanting in it, his wit, of which in the whole book there are not three sallies.’