Men and manners of the eighteenth century

Front matter

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Preface

In our country house here there is an old mahoganybookcase which dates from my father's time, filled with books for the most part belonging to my mother, bearing dates of publication earlier than her birth, and the favorite, of her youth. I inherit her taste for these antiquated volumes, and have myself added to the collection from time to time, so that at present it makes a brave show of shabby gilt backs, worn-out calf bindings, and foolish titles, in themselves, in many cases, an advertisement of dulness. On these shelves stand "The Infidel Father,'' "Father and Daughter," " Marchmont," "The Exiles," "Julia," in full view, while others are relegated to a position behind the rest ; by contrast the long row of Mrs. Barbauld's novelists, fifty uniform little volumes, charm the eye, my mother's own copy of " Sir Charles Grandison," in nineteen volumes, book-marks of green ribbon hanging from the volumes — for such marks were needed by the diligent readers of Richardson's prolixity — all of Miss Burney's novels, on the lower shelf an early edition of Miss Edgeworth and all of Jane Austen, in one solid volume closely printed. The Spectator is there ; so are Pope, Cowper, and Goldsmith ; " Rasselas" and " Robinson Crusoe," likewise, with ' * Select British Poets ' ' collected by William Hazlitt, called also ' ' New Elegant Extracts from Chaucer to the Present Time," and published in 1824.

It is from such a mine of excellence that I have drawn the material of the present book. The busy world of iv Preface.

to-day thinks it has no time to examine for itself a collection like this, to choose the real gold and reject the dross, yet my wish is, in the extracts I am giving of my favorite authors, to induce readers to search further for themselves.

The ruling passion of mankind has been said to be curiosity. The most respectable form of it, it seems to me, is curiosity about mankind as it is, an' interest in human nature, such as Fielding avowed, and almost every one recognizes in himself. In some it takes the form of excavation and search for relics of remote antiquity. When I was in Tunis, and visiting the site of ancient Carthage, of which absolutely nothing remains, ' and where nothing more was to be seen than a green field with goats browsing in it and a glorious view of the Mediterranean, it was announced to us that a tomb had that moment been opened, conta:ining the skeleton of a Carthaginian man. A Punic man, actually lying there— with no other signs to tell his story. Instantly the curiosity to know that story became intense. The passion for digging in ancient ruins is easily understood.

, After the admirable invention of Cadmus, it becomes easier to learn about our progenitors. Hieroglyphics help, and although libraries are burnt, like Alexandria, and Cordova, parchments are preserved and others come to light. With printing the matter grows simpler,' for now the events of the world can be recorded and; preserved, if people will but take the trouble to write' them down. Research has brought to light the man-; ners and customs of the early centuries, and now literature begins to record them, though at first sparingly.

. People began to write good prose and beautiful poetry in the English, language twelve centuries ago, and we may find satisfaction for our curiosity by.

Preface. v

studying their works all along these years. But it is only with the end of the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth century that the intellectual stir of the times begins to assume a personal character ; lives, biographies, essays, from that time abound, and letter-writing took its valuable place in the literature of England. It seems as if everybody had discovered the fun of rushing into print. Political pamphlets preceded the newspaper editorial to which we are now accustomed. Fine ladies wrote ballads which were printed and scattered about the streets. Squibs, reviews, satirical poems, and letters filled the air. The personal rancors or political differences which inspired these flights have long ago vanished, but we may search such papers with interest to find traces of the manners of the world which wrote and read them. This literature naturally centered in London, reflecting upon human character and huriian life as seen in the great city. It discussed all the varieties of social life, and painted London society more vividly than has been done before or since.

It is of London, therefore, that we learn more than of the country life of England in our study of this literature, but Addison has given us a glimpse of the country in his description of Sir Roger, and Fielding and Goldsmith allow us a whiff of country air. Yet even with these, -the indifference to landscape and the enjoyment of nature are remarkable. It has been said that the subject of nature and man's relation to it, that is of the visible landscape, sea, and sky, were as yet untouched up to the age of Pope, and the subject of man alone treated. This is so well and thoroughly handled that we cannot fail to acquire a pretty good notion of what man was like in the century before our own.

It is this view that has occupied me in making the vi Preface.

selections for the present book. In reading these often silly novels I am always looking out for points of difference in language, manners, observances, from our own ; things which the writers set down all unconsciously as matters of course, which now seem to us strange, old-fashioned, perhaps absurd, but interesting, in my opinion. We especially want to know what our greatgrandmothers were like, and there is abundant evidence to their characteristics, either in their own real letters or the fictitious ones written for them, which were accepted as good representatives of their thoughts and actions by their own approval.

I do not undertake to deal with the study of the literary style of the period, a work which is always forward, and in abler hands than my own. Even such lives as those of the writers I have quoted are to serve only to illustrate the conditions of their time. Their biographies have been all charmingly written and their works analyzed by our own best writers in other books.

My real object in preparing the book is to awake, if necessary, an interest in my subject, and to stimulate my readers to go further in the study of character afforded by the literature of the eighteenth century. If he once enters the path, the charm of style, the elegance of execution, the fertility of subject of great writers, cannot fail to lead him farther and farther upon such a delightful road.

Susan Hale.

April 30, i8g8.

Contents

Book Page

I. Pope and Lady Mary 9

II. Charlotte Lennox 44

Chapter I

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was born in 1690 and died in 1762. She was Lady Mary Pierrepont, the gi^thand daughter of the Duke of Kingston, thus by birth belong- parentage. ing to the best society of her time. She married Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, a diplomatist and, amongst other things, a personal friend of Addison, and thus was brought in contact with the literary people. She was herself a brilliant letter-writer, and her letters have been published. These things fit her especially for my purpose, as, during a long life she saw and was a part of that society which we desire to become acquainted with, e • ij, -tto the circle of wits and fashionable people, of brilliant ^Wf^ writers and dull peers, of men of genius who condescended to frivolity and women of the world who aspired to wisdom. Her letters were edited in 1837 t)y her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, whose book is already old-fashioned, and for this reason has a flavor more suited to the present purpose than later less flattering though perhaps better considered estimates of Lady Mary. There can be no doubt that she was celebrated, even from her childhood, for a vivacious intellect, precocious mental acquirements, and for the beauty and grace of her person.

lo Men and Manners of the Eighteenth CeJitury.

Incident of the Kit-cat Club.

Literaryprogress.

A trifling incident, which Lady Mary loved to recall, will prove how much she was the object of her father's pride and fondness in her childhood. As a leader of the fashionable world, and a strenuous Whig in party, he of course belonged to the Kit-cat Club. One day, at a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a whim seized him to nominate her, then not eight years old, a candidate, alleging that she was far prettier than any lady on their list. The other members demurred, because the rules of the club forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen. "Then you shall see her,'" cried he ; and in the gaiety of the moment sent orders home to have her finely dressed and brought to him at the tavern ; where she was received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her , health drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form upon a drinking glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Never again, she has said later, did she pass so happy a day.

However, it is probable that her father, whose amusement in her ceased when she grew past the age of sitting on his knee and playing with a doll, consigned all his daughters alike to the care of a good homespun governess such as her letters describe, and, having thus done his supposed duty toward them, held himself at liberty to pursue his own pleasures, which lay elsewhere than at home. Her mother died when Lady Mary was four years old.

But, admitting that Lady Mary's talents were only self-cultivated, her literary progress might not be the less considerable. When industry, inspirited by genius, toils from free choice, and there exists, unchecked, that large devouring appetite for reading seldom felt but in the first freshness of intelligent youth, it will take in more nourishment, and faster, than the most assiduous tuition can cram down. It is true the habit of idly turning over an uncounted variety of books, forgotten as soon

Pope and Lady Mary. n

as read, may be prejudicial to the mind ; but a bee wanders to better purpose than a butterfly, although the one will sometimes seem just to touch the flower-bed and flit away as lightly as the other. Lady Mary read everything, but it was without forgetting anything ; and the mass of matter, whencesoever collected, gradually found its own arrangement in her head. She probably had some assistance from Mr. William Fielding, her mother's brother, a man of parts, who perceived her capacity, corresponded with her, and encouraged her pursuit of information. And she herself acknowledges her obligations to Bishop Burnet for "condescending to direct the studies of a girl."

Nevertheless, though laboring to acquire what maybe termed masculine knowledge [this was written in 1836] and translating under the bishop's eye the Latin version of Epictetus, she was by no means disposed to neglect works of fancy and fiction, but got by heart all the poetry that came in her way, and indulged herself in the luxury of reading every romance as yet invented. For she possessed, and left after her, the whole library cele- old romances, brated in Mrs. Lennox's "Female Quixote," viz.: "Cleopatra," "Cassandra," "Clelia," "Cyrus," "Pharamond," "Ibrahim," etc., etc., all, like the Lady Arabella's collection, "Englished mostly by persons of honor."' The chief favorite appears to have been a translation of Monsieur Honor^ d'Urf^'s "Astrea," once the delight of Henri Quatre [died 1715] and his court, and still admired and quoted by the savants who flourished under Louis XIV. In a blank page of this massive volume (which might have counterbalanced a pig of lead of the same size) Lady Mary had written, in her fairest youthful hand, the names and characteristics of the chief personages, thus : the beautiful Diana, the volatile Climene, the melancholy Doris, Celadon the faithful, Adamas the wise, and so on, forming two long columns.

These ponderous books, once hers, black in outward hue, and marked by the wear and tear of almost a century, might have been disrespectfully treated by her junior grandchildren and their nursery maids — put to any use except reading them — but for the protection of an excellent person, who when young had been Lady Bute's own attendant before her marriage [the only daughter of Lady Mary became Lady Bute] , and ever after made part of her family. Her spectacles were always to be

12 Men and Marnier s of the Eighteenth Century.

found in "Clelia" or "Cassandra," which she studied unceas- " Clelia" and ingly, prizing them next to the Bible and Tillotson's sermons ; "Cassandra." because, to give her own words, "they were all about good and virtuous people, not like the wicked trash she now saw young folks get from circulating libraries." To her latest hour she used to repent having lost sight of another romance, beautiful beyond them all— the "History of Hiempsal, King of Numidia." This, she said, she had read only once, and by no pains or search could ever meet with or hear of again.

The modern world will smile, but should, however, beware of too hastily despising, works that charmed Lady Mary Wortley in her youth, and were courageously defended by Madame de S^vign^, even when hers was past, and they began to be sliding out of fashion. She, it seems, thought, with the old woman just now mentioned, that they had a tendency to elevate the mind, and to instill honorable and generous sentiments. At any rate they must have fostered application and perseverance by accustoming their readers to what the French term ouvrages de tongue haleine.

These ancient heavy tomes are almost inaccessible now, and only to be found in the darkest places of a few long-suffering libraries. When found they are soon relegated to their shelves, for modern application and perseverance are quite incapable of wading through their long, involuted sentences.

Some particulars, in themselves too insignificant to be worth ^We^"^ ^'^'^^ recording, are valuable as recording the manners of our ancestors. Lady Mary's father, who became Lord Dorchester, by the time she had strength for the office, imposed upon his eldest daughter the task of doing the honors of his table at Thoresby, which in those days required no small share. For ' the mistress of a country mansion was not only to invite— that is urge and tease — her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands. The greater the lady, the more indispensable the duty. Each joint was carried up in its turn to be operated on by her, and her alone, since the peers and knights on either hand were so far from being bound to offer their assistance that the very master of the house, posted opposite to her, might not act as her croupier ; his department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for the crowd of guests, the most inconsiderable among these, the curate, or subaltern, or squire's younger brother, if suffered through her neglect to help himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed it in bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a wrong vote at the next election. There were then professed carving-masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically ; from one of whom Lady Mary took lessons three times a week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days ; when, in order to perform her functions without interruption, she was forced to eat her own dinner alone an hour or two beforehand.

The young friends of Lady Mary were such as the gj^^jy fiends, beautiful Dolly Walpole, sister of Sir Robert, Lady Anne Vaughan, the last of a family noted for giving Jeremy Taylor an asylum at Golden Grove ; amongst them was Mistress Anne Wortley.

Mrs. Anne has a most mature sound to our modern ears, but in the phraseology of those days. Miss, which had hardly yet ceased to be a term of reproach, still denoted childishness, flippancy, or some other contemptible quality, and was rarely applied to young ladies of a respectable class. Nay, Lady Bute herself could remember having been styled Mistress Wortley, when a child, by two or three elderly visitors, as tenacious of their ancient modes of speech as of other old fashions.

Mistress Anne was the favorite sister of Edward Wortley, whom Lady Mary married. Their father was Mr. Sidney Montagu. This old gentleman and the scene surrounding him were distinctly recollected by his granddaughter, Lady Mary's daughter, who married the Earl of Bute.

She described him as a large, rough-looking man, with a huge flapped hat, seated magisterially in his elbow-chair, talking sidney'^'°"° very loud, and swearing boisterously at his servants ; while Montagu, beside him sate a venerable figure, meek and benign in aspect, with silver locks, overshadowed by a black velvet cap. This was his brother, the pious Dean Montagu, who every now and then fetched a deep sigh and cast his eyes upward, as if silently beseeching heaven to pardon the profane language which he condemned but durst not reprove. Unlike as they were in their habits and their morals, the two brothers comiponly lived together.

Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu has been frequently described as a grave, saturnine diplomatist, with whose character the sprightly and airy woman of fashion and literature could have had nothing in common ; and as Lady Mary passed the latter half of their married life away from him, there is room for this impression. Still their great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, rather resents this :

It is hard to divine why, or on what authority, Mr. Edward Character of Wortley has been represented by late writers as a dull, phleg- Edward matic country gentleman — "of a tame genius and moderate

capacity," or "of parts more solid than brilliant" — which in common parlance is a civil way of saying the same thing. He had, on the contrary, one of those strong characters that are little influenced by the world's opinion, and for that reason little understood by the unthinking part of it. All who really knew him while living held him a man distinguished for soundness of judgment and clearness of understanding, qualities nowise akin to dulness ; they allowed him also to be a first-rate scholar ; and as he had traveled more than most young men of his time, it is probable that he surpassed them in the knowledge of modem languages. Polite literature was his passion ; and though to have a taste for wit and talents may not certainly imply a gift for these, yet it would be strange if the alderman-like mortal depicted above had sought out such companions as Steele, Garth, Congreve, etc., or chosen Addison for his bosom friend. The only picture of Mr. Wortley in existence belonged to Addison. The face seems very young, and, in spite of wig, cravat, and other deforming appendages, very handsome.

Among the various offers of marriage which I expect in the course of this book to present as signs of the manners of our period, Mr. Wortley's will come in as an average specimen taken from real life.

His society was principally male, the wits and politicians of that day forming a class quite distinct from the " white-gloved beau" attendant upon ladies. Indeed, as the education of women had then reached its very lowest ebb, and if not coquettes, or gossips, or diligent card-players, their best praise was to be notable housewives, Mr. Wortley had no particular motive to seek acquaintance with such females. His surprise and delight were the greater when one afternoon, having by chance loitered in his sister's apartment till visitors arrived, he saw Lady Mary Pierrepont for the first time, and on entering into conversation with her found, in addition to beauty that charmed him, not only brilliant wit, but a thinking and cultivated mind. He was especially struck with the discovery that q^-^^ ^^ she knew Latin, and could relish his beloved classics. Some- marriage, thing that passed led to the mention of Quintus Curtius, which she said she had never read. This was a fair handle for a piece of gallantry ; in a few days she received a superb edition of the author, with these lines facing the title-page :

Beauty like this had vanquished Persia shown, The Macedon had laid his empire down, And polished Greece obeyed a barb'rous throne. Had wit so bright adorned a Grecian dame, The am'rous youth had lost his thirst for fame, Nor distant India sought through Syria's plain ; But to the Muses' stream with her had run, And thought her loved more than Ammon's son.

How soon this declaration of love in verse was followed by one in prose does not appear.

CHAPTER II. Lady Mary's letters

Letter to Mrs.

Wortley.

The delightful letters of Lady Mary have given her a place in English literature like that .of Madame de S^vign6 in French, although nothing could be more different in style and spirit. She had the true gift of letter-writing, now so rapidly dying out that it will soon be termed obsolete. Wherever she went or was she wrote long, but not too long, letters to her friends and relatives. Her intimacy with the best society of her time, either intellectual or fashionable, gives the value of an eye witness to them. They become a key or clue to the manners and habits of the leading people of her generation. I select extracts from such letters as bear upon the manners of the time that difier from our own, without dwelling upon the morals, a task of a different and more difficult scope. The very form of the letters is in itself an indication of the greater stiffness of our grandmothers, as well as of the leisure which permitted them to indulge it. The following is written before her marriage, to the dear friend before referred to — Mistress

Wortley :

August 8, lyog.

I shall run mad : — with what heart can people write when ' they believe their letters will never be received ? I have already writ you a very long scrawl, but it seems it never came to your hands ; I cannot bear to be accused of coldness by one whom I shall love all my life. This will perhaps miscarry as the last did ; how unfortunate I am if it does ! You will think I forget you who are never out of my thoughts. You will fancy me stupid enough to neglect your letters when they are the only pleasures of my solitude ; in short, you will call me ungrateful

i6

Pope and Lady Mary.

and insensible when I esteem you as I ought in esteeming you above all the world. If I am not quite so unhappy as I imagine, and you do receive this, let me know it as soon as you can ; for till then I shall be in terrible uneasiness ; and let me beg you for the future if you do not receive letters very constantly from me, imagine the post-boy killed, imagine the mail burnt, or some other strange accident ; you can imagine nothing so impossible as that I forget you, my dear Mrs. Wortley. I know no pretense I have to your good opinion but my hearty desiring it ; I wish I had that imagination you talk of to render me a fitter correspondent for you, who can write so well on everything. I am now so much alone I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing your books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars. I am trying whether it be possible to f?"*?y°f.

4 ., . 111111 dictionaries

learn without a master ; I am not certam, and dare hardly hope and grammars. I shall make any great progress ; but I find the study so diverting, I am not only easy, but pleased with the solitude that indulges it. I forget there is such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. You see, my dear, in making my pleasures consist of these unfashionable diversions, I am not of the number who cannot be easy out of the mode. I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world than in following our own inclinations ; nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always ; it is with some regret I follow it in all the impertinencies of dress ; the compliance is so trivial it comforts me ; but I am amazed to see it consulted even in the most important occasions of our lives ; and that people of good sense in other things can make their happiness consist in the opinions of others, and sacrifice everything to the desire of appearing in fashion. I call all people who fall in love with furniture, clothes, and equipage, of this number, and I look upon them as no less in the wrong than when they were five years old, and doated on shells, pebbles, and hobby-horses. I believe you will expect this letter to be dated from the other world, for sure I am you never heard an inhabitant of this talk so before. I suppose you expect, too, I should conclude with begging pardon for this extreme tedious, and very nonsensical letter ; quite contrary, I think you will be obliged to me for it. I could not better show my great concern for your reproaching me with

Practical opinions.

Marriage of Lady Mary ; an elopement.

The arrangements.

neglect I knew myself innocent of, than proving myself mad in these pages. My sister says a great deal about Mrs. K. ; but besides my having forgot it, the paper is at an end.

Tedious indeed, and the writer but nineteen !

Although the alHance with Mr. Wortley Montagn was a good one, and was received cordially by the father of the bride at first, difficulties arose about settlements, with the result that the young pair ran away to be married. The following on the eve of the event ; being more genuine we may suppose than that just given, it is

more brief :

Friday night.

I tremble for what we are doing. Are you sure you shall love me forever? Shall we never repent? I fear and I hope. I foresee all that will happen on this occasion. I shall incense my family in the highest degree. The generality of the world will blame my conduct, and relations and friends will invent a thousand stories of me. Yet, 'tis possible, you may recompense everything to me. In this letter, which I am fond of, you promise me all that I wish. Since I writ so far I received your Friday letter. I will be only yours and I will do what you please.

And the next day :

Saturday morning. . . . Reflect now for the last time in what manner you must take me. I told a lady of my friends what I intend to do. You will think her a very good friend when I tell you she proffered to lend us her house. I did not accept of this till I had let you know it. If you think it more convenient to carry me to your lodgings, make no scruple of it. . . . I again beg you to have a coach to be at the door early Monday morn- .ing, to carry us some part of our way, wherever you resolve our journey shall be. If you determine to go to the lady's house you had best come with a coach and six at seven o'clock to-morrow. She and I will be in the balcony which looks on the road ; you have nothing to do but to stop under it, and we will come down to you. Do in this what you like ; but after all think very seriously. Your letter, which will be waited for, is to determine everything.

Pope and Lady Mary.

In 17 16 Lady Mary accompanied her husband on his embassy to the court of Constantinople, and she has, in Beginning of

•^ _ -^ ' her travels

her letters, described her travels over Europe and the "^^er Europe. East. They left England in a yacht, and having set out in a calm were two days before reaching Rotterdam. She says ;

August 3, iyi6.

The wind blew so hard that none of the sailors could keep their feet, and we were all Sunday night tossed very handsomely. I never saw a man more frighted than the captain. For my part, I have been so lucky, neither to suffer from fear nor sea-sickness ; though I confess I was so inipatient to see myself once more upon dry land that I would not stay till the yacht could get to Rotterdam, but went in the long boat to Helvoetsluys, where we had voitures to carry us to the Brill.