In 1769, the critical state of public affairs drew from Mrs. Montagu the
following reflection: “I hope I shall see all my friends safe and well
at my return to town; but, indeed, a wicked mob and a foolish ministry
may produce strange events. It was better in old times, when the ministry
was wicked and the mob foolish.... Ministers, however wicked, do not pull
down houses, nor ignorant mobs pull down government. A mob that can read
and a ministry that cannot think are sadly matched.”
In truth, however, Mrs. Montagu was engaged during this year on a work
which was not only praiseworthy for the motive which induced her to
undertake it, but honourable to her for its execution, and it may almost
be added, glorious to her personally in its results.
In 1769 Mrs. Montagu published, anonymously, her “Essay on the Writings
and Genius of Shakespeare.” This work, once widely famous, may still
be read with pleasure. It was written in reply to Voltaire’s grossly
indecent attack on our national poet. Some previous allusion which he
had made to Shakespeare, to show his own learning, had directed the
notice of French readers to a new dramatic literature which soon won
their admiration. Voltaire’s jealousy induced him to denounce what he
had before extolled, and he did this in the spirit of the tiger and the
monkey—the component elements, according to his own mendacious saying,
of all Frenchmen. He had no deep knowledge of the subject he affected
to criticise, and was not made of the stuff that could lead him to feel
sympathy with the lofty sentiments, or to be stirred by the searching
wit of the greatest of dramatic poets. Voltaire could no more appreciate
Shakespeare than he could estimate the divine character of Joan of Arc.
If Joan’s own countrymen betrayed her, Voltaire stands foremost among
Frenchmen as the beastly polluter of her spotless reputation.
Mrs. Montagu makes the following playful allusion to her authorship, in
a letter to Lord Lyttelton, December, 1769: “I am sorry to tell you that
a friend of yours is no longer a concealed scribbler. I had better have
employed the town crier to proclaim me an author; but, being whispered,
it has circulated with incredible swiftness. I hear Mr. Andrew Stone is
very indulgent to my performance, which much flatters my vanity. Mr.
Melmoth, at Bath, flatters me; but I am most flattered that a brother
writer says the book would be very well if it had not too much wit. I
thought there had been no wit at all in it; and I am as much pleased as
M. Jourdain was when his preceptor told him he spoke prose. If my wit
hurts anybody or anything, it is chance-medley—no premeditated malice;
neither art nor part has my will therein. I don’t love wit: it is a poor,
paltry thing, and fit only for a Merry Andrew.
“I look very innocent when I am attacked about the essay, and say, ‘I
don’t know what you mean!’ I shall set about a new edition as soon as
your lordship comes to town; for the first thousand is in great part
sold, tho’ the booksellers have done me all the prejudice in their
power.” The new edition was even more successful than the first.
Mrs. Montagu’s defence may appear a little too apologetic now; but it is
marked by good taste, by evidences of deep thought, by flashes of wit,
and by the grasp she has, firmly and gracefully, on her subject. She
deals with dramatic poetry and the historical drama, examines the first
and second parts of “Henry IV.,” treats of the preternatural beings of
Shakespeare, and ends by a comparison of “Cinna” and “Julius Cæsar.”
If any may differ with her in respect to Corneille, whose third act of
“Cinna” is worthy of the great French dramatic poet, no reader will
hesitate to praise the earnestness and delicacy with which this Lady of
the Last Century has executed her noble task.
A French translation appeared in Paris in 1777—the year before Voltaire
died. In England, six editions of the essay were published, the last in
1810. In 1827, it had the honour of being noticed with high praise, by M.
Villemain, in his “Nouveaux Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires;” and in
1840, an edition in Italian was published in Florence.
Few English readers had read Voltaire so thoughtfully as Mrs. Montagu,
and perhaps none reflected more on what they read than she did, or gave
more graceful expression to consequent judgment. One side of Voltaire’s
character she described (while the witty Frenchman was preparing his
attack on Shakespeare) to Lord Kames.
“Voltaire sent a tragedy to Paris, which he said was composed in ten
days. The players sent it back to him to correct. At threescore and ten
one should not think his wit would outrun his judgment; but he seems
to begin a second infancy in wit and philosophy,—a dangerous thing to
one who has such an antipathy to leading-strings.” It was Voltaire’s
self-praise that offended Mrs. Montagu as much as his offensive
condescension to, and disparagement of, Shakespeare. When she was told
that Voltaire had said boastingly: “C’est moi qui autrefois parlai le
premier de ce Shakespeare. C’est moi qui le premier montrai aux Français
quelques perles que j’avais trouvé dans son fumier.” “Ah!” replied Mrs.
Montagu, with great readiness, “C’est un fumier qui a fertilisé une terre
bien ingrate.” French fashionable circles, which loved wit and cared
not a jot who suffered by it, received and repeated the saying of the
accomplished English lady as if it had been ten times more brilliant than
it was in reality.
Mrs. Montagu’s defence of Shakespeare was not too tenderly treated by
her own friends. All the frankness of friendship was cheerfully given to
it. The plain-spoken Dowager Countess Gower thus wrote soon after the
appearance of the Vindication:
_1769._—“Fortune has blest this forest with the geniuses of the age;
Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Dunbar, etc., etc., and Lord Lyttelton
are at Sunning Wells, and sport sentiment from morn till noon, from
noon till dewy eve. I molest ’em not; contenting myself in my rustic
simplicity. ’Tis a stupidity that may be felt, I don’t doubt, but not by
me. Mrs. Montagu has commenced author, in vindication of Shakespeare,
who wants none; therefore her performance must be deemed a work of
supererogation. Some commend it. I’ll have it, because I can throw it
aside when I’m tired.” Johnson treated it with greater brutality. He
had once compared Mrs. Montagu with Queen Elizabeth, and had recognized
in the former the greater qualifications. Now, he denounced the essay
when he had only looked into it. He had taken up an end of the web, and
finding packthread, thought it useless, as he said, to go further in
search of embroidery. Reynolds thought it did her honour, which Johnson
allowed, but he spoiled the admission by asserting that it would do
honour to no one else. Garrick said she had pointed out Voltaire’s
blunders; to which Johnson replied, that it wasn’t worth while, and that
there was no merit in the way of doing it. Subsequently, he declared:
“Neither I, nor Beauclerk, nor Mrs. Thrale could get through the book!”—a
declaration which was unfounded, as far as Mrs. Thrale was concerned;
for she protested that she had read it with pleasure. The great man, in
short, talked nonsense, but dressed it in fine words. “There was no real
criticism in it,” he said, “showing the beauty of thought, as formed in
the workings of the human heart.” Mrs. Montagu did not feel called on
to exhibit any such beauty or any such superstructure. She exposed the
blundering arrogance of Voltaire, who first praised Shakespeare, for the
annoyance of his own countrymen, and then, finding the French inclined
to accept the praise, aspersed brutally the poet whom he had pillaged
without mercy.
Johnson thought little of Garrick, probably because Garrick approved the
object of Mrs. Montagu’s Shakespearian essay, and because the lady gave
very high praise to Garrick as an actor. Johnson thought it was fit
that she should say much, and that he should say nothing, in Garrick’s
praise. Accomplished Bruin, however, said much to the great player’s
disparagement. He maintained that Garrick had been overpaid for what he
had done for Shakespeare. “Sir, he has not made Shakespeare better known.
He cannot illustrate Shakespeare!” When Johnson afterward wrote to Mrs.
Thrale, that speaking of “Shakespeare and Nature” rightly brought Mrs.
Montagu into his mind, he is supposed to be inconsistent, when he was,
it may be, only satirical. He certainly uttered a judgment on the essay,
which is not to be gainsaid, when he maintained, according to Mr. Seward,
that the work was “ad hominem, conclusive against Voltaire,” and that
“she had done, sir, what she intended to do.”
The greatest praise which the essay received was awarded to it by Cowper
many years after it was published. Writing on May 27, 1788, to Lady
Hesketh, Cowper said: “I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montagu stands at
the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his
bonnet to her superior judgment. I am now reading and have reached the
middle of her essay on the genius of Shakespeare—a book of which, strange
as it may seem, though I must have read it formerly, I had absolutely
forgot the existence.
“The learning, the good sense, the sound judgment, and the wit displayed
in it fully justify, not only my compliment, but all compliments that
either have been already paid to her talents, or shall be paid hereafter.
Voltaire, I doubt not, rejoiced that his antagonist wrote in English,
and that his countrymen could not possibly be judges of the dispute.
Could they have known how much she was in the right, and by how many
thousand miles the Bard of Avon is superior to all their dramatists, the
French critic would have lost half his fame among them.”
While honour was being showered on the writer of the essay, ill health,
from which she suffered long and frequently, marred her triumph.
Writing to Mrs. W. Robinson, from Hill Street, November the 19th, 1770,
she says: “... I fell ill on my journey to Denton, or rather, indeed,
began the journey indisposed, and only aggravated my complaints by
travelling. Sickness and bad weather deprived me of the pleasure of
seeing the beauties of Derbyshire. However, I got a sight of the stately
Palace of Lord Scarsdale, where the arts of antient Greece and the
delicate pomp of modern ages unite to make a most magnificent habitation.
It is the best worth seeing of any house, I suppose, in England. But
I know how it is that one receives but moderate pleasure in the works
of art. There is a littleness in every work of man. The operations of
nature are vast and noble, and I found much greater pleasure in the
contemplation of Lord Breadalbane’s mountains, rocks, and lakes than in
all the efforts of human art at Lord Scarsdale’s.”
Mrs. Montagu’s illness increasing at Denton, she writes: “Doctor Gregory
came from Edinburgh to make me a visit, and persuaded me to go back with
him. The scheme promised much pleasure, and, I flattered myself, might
be conducive to health, as the doctor, of whose medical skill I have the
highest opinion, would have time to observe and consider my various
complaints. I was glad also to have an opportunity of amusing my friend,
Mrs. Chapone, whom I carried into the north with me. We had a pleasant
journey to Edinburgh, where we were most agreeably entertained in Doctor
Gregory’s house, all the literate and polite company of Edinburgh paying
me all kind of attentions; and, by the doctor’s regimen, my health
improved greatly; so that I was prevailed upon to enjoy my love of
prospects by another trip to the Highlands, my good friend and physician
still attending me. The first day’s journey was to Lord Buchan, brother
to Mr. Charles Erskine, who was the intimate companion and friendly
competitor of my poor brother Tom. Each of them was qualified for the
highest honours of their profession, which they would have certainly
attained, had it pleased God to have granted longer life. Lord Buchan had
received great civilities at Horton when he was pursuing his law studies
in England; so he came to visit me as soon as I got to Edinburgh, and, in
the most friendly manner, pressed my passing some days at his house in
Perthshire. I got there by an easy day’s journey, having also walked a
long time about the castle of Stirling, which commands a very beautiful
prospect.
“Lord Buchan’s place is very fine and in a very singular style. His house
looks to the south, over a very rich valley, rendered more fertile as
well as more beautiful by the meanderings of the river Forth. Behind his
house rise great hills covered with wood, and over them stupendous rocks.
The goats look down with an air of philosophic pride and gravity on folks
in the valley. One in particular seemed to me capable of addressing the
famous beast of Gavaudan, if he had been there, with as much disdain as
Diogenes did the great conqueror of the East. Here I passed two days
very agreeably, and then his lordship and my doctor attended me to my
old friend Lord Kinnoul’s. You may imagine my visit there gave me a
great deal of pleasure besides what arose from seeing a fine place. I
was delighted to find an old friend enjoying that heartfelt happiness
which attends a life of virtue. Lord Kinnoul is continually employed
in encouraging agriculture and manufactures, protecting the weak from
injury, assisting the distressed, and animating the young people to
whatever in their various stations is most fit and proper.... He appears
more happy in this situation than when he was whirled about in the vortex
of the Duke of Newcastle. The situation of a Scottish nobleman of fortune
is enough to fill the ambition of a reasonable man, for they have power
to do a great deal of good.
“From Dupplin we went to Lord Breadalbane’s, at Taymouth. Here unite
the sublime and beautiful. The house is situated in a valley where the
verdure is the finest imaginable; noble beeches adorn it, and beautiful
cascades fall down the midst of it. Through this valley you are led to a
vast lake. On one side of the lake there is a fine country; on the other,
mountains lift their heads or hide them in the clouds. In some places
ranges of rocks look like vast fortifyed cittadels. I passed two days in
this fine place, where I was entertained with the greatest politeness
and kindest attentions, Lord Breadalbane seeming to take the greatest
pleasure in making everything easy, agreeable, and convenient.
“My next excursion was to Lord Kames’; and then I returned to Edinburgh.
With Lord Kames and his lady I have had a correspondence ever since I
was first in Scotland, so I was there received with cordial friendship.
I must do the justice to the Scottish nation to say, they are the most
politely hospitable of any people in the world. I had innumerable
invitations of which I could not avail myself, having made as long a
holiday from my business in Northumberland as I could afford.
“The newspapers will inform you of the death of Mr. George Grenville.
I think he is a great loss to the publick; and tho’ in these days of
ribbaldry and abuse he was often much calumniated, I believe time will
vindicate his character as a publick man: as a private one, he was quite
unblemished. I regret the loss to myself. I was always pleased and
informed by his conversation. He had read a vast deal, and had an amazing
memory. He had been versed in business from his youth; so that he had a
very rich fund of conversation, and he was good-natured and very friendly.
“The King’s Speech has a warlike tone. But still we flatter ourselves
that the French king’s aversion to war may prevent our being again
engaged in one.... Lord Chatham was to have spoken in the House of Lords
to-day, if poor Mr. Grenville’s death, which happened at seven this
morning, had not hindered his appearing in publick....
“Mr. Montagu did not leave Denton till almost a week after I came away;
and he was stop’d at Durham by waters being out; but I had the pleasure
of hearing yesterday that he got safe to Darlington, where he was to
pass a few days with a famous mathematician, but I expect him in town
the end of this week. My nephew, Morris, has got great credit at Eton
already.... My doctors order me to forbear writing, but this letter does
not show my obedience to them.... The celebrated coterie will go on, in
spite of all remonstrances, and there is to be an assembly thrice a week
for the subscribers to the opera, so little impression do rumours of wars
and apprehensions of the plague make in the fine world....
“I am in your debt for my pretty neice’s dancing-master, which I forgot
when I had the pleasure of seeing you. I shall hope to supply her, as
opportunity offers, with all the assistance of that sort which her happy
genius will make of great use to her; but your constant care will supply
many better things than those the artists teach, and I do not doubt of
her making an amiable and valuable woman. With the most sincere regard,
I am, dear madam, your very affectionate sister, and faithful friend,
and humble servt., E. M.... I know you will be very glad to hear I left
everything in such order in the north, that I shall not pay my devotions
to ye pole-star again for some years.”
No two people had more delight in mutual conversation than Mrs. Montagu
and Lord Kames. They were so agreed upon one subject,—the insincerity,
ignorance, and meanness of Voltaire, as to make their conversation most
lively when it turned upon the Frenchman who defiled the character of
the most glorious of Frenchwomen, Joan of Arc,—who heaped abuse upon
Shakespeare and on those who defended him,—and who hated and miscalled
Lord Kames for having weighed his “Henriade” in the scales of criticism,
and for having found it “wanting.” Over this reply of Voltaire to Lord
Kames, that judge and philosopher, reading it aloud, laughed himself, and
raised irrepressible laughter in the lady who listened to him. The reply
is in one of Voltaire’s “Lettres à un Journaliste.” “Permit me to explain
to you some whimsical singularities of ‘The Elements of Criticism,’ in
three volumes, by Lord Makames (sic), a justice of peace in Scotland.
That philosopher has a most profound knowledge of nature and art, and he
uses the utmost efforts to make the rest of the world as wise as himself.
He begins by proving that we have five senses; and that we are less
struck by a gentle impression made on our eyes and ears, by colours and
sounds, than by a knock on the head or a kick on the leg. Proceeding from
that to the rules of time and space, M. Home concludes with mathematical
precision, that time seems long to a lady who is about to be married,
and short to a man who is going to be hanged. M. Home applies doctrines
equally extraordinary to every department of art. It is a surprising
effect of the progress of the human mind, that we should now receive from
Scotland rules for our taste in all matters, from an epic poem down to
a garden. Knowledge extends daily, and we must not despair of hereafter
obtaining performances in poetry and oratory from the Orkney Islands. M.
Home always lays down his opinions as a law, and extends his despotic
sway far and wide. He is a judge who absorbs all appeals.”
The famous mathematician to whom Mrs. Montagu refers in the above letter
was William Emerson, of whom Mr. Montagu is believed to have been the
original patron. Mr. Montagu may, in some degree, have helped that poor
and eccentric scholar, but the energies of the once idle Yorkshire
dreamer were really developed by an injustice. He had married the niece
of a clergyman, who basely cheated the bride out of her dowry of £500.
Whereupon the proud and angry husband sent back the whole of his wife’s
wardrobe, with the message that he would “scorn to be beholden to such
a fellow for a rag!” When Mr. Montagu married Elizabeth Robinson,
Emerson had just ready for the press the work which gave him a place
in the highest rank of mathematicians—his “Doctrine of Fluxions.” The
distinction neither affected his eccentricity nor softened his audacity.
He was wont to sign his mathematical solutions with a name that might
have made Minerva breathless—“Philofluentimechanelgegeomastrolonzo,” and
he lived to shock Mrs. Edward Montagu by snapping his fingers at the
Royal Society, and damning the fellows and their fellowships!
George Grenville and Burke are among the best samples of the men whom
Mrs. Montagu appreciated, and who could thoroughly appreciate Mrs.
Montagu. Burke has spoken in the highest terms of both. Of the statesman
who, five years before his death, resigned all his offices, Burke said:
“With a masculine understanding and a stout and resolute heart, he had
an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business, not
as a duty he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he
seemed to have no delight out of the house, except in such things as in
some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he
was ambitious, I will say this for him, that his ambition was of a noble
and generous strain. It was to raise himself not by the low, pimping
politics of a court, but to win his way to power through the laborious
gradations of public service, and to secure himself a well-earned rank in
Parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution and in perfect
practice in all its business.” Mrs. Montagu might justly be proud of the
good opinion of a friend who could express such a judgment of another
friend like Grenville, for whom she herself entertained the highest
esteem.
Mrs. Montagu to Mrs. Robinson. “_January 17, 1771._ ... I have kept very
well all this frost, and what is more strange in a town lady, I have
been very discreet. I have improved upon Lady Grace’s plan of doing very
soberly. I have been serious, and solemn and retired, and have sat as
quietly at my fireside as any antiquated dowager when her quadrille party
was gone into the country. But I have said enough upon such an atom, and
I will now talk of ye great persons and things of this world. The Duke
of Bedford died of a fit of the asthma. He departed singing the 104th
Psalm. This shows he had some piety, but I think his grace sang out of
tune; so I am not an admirer of his singing.” (Walpole says he “had lost
his sight, and almost his speech and limbs.”) “I like a Psalm-singing
cobler in death as well as in life. A poor man who has maintained a wife
and children by his labour, has kept the ten commandments, has observed
the Sabbath, kept the laws of the community, and lived kindly with his
neighbours, may sing his own requiem with a comfortable and cheerful
assurance. Of him to whom little is given, little shall be required.
But the debtor and creditor of a long account is not so easily settled.
Wealth, titles, power give a great influence in society. Have the poor
been relieved, the weak protected, the industrious been encouraged,
virtue countenanced, merit brought forth to view, the profligate
discouraged, the commonwealth served equal to its great demands on a Duke
of Bedford, the proprietor of a vast estate? I mean not to intimate that
he was to dye in despair, for his Judge is merciful, but in his sight no
man living shall be justified; so that, unless there is an uncommon merit
or innocence of character, I see no reason for this kind of jollity. His
grace has left enough to make the duchess’s jointure £6,000 a year. She
is to keep up the houses at Bloomsbury and at Wooburn. Her grace, Mr.
Palmer, and the Duchess of Marlborough are trustees for the young duke....
“As the late duke was sometimes headstrong, the court will have an
advantage in having the duchess to deal with, as Lord Sandwich is her
guide in politicks. The duke left Mr. Rigby £5,000, a sum for which he
had Mr. Rigby’s bond. He has left a sum of fourscore pound a year to Miss
Wrottesley; a year’s wages to servants. I hear not of other legacies. It
is believed Lord Suffolk will not accept of any place....
“It is believed we shall have a Peace. The King of Prussia and the
Emperor joined to get a peace for the Turks. These potentates design to
keep the French in order and to defend Germany. The Emperor wishes to
recover Lorraine and Alsace. So it is supposed the French will sit quiet
even if the Spaniards should go to war with us. I am not afraid of the
Dons, if not assisted by French vivacity. All our family is well, and the
_père de famille_ best of all.... Mr. M. is pure well.”
The following letter to Mrs. Robinson, the writer’s sister-in-law, whose
father, Mr. Richardson, was a private gentleman of Kensington, contains
a reference to the Kensington “ladies’-school” of the writer’s early
time, and one to the Chelsea school, where she visited Mrs. William
Robinson’s daughter in 1772. These references are valuable illustrations
of the female scholastic life of the two periods. “I called on my pretty
neice at Chelsea, who I had the pleasure of finding in perfect health,
with a little addition of embonpoint extremely becoming. She received
me very politely, and her governesses spoke much in her praise. Indeed,
she is a very good subject for them, appearing to have much good-humour,
docility, and everything I could wish.” The young Sarah Elizabeth’s
extremely becoming embonpoint induced her sagacious aunt to look at her
stays. “I found fault with her stays,” she writes, “which lift up her
shoulders; and they say they had your leave to get others, but I could
not understand why they had neglected to do it. I was pleased to find my
neice perfectly clean and neat, tho’ I called on ye Saturday, which is
usually only the eve of cleanliness. I remember at Mrs. Robartes’, at
Kensington, the girls used to be so dirty, sometimes one could not salute
them!”