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MRS MONTAGU AND HER 
 FRIENDS 
 
nee CjliXaiietJt ^Jvcrb-uvMyTv 
 
 /n-i/i ,1 niiiu'iitiirc in t/w /jc.>JfJJ/c<?i trLfLuk:} ^ itoiita/jiit^ 
 
MRS MONTAGU 
 
 1 7 20- 1 800 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 PROPOSED AS A THESIS TO THE FACULTY OF LETTERS 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 
 
 BY R. HUCHON 
 
 LECTURER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE FACULTY OF LETTERS 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NANCY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 1907 
 

 Printed in Great Britain. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is well known that, between 1750 and 
 1790, a group of remarkable women emulated 
 in London the example given them in 
 Paris by Mmes du Tencin, du Deffand, and 
 Geoffrin, and instituted assemblies, whence 
 card-playing was excluded for the sake of 
 literary conversation. Among these ladies, 
 familiarly nicknamed *' Blue Stockings," the 
 leading spirit undoubtedly was Mrs Montagu, 
 the subject of this Essay. 
 
 It could not be maintained without great 
 exaggeration that, since her day, her fame 
 has lost none of its brightness. Her con- 
 versational powers, like the acting of a player, 
 have vanished into air, hardly leaving any 
 trace behind. Her merits as a critic and a 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 champion of Shakespeare against Voltaire 
 are sometimes disputed, and, at best, acknow- 
 ledged in a footnote. 
 
 Yet, she has never been totally forgotten. 
 Her early Letters^ first published in 1809, 
 have been partly reprinted, with much ad- 
 ditional matter, in Mrs Climenson's recent 
 work on The Early Life of Elizabeth Montagu, 
 Dr Doran's study, published in 1873 under 
 the title of A Lady of the Last Century^ though 
 superficial and desultory, was the first attempt 
 at a sketch of the whole subject. And as 
 long as Voltaire finds readers, Mrs Montagu's 
 name will remain inseparable from his last 
 production, the second Letter to the Academy 
 prefixed to the tragedy of Lxne, 
 
 This little book is not intended as a 
 Biography, which Mrs Climenson alone can 
 satisfactorily write, with the help of the mass 
 of unprinted correspondence in her possession. 
 Our scope is narrower. From the tangled 
 biographical details contained in the printed 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 volumes, we have tried to discover and 
 collect, as best we could, the half-obscured 
 and scattered lineaments of Mrs Montagu's 
 intellectual and moral character. We have 
 devoted more attention than any previous 
 writer to her Essay on the Genius of Shake- 
 speare, examined it in the light of the criticism 
 of the time, and accompanied its author in 
 her journey to France during the eventful 
 summer of 1776. In the third and concluding 
 chapter, her social influence and intercourse 
 with the men and women of letters, her 
 contemporaries, have been considered. We 
 cannot conclude without expressing our great 
 indebtedness to Mrs Climenson and to Mr 
 Broadley for some unprinted material, which 
 proved most valuable in the compiling and 
 writing of this Essay„ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. CHARACTERISTICS I 
 
 Ih THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE ... 79 
 
 III. MRS MONTAGU'S SOCIAL AND LITERARY 
 
 CIRCLE : THE BLUE STOCKINGS . . 204 
 
 CONCLUSION 284 
 
 INDEX 295 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Mrs Montagu, frojn a miniature i7i the 
 
 possession of y\!\ssy\.o^'Y\<:-A3 . . Frontispiece 
 
 Mrs Montagu, from the engraved por- 
 trait by C. TowNLEY, after Frances 
 Reynolds^ in the possession ^ Mr A. M. 
 Broadley To face p. 210 
 
MRS MONTAGU AND HER 
 FRIENDS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Some time in June 1779, Dr Johnson, dis- 
 coursing with Mrs Thrale '^on the amazing 
 progress made of late years in literature by 
 the women," remarked that *^he was himself 
 astonished at it," that ^'he well remembered 
 when a woman who could spell a common 
 letter was regarded as all accomplished ; but 
 now," added he, ^'they vie with the men 
 in everything."^ Nowhere was their success 
 to be so conspicuous as in novel-writing. 
 For more than a generation, from the publica- 
 tion of Evelina to that of Waverley^ they held 
 an almost undisputed sway over this their 
 
 ^ The Diary and Letters of Madame d'ARBLAY, ed. 
 1876, i., 160. 
 
 I A 
 
2 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 chosen literary domain. Both in realistic 
 and in romantic fiction, the '^age was distin- 
 guished by producing^extraordinary women." ^ 
 The temper of the times, the tone of a society 
 that was yearly gaining in respectability and 
 intellectual refinement, accorded with the 
 delicacy they wished to observe in their 
 delineation of manners and in their style. 
 They no longer ran any risk of endangering 
 or even forfeiting their fair fame by becoming 
 authoresses. Of them it could not be said, 
 in Mrs Montagu's words, that ^^the generality 
 of women who have excelled in wit have failed 
 in chastity. " ^ More fortunate than Mrs Aphra 
 Behn or Mrs Manley, they could; please the 
 public without being scorned for their pains ; 
 they could live respected, marry decently, 
 nay, be preferred to some employment at 
 Court. Thus, the world of fashion and the 
 world of letters drew closer, and women 
 played their part in both. Some, like Mrs 
 Vesey, Mrs Thrale, Mrs Boscawen, Miss 
 Monckton, Mrs Walsingham, delighted in 
 filling their London drawing-rooms with as 
 
 ^ The Diary ajid Letters of Madame d'ARBLAY, ed. 
 1876, i., 160. Burke to F. Burney. 
 
 ^ The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, ed. 1813, 
 iii., 97. 
 
BIRTH AND FAMILY 3 
 
 many literary celebrities as they could collect ; 
 more distinguished even than these, Mrs 
 Montagu, uniting the qualifications of a 
 woman of fashion and of a writer, helped 
 to raise the social standing of women of 
 letters, and thereby acquired for herself pre- 
 eminence in her own time and some right 
 to the remembrance of posterity. 
 
 Born on 2nd October 1720, she was the 
 fourth child and eldest daughter of Matthew 
 Robinson and of Elizabeth Drake, both 
 wealthy members of the landed gentry, and 
 possessed, or soon to be possessed, of no 
 less than four estates in Yorkshire, Cam- 
 bridgeshire, and in Kent. Her father seems 
 to have been a man of some talent and great 
 indolence. His skill as a landscape painter 
 excelled, we are told, that ''of most of the 
 professed artists of his day " ; his conver- 
 sational powers and ''intellectual endow- 
 ments " ^ would have made him a favourite 
 in the social and convivial circles of the 
 metropolis. But, ever fond of his ease and 
 pleasure, he had married too soon, when a 
 youth of eighteen and a mere undergraduate 
 
 ^ The Letters of Mxs Elizabeth Montagu, ed. 1809, 
 i.,94. 
 
4 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 or ** fellow - commoner" at Cambridge. 
 Without any profession from which he could 
 draw an income to supplement his personal 
 means, he was driven by the care of his 
 growing family into the dull retirement of 
 a country life. He thought it ^'perfect 
 misery."^ In vain did he practise ** shoot- 
 ing and coursing" as a diversion against 
 the dreaded *'hyp," the melancholy that 
 threatened him : such poor palliatives proved 
 ineffectual, and his '' physician," his daughter 
 playfully wrote, could not ^* prescribe him 
 any cordial strong enough to keep up his 
 spirits." ^ This languid existence lasted 
 many years, first at Coveney, near Cam- 
 bridge, and, worse still, from 1733 till 1746, 
 at Monks Horton near Hythe, then a solitary 
 part of Kent. The house he inhabited with 
 his twelve children was indeed pleasant 
 enough : a contemporary print represents it 
 as a "large square" building "surmounted 
 by a cupola" and surrounded with walled 
 gardens.^ On a Sunday morning after 
 
 ^ The Early Life of Elizabeth Montagu^ by Mrs 
 Climenson, 1906, ii., 94. 
 ^ Letters^ ed. 1809, i., 10. 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, ii., 14. 
 
HER FATHER 5 
 
 church, *^Mr Robinson" could ride with 
 his daughter as far as a neighbouring ^'high 
 hill," whence a vast expanse of sea was to 
 be seen, and also '*a little of France," just 
 enough **to distinguish the corn fields near 
 Boulogne from the pasture." ^ Such peaceful 
 joys did not, however, satisfy the soul of 
 Mr Robinson, turned squire against his will. 
 He longed to become again a fine gentleman 
 about town, as in his youth. When his 
 wife died, in 1746, he was only too glad to 
 settle in London and to mingle again in 
 **the high and polished society of the clubs." 
 Henceforward, his happiness was as complete 
 as a man's can be: ''Life," Mrs Montagu 
 writes, ''has been to him one long play 
 day. He has never tasted business, care, 
 or study ; vivre au jour la journee^ as the 
 French saying is, has been his moral 
 maxim." ^ His was an easy-going, epicurean 
 temper, occasionally depressed by idle fits of 
 languor. 
 
 We may believe that this country-hater 
 could not forbear smiling at the peculiarities 
 of his neighbours. His remarks found a 
 
 ^ Letters^ i., 240-1. 
 
 2 Mrs Climenson, ii., 156. 
 
6 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ready echo in his bright little daughter 
 Elizabeth. From a very tender age, she 
 possessed a nimble tongue and a caustic pen. 
 The first years of her life had been spent, 
 not only under the venerable shadow of York 
 Minster,^ and in the solitude of Coveney, 
 but also in the learned society that met, in 
 Cambridge, at the house of the University 
 Librarian, the celebrated Dr Conyers Middle- 
 ton, her grandmother's second husband. She 
 had become a favourite with him and his 
 friends, **an object of great notice and 
 admiration" for her ^* uncommon sensi- 
 bility, acuteness of understanding and extra- 
 ordinary beauty as a child." With her grey- 
 
 ^ By which she had been deeply impressed. On i6th 
 September 1759, she wrote to Lord Lyttelton : — "I 
 expect your lordship will be much pleased with the 
 cathedral ; I have not seen any building of that kind 
 so noble. ... I shall be glad to hear that your lordship 
 and Mr Lyttelton like York, to which perhaps I am 
 partial as to the place of my nativity. One of the 
 strongest pictures in my mind is the funeral of a dean of 
 York, which I saw perform'd with great solemnity in the 
 cathedral when I was about four years old" {Letters^ 
 ed. 1 813, iv., 238-9). Hence her admiration of this 
 particular edifice, and of Gothic architecture in general, 
 though she preferred the elegant style of "Athenian 
 buildings." "Both are perfect in their kind," as she 
 said, with true critical taste {ibid.^ 249-50). 
 
EARLY TRAINING 7 
 
 blue ^ eyes, her high-arched, dark eyebrows, 
 her '^ brilliant complexion " ^ contrasting with 
 her brown hair, her middle stature and stoop- 
 ing posture, she looked so intelligent and so 
 demure that much attention was already paid 
 to her. The Doctor, desirous of improving 
 her memory, required of her ^*an account 
 of the learned conversations at which she 
 was frequently present," and no doubt Eliza- 
 beth proved an apt scholar. Even in solitary 
 Monks Horton, her three elder brothers 
 formed an audience whose sympathy or 
 disapproval could not but invite her to exer- 
 tion. Warm disputes, we are told, took 
 place now and then, in which the mother 
 acted as a moderator. Mr Robinson, de- 
 lighted with his daughter's lively sallies, 
 *^ afforded them perhaps too much encourage- 
 ment" at the expense of his acquaintance. 
 And as she spoke, so did she write. Her 
 letters, from her thirteenth to her twentieth 
 year, and even later, are remarkable for a 
 
 ^ Cf. Letters^ ed. 1813, iv., 122, where she speaks 
 "of my two little grey eyes." Cf. also ibid.^ ed. 1809, 
 
 ii-, 1^1' 
 
 ^ In 1773 alas! it had faded into a "pale yellow," 
 Historical MSS. Commission^ MSS. of the Marquis of 
 Bath, i., 338. 
 
8 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 sort of playful girlish irony that often pleases 
 by its exuberance, and sometimes jars on us 
 by its flippancy. 
 
 The insignificant labourer alone excepted, 
 all sorts and conditions of countrymen and 
 women run the gauntlet of her satiric touches. 
 She laughs at them collectively and individu- 
 ally. **Were things as in ^sop's days," 
 she airily writes, "when beasts could talk, 
 the country might be a place of conversation : 
 a jay might flutter about like a beau, a calf 
 talk like a squire's eldest son, a stately ox be 
 as grave a companion as the chairman of the 
 bench of justices, a bull roar like a patriot 
 senator. . . . But if these metamorphoses can- 
 not be compassed, it is very common to see the 
 reverse of my scheme ; though I never saw a 
 calf a direct young squire, I have seen many 
 an heir-apparent a very calf, and so of the 
 rest. . . . Here nobody laughs at what they 
 say but themselves."^ Evidently this young 
 lady is not deficient in assurance — impertin- 
 ence perhaps, — but she observes and listens 
 before she criticises. One evening, with the 
 indispensable help of the full moon, 2 she has 
 
 ^ Letters^ i., 48-9. 
 
 2 The only time for visiting in the country. Cf. 
 
IRONY 9 
 
 gone eight miles from home to a ball given 
 by Lady Thanet, a great personage in that 
 part of Kent. When she returns, we hear 
 a description of the whole family ; ** I think 
 I never saw so formidable a countenance " as 
 her ladyship's, says she; ''her smiles are 
 like the sunshine and rain on an April day ; 
 she smiles and frowns together, which makes 
 a beautiful contrast in her visage." The 
 child has his turn, after the mother: ''Lord 
 Thanet's education of his son is something 
 particular ; he encourages him in swearing, 
 and singing nasty ballads with the servants ; 
 he is a very fine boy, but prodigiously rude ; 
 he came down to breakfast the other day 
 when there was company, and his maid came 
 with him, who, instead of carrying a little 
 whirligig for his lordship to play with, was 
 lugging in a huge billet for his plaything." ^ 
 Our youthful satirist seldom sees deep into 
 characters ; she fastens rather on the outward 
 shows of things, on oddities of dress and 
 manners. A certain "worshipful justice" 
 
 Gibbon's Autobiography (at Buriton, about 1760): "I 
 dreaded the period of the full moon, which was usually 
 reserved for our more distant excursions." 
 ^ Letters, i., 33-4. 
 
lo CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 tried to entertain her one day with ^^the most 
 elegant encomiums upon the country and the 
 most barbarous censures upon the town." 
 She paid less attention to her visitor's talk 
 than to his dress, which consisted of *' a new 
 leathern belt, scarlet waistcoat and plush 
 breeches."! The Rev. *'Mr Spintext," her 
 vicar, partakes of the general dulness round 
 about Horton. She probably thinks she 
 could improve his sermons. He has been 
 ** somewhat tedious to-day," she remarks on 
 the 14th of July 1741 : '^poor man, he is 
 a good while explaining anything, and one 
 must wait till he has overtaken his meaning ; 
 if he finds it at last, it is well, if not, he 
 calls for it again the next Sunday." ^ Should 
 he be a bachelor and propose to her, she 
 will not have him, nor, for that matter, any 
 of those clodhoppers whose wits stick in the 
 mud, as their shoes in their clay. She may 
 condescend to play her tricks on them, to send, 
 for instance, to one *'Mr James Brockman of 
 Beachborough " ^ an anonymous letter com- 
 plaining of his absence from ^' balls, hops, and 
 
 1 Mrs Climenson's Ear^y Life of Mrs Montagu, 
 
 i., 31. 
 
 2 Letters^ i., 251-2. ^ /^^'^^ j^.j^ . jj^ ^3.^^ 
 
HIGH SPIRITS 1 1 
 
 assemblies " ; but, if the same James Brock- 
 man loses his heart to her, she will have 
 *^no balsam for him," she will bury rather 
 than marry him. He has, however, *'such 
 a stock of flesh to waste upon " that he will 
 survive some time yet. 
 
 Wherever this disdainful beauty goes, a 
 light-hearted sportive smile brightens her 
 countenance. Like her father, she knows no 
 cares, or soon dispels them. Her younger 
 sister Sarah being ill of the smallpox, 
 Elizabeth has been sent away from home 
 to a yeoman's ^ farm in the neighbouring 
 village of Hayton. At this Mr Smith's her 
 surroundings are duller than ever, but she 
 laughs all the more. ^* Amongst the old 
 
 ^ This individual and his family were excellent repre- 
 sentatives of their class (in 1741) : "They are not very 
 fine people ; they have a small estate, and help it out 
 with a little farming ; are very busy and careful. . . . 
 They have been possessed in the family, for ought I 
 know, since the Conqueror, of about four hundred 
 pounds a year ; they have a good old house, neatly 
 furnished ; but there is nothing of modern structure to 
 be seen in it" {Letters^ i., 141, 153, 162). As the century 
 advanced, this agricultural middle-class, half landowners, 
 half farmers, gradually disappeared in most places, Kent 
 excepted. Mr Smith's avarice is not less typical than 
 his way of living ; peasants, as we know, are proverbially 
 
12 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 furniture" of the house, she does not 
 *' forget the clock, who has indeed been a 
 time-server. . . . Even me it governs, sends 
 me to bed at ten, and makes me rise, oh 
 barbarous ! at eight. I go to bed awake, 
 and arise asleep." But, in the course of 
 the day, she rouses herself well enough to 
 dash off this picturesque sketch of her host, 
 an old miser: ^^He eats in fear of waste and 
 riot, sleeps with the dread of thieves, denies 
 himself everything for fear of wanting any- 
 thing ; ... he has the curse of covetousness 
 to want the property of his neighbours, while 
 he dare not touch his own ; the sum of his 
 wisdom and his gains will be by living poor 
 to die rich. . . . The other day, meeting him 
 in a grove, for want of something better to 
 say, I took notice we were under the shade 
 of fine trees ; he said, yes, indeed, they were 
 brave timber and would sell well. I said 
 they would afford a comfortable habitation 
 to a colony of rooks. To which, in the same 
 vein, he answered he loved the creatures well 
 enough, but that they would eat the corn. . . . 
 I verily believe he would annihilate half God's 
 works to have his granary the fuller." The 
 very pen she writes with, being the miser's, 
 
COUNTRY SOCIETY 13 
 
 may not pass banter- free. ^*I believe, since 
 it was dipped in ink, it never made a compli- 
 ment. It has been worn out in the service 
 of gain." Frolicsome as a kitten, she plays 
 with all that offers. She attends once a 
 year the *' Canterbury races," with their 
 concomitant balls and assemblies, where the 
 county gentry meet ; as she suffers from 
 headaches, she repairs to Tunbridge, or even 
 to Bath, and drinks the waters. But let no 
 formal face appear, or it will set her pen 
 a-going. ^*The person most noticed for 
 singularity at Tunbridge," says she, ^^was 
 Lord Stanhope : he is always making mathe- 
 matical scratches in his pocket-book, so that 
 one-half of the people took him for a conjurer, 
 the other half for a fool. He is much admired 
 and commended by his acquaintance, which 
 are few in number. I think he had three at 
 the Wells, and I believe he did not allow 
 them above a sentence a-piece in a whole 
 day."^ Even a mathematician may not look 
 grave ; even invalids at Bath may not be 
 wrapped up in flannel ; they are so queer. 
 And all uncommon characters or sights 
 provoke her mirth and satire : ^*The morning 
 
 1 Letters^ i., 25. Cf. Mrs Climenson, i., 18. 
 
14 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 after I arrived I went to the Ladies' Coffee 
 House, where I heard of nothing but the 
 rheumatism in the shoulder, the sciatica in 
 the hip, and the gout in the toe. ... I 
 began to fancy myself in the hospitals or 
 infirmaries ; I never saw such an assembly 
 of disorders."^ Nor was this sprightly, 
 ironical mood the effect of mere youthful 
 thoughtlessness : when years had passed 
 and had brought to her some trials and 
 much experience, still she remained ever 
 ready to laugh at the foibles of others.^ 
 
 II 
 
 Of a high-strung, '^nervous constitution," 
 she enjoys her real or fancied superiority 
 over her neighbours. Vanity, as she herself 
 acknowledges, is her ruling passion. In a 
 half - serious, half - humorous tone, she 
 describes its invigorating power and charm. 
 Through it, she has been pleased with the 
 looking-glass, reconciled to the echo, and 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, i., 39. 
 
 2 Cf. MSS. of the Marquis of Bath^ i., 334 ; letter 
 from Bath, 9th December 1764. 
 
VANITY 15 
 
 made fond of pen and ink; '^take but this 
 my indulgent friend and constant companion 
 from me, I shall neither look, talk, nor write 
 to my satisfaction. . . . Flattery, it suggests,^ 
 is truth, and censure is envy; kindness is 
 the reward, malice the consequence, of my 
 merit." ^* Content with herself," she never 
 broods, but throws her whole soul into the 
 diversions of her litde world. A perpetual v 
 flow of good spirits carries her along. 
 ** Contemplation is not made for a woman 
 on the right side of thirty," she declares ; 
 *' rest and an elbow-chair are the comforts of 
 age ; the pleasures of youth are of a more 
 lively sort." 2 Let but a blind fiddler strike 
 up a tune, and up she springs, ready for the 
 dance ; the longer it lasts, the better ; she 
 will return '^at two o'clock in the morning, 
 mightily pleased to have been so well 
 entertained." Should the coach break down 
 on the way back, as it frequently happened 
 in those days, when flooded ruts had to serve 
 for cross-country roads, she will ^^ squall for 
 joy," and, to complete her felicity, she will 
 stand *^ half an hour in the most refreshing 
 
 ^ The original text is in the past tense. Letters^ ii., 22. 
 2 Ibid., i., 27. 
 
r6 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 rain, and the coolest north breeze" she ever 
 felt. The next morning, she comes ^^ croaking 
 down to breakfast," but, far from complaining, 
 she denies having caught a cold, as ^'one 
 always " does ^^ when one has been scheming." 
 Seventeen years afterwards, when she was 
 already thirty-five, her friend Gilbert West 
 could still comment upon the ^' store of wild- 
 fire"^ that she possessed. To this fund of 
 nervous energy was due, no doubt, her 
 untiring lifelong activity, in spite of weak 
 health. 
 
 As another consequence of this, a ^Mively 
 imagination " ^ distinguished her, especially 
 in youth. She dwelt ^' in the medium 
 between judgment and fancy." Able to 
 reason and observe, she could also see 
 visions and dream dreams. *'It was from 
 this picture-drawing faculty," she wrote in 
 August 1760,^ ^' I used to be always amused 
 and gay. ... If any person had then 
 advertised for a companion to travel through 
 the deserts of Siberia or Africa, I would have 
 
 ^ Letters^ iii., 297 (ist July 1755.) 
 2 The phrase is Mrs Donnellan's in 1740. Letters^ i., 
 112. 
 ^ l^etters^ iv., 273-4. 
 
LIVELY FANCY 17 
 
 recommended my imagination to them, as one 
 which would show cities where even a cottage 
 did not appear. . . . When first fancy began 
 to lose some of its creative powers, it retained 
 the complaisance of Hamlet's courtier, and 
 could trace a weasel or an elephant in a shape- 
 less cloud, from the least hint that was given 
 it." Such hints were borrowed from her 
 reading or experience and developed in her 
 letters for the amusement of her friends. If 
 she wants delicately to urge the Duchess of 
 Portland to more diligence in corresponding, 
 she dates her message from ^^ Pluto's palace," 
 and announces that her death took place '^ last 
 Thursday " for disappointment at not hearing 
 from a certain duchess, that she has since 
 crossed the Styx, encountered the shades 
 and their king, consulted with the ^^melan- 
 choly lovers " her negligent friend had already 
 sent there, and finally resolved to call ^^for 
 the pen and ink Mrs Rowe had used to write 
 her letters^ from the dead to the living." 
 There is much wit in this little invention, by 
 which her reproof is mythologically conveyed 
 and tempered. Or perhaps one of her own 
 
 1 See Friendship in Deaths twenty Letters from the 
 Dead to the Living (1728). 
 
 B 
 
i8 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 letters to the Duchess has miscarried, and 
 its loss must be explained. A servant had 
 been ordered to post it at Canterbury. No 
 doubt, ''the fellow" forgot his errand. This 
 ''hint" suffices: here, as in many other 
 occasions, her fancy takes wing ; images and 
 words throng on her paper. The unfortunate 
 letter becomes a creature living and sensible : 
 what must be "its mortification that, instead 
 of having the honour to kiss Your Grace's 
 hands, it must be confined in the footman's 
 pocket, with greasy gloves, rotten apples, 
 mouldy nuts, a pack of dirty cards, and, 
 the only companion of its sort, a tender 
 epistle from his sweetheart 'tru tell Deth.' 
 Perhaps by its situation subject to be 
 kicked by his master every morning, till 
 at last, by ill-usage and rude company, 
 worn too thin for any other use, it may 
 make its exit in lighting a tobacco pipe."^ 
 A gifted damsel indeed, who could write 
 thus at fourteen, with so much verve and 
 point. 
 
 To pass from her sluggish, humdrum 
 surroundings at Horton to the elegant, 
 high-bred society of her noble friend, the 
 ^ Letters^ i., 12, and Mrs Climenson, i., 12-3. 
 
IN HIGH LIFE 19 
 
 Duchess of Portland, was a delightful ^ 
 change. Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, 
 grand - daughter of the celebrated Lord 
 Treasurer Oxford, had been ^'in early 
 childhood the object of Swift's poetic 
 attention, and the subject of Prior's expiring 
 Muse."^ Born in February 1714, she was 
 Elizabeth's senior by six years, and had 
 married in 1734 William Bentinck, second 
 Duke of Portland. When still living at the 
 paternal estate of Wimpole in Cambridge- 
 shire, she had made the acquaintance of 
 Miss Robinson, then about eleven years of 
 age. The visits to Wimpole had been 
 followed by invitations to the Duchess's 
 London residence at Whitehall, and to her 
 country-seat at Bulstrode ^'near Gerrard's 
 Cross " in Buckinghamshire. There Eliza- 
 beth, sympathetically nicknamed *' Fidget," 
 found herself in a brilliant, cheerful, con- 
 genial circle. That ** melancholy monu- 
 ment of Dutch magnificence,"^ the house at 
 Bulstrode, and its park possessed unnumbered 
 charms in her eyes : **The rural beauties of 
 
 ^ Wraxall's Historical Memoirs^ ed. 1904, p. 95. 
 2 HOR. Walpole's Letters^ ed. P. Toynbee, 1903, iii., 
 317. 
 
20 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 the place," she writes in 1740, ^* would per- 
 suade me I was in the plains of Arcadia, 
 but . . . the building, under whose gilded 
 roof I dwell, has a pomp far beyond pastoral." 
 Great simplicity, however, prevailed in the 
 life of the Duchess, deeply attached to her 
 family: ** We breakfast at nine," Elizabeth 
 goes on, ^'dine at two, drink tea at eight and 
 sup at ten. In the morning, we work or read. 
 In the afternoon the same, walk from six till 
 tea-time, and then write till supper."^ But 
 the *Mittle jewels," ^^Lady Elizabeth, Lady 
 Harriot and the Marquis," would often come 
 in and insist on playing for ''half an hour" 
 with their mother and her friends ; then the 
 Duchess would say, ''Don't go. Penny," ^ or 
 "Fidget," as the case might be, "till I 
 have net one row in my cherry net," for this 
 noble lady, like the future Mrs Delany, 
 excelled at her needle and wheel. She was 
 an enthusiastic collector of natural curiosi- 
 ties, of "ores and minerals," ^ of fossils. 
 
 1 Mrs Climenson, i., 49. 
 
 2 I.e.^ Mrs Pendarves, then a widow, later Mrs Delany. 
 Cf. TJie Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary 
 Gra?iville, Mrs Dela?iy, ist series, 1861, ii., 21-2. 
 
 ' Ibid.., 2nd series, 1862, ii., 19. 
 
AT BULSTRODE 21 
 
 which ^*the ingenious philosopher, Mr 
 Lightfoot," gathered for her in the mines 
 of Cornwall, of plants and animals, which 
 she fostered with a love as tender as that 
 of Lady Hervey for her birds and roses. ^ 
 '*The beauty of Bulstrode in spite of the 
 weather is not to be described," Mrs Delany 
 remarked in 1776, *'no more than Her 
 Grace's transport at seeing one of the hares 
 suckle its three young ones in the court 
 before the drawing-room window ! Another 
 piece of extraordinary good fortune also 
 attended the Duchess this morning ; four 
 old nightingales with four young ones were 
 brought to-day in a cage, which she set at 
 liberty with her own fair hands." ^ In 1740, 
 we hear of '^ macaws, parrots and all sorts 
 of foreign birds flying in one of the woods " ; 
 in 1753, there is mentioned ^'the most extra- 
 ordinary bull ever seen," not so high as a 
 large dog, ^^as round as a ball, as tame as 
 a lamb," with ''a hump between his 
 shoulders, in camel fashion, much higher 
 than its head," which East Indian curiosity 
 
 ^ Letters of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey. London : 
 Murray, 1821, pp. 106 and 157 (at Ickworth, Suffolk). 
 ^ The Autobiography^ etc., 2nd series, ii., 224. 
 
22 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 was, by the Duchess's kind attention, soon 
 provided with ''a fair lady."^ So much for 
 the Bulstrode '^menagerie," renowned in its 
 time. The garden, doubtless, deserved equal 
 praise, such as Dr Young, ever assiduous 
 to please, bestowed on it in sentences 
 most exclamative : ' ' I beg leave to step 
 into your flower-garden of which you are 
 so fond. Why, truly, it is a most gorgeous 
 apartment of your paradise. What shapes ! 
 what colours ! what combinations of them ! 
 what varieties ! what inimitable patterns for 
 human art to copy after ! Even a Duchess's 
 fingers are far distanced by them. ^ Poor 
 Solomon ! what a beggarly appearance dost 
 thou make in all thy glory, compared with 
 these ! " ^ Nor was the flattered possessor 
 of such natural beauties indifferent to those 
 of literature and of the arts. There existed 
 at Bulstrode a '' brave gallery of old pictures " 
 noticed by Horace Walpole ; the Duchess 
 read all fashionable books, ''laughed at 
 fiction," and, notwithstanding Young's 
 
 1 The Autobiography^ ist series, 1861, ii., 241-2 and 293. 
 
 2 Did they suggest to Mrs Delany the idea of her 
 "Paper Flora"? 
 
 2 Historical MSS. Commission^ MSS. of the Marquis 
 of Bath^ i-) 318 (4th November 1750). 
 
<* FIDGET" AND HER FRIENDS 23 
 
 recommendation/ formed a poor opinion of 
 Pamela and even of Clarissa. The society 
 of a woman, so warm in her affections, so 
 many-sided in her pursuits, must have been 
 singularly delightful to her ^'Fidget" and 
 to the cherished friends with whom she 
 loved to surround herself: Mrs Pendarves, 
 ^'faultless in manners," ^'elegant in deport- 
 
 ^ Who thus announced to her in September 1748 
 the forthcoming last instalment of Clarissa : " . . . Mr 
 Richardson left me but on Saturday last. ... I know 
 Your Grace has no great esteem of this author ; therefore 
 in a letter to you I shall suppress my admiration of him, 
 and will only, instead of panegyrist, turn prophet, and 
 let Your Grace know that your great-grandchildren will 
 read, and not without tears, the sheets which are now 
 in the Press." (On the Duchess's unfavourable opinion 
 of Richardson's novels, cf. also The Diary of Madame 
 d'ARBLAY, ed. 1876, i., 520.) Some months later, on 
 29th January 1748 (O.S.), Young returned to the same 
 subject : " Has Your Grace read his Clarissa ? What a 
 beautiful brat of the brain is there ! I wish Your Grace 
 would stand godmother, and give it its name, Clarissa 
 the Divine. That romance will probably do more good 
 than a body of Divinity. . . . And yet. Madam, this 
 excellent offspring of the imagination was in danger of 
 having been stifled in its birth ; or, at least, of having 
 been made a changeling. I think Your Grace knows 
 Mr Littleton ; he, Mr Fielding, Gibber, etc., all of 
 them pressed the author very importunately to make 
 his story end happily ; but does not Your Grace think 
 it is infinitely better as it is. . . ." {MSS. of the Marquis 
 of Bath, i., 313). 
 
24 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ment," ^^the pattern of a fine lady of other 
 days,"^ Mrs Donnellan also, whose voice 
 sounded as sweet as Philomel's.^ Can we 
 now wonder, that Elizabeth preferred Bul- 
 strode to Horton? 
 
 The notice taken of her there gratified the 
 dearest wish of her heart, her desire, we do 
 not say to excel, but to shine. *^Of what 
 worth is remembrance without praise?" she 
 once wrote,^ thus giving a most luminous self- 
 revelation of her character and aims through 
 life. She formed one of those exceptions, 
 which Dr Young, in his Satires^ para- 
 doxically made the rule; the ^Move of 
 fame" was indeed her '^universal passion." 
 And her eager appetite was fed, never satiated, 
 by the early admiration of her parents and 
 friends. When informed of the servant's 
 negligence at Canterbury,* the Duchess of 
 Portland answered her correspondent, then 
 about fourteen, as follows; ^^I assure you I 
 
 * Burke on her, in the Diary of Madame d'ARBLAY, 
 ed. 1876, iii., 421. 
 
 2 On her singing in a "cover'd boat" on the Thames, 
 cf. The Autobiography of Mrs Delany^ ist series, 1861, 
 i., 276. 
 
 ' Letters^ ii., 17. 
 
 ^ Cf. above, p. 18. 
 
EARLY HOMAGE 25 
 
 am very angry at the fellow's not taking care 
 of your letter, for they always give me in- 
 finite pleasure, and I esteem it as a great 
 loss."^ The Duke himself flattered her in 
 a strain that might seem, but is not, ironical : 
 ** Your being got rid of your feaver," he tells 
 her in 1741, ^'gave us great joy, for we 
 began to be uneasy about Fidgett ; nobody 
 can see her without admiration, and when one 
 hears her open her lips, one is struck dumb." ^ 
 Even the great Dr Middleton, who had taught 
 her the art of conversation, complimented her 
 on her '* amiable qualities," her ** singular 
 merit and accomplishments."^ Needless to 
 add that she reigned like a young queen 
 over the family circle. Her eldest brother, 
 Matthew Robinson, a fierce misanthrope and 
 eater of raw meat in later days, astonishes 
 us by the gallant encomiums he lavishes on 
 her; ^^I should be ashamed after so long a 
 friendship with you," he writes from Bath 
 in 1 741, ''to be ignorant of any of your 
 talents, yet I do assure you there are some 
 of them that after so long an acquaintance 
 with them I have not yet done admiring." 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, i., 13. ^ Ibid.^ yj. 
 
 3 On her marriage. Cf. Letters, ii., 175. 
 
26 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 For in her retirement at Hayton Farm,^ she 
 has shown to the delighted Matthew that she 
 can find as much pleasure ^^in study and 
 in the contemplation of the ways of men or 
 works of Nature" as in the ''cheerful round 
 of mirth," for which her ''parts and spirits" 
 were "purposely contrived." "Bating the 
 tribe of your lovers," concludes this enthusiast, 
 "you cannot have a more hearty friend to 
 your person, or more assured admirer of your 
 merit and accomplishments."^ Elizabeth, 
 we have seen, was disposed to listen to the 
 advice of vanity, her strengthener, and to 
 reject the counsel of humility, her foe. She 
 could not, therefore, disbelieve the pleasant 
 testimonies of so many affectionate witnesses. 
 She must be a superior woman, since all her 
 acquaintances declared her to be so. She felt 
 quite ready to undertake the part that seemed 
 reserved for her. She would become some 
 day a power in Society. Observe with what 
 proud satisfaction she informs her parents, 
 in 1737, that the Duchess will this year 
 introduce her "to the best company in the 
 town," that, when her friend "lies in," "she 
 
 ^ Cf. above, p. 11. 
 
 2 Mrs Climenson, i., 78 (27th April 1741). 
 
AMBITION 27 
 
 will receive in form " all visitors ; how anxious 
 she is to have a '^handsome suit," as *'upon 
 this occasion of first appearing with my Lady 
 Duchess," she must be *^ in full dress." ^ How 
 delighted she is also, when at Canterbury in 
 1739, messages and visits pour in upon her 
 '^from prebends, deacons, and the rest of 
 the church militant here on earth ! " ^ This 
 homage, already paid to her youth in a little 
 county town, she will afterwards court and 
 taste in the more exalted circles of the 
 metropolis, when, brilliant with jewels, she 
 will receive ambassadors and princesses in 
 her "Palais Portman." Vanity, ambition, 
 the desire of making her real or assumcc 
 superiority felt ; such is the distinctive featur.^ 
 of her character. Young, who had seen 
 much of her at Bulstrode, at Tunbridge, at 
 Welwyn even, knew it well: "She has 
 often held me by the ear," he writes of her 
 in 1745, "till all about her were annihilated, 
 and, in a numerous assembly, there was 
 neither company nor person but herself. . . . 
 She has an excellent and uncommon capacity, 
 which ambition a little precipitates, and 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, i., 23. 
 ^ Letters^ i., 62. 
 
28 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 prejudice sometimes misleads, but time and 
 experience may make her a finished char- 
 acter, for I think her heart is scrund."^ 
 Time and experience, far from subduing, 
 could only increase her love of social 
 influence and splendour. 
 
 This ostentatiousness betrays itself too often 
 in her correspondence, and takes much from 
 its charm. She knew that her letters were 
 circulated, that if, for instance, she penned 
 a fine condemnatory paragraph on ^' Lord 
 Bolingbroke's pompous, rhetorical and in- 
 consistent Declamations," it would be com- 
 municated by Gilbert West to Dr Herring, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. In return, she 
 was highly pleased to hear that His Grace had 
 desired to have *'a copy," ^'promising that if 
 he showed it to anybody, he would cautiously 
 conceal the name of the author."^ Her 
 ^^ favourite friends. Lord Bath and Lord 
 Lyttelton " repeatedly urged her to allow the 
 *^ future publication " 2 of these compositions, 
 so that she must very soon have had an eye to 
 
 ^ To the Duchess of Portland, from Tunbridge Wells 
 {MSS. of the Marquis of Bath^ i., 289). 
 
 2 Mrs Climenson, ii., 63 (1754). Cf. Letters^ iii., 283-4. 
 '* Letters^ ii., 313. 
 
VERBOSITY 29 
 
 her readers to come. Her tone and style, 
 when not ironical, do not strike us as being 
 the pure, genuine language of the heart. 
 Even in her familiar letters, she too plainly 
 writes for effect, and the result, in spite of 
 their admiration, must have sadly tired the 
 patience of her contemporaries, as it does 
 that of the present age. With unerring skill, 
 she seizes on commonplaces, whose modicum 
 of thought she washes almost colourless 
 in a stream of words that, once let loose, 
 overflows her pages. Such critics as dislike 
 excessive conciseness, and recommend abund- 
 ance, exuberance of manner, may drink at her 
 spring ; she will give them their fill. Her 
 fluency no woman can exceed. The Duchess 
 of Portland's fondness for birds and poultry 
 occurring to her, she knows her cue and 
 expatiates on this theme. Of all fowl, she 
 loves a goose best; ** surely a goose is a 
 goodly bird ; if its hiss be insignificant, 
 remember that from its side the engine is 
 taken with which the laws are registered, and 
 history recorded ; though not a bird famous 
 for courage, from this same ample wing are 
 the heroes' exploits engraven on the pillar of 
 everlasting fame ; though not an animal of 
 
30 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 sagacity, yet does it lend its assistance to the 
 precepts of philosophy ; if not beautiful, yet 
 with its tender touch in the hands of some 
 inspired lover is Lesbia's blush, Sacharissa's 
 majesty, and Chloe's bloom made lasting, 
 so that its brood, a ' university of goslins,* 
 are the ' true worthies ' of the age : impartial 
 historians, unprejudiced philosophers, the 
 great promoters of learning,"^ and, though 
 so long, the enumeration remains incomplete. 
 She has a gift for pompous declamation. 
 Hers is the Asiatic kind among epistolary 
 styles. She aims at eloquence, in and out 
 of season. In the depth of winter, when all 
 Nature seems dead, she has retired to her 
 closet, reads Sully's Memoirs, and comments 
 upon them for the benefit of one of her 
 friends: **I am leading you," she begins, 
 **to the laurelled tombs of deceased heroes." ^ 
 As if she were Young's faithful disciple, 
 affectation is natural to her. She exercises 
 her rhetoric even about the weather: '^The 
 spring has been unusually tardy," says she in 
 June 1778, ^'and it is only within these few 
 days that we have even partaken of her 
 
 ^ Letters, iii., 14-5. 
 2 Ibid., 136. 
 
AFFECTATION 31 
 
 agreeable caprices of alternate sunshine and 
 showers. April, who used to be an agree- 
 able coquette, often gay and pleasing, but 
 inconstant, was this year a sullen, cold, 
 severe prude. May, instead of being a bloom- 
 ing beauty, was an ugly dirty dowdy. June 
 has hardly attained his fresh vigour, and will 
 have the puny air of a minor on Midsummer 
 Day, when summer used to be reckoned to 
 come of age. The mornings have been so 
 cold that the lark has been afraid to rise early, 
 and the evenings so chill that the nightingale 
 durst hardly sing to her friends and silence 
 and night for fear of catching a hoarseness." ^ 
 In her search after ornaments, such as com- 
 parisons and antitheses, she would have 
 invented Euphuism, had it been yet undis- 
 covered. She runs Falstaff hard in her 
 elegant imitations of Lyly. Money, she 
 thinks, is indispensable in marriage : *' What 
 is a woman without gold or fee simple?" says 
 she; ^'a toy while she is young, and a trifle 
 when she is old. Jewels of the first water are 
 good for nothing till they are set, but as for 
 us, who are no brilliants, we are nobody's 
 
 1 To the Duchess of Portland (from Sandleford), nth 
 June 1778 {MSS. of the Marquis of Bath^ i., 343-4). 
 
32 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 money till we have a foil, and are encom- 
 passed with the precious metal." ^ The richer 
 we are, the more safely we pass through 
 life. ^'The lofty cedar is only shook by the 
 storms of heaven ; the ivy is trod by every 
 passenger." ^ Close by this ^^ ivy " grows the 
 famous ^^ camomile." 
 
 Now and then, she becomes aware of her 
 prolixity, and acknowledges that she ^*can 
 spin a thread so long it seems neither to 
 have end nor beginning, which serves to 
 give her gentle correspondents an idea of 
 eternity."^ But, though she confesses her 
 own fault, she will not or cannot correct it. 
 In those leisurely days, perhaps, politeness 
 and amiability in epistolary intercourse were 
 measured by the number and denseness 
 of the sheets ; as the cost of postage was 
 high, unless a frank could be obtained, as 
 the expense was not the sender's, but the 
 recipient's, the latter might think himself 
 defrauded if he did not receive full weight 
 for his money. So, Elizabeth wrote on, in 
 order to please, and she did please. If news 
 ran short, she could launch into moralisings 
 
 ^ Letters, i., 88. ^ Ibid., ii., 9. 
 
 ' Ibid., 137. 
 
RHETORIC AND COMMONPLACES 33 
 
 on all kinds of subjects. On ist January 
 1742, she sends her New Year's greetings to 
 her **dear Donnellan " ; what a fit oppor- 
 tunity this affords for descanting on the use 
 and abuse of time ! '^ In our youth," remarks 
 this grave young lady, ^^we defer being 
 prudent till we are old, and look forward 
 to a promise of wisdom as the portion of 
 latter years ; when we are old, we seek not 
 to improve, and scarce employ ourselves."^ 
 What does she know about it at twenty-one, 
 we may ask? But the age was addicted to 
 superficial philosophising, and she obeys the 
 impulse of her time. She had read or heard 
 about the Deistic controversy ; she had 
 gathered that thinkers of this school, vaguely 
 pantheistic in their tendencies, found God 
 in Nature, and, on one fine summer night, 
 she follows the same train of thought: ^^For 
 some time after sunset, the hemisphere 
 glowed with purple light, then faded to a 
 silver grey. . . . When the night began * to 
 hang out her golden lamps,' with great 
 attention I watched the rising of every star 
 till the whole heaven glowed with living 
 sapphires, then I chose to consider them no 
 
 1 Letters^ ii., 89-90. 
 
 C 
 
34 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 longer separately as glowing gems, but lost 
 myself in worlds beyond worlds, and system 
 beyond system ; till my mind rose to the 
 great Maker of them all, who has not only 
 given the stupendous laws by which all these 
 vast bodies move, but with the same precision 
 has appointed the modes and term of existence 
 of the smallest animal that inhabits them."^ 
 Most characteristic of a period that considered 
 ^^man" as the ^^ proper study of mankind" 
 is the passage from the contemplation of a 
 natural scene to the moral teaching it conveys 
 or to the analogies it suggests with life and 
 experience. During an excursion in York- 
 shire, Mrs Montagu reaches the rocky banks 
 of the Wharf and describes the river in a 
 few words: ^^The stream is as clear as the 
 finest crystal, and, where it runs on the 
 pebbles, dimples and whispers, but when it 
 meets with rocks, it foams and roars and 
 dashes and froths with wonderful impetu- 
 osity." She has been, as it were, surprised 
 by this picturesque landscape. But she does 
 not long remain absorbed in it. Even as 
 she stands by the brink of the torrent, its 
 reality seems to fade, and her thoughts return 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 265-6. 
 
LEARNING 35 
 
 to their accustomed course. Such, she goes 
 on, the human mind appears, ** which, in 
 the smooth and even scene of life, is gentle 
 in its looks and tones, but, meeting great 
 impediments, frets, storms and threatens, 
 and we ask ourselves whether it is of the 
 same element."^ 
 
 The unpleasant effect produced by such 
 harangues about commonplaces is still in- 
 creased by occasional parades of erudition. 
 Even in youth. Miss Robinson grievously 
 suffered from what she calls ^ ' the female 
 frailty of displaying more learning than is 
 necessary or graceful. "^ She wore blue 
 stockings from childhood to old age. She 
 too evidently remained Dr Middleton's 
 favourite pupil. Let us admit at once that 
 she was no mere pretender, that for an 
 eighteenth century woman, her reading is 
 of a most extensive range. Greek she was 
 ignorant of, but she could understand Latin, 
 though she sometimes denied it. ^ Her 
 knowledge of living languages she willingly 
 
 ^ Letters^ i v., 305-6. 
 '^ Ibid.^ iii., 134. 
 
 3 Cf. Letters^ iv., 120 (to Dr Monsey) ; and ibid.^ 346 (to 
 Mrs Carter). 
 
36 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 confessed; she spoke bad ^* French,"^ but 
 read it fluently ; she quoted Moliere at 
 fourteen ; ^ Longinus was known to her in 
 Boileau's translation, and Horace in Dacier's ; 
 Thucydides she had perused in French and 
 Italian versions ; ^ she even thought of learn- 
 ing Spanish, but does not seem to have 
 accomplished her purpose. Above all, she 
 carefully kept pace with the literary activity 
 of the time. Books of criticism and of 
 divinity she would discuss, when asked for 
 her opinion on them. * Novels, as too light 
 food, she perhaps disdained ; but she was 
 well acquainted with English poetry, and her 
 frequent allusions to Shakespearian passages 
 and phrases testify to her familiarity with the 
 works of the great dramatist. These attain- 
 ments, extraordinary in her days, entitle her 
 to our esteem, and won for her the respect of 
 most of her contemporaries. Unfortunately, 
 the irresistible impulse of vanity makes her 
 too ready to show them. There was at 
 Hayton Farm a strange weathercock or 
 ''fane," the old-fashioned structure of which 
 had diverted her ; the mention of its anti- 
 
 1 Letters^ iii., 193. ^ Mrs Climenson, i., 16. 
 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 346. * Ibid.^ ii., 122, seq. 
 
TOO WISE 37 
 
 quity in a letter to the Duchess of Portland 
 serves as a peg to hang a sketch of English 
 history upon, from the invasion of the Danes 
 to the landing of "our glorious William."^ 
 Thomas Lyttelton, the son of her friend, 
 having left Eton for Oxford, she writes to 
 him a letter of advice, at his father's request, 
 and recommends the study of the Ancients, 
 with more emphasis than conviction, perhaps : 
 "As you have got a key to the sacred shades 
 of Parnassus, do not lose your time in 
 sauntering in the homely orchards or diminu- 
 tive pleasure gardens of the latter times. If 
 the ancient inhabitants of Parnassus were to 
 look down from their immortal bowers on our 
 labyrinths, whose greatest boast is a fanciful 
 intricacy, our narrow paths, where genius 
 cannot take his bounding step, and all the 
 pert ornaments in our parterres of wit, they 
 would call them the moderns' folly. ... I 
 should be sorry to see you quit Thucydides 
 for Voltaire, Livy for Vertot, Xenophon for the 
 bragging Memoirs of French Marshals, and 
 universal Tully, and deep Tacitus, for specula- 
 tive politicians, modern orators, and the 
 dreamers in universities or convents."^ Shall 
 ^ Letters^ i., 143. ^ Ibia.^ iv., 87-8. 
 
38 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 we be surprised after this, if unkind sceptics, 
 irritated by so much ostentation in manner 
 and in style, thought of her as did Mr Crisp, 
 Fanny Burney's literary adviser: ''I believe 
 I have told you," he wrote in 1780, ''of 
 several letters the Duchess of Portland 
 showed me of hers formerly (for I had no 
 acquaintance with herself) so full of affectation, 
 refinement, attempts to philosophise, talking 
 metaphysics — in all which particulars she so 
 bewildered and puzzled herself and her 
 readers, and showed herself so superficial — 
 nay, really ignorant on the subjects she 
 paraded on — that, in my own private mind's 
 pocket-book, I set her down for a vain, empty, 
 conceited pretender and little else."^ The 
 sentence is severe, and, to some extent, 
 hostile. But, for all that, it proves " Daddy" 
 Crisp's sagacity as a critic. In what he 
 condemns, he is right ; he is wrong only 
 in what he forgets. ''Fidget" had qualities 
 which even her vanity and ostentatiousness 
 could not mar. 
 
 ^ The Diary a7id Letters of Madame d'AR blay, ed. 1 876, 
 i-, 232-3. 
 
SELF-POSSESSION 39 
 
 III 
 
 What made her a remarkable woman was, 
 that to the mercurial vivacity of a nervous 
 temper she united calmness of deliberation 
 and strength of will. Though she relished 
 the pleasures that gratified vanity gives, 
 she never bought them too dear. Prudence 
 was her constant rule of conduct.^ She 
 blamed Voltaire's Amenaide in Tancred for 
 not following '^Virtue as by law established," 
 for despising forms and following ''Sentiment, 
 a dangerous guide." ^ Happiness and in- 
 fluence being her aims in life, she adapted 
 means to end with the self-command of an 
 accomplished gamester. She kept so strict a 
 watch on her heart that passion never invaded 
 it. Her judgment, unruffled, shaped her 
 course through the world: "There is no 
 end of the bad consequences of an improper 
 marriage," she wrote at fifty-eight.,^ She had 
 been most careful to avoid them. At eighteen, 
 she described the ideal husband she could be 
 
 1 Cf. Letters, i., 123, and Middleton's praise, ibzd.^ ii., 176. 
 
 2 Mrs Climenson, ii., 234. 
 
 3 DoRAN's A Lady of the Last Century^ 1873, P- 228. 
 
40 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 disposed to favour : ** He should have a great 
 deal of sense and prudence to direct me and 
 instruct me, much wit to divert me, beauty 
 to please me, good humour to indulge me in 
 the right, and reprove me gently when I am 
 in the wrong ; money enough to afford me 
 more than I can want, and as much as I 
 can wish " ^ — all perfections in short ; observe, 
 however, that mutual fondness is not men- 
 tioned. Riches and wisdom conjoined, such 
 are the essential requisites ; to these she will 
 yield her hand — and her heart into the 
 bargain. '' If I am to be bound to a vessel," 
 she declared at twenty-one, *'I wish it 
 may be a first rate. . . . Gold is the chief 
 ingredient in the composition of worldly 
 happiness. Living in a cottage on love is 
 certainly the worst diet and the worst habi- 
 tation one can find out. . . . For my part, 
 when I marry, I do not intend to enlist 
 entirely under the banners of Cupid or 
 Plutus, but take prudent consideration and 
 decent inclination for my advisers."^ We 
 may be sure that this ''inclination" will be 
 ** decent" indeed, and nowise extravagant. 
 
 ^ Letters^ i., 38-9. 
 2 Ibid., 82-3. 
 
COLDNESS 41 
 
 Was ever human creature better adapted 
 to her environment, to the cold, logical, 
 matter-of-fact age she flourished in? And 
 is it strange that more ardent natures should 
 have been chilled, almost repelled by her 
 frigid self-possession? She is ^'an ignora- 
 mus in love," Mrs Chapone once jokingly 
 said,^ and Mrs Montagu herself confessed 
 the truth of the saying.^ '^As we have 
 often agreed," Miss Burney wrote to Mrs 
 Thrale in 1781, ^'Mrs Montagu is a char- 
 acter rather to respect than love, for she has 
 not that do7i d'aimer by which alone love 
 can be made fond or faithful,"^ that sweet, 
 kindly longing after sympathy, irrepressible 
 in Mrs Thrale — Mrs Montagu's opposite at 
 all points. 
 
 An incident that happened in her old age 
 curiously illustrates her unsentimental temper. 
 About 1773, at the death of her friend Dr John 
 Gregory, Professor of Physic in the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, she had taken as a 
 companion his daughter Dorothea, whom 
 
 1 The Works of Mrs Chapone, ed. 1807, i., 180 (Mrs 
 Chapone to Mrs Carter, November 1782). 
 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 351, to Mrs Carter (1761) : "... you and 
 I, who have never been in love ..." 
 
 The Diary and Letters ^Madame d'ARBLAY, i., 326. 
 
42 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Miss Burney has portrayed as a " frank, open, 
 shrewd and sensible" nature, speaking '^her 
 opinion both of matters and things with a 
 plumpness of honesty and readiness that 
 both pleases and diverts."^ This hearty 
 sincere Scotchwoman must have found her 
 duties somewhat strange and irksome in 
 the splendid London residence of her pro- 
 tectress, for she seized the first opportunity 
 that presented itself of regaining her liberty. 
 Sometime in October 1782, she "went to 
 Edinburgh to visit her brother, who was 
 then newly married." She had "promised 
 to return about the meeting of Parliament," 
 but, instead of keeping her word, "she made 
 various excuses," Mrs Montagu says, in a 
 circumstantial account ^ from which we shall 
 largely quote : "And on the 6th of January, 
 she wrote me a long letter to tell me all 
 her future happiness depended on my giving 
 my consent to her marrying a Mr Alison, 
 who had not a shilling fortune, nor any 
 preferment but a curacy at Durham." The 
 much beloved and much despised " Mr 
 Alison " was no other than the future author 
 
 ^ The Diary and Letters of Madame d'ARBLAY, i., 240. 
 2 MSS. of the Marquis of Bath ^ i,, 353-5. 
 
MISS GREGORY 43 
 
 of the Essay on the Nature and the Principles 
 of Taste ^ and the father of the historian. 
 Obviously, Miss Gregory's choice was justified 
 by the event. But Mrs Montagu, actuated 
 by prudential considerations, perhaps also by 
 selfish motives, refused to comply with such 
 a request. Her answer to the truant was 
 peremptory: ''I told her that, though I had 
 always had for her the tenderness of a mother, 
 yet I could not pretend to parental authority, 
 therefore my consent to her marriage was not 
 necessary, but my approbation or countenance 
 to such a marriage I never could give, my 
 respect for the memory of her father, my duty 
 to my own nephews and nieces, and to the 
 world in general, forbade my giving my 
 countenance to imprudent hasty engage- 
 ments, ever heart-wounding to parents and 
 friends, and too often unfortunate to the 
 young persons who made them." This 
 severe, haughty reproof was a shock to 
 Dorothea, who, on receiving it, ^'fell into fits 
 as young ladies often do when they cannot 
 obtain consent to an improper marriage." 
 As her dear Mr Alison, however, had not 
 yet obtained the small living of *'^ioo a 
 year" judged indispensable to settle upon, 
 
44 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 she agreed to return till he had **such prefer- 
 ment." **I would behave to her," Mrs 
 Montagu went on, ^^with my usual kindness, 
 but she must never speak to me " on the 
 subject. ''This condition was kept on both 
 sides, and I also insisted she should neither 
 see Mr Alison nor correspond with him; all 
 which she promised, and, I believe, faithfully 
 observed. But one day this spring," in 1784, 
 '*she told me she found she could not live 
 without corresponding with Mr Alison and 
 seeing him sometimes ; upon which I set forth 
 to her the imprudence of her engagement, 
 on which she fell into hysterics, then fainting 
 fits, and lay as it were dead for some minutes. 
 I saw then she would marry immediately if 
 I did not allow her to see him a few times, 
 as he was then in London, and by this 
 compliance I should retard her indiscreet 
 marriage ; so I consented." But Dorothea, 
 far from being satisfied with this scanty in- 
 dulgence, went to Edinburgh, made interest 
 with a friend who procured Mr Alison a 
 living of ;^i50 a year : it was one third more 
 than the minimum she was ready to accept ; 
 therefore the wedding could no longer be 
 delayed. Mrs Montagu's consent was again 
 
NO '*DON D^ARMER^' 45 
 
 applied for, and refused. Dorothea then 
 '^determined to quit all connection with 
 her," and to marry. Mrs Montagu doubt- 
 less felt indignant at this rejection of her 
 advice : '^ I should with great joy have given 
 very solid proofs of my approbation to any 
 man of character and decent circumstances, 
 for happiness does not attend on wealth, 
 but misery dogs poverty at the heels." She 
 could hardly understand Dorothea's violence 
 and obstinacy, so foreign to the soberness of 
 her own nature: ''Miss Gregory's behaviour," 
 she says in her painful surprise, " had been so 
 gentle, amiable and discreet, and with such 
 appearance of affection, and attachment to me, 
 that to see her sacrifice all prudent considera- 
 tions of every kind, and all friendly con- 
 nection with me, to a man she had not known 
 ten weeks has been a great affliction." Her 
 cold reason could not explain or measure the 
 irresistible force of such passion. It must have 
 seemed to her grossly instinctive, repugnant to 
 the pure intellectual refinement alone worthy 
 of a cultivated mind. 
 
 In her own case, she had forgotten neither 
 circumspection nor dignity. Resolved to give 
 her hand and heart only to a man of character 
 
46 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 and fortune **so established that one piece of 
 generosity should not hurt his fortune, nor one 
 act of indiscretion prejudice his character,"^ 
 she had, in 1742,^ fixed her choice on Mr 
 Edward Montagu, a mathematician and 
 Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, 
 twenty - nine years her senior, and highly 
 respected as the grandson of the '^ great 
 Earl of Sandwich,"^ as the possessor of 
 valuable estates at Rokeby, at Allerthorpe in 
 Yorkshire, and as the owner of a house in 
 Dover Street, London. He had brought 
 wealth to her, and she had cheered his 
 existence by her conversation and constant 
 good humour. On their union of the liveli- 
 ness of youth and of the seriousness of age, 
 they seem to have always congratulated them- 
 selves. He felt affection for her, and she 
 gratitude for him. ^'I have the honour and 
 happiness," she wrote in her grandiloquent 
 style a few months after her marriage, **to 
 be made the guest of a heart furnished with 
 the best and greatest virtues, honesty, and 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, i., no. 
 
 ^ The wedding took place on the 5th of August. 
 
 =* "Lord High Admiral of the Fleet to Charles il. 
 
 (Mrs Climenson, i., in). 
 
MARRIED LIFE 47 
 
 integrity, and universal benevolence, with 
 the most engaging affection to every one 
 who particularly belongs to him ; no desire 
 of power but to do good, no use of it but 
 to make happy. . . . Since I married, I have 
 never heard him say an ill-natured word to 
 any one, nor have I received one matrimonial 
 frown." ^ In her letters to him, she ever 
 subscribed herself ''your most grateful wife." 
 When her little boy was born, she had even 
 intended to wrap herself up in her domestic 
 felicity and to sacrifice her intellectual pursuits, 
 the delight of earlier years, to the ''pleasure 
 of living with those " she loved and esteemed. 
 "For amusement," she exclaimed in her 
 maternal fondness, "no puppet-show is like 
 the pleasant humours of my own Punch." 2 
 Alas! poor "Punch" died in infancy, to 
 her great grief and Mr Montagu's. We agree 
 with Mrs Climenson^ in thinking "that this 
 poignant and irreparable loss turned Elizabeth 
 Montagu's thoughts more strongly to literature 
 and knowledge of all kind." In Dover Street, 
 and, after June 1747, in Hill Street, she began 
 to form the social circle which was gradually 
 
 ^ Letters^ ii., 229-30. "^ Ibid.^ 292. 
 
 ' Vol. i., 192. 
 
48 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 to extend for more than thirty years. In her 
 country residences, at Allerthorpe in the North, 
 and at Sandleford near Newbury in Berkshire, 
 she found the repose necessary to her con- 
 stitution, overstrained by the fatigues of the 
 London winter season. She disHked the 
 country, Yorkshire especially, as much as 
 ever. *^The good folks" that visited her 
 **poor tabernacle" there, she described as 
 ^* drunken and vicious, and, worse than 
 hypocrites, profligates." ^' Most of the ladies 
 in the neighbourhood," she went on, ^*have 
 more hogs in their dining-room than ever 
 they had in their hog-st)^"^ Sandleford, 
 however, became at length a favourite place 
 with her. It was an old ^^ priory," which 
 Mr Montagu had leased in 1730 from the 
 Chapter of Windsor. ^'The situation is on 
 an eminence," wrote the poet and philosopher 
 Beattie in 1784, '^with a gentle slope of a 
 quarter of a mile towards the south ; and, 
 from every part of the lawn, there is a beautiful 
 prospect, first of a romantic village called New- 
 town, and, beyond that, of the Hampshire 
 hills, some of which are tufted with wood, 
 and others bare, and green, and smooth to 
 ^ Letters^ ii., 231-2, 
 
AT SANDLEFORD 49 
 
 the top."^ A little rivulet, the Enborne, or a 
 branch of it, wandered '* unheard and unseen 
 through a venerable grove of oaks," but was 
 afterwards ^'collected into two large and 
 beautiful pieces of water, round which the 
 walks and grounds were laid out to very- 
 great advantage indeed." ''At a distance of 
 about thirty yards from the house, stood" 
 an old chapel, ''which for a century past 
 or more, had been neglected or used as a 
 place for lumber. This, Mrs Montagu," 
 in her later days, "transformed into a very 
 magnificent room, and joined to the main 
 body of the house by a colonnade ; which, 
 expanding in the middle, and rising to the 
 height of thirty feet at least, formed a noble 
 drawing-room of an elliptical shape. When 
 the doors of these rooms were thrown open, 
 the walk, from end to end, was upwards of 
 an hundred feet, and the height and breadth 
 proportionable." In this "sylvan palace," 
 under the "arched roofs" of her "twilight 
 groves," Mrs Montagu spent many summers 
 in her married life and widowhood.^ Some- 
 
 •^ A?i Account of the Lif& and Writings of James 
 Seattle^ LL.D.^ by Sir William Forbes, 1807, ii., 341-2. 
 ^ Her husband died in May 1775. 
 
 D 
 
50 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 times, the care of her health drove her to 
 the waters of Tunbridge, Sunning Hill, or 
 Bath, when the rheumatism or the ''cramp 
 in the stomach " grew painful ; but, more 
 frequently, she fled from the dust of Dover 
 Street, Hill Street, or Portman Square, 
 to Sandleford which, through Maidenhead, 
 Reading, and Newbury, she could reach 
 in one day. There she took her peaceful 
 ''airings," quietly drank her tea, and then 
 retired to "her dressing-room for two or 
 three hours " with her cherished companions, 
 her books ; or, on fine afternoons, her desk 
 and she were placed "under the shade of 
 some noble elms, which partly excluded the 
 garish eye of day,"^ whilst her pen or 
 "grey goose-quill" ran apace on the sheets 
 destined to her correspondents and to 
 posterity. 
 
 Her social influence was chiefly founded on 
 her wealth, which she helped her husband in 
 administering, and, after his death, adminis- 
 tered herself with the most vigilant care. 
 Her prudent economy and practical sense 
 made her a notable housekeeper. We hear 
 
 ^ On Sandleford, cf. Letters^ ii., 262-3 ; ^"^^ iii-> 183, 
 256. 
 
AT DENTON 51 
 
 of her at Sandleford as being ''deep in 
 accounts" and ''travelling from tubs of 
 soap to firkins of butter, and from thence 
 to chaldrons of coal."^ In June 1758, the 
 decease of John Rogers, a first cousin 2 of 
 Mr Montagu's, brought her "a large acces- 
 sion of fortune," together with "the usual 
 accompaniment of riches : a great deal of 
 business, a great deal of hurry, and a great 
 many ceremonious engagements." She en- 
 joyed her importance as an agriculturist and 
 owner of coal-mines. She patronised her 
 farmers and "pitmen" with stately con- 
 descension. If they did not love, they 
 certainly admired, their grand lady. In 
 July 1775, two months after Mr Montagu's 
 death, she went on a progress through her 
 domains, from Darlington to Newcastle and 
 "Denton Hall," "an old Gothic mansion," 
 whose windows, built before the union with 
 Scotland, were fitter "to exclude arrows 
 and missive weapons" than "to admit the 
 rays of the sun."^ "On the 3rd of July," 
 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 42. 
 
 2 By his mother, Sarah Rogers. Cf. Mrs Climenson, 
 i., Ill ; ii., 128-9— and Letters, iv., 74. 
 
 ^ MSS. of the Marquis of Bath, i., 349. Elizabeth 
 Montagu to the Duchess of Portland. 
 
52 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 she writes,^ *' I got as far as my estate 
 at Burniston," near Darlington. ''Exactly 
 opposite to some of my land, there is a 
 tolerable inn. I eat a hasty dinner, and, 
 taking my steward with me, went over 
 many of the farms, and sent invitations to 
 my tenants to dine with me the next day." 
 In this reiteration of the possessive, we read 
 the joy and pride of the possessor. The 
 next day, therefore, attended by her steward, 
 she dined, surrounded by her farmers' wives 
 and ''young lasses." Farther north, the 
 scene changed ; instead of green fields, she 
 found "a brown crust, with here and there 
 a black hole of a coal-pit." Of her own 
 Denton, she said: "It has mightily the air 
 of an ant-hill ; a vast many black animals 
 for ever busy. Near fourscore families are 
 employed on my concerns here. Boys work 
 in the colliery from seven years of age." 
 But, as "the good souls, men and women," 
 were very apt to get drunk, and then "to 
 sing and dance and hollow and whoop," 
 she dared not treat them like her Burniston 
 people; she contented herself "with killing 
 
 ^ D GRAN'S A Lady of the Last Century, pp. 196, 
 199-200. 
 
PRACTICAL SENSE 53 
 
 a fat beast once a week, and sending to 
 each family, once, a piece of meat." A 
 most generous and ''kind landlady" indeed ! 
 But the ''pitmen" were pleased with what 
 she deigned to give: "some apparel" for 
 their unclothed children, some "cheap rice, 
 skimmed milk and coarse beef" as a regale 
 for the poor hungry little things. The fathers, 
 to her "great comfort," were heard to sing 
 at the bottom of the pit. And she, at 
 Sandleford or London, erected "palaces" 
 with the produce of their toil. 
 
 To her prudence in the conduct of life 
 corresponded her extreme moderation in 
 things political. A Conformist by nature 
 and education, she kept to the beaten track, 
 and shrank from all innovation. " If I had 
 a son," she declared, "I should desire him 
 never to wander single in quest of adventures. 
 Virtue, wisdom, honours, prosperity, happi- 
 ness, are all to be found on the turnpike- 
 road, or not to be found at all."^ Though 
 she could admire William Pitt's daring, 
 she had formed a "little Englander's" ideal, 
 before the phrase was known. The true 
 patriot she conceived to be the guardian of 
 
 ^ DORAN, p. 187. 
 
54 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 his country's safety, ''a far better citizen 
 than the ambitious man, who enlarges its 
 dominions."^ She took a merchant's delight 
 in the fair sights and fruits of peace : '^ I got 
 a very pleasant walk on the sea-shore," she 
 wrote from Sunderland in 1758; ''several 
 ships were sailing out of the harbour, fraught 
 only with the comforts and conveniences of 
 life ; they carry out coals and salt, and bring 
 home money. I question whether those who 
 carry out death and bring home glory, are 
 concerned in so good merchandise. . . ."^ 
 A true child of her time, she distrusted 
 enthusiasm, in whatever shape. Lady Hunt- 
 ingdon, the founder of the famous Calvinistic 
 ''connection," she deemed a fanatic, who 
 made herself "ridiculous to the profane, 
 and dangerous to the good."^ Fox's zeal 
 for liberty was, in her eyes, part of his 
 general looseness,^ and, though she had 
 originally shared the mild Whig opinions 
 of her husband and of the Portlands, she 
 at last sided with Pitt against Fox, v/ith 
 
 1 Letters^ i., 216 (1741). 
 
 2 Ibid.^ iv., 99. 
 -' Ibid., 18. 
 
 * DORAN, p. 346, in December 1788, about the Regency 
 Bill. 
 
A CONFORMIST 55 
 
 Hastings against Burke, with Burke against 
 the French Revolution. Her admiration of 
 the latter's virulent Reflections stands on 
 record in Madame d'Arblay's pages: ^'It 
 is a tribute to its excellence," says the 
 Diarist, ** which reflects high honour on 
 Mrs Montagu's candour, as she was one of 
 those the most vehemently irritated against 
 its author but a short time since." ^ Indeed, 
 so self-possessed a person could not be ex- 
 pected to approve the Revolutionists, these 
 frenzied levellers ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Such having been Mrs Montagu's character 
 in youth and age, we now proceed to show by 
 what insensible steps she was led to author- 
 ship. For her introduction into the world of 
 letters she was indebted, as we shall see, to 
 two or three of her most intimate friends. 
 
 On the 3rd of May 1758, she wrote to her 
 sister, Sarah Scott: ''Miss Carter is to dine 
 with me to-morrow ; she is a most amiable, 
 
 1 Diary and Letters^ iii., 302 (23rd November 1790). 
 
56 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 modest, gentle creature, not herissee de greCy 
 nor blown up with self-opinion."^ The lady 
 thus mentioned for the first time in the Corre- 
 spondence was no other than the anonymous 
 contributor to the Gentleman^ s Magazine and 
 to the Rambler^ the writer of the celebrated 
 Ode to Wisdom^ which Richardson had in- 
 serted in his Clarissa^ the learned translator 
 and commentator of Epictetus, whose scholarly 
 work and Christian preface had appeared in 
 the preceding April, revised and approved by 
 Dr Seeker, Bishop of Oxford. Three years 
 older than Mrs Montagu, she had long passed 
 her prime. She was the daughter of the 
 Perpetual Curate of Deal in Kent, where 
 she lived surrounded by her father's numerous 
 family. In spite of her household cares and 
 of her natural slowness, she had contrived to 
 become a prodigy of learning. At a time 
 when a knowledge of Latin and Greek was 
 a remarkable achievement in a woman, she 
 had added to these German, French, Italian, 
 Spanish, Portuguese, even Hebrew and 
 Arabic.^ But she had bought such distinc- 
 
 1 Letter Sy iv., ii. 
 
 2 Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter.^ by the 
 Rev. Montagu Pennington, i8o8, i., 12-16. 
 
MISS CARTER 57 
 
 tion at the cost of her health. In her desire 
 to overcome what she thought her indolence, 
 she used to rise between four and five in 
 the morning, at the bidding of a bell 
 rung by the sexton, and this ruthless treat- 
 ment had caused headaches which tormented 
 her through life. Her strength of will 
 and elevation of purpose were reflected in 
 her demeanour: ''Really a noble-looking 
 woman," Miss Burney exclaimed on seeing 
 her at Bath in 1780, "I never saw age so 
 graceful in the female sex yet ; her whole 
 face seems to beam with goodness, piety, 
 and philanthropy."^ Indeed, the qualities 
 of the heart were in her superior to those 
 of the head ; in her friendship with Mrs 
 Montagu, she brought a richness of feeling, 
 a depth of sympathy which the latter was 
 deficient in. The stability of her faith, un- 
 shaken by doubt, gave to her thought and 
 temper a cheerful, optimistic tone, which 
 supported her in sickness or trouble, and 
 enabled her to look undismayed on the 
 prospect of the grave : '' How terrible," she 
 said, ''to close one's eyes upon the flowery 
 earth and radiant sun, and sink into a cold, 
 ^ Diary and Letters^ i., 269. 
 
58 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 dark, eternal night ! . . . From all this 
 dreadful extinction, God be thanked, we are 
 graciously secured."^ Though so pious that 
 Mr Montagu disliked her conversation as too 
 serious,^ she was no prude ; she could enjoy 
 the ''surprising variety of nature, wit, morality 
 and good sense" to be met with in Joseph 
 Andrews^ the ''spirit of benevolence" that 
 "runs through the whole" and "renders 
 it peculiarly charming." Tom Jones she 
 acknowledged to be an imperfect character, 
 for all his "honesty, good-nature and gener- 
 osity " ; nobody could admire Clarissa more 
 than she ; but " I am afraid," she went on, 
 "that Fielding's book is the most natural 
 representation of what passes in the world. "^ 
 Its broad humanity, clear laughter, healthy 
 enjoyment of this pleasant earth went to her 
 heart. Loving the world for the sake of its 
 Maker, she tasted with an epicure's relish all 
 the innocent little pleasures within her reach. 
 "Que je vous plains de n'etre pas folle de la 
 musique ! " she once wrote to her friend 
 
 ^ Memoirs of Mrs Carter^ i., 416-7 
 2 Mrs Climenson, ii., 246. 
 
 2 Cf. Mrs Carter's Letters to Miss Talbot, ed, 18 19, 
 i., 19, 261-2. 
 
MISS CARTER 59 
 
 Miss Talbot.^ **I seldom hear an agreeable 
 air but it recalls to my mind almost every 
 pleasing occurrence of my life." Her un- 
 feigned admiration of the beauties of Nature 
 speaks a poetic soul in her better than does 
 her moral verse. Whether furious or calm, 
 the sea is a source of delight to her. She 
 observes it from her window ^' every hour 
 in the day ; and every hour it wears some 
 new appearance, if it be only from the 
 various colourings it receives from the shift- 
 ing clouds. At this moment, it is displaying 
 all the grandeur of a storm ; and the waves 
 of the Goodwin Sands which terminate our 
 prospect are dashing against the clouds." ^ 
 On fine evenings, she would sit on the 
 shore, ^'soothed by the murmurs of the 
 ebbing tide and the glimmerings of moon- 
 light on the waves. "^ Her frequent head- 
 aches made her an indefatigable walker ; on 
 her return from London, where she generally 
 spent the winter, she sometimes left the coach 
 at Canterbury, sixteen miles from Deal, and 
 
 ^ Cf. Mrs Carter's Letters to Miss Talbot, ed. 1819 
 i., 136-7. 
 
 ^ Letters from Mrs Carter to Mrs MontagUy 1817, 
 iii., 24 (1777). 
 
 ^ Ibid.y 35. 
 
6o CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 finished her journey on foot, wandering ^*over 
 hill and dale without control," sitting down 
 ^*to rest on a bank embroidered by violets 
 and primroses,"^ or beholding with sudden 
 rapture the unexpected splendour of a ^^ honey- 
 suckle," ^ singled out by the sun-beams from 
 amidst the deep verdure of a ^' shady lane." 
 This kindly feeling, this power of loving 
 lovable men and things made her at once 
 different from, and indispensable to, Mrs 
 Montagu, who, moreover, respected, and 
 perhaps envied her for her literary fame. 
 
 A still more illustrious personage joined 
 the two friends at Tunbridge in 1761, and 
 formed an intimacy with them for the short 
 remainder of his life. This was Lord Bath,^ 
 better known as William Pulteney,* the 
 
 ^ Letters from Mrs Carter to Mrs Montagu^ 181 7, ii., 
 303 (May 1775)- 
 
 ^ Ibid.^ i., 117 (September 1761). 
 
 8 Mrs Montagu had made his acquaintance so early 
 as 1753 (Mrs Climenson, ii., 29), and renewed it at 
 Tunbridge and London in August and December 1760. 
 
 •* On his character, see Chesterfield's "Mr Pulteney" 
 {The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope^ ed. Bradshaw, 
 1893, iii., 141 5-6); Lady Hervey's Letters^ ed. 1821, pp. 
 22-4, 306 ; Memoirs of Mrs Elizabeth Carter^ ed. 1808, i., 
 239-41 ; Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice's Shelbume, 1875, 
 i., 45 ; and Wm. E. H. Lecky, A History of England^ ed. 
 1891, i., 374-5. 
 
LORD BATH 6i 
 
 former colleague, whom resentment had 
 made the bitter adversary, of Sir Robert 
 Walpole, once a leader among politicians 
 and wits, but long since ^^ shrunk into insig- 
 nificancy and an Earldom.'* A master of 
 ''sharp, cutting" sarcasm, ''an elegant 
 scholar," he had been considered, before he 
 retired into "that hospital of incurables," 
 the House of Lords, as "a most complete 
 orator and debater " in the Commons, as a 
 man to be dreaded for his sudden bursts 
 of passion "supported by great personal 
 courage." Twenty years had elapsed since 
 his ambitious hopes and his popularity had 
 been for ever ruined by his refusal to take 
 the reins of government from his conquered 
 rival's hands. He had almost sunk into the 
 obscurity of private life, with a wife whose 
 peevish, avaricious temper^ was such, that 
 she could "gather together eight hundred 
 Christian souls " at an assembly, and send 
 them home without giving them "a biscuit 
 or a bit of bread " to eat. To Lord Bath's 
 great joy, death had taken her away in 1758, 
 and, though he was thought to have kept 
 
 ^ She was nicknamed "the wife of Bath" by her 
 acquaintance. 
 
62 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 too much of her stinginess, though ''his 
 bounty was not equal to the opportunities 
 he enjoyed of exerting it," yet he could be 
 generous when his affections were engaged, ^ 
 
 1 In April 1761, he sent through Mrs Montagu to 
 Mrs Carter "two bank bills of 20 pounds each," to 
 "make her fine when she comes to Tunbridge" (Mrs 
 Climenson, ii., 235). In an undated letter, Mrs 
 Montagu thus acknowledges the gift : — 
 
 "Your lordship's present to Mrs Carter is so noble, 
 that I am very desirous it should go to her as it is. If 
 it had been of a fourth part the value, I should have 
 wished to have done it as you first suggested, and the 
 witt and politeness of your lordship's letter would have 
 added such a grace to the present as must have given 
 her great pleasure, but realy, my lord, your great bounty 
 has now made it such as will be of true service to her. 
 I think I know enough of her heart to pronounce that 
 such a proof of regard from my Lord Bath will in itself 
 be pleasing to the highest degree ; but as she is full of 
 delicacies, I must, by gently trying the ground, feel out 
 the way, and if I can do it to-day, your lordship shall 
 hear from me to-morrow morning. I will not tell your 
 lordship how much my mind was affected by the manner 
 of your doing this generous act. I have in my life known 
 people who could give, but I never yet met with any one 
 who could do it in your manner. Your lordship does 
 not tell me whether the pain in your side is better ; is 
 it that it is not better, or that you think I do not care 
 whether it is or not ? I hope that is the case, for I can 
 excuse any thing in my friends rather than their being 
 ill. I must tell your lordship that I cannot possibly 
 send the bank bills to Mrs Carter without letting her 
 know from whence they come, for she would probably 
 
TO SPA 6s 
 
 and in the familiar ease of social intercourse 
 he proved ''the most agreeable, the most 
 entertaining, and the most lively companion 
 imaginable," gifted with ''an infinite deal of 
 wit, which his great good-nature prevented 
 from being offensive to any one," and free 
 from all vanity or importance. 
 
 In the summer of 1763, one year before 
 his death. Lord Bath and the Montagus, 
 accompanied by the Earl's Chaplain, Dr 
 Douglas, and by Mrs Carter, went in a 
 party to drink the waters at Spa. An 
 interesting account of their journey, pre- 
 served in the Carter Memoirs ^^ naively 
 expresses the travellers' astonishment at 
 finding the vanquished, enslaved country 
 little, if at all, inferior to their own. On 
 
 imagine they came from me, and I should rather rob 
 your lordship upon Hounslow Heath the next time 
 you go to Ives Place, for in that case I should only 
 take your gold, but here I should steal from you the 
 grace of an action, and the proof [of] a mind above 
 all gold. I wonder that a person of your lordship's 
 classical learning, so well acquainted with the story of 
 Midas's queen, could imagine that I could keep the 
 secret from any inducement whatever, but I have given 
 you a reason why it is absolutely impossible besides my 
 general incapability of keeping a secret. . . ." (Broadley 
 Collection). 
 ^ Vol. i., 249-376. 
 
64 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 their arrival at Calais, after a five hours' 
 passage, they expected to see the gaunt, 
 starving wretches, with bare feet or wooden 
 shoes, whom Hogarth had engraved or 
 painted, leaving the fat of the land to the 
 jolly, lazy monks. In fact, they did see, in 
 crossing the market-place, '*such a mixture 
 of rags, and dirt, and finery, as was entirely 
 new to the English spectator. The women 
 at the stalls, who looked as if they were by 
 no means possessed of any thing like a 
 shift, were decorated with long, dangling 
 earrings." Yet, even at ''Calais gate," 
 there stood an excellent hostelry, the Lion 
 (V Argent, with 'Marge, comfortable rooms" 
 and very good beds, "a much better inn," 
 truly, than any to be found at Dover ! And 
 the ^^ politesse, the empressement pour vous 
 servir, among the lower kind of people " 
 seemed so very engaging that it was quite 
 pleasant to talk to them. "There is a little 
 perruquier, with a most magnificent queue, 
 belonging to the inn, with whom I am upon 
 the most friendly terms imaginable," said 
 the excellent Mrs Carter. Further inland, 
 roads and villages appeared " perfectly good." 
 St Omer was "a very pretty town," with hand- 
 
ON THE WAY 65 
 
 some houses, streets wide and well-paved, 
 which, to the mortification of their ^^ English 
 vanity," was the case with every town the 
 travellers passed through. Lisle, ^^a large 
 and very fine city," struck them by the 
 uncomfortable look given to the houses by 
 ^'strong, iron cross-bars before the windows." 
 But its environs presented ^^ charming views." 
 Everywhere the *' fields were highly culti- 
 vated"; the people looked *'very clean," 
 and had ^'nothing of that air of poverty and 
 wretchedness that one should have expected 
 in a land of slavery." Thus wondering, they 
 crossed the frontier into '^the territories of 
 the Empress Queen," and at Courtray beheld 
 "the feast du saint Sacrement, Whenever 
 the priest came from beneath the canopy 
 and elevated the Hostia, all the people fell 
 on their knees in the streets." Along an 
 admirable highway '^ paved with flat stones, 
 and bordered with very fine trees, like 
 an avenue to a great house," they reached 
 Brussels, whose sordid, crooked aspect dis- 
 appointed them. "It is the most disagree- 
 able town which I have yet seen in our 
 way," wrote Mrs Carter; "the houses are 
 extremely high, and the streets narrow, 
 
 E 
 
66 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 which makes it dark and close ; and I shall 
 be heartily glad when we leave it." Liege, 
 at the bottom of its long and steep hill, was 
 still worse : its ugliness seemed enhanced by 
 that of its inhabitants, who had ''the worst 
 look of any human creatures I ever saw," 
 declared their unkind visitor. Thence, a 
 twenty-one miles' dangerous drive through 
 woods and along precipices conducted the 
 friends to Spa, where they stayed two 
 months, drinking in due course at the three 
 springs, the Sauveniere, the Pouhon, and 
 the Geronsterre, one *'in the midst of the 
 village," whose water was little used except at 
 dinner, another at about two miles' distance, 
 '*on the top of a hill, with woods and rocks 
 and precipices all around," the third further 
 still. At six o'clock every morning they 
 repaired to the second of these springs. 
 ''The time of drinking," we are informed, 
 "lasts little more than an hour, and then 
 we return to breakfast, but tea is absolutely 
 prohibited to all the water-drinkers. There 
 is nothing but mere sauntering from this 
 time till we dress for dinner at two ; and 
 about five begin visiting and going to the 
 rooms; then supper, and to bed before ten." 
 
RETURN 67 
 
 On the 17th of August they took leave of the 
 mixed society assembled in this international 
 resort, where everybody, not excepting the 
 Germans,^ spoke French. Along the Rhine 
 and through Holland they returned to 
 England. At Wesel, these fine ladies and 
 gentlemen had to sleep in ** troughs filled 
 with musty straw, and a very thin sort 
 of bed laid over it." Near Arnheim, they 
 crossed the Rhine ^*over a bridge of boats 
 so shattered that every board shook, and 
 there was no fence on either side.'* Nor 
 were the causeways or ^' dykes" in Holland 
 much safer, with their '^perpendicular descent 
 on each side to the toaderies and froggeries 
 below." Such roads were good, but so 
 narrow that, if two carriages met, one of 
 them had to pass '^ within a few inches of 
 the edge." After these varied and sometimes 
 
 ^ In imitation of the Prussian philosopher and king, 
 Frederick the Great. This affectation was sometimes 
 carried to a most ridiculous excess. One day, for 
 instance, a German lady was mentioning to Mrs Carter 
 Gessner's Death of Abel, " which she had read only in 
 the French translation," as "she did not understand 
 her own language well enough to be able to read the 
 original," and, according to Mrs Carter, "this laudable 
 ignorance of their mother-tongue is really the case with 
 many of them" i^Memoirs^ i., 322). 
 
.^' 
 
 68 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 perilous experiences, Mrs Carter, who had 
 suffered much from headaches, was glad to 
 reach Deal again, whilst the Montagus pro- 
 ceeded to the north to inspect their collieries. 
 Of all the acquaintances made in early life 
 by Miss Robinson, none turned out to be of 
 more importance to her than that with **Mr 
 George Lyttelton," the future lord. On ist 
 January 1760, she wrote to him: ^*Can I 
 begin the new year more auspiciously than 
 by dedicating the first hours of the New 
 Year's Day to that person from whose friend- 
 ship I hope to derive so much of the honour 
 and happiness of my life?"^ At that date 
 their acquaintance was of some twenty years' 
 standing. In the world of fashion, where 
 she had been introduced by the Duchess of 
 Portland, Miss Robinson had soon singled 
 out this *^fine gentleman," equally remark- 
 able by his birth and talents, the son of a 
 wealthy Worcestershire baronet, the owner, 
 some day, of Hagley Park, of its ancient 
 mansion and ^* enchanting scenes," ^ the 
 author of compositions in verse and prose, 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, ii., 178. 
 
 2 See the picturesque description in Walpole's Letters^ 
 ed. Toynbee, ill., 185-6. 
 
LORD LYTTELTON 69 
 
 always elegant, *Met the subject be ever so 
 trifling." 1 Though *' Mr Lyttelton's" choice 
 of a wife had not answered Fidget's secret 
 wishes, her admiration had known no decline. 
 Her polite, flattering encomiums on his pro- 
 ductions rather increased in warmth as time 
 went on. In 1747, she lamented with him 
 the death of his beloved '* Lucy," and deemed 
 the poet's once famous Monody on his loss 
 extremely pretty, describing as it did *'a 
 most delicate and tender affection." ^ When, 
 in 1759, ^^Lord" Lyttelton improved his ''bad 
 and old" ancestral house into ''a magnificent 
 edifice," and sent to Mrs Montagu the first 
 volumes of his ponderous Henry II,, she 
 united the praises of the historian, of his 
 residence and his park, in the same rounded 
 periods. ''Your Hagley oaks," she said, 
 "will derive additional honour from you. . . . 
 The having been your lordship's will make 
 them sacred with posterity : if there be one 
 more noble than the rest, the honour of 
 having shaded Lord Lyttelton while he wrote 
 his History of Henry IL will be ascribed to 
 it, and every genius devoted to the daughters 
 
 ^ Mrs Montagu's Letters^ i., 133. 
 "^ Ibid.y iii., 46. 
 
70 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 of memory will make a pilgrimage thither."^ 
 Let us hope that all was not mere rhetoric in 
 this eulogy, in her comparison of Robertson 
 to a '^ Scotch fir," waving its *'high top, in 
 sign of worship," to the Hagley oak, and that 
 she really believed in Lyttelton's superiority. 
 Her partiality for a friend is, after all, pardon- 
 able, if sincere. But most of her contem- 
 poraries would have demurred to her fervid 
 panegyric of Lyttelton as a man and a 
 writer. Comparing his work with Hume's 
 and Robertson's, Gibbon declared that '^he 
 could not aspire to the fame of these men 
 of genius, that he possessed, however, the 
 qualities of a good patriot, of a well- 
 informed, accurate, and impartial historian, "^ 
 but no higher ones. To say the truth, he 
 never rose, in politics or in literature, much 
 above the level of ^'honest mediocrity." His 
 unprepossessing aspect and address made him 
 ridiculous in all but Fidget's eyes. '^With 
 the figure of a spectre and the gesticulations 
 of a puppet," says Horace Walpole, *^he 
 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 227. 
 
 2 Memoires litteraires de la Grande Bretagne pour 
 1767, art. i., 29. Cf. also Gibbon's Autobiographies^ ed. 
 Murray, 1897, p. 279- 
 
LORD LYTTELTON 71 
 
 talked heroics through his nose, made decla- 
 mations at a visit, and played at cards with 
 scraps of history or sentences of Pindar."^ 
 He sat to Chesterfield for his portrait of the 
 absent-minded ^^Laputan wrapped in intense 
 thought, and possibly sometimes in no thought 
 at all. He leaves his hat in one room," con- 
 tinues the satirist, '^his sword in another, 
 and would leave his shoes in a third, if his 
 buckles, though awry, did not save them ; 
 his legs and arms, by his awkward manage- 
 ment of them, seem to have undergone the 
 question extraordinaire ; and his head, always 
 hanging upon one or other of his shoulders, 
 seems to have received the first stroke upon 
 the block. "2 Virtue and learning all judges, 
 even Chesterfield, granted him ; but not a 
 ray of genius, they thought, and not too 
 unjustly thought,^ ever illuminated his 
 '* studied orations," his '' elegant" verses, 
 his weighty theological or historical dis- 
 quisitions, respectable indeed, yet dull. 
 
 '' Mefnoirs of George IL, ed, 1847, i., 202-3. 
 
 ^ Lord Chesterfield's Letters, ed. Bradshaw, 1893, i-j 
 245-6. Cf. also Lord Hervey's Memoirs of George 11. ; 
 Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, ed. 1821, pp. 25-6; and 
 Shelburne's Autobiography, ed. Fitzmaurice, p. 74. 
 
 ^ Some passages of the Monody excepted. 
 
72 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 His Dialogues of the Deady published in May 
 1760, though not to be excepted from this 
 general censure, possess a peculiar interest 
 for us, as the last three, composed ^'by a 
 different hand," were the production of Mrs 
 Montagu, who thus appeared for the first 
 time before the public as an anonymous 
 writer. One of them, the twenty-sixth of the 
 whole collection, consists of a conversation 
 between *' Cadmus and Hercules " on the com- 
 parative value to mankind of heroic strength 
 and of the civilising arts and sciences : it 
 deserves to the full the praise of seriousness, 
 good sense and solidity, which a French 
 contemporary critic^ bestowed on a transla- 
 
 1 Cf. Fr^rgn's Anne'e Litte'raire, 1761, ii., 96: 
 " II y a dans ces Dialogues plus de sens que de ce qu'on 
 appelle esprit, plus de verite que de brillant, plus de 
 solidite que de finesse, et par la je les crois plus instructifs 
 pour I'esprit et plus utiles pour les moeurs que ceux de 
 Lucain {sic) et de Fontenelle.'^ In England, the critics 
 were divided : Lord Chesterfield (Mrs Climenson, 
 ii., 181, 207) and perhaps Lady Hervey spoke and 
 wrote warmly in their favour ; on the contrary, Horace 
 Walpole, who called them "Dead Dialogues" {Letters, 
 ed. Toynbee, iv., 389-91), Johnson, who pronounced them 
 " a nugatory performance," and Lord Bath were hostile. 
 They are perhaps still remembered in France on account 
 of Lyttelton's short correspondence with Voltaire on the 
 subject (cf. Voltaire's (Euvres complkes^ ed. 1880, xl., 
 534-6, and xli., 44-5). 
 
THE DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD 73 
 
 tion of the book.^ In the flat monotony of 
 its moralisings, it rivals Lyttelton's dulness ; 
 Hercules' soft speech and weak objections 
 remind us of his distaff rather than of his 
 club ; his fiercest utterance is that, were 
 Eurystheus to set him to work again, a 
 worse task than any he performed should be 
 imposed upon him ; he should be made 
 to read through a great library, ^'and I 
 would," cries the demi-god, ''serve it as I 
 did the Hydra, I would burn as I went on." 
 The voluble Cadmus has become in the 
 Elysian Fields a perfect utilitarian. '* Poetry," 
 he contends, ''is of excellent use, to enable 
 the memory to retain with more ease, and to 
 imprint with more energy upon the heart, 
 precepts of virtue and virtuous actions." ^ 
 
 1 Three of them are known to us : one by Jean des 
 Champs, Pretre de I'Eglise anglicane, Ministre de la 
 Chapelle Roiale de la Savoye . . . published in London, 
 G. Seyffert, October or November 1760, under Lyttelton's 
 supervision (cf. Mrs Climenson, ii., 186-7, and Mrs 
 Montagu's Letters, iv., 312); another by "M. le 
 Professeur de Joncourt," also printed in 1760, but at 
 La Haye, chez Pierre de Hondt ; the third (anonymous), 
 " faite sur la 4^ edition, A Amsterdam, chez M. Magerus, 
 1767." 
 
 '^ Dialogues of the Dead, London, 1760 (anon.), pp. 294, 
 296. 
 
74 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 The mnemonic qualities of verse are its chief, 
 perhaps its only, recommendation, in the 
 opinion of this Ancient, converted to a very 
 modern kind of philosophy. Livelier in rep- 
 artee and wittier in expression is the second 
 of these Dialogues, between *' Mercury and 
 a fine Lady," a Mrs Modish, who, summoned 
 by *'the grim messenger" to pass the Styx, 
 insists on delay, as she happens to be ^'en- 
 gaged, absolutely engaged." Fidget's good- 
 humoured raillery sparkles all through this 
 pleasant little piece, more like Lucian's 
 famous compositions than anything else in 
 the book. To Mrs Montagu's great joy, her 
 ironical sketch of the fashionable Mrs Modish 
 became '' a favourite with the town ; but some 
 ladies," she added, *'have tossed up their 
 heads, and said it was abominably satirical."^ 
 It had been suggested to her by a recent 
 incident : when the notorious Lord Ferrers, 
 guilty of murdering his steward, was tried 
 by his peers, **the ladies crowded to the 
 House of Lords to see a wretch brought 
 loaded with crime and shame to the Bar, 
 to hear sentence of a cruel and ignominious 
 death." Shocked at such inhumanity, she 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 259-62. 
 
MRS MODISH 75 
 
 Rented her indignation in her portrait of Mrs 
 Modish, ever engaged, not in her family, but 
 in a perpetual round of dissipations and visits. 
 *'Look on my chimney-piece," exclaims the 
 fair victim to her pitiless conductor, ''and 
 you will see I was engaged to the play on 
 Mondays, balls on Tuesdays, the opera on 
 "Saturdays, and to card assemblies the rest of 
 the week, for two months to come, and it 
 would be the rudest thing in the world not 
 to keep my appointments. If you will stay 
 for me till the summer season, I will wait on 
 you/with all my heart. Perhaps the Elysian 
 Fields may be less detestable than the country 
 in our world. Pray, have you a fine Vauxhall 
 and Ranelagh? I think I should not dislike 
 drinking the Lethe waters when you have a 
 full season."^ 
 
 This elegant and characteristic passage is 
 the best sample we can give of Mrs Montagu's 
 literary style in her three dialogues. The 
 twenty-eighth and last, between Plutarch and 
 a modern bookseller, partakes of the defects 
 and merits of the former two. Plutarch, now 
 turned Christian moralist, proses at a length 
 that his great age may excuse ; the book- 
 ^ Dialogues^ 1760, p. 301. 
 
76 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 seller, astonished to find himself in a world 
 **so absolutely the reverse of that he left, 
 that here authors domineer over book- 
 sellers," is marked by a gruff stolidness 
 that produces some humorous effects. He 
 nourishes a special grudge against his very 
 adviser, Plutarch, for ^'having almost 
 occasioned his ruin." *<When I first set up 
 shop," he explains, *' understanding but little 
 of business, I unadvisedly bought an edition 
 of your Lives ; a pack of old Greeks and 
 Romans, which cost me a great sum of 
 money. I could never get off above twenty 
 sets of them," laments this disconsolate dealer, 
 who, however, recouped himself by publishing 
 The Lives of the Highwaymen and The Lives of 
 Men that never Lived} 
 
 The writing of these trifles filled Mrs 
 Montagu's leisure hours, and brought her 
 some fame. **The Dialogues, I mean the 
 three worst, have had a more favourable 
 reception than I expected," she wrote in May 
 to Mrs Carter. ''They are now mostly given 
 to the true author." During her stay at 
 Tunbridge in the same year, "an old Quaker 
 of four score, . . . one of the greatest chy mists 
 
 ^ Dialogues^ pp. 307, 309, 
 
AN AUTHOR AT LAST 77 
 
 in Europe," took a fancy to her, because he 
 would believe her to be, in spite of all she 
 could assert, the writer of certain Dialogues, 
 and this unexpected friend sat by her and 
 attended on her with the utmost assiduity.^ 
 Mrs Carter, of course, was all praise : ^Ht 
 is downright scandal to say," she declared, 
 **that Cadmus talks like a pedant; he has 
 all the elegance of polite literature ; and it 
 is equally scandalous to suspect that Mrs 
 Modish wants the power of amusing." ^ En- 
 couraged by such approbation, Mrs Montagu 
 thought it not impossible that ^*she might at 
 last become an author in form." *' It enlarges 
 the sphere of action, and lengthens the short 
 period of human life," she wrote, thus reveal- 
 ing her secret ambition. It was, after all, a 
 noble one, a sort of purified, intellectual vanity. 
 To the social importance her wealth gave her, 
 she felt that literary fame would add lustre and 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, ii., 190. 
 
 ^ Letters fro7n Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu^ 
 181 7, i., 83-4. The Annee Litter aire {loc. cit.) is, 
 however, less favourable : " Vous trouverez les trois 
 derniers dialogues inferieurs k ceux que je viens de 
 parcourir," says the critic who, for all his severity, has 
 some indulgence for Mrs Modish : " Le Dialogue vingt- 
 septi^me caracterise assez bien une petite maitresse qui 
 ji'a aime ni son mari ni ses enfants." 
 
78 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 influence on the world of letters. With this 
 view, she henceforward turned her attention 
 towards criticism, Shakespearian criticism in 
 particular. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 From the numerous judgments on books 
 scattered through her published correspond- 
 ence, we may gather that Mrs Montagu's 
 literary criticism will be distinguished, we 
 do not say by depth of insight, but by 
 much good sense and some breadth of view. 
 Though far from simple in her own manner 
 and style, she has no patience with pedants, 
 even with their most eminent representative 
 in those days, William Warburton. When 
 his edition of Shakespeare came out in 1747, 
 she read his explanatory Notes on the text, 
 and found them '^ most extraordinary." '^ He 
 seems to proceed," she wrote, **by new rules 
 of criticism, and makes Shakespeare speak as 
 he prompts him, though ever so wide from 
 his words or seeming meaning ; the word 
 means J he changes for medicines . . . indeed 
 
 79 
 
8o THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 he too often makes poor Shakespeare talk 
 like an apothecary." She ridicules several 
 of the future Bishop's so-called emendations : 
 in Romeo and Juliet^ for instance, Capulet, 
 overjoyed at his daughter's feigned consent 
 to marry **the county Paris," declares, in 
 praise of ^* Friar Laurence," her counsellor, 
 that the ** whole city is much bound to him."^ 
 Warburton, however, was not satisfied with 
 this. Desirous to improve the line, he 
 ** most sagaciously " turned it thus : this 
 friar, ^^the city is much obliged to hymn,* 
 for ^^to hymn is to laud, and to laud is to 
 praise," ^*and so," Mrs Montague ironically 
 remarks, ^^by incredible pains and a new 
 verb, he makes you understand the city 
 should praise the friar." ^ Exaggeration she 
 constantly reproves, even though the criticised 
 writer should not possess all her sympathy : 
 " I must tell you," she informs her friend, 
 Dr Beattie, ^'that Samuel Johnson says of 
 Lord Chesterfield's ' Instructions to his Son ' 
 that they are to teach the manners of a 
 dancing-master, with the morals of a prosti- 
 tute. The sentence is too severe to be 
 
 * Romeo and Juliet^ Act iv., sc. 2, 1. 32. 
 ^ Letters^ iii., 50. 
 
MRS MONTAGU AS A CRITIC 8i 
 
 perfectly just, and the character too short to 
 be perfectly descriptive ; but there is some- 
 thing too near truth, and too like descrip- 
 tion."^ Dr Young's Letter on Original 
 Composition^ with its ** vernal imagination" 
 profuse of ^'violets and primroses," and its 
 bland exhortation to ^* people to look sharp 
 for genius, which he fancies many would 
 find if they sought it," provokes an amused 
 smile in her. ^'The doctor was so positive 
 in his assurances," she laughingly goes on, 
 ''that I set about seeking for my genius; 
 and, as I had bottled very little hay, hoped 
 to find it presently ; but I am no nearer the 
 matter." 2 Sagacity and caustic wit are, how- 
 ever, qualities which go to the making of the 
 purely carping critic : from this excess Mrs 
 Montagu was saved by her extensive reading. 
 Ever fond of new intellectual pleasures, she 
 was ready to appreciate the beauties of the 
 Ancients and of the Moderns with perfect 
 impartiality. She admired Sophocles, though 
 in an English dress: "The CEdipus Coloneus 
 affected me extremely," she wrote to Lord 
 
 ^ Life and Writings of James Beattie, by Sir William 
 Forbes, ii., 63, 30th April 1774. 
 2 Letters^ iv., 184-5. 
 
82 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Lyttelton, *'and would have done so more, 
 if it had not been for the constant presence 
 of the chorus ; but the passions are awed 
 and checked by a crowd." ^ French comedy 
 delighted her no less than Greek tragedy ; 
 she considered the Misanthrope as a master- 
 piece, and could point out, with commendable 
 acuteness, the essential feature of Alceste's 
 fine character. His error, she said, though 
 everywhere visible, is nowhere monstrous ; 
 *^the Misanthrope has the same moroseness 
 in his love-suit and his law-suit ; he is as 
 rigid and severe to a bad verse as a bad 
 action, and as strict in a salutation in the 
 street or address in a drawing-room, as he 
 would be in his testimony in a court of 
 justice : right in the principle, wrong only 
 in the excess, you cannot hate him when 
 he is unpleasant, nor despise him when 
 he is absurd." 2 Xhe *^ grace, ease, elegance, 
 and sprightliness " of Madame de Sevigne's 
 epistolary style did not escape her, though so 
 different from her own florid pompousness; 
 she thought the amiable Frenchwoman's 
 letters ^Melightful" as such, and ^'valuable 
 as giving the manners of the times and 
 1 Letters^ iv., 275. ^ Ibid., 264. 
 
HER CATHOLICITY 83 
 
 characters of the principal persons of the 
 Court." 1 And if we compare her judgments 
 on English contemporary literature with those 
 of Johnson, we are struck by his narrow- 
 ness and her catholicity. Weighing Clarissa 
 Harlowe in her critical scales, she finds **the 
 story very affecting " and interesting, ^^ though 
 it wants two of the greatest merits of a narra- 
 tion, elegance and brevity." Lovelace, how- 
 ever, she objects to, as being an unnatural 
 compound of too many inconsistencies.^ It 
 seems to us that this calm discernment con- 
 trasts favourably with Johnson's perfervid 
 enthusiasm for Richardson. She never would 
 have written or said that *' there is more 
 knowledge of the heart in one letter of 
 Richardson's than in all Tom Jones,''^^ Her 
 classical orthodoxy, her sincere admiration 
 of Pope's correctness did not make her 
 indifferent or hostile to the literary innova- 
 tions of the time : long before the publication 
 of Percy's Reliquesy she felt that there were 
 no love verses that seemed ^'suggested by 
 the heart and softened in the language, like 
 
 ^ MSS. of the Marquis of Bath, i., 338. 
 ^ Letters, iii., 100- 1. 
 
 ^ Bos well's Life of Johnson, Globe edition, 1894, 
 p. 235. 
 
84 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 some Scotch songs. "^ She described Gray's 
 Bard as a web woven for Edward's line 
 ''with the noblest images of poetry";^ she 
 immediately accepted Macpherson's Highland 
 Poems as genuine,^ and, when travelling in 
 1766 through the Vale of Glencoe, she "re- 
 collected many passages " of Ossian "in the 
 very places that inspired them."* Receptive 
 of knowledge and moderate in expression, 
 she will prove, as a critic, prudent and 
 sensible, rather than original. 
 
 II 
 
 Her Essay on the Writings and Genius of 
 Shakespeare^ published in 1769, was meant 
 as an answer to Voltaire's strictures on the 
 great dramatist. It is therefore related to 
 French and English Shakespearian criticism 
 in the eighteenth century, and, in order to 
 assign to the work its just place and value, 
 
 ^ Letters^ iii,, 69, alluding perhaps to Allan Ramsay's 
 Scots Songs (17 19)} and to the Tea-Table Miscellany and 
 Evergreen of the same (1724). 
 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 61. ^ /^/^.^ 292. 
 
 ^ DoRAN, A Lady oj the Last Century, p. 143. 
 
SHAKESPEARIAN CRITICISM 85 
 
 a previous sketch of the more general 
 question may not seem unnecessary.^ 
 
 The dominant tendency of English opinion 
 on Shakespeare during the hundred years 
 that followed the Restoration was a spirit of 
 compromise between admiration for poetical 
 beauties so dazzling that they could not be 
 ignored, and blame for offences against moral 
 or critical decorum and propriety. In his 
 Essay of Dramatic Poesy ^ dated 1668, Dryden, 
 **the father of Shakespearian criticism," 2 
 struck the keynote which, till Coleridge's 
 and Hazlitt's time, was echoed in more or 
 less ample modulations of now rapturous 
 and now reproachful tone. Shakespeare, he 
 had already declared,^ together ^^with some 
 errors not to be avoided in that age," 
 undoubtedly possessed '^a larger soul of 
 poesy than ever any of our nation." The 
 
 ^ The following books have been found useful in this 
 study: G. Saintsbury, A History of Criticism^ 1902, 
 ii., 365-495 ; Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare^ 
 edited by D. Nichol Smith, 1903 ; J. J. Jusserand, 
 Shakespeare en France^ 1898, p. 145 sqq. ; T. R. LOUNS- 
 BURY, Shakespeare and Voltaire^ 1902. 
 
 ^ D. NiCHOL Smith, Introduction, p. xiii. 
 
 ^ In the Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival Ladies (1664) 
 {Essays of JOHN Dryden, selected and edited by W. P. 
 Ker, 1900, i., 6). 
 
86 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 universality and depth of the dramatist's 
 psychological insight struck him with wonder. 
 *^He was," Dryden exclaimed, ^*the man 
 who of all modern, and perhaps ancient, 
 poets, had the largest and most comprehen- 
 sive soul. All the images of Nature were 
 still present to him, and he drew them, not 
 laboriously, but luckily ; when he describes 
 anything, you more than see it, you feel 
 it too. Those who accuse him to have 
 wanted learning, give him the greater com- 
 mendation : he was naturally learned ; he 
 needed not the spectacles of books to read 
 Nature ; he looked inwards, and found her 
 there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike. 
 . . . He is many times flat, insipid ; his 
 comic wit degenerating into clenches, his 
 serious swelling into bombast. But he is 
 always great, when some great occasion is 
 presented to him."^ He had *'an universal 
 mind, which comprehended all characters 
 and passions " ; Fletcher, his most skilful 
 disciple, was only '^a limb" of him.^ But, 
 however warm the critic's appreciation may 
 
 ^ Essay of Dramatic Poesy^ ed. Ker, vol. i., pp. 79-80. 
 
 ^ Essays^ ed. Ker, vol. i., p. 228, Preface to Troilus and 
 Cressida^ containing the grounds of Criticism in Tragedy 
 (1679)- 
 
DRYDEN 87 
 
 be, he does not the less insist on the poet's 
 ** faults," especially in style. He even goes 
 so far as to assert that the reader ^^will find 
 in every page either some solecism of speech, 
 or some notorious flaw in sense," ^ that '^in 
 many places," Shakespeare ^* writes below 
 the dullest writer of ours, or any precedent 
 age," that ^*the fury of his fancy often 
 transports him beyond the bounds of judg- 
 ment " into a profusion of metaphors, similes, 
 or ^* bombasts," which makes him '^the very 
 Janus of poets " and precipitates him from the 
 ^* height of thought to low expressions." ^ 
 In a word, as Dryden's successors will cease- 
 lessly repeat, Shakespeare had an unbounded 
 genius, a ^* native wood-note wild," but no 
 taste. For ^^the times were ignorant" in 
 which he lived. ^* Poetry was then, if not 
 in its infancy among us, at least not 
 arrived to its vigour and maturity," ^ to that 
 classical correctness and elegance of phrase 
 which Waller initiated and Dryden himself 
 improved. 
 The poet's enthusiasm, though tempered 
 
 1 Essays^ ed. Ker, vol. i., p. 165, Defence of the Epilogue 
 to the second part of the Conquest of Granada (1672). 
 
 2 Ibid., 172. 8 jiji^^ j6^ 
 
88 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 by fault-finding, called forth in 1693 a 
 vigorous protest by an uncompromising 
 critic. Thomas Rymer, the compiler of the 
 Foedera^ had already recommended in 1674 
 the example of the Ancients and translated, 
 for the benefit of the unlearned, Rapin's 
 Reflections on Aristotle* s Treatise of Poesie. In 
 his Preface, this loud-voiced monitor ex- 
 claimed : ^' How unhappy the greatest English 
 poets have been through their ignorance or 
 negligence of the fundamental Rules and 
 Laws of Aristotle ! " Was Shakespeare, the 
 guiltiest of all trespassers, to escape un- 
 censured, because the too indulgent Dryden 
 had pleaded in his favour? Certainly not. 
 Everybody, genius or no genius, must con- 
 form to the rules, to the three venerable 
 Unities— of Action, Time, and Place: Rymer, 
 therefore, with great gusto, proceeded to indict 
 and to sentence the culprit. Look at our 
 neighbours' drama, the judge said in his 
 anger ! No doubt, '' that wild-goose chase of 
 Romance runs still in their head, some scenes 
 of love must everywhere be shuffled in, tho' 
 never so unseasonable " ; no doubt, they write 
 their *' plays in rime," and ''their language 
 itself wants strength and sinews, . . . their 
 
RYMER 89 
 
 consonants spread on paper, but stick in 
 the hedge, and pass not their teeth in their 
 pronunciation." Yet, all deductions made, 
 **the French are certainly very delicate and 
 commendable in points of decency. The 
 noble encouragement they met withal, and 
 their singular application have carried them 
 very far in the improvement of the drama." 
 Whilst we, thanks to such playwrights as 
 this Shakespeare, deserve ** what Quintilian 
 pronounced concerning the Roman Comedy : 
 In Tragoedia maxime claudicamus, vix levem 
 consequimur umbram," which may be 
 rendered into English, to help your ignor- 
 ance: ^'In Tragedy, we come short extreamly ; 
 hardly have we a slender shadow of it." As 
 a proof of our inferiority, take a so-called 
 masterpiece, that Othello which 'Ms said to 
 bear the bell away" from all other tragic 
 plays. Let us examine it, as a scholarly 
 critic should, from the four points of view 
 of the fable, the characters, the thoughts, 
 and the expression. ''The Fable is drawn 
 from a novel, composed in Italian by Giraldi 
 Cinthio. . . . Shakespear alters it from the 
 original in several particulars, but always, 
 unfortunately, for the worse." What a tissue 
 
90 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of improbabilities he has made of it ! *^He 
 bestows a name on his Moor, and styles him 
 the Moor of Venice : a note of pre-eminence, 
 which neither History nor Heraldry can allow 
 him. ... It is an affront to all Chroniclers, 
 and Antiquaries, to top upon 'em a Moor, 
 with that mark of renown, who yet had never 
 fain within the sphere of their Cognisance." 
 Desdemona is no better, complains our 
 unpoetical Rymer, hurt in his historical 
 susceptibility. Here she comes, *' dressed 
 up with her Top Knots and raised to be a 
 Senator's daughter. All this is very strange, 
 and therefore pleases such as reflect not on 
 the improbability. Surely," he goes on, in 
 a strain of boorish irony, 'Uhe moral of this 
 fable is on a par with the invention of it." 
 Hereby, *^all maidens of quality" may be 
 cautioned ^'how, without their parents' consent, 
 they run away with Blackamoors. Secondly, 
 this may be a warning to all good wives, 
 that they look well to their linnen " — better 
 than Desdemona, who, as everybody knows, 
 lost her handkerchief — ^'thirdly, this may be 
 a lesson to Husbands, that, before their 
 Jealousie be tragical, the proofs may be 
 mathematical." So much for the fable. The 
 
RYMER 91 
 
 characters **are not less unnatural and 
 improper." Has any one ever read of a 
 soldier like lago? Was Shakespeare un- 
 aware that, according to all precedents, 
 ancient and modern, a soldier should be 
 ** open-hearted, frank, plain-dealing," ^'a 
 character constantly worn by them for some 
 thousands of years in the world," and nowise 
 '*a close, dissembling, false, insinuating 
 rascal," like this '*most intolerable" ensign. 
 Really, *^ there is not a monkey but under- 
 stands nature better, not a pug in Barbary 
 that has not a truer taste of things" than 
 this Shakespeare, whom some would *^top 
 upon us " for a genius. Such being his 
 characters, we need not expect, of course, 
 his style and thoughts to be ^'either true 
 or fine or noble. ... In the neighing of an 
 horse or in the growling of a mastiff, there 
 is a meaning, there is as lively expression, 
 and, may I say, more humanity than many 
 times in the tragical flights of Shakespear." 
 His *^ genius lay for comedy and humour," 
 for a certain kind of farce that could please 
 '*his masters, the coblers and parish clerks, 
 and Old Testament stroulers." In Tragedy, 
 the man who could put heroes like Brutus 
 
92 THE ESSA V ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and Cassius in ''Fools' Coats and make 
 them Jack-puddens" was "quite out of his 
 element." With him we live in a ''land of 
 savages amongst Blackamoors," uncivilised 
 by the precious "Rules" that Aristotle 
 inculcated.^ 
 
 That this conceited pedant should have been 
 taken seriously may seem surprising, but it 
 is a fact that his virulent attacks on Shake- 
 speare ^ and his scolding advocacy of the 
 Rules enforced Dryden's submission, who, 
 in the Preface to Troilus and Cressida^ quoted 
 with approval Rapin's recommendation of 
 Aristotle's precepts as a means of reducing 
 "Nature into method," accepted the Stagy- 
 rite's definition of tragedy as a sufficient 
 reason for condemning "all Shakespeare's 
 historical plays," and pliantly admitted that 
 "Mr Rymer had discovered in his criticisms 
 how defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have 
 been in their plots." ^ A later writer, the 
 notorious John Dennis, whom Mr Nichol 
 Smith has treated with excessive indulg- 
 
 ^ A Short View of Tragedy^ ed. 1693, PP- 61-4, 86-6, 
 148, 159. 
 
 ^ Not only in the Short View^ but also in The 
 Tragedies of the Last Age Consider' d (1678). 
 
 3 Essays, ed. Ker, i., 207, 228-9 (1679). 
 
DENNIS 93 
 
 ence,i followed in the pedagogue's footsteps. 
 In his three Letters on the Genius and Writings 
 of Shakespeare^ published in 171 1, he acknow- 
 ledged indeed that the Elizabethan dramatist 
 **was one of the greatest genius's that the 
 world e'er saw for the tragick stage," that 
 his beauties were all ^'his own, and owing 
 to the force of his own nature, whereas his 
 faults were owing to his education, and to 
 the age that he lived in." But, this passing 
 tribute once paid, the objections crowded 
 under Dennis's pen. Shakespeare, he 
 thought, had wanted *^ nothing but time and 
 leisure to have found out" the Rules and 
 to have read '*the Graecian and Roman 
 Authors." '^What would he not have 
 
 ^ Eighteenth Century Essays o?i Shakespeare, Intro- 
 duction, p. xvii. Dennis's earlier Impartial Critick, or 
 Observations on Mr Rymer's Short View , . . (1693), is a 
 very lame defence of Shakespeare, as the anonymous 
 author of Reflections on Mr Rymer's Short View (1694), 
 Charles Gildon perhaps, very justly remarked. Of 
 Rymer himself, the writer observed that "Tho' 'tis 
 frequent enough to meet with a dull poetaster for a 
 poet, yet 'tis something more rare to encounter a jolly 
 droll for a critic." In 1718 Gildon published The 
 Co7nplete Art of Poetry in Six Parts, composed in 
 dialogue form, where one of the interlocutors, Laudon, 
 advocates the rules ; but the book contains an excellent 
 choice of extracts from Shakespeare. 
 
94 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 been," the critic exclaimed, *^ if he had 
 joined to so happy a genius Learning and 
 the Poetical Art ! " Then he would not have 
 introduced into his tragedies ^'things which 
 are against the dignity of that noble poem, 
 as the rabble in Julius CcBsar and that in 
 Coriolanus " ; he would not have so familiarly 
 debased the greatest heroes of antiquity, 
 turned Menenius into *'a downright buffoon," 
 an inconceivable ''Ciceronian Jack-pudding," 
 and made Caesar ''but a fourth-rate actor in 
 his own tragedy." No ; enlightened and 
 stimulated by "the Poetical Art," he would 
 have shown us Csesar consulting with Cicero 
 and Antony on the advisability of abdicating 
 or retaining the "absolute supremacy," and 
 thus we might have had "a scene something 
 like that which Corneille has so happily us'd 
 in his Cinna,^^'^ But such a masterpiece, 
 the fruit of Dennis's profound cogitations, 
 was too plainly beyond the reach of a 
 Modern untutored in antique lore ! Fortu- 
 nately, however, Shakespeare had, some 
 years before, found a better apologist than 
 Dennis. In A Discourse upon Comedy,^ 
 
 ^ Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, pp. 24-6, 
 
 31, 33-4, 37- 
 2 Published in 1702. 
 
FARQUHAR 95 
 
 Farquhar had answered both Collier^ and 
 Rymer. '^Aristotle," he bluntly declared, 
 ^*was no poet, and consequently not capable 
 of giving instructions in the Art of Poetry." 
 The rules were nothing but a set of *^ acci- 
 dental observations drawn from the works 
 of Homer and Euripides," no essential 
 principles. They had no value in practice 
 or in theory. They could neither ensure 
 success nor be justified in reason. *'That 
 a thousand years should come within the 
 compass of three hours is no more an 
 impossibility than that two minutes should 
 be contained in one." Addressing, with real 
 Irish warmth, an imaginary objector, he 
 anticipated Johnson's famous argument, when 
 he exclaimed: '^Were not you the very 
 minute before in the pit, talking to a wench, 
 and now, prsesto, pass, you are spirited away 
 to the banks of the river Nile. Surely this 
 is a most intolerable improbability. Then 
 in the second act, with a flourish of the 
 fiddles, I change the scene to Astrachan — " 
 *^0, this is intolerable" — '^Look'ee, sir, 'tis 
 
 ^ Whose SJwrt View appeared in 1698. Collier's 
 opinion on Shakespeare is that "where there is most 
 smut, there is least sense." 
 
96 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 not a jot more intolerable than the other ; 
 for you'll find that 'tis much about the same 
 distance between ^gypt and Astrachan as 
 it is between Drury Lane and Grand Cairo." 
 Shakespeare, Jonson, Fletcher, and others 
 were not inferior, but different from, the 
 Ancients. The ''great Shakespear," in 
 particular, is not a writer ''whom every 
 little fellow that can form an Aoristus Primus 
 will presume to condemn for Indecorums and 
 Absurdities." Compared with Aristotle, he 
 surely is "the greater poet of the two," 
 and, if you say "it must be so, because 
 Aristotle said it, I say it must be otherwise, 
 because Shakespear said it."^ A most 
 generous and triumphant defence indeed, 
 by a brother playwright ! 
 
 Henceforward, Rymer's influence de- 
 creased,^ and most Shakespearian critics 
 
 1 "Discourse upon Comedy," Works, ed. 1728, i., 93, 
 98, 103-4. 
 
 2 It may still be felt, perhaps, in Shaftesbury's 
 judgment {Characteristics^ ed. 171 1, i., Advice to an 
 Author, 275 ;) " Our old dramatick poet may witness 
 for our good ear and manly relish, notwithstanding his 
 natural rudeness, his unpolish'd stile, his antiquated 
 phrase and wit, his want of method and coherence, and 
 his deficiency in almost all the graces and ornaments 
 of this kind of writing" — though Shaftesbury does not 
 
ROWE 97 
 
 sided with Dryden in his more favourable 
 judgment on the dramatist. Nicholas Rowe's 
 preface to his edition of Shakespeare, pub- 
 lished in 1709, contained not only the best 
 life of the poet that the eighteenth century 
 produced, but also a very sympathetic 
 appreciation. He disapproved of Rymer's 
 severity: *^ I must confess," he said, *' I 
 can't very well see what could be the reason 
 of his animadverting with so much sharpness 
 upon the faults of a man excellent on most 
 occasions. . . . Finding fault is certainly the 
 easiest task of knowledge," an ^* ungrateful 
 province" to be left to the ^'tyranny of 
 pedants." True criticism is not a search 
 after defects, but after beauties. Shake- 
 speare, as the most original of all writers, 
 independent of the Ancients, unbeholden to 
 any one, except for the ** foundation of the 
 tale," does not fall under the jurisdiction of 
 
 deny him some qualities. — Hume (1754) is still more 
 severe. In his History of England {t^. Hughes, 1854, 
 V-) 54-5)) he speaks of Shakespeare's " many irregularities, 
 and even absurdities," of "his total ignorance of all 
 theatrical art and conduct." This is hardly a poet to 
 be represented as " capable of furnishing a proper enter- 
 tainment to a refined or intelligent audience," says the 
 fastidious sceptic, David Hume. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Aristotle and the rules. He *Mived under 
 a kind of mere light of nature, and had never 
 been made acquainted with the regularity of 
 those written precepts ; so it would be hard 
 to judge him by a law he knew nothing of." 
 Such strictures as those of Rymer are there- 
 fore irrelevant. They must give place to 
 an enumeration of excellences. ^^ There is a 
 great deal of entertainment in Shakespeare's 
 comical humours " : Falstaff, for instance, a 
 'Mewd old fellow," a liar, a thief, a vain- 
 glorious coward, has been endowed with '^so 
 much wit as to make him almost too agree- 
 able," '^Shylock the Jew in the Merchant of 
 Venice^^ is an ''incomparable character," and 
 "the play itself one of the most finished of 
 any of Shakespear's." The Tempest seems 
 to Rowe "as perfect in its kind as almost 
 anything we have of his," and Caliban, a 
 character so well-sustained in its extravagance, 
 "shows a wonderful invention in the author." 
 "The whole tragedy of Macbeth^ but more 
 especially the scene where the king is murdered 
 in the second act," as well as Hamlet^ " is a 
 noble proof of that manly spirit with which 
 he writ." And what strength of expression 
 he was gifted with, as Dryden had already 
 
POPE 99 
 
 remarked ! ^' His images are indeed every- 
 where so lively, that the thing he would 
 represent stands full before you, and you 
 possess every part of it." No doubt, he was 
 not free from faults : his plots lack originality 
 and cohesion ; he fell into ^' the way of tragi- 
 comedy," that ^'common mistake" of his 
 age, too agreeable indeed at all times *^to 
 the English taste " ; he occasionally jingled 
 and played upon words, thus complying with 
 **the common vice of the age he lived in," 
 when such quibbles were used as ornaments 
 ''to the sermons of some of the gravest 
 divines."^ In short, Shakespeare, according 
 to Rowe, had some defects, which he could 
 not avoid, and many incomparable beauties, 
 which none but he ever possessed. 
 
 Pope's estimate^ seems to us more jejune 
 and less appreciative. Shakespeare's works 
 he considers as a compound of good and bad, 
 affording, he thinks, "the most numerous as 
 well as most conspicuous instances both of 
 beauties and faults of all sorts." As an 
 original writer, the great dramatist stands 
 
 ^ Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare^ pp. 9-15, 
 19-20. 
 
 2 Ibid.^ Preface to his Edition of Shakespeare (1725), 
 pp. 47-51- 
 
loo THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 above par, even above Homer: ^'he is not 
 so much an imitator as an instrument of 
 nature"; his characters it would be ''an 
 injury " to call mere copies : each of them 
 is as much an individual as those in life 
 itself. He has an absolute command over 
 the passions ; he moves our laughter and 
 tears whenever and just when he pleases ; 
 his sentiments and moral reflections obtain 
 our admiration; " by a talent very peculiar, 
 something between penetration and felicity, 
 he hits upon that particular point on which 
 the bent of each argument turns." "He 
 seems to have known the world by intuition," 
 says Pope after Dryden. But perfection did 
 not belong to him. Side by side with "these 
 great excellences" are to be found "defects 
 almost as great." He was, like most Eliza- 
 bethan playwrights, dependent on the populace 
 for his livelihood : he must please his audience 
 of "tradesmen and mechanicks " by showing 
 them their own image, even in Coriolanus and 
 in Julius CcBsar ; he must obey the players, 
 judges as fit "of what is right as taylors 
 are of what is graceful." Thus bound and 
 limited by the necessities of his profession, 
 Shakespeare could not be faultless ; still less 
 
JOHNSON loi 
 
 could he imitate the Ancients. To judge 
 him, therefore, ^^ by Aristotle's rules is like 
 trying a man by the laws of one country, 
 who acted under those of another." Meagre 
 in thought, Pope's criticism sounds as an 
 echo of Dryden's. It is far inferior to 
 Rowe's ; it cannot for a moment rival 
 Johnson's Preface to the 1765 edition of 
 Shakespeare, a production as weighty in 
 matter as in style. At that time, owing, as 
 we shall see, to Voltaire's attacks on the 
 English drama, Shakespearian criticism had 
 taken a larger scope : the merits or demerits 
 of the poet could no longer be enquired into 
 without a reference to wider questions. With 
 his characteristic fearlessness in discussing 
 purely intellectual themes, Johnson goes to 
 the root of the difficulty and solves the problem 
 once for all. He begins by praising in his 
 turn Shakespeare's matchless skill as a painter 
 of *^ manners and of life." His personages 
 are as ^Mistinct" as Pope and Rowe have 
 asserted them to be ; but they possess a still 
 greater value in Johnson's eyes as ^^repre- 
 sentations of general nature," as *^ species" 
 in which mankind will ever see themselves 
 reflected. Because Shakespeare ''is above 
 
102 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 all writers the poet of nature," he has repro- 
 duced, in his living figures, not only the 
 peculiar and ephemeral features of individuals, 
 but also the more permanent characteristics 
 of the race. Ignorant of theatrical decorum, 
 such as Greece and France understood and 
 practised it, he has given us in his plays 
 a complete view of life, mixing ''the comic 
 and tragic scenes " as they are mixed in 
 reality. He has exhibited the true "state 
 of sublunary nature, which partakes of good 
 and evil, joy and sorrow, in which at the 
 same time the reveller is hasting to his wine 
 and the mourner burying his friend." Shake- 
 speare's very want of '^ art " results in a nearer 
 approximation to truth, and his plays lose 
 none of their effect thereby. Neither does 
 our past laughter stop our tears when the 
 time comes for weeping, nor do the tears we 
 have shed spoil our enjoyment of laughter 
 when it returns. "The interchanges of 
 mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the 
 intended vicissitudes of passion." Is it not 
 delightful to see Johnson, by a simple appeal 
 to truth and nature, overturning the ponderous 
 theories of pedants ? Equally decisive is his 
 answer to Voltaire and Rymer on the question 
 
JOHNSON ON THE RULES 103 
 
 of the rules. You will grant me, he tells 
 them, that, except in "his histories," which, 
 "being neither tragedies nor comedies, are 
 not subject to any of their laws," Shakespeare 
 "has well enough preserved the unity of 
 action." But to those "of time and place 
 he has shown no regard." Therefore you 
 say that his drama is not "credible." 
 What is performed in three hours, you 
 maintain, cannot have lasted "months or 
 years," what is acted on one stage cannot 
 have taken place in different countries. But 
 the unities are not founded in reason, what- 
 ever their antiquity and authority may be. 
 "It is false that any representation is mis- 
 taken for reality." "When the play opens," 
 Antony and Cleopatra^ for instance, does 
 the spectator really "imagine himself at 
 Alexandria"? does he believe "that his 
 walk to the theatre has been a voyage to 
 Egypt " ? If a London stage stands for 
 Alexandria, why should it not stand for 
 Rome also? "Delusion, if delusion be 
 admitted, has no certain limitations," nay, 
 "the delight of tragedy proceeds from our con- 
 sciousness of fiction ; if we thought murders 
 and treasons real, they would please no 
 
I04 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 more." Since we allow so many impossi- 
 bilities as regards the place, we may extend 
 at will the time of the action, the more so 
 as the greater part of it ''elapses between 
 the acts." But Johnson would have been 
 too far in advance of his age if, after so 
 conclusive a defence, he had not repeated 
 the traditional objections against Shake- 
 speare's drama: the looseness of his plots, 
 the inequalities of his style, pompous in his 
 narratives, low in his "contests of sarcasm," 
 the inaccuracies of his chronology, and lastly, 
 what seems to be Johnson's own remark, the 
 want of '' moral purpose " in his compositions, 
 intended not to instruct, but to please. That 
 a man who, in the beginning of his essay, 
 had described Shakespeare as the *'poet of 
 life," whose works are as indissoluble as 
 ''adamant," should conclude by saying that 
 "not one play perhaps," if exhibited as the 
 production of a contemporary writer, would 
 be hearcj to the end, leaves a painful impres- 
 sion on us. But we must bear in mind 
 Rowe's advice, and, like him, forgetting the 
 defects, remember only the beauties. Then 
 Johnson's appreciation of Shakespeare, in 
 spite of an occasional dash of prejudice, will 
 
SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE 105 
 
 appear as the most vigorous, thorough-going, 
 principle-revealing work of criticism that the 
 eighteenth century bequeathed to us on the 
 subject.^ 
 
 That gradual emancipation of the critical 
 mind from the narrow dogmas of the past, 
 successfully carried out in England from 
 Dryden's to Johnson's time, did not take 
 place in France until the Revolution and 
 Empire were well over. It was retarded, 
 not only by those political convulsions, but 
 also by a smaller cause : the conservative 
 influence of Voltaire, whose uncompro- 
 mising scepticism in matters religious and 
 
 ^ Q{. Eighteenth Century Essays, ^^. 114-5, 121-2, 117- 
 20, 126-9, 123-5, 141- A full list of minor Shakespearian 
 critics between Dennis's and Johnson's times is given 
 in the same work, pp. xvii.-xxi. and p. 332, n. 126. After 
 Johnson's Preface, the most remarkable contribution to 
 Shakespearian scholarship was Richard Farmer's 
 Essay on the Learjting of Shakespeare, an entirely new 
 departure, a mine of suggestive bibliographical knowledge 
 on Elizabethan literature. There, Farmer proved, in the 
 most circumstantial manner, that Shakespeare had not 
 read the Ancients, Plutarch for instance, in the text, but 
 in contemporary translations. With Morgann'S Essay 
 on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff {lyyy), 
 brilliantly written in places, but too paradoxical as a 
 whole, began the detailed study of Shakespeare's 
 personages, which led to Hazlitt's well-known lectures 
 later on. 
 
io6 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 philosophical never extended, as is well 
 known, to things dramatic. There he 
 remained the most bigoted of orthodox 
 believers. During his three years' stay in 
 England,^ he had indeed been struck by 
 the power of some of Shakespeare's plays, 
 of Jtdius Ccesar above all ; he had come to 
 the conclusion that our French tragedies 
 were too often frigid and declamatory, and 
 that an increase of rapidity in the action 
 and of variety in the incidents would be 
 desirable. In consequence he condescended 
 to borrow many useful suggestions from 
 Shakespeare, — and he most ungratefully 
 abstained from acknowledging his debt. 
 He stole from Othello the plot of his Zaire] 
 he copied in Mahomet some of the most 
 tragic scenes in Macbeth 'y the '^spectres" in 
 Eriphyle and in S emir amis stalked over the 
 stage in imitation of the ghost in Hamlet. 
 But his lifelong abuse of Shakespeare 
 showed him to be a belated disciple of 
 Rymer, whom he quoted with delight. His 
 superstitious reverence for the ^^ poetical 
 art," for theatrical decorum and for the 
 unities, was as strong as Dennis's. The 
 ^ From 1726 till 1729. 
 
VOLTAIRE 107 
 
 rules he considered as the '* fundamental" 
 principles of dramatic composition, as whole- 
 some chains which none but the weak would 
 refuse to bear. No exception could be allowed 
 even in favour of the greatest genius. His 
 condemnation of Shakespeare's '^wild extra- 
 vagance " never varied : it only increased 
 in virulence as time went on. When most 
 enthusiastic about England, he wrote in his 
 Lettres philosophiques^ that '^Shakespeare, 
 the creator of the English drama, had a 
 vigorous and teeming genius, natural some- 
 times and sometimes sublime, but without 
 the smallest spark of taste, and without the 
 least knowledge of the rules. This writer's 
 merits," he added, '*have ruined the English 
 'Stage ; the fine scenes, the many grand and 
 terrible passages scattered through his mon- 
 strous farces miscalled tragedies, have insured 
 his success " and called forth imitations. Yet, 
 '' in the Moor of Venice^ a very touching play, 
 you see a man strangling his wife before the 
 audience, and, when the poor woman has 
 been strangled, she cries out that she is very 
 unjustly murdered. ... In Hamlet^ grave- 
 
 1 Letter xviii., " on Tragedy." The book was published 
 in 1733 i^^ England, and in 1734 in Fraiice. 
 
io8 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 diggers at work drink, sing catches and 
 jest about the dead men's skulls they find 
 with such wit as may be expected from 
 people of that class." Not the slightest 
 sense of propriety in those rude com- 
 positions : kings jostle hinds, talk like 
 mechanics and get drunk ; not the slightest 
 '^regularity": a hero, baptized in the first 
 act, dies an old man in the fifth. How is 
 the admiration of an enlightened English 
 public to be explained, then? They cannot 
 be entirely mistaken in their taste ; they 
 cannot be ''quite wrong in their pleasures." 
 The reason of their enthusiasm, says Voltaire, 
 seems to be that, however conspicuous the 
 defects of their favourite author, his beauties 
 are still more so, "like the lightning through 
 the darkest night." ^ 
 
 So long as his opinion prevailed in Paris, 
 Voltaire, proud of having introduced Shake- 
 speare to the French readers of his Lettres 
 philosophiques^ kept his patronising tone 
 and treated his protege as an amiable 
 barbarian whose untaught energy, provided 
 it were directed and tamed down, might 
 
 ^ Essai sur la Poesie epique, first printed 1728, but the 
 passage here quoted is a later addition. 
 
RICCOBONI AND LE BLANC 109 
 
 help to invigorate our own tragedy. He 
 could not disapprove of Louis Riccoboni's 
 observation^ that, ^* if, one day, the English 
 poets consented to obey the rules and to 
 remove from the sight of their audiences 
 blood and murder, they might aspire to a 
 share at least of the glory due to the best 
 productions of the modern stage." The 
 judgment passed on Shakespeare by the 
 Abbe Le Blanc 2 coincided so fully with 
 his own, that he could endorse every word 
 
 1 See Riccoboni's Reflexions historiques et critiques 
 sur les differens theatres de V Europe^ 1738, pp. 150-78, 
 Le Theatre anglois. Another observation of this writer 
 made its mark at the time. To explain why so many 
 deaths and murders are presented to the spectators on 
 the London stage, he suggested that the EngHsh, being a 
 very thoughtful people, must be shaken out of their 
 musings by sights of horror : " Suivant mon raisonne- 
 ment je crois que si I'on donnoit sur leur theatre des 
 tragedies dans le gout des meilleures et des plus exactes, 
 c'est-k-dire de celles qui sont denuees de ces horreurs qui 
 souillent la scene par le sang, les spectateurs s'endor- 
 miroient peut-etre. L'experience que les premiers poetes 
 dramatiques auront faite de cette verite les aura portes 
 k etablir ce genre de tragedie, pour les faire sortir de 
 leur reverie par des grands coups qui les reveillent" 
 (p. 166). 
 
 2 Lettres d'un Franqois^ ed. 1758, t. ii., pp. 94-5, 410, 
 413. On p. 418 he says that "a Tragedy should be a 
 poem fit for kings, and not, as in England, fit for the 
 people." 
 
no THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of it: '* Complete translations of, or faithful 
 extracts from, Shakespeare's best plays 
 would do much harm to his reputation in 
 France. . . . He falls so often into the low 
 and puerile ! " The pleasure that some 
 detached passages might procure us would 
 be so entirely spoilt, were we to read any 
 one of his dramas from beginning to end ! 
 His admirable genius forms so perpetual a 
 contrast with his bad taste ! For he knew 
 not how to choose ; he forgot that tragedy 
 cannot admit what is vulgar and familiar in 
 Nature. '' Few of his works remain in which 
 three - fourths of the whole are not to be 
 rejected. Compared with M. de Crebillon's 
 Electra^ how far removed is his Havilet from 
 such a degree of perfection ! " 
 
 In 1746, however, a sudden ^ change took 
 
 1 The very favourable article on Shakespeare published 
 in Prevost's Pour et Contre^ t. xiv., 1738, pp. 25-48, has 
 not the importance that M. Jusserand {Shakespeare en 
 France^ p. 173) ascribes to it. For it is not an original 
 production, but a mere translation of RowE's Preface 
 (cf. p. 28 especially). More striking still is a paper on 
 Othello^ in the same Journal and presumably by the same 
 writer (pp. 49-72), which concludes by the following judg- 
 ment on the play : 
 
 "Cette etrange rapsodie, ou Ton n'appergoit ni ordre 
 ni vraisemblance, et ou le comique et le tragique sent 
 
LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION iii 
 
 place. M. de la Place, a former pupil of the 
 English Jesuits at St Omer,i undertook to 
 give to the French public numerous specimens 
 of those strange plays, either in free transla- 
 tions, or in condensed analyses. The first 
 four volumes of his Theatre anglots, published 
 in the same year, were appropriated to Shake- 
 speare ; his opening ^^ Discourse," though it 
 was not all praise, though it particularly 
 reproved the mixture of comic and tragic 
 scenes, deprecated, however, any '*rash and 
 inflexible condemnation of what posterity 
 would perhaps commend." Here, then, was 
 an officious person so partial to Shake- 
 speare as not to translate him literally, for 
 fear his coarseness should offend his readers, 
 and so unkind to Voltaire as to reveal to all 
 eyes the true original of so many admired 
 dramatic innovations ! This seemed intoler- 
 able to the great man, who vented his 
 resentment in the famous Preface to 
 S emir amis J^" Shakespeare, that barbarian 
 
 confusement meles, passe pour le chef-d'oeuvre de Shake- 
 spear. On ne m'en croiroit pas, si je ne promettois 
 d'expliquer dans quelque autre feuille les causes de cette 
 admiration," 
 
 ^ Cf. La Harpe's Lycee^ t. xiv., pp. 323-7, 
 2 In 1748. 
 
112 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of genius, now became an "intoxicated 
 savage," whose delirious imagination pro- 
 duced such a tragedy as Hamlet^ "so low 
 and extravagant that the vilest populace 
 in France or Italy could never bear it." 
 Thirteen years later, incensed more and 
 more by the continued success of La Place's 
 work, by Patu's ^ enthusiasm for Romeo and 
 
 ^ Claude-Pierre Patu, avocat en Parlement, was born 
 in October 1729, and died of lung disease on 20th August 
 1757 (cf. an Obituary Notice in the Annce Litteraire^ 
 1757, t. vii., pp. 178-187). His comedietta les Adieux 
 du gout met with some success in 1754, and in the 
 same year he visited England, where he made the 
 acquaintance of Garrick, whose ardent admirer he 
 became. More than any Frenchman of the time, 
 certainly more than La Place, he felt the charm of 
 Shakespeare as a poet (cf, his Letters to Garrick, in 
 Garrick's Private and Foreign Correspondence^ ed. 
 1832, ii., 383-420; the first is written in English, and 
 dated "Paris, 25th February 1755")- Some extracts 
 from this Correspondence will show the young critic's 
 sincere enthusiasm. On 6th May 1755, he says : 
 
 " Je lis Shakespeare avec mon ami Mr Flint (a teacher 
 of English in Paris), et le livre nous tombe des mains k 
 chaque page. Quelle chaleur d'action ! quelle verite de 
 portraits ! quelle variete dans les descriptions ! Quelle 
 foule de preceptes instructifs, de remarques sages, de 
 beautes de toute espece ! Quelle connaissance du coeur 
 et de la nature ! Je travaille maintenant k un ouvrage 
 sur votre litterature, qui me donnera lieu de m'expliquer 
 sur ce g^nie merveilleux." 
 
 This was to be a History of English Poetry, beginning 
 
PATU 113 
 
 Juliet both at Ferney and in the Journal 
 Etranger, by the publication, in the Journal 
 
 with Chaucer (cf. Ibid.^ p. 406). On the i8th of June, he 
 wrote : 
 
 " J'ai mille choses k dire, sans prejuges, ce me semble, 
 sans mauvaise humeur, sans partialite nationale, sur cette 
 divine action, sur cette chaleur d'interet qui caracterise 
 tant de vos pieces, et qui les rendent sur la scene si pre- 
 ferables aux notres, dont la plupart ne sont que de tres 
 belles elegies et de charmants poemes ; mais je suis 
 encore bien jeune, et j'ai besoin de certaines lumieres 
 que je saisirai mieux k Londres qu'ici. Je crois done 
 devoir remettre ce grand coup a quelques annees, et me 
 contenter en attendant de porter quelques bottes k cet 
 amour tyrannique que nous inspirent par prescription les 
 regies d'unites, et surtout a cette idee modeste, ou sont 
 nos gens, qu'au theatre comme en tout nous sommes les 
 arbitres souverains. Heureux si ma sante, qui continue 
 k etre assez chancelante, ne me faisait craindre I'hiver de 
 votre ville, et si les brouillards de la Tamise et la fumee 
 de charbon convenaient autant k ma poitrine que les 
 hommes, leurs moeurs, et les pieces tragiques s'y accordent 
 avec mon gout." 
 
 In October 1755 he spent a week with Voltaire, whom 
 he tried to bring to his own views on Shakespeare by 
 reading aloud some scenes of Ro77ieo and of Macbeth : 
 
 "Je n'ai pas manque de lui dire ce que je pensais de 
 ses expressions si fausses, si peu reflechies au sujet de 
 Shakespear. II est convenu de bonne foi que c'etait im 
 barbare airnable, un fou sediiisant \ ce sont ses propres 
 termes : le grand article qui le met de mauvaise humeur 
 est I'irregularite des plans de cet illustre poete. . . . 
 J'ai fait ressouvenir aujourd'hui meme ce grand homme 
 du trait sublime de Macduff: 'He has no children,' de la 
 scene entre le jeune Arthur et son gouverneur Hubert, 
 et de bien d'autres beautes de I'inimitable Shakespear. 
 Je ne doute presque pas que je ne I'amenasse k ma fagon 
 de penser k ce sujet, si j'avais le temps de faire k Geneve 
 
 H 
 
114 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Encyclopedique^^ of two laudatory articles on 
 Shakespeare and Otway compared with 
 Corneille and Racine, he rose in his anger, 
 and addressed '*to all the nations of Europe" 
 an Aj)J?ea/ agsiinst these erroneous judgments. 
 As was his wont, he ridiculed Hamlet in a 
 lengthy account of the play, quoted, for 
 the third time perhaps, some objectionable 
 passages in Othello, and concluded by ask- 
 ing : ''Who can now speak of Aristotle's 
 rules, of the three unities, of decorum, of 
 the necessity there is of never leaving the 
 stage empty, of giving a plausible reason 
 for all exits and entrances, of making princes 
 speak with due propriety? It is too plain 
 that an author can bewitch a nation without 
 
 un sejour plus long, mais je quitte le dieu de notre 
 litterature apres-demain, et je reviens a Paris." {Ibid., 
 pp. 408-9). 
 
 The article on Mrs Lennox's Shakespear Illustrated 
 in the Journal Etranger for December 1755, i., 29-90, 
 is by Patu (cf. Garrick's Correspondence^ ii., 405). He 
 died at St Jean de Maurienne, on his return from Italy, 
 whither the care of his health had driven him. There 
 is no doubt that French criticism on English poetry 
 lost much by his premature death. 
 
 ^ Contrary to Mr Lounsbury's opinion {Shakespeare 
 and Voltaire., p. 183), we believe these articles to be bond 
 fide translations. They appeared in the numbers for 
 15th October and 1st November 1760. 
 
VOLTAIRE'S APPEAL AND CJESAR 115 
 
 putting himself to so much trouble."^ And 
 the better to expose the errors of his personal 
 enemies, the Shakespeare - worshippers, he 
 took occasion of the Commentary he was 
 writing on Corneille ^ to translate as faith- 
 fully as possible — at least so he said — the 
 first three acts of Julius Ccesar, containing 
 the dramatic presentment of a conspiracy 
 very similar to that in Cinna. Between 
 Corneille in the text, and Shakespeare 
 rendered into French prose and blank 
 verse by Voltaire, the world would thus 
 be enabled to decide. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Mrs Montagu, like most of her com- 
 patriots, felt indignant at this abuse. She 
 had always admired Shakespeare sincerely. 
 Comparing him with Sophocles in 1760, 
 she wrote that ^^he alone, like the dervise in 
 the Arabian tales, could throw his soul into 
 the body of another man." His gifts as a 
 
 ^ Voltaire, CEuvres completes^ Garnier ed., 1879, 
 xxiv., 203. 
 2 in 1764. 
 
ii6 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 character-painter seemed to her unparalleled. 
 Not so his style: '^Had Shakespeare lived 
 in Sophocles' age and country, what a writer 
 had he been ! what powers had he by nature, 
 and alas ! what deficiencies in art ! " Here 
 the keynote is struck again that characterises, 
 as we have seen, English criticism on Shake- 
 speare at that time : so many beauties to be 
 reckoned on one side, so many defects to 
 be deducted on the other, with an over- 
 whelming balance in favour of the former. 
 He possesses the dramatist's essential skill, 
 that of creating living individual figures, as 
 if by intuition: ''In his Hamlet^ King John ^ 
 Henry IV,, and in all his good plays, he 
 makes his persons say what one would 
 imagine could not occur to any one who 
 was not in their very circumstances." His 
 being an actor ''might a little assist him 
 in this respect," for a writer "puts down 
 what he imagines," an actor "what he 
 feels." His dramatic instinct unerringly 
 guided him, even in his "moral reflections." 
 They "are not the cold and formal observa- 
 tions of a spectator, but come warm from 
 the heart of the interested person. " ^ Answer- 
 ^ Letters^ iv., 299-301. 
 
MRS MONTAGU ON VOLTAIRE 117 
 
 ing this letter, Lord Lyttelton applauded his 
 friend's remarks : ''Shakespeare," he declared 
 in his turn, was ''indeed unequalled in the 
 power of painting Nature as she is," and of 
 putting into the mouth of the "interested 
 persons " moral reflections which the passion 
 they breathe makes much more striking and 
 effective than the descant of a Greek chorus.^ 
 Thus confirmed in her high appreciation of 
 Shakespeare, Mrs Montagu's antipathy to 
 Voltaire could not but increase. It became 
 a rooted aversion. She disliked not only 
 his criticism, but his conduct, his principles, 
 his works. The Henriade she thought a 
 schoolboy's imitation of Homer and Virgil, 
 a "light matter borne aloft by the puffing 
 of a little rhyme," fit "to dance a while in 
 the atmosphere of France " ^ ; Candida or 
 Optimism she agreed with Mrs Carter in 
 "detesting." "This creature," exclaimed 
 our pious Englishwomen in concert, " is a 
 downright rebel to his God."^ And as such 
 a hideous infidel must be severely castigated, 
 they started, one day, in Amazonian fashion, 
 
 1 Mrs Climenson, ii., 206. 
 
 2 Letters, iv., 67 (i757). 
 
 3 Ibid.^ 197- 
 
ii8 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 from London to Welwyn, where that solemn 
 champion of Christianity, Dr Young, still 
 resided, and, without much difficulty, per- 
 suaded him to insert in his Resig?iation a 
 homily, half unctuous and half minatory, 
 on the error of a philosopher's ways.^ 
 Common honesty, Mrs Montagu evidently 
 believed, was not to be expected from a 
 member of "Satan's household " ; ingratitude 
 to a benefactor, to Shakespeare, must be one 
 of the smallest sins of such a miscreant. 
 Therefore, she was not surprised, when "the 
 saucy Frenchman," in his Preface to the 
 Orphelin de la Chine y'^ opprobriously called 
 
 1 Cf. Resignation, part ii., and Mrs Climenson, ii., 257 
 (2nd September 1761). 
 
 ^ Patu himself was displeased. On 23rd September 
 i755j he wrote to Garrick {Correspondence, pp. 404-5) : 
 
 ^^ V Orphelin de la Chine is over. La maladie subite de 
 Le Kain a interrompu la piece ^ la neuvieme representa- 
 tion. ... La preface ne manquera pas de vous revolter. 
 J'ai peu vu de choses (de lui surtout) aussi mal digerees, 
 je dirais presque aussi mal ecrites. II y traite les pieces 
 de Shakespear de farces monstrueuses, et en parle avec 
 un mepris souverain. J'en suis d'autant plus indign^ que 
 les moindres paroles de ce grand ecrivain sont prises ici 
 pour des oracles. . . ." 
 
 Arthur Murphy appended to his adaptation of the 
 Orphan of China (1759) a Letter to M. de Voltaire (2nd 
 ed., pp. 89-96), in which he said : 
 
 " A very ingenious gentleman of my acquaintance tells 
 
MRS MONTAGU ON CORNEILLE 119 
 
 Shakespeare's tragedies *^ monstrous farces." 
 
 But her anger rose to the threatening pitch : 
 
 ^^I could burn him and his tragedy!" she 
 
 cried. '' Foolish coxcomb! rules can no 
 
 more make a poet than receipts a cook. 
 
 There must be taste, there must be skill. 
 
 Oh ! that we were as sure our fleets and 
 
 armies could drive the French out of 
 
 America,^ as that our poets and tragedians 
 
 can drive them out of Parnassus. I hate 
 
 to see these tame creatures, taught to pace 
 
 by art, attack fancy's sweetest child ! " 
 
 What were their tragedies, which Voltaire 
 
 and all their critics so proudly boasted of? 
 
 Mere declamations, devoid of life and action. 
 
 ^'I am flattered to find my opinion of Corneille 
 
 has always agreed with yours," she told Mrs 
 
 Carter so early as 1758.^ <'I will allow he 
 
 is a poet, but I deny his dramatic talents : he 
 
 does not possess the familiarity of dialogue, 
 
 nor the art of realising characters." His 
 
 me, that whenever you treat the English bard as a 
 drunken savage in your avant propos^ he always deems 
 it a sure prognostic that your play is the better for 
 him," 
 
 which sarcastic — but just — observation was literally trans- 
 lated in \h^ Journal Etr anger iox January 1760 (pp. 1-47). 
 
 1 Letters, iv., 7-8 (i8th November I755)- 
 
 2 Letters, iv., 107-8. 
 
I20 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 magnanimous, grandiloquent personages re- 
 semble the statues of certain great Romans : 
 *' their air, their shape, their features are 
 expressed, but they are not animated ; they 
 are not men, they are mere images." In a 
 tour she made through Scotland during the 
 autumn of 1766, she became personally 
 acquainted with Henry Home, Lord Kames, 
 whose voluminous and once famous treatise 
 on the Elements of Criticism she had probably 
 perused on its publication in 1761. Both the 
 Scotch judge and the English lady were 
 unanimous in their depreciation of Voltaire,^ 
 and of the French drama. To prove Shake- 
 speare's immense superiority as a painter of 
 the passions. Home also had compared him 
 with Corneille. Truth compelled him to ac- 
 knowledge, not very unwillingly, we suspect, 
 that the ** French author describes in the 
 style of a spectator, instead of expressing 
 passion like one who feels it. ... In the 
 tragedy of Cinna^ Emilia, after the con- 
 spiracy is discovered, receives a pardon from 
 Augustus. . . . This is a lucky situation for 
 
 ^ Kames had found fault with the Henriade in his 
 Elements^ and drew on himself Voltaire's reprisals in 
 the Gazette Litteraire (4th April 1764). 
 
LORD KAMES ON CORNEILLE 121 
 
 representing the passions of surprise and 
 gratitude in their different stages, which 
 seem naturally to be what follow." Let us 
 give one instance of those psychological 
 observations on which Karnes founded his 
 code of aesthetics : '* These passions, raised 
 at once to the utmost pitch " in Emilia's 
 bosom, ^^ and being at first too big for 
 utterance, must, for some moments, be 
 expressed by violent gestures only : as soon 
 as there is vent for words, the first expres- 
 sions are broken and interrupted ; at last we 
 ought to expect a tide of intermingled senti- 
 ments, occasioned by the fluctuation of the 
 mind between the two passions." Unfortu- 
 nately, however, Corneille had not studied 
 moral philosophy in Scotland. He knew 
 indeed how difficult it is for a tragic poet to 
 paint '' extreme grief" by ^'violent gestures" 
 and *^ exclamations only."^ To this powerful 
 objection of Corneille's, Kames had nothing 
 to answer. He preferred criticising on : 
 *' Emilia," he insisted, speaks in the most 
 unnatural manner; '^with extreme coolness 
 she describes her own situation as if she 
 
 1 See his Examen of the Cid, quoted by Kames him- 
 self, Elements of Criticism^ 6th ed., 1785, i., 480. 
 
122 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 were merely a spectator ; ... in the tragedy 
 of Sertorzusy the Queen, ^ surprised with the 
 news that her lover was assassinated, instead 
 of venting her passion, undertakes to instruct 
 the bystanders how a queen ought to behave 
 on such an occasion." Even in the Czd^ Don 
 Diegue, "having been affronted in a cruel 
 manner, expresses scarce any sentiment of 
 revenge, but is totally occupied in contem- 
 plating the low situation to which he is 
 reduced." Shakespeare, on the contrary, 
 never '* disgusts his reader with general 
 declamation and unmeaning words : his 
 sentiments are adjusted to the peculiar 
 character and circumstances of the speaker, 
 and the propriety is no less perfect between 
 his sentiments and his diction."^ Kames's 
 conclusions, identical with her own, must 
 have greatly encouraged Mrs Montagu to 
 proceed with her critical work. 
 
 In 1764 the first draught of the Essay on 
 Shakespear was, in all probability, already 
 
 ^ Viriate. 
 
 ^ Elements^ i., 458-64, 500-1. On Mrs Montagus 
 intercourse with Karnes, see his Memoirs^ by Alexander 
 Fraser Tytler of Woodhouselee, 2nd ed., 1814, ii., 44 
 sqq. 
 
ITS PUBLICATION 123 
 
 written, as Mrs Carter mentions in a letter^ 
 one of its parts, the ^'criticism on Macbethy 
 Two years afterwards the same correspondent 
 returned to the subject. She had read ''the 
 Prefaces prefixed to Johnson's Shakespear," 
 and, in her opinion, the ablest of them all 
 was Johnson's own. She did not intend, 
 however, "by this to express that he is 
 always right in what he says of his author. 
 In this article he, like the rest of the com- 
 mentators, appears to be very defective, and 
 consequently ' res integra tibi reservatur,* 
 if you pursue your scheme."^ On 21st 
 August 1767, Mrs Montagu submitted to 
 her friend another part of her book, the 
 essay "on the Prseternatural Beings,"^ 
 and she probably completed the whole 
 during the summer of 1768.^ The volume 
 came out anonymously in the following 
 April. 
 
 Besides the "Introduction" and the two 
 essays already mentioned "on Macbeth" and 
 
 1 Mrs Carter's Letters to Mrs Montagu^ i., 214 
 (i2th May). 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 311 (i2th July 1766). 
 
 3 Ibid., 343 ; cf. Essay on Shakespear, p. 140, ed. 
 1777. 
 
 ^ Ibid., 387 (21st June). 
 
124 THE ESSAV ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 **on the Praeter natural Beings," it contains 
 six separate dissertations: on ^^ Dramatic 
 Poetry" in general, on the *^ Historical 
 Drama," on the two parts of ^' Henry IV.," 
 on " Corneille's Cinna," and '' Shakespear's 
 Julius Caesar." The mere enumeration of 
 the contents makes the writer's aim manifest : 
 *^the genius of Shakespear, through the 
 whole extent of the poet's province,"^ is one 
 of the two objects of the enquiry, the other 
 being a reply to Voltaire: ^'I will own," 
 Mrs Montagu says, ''I was incited to this 
 undertaking by great admiration of Shake- 
 spear's genius, and still greater indignation at 
 the treatment he has received from a French 
 wit, who seems to think he has made pro- 
 digious concessions to our prejudices in 
 favour of the works of our countryman, in 
 allowing them the credit of a few splendid 
 passages, while he speaks of every entire 
 piece as a monstrous and ill-constructed farce. 
 Ridiculously has our poet, and ridiculously 
 has our taste been represented by a writer 
 of universal fame, and through the medium 
 of an almost universal language." ^ Mrs 
 
 ' Essay on Shakespear, p. 135. 
 •' Ibid., 16. 
 
THE RULES 125 
 
 Montag-u*s book is, therefore, a patriotic 
 protest against undeserved abuse. 
 
 She repudiates Voltaire's chief contention 
 that Shakespeare's ignorance or non-observ- 
 ance of the rules incapacitates him at once 
 from ranking with the greatest classical 
 dramatists — Sophocles, Corneille, and Racine. 
 As Farquhar had done before her, she denies 
 the efficacy of Aristotle's precepts: ''When 
 one of these critics has attempted to finish a 
 work by his own rules, he has rarely been 
 able to convey into it one spark of divine 
 fire ; and the hero of his piece, whom he 
 designed for a man, remains a cold, inanimate 
 statue. ... As these pieces take their rise 
 in the school of criticism, they return thither 
 again, and are as good subjects for the 
 students in that art as a dead body to the 
 professors in anatomy." ^ Elsewhere the 
 same position is illustrated by a more elegant 
 simile. According to Mrs Montagu, ''the 
 pedant who bought at a great price the lamp 
 of a famous philosopher, expecting that by 
 its assistance his lucubrations would become 
 equally celebrated, was litde more absurd 
 than those poets who suppose their dramas 
 ^ Essay on Shakespear^ pp. 6-7. 
 
126 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 must be excellent if they are regulated by- 
 Aristotle's clock." ^ The rules are not only 
 useless, but also inapplicable to Shakespeare, 
 to one section of his plays especially. Johnson 
 had already asserted that ''his histories, 
 being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not 
 subject to any of their laws." ^ Mrs Montagu, 
 borrowing this idea, expresses it in other 
 words : '' Those dramas of Shakespear, which 
 he distinguishes by the name of his histories, 
 being of an original kind and peculiar con- 
 struction, cannot come within any rules, 
 prior to their existence."^ Aristotle, what- 
 ever his learning, could not legislate about 
 what was not ''actually extant" in his own 
 time. His decrees do not cover the whole 
 field of the drama and even in their domain 
 they have no specific virtue. 
 
 Voltaire's favourite argument once disposed 
 of, Mrs Montagu proceeds to develop her 
 own critical theory. Remembering that the 
 Ancients and Johnson himself have said that, 
 whilst "the end of writing is to instruct, the 
 
 ^ Essay on Shakespear ^ pp. 5-6. 
 
 2 NiCHOL Smith's Eighteenth Century Essays, 
 p. 126. 
 
 ^ Essay on Shakespear, p. 53. 
 
DEFINITION OF THE DRAMA 127 
 
 end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing,"^ 
 she starts from the following definition of 
 the drama: ^'The effecting certain moral 
 purposes, by the representation of a fable, 
 seems to have been the universal intention 
 from the first institution of the drama to this 
 time." She will therefore examine her author 
 with the double view of ascertaining ^' first, 
 whether his fables answer the noblest end of 
 Fable, moral instruction ; next, whether his 
 dramatic imitation has its proper dramatic 
 excellence."^ A comparison of his and of 
 some other celebrated compositions, where 
 the nature of the subjects can bear it, will 
 enable her to form a candid judgment on his 
 merits. 
 
 She entertains no doubts of his ethical 
 superiority over the French tragedians. Mrs 
 Montagu, as we know, looks suspiciously 
 upon love. She finds too much of it in the 
 French plays. Instead of ''attempting to 
 purge the passions by Pity and Terror," 
 writers like Corneille and Racine *'have 
 plainly neglected " the true object of the 
 drama, its moral end, and melted it away " in 
 
 ^ Eighteenth Century Essays^ p. 119. 
 ^ Essay, pp. 12-3. 
 
128 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the strains of Elegy and Eclogue." Their 
 warblings may please an effeminate audience, 
 " but let not example," she manfully exclaims, 
 ** teach us to fetter the energy and enervate 
 the noble powers of the British Muse and 
 of a language fit to express sublimer senti- 
 ments." The subjects of an absolute monarch 
 may delight in making persons ^^of every 
 age and nation adopt French manners," in 
 turning even Greek heroes into plaintive 
 courtiers. Such distortions of the truth are 
 repugnant to free-born Britons, well-read in 
 Sophocles and Euripides. They know that 
 ^^ Ulysses, in the tragedy of Hecuba^ coming 
 to demand Polixena to be sacrificed, is cold, 
 prudent, deaf to pity, blind to beauty, and to 
 be moved only by consideration of the public 
 weal." In consequence, they cannot approve 
 of Racine's Ulysses telling Agamemnon ^' he is 
 ready to cry,^^'^ Surely sentimentalism never 
 was the foible of Penelope's husband. In the 
 
 ^ The writer of an article on the Apologie de Shakespear 
 in the Annee Litteraire for 1777, vi., 228, ingeniously 
 remarks about this, that " L'erreur de miladi Montagu 
 est inconcevable. II faut quelle n'ait pas entendu le 
 sens du passage qu'elle cite : en effet, lorsqu' Ulysse dit 
 k Agamemnon qu'il est pret de pleurer, ce n'est pas qu'il 
 soit attendri sur le sort d'Iphigenie ; c'est une ruse 
 
THE DRAMA— ITS MORAL END 129 
 
 same play of Iphigenia^ Achilles ^Ms not dis- 
 tinguished from any young lover of spirit ; 
 yet this is one of the best French tragedies." 
 Nor was Corneille more accurate in his 
 characters. His ^^ strained elevation of senti- 
 ment and expression has perhaps a theatrical 
 greatness," but it is not like ** Roman dignity," 
 which clothed exalted feelings in simple words. 
 Shakespeare, on the contrary, in the greater 
 number of his historical dramas, takes care 
 to choose national heroes and incidents well- 
 known of all the spectators. Hence a twofold 
 advantage : the interest he excites is deeper, 
 ^'our noble countryman Percy engages us 
 much more than Achilles " ; and in the second 
 place, the moral lesson to be drawn from the 
 play gains in clearness and usefulness: '* As 
 the misfortunes of nations, like those of 
 individuals, often arise from their peculiar 
 dispositions, customs, prejudices, and vices, 
 these home - born dramas are excellently 
 calculated to correct them. . . . The Poet 
 collects, as it were, into a focus those truths 
 which lie scattered in the diffuse volume of 
 
 eloquente qu'il met en ceuvre pour determiner son p^re k 
 la sacrifier. II feint de partager la douleur d' Agamemnon, 
 afin de s'insinuer dans son esprit, et de donner par 1^ plus 
 de poids k ses conseils." 
 
 I 
 
I30 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the historian, and kindles the flame of virtue, 
 while he shows the miseries and calamities of 
 vice." Moreover, taking his work as a whole, 
 we find that it possesses a psychological range 
 and moral utility much wider than those of 
 the French tragedies. These always turn on 
 *Move and ambition." ''From the first of 
 these passions, many by age and temper are 
 entirely exempted, and from the second many 
 more, by situation. . . . Shakespeare, zn 
 various nature wise^ does not confine himself 
 to any particular passion." For " purgative " 
 power, his plays remain beyond compare. 
 And as a coiner of "sentences," he is 
 "certainly one of the greatest moral philo- 
 sophers that ever lived." His axioms are not, 
 like those of Euripides, "general opinions 
 collected into maxims, ambitious ornaments 
 glittering alone " : they come warm from the 
 speaker's heart, and we remember them the 
 better as they are " naturally united with the 
 story." ^ 
 
 If we pass to the second point, to the con- 
 sideration of the "fable," Shakespeare shows 
 himself no less a master. He unconsciously 
 follows Aristotle's precept that ' ' there can be 
 
 ^ Essay, pp. 39, 41, 44-6, 55-8, 80. 
 
HIS DRAMA—THE FABLE 131 
 
 no tragedy without action." He is a dramatist 
 "upon instinct," and never deviates into the 
 epic. He seldom or never falls into the long- 
 winded speeches so rife in French plays. 
 Voltaire himself "confesses that some of the 
 most admired tragedies in France are rather 
 conversations than representations of an 
 action." No heavier charge can be brought 
 against them, for, in that case, they "fail in 
 the most essential part of the art." "The 
 business of the drama is to excite sympathy, 
 and its effect on the spectator depends on 
 such a justness of imitation as shall cause, 
 to a certain degree, the same passions and 
 affections, as if what is exhibited was real. 
 We have observed narrative imitation to be 
 too faint and feeble a means to excite passion ; 
 declamation, still worse, plays idly on the 
 surface of the subject, and makes the poet, 
 who should be concealed in the action, visible 
 to the spectator. "1 How poor is the merit of 
 overcoming the difficulties of the rules and of 
 the rhyme, when so essential a defect has to 
 be incurred! The real "dramatic art" is 
 then lost sight of, for the sake of an artificial 
 technique. 
 
 ^ Essay ^ pp. 30-1, 
 
132 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 As speeches abound in French tragedies, so 
 do characters in Shakespeare's plays. **His 
 talents were universal, his penetrating mind " 
 seemed to know all things by intuition. " He 
 could throw his soul into the body of another 
 man, and be at once possessed of his senti- 
 ments," which almost instantaneous inspira- 
 tion is surely the highest gift in a poet. His 
 grasp and range were such that in his 
 historical dramas he succeeded in painting a 
 full and animated picture of England during 
 the Civil Wars. In his endeavour to re- 
 produce the manifold aspects of things, he 
 broke down, of course, '' the barriers that had 
 before confined the dramatic writers to the 
 regions of comedy or tragedy. He perceived 
 the fertility of the subjects that lay between 
 the two extremes ; he saw that in the historical 
 play he could represent the manners of the 
 whole people, give the general temper of the 
 times, and bring in view the incidents that 
 affected the common fate of his country." 
 From the extensiveness of the plan doubtless 
 resulted some grave inconveniences : con- 
 fusion and ^* hurly-burly" too often prevail 
 in his plays ; by his strict fidelity to the 
 chronicles, Shakespeare '^ has embarrassed 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS 133 
 
 his dramas with too great a number of 
 persons and events." Moreover, the number- 
 less assassinations and battles he has repre- 
 sented, in conformity with his historical 
 authorities, have caused the French to 
 '* impute barbarity and cruelty to a people 
 that could delight in bloody skirmishes on 
 the stage." But how rich is this maze of 
 events in varied and always striking 
 characters! Here is Hotspur, *^ hurried by 
 an impetuosity of soul out of the sphere of 
 obedience, and, like a comet, though 
 dangerous to the general system, still an 
 object of admiration and wonder to every 
 beholder." What a curious and illuminat- 
 ing contrast he forms with Worcester, the 
 *^ proud, envious, malignant, artful rebel," 
 with Henry IV. himself, whose '^specious 
 talents" assisted him '*to usurp a kingdom," 
 but, probably ' ' from the want of great and 
 solid qualities," left him unable to ''main- 
 tain opinion loyal to the throne." Nor are 
 Prince Hal and Falstaff less skilfully contrived 
 and opposed. ''It was a delicate affair to 
 expose the follies of Henry V. before a 
 people proud of his victories, and tender of 
 his fame, at the same time so informed of 
 
134 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the extravagances and excesses of his youth 
 that he could not appear divested of them 
 with any degree of historical probability. . . . 
 How happily therefore was the character of 
 Falstaff introduced, whose wit and festivity in 
 some measure excuse the Prince for admitting 
 him into his familiarity, and suffering himself 
 to be led by him into some irregularities ! " 
 Falstaff's mirth, '^the source of his wit," and 
 his overflowing spirits were so irresistibly 
 attractive! The "finesse of wit" was in 
 him, joined to "the drollery of Humour." 
 For "Humour is a kind of grotesque wit, 
 shaped and coloured by the disposition of 
 the person in whom it resides or by the 
 subject to which it is applied." And never 
 was so amusing a "composition" as 
 Falstaff's, whom corpulency, gluttony and 
 cowardice make ridiculous, thereby enhan- 
 cing, instead of weakening, the effect of his 
 resourceful wit. It may be that, now and 
 then, a secondary figure "appears a mere 
 antiquated habit," a monster begotten by 
 the poet's brain. The rant of Pistol, for 
 instance, is of a strange kind, probably 
 meant as a caricature of some ' ' forgotten 
 mode," of "some fashionable affectation of 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS 135 
 
 bombast language." The short duration of 
 such oddities has deprived the character of the 
 permanent value which their essential truth 
 imparts to most Shakespearian personages. 
 Take Macbeth, among others, with ^'his 
 generous disposition and good propensities, 
 but vehement passions, and aspiring wishes.'* 
 '^Amazing is the art with which Shakespeare 
 exhibits the movement of the human mind," 
 gradually ^'seduced by splendid prospects and 
 ambitious counsels." How well he *^ renders 
 audible the silent march of thought, traces its 
 modes of operation in the course of deliberat- 
 ing, the pauses of hesitation, and the final 
 decision, shows how Reason checks and how 
 the passions impel ; and displays to us the 
 trepidations that precede, and the horrors 
 that pursue acts of blood." See also with 
 what skill Lady Macbeth is made to shrink 
 from killing the king: ''the exaggerated 
 fierceness of her character" thus ''returns 
 back to the line and limits of humanity, and 
 that very judiciously, by a sudden impression, 
 which has only an instantaneous effect." 
 So "prodigious" was the force of Shake- 
 speare's talents that he could render even 
 his " prasternatural beings," his witches and 
 
136 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ghosts, '^credible and subservient to his 
 designs."^ 
 
 It was the height of imprudence in Voltaire 
 to compare Julius Ccesar and Cinna. For 
 there is not one character in the French play- 
 but deserves our contempt. Emilia's *' out- 
 rageous resentment" against Augustus we 
 cannot sympathise with, as we know nothing 
 of her father, except that he was called 
 Toranius, and had been proscribed by the 
 Triumvirate. Nay, we detest it, for '^we 
 see her in the court of Augustus, under the 
 sacred relation of his adopted daughter, enjoy- 
 ing all the privileges of that distinguished 
 situation, and treated with the tenderness of 
 paternal love. Nothing so much deforms the 
 feminine character as ferocity of sentiment. 
 Nothing so deeply stains the human character 
 as ingratitude." Very different from what a 
 Roman hero should have been, Cinna resolves 
 to murder the dictator, in order not so much 
 to free the state as to please his mistress : 
 *' Shakespeare most judiciously laboured to 
 show that Brutus's motives to kill C^sar 
 were perfectly generous, and purely public- 
 
 1 Essay, pp. 63-4, 69, 73, 92, 95-6, 103, 108, 124, 164, 
 178, 185, 203. 
 
CORNEILLE'S INFERIORITY 137 
 
 spirited. Corneille has not kindled Cinna to 
 his enterprize with any spark of Roman fire." 
 The feehng he excites in us is *' aversion at 
 his black treachery. . . . When Augustus 
 consults him as his friend, whether he shall 
 lay down his power and restore liberty to the 
 Commonwealth, Cinna advises him not to do 
 it, with a great appearance of personal attach- 
 ment to him and zeal for his country, but in 
 reality that he may not lose a pretence to 
 sacrifice him to the revenge of Emilia. This 
 holds forth Cinna to the spectator as a 
 perfidious friend, a wicked counsellor, a 
 profligate citizen." Maximus, in the third 
 act, turning informer out of love and jealousy, 
 ^'becomes as base as Cinna his friend and 
 Emilia his mistress." So that the play as a 
 whole, instead of being ^'the representation of 
 an important event" by illustrious persons, 
 appears as *'the love-intrigue of a termagant 
 lady" carried on by ^' villains."^ 
 
 So far, Mrs Montagu had tried to confute 
 Voltaire by eulogising Shakespeare and 
 depreciating Corneille. She now attacked 
 the French critic directly, and censured the 
 many inaccuracies to be found in his transla- 
 ^ Essay ^ pp. 219-20, 231, 240. 
 
138 THE ESSAV ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 tion of the first three acts of Julius Ccesar. ^ 
 The blame was just, and Voltaire had courted 
 it by himself challenging comparison with 
 the original text : '^ The rendering here given 
 oi Ccesar,^^ he had written in his preface, ''is 
 the most faithful ever made in our language 
 from any poet, ancient or foreign. . . . Prose 
 corresponds to prose, blank verse to blank 
 verse, and what is familiar and low in 
 Shakespeare's tragedy has so remained."^ 
 To this bold assertion, Mrs Montagu opposes 
 a vigorous negative. In the first place, ''it 
 is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make the 
 graces of style pass from one language to 
 another, and our blank verse cannot be 
 equalled by French blank verse." Voltaire, 
 moreover, frequently proves, not his know- 
 ledge, but his ignorance of the English 
 tongue. " He often mistakes the signification 
 of the most common words, of which there 
 are many remarkable instances in this boasted 
 translation of Julius Ccesar.'^ Let us quote 
 at least some of them. In the first scene of 
 the second act, Brutus, loath to have Antony 
 and Ccesar slain together, exclaims: "Our 
 
 ^ See above (p. 115). 
 
 * Voltaire, CEuvres completes^ ed. 1877, vii., 435-6. 
 
VOLTAIRE'S INACCURACIES 139 
 
 course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius," 
 which line was thus translated by Voltaire : 
 **Cette course aux Romains paraitrait trop 
 sanglante," an ^^ allusion perhaps to the 
 Lupercal course," the ingenious commentator 
 added in a note, unless it signifies '*a service 
 of dishes at table." ^ He was corrected by 
 Mrs Montagu, without much difficulty : course 
 means ''method of proceeding," she very 
 justly observes. Brutus again, conversing 
 with Portia, ^ promises to tell her the secrets 
 of his heart: ''All my engagements I will 
 construe to thee," he says; and Voltaire 
 translates: " Va, mes sourcils fronces pren- 
 nent un air plus doux." A gross blunder! 
 remarks Mrs Montagu. How is it to be 
 explained? With commendable ingenuity, 
 she suggests that "the dictionary was con- 
 sulted for the word construe ; . . . according 
 to the usual form, one may suppose it to 
 have stood : to construe = to interpret. This 
 not serving the purpose, to interpret was next 
 sought ; there he found : to interpret or to 
 
 ^ Voltaire, CEuvres completes, p. 464 ; cf. Essay, pp. 
 211-2. 
 
 "^Julius Ccesar, Act I., Sc. ii., pp. 307-8 ; cf. Voltaire, 
 op. cit., p. 469, and Essay, p. 217. 
 
140 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 explain ; again, with indefatigable industry, 
 excited by a desire to excel all translators and 
 translations, he had recourse to the article to 
 explain ; under this head he found : to unfold 
 or clear up ; so away went the translator to 
 clear up the countenance of Brutus." Equally 
 amusing are her strictures on Voltaire's 
 *^ misconstruction " of Caesar's haughty speech 
 to Metellus Cimber, whose brother had been 
 banished. Caesar will not grant the exile's 
 pardon, because such indulgence would turn 
 ^^preordinance and first decree into the law 
 of children."^ Voltaire, writing nonsense for 
 the first time perhaps in his life, made the 
 dictator say that ''ces basses flatteries 
 
 Peuvent sur un coeur faible avoir quelque pouvoir, 
 Et changer quelquefois I'ordre eternel des choses 
 Dans Tesprit des enfants ! " 
 
 Further on, he had rendered, 
 
 " If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, 
 I spurn thee like a cur out of my way," 
 
 by the remarkable blank lines that follow : 
 
 " Flatte, prie k genoux, et leche-moi les pieds ; 
 Va, je te rosserai comme un chien ; loin d'ici ! " 
 
 ^Julius Ccesar^ Act III., Sc. i., 37 sqq. ; of. Voltaire, 
 p. 480, and Essay ^ pp. 275-8. 
 
ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND 141 
 
 Mrs Montagu's knowledge of French, though 
 she spoke it badly, was finer than Voltaire's 
 sense of English. She knew that ^^je te 
 rosserai " is '^a very low phrase," and that 
 ^^to spurn is a very noble one, not unfit 
 for the highest poetry or eloquence." Her 
 demonstration was conclusive. The ''faithful 
 translator" stood convinced of presumption 
 and ignorance. When, five years later, part 
 of her Essay was translated into French, it 
 materially impaired Voltaire's authority as a 
 critic of English literature. 
 
 In England, Mrs Montagu's anonymous 
 publication was received with a chorus of 
 praise. Only two dissentient voices made 
 themselves heard. The sarcastic Dowager 
 Countess Gower wrote to Mrs Delany on 
 30th August that ''Mrs Montagu has com- 
 menced author in vindication of Shakespear, 
 who wants none : therefore her performance 
 must be deemed a work of supererogation ; 
 some commend it," she condescendingly 
 added, and "I'll have it, because I can throw 
 it aside when I'm tired. "^ The literary dicta- 
 tor of the time, Dr Johnson, pronounced that 
 
 1 T/ie Autobiography and Correspondence oj Mrs 
 Delany, iv., 236-7. 
 
 i^ 
 
142 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the Essa_y did its writer honour, but that ^'it 
 would do nobody else honour." ''I will 
 venture to say," he snappishly told Reynolds 
 and Garrick, who defended the work, 'Hhat 
 there is not one sentence of true criticism in 
 her book, . . . none showing the beauty of 
 thought, as formed on the workings of the 
 human heart. "^ As to her replying to Vol- 
 taire's false accusations, ''nobody else had 
 thought it worth while." And so, ''what 
 merit was there in that?"^ But for these 
 two exceptions, all friends and judges were 
 unanimous in their applause. The May 
 number of the Critical Review spoke of the 
 "admirable observations" that occur in the 
 chapter on "Dramatic Poetry" as proving 
 " our essayist " to be "almost the only critic 
 who has yet appeared worthy of Shakespeare." 
 Voltaire and his party had suffered a final 
 defeat. If his favourers, the reviewer went 
 on, "have one grain of modesty or candour, 
 the controversy, if so unequal a conflict can 
 be so called, is now at an end ; the age has 
 scarcely produced a more fair, judicious and 
 
 1 This might serve as a definition of Karnes's critical 
 method ; of. above, p. 121. 
 '^ Bos WELL'S /^>^«j^«, Globe ed., p. 203. 
 
ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND 143 
 
 classical performance of its kind than this 
 Essay. "^ When James Harris, the author of 
 Hermesy and a ^'devotee of the Stagyrite," 
 objected that ^^more profound reverence" 
 should have been paid to the rules of Aris- 
 totle, Mrs Carter, that learned Greek scholar, 
 reassured her friend by observing that Aris- 
 totle was, no doubt, * ' very respectable from 
 an amazing depth and precision of under- 
 standing," but that '^ not a single ray of poetic 
 genius " enlivens his writings, '^utterly desti- 
 tute of the colouring of imagination." ^ These 
 were apparently Mrs Montagu's proper 
 qualities. No less a personage than George 
 Grenville, the Prime Minister, declared her 
 style and manner to be full of 'imagination, 
 elegance and correctness." ''We have read 
 that admirable work," he wrote to Lyttelton 
 about the Essay ^ "by our fireside, over and 
 over, to form the taste of our young people," 
 and Lyttelton, in his delight, answered that 
 Mrs Montagu would be made "very happy" 
 by such high approbation. ^ Congratulating 
 letters poured in upon her ; one of them, from 
 Dr Blair, "would raise my vanity," she says, 
 
 ^ Mrs Carter's Letters to Airs Montagu^ ii., 22-3. 
 ^ The Grenville Papers^ iv., 423-5. 
 
144 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 *Mf I did not know the courtesy with which 
 authors are addressed."^ On i6th August 
 she mentions to her husband a visit of "Mr 
 Burke. ... He tells me my book is very 
 successful. Reynolds, the famous painter, 
 laid five guineas it was written by Mr 
 Warton, who wrote the Essay on the Genius 
 and Writings of Pope^ ^ ^ut said at the same 
 time the Essay on Shakespear was written 
 with more imagination and fire. Reynolds 
 has paid his five guineas, so dangerous 
 it is to guess at authors when they 
 don't put their names to their works." 
 So pleased was she with her reception, 
 that she hardly wished any longer to travel 
 anonymously to fame. On loth September, 
 probably, she thus wrote to her husband : 
 "My Dearest, — The Monthly Review is 
 the only periodical paper which has not treated 
 my essay with indulgence, but I think they 
 will not do the work much harm, for much 
 of their cavilling is unintelligible. They say 
 the language of the Essay is affected and in 
 many places corrupt, and triumph over a 
 
 1 Mrs Montagu to Lord Lyttelton, from " Hill Street, 
 July the 2oth " (in Mrs Climenson's Collection). 
 
 2 Joseph Warton (1756). 
 
TO MR MONTAGU 145 
 
 sentence falsely printed. They write with 
 peevishness and ill manners even to great 
 Shakespear himself, so how can his poor 
 little Critick hope to escape? ... It is 
 whispered in Town that I am the author of 
 the Essayy and perhaps with these Reviewers 
 the work has not met with more candid treat- 
 ment for being a Lady's. I expected all 
 Mr Johnson's, Warburton's,^ and Hurd'sJ.. 
 friends, and all implicit disciples of Aristotle 
 upon my poor work, so upon the whole I 
 am well off that these Monthly Reviewers 
 hav6 not been more severe. Wherever I 
 think their criticism just, I will profit by it 
 by correcting the fault they blame in the 
 next edition, if my work lives to another 
 edition, as there is hope it may. It is 
 printing at Dublin.^ I repent I did not 
 
 ^ Whose edition of Shakespeare and Preface (not 
 particularly interesting) had appeared in 1747. Cf. 
 NiCHOL Smith's Eighteenth Century Essays^ p. 96 sqq. 
 
 2 The editor of Addison and author of the Letters on 
 Chivalry (1762). 
 
 ^ So Mrs Vesey had told her in July. And, soon after, 
 Mr Montagu "read an advertisement wherein your book 
 is to be had at the moderate price of two shillings. I 
 suppose this is an Irish edition. The only remedy that I 
 can think of will be to make some additions in a second 
 one, the' that will but in part prevent the mischief of so 
 
 K 
 
146 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 advertise it again before the Jubilee.^ ... I 
 am so far well qualified for an author that I 
 bear the Critick's lash with great fortitude. I 
 had more reason to fear I should write below 
 Criticism than to hope to write above it. I 
 have ventured to contradict many established 
 prejudices concerning Shakespear and con- 
 cerning the Drama itself. ... I cannot guess 
 what these Criticks would be at, when they 
 talk that Nature is the criterion, in points 
 where people do not agree what is Nature. 
 You will see my Brother seems much pleased 
 with my work, but my greatest happiness is 
 that you are so. Papa doats on the essay 
 with all the partiality of a grandfather. I 
 have endeavour'd to put a padlock upon his 
 vanity, for the Gentleman is quite vain that 
 
 iniquitous a practice." Needless to say that Mr Montagu 
 was quite enthusiastic about his wife's Essay : " My 
 Dearest," he wrote on 7th September, " I congratu- 
 late you upon the good reception your book meets with, 
 the' it is no other than I expected, as it is founded in 
 truth. ... I think it could not have been pubHshed at 
 a more fortunate time than before the Jubilee, and will 
 add to the readers and consequently the admirers of the 
 inimitable genius of Shakespear." 
 
 (Mrs Climenson's Collection). 
 ^ Held at Stratford on 6th September, Garrick being 
 present. 
 
TO HER FATHER 147 
 
 his Daughter has written a book." Indeed, 
 Matthew Montagu, now living in Shepherd 
 Street, London, had not been let into the 
 secret till quite recently. On a ''Sunday 
 morn" in the same month of September, 
 the ** Essayist" had sent him the following 
 letter of confession and apology : 
 
 '' Sir, — My vanity has been exceedingly 
 flattered by hearing that a small performance 
 of mine in the critical way has met with your 
 approbation — whatever share of that approba- 
 tion I must attribute to partiality, tho' the 
 author dare not be vain of it, the Daughter 
 feels a still higher pleasure from it. The only 
 abatement of my pleasure on this occasion 
 is, lest you should imagine my not having 
 communicated this affair has some air or 
 appearance of disrespect ; and as you both 
 encouraged and cultivated those little talents 
 Nature bestowed on me, I should appear 
 ungrateful as well as undutiful, if you looked 
 upon my reserve in that light. I will there- 
 fore take the liberty to explain some of my 
 reasons for the secrecy with which I acted 
 on this occasion. In the first place, there is 
 in general a prejudice against female authors, 
 especially if they invade those regions of 
 
148 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 literature which the men are desirous to 
 reserve to themselves. While I was young, 
 I should not have liked to have been classed 
 among authors, but at my age it is less 
 unbecoming. If an old woman does not 
 bewitch her neighbors' cows, nor make any 
 girl in the parish spit crooked pins, the world 
 has no reason to take offence at her amusing 
 herself with reading books or even writing 
 them. However, some circumstances in this 
 particular case advise secrecy. Mr Pope our 
 great poet, the Bishop of Gloucester our great 
 Critick, and Dr Johnson our great scholar, 
 having already given their criticisms upon 
 Shakespear, there was a degree of presump- 
 tion in pretending to meddle with a subject 
 they had already treated — sure to incur their 
 envy if I succeeded tolerably well, their 
 contempt if I did not. Then, for a weak 
 and unknown champion to throw down the 
 gauntlet of defiance in the very teeth of 
 Voltaire appeared too daring. The French 
 and Italians are fond of books of criticism, 
 but they are not so much to the taste of the 
 English. At present the desire of most 
 readers is to be amused with something 
 perfectly gay and superficial. I was obliged 
 
TO HER FATHER 149 
 
 to enter seriously into the nature of the 
 dramatick purposes, and the character of 
 the best dramatick writings, and by some- 
 times differing from the code of the great 
 legislator in Poeticks, Aristotle, I was afraid 
 the Learned would reject my opinions, the 
 unlearned yawn over my pages, so that I 
 was very doubtful of the general success of 
 my work. The booksellers who hate an 
 author should print for himself would hardly 
 advertise my book. ... It was with great 
 difficulty I got my Essay advertised the day 
 before it was published, and in spite of all 
 my pains it hardly appeared in the papers 
 till the week after the King's birthday,^ when 
 the Town was empty, so that, all these dis- 
 advantages considered, I could not flatter 
 myself this little work would succeed so well 
 as it has done ; if it remained in obscurity, 
 as appeared to me too probable, it would 
 only have been a mortification to my friends, 
 and, tho', not being absurd, it could not 
 disgrace, being neglected, it could not do me 
 honour : therefore I communicated the affair 
 only to three or four persons conversant in 
 critical learning, whom I thought it necessary 
 ^ On 4th June. 
 
I50 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to consult before I ventured to publish, as it 
 is unsafe to trust one's own judgment as to 
 the merit of one's own compositions. The 
 Critical Reviewers and other Monthly Writers 
 have done much more than justice to my little 
 work, and it is now printing in Dublin, to the 
 increase of its fame, but to the prejudice of my 
 profit as an author. I must tell you, my 
 confidantes in this affair kept the secret very 
 faithfully, and diverse persons were named as 
 the authors of the Essay, and all such as did 
 honour to it, but some persons who were 
 acquainted with my manner of expression or 
 style, if so careless a writer may be said to 
 have a style, guessed at me ; great enquiries 
 were made of the booksellers, who said they 
 knew not the author. . . . The printer at last 
 unluckily own'd that Mr Stillingfleet ^ corrected 
 the press, and as he is an intimate friend of 
 mine, this circumstance has in some degree 
 betrayed the secret. I shall not own the 
 work, nor would have any of my friends 
 own it is mine, but leave people to think as 
 they please. I am content to be a demirep 
 in literature, but cannot have the effronterie 
 to go further. Voltaire is very malicious as 
 1 See below, p. 272. 
 
TO HER FATHER 151 
 
 well as very witty ; I care little for his 
 censure of the work, but would not have 
 him abuse the author. If he provokes me, 
 I will take my revenge upon his dramatical 
 works. . . . 
 
 ^^If this work lives to a second edition, I 
 hope to present it to you improved, for it is 
 very ill printed, and with many blunders. I 
 do not affect to apologize for any faults in the 
 writing by saying it was done carelessly or 
 in haste, for indeed I took a great deal of 
 pains about it, especially to make it short, 
 as people are apt to complain of the dullness 
 and dryness of criticism. My vacant hours 
 were agreeably filled by this occupation, and, 
 whenever I have health or leisure, I shall 
 employ it in composition of some sort or 
 another. If I had lived in the same age 
 with Pope, Addison and Swift, and some 
 others of that time, I should never have 
 brandished my grey goose quill, but in our 
 times a middling writer may expect a share 
 of fame, which is now rather divided in small 
 parcels amongst many, than engrossed by 
 any superlative geniuses. ... As the jubilee 
 has awakened the love of the public to Shake- 
 spear, I have written a note to Dodsley from 
 
152 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the author of the Essaj/ to desire it may be 
 advertised again. I shall be much obliged 
 to Mrs Hawkins if she will put it into the 
 penny post^ — the further from Hill Street it 
 is put in, the better, for I would not have 
 Master Dodsley smell out the author. "^ 
 
 As the year drew to a close, the success 
 of the book was more and more decided. 
 On 26th November, Lord Lyttelton, in his 
 pompous style, once more sent his con- 
 gratulations, the exaggerated tone of which 
 exceeded even the demands of politeness. 
 '' I don't wonder," he said, ^' that the admira- 
 tion of the Essay upon Shakespear continually 
 increases, or that it has been ascribed to all 
 the great Witts in the kingdom. The greatest 
 of them would be proud to father such a child ; 
 but it came from the head of the mother, our 
 English Minerva, as the Grecian Minerva from 
 Jove's, without the assistance of another 
 Parent. Yet I claim the honour of having 
 been the man-midwife who helped to bring 
 it forth, an honour of which I boast more 
 
 ^ Mrs Montagu was writing from "Sunning Wells," 
 where she was drinking the waters. 
 
 2 These two unpublished letters have been very kindly 
 communicated to me by Mrs Climenson. 
 
ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND 153 
 
 than of having been godfather to Glover's 
 Leonidas,^^ ^ Melmoth, the translator of Pliny, 
 then residing at Bath, thanked her ^'for the 
 pleasure and instruction she had afforded 
 him in her late performance, in which she 
 had most happily united the learning and 
 judgment of Madame Dacier with the ease 
 of Sevigne and the wit of Lenclos."^ By 
 the end of December so many acquaint- 
 ances and strangers had become partakers 
 of the secret, that such half-concealment was 
 worse than publicity itself. ^^I am sorry 
 to tell you," she wrote to Lyttelton on the 
 23rd, *^that a friend of yours is no longer 
 a concealed scribbler. . . . Being whispered, 
 it has circulated with incredible swiftness. . . . 
 Mr Melmoth, at Bath, puffs me ; but I am 
 most flattered that a brother author says, the 
 book would be very well, if it had not too 
 much wit. ... I look very innocent when 
 I am attacked about the essay, and say, ^ I 
 don't know what you mean ! ' I shall set 
 about a new edition as soon as your lord- 
 ship comes to town, for the first thousand 
 is in great part sold, tho' the booksellers 
 
 ^ From Mrs Climenson's MSS. 
 
 ^ From a letter in Mr Broadley's Collection. 
 
154 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 have done me all the prejudice in their 
 power. "1 
 
 Nor was the influence and the fame of the 
 work so ephemeral as might be supposed. 
 In 1774, one Edward Taylor, the writer of 
 Cursory Remarks on Tragedy] and a belated 
 disciple of Aristotle, though unable by taste 
 and theory to admire Shakespeare's "motley 
 pieces" abounding in "impossibilities," 
 acknowledged, however, that the dramatist's 
 *^ preternatural beings seemed to need little 
 or no justification," and that "it would be 
 fruitless to say anything more on this point, 
 as it had been already treated in such a 
 masterly manner by the very ingenious 
 author of the remarks on the writings and 
 genius of Shakespear, to whose merit " even 
 this opponent was ^' not the less sensible, 
 though on many occasions he might be led 
 to differ in opinion." ^ Maurice Morgann, 
 Falstaffs lively advocate, whose defence of 
 his hero runs to nearly a hundred pages, 
 thus apostrophised our Essayist: "As for 
 you, Mrs Montagu, I am grieved to find 
 
 ^ Printed in the Grenville Papers^ iv., 496, n. 3, 498, 
 and, with some inaccuracies, in Doran, 150. 
 2 Op. cit., pp. 44-5. 
 
ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND 155 
 
 that you have been involved in a popular 
 error ; so much you must allow me to say ; — 
 for the rest I bow to your genius and your 
 virtues : You have given to the world a very 
 elegant composition ; and I am told your 
 manners and your mind are yet more pure, 
 more elegant than your book. Falstaff was 
 too gross, too infirm for your inspection ; 
 but, if you durst have looked nearer, you 
 would not have found cowardice in the 
 number of his infirmities."^ None of the 
 irony perceptible in this compliment appears 
 in Beattie's comment about Johnson's adverse 
 dictum on the Essay-. ^'Johnson's harsh and 
 foolish censure of Mrs Montagu's book does 
 not surprise me," the Scotch philosopher 
 wrote in 1785, '^for I have heard him speak 
 contemptuously of it. It is, for all that, one 
 of the best, most original, and most elegant 
 pieces of criticism in our language, or any 
 other. Johnson had many of the talents of 
 a critic ; but his want of temper, his violent 
 prejudices, and something, I am afraid, of 
 an envious turn of mind, made him often a 
 very unfair one. Mrs Montagu was very 
 
 ^ NiCHOL Smith's Eighiee?ith Century Essays^ p. 270 
 
156 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 kind to him, but Mrs Montagu has more 
 wit than any body ; and Johnson could not 
 bear that any person should be thought to 
 have wit but himself."^ Three years later, 
 _Cpwper, coming across the volume, praised 
 ^^the learning, the good sense, the sound 
 judgment and the wit displayed in it." These 
 qualities fully justified, not only his own 
 compliment, '^ but all compliments that either 
 have been already paid to her talents or shall 
 be paid hereafter." ^ 
 
 Even in France the Essay had not remained 
 completely unknown. In the year of its 
 publication, the Annee Litteraire^ gave a 
 French rendering of the ^^Introduction," as 
 quoted in the London Evening Post ; Mme. 
 Riccoboni, one of Garrick's correspondents, 
 having received from him a very early copy 
 of the book, said, in acknowledging it, that 
 *' the pamphlet was very well written." ** The 
 reflections on Voltaire are just," she added, 
 *^. . . your author reproaches him with 
 ignorance ; / accuse him of base jealousy, un- 
 pardonable in a man of genius. Corneille is 
 
 ^ Life of Beattie^ by Sir William Forbes, ed. 1807, 
 
 ii., 375- 
 2 Quoted by Doran, pp. 155-6. ^ T. iv., pp. 3-20. 
 
ITS RECEPTION IN FRANCE 157 
 
 too severely censured in this little work. To 
 a certain extent, I share your critic's opinion 
 on this poet, but should not like to declare it 
 publicly : Pierre Corneille is revered by the 
 French, and, even if one disagrees with them, 
 popular prejudices should be respected, when- 
 ever they do not clash with morals and 
 honour^* Much more important than this 
 slight notice and passing allusion was an 
 article in the Annee Litteraire for 1774^ in 
 which considerable extracts were borrowed 
 from Clement's Letters to Voltaire on the 
 Corneille Commentary. Here appeared for 
 the first time in a French review ''the very 
 precious fragments of an Essay by ' Miladi 
 Montaigu,'" where this famous writer had 
 noted ''the innumerable gross mistakes that 
 had escaped the pen of the translator oi Julius 
 Ccssar,^^ "Some of her remarks," Clement, 
 and, after him, the reviewer pointed out, 
 would enable the reader "to judge of Mr de 
 Voltaire's sagacity and of the accuracy of his 
 version." Shakespeare's adversary, they said, 
 understood neither English prosody nor the 
 language itself. He had misquoted "whore" 
 
 ^ Garrick'S Correspondence, ii., 564-5, 16 juin 1769. 
 2 T. vi., 38-9. 
 
158 THE ESS A Y ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 instead of '^ harlot," ^ misinterpreted the words 
 ''course" and ''construe,"^ and confused 
 Brutus's simile of ''ambition's ladder" in 
 the second act.^ Thus, even in its English 
 garb, ' Miladi Montaigu's ' Essay was slowly 
 making its way into France, and undermining 
 Voltaire's authority. 
 
 It must be confessed that English con- 
 temporary critics, refusing to extend their 
 tender mercies to the Essay and its author, 
 have sided with Johnson against Beattie and 
 Cowper. In Mr Saintsbury's opinion, "Mrs 
 Montagu's famous Essay is well intentioned, 
 but rather feeble, much of it being pure tu 
 quoque to Voltaire, and sometimes extremely 
 unjust on Corneille and even ^schylus. It 
 is not quite ignorant, but once more, non tali 
 auxilio!"^ Mr Lounsbury pronounces it 
 "one of the most exasperating of books," 
 and finds in Cowper's approbation of it a 
 sure symptom of a coming fit of insanity.^ 
 Mr Nichol Smith also "attaches little import- 
 
 ^ Cf. Essay, p. 278, and VoLTAiRE, CEuvres, ed. 1877, 
 t. vii., p. 468, n. I. 
 
 2 See above, p. 139. " Cf. Essay, pp. 214-6. 
 
 * History of Criticism, iii., 173, n. i. 
 
 ^ Shakespeare and Voltaire, pp. 294, 296. 
 
ITS AIM 159 
 
 importance " to the work, which he con- 
 siders as **a well-meaning, but shallow and 
 unnecessary reply to Voltaire."^ Johnson, 
 he thinks, ''had already vindicated the 
 national pride in Shakespeare." Possibly, — 
 but Mrs Montagu wished to go one step 
 further than her predecessor. Believing 
 that Shakespeare would be best defended 
 by a counter-attack on his enemy, she 
 meant to carry the war into Voltaire's own 
 dominions and to conquer him there. 
 With extraordinary audacity — we will not 
 say recklessness — she resolved on giving 
 the French critic a Rowland for his Oliver, 
 on assailing his favourite Corneille, as 
 he had assailed Shakespeare. No doubt, 
 her aggressive ardour occasionally carried 
 her into an extreme of impetuous injustice : 
 she did not shrink from comparing one 
 passage in Lear with another in Clitandre^ 
 because ''they both happened to be on 
 similar subjects."^ She set poor Corneille's 
 Otho by the side of Henry /F., and, rashly 
 triumphant, exclaimed: "See what Shake- 
 speare has done, and decide between the 
 
 1 Eighteenth Century Essays^ p. xx. 
 
 2 Essay ^ pp. 75-6. 
 
i6o THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 two ! " ^ All this is, of course, the unreason- 
 able criticism of a nervous woman. But, 
 when she inveighs against the long speeches 
 in Cinna and in most French plays, we 
 remember our school-days, when we had to 
 con them, and we sympathise with her dis- 
 like. Less prudent than Madame Riccoboni, 
 we fly in the face of ^' popular prejudice," find 
 fault with that '^ termagant," Emilie, with 
 that degenerate Roman weakling, Cinna, that 
 verbose ruler, Augustus, and shrewdly suspect 
 the so-called ''masterpiece" to rest on a 
 pedestal of clay. We applaud the English 
 lady's daring, when, in a perfectly fair fight 
 against Voltaire, she thrusts at the giant, 
 and pierces through his empty pretence to 
 accuracy as a translator. Her trouble seems 
 to us, not "unnecessary," but useful, as it 
 contributed to the manifestation of truth. 
 The merit of the Essay on Shakespear best 
 appears from the point of view of the historian 
 of comparative literature. Considered in its 
 relations with English eighteenth - century 
 criticism, it is deficient in originality. Its 
 leading ideas are borrowed from Pope and 
 Johnson ; the questions of the unities, of the 
 ^ Essay y pp. 81-5. 
 
ITS CRITICAL VALUE i6i 
 
 mixture of tragic and comic scenes, had been 
 thoroughly sifted and settled before its time. 
 But never had Voltaire been so frankly, so 
 fully confuted, never had his literary authority 
 been set at naught in a tone so peremptory 
 that it must be heard even in France. In 
 this sense, Mrs Montagu's work is that of a 
 pioneer. There is no doubt that she opened 
 the eyes of French critics to Voltaire's short- 
 comings as an English scholar, and that 
 Shakespeare's cause profited by his adversary's 
 partial loss of credit. 
 
 Nor is the work so ^^ shallow" as a super- 
 ficial, hasty reader might suppose. Clear in 
 conception and in plan, it starts from a sort of 
 axiom — the definition of the drama — which 
 serves as a more or less solid basis for the 
 whole enquiry. The principle that the 
 dramatic artist should * instruct by pleas- 
 ing," and should therefore be studied, first 
 as a moralist, secondly as an inventor of 
 fables and painter of characters, need not be 
 discussed here. Mrs Montagu did not dis- 
 cover it, and its value, unquestioned by the 
 ethical critics of her day, remains uncertain 
 still. What concerns us now is that it gives 
 to the nine dissertations contained in the Essay 
 
 L 
 
i62 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 a unity they would otherwise lack. They 
 run, almost uninterruptedly, along one or the 
 other of those two primary lines of thought. 
 Commendable by its composition, this 
 'Apiece of criticism" is also remarkable by 
 its good sense. Most unjustly has it been 
 represented as *^ puerile where it is not 
 ignorant."^ Mrs Montagu never spoke of 
 Shakespeare as ''rude and illiterate," except 
 in an ironical passage that should be inter- 
 preted as it was meant. "^ Fortunately for 
 herself, she was not one of those for whom 
 every word that Shakespeare uttered is more 
 than Gospel-truth. She knew some of his 
 qualities at least, and her tribute to them 
 sounds as sincere as the lyrical rhetoric of a 
 more modern school. Her psychological in- 
 sight into the meaning and development of 
 such characters as Falstaff and Macbeth is by 
 no means contemptible in an age when such 
 studies had hardly begun. On the other 
 hand, her admiration did not blind her to 
 the dramatist's obvious defects. She doubt- 
 less exaggerated them. It was a mistake to 
 speak of the Elizabethan period as plunged 
 
 ^ LoUNSBURY, Shakespeare and Voltaire^ p. 297. 
 ^ Essay ^ p. 117, 
 
ITS CRITICAL VALUE 163 
 
 *^in the dark shades of Gothic barbarism," 
 of Shakespeare's ^'happiest successes" as 
 perhaps due to Chance, of ^^many speeches 
 in the tragedy of Macbeth " as full of 
 *' bombast." 1 But was it so very wrong to 
 say that he wrote in *^ unpolished times" for 
 an "unlettered audience, just emerging from 
 barbarity," that, even at Court, learning was 
 then "tinctured with pedantry," that "too 
 great a number of persons and events " appear 
 in the histories, that "nonsense, indecorums 
 and irregularities " '^ are to be met with 
 occasionally? We do not suppose that the 
 quibbling contests of the clowns and others, 
 the courtship of Katherine by Henry V. or 
 the Porter's speech in Macbeth are essential 
 to Shakespeare's glory. We do not contend, 
 either, that Mrs Montagu, because she proved 
 Voltaire's ignorance, praised some of the 
 dramatist's beauties and pointed out some of 
 his defects, is d, critic of very great importance. 
 The natural coldness of her temper made her 
 absolutely insens'ble to the incomparable 
 poetic charm of many passages in the plays. 
 But, considering her work as a polemical 
 
 ^ Essay ^ pp. 152, loi, 201. 
 2 Ibid,, 5, 13, 9-IO, 69, ^Z. 
 
i64 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 treatise, we find it a courageous, effective 
 answer to Voltaire's impertinent remarks, a 
 well -planned and measured apology of the 
 English dramatist. 
 
 IV 
 
 On her return from Northumberland in 
 August 1775, Mrs Montagu went for her 
 annual season at Tunbridge Wells, and there 
 thought of accomplishing a long-cherished 
 design, that of a journey to France, which 
 her widowed state now gave her leisure to 
 undertake. An interesting letter to Beattie^ 
 tells us of her intentions : *' I have the 
 happiness," she wrote, '^of having Mrs 
 Carter in my house, and Mrs Vesey is not 
 at a quarter of a mile's distance ; thus, 
 though I live secluded from the general 
 world, I have the society of those I love best. 
 I propose to stay here about three weeks, 
 then I return to London to prepare for my 
 expedition to the south of France. I have 
 
 1 Lz/e of Beattie, by Sir William Forbes, ii., 116-7 
 (3rd September). 
 
JOURNEY TO FRANCE 165 
 
 written to a gentleman at Montauban, to 
 endeavour to get for me a large house in 
 any part of that town. I am assured that 
 the climate of Montauban is very delightful ; 
 the air is dry, but not piercing, as at 
 Montpelier. ... I think with some pleasure 
 of escaping the gloom of our winter and the 
 bustle of London, and passing my time in the 
 blessings of cheerful tranquillity and soft sun- 
 shine." This hope, however, was not to be 
 realised, nor did Montauban ever receive the 
 distinguished lady's visit. No house could 
 be found suitable for her there, ^ and Nice was 
 next fixed upon as her journey's aim. She 
 set out in October. But, as she was passing 
 through Canterbury about the 20th, she fell 
 ill of a 'Mow fever," a sort of influenza, that 
 made it very dangerous for her to brave ''the 
 bowlings of the wind, the dashing of the rain, 
 the roaring and agitation of a tempestuous 
 sea." " By the advice of her doctor and 
 the persuasion of her friends," Mrs Carter 
 says, "she was prevailed on to give up the 
 scheme till next summer ; and I hope, now 
 her resolution is taken, it will very much help 
 
 ^ Mrs Carter's Letters to Mrs Montagu^ ii., 330 
 (8th October). 
 
i66 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to facilitate her recovery, if she keeps to her 
 promise of living very quietly the whole 
 winter. Her illness, I am persuaded, was 
 occasioned by the excessive fatigue of business 
 and company, in which she has been engaged 
 ever since she left Tunbridge."^ A short 
 period of rest enabled her to resume her place 
 in her brilliant circle. During the month of 
 May 1776 she was giving '' illustrious foreign 
 dinners,"^ M. and Mme Necker being pre- 
 sumably in the number of her guests. The 
 future Comptroller-General and his wife were 
 then in London, among such acquaintances 
 as Gibbon, in the bloom of his fame,^ and 
 Gar rick, whose acting in Km^ Lear threw 
 them into ecstasies.* It seems probable that 
 to their entreaties was due Mrs Montagu's 
 resolution to spend the summer in Paris. 
 
 Accompanied by her attendant Miss 
 Gregory, her ^'adopted son and heir" 
 
 1 Mrs Carter's Letters to Miss Catherine Talbot^ vol. 
 iii., 1819 : Letters to Mrs Vesey, pp. 245-7 (25th October). 
 
 2 Mrs Carter's Letters to Mrs Montagu^ ii., 362 
 (28th May). 
 
 2 The first volume of his Decliiu and Fall had been 
 published in February 1776. 
 
 ^ See Mme Necker's letter to Garrick in his Corre- 
 spondence^ ii., 617 (14 mai 1776), and in Jusserand's 
 Shakespeare en France^ pp. 240-1. 
 
CALAIS AND PARIS 167 
 
 Matthew, his tutor M. Blondel, and Mrs 
 Carter's nephew, Montagu Pennington,^ she 
 embarked at Dover in the morning of Sunday, 
 23rd June, and, after an extremely quick 
 passage of '^two hours and ten minutes," 
 landed at Calais. A ^'very rapid wind and 
 pretty boisterous waves" had ^^ wafted her 
 thither." ''I was not in the least sick," she 
 immediately wrote to Mrs Vesey. *' I sat on 
 the deck, tho' the waves sometimes washed 
 over my head." The long journey from 
 Calais to Paris failed to interest her : *' I was 
 not much delighted with the prospects in my 
 way," she told her brother and also Mrs 
 Carter. '^The dull monotony of despotism 
 tires." ^ In passing, however, through the 
 forest of Chantilly, she notes that she felt 
 ''the sublime melancholy which befits the 
 great and solemn scene." Her first impres- 
 sions of Paris proved somewhat unfavourable. 
 ''About midnight," she said,^ "you arrive at 
 rhotel du Parlement d'Angleterre. It is a 
 large house ; you pay very dear for getting 
 a place in it ; it has an air of dignity and 
 
 ^ The future editor of Mrs Carter's Letters. 
 '^ From a MS. letter in Mrs Climenson's possession ; 
 cf. Mrs Carter's Letters to Mrs Montagu^ ii., 363-4. 
 ^ To Mrs Vesey, 15th July (Mrs Climenson's MSS.). 
 
i68 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 magnificence which imposes — you may take 
 that word either in the French or English 
 sense, as you please : after knowing it more 
 intimately, you discover it harbours a good 
 deal of dirty vermin. Now I perceive you 
 are angry, and fancy mine host Mr Picqot 
 (sic) meant a satire on our Parliament House 
 in calling his Hotel by its name. I assure 
 you he is the politest man in the world of 
 his occupation, and I am sure, if he had 
 known certain resemblances and analogies, 
 he would not have been guilty of so oblique 
 a satire. ..." The town itself she did not 
 much admire: ^'The City of Paris," she 
 wrote, ^Ms in some respects like Bristol: 
 streets narrow, dark and dirty in some parts, 
 in others magnificent and fine."^ Two 
 months afterwards,^ her opinion remained 
 
 ^ Cf. Mrs Carter's opinion in October 1782 (Memoz'rs 
 0/ Mrs Elizabeth Carter^ 1808, i., 452): "The buildings 
 are magnificent ; the streets so contemptibly narrow, 
 that I saw very few wider than Fetter Lane. Indeed, 
 we had a sorrowful proof that they are not very safe for 
 carriages, as we were overturned in endeavouring to pass 
 a waggon. ... The only pleasant part of Paris which I 
 saw was the quay on the banks of the Seine, which is 
 wide and clean, and very safe walking, and perfectly free 
 from any bustle of commerce." 
 
 2 7th September, to her sister, Mrs Scott (Mrs 
 Climenson's MSS.). 
 
PARISIAN MANNERS 169 
 
 unchanged : '' Miss Gregory and I are not yet 
 cured of our astonishment at the nastiness, 
 the stinks, and the narrowness of the streets, ,^^ 
 the wretched appearance of the common 
 people, the miserable air of the shops." 
 
 Domestic manners had, in too many cases, 
 a looseness and a slovenliness most repugnant 
 to her taste for well-regulated arrangements. 
 '^l wish Montagu 1 was old enough," she 
 exclaimed, ^^ to see the sad effects of despotism, 
 that the love of liberty and laws might make 
 the earliest, and, consequently, the deepest 
 impression on him, and teach him a due 
 reverence for the English constitution. The 
 influence of Government upon the mind and 
 morals cannot be known by any one who has 
 not been in some land of slavery. Here is 
 no conjugal faith, paternal care, filial affection, 
 brotherly love, except amongst a few, nor is 
 there any domestick order. Servants in 
 general have little regard for the family they 
 live in ; they are at board wages, eat at 
 publick houses, and are gaming all day. 
 Every antichamber is a gaming hole, for 
 indeed, the antichambers, except in great 
 houses, are the dirtiest and most miserable- 
 * Her nephew and heir, Matthew Montagu. 
 
I70 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 looking places imaginable. Our footmen are 
 allowed to carry our trains as we go upstairs 
 . . . and, with the general sluttishness here, 
 a staircase is very disgusting, often in smell, 
 often in appearance." 
 
 She liked the people much better than their 
 dwellings. *'We must own," she enthusi- 
 astically wrote on 5th July, that ''the French 
 have infinitely more polite hospitality and 
 agreeable, useful attentions than we have." 
 The ''men and women" she found even 
 "more than polite, perfectly friendly if they 
 can do you any service." "I meet with so 
 much kindness, and have so many agreeable 
 parties offered," she said, a very few days 
 after her arrival, that "I know not how to 
 avail myself of them all."^ Her favourable 
 opinion was only confirmed by time : " I am 
 greatly pleased with the society at Paris," she 
 told her brother on nth August. "There is 
 an ease and politeness that is very pleasing, 
 and the conversation is always as wise and 
 as witty as conversation should be in mixed 
 society. They have found out that to please, 
 one must seem to be pleased. Nor does any 
 lady think it necessary for her glory to have 
 ^ To her sister on 2nd July. 
 
MRS MONTAGU FRENCHIFIED 171 
 
 more company at once than can breathe in 
 her apartment." Moving in ''the hurlyburly 
 of French suppers," Mrs Montagu did her 
 best "to lead the life of a Parisian lady." 
 Her natural complexion disappeared under 
 the vermilion dye of the fashionable paint ; 
 "a churchyard cough," she laughingly ob- 
 serves, ''would become me better than the 
 rouge I wear." She took "unheard-of pains 
 to express herself in French," and her vain 
 efforts reminded her hearers of their own 
 "torments when, in England, they under- 
 stood no one, and were understood of no 
 one."^ But all did justice "to her wit, 
 her parts and distinguished manners." The 
 French visitors she had received in London 
 now entertained her in Paris. "Madame 
 Necker," she wrote on 2nd July, "came to 
 Paris to carry me to her box at the play 
 to-night, but I had company I could not 
 
 1 Mme Necker h M. Gibbon, Gibbon's Miscellaneous 
 Works^ ed. Murray, 1814, ii., 179-80 (30th Sept. 1776). 
 Cf. Mme du Deffand, Lettres ci Horace Walpole^ ed, 
 1824, vol. iii., p. 321 : "Je vois quelquefois madame 
 Montagu ; je ne la trouve pas trop pedante, mais elle 
 fait tant d'efforts pour bien parler notre langue, que sa 
 conversation est penible" (dimanche, 18 aoiit 1776). 
 See also Ibid.^ p. 328. 
 
172 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 leave. I am to dine with her at her house 
 near Paris on Saturday to meet all the Beaux 
 Esprits." This was Necker's country-seat at 
 Saint-Ouen, between Paris and Saint-Denis, 
 a ^'pleasant abode," with its terrace over- 
 looking the Seine, and its ^' shady groves" 
 frequented by so many illustrious men of 
 letters.^ Of one of the famous suppers there, 
 Mrs Montagu says: ''There was a great 
 deal of good company, great elegance and 
 order in every thing ; the Neckers are ami- 
 able and respectable, as well as learned and 
 ingenious. There was of the party a Madame 
 du Deffand, much celebrated for her wit. She 
 had desired to be introduced to me, was ex- 
 ceedingly obliging, and I was charmed with 
 her, and the more as she is fourscore years 
 of age, totally blind, and as gay and lively 
 as 1 8. She eat a very hearty supper, 
 and I left her behind me at one in the 
 morning." On another occasion, ^ Mrs 
 Montagu spent the Sunday ''at Madame 
 Necker's country - house very agreeably. 
 Monsieur Buffon, le Chevalier de Chastellux, 
 
 1 See D'Haussonville's La Salon de Madame Necker, 
 1882, i., 125-6. 
 ^ 4th August. 
 
AT MADAME NECKER'S 173 
 
 and Monsieur Thomas were of the party ; 
 they were all polite to me, and just to 
 Shakespeare," whose merits ^^the learned 
 Academicians" had doubtless discussed with 
 her during their ^* gentle walk in the evening 
 along the banks of the Seine, the most 
 discreet of all rivers, somewhat of a sloven, 
 indeed, but gliding very temperately along." 
 Let us note that, though Mrs Montagu's 
 book had not yet been entirely translated 
 into French, its existence was well known. 
 She felt proud of her fame and importance 
 as a critic. ** I was quite overcome at first 
 with the compliments I received on the 
 subject of my book," she writes, delighted, 
 **but now I mind them no more than Greg 
 (Miss Gregory) does the thunder. My very 
 Coiffeuse, while she curls my hair, flatters 
 me on my reputation as an author. Talents 
 give a much greater relief here than in 
 England. Celebrity is the object here, to get 
 riches and power the objects in England." 
 What of those who, like her, had compassed 
 both? Her presence was courted, therefore, 
 with a double amount of affability. Not by 
 Mme Necker only, but by the Neapolitan 
 ambassador, 'Me marquis Caraccioli," at 
 
174 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 whose house she ^^ found the representatives 
 of all the kings and states in Europe, and 
 Messieurs Buffon and d'Alembert, and the 
 most pleasing of all the beaux esprits, le 
 chevalier de Chastellux, whose manners, like 
 his birth, are truly noble." In the evening 
 she went to Madame Geoffrin, now much 
 decayed, and nearing her end.^ But, of 
 all the titled ladies and bourgeoises she 
 mingled with, her favourite probably was 
 that Comtesse de Rochefort whom Horace 
 Walpole has praised so highly: ''Her 
 understanding," says he, "is just and 
 delicate, with a finesse of wit that is the 
 result of reflection. Her manner is soft 
 and feminine, and though a savante^ without 
 any declared pretensions. She is the decent 
 friend of Monsieur de Nivernois,"^ whom 
 Mrs Montagu had known in London as 
 French ambassador. Her opinion of the 
 Countess agreed with Horace Walpole's. 
 
 1 She died on 6th October 1777, at seventy-eight. 
 
 ^ Cf. Horace Walpole's Lette?^s^ ed. Toynbee, 1904, 
 vi., 407-8. " The Due de Nivernois has parts, and writes 
 at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin 
 says, is manque partout ; guerrier manque, ambassadeur 
 manque, homme d'affaires manque, and auteur manque 
 — no, he is not homme de naissance manque." 
 
A HOUSE AT CHAILLOT 175 
 
 ^'I believe," she writes to her sister, ^^you 
 have heard me often speak of la Comtesse 
 de Rochefort, of whose charms of conver- 
 sation I had heard much. She is really 
 the most charming woman I ever saw. 
 She has been very handsome, is now not 
 young, but her person is very genteel, 
 and she has all the graces for her hand- 
 maids, tho' she has ceased to be a Venus." 
 The better to receive all her friends, whom 
 Mr Picquot's *Mirty vermin" might have 
 deterred from coming, Mrs Montagu, about 
 15th July, hired '^a house at Chaillot," with 
 a ^* pretty garden" and a view of the Seine, 
 ^^at the gates of Paris almost." As there 
 never were ''any robberies," she could, in a 
 quarter of an hour, drive back at night to 
 her new abode, which she thus describes : 
 ^'My house is most delightfully situated, 
 having a view of the finest publick buildings 
 in Paris, just at the distance one would place 
 them to form a picture. The Seine, which 
 is of the colour and consistence of green 
 pease soup in Paris, is of a better colour 
 here, and takes up no more nor less of the 
 landscape than the eye is willing to afford 
 it. " The recruiting of servants, unfortunately, 
 
176 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 remained a source of trouble : '^No female 
 could be got of the decent and cleanly sort 
 of our under -servants," and her ^'family 
 was composed of English, French, German, 
 Italian, and Flemish persons." *'A11 this 
 does very well," she wisely remarks, *^in the 
 holiday of health, but it is unlike my orderly 
 domestick system in England, which, like 
 a good clock, seldom wants to be new- 
 regulated." She had, however, discovered 
 *'an excellent cook," and sometimes gave 
 dinners to ^^ Monsieur de Buffon and several 
 of the Academy." She was becoming a 
 Parisian celebrity. 
 
 To the author of the Essay on Shakespeare^ 
 French acting and plays were, of course, 
 matters of deep interest. As could be 
 expected, her attitude remained that of a 
 critic violently prejudiced and hostile. That 
 she should find fault with the wretched 
 accommodation for spectators in our theatres 
 then or since, seems only natural. ^'At the 
 playhouses," she says, ^^some dirty women 
 lead you through dark, horrid passages to 
 your box ; the playhouses are so very small 
 and so dark you can hardly discern the 
 faces of the persons in the next box. The 
 
ACTING AND PLAYHOUSES 177 
 
 stage is small, but well enough lighted." 
 On the other hand, her censure of the 
 actors and actresses may sound somewhat 
 trenchant: ^'I have seen a very pretty 
 comedie,"^ she wrote on 14th July, ''and 
 the Zaire of Voltaire. . . . The comedie 
 pleased me extreamly, and if, as my friend 
 Dr Young says, Wonder is involuntary praise^ 
 why, I praised the tragedy. How shall I 
 make you conceive it? For a heroine, take 
 a vixen in hystericks, for the hero the most 
 angry bull that has roared at a bull-baiting. 
 Let them bellow and scream till they amaze 
 you. . . . The famous Lekain^ acted Oros- 
 mane, and he acted xX. prodigiously^ prodigiously 
 indeed ! Mr Garrick is always lost in the 
 character he acts : one admires Macbeth, 
 and Lear, etc., but one never thinks of Mr 
 Garrick the whole time he is upon the 
 stage. . . . But it is always Monsr. Lekain 
 who acts Monsr. Voltaire. . . . Then the 
 part of Lusignan is done in a quite different 
 manner. Mr Garrick looks so old,^ so sick, 
 
 ^ Le Mechant, by Gresset. 
 
 " Mrs Montagu, not yet familiar with French names, 
 writes " le du kin " and " Monr du kin." 
 
 ^ On Garrick's Lusignan, see P. F'itzgerald's Life of 
 David Garrick^ ed. 1899, p. 266. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 so afflicted, it is past bearing ; the French 
 Lusignan is neither sick nor sorry. Zaire 
 rends, tears, stares, screams, well - befitting 
 a tender sex subject to convulsions and 
 hystericks. What is polite life good for, 
 if it does not put people some inches above 
 nature? . . . However, all these tones are 
 modulated by art, all the gestures regulated. 
 When the despairing heroine walks off the 
 stage, her hands are held as high above 
 her head as she can stretch her arms. All 
 this, custom has rendered agreeable, so, 
 what cannot custom do? Madame Necker 
 and Monsieur Necker, to whom I was engaged 
 to supper, came to my box, and proposed 
 to me to go in their coach to their country- 
 house, that we might talk over the play as 
 we went. I was discreet, and did not express 
 aboveathousandthpartof my sensations. . . . 
 I wonder the comedies please, for they are 
 natural and easy." 
 
 By a singular coincidence, it was during 
 Mrs Montagu's sojourn in Paris that Voltaire's 
 quarrel against Shakespeare came to a crisis. 
 For more than three years, a portentous 
 announcement had agitated the public and 
 philosophic mind: *'a complete and faithful 
 
LETOURNEUR'S SHAKESPEARE 179 
 
 translation " of the dramatist's works, by 
 '' Messieurs le Comte de C'^'^'^ et le T^^^^''^ was 
 preparing. At last, in March 1776, the long- 
 expected and much - dreaded petard had 
 exploded, threatening instant destruction to 
 that time-honoured fabric, the French tragedy. 
 Letourneur, the responsible perpetrator of 
 the misdeed, guiltier far than his two 
 accomplices, the Count of Catuelan and M. 
 Fontaine-Malherbe, surely was a bold and 
 dangerous heretic ! Not only had he inveigled 
 all the Royal Family — the King, Queen, 
 Princes, and Princesses — into subscribing to 
 the work : in an Epistle to His Majesty, 
 conceived and written '' in the worst possible 
 taste," he had dared to assert that '^till 
 now the Father of the English stage had 
 never been shown to the eyes of the nation, 
 except in a ridiculous travesty " ; further 
 on, the same translator and biographer, 
 in the excess of his zeal, commended his 
 author for having found ^'a host of interesting 
 characters in the lowest classes of society," 
 for having neglected **all rules, except those 
 suggested to him by a deep knowledge of 
 the human heart" and an original genius. 
 ^ Annee Litieraire for 1772, t. iv., p. 69. 
 
i8o THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Were we to discard, henceforth, the unities, 
 the proprieties, the great models left by 
 Corneille and Racine, whom Letourneur did 
 not even condescend to name? Whom did 
 this impudent Shakespeare-worshipper mean 
 to attack in the following sally, that con- 
 cluded his Preface and Extracts from sundry 
 English critics ? ' 4 n Paris, " Letourneur said, 
 '*some sprightly Aristarchs have already 
 weighed Shakespeare's merits in their narrow 
 scales, and discovered the exact amount of 
 his beauties and his defects, though he has 
 never been translated into French. They 
 never read this poet, whose language they 
 do not even understand ; but they insist on 
 describing him in one word as a Savage, 
 who chanced to light upon some lucky 
 touches, vigorous and thick enough, but 
 without anything precious to offer to a 
 delicate and polite nation." ^ Was it a 
 personal innuendo, thought Voltaire, who 
 remembered his lavish abuse of Shakespeare, 
 and whose anger increased with the success 
 of the work. Two volumes had appeared 
 early in 1776, the first containing the various 
 
 ^ Shakespeare traduit de I' Anglois,^^. 1776, t. i., pp. iv., 
 Ixxv.-vi., cxxx.-i. 
 
LETOURNEUR'S SHAKESPEARE i8i 
 
 Prefaces and Othello, the second the Tempest 
 and Julius Ccesar. No doubt, public opinion 
 remained divided and uncertain, as Grimm 
 said.^ The Annee Litteraire censured Letour- 
 neur's profuse praise of the dramatist, his 
 attacks on ^'the principle of the three unities, 
 that fundamental rule of tragedy," his com- 
 mendation of the mixture of comic and tragic 
 scenes. It laughed at the monsters and sailors 
 in the Tempest^ at the ^'barbarous irregularities 
 that deface Julius Ccesar,'^ But, in the very- 
 same numbers, the reviewer made the most 
 interesting — and irritating — remarks : *' It 
 is certain," he wrote, ''that Orosmane is 
 nothing but Othello in a French habit, and 
 that Zaire has something of a family likeness 
 with Desdemona. . . . Othello^ therefore, is 
 indisputably the mine from which Zaire was 
 dug up," though M. de Voltaire, of course, 
 polished the rough diamond into a fine 
 jewel. ^ With almost brutal directness, the 
 Journal anglais declared that to Julius Ccesar 
 was due the only pathetic scene in Voltaire's 
 play,^ and that the fourth act of Mahomet also 
 
 ^ Correspondance litteraire, ed. Tourneux, 1879, t. xi., 
 p. 215 (mars 1776). 
 
 2 1776, t. ii., p. 43-5 ; ibid., p. 246 ; t. iv., pp. 74-5. 
 ^ La Mort de Cesar ^ probably written in 1731. 
 
i82 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 had been borrowed from Shakespeare.^ We 
 now understand why, in Grimm's words, 
 *^the devotees of Ferney could not read, 
 without much ill-humour, a work that was 
 to reveal to France the admirable skill with 
 which M. de Voltaire had appropriated Shake- 
 speare's beauties, and the less admirable 
 bad faith with which he afterwards dared 
 to translate him." We likewise understand 
 Voltaire's fierce denunciations of Letourneur 
 in his famous letter to d'Argental, written 
 on 19th July and immediately circulated in 
 Paris, his lamentations that this monster 
 of a translator should have partisans, that 
 he himself should have been the first to 
 speak of Shakespeare to the French in times 
 gone by, and to show them *'the few pearls 
 he had gathered in that enormous dunghill." 
 The course of the philosopher's overflowing 
 wrath has been already traced with such 
 minuteness,^ that we may be allowed here 
 to make a long story short, and simply to 
 state that, in less than a week, between 19th 
 
 1 No. 20, 30 juillet 1776, Reflexions sur le Cesar de 
 Shakespeare, pp. 194, 198. 
 
 ^ By Mr LOUNSBURY, Shakespeare and Voltaire, ch. 
 xvii.-xviii. 
 
VOLTAIRE INDIGNANT 183 
 
 and 26th July, Voltaire's final indictment of 
 Shakespeare in a Letter to the Academy was 
 composed, and that his faithful ^Mieutenant" 
 and disciple, d'Alembert, undertook to read it 
 in the public sitting of Sunday, 25th Augusi, 
 the festival of St Louis. 
 
 In the morning, the Academicians met in 
 the chapel at the Louvre to hear the annual 
 panegyric of the saint. Mrs Montagu, having 
 procured tickets, attended both sermon and 
 mass. **It was a very good historical dis- 
 course," she wrote on the 27th, *' preached 
 by a most reverend-looking Capucin " — Pere 
 Elisee^ by name — ''but on the right hand of 
 this man of peace stood a guard with his 
 bayonet. It may be an excellent method to 
 prevent heresies from spreading to cut off 
 the head of the preacher where the root of 
 the heresy lies, but otherwise it is rather 
 shocking to see an armed man standing 
 ready either to oppose or to enforce doctrine, 
 nor is this all that is extraordinary. The 
 good Capucin divided his discourse into two 
 parts ; at the end of the first he paused an 
 instant, and the congregation clapped him 
 
 ^ See the Academy Registers^ 1895, t. iii., p. 399, quoted 
 by JUSSERAND, Shakespeare en France^ p. 305. 
 
i84 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 in the same manner we do our favourite 
 actors. At the end of the sermon, or properly 
 at the exit from the pulpit, he was again 
 clapped by men, women and children. I 
 could not help expressing my surprise at 
 this to a very ingenious Academician, and 
 asked him whether it was usual to have a 
 clerk stand in armour by the pulpit and to 
 clap the preacher. He said a guard stood 
 by the pulpits in the churches, but that it 
 was not usual there to give that sort of 
 applause. However, this is a consecrated 
 chapel, the host was on the altar . . . and," 
 she adds in another letter,^ ^^as soon as 
 lifted up by the priest, all the Catholick part 
 of the congregation acknowledged the real 
 presence, and Mass was performed with due 
 ceremony. "2 
 
 ^ To Mr Burrows, from Chaillot, 6th September, first 
 published in Miss Gaussen'S Later Pepys^ 19045 i. 110-7. 
 On pp. 1 12-3 is an interesting account of the singular 
 "trial at Le Chatelet before le Lieutenant Criminel," 
 where " La Caisse de Poissy " was the plaintiff and I'Abbe 
 Baudeau the defendant. Grimm's narrative {Correspon- 
 dance litteraire^ 1879, t. xi., pp. 313-4) agrees with Mrs 
 Montagu's. 
 
 2 In a letter to Mrs Vesey of 7th September, she returns 
 to the offensive plaudits : " I must tell you at the same 
 time," she says, "for I should hate to misrepresent any 
 
THE 25TH OF AUGUST 185 
 
 After this solemn morning prelude, the real 
 business of the day came on in the afternoon. 
 Convened for their yearly public meeting, 
 the Academicians, twenty-four in number,^ 
 assembled again at the Louvre and took their 
 seats '' round a table." ''Behind them, rows 
 beyond rows, sat or stood the audience, or, 
 more properly speaking, the spectators ; for 
 in what country are there not more who go 
 to see publick orations than to hear them? 
 Le Chevalier de Chastellux opened the session 
 in a very ingenious and elegant manner," by 
 a ''pretty long speech," said Grimm, "care- 
 fully composed and adorned with subtle 
 ingenious conceits which, being feebly con- 
 nected together and never grouped in large 
 masses, failed to produce any strong effect. "^ 
 
 people, especially a people from whom I have received 
 great civilities, and for whom I have due admiration, I 
 was assured that the sermon on St Louis was clapped 
 as being a political affair. . . ." (From Mrs Climenson's 
 MSS.) 
 
 ■^ See the Academy Registers {loc. cit.) : "A I'assemblee 
 de I'apres-midi, Mrs de Chastellux, Batteux, d'Alembert, 
 Foncemagne, le due de Nivernois, I'archeveque de Lyon, 
 I'eveque de Limoges, le marechal de Duras, Radonvilliers, 
 de Buffon, de Paulmy, Ste. Palaye, Watelet, Marmontel, 
 Thomas, St Lambert, Arnaud, Suard, Delille, La Harpe, 
 Saurin, Gaillard, Brequigny, Beauzee." 
 
 " Correspondance litteraire^ 1879, t. xi., p. 315. 
 
i86 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ^'Two rival bards, "^ Mrs Montagu went 
 on, now ^'presented their translations of the 
 parting of Hector and Andromache at the 
 Scean gate, when little Astyanax was 
 affrighted at the plumes on his Father's 
 helmet. ..." As the 'Maureate pieces" 
 were being read by M. de la Harpe, ^'one 
 of them was by the audience thought greatly 
 superior to the other, but, in both, Hector 
 was much polished by his travels in France. 
 He did not send his Dame home to mind 
 her household business and mend little bibs. 
 As to Madame Andromaque, she was most 
 loquaciously dolente, like the widow in our 
 Grief a la mode. Then, for Monsieur son 
 fils, he was nothing like the ignorant, raw, 
 blubbering boy in Homer. It was vastly 
 pretty to have him so unnaturally natural, 
 so very simple without simplicity, and reason 
 about the helmet, because he could not 
 reason. If a man was to study to be naive 
 for a hundred years, he could not hit it 
 better ; and so, the audience clapped exceed- 
 ingly, and divided the prize between the 
 two poets. Had Homer himself been there, 
 
 ^ " M. Gruet, avocat au Parlement . . . et M. Andre 
 de Murville" {Cor?'esJ)ondance litieraire^ pp. 315-6). 
 
THE DAY OF ST LOUIS 187 
 
 he would not certainly have got one sprig 
 of laurel. Old Shakespeare and he must 
 be content with the immortal garlands with 
 which great Nature crowned them ; they are 
 the evergreens of time, gathered in her 
 universal common field, where genius ranges 
 uncontrolled, not culled and picked in the 
 nice parterre, or hothouse, where regions 
 and seasons are confounded and blended." 
 In his account of the proceedings, Grimm 
 reports an observation made by a ''foreign 
 lady of much sagacity," Mrs Montagu her- 
 self: '' I am afraid," she said, ''the Academy 
 will scarcely reach its aim. Here are young 
 poets, whose feeling for the simple beauties 
 of the Ancients is very weak, and here are 
 judges and hearers who care little about 
 such simplicity. The few applauded strokes 
 are precisely the most remote from the truth 
 of the original. Homer was not witty enough 
 to say that Hector, covering his son with 
 kisses and tears. 
 
 Tenderly rocked him in those sinewy arms, 
 Which for so soft a toil Mars never made. 
 
 Yet, lines like these and flourishes of this 
 kind win all suffrages in the assembly." 
 With less displeasure, but without Grimm's 
 
i88 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 exuberant enthusiasm, she heard the address 
 in which the Abbe Arnaud praised the "im- 
 mortal bard of the Iliad and the Odyssey ^^^ 
 and, summing up in an impartial judgment 
 the conclusions of the dispute between the 
 Ancients and the Moderns, maintained that, in 
 the arts, perfection is not, as in the sciences, 
 dependent on the slow progress of know- 
 ledge, but may be reached at a bound, that, 
 therefore, the poet first in the field could 
 gather the freshest impressions from Nature, 
 and so bear off the palm from all his 
 successors. " After the poets had received 
 the prize," Mrs Montagu wrote, " I'abbe 
 Arnaud made a discourse on the utility of 
 studying and imitating the classics, and said 
 much in praise of original genius, but gave 
 an oblique hint that genius never bloomed 
 north of the most northern part of France, 
 and that men of genius must not study certain 
 barbarians. But this was done so gently 
 and obliquely, that one was not obliged to 
 understand it, and I would not seem to 
 do so." 
 
 Now came the grand event, announced a 
 month before by Grimm, with tremblings 
 in his voice. Voltaire, by the mouth of 
 
LA LETTRE A LACADEMIE 189 
 
 d'AIembert as his herald, was to declare war 
 against Shakespeare and to denounce the 
 translators to the indignation of the Academy. 
 **What would be the consequences of this 
 act? It was difficult to foresee, but they must 
 be exceedingly grave. Every one knew that 
 England worshipped Shakespeare's genius as 
 the god of her idolatry. Would she allow 
 the French Academy quietly to discuss the 
 reasons of this cult? Would she acknow- 
 ledge the authority of these foreign judges? 
 Would she not try to form a party in the 
 very stronghold of our literature? Who did 
 not know how often such quarrels, and for 
 much smaller objects, had provoked hatred 
 and sectarian fury? All minds therefore were 
 in a ferment, "1 expecting something strange. 
 — Nothing new came to the ears of the distin- 
 guished audience, of the English ambassador, 
 of Mrs Montagu, of all those who '' patiently 
 listened to this singular diatribe." It was 
 lively in tone and style, but as trite in matter 
 as a thrice-told tale. It once more recalled 
 the writer's eminent services in the cause of 
 Shakespeare. Far from disfiguring and 
 travestying that author in his translations, 
 1 Correspondance litteraire^ xi., 299 (juillet 1776). 
 
I90 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE \ 
 
 as Letourneur falsely accused him to do, 
 Voltaire, as he indignantly reminded his 
 colleagues, had been the first among them to 
 learn English, to make Shakespeare known 
 in France, and to translate freely some 
 passages into verse, ft^les Cesar, he again 
 asserted, was the most exact rendering ever 
 seen, much more so than the so-called literal 
 version by Letourneur and others ! Why had 
 they suppressed that interesting quibble in 
 Ccesar on ^' soul " and ^* sole," ^ and that polite 
 speech of lago to Brabantio in the first act 
 of Othellol No doubt, they would conceal 
 in their forthcoming volumes those gross 
 indecencies which Voltaire revelled upon and 
 d'Alembert demurely skipped, hinting at 
 monstrosities ! Why should this translator, 
 this ** secretaire de la librairie de Paris," 
 endeavour to ''immolate France to England 
 in a work dedicated to the King of France " ? 
 Was he not aware that, even in England, 
 '' Rymer himself, the learned Rymer, con- 
 fessed that there was not a pug in Barbary, 
 nor a baboon, but had more taste than 
 Shakespeare " ? Voltaire would not go quite 
 so far. Truth compelled him to acknow- 
 1 Act I., Sc. i. 
 
LA LETTRE A LACADEMIE 191 
 
 ledge that, however wild, low, irregular, 
 absurd Shakespeare's dramas might be, 
 occasional sparks of genius shone in them. 
 *^ Yes, gentlemen," the critic exclaimed, ^Mn 
 that dark chaos of murders, buffoonery, 
 heroism, turpitude, Billingsgate speeches and 
 momentous interests, there are found some 
 natural, striking touches ! " Such a mixture 
 of good and bad would remind us of those 
 Spanish tragedies played at the Court of 
 Philip II., performed and imitated all through 
 Europe. Of the poorness of Shakespeare's 
 models, we could judge, Voltaire thought, 
 by a certain tragedy called Gorboduc^ ^'in 
 which a good king, the husband of a good 
 queen, shares, in the first act, his kingdom 
 between his children, who quarrel for their 
 share : the younger gives the elder a blow 
 in the second act, the elder in the third kills 
 the younger ; the mother in the fourth kills 
 the elder ; the king in the fifth kills Queen 
 Gorboduc, and the people, in a riot, kill King 
 Gorboduc, so that, at the end, nobody is left." 
 This clever sketch, borrowed from Rymer, 
 was received, of course, with much laughter, 
 and some noble Academicians doubtless felt 
 that, coming from such miserable forbears, 
 
192 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare must be a very low fellow 
 indeed ! But he had great merit all the same, 
 d'Alembert resumed, speaking in Voltaire's 
 name: '^So powerful was his genius that 
 this Thespis became a Sophocles at times." 
 Was, however, a polished and delicate nation 
 like the French, enriched as it had been with 
 the incomparable masterpieces of Corneille 
 and Racine, to go to school to a barbarian, 
 whom the infatuated Letourneur proclaimed 
 *'the god of the theatre"? No, indeed! 
 ''Fancy, gentlemen," Voltaire said in con- 
 clusion, ''that Louis XIV. stands in his 
 gallery at Versailles, surrounded by a 
 brilliant Court: a Jack- pudding, a Gilles, 
 dressed in rags, comes through the crowd of 
 heroes, of great men and beauties who 
 compose this Court, and proposes to them 
 to leave Corneille, Racine and Moliere for 
 a buffoon who has happy sallies and makes 
 grimaces. What, do you think, would his 
 reception be?"^ 
 
 Thus ended the Letter^ which Mrs Montagu 
 judged as follows: "Then rose Monsieur 
 d'Alembert, to read a most blackguard 
 
 ^ CEuvres completes^ ed. 1879, t. xxx., pp. 351-3, 363-5, 
 370. 
 
LA LETTRE A UACADEMIE 193 
 
 abusive invective of Monsieur de Voltaire's 
 against Shakespear, the translation of whose 
 works, he apprehended, would spoil the taste 
 of the French nation. He attributed to 
 Shakespear many things he never said, he 
 gathered together many things the rudeness 
 of the age allowed him to say, and with 
 a few mauvaises plaisanteries seasoned the 
 discourse. With as much mauvaise foy he 
 gave an account of the tragedy of Gorboduc 
 and represented it as the taste of the 
 nation in drama, tho' not ten people have 
 for these hundred years read Gorboduc, 
 This trash of Monsieur Voltaire's answered 
 the great purpose of his life, to raise 
 a momentary laugh at things that are 
 good, and a transient scorn of men much 
 superior to himself, but I must do that 
 justice to the Academy and audience, they 
 seemed in general displeased at the paper 
 read. I was asked by an Academician if 
 I would answer this piece of Voltaire's, and 
 [he] did not doubt but I could do it very well. 
 I said Mr I'abbe Arnaud had done it much 
 better than I could, in the praises he had 
 given to original genius and the benefits 
 arising from the study of them {sic). That I 
 
 N 
 
194 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 remembered, sixty years ago, in the same 
 Academy, old Homer had met with the same 
 treatment with Shakespear ; that they now did 
 justice to Homer : I did not doubt but they 
 would do so to Shakespear, for that great 
 geniuses survived those who set up to be their 
 criticks, or more absurdly to be their rivals." 
 This was not the only good thing that Mrs 
 Montagu is reported to have uttered on that 
 day. Suard, one of the forty, having said to 
 her: **Je crois, Madame, que vous etes un 
 peu fachee de ce que vous venez d'entendre," 
 she replied : ^* Moi, Monsieur ! point du tout. 
 Je ne suis pas amie de Monsieur Voltaire."^ 
 Some time before this, the letter to d'Argental 
 being shown to her, in which Shakespeare's 
 works were called **un enorme fumier," she 
 observed that ''ce malheureux fumier avait 
 engraisse une terre ingrate," which repartee, 
 she informs Mrs Vesey,^ delighted the com- 
 
 ^ Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. 1904, ix., 444-5. 
 
 2 On 28th August (Mrs Climenson's MSS.). The 
 saying, as reported in some books, has become quite a 
 curiosity. Here is one instance {The Memoirs of 
 Hannah More, by Wm. Roberts, ed. 1834, i., 98, Mrs 
 Boscawen to Miss H. More, 1776) : "Perhaps you have 
 heard her admirable bon mot, in answer to Voltaire's 
 calling Shakespeare un fumier. She said : ' II en avoit 
 le sort savoir d'enricher des terres ingrates.'" 
 
LA LETTRE A LACADEMIE 195 
 
 pany, *'as they knew Voltaire had got 
 many of his fine things from Shakespeare." 
 To come back to the sitting of 25th August, 
 *^many of the Academicians declared their 
 dislike of what was done " by shrugging up 
 their shoulders and other '' strong signs of 
 disapprobation." They apparently thought 
 that the Letter ^^ was not only unjust to Shake- 
 speare, but unworthy of the Academy." Mr 
 d'Alembert then brought the proceedings 
 to a close by pronouncing *^an eloge of 
 Destouches, whose comedies are reckoned 
 next to Moliere's. There was a great deal 
 of spirit and ingenuity in the eloge, and 
 some anecdotes of Destouches that were 
 interesting. Indeed everything but the paper 
 of Voltaire was very ingenious, and such 
 as did honour to the speakers and the 
 assembly." 
 
 None of the dire consequences dreaded by 
 Grimm ensued. Though Voltaire's pamphlet 
 was soon translated and published in London, 
 England remained absolutely calm. She did 
 not even enter on a paper- war. In fact, the 
 most excited advocate of Shakespeare against 
 his French critic was not one of his com- 
 patriots, but a hot-headed Italian, Giuseppe 
 
196 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Baretti,^ who brought out in 1777 a Discours 
 sur Shakespeare et sur M, de Voltaire written 
 in French. This little book, a singular 
 mixture of incorrections, vulgar abuse and 
 vigorous invective, impartially blamed both 
 Voltaire and Letourneur, the former for 
 having translated parts of Julius Ccesar and 
 other plays with a school - girl's ignorant 
 literalness, the latter for having undertaken 
 the impossible task of rendering Shakespeare's 
 ''compact, energetic, vehement" poetry into 
 so polished, dainty and fastidious an idiom as 
 the French language.^ Some months before 
 the publication of Baretti's volume, the 
 Chevalier Rutlidge, ''the son of an Irishman 
 and born in France,"^ had addressed the 
 members of the Academy in his courteous 
 Observations au sujet cTune lettre de M. de 
 Voltaire^ a work of much critical insight in a 
 small compass. Not content with pointing 
 out, as Mrs Montagu had done already, 
 
 ^ See on him Boswell's Johnson^ passim^ and The 
 Autobiography of Mrs Piozzi, ed. by Hayward, 1861, 
 ii., 334-40. 
 
 ^ Discours, pp. 16-7, 21-2; cf. on this point LuiGl 
 MORANDI, Voltaire contro Shakespeare, 1884. 
 
 3 Grimm, Correspondance litteraire, xi., 379-80 (no- 
 vembre 1776). 
 
MRS MONTAGU'S ALLIES 197 
 
 Voltaire's minute inaccuracies of expression, 
 he went deeper into the question at issue, and 
 conclusively proved the utter unreasonableness 
 of translating, in a version of Shakespeare, 
 English prose by French prose, English blank 
 verse and rhyme by French blank verse and 
 rhyme. The two languages could not be thus 
 superposed. Shakespeare did not use those 
 several forms of speech indifferently : prose he 
 reserved for the familiar conversation of the 
 lower classes ; as soon as he meant his style to 
 increase in dignity, he had recourse to blank 
 verse, and, whenever some powerful, sublime 
 thought was to be engraved in the spectator's 
 memory, he chose rhyme. The transitions 
 from one form to the other were always so 
 artistically managed as to be imperceptible, 
 except to an English ear. Rising to a still 
 higher level in his argument, Rutlidge con- 
 tended that what Voltaire miscalled barbarism 
 really was the representation of Nature, of 
 the whole of Nature. Shakespeare's plays 
 were not to be considered in parts or passages, 
 but in their entirety : the much-derided scenes 
 in the first acts of Ccesar and of Romeo would 
 then assume their true dramatic significance. 
 No rules, no unities of time or place could 
 
198 THE ESSAY OiV SHAKESPEARE 
 
 override or supersede the essential law of 
 the drama, that it should present an accurate, 
 interesting, striking picture of society in 
 its diverse aspects. The artistic value of 
 Naturalism was Shakespeare's sufficient justi- 
 fication. As there breathed more of this truth 
 and life in him than in Corneille or in the 
 elegant Racine, he must be held superior to 
 his French rivals.^ 
 
 Third in chronological order — and also in 
 importance — appeared in a French garb Mrs 
 Montagu's own Essay, entitled Apologie de 
 Shakespear, *'en reponse a la critique de M. 
 de Voltaire, traduite de I'anglois de Madame 
 de Montagu." The book had a short, but 
 somewhat curious, history. When, in July 
 1776, the letter to d'Argental was going the 
 round of the Paris salons, Grimm informs 
 us that there were thoughts of having the 
 Apologie de Shakespear rendered into French. ^ 
 That intention took effect. ''A young man 
 here," Mrs Montagu writes,^ ''made a very 
 middling translation of my Essay ; happily 
 it was not gone to the press, so I bought it 
 
 ^ Observations^ pp. 49, 52, 57-8, 61. 
 "^ Correspondance litteraire^ xi., 299. 
 3 To her sister, Mrs Scott, the nth (of September 
 probably) (Mrs Climenson's MSS.). 
 
THE ESSA Y TRANSLATED 199 
 
 of him" — for twenty-five louis d'or — *^ rather 
 than let him print it. While Voltaire lives, 
 the writers of reputation dare not translate 
 it, and I don't like to have it ill done. The 
 fear of Voltaire here is comical. The 
 Witts all tell you the most odious stories 
 of him, but make court to him." After 
 one year's delay, a new and anonymous 
 version of the Essay was published simul- 
 taneously in London and in Paris. It met 
 with a polite reception, except at the hands 
 of Grimm, whom it almost threw into a fit 
 of fury : '^ If this work does not prove 
 so successful in France as it has been in 
 England," he said,i '^the translator's want 
 of skill will not be the only reason of its 
 failure. To the so-called prejudice in M. de 
 Voltaire's judgments are opposed prejudices 
 incomparably more revolting." How unbear- 
 ably unfair it is to accuse the author of the 
 Horaces to have painted his Romans after the 
 manner of Scuderi or La Calprenede ! What 
 can be the justice of a criticism of Corneille 
 that is almost exclusively founded on extracts 
 
 ^ Correspondance litteraire^ xii., 7-8 (octobre 1777). 
 The Essay was also translated into German, by Eschen- 
 burg in 1771 (LOUNSBURY, p. 290), and into Italian in 1828. 
 
200 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 from 0^/ion and Pertharite ? And what avails 
 it to attack Voltaire about Shakespeare, when, 
 with the exception of a few details in which 
 it is not surprising that a foreigner should 
 have been mistaken, the judgment arrived at 
 by the Apologist on her hero tallies exactly 
 with the French critic's ? Is not the admission 
 that Shakespeare wrote at a time when science 
 was tainted with pedantry, that, at the Court 
 of Elizabeth, a scientific obscure jargon was 
 affected, that Shakespeare, either by contagion 
 from or condescension for the public taste, 
 often fell into the fashionable style, into 
 *^ nonsense, indecorums, and irregularities" — 
 is not such a concession tantamount to sub- 
 scribing to all the strictures of Voltaire? — 
 Yes, we might answer in Mrs Montagu's 
 name — but with an all-important difference 
 in tone, and with so full a sense of Shake- 
 speare's beauties that the consideration of 
 his conceded defects is almost obliterated in 
 the end. Neither the Meraire de France^ 
 nor the Amtee Litteraire'^ thought that the 
 Apologia unduly depreciated Shakespeare. 
 ''Though Mylady Montagu," the latter 
 
 ^ Novembre 1777, pp. 122-8. 
 2 i777> t. vi., pp. 217-56. 
 
SECOND LETTER TO ACADEMY 201 
 
 reviewer said, '' sometimes yields too much 
 to her exclusive admiration of Shakespeare, 
 her book is none the less one of the deepest 
 and of the most judicious that have been 
 published for a long while on the dramatic 
 art. We are even compelled to assent to 
 all the praise she bestows on the English 
 poet for the strength and truth of his char- 
 acters, for his skill in painting the passions 
 and moving the heart. Her partiality appears 
 only when she tries to justify the mixture of 
 tragedy and comedy, so fatal to his style, 
 the introduction of spectres and sorcerers on 
 the stage, and the irregularity of his plays." 
 She ought, in short, to have insisted more, 
 both on Shakespeare's defects and on Cor- 
 neille's beauties. 
 
 The same objections were made to the 
 Apologie by Voltaire himself, when, in his 
 last, but triumphal, journey to Paris, he sent 
 to his colleagues of the Academy^ a second 
 Letter^ which now serves as the preface to 
 Irene, *'Mrs Montagu," he said, ^'an 
 estimable citizen of London, has been inspired 
 with a pardonable zeal for the fame of her 
 country. Preferring Shakespeare to the 
 ^ In March 1778. 
 
202 THE ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE 
 
 authors of Iphigenie^ Athalie, Polyeucte and 
 Cinna^ she has written a whole book to assert 
 his superiority, with that sort of enthusiasm 
 which the English show for some fine passages 
 in Shakespeare, that shine through the coarse- 
 ness of his age. She has ranked him above 
 all others, for the sake of such passages, 
 natural and vigorous indeed, but almost 
 always defaced by low familiarity." Con- 
 trasted with this excessive indulgence, how 
 hard her condemnation appears of some 
 defects in Cinna and Rodogune^ of the constant 
 use made by Racine of the passion of love ! 
 ** Is it a lady's office to reprove the universal 
 passion that causes her sex to reign ? " No ! 
 Let Mrs Montagu hear Berenice acted by 
 Mile Gaussin, and she will shed tears ; let 
 her attend a performance of Phedre or of 
 Iphigenie^ and she will be ''beside herself" 
 with emotion and grief. How could she 
 remain insensible to what has drawn, for 
 the hundredth time, tears of admiration and 
 compassion from Voltaire's aged eyes? *' Let 
 her and the English mind their own dis- 
 sensions, and cease finding fault with the 
 great men of France,"^ exclaimed the dying 
 ^ (Euvres completes^ ed. 1877, vii., 330-3. 
 
END OF THE CONTROVERSY 203 
 
 philosopher, whose decease brought to a close 
 that paper-war in which Mrs Montagu had 
 borne no inconsiderable part.^ 
 
 ^ On its real importance, cf. Villemain, Tableau 
 de la Utterature ate xviii.' siecle^ iii.^ 328: "Toute la 
 controverse de littdrature etrangere, au xviii^ si^cle, 
 toute I'innovation qui se manifesta d^s lors, est dans 
 Shakespeare. La question de savoir ce qu'il est, k quel 
 point on doit I'admirer, comment on doit I'imiter, est toute 
 la question de critique moderne que le xviiie siecle nous 
 ait laissee." The same critic, in an Essai litteraire sur 
 Shakespeare^ first published in 1828, and reprinted in his 
 Etudes de Utterature ancienne et etrangere^ ed. 1846, 
 p. 258, thus mentions the Essay on Shakespeare : " Mistress 
 Montaigu a releve, dans la version si litterale de Jules 
 Cesar^ de nombreuses inadvertances et I'oubli de grandes 
 beautes : elle a repousse les dedains de Voltaire par la 
 critique judicieuse de quelques defauts du theatre frangais ; 
 mais elle ne pouvait pallier les enormes et froides bizar- 
 reries melees aux pieces de Shakespeare." Thereby we 
 see that, nearly eighty years after its publication, Mrs 
 Montagu's book was not yet forgotten, even in France. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CIRCLE : THE BLUE STOCKINGS 
 
 I 
 
 Actuated by an inborn taste for society, 
 which made her say that ^^the social state is 
 truly the state of Nature, for it is that which 
 is most agreeable to the nature of man, and 
 that for which his great Author designed 
 him,"^ Mrs Montagu, soon after the death 
 of her child, began to show her love of 
 hospitality and magnificence in the frequent 
 receptions she held every year, during the 
 winter months, at her house in Hill Street. 
 So early as April 1750, we find her entertain- 
 ing distinguished strangers, like Mme du 
 
 ^ MSS. of the Marquis of Bath^ i., 337 (1773). 
 204 
 
MME DU BOCCAGE 205 
 
 Boccage,^ who has recorded, in her Lettres 
 stir r Angleterre;^-' the attentions she was 
 honoured with: '*In the morning," she 
 wrote, '' breakfasts, that enchant us by the 
 cleanHness and elegance of the viands and 
 of the utensils used to cook and serve in, 
 pleasantly bring together English people 
 and foreigners. We thus breakfasted to-day 
 at ' Mylady Montaigu's,' in a closet lined with 
 painted paper of Pekin, and adorned with 
 the prettiest Chinese furniture ; a long table, 
 covered with pellucid linen, and a thousand 
 glittering vases presented to the view coffee, 
 chocolate, biscuits, cream, butter, bread 
 toasted in many ways, and exquisite tea. 
 You must understand that good tea is to be 
 had in London only. The mistress of the 
 house, though worthy to be served at the 
 table of the gods, poured it out herself, as 
 
 ^ A native of Rouen (1710-1802), the writer of a tragedy, 
 les Amazones (1749), of an epic poem, la Colotnbiade ou 
 la Foi portce au Nouveau Monde^ and of an imitation of 
 Milton, le Paradis Terrestre. Her best work is, however, 
 her Lettres sur PAngleterre, la Hollande et P Italic 
 {CEuv7'es completes, Lyon, 3 vols., 1762). Her salon in 
 Paris long rivalled that of Mme Geoffrin, says M. de 
 Segur : Le Royaume de la Rue St Honore\ p. 35, n. 3. 
 
 ^ Pages 12-3, ed. 1762. The book was translated into 
 English in 1770 (2 vols.). 
 
2o6 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 the custom demands, which to obey, English 
 ladies put on a close-fitting, marvellously 
 becoming dress, a white apron, a pretty 
 little straw-hat, and these they wear not only 
 within doors, but even along the Mall, at 
 noon, when, like so many nymphs, they take 
 their favourite midday walk in St James's 
 Park." The gratitude of Mme du Boccage 
 expressed itself with equal warmth in the 
 following note, probably of the same date : 
 '* Je suis engagee a aller a la campagne pour 
 quelques jours, Madame ; ce qui m'empeche 
 d'aller moi-meme m'informer des nouvelles 
 de la sante de Mr de Montaigu, et vous 
 remercier de votre flatteur et beau present ; 
 pour vous en marquer ma reconnaissance, je 
 ne puis vous offrir que moi-meme : voudrez- 
 vous bien m'accepter et recevoir des pierres 
 de Medoc pour des diamants de Golconde? 
 Ma reconnaissance sans borne ne pourra 
 remplir cette difference ; vous aurez toujours 
 la superiorite qui vous est due, et je serai 
 eternellement avec le souvenir de votre 
 merite et de vos bienfaits, Madame, votre 
 tres humble et tres obeissante servante."^ 
 So numerous were the invitations sent out 
 ^ From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
THE CHINESE ROOM 207 
 
 on gala days, that Mrs Montagu, on 24th 
 December 1752, could tell Mrs Boscawen 
 that her *^ Chinese room" had been '^filled 
 by a succession of people from eleven in 
 the morning till eleven at night." ^ Six 
 months later we read of a rout, which 
 ''rather more than a hundred visitants" 
 attended; ''but the apartment held them 
 with ease, and the highest compliments were 
 paid to the house." ^ All the guests united, 
 of course, in praising the wonder of Hill 
 Street at that time, the famous " Chinese " or 
 " dressing-room " that resembled " the Temple 
 of an Indian god. . . . The very curtains are 
 Chinese pictures on gauze, and the chairs 
 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," Mrs 
 Montagu writes to her sister, " is the only 
 thing where nature triumps."^ 
 
 Twenty years afterwards, Chinese orna- 
 ments having gone out of fashion, a new 
 decoration appeared to the amused, smiling 
 
 ^ Letters^ iii., 203. 
 
 ^ Mrs Climenson, ii., 30. 
 
 ^ Ibid., i., 271. 
 
2o8 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 eyes of beholders like Mrs Delany, whose 
 astonishment stands on record in an ironical 
 passage of a letter to her niece: *^If I 
 had paper and time," she says on 28th 
 May 1773, ^*I could entertain you with the 
 account of Mrs Montagu's room of Cupidons^ 
 which was opened with an assembly for all 
 the foreigners, the literati, and the macaronis 
 of the present age. Many and sly are the 
 observations how such a genius at her age^ and 
 so circumstanced^ could think of painting the 
 walls of her dressing-room with bowers of 
 roses and jessamines entirely inhabited by little 
 Cupids in all their little wanton ways . . . 
 unless she looks upon herself as the wife of 
 old Vulcan, and mother to all these little 
 loves ! " ^ When ^' old Vulcan," enriched by 
 his coal mines, departed this earth in May 
 1775, he left to his widow, *' Mrs Montagu of 
 Shakespeareshire,"^ an estate " of ;^7,ooo a 
 year in her own power." What her recep- 
 tions were about that time, we can see in some 
 letters of Hannah More's : ^' I had yesterday 
 
 ^Autobiography and Correspo7idence of Mrs Delany, 
 iv., 508. 
 
 2 As Walpole impertinently calls her, see The Letters 
 ^/Horace Walpole, ed. Paget Toynbee, ix., 202. 
 
THE ROOM OF CUPIDONS 209 
 
 the pleasure of dining in Hill Street, Berkeley 
 Square," the writer tells her sister, ^^ at a 
 certain Mrs Montagu's^ a name not totally 
 obscure. The party consisted of herself, Mrs 
 Carter, Dr Johnson, Solander, and Maty, Mrs 
 Boscawen, Miss Reynolds, and Sir Joshua, 
 the idol of every company. . . . Mrs Montagu 
 received me with the most encouraging 
 kindness ; she is not only the finest genius, 
 but the finest lady I ever saw : she lives in 
 the highest style of magnificence ; her apart- 
 ments and table are in the most splendid 
 taste ; but what baubles are these when 
 speaking of a Montagu ! her form (for she 
 has no body) is delicate even to fragility ; her 
 countenance the most animated in the world ; 
 the sprightly vivacity of fifteen, with the 
 judgment and experience of a Nestor. But 
 I fear she is hastening to decay very fast ; 
 her spirits are so active that they must soon 
 wear out the little frail receptacle that holds 
 them."^ And in 1776, this ethereal hostess, 
 all mind, if not all soul, is again described 
 by her delighted guest: ''Just returned from 
 spending one of the most agreeable days of 
 
 ^Memoirs of Mrs Hayinah More, by WILLIAM 
 Roberts, 1834, i., 53. 
 
 o 
 
2IO SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 my life, with the female Mcecenas of Hill 
 Street ; she engaged me five or six days 
 ago to dine with her, and had assembled 
 all the wits of the age. The only fault that 
 charming woman has, is, that she is fond 
 1 of collecting too many of them together at 
 ; one time. There were nineteen persons 
 assembled at dinner, but after the repast, 
 she has a method of dividing her guests, 
 or rather letting them assort themselves into 
 little groups of five or six each. I spent 
 my time in going from one to the other 
 of these little societies, as I happened more 
 or less to like the subjects they were dis- 
 cussing. Mrs Scott, Mrs Montagu's sister, 
 a very good writer,^ Mrs Carter, Mrs 
 Barbauld, and a man of letters, whose name 
 I have forgotten, made up one of these 
 little parties. When we had canvassed two 
 or three subjects, I stole off and joined in 
 with the next group, which was composed 
 of Mrs Montagu, Dr Johnson, the Provost 
 of Dublin, and two other ingenious men. 
 In this party there was a diversity of 
 
 ^ But very much neglected now, though her Millennium 
 Hall and her Life of d'Aubigne are still occasionally 
 mentioned. 
 
4l".M. 
 
 ^taaA 
 
 onccLqytL 
 
 't> rrijeiy^Jaiker- >$^/t. Sc 
 
GARRICK 211 
 
 opinions, which produced a great deal of 
 good argument and reasoning." ^ 
 
 On some occasions, the company being 
 less numerous or less literary, a dearth of 
 animated conversation might be expected : 
 recourse was then had to the illustrious actor, 
 now retired from the stage, but whom Paris 
 and London had long united in admiring : 
 ^'The French ambassador and ambassadress. 
 Lord and Lady Spencer and the Garricks 
 dined with me on Saturday last," Mrs 
 Montagu writes in 1778, ''and Mr Garrick 
 was so good as to act the dagger scene in 
 Macbeth^ and King Lear on his knees uttering 
 maledictions on his ungrateful daughters." 
 A note, in acknowledgment of the artist's 
 exceeding obligingness, was sent that very 
 evening: ''I cannot go to sleep," Mrs 
 Montagu said to him, ''till I thank you for 
 the honour you did your country, your wit, 
 and your friends, and the infinite delight 
 you gave to their excellencies and the rest 
 of the company. I dare not repeat to you 
 what was said lest it should look like flattery ; 
 but I will tell you that Madame de Noailles 
 thanked me above a hundred times for the 
 ^ Memoirs of Haiinah More, i., 62-3. 
 
212 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 pleasure and surprise : she was thanking 
 me and wondering at you all the way she 
 went downstairs so earnestly, I was afraid 
 she would fall and break her bones. Though 
 they had heard so much of you, they had 
 not the least idea such things were within 
 the compass of art and nature. . . . The 
 ambassador added to his admiration great 
 sense of your good-nature and politeness ; 
 and, in short, there was such a chorus of 
 praise and thanks as cannot be represented ; 
 and while they were uttering, Lady Spencer's 
 eyes were more expressive than any human 
 language. Then she amazed them with 
 telling them how you could look like a 
 simpleton in Abel Drugger, when murderous 
 daggers and undutiful daughters were out 
 of the question. With what pleasure shall 
 I reflect on this evening, if you have not 
 got cold !..."! 
 
 The time soon came, however, when even 
 the splendours of Hill Street no longer 
 satisfied Mrs Montagu, whose ambition grew 
 as her riches increased. She fixed on the 
 north-west corner of Portman Square as the 
 site of her projected ^'new house," which, in 
 1 Garrick's Correspondence^ ii., 369. 
 
PORTMAN SQUARE 213 
 
 July 1779, kept her very busy with her 
 architect, *^Mr Adam," and his workmen. 
 *^ He came at the head of a regiment of 
 artificers," she writes to the Duchess of 
 Portland on the 20th, ''an hour after the 
 time he had promised : the bricklayer talked 
 about the alterations to be made in a wall ; 
 the stonemason was as eloquent about the 
 coping of the said wall ; the carpenter 
 thought the internal fitting up of the house 
 not less important; then came the painter, 
 who is painting my ceilings in various 
 colours, according to the present fashion."^ 
 On 1 8th August, she cherishes the thought 
 of that '' new house " with a *' passion almost 
 equal to that of a lover to a mistress whom 
 he thinks very handsome and very good, and 
 such as will make him enjoy the dignity of 
 life with ease.'' She feels impatient to have 
 it *'fit for habitation, as I think," she says, 
 *'the large and high rooms and its airy 
 situation will be of great service to my health ; 
 and I am sure such noble apartments will 
 be a great addition to my pleasures. In the 
 winter of the year and the winter of our 
 life, our principal enjoyments must be in 
 ^ MSS. of t fie Marquis of Bath^ i., 345. 
 
214 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 our own house." ^ More than a year elapsed, 
 however, before she had done furnishing 
 her new residence and gradually removing 
 her family into it.^ At last, in the beginning 
 of December 1781, she settled ^' in perfect 
 health and spirits in her Chateau Portman."^ 
 Early in 1782, she invited some friends to 
 bid adieu to the '' little loves" in the room 
 of Cupidons : ^'I was three times with Mrs 
 Montagu the week I stayed in town," says 
 Hannah More.* *^We spent one evening 
 with her and Miss Gregory alone, to take 
 leave of the Hill Street house ; and you 
 never saw such an air of ruin and bankruptcy 
 as every thing around us wore. We had 
 about three feet square of carpet, and that 
 we might all put our feet upon it, we were 
 obliged to sit in a circle in the middle of 
 the room, just as if we were playing at 
 'hunt the slipper.' . . . She is now settled 
 in Portman Square, where I believe we were 
 among the first to pay our compliments to 
 
 ^ DORAN, A Lady of the Last Century, p. 255. 
 
 " Mrs Boscawen to Mrs Delany, 12th November 
 1 78 1 {The Autobiography, etc. ... of Mrs Delany, 
 vi., 65). 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 78. 
 
 * Memoirs of Hamiah More, i., 241. 
 
THE ''NEW PALACE" 215 
 
 her. I had no conception of anything so 
 beautiful. To all the magnificence of a very 
 superb London house, is added the scenery of 
 a country retirement. It is so seldom that 
 anything superb is pleasant, that I was 
 extremely struck with it. I could not help 
 looking with compassion on the amiable 
 proprietor shivering at a breeze^ and who 
 can at the best enjoy it so very little a 
 while. She has, however, my ardent wishes 
 for her continuance in a world to which she 
 is an ornament and a blessing." Horace 
 Walpole himself, though often sarcastic 
 in his remarks on Mrs Montagu and her 
 belongings, expressed unwonted enthusiasm 
 about them in a letter to Mason. ''I 
 dined on Monday at Mrs Montagu's new 
 palace," he wrote on 14th February 1782, 
 ''and was much surprised. Instead of 
 vagaries, it is a noble simple edifice. 
 When I came home, I recollected that 
 though I had thought it so magnificent a 
 house, there was not a morsel of gilding. 
 It is grand, not tawdry, nor larded and 
 embroidered and pomponned with shreds and 
 remnants, and clinquant like all the harle- 
 
2i6 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 quinades of Adam,^ which never let the eye 
 repose a moment." ^ 
 
 An original and once famous fancy of hers 
 in Portman Square was her ^'feather-work" 
 or '* feather hangings," which it took her well- 
 nigh ten years to make. '^ My great piece is 
 not yet completed," she wrote in February 
 1784; ''so, if you have an opportunity of 
 getting me any feathers, they will be very 
 acceptable. The brown tails of partridges 
 are very useful, though not so brilliant as 
 some others." She levied a voluntary tax 
 on her friends' poultry - yards : "The neck 
 
 1 On this architect, cf. the following remarks by Miss 
 Berry, Walpole's editor and friend : " Three Scotch 
 brothers, of the name of Adam, after a long professional 
 study of architecture in Italy, on their return to England 
 first applied the internal ornaments of the ancient apart- 
 ments then lately discovered at Rom.e and at Pompeii to 
 the decoration of London drawing-rooms. The applica- 
 tion was bad, the taste minute and faulty — calculated for 
 no room larger than a bath, and that in a warm country, 
 where all hangings and paper were to be avoided. But 
 their substitution of the Greek fret, the honey-suckle, the 
 husk, and other ornaments of graceful contour, instead of 
 the nondescript angular flourishes, was an approach to 
 something like truth." It seems, then, that the " return 
 to Nature" was simultaneous in architecture and in 
 poetry. 
 
 2 Horace Walpole's Letters^ ed. Paget Toynbee, xii., 
 166. 
 
THE FEATHER ROOM 217 
 
 and breast feathers of the stubble goose are 
 very useful," she told a kinswoman in 1786, 
 ^^and I wish your cook would save those of 
 the Michaelmas goose for us.''^ William 
 Cowper, the poet, heard of the scheme 
 through his cousin, Lady Hesketh, and 
 celebrated it in a ^' eulogium," 2 the begin- 
 ning of which may be quoted here : 
 
 " The birds put off their every hue, 
 To dress a room for Montagu. 
 
 The peacock sends his heavenly dyes, 
 His rainbows and his starry eyes; 
 The pheasant, plumes which round infold 
 His mantling neck with downy gold ; 
 The cock his arch'd tail's azure show, 
 And, river-blanch'd, the swan his snow. 
 All tribes, beside, of Indian name, 
 That glossy shine, or vivid flame. 
 Where rises and where sets the day, 
 Whate'er they boast of rich and gay, 
 Contribute to the gorgeous plan. 
 Proud to advance it all they can. 
 This plumage neither dashing shower. 
 Nor blasts that shake the dripping bower. 
 Shall drench again or discompose, 
 But screen'd from every storm that blows, 
 It boasts a splendour ever new. 
 Safe with protecting Montagu. . . .'" 
 
 And Horace Walpole has recorded that, on 
 
 ^ DoRAN, pp. 326, 335. 
 
 ^ See his letter to Lady Hesketh, 19th May 1788. 
 
 ' On Mrs Montagu's feather hatigings (June 1788). 
 
2i8 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 13th July 1 79 1, the work being at last 
 finished and in place, Mrs Montagu gave a 
 splendid inaugural breakfast to '* seven 
 hundred persons on opening her great room, 
 and the room with the hangings of feathers."^ 
 Those sumptuous apartments were now 
 ready to receive the highest personages in 
 the land. Writing on 25th April 1790, 
 Hannah More had mentioned that her friend 
 was ^^ fitting up the great room in a superb 
 style, with pillars of verd antique, and had 
 added an acre to what was before a very large 
 town garden. Still the same inexhaustible 
 spirits," she went on, ^^the same taste for 
 business and magnificence ; three or four 
 great dinners in a week with Luxembourgs, 
 Montmorencies, and Czartoriskis."^ On and 
 after 13th July 1791, a succession of ''public 
 breakfasts," as Miss Burney called them, took 
 place in Portman Square. They seem to 
 have been inconveniently crowded. In Mme 
 d'Arblay's Diary for Friday, 25th May 
 1792,^ we read how ''the table," loaded 
 with a prodigious quantity of cold chicken, 
 
 ^ Letters^ ed. Toynbee, xv., i. 
 
 ^ Memoirs of Ha7inah More^ ii., 226-7. 
 
 2 Diary and Lelkrs^ ed. 1876, iii., 409-10. 
 
RECEPTIONS IN GREAT ROOM 219 
 
 ham, fish, etc., *^was not a matter of in- 
 difference to the guests at large," how it 
 was ''so completely occupied by company 
 seated round it, that it was long before one 
 vacant chair could be seized. The crowd " 
 in fact was such that one ''could only slowly 
 make way in any part. There could not be 
 fewer than four or five hundred people. It 
 was like a full Ranelagh by daylight." Yet 
 the Diarist found "the rooms well worth 
 examination and admiration," the "noble 
 pillars" especially. And Hannah More 
 again, in the same year, thus writes to her 
 sister : " You must know Mrs Montagu had, 
 last week, the honour of entertaining the 
 Queen and six princesses at breakfast, in 
 Portman Square ; and yesterday she made a 
 great breakfast for subjects, to which we went. 
 Almost all the fine people were there, to the 
 number of two or three hundred. Breakfast 
 was ready at one ; — there was a fine cold 
 collation. The Duke of Gloucester and Mrs 
 Montagu sat at the head of the table — the 
 foreign princess," the Countess of Albany, 
 wife to the Pretender, "next" to them. 
 "There was great profusion of ices, fruits, 
 and all sorts of refreshments, and the gay 
 
220 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 coup d'ceil — the sight of so many dis- 
 tinguished persons, was pleasant enough."^ 
 Only in her seventy-ninth year did she give 
 up the heavy self - imposed duties of this 
 extensive hospitality: ''She is in perfect 
 good health and spirits," Mrs Carter said 
 in 1799, ''though she has totally changed 
 her mode of life, from a conviction that she 
 exerted herself too much last year, and that 
 it brought on the long illness by which she 
 suffered so much. She never goes out except 
 to take the air of a morning ; has no company 
 to dinner (I do not call myself company), lets 
 in nobody in the evening, which she passes 
 in hearing her servant read, as, alas ! her 
 eyes will not suffer her to read to herself. I 
 flatter myself that this pause of exertion will 
 restore her to us, and will help to prolong 
 her life ; and that a taste for the comfort of 
 living quietly will for the future prevent her 
 from mixing so much with the tumults of the 
 world as to injure her health." ^ Singularly 
 enough, the last convivial party she enter- 
 tained doubtless consisted of the chimney- 
 sweepers, on whom she charitably bestowed 
 
 ^ Memoirs of Hannah More^ ii., 343-4. 
 2 Ibid., iii., 66. 
 
THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 221 
 
 an annual feast.^ She was much amused, 
 she once told her sister, **with good Mrs 
 Anguish's request for her chimney-sweeper's 
 boy; I sympathise," she went on, '^with her 
 in tenderness for persons of that occupation, 
 and all that come to my gate on May-day 
 are admitted, tho' I do not send cards of 
 invitation or give tickets of admission, but, 
 if her protege presents himself at my gate 
 about one o'clock, he will find beef, mutton, 
 and pudding provided for his entertainment. 
 We begin to spread our tables before one 
 o'clock, and there is a succession of dinners 
 till four o'clock in the afternoon." ^ Thus did 
 her large bounty extend, throughout her life, 
 to high and low. On 26th August 1800, she 
 passed away, in her eightieth year, and was 
 buried in Winchester Cathedral. 
 
 1 Or, as Mme d'Arblay puts it in a sentence too 
 characteristic of her latest manner to be omitted here : 
 " her annual festival for those hapless artificers, who 
 perform the most abject offices of any authorised calling, 
 in being the active guardians of our blazing hearths " 
 {Memoirs of Dr Burney^ ed. 1832, ii., 272). 
 
 2 From Mrs Climenson's MSS, 
 
222 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 II 
 
 Not her receptions only, but thousands of 
 letters to and from her, bear witness to her 
 social importance. As Wraxall has justly 
 noted, ^'many of the most illustrious persons 
 in rank, no less than in ability, under the 
 reigns of George the Second and Third, had 
 been her correspondents, friends, companions, 
 and admirers. Pulteney, Earl of Bath, whose 
 portrait hung over the chimney-piece in her 
 drawing-room, and George, the first Lord 
 Lyttelton, so eminent for his genius, were 
 among the number."^ Her assistance had 
 been eagerly sought by the latter in the 
 education of his son Thomas,^ the future 
 '^ wicked Lord," whose wild freaks of ex- 
 travagance and folly were an evil payment 
 for, though perhaps not an unnatural conse- 
 quence of, the lavish praise bestowed on his 
 early promise in body and mind. The youth, 
 in his seventeenth year, was already corre- 
 
 1 Historical Memoirs^ ed. 1904, pp. 86-7. 
 
 2 Cf. above p. 37, and Frost's Thomas Lyttelton, 
 1876, a book containing many documents, the authen- 
 ticity of which seems to us questionable. 
 
THOMAS LYTTELTON 223 
 
 spending with the great lady, his father's 
 collaborator in the Dialogues of the Dead. In 
 1760 he sent her a short ^^ account of the 
 proceedings of that ever memorable day, 
 September the ist," when the new mansion 
 at Hagley Park was publicly opened : ^ 
 
 ^^Dear Madam," he wrote in his sprightly 
 style, ''If I had caught a fever occasioned 
 by too great a hurry of spirits in doing the 
 honours at the New House, or was otherwise 
 indisposed, I might give in to your grave 
 observation that in this world all is vanity 
 and vexation of spirit, but, at present, being 
 as well as ever I was in my life and in 
 exceeding good spirits, I am not disposed to 
 make hermitical reflections upon three as jolly 
 and as agreeable days as ever I passed. . . . 
 I will only tell you that the whole was con- 
 ducted with less awkward ceremony and more 
 politesse and ease than it was natural to 
 imagine un regal of that sort would have 
 admitted of. We were pleased, and every 
 body seemed pleased with us — on such an 
 occasion as the opening of a New House, when 
 a whole county was invited, a very unusual 
 phenomenon : I did not even hear that Miss A. 
 ^ Cf. above, p. 69. 
 
224 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 was angry because Miss B, sat before her. 
 Female contentions subsided, and the genius 
 of good fellowship reigned triumphant. . . ."^ 
 About that time, Mrs Montagu was doubt- 
 less invited to the ^'dinners of six, all chosen 
 esprits," among whom Lady Hervey,^ fresh 
 from Paris and the salons of Helvetius and 
 of Mme Geoffrin, vented her enthusiasm 
 for France and its ways. *' Don't let her 
 make an infidel or a French woman of you," 
 Mrs Chapone once wrote to a friend, **for 
 she is as terrible and dangerous as the 
 monsters that stand on the French shore." ^ 
 Neither philosophy nor free thought, how- 
 ever, excluded in her the most exquisite 
 politeness and taste. In 1764 she sent the 
 following note to Mrs Montagu, from St 
 James's Place: *^I have somewhere. Madam, 
 read the following lines, and am very sorry 
 to have proved they are not true : 
 
 " ' Nought can restrain 
 Desire of twain' 
 
 ^ From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
 '^ The widow of John, Lord Hervey, Pope's " Sporus " 
 and the author of the Memoirs of the Reign of George II. 
 
 s The Life and Corresponde?ice of Mrs Chapone 
 {Worksy ed. 1807, ii., 166). 
 
LADY HERVEY 225 
 
 for I had the ill fortune to miss of you both 
 
 here and at your own house, the day before 
 
 you left this town. ... If you have not yet 
 
 read les Lettres du Marquis de Roselle^^ may 
 
 I take the liberty to recommend them to you? 
 
 I am pretty sure you will be pleased both 
 
 with the sentiments and the style ; I will 
 
 mention no particulars, but long to hear 
 
 your opinion of them, that I may either 
 
 correct or approve my own by yours. I 
 
 shall be glad to hear of your health, but 
 
 don't think, Madam, that I mean to draw 
 
 you into a correspondence with me ; what 
 
 you voluntarily bestow, I receive as charity 
 
 with thankfulness, but won't like a trickster 
 
 betray you into trading with a beggar. . . ."^ 
 
 That compliments should have come in 
 
 abundance to a lady so generous and so well 
 
 connected is not surprising. Lord Sandwich, 
 
 her husband's kinsman, writing to her in 
 
 1753, used the most flattering expressions of 
 
 regard: ^*I am just returned," said he, 
 
 **from taking a long walk in a very dirty 
 
 country, and have taken off my wet clothes 
 
 in a great hurry, that I might have the 
 
 ^ "A very pretty novel by Madame de Beaumont," 
 says Horace Walpole, Letters^ ed. Toynbee, vi., 163. 
 ^ From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
 P 
 
226 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 pleasure of some conversation with my dear 
 Mrs Montagu, who is never absent from my 
 mind. I think what pleasure her presence 
 would give me, what a real benefit to me in 
 my hours of retirement, then comes this cruel 
 reflection that it cannot be ... ."^ In a 
 First Lord of the Admiralty just turned out 
 of office, this exordium showed considerable 
 esteem indeed ; nor was it a despicable piece 
 of hypocrisy, coming as it did from an 
 adept in the rites of the Cistertian Abbey at 
 Medmenham. Lord Shelburne was perhaps 
 a little more sincere, when, in December 1780, 
 he wrote from Bowood Park as follows: **I 
 do not recollect that for many years I have 
 been so long without the smallest intercourse 
 with Mrs Montagu. Lady Shelburne is very 
 shy, but I hope and am sure she'll find means 
 to assure you how much I value your friend- 
 ship, and how proud I am to acknowledge 
 myself beholden to it. . . ."^ But who could 
 ever trust Shelburne's professions, whom his 
 contemporaries nicknamed ^'Malagrida" the 
 Jesuit, and whom Fox despised and hated 
 for his duplicity ! With a deference equal 
 to Shelburne's, the Lord President of the 
 1 From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
SHELBURNE, CAMDEN 227 
 
 Council in 1786, Lord Camden, better known 
 as Chief Justice Pratt, explained to Mrs 
 Montagu his reasons for not complying with 
 a request of hers : *^ I should be very happy," 
 he said, "if it was in my power to obey your 
 commands, but I am under such circumstances 
 of disability to make any addition to the list 
 of Supernumerary Clerks, that I could not 
 oblige my dearest friend in this instance — 
 nay, I have precluded myself. It has been 
 usual for every President in his turn to add 
 one to the number, and he has generally been 
 very young, frequently a mere child, so that 
 when I came to the office, I found such a 
 number that there was no probability the last 
 upon the list could succeed to the employment 
 in less than fifty years. ... I did determine 
 to add none myself. . . . Indeed, I went 
 further, for I complained of it to the King, 
 and assured him I would never request him 
 to increase the number for any friend of my 
 own while I had the honour to sit at the head 
 of that board. . . ."^ A refusal so polite and 
 so well founded must have been taken almost 
 as an honour. 
 
 Many literary men also were, at all periods 
 ' From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
228 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 of her life, among Mrs Montagu's assiduous 
 correspondents. Two eccentrics head the 
 list. Through the pious scholar Gilbert 
 West, an intimate friend of Lyttelton's, she 
 had made, about 1750, the acquaintance of 
 that singular Scotchman and historian of the 
 Popes, Archibald Bower, who, out of zeal for 
 the Roman Church, had become a Jesuit, and, 
 later on, out of hatred for the Inquisition, had 
 returned from Italy to England and the 
 Protestant fold. When Mrs Montagu knew 
 him, he was living at Sidcup^ and compiling 
 the last volume of his History in a little 
 habitation that possessed, she said, ''the 
 proper perfections of a cottage : neatness, 
 cheerfulness and an air of tranquillity, a 
 pretty grove with woodbines twining round 
 every elm, a neat kitchen garden, with an 
 arbour from whence you look on a fine 
 prospect."^ He was ''a very merry enter- 
 taining companion," having left ''all gloomi- 
 ness in that seat of horrors the Inquisition. 
 I breakfasted with him on Tuesday," Mrs 
 Montagu went on; "he is but between two 
 and three miles from Hayes. ^ ... I never 
 
 1 In Kent. ^ Mrs Climenson, ii., 70. 
 
 ^ Where she had, at that time, taken a cottage 
 
ARCHIBALD BOWER 229 
 
 saw any country more beautiful than about 
 Chislehurst, where he lives ; I cannot say 
 much in praise of his habitation, which he 
 calls his Paradiso ; but indeed, to a mind as 
 gay and cheerful as his, all places are a 
 paradise. He is much engaged with those 
 old ladies the popes, but says he will leave 
 the Santi Padri for his Madonna," as Mrs 
 Montagu was amiably called by him and 
 Lyttelton ; *'he will teach me the pronuncia- 
 tion of Italian, which he has reduced into 
 such a method it may be easily acquired. 
 He taught it to Mr Garrick at Tunbridge."^ 
 In 1754, the work being at last completed. 
 Bower paid a visit to his native Scotland, 
 and, on 24th August, he sent to Mrs 
 Montagu this short note, which we may 
 quote as a specimen of his Italian style : 
 **Che n'e divenuto mai della carissima 
 Madonna ! L'a il cielo, invidiando alia terra 
 si gran bene, rapita a se ? . . . Le scrissi gia 
 due mesi fa, dandole un succinto ragguaglio 
 del mio pellegrinaggio tra le rupi e le baize 
 del romantico Keswick. . . . lo sono stato 
 cinque settimane, ed anche sono in questa 
 metropoli, ma ne partiro la settimana pros- 
 1 Letters^ iii., 208. 
 
230 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 sima per la citta di Dundee, nella di cui 
 vicinanza sono gli stati del mio nipote, 
 ch'intendo di visitare e vedere la casa, in cui 
 prima spirai I'aura vitale. . . ."^ In Bower's 
 case, however, the hour of success was also 
 that of bitterest trouble : his Protestant 
 History of the Popes made him rancorous 
 enemies who published some letters of his, 
 accused him of being a Jesuit in disguise,^ 
 and tried to ruin him in the opinion of 
 his best friends, Mrs Montagu^ and Lord 
 Lyttelton. It required all the influence of 
 the latter, some years afterwards, to save him 
 from the dangerous consequences of Garrick's 
 resentment.^ 
 
 Another curious figure in Mrs Montagu's 
 world was the "little Pere" Le Courayer, 
 whose "good spirits" and "douceurs" in 
 language and in manners struck and amused 
 Mrs Delany in 1772.^ This unfortunate 
 theologian, the victim of his tolerance and 
 
 ^ From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
 2 See on this affair Walpole's Letters^ ed. Toynbee, 
 1903, iii., 399-402. 
 
 ■•* Who refused to give up her acquaintance with him : 
 see a letter that does her great honour, in Letters, iv., 1-5. 
 
 ^ Cf. Garrick's Correspondence, i., 123-4, and Fitz- 
 gerald's Garrick, ed. 1899, 235-7. 
 
 5 The Autobiography and Correspondence . . . iv., 488. 
 
LE COURAYER 231 
 
 candour, had published in 1723 a very 
 estimable Dissertation sur la validite des 
 ordinations des Anglois^ the liberal conclusions 
 of which had incurred the censures of his 
 superiors and driven him into exile. England 
 had received with sympathy the persecuted 
 defender of her Established Church ; both 
 at Oxford and in London, flattering distinc- 
 tions and attentions had been pressed upon 
 him. At the end of October 1751, Mrs 
 Montagu, hearing he was ^Mll of a sore 
 throat," paid him a visit, which she described 
 in a characteristic letter, pretentious and yet 
 picturesque: ^'I was obliged," she told 
 Gilbert West, ^^to pass through all the gay 
 vanities of Mrs Chenevix,^ 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 ; and the good 
 man himself, to an emblematizing genius, 
 would have afforded an ample subject : his 
 head was enfoncee in a cap of the warmest 
 beaver, made still more respectable by a 
 gold orris ; ^ a wonderous hieroglyphic robe 
 ^ The famous toy-woman, in the Strand. 
 
232 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 he wore,'^ in which was pourtrayed all the 
 attributes of the god Fo, with the arms 
 and achievements of the cham of Tartary. 
 Never did Christian doctor wear such a 
 pagan appearance. . . . When I ceased to 
 look upon him as a missionary, 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. . . ."2 Sixteen years afterwards, Le 
 Courayer had not yet mastered the English 
 language, as the following epistle ^ will show : 
 ''Dear Madam, I have been informed at 
 Ealing by some of your friends and mine 
 that you abused me without mercy for not 
 writing to you, — and for the discontinuation 
 of a correspondence which was equally agree- 
 able and honourable to me. I expected a 
 kinder treatment from a Lady of so good 
 nature and so good sense, and that you 
 would rather have pity me than abuse me — 
 and that at the example of our Master you 
 would not break a bruised reed, nor quenc a 
 smoaking flax. My silence is my misfortune 
 
 ^ A chintz dressing-gown. 
 
 '^ Letters^ iii., 172-3. 
 
 3 Dated from "London, October 11, 1768." 
 
LE COURAYER 233 
 
 and not my crime, for how can I help it if by 
 a severe judgment of the Providence upon me 
 I am made unable to do, what you would 
 have me do, and what I would like myself 
 to do. Render me my eyes that I may read 
 and write, and then you'll see whether I am 
 deficient in my duty. . . . The loss is all 
 of my side in not being able to keep your 
 correspondance, and pray don't add to my 
 misfortune in scolding me. . . . Since I am 
 past recovery and I am left to shift for myself, 
 help me to bear my calamity with patience 
 and resignation, and let me like the old 
 Simeon to desire to depart in peace. This 
 is already too long for a blind man, but I 
 hope you will take this as taking leave of 
 writing for the future. I add only my best 
 compliments to Mr Montagu, and wish you 
 a long life, good eyes and a little more good 
 nature for the blind. I am notwithstanding 
 your abuses very sincerely, dear Madam, 
 your affectionate friend and servant for ever 
 and, as said La Fontaine, s'il se peut encore 
 par dela."^ Whether this blindness was 
 real or imaginary, transient or lasting, the 
 excellent 'Mittle Pere" lived to the patriarchal 
 1 From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
234 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 age of ninety-five, and kept his ^'good spirits 
 and looks" almost to the end.^ 
 
 To pass on to names better known and 
 to later times, Hannah More must be 
 mentioned among Mrs Montagu's frequent 
 correspondents and visitors. Their acquaint- 
 ance began at the Garricks' in 1773 or 
 1774,2 when Hannah More, then about thirty, 
 first came from Bristol to London in quest of 
 literary successes. She met with great en- 
 couragement ; thanks to Garrick's patronage, 
 her tragedy of Percy was accepted at Covent 
 Garden and produced in December 1777. It 
 had *'a run of twenty-one nights." Mrs 
 Montagu was warm in her congratulations : 
 ** No one can more sincerely rejoice in the 
 triumph of last night than myself," she wrote 
 on nth December. *' I have had such a pain 
 in my face as has obliged me to be muffled 
 up for these six weeks, but I am getting 
 better, and have sent to the box-keeper for 
 boxes for your third and sixth night, and 
 hope also to attend the ninth, though I 
 dare not make so distant an engagement 
 with precarious health." On the ninth night 
 
 ^ He died in 1776. 
 
 =^ Memoirs of Hannah More, i-, 47- 
 
HANNAH MORE 235 
 
 of Percy ^ **Mrs Montagu had a box again; 
 which, as she is so consummate a critic," 
 Hannah More remarked, ''and is hardly ever 
 seen at a public place, is a great credit to the 
 play."^ The best sketches we possess of 
 the dinners and breakfasts in Hill Street or 
 Portman Square are due, as we have seen, to 
 the pen of Hannah More, who, in 1784, also 
 recorded a visit to Sandleford : '' The fortnight 
 I spent with our friend Mrs Montagu," she 
 wrote to Mrs Boscawen, '' I need not say to 
 you, my dear madam, was passed profitably 
 and pleasantly ; as one may say of her what 
 Johnson has said of somebody else, that * she 
 never opens her mouth but to say so^nething,' 
 The Primate of Ireland ^ and Sir William 
 Robinson were at Sandleford for the first 
 three or four days after I got thither. I was 
 a little afraid of his Grace at first, as he 
 carries a dignity you know, in his person and 
 abord, which excites more respect than is quite 
 consistent with one's ease ; but he laid aside 
 his terrors, and was all graciousness and 
 
 ^ Memot?'s of Hantiah More, i., 123, 127. 
 
 " The Most Reverend Richard Robinson, D.D., Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh and ist Lord Rokeby. He was a 
 cousin of Mrs Montagu's. 
 
236 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 complacency, and condescended to join in 
 the favourite subjects of the two ladies, poetry 
 and criticism. . . ."^ As years went on, how- 
 ever, plays and literature proper gave place, 
 in Hannah More's mind, to religion and 
 morals. Already, in 1785, she had seen and 
 read ^^Mr Paley's book on Moral and Political 
 Philosophy^'''' and thus commented upon it in a 
 letter to Mrs Montagu : '* I think it admirable 
 as far as I have gone, full of striking tho' 
 obvious truths, coming home to the business 
 and interests of each individual reader, and 
 free from that sophistical twist so common 
 in metaphysical enquiries. I stumbled a 
 little at the threshold, because I thought the 
 gentleman *did protest too much,' however, I 
 recovered myself as I went along, for I found 
 that he * kept his word ' and abounds more in 
 sense and truth than any author I have lately 
 read. " ^ The influence of such friends as John 
 Newton and William Wilberforce, the indig- 
 nation that she felt at the atrocities of the 
 ''Reign of Terror" in France, the dread of 
 the possible consequences of a revolutionary 
 propaganda in England, made her a strict 
 
 1 Memoirs of Han?iah More^ i., 328-9. 
 
 2 From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
HANNAH MORE 237 
 
 Evangelical in doctrine and an active 
 pamphleteer on the side of government and 
 order. She scattered broadcast through the 
 land small tracts like her Village Politics by 
 Will Chip that reached an immense public of 
 all classes. In an interesting letter, probably 
 written in 1794, she explained her motives 
 to Mrs Montagu: '* I have been so long 
 accustomed," she said, *^to receive favour, 
 kindness and assistance from you on every 
 occasion, that I am encouraged to recommend 
 the enclosed little plan to your patronage. . . . 
 It is not one of the wild theories for which 
 this age is so famous, but the fruit of real 
 experience. I have long seen and lamented 
 the evil it is proposed to counteract. In all 
 the villages I know, it is surprising to see 
 with what impatience the periodical visit of 
 the hawker is expected, and with what avidity 
 his poison is swallowed. You would be 
 diverted at the immense quantity of trash I 
 have collected ; even those papers that are 
 written with better intentions are in general 
 calculated to do more harm than good, con- 
 sisting chiefly of ghosts, dreams^ visions, 
 witches and devils. When we consider the 
 zeal with which the writings of Priestley, 
 
238 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 etc., are now brought within the compass of 
 penny books, circulated with great industry, 
 and even translated into Welsh, I begin to 
 fear that our workmen and porters will become 
 philosophers too, and that an endeavour to 
 mend the morals and the principles of the 
 poor is the most probable method to preserve 
 us from the crimes and calamities of France. 
 In this view, I am not above becoming the 
 compiler and composer of halfpenny papers. 
 If, my dear Madam, any impressive story falls 
 in your way, pray treasure it up for me."^ 
 Such were the plan and intention of Hannah 
 More's Cheap Repository of anti-revolutionary 
 literature for the people ; it unquestionably 
 helped to strengthen the reactionary move- 
 ment that characterised English politics at 
 the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Contemporary with the success of Percy 
 was that of Fanny Burney's Evelina^ a novel 
 which took the Town by storm in January 
 1778. On a Tuesday morning in the follow- 
 ing September, the author being then with 
 Mrs Thrale at Streatham was asked by her 
 hostess if she ''did not want to see Mrs 
 
 ^ From Mr Broadley's MSS. Cf. about this under- 
 taking Hannah Morels Memoirs^ ii., 424-6. 
 
FANNY BURNEY 239 
 
 Montagu?" — "I truly said," Miss Burney 
 has noted in her Diary^'^ *^I should be the 
 most insensible of all animals, not to like to 
 see our sex's glory." For Mrs Montagu 
 had now reached the summit of her influence 
 and fame ; her Essay on Shakespeare had been 
 translated into French the year before, and 
 everybody in London knew that she was 
 '^ building a most superb house." She was 
 a power before whom a humble and timid 
 debutante like Fanny Burney must silently 
 bow. '*A woman of such celebrity in the 
 literary world," the Diarist said to herself, 
 *^ would be the last I should covet to con- 
 verse with, though one of the first I should 
 wish to listen to." About one o'clock the 
 next day, the expected guest made her 
 appearance, accompanied by Miss Gregory : 
 '*She is middle-sized, very thin, and looks 
 infirm," Miss Burney remarked; ^'she has 
 a sensible and penetrating countenance, and 
 the air and manner of a woman accustomed 
 to being distinguished, and of great parts." 
 At dinner the conversation lacked brilliancy, 
 in spite of the presence of such luminaries 
 as Mrs Montagu and Dr Johnson himself; 
 ^ Vol. i., ed. 1876, p. 61 seq. 
 
240 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 but the lady-critic had not yet read Evelina^ 
 nay, did not discover the anonymous writer 
 of it in the person of Miss Burney, till the 
 secret was revealed by the eager Mrs Thrale. 
 That novel never became one of Mrs Montagu's 
 favourites; *'she was amazed," she told Mrs 
 Thrale,^ ''that so delicate a girl could write 
 so boisterous a book"; to the "vulgarity" 
 of its Captain Mirvan, Madame Duval and 
 Branghtons, she much preferred the pom- 
 pousness of Cecilia and its Delviles. In a 
 letter to the Dowager Duchess of Portland, 
 she recommended the new work to her 
 Grace's attention, and "old Mrs Delany," 
 the Duchess's intimate friend, was "forced 
 to begin it," Sir Joshua Reynolds informed 
 Fanny, "though she had said she should 
 never read any more ; however, when we 
 met, she was reading it already for the 
 third time." 2 It is well known that, in 1785, 
 Miss Burney went to live with Mrs Delany at 
 St James's Place, and in November followed 
 her to Windsor, where, on the Duchess's 
 death, the King had presented her with 
 a house. A message from Mrs Montagu 
 
 ^ Diary ^ vol. i., ed. 1876, p. 325. 
 2 Ibid.^^71. 
 
FANNY BURNEY 241 
 
 to Miss Burney, dated i6th December, 
 announced the arrival of a ''basket of 
 game" and also lamented the ''misfortune" 
 which the Duchess's friends, Mrs Delany 
 above all, had suffered in losing her.^ 
 Fanny's reply, now published for the first 
 time, fills a gap in the Diary. 
 
 "Windsor, December 20th 1785. — Dear 
 Madam, I am quite at a loss what thanks to 
 return for the repast, equally rich and elegant, 
 with which you have at once mentally and 
 substantially regaled us: — Us^ permit me to 
 say, for here I may aspire at coupling myself 
 with Mrs Delany, since we have participated 
 in both the entertainments, and participate 
 in the grateful acknowledgments we entreat 
 you to accept. — Are you angry? — No, dear 
 Madam, you cannot be angry that I com- 
 municated to Mrs Delany a letter that could 
 not but be soothing and consolatory to her. 
 Acute as her sorrow has been, and deep as 
 it must ever remain, she bore it from the 
 first with patience and resignation, and she 
 now diminishes it all she can by receiving 
 in good part such comfort and relief as her 
 surviving friends can afford her. Could I, 
 1 Diary ^ ii., 51-3. 
 
 Q 
 
242 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 knowing this, withhold from her such a 
 solace as sympathising kindness from Mrs 
 Montagu? especially as it cannot be said 
 to open the wound afresh, for the wound, 
 alas, has never been closed. 
 
 '^That the Sting of Death is Sin, is 
 most truly observed, and I had the pleasure 
 to see a smile of satisfaction brighten her 
 benignant countenance, when she considered, 
 from your stating it, how happily it was here 
 applied. 
 
 ^' I am sorry — I had almost said surprised — 
 
 at dear Mrs Vesey's continued regret : ^ but 
 
 a heart so much framed for tenderness weighs 
 
 not always the full value of what excites it, 
 
 and where there is too much kindness for 
 
 discrimination, the scentless 'gaudy flower' 
 
 or the permanent 'reviving aromatic' seem 
 
 1 She had lost her husband in the beginning of the 
 preceding June. Cf. this passage of a letter by Hannah 
 More, already quoted above, p. 236 : "21 May 1785. . . . 
 I wish I could say something decisive of poor Vesey ; I 
 this moment called there in order to give you the latest 
 information ; he is too ill to recover and not ill enough to 
 die ; at least not soon I fear, and if he does not die, she 
 will, for her poor spirits will not long endure to be so 
 harrassed. . . . She, poor dear [soul], forgetting all his 
 offences and malefactions, endures the bitterest sorrow, 
 and eats and sleeps very little. His accounts for both 
 worlds, I fear, are unsettled ! " 
 
FANNY BURNEY 243 
 
 to have an equal claim upon the affec- 
 tions, however wide the difference of their 
 desert. 
 
 ^'The beneficence of their Majesties, and 
 its happy effect upon their venerable Protegee 
 would almost make Loyalists of Rebels, if 
 witnessed in its munificent rise, and most 
 tenderly delicate progress. I am much con- 
 cerned in being the messenger of such ill 
 news as their having to-day a new and 
 severe alarm for the Princess Elizabeth. Sir 
 George Baker had taken leave of her Royal 
 Highness for three days, but she had so 
 bad a night, that he was hastily sent for 
 again this morning. She is now however 
 better, and Hope once more is trying to gain 
 the field from Apprehension. 
 
 *'The happy party ^ who will have the 
 honour to dine to-morrow in Portman 
 Square, will meet, I hope, many times 
 more ; — in common benevolence I must 
 hope it for their sakes, but I draw an 
 [? inference] to myself that makes me hope 
 it, also, from [some] motive more interested. 
 
 1 Mrs Montagu had written {Diary, ii., p. 53) : " I 
 have solicited Dr Burney to meet some of his friends at 
 dinner here on Wednesday." 
 
244 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 ** Mrs Delany charges me to present you 
 her kindest compliments, and best thanks 
 for your partial expressions in her favour, — 
 such she thinks them, who feels not that all 
 praise is but the just tribute of her worth. 
 She says, too, that the moor game was the 
 best she ever tasted, and gave her an 
 appetite. 
 
 *' May I take the liberty of desiring my 
 very best compliments to Mr and Mrs 
 Matthew Montagu ^ and to hope they will 
 accept my best and prognosticating wishes for 
 their happiness? I have the honour to be, 
 etc. . . ."2 
 
 From the domestic freedom of Mrs Delany's 
 house. Miss Burney passed, as we know, 
 to a '^wearisome life of attendance and 
 dependence " at Queen's Lodge, where she 
 spent ^\^ years in the official capacity of 
 ''Second Keeper of the Robes" and sub- 
 ordinate to Mrs Schwellenberg. She seldom 
 m.et with Mrs Montagu during that time. 
 But, her liberty once regained, in the interval 
 between her departure from Windsor in July 
 
 1 Mrs Montagu's adopted son and her daughter-in-law, 
 who had been married in July, 
 '■i From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
BEATTIE 245 
 
 1 79 1 and her marriage with M. d'Arblay in 
 July 1793, she and her father were frequently 
 invited to Portman Square and welcomed 
 with extreme courtesy by the '^ unaffectedly 
 agreeable" Mrs Montagu.^ 
 
 In the summer of 1787, Miss Burney had 
 *'an appointment" with Dr Beattie, the once 
 celebrated author of the Minstrel and of the 
 Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truths- 
 She found him ^'pleasant, unassuming, and 
 full of conversible intelligence, with a round, 
 thick, clunch figure, that promises nothing 
 either of his works or his discourse ; yet his 
 eye, at intervals, and when something breaks 
 from him pointed and sudden, shoots forth 
 a ray of genius that instantly lights up his 
 whole countenance. His voice and his 
 manners are particularly and pleasingly 
 mild, and seem to announce an urbanity of 
 character both inviting and edifying."^ The 
 very respectable, but flaccid, poet and philo- 
 sopher thus described had indirectly made 
 Mrs Montagu's acquaintance through Dr 
 
 1 Cf. above pp. 218-9, and Diary ^ iii., 382, 408-9. 
 
 2 Published the latter in 1770, the former in 1771 (first 
 canto). 
 
 ^ Diary, ii., 376. 
 
246 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 Gregory, Dorothea's father. Is it necessary 
 to add that he entertained the highest regard 
 for her, even before he knew her personally ? 
 **I have heard much of that lady," he wrote 
 so early as 1767,^ **and I admire her as an 
 honour to her sex and to human nature." 
 When the first canto of the Minstrel came 
 out in 1 77 1, it was sent by Dr Gregory to 
 Mrs Montagu, who communicated it to Lord 
 Lyttelton. A most enthusiastic apprecia- 
 tion was the result; ''I read your Minstrel 
 last night," Lord Lyttelton wrote on 8th 
 March, ''with as much rapture as poetry, 
 in her noblest, sweetest charms, ever raised 
 in my soul. It seemed to me, that my once 
 most beloved minstrel, Thomson, was come 
 down from heaven, refined by the converse 
 of purer spirits than those he lived with here, 
 to let me hear him sing again the beauties 
 of nature, and the finest feelings of virtue, 
 not with human, but with angelic strains." 
 On receiving this devout eulogy, Mrs Montagu 
 hastened to forward it on, through Dr Gregory, 
 to Beattie, and to mention, not only her own 
 opinion of the poem, but also the pains she 
 
 ^ The Life and Writi?tgs of fames Beattie, by Sir 
 William Forbes, ed. 1807, i., 122. 
 
BEATTIE 247 
 
 was taking to circulate both the Mznslrel and 
 the Essay on Truth ; ^ * I have enclosed a 
 note," she said, ''by which you will see 
 how much it pleased Lord Lyttelton. I 
 have sent one into the country to Lord 
 Chatham ; and I wrote immediately to a 
 person who serves many gentlemen and 
 ladies with new books, to recommend it to 
 all people of taste. I am very sorry the 
 second edition of Dr Beattie's book^ is not 
 yet in town. I have recommended it, too, 
 to many of our bishops, and others ; but all 
 have complained this whole winter, that the 
 booksellers deny having any of either the 
 first or second edition. I wish you would 
 intimate this to Dr Beattie. I dare say many 
 hundreds would have been sold, if people 
 could have got them."^ This passage shows 
 what precious services Mrs Montagu's social 
 influence enabled her to render to her favourite 
 writers. She occasionally tendered to them 
 direct pecuniary assistance. In 1773, Dr 
 Beattie, provided with an introduction to 
 the Colonial Secretary, Lord Dartmouth, 
 
 ^ I.e.^ of the Essay on Truths which edition appeared 
 in 1 77 1, just before the Minstrel. 
 2 Life of Beattie^ \,-, 249-52. 
 
248 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 came to London, with a view to obtain- 
 ing a pension from Lord North or from the 
 King. The negotiations, successful in the 
 end, were protracted to a tedious length, and, 
 in the interval of suspense, Mrs Montagu, 
 not content with putting forth her best 
 endeavours in the poet's cause, *^told him 
 in very explicit, though delicate, terms, that, 
 if government did nothing, she would her- 
 self claim the honour of rendering his situa- 
 tion in life more comfortable."^ For this 
 generous proposal, which the king's bounty- 
 made superfluous, Beattie expressed himself 
 obliged and grateful. In 1784, a new edition 
 of the Minstrel being v/anted, he offered to 
 Mrs Montagu the dedication of it, and, as 
 *^ another favour," asked leave to insert her 
 name in the last stanza of the first canto : 
 ''I had not the honour to be known to 
 you," he said, '^when I published that 
 first book ; and, intending to put the name 
 of a friend in the last stanza, but being 
 then undetermined with respect to the person, 
 I left in one of the lines a blank space, 
 which has been continued in all the editions. 
 That blank, with your permission, shall now 
 ^ Life of Beattie^ i., 337. 
 
BEATTIE 249 
 
 be filled up ; and then the stanza will run 
 thus : 
 
 Here pause, my Gothic lyre, a little while ; 
 
 The leisure hour is all that thou canst claim : 
 
 But on this verse if Montagu should smile. 
 
 New lays ere long shall animate thy frame : 
 
 And her applause to me is more than fame, 
 
 For still with truth accords her taste refined. 
 
 At lucre or renown let others aim ; 
 
 I only wish to please the gentle mind, 
 
 Whom nature's charms inspire, and love of human kind. 
 
 ** It would give me no little pleasure to see 
 in the same poem the names of Mrs Montagu 
 and Dr Gregory ; ^ two persons so dear to 
 me, and who had so sincere a friendship for 
 one another. Besides, Madam, I beg leave 
 to put you in mind that the first book of the 
 poem was published at his desire, and the 
 second at yours. So that I have more reasons 
 than one for making this request. . . ."'^ It 
 was granted, and Mrs Montagu's name still 
 enjoys what credit there is in being mentioned 
 in the feeble conclusion of a poem, then in 
 vogue and now justly neglected. Fifteen years 
 afterwards, on hearing a premature report of 
 
 ^ At the end of the second canto, first published in 
 1774 (cf. Life of Beaitie^ ii., 43). 
 ^ Ibid., 313-5. 
 
250 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 her death, Beattie wrote to a friend in a tone of 
 sincere grief: '^ I have known several ladies 
 eminent in literature," he declared, ''but she 
 excelled them all ; and in conversation she 
 had more wit than any other person, male or 
 female, whom I have ever known. These, 
 however, were her slighter accomplishments : 
 what was infinitely more to her honour, she 
 was a sincere Christian, both in faith and in 
 practice. ... I knew her husband, who died 
 in extreme old age, in the year 1775, and by 
 her desire had conferences with him on the 
 subject of Christianity ; but, to her great 
 concern, he set too much value on mathe- 
 matical evidence, and piqued himself too 
 much on his knowledge in that science."^ 
 Alas ! that her arch-enemy, Voltaire, should 
 have perverted a friend so near and dear to 
 her! 
 
 With Burke, as with Beattie, she was 
 acquainted almost from the beginning of his 
 literary career in London. She mentioned 
 him, in December 1758, as ''a young lawyer 
 by profession, tho' an author by practice, 
 for he wrote," she said, ''Natural History 
 
 ^ Life of Beattie^ iii., 162-3. 
 
BURKE 251 
 
 preferable to Artificial,"^ and, a few weeks 
 afterwards, she praised his treatise on the 
 Sublime and Beautiful xn the following passage 
 of a letter to Mrs Carter: '*I do not know 
 that you will always subscribe to his system, 
 but I think you will find him an elegant and 
 ingenious writer. He is far from the pert 
 pedantry and assuming ignorance of modern 
 witlings ; but in conversation and writing, 
 an ingenious and ingenuous man, modest 
 and delicate, and, on great and serious 
 subjects, full of that respect and veneration 
 which a good mind and a great one is sure 
 to feel, while fools rush behind the altar at 
 which wise men kneel and pay mysterious 
 reverence.""^ At that time, Burke's thoughts 
 were already turning from literature towards 
 commerce and politics ; destitute of private 
 means, and able to earn only a poor pittance 
 by his pen, he eagerly wished for some post 
 in the public service: ''The Consulship of 
 Madrid has been vacant for several months," 
 he wrote to Mrs Montagu on 24th September 
 1759 J *^I ^"^ informed that it is in the 
 
 1 This was the ironical Vindication of Natural Society^ 
 published in 1756. Cf. Mrs Climenson, ii,, 156. 
 "- Letters of Mrs Montagu^ ed. 18 13, iv., 211. 
 
252 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 gift of Mr Secretary Pitt, and that it is 
 valuable. I presume, however, that it is 
 not an object for a person who has any- 
 considerable pretensions, by its having con- 
 tinued so long vacant, else I should never 
 have thought of it. My interest is weak, 
 I have not at all the honour of being 
 known to Mr Pitt ; nor much to any of 
 his close connections. For which reason 
 I venture to ask your advice whether I 
 can with propriety proceed at all in this 
 affair, and if you think I ought to under- 
 take it, in what manner it would be proper 
 for me to proceed. ... It occurred to me 
 that a letter from you to Miss Pitt^ might 
 be of great service to me. I thought, 
 too, of mentioning Mrs Boscawen. . . ."^ 
 But Mrs Montagu would not interfere, 
 as she had '^no influence on Ministers 
 of State," and the project was abandoned. 
 Burke stayed in England, entered Parlia- 
 ment in 1765, soon to become one of the 
 most famous orators and political writers of 
 his day. His intercourse with Mrs Montagu 
 
 ^ Miss Anne Pitt, the Minister's sister, and a friend of 
 Mrs Montagu's. 
 2 Mrs CUMENSON, ii., 170. 
 
BURKE 253 
 
 remained as cordial as before. She occasion- 
 ally visited him at Beaconsfield : '^It was 
 with great pleasure," she was told on 24th 
 July 1771, that *'Mrs Burke and I received 
 your letter. Instead of a phenix, a bird 
 or two whom I am neither naturalist or 
 musician enough to know, and who sing to 
 the harvest, shall tell the woods of Becons- 
 field the honour you do them by this visit. 
 We are very happy that your leisure permits 
 you to see us, and that your health permits 
 you to do it with convenience and pleasure 
 to yourself. Your letter gave very sincere 
 pleasure here ; for in truth I felt much pain 
 in seeing you almost the whole winter in a 
 very bad state of health. Thanks to Provi- 
 dence and Tunbridge Waters ! We have 
 nothing so unlucky on Monday as to prevent 
 our seeing you and our excellent friends, 
 Mrs Vesey and Mrs Handcock,^ and we can 
 lodge you without difficulty. I think this 
 part of the country pleasant, and we shall 
 have particular pleasure in showing it to 
 you." 2 As a generous return for these 
 attentions, Mrs Montagu, hearing in 1776 
 
 ^ Mrs Vesey's sister-in-law by her first marriage. 
 2 From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
254 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 that some of Burke's friends ^* in the City 
 meant to start him for the vacant Chamber- 
 lainship," immediately offered herself as one 
 of the sureties necessary for the appointment. 
 Their ^' total amount was then ;^40,ooo."^ 
 Either in Hill Street or in Portman Square, 
 the great orator's presence was eagerly courted. 
 But his absences became more and more 
 frequent as time went on. He had '^more 
 powerful avocations," Wraxall observes, 
 **and aspired to other honours and emolu- 
 ments than those which mere literary distinc- 
 tion could bestow on him."^ ^'The demon 
 of politics committed a robbery on me," Mrs 
 Montagu complained to Mrs Vesey,^ *^when 
 he stole Mr Burke from me ; there never 
 was so pleasant, so instructive a companion 
 and so amiable a friend ; my love and 
 gratitude to him will always remain, and I 
 hope sometimes he will bestow an hour at 
 Portman Square." When the fall of the 
 Coalition Ministry had freed him from the 
 cares of office, he did reappear there : in 
 
 ^ Life of Burke, by Sir James Prior, ed. Bohn's 
 Libraries, 1891, p. 164. 
 
 ^ Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, ed. 1904, p. 97. 
 
 ^ On 9th December 1784 — from Mrs Climenson's 
 collection. 
 
JOHNSON 255 
 
 April 1790, Hannah More congratulated her- 
 self on having '^met at Mrs Montagu's Mr 
 Burke and a pleasant party; indeed," she 
 added, ^'he is a sufficiently pleasant party 
 of himself."^ 
 
 To close our list by the name of the most 
 valued and most redoubted guest, we must 
 now speak of Dr Johnson. His intercourse 
 with Mrs Montagu was at first of a very 
 courteous and amiable kind. He applied to 
 her for help to the distressed, for subscriptions 
 to Mrs Williams's Miscellany or to Mrs Ogle's 
 benefit, 2 and was never refused. In her high- 
 flown, complimentary style, she asked him to 
 her entertainments in Hill Street. ^'The 
 whole party was engaged to dine at Mrs 
 Montagu's," Miss Burney wrote in March 
 1777.^ Dr Johnson said he had received the 
 most flattering note he had ever read, or that 
 anybody else had ever read, by way of 
 invitation. — ^*Well! so have I too," cried 
 Mrs Thrale ; '' so if a note from Mrs Montagu 
 is to be boasted of, I beg mine may not be 
 forgot." — ^' Your note," cried Dr Johnson, 
 
 ^ Memoirs^ ii., 225. 
 
 2 See Mrs Climenson, ii,, 161, 173 (1759). 
 
 ^ Early Diary ^ ed. 1889, ii., 157 (to Crisp). 
 
256 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 ^'can bear no comparison with mine\ I am 
 at the head of the Philosophers^ she says." — 
 ^^And I," cried Mrs Thrale, ''have all the 
 Muses in my train I ^^ — *'A fair battle," said 
 Dr Burney. '' Come, compliment for compli- 
 ment, and see who will hold out longest." — 
 ''Oh! I am afraid for Mrs Thrale," cried 
 Mr Seward ; '' for I know Mrs Montagu exerts 
 all her forces, when she attacks Dr Johnson." 
 — ''Oh, yes!" said Mrs Thrale, "she has 
 often, I know, flattered him, till he has been 
 ready to faint." To such distinguished 
 regard, however, Johnson was by no means 
 insensible. In Dr Maxwell's Recollections 
 of him, we read how "one evening at 
 Mrs Montagu's, where a splendid company 
 was assembled, consisting of the m.ost 
 eminent literary characters, he seemed highly 
 pleased with the respect and attention that 
 were shown him. On our return home," 
 Maxwell continues, "1 asked him if he 
 was not highly gratified by his visit : 
 'No, Sir,' said he, 'not highly gratified \ 
 yet I do not recollect to have passed many 
 evenings with fewer objections .^ ''^ ^ He could 
 
 1 Quoted in Boswell's fohnson^ Globe ed., 1894, 
 p. 218 (about 1770). 
 
JOHNSON 257 
 
 even pay the lady in kind, as this poetical 
 inscription ^^on her bust" will show: 
 
 "Had this fair figure, which this frame displays 
 Adorn'd in Roman time the brightest days, 
 In every dome, in every sacred place. 
 Her statue would have breath'd an added grace, 
 And on its basis would have been enroll'd : 
 This is Minerva cast in virtue's mould." ^ 
 
 And he proved as polite in prose as in 
 verse: *^ Madam," he wrote on Thursday, 
 2ist December 1775, '*I know not when any 
 letter has given me so much pleasure or 
 vexation as that which I had yesterday the 
 honour of receiving. That you. Madam, 
 should wish for my company, is surely a 
 sufficient reason for being pleased ; that I 
 should delay twice, what I had so little right 
 to expect even once, has so bad an appearance, 
 that I can only hope to have it thought, that 
 I am ashamed. — You have kindly allowed me 
 to name a day. Will you be pleased. Madam, 
 to accept of me any day after Tuesday ? Till 
 I am favoured with your answer, or despair 
 of so much condescension, I shall suffer no 
 engagement to fasten itself upon me."^ In 
 
 ^ Poems of Dr Johnson in Chalmers's English Poets^ 
 1810, xvi. 609. 
 2 From Mr Broadley's MSS. 
 
 R 
 
258 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 penning this elegant and ceremonious apology, 
 Johnson evidently remembered that he was 
 addressing her, whom he considered as *'the 
 first woman for literary knowledge in England, 
 and, if in England, in the world." ^ 
 
 But, in January 1781, a sudden and terrific 
 storm burst, that rent their bonds of friendship 
 in twain. The Doctor, an uncompromising 
 critic, published a Life of Lord Lyttelton^'^ in 
 which he said of the latter's Poems that ^^they 
 have nothing to be despised, but little to 
 be admired," and of the Dialogues of the 
 Dead that, when they first appeared, **they 
 were kindly commended by the ^ Critical 
 Reviewers'; a.nd poor Lyttelton, with humble 
 gratitude, returned, in a note, acknowledg- 
 ments which can never be proper, since they 
 must be paid either for flattery or for justice." 
 This patronising, almost contemptuous, tone 
 stung to the quick the joint author of the 
 Dialogues. '^Mrs Montagu and Mr Pepys,^ 
 
 1 Miss Burney's Diary, ed. 1876, i., 66 (1778). 
 
 ^ In the second series of Prefaces, Biographical and 
 Critical, to the most enii7ie7it of the English Poets (1780). 
 
 3 Sir William Weller Pepys (i 740-1 825), Master in 
 Chancery and a well-known figure in the literary circles 
 of the metropolis : see about him Miss Gaussen's Later 
 Pepys, 1904. Sir Lucas Pepys, physician to George III., 
 was his brother. 
 
JOHNSON 259 
 
 his Lordship's two chief surviving friends, 
 are very angry," Hannah More tells us,^ and 
 Horace Walpole, in his more picturesque 
 style, informed Mason, on 27th January, 
 that ^'Mrs Montagu and all her Moenades 
 intended to tear Johnson limb from limb, for 
 despising their moppet, Lord Lyttelton."^ 
 She partly obtained her revenge, by inciting 
 Robert Potter, a Norfolk schoolmaster and 
 translator of Euripides, to undertake a defence 
 of Gray against the critic. '^It is sensibly 
 written," Walpole remarked about this work, 
 ^^is civil to Johnson, and yet severe. . . . 
 I have heard that the true object was to 
 revenge the attack on Lord Lyttelton, at the 
 instigation of Mrs Montagu, who has her 
 full share of incense."^ Pepys it was who 
 suffered most in this contest of rival powers. 
 
 ^ Mejnoirs, i. 207. 
 
 ^ Letters^ ed. Paget Toynbee, 1904, xi., 376. 
 
 ^ Ibid., xiii., 5 (9th June 1783). Potter was amply 
 rewarded for his trouble : see a letter from him to Mrs 
 Montagu, dated from "The Close, Norwich, 3rd July 
 1789: Madam, — Last summer you did me the honour 
 to congratulate me on my unexpected promotion to a 
 Prebendal Stall in this Church ; I am now drawing upon 
 you for your further congratulations on a similar occasion. 
 On the 25th of the last month, the Bishop of Norwich 
 came to my house, and of his own free grace offered me 
 
26o SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 On a Wednesday in June 1781, he happened 
 to dine at Mrs Thrale's in Johnson's company, 
 and the blunt old Doctor fell foul of him in 
 characteristic fashion. Miss Burney shall 
 relate the scene to us, as she did, two years 
 after the event, at Mrs Vesey's : '' I never saw 
 Dr Johnson really in a passion but then : 
 and dreadful, indeed, it was to see. He so 
 red, poor Mr Pepys so pale!" — ''But how 
 did it begin? What did he say?"— ''Oh, 
 Dr Johnson came to the point without much 
 ceremony. He called out aloud, before a 
 large company, at dinner, ' What have you 
 to say, sir, to me or of me ? Come forth, 
 man ! I hear you object to my Life of 
 Lord Lyttelton, What are your objections? 
 If you have anything to say, let's hear it. 
 Come forth, man, when I call you ! ' " — 
 "What a call indeed! Why, then, he 
 fairly bullied him into a quarrel!" — "Yes. 
 And I was the more sorry, because Mr Pepys 
 had begged of me, before they met, not to let 
 Lord Lyttelton be mentioned. Now, I had no 
 
 the united vicarages of Lowestoft and Kessingland, to 
 which he collated me the next day ; they are at present 
 worth ^470 a year, and improving under an Act of 
 Inclosure of a large extent. ..." (From Mr Broadley's 
 MSS.) 
 
JOHNSON 261 
 
 more power to prevent it than this macaroon 
 cake in my hand." — ''It was behaving ill to 
 Mrs Thrale, certainly, to quarrel in her 
 house." — ''Yes; but he never repeated it, 
 though he wished of all things to have gone 
 through just such another scene with Mrs 
 Montagu, and to refrain was an act of heroic 
 forbearance." — "Why, I rather wonder he 
 did not ; for she was the head of the set of 
 Lytteltonians." — "Oh, he knows that; he 
 calls Mr Pepys only her prime minister." — 
 "And what does he call her?" — "'Queen,' 
 to be sure ! ' Queen of the Blues ' ! She 
 came to Streatham one morning, and I saw 
 he was dying to attack her. But he had 
 made a promise to Mrs Thrale to have no 
 more quarrels in her house, and so he forced 
 himself to forbear. . . . " — "And how did 
 Mrs Montagu herself behave?" — "Very 
 stately, indeed, at first. She turned from 
 him very stiffly, and with a most distant air, 
 and without even curtseying to him, and with 
 a firm intention to keep to what she had 
 publicly declared — that she would never speak 
 to him more ! However, he went up to her 
 himself, longing to begin ! and very roughly 
 said, ' Well, madam, what's become of your 
 
262 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 fine new house? I hear no more of it.'" — 
 <^But how did she bear this?" — '^ Why, 
 she was obliged to answer him ; and she 
 soon grew so frightened — as everybody does 
 — that she was as civil as ever. . . . But Dr 
 Johnson," Miss Burney concludes, *^was now 
 much softened. He had acquainted me, when 
 I saw him last, that he had written to her 
 upon the death of Mrs Williams, because she 
 had allowed her something yearly, which now 
 ceased. , . . ' And I had a very kind answer 
 from her,' said he."^ We do not know 
 whether, during the year^ that intervened 
 between this peace - making and Johnson's 
 death, he was invited to Portman Square. 
 But it seems probable, as Wraxall remarks, 
 that his disappearance, at whatever time it 
 may have occurred, took much from ''the 
 charm and the impulse " that propelled Mrs 
 Montagu's dinners as well as her assemblies, 
 and that, after his decease in 1784, '' it became 
 impossible to supply his place. "^ 
 
 1 Diary, i., 547-9 ; cf. Ibid., 354-7. 
 
 ^ Mrs Williams died in August 1783. 
 
 3 Historical Me7noirs, ed. 1904, pp. 96-7. It is almost 
 superfluous to add that many foreigners also corresponded 
 with, and were invited by, Mrs Montagu. To give only 
 one instance, Letourneur, the translator of Shakespeare, 
 
MRS MONTAGU'S ASSEMBLIES 263 
 
 III 
 
 The picture of the collective life at such 
 assemblies would indeed be pleasant to make, 
 if only we possessed documents sufficiently 
 numerous and illuminating on the subject. 
 A mere passing glance, however, is all that 
 Mme d'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr Burney^ 
 affords us: ''At Mrs Montagu's," she writes 
 in her comparative account of ''Bas-Bleu 
 Societies," ''the semi -circle that faced the 
 fire retained during the whole evening its 
 unbroken form, with a precision that made it 
 seem described by a Brobdignagian compass. 
 
 sent her the curious note that follows : " Paris, 1 5 Janvier 
 ^111' — Madame, I shall not trouble yourself to day with 
 any other request but with my humble prayer to be so 
 kind as to order the inclosed Letter to M. Catuelan be 
 rendered to him, if possible and if you know of his 
 adress in your City. There are two months and more, 
 since I have no news of him, and it wou'd be essential 
 for me to get an answer from him. I hope he kept not 
 the incognito in London for you. . . . The war is open 
 between Shakespeare and Voltaire, and the first has 
 got many champions whom I never sought for : but 
 Shakespeare is good for defending himself. I am, etc. 
 . . . P.S. — M. Franklin is here much speaking of the 
 Electricity." (From Mrs Climenson's MSS.) A rather 
 poor testimonial for a translator of Shakespeare ! 
 ^ Ed. 1832, ii., 270-2. 
 
264 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 The lady of the castle commonly placed her- 
 self at the upper end of the room, near the 
 commencement of the curve, so as to be 
 courteously visible to all her guests ; having 
 the person of the highest rank, or consequence, 
 properly on one side, and the person the 
 most eminent for talents, sagaciously on the 
 other, or as near to her chair and her converse 
 as her favouring eye and a complacent bow of 
 the head could invite him to that distinction. 
 Her conversational powers were of a truly 
 superior order : strong, just, clear, and often 
 eloquent. Her process in argument, not- 
 withstanding an earnest solicitude for pre- 
 eminence, was uniformly polite and candid. 
 But her reputation for wit seemed always in 
 her thoughts, marring their natural flow and 
 untutored expression. No sudden start of 
 talent urged forth any precarious opinion ; 
 no vivacious new idea varied her logical 
 course of ratiocination. Her smile, though 
 most generally benignant, was rarely gay ; 
 and her liveliest sallies had a something of 
 anxiety rather than of hilarity, — till their 
 success was ascertained by applause. Her 
 form was stately, and her manners were 
 dignified. Her face retained strong remains 
 
DINNERS AND CONVERSATION 265 
 
 of beauty throughout life ; and though its 
 native cast was evidently that of severity, 
 its expression was softened off in discourse 
 by an almost constant desire to please." 
 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who first knew her 
 in December 1776,^ corroborates Mme 
 d'Arblay's testimony: '^Mrs Montagu," he 
 says, ''was accustomed to open her house to 
 a large company of both sexes, whom she 
 frequently entertained at dinner. A service 
 of plate, and a table plentifully covered, 
 disposed her guests to admire the splendour 
 of her fortune, not less than the lustre of her 
 talents." Though she then verged, he goes 
 
 ^ His first book, Cursory Remarks made in a Tour 
 through some of the Northern Parts of Europe^ had 
 appeared in 1775, and, on ist December 1776, he 
 thus introduced himself to Mrs Montagu : " I feel 
 myself too highly honoured in Mrs Montagu's permission 
 to present to her my present work, not to seize the earliest 
 occasion of laying it at her feet, though my diffidence at 
 appearing in such a presence almost restrains me from 
 availing myself of her goodness. To recommend it to 
 her candour, and to request her indulgence for its faults, 
 is, I know, unnecessary. Though her judgment will 
 oblige her to see, her generosity of mind will induce her 
 to conceal its blemishes and errors. They are too 
 numerous to escape her penetration, and I am obliged 
 to take shelter from the superiority of her understand- 
 ing in the beneficence of her heart ..." (From Mr 
 Broadley's MSS.) 
 
266 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 on, ''towards her sixtieth year, her person, 
 which was thin, spare, and in good preserva- 
 tion, gave her an appearance of less antiquity. 
 All the lines of her countenance bespoke 
 intelligence, and her eyes were accommodated 
 to her cast of features, which had in them 
 something satirical and severe, rather than 
 amiable or inviting. She possessed great 
 natural cheerfulness, and a flow of animal 
 spirits ; loved to talk, and talked well on 
 almost every subject ; led the conversation, 
 and was qualified to preside in her circle, 
 whatever subject of discourse was started : 
 but her manner was more dictatorial and 
 sententious, than conciliating or diffident. 
 There was nothing feminine about her ; and 
 though her opinions were usually just, as 
 well as delivered in language suited to give 
 them force, yet the organ which conveyed 
 them was not musical."^ She claimed the 
 leadership in the " semi-circle " of her guests ; 
 she "reasoned and harangued "^ at great 
 length ; for, as we know, she loved the sound 
 of her own voice too well.^ 
 
 ^ Historical Memoirs^ pp. 85-6. 
 
 ^ As Miss Burney says, Dimy^ i., 239. 
 
 ^ Cf. above, pp. 27 seq. 
 
THE BLUE STOCKINGS 267 
 
 The ^^Blue Stocking" parties at her house 
 or at Mrs Vesey's, whatever their imperfec- 
 tions, possessed the double merit of novelty 
 and usefulness. They answered a social 
 need of the time. With the progress and 
 diffusion of knowledge, women — at least the 
 best educated among them — were becoming 
 desirous of intellectual converse with men. 
 They suffered from the injurious isolation 
 and neglect to which, even in drawing-rooms, 
 they were often consigned. They felt almost 
 affronted, when "scholars and authors" 
 seemed to shun them. "As if the two sexes 
 had been in a state of war," Mrs Carter wrote 
 on one such occasion, "the gentlemen ranged 
 themselves on one side of the room, where 
 they talked their own talk, and left us poor 
 ladies to twirl our shuttles, and amuse each 
 other, by conversing as we could. By what 
 little I could overhear, our opposites were 
 discoursing on the old English poets, and 
 this subject did not seem so much beyond 
 a female capacity, but that we might have 
 been indulged with a share in it."i When, 
 at Mrs Montagu's table or in her "room of 
 
 ^ Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Ca7'ter to Mrs Montagu^ 
 ed. 1817, iii., 68 (May 1778). 
 
268 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 Cupidons," Johnson, Burke, Richard Owen 
 Cambridge, Hannah More, Miss Burney, 
 Mrs Carter herself, were assembled together, 
 they could freely discuss such topics as 
 interested them all. Neither were they com- 
 pelled unwillingly to pore on packs of cards, 
 as happened in so many other London houses, 
 where permission to enter and take a seat 
 was bought at twelve pence,^ in fees to 
 the servants. With righteous indignation, 
 Hannah More condemns this scandalous 
 practice of ''card-money," paid as part of 
 their wages to the domestics entrusted with 
 the care of *' furnishing the implements of 
 diversion for the guests of their masters."^ 
 What intelligent conversation could be started, 
 when, around a table, all eyes were gazing 
 at trumps or honours, when money was lost 
 and won, sometimes by hundreds of pounds? 
 In a sprightly poem entitled The Bas Bleu^^ 
 the same Hannah More exclaims, in praise 
 
 1 See Horace Walpole's Letters, ed. Toynbee, ii. 117 
 
 (1745)- 
 
 ^ Thoughts on the Maimers of the Great, 1 798 ( Works, 
 ed. 1853, ii., 251). 
 
 " It was read in MS. by Pepys to a party at his house, 
 so early as November 1783 ; but did not appear before 
 1786. 
 
HANNAH MORE'S BAS BLEU 269 
 
 of the learned ladies that had banished 
 cards and gambling from their drawing- 
 rooms : 
 
 " Long was society o'er-mn 
 By whist, that desolating Hun ; 
 Long did quadrille despotic sit, 
 That Vandal of colloquial wit ; 
 And conversation's setting light 
 Lay half-obscur'd in Gothic night ; 
 At length the mental shades decline, 
 Colloquial wit begins to shine ; 
 Genius prevails, and conversation 
 Emerges into reformation. 
 The vanquish'd triple crown to you 
 Boscawen sage, bright Montagu, 
 Divided fell ; — your cares in haste 
 Rescued the ravag'd realms of taste ; 
 And Lyttelton's accomplish'd name, 
 And witty Pulteney shar'd the fame ; 
 The men, not bound by pedant rules, 
 Nor ladies precieuses ridicules : 
 For polish'd Walpole shew'd the way, 
 How wits may be both learn'd and gay ; 
 And Carter taught the female train, 
 The deeply wise are never vain ; 
 And she, who Shakespeare's wrongs redrest, 
 Prov'd that the brightest are the best. . . ." ^ 
 
 That the example and efforts of this little 
 band of ^'reformers" contributed to raise 
 the tone and to refine the manners of the 
 
 1 Works, ed. 1853, v., 316-7. 
 
270 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 higher circles in the metropolis, seems to us 
 unquestionable. 
 
 A writer on Mrs Montagu, ^'the Queen 
 of the Blues," will probably be expected to 
 throw some light on the origin of that 
 curious phrase, the ^'Bas Bleus " or "Blue 
 Stockings." To our great concern, though 
 we have searched deep for it, the solution 
 of the problem still eludes us. Some will 
 have it that "calze turchine " were first 
 gaily flaunted in Venice at the time of the 
 Renaissance ; others maintain that they came 
 direct from France as an eighteenth-century 
 "article de Paris." ^ We cannot assent to 
 this foreign view of the matter. With all 
 his contemporaries, we firmly believe — but 
 cannot demonstrate — that one of the wisest 
 men in his generation, a poet, philosopher, 
 musician, and naturalist, called Benjamin 
 Stillingfleet,^ was the involuntary cause of 
 this appellation. The disinherited grandson 
 of the once famous Bishop of Worcester, he 
 had early learnt in the school of poverty and 
 
 1 See The Quarterly Review for January 1903, pp. 68-9. 
 Mrs Climenson's remarks, ii., 98, are based on a misquota- 
 tion of a passage in Miss Gaussen's Later Pepys, i., 43. 
 
 2 Cf. The Literary Life and Select Works of B. S., 2 
 vols., London, 181 1. 
 
BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET 271 
 
 dependence a lesson of humility and sadness. 
 He had been a subsizar at Cambridge, a 
 preceptor in a squire's family, and a for- 
 saken lover after a ten years' courtship. The 
 greatest success he could ever boast of in the 
 world was an appointment to the place of 
 *^ barrack-master at Kensington," worth about 
 ;^ioo a year. ^^You know not what it is," 
 he once wrote to a friend, ^' to have ill-health, 
 and therefore I will tell you it is a certain 
 specific for some passions ; you know not 
 what it is to be disappointed in every aim 
 in life, which, I must tell you, is another 
 specific for other passions ; and, when these 
 passions are gone, there is but very little 
 difference between a prince and a beggar."^ 
 From his many sorrows, the unambitious, 
 resigned Stillingfleet had taken refuge in 
 the cultivation of his garden, which gave 
 him health, and in the study of botany 
 and harmony, which procured him some 
 pleasure. He was often seen at Bath or 
 about town, doubtless stooping in his gait 
 and plunged in his mildly pessimistic 
 thoughts. His accomplishments as a scholar 
 
 ' Cf. The Literary Life and Select Works of B. S., 
 vol. i., p. loi. 
 
272 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 and a wit made him a favourite with Mrs 
 Montagu^ and the other learned ladies. 
 One day, about 1750, he was at Bath, and 
 received an invitation to ^^a literary meeting 
 at Mrs Vesey's." He *' declined to accept 
 it," Mme d'Arblay informs us, **from not 
 being, he said, in the habit of displaying a 
 proper equipment for an evening assembly. 
 *Pho, pho,' cried Mrs Vesey, with her well- 
 known, yet always original simplicity, while 
 she looked inquisitively at him and his 
 accoutrement, Mon't mind dress! Come in 
 your blue stockings ! ' With which words, 
 humorously repeating them as he entered 
 the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr 
 Stillingfleet claimed permission to appear 
 according to order. And those words ever 
 after were fixed in playful stigma upon Mrs 
 Vesey's associations."^ It seems a confirma- 
 tion of this account that, on 13th November 
 1756, a friend of Mrs Montagu's should 
 write to her that ^^Monsey," the physician 
 of Chelsea Hospital, ''swears he will make 
 out some story of you and Stillingfleet before 
 
 ^ She had entrusted him with the care of correcting 
 the proofs of her Essay in 1769, cf. above, p. 150. 
 ^ Memoirs of Doctor Burney^ ed. 1832, ii., 262-3. 
 
THE ORIGINAL BLUE STOCKING 273 
 
 you are much older ; you shall not keep 
 blew stockings at Sandleford for nothing."^ 
 And Mrs Montagu herself, in the following 
 March, having mentioned Stillingfleet in a 
 letter to Monsey, said of him : ^' I assure 
 you our old philosopher is so much a man 
 of pleasure, he has left off his old friends 
 and his blue stockings, and is at operas 
 and other gay assemblies every night." ^ 
 Stillingfleet and his ^'blue stockings" there- 
 fore became interchangeable terms among his 
 acquaintances. As Boswell observes: ^'Such 
 was the excellence of his conversation, that 
 his absence was felt as so great a loss that it 
 used to be said : ' We can do nothing without 
 the blue stockings ; ' and thus by degrees the 
 title was established."^ Wherever Stilling- 
 fleet appeared, there were the Blue Stockings. 
 By a very natural process, the name extended 
 from Mrs Vesey's parties to those of Mrs 
 Montagu and others. It even crossed the 
 Channel at the end of the century.* 
 
 1 Mrs Climenson, ii., 98. 
 
 2 Letters^ iv., 117. 
 
 ^ Life ofJoJmson^ Globe ed., p. 568. 
 
 "* We do not remember that the phrase was ever 
 applied to the parties at Mme du Deffand's, Mile de 
 Lespinasse's, and Mme GeofFrin's. 
 
 S 
 
274 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 Since the institution and its ^^ title" in all 
 probability originated with Mrs Vesey, it 
 would be unjust to pass her over in silence. 
 She formed a strong contrast w^ith Mrs 
 Montagu^ in her disposition and manners. 
 She seemed ''of imagination all compact," 
 and her friends had affectionately nicknamed 
 her ''the Sylph," for, like an "astherial" 
 being, she lived and thought "in a world 
 of her own." In her actual work-a-day life 
 she was none too happy. Fondly attached 
 to her second husband, Agmondesham Vesey, 
 of Lucan, near Dublin, "for many years a 
 member of the Irish House of Commons 
 and Comptroller and Accountant-General for 
 Ireland,"^ she had not succeeded in fixing 
 his affections. "He has many amiable 
 qualities,'' Mrs Carter said in 1774, "and 
 would have many more if he formed his 
 standard of action from his own mind, for I 
 am inclined to think he is not vicious so 
 
 ^ Whose friend she was, and who, in 1755, described 
 her as "a very amiable, agreeable woman," with "an 
 easy politeness that gains one in a moment." {Letters^ 
 iii., 310.) 
 
 ^ Preface to the Letters betwee?i Mrs Elizabeth Carter 
 and Miss Catherine Talbot^ ed. 1819, I., xiii. The third 
 volume consists of letters from Mrs Carter to Mrs Vesey. 
 
MRS VESEY 275 
 
 much from inclination as from the example 
 of the world. If it was a fashionable thing 
 for wits and scholars and lord -lieutenants 
 and other distinguished personages to be true 
 to their wives, probably our friend would 
 not have found him an unfaithful husband. "^ 
 This disappointment had doubtless enhanced 
 Mrs Vesey's flightiness and her dissatis- 
 faction with the things of this world: ''She 
 scarcely ever enjoys any one object," Mrs 
 Carter wrote to Mrs Montagu, ''from the 
 apprehension that something better may 
 possibly be found in another. It is really 
 astonishing to see how this restless pursuit 
 counteracts all the feelings of her amiable 
 and affectionate heart. There are few things, 
 I believe, that she loves like you and me ; 
 yet, when she is with us, she finds that you 
 and I, not being absolute divinities, have no 
 power of bestowing perfect happiness, and 
 
 1 Letters fro7n Mrs Carter to Mrs Montagu^ ed. 181 7, 
 ii., 296. Cf. this passage of a letter from Mrs Montagu to 
 her sister (1785) : " . . . You will be sorry to hear that Mr 
 Vesey has behaved like a wretch to my poor friend. . . . 
 He has left ^1000 to his kept mistress, poor recompense 
 to be sure for mortal sin and loathsome habits, but he 
 has shown more regard to his companion in iniquity than 
 to his tender, faithful friend. I will say no more of the 
 Monster, for I cannot think of him with patience. . . ." 
 
276 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 so from us she flies away, to try if it is to 
 be met with at an assembly or an opera." ^ 
 Ever ingenious at difficulties and little dis- 
 tresses, she lived in "a perpetual forecast of 
 disappointment." One day she fancied that 
 she was losing her senses, or else she felt 
 her memory going and her power of express- 
 ing herself decreasing. The joys of friend- 
 ship were spoilt for her by the bitter thought 
 of their transitoriness. ^'Is it reasonable," 
 Mrs Carter exclaimed on reading her com- 
 plaints, '^to wish to reject the possession of 
 any real good, merely because it may happen 
 not to be a perpetuity ?" ^ She had ^'a 
 mind formed for doubt," she said of herself, 
 and her bias towards scepticism, though un- 
 decided, alarmed her pious friends by its 
 intermittent recurrence. '' Never listen to 
 the half learning, the perverted understand- 
 ing, and pert ridicule of French philosophers 
 and beaux esprits, who would persuade you 
 it is best to wander over a wide, stormy 
 ocean without a pilot and without a lead- 
 ing star ! " Never take delight, Mrs Carter 
 told her, ^^in the writings or conversation 
 
 ^ Cartej' Letters to Mrs Montagu, ii., 109-10. 
 ^ Talbot Letters^ iii., 45. 
 
MRS VESEY 277 
 
 of a licentious profligate infidel like the Abbe 
 Raynal," whom Mrs Vesey — and also Mrs 
 Montagu — welcomed to their houses in 1776.^ 
 In the confusing crowd of fanciful anxieties 
 which her ^'visionary imagination" conjured 
 up, Mrs Vesey often lost her presence of 
 mind. '^With her," says Wraxall, '^this 
 forgetfulness extended to such a point, that 
 she sometimes hardly remembered her own 
 name. It will scarcely be credited, that 
 she could declaim against second marriages, 
 to a lady of quality who had been twice 
 married, and though Mr Vesey was her own 
 second husband. When at last reminded 
 of the circumstance, she only exclaimed, 
 * Bless me, my dear, I had quite forgotten 
 it!'" As Wraxall wisely remarks, ''there 
 was some decay of mind in such want of 
 recollection."^ In fact, after the death of her 
 husband in 1785, Mrs Vesey gradually sank 
 into *'a most afflicting state of imbecility." 
 
 But she remained to a very late period of 
 her life a delightful being, whom all that 
 knew her loved and petted almost, like a 
 
 1 On his loquacity, see Wraxall's Historical Memoirs^ 
 ed. 1904, p. 94. 
 V<^/^., 87-8. 
 
278 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 favourite child. The ^* gentleness" of her 
 temper showed itself in her winning ways. 
 *' What English heart ever excelled hers?" 
 cried Horace Walpole/ once sceptical, but 
 soon converted. In a luminous passage of a 
 letter to Mrs Montagu, Mrs Carter, comment- 
 ing on the skill with which ''the Sylph " con- 
 ducted her ''heterogeneous assemblies," thus 
 explains the secret of her success and charm : 
 " One means by which she preserves so many 
 naturally jarring characters as compose her 
 motley crowd from quarrelling with each other, 
 is by contriving to put them all into perfect 
 good humour with themselves. . . . As, 
 upon these occasions, our Sylph has not a 
 grain of vanity, nor the least degree of merely 
 personal feelings, she has an infinite deal of 
 attention to bestow in adapting herself to 
 the feelings of others ; and thus, without any 
 appearance of flattery, of effort, or of design, 
 she accomplishes the point of making each 
 of the individuals with whom her blue room ^ 
 
 '^Letters, ed. Paget Toynbee, xiv., 5 (1787). 
 
 ■■^In Bolton Row, and, after October 1779, in Clarges 
 Street, Piccadilly. With Mrs Boscawen in South Audley 
 Street, Mrs Montagu in Hill Street or Portman Square, 
 and Mrs Carter herself in Clarges Street, the most 
 eminent " Blue Stockings " almost elbowed one another. 
 
MRS VESEY 279 
 
 is crowded, consider itself as a principal and 
 distinguished object ; and wherever people 
 can imagine themselves to possess the first 
 place, they will always be in wonderful good 
 humour with all the world about them."^ 
 At her own parties Mrs Montagu, we may 
 remember, claimed for herself ^^the first 
 place" at the head of the ^^semi-circle" of 
 her guests. Mrs Vesey, less ambitious, 
 abhorred this cold formality : 
 
 " Th' enchantress wav'd her wand, and spoke ! 
 Her potent wand the circle broke : " 
 
 SO wrote the poetess of the Bas Bleu^'^ and 
 Mme d'Arblay, in a picturesque page of 
 the Memoirs of Dr Burney^^ has left us a 
 vivid description of the scene: ''Mrs Vesey 
 was as mirth-provoking from her oddities and 
 mistakes as Falstaff was wit-inspiring. . . . 
 Her fears were so great of the horror, as 
 it was styled, of a circle, from the ceremony 
 and awe which it produced, that she pushed 
 all the small sofas, as well as chairs, pell- 
 
 ^ Carter Letters^ ii., 184-5 {'^77'^)- 
 
 2 The Works of Hannah More, ed. 1853, v., 320. 
 For a description of Mrs Vesey's parties between 1781 
 and 1784, see Hannah More's Me?noirs^ i., 212, 278, 
 
 357, 359- 
 
 3 Ed. 1832 ii., 264-8. 
 
28o SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 mell about the apartments, so as not to 
 leave even a zigzag path of communication 
 free from impediment : and her greatest 
 delight was to place the seats back to back, 
 so that those who occupied them could 
 perceive no more of their nearest neighbour 
 than if the parties had been sent into different 
 rooms : an arrangement that could only be 
 eluded by such a twisting of the neck as 
 to threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic 
 affection.^ . . . With really lively parts, a 
 fertile imagination, and a pleasant quickness of 
 remark, she had the unguardedness of child- 
 hood, joined to an Hibernian bewilderment 
 of ideas that cast her incessantly into some 
 burlesque situation, and incited even the 
 most partial, and even the most sensitive 
 of her own countrymen to relate stories, 
 speeches, and anecdotes of her astonishing 
 self-perplexities, her confusion about times 
 and circumstances, and her inconceivable 
 jumble of recollections between what had 
 happened, or what might have happened ; 
 and what had befallen others, that she 
 
 ^ Cf., however, Madame d'ARBLAY's Diary, ed. 1876, 
 i., 120 : " the chairs are drawn into Httle parties of three 
 together, in a confused manner, all over the room." 
 
MRS VESEY 281 
 
 imagined had befallen herself: that made her 
 name, though it could never be pronounced 
 without personal regard, be constantly coupled 
 with something grotesque. . . . But what most 
 contributed to render the scenes of her social 
 circle nearly dramatic in comic effect, was 
 her deafness. . . . She had commonly two or 
 three or more ear-trumpets hanging to her 
 wrists, or slung about her neck, or tost upon 
 the chimney-piece or table. The instant 
 that any earnestness of countenance or anima- 
 tion of gesture struck her eye, she darted 
 forward trumpet in hand to inquire what 
 was going on,i but almost always arrived 
 at the speaker at the moment that he was 
 become, in his turn, the hearer. And 
 after quietly listening some minutes, she 
 would gently utter her disappointment by 
 crying : ' Well, I really thought you were 
 talking of something.' And then, though a 
 whole group would hold it fitting to flock 
 around her, and recount what had been 
 said, if a smile caught her roving eye from 
 
 ^ Cf. Mrs Delany {Autobiogi^apky aftd Correspondence, 
 vi., 219) : "Poor Mrs Vesey is so deaf that, when she 
 is in company, she carries her stool and cushion from 
 one end of the room to the other, to be near those 
 that are engaged in conversation " (1784). 
 
282 SOCIAL AND LITERARY CIRCLE 
 
 any opposite direction, the fear of losing 
 something more entertaining would make 
 her beg not to trouble them, and again 
 rush on the gayer talkers. But as a laugh 
 is excited more commonly by sportive 
 nonsense than by wit, she usually gleaned 
 nothing from her change of place and 
 hastened therefore back to ask for the rest 
 of what she had interrupted. But generally 
 finding that set dispersing or dispersed, 
 she would look around her with a forlorn 
 surprise and cry : * I can't conceive why 
 it is that nobody talks to-night. I can't 
 catch a word.' Yet with all these peculiarities 
 Mrs Vesey was eminently amiable, candid, 
 gentle and even sensible, but she had an 
 ardour to know whatever was going forward 
 and to see whoever was named, that kept her 
 curiosity constantly in a panic, and almost 
 dangerously increased the singular wanderings 
 of her imagination. Here, amongst the few 
 remaining men of letters of the preceding 
 literary era, Dr Burney met Horace Walpole, 
 Owen Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns, who 
 were commonly then denominated the old 
 wits." 
 
 The life that the **blue stockings" led, 
 
ELEGANCE AND EASE 283 
 
 within the privileged circle of the nobility 
 or higher gentry,^ appears to us from a 
 distance as singularly calm and pleasant. 
 It passed, unruffled by any mighty commo- 
 tion, political or social. When it reached its 
 most brilliant period, '^from 1770 to 1785," ^ 
 the '45 was already forgotten, and the French 
 Revolution yet unforeseen. The echoes of 
 the American War hardly disturbed the 
 peaceful tenour of Mrs Montagu's and of 
 Mrs Vesey's assemblies. Convinced that the 
 foundations of society and of their creed were 
 proof against any assault, they had no cares 
 but those which the course of our every- 
 day life brings to man at all seasons and 
 in all ages. From the anxieties of playing 
 deep and thinking deep, they prudently 
 abstained, and gave the best of their time 
 to the enjoyment of conversation on their 
 favourite subjects ; criticism and poetry. 
 
 ^ On the " narrow boundaries " of that society, cf. Sir 
 George Trevelyan, The Early History of Ch. J. Fox, 
 ed. 1901, pp. 68-9. 
 
 "^ Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, ed. 1904, p. 96. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 In a passage of his Historical Memoirs,'^ 
 Wraxall asks himself whether the ^'literary 
 society of London," at the period we have 
 been speaking of, ^' could enter into any com- 
 petition for extent of talents, and superiority 
 of attainments, with the society of Paris, 
 that met at the apartments of Madame du 
 Deffand, and of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse"; 
 and he is of the opinion ^*that neither in 
 the period of its duration, nor in the number, 
 merit, or intellectual eminence of the principal 
 members, could the English society be held 
 up on any parity with that of France." There 
 can be no doubt that Wraxall is right in 
 his judgment. The inferiority of the social 
 and literary assemblies in Hill Street or 
 Bolton Row, as compared with those at the 
 *'couvent St Joseph" or in the Rues St 
 
 ^ Ed. 1904, p. 96. 
 284 
 
BAS BLEUS 285 
 
 Dominique and St Honore,^ seems due to 
 
 several causes, the most important one being 
 
 perhaps the preference which, at all times, 
 
 the English have shown for '* clubs composed 
 
 exclusively of men," where ^^ researches of 
 
 taste and literature constitute" by no means 
 
 '^the basis and the central point of union." ^ 
 
 In spite of Mrs Montagu's and of Mrs Vesey's 
 
 exertions, their contemporaries remained 
 
 addicted to cards and wine. Ever since 
 
 ** Lady^ Shrewsbury, in Queen Anne's time" 
 
 first introduced card parties,^ the life of the 
 
 aristocracy, during the eighteenth century, 
 
 appears to us as one long play-day. ^' What 
 
 devastations are made by that destructive 
 
 fury, the spirit of Play ! " lamented Lord 
 
 Lyttelton in 1750. ''The time, the fortunes, 
 
 the honour and the consciences of our nobility 
 
 and gentry, both male and female, are all 
 
 falling a prey to it, and, what is still worse, 
 
 the force of the law has been tried against 
 
 it, and proves ineffectual."* How could a 
 
 ^ Respectively the abodes of Mme du Deffand, 
 Mile de Lespinasse, and Mme Geoffrin. 
 
 2 Wraxall, ibid.^ p. loi. 
 
 3 See Lord E. Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne^ 
 Autobiography, i. 51. 
 
 * To Doddridge, in Phillimore's Life of Lyttelton 
 p. 421. 
 
286 CONCLUSION 
 
 man like Sir John Bland, who in one night 
 successively lost ;^32,ooo and *^ recovered 
 the greatest part of it,"^ leave the excitement 
 of gambling for the tameness of the intel- 
 lectual pleasures to be enjoyed in a set of 
 more or less elderly ladies? ^^The gaming 
 at Almack's,^ which has taken the pas of 
 White's, is worthy the decline of our Empire," 
 Horace Walpole wrote in 1770. ** The young 
 men of the age lose five, ten, fifteen thousand 
 pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavor- 
 dale,^ not one-and-twenty, lost eleven thousand 
 there, last Tuesday, but recovered it by one 
 great hand at hazard : he swore a great oath 
 — * Now, if I had been playing deep^ I might 
 have won millions ! ' " ^ ^pj^g recklessness of 
 the Clubs was, to some extent, shared in by 
 the Town : society in those days seemed " one 
 vast casino."^ In the idleness of fashion- 
 able life, gambling proved the easiest and the 
 most fascinating way of killing time. ' * I came 
 
 1 Horace Walpole's Letters^ ed. Toynbee, iii., 228. 
 
 2 Known later on as Brookes's. 
 
 2 Eldest son of Stephen Fox, first Earl of Ilchester 
 and twin brother to Henry Fox, Charles's father. 
 
 * Horace Walpole's Letters^ vii., 365. 
 
 ^ Sir George Trevelyan's Early History of Ch. 
 /. Fox^ ed. 1 90 1, p. 83. 
 
CLUB LIFE PREFERRED 287 
 
 to town yesterday for a party at Bedford House, 
 made for Princess Emily," Horace Walpole 
 said in 1761. *' There was limited loo for the 
 Princess, unlimited for the Duchess of Grafton, 
 a table of quinze, and another of quadrille."^ 
 Men who, but for this besetting sin, would 
 have been the ornament and delight of their 
 social circle, wasted their fortunes and health 
 in the most futile and exasperating of all 
 pastimes: ^'Lord Chesterfield has had a 
 stroke of apoplexy," Mrs Delany wrote in 
 1756. *' It is generally thought the anxious 
 life he has led among gamesters has 
 occasioned this stroke. Whatever effect it 
 may have had on his constitution, it is a 
 severe reproach and blemish to his character 
 as a man possessed of superior talents to 
 most of his sex, so good an understanding, 
 such brilliancy of wit, so much discernment 
 in seeing the foibles of others, and when 
 he thought his example of consequence (as 
 when Lord Lieutenant in Ireland), so great 
 a command of himself for nearly a whole 
 year ! Is it not strange he should at last fall 
 a sacrifice to that desperate vice, gaming? "2 
 
 ^ Letters^ v., 62-3. 
 
 ^ Autobiography and Correspondence^ iii. 404-5. 
 
288 CONCLUSION 
 
 He recovered, however, and, in i758> 
 Rigby mentioned him as looking quite 
 well, and saying ^^ he shall not be per- 
 fectly so till hazard comes in."^ To what 
 bitter repentance and cruel embarrassments 
 this passion could lead, we see by the 
 following note ^ from Lord Carlisle to Selwyn, 
 the famous wit : *^ My dear George, I have 
 undone myself, and it is to no purpose to 
 conceal from you my abominable madness 
 and folly. ... I never lost so much in 
 five times as I have done to-night, and am 
 in debt to the house ^ for the whole." 
 Wilberforce himself, on entering public life 
 in 1780, sought election at ''all the leading 
 clubs." '' The first time I was at Brookes's," 
 he says, '^ scarcely knowing any one, I joined 
 from mere shyness in play at the faro table, 
 where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend 
 who knew my inexperience, and regarded 
 me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, 
 called to me, ' What, Wilberforce, is that 
 you ? ' Selwyn quite resented the interference 
 
 ^ The Bedford Correspondence^ ed. 1843, ii. 359. 
 
 2 Circa July 1776, endorsed by Selwyn " after the 
 loss of the ;^ 10,000"; see Jesse's George Selwyn and 
 his Co7itemporaries^ iii. 136. 
 
 3 Brookes's. 
 
GAMBLING AND INTEMPERANCE 289 
 
 and said in his most expressive tone, ' O sir, 
 don't interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could not 
 be better employed. '" ^ Everybody knows that 
 Charles Fox spent at Brookes's or at New- 
 market all the time '^ which was not devoted to 
 the House of Commons," "^ that in his thirst for 
 excitement, though an excellent player ''at 
 whist and at picquet," he preferred " games of 
 chance, particularly faro," that "to this pursuit, 
 or rather rage, he sacrificed a sinecure place of 
 ;^2,ooo a year for life, the Clerkship of the 
 Pells in Ireland, a fine estate situated at 
 Kingsgate in the Isle of Thanet," and, over 
 and above these losses, incurred a debt of 
 ;^ 140,000, which had to be discharged from 
 his father's own property.^ The ruin begun 
 by gambling was often consummated by 
 intemperance. Horace Walpole speaks in 
 1772 of Charles Fox as just arrived from 
 Newmarket, having sat up drinking all night 
 and not been in bed, yet making an admirable 
 speech in the House.* Sheridan, at sixty, 
 reminded Wraxall of the "companions of 
 
 ^ Life of Wilberforce by his sons, 1838, i., 16-8. 
 
 2 Wraxall's Historical Memoirs^ ed. 1904, pp. 343-4. 
 
 3 Meniorials of Ch. J. Fox^ 1854, i., 92. 
 ^ Letters J viii., 157. 
 
 T 
 
290 CONCLUSION 
 
 Ulysses who tasted of Circe's charmed cup,' 
 so striking was '^ the metamorphosis produced 
 in his appearance by repeated and habitual 
 intoxication."^ Amidst these wild excesses, 
 the *'Blue Stocking" parties formed a little 
 oasis of wisdom, which the impetuous youth 
 of the time avoided, in their mad chase after 
 more stirring scenes. 
 
 Englishmen are, as we know, born in- 
 dividualists. Singularity, eccentricity even, 
 is with them a quality, not a defect. As 
 Walpole says, they '^establish a right to their 
 own way, "2 and, if denied, they take it. 
 Their literati never flocked to the Capital, as 
 the French have done at all times, especially 
 in the eighteenth century. '^The circle in 
 London," Wraxall remarks, *'was, from 
 various causes, necessarily much more con- 
 tracted than in France, where every person 
 distinguished by talents, with few excep- 
 tions, commonly resided altogether in Paris." 
 Very different was the case in England. 
 Johnson, for many years domesticated with 
 Mrs Thrale at Streatham, devoted, of course, 
 the greatest part of his leisure to her suburban 
 
 ^ Posthumous Memoirs^ ed. 1836, i., 39. 
 ^ Letters^ vi., 312. 
 
ENGLISH ASSEMBLIES 291 
 
 assemblies ; Goldsmith, though occasionally 
 seen at Mrs Vesey's, had no talent for con- 
 versation, and was chiefly remarkable for his 
 simplicity and absent-mindedness ; Cambridge, 
 a lesser star, lived at Twickenham, Horace 
 Walpole at Strawberry Hill ; Hannah More 
 paid only flying visits to London, and Fanny 
 Burney too soon retired from society to the 
 depressing atmosphere of a Court. Gibbon 
 '^ never emulated to be a member of these 
 assemblies and never attended them. Like 
 Burke, he looked more to politics, than to 
 letters, for his substantial recompense,"^ and, 
 when deprived of his income as one of the 
 Lords Commissioners of trade, he definitively 
 left London for Lausanne. Hume, Adam 
 Smith, Robertson and Beattie resided at 
 Edinburgh or Aberdeen, and seldom travelled 
 southwards. Of guests so dispersed, the 
 attendance could be but casual, and the 
 invitations to the Blue Stocking assemblies 
 partook of the same character. Neither Mrs 
 Montagu nor Mrs Vesey ever seem to have 
 had stated days, on which their friends could 
 rely upon finding at their houses a breakfast, 
 or dinner, and conversation afterwards. In 
 ^ Wrax all's Historical Monoirs^ ed. 1904, pp. 97-8. 
 
292 CONCLUSION 
 
 Paris, on the contrary, a man of letters, 
 provided he was something of a philosopher, 
 could regularly spend his week in the follow- 
 ing manner : on Sundays and Thursdays, he 
 dined at the Baron d'Holbach's ; on Mondays 
 and Wednesdays, at Mme Geoffrin's ; on 
 Tuesdays, at M. Helvetius' ; on Fridays, at 
 Mme Necker's ; and every evening, between 
 five and nine o'clock, he was expected at 
 Mile de Lespinasse's.^ He thus found his 
 life mapped out for him with all the precision 
 and symmetry of a French garden ; had he 
 gone to London, he would have been disturbed 
 in his habits by a confusion and irregularity 
 equal to those of an English park. 
 
 And, to conclude, it must be acknowledged 
 that neither Mrs Vesey nor even Mrs Montagu 
 could for one moment compete in amplitude 
 of talents and in power of attraction with 
 their illustrious contemporaries, the Marquise 
 du Deffand, Mme Geoffrin and Mile de 
 Lespinasse. With the last named of these, 
 Mrs Vesey possessed in common a singular 
 personal charm, a sweet forgetful ness of self 
 and lack of vanity, that made her take delight 
 
 1 Ste. Beuve, Caiiseries du Lwidi, ii., 125-6 (Mile de 
 Lespinasse, 20 mai 1850). 
 
MRS MONTAGU 293 
 
 in the wit of others, without intruding her 
 own. But what a contrast appears between 
 the excessive simplicity, we might almost say 
 the intellectual debility, of the English lady, 
 and the ardent nature of Mile de Lespinasse, 
 whose sympathy for others was but a softened 
 reflex of the flame that burned within her, 
 and at last consumed her ! Mrs Montagu's 
 acquaintance with the world was probably equal 
 to Mme du Deffand's and Mme Geoffrin's. 
 But in no passage of her printed correspond- 
 ence can we discover any trace of their 
 penetrating insight into the human heart, of 
 their gift for character -painting, ruthlessly 
 sarcastic in Mme du Deffand, familiar and 
 almost humoristic in Mme Geoffrin. An, 
 egotist by temperament and education, Mrs' 
 Montagu could hardly go out of herself and' 
 see deep into others. Her observation played 
 on the surface of men and things ; she under- 
 stood their outward shows better than their 
 hidden meanings. She loved all that attracts 
 notice ; she aimed at dazzling the world with 
 her diamonds and her accomplishments. Her 
 exertions obtained the success they deserved. 
 The splendour of her receptions, the range 
 of her learning, superior even to Mme du 
 
294 CONCLUSION 
 
 Deffand's, were acknowledged by all her 
 contemporaries. And alone among the 
 women of fashion at that time, she claimed 
 and won a place as a professed author and 
 critic. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adam, 213, 216 
 
 Addison, 145, 15 1 
 
 ^schylus, 158 
 
 ^sop, 8 
 
 Albany, Countess of, 219 
 
 Alembert (d'), 174, 183, 189- 
 90, 192, 195 
 
 Alison, 42-4 
 
 Arblay, (M. d'), 245 
 
 - — — (Mme d'), 38, 41-2, 238- 
 45 ; Cecilia, 240 ; Diary and 
 Letters, i, 2, 23-4, 38, 41-2, 
 55, 57, 218-9, 239, 24I-5j 258, 
 260-2, 266, 268, 280, 291 ; 
 Early Diary, 255 ; Monoirs 
 of Dr Burney, 221, 263-5, 
 272, 279-82 ; Evelina, i, 238, 
 240 
 
 Aristotle, 88, 92, 95-6, 98, loi, 
 114,125-6, 130,143,145,149, 
 
 154 
 Arnaud (Abbe), 188, 193 
 
 Baker (Sir George), 243 
 Barbauld (Mrs), 210 
 Baretti (G.), 195-6 
 Bath (Wm. Pulteney, Lord), 28, 
 '60-3, 72, 222, 269 
 
 Beattie (James), 48, 80, 155, 
 158, 164, 245-50, 291 ; Essay 
 on Truth, 245, 247; Minstrel, 
 245 seq. 
 
 Beaumont (Mme de), 225 
 
 Behn (A.), 2 
 
 Berry (Miss), 216 
 
 Blair (Dr), 143 
 
 Blanc (Abbe le), Lettres cTtm 
 Francais, 1 09-10 
 
 Bland (Sir John), 286 
 
 Blondel, 167 
 .Blue Stockings, 270-3, 283, 290 
 
 Boccage (Mme du), 205-6 
 
 Boileau, 36 
 
 Bolingbroke (Lord), 28 
 
 Boscawen (Mrs), 2, 194, 207, 
 209, 214, 235, 252, 269, 278 
 
 Boswell (J.), Life of Johnson, 
 ZZ, 142, 196, 256, 273 
 
 Bower (A.), 228-30 
 
 Broadley (Mr A. M.), vii. d^, 
 153, 206, 225-7, 230, 233, 
 236, 244, 253, 257, 259 
 
 Brockman (J.), 10- ii 
 
 Buffon, 172, 174, 176 
 
 Bunyan, 231 
 
 Burke (Edm.), 24, 55, 144, 250- 
 
 ^ 5, 268, 291 
 
 Burney (Dr), 243, 256, 282 
 
 (Miss), see Arblay (Mme 
 
 d') 
 
 Burrows, 184 
 
 295 
 
296 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cambridge (R. O.), 268, 282, 
 291 
 
 Camden (Lord), 227 
 
 Caraccioli, 173 
 
 Carlyle (Lord), 288 
 
 Carter (Mrs), 35, 41, 55-60, 62- 
 5, 67-8, -j^i-T, 117, 119, 123, 
 164-5,] 167, 209-10, 220, 251, 
 268-9, 278 ; Letters to Miss 
 Talbot, 58-9, 166, 274; Letters 
 to Mrs Montagti, 59-6o, 77, 
 123, 143, 165-7, 267, 275-6, 
 278 
 
 Catuelan (Comte de), 179, 262 
 
 Champs (Jean des), 73 
 . Chapone (Mrs), Works, 41, 224 
 
 Chastellux (de), 172, 174, 185, 
 263, 273 
 
 Chaucer (G.)j 112 
 
 Chenevix (Mrs), 231 
 
 Chesterfield (Lord), 60, 72, 287 ; 
 Letters, 71, 80 
 
 Gibber, 23 
 
 Cicero, 37 
 
 Clement, 157 
 
 Climenson (Mrs E. J.), vii. 144, 
 146, 152, 167-8, 221, 254, 
 263, 273 ; Early Life of Mrs 
 Montagu, vi. 4, 5, 10, 13, 14, 
 18, 20, 25-8, 36, 39, 46-7, 51, 
 58, 60, 62, 68, 72-3, 77, 117- 
 8, 207, 228, 251-2, 255 
 
 Coleridge (S. T.), 85 
 
 Collier (J.), 95 
 
 Corneille, 114-5, 119 seq,, 125, 
 127, 129, 156-9, 180, 192, 
 198-9 ; Cid, 122 ; Cinna, 94, 
 115, 120-1, 136-7, 160,202; 
 Clitandre, 159; Othon, 159, 
 200 ; Pertharite, 200 ; Ser- 
 torius 122 
 
 Courayer (Le), 230-4 
 
 Cowper (Wm.), 156, 158, 217 
 
 Crebillon, no 
 
 Crisp, 38 
 
 CrUical Review, 142, 150 
 
 Dacier, 36, 153 
 Dartmouth (Lord), 247 
 Deffand (Mme du), v. 172, 273, 
 
 284-5, 292-4 ; Lettres d Hor. 
 
 Walpole, 171 
 Delany (Mrs), 20, 23-4, 240 j-^^'.; 
 
 Autobiography, 20-1, 24, 141, 
 
 208, 214, 230, 281, 287 
 Dennis (John), 92, 105-6 ; Lm- 
 
 partial Critick, 93 ; Letters on 
 
 Shakespeare, 93-4 
 Destouches, 195 
 Dodsley, 151-2 
 Donnellan (Mrs), 16, 24, 33 
 Doran (Dr), A Lady of the Last 
 
 Cefitury, vi. 39, 51-2, 54, 84, 
 
 153-4, 156, 214 
 Douglas (Dr), 63 
 Drake (E.), 2 
 Dryden (J.), Z^, 97-8, lOO, 105; 
 
 Essays, 85-7, 92 
 
 Elisee (Pere), 183 
 Elizabeth (Princess). 243 
 Epictetus, 56 
 Euripides, 95, 128, 130, 259 
 
 Farmer (R.), 105 
 
 Farquhar (G.), Discourse upon 
 
 Cofjiedy, 94-6, 125 
 Ferrers (Lord), 74 
 Fielding (H.), 23; Joseph 
 
 Andrews, 58 ; Tom /ones, 
 
 58, 83 
 Fitzgerald (P.), Life of Garrtck, 
 
 177, 230 
 
INDEX 
 
 297 
 
 Fitzmaurice (Lord Edm.), Shel- 
 
 burtie, 60, 71, 285 
 Fletcher (J.), 86, 92, 96 
 Flint, 112 
 
 Fontaine-Malherbe, 179 
 Fontenelle, 72 
 JForbes (Sir Wm.), Life of 
 
 Beattie, 49, 81, 156, 164, 
 
 246 seq. 
 Fortescue (Lucy), 69 
 Fox(Ch. J.), 54, 226, 289 
 Franklin (B.), 263 
 Frederick the Great, 67 
 Freron, Annde Liit^raire, 72, 
 
 77, 112, 128, 156-7, 179, 181, 
 
 200-1 
 Frost, Thomas Lyttelton^ 222 
 
 Qarrick (D.), 112, 142, 146, 
 156, 166, 177, 21 1-2, 229-30, 
 234; Correspondence, 112, 118, 
 126-7, 166, 212, 230 
 
 Gaussen (Miss A.)j Later Pepys, 
 184, 258 
 
 Gaussin (Mile), 202 
 
 Geoffrin (Mme), v., 174, 205, 
 224, 273, 285, 292 
 
 Gessner (S.)> 67 
 
 Gibbon (Edw.), 166, 291 ; Auto- 
 biography, 8, 70 ; Aldmoires 
 littdraires, 70 ; Miscellaneous 
 Works, 171 
 
 Gildon(Ch.), 93 
 
 Gloucester (Duke of), 219 
 
 Glover (R.), I53 
 
 Goldsmith (O.), 291 
 
 Gower (Dowager Countess), 
 141 
 
 Gray (Th.), 84, 259 
 
 Gregory (Miss), 41-5, 166, 169, 
 173, 214, 239, 246 
 
 (Dr John), 41, 246, 249 
 
 Grenville (George), 143 
 
 Gresset, 177 
 
 Grimm, Correspondance litter- 
 aire, 181-2, 184-9, 195-6, 
 198-9 
 
 Gruet, 186 
 
 H 
 
 Handcock (Mrs), 253 
 
 Harley (Lady M. Cav.). See 
 
 Portland (Duchess of) 
 Harpe (de la), in, 186 
 Harris (J.), 143 
 Hastings (W.), 55 
 Haussonville (d'), 172 
 Hay ward (A.), Mrs Piozzi^ 196 
 Hazlitt(Wm.), 85, 105 
 Helvetius, 224, 292 
 Herring (Archbishop), 28 
 Hervey (Lord J.), 71 
 (Lady), 224; Letters, 21, 
 
 60, 72 
 Hesketh (Lady), 217 
 Hogarth, 64 
 
 292 
 100, 117 
 
 186-8, 
 
 Holbach (d'). 
 Homer, 95, 
 
 194 
 Horace, 36 
 
 Hume (D.), 70, 96, 291 
 Huntingdon (Lady), 54 
 Hurd(R.), 145 
 
 J 
 
 Jenyns (S.), 282 
 
 Jesse (J. H.), 288 
 
 Johnson (Dr), i, 72, 80, 83, 95, 
 105, 141-2, 145, 148, 155-6, 
 158-60, 209-10, 235, 239, 
 255-62, 268, 290 ; Preface to 
 Shakespeare, 101-5, 123, 126; 
 Life of Lyttelton, 258, 260 
 
 Joncourt (de), 73 
 
 Jonson (Ben), 96 
 
 Jusserand (J. J.), Shakespeare 
 en France, 85, no, 166, 183 
 
298 
 
 INDEX 
 
 K 
 
 Kames (H. Home, Lord), 
 - Elements of Criticism, 120-2, 
 142 
 
 Lecky (W. E. H.), History of 
 
 England, 60 
 Lekain, 118, 177 
 Lenclos (N. de), 153 
 Lennox (Mrs), 112 
 Lespinasse (Mile de), 273, 284- 
 
 5, 292-3 
 Letourneur, 179 seq,^ 190, 192, 
 
 196, 262 
 Longinus, 36 
 Louis XIV., 192 
 Lounsbury (T. V..\ Shakespeare 
 - and Voltaire, 85, 114, 158, 
 
 162, 182, 199 
 Lucian, 72, 74 
 
 Lyly(J.), 31 
 
 Lyttelton (George, Lord), 6, 
 
 '^ 23, 28, 68-73, 8i> 117, I43> 
 152-3, 222, 228-30, 246-7, 
 258-9, 269, 285. Dialogues 
 of the Dead, 72, 258 ; Henry 
 11. , 69 ; Manody, 69, 7 1 
 
 (Thomas, Lord), 6, 37, 
 
 222-4 
 
 M 
 
 Macpherson (J.), 84 
 Manley (Mrs), 2 
 Maxwell (Dr), 256 
 Melmoth (Wm.), 153 
 Mercure de France, 200 
 Middleton (Dr Conyers), 6-7, 
 
 25, 35. 39 
 
 Moliere, 36, 192, 195 ; Misan- 
 thrope, 82 
 
 Monckton (Miss), 2 
 
 Monsey (Dr), 35, 272 
 
 Montagu (Edw.), 46-9, 51, 58, 
 144-5, 206, 208, 233, 250 
 
 : (Mrs), 
 
 Life : birth and family, 3-5 ; 
 early years, at Coveney, 6, 
 Cambridge, d-*], Monks 
 Horton, 7, Hayton, II-13, 
 26, 36-7, Tunbridge and 
 Bath, 13-4, Canterbury, 27, 
 Bulstrode, 19-24 ; marriage, 
 46-7 ; life at Sandleford, 
 48-51, at Denton, 51-3 ; 
 journey to Spa with Lord 
 Bath and Mrs Carter, 63 
 seq.^ Calais, 64, Lisle, 
 Courtray, Brussels, 65, 
 Liege, Spa, 66, Holland, 
 67 ; journey to France in 
 1776, 164 seq., at the 
 French Academy, 183 seq. ; 
 receptions in Hill Street, 
 204-12, 263-6, in Portman 
 Square, 27, 212-21, May- 
 day feast, 221 ; social and 
 literary circle, 222-73 5 her 
 death, 221 
 Character: irony, 8-1 1; high 
 spirits, 1 1 -4; vanity, 14- 
 
 6, 26 ; love of praise, 24- 
 . 8 ; lively imagination, 16- 
 
 8 ; strength of will, 39- 
 41 ; practical sense, 50-3 ; 
 learning, 35-8 ; her episto- 
 lary style, 28-38 ; modera- 
 tion in opinions, 53-5 ; 
 antipathy to Voltaire, 115- 
 9 ; judgment on Corneille, 
 1 19-22 ; inferiority to French 
 Bas Bleus, 292-3 
 Works: Letters, vi., 2-1 1, 13, 
 15-6, 18, 24-5, 27-8, 30, 
 32-7, 39-41, 47-8, 50-1, 54, 
 56, 69-70, 73-4, 80-4, 116- 
 
 7, 119, 207, 229, 232 
 251 
 
INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 /-■ 
 
 Mrs Montague [continued) — 
 Letters (in MSS. of Marquis 
 of Bath), 7, 14, 31, 42, 51, 
 
 83, 204, 213 
 Unpublished Letters : to I^ord 
 
 Bath, 62 ; to Mr Montagu, 
 144-6 ; to her father, 147- 
 52 ; to her brother, 170-1 ; 
 to her sister, 168, 170, 198 ; 
 to Mrs Vesey, 167, 184, 
 194-5, 254 
 
 Dialogues of the Dead: 72-6, 
 '223 
 
 Essay on Shakespeare: vii., 
 
 84, 239; its composition, 
 122-3 ; contents, 123-4 ; 
 rejection of the rules, 125- 
 6; leading ideas, 126-36; 
 Corneille's inferiority to 
 Shakespeare, 136-7 ; Vol- 
 taire's inaccuracies, 138-41 ; 
 reception in England, 141- 
 56, 158-9, in France, 156- 
 8 ; published anonymously, 
 148-52 ; its aim and value, 
 159-64; translated, 198-203; 
 Villemain's opinion, 203 
 
 Montagu (Matthew), 167, 169, 
 
 244 
 Monthly Review, 144 
 Morandi (L. ), 196 
 More (Hannah), 208-9, 214-5, 
 
 218-9, 234-8, 242, 255, 259, 
 
 268, 291 ; Bas Bleu, 268-9, 
 
 279 ; Percy, 234-5, 238 ; 
 
 Thoughts 071 the Manners of 
 
 the Great, 268 
 Morgann (M. ), Essay onFalstaff, 
 
 105, 154 
 Murphy (A.), 118 
 Murville (A. de), 186 
 
 N 
 
 Necker (M. and Mme), 166, 
 171-3, 178, 292 
 
 Newton (John), 236 
 Nivernois (M. de), 174 
 Noailles (M. and Mme de), 
 
 211-2 
 North (Lord), 248 
 
 Ogle (Mrs), 255 
 Ossian, 84 
 Otway (Th.), 114 
 Oxford (Lord), 19 
 
 Paley (Wm.), 236 
 Patu (CI. P.), 112, 118 
 Pendarves (Mrs), see Delany 
 
 (Mrs) 
 Pennington (Rev. Montagu), 
 
 167 ; Memoirs of Mrs Carter, 
 
 56, 58, 60, 63, 67, 168 
 Pepys (Sir W. W.), 258 seq., 268 
 Percy (Th.), 83 
 Phillimore (Sir R.), Life of Lord 
 
 Lyttelton, 285 
 Picquot, 168, 175 
 Pindar, 71 
 
 Piozzi (Mrs), see Thrale (Mrs) 
 Pitt (Anne), 252 
 (Wm., Lord Chatham), 53, 
 
 247, 252 
 
 (Wm.), 54 
 
 Place (de la), Th^dtre anglois, 
 
 111-2 
 Plutarch, 105 
 Pope (A.), 83, 148, 151, i6o; 
 
 Preface to Shakespeare, 99-101 
 Portland (Duchess of), 17-19, 
 
 24, 26-9, 31, 37-8, 51, 68, 
 
 213, 240 
 
 (second Duke of), 19, 25, 54 
 
 Potter (R.), 259 
 Prevost;(Abbe), Pour et Contre, 
 
 no 
 Priestley (J.), 237 
 
300 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Prior (Sir James), Life of Burke, 
 
 254 
 (M.), 19 
 
 QUINTILIAN, 89 
 
 Racine (J.), ii4> 125, 127, 180, 
 192, 198, 202 ; Iphiginie, 
 128-9 
 
 Ramsay (A.), 84 
 
 Rapin, 88, 92 
 
 Raynal (Abbe), 277 
 
 Rejmolds (Sir J.), 142, 144; 209, 
 
 240 
 Riccoboni (L.), 109 
 
 (Mme), 156, 160 
 
 Richardson (S.), Pamela, 23; 
 
 Clarissa, 23, 56, 83 
 Rigby, 288 
 Roberts (Wm.), Memoir?, of H. 
 
 More, 194, 209, 211, 214, 
 
 218, 220, 234, 236, 279 
 Robertson (Wm.), 70, 291 
 Robinson (Elizabeth), see 
 
 Montagu (Mrs) 
 (Matthew), her father, 3-5, 
 
 7, 146-7 
 
 (Matthew), her eldest 
 
 brother, 25-6, 146, 167, 170-1 
 
 (Richard), Archbishop, 235 
 
 (Sarah), see Scott (Mrs) 
 
 Rochefort (Comtesse de), 174-5 
 Rogers (John), 51 
 Rowe (Mrs), 17 
 
 (Nicholas), Preface to 
 
 Shakespeare, 97-9, loi, 104, 
 no 
 
 Rutlidge (Chevalier), 196-8 
 Rymer (Th.), 95-8, 102, 106, 
 1 90- 1 ; Reflections on Aristotle, 
 88; A Short View of Tragedy , 
 88-92 ; Tragedies of the Last 
 ^^^, 92-3 
 
 Sackville (Th.), Gorboduc, 
 
 191. 193 
 
 Saintsbury (G.), History of 
 
 -^CriticisfH, 85, 158 
 
 Sandwich (Lord High Admiral), 
 46 
 
 (Lord), 225-6 
 
 Schwellenberg (Mrs), 244 
 
 Scott (Sarah, Mrs), ii, 55, 210 
 
 Seeker (Archbishop), 56 
 
 Selwyn (George), 288 
 
 Sevigne (Mme de), 82, 153 
 
 Seward, 256 
 
 Shaftesbury (Lord), 96 
 
 Shakespeare (Wm.), vi,, 79, 85 
 seg., 1145^^., 129, 135, 145-6. 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 103. 
 Coriolanus, 94, lOO. Henry 
 J v., 116, 124, 159; Falstaff, 
 31, 98, 134, 154-5, 162, 279; 
 Percy, 129; Pistol, I34-5. 
 Henry V., 163. Hamlet, 17, 
 98, 106-7, iiOj 112, 114, 116. 
 Jiilitis Ccesar, 94, 1 00, 1 06, 
 115, 124, 136, 138-41, 157, 
 181, 190, 196-7; Brutus 91-2. 
 King John, wz, 116. King 
 Lear, 159, 166, 177, 211. 
 Macbeth, 98, 106, 1 12, 123, 
 135,162-3,177,211. Merchajit 
 of Venice, 98. Othello, 89-91, 
 106-7, no, 114) i^ij 190- 
 Romeo and Juliet, 80, 112, 
 197. Tempest, 98, 181 
 
 Shelburne (Lord), 226 
 
 Sheridan (R. B.), 289-90 
 
 Shrewsbury (Lady), 285 
 
 Smith, II 
 
 (Adam), 291 
 
 (D. Nichol), Eighteenth 
 
 Century Essays on Shake- 
 speare, 85, 92-4, 99, 105, 126, 
 I45» 155: 158-9 
 
INDEX 
 
 301 
 
 Sophocles, 1 1 5-6, 125, 128, 192 
 
 (Edipus Coloneus, 81-2 
 Spencer (Lady), 211-2 
 Stanhope (Lord), 13 
 Stavordale (Lord), 286 
 Stillingfleet (B.), 150, 270-3 
 Suard, 194 
 Sully, 30 
 Swift (J.), 19, 151 
 
 Tacitus, 37 
 
 Talbot (Miss Catherine), 58-9 
 
 Taylor (Edw.), 154 
 
 Tencin (Mme du), v. 
 
 Thanet (Lord and Lady), 9 
 
 Thomas, 173 
 
 Thrale (Mrs), i, 2, 41, 238, 240, 
 
 255-6, 260-1, 290 
 Thucydides, 36-7 
 Trevelyan (Sir G. O.), 283, 286 
 Tytler (Fraser, Lord Wood- 
 
 houselee), Memoirs of Lord 
 
 Karnes, 122 
 
 Vertot, 37 
 
 Vesey (Agmondesham), 242, 
 274-5 
 
 (Mrs), 2, 145, 164, 242, 
 
 253, 260, 267, 272-3, 274-82, 
 285, 291-2 
 
 Villemain, 203 
 
 Virgil, 117 
 
 Voltaire, vi., 37, 72, 84, 101-2, 
 105-6, 111-2, 115, 117-8, 120, 
 124-5, 13IJ 142, 148, 150. 156 
 seg., lySseg., 199, 250. Prose 
 works mentioned : Appel ct 
 toutes les Nations, 114 ; Can- 
 dide, 117; Comtnentaire stir 
 Corneille, 115 ; Essai sur la 
 Po^sie ^pique^ 108 ; Gazette 
 
 Littdraire, 120 ; Lettre ci 
 d'Argetital^ 182, 194, 198 ; 
 Lettre a PAcaddmie, 183, 188 
 seg., 195. Seconde Lettre cl 
 r Acadimie, vi., 201 -2 ; Lettres 
 philosophiqiies, 107-8. Poems: 
 Eripkyle, 106 ; Henriade, 
 117, 120; Irene, vi., 201; 
 Jules Cesar, 138-41, 190, 203; 
 Maho?net, 106, 181 ; Mort de 
 CJsar, 181 ; Orphelin de la 
 Chine, 118; Semiramis, 106, 
 preface to, 1 1 1 ; Tancred, 39 ; 
 Zaire, 106, 177-8, i8l 
 
 W 
 
 Waldegrave (Lord), 71 
 
 Waller (E.), 87 
 
 Walpole (Horace), 22, 269, 282, 
 291 ; Letters, 19, 68, 72, 174, 
 194, 208, 215 seq., 225, 230, 
 259, 278, 286-7, 289, 290; 
 Memoirs of George II,, 71 
 
 (Sir R.), 61 
 
 Walsingham (Mrs), 2 
 
 Warburton (Wm.), 79, 80, 145, 
 148 
 
 Warton (J.), 144 
 
 West (G.), 16, 28, 228, 231 
 
 Wilberforce (Wm.), 236, 288-9 
 
 Williams (Mrs), 255, 262 
 
 Wraxall (Sir N. ), 265; Historical 
 Memoirs, 19, 222, 254, 262, 
 265-6, 277, 283-5, 289, 290-1 
 
 X 
 
 Xenophon, 37 
 
 Young (Edw.), 27, 30, 177; 
 Letters, 22-3, 28; Resignation, 
 118; Satires, 24; Letter on 
 Original Composition, 81 
 
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