His mind was as vigorous as ever, in spite of the waste of many debauches; and when recommended to make a new translation of ‘Telemachus;’ he actually devoted one whole day to the work; the next he forgot all about it.  In the same manner he began a play on the story of Mary Queen of Scots, and Lady M. W. Montagu wrote an epilogue for it, but the piece never got beyond a few scenes.  His genius, perhaps, was not for either poetry or the drama.  His mind was a keen, clear one, better suited to argument and to grapple tough polemic subjects.  Had he but been a sober man, he might have been a fair, if not a great writer.  The ‘True Briton,’ with many faults of license, shows what his capabilities were.  His absence of moral sense may be guessed from his poem on the preaching of Atterbury, in which is a parallel almost blasphemous.

At length he reached Bilboa and his regiment, and had to live on the meagre pay of eighteen pistoles a month.  The Duke of Ormond, then an exile, took pity on his wife, and supported her for a time:  she afterwards rejoined her mother at Madrid.

Meanwhile, the year 1730 brought about a salutary change in the duke’s morals.  His health was fast giving way from the effects of divers excesses; and there is nothing like bad health for purging a bad soul.  The end of a misspent life was fast drawing near, and he could only keep it up by broth with eggs beaten up in it.  He lost the use of his limbs, but not of his gaiety.  In the mountains of Catalonia he met with a mineral spring which did him some good; so much, in fact, that he was able to rejoin his regiment for a time.  A fresh attack sent him back to the waters; but on his way he was so violently attacked that he was forced to stop at a little village.  Here he found himself without the means of going farther, and in the worst state of health.  The monks of a Bernardine convent took pity on him and received him into their house.  He grew worse and worse; and in a week died on the 31st of May, without a friend to pity or attend him, among strangers, and at the early age of thirty-two.

Thus ended the life of one of the cleverest fools that ever disgraced our peerage.

    LORD HERVEY.

  George II. arriving from Hanover.—­His Meeting with the
      Queen.—­Lady Suffolk.—­Queen Caroline.—­Sir Robert
      Walpole.—­Lord Hervey.—­A set of Fine Gentlemen.—­An Eccentric
      Race.—­Carr, Lord Hervey.—­A Fragile Boy.—­Description of
      George II.’s Family.—­Anne Brett.—­A Bitter Cup.—­The Darling
      of the Family.—­Evenings at St. James’s.—­Frederick, Prince of
      Wales.—­Amelia Sophia Walmoden.—­Poor Queen Caroline!—­Nocturnal
      Diversions of Maids of Honour.—­Neighbour George’s Orange
      Chest.—­Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey.—­Rivalry.—­Hervey’s Intimacy
      with Lady Mary.—­Relaxations of the Royal Household.—­Bacon’s
      Opinion of Twickenham.—­A Visit to Pope’s Villa.—­The Little