Should some brave
youth (worth being drunk) prove nice,
And from his fair
inviter meanly shrink,
’T would
please the ghost of my departed vice,
If, at my council,
he repent and drink.
But Hervey represents the time when dissipation had run a long course, and disgust, sanctity, and misanthropy were succeeding. To him, as to Swift, men were “a worthless species of animals,” their vices, natural; their virtues, affectation:
Mankind I know,
their nature and their art,
Their vice their
own, their virtue but a part
Ill played so
oft, that all the cheat can tell,
And dangerous
only when ’t is acted well,
* * * * *
To such reflections
when I turn my mind
I loathe my
being, and abhor mankind.
[Footnote 90: Carlyle, “Frederick the Great,” p. 13. vol. i.]
[Footnote 91: Addison, “An Account of the Greatest English Poets.” Quoted by Henry Morley, LL.D., “English Literature in the Reign of Victoria.”]
[Footnote 92: Lecky’s “History of England in the 18th Century,” vol. i, p. 502.]
[Footnote 93: Lord Hervey, “Memoirs of George II,” v. 3, p. 527.]
[Footnote 94: Hervey’s “Mem. of George II,” vol. 1, p. 147, note.]
[Footnote 95: Walpole’s “Reminiscences”; Hervey’s “Mem.,” v. 2, p. 103, note.]
[Footnote 96: Walpole’s “Mem. of George II,” vol. 1, p. 87.]
[Footnote 97: Browne’s “Estimate of the Times”; Lecky, “Hist. of 18th Century,” vol. 1, p. 509.]
[Footnote 98: Lord Hervey, “Mem. of Geo. II,” vol. i, p. 5.]
[Footnote 99: Idem, vol. i, p. 170.]
[Footnote 100: Idem, vol. i, p. 18.]
[Footnote 101: Hervey’s “Mem.,” i, 20.]
[Footnote 102: Idem, vol. 1, p. 208.]
[Footnote 103: Hervey’s “Memoirs,” 1, 39.]
[Footnote 104: Idem, ii, 360.]
[Footnote 105: Idem, ii, 31.]
[Footnote 106: Idem, vol. i, p. 91.]
[Footnote 107: Hervey’s “Memoirs,” vol. 1, p. 37.]