"I shall never be an undutiful daughter, or cease to think with love and gratitude of my father," she wrote in conclusion; "but my hand and my heart are my own, and those I will give to none but you." Comforted and sustained by this letter, Herrick went back to London, and established himself there in a modest lodging of his own in a court leading out of Russell Street, Covent Garden, hard by those classic coffee-houses where all the wits and politicians of the day were wont to meet in rooms which but lately had echoed the laughter of Steele and the quieter sallies of Addison. The greatest of Queen Anne's wits had passed away; but the world of letters was still illumined by Pope, and Bolingbroke, and Swift, and Warburton, and Berkeley, and a whole galaxy of wit, erudition, and natural genius. Chief among them all perhaps was that lively Frenchman, whose vivid pen touched perfection in every line of literature, who was by turns poet, philosopher, historian, political economist, trifler, critic, and theologian, and with whom an airy grace, a supreme audacity, and an incomparable clearness of style, served instead of the deeper thought and wider erudition of Clarke or Berkeley. In such society no intellectual man could be unhappy, and Herrick Durnford was frankly accepted in this charmed circle. He was on good terms alike with the Ministry and with the Opposition. He dined and slept at Dawley at the beginning of the week, and drank Sir Robert's port on a Saturday evening. He loved Bolingbroke as a noble specimen of highly gifted humanity, despite his many faults; but he honoured Walpole as a master of statecraft, the minister who had the interests of the people and the country most at heart, and who knew how to maintain the prestige of England without plunging her into war. Walpole had been struck by Herrick's letters in the _Flying Post_, had asked him to dinner, and had even introduced him to Mrs. Skerritt. This last honour meant real friendship. Molly Skerritt had read the letters to her dearest friend Lady Mary, and the two had agreed that they were clever enough to have been written by Swift. Mrs. Skerritt suggested that dear Sir Robert should give Mr. Durnford the very next vacant borough. A man who could write so well ought to be a good speaker, and good speakers were wanted now that all the best orators had gone over to the Opposition. "The finest of them all is that poor fellow you keep muzzled yonder in his fancy farm at Uxbridge," said Mrs. Molly, somewhat pertly. She was beautiful, and her admirer was stout, clumsy, and commonplace-looking; so she could afford to take liberties. "Would to God I could muzzle his pen as easily as I can keep him out of the House of Lords!" answered Walpole. "The fellow is an arrant traitor, and this _Craftsman_ of his will wreck the country, unless I can be a match for him and that renegade Pulteney."