So wrote the Tory tailor who abused the Whigs, who were at that time most flourishing at court, and most arrogant in drawing-rooms. The day came when the Tories took root at court, and swaggered in saloons: and then, sooth to say, court life and lounging in boudoirs seemed no longer reprehensible in the eyes of the satirist. When he abused the throne, he never expected to be allowed to make a _congé_ at the foot of it. Benedick, in a similar style, when he abused matrimony, never expected to be a married man. And, besides, we may allow in well-abused Paul,—once pillowed on his sire’s sleeve-board,—the tergiversation of principle which was so coolly practised by such mighty fine gentlemen as Dryden, and that insufferably impudent and dishonest fop, Waller. One at least of Paul’s works led to a public demonstration of some importance; and I may as well notice it here as where it would otherwise as naturally come—under the head of “Masks.” Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann, in November, 1741, says:—“I believe I told you that Vernon’s birthday passed quietly; but it was not designed to be pacific, for at twelve at night, eight gentlemen, dressed like sailors, _and masked_, went round Covent Garden with a drum, beating for a volunteer mob; but it did not take, and they retired to a great supper, that was prepared for them at the Bedford Head, and ordered by Whitehead, the author of ‘Manners.’” In this last piece the author had committed onslaught on some members of the House of Lords; the latter assembly summoned and imprisoned Dodsley the publisher, Whitehead himself having absconded. The publisher confessed that he had not read the tailor’s strains, but that, as the work was a satire, he had compelled the author to affix his name to the title-page, and take the responsibility. One of the libelled Lords, Essex, moved the discharge of Dodsley; and not only Whitehead, but Pope, was kept quiet by fear of prosecution. Whitehead had already known what imprisonment was. He had, like many a foolish youth, been ambitious of maintaining an acquaintance with the actors, and he was particularly intimate with Fleetwood the manager. He had not read the admonitory remark of the Wise King, that he who goeth security for his neighbour shall smart for it; and the consequence of putting his name to a bond ultimately placed his person in bonds also, and he expiated in the Fleet his act of generous folly. But he soon recovered from the effects of this. He was something of a beau, and he did what beaux were wont to do,—married an heiress. The lady was Anne Dyer, daughter of an Essex baronet, Sir Swinnerton Dyer. She was homely and somewhat imbecile, but she had ten thousand pounds,—“dix milles vertus en louis bien comptés,”—and Paul always regarded her as a woman who had rendered him some little service. As duty was then accounted of, this was acting with most singular uprightness.