which have afforded me much entertainment, those from the
illustrious I consider as written in their theatrical character,
for though they are written behind the scenes, which gives them
an air of reality, they are made to suit the assumed character.
Lord B(ath) is Patriot and Philosopher, after the manner of the
Ancients, his letters bear a consular and stoical dignity, and
when I expect to see them signed Marcus, Cato or Caius Cassius,
he surprises me with a Christian name and modern title. Those
of another eminent person appear more natural, though perhaps
they are not more sincere, but the modes we are used to by their
familiarity appear less constrained and artificial.... I will send
Mr. Lyttelton the Gazette extraordinary from Quebec next post, it
is from the Indian Savages, and expressed in hieroglyphicks; it
will give him an idea of the expresses sent by the Mexicans and
Montezuma. I will send him the explanation with it.... Mr. Stewart
gave me this curious piece this morning.... I did not say Lord Bath
own’d, but that he did not stoutly deny the pamphlett. Mr. Pitt and
his party are angry at it, and I hear H. Walpole has answer’d it.”
Tom Lyttelton writes from Eton, March 8, to Mrs. Montagu, to beg her to
write to him. Her eyes had been very weak lately, and writing was an
effort. In this Tom says--
“I hear my cousin Pitt is gone abroad with Lord Kinnoul.... I wish
his tour may afford him as much pleasure as it will improvement.
But nothing can ever hinder a mind like his, active and desirous
of knowledge from improving itself everywhere, but particularly in
foreign countries.... I only wish the eyes of the handsome Spanish
Ladies may not make a greater impression on his heart than the
beautiful Vales of Arragon and Castile.”
[Page heading: LISBON]
Thomas Pitt had gone to Lisbon with the Embassy under Lord
Strathmore,[260] which England sent after the attempted assassination
of the King of Portugal. In a letter to Lord Lyttelton from Lisbon on
March 27, 1760, Mr. Pitt describes Lisbon--
[260] John Lyon, 7th Earl of Strathmore.
“The Tagus is extremely noble, and the shore on the other side is
covered with woods of pine and fir. The city is quite destroy’d,
and though they talk of magnificent plans for the rebuilding it,
there is little likelihood that it should rise out of its ruins for
many years.”
He then alludes to the late attempted assassination of the king, but
his account is too long to copy _in extenso_--
“The story of a conspiracy is universally disbelieved, the whole
is attributed to the malignity of the Duke of Aveiro, and the
resentment of the old Marquis and Machioness of Tavora for the
dishonour[261] done to their family since the late dreadful
execution, which is followed by the erection of the Bastile, into
which people of the first rank are committed without any cause
assigned, makes them afraid to be even seen with one another.... I
hear my little friend Tom has not forgot me in my peregrinations,
has apprehensions from the impressions I may receive from the
Spanish ladies. Pray give my love to him, and assure him if they
resemble those of Portugal I never was in less danger.”
[261] The king had opposed the marriage of the Duke of Tavora’s son
to a sister of the Duc de Cadaval.
In his next letter of April 14, to Mrs. Montagu, he says--
“I am going in about a week or ten days into the true country
of Knight Errantry. I shall set out for Spain and pass through
Andalousia and Granada before I go to Madrid, but instead of
Rosinante and the Barber’s basin I shall provide myself with
side-creeping mules and a heavy crazy old coach that has outlived
the earthquake. I propose being at Madrid about the time the King
makes his public entry, which is to be extremely magnificent. I
shall dispute the prize at every tilt and tournament, and expect to
send you a lock of hair plucked as a trophy from the forehead of
a wild bull that I have laid dead at my feet. We have a very good
chance of escaping the Corsairs, and sea-sickness, as the French
Ambassador[262] here has had the goodness to write to his Court
for a passport to enable us to get to Italy through the South of
France.”
[262] Monsieur de Merle.
[Page heading: LORD CHESTERFIELD]
The next letter is from Lord Chesterfield[263] to Lord Lyttelton.
“Blackheath, May 7, 1760.
“MY LORD,
“I return you my sincerest and warmest thanks for your most
entertaining and instructive present.[264] When I heard that you
had undertaken that work, I expected no less, and now that I have
it, without a compliment I could wish for no more from you. You
have applied History to its best use, the advantage of morality;
you have exposed vice and folly, but with so noble a hand, that
both fools and knaves must feel that you would rather correct than
execute them. You have even shown mercy to one who never showed
nor felt it; I mean that disgrace to humanity, that sanguinary
monster of the North, distinguished only by his Barbarism and his
Barbarity, Charles the 12th[265] of Sweden. I would fain have
homicide no longer reckoned as hitherto it has been, a title to
Heroism, and the infamous but fashionable traffick of human blood,
no matter for or against, who, if they pay but well, called by its
true name _assassination_. Your Lordship has still a great field
left open to you for another and yet another volume, which nobody
can range in so usefully to mankind as yourself. I must take the
liberty of troubling your Lordship with a petition to your brother
the Governor of Jamaica,[266] whom I have not the pleasure of being
acquainted with myself. It is to recommend to his protection and
favour a relation of mine, one Captain Stanhope, who is now there,
and, I believe, has some little employment given him by the present
Deputy Governor, Mr. Moore. My kinsman was formerly an Officer of
the footguards, but being a man of wit and pleasure, shared the
common fate of that sort of gentleman, and was obliged to leave
England and go to Jamaica, for (I doubt) more than suspicion of
debt. I am assured that he is now quite reformed, and has a mind to
be an honest man.
“I am with the greatest honour and esteem,
“Your Lordship’s
Most faithfull, humble servant,
“CHESTERFIELD.”
Lord Chesterfield’s handwriting is beautiful, and the easiest possible
to read.
[263] Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; born 1694, died
1773.
[264] His “Dialogues of the Dead,” just published.
[265] Allusion to Dialogue No. 20 on Charles XII. and Alexander the
Great.
[266] William Henry, son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton; he was created
Baron Westcote of Ballymore in 1776; died in 1808.
[Page heading: “DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD”]
Lord Lyttelton’s “Dialogues of the Dead” had just appeared. Of these
Mrs. Montagu wrote three, viz. Dialogues 26, 27, 28. Writing to Mrs.
Carter, she says--
“I have just received my dear Mrs. Carter’s letter, and am very
happy in her approbation of ‘the Dialogues.’ With her encouragement
I do not know but at last I may become an author in form. It
enlarges the sphere of action and lengthens the short period of
human life. To become universal and lasting is an ambition which
none but great genius’s should indulge; but to be read by a few, a
few years, may be aspired to.... The Dialogues, I mean the three
worst, have had a more favourable reception than I expected. Lord
Lyttelton’s have been admired to the greatest degree.”
[Page heading: EARL FERRERS’ EXECUTION]
Mrs. Montagu had vainly tried to conceal her part as joint author
of the “Dialogues.” Mrs. Donnellan immediately challenged her as to
whether she or Mrs. Carter had written them, and Mrs. Montagu was fain
to confess Mrs. Carter was not responsible for them. The fine ladies
were much offended at Dialogue 27, between Mercury and “Mrs. Modish,”
a modern fine lady, in which they were taken off. The authoress was
disgusted at the fine ladies’ conduct in going to the trial and
sentence of Lord Ferrers[267] for murdering his steward. She says to
Mrs. Carter--
“I own the late instance of their going to hear Lord Ferrers’
sentence particularly provoked me. The Ladies crowded to the House
of Lords to see a wretch brought, loaded with crime and shame, to
the Bar, to hear sentence of a cruel and ignominious death, which,
considering only this world, casts shame back on his ancestors and
all his succeeding family.”
[267] Laurence, Earl Ferrers, was hanged at Tyburn, on May 5, 1760.
[Page heading: WILLIAM ROBINSON’S WEDDING]
The Rev. William Robinson had become engaged to a Miss Mary Richardson,
daughter of Mr. Adam Richardson; she had a portion of £10,000. The poet
Gray called her “a very good-humoured, cheerful woman.” From other
letters it appears she was not good-looking, but amiable. This letter,
written by Mrs. Montagu to her sister Sarah, describes the wedding,
which appears to have taken place at the end of June.
“Saturday night, after ten.
“MY DEAREST SISTER,
“‘I’ll tell thee, Sall, where I have been,
Where I the rarest sights have seen,
Oh! sights beyond compare!’
“The Bride triste, the Bridegroom tristissimo; but to the order of
the nuptials, Pappa Robinson and Mr. Richardson[268] in Pappa’s
postchaize, bride and bridegroom, Mrs. M(orris) Robinson and
Sister Montagu in her coach and six. Brother Morris Robinson
and Mr. Montagu in Brother Morris’ postchaise, so went we to
Kensington Church, the neighbours gazing, the children running,
the mob gathering; from Church we went to Greenwich, where the
Bridegroom gave us a very elegant and splendid dinner: then we
walk’d in Greenwich Park, return’d to the Inn to drink tea, after
tea the Bride and Bridegroom and Mr. Richardson got into my coach,
I carry’d them to Kensington, and there I left the lovely loving
pair.... William smiled and looked in high beauty as we went, as we
return’d he was grave, angry perhaps, that Phœbus did not gallop
apace his fiery-footed steeds and hasten on the happy hour. Never
was wedding so decent, so orderly, so unlike a wedding, none of
your fulsome fondness, I assure you, a few fond glances, but not
a syllable addressed to each other. I believe William will behave
well, and she is sensible and good-natured.... I am glad the
wedding is over that I may depart on Monday to Tunbridge. I have
been disappointed of my lodgings, the lady who was to have left
them being ill, but I have got a house for a week till I can have
that I had hired.”
[268] The bride’s brother; her father was dead.
From Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday, June 30, Mrs. Montagu writes to her
husband, then in Hill Street--
“MY DEAREST,
“I had a very agreeable journey hither, but found my present
lodging too small to receive the maids who are to come in the
postchaise, so cannot send for them till Lady Fitzwilliam is well
enough to leave Dr. Morley’s. I can give but little account of
Tunbridge as yet. I drank the waters at the well this morning, and
have now taken leave of the walks till to-morrow, as this fine
weather will be better spent in an airing than on the Pantiles....
Lord Bath was on the Walks, and General Pulteney,[269] and Mr. and
Mrs. Torriano and Mr. Marriott. Many of the ladies are too lazy to
come down in a morning, and those that do come to the well are an
hour later than when I was here last.”
[269] Lord Bath’s brother.
[Page heading: “MOUNT EPHRAIM”]
Miss Botham now joined Mrs. Montagu, who was looking out for a house
for Lord Lyttelton.
“I believe your Lordship must accept of a house on Mount Ephraim,
which Lady Pembroke laid in last year, for I do not believe I can
get you a better. Order your postillion to stop at Mr. Dowding’s
on Mount Ephraim when you come, and there your Lordship shall be
inform’d of the certain place of your abode.”
On July 14, Dr. Stillingfleet writes from Stratton to Mrs. Montagu to
thank her for a letter, and says he was out of health and spirits;
“this has hindered me from receiving so much pleasure from the
unexpected kindness of Lord Barrington[270] as might naturally have
been expected.” He then comments on her disappointment “at the
smallness of the favour conferred upon me, for it seems to me much
superior to anything i would have expected. However favourable you,
dear Madam, may judge me, i cannot rate my talents so highly as to
think they are undervalued at £100 per ann., when no business is to
be done for it.” This was his appointment as Master of Kensington
Barracks, which took place on June 12. “I had a letter from Dr.
Monsey dated Wotton, that gives me much concern, for by his account
he seems to be in a bad state of health, and i should think by no
means qualified to travel in the _pais_ (_sic_) _du tendre_, but he
is a thorough-paced hero, and can be romantic in the midst of pain.
Should you lose your knight errant i do not think the world can
furnish you with a successor, for amongst all your other admirers
you will not perhaps meet with one who at seventy is capable of all
the tenderness which they have at twenty....” After this he alludes
to the inflammation of the eyes Mrs. Montagu was suffering from.
“If you cannot see to write he and all your friends will lose one
of their greatest pleasures. Has he prescribed the Vitriol Water?”
[270] 2nd Viscount Barrington, Secretary for War in 1755, etc.
[Page heading: THE STANLEY FAMILY]
Miss Anne Stanley, daughter of Mr. Stanley, of Paultons, Hants, and
grand-daughter of Sir Hans Sloane, now joined Mrs. Montagu from
“Clewar,” near Windsor.[271] Anne and Sarah Stanley lived with their
mother, Sarah Stanley, and were the intimate friends of Lord Lyttelton,
whom Anne mentions in a letter of July 29. “Lord Lyttelton returned
to us yesterday, and has had a bad night with the pain in his back,
which has made him resolve to give up Sunning Hill Waters.” Anne
eventually married Welbore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip. Sarah married
Christopher D’Oyley, M.P. Their one brother was the Right Hon. Hans
Stanley,[272] Lord of the Admiralty from 1757 to 1763.
[271] Now known as Clewer.
[272] He died in 1780.
On August 2 Lord Lyttelton writes from Hill Street--
“Monsieur des Champs brought me his translation of your three
Dialogues. They are as well done as the poverty of the French
tongue will admit. But such eloquence as yours must lose by being
transposed into any other language.... There is great mourning
in the gay world for poor Lady Lincoln.[273] I have seen her so
lively, so cheerfull, so happy, that it shocks me to think of her
sudden dissolution, and it frights me when I think that I have very
dear friends who may as suddenly die, and especially some whose
spirits, like hers, exceed their strength. Monsey says he cannot
tell what was the cause of her death.”
[273] Catherine Pelham, daughter of Henry Pelham, brother to the 1st
Duke of Newcastle; she died July 27, 1760.
[Page heading: BALL AT TUNBRIDGE WELLS]
In the next letter to her husband, who was going to Sandleford, Mrs.
Montagu says--
“I went to the ball last Friday, it was the first time I had been
to the publick rooms, and it had like to have been fatal to me, for
the coachman not being acquainted with the place, the night dark,
and having no flambeaux, had like to have overturned just coming
out from Joy’s Rooms, down a place where the coach would have been
entirely topsy-turvy; the footmen were thrown off from behind, but
several people being by, the coach was held up, and I got safe out,
and no hurt done to the persons or machine. My fright was such I
did not get my rest till six o’clock in the morning. I had many
civil messages in the morning, and Lord and Lady Feversham came
up the hill to inquire after me; my nerves are still a little the
worse. If the coach had fallen it would have gone down some feet,
but the standers-by behaved with great humanity, bearing a very
heavy load on their shoulders. I believe our new coachman is too
lazy to serve us. The danger I was in when John and the postillion
were drunk and had like to have overturned us on a gallop against
a post when we came from Windsor, and my second peril on Friday,
makes me tremble whenever I get into the machine.”
[Page heading: A GENTLEMAN COACHMAN]
To this Mr. Montagu replies--
“MY DEAREST,
“I am more concerned than j can express at the peril you were in.
I tremble and shudder when j consider how fatal the consequences
might have been if you had been actually overturned.... I have
inquired after the cause of this unhappy affair, and though Ned
says he cannot say the coachman was drunk, still he had been at the
Ale House, and when he came home said there was no danger, and that
the boys made almost as much noise as his Mistress. I find he is a
lazy, proud, and what they call a gentleman coachman, and such as j
would very soon get rid of.”
Ned was the head groom, and Mrs. Montagu proposed substituting him for
the coachman, as he was honest and sober. To this her husband replies,
“I wish he had more experience, but j should with all that think j run
no great hazard in trusting him, besides he might practise to go out
with the six horses of times when you did not want him.” To turn a
lumbering coach and six must have been a most intricate affair. Ned was
promoted to be coachman, but only to practise with the coach and six;
“a coachman to a Mr. Lambard, and afterwards to Captain Pannel’s heir,”
was employed when the coach went out, being then under a job-master,
one Mr. Jarret, and a chaise and pair conveyed Mrs. Montagu to the
Wells.
“The gentleman here ordered the place of my danger to be mended and
acquainted me he had done so, and hoped I should not be frighted
away from the balls.
“Sir Roger Twisden inquired much after you and my Father. He stays
but a few days here. Lord Bath was ill again yesterday, he told me
he was mortified that he had never been able to wait on me, but he
was so weak he could not venture to trouble any one with a visit. I
think he is in a bad way, but has a great deal of witt whenever he
is tolerably well. His Lordship, I know, has been prejudiced in my
favour by some of his friends, who are also friends of mine and Mr.
Domville in particular, which I believe has given him a desire to
be acquainted with me, but I believe he will hardly be able to make
a visit this season, and in London he never visits any one who does
not inhabit a ground floor. He has still a fine countenance, and
those piercing eyes that denote a mind extraordinarily lively and
penetrating.”
[Page heading: CHARACTER OF LORD BATH]
William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, was born in April, 1684, hence he
was at this period turned seventy-six. He had lost his wife, _née_
Anna Maria Gumley, in 1758. Mrs. Montagu must have known him in a
superficial society way, as a description of a great rout given by
Lady Bath some years previously is in this book. But now was to
commence that tender intimacy and affectionate friendship between them
that lasted to his death, and which prompted him, even in the act of
dying, to stagger from his bed and write a few lines of adieu to her
as his last effort--sacred lines which I possess and treasure! For
his political character I must refer the reader to history, and the
“Dictionary of National Biography.” As regards his private character
I cannot do better than quote Elizabeth Carter’s account of him in
“Memoirs of her Life.” It was probable that through Mrs. Carter, who
was a great friend of his, he began to appreciate the manifold charms
of Elizabeth Montagu. This is what Mrs. Carter says--
“None of his friends, I believe, will remember him longer and
very few with equal affection. Indeed, there was something in his
conversation and manners more engaging than can be described. With
all those talents which had so long rendered him the object of
popular admiration, he had not the least tincture of that vanity
and importance which is too often the consequence of popular
applause. He never took the lead in conversation, or even assumed
that superiority to which he had a claim, as he was blessed with
an exemption from many of the pains and infirmities of old age; he
had none of its defects. In so many months as I was continually in
his company last year (1763), I do not recollect a single instance
of peevishness the whole time. His temper always appeared equal.
There was a perpetual flow of vivacity and good humour in his
conversation, and the most attentive politeness in his behaviour,
nor was this the constrained effort of external and partial good
breeding, but the natural turn of his mind, and operated so
uniformly on all occasions that I never heard him use a harsh or
even an uncivil expression to any of his servants.”
[Page heading: LORD MANSFIELD]
At the end of Mrs. Montagu’s letter she states that Lord Mansfield[274]
had shown her
“great civilities the few hours he was here ... an old quaker
of four-score, who was reckoned one of the greatest Chymists in
Europe, and is a man of witt and learning and who was connected
with all the witts of the last age, has taken a great fancy to
me because he will believe, in spite of all I can say, that I
wrote certain ‘Dialogues,’ and he sits by me so cordially and
attends on me so much, that if he was forty and I was twenty years
younger it would be scandalous.... Torriano will be kill’d by the
Archbishop’s[275] sumptuous fare, who feeds more like a pig of
Epicurus than the head of a Christian Church.”
[274] William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, born 1704, died 1793;
eminent statesman, Lord Chief Justice, etc.
[275] John Gilbert, Archbishop of York, 1757 to 1761. Torriano seems
to have been then his secretary.
[Page heading: WINNING A COAL MINE]
Mr. Montagu had been at Sandleford, where Morris, his wife, and
little boy were spending some time. The little Morris was a great
favourite, and delight to poor Mr. Montagu, who loved children. He
was now preparing to set off northwards to Northumberland, having two
collieries which he was going to work, or, as the expression was, to
“win,” viz. Leamington and “Denton.” The first would cost a £1000, the
latter, now called “Montagu’s main,” £5000. He consults his wife about
all this, and adds, “I think j shall not while j live get rid of the
trouble my succession has brought upon me, and have only one object,
who, j hope, will reap the benefit of all my labour.” This meant his
wife. At Tunbridge his wife, with “all our fine ladies and gentlemen,”
was attending Mr. Ferguson’s lectures on Philosophy. In a letter of
Lord Lyttelton’s he mentions his brother Richard. “Sir Richard, or
rather ‘Duke Lyttelton’s’[276] Royall villa at Richmond, a finer room
I never saw, and he seems made to sitt in it, with all the dignity of
a gouty Prince. But though I greatly admired it, I would not have his
gout to have his room.”
[276] He had married the Dowager Duchess of Bridgewater in 1745. She
was second wife to Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater.
To this letter a long answer is returned by Mrs. Montagu, and she
informs Lord Lyttelton that, despite her eyes being very weak, she had
been reading
“the new translation of Sophocles.... The Œdipus Coloneus affected
me extreamly, and would have done so more if it had not been for
the constant presence of the Chorus, but the passions are awed
and checked by a crowd. I am more than ever averse to the Chorus
because, though the translator tells us the Choruses of Sophocles
are less alien to the subject of the Drama, than those of any other
tragedian, yet here they hurt the interest of it very much.”
[Page heading: LADY HERVEY]
[Page heading: HAGLEY PARK]
She adds that she has “sent 4 sets of dressing boxes from hence as
your Lordship desired. At the same time I took the liberty to send
on a cheap set of tea-cups and coffee cups for a Tunbridge faring.”
Lord Lyttelton returns answer, saying, “I dined at Dicky Bateman’s
half gothick, half attick, half chinese and completely fribble house.”
There he met “my old Love, Lady Hervey,[277] and my new love, Mrs.
Hancock[278] not to mention Lady Primrose,[279] for whom I have a great
friendship.” Lord Lyttelton was highly delighted with a favourable
criticism of his first volumes of his “History of Henry II.” by
the great Earl of Hardwicke,[280] too long to be inserted here.
Lord Lyttelton had been rebuilding[281] Hagley House, his seat in
Worcestershire, which was about to be publicly reopened. On August 18
he writes from there to say he has had to put this off till September 1.
“I have the pleasure to tell you that I find everything done
incomparably well, as far as is done, and that the Beauty and
Elegance of my House, upon the whole, exceeds my expectations. The
bed which is adorned with your handywork is so pretty that if you
were to see it I think you would own your pains were not lost.
And then the prospect out of that chamber is so delightful, and
in case of a rainy day the prints it is hung with are so amusing
that if you were at Hagley I believe you would wish to lodge there
yourself, and leave the best apartment to vulgar women of quality,
who love finery better than the delicate beauties of Nature and
Art. My lower print room in the Atticks is also much obliged to you
for the boxes of its Toilette, which suit admirably well with the
furniture of it.”
He then points out to her that “the glass lustres and the feathers for
my bedroom are wanting,” and to order their despatch.
[277] A celebrated beauty, _née_ Mary Lepell, widow of John, Lord
Hervey, Pope’s “Sporus.”
[278] Mrs. Hancock, sister-in-law to Mrs. Vesey by Mrs. Vesey’s
first marriage.
[279] Lady Primrose, widow of 3rd Viscount Primrose.
[280] Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, born 1690, died 1764;
Lord Chancellor, etc.
[281] Mr. Millar was the architect.
In reply to this Mrs. Montagu writes to Tom, to spare his father’s
writing, to say she delivered the girandoles herself to Mr. Griffith.
“I shall be mortified if they do not make part of the glories of
the first.... My imagination will attend all the ceremonies of the
day, and should my spirit appear it will not come like Banquo’s
ghost to frown on the banquet, and least of all to frighten and
menace the noble Master of the feast to whom I wrote a long and
happy enjoyment of his new palace.”
Anne Stanley now left Mrs. Montagu, and her sister Sarah, afterwards
Mrs. D’Oyley, took her place.
Mr. Montagu, who was contemplating going to Northumberland, paid
his wife a short visit at Tunbridge, and started back to London on
September 2. On September 4 his wife, in her letter to him, says--
“You may remember to have heard Lord Bath talk of a robbery here
which a gentleman was suspected to have committed, of Bank bills to
the amount of £300; this person, finding he was suspected, it is
supposed, threw them this morning into the musick gallery on the
Walks, where one of the Fidlers found them, and is entitled to £30
reward. The person who was guilty of this theft is a gentleman,
and his brother is an officer of credit in the army, so one is glad
he escapes, but the circumstances almost amount to a conviction.
The person robbed was so overjoy’d at finding his bills he seem’d
in a fever this morning.”
[Page heading: DR. MONSEY’S WAYS]
Dr. Monsey, seriously unwell, but anxious to see his beloved friend,
paid Mrs. Montagu a short visit at Tunbridge to take farewell of her
before her setting out to join her husband in Northumberland. In a
letter to Lord Lyttelton of September 7 she says--
“The great Monsey came hither on Friday and stays till Thursday,
he is an excellent piece of Tunbridge Ware. He is great in the
Coffee house, great in the rooms, and great on the Pantiles. Bucks,
Divines, Misses, and Virtuosi are all equally agreeable to him.
Miss Sally Stanley leaves me on Friday. There is no abatement of
Lord Bath’s[282] passion and I have had two sides of folio paper
from the Bishop of London,[283] so affectionate, so polite, so
badine it would surprise you. I answered his Lordship’s first
letter, concerning the ‘Highland Poems,’[284] and with great
deference urged the reasons which induced me to esteem them
genuine. His Lordship pays great compliment to what I had said
on the subject, answering other parts of my letter with spirit
and gaiety, and at last concludes that, in spite of 83, without
a voice, and with shaking hands, he had endeavoured to follow my
train of thought, which he should always look upon as a very good
direction.”
[282] Lord Bath had become an ardent admirer of her.
[283] Thomas Sherlock, born 1678, died 1761.
[284] Macpherson’s “Fragments of Ancient Poetry,” from the Gaelic.
She then informs Lord Lyttelton--
“I shall take leave of Tunbridge to-morrow sennight, the 15th of
September. I shall take two days’ rest in London, and propose to
set out on Thursday, 18th....”
[Page heading: MR. ALLAN RAMSAY]
Mrs. Montagu had invited Mr. and Mrs. Allan Ramsay to visit her at
Tunbridge. Allan Ramsay was a portrait painter of note, son of Allan
Ramsay[285] the Scotch poet, who wrote “The Gentle Shepherd” and other
poems. He writes on September 11 thus--
[285] Allan Ramsay, the poet, born 1686, died 1758.
“MADAM,
“By a letter from my wife last post, I learn that you have been
so good as to renew your invitation to us to be your guests at
Tunbridge--an offer so advantageous that my not availing myself of
it sooner must put my understanding in a suspicious light, from
whence I should be glad to have it extricated and not to write
so long an Apology as Colley Cibber’s for my life, thus it is.
Two small daughters were inoculated; it was necessary for me and
mine to perform quarantine at a distance from many of our most
respectable friends, particularly from you; I had some business
to settle in Scotland, and my friend Wedderburne[286] was going
thither alone. Having finished my business within my fortnight of
Quarantine, I have been detained from day to day in hopes of seeing
his Grace of Argyll, of whose setting out we got the first certain
account yesterday by a letter from Grantham. Whether this relation
will give you a more favourable opinion of my sense than you would
have had without it, I don’t know, but by much drinking with David
Hume and his associates, I have learnt to be very historical; and
am nightly confirmed in the belief that it is much easier to tell
the _How_ than the _Why_ of any thing, and that it is, moreover,
better suited to the state of man; who, we are satisfied from
self-examination, is anything rather than a rational animal. I
am sorry to hear that you propose to leave Tunbridge so soon as
the 15th. If you happen to have such heavenly weather there as we
have in this place, you will be probably tempted to stay some days
longer; in which case my wife and I may still enjoy the pleasure,
with which we flattered ourselves, of passing a day or two with
you. I see by the newspapers that Admiral Boscawen is come safe
home, and when you write to the Lady, be so good as to transmit my
hearty congratulations, who am, with the greatest respect,
“Madam,
“Your most obliged
and most faithfull Servant,
“ALLAN RAMSAY.
“Edinburgh, Sept. 11, 1760.”
[286] Sir John Wedderburne, born 1729, died 1803.
[Page heading: LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF PORTLAND]
[Page heading: HIGHLAND POEMS]
On September 15 Mrs. Montagu returned to Hill Street. On Thursday, the
18th, she enclosed Bishop Sherlock’s[287] letter to her for the Duchess
of Portland to read.
[287] Thomas Sherlock, born 1678, died 1761.
“Hill Street, Thursday.
“MADAM,
“I have enclosed the Bishop of London’s letter, which I beg of your
Grace to keep till you have a leisure hour in which I may receive
it from your hands, either here or at Whitehall; in the mean time
I am perfectly satisfied as to the letter being safe, and shall
not wish to have it return’d till it is most convenient to your
Grace to pay me for any pleasure it may have given you, by that I
shall have in its procuring me an hour of your company. I think
indeed the letter will afford you a good deal of pleasure, it must
be a great comfort to every good mind to see how religion can
impart not only patience but even cheerfulness under the greatest
bodily infirmities. I find it will be necessary to trouble your
Grace with some explanation of the Bishop’s letter. Before I went
to Tunbridge, I sent his Lordship the ‘Highland Poems,’[288] by
the Dean of York, and the day before I went to Tunbridge my Lord
sent them back with a very obliging note to thank me for them, but
express’d his opinion that they were not genuine. I was a little
distress’d by this favour, as I had not an opportunity to wait on
the Bishop before my journey. I thought to write to him and assume
the air of being his correspondent would have too much appearance
of presumption, and not to thank him for his note might look like
neglect, so I waited till the season allow’d me to send him some
wheatears and to assure him I wrote only as his poulterer. As it
was natural to take notice of what his Lordship had said concerning
the poems, I ventured with the utmost deference to give the reasons
why I should have believed them to be genuine and original, and
then return’d back to my character of Poulterer and desir’d his
Lordship to forgive my presumption and order my letter to be put
on the wheatears when roasting to preserve them from being burnt.
I ask pardon for this long story, but it was necessary as a key to
the Bishop’s letter. Your Grace will find some mistakes made by his
Secretary.
“I was misinform’d the other night when I told your Grace Mr.
Wortley Montague was gone abroad, he is in England, but where is
a secret even to his lawyer, and those who are imploy’d on his
affairs. I thought it right to let your Grace know this, as it
appears to me very singular, as he is now under the protection of
privilege. I know you will be so good as not to mention I told your
Grace this unless it be to Lady Bute, who I should think had better
know this circumstance. I beg my best respects to my Lord Duke, and
Lady Harriet Bentinck.
“With the greatest regard,
“I am, Madam,
“Your Grace’s
most obliged most obedᵗ
and faithful humble Servᵗ,
“E. MONTAGU.”
[288] “Fragments of Ancient Poetry,” translated from the Erse or
Gaelic language, by James Macpherson.
[Page heading: BISHOP SHERLOCK’S LETTER]
[Page heading: “MORE LAST WORDS”]
This is the Bishop’s letter--
“Fulham, ye 1st Septembʳ, 1760.
“MADAM,
“When I was a boy at Eton school, I remember it was a Principle of
the Law Marshall (practised there): that he who gave the second
blow was the beginner of the Fray; and there is something in it,
if you consider it; however at this time, it will help to excuse
me from the Presumption and folly of inviting you to a Combat, in
which I can have no hopes of success. When I read on, and observe
with what accuracy and finesse you trace the motions of the Heart,
and call Nature from the inmost recess’s to discover plainly what
arts is usually employ’d to conceal; I am confounded.
“It is true indeed that you have named the Passions and
Qualifications of the person to be Described, but what Work will a
man make, who should think that he had got all the Secrets; tho’
he was unacquainted or incapable to understand it, to such a man.
Alexander the Great and _Diogines_ (_sic_) are Characters alike,
for they were both Actuated by the Spirit of Ambition, one who
wanted a new World to display himself in, the other valued nothing
beyond the Tub he lived in. In the midst of this Philosophical
enquirey about the Passions, you very artfully turn to your Family
Affairs and give (I doubt not) excellent directions to the Cook wᶜʰ
shows you to be as great in the Kitchin as in the Closet, which
indeed is the only way of being great in either.
“Nothing, I think, is more disagreeable than Learning in a Female,
when the Mistress studys Newton, which perhaps she neither does
nor ever will understand, to the absolute neglect of her Children
and Servants. You conclude by putting in your claim for the Lady’s
Privilege, which is a very extensive one; give me leave to tell you
a short story.
“There was a poor Printer who had got a little sum of Money, by
publishing the last words of a dying Criminal, and he grew so fond
of last words, that after the Man had been long dead, he published
another paper called MORE last words. Thus you see, Madam, that I
have in spite of eighty-three, without a Voice, and with shaking
Hands, endeavoured to follow your Strain of thought, which I shall
always look upon to be a very good direction. My time of Life calls
upon me to think of other Subjects, and the greatest of all to
_Justifie the ways of God to men_. This theme can never wear out,
it takes in the whole of God’s Dispensation, with respect to the
Religion of the World, and shows by the connection in the several
parts that the whole is the work of perfect Wisdom.
“But I am going to preach instead of Answering a short letter, you
will pardon me for looking back upon my old profession, and believe
me to be, with the greatest Sincerity,
“Madam,
“Your most obedient Humble Servᵗ,
“THO: LONDON.
“P.S.--Mrs. Sherlock and Mrs. Chester desire their respectfull
compliments.”
The Bishop’s amanuensis’ spelling and capital letters are singular. The
letter is signed in trembling characters, “Tho: London.”
[Page heading: DR. YOUNG]
On September 19 Mrs. Montagu set out from Hill Street on her journey to
Northumberland, starting in a postchaise and picking up Ned and her own
horses at Baldock, and so reached Buckden on the same day. She writes
to Mr. Montagu--
“I call’d on Dr. Young at Welling and staid about two hours with
him, he received me with great cordiality, and I think appears in
better health than ever I saw him. His house is happily opposite to
a church yard, which is to him a fine prospect; he has taught his
imagination to sport with skulls like the grave-digger in Hamlet.
He invited me to stay all night, and if my impatience to see you
had not impell’d me on, I had been tempted to it. His conversation
has always something in it very delightful; in the first place it
is animated by the warmest benevolence, then his imagination soars
above the material world, some people would say his conversation
is not natural. I say it is natural of him to be unnatural, that
is out of the ordinary course of things. It would be easier for
him to give you a catalogue of the Stars than an inventory of the
Household furniture he uses every day. The busy world may say what
it pleases, but some men were made for speculation, metaphysical
men, like jars and flower pots, make good furniture for a cabinet
tho’ useless in the kitchen, the pantry and the Dairy.”
In a fragment of a letter to Lord Lyttelton, Mrs. Montagu describes her
visit to Dr. Young. She had heard “the Dialogues of the Dead praised
to the highest degree, and with taste and judgment in a most delicate
sense of their moral merits.”
Through Mrs. Montagu, Dr. Monsey sends to Dr. Young a powder for his
rheumatism. From “Hog Magog” on September 26, Dr. Monsey writes a long
letter to Lord Lyttelton, describing his visit to Tunbridge to see
“dear Amadissa,” meaning Mrs. Montagu. In it he says--
“It may be new to your Lordship tho’ not strange, that the Earl
of Bath is fall’n desperately in love with one who seems not
insensible of his passion, and I think ’tis time for you and I
to look about us, for an Earl is better than a Baron or a quack
Doctor ... it is impossible for me to tell your Lordship with what
warmth he talk’d to me about her, and so now there are 3 fools of
us. ‘She is the most extraordinary woman in the world’ with a nod
of the head and a grave face, ‘she beats a french Duchess with an
hard name all to pieces, upon my word, Doctor, she is----’ ‘Ay,
so she is, my Lord, but neither I nor you know what.’ ‘Suppose
we say angel.’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘Devil, for she leads us all into
temptation.’”
On receipt of this, Lord Lyttelton wrote to Mrs. Montagu, and says--
“I wish Lady Hervey[289] mayn’t poison you for stealing Lord Bath
from her, as for myself, I will not plead against him as my Rival
that I am a younger man (for that plea you will not regard) but
that I am an older friend. Adieu, inconstant woman, I feel horribly
jealous, but if you won’t love me better, pray love me next to Lord
Bath.”
He also chaffs her for spoiling Miss Stanley’s chance of marrying Lord
Bath.
[289] Lady Hervey was a great friend of Lord Bath’s.
[Page heading: MR. BOWES’ FUNERAL]
[Page heading: SIR JAMES COLEBROOKE]
From Newcastle, on September 26, Mrs. Montagu writes to her father--
“SIR,
“I arrived here last night and had the pleasure of finding Mr.
Montagu very well. He went this morning to Gibside to attend Mr.
Bowes’[290] funeral obsequies, which according to the custom of
this county are to be very pompous. Lord Ravensworth, Sir Walter
Blacket and all the gentlemen of Northumberland and the county of
Durham are to be at it, and I fear it will be late at night before
it is over, tho’ they are to set out about 4 from Gibside to go
to the church. My cousin Rogers’ funeral we had order’d to be as
private as decency would permit, as he had been so long dead to
Society, but even that was attended by 38 gentlemen’s coaches,
so I suppose a publick funeral must be three or four hundred. In
the South people live with more pomp and dye with less. I hope
not to outlive all my vanity, for I have seldom seen a good and
never an agreeable character without it, but I think it should not
survive one, and I should desire not to go to the grave with all
this bustle, not that I should be afraid any one should say of my
funeral, as Pope does of Sir John Cutler’s--
“‘When dead a thousand lights attend
The wretch who, living, sav’d a candle’s end.’
I love a blaze of wax lights and my friends about my living person
very well, but the torches and the crowd about my dead body would
give me neither light nor amusement. Sir Walter Blacket call’d
here this morning, and said he hoped to ride in Hyde Park with
you about the 15th of November. I had a very pleasant journey,
for fine weather, like a good-humoured companion, makes ordinary
scenes appear chearfull and pleasant, but from the time I left
Hertfordshire till I got to Doncaster, the counties I pass’d
through were dreary and barren, but if these prospects in the other
counties were brown, these in Northumberland are bleak, the people
in them a parcel of dirty Savages, so that I cannot say with the
Psalmist that my lot is fallen in a fair ground, it is some comfort
it is in a rich one, as I shall see its produce at Sir James
Colebrooke’s in Threadneedle Street with great pleasure.... I met
Sir Thomas Clavering just before I got to Darlington; he desired me
to present his best respects to you and beg your vote and interest,
he sets up for the county of Durham in the room of Mr. Bowes.
Mr. Montagu gives him all his interest. If the Bishop of Durham
should declare for Mr. Shaftoe (a very young man whose Father
formerly served for Durham), Sir Thomas will be hard press’d. Lord
Darlington will support Mr. Shaftoe, and most people imagine the
Bishop of Durham will do so too. When applied to for Sir Thomas
Clavering, he answered he should act as he found most agreeable
to the majority of the county gentlemen. Now I imagine Bishops as
well as women (both wear petticoats and a character of gentleness)
command while seeming to submit, ‘and win their way by yielding to
the tyde,’ and that my Lord Bishop in a mild way of suggestion will
bring the gentlemen to that side he likes best, while he persuades
them he follows their inclination. I must say his Lordship is much
beloved from his liberality and affability, which are fine moral
qualities, as to Xian graces, no doubt but he has them in a higher
degree, so that as Prince Palatine or Bishop he must influence
many. The Dean of Durham is strongly engaged to Sir Thomas, and
there will be a sort of schism in the church.”
The Montagus were residing in Pilgrim Street, at the town house of the
late Mr. Rogers; “an exceeding good house” it is called. In conclusion
Mrs. Montagu says, “I shall send you some fatted moor game by the first
opportunity.”
[290] George Bowes, of Gibside and Streatlam Castle.
[Page heading: MISS BOWES]
On October 11 Lord Lyttelton writes a long letter to “Madonna” from
Hagley, commenting on Mr. Bowes’ death.
“As his vanity descends with his estate to his daughter, I don’t
wish to see her my daughter-in-law, though she would make my
son one of the richest and consequently, in our present ideas
of greatness, one of the great peers of the Realm. But she will
probably be the prize of some needy Duke, who will want her estate
to repair the disasters of Newmarket and Arthur’s, or if she
marries for love, of some ensign of the Guards, or smart Militia
captain.”
[Page heading: LINDRIDGE]
Lord Lyttelton had just lost his clerical friend, Mr. Meadowcourt, of
Lindridge, to whom he pays a high tribute.
“His house was the abode of Philosophical quiet and disinterested
friendship. The scene about it was elegant, mild and beautifull
Nature. The Hills on each side and the vale underneath it were
covered with orchards, with Hop yards, with corn or fine grazing
grounds thro’ which wound a river.... Now the Master is dead it
is fall’n to the dullest of all dull Divines, one Stillingfleet,
cousin to him you know, who has not taste enough to live there
himself, but leaves it to a curate. He desires his compliments to
Dr. Gregory, who was staying with the Montagus, and adds, ‘I am
glad the Scotch like my Dialogues.’ He also desires if the Bishop
of Ossory (Richard Pococke) is with them to send him on to Hagley,
and assures Mrs. Montagu he is very well and grown quite plump.
His thinness was a constant joke with his friends, who called him
nothing but bones, and he contends if weighed in the balance with
Lord Bath, he would be found ‘very wanting.’ The Devil take him for
having so much witt with so much flesh. He commends his new house
and his daughter, now living with him.”
Dr. Monsey writes to Mrs. Montagu from St. James’s on October 12,
beginning the letter at 10 a.m., continued at 9 p.m., and finished the
next day at Claremont. At the end of this letter he says that he has
been very unwell and reported dead; he had made his will.
“While I am writing I have your letter come in, which gives an
account of my death, which is true, but save yourself the trouble
of an epitaph for me or your funeral sermon, for I have _really_
given my body away by will to a Surgeon at Cambridge, who is to
make a skeleton of my bones for the use of students in Physic, so
if you have begun your epitaph with ‘Here he’s interr’d, etc.,’
change it to ‘Here hang the bones, etc.,’ and convert your sermon
into an Osteological Lecture.”
[Page heading: THE GREEK PLAYS AND SHAKESPEARE]
Mrs. Montagu, in a long letter to Lord Lyttelton upon Euripides’ and
Sophocles’ plays contrasted with Shakespeare’s, says--
“I am actually an inhabitant of Newcastle, and am taking out my
freedom, not out of a gold box, but by entering into all the
diversions of the place. I was at a musical entertainment yesterday
morning, at a concert last night, at a musical entertainment this
morning. I have bespoken a play for to-morrow night, and shall go
to a ball on choosing a Mayor on Monday night.”
[Page heading: MR. RUST]
To this Lord Lyttelton replies from Hagley on October 18--
“You tell me, good Madonna, that you are grown _as robust as a
milkmaid_. If you are so, I have no objection to your going to
Balls, Plays or Poppet Shows if you please every night; but you
have sometimes the spirits of a milkmaid without the strength.
However, I believe Diversions are better for you than too much
reading, and therefore I am not sorry you have no time to committ
excess with your books. If I were to live with you, I would not
trust you in a Library or alone in your Room but at stated hours
with proper Intervals of exercise and conversation.... I am glad
to hear we shall have another volume of Highland Poems. To stay
your stomach (for, as I know, your appetite is eager towards them),
I send you a copy of four of a later date than the others now
printed, and not much inferior to them in the Natural Beauty and
Force of Description, tho’ not, I think, so bold and sublime. Being
purely descriptive, they could have nothing dramatic or passionate
in them as most of the others have. But at the end of these you
will find some objections I have as a Chronologist and Historian to
the authenticity of the printed ones which it will be hard to get
over. Yet I am not persuaded myself they are not genuine, for who
can write so now? Mr. Rust[291] was so struck with them, he read
them every morning and evening aloud to the Family as a Chaplain
does Prayers. And the more I consider them, the more I admire them.
I have seen some specimens in a Latin translation of the Poetry
of the two most admired Welsh Bards, but they don’t in any degree
approach to the greatness and the Beauty of these. I am charmed
with your comparison between the Greek Plays and Shakespear. He
is indeed unequalled in the power of painting Nature as she is
and giving you sometimes the utmost energy of a Character of a
Passion in short Stroke and Dash of his Pen. I also agree with
you that the moral Reflexions in Shakespear’s Plays are much more
affecting by coming warm from the Heart of the interested persons,
than putt into the mouth of a chorus, as in the Greek Plays. I am
glad you like my favourite Philoctetes. The faults you find with
the Ajax are perfectly just, yet I feel the grief of that hero
when he returns to his Reason, and especially in the scene between
him and Termessa. Suppose Belisarius had gone mad with the unjust
Disgrace he had suffer’d, and in his Distraction had done actions
which dishonoured and exposed him to the Ridicule of his enemies,
what a fine subject would it be for a play if he had killed himself
upon recovering the Use of Reason. Setting aside the poetical
Fiction, Ajax is Belisarius, and Sophocles has painted the horrors
of a great mind so overwhelmed and confounded with shame in a very
masterly manner.... I am glad your three Dialogues are well liked
in Scotland, where the Author is not known. Those who know you
and believe they are yours are hardly fair judges. Your form and
manners would seduce Apollo himself in his throne of criticism on
Parnassus itself....”
[291] Mr. Rust was travelling companion to the son of Mr. Hoare, of
Stourhead, the great banker.
Alluding to her visit to Tunbridge and the society there, he says--
“There is Envy and Malice enough against Beauty alone, but
Beauty, Wit, Wisdom, Learning and Virtue united (to say nothing
about Wealth) are sure to excite a Legion of Devils against the
Possessor. It is amazing to me that with all these dangerous things
about you you have not been driven out of Society a great while
ago.”
In a fragment of a letter Lord Lyttelton writes, “I presume Lady Hervey
really likes them (the Dialogues), Lord Chesterfield’s warmth in their
Praise has secured her vote in their favour, in spite of Horace Walpole
and of Lord Bath.”
[Page heading: GREEN TEA AND SNUFF]
From Newcastle, on October 24, Mrs. Montagu writes to Mrs. Carter,
telling her she had been suffering from toothache. She mentions a
sonnet sent to her by Mrs. Carter, “which would have given me a
pleasing melancholy if it had not represented your state and condition
as it did; it cost me some tears and obliged me to go from table where
I received your letter. Teach me to love you less or imitate you
better. I admire the resignation with which you submit to your pain.”
Mrs. Carter suffered from excruciating headaches at this period. Lord
Bath said that if she would drink less green tea, take less snuff, and
not study so much, they would disappear.
Mrs. Montagu says the house at Newcastle was very comfortable, and
instead of an equipage, she could pay visits to her neighbours in a
Sedan chair.
“That I might not offend here I enter’d into all the diversions
of this town, visits, concerts, plays, and balls. The desire of
pleasure and love of dissipation rages here as much as in London.
Diversions here are less elegant and conversation less polite, but
no one imagines retirement has any comforts, so that in a little
while if one would enjoy retired leisure one must dwell amidst
inaccessible mountains and unnavigable rivers.”
Dr. and Mrs. Delany had just paid a visit to Hagley, which pleased them
much. Dean Lyttelton, writing on October 25 from Hagley, regrets that
Bishop Pococke (of Ossory) had not visited Hagley on his return from
Northumberland, where he had been staying with the Montagus. Evidently
old Mrs. Pococke, the Bishop’s wife, was dead, as the Dean says it is
fortunate for the Bishop his sister has made up her mind to remain at
Newtown.[292]
“Such a low-bred, narrow-spirited woman would disgrace an episcopal
house.... Mr. Palgrave spent two days here last week, and brought
us some new Erse poems which Lord Lyttelton sent you a few days
since. His strange figure and awkward silent behaviour did not
recommend him greatly to the inhabitants of Hagley, or do much
honour to my nephew’s taste in his friendships.”
[292] Her mother’s house near Newbury.
[Page heading: DEATH OF KING GEORGE II.]
[Page heading: GEORGE III. KING]
On October 25 King George II. died suddenly. Dr. Monsey wrote to inform
Mrs. Montagu of this event, from St. James’s, and that--
“The suddenness of his Death made people call it an apoplexy, but
I conclude otherwise from it. An apoplexy, except when a vessel
breaks in the brain, is not so very rapid. People live four or six
days or more, that is, they breathe and have a pulse. The King
died in an instant, and from some strange odd faintnesses and
oppressions upon his breath, I was almost sure ’twas in his heart
or the great vessels near. And upon opening him, the Aorta, the
canal which receives the Blood directly, was found burst (a very
uncommon case), the Duke of Leeds says. I have known and seen it
thickened, cartilaginous (crusty), and ossified, but I never met
with a broken one; however, ’tis a species of Death he wished for,
sudden, and nothing could be more so than this, for the instant
that vessel breaks, the heart stops for ever and for ever....
“The King[293] had a levee to-day at one o’clock at Leicester
House, and the Duke of Leeds, who with Mr. Godolphin dined with us
to-day, says he so designs every day. No women are to appear at
Court yet, so you may finish your affairs without being in a hurry.
The Court goes into mourning on Sunday next ’tis said, and about a
month hence the King is to be buried.”
[293] George III.
From Hagley, on October 26, Lord Lyttelton writes--
“MADONNA,
“The sudden death of the King will make me leave this place
to-morrow, a week sooner than I had intended, and I propose to be
in town on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is only to notify you, as I
have not a moment to spare. I suppose all things will go on as they
did for some time in the Court and the Nation. Certainly it is no
season for any great changes. As to my own situation, I doubt not
it will be as it is. The Dean received an admirable letter from you
last Post. I have read it over and over with infinite pleasure.
Come well to London, and let all the world go as it will. Adieu,
you shall hear from me again as soon as I have seen my friends in
Town, and can tell you any news. I am perfectly well, and am, Madam,
“Your most faithfull
and obedient humble Servᵗ,
“LYTTELTON.
“My respectfull compliments to Mr. Montagu.”
[Page heading: ON THE DEATH OF GEORGE II.]
[Page heading: MR. MACPHERSON]
To this Mrs. Montagu replies--
“Newcastle, ye 31st October, 1760.
“MY LORD,
“It would be perfect sacrilege and robbing the mighty dead of his
due rites, if one began one’s letter with any subject but the loss
of our sovereign; on which I condole with your Lordship, in whom
the virtue of Patriotism, and the antequated one of Loyalty still
remain. I know you had that veneration for our late King which
the justice and prudence of his government so well deserved. With
him our laws and liberties were safe; he possessed in a great
degree the confidence of his people and the respect of foreign
governments; and a certain steadiness of character made him of
great consequence in these unsettled times. During his long
reign we never were subject to the insolence and rapaciousness
of favourites, a grievance of all others most intolerable when
persons born only one’s equals shall by the basest means perhaps
possess themselves of all the strength of sovereign power, and keep
their fellow subjects in a dependance on illegal authority, which
insults while it subjects, and is more grievous to the spirits than
even to the fortunes of free-born men. If we consider only the
evils we have avoided during his late Majesty’s reign, we shall
find abundant matter of gratitude towards him and respect for his
memory. His character would not afford subject for Epic poetry, but
will look well in the sober page of history. Conscious, perhaps, of
this, he was too little regardful of sciences and the fine arts; he
considered common sense as his best panegyrist. The monarch whose
qualities are brilliant enough to entitle him to glory, cultivates
the love of the Muses, and their handmaid arts, painting,
sculpture, etc., sensible that they will blazon and adorn his fame.
I hope our young Monarch will copy his predecessor’s solid virtues,
and if he endeavours to make them more brilliant by the help of
poetry, eloquence, etc., etc., the happiness and glory of Britain
will be great. His present Majesty’s religious disposition, and
decent moral conduct, give us hope we shall not be plunged into
riot, and lost in debauchery and libertinism, which, if it were to
take place at Court, would soon affect a rich and luxurious nation,
and the profaneness and immorality of Charles the Second’s days
would, from the more prosperous state of our nation at present, be
outdone....
“I will now thank your Lordship for your letter and the Highland
compositions. Your remarks go far in staggering my faith as to
their authenticity. I think they convince me the poems cannot
be as ancient as pretended. It seems to me possible, that some
great bard might from uncertain and broken tradition, and from
the scattered songs of former bards, form an epic poem, which
might not agree with history. The pillars in the hall of Fingal
struck me at first reading; but I imagined they might not refer
to polished marble pillars, but to smooth lime or beech trees
which one may suppose to have been used as supporters in very rude
buildings, and which would look smooth and shapely to one not used
to polished marble; and I imagine convenience taught the use of
such supporters long before they were introduced as ornaments....
I hear Lord Marchmont says our old Highland bard is a modern
gentleman of his acquaintance; if it is so, we have a living Poet
who may dispute the _pas_ on Parnassus with Pindar and the greatest
of the ancients, and I honour him for carrying the Muses into the
country and letting them step majestic over hills, mountains and
rivers instead of tamely walking in the Park or Piccadilly....
The Bishop of Ossory tells me Mr. Macpherson receives an £100 per
annum subscription while he stays in the Highlands to translate the
poems; if he is writing them, he should have a thousand at least....
“Dr. Gregory, in talking of Mr. Hume, said he had a great respect
for your Lordship. The Dialogue of Bayle and Locke could not be
agreeable to him.... Dr. Gregory says Mr. Hume told him he spent
an evening with me at Mr. Ramsay’s, and he had received very
favourable impressions of me, and, I find, said much more of me
than I deserve. The Doctor told him I was not of his freethinking
system, but Mr. Hume thinks that no fault in a woman.... Dr. Monsey
is revenging my coquetry with Lord Bath by an assiduous courtship
of Miss Talbot, but he can no more be untrue to me than the needle
to the pole!”
[Page heading: “GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY”]
The same day, October 31, Lord Lyttelton writes from his house in Hill
Street--
“MADONNA,
“According to my promise, I now write to tell you the news of the
town; and it is with great pleasure that I can assure you all
parties unite in the strongest expressions of zeal and affection
for our young King, and approbation of his behaviour. Since his
accession he has shown the most obliging kindness to all the
royal family, and done everything that was necessary to give his
government quiet and unanimity in this difficult crisis.... There
will be no changes in the ministry, and I believe few at Court. The
Duke of Newcastle hesitated some time whether he should undertake
his arduous office in a new reign, but has yielded at last to the
earnest Desires of the King himself, of the Duke of Cumberland,
and of the heads of all Parties and Factions, even those who were
formerly most hostile to him. His friend and mine, Lord Hardwicke,
has been most graciously talked to by the King in two or three
audiences, and will, I doubt not, continue in the Cabinet Council
with the weight and influence he ought to have there.... Lord
George Sackville has been admitted to kiss the king’s hand, and
thus ends my _gazette extraordinary_. As for myself, I got well
to town on Wednesday night, was at Court on Thursday morning, was
spoken graciously to by the King, and am told by everybody that I
grow fat.” He then urges Mrs. Montagu to return from Northumberland
at once. “I have often told you that you are a mere hot-house
plant, fine and rare, but incapable of enduring the cold of our
climate, if you are not housed the first day that the white frosts
come in.
“I found Mrs. Pitt in pretty good health and spirits; she is
_well-housed_, though she has left your palace in Hill Street.”
[Page heading: GEORGE II.--WILL]
This was Anne Pitt,[294] late maid of honour, who had been staying in
Mrs. Montagu’s house till her own was furnished. Further on in the same
letter he says--
“The King has opened his grandfather’s Will in presence of all the
royal family, and it is said the Duke of Cumberland is heir to the
much greater part of what his Majesty had to dispose of, but that
is much less than was supposed. The next best share is the Princess
Emilia’s.[295] The sums are not mentioned. Mr. Pitt has just had
a new and very extraordinary mark of the affection of the city,
in an inscription they have put upon the first stone of the new
bridge. I would have sent it you with to-day’s paper in which it is
printed, but somebody has stolen it out of my room. You will see it
in the next Chronicle. It speaks of a certain _contagion_ by which
Generals, Admirals, Armies and Fleets catch valour and prudence
from him, to the great benefit of our affairs.”
[294] Sister of Lord Chatham.
[295] Sometimes called Princess Amelia, daughter of George II.
From Hill Street, on November 5, Lord Lyttelton again writes to Mrs.
Montagu--
“If I were to write the History of my own Times, I would transcribe
into it your character of the late King, and should thereby pay my
Debt of gratitude to his memory. I would only add to it that it
appears from several Wills he has left, that he never had been such
a Hoarder of Treasure as was generally supposed. And of what he
had saved this war has consumed so much that he was able to leave
no more to his three children than thirty thousand pounds in equal
proportions, and I have heard that the Duke has given up his to his
sisters. Princess Emily is come to live in my brother’s House like
a private woman. It is said the Princess of Wales will not come to
St. James’s. The great court offices are not yet settled, but I
believe it is certain that Lord Bute[296] will be continued Groom
of the Stole, and Lord Huntingdon[297] Master of the Horse.”
In a later part of the letter he assures her that Emin, who had been
reported murdered by the Turks, had got back safely to his father in
Calcutta.
“I presume he will go to some Indian Nabob or Rajah, and then you
may have the pleasure of tracing his marches on the banks of the
Ganges, and over many regions _where the Gorgeous East showers on
her Kings Barbaric Pearls and Gold_; and if he is successful, large
tribute of those pearls and gold will come to you.”
[296] John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, born 1713, died 1792; married
Mary Wortley Montagu.
[297] Francis, 10th Earl of Huntingdon, son of the famous Lady
Huntingdon, the patroness of the “Huntingdon Connexion” branch of
the Methodists.
[Page heading: MR. AND MRS. VESEY]
Mention is made of Mr. Vesey visiting Hagley, his wife too indisposed
to accompany him. “Alas! in all that prospect I have not one glimpse of
you. When will you come and dance on my lawns or sport on my hills with
the Muses, or meditate in my woods with the pensive Goddess of Wisdom.”
Mrs. Montagu started on her return to London on November 10. From
Weatherby she answers the above letter on November 11, having journeyed
“48 miles through the roughest roads in the gloomiest day in the
dreariest month of the year.” Mention is made of the King’s funeral.
“I approve much of your Lordship’s prudence in not going to the King’s
funeral,[298] it is a ceremony for those who wish to catch a cold
rather than for one who wants to get rid of one.”
[298] The funeral of King George took place the same day, November
11, 1760.
[Page heading: FLOODS]
From Ferrybridge, on the 15th, Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband that
the rain had been so heavy that the waters of Newark were said to be
impassable.
Arrived at Grantham on Sunday the 17th, she writes--
“MY DEAREST,
“I got here very safe to-night, but the journey from Ferrybridge
has been very unpleasant, from the great depth of the waters. Our
coach is fortunately hung very high, all the people who passed
Newark to-day got a great deal of water into their carriage, but
I had very little. The waters were impassable till this morning,
and it is now raining hard, so I had good fortune to get thro’
in the short interval; some of the water near Barnby Moor was as
deep as at Newark, and tho’ this is only a long day’s journey, I
have got out every day as soon as it was light; the horses perform
admirably. I shall get to Stilton to-morrow, and, I hope, get you
some cheese.”
Writing the same evening to Lord Lyttelton, she says--
“Do not figure to yourself that I sit like Aurora in her car drawn
by the rosy-bosom’d hours, _les jeux et les ris_, but imagine
Dobbin and Whitenose and their 4 companions all mire and dirt,
dragging me through deep water, over huge stones, the winds
blowing, the clouds low’ring and rain darkening the windows of the
coach.”
[Page heading: A GREAT LADY’S AVARICE]
In a letter to Mr. Montagu, from Stilton, is this amusing passage--
“Lord Panmure pass’d me on the road yesterday, and I hear all the
Scotch are gone to town from Peers to Pedlars, and I suppose all
with the same intention to sell something and to get money. I found
that a Scotch countess had bought all the black cloth, crapes and
bombazeen, black ribbons, and fans at Darlington before the poor
shopkeepers knew of the King’s death. She bought a great many suits
of broad cloth and crape, which must be with an intention to sell
them at a higher price in town, but surely nothing could be more
mean than to enter into such a traffick and take advantage of the
Shopkeepers’ ignorance, and it seems to me not honest. This lady
is wife to Lord C----t; I believe I mistook when I called her a
countess. The town was soon inform’d of the reason she had bought
such a quantity of mourning, and I wonder she was not mobbed. The
ladies at Darlington and in the neighbourhood are very angry, for
she left but two yards of crape in the whole town.”
Lady Frances Williams, writing on November 19 to Mrs. Montagu from
Bath, where she was drinking the waters, says--
“I no sooner heard of the loss of our good old King than I thought
with regret of our friend Mrs. Pitt. I believe it has prevented her
coming to this place, where I proposed much pleasure in meeting
her. I hear the G--t minister’s friends, the mob, have posted upon
all the Palaces--
‘_A Pittical administration,--no Sc--tch influence_;’
and on the Royal Exchange--
‘_No petticoat administration, no Lord G. S--k--lle[299]
at Court_.’”
[299] Lord George Sackville.
[Page heading: THE KING’S FIRST SPEECH]
[Page heading: GOING TO COURT]
Writing on November 20 to her husband, Mrs. Montagu says--
“The young King spoke his speech[300] with great grace; his voice,
they say, is very fine, and his delivery most remarkably good. The
Princess Dowager is not to be at St. James’s, and people think she
looks chagrin’d; no doubt she had visions of power and authority
which will probably not be answered; all people seem glad that she
is not likely to have influence. Dr. Wilson made a very flattering
sermon at Court, upon which the King express’d great displeasure,
and order’d all the Chaplains should be told he did not come to
Church to hear himself praised. Lord Egremont[301] made a fine
speech in the House of Lords for the address. Lord Royston is
to move for the address in the House of Commons to-day, and Sir
Richard Grosvenor,[302] who is to be made a peer, it is said,
seconds him. Mr. Pratt[303] is to be made Lord Chief Justice in
room of Willes, whose son is to be Solicitor-General, and Mr. York
attorney. Some say Pratt is to be made a Peer. There seems a very
strong union between Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle, but as yet no
one knows how things will combine. The whole Cocoa Tree[304] and
every human creature has been at Court, and this being said one
day in a large company, I was ask’d when I should go. I said not
till you came to town, but when you did you intended I should be
presented. Mrs. Boscawen said she suppos’d I should be introduced
by Lady Bute, as we were relations, and visited; I answered no, for
I should not go as a courtier....
“I should ask Lady Cardigan to carry me, who was the head of the
Montagu family, and a person who went as a great independant lady
to pay her duty to her sovereign without being a courtier. It
seems if I am to go to Court, I must not appear anywhere till I
have kiss’d hands, which makes it necessary, if done, to be done
soon, but I shall wait your orders, and I beg you to speak freely.”
[300] Parliament met on November 13.
[301] Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont.
[302] Sir Richard Grosvenor, afterwards 1st Earl Grosvenor.
[303] Made 1st Earl Camden, became Lord Chancellor and Lord
President of the Council.
[304] A famous Whig coffee-house.
To this letter Mr. Montagu replies--
“The distance j am now at from you, unhappily hinders me from
discussing an affair of this moment with you and consulting with
myne or your friends. At present j can only say that if you mean
nothing more than paying your duty to our new sovereign j see no
harm in it, and j think Lady Cardigan of all others the properest
person to introduce you; but if you go further, before you give
your attendance at a Court, j wish you would take the consequences
into your most serious thoughts. The principal reason of my
absenting myself ever since j was Member of Parliament was that
j did not concur in the measures that were then taking, and the
Principal members in the opposition thought they had no business
at St. James, and j believe neither the wifes of the Peers nor of
the Members of the House of Commons were found there. If j should
be still so unhappy as out of dislike for the present measures
not to alter my way of acting, and not to appear at Court, would
it be proper for you to be attendant? Indeed, it seems to me that
it would not, but if you can make out the contrary upon any sound
Principles of reason j will readily submit. I have for many years
liv’d in a state of Independancy though j may truly call it of
Proscription, so far as those could make it to those who thought
not, and acted not with them where politics they thought endanger’d
the Liberties and good of their country, am j to alter now, or
maintain the same conduct j hitherto have done? Whilst j flatter’d
myself that we were in the same way of thinking, and that my
conduct met with your approbation, j did hardly suffer anything. I
then thought and still reflect with the utmost sense of gratitude
on the sacrifice you made me in your early bloom, by giving up
all the pleasures and gaieties of a Court, and it was the greater
because you had all the advantages of beauty and sense to shine
and make a figure there. I think that capacity is not so far gone
as you in your modesty are pleas’d to say, and j may add in some
sense perhaps improv’d, either at a Court or anywhere else j wish
you every thing that is good that you may long enjoy that good will
and esteem which your merit has acquir’d you, and leave the rest to
your own candid and impartial consideration.”
To this his wife replies--
“I had yesterday your most kind and judicious letter, and my own
way of thinking coincides so much with yours I have no merit in
acquiescence. Your wonted independancy I hope in God you will ever
preserve.... If you should be in opposition, I shall drop going at
all; as to Peers, all who were not profess’d Jacobites, and also
their wives, always went to St. James’, even the most protesting
Lords, till the Division between the late King and late Prince of
Wales.”
[Page heading: KISSING HANDS]
At the end of the letter Lord Bath is mentioned as urging her to kiss
hands, and she declares she will only attend two drawing-rooms a year,
and not those, if Mr. Montagu disapproves.
[Page heading: MR. PITT AND THE SECRET]
On November 22, from Hill Street, Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband
that her toothache having been very agonizing, she had sent to Mr.
Lodomie to examine her teeth. As he is often mentioned, he must have
been the fashionable dentist of that period. In the same letter we read
that--
“there has been a quarrel between General Townshend[305] and Lord
Albemarle,[306] which had ended in a duel if Mr. Stanley[307] had
not carried the Captain of the Guards to take them into custody.
The story is too long for a letter. Mr. Townshend appears to
have been too hasty: Lord Albemarle behaved very well, and all
is now made up. Mr. Beckford in the House of Commons the day
before yesterday call’d our German campaign this year a _languid
campaign_, for which Mr. Pitt gave him a notable threshing,
repeating languid and languor several times, and once how rash
must that gentleman be, how inconsiderate, if he calls this
languid, after repeating what had been done, and after enlarging
on everything, again, again, and again, retorting the _languid_
upon Beckford, who himself made a languid campaign, not returning
to the charge. I heard of a good piece of witt of Mr. Pitt on my
Lord Mayor of London’s absurdly asking him in the Drawing-room,
where the secret expedition was destined. He ask’d his Lordship if
he could keep a secret, which the grave Magistrate assured him he
could upon his honour, and expected to be inform’d, on which Mr.
Pitt only made a low bow and said, _so can I, Sir_, a very proper
reproof for his impertinent question.”
[305] George Townshend, 4th Viscount and Marquis, born 1723, died
1807.
[306] George Keppel, 15th Earl of Albemarle.
[307] Hans Stanley, of Paultons, Hants.
December 2. Mrs. Montagu writes to Lord Bath--
“Mrs. Montagu presents her compliments to my Lord Bath, and has the
pleasure to send him the Bishop of London’s letter to the King,
which she had never been able to get till yesterday; she begs of
his Lordship not to give any copy of the letter. If the Bishop
should have any human vanity still subsisting, it must be of such
a kind as will be gratified by the approbation of Lord Bath, but
would disdain common and ordinary applause. Mrs. Montagu hopes my
Lord Bath remembers he was so good as to promise her the honour
and pleasure of his company at dinner on Sunday next.
“Hill Street, Tuesday ye 2nd of Decber.”
[Page heading: BISHOP OF LONDON’S LETTER]
The Bishop’s letter is dated Novr. 1, 1760--
“SIRE,
“Amidst the Congratulations that surround the Throne, permit me
to lay before your Majesty the Sentiments of a Heart, which tho’
oppressed with Age and Infirmity, is no Stranger to the Joys of my
Country. When the melancholy news of the Late King’s Demise reached
us, it Naturally Led us to Consider the Loss we had sustained, and
upon what our Hopes of futurity Depended: the first Part excited
grief and put all the tender Passions into motion, but the Second
Brought Life and Spirit with it, and wiped away the tear from every
face.
“O how graciously Did the Providence of God provide a Successor
able to bear the weight of government in that unexpected Event.
“You, Sir, are the Person whom the people ardently Desire, which
Affection of theirs is happily returned by your Majesty’s Declared
Concern for their prosperity; and Let Nothing Disturb this Mutual
Consent. Let there never be but one Contest between them, whether
the King Loves the people best, or the people him, and may it be
a Long, very Long, Contest between them, may it never be decided,
but Let it remain doubtful, and may the paternal affection on one
side, and the filial Obedience on the other, be had in perpetual
Remembrance. As this will probably be the Last time I shall ever
trouble your Majesty, I beg leave to express my warmest wishes and
prayers on your behalf: may the God of heaven and earth have you
always under his protection, and Direct you to Seek his honour and
Glory in all you Do, and may you reap the Benefit by an increase of
Happiness in this world and in the next.”
[Page heading: BILLETS DOUX]
Lord Bath’s answer was--
“MADAM,
“I suppose you intended that I should return you the Bishop’s
letter, which I promise you nobody has taken a copy of, nor have I
done it myself, and I have shown it but to two persons.
“What a charming thing it is to be able to write with such vivacity
and spirit, at past four score; and oppress’d as he says with
age and infirmitys. But strange as that may be, I know a more
extraordinary thing, and that is of a Person near the same age (but
without infirmitys indeed) that is at this Instant over head and
ears in Love. How does he wish he could write with as much Spirit
and Love to his Mistress, as the Bishop does with Loyalty to his
Master, with this difference only, the one wishes this contention
of Love may never be decided, the other hopes it may be brought
to an issue as soon as possible, by the only proper means of
Determination, and let the Posterity arising from thence be a proof
to future Generations of the ardency of the Affection of her
“Most passionate Adorer.
“Wednesday, 10 a clock, Decr., 1760.”
To this Mrs. Montagu replies--
“MY LORD,
“I have sent your Lordship back the Bishop of London’s letters,
which cannot be more honourably placed than in your Cabinet. From
an apprehension that this letter may be degraded by appearing in
a magazine or Chronicle I was desirous to communicate it to my
friends, under such restraints as would secure me from blame in
case of accident. As I do not expect a billet-doux every morning,
I was unluckily asleep (observe that I do not say not dreaming of
Lord Bath) when your letter arrived. I cannot express how much I
admire your Lordship’s parody of a Bishop’s pastoral letter. As
I have got but halfway towards the ardours of four score, your
Lordship will not expect I should immediately comply with your
proposal; but if you will be content with a sentimental love till
I arrive at the tender age of eighty, a person and a passion so
ripened by time must be very yielding. And according to the latest
reckoning of the learned and ingenious Mr. Whiston, the Millenium
will then commence, so that we may have a proper period in which to
prove our constancy and love; and at a moderate computation, may
produce a thousand of those proofs of it which your Lordship seems
to think the best testimony.
“I am now very much, but at the commencement of the next century
hope to be entirely,
“Yours.
“I hope your Lordship will not forget your engagement on Sunday,
for I have been interrupted in my letter by a visit from a very
pretty man of five and twenty, whose conversation is so far from
the spirit of your Lordship’s letter that I cannot but be tired of
the insipidity of these young people.”
[Page heading: LORD CHESTERFIELD’S BON MOT]
Writing to her husband on December 2, Mrs. Montagu says--
“I dined with Lord Bath on Sunday; he was in high spirits. At his
table I heard an admirable _bon mot_ of Lord Chesterfield’s; he
said the King was in doubt whether he should burn Scotch coal, Pitt
coal, or Newcastle coal!... Our young King had a fall from his
horse this morning, but no mischief, except a little bruise on his
shoulder. His attendants seemed much frightened, at which he smiled
and told them they forgot he had four brothers.”
Mr. Montagu writes on December 7 from Newcastle to say that he is going
to the Election at Durham to vote for Sir Thomas Clavering. He says, “I
shall set off with Sir Thomas’ cavalcade to-morrow, and to dine and
lye at Newton, where Mr. Liddell has invited me to take a bed during
the whole time of the Poll.” On December 12 he writes to say the Poll
was not over and cost each candidate £1000 a day.
[Page heading: THE MILLENNIUM]
Lord Bath writes to Mrs. Montagu in return for her last letter--
“MADAM,
“I have sent you some game, which I hope to partake with you
to-morrow. Indeed, Madam, you are too cruel to desire to postpone
my happiness till the beginning of the next century. I can die for
the lady I love any day she pleases to command me, but to live 40
years for her is more than I can promise; besides, Madam, I would
have you consider that in all the conquests Love makes, there is on
the male side, constantly a little pride and vanity; do you think
that I have not something of that kind, in the pleasure I propose
to myself of making Mr. Montagu jealous, and of triumphing and
insulting over Dr. Monsey; and can you yourself promise me either
of these forty years hence? In conscience therefore reduce the
horrid period of forty years to twenty at most, and tell me in your
next, come twenty years hence and be happy. But all you promise
in your letter is, that the beginning of next century, perhaps,
you may begin to listen. This cold proceeding, with an impetuous
Lover of fourscore, who is impatient to convince you how much he
loves you and how passionately he is yours for the remainder of the
millenium, whenever it begins,
“BATH.”
From St. James’s on December 14, Dr. Monsey writes a folio letter to
Mrs. Montagu, beginning--
“SERENISSIMA PRINCIPESSA!
“There are no bounds to Pride, because an Earl is fallen in love
with you, you must kiss a King, and just as he is on the brink of
matrimony. How dare you do so audacious a thing, whilst your Hubby
is alive too? Had he broke his neck down a coal pit the matter had
been nothing, but to inflame the heart of a young monarch when
he can reap no benefit from it without breaking the laws of his
Kingdom, or your breaking the Laws of God. Let me tell you, Madam
(if I now may presume to tell you anything), it is a very imprudent
step. Emin has miscarried in Persia, and so now you will let
yourself down to the deluding hopes of being Queen of England. Can
you sleep this night while Majesty lies tumbling and tossing, and
starts at Montagu peeping thro’ his curtains;--My Kingdom for this
Woman, or this Woman for my Kingdom. Have you chosen your ladies
of the bedchamber, pitched upon your coronation, and made me your
chief Physician....”
[Page heading: DR. MONSEY’S DOGGEREL VERSE]
After a long rhodomontade, he falls into doggerel verse, a frequent
habit of his in his letters. As I have not hitherto recorded any verses
of his in this work, I will give this specimen--
“What power can withstand Gt. Britain’s King,
Where for a Queen he has so fair a thing?
Nations fight Nations, and one fool beats t’other,
And Frederick[308] pommels his dear Polish brother.
He burns a town and then knocks down a Church,
Then Daun comes thundering with a rod of birch.
He scampers, then he rallies, whip goes Daun,
Old boy, I’ll meet you on a Torgau[309] lawn.
They meet, they fight, and then more bloody noses,
And then great victories, as our news supposes.
They both are Victors, yet both beaten well,
And who’s best man the Devil himself can’t tell.
Things are by both into confusion hurled,
Montagu speaks, and she subdues the world.”
[308] Frederick “the Great.”
[309] The battle of Torgau, fought on November 3, 1760.
Lord Bath had been most anxious about his son, Lord Pulteney, who had
been appointed to the secret expedition which Mr. Pitt designed to
send to France. This scheme was given up, and Mrs. Montagu wrote to
congratulate Lord Bath upon this.
[Page heading: BERENGER MADE MASTER OF THE HORSE]
In a letter to Mr. Montagu his wife informs him that “Lord Bute has
given Mr. R. Berenger[310] a place of £300 per annum, with a house in
the Meuse: it came _à propos_, for a few weeks ago he was in danger of
a perpetual lodging at the Fleet.”
It will be remembered Berenger was nephew to Mr. Gilbert West, his
mother being a Temple.
[310] Master of the Horse; author of “The History and Art of
Horsemanship.”
Lady Forbes, mother of Mrs. Gregory, wrote on December 20 to Mr.
Montagu to ask his influence in procuring for Doctor Gregory the
Professorship of Botany at the University of Edinburgh.
[Page heading: GEORGE COLMAN, THE ELDER]
In a letter dated 1760, presumably in February, Lord Bath writes to
Mrs. Montagu--
“MADAM,
“There is more easy natural witt in any two of your most careless
lines than there is in all Colman’s Play,[311] and as for his
dedication you may be sure the Rogue meant to abuse me for
pretending to chide him for his neglect of Lord Cooke;[312]
however, I have this day, to amend his manners, constituted him
a Judge in Shropshire, on condition that he never makes another
Rhime, unless it be an Epithalamium twenty years hence, when the
Millenium begins.
“I return you many thanks for the kind present you sent me, and
will keep them till you do me the honour to dine with me, which I
hope will be Wednesday or Thursday, as you chuse, but on Tuesday
evening I cannot be sure of being free, since Sir Phil Boteler,
Miss Desbouveries, and some other company are to dine with me, and
stay the evening at cards.”
George Colman was nephew, by marriage, to Lord Bath, his mother being a
Miss Gumley, sister of Lady Bath.
[311] George Colman the elder, born 1732, died 1794; dramatist, etc.
His first acknowledged comedy, “The Jealous Wife,” first acted at
Drury Lane on the 12th of February, 1761, and dedicated to the Earl
of Bath as a “lover of the belles lettres.”
[312] Means Lord Coke, in his work upon Lyttelton. In 1757, Colman
had been entered by Lord Bath at Lincoln’s Inn and called to the
bar.
CHAPTER V.
1761--DEATH OF ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN--CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD
BATH--CORONATION OF GEORGE III.--IN LONDON, AT SANDLEFORD, AND AT
TUNBRIDGE WELLS.
[Year: 1761]
Matthew Robinson, Mrs. Montagu’s eldest brother, who had been member
for the borough of Canterbury, did not propose to offer himself for
re-election to the new parliament, but presented the Canterbury
address to the new king at Court. He was clad in such a peculiar and
uncourtierlike garb that his sister writes to her husband at Newcastle--
“I am glad he is gone into the country, but he has made a most
astonishing appearance at court with the Canterbury address. Morris
says he hears of nothing else. I wish the Beefeaters had not let
him pass the door. Lord Harry Beauclerc on the buzz his appearance
occasioned, desired the people to be quiet, for that he had never
seen the gentleman so well dressed before.”
[Page heading: ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN ILL]
Mr. Montagu, having attended the Durham election in favour of Sir
Thomas Clavering, was preparing to go to Huntingdon for his own
re-election. In Mrs. Montagu’s next letter she says--
“I told you in my last that Admiral Boscawen was ill of a fever,
I hope he is out of danger. The noble admiral does not fight so
well with a fever as he does with the French; he will not lye in
bed, where he would soonest subdue it. Poor Mrs. Boscawen is very
anxious and unhappy about the Admiral, and indeed the loss to her
and her children would be as great as possible.”
In this letter she remarks upon having heard from Mrs. William
Robinson, her sister-in-law, from Lisbon dated November 12: “they
are all well, and going on to Madrid.” “They” were the Rev. William
Robinson, his wife, and her brother, Mr. Richardson, who, being in bad
health, was ordered abroad, and was going to Italy. On December 20,
Admiral Boscawen is reported as out of danger, but on the 27th Mrs.
Montagu writes--
“His fever still hangs upon him, his strength is quite subdued; any
sudden attack, any degree more of fever, and my dear Friend loses a
good husband, her children a fond father, their situation in life
will suffer a grievous alteration, and the publick will be deprived
of a man who serves it with zeal and ability and is always more
tender of the honour of his country than of his own person.”
The admiral had a relapse, and Mrs. Montagu, with her husband’s
permission, flew to see her friend, but, to avoid alarming the admiral,
slept at Mr. Botham’s at Albury. She, however, returned to London, as
the admiral could not bear his wife out of his sight, and begrudged any
friend taking her away from him for an instant. In this same letter she
mentions that old Mr. Wortley Montagu was very ill.
Dr. Monsey, who himself was very unwell, wrote on January 9 to tell
Mrs. Montagu he was sure the admiral would not recover; he begs her to
remember it is God’s will, and “to try and guard Mrs. Boscawen’s mind
and let money and the world be thrown into the Coal Hole.”
[Page heading: DEATH OF ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN]
The admiral expired on January 10 at 7 a.m. He died of a putrid fever,
and before death sent for his sister, Mrs. Frederick, to desire her
to take his wife and children to London the moment he was dead. Mrs.
Montagu went at once to her friend to endeavour to comfort her. Mr.
Montagu, with his characteristic kindness, begged Mrs. Boscawen to go
to Hill Street, but she remained at the Admiralty. Mrs. Montagu writes
of her on January 17--
“I thank God her mind is very calm and settled, she endeavours all
she can to bring herself to submit to this dire misfortune; I know
time must be her best comforter, so that I oppose her lamentations
rarely and gently, but when they continue long, set before her the
merit of her five children, the want they will have of her, and the
comfort she may derive from them.... Mr. Boscawen has left all his
fortune, except a purchase he made in Cornwall, to Mrs. Boscawen at
her entire disposition, the land in Cornwall he has left her only
for life, and then to his eldest son. This estate cost but £10,000,
and so is a small part of his fortune, so that the children are
entirely dependent on her. I hear old Mr. Wortley can last but a
very short time. It is supposed Lady Mary will come to England.”
[Page heading: DEATH OF OLD MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU]
Writing to her husband, still at Newcastle, at the end of January, Mrs.
Montagu says--
“I believe it will be agreeable to you to hear that Lord Sandwich
called on me this morning to desire me to write you word that
he hopes that the second week in February you will be ready for
Huntingdon; his Lordship says he will give you only two days’
trouble, one to canvass, another to be elected.... Mr. Wortley
Montagu dyed last night, the disposition of his effects not known
as yet, by next post you shall hear.”
In her next letter she says--
“I have had a full account of Mr. Wortley’s will, it runs
thus:--‘To his son £1000 per annum rentcharge,’ with an order it
should not be liable to his debts, which by-the-bye is nonsense.
The Leicestershire estate, we know to our sorrow is his. If the
present wife[313] dyes and he has legitimate issue, that issue is
to have the Wortley estate. In case he has not such issue, then
the whole of his personal and real estate is to go to Lady Bute’s
second son, he taking the noble name of Wortley. Two thousand
pounds apiece indeed to each of Lady Bute’s younger children! The
old gentleman’s wealth is reckoned immense.”
[313] Caroline Feroe, _née_ Dormer.
In another letter his estate is stated to be £800,000 in money, and
£17,000 per annum in land, mines, etc.!
Mr. Montagu writes in reply to this--
“I am extremely sorry that Mr. Wortley has made such a will as you
mention. I think he has been unworthy of being a Father. I cannot
pretend to say but his son gave him too good reason to take care
he should not waste and consume his estate, it was mine and the
opinion of others that, as the phrase is, he would have tyed him
up, but if he had done it in the literal sense he would have been
less cruel to him; this poor man was not without very good parts,
he was greatly altered; if he had done kindly by him, it was not
impossible that he might have been reclaimed and have yet made
some figure in life. What is now to become of him I don’t know.
I suppose he is not to come into Parliament again, and if so I
cannot see what he can do but leave his native country, and live in
perpetual banishment abroad. I cannot but greatly commiserate this
poor man, and reflect with horror on his cruel unrelenting parent.”
On February 15 Mr. Montagu writes from Hinchingbrooke, as he spells it--
“MY DEAREST,
“We got here on Friday night. Our canvassing the town is put off
to Tuesday. Lord Hinching[314] is here, who is much grown and
every way improved. My Lord has made considerable alterations
to the house, and by the addition of two or three rooms is very
convenient, and he says without much expense.... Calling at Barnet
j heard poor Wortley’s stock upon his farme was the day before sold
by auction, and fetched a thousand pounds, which j fear will be
devour’d by the creditors.”
[314] Viscount Hinchinbrook, afterwards 5th Earl of Sandwich; born
1742–3, died 1814.
[Page heading: “MONTAGU MINERVA!”]
Soon after this Mr. Montagu joined his wife in Hill Street. A folio
letter from James Stuart[315] (Athenian Stuart) ends the month of
February. In it he represents himself as an English horse--a hunter
dragging Greek treasures to Mrs. Montagu, whom he addresses in verse
as--
“Fairest and best! hail Montagu Minerva!
Smile on my labours. Say that my rich freightage
Amply deserved the Price and Pains it cost.
So that the Muses thy companions dear,
The Graces and the Virtues all approve
My bold Emprise:
And end at once and recompense my toil.”
[315] James Stuart, born 1713, died 1788; author of “Antiquities of
Athens.”
[Page heading: VOLTAIRE’S TANCRED]
Lord Bath writes March 4, 1761--
“MADAM,
“I am sorry that I cannot wait on you this evening, being
engaged to go to Lady Strafford’s,[316] and afterwards to Lady
Darlington’s[317] to play at cards; but on Saturday I will have
the honour to call on you and stay the evening with you, if you
are not otherwise engaged, and your feverish disorder will allow
you to come down stairs. I have sent for your amusement Voltaire’s
Tancred, which has many fine lines in it, but the speeches are too
long, as they generally are in French Plays. When I have the honour
of waiting on you I will bring with me Emin’s letter.
“I am, Madᵐᵉ,
“Yours most truly,
“B.”
[316] Lady Strafford, Anne, second daughter of the 2nd Duke of
Argyll.
[317] Lady Darlington was a cousin of Lord Bath’s; her mother was a
Pulteney.
[Page heading: MACPHERSON’S “FINGAL”]
To this Mrs. Montagu replies--
“MY LORD,
“I return the Tragedy with many thanks. The character your Lordship
gave of it kept up my hopes and my spirits through the long tedious
speeches with which it opens, and upon the whole it appears to
me to be one of the best of Voltaire’s Tragedies, as it is, what
few of his are, interesting. Pompous declamation season’d with
Moral reflections is surely far from the perfection of dramatick
writing, tho’ in a nation too much polish’d and refin’d, it is
prefer’d to the natural sallies of passion in our Shakespear,
as fops love essences better than the flowers from whence they
are extracted. I find in this Tragedy many petty larcenies from
Corneille. The character of Aménaide is in part an imitation of the
Sister of Horatius, but the Roman name supports the _fierté_ of her
character, born in any other city I should call her a termagant,
there I consider her as a She Roman, the female of the Lion. The
fair Amenaide is too much an _esprit fort_ in regard to her duties
to please me. She does not follow Virtue as by law establish’d, but
despises forms and follows sentiment, a dangerous guide. Design’d
by Nature to act but a second part, it is a woman’s duty to obey
rules, she is not to make or redress them. I must confess that
Aménaide is noble and heroick, and a proper mistress for a Knight
Errant, whose motto is ‘l’amour et l’honneur.’ I have seen many
poems form’d on the manners of Chivalry, but I never saw them
before in Drama. They admit of the bombast in honour and love,
which the French and Spanish Theater affect, and will furnish those
brilliant sentiments they so much admire, but which indeed come
better from any Muse but the pathetick Melpomène.
“I shall be very glad of the honour of your Lordship’s company on
Saturday evening. I was to have gone to the play that night, but
if my fever should have left me by that time, I have a cough which
would be louder than Mrs. Prichard.[318] I have taken the liberty
to enclose Mr. Macpherson’s proposals, and if your Lordship designs
to subscribe to the work, and have not already done so, I should
be very glad to have the honour of your name on my list. I have
read the first canto,[319] which far exceeded my expectation. The
various incidents recited take off that sameness of character which
appeared in the detached pieces, and which were their greatest
fault. The original Ersh is to be seen at Mr. Millar’s. I have also
enclosed a letter from Edinburgh which gives an account of these
poems. By this long letter I have taken some revenge upon your
Lordship for not coming here last night, and now I am in perfect
charity, mix’d with some compassion for the trouble I have given
you.
“My Lord,
“Your Lordship’s
Most obliged and obedient Hᵇˡᵉ Serᵛᵗ,
“E.M.”
[318] Celebrated actress.
[319] This must be “Fingal.”
[Page heading: LORD BATH’S LETTER TO MRS. CARTER]
At this period Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter went to stay with Lord Bath
at Ives Place.[320] Dr. Monsey was to have accompanied them, but he was
suffering with acute pain in his back, for which Dr. Gataker gave him a
plaister, which he said would pull his head to his back.
[320] His country house near Maidenhead.
Lord Bath writes to Mrs. Montagu the following:--
“MADAM,
“I am going to entrust you with a most prodigious secret; and in
order to engage you the better to keep it, must desire you to be a
joynt agent with me in conducting it, and carrying it on, and yet
it is not every woman neither that can keep that very important
_secret of joynt agency_, but you, I am very sure, will be true to
me when I tell you what it is. You must know, Madam, that I have
a great desire of making a small present to Mrs. Carter, to make
her fine, when she comes to Tunbridge, and I must beg of you to
take the trouble of buying the silk or Damask, or what you please,
and in order to engage her to have no difficulty or scruples in
accepting it, I will send with it the following letter:--
“‘_To Mrs. Carter._
“‘MADAM,
“‘I have sent you a trifling present which I desire you will
accept, and that you may have no difficulty in doing it I will tell
you the plain truth. The first thing is this--I have found in my
Library some books, which tho’ they may be very good ones, can be
of no use to me, as they are in Greek,[321] and possibly they may
be of service to you. The next thing is that I have two pounds of
very bad tea, which I cannot so much as take myself, nor offer to
anybody else, unless it be to you: the last thing is this: I found
in the drawer of an old India Cabinet a piece of silk with this
wrote in a paper upon it: _Enough for a Mantua and petty coat._
Now, Madam, as I neither wear a mantua nor pettycoats, I do not
know what to do with it, unless you will accept of it, which you
may very readily do, since you may perceive that it lays you under
no manner of obligation to your, etc.
“‘BATH.’
“But after all I have said, if you think, Madam, giving you the
two enclosed Bank bills of 20 pounds each to send privately to her
without letting her know or guess from whom they come, may be of
more real use and service to her, you may do it as you think fit,
and I can venture to say of the Bank Bills just what I have done of
the Greek books, that they are of little use to me, and possibly
may be of great service to her, and more in that I hope than any
other.
“I am, Madam,
“Your most obedient and very
humble servant,
“BATH.
“Piccadilly, April 2, 1761.
“P.S.--I am afraid you will be puzzled at first to know what all
this nonsensical stuff can mean, but you may remember that when you
were at Ives Place, I mentioned something of this kind to you.”
[321] This is an affectation, as he constantly uses Greek phrases in
Greek character in his later letters.
[Page heading: GOING TO WELLWYN]
Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter proposed a visit to Dr. Young at Welwyn,
and on April 9 he writes as follows--
“DEAR MADAM,
“Your letter, etc., lay me under great obligations, but the
greatest lies in the kind promise you make me that I shall kiss
the hands of two fair Pilgrims at Wellwyn. I hope they are too
much Protestants to think there is anything sacred in the shrine
you speak of. I have too many sins beside, to pretend that I am a
Saint. Was I a Saint and could work miracles I would reduce you
two ladys to the common level of your sex being jealous for the
credit of my own; which has hitherto presum’d to boast an usurp’d
superiority in the realms of genius and the letter’d world. For
you, Madam, I shall say nothing, for who can say enough? Miss
Carter has my high esteem for showing us in so masterly a manner
that Christianity has a foil in one of the brightest jewels of
Pagan Wisdom, a jewel which you will allow she has set in gold.
Might not such an honour from a fair hand, make even an Epictetus
proud without being blamed for it? Nor let Miss Carter’s amiable
modesty become blameable, by taking offence at the truth, but stand
the shock of applause, which she has brought upon herself; for tho’
it pains her, it does credit to the publick, and she should support
it patiently, as her Stoical Hero did his broken leg. I rejoice
that you are recovered; I too, Madam, have been very ill of late,
and stand in no small need of a cordial: hasten therefore your
favour, which the sooner it is, will be the kinder to, dear Madam,
“Your most obedient
and obliged, humble servant,
“E. YOUNG.”
On April 28 Lord Bath writes to Mrs. Montagu--
“MADAM,
“I would sooner have answer’d your letter, and sent you back the
enclosed Dialogue, but that I went out to take the air in my
chaize. You may depend upon my secrecy, but should it ever be
published, it will be known to be yours, because nobody can write
like it. I will endeavour to wait on you when you return from Dr.
Young’s, unless I go to Ives Place for a day or two.
“I am, with the greatest regard and truth,
“Your most humble and obedient servant,
“BATH.”
[Page heading: ANOTHER DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD]
[Page heading: BERENICE _V._ CLEOPATRA]
[Page heading: THE “WORLD WELL LOST!”]
This is the dialogue which I believe has not yet been published:--
“BERENICE AND CLEOPATRA.”
_Berenice._ The similitudes and dissimilitudes of our fortune
have long made me wish to converse with you, if the charming, the
victorious Cleopatra by her lover prefer’d to glory, to empire, to
life, will deign to hold converse with the forsaken, the abandon’d,
the discarded Berenice.
_Cleopatra._ The scorns of Octavius, the bite of the aspic, the
waters of Lethe have so subdued my female vanity, that I will own
to you I greatly suspect my greater success with my lover did not
arise so much from my charms as in my skill of management of them.
_Berenice._ I can scarce understand you. Beauty and love I thought
to be the greatest attractions. In the first you must have excell’d
me, but in the second you certainly could not: I had beauty, youth,
regal dignity, and an elevated mind. I was distinguished by many
qualities and accomplishments which were so dedicated to my Lover,
that of all I had been and all I could be, I was, I would be, only
_l’amante_ of Titus. I thought the next person in merit and dignity
to Titus himself was the woman who ador’d him, and I was more proud
of the homage I paid him, than of all I had receiv’d from lovers
or subjects. But you, Cleopatra, had loved Cesar before Anthony,
and other passions besides the gentle one of love seemed still
to have your heart. Yet for you Anthony despised the dangers of
war, the competition of a rival in Empire, the motives of military
glory, and the resentment of a Senate and people not yet taught
to submit to or flatter the passions of a master. Over these you
triumph’d; but I was sacrificed to the low murmurs of the people,
and the cautious counsels of gray-headed Statesmen. Was it that
Minerva desired to triumph over Venus in the noblest and gentlest
heart that ever was contain’d in the breast of mortal? Tell me,
Cleopatra, for 1700 years have not made me forget my love and my
grief?
_Cleopatra._ I have often with attention listen’d to your story;
and your looks, on which still remain the sadness of a lover’s
farewell, move my compassion. I wish I could have assisted you with
my counsels when Titus was meditating your departure. I would have
taught you those arts by which I enslaved the Soul of Anthony, and
brought Ambition and the Roman Eagles to lye at my feet.
_Berenice._ Your arts would have been of little service to me, I
had no occasion to counterfeit love. From Titus’s perfection one
learn’d to love in reality beyond whatever fiction pretended; no
feigned complaisance could imitate my sympathy; if he sigh’d I
wept, if he was grave I grew melancholy, if he sicken’d I dyed. My
heart echoed his praises, it beat for his glory, it rejoiced in his
fortunes, it trembled at his dangers.
_Cleopatra._ Indeed, Berenice, you talk more like a Shepherdess
than a great Queen. You might perhaps in the simplicity of pastoral
life have engaged some humble Swain, but there was too much of
nature and too little of art in your conduct, to captivate a
man used to flattery, to pleasures, to variety. I find you was
but the mirror of Titus, you gave him back his own image, while
I presented every hour a new Cleopatra to Anthony. I was gay,
voluptuous, haughty, gracious, fond and indifferent by turns; if
he frown’d on me, I smiled on Dollabella; if he grew thoughtful, I
turn’d the Banquet to a Riot. I dash’d the soberness of counsels
by the vivacity of mirth, and gilded over his disgrace by show
and magnificence; if his reason began to return, I subdued it by
fondness, or disturb’d it by jealousy. Thus did I preserve my
conquest, establish my fame, and put Anthony first in the list of
“all the mighty names by love undone.”
Had I only wept when honour and Octavia call’d him home I might
have been the burthen of a love ballad, or subject of a tender
Elegy, who now am the glory of our sex, and the great instance of
beauty’s power. Do not you wish you had used the same managements?
_Berenice._ I might have used them had I loved the same man:
Cleopatra, the coquette was a proper mistress for the Reveller
Anthony; but the god-like Titus, the delight as well as Master of
Mankind, left no part of the heart unengaged and at liberty to
dissemble. What had not yielded to his wisdom, submitted to his
witt, was subdued by his magnanimity, or won by his gentleness;
when affection does not vary, behaviour cannot change; and methinks
Anthony should have quitted you from distrust of your love, and
Titus have retain’d me from confidence in mine. After what you have
told me, I am more than ever surprised at your fate and my own.
_Cleopatra._ If you want this explain’d ask Eneas, Theseus, Jason,
and the infinite multitude of faithless lovers, but if my authority
will pass, believe me Anthony was preserved by his doubt of my
love, and Titus was lost by his confidence in yours. Do not look so
concern’d. From the era of your disaster to this very day you will
find every faithful and fond Berenice discarded, while the gay,
vain, and capricious fair one is to her Anthony a Cleopatra and the
“world well lost.”
From the following letter of Dr. Young’s to Mrs. Montagu it would
appear that she had sent this dialogue for him to read.
“DEAR MADAM,
“I hope you will allow that a curiosity is better than a good
thing. I send you a paper which may be called a curiosity, as it is
printed, but not for the publick, only for your ease in perusing it.
“I much thank you for the bright specimen of genius you was so kind
as to send me. I admire it as much as you. I hope you are recover’d
of the Indysposition you mention’d in your Last, and that you, the
cloud remov’d, will continue to shine on,
“Dear Madam,
“Your most obedient
and Humble Servᵗ,
“E. YOUNG.”
“May 26, 1761.”
[Page heading: LIKENESS TO FREDERICK THE GREAT]
Emin, from “Standgate Creek, on board of the ship _Northumberland_,”
writes on May 5 to Mrs. Montagu, addressing her thus--
“To the wisdom of Europe, sister to the great King of Prussia,
excellent Mrs. Montagu.”
Not only did he think Mrs. Montagu equal in cleverness to Frederick the
Great, but he considered her forehead and eyes like his, to the great
indignation of Lord Bath and Dr. Monsey, who pronounced it impossible
she should resemble so bloodthirsty a character.
Mrs. Carter took leave of Mrs. Montagu on May 18, and that very evening
Mrs. Montagu writes to her--
“You left London only this morning, and I am writing to you
to-night; does it not seem unreasonable? I hope not, as you must
know there are habits which it is hard to break, and alas! I was
in the habit of conversing with you every day. I feel like a
traveller, who by the chearfull light of the Sun has pleasantly
pursued his day’s journey, but seeing it below the horizon, enjoys
and would fain prolong the twilight, which tho’ it has not the
warmth and lustre of the noon-day, yet is a kind interposition
between it and the gloom of the night.”
She dates her letter from Ealing, where she had gone to the Botham’s
for the night, “imagining I should hear your tones better from the
nightingale than in the din and chatter of London.” So much did Mrs.
Carter value Mrs. Montagu’s letters that she always noted the day and
year of their reception of them, which is a great help to an editor in
compiling, as many of Mrs. Montagu’s letters are undated. In the end of
this letter she mentions that she is returning to London next day to
spend the evening with Mrs. Boscawen, who was to leave the Admiralty
that day for her new house.
“She will be too apt to reflect on the change of her condition upon
such an occasion, and the less time she has to dwell on the subject
the better. Alas, how few people are there so happily situated that
they can intrepidly look on their condition! Mr. Melmoth[322] made
me a visit this evening. I exhorted him to give his leisure hours
to the publick, and hope he will do it, as his health is now much
improved.”
[322] William Melmoth, born 1710, died 1799. English scholar;
translated the “Letters of Pliny,” etc., etc.
[Page heading: LORD BATH’S HOUSE IN PICCADILLY]
A most curious anonymous letter to Lord Bath concerning his house in
Piccadilly, dated June 5, 1761, is next in order. The handwriting is
large and bold.
“MY LORD,
“A zeal for the glory of the Nation and of the town, also of your
Lordship, induces me to recommend to you to modernize your house
in Piccadilly, at least externally, by facing it with stone or
Stucco, as brick has an ignoble appearance, and is considered by
foreigners only fit for a _Maison bourgeoise_; a Portico with a
_Rampe_,[323] as at the Hotels of Prince Eugene and Swartzenburg
at Vienna, unites Conveniency, Elegance, and Grandeur, as chairs
and coaches can go up the _Rampe_ and under the Portico, whereas
a _Perron_[324] or open steps are always inconvenient, and often
dangerous in snowy, wet, and frosty weather. I hope that your
Lordship will give a Proof and monument of your Taste, Spirit,
and Generosity in architecture, contributing thereby to the
embellishment of the Metropolis. A House of Distinction sho’d be
always _insulated_ without any Building contiguous thereto, which
insulation has many advantages.
“I have the Honour to be, with Respect,
“ETC.
“June 5, 1761.”
[323] Means a rising gradient.
[324] A flight of steps.
[Page heading: THE BRITISH MUSEUM]
The British Museum, containing the library and collection of Sir Hans
Sloane, the Cottonian and Harleian MSS., etc., had been established in
Montagu House, bought of the Earl of Halifax, and opened in 1759. The
following letter from Mr. Charles Morton, the curator, will show the
conditions under which the Museum was then shown. The Earl of Halifax,
who had owned Montagu House, was a cousin of Mr. Montagu’s.
“_To Mrs. Montagu._
“MADAM,
“I am extremely sorry not to have received the Honour of your
Message before eleven o’clock last night, being detained abroad by
Business till that Time. I flatter myself, however, that the affair
you mention will not have suffered by my absence; for on fridays
and mondays the Museum is open in the afternoon only, at the Hours
of four and six, calculated to accommodate for a few months persons
of a different class, and on Saturdays the Museum is shut up. I
have therefore secured places for Mrs. Montagu and her company for
Tuesday sennight, at one o’clock, and promise myself the Pleasure
to send the Tickets on Wednesday next, unless the Time I have
engaged should be inconvenient to you; in which latter case, I beg
the Honour of a note to-morrow some time before noon.
“Madam, I remain, with great respect,
“Your most obedient
and most humble Servant,
“CHAS. MORTON.
“Montagu House, June 7, 1761.”
[Page heading: A COUNTRY GENTLEWOMAN]
[Page heading: GESNER’S “MORT D’ABEL”]
From Sandleford, on June 23, Mrs. Montagu writes to Mrs. Carter--
“DEAR MADAM,
“I told you in my last that I was going to take a flight into
Berkshire; and here I have been ever since Friday evening,
leading a Pastoral life in the finest weather I ever saw. Tho’
the most sage Horace says we change our climate without changing
our disposition, I must be of another opinion, for by only the
difference of latitude and longitude between Hill Street and
Sandleford I am become one of the most reasonable, quiet, good,
kind of country gentlewoman that ever was. In the days when misses
employ’d their crimping and wimpling irons upon cheese-cakes and
tarts, not on flounces and furbelows, and matrons used no rouge,
but a little cochineal to give a fine colour to a dried neat’s-foot
tongue, they could not be further from the temper and qualities and
conditions of a fine lady than your humble servant at this present
writing. My health is much improved by the country air; I saunter
all day, and when Phœbus sets in the material world, he rises in
the Intellectual; then I sit down to read what he has inspired,
and I find the amusements of the day here prepare me well for my
evening’s lecture....
“The mention of poetry puts me in mind to tell you I am very well
satisfied with the share of praise you give to Cowley.[325] He had
a rich vein of thought, but being too ostentatious of it, we are
disgusted at the proud display of his treasures, as at the pomp
of a rich man, when it goes beyond the bounds modesty and a sound
judgment should set to it. I agree with you that his love verses
are insufferable. I think you and I who have never been in love,
could describe it better were we ask’d, _what is it like?_ I think
some of his verses, like Anacreon, very pretty, and the verses by
the god of love in honour of Anacreon are very pretty tho’ a little
too long. I think you was too temperate in your commendation of ‘La
Mort D’Abel.’[326] I was infinitely delighted with it as a work
of genius. On your recommendation I lent it to my Lord Lyttelton,
who sent it back with great approbation. But to be sincere in
spite of you both, some silly prejudices against the Author and
the language the poem was originally written in, a little damped
my expectations, and the beginning, in which he imitates Milton,
with all the faintness of reflected beams, make me advance very
soberly. But what a feast is the Patriarchal dinner! How sweetly
innocent their manners! Eve’s horror at the first storm, her
surprize at Adam’s fastening up the mouth of the cave, concern
at the first sight of death, which is finely supposed to seize a
dove, because in that animal only could the grief of a surviving
friend be shown, with ten thousand other circumstances in hers and
Adam’s narration, all so natural and yet so new that I must call
Mr. Gesner a Poet. A Poet should create, but he should not make
monsters. I think our Author has not the sublime, but his genius
suits his subject. What a noble piety! what a purity of heart in
Abel! and how finely is his character contrasted with Cain’s.
Abel’s are virtues of disposition and temper in a great degree,
and so are Cain’s vices, which rightly imagined in a state of life
where example and discipline could not have so much influence as
in a larger society and more mix’d life. Milton’s and Mr. Gesner’s
pastoral scenes are so ennobled and refined by Religion, that the
Shepherds and Shepherdesses who worship the wanton Pan and drunken
Silenus, make a mean figure when compared to them. I agree with
you in liking Mr. Gesner’s Pastorals extreamly, but let him still
keep to the more than golden age of the Poets. I would fain propose
to him to take the story of Joseph next. He has a fine genius for
Drama! The last three books of Abel make a noble tragedy. Did you
not drop a tear at the lamentation of Cain’s children over Abel’s
body? _Il ne se reveillera plus! Il ne se reveillera plus!_ How
simple! how natural! how affecting! What a witchcraft is there in
words! repeat, _il est mort_, it is nothing, but the simplicity
of children who had not a name for death and the words at once
signifying the circumstance is very touching.... I have taken a
house at Tunbridge from the 3rd of July. I hope my dear friend will
be ready to come to me. I shall send the post-chaize to you as soon
as I am at Tunbridge.
“I am, my dear Madam,
“With most sincere and tender affection,
“Yours,
“E. MONTAGU.”
[325] Abraham Cowley, born 1618, died 1667; poet.
[326] By Salomon Gesner, born 1730, died 1788. “Tod Abels.”
[Page heading: GOING TO TUNBRIDGE]
[Page heading: CHARACTER OF LORD BATH]
Writing from Sandleford on June 26 to Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Montagu mentions
that she is going to Tunbridge
“for 6 or 7 weeks perhaps, and the rest of the summer I shall pass
at Sandleford, except my excursion to Bath Easton. Mrs. Carter is
to come to Tunbridge to me as soon as I get thither, and, I hope,
stay with me the whole season. I was so fortunate as to enjoy her
company much longer in town this year than usual, but that only
makes me wish the more to have her again. She was not in the house
with me in town, preferring the quiet of a lodging to herself, and
indeed it would not be any delight to Mr. Montagu to have her in
the house; tho’ he says she would be a good sort of woman _if she
was not so pious_.[327] My Lord Bath told me he was to go to Bath
on Wednesday, the day we dined with him....
“I shall have Mrs. Boscawen for my neighbour at Tunbridge; she is
to be at Sir Sydney Smythe’s, only three miles from the Wells.
Lady Frances Williams is in the deepest affliction for Lady
Coningsbye.[328] To show the last respect to her, Lady Frances
staid in the house with the dead body in spite of all her friends
could do; she did not leave Lady Coningsbye’s house till last
Saturday; she has been so singularly unfortunate that, had she
not the strongest piety and the strongest reason to support her,
she must sink under the repeated strokes of affliction.... I
suppose you have read Dr. Hawkesworth’s[329] ‘Oriental Tales,’ it
is not written with so much spirit as the Oriental tales in ‘the
Adventurer’ which were by him, but there are some fine things in
it.... I have heard my Lord Bath speak with great regard for you
and Lady Bab Montagu. I believe we shall call on him on Monday,
on our way to London. We were asked to dine or lye there in our
journey down, and at our return. He has recovered his health and
spirits and is the most delightfull companion imaginable. I think
he has great good qualities, and I do not perceive the least of
that covetousness which was attributed to him while his wife lived;
he lives nobly, entertains generously, and I know many acts of
generosity he has done, and I have known them from the report and
acknowledgements of the persons obliged, for by his behaviour to
such of them as I have seen at his house you would think he had
received favours from them, which nobly enhances the benefit. He
seems to have the strongest sense of Religion, and on all occasions
to show it without the ostentation of one who wants to be praised
for piety, nor does he ever in the gayest of his conversation
forget the respect due to every moral duty. It would give one
pain to discover any faults in one who has such extraordinary
perfections and endowments, and I think his Lordship has outlived
the errors which the hustling of a mighty Spirit may in youth
have led him: as to his consort, she was, in Milton’s phrase, _a
cleaving mischief in his way to virtue_.
“I am glad Lord Bath is to be at Tunbridge. Mrs. Carter is a great
favourite, and I hope we shall have a good deal of his company.”
She winds up her letter with high commendation of Gesner’s “Death of
Abel” mentioned before.
[327] Mr. Montagu, though a most moral man and a Church attendant,
objected to religious conversation.
[328] Her sister.
[329] John Hawkesworth, LL D., essayist and novelist, died 1773.
[Page heading: BLIND MAN’S BUFF]
Dr. Young now writes--
“DEAR MADAM,
“You and I are playing blind man’s buff; we both fancy we are
catching something, and we are both mistaken. You say you have sent
me two somethings, and I have not received so much as one, and you
expected one from me, which is not yet come to your hand, which
will kiss your hand this week, and if you are at the trouble of
reading it over you will find a sufficient excuse for my delay. By
what you say in your kind letter, you give me a very keen appetite
for both the books which you promise. I have heard nothing yet of
the time of my going to Kew: when I am there I shall make it my
endeavour to enjoy as much of you as I can. I have been in very
great pain with my rheumatism for some time, but now, I bless God,
I hope the worst is over. May health and peace keep company with
that benevolence and genius which are already with you.
“I am, dear Madam,
“Your much obliged
and most obedient humble Servt.,
“E. YOUNG.
“Mrs. Hallows[330] sends her best respects.
“Wellwyn, the 2nd July, ’61.”
[330] Mrs. Hallows was Dr. Young’s lady housekeeper.
Dr. Young’s allusion to Kew was the fact that he had recently been
appointed Clerk of the Closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales.
[Page heading: THE FUTURE QUEEN]
On July 7 Mrs. Montagu started for Tunbridge Wells, and on the
following Monday sent her post-chaise to fetch Mrs. Carter, and Lord
Bath arrived from London on the same day. Mr. Montagu, who was going to
Sandleford for a while, mentions in a letter of July 11 to his wife that
“there was a great appearance of the privy council when the King
declar’d his intention of demanding the Princess of Mecklenburgh
in marriage, a request that can never be denied. The family is
ancient, and the blood high, but I suppose the Dukedom not very
rich, but this may be helped with subsidies, etc., but this is
not much to be grudged if by making our young Monarch happy it
contributes to that of the Nation, tho’ Princes are under a
disadvantage from which their subjects are free, of marrying those
whom they have never seen or convers’d with, still I hope there is
reason to be believed that this alliance, as it was of the young
Monarch’s choosing and not of the imposing of a Father, and as
money, etc., is out of the case, that care has been taken by those
employ’d to give a true information both of the perfections of the
mind and body of this Princess, and he will be happy.”
Mr. Montagu adds that the pictures at Newbold Verdon were to be sold
for Mr. Edward Wortley-Montagu’s debts, but that a list of them had
been sent to him by Mr. E. Wortley-Montagu, who desired to know which
he would accept of as a present. Mr. Montagu had marked his brother’s
portrait (Mr. James Montagu), and asks his wife to say if there were
any she wished for. Very probably the picture by Sir Peter Lely of the
first Earl of Sandwich, Mr. Montagu’s grandfather, which I possess,
came from there.
Lord Bath conveyed Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter “to Mr.
Pratt’s[331] place, call’d Bayham Abbey, which I believe you once
saw with Mr. Pitt. The ruins of the Abbey are very noble. Tho’ the
Gothick buildings have not in their time of utmost perfection the
beauty of the Græcian; time seems to have a greater triumph in
the destruction of strength than of grace.... I have just now the
pleasure of hearing Pondicherry[332] is taken. I hope this will
depress the spirits of the French.... Lord Bath and Lord Lyttelton
and Mrs. Carter and Doctor Smythe and many others desire their
compliments.”
[331] Afterwards Lord Camden.
[332] Pondicherry in the East Indies was taken on January 15, 1761.
On July 20 Dr. Stillingfleet writes from Stanlake, Berks, the seat of
his friend, Richard Neville Aldworth, expressing his regret that he
cannot accept Mrs. Montagu’s kind invitation to Tunbridge Wells, as
his friend, Mr. Aldworth, had made him promise to spend a summer with
him at Stanlake. “This friend has had his constitution broken so by
the gout, that he is become a valetudinarian, and therefore I can the
less think of leaving him. He is ordered by his Physician to drink the
Sunning Hill Waters, and we are going there as soon as he is able.” Mr.
Aldworth was an ancestor of Lord Braybrooke’s.
[Page heading: MR. RICHARDSON’S DEATH]
Mr. Richardson, the author of “Clarissa Harlowe,” etc., died on July
4, to the great grief of Dr. Young, who was a bosom friend of his.
Mrs. Montagu bade Dr. Young come to Tunbridge to cheer his spirits. He
writes--
“DEAR MADAM,
“On your very kind invitation I have inquired if it is in my
power to accept of it, but I am not yet satisfied in that point.
Probabilities will not excuse me if her R. H. should go to Kew. I
should be very happy to be with you. I have so much to say to you
that at present I shall say nothing. You will hear further of me
in a little while. I beg my humble service to Mrs. Carter. May the
Waters continue to be as serviceable to you as I would be if it was
in my power.
“I am, dear Madam,
“Your obliged
and most obedient humble Servt.,
“E. YOUNG.
“July 21, 1761.”
[Page heading: “COOLING STANZAS!”]
On July 30 Dr. Young writes that he is obliged to refuse Mrs. Montagu’s
kind invitation “as he had a friend with him he could not leave,”
and as “her Royal Highness sent me word she would send for me when
she wanted me; for these reasons I deny myself the great pleasure of
waiting on you. I have ordered some Stanzas to be sent to you; they are
of a cooling nature, and may qualify your waters.”
In this year (1761) a complete collection of the doctor’s works was
printed.
[Page heading: UPON THE FUTURE QUEEN]
On the 8th of July George III. had announced his intention of
demanding in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz;
negotiations were immediately commenced. Mrs. Montagu writes from
Tunbridge Wells to her husband thus--