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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, into exactly the same error as Mr. D'Israeli.-See Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. i. p. 3. Edition by Lord Wharncliffe.

Mr.

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. 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.

from Lady Bute that her mother had, in fact, but little acquaintance with that language. Not impossibly she had the advantage of a Latin version, to which circumstance we may add the probability of her having received material assistance from Bishop Burnet, who is known to have superintended her labours.

That her father, however, though he neglected, was nevertheless proud of the attainments and beauty of his child, is evident from the following lively anecdote which Lady Mary, in after-life, took great pleasure in recalling. "As a leader of the fashionable world, and a strenuous Whig in party, he of course belonged to the Kit-cat club.* One day, at a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a whim seized him to nominate her, then not eight years old, a candidate; alleging that she was far prettier than any lady on their list. The other members demurred, because the rules of the club forbade them to elect a beauty

* The meetings of the celebrated Kit-cat club were originally held at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, the landlord of which was one Christopher Cat, from whom the club borrowed their name. He was famous for his mutton-pies, which was always a standing-dish at their meetings. In a Tory pasquinade of the period we find,—

"Hence did the assembly's title first arise,

And Kit-Cat wits sprung first from Kit-Cat pies."

The Kit-cat club, at a later period, held their meetings at the residence of their secretary, the celebrated Jacob Tonson, at Barn Elms. This house, which is rendered still more interesting by having formerly been inhabited by Cowley, the poet, is still standing.

whom they had never seen.

Then you shall

see her,' cried he; and, in the gaiety of the moment, sent orders home to have her finely dressed, and brought to him at the tavern, where she was received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form upon a drinking-glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations; they amounted to ecstacy: never again, throughout her whole future life, did she pass so happy a day."*

Another disadvantage (arising from her father being a widower) which Lady Mary had to encounter as she increased in years, was the prevalence of male society at his table. A woman, thrown into constant intercourse with the other sex, will unquestionably find her wit sharpened, and will acquire increased confidence in her own powers; moreover, where the society is of a superior order, she may add to her stock of knowledge, and improve her taste; but, on the other hand, the finer feelings of the woman are imper

*Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Works, vol. i. p. 5, edition by Lord Wharncliffe.

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