A WINTER RAMBLE REVERIE.
The road was straight, the afternoon was gray,
The frost hung listening in the silent air;
On either hand the rimy fields were bare;
Beneath my feet unrolled the long, white way,
Drear as my heart, and brightened by no ray
From the wide winter sun, whose disc reclined
In distant copper sullenness behind
The broken network of the western hedge—
A crimson blot upon the fading day.
Three travellers went before me—one alone—
Then two together, who their fingers nursed
Deep in their pockets; and I watched the first
Lapse in the curtain the slow haze had thrown
Across the vista which had been my own.
Next vanished the chill comrades, blotted out
Like him they followed, but I did not doubt
That there beyond the haze the travellers
Walked in the fashion that my sight had known.
Only “beyond the haze;” oh, sweet belief!
That this is also Death; that those we’ve kissed
Between our sobs, are just “beyond the mist;”
An easy thought to juggle with to grief!
The gulf seems measureless, and Death a thief.
Can we, who were so high, and are so low,
So clothed in love, who now in tatters go,
Echo serenely, “Just beyond the haze,”
And of a sudden find a trite relief?
—_Cornhill Magazine_.
MRS. MONTAGU.
Matthew Robinson, of West Layton in Yorkshire, married when he was
eighteen, and before he was forty found himself father of a numerous
family—seven sons and two daughters. His wife, whose maiden name was
Drake, had inherited property in Cambridgeshire, and this seems to have
been the cause of their settling at Cambridge about the year 1727. They
may also have been induced to do so from the fact that Dr. Conyers
Middleton, Mrs. Robinson’s step-father, held the office of Public
Librarian there. Conyers Middleton became subsequently celebrated by
his “Life of Cicero”; but at this time he was chiefly known as the
malignant enemy of the learned Bentley, Master of Trinity College, and
as the author of various polemical tracts and treatises.
Middleton took an interest in the grandchildren of his deceased wife.
His favorite among them was his god-daughter Elizabeth, the elder of
the two girls. When first he saw her she was not quite eight years old.
He was at once struck by her precocious intelligence, and undertook to
begin her education. Her power of attention, and strength of memory,
were tested in the following way. He kept her with him while conversing
with visitors on subjects far beyond her grasp, and expected her both
to listen, and to give him afterwards some account of what had passed.
The exercise was a severe one, but his little pupil profited by it.
Guided by him, she made her first steps in Latin, her knowledge of
which, in after-life, was an inexhaustible source of pleasure. She
often regretted that she had not learnt Greek as well.
A favorite amusement of the young Robinsons was that of playing at
Parliament, their gentle mother sitting by and obligingly acting as
Speaker, a title which her children habitually used when mentioning
her among themselves. Often, when dispute waxed too warm, had she to
interfere, and restore order among the senators, of whom Elizabeth was
not the least eloquent.
Wimpole Hall, now the home of the Yorkes, was, in the early part of
last century, inhabited by Lord Oxford.[42] In 1731, Mrs. Robinson went
from Cambridge to pay a visit there, taking her daughter Elizabeth
with her. Lord and Lady Oxford had an only child and heiress, Lady
Margaret Harley, who, a few years later, became Duchess of Portland.
Lady Margaret was eighteen, and Elizabeth Robinson eleven. In spite
of the difference in their ages, they became friends at once.
Lady Margaret was immensely diverted by Elizabeth’s liveliness of
mind, and restlessness of body, and—being addicted to dispensing
nicknames—called her Fidget. Elizabeth was doubtless flattered by the
notice the other accorded her. On getting back to Cambridge, she sat
down to write a letter to her new friend, but had difficulty in finding
something to say. One can imagine her chewing the feather of her pen,
and rolling her eyes, in the agony of composition. At last she began:
“This Cambridge is the dullest place: it neither affords
anything entertaining nor ridiculous enough to put into
a letter. Were it half so difficult to find something
to say as something to write, what a melancholy set of
people should we be who love prating!”
Letter-writing soon ceased to cause her the slightest effort. This
was well, for she was cut off for a period from all but epistolary
intercourse with Lady Margaret, owing to her father’s settling at a
place he owned in Kent, Mount Morris, near Hythe. Had Mr. Robinson
followed his inclination, he would have preferred living in London, for
he much appreciated the society of his fellow-men. But prudence forbade
this. Though comfortably off, he was not wealthy, and already his
elder sons were treading on his heels. He fell to repining at times,
declaring that living in the country was simply sleeping with his
eyes open. His daughter Elizabeth (evidently now an authority in the
household) would rally him sharply when he spoke so, and we learn from
one of her letters that she had taken to putting saffron in his tea to
enliven his spirits. His temper, for all that, continued most
uncertain. Once, after promising to take her to the Canterbury Races,
and the festivities which followed them, he changed his mind suddenly,
and decided on remaining at home. Keenly disappointed was Elizabeth,
who was so eager about dancing, that she fancied she had at some time
or other been bitten by the tarantula. But philosophy came to her aid,
and she confessed that writing a long letter to her dear duchess, was a
more rational pleasure than “jumping and cutting capers.”
Her health was not altogether satisfactory. An affection of the
hip-joint was the cause of her being ordered to Bath in 1740. Neither
the place itself, nor the lounging life led by the bathers, were much
to her taste. It amused her, though, to comment satirically on the
people she saw. Who, one wonders, were the good folks thus turned
inside out?—
“There is one family here that affect sense. Their stock
is indeed so low that, if they laid out much, they would
be in danger of becoming bankrupt; but, according to
their present economy, it will last them their lives.
And everybody commends them—for who will not praise
what they do not envy? To commend what they admire, is
above the capacity of the generality.”
On leaving Bath, she spent some weeks with the Duke and Duchess of
Portland, at their grand house in Whitehall. During her visit she was
ordered by the doctor to enter on a fresh course of baths—this time
at Marylebone—and thither she used to proceed every morning in the
ducal coach. The duchess accompanied her on the first occasion, and was
“frightened out of her wits” at the intrepidity with which she plunged
in. Lord Dupplin, who was given to rhyming, actually found material for
an ode in the account he received of Miss Fidget’s aquatic feats.
The following year, Mr. Robinson’s younger daughter, Sarah, caught
the smallpox. Elizabeth who, besides being rather delicate, had a
considerable share of beauty to lose, was at once removed by her
parents from Mount Morris, and sent to lodge in the house of a
gentleman farmer living a few miles off—a certain Mr. Smith of Hayton.
By most young women, familiar, as was she, with the delights of
Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and Marylebone Gardens, the life at Hayton would
have been thought supremely dull; but Elizabeth had a mind too well
stored to find time hang heavy. “I am not sorry,” she writes, “to be
without the appurtenances of equipage for a while, that I may know
how much of my happiness depends upon myself, and how much comes from
the things about me.” Mr. Smith who enjoyed an income of four hundred
a year, she describes as a busy, anxious person, very silent, and
disposed to be niggardly. Mrs. Smith was a good sort of body, excellent
at making cheeses and syllabubs. The two Miss Smiths were worthy
damsels, yet hardly interesting to the pupil of Conyers Middleton.
The house was as clean as a new pin; it contained much worm-eaten
panelling and antique furniture, well rubbed and polished. The room
assigned to Elizabeth was spacious though dark, owing to the masses of
ivy veiling the windows. Here she reigned undisturbed; a big clock on
the staircase-landing struck the hours with solemn regularity. From
without came the cawing of rooks, and the grating noise of a rusty
weathercock fixed in the stump of an old oak-tree. She wrote of course
to the Duchess of Portland apologising for addressing her grace on
paper “ungilded and unadorned.” To Miss Donnellan,[43] another favored
correspondent, whose acquaintance she had made at Bath, she gives the
following account of herself and her surroundings:
“I am forced to go back to former ages for my
companions; Cicero and Plutarch’s heroes are my
only company. I cannot extract the least grain of
entertainment out of the good family I am with; my best
friends among the living are a colony of rooks who have
settled themselves in a grove by my window. They wake me
early in the morning, for which I am obliged to them for
some hours of reading, and some moments of reflection,
of which they are the subject. I have not yet discovered
the form of their government, but I imagine it is
democratical. There seems an equality of power and
property, and a wonderful agreement of opinion. I am apt
to fancy them wise for the same reason I have thought
some men and some books so, because they are solemn, and
because I do not understand them. If I continue here
long, I shall grow a good naturalist. I have applied
myself to nursing chickens, and have been forming the
manners of a young calf, but I find it a very dull
scholar.”
At last, Sarah Robinson was pronounced convalescent; and the sisters,
who were devoted to one another, were permitted to have an interview,
in the open air, at a distance of six feet apart. Soon after, all fear
of infection being gone, Elizabeth bid adieu to Hayton and its inmates
(not forgetting the rook republic) and returned home.
Miss Robinson was not of a susceptible nature. There is reason to
believe that, during her stay in London, she had several sighing swains
at her feet. There is mention too, in one of her letters, of a certain
clownish squire, a visitor at Hayton, who complimented her “with all
the force of rural gallantry.” But this gentleman she could only liken
to a calf, and his attentions were received with polite indifference.
Indeed, on the subject of marriage, she had decided opinions.
“When I marry,” was her written declaration, “I do not
intend to enlist entirely under the banner of Cupid
or Plutus, but take prudent consideration, and decent
inclination, for my advisers. I like a coach and six
extremely; but a strong apprehension of repentance would
not suffer me to accept it from many that possess it.”
A suitor of an approved type soon presented himself. In the person of
Edward Montagu, Esquire, the main requirements seemed combined. He was
of good birth, being a grandson of the first Lord Sandwich: he was
rich, and had prospects of increased wealth some day. He had a place in
Yorkshire, another in Berkshire, and a house in town. He represented
Huntingdon in Parliament. _Au reste_, he was a courteous gentleman,
grave in aspect and demeanor, and some thirty years her senior. It may
be added that he was a mathematician of distinction, happiest when
alone pursuing his studies.
In August 1742, being then twenty-two, Elizabeth Robinson became Mrs.
Montagu. It was not without a flutter of anxiety that she took even
this prudent step, but the sequel showed that she had chosen wisely. A
more generous, indulgent husband she could not have found. “He has no
desire of power but to do good,” was her report, after some experience
of his temper, “and no use of it but to make happy.” She suffered a
heavy bereavement, two years afterwards, in the loss of an infant boy,
her only child. This affected her health, and we hear of frequent
visits paid by her to Tunbridge Wells to drink the waters. Here is a
picture of the folks she encountered on the Pantiles:
“Tunbridge seems the parliament of the world, where
every country and every rank has its representative; we
have Jews of every tribe, and Christian people of all
nations and conditions. Next to some German, whose noble
blood might entitle him to be Grand Master of Malta,
sits a pin-maker’s wife from Smock Alley; pickpockets,
who are come to the top of their profession, play with
noble dukes at brag.”
The letters of Mrs. Montagu have been compared with those of her
kinswoman by marriage, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to the disadvantage
of the latter. Of the two, Lady Mary is the livelier and wittier on
paper, but her writings are disfigured by a coarseness which, with the
other’s taste, she might have avoided. Mrs. Montagu is seen at her best
when addressing intimate friends. Her style is then easy and natural,
and the good things that drop from her pen are worth picking up; but it
is another affair when she writes to a stranger, especially one whom
she intends to dazzle with her learning. She then drags in gods and
goddesses to adorn her pages, uses metaphor to straining, and moralises
at wearisome length.
The Montagus, though living in perfect harmony, afforded each other
little companionship. When at Sandleford, their favorite residence near
Newbury, in Berkshire, Mr. Montagu was all day long shut up in his
study. His wife was thrown on her own resources for amusement. With
country neighbors often stupid, and oftener rough, she had nothing in
common. It is just possible that she felt the winged fiend _Ennui_
hovering over her. Some remarks addressed to a correspondent on the
necessity of occupation give that impression:
“It is better to pass one’s life _à faire des riens, qu’
à rien faire_. Do but do something; the application to
it will make it appear important, and the being the doer
of it laudable, so that one is sure to be pleased one’s
self. To please others is a task so difficult, one may
never attain it, and perhaps not so necessary that one
is obliged to attempt it.”
To please others was no such difficult task for her, and she must
have known it. Cultivated society was the element in which she was
made to move. She was always glad when the time arrived to get into
her postchaise, and roll over the fifty-six miles that lay between
Sandleford and her house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. This
habitation was at once stately and convenient; one room was furnished
in the Chinese style: the walls were lively with pagodas, willow-trees,
and simpering celestials. Here she collected around her the witty
and the wise. Her _salon_ quickly became the fashion. We find her on
one occasion apologizing to a lady for not answering her letter, and
explaining that, on the previous day, “the Chinese room was filled by a
succession of people from eleven in the morning till eleven at night.”
She is said to have introduced the custom—which did not however take
permanent root—of giving mid-day breakfasts. Madame du Boccage, a
lady of eminence in the French literary world, who happened to be in
England in 1750, gives a description of one of them in a letter to her
sister Madame Duperron. It appears that bread-and-butter, cakes hot and
cold, biscuits of every shape and flavor, formed the solid portion of
the feast. Tea, coffee, and chocolate were the beverages provided. The
hostess, wearing a white apron, and a straw hat (like those with which
porcelain shepherdesses are crowned), stood at the table pouring out
the tea. Madame du Boccage was much impressed by the fine table-linen,
the gleaming cups and saucers, and the excellence of the tea, which in
those days cost about sixteen shillings a pound. But especially did
she admire the lady of the house, who deserved, she considered, “to be
served at the table of the gods.“
Mrs. Montagu had, all her life, been a student of Shakespeare, and an
ardent admirer of his works. Her indignation may be imagined therefore
when Voltaire dared to condemn what he was pleased to call _les farces
monstrueuses_ of the bard of Avon.[44] It was contended by Voltaire that
Corneille was immeasurably superior to Shakespeare as a dramatist,
inasmuch as the latter set at nought Aristotle’s unities of time and
place, and otherwise violated accepted rules of dramatic composition.
That the vigor and freedom which characterise Shakespeare’s genius
should be depreciated, and the stilted artificialities of the French
school held up to admiration, was more than Mrs. Montagu could stand.
She thus denounces the philosopher of Ferney, and his opinions, in a
letter to Gilbert West:
“Foolish coxcomb! Rules can no more make a poet than
receipts a cook. There must be taste, there must be
skill. Oh, that we were as sure our fleets and armies
could drive the French out of America as that our poets
and tragedians can drive them out of Parnassus. I hate
to see these tame creatures, taught to pace by art,
attack fancy’s sweetest child.”
There was nothing for it but to enter the lists herself, and measure
swords with the assailant. She accordingly set to work at her “Essay on
the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare,” and very well she acquitted
herself of the task. Her essay, though heavy, did credit to her taste
and erudition. It was published in 1769, and had no small success. From
first to last, six editions appeared. She treated Voltaire in it with
surprising forbearance; yet he is said to have been extremely nettled
at his sovereign dictum being called in question—and by a woman
too! This was not her only literary performance. To the “Dialogues
of the Dead,” of which her friend Lord Lyttleton was the author, she
contributed three, the brightest being that in which Mercury and
Mrs. Modish are made to converse. Mrs. Modish is a typical woman of
fashion of the day. Mercury summons her to cross the Styx with him,
and she—surprised and unprepared—pleads in excuse divers trumpery
engagements (balls, plays, card-assemblies, and the like), to meet
which she neglects all her home duties. As several fine ladies tossed
their heads on reading the dialogue, and declared the Modish utterances
to be “abominably satirical,” we may presume that the cap fitted.
In 1770, Mrs. Montagu had completely established her empire in the
world of literature. A list of the remarkable people who assembled
beneath her roof would fill a page. She was on terms of friendly
intimacy with Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Reynolds, Walpole,
Garrick, Dr. Burney, Dr. Young, Bishop Percy, Lords Lyttleton, Bath,
Monboddo, and a host more. Of the other sex may be named Mesdames
Carter, Chapone, Barbauld, Boscawen, Thrale, Vesey, Ord, and Miss
Burney. Dr. Doran, in his memoir of Mrs. Montagu, explains how her
parties, and those given by Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord, came to be called
_Bluestocking_ Assemblies. It seems that Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet,
who was always a welcome guest at them, wore stockings of a bluish
grey; and this peculiarity was fixed upon, by those disposed to deride
such gatherings, as affording a good stamp wherewith to brand them.
A _Bluestocking Club_ never existed. There was a _Literary Club_, of
which Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson were the promoters, and to
this the so-called bluestockings of both sexes belonged.
It was in 1774 that Hannah More was first introduced to Mrs. Montagu.
Hannah was the daughter of a schoolmaster in Gloucestershire, and had
come up to town at the invitation of Garrick. Her ambition from her
earliest childhood had been to mix in intellectual society, and win for
herself, if possible, a place therein. This she succeeded in doing with
a swiftness that will surprise those who have tried to read the plays
and ballads by which she made her name. Her cleverness, sound sense,
and fresh enthusiasm, attracted the “female Mecænas of Hill Street” (so
she styles Mrs. Montagu), who invited her to dinner, Johnson, Reynolds,
and Mrs. Boscawen, being of the party.
“I feel myself a worm,” she tells her sister, “the more
a worm from the consequence which was given me by mixing
with such a society. Mrs. Montagu received me with the
most encouraging kindness. She is not only the finest
genius, but the finest lady I ever saw. Her countenance
is the most animated in the world—the sprightly
vivacity of fifteen, with the judgment and experience
of a Nestor. But I fear she is hastening to decay very
fast; her spirits are so active that they must soon wear
out the little frail receptacle that holds them.”
Cards were discountenanced in Hill Street. After dinner, the company,
augmented by fresh arrivals, divided itself into little groups,
and much animated conversation went on. The hostess was especially
brilliant, holding her own in a brisk argument against four clever
men. Hannah was amused at observing how “the fine ladies and pretty
gentlemen” who could only talk twaddle, herded together.
Mrs. Montagu was generally happy in her friendships, which she made
with caution, and only abandoned for good reason. It is hard to say
what first caused a breach between her and Johnson, who sometimes
smothered her with compliments, and as often, in chatting with Boswell,
spoke of her with harshness and disrespect. She, it is stated, once
pronounced his “Rasselas” an opiate, and the remark of course was not
allowed to lie where it fell. In return, he fastened on her “Essay
on Shakespeare,” declaring that there was not one sentence of true
criticism in the whole book. There is reason to suppose also that
he was jealous of the respectful deference she showed to Garrick
and Lyttleton. He certainly caused her pain later on, by the sneers
he bestowed on the latter (then dead) in his “Lives of the Poets.”
He had shown her the manuscript of the Life in question, and the
expressions in it which offended her she had marked for omission. He,
however, thought fit to disregard her wishes, and sent it to press as
originally written. On opening the book, and finding her idol alluded
to as “poor Lyttleton,” and accused of vanity and a cringing fear of
criticism, she was naturally incensed. As it was not convenient to
seek out the offender in Bolt Court, she asked him to dinner, and he
had the temerity to go. The repast over, he attempted to engage her in
conversation, but her icy manner repelled him. Retiring discomfited, he
seated himself next General Paoli, to whom he remarked, “Mrs. Montagu,
sir, has dropped me. Now, sir, there are people whom one should like
very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.” After this,
open war was declared on both sides. Malicious onlookers, for sport’s
sake, fomented the disagreement. Foremost among these was Horace
Walpole. He relates with infinite glee that, at a bluestocking assembly
at Lady Lucan’s, “Mrs. Montagu and Johnson kept at different ends of
the chamber, and set up altar against altar.” Johnson had many reasons
for feeling grateful to Mrs. Montagu; it is therefore satisfactory to
know that, at the time of his death, he and she were on cordial terms
again.