manor with the rest of his estates was “the rich Duncombe.” But the jest has been supposed to allude to Sir Godfrey Kneller. He is also the justice of peace who committed the man who exposed his watch in view of the thief. Yet to the same Sir Godfrey, Pope inscribed “eternal nonsense graved in Parian stone.” “Stars other far than [illegible] bear,” i.e., Kent and Essex; the first the constant butt of the Tories, as I remember, in the Examiner. I recollect to have seen him, a very mean-looking man. But, party set aside, I know not why he became the subject of satire.
I formerly imagined that Bufo meant G. Bubb Dodington; but I have been since assured that it meant Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. “Rosamond’s bowl” I think respects Lady Lechmere, of the Carlisle family, of whom you will see enough on a marble tablet in the Westminster Abbey. “Each widow asks it for the best of men” was Mrs. Rowe, the sorrowful relict of the poet, who married a Colonel Dean. It may well be supposed that the sin of Wilmington was his apostasy from the Tories.
As to the “unfortunate lady,” it can serve no good purpose were one able to deterre her. Your MS. memorandum seems the most consistent story that I have heard concerning her, and there it may rest. Sir John Hawkins’ story seems to be Fanny Bradock’s end grafted on some other anecdote. You know it may be presumed that “poor Narcissa” is Mrs. Oldfield, though here the poet has, according to custom, added “a little red.” Betty is Mrs. Charlotte Sanderson, an inferior player. There is a curious letter from her in Curle’s Life of Mrs. Oldfield. Pope calls Dr. Middleton a schoolmaster, who, if I mistake not, quitted his party as Wilmington did—but never was a schoolmaster.
Bland, Master, and then Provost of Eton, and Dean of Durham, was the schoolfellow of Sir Robert Walpole, wrote for him in some of the party newspapers, and was well beneficed. His name occurs more than once in Pope’s Satires. Good is Burnbain Good, under-master of Eton, also a schoolfellow of Sir Robert, and one of his writers. His memory was fresh at Eton in my time as an oddity, but beloved by the boys. Some of the older Etonians, as Mr.