Horace Walpole records Lord Hervey’s memorable saying about Lord
Burlington’s pretty villa at Chiswick, now the Duke of Devonshire’s,
that it was “too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to your watch;”
and Lady Louisa Stuart has preserved a piece of dandyism in eating,
which even Beau Brummell might have envied--“When asked at dinner
whether he would have some beef, he answered, ‘Beef? oh, no! faugh!
don’t you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those
things?’ ”--The man that said these things was the successful lover
of the prettiest maid of honour to the Princess of Wales--the person
held up to everlasting ridicule by Pope--the vice-chamberlain whose
attractions engaged the affections of the daughter of the Sovereign he
served; and the peer whose wit was such that it “charmed the charming
Mary Montague.”