that he pretended “to very little Virtue more than general Philanthropy and private Friendship.” It is therefore but reasonable to infer that his daily life must have been more than usually characterised by the vicissitudes of the eighteenth-century prodigal,— alternations from the “Rose” to a Clare-Market ordinary, from gold-lace to fustian, from champagne to “British Burgundy.” In a rhymed petition to Walpole, dated 1730, he makes pleasant mirth of what no doubt was sometimes sober truth—his debts, his duns, and his dinnerless condition. He (the verses tell us)
“—from his Garret can look down On the whole Street of Arlington.” [Footnote: Where Sir Robert lived]
Again—
“The Family that dines the latest Is in our Street esteem’d the greatest; But latest Hours must surely fall Before him who ne’er dines at all;”
and
“This too doth in my Favour speak, Your Levee is but twice a Week; From mine I can exclude but one Day, My Door is quiet on a Sunday.”
When he can admit so much even jestingly of himself, it is but legitimate to presume that there is no great exaggeration in the portrait of him in 1735, by the anonymous satirist of Seasonable Reproof:—
“F———g, who yesterday appear’d so rough, Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister’d down with Snuff, See how his Instant gaudy Trappings shine; What Play-house Bard was ever seen so fine! But this, not from his Humour flows, you’ll say,
