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Who ought to make me, (what he can, or none)
That man divine whom wisdom calls her own;
Great without title, without fortune bless'd;
Rich, e'en when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress'd;
Loved without youth, and follow'd without power;
At home, though exiled-free, though in the Tower;
In short, that reasoning, high, immortal thing,
Just less than Jove, and much above a king,
Nay, half in heaven-except (what's mighty odd)
A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god?

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185

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU AND HIS SON.

Ver. 49. Avidien or his wife.] Mr. Wortley, the husband of Lady Mary, was the son of the Hon. Sidney Montagu, and by his mother, Mrs. Anne Wortley, he inherited the large Wortley estate in Yorkshire, where most of his latter years were passed. At the date of Pope's satire, Mr. Wortley and Lady Mary were living together. She went abroad a second time in 1729, and did not return till after the death of her husband in 1761. They seem to have parted by mutual consent; there was nothing domestic in the witty lady's character; but she kept up a friendly correspondence with her husband to the last. Writing to him from Avignon, in 1745, she says, "Since the death of Pope I know nobody that is an enemy to either of us." She was never without enemies, or at least quarrels, the natural result of her own caprice, violence, and proneness to satire. Mr. Wortley continued quietly in his retreat near Sheffield, hoarding up money, and watching over his health. He amassed an immense fortune, nearly a million of money, exclusive of his estates, and lived to a great age. In 1756, Horace Walpole looked in upon him at Wharncliffe. "Old Wortley Montagu," he says, "lives on the very spot where the dragon of Wantley did, only I believe the latter was much better lodged. You never saw such a wretched hovel; lean, unpainted, and half its nakedness barely shaded with harateen, stretched till it cracks. Here the miser hoards health and money, his only two objects. He has chronicles in behalf of the air, and battens on Tokay, his single indulgence, as he has heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste. It is tumbled with fragments of mountains, that look ready for building the world. One scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain ashes and various trees spring out of the very rocks; and at the brow is the den, but not spacious enough for such an inmate. However,

I am persuaded it furnished Pope with this line, so exactly it answers to the picture :

'On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes.'

I wanted to ask if Pope had not visited Lady Mary Wortley here during their intimacy, but could one put that question to' Avidien himself? There remains an ancient odd inscription here, which has such a whimsical mixture of devotion and romanticness, that I must transcribe it,-'Preye for the soul of Sir Thomas Wortley, Knight of the body to the Kings Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., whose faults God pardon. He caused a Lodge to be built on this crag in the midst of Wharncliffe to hear the hart's bell, in the year our Lord 1510.' It was a chace, and what he meant to hear was the noise of the stags."

Pope alludes (ver. 56) to the son of Wortley and Lady Mary. The allusion is harsh and unjust, for there was no want of proper feeling on the part of the parents towards this most extraordinary and profligate youth. This second Edward Wortley was worthy of a niche in Pope's gallery of originals. He ran off on three separate occasions from Westminster school, sailed as a cabin boy to Spain, was discovered, and restored to his parents. He next travelled with a tutor on the continent, returned to England, and sat for two parliaments in the House of Commons. Extravagance brought debt, and debt forced him abroad; in France he cheated a Jew-a marvellous instance of his adroitness-and was subjected to a short imprisonment; in Italy he adopted the Roman Catholic religion; and in Turkey he became a strict Mahometan. His father deprived him by his will of the succession to the family estate.

"But even this step," says Lord Wharncliffe, "was not taken without a sufficient provision being made for him; and, in the event of his having an heir legitimately born, the estate was to return to that heir, to the exclusion of his sister Lady Bute's children. This provision in Mr. Wortley's will he endeavoured to take advantage of in a manner which is highly characteristic. Mr. Edward Wortley, early in life, was married in a way not then uncommon, namely, a Fleet marriage. With that wife he did not live long, and he had no issue. After his father's death he lived several years in Egypt, and there is supposed to have professed the religion of Mahomet, and indulged in the plurality of wives permitted by that faith. In the year 1776, Mr. E. Wortley, then living at Venice, his wife being dead, through the agency (as is supposed) of his friend Romney the painter, caused an advertisement to be inserted in the Public Advertiser of April 16th in that year, in the following words:

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A gentleman who has filled two successive seats in Parliament, is nearly sixty years of age, lives in great splendour and hospitality, and from whom a considerable estate must pass if he dies without issue, hath no objection to marry a widow or single lady, provided the party be of genteel birth, polite manners, and is five or six months gone in her pregnancy. Letters directed to Brecknock, Esq., at Will's Coffee House, will be honoured with due attention, secresy, and every mark of respect.'

"It has always been believed in the family that this advertisement was successful, and that a woman having the qualifications required by it was actually sent to Paris to meet Mr. E. Wortley, who got as far as Lyons on his way thither. There, however, while eating a beccafico for supper, a bone stuck in his throat, and occasioned his death; thus putting an end to this honest scheme."1

The scheme could not have stood an examination in a court of law, but it formed a fitting close to such a life.

1 Lord Wharncliffe's edit. of Lady Mary W. Montagu's Works.

THE SIXTH EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

TO MR. MURRAY.

[The Hon. William Murray, Lord Mansfield. He was the fourth son of David, Lord Stormont, and was born in 1705. At the date of this Epistle (1737) Murray had not obtained any Government appointment, but in 1742 he was made Solicitor-General. In 1754, he succeeded to the office of Attorney-General, which he held till 1756, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, and was created Baron Murray, of Mansfield. He held the office of Chief Justice (having repeatedly declined that of Lord Chancellor), till his resignation in 1788. He died in 1793. As a strenuous supporter of high monarchical principles, Lord Mansfield was for a time unpopular, and was attacked by Junius with all the virulence and brilliant invective of that writer. His votes in favour of Catholic Relief also exposed him to the fury of the mob, and, in the riots of 1780, his town house, with a valuable library and collection of manuscripts, was burned to the ground. In his legal capacity, no judge has been more eminent than Mansfield. He possessed a clear and penetrating judgment, an intellect at once refined, subtle, and comprehensive, and great powers of eloquence adapted to the bar and the bench. In Parliament he was not so successful, nor was he ambitious of shining as a politician. In private life he possessed those graces and accomplishments which early attracted the admiration of Pope, and which continued to delight his friends after he had passed his eightieth year. The poet's prediction that he should be interred "where kings and poets lie " was realised. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and a costly monument, one of the best works of Flaxman, covers his remains.]

OT to admire, is all the art I know,

NOT

To make men happy, and to keep them so.

(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech, So take it in the very words of Creech.)1

This vault of air, this congregated ball,

Self-centred sun, and stars that run and fall,

1 From whose translation of Horace the first two lines are taken.

5

There are, my friend, whose philosophic eyes
Look through, and trust the Ruler with his skies;
To him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful All without a fear.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;

All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?
Or popularity? or stars and strings ?
The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?
Say with what eyes we ought at Courts to gaze,
And pay the great our homage of amaze?

If weak the pleasure that from these can spring,
The fear to want them is as weak a thing:
Whether we dread, or whether we desire,
In either case, believe me, we admire:
Whether we joy or grieve, the same the curse,
Surprised at better, or surprised at worse.
Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray

The unbalanced mind, and snatch the man away:
For Virtue's self may too much zeal be had;
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Go then, and, if you can, admire the state
Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate;
Procure a taste to double the surprise,
And gaze on Parian charms with learned eyes:
Be struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye,
Our birthday nobles' splendid livery.

If not so pleased, at council-voard rejoice,
To see their judgments hang upon thy voice;
From morn to night, at senate, rolls, and hall,
Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all.
But wherefore all this labour, all this strife?
For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?
Shall one whom nature, learning, birth conspired
To form, not to admire but be admired,

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Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,
Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?
Yet time ennobles, or degrades each line;

It brighten'd Craggs's, and may darken thine :2

45

2 [From the mention of " Chloe " in this passage, it has been assumed that Murray was rejected by some lady to whom he had paid his addresses. The

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