His famous quarrel with Lord Hervey also did much to widen the breach, for the Queen naturally took her favourite’s side. A friend of Lord Hervey’s in the House of Commons spoke of Pope as “a lampooner who scattered his ink without fear or decency”. This was true of both combatants, who showed in a most unamiable light in this sordid quarrel. The origin of the feud is involved in obscurity, but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was undoubtedly in part responsible for it. Lady Mary, since her return from Constantinople in 1718, had occupied a unique position in society. She was a chartered libertine, her conversation grew broader with advancing years, and her wit had more licence. Between her and Lord Hervey there existed one of those curious friendships which may sometimes be witnessed between an effeminate man and a masculine woman, and there seems no doubt that it was of the kind which is known as “Platonic,” for, after Lord Hervey’s death, when his eldest son sealed up and sent Lady Mary the letters she had written to his father, assuring her that he had not looked at them, she wrote to say that she almost regretted he had not, as it would have proved to him what most young men disbelieved, “the possibility of a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes without the least mixture of love”. Lady Mary took a house at Twickenham not far from Pope’s beautiful villa, and, though she was warned not to have anything to do with “the wicked wasp of Twickenham,” she renewed her friendship with the poet, and became as intimate with him as before. “Leave him as soon as you can” wrote Addison to her, “he will certainly play you some devilish trick else.” But Lady Mary took no heed, perhaps the danger of the experiment tempted her, and she fooled the little poet to the top of his bent. Pope, with all his genius, had an undue reverence for rank; he was flattered by the notice which this clever woman extended to him, and he genuinely admired her wit and vivacity. Lady Mary’s house was the rendezvous of many of the courtiers and wits of the day, and here Pope often met Lord Hervey. Lady Mary delighted in the homage the poet gave to her ungrudgingly; it flattered her vanity that such a genius should be at her feet. She wrote to him effusive letters, and in one of them declared that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone, “since by making the _Iliad_ pass through your poetical grasp into an English form, without losing aught of its original beauty, you have drawn the golden current from Patoclus to Twickenham”. Pope also wrote her the most extravagant epistles. In one, referring to her portrait, which had been painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, he says: “This picture dwells really at my heart, and I made a perfect passion of preferring your present face to your past”. Again he tells her, “I write as if I were drunk; the pleasure I take in thinking of your return transports me beyond the bounds of common decency”.