He was like a dirty boy who throws mud from an ambush, and declares that he did not see the victim bespattered.[11] A bitter and humiliating quarrel followed.

Lord Hervey, who had been described as "Lord Fanny," in the same satire, joined with his friend, Lady Mary, in writing lampoons upon Pope.

The best known was a copy of verses, chiefly, if not exclusively by Lady Mary, in which Pope is brutally taunted with the personal deformities of his "wretched little carcass," which, it seems, are the only cause of his being "unwhipt, unblanketed, unkicked." One verse seems to have stung him more deeply, which says that his "crabbed numbers" are Hard as his heart and as his birth obscure.
To this and other assaults Pope replied by a long letter, suppressed, however, for the time, which, as Johnson says, exhibits to later readers "nothing but tedious malignity," and is, in fact, a careful raking together of everything likely to give pain to his victim.

It was not published till 1751, when both Pope and Hervey were dead.

In his later writings he made references to Sappho, which fixed the name upon her, and amongst other pleasant insinuations, speaks of a weakness which she shared with Dr.Johnson,--an inadequate appreciation of clean linen.
More malignant accusations are implied both in his acknowledged and anonymous writings.