Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/391

371 was by Warburton’s particular desire that he made him the principal figure, and Pope only secondary; and that the light, contrary to the rules of art, goes upward from Warburton to Pope. A gentleman who was present when Mr. B. mentioned this circumstance, remarked that it was observable the poet and his commentator were looking different ways.

Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, well known for his collection of pictures, statues, &c., was a natural son. On his marriage with the daughter of Lady Schaub who had been very gallant, Horace Walpole said very happily, “Then everybody’s daughter is married to nobody’s son.”

On Mr. Pulteney’s complaining to old Lady Townshend that he had been much out of order with a pain in his side, she asked him which was his side, for that she never knew he had one. “Oh,” said he, “you must at least acknowledge that I have a nether side.” “I know nothing about it,” replied Lady T. “All the world knows that your wife has one.” The allusion was to the well-known anecdote of Pulteneys insisting upon having some papers read in the House of Commons, one of which turned out to be a letter dated by one of his wife’s gallants, concluding with a distich too coarse for quotation here.

[Some other anecdotes of the previous age are noticed as examples of the licence of language not uncommon then even with ladies.]