Lord Hervey's verses, _The Difference between Verbal and Practical Virtue_, were published between 21 and 24 August 1742, less than a week after the same author's prose pamphlet (_A Letter to Mr. C--b--r, On his Letter to Mr. P----._) which had compared the art of Pope and Cibber to Cibber's advantage, and had roundly concluded that Pope was "_a second-rate Poet_, a _bad Companion_, a _dangerous Acquaintance_, an _inveterate, implacable Enemy_, _nobody's Friend_, a _noxious Member of Society_, and _a thorough bad Man_." In the course of the prose pamphlet Hervey had suggested that there was a certain incongruity between Pope's true character and his assumed _persona_ of the "virtuous man," and this incongruity forms the main subject of his verse attack. Here Hervey finds examples of "the difference between verbal and practical virtue" in the lives of Horace, Seneca, and Sallust, before turning to lampoon Pope crossly and ineptly. The attack on Horace is well conceived for Hervey's purpose and calculated to damage Pope who was in so many eyes, including his own, the modern heir of that ancient poet, but the straight abuse directed against Pope's person is sad stuff. Such lines as those on the "yelping Mungril" (p. 6) serve only to show how squarely the "well-bred Spaniels" taunt in the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ had hit its target. Hervey's poem carried a prefatory letter headed "Mr. C--b--er to Mr. P.," making out that Cibber had a hand in writing the poem itself. Coming so soon after Hervey's _Letter to Cibber_, which had carried the markedly intimate subscription "With the greatest Gratitude and Truth, most affectionately yours," this prefatory letter to the poem further emphasized Hervey's firm and deliberate alliance with Cibber.