vulgarity of publishing, the reputation of the dandy writer was soon
noised about. His religious tenets may or may not have been sound; but
at all events the tone of his mind assumed at this time a very different
character to that reverent strain in which, when a youth at college, he
had apostrophized those who bowed their heads beneath the vaulted roof
of King's College, in his eulogium in the character of Henry VI.

'Ascend the temple, join the vocal choir,
Let harmony your raptured souls inspire.
Hark how the tuneful, solemn organs blow,
Awfully strong, elaborately slow;
Now to you empyrean seats above
Raise meditation on the wings of love.
Now falling, sinking, dying to the moan
Once warbled sad by Jesse's contrite son;
Breathe in each note a conscience through the sense,
And call forth tears from soft-eyed Penitence.'

In the midst of all his gaieties, his successes, and perhaps his hopes,
a cloud hovered over the destinies of his father. The opposition, Horace
saw, in 1741, wished to ruin his father 'by ruining his constitution.'
They wished to continue their debates on Saturdays, Sir Robert's only
day of rest, when he used to rush to Richmond New Park, there to amuse
himself with a favourite pack of beagles. Notwithstanding the minister's
indifference to this his youngest son, Horace felt bitterly what he
considered a persecution against one of the most corrupt of modern
statesmen.

'Trust me, if we fall, all the grandeur, all the envied grandeur of our
house, will not cost me a sigh: it has given me no pleasure while we