Chapter VII
1746–1748--CHIEFLY IN LONDON AND BATH AND AT SANDLEFORD--VISITS TO BULLSTRODE AND TO CAMBRIDGE.
[Year: 1746]
The first letter of 1746 is dated January 1 to the Duchess of Portland at Bullstrode.
The Montagus remained quietly at Sandleford till Parliament met.
[Page heading: THE DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON]
At the end of April, or commencement of May, Mrs. Montagu lost her excellent and amiable mother from a return of her former illness. I have no letters till the following one, undated, in reply for a letter of condolence of Mrs. Freind’s:--
“DEAR MADAM,
“The tender hand of a friend does all in the power of human art to heal the wounds given by affliction. That you love me, and interest yourself for me, must on all occasions give me comfort. It is not consistent with duty or prudence to be ever considering one’s loss with those circumstances of tenderness that make one unable to bear up against it, so I will say as little as possible of the dear, tender parent, and endeavour to recollect her only as a most excellent woman, and try to become good by her example. She concluded with an heroic constancy the most virtuous life. From her prosperity she drew arguments of resignation and patience, and expressed the greatest thankfulness that Providence had lent her so many blessings without repining that they were to be taken away. How few are they that do not grow proud and stubborn by that indulgence which made her humble and resigned! She had spent her life in doing those just, right things that bring peace at the last; and after living so many years in the world, left it with the greatest innocence of soul and integrity of heart I ever knew. How much superior is this to the forced and immeritorious innocence of a sequestered Cloister; for after having bent to all the duties of human life, she had not contracted any of the vices or bad affections of it; nor had she the least tincture of the secret faults of malice or envy which often lurk about the hearts of those who are esteemed persons of unblameable conduct. Through every action of her life she deserved to be loved and esteemed, and in her death almost to be adored, for in that scene she appeared almost more than human. But this subject is too affecting, nor can I think of my final separation from such a friend with the resignation I ought.
“I beg you would think favourably of a journey to Sandleford: you cannot imagine the pleasure it would give me to see you there. We are still roasting in this dusty town, but hope a very few days will carry us into the country.
“I am, dear Mrs. Freind’s “Most affectionate cousin, and sincere friend, “ELIZ. MONTAGU.”
[Page heading: LYDIA BOTHAM]
The only other letter on this subject is from Mrs. Lydia Botham, Mrs. Laurence Sterne’s sister, a portion of which I give. The handwritings of the two sisters[408] were much alike--
“Yoxall, May 25, 1746.
“MY DEAR COUSIN,
“If your knowing how sensible I am of your loss of my dear Aunt, and how deeply I share in your affliction, could afford you any relief, I should endeavour to lay open a most sorrowful Heart to you, tho’ I could send you but a faint copy of it, for my grief, like yours, is at present too big for utterance. I can offer nothing for your consolation, but what I’m sure your own thoughts will have suggested to you; that the Dear, the Valuable Parent you have lost has lived to enjoy the Greatest Blessing a parent can have, the seeing her children brought up in health and prosperity; that she who acted so strictly up to her duty in every capacity here is only removed from the Happiness she reap’d in her Family, to receive the further and infinitely greater Reward of her well-doing; that since the Giver of Life saw fit to finish hers by so painful a Distemper, it is some comfort that her Misery was of no longer duration.
“From these considerations I am persuaded you will find all the consolation that such an affliction can admit of. Your letter is dated the 5th, but it did not reach me till the last post, and had the Dublin postmark on it. I had received the melancholy news from Lady Suffolk, but could not write to you immediately upon your misfortune. The news of my poor Aunt’s Death is a heavy addition to such a load of sorrow as I was before nearly ready to sink under. My eldest girl has lately discovered some tendency to my asthmatical Disorder; the Thought that she received this from me, and that the rest of my dear Babes stand the same unhappy chance, is such an affliction to me....
“I mourn with my Uncle, but shall forbear writing to him for fear of adding to his concern.”
[408] Mr. Botham was Vicar of Yoxall, Staffordshire.
By the will of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Morris, the estates of Mount Morris and East Horton, Kent, now passed to Matthew Robinson, Mrs. Montagu’s eldest brother. His father, Mr. Robinson, who had always disliked country life, now made London his headquarters. In a letter of June 22, to the Duchess of Portland, Mrs. Montagu says--
“We shall stay in London about a week getting a plan for finishing a house which we are to have in a street near Berkeley Square, in a street not yet much built; it will be better to stay a year for the finishing than to take what one does not like.”
This was the house in Hill Street, in which she lived many years.
[Page heading: ALBURY]
At this period Lord Andover presented the Rev. John Botham to the living of Albury in Surrey. Mrs. Botham and Mrs. Sterne had, as we learn from a letter of Mrs. Montagu’s, been brought up in great luxury, with a constant succession of company, whilst their father, the Rev. Robert Lumley, was alive. Reduced to poverty by his death, they both married men of small fortune, therefore one is not surprised that Lydia Botham, unaccustomed to small means, and, in spite of her delicacy, extremely fond of society, soon incurred debt and embarrassment with a growing family and small income.
Lady Andover, who was her constant and best friend, writes on June 26 to Mrs. Montagu to explain the excessive melancholy of Lydia, who was proceeding that week to Albury. She says--
“The blame they lay upon themselves for having lived beyond their circumstances and the sense of having injured their children, of whom they are most tender, is a reflection sufficient to bring a person of Lydia’s sense and goodness to the dejected state she is in. I that love and value her most sincerely, and who have largely shared in the best she was ever possest of, bear a great share in her sufferings....”
[Page heading: A “JOHNNY!”]
She then goes on to talk of how she and the Duchess of Portland wished to get more preferment for Mr. Botham.
“I have not seen Harry Legge[409] for a great while, but I know he has a very sincere regard for Lydia, and should hope it was in his power to do them some good, but then Alas! poor Johnny is such a Johnny that there arises all the difficulty of getting them any preferment. Lydia also is so blind to all his defects that the least disrespectful thought of Johnny would make her more than ever miserable.” She continues to say, “Any exchange from Staffordshire must be advantageous to them, for there, as they unfortunately began with entering into all the expenses that attend a great neighbourhood, they could never have lived in the way they intend doing and may do here.... This place is but a mile from them, and I don’t despair of making a very beaten path between us by constant use.”
[409] Harry Legge, second son of the Earl of Dartmouth, was Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of Exchequer; a first cousin of Lady Andover’s.
Mrs. Montagu hastened to Albury, and, from a letter of Lady Andover’s, appears to have not only given good advice for the future, but helped their purse. Harry Legge also paid them a visit, endeavoured to persuade them they could live on £300 a year, gave good advice, but made no promise for the future. Lady Andover says, “He gave them frugal good advice, but no hints or promises to make the discourse be relished; he went away yesterday morning, and I am persuaded when it is in his power he will remember them.” At the end of the letter she says--
“I am quite of your mind concerning Lord Tullibardine,[410] full of wonder that he should chuze to sneak out of life much more like a rebell than resolutely suffering publick execution. I hear of great interest making for tickets to see the executions,[411] and fear humanity is at a very low ebb.”
[410] William Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine; died July 9, 1746.
[411] The Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino.
[Page heading: THE “LITTLE PÈRE”]
Mrs. Montagu was much distressed by the poor boy employed in her garden at Sandleford having accidentally fallen into a pond there and been drowned, an account of which she writes to the duchess on August 7. In this letter she begs the duchess to send the “Little Père,” as he was fondly called (Dr. Courayer), to stay with her, from Bullstrode, where he had been domiciled some time. At the same time she asks for two peacocks, “After asking for Dr. Courayer to beg your two peacocks, are there in Nature things that differ like this Philosopher and the bird of noise, vanity, and ostentation?” The peacocks were to console a white pea-hen at Sandleford for the loss of her mate, a white peacock, which, together with a quantity of poultry, had been stolen by the bargemen of Newbury. The Montagus sent a party of armed servants to inspect the barges, but only feathers and eggs were discovered. The peacocks were duly conveyed by waggon to the “Windmill,” Slough, whence the Newbury waggoner, Sandy, conveyed them to Sandleford. The duchess, in writing about them, adds, “Lord Cromartie is pardoned; the King sent for my Lady to acquaint him with it. Was not that doing it in the most tender, compassionate manner?”
Mrs. Donnellan was at this time at Tunbridge, at Lord Percival’s house, and Mrs. Montagu jokingly confided her father, Mr. Robinson, who was there, to her care. On August 5 Mrs. Donnellan writes to say of Mr. Robinson, “I can assure you he is in very good widower’s spirits.” She adds, “He has lent me his chariot daily to carry me home at night to Lord Percival’s.” Mrs. Donnellan waited at Tunbridge till the death of her friend, Sir Robert Sutton,[412] which was daily expected; when it took place she accompanied his widow, Lady Sunderland,[413] and his daughter, Miss Sutton, to London.
[412] The Right Hon. Sir Robert Sutton, of Broughton, Lincolnshire.
[413] Wife of Sir Robert Sutton; had been third wife to 4th Earl of Sunderland.
[Page heading: DEATH OF MR. CARTER]
Mrs. Botham, having an alarming attack of asthma which caused her six sleepless nights, Mrs. Montagu writes to recommend her Valerian tea, made from the roots. Evidently “Lydia” was not a notable housekeeper, as she also instructs her in the art of keeping a weekly account book, and entering in it every item of expense. The duchess was anxious for the Montagus to go to Bullstrode, but the visit was deferred, as the three younger Robinsons were spending their holidays at Sandleford, and the captain and Morris Robinson expected Mr. and Mrs. Freind there as well. Poor old Mr. Carter, the steward, was just dead of fever, which, it was thought, he caught when on agent’s work at Newcastle, where fever had been rife amongst the unhappy prisoners of the ’45 confined there. He was a great loss to Mr. Montagu, who was contemplating a journey north to place his affairs in young Mr. Edward Carter’s[414] hands. Dr. Conyers Middleton, in a letter from Bath, of September 21, proposes setting out at Michaelmas “with young Frederick” for Sandleford for a few days. Mr. Montagu, accompanied by Mr. Carter, had set out on their northern journey, staying at Newbold Verdon with Mr. James Montagu en route, arriving at Theakstone by October 7.
[414] He was agent to Lord Aylesbury.
On October 12, from Theakstone, Mr. Montagu writes to his wife--
“Mr. Carter has now dispatched what business he had to do for Lord Aylesbury at his courts, and is now at liberty, and on Tuesday morning we design to set out for New Castle. Eryholme we shall take in our way....
“I have now with me Mr. Buckley and Mr. Emerson;[415] amidst all these avocations j have found time to study and profit by the Hurworth Philosopher as much as j proposed, and shall not when j return from Newcastle, have occasion to delay my journey for any further instruction from him. I am glad Dr. Middleton is going to publish, and the rather because you approve of what he has done. It is a fine subject,[416] and none is capable of doing it more justice than he can. I wonder the young Lord Hervey[417] should refuse to deliver up the Doctor’s letters, for it would have been a great loss to the learned world if he could not have retrieved the matter of them as he has done.”
[415] William Emerson, eminent mathematician; author of “Doctrine of Fluxions,” etc.
[416] An account of the Roman Senate. He allowed Mrs. Montagu to read the manuscript.
[417] George William, Baron Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol.
[Page heading: DENTON]
On October 19, from Newcastle, Mr. Montagu writes--
“MY DEAREST,
“Yesterday Mr. Carter and j rid out and view’d Mr. Rogers’ estate of Denton lying upon the river west of this town, a fine tract of land with a fine colliery belonging to it. After we came in Bp. Benson of Gloucester, who had been doing duty for the Bishop of Durham, being at our inn, desir’d the Drawer to present his compliments, and would be glad to see me.... He is a very polite man.... This morning Mr. Bowes[418] came and made me a visit, invited me to Gibside, and proffered me any assistance he could give me. I promised to pay my respects to him and dine with him when j was prepar’d to talk with him about those affairs in which he and Mr. Rogers are concern’d in partnership.... Mr. Rogers’ affairs consist of a great many concerns, particularly in collieries, lying at a great distance from each other, and as they have been neglected, great encroachments have been made which require some pains to detect.”
[418] Mr. George Bowes, owner of Gibside Park, Streatlam Castle, and Hilton Castle, Durham.
[Page heading: LADY PRIMROSE]
Early in November Mrs. Montagu visited London to take leave of her two sailor brothers, who were going to China. On the 10th she was to visit Bullstrode. In writing to the duchess on the 2nd she says--
“I am very glad Lady Wallingford has not left Bullstrode, extreamly rejoiced Mrs. Delany is come there, infinitely happy Lady Primrose[419] remains there, and for Mr. Freind I propose much happiness in seeing him.”
[419] Née Anne Drelincourt, wife of 3rd Viscount Primrose. Lord Rosebery says she once sheltered the Pretender.
On November 24, writing to Mr. Montagu, his wife says--
“I wish my brother Morris had done Lord Lovat’s[420] trial; I have great desire to see the Solicitor-General’s speech. As to Sir W. Young and Lord Cooke’s, I heard them perfect, and shall perhaps hardly think them worth further regard and attention. I lost a great deal of Secretary Murray’s speech, which, as it combined an account of the first overtures of the rebellion, I think matter of curiosity.”
[420] He was beheaded April 9, 1747.
The curious remedies of the period are shown in a letter of Mrs. Botham, of November 25, where she says she has been taking Elixir of Vitriol for her asthma, and is now going to try Tar Water, then supposed to be a universal medicine. She adds that the Glebelands, sixty acres in extent at Albury, had been let for £17 a year for thirty years, but as no one bid “Johnny” more, he was now farming it himself, as it provides our family with “grain, fowls, bacon, milk, butter and eggs.”
In the next letter from Bullstrode, to Mr. Robinson, his daughter says--
“Mrs. Delany tells me Mr. Granville thinks himself very happy in passing some of his hours with you. She says she has great ambition to please you as you are an artist and a connoisseur. She is now copying a portrait of Sacharissa from Vandyck, and I believe it will please you very well.... The Duchess is in better spirits than ever I knew her; time has added accomplishments to her young family, her gardens are much improved, her house is new furnished.”
[Page heading: DR. SHAW]
The last letter of the year to the duchess mentions--
“I hear there is going to be published a new comedy by Dr. Hoadley[421] and a tragedy by Mr. Thomson. I have no great expectations of the comedy, for Dr. Hoadley is a sober physician, and must be a kind of comedian malgré lui. As to Mr. Thomson,[422] we know the pitch of his muse, and with what dignity his buskins tread the Stage.” She winds up with “best respects to the huge ‘Godfather of all Shell-fish,’ who, tho’ not so frisky I presume, as nimble as his Seabrother the Leviathan, or his Hornie palfrey the Seahorse, or his lapdog the Porpoise.”
[421] Benjamin Hoadley, born 1706, died 1757. Physician to George II.; wrote “The Suspicious Husband.”
[422] “Tancred and Sigismund.”
This alludes to Dr. Shaw, the traveller, a constant visitor at Bullstrode, and a connoisseur in shells,[423] which the duchess took great delight in collecting.
[423] Vide the Catalogue of the Portland Museum of 1786, in which are hundreds of rare shells.
[Year: 1747]
An undated letter of Mrs. Montagu’s to the Duchess of Portland of 1747 in my collection, alluding to her visit at Bullstrode, is probably the first of that year. She says--
“I am this instant from the play, where I have been extremely entertained with that most comick of all personages, Sir John Falstaffe; as to Hotspur, he was in a very violent passion in the first act, and I think it is a part not equal to the genius of Garrick.”
Garrick and Quin were this season taking alternate parts. Quin was then playing Falstaffe.
A letter of Mr. Robinson’s of April 25 describes him giving a Drum in London, “4 card tables and others who did not play, and they were all a Kentish Set.... Dr. and Mrs. Middleton are in town, but they talk of going in a fortnight. I will tell you what I think of her when I see you.” This was Dr. Conyers Middleton’s third wife, Anne Powell, whom he had just married, but the exact date I am uncertain of.
[Page heading: YOUNG EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU]
Two curious letters to Mr. Montagu from his eccentric young cousin, Edward Wortley Montagu, occur next. He was the only son of Mr. Montagu’s first cousin, Edward Wortley Montagu, whose father, Sidney Montagu, was the second son of the great Earl of Sandwich. Sidney Montagu married Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Wortley, and assumed the name of Wortley. By her he had one son, Edward Wortley Montagu, who married Lady Mary Pierpoint, daughter of Evelyn, Duke of Kingston; they had two children, Edward, born in 1713, and Mary, born 1718, who married John, Earl of Bute. To give young Wortley Montagu’s eccentric life here would take too much space, but the reader will find an epitome of it at the end of this work. In 1745, he was in the Army through the influence of his relation, the Duke of Montagu, had been through the campaign, and was present at the Battle of Fontenoy. He became a prisoner of war, but was shortly before the date of the first letter exchanged, and, coming to England, was given, by the Earl of Chesterfield,[424] a commission to carry a packet of important papers to his relation, Lord Sandwich,[425] being informed of the contents of them in case he was waylaid and robbed. Mr. Montagu had always acted a kind part towards his young cousin, and frequently interceded for him with his father, old Wortley Montagu, in his endless escapades, which were enough to try any parent’s heart.
[424] Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, celebrated politician and author; then Secretary of State.
[425] Then Minister Plenipotentiary to the States General.
[Page heading: ACTION IN HOLLAND]
As the letters are of interminable length, I only quote portions of them. In the first, from Harwich, April 22, becalmed en route for the Army, he begs Mr. Edward Montagu to recommend him to the Duke of Montagu as messenger to the Court of Prussia, whither he heard a despatch was to be sent. He alludes to his father having visited Lord Chesterfield to ask about him, as they were not on speaking terms then, though his father was at the same time anxious he should enter Parliament. The second letter is from Ter Goes, May 15, 1747 (N.S.)--
“We sailed from Harwich with the wind contrary, and were two pacquets in company. We were attacked by a privateer of 16 guns and got clear of him after a combat of between four and five hours. As soon as I arrived at Helvoet, I went immediately to the Hague, staid one day there, and then went on to H.R.H.[426] with a pacquet from Lord Sandwich; the moment the Duke saw me he told me I was released, and ordered me to take post and join my regiment. The moment I got to the regiment, I found it retreating from the French, having lost between two and three hundred men and about 10 officers killed or wounded; our Major is among the former. When we got to the seaside we did not find vessels enough to embark us all, so our regiment, as the eldest, embarked the last, but when all Braggs’ and most of the Highlanders were got off, we and the remainder of them were attacked by a body of 1200. They were so well received that they quitted us, after having lost three officers and about twenty-seven men. We lost only one officer and a very few men. Billanders came just then, and we got off very luckily, for had we staid ten minutes longer we should all have been killed or taken, for we were scarce on board when we saw a considerable body march to the ground we had been on....”
[426] The Duke of Cumberland.
Edward Wortley Montagu’s handwriting was excessively neat; his signature, with peculiar flourishes to the “Edward,” is unmistakable when once known.
A dissolution and general election of Parliament took place in June, and Mr. Montagu hastened to Huntingdon for re-election, leaving Mrs. Montagu packing up and removing furniture, etc., from Dover Street to their new house in Hill Street, which was being finished and decorated.
[Page heading: GENERAL ELECTION]
In a letter of June 18, from Huntingdon, Mr. Montagu says--
“Yesterday was a day of more business, for we walked the town, where we met with very uncommon success, having met with one negative only. Mr. Wortley[427] the elder came from Peterborough to give us his assistance.... He seems very well pleased with what my Lord has done for his son,[428] and will, j dare say, bring about a perfect reconciliation, tho’ as yet they have not seen one another, nor will till they perhaps may both be in London.
“The day for my election is not yet fixed.... I may, if time should allow, ride over to Cambridge to congratulate Dr. Middleton on his marriage.”
[427] Old Wortley Montagu.
[428] Edward Wortley Montagu.
[Page heading: HUNTINGDON ELECTION]
Lord Sandwich gave Mr. Montagu £500 towards his election expenses. Young Wortley Montagu was trying for Parliament at the same time, and was returned, and Matthew Robinson was seeking election for Canterbury.
On June 23 Mrs. Montagu writes her last letter from Dover Street to her husband: “I am now on the point of leaving this town and my disfurnished house.... Please to send to the Crown Inn for a box, in which I have sent your frock with the gold loops. My brother does not meet with any opposition.”
The Hill Street house being still unfinished, Mrs. Montagu went to Sandleford, accompanied by Mrs. Donnellan, previously securing a room for her husband in town, “my Father’s lodgings at Mrs. Cranwell’s in Shepheard Street, near Red Lion Square.”
On June 30 Mr. Montagu writes--
“My Dearest, it is with great pleasure that j can tell you our election is well over. Everything passed yesterday in the manner one could wish, and there was little of that riot and madness which is the constant concomitant of things of this nature. Captain John Montagu, who represented Mr. Courteney, is yet here on account of a ball which we are this night to have in the Assembly Rooms. My cousin[429] gives great satisfaction in the county. I think his nature to be good as well as his parts, and hope he will be an ornament to his family. I am sure he is very grateful to me. I have invited him to Sandleford.... My Lord Sandwich is entire master both of this town and county. He has so riveted his interest, that j believe nobody will venture to oppose as long as he lives. He is really a very great young man, with great talents, and many amiable qualities.”
[429] Young Edward Wortley Montagu.
On July 8 Mr. Montagu writes from London, having changed his lodging to “Mrs. Barrows at the Golden Fleece” in New Bond Street. He says--
“I left Huntingdon on Fryday in the afternoon, and got to Cambridge between seven and eight in the evening, walked about the Colleges, and then sent for Mr. Branson to enquire about the Canterbury Election. The next morning at eight, j waited on Dr. Middleton and breakfasted and din’d with him and his wife. The Doctor receiv’d me in a very agreeable and friendly manner, ask’d me why j did not the night before take up my lodging with him, press’d my longer stay. He has married a very agreeable, good-natur’d woman, her person is extreamly good, in her prime, must have been very handsome. She seems to have very good sense and a great deal of good nature. She went along with the Doctor and j, and spent an hour or two seeing Dr. Woodward’s Fossils,[430] and afterwards she entertain’d us playing on the Harpsichord, in which she is a considerable proficient; in short, the Doctor seems to have consulted his happiness in what he has done, and j congratulated him upon it in the handsomest manner j could.”
[430] John Woodward, born 1665, died 1728. Geologist; founded a chair of geology at Cambridge.
[Page heading: DR. POCOCKE]
Dr. Courayer had now joined the Sandleford party.
“Dr. Pococke[431] and his family dined here yesterday. After dinner we all went to see the Vieux Hermite, who received us at the gate in a manner rather smiling Eastern courtesy and ceremony than rural simplicity; he bow’d to the ground several times, led me in, then accosted the little Père by the title of the Courayer.... Standen asked Mary classical questions, of Dr. Pococke particularly whether he had been on the plains of Pharsalia and of Marathon, and if he had passed the Straits of Thermopylæ. He was overjoyed to hear the Temple of Theseus was entire. Dr. Pococke is a faithful relater of what he has seen, but does not embellish his narrations with any imagination of fancy.”
[431] Rev. Dr. Pococke, born 1704, died 1765. Bishop of Ossory and Meath; author of “Descriptions of the East,” etc.
[Page heading: WEST WOODHAY]
Writing to the duchess on July 6, Mrs. Montagu says--
“A few days ago I carried Mrs. Donnellan and the little Père to see Mr. Sloper’s gardens[432] and house at a time when I was assured he was absent on his election, but seeing a man ride up the avenue at the same time, I took it into my head it might be Mr. Sloper, so I did not alight immediately. The housekeeper came to me and asked if I would walk in; I said I should be glad to see the house if Mr. Cibber was not at home; the housekeeper looked aghast, as if she had spoilt a custard or broke a jelly glass; I coloured, Mrs. Donnellan tittered, Dr. Courayer sputtered, half French, half English, and began to search for the case of a spying glass I had dropt in my fright. As my organs of speech rather than of sight, seemed defective, I was little interested for my perspective, but sat in the coach making melancholy reflections on my mistake. Mrs. Donnellan could not compose her countenance, so that we were near a quarter of an hour before we got out of the coach; and after so long a pause I walked into the house, greatly abashed.”
[432] Mr. Sloper lived at West Woodhay House, near Newbury, built by Inigo Jones.
To understand this joke it must be explained that Mrs. Theophilus Cibber,[433] the celebrated actress, was the mistress of Mr. Sloper. She had been forced into marriage with Theophilus Cibber,[434] son of “old Cibber,” the celebrated actor, and her husband, who was a worthless man, had connived at the connection. In a previous letter of Mrs. Montagu’s, of 1744, mention is made of a house at West Woodhay furnished by Mr. Sloper for Mrs. Cibber “entirely in white satin.” A further passage says--
[Page heading: DR. COURAYER]
“I believe I could shake your spleen with a description of Dr. Courayer’s figure--when he arrived here from Oxford through a whole day’s rain; but let it suffice that he shone with drops of water like the Diamond ficoides. How his beaver was slouched, his coloured handkerchief twisted, and his small boots stuck to his small legs; how the rain had uncurled his wig, the spleen dejected his countenance, the cramp spoiled his gait! not being much accustomed to riding he was so fatigued and benumbed he could scarce walk, that for so good a Christian he appeared surprizingly like Un Diable boiteux. Mrs. Donnellan and I could not help laughing; with the vivacity of his nation, he fell in with the mirth and helped on the raillery his figure provoked.”
Mr. Montagu was detained in London by much legal business. He tells his wife her father, Mr. Robinson, carries him to Ranelagh. She retorts, “I am very glad my Father carries you to Ranelagh, but tell him I desire he would not make you a coquette, a character I think him a little inclined for.”
[433] Anna Maria Cibber, née Arne, celebrated actress, born 1714, died 1766.
[434] Theophilus Cibber, son of Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, died 1757.
On July 18 mention is made of Lord Sandwich embarking for the seat of war.
The next letter, July 23, to Mr. Montagu, from young Edward Wortley Montagu, who had been returned Knight of the Shire of Huntingdon, described an election ball. “Our ball last Monday was very brilliant. We had a very elegant supper for near 200 people, and finished by dancing till 6 in the morning.” He mentions “my friend untieing his purse strings with the greatest reluctance, and was very peevish to see so many people at Supper, which he thinks very unwholesome.” This is probably old Wortley, his father. A christening of one of Lady Sandwich’s children had just taken place. Mrs. Montagu was godmother by proxy. “I assure you I wished the real Godmothers had been there instead of the substitutes.” Then stating Lord Sandwich had left so hastily they did not know if he had arranged for venison for the races, he begs Mr. Montagu to ask the Duke of Montagu to send him two bucks, “to be here by Tuesday.”
The Duchess of Portland, writing on July 24, mentions “Lady Bute is with me; she is a most agreeable friend in all respects.” This was Edward Wortley Montagu’s only sister, Mary, who was born in 1718, whilst her father was ambassador to the Porte. She had married in 1736, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute.
[Page heading: A HIGH AND DRY RESIDENCE]
A long letter of Mrs. Montagu’s in reply to the duchess contains some amusing descriptions of the trio--herself, Mrs. “Donn,” and the little Père’s expeditions from Sandleford--
“Yesterday we went to see a very extraordinary place. A gentleman has built a house on the summit of a prodigious hill, where there is not a drop of water nor a stick of wood; he has planted some fir trees which are watered every day by carts that bring the water about three miles; he has sunk a well to the centre of the earth, from whence some laborious horses draw him as much water as may wash his face, or in a liberal hour supply his tea kettle. The winds plays about his house in so riotous a manner, that a person must poise themselves in a very exact manner to maintain their ground and walk on two legs with an erect countenance as it is the glory and pride of human nature to do.... The first house this gentleman built was in a bottom, where the ground was all wet and marshy, overgrown with willows and alders and extremely peopled with frogs; there he found himself ill at ease, and no doubt but in time would have died of a dropsy, as I now fear he will be destroyed by a wind cholick.
“A few days ago we were at Miss Lisle’s wood and grotto; the work of 9 sisters, who in disposition as well as number, bear some resemblance to the Muses. On Monday we think of going to Lady Fane’s[435] grotto.[436] Mrs. Donnellan and I are going to make a shell frame for a looking glass. I think a looking glass to be the properest for the first work, as everybody will be sure to find something they like in it.”
[435] Mary Stanhope, widow of Charles, Viscount Fane, of Basildon; once Maid-of-Honour to Queen Anne.
[436] At Basildon, still called “The Grotto.”
[Page heading: LADY FANE’S GROTTOES]
[Page heading: THE AXLETREE]
In the next letter of August 23 is the description of Lady Fane’s grotto--
“The situation is, like most grottoes, placed where a grotto would not be looked for: it joins to the house. Now having told its only defect, I will go on to the rest. The first room is fitted up entirely with shells, the sides and ceiling in beautiful mosaic, a rich cornice of flowers in baskets and cornucopias, and the little yellow sea snail is so disposed in shades as to resemble knots of ribbon which seem to tye up some of the bunches of flowers. There is a bed for the Hermit, which is composed of rich shells, and so shaded that the curtain seems folded and flowing.... The room adjoining it is the true and proper style for a grotto; it is composed of rough rock work in a very bold taste, the water falls down it into a cold bath. This grotto is about 50 yards from the Thames, to which the descent is very precipitate. From the Shell Room you have no advantage of the Thames, from the other room you have a view of it. The House to which this grotto is joined is a small habitation where Lady Fane used to pass a good deal of time. Lord Fane’s seat[437] is about a mile from it: it has not indeed the view of the Thames, but is finely situated in a bower of Beech Wood, and before it a pretty prospect. From the Grotto we went to a Wood by the Thames, where we sat and eat our cold dinner very comfortably. In the afternoon we walked up a hill which commands a fine prospect, the Thames winds about in the manner it does at Cliefden. There is a want of wood, as I think the country rather flat, but the prospect is very extensive; you see Oxford and Reading, one on the right, the other on the left hand. In our road thither one of the wheels took fire and burnt thro’ the axletree.... A wheelwright was apply’d to but he had been carousing at a christening, and was not in that degree of sober sense requisite to make even an axletree. A Justice of the peace whom the King had knighted lived hard by; to him we applyed for a coach, as it was part of his office to send vagrants to the place of their abode. Alas! his coach, which contrary to other things used to rest on the week days and work only on the Sabbath, had not been licensed, to the great inconvenience of his lady and the grief of Carter John, who one day in the week was a coachman.... What was to be done? The sun was declining, we were 20 miles from home.... A good inn with the sign of the Blue Boar, Green Dragon, or Red Lion would have pleased us better than all we had seen, but--Alas! the only village within reach offered us a homely lodging under thatched roofs. We were a party of seven, and might have stormed the village with more ease than the French can Bergen-op-Zoom, but the plunder w’d not have given us a supper, or the place afforded us a lodging. But on finding the uncoached Justice was married to Sir Robert Sutton’s niece,[438] an acquaintance of Mrs. Donnellan’s, she sent her compliments, told our distress, and we were kindly received that night. The wheelwright slept himself sober, the next day made us an axletree, and we came home laughing at our adventures.”
[437] Basildon Park.
[438] Lady Rush.
[Page heading: SOUTHAMPTON]
The Montagus had projected a tour to Southampton for some time, and towards the end of August they set out, accompanied by Dr. Courayer, leaving Jack and William Robinson at Sandleford. Writing to the duchess on September 22, Mrs. Montagu says--
“We went from hence to Winchester, where we saw the Cathedral, attending Service on Sunday; it is a very neat Gothick building in so good repair that time seems rather to have made it venerable than old. The Choir is very handsome, there are many old monuments. Several of the Saxon Kings have their bones collected into a sort of Trunk.... William Rufus is interred there too, in a kind of stone chest; William of Wickham and Cardinal Beaufort bear their ensigns of the Prelatick order on their tombs, which are very handsome; but let us leave the pride of the dead for the luxury of the living, and go on to Mr. Dummer’s.[439] The gardens are pretty, and there is a fine lawn before the house, from whence there is a rich prospect and a distant sight of the river at Southampton, where we arrived pretty late in the evening. The next morning we surveyed the town, which I think is very pretty, but what most pleased me there, was the prospect from a little Round Tower from which one has the finest view imaginable, the sea and river most encompass it.... From hence we went to Mount Bevis;[440] your Grace knows it so well I shall not describe it.... What a noble Bason does the river form at the end of the Bowling Green! how fine a prospect from the Mount! Lord Peterborough[441] says in a letter to Mr. Pope in reference to Mount Bevis, ‘I confess the lofty Sacharissa at Stowe, but am content with my little Amoret.’ His Lordship had great reason to be content, for tho’ Stowe, like a court beauty, is adorn’d and ornamented with great expence, the native graces of Mount Bevis surprize and charm the beholder, and have an effect that art can never reach.... We spent a good deal of time in these charming gardens: went from them to Lyndhurst, one of the King’s houses in the New Forest, which house the Duke of Bedford lends to Mr. Medows.”[442]
[439] Cranbury Park, near Hursley.
[440] The seat of the great Earl of Peterborough, now incorporated into the town above Bar.
[441] Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, born 1658, died 1735. Soldier and diplomatist.
[442] Brother-in-law of Mr. Montagu.
From three other letters, to Sarah Robinson, Mrs. Donnellan, and Dr. Freind, I give paragraphs. Speaking of Mount Bevis, she says--
“In a room on this Mount, Pope used to write, and I imagine he wrote his ‘Universal Prayer’ there, for the unbounded prospect leads the mind to the Great Author of all things, and to say to Him, ‘Whose Temple has all space, &c.’ There is a little recess in the wood where he used to study, and here perhaps he meditated his satires, for we are most apt to blame the crowd when we ourselves are out of the Tumult.”
[Page heading: THE NEW FOREST]
[Page heading: WILTON]
[Page heading: SAVERNAKE]
At Lyndhurst the Medowses took their guests to see the Forest--
“saw Burleigh and Bolder Lodges, the one belongs to the Duke of Bolton, the other to Lord Delawarre. Saw the Forest, where there are (after great depredations), still some fine trees remaining.... Went one day to Hurst Castle, which commands a full view of the Isle of Wight; we dined on our cold loaf in the room where King Charles was prisoner; it is a neat, strong castle but small--Harry Bellardine is governor of it. Another day we were carried to Beaulieu, a seat of the Duke of Montagu’s, the wood and water make it the finest summer situation imaginable. The house was part of an old Abbey,[443] and there are traces of the Monastery that show it was large. We saw a fine prospect of the River and Isle of Wight from a place called Exbury. From Lyndhurst we went to Salisbury; on the Sunday we went to the Cathedral and heard an excellent sermon from the Bishop of Lincoln. We received great civilities from the Bishop of Salisbury[444] and Mrs. Sherlock. I cannot describe Wilton,[445] it exceeds all that poetry and painting can represent. A fine lawn leads you to a charming river, on which there is a bridge, and such a bridge![446]... What sort of Bridge, say you? Why such a bridge as the gods would build to lead the souls of the Blessed from Lethe to Elysium if Charon would permit it. This leads to a fine hill covered with Nature’s verdant carpet adorned with fine plantations.... We descended from this hill and crossed the river again over another elegant building, and so returned to the house. The apartments are very noble, the Statues and busts are famous.... The rooms are very fine, and there is one which exceeds any I ever saw and which has in it the fine family piece by Vandyck; it really exceeded my expectation, the figures are so finely painted, their attitudes are gestures and their looks are speech; there are many other fine pictures. From Salisbury we directed our course to Stone Henge, which is an astonishing thing.... Thence we went to Amesbury,[447] where great improvements are making. There is a little river which winds about so as to make the place appear almost an island. There are three pretty Bridges, one in the manner of a Chinese house. The Duke of Queensborough has planted the hill very prettily. The house was a hunting box, built by Inigo Jones, the front handsome, the inside very small, only one fine room.
“We got that night to Marlborough, early enough to walk in Lord Hertford’s garden.... Lord Hertford has made a pretty grotto.
“From Marlborough we took our route to Lord Bruce’s,[448] the access to it is very noble, avenues planted or woods cut thro’ for a mile and a half before you reach the house. The house contains a great number of fine rooms richly gilt and adorned with handsome chimney pieces; there are many family pictures and some very good ones....
“Dr. Courayer is still here.
“My brother Tom was here three weeks. The Westminsters[449] are here, and they are admitted at Cambridge, so are now very happy.”
[443] Founded in 1204 for Cistercians.
[444] Thomas Sherlock, born 1678, died 1761: afterwards Bishop of London.
[445] The Earl of Pembroke’s.
[446] A Palladian bridge. Here Sir Philip Sidney wrote his “Arcadia.”
[447] Belonged then to the Duke of Queensborough, the patron of Gay.
[448] Savernake Forest House.
[449] John and William Robinson.
[Page heading: DR. COURAYER’S LETTER]
I copy a letter of Dr. Courayer’s here--
“November, 1747.
“DEAR MADAM,
“C’est sans doute un mauvais Genie qui a fait trotter ma lettre par toute l’Angleterre, au lieu de l’addresser directement à Sandleford, et cela je pense dans le dessein de me mettre de mauvaise humeur en vous soupconnant d’indifference, ou de m’inquieter par des allarmes sur votre santé. Votre reponse a remedié au mal, et a exorcisé le mauvais esprit qui s’étoit ingeré de vouloir nous broüiller ou nous refroidir, mais qui n’a fait que decouvrir sa malice, sans rien produire de ce qu’il avoit eu en vüe. J’espere que cette lettre ci ne fera pas tant de circuits.
“Je vous felicite de la continuation de la belle saison. Nous en avons eu notre part à Londres, et Dieu qui, comme vous le dites, fait luire son soleil sur les injustes comme sur les justes a moins consulté nos iniquités que sa misericorde. Je ne laisse pas d’etre un peu scandalisé de vos reproches. Croyez-vous donc qu’il n’y ait de saints que dans les villages, et nous mettez vous tous au rang des réprouvés? A la verité
“‘Le monde a de fort grands defauts, Ne croyez pas que je l’excuse. Il est mechant, leger et faux, Il trompe, il seduit, il abuse. Il est auteur de mille maux, Mais tel qu’il est, il nous amuse.’
Ainsi ne soyez pas surprise, si je ne suis pas aussi ennemi de la ville que vous pretendez l’être. Quand votre sort vous y ramenera, vous changerez de morale comme de demeure, et en quittant les Penates de Sandleford pour ceux de Londres, ce changement de place vous fera changer d’Idolatrie, et vous convaincra de l’injustice de vos declamations. Ce n’est pas après tout que je condamne votre goût pour la campagne.
“‘La solitude est belle en vers, On est charmé de sa peinture. Mais elle a de facheux revers. Quelque bien qu’on soit, le temps dure, Et je vois dans cet univers, Qu’on aime à changer de posture.’
“Je vous suis très obligé de l’offre que vous me faites d’ecrire ma vie, au lieu de mon Oraison funèbre. Mon amour propre trouve à se satisfaire dans ce Projet, et ce sera une chose egalement nouvelle et curieuse de voir la vie d’un Philosophe écrite de la main d’une Dame, qui n’approuve ni ses maximes ni ses inclinations. Mais quoi qu’il en puisse etre c’est trop d’honneur pour moi d’avoir une telle historiographe pour ne pas accepter votre offre; et quand bien meme j’aurois à essuyer quelque trait de satyre parmi les Eloges, je ne pourrois que vous savoir bon gré d’avoir voulu vous exercer sur un sujet dont le principal merite seroit d’avoir passé par vos mains.
“Pour dire tout le mal que vous dites de vous même, vous avez sans doute des raisons que je n’ai pas pour le croire; et tant que je les ignorerai, je ne puis pas vous voir par d’autres yeux que par les miens. Mais puisque vous vous accusez d’etre si vaine, je dois vous taire ce que je pense de vous, de peur d’augmenter encore la vanité dont vous vous dites coupable. Restons chacun dans l’idée que nous avons, vous en serez plus humble, sans que je sente diminuer pour vous mon amitié et mon estime.
“Le Duc et la Duchesse de Portland sont venus ici pour la naissance du Roi. Ils repartirent hier pour Bullstrode, où je vous conseillerois volontiers lorsque Mr. Montagu vous aura quittée d’aller passer quelque temps. Vous y auriez un peu plus de compagnie, et la votre ne gateroit rien à la leur.
“Mrs. Donnellan sera ici demain ou le jour d’après. J’ai toujours regardé la promesse qu’elle vous avoit faite comme un compliment sans consequence, et je n’ai pu m’imaginer qu’elle put revenir de King’s Weston qu’en compagnie, ce qui lui ôteroit la liberté de vous voir.
“Je suis très obligé à Mr. Montagu et à Miss Robinson de leur souvenir. Mes amitiés à l’un et à l’autre. Independamment de ce que je leur dois, il suffit qu’ils vous appartiennent, pour qu’ils me soient chers.
“Voici, Madame, une longue lettre. Peut etre vous ennuyera-t-elle? En ce cas jettez la au feu avant que d’en achever la lecture. Une autre fois je serai plus court, et me contenterai de vous dire que je vous aime autant que vous le meritez, c’est à dire beaucoup, et que je suis très sincerement tout à vous.
“LE COURAYER.
“À Londres, ce 3 Novembre, 1747.”
[Page heading: MATTHEW ROBINSON’S ELECTION]
Matthew Robinson had been returned member for Canterbury with little opposition. In writing to her father to press his visiting at Sandleford, Mrs. Montagu begs him to leave his canvasses, but bring his painting materials. “We will provide all possible conveniences for your work, and you may create immortal plants, clouds that will never dissolve in rain, nor be chased by wind, and suns that shine larger than in the miraculous days of Joshua.” She also thanks him for Hoyle’s book on Chess, and Taylor’s on Perspective, and some drop medicine called “Devil’s Drops,” which Mrs. Montagu alludes to as having “a quality that makes one less fit for conversation than the Vapours themselves!”
Matthew Robinson writes from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to his father as to his young brothers William and John. William was at St. John’s, and John at Trinity Hall. Both matriculated most creditably. William[450] was said to be the best scholar of the year of his college, and John’s tutor had a high opinion of his talent. Matthew addresses his father “Honoured Sir.”
[450] William became soon an intimate friend of the poet Gray.
[Page heading: LORD LYTTELTON’S “MONODY”]
Parliament being summoned for November 10, Mr. Montagu set out, but very unwillingly, as his wife had been suffering much from “spasms of the stomach,” a complaint she was much plagued with. In a letter of November 14 he promises to send a pamphlet on Lord Lovat’s trial, and Mr. Lyttelton’s verses. This latter was the celebrated Monody which he wrote after the death of his first wife, née Lucy Fortescue, who had died on January 19 of this year, leaving him with two children--Thomas, afterwards 2nd Baron Lyttelton, and Lucy, who married Arthur, Viscount Valentia.
Mr. Montagu, accompanied by his neighbour, Mr. Herbert, of Highclere, inspected his new house in Hill Street, which was then being ornamented, and with which he was not pleased. They then proceeded to see Lord Chesterfield’s house, which was nearing completion. He says “his principal apartment, which is on the ground floor, will be very magnificent.”
Mrs. Donnellan writes on November 17--
“I went with Mrs. Southwell[451] on Saturday to King Lear to see Garrick and Mrs. Cibber, both performed extremely well. I think he took the part of the old testy madman better than the Hero, and Mrs. Cibber is the soft, tender Cordelia in perfection. I am only provoked that they have altered Shakespear’s plain, sincere, artless creation into a whining, love-sick maid. I would have an Act of Parliament, at least of Council, that nobody should add a word to Shakespear, for it makes sad patchwork....
“I have read Mr. Lyttelton’s ‘Monody;’ ’tis moving and seems to speak the feeling heart.... Madame ‘Gran’(ville) desires her duty, she is sorry you are not in town, there was a charming execution yesterday--two smugglers and a Jew, and a fine view from her windows.”
[451] Wife of the Right Hon. Edward Southwell.
Mrs. Montagu’s health being extremely delicate, she was ordered to Bath, accompanied by her husband and sister. They stayed at Mrs. Purdie’s, Orange Court. In a letter of December 28, to Mrs. Donnellan, she says--
“The day after I came I consulted Dr. Hartley;[452] he gave me comfortable words, said mine was a Bath case, would be cured by the waters, but medicines were improper and dangerous, and neither ordered bolus, draughts, or electuary, or any of the warlike stores of the faculty. The waters do not disagree with me, nor have I been ill since I came in any violent degree. My spirits are not in the best order, which you will not wonder at when I tell you my brother Tom[453] has a miliary fever; Dr. Wilmot does not perceive any danger at present, but cannot pronounce him safe till the fever leaves him.”
[452] Dr. David Hartley, born 1705, died 1757; physician, philosopher, and writer.
[453] Her second brother, admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, April 14, 1730.
[Page heading: THOMAS ROBINSON’S DEATH]
Alas! poor Tom died on December 29; his hitherto brilliant career being cut short, my grandfather, Matthew, 4th Baron Rokeby, says, “by a cold caught by being overheated in a pleading before the House of Commons.” He was a young man so promising in his profession that the then Chief Justice of the King’s Bench exclaimed, “We have lost the man in England for a point of law.” His treatise[454] on Gavelkind still continues to be the standard book on that subject. In sprightliness of wit and fertility of invention he much resembled his sister. He left on Mrs. Montagu’s recollection “an indelible impression of admiration, and a regret which no subsequent acquisition in friendship could sufficiently compensate.”
[454] “The Common Law of Kent,” or “The Customs of Gavelkind, with an Appendix concerning Borough English,” 1st edition, 1741; 2nd at a date I have not been able to ascertain; 3rd in 1822; 4th in 1858. Edited by J. D. Norwood, of Ashford.
[Year: 1748]
In writing to Mrs. Donnellan soon after, she says--
“My poor brother’s virtues and capacity gave me the fairest hopes of seeing him enjoy life with great advantages; a fatal moment has destroyed those hopes, but it must be length of time that can make me submit to the cruel disappointment; he was an honour and happiness to us all, and I never thought of him without pleasure.”
[Page heading: BATH]
In a letter to Mrs. Donnellan from Bath, dated February 6, the following passage occurs: “The Coffee House is really grown sprightly. We meet Mrs. Pitt,[455] Mrs. G. Trevor, Mrs. Grosvenor, Lady Lucy Stanhope, and a few more, and we are often very merry, and sit round the fire after other people go away.”[456] The Freinds were at Bath, but their little boy Robert being inoculated for the smallpox kept the cousins apart.
[455] Anne Pitt, sister of Mr. Pitt, Maid-of-Honour to Queen Caroline.
[456] The “Coffee House” apparently adjoined the Rooms, as is shown in the reproduction of Nixon’s original water-colour drawing of such a scene as Mrs. Montagu describes, now in Mr. Broadley’s valuable Bath Collection.
Her spirits reviving, Mrs. Montagu, writing to the duchess, says, “Whisk and the noble game of E. O. employ the evening; three glasses of water, a toasted roll, a Bath cake, and a cold walk the mornings,” but the regimen agreed with her, and she accompanied Mr. Montagu to Sandleford on May 1, leaving Sarah Robinson, who was suffering from headache, with her friend, Miss Grinfield, at Bath. From this period dates the extreme intimacy which grew up between Miss Robinson and Lady Barbara Montagu, sister of George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, who was then living at Bath, and invited Miss Robinson to stay with her.
The Hill Street house not being completed, Mrs. Knight,[457] a cousin of the family, lent Mrs. Montagu her house in Golden Square, London. Miss Grinfield, just mentioned, was just made a dresser to the princesses, daughters of George II.
[457] Née Robinson.
“Miss Grinfield is in waiting.... The place is enough to weary a person of the strongest constitution; their Highnesses rise early and go to bed late; are waited upon by the dressers at dinner. Princess Caroline[458] has one to read to her continually; poor Nancy is to have only the £100 per annum, and no cloathes till one goes off.”
[458] Married 1766, to King Christian VII. of Denmark.
[Page heading: MISS M. ANSTEY]
In the same letter Mrs. Montagu mentions Miss M. Anstey[459] had been staying with her, but her parents insisted on her returning to them to help furnish Trumpington, near Cambridge, a property they had just come into.
[459] Sister of the author of the “New Bath Guide.”
[Page heading: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY]
From the Middletons, Mrs. Montagu writes to Mrs. Donnellan--
“Cambridge, June 15.
“DEAR MADAM,
“As I date my letter from the modern capital of the Muses, you will perhaps expect that I should send you some strains of immortal poetry, but I have not yet met with any such thing, and must rather give an account of the Buildings than the literary works of the University. I had some pleasure in the recollection of the easy careless years of infancy, some part of which I passed here with the most tender of relations, a fond grandmother; in comparison of whose indulgence all other indulgence is severity, as you must be sensible if ever you had the greatest of infant comforts, a grandmother. So much to my particular circumstances; then, to the general situation of the University. The Colleges do not in general, stand so as to give ornament to the town, as those of Oxford, but if the town is the worse for it, the Colleges are the better, as they open to the fields, and from thence receive and give a fine prospect. King’s College, Clare Hall, and Trinity Library, and the finest of Gothick buildings--King’s College Chapel, makes a beautiful appearance from the public walks. Trinity College is a most noble thing; the Quadrangle is a sixth part bigger than that of Christchurch in Oxford. The Library is very handsome, and esteemed one of the finest rooms in the World. In the Library there is preserved the skeleton of a gentleman who left his bones as a monument of his regard to mankind on purpose to instruct even the most superficial observer of the formation of the human body, and at the same time designed that his name, like his body, might be snatched from the grave; how various are the roads to Fame! Some seek them by grand and pompous obsequies; others expect them for not having Christian burial, and hope to be remembered by a magnificent tomb, or the want of a coffin. I always thought vanity the very marrow of a human creature, and it sticks to them even to their very bones.... What gives me the greatest pleasure is the seeing Dr. Middleton married to a person[460] who seems formed to make him happy; she is very well bred and agreeable, has a most obliging temper, likes his manner of life, shows him the greatest regard, and among her accomplishments I must take notice of her playing on the Harpsichord in great perfection.
“I found two brothers very well, and extremely happy in their situation.”
[460] Anne Powell, his third wife.
[Page heading: RICHARDSON’S “CLARISSA”]
She then continues that, Master Knight having taken smallpox, she cannot go back to Golden Square, but into two bedrooms in her unfinished house in Hill Street. This sentence shows that Mrs. Donnellan was a friend of Mr. Samuel Richardson, the great author: “I wish you much pleasure with the nightingales at North End, and you have a good right to be of so harmonious a society.” North End, near Fulham, was Mr. Richardson’s[461] country house. He had published “Pamela” in 1740, and “Clarissa Harlowe,” which was to make such a lasting sensation, was published in this spring of 1748.
[461] Samuel Richardson, born 1689, died 1761. Novelist and publisher; wrote “Sir Charles Grandison,” etc., etc.
[Page heading: PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE]
Mrs. Montagu writes to her sister, who was still at Bath on June 25, from Hill Street, where, as she states, everything is in great confusion, “the middle floors not laid.” Mrs. Dettemere, her lady’s-maid, had just lost her husband, whom she had not seen for years, but loved dearly. She appears to have been a poor lady, but the cause of her living separate from her husband does not appear. Dr. Shaw had been consulted as to a return of Mrs. Montagu’s spasms of the stomach, and recommended the extraordinary remedy of “sweating.” This was to remain in bed for days and weeks in flannel sheets, which at midsummer could have hardly been endured. She says--
“He assures me I shall neither be sick or nervous: after my sweating fit is over, I am to drink asses’ milk, ride on horseback, and grow fat and jolly. I am now thinner than ever, so the reformation will be greater if I grow fat.... My brother Robinson had a very pleasant journey to Aix, where I daresay he will have a great deal of pleasure. There will be a great concourse of people of all nations, and Lord and Lady Sandwich are extremely obliging to him....
“Mr. Flower sent your jumps[462] yesterday; I did not pay for them on account of his raising the price.”
[462] A sort of stays.
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been signed in March, Lord Sandwich and Sir Thomas Robinson[463] being the English plenipotentiaries. Lady Sandwich, going out to join her husband, persuaded Mr. Matthew Robinson, who was a great friend, to escort her to Aix-la-Chapelle.
[463] “Short Sir Thomas Robinson,” called in contradistinction to “Long” Sir T. Robinson, Mrs. Montagu’s cousin.
In order to while away the weary hours of lying in bed at Sandleford, Miss Anstey and Dettemere had to read aloud to Mrs. Montagu Admiral Anson’s book, “A Voyage round the World,” recently published. Sarah Robinson designated it “as the best receipt book in England as far as dressing turtles and some Indian animals can reach.”
Mrs. Donnellan had lost her stepfather, Mr. Percival, on April 26 of this year. He had long been in declining health. She was very anxious about the remedy Mrs. Montagu was taking, and demanded constant news. She recommends Townsend’s “Translation of the Conquest of Mexico” to be read to Mrs. Montagu. Her mother, she writes, had taken a house for the summer months “a little beyond the walls of Kensington gardens, and I have a key to the nearest door.”
Dr. Shaw is mentioned as going away on his travels, leaving no directions for his patients, and the Duchess of Portland as giving him £600 to enable him to travel and find her shells and curiosities, for which she had an insatiable appetite.
Sarah Robinson continued at Bath with Lady Bab Montagu, and hints are thrown out in some of the letters of an attachment springing up between her and Mr. G. L. Scott, mentioned before. Captain Pigott, an admirer of Sarah’s, is described as “dressed according to custom in a tied wig fresh powdered, a bloom colour cloth coat, laced most magnificently with gold, and bloom-coloured stockings; he visits our door continually, but all the consequence is a little expense in chair hire to him.”
Two people with immense trains of attendants are noticed as then at Bath, the Earl of Harrington[464] and Earl of Hertford,[465] the latter “never stirs without three footmen, and his very chair men have shoulder knots.”
[464] William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington; Viceroy of Ireland.
[465] 15th Earl, afterwards Duke of Somerset.
[Page heading: SPA]
Three letters of Matthew Robinson to his sister from the Continent whilst with Lord and Lady Sandwich contain a few interesting paragraphs--
“After my last letter we set out for Spa, whither we travelled through the Dutchy of Limburg, a most beautiful country to look at, and among the rest we saw to the left the Forest of Arden where Jacques moralized, but though it is about 80 miles in circumference, by means of bad government and its revenues being carried to its Princess, the Empress, to Vienna its capital, Limburg is a pitiful village and in the whole Dutchy there are not above 4 or 5 other villages, still more contemptible. At Spa we lived a very merry life, and were entertained by an Hungarian Prince and other German nobility. Tokay and other very good wines gave us a taste how very fine a country Hungary must be, but our scheme was unluckily cut short in the middle by Lord Sandwich having a sudden call to Aix. Upon our return Sir Thomas Robinson was here, who at his Lordship’s request is joined with him as second plenipotentiary; he says he is an old familiar of my Father’s, and inquires much after him. Our life here is as it used to be. The Sunday before last there was a most magnificent gala, a dinner, supper and ball at the French ambassador’s on account of St. Louis’ day, where I assure you I was much charm’d with the unaffected liveliness and gaiety of the French.... Last Sunday we had a second part of the same comedy by the Dutch on account of the Prince of Orange’s birthday; besides a dinner and supper, there was a ball at the Maison de Ville, which of itself is very magnificent, and was finely decorated by Mr. Vanharen. Lady Sandwich both in her journey and here has often wished for your company.... To-morrow morning I set out for Bonn upon the Rhine, and we go from thence all down the Rhine to the Hague.”
[Page heading: THE HAGUE]
Matthew and a Mr. Gee left Lord and Lady Sandwich at Aix. Young Edward Wortley Montagu was acting-secretary to Lord Sandwich. From the Hague he writes in October--
“Since I wrote to you last I have taken a long and pleasant journey up the Rhine among the palaces of the four Electors, from thence I am come to the Hague, about 10 days ago. From the neatness of the town, the incomparable walks and rides about it, its rendezvous of Ministers and politicks, it is a very agreeable place to live in. The Ministers here by turns hold assemblies of the men at their houses, morning and evening, and I have dined at the house of one or other of them almost every day. The court is well filled and well attended, but as formal as our own.... The most extraordinary person here is Mr. Grounen, the Father of Mrs. Trevor, wife of our envoy, who has knowledge and sense enough to be mighty well acquainted with the History of Europe, and to be supposed by some people to be writing the History of his own times, to have constantly every noon about him a resort of the Ministers and best company here, to be the center of all their news, and to be the particular and intimate acquaintance of several great men, and among the rest the correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, and yet at the same time to be so mad as for fear of infection literally not to touch any human creature, neither his servants, his children, nor even his second wife!”
[Page heading: DEATH OF MR. JAMES MONTAGU]
Mr. James Montagu, half-brother to Mr. Edward Montagu, had for some time been deaf, and was now in a very dropsical state; he now fell very ill. Mr. and Mrs. Montagu nursed him tenderly till the end, which took place on October 30. From letters of Mrs. Medows to Mrs. Montagu one learns the brothers had not been brought up together; hence the blow was less acutely felt. He appears to have died in London. His estate of Newbold Verdon in Leicestershire was left to Wortley Montagu. Mrs. Medows says, “I can’t help feeling a little hurt that Newbold goes where it should not, but I really believe Sandleford is a pleasanter place to live in.”
In a letter to Sarah, Mrs. Montagu says--
“Mr. Montagu is now returned from the melancholy ceremony of opening the will. My brother has left us a handsome legacy, and also all his plate and jewels, which last, he told the person who made the codicil, would be proper for me, as I had refused any when I married, perhaps his brother would forget them. I hear the plate is valued at £1500, and the jewels, they say, are fine, but I never saw them. I esteem the good will and kindness of the donor more than ever I shall the glittering gems.”
The two sailor brothers had just returned from the East Indies.
“Charles grown from a fine boy to a very clever man, he is improved in all respects.... My house looks like an Indian warehouse: I have got so many figures, jars, etc., etc., you would laugh at the collection, my gown I brought out of the ship buckled under my jumps, it is very pretty and the work extremely neat. The Captain has brought China, Lutestrings, taffeties and Paduasoys, they wear so well, but the colors are not as good as those of our manufacture.”
[Page heading: PRICE OF TEA]
Tea was also brought, and Dr. Conyers Middleton had 4 lbs. at 16_s._ a pound. He had just brought out his “Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers.” Matthew Robinson writes of it on December 17, “Middleton will tell you there is no belief to be given to any of the miracles related by the Fathers, Hume[466] says that there is no belief to be given to miracles related by any man whatsoever.” And thus end the letters of 1748.
[466] David Hume, born 1711, died 1776; philosopher and historian.
Chapter VIII
1749–1751--SOCIETY IN LONDON AND AT TUNBRIDGE WELLS--BEGINNING OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH GILBERT WEST, AND RESIDENCE AT HAYES.
[Year: 1749]
An account of a subscription masquerade given at Ranelagh in May opens the letters of 1749. My grandfather[467] by mistake put this in 1751. It succeeded a magnificent fête and masquerade given on May 1 in celebration of the Peace.
[467] Vide Horace Walpole’s letter to Sir H. Mann, vol. ii. p. 292.
Mrs. Montagu writes to her sister at Bath on May 8--
“I am ashamed that I have been so remiss in writing to my dear sister, but business and amusements have poured in torrents upon me. I was some days preparing for the subscription masquerade, where I was to appear in the character of the Queen Mother,[468] my dress white satin, fine new point for tuckers, kerchief and ruffles, pearl necklace and earrings, and pearls and diamonds on the head, and my hair curled after the Vandyke picture. Mrs. Trevor[469] and the Lady Stanhopes’[470] adjusted my dress, so that I was one day in my life well dressed.
“Miss Charlotte Fane was Rubens’ wife, and looked extremely well; we went together. Miss Chudleigh’s[471] dress or rather undress was remarkable. She was Iphigenia for the sacrifice, but so naked, the High Priest might easily inspect the entrails of the victim. The Maids of Honour, not of maids the strictest, were so offended they would not speak to her.
[468] Henrietta Maria.
[469] Mrs. John Morley Trevor, née Montagu.
[470] Daughters of 1st Viscount Stanhope; their mother was a Pitt.
[471] Maid-of-Honour, and secretly married to Viscount Bristol, afterwards Duchess of Kingston.
“Pretty Mrs. Pitt[472] looked as if she came from heaven, but was only on her road thither in the habit of a chanoiness. Many ladies looked handsome, and others rich, there was as great a quantity of Diamonds as the town could produce. Mrs. Chandler was a starry night, the Duchess of Portland had no jewels, and was miserably dressed. Lord Sandwich made a fine Hussar. Mr. Montagu has made me lay by my dress to be painted in when I see Mr. Hoare again. His picture is thought like, but the face too full for my thin jaws. I staid till 5 o’clock in the morning at the masquerade, and was not tired, but a glass of your champagne and water gave me a fit of the cholick the next day, and I have never been well since, but I had better luck than Miss Conway[473] who was killed by a draught of Lemonade she drank there....
“I suppose you have read Lord Bolingbroke’s new work,[474] as it is short we idle ones in London can find time to peruse it.”
[472] Née Penelope Atkyns, wife of George Pitt, afterwards Lord Rivers.
[473] Miss Jenny Conway, sister of Lord Conway.
[474] “The Idea of a Patriot King.”
Mrs. Montagu paid a visit to the Bothams at Albury soon after this. From the letters it appears Mr. Matthew Robinson was pressing a suit on Miss Godschall, a rich heiress living near Albury, but it came to nothing.
In June, Mrs. Montagu, being recommended to drink the Tunbridge waters, was accompanied by Lady Sandwich, who was also ordered there; Mr. Montagu remaining on business for a while in London, Sarah Robinson still living with Lady Bab Montagu at Bath.
A letter from Lady Talbot welcoming them to stay with her till they found a house now appears. She was the wife of William, 2nd Baron Talbot, afterwards Earl Talbot and Baron Dinevor, née Mary de Cardonnel, a great heiress, who had been married at the age of fifteen! An amiable, affectionate person, and a great friend of Mrs. Montagu’s. Mrs. Montagu writes for her chariot to be sent to her; she and Lady Sandwich having performed the journey in Lady Sandwich’s post-chaise,[475] then a new vehicle.
[475] The four-wheeled post-chaise invented by Mr. Jethro Tull.
[Page heading: JOHN, DUKE OF MONTAGU]
They stayed three weeks drinking the waters, during which Lady Talbot had a bad fall from her horse. A report reaching Tunbridge Wells that Lord Sandwich had a fever, his wife, accompanied by Mrs. Montagu, drove in four hours to London, where they found him recovered by the taking of bark. As Lady Sandwich wished to be present at the Huntingdon races, she did not return to Tunbridge, but Mrs. Montagu persuaded her sister-in-law, Mrs. Medows, to accompany her there for a week. Mr. Montagu now joined her from Sandleford, whither he had been accompanied by Captain Robert Robinson, the sailor brother. The captain proceeded on to Bath to see Sarah. Before leaving town, Mr. Montagu had been much distressed at the illness of his relative, the Duke of Montagu, and sent daily to inquire after him. He had only been at Tunbridge a few days before the duke died, and he was summoned to town as an executor, together with the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire. Mrs. Montagu writes--
“I am grieved at the heart for the poor Duke of Montagu, as he was your friend and the friend of mankind; his memory will be dear to all that knew him, he is embalmed in the tears of the poor and the distressed: it is happier to dye lamented than to live unloved.”
This is the Duke of Montagu[476] mentioned by Horace Walpole, page 141 of his letters to George Montagu, “as the head of all the ‘cues.’”[477] In the codicils legacies were left to his servants, dogs, and cats. Horace says, “As he was making the codicil one of his cats jumped on his knee. ‘What,’ says he, ‘have you a mind to be a witness too? You can’t, for you are a party concerned.’”
[476] John Montagu, 2nd Duke, born 1705, died February 16, 1749.
[477] The “cues” was the nickname of the large Montagu circle.
He left no male heir, only two daughters, the Duchess of Manchester, who had remarried Mr. Hussey, and Lady Cardigan. Their mother was the fourth daughter of the celebrated Duke of Marlborough.
[Page heading: MRS. VESEY]
Mr. Montagu got £100 as executor. Whilst he was detained in London, Mrs. Montagu made an expedition to Coombe Bank in company of Mr. and Mrs. Vesey. This is the first mention of people who were destined to become most intimate friends. Mrs. Vesey was the daughter of Sir Thomas Vesey, Bishop of Ossory. She married, first, Mr. William Handcock; secondly, her cousin, Agmondesham Vesey, of Lucan, Ireland. He was M.P. for Harris Town.
[Page heading: THE FEATHER SCREEN]
Mrs. Montagu writes--
“I went yesterday along with Mrs. Vesey to see General Campbell’s place; we set out to avoid heat a little after 6. Lady Allen lent us her coach and six. We got to Coombe Banke by nine. It is about 16 miles[478] from here. We walked about the gardens, which are very pretty, and saw the house, dined under the shade, and about 4 o’clock Mr. and Mrs. Vesey got into their post-chaise to go to London. I mounted my horse and went to Senoak, where Lady Allen’s coach waited for me. Lord Sandwich and Lord Anson were just come to the inn, and going to dine on turtle, to which they invited me, but I had made a more agreeable meal in General Campbell’s garden.... I am going to dinner to Lady Talbot’s, where I breakfasted. Lord Sandwich and Lord and Lady Anson and a great deal of company are to dine there. We have now such a crowd we expect a splendid ball to-night. I received great civility from Mr. and Mrs. Vesey, and they desired to know how I got home last night, so I must beg you to send the enclosed note to them in Bolton Row. They desired leave to see the house and celebrated feather screen, so I have wrote to Betty to have the house in order, and to set the screen for them.... Coombank is but a small place, but a fine terrace commands a beautiful view of the country. The house is most elegantly furnished. We were offered everything as politely as if the General had been there. We had a fine dessert of fruit served in the finest china. Our dinner we carried, but wine, tea and coffee were offered us.”
[478] Three hours doing sixteen miles shows the badness of the roads.
This feather screen was in six panels, one of which was worked by Miss Anstey, in imitation of one of the Duchess of Portland’s. The feather work, immortalized afterwards by the poet Cowper, had been begun, but it was the Duchess of Portland’s original idea. Numerous letters mention feathers being sent or asked for. Lydia Botham collected the plumage of peacocks, pheasants, and jays. Every known sort of parrot and macaw was placed under contribution. From Albury the boxes of feathers were sent by the Guildford coach to the “White Horse cellar in Piccadilly.” With these came fifty pens made by Lydia from her geese.
Dr. Jurin[479] kept Mrs. Montagu longer than she intended drinking the waters of Tunbridge. During her stay there amongst the company were the Duchess of Somerset[480] and her daughter the Duchess of Bedford, Lord and Lady Fitzwalter, Lady Ancram, Lady Anson, Lord and Lady Elibank, Dowager Lady Barrington, Lady Betty Germain, Lord and Lady Vere Beauclerk, Lady Talbot, Lord March, Lord Eglinton, Lord Granby and Lord Powis, Lady Winchelsea, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Sherlock.
[479] Dr. James Jurin, born 1684, died 1750; physician, mathematician and author.
[480] Second wife of Charles, “the proud Duke” of Somerset. Her daughters became, one Marchioness of Granby, the other Countess of Aylesford.
In a letter to Dr. Freind this is said--
“In many respects this place is inferior to Bath, in some it is better. We are not confined here in Streets; the houses are scattered irregularly, and Tunbridge Wells looks from the window I now sit by a little like the village[481] you see from our terrace at Sandleford, only that the inhabitants instead of Jack and Joan are my Lord and my Lady.”
[481] Newtown.
[Page heading: HINCHINBROOK]
A letter of September 28, of Mr. Montagu’s, after his return to London, is addressed to Hinchinbrook, where his wife had gone to stay with Lady Sandwich for a grand ball at Huntingdon, and the election of a new mayor. He says--
“I am not surprised that Hinchinbrook pleases you so well, or that you are of opinion it is capable of being made a fine place, it stands upon an eminence and commands a fine prospect, which those that made the Terrass well knew. The venerable old elms in the road are very ornamental, and the wood at the bottom of the garden is pretty as is also the plantation in the Park. The brook from whence the place takes its name is at a due distance from the house, and might be improved into a river or fine piece of water. I doubt not my Lord will do it, if not at present, at an age more suitable. The room where Oliver Cromwell was born I daresay Mr. Audley will be proud to show you, and is seen by all strangers, tho’ I don’t believe it consists of one of the same particles of the material of which the room was built when that great man was brought into the world.”
[Page heading: THE MISS GUNNINGS]
Mrs. Montagu writes--
“The Huntingdon ball was more splendid than I expected. I danced with Lord Sandwich. For beauties we had the two Miss Gunnings,[482] who are indeed very handsome; nonpareille, for the sisters are just alike take them together, and there is nothing like them; they are really very fine girls.”
[482] The daughters of John Gunning, of Castle Coote, Roscommon. Elizabeth married, first, the Duke of Hamilton; secondly, the Duke of Argyll. Maria married the Earl of Coventry. There was a third sister, Kitty, married Mr. Robert Travers, but lived in Ireland.
On her road back to London she stayed with the Ansteys at Trumpington, and Miss Anstey accompanied her to London.
Sarah Robinson, between whom and Mrs. Montagu there was a slight estrangement on account of her engagement to Mr. George Lewis Scott, which Mrs. Montagu disapproved of, now paid her sister a visit. Matthew wrote to recommend that the sisters should meet as if nothing had occurred to weaken their bond of affection. Sarah’s health had improved much by her long residence at Bath with Lady Barbara Montagu, who accompanied her on her visit to Sandleford. Sarah had painted a toilette-cover with flowers for Mrs. Montagu’s new house in Hill Street, which was beginning to be decorated.
In November, Parliament called the Montagus to London.
[Year: 1750]
[Page heading: MRS. MONTAGU’S CHINESE ROOM]
[Page heading: A CLERGYMAN’S CHILDREN]
The first letter of 1750 is dated January 3, from Sandleford, addressed to Sarah. I give portions of it--
“Lady Sandwich was so good as to spend a week with us, and as the weather was fine for this time of year, we went out in the post-chaise all the morning, then dinner, tea and supper pretty well filled the rest of the time. On Monday I went with her Ladyship to Reading, where we lay that night. The next morning she went to town, and I returned hither, where I found my brothers, who give me a very agreeable account of your health ... I saw our friend Cotes the day before I left town, she is very well and in good spirits, and seems determined to keep her freedom and enter no more into wedlock’s bonds. She has only a small lodging, and I think with her economy she might afford herself a house of her own, and she might furnish it in the present fashion, of some cheap paper and ornaments of Chelsea China or the manufacture of Bow, which makes a room look neat and finished. They are not so sumptuous as mighty Pagodas of China or nodding Mandarins. My dressing room in London is like the Temple of some Indian god: if I was remarkably short and had a great head, I should be afraid people would think I meant myself Divine Honours, but I can so little pretend to the embonpoint of a Josse, it is impossible to suspect me of such presumption. The very curtains are Chinese pictures on gauze, and the chairs the Indian fan sticks with cushions of Japan satin painted: as to the beauty of colouring, it is carried as high as possible, but the toilette you were so good as to paint is the only thing where nature triumphs. Lady Sandwich brought her sons here, they are charming boys; Lord Hinchinbrooke[483] is much improved since you saw him, and Master Montagu[484] is a complete beauty....
“Mr. Morgan is at last deprived of the curacy of Newtown, which is a great grief to him. Nanny performs extremely well at the embroidery, and I hope the habit of application will make her useful to herself and other people. I was afraid she would never have been either of those things! Her Father and Mother are much afraid she should be buried in Westminster Abbey near the lady that dyed by the pinch of her finger in working, but I will lay some wager on her head she will not be killed by diligence; as to Jacky Morgan, he has an admirable education for a jockey, he lives on horseback but can neither read nor write.”
[483] John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich, born 1744.
[484] Edward Montagu, born 1745; Mrs. Montagu’s godson.
This passage shows the position of the lower class of clergy of the period. Mr. Morgan was of Welsh birth, and preached long, dull sermons, as appears from former letters; his wife was a good motherly body, but no more. Mrs. Montagu apprenticed Nanny Morgan, as is shown by her next letter.
“She is too high and too giddy for a servant, time and experience may mend her, she likes the business she is going to.... I have obliged Mrs. Albert to promise she shall never go without her or Dettmere[485] or Mrs. Donnellan’s maid.... Charles went to Cambridge on Tuesday.”
[485] Mrs. Montagu’s lady’s-maid.
Charles’s health had improved, but as he did not like the sea as a profession, he entered Cambridge as an undergraduate.
“Tell Mr. Hoare when you see him, that if he pleases to send my face[486] to Hill Street, it will meet with a kind reception; it is a young face to be sure, but the retrospect to 18 is so pleasant I shall not find fault with it. I am, as you observe, Mistress of a post-chaize, which next to having wings, is the most convenient thing in the world, and must serve till it is brought to perfection. We liked so well our journey to Cambridge in the summer in a post-chaize which we hired for the time, that we bespoke one immediately.”
[486] Her portrait by Hoare.
The old post-chaises had only two wheels. Four-wheeled post-chaises were new, and were thought the more dangerous, as being liable to overturn.
[Page heading: LORD PEMBROKE’S DEATH]
A letter occurs now from the Duchess Dowager of Chandos, third wife, and widow since 1744, of the 1st Duke of Chandos, surnamed the “Princely Duke,” the builder of the palatial residence of Canons, in Middlesex, on which he spent £200,000. Having spent his fortune in building and speculating, Canons was sold for the material at his death. The duchess’s maiden name was Van Hatten, but she had been married to a Sir Thomas Davall. After the duke’s death she came to reside at Shaw House,[487] near Newbury, from whence she writes to Mrs. Montagu, and after some inquiries as to health, etc., says--
“What different tempers the world consists of: I am told passion sent the late Lord Pembroke[488] out of the world, but that Mr. Middleton who opened him says that both heart and all the vitals were displaced by the continual swathing he used to keep himself from growing bulky. This was itself a discontented temper, and if at any time I should be extremely strait laced and contradicted, it is certain my crossness would have been very great, and I or my lace must burst. The giving Ward’s pill to a cock and then turning it into broth for old Lady Northampton[489] has something curious in it too, but as it ended in death, I suppose will not be practised further. How many tricks do we try to lengthen life, and yet like poor Lord Pembroke waste it in tormenting our blood because others will not be of our mind, or we are too fat, or too lean to please ourselves: if there is not another life where we may be more perfect, more happy, we are certainly the most inconsistent, foolish creatures this world produces; how much better the other planets have for inhabitants I know not.
[487] From a letter of Mrs. Medows, 1744, Shaw belonged to the duchess, and had been rented by a Mr. Forster, who then went to live at Englefield.
[488] Henry, 28th Earl of Pembroke, died January 9, 1750.
[489] Elizabeth, second wife and widow of 11th Earl of Northampton.
[Page heading: THE EARTHQUAKE]
The earthquake mentioned by Horace Walpole in his letters to Sir Horace Mann, page 349 in volume 2, on February 5, created much terror. The Montagus were in Hill Street at the time. On February 20, in a letter to her sister, Mrs. Montagu says--
“I was not under any apprehensions about the earthquake, but went that night to the Oratorio, then quietly to bed, but the madness of the multitude was prodigious, near 50 of the people I had sent to, to play at cards here the Saturday following, went out of town to avoid being swallowed, and I believe they made a third part of the number I asked, so that you may imagine how universal the fright must be. The Wednesday night the Oratorio was very empty, though it was the most favourite performance of Handel’s.”
A slighter shock took place a month later; some people prognosticated a worse shock on April 3, which was to swallow up London. The following letter of the Duchess of Chandos alludes to this:--
“Shaw, April 3.
“DEAR MADAM,
“I do assure you although I had many accounts of the earthquake, I do easily perceive the difference betwixt a fright, and a sensible account of the same matter of fact: the day this, I hope, will kiss your hands and find perfect peace and safety at Hill Street, is the day when in many people have great fears, but in my opinion without reason, for I never heard of periodical earthquakes, and the coolness of the weather I hope will assuage these sulphurous heats. It would now bear hard upon Human understanding as well as gratitude, if when they see how very easily the destruction of popular places may be effected, we should not all live in such a way as to make Death not so extremely shocking to us, as it has appeared to some of the gay world at this time. The same Providence that certainly made this complicated and beautiful Machine, is not the children that blow bubbles in air only to divert themselves, but has will, and good further designs suitable to His infinite goodness and wisdom, and therefore a hope in Him is a real security in all evils, and as to the manner of Death I have it, may be a peculiar thought, that there is a degree of pain that human nature cannot exceed consistent with life; which is a great mercy, or else our cruelty to one another would be without bounds: therefore I will never be too anxious what is the manner of my death, but trust it to that power that sent me into life....
“Dear Madam, yʳ much obliged and faithful humble servant, “L. C. CHANDOS.”
[Page heading: DEATH OF DR. CONYERS MIDDLETON]
There are few letters for 1750 in my collection. In July Mrs. Montagu went to Tunbridge Wells, whilst Mr. Montagu prepared to accept the invitation of his Huntingdon constituents to the races, etc., held there. Miss Anstey, who had accompanied Lady Romney[490] to Tunbridge, remained with Mrs. Montagu for a while. Dr. Conyers Middleton and his wife not being in good health, went to London to consult physicians. In June, from Horace Walpole’s letters to George Montagu we learn the doctor was suffering from jaundice and dropsy, and was much broken in health. He died on July 28, 1750. In a letter of Mr. Montagu’s, dated August 4, from London, he says--
“This morning at Vaillante’s the bookseller, I met Dr. Green,[491] the Regius Professor, who told me the Friday before his death Dr. Middleton sent for Dr. Plumtree, told him he thought he had but a very short time to live, desired him freely to tell him his opinion, which from the knowledge he had of him, he hoped he would make no scruple to do, upon which the Professor told him he thought he could live but a few hours; then he asked the Professor if from his pulse he thought his death would be easy, who answered that he did. He further told the Professor he had taken Dr. Heberden’s[492] medicines till he found they did him no good, his case being out of the Power of Physick. Dr. Green said he had left his niece an annuity, but did not say what, nor any further about his will. He was buried at St. Michael’s, Cambridge.”
[490] Née Priscilla Pym, wife of 2nd Baron Romney.
[491] Dr. John Green, born 1706, died 1779; afterwards Bishop of Lincoln.
[492] Dr. William Heberden, born 1710, died 1801; physician and author.
Mrs. Montagu mourned sincerely for one who had acted as a grandfather, a godfather, and an instructor to her.
[Page heading: ANNIVERSARY OF WEDDING-DAY]
Of a splendid letter she wrote to Mr. Montagu on the return of the anniversary of her wedding-day, August 5, only a few sentences can be inserted from its length.
“MY DEAREST,
“There is not any day in which you have not a right to my most grateful acknowledgments, but there is not any day that so particularly demands them as the fifth of August, when you made me your friend and companion, and gave me so near an alliance to your virtues and fortune, all so superior to what I could expect. I can truly assure you my affection and esteem for you, and happiness in you have increased every day. I am not sensible there can be any further progress or addition made, but as I owe every happiness to you, each day’s felicity adds to my obligation, and I hope you think what does so increase my gratitude for eight years’ happiness in a state so often wretched, inexpressible thanks are due. May we enjoy many years together of this happy society, but if I should be taken from you, let the consciousness of having been the occasion of my enjoying more happiness in a short life than is the lot of thousands in a long one, take out the sting of grief, and teach you to think of me with a tender but not painful remembrance....” She signs--
“With heart and hand your grateful, affectionate, faithful and obedient Wife, “E. MONTAGU.”
[Page heading: MRS. BOSCAWEN]
At Tunbridge this year Mrs. Montagu first became acquainted with Mrs. Boscawen, wife of Admiral Boscawen; she describes her as “a very sensible, lively, ingenious woman, and she seems to have good moral qualities. We often pass the evening together, partly in conversation, partly in reading.” Mrs. Boscawen’s maiden name was Frances Glanville; she had married Edward Boscawen, second son of 1st Viscount Falmouth, in 1742. As Dorothy Boscawen, aunt to the Admiral, married Sir Philip Medows, the families were already connected.
Mrs. Medows writes to Mrs. Montagu, “I think of Mrs. Boscawen as you do, I expect you should be fond of the Admiral,[493] his cool courage, his firmness, good nature, diligence and regularity, with his strong sense and good head, make a great character.”
[493] Admiral the Hon. Edward Boscawen, born 1711, died 1761.
[Page heading: MR. GILBERT WEST]
Sir Dudley and Lady Ryder, Lady Townsend, and Lady Robinson, wife of “Short” Sir Thomas Robinson,[494] were amongst the company. A Mr. Samuel Torriano also appears as a friend of Mrs. Montagu’s. He tries to find her a cottage near London, as she fancies her health would be better in the country, and yet not so far from London as Sandleford, during the winter session when Mr. Montagu would have to be in London. The reception rooms in Hill Street were to be decorated in the early spring. Hearing of a cottage at West Wickham, near Croydon, Mrs. Montagu went to see it, and made her first acquaintance with Mr. Gilbert West.[495] He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Richard West by Maria, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, of Stowe. He married in 1729 Catherine Bartlett, by whom he had an only son, Richard. With them lived Miss Maria West,[496] his sister; his mother had remarried Lord John Langham. West was a cousin of Mr. Botham’s, also of Mr. Lyttelton, afterwards Sir George Lyttelton. Writing to Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Montagu says--
“I saw at Wickham the miracle of the Moral World, a Christian Poet, an humble philosopher, a great genius, without contempt of those who have none.... I am charmed with Mrs. West, and approve all you say of her. She is neither a tenth muse, nor a fourth grace, but she is better than all put together. I believe it might truly be said of her--
“‘That she always speaks her thought, And always thinks the very thing she ought.’
Her vivacity, easiness of behaviour and good sense delight me.
“Mr. West has been so good as to find out a cottage for me. The pleasure of being near Mr. West gets the better of all considerations in regard to the situation of my cottage. I hope it will be an inducement to you to visit my hermitage, where you shall be entertained with the wholesome fare of brown bread, sincerity and red cow’s milk, which afford good nourishment to the mind and body.”
[494] Afterwards Lord Grantham.
[495] Born 1706, died April, 1756. Author and poet; translator of Odes of Pindar, etc.
[496] Maria West, afterwards wife of 1st Viscount Bridport.
[Page heading: BARRY AND GARRICK]
On October 16 she writes, “The cruel owner of the house near Mr. West makes unreasonable demands, we are going to treat for one about two miles from him, which Mrs. West and he went with me to see yesterday.” She laments it is so far from the Wests. This house was at Hayes in Kent, or, as it is frequently spelt in the letters, “Heyes.” Mrs. Montagu continues--
“I hear there is a great strife and contention between Mr. Barry[497] and Garrick, each acting the part of Romeo[498] every night, and that the ladies think the first makes the best lover, by which one may learn they think beauty a better qualification than sense in that character, for Barry always seems to betray the fool in all the parts he appears in.... The Duke of Ancaster[499] is going to take unto wife the daughter of Mr. Panton;[500] the match is at last agreed upon, and coaches and jewels and horses and servants and houses and clothes and all the fine things with which Hymen now embroiders his saffron robe, are bespoken....
“Mr. Ramsay[501] was so good as to call on us, and Mr. Montagu and I went to his house, where we had the pleasure to see some admirable pictures.”
[497] Spranger Barry, born 1719, died 1777; celebrated Irish actor.
[498] Barry at Covent Garden, and Garrick at Drury Lane.
[499] Peregrine, 3rd Duke of Ancaster.
[500] Mr. Panton was Master of the King’s Racers.
[501] Allan Ramsay, born 1709, died 1784. Eminent portrait painter; son of the poet.
These letters are addressed to Hatchlands, Admiral Boscawen’s place near Guildford.
[Page heading: EMBROIDERED FLOUNCES]
In a letter to Sarah at this period, Mrs. Montagu mentioned the appointment of her brother Robert to a Madras and China voyage: “I rejoice in the Captain’s appointed voyage to Madras and China, it is reckoned a profitable and healthful voyage, and all we ask for our King is ‘in health and wealth long to live.’” She then proceeds to comment on some white satin flounces Sarah wished embroidered in China.
“As you design them to be in white, they need only have the outline drawn on one flounce and on the sleeves and robing. Mrs. Marsh is the best contriver of flounces: she did me a white lutestring very prettily, this summer’s gown is to be cut in the same manner, but not pinked.... All people are buying cloaths for the Birthday ... the prices are most unreasonable, 17 and 18 shillings a yard for Damask, and six and twenty for flowered silks of an ordinary appearance.”
In November Sarah Robinson writes to her sister as to her lover’s appointment at Court--
“Mr. Scott[502] is appointed to have the education of Prince George.[503] I can’t give this employment any name, for none but the King has a right to appoint any one over the young Princes under the title of governor or Preceptor; the salary I cannot tell you, it being not yet determined. His Royal Highness[504] has left it to Mr. Scott’s friends to name whatever they think proper, and has behaved in the handsomest manner imaginable. He was recommended to the Prince for this place by a great number of people, many of whom had very little personal----” (the end of the letter is lost).
[502] He was made sub-preceptor.
[503] George III., then twelve years old.
[504] Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of Prince George.
[Page heading: THE DOWAGER DUCHESS OF CHANDOS]
Probably the Duchess of Portland may have been one, as she sided with Sarah in the affair, telling Mrs. Montagu that she might wish to obey her in all other respects, but could not control her affections. Lord Bolingbroke is said to have recommended him through Lord Bathurst. The ill-starred marriage took place probably at the commencement of 1751, but no letters are left recording it. On November 18 the Dowager Duchess of Chandos died at Shaw House, near Newbury, and in a letter to Miss Anstey is thus noticed--
“A little before I went to London I lost my very good neighbour, the Duchess of Chandos, a stroke of the palsy carried her off in a few days: her bodily pains were great, but her mind felt the serenity that gilds the evening of a virtuous life. She quitted the world with that decent fare-well which people take of it, who rather consider it as a place in which they are to impart good than to enjoy it. Her character has made a great impression on me, as I think her a rare instance that age could not make conceited and stiff, nor retirement discontented, nor virtue inflexible and severe.”
To Mrs. Donnellan, on December 30, Mrs. Montagu says, “The Duchess of Chandos is greatly missed by the poor this rigorous season.”
In these two letters the following books and pamphlets are recommended, “An Occasional Letter,” said to be Lord Bolingbroke’s;[505] the King of Prussia’s “Memoires pour servir à L’Histoire de la Maison de Brandenbourg,” and “Sully’s Memoires.”
[505] Viscount Bolingbroke, born 1678, died 1751; philosopher and statesman.
[Year: 1751]
January, 1751, finds Mrs. Montagu in London, and Mr. Montagu at Sandleford Priory, engaged in business affairs. Mrs. Montagu, on January 7, writes to him--
“MY DEAREST,
“I am glad you are so far tired of your monastic life as to think of returning to the secular state of a husband and a member of Parliament. I believe our predecessors in the cowl had their particular kinds of volupté which silence, secresy and peace might much enhance and recommend; but to those who have been used to the bustle and business of life such pleasures want vivacity. Boileau makes a man who goes to visit the Chantre just before dinner observe the luxury of a prebendal table. Says he--
“‘Il voit la nappe mise, Admire le bel ordre, et reconnait l’Eglise.’
I have sat so constantly in Lady Sandwich’s chimney corner, I can give you little account of the world.”
To which Mr. Montagu rejoins, “I am much obliged to you for the kind impatience you show at my stay here; in a few days I now hope to convince you that however unworthy of either state, I have deserted neither.” He was accompanied to London by Captain Robinson.
From a letter of Mr. Gilbert West’s of May 16, 1751, we learn that Mrs. Montagu, though wishing to be near London and yet not in it, did not take up her temporary residence at Hayes till then. In it he says, “I have agreed with a farmer at Wickham to fetch your goods at the price of 15 shillings: the waggon will be in Hill Street to-morrow morning early.” He desires her to breakfast and dine at West Wickham with him, and signs himself, “Dear Madam, your loving cousin to command till death, G. W.”
[Page heading: “THE COUSINHOOD”]
In the collection of letters published by her nephew, Matthew Robinson, 4th Baron Rokeby, he says he cannot remember the reason why West and Mrs. Montagu called each other cousins, but he had forgotten his cousinship to the Bothams, the beloved cousins of his aunt, Mrs. Montagu. “The cousinhood” was also the favourite term of the whole set of Wests, Pitts, and Lytteltons, all much connected in marriage and extreme intimacy.
Gilbert West was at this period forty-five years of age only, but even then a perfect martyr to gout. Amongst his poems and translations was Lucian’s “Triumph of the Gout,” every line of which he could painfully indorse. In his “Lives of the Poets” Dr. Johnson[506] brackets him with Crashaw under “the two venerable names of Poet and Saint.” He was often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, “who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a decent table and literary conversation.”
[506] Vide Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets.”
There may still be seen at Wickham a walk made by Pitt, and at Wickham, Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his “Dissertation on Saint Paul.” The same spirit of cheerful and benign religion was now to exercise a large influence on Elizabeth Montagu, to strengthen her already religious turn of mind, and to enable her in the future, though living in the great world of fashion and rank, and the idol of society, to keep that sacred, secret lamp of spirituality not of this world alight.
[Page heading: THE WEST FAMILY]
The family circle at the Wests was a happy one; his wife and sister adored him, and he was the magnet that attracted all to him. He had a great sense of humour and a pretty taste for decorating, as the many letters upon the subject of the adornment of the Hill Street rooms show; Mrs. Montagu took his advice in every point from this time till his death in 1756. At the period I am now writing of he was far from well off, though expecting promotion, with just reason, having been a faithful servant to the King, and secretary to Lord Townshend during his period of office as Secretary of State.
[Page heading: MR. R. BERANGER]
Amongst the friends of the Wests, Mrs. Montagu now made acquaintance with Mr. R. Berenger,[507] called by Mrs. West “the little Marquis.” He was the son of Moses Beranger and Penelope Temple, and was therefore related on the maternal side to West. He afterwards became “Gentleman of the Horse” to George III. He wrote a book called the “History and Art of Horsemanship.” He was famous for his charm in social life. Hannah More called him “everybody’s favourite, all chivalry, blank verse and anecdote,” and Dr. Johnson dubbed him “the Standard of true Elegance.” He was a great friend of the Garricks. Another fresh acquaintance was William Henry Lyttelton, brother of Sir George (afterwards Lord) Westcote.
[507] R. Berenger, born 1720, died 1782.
At some early period of this year Sarah Robinson became the wife of George Lewis Scott, but no date is recorded, and no letters concerning the marriage remain. Only on June 9, when Mrs. Montagu was making her yearly visit to Tunbridge Wells in company with Lady Romney, she writes to her husband at Sandleford to say she had arrived safely, “Mrs. Scott and the Captain,” whose departure to China had been delayed, seeing her off. From other letters it appears the Scotts, accompanied by Lady Barbara Montagu, took up their abode in Leicester Fields, now Leicester Square, doubtless to be close to Leicester House, where, with their mother, the widowed Princess of Wales,[508] Scott’s royal pupils dwelt.
[508] Frederick, Prince of Wales, died March 31, 1751.
At Tunbridge Mrs. Montagu joined Mr. and Mrs. West and their son, and lodged in the same house. At Tunbridge were Sir George Lyttelton, his brother the Dean, the famous Mr. Garrick, the Bishop of London, etc. Then she wrote--
“Monsieur[509] and Madame Mirepoix are come to pass a few days here, but I imagine they will soon be tired of us. The Justices of Peace have done great service to the imprudent part of our company by prohibiting gaming, and though you may suppose I do not number myself among them, I feel my obligations to them on account of the servants, who have one temptation less to be idle and bad.”
[509] The French ambassador and his wife. She was a daughter of the Princesse de Craon.
She then adds grateful words to her husband, who had written to say he had made a fresh will, and in her favour. Mr. Montagu was then in London, but on the eve of going north to attend to his own estates in Yorkshire, and the complicated business of regulating Mr. Rogers’ affairs in Northumberland. In this letter he says--
“I this day, though I could ill spare the time, dined in Leicester Fields” (with the Scotts). “Being in the city I was informed by Dr. Middleton’s bookseller that Mrs. Middleton has had the good luck to sell Hildersham for 2000 guineas, it cost the Doctor, he said, £1600, besides what he lay’d out in building, so that if there should be some loss it cannot be much.”
[Page heading: HILDERSHAM]
Hildersham was some miles from Cambridge. Here Gray, the poet, loved to visit Conyers Middleton, and improved his friendship with William Robinson, who was preparing for Holy Orders, and whom Gray always called the “Reverend Billy.”
On July 23 Mr. Montagu writes from Huntingdon--
“I lay last night at Cambridge. I dined with Mrs. Middleton in company with your brother, and the evening I spent with the Master of Clare Hall. Mrs. Middleton indulged me with the sight of some letters that passed between the Doctor and a great man[510] who formerly had a seat not far from Cambridge, and who is no more.... She very obligingly of herself promised your brother all the Doctor’s Sermons which she had in her custody, and promised also to keep it secret, which I think you and I should also do, even from the brotherhood.... The races are to continue 4 days....
“I desire when wheatears are plenty and you send any to your friends in London, you would send some to Monsieur de Moivre at Pons Coffee House in Cecil Court in St. Martin’s Lane, for I think he longs to taste them.”
[510] Probably the 1st Earl of Godolphin, who lived at Gog Magog, near Cambridge.
[Page heading: MISS MARIA NAYLOR]
Mrs. Montagu wishing to hear about the Huntingdon races, he says--
“I can tell you little about the races, having no concern in the bets, but I heard Lord Trentham had lost £1000, Captain William Montagu £200. Lord Sandwich’s horse won a heat, but he did not tell me how much he won.
“At the ball all the family of the Naylors were there, with Captain William Montagu’s lady, who danced country dances. Miss Maria Naylor danced both kind of dances, and was, I think, the lady that outshone all the rest. Her head dress was new and particular, and became her very well, and gave her the air of a shepherdess.... There was Mrs. Apreece and Mrs. Alstone, who married my relation with a fortune of £4000, and Miss Ascham, etc. The distinguished amongst the men besides the Prince of Baden, and the Marquis de Bellegarde, were the Duke of Kingston,[511] Lord Montfort,[512] Lord Onslow,[513] Lord Goring,[514] Lord March,[515] Lord Eggletone,[516] Mr. Alstone and Mr. Apreece. The members both of the county and town. Mr. Wortley from the Huntingdon races set out for those of Reading.”
[511] The 2nd Duke.
[512] 1st Baron Montfort, of Horseheath.
[513] 3rd Baron Onslow.
[514] Viscount Goring, a Jacobite Viscount.
[515] 3rd Earl of March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. “Old Q.”
[516] 10th Earl of Eglintown.
This was young Edward Wortley Montagu.
Mrs. Montagu writes to say her father had arrived at Tunbridge in great spirits with a party of five, and she was, she adds, much better.
“I have a great appetite. I think I shall be able to eat for a wager, with my brother-in-law.[517] I am glad Miss Maria Naylor had an opportunity of shining in her proper sphere, the county of Huntingdon. Why should the Gunnings[518] of universal empire drive her from her little native land? Do they want to add the epithet of great to their names? Indeed I do not know why Gunning the great should not sound as well as Alexander the Great. I am afraid the eldest Miss Naylor is much dejected at the infidelity of our cousin Wortley, who is greatly enamoured of little Miss Ashe. All collectors of natural curiosities love something of every species. Mr. Wortley has had a passion for all sorts and sizes of women. Miss Ashe is a sort of middle species between a woman and a fairy, and by her rarity worthy to be added even to so large a collection of amours.”
[517] George Lewis Scott.
[518] The celebrated Irish beauties, afterwards one Countess of Coventry, the other Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll.
[Page heading: MISS ASHE]
Miss Ashe, or the “Pollard Ashe,” as Walpole called her, eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu in the autumn of 1751. He was soon after this put in prison with a Mr. Taafe in France for robbing or cheating a Jew. As he was married before, though separated from his wife, he could not marry Miss Ashe. She afterwards married a Mr. Falconer, R.N.
It was in this year Horace Walpole had written to Sir Horace Mann--
“Our greatest miracle is Lady Mary Wortley’s son whose adventures have made so much noise, his parts are not proportionate, but his expense is incredible. His father scarce allows him anything, yet he plays, dresses, diamonds himself, even to distinct shoe buckles for a frock, and has more snuff-boxes than would suffice a Chinese idol with an hundred noses. But the most curious part of his dress, which he has brought from Paris, is an iron wig; you literally would not know it from hair. I believe it is on this account that the Royal Society have just chosen him of their body.”
Mrs. Montagu wrote the description of “our cousin’s adventures,” and after several comments on Wortley’s conduct, she says, “Poor Miss Ashe weeps like the forsaken Ariadne on a foreign shore.”
The company at Tunbridge Wells had been increased by the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, the Duchess of Norfolk, and, Mrs. Montagu writes, “we expect those goddesses called the Gunnings and Sir Thomas Robinson.... My Father is very gay, but complains he never saw the place so dull. I never said so to those about me, lest they should say to me as Swift to the fat man who complained of a crowd, ‘Friend, you make the very crowd you blame!’ Mr. West reads to us in the evening, and the wit of the last age supplies us when we do not meet with any in this.”
[Page heading: DEATH OF MRS. PERCIVAL]
[Page heading: DR. SHAW]
At this period Mrs. Percival (Anne Donnellan’s mother) died; she had long been in bad health. Dr. Shaw, the celebrated traveller, died also, and Mrs. Montagu comments thus on August 29 on the two events to her husband, who was then at Newcastle--
“As to poor Mrs. Percival I hailed her voyage to the realms of rest: the last page of life is commonly a blank. But for poor Shaw,[519] he might have lived and laughed and talked of the Deluge and collected cockle shells many years longer. The death of those we esteem afflicts us; we are shocked at the death of those we have laughed[520] at and laughed with, as we never looked upon them in so serious a light as to suppose so sad an event could happen to them. I would deck his tomb with emblems of all the wonders of the land and deep; crocodiles should weep and tigers howl; every shell should become vocal; sea-weed should bloom immortal on his tomb, and moss, though petrified, lie lightly on his breast. What signify voyages? What signifies learning! Hebrew Professor! Traveller to Memphis! Sole witness living of the present state of the Ptolemies! Must all these glories sink into oblivion? How gloriously had he been interred had he died in the perilous pass of the Pyramids, and succeeded Mark Anthony in the bed of Cleopatra! I hope the poor man will have the satisfaction of being embalmed in the true Egyptian manner, for the more like a mummy his body be made, the more it will joy his gentle ghost. Nature has lost the inventory of all works in losing Shaw, for he knew every plant from the Hyssop to the Cedar of Lebanon, and every animal from the pismire to the whale. I am afraid his sister Sarah must again dust down those cobwebs she has been taught to venerate, and kill the moths in a stuff turban, though it should have a horn more or a horn less.”
[519] Dr. Thomas Shaw; traveller, antiquary, and naturalist.
[520] In former letters his merry and loud laughter in the Bullstrode circle is commented on.
Another Dr. Shaw is frequently mentioned as a chief physician at Tunbridge Wells, but whether he was a relation of the archæologian and naturalist, I have not been able to ascertain.
In a letter from Newcastle of September 1, Mr. Montagu, who with his steward, Mr. Carter, was regulating the business of his cousin, Mr. Rogers, mentions Denton Hall[521] for the first time, which was eventually to become one of his residences.
[521] Note at the end of this work on Denton Hall.
“Yesterday Mr. Carter and I rid to Denton, which is about 3 miles from Newcastle. We first viewed the house which is a good deal worse than I thought, and indeed so bad that it would not be justifiable to lay out any money upon it. The rooms on the second floor are pretty good, and served the family when they went there, but if ever I should be so happy as to have your company in these parts, if these should be thought fit I would hope it would be no difficult matter to find you some better accommodation. This next week I propose to go to a Farm of Mr. R.’s at Jarrow, about ten miles from Newcastle, and to Monk Seaton, where he has another. I never have yet been at either of them.”
[Page heading: JARROW]
Amongst his other property Mr. Rogers owned much in coal mines, some of them entirely his own, others in which, with the Claverings, Mr. Bowes, the Bishop of Durham, etc., he owned a share. Mr. Montagu was employing a Mr. Newton to value these--a complicated, unfair business. Owing to Mr. Rogers’ lunacy, much advantage had been taken by dishonest stewards and coal merchants, too long and complicated for description in these pages. On September 8 Mr. Montagu writes--
“On Friday last I was at a farm one half whereof belongs to Mr. Rogers, the other to Sir Thomas Clavering, called Jarrow, not far from Tynemouth, it is in the parish where the Venerable Bede formerly practised. Upon a Key this estate is obliged to contribute to for the repair of all the Ships that come to this port, they unload their ballast, which in length of time is become an incredible heap. This estate is let at £107 10_s._ per ann. To-morrow we go to Ravensworth, after which, when we shall have visited Seaton and Rudchester, we shall have seen all Mr. R.’s territories.”
[Page heading: CARLISLE TURNPIKE ROAD]
In the next letter he says--
“North Seaton lies upon the sea, consists of very good land with coal under, and has a key and a granary for corn and some quarrys of stone. The other estate of Rudchester is that through which the Carlisle Road is to pass, and which with all the clamour of the tenants will, as we think, be rather a benefit than hurt to the estate. It is thought to have a good deal of good coal in it, and but a very little way from the river Tyne, and will be very valuable if ever the river should be made navigable so high up as Mr. Carter thinks it may be in twenty years’ time.”
Mr. Montagu also adds that he and Mr. Carter have discovered that Mr. Rogers owned two-thirds of a colliery at West Denton, of which they had not known.
On September 13 a son was born to the Dauphin[522] of France, and Mrs. Montagu writes on the 15th--
[522] Louis, Duke of Burgundy, son of the Dauphin.
“I hear Monsieur Mirepoix intends the town fine illuminations and masquerades on the birth of the Dauphin. I believe every miserable peasant in France has great joy in the birth of one who is to be his future tyrant. Strange infatuation!... I wish the English loved their Island as well as the French do their ‘Monarque.’”[523]
[523] Louis XV.
On the 22nd Mrs. Montagu writes to say she is packing up for London, and she begs her husband, who is thinking of moving southward, not to travel with a single servant, as “every newspaper is filled with accounts of robbery.” She congratulates him “on having so well considered and settled Mr. Rogers’ affairs. It appears a noble estate, and I hope to see it in your possession who would nobly enjoy it.”
Matthew Robinson had been in Yorkshire, and thence travelled to Scotland, then little visited. Mrs. Montagu says--
“I suppose my brother Robinson is by this time returning to the known world. I expect to hear he has travelled to the extremity of Scotland, for he is a man of infinite curiosity, and would have knowledge at no entrance quite shut out.”
To this her husband rejoins, “Whenever I come near London I will hire a guard, and if I can give you sufficient notice shall not be sorry to be met by Brunton....” He says he has not heard of Brother Robinson since he dined with him. “If he has gone to Scotland, I have lately read in a book concerning the Rebellion, that barbarous part of our island may in good weather be seen with pleasure!” In return, his wife writes from London that she is going to Hayes “to enjoy quiet and my books till you arrive. I take Mrs. Isted with me.” Mrs. Isted was a poor lady who acted as housekeeper to Mrs. Montagu, and had seen better days.
The Scotts had been dining with her. They were then living at Chelsea, as London did not suit Sarah’s delicate health. A scheme of education for the young princes had been drawn up and submitted to the King, who was much pleased with it. It was also rumoured he was to take them to Hanover next year, “a step which will not be popular.”
[Page heading: DR. MIDDLETON’S WORKS]
“Dr. Middleton’s works are to be printed by the booksellers by subscription. Mrs. Middleton sold the copies for £300: it seems to me an insolence in the booksellers that should not be encouraged. I should never grudge the guinea I could spare to a man of genius, but to a set of wretches that live by other people’s wits, I am not so willing to part with that gold which the wise man allows to be better than anything except wisdom. It is strange malice in Apollo to make poor authors and rich booksellers, he should give his upper servants the best wages.”
From Hayes, on September 30, she writes--
“I am so well in health that I scarce know myself, and I think I am a little like the humorous Lieutenant that would run no hazards when he was well, though he was prodigal of life when he had a pain in his side. I am very desirous to preserve this comfortable state of health, and also my comely, plump and jolly condition; my face is no longer a memento mori. I am like one of the goddess Hebe’s elder sisters, ‘Not ever fair and young, but not so wan and decayed as of late.’” She adds, “Lady Bab and my sister design to visit my solitude in a few days. She is much better for country air, but they do not enjoy many rural pleasures at Chelsea, it is too near London.”
[Page heading: MRS. DONNELLAN]
[Page heading: JOURNEY TO IRELAND]
Mrs. Donnellan, having let her house to Lord Holderness, was preparing to go to Ireland to visit Dr. and Mrs. Delany at Delville, and her relations. She was staying with her friends the Southwells, at King’s Weston, and as her letters throw light on the then mode of travelling, I insert portions--
“Delville, near Dublin, October 7.
“MY DEAR MRS. MONTAGU,
“I am sure will be pleased to hear I am got safe to the end of my journeys and voyage, and am with my good friend Mrs. Delany resting myself after a good deal of fatigue. I left London as I told you I should, as I informed you by a letter from King’s Weston, which I hope you got. Mr. Leslie, the gentleman who took the charge of conducting me to Ireland, came at the time appointed, but we heard so bad an account of the cross roads between Bristol and Chester that we were very near setting out again for London, and going from thence to Chester. However, I plucked up courage, and as my good friends would do everything to accommodate me, we set out on Thursday sen’night with Mr. Southwell’s coach, two post-chaises and Mr. Southwell’s groom and double horse,[524] so that we had variety enough. The road for the greatest part to Gloucester was so bad I rid most of it, but hearing it would rather mend I sent back the coach, and between the chaise and the horse got to Chester and on to Park Gate in five days, and Mr. Leslie my companion, being a very sensible, polite travelled man, made the journey as agreeable as such a journey could be. We found Lord and Lady Fitzwilliams and many more waiting at Park Gate for the King’s Yacht, but as I hate a crowded ship and am not a coward, I resolved not to wait, and the wind being fair, we hired a small ship for ten guineas and set sail. The next morning at six o’clock and with the finest weather imaginable made our passage and landed in Dublin in 30 hours. The Bishop of Clogher, who had been enquiring for me the morning tide, came to the house when I was landed, with his usual politeness, and carried me to their house, and as it was too late to come here, they kept me that night, and the next day Mrs. Delany came and brought me here, where I am extremely happy, the most polite and hearty welcome, a large and convenient house, sweet gardens and a manner of living quite to my sober taste. Our only disturbance are visitors: we had yesterday seven coaches and six, mostly my own relations, my brother, sister, nephews and nieces.”
[524] Means a horse trained to carry a pillion.
[Page heading: THE DAUPHIN]
On October 31 there is a letter dated from London to Mr. Gilbert West. In this Mrs. Montagu is forwarding him patterns of all kinds of dove-coloured paper from Mr. Bromedge’s shop, and Mr. Linnell was sending a marble chimney-piece for West’s big room at Wickham. She says--
“Poor Dr. Courayer notified to me that he was ill of a sore throat, and could not come to visit me, though he wanted to see me. I went to him, I was obliged to pass through all the gay vanities of Mrs. Chenevix,[525] and then ascend a most steep and difficult staircase to get at the little Philosopher: this way to wisdom through the vanities and splendid toys of the world might be prettily allegorized by the pen of the great Bunyan; the good man himself to an emblematizeing genius would have afforded an ample subject; his head was enfoncé in a cap of the warmest beaver, made still more respectable by a gold orrace, ‘a wondrous hieroglyphick robe he wore,’ in which was portrayed all the attributes of the god Fo, with the arms and delineaments of the Cham of Tartary.... I began to consider him as the best piece of Chinese furniture I had ever seen, and could hardly forbear offering him a place on my chimney-piece. He asked much after your health.... There has been a terrible fracas in the court of the grand Monarque, the people, generally credulous, have strangely taken it into their heads that the Duke of Burgundy is not legitimate, and instead of acclamations and huzzas, murmurs and sighs have echo’d through the streets, on the days the feasts were made for the birth of this child; besides this there was conveyed into the cradle some gunpowder and a match with an epigram expressing that they would serve to blow up the pretended Duke of Burgundy. Upon his Majesty hearing this, the gouvernante, sub-gouvernante, women of the bedchamber, even to the toothless pap tasters, were all sent to the Bastille, one of the women who said she saw a hand reach over a screen to throw a paper into the cradle is since dead. A little knowledge is allowed to be a dangerous thing; had the lady been able to inform his Majesty at once who threw the paper, she had been safe, but it is supposed the hand that threw it, lest she should discover more, gave her a dose that has silenced her for ever....
“The Duke and Duchess of Portland and Lord Titchfield dined with us to-day, and staid till eight o’clock; her grace inquired after you.”
[525] Famous shop for bric-à-brac and toys.
[Page heading: MR. NATHANIEL HOOKE]
The last letter of the year is on December 17, to Mr. West, from Sandleford. From this it appears Mrs. Montagu was extremely unwell, but anxious for the health of Mr. West, who had had one of his periodical gout attacks, which had rendered his hands temporarily incapable of use. In this mention of Mr. Hooke is made. Mr. Nathaniel Hooke[526] wrote a “History of Rome,” and other works. He assisted the old Duchess of Marlborough to write her “Memoirs of her Life,” for which she gave him £5000. He was a Roman Catholic, a disciple of Fenelon’s, and brought a Catholic priest to Pope on his death-bed. “Pray have you made a good Protestant of Mr. Hooke? If you cure heresy and schism, should you not have your doctor’s degree in divinity rather than law?”
[526] Died in 1763.
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
Volume II
ELIZABETH MONTAGU
THE QUEEN OF THE BLUE-STOCKINGS
HER CORRESPONDENCE FROM 1720 to 1761
BY HER GREAT-GREAT-NIECE
EMILY J. CLIMENSON
AUTHORESS OF “HISTORY OF SHIPLAKE,” “HISTORICAL GUIDE TO HENLEY-ON-THAMES,” “PASSAGES FROM THE DIARIES OF MRS. P. LYBBE POWYS,” ETC., ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. II
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1906
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES
CONTENTS TO VOL. II
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
Chapter I
Rev. William Robinson--Botham and Bishop Sherlock--Death of Dr. Chesilden--The Scott separation--South Lodge, Enfield--“Chinese pomp”--A letter to Edward Montagu--Mount Morris--Archibald Bower--“Madonna”--Inoculation--Books to read--History of the Popes--G. L. Scott--The Delany lawsuit--Turkey Pye--The joyous Berenger--Death of Bishop Berkeley--A woman in vapours--Mrs. Laurence Sterne--Lady Bute’s Assembly--A perfect woman--Pitt’s insomnia--Rent of lodgings--The Penshurst pictures--Trinity College, Cambridge, Library--Gibside--Stonelands--“Minouets”--Beau Nash--Pitt at Hayes--The new post-chaise--Bullstrode menagerie--Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison--Lucian’s Triumph of the Gout--Schoolgirls’ bills--Death of Pelham--“Tom” Lyttelton--West appointed to Chelsea Hospital--Elizabeth Canning--Molière’s _Precieuses Ridicules_--Hateley the artist--Lillingston Dayrell--History of Bath--Pitt’s engagement and marriage--Bishop Warburton and Bolingbroke--Pitt’s honeymoon--“Gossip” Joan--Nathaniel Hooke 1–66
Chapter II
Lord Montfort’s suicide--Mrs. Pococke--Lord Baltimore’s house--Mr. Bower’s cottage--Torriano’s marriage--Hatchlands--Sheep Leas--Painshill--Reading--Sarah Scott’s daily life--The calm, meek Miss Pococke--The Garrett Wellesleys--Fears of French invasion--Garrick at Drury Lane--Earthquake at Lisbon--Death of West--Wortley Montagu’s pious pamphlet--Captain Robert Robinson’s death--Byng--David Hume--Morris Robinson’s marriage--The eccentric Matthew Robinson--Pitt buys Hayes house--Viscount Pitt’s birth--Lyttelton a peer--The famous bas bleu assemblies--Emin--Windsor election riot--Stillingfleet--Culham Court--George Stevens--Battle of Hastenbeck--The Severn and Wye--Elizabeth Wilmot--Battle of Kollin--A description of Emin--“Is got pure well”--The Mordaunt Expedition--Dr. Monsey--Admiral and Mrs. Boscawen--Battle of Rosbach 67–122
Chapter III
The Delany trial--Death of Dr. Clayton--Emin applies to Pitt--The attack on St. Malo--Death and will of John Rogers--The Garricks--Letters to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter (passim)--Lyttelton and Monsey--The Louisburg blockade--Correspondence with Lyttelton (passim)--Molly West’s marriage--Newcastle--Denton Hall--Lumley Castle--Hampton Court, Herefordshire--Battle of Zorndorff--Emin on Frederick the Great--The _eau de luce_ disaster--Mrs. Garrick--Current price of food--Athenian Stuart--Viper broth--“Brusher” Mills the snake-catcher--Illness of George II.--Young Mr. Pitt--The Session opened--Monsey’s doggerel--Admiral Boscawen thanked by Parliament--Lady Emily Butler--Helvetius’ De l’Esprit--Attempted assassination of King of Portugal--Lyttelton’s History of Henry II.--Burke’s Sublime and Beautiful--Dr. Johnson--Emin off to Armenia--Calves Pluck water--Harleyford--Inverary Castle--Alnwick--York--Glamis Castle--Scotch characteristics--Burke’s appeal for Madrid Consulship--Quebec taken--Bonus, the picture-cleaner--The Laurence Sternes 123–177
Chapter IV
Correspondence with Lyttelton (passim)--Lord Bath--The Lisbon Embassy--Dialogues of the Dead--Lord Chesterfield--Earl Ferrers executed--William Robinson’s marriage--Tunbridge Wells--The Stanley family--Ned, the groom--Lord Bath’s character--Lord Mansfield--“Montagu’s main”--Sophocles--Hagley House rebuilt--Dr. Monsey’s ways--Allan Ramsay, portrait painter--Letter to Duchess of Portland--Macpherson’s Highland Poems--Bishop Sherlock’s letter--Dr. Young--George Bowes’ funeral--Miss Bowes--Greek Plays and Shakespeare--Green tea and snuff--Death of George II.--George III. king--George II.’s will--Floods at Newark--A great lady’s avarice--The King’s first speech--Attendance at Court--A fashionable dentist--A languid campaign--Bishop Sherlock’s letter to the King--Billets doux--Chesterfield’s _bon mot_--An impetuous lover of fourscore--Monsey’s fresh doggerel--George Colman the elder 178–227
Chapter V
Admiral Boscawen’s illness and death--Wortley Montagu’s death--“Montagu Minerva”--Voltaire’s Tancred--Macpherson’s Fingal--Lord Bath’s gift to Mrs. Carter--Dr. Young’s letters--Another _Dialogue of the Dead_--An anonymous letter--the British Museum--A country gentlewoman--Gesner’s Mort d’Abel--Lord Bath’s character--The future queen--Mrs. Montagu’s advice to Tom Lyttelton--Monsey’s bloom-coloured coat--Dr. Young’s Resignation--Lord Bath’s portrait--The Coronation--Lady Pomfret--Lord Bath at Sandleford--Position of Ministers--An act of humility--Widows’ weeds--The Bas-Bleus and shells--Laurence Sterne 228–273
APPENDICES.
“Long” Sir Thomas Robinson 275
Sandleford Priory, Berks 278
Denton Hall, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, Northumberland 281
INDEX 283
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.
MRS. MONTAGU Frontispiece
_From the engraved portrait by C. TOWNLEY, after FRANCES REYNOLDS, in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley._ (Photogravure.)
TO FACE PAGE
TEA AND COFFEE IN THE BATH-ROOM 38 _From the drawing by JOHN NIXON, in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley._
THE CIRCUS, AT BATH 40 _From a drawing by THOMAS MALTON, in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley._
THE KING’S BATH, AT BATH 60 _From a drawing by THOMAS ROWLANDSON, in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley._
PHILIP, FOURTH EARL OF CHESTERFIELD 64 _From the picture by WILLIAM HOARE, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery._ (Photogravure.)
DAVID AND MRS. GARRICK 82 _From the picture by WILLIAM HOGARTH, in the possession of His Majesty The King._ (Photogravure.)
GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON 96 _From a picture by (unknown), in the National Portrait Gallery._
MRS. MARY DELANY 106 _From the picture by JOHN OPIE, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery._
ALLERTHORPE HALL, YORKSHIRE 120
CONYERS MIDDLETON 120 _From the mezzotint by FABER, after the picture by ECCARDT, 1746._ (Photogravure.)
BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET 128 From an engraving by V. GREEN, after ZOFFANY.
MRS. ELIZABETH CARTER 160 From the picture by SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A.
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 164 _From the picture painted for Topham Beauclerk by SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A., in the possession of Mr. A. H. Hallam Murray._
EDMUND BURKE 170 _From the picture by SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery._
DR. EDWARD YOUNG 256 _From the picture by (unknown), in the National Portrait Gallery._
WILLIAM PULTENEY, FIRST EARL OF BATH 258 _From a picture by SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A., 1761, in the National Portrait Gallery._ (Photogravure.)
LAURENCE STERNE 272 After the picture by SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A., in the possession of The Marquess of Lansdowne. (Photogravure.)
ELIZABETH MONTAGU
THE QUEEN OF THE BLUE-STOCKINGS