He  died  at  Ickworth,  attended  and  deplored  by  his  wife,  who
had  ever  held  a  secondary  part  in  the  heart  of  the  great  wit
and  beau  of  the  court  of  George  II. After  his  death  his  son
George  returned  to  Lady  Mary  all  the  letters  she  had
written  to  his  father :  the  packet  was  sealed ;  an  assurance
was  at  the  same  time  given  that  they  had  not  been  read. In
acknowledging  this  act  of  attention,  Lady  Mary  wrote  that
she  could  almost  regret  that  he  had  not  glanced  his  eye
over  a  correspondence  which  might  have  shown  him  what
so  young  a  man  might  perhaps  be  inclined  to  doubt — the
possibility  of  a  long  and  steady  friendship  subsisting  between
two  persons  of  different  sexes  without  the  least  mixture  of
love.'

Nevertheless,  some  expressions  of  Lord  Hervey's  seem  to
have  bordered  on  the  tender  style,  when  writing  to  Lady
Mary  in  such  terms  as  these. She  had  complained  that  she


WANT   OF  CHRISTIANITY. 255

was  too  old  to  inspire  a  passion  (a  sort  of  challenge  for  a
compliment),  on  which  he  wrote :  '  I  should  think  anybody  a
great  fool  that  said  he  liked  spring  better  than  summer,
merely  because  it  is  further  from  autumn,  or  that  they  loved
green  fruit  better  than  ripe  only  because  it  was  further  from
being  rotten. I  ever  did,  and  believe  ever  shall,  like  woman
best —

"  Just  in  the  noon  of  life — those  golden  days,
When  the  mind  ripens  ere  the  form  decays."  '

Certainly  this  looks  very  unlike  a  pure  Platonic,  and  it  is
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Lady  Hervey  refused  to  call  on
Lady  Mary,  when,  long  after  Lord  Hervey's  death,  that
fascinating  woman  returned  to  England. A  wit,  a  courtier  at
the  very  fount  of  all  politeness,  Lord  Hervey  wanted  the
genuine  source  of  all  social  qualities — Christianity. That
moral  refrigerator  which  checks  the  kindly  current  of  neigh-
bourly kindness,  and  which  prevents  all  genial  feeling  from
expanding,  produced  its  usual  effect — misanthropy. 