"What could lead your Lordship to entertain such a suspicion ?" "Why," said Portland, "I knew that you were a poet; and I took it for granted that you did not believe in God." "My lord," said the wit, "you do us poets the greatest injustice.

Of all people we are the farthest from atheism.

For the atheists do not even worship the true God, whom the rest of mankind acknowledge; and we are always invoking and hymning false gods whom everybody else has renounced." This jest will be perfectly intelligible to all who remember the eternally recurring allusions to Venus and Minerva, Mars, Cupid and Apollo, which were meant to be the ornaments, and are the blemishers, of Prior's compositions.
But Portland was much puzzled.

However, he declared himself satisfied; and the young diplomatist withdrew, laughing to think with how little learning a man might shine in courts, lead armies, negotiate treaties, obtain a coronet and a garter, and leave a fortune of half a million.
The citizens of Paris and the courtiers of Versailles, though more accustomed than the Londoners to magnificent pageantry, allowed that no minister from any foreign state had ever made so superb an appearance as Portland.

His horses, his liveries, his plate, were unrivalled.