Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/291

Hervey Sir Robert Walpole, iii. 88-9). According to Coxe the pamphlet was really written by Sir William Yonge, 'as he himself informed the late Lord Hardwicke' (ib. i. 363 n.), but Hervey probably wrote the ‘Dedication' (see, Memoirs, i. xxxvi). In January 1732 Hervey opposed Lord Morpeth's amendment for the reduction of the army (''Parl. Hist.'' viii. 882-7), and by a writ dated 11 June 1733 was called up to the House of Lords in his father's barony (Journals of the House of Lords, xxiv. 307). Here he was an active advocate of the ministry.  As the familiar intimate of the queen Hervey rendered Walpole invaluable service.  Though only vice-chamberlain Hervey's influence at court was great, and it was owing mainly to this influence that Walpole governed the queen, and through her the king.  On the queen's death in November 1737 Hervey, who had been dissatisfied from the first with his household appointment, urged his claims for preferment upon Walpole.  The Duke of Newcastle protested against Hervey's claims, on the ground of their mutual dislike, in a letter to Lord Hardwicke of 14 Oct. 1739 (, ''Hist. of England'', iii. 21). Though the duke threatened to resign, the difficulty was at length overcome, and on 1 May 1740 Hervey was appointed lord privy seal in the place of Lord Godolphin.  In February 1741 he strenuously opposed Lord Carteret’s motion for the removal of Sir Robert Wapole (''Parl. Hist''. xi. 1214-15). But in January of the following year Horace Walpole records that, though Hervey was ‘too ill to go to operas, yet, with a coffin-face, is as full of his little dirty politics as ever.  He will not be well enough to go to the house ‘till the majority is certain somewhere, but lives shut up with my Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pulteney' (Letters, i. 114; see also, Letters, v. 444).  Sir Robert Walpole resigned in February, but Hervey clung to his office, and in May helped to reject the Indemnification Bill (''Parl. Hist.'' xii. 646, 667-73). He was, however, dismissed from his office in July, and was succeeded by Lord Gower.

Hervey now went into opposition, and in February 1743 supported Lord Stanhope’s motion for the dismissal of the Hanoverian troops (ib. 1063-4, 1102-16). In the same session he distinguished himself by his spirited opposition to the Gin Bill. His health had, however, been gradually failing, and he died, in the lifetime of his father, on 5 Aug. 1743, aged 46, and was buried at Ickworth on the 12th of the same month.

Hervey was a clever and unprincipled man, of loose morals and skeptical opinions. He was an effective though somewhat pompous speaker, a ready writer, and a keen observer of character. His wit and charm of manner made him a special favourite of women. Effeminate in appearance as well as in habits, he is described by the Duchess of Marlborough as having ‘a painted face, and not a tooth in his head’ (The Opinions of Sarah, Duchess-Dowager of Marlborough, 1788, p. 43; see also Lord Hailes’s note ib. and Autobiography of Mrs. Delany, 1861, i. 544).

Throughout his life Hervey suffered from bad health, which his father ascribed to the use of ‘that detestable and poisonous plant, tea, which had once brought him to death’s door, and if persisted in would carry him through it' (Memoirs, i. xxvii). A liability to epileptic attacks induced him to adopt a strict regimen, of which he gives a detailed account in a letter to his physician, Dr. Cheyne (ib. i. xlvii). The intimate terms of his friendship with the queen were remarkable, and he relates that she used to call him ‘her child, her pupil, and her charge,' and to frequently say,' It is well I am so old, or I should be talked of for this creature' (ib. ii. 46). He is said also to have ‘made a deep impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline' (,Letters, i. cxxxvi.) The cause of the deadly quarrel between Hervey and Pope is obscure, but was probably owing to their rivalry for the good graces of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Pope dated the estrangement as far back as 1725, and sneeringly alludes to Hervey in his ‘Miscellanies,' 1727, and in the first edition of the ‘Dunciad,' 1728. In 1733 he published his ‘ Imitation of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace,' in which he grossly attacked Lady Mary by the name of ‘Sappho,' and bestowed the contemptuous nickname of `Lord Fanny' on Hervey. In reply to these attacks ‘Verses addressed to the Imitator of Horace' shortly afterward appeared. Lady Mary and Hervey were generally supposed to be joint authors, though there is some evidence in favour of Hervey's sole authorship (Memoirs, i. xxxix-xl; but see Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 325-6, where it is suggested that Lady Mary was the sole author; and compare Pope's letter to Swift of 2 April 1733 in, Works, 1814, xviii. 166). In the same year Hervey also attacked Pope in ‘An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a nobleman at Hampton Court.' Pope retorted in the first instance with his bitter ‘Letter to a Noble Lord,' &c. (,Works, ed. Roscoe, 1824, ix. 459-84), dated 30 Nov. 1733, and in 1735 renewed the attack in his famous assault upon ‘Sporus' in the ‘Epistle to Arbuthnot,' Hervey retained