To Mrs. W. Robinson.—“_Sandleford, February 3, 1784._ ... The
air-balloons, without a pun, may be said to rise higher and higher, by
every experiment. Messrs. Roberts performed a journey of 150 miles in
six hours. By this mode of travelling I might go hence to my house in
Northumberland in twelve hours; but till the aerial navigation is more
ascertained, I shall not attempt it; lest, instead of finding myself at
the verge of my coal-pits, the end of my journey, I should alight on the
summit of a Welsh mountain.
“Montagu had last night the pleasure of receiving a very kind and
sensible letter from your son, and every stroke of his pen sets ye
mark of a good heart. I think you will have great comfort in him. The
most brilliant persons are not always the happiest or most esteem’d;
more rarely still the best-beloved. Too much presumption in their own
excellencies, too little indulgence to the defects of others, if it does
not totally destroy our admiration, certainly eliminates our affection;
and it is far better to be beloved than admired.
“... As to the new plantations (at Sandleford), their progress to
perfection will be so much slower than mine to decay, I cannot expect
to see much advance there; but the hope of their giving pleasure to
those I love, when I am no more, will render them objects of pleasant
contemplation.... If you have seen the Recorder lately, he would perhaps
tell you that we had an alarm of fire one night, but it was extinguished
and all danger over in less than an hour. The fire began from my old
dressing-room. It is the second time it has happened there. The first
accident was many years ago. You may imagine we no longer hazard making a
fire in a chimney which has such communication with timber. I assure you,
on the cry of Fire! in the house at four in the morning, Montagu jump’d
out of bed, rush’d into my room, and begg’d that he might immediately
conduct me down stairs, with a tender zeal, equal to that of the pious
Æneas to the old Anchises. The end of the passage, from the dressing-room
to my bedchamber, appeared to be in flames, but we had one staircase at
a distance, which promised a safe retreat; so that really I was not so
much agitated, or he any way disordered. Montagu, by his alacrity, was of
infinite use. The first water thrown on the flames boil’d up; but he and
a blind man whom I have kept ever since he lost his sight, which is about
fifteen years since, were more useful than all the rest of the family. I
sent to Newtown to call up the workmen employ’d at my new offices, and
they pull’d up the beams and rafters as soon as the flames were quench’d.
My Newtown neighbours behav’d with great neighbourly kindness, but all
the assistance had been in vain, if I had not been awake and rais’d
the family at the first crackling of the fire; for it made very rapid
advances. I was much complimented on my courage, from which my composure
was suppos’d to arise, but I confess that composure had its rise in
cowardice. I was so glad to find our lives were not in danger, that
ye consequences threatened to my property made little impression. The
coward’s declaration, ‘Spare my life and take all I have!’ seem’d to be
the expression of my mind. Thank God! the damage has been in all respects
very trifling. I am very glad that this alarm did not happen after my
lord primate and Sir W. Robinson arrived. A fire is the worst _fête
champetre_ one can treat one’s friends with.
“... Business will detain me here for a fortnight longer.... I shall
then go to Bath for about a month, to enjoy the primate’s society, who
generally spends the evening with me. I have not any pretence to drink
the waters, being perfectly well. I may take a little of them, perhaps,
as I love to fall in with the customs of the place in which I reside.
“... My great piece of feather-work is not yet compleated; so, if you
have an opportunity of getting me any feathers, they will be very
acceptable. The brown tails of partridges are very useful, tho’ not so
brilliant as some others.”
At sixty-five, Mrs. Montagu did not consider herself too old to figure
at court. The poets had not ceased to take interest in her and to make
her the subject of their rhymes. “Have you seen Mr. Jerningham’s lines
on Mrs. Montagu falling down-stairs at the Drawing-room?” asks little
Miss Port of her father, in a letter dated February, 1785, in the Delany
correspondence. “In case you should not, I will send them to you.”
“Ye valiant Fair! ye Hebes of the day,
Who heedless laugh your little hours away!
Let caution be your guide, whene’er you sport
Within the splendid precincts of the Court.
The event of yesterday for prudence calls—
’Tis dangerous treading where Minerva falls!”
Minerva’s sympathies were now aroused by a family incident, thus narrated
to Mrs. Robinson: “_March ye 15, 1785._ ... I know my brother and you
and your daughters will be glad to hear Montagu is going to be married,
in a manner which is agreable to himself and to me. The young lady is so
form’d and qualified as to please both the fancy and the judgment, and
her fortune such as to content any reasonable wishes. She has £45,000 in
present; £3,000 more is to remain in the funds to secure an annuity to a
very old person during his life, and who has been sometime bedridden; so
it will soon come into Miss Charlton. She has also an annuity of £300 a
year on the life of a young prodigal; but the regular payment of this is
not to be depended upon. She has also some other little contingencies; so
that her fortune is not estimated at less than fifty thousand pounds by
her guardians.
“From Montagu’s good character, those guardians and her relations are
very desirous of the match, which will take place when the lawyers
compleat the settlements—an affair which I fear will take up no small
time, as they have no mercy on the impatience of lovers. She is a ward
of Chancery, so many forms are necessary. You may imagine pretty large
settlements in land, both present and future, will be required from
me; but, as Montagu’s happiness and prosperity is my great object, I
shall comply with every reasonable condition. Miss Charlton’s excellent
understanding, and her gentle and unaffected manners, render her very
agreable. She has a very pleasing countenance, and tho’ rather little,
is finely made and remarkably genteel. She is an orphan, but is with
her grandmother—a very sensible, well-bred woman, and who is almost
as much in love with Montagu as her granddaughter is. It adds much to
my satisfaction that those who were at Mrs. Terry’s boarding-school
with Miss Charlton are very fond of her, and speak highly of her good
temper; to which, indeed, her guardians and intimate acquaintance give
ye strongest testimony. As good humour is the great ingredient of human
happiness, it gives me much delight to find my dear Montagu will find
it in his partner. His own temper is the happiest I ever knew. We dined
yesterday at the Bishop of Salisbury’s. I was glad his lordship did not
ask how many months in the year your _caro sposo_ spent at Burfield....
Mr. Pitt is thought to gain ground daily, and the opposition babble is
little attended to in the House. The town is very gay. The balls are
protracted to seven in the morning. Montagu danced till that hour the
other night at the Duchess of Bolton’s, but he yawned so horribly the
next morning, I think when he is Benedict ye married man, he will not
caper at that hour to please ye young ladies. He din’d to-day at ye young
lady’s guardians, and is not come home, or would send his duty.”
“_July ye 12th, 1785._ ... You would know by various sources of
intelligence how our matrimonial negotiations went forward, and the day
on which they were happily compleated. So I will begin my history where
your information ended,—our getting into our carriages at the door of
Marybonne Church.
“Venus no longer sends her car and doves; but a post-chaise with four
able horses and two brisk postillions do as well. At Salt Hill, we
stopp’d to take some refreshment. I eat a good deal of cold ham and
chicken. The lovers sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d
again, and piddled a little on a gooseberry tart. At Reading, we drunk
tea, and there Lord Lansdowne, being also on the road, came to us
and made his compliments, but with so much delicacy as not to bring
ye maiden’s blush into ye cheeks of the bride. Indeed, for fear of
distressing her, I did not present her to his lordship, so he only made
her a low bow, accompanied by an emphatical look. To the bridegroom, he
wished joy. At eight, we arrived at Sandleford. Our soup and bouillie had
been ready for some hours; the rest was soon dress’d. We avoided passing
through the town of Newbury; so the bells there, which were jangling on
the happy occasion, did not give us any disturbance. The decent dignity
of the bride’s behaviour and the delicacy of the bridegroom’s did them
honour, and gave me great pleasure; and we are three as happy people as
can be found in any part of the habitable globe.
“Mrs. Matthew Montagu is much pleased with Sandleford. It was always
the favourite of her husband; and now he has got a fair Eve, it appears
to him a Paradise. I am in perfect health and perfect content, which is
enough for me. Joy and rapture are for youth.
“... The Bath is a dull place. Tunbridge has a pert character. The
Pantile Walk in summer is pleasanter than the Pump Room at Bath in ye
winter; and as anything original pleases more than a bad imitation, I
must own I pass’d my time there with less _ennui_ than in the city of
Bath, where the London life is awkwardly imitated.
“... It is believed that Lady Sutherland will marry Lord Trentham; and
some suppose Miss Pulteney will be bestow’d on Lord Morton. I am glad,
for the credit of our sex, neither of these ladies make a scamper to
Gretna Green.
“... Our brother, the Recorder, has acted in a very friendly and generous
manner towards us,—bestow’d without favour or reward much patience and
skill on the voluminous settlements, which the mercenary spirit of
the lawyers employ’d to draw them had extended over as many acres of
parchment as, converted into green land, would make a pretty little farm;
and for which, I suppose, they will charge as much as would purchase
a tolerably good one. To effect this, they were so tedious in their
proceedings; for my proposals were immediately and perfectly approved
both by the Lord Chancellor and Master in Chancery.
“... The bride and bridegroom beg you all to accept their proper respect.”
The following descriptive letter, addressed to Mrs. Robinson, Castle
Street, Reading, was franked by Mr. Matthew Montagu, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
September 22, 1786:
“... I arrived at Mrs. Garrick’s, at Hampton, the evening of the day on
which I visited you at Reading, and spent five days with her; making,
indeed, almost every day an excursion to London to visit my poor friend,
Mrs. Vesey, whom I found in a very declining state of health. From
Hampton, I went to the Dowager Lady Spencer’s, at St. Albans, where I
passed two days very agreably, and regretted that my business here would
not allow me to prolong my visit. The history of La Fée Bienfaisante is
not half so delightful as seeing the manner in which Lady Spencer spends
her day. Every moment of it is employed in some act of benevolence and
charity. Her ladyship carried me to see the remains of the seat of the
great Lord Bacon, at Gorhambury, where remains, but is soon to be pulled
down, the gallery in which he passed those hours of study which pointed
out the road to science, and investigation of the works of nature. The
estate is now in the possession of Lord Grimston, who has built a fine
house there; but I could not help sighing at the reflection that the
posterity of the ridiculous author of ‘Love in a Hollow Tree,’ should
build on the ruins of Lord Bacon’s habitation.
“From St. Albans I struck into the highroad at Welling, not without
paying the tribute of a sigh to the memory of my old friend Doctor
Young. From that place till I got into Yorkshire, I did not see any
interesting objects but the mile-stones.... Here, at my Gothick mansion
near Newcastle, the naiads are dirty with the coal-keels, and the dryads’
tresses are torn and dishevelled with the rough blasts of Boreas. My lot
has not fallen on a fair ground, but it would be ungrateful not to own
it is a goodly heritage, and makes a decent figure when it arrives at
ye shop of Hoare and Co., in Fleet Street. A week after me, arrived in
perfect health my nephew and neice Montagu. We are always here plagued
with high winds, and this season they have raged with great violence;
but as this house was built in 1620, I hope it will not now yield
to storms it has braved for now two hundred years. The walls are of
immense thickness, having been built of strength to resist our Scottish
neighbours, who, before the Union, made frequent visits to this part of
the world. My Gothick windows admit light, but exclude prospect; so that,
when sitting down, I can see only the tops of the trees.
“... I observe with great pleasure that Montagu has a happy turn
for business, and applies himself to learning the science of
coal-mine-working, of which many coal-owners are ignorant entirely, but
none ought to be so. Without working in the mines, the process may be, to
a certain extent, understood by any one who possesses any mathematical
knowledge. The late Duke of Northumberland was very able in all those
matters. Lord Mount-Stewart is now at Newcastle attending the business
of the collieries he acquired by his marriage with Lord Windsor’s
daughter. Lord Carlisle never comes into Northumberland, but leaves his
affairs entirely to his agents. Lord Ravensworth was very attentive to
his collieries, but his heir, Sir Henry Liddell, is of a very different
character. He amused himself and neighbours with the exhibition of two
Lapland women whom he imported. He collects all sorts of wild beasts; and
his ale-cellars make beasts of men. It is strange that Lord Ravensworth
should prefer such a nephew to his grandsons.
“... I am obliged to you for your kind attention to my feather-work. The
neck and breast feathers of the stubble goose are very useful, and I
wish your cook would save those of the Michaelmas goose for us. Things
homely and vulgar are sometimes more useful than the elegant, and the
feathers of the goose may be better adapted to some occasions than the
plumes of the phœnix.”
Mrs. Montagu was ever touching and reëmbellishing her famous
“feather-hangings.” Cowper has told in song how—
“The birds put off their every hue,
To dress a room for Montagu.”
Peacock, pheasant, swan, and “all tribes beside of Indian name,” says the
poet, contributed plumage of—
“... splendour ever new,
Safe with protecting Montagu.”
To “her court,” thus decorated, resorted genius, wit, philosophy,
learning, and fancy:
“All these to Montagu’s repair,
Ambitious of a shelter there.
She thus maintains divided sway,
With yon bright regent of the day;
The plume and poet both, we know,
Their lustre to his influence owe;
And she, the works of Phœbus aiding,
Both poet saves, and plume, from fading.”
To Mrs. Robinson. “_Portman Square, February 8, 1787._ ... I have been
in town almost three weeks, in all which time I have not had three hours
of leisure. At my arrival in Portman Square, my porter presented me with
an infinite number of cards of invitation, letters, notes, and not
a few books, presents from their authors. I flattered myself that in
four or five days this bustle would begin to subside, but another cause
of receiving visits and writing notes and letters began. The occasion
was, indeed, such as gave me great pleasure, even that on which you so
obligingly congratulated me. So good-natured was the world to the old
aunt, that many members of the House of Commons who had heard his speech,
and many of the House of Lords who had heard of it, called in the morning
to congratulate me, and, indeed, for several mornings, I had a levée
like a minister. Nothing ominous; I hope that ye young man who was the
occasion, will never be in that situation which, I perfectly agree with
my friend Soame Jenyns, is the most miserable of any, except that of king
in a free country. Ladies wrote me congratulatory notes from all quarters
of the town, and I have since had letters from my distant correspondents
in the country, on the subject of the Drawing-room. I received many
compliments, but those which most flattered my vanity were from the
greatest lady there, the first minister, the Lord Chancellor, and some
distinguished persons in the opposition. However, as these glories soon
fade away, and such a kind of speech is forgotten in a few days, the
most heartfelt joy I had, arose from the delight his brother express’d
on his success. The wise man says, A brother is born for the day of
adversity; and, indeed, there are few men so wicked as not to pity and
assist a brother in misfortune. But the good and great mind alone takes
delight in the success and fame of a brother. The envious think they can
escape censure when they neglect a friend or relative in prosperity, and
indulge their malice safely in giving little hints to their disadvantage;
but my nephew show’d a different kind of spirit. As soon as the House
was up, he ran to Mrs. M. Montagu, to his mother, and to me, and with
a most joyous countenance, and in a most expressive manner, told me in
what manner our young orator’s speech had been received in the House.
Montagu felt this instance of fraternal affection with the tenderness and
gratitude it deserved, and I hope they will be through life an honour and
happiness to each other. You rightly imagine the wife and aunt are not
without anxiety, lest parliamentary exertions and attendance should hurt
our young man’s health, but at present he is perfectly well.
“... The only thing that induces the primate to prolong his stay at Bath
is that he is not lame. The dumb gout, as he calls it, which used to make
him so, has for some months in a manner forsaken him, and he thinks it
prudent to endeavour to bring it back.
“... I should have been very anxious if such a cargo as the virtues
and amiabilities of dear Miss Arnold had been put on board the horrid
mail-coach; so, I am obliged to her for complying with my entreaties
to take a slower but safer conveyance.... I write in much hurry; the
letter-bell tinkles.”
The speech referred to in the above letter was made by Mr. Matthew
Montagu, when seconding the motion on the royal address with which
Parliament was opened. The speech was warmly eulogistic of Mr. Eden’s
commercial treaty. Fox praised the young speaker and tore his argument to
pieces.
Wraxall, referring, in the “Memoirs of His Own Time,” to Mrs. Montagu’s
nephew, Matthew Robinson, says: “The celebrated Mrs. Montagu, his aunt,
who so long occupied the first place among the _gens de lettres_, in
London, having adopted him as her heir, he received her husband’s name.
At her feet he was brought up,—a school more adapted to form a man of
taste and improvement than a statesman or a man of the world. After this
gentleman entered the House of Commons, there was some difficulty in
distinguishing between him (Matthew Montagu) and Montagu Matthew. General
Matthew himself defined the distinction. ‘I wish it to be understood,’
said he, ‘that there is no more likeness between Montagu Matthew and
Matthew Montagu than between a chesnut horse and a horse-chesnut.’”
[Illustration: On the Sea-wall at Southampton
_Photogravure after the painting by Clairir_]
To Mrs. Robinson. “_Sandleford, July 14, 1787._ ... That I was delighted
at becoming a grandmother, for such I account myself to the dear babe,
cannot be doubted; and surely it is the most agreable and becoming office
of old age. I have always wonder’d at the wild and rash ambition which
impell’d men to wish and seek for conditions and offices to which they
were not by talents or circumstances well adapted; but I may say without
vanity, I have the age, the experience, the wrinkles, the foibles which
form the compleat character of grandmother; and I long to be in full
office, but it will be above a fortnight before father, mother, child and
cradle will be fix’d at Sandleford.... I should have been under dreadful
anxieties if she had not been so well; for she is the most amiable,
agreable, and valuable young woman I ever knew. She is a mere mortal,
and, I suppose, she must have some faults; but tho’ I have watched her
continually, I have never been able to discover any in her.
“... I am not interested in the Christmas quarter. When one is too old to
play at blind man’s buff and hunt the whistle, I think one cannot pass a
merry Christmas in the country.
‘Tower’d cities pleased us then,
And the busy haunts of men.’
Good society and the animated circle of a great town supply all that the
winter season deprives us of.
“... I was much pleas’d with a work of Mr. Morgan’s, your son’s tutor,
which he had the goodness to send me. I think it not only very ingenious
and well written, but that it will have a very good effect upon the
shallow wits and foolish pedants who affect to be infidels by way of
showing their parts and learning.... I have visited and been visited by
the Pocock family, settled here. They seem very good kind of people.”
“_Friday, September ye 14th, 1787._ To Mrs. Robinson at Mr. Baker’s
Circulating Library, Southampton.—I think there is greater variety in the
environs of Southampton than in any part of England perhaps; and all in
the noble style,—the great ocean, the wide forest, and scenes of rural
beauty are all within reach of our airing. So, as the humour points to
the _allegro_ or the _penseroso_, you may direct your jaunts, and find
the nereids, or the dryads, or Pomona receive you with their best graces
and softest smiles.
“... The lord primate departs from Bristol to-day, and intends to come to
Sandleford the beginning of next week. His grace had appointed a day for
doing me that favour six weeks ago; but the journey caused a return of
the gravel, and he was oblig’d to stop at Marlbro’, and sent a servant to
tell us of the disappointment. So Mrs. Scott and I went to him and staid
two days, at the end of which he was able to return to Bristol by gentle
journeys, and return to the use of the Bristol waters, which, indeed, his
physician was very loth he should quit; and, thank God, he has not since
had any return of the complaint.
“... I have had a succession of company in my house; attention to them,
and morning airings and domestick business have engross’d my time. In the
present state of my house, I have only one spare room, which was first
occupied by Doctor and Mrs. Wharton; then by Doctor Beattie; then by Mr.
and Mrs. Smelt and their neices.
“... Montagu set out for Denton on Monday last, to give his attention
to opening a new seam of coal. It gave me great pleasure to see him
apply to the knowledge of collieries, which not above two or three of
our gentlemen, interested in those valuable possessions, will take the
trouble to do.
“... You will find Sandleford embellish’d since you saw it. I have now
thirty men at work, making a piece of water down to ye river from ye
water on the side of the wood. It will have a very beautiful effect.
“... Will you pardon my making a bold and impertinent petition. The trout
season being now over, I shall be distress’d how to provide fish for the
primate. If any day after Wednesday next, you would let one of your
servants purchase the finest dish of fish the sea produces and direct it,
accompanied by a crab and a lobster, to me, to be left at the turnpike
at Newtown, Hants, I will not grudge any price for it. I would not be
thus troublesome for any guest I did not so much wish to indulge as the
primate.... Mrs. M. Montagu desires her most respectful compliments to
you.”
“_Portman Square, January ye 10th, 1788._ ... I found London on my
arrival, the 11th of November, according to the old song, ‘A fine town
and a gallant city.’ I never knew it so full of the fine world at that
season of the year. At Christmas it is the _Ton_ to go into the country
for the holydays; but yet, on New Year’s Day, the Drawing-room was as
much crowded as it used to be during the sitting of the parliament; but
what adds most to the pleasure of society is the satisfaction all people
express at our triumphs over the ungrateful Dutch and the insidious
French. The Mynheers and the Mounseers bow before us, and all this
obtain’d without any bloodshed, and at little expense.
“I cannot by the best information form any conjecture how the
fermentations in France will end. I rather think the spirit of liberty
they have imported from America will be beat up into the froth of
remonstrances and satires, than have any solid effect. A nabob has
purchas’d Mr. Sawbridge’s house, who, being as prudent in domestick as
sagacious in publick affairs, is oblig’d to give it up to his creditors.”
In 1788, Mrs. Montagu adopted a fashion which had been introduced by the
Duke of Dorset, of giving a _thé_. The Duke had been our ambassador in
France, and had brought thence a fashion, reasonable enough, of offering
a tea at eight to people who dined at two; but unreasonable in England,
where the hour for dinner, in great houses, was six o’clock. Hannah More
describes the teas as Mme. de Bocage, nearly forty years before, had
described Mrs. Montagu’s breakfasts. From fifty to a hundred guests were
seated at a long table or made up little parties at small ones. The cloth
was laid as at breakfast, and the tea was made by the company. Every
one had a napkin, as at a public breakfast. The table was covered with
hot buttered-rolls, muffins, bread and butter, and wafers. Hannah More
adds to her description, made in nearly the above words: “Of all nations
under the sun, as I take it the English are the greatest fools.” At the
breakfasts in Hill Street there was appetite with clear intellects; at
the “Bluestocking” coteries there, a select circle, and not a fool among
them; but what wit could there be among people eating buttered muffins
two hours after a heavy dinner and strong port wine?
“_December, 1788._ MY DEAR NEICE:—As I was indebted to you for the favour
of a letter, when I left Sandleford, I should have fulfill’d my promise
of sending you whatever news I could collect in the great metropolis;
but instead of finding this town the seat of gayety, I found it the
abode of melancholly. Every countenance (except of the fox kind) looked
dejected. The king’s illness and our country’s danger occupied every
mind, and tinctured every conversation with melancholly and anxiety. The
reports of his majesty’s condition for these three days have been much
more favorable than any time since he was first taken ill; so the hopes
of being again under the government of a good king are revived, and the
dread of a bad set of men who wanted to usurp his power, has, from the
spirited conduct of the houses of parliament, much abated.
“Mr. Fox is in a very bad state of health. His rapid journeys to England,
on the news of the king’s illness, have brought on him a violent
complaint in the bowels, which will, it is imagined, prove mortal.
However, if it should, it will vindicate his character from the general
report that he has no bowels, as has been most strenuously asserted by
his creditors.
“After I left Mrs. Boscawen’s, at Richmond, I passed a week very agreably
with my dear friends at Shooter’s Hill; and should have prolonged my
stay there if I had not been afraid to meet December in the country. The
weather has justified my apprehensions. Weather makes small part of the
comforts of a London life, and I have pass’d my time very comfortably.
Twice or thrice a week, I invite seven or eight agreable persons to
dine with me. On others days, I often prevail on some intimate friend
to partake of my mutton and chicken, which, with the visits of such of
my acquaintance as are in town, give me enough of society. I have not
been out of my house above four times since I came to town, the first of
December, for I am afraid to expose my weak eyes to the northern blast.
“My nephew Robinson set out for Horton on Christmas Day. Montagu and
his family intend to continue at Shooter’s Hill till ye parliament meet
daily.... He comes up in a morning to attend the House, and returns the
next morning, but gives me the pleasure of seeing him when he comes
to town; and a kind visit I had also from her yesterday. Few of the
gentlemen of either House of Parliament have yet brought their ladies
to London, so you will not wonder there is little news stirring but of
the political kind. However, there is a marriage going forward, at which
I am rejoyced, as it will add to the happiness of two persons whose
paternal conduct well deserves that reward. Many in our town dissipate
the estates they inherited from their ancestors, and suffer their noble
mansions to fall to ruin; but Lord and Lady Mount Edgcumbe, by prudent
conduct, have retrieved the family estates, which his lordship’s elder
brother had embarrass’d; all which will now be secured by settlements
and inherited by their posterity. Mr. Edgcumbe is going to be married to
Lady Sophia Hobart. Lord Mount Edgcumbe behaves very generously in his
settlements.... The joy those good parents express at seeing their son
now out of danger of any imprudent choice or vicious connection is great.
Indeed, a parent’s satisfaction in his son can never be compleat till
the important point of his marriage is accomplish’d; for, if he marries
a trumpery girl, she not only does not bring any addition to the family
property, but the elevation of her situation so much above her birth,
will probably make her extravagant and fall into absurd method that will
ruin it.”
To her niece. “_Portman Square, December 31, 1789._ ... The kind of life
one leads at Bath, tho’ it offers but few amusements, allows no leisure.
Sauntering is the business of the place. Beaux in boots, and misses in
great coats, visit all the morning, and, having nothing better to do
themselves, will not suffer others to do anything that is better. My
evenings are always agreably engaged with my friends. The Bath is chiefly
fill’d with Irish, but there were many persons there with whom I live in
a great degree of intimacy when in London. I had the pleasure of finding
and leaving the primate and Sir William Robinson in perfect health. I
expect his grace will be in town in a few days. Sir William will remain
at Bath and pursue the warm bathing, which he finds very beneficial.
“... My nephew Robinson was so good as to be with me at Bath.... I came
to town yesterday sennight. The cold lodging-houses at Bath, and the
chill journey, made me feel myself wonderfully comfortable in this good
and substantial mansion. Ever since I first inhabited it, I have been
sensible how much a good habitation softens the severity and enlivens the
gloom of winter.
“Montagu is gone to Lord Harrowby’s to spend ye holydays. He acquitted
himself admirably of all his devoirs at Bath. He danced as many minouets,
caper’d as many cotillions, and skipp’d as many country-dances as any
young gentleman at ye place. He usually open’d the ball, and danc’d to
the last. Indeed, with a great deal of prudence and discretion, he has as
lively, gay spirits as any one I ever knew; so, he is happy at all times
and in all places, and makes those who are with him so.
“... We all imagine Mr. Pitt will have little to fear from the
opposition. I do not hear any news. It would be doing too much honour to
ye slanders of the newspapers to contradict them.
“... You did my letters undeserved honour in taking the trouble to
copy them. As I am arrived at an age to look back on my past life with
more pleasure, perhaps, than to future expectations, I have found some
satisfaction in the recollection of former days, which letters then
written present to the mind in a more distinct and lively manner than
memory can do. Whatever gave one great joy or great grief, leaves strong
marks on the mind, but the soft, gentle pleasures, like ye annual flowers
in a garden, pass away with ye season, unless thus preserved.” These
reflections denote the way whither this Lady of the Last Century was
going. Hannah More, noted, in 1790, the change that had come over the old
order of things. In April, she chronicles, indeed, “a pleasant party,”
at Mrs. Montagu’s, including Burke, “a sufficiently pleasant party of
himself,” and Mackenzie, “the man of feeling;” but she also adds, “the
old little parties are not to be had in the usual style of comfort.
Everything is great, and vast, and late, and magnificent, and dull.”
Wilberforce, too, was one of the welcome guests, and so intimate, that
Mrs. Montagu called him by a pseudonym “the Red Cross Knight.” But the
splendid stage, the superb style, the pillars of verd antique, the room
of feathers, these could not compensate for the less showy, but more
real, delights of the old Bluestocking days in Hill Street. But the lady
of the house had still the same inexhaustible spirits, the same taste for
business and magnificence. Three or four great dinners in a week with
Luxembourgs, Montmorencies, and Czartoriskis. “I had rather,” said the
sage Hannah, “for my part, live in our cottage at Cheddar. She is made
for the great world, and is an ornament to it. It is an element she was
born to breathe in.”
Hannah More’s duties were consistent with cottage life; but Mrs. Montagu
held her fortune in trust, and spent it in gratifications, the cost of
which made glad hearts in a hundred homes. At some of her assemblies,
eccentric as well as intellectual people seem now to have been admitted.
Miss Burney notes, in 1792, having encountered at Montagu House “a
commonish, non-nothingish sort of a half good-humoured and sensibilish
woman!” Soon, however, increasing infirmities weakened Mrs. Montagu’s
powers and affected her spirits. But she who was, as Fanny Burney said,
so “magnificently useful” in her generation, kept up her magnificence
and tried to maintain her usefulness to the last. Her supreme effort to
get together the little comfortable, intellectual parties that delighted
Hannah More, was made in 1798. “I have been at one bit of Blue there,”
wrote Doctor Burney to his daughter. “Mrs. Montagu is so broken down as
not to go out. She is almost wholly blind and very feeble.”
In the succeeding year, Mrs. Carter wrote to Hannah More: “... She has
totally changed her mode of life, from a conviction that she exerted
herself too much last year, and that it brought on the long illness, by
which she suffered so much.... She never goes out except to take the air
of a morning; has no company to dinner (I do not call myself company);
lets in nobody in the evening, which she passes in hearing her servant
read, as her eyes will not suffer her to read herself.” Mrs. Carter hopes
that “a taste for the comfort of living quietly will, for the future,
prevent her from mixing so much with the tumults of the world as to
injure her health.”
Her interest in the education of girls was not affected by her decaying
powers. After Mrs. Hannah More had published her celebrated work on
that subject, and it had been read to Mrs. Montagu, the latter wrote to
the author a letter, in which is the following passage: “_Sandleford,
May, 1799._ You have most judiciously pointed out the errors of modern
education, which seems calculated entirely to qualify young women for
whatever their godfathers and godmothers had renounced for them at
their baptism; and what is most shocking is, that a virtuous matron and
tender mother values herself much on not having omitted anything that
can fit her daughter for the world, the flesh, and the devil.” This was
the final judgment of a lady who, in her own girlhood, had expressed
herself in much the same terms, and who, later in life, had laid it
down as a law for her own niece, that to dance a minuet well was of
more importance than to have a knowledge of a foreign language. She
had escaped perils herself, because she was always occupied. If, when
a nymph, she so sported in the Mary-le-bone waters, that lords wrote
sonnets on her, she forgot the homage in her higher enjoyments of native
and foreign literature. If she went joyously any number of miles to a
ball, danced with the very love of dancing, and shrieked with delight
at being upset on her way home, the next day she had purer enjoyment in
reading, analysing, and judging a translation of a Greek play or a volume
of ancient or modern history. She did not despise being attractive, but
she dressed her mind even more carefully than she did her person. As she
grew in years she was as ready for increasing duties as for increasing
delights, and looked as fascinating among her Berkshire farm-servants
and her Northumbrian pitmen as she did, blazing with diamonds and lively
spirits, in the throne-room at St. James’s. She never had a fool for an
acquaintance, nor ever an idle hour in the sense of idleness. Mistress of
an ample fortune, she lived up to her income, and never beyond it. All
around her profited by such stewardship. She is said to have done all
things with a grace, and most things with ease. It was not more difficult
for her to vanquish Voltaire than to make a grouse-pie for Garrick.
When she passed to her rest, in 1800, she was prepared to go that way
thankfully. Some few of her acquaintances dwelt, as such candid persons
will, upon her little faults. But there was one good woman who remembered
only her great merits. “With Mrs. Montagu’s faults,” wrote Hannah More to
Doctor Whalley, in 1808, “I have nothing to do. Her fine qualities were
many. From my first entrance into a London life till her death, I ever
found her an affectionate, zealous, and constant friend, as well as a
most instructive and pleasant companion. Her youth and beauty were gone
long before I knew her.”
But even in the days of her maidenhood, when she was glad in her youth
and in her beauty, and conscious of her intellect, yet unconscious of the
pleasures, duties, and trials before her, yet when she feared she might
live idle and die vain, she said, “If ever I have an inscription over
me, it shall be without a name, and only,—Here lies one whom, having
done no harm, no one should censure; and, having done no good, no one can
commend; who, for past folly, only asks oblivion.” She lived, however, to
do much good, to make great amends for small and venial follies, and by
the magnificent usefulness, which Little Burney has recorded, to merit
such pains as it may cost a poor chronicler to rescue her name and deeds
from the oblivion which she asked in the pleasant days of her bright
youth and her subduing beauty.
THE END.