she expired, she wrote to her son, the Earl of Bristol,-"I feel my dissolution coming on; but I have no pain: what can an old woman desire more?" Walpole, in recording this anecdote, observes," This was consonant to her usual propriety-yes, propriety is grace, and thus everybody may be graceful, when other graces are fled."*

It is to be feared, however, that the exemplary patience which Lady Hervey displayed during her repeated illnesses, originated in no degree from any consolation which she derived from her religious faith. The example of infidelity set her by her husband, and apparently the pernicious sophistry of their mutual friend, Dr. Middleton,† produced an unfortunate effect on her otherwise strong mind; and though she refrained from obtruding her peculiar tenets on others, her own confidence in the truth of revealed religion was unquestionably weakened, if not entirely destroyed.

Posterity, of late years, has acquired an interesting memento of Lady Hervey, in the form

* Walpole's Letters, vol. iv. p. 335, vol. v. p. 226.

+ Dr. Conyers Middleton,-a sceptical divine, and the wellknown author of the Life of Cicero,-was the son of a clergyman, and was born at York in 1683. His "Discourse on the Miraculous Powers" supposed to have been vested in the early Christian Church, led the world to believe that he was a freethinker; and his letters to Lord Hervey have since substantiated the fact. As a divine, a moralist, and a philosopher, he should have taken especial care to maintain his private character in good repute and yet the same man,—who pro

VOL. II.

2 D

of a volume of her epistolary correspondence. To the general reader, indeed, the letters in question will convey a feeling of disappointment, for we search in vain for that playful wit and fascinating vivacity for which her contemporaries have so universally given her credit. The whole of these letters, however, were written after she had completed her forty-second year; at a period when the hey-day of life had passed away; and, moreover, when misfortune had quenched the buoyancy of her spirits, and thrown its shadows over her brow. But, on the other hand, they portray the character of Lady Hervey in its best light; they afford valuable evidence of her strong sense, her refined taste, and real goodness of heart; and are equally interesting as a memorial of a courtly beauty of the last age, and as affording a faithful and pleasing picture of an amiable and highly-cultivated mind.

fessed that "Providence had placed him beyond the temptation of sacrificing philosophic freedom to the servilities of dependence," is known, in the most shameless manner, to have subscribed the thirty-nine articles for the mere purpose of enjoying the living of Hascombe. "Though there are many things in the Church," he says, "which I wholly dislike, yet, while I am content to acquiesce in the ill, I should be glad to taste a little of the good." The apology was worthy of his principles. Dr. Middleton died on the 28th of July, 1750, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

403

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

Her birth in 1690.-Her early love of reading.-Teaches herself Latin, and translates Epictetus.-Anecdote of her father related by herself.-Her acquaintance with Mr. Wortley Montagu. His literary tastes. He proposes for her hand to her father, and is rejected. He elopes with, and is privately married to, her. Lady Mary's first appearance at St. James's.-Attends the evening parties of George the First.Accompanies her husband on his embassy to Constantinople. -Her familiarity with the Turkish ladies.-Anecdote.-Introduces into England the Oriental practice of inoculation for the small pox.-Returns home, and takes a house at Twickenham. Her intimacy with Pope.-Addison warns her against him. Her subsequent quarrel with Pope.-Her account of its origin. Her splenetic feelings towards him.-Retires to the continent. Her separation from her husband.-Extracts from Horace Walpole's letters.-Pope's remarks on Lady Mary's want of cleanliness.-Anecdote of Lady Mary.-Indecency of some of her letters.-Brief memoir of her son, Edward Wortley Montague.-His eccentricities abroad.Extract from Horace Walpole's letters.-Mr. Montagu disinherited on his father's death. His extraordinary advertisement in the Public Advertiser.-His sudden death at Lyons. His literary production.-Lady Mary's return to England after the death of her husband.-Horace Walpole's description of her. Her death.

LADY MARY PIERREPONT, afterwards so celebrated as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was the eldest daughter of Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, by Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of William,

Earl of Denbigh. She was born at Thoresby, in Nottinghamshire, about the year 1690.

When she was about four years old, Lady Mary had the misfortune to lose her mother.* The loss was an irreparable one; for it was probably owing to the want of proper female guardianship in her youth, and to the absence of a mother's anxious watchfulness, that we are to attribute many of those faults and fooleries which subsequently distinguished her irregular career. Her father, too, was a man little qualified to perform so important a trust as the guardianship of a volatile and high-spirited girl. Figuring merely as one of the well-bred libertines of the period, and preferring the pursuit of pleasure to

* In reference to the fact stated in the text, namely, that Lady M. W. Montagu was only four years old when she lost her mother, it is curious to find, in the eleventh edition of "The Curiosities of Literature," the following rather remarkable anachronism :"We have lost much literature by the illiberal or malignant descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of Lady Wortley Montagu's letters have been destroyed, I have been informed, by her mother, who imagined that the family honours were lowered by the addition of those of literature: some of her best letters, recently published, were found buried in an old trunk. It would have mortified her ladyship's mother to have heard that her daughter was the Sévigné of Britain."-Cur. of Literature, p. 19, Ed. 1839. In recording this error, it is far from the author's intention to attempt to derogate from the general merit and accuracy of one of the most charming works in our language. The writer of an article in the Quarterly Review (vol. xxiii. p. 414,) has fallen, it may be remarked, inte exactly the same error as Mr. D'Israeli.-See Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. i. p. 3. Edition by Lord Wharncliffe.

the discharge of his domestic duties, he seems to have troubled himself little with the education or moral improvement of his child.* A thirst after knowledge, however, formed an early and remarkable feature in Lady Mary's character. "When I was young," she observed to Spence, "I was a vast admirer of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and that was one of the chief reasons that set me upon the thought of stealing the Latin language. Mr. Wortley was the only person to whom I communicated my design; and he encouraged me in it. I used to study five or six hours a day for two years, in my father's library, and so got that language whilst everybody thought I was reading nothing but novels and romances." According to her biographer, Dallaway, her father for the most part entrusted her education to the tutors of his son, from whom she acquired a knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and French languages. We have, however, the authority of Lady Mary herself that she taught herself Latin; and in regard to her knowledge of Greek, though professedly the author of a translation of Epictetus, we learn

* The father of Lady M. W. Montagu was Evelyn Pierrepont, fifth Earl of Kingston, created 23rd of December, 1706, Marquis of Dorchester; and, on the 29th of July, 1715, Duke of Kingston. Macky says of him,-" He has a very good estate, is a very fine gentleman, of good sense, well bred, and a lover of the ladies; entirely in the interest of his country, makes a good figure, is of a black complexion, and well made." The Duke died in 1726, and was succeeded in his titles by his grandson, Evelyn Pierrepont, the second and last Duke of Kingston.