THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 THE 
 
 LETTERS AND WORKS 
 
 OF -V. 
 
 LADY MARY^WORTLEY MONTAGU 
 
 EDITED BY HER GREAT-GRANDSON 
 
 LORD WHARNCLIFFB 
 
 WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS DERIVED PROM THE ORIGINAL 
 
 MANUSCRIPTS, ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES 
 
 AND A MEMOIR 
 
 By W. MOY THOMAS 
 
 STANDARD 
 
 EDITION 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 NEW YOEK: MACMILLAN & CO. 
 
 1893
 
 M-7/13 
 
 uT/
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE present edition of the works of Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu comprises the contents of the edition in three volumes 
 published by Lord Wharncliffe in 1837, including the Intro- 
 ductory Anecdotes contributed by the late Lady Louisa Stuart, 
 a granddaughter of Lady Mary. In prefixing to that edition 
 the Memoir written by Mr. Dallaway, Lord Wharncliffe 
 adopted the plan of printing it entire, with notes correcting 
 such errors and misstatements as he had observed. But to 
 these would now have to be added many others, and it ap- 
 peared to be of little avail to attempt to remedy the miscon- 
 ceptions and defects of Mr. Dallaway's narrative. It is there- 
 fore now omitted. A far abler pen has furnished a large 
 amount of interesting particulars concerning Lady Mary and 
 her family : the Introductory Anecdotes fill, indeed, so large 
 a space in the preliminary matter, and approach so nearly to 
 the character of a biography, that it would be hardly necessary 
 to substitute any memoir for that of Mr. Dallaway ; but for
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 the fact that some questions of interest in the Life of Lady 
 Mary are only lightly touched, or are at least left unsettled by 
 Lady Louisa Stuart's remarks. It seemed desirable to inves- 
 tigate more closely than previous editors have done the charges 
 preferred against Lady Mary by Pope and Horace Walpole, 
 and those who have since adopted their statements or imbibed 
 then* spirit, and to test them by the better information which I 
 have been so fortunate as to obtain. In preparing the Memoir 
 I have therefore confined myself principally to these points, 
 and have also endeavoured to avoid repeating information 
 which the reader will find conveyed with so much vivacity 
 and good sense in Lady Louisa Stuart's contribution. 
 
 The writings of Lady Mary, of which the manuscripts 
 are still existing among the Wortley papers, are now for the 
 first time printed faithfully from the originals. Collation has 
 led to the discovery that Mr. Dallaway, in preparing them for 
 publication, had ventured to tamper with them in a way which 
 no editor would now think justifiable, and that these tamper- 
 ings, though almost universal in Mr. Dallaway's volumes, 
 were, except in one or two letters, unfortunately reproduced 
 in Lord Wharncliffe's edition. Lord Wharncliffe, indeed, 
 appears from his Preface to have been aware of these defects, 
 but to have been under the impression that they had been 
 remedied. In numerous instances single letters were found to 
 be composed of several letters, or made up from passages of 
 letters written at different periods. Exact dates were affixed, 
 which were manifestly incorrect, or, if correct, were not found 
 in the originals, and therefore could not properly be given as 
 parts of the text. Passages were continually omitted, and 
 names inserted, without warning to the reader ; and number-
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 less minute alterations were introduced apparently with no 
 object but to improve the language of the letters in conformity 
 with the editor's taste. 
 
 With regard to the letters written during Mr. Wortley's em- 
 bassy, and generally known as the Turkish Letters, examina- 
 tion has proved the curious circumstance that they have hitherto 
 never been published either from the manuscript in Lady Mary's 
 handwriting, given to Mr. Sowden, which varies in numberless 
 instances from the pubh'shed version, or from the copy in an- 
 other handwriting, which appears to have been prepared for 
 private circulation by Mrs. Astell ; but have been reproduced 
 from time to time from the unauthorised edition of 1763, no 
 manuscript of which has ever been discovered. To this Mr. 
 Dallaway, besides other trifling alterations, added addresses and 
 inserted names in the text, which in some cases were clearly 
 erroneous, and in no instance had any authority. The mecha- 
 nical exactness with which these letters had in other respects 
 been reprinted from the edition of 1763, appears in the fact 
 that mere errors of transcription or printing, in the dates in 
 that edition, though palpable, from the very position of the let- 
 ters, have been copied in every subsequent publication. The 
 letters written during Mr. Wortley's embassy are now printed 
 exactly from the Sowden manuscript, such information as 
 could be supplied respecting the parties addressed, or other 
 circumstances, being given in notes. An account of these 
 letters will be found in the Memoir. Some letters and poems 
 not included in previous editions, are added, and in every 
 section it has been endeavoured to ascertain from internal evi- 
 dence the exact periods at which the undated letters were 
 written, and to arrange them accordingly; a labour which,
 
 VI PKEFACE. 
 
 though less productive of visible results, no one who has had 
 experience of such duties will be inclined to rate lightly. 
 
 Of other portions of Lady Mary's writings, not derived 
 from the Wortley manuscripts, some account is required. 
 The letters to Mrs. Hewet were appended by Mr. Dallaway 
 to his fifth edition of 1805, from a source explained in the 
 note to the first letter of the series. The letters to the 
 Countess of Oxford, though not alluded to in Lord Wharn- 
 cliffe's Preface among the novelties in his edition, were I 
 believe published by him from the originals for the first time ; 
 as were also the letters to Lady Pomfret and to Sir James and 
 Lady Steuart, to which his Lordship alluded in the following 
 passage. 
 
 " Of the authenticity of these letters there can be no doubt. 
 Those to Lady Pomfret have been copied from the originals 
 in Lady Mary's handwriting, and kindly communicated to the 
 Editor by Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Campbell, who 
 received them from his mother, a descendant of the Pierrepont 
 family. Those to Sir James Steuart and Lady Frances, have 
 been carefully preserved by the present Sir James. They 
 were some years since printed at Glasgow for private circula- 
 tion, and the Editor has to thank Sir James for their having 
 been placed at his disposal for the purpose of this publication." 
 
 The poems, with exceptions explained in each case, were 
 published by Mr. Dallaway and Lord Wharncliffe from a 
 manuscript volume which appears, from a fac-simile published 
 by the former, to have borne the following memorandum in 
 Lady Mary's own handwriting. " All the verses and prose 
 in this book were wrote by me, without the assistance of one 
 line from any other. Mary Wortley Montagu." The volume
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 is now unfortunately not to be found among the manuscripts, 
 and the poems are therefore given on the authority men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The letters in the appendix to Lord Wharncliffe's edition, 
 are now incorporated with the letters to Lady Mar, and such 
 portions of Lord Wharncliffe's arguments as are not now 
 superseded are quoted in the notes and Memoir. 
 
 With regard to the freedom of expression in which Lady 
 Mary indulged, particularly in the familiar letters to her 
 sister Lady Mar, Lord Wharncliffe justly remarks that 
 she wrote "at a period when the feeling upon such sub- 
 jects was by no means so nice as it now is ; and that 
 expressions, with which we now find great fault, might then 
 be used by persons of the greatest propriety of conduct, and 
 would only be considered as painting freely, and more keenly 
 ridiculing, the vices and follies of the society in which the 
 writer found herself, and not as used for the purpose of in- 
 dulging in grossness of language." It requires but small 
 familiarity with the originals of the private correspondence 
 of those days, to perceive that Lady Mary's standards of 
 delicacy and propriety were simply those of her time. Even 
 in the present day cbnsiderable differences on these points are 
 observable among nations equally civilised ; and wonderment 
 at the unconsciousness betrayed by the one of the feeling of 
 the other, is frequently to be found on both sides. In the 
 gradual change of manners the English people of Lady 
 Mary's time have become to us, in some degree, as aliens and 
 objects of curious observation, whose points of divergence 
 from our standards it is in like manner hard to forgive. It is 
 not of course pretended that good morals are dependent upon
 
 vm PREFACE. 
 
 time or place; but we may learn at least from these ana- 
 logies that it is unwise to expect that any men or women 
 should in these matters be far above the spirit of the society 
 in which it is their lot to live. 
 
 I cannot omit to acknowledge the obligations I am under 
 to the Earl of Harrowby, for his great liberality and kindness 
 in affording me the opportunity of publishing a correct 
 text of Lady Mary's writings, no less than for the facilities 
 accorded me for examining the large mass of the Wortley 
 papers at Sandon for the objects of this edition. To the 
 Right Honourable James Stuart Wortley I am also greatly 
 indebted for similar favours. 
 
 W. MOY THOMAS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE Hi 
 
 Memoir of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by W. Moy Thomas ... 1 
 
 49 
 122 
 123 
 135 
 
 Introductory Anecdotes, by Lady Louisa Stuart 
 
 The death of Queen Anne. A fragment found among Lady Mary's papers 
 
 Account of the Court of George the First at his Accession 
 
 Mr. Wortley Montagu on the State of Affairs when the King entered . 
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 No date. Count Turrucca's ball Learning Italian Marriage of an old maid 142 
 Sept. 1709. Madame Dunoyer's letters Mr. Selwyn's success . . . 144 
 Oct. 1709. The New Atalantis Reported marriage of Lady Essex Saville to 
 
 Lord Lonsdale Foot-match between the Duke of Grafton and Dr. Garth . 145 
 Nov. 12. 1709. Key to the New Atalantis Marriage of Mrs. Reeves to Co- 
 lonel Sydney Bath lampoons ......... 146 
 
 Nov. 1709. Thanks for favours received Character of Mrs. Collier Prepa- 
 rations for a journey to London ........ 147 
 
 Summer of 1710. Regrets Departure for Wiltshire 148 
 
 May, 1710. Visits from neighbours Life in the Country Trial of Sa- 
 
 cheverel Study of Italian 149 
 
 1711. Mr. Resingade Madame Dunoyer's Memoirs The Opera Nicolini 
 in Hydaspes Marriage of Lord Willoughby An acquaintance after the 
 manner of Pyramus and Thisbe . . . . . . . .151 
 
 1711. Prospects of a peace Domestic affairs The Spectator . . . 152 
 March, 1712. Fire in Arlington-street--Escape of Mr. and Mrs. Coleman 
 Quarrel between the Ductless of Hamilton and Captain Hero Suicide of 
 
 Sir Stephen Evans 153 
 
 No date. Marriage of Mr. Sterne to Mrs. Bateman Embarrassment of civi- 
 lities 154 
 
 Nov. 1714. Weakness of sight Meeting of Parliament The Duke of Leeds 
 York loves and piques 155 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 To Miss Anne Wortley, May 2. Arrival at Thoresby 157 
 
 To the same, Aug. 27. Illness and recovery ...... 158 
 
 To the same, March 7, 1709. Loss of a diamond Temper with which to bear 
 
 losses 158 
 
 To the same, July 21, 1709. The pleasures of imagination Difficulty of 
 
 writing 159
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 From Miss Anne Wortley, Ausr. 1709. Exchange of pearl for glass Fashion 
 Wit and beauty 160 
 
 To Miss Anne Wortley, Aug. 8, 1709. Delays of the post Study of dic- 
 tionaries and grammars Nature seldom in the wrong . . . 161 
 
 From Miss Anne Wortley, Aug. 15, 1709. Inconstancy of Lady Mary 
 Nottingham races Hinchinbrook air Lord Sandwich Nicolini at Not- 
 tingham 162 
 
 From the same, 'Aug. 20, 1709. The Cambridge Doctor Wit and learning 
 of Cowley The ploughman and the emperor 164 
 
 To Miss Wortley, Aug. 21, 1709. Imaginary wit and beauty, and imaginary 
 passions Love according to order and rule Good and bad qualities 
 Denial of dissimulation or inconstancy Stoicism ..... 166 
 
 To the same, Aug. 21, 1709. The cost of writing tenderly Learning by 
 printed rules Friendship ......... 167 
 
 From Miss Anne Wortley, Sept. 3, 1709. Uncertainty of human happiness 
 Apprehensions of a rival Learning of languages 169 
 
 To Miss Anne Wortley, Sept 5, 1709. Heretic and Christian Tenderness 
 and esteem . 171 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 To Mr. Wortley Montagu, March 28, 1710. Friendship and love The Taller 
 and the fair sex Contempt of the world General notions generally wrong 
 Ignorance and folly the best foundations for virtue .... 172 
 
 To the same, April 25, 1710. Hazard of writing Esteem, friendship, and 
 love Pleasures of travelling Personal charms Conduct for a wife . 173 
 
 To the same, Aug. 1710. Uncertainty of the post Love and affection Mr. 
 Steele Money of more value than a woman Extravagance in dress The 
 world's indulgence to its own follies Nuns and happiness . . . 175 
 
 To the same, Nov. 14, 1710. Disinterestedness Making of settlements 
 Women and slaves .......... 177 
 
 To the same, about Nov. 1710. Absence and forgetfulness The secrets of 
 the heart Man a paradox Variety of acquaintance . . . .178 
 
 To the same, Feb. 26, 1711. Resolutions broken Imaginary pleasures 
 Dryden liiddy Tipkin Sincerity and generosity ..... 179 
 
 From Mr. Wortley Montagu, March 3, 1711. Proposals to meet again Re- 
 crimination Mrs. Steele Youth and beauty . ..... 181 
 
 To Mr. Wortley Montagu, March 13, 1711. Anxieties Inconstancy of man- 
 kind in general ........... 182 
 
 To the same, March 24, 1711. The Ring, Hyde Park Happiness and re- 
 tirement Friendship and love Modesty 183 
 
 To the same, April 9, 1711. Assurance of friendship Desire of pleasing . 185 
 
 To the same, July 4, 1712. Marriage without love Interview with her father 
 Accused of disobedience Marriage settlements Happiness in privacy . 186 
 
 To the same, August, 1712. Partiality of a relation Proffers of assistance . 189 
 
 To the same, August, 1712. Writing in a passion Lady Mary's fortune 
 Four hundred pounds spent in wedding clothes Submission to her father 
 Plans for an elopement .......... 190 
 
 To tlie same, August, 1712. Imaginary faults Clandestine meetings Pin- 
 money Eternal love Cheerfulness of temper The friend and companion 
 -- Opinion of country life Self-examination The Spectator . . . 192 
 
 To the same, Aug. 15, 1712. Hopes and fears Conduct open to blame 
 Resolution taken 196 
 
 To the same, Oct. 22, 1712. Proper matrimonial style Charms of a nursery 
 Pleasures in prospect .......... 197 
 
 To the same. No date. Dismal apprehensions Complaints A woman's 
 and a lover's fears 198 
 
 To the same, Nov. 12, 1712.- Ill health and uneasiness of mind Want of 
 money ........ .... 199
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PACK 
 
 To the same, Dec. 6, 1712. Tender friendship Lord Hinchinbrook and 
 Mr. Twiman Letters of the first Earl of Sandwich Lessons of economy 
 Robin redbreast and the children in the wood 199 
 
 To the same, Dec. 9, 1712. Aunt Cheyne Lord Pierrepont Spleen and 
 melancholy Idleness and its attendant evils Worldly vanities . . 200 
 
 To the same, Dec. 9 or 11, 1712. The Bishop of Salisbury Good offices of 
 Lord Pierrepont Esteem of Lord Halifax Forbidding the banns The 
 young ladies of Huntingdon ......... "202 
 
 To the same, Dec. 1712. Quarrelling letters Bodily ailments Pout-office 
 neglect 203 
 
 To the same, July, 1713. Perplexities of removing Unreasonable fears and 
 unlimited love 204 
 
 To the same, July, 25, 1713. Return to Wharncliffe Health of their son . 205 
 
 To , Nov. 1713. Wit is pleasing as a sunshiny day. York lovers Mr. 
 
 Vanbrugh and Mrs. Yarborough Mr. Congreve . . . . .206 
 
 To Mr. Wortley Montagu, July 26, 1714. Weakness and ill health of their 
 child Marriage of Lady Frances Pierrepont Want of servants Appre- 
 hensions for the health of their son ........ 207 
 
 To the same, Aug. 4, 1714. Mr. Wortley Montagu and Lady Mary's father 
 Wise maxims Health of their boy Dr. Garth 208 
 
 To the same, Aug. 9, 1714. The Archbishop of York at Bishopthorpe Pro- 
 clamation of George the First Burning the Pretender in effigy Satisfac- 
 tion at the Hanover succession Appointment of the Lords Regents Lord 
 Wharton Value of a seat in Parliament ...... 209 
 
 To the same, Aug. 7, 1714. Complaints of neglect Castle Howard Alarm 
 of a hostile fleet The Earl of Mar 210 
 
 To the same. No date Health of the child Dr. Garth Character of Lord 
 Pelham Election expenses Lord Morpeth and Lord Carlisle Lord 
 Townshend .... 211 
 
 To the same, 1714. Anxieties respecting a seat in Parliament Illness of 
 Lord Lexington Lord Holdernesse The Princess of Wales and her ladies 
 of honour 212 
 
 To the same, Sept. 17, 1714. Parliamentary perplexities Waste of money 
 Lord Pelham's interest 213 
 
 To the same, Sept. 24, 1714. Advantages of money in election proceed- 
 ings Riches and power Impudence a necessary quality of advancement 
 Lord Halifax and R. Walpole 214 
 
 To the same, Oct. 6, 1714. The Treasury advantages in an election . . 215 
 
 To the same, Oct. 9, 1714. Disposal of places Pretensions to the Speaker- 
 shipWhigs and Tories 216 
 
 To the same, Oct. 27, 1714. Standing for three places at once Treble ex- 
 pensesMr. Steele 216 
 
 To the same, Nov. 24, 1714. Complaints of unkindne?s Charge of indiffer- 
 ence Lady Winchester Awkwardness of dissimulation .... 217 
 
 To the same, 1714. Thoughts of place Sir T. Hanmer The Place Bill . 218 
 
 To the same, April, 1716. Illness of her husband Dr. Clarke Death of 
 Somers Lady Jekyl 219 
 
 LETTERS DURING MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU'S EMBASSY TO 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 17161718. 
 Title-page of manuscript copy given by L.idy Mary to Mr. Molesworth . . 221 
 
 Preface attributed to Mrs. Mary Astell" 222 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Aug. 3, 1716. Storm at sea A frightened captain 
 Arrival at Rotterdam Dutch maids Neatness and magnificence of the 
 
 shops and houses Making a good bargain 225 
 
 To Mrs. Smith, Aug. 5. Agreeable travelling in Holland Beauty of the 
 country The Vor-Hout 227
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To Miss Sarah Chiswell, Aug. 13. Nimeguen compared to Nottingham 
 The Belvidere A moving bridge Service at the French church . . 228 
 
 To the Lady , Aug. 16. Journey to Cologne Wretched lodgings at 
 
 Stamel The Jesuits' church The skulls of the eleven thousand virgins 
 Lorraine wine the Burgundy of London 229 
 
 To the Countess of Bristol, Aug. 22, Nuremberg Difference between the 
 free towns and those under absolute princes Sumptuary laws and the cele- 
 brated Fe'nelon Farce of relics Follies of the Lutherans .... 230 
 
 To Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Aug. 30. Society at Ratisbon Piques of the ladies 
 Prudence of remaining neuter Mrs. Blackacre Crosses and Madonnas 
 Relics Silver image of the Trinity 232 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Sept. 8. Arrival at Vienna Agreeable voyage 
 down the Danube The towns of Passau and Lintz Closeness of the streets 
 Domestic arrangements Gorgeousness of the apartments Magnificence 
 of the dinner-table Count SchSnbrunn's villa and garden Beauty of the 
 empress 234 
 
 To Mr. Pope, Sept. 14. Disposition to believe in miracles Visit to the opera 
 Beauty of the Scenic representations Ridiculousness of the Austrian 
 comedies Price of admission to the opera Jeremy Collier . . . 237 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Sept. 14. First appearance at court Extraordinary 
 dress of the ladies The Bourle Description of the empress Difference 
 between the English and Austrian drawing-rooms Ladies of the Key 
 Austeritv of the empress-mother Diversions of the court Virgil's 
 Eneid " .... 239 
 
 To the Lady Rich, Sept. 20. Letter from England Vienna a paradise for 
 old women Good-natured husbands Curious custom Affairs of the heart 
 Gallantry and good breeding Religion and morality .... 243 
 
 To Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Sept. 26. Aversion to writing Points of ceremony 
 with the Austrians Wives richer than their husbands Difference shown 
 to envoys and ambassadors ......... 246 
 
 To the Lady X , Oct. 1. Some account of the customs of Vienna Ma- 
 dame Rabutin's assembly Taste in dress The convents The Count of 
 Salmes The only beautiful woman in Vienna a nun Misery the Roman 
 Catholic religion occasions ......... 248 
 
 To Mr. , Oct. 10. Pleasure and disappointment Prince of Lichtenstein's 
 
 villa The imperial cabinet at Vienna The talking crucifix . . .251 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Nov. 17. Journey to Prague Bohemia a desert 
 Remains of former splendour Extraordinary figures of the women . . 253 
 
 To the same, Nov. 21. Fatigues of travelling Frightful precipices Sleepy 
 postilions Appearance of Dresden Difference between the Saxon and Aus- 
 trian ladies Imprisonment of the Countess of Cozelle Anecdote of the 
 King of Poland Leipzig fair Fortifications and their description . . 254 
 
 To the same, Nov. 23. Arrival at Brunswick The illustrious family of 
 Wolfenbuttel 257 
 
 To the Countess of Bristol, Nov. 25. State of the German post Royal 
 family of Hanover Appearance of the young prince, afterwards Frederick 
 Prince of Wales Bad accommodation Difference of travelling in Ger- 
 many and England ........... 258 
 
 To the Lady Rich, Dec. 1. Report of returning to England The region of 
 beauty The traineau The Duke of Wolfenbuttel 259 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Dec. 17. Journey to Blankenburg Diversions of 
 the court Description of Hanover Use of stoves 261 
 
 To the Lady , Jan. 1, 1717. False rumours Carnival at Vienna Mag- 
 nificent ball-rooms An Italian comedy at court Pure air of Vienna The 
 Countess d'Aunois' novels ......... 262 
 
 To the Abbot , Jan. 2. Life at Vienna The peace of Utrecht Dinner 
 
 at Count Wurmbrand's Accomplishments of Count Tarrocco J. B. Rous- 
 seau The philosopher's stone Prince Eugene and Count Bonneval The 
 fine arts ............. 264
 
 CONTENTS. XU1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Jan. 16. Departure from Vienna Journey through 
 Hungary Fondness of the princes of Germany for dwarfs Society at 
 Vienna Dangers of the journey through Hungary The young Priuce of 
 Portugal A mother's fondness 267 
 
 To Mr. P., Jan. 16. Preparations for the journey Adieus to friends . . 270 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Jan. 30. Safe arrival at Peterwaradin An account 
 of the journey through Hungary The town of Raab Buda, once the seat 
 of the Hungarian kings Solyman the Magnificent Crossing the Danube 
 on the ice The Hungarian ladies Turkish formalities Scraps of history . 270 
 
 To Mr. Pope, Feb. 12. Leave Peterwaradin The battle-field of Carlowitz 
 A state of nature a state of war Arrival at Belgrade The janissaries and 
 their pasha Achmet Beg Arabian poetry Desire to leave Belgrade . 276 
 
 To her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, April 1. Crossing the deserts 
 of Servia Abundant vintage at Nissa Insolence of the soldiers Medi- 
 cinal virtues of the hot baths of Sophia Arrival at Philipopoli Beauty 
 of the country Adrianople . . . . . . . . .281 
 
 To the Lady , April 1. Change of scene Turkish coaches Visit to the 
 
 bagnio Description of the baths Civility of the ladies Ruins of Justi- 
 nian's church ............ 283 
 
 To the Abbe' Conti, April 1. Imperfect relations of the manners and religion 
 of the Turks Poverty of the Servians, and oppression of the janissaries 
 The Grand Signior Mahometanism and Christianity The Alcoran The 
 Paulines The ArnaiJut religion Trajan's Gate Industry of the peasants 
 of Bulgaria .... 287 
 
 To the Countess of Bristol, April 1. Marriage of the Grand Signior's eldest 
 daughter The Turkish government Procession to the mosque The 
 French ambassadress Unlimited power of the janissaries . . . 292 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, April 1. Description of a Turkish dress Morality 
 of the ladies Privileges of the harem 296 
 
 To Mr. Pope, April 1. Remarkable accident The banks of the Hebrus 
 Diversions of the Turks Turkish gardeners The Idyllinms of Theocritus 
 Pleasure derived from reading Pope's Homer Grecian dances Scripture 
 language Turkish verses addressed to the Sultana Study of the Ori- 
 ental language 300 
 
 To Miss Sarah Chiswell, April 1. Stories of the plague Harmlessness of the 
 small-pox by the invention of ingrafting Superstition of the Greeks 
 Desire to benefit the English 307 
 
 To Mrs. Thistletbwayte, April 1. The camel Beasts of burden First side- 
 saddle seen in Adrianople Turtles and storks Description of the houses 
 The chiosk The public inns 309 
 
 To Mrs. Hewet, April 1. Want of leisure to write Travels through Euro- 
 pean Turkey Health of the family ....... 313 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, April 18. Invitation to dine with the Grand Vizier's 
 lady Account of the dinner Visit to the kiykya's lady the fair Fatima 
 Turkish music Presents from Fatima 314 
 
 To the Abbe' Conti, May 17. Leaving Adrianople Some description of the 
 place The Exchange Privileges of the Jews English, French, and Ita- 
 lian merchants The pasha of three tails March of the troops to the 
 frontiers The procession through the principal streets The mosque of 
 Sultan Selim I. Mr. Wortley's audience ...... 820 
 
 To the same, May 29. Pleasures of the journey to Constantinople The Sea 
 of Marmora Curious bedroom Beauty of the women Pera The bury- 
 ing-grounds Peculiarities of the Mahometan religion Greek antiquities 
 The Seven Towers 326 
 
 To Mr. Pope, June 17. Heat of Constantinople The Belgrade village 
 The Black Sea Hankering after friends and acquaintance Human souls 
 and human passions Killing time Warmth of friendship . . . 831 
 
 To the Lady , June 17. Commission to buy a Greek slave Pride of the 
 
 Turks Balm of Mecca Love charms ....... 333
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 To Mr. P., Sept. 1. Loss of Belgrade to the Turks Victor}' gained by the 
 Imperialists over the Ottoman troops Consternation of the people Con- 
 duct of the janissaries during the battle State of society Turkish ladies 
 and Grecian belles Three happy poets Playing the critic . . . 336 
 
 To Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Jan. 4, 1718. Mahomet's pigeon Expected increase 
 of family The French ambassadress Dread of fire and plague Cause of 
 the numerous fires Beauty of the climate Turkish law .... 339 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, March 10. Birth of a daughter Sultana Hafiten 
 Her grief for the loss of her husband Elegance of her apartments 
 Description of her dress Magnificence of the dinner-table The seraglio 
 Beauty of her slaves Visit to a harem Meeting with Fatima again 
 Well turned compliment 342 
 
 To the Lady , March 16. A Turkish love-letter Danger of losing the 
 
 English language The Tower of Babel 350 
 
 To Mr. Wortley Montagu, March 23. Her son engrafted with the small-pox 352 
 
 To the Countess of Bristol, April 10. Pera, Tophana, and Galata The 
 asmack, or Turkish veil Variety of prospects down the Bosphorus The 
 seraglio St. Sophia The mosque of Sultan Solyman Impudence of 
 authors The exchanges The devotions of the dervises .... 353 
 
 To the Countess of . No date. Preparations for leaving Constantinople 
 
 Knolles and Sir Paul Rycaut The sweating pillar of Mr. Hill Plea- 
 sures enjoyed by the Turkish women A Turkish bride Ceremonies used 
 on the occasion A Spanish woman married to a Turk The custom of 
 adoption among the Turks, Greeks, and Armenians Lenten diet of the 
 Armenians Their matrimonial ceremonies ...... 359 
 
 To the Abbe Conti, May 19. The Turkish court Mistake of Gemelli con- 
 cerning Calcedon Magnificent pleasure-seats The palace of the Grand 
 Vizier The study of present pleasure ....... 367 
 
 To the same. No date. Difficulties of writing in a foreign language The 
 Greek priests and the Alcoran False notions respecting the Turkish wo- 
 men The Turkish effendis Mixture of races Greek expensiveness and 
 Dutch frugality 370 
 
 To the same, July 31. Voyage to Tunis Hero and Leander The Castle of 
 Abydos Mount Ida Burial-place of Hecuba Cape Janizary Greek an- 
 tiquities The Scamander Menelans and Paris The sepulchre of Ajax 
 Ancient Latin inscriptions Apollo and Daphne The ^Eguan Sea The 
 temple of Minerva Ancient mythology View of Mount Etna Arrival at 
 Malta The Turkish Ramadan Tunis The ruins of Carthage . . 374 
 
 To the Countess of Mar, Aug. 28. Excessive heat of Tunis Genoa Pla- 
 tonic friendship Andrea Doria The fine arts The church of the Annun- 
 ciation ............. 384 
 
 To the Countess of , Sept. 12. Situation of Turin Visit to the Queen 
 
 The Prince of Piedmont Fashion in Turin 388 
 
 To Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Sept. 25. Arrival at Lyons Illness of Lady Mary 
 Ascent of Mount Cenis 389 
 
 To Mr. P., Sept. 28. Thoughts on returning to England Brass tablets A 
 Roman aqueduct The cathedral of St. John French statues The Saone 
 and Rhone 391 
 
 To the Lady Rich, Oct. 10. The air of Paris Misery of the French villages 
 The palace of Fontainebleau The fair of St. Lawrence The tragedy of 
 Bajazet French and English women contrasted ..... 394 
 
 To Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Oct. 16. An agreeable surprise Versailles, Trianon, 
 Marli, and St. Cloud The King's cabinet of antiquities Le Brun The 
 Archangel of Raphael The Tuilleries Paris and London contrasted . 396 
 
 To Mr. P. No date. Sights of Paris Staring a la mode French manners 
 Infancy and manhood The statue of Jupiter Inconstancy of French taste 398 
 
 To the Abbe' Conti, Oct. 31. Arrival at Dover Rough passage Distress of 
 a fellow-passenger Reflections on knowledge ...... 400 
 
 To Mr. Pope, Nov. 1. John Hughes, or Hewet, and Sarah Drew Verses on 
 their death . ... 402
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 TETTERS FROM POPE TO LADY MART WORTLET MONTAGU. 
 17161721. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 July, 1716. Desire to please 404 
 
 Aug. 18, 1716. Thinking aloud The prudes of this world Female wisdom 
 Regret at parting 405 
 
 Aug. 20, 1716. Brutus and his evil genius An attendant spirit Health 
 of Mr. Congreve Praises of the Duke of Buckingham .... 409 
 
 No date. An odd compliment Pleasant news Freedom of correspondence 
 Hate of the king and his government . . . . . . .411 
 
 No date. Pleasant wishes J. B. Rousseau's works Addison, Spenser, and 
 Congreve 414 
 
 October, 1716. Dreams by night and reveries by day Guardian angels 
 Truths of the heart Request for a Circassian slave Friendly advice . 416 
 
 Nov. 10, 1716. Pleasure in reveries Mrs. Macfarlane and her lover Love 
 is blind Articles of faith The epitaph of Tibullus Fontenelle Visit 
 to York and Bath Lady Rich 419 
 
 Feb. 3, 1717. Unquietness of mind Pleasures of Italy Ravings of an enthu- 
 siast 424 
 
 Jane, 1717. Pleasures of memory Letters from Mr. Congreve and Lady 
 Rich Failure of eyesight Ill-health and ill-fortune Homer The Iliad 
 The Epistle of Eloisa to Abplard The theatre in the Haymarkct Lady 
 Molina's marriage Political parties Walpole and Stanhope . . . 426 
 
 October, 1717. Poetic t il descriptions Endymion and Cynthia Pitt's dia- 
 mond Jeffery Uudel and the Countess of Tripoly The Town Eclogues 
 The fair Circassian Mr. Congreve, Dr. Garth, Sir Robert Rich, Mr. Craggs, 
 and the Duke of Buckingham 430 
 
 No date. Severe illness and recovery Death of his father Desire for Lady 
 Mary's return Marriage of Molyneux Rupture of the two courts Soli- 
 tude of Hampton Court 433 
 
 September 1, 1718. Another dangerous illness True nature and simplicity 
 of manners Accident at Lord Harcourt's John Hewet and Sarah Drew 
 killed by lightning Epitaphs written on the occasion .... 436 
 
 No date. Joy at Lady Mary's return. Description of an old country-house . -140 
 
 No date. Esteem for Lad v Mary 444 
 
 No date. Desire for Lady Mary's portrait to be painted .... 444 
 
 No date. Kindness of Sir Godfrey Kneller 415 
 
 March 16, 1720. Wish for Lady Mary's residence at Twickenham Lord 
 Coventry's house Lord Bathurst The Town Eclogues .... 445 
 
 Aug. 22, 1720. Fall in South Sea Stock 446 
 
 Sept. 15, 1721. Loan of an harpsichord Musical company Invitation to 
 Twickenham Lady Godolphin .... ... 447 
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 1721-1727. 
 
 1721. Good nature and credulity M. Remond and the South Sea Stock 
 Fall in price Correspondence with M. Re'mond False accusations 
 Anxiety regarding her letters 449 
 
 No date. Mental anguish M. Hdmond's affairs 452 
 
 No date. Residence at Twickenham Lady Stafford Falsehoods of M. 
 Re'raond . 453 
 
 June, 1721. M. Remond's letter to Mr. Wortley Proposals for settling the 
 affair Mind ill at ease Mr. Strickland's good fortune . . . 454 
 
 No date. Infamy of M. Remond's proceedings Fear of Mr. Worthy's be- 
 coming acquainted with the business Expressions of uneasiness . . 4/>4
 
 XVJ CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 No date. Renewal of M. Remond's threats Desire to be rid of hearins from 
 him Indolence at Twickenham ...... 456 
 
 July, 1721. Affection of Mr. and Mrs. Hervey Declining health Mourning 
 for Lady Pierrepont Lady Loudon and Lady Stair near neighbours . 457 
 
 No date. Designs of M. Re'mond Plans to be pursued .... 458 
 
 Aug. 1721. Thanks for interest taken in her affairs Accouchement of Lady 
 Gower The Duchess of Kingston preparing for the Bath Marriage of 
 Lady Jane Wbarton .......... 458 
 
 Sept. 6, 1721. An admirer of concerts Mrs. Robinson and Senesino Legal 
 advice respecting M. Remond's affairs Willingness to abandon her letters 
 Mrs. Stoner 459 
 
 No date. Threatening letter from M. Re'mond Groundless accusations of ill 
 consequence to women . . . . . . . . . .460 
 
 April or May, 1722. Growth and spread of the inoculation of the small-pox 
 Pope's grotto at Twickenham Some verses addressed by Pope to Gay . 461 
 
 No date. Charles Churchill Alterations at the residence at Twickenham 
 Education of her daughter The French coronation, and the price of 
 diamonds 462 
 
 Dec. 25, 1722. Post-office neglect Accident to the brother of Lord Finch 
 Sally Salisbury The Count de Caylus 463 
 
 April, 1723. Sudden death of Lady Dowager Gower Flourishing state of 
 the Opera The Duchess of Montagu and her daughter Belle The Duke of 
 Manchester Opening of letters ........ 464 
 
 1723. The Duchess of Montagu's journey to Paris Prorogation of Par- 
 liament Vile ballads on Mrs. Lowther Accouchement of Mrs. Hervey 
 Lady Betty Manners and Mr. Monckton Multiplicity of poets Making 
 verses as common as taking snuff Fast-day for the plague . . . 465 
 
 1723. Madame Cantillon Return of Mrs. Davenant from Genoa Lady 
 Byng's children inoculated with the small-pox Its general adoption Lady 
 Mary Sanderson and the Earl of Pembroke . ..... 468 
 
 1723. Mrs. Murray at Castle-Howard The Countess of Bristol Colonel 
 Cotton and Mr. Braddocks Lord Hillsborough's new yacht Rupture 
 between Lord and Lady Gage, and treaty of separation .... 469 
 
 July, 1723. The value of a letter Death of her nephew, Lady Gower's son, 
 of the small-pox Twickenham compared to Tunbridge and the Bath . 471 
 
 1723. Transitory pleasures Frequency of death and sickness The Elysian 
 shades of Richmond The Duchess of Marlborough Death of her uncle 
 Fielding 471 
 
 Oct. 31. The birth-night of the Prince of Wales Agreeable ideas Mrs. 
 West, and Lord Haddington and Mr. Lindsay Plain-dealing and hypocrisy 
 Walpole, William Yonge, and Bubb Dodington The forlorn state of 
 matrimony Biddy Noel ......... 473 
 
 Feb. 1724. Time wasted and wit neglected Fashion of the shoulder-knot 
 Miss Howard Senesino and Mrs. Robinson Lord Stanhope and Lord 
 Peterborough The Duke of Wharton president of a committee of gallantry 
 called the "Schemers" Suicide of Lord Teynham Marriage of Mrs. 
 Strickland 474 
 
 No date. Superfluous diamonds Madame de Broglie Lord Clare and the 
 ladies The Duke and Duchess of Wharton . ... 478 
 
 Jan. 1725. Vanity and credulity the pleasures of life Lady Stafford and 
 Molly Skerritt The Duchess of Montagu a reigning beauty Contentment 
 of present life ........... 479 
 
 Feb. 1725. Quarrel between Lady Hervey and Lady Bristol Ned Thompson 
 and Belle Dunch Flourishing state of the public resorts Duel between 
 Mr. Cooke and J. Staplcton Marriage of Bridget Noel to Lord Milsington 
 Remembrance of old friends ......... 480 
 
 1725. Bad eyesight Inoculation of Lord Dorchester and her sister Caroline 
 The Duchess of Kingston The cause of quarrel with Mrs. Murray 
 Lord Irwin . . 482
 
 CONTENTS. XVU 
 
 FAM 
 
 1725. Society in London The Duchess of Marlboroogh and Bononcini's 
 concerts Lady Lansdowne Madame Villette, the favourite and now the 
 aversion of the town The vivacious Lord Bathurst .... 483 
 
 March or April, 1725. Death of Lord Carleton Lady Clarendon and the 
 Duchess of Queensberry Lady Gainsborough and Lord Shaftesbury . 485 
 
 1725. Business and pleasure Miss Skerritt and Lady Stafford . . . 486 
 
 1725. Complications Dismissal of Mr. Baillie from the Treasury Mr. An- 
 nesley and his wife 487 
 
 Sept 1725. Miscarriage of letters Lady Roinney and Lord Carmichael 
 The Earl of Stair and Lady Mary Howard 487 
 
 1725. Occupation at Twickenham Hunting in Richmond Park Return of 
 Lord Bolingbroke to England Lord Bathurst and Mrs. Howard The King 
 of France The Duke of Bedford and his bride Mrs. Murray and Mr. 
 Dodington Lord Carteret's wit 489 
 
 1725. The folly of mankind an inexhaustible source of amusement No 
 smoke without fire Lady Lechmere's losses at play at Bath Lord Denbigh 
 and his Dutch lady 490 
 
 1725. Attempted suicide of Lady Lechmere by poison Lady Hervey's in- 
 trigue Marriage of her Chelsea Grace of Rutland to an attorney . . 492 
 
 1725. Infamous ballad on a new married pair Vile imputation Sale of a 
 diamond The new opera .......... 493 
 
 March 7, 1726. Death of her father, the Duke of Kingston . . . 494 
 
 April 15, 1726. Domestic affairs, and strange behaviour of the duchess . 494 
 
 April, 1726. Filial piety and fatherly fondness The addition to her grace's 
 jointure The quarrel with Mrs. Murray Sale of Sir Godfrey Kneller's 
 pictures ............. 495 
 
 1726. Kindness of her father at last Servile complaisance of her aunt and 
 sister to the duchess Education of the young Duke of Kingston Wars 
 and rumours of wars Mutability of sublunary things .... 497 
 
 June, 1726. Proposed trip to Paris State of the English nation Madame 
 de Se'vign^'s Letters Death of Miss Chiswell from small-pox The Earl of 
 Stair's passion for Lady Walpole 498 
 
 1726. Miscarriage of a letter full of news Determination to visit Paris. 500 
 
 July, 1726. Wrong notions in London respecting Paris Reigning belles 
 and old women Lady F. Pierrepont's education The Duke of Kingston 
 in France Parental cares Freaks of youth 500 
 
 Nov. 1726. Agreeable pastimes Peg Pelham's marriage Excitement on 
 the publication of Gulliver's Travels ....... 601 
 
 March, 1727. Beauty of Jane Leveson Gower A family party at the play 
 Rage for assemblies Love and play Removal of Lady Stafford to Paris . 502 
 
 April, 1727. Lady Stafford's departure for France Moral Reflections 
 Peace or war Domestic affairs Nell Gwyn with the sex altered Her 
 Grace of Cleveland Some verses on her grace . ..... 503 
 
 May or June, 1727. Cure for lowness of spirit Lord Middleton and Sir J. 
 Gifford at Twickenham Swift, Gay, and Pope at Twickenham . . 506 
 
 June, 1727. Death of her sister Gower Affliction of Lord Gower and Lady 
 Cheyne 607 
 
 July, 1727. Sorrow not worth cherishing Lady Lansdowne and Lord Dun- 
 more Not a Tory left in England Complaints of her son's conduct 
 Rules for the banishment of melancholy 507 
 
 No date. Air, c-xercise, and company the best of medicines M. Remond's 
 history Family matters A diverting story 508 
 
 Aug. 1727. Uneasiness on account of her son's flight and concealment 
 Effects of his behaviour on her disposition . , . . . .611 
 
 Sept. 1727. Fool and knave Common sense Views of life . . . 512 
 
 Oct. 1727. Coronation day, and remarks on the company present . . 613
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 IAD1 MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 BY W. MOY THOMAS. 
 
 LADY LOUISA STUART has given, in the Introductory 
 Anecdotes prefixed to this edition, a sketch of the family 
 history of Lady Mary, to which it will not be necessary to 
 add many particulars. The " Wiltshire heiress" there alluded 
 to, the paternal grandmother of Lady Mary, is however 
 worthy of something more than a passing allusion. She was 
 the daughter of Sir John Evelyn, of West Dean, in Wiltshire, 
 a branch of the family rendered illustrious by including the 
 author of " Sylva." Evelyn has, indeed, an allusion to her in 
 his " Diary," which becomes interesting from the glimpse that 
 it affords of her remarkable mental powers. Under the date 
 of 2nd of July, 1649, he records a day spent at Godstone, 
 where Sir John was on a visit with this daughter, and he 
 adds : " Mem. The prodigious memory of Sir John of Wilts's 
 daughter, since married to Mr. W. 1 Pierrepont." We may, at 
 least, assume that she was in some way an extraordinary 
 person. Among the old monuments in the church at West 
 Dean is one to Sir John, set up by this daughter, with a long 
 
 1 Evelyn is here in error. Sir John of Wilts's daughter married the Honourable 
 Robert Pierrepont, son of " Wise William," alluded to in the " Introductory Anec- 
 dotes." 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 i 
 
 inscription in prose and verse, probably from the lady's own 
 pen. The few traces she has left behind, point to an intel- 
 ligent and worthy woman. Her father left her his large pro- 
 perty, in confidence that if her younger son, Evelyn, after- 
 wards the father of Lady Mary, should prove a dutiful son, 
 she would settle the whole of the estates upon him. Elizabeth 
 Pierrepont survived her husband many years, no doubt bring- 
 ing up her family in the noble old manor-house at West Dean. 
 She had three sons, all of whom were successively Earls of 
 Kingston. Her daughter married William Lord Cheyne, 
 and is the " Aunt Cheyne" frequently mentioned in the 
 letters. Evelyn, the younger, and the favourite of his grand- 
 father, survived his two brothers ; and when his wife died in 
 1692, Lady Mary, then a child of three years old, would 
 probably go to West Dean to be under the care of this grand- 
 mother, now left alone. Lady Mary tells us that she quitted 
 West Dean at eight years old, which was about two years 
 before her grandmother's death ; and she did not return 
 there till her time of womanhood. She must have remem- 
 bered her grandmother, who could not fail to take delight 
 in the growing intelligence of the child of her favourite son. 
 That Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont communicated to her grand- 
 daughter something of the vivacity and shrewdness of her 
 earlier days, and that in her remote solitude at West Dean, 
 where within the present century the solemn house, its ancient 
 avenues of trees, its dismantled terraces and bowling-green, 
 were still objects of admiration, she taught her to read the 
 old books in the library of the Evelyns, is a fancy which can 
 hardly be altogether wide of the truth. The grandmother, 
 on her mother's side, with whom Lady Mary tells us she 
 maintained a "regular commerce" when a girl, appears to 
 have been a no less remarkable person. She died at ninety- 
 six, after Lady Mary's return from the East. 
 
 When Evelyn Pierrepont married he had one elder brother, 
 then Earl of Kingston, still living, and he had not yet inherited 
 the property which his grandfather had designed for him. He 
 appears, when Lady Mary was born, to have had lodgings
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 3 
 
 in Covent Garden, London, then a fashionable quarter ; for 
 although Lady Mary, who was his eldest child, was baptised 
 at the church there, I do not find the name of her father 
 among the occupiers of houses mentioned in the parish rate 
 books of the period, which are still existing. The baptism 
 of Lady Mary is entered in the registry under the date of 
 26 May, 1689, " Mary, daughter of Evelyn Peirpoint, Esq., by 
 the Lady Mary, his wife." Evelyn succeeded to the earldom 
 in 1690; and eight years afterwards, upon the death of his 
 mother, he inherited the Evelyn estates. As the transmission of 
 the property to him was left to the discretion of his mother, it 
 may be assumed that he proved a good son. He appears, from 
 every account, to have had no vices beyond a thoughtlessness 
 and love of pleasure. He took a busy part in the politics of the 
 stirring times in which he lived, and was a conspicuous man 
 in the reigns of Queen Anne and George the First. He was 
 created Marquis of Dorchester in 1706, and Duke of King- 
 ston in 1715. Lady Mary's complaint was, that he entrusted 
 the training of his children too much to subordinates. She 
 herself was left, she tells us, " to the care of an old governess, 
 who, though perfectly good and pious, wanted capacity" for her 
 task. It does not appear that her father determined to give 
 her an education beyond what was generally thought sufficient 
 for the daughter of a nobleman in those days ; but her love of 
 reading, and the "well furnished library" in her father's house, 
 quickly supplied the defects of her instructor. As with most 
 persons whose learning is self-acquired, she appears to have 
 begun with reading greedily works of fiction and entertain- 
 ment, the old courtly romances then in fashion ; and among 
 the Wortley papers are some fragments of romantic stories in 
 her own neat handwriting, which appear to have been early 
 attempts to imitate her favourite writers. Graver studies 
 succeeded. By the " help of an uncommon memory and inde- 
 fatigable labour" she taught herself the Latin language, and 
 soon became known among her friends for her acquirements 
 and attachment to learning. From the account in her own 
 handwriting, from which I am now quoting, we learn that it was
 
 4 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 her critical observations on a new play which, at their first meet- 
 ing, struck Mr. Wortley with surprise. They met at a party 
 given by a friend of Lady Mary's, a young lady much older 
 than herself, to whom he was supposed to be paying his ad- 
 dresses. Lady Mary records with triumph the attraction which 
 he found in her conversation, though then a girl of " only four- 
 teen." Mr. Wortley was considerably older ; but the interest 
 which he took in her soon ripened into friendship, and finally 
 led to that strange courtship and marriage recorded in their 
 letters. 
 
 Mr. Wortley had two sisters, who became friends and 
 correspondents of Lady Mary. Of these Anne appears to 
 have been the favourite, and some of the letters which passed 
 between them have been preserved, and are among the 
 published letters. Miss Anne Wortley's letters were, how- 
 ever, generally composed by her brother, and the drafts of 
 them are still existing. This fact could not have been un- 
 known to Lady Mary; for she occasionally received a note 
 from her friend which, in style and matter, was ludicrously 
 unlike the more laboured compositions of the brother's 
 dictation. It is evident that Lady Mary, in her answers, 
 strove to do her best, and to display as much of her wit and 
 accomplishments as the occasion would allow; but the girl 
 had grown to full womanhood before any distinct traces of 
 love-making can be found in the letters. In the prosecution 
 of her studies, Mr. Wortley, through his sister, was her fre- 
 quent guide. In one letter, Miss Wortley says, " If you have 
 any more queries about Latin, you must send them quick, for 
 a week hence I shall be alone." Lady Mary, however, affected 
 to see nothing in all this, or in all the compliments to her 
 wit and beauty, but female friendship. By-and-by came 
 jealous allusions to somebody who had escorted Lady Mary to 
 the races at Nottingham ; of which she affects to be equally 
 unable to perceive the drift. After " giving me imaginary 
 passions," she writes, " you tell me I'm in love ; if I am, 'tis 
 a perfect sin of ignorance ; for I don't so much as know the 
 man's name ;" then she adds, " pray tell me the name of
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. D 
 
 him I love, that I may (according to the laudable custom 
 of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and teach 
 it to the echoes." Such a challenge was not likely to be long 
 unaccepted ; the reply, whatever it may have been, seems at 
 once to have brought matters to a point. " To be capable of 
 preferring the despicable wretch you mention to Mr. Wort- 
 ley," she writes, " is as ridiculous, if not as criminal, as for- 
 saking the Deity to worship a calf ; . . . . my tenderness is 
 always built upon my esteem, and when the foundation 
 perishes, it falls." This, however, was, of course, to be a 
 secret. Miss Wortley was the only creature she ever made a 
 confidante in such a case it was, in fact, " the greatest secret 
 of her life." But can we be wrong in supposing that the 
 confidante betrayed her trust, and that the very man from 
 whose eyes this important confession should have been kept, 
 was once more permitted to read the young lady's letter and 
 dictate the reply? 
 
 Mr. Wortley, doubtless, had peculiar attractions in Lady 
 Mary's eyes. He was a man of learning, a friend and asso- 
 ciate of the most eminent literary men of his day ; he had 
 travelled in company with his friend Addison in countries 
 whose manners and customs were very early the subject 
 of her dreams. For a knowledge of those classic authors, 
 which at this time were her passion, he enjoyed a reputa- 
 tion among the best scholars. It is probable that he contri- 
 buted papers to the Tatler or Spectator. It is certain that 
 both Addison and Steele, his most intimate friends, were in 
 the habit of asking him for hints and heads for papers ; and 
 there are among the Wortley Manuscripts original sketches 
 of essays, which may be found in the Tatler. The second 
 volume of the Tatler is dedicated to him in an epistle, which 
 has so much more of heart and freshness than the ordinary 
 dedications of that time, that we may safely attribute it to 
 Steele's own hand. " The images which you will meet with 
 here," says the epistle, " will be very faint, after the perusal 
 of the Greeks and Romans, who are your ordinary com- 
 panions. I must confess I am obliged to you for the taste of
 
 6 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 many of their excellencies, which I had not observed till you 
 pointed them to me. I am very proud that there are some 
 things in these papers which I know you pardon, and it is no 
 small pleasure to have one's labours suffered by the judg- 
 ment of a man who so well understands the true charms of 
 eloquence and poesy." The writer then adds, "May you 
 enjoy a long continuance of the true relish of the happiness 
 Heaven has bestowed upon you. I know not how to say a 
 more affectionate thing to you, than to wish that you may 
 be always what you are." The kind-hearted Steele was the 
 friend and confidant of the lovers throughout then' courtship. 
 
 Even the fact of his being considerably older than Lady 
 Mary, did not, I suspect, detract from Mr. Wortley's merits 
 in her estimation ; his common sense, knowledge of life, and 
 firm and settled character, inspired her with a respect, which 
 was never lessened to the last, and is remarkably conspicuous 
 in all her letters. He represented at various times Hun- 
 tingdon, Westminster, and Peterborough in Parliament, and 
 appears to have been a member of that class who win respect- 
 ful attention by sober earnestness and business quah'ties. He 
 was, moreover an indispensable point in those times of party 
 animosity a firm Whig, who maintained his principles through 
 the latter part of Queen Anne's reign, when the Whigs had 
 fallen upon evil days ; the principles which Lady Mary had 
 learnt to believe were the only professions of true patriots and 
 honest men. Of his personal appearance the reader may 
 judge from the engraving of the only portrait known to exist, 
 which accompanies this edition. 
 
 Miss Anne Wortley died about the end of the year 1709, 
 and soon afterwards the correspondence began directly be- 
 tween the lovers. Among the published letters will be found 
 what is evidently the first of the series written by Lady Mary, 
 which Mr. Wortley has indorsed with the date "28 March," 
 and which was probably written in 1710. The curious inter- 
 mixture of plain speaking and sober discussion of their position 
 and prospects, has struck most readers. The early letters are, 
 indeed, altogether unlike what a young lady of twenty might
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. < 
 
 be expected to write to her lover; but the writer is mani- 
 festly anxious to remove by her style and remarks some pre- 
 conceived notions in the mind of her correspondent. Mr. 
 Wortley had seen her surrounded by flatterers and admirers 
 at " the drawing room," at the ball, and in the park ; he 
 fancied that her beauty and accomplishments, her romantic 
 reading, and natural love of approbation, were all calculated 
 to draw her away from her studies, and he charged her 
 indeed with a growing levity and love of pleasure. Lady 
 Mary protested in vain, and could only hope, by the plain 
 sense of her style, by frequent protestations of contempt for 
 romantic notions, and for the vanities of court life, to persuade 
 him that she had exactly that sort of character which suited 
 best with his ideal of a perfect young lady. But her sense 
 her wit as they then called it alarmed him more. Such talents 
 could paint then* owner in any colours she was pleased to wear. 
 She had once unfortunately told his sister that it was " as easy 
 to ttTite kindly to a hobby-horse as to a woman, nay, or a 
 man ;" and in truth, when a young and beautiful lady took to 
 discoursing of human life, of marriage, its obligations and 
 duties, with the calm sagacity of a grey-headed matron, it 
 wanted even less than her lover's natural suspicion to suggest 
 that such letters were a mere exercise of her literary skill. 
 
 Of her love for him, nevertheless, Mr. Wortley could 
 have had no doubt. lie had confessions of it under her own 
 hand ; but he had a hundred indirect proofs far more 
 convincing. After reading the whole of that correspon- 
 dence, of which the letters given in this volume are a spe- 
 cimen, I cannot acquit him of having pursued a course 
 which was in some degree ungenerous. He resorted to an 
 infinite variety of artifices, generally deemed more or less 
 pardonable on such occasions, for obtaining a direct avowal 
 of her love for him ; but when he had succeeded he was never 
 tired of extorting from her new confessions. At first, with a 
 transparent gaiety, she banters him upon the common-sense 
 side generally discoverable in lovers' despair, and strives hard 
 to fortify herself in her citadel of womanly modesty and
 
 8 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 prudent reserve. She bids him expect all that is complaisant, 
 but never what is fond; and calmly assures him that if he 
 can live with a companion who will have all the deference 
 due to his superior good sense, and if his proposals should 
 be agreeable to her friends, she has nothing to say against 
 them. Her correspondent, however, was an older and a 
 better tactician. He gradually led her into admissions upon 
 which she occasionally looks back with alarm, and yet gets 
 farther and farther from the standard of strict propriety which 
 she had originally set up. Sometimes he is full of humility, 
 and ready to submit to anything for a word of kindness ; 
 sometimes jealous and angry; sometimes in ill-health, and 
 about to go abroad he knows not for how long; occasion- 
 ally so indifferent about her letters that he allows them to 
 accumulate in town unti) he finds four or five awaiting his 
 perusal. Poor Lady Mary had no weapon against these 
 stratagems ; but occasionally a show of anger and a determi- 
 nation to see him no more, which, upon a kinder letter from 
 him, soon melted away. 
 
 The reader will find in the Introductory Anecdotes an ac- 
 count of the differences which arose between Mr. Wortley and 
 Lady Mary's father as to the settlement. Mr. Wortley ob- 
 jected to settle his property upon a future son, and the Mar- 
 quis of Dorchester, like an English nobleman, declared that he 
 would never run the risk of seeing his grandchildren beggars. 
 The negotiations were broken off, and afterwards renewed; 
 but the lover maintained his point. It appears that there 
 was no other objection to his suit : her father had acknow- 
 ledged him to be worthy of being the husband of his daughter ; 
 from her girlhood he had been her friend and adviser the 
 guide of her studies and sympathiser in her literary tastes. 
 Their acquaintance had ripened into an affection that on her 
 part was full of respect and tenderness, and on his was 
 scarcely less deep and sincere. Young readers will, I fear, 
 never be brought to regard their stealthy continuance of the 
 correspondence as a crime. There were at least members of 
 Lady Mary's own family who secretly aided them. Her uncle,
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 9 
 
 Mr. William Fielding, was the friend and advocate of their 
 cause ; her brother, Lord Kingston, was entrusted with their 
 secrets. Outside that circle, numerous were the friends and 
 agents employed, from good-natured Steele and his wife, whose 
 strict propriety appears to have been suspended for the occasion, 
 to Betty Laskey, or Lascue, who lived at the Bunch of Grapes 
 and Queen's Head, at Knightsbridge, and who carried letters 
 between Mr. Wortley's lodgings, in Queen-street, Lincoln's 
 Inn-fields, or at Kensington, and the Marquis of Dorchester's 
 houses at Acton and Arlington-street, where Lady Mary passed 
 the gay season, after the solitudes of Thoresby and West Dean. 
 Still more various were the stratagems for meeting and 
 whispering unobserved at the Opera, or at a morning visit at 
 Corticelli the singer's house, or a chance call at Lady Jekyll's, 
 or at Dr. Garth's ball, the Queen's drawing-room, Mrs. Steele' s, 
 in Bloomsbury-square ; or, coming down the stairs, after ser- 
 vice, at the Chapel of St. James's ; though oftentimes her 
 jealous lover had to content himself with a glance at her as she 
 sat talking with a fancied rival at the play, or swept by him in 
 her father's carriage in the Ring in Hyde Park. 
 
 Lady Mary was now in her twenty-fourth year, and the 
 formal negotiations with Mr. Wortley being at an end, her 
 father, after a fashion which was less often questioned then 
 than now, proceeded to choose a husband for his daughter, 
 regardless of her sentiments. Who was this intended husband 
 does not appear. He is mentioned, however, as a " Mr. K.," 
 and his estates appear from some allusions to have been in 
 Ireland. He offered to make such settlements and provisions 
 as were demanded, and had liberal ideas upon the important 
 subject of pin money. Nevertheless, Lady Mary speaks of 
 him as a man she " hated." The progress of the affair will 
 be found detailed in one of her letters to Mr. Wortley. The 
 father determined the marriage should proceed; and now 
 came the critical moment when her lover must find some 
 solution of the difficulty, or renounce all hope. Mr. Wortley 
 was obstinate upon his point ; Lady Mary declared that she 
 would not herself " make such ridiculous settlements," and
 
 10 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 that she could not blame him " for being in the right." Their 
 resolution was now taken : when the latest moment had 
 arrived, it was determined to fly. Provided with a wedding 
 license and a clergyman, Mr. Wortley was to await her in 
 a coach near her father's house. There is some obscurity as 
 to the scene of the elopement. I believe it was intended to be 
 from Acton, but that the plan was interrupted by her father 
 determining to send her to the house at West Dean ; and that 
 it was shortly before the time fixed for her return from thence 
 that Mr. Wortley, who had followed her, at length succeeded in 
 carrying her away. Her brother, who had accompanied her 
 into Wiltshire, appears to have shrunk from the responsibility 
 of actually aiding their flight ; but they had a firm friend in 
 Mrs. Anne Thistlethwayte, of Winterslow, close by, the lady 
 to whom some of the letters from the East were addressed, 
 and in Grace, Lady Mary's attendant, who, no doubt, fled 
 with her mistress, and was the " Grace," her serving-woman, 
 mentioned in the letters written in the early years of their 
 wedded life. 
 
 Mr. Wortley's final determination to sacrifice her portion to 
 maintain his principle, appears to have been regarded by Lady 
 Mary with sincere admiration. It was in her eyes a high proof 
 of his love for her ; and it is evident that it increased her 
 fondness and respect for him. It seems to have been consi- 
 dered by his own family as, in a worldly sense, an imprudent 
 step ; and that it was so, in some degree, may be assumed. 
 Nevertheless, it must not, for the sake of the romance, be 
 concealed from the reader, that Mr. Wortley's objection to 
 settling an estate appears to have been partly based upon 
 his belief, that in most such contracts the gain to the hus- 
 band, if any, was heavily counterbalanced. The essay in the 
 Tatler on this subject alluded to in the Introductory Anec- 
 dotes, was really founded upon a copious paper of topics and 
 hints furnished by him; and among his papers are some 
 curious calculations in his handwriting of the value of pro- 
 perty so settled, as compared with its value when at the hus- 
 band's free disposal. In the letter to Addison which accom-
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORT LEY MONTAGU. 11 
 
 panied these " loose hints," he says, " What made me think 
 so much of it, was a discourse with Sir P. King, who says 
 that a man that settles his estate does not know that 2 and 2 
 make 4. His wife has 4000Z. down, and has had 4000^. 
 since ; and though he loved her better than he did anybody, 
 he rather chose to venture losing her than settle anything 
 out of his own, but to make up a jointure for her life." A 
 lover who has so steady a perception that " 2 and 2 make 4," 
 will not, perhaps, find favour with romantic readers ; but of the 
 sincerity of his passion for Lady Mary, no one reading the letters 
 can doubt. After all, and even in their love matters, men are 
 more influenced by the custom and habit of the age in which 
 they live, than even philosophic historians are apt to remember. 
 The ladies and gentlemen of that time were accustomed to 
 handle delicate subjects with a bluntness which shocks modern 
 eyes, but which has in it a sort of robust sincerity, not always 
 unpleasing to the indulgent student of old manners. Lady 
 Mary herself does not shrink from details in which no mo- 
 dern young lady would venture to interfere. The girlish 
 admiration with which she regarded her lover, the passionate 
 regard which betrays itself, sometimes directly, sometimes 
 unconsciously, in numberless expressions in her letters, did not 
 appear to her inconsistent with a direct request that he would 
 put her beyond the possibility of scorn and insult from the 
 friends whom she was about to offend, for his sake, by settling 
 upon her an annuity in the event of her widowhood. A 
 modern writer of fiction, who should put such a stipulation 
 into the mouth of his heroine, would commit a fatal error; 
 but no reader can come to a just judgment upon the acts of 
 our forefathers who does not remember many more important 
 differences between the customs of their age and ours. 
 
 The marriage license of Mr. Wortley and Lady Mary 
 Pierrepont, is dated the 16th of August, 1712, and their 
 elopement no doubt took place soon af tenvards. In her letters 
 before marriage Lady Mary had repeatedly expressed her de- 
 sire to live plainly in the country, and her letters written in 
 the early years of her married life, some of which are pub-
 
 12 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 lished, fully evidence the sincerity of her wish for retirement. 
 The gay world in which she had moved is never mentioned in 
 the large mass of her letters to her husband, to whom, during 
 his absence, she wrote by every post from Walling Wells, or 
 from her solitude at Huntingdon, at Hinchinbrook, or at 
 Middlethorpe. Mr. Wortley was no less regular or affec- 
 tionate in his replies; nor do the occasional complaints of 
 his neglect appear to have had any other foundation than in 
 the fond anxiety of his young wife. She was evidently a 
 thrifty housewife, and wrote frequent details of her domestic 
 economy, homely accounts of the price of butcher's meat, 
 sensible reports of her bargains for the hire of kitchen 
 utensils, and her prudent arrangements for saving the keep 
 of a horse. Their son Edward Wortley was born in the 
 year following their marriage; and thenceforth her child is 
 the constant subject of her letters. It does not seem that 
 she came to London during this period for more than one 
 brief visit, although she wrote an epilogue for Addison's 
 Cato, which was not adopted, and a criticism upon the ma- 
 nuscript play, which was begun at the suggestion of her hus- 
 band, but suppressed by Addison's desire. When Queen Anne 
 died, 1st of August, 1714, she was at York. Mr. Wortley, 
 she says, " who had at that time that sort of passion for me, 
 that would have made me invisible to all but myself, had it 
 been in his power, had sent me thither. He staid in town on 
 account of some business, and the Queen's death detained 
 him." He had then no seat in Parliament, but he was elected 
 for Westminster in the January following. The accession 
 of George the First brought sudden prosperity to the Whigs, 
 who had been long depressed by the ascendancy of the rival 
 party; and Mr. Wortley, by the influence of his relative 
 Lord Halifax, who was placed at the head of the Treasury, 
 was named as one of the Commissioners. The reader will 
 find in Lady Mary's account of the Court of George the 
 First, an amusing sketch of that period. The busy part now 
 taken by her husband in public affairs compelled them to 
 return to London ; and for a short time Lady Mary, though
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 13 
 
 she accepted no place, appears to have again become one of 
 the most conspicuous of the ladies about the Court. 
 
 Early in 1716, Mr. Wortley obtained the important ap- 
 pointment of Ambassador to the Porte, the special object of 
 his mission being to mediate, in conjunction with the other 
 powers, between the Turks and the Imperialists, then at war. 
 Lady Mary decided to accompany him, taking her child with 
 her. Their original intention was to proceed by ship from 
 Leghorn, after first visiting Vienna to confer with the Im- 
 perial government. The plan, however, was changed ; some 
 delay took place, during which they paid a visit to Hanover, 
 whither the king had for a time returned. They finally set 
 forward from Vienna, in January, 1717, and remained at 
 Adrianople and Constantinople until May in the following 
 year. Mr. Wortley about that time received letters of recal, 
 and at the same tune a private letter from his friend Addison, 
 then secretary of state, explanatory of the circumstances. 
 They returned on board the Preston man-of-war, touching at 
 Tunis, and arrived at Genoa on their way to England in Au- 
 gust. The history of their journey will be found in the cele- 
 brated letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, written during 
 the embassy, and which were first published soon after her death 
 in 1763. 
 
 The circumstances of that publication have been the subject 
 of much discussion, and they are detailed at considerable 
 length by Lady Louisa Stuart. The facts, however, require 
 further elucidation. 
 
 Though the statement has been questioned, there can be no 
 doubt that Lady Mary did present the manuscript volumes 
 containing her letters written during the embassy, to Mr. 
 Benjamin Sowden, a clergyman at Rotterdam. They appear 
 to have been copied by her soon after her return, the first 
 preface, written by Mary Astell, bearing date, as will be seen, 
 December 18, 1724 ; but they were never published by her ; 
 and, except to friends, the books of travels remained unknown. 
 It was when returning from Italy in 1761, after her long 
 residence abroad, that she gave them to Mr. Sowden, with
 
 14 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 the following memorandum, written within the cover of the 
 first volume : " These 2 Vol""* are given to the R d Ben- 
 jamin Sowden, minister at Rotterdam, to be disposed of as 
 he thinks proper. This is the will and design of M. WORTLEY 
 MONTAGU. Dec. 11, 1761." The circumstances of that gift 
 Mr. Sowden appearing to have been previously a stranger to 
 Lady Mary are indeed, at first sight, highly improbable, and 
 subsequent facts did not seem calculated to remove the doubts 
 that have been suggested of Mr. Sowden's honesty ; but the 
 inscription appears to be in Lady Mary's handwriting, and 
 the letters, with one or two exceptions, were beyond doubt 
 copied entirely by her. Even the exceptions have headings in 
 her writing, and could hardly have been interpolated ; though 
 they appear to have been entered by an amanuensis in spaces 
 left for the purpose. Mr. Dallaway' s account of the subse- 
 quent transactions is, that the Earl of Bute, after her death, 
 having heard of the existence of the volumes at Rotterdam, 
 commissioned a gentleman to offer Mr. Sowden a considerable 
 remuneration for giving them up, which he accepted ; and he 
 adds : " Much to the surprise of that nobleman and Lady Bute, 
 the manuscripts were scarcely safe in England when three 
 volumes of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters were pub- 
 lished by Beckett." Some of the friends and relatives of Sow- 
 den denied these statements, and maintained that he had given 
 the volumes without any recompense, and the insinuation of [Mr. 
 Dallaway as to the complicity of Sowden in the subsequent pub- 
 lication is at all events unfounded, as appears by comparison of 
 the Sowden manuscript with the printed edition : for the Sow- 
 den copy does not include the preface by Mary Astell, which 
 appears in the printed edition ; and there was at the same time at 
 least one manuscript copy extant which did contain that preface. 
 This was the copy which Mr. Dallaway himself informs us 
 was given by Lady Mary to Mr. Molesworth ; and which also 
 came into the possession of Lord Bute. On further exami- 
 nation, many other variations appear between the Sowden 
 manuscript and the edition of 1763 : in a few cases passages 
 in the letters themselves, though found in the printed edition,
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WOETLEY MONTAGU. 1 5 
 
 are not in the Sowden copy ; but these again are found in the 
 Molesworth manuscript. The copy really used by the original 
 publishers cannot now be ascertained. It does not seem to 
 have been the Molesworth copy; but that it was not the 
 copy given to Mr. Sowden is beyond dispute. The writer 
 of the preface to the original edition asserts that he was 
 " honoured with the esteem and friendship of their ingenious 
 and elegant author," and that his " select collection," as he 
 calls it, " was faithfully transcribed from the original manu- 
 script of her ladyship at Venice." The editor is stated to 
 have been Mr. John Cleland, the son of Pope's friend, Major 
 Cleland, and a man notorious for his literary delinquencies. 
 He is said, indeed, not to have discouraged the idea that the 
 latter were a literary fiction of his own. There is in this, how- 
 ever, probably some confusion between the three volumes of 
 1763 and an additional volume published in 1767. Cleland 
 is believed to have forged the two volumes of the letters 
 of Pope Clement XIV., which the English publishers added 
 to their translation of the French edition ; and it is not 
 improbable that the great success of the three volumes of 
 Lady Mary's letters induced him to fabricate additional letters. 
 No manuscript authority for the letters in this fourth volume 
 has ever been produced ; and with the exception of a letter 
 and poem, which had found their way into print many years 
 before, and an essay which had also probably been somewhere 
 already printed, there is the strongest reason to suspect that 
 the whole volume was a forgery. The disrespectful manner in 
 which Lady Mary is made to allude to Addison in one of 
 the pretended letters, is altogether inconsistent with the re- 
 verence with which she always regarded him ; and the 
 allusion to Pope's residence at Twickenham could not 
 have been made at the period when the letter purports 
 to have been written, September 1, 1717, as Pope did 
 not remove thither till at least twelve months later. Nor 
 can this anachronism be explained "by supposing an error in 
 copying the figures; because the allusions to public events, 
 in the same letter, clearly relate to a period about the date
 
 16 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 affixed. These letters were included in Lord WharnclifiVs 
 edition, and are here reproduced (though with notes explain- 
 ing their history) in deference to the opinion of Lady Bute, 
 who was convinced of the genuineness of the letters (see In- 
 troductory Anecdotes) ; but the present editor has not any 
 doubt of the incorrectness of Lady Bute's opinion. 
 
 The letters written during the embassy are, in the present 
 edition, for the first time printed from the Sowden manuscript, 
 the only authority existing, for no part of the copy said to have 
 been given by Lady Mary to Mr. Molesworth is in her hand, 
 and its history is not clearly ascertained. It appears from the 
 preface of Mary Astell to have been prepared by her in 1724, 
 probably from the Sowden original, for private circulation, and 
 with a view to publication at some future period. Except this 
 preface, which is not in the Sowden copy, the variations be- 
 tween the two manuscripts are unimportant. Neither copy 
 gives the addresses " To the Countess of Mar," " To Mrs. 
 Skerrett," &c., prefixed by Mr. Dallaway, which appear to 
 have been inserted by him upon mere conjecture, and are cer- 
 tainly in some cases incorrect. Where initials are given in 
 the manuscript, and occasionally from internal evidence, the 
 parties addressed may be inferred ; but the whole must be 
 considered as a book of travels, and not as a collection of 
 genuine correspondence. That some of the letters at least 
 were founded upon actual letters is certain ; but it is re- 
 markable that the only letter written during the period to a 
 friend in England, of which the original has been discovered/ 
 is not to be found in the Sowden volume. A paper in Lady 
 Mary's own handwriting enables me to throw some light upon 
 this question. It is a list and precis of the letters written by 
 her during the embassy, between April 1, 1717, and March 
 1, 1718, which she appears to have kept at the time as a 
 memorandum for her own use, and it is indorsed by Mr. 
 Wortley " Heads of L. M.'s Letters from Turkey." It is as 
 follows : 
 
 1 See note on letter to Mrs. Hewet, dated Adrianople, April 1, 1717, among 
 Letters during the Embassy.
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 17 
 
 AP. 1, 1717. 
 
 COUNTESS OF WACKERBARTH. I shan't forget her, though 
 I can't hope to see her. 
 
 Miss GRIFF. [Miss Griffin], Desire to continue to hear from 
 her. No news. Fine country. 
 
 S. G. [Sister Gower]. Hope she will be glad to hear we [arej 
 all well. Compliments. 
 
 AB. C. [Abbe Conti]. New world. Journey by land. De- 
 scription of Phil. [Philipopolis]. Hebrus. Paulines. 
 Women's ignorance. Arnaouts. Poetry Arab. Courts. 
 Tranquillity. Truth. Secrecy. 
 
 MA ME Ki. [Kilmansegg]. I won't tell how oft I have writ. 
 I will think she remembers me. Balm of Mecca. 
 Polargo. Greek no slaves. Magnificence and dress 
 of Turks. Bagnio civility. French ambassadress. 
 Ceremony. Pomp. Court to me. Weather. One 
 letter to serve for many. Nothing to recompense. 
 My picture. 
 
 L. B E . [Lady Bristol]. Stuffs. Absolute government here. 
 Army. Malice and censure of w n . [women]. 
 
 L. R H . [Lady Rich]. She won't forget me. L. Gn. De- 
 sire her to write. Mine will be dull. G. S. [Grand 
 Signer] handsome. Sultana married to the F. [fa- 
 vourite]. Turkish verses. Women not locked up. 
 French emb. [ambassadress] and me in several hms. 
 [harems]. 
 
 L. C". [Lord Cadogan ?]. Not heard from him. Horse. 
 Gratitude. Better f '. [fortune] than expected. 
 
 M. P. [Mr. Pope]. A journey not passed since the G. E. 
 [Greek Emperors]. Like to be overturned in the 
 Hebrus. Companion to Orpheus. Romantic situation. 
 The fashion. T. [Turkish] women have intrigues. 
 Write to Mr. C. [Congreve] very oft. Hear very 
 seldom. 
 
 MRS. S H . [Smith], Never heard from her. Don't suspect 
 her fsp. [friendship]. Hope she'll be glad to hear I 
 am well. 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 MY F. [Father]. Letters miscarry. Places alike. Small- 
 pox. Duties. 
 
 S. M B . [Sister Mar]. Hope she'll be glad to hear I am well. 
 F. [French] amb". and ambassador. Pomp. Cavalcade 
 through the town. Court to me. Description of dress. 
 Jew ladies. 
 
 P. of W. [Princess of Wales], Descript". Sophia. Phill. 
 [Philipopolis]. Country fine. Oppression. Liberty. 
 In h r . hand to read or throw away. 
 
 M. C E . [Mr. Congreve]. Forget all things but E d . [England]. 
 Cir.[cassian] slaves not to be depended on. Ladies 
 free. Healthy climate. Fond of hearing. Omit no 
 occasion. Remember my f 9 . [friends?]. Where Orp. 
 [Orpheus], &c. 
 
 L. H. V. [Lady Henrietta Vernon]. Answered hers soon. 
 Never fail doing it. S r R. V. [Sir Richard Vernon]. 
 D n . pretty. Desire to hear from her. L. Bly. Dress 
 becoming. 
 
 D. B. W. [Duchess of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel]. Com- 
 manded me to write. Descr". Ad. [Description of 
 Adrianople]. Serv. [Servian] Desart. G. S. [Grand 
 Signer] handsome. His d. [daughter] married. Verses 
 on her. Magnificence of ladies. Not less sinners for 
 not being Christians. Hope A. D. [the Archduke] b n . 
 [been] in victory. Empress reign. 
 
 M. B E . [M. Bothmar]. 3 letters since I heard. Importunity. 
 Projects. Very weary. Ladies free. 
 
 AP. 18, 1717. 
 
 M. H T . [Mrs. Hewet]. I like travelling. Hurried up and 
 down. Long journeys. New scenes every day. Desire 
 her to write. A charity beneficial to her own soul. 
 
 M. T T . [Mrs. Thistlethwayte]. Hope she judges too rightly 
 of my heart to believe my silence can proceed from 
 neglect. Huriy. All my family safe and well. Ten- 
 derly concerned for her. Mrs. J. hard fortune. No 
 distance can make me less hers.
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 19 
 
 MRS. W T . [West]. All well. Country much better than 
 
 I expected. Compliments. 
 MRS. C L. [Chiswellj. Pomp. Country agreeable. No 
 
 particulars. Homage. 
 L. D. D. [Lady Dowager Denbigh]. Hope her goodness 
 
 will make her glad to hear I am well. Family safe. 
 
 Wish her her health and life. 
 MR. W. F. [William Fielding]. Hope he'll be pleased to 
 
 hear we're all well. About my money. 
 M. SCH. [Mademoiselle Schulemberg]. I don't know where 
 
 she is. If she has a mind to have long letters from me, 
 
 always at her service. 
 
 AUG. 1, 1717. 
 
 MR. P. [Pope]. Copied at length. 
 MR. C. [Congreve]. Predestination. 
 
 JAN. 8, 1718. 
 MR. C. [Congreve]. Why he lets P. [Pope] make lampoons. 
 
 Bps. [Bishops?] facetious. 
 MR. P. [Pope]. Thanks for his works. Reception of my 
 
 last letter. 
 MRS. T. [Thistlethwayte]. Copied at length. 
 
 MARCH 1. 
 
 MRS. W. [West], Compliments. 
 S. M". [Sister Mar]. A short letter. 
 MR. C. [Congreve]. A note. 
 
 MR. P. [Pope]. The world here romantic. Women differ 
 from ours. Unaffected. Lazy life. 
 
 On comparing this list and precis of letters actually written 
 with the published letters, it will be found that there are but 
 one or two that can be even partially identified, and that these 
 appear as published to have had passages inserted or omitted. 
 The abstracts of contents are brief and obscure ; and the 
 parties indicated by the initials sometimes doubtful ; but the 
 list affords ample proof that the volumes prepared by Lady 
 Mary did not contain transcripts of her actual correspondence. 
 
 c2
 
 20 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 In two cases only there is a memorandum that the letter has 
 been "copied at length," and it may therefore be inferred 
 that, except in rare instances, no copies were kept. Lady 
 Louisa Stuart's recollection that the diary kept by Lady Mary 
 during her journey contained "the whole substance" of the 
 Turkish letters, "meaning of those printed in 1763," indicates 
 what were really the materials from which the " letters" 
 of the manuscript book were fabricated. Lady Louisa con- 
 jectures that it was her custom, " when she wrote a letter, 
 to transcribe from the journal the passages she thought fittest 
 to be communicated to her friends ;" but there can be little 
 doubt that the true explanation of the resemblance observed 
 between the Diary and the Letters is, that the published 
 " letters" were, in fact, merely portions of her Diary, to which, 
 by a fiction in literary art, she thought fit to give the f onn of 
 an actual correspondence. 
 
 The names which I have ventured to affix to the initials 
 afford, if correct, some idea of Lady Mary's circle of friends 
 and connexions at that time. The Countess of Wackerbarth 
 was a German lady whom she had met at Vienna shortly 
 before, and whose name is mentioned both in the letters during 
 the embassy and in the correspondence during her last residence 
 abroad. Her " sister Gower" was her younger sister, Evelyn, 
 Avho married John, Lord Gower, in 1712 : she died in 1727. 
 Her " sister F." was Frances, who married the Earl of Mar in 
 1714. The Abbe Conti the abbe or "abbot" to whom 
 some of the published letters are addressed, was an Italian 
 savant of some note, who resided for a long period in Paris. 
 He had visited England, and formed a friendship with Sir 
 Isaac Newton, and it was doubtless on that occasion that he 
 had met Lady Mary. He will be found frequently alluded 
 to in the later letters from Italy, and is the person to whom 
 her story of " Carabosse," written in French, is addressed. 
 We learn from the letters of Addison and Pope that Lady 
 Rich, Miss Griffin, Congreve, and Madame Kilmansegg, were 
 correspondents of Lady Mary during her journey. Mrs. 
 Thistlethwayte is already known to the reader ; and an account
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 21 
 
 of Mrs. Hewet will be found prefixed to the correspondence 
 with her. The characters of Madame Kilmansegg and Made- 
 moiselle Schulemberg are sketched by Lady Mary's own hand 
 in her " Account of the Court of George the First." Miss 
 Sarah Chiswell, believed to be designated as " Mrs. C 1," 
 was one of the earliest friends of Lady Mary. She appears 
 to have lived at Nottingham, and was a visitor at Thoresby, 
 and a confidante of her friend's attempts at romance writing 
 as early as 1705 ; for her signature with that date is still 
 legible upon the faded cover of a manuscript romance. Her 
 death is alluded to in the letters to Lady Mar about 1726. 
 Lady Dowager Denbigh, to whom Lady Mary wishes 
 " health and life," was her grandmother by her mother's side, 
 already mentioned. She was now upwards of ninety years of 
 age, and her granddaughter informs us that she retained to 
 the last her vivacity and uncommon clearness of under 
 standing. On some of these, and on the other persons alluded 
 to, notes will be found where their names occur in the cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 The friendship with Pope, conspicuous in the letters 
 written during the embassy, is an unfortunate episode in the 
 life of Lady Mary. All the stories which have gained cre- 
 dence, to the injury of her reputation, are probably due to his 
 subsequent quarrel with her, the hatred and unscrupulous- 
 ness with which he pursued her, and his fatal power of circu- 
 lating scandalous insinuations. It is certain that the tenor of her 
 life up to the period of her quarrel with Pope, was wholly unlike 
 that career of profligacy which has been popularly attributed 
 to her since the publication of Pope's Satires and the Letters 
 of Horace Walpole who, it must be remembered, wrote 
 after Pope's celebrated attacks ; and it is no less certain 
 that, on a careful investigation, not one of the charges brought 
 against her will be found to rest on any evidence. Her childhood 
 was passed in a patient and industrious course of self-culture, 
 which was rare, indeed, in that age of female frivolity and 
 ignorance. Notwithstanding the temptations of remarkable 
 beauty, her inclination appears at all times to have been
 
 22 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 towards a life of study and retirement rather than to one of 
 gaiety or idleness. Although her father occupied a position 
 of the highest influence in the political world, and her hus- 
 band's importance among his party was very considerable, she 
 does not appear ever to have sought one of those places about 
 the Court which were the object of the hopes and ambition of 
 young ladies of her age and station. As a wife and mother, 
 her letters show her homely, frugal, cheerful, and affectionate. 
 When her husband accepted his post of ambassador to Turkey, 
 she decided to accompany him, taking with her her child, with 
 whom she traversed the uncivilised countries of Eastern Europe, 
 in the midst of a sanguinary war. When abroad, her active 
 mind found employment in a large correspondence with her 
 friends, in recording in her Diary the customs of the coun- 
 tries through which she passed, in the study of the Turkish 
 language and literature, or in obtaining information as to 
 the practice of inoculation, which she afterwards introduced 
 into England with so great success pursuits in which the fri- 
 volous and the luxurious take no delight. It is not easy to 
 believe that this woman dropped suddenly into a degraded 
 and shameless way of life as Pope and Walpole, and those 
 who have adopted their statements, have asserted. But we 
 are not left to infer the truth from such considerations. 
 Where the charges against her are distinct, the means of test- 
 ing them are not wanting. 
 
 Some obscurity attends the history of Pope's acquaintance 
 with Lady Mary. There is no mention of him in her letters 
 written before her departure for Constantinople, though 
 Garth, Addison, Steele, Congreve, and Vanbrugh, are spoken 
 of in terms of familiar friendship. There is, indeed, an allu- 
 sion, believed to be to Pope, in a poem written apparently in 
 1713 or 1714, the time when 
 
 " Oxford has the wand, and Anna reigns." 
 
 In this Pope is mentioned in terms of contempt ; but, if really 
 written at that period, it is most likely that she knew him only 
 by name as the protege and friend of Lord Lansdowne, Boling-
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 23 
 
 oroke, Swift, and other members of that party, against whom 
 her poem was directed, and whose ascendancy was at that time 
 destructive of her husband's prospects of advancement. Ex- 
 cept for a very brief period, it is doubtful whether she was in 
 London, or had any means of meeting him, for some years 
 previous to January, 1715. Although to subscribe to Pope's 
 Hiad was then almost a fashion, and a friend, or even ac- 
 quaintance of the poet, could hardly have neglected to do so, 
 neither the name of Mr. Wortley nor of Lady Mary is to be 
 found in the list prefixed to the first volume, published in 
 June, 1715, though they both subscribed for copies of the 
 Odyssey, Mr. Wortley for " 5 sets." Of the letters of Pope 
 to Lady Mary which have been preserved, the earliest was 
 written immediately before her departure for Constantinople, 
 and it is evident, from the circumstances mentioned, that 
 their acquaintance must have been very recent; and not- 
 withstanding the extravagant expressions with which he 
 begins at once to address her, could not have had time to ripen 
 into intimacy. Whatever fascination the wit and genius of 
 Pope may have possessed, she could hardly be supposed to 
 have been so bewitched as to fall in love with him at first sight. 
 To believe in any mutual and acknowledged attachment during 
 their infrequent meetings before she left England, would be 
 to assume, without evidence, a degree of profligacy hardly to 
 be imagined. She was young, beautiful, and accomplished, 
 married by her own choice less than four years. Yet, if we do 
 not believe this, the letters prove that his passion and profes- 
 sions to Lady Mary, as to others, were mere words, and were 
 so understood by his correspondent. 
 
 Lady Louisa Stuart has written some remarks upon the 
 character of Pope's letters to Lady Mary, to which it would 
 not be necessary to add anything if it were possible for readers 
 in these days to bear steadily in mind the true spirit of the 
 epistles of " love and gallantry" with which the " wits" of that 
 age were accustomed to entertain their lady correspondents. 
 It is hard to conceive the degree of passionate declaration, 
 extravagant compliment, and licentious allusion, which a fine
 
 24 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 lady of that time might receive without damage to her repu- 
 tation, or any supposition that the writer intended more than 
 to exhibit his own wit and talent for constructing phrases. 
 It was not even necessary that the parties should have seen 
 each other, for the gentleman to declare his inability to sleep 
 for the thought of his correspondent, or to compare her to 
 the stars, or the angels, or the goddess of beauty ; and even 
 old age was no disqualification for a " scribbling treaty" for 
 carrying on such a correspondence. The fashion was a 
 French importation, which the hostile tariffs of the Whigs 
 were unfortunately unable to prevent. It bore no more re- 
 semblance to the genuine love letters of their day than to those 
 of ours, and the two things were probably never confounded 
 in the mind of either party. Pope, though wholly unfitted 
 by nature for the part of a gallant, habitually wrote such let- 
 ters to his women acquaintance. His letters to Miss Judith 
 Cowper, afterwards Mrs. Madan, the grave and respectable 
 aunt of the poet Cowper, will serve as an instance. Their 
 acquaintance appears to have been of the briefest and slightest 
 kind ; to have had, indeed, no foundation but the fact of her 
 having sent him some verses to correct through Mrs. Howard. 
 Pope was then still friendly with Lady Mary, and supposed 
 to be in love with Martha Blount, and he sends copies of 
 his verses addressed to both of those ladies. But, notwith- 
 standing this, and the fact that Miss Judith Cowper was about 
 to be married to a respectable gentleman, Pope assures her 
 that she " has put him into such a condition that he thinks of 
 nothing and inquires of nothing" but her, that he has been 
 " so mad with the idea of her as to steal her picture," and that 
 he " passes whole days in sitting before it, talking to himself." 
 For Miss Cowper was a wit that is, a lady of literary talent 
 and of course would understand the language of wits. The 
 indelicacy with which the spirit of the time permitted him to 
 address even unmarried ladies, is exemplified in his letters to 
 the Miss Blounts and to the daughter of his acquaintance 
 Mrs. Marriott, of Sturston, to whom he transmitted, ap- 
 parently through his friend Broome, then rector of Sturston,
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 25 
 
 compositions whose ribaldry and grossness no wit or art could 
 now render tolerable. 
 
 That Lady Mary corresponded with Pope while on her 
 journey was no secret from Mr. Wortley, for he has indorsed 
 the list already given, in which she made memoranda of her 
 replies. The letters were sent through Mr. Methuen, Lord 
 James Hay, or Mr. Stanyan, all friends of her husband. 
 They contained compliments to be conveyed to him, and 
 one of them, at least, no less rapturous than the rest, was 
 sent through her husband's own hands. Lady Louisa Stuart 
 informs us that they were regularly entered with the letters of 
 Congreve into her Diary, and both Diary and originals were 
 certainly preserved by Lady Mary, and left to her daughter 
 and descendants. It is, therefore, scarcely possible that she 
 could herself have been aware that the letters were of a na- 
 ture to cast discredit upon a married lady who permitted them 
 to be addressed to her; and it can hardly be doubted that 
 Mr. Wortley himself, who was certainly not insensible to 
 points of honour, read them, and if so, surely without feeling 
 that they afforded any ground of offence, for he addressed 
 Pope after his return in friendly terms. The first letter of 
 the correspondence, indeed, furnishes the key to its spirit. 
 Pope assures her that whatever he writes " will be the real 
 thought of that hour ;" but adds, " I know you will no more 
 expect it of me to persevere till death in every sentiment or 
 notion I now set down, than you would imagine a man's face 
 should never change after his picture was once drawn ;" and 
 there are frequent indications throughout the letters that they 
 were intended to be understood as written in the mock-heroic 
 spirit. 
 
 That long after their quarrel Pope was willing that a more 
 serious interpretation should be given to them is certain. 
 They furnished a means of annoyance well suited to his mis- 
 chievous and malignant spirit. Some of them were subse- 
 quently published by him, which, though given anonymously, 
 were at once understood, from their contents, to be addressed 
 to her ; and as their quarrel had then long been matter of
 
 26 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 notoriety, Pope well knew they would attract attention, and 
 be read with interest. It becomes, therefore, significant that, 
 on collation with the originals, it appears that in preparing 
 them for publication he omitted passages, interpolated pas- 
 sages, and made other alterations, with the manifest object of 
 heightening the appearance of familiarity between them, 
 some instances of which will be found mentioned in notes on 
 the letters j and in the Grub-street Journal, to which Pope 
 was a secret contributor, the same insinuation of familiarity 
 is conveyed in a passage, too gross to be repeated here, in a 
 paper which can be traced by good evidence to Pope's own 
 hand. 
 
 It is stated by Mr. Dallaway that " Pope, during his in- 
 timacy with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, made her a re- 
 quest to sit for her portrait to Sir Godfrey Kneller, with 
 which she complied." Lady Mary certainly did sit to Kneller 
 about 1720, and, during the progress of the painting, Pope, 
 who was then living at Twickenham, and was a neighbour of 
 Kneller' s, conveyed messages between them, writing in the old 
 vein. The unfinished picture, he informs her, dwells really 
 at his heart ; he begs her to allow him " as much of her 
 person" as Sir Godfrey can help him to. He does not assure 
 her, as he soon after assured Miss Cowper, that he has been 
 tempted to " steal " it, or that he is so " mad with the idea" 
 of her that he "passes whole days in sitting before it, talking 
 to himself ;" but hardly less has been inferred from the exalted 
 language in which he writes about it. But these were words 
 only, and Pope's words. Facts are altogether opposed to the 
 supposition that he had addressed to Lady Mary a request so 
 absurd, or that she had been induced to comply with it ; or 
 that " Sir Godfrey" was ever supposed to " help" him to any- 
 thing but the liberty to see the picture while it remained upon 
 the painter's easel. Mr. Wortley' s complaisance had, we must 
 assume, some limit ; and from subsequent events, developed in 
 the correspondence with Lady Mar, it would appear that his 
 wife was inclined to put little trust in it. But Mr. Wortley
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 27 
 
 himself corresponded with Pope, evidently upon this subject. 
 A portion of the manuscript of the translation of Homer, 
 written about this period, is upon the back of a letter from him 
 to Pope, as follows : 
 
 " Wednesday evening. 
 
 " SIR, I am hindered by business from being at Twicken- 
 ham either to-morrow or Friday, so that Saturday will be the 
 first day we can be there. I desire you will give yourself the 
 trouble of excusing us to Sir Godfrey for not coming sooner. 
 I believe we shall accept of the kind offer of your house. 
 " I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 " ED. WORTLEY." 
 
 There is no evidence of Pope ever having possessed a 
 portrait of Lady Mary; and that this particular one was 
 painted for herself and her husband, and remained in their 
 possession, may be inferred from its having regularly passed 
 to her daughter's family. An engraving of it, with the date 
 " 1720," was prefixed to Mr. Dallaway's edition of the works 
 of Lady M. W. Montagu, published in 1803 ; and it is there 
 stated to be " from a picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the 
 collection of the Marquis of Bute." Pope had acted as a 
 friendly agent for Mr. Wortley during a negotiation with 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller for the hire of a house at Twickenham ; 
 and this was, at all events, a sober matter of business, as ap- 
 pears by the following letter from Pope, addressed " To the 
 Honourable Mr. Wortley Montagu, in the Piazza, Covent 
 Garden:" 
 
 "Tuesday noon [1719]. 
 
 " SlR, I write this from Sir Godfrey's own mouth, who 
 says that Austin, his surveyor (who lives in St. Alban's-street), 
 assures him all that is wanting to the house may be done in 
 two days, and that he has already ordered it to be accordingly 
 mended. But that he is engaged to another to treat for selling 
 it outright, or at least for a long lease; so that he cannot
 
 28 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 treat further about it, and absolutely refuses to let it till 
 Christmas. These are his words. I can add no more, but that 
 I am, with true esteem, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 "A. POPE. 
 
 " Sir Godfrey thinks your surveyor's account very untrue, 
 and says he is well assured that his house is as strong as any 
 whatsoever." 
 
 There are but few letters from Pope to Lady Mary written 
 after her return from the East ; but that they continued on 
 terms not unfriendly for several years later appears from some 
 circumstances. It was about the spring of 1722 that Lady 
 Mary sent to her sister, Lady Mar, in Paris, a copy of Pope's 
 gallant verses on his garden, with the lines : 
 
 " Joy lives not here ; to happier seats it flies, 
 And only dwells where W. [Wortley] casts her eyes." 
 
 But his epistolary fervour had already abated. The latest 
 letter found is dated 15th September, 1721 ; and this contains 
 a rather awkward excuse for not lending a harpsichord as 
 promised. In the letter to Lady Mar referred to, Lady Mary 
 says, " I see sometimes Mr. Congreve, and very seldom Mr. 
 Pope ;" and it appears that, though residing in the same village, 
 she had not even seen his famous grotto. 
 
 From this it may be inferred that, although there may have 
 been a gradual estrangement, there was then no hostility be- 
 tween them. It is not difficult to conceive what were the 
 causes which led to this position of affairs. When Lady Mary 
 first knew Pope, he was indifferent about politics, and sus- 
 pected of Whig tendencies, only, perhaps, because he wrote 
 in conjunction with Steele and Addison, and associated with 
 them ; but, in the interval of her absence, he had become an 
 avowed Tory, intimately allied with extreme Tories Swift, 
 Arbutlmot, Oxford, Atterbury, Bathurst. He had openly 
 quarrelled with and libelled their old and dear friend Addison, 
 and separated himsalf from Steele and other Whigs ; he had be-
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 29 
 
 come a hater of Whigs in the abstract, although he held on with 
 his neighbour, young Craggs, and others. Lady Mary and her 
 husband were always Whigs, but now they were Whigs of in- 
 fluence. Their daily associates were Whigs, their intimates 
 were Whigs. They had become, as most political people do, 
 less tolerant than in their literary days of political differences ; 
 and Pope must have felt ill at ease when he visited his neigh- 
 bour perhaps not always welcome to the host, looked on 
 with positive dislike by many, with suspicion by all. From 
 the letters to Lady Mar concerning M. Esmond, we may 
 infer that in 1721-1722 she had little time to spare to the 
 mere poet, nor a mind sufficiently quiet or disengaged either 
 to enjoy his company, or be herself good company. 
 
 This accounts for the estrangement ; but the active cause of 
 Pope's hostility and brutal attacks, a question which has given 
 rise to much speculation, is still unexplained. The accounts 
 hitherto given are somewhat contradictory. Pope says, in his 
 letter to Lord Hervey, that he had not the least misunder- 
 standing with that lady till after he was the author of his own 
 misfortune in discontinuing her acquaintance ; and this agrees 
 with one of Lady Mary's reported statements : " I got a com- 
 mon friend to ask Mr. Pope why he left off visiting me ? He 
 answered negligently, that he went as often as he used to do ;" 
 and again, with her remark to Spence concerning Pope's 
 letters : " You shall see what a goddess he makes me in some 
 of them, though he makes such a devil of me in his writings 
 afterwards, without any reason that I know of" but these 
 statements are wholly inconsistent with the account given by 
 Lady Louisa Stuart as Lady Mary's " own statement," and 
 which appears to have been merely a traditional version of the 
 old scandal on the subject. (See Introductory Anecdotes.) 
 The statement said to have been made by Pope to Arbuth- 
 not, "that she and Lord Hervey had pressed him to write 
 a satire, and that his refusal had occasioned the breach," was 
 denied by Lady Mary, and may have been an attempt to 
 evade a confession of the true reason ; but the result of 
 these accounts appeal's to be that there was no cause of
 
 30 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 quarrel avowed betweenthem, and no exact moment of time 
 when a rupture took place. 
 
 Another account, given at second hand by Spence from 
 the Countess of Pomfret, who professes to have had it from 
 Lady Mary, is, that " when she became acquainted with the 
 Duke of Wharton, Mr. Pope grew jealous ; and that occa- 
 sioned the breach between them." This could, of course, be 
 only a surmise. It may have been one of the causes to which 
 Lady Mary assigned his ill-will, and the statement is, there- 
 fore, not inconsistent with the spirit of her accounts at other 
 times. The allusions to the Duke of Wharton in Lady Mary's 
 correspondence, occur only in letters written during the years 
 1724 and 1725, which appears to have been the only period of 
 their intimacy. This was after her estrangement from Pope ; 
 but the witty and profligate young duke attacked Pope in a 
 satire, of which he gave Lady Mary a copy, and of which he 
 was far too imprudent to conceal the authorship. This may 
 account for Pope's elaborate satire upon him under the 
 name of Clodio ; for the duke, in the last years of his life, 
 was an ardent supporter of the Tory and Jacobite party, to 
 which Pope belonged : 
 
 " Clodio the scorn and wonder of our days, 
 Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise ; 
 Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
 "Women and fools must like him or he dies." 
 
 But it was, I suspect, at this exact point of time that a ground 
 of offence arose, which Pope would be little likely to acknow- 
 ledge, but which was far more calculated to wound his pride 
 and turn what was before a mere coolness into bitter animosity. 
 The preface of Mary Astell, affixed to the copy of the letters 
 written during the embassy, bears date December 18, 1724; 
 the second preface, May 31, 1725 ; and the last letter in 
 that compilation is addressed to Pope, and contains, besides 
 more prosaic banter, her clever parody upon his well-known 
 epitaph on the Lovers struck by Lightning. It has been al- 
 ready shown, by an ample test, that, except in a few doubtful
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 31 
 
 instances, the letters in these volumes did not consist of any real 
 correspondence, but were, in fact, subsequent compilations ; 
 and there are strong reasons for believing that the letter to Pope 
 referred to was no more genuine than any of the others. It will 
 not escape the reader's observation that its contents, both inverse 
 and prose, are more ingenious and elaborate than they were 
 likely to have been if really written in an inn at Dover, after 
 a sea passage in November, and in answer to a letter " this 
 minute received." If, indeed, the report in the newspapers 
 were correct, none of the letters which close the pretended cor- 
 respondence could have been written at the dates which they 
 bear in Lady Mary's handwriting ; for the Weekly Journal 
 of the llth of October, 1718, announces that " On Thursday 
 sevennight last the Honourable Wortley Montagu, Esq., late 
 ambassador at the Ottoman Court, and his lady, arrived in 
 town ;" and it is very improbable that this particular letter 
 could have been written on the 1st of November ; for the 
 letter of Pope " this minute received" " from Paris," to which 
 it professes to be an answer, is dated " September 1," and was 
 evidently written after news had reached England of her ar- 
 rival at Genoa. The letter is, indeed, one which, if written 
 at the date affixed, would probably have served to abate those 
 raptures with which the poet continued to address her. But 
 if it would have been offensive to write it at the moment, 
 to fabricate it afterwards, and to insert it in the copy of 
 the collection which Lady Louisa Stuart informs us was 
 circulated among her friends, was an offence still more un- 
 pardonable. The piquancy of the poem could not have failed 
 to attract attention, or the whole matter to come quickly to 
 the ears of Pope. His letter containing the story of the Lovers 
 struck by Lightning, with his epitaph upon them, was a com- 
 position which he appears to have regarded with a peculiar 
 pride, for he addressed copies of it only slightly varied to 
 several of his friends. He was, therefore, little likely to relish 
 the ridicule cast upon his somewhat exaggerated sentiment, 
 or the amusement which the friends of Lady Mary derived 
 from the spectacle of his supposed humiliation. Pope revelled
 
 32 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 in the vulgar attacks made upon him by small critics and poor 
 poets, and dexterously turned them to the advantage of his own 
 renown. But to be beaten by a woman with his own weapons, 
 and with no more expenditure of labour or pains than might 
 be bestowed in a chance minute snatched during a journey at 
 an inn ; to be represented as laughed out of countenance, and 
 out of all his fine sentimentalism and artificial moralisings, in 
 the presence of an audience who enjoyed his discomfiture, was 
 an offence which Pope's sensitive and spiteful nature could not 
 easily forgive. It was with Lady Mary too common a practice 
 to exercise her wit at the expense of friends, and to be after- 
 wards surprised at their resentment, for us to wonder at the 
 simplicity with which, if these suppositions be correct, she in- 
 duced persons to inquire what was the cause of his ill-will. 
 Pope would naturally avoid the confession that her satire had 
 wounded him ; but the offence appears to reveal itself in his 
 allusions to her as " that dangerous thing, a female wit," as 
 one who had "too much wit" for him; and particularly in 
 his note to the Dunciad, declaring that the offensive passage 
 which had been supposed to refer to Lady Mary, was in- 
 tended to apply to all " bragging travellers." Of the existence 
 of his ill feeling she had soon convincing proof. The Capon's 
 Tale, written by Pope or Swift, or both, and published in their 
 Miscellany, appears to have been the first attack. Then fol- 
 lowed the allusion to "Lady Marys" in the Dunciad, 1728, 
 which was at once fixed upon her by Curll, and to which Pope 
 subsequently appended an insulting note. Pope accused her 
 of retaliating in " A Pop upon Pope," and appears to have 
 suspected her of having had a hand in a libel called " One 
 Epistle to Mr. A. Pope," published in 1730 ; which explains 
 the appearance of a still more savage attack in his Imitation 
 of the first Satire of the Second Book of Horace, under the 
 name of Sappho. Pope, indeed, denied that the satire re- 
 ferred to her ; but his readers so applied it, which served his 
 purpose ; and there can now be little doubt of the insincerity 
 of his denial. After this, attacks, or what were understood 
 by the public as attacks, both upon herself and her husband
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 33 
 
 were frequent ; and the popularity of Pope's Satires at length 
 rendered her so conspicuous, that she may well have become 
 disgusted with that scene from which she soon afterwards 
 finally retired. 
 
 Two obscure allusions in Pope's writings, to a "debt de- 
 nied" by Lady Mary, and a " French wit" whom he charges 
 her with having " cheated" of " 5000J. in the South Sea year," 
 have since been to some extent elucidated by the statements of 
 Horace Walpole, and the publication of the letters to Lady 
 Mar. The facts, however, are still imperfectly known, and 
 they require further explanation than can be obtained from 
 those letters. 
 
 The statement of Horace Walpole, who had been permitted 
 to read the letters to Lady Mar in manuscript, is, that 
 
 " Ten of the letters indeed are dismal lamentations and 
 frights, on a scene of villany of Lady Mary's, who, having 
 persuaded one Ruremonde, a Frenchman and her lover, to 
 entrust her with a large sum of money to buy stock for him, 
 frightened him out of England by persuading him that Mr. 
 Wortley had discovered the intrigue, and would murder him, 
 and then would have sunk the trust." 
 
 That this is an untruthful representation of the case upon 
 the authority of the letters, the reader may himself ascertain ; 
 but the terror which Lady Mary displays lest her persecutor 
 should fulfil his threat of acquainting Mr. Wortley with the 
 facts, or publishing her letters to the world, is not calculated 
 to relieve her from the supposition of great impropriety of 
 conduct; and it is not surprising that writers who have 
 possessed no other evidence upon the subject, should have 
 come to a conclusion unfavourable to her. The name of 
 the person referred to in the letters by the initial R., is 
 only once mentioned in the correspondence with Lady Mar, 
 and as Walpole had no other source of information, he must 
 have noted it incorrectly, the real name being, not Rure- 
 monde, but Remond. He was, as Pope says, " a French wit, 
 though in a small way. If, as may be assumed, the poem re- 
 VOL. i. D
 
 34 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 f erred to as " Remond's Alexias," which Broome professes to 
 imitate in some verses in Pope's Miscellany in 1712, was by him, 
 Pope knew him at least by name. He was of a good family in 
 France, son of a gentleman well known in his day by the sobri- 
 quet of " R^mond le Diable," of whom and his family some ac- 
 count will be found in the Armorial General. Another son of 
 Remond le Diable was better known as a mathematician and 
 philosopher, and was a correspondent of Sir Isaac Newton and 
 other English savants, whom he visited in England. As a 
 friend of the Abbe Conti, he was probably also known to 
 Lady Mary. His brother the " French wit," who more im- 
 mediately concerns us, appears, from the account in the Ar- 
 morial, to have been in his forty-fifth year at the time of his 
 supposed intimacy with Lady Mary. He is described by St. 
 Simon as a little, stunted, or unfinished man, with a large 
 nose, big round staring eyes, coarse ugly features, and a 
 hoarse voice. " He had," says his portrayer, " a great deal of 
 wit, some reading, and taste for letters, and was a maker 
 of verses : but he had still more of impudence, self-conceit, 
 and contempt for others. He piqued himself upon being an 
 adept in everything prose, poetry, philosophy, history, even 
 gallantry : a circumstance which involved him in many ridi- 
 culous adventures, and made him the object of many jeers." 1 
 Such was the supposed lover of Lady Mary. What was 
 the nature of those letters which she had written, and the 
 threat to expose which to the world filled her with so much 
 alarm, can only now be inferred; but the letters from 
 Remond to Lady Mary are still existing. The whole series 
 evidently passed, at some time, into the hands of her husband, 
 who has indorsed each one in his own handwriting, with a 
 synopsis of its contents. It may be inferred, therefore, that, 
 
 1 The passage in St. Simon is as follows : " Ce fils e"tait un petit homme qui 
 nMtait pas Relieve" de faire . . . avec un gros nez, de gros yeux ronds sortant, de 
 gros vilains traits, et une voix enrouee comme un homme reveille en pleine nuit en 
 sursaut. II avait beaucoup d'esprit, il avail aussi de la lecture, et des lettres, et 
 faisait des vers. II avait encore plus d'effronterie, d' opinion de soi, et de me"pris 
 des autres. II se piquait de tout savoir, prose, poesie, philosophic, histoire, meme 
 galanterie ; ce qui lui procura force ridicules aventures et brocards." Edit. Paris, 
 1829, 8vo, xvii. 306.
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 35 
 
 exasperated by Lady Mary's refusal to comply with his de- 
 mands for money, R6mond, whose first letter to Mr. Wortley 
 she had succeeded in intercepting, finally found means of 
 executing his threat, and that Lady Mary thereupon placed in 
 her husband's hands the letters referred to, in her own jus- 
 tification. They reveal with unmistakable clearness the true 
 character of their relations. It appears from them that M. 
 Remond began his correspondence, and reached a very high 
 pitch in that style of exalted gallantry in which "French 
 wits" and English wits were then so accomplished, many 
 months before he had ever seen the object of his compli- 
 ments. The first of his letters is dated "Paris, April 20, 
 1718," a time when she was at Constantinople, and begins as 
 follows : 
 
 " I have never had, and in all probability never shall 
 have, the honour of seeing you. I am, however, unable 
 to restrain myself from writing to you. The Abbe" C. 
 [Conti], who is a particular friend of mine, has confided to 
 me a letter written to him by you from Constantinople. I 
 have read it, and read it again, a hundred times. I have 
 made a copy of it, and leave it neither day nor night. Ob- 
 serve my vanity. In that letter alone I have fancied my- 
 self capable of perceiving the singularity of your character 
 and the infinite charms of your mind." l 
 
 Other letters follow, in which M. Remond intermingles 
 expressions no less fervid with dissertations upon the ancients, 
 and copious allusions to Plato, Terence, Sir Isaac Newton, the 
 Island of Calypso, Horace, and Homer. After a while prosaic 
 allusions to money affairs and worldly hankerings after pro- 
 spective gains in South Sea stocks, then at their height, are 
 permitted to adulterate the pure stream of French gallantry 
 
 1 " Je n'ai jamais eu 1'honneur de vous voir, et vraisemblablement je ne 1'aurai 
 jamais. Cependant je vous e"cris sans pouvoir m'en empe'cher. Monsieur 1'Abbt? 
 C. [Conti], qui est particulierement de mes amis, m'a confie' une lettre que vous 
 lui avez e"crite de Constantinople. Je 1'ai lue, je 1'ai relue cent fois. Je 1'ai copit'e, 
 et je ne la quitte ni jour ni nuit. Voyez ma vanite. Sur cette seule lettre j'ai era 
 connaitre la singularite de votre caractere et les agre'ments infinis de votre esprit."
 
 36 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 and "wit." The lady's influence and supposed good infor- 
 mation, which appear to have induced her to speculate her- 
 self to a considerable degree, are invoked, in the hope of then- 
 proving fruitful of shares at enormous premiums. Then 
 follow thanks for " that friendship which induces you to con- 
 descend to the details of my domestic affairs; and for the 
 advice which you give me for retrieving my little tottering 
 fortune." 1 It is, fortunately for the reader, not necessary to 
 quote largely from M. Remond's letters. It may be supposed 
 that Lady Mary, in her brief sojourn in Paris, on her way home 
 from Constantinople, met her admirer, who was an acquaint- 
 ance of her sister Lady Mar, and of her friends Lord Stair and 
 the Abbe Conti : there is evidence in the letters of that visit to 
 England of which Lady Mary speaks, and which was imme- 
 diately followed by the rupture between them ; but the only 
 letter necessary to clear her of the inferences of Pope and 
 Walpole is the last of the series, written after Remond had 
 finally quitted her and returned to France. It is dated " 4th 
 September," and is indorsed by Mr. Wortley : " Mr. Remond, 
 after his return to Paris. His loss by the Mississippi, and his 
 small gain in England. Advises to realise." It begins as 
 follows : 
 
 " At last I am in Paris. ... I do not regret the climate 
 or the society of England, but the conversation of a few 
 persons particularly yours, which I enjoyed but rarely. . . . 
 If you ever come to France (it is indeed a beautiful country), 
 you will be more satisfied with me than I have reason to be 
 with you. All this is not by way of complaint. I know that 
 English ladies are incapable of friendship and of love. I care 
 little about the folly of the one, but I was very sensible of the 
 pleasure of the other. I shall love you without exacting 
 a return," &c. 2 
 
 1 " Cette amiti^ qui vous fait descendre jusqu'au detail de mes affaires domes- 
 tiques, ces conseils que vous me donnez pour assurer ma petite fortune chan- 
 celante." 
 
 2 " Enfin me voici ;i Paris. . . . Je ne regrette point le climat ni la societe" 
 d'Angleterre. mais bien la conversation de quelques personnes, surtout la votre, 
 dont je n'ai joui que rarement. ... Si vous venez jamais en France (en verite^
 
 MEMOTR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 37 
 
 After reading these letters in the handwriting of her ac- 
 cuser, there is no reason, notwithstanding Lady Mary's natural 
 alarm at his threats, to doubt the truth of her account of the 
 matter, which will be found in the earlier letters of the section 
 addressed to Lady Mar, or the correctness of Lord Wharn- 
 cliffe's suggestion that her dread of exposure arose from the 
 fact that her letters would have revealed to her husband, 
 whose strict principles on money matters are conspicuous in 
 his letters, the extent of her secret and imprudent ventures in 
 the disastrous South Sea bubble. To this must of course be 
 added a dread of the ridicule the sarcasms and the ballads 
 which would inevitably have followed the public exposure of 
 her letters, however innocent, and to which none are more 
 sensitive than those who are themselves prone to indulge in 
 such amusements. 
 
 No one of the charges which have been made against Lady 
 Mary had less foundation than that of her having behaved ill 
 to her sister Lady Mar. It appeared, like nearly all of these 
 accusations, first in Pope's writings, and is believed to be 
 alluded to in the line, 
 
 " Who starved a sister or denied a debt." 
 
 It seems to have originated in disputes between Lady Mary 
 and the family of Lady Mar as to the custody of Lady 
 Mar during her lunacy. Lady Mary appears always to have 
 regarded her sister's husband with aversion. His marriage 
 took place at a time when the Tory party, with whom 
 Lord Mar had finally connected himself, were in the height 
 of their power; and it must have been distasteful to all 
 Lady Mary's family and connexions. Mar was a man of a 
 peculiarly artful and designing character. He played through 
 all his life something more than a double part, and met the 
 
 c'est un beau pays) vous serez plus contente de moi que je n'ai du etre content 
 de vous. Tout cela n'est pas pour me plaindre. Je sais que les dames anglnise< 
 sont incapables d'amitie et d'amour. Je ne me soucie guere de la folie de 1'un 
 mais je suis fort sensible a la douceur de 1'autre. Je vous aimerai sans exiger 
 de retour."
 
 38 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 common fate of such a policy. By the Jacobites, whose cause 
 he was accused, sometimes unjustly, sometimes justly, of having 
 betrayed, he was distrusted. The Whigs, whom he secretly 
 served in his adversity, set him to the basest tasks, and cheated 
 him of his reward. Lady Mar, from her being a daughter 
 of the Duke of Kingston, and the facility with which she 
 was permitted by the government to go to and fro between 
 England and the Continent, was always regarded by her hus- 
 band's friends with extreme suspicion, and she could have had 
 little sympathy with them. During the period embraced by 
 the section of Lady Mary's correspondence with her 1721- 
 1727 she resided with her husband in Paris. The only 
 letter from her which I have found, dwells much upon do- 
 mestic trouble, and is written in a melancholy and despond- 
 ing tone. She appears to have lived unhappily with her hus- 
 band, and, " in the beginning of her illness," is said by Lord 
 Grange, the brother of the Earl of Mar, to have declared 
 "loudly and oftener than once," that "her husband's bad 
 usage had turned her mad." A ruse was probably resorted 
 to by her family in England, through the influence which 
 they had with the government, for removing her from her 
 husband's custody in Paris after her madness was declared : 
 for when he permitted her to be taken to England, he was 
 evidently under the impression that he would be allowed to 
 follow her. The permission, however, was withheld. He had, 
 in fact, by his treachery, altogether lost his influence with the 
 Jacobite party, and having now nothing more to betray, was 
 no longer valued by King George's government. He died a 
 few years afterwards at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 It is hardly to be wondered at that the efforts made by 
 Lord Grange to obtain the custody of his brother's wife, in 
 preference to her sister Lady Mary, met with the most stre- 
 nuous resistance from the latter. Grange was a man of de- 
 termined character, who did not scruple at an act of lawless 
 violence. His forcible detention of his wife, Lady Grange, 
 for many years in lonely confinement in the island of St. 
 Kilda, is a well-known romance in real life. His letters and
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 39 
 
 diary exhibit a curious mixture of theological cant, whining 
 complaints, and unscrupulous designs. For Lady Mar, of 
 whom he knew but little, he did not pretend to have, and 
 could not have, any particular regard. The motives for his 
 conduct in the matter are, indeed, fully betrayed in his private 
 letters to his relative, Thomas Erskine of Pittodry, published 
 in the third volume of the Miscellany of the Spalding Club ; 
 from which it clearly appears that it was not the continuance 
 of Lady Mar's madness, so much as the consequences of her 
 recovery, which he regarded with dread. "If Lady M r 
 continue in her confinement," he writes, " and matters as they 
 are, it is bad enough ; but they may be worse." " Supposing 
 the sister find her well," he adds, " then may not an artful 
 woman impose on one in such circumstances, and whose mind 
 cannot yet be very firm ?" What this means is explained 
 by other passages in the same letter, in which he shows, by 
 elaborate statements, the importance to his brother and his 
 family of obtaining a command over her actions, particularly 
 as to an arrangement already made concerning her property. 
 " Were Lady M r, on her freedom, in right hands" he re- 
 marks, " she would ratify the bargain ; but if in her sister's, 
 probably she will not. If while she is that way Lord M. 
 [Mar] comes to die, it is too probable that his daughter will 
 fall into the same hands, which would go near to finish the 
 ruin of the family. I shall add little more on this head. The 
 expense is uneasy at any rate. If the lady be got to freedom, 
 and then to the settlement we wish, it will cost money ; but 
 it is worth it ; and if it make not a return in profit, yet it 
 prevents worse." 
 
 It may be supposed that Lord Grange, though he made a 
 journey to London on this business, failed to persuade the 
 Lord Chancellor of the justice of his claim to take charge 
 of Lady Mar. All the schemes to which he resorted for ob- 
 taining his object proved unavailing ; and he at length 
 adopted the characteristic measure of forcibly seizing the un- 
 happy lady, and carrying her to Scotland. On the road, he 
 informs us, she was arrested by the Lord Chief Justice's war-
 
 40 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 rant, " procured on false affidavit of her sister Lady Ivlary, &c., 
 and brought back to London, declared lunatic, and by Lord 
 Chancellor (whose crony is Mr. Wortley, Lady Mary's hus- 
 band) delivered into the custody of Lady Mary." It was but 
 in the preceding year that Grange had, in like manner, con- 
 veyed away his wife. She was seized in the night by a 
 party of Highlanders, and thenceforth devoted to a secret 
 and dreary imprisonment, from which she only escaped by 
 her death, more than thirteen years afterwards. What might 
 have been the fate of Lady Mar in the hands of this man, 
 he has himself sketched in a curious passage which he puts 
 into Lady Mary's mouth, in an imaginary conversation be- 
 tween herself and her sister. " Quite separated from your 
 father's and mother's friends and from your country," he sup- 
 poses Lady Mary to say, " locked up in Scotland, or foreign 
 parts, and wholly in their [Lord Grange and his adherents'] 
 power, what can you expect ? Your friends here could give 
 you no relief, and you should be wholly at the barbarous 
 mercy of those whose sense get [gets?] not sufficiently the 
 better of their hatred or contempt as to make them carry with 
 seeming respect to you till they get you in their power. What 
 will they not do when they have you ? " 
 
 It is a striking instance of the recklessness of Pope's satire, 
 that he appears to have had no authority for his accusation 
 but the statements of this man. That Lady Mary ill-used or 
 " starved" her favourite sister, was a charge not likely to be 
 conceived in the mind of any one else but Grange, and which 
 no one else had any interest in making ; and the fact that 
 he appears to have induced Pope's friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, 
 on one occasion to enter into his plans, would certainly 
 point to a channel through which Pope might have received 
 this strange statement. Among the papers is a letter from 
 Mr. Wortley to Lady Mary, written some time later, in which 
 he recommends her, for her own ease, to relinquish her charge, 
 and urges upon her that she has " done all that any one can 
 think reasonable" for her sister's sake that Lady Frances 
 Erskine, the daughter of Lady Mar, being now "almost a 
 woman, ought to choose for herself who should preserve her
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 41 
 
 mother's life ;" and that, " if she had not the prudence to 
 choose proper persons," Lady Mary " could not be blamed." 
 Lady Mary appears to have yielded to these arguments, and 
 Lady Frances Erskine thenceforth took charge of her mother. 
 Lady Frances subsequently married her cousin, the son of 
 Lord Grange, and naturally adopted the spirit of her hus- 
 band's family : but Lady Mar appears to have had no share 
 in their hostility. To the last, Lady Mary continued to write 
 to her occasional letters from Italy, in the hope of their finding 
 her in one of those intervals of recovered reason in which she, 
 on one occasion at least, replied in a letter of kindness and 
 sisterly affection. 
 
 The reader is probably sufficiently wearied of these discus- 
 sions, but there is one more such story to the examination of 
 which some space is devoted in the appendix to the edition of 
 1837, and which cannot be passed over here. The following 
 is Lord Wharncliffe's statement of the matter : 
 
 " In the ' Letters from Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann,' 
 lately published, and which were edited by the late Lord Dover, 
 there are two passages 1 relating to Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
 tagu which require some notice, in order that the real state 
 of the facts to which they refer may be known, as far as 
 possible. 
 
 u The first of these is to be found in Letter 231, dated 
 Mistley, August 31, 1751, and is in these words : ' Pray, tell 
 me if you know anything of Lady Mary Wortley : we have 
 an obscure story here of her being in durance in the Brescian 
 or the Bergamesco ; that a young fellow whom she set out 
 with keeping has taken it into his head to keep her close pri- 
 soner, not permitting her to write or receive any letters but 
 what he sees : he seems determined, if her husband should 
 die, not to lose her as the Count - [Richcourt] lost my 
 Lady O.' [Orford]. And in the next letter he again alludes 
 to this report. 
 
 " Among Lady Mary's papers there is a long paper, written 
 
 1 One of these passages refers to M. RtMiiond, whose story is already discussed.
 
 42 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 in Italian, not by herself, giving an account of her having 
 been detained for some time against her will in a country- 
 house belonging to an Italian count, and inhabited by him 
 and his mother. This paper seems to be drawn up either as 
 a case to be submitted to a lawyer for his opinion, or to be 
 produced in a court of law. There is nothing else to be 
 found in Lady Mary's papers referring in the least degree 
 to this circumstance. It would appear, however, that some 
 such forcible detention as is alluded to did take place, probably 
 for some pecuniary or interested object ; but, like many of 
 Horace Walpole's stories, he took care not to let this lose 
 anything that might give it zest, and he therefore makes the 
 person by whom Lady Mary was detained, ' a young fellow 
 whom she set out with keeping.' Now, at the time of this 
 transaction taking place, Lady Mary was sixty-one years old. 
 The reader, therefore, may judge for himself, how far such 
 an imputation upon her is likely to be founded in truth, and 
 will bear in mind that there was no indisposition upon the 
 part of Horace Walpole to make insinuations of that sort 
 against Lady Mary." 
 
 The hatred of Horace Walpole towards Mr. Wortley and 
 Lady Mary, which exhibits itself in the bitter and malignant 
 spirit of all his allusions to them, had other grounds than 
 those to which the writer of the Biographical Anecdotes 
 alludes. In his judgments upon those who had walked the 
 political stage somewhat earlier than the commencement of his 
 own career, Horace Walpole had frequently but one standard 
 of vice and virtue. The opponents of his father, Sir Robert, 
 rarely found favour in his writings. In moments of calm 
 reflection he was himself not unconscious of this bias ; but he 
 was probably unaware of the extent to which his veneration 
 for the memory of a father, certainly not over fond or in- 
 dulgent towards him, gave colour to his opinions. But Mr. 
 Wortley had rendered himself particularly odious to Walpole ; 
 and that Lady Mary, though once friendly with him, had im- 
 bibed her husband's spirit, is manifest in allusions to Walpole
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 43 
 
 in her poems, no less than in her fragmentary sketch of the 
 Court of George the First, which she appears to have written 
 late in life. In the latter period of Sir Robert Walpole's career, 
 when that power so long maintained was tottering, this anta- 
 gonism was still more conspicuous. The few of Mr. Wortley's 
 speeches delivered at this period which have been preserved, 
 are all attacks upon Sir Robert ; but it was in the hour of 
 Walpole's disgrace, when an insult would be more keenly felt 
 than ever, and when young Horace, just entered upon the scene, 
 found his father's popularity and influence at an end, that Mr. 
 Wortley assailed the falling minister in an invective which 
 could never have been forgiven. The occasion was Mr. 
 Sandys' motion for the removal of Walpole, and ]\Ir. Wortley 
 concluded his speech by moving " that while this question is 
 debated, Sir Robert Walpole be ordered to withdraw ;" one of 
 the objects of this which he urged being " to suppress that 
 awe which may be raised in part of this assembly by a powerful 
 offender, whose looks may upbraid some with the benefits which 
 they have formerly received from him, and whose eyes may 
 dart menaces upon those who are dependent on his favour." 
 
 I have unfortunately not been able to find the " paper in 
 Italian," giving an account of Lady Mary's " forcible deten- 
 tion," to which Lord Wharncliffe refers ; but it appears, by 
 a letter from General Graham, that the Italian count was the 
 Count Palazzo, and the reader will find in the letters from 
 Lady Mary to her husband, dated Brescia, Aug. 23, N.S. 
 [1746], and Nov. 24, N.S. [1746], a full account, from Lady 
 Mary herself, of the origin of her acquaintance with the count 
 and his mother. The count was of an ancient family who 
 had their seat, as I find from the Italian books of genealogy, 
 near Brescia. He visited Lady Maiy at Avignon, with a 
 letter of introduction from her friend the Countess of Wacker- 
 barth. Lady Mary had then been long wanting an opportunity 
 to leave Avignon for Northern Italy, which having become, 
 after the unsuccessful rebellion of 1745, more than ever 
 a place of refuge for English Jacobites, was for her, whom 
 they suspected to be a spy, an inconvenient residence. The Avar
 
 44 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 then carried on between the Spaniards and the Germans in 
 Italy, made the journey extremely dangerous, and the count, as 
 she informs Mr. Wortley, offered her the escort of himself and 
 his attendants to Brescia. At Brescia, she was received by the 
 count's mother, who invited her to her house till she could find 
 a lodging to her liking. Here Lady Mary fell ill of a dan- 
 gerous fever, which confined her to her bed two months, and 
 left her in a state of great weakness. " The Countess Palazzo," 
 she writes, on the 24th of November, " has taken as much 
 care of me as if I had been her sister, and omitted no expense 
 or trouble to serve me. I am still with her, and, indeed, in 
 no condition of moving at present." On the 18th of January 
 she writes again, in an unpublished letter, that she is " still very 
 weak." The " detention" referred to must have been of short 
 duration, for in another letter, dated 17th March, N.S., 1746-7, 
 she informs her husband that her health is much mended, and 
 that she is " at present in a little house" she has " taken some 
 miles from Brescia for the sake of the air." What had been the 
 grounds of difference between her and the count and his mother 
 in the mean time, does not appear. It is possible that they may 
 have considered that her illness her " terrible fit of sickness," 
 as Lady Mary, in one of her letters, calls it made it necessary 
 to impose upon her some temporary restraint ; and that Lady 
 Mary may have resented their interference so much as to have 
 contemplated legal proceedings. This would account for the 
 affair being noised abroad, with the exaggerations usual in such 
 cases, until it reached the willing ears of Horace Walpole in 
 the form of the " obscure story" which he has perpetuated. In 
 any case, the reader will observe that Lady Mary did not 
 shrink from employing another hand to draw up a formal 
 statement of the facts, and that this statement was preserved 
 by her among the papers transmitted to her daughter. 
 
 On the curious question of why Lady Mary, in the year 
 1739, left her husband and connexions to reside on the Conti- 
 nent, and did not return to England for more than twenty 
 years, a careful perusal of all the papers, both published and 
 unpublished, does not enable me to add much to the remarks of
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MAEY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 45 
 
 Lady Louisa Stuart. Down to within a short period before her 
 departure, there are expressions in the letters of Mr. Wortley 
 to her, which are inconsistent with the supposition of such a 
 separation being then contemplated. Throughout the corre- 
 spondence, maintained to the end of Mr. Wortley's long life 
 with a regularity that is remarkable, expressions of respect 
 and affection are frequent on both sides. It is possible that 
 the publicity which the attacks of Pope and others, whom 
 she had offended by her unfortunate talent for satire and 
 "ballads," had brought upon them both, induced her to 
 withdraw ; and that after a few years' absence a return to 
 that society, by which she was almost forgotten, became 
 more and more distasteful to her. This supposition is 
 in some degree strengthened by one of the later letters to 
 her daughter, in which, after detailing the annoyances 
 she had been subjected to by the English Resident at 
 Venice, she adds : " Do not tell your father these foolish 
 squabbles. It is the only thing I would keep from his know- 
 ledge. I am apprehensive he should imagine some misplaced 
 raillery or vivacity of mine has drawn on me these ridiculous 
 persecutions." Though Mr. Wortley twice visited the Conti- 
 nent during her long exile, on one occasion in 1751 going 
 as far as Vienna, he did not visit her ; but I find in all the 
 letters only one passage which could even be construed into 
 a complaint. It occurs in a letter to Mr. Wortley, dated 
 6th April [1742], in which, after referring to her daughter, 
 Lady Bute, she concludes : " I hope her obedience and 
 affection to you will make your life agreeable to you. She 
 cannot have more than I have had. I wish the success may 
 be greater." 
 
 But whatever may have been the cause of their separation, 
 there is abundant evidence in the correspondence that it was 
 one which she might have openly avowed without shame- 
 Besides repeated censures upon the ill conduct of others, which 
 it would be impossible to imagine could be written to a hus- 
 band by a woman whose own wrong-doing had condemned 
 her, as has been insinuated, to a lifelong banishment, there are
 
 46 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 frequently direct references to her own propriety of conduct 
 and faithful discharge of her duties as a mother and a wife. 
 In one letter to Mr. Wortley she writes, with reference to Lady 
 Bute, " I may say with truth that, as even from her infancy I 
 have made her a companion and witness of my actions, she 
 owes me not only the regard due to a parent, but the esteem 
 that ought to be paid to a blameless conduct." That their 
 separation was never regarded by Lady Mary as necessarily 
 final, is equally evident. On one occasion, among the later 
 letters, she writes to her husband : 
 
 " Having had no opportunity of writing by a private hand, 
 I have delayed some time answering your last letter, which 
 touched me more than I am either able or willing to express. 
 I hope your apprehensions of blindness are not confirmed by 
 any fresh symptoms of that terrible misfortune. If I could 
 be of any service to you, on that or any other occasion, I shall 
 think my last remains of life well employed." 
 
 Again, to her daughter, about the same time : 
 
 " My life is so near a conclusion, that where or how I pass 
 it, if innocently, is almost become indifferent to me. I have 
 outlived the greatest part of my acquaintance, and, to say the 
 truth, a return to crowd and bustle after my long retirement 
 would be disagreeable to me. Yet, if I could be of use, either 
 to your father or your family, I would venture shortening the 
 insignificant days of your affectionate mother." 
 
 The history of her life in Italy will be read in her letters 
 written thence. The greater part of it was spent at Lovere, 
 where she seems to have found content and occupation in daily 
 attention to her garden, her dairy, her needlework, and the 
 small farm, on which she produced so much silk as to require 
 formal negotiations for its sale with an English merchant. 
 The books which were continually sent to her by Lady Bute 
 were chiefly the novels of the day, which " trash" and " lum-
 
 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 47 
 
 ber," as her daughter pronounced them, afforded the best 
 pictures that could be got of that English life to which she 
 must still have looked back with some regret ; and even their 
 wretched framework and coarse attempts at character fumished 
 a theme for discourse to her active mind, where a better one 
 was wanting. 
 
 Her life, however, appears to have been always embittered 
 by the misconduct of her son, whose persecutions followed her 
 even in her distant retirement. There has been found among 
 his mother's papers a letter from him, written in a spirit of 
 contrition so profound, and containing admissions of miscon- 
 duct towards his parents so abject and complete, as to make 
 the acts which they refer to hard to be conceived. "The 
 deep sense I have of my past ill conduct," he writes, " for 
 which I have long felt, and ever shall feel, the most painful 
 self-abhorrence, deterred me from sending a letter ;" and, he 
 continues, " I had long reflected, with anguish of soul, that 
 I was in a manner cut off as an alien and an outcast from 
 my parents, and what pierced still more deeply was the con- 
 sciousness that the blame lay wholly upon myself, and that I 
 had nothing to plead in mitigation of what I had been guilty 
 of. Judge then, madam, of the joy I must feel on the receipt 
 of your letter. It was a joy too big for utterance." 
 
 It is difficult to believe that such regrets were feigned, or to 
 imagine the writer plunging immediately afterwards into new 
 excesses and acts of insult. A hundred times forgiven, and 
 regarded by his mother with new hopes, he appears to have 
 followed his career of profligacy and wickedness to the last. 
 A letter, which is probably the latest, from his mother to him, 
 contains the passage, " Son, I know not how to write to you, 
 and scarcely what to say. Your present conduct is far more in- 
 famous than the past. It is small sign of reform of manners 
 when you durst disturb an indulgent (too indulgent) father's 
 
 dying pangs You have shortened your father's days, 
 
 and will, perhaps, have the glory to break your mother's heart. 
 I will not curse you. God give you a real, not affected 
 repentance." A charge in the same letter of his having " de-
 
 48 MEMOIR OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 famed a too fond mother by a most impudent forgery," is 
 darkly alluded to again in the following terrible words in a 
 letter without address, but in Lady Mary's handwriting : " I 
 beg your pardon for this liberty I take. I really feel my head 
 light. I swear to you (so may my soul find peace with God) 
 I know nothing of these infamous libels my son has produced 
 in my name." The reader will find elsewhere a sketch of this 
 man's strange career. 
 
 Lady Mary was in Venice in 1761, when the news reached 
 her of her husband's death, and she writes upon the subject 
 in terms of sorrow too deep to have been feigned. She was 
 now upwards of seventy years of age, and was in ill health ; 
 but her daughter pressed her, for reasons connected with the 
 disposition of Mr. Wortley's estate, to return. "I think it 
 my duty," she writes, " to risk my life if I can contribute to 
 the due execution of your honoured father's last will and testa- 
 ment ;" and again, in another letter, " You need not doubt 
 I shall make all the haste I can to embrace you, which has 
 been long the desire of my life, as you very well know." 
 
 She started in the midst of a severe winter, soon after the 
 date of this letter, and arrived in England, by way of Rotter- 
 dam, in January, 1762. Some uncharitable pictures of her 
 after her return will be found in the letters of Horace Wai- 
 pole; a kindlier account in the letters of Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Montagu. She died at her house in George-street, Hanover- 
 square, on the 21st of August, 1762, in her seventy-fourth 
 year.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 BY LADY LOUISA STUAET. 
 
 [WRITTEN IN 1837.] 
 
 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, we must remember, 
 was born a hundred and forty-seven years ago, 1 and has now 
 been dead more than seventy. Considering this, and also that 
 the incidents of her life were in no respect linked to those 
 historical or political facts which fix in men's memories even 
 trifles if connected with them, it cannot be expected that her 
 descendants themselves should possess very ample means of 
 giving or gaining information upon a subject borne almost 
 beyond their reach by the lapse of tune. The multitude of 
 stories circulated about her as about all people who were 
 objects of note in their day increase, instead of lessening the 
 difficulty. Some of these may be confidently pronounced 
 inventions, simply and purely false ; some, if true, concerned a 
 different person ; some were grounded upon egregious blun- 
 ders; and not a few upon jests, mistaken by the dull and 
 literal for earnest. Others, again, where a little truth and a 
 great deal of falsehood were probably intermingled, nobody 
 now living can pretend to confirm, or contradict, or unravel. 
 Nothing is so readily believed, yet nothing is usually so un- 
 worthy of credit, as tales learned from report, or caught up in 
 casual conversation. A circumstance carelessly told, carelessly 
 listened to, half comprehended, and imperfectly remembered, 
 
 1 Lady Louisa Stuart supposed Lady Mary to have beeu born iu 1690, as stated 
 by Mr. Dallaway. See Memoir, ante, p. 3. T. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 has a poor chance of being repeated accurately by the first 
 hearer; but when, after passing through the moulding of 
 countless hands, it comes, with time, place, and person, glo- 
 riously confounded, into those of a book-maker ignorant of all 
 its bearings, it will be lucky indeed if any trace of the original 
 groundwork remain distinguishable. 
 
 To give a sample or two of the metamorphoses which this 
 process can effect. Pinkerton, in his Walpoliana, mentions 
 that Horace Walpole told him he had known Lady Mary 
 Wortley from the very beginning of her life, having been her 
 playfellow in his childhood. 1 Mr. Pinkerton could have no 
 motive for inventing this, so doubtless he thought, or dreamt 
 he had heard it ; yet it is impossible that Lord Orf ord should 
 ever have said anything so ridiculous, since Lady Mary was 
 the contemporary of his mother and his aunt, and at least 
 seven-and-twenty when the former brought him into the 
 world. 2 
 
 Another pretty striking instance is furnished by a Review, 3 
 which informed us some years ago that " the greater part of 
 Lady Mary's epistolary correspondence was destroyed by her 
 mother! 4 that good and gothic lady," as the reviewer sarcas- 
 tically calls her for having thus dared to infringe upon pro- 
 perty in his opinion rightfully belonging to the public the 
 unconscious public, whose grandfathers and grandmothers were 
 for the most part yet unborn. Now, the good (and very pos- 
 sible gothic) lady in question departed this life before her 
 daughter could either write or read ; 5 therefore the nineteenth 
 century and its public may let her memory sleep in peace. 
 
 1 " Lady Wortley Montagu was a playfellow of mine when both were children. 
 She was always a dirty little thing. This habit continued with her." Wal- 
 poliana, i. 3. T. 
 
 2 "Walpole was born in 1717, Lady Mary in 1689. T. 
 
 3 Quarterly Review, vol. xxiii. p. 414. W. The initial W. will be used in 
 this edition to signify that the note first appeared in the edition of 1837. Lord 
 Wharncliffe informs us in his preface that " a great part of the explanatory notes" 
 in his edition were written by Lady Louisa Stuart. T. 
 
 4 The same absurd story may be found, with some curious comments, in Disraeli's 
 " Curiosities of Literature." W. 
 
 5 She died in 1692, and not in 1694, as stated by Mr. Dallaway. Her death ia 
 mentioned in LuttrelTs Diary, v. 220. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 51 
 
 For the reasons stated above, the particulars offered here 
 cannot be otherwise than scanty, and may appear uninteresting 
 and frivolous; but authentic they must be, because either 
 received directly from the late Countess of Bute, or else ga- 
 thered from documents formerly seen in Lady Mary Wortley's 
 own handwriting. 
 
 A tale of pedigree would be little to the purpose ; yet, as 
 Lady Mary's letters allude more than once to her family his- 
 tory, it may throw some light upon passages of this kind to say 
 that, in the great Civil War, the second Earl of Kingston, 
 created Marquis of Dorchester by Charles the First, espoused 
 the royal cause; while his next brother, William Pierrepont 
 of Thoresby, surnamed Wise William, Lady Mary Wortley's 
 great-grandfather, adhered to the Parliament. The currency 
 of such an epithet speaks his reputation for sagacity and pru- 
 dence ; he had considerable weight with his own party, and, 
 according to tradition, was much courted and consulted by 
 Cromwell. His eldest son died in his lifetime, having married 
 a Wiltshire heiress, whose maiden name, Evelyn, has ever 
 since been a favourite Christian name, for both men and 
 women, in most of the famih'es descended from her. 1 Lord 
 Dorchester, leaving no male issue, the earldom of Kingston 
 devolved successively upon the three sons of this marriage, 
 grandsons of Wise William. The third, Evelyn, fifth Earl of 
 Kingston, created Marquis of Dorchester by Queen Anne in 
 1706, and Duke of Kingston by George the First in 1715, 
 had by his wife, Lady Mary Fielding, three daughters, Mary, 
 born in 1690 [1689], Frances, and Evelyn, and one son, 
 William, whose birth she did not long survive. Her mother, 
 Mary, Countess Dowager of Denbigh and Desmond, was the 
 grandmother of whom Lady Mary- Wortley speaks so highly 
 as having had a superior understanding, and retained it unim- 
 paired at an extraordinary age. 
 
 1 See account of this grandmother of Lady Mary in the Memoir prefixed to this 
 edition, p. 1. T. 
 
 E2
 
 52 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES 
 
 Lady Kingston dying thus early, her husband continued a 
 widower till all his children were grown up and married; 1 
 though, if Lady Mary may be believed, not through any over- 
 anxious concern for their welfare. Richardson, she affirms, 
 drew his picture without knowing it in Sir Thomas Grandison, 
 the gay father of his hero Sir Charles, which says a great deal 
 to those who have read the book and observed the character 
 that of a man of pleasure, far too fine a gentleman to be a 
 tender or even a considerate parent. 2 Such men, always 
 selfish and commonly vain, begin to view their offspring as 
 rivals the moment they are old enough to put beholders in 
 mind that those to whom they owe their birth can hardly be 
 much less than a score of years older. But playthings are 
 cherished while new, seldom flung aside in the first hour of 
 acquisition ; and, besides being an admirable plaything, a 
 sprightly beautiful child, while it is a child, reflects lustre upon 
 a young father, from whom it may be presumed to have 
 partly inherited its charms. Accordingly, a trifling incident, 
 which Lady Mary loved to recal, will prove how much she 
 was the object of Lord Kingston's pride and fondness in her 
 childhood. As a leader of the fashionable world, and a 
 strenuous Whig in party, he of course belonged to the Kit-Cat 
 Club. One day, at a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a 
 whim seized him to nominate her, then not eight years old, a 
 candidate ; alleging that she was far prettier than any lady on 
 their list. The other members demurred, because the rules of 
 the club forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never 
 seen. " Then you shall see her," cried he ; and in the gaiety 
 of the moment sent orders home to have her finely dressed 
 and brought to him at the tavern, where she was received 
 with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health 
 
 1 " My Lord Mar is married to Lady Frances Pierrepont, and my Lord Dor- 
 chester her father is to be married next week to Lady Belle Bentinck." Charles 
 Ford to Swift, 22 July, 1714. Lady Frances was the last married of the three 
 sisters. T. 
 
 2 " Au bout du compte, I don't know why filial piety should exceed fatherly 
 fondness." Lady Mary to her sister Lady Mar, on the death of their father in 
 1726. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 53 
 
 drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due 
 form upon a drinking-glass. The company consisting of some 
 of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap 
 of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, 
 was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, 
 what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her 
 wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she 
 said, was too poor a word to express her sensations; they 
 amounted to ecstasy: never again, throughout her whole 
 future life, did she pass so happy a day. Nor, indeed, could 
 she ; for the love of admiration, which this scene was calcu- 
 lated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully grati- 
 fied; there is always some allaying ingredient in the cup, 
 some drawback upon the triumphs of grown people. Her 
 father carried on the frolic, and, we may conclude, confirmed 
 the taste, by having her picture painted for the club-room, 
 that she might be enrolled a regular toast. 
 
 There can be no dispute that Lady Mary showed early 
 signs of more than ordinary abilities ; but whether they in- 
 duced Lord Kingston to have her bred up with her brother 
 and taught Latin and Greek by his tutor, 1 is not so well 
 ascertained. The boy was two or three years younger than 
 the girl, which makes against it. Lady Bute expressly said 
 that her mother understood little or no Greek, and by her 
 own account had taught herself Latin. 2 And besides, would 
 she, while so earnestly recommending a learned education for 
 women, have complained of her own as " one of the worst in 
 the world," if it had had this classical foundation ? Most 
 likely not; most likely her father, whose amusement in her 
 
 1 This is Mr. Dallaway's statement. It is certainly erroneous. T. 
 
 2 This is corroborated by Lady Mary's early correspondence with Miss Anne 
 Wortley (see letter, 8 August, 1709); and still further by Lady Mary's own 
 account to Spence when he met her in Rome in 1741. " When I was young I 
 was a great admirer of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and that was one of the chief rea- 
 sons that set me upon the thoughts of stealing the Latin language. Mr. Wortley 
 was the only person to whom I communicated my design, and he encouraged me 
 in it. I used to study five or six hours a day for two years in my father's 
 library ; and so got that language, whilst everybody else thought I was reading 
 nothing but novels and romances." Spence s Anecdotes by Singer. Second edit, 
 p. 175.-T.
 
 54 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 ceased when she grew past the age of sitting on a knee and 
 playing with a doll, consigned all his daughters alike to the 
 care and custody of such a good homespun governess as her 
 letters describe ; and, having thus done his supposed duty to- 
 wards them, held himself at liberty to pursue his own plea- 
 sures, which lay elsewhere than at home. One remnant of 
 his illegitimate progeny, an old General Armytage, was still 
 living long after the accession of George the Third. 
 
 But, admitting that Lady Mary's talents were only self-cul- 
 tivated, her literary progress might not be the less considerable. 
 Where industry, inspirited by genius, toils from free choice, 
 and there exists unchecked that eager devouring appetite for 
 reading, seldom felt but in the first freshness of intelligent 
 youth, it will take in more nourishment, and faster, than the 
 most assiduous tuition can cram down. It is true, the habit 
 of idly turning over an unconnected variety of books, for- 
 gotten as soon as read, may be prejudicial to the mind ; but a 
 bee wanders to better purpose than a butterfly, although the 
 one will sometimes seem just to touch the flower-bed and flit 
 away as lightly as the other. Lady Mary read everything, 
 but it was without forgetting anything ; and the mass of 
 matter, whencesover collected, gradually formed its own ar- 
 rangement in her head. She probably had some assistance 
 from Mr. William Fielding, her mother's brother, a man 1 
 of parts, who perceived her capacity, corresponded with her, 
 and encouraged her pursuit of information. And she herself 
 acknowledges her obligations to Bishop Burnet for " conde- 
 scending to direct the studies of a girl." 2 Nevertheless, 
 though labouring to acquire what may be termed masculine 
 knowledge, and translating under the bishop's eye the Latin 
 version of Epictetus, she was by no means disposed to neglect 
 works of fancy and fiction, but got by heart all the poetry 
 that came in her way, and indulged herself in the luxury of 
 reading every romance as yet invented. For she possessed, 
 
 1 She corresponded with him when in Turkey. See Memoir, ante, p. 19. T. 
 
 2 See her letter to Bishop Burnet, 10 July, 1710, among Miscellaneous Let- 
 ers. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. -Id 
 
 and left after her, the whole library of Mrs. Lennox's Female 
 Quixote Cleopatra, Cassandra, Clelia, Cyrus, Pharamond, 
 Ibrahim, &c. &c. all, like the Lady Arabella's collection, 
 " Englished" mostly " by persons of honour" The chief fa- 
 vourite appeared to have been a translation of Monsieur 
 Honore d'Urfe's Astrea, once the delight of Henri Quatre 
 and his court, and still admired and quoted by the savans 
 who flourished under Louis XIV. In a blank page of this 
 massive volume (which might have counterbalanced a pig of 
 lead of the same size), Lady Mary had written in her fairest 
 youthful hand the names and characteristic qualities of the 
 chief personages thus : the beautiful Diana, the volatile 
 Climene, the melancholy Doris, Celadon the faithful, Adamas 
 the wise, and so on ; forming two long columns. 
 
 These ponderous books, once hers, black in outward hue, 
 and marked with the wear and tear of almost a century, 
 might have been disrespectfully treated by her junior grand- 
 children and their nursery-maids put to any use except 
 reading them but for the protection of an excellent person, 
 who, when young, had been Lady Bute's own attendant before 
 her marriage, and ever after made part of her family. Her 
 spectacles were always to be found in Clelia or Cassandra, 
 which she studied unceasingly six days of the week, prizing 
 them next to the Bible and Tillotson's Sermons; because, 
 to give her own words, " they were all about good and virtuous 
 people, not like the wicked trash she now saw young folks get 
 from circulating libraries." To her latest hour she used to 
 regret having lost sight of another romance, beautiful beyond 
 them all the History of Hiempsal, King of Numidia. This, 
 she said, she had read only once, and by no pains or search 
 could ever meet with or hear of again. 
 
 The modern world will smile, but should, however, beware 
 of too hastily despising works that charmed Lady Mary Wort- 
 ley in her youth, and were courageously defended by Madame 
 de Sevign6 even when hers was past, and they began to be 
 sliding out of fashion. She, it seems, thought, with the old 
 woman just now mentioned, that they had a tendency to elevate
 
 56 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 the mind, and to instil honourable and generous sentiments. 
 At any rate, they must have fostered application and persever- 
 ance, by accustoming their readers to what the French term 
 des ouvrages de longue haleine. After resolutely mastering 
 Clelia, nobody could pretend to quail at the aspect of Mezeray, 
 or even at that of Holinshed's Chronicle printed in black 
 letter. Clarendon, Burnet, and Rapin, had not yet issued into 
 daylight. 
 
 Some particulars, in themselves too insignificant to be worth 
 recording, may yet interest the curious, by setting before 
 them the manners of our ancestors. Lord Dorchester, having 
 no wife to do the honours of his table at Thoresby, imposed 
 that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon as she had bodily 
 strength for the office : which in those days required no small 
 share. For the mistress of a country mansion was not only to 
 invite that is, urge and tease her company to eat more than 
 human throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every 
 dish, when chosen, with her own hands. The greater the 
 lady, the more indispensable the duty. Each joint was carried 
 up in its turn, to be operated upon by her, and her alone ; 
 since the peers and knights on either hand were so far from 
 being bound to offer their assistance, that the very master of 
 the house, posted opposite to her, might not act as her croupier ; 
 his department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for 
 the crowd of guests, the most inconsiderable among them 
 the curate, or subaltern, or squire's younger brother if suf- 
 fered through her neglect to help himself to a slice of the 
 mutton placed before him, would have chewed it in bitterness, 
 and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a wrong 
 vote at the next election. There were then professed carving- 
 masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically ; from 
 one of whom Lady Mary said she took lessons three times a 
 week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days ; 
 when, in order to perform her functions without interruption, 
 she was forced to eat her own dinner alone an hour or two 
 beforehand.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 57 
 
 Most of the intimacies formed by Lady Mary in her youth 
 having died away before her daughter began to know what was 
 passing, only a few of her early companions can be men- 
 tioned : viz. Mrs. Smith, maid of honour to Queen Anne, and 
 daughter of the Whig Speaker Smith j 1 the beautiful Dolly 
 Walpole, Sir Robert's sister, afterwards the second wife of 
 Lord Townshend ; Lady Anne Vaughan, only child of Lord 
 Carbesry, 2 the last of a family noted for having given Jeremy 
 Taylor an asylum at Golden Grove. This young lady was 
 precisely in the situation which Lady Mary always maintained 
 to be the most perilous and pitiable incident to womankind ; 
 that of a great heiress at her own free disposal. And truly 
 her fate justified the paradox. She bestowed herself and 
 her wealth upon Lord Winchester (third Duke of Bolton), 3 
 a handsome agreeable libertine, who, much worse than in- 
 different to the first half of the gift, cast her off without any 
 long delay, and, when her melancholy life at last came to an 
 end, married the famous actress, Miss Fenton, best known by 
 her stage-title of Polly Peachem. 4 
 
 The name of another young friend will excite more atten- 
 tion Mrs. Anne Wortley. Mrs. Anne has a most mature 
 sound to our modern ears ; but, in the phraseology of those 
 days, Miss, which had hardly yet ceased to be a term of re- 
 proach, still denoted childishness, flippancy, or some other con- 
 temptible quality, and was rarely applied to young ladies of a 
 respectable class. In Steele's Guardian, the youngest of 
 Nestor Ironside's wards, aged fifteen, is Mrs. Mary Lizard. 
 Nay, Lady Bute herself could remember having been styled 
 Mrs. Wortley, when a child, by two or three elderly visitors, 
 as tenacious of their ancient modes of speech as of other old 
 fashions. Mrs. Anne, then, was the second daughter of Mr. 
 
 1 Whig Speaker Smith had several daughters. This was, we suppose, the lady 
 who signs " A. Smith," and dates from " Bond-street" about 1710. She appears to 
 have been a friend and confidante of Lady Mary, and to have assisted her to 
 communicate with her lover, Mr. Wortley. T. 
 
 * John Vaughan, third Earl of Carberry, of the Irish peerage. The title became 
 extinct on his death in 1713. T. 
 
 J See Lady Mary's remarks on the Duchess of Bolton's death, in a letter to the 
 Countess of Bute, 8 Dec., N.S., 1751. T. 
 
 4 The original Polly Peachem of the Heggar's Opera. T.
 
 58 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 Sidney 1 Wortley Montagu, and the favourite sister of his son 
 Edward. She died in the bloom of youth, unmarried. Lady 
 Mary, in common with others who had known her, represented 
 her as eminently pretty and agreeable ; 2 and her brother so 
 cherished her memory, that, in after times, his little girl knew 
 it-to be the highest mark of his favour, when, pointing at her- 
 self, he said to her mother, " Don't you think she grows like 
 my poor sister Anne ?" 
 
 Mrs. Wortley, the mother of the family, from whom it de- 
 rived both estate and name, died before Lady Mary Pierrepont 
 became acquainted with any branch of it : therefore all she 
 could tell concerning her was, that she had been forced to 
 demand a separation from her husband, and that her son 
 always spoke of his father's conduct towards her with resent- 
 ment and indignation. For Mr. Sidney Montagu had not 
 breathed in the atmosphere of Charles the Second's reign 
 during his best years without inhaling some of its poison. 
 This old gentleman, and the scene surrounding him, were dis- 
 tinctly recollected by his granddaughter. She described him 
 as a large rough-looking man with a huge flapped hat, seated 
 magisterially in his elbow-chair, talking very loud, and swear- 
 ing boisterously at his servants. While beside him sate a 
 venerable figure, meek and benign in aspect, with silver locks 
 overshadowed by a black velvet cap. This was his brother, 
 the pious Dean Montagu, 3 who every now and then fetched a 
 deep sigh, and cast his eyes upwards, as if silently beseeching 
 Heaven to pardon the profane language which he condemned, 
 but durst not reprove. Unlike as they were in their habits 
 and their morals, the two brothers commonly lived together. 
 
 It is hard to divine why, or on what authority, Mr. Edward 
 
 1 Second son of Admiral Montagu, first Earl of Sandwich. Upon marrying 
 the daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Wortley, he was obliged, by the tenor of 
 Sir Francis's will, to assume his name. W. 
 
 2 Her name appears in the list of " the most celebrated Beauties of St. James's, 
 the Park, and the Mall," described in '* the British Court, a poem," published about 
 1707. T. 
 
 3 The Honourable John Montagu, Dean of Durham, fourth son of the first Lord 
 Sandwich. W.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 59 
 
 Wortley has been represented by late writers as a dull phleg- 
 matic country gentleman " of a tame genius and moderate 
 capacity," or " of parts more solid than brilliant," which in 
 common parlance is a civil way of saying the same thing. He 
 had, on the contrary, one of those strong characters that are 
 little influenced by the world's opinion, and for that reason 
 little understood by the unthinking part of it. All who really 
 knew him while living held him a man distinguished for 
 soundness of judgment and clearness of understanding, quali- 
 ties nowise akin to dulness ; they allowed him also to be a first- 
 rate scholar ; and as he had travelled more than most young 
 men of his time, a proof will presently appear that he sur- 
 passed them in the knowledge of modern languages. Polite 
 literature was his passion ; and though our having a taste for 
 wit and talents may not certainly imply that we are gifted 
 with them ourselves, yet it would be strange if the alderman- 
 like mortal depicted above had sought out such companions 
 as Steele, Garth, Congreve, Mainwaring, &c., or chosen Addi- 
 son for his bosom friend. The only picture of Mr. Wortley 
 in existence belonged to Addison, 1 from whose daughter Lady 
 Bute obtained it through her (Miss Addison's) half-sister, Lady 
 Charlotte Rich. It is now in the possession of Lord Wharn- 
 cliffe. The face seems very young, and, in spite of wig, 
 cravat, and other deforming appendages, very handsome. 
 
 Miss, or Mrs. Addison, Addison's daughter by Lady War- 
 wick, and his only child, far from having sufficient endow- 
 ments to keep up the credit of her great name, was one of 
 those singular beings in whom nature seems to have left the 
 mind half finished ; not raised to the average height of human 
 intellect, yet not absolutely imbecile, nor so devoid of judg- 
 ment in common every-day concerns as to need the guardian- 
 ship of the law. With this imperfect understanding she pos- 
 sessed a gift, which, it is said, may sometimes be found where 
 there is no great power of thinking, such an astonishing 
 memory that she could repeat the longest sermon word for 
 word after hearing it once, or get by heart the contents of a 
 
 1 An engraving of this portrait will be found in this edition. T.
 
 60 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 whole dictionary. As she inherited all her father had to 
 leave, her circumstances were affluent ; but, by the advice of 
 her friends, she lived in retirement at a country-seat, and never 
 attempted to enter the world. 
 
 Mr. Wortley's chief intimates have been already named. 
 His society was principally male; the wits and politicians 
 of that day forming a class quite distinct from the " white- 
 gloved beaus" attendant upon ladies. Indeed, as the education 
 of women had then reached its very lowest ebb, and if not 
 coquettes, or gossips, or diligent card-players, their best praise 
 was to be notable housewives ; Mr. Wortley, however fond of 
 his sister, could have no particular motive to seek the ac- 
 quaintance of her companions. His surprise and delight were 
 the greater, when one afternoon, having by chance loitered 
 in her apartment till visitors arrived, he saw Lady Mary 
 Pierrepont for the first time, 1 and, on entering into conversa- 
 tion with her, found, in addition to beauty that charmed him, 
 not only brilliant wit, but a thinking and cultivated mind. 
 He was especially struck with the discovery that she under- 
 stood Latin, and could relish his beloved classics. Something 
 that passed led to the mention of Quintus Curtius, which she 
 said she had never read. This was a fair handle for a piece 
 of gallantry ; in a few days she received a superb edition of 
 the author, with these lines facing the title-page : 
 
 " Beauty like this had vanquished Persia shown, 
 The Macedon had laid his empire down, 
 And polished Greece obeyed a barb'rous throne. 
 Had wit so bright adorned a Grecian dame, 
 The am'rous youth had lost his thirst of fame, 
 Nor distant Indus sought through Syria's plain ; 
 But to the Muses' stream with her had run, 
 And thought her lover more than Ammon's son." 2 
 
 How soon this declaration of love in verse was followed by 
 one in prose, does not appear ; but Mrs. Anne Wortley grew 
 
 more eloquent in Lady Mary's praise, and more eagerly desirous 
 
 / 
 
 1 This differs from the account of herself under the name of " Lsetitia," daughter 
 of "the Duke of Kegiavilla," left by Lady Mary in her own handwriting. See 
 Memoir, ante, p. 3. T. 
 
 2 Corrected from a copy in Lady Mary's handwriting. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 61 
 
 of her correspondence. No wonder ; since the rough draught 
 of a letter in her brother's hand, indorsed " For my sister to 
 Lady M. P.," betrays that he was the writer, and she only the 
 transcriber of professions and encomiums that sound extrava- 
 gant as addressed by one woman to another. 1 But she did 
 not live to be long the medium through which they passed ; 
 a more direct correspondence soon began, and was continued 
 after her decease. When married, Mr. Wortley and Lady 
 Mary agreed to put by and preserve as memorials of the days 
 of courtship all their letters; a curious collection, and very- 
 different from what a romance writer would have framed ; on 
 his side, no longer complimentary, but strikingly expressive of 
 a real strong passion, combated in vain by a mind equally 
 strong, which yielded to it against its conviction and against 
 its will. " Celui qui aime plus qu'il ne voudrait" as a French 
 author somewhere says, is, after all, the person on whom love 
 has taken the fastest hold. They were perpetually on the point 
 of breaking altogether: he felt and knew that they suited 
 each other very ill ; he saw, or thought he saw, his rivals en- 
 couraged if not preferred ; he was more affronted than satis- 
 fied with her assurances of a sober esteem and regard ; and yet 
 every struggle to get free did but end where it set out, leaving 
 him still a captive, galled by his chain, but unable to sever one 
 link of it effectually. 2 
 
 After some time thus spent in fluctuations, disputes, and 
 lovers' quarrels, he at length made his proposals to Lord Dor- 
 chester, who received them favourably, and was very gracious 
 to him, till the Grim-gribber part of the business the portion 
 and settlements came under consideration ; but then broke 
 off the match in great anger, on account of a disagreement 
 which subsequent events have rendered memorable. We see 
 how the practice of a man's entailing his estate upon his eldest 
 son while as yet an unborn child and unknown being, is ridi- 
 culed in the Tatler and Spectator; whose authors, it may be 
 
 1 See Memoir. T. 
 
 Lady Louisa Stuart had, I suspect, read only a small portion of their letters 
 before marriage. I cannot otherwise account for her taking this view. T.
 
 62 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 observed, had not estates to entail. 1 Mr. Wortley, who had, 
 entertained the same opinions. Possibly they were originally 
 his own, and promulgated by Addison and Steele at his sug- 
 gestion, for, as he always liked to think for himself, many of 
 his notions were singular and speculative. However this might 
 be, he upheld the system, and acted upon it, offering to make 
 the best provision in his power for Lady Mary, but steadily 
 refusing to settle his landed property upon a son who, for 
 aught he knew, might prove unworthy to possess it might be 
 a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain. 
 
 Lord Dorchester, on the other hand, said that these philo- 
 sophic theories were very fine, but his grandchildren should 
 not run the risk of being left beggars ; and, as he had to do 
 with a person of no common firmness, the treaty ended there. 2 
 
 The secret correspondence and intercourse went on as be- 
 fore ; and shortly Lady Mary acquainted her lover that she 
 was peremptorily commanded to accept the offers of another 
 suitor ready to close with all her father's terms, to settle hand- 
 some pin-money, jointure, provision for heirs, and so forth ; 
 and, moreover, concede the point most agreeable to herself, 
 that of giving her a fixed establishment in London, which, 
 by-the-by, Mr. Wortley had always protested against. Lord 
 Dorchester seems to have asked no questions touching her in- 
 clination in either instance. A man who is now about to sell 
 an estate, seldom thinks of inquiring whether it will please or 
 displease his tenantry to be transferred to a new landlord ; and 
 just as little then did parents in disposing of a daughter con- 
 ceive it necessary to consult her will and pleasure. For a 
 young lady to interfere, or claim a right of choice, was almost 
 thought, as it is in France, a species of indelicacy. Lady 
 Mary nevertheless declared, though timidly, her utter anti- 
 pathy to the person proposed to her. Upon this, her father 
 summoned her to his awful presence, and, after expressing 
 
 i 
 
 1 The essay in the Tatler referred to was entirely founded on Mr. Wortleys 
 notes, and is frequently in his own words. It was probably intended as an indirect 
 means of influencing Lady Mary's father. T. 
 
 2 See Lady Mary's correspondence Avith Mr. Wortley before marriage. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 63 
 
 surprise at her presumption in questioning his judgment, 
 assured her he would not give her a single sixpence if she 
 married anybody else. She sought the usual resource of poor 
 damsels in the like case, begging permission to split the dif- 
 ference (if we may so say) by not marrying at all ; but he 
 answered that then she should be immediately sent to a remote 
 place in the country, reside there during his life, and at his 
 death have no portion save a moderate annuity. Relying upon 
 the effect of these threats, he proceeded as if she had given 
 her fullest and freest consent ; settlements were drawn, wed- 
 ding-clothes bought, the day was appointed, and everything 
 made ready, when she left the house to marry Mr. Wortley. 
 
 The father's rage may be imagined ; J Lady Frances Pierre- 
 pont, afraid it should lead him to examine her sister's papers, 
 and apprehending that he might there find matter to exaspe- 
 rate him still further, hastily burned all she could find, and 
 amongst them a diary which Lady Mary had already kept for 
 some years, and was not very well pleased to lose. 
 
 Soon after her marriage she resumed the practice of writing 
 a journal, and persisted in it as long as she lived ; communi- 
 cating what she wrote to no person whatever. The diary of 
 course became voluminous. Lady Bute, who knew nothing 
 of it till it came into her possession a few days before her 
 mother's death, always kept it under lock and key ; and though 
 she often looked over it herself, and would sometimes read pas- 
 sages from it aloud to her daughters and friends, yet she 
 never trusted any part out of her own hands, excepting the 
 five or six first copy-books, which, at a late period, she per- 
 mitted one of her family to peruse alone, 2 upon condition that 
 nothing should be transcribed. All that she thus in any way 
 imparted related to distant days, to transactions long since 
 
 1 It is doubtful whether the father ever entirely forgave her for this elopement. 
 On his death, in 1726, Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar: " My father expressed a 
 great deal of kindness to me at last, and even a desire of talking with me." See the 
 letter. He, however, left her, by his will, she having married without a settlement, 
 6000/. for her separate use during her life, with reversion to her daughter. T. 
 
 * This must refer to Lady L. Stuart herself, the writer of these Anecdotes. T.
 
 64 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 past, and people of a former generation. Meanwhile she con- 
 stantly declared it was her determined resolution to destroy 
 the whole, as a sacred duty owing to the deceased, whose 
 having forgotten or neglected to leave express orders for the 
 purpose, made it only the more incumbent upon her survivors. 
 The journal was accordingly burned, although with evident 
 reluctance, and not till Lady Bute felt the close of her life 
 drawing near ;* when the act itself sounded too solemn a note 
 of preparation for those who loved her as she deserved to think 
 of opposing it, or indeed to care at all about a matter which 
 would then have seemed totally indifferent had it concerned 
 the finest work in the world. 
 
 Lady Bute so admired her mother's writings, and took such 
 pleasure in reading her letters to persons whom she thought 
 endowed with taste enough to relish them, that it might have 
 been held sufficiently certain she had the most cogent reasons 
 for making what clearly appeared a sacrifice. Yet, as youth 
 is inconsiderate, and the fragments she did allow to be seen or 
 heard were not a little amusing, she was very often assailed 
 with entreaties to forego her design. When pressed on this 
 head, she would ask whether, supposing the case one's own, 
 one could bear the thought of having every crude opinion, 
 every transient wish, every angry feeling that had flitted across 
 one's mind, exposed to the world after one was no more ? And 
 though she always spoke of Lady Mary with great respect, 
 yet it might be perceived that she knew it had been too much 
 her custom to note down and enlarge upon all the scandalous 
 rumours of the day, without weighing then 1 truth or even 
 their probability ; 2 to record as certain facts stories that per- 
 haps sprang up like mushrooms from the dirt, and had as brief 
 an existence, but tended to defame persons of the most spot- 
 less character. In this age, she said, everything got into print 
 sooner or later ; the name of Lady Mary Wortley would be 
 sure to attract curiosity; and, were such details ever made 
 public, they would neither edify the world, nor do honour to 
 
 1 Lady Bute died 13 November, 1794. T. 
 
 2 See notes on the letters to Ladv Mar. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 65 
 
 her memory. These were Lady Bute's arguments ; and what 
 could any one who had a sense of rectitude urge in reply? 
 especially since it must be acknowledged, that in the volumes 
 which she did communicate, the earliest written, and (one may 
 be confident) the least exceptionable, there occasionally ap- 
 peared traits of satire that showed what might ensue when the 
 vexations and cares of advancing life should have soured the 
 mind, given objects a darker shade of colour, and made further 
 demands upon a Christian charity not at all likely to have in- 
 creased in the mean time. 
 
 These volumes comprise the years immediately succeeding 
 Lady Mary's marriage, 1713, 1714, 1715 ; and also the time 
 of Mr. Wortley's embassy. What passed every day was set 
 down ; often only in a line, or half a line, as thus : " Stayed at 
 home alone went to such a place saw such a person :" so 
 that frequently three or four weeks took up but a single page. 
 Sometimes, again, an occurrence or a conversation would be 
 given at very great length ; sometimes despatched with one 
 sharp sentence, like the following humorous application of a 
 speech in Dryden's Spanish Friar : " Lady Hinchinbroke 1 has 
 a dead daughter it were unchristian not to be sorry for my 
 cousin's misfortune ; but if she has no live son, Mr. Wortley 
 is heir so there's comfort for a Christian." 
 
 The three years previous to the embassy were passed by 
 Lady Mary in various abodes, and occasionally apart from 
 Mr. Wortley, while he attended parliament. She was some- 
 times, however, though seldom, in London; sometimes at 
 Hinchinbroke, the seat of Lord Sandwich ; sometimes near it, 
 in the town of Huntingdon, for which Mr. Wortley was 
 member ; but more often at hired houses in Yorkshire. About 
 the time of Queen Anne's death, she dates her letters from 
 Middlethorpe, in the neighbourhood of Bishopthorpe and of 
 
 1 Wife of Edward Viscount Hinchinbroke. He was the only son of Edward 
 t : uri Earl of Sandwich, first cousin of Mr. Wortley. If Lord Hinchinbroke had 
 left no son, Mr. Wortley would have succeeded to the earldom. Lady Mary, 
 however, wan deprived of this prospective " comfort for a Christian by he 
 birth of two sons subsequently to the date of her note. T. 
 
 VOL. I F
 
 66 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 York. It is a mistake that she ever resided permanently at 
 
 Whamcliffe Lodge. 1 Mr. Sidney Wortley Montagu chiefly 
 inhabited that himself ; and with him his daughter Mrs. Ka- 
 therine Wortley, his youngest son Mr. John Montagu, his 
 brother the Dean of Durham, and the dean's chaplain. How 
 so many people, together with their servants, could be packed 
 into so small a space, will appear sufficiently wonderful to those 
 who have seen the little dwelling ; but a couple more could 
 hardly have been stowed in by any human contrivance. 
 
 The first mention of Wharncliffe in Lady Mary's journal, 
 after calling there to visit her father-in-law when on her road 
 to some other place, was very remarkable ; considering that 
 she had hitherto known only the midland counties and the 
 environs of London, and probably had never before seen any- 
 thing like picturesque or romantic scenery. One would have 
 supposed the first sight of so wild and beautiful a prospect as 
 that eagle's nest commands, very sure to occasion surprise, if 
 not excite transport, in a mind gifted with the least imagination. 
 But no ; nothing could be colder or more slight than the 
 notice she took of it, almost making an excuse for saying thus 
 much in its favour " that it was a sequestered rural spot, quite 
 of a rude nature ; yet had something in it which she owned 
 she did not dislike, odd as her fancy might appear." In after 
 days, her letters to Mr. Wortley do it more justice ; possibly 
 to please him ; but the journal gave the original impression, 
 and how may that be accounted for ? Can it be that the tastes 
 and pleasures which we now esteem most peculiarly natural, are 
 in fact artificial ? what we have merely read, and talked, and 
 rhymed, and sketched ourselves into ? plants that require ma- 
 nure and culture, instead of sprouting freely from the soil ? 
 Certainly our forefathers were little more alive to them than 
 the American settler, who sees in a wood a nuisance he must 
 clear away, and in a waterfall only the means of turning a mill. 
 Burnet, of the Charter-house, lived and wrote but a few years 
 before Lady Mary Wortley : it may be remembered that his 
 
 1 A statement in Dallaway's Memoir of Lady Mary. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 67 
 
 theory of the antediluvian globe supposes it to have had a 
 surface perfectly flat, smooth, and level : and for this reason 
 amongst others, because the earth in its goodly pristine state, 
 the fair work of an Almighty Creator, could not have been 
 deformed by such unsightly protuberances as rocks and moun- 
 tains. These were the tokens of Divine wrath, vestiges of 
 that awful convulsion which tore the old world to pieces ; 
 therefore we naturally regarded them with horror. His hy- 
 pothesis might have been the same, how contrary soever the 
 opinion of his contemporaries ; but he never would have brought 
 this argument to support it, if the majority of the postdilu- 
 vians he was writing to, had, like ourselves, considered Earth's 
 protuberances as her finest features. How far were they 
 from suspecting that a future generation would delight in 
 viewing the lakes and climbing the fells of Cumberland ! 
 
 To resume the journal. In the year 1713, 1 Lady Frances 
 Pierrepont married the Earl of Mar, then Secretary of State 
 for Scotland : a match of which Lady Mary seems to have 
 augured ill, having but an indifferent opinion of him, detesting 
 the party he belonged to, and believing that her sister was 
 drawn in by the persuasion of an officious female friend, 
 his relation. These sentiments, however, were expressed with- 
 out any great warmth, and not as if the event interested her 
 deeply. But the death of her brother, Lord Kingston, which 
 soon followed it, 2 does seem to have really touched her heart. 
 It gave her the greater shock, because she knew nothing of 
 the poor young man's illness until he was past all hope of re- 
 covery ; for, as Lord Dorchester had not yet entirely forgiven 
 her stolen marriage, he did not allow her to have much inter- 
 course with the rest of his family. Lord Kingston, who died 
 of the small-pox under age, though already a husband and a 
 father, was of a most amiable disposition, and so affectionate 
 to her, that he would have taken her part openly, and have 
 
 1 Should be 1714. See note, ante, p. 52. T. 
 
 * Lord Kingston died on the 1st of July, 1713. T. 
 
 F2
 
 68 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 done everything in his power to facilitate her marriage, if the 
 temper of Lord Dorchester had not been such as to render his 
 endeavouring to oppose him more dangerous to himself than 
 useful to his sister. Her reflections on his fate were conse- 
 quently very bitter as well as very sorrowful ; accusing her 
 father of having blighted his youth, and destroyed all the 
 peace and happiness of his short life, by marrying him to a 
 silly, childish girl, for the sake of securing her fortune, before 
 he could judge for himself or make a choice of his own. 1 In 
 him she appeared to think she had lost her best, if not her 
 only, natural friend. 
 
 Whenever Lady Mary's attention was much attracted by 
 any report spread concerning one of her acquaintance, or any 
 incident that happened in her society, a piece of good or ill 
 fortune, a death or a marriage, her journal would often branch 
 off into a kind of memoir while the subject was fresh in 
 her mind. She certainly dwelt with most complacency upon 
 whatever afforded the groundwork of a love-story, and as cer- 
 tainly did not spare her censures where the occasion called for 
 them. The composition cost her no pains ; she had the gift 
 of writing freely in the first words that presented themselves ; 
 so that the fair pages of the diary seldom betrayed a blot or an 
 erasure. Both her daughter and the old servant, who had 
 often seen her at her writing-desk, bore witness to this extra- 
 ordinary facility. 
 
 The most interesting of the narratives was a history of her 
 early companion, Dolly Walpole (as she always called her) 
 according to her description a beautiful, innocent, well-mean- 
 ing girl, but endowed with only a moderate portion of sense ; 2 
 giddy, thoughtless, vain, open to flattery, utterly ignorant of 
 the world ; in short, though not capable of acting wrong de- 
 signedly, just the person, if we may use the vulgar tongue, to 
 get often into scrapes. Her eldest brother, then Mr. Walpole, 
 
 1 Lord Kingston married Rachel, daughter of Thomas Baynton, Esq., and by 
 her, although he died before attaining twenty-one, left two children. T. 
 
 2 See Lady Mary's account of the Court of George the First. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 69 
 
 had brought her to London in hopes that her beauty, the 
 pride of his county, might captivate something superior to a 
 Norfolk squire. But being immersed in politics, and careless 
 of what passed at home, he left her to the guidance of his 
 wife, 1 an empty, coquettish, affected woman, anything rather 
 than correct in her own conduct, or spotless in her fame ; 
 greedy of admiration, and extremely dissatisfied at having to 
 share it with this younger fairer inmate. In spite of her 
 envious machinations, lovers soon crowded round Dolly, and 
 one of the number presently obtained the preference he lan- 
 guished for. He had all manner of good qualities, was hand- 
 some, pleasing, as passionately in love as romance could have 
 required, and heir to a competent fortune ; but not altogether 
 his own master: he depended upon his friends. A young 
 man's friends, in this sense, meaning parents, guardians, old 
 uncles, and the like, are rarely propitious to love. As no 
 second sight revealed to them the long glories of Sir Robert 
 Walpole's reign, they looked solely to a matter nearer at hand 
 Dolly's portion ; and finding that null, entered their protest 
 in a determined manner. Mrs. Walpole triumphed ; she told 
 tales, made mischief, incited Dolly to flirt with other admirers, 
 and then lamented her fickleness and coquetry to the very 
 people who, she knew, would be sure to speed the lament on- 
 ward with no favourable comments. Lady Mary took to her- 
 self the credit of having been all this while her simple friend's 
 protecting genius ; of having often counteracted Mrs. Wal- 
 pole, and sometimes unmasked her ; given Dolly the best 
 advice, and cleared up the misunderstandings between her 
 and her lover that continually arose from jealousy on one side 
 and indiscretion on the other. The story proceeded like its 
 fellows in the Scudery folios, with ins and outs and ups and 
 downs, more than can be remembered; but the sequel was, 
 that the suitor, either inconstant or disgusted, finally withdrew 
 from the chase, and the nymph remained disappointed and for- 
 saken. Just at this unlucky moment, Lady Mary Pierre- 
 pont being absent at Thoresby, poor Dolly's evil star prevailed, 
 
 1 Catherine Shorter, his first wife. T.
 
 70 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 and, while her mind was in that depressed, mortified state 
 which makes us thankful to anybody who will give us so much 
 as a kind look, led her into acquaintance with Lady Wharton, 
 the very worst protectress she could acquire a woman equally 
 unfeeling and unprincipled : flattering, fawning, canting, 
 affecting prudery and even sanctity, yet in reality as aban- 
 doned and unscrupulous as her husband himself. 1 So said 
 the journal. 
 
 It is worth noting that Lady Mary Wbrtiey, who abhorred 
 the very name of Dean Swift, should yet have spoken of both 
 Lord and Lady Wharton precisely as he did. The portraits 
 were so alike that one might have been believed a copy of the 
 other. To be sure, she was (in Doctor Johnson's phrase) 
 almost as " good a hater" as the dean himself, and the diary 
 proved it by certain passages relating to Queen Anne, Mrs. 
 Masham, and also to persons obnoxious to her for private 
 reasons : but neither private nor public operated against Lord 
 Wharton, with whom she had had no quarrel, who was 
 intimate with her family, and on the same side with her in 
 party ; therefore she probably only echoed the general voice 
 in pronouncing him " the most profligate, impious, and shame- 
 less of men." Dolly Walpole, however, knowing nothing of 
 any one's character, felt elated at being caressed and courted 
 by so great and good a lady as the Countess of Wharton, 
 told her all her secrets, and complained to her of all her 
 grievances. The result was, that after one of these confi- 
 dential conversations, when Mrs. Walpole had done something 
 particularly spiteful, and Mr. Walpole happened to be out of 
 town, Lady Wharton pressed the poor girl to leave his house 
 for a few days and pass them in hers, where she should enjoy 
 comfort and tranquillity. Dolly consented with joy, not in 
 the least aware that there could be any objection ; and Mrs. 
 Walpole made none, because perfectly well aware, and secretly 
 exulting in what she knew likely to follow. 
 
 Now, as Lady Mary proceeded to state, Lord Wharton's 
 
 ' " I saw Lady Wharton, as ugly as the Devil, coming out of the crowd all in 
 an undress." Swift's Journal to Stelln, 6 February, 1711-12. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 71 
 
 character was so infamous, and his lady's complaisant subser- 
 viency so notorious, that no young woman could be four-and- 
 twenty hours under their roof with safety to her reputation. 1 
 Dean Swift says nothing much stronger than this. Upon Mr. 
 Walpole's return home, enraged at finding whither his sister 
 had betaken herself, he flew to Lord Wharton's, and, thun- 
 dering for admittance, demanded her aloud, regardless who 
 might hear him. My lord, not at all inclined to face him in 
 this temper, thought it safest to abscond ; so, crept privately 
 out of his own house by a back door, leaving my lady to bide 
 the pelting of the storm, pitiless as it threatened to prove. Sir 
 Robert, it is well known, was at no time apt to be over deli- 
 cate cr ceremonious : he accosted her ladyship in the plainest 
 English, bestowed upon her some significant epithets, and, 
 without listening to a word of explanation, forced away his 
 weeping sister, with whom he set out for Norfolk the next 
 morning. 
 
 Thus ended the first chapter of Dolly's adventures ; but 
 she was not doomed to be finally unfortunate. After doing 
 penance for two or three years in a very dull retirement, she 
 hac; the good luck to light upon a more capital prize in the 
 country than she had ever aimed at in London, the person 
 being Lord Townshend, one of the most unblemished states- 
 men and respectable gentlemen of that age. 2 Foreign employ- 
 ments had kept him abroad until Queen Anne's change of 
 ministry, and since that he had been a long and sincere 
 mourner for his first wife, the sister of Lord Pelham. Dolly 
 was to him, therefore, a new beauty, no tattle concerning 
 whom had ever reached his ears. Falling in love at once, he 
 proposed, she accepted, and the news of the match prompted 
 Lady Mary to sit down and write her history. 
 
 This brief memoir, it is observable, furnishes a clue to the 
 origin of Horace Walpole's excessive dislike of Lady Mary 
 
 1 Swift, in his violent attack upon Lord Wharton, says : " He bears the gal- 
 lantries of his lady with the indifference of a stoic." T. 
 * She married Lord Townshend in July, 1713. T.
 
 72 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 Wortley. His mother and she had been antagonists before 
 he was born ; " car tout est rdciproque" says La Bruyere. We 
 see how Lady Mary represented Lady Walpole, and may take 
 it for granted that Lady Walpole did not love or spare Lady 
 Mary ; and if they continued to keep up the outward forms 
 of acquaintanceship, which of course brought them often into 
 contact, they would naturally hate each other all the more. 
 
 Mr. Walpole' s affection for his mother was so much the 
 most amiable point in his character, and his expressions when- 
 ever he names or alludes to her are so touching, come so 
 directly and evidently from the heart, that one would very 
 fain think of her as he did, and believe she had every per- 
 fection his partiality assigns to her. But, in truth, there was 
 a contrary version of the matter, not resting solely, nor yet 
 principally, upon the authority of Lady Mary Wortlejr. It 
 filled so prominent a place in the scandalous history of the 
 time, that the world knew as well which way Captain Lemuel 
 Gulliver was glancing when gravely vindicating the reputa- 
 tion of my Lord Treasurer Flimnap's excellent lady, as what 
 he meant by the red, green, and blue girdles of the Lilliputian 
 grandees, or the said Flimnap's feats of agility on the tight- 
 rope. Those ironical lines also, where Pope says that Sir 
 Robert Walpole 
 
 " Had never made a friend in private life, 
 And was besides a tyrant to his wife" 
 
 are equally well understood as conveying a sly allusion to his 
 good-humoured unconcern about some things which more 
 straitlaced husbands do not take so coolly. 1 Openly laughing 
 at their nicety, he professed it his method " to go his own way, 
 and let madam go hers." In a word, Horace Walpole himself 
 was generally supposed to be the son of Can* Lord Hervey, 2 
 
 1 It is not probable that Pope intended any such " sly allusion" as Lady Louisa 
 Stuart here supposes. The lines appear in a poem first published at a time 
 when Pope and Walpole were on terms of friendship. Clumsy as they ap- 
 pear, they were evidently intended as a compliment to Walpole, and therefore 
 would not be likely to contain an allusion which could not be otherwise than 
 offensive. T. 
 
 2 The eldest son of John Hervey, first Earl of Bristol. He died unmarried, 
 and was succeeded by his half-brother, the more famous Lord Hervey, the issue of 
 his father's second marriage. VV.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 73 
 
 and Sir Robert not to be ignorant of it. One striking circum- 
 stance was visible to the naked eye ; no beings in human snape 
 could resemble each other less than the two passing for father 
 and son ; and, while their reverse of personal likeness provoked 
 a malicious whisper, Sir Robert's marked neglect of Horace in 
 his infancy tended to confirm it. A number of children, young 
 Wai pole one, were accustomed to meet and play together. 
 Such of them as, like himself, lived to grow old, all united in 
 declaring that no other boy within their knowledge was left 
 so entirely in the hands of his mother, or seemed to have 
 so little acquaintance with his father ; the fact being, that Sir 
 Robert Walpole took scarcely any notice of him, till his pro- 
 ficiency at Eton school, when a lad of some standing, drew his 
 attention, and proved that, whether he had, or had not, a right 
 to the name he went by, he was likely to do it honour. 
 
 Though in all probability Lord Orford never suspected that 
 any doubt hung over his own birth, yet the mortifications of 
 his youth on his mother's account could not but be severe; 
 for, as she lived till he reached manhood, he must have known 
 how completely she was overlooked and disregarded, though 
 not ill treated, by her husband ; and, before his tears for her 
 loss were dried, he had the pang of seeing Miss Skerritt, the 
 rival she hated, installed in her place. That Lady Mary 
 Wortley had been the chief friend and protectress of his step- 
 mother, was alone enough to make him bitter against her. In 
 another instance, we must allow, he showed true generosity of 
 mind. When Sir Robert Walpole, not content with publicly 
 owning his natural daughter by Miss Skerritt, stretched his 
 credit with the crown to the extent of obtaining for her a 
 rank and title till then never conferred on the illegitimate off- 
 spring of any man but a prince, his son Horace, instead of 
 murmuring at it, or viewing her with an evil eye, frankly 
 opened his arms to her as a sister, and so called and considered 
 her the rest of his life. 
 
 The daughter was not brought forward in this manner till 
 after the death of the mother, who enjoyed her married situa- 
 tion a very few months. But the tale the recognition told
 
 74 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 hardly be new to any one. Lady Bute never adverted 
 to it without pain and regret, having a tenderness for Miss 
 Skerritt's memory, which the recollection of her many agree- 
 able qualities, her sweetness of temper, and fondness of her- 
 self as a child, rendered it difficult to overcome. 1 
 
 Upon the death of Queen Anne, Mr. Wortley's friends 
 coming into power, he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury." 
 He had long been an active, efficient member of parliament, 
 and when he first obtained this office, people expected that he 
 would have a considerable sway in the new king's counsels : 
 for a reason which will now seem rather surprising he was 
 the only man at the board (excepting, perhaps, Lord Halifax) 
 who could converse with his majesty, because the only one 
 who spoke French ; consequently, much of the business must 
 have gone through his hands, if the sovereign, like his prede- 
 cessors, William and Anne, had assisted in person at the 
 meetings of the commissioners. But George the First leaving 
 finance affairs and all others to be managed as his ministers 
 pleased, Mr. Wortley had no more personal intercourse with 
 him than the rest. Lady Mary presently attracted his notice, 
 and likewise that of the Prince of Wales (George the Second). 
 By her journal, indeed, it might have been imagined that the 
 latter admired her rather more than the princess (though 
 
 1 She was the daughter of Thomas Skerritt, Esq., an Irish gentleman, who 
 resided in Dover-street, Piccadilly, where he died in January, 1734. He appears 
 to have been a sort of beau, being " well known at Tunbridge and the Bath ;" though 
 a respectable man who " paid ready money," and had " no debts." From his will, I 
 infer, that he died possessed of some property ; but the statement in the papers on 
 his daughter's marriage, that she was " a lady of 80,000 fortune," was probably an 
 exaggeration. Edward Earl of Oxford, in his notes on the Peerage (Harleian 
 MSS. 7C54), has the following memorandum concerning her: " Saturday, March 
 4, 1737-8. Sir Robert owned his marriage with Miss Skerritt, a person he 
 kept long. He brought her to his house at Whitehall, dined with his family, was 
 carried to Court, received most graciously, and visited by all the ladies of quality, 
 both gentle and simple. She died in great pain." Mr. Dallaway erroneously 
 addressed some of Lady Mary's letters during the embassy to her. She was not 
 an early friend. From a letter of Lady Mar in Paris, certainly as late as 1721, 
 it appears that Miss Skerritt, though an acquaintance of hers, was not then 
 known to her sister Lady Mary. Her name occurs tirst ill the section of letters to 
 Lady Mar. T. 
 
 2 May, 1715. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 75 
 
 usually far from jealous) could qtiite approve. For once, in 
 ;i rapture, he called her royal highness from the card-table 
 to look how becomingly Lady Mary was dressed ! " Lady 
 Mary always dresses well," said the princess, dryly, and re- 
 turned to her cards. However, his favour was soon with- 
 drawn, and hers regained. The father and son were already, 
 almost at their first setting out, upon such hostile terms, that, 
 the moment the prince heard of Lady Mary's having been at 
 one of the king's select parties, he grew not only cool but re- 
 sentful, taunting her as a deserter gone over to the enemy's 
 camp; and thenceforward she dressed becomingly in vain. 
 An increase of graciousness on the part of the princess made 
 her amends. 
 
 A former edition tells us, " that the Court of George the 
 First was modelled upon that of Louis the Fifteenth." A 
 whimsical model ! Since Louis was about seven years old 
 when George, a man near sixty, ascended the British throne. 1 
 One would think Louis the Fourteenth must have been the 
 person meant, but that the retired habits of the English 
 monarch accorded no better with the stately ceremonial of 
 the elder French one, than with the amusements and regula- 
 tions of his great-grandson's nursery. George the First went 
 to the play or opera in a sedan-chair, and sate, like another 
 gentleman, in the corner of a lady's (a German lady's) box, 
 with a couple of Turks in waiting instead of lords and grooms 
 of the bedchamber. In one respect his Court, if Court it could 
 be called, bore some resemblance to the old establishment of 
 Versailles. There was a Madame de Main tenon. Two ladies 
 had accompanied him from Hanover, Mademoiselle de Schu- 
 lenberg, and Madame Kilmansegg, nee Platen. The former, 
 whom he created Duchess of Kendal, was lodged in St. 
 James's Palace, and had such respect paid her as very much 
 confirmed the rumour of a left-hand marriage. She presided 
 at the king's evening parties, consisting of the Gennans who 
 
 1 Louis the Fifteenth was born February 15,1709-10. (Jeorjje the First suc- 
 ceeded 1st of August, 1714. The statement referred to appeared in ilr. Dalla- 
 vay's Memoir of Lady Mary. T.
 
 76 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 formed his familiar society, a few English ladies, and fewer 
 English men : among them Mr. Craggs, the secretary of 
 state, who had been at Hanover in the queen's time, and by 
 thus having the entree in private, passed for a sort of fa- 
 vourite. 
 
 Lady Mary's journal related a ridiculous adventure of her 
 own at one of these royal parties ; which, by-the-by, stood in 
 great need of some laughing-matter to enliven them, for they 
 seem to have been even more dull than it was reasonable to 
 expect they should be. She had on one evening a particular 
 engagement that made her wish to be dismissed unusually 
 early ; she explained her reasons to the Duchess of Kendal, 
 and the duchess informed the king, who, after a few com- 
 plimentary remonstrances, appeared to acquiesce. But when 
 he saw her about to take her leave, he began battling the 
 point afresh, declaring it was unfair and perfidious to cheat 
 him in such a manner, and saying many other fine things, in 
 spite of which she at last contrived to escape. At the foot of 
 the great stairs she ran against Secretary Craggs just coming 
 in, who stopped her to inquire what was the matter were the 
 company put off ? She told him why she went away, and how 
 urgently the king had pressed her to stay longer ; possibly 
 dwelling on that head with some small complacency. Mr. 
 Craggs made no remark ; but, when he had heard all, snatch- 
 ing her up in his arms as a nurse carries a child, he ran full 
 speed with her up-stairs, deposited her within the ante-cham- 
 ber, kissed both her hands respectfully (still not saying a word), 
 and vanished. The pages seeing her returned, they knew not 
 how, hastily threw open the inner doors, and, before she had 
 recovered her breath, she found herself again in the king's 
 presence. "Ah! la re-voila!" cried he and the duchess, ex- 
 tremely pleased, and began thanking her for her obliging 
 change of mind. The motto on all palace-gates is " HUSH !" 
 as Lady Mary very well knew. She had not to learn that 
 mystery and caution ever spread their awful wings over the 
 precincts of a Court ; where nobody knows what dire mischief 
 may ensue from one unlucky syllable blabbed about any-
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 77 
 
 thing, or about nothing, at a wrong time. But she was be- 
 wildered, fluttered, and entirely off her guard ; so, beginning 
 giddily with " Oh Lord, sir, I have been so frightened ! " s e 
 told his majesty the whole story exactly as she would have 
 told it to any one else. He had not done exclaiming, nor his 
 Germans wondering, when again the door flew open, and the 
 attendants announced Mr. Secretary Craggs, who, but that 
 moment arrived, it should seem, entered with the usual obei- 
 sance, and as composed an air as if nothing had happened. 
 " Mais comment done, Monsieur Craggs" said the king, going 
 up to him, " est-ce que Jest I 'usage de ce pays de porter des 
 belles dames comme un sac de froment ?" " Is it the custom 
 of this country to carry about fair ladies like a sack of 
 wheat?" The minister, struck dumb by this unexpected 
 attack, stood a minute or two not knowing which way to 
 look; then, recovering his self-possession, answered with a 
 low bow, "There is nothing I would not do for your ma- 
 jesty's satisfaction." This was coming off tolerably well; 
 but he did not forgive the tell-tale culprit, in whose ear, 
 watching his opportunity when the king turned from them, 
 he muttered a bitter reproach, with a round oath to enforce 
 it; "which I durst not resent," continued she, "for I had 
 drawn it upon myself; and indeed I was heartily vexed at 
 my own imprudence." 
 
 The name of George the First recals a remarkable anecdote 
 of his mother, the Princess Sophia, which Mr. Wortley and 
 Lady Mary heard from Lord Halifax. When he and Lord 
 Dorset were despatched by the Whig administration upon the 
 welcome errand of announcing to her the act of parliament 
 that secured the Hanover succession, at the same time carrying 
 the Garter to the electoral prince, her grandson, they were 
 received, as may be supposed, with every mark of distinction. 
 At their first formal audience, as they commenced a set speech, 
 after delivering their credentials, the old electress, who was 
 standing, gave a kind of start, and almost ran to one corner of 
 the room, where, fixing her back against the wall, she remained 
 stiff and erect as if glued to it, till the ceremony ended, and
 
 78 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 they withdrew. Her behaviour being in all other respects 
 very dignified and decorous, they were at a loss to divine what 
 could have occasioned this extraordinary move, and very 
 curious to discover the meaning of it ; a secret which Lord 
 Halif ax at length got at, by dint of sifting and cross-question- 
 ing her courtiers. She had suddenly recollected that there 
 hung in that room a picture of her cousin, the PRETENDER, 
 and, in a fright lest it should catch their eyes, could hit upon 
 no expedient to hide it but by screening it with her own 
 person. The good princess, however, was not in the least dis- 
 loyal to herself ; she harboured no dislike to the prospect of 
 a crown, nor any scruples about accepting it ; but, neverthe- 
 less, valuing her Stuart-descent, she had a family feeling for 
 the young man, whom she firmly believed to be as much James 
 the Second's son, as George the First was her own. That is 
 to say, she was what at the time all England would have styled 
 " a rank Jacobite" 
 
 The only event particularly interesting to Lady Mary that 
 seems to have taken place between the king's accession and 
 her journey to Constantinople was the marriage of her father, 
 now Duke of Kingston, to " the Fair Isabella," as she is called 
 in the journal ; ! in common speech, Lady Belle Bentinck, the 
 youngest daughter of the late Earl of Portland, King Wil- 
 liam's favourite. She was one of the most admired beauties 
 in London, and had long been the object of his grace's pur- 
 suit. Her previous history supplied the diary with a romantic 
 tale, but Lady Mary did not pretend that it had come under 
 her own cognisance, like Dolly Walpole's, or say from what 
 authority she gave it. The heads of it were, a passion for a 
 younger lover, and the combats and conflicts of love on one 
 side, with interest and ambition on the other; until these 
 latter, gaining a complete victory, made the offers of a man 
 who had three married daughters older than the lady herself 
 appear too tempting to be refused. It is needless to add that 
 Lady Mary was free from any partial feeling towards a 
 
 1 The marriage took place in July, 1714. T.
 
 INTBODUCTOBY ANECDOTES. 70 
 
 mother-in-law who, as she supposed, aimed straight at be- 
 coming a rich widow. If so, she had not the happiness of 
 being one long ; for, notwithstanding the disparity of their 
 ages, she survived her husband but two years. He died in 
 1726 ; Lady Bute remembered having seen him once only, 
 but that in a manner likely to leave some impression on the 
 mind of a child. Her mother was dressing, and she playing 
 about the room, when there entered an elderly stranger (of 
 dignified appearance, and still handsome), with the authorita- 
 tive air of a person entitled to admittance at all times ; upon 
 which, to her great surprise, Lady Mary instantly starting up 
 from the toilet-table, dishevelled as she was, fell on her knees 
 to ask his blessing. A proof that even in the great and gay 
 world this primitive custom was still universal. 
 
 Lady Bute witnessed the observance of another, now obso- 
 lete, in the ceremony that her grandfather's widow had to go 
 through soon after his funeral was over. It behoved her to 
 see company ; that is, to receive in person the compliments of 
 condolence which every lady on her grace's visiting list was 
 bound to tender, in person likewise. And this was the esta- 
 blished form : the apartments, the staircase, and all that could 
 be seen of the house, were hung with black cloth ; the duchess, 
 closely veiled with crape, sate upright in her state-bed under 
 a high black canopy ; and at the foot of the bed stood 
 ranged, like a row of mutes in a tragedy, the grandchildren 
 of the deceased duke Lady Frances Pierrepont, 1 Miss Wort- 
 ley herself, and Lady Gower's daughters. Profound silence 
 reigned : the room had no light but from a single wax taper ; 
 and the condoling visitors, who curtseyed in and out of it, ap- 
 proached the bed on tiptoe ; if relations, all, down to the hun- 
 dredth cousin, in black-glove-mourning for the occasion. 
 
 We may perceive from this that Sir Richard Steele's 
 comedy of the " Funeral " contained no exaggeration. Nor 
 was the custom of putting houses into mourning for their de- 
 funct owners confined to the great. In the supposed letter 
 of Partridge the astrologer, the undertaker, concluding that 
 
 1 One of the orphan children of Lady Mary's brother, Lord Kingston. T.
 
 80 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 " the doctor must needs have died rich," sets about measuring 
 the wainscot, and says, " Let's see ; the passage and these two 
 rooms hung in close mourning, with a stripe of black baize 
 round the others, will be sufficient." How a miser must have 
 grudged the expense of dying ! 
 
 It has been already said that the volumes containing Lady 
 Mary Wortley's journal while in Turkey, were among those 
 which Lady Bute trusted one of her family to peruse alone. 
 This portion of her diary was retained some time, compared 
 with the printed letters, and examined with very great atten- 
 tion. It proved, as far as what we may call a negative can 
 be proved, that the story, so generally prevalent, of Lady 
 Mary's having had admittance into the Seraglio, was totally 
 false and groundless. In those pages intended to meet no 
 eye but her own where, as in the preceding volumes, every 
 event was set down day by day, every day accounted for, 
 however briefly, every place she went to specified not one 
 word denoted, not a mysterious or ambiguous expression left 
 the least room to surmise that she had ever set her foot within 
 the walls of the Sultan's palace, either at Adrianople or Con- 
 stantinople ; nay, that she had ever sought to do it, or ever 
 thought of it as a thing practicable. The respectable gentle- 
 man who edited her works in 1803, 1 was no way to blame for 
 having adopted a notion which he found commonly received 
 by the world; yet it would appear strange, if we did not 
 know the power of prejudice, that his prepossessions on the 
 subject could make him fancy he saw in the printed letters, 
 which had lain so long under everybody's eyes, what was 
 not there. " Many people," he says, " were at first inclined 
 to doubt the possibility of her acquiring the kind of infor- 
 mation she has given respecting the interior of the Harem ;" 
 respecting which, the Royal Harem, she has given no in- 
 formation of any kind, excepting what she obtained from 
 the Sultana Hafiten. Nobody can doubt the possibility of one 
 person's hearing what another says; and her words are, '"I 
 1 Mr. Dalkway. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 81 
 
 did not omit the opportunity of learning all I possibly could 
 about the Seraglio, which is so entirely unknown among us." 
 In none of her letters, saving that where this visit is de- 
 scribed, does she so much as mention, or allude to, the interior 
 of the Seraglio. At Adrianople she writes : " The Seraglio 
 does not seem a very magnificent palace ; but the gardens are 
 large, plentifully supplied with water, and full of trees, which 
 is all I know of them, never having been in them" Again, 
 at Constantinople : " I have taken care to see as much of the 
 Seraglio as is to be seen ; it is a palace of prodigious extent, 
 but very irregular. The gardens take in a large compass of 
 ground, full of high cypress-trees, which is all I know of them" 
 Do not these two paragraphs say the self-same thing viz. 
 that she knew nothing of either building but the outside? 
 Yet this note is appended to the latter : " It is evident that 
 Lady Mary did not mean to assert that she had seen the 
 interior of the Seraglio at Constantinople. She had certainly 
 seen that at Adrianople." ! ! ! 
 
 But let us hear the testimony of the natives ; first taking 
 into our account the wide difference of their position in the 
 beginning and at the close of the last century. Mr. Wort- 
 ley's embassy found the Turks in full power and pride. Their 
 arms had driven the Venetians out of Greece. Peter the 
 Great of Russia, hemmed in with his whole army by that of 
 the Grand Vizier, had been reduced to buy the permission of 
 making a safe retreat. The hero of Europe, Charles the 
 Twelfth, had become their suppliant, their pensioner, and 
 finally, their captive. At that period they disdained to send 
 ambassadors to any foreign court, and affected to regard those 
 sent to them, either as mere commercial agents, or as the 
 bearers of homage from their respective sovereigns. In 1799, 
 we saw a Turkish ambassador smoking his pipe in the garden 
 of Portman-square. The Ottoman empire, curtailed, humbled, 
 dejected, despoiled of whole provinces by Russia, about to have 
 the fairest of those remaining wrested from it by Bonaparte, 
 was lying, " like a sick fallen beast," at the feet of England. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 Was this a time for the Porte to refuse a favour which it had 
 freely granted in its haughtier days ? Yet, when the English 
 ambassadress asked leave to visit the ladies of the Seraglio, it 
 was peremptorily denied, as contrary to the fundamental rules 
 of their monarchy. 
 
 The customs of the East are known to be unchangeable, and 
 more respected by the Oriental nations than our laws by us. 
 The usage debarring any foreign minister's wife from entering 
 the Royal Harem, was of this nature ; held too sacred for the 
 Grand Signor himself to infringe. Lady Mary Wortley s 
 example being pleaded, the Turks, male and female, laughed 
 at the story as a ridiculous fable, invented by some one grossly 
 ignorant of their manners ; and declared that if she herself 
 said she was ever in the Seraglio of Achmet the Third, she 
 told a falsehood which only Frankish credulity could believe. 
 Shortly afterwards, on the news of our success in Egypt, the 
 Valida, or queen-mother, by an act of condescension till then 
 unknown, consented to give the ambassadress an audience 
 but not within the Seraglio, that could not be. She removed 
 for the purpose into a palace of her own quite apart from it, 
 and there the ceremony passed. 
 
 The belief which these impartial judges laughed to scorn, 
 did, as they said, take its rise from a fable ; an absurd, but 
 also a malicious tale, fabricated some time after Lady Mary's 
 return to England. She alludes to it with contempt in a 
 letter written from Florence, and imputes its invention to the 
 malignity of Pope ; whether justly or not, is nothing to our 
 present purpose. This letter being one of those published in 
 an additional volume in 1767, and rejected in the edition of 
 1803, from a doubt of their authenticity, it may be proper to 
 state why they are reprinted here. In Lady Bute's lifetime, 
 a person who had heard that there was such a doubt, yet 
 thought their style and spirit spoke them genuine, begged her 
 to decide the question. She sent for the book, and, after 
 turning over half a dozen pages, exclaimed, " Genuine beyond 
 all dispute ;" a sentence she confirmed as she went on, saying
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 83 
 
 of one letter in particular, " I am as sure my mother wrote 
 this as if I had seen the pen in her hand." l 
 
 During Lady Mary's travels, she copied into her diary the 
 letters of Pope and Congreve as she received them ; and it 
 contained the whole substance of her own meaning of those 
 printed in 1763. The descriptions of her journey, of the 
 court and society of Vienna, of inoculation of Fatima, of the 
 Sultana Hafiten, of the antiquities, baths, mosques, janissaries, 
 effendis, &c. &c., were all there ; sometimes more diffusedly 
 given, but oftener in the very same words. It seemed her 
 custom to note everything down without a moment's delay ; 
 and then, when she wrote a letter, to transcribe from the 
 journal the passages she thought fittest to be communicated 
 to her friends, or, one may say, to the world. For, although 
 she did not design the correspondence for publication while, 
 she was living, she had it copied, and allowed many people to 
 read it. The diary, of course, contained further details ; but 
 the cream having been skimmed for the letters, the rest was 
 not very interesting or important. No Valida ever was named, 
 therefore the princess represented by Voltaire as so active in 
 befriending Charles the Twelfth, had probably died before Mr. 
 Wortley's arrival at her son's court. Upon the whole, Lady 
 Mary led a retired life most of the time she passed in that 
 country. 
 
 It is known that when on her way to die, as it proved, in her 
 own, she gave a copy of the letters to Mr. Sowden, minister of 
 the English church at Rotterdam, attesting the gift by her 
 signature. This showed it was her wish that they should even- 
 tually be published; but Lady Bute, hearing only that a 
 number of her mother's letters were in a stranger's hands, and 
 having no certainty what they might be, to whom addressed, 
 or how little of a private nature, could not but earnestly desire 
 to obtain them, and readily paid the price demanded five 
 hundred pounds. In a few months she saw them appear in 
 
 1 Nevertheless, the present editor feels great doubts of the genuineness of these 
 letters. See remarks in the Memoir, ante. p. 15. T. 
 
 G2
 
 84 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 print. Such was the fact ; and how it came about, nobody 
 at this time of day need either care or inquire. 1 
 
 The first editor of these letters a Mr. Cleland, as it is 
 supposed, or whoever else he might be ascribes the preface, 
 dated in 1724, and signed M. A., to a lady of quality, whom 
 he terms " the fair and elegant pref acer :" epithets most un- 
 luckily chosen, unless the lovers of fine style hold them as 
 inseparably annexed to a petticoat, as, in parliamentary lan- 
 guage, " honourable" is to an M.P. This fair and elegant 
 lady of quality was no less a person than Mistress Mary Astell, 
 of learned memory, the Madonella of the Tatler, a very pious, 
 exemplary woman, and a profound scholar, but as far from 
 fair and elegant as any old schoolmaster of her time : in 
 outward form, indeed, rather ill-favoured and forbidding, and 
 of a humour to have repulsed the compliment roughly, had it 
 been paid her while she lived. For she regarded such com- 
 mon-place phrases as insults in disguise, impertinently offered 
 by men through a secret persuasion that all women were 
 fools. She may be thought to have dealt in wholesale praise 
 herself, but her encomiums, though excessive, were sincere ; 
 
 1 The way in which a germ of fact may expand in the pages of anecdote 
 tellers is curiously illustrated by the following account or what appears to be an 
 account of this transaction, as given according to Malone's memorandum by 
 Horace Walpole : " On her death-bed she [Lady Mary] gave seventeen large 
 volumes in MS. of her letters, memoirs, and poems, to the clergyman who attended 
 her, with an injunction to publish them ; but Lady Bute, her daughter, being very 
 desirous to prevent this, prevailed on her husband, who was then Prime Minister, 
 to give the clergyman a good Crown living. For this bribe he broke his trust." 
 (Compare this with Walpole's letter to Sir H. Mann, October 3, 1762.) According 
 to another anecdote writer, Horace Walpole ought to have been better informed on 
 this point. The Margravine of Anspach (Lady Craven), in her Memoirs (ii. 116), 
 gives the following curious particulars, which the reader who has faith may en- 
 deavour to reconcile with the statements in the text : " My acquaintance with 
 Lady Bute, the daughter of Lady Wortley Montagu, began in a very singular 
 way. She sent me a very polite message on hearing that I had said the cloven 
 foot of the pedant was plainly to be perceived in the printed letters of her 
 mother: that some things might be hers, but I was sure most of the letters 
 were composed by men. Her ladyship having heard this remark, upon her intro- 
 duction to me said that she had always had a high opinion of my sense, and 
 what I had observed respecting her mother's letters confirmed it. She then told 
 me that Mr. Walpole and two other wits, friends of his, joined in a trio to divert 
 themselves at the expense of the credulity of the English public by composing 
 those letters." It is of course impossible that Lady Craven's story could be 
 correct. T,
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 85 
 
 she was an enthusiast, not a flatterer, and felt for Lady 
 Mary Wortley that fond partiality which old people of ardent 
 tempers sometimes entertain for a rising genius in their own 
 line. Literature had been hers ; and she triumphed in Lady 
 Mary's talents as proofs of what it was her first wish to de- 
 monstrate, namely, the mental equality of the sexes ; if not 
 the superiority of woman to man. Many a tract have the 
 worms long ago eaten, or the pastrycooks demolished, in 
 which she laid down this doctrine ; exposing the injustice and 
 tyranny of one sex, and maintaining the capacity of the other, 
 if allowed fair play, for the highest attainments. But, like 
 most people who are bent upon establishing a theory which 
 they know others will controvert, and suspect they may laugh 
 at, she often wrote herself into a passion as she went on, and 
 made more free with the words jackanapes, puppy, booby, and 
 blockhead, than we should think becoming in a fair and 
 elegant authoress at present. 
 
 Among Lady Mary Wortley's books there was one of these 
 treatises, splendidly bound, and inscribed " From the Author." 
 The language was coarse but forcible, Mrs. Astell's wrath 
 and zeal and spite against saucy mankind comically bitter, 
 and her indignation excessive at the eagerness of foolish 
 womankind to get husbands; but for which unaccountable 
 weakness, she felt assured that a new leaf might be turned 
 over, and the tyrants be brought to confusion. This sentence 
 is recollected : " If a young fellow do but know enough to keep 
 himself clean, you shall have him thinking, forsooth, that he 
 may pretend to a woman of the best quality and understand- 
 ing." And when by chance the clean men succeeded better 
 with the high and wise women than their presumption deserved 
 an accident which will now and then happen it was matter 
 of positive pain and grief to her righteous spirit. 
 
 The tract in question, long out of print and forgotten, 
 could hardly have been known to Mary Wolstonecroft ; yet it 
 so resembled her " Rights of Women," that the effect was lu- 
 dicrous, considering how directly the two ladies were con- 
 trasted in character, principles, and practice : the ancient chani-
 
 86 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 pioness of the sex being a devout Christian, a flaming high- 
 church-woman, deeply read in abstruse divinity, strictly vir- 
 tuous, and eminently loyal ; the modern one, if we may trust 
 her husband's report and her own, the reverse of all these 
 things. This, however, enabled her to take the field unencum- 
 bered with some difficulties which must have shackled her 
 forerunner ; for instance, certain passages in the third chapter 
 of Genesis, such as, He shall rule over thee. 
 
 How Mrs. Astell got over these is not remembered ; but 
 assuredly it could not be, like the free-thinking Mary, by 
 contemning their authority. Whatever were her foibles and 
 prejudices, her piety was genuine, fervent, and humble : cor- 
 dially loving as well as admiring Lady Mary Wortley, she had 
 nothing so much at heart as to promote her spiritual welfare, 
 and turn her attention from the vanities of this world to the 
 chief concern of accountable beings. 
 
 One day, after a serious discussion of some religious subject, 
 very eagerly pursued on Mrs. Astell's side, she paused, and, 
 gazing at Lady Mary with melancholy earnestness, said, im- 
 pressively, " My days are numbered : I am old ; that you 
 know ; but I now tell you in confidence, I have a mortal 
 disease which must soon bring me to the grave. I go hence, 
 I humbly trust in Christ, to a state of happiness ; and if de- 
 parted spirits be permitted to revisit those whom they have , 
 loved on earth, remember I make you a solemn promise that 
 mine shall appear to you, and confirm the truth of all I have 
 been saying." Surely a most affecting proof of true and 
 tender friendship, whether the forming such an intention be 
 thought presumptuous or pardonable. A few weeks after- 
 wards she died (of a cancer) ; but Lady Mary said the awful 
 apparition never came. 
 
 One word more of Mrs. Astell, although she may have 
 already engrossed too many. Lady Mary Wortley had what 
 we should now call an album, a book of poetical scraps, 
 ballads, epigrams, elegies, lampoons, the floating ephemera of 
 the moment; almost all collected previously to the year 1730.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 87 
 
 Amongst these was the following Ode to Friendship, ad- 
 dressed to herself by Mrs. Mary Astell : 
 
 " Friendship ! peculiar gift of Heav'n, 
 
 The noble mind's delight and pride, 
 To Wortley and to angels giv'n, 
 To all the lower world denied : 
 
 While Love, unknown among the blest, 
 
 Parent of rage and hot desire, 
 The human and the savage breast 
 
 Inflames alike, with equal fire. 
 
 With bright but oft destructive gleam 
 
 Alike o'er all his lightnings fly ; 
 Thy lambent glories only beam 
 
 Around the fav'rites of the sky. 
 
 Thy gentle flow of guiltless joys 
 
 On fools and villains ne'er descend : 
 In vain for thee the monarch sighs 
 
 Who hugs a flatt'rer for a friend 
 
 When virtues, kindred virtues meet, 
 
 And sister-souls together join, 
 Thy pleasures, lasting as they're sweet, 
 
 Are all transporting, all divine. 
 
 Oh ! may this flame ne'er cease to glow 
 
 Till you to happier seats remove ! 
 What raised your virtue here below, 
 
 Shall aid your happiness above." 
 
 The reader will perceive that this is the same ode which, 
 with some variations for the better, Boswell has given us as 
 written at an early age by Dr. Johnson. Query, which of 
 these twc conscientious people, the Doctor or Mrs. Astell, 
 could be guilty of purloining their neighbour's goods and 
 passing them off for their own ? And also, the difference of 
 ages and listance of abodes considered, what breeze could have 
 wafted the stanzas of the one into the scrutoire of the other ? 
 The sentiments undoubtedly seem better suited to an austere 
 maiden gentlewoman, ever the sworn foe of Love, than to a 
 stripling at the time of life when " that boy and that boy's 
 deeds" (as lately sang Sir James Bland Burgess) are seldom 
 held in any great abhorrence. Not that we dare build upon 
 this argument, because many young people will defy him 
 stoutly oefore they have the misfortune to make his ac- 
 quaintance. But dates, as Johnson himself would have said,
 
 88 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 are stubborn things. Boswell tells us that this ode was first 
 published in the year 1743. Now, Mrs. Astell had then been 
 dead twelve years ; and, since her ghost never did pay Lady 
 Mary Wortley a visit, it is to be presumed she gave her the 
 verses while she was alive. In short, the pro and con. of the 
 affair might find the Gentleman's Magazine in matter of con- 
 troversy for a twelvemonth. 1 
 
 Lady Mary's introduction of inoculation on her return from 
 the East, is a subject of far greater importance. The small- 
 pox was a disorder which she had sufficient reason to dread : 
 it carried off her only brother, and had visited her so severely 
 that she always said she meant the Flavia of her sixth Town 
 Eclogue for herself, having expressed in that poem what her 
 own sensations were while slowly recovering under the ap- 
 prehension of being totally disfigured. 2 Although this did not 
 happen, yet the disease left tokens of its passage, for it de- 
 prived her of very fine eyelashes; which gave a fierceness 
 to her eyes that impaired their beauty. Former sufferings 
 and mortifications therefore, she acknowledged, led her to 
 observe the Turkish invention with particular interest ; but 
 only the higher motive of hoping to save numberless lives 
 could have given her courage to resolve upon bringing home 
 the discovery. For what an arduous, what a fearful, and, we 
 may add, what a thankless enterprise it was, nobodr is now 
 in the least aware. Those who have heard her applauded 
 for it ever since they were born, and have also seen how 
 joyfully vaccination was welcomed in their own days, may 
 naturally conclude that when once the experiment lad been 
 made, and had proved successful, she could have nothing to 
 
 1 The version of the poem given by Boswell gives the third line of the first 
 stanza : 
 
 " To men and angels only given ;" 
 
 which, making better sense with the context, furnished one of Lady L. Stuart's 
 critics with an argument that " whoever wrote the verses, this copy of Mrs. Astell's 
 s surely not the original." T. 
 
 2 If this were so, then Lady Mary must have had the small-pox in or before 
 the year 1715, in which year, according to the heading copied from her Manuscript 
 book, the Town Eclogues were written. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 89 
 
 do but to sit down triumphant, and receive the thanks and 
 blessings of her countrymen. But it was far otherwise. The 
 age she belonged to resembled Farmer Goodenough in Miss 
 Edgeworth's popular tale " The Will," who sets his face 
 doggedly against all changes, innovations, and improvements, 
 no matter what. How like ours may peradventure be to the 
 same author's Marvel, ever prone to run headlong after every 
 new device, no matter what, we will not inquire. Lady Maiy 
 protested that in four or five years immediately succeeding 
 her arrival at home, she seldom passed a day without repent- 
 ing of her patriotic undertaking ; and she vowed that she 
 never would have attempted it if she had foreseen the vexa- 
 tion, the persecution, and even the obloquy it brought upon 
 her. The clamours raised against the practice, and of course 
 against her, were beyond belief. The faculty all rose in 
 arms to a man, foretelling failure and the most disastrous 
 consequences ; the clergy descanted from their pulpits on the 
 impiety of thus seeking to take events out of the hand of Pro- 
 vidence ; the common people were taught to hoot at her as 
 an unnatural mother, who had risked the lives of her own 
 children. 1 And notwithstanding that she soon gained many 
 supporters amongst the higher and more enlightened classes, 
 headed by the Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline), who stood 
 by her firmly, some even of her acquaintance were weak 
 enough to join in the outcry. 
 
 We now read in grave medical biography that the dis- 
 covery was instantly hailed, and the method adopted, by the 
 principal members of that profession. Very likely they left 
 this recorded ; for whenever an invention or a project and 
 the same may be said of persons has made its way so 
 well by itself as to establish a certain reputation, most people 
 are sure to find out that they always patronised it from the 
 
 1 Her son, Edward Wortlcy, was inoculated or "ingrafted" at Constantinople. 
 When he subsequently absconded from school, the fact helped in a curious way o 
 identify him. He was described in the advertisement, offering twenty pounds reward 
 " and reasonable charges," as having " two marks by which he is easily known 
 viz. on the back of each arm, about two or three inches above the wrist, a small 
 roundish scar, less than a silver penny, like a large mark of the small-pox." T.
 
 90 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 beginning ; and a happy gift of f orgetfulness enables many 
 to believe their own assertion. But what said Lady Mary of 
 the actual fact and actual time ? Why, that the four great 
 physicians deputed by government to watch the progress of 
 her daughter's inoculation, betrayed not only such incredulity 
 as to its success, but such an unwillingness to have it succeed, 
 such an evident spirit of rancour and malignity, that she never 
 cared to leave the child alone with them one second, lest it 
 should in some secret way suffer from their interference. 
 
 Lady Bute herself could partly confirm her mother's ac- 
 count by her own testimony, for afterwards the battle was 
 often fought in her presence. As inoculation gained ground, 
 all who could make or claim the slightest acquaintance with 
 Lady Mary Wortley used to beg for her advice and super- 
 intendence while it was going on in their families ; and she 
 constantly carried her little daughter along with her to the 
 house, and into the sick-room, to prove her security from 
 infection. 
 
 A child, especially a solitary child, if intelligent, attends to 
 what passes before it much earlier and more heedfully than 
 people imagine. From six years old upwards, Lady Bute 
 could see the significant shrugs of the nurses and servants, and 
 observe the looks of dislike they cast at her mother. She also 
 overheard anxious parents repeating to Lady Mary the argu- 
 ments that had been used to deter them from venturing upon 
 the trial ; and aunts and grandmothers, in the warmth of their 
 zeal against it, quoting the opinion of this doctor or that 
 apothecary. All which, well remembered, enabled her to 
 conceive how strong were the prejudices it originally had to 
 encounter. 
 
 It may be urged with some justice that the obstinacy of 
 Farmer Goodenough produced one excellent effect : the matter 
 was, in Chaucer's words, " boulted to the bran ;" it underwent 
 a far more severe and thorough investigation than if it had 
 been at first received with open arms, or suffered to pass with 
 less opposition. But what icill be does not alter what is ; and 
 Lady Mary was surely pardonable for sometimes regretting
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 91 
 
 that the prospect of future good to the world at large had in- 
 duced her to incur present personal evil. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be straying too widely from the subject 
 to mention here a remarkable passage in the life of Lady 
 Mary Wortley's grandson, William Stuart, the late Primate 
 of Ireland. During the long time that he was only vicar of 
 Luton in Bedfordshire, a malignant small-pox broke out in 
 that neighbourhood, almost equal, upon a smaller scale, to 
 some of the pestilences recorded in history. The mortality 
 increased so fast, and the minds of the country people were so 
 distracted with terror, that he at length, taking his resolution, 
 offered to have every person who was still uninfected inocu- 
 lated at his own expense. 
 
 A religious scruple lingered yet among the dissenters, who 
 were very numerous in that parish and those adjoining ; but 
 excessive apprehension overcame it : they, like the rest, crowded 
 to signify their assent, and within a fortnight above two thou- 
 sand persons of all ages underwent the operation. Mr. Stuart 
 stood alone without coadjutor or adviser ; his family, who 
 were at a distance, knew nothing of the transaction ; he had 
 only a country practitioner and country nurses to depend upon ; 
 add to this, that it was impossible such a number of patients 
 could all be duly prepared or properly attended to ; neither 
 persuasion, entreaties, nor authority, could make the poor 
 always observe the directions he gave them ; and some, whom 
 he would fain have deterred on account of their advanced age 
 or sickly habits, would run the risk in spite of his prohibition. 
 Yet it pleased God to grant him complete success. Very few 
 difficult cases occurred, and only three people died ; an infirm 
 unhealthy woman, a man past eighty years old, and an infant 
 whose mother afterwards confessed she knew it had already 
 caught the disease, which in her ignorance she supposed in- 
 oculation was to cure. To crown all, for several succeeding 
 years the small-pox scarcely reappeared in that district. But 
 when his parishioners were safe, Mr. Stuart himself began to 
 sink under all that he had suffered in body and mind. The
 
 92 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 exertions daily and nightly required to supply what was wanted, 
 and overlook what was passing (often at a considerable dis- 
 tance), made his fatigues very severe ; but the deep f eeling of 
 responsibility, and the anxiety which he had to stifle and keep 
 concealed, whatever the effort might cost, were a thousand 
 times more oppressive. Many months elapsed before he re- 
 covered his former health and spirits. This digression the 
 reader must forgive. 
 
 The next point of much consequence in Lady Mary Wort- 
 ley's history is her quarrel with Pope. If this had made less 
 noise and been less canvassed, it would be desirable to pass it 
 by unnoticed ; for when two persons of distinguished ability 
 misemploy their talents and degrade themselves by striving to 
 vilify each other, the honest part of their admirers must feel 
 more inclination to avert their eyes from the conflict than to 
 engage in it as partisans of either. Her own statement, how- 
 ever, was this : that at some ill-chosen time, when she least 
 expected what romances call a declaration, he made such 
 passionate love to her, as, in spite of her utmost endeavours 
 to be angry and look grave, provoked an immoderate fit of 
 laughter ; from which moment he became her implacable 
 enemy. 
 
 When we see how a personal defect, comparatively trifling, 
 weighed upon Lord Byron's mind, and, by his own avowal, 
 warped his character, we cannot wonder that a temper so 
 irritable as Pope's should have winced at being reminded of 
 his extreme deformity more forcibly than by a thousand words. 
 Doubtless, too, his vanity had taken as encouragement her 
 permitting him to write her love-letters i. e. letters commonly 
 so called, expressive neither of passion, nor affection, nor any 
 natural f eeling whatsoever ; tissues of far-fetched conceits and 
 extravagant compliments ; the prose counterparts of those love- 
 verses which Dr. Johnson christened metaphysical. But let it 
 be observed, in justice to Lady Mary's taste, that her answers 
 treat this kind of language with tacit contempt. Viewing it 
 probably, with the widow in Hudibras, as only " high-heroic
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 93 
 
 fustian," she returns him a recital of some plain matter of 
 fact, and never takes the smallest notice of protestation or 
 panegyric. 
 
 Pope certainly thought that ladies could not be addressed 
 without these nourishes, or in any simpler style than that of 
 Balzac and Voiture, then the received models of letter-writing. 
 To men he wrote differently ; yet surely his letters, even to 
 them, to his intimate friends, smell of the lamp, and bear the 
 marks of study and composition as visibly as his most finished 
 poems. 
 
 ALAS ! is all that can be said about the warfare that fol- 
 lowed. It is to be hoped that Lady Mary had little share in 
 the " Verses to the Imitator of Horace," and some others which 
 shall not be reprinted in this edition. If they were chiefly 
 Lord Hervey's, they have no business here ; and, at any rate, 
 are better forgotten than remembered. 
 
 The readers of Dr. Johnson will recollect this passage in his 
 Life of Pope : " The table (Lord Oxford's) was infested by 
 Lady Mary Wortley, who was the friend of Lady Oxford, and 
 who, knowing his peevishness, could by no entreaties be re- 
 strained from contradicting him, till then: disputes were shar- 
 pened to such asperity that the one or the other quitted the 
 house." When Lady Bute read the Lives of the Poets on 
 their first publication, she pointed out this paragraph to one of 
 her daughters, observing, " How ill Johnson must have been 
 informed ! My mother's intimacy with Lady Oxford was by 
 no means of an early date ; their acquaintance first began 
 within my own memory, long after the quarrel with Pope had 
 risen to such a height, and become so public, that it would have 
 been insulting her grossly to admit him into any house where 
 she was one of the guests expected. I am confident they 
 never met at Lord Oxford's table in their lives." 
 
 Upon her mentioning the subject to her friend the Dowager- 
 Duchess of Portland, Lord Oxford's only child, the duchess, 
 who, being her elder by three years, could go those three years 
 farther back, and speak to the point so much more positively, 
 said she was certain that no such meeting had ever taken
 
 94 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 place beneath her father's roof. " If he could have dreamed 
 of inviting them at the same time (said she), which his good 
 breeding and sense of propriety made impossible, my mother, 
 who adored Lady Mary and hated Pope, would no more have 
 consented to it than she would have put her hand in the fire." 
 That great poet, it was clear from many expressions that 
 escaped the duchess, had not won the good will of Lord 
 Oxford's family in the same degree as Matthew Prior; of 
 whom she always spoke with affection, and said he made him- 
 self beloved by every living thing in the house, master, child, 
 and servant, human creature or animal. 
 
 It is a common remark, that people of brilliant parts often 
 have no objection to relax, or rest, their understandings in the 
 society of those whose intellects are a little more obtuse. 
 Here was an instance : the gods never made anybody less 
 poetical than Lady Oxford ; l and yet Lady Mary Wortley, 
 though in general not over tolerant to her inferiors in capacity, 
 appears upon the whole to have loved nobody so well. And 
 there was an exception equally striking in her favour; for 
 Lady Oxford, heartily detesting most of the wits who sur- 
 rounded her husband, yet admired Lady Mary with all her 
 might ; pretty much as the parish clerk reverences the rector 
 for his Greek and Hebrew. Lady Bute confessed that she 
 sometimes got into sad disgrace, by exclaiming, " Dear mamma ! 
 how can you be so fond of that stupid woman ?" which never 
 failed to bring upon her a sharp reprimand, and a lecture 
 against rash judgments, ending with, " Lady Oxford is not 
 shining, but she has much more in her than such giddy things 
 as you and your companions can discern." Her daughter, the 
 duchess, perhaps from being at that unripe season giddy too, 
 was suspected of having penetrated no farther into the hidden 
 treasures of her mother's mind than any of her young friends. 
 Dulness assuredly had no share in her own composition. 
 
 Another of Lady Mary's friends, the famous Lord Hervey, 
 
 1 Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies, only daughter of John Holies, first Duke 
 of Newcastle. W.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 95 
 
 however blackened or extolled, must have been anything but 
 stupid. Their intimacy did not always prevent her from 
 laughing at him, as is proved by the well-known sentence, 
 almost a proverb, " that this world consisted of men, women, 
 and Herveys," which was originally hers. And so might be a 
 chance epigram or ballad besides, yet no great harm done. 
 For as there are some people who must be handled seriously 
 or not meddled with, and a few whom it would be sacrilege 
 and profanation to laugh at, there are others with whom their 
 friends take that liberty every day; nay, who invite it by 
 laughing at themselves. This is very commonly the case with 
 those who, being conscious of some whimsical peculiarity, and 
 withal no fools, think that humorously exaggerating their 
 own foible, gives them a privilege to indulge it. The exagge- 
 ration then gets abroad, and by that the character is stamped. 
 For " half the strange stories you hear in the world" (said one 
 who knew it well) " come from people's not understanding a 
 joke." Accordingly it has been handed down as a proof of 
 the extreme to which Lord Hervey carried his effeminate 
 nicety, that, when asked at dinner whether he would have 
 some beef, he answered, " Beef 1 Oh, no ! Faugh ! Don't 
 you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those things ? " 
 Could any mortal have said this in earnest ? 
 
 Lord Hervey dying a few years after Lady Mary Wortley 
 settled abroad, 1 his eldest son sealed up and sent her her letters, 
 with an assurance that none of them had been read or opened. 
 The late Lord Orford affirmed that Sir Robert Walpole did 
 the same with regard to those she had written to his second 
 wife ; but she probably destroyed both collections, for no traces 
 of them appeared among her papers. To Lord Hervey's heir 
 she wrote a letter of thanks for his honourable conduct, adding, 
 that she could almost regret he had not glanced his eye over 
 a correspondence which would have shown him what so young 
 a man might perhaps be inclined to doubt, the possibility of 
 a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of 
 
 1 He died August 15, 1743, aged forty-seven. T.
 
 96 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 different sexes without the least mixture of love. Much pleased 
 with this letter, he preserved it ; and, when Lady Mary came 
 to England, showed it to Lady Bute, desiring she would ask 
 leave for him to visit her mother. 
 
 His own mother, Lady Hervey, made no such request ; for 
 she had partaken neither of the correspondence nor the friend- 
 ship. That dessous des cartes, which Madame de Sevigne ad- 
 vises us to peep at, would here have betrayed that Lord and 
 Lady Hervey had lived together upon very amicable terms, 
 " as well-bred as if not married at all," according to the de- 
 mands of Mrs. Millamant in the play ; but without any strong 
 sympathies, and more like a French couple than an English 
 one. It might be from suspecting this state of things, that 
 his avowed enemies, Pope for one, went out of their way to 
 compliment and eulogise her. However, their praises were 
 not unmerited : by the attractions she retained in age, she 
 must have been singularly captivating when young, gay, and 
 handsome ; and never was there so perfect a model of the 
 finely polished, highly-bred, genuine woman of fashion. Her 
 manners had a foreign tinge, which some called affected ; but 
 they were gentle, easy, dignified, and altogether exquisitely 
 pleasing. One circumstance will excite surprise: notwith- 
 standing her constant close connexion with the old Court, she 
 was, at heart and in opinion, a zealous Jacobite ; hardly, per- 
 haps, to the pitch of wishing the Pretender's enterprise suc- 
 cess, yet enough so to take fire in defence of James the Second 
 if ever she heard any blame laid to his charge. 
 
 At the time of Lady Mary Wortley's return home, Lady 
 Hervey was living in great intimacy with Lady Bute, for 
 whom she professed, and it is believed really felt, the highest 
 esteem and admiration. On hearing of her mother's arrival, 
 she came to her, owning herself embarrassed by the fear of 
 giving her pain or offence, but yet compelled to declare, that 
 formerly something had passed between her and Lady Mary 
 which made any renewal of their acquaintance impossible ; 
 therefore, if she forbore visiting her, she threw herself upon 
 Lady Bute's friendship and candour for pardon. No explana-
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 97 
 
 tion followed. Lady Bute, who must have early seen the 
 necessity of taking care not to be entangled in her mother's 
 quarrels, which, to speak truth, were seldom few in number, 
 only knew that there had been an old feud between her, Lady 
 Hervey, and Lady Hervey's friend, Mrs. (or Lady) Murray ; l 
 the particulars of which, forgotten even then by everybody 
 but themselves, may well be now beyond recal. Those treble- 
 refined sets of company who occupy the pinnacle of fashion, 
 are at all times subject to such intestine jars as only the 
 French word tracasseries can fitly express. Lady Mary's 
 letters to Lady Mar betray how much of this sort of work 
 was continually going on in their society. 
 
 Mrs. Murray, whom she so often mentions, was the daugh- 
 ter of Mr. Baillie, 2 of Jerviswood, Bishop Burnet's near 
 relation, a leading man in Parliament, of most respectable 
 character. Though married, she resided with her father, 8 as 
 did also the rest of his family. Lady Hervey's Letters, pub- 
 lished in 1821, contain a warm panegyric upon her; and 
 Lady Mary Wortley herself could not deny her the praise of 
 being very pretty, very agreeable, and very generally admired ; 
 all which rendered only the more grating a strange adventure 
 that befel her in the midst of her brilliant career. One of 
 her father's footmen, probably either mad or drunk, entered 
 her room at midnight, armed with a pistol, and declared a 
 passion for her, which he swore he would gratify, or take her 
 life. Her cries brought assistance : he was seized, tried, and 
 transported ; she forced to give evidence against him at the 
 Old Bailey. How such a story, and such a public appearance 
 must have wounded the feelings of a gentlewoman, it is easy 
 to conceive. Any allusion to it must have been galling ; and 
 one cannot wonder if she took unkindly even Lady Mary's 
 
 1 Both Lady Hervey and Mrs. Murray were active partisans of Lord Grange 
 in his persecutions of Lady Mary, and aided him in his attempts to get possession 
 of her sister, Lady Mar. T. 
 
 2 The ancestor of Lord Haddington and Mr. Baillie. Having no son, he en- 
 tailed his fortune on the second son of his daughter, Lady Binning, on condition 
 that he should take the name of Baillie. W. 
 
 She had been long separated from her husband, on the alleged ground of his 
 excessive jealousy. T. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 " Epistle from Arthur Grey in Newgate," although compli- 
 mentary to her charms, and containing nothing injurious to 
 her character. But she accused Lady Mary of having also 
 made her the subject of a very offensive ballad ; l and this 
 Lady Mary positively denied. Various bickerings took place ; 
 peace seems to have been sometimes patched up, but war to 
 have quickly broken out afresh, and, like all other wars, to 
 have left marks of its footsteps long visible on the soil. 
 
 In these old days, people's brains being more active and in- 
 genious than their fingers, ballads swarmed as abundantly as 
 caricatures are swarming at present, and were struck off 
 almost as hastily, whenever wit and humour, or malice and 
 scurrility, found a theme to fasten upon. A ballad was sure 
 to follow every incident that had in it a ludicrous corner, 
 from 
 
 " The woeful christening late there did 
 In James's house befal." 
 
 and the King's turning his son and daughter out of doors 
 after it, down to a lady's dropping her shoe in the Park. 
 Though printed on the coarsest paper, sung about the streets, 
 and sold for half-pence, they often came from no mean quar- 
 ter. That just now quoted was ascribed to Arbuthnot ; Lord 
 Binning wrote an admirable one, describing the Duke of 
 Argyll's levee ; Mr. Pulteney, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Her- 
 vey, had the credit of others ; and Lady Mary Wortley was a 
 person who often fell under suspicion in matters of the kind, 
 because known to have talents which the world would not 
 believe she left unemployed. But, as she said herself, it 
 attributed to her a great deal of trash that she never wrote 
 never even saw ; and thus made her an object of ill-will to 
 people whose adventures she was so far from having celebrated, 
 that she hardly knew their names. 
 
 The impression these unjust imputations made upon her 
 mind will now be shown. When Lady Bute was nearly 
 grown up, some of her young friends wanted to bring about 
 an acquaintance between her and Miss Furnese, 2 an heiress of 
 
 1 See notes on the letters to Lady Mar. T. 
 
 * Anne, daughter of Sir Henry Furnese, Bart. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 99 
 
 their own age. Miss Wortley had no objection; but Miss 
 Furnese held off, and so resolutely, that they insisted upon 
 knowing the reason. " Why, then," said she, at last, " I will 
 honestly own your praises of Miss Wortley make me sure I 
 shall dislike her. You tell me she is lively and clever, now I 
 am very dull ; so, of course, she will despise me, and turn me 
 into ridicule, and I am resolved to keep out of her way." The 
 young set laughed most heartily at this avowal ; and Lady 
 Bute, laughing too when told of it, ran to divert her mother 
 with the story. But, instead of amusing Lady Mary, it made 
 her unusually serious. " Now, child," she began, after a mo- 
 ment's reflection, " you see nothing in this but a good joke, 
 an absurdity to laugh at ; and are not aware what an impor- 
 tant lesson you have received ; one which you ought to re- 
 member as long as you live. What that poor girl in her 
 simplicity has uttered aloud, is no more than what passes in 
 the mind of every dull person you will meet with. Those 
 who cannot but feel that they are deficient in ability always 
 look with a mixture of fear and aversion on people cleverer 
 than themselves ; regarding them as born their natural ene- 
 mies. If ever then you feel yourself flattered by the reputa- 
 tion of superiority, remember that to be the object of suspicion, 
 jealousy, and a secret dislike, is the sure price you must pay 
 for it." 
 
 No one who has seen much of the world will think this 
 assertion altogether unfounded. But the lurking grudge 
 (supposing it always alive) may be lulled into slumber, or it 
 may be stirred up and provoked to show its teeth in the guise 
 of open animosity ; and Lady Mary Wortley took the latter 
 course with it too often. She was not ill-tempered ; for our 
 men and maids are the best judges of us in that particular, 
 and the old servant fostered under her roof used to talk of her 
 indulgence and familiarity, was fond of repeating her sayings, 
 and almost seemed to have tasted her wit. But mankind is so 
 made, that reproaches, invectives, nay, veritable injuries, are 
 not half so sharply felt, or bitterly resented, as the stings of 
 ridicule : therefore a quick perception of the ridiculous must 
 
 H 2
 
 100 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 ever be a dangerous quality, although in some few persons it 
 wears a playful harmless shape, and is quite distinct from the 
 spirit of satire. Lady Mary, one cannot deny, united both 
 qualities, instantly seized the comical point, saw the matter of 
 mirth wherever it was to be found ; but had as keen an eye to 
 detect matter of censure, and rarely forbore a cutting sarcasm 
 out of tenderness to the feelings of others. In short, a pro- 
 fessed wit, flushed with success and bent on shining in society, 
 bears too much resemblance to a staunch foxhunter eager in 
 the chase, who takes a leap over his fallen companion, whether 
 friend or foe, without stopping to examine how he came down 
 or what bone he has broken. 
 
 The truth is, that affectation and folly must be borne with, 
 or at least let alone, if one would go peaceably through this 
 motley world ; which Lady Mary could not expect to do, be- 
 cause she had not Christian patience with either, but attacked 
 and exposed them when they were guiltless of hurting anybody 
 but their owner ; and thus made mortal enemies of the vain 
 tribe who would have plumed themselves upon her acquaint- 
 ance if they could have hoped to escape her animadversions. 
 For example, her former friend, or correspondent, Lady Rich, 
 when become that melancholy thing a decayed beauty, strove 
 to keep up the appearance of youth by affecting a girlish sim- 
 plicity, which suited her age much worse than rose-coloured 
 ribands, and served as a constant whetstone to Lady Mary's 
 raillery. The Master of the Rolls happened to be mentioned ; 
 the same old Sir Joseph Jekyll "who never changed his 
 principles or wig," and who had held the office so long that 
 he was identified with it in every one's mind. 1 " Pray who is 
 Master of the Rolls ?" asked Lady Rich, in an innocent tone. 
 "Sir Humphrey Monnoux, madam," answered Lady Mary, 
 naming off-hand the most unlikely person she could think of. 
 The company laughed, and the lady looked disconcerted ; but 
 not daring to betray her better knowledge by disputing the 
 fact, went 011 in desperation to be more simple still. Well ! 
 I am vastly ashamed of being so prodigiously ignorant. I 
 
 1 He filled the office of Master of the Rolls from 1717 to 1738. Lady Mary, before 
 her marriage, was accustomed to meet Mr. "Wortley at Lady Jekyll's house. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 101 
 
 dare say I ask a mighty silly question ; but pray now, what is 
 it to be Master of the Rolls ? What does he do ? for I really 
 don't know." " Why, madam, he superintends all the French 
 rolls that are baked in London ; and without him you would 
 have no bread-and-butter for your breakfast." There was no 
 parrying this : Lady Rich coloured, flirted her fan, and pro- 
 fessed herself unable to cope with Lady Mary Wortley's wit 
 she had no wit. " Nay ; but look you, my dear madam, I 
 grant it a very fine thing to continue always fifteen that 
 everybody must approve of; it is quite fair: but, indeed, 
 indeed, one need not be five years old." 
 
 Yet there was one very conspicuous, very assailable, and 
 very irritable person, whom Lady Mary, let her say what she 
 would, in jest or in earnest, could never affront or offend ; and 
 this was no other than Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, so 
 celebrated for quarrelling with all the rest of human kind. 
 She would take in good part the most home truths if spoken by 
 Lady Mary, who seemed to be out of the hurricane-latitude, 
 securely stationed beyond the scope of those capricious fits of 
 anger which she continually saw bursting like water-spouts on 
 the heads of her acquaintance. The Duchess also grew par- 
 tial to Lady Mary's daughter : both of them were privileged 
 to visit her at any hour and be always welcome. Lady Bute 
 often sate by her while she dined, or watched her in the 
 curious process of casting up her accounts. Curious, because 
 her grace, well versed as she was in all matters relating to 
 money, such as getting it, hoarding it, and turning it to the 
 best advantage, knew nothing of common arithmetic. But 
 
 1 See letters assumed to be addressed to Lady Rich among letters during Mr. 
 Wortley's embassy. She was the daughter of Colonel Griffin, and wife of Sir 
 Robert Rich, Baronet, of London. Feuton has some enthusiastic lines about this 
 lady, in which he speaks of her " angel form with chaste attraction gay." Pope, 
 who knew her sister, Miss Griffin, so well as to boast of having " kept her from 
 church all the Sunday," and who therefore, no doubt, well knew Lady Rich, lias 
 an unfortunately equivocal allusion to her : 
 
 " Bring sometimes with you Lady Rich, 
 And sometimes Mrs. Howard ; 
 For virgins, to keep chaste, must go 
 Abroad with such as are not so. 
 With a fa, la, la." 
 
 The Challenge. A Court Ballad [1716]. T. 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 102 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 her sound clear head could devise an arithmetic of its own ; to 
 lookers on it appeared as if a child had scrabbled over the 
 paper, setting down figures here and there at random ; and 
 yet every sum came right to a fraction at last, in defiance of 
 Cocker. 
 
 She was extremely communicative, and, it need not be 
 added, proportionably entertaining; thus far, too, very fair 
 and candid she laboured at no self-vindication, but told facts 
 just as they were, or as she believed them to be, with an open- 
 ness and honesty that almost redeemed her faults ; though this 
 might partly proceed from never thinking herself in the wrong, 
 or caring what was thought of her by others. She had still, 
 at a great age, considerable remains of beauty, most expressive 
 eyes, and the finest fair hair imaginable, the colour of which she 
 said she had preserved unchanged by the constant use of 
 honey-water hardly such as perfumers now sell, for that has 
 an unlucky aptitude to turn the hah* grey. By this superb 
 head of hair hung a tale, an instance of her waywardness and 
 violence, which (strange to say) she took particular pleasure in 
 telling. None of her charms, when they were at their proudest 
 height, had been so fondly prized by the poor Duke her hus- 
 band. Therefore, one day, upon his offending her by some 
 act of disobedience to her " strong sovereign will" 1 the bright 
 thought occurred, as she sat considering how she could plague 
 him most, that it would be a hearty vexation to see his favourite 
 tresses cut off. Instantly the deed was done; she cropped 
 them short, and laid them in an ante-chamber he must pass 
 through to enter her apartment. But, to her cruel disappoint- 
 ment, he passed, entered, and repassed, calm enough to pro- 
 voke a saint; neither angry nor sorrowful; seemingly quite 
 unconscious both of his crime and his punishment. Con- 
 cluding he must have overlooked the hair, she ran to secure it. 
 Lo ! it had vanished and she remained in great perplexity 
 the rest of the day. The next, as he continued silent, and her 
 looking-glass spoke the change a rueful one, she began to 
 
 " Highly-crested pride, 
 Strong sovereign will, and some desire to chide." 
 
 PamelFs Rise of Woman. W.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 103 
 
 think she had done rather a foolish thing. Nothing more ever 
 transpired upon the subject until after the Duke's death, when 
 she found her beautiful ringlets carefully laid by in a cabinet 
 where he kept whatever he held most precious ; and at this 
 point of the story she regularly fell a crying. 
 
 The only topic upon which she seemed guarded was what 
 concerned Queen Anne, whom she never mentioned disre- 
 spectfully, but in general avoided speaking of ; while she liked 
 to dilate upon the first arrival of the present royal family, and 
 would describe with great glee many little circumstances of 
 their ways and manners which were new and somewhat un- 
 couth to English eyes. She had had a nearer view of them 
 than perhaps it was prudent to give her ; for, at their outset, 
 wishing to conciliate the Marlborough party, they invited her 
 to a degree of intimacy sure to end in proving the truth of 
 that wise saying about familiarity which we can all remember 
 to have indicted in round hand. The second or third time 
 she had the honour of being admitted, she said she found the 
 Princess (Queen Caroline) maintaining discipline in her 
 nursery, where one of the children, having been naughty, had 
 just undergone wholesome correction, and was roaring pite- 
 ously in consequence. The Duchess tried to hush and console 
 it. " Ay ! see there," cried the Prince, with an air of triumph ; 
 " you English are none of you well bred, because you was not 
 whipt when you was young." " Humph !" quoth her grace, 
 " I thought to myself, I am sure YOU could not have been 
 whipt when you were young, but I choked it in." Not being at 
 all accustomed either to choke her thoughts in, or to stand in 
 awe of royalty, she soon made her attendance more formidable 
 than agreeable, and gladly returned to her natural vocation of 
 governing others, instead of reverencing the powers entitled 
 to rule over her. 
 
 The most vindictive Highland chief never had so many 
 feuds ; but her deadliest, unlike his, were in the bosom of her 
 own clan. To begin by her daughters : she was not on speak- 
 ing terms with Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough, and Mary 
 Duchess of Montagu. The two others, Lady Sunderland and 
 Lady Brid^evvater, had died betimes ; and some of the chil-
 
 104 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 dren of the former were the objects of as much affection as 
 she could feel, especially Robert Earl of Sunderland, the eldest 
 son, a man who deserved her partiality, and, as his date was 
 short, did not outlive it. With the second, Charles, she agreed 
 pretty well till he succeeded to the Marlborough titles and 
 fortune ; when money, that main-spring hidden or manifest, 
 remote or immediate of all family quarrels, quickly produced 
 a rupture between them. She laid claim to a portion of her late 
 husband's personal estate, and the affair could only be settled 
 by what is called an amicable suit ; but for a suit with her to go 
 on amicably was a thing about as likely as for an oil-shop set 
 on fire to be slow in burning ; so the flame no sooner kindled, 
 than she insisted upon giving it full vent, and amused the 
 world by pleading her own cause in the Court of Chancery. 
 Among the property disputed was the famous diamond-hilted 
 sword " That sword," said she, to the court emphatically, 
 " that sword, my lord, would have carried to the gates of Paris. 
 Am I to live to see the diamonds picked off one by one and 
 lodged at the pawnbroker's?" The new duke's habits of 
 squandering and running in debt gave force to the sarcasm ; 
 yet people smiled when they recollected that his younger 
 brother, Jack Spencer, who, besides equalling him in these 
 respects, 1 made the town ring with some wild frolic every day, 
 kept a fast hold of the old lady's favour all the while, and in 
 her eyes could do nothing wrong. 
 
 Two more of her descendants must be named Lady Anne 
 Spencer, Lady Sunderland's eldest daughter, married to Lord 
 Bateman, and Lady Anne Egerton, the deceased Lady B.'s 
 only one, married first to Wriothesley Duke of Bedford, and 
 secondly to Lord Jersey. Both these ladies inherited such a 
 share of their grandmother's imperial spirit, as to match her 
 pretty fairly, and insure daggers drawing as soon as it should 
 find time and opportunity to display itself. But, ere the stormy 
 season set in, the grandame had acquired Lady Bateman's 
 picture; 2 which she afterwards made a monument of ven- 
 
 1 It was a rule with both brothers " never to dirty their fingers with tiloer;" and 
 as they, like all other gentlemen at that time, went about in hackney chairs, the 
 chairmen used to fight for the honour of carrying them, in hopes of picking up the 
 guinea sure to be flung instead of a shilling, when they were set down. W 
 
 2 In the first edition this was told of Lady Jersey's picture ; but on reading Lord
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 105 
 
 geance, in no vulgar or ordinary mode. She did not give it 
 away; nor sell it to a broker; nor send it up to a lumber- 
 garret ; nor even turn its front to the wall. She had the 
 face blackened over, and this sentence, She is much blacker 
 within, inscribed in large characters on the frame. And thus, 
 placed in her usual sitting-room, it was exhibited to all be- 
 holders. 
 
 Many other people remarkable in different ways must have 
 been known to Lady Mary Wortley ; many authors appear to 
 have courted her approbation, but only those persons are men- 
 tioned here of whom Lady Bute could speak from her own 
 recollection or her mother's report. Both had made her well 
 informed of every particular that concerned her relation Henry 
 Fielding j 1 nor was she a stranger to that beloved first wife 
 
 Oxford's reminiscences, which the writer of the anecdotes had nearly forgotten, not 
 having seen them since their publication, it flashed upon her memory that Lady 
 Bute had mentioned Lady Hateman, and that his account was correct. Everything 
 here related came from Lady Bute herself, not as recollections of what her mother 
 had told her concerning the Duchess of Marlborough, but as what she had herself 
 heard the duchess say, and what had happened in her own time. Curiosity to 
 learn particulars about so remarkable a person occasioned her being often earnestly 
 questioned on the subject. W. 
 
 1 The following extract from Mr. Dallaway's Memoir shows the relationship and 
 connexion between Lady Mary and the novelist : 
 
 Lady Mary and Fielding were second cousins, being descended in the same 
 decree from George Earl of Desmond. He dedicated to her his first Comedy of 
 " Love in several Masks," in 1727 ; and addressed her on the subject of " The 
 Modern Husband," which was acted at Drury-lane Theatre in 1731 
 
 SKETCH OF DESCENT. 
 
 William Fielding, Earl= 
 of Denbigh, Ob. 1655. j 
 
 George Fielding, = 
 Earl of Desmond. 
 
 William Fielding, Earl of= John Fielding,: 
 
 Desmond and Denbigh. fifth son. 
 
 Mary =Evelyn Duke Edmund Fielding, 
 
 Fieldir 
 
 Fielding. 
 
 of Kingston. third son. 
 
 Lady Mary Pierrepont, Henry Fielding, only 
 
 afterward Wortley son by the first wife, 
 
 Montagu, Ob. 1762. Ob. 1754. T.
 
 106 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 whose picture he drew in his Amelia, where, as she said, even the 
 glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than 
 justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, 
 
 although this had suffered a little from the accident related in 
 
 t? 
 
 the novel a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of 
 her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned his 
 affection ; yet led no happy life, for they were almost always 
 miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. All 
 the world knows what was his imprudence ; if ever he pos- 
 sessed a score of pounds, nothing could keep him from lavish- 
 ing it idly, or make him think of to-morrow. Sometimes they 
 were living in decent lodgings with tolerable comfort ; some- 
 times in a wretched garret without necessaries ; not to speak 
 of the spunging-houses and hiding-places where he was occa- 
 sionally to be found. His elastic gaiety of spirit carried him 
 through it all ; but, meanwhile, care and anxiety were preying 
 upon her more delicate mind, and undermining her constitu- 
 tion. She gradually declined, caught a fever, and died in his 
 arms. 
 
 His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that 
 after the death of this charming woman he married her maid. 
 And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character 'as 
 it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was 
 an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and 
 almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of 
 his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief 
 but from weeping along with her ; nor solace, when a degree 
 calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually re- 
 gretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, 
 and in process of time he began to think he could not give 
 his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more 
 faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he 
 told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife 
 confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion. 
 
 Lady Mary Wortley had a great regard for Fielding ; she 
 pitied his misfortunes, excused his failings, and warmly ad- 
 mired his best writings ; above all Tom Jones, in her own copy
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 107 
 
 of which she wrote Ne plus ultra. Nevertheless, she frankly 
 said she was sorry he did not himself perceive that he had 
 made Tom Jones a scoundrel ; alluding to the adventure with 
 Lady Bellaston. She would indeed have seldom passed a 
 wrong judgment on what she read, if her natural good taste 
 had taken its way unbiased ; but where personal enmity or 
 party prejudice stepped in, they too frequently drove it 
 blinded before them. A book is a book, no matter who wrote 
 it ; in fair criticism it has a right to stand upon its own proper 
 ground, and should no more be condemned for the sins of its 
 author, than commended for his virtues. This, to be sure, 
 was not her way of handling any contemporary performance. 
 Most people will now admit that Pope betrayed unmanly and 
 mean malevolence in his attacks upon her; yet when she 
 pronounced his verses to be "all sound and no sense," she 
 was aiming a pointless arrow at a poet who, wherever he judged 
 it expedient, could compress more meaning into fewer words 
 than almost any other in our language. Not Pope alone 
 however, but the larger half of that noble band of authors, 
 that rendered the literary age of Anne illustrious, lay for 
 her under an interdict, a species of taboo, obnoxious both as 
 Tories and as his confederates. She forbade herself to relish 
 the wit and humour of Swift and Arbuthnot; 1 and could not, 
 or would not, be sensible that the former, Bolingbroke, and 
 Atterbury, ranked with her own friend Addison as the standard 
 writers of English prose. 
 
 With regard to later works, though her remarks upon Rich- 
 ardson have incensed his zealous admirers beyond measure and 
 past forgiveness, yet, while making them, she has involun- 
 tarily borne a more convincing, unquestionable testimony to 
 his chief merits than if she had been ever so eloquent, in 
 his praise. She acknowledges having sobbed over his volumes ; 
 she could not lay them down, she sate up all night to finish 
 them. What greater triumph could an author who wrote to 
 the feelings desire? But then it seems she was guilty of 
 
 1 It is doubtful whether Lady Mary had any prejudice against Arbuthnot, with 
 whom she appears to have been in friendly relations up to the time of his death. T.
 
 108 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 saying that, never having lived in the society of real gentle- 
 men and ladies, he had given his fictitious ones a language 
 and manners as different from theirs as could be devised. 
 So was it also said of Garrick, the first and finest of actors, 
 that, performing every other part in exquisite perfection, he 
 never could succeed in that of a mere ordinary gentleman. 
 Both assertions were strictly true, and they amount to nothing- 
 more than a proof of the old trite position that " every one 
 must fail in something." If Richardson's inelegancies dis- 
 turb us less than they did Lady Mary Wortley, it is because 
 we take for old-fashioned much that our fathers and mothers 
 knew to be vulgar, or even ridiculous. A man's living friends 
 will have the presumption to find fault with his portrait when 
 their eyes tell them it has no likeness to him, though it may 
 not be at all the worse picture a hundred years hence ; and 
 this was exactly the case with Lady Mary, who thought no 
 otherwise than her neighbours at the time. Mrs. Donellan, 
 an accomplished woman, whom the readers of Swift may re- 
 collect to have been one of his correspondents, told the late 
 Mr. Edward Hamilton, her godson, that Richardson once 
 brought her a manuscript volume of Sir Charles Grandison, 
 begging her to examine it, and point out any errors she per- 
 ceived in this very particular. He was conscious, he said, of 
 his own ignorance touching the manners of the people of dis- 
 tinction ; and, knowing that she had passed her life in the 
 best company, he could depend upon her judgment. Mrs. 
 Donellan, who both admired his genius and respected his cha- 
 racter, undertook the task with good faith as well as good will ; 
 but no sooner did she begin criticising, than she found she had 
 to deal with an Archbishop of Grenada. Richardson changed 
 colour, shut up the book, and muttering sullenly, that if there 
 were so many faults, he supposed his best way would be to 
 throw it into the fire at once, walked off in the mood vulgarly, 
 but expressively, yclept dudgeon. It was long ere he troubled 
 her with another visit. 
 
 After all, Lady Mary Wortley's insensibility to the excel-
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 109 
 
 lence, or, let us say, the charm of Madame de S&vigne's 
 Letters, is the thing most surprising in her observations on 
 literary subjects ; and it can only be accounted for by a marked 
 opposition of character between the two women. The head 
 was the governing power with the one, the heart with the 
 other. If they had lived at the same time, and in the same 
 country and society, they would not have accorded well to- 
 gether. Madame de SeVign6 would have respected Lady 
 Mary's talents, but rather dreaded than coveted her acquain- 
 tance. Lady Mary, in lieu of prizing that simplicity of mind 
 which Madame de SeVign6 so wonderfully preserved in the 
 midst of such a world as surrounded her, might have been 
 apt to confound it with weakness ; and to hold in contempt 
 not only her foible for court favour, but her passionate devo- 
 tion to her daughter. 
 
 As writers also they were dissimilar : Lady Mary wrote 
 admirable letters; letters not dissertations, nor sentimental 
 effusions, nor strings of witticisms, but real letters; such as 
 any person of plain sense would be glad to receive. Her style, 
 though correct and perspicuous, was unstudied, natural, flow- 
 ing, spirited; she never used an unnecessary word, nor a 
 phrase savouring of affectation ; but still she meant to write 
 well, and was conscious of having succeeded. Madame de 
 Sevigne had no such consciousness ; she did not so much write, 
 as talk and think upon paper, with no other aim than to make 
 Madame de Grignan present at every incident, and partaker 
 of every feeling, throughout the twenty-four hours of her 
 day. By this means she makes us present likewise ; as we 
 read, we see her, hear her, feel with her, enter into all her 
 concerns. Not that she ever dreamt of pleasing us. " If the 
 post knew what it carried," says she, " it would leave these 
 packets by the wayside." " Keep my letters," said Lady 
 Mary, on the contrary ; " they will be as good as Madame de 
 Sevigne's forty years hence." And in some measure she said 
 true. What she terms the tittle-tattle of a fine lady would 
 have lost nothing in her hands. She could relate passing 
 events, and satirise fashionable follies with as much vivacity
 
 110 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 and more wit than Madame de Sevigne herself; and there 
 was more depth in her reflections, for she had the superiority 
 in strength of understanding. But all that she sought to 
 degrade by the epithet " tittle-tattle of an old nurse," includ- 
 ing, as it does, so many touches of truth and nature ; all the 
 little traits that bring before our eyes the persons spoken of ; 
 all the details which render Les Rochers and Livry as inter- 
 esting to us as Versailles ; all this part, it must be confessed, 
 lay out of Lady Mary's province ; and she proved it did so by 
 viewing it with disdain. 
 
 From the books Lady Mary Wortley died possessed of, which 
 were but few, she appears to have been particularly fond of 
 that ancient English drama lately revived among us ; for she 
 had several volumes of differently sized and wretchedly printed 
 plays bound up together, such as the Duke of Roxburgh 
 would have bought at any price ; the works of Shirley, Ford, 
 Marston, Heywood, Webster, and the rest, as far back as 
 Gammer Gurton's Needle, and coming down to the trash of 
 Durfey. But Lillo's domestic tragedies were what she most 
 admired ; for " My lady used to declare," said the old servant 
 so often quoted, " that whoever did not cry at George Barn- 
 well must deserve to be hanged." And she passed the same 
 sentence on people who could see unmoved the fine scene 
 between Dorax and Sebastian in Dryden, who was also one of 
 her favourite authors. She had his plays, his fables, and his 
 Virgil, in folio, as they were first published ; Theobald's edi- 
 tion of Shakspeare, manifestly much read; and Tonson's 
 quarto Milton. Besides Cowley, Waller, Denham, &c., there 
 were some less known poets, and some of an earlier age, such 
 as Suckling and Drayton. Nothing further can be called to 
 mind, excepting the outward shape of three ultra-sized volumes, 
 the works of Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. 
 
 Some of Lady Mary Wortley's early letters, expressing 
 vividly all a mother's fondness for her infant son, give suffi- 
 cient occasion to moralise over the fate of those parents who
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. Ill 
 
 are doomed to see the object of such intense affection, the 
 creature whose birth made them so happy, become, when 
 grown up, the curse, the torment, and the disgrace of their 
 lives. Young Wortley hardly waited so long to signalise his 
 propensity to vice and folly ; betraying from the beginning 
 that surest symptom of inveterate moral (or mental) disease 
 an habitual disregard of truth, accompanied by a fertile ready 
 invention never at fault. Where these prevail, it is building 
 upon a quicksand to attempt working a reformation. He was 
 a mere child when he ran away from school j 1 and this first 
 exploit was followed at short intervals by others still more 
 extraordinary, until he finally sealed his ruin by marrying 
 while under age a woman of very low degree, considerably 
 older than himself ; one for whom he could scarcely have felt 
 more than a momentary liking, since he forsook her in a few 
 weeks, and never sought to see her again, though her life 
 lasted nearly as long as his own. To be capable at a mature 
 age of such an act as drawing a youth into a disproportionate 
 marriage, did not denote much principle or feeling ; yet, as 
 her conduct was not licentious, she never put it in his power 
 to obtain a divorce. In future, more than one lady took the 
 title of his wife, with or without the pretext of a ceremony 
 which, it is to be feared, he would not have scrupled to go 
 through any number of times, if requisite for the accomplish- 
 ment of his wishes. But the last person so circumstanced, and 
 the loudest in asserting her claims, met him upon equal ground, 
 having herself a husband living, from whom she had eloped ; 
 therefore she at least could not complain of deception. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the mistakes, inaccuracies, and exag- 
 gerations attending public rumour, this singular man's various 
 adventures, at home and abroad, were perhaps better known 
 to the world at large than to the near relations who must have 
 heard of them with pain, and shunned, instead of seeking, 
 particular information upon so distressing a subject : conse- 
 quently little light respecting it could glimmer downwards to 
 more distant generations. He was said to have had a hand- 
 
 1 See notes on letter to Lady Mar. T.
 
 112 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 some person, plausible manners, and a liveliness of parts which 
 report magnified into great talents ; but whether he did really 
 possess these may be doubted. They are often gratuitously 
 presumed to exist in conjunction with profligacy, whenever 
 that takes any wild extraordinary form, because the notion of 
 such an affinity has in it something wonderfully agreeable to 
 two very numerous classes of men, the direct opposites of each 
 other. The disorderly and vicious are parties concerned; 
 they rejoice to claim kindred with superiority of mind ; and 
 would fain have it a point established, that clever people can 
 never by any possibility remain tethered within the pale of 
 discretion and virtue. While, on the other hand, nothing de- 
 lights sober, self-satisfied mediocrity and dulness like a fair 
 opportunity of stigmatising genius as incompatible with com- 
 mon sense, and the faithful ally, if not the parent, of every 
 baneful extravagance. 
 
 Thus much is certain ; Mr. Wortley and Lady Mary (nei- 
 ther of them an incompetent judge) were far from thinking 
 highly of their son's abilities and understanding. His irregu- 
 lar conduct was imputed by them rather to weakness of 
 character than to " the flash and outbreak of a fiery spirit " 
 conscious of its own powers ; and from first to last they held 
 him utterly incapable of pursuing any object or course what- 
 ever, praiseworthy or blamable, with that firmness and con- 
 sistency of purpose which perhaps belongs as necessarily to 
 the great wicked man as to the eminently good one. They 
 would have passed upon him the sentence of the patriarch on 
 his first-born : " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." 
 
 Why Lady Mary Wortley left her own country, and spent 
 the last two-and-twenty years of her life in a foreign land, is 
 a question which has been repeatedly asked, and never can be 
 answered with certainty, for want of any positive evidence or 
 assurance on the subject. It is very possible, however, that 
 the solution of this supposed mystery, like that of some riddles 
 which put the ingenuity of guessers to the farthest stretch, 
 would prove so simple as to leave curiosity blank and baffled.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 113 
 
 Lady Mary writing from Venice (as it appears, in the first 
 year of her absence) tells Lady Pomfret that she had long 
 been persuading Mr. Wortley to go abroad, and at last, tired 
 of delay, had set out alone, he promising to follow her ; which, 
 as yet, parliamentary attendance and other business had pre- 
 vented his doing ; but, till she knew whether to expect him or 
 not, she could not proceed to meet her (Lady Pomfret) at 
 Rome. If this was the real truth, and there seems no reason 
 to doubt it, we may easily conceive farther delays to have 
 taken place, and their reunion to have been so deferred from 
 tune to time, that, insensibly, living asunder became like 
 the natural order of things, in which both acquiesced without 
 any great reluctance. But if, on the contrary, it was only 
 the colour they chose to give the affair ; if the husband and 
 wife she in her fiftieth year, he several years older had de- 
 termined upon a separation, nothing can be more likely than 
 that they settled it quietly and deliberately between themselves, 
 neither proclaiming it to the world, nor consulting any third 
 person ; since their daughter was married, their son disjoined 
 and alienated from them, and there existed nobody who had a 
 right to call them to an account or inquire into what was 
 solely their own business. It admits of little doubt that their 
 dispositions were unsuitable, and Mr. Wortley had sensibly 
 felt it even while a lover. When at length convinced that in 
 their case the approach of age would not have the harmonising 
 effect which it has been sometimes known to produce upon 
 minds originally but ill assorted, he was the very man to think 
 within himself, " If we cannot add to each other's happiness, 
 why should we do the reverse ? Let us be the friends at a 
 distance which we could not hope to remain by continuing 
 uneasily yoked together." And that Lady Mary's wishes had 
 always pointed to a foreign residence is clearly to be inferred 
 from a letter she wrote to him before their marriage, when it 
 was in debate where they should live while confined to a very 
 narrow income. How infinitely better would it be, she urges, 
 to fix their abode in Italy, amidst every source of enjoyment, 
 every object that could interest the mind and amuse the fancy, 
 VOL. i. I
 
 114 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 than to vegetate she does not use the word, but one may 
 detect the thought in an obscure country retirement at 
 home! 
 
 These arguments, it is allowed, rest upon surmise and con- 
 jecture ; but there is proof that Lady Mary's departure from 
 England was not by any means hasty or sudden ; for in a 
 letter to Lady Pomf ret, dated the 2nd of May, 1739, she an- 
 nounces her design of going abroad that summer ; and she did 
 not begin her journey till the end of July, three months after- 
 wards. Other letters are extant affording equal proof that 
 Mr. Wortley and she parted upon the most friendly terms, 
 and indeed as no couple could have done who had had any 
 recent quarrel or cause of quarrel. She wrote to him from 
 Dartford, her first stage ; again a few lines from Dover, and 
 again the moment she arrived at Calais. Could this have 
 passed, or would the petty details about servants, carriages, 
 prices, &c., have been entered into between persons in a state 
 of mutual displeasure ? Not to mention that his preserving, 
 docketing, and indorsing with his own hand even these slight 
 notes as well as all her subsequent letters, shows that he 
 received nothing which came from her with indifference. His 
 confidence in her was also very strongly testified by a trans- 
 action that took place when she had been abroad about two 
 years. Believing that her influence and persuasions might 
 still have some effect upon their unfortunate son, he entreated 
 her to appoint a meeting with him, form a judgment of his 
 present dispositions, and decide what course it would be best 
 to take, either in furthering or opposing his future projects. 
 On the head of money, too, she was to determine with how 
 much he should be supplied, and very particularly enjoined to 
 make him suppose it came, not from his father, but herself. 
 These were full powers to delegate ; such as every woman 
 would not be trusted with in the families where conjugal 
 union is supposed to reign most uninterruptedly. 1 
 
 1 Remarks have been made upon the view here taken of the probable causes of 
 Lady Mary's residence abroad for so many years previous to Mr. Wortley's death, 
 which may call for some notice. It is said* that " causes for this separation have
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 115 
 
 The Lady Pomfret mentioned above was so highly honoured 
 and admired by her own family, and her name and memory 
 were so long held in a sort of veneration amongst her de- 
 scendants, that one would think there must have been some 
 ground for the feeling ; although Horace Walpole laughs at 
 her as a ridiculous pretender to knowledge and wisdom which 
 she does not possess. A few grains of affectation will often 
 suffice to spoil the taste of much that is good in a character ; 
 and, supposing this to have been the case with her, it may 
 account for such contradictory opinions. Lady Mary Wortley 
 speaks of her as the first of women ; but then it is to herself, 
 and in a correspondence too full of studied compliments and 
 professions to have flowed from the honesty of cordial, fami- 
 liar friendship. Even Lady Mary's style labours and grows 
 stiffer than usual while pouring them forth. It was not thus, 
 probably, that she wrote to Lady Stafford, or the Duchess of 
 Montagu. The former, a foreigner by birth and education, 
 daughter of the famous Comte de Grammont and " la belle 
 Hamilton" was said to have inherited her uncle Count 
 Anthony Hamilton's vivacity and talents for conversation, 
 which made her the mos agreeable woman of her time. 
 Her death happened before Lady Mary left England, and as 
 
 been rumoured, of a nature which of course never could have reached her grand- 
 daughter, but which make it wonderful only that Mr. Wortley should have so long 
 borne with such eccentricities of conduct and temper, and should have arranged 
 the separation with so much feeling and good sense." It is impossible satis- 
 factorily to investigate the truth or falsehood of rumours so vaguely hinted at, 
 because nothing is pointed out to which inquiries can be directed. A rumour, 
 however, did reach the editor of these volumes two or three years ago, at the 
 time he first conceived the idea of editing them, from a quarter which led him to 
 suspect that it probably came from Horace Walpole, namely, that the reason of 
 Lady Mary's leaving England was the discovery by Mr. AVortley of some improper 
 use made of his name in some money transaction. Although this seemed to be a 
 most improbable story, from the confidence, even in money matters, which appears 
 evidently to have subsisted between Mr. Wortley and Lady Mary at a period sub- 
 sequent to her going abroad, and from the terms upon which, from these letters, 
 they appear to have been when they parted, the editor nevertheless thought it 
 right to examine Mr. Wortley's letters of business at and about that period, to see 
 if they contained any allusion to such a circumstance. He has, however, been 
 unable to find any such allusion. If this is not the rumoured cause of separation 
 referred to, the editor is totally at a loss how to deal with the insinuation in the 
 paragraph here quoted from the Quarterly Review ; none other having reached, so 
 far as he can discover, any member of the family, either living or dead, at any 
 time : nor is there any reason, from any information he has been able to obtain, 
 to believe that anything like arranged separation ever took place. W. 
 
 12
 
 116 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 it affected her deeply, might be one cause of her desire to 
 change the scene. 1 
 
 As for the particulars of Lady Mary's history, society,' and 
 way of life, during her residence on the Continent, they must 
 be gathered from her own letters, which lie before the reader. 
 Those of latest date, written after she finally established her- 
 self at Venice, seem to turn very much upon the annoyances 
 she suffered from the behaviour of Mr. Murray, then the 
 British minister there; between whom and her reigned, or 
 rather raged, the utmost animosity. But none of the letters 
 explain, nor are there now any means of discovering, whence 
 the quarrel first sprang, or which of the parties was the most 
 to blame. It certainly tells against him that his enmity ex- 
 tended to so respectable a man as her friend, Sir James 
 Steuart of Coltness, whose situation as an exile soliciting recal 
 must have made him more cautious of giving any real cause 
 of offence than a free unfettered person, even if he had not 
 been too much engrossed by his literary labours to meddle with 
 diplomatic intrigues. 
 
 She survived her return home too short a time to afford 
 much more matter for anecdotes. Those who could remember 
 her arrival, spoke with delight of the clearness, vivacity, and 
 raciness of her conversation, and the youthful vigour which 
 seemed to animate her mind. She did not appear displeased 
 at the general curiosity to see her, nor void of curiosity herself 
 concerning the new things and people that her native country 
 presented to her view after so long an absence : yet, had her 
 life lasted half as many years as it did months, the probabilitv 
 is that she would have gone abroad again ; for her habits had 
 become completely foreign in all those little circumstances, 
 the sum of which must constitute the comfort or discomfort of 
 every passing day. She was accustomed to foreign servants 
 
 1 Lord Hervey describes her as " an old French lady" who " had as much wit, 
 humour, and entertainment in her as any man or woman I ever knew, with a great 
 justness in her way of thinking, and very little reserve in her manner of giving 
 her opinion of things and people." (Memoirs, ii. 116.) There are frequent allu- 
 sions to her in Lady Mary's letters, particularly in those to Lady Mar. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 117 
 
 and to the spaciousness of a foreign dwelling. Her descrip- 
 tion of the harpsichord-shaped house she inhabited in one of 
 the streets bordering upon Hanover-square grew into a pro- 
 verbial phrase : " I am most handsomely lodged," said she ; " I 
 have two very decent closets and a cupboard on each floor." 
 This served to laugh at, but could not be a pleasant exchange 
 for the Italian palazzo. However, all earthly good and evil 
 were very soon terminated by a fatal malady, 1 the growth of 
 which she had long concealed. The fatigues she underwent 
 in her journey to England tended to exasperate its symptoms ; 
 it increased rapidly, and before ten months were over she died 
 in the seventy-third year of her age. 
 
 In a letter, which may be referred to, dated from Louvere, 
 October the 2nd, 1752, Lady Mary tells her daughter that she 
 amuses herself with writing the history of her own time, but 
 regularly burns every sheet as soon as she has finished it. 
 Her account of George the First, his family, and his Hano- 
 verian society, is evidently a fragment of that history, which, 
 by accident, or oversight, escaped the flames ; as it has neither 
 beginning nor end, and she declares it meant solely for her 
 own perusal. Mr. Wortley also left a fragment somewhat 
 similar, relating to the same period, and describing the state 
 of parties at and after the demise of Queen Anne : but his 
 sketch, ten times more shapeless than hers, is a mere rough 
 copy, so blotted and interlined as to be scarcely readable. He 
 appears to have aimed chiefly at drawing a distinct line 
 between what he calls court Whigs and country Whigs, and 
 explaining why the latter (amongst whom he ranked himself) 
 so constantly opposed Sir Robert Walpole. He, in short, 
 
 1 Dallaway, in his Memoir, ascribes Lady Mary's death to a gradual decline ; 
 and it would appear that her disease not having been actually named in these 
 anecdotes, that circumstance has been seized upon as warranting a suspicion of 
 some mystery connected with it, and as evincing a design to conceal the truth. It 
 is impossible for the editor to account for Dallaway's statement, which is certainly 
 not a correct one. The malady of which Lady Mary died was a cancer in the 
 breast ; and its not having been so stated in these anecdotes, arose merely from its 
 not having been considered a matter of importance or interest to any reader. W. 
 [Lord Wharnclifie's statement is confirmed by a letter of Horace Walpole to Sir 
 Horace Mann of July 31, 17C2. T.]
 
 118 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 dwells upon grave and solid politics. Ludy Mary, slightly 
 noticing these, keeps to the chapter of court intrigue ; which, 
 in a government like ours, may possibly influence them but 
 little, though at a certain distance of time it furnishes better 
 entertainment to careless, idle readers. She therefore is led 
 to give details, and portray individuals ; and we must admit 
 that her touches are (as usual) rather caustic. Her husband 
 enters into no particulars of the kind; yet there is one re- 
 markable point upon which the two narratives perfectly agree. 
 We have long been taught to believe that the charge of 
 having accepted a bribe, brought against Sir Robert Walpole 
 in 1712, 1 was a groundless accusation, trumped up for party 
 purposes, and his expulsion from the House of Commons a 
 flagrant instance of party malice and injustice. Nor will 
 what is said on the subject in Swift's Journal avail much to 
 persuade us of the contrary. But these two people, writing 
 separately, Mr. Wortley and his wife, both thoroughly hostile 
 to the queen's last ministry and the parliament it swayed, 
 both ready to condemn every proceeding sanctioned by either, 
 do yet both mention Walpole as a man whom the clearest 
 conviction of corrupt practices had left with a blot upon his 
 character that nothing could efface. Whichever way truth 
 may lie, he afterwards proved how keenly he felt the mortify- 
 ing transaction ; but proved it in a manner creditable to his 
 heart, by showing gratitude, not by seeking revenge. On 
 his being ordered to withdraw while the House voted his com- 
 mitment to prison, one personal friend only, Daniel Campbell, 
 of Shawfield, a Scotch member, arose, went out with him, and 
 attended him to the gates of the Tower. Sir Robert did not 
 forget this when he was minister. Mr. Campbell, a moderate 
 man, asked few favours for himself ; but any person in whose 
 behalf he could be induced to say a word, had a fairer chance 
 of success than if patronised by the greatest and most powerful 
 
 1 Walpole was expelled the House in December, 1711. The charge brought 
 against him was that of having accepte .1 two sums of five hundred pounds from 
 the contractors for supplying forage to the army, in consideration of taking their 
 contracts. T.
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 119 
 
 of Walpole's supporters. His paramount influence, and the 
 consequence it gave him, are hinted at in Lord Binning's 
 satirical ballad upon the Duke of Argyll's levee : 
 
 -When, lo ! 
 
 Great Daniel showed his face. 
 
 At sight of him low bowed the peer ; 
 
 Daniel vouchsafed a nod : 
 ' I've seen Sir Robert, and 'tis done.' 
 
 ' You've kept me in, by !' >M 
 
 Mr. Wortley, writing (it appears) within a twelvemonth 
 after the accession, says that the Regency then appointed was 
 so chosen as to deserve and win universal approbation. Yet, 
 before the King came over, it had split into separate factions ; 
 Lord Marlborough (i. e. the Duke), Lord Halifax, and Lord 
 Townshend, each aiming at the whole power, and each trying 
 to strengthen himself among the Tories ; because it was un- 
 derstood that a junction between the two parties would be a 
 thing agreeable to the new sovereign. But even the men 
 most willing to promote this were still for the punishment of 
 the criminals; he gives the late queen's ministers no softer 
 name. Therefore Lord Halifax lost ground, from being sus- 
 pected of a wish to save Harley ; and what he lost was gained 
 by Lord Townshend, or rather by Mr. Walpole, who had got 
 the entire government of his brother-in-law, and rose upon his 
 shoulders. The Tories, however, as well as the Whigs, are 
 divided by Mr. Wortley into two classes, court and country : 
 nay, he adds, " The country Whigs and country Tories were 
 not very different in their notions ; and nothing hindered them 
 from joining bat the fears that each had of the other's bring- 
 ing in the whole party." While, according to him, " the 
 court Whigs had quite lost the esteem of the nation when 
 Lord Oxford got into power, so that the country Whigs did 
 everything that was done against the Court during that in- 
 famous ministry ;" and he details instances at some length. 
 
 1 The poem from which the lines are quoted will be found in the Geuilem:ia's 
 Magazine for February, 1740, p. 87.
 
 120 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 
 
 He finds fault with the reigning government for several of its 
 measures : chiefly, the long delay of the impeachments, which 
 gave " the criminals" a material advantage ; the wording of 
 the proclamation calling a new parliament, which too openly 
 declared it the king's wish to have none but Whigs elected, 
 and thus exasperated the Tories without doing the Whigs 
 much service ; the gross and unusual injustice shown in 
 trying elections ; the demand of more money for the civil 
 list ; the arbitrary changes that displaced not only Tories but 
 Whigs, if unacceptable to Mr. Walpole, and this especially in 
 the Treasury, the commissioners of which, he says, used to be 
 men of considerable importance, and were never dependent 
 upon the First Lord, or nominated by him, till the time of 
 Lord Oxford : all these sins he lays to the charge of Wal- 
 pole, " whose violence and imprudence (says the manuscript) 
 is censured by all the Whigs but those that depend upon the 
 Court." "The chief men in place are the Speaker, Sir 
 Richard Onslow, Mr. Aislaby, Mr. Smith, Mr. Lechmere, 
 Mr. Boscawen, Mr. Bayley, Mr. Pulteney, and Mr. Stanhope. 
 Except the two last, every one of the nine has expressed his 
 dislike of Walpole's conduct; and these two were never 
 reckoned among the men who were able to judge of the 
 House of Commons, or of the inclinations of the people." 
 When the same Pulteney, no longer Walpole's friend, headed 
 a powerful opposition against him, perhaps Mr. Wortley grew 
 to allow him some skill in managing both the House and the 
 people. But to let him speak on : " Mr. Walpole, who has 
 less credit than any of the nine, is set at the head of them by 
 Lord Townshend's favour. Lord Townshend acts against his 
 own interest in setting up Mr. Walpole above the rest ; but he 
 was never thought to have a strong judgment, though his 
 language arid winning carriage and honest intention made all 
 the Whigs justly wish to see him Secretary of State. No- 
 thing could have sunk his credit with them, unless his blind- 
 ness to Mr. Walpole's actions should set them against him." 
 
 Next follows, " But there may be another reason why Mr. 
 Walpole is thus supported. Baron B. is said to take what
 
 INTRODUCTORY ANECDOTES. 121 
 
 money he can, and Mr. Walpole is the most proper man in 
 England to assist him in getting it. Why should Baron B. 
 join himself to a man so suspicious, unless he did take it ? " 
 and he proceeds to show how closely they are linked together. 
 Then, as Mr. Walpole " is already looked upon as the chief 
 minister" and Mr. Wortley thinks him in the direct road 
 actually to become so " can it," he asks, " be for the honour 
 of the government to have a man marked for corruption de- 
 clared first minister ? Can he bear the envy of such a post ?" 
 This account of what was passing cannot be well called im- 
 partial^ since the writer obviously leans does more than lean 
 to one side ; but he sets down his real opinions, formed on 
 the spot, and recorded only for himself ; and surely it may be 
 desirable, though but as a matter of curiosity, to learn how the 
 facts and characters at which we are now looking back through 
 the telescope of time, through the long series of years that has 
 made them historical, appeared to the eyes of their contempo- 
 raries. 1 
 
 i 
 
 1 Lady Stuart, the writer of these anecdotes, died August 4, 1851, aged ninety- 
 four. Some of Sir Walter Scott's letters to her will be found in Mr. Lockhart's 
 Life. T.
 
 THE DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. 
 
 [THK following fragment, found among Lady Mary's papers, 
 appears to have formed part of a paper to which the following 
 " Account of the Court of George the First" is a sequel, and 
 is given here for that reason. T.] 
 
 .... were never shown, and only served Oxford to pro- 
 duce on another occasion. He could not long temporise in 
 this manner without being discovered by Bolingbroke, who 
 was in a hurry to introduce his new king, and he informed the 
 Q. [Queen] by her favourite, Lady Masham, of this double 
 dealing of the Lord Treasurer, who was on the point of being 
 entirely disgraced, when the Queen died suddenly, worn out 
 with a complication of distempers. As the Act of Succession 
 was yet unrepealed, it was high treason to appear openly in 
 favour of the Pretender ; and Bolingbroke, too timorous to 
 venture a stroke of that nature, the Earl of Oxford (being 
 pushed by Bolingbroke) had resigned his staff some days 
 before the Queen died, and it had been put into the hands of 
 the Duke of Shrewsbury by Lady Masham while she was in 
 the agonies of death, who, though he had hitherto gone into 
 all the measures taken for the introduction of the Pretender, 
 was not of a humour to venture his life or estate in his ser- 
 vice .
 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 AT HIS ACCESSION. 1 
 
 I WAS then in Yorkshire ; Mr. W. [Wortley] (who had, at 
 that time, that sort of passion for me, that would have made 
 me invisible to all but himself, had it been in his power) had 
 sent me thither. He stayed in town on the account of some 
 business, and the Queen's death detained him there. Lord 
 Halifax, his near relation, was put at the head of the Treasury ; 
 and, willing to have the rest of the commissioners such as he 
 thought he could depend on, named him for one of them. It 
 will be surprising to add that he hesitated to accept of it, at a 
 time when his father was alive and his present income very 
 small ; but he had that opinion of his own merit as [sic] made 
 him think any offer below that of Secretary of State not worth 
 his acceptance, and had certainly refused it if he had not been 
 persuaded to the contrary by a rich old uncle of mine, Lord 
 Pierrepont, whose fondness for me gave him expectations of a 
 large legacy. 
 
 The new court with all their train was arrived before I left 
 the country. The Duke of Marlborough was returned in a 
 sort of triumph, with the apparent merit of having suffered 
 for his fidelity to the succession, and was reinstated in his 
 
 1 The original haa no heading. T.
 
 124 ACCOUNT OF THE COURT 
 
 office of General, &c. In short, all people who had suffered 
 any hardship or disgrace during the late ministry, would have 
 it believed that it was occasioned by their attachment to the 
 House of Hanover. Even Mr. Walpole, who had been sent 
 to the Tower for a piece of bribery proved upon him, was 
 called a confessor to the cause. But he had another piece of 
 good luck that yet more contribute'! to his advancement ; he 
 had a very handsome sister, whose i'olly had lost her reputa- 
 tion in London ; but the yet greater folly of Lord Townshend, 
 who happened to be a neighbour in Norfolk to Mr. Walpole, 
 had occasioned his being drawn in to marry her some months 
 before the Queen died. 
 
 Lord Townshend had that sort of understanding which 
 commonly makes men honest in the first part of their lives ; 
 they follow the instruction of their tutor, and, till somebody 
 thinks it worth their while to show them a new path, go regu- 
 larly on in the road where they are set. Lord Townshend 
 had then been many years an excellent husband to a sober 
 wife, a kind master to all his servants and dependants, a ser- 
 viceable relation wherever it was in his power, and followed 
 the instinct of nature in being fond of his children. Such a 
 sort of behaviour without any glaring absurdity, either in pro- 
 digality or avarice, always gains a man the reputation of rea- 
 sonable and honest ; and this was his character when the Earl 
 of Godolphin sent him envoy to the States, not doubting but 
 he would be faithful to his orders, without giving himself the 
 trouble of criticising on them, which is what all ministers wish 
 in an envoy. Robotun, a French refugee (secretary to Bern- 
 stoff, one of the Elector of Hanover's ministers), happened 
 then to be at the Hague, and was civilly received at Lord 
 Townshend's, who treated him at his table with the English 
 hospitality, and he was charmed with a reception which his 
 birth and education did not entitle him to. Lord Townshend 
 was recalled when the Queen changed her ministry ; his wife 
 died, and he retired into the country, where (as I have said 
 before) Walpole had art enough to make him marry his sister 
 Dolly. At that time, I believe, he did not propose much
 
 OF GEORGE I. 125 
 
 more advantage by the match than to get rid of a girl that 
 lay heavy on his hands. 
 
 When King George ascended the throne, he was surrounded 
 by all his German ministers and playfellows male and female. 
 Baron Goritz was the most considerable among them both for 
 birth and fortune. He had managed the King's treasury 
 thirty years with the utmost fidelity and economy ; and had 
 the true German honesty, being a plain, sincere, and unambi- 
 tious man. Bernstoff the secretary was of a different turn. 
 He was avaricious, artful, and designing; and had got his 
 share in the King's councils by bribing his women. Robotun 
 was employed in these matters, and had the sanguine ambition 
 of a Frenchman. He resolved there should be an English 
 ministry of his choosing; and, knowing none of them per- 
 sonally but Townshend, he had not failed to recommend him 
 to his master, and his master to the King, as the only proper 
 person for the important post of Secretary of State ; and he 
 entered upon that office with universal applause, having at 
 that time a very popular character, which he might possibly 
 have retained for ever if he had not been entirely governed by 
 his wife and her brother R. Walpole, whom he immediately 
 advanced to be Paymaster, esteemed a post of exceeding profit, 
 and very necessary for his indebted estate. 
 
 But he had yet higher views, or rather he found it neces- 
 sary to move higher, lest he should not be able to keep that. 
 The Earl of Wharton, now Marquis, both hated and despised 
 him. His large estate, the whole income of which was spent 
 in the service of the party, and his own parts, made him con- 
 siderable ; though his profligate life lessened the weight that a 
 more regular conduct would have given him. 
 
 Lord Halifax, who was now advanced to the dignity of 
 Earl, graced with the Garter, and First Commissioner of the 
 Treasury, treated him with contempt. The Earl of Notting- 
 ham, who had the real merit of having renounced the ministry 
 in Queen Anne's reign, when he thought they were going to 
 alter the succession, was not to be reconciled to Walpole, whom, 
 he looked upon as stigmatised for corruption.
 
 126 ACCOUNT OF THE COURT 
 
 The Duke of Marlborough, who in his old age was making 
 almost the same figure at court that he did when he first came 
 into it I mean, bowing and smiling in the ante-chamber, 
 while Townshend was in the closet was not, however, pleased 
 with Walpole, who began to behave to him with the insolence 
 of new favour; and his Duchess, who never Restrained her 
 tongue in her life, used to make public jokes of the beggary 
 she first knew him in, when her caprice gave him a consider- 
 able place, against the opinion of Lord Godolphin and the 
 Duke of Marlborough. 
 
 To balance these, he had introduced some friends of his own, 
 by his recommendation to Lord Townshend (who did nothing 
 but by his instigation). Colonel Stanhope was made the other 
 Secretary of State. He had been unfortunate in Spain, and 
 there did not want those who attributed it to ill conduct : but 
 he was called generous, brave, true to his friends, and had an 
 air of probity that prejudiced the world in his favour. 
 
 The King's character may be comprised in very few words. 
 In private life he would have been called an honest blockhead ; 
 and Fortune, that made him a king, added nothing to his hap- 
 piness, only prejudiced his honesty, and shortened his days. 
 No man was ever more free from ambition ; he loved money, 
 but loved to keep his own, without being rapacious of other 
 men's. He would have grown rich by saving, but was in- 
 capable of laying schemes for getting ; he was more properly 
 dull than lazy, and would have been so well contented to have 
 remained in his little town of Hanover, that if the ambition of 
 those about him had not been greater than his own, we should 
 never have seen him in England ; and the natural honesty of 
 his temper, joined with the narrow notions of a low education, 
 made him look upon his acceptance of the crown as an act of 
 usurpation, which was always uneasy to him. But he was car- 
 ried by the stream of the people about him, in that, as in every 
 other action of his life. He could speak no English, and was 
 past the age of learning it. Our customs and laws were all 
 mysteries to him, which he neither tried to understand, nor 
 was capable of understanding if he had endeavoured it. He
 
 OF GEORGE I. 127 
 
 was passively good-natured, and wished all mankind enjoyed 
 quiet, if they would let him do so. The mistress that followed 
 him hither was so much of his own temper, that I do not 
 wonder at the engagement between them. She was duller 
 than himself, and consequently did not find out that he was 
 so ; and had lived in that figure at Hanover almost forty years 
 (for she came hither at threescore), without meddling in any 
 affairs of the electorate; content with the small pension he 
 allowed her, and the honour of his visits when he had nothing 
 else to do, which happened very often. She even refused 
 coming hither at first, fearing that the people of England, 
 who, she thought, were accustomed to use their kings barba- 
 rously, might chop off his head in the first fortnight ; and had 
 not love or gratitude enough to venture being involved in his 
 ruin. And the poor man was in peril of coming hither with- 
 out knowing where to pass his evenings ; which he was accus- 
 tomed to do in the apartments of women, free from business. 
 But Madame Kilmansegg saved him from this misfortune. 
 She was told that Mademoiselle Schulemberg scrupled this 
 terrible journey ; and took that opportunity of offering her 
 service to his Majesty, who willingly accepted of it, though he 
 did not offer to f acilitate it to her by the payment of her debts, 
 which made it very difficult for her to leave Hanover without 
 the permission of her creditors. But she was a woman of wit 
 and spirit, and knew very well of what importance this step 
 was to her fortune. She got out of the town in disguise, and 
 made the best of her way in a post-chaise to Holland, from 
 whence she embarked with the King, and arrived at the same 
 time with him in England ; which was enough to make her 
 called his mistress, or at least so great a favourite that the 
 whole court began to pay her uncommon respect. 
 
 This lady deserves I should be a little particular in her cha- 
 racter, there being something in it worth speaking of. She 
 was past forty : she had never been a beauty, but certainly 
 very agreeable in her person when adorned by youth ; and had 
 once appeared so charming to the Bang, that it was said the 
 divorce and ruin of his beautiful Princess, the Duke of ZelTs
 
 128 ACCOUNT OF THE COURT 
 
 daughter, was owing to ths hopes her mother (who was declared 
 mistress to the King's father, and all-powerful in his court) 
 had of setting her daughter in her place ; and that the project 
 did not succeed, by the passion that Madame Kilmansegg took 
 for M. Kilmansegg, who was son of a merchant of Hamburg, 
 and, after having a child by him, there was nothing left for 
 her but to marry him. Her ambitious mother ran mad with 
 the disappointment, and died in that deplorable manner, leaving 
 40,OOOZ., which she had heaped by the favour of the Elector, 
 to this daughter, which was very easily squandered by one of 
 her temper. She was both luxurious and generous, devoted 
 to her pleasures, and seemed to have taken Lord Rochester's 
 resolution of avoiding all sorts of self-denial. She had a 
 greater vivacity in conversation than ever I knew in a German 
 of either sex. She loved reading, and had a taste of all polite 
 learning. Her humour was easy and sociable. Her constitu- 
 tion inclined her to gallantry. She was well bred and amusing 
 in company. She knew how both to please and be pleased, 
 and had experience enough to know it was hard to do either 
 without money. Her unlimited expenses had left her very 
 little remaining, and she made what haste she could to make 
 advantages of the opinion the English had of her power with 
 the King, by receiving the presents that were made her from 
 all quarters, and which she knew very well must cease when it 
 was known that the King's idleness carried him to her lodgings 
 without either regard for her advice, or affection for her person, 
 which time and very bad paint had left without any of the 
 charms that had once attracted him. His best-beloved mistress 
 remained still at Hanover, which was the beautiful Countess 
 of Platen. 
 
 Perhaps it will be thought a digression in this place to tell 
 the story of his amour with her; but, as I write only for 
 myself, I shall always think I am at liberty to make what 
 digressions I think fit, proper or improper ; besides that in mv 
 opinion nothing can set the King's character in a clearer light. 
 That lady was married to Madame Kilmansegg's brother, the 
 most considerable man in Hanover for birth and fortune ; and
 
 OF GEORGE I. 129 
 
 her beauty was as far beyond that of any of the other women 
 that appeared. However, the King saw her every day without 
 taking notice of it, and contented himself with his habitual 
 commerce with Mademoiselle Schulemberg. 
 
 Li those little courts there is no distinction of much value 
 but what arises from the favour of the Prince, and Madame 
 Platen saw with great indignation that all her charms were 
 passed over unregarded, and she took a method to get over this 
 misfortune which would never have entered into the head of a 
 woman of sense, and yet which met with wonderful success. 
 She asked an audience of his Highness, who granted it without 
 guessing what she meant by it ; and she told him that as no- 
 body could refuse her the first rank in that place, it was very 
 mortifying to see his Highness not show her any mark of fa- 
 vour ; and, as no person could be more attached to his person 
 than herself, she begged with tears in her fine eyes that he 
 would alter his behaviour to her. The Elector, very much 
 astonished at this complaint, answered that he did not know 
 any reason he had given her to believe he was wanting in his 
 respect for her, and that he thought her not only the greatest 
 lady, but the greatest beauty of the court. "If that be true, 
 sire," replied she, sobbing, " why do you pass all your time 
 with Schulemberg, while I hardly receive the honour of a visit 
 from you?" His Highness promised to mend his manners, 
 and from that time was very assiduous in waiting on her. 
 This ended in a fondness, which her husband disliked so much 
 that he parted with her ; and she had the glory of possessing 
 the heart and person of her master, and to turn the whole 
 stream of courtiers that used to attend Mademoiselle Schulem- 
 berg to her side. However, he did not break with his first 
 love, and often went to her apartment to cut paper, which was 
 his chief employment there; which the Countess of Platen 
 easily permitted him, having often occasion for his absence. 
 She was naturally gallant, and, after having thus satisfied her 
 ambition, pursued her warmer inclinations. 
 
 Young Craggs came about this time to Hanover, where his 
 father sent him to take a view of that court in his tour of tra- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 ACCOUNT OF THE COURT 
 
 veiling. He was in his first bloom of youth and vigour, and 
 had had so strong an appearance of that perfection, that it was 
 called beauty by the generality of women : though, in my 
 opinion, there was a coarseness in his face and shape that had 
 more the air of a porter than a gentleman, and if Fortune 
 had not interposed her almighty power, he might, by his birth, 
 have appeared in that figure, his father being nothing more 
 considerable at his first appearance in the world than footman 
 to Lady Mary Mordant, the gallant Duchess of Norfolk, who 
 had always half a dozen intrigues to manage. Some servant 
 must always be trusted in affairs of that kind, and James 
 Craggs had the good fortune to be chosen for that purpose. 
 She found him both faithful and discreet, and he was soon ad- 
 vanced to the dignity of valet- de-chambre. 
 
 King James II. had an amour with her after he was upon 
 the throne, and respected the Queen enough to endeavour to 
 keep it entirely from her knowledge. James Craggs was the 
 messenger between the Bang and the Duchess, and did not 
 fail to make the best use of so important a trust. He scraped 
 a great deal of money from the bounty of this royal lover, 
 and was too inconsiderable to be hurt by his ruin ; nor did not 
 concern himself much for that of his mistress, which by lower 
 intrigues happened soon after. This fellow, from the report 
 of all parties, and even from that of his professed enemies, 
 had a very uncommon genius ; a head well turned for calcula- 
 tion ; great industry ; and was so just an observer of the 
 world, that the meanness of his education never appeared in 
 his conversation. 1 
 
 1 That the elder Craggs began life as a barber, and was next a footman, has 
 been often stated. The story was put forth in a pamphlet published shortly before 
 his death, entitled " The Conspirators, or the Case of Catiline ;" and. it is repeated 
 by Lord Macaulay in his History of England. It has, however, scarcely any 
 foundation in fact. He was the son of Anthony Craggs, Esq., of Hole-house, or 
 Holbech, near Walsingham, in the county of Durham, and a daughter of the Rev. 
 Ferdinando Morecroft, of Goswick, Lancashire, D.D., Rector of Stanhope in 
 Wardell, and Prebend of Durham. A nephew of Anthony was Rector of Wal- 
 singham, and another nephew was also a beneficed clergyman. Anthony Craggs 
 appears to have been extravagant, and to have mortgaged or sold his estate at 
 Walsingham. James came to London some time before 1680. He had a kind 
 patron in the Earl of Arundel ; and shortly afterwards, as appears from letters of 
 Anthony to his nephew, he obtained the respectable appointment of " steward to
 
 OF GEORGE I. 131 
 
 The Duke of Marlborough, who was sensible how well Ii3 
 was qualified for affairs that required secrecy, employed him 
 as his procurer 1 both for women and money ; and he acquitted 
 himself so well of these trusts as to please his master, and yet 
 raise a considerable fortune, by turning his money in the 
 public funds, the secret of which came often to his knowledge 
 by the Duke's employing him. He had this only son, whom 
 he looked on with the partiality of a parent ; and resolved to 
 spare nothing in his education that could add to his figure. 
 
 Young Craggs had great vivacity, a happy memory, and 
 flowing elocution ; he was brave and generous ; and had an 
 appearance of open-heartedness in his manner that gained him 
 a universal good-will, if not a universal esteem. It is true, 
 there appeared a heat and want of judgment in all his words 
 and actions, which did not make him very valuable in the 
 eyes of cool judges, but Madame Platen was not of that num- 
 ber. His youth and fire made him appear a conquest worthy 
 her charms, and her charms made her appear very well worthy 
 his passionate addresses. Two people so well disposed towards 
 one another were very soon in the closest engagement ; and 
 the first proof Madame Platen gave him of her affection was 
 introducing him to the favour of the Elector, who took it on 
 her word that he was a young man of extraordinary merit, 
 and he named him for Cofferer at his first accession to the 
 crown of England, and I believe it was the only place that 
 he then disposed of from any inclination of his own. This 
 proof of Madame Platen's power hindered her coming hither. 
 Bernstoff was afraid she might meddle in the disposition of 
 places that he was willing to keep in his own hands ; and he 
 represented to the King that the Roman Catholic religion that 
 she professed was an insuperable bar to her appearance in the 
 court of England, at least so early ; but he gave her private 
 hopes that things might be so managed as to make her ad- 
 
 the Duke of Norfolk," and married a lady of good fortune. The letters of James, 
 written about this period, show him to have been a good son and a kind brother, 
 tender towards the faults and follies of his father, and anxious, by his own pru- 
 dence and exertions, to retrieve the decaying fortune of his family : they also show 
 him to have been a man of good education. T. 
 
 1 Lady Mary had originally written the word " pimp." T. 
 
 K2
 
 132 ACCOUNT OF THE COURT 
 
 mittance easy when the King was settled in his new domi- 
 nions. And with this hope she consented without much con- 
 cern to let him go without her ; not reflecting that weak minds 
 lose all impressions by even short absences. But as her own 
 understanding did not furnish her with very great refinements, 
 she was troubled with none of the fears that would have af- 
 fected a stronger head, and had too good an opinion of her 
 own beauty to believe anything in England could efface it ; 
 while Madame Kilmansegg attached herself to the one thing 
 necessary, getting what money she could by the sale of 
 places, and the credulity of those who thought themselves 
 very politic in securing her favour. 
 
 Lord Halifax was one of this number ; his ambition was 
 unbounded, and he aimed at no less than the Treasurer's staff, 
 and thought himself in a fine road to it by furnishing Ma- 
 dame Kilmansegg both with money and a lover. Mr. Methuen 
 was the man he picked out for that purpose. He was one of 
 the Lords of the Treasury ; he was handsome and well-made ; 
 he had wit enough to be able to affect any part he pleased, 
 and a romantic turn in his conversation that could entertain a 
 lady with as many adventures as Othello, and it is no ill 
 way of gaining Desdemonas. Women are very apt to take 
 their lovers' characters from their own mouths ; and if you 
 will believe Mr. Methuen's account of himself, neither Arta- 
 menes nor Oroondates ever had more valour, honour, con- 
 stancy, and discretion. Half of these bright qualities were 
 enough to charm Madame Kilmansegg ; and they were very 
 soon in the strictest familiarity, which continued for different 
 reasons, to the pleasure of both parties, till the arrival of 
 Mademoiselle Schulemberg, which was hastened by the Ger- 
 man ministers, who envied the money accumulated by Ma- 
 dame Kilmansegg, which they longed to turn into another 
 channel; which they thought would be more easily drawn 
 into their own hands. They took care to inform Mademoiselle 
 Schulemberg of the fond reception all the Germans met in 
 England, and gave her a view of the immense fortune that
 
 OF GEORGE I. 133 
 
 waited her here. This was enough to cure her fears, and she 
 arrived accompanied with a young niece who had already 
 made some noise at Hanover. She had projected the con- 
 quest of the Prince of Wales, and had so far succeeded as to 
 obtain his favours for some few months; but the Princess, 
 who dreaded a rival to her power, soon put an end to the cor- 
 respondence, and she was no longer possessed of his good 
 graces when he came hither. 
 
 I have not yet given the character of the Prince. The fire 
 of his temper appeared in every look and gesture; which, 
 being unhappily under the direction of a small understand- 
 ing, was every day throwing him upon some indiscretion. He 
 was naturally sincere, and his pride told him that he was 
 placed above constraint ; not reflecting that a high rank carries 
 along with it a necessity of a more decent and regular be- 
 haviour than is expected from those who are not set in so con- 
 spicuous a light. He was so far from being of that opinion, 
 that he looked on all the men and women he saw as creatures 
 he might kick or kiss for his diversion ; and, whenever he met 
 with any opposition in those designs, he thought his opposers 
 impudent rebels to the will of God, who created them for his 
 use, and judged of the merit of all people by their ready 
 submission to his orders, or the relation they had to his person. 
 And in this view he looked upon the Princess as the most 
 meritorious of her sex ; and she took care to keep him in that 
 sentiment by all the arts she was mistress of. He had married 
 her by inclination ; his good-natured father had been so com- 
 plaisant to let him choose a wife for himself. She was of the 
 house of Anspach, and brought him no great addition either 
 of money or alliance ; but was at that time esteemed a Ger- 
 man beauty, and had that genius which qualified her for the 
 government of a fool, and made her despicable in the eyes of 
 all men of sense ; I mean -a low cunning, which gave her an 
 inclination to cheat all the people she conversed with, and 
 often cheated herself in the first place, by showing her the 
 wrong side of her interest, not having understanding enough
 
 134 COURT OF GEORGE I. 
 
 to observe that falsehood in conversation, like red on the face, 
 should be used very seldom and very sparingly, or they de- 
 stroy that interest and beauty they are designed to heighten. 
 
 Her first thought on her marriage was to secure to herself 
 the sole and whole direction of her spouse ; and to that pur- 
 pose [she] counterfeited the most extravagant fondness for his 
 person ; yet, at the same time, so devoted to his pleasures 
 (which she often told him were the rule of all her thoughts 
 and actions), that whenever he thought proper to find them 
 with other women, she even loved whoever was instrumental 
 to his entertainment, and never resented anything but what 
 appeared to her a want of respect for him ; and in this light 
 she really could not help taking notice that the presents made 
 to her on her wedding were not worthy of his bride, and at 
 least she ought to have had all his mother's jewels. This was 
 enough to make him lose all respect to his indulgent father. 
 He downright abused his ministers, and talked impertinently 
 to his old grandmother the Princess Sophia ; which ended in 
 such a coldness towards all his family as left him entirely 
 under the government of his wife. 
 
 The indolent Elector contented himself with showing his 
 resentment by his silence towards him ; and this was the situ- 
 ation the family first appeared in when they came into Eng- 
 land. This behaviour did not, however, hinder schemes being 
 laid by various persons of gratifying their ambition, or making 
 their fortune, by particular attachments to each of the royal 
 family.
 
 ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS WHEN THE 
 KING ENTERED. 
 
 [THE following paper by Mr. Wortley Montagu was pub- 
 lished by Lord Wharncliffe, and is retained as furnishing an 
 interesting counterpart to the preceding. It was evidently 
 written when the events described were fresher than at the 
 time when Lady Mary wrote. T.] 
 
 As soon as the Queen was dead, the palace of St. James's 
 was filled with the Whigs, who were impatient to see the 
 choice of the Regency. When the names were known, it had 
 the universal approbation of all men except a few friends of 
 my Lord Sunderland, 1 my Lord Somers, and my Lord Whar- 
 ton. But Lords Sunderland and Wharton were very wisely 
 left out, having been too violent and too odious to a great part 
 of the nation. The Regency had not been long met but 
 there began to be two or three little parties among them ; and 
 before the King came, it was pretty publicly known that Lord 
 M. [Marlborough], Lord T. [Townshend], and Lord H. 
 [Halifax], did each of them aim at the whole power; and 
 because they had heard the King's inclination was to have a 
 mixture of Whigs and Tories, each of these three endea- 
 voured to strengthen himself by an addition of Tories ; being 
 all of them ready enough to drop their friends the Whigs, 
 who had been all along so zealous for the succession. My 
 
 1 Mr. Wortley had here at first written " MarlborougL," but afterwards struck 
 out the name and substituted " Sunderland." T.
 
 136 STATE OF AFFAIRS AT 
 
 Lord T. [Townshend] had the good fortune to be joined with 
 the best of the Tories, my Lord N. [Nottingham]. 
 
 It was very extraordinary to see a cabinet council chosen 
 out of the Whigs, and yet many of the best places in the 
 House of Commons offered to the Tories ; which looked as if 
 the Lords were satisfied with getting places for themselves, 
 and showed their ingratitude towards the Commons, who had 
 done everything in the late reign ; but my Lord Townshend 
 got the better. 
 
 My Lord M. [Marlborough] was justly blamed for endea- 
 vouring to put his officers of the army into all the civil places ; 
 and my Lord H. [Halifax], for giving too much reason to 
 suspect he was willing to save Oxford ; and he was indiscreet 
 
 enough to do this, though Mr. G , l who was said to be 
 
 for the scheme of mixing Whigs and Tories, declared to all 
 he met that the criminals ought to be punished : so that it was 
 plain Lord H.'s [Halifax's] designs of favouring Haiiey could 
 not be with the King's approbation, every one of his German 
 ministers declaring openly against it. The suspicion of Lord 
 H.'s [Halifax's] being too much Oxford's friend, for which he 
 gave too much reason, was the occasion of all the wrong steps 
 that may have been taken. For whenever Mr. W. [Walpole], 
 who had got the entire government of Lord T. [Townshend], 
 had a mind to take any violent step, though never so disgust- 
 ing to the people, he was sure to carry his point. If my Lord 
 II. [Halifax] said anything against it, he was said to speak in 
 favour of the Tories ; if any other spoke against it, it was 
 said he was of my Lord H.'s [Halifax's] party ; so that no 
 one could have a fair hearing but himself ; and he was cer- 
 tainly in this particular to be preferred before Lord H. [Hali- 
 fax], that no one suspected his being a friend to the Tories, 
 for whom the King seemed to have no inclination after Sir 
 Tho. Hanmer had been weak enough to refuse his favour. 
 
 Lord H. [Halifax] seldom could gain his point, though he 
 was never so much in the right. Mr. W. . [Walpole] carried 
 everything, though he was never so much in the wrong. 
 
 1 Mr., probably, as in other cases, for "Monsieur," the person alluded to here 
 being the King's German minister, Baron Goritz. T.
 
 THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 137 
 
 Before the opening of the session, Mr. W. [Walpole] was 
 in full power ; and when the places of consequence were to be 
 disposed of, Mr. W. [Walpole] named as many as he thought 
 fit, striking out of the list presented by the Treasury to the 
 King, not only Tories, but Whigs, when he wanted to put 
 others in their places ; and at a debate, at which eight of the 
 cabinet and about as many commoners were present, Mr. W. 
 [Walpole] earned it that the books of letters, &c., on which 
 the late ministers were to be impeached, should not be read 
 till the orders were made. Mr. W. [Walpole] pretends he 
 did not think Lord II. [Halifax] was to be trusted with them. 
 But most people are of opinion Mr. W. [Walpole] wanted to 
 have the whole credit of the management of this affair, and, 
 by knowing more of these papers, to seem an able talker and 
 writer. 
 
 He might, if he had pleased, [have] produced papers to im- 
 peach the guilty in the first week of the session ; but, instead 
 of that, he delayed his report four months after the session 
 was begun, to make it so much the finer. The whole body of 
 the Whigs were impatient to have the impeachments begin, 
 and foresaw that the criminals might make great advantage of 
 this delay. So that this delay, and all the ill consequences 
 attending it, are justly charged upon the imprudence of Mr. 
 W. [Walpole]. 
 
 It was owing to him that, in the proclamation for choosing 
 the parliament, it was declared in pretty strong terms it was 
 the King's desire that Whigs should be chosen ; and was an 
 open declaration that no Tories were to have any share of the 
 King's favour. It could not but exasperate them, and cer- 
 tainly was not the occasion of any number of Whigs being 
 chosen, more than would have been without it. The Whigs 
 that [had] no dealings with the court, generally disliked it. 
 
 It was owing to him that the King asked more money for 
 the civil list ; which gave the Tories a great advantage over 
 the Whigs, and which all the Whigs were sorry for but those 
 who depended on the court. Had it been proper to make an 
 addition in the first session, it would have come much more 
 properly from the House of Commons.
 
 138 STATE OF AFFAIRS AT 
 
 It was plain, before the parliament met, that they were 
 ready to do whatever the King pleased, so that whatever was 
 obtained was not owing to any particular man ; nor could any 
 man, or any set of Whigs, be considerable enough to put off 
 any[thing] that the King would have done ; and the only 
 question was, what was fit to be done, and in what manner. 
 It appears, by what has happened, many things have not been 
 managed as they should be ; and the heat of many Tories in 
 the country, and the indifference of the Whigs, are owing to a 
 wrong conduct. 
 
 The injustice shown in trying of elections has perhaps this 
 session been greater than ever. 
 
 Mr. Walpole's violence and imprudence is censured by all 
 the Whigs but those who depend on the court ; and among 
 those all the chief, except one or two (who are not reckoned 
 among the men of good judgment) condemn his conduct. 
 The chief men in place are the Speaker, Sir E,. Onslow, 
 Mr. Boscawen, Mr. Aislaby, Mr. Smith, Mr. Lechmere, Mr. 
 Bayley, Mr. Pulteney, Mr. Stanhope. Except the two last, 
 every one of these nine has expressed his dislike of Mr. W.'s 
 [Walpole's] conduct; and these two were never reckoned 
 among the men who were able to judge of the House of 
 Commons, or of the inclinations of the people. Neither has 
 been much versed in the business of the House ; and Mr. 
 Stanhope has made many remarkable false steps in managing 
 the business of the House. 
 
 So that had this [sic] King taken the opinion of the prin- 
 cipal members of the House before any business of moment 
 was proposed, which was the method constantly used by K. W. 
 [King William], affairs would certainly have been managed in 
 a different way. 
 
 Mr. W. [Walpole], who has less credit than any of those 
 nine, is set at the head of them by my Lord T.'s [Towns- 
 hend's] favour. Lord T. [Townshend], that was never of the 
 H. [House of Commons] himself, thinks Mr. W. [Walpole] un- 
 derstands it better than anybody, because he knows more of it 
 than himself. Mr. Her. 1 and Mr. B. [Bernstoff] seem entirely 
 joined with Lord T. [Townshend] and Mr. W. [Walpole] ;
 
 THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 1 39 
 
 so that whatever the King hears from B. [Bernstoff], or B. 
 [Bothmar], or Lord T. [Townshend], are commonly the words 
 put into their mouths by Mr. W. [Walpole] 
 
 CHOICE OF THE TREASURY. Lord T. [Townshend] acts 
 much against his own interest in setting up JSlr. Wa. [Wal- 
 pole] above the rest ; but Lord T. [Townshend] was never 
 thought to have a strong judgment, though his languages [sic] 
 and winning carriage and honest intentions made all the 
 Whigs justly wish to see him Secretary of State. He is the 
 fittest man for it in the House of Lords ; nothing could have 
 sunk his credit, or can ever make the Whigs see him changed, 
 unless his blindness towards Mr. W.'s [Walpole's] actions should 
 set them against him, as it has made them less for him than 
 they would have been otherwise. Mr. S. [Stanhope] who has 
 doubled his fortune in one year, as he thinks, by the favour of 
 Lord T. [Townshend], will always second what he does ; and 
 perhaps his want of judgment, or want of skill in the affairs 
 of the House of Commons, may give him a great opinion of 
 Mr. W. [Walpole]. Of the nine above named, four or five 
 who differ from [him] in this point have been always reckoned 
 above him in judgment ; so that what he says are commonly 
 Mr. W.'s [Walpole's] words. 
 
 Th<ire may be another reason Mr. W. [Walpole] is thus 
 supported. 
 
 Baron B. [Bothmar] is said to take what money he can. 
 Mr. W. [Walpole] is the most proper man in England to 
 assist him in getting it ; and why should Baron B. [Bothmar] 
 join himself with a man so suspicious, unless he did take it ? 
 There are very strong circumstances for suspecting B. B. 
 [Baron Bothmar] has got great sums, and is known to be the 
 director of B. B. [Baron Bernstoff] ; and, indeed, this alliance 
 is so well known, that no man ever says anything of Mr. W. 
 [Walpole] unless in praise of him, to any of them. 
 
 Mr. W. [Walpole] is already looked upon as the chief 
 minister, made so by my Lord T. [Townshond] ; and when he 
 
 1 There was no member of the House of Commons, at this period, whose name 
 began with these or similar letters. The person referred to was no doubt one of 
 the King's German courtiers. T.
 
 140 STATE OF AFFAIRS AT 
 
 is in the Treasury, it will be thought the King has declared 
 him so. The Duke of Albemarle, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord 
 Clifford, afterwards Treasurer, and Coventry, were all Com- 
 missioners at a time. In K. W.'s [King William's reign] 
 Lord Godolphin was third Commissioner of the Treasury after 
 having been Secretary of State. Mr. Montague was one of 
 the seven Regents in King William's absence. Great men 
 have generally been of the Treasury ; and when a Commis- 
 sioner of the Treasury has equal favour with any of the other 
 ministers, he will be first minister. 
 
 Can it be for the honour of the Government to have a man 
 marked for corruption declared first minister ? Can he bear 
 the envy of having such a post ? especially when he has already 
 the places of two Paymasters, and a place for his uncle, though 
 a Tory. 
 
 If he is to be in it [the Treasury], can it be reasonable he 
 should name all the rest ? 
 
 The Commissioners of the Treasury have commonly been 
 all men of great figure, and independent on one another, chose 
 by the King's favour. 
 
 If the list of the Commissioners of the Treasury in King 
 William's time be looked over, it is plain he chose men not 
 likely to be of the same opinion ; it was so in King Charles's 
 time it was plainly so too [sic]. 
 
 My Lord Oxford was the first commissioner that chose all 
 his brethren, and it was plain what was the ill consequence of 
 giving him so uncontrolled a power. 
 
 If there be one or two in the commission who is [sic] not of 
 Mr. W.'s [Walpole's] choosing, he cannot hinder any of his 
 projects, so that he can do no harm ; and can do 110 good but 
 to inform the King of his affairs. This is what Mr. W. [Wai- 
 pole] will endeavour to prevent all he can. 
 
 [What follows was omitted in Lord Wharncliffe's edition : 
 
 Two PARTIES or WHIGS. To understand the House of 
 Commons it is necessary to know that there has [been] of 
 late years always two sorts of Whigs and two of Tories. 
 
 The Court Whigs had quite lost the esteem of the nation 
 when my Lord O. [Oxford] got into power, so that tli
 
 THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 141 
 
 Country Whigs did everything that was done against the 
 Court during that infamous ministry. It was they that made 
 a division among the Whigs in the House of Commons in the 
 first session of Oxford's ministry, when Sir Thomas Hanmer 
 spoke against Lord Bo. [Bolingbroke], and they sent up the 
 bill to the House of Lords, upon which there was a majority of 
 25 lords, and Lord Oxford with great difficulty wrought of 
 [off ?] that majority, and threw it out by 2 votes in the second 
 session. Question [sic] the Country Whigs managed so well 
 that they divided 140 against 180 upon a question to make a 
 tack to the money bill, and exposed the measures of the 
 ministry and the mismanagement of the public money in the 
 third session. It was by their credit, the Court Whigs having 
 no credit to do anything, that the trade bill was thrown which 
 must have proved fatal to the nation had it passed. Mr. W. 
 [Walpole], that by his infamy had hurt his party, was in the 2 
 last sessions of that Parliament absent, and had he been pre- 
 sent, and meddled, the dislike of the Tories to him would have 
 hindered so many of them from joyning with the Whigs. The 
 Country Whigs and Country Tories were not very different 
 is their notions, and nothing has hindered them from joyning 
 but the fear that each have of the others bringing in their 
 whole party. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the greatest part of the merit of the 
 Whigs belongs to the Country Whigs, the heads of the others 
 were no sooner got into places, but he declared for restoring 
 all the useless Whigs to then* old places, and none of the 
 Country Whigs were preferred but Sir P. K. [Peter King], 
 who was put out of the House, and two others. After such 
 usage it is no wonder if the body of the Whigs has no great 
 esteem of the ministry. 
 
 There is to be added to the merit of the Country Whigs 
 that when the Court Whigs opposed the inviting over one of 
 the House of Hanover, the Country were by no means satisfied 
 with it, and many of them voted against the Court Whigs. 
 WHAT is A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN ? 
 
 The manuscript ends here. T.j
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 1 
 
 I HOPE my dear Mrs. Hewet does not believe that I follow 
 my inclination, when I am two or three posts before I return 
 thanks for her most agreeable letters ; but in this busy town 
 there is very little time at one's own disposal. My greatest 
 pleasure is at Mrs. Selwyn's : 2 I came from thence just now, 
 and I believe am the only young woman in town that am in 
 my own house at ten o'clock to-night. This is the night of 
 Count Turrucca's ball, to which he has invited a few bare-faced, 
 and the whole town en masque. I suppose you will have a 
 description of it from some who were at it ; 1 can only give it 
 at second-hand, and will therefore say nothing of it. I have 
 begun to learn Italian, and am much mortified I cannot do it 
 of a signor of Monsieur Resingade's recommendation ; but 'tis 
 always the fate of women to obey, and my papa has promised 
 
 1 Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Hewet, was the youngest daughter of Richard Bet- 
 tinson, Esq., by Albinia, daughter and coheir of Edward Cecil, Lord Viscount 
 Wimbleton. She married Mr. T. Hewet, who was Surveyor- General of his Ma- 
 jesty's Woods and Works. He was knighted in 1719, and settled at Shireoaks, in 
 Nottinghamshire, where he died in 1726. His lady long survived him, and was 
 remarkable for her accomplishments and beauty, which she retained to an extreme 
 old age. D. The Letters to Mrs. Hewet were published by Mr. Dallaway in an 
 edition of 1805. He informs us in a note that the originals had been communi- 
 cated to the publisher by a lady who received them from Lady Wastneys, relict 
 of Sir Hardolph Wastneys, of Headon Hall, to whom they had been bequeathed with 
 other papers. T. 
 
 2 Albinia Bettinson, Mrs. Hewet's elder sister, married Major-General William 
 Selwyn, of Matson, in Gloucestershire. D.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 143 
 
 me to a Mr. Cassotti. 1 I am afraid I shall never understand 
 it so well as you do but laissons cela, and talk of somewhat 
 more entertaining. 
 
 Next to the great ball, what makes the most noise is the 
 marriage of an old maid, who lives in this street, without a 
 portion, to a man of 7,000. per annum, and they say 40,000/. 
 in ready money. Her equipage and liveries outshine any- 
 body's in town. He has presented her with 3,OOOZ. in jewels ; 
 and never was man more smitten with these charms that had 
 lain invisible for these forty years ; but, with all his glory, 
 never bride had fewer enviers, the dear beast of a man is so 
 filthy, frightful, odious, and detestable. I would turn away 
 such a footman, for fear of spoiling my dinner, while he 
 waited at table. They were married on Friday, arid came to 
 church en parade on Sunday. I happened to sit in the pew 
 with them, and had the honour of seeing Mrs. Bride fall fast 
 asleep in the middle of the sermon, and snore very comfort- 
 ably; which made several women in the church think the 
 bridegroom not quite so ugly as they did before. Envious 
 people say 'twas all counterfeited to please him, but I believe 
 that to be scandal ; for I dare swear, nothing but downright 
 necessity could make her miss one word of the sermon. He 
 professes to have married her for her devotion, patience, meek- 
 ness, and other Christian virtues he observed in her : his first 
 wife (who has left no children) being very handsome, and so 
 good natured as to have ventured her own salvation to secure 
 his. He has married this lady to have a companion in that 
 paradise where his first has given him a title. I believe I have 
 given you too much of this couple ; but they are not to be 
 comprehended in few words. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Hewet, remember me, and believe that no- 
 thing can put you out of my head. 
 
 1 In one of her love letters to Mr. Wortley Montagu, written about June, 1712, 
 Lady Mary says : " Direct to Mr. Cassotti, at Mr. Roberts's, at the Queen's Head, 
 in Lichfield-street, Soho. He is my Italian master. I have made a kind of 
 plausible pretence to him for one letter to come that way, but I daro not trust 
 him." T.
 
 144 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [Thoresby, 1 September, 1709.] 
 
 TEN thousand thanks to you for Madame de NoyerV Let- 
 ters ; I wish Signor Roselli 3 may be as diverting to you as she 
 has been to me. The stories are very extraordinary ; but I 
 know not whether she has not added a few agremens of inven- 
 tion to them: however, there is some truth. I have been 
 told, in particular, that the history of the fair unfortunate 
 Madame de Barbesierre is so, by people who could not be sus- 
 pected of romancing. Don't you think that the court of 
 England would furnish stories as entertaining ? Say nothing 
 of my malice ; but I cannot help wishing that Madame de 
 Noyer would turn her thoughts a little that way. I fancy she 
 would succeed better than the authoress of the New Atalantis. 4 
 I am sure I like her method much better, which has, I think, 
 hit that difficult path between the gay and the severe, and is 
 neither too loose, nor affected by pride. 
 
 I take an interest in Mr. Selwyn's success. In a battle 5 like 
 that, I think it may be called so to come off alive. I should 
 be so sensible of any affliction that could touch you or Mrs. 
 Selwyn, that I may very well rejoice when you have no occa- 
 sion for any. Adieu, madam. This post has brought me 
 nothing but compliments, without one bit of news. I heard 
 the last, that Lord Stair was wounded. 6 You can tell me 
 whether to believe it or no. 
 
 Excuse my dulness; and be so good as never to read a 
 letter of mine but in one of those minutes when you are 
 entirely alone, weary of everything, and inquiete to think what 
 you shall do next. All people who live in the country must 
 
 1 In Nottinghamshire, one of the seats of the Marquis of Dorchester. T. 
 
 2 Madame Dunoyer's Letters. Published in 1704. T. 
 
 3 Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Signor Rozelli, translated from the 
 French, were published in 1709. T. 
 
 4 The first part of the New Atalantis, a scandalous book of much celebrity, 
 written by Mrs. Manley, was published May 26, 1709. T. 
 
 * Probably the disastrous victory of Malplaquet, September 11, 1709. Captain 
 Selwyn, of Argyle's regiment of foot, was slightly wounded. T. 
 
 The report as to Lord Stair was incorrect. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 145 
 
 have some of those minutes, and I know so well what they 
 are, that I believe even my letters may be welcome, when 
 they are to take them off your hands. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [Thoresby, October, 1709.] 
 
 I SUPPOSE my dear Mrs. Hewet has by this time resolved 
 never to think more on so insensible and ungrateful a creature, 
 that could be so long in returning thanks for such a letter, and 
 has repented of past favours. I cannot blame your resentment, 
 appearances are so much against me ; and yet I am not so 
 much to blame as you imagine. You expressed a desire of 
 seeing a second part of the Atalantis. 1 I had just then sent 
 to London for it, and did not question having it last Saturday. 
 I hoped that a book you had a mind to see might atone for the 
 nothingness of my letter, and was resolved not to send one 
 without the other ; but, like an unfortunate projector as I am, 
 my designs are always followed by disappointment. Saturday 
 came, and no book ; God forgive me, I had certainly wished 
 the lady who was to send it me hanged, but for the hopes it 
 was come by the Nottingham carrier, and then I should have 
 it on Monday ; but, after waiting Monday and Tuesday, I 
 find it is not come at all. Now, madam, I do not question 
 your forgiveness, and your hope, that when I do not write to 
 Mrs. Hewet, there is some unavoidable cause for my silence. 
 Your news and your book very much diverted me : it is an 
 old, but very pleasant, Spanish novel. When we leave this 
 place, I am not able to tell you. I have no reason to wish it, 
 but since I cannot see you, that it may be in my power to write 
 you more entertaining letters. I had some last post told me 
 that Lady Essex Saville 2 was going to be married to Lord 
 
 1 The second part of Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis was published on October 20, 
 1709, as appears by an advertisement in the original edition of the Tatler of 
 that day. T. 
 
 2 Eldest daughter of the second Marquis of Halifax. T. 
 
 VOL, I. L
 
 146 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 Lonsdale. 1 I won't swear to the truth of it, for people make 
 no conscience of what they write into the country, and think 
 anything good enough for poor us. There is another story 
 that I had from a hand I dare depend upon. The Duke of 
 Grafton and Dr. Garth 2 ran a foot-match in the mall of 200 
 yards, and the latter, to his immortal glory, beat. I pray God 
 you mayn't have heard this already. I am promised a cargo 
 of lampoons from the Bath, and if they come safe, you shall 
 share them with me. My dear Mrs. Hewet, could I contri- 
 bute any way to your diversion, it would be the height of my 
 ambition. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 November 12 [1709 3 ]. 
 
 You have not then received my letter ? Well ! I shall run 
 mad. I can suffer anything rather than that you should con- 
 tinue to think me ungrateful. I think 'tis the last of pains 
 to be thought criminal, where one most desires to please, as 
 I am sure it is always my wish to dear Mrs. Hewet. 
 
 I am very glad you have the second part of the New Ata- 
 laritis : if you have read it, will you be so good as to send it 
 me ? and in return, I promise to get you the Key to it. I 
 know I can. But do you know what has happened to the un- 
 fortunate authoress ? People are offended at the liberty she 
 uses in her memoirs, and she is taken into custody. Miserable 
 is the fate of writers : if they are agreeable, they are offensive ; 
 and if dull, they starve. I lament the loss of the other parts 
 which we should have had ; and have five hundred arguments 
 at my fingers' ends to prove the ridiculousness of those , n rea- 
 tures that think it worth while to take notice of what is only 
 
 1 The Lord Lonsdale referred to died in 1713, unmarried. The story was pro- 
 bably merely a joke, his lordship being at that time a youth. T. 
 
 2 Dr. Garth was very stout. The joke turns probably upon the stoutness of both 
 the parties, and the improbability of the report. T. 
 
 " The year appears from the allusion in the letter to Mrs. Manley's imprison- 
 ment. See Luttrell's Diary, October 29, 1709. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 147 
 
 designed for diversion. After this, who will dare to give the 
 history of Angella ? I was in hopes her faint essay would 
 have provoked some better pen to give more elegant and 
 secret memoirs ; but now she will serve as a scarecrow to 
 frighten people from attempting anything but heavy panegyric ; 
 and we shall be teazed with nothing but heroic poems, with 
 names at length, and false characters, so daubed with flattery, 
 that they are the severest kind of lampoons, for they both 
 scandalise the writer and the subject, like that vile paper the 
 Tatler. 1 
 
 I believe, madam, you will think I have dwelt too long on 
 this business ; but I am in a violent passion about it. My 
 dear Mrs. Hewet, is it impossible you should come here ? I 
 would not ask it if I had a coach to wait upon you ; but I am 
 not born to have anything I have a mind to. All the news I 
 know is, that Mrs. Reeves is married to Colonel Sydney (if 
 you know neither of them, I'll send you their pictures at full 
 length) ; and that giddy rake Cresswell, to a fortune of 20001. 
 a year. I send you the Bath lampoons Corinna is Lady 
 Manchester, and the other lady is Mrs. Cartwright, who, they 
 say, has pawned her diamond necklace, to buy Valentine a 
 snuff-box. These wars make men so violent scarce, that these 
 good ladies take up with the shadows of them. This is the 
 sum total of all the news I know, and you see I am willing to 
 divert you all in my power. I fancy the ill spelling of the 
 lampoons will make you laugh more than the verses ; indeed 
 I am ashamed for her who wrote them. As soon as possible, 
 be pleased to send me the second part of the Atalantis, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [November, 1709. ?] 
 
 TILL this minute I was in hopes of waiting on dear Mrs. 
 Hewet before we left the country, which made me defer 
 
 1 The first number of the Tatler appeared on the 12th of April, 1709. T. 
 
 L2
 
 148 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 writing ; but now positive orders oblige us to go to-morrow, 
 and the horses must rest to-day, so that this paper must give 
 you thanks for me, for all the many favours which could not 
 have been bestowed on one who could have had a more quick 
 and lasting sense of them. When I am in London, I will 
 certainly send you all that passes, though I fancy you have it 
 from people better both at writing and intelligence. 
 
 Mrs. C., 1 whose character you desire to know, is a lady who 
 has made a great noise in the world ; but I never thought she 
 would come to make such a figure in it. The lord she has 
 snapt made a lampoon on her last winter. For my part, I 
 never heard her speak in my life. She is generally thought 
 handsome. If Miss Selwyn (as I wish she may) supplies her 
 place, there will be one much handsomer. Amidst the hurry 
 of taking such a journey to-morrow, I am sure you will 
 forgive my letter's being no longer: you know people can 
 never leave your company, or writing to you, without regret. 
 Write to me where to direct to you, and direct to me in 
 Arlington-street, near St. James's, London. 9 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [Arlington-street? summer of 1710.?] 
 
 I WOULD have writ long ago to dear Mrs. Hewet, but I 
 waited for the good news of saying when I might hope to see 
 you, which I now despair of for this long time. We go next 
 week into Wiltshire, 3 which will be quite a new world to us.. 
 I was about eight years old when I left it, and have entirely 
 forgot everything in it. I am sorry we shall not see you, 
 though I am still in hopes we shall return into Nottingham- 
 
 1 Elizabeth Collier, niece of the Earl of Portmore. The "lord" whom she had 
 " snapt," was Sackville Earl of Dorset, to whom she was married in January, 
 1709 ; but the marriage was not made public till the following November. She- 
 was succeeded in her " place" of Maid of Honour to Queen Anne by Miss Scarbo^ 
 rough. T. 
 
 2 Her father's town house. T. 
 
 3 Her father's seat at West Dean, near Salisbury. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 149 
 
 shire the latter end of the year ; but all that is supposals, and 
 I have no ground to believe it, but that I wish it very much. 
 You can expect no news from one who has nothing at present 
 in her head but packing up, and the ideas that naturally come 
 upon going to a place, I may almost say, I never saw, so per- 
 fectly have I forgotten it. Be so good when you see Mrs. 
 Levenz 1 to ask her if she received my letter ; if she did not, 1 
 am sure I must suffer very much in her opinion, and appear 
 very ungrateful, after her inquiry when I was sick. Mrs. 
 Hewet should never talk of being rivalled ; there is no such 
 thing as not liking her, or liking anybody else better. It is a 
 provoking thing to think, so many tedious years as we have 
 passed at Thoresby, we should always be asunder so many 
 dirty miles, and the first summer you come nearer, I am 
 tossed to the other side of the world, where I do not know so 
 much as one creature, and am afraid I shall not meet with 
 such agreeable neighbours as in Nottinghamshire. But des- 
 tiny must be followed, .and I own, was I to choose mine, it 
 should never be to stay perpetually in the same place. I 
 should even prefer little storms to an eternal calm; and 
 though I am displeased not to see you, I am not sorry to see a 
 new part of the kingdom. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Hewet, preserve me your friendship wherever 
 my fortune carries me, and believe that I am equally in all 
 places yours. 
 
 Continue your direction to Arlington-street. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [West L)ean? about May, 1710. ?] 
 
 MOST of the neighbours hereabouts have been to see me, 
 but they are very few, and few of those few that are sup- 
 portable none agreeable. This part of the world is so dif- 
 
 1 Probably of the family of William Leviuz, Esq., elected member for Not- 
 tinghamshire in 1710. T.
 
 150 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 ferent from Nottinghamshire, that I can hardly persuade my- 
 self it is in the same kingdom. The men here are all Sylvias, 
 no Myrtillos. If they could express themselves so well, they 
 would say, like him, 
 
 " Mille ninfe darei per una fera 
 Che da Melampo mio cacciata fosse ; 
 Godasi queste gioje 
 Chi n" ha di me piu gusto ; io non le sento." 
 
 Though they cannot say it in Italian verse, they often speak 
 to that purpose in English prose over a bottle, insensible of 
 other pleasures than hunting and drinking. The consequence 
 of which is, the poor female part of their family being seldom 
 pennitted a coach, or at best but a couple of starved jades to 
 drag a dirty chariot, their lords and masters having no occa- 
 sion for such a machine, as their mornings are spent among 
 hounds, and the nights with as beastly companions, with what 
 liquor they can get in this country, which is not very famous 
 for good drink. If this management did not hinder me the 
 company of my she neighbours, I should regret the absence of 
 the Pastor Fidos, being of the opinion of Sylvia in Tasso : 
 
 " Altri segua i diletti dell' amore, 
 Se pur v' e nell' amor alcun diletto." 
 
 I would fain persuade you to practise your Italian. I fear 
 I shall forget to speak it, for want of somebody to speak it to. 
 Amongst the rest of the advantages I should have in .your 
 conversation (if I should be so happy as to be with you), I 
 would endeavour to improve in that polite language. I find 
 you are very busy about politics ; we are the same here, parti- 
 cularly in the pulpit, where the parsons would fain become as 
 famous as Sacheverel, 1 and are very sorry that they cannot 
 have the honour of being tried too. For my part, I content 
 myself in my humble sphere, am passive in their disputes, and 
 endeavour to study my Italian in peace and quietness. But 
 people mistake very much in placing peace in woods and 
 shades, for I believe solitude puts people out of humour, and 
 
 1 The trial of Sacheverel ended 23rd of March, 1710. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 151 
 
 makes them disposed to quarrel, or there would not be so 
 many disputes about religion and liberty, by creatures that 
 never understood the first, nor have, or are likely to have, a 
 taste of the latter, 
 
 " Crush'd by the stint of thirty pounds a-year." 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [1711.] 
 
 'Tis so long since I had a letter from dear Mrs. Hewet, I 
 should think her no longer in the land of the living, if Mr. 
 Resingade did not assure me he was happier than I, and had 
 heard of your health from your own hand ; which makes me 
 fancy that my last miscarried, and perhaps you are blaming 
 me at the same time that you are thinking me neglectful of 
 you. Apropos of Mr. Resingade we are grown such good 
 friends, I assure you, that we write Italian letters to each 
 other, and I have the pleasure of talking to him of Madame 
 Hewet. He told me he would send you the two tomes of 
 Madame de Noyer's 1 Memoirs. I fancy you will find yourself 
 disappointed in them, for they are horribly grave and insipid ; 
 and, instead of the gallantry you might expect, they are full 
 of dull morals. I was last Thursday at the new Opera, and 
 saw Nicolini 2 strangle a lion with great gallantry. But he 
 represented nakedness so naturally, I was surprised to see 
 those ladies stare at him without any confusion, that pretend 
 to be so violently shocked at a poor double entendre or two in 
 a comedy ; which convinced me that those prudes who would 
 cry fie! fie! at the word naked, have no scruples about the 
 thing. The marriage of Lord Willoughby 3 goes on, and he 
 swears he will bring the lady down to Nottingham races. 
 How far it may be true, I cannot tell. By what fine gentle- 
 
 * Meinoires de Madame Dunoyer. Published at Cologne, 1710. T. 
 
 * In the opera of Hydaspea. One of the Spectators, March 15, 1710-11, is de- 
 voted to this exhibition. The opera season ended with the performance of Hydaspes 
 on May 30, 1711. T. 
 
 * Son of the Marquis of Lindsey, and afterwards Duke of Ancaster. He mar- 
 ried, May, 1711, Jane, daughter of Sir John Brownlowe. T.
 
 152 LETTERS TO MRS. HE WET. 
 
 men say, you know, it is not easy to guess at what they mean 
 The lady has made an acquaintance with me after the manner 
 of Pyramus and Thisbe : I mean over a wall three yards high, 
 which separates our garden from Lady Guildford's. The 
 young ladies 1 had found out a way to pull out two or three 
 bricks, and so climb up and hang their chins over the wall, 
 where we, mounted on chairs, used to have many belles con- 
 versations a la dSrobee for fear of the old mother. This trade 
 continued several days; but fortune seldom permits long 
 pleasures. By long standing on the wall, the bricks loosened ; 
 and, one fatal morning, down drops Miss Nelly; 2 and, to 
 complete this misfortune, she fell into a little sink, and bruised 
 
 her poor self to that terrible degree, she is forced to have 
 
 surgeons, plaisters, and God knows what, which discovered 
 the whole intrigue ; and their mamma forbade them ever to 
 visit us, but by the door. Since that time, all our communi- 
 cations have been made in a vulgar manner, visiting in 
 coaches, &c. &c., which took away half the pleasure. You 
 know danger gives a haut gout to everything. This is our 
 secret history pray let it be so still but I hope all the world 
 will know that I am most entirely yours. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [1711.] 
 
 I HAVE a thousand thanks to give my dear Mrs. Hewet for 
 her news, and above all the letter ; and I would not have de- 
 layed them, but your messenger was in haste, and I was re- 
 solved to write you a long scribble. My advices of Saturday 
 say, that a peace 3 will positively be concluded. This comes 
 
 1 Lady Guildford was Alicia, another daughter of Sir John Brownlowe. The 
 " young ladies" and their mother appear to have been living with their sister in 
 Arlington-street. T. 
 
 2 Eleanor Brownlowe, afterwards married to her cousin, Lord Tyrconnel, the 
 patron of Richard Savage. T. 
 
 3 The negotiations for the peace between France and England began Sep- 
 tember, 1711. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 153 
 
 from the same hand that wrote so contrary on Thursday, and 
 I depend very much on the intelligence. I am charmed with 
 your correspondante, for I hope it is a woman ; and if it is, I 
 reckon her an honour to our sex. I am in no fear of the 
 reflection you mention ; and, being perfectly innocent, God 
 knows am far from thinking I can be suspected. Your news, 
 and no news, I know not what to make of. At present, my 
 domestic affairs go on so ill, I want spirits to look abroad. I 
 have got a cold that disables my eyes, and disorders me every 
 other way. Mr. Mason has ordered me blooding, to which I 
 have submitted, after long contestation. You see how stupid 
 I am ; I entertain you with discourses of physic, but I have 
 the oddest jumble of disagreeable things in my head that ever 
 plagued poor mortals : a great cold, a bad peace, people I love 
 in disgrace, 1 sore eyes, the horrid prospect of a civil war, and 
 the thoughts of a filthy potion to take. I believe nobody ever 
 had such a melange before. Our coachman, dear man, arrived 
 safe last night, but when we remove, God only knows. If 
 possible, I will wait on you at Clipston, 2 but this physic may 
 prevent all my good intentions. My companions are your 
 servants. I had forgot the Spectators : one is not worth men- 
 tioning ; the other is so plain and so good sense, I wonder any- 
 body of five years old does not find out that he is in the 
 right. 3 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 [Arlington-street, March, 1712 ] 
 
 I DO not doubt but that before this time, my dear Mrs. 
 Hewet has a thousand times called me ungrateful, and as 
 often repented of the many kindnesses she has done me in 
 the country. Les apparences sont trompeuses I am as much 
 
 1 Perhaps alluding to the Duchess of Marlborough, who surrendered all her 
 places at Court in January, 1711. T. 
 
 2 Clipston is about three miles from Thoresby. T. 
 
 * The first number of the Spectator appeared on the 1st of March, 1711. T.
 
 154 LETTERS TO MRS. HE WET. 
 
 your servant as ever, and think of you with the friendship and 
 acknowledgment I owe you. A train of disagreeable events 
 have hindered my having one leisure moment ; and at this very 
 time my poor head is distracted with such a variety of gali- 
 matias, that I cannot tell you one bit of news. The fire I 
 suppose you have had a long and true account of, though not 
 perhaps that we were raised at three o'clock, and kept waking 
 till five, by the most dreadful sight I ever saw in my life. It was 
 near enough to fright all our servants half out of their senses ; 
 however, we escaped better than some of our neighbours. Mrs. 
 Braithwayte, a Yorkshire beauty, who had been but two days 
 married to a Mr. Colernan, ran out of bed en chemise, and her 
 husband followed her in his, in which pleasant dress they ran 
 as far as St. James' s-street, where they met with a chair, and 
 prudently crammed themselves both into it, observing the rule 
 of dividing the good and bad fortune of this life, resolved to 
 run all hazards together, and ordered the chairmen to carry 
 them both away, perfectly representing, both in love and 
 nakedness, and want of eyes to see that they were naked, our 
 first happy parents. Sunday last I had the pleasure of hear- 
 ing the whole history from the lady's own mouth. 
 
 The next most extraordinary adventure, is the famous quarrel 
 between her Grace of Hamilton with Captain Hero; but I 
 suppose you cannot be ignorant of so surprising an event. 
 
 Deaths nor marriages I know of none, but Sir Stephen 
 Evans, 1 that hanged himself, and my sister Evelyn, who will 
 be married next week. 2 The post-bell rings ; my next shall be 
 longer, with some account of your fair family. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 I WOULD willingly return dear Mrs. Hewet something more, 
 for diverting me so well, than dry thanks impertinently ex- 
 pressed. 'Tis reported that Lady Charlotte Finch is to marry 
 
 1 The banker. He had failed a short time previously. T. 
 
 2 She was married to John Lord Gower, on the 13th of March, 1712. T.
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 155 
 
 old Conoway, 1 and Lady Margaret Tufton, Lord Brooke. 2 
 Beside the dismal changes of state, this is all I know. I fear 
 I write nonsense ; but it happens miraculously to be in a room 
 full of company, and if I omit this opportunity, I know not 
 when I may have another of sending. Mr. Sterne, the titular 
 bishop, was last week married to a very pretty woman, Mrs. 
 Bateman, whom he fell in love with for falling backward from 
 her horse leaping a ditch, where she displayed all her charms, 
 which he found irresistible. Mrs. White, Mrs. Sutton, and 
 Mrs. More, 8 are all with me ; and I am so embarrassed with 
 civilities tour a tour, that I have hardly calmness of spirit to 
 tell you, in a composed way, that I am your thankful humble 
 servant. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 York, November, 1714. 
 
 'Tis not owing either to insensibility or ingratitude that I 
 have not yet returned my thanks to dear Mrs. Hewet for her 
 obliging letter ; but the weakness of my sight will not permit 
 me to express the dictates of my heart, and I am forced to sit 
 by the fireside and think you a thousand thanks, when I would 
 be putting them upon paper. I rejoice that Lady Harriet has 
 shown some sensibility, as unworthy an object as she has 
 chosen ; yet I think 'tis better than (as I feared she had) 
 dutifully making over all her senses along with her fortune, 
 for the use of her Grace ; I thought her other faculties as im- 
 perfect as that of hearing. I am glad she is not such a stock 
 as I took her to be. I beg your pardon that I must write a 
 letter without news, but I do not know one bit, if it were to 
 stand one instead of my neck-verse. I am here waiting the 
 meeting of the Parliament, and am persuaded you will be in 
 
 1 Conway? T. 
 
 2 These intended marriages did not take place. D. 
 
 * Probably all Nottinghamshire ladies Mrs. White, of Walling Wells, is after- 
 wards referred to. Mrs. Sutton was no doubt one of the daughters of Lord Lex- 
 ington. T.
 
 156 LETTERS TO MRS. HEWET. 
 
 London before me ; if not, I will endeavour to see you. You 
 talk of the Duke of Leeds 1 I hear that he has placed his 
 heroic love upon the bright charms of a pewterer's wife ; and, 
 after a long amour, and many perilous adventures, has stolen 
 the fair lady, which, in spite of his wrinkles and grandchild, 
 persuade people of his youth and gallantry. You see what 
 stuff I am forced to write ; but to such I am compelled, ex- 
 cepting I should entertain you with York loves and piques, 
 which would be as dull to you as what passed at the last 
 wake. 'Tis impossible to . laugh at what they do, without 
 having first laughed at what they are. 
 
 I am, madam, yours. 
 This is abrupt ; but the post will wait for no man. 2 
 
 1 Peregrine, second Duke of Leeds. He was distinguished for his gallant beha- 
 viour in several maritime expeditions. He died in 1729, in the seventy-first year 
 of his age. T. 
 
 2 See another letter to Mrs. Hewet, dated Adrianople, April 1, 1717, among 
 letters during Mr. Wortley's embassy. T.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 WITH 
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY 
 
 AND 
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU 
 
 BEFORE 1717. 1 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 2 
 
 [Thoresby] May 2. 
 
 I HOPE, my dear Mrs. Wortley, that you are so just to me, 
 to believe I could not leave the town without seeing you, but 
 very much against my own inclination. I am now at Thoresby. 
 Our journey has been very bad, but, in my opinion, the worst 
 part of it was going from you. I hope you intend to be 
 kinder to me this summer than you was the last. There needs 
 nothing to keep up the remembrance of you in my heart, but 
 I would not think of you and think you forget me. Farewell, 
 my dear. My letter should be longer, if it was possible to 
 
 1 All the letters in this section, except where stated to the contrary in the note?, 
 are now printed from the originals among the Wortley Papers. T. 
 
 2 The second daughter of the Honourable Sydney Wortley Montagu, the second 
 
 son of the first Lord Sandwich Miss Anne Wortley was the favourite 
 
 sister of Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq., Lady Mary's husband. W. Mr. 
 Wortley generally signed his name " Edward Wortley ;" but was addressed by his 
 friends both as " Mr. Wortley," and " Mr. Wortley Montagu ;" though it is under 
 the latter name that both he and Lady Mary are best known to readers. T.
 
 158 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 make it so without repetition ; but I have already told you I 
 love you, and implored you not to forget me, which (as I hope 
 to breathe) is all I have to say. 1 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 [Thoresby, postmark Aug. 27.] 
 
 I AM convinced, however dear you are to me, Mrs. Anne 
 Wortley, I am no longer of any concern to you, therefore I 
 shall only trouble you with an insignificant story, when I tell 
 you I have been very near leaving this changeable world ; but 
 now, by the doctor's assistance and Heaven's blessing, am in a 
 condition of being as impertinently troublesome to you as for- 
 merly. A sore-throat, which plagued me for a long while, 
 brought me at last to such a weakness you had a fair chance 
 of being released from me ; but God has not yet decreed you 
 so much happiness, though I must say this, you have omitted 
 nothing to make yourself so easy, having strove to kill me by 
 neglect : but destiny triumphs over all your efforts ; I am yet 
 in the land of the living, and still yours. 2 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 Ash Wednesday [March 7], 1709. 
 
 THIS comes to inquire after your health in the first place f 
 and if there be any hopes of the recovery of my diamond I If 
 
 1 This letter is unsigned, as is the case with by far the greater number of the 
 letters of Lady Mary and her correspondents in these volumes. The omission of 
 signatures was a habit no doubt engendered by the practice of opening letters 
 sent through the post, which was in these times extremely common. T. 
 
 3 The latter portion of the original is partly torn, and what appears to have been 
 a postscript is too imperfect to be read. T. 
 
 3 I have not found the original of this letter. It appears, on collation of other 
 letters, that Mr. Dallaway was in the habit of affixing dates, without authority or 
 warning to the reader. All dates, therefore, of letters published by him which the 
 present editor has not had an opportunity of collating with the originals, must be 
 considered doubtful. T.
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 159 
 
 not, I must content myself with reckoning it one of the morti- 
 fications proper to this devout time, and it may serve for a 
 motive of humiliation. Is not this the right temper with which 
 we ought to bear losses which ? 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 1 
 
 July 21, 1709. 
 
 How often (my dear Mrs. Wortley) must I assure you that 
 your letters are ever agreeable and beyond expression welcome 
 to me ? Depend upon it that I reckon the correspondence you 
 favour me with too great a happiness to neglect it ; there is no 
 danger of your fault, I rather fear to grow troublesome by my 
 acknowledgments. I will not believe you flatter me, I will 
 look upon what you say as an obliging mark of your partiality. 
 How happy must I think myself when I fancy your friendship 
 to me even great enough to overpower your judgment ! I am 
 afraid this is one of the pleasures of the Imagination, 2 and I 
 cannot be so very successful in so earnest and important a 
 wish. This letter is excessively dull. Do you know it is from 
 my vast desire of pleasing you, as there is nothing more fre- 
 quent than for the voice to falter when people sing before 
 judges, or, as those arguments are always worst where the 
 orator is in a passion. Believe me, I could scribble three 
 sheets to - (I must not name), but to twenty people that 
 have not so great a share of my esteem, and whose friendship 
 is not so absolutely necessary for my happiness, but am quite 
 at a loss to you. I will not commend your letters (let them 
 deserve never so much), because I will show you 'tis possible 
 for me to forbear what I have mind to, when I know 'tis your 
 desire I should do so. My dear, dear, adieu ! I am entirely 
 yours, and wish nothing more than that it may be some time 
 
 1 I have not found the original of this letter. T. 
 
 1 Lady Mary had written a poem called " The Pleasure of the Imagination." 
 T.
 
 160 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 or other in my power to convince you that there is nobody 
 dearer than yourself to 
 
 I am horridly ashamed of this letter, pray Heaven you may 
 not think it too inconsiderable to be laughed at that may be. 
 
 FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 [August, 1709.] 
 
 DEAR Lady Mary grows very cool. If I could write a 
 hundredth part as well as you, I should dispatch the post as 
 often as I do the coachman to St. James's ; l but as it is, if you 
 will exchange pearl for glass, I shall think mine well bestowed. 
 I am just come into the country, where I have met with no- 
 thing but what you have in perfection ; and could I have any 
 part of your imagination, I should write perpetually. I am 
 now in the room with an humble servant of yours, 2 who is 
 argn ing so hotly about marriage that I cannot go on with my 
 letter : [I] would be very glad to bring you into the argument, 
 being sure you would soon convince us in what disturbs so 
 many. Everybody seeks happiness; but though everybody 
 has a different taste, yet all pursue money, which makes 
 people choose great wigs. Because their neighbour sweats in 
 it they dare not be easy out of the fashion. But you have 
 dared to have wit joined with beauty, a thing so much out of 
 fashion, that we fly after you with as much interestedness as 
 you often see the birds do when one superior comes near them. 
 If you could give me a receipt how to divert you, I would try- 
 to practise, but find it impossible to be pleased with myself or 
 any thing I do. Send me word what books to read, &c. In 
 haste. 
 
 Direct to me at Pet gh [Peterborough], in Northampton- 
 shire. 
 
 1 It might be inferred from this that Lady Mary was in London. The letter, 
 however, is addressed to Thoresby. T. 
 
 * No doubt her brother, Mr. Wortley Montagu. T.
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 161 
 
 i 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 1 
 
 [Thoresby] August 8, 1709. 
 
 I SHALL run mad with what heart can people write, when 
 they believe their letters will never be received? I have 
 already writ you a very long scrawl, but it seems it never 
 came to your hands ; I cannot bear to be accused of coldness 
 by one whom I shall love all my life. This will, perhaps, 
 miscarry as the last did ; how unfortunate am I if it does ! 
 You will think I forget you, who are never out of my thoughts. 
 You will fancy me stupid enough to neglect your letters, when 
 they are the only pleasures of my solitude : in short, you will 
 call me ungrateful and insensible, when I esteem you as I 
 ought, in esteeming you above all the world. If I am not 
 quite so unhappy as I imagine, and you do receive this, let me 
 know it as soon as you can ; for till then I shall be in terrible 
 uneasiness ; and let me beg you for the future, if you do not 
 receive letters very constantly from me, imagine the post-boy 
 killed, imagine the mail burnt, or some other strange accident ; 
 you can imagine nothing so impossible as that I forget you, my 
 dear Mrs. Wortley. I know no pretence I have to your good 
 opinion but my hearty desiring it ; I wish I had that imagina- 
 tion you talk of, to render me a fitter correspondent for you, 
 who can write so well on every thing. 2 I am now so much 
 alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not 
 at all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing you 
 books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at 
 present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars. I am trying 
 whether it be possible to learn without a master ; I am not 
 certain (and dare hardly hope) I shall make any great pro- 
 gress ; but I find the study so diverting, I am not only easy, but 
 pleased with the solitude that indulges it. I forget there is 
 such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. 
 You see, my dear, in making my pleasures consist of these un- 
 
 1 I have not found the original of this letter. T. 
 
 * Nearly all the letters from Miss Wortley to Lady Mary were copied from 
 draughts prepared by her brother, a fact of which Lady Mary could hardly have 
 been ignorant. T. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 fashionable diversions, I am not of the number who cannot be 
 easy out of the mode. I believe more follies are committed 
 out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own 
 inclinations Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always ; 
 it is with some regret I follow it in all the impertinencies of 
 dress ; the compliance is so trivial it comforts me ; but I am 
 amazed to see it consulted even in the most important occa- 
 sions of our lives ; and that people of good sense in other 
 things can make their happiness consist in the opinions of 
 others, and sacrifice every thing in the desire of appearing in 
 fashion. I call all people who fall in love with furniture, 
 clothes, and equipage, of this number, and I look upon them 
 as no less in the wrong than when they were five years old, and 
 doated on shells, pebbles, and hobby-horses : I believe you will 
 expect this letter to be dated from the other world, for sure I 
 am you never heard an inhabitant of this talk so before. I 
 suppose you expect, too, I should conclude with begging pardon 
 for this extreme tedious and very nonsensical letter; quite 
 contrary, I think you will be obliged to me for it. I could not 
 better show my great concern for your reproaching me with 
 neglect I knew myself innocent of, than proving myself mad 
 in three pages. 
 
 My sister says a great deal about Mrs. K. ; l but besides my 
 having forgot it, the paper is at an end. 
 
 FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 [August] 15th, 1709. 2 
 
 IT is as impossible for my dearest Lady Mary to utter a 
 thought that can seem dull, as to put on a look that is not 
 beautiful. Want of wit is a fault that those who envy you 
 most would not be able to find in your kind compliments. To 
 me they seem perfect, since repeated assurances of your kind- 
 ness forbid me to question their sincerity. You have often 
 found that the most angry, nay, the most neglectful air you 
 
 1 Probably Mrs., or Miss, Katherine Wortley, another sister. T. 
 
 2 The letter bears the postmark, " Peterborough, Au. 19th." T.
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 163 
 
 can assume, has made as deep a wound as the kindest ; and 
 these lines of yours, that you tax with dullness (perhaps be- 
 cause they were writ when you was not in a right humour, or 
 when your thoughts were elsewhere employed), are so far 
 from deserving the imputation, that the very turn of your 
 expression, had I forgot the rest of your charms, would be 
 sufficient to make me lament the only fault you have your 
 inconstancy. 
 
 But, upon second thoughts, how can this be a fault ? no 
 'tis none, and you are altogether perfect. 'Tis to this happy 
 disposition of being pleased with a variety of new objects, 
 that we owe that wit of yours, which is so surprising ; and to 
 this alone I am indebted for the inexpressible delight I take 
 in the present enjoyment of your favour; and it would be 
 extravagant in me to call it either your fault or my misfor- 
 tune. I wish the most happy person now in being, whom I 
 have often discovered to be so, in spite of your art to hide it, 
 may be as able to make this reflection at the Nottingham race, 
 as I, that am not subdued by so strong a passion of that sort 
 (for Hinchinbrook air, from whence I am just come, has not 
 so kind an influence upon all as on L. S. [Lord Sandwich]). 1 
 Such passions as those, where there is an object like Lady 
 Mary, leave no room for cool reflections ; and I wish he may 
 not be so far overcome by his fears for the future, as to forget 
 what a favourite he is of fortune in the present possession of 
 so great a bliss. You will want to know how this race comes 
 into my head. This country, out of which many go thither, 
 affords no other tittle tattle at this time ; besides that, yester- 
 day, as I was talking of it to Mrs. Sherrard, 2 she said, Lady 
 Mary would be well diverted, for Nicolini 3 would be there. 
 
 1 Edward, third Earl of Sandwich, cousin of Mr. Wortley Montagu. He was 
 Master of the Horse to George Prince of Denmark. The peerages inform us that 
 " upon the death of that prince he retired from Court and business for many years." 
 He was now a widower, and about thirty-six years of age. What was the peculiar 
 influence upon him of " Hinchinbrook air" does not appear. T. 
 
 2 Probably one of the daughters of the Earl of Harborough. T. 
 
 * Nicolini, or Nicolini Grimaldi, the Italian singer, made his first appearance in 
 England in the season of 1708-9. The Tatler of January 3, 1709-10, describes 
 
 M2
 
 164 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 One that was by said, there would be much better diversion 
 there, looking upon me, as if he insinuated you would have 
 pleasures less imaginary than those Nicolini can afford. 
 
 When that race is over, and your thoughts are free again, 
 I should be glad to hear you have been well entertained. 
 Every one but yourself will be, I am very sure. The sight 
 of you is a satisfaction I envy them heartily. There is not a 
 man among them that would be contented to be any thing, 
 but the man I have named, 1 to enjoy the prosperous gale 
 that one of them does. I will be sure to conceal your letter, 
 not for the faults you say you are ashamed of, but to give no 
 pangs to him, or any other, by discovering your kind assurance, 
 that none is dearer to you than myself, which would make the 
 dullest letter that ever was writ, subscribed by Lady Mary, 
 more valuable than all I ever received. Don't think so long 
 a letter as this is inexcusable from so fond an admirer of 
 charming Lady Mary as 
 
 FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 Friday, August the 20th [1709]. 
 
 DEAR Lady Mary will pardon my vanity ; I could not 
 forbear reading to a Cambridge Doctor 2 that was with me at 
 Thoresby, a few of those lines that did not make me happy 
 till this week : where you talk of turning over dictionaries 
 and grammars, he stopped me, and said, " the reason why you 
 had more wit than any man, was, that your mind had never 
 been encumbered with those tedious authors; that Cowley 
 never submitted to the rules of grammar, and therefore ex- 
 celled all of his own time in learning, as well as wit ; that 
 
 his performance in the highest terms of praise. It was the custom of opera- 
 singers to repair to Nottingham, and sing there during the race week. T. 
 
 1 Mr. Dallaway supposed this to refer to Mr. Wortley Montagu ; but from Lady 
 Mary's answer it appears that some rival was hinted at. The whole of this 
 letter was written by the brother: a rough draught in his handwriting is still 
 existing. T. 
 
 2 The " Cambridge Doctor" was a fiction the writer's brother being the real 
 instructor. In the rough draught in Mr. Wortley Montagu's writing it stands as 
 
 ' a friend." T.
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 1G5 
 
 without them, you would read with pleasure in two or three 
 months ; but if you persisted in the use of them, you would 
 throw away your Latin after a year or two, and the common- 
 wealth would have reason to mourn ; whereas, if I could 
 prevail with you, it would be bound to thank me for a brighter 
 ornament than any it can boast of." It is not because I am 
 public-spirited, that I could not delay telling you what I be- 
 lieved might make you succeed in your attempt ; nor can I 
 positively affirm it proceeds from fondness, but rather admira- 
 tion. I think I love you too well to envy you ; but the love 
 of one's self is in all so powerful, that it may be a doubt 
 whether the most violent passion would prevail with me to 
 forward you in your pursuit, did I imagine you wanted that 
 accomplishment to set you above me. But since, without any 
 addition, as you now are I know there is so little hopes of 
 coming near you, that if I loved you not at all, I should not be 
 averse to raising you higher ; nor can all the good things you 
 say of me make me fancy the distance to be less, and yet I 
 must own they are very pleasing, notwithstanding you say 
 that when you writ this last you were mad, which brings to 
 my memory the other in which you say you are dull, so that 
 you own when you take yourself to be right you have no 
 such thoughts of me. Nay, should you in another, to remove 
 my objections convince me you are in an interval, by being 
 sensible that those shining qualities in you were designed to 
 give splendour to a court, please a multitude, and do honour 
 to nature, that retirement is an abuse of them, should you 
 tell me the recovery of your reason had not altered your 
 opinion of me, there would still be a scruple ; and yet in 
 spite of that too, your compliments would please. You may 
 remember you once told me it was as easy to write kindly to 
 a hobby-horse, as to a woman, nay, or a man. I should know 
 too how diverting a scene it is I have forgot where I met 
 with it, but you can tell me to make a ploughman find him- 
 self on a throne, and fancy he is an emperor. However, 'tis 
 a cheat so pleasing I cannot help indulging it ; and to keep
 
 166 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 off the evil day of being deceived, shall remain, with truth 
 and passion, Yours. 
 
 Our family is gone to Lord Manchester's to dine, so pray 
 direct to Hinchmbrook, where we shall stay a fortnight. 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLETT. 1 
 
 Aug. 21, 1709. 
 
 I AM infinitely obliged to you, my dear Mrs. Wortley, for 
 the wit, beauty, and other fine qualities, you so generously 
 bestow upon me. Next to receiving them from Heaven, you 
 are the person from whom I would chuse to receive gifts and 
 graces : I am very well satisfied to owe them to your own 
 delicacy of imagination, which represents to you the idea of 
 a fine lady, and you have good nature enough to fancy I am 
 she. All this is mighty well, but you do not stop there ; ima- 
 gination is boundless. After giving me imaginary wit and 
 beauty, you give me imaginary passions, and you tell me I'm 
 in love : if I am, 'tis a perfect sin of ignorance, for I don't 
 so much as know the man's name : I have been studying 
 these three hours, and cannot guess who you mean. I passed 
 the days of Nottingham races, [at] Thoresby, without seeing 
 or even wishing to see one of the sex. Now, if I am in love, 
 I have very hard fortune to conceal it so industriously from 
 my own knowledge, and yet discover it so much to other 
 people. 'Tis against all form to have such a passion as that, 
 without giving one sigh for the matter. Pray tell me the 
 name of him I love, that I may (according to the laudable 
 custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and 
 teach it to the echo. You see, being I am [sic] in love, I am 
 willing to be so in order and rule : I have been turning over 
 God knows how many books to look for precedents. Kecom- 
 mend an example to me ; and, above all, let me know whether 
 'tis most proper to walk in the woods, encreasing the winds 
 with my sighs, or to sit by a purling stream, swelling the 
 rivulet with my tears ; may be, both may do well in their 
 
 1 I have not found the original of this letter. T.
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 167 
 
 turns : but to be a minute serious, what do you mean by this 
 reproach of inconstancy 1 I confess you give me several good 
 qualities I have not, and I am ready to thank you for them, 
 but then you must not take away those few I have. No, I 
 will never exchange them ; take back the beauty and wit you 
 bestow upon me, leave me my own mediocrity of agreeable- 
 ness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, 
 and my plain dealing ; 'tis all I have to recommend me to the 
 esteem either of others or myself. How should I despise 
 myself if I could think I was capable of either inconstancy 
 or deceit ! I know not how I may appear to other people, nor 
 how much my face may beh'e my heart, but I know that I 
 never was or can be guilty of dissimulation or inconstancy 
 you will think this vain, but 'tis all that I pique myself upon. 
 Tell me you believe me and repent of your harsh censure. 
 Tell it me in pity to my uneasiness, for you are one of those 
 few people about whose good opinion I am in pain. I have 
 always took so little care to please the generality of the world, 
 that I am never mortified or delighted by its reports, which 
 is a piece of stoicism born with me; but I cannot be one 
 minute easy while you think ill of 
 
 Your faithful 
 
 This letter is a good deal grave, and, like other grave things, 
 dull ; but I won't ask pardon for what 1 can't help. 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 1 
 
 Aug. 21, 1709. 
 
 WHEN I said it cost nothing to write tenderly, I believe I 
 spoke of another sex ; I am sure not of myself : 'tis not in 
 my power (I would to God it was !) to hide a kindness where 
 I have one, or dissemble it where I have none. I cannot help 
 answering your letter this minute, and teUing you I infinitely 
 love you, though, it may be, you'll call the one impertinence, 
 and the other dissimulation ; but you may think what you 
 please of me, I must eternally think the same things of you. 
 
 1 I have not found the original of this letter. T.
 
 168 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 I hope my dear Mrs. Wortley's shewing my letters is in the 
 same strain as her compliments, all meant for raillery, and I 
 am not to take it as a thing really so ; but I'll give you as 
 serious an answer as if 'twas all true. 
 
 When Mr. Cowley and other people (for I know several 
 have learnt after the same manner) were in places where they 
 had opportunity of being learned by word of mouth, I don't 
 see any violent necessity of printed rules ; but being where, 
 from the top of the house to the bottom, not a creature in it 
 understands so much as even good English, without the help of 
 a dictionary or inspiration, I know no way of attaining to any 
 language. Despairing of the last, I am forced to make use of 
 the other, though I do verily believe I shall return to London 
 the same ignorant soul I went from it ; but the study is a 
 present amusement. I must own I have vanity enough to 
 fancy, if I had any body with me, without much trouble per- 
 haps I might read. 
 
 What do you mean by complaining I never write to you in 
 the quiet situation of mind I do to other people ? My dear, 
 people never write calmly, but when they write indifferently. 
 That I should ever do so to you I take to be entirely impos- 
 sible ; I must be always very much pleased or in very great 
 affliction, as you tell me of your friendship, or unkindly doubt 
 mine : I can never allow even prudence and sincerity to have 
 anything to do with one another, at least I have always found 
 it so in myself, who being devoted to the one, had never the 
 least tincture of the other. What I am now doing, is a very 
 good proof of what I say, 'tis a plain undesigning truth, your 
 friendship is the only happiness of my life ; and whenever I 
 lose it, I have nothing to do but to take one of my garters and 
 search for a convenient beam. You see how absolutely neces- 
 sary it is for me to preserve it. Prudence is at the very time 
 saying to me, Are you mad ? you won't send this dull, tedious, 
 insipid, long letter to Mrs. Wortley, will you ? 'Tis the direct 
 way to tire out her patience ; if she serves you as you deserve, 
 she will first laugh very heartily, then tear the letter, and
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 169 
 
 never answer it, purely to avoid the plague of such another : 
 will her good-nature for ever resist her judgment ? I hearken 
 to these counsels, I allow 'em to be good, and then I act 
 quite contrary. No consideration can hinder me from telling 
 you, my dear dear Mrs. Wortley, nobody ever was so entirely, 
 so faithfully yours, as 
 
 I put in your lovers, for I don't allow it possible for a man 
 to be sincere as I am ; if there was such a thing, though, you 
 would find it ; I submit therefore to your judgment. 
 
 I had forgot to tell you that I writ a long letter directed to 
 Peterborough, last post ; I hope you'll have it : you see I 
 forgot your judgment, to depend upon your goodness. 
 
 FROM MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 
 
 Saturday, [3rd?] Septr. [1709]. 
 
 THERE cannot be a stronger proof of inconstancy than your 
 severity to me for using the word. Whoever should read 
 over those inestimable kind things you writ just before, and 
 see this cruel reprimand come immediately after it, would 
 bewail the uncertainty of human happiness. A change like 
 this is not to be met with in tragedy. If it is any where, the 
 poet cannot but be condemned for going out of nature, by all 
 but myself. I had infallibly raved ere now, if this letter had 
 not gone round by Peterborough, and met the other on the 
 road, in which your indignation seems a little abated. This I 
 had the good fortune to open first, so that I escaped the fright 
 that your present anger would have given me ; and viewing a 
 passion I knew half extinguished, I had only the displeasure 
 of seeing how soon you could be offended at me, and how easy 
 your affection was to be lost, which I always knew was hard 
 to be obtained. I heartily wish those plains of Nottingham, 
 that have given me all this pain, may be turned by some 
 earthquake into mountains and rocks ; that none of its rivulets 
 may ever receive the tears, nor its breezes the sighs, of a lover ; 
 nay, let them be wholly inaccessible both to man and beast. 
 But how can my dearest Lady Mary think it so wild (though
 
 170 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 an unhappy) thought in me to mention that race ? You may 
 easily recollect how either I or another rallied you upon one 
 you met last year in that field, or where you dined toge- 
 ther after the diversion was over. Well, henceforward I have 
 done with all jealous tricks. I did not imagine I could have 
 paid so dearly for this ; though I had heard they seldom give 
 quiet and security, but commonly desecrating [distracting?] 
 pain. Was it possible to hear of this race, and be without the 
 apprehension of a rival in your favour ? Did I write a word 
 of it that you could take gravely according to the letter ; or 
 if you did, how could you be angry unless you were before 
 disposed to it 1 Were I less punished than I am by your cor- 
 rection, I should enlarge on what is very obvious to one in- 
 clined make remarks say your being out of humour could 
 not be for any thing but your absence from that dear race 
 say that everything I write is so dull that it can't have your at- 
 tention unless it be true ; but henceforward I will not dare to 
 speak, no, nor so much as think, any thing of my dearest Lady 
 Mary in a laughing way ; nor will I ever presume to' meddle 
 with so high a subject as your pity to any of the other sex, 
 which you outshine so far ; but shall be satisfied if I am ad- 
 mitted into your lower entertainments, if I have the same rank 
 among your admirers that your grammars and dictionaries have 
 among your books ; if I serve only to assist you in procuring 
 pleasures without the least hopes of being ever able to give 
 them. Let me send you what stories I collect, which you will 
 [be] sure to make diverting; choose your ribbons and heads 
 on which you will bestow the power of enchanting. I will be 
 contented never to soar above transmitting to you the best 
 rules I hear for gaining languages, which, though it can't 
 raise a genius already so high, yet may very much enlarge 
 your dominions, by adding all that can possibly disobey you 
 the ignorant who are taught to believe that learning is art. 
 Make what you will of me, 'tis enough that you own me to be, 
 
 Yours 
 P.S. If you have any more queries about Latin you must
 
 MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 171 
 
 send them quick : for a week hence I shall be alone. Lest I 
 should be less able in solitude to bear the thoughts of your 
 being angry, a very little letter to tell me you are not would 
 be kind. Service to Lady F. 1 Service from us. 
 
 TO MISS ANNE WORTLEY. 2 
 
 Sept 5, 1709. 
 
 MY dear Mrs. Wortley, as she has the entire power of 
 raising, can also, with a word, calm my passions. The kind- 
 ness of your last recompenses me for the injustice of your 
 former letter ; but you cannot sure be angry at my little re- 
 sentment. You have read that a man who, with patience, 
 hears himself called heretic, can never be esteemed a good 
 Christian. To be capable of preferring the despicable wretch 
 you mention to Mr. Wortley, is as ridiculous, if not as criminal, 
 as forsaking the Deity to worship a calf. Don't tell me any 
 body ever had so mean an opinion of my inclinations ; 'tis 
 among the number of those things I would forget. My ten- 
 derness is always built upon my esteem, and when the founda- 
 tion perishes, it falls : I must own, I think it is so with every 
 body but enough of this : you tell me it was meant for rail- 
 lery was not the kindness meant so too ? I fear I am too 
 apt to think what is amusement designed in earnest no 
 matter, 'tis for my repose to be deceived, and I will believe 
 whatever you tell me. 
 
 I should be very glad to be informed of a right method, or 
 whether there is such a thing alone, but am afraid to ask the 
 question. It may be reasonably called presumption in a girl 
 to have her thoughts that way. You are the only creature 
 that I have made my confidante in that case : I'll assure you, 
 I call it the greatest secret of my life. Adieu, my dear, the 
 post stays, my next shall be longer. 3 
 
 1 Lady Frances Pierrepont, Lady Mary's sister. T. 
 * I have not found the original of this letter. T. 
 
 3 Miss Anne Wortley appears to have died shortly after the date of this letter. 
 See next letter. T.
 
 172 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [March 28, 1710. 1 ] 
 
 PERHAPS you'll be surprized at this letter ; I have had 
 many debates with myself before I could resolve on it. I 
 know it is not acting in form, but I do not look upon you as 
 I do upon the rest of the world, and by what I do for you, you 
 are not to judge my manner of acting with others. You are 
 brother to a woman I tenderly loved; my protestations of 
 friendship are not like other people's, I never speak but what 
 I mean, and when I say I love, 'tis for ever. I had that real 
 concern for Mrs. Wortley, I look with some regard on every 
 one that is related to her. This and my long acquaintance 
 with you may in some measure excuse what I am now doing. 
 I am surprized at one of the Tatlers you send me ; is it possible 
 to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes capable of 
 having such trifling inclinations ? Mr. Bickerstaff 2 has very- 
 wrong notions of our sex. I can say there are some of us 
 that despise charms of show, and all the pageantry of great- 
 ness, perhaps with more ease than any of the philosophers. 
 In contemning the world, they seem to take pains to contemn 
 it ; we despise it, without taking the pains to read lessons of 
 morality to make us do it. At least I know I have always 
 looked upon it with contempt, without being at the expense of 
 one serious reflection to oblige me to it. I carry the matter 
 yet farther ; was I to choose of two thousand pounds a year 
 or twenty thousand, the first would be my choice. There is 
 something of an unavoidable embarras in making what is 
 called a great figure in the world ; [it] takes off from the hap- 
 piness of life ; I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from 
 great estates and titles, and look upon both as blessings that 
 ought only to be given to fools, for 'tis only to them that they 
 are blessings. The pretty fellows you speak of, I own enter- 
 tain me sometimes ; but is it impossible to be diverted with 
 what one despises ? I can laugh at a puppet-show ; at the 
 same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention 
 
 1 A copy in Mr. W.'s writing is indorsed " 28 March. To Wortley." T. 
 * The Tatler appeared under the fictitious name of Isaac Bickerstaff. T.
 
 MK. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 173 
 
 or regard. General notions are generally wrong. Ignorance 
 and folly are thought the best foundations for virtue, as if not 
 knowing what a good wife is was necessary to make one so. 
 I confess that can never be my way of reasoning ; as I always 
 forgive an injury when I think it not done out of malice, I 
 can never think myself obliged by what is done without design. 
 Give me leave to say it, (I know it sounds vain,) I know how 
 to make a man of sense happy ; but then that man must re- 
 solve to contribute something towards it himself. I have so 
 much esteem for you, I should be very sorry to hear you was 
 unhappy ; but for the world I would not be the instrument of 
 making you so ; which (of the humour you are) is hardly to 
 be avoided if I am your wife. You distrust me I can nei- 
 ther be easy, nor loved, where I am distrusted. Nor do I 
 believe your passion for me is what you pretend it ; at least I 
 am sure was I in love I could not talk as you do. Few women 
 would have spoke so plainly as I have done ; but to dissemble 
 is among the things I never do. I take more pains to approve 
 my conduct to myself than to the world ; and would not have 
 to accuse myself of a minute's deceit. I wish I loved you 
 enough to devote myself to be for ever miserable, for the 
 pleasure of a day or two's happiness. I cannot resolve upon 
 it. You must think otherwise of me, or not at all. 
 
 I don't enjoin you to burn this letter. I know you will. 
 'Tis the first I ever writ to one of your sex, and shall be the 
 last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all 
 correspondence of the kind ; my resolutions are seldom made, 
 and never broken. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Postmark, "Ap. 25," 1710.] 
 
 I HAVE this minute received your two letters. I know not 
 how to direct to you, whether to London or the country ; or, 
 if in the country, to Durham 1 or Wortley. 'Tis very likely 
 
 1 Mr. Wortley Montagu's uncle was Dean of Durham. The letter is addressed 
 to the Deanery. T.
 
 174 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 you'll never receive this. I hazard a great deal if it falls into 
 other hands, and I write for all that. I wish, with all my 
 soul, I thought as you do ; I endeavour to convince myself by 
 your arguments, and am sorry my reason is so obstinate, not 
 to be deluded into an opinion, that 'tis impossible a man can 
 esteem a woman. I suppose I should then be very easy at 
 your thoughts of me ; I should thank you for the wit and 
 beauty you give me, and not be angry at the follies and weak- 
 nesses ; but, to my infinite affliction, I can believe neither one 
 nor t'other. One part of my character is not so good, nor 
 t'other so bad, as you fancy it. Should we ever live together, 
 you would be disappointed both ways ; you would find an 
 easy equality of temper you do not expect, and a thousand 
 faults you do not imagine. You think, if you married me, I 
 should be passionately fond of you one month, and of some- 
 body else the next : neither would happen. I can esteem, I 
 can be a friend, but I don't know whether I can love. Expect 
 all that is complaisant and easy, but never what is fond, in 
 me. You judge very wrong of my heart, when you suppose 
 me capable of views of interest, and that anything could 
 oblige me to flatter any body. Was I the most indigent crea- 
 ture in the world, I should answer you as I do now, without 
 adding or diminishing. I am incapable of art, and 'tis be- 
 cause I will not be capable of it. Could I deceive one minute, 
 I should never regain my own good opinion ; and who could 
 bear to live with one they despised ? 
 
 If you can resolve to live with a companion that will have 
 all the deference due to your superiority of good sense, and 
 that your proposals can be agreeable to those on whom I de- 
 pend, I have nothing to say against them. 
 
 As to travelling, 'tis what I should do with great pleasure, 
 and could easily quit London upon your account ; but a re- 
 tirement in the country is not so disagreeable to me, as I know 
 a few months would make it tiresome to you. Where people 
 are tied for life, 'tis their mutual interest not to grow weary 
 of one another. If I had all the personal charms that I want,
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 175 
 
 a face is too slight a foundation for happiness. You would be 
 soon tired with seeing every day the same thing. Where you 
 saw nothing else, you would have leisure to remark all the 
 defects ; which would increase in proportion as the novelty 
 lessened, which is always a great charm. I should have the 
 displeasure of seeing a coldness, which, though I could not 
 reasonably blame you for, being involuntary, yet it would 
 render me uneasy ; and the more, because I know a love may 
 be revived which absence, inconstancy, or even infidelity, has 
 extinguished ; but there is no returning from a degout given 
 by satiety. 
 
 I should not chuse to live in a crowd : I could be very well 
 pleased to be in London, without making a great figure, or 
 seeing above eight or nine agreeable people. Apartments, 
 table, &c., are things that never come into my head. But [I] 
 will never think of any thing without the consent of my 
 family, and advise you not to fancy a happiness in entire 
 solitude, which you would find only fancy. 
 
 Make no answer to this, if you can like me on my own 
 terms. 'Tis not to me you must make the proposals : if not, 
 to what purpose is our correspondence ? 
 
 However, preserve me your friendship, which I think of 
 with a great deal of pleasure, and some vanity. If ever you 
 see me married, I flatter myself you'll see a conduct you 
 would not be sorry your wife should imitate. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [August, 1710.] 
 
 BEADING over your letter as fast as ever I could, and 
 answering it with the same ridiculous precipitation, I find one 
 part of it escaped my sight, and the other I mistook in several 
 places. Yours was dated the 10th of August ; it came not 
 hither till the 20th. You say something of a packet-boat, &c., 
 makes me uncertain whether you'll receive my letter, and 
 frets me heartily. Kindness, you say, would be your de-
 
 176 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 struction. In my opinion, this is something contradictory to 
 some other expressions. People talk of being in love just as 
 widows do of affliction. Mr. Steele has observed, in one of 
 his plays, the most passionate among them have always calm- 
 ness enough to drive a hard bargain with the upholders. I 
 never knew a lover that would not willingly secure his in- 
 terest as well as his mistress ; or, if one must be abandoned, 
 had not the prudence (among all his distractions) to consider, 
 a woman was but a woman, and money was a thing of more 
 real merit than the whole sex put together. Your letter is to 
 tell me, you should think yourself undone if you married me ; 
 but if I would be so tender as to confess I should break my 
 heart if you did not, then you'd consider whether you would 
 or no ; but yet you hoped you should not. I take this to be 
 the right interpretation of even your kindness can't destroy 
 me of a sudden I hope I am not in your power I would 
 give a good deal to be satisfied, &c. 
 
 As to writing that any woman would do that thought she 
 writ well. Now I say, no woman of common sense would. 
 At best, 'tis but doing a silly thing well, and I think it is 
 much better not to do a silly thing at all. You compare it to 
 dressing. Suppose the comparison just : perhaps the Spanish 
 dress would become my face very well; yet the whole town 
 would condemn me for the highest extravagance if I went to 
 court in it, though it improved me to a miracle. There are a 
 thousand things, not ill in themselves, which custom makes 
 unfit to be done. This is to convince you I am so far from 
 applauding my own conduct, my conscience flies in my face 
 every time I think on't. The generality of the world have a 
 great indulgence to their own follies : without being a jot 
 wiser than my neighbours, I have the peculiar misfortune to 
 know and condemn all the wrong things I do. 
 
 You beg to know whether I would not be out of humour. 
 The expression is modest enough ; but that is not what you 
 mean. In saying I could be easy, I have already said I 
 should not be out of humour : but you would have me say I 
 am violently in love ; that is, finding you think better of me
 
 MR. WORT LEY MONTAGU. 177 
 
 than you desire, you would have me give you a just cause to 
 contemn me. I doubt much whether there is a creature in 
 the world humble enough to do that. I should not think 
 you more unreasonable if you was in love with my face, and 
 asked me to disfigure it to make you easy. I have heard of 
 some nuns that made use of that expedient to secure their 
 own happiness ; but, amongst all the popish saints and 
 martyrs, I never read of one whose charity was sublime 
 enough to make themselves deformed, or ridiculous, to restore 
 their lovers to peace and quietness. In short, if nothing can 
 content you but despising me heartily, I am afraid I shall be 
 always so barbarous to wish you may esteem me as long as you 
 live. 1 
 
 TO MR. WORTLET MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " 14th November," 1710.] 
 
 I AM going to comply with your request, and write with all 
 the plainness I am capable of. I know what may be said 
 upon such a proceeding, but am sure you will not say it. 
 Why should you always put the worst construction upon my 
 words ? Believe me what you will, but do not believe I can be 
 ungenerous or ungrateful. I wish I could tell you what 
 answer you will receive from some people, or upon what 
 terms. If my opinion could sway, nothing should displease 
 you. Nobody ever was so disinterested as I am. I would 
 not have to reproach myself (I don't suppose you would) that 
 I had any way made you uneasy in your circumstances. Let 
 
 1 Steele wrote to his wife on the 29th of July, 1710, " I stay in town to-night 
 very much against my inclination, having business of consequence with Mr. Mon- 
 tagu, who goes out of town to-morrow to take a voyage." Since the date of the 
 preceding letters Mr. Wortley Montagu had made offers to Lady Mary's father ; 
 but the negotiation was suspended, the former having refused to comply with the 
 father's terms. Upon this the lover started for Spa, being determined, as he wrote, 
 to have " a truce to business, politics, and love." The letter to which the present 
 is an answer was written from Harwich. T. 
 
 2 Mr. Wortley Montagu had returned from the Continent before the 10th of 
 October, 1710, on which day Swift records in his Diary to Stella that he " spent 
 the evening with Wortley Montagu and Mr. Addison over a bottle of Irish wine." 
 The present letter is addressed to " Wortley, near Sheffield." T. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 me beg you (which I do with the utmost sincerity) only to 
 consider yourself in this affair ; and, since I am so unfortunate 
 to have nothing in my own disposal, do not think I have any 
 hand in making settlements. People in my way are sold like 
 slaves ; and I cannot tell what price my master will put on 
 me. If you do agree, I shall endeavour to contribute, as 
 much as lies in my power, to your happiness. I so heartily 
 despise a great figure, I have no notion of spending money so 
 foolishly; though one had a great deal to throw away. If 
 this breaks off, I shall not complain of you : and as, whatever 
 happens, I shall still preserve the opinion you have behaved 
 yourself well. Let me entreat you, if I have committed any 
 follies, to forgive them ; and be so just to think I would not 
 do an ill thing. 
 
 I say nothing of my letters : I think them entirely safe in 
 your hands. 
 
 I shall be uneasy till I know this is come to you. I have 
 tried to write plainly. I know not what one can say more 
 upon paper. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [About November, 1710.] 
 
 INDEED I do not at all wonder that absence, and variety of 
 new faces, should make you forget me ; but I am a little sur- 
 prized at your curiosity to know what passes in my heart (a 
 thing wholly insignificant to you), except you propose to 
 yourself a piece of ill-natured satisfaction, in finding me very- 
 much disquieted. Pray which way would you see into my 
 heart? You can frame no guesses about it from either my 
 speaking or writing ; and, supposing I should attempt to show 
 it you, I know no other way. 
 
 I begin to be tired of my humility : I have carried my com- 
 plaisances to you farther than I ought. You make new 
 scruples ; you have a great deal of fancy ; and your distrusts 
 being all of your own making, are more immovable than if
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 179 
 
 there was some real ground for them. Our aunts and grand- 
 mothers always tell us that men are a sort of animals, that, if 
 ever they are constant, 'tis only where they are ill used. 
 'Twas a kind of paradox I could never believe : experience has 
 taught me the truth of it. You are the first I ever had a 
 correspondence with, and I thank God I have done with it 
 for all my life. You needed not to have told me you are not 
 what you have been: one must be stupid not to find a 
 difference in your letters. You seem, in one part of your 
 last, to excuse yourself from having done me any injury in 
 point of fortune. Do I accuse you of any I 
 
 I have not spirits to dispute any longer with you. You 
 say you are not yet determined : let me determine for you, and 
 save you the trouble of writing again. Adieu for ever ! make 
 no answer. I wish, among the variety of acquaintance, you 
 may find some one to please you ; and can't help the vanity 
 of thinking, should you try them all, you won't find one that 
 will be so sincere in their treatment, though a thousand more 
 deserving, and every one happier. 'Tis a piece of vanity and 
 injustice I never forgive in a woman, to delight to give pain ; 
 what must I think of a man that takes pleasure in making me 
 uneasy? After the folly of letting you know it is in your 
 power, I ought in prudence to let this go no farther, except I 
 thought you had good nature enough never to make use of 
 that power. I have no reason to think so : however, I am 
 willing, you see, to do you the highest obligation 'tis possible 
 for me to do ; that is, to give you a fair occasion of being rid 
 of me. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed "Feb. 26." 1711.] 
 
 I INTENDED to make no answer to your letter; it was 
 something very ungrateful, and I resolved to give over all 
 thoughts of you. I could easily have performed that resolve 
 some time ago, but then you took pains to please me ; now 
 
 N2
 
 180 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 you have brought me to esteem you, you make use of that 
 esteem to give me uneasiness ; and I have the displeasure of 
 seeing I esteem a man that dislikes me. Farewell then : since 
 
 o 
 
 you will have it so, I renounce all the ideas I have so long 
 nattered myself with, and will entertain my fancy no longer 
 with the imaginary pleasure of pleasing you. How much 
 wiser are all those women I have despised than myself ! In 
 placing their happiness in trifles, they have placed it in what 
 is attainable. I fondly thought fine clothes and gilt coaches, 
 balls, operas, and public adoration, rather the fatigues of life ; 
 and that true happiness was justly defined by Mr. Dryden 
 (pardon the romantic air of repeating verses), when he says, 
 
 " Whom Heav'n would bless it does from pomps remove, 
 And makes their wealth in privacy and love." 
 
 These notions had corrupted my judgment as much as Mrs. 
 Biddy Tipkin's. 1 According to this scheme, I proposed to 
 pass my life with you. I yet do you the justice to believe, if 
 any man could have been contented \vith this manner of living, 
 it would have been you. Your indifference to me does not 
 hinder me from thinking you capable of tenderness, and the 
 happinesses of friendship ; but I find it is not to me you'll 
 ever have them; you think me all that is detestable; you 
 accuse me of want of sincerity and generosity. To convince 
 you of your mistake, I'll show you the last extremes of 
 both. 
 
 While I foolishly fancied you loved me, (which I confess I 
 had never any great reason for, more than that I wished it,) 
 there is no condition of life I could not have been happy in 
 with you, so very much I liked you I may say loved, since 
 it is the last thing I'll ever say to you. This ig telling you 
 sincerely my greatest weakness ; and now I will oblige you 
 with a new proof of generosity I'll never see you more. I 
 
 1 The name of the " niece," one of the characters in Steele's comedy of the 
 Tender Husband, first produced in 1704. The part was performed by Mrs. Old- 
 field, being that of a young lady who has been addicted to reading romances of the 
 Scudery school, and objects to a lover who would have conducted her to her nup- 
 tials through a door instead of through a window. Modern readers are familiar 
 with the characteristics of the now forgotten Biddy Tipkin through Lydia Lan- 
 guish in Sheridan's comedy of the Rivals, who is manifestly derived from Steele's 
 play. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 181 
 
 shall avoid all public places ; and this is the last letter I shall 
 send. If you write, be not displeased if I send it back un- 
 opened. I shall force my inclinations to oblige yours ; and 
 remember that you have told me I could not oblige you more 
 than by refusing you. Had I intended ever to see you again, 
 I durst not have sent this letter. Adieu. 
 
 FROM MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Saturday morning [3 March, 1711 P]. 1 
 
 EVERY time you see me you give me a fresh proof of your 
 not caring for me ; yet I beg you will meet me once more. 
 How could you pay me that great compliment of your loving 
 the country for life, when you would not stay with me a few 
 minutes longer ? Who is the happy man you went to I I 
 agree with you, I am often so dull, I cannot explain my mean- 
 ing; but will not own the expression was so very obscure, 
 when I said if I had you, I should act against my opinion. 
 What need I add? I see what is best for me, I condemn 
 what I do, and yet I fear I must do it. If you can't find it 
 out, that you are going to be unhappy, ask your sister, who 
 agrees with you in every thing else, and she will convince you 
 of your rashness in this. She knows you don't care for me, 
 and that you will like me less and less every year, perhaps 
 every day of your life. You may, with a little care, please 
 another as well, and make him less timorous. It is possible I 
 too may please some of those that have but little acquaint- 
 ance ; and if I should be preferred by a woman for being 
 the first among her companions, it would give me as much 
 pleasure as if I were the first man in the world. Think again, 
 and prevent a great misfortune from falling on both of us. 
 
 When you are at leisure, I shall be as ready to end all as 
 I was last night, when I disobliged one that will do me hurt, 
 by crossing his desires, rather than fail of meeting you. Had 
 I imagined you could have left me without finishing, I had 
 not seen you. Now you have been so free before Mrs. St. 
 
 1 A draught of this letter is indorsed by Mr. Wortley " 2 March." T.
 
 182 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 [Steele], 1 you may call upon her, or send for her, to-morrow or 
 next day. Let her dine with you, or go to visits, shops, Hyde 
 Park, or other diversions. You may bring her home ; I can 
 be in the house, reading, as I often am, though the master is 
 abroad. If you will have her visit you first, I will get her to 
 go to-morrow. I think a man or a woman is under no en- 
 gagement till the writings are sealed ; but it looks like indis- 
 cretion even to begin a treaty without a probability of con- 
 cluding it. When you hear of all my objections to you, and 
 to myself, you will resolve against me. Last night you were 
 much upon the reserve : I see you can never be thoroughly 
 intimate with me; 'tis because you have no pleasure in it. 
 You can be easy and complaisant, as you have sometimes told 
 me; but never think that enough to make me easy, unless 
 you refuse me. 
 
 Write a line this evening, or early to-morroAv. If I don't 
 speak plain, do you understand what I write ? Tell me how 
 to mend the stile, if the fault is in that. If the characters 
 are not plain, I can easily mend them. I always comprehend 
 your expressions, but would give a great deal to know what 
 passes in your heart. 
 
 In you I might possess youth, beauty, and all things that 
 charm. It is possible that they may strike me less, after a 
 time ; but I may then consider I have once enjoyed them in 
 perfection ; that they would have decayed as soon in any 
 other. You see this is not your case. You will think you 
 might have been happier. Never engage with a man, unless 
 you propose to yourself the highest satisfaction from him or 
 none other. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Tuesday, 10 o'clock. [Indorsed " 13 March," 1711.] 
 
 I AM in pain about the letter I sent you this morning : I 
 fear you should think, after what I have said, you cannot, in 
 
 1 The wife of Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Steele. D.
 
 Mil. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 183 
 
 point of honour, break off with me. Be not scrupulous on 
 that article, nor affect to make me break first, to excuse your 
 doing it. I would owe nothing but to inclination : if you do 
 not love me, I may have the less esteem of myself, but not 
 of you : I am not of the number of those women that have 
 the opinion of their persons Mr. Bayes 1 had of his play, that 
 'tis the touchstone of sense, and they are to frame their judg- 
 ment of people's understanding according to what they think 
 of them. 
 
 You may have wit, good humour, and good nature, and 
 not like me. I allow a great deal for the inconstancy of 
 mankind in general, and my own want of merit in particular. 
 But 'tis a breach, at least, of the two last, to deceive me. I 
 am sincere : I shall be sorry if I am not now what pleases ; 
 but if I (as I could with joy) abandon all things to the care 
 of pleasing you, I am then undone if I do not succeed. Be 
 generous. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 March 24 [1711]. 
 
 THOUGH your letter is far from what I expected, having 
 once promised to answer it, with the sincere account of my 
 inmost thoughts, I am resolved you shall not find me worse 
 than my word, which is (whatever you may think) inviolable. 
 
 'Tis no affectation to say I despise the pleasure of pleasing 
 people that I despise : all the fine equipages that shine in the 
 Ring 2 never gave me another thought, than either pity or 
 contempt for the owners, that could place happiness in attract- 
 ing the eyes of strangers. Nothing touches me with satis- 
 faction but what touches my heart ; and I should find more 
 pleasure in the secret joy I should feel at a kind expression 
 from a friend I esteemed, than at the admiration of a whole 
 playhouse, or the envy of those of my own sex, who could 
 
 1 In the Duke of Buckingham's farce of the Rehearsal. T. 
 * The then fashionable drive in Hyde Park. T.
 
 184 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 not attain to the same number of jewels, fine clothes, &c., 
 supposing I was at the very top of this sort of happiness. 
 
 You may be this friend if you please : did you really esteem 
 me, had you any tender regard for me, I could, I think, pass 
 my life in any station happier with you than in all the gran- 
 deur of the world with any other. You have some humours 
 that would be disagreeable to any woman that married with 
 an intention of finding her happiness abroad. That is not 
 my resolution. If I marry, I propose to myself a retirement ; 
 there is few of my acquaintance I should ever wish to see 
 again ; and the pleasing one, and only one, is the way I 
 design to please myself. Happiness is the natural design of 
 all the world ; and every thing we see done, is meant in order 
 to attain it. My imagination places it in friendship. By 
 friendship I mean an intire communication of thoughts, wishes, 
 interests, and pleasures, being undivided; a mutual esteem, 
 which naturally carries with it a pleasing sweetness of con- 
 versation, and terminates in the desire of making one or 
 another happy, without being forced to run into visits, noise, 
 and hurry, which serve rather to trouble than compose the 
 thoughts of any reasonable creature. There are few capable 
 of a friendship such as I have described, and 'tis necessary 
 for the generality of the world to be taken up with trifles. 
 Carry a fine lady and a fine gentleman out of town, and they 
 know no more what to say. To take from them plays, operas, 
 and fashions, is taking away all their topics of discourse ; and 
 they know not how to form their thoughts on any other sub- 
 jects. They know very well what it is to be admired, but are 
 perfectly ignorant of what it is to be loved. I take you to 
 have sense enough not to think this scheme romantic : I rather 
 choose to use the word friendship than love ; because, in the 
 general sense that word is spoke, it signifies a passion rather 
 founded on fancy than reason ; and when I say friendship, I 
 mean a mixture of tenderness and esteem, and which a long 
 acquaintance increases, not decays : how far I deserve such a 
 friendship, I can be no judge of myself. I may want the
 
 MR. WOBTLEY MONTAGU. 185 
 
 good sense that is necessary to be agreeable to a man of merit, 
 but I know I want the vanity to believe I have; and can 
 promise you shall never like me less upon knowing me better ; 
 and that I shall never forget you have a better understanding 
 than myself. 
 
 And now let me entreat you to think (if possible) tolerably 
 of my modesty, after so bold a declaration. I am resolved to 
 throw off reserve, and use me ill if you please. I am sensible, 
 to own an inclination for a man is putting one's self wholly 
 in his power : but sure you have generosity enough not to 
 abuse it. After all I have said, I pretend no tie but on your 
 heart. If you do not love me, I shall not be happy with you ; 
 if you do, I need add no farther. I am not mercenary, and 
 would not receive an obligation that comes not from one that 
 loves me. 
 
 I do not desire my letter back again : you have honour, and 
 I dare trust you. 
 
 I am going to the same place I went last spring. I shall 
 think of you there : it depends upon you in what manner. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed "9 April," 1711.] 
 
 I THOUGHT to return no answer to your letter, but I find I 
 am not so wise as 1 thought myself. I cannot forbear fixing 
 my mind a little on that expression, though perhaps the only 
 insincere one in your whole letter I would die to be secure of 
 your heart, though but for a moment : were this but true, 
 what is there I would not do to secure you ? 
 
 I will state the case to you as plainly as I can ; and then 
 ask yourself if you use me well. I have shewed, in every 
 action of my life, an esteem for you that at least challenges a 
 grateful regard. I have trusted my reputation in your hands ; 
 I have made no scruple of giving you, under my own hand, an 
 assurance of my friendship. After all this, I exact nothing 
 from you : if you find it inconvenient for your affairs to take 
 so small a fortune, I desire you to sacrifice nothing to me ; I
 
 186 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 pretend no tie upon your honour : but, in recompence for so 
 clear and so disinterested a proceeding, must I ever receive 
 injuries and ill usage ? 
 
 I have not the usual pride of my sex ; I can bear being told 
 I am in the wrong, but tell it me gently. Perhaps I have 
 been indiscreet ; I came young into the hurry of the world ; a 
 great innocence and an undesigning gaiety may possibly have 
 been construed coquetry and a desire of being followed, though 
 never meant by me. I cannot answer for the [reflections] 
 that may be made on me : all who are malicious attack the 
 careless and defenceless : I own myself to be both. I know 
 not anything I can say more to shew my perfect desire of 
 pleasing you and making you easy, than to proffer to be con- 
 fined with you in what manner you please. Would any woman 
 but me renounce all the world for one ? or would any man 
 but you be insensible of such a proof of sincerity ? 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [About July 4, 1712.] 
 
 I AM going to write you a plain long letter. What I have 
 already told you is nothing but the truth. I have no reason 
 to believe I am going to be otherwise confined than by my 
 duty ; but I, that know my own mind, know that is enough to 
 make me miserable. I see all the misfortune of marrying 
 where it is impossible to love ; I am going to confess a weak- 
 ness may perhaps add to your contempt of me. I wanted 
 courage to resist at first the will of my relations ; but, as every 
 day added to my fears, those, at last, grew strong enough to 
 make me venture the disobliging them. A harsh word damps 
 my spirits to a degree of silencing all I have to say. I knew 
 the folly of my own temper, and took the method of writing 
 to the disposer of me. I said every thing in this letter I 
 thought proper to move him, and proffered, in atonement for 
 not marrying whom he would, never to many at all. He did 
 not think fit to answer this letter, but sent for me to him. He 
 told me he was veiy much surprized that I did not depend on
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 187 
 
 his judgment for my future happiness ; that he knew nothing 
 I had to complain of, &c. ; that he did not doubt I had some 
 other fancy in my head, which encouraged me to this dis- 
 obedience ; but he assured me, if I refused a settlement he 
 had provided for me, he gave me his word, whatever proposals 
 were made him, he would never so much as enter into a 
 treaty with any other ; that, if I founded any hopes upon his 
 death, I should find myself mistaken, he never intended to 
 leave me any thing but an annuity of 400?. per annum ; that, 
 though another would proceed in this manner after I had 
 given so just a pretence for it, yet he had [the] goodness to 
 leave my destiny yet in my own choice, and at the same time 
 commanded me to communicate my design to my relations, 
 and ask their advice. As hard as this may sound, it did not 
 shock my resolution ; I was pleased to think, at any price, I 
 had it in my power to be free from a man I hated. I told my 
 intention to all my nearest relations. I was surprized at their 
 blaming it, to the greatest degree. I was told, they were 
 sorry I would ruin myself ; but, if I was so unreasonable, they 
 could not blame my F. [father] whatever he inflicted 011 me. 
 I objected I did not love him. They made answer, they 
 found no necessity of loving ; if I lived well with him, that 
 was all was required of me; and that if I considered this 
 town, I should find very few women in love with their hus- 
 bands, and yet a many happy. It was in vain to dispute with 
 such prudent people; they looked upon me as a little ro- 
 mantic, and I found it impossible to persuade them that 
 living in London at liberty was not the height of happiness. 
 However, they could not change my thoughts, though I found 
 I was to expect no protection from them. When I was to 
 
 give my final answer to [sic], I told him that I preferred 
 
 a single life to any other ; and, if he pleased to permit me, I 
 would take that resolution. He replied, he could not hinder 
 my resolutions, but I should not pretend after that to please 
 him ; since pleasing him was only to be done by obedience ; 
 that if I would disobey, I knew the consequences ; he would
 
 188 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 not fail to confine me, where I might repent at leisure ; that 
 he had also consulted my relations, and found them all agree- 
 ing in his sentiments. He spoke this in a manner hindered 
 my answering. I retired to my chamber, where I writ a 
 letter to let him know my aversion to the man proposed was 
 too great to be overcome, that I should be miserable beyond 
 all things could be imagined, but I was in his hands, and he 
 might dispose of me as he thought fit. He was perfectly 
 satisfied with this answer, and proceeded as if I had given a 
 willing consent. I forgot to tell you, he named you, and said, 
 if I thought that way, I was very much mistaken ; that if he 
 had no other engagements, yet he would never have agreed 
 to your proposals, having no inclination to see his grand- 
 children beggars. 
 
 I do not speak this to endeavour to alter your opinion, but to 
 shew the improbability of his agreeing to it. I confess I am 
 entirely of your mind. I reckon it among the absurdities of 
 custom that a man must be obliged to settle his whole estate 
 on an eldest son, beyond his power to recall, whatever he 
 proves to be, and make himself unable to make happy a 
 younger child that may deserve to be so. If I had an 
 estate myself, I should not make such ridiculous settlements, 
 and I cannot blame you for being in the right. 
 
 I have told you all my affairs with a plain sincerity. I have 
 avoided to move your compassion, and I have said nothing of 
 what I suffer; and I have not persuaded you to a treaty, 
 which I am sure my family will never agree to. I can have 
 no fortune without an entire obedience. 
 
 Whatever your business is, may it end to your satisfaction. 
 I think of the public as you do. As little as that is a woman's 
 care, it may be permitted into the number of a woman's fears. 
 But, wretched as I am, I have no more to fear for myself. I 
 have still a concern for my friends, and I am in pain for your 
 danger. I am far from taking ill what you say, I never 
 valued myself as the daughter of [sic] ; and ever de- 
 spised those that esteemed me on that account. With pleasure
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 180 
 
 I could barter all that, and change to be any country gentle- 
 man's daughter that would have reason enough to make 
 happiness in privacy. My letter is too long. I beg your 
 pardon. You may see by the situation of my affairs 'tis with- 
 out design. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Thursday night [August, 1712]. 
 
 IF I am always to be as well pleased as I am with this letter, 
 I enter upon a state of perfect happiness in complying with 
 you. I am sorry I cannot do it entirely as to Friday or Satur- 
 day. I will tell you the true reason of it. I have a relation 
 that has ever shewed an uncommon partiality for me. 1 I have 
 generally trusted him with all my thoughts, and I have always 
 found him sincerely my friend. On the occasion of this mar- 
 riage he received my complaints with the greatest degree of 
 tenderness. He proffered me to disoblige my F. [father] (by 
 representing to him the hardship he was doing) if I thought it 
 would be of any service to me ; and, when he heard me in 
 some passion of grief assure him it could do me no good, he 
 went yet farther, and tenderly asked me if there was any other 
 man, though of a smaller fortune, I could be happy with ; and 
 how much soever it should be against the will of my other re- 
 lations, assured me he would assist me in making me happy 
 after my own way. This is an obligation I can never forget, 
 and I think I should have cause to reproach myself if I did 
 this without letting him know it. He knows you, and I be- 
 lieve will approve of it. You guess whom I mean. The 
 generosity and the goodness of this letter wholly determines 
 my softest inclinations on your side. You are in the wrong to 
 suspect me of artifice ; plainly showing me the kindness of 
 your heart (if you have any there for me) is the surest way to 
 touch mine, and I am at this minute more inclined to speak 
 tenderly to you than ever I was in my life, so much inclined 
 I will say nothing. I could wish you would leave England, 
 
 1 This relation was probably her maternal uncle, Mr. William Fielding. T.
 
 190 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 but I know not how to object against anything that pleases 
 you. In this minute I have no will that does not agree with 
 yours. Sunday I shall see you, if you do not hear from me 
 Saturday. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Saturday morning [August, 1712J. 
 
 I WRIT you a letter last night in some passion. I begin to 
 fear again ; I own myself a coward. You made no reply to 
 one part of my letter concerning my fortune. I am afraid you 
 flatter yourself that my F. [father] may be at length recon- 
 ciled and brought to reasonable terms. I am convinced, by what 
 I have often heard him say, speaking of other cases like this, 
 he never will. The fortune he has engaged to give with me, 
 was settled on my B. [brother's] marriage, on my sister and on 
 myself; 1 but in such a manner, that it was left in his power 
 to give it all to either of us, or divide it as he thought fit. He 
 has given it all to me. Nothing remains for my sister, but the 
 free bounty of my F. [father] from what he can save ; which, 
 notwithstanding the greatness of his estate, may be very little. 
 Possibly after I have disobliged him so much, he may be glad 
 to have her so easily provided for, with money already raised ; 
 especially if he has a design to marry himself, as I hear. I do 
 not speak this that you should not endeavour to come to terms 
 with him, if you please ; but I am fully persuaded it will be to 
 no purpose. He will have a very good answer to make : that 
 I suffered this match to proceed ; that I made him make a 
 very silly figure in it; that I have let him spend 400 in 
 wedding-cloaths ; all which I saw without saying any thing. 
 When I first pretended to oppose this match, he told me he 
 was sure I had some other design in my head ; I denied it with 
 truth. But you see how little appearance there is of that 
 truth. He proceeded with telling me that he never would 
 enter into treaty with another man, &c., and that I should be 
 sent immediately into the North to stay there ; and, when he 
 
 1 This settlement was made bv an act of Parliament. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 191 
 
 died, he would only leave me an annuity of 400J. I had not 
 courage to stand this view, and I submitted to what he pleased. 
 He will now object against me, why, since I intended to marry 
 in this manner, I did not persist in my first resolution ; that 
 it would have been as easy for me to run away from T. 
 [Thoresby] as from hence ; and to what purpose did I put him, 
 and the gentleman I was to marry, to expences, &c. ? He 
 will have a thousand plausible reasons for being irreconcile- 
 able, and 'tis very probable the world will be of his side. Re- 
 flect now for the last time in what manner you must take me. 
 I shall come to you with only a night-gown and petticoat, and 
 that is all you will get with me. I told a lady of my friends 
 what I intend to do. You will think her a very good friend 
 when I tell you she has proffered to lend us her house if we 
 would come there the first night. I did not accept of this till 
 I had let you know it. If you think it more convenient to 
 carry me to your lodgings, make no scruple of it. Let it be 
 where it will : if I am your wife I shall think no place unfit 
 for me where you are. I beg we may leave London next 
 morning, wherever you intend to go. I should wish to go out 
 of England if it suits with your affairs. You are the best 
 judge of your father's temper. If you think it would be 
 obliging to him, or necessary for you, I will go with you 
 immediately to ask his pardon and his blessing. If that is not 
 proper at first, I think the best scheme is going to the Spa. 
 When you come back, you may endeavour to make your 
 father admit of seeing me, and treat with mine (though I per- 
 sist in thinking it will be to no purpose). But I cannot think 
 of living in the midst of my relations and acquaintance after 
 so unjustifiable a step : unjustifiable to the world, but I think 
 I can justify myself to myself. I again beg you to hire a 
 coach to be at the door early Monday morning, to carry us 
 some part of our way, wherever you resolve our journey shall 
 be. If you determine to go to that lady's house, you had 
 better come with a coach and six 1 at seven o'clock to-morrow. 
 
 1 The reader need hardly he reminded that, in those days of bad roads, a " coach 
 and six" was too common an object to attract unusual attention. T.
 
 192 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 She and I will be in the balcony that looks on the road : you 
 have nothing to do but to stop under it, and we will come 
 down to you. Do in this what you like best. After all, think 
 very seriously. Your letter, which will be waited for, is to 
 determine every thing. I forgive you a coarse expression in 
 your last, which, however, I wish had not been there. You 
 might have said something like it without expressing it 
 in that manner; but there was so much complaisance in 
 the rest of it I ought to be satisfied. You can shew me 
 no goodness I shall not be sensible of. However, think 
 again, and resolve never to think of me if you have the least 
 doubt, or that it is likely to make you uneasy in your for- 
 tune. I believe to travel is the most likely way to make a 
 solitude agreeable, and not tiresome : remember you have pro- 
 mised it. 
 
 'Tis something odd for a woman that brings nothing to 
 expect any thing ; but after the way of my education, I dare 
 not pretend to live but in some degree suitable to it. I had 
 rather die than return to a dependancy upon relations I have 
 disobliged. Save me from that fear if you love me. If you 
 cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere and tell 
 me so. 'Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a 
 short happiness, involve myself in ages of misery. I hope 
 there will never be occasion for this precaution ; but, however, 
 'tis necessary to make it. I depend entirely on your honour, 
 and I cannot suspect you of any way doing wrong. Do not 
 imagine I shall be angry at any thing you can tell me. Let it 
 be sincere ; do not impose on a woman that leaves all things 
 for you. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Tuesday night [August, 1712]. 
 
 I RECEIVED both your Monday letters since I writ the 
 enclosed, which, however, I send you. The kind letter was 
 writ and sent Friday morning, and I did not receive yours till
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 193 
 
 the Saturday noon ; or, to speak truth, you would never have 
 had it, there were so many things in yours to put me out of 
 humour. Thus, you see, it was on no design to repair any 
 thing that offended you. You only shew me how industrious 
 you are to find imaginary faults in me why will you not 
 suffer me to be pleased with you ? 
 
 I would see you if I could (though perhaps it may be 
 wrong) ; but, in the way I am here, 'tis impossible. I can't 
 come to town, but in company with my sister-in-law ; I can 
 carry her nowhere, but where she pleases ; or, if I could, I 
 would trust her with nothing. I could not walk out alone, 
 without giving suspicion to the whole family; should I be 
 watched, and seen to meet a man judge of the consequence ! 
 
 You speak of treating with my father, as if you believed he 
 would come to terms afterwards. I will not suffer you to 
 remain in that thought, however advantageous it might be to 
 me ; I will deceive you in nothing. I am fully persuaded he 
 will never hear of terms afterwards. You may say, 'tis 
 talking oddly of him. I can't answer to that; but 'tis my 
 real opinion, and I think I know him. You talk to me of 
 estates, as if I was the most interested woman in the world. 
 Whatever faults I may have shewn in my life, I know not one 
 action of it that ever proved me mercenary. I think there 
 cannot be a greater proof of the contrary than treating with 
 you, where I am to depend entirely on your generosity, at the 
 same time that I have settled on me 500/. per annum pin-money, 
 and a considerable jointure, in another place ; not to reckon 
 that I may have by his temper what command of his estate I 
 please ; and with you I have nothing to pretend to. I do not, 
 however, make a merit of this to you ; money is very little to 
 me, because all beyond necessaries I do not value, that is to 
 [be] purchased by it. If the man proposed to me had 10,000/. 
 per annum, and I was sure to dispose of it all, I should act 
 just as I do. I have in my life known a good deal of shew, 
 and never found myself the happier for it. 
 
 In proposing to you to follow the scheme begun with that 
 friend, I think 'tis absolutely necessary for both our sakes. I 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 would have you want no pleasure which a single life would 
 afford you. You own that you think nothing so agreeable. 
 A woman that adds nothing to a man's fortune ought not to 
 take from his happiness. If possible, I would add to it ; but 
 I will not take from you any satisfaction you could enjoy 
 without me. On my own side, I endeavour to form as right 
 a judgment of the temper of human nature, and of my own 
 in particular, as I am capable of. I would throw off all par- 
 tiality and passion, and be calm in my opinion. Almost all 
 people are apt to run into a mistake, that when they once feel 
 or give a passion, there needs nothing to entertain it. This 
 mistake makes, in the number of women that inspire even 
 violent passions, hardly one preserve one after possession. If 
 we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one another : 
 'tis principally my concern to think of the most probable 
 method of making that love eternal. You object against 
 living in London ; I am not fond of it myself, and readily 
 give it up to you ; though I am assured there needs more art 
 to keep a fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys 
 upon itself. There is one article absolutely necessary to be 
 ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable. There is no such 
 thing as being agreeable, without a thorough good humour, a 
 natural sweetness of temper, enlivened by cheerfulness. What- 
 ever natural fund of gaiety one is born with, 'tis necessary to 
 be entertained with agreeable objects. Anybody, capable of 
 tasting pleasure, when they confine themselves to one place, 
 should take care 'tis the place in the world the most pleasing. 
 Whatever you may now think (now, perhaps, you have some 
 fondness for me), though your love should continue in its full 
 force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would 
 be troublesome. People are not [for] ever (nor is it in human 
 nature they should be) disposed to be fond; you would be 
 glad to find in me the friend and the companion. To be 
 agreeably this last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. 
 A perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing to 
 raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation 
 insensibly falls into dull and insipid. When I have no more
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 195 
 
 to say to you, you will like me no longer. How dreadful is 
 that view ! You will reflect for my sake you have abandoned 
 the conversation of a friend that you liked, and your situation 
 in a country where all things would have contributed to make 
 your life pass in (the true volupti) a smooth tranquillity. / 
 shall lose the vivacity that should entertain you, and you will 
 have nothing to recompense you for what you have lost. 
 Very few people that have settled entirely in the country, but 
 have grown at length weary of one another. The lady's con- 
 versation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of 
 idleness ; and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and 
 horses, and out of love with everything else. I am not now 
 arguing in favour of the town ; you have answered me as to 
 that point. In respect of your health, 'tis the first thing to be 
 considered, and I shall never ask you to do anything injurious 
 to that. But 'tis my opinion, 'tis necessary, to being happy, 
 that we neither of us think any place more agreeable than 
 that where we are. I have nothing to do in London ; and 'tis 
 indifferent to me if I never see it more. I know not how to 
 answer your mentioning gallantry, nor in what sense to un- 
 derstand you. I am sure in one whoever I marry, when I 
 am married, I renounce all things of that kind. I am willing 
 to abandon all conversation but yours. If you please I will 
 never see another man. In short, I will part with any thing 
 for you, but you. I will not have you a month, to lose you 
 for the rest of my life. If you can pursue the plan of 
 happiness begun with your friend, and take me for that 
 friend, I am ever yours. I have examined my own heart 
 whether I can leave eveiy thing for you ; I think I can : if I 
 change my mind, you shall know before Sunday ; after that I 
 will not change my mind. If 'tis necessary for your affaire 
 to stay in England, to assist your father in his business, as I 
 suppose the time will be short, I would be as little injurious to 
 your fortune as I can, and I will do it. But I am still of 
 opinion nothing is so likely to make us both happy, as what I 
 propose. I foresee I may break with you on this point, and I 
 shall certainly be displeased with myself for it, and wish a 
 
 02
 
 196 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 thousand times that I had done whatever you pleased; but, 
 however, I hope I shall always remember, how much more 
 miserable, than any thing else could make me, should I be, to 
 live with you, and to please you no longer. You can be 
 pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself. 
 One of the Spectators is very just, that says, A man ought 
 always to be on his guard against spleen and too severe a 
 philosophy ; a woman against levity and coquetry. If we go to 
 Naples, I will make no acquaintance there of any kind, and 
 you will be in a place where a variety of agreeable objects 
 will dispose you to be ever pleased. If such a thing is 
 possible, this will secure our everlasting happiness ; and I am 
 ready to wait on you without leaving a thought behind me. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Friday night [15th Aug., 1712]. 
 
 I TREMBLE for what we are doing. Are you sure you will 
 love me for ever ? Shall we never repent I I fear and I hope. 
 I foresee all that will happen on this occasion. I shall in- 
 cense my family in the highest degree. The generality of 
 the world will blame my conduct, and the relations and 
 
 friends of l will invent a thousand stories of me ; yet, 
 
 'tis possible, you may recompense everything to me. In this 
 letter, which I am fond of, you promise me all that I wish. 
 Since I writ so far, I received your Friday letter. I will be 
 only yours, and I will do what you please. 
 
 You shall hear from me again to-morrow, not to contradict, 
 but to give some directions. My resolution is taken. Love 
 me and use me well. 2 
 
 1 So in the original. Who was the unfortunate lover does not appear. He is 
 elsewhere spoken of as a " Mr. K.," and it appears that he had estates in Ire- 
 land. T. 
 
 2 From hints in other papers I infer that the intended elopement on the Sunday 
 was frustrated; and that on the following day Lady Mary was sent with her 
 brother to West Dean, from whence she shortly afterwards found means of 
 escaping. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 197 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Walling Wells, Qct 22 [1712], which is the first post 
 I could write, Monday night being so fatigued and 
 sick I went straight to bed from the coach. 
 
 I DON'T know very well how to begin ; I am perfectly un- 
 acquainted with a proper matrimonial stile. After all, I 
 think 'tis best to write as if we were not married at all. I 
 lament your absence, as if you was still my lover, and I am 
 impatient to hear you are got safe to Durham, and that you 
 have fixed a time for your return. 
 
 I have not been very long in this family; and I fancy 
 myself in that described in the Spectator. The good people 
 here look upon their children with a fondness that more than 
 recompenses their care of them. I don't perceive much dis- 
 tinction in regard to their merits ; and when they speak sense 
 or nonsense, it affects the parents with almost the same plea- 
 sure. My friendship for the mother, and kindness for Miss 
 Biddy, make me endure the squalling of Miss Nanny and 
 Miss Mary with abundance of patience : and my foretelling 
 the future conquests of the eldest daughter, makes me very 
 well with the family. I don't know whether you will pre- 
 sently find out that this seeming impertinent account is the 
 tenderest expressions of my love to you ; but it furnishes my 
 imagination with agreeable pictures of our future life ; and I 
 flatter myself with the hopes of one day enjoying with you 
 the same satisfactions ; and that, after as many years together, 
 I may see you retain the same fondness for me as I shall 
 certainly mine for you, and the noise of a nursery may have 
 more charms for us than the music of an opera. 
 
 [Tbrn] as these are the sure effect of my sincere love, since 
 'tis the nature of that passion to entertain the mind with plea- 
 sures in prospect ; and I check myself when I grieve for your 
 absence, by remembering how much reason I have to rejoice 
 in the hope of passing my whole life with you. A good for- 
 
 1 Near Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, and about eleven miles from Thoresby- 
 Lady Mary was on a visit to her friends Mr. and Mrs. White, who lived at Wal- 
 ling Wells. T.
 
 198 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 tune not to be valued! I am afraid of telling you that I 
 return thanks for it to Heaven, because you will charge me 
 wich hypocrisy ; but you are mistaken : I assist every day at 
 public prayers in this family, and never forget in my private 
 ejaculations how much I owe to Heaven for making me yours. 
 'Tis candle-light, or I should not conclude so soon. 
 
 Pray, my dear, begin at the top, and read till you come to 
 the bottom. 1 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 I AM at present in so much uneasiness, my letter is not 
 likely to be intelligible, if it all resembles the confusion of my 
 head. I sometimes imagine you not well, and sometimes 
 that you think it of small importance to write, or that greater 
 matters have taken up your thoughts. This last imagination 
 is too cruel for me. I will rather fancy your letter has mis- 
 carried, though I find little probability to think so. I know 
 not what to think, and am very near being distracted, amongst 
 my variety of dismal apprehensions. I am veiy ill company 
 to the good people of the house, who all bid me make you their 
 compliments. Mr. White begins your health twice every day. 
 You don't deserve all this if you can be so entirely forgetful 
 of all this part of the world. I am peevish with you by fits, 
 and divide my time between anger and sorrow, which are 
 equally troublesome to me. 'Tis the most cruel thing in the 
 world, to think one has reason to complain of what one loves. 
 How can you be so careless ? is it because you don't love 
 writing ? You should remember I want to know you are safe 
 at Durham. I shall imagine you have had some fall from 
 your horse, or ill accident by the way, without regard to pro- 
 bability ; there is nothing too extravagant for a woman's and 
 a lover's fears. Did you receive my last letter ? if you did 
 not, the direction is wrong, you won't receive this, and my 
 
 1 The last sentence is written within the fold of the letter. D.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 199 
 
 question is in vain. I find I begin to talk nonsense, and 'tis 
 time to leave off. Pray, my dear, write to me, or I shall be 
 very mad. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Postmark, " 12 Nov.," 1712.] 
 
 I WAS not well when I writ to you last. Possibly the dis- 
 order of my health might increase the uneasiness of my mind. 
 I am sure the uneasiness of my mind increases the disorder of 
 my health; for I passed the night without sleeping, and 
 found myself the next morning in a fever. I have not since 
 left my chamber. I have been very ill, and kept my bed four 
 days, which was the reason of my silence, which I am afraid 
 you have attributed to being out of humour; but was so 
 far from being in a condition of writing, I could hardly 
 speak ; my face being prodigiously swelled, that I was forced 
 to have it lanced, to prevent its breaking, which they said 
 would have been of worse consequence. I would not order 
 Grace to write to you, for fear you should think me worse 
 than I was; though I don't believe the fright would have 
 been considerable enough to have done you much harm. I 
 am now much better, and intend to take the air in the coach 
 to-day ; for keeping to my chair so much as I do, will hardly 
 recover my strength. 
 
 I wish you would write again to Mr. Phipps, for I don't 
 hear of any money, and am in the utmost necessity for it. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Ilinchinbrook. Indorsed " 6 Dec.," 1712.] 
 
 I DON'T believe you expect to hear from me so soon, if I 
 remember you did not so much as desire it, but I will not be 
 so nice to quarrel with you on that point ; perhaps you would
 
 200 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 laugh at that delicacy, which is, however, an attendant of a 
 tender friendship. 
 
 I opened the closet where I expected to find so many books ; 
 to my great disappointment there were only some few pieces 
 of the law, and folios of mathematics ; my Lord Hinching- 
 hrook 1 and Mr. Twiman having disposed of the rest. But as 
 there is no affliction, no more than no happiness, without alloy, 
 I discovered an old trunk of papers, which to my great diver- 
 sion I found to be the letters of the first Earl of Sandwich ; 2 
 and am in hopes that those from his lady will tend much to 
 my edification, being the most extraordinary lessons of economy 
 that ever I read in my life. To the glory of your father, I 
 find that his looked upon him as destined to be the honour of 
 the family. 
 
 I walked yesterday two hours on the terrace. These are 
 the most considerable events that have happened in your ab- 
 sence ; excepting that a good-natured robin red-breast kept me 
 company almost all the afternoon, with so much good humour 
 and humanity as gives me faith for the piece of charity 
 ascribed to these little creatures in the children in the Wood, 
 which I have hitherto thought only a poetical ornament to 
 that history. 
 
 I expect a letter next post to tell me you are well in Lon- 
 don, and that your business will not detain you long from her 
 that cannot be happy without you. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " 9 Dec.," 1712.] 
 
 I AM not at all surprized at my Aunt Cheyne's 3 conduct : 
 people are seldom very much grieved (and never ought to be) 
 at misfortunes they expect. When I gave myself to you, I 
 gave up the very desire of pleasing the rest of the world, and 
 
 1 Son of Lord Sandwich. Mr. Twiman was probably his tutor. T. 
 
 z The great admiral. T. 
 
 3 The wife of William Lord Cheyne, and sister to Lady Mary's father. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 201 
 
 am pretty indifferent about it. I think you are very much in 
 the right in designing to visit Lord Pierrepont. As much as 
 you say I love the town, if you think it necessary for your 
 interest to stay some time here, I would not advise you to ne- 
 glect a certainty for an uncertainty ; but I believe if you pass 
 the Christmas here, great matters will be expected from your 
 hospitality : however you are a better judge than I am. I 
 continue indifferently well, and endeavour as much as I can 
 to preserve myself from spleen and melancholy ; not for my 
 own sake ; I think that of little importance ; but in the con- 
 dition I am, I believe it may be of very ill consequence ; yet, 
 passing whole days alone as I do, I do not always find it pos- 
 sible, and my constitution will sometimes get the better of my 
 reason. Human nature itself, without any additional misfor- 
 tunes, furnishes disagreeable meditations enough. Life itself 
 to make it supportable, should not be considered too near ; my 
 reason represents to me in vain the inutility of serious reflec- 
 tions. The idle mind will sometimes fall into contemplations 
 that serve for nothing but to ruin the health, destroy good 
 humour, hasten old age and wrinkles, arid bring on an habi- 
 tual melancholy. 'Tis a maxim with me to be young as long 
 as one can : there is nothing can pay one for that invaluable 
 ignorance which is the companion of youth ; those sanguine 
 groundless hopes, and that lively vanity, which make all the 
 happiness of life. To my extreme mortification I grow wiser 
 every day than other [sic], I don't believe Solomon was more 
 convinced of the vanity of temporal affairs than I am ; I lose 
 all taste of this world, and I suffer myself to be bewitched by 
 the charms of the spleen, though I know and foresee all the 
 irremediable mischiefs arising from it. I am insensibly fallen 
 into the writing you a melancholy letter, after all my resolu- 
 tions to the contrary ; but I do not enjoin you to read it : 
 make no scruple of flinging it into the fire at the first dull 
 line. Forgive the ill effects of my solitude, and think me as 
 I am, 
 
 Ever yours.
 
 202 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Hinchinbrook. Indorsed " 9 or 11 Dec.," 1712.] 
 
 YOUR short letter came to me this morning ; but I won't 
 quarrel with it, since it brought me good news of your health. 
 I wait with impatience for that of your return. The Bishop 
 of Salisbury 1 writes me word that he hears my L. Pierrepont 2 
 declares very much for us. As the Bishop is no infallible 
 prelate, I should not depend much on that intelligence ; but 
 my sister Frances tells me the same thing. Since it is so, I 
 believe you'll think it very proper to pay him a visit, if he is 
 in town, and give him thanks for the good offices you hear he 
 has endeavoured to do me, unasked. If his kindness is sincere, 
 'tis too valuable to be neglected. However, the very appear- 
 ance of it must be of use to us. If I know him, his desire of 
 making my F. [father] appear in the wrong, will make him 
 zealous for us. I think I ought to write him a letter of ac- 
 knowledgment for what I hear he has already done. The 
 Bishop tells me he has seen Lord Halifax, who says, besides 
 his great esteem for you, he has particular respects for me, 
 and will take pains to reconcile my F. [father], &c. I think 
 this is near the words of my letter, which contains all the 
 news I know, except that of this place ; which is, that an un- 
 fortunate burgess of the town of Huntingdon 3 was justly dis- 
 graced yesterday in the face of the congregation, for being 
 false to his first love, who, with an audible voice, forbid the 
 banns published between him and a greater fortune. This 
 accident causes as many disputes here as the duel 4 could do 
 
 1 Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. See Lady Mary's letter to him, among 
 Miscellaneous Letters. T. 
 
 8 Gervase Pierrepont, created Baron Pierrepont of Hanslope, 1714, great-uncle 
 of Lady M. W. M., being, at that time, an Irish Baron. D. 
 
 3 Hinchinbrook is about a mile from Huntingdon. T. 
 
 4 The famous duel between Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton in Hyde 
 Park, in which both were slain, November 15, 1712. A brief but vivid account 
 of it is given by Swift in his Diary to Stella, under that date. Swift says : " The 
 dog Mohun was killed on the spot ; but while the duke was over him, Mohun, 
 shortening his sword, stabbed him in at the shoulder to the heart. The duke was 
 helped towards the Cake-house by the Ring, in Hyde Park (where they fought),
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 203 
 
 where you are, Public actions, you know, always make two 
 parties. The great prudes s#y the young woman should have 
 suffered in silence ; and the pretenders to spirit and fire would 
 have all false men so served, and hope it will be an example 
 for the terror of infidelity throughout the whole country. 
 For my part I never rejoiced at any thing more in my life. 
 You'll wonder what private interest I could have in this affair. 
 You must know it furnished discourse all the afternoon, which 
 was no little service, when I was visited by the young ladies of 
 Huntingdon. This long letter, I know, must be particularly 
 impertinent to a man of business ; but idleness is the root of 
 all evil : I write and read till I can't see, and then I walk ; 
 sleep succeeds ; and thus my whole time is divided. If I was 
 as well qualified all other ways as I am by idleness, I would 
 publish a daily paper called the Meditator. The terrace is my 
 place consecrated to meditation, which I observe to be gay or 
 grave, as the sun shews or hides his face. Till to-day I have 
 had no occasion of opening my mouth to speak, since I wished 
 you a good journey. I see nothing, but I think of every 
 thing, and indulge my imagination, which is chiefly employed 
 on you. 
 
 TO MR. "VVORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Hinchinbrook. Indorsed "Dec.," 1712.] 
 
 I AM alone, without any amusements to take up my thoughts. 
 I am in circumstances in which melancholy is apt to prevail 
 even over all amusements, dispirited and alone, and you write 
 me quarrelling letters. 
 
 I hate complaining ; 'tis no sign I am easy that I do not 
 trouble you with my head-aches, and my spleen ; to be reason- 
 able one should never complain but when one hopes redress. 
 A physician should be the only confidant of bodily pains ; and 
 
 and died on the grass, before he could reach the house, and was brought home in 
 his coach by eight, while the poor duchess was asleep." The event created a great 
 sensation. T
 
 204 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 for those of the mind, they should never be spoke of but to 
 them that can and will relieve 'em. Should I tell you that I 
 am uneasy, that I am out of humour, and out of patience, 
 should I see you half an hour the sooner ? I believe you have 
 kindness enough for me to be very sorry, and so you would 
 tell me ; and things remain in their primitive state ; I chuse 
 to spare you that pain ; I would always give you pleasure. I 
 know you are ready to tell me that I do not ever keep to these 
 good maxims. I confess I often speak impertinently, but I 
 always repent of it. My last stupid letter was not come to 
 you, before I would have had it back again had it been in my 
 power ; such as it was, I beg your pardon for it. I did not 
 expect that my Lord P. [Pierrepont] would speak at all in 
 our favour, much less show zeal upon that occasion, that never 
 showed any in his life. I have writ every post, and you ac- 
 cuse me without reason. I can't imagine how they should 
 miscarry ; perhaps you have by this time received two toge- 
 ther. Adieu ! je suis a vous de tout mon coeur. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Friday [July, 1713]. 
 
 I SENT for Mr. Banks, according to your order, and find by 
 him the house he mentioned at Sheffield is entirely unfur- 
 nished, and he says he told you so. So that I cannot go there. 
 He says there is a house five miles from York, extremely well 
 furnished and every way proper for us ; but the gentleman 
 who owns it is gone to France, and nothing can be done till 
 an answer can be had from thence. I have yet no letter from 
 Mrs. Westby concerning Mr. Spencer's, and he says 'tis very 
 doubtful whether we can have Mr. Gills's : that we should be 
 welcome to stay at Scoffton 1 till better provided ; but 'tis half 
 down, and all the furniture taken down and locked up that 
 if we will dispense with the inconveniency of being in a town, 
 we may bi; easily fitted in York, and not obliged to stay but 
 
 1 Mr. Banks lived at Scoffton. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 205 
 
 by the week that we may be at liberty to remove when we 
 can please ourselves better. I am in a great perplexity what 
 to do. If I go to Pule Hill without giving them warning, I 
 may find the house full of people and no room to be made for 
 us. If I determine to go to York, besides the inconvenience 
 and disagreeableness of a country town, it may be perhaps out 
 of your way. I know not what to do ; but I know I shall be 
 unhappy till I see you again, and I would by no means stay 
 where I am. Your absence increases my melancholy so much, 
 I fright myself with imaginary horrors ; and shall always be 
 fancying dangers for you while you are out of my sight. I 
 am afraid of Lord H., I am afraid of every thing; there 
 wants but little of my being afraid of the small-pox for you ; 
 so unreasonable are my fears, which however proceed from an 
 unlimited love. If I lose you I cannot bear that if ; which 
 I bless God is without probability ; but since the loss of my 
 poor unhappy brother I dread every evil. 
 
 Saturday 
 
 I have been to-day at Acton to see my poor brother's 1 me- 
 lancholy family. I cannot describe how much it has sunk my 
 spirits. My eyes are too sore to admit of a long letter. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Walling Wells. Indorsed " 25 July," 1713.] 
 
 I AM at this minute told I have an opportunity of writing a 
 short letter to you, which will be all reproaches. You know 
 where I am, and I have not once heard from you. I am tired 
 of this place because I do not ; and if you persist in your 
 silence, I will return to Wharncliffe. 2 I had rather be quite 
 alone and hear sometimes from you, than in any company and 
 not have that satisfaction. Your silence makes me more me- 
 lancholy than any solitude, and I can think on nothing so 
 dismal as that you forget me. I heard from your little boy 3 
 
 1 He died on the 1st July. T. 
 
 2 Near Sheffield, the residence of Mr. Wortley Montagu's father. T. 
 
 a Edward Wortley, their first child. He was born in May or June, 1713. T.
 
 206 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 yesterday, who is in good health. I will return and keep him 
 company. 
 
 The good people of this family present you their services 
 and good wishes, never failing to drink your health twice a 
 day. I am importuned to make haste ; but I have much more 
 to say, which may be however comprehended in these words, 
 I am yours. 
 
 Say something of our meeting. 
 
 TO . 
 
 [York, about Nov., 1713.] 
 
 I RETURN you a thousand thanks, my dear, for so agreeable 
 an entertainment as your letter. 
 
 " In this cold climate where the sun appears 
 Unwillingly :" 
 
 wit is as wonderfully pleasing as a sun-shiny day ; and, to 
 speak poetically, Phoebus very sparing of all his favours. I 
 fancied your letter an emblem of yourself : in some parts I 
 found there the softness of your voice, and in others the 
 vivacity of your eyes : you are to expect no return but 
 humble and hearty thanks, yet I can't forbear entertaining 
 you with our York lovers. (Strange monsters you'll think, 
 love being as much forced up here as melons.) In the first 
 form of these creatures, is even Mr. Vanbrugh. 2 Heaven, no 
 doubt, compassionating our dullness, has inspired him with a 
 passion that makes us all ready to die with laughing : 'tis 
 credibly reported that he is endeavouring at the honourable 
 state of matrimony, and vows to lead a sinful life no more. 
 
 1 This letter has neither address nor signature. As it is indorsed by Mr- 
 Wortley Montagu, it was most likely addressed to his sister Katherine, Anne 
 being then dead. T. 
 
 2 The architect and dramatic writer, afterwards Sir John Vanbrugh. He built 
 Castle Howard, the seat of Lord Carlisle, whose daughters, Lady Mary's early 
 friends, are often mentioned in her letters. Castle Howard was finished in 1712. 
 Being much patronised by that nobleman, Vanbrugh was frequently a visitor 
 there. Among the manuscript collections of the late Archdeacon Coxe is a copy 
 of a letter from Vanbrugh, dated " Castle Howard, October 29, 1713." in which he 
 says : " I am but lately got to Lord Carlisle's, which is now so agreeable a being 
 [s/c] from the nature of the place, the works he has done, and the manner of his 
 living, that I shall have much ado to leave it till I am forced to come to town to 
 take care of several uncomfortable things which I fear will long be alloys to the 
 pleasures I could else have some taste of." Add. MSS. in Brit. Mus., No. 9123. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 207 
 
 Whether pure holiness inspires his mind, or dotage turns his 
 brain, is hard to find. "Pis certain he keeps Mondays and 
 Thursdays market (assembly day) constant; and for those 
 that don't regard worldly muck, there's extraordinary good 
 choice indeed. I believe last Monday there were two hundred 
 pieces of woman's flesh (fat and lean) : but you know Van's 
 taste was always odd ; his inclination to ruins has given him a 
 fancy for Mrs. Yarborough j 1 he sighs and ogles that it would 
 do your heart good to see him ; and she is not a little pleased, 
 in so small a proportion of men amongst such a number of 
 women, a whole man should fall to her share. 
 My dear, adieu. 
 
 My service to Mr. Congreve. 2 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Middlethorpe, near York. Indorsed " 26 July, 1714."] 
 
 I SHOULD have writ to you the last post, but I slept till it 
 was too late to send my letter. I found our poor boy not so 
 well as I expected. He is very lively, but so weak that my 
 heart aches about him very often. I hope you are well ; I 
 should be glad to hear so, and what success you have in your 
 business. I suppose my sister 3 is married by this time. I 
 hope you intend to stay some days at Lord Pierrepont's ; 4 I 
 am sure he'll be very much pleased with it. The house is in 
 great disorder, and I want maids so much that I know not 
 what to do till I have some. I have not one bit of paper in 
 the house but this little sheet, or you would have been troubled 
 with a longer scribble. I have not yet had any visitors. Mrs. 
 Elcock has writ me word that she has not found any cook. 
 My first enquiries shall be after a country-house, never for- 
 
 1 Henrietta Maria, daughter of Colonel Yarborough, of Haslington, near York. 
 She became afterwards the wife of Vanbrugh. Vanbrugh was at this time up- 
 wards of forty. T. 
 
 8 The dramatist. T. 
 
 3 Lady Frances Pierrepont, married to the Earl of Mar. The marriage was an- 
 nounced in the Post-Boy of Thursday, July 22, 1714, as having taken place on 
 " Tuesday last." T. 
 
 4 Lady Mary had been recently on a visit at her great-uncle Lord Pierrepont's 
 seat at Hanslop, near Newport Pagnel. Lord Pierrepont had desired her to invite 
 her husband to come there. T.
 
 208 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 getting any of my promises to you. I am concerned that I 
 have not heard from you ; you might have writ while I was 
 on the road, and the letter would have met me here. I am in 
 abundance of pain about our dear child : though I am con- 
 vinced in my reason 'tis both silly and wicked to set one's 
 heart too fondly on anything in this world, yet I cannot over- 
 come myself so far as to think of parting with him, with the 
 resignation that I ought to do. I hope and I beg of God he 
 may live to be a comfort to us both. They tell me there is 
 nothing extraordinary in want of teeth at his age, but his 
 weakness makes me very apprehensive ; he is almost never 
 out of my sight. Mrs. Behn says that the cold bath is the 
 best medicine for weak children, but I am very fearful and 
 unwilling to try any hazardous remedies. He is very cheerful 
 and full of play. Adieu, my love ; my paper is out. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Middlethorpe. Postmark, "4 Au.," 1714.] 
 
 I AM very much surprised that you do not tell me in your 
 last letter that you have spoke to my F. [father]. I hope after 
 staying in the town on purpose, you do not intend to omit it. 
 I beg you would not leave any sort of business unfinished, 
 remembering those two necessary maxims, Whatever you in- 
 tend to do as long as you live to do as soon as you can ; and, 
 to leave nothing to be done by another that 'tis possible for you 
 to do yourself. I have not yet sent the horses. I intended to 
 do it yesterday, but John is very arbitrary, and will not be per- 
 suaded to hire a horse from York to carry the child. [Illegible .] 
 He says there is none that can go, and they will spoil ours, and 
 a great many other things that may be all excuses, but I know 
 not what answer to make him, and 'tis absolutely necessary, 
 now the child has begun his bathing he should continue it ; 
 therefore I'll send the saddle-horse to-morrow according to 
 your order, to Matthew Northall, 1 and he may hire another to 
 
 1 Matthew Northall and his wife were servants of Mr. Wortley Montagu. The 
 latter, as nurse to their child, accompanied them to Constantinople. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 209 
 
 send with it to you. I thank God this cold well agrees 
 very much with the child ; and he seems stronger and better 
 every day. But I should be very glad, if you saw Dr. Garth, 
 if you asked his opinion concerning the use of cold baths for 
 young children. I hope you love the child as well as I do ; 
 but if you love me at all, you'll desire the preservation of his 
 health, for I should certainly break my heart for him. 
 
 I writ in my last all I thought necessary concerning my 
 Lord Pierrepont. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Middlethorpe. Postmark, " Au. 9," 1714.] 
 
 I CANNOT forbear taking it something unkindly that you do 
 not write to me, when you may be assured I am in a great 
 fright, and know not certainly what to expect upon this sudden 
 change. The Archbishop of York has been come to Bishop- 
 thorpe but three days. 1 I went with my cousin to-day to see 
 the King proclaimed, 2 which was done ; the archbishop walk- 
 ing next the lord mayor, all the country gentry following, 
 with greater crowds of people that I believed to be in York, 
 vast acclamations, and the appearance of a general satisfac- 
 tion. The Pretender afterwards dragged about the streets and 
 burned. Ringing of bells, bonfires, and illuminations, the 
 mob crying Liberty and Property ! and Long live King 
 George ! This morning all the principal men of any figure 
 took post for London, and we are alarmed with the fear of 
 attempts from Scotland, though all Protestants here seem 
 unanimous for the Hanover succession. The poor young 
 ladies at Castle Howard 8 are as much afraid as I am, being 
 left all alone, without any hopes of seeing their father again 
 (though things should prove well) this eight or nine months. 4 
 
 1 Sir William Dawes, Baronet. He sacceeded Archbishop Sharp, and was in- 
 throned by proxy the 24th March, 1714. T. 
 
 2 George I. Queen Anne died 1st of August T. 
 
 3 The daughters of the Earl of Carlisle. D. He had three daughters, two of 
 whom are afterwards alluded to in Lady Mary's letters as Lady Irwin, and Lady 
 Lechmere. T. 
 
 4 The Earl of Carlisle was chosen one of the Lords Justices for the government 
 of the kingdom till the King's arrival from Hanover. He was afterwards First 
 Commissioner of the Treasury. T. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 They have sent to desire me very earnestly to come to them, 
 and bring my boy; 'tis the same thing as pensioning in a 
 nunnery, for no mortal man ever enters the doors in the 
 absence of their father, who is gone post. During this uncer- 
 tainty, I think it will be a safe retreat ; for Middlethorpe stands 
 exposed to plunderers, if there be any at all. I dare say, after 
 the zeal the A. B. [archbishop] has shewed, they'll visit his 
 house (and consequently this) in the first place. The A. B. 
 [archbishop] made me many compliments on our near neigh- 
 bourhood, and said he should be overjoyed at the happiness of 
 improving his acquaintance with you. I suppose you may 
 now come in at Aldburgh, and I heartily wish you was in Par- 
 liament. I saw the A. B.'s [archbishop's] list of the Lords 
 Regents appointed, and perceive Lord Wn. [Wharton] is not 
 one of them ; by which I guess the new scheme is not to make 
 use of any man grossly infamous in either party; conse- 
 quently, those who have been honest in regard to both, will 
 stand fairest for preferment. You understand these things 
 much better than me ; but I hope you will be persuaded by 
 me and your other friends (who I don't doubt will be of 
 opinion) that 'tis necessary for the common good for an 
 honest man to endeavour to be powerful, when he can be the 
 one without losing the first more valuable title ; and remember 
 that money is the source of power. I hear that Parliament 1 
 sits but six months ; you know best whether 'tis worth any 
 expense or bustle to be in for so short a time. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " 7 An.," 1714.] 
 
 You made me cry two hours last night. I cannot imagine 
 why you use me so ill ; for what reason you continue silent, 
 when you know at any time your silence cannot fail of giving 
 me a great deal of pain ; and now to a higher degree because 
 of the perplexity that I am in, without knowing where you 
 are, what you are doing, or what to do with myself and my 
 dear little boy. However (persuaded there can be no objection 
 to it), I intend to go to-morrow to Castle Howard, and remain 
 
 1 Mr. Wortley Montagu had at this time been twelve mcntbs without a seat iu 
 Parliament.!'.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 211 
 
 there with the young ladies, 'till I know when I shall see you, 
 or what you would command. The archbishop and everybody 
 else are gone to London. We are alarmed with a story of a 
 fleet being seen from the coasts of Scotland. An express went 
 from thence through York to the Earl of Mar. I beg you 
 would write to me. 'Till you do I shall not have an easy 
 minute. I am sure I do not deserve from you that you should 
 make me uneasy. I find I am scolding, 'tis better for me not 
 to trouble you with it ; but I cannot help taking your silence 
 very unkindly. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 I HOPE the child is better than he was, but I wish you 
 would let Dr. Garth know he has a bigness in his joints, but 
 not much : his ankles seem chiefly to have a weakness. I 
 should be very glad of his advice upon it, and, whether he ap- 
 proves rubbing them with spirits, which I am told is good 
 for him. 
 
 I hope you are convinced I was not mistaken in my judg- 
 ment of Lord Pelham j 1 he is very silly but very good-natured. 
 I don't see how it can be improper for you to get it repre- 
 sented to him that he is obliged in honour to get you chose at 
 Aldburgh, and may more easily get Mr. Jessop 2 chose at an- 
 other place. I can't believe but you may manage it in such a 
 manner, Mr. Jessop himself would not be against it, nor would 
 he have so much reason to take it ill, if he should not be chose, 
 as you have after so much money fruitlessly spent. I dare say 
 you may order it so that it may be so, if you talk to Lord 
 Townshend about it, &c. I mention this, because I cannot 
 think you can stand at York, or anywhere else, without a 
 great expense. Lord Morpeth 3 is just now of age, but I know 
 not whether he'll think it worth while to return from travel 
 upon that occasion. Lord Carlisle is in town, you may if you 
 
 1 Lord Pelham was soon after created Duke of Newcastle, and was George the 
 Second's Minister. W. 
 
 * William Jessop, Esq., of Broomhall, Yorkshire. He was elected soon after- 
 wards for Aldburgh. T. 
 
 The eldest son of Lord Carlisle. T. 
 
 P2
 
 212 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 think fit make him a visit, and enquire concerning it. After 
 all, I look upon Aldburgh to be the surest thing. Lord 
 Pelham is easily persuaded to any thing, and I am sure he 
 may be told by Lord Townshend that he has used you ill ; 
 and I know he'll be desirous to do all things in his power to 
 make it up. In my opinion, if you resolve upon an extraordi- 
 nary expense to be in Parliament, you should resolve to have 
 it turn to some account. Your father is very surprizing if he 
 persists in standing at Huntingdon ; but there is nothing sur- 
 prizing in such a world as this. 1 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [1714.] 
 
 You seem not to have received my letters, or not to have 
 understood them ; you had been chose undoubtedly at York, 
 if you had declared in time ; but there is not any gentleman or 
 tradesman disengaged at this time ; they are treating every 
 night. Lord Carlisle and the Thompsons have given their 
 interest to Mr. Jenkins. I agree with you of the necessity of 
 your standing this Parliament, which, perhaps, may be more 
 considerable than any that are to follow it ; but, as you pro- 
 ceed, 'tis my opinion, you will spend your money and not be 
 chose. I believe there is hardly a borough unengaged. I 
 expect every letter should tell me you are sure of some place ; 
 and, as far as I can perceive you are sure of none. As it has 
 been managed, perhaps it will be the best way to deposit a 
 certain sum in some friend's hands, and buy some little Cor- 
 nish borough : it would, undoubtedly, look better to be chose 
 for a considerable town ; but I take it to be now too late. If 
 you have any thoughts of Newark, it will be absolutely neces- 
 sary for you to enquire after Lord Lexington's interest ; and 
 your best way to apply yourself to Lord Holdernesse, who 
 is both a Whig and an honest man. He is now in town, and 
 you may enquire of him if Brigadier Sutton stands there ; and 
 if not, try to engage him for you. Lord Lexington is so ill 
 
 1 Mr. Wortley Montagu was member for Huntingdon town from 1707 to 1713, 
 when his father, Mr. Sidney Wortley, succeeded him. On the present occa- 
 sion Mr. Sidney Wortley did "persist" in "standing at Huntingdon," and was 
 elected. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 213 
 
 at the Bath, that it is a doubt if he will live 'till the election ; 
 and if he dies, one of his heiresses, and the whole interest of 
 his estate, will probably fall on Lord Holdernesse. 
 
 'Tis a surprise to me that you cannot make sure of some 
 borough, when so many of your friends bring in several Par- 
 liament-men without trouble or expense. 'Tis too late to men- 
 tion it now, but you might have applied to Lady Winchester 
 as Sir Joseph Jekyl 1 did last year, and by her interest the Duke 
 of Bolton brought him in for nothing ; I am sure she would 
 be more zealous to serve me than Lady Jekyl. You should 
 understand these things better than me. I heard, by a letter 
 last post, that Lady M. Montagu and Lady Hinchinbrook 
 are to be bedchamber ladies to the Princess, and Lady Towns- 
 hend groom of the stole. 2 She must be a strange Princess if 
 she can pick a favourite out of them ; and as she will be one 
 day Queen, and they say has an influence over her husband, 
 I wonder they don't think fit to place women about her with a 
 little common sense. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Postmark, " Sept 17," 1714.] 
 
 I CANNOT be very sorry for your declining at Newark, 
 being very uncertain of your success ; but I am surprized you 
 do not mention where you intend to stand. Dispatch, in 
 things of this nature, if not a security, at least delay is a sure 
 way to lose, as you have done, being easily chose at York, for 
 not resolving in time, and Aldburgh, for not applying soon 
 enough to Lord Pelham. Here are people here had rather 
 choose Fairfax than Jenkins, and others that prefer Jenkins 
 to Fairfax; but both parties, separately, have wished to me 
 you would have stood, 3 with assurances of having preferred you 
 
 1 Sir Joseph Jekyl was re-elected for Lymington in 1713. T. 
 
 * This information proved incorrect. A newspaper of October 28 announces 
 that " the Duchesses of Bolton, St Albans, and Montague, the Countesses of 
 Berkeley and Dorset, and the Lady Cowper, are made Ladies of Honour [should be 
 Ladies of the Bedchamber] to the Princess of Wales, and Mrs. Selwyn, Mrs. 
 Polexfen, Mrs. Howard, and Mrs. Clayton, Bedchamber women." The appoint- 
 ment of the Duchess of St. Albans as groom of the stole to the princess was also 
 announced on November 10. The incorrectness of Lady Mary's information would 
 indicate a date somewhat earlier than the first of these announcements The princess 
 arrived at St. James's on the 13th October. T. 
 
 3 That is for York. Tobias Jenkins, Esq., was chosen. T.
 
 214 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 to either of them. At Newark, Lord Lexington has a very- 
 considerable interest. If you have any thoughts of standing, 
 you must endeavour to know how he stands affected ; though 
 I am afraid he will assist Brigadier Button, or some other 
 Tory. Sir Matthew Jenison has the best interest of any 
 Whig ; but he stood last year himself, and will, perhaps, do 
 so again. Newdigate 1 will certainly be chose there for one. 
 Upon the whole, 'tis the most expensive and uncertain place 
 you can stand at. 'Tis surprizing to me, that you are all this 
 while in the midst of your friends without being sure of a 
 place, when so many insignificant creatures come in without 
 any opposition. They say Mr. Strickland 2 is sure at Carlisle, 
 where he never stood before. I believe most places are en- 
 gaged by this time. I am very sorry, for your sake, that you 
 spent so much money in vain last year, and will not come in 
 this, when you might make a more considerable figure than 
 you could have done then. I wish Lord Pelham would com- 
 pliment Mi\ Jessop with his Newark interest, and let you 
 come in at Aldburgh. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed "24 Sept.," 1714.] 
 
 THOUGH I am very impatient to see you, I would not have 
 you, by hastening to come down, lose any part of your inte- 
 rest. I am surprized you say nothing of where you stand. I 
 had a letter from Mrs. Hewet last post, who said she heard 
 you stood at Newark, and would be chose without opposition ; 
 but I fear her intelligence is not at all to be depended on. I 
 am glad you think of serving your friends ; I hope it will put 
 you in mind of serving yourself. I need not enlarge upon the 
 advantages of money ; every thing we see, and every thing 
 we hear, puts us in remembrance of it. If it was possible to 
 restore liberty to your country, or limit the encroachments of 
 the pre ve [prerogative], by reducing yourself to a garret, I 
 
 1 Richard Newdigate, Esq. He represented Newark in the preceding Parliament, 
 but was not chosen again. T. 
 
 2 William Strickland, Esq. He was soon after elected for Carlisle. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 215 
 
 should be pleased to share so glorious a poverty with you ; but 
 as the world is, and will be, 'tis a sort of duty to be rich, that 
 it may be in one's power to do good ; riches being another 
 word for power, towards the obtaining of which the first neces- 
 sary qualification is impudence, and (as Demosthenes said of 
 pronunciation in oratory) the second is impudence, and the 
 third, still, impudence. No modest man ever did or ever will 
 make his fortune. Your friend Lord H[alifa]x, R. W[alpo]le, 
 and all other remarkable instances of quick advancement, have 
 been remarkably impudent. The Ministry is like a play at 
 Court ; there's a little door to get in, and a great crowd with- 
 out, shoving and thrusting who shall be foremost ; people who 
 knock others with their elbows, disregard a little kick of the 
 shins, and still thrust heartily forwards, are sure of a good 
 place. Your modest man stands behind in the crowd, is 
 shoved about by every body, his cloaths tore, almost squeezed 
 to death, and sees a thousand get in before him, that don't 
 make so good a figure as himself. 
 
 I don't say it is impossible for an impudent man not to rise 
 in the world ; but a moderate merit, with a large share of im- 
 pudence, is more probable to be advanced, than the greatest 
 qualifications without it. 
 
 If this letter is impertinent, it is founded upon an opinion 
 of your merit, which, if it is a mistake, I would not be unde- 
 ceived in: it is my interest to believe (as I do) that you 
 deserve every thing, and are capable of every thing ; but 
 nobody else will believe you if they see you get nothing. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Postmark, " 6 Oct.," 1714.] 
 
 I CANNOT imagine why you should desire that I should not 
 be glad, though from a mistake, since, at least, it is an agree- 
 able one. I confess I shall ever be of opinion, if you are in 
 the Treasury, it will be an addition to your figure and facili- 
 tate your election, though it is no otherwise advantageous ; 
 and that, if you have nothing when all your acquaintance are 
 preferred, the world generally will not be persuaded that you 
 neglect your fortune, but that you are neglected.
 
 216 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " 9 October," 1714.] 
 
 You do me wrong in imagining (as I perceive you do) that 
 my reason for being solicitous for your having that place, 
 was in view of spending more money than we do. You hare 
 no cause of fancying me capable of such a thought. I don't 
 doubt but Lord H[alifa]x will very soon have the staff, and 
 it is my belief you will not be at all the richer : but I think it 
 looks well, and may facilitate your election ; and that is all 
 the advantage I hope from it. When all your intimate ac- 
 quaintance are preferred, I think you would have an ill air in 
 having nothing ; upon that account only, I am sorry so many 
 considerable places are disposed on [sic]. I suppose, now, you 
 will certainly be chose somewhere or other ; and I cannot see 
 why you should not pretend to be Speaker. I believe all the 
 Whigs would be for you, and I fancy you have a considerable 
 interest amongst the Tories, and for that reason would be very 
 likely to carry it. 'Tis impossible for me to judge of this so 
 well as you can do ; but the reputation of being thoroughly of 
 no party is (I think) of use in this affair, and I believe people 
 generally esteem you impartial; and being chose by your 
 country is more honourable than holding any place from any 
 king. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Postmark, " Oct. 27," 1714.] 
 
 I AM told that you are very secure at Newark i 1 if you are 
 so in the West, I cannot see why you should set up in three 
 different places, except it be to treble the expence. I am sorry 
 you had not opportunity of paying Lord Pt. [Pierrepont] that 
 compliment, though I hope that it will not weigh much with 
 him in favour of another. I wish you would remember the 
 common useful maxim, whatever is to be done at all, ought to 
 be done as soon as possible. I consider only your own inte- 
 rest when I speak, and I cannot help speaking warmly on 
 that subject. I hope you will think of what I hinted in my 
 1 Mr. Wortley Montagu never sat for Newark. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 217 
 
 last letters ; and if you think of it at all, you cannot think of 
 it too soon. 
 
 Adieu. I wish you would learn of Mr. Steele to write to 
 your wife. 
 
 Pray order me some money, for I am in great want, and 
 must run in debt if you don't do it soon. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " 24th November," 1714.] 
 
 I HAVE taken up and laid down my pen several times, very 
 much unresolved in what stile I ought to write to you : for 
 once I suffer my inclination to get the better of my reason. 
 I have not oft opportunities of indulging myself, and I will 
 do it in this one letter. I know very well that nobody was 
 ever teized into a liking : and 'tis perhaps harder to revive a 
 past one, than to overcome an aversion ; but I cannot forbear 
 any longer telling you, I think you use me very unkindly. I 
 don't say so much of your absence, as I should do if you was 
 in the country and I in London ; because I would not have 
 you believe I am impatient to be in town, when I say I am 
 impatient to be with you ; but I am very sensible I parted 
 with you in July and 'tis now the middle of November. As 
 if this was not hardship enough, you do not tell me you are 
 sorry for it. You write seldom, and with so much indiffer- 
 ence as shews you hardly think of me at all. I complain of 
 ill health, and you only say you hope 'tis not so bad as I make 
 it. You never enquire after your child. I would fain flatter 
 myself you have more kindness for me and him than you ex- 
 press ; but I reflect with grief a man that is ashamed of pas- 
 sions that are natural and reasonable, is generally proud of 
 those that [are] shameful and silly. 
 
 You should consider solitude, and spleen the consequence 
 of solitude, is apt to give the most melancholy ideas, and there 
 needs at least tender letters and kind expressions to hinder 
 uneasinesses almost inseparable from absence. I am very sen- 
 sible, how far I ought to be contented when your affairs oblige 
 you to be without me. I would not have you do them any
 
 218 CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
 
 prejudice ; but a little kindness will cost you nothing. I do 
 not bid you lose any thing by hasting to see me, but I would 
 have you think it a misfortune when we are asunder. Instead 
 of that, you seem perfectly pleased with our separation, and 
 indifferent how long it continues. When I reflect on all your 
 behaviour, I am ashamed of my own : I think I am playing 
 the part of my Lady Winchester. 1 At least be as generous 
 as my lord ; and as he made her an early confession of his 
 aversion, own to me your inconstancy, and upon my word I 
 will give you no more trouble about it. I have concealed as 
 long as I can, the uneasiness the nothingness of your letters 
 has given me, under an affected indifference ; but dissimula- 
 tion always sits awkwardly upon me ; I am weary of it ; and 
 must beg you to write to me no more, if you cannot bring 
 yourself to write otherwise. Multiplicity of business or diver- 
 sions may have engaged you, but all people find time to do 
 what they have a mind to. If your inclination is gone, I had 
 rather never receive a letter from you, than one which, in lieu 
 of comfort for your absence, gives me a pain even beyond it. 
 For my part, as 'tis my first, this is my last complaint, and 
 your next of the kind shah 1 go back enclosed to you in blank 
 paper. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [1714.] 
 
 YOUR letter very much vexed me. I cannot imagine why 
 you should doubt being the better for a place of that con- 
 sideration, which it is in your power to lay down, whenever 
 you dislike the measures that are taken. Supposing the com- 
 mission lasts but a short time, I believe those that have acted 
 in it will have the offer of some other considerable thing. I 
 am, perhaps, the only woman in the world that would dissuade 
 her husband (if he was inclined to it) from accepting the 
 greatest place in England, upon the condition of his giving 
 one vote disagreeing with his principle, and the true interest 
 
 1 Lady Mary's early friend, Lady Anne Vaughan, daughter to the Earl of Car- 
 berry, was married to the Marquis of Winchester, afterwards Duke of Bolton, in 
 July, 1713. They separated soon after their marriage. T.
 
 MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 219 
 
 of my country; but when it is possible to be of service to 
 your country by going along with the ministry, I know not 
 any reason for declining an honourable post. The world 
 never believes it possible for people to act out of the common 
 track; and whoever is not employed by the public, may 
 talk what they please of having refused or slighted great offers ; 
 but they are always looked upon, either as neglected, or 
 discontented because their pretensions have failed ; and what- 
 ever efforts they make against the court, are thought the 
 effect of spleen and disappointment, or endeavours to get 
 something they have set their heart on. As now Sir T. H r 
 [Hanmer] is represented (and I believe truly) as aiming at 
 being secretary, no man can make a better figure than when 
 he enjoys a considerable place ; being for the Place -bill, and 
 if he finds the ministry in the wrong, withdrawing from 
 them, when 'tis visible that he might still keep his places, if 
 he did not choose to keep his integrity. I have sent you my 
 thoughts of places in general, I solemnly protest, without any 
 thought of any particular advantage to myself ; and if I was 
 your friend and not your wife, I should speak in the same 
 manner, which I really do, without any consideration but that 
 of your figure and reputation, which is a thousand times 
 
 dearer to me than splendour, money, &c. 1 suppose this 
 
 long letter might have been spared; for your resolution, I 
 don't doubt, is already taken. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 [Indorsed " April," 1716.] 
 
 I AM extremely concerned at your illness. I have expected 
 you all this day, and supposed you would be here by this 
 time, if you had set out Saturday afternoon as you say you 
 intended. I hope you have left Wharncliffe ; but however 
 will continue to write, 'till you let me know you have done so. 
 Dr. Clarke 1 has been spoke to, and excused himself from 
 recommending a chaplain, 2 as not being acquainted with many 
 
 1 No doubt Dr. Samuel Clarke, the learned divine. T. 
 * That is, a chaplain to the embassy to Constantinople. T.
 
 220 CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. W. MONTAGU. 
 
 orthodox divines. I don't doubt you know the death of Lord 
 Somers, 1 which will for some time interrupt my commerce 
 with Lady Jekyl. I have heard he is dead without a will ; 
 and I have heard he has made young Mr. Cox his heir ; I 
 cannot tell which account is the truest. I beg of you with 
 great earnestness, that you would take the first care of your 
 health, there can be nothing worth the least loss of it. I 
 shall be, sincerely, very uneasy till I hear from you again ; 
 but I am not without hopes of seeing you to-morrow. Your 
 son presents his duty to you, and improves every day in his 
 conversation, which begins to be very entertaining to me. I 
 
 directed a letter for you last post to Mr. B . I cannot 
 
 conclude without once [more] recommending to you, if you 
 have any sort of value for me, to take care of yourself. If 
 there be any thing you would have me do, pray be particular 
 in your directions. You say nothing positive about the 
 liveries. 2 Lord B.'s lace is silk, with very little silver in it, 
 but for twenty liveries comes to 1101. Adieu ! pray take care 
 of your health. 
 
 1 Lord Somers died April 26, 1716, which gives the year in which this letter 
 was written. T. 
 
 2 The liveries were for Mr. Wortley's servants who attended him on his em- 
 bassy to Turkey, for which he was now preparing. It appears by the official cor- 
 respondence that much embarrassment was subsequently caused to the ambassador 
 by the non- arrival of these important articles at Constantinople. T.
 
 LETTERS 
 
 DURING 
 
 ME. WOETLEY'S EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 [17161718.] 
 
 (THE following is a copy of the Title-page of the manuscript 
 copy of these Letters said to have been given by Lady Mary 
 to Mr. Molesworth. T.] 
 
 The Travels 
 
 Of an English Lady in 
 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
 
 Being a series of Letters written by the Right Honourable 
 Lady M. W. Montagu to her friends in several parts of 
 Europe, giving a curious account of many entertaining cir- 
 cumstances relative to Germany, Hungary, Adrianople, Con- 
 stantinople, &c., and particularly concerning some of the 
 manners and customs of the Turks far beyond what any other 
 Traveller has ever done, faithfully transcribed from her original 
 copy at her Ladyship's desire. 
 
 Your elder sister in the Lists of Fame 
 
 Rose to deserve, but not despise a name. 
 
 Persist in this distinction of renown, 
 
 And wear a laurel that is all your own ; 
 
 Still keep concealed this bright and learned store ; 
 
 For why should Pope and Congreve write no more ? 
 
 Let the male authors, with an envious eye, 
 Praise coldly that they may the more decry : 
 Woman (at least I speak the sense of some) 
 This little spirit of rivalship o'ercome. 
 I read with transport, and with joy I greet ) 
 A genius so sublime, and so complete, V 
 
 And gladly lav mv laurels at her feet. ) 
 
 M. A.
 
 222 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 PREFACE. 1 
 
 I WAS going, like common editors, to advertise the reader of 
 the beauties and excellencies of the work laid before him. To 
 tell him, that the illustrious author had opportunities that 
 other travellers, whatever their quality or curiosity may have 
 been, cannot obtain ; and a genius capable of making the best 
 improvement of every opportunity. But if the reader, after 
 perusing one letter only, has not discernment to distinguish 
 that natural elegance, that delicacy of sentiment and observa- 
 tion, that easy gracefulness and lovely simplicity (which is the 
 perfection of writing), in which these Letters exceed all that 
 has appeared in this kind, or almost in any other, let him lay 
 the book down, and leave it to those who have. 
 
 The noble author had the goodness to lend me her MS. to 
 satisfy my curiosity in some enquiries I had made concerning 
 her travels ; and when I had it in my hands, how was it pos- 
 sible to part with it ? I once had the vanity to hope I might 
 acquaint the public, that it owed this invaluable treasure 
 to my importunities. But, alas! the most ingenious author 
 has condemned it to obscurity during her life ; and conviction, 
 as well as deference, obliges me to yield to her reasons. How- 
 ever, if these Letters appear hereafter, when I am in my 
 grave, let this attend them, in testimony to posterity, that, 
 among her cotemporaries, one woman, at least, was just to her 
 merit. 
 
 There is not any thing so excellent, but some will carp at 
 
 1 This Preface does not appear to the copy of the Letters in Lady Mary's hand- 
 writing, but is found prefixed to the Molesworth manuscript copy, from which it 
 is now added. It was prefixed, with slight variations, to the unauthorised edition 
 
 1763. T.
 
 EMI! ASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 
 
 jt: and the rather, because of its excellency. But to such 
 hypercritics I shall only say * * * 
 
 I confess, I am malicious enough to desire, that the world 
 should see to how much better purpose the LADIES travel 
 than their LORDS ; and that, whilst it is surfeited with male 
 Travels, all in the same tone, and stuffed with the same trifles, 
 a lady has the skill to strike out a new path, and to embellish 
 a worn-out subject with variety of fresh and elegant enter- 
 tainment. For, besides the vivacity and spirit which enliven 
 every part, and that inimitable beauty which spreads through 
 the whole ; besides the purity of style, for which it may be 
 justly accounted the standard of the English tongue; the 
 reader will find a more time and accurate account of the 
 customs and manners of the several nations with whom the 
 lady conversed, than he can in any other author. But, as 
 her ladyship's penetration discovers the inmost follies of the 
 Iksfirt, so the candour of ner temper passed over them witli an 
 air of pity, rather than reproach ; treating with the politeness 
 of a court and gentleness of a lady, what the severity of her 
 judgment cannot but condemn. 
 
 In short, let her own sex, at least, do her justice ; lay aside 
 diabolical Envy, and its brother Malice, with all their accursed 
 company, sly whispering, cruel backbiting, spiteful detraction, 
 and the rest of that hideous crew, which, I hope, are very 
 falsely said to attend the Tea-table, being more apt to think 
 they attend those public places where virtuous women never 
 come. Let the men malign one another, if they think fit, and 
 strive to pull down merit, when they cannot equal it. Let us 
 be better-natured, than to give way to any unkind or disre- 
 spectful thought of so bright an ornament of our sex merely 
 because she has better sense ; for I doubt not but our hearts 
 will tell us, that this is the real and unpardonable offence, 
 whatever may be pretended. Let us be better Christians, 
 than to look upon her with an evil eye, only because the Giver 
 of all good gifts has entrusted and adorned her with the most 
 excellent talents. Rather let us freely own the superiority of 
 this sublime genius, as I do in the sincerity of my soul ;
 
 224 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 pleased that a woman triumphs, and proud to follow in her 
 train. Let us offer her the palm which is so justly her due ; 
 and if we pretend to any laurels, lay them willingly at her 
 feet. 
 
 M. A. 1 
 
 December 18, 1724. 
 
 Chann'd into love of what obscures my fame, ) 
 
 If I had wit, I'd celebrate her name, 
 
 And all the beauties of her mind proclaim : ) 
 
 Till Malice, deafen'd with the mighty ound, 
 
 Its ill-concerted calumnies confound ; 
 
 Let fall the mask, and with pale Envy meet, 
 
 To ask, and find, their pardon at her feet 
 
 Y"ou see, madam, how I lay every thing at your feet. As 
 the tautology shews the poverty of my genius, it likewise 
 shews the extent of your empire over my imagination. 
 May 31, 1725. 
 
 1 Attributed to Mrs. Mary Astell. See Lady Louisa Stuart's Introductory ATNR- 
 dotes. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 DURING MR. WORTLEY'S EMBASSY^ 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 2 
 
 Rotterdam, Friday, Aug. 3, O.S. [1716].* 
 
 I FLATTER myself, dear sister, that I shall give you some 
 pleasure in letting you know that I have safely passed the sea, 
 though we had the ill fortune of a storm. We were persuaded 
 by the captain of our yacht to set out in a calm, and he pre- 
 tended that there was nothing so easy as to tide it over ; but, 
 after two days slowly moving, the wind blew so hard, that 
 none of the sailors could keep their feet, and we were all Sun- 
 day night tossed very handsomely. I never saw a man more 
 frighted than the captain. 
 
 For my part, I have been so lucky neither to suffer from 
 fear or sea-sickness ; though, I confess, I was so impatient to 
 
 1 All letters in this section, the sources of which are not specially mentioned, are 
 printed from the manuscript copy deposited by Lady Mary with the Rev. Mr. Sowden. 
 See Memoir, ante, p. 13. Mr. Dallaway remarks that "the embassy to Constan- 
 tinople was formerly of great commercial importance, when the treasures of the 
 East were brought by caravans to the different ports of the Levant, and the 
 Turkey company monopolised the merchandise which now finds its way to England 
 by other channels. Added to his political concerns, Mr. Wortley had the ap- 
 pointment of consul-general of the Levant, which gave considerable influence 
 and emolument to the British Mission." T. 
 
 2 Lord Mar joined the Pretender in 1715, and was soon after attainted. Failing 
 in his attempt at insurrection in Scotland, he fled with the Pretender to France, 
 where he was at this time living in exile. Lady Mar, however, remained behind. 
 It appears from a letter of her uncle Lord Cheyne, dated Aug. 9, 1716 (Harleian 
 MSS., No. 7523), that she was at this time still in England. See section of letters 
 to her in Paris. T. 
 
 * Mr. Wortley's departure is thus announced in the Weekly Journal of Satur- 
 day, August 4, 1716 : " On Wednesday Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq., set for- 
 ward on his embassy to Constantinople, and Thursday embarked at Gravesend for 
 Holland." Wednesday probably meant Wednesday se'nnight ; but in this as in 
 many other instances, the dates of Mr. Wortley's movements, given in the news- 
 papers, do not appear to tally exactly with the dates given by Lady Mary. T. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 ?< LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 see myself once more upon dry land, that I would not stay till 
 the yacht could get to Rotterdam, but went in the long-boat 
 to Helvoetsluys, where we had voitures to carry us to the 
 Brill. 
 
 I was charmed with the neatness of that little town ; but 
 my arrival at Eotterdam presented me a new scene of plea- 
 sure. All the streets are paved with broad stones, and before 
 the meanest artificers' doors seats of various-coloured marbles, 
 and so neatly kept, that, I will assure you, I walked almost all 
 over the town yesterday, incognita, in my slippers, without 
 receiving one spot of dirt ; and you may see the Dutch maids 
 washing the pavement of the street with more application than 
 ours do our bed-chambers. The town seems so full of people, 
 with such busy faces, all in motion, that I can hardly fancy 
 that it is not some celebrated fair ; but I see it is every day 
 the same. 'Tis certain no town can be more advantageously 
 situated for commerce. Here are seven large canals, on 
 which the merchants' ships come up to the very doors of their 
 houses. The shops and warehouses are of a surprising neat- 
 ness and magnificence, filled with an incredible quantity of 
 fine merchandise, and so much cheaper than what we see in 
 England, I have much ado to persuade myself I am still so 
 near it. Here is neither dirt nor beggary to be seen. One is 
 not shocked with those loathsome cripples, so common in 
 London, nor teazed with the importunities of idle fellows and 
 wenches, that choose to be nasty and lazy. The common 
 servants and little shopwomen here are more nicely clean 
 than most of our ladies ; and the great variety of neat dresses 
 (every woman dressing her head after her own fashior) is an 
 additional pleasure in seeing the town. 
 
 You see, hitherto, dear sister, I make no complaints ; and, 
 if I continue to like travelling as well as I do at present, I 
 shall not repent my project. It will go a great way in making 
 me satisfied with it, if it affords me opportunities of enter- 
 taining you. But it is not from Holland that you must 
 expect a disinterested offer. I can write enough in the style 
 of Rotterdam to tell you plainly, in one word, I expect returns 
 of all the London news. You see I have already learnt to
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 227 
 
 make a good bargain ; and that it is not for nothing I will so 
 much as tell you that I am your affectionate sister. 
 
 TO MRS. S - [SMITH]. 1 
 
 Hague, Aug. 5, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I MAKE haste to tell you, dear madam, that, after all the 
 dreadful fatigues you threatened me with, I am hitherto very 
 well pleased with my journey. We take care to make such 
 short stages every day, I rather fancy myself upon parties of 
 pleasure than upon the road ; and sure nothing can be more 
 agreeable than travelling in Holland. The whole country 
 appears a large garden ; the roads all well paved, shaded on 
 each side with rows of trees, and bordered with large canals, 
 full of boats, passing and repassing. Every twenty paces 
 gives you the prospect of some villa, and every four hours a 
 large town, so surprisingly neat, I am sure you would be 
 charmed with them. The place I am now at is certainly one 
 of the finest villages in the world. Here are several squares 
 finely built, and (what I think a particular beauty) set with 
 thick large trees. The Vor-hout is, at the same time, the 
 Hyde-Park and the Mall of the people of quality ; for they 
 take the air in it both on foot and in coaches. There are 
 shops for wafers, cool liquors, &c. 
 
 I have been to see several of the most celebrated gardens, 
 but I will not teaze you with their descriptions. I dare swear 
 you think my letter already long enough. But I must not 
 conclude without begging your pardon for not obeying your 
 commands, in sending the lace you ordered me. Upon my 
 word, I can yet find none that is not dearer than you may buy 
 it in London. If you want any Indian goods, here are great 
 variety of pennyworths ; and I shall follow your orders with 
 great pleasure and exactness, being, 
 
 Dear madam, &c. &c. 
 
 1 In Mr. Dallaway's edition this letter is addressed to Miss Skerritt. It has no 
 address in either of the manuscript copies. There is no reason to believe that 
 Lady Mary was acquainted with Miss Skerritt at this period. It appears, from 
 Lady Mary's memorandum given in the Memoir, ante, that she corresponded while 
 on her journey with a " Mrs. S h ," who was probably her early friend Miss Smith, 
 a daughter of the Speaker. T. 
 
 Q2
 
 22$ LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 TO MRS. s. c. [SARAH cmswELL]. 1 
 
 Nimeguen, Aug. 13, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I AM extremely sorry, my dear S., that your fears of dis- 
 obliging your relations, and their fears for your health and 
 safety, have hindered me the happiness of your company, 
 and you the pleasure of a diverting journey. I receive some 
 degree of mortification from every agreeable novelty, or pleas- 
 ing prospect, by the reflection of your having so unluckily 
 missed the same pleasure which I know it would have given 
 you. 
 
 If you were with me in this town, you would be ready to 
 expect to receive visits from your Nottingham friends. No 
 two places were ever more resembling ; one has but to give the 
 Maese the name of the Trent, and there is no distinguishing 
 the prospects the houses, like those of Nottingham, built 
 one above another, and are intermixed in the same manner 
 with trees and gardens. The tower they call Julius Csssar's 
 has the same situation with Nottingham Castle ; and I cannot 
 help fancying I see from it the Trent-field, Adboulton, &c., 
 places so well known to us. 2 'Tis true, the fortifications make 
 a considerable difference. All the learned in the art of war 
 bestow great commendations on them ; for my part, that know 
 nothing of the matter, I shall content myself with telling you, 
 'tis a very pretty walk on the ramparts, on which there is a 
 tower, very deservedly called the Belvidere ; where people go to 
 drink coffee, tea, &c., and enjoy one of the finest prospects in 
 the world. The public walks have no great beauty, but the 
 thick shade of the trees. But I must not forget to take notice 
 of the bridge, which appeared very surprising to me. It is 
 large enough to hold hundreds of men, with horses and car- 
 riages. They give the value of an English twopence to get 
 upon it, and then away they go, bridge and all, to the other 
 side of the river, with so slow a motion one is hardly sensible 
 of any at all. 
 
 1 A Nottinghamshire lady and an early friend of Lady Mary. T. 
 
 2 Lady Mary had probably spent some part of her early years at Holme Pierrs- 
 pont, near Nottingham, an ancient seat of the Pierrepont family inherited by her 
 father. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 229 
 
 I was yesterday at the French church, and stared very 
 much at their manner of service. The parson claps on a 
 broad-brimmed hat in the first place, which gave him entirely 
 the air of what cCye call him, in Bartholomew Fair, which he 
 kept up by extraordinary antic gestures, and talking much 
 such stuff as the other preached to the puppets. However, the 
 congregation seemed to receive it with great devotion ; and I 
 was informed by some of his flock that he is a person of par- 
 ticular fame amongst them. I believe you are by this time as 
 much tired with my account of him, as I was with his sermon ; 
 but I am sure your brother will excuse a digression in favour 
 of the church of England. You know, speaking disrespect- 
 fully of Calvinists, is the same thing as speaking honourably 
 of the church. Adieu, my dear S., always remember me; 
 and be assured I can never forget you. 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 Cologne, Aug. 16, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 IF my Lady could have any notion of the fatigues 
 
 that I have suffered these last two days, I am sure she would 
 own it a great proof of regard that I now sit down to write to 
 her. We hired horses from Nimeguen hither, not having the 
 conveniency of the post, and found but very indifferent accom- 
 modations at Reinberg, our first stage ; but that was nothing 
 to what I suffered yesterday. We were in hopes to reach 
 Cologne : our horses tired at Stamel, three hours from it, 
 where I was forced to pass the night in my clothes, in a room 
 not at all better than a hovel ; for though I have my own bed, 
 I had no mind to undress, where the wind came in from a thou- 
 sand places. We left this wretched lodging at daybreak, and 
 about six this morning came safe here, where I got immedi- 
 ately into bed, and slept so well for three hours, that I found 
 myself perfectly recovered, and have had spirits enough to go 
 see all that is curious in the town, that is to say, the churches, 
 for here is nothing else worth seeing, though it is a very large 
 town, but most part of it old built. The Jesuits' church is 
 the neatest, which was shewed me, in a very complaisant
 
 230 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 manner, by a handsome young Jesuit; who, not knowing 
 who I was, took a liberty in his compliments and railleries, 
 which very much diverted me. Having never before seen 
 anything of that nature, I could not enough admire the mag- 
 nificence of the altars, the rich images of the saints (all 
 massy silver), and the enchassures of the relics; though I 
 could not help murmuring, in my heart, at that profusion of 
 pearls, diamonds, and rubies, bestowed on the adornment of 
 rotten teeth, dirty rags, &c. I own that I had wickedness 
 enough to covet St. Ursula's pearl necklaces ; though perhaps 
 it was no wickedness at all, an image not being certainly 
 one's neighbour; but I went yet farther, and wished even 
 she herself converted into dressing-plate, and a great St. 
 Christopher I imagined would have looked very well in a 
 cistern. 
 
 These were my pious reflections ; though I was very well 
 satisfied to see, piled up to the honour of our nation, the skulls 
 of the eleven thousand virgins. I have seen some hundreds of 
 relics here of no less consequence ; but I will not imitate the 
 common style of travellers so far as to give you a list of them, 
 being persuaded that you have no manner of curiosity for the 
 titles given to jaw-bones and bits of worm-eaten wood. 
 Adieu, I am just going to supper, where I shall drink your 
 health in an admirable sort of Lorraine wine, which I am sure 
 is the same you call Burgundy in London, &c. &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF B. [BRISTOL]. 1 
 
 Nuremberg, Aug. 22, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 AFTER five days travelling post, I am sure I could sit down 
 
 to write on no other occasion, but to tell my dear Lady , 
 
 that I have not forgot her obliging command, of sending her 
 some account of my travels. 
 
 I have already passed a large part of Germany, have seen 
 all that is remarkable in Cologne, Frankfort, Wurtsburg, and 
 
 1 Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Felton, Bart., of Playford, co. 
 Suffolk, second wife of John Hervey, first Earl of Bristol. D. In one of the let- 
 ters to the Countess of B.. the name " Bristol" appears, but struck through. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 231 
 
 this place ; and 'tis impossible not to observe the difference 
 between the free towns and those under the government of 
 absolute princes, as all the little sovereigns of Germany are. 
 In the first, there appears an air of commerce and plenty. 
 The streets are well built, and full of people, neatly and 
 plainly dressed. The shops loaded with merchandise, and the 
 commonalty clean and cheerful. In the other, a sort of 
 shabby finery, a number of dirty people of quality tawdered 
 out ; narrow nasty streets out of repair, wretchedly thin of 
 inhabitants, and above half of the common sort asking alms. 
 I cannot help fancying one under the figure of a handsome 
 clean Dutch citizen's wife, and the other like a poor town 
 lady of pleasure, painted and ribboned out in her head-dress, 
 with tarnished silver-laced shoes and a ragged under-petticoat, 
 a miserable mixture of vice and poverty. 
 
 They have sumptuary laws in tkis town, which distinguish 
 their rank by their dress, and prevent the excess which ruins 
 so many other cities, and has a more agreeable effect to the 
 eye of a stranger than our fashions. I think, after the Arch- 
 bishop of Cambray 1 having declared for them, I need not be 
 ashamed to own, that I wish these laws were in force in other 
 parts of the world. When one considers impartially the 
 merits of a rich suit of clothes in most places, the respect and 
 the smiles of favour that it procures, not to speak of the envy 
 and the sighs it occasions (which is very often the principal 
 charm to the wearer), one is forced to confess, that there is 
 need of an uncommon understanding to resist the temptation 
 of pleasing friends and mortifying rivals ; and that it is 
 natural to young people to fall into a folly, which betrays 
 them to that want of money which is the source of a thousand 
 basenesses. What numbers of men have begun the world 
 with generous inclinations, that have afterwards been the 
 instruments of bringing misery on a whole people, led by a 
 vain expence into debts, that they could clear no other way but 
 by the forfeit of their honour, and which they would never 
 have contracted, if the respect the many pay to habits was 
 
 1 The celebrated Fcnelon T
 
 232 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 fixed by law only to a particular colour or cut of plain cloth ! 
 These reflections draw after them others that are too melan- 
 choly. 1 will make haste to put them out of your head by 
 the farce of relics, with which I have been entertained in all 
 the Romish churches. 
 
 The Lutherans are not quite free from those follies. I 
 have seen here, in the principal church, a large piece of the 
 cross set in jewels, and the point of the spear, which they told 
 me, very gravely, was the same that pierced the side of our 
 Saviour. But I was particularly diverted in a little Roman 
 Catholic church which is permitted here, where the professors 
 of that religion are not very rich, and consequently cannot 
 adorn their images in so rich a manner as their neighbours. 
 For, not to be quite destitute of all finery, they have dressed 
 up an image of our Saviour over the altar in a fair full- 
 bottomed wig very well powdered. I imagine I see your 
 ladyship stare at this article, of which you very much doubt 
 the veracity ; but, upon my word, I have not yet made use of 
 the privilege of a traveller; and my whole account is writ 
 with the same plain sincerity of heart, with which I assure you 
 that I am, dear madam, your ladyship's, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. T. [THISTLETHWAYTE]. 1 
 
 Ratisbon, Aug. 30, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I HAD the pleasure of receiving yours but the day before I 
 left London. I give you a thousand thanks for your good 
 wishes, and have such an opinion of their efficacy, I am per- 
 suaded that I owe in part to them the good luck of having 
 proceeded so far in my long journey without any ill accident. 
 For I don't reckon it any, being stopped a few days in this 
 town by a cold, since it has not only given me an opportunity 
 of seeing all that is curious in it, but of making some ac- 
 quaintance with the ladies, who have all been to see me with 
 great civility, particularly Madame , the wife of our 
 
 1 See Memoir, ante, p. 10. Mrs. Thistlethwayte wa probably Anne, daughter of 
 Alexander Thistlethwayte and Catherine Chaldecote, of Winterslow, in Wiltshire. 
 She was born 1669. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 233 
 
 King's envoy from Hanover. She has carried me to all the 
 assemblies, and I have been magnificently entertained at her 
 house, which is one of the finest here. 
 
 You know that all the nobility of this place are envoys 
 from different states. Here are a great number of them, and 
 they might pass their time agreeably enough, if they were less 
 delicate on the point of ceremony. But, instead of joining in 
 the design of making the town as pleasant to one another as 
 they can, and improving their little societies, they amuse 
 themselves no other way than with perpetual quarrels, which 
 they take care to eternise, by leaving them to their successors ; 
 and an envoy to Ratisbon receives, regularly, half a dozen 
 quarrels among the perquisites of his employment. 
 
 You may be sure the ladies are not wanting, on their side, 
 in cherishing and improving these important piques, which 
 divide the town almost into as many parties as there are fa- 
 milies, and they choose rather to suffer the mortification of 
 sitting almost alone on their assembly nights, than to recede 
 one jot from their pretensions. I have not been here above 
 a week, and yet I have heard from almost every one of them 
 the whole history of their wrongs, and dreadful complaints of 
 the injustice of their neighbours, in hopes to draw me to 
 their party. But I think it very prudent to remain neuter, 
 though, if I was to stay among them, there would be no pos- 
 sibility of continuing so, their quarrels running so high, they 
 will not be civil to those that visit their adversaries. The 
 foundation of these everlasting disputes turns entirely upon 
 place, and the title of Excellency, which they all pretend to ; 
 and, what is very hard, will give it to nobody. For my part, 
 I could not forbear advising them (for the public good) to 
 give the title of Excellency to every body, which would 
 include receiving it from every body ; but the very mention 
 of such a dishonourable peace was received with as much in- 
 dignation as Mrs. Blackacre 1 did the notion of a reference ; 
 and, I began to think myself ill-natured, to offer to take from 
 them, in a town where there are so few diversions, so enter- 
 
 1 A character in Wycherley's comedy of the " Plain Dealer." T.
 
 234 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 taining an amusement. I know that my peaceable disposi- 
 tion already gives me a very ill-figure, and that it is publicly 
 whispered, as a piece of impertinent pride in me, that I have 
 hitherto been saucily civil to everybody, as if I thought no- 
 body good enough to quarrel with. I should be obliged to 
 change my behaviour if I did not intend to pursue my journey 
 in a few days. 
 
 I have been to see the churches here, and had the permis- 
 sion of touching the relics, which was never suffered in 
 places where I was not known. I had, by this privilege, the 
 opportunity of making an observation, which, I don't doubt, 
 might have been made in all the other churches, that the 
 emeralds and rubies that they shew round their relics and 
 images are most of them false ; though they tell you, that 
 many of the Crosses and Madonnas, set round with these stones, 
 have been the gifts of the emperors and other great princes, 
 and I don't doubt but they were at first jewels of value ; but 
 the good fathers have found it convenient to apply them to 
 other uses, and the people are just as well satisfied with bits of 
 glass. Among these relics they shewed me a prodigious claw 
 set in gold, which they called a claw of a griffin ; and I could 
 not forbear asking the reverend priest that shewed it, Whether 
 the griffin was a saint ? This question almost put him beside 
 his gravity ; but he answered, They only kept it as a curiosity. 
 But I was very much scandalised at a large silver image of 
 the Trinity, where the Father is represented under the figure 
 of a decrepit old man, with a beard down to his knees, and a 
 triple crown on his head, holding in his arms the Son, fixed on 
 the cross, and the Holy Ghost, in the shape of a dove, hover- 
 ing over him. 
 
 Madame is come this minute to call me to the assembly, 
 
 and forces me to tell you, very abruptly, that I am ever your 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Vienna, September 8, O.S. [1716]. ' 
 I AM now, my dear sister, safely arrived at Vienna ; and, I 
 
 1 " Vienna, September 8. Mr. "VVortley Montagu . . . arrived here on the 3rd 
 with his lady. The 4th he had an audience of the Emperor, and on the 5th of the 
 Empress. It is said he will remain here till the end of the campaign." Weekly 
 Journal, Saturday, September 29, 1716. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 235 
 
 thank God, have not at all suffered in my health, nor (what 
 is dearer to me) in that of my child, 1 by all our fatigues. 
 
 We travelled by water from Ratisbon, a journey perfectly 
 agreeable, down the Danube, in one of those little vessels, 
 that they very properly call wooden houses, having in them 
 almost all the conveniences of a palace, stoves in the chambers, 
 kitchens, &c. They are rowed by twelve men each, and move 
 with an incredible swiftness, that in the same day you have 
 the pleasure of a vast variety of prospects ; and, within a few 
 hours' space of time one has the different diversion of seeing a 
 populous city adorned with magnificent palaces, and the most 
 romantic solitudes, which appear distant from the commerce 
 of mankind, the banks of the Danube being charmingly di- 
 versified with woods, rocks, mountains covered with vines, 
 fields of corn, large cities, and ruins of ancient castles. I 
 saw the great towns of Passau and Lintz, famous for the 
 retreat of the Imperial court when Vienna was besieged. 
 
 This town, which has the honour of being the emperor's re- 
 sidence, did not at ah 1 answer my ideas of it, being much less 
 than I expected to find it ; the streets are very close, and so 
 narrow, one cannot observe the fine fronts of the palaces, 
 though many of them very well deserve observation, being 
 truly magnificent, all built of fine white stone, and excessive 
 high, the town being so much too little for the number of the 
 people that desire to live in it, the builders seem to have pro- 
 jected to repair that misfortune, by clapping one town on the 
 top of another, most of the houses being of five, and some of 
 them of six stories. You may easily imagine, that the streets 
 being so narrow, the upper rooms are extremely dark ; and, 
 what is an inconveniency much more intolerable, in my opi- 
 nion, there is no house that lias so few as five or six families in 
 it. The apartments of the greatest ladies, and even of the 
 ministers of state, are divided but by a partition from that of 
 a tailor or a shoemaker ; and I know nobody that has above 
 two floors in any house, one for their ow r n use, and one higher 
 for their servants. Those that have houses of their own, let 
 out the rest of them to whoever will take them; thus the 
 
 1 Her only child, Edward Wortley, now three years old. T
 
 236 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 great stairs (which are all of stone) are as common and as 
 dirty as the street. 'Tis true, when you have once travelled 
 through them, nothing can be more surprisingly magnificent 
 than the apartments. They are commonly a suite of eight or 
 ten large rooms, all inlaid, the doors and windows richly carved 
 and gilt, and the furniture such as is seldom seen in the 
 palaces of sovereign princes in other countries the hangings 
 the finest tapestry of Brussels, prodigious large looking-glasses 
 in silver frames, fine japan tables, beds, chairs, canopies, and 
 window curtains of the richest Genoa damask or velvet, almost 
 covered with gold lace or embroidery. The whole made gay 
 by pictures, and vast jars of japan china, and almost in every 
 room large lustres of rock crystal. 
 
 I have already had the honour of being invited to dinner 
 by several of the first people of quality ; and I must do them 
 the justice to say, the good taste and magnificence of their 
 tables very well answers to that of their furniture. I have 
 been more than once entertained with fifty dishes of meat, all 
 served in silver, and well dressed ; the dessert proportionable, 
 served in the finest china. But the variety and richness of 
 their wines is what appears the most surprising. The constant 
 way is, to lay a list of their names upon the plates of the 
 guests, along with the napkins ; and I have counted several 
 times to the number of eighteen different sorts, all exquisite 
 in their lands. 
 
 I was yesterday at Count Schonbrunn, 1 the vice-chancellor's 
 garden, where I was invited to dinner, and I must own that I 
 never saw a place so perfectly delightful as the Fauxbourgs of 
 Vienna. It is very large, and almost wholly composed of 
 delicious palaces ; and if the emperor found it proper to permit 
 the gates of the town to be laid open, that the Fauxbourgs 
 might be joined to it, he would have one of the largest and 
 best-built cities of Europe. Count Schonbrunn' s villa is one 
 of the most magnificent; the furniture, all rich brocades, so 
 well fancied and fitted up, nothing can look more gay and 
 
 1 The palace of Schonhrunn is distant about two miles from Vienna. It was de- 
 signed by John Bernard Fischers, the Palladio of Germany, in 1696, and was 
 afterwards used as a hunting-seat by the emperor and his court. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 237 
 
 splendid ; not to speak of a gallery, full of rarities of coral, 
 mother of pearl, &c., and, throughout the whole house, a pro- 
 fusion of gilding, carving, fine paintings, the most beautiful 
 porcelain, statues of alabaster and ivory, and vast orange and 
 lemon trees in gilt pots. The dinner was perfectly fine and 
 well ordered, and made still more agreeable by the good- 
 humour of the count. 
 
 I have not yet been at court, being forced to stay for my 
 gown, without which there is no waiting on the empress ; 
 though I am not without a great impatience to see a beauty 
 that has been the admiration of so many different nations. 1 
 When I have had that honour, I will not fail to let you know 
 my real thoughts, always taking a particular pleasure in com- 
 municating them to my dear sister. 
 
 TO MR. P. [POPE]. 2 
 
 Vienna, Sept. 14, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 PERHAPS you'll laugh at me for thanking you very gravely 
 for all the obliging concern you express for me. 'Tis certain 
 that I may, if I please, take the fine things you say to me for 
 wit and raillery ; and, it may be, it would be taking them right. 
 But I never in my lif e was half so well disposed to believe you 
 in earnest ; and that distance which makes the continuation of 
 your friendship improbable, has very much increased my faith 
 for it, and I find that I have (as well as the rest of my sex), 
 whatever face I set on't, a strong disposition to believe in 
 miracles. Don't fancy, however, that I am infected by the 
 air of these popish countries ; though I have so far wandered 
 from the discipline of the Church of England/ to have been 
 
 1 Elizabeth Christina, daughter of Louis Rodolph, Duke of Brunswick. T. 
 
 2 In Lord Wharncliffe's edition, some of the letters of Pope to Lady Mary, 
 written during the embassy, were inserted in this section ; but it has been found 
 impossible to arrange them in any regular sequence of letter and reply ; a fact 
 which confirms the view that the letters of Lady Mary are wholly, or in part, 
 compilations. In the present edition, the letters of Pope are therefore given in a 
 separate section. T. 
 
 8 This appears to refer to words in Pope's letter. The letter is undated, and 
 might therefore, to Lady Mary when preparing her Turkish le ters, have presented 
 no inconsistency ; but Pope's letter must have been written as late as October, 1716. 
 See note on that letter ; also remarks generally on the preparation of the Letters 
 during Mr. Wortley's Embassy, ante, p. 13, &c. T.
 
 238 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 last Sunday at the opera, which was performed in the garden 
 of the Favorita ; and I was so much pleased with it, I have not 
 yet repented my seeing it. Nothing of that kind ever was 
 more magnificent ; and I can easily believe what I am told, 
 that the decorations and habits cost the emperor thirty thou- 
 sand pounds sterling. The stage was built over a very large 
 canal, and, at the beginning of the second act, divided into 
 two parts, discovering the water, on which there immediately 
 came, from different parts, two fleets of little gilded vessels, 
 that gave the representation of a naval fight. It is not easy 
 to imagine the beauty of this scene, which I took particular 
 notice of. But all the rest were perfectly fine in their kind. 
 The stoiy of the opera is the Enchantments of Alcina, which 
 gives ppportunity for a great variety of machines, and changes 
 of the scene, which are performed with a surprising swiftness. 
 The theatre is so large, that it is hard to carry the eye to the 
 end of it ; and the habits in the utmost magnificence, to the 
 number of one hundred and eight. No house could hold such 
 large decorations ; but the ladies all sitting in the open air, 
 exposes them to great inconveniences, for there is but one 
 canopy for the imperial family ; and the first night it was re- 
 presented, a shower of rain happening, the opera was broken 
 off, and the company crowded away in such confusion, I was 
 almost squeezed to death. 
 
 But if their operas are thus delightful, their comedies are in 
 as high a degree ridiculous. They have but one playhouse, 
 where I had the curiosity to go to a German comedy, and was 
 very glad it happened to be the story of Amphitrion, that sub- 
 ject having been already handled by a Latin, French, and 
 English poet, I was curious to see what an Austrian author 
 would make of it. I understand enough of the language to 
 comprehend the greatest part of it ; and besides, I took with 
 me a lady, who had the goodness to explain to me every word. 
 The way is, to take a box, which holds four, for yourself and 
 company. The fixed price is a gold ducat. I thought the 
 house very low and dark ; but I confess, the comedy admirably 
 recompensed that defect. I never laughed so much in my
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 239 
 
 life. It began with Jupiter's falling in love out of a peep-hole 
 in the clouds, and ended with the birth of Hercules. But 
 what was most pleasant, was the use Jupiter made of his meta- 
 morphosis ; for you no sooner saw him under the figure of 
 Amphitrion, but, instead of flying to Alcmena with the rap- 
 tures Mr. Dryden puts into his mouth, he sends for Amphi- 
 trion's tailor and cheats him of a laced coat, and his banker of 
 a bag of money, a Jew of a diamond ring, and bespeaks a 
 great supper in his name ; and the greatest part of the comedy 
 turns upon poor Amphitrion's being tormented by these people 
 for their debts, and Mercury uses Sosia in the same manner. 
 But I could not easily pardon the liberty the poet has taken 
 of larding his play with not only indecent expressions, but 
 such gross words as I don't think our mob would suffer from 
 a mountebank ; and the two Sosias very fairly let down their 
 breeches in the direct view of the boxes, which were full of 
 people of the first rank, that seemed very well pleased with 
 their entertainment, and they assured me that this was a cele- 
 brated piece. 
 
 I shall conclude my letter with this remarkable relation, 
 very well worthy the serious consideration of Mr. Collier. 1 I 
 won't trouble you with farewell compliments, which I think 
 generally as impertinent as curtseys at leaving the room, when 
 the visit has been too long already. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Vienna, Sept. 14, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 THOUGH I have so lately troubled you, my dear sister, with 
 a long letter, yet I will keep my promise in giving you an 
 account of my first going to court. 
 
 In order to that ceremony, I was squeezed up in a gown, 
 and adorned with a gorget and the other implements there- 
 unto belonging: a dress very inconvenient, but which cer- 
 tainly shews the neck and shape to great advantage. I cannot 
 forbear in this place giving you some description of the 
 
 1 Jeremy Collier, alluding to his famous dispute with Congreve and others on 
 the ' Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage." T.
 
 240 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 fashions here, which are more monstrous and contrary to ail 
 common sense and reason, than 'tis possible for you to imagine. 
 They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads about a 
 yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with 
 numberless yards of heavy ribbon. The foundation of this 
 structure is a thing they call a Bourle, which is exactly of the 
 same shape and kind, but about four times as big, as those 
 rolls our prudent milk-maids make use of to fix their pails 
 upon. This machine they cover with their own hair, which 
 they mix with a great deal of false, it being a particular beauty 
 to have their heads too large to go into a moderate tub. Their 
 hair is prodigiously powdered, to conceal the mixture, and set 
 out with three or four rows of bodkins (wonderfully large, that 
 stick [out] two or three inches from their hair), made of dia- 
 monds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that it certainly 
 requires as much art and experience to carry the load upright, 
 as to dance upon May-day with the garland. Their whale- 
 bone petticoats outdo ours by several yards' circumference, 
 and cover some acres of ground. 
 
 You may easily suppose how much this extraordinary dress 
 sets off and improves the natural ugliness with which God 
 Almighty has been pleased to endow them all generally. Even 
 the lovely empress herself is obliged to comply, in some degree, 
 with these absurd fashions, which they would not quit for all 
 the world. I had a private audience (according to ceremony) 
 of half an hour, and then all the other ladies were permitted 
 to come [and] make their court. I was perfectly charmed 
 with the empress : I cannot, however, tell you that her fea- 
 tures are regular ; her eyes are not large, but have a lively 
 look, full of sweetness ; her complexion the finest I ever saw ; 
 her nose and forehead well made, but her mouth has ten thou- 
 sand charms that touch the soul. When she smiles, 'tis with a 
 beauty and sweetness that force adoration. She has a vast 
 quantity of fine fair hair ; but then her person ! one must 
 speak of it poetically to do it rigid justice ; all that the poets 
 have said of the mien of Juno, the air of Venus, come not up 
 to the truth. The Graces move with her ; the famous statue
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 241 
 
 of Medecis was not formed with more delicate proportions; 
 nothing can be added to the beauty of her neck and hands. 
 Till I saw them, I did not believe there were any in nature so 
 perfect, and I was almost sorry that my rank here did not 
 permit me to kiss them ; but they are kissed sufficiently ; 
 for every body that waits on her pays that homage at their 
 entrance, and when they take leave. 
 
 When the ladies were come in, she sat down to Quinze. I 
 could not play at a game I had never seen before, and she 
 ordered me a seat at her right hand, and had the goodness 
 to talk to me very much, with that grace so natural to her. I 
 expected every moment, when the men were to come in to pay 
 their court ; but this drawing-room is very different from that 
 of England ; no man enters it but the old grand-master, who 
 comes in to advertise the empress of the approach of the 
 emperor. His imperial majesty 1 did me the honour of speak- 
 ing to me in a very obliging manner ; but he never speaks to 
 any of the other ladies ; and the whole passes with a gravity 
 and air of ceremony that has something very formal in it. 
 
 The Empress Amelia, 2 dowager of the late emperor Joseph, 
 came this evening to wait on the reigning empress, followed 
 by the two archduchesses her daughters, who are very agree- 
 able young princesses. Their imperial majesties rise and go 
 to meet her at the door of the room, after which she is seated 
 in an armed chair, next the empress, and in the same manner 
 at supper, and there the men had the permission of paying 
 their court. The archduchesses sit on chairs with backs with- 
 out arms. The table is entirely served, and all the dishes set 
 on by the empress's maids of honour, which are twelve young 
 ladies of the first quality. They have no salary, but their 
 chambers at court, where they live in a sort of confinement, 
 not being suffered to go to the assemblies or public places in 
 town, except in compliment to the wedding of a sister maid, 
 whom the empress always presents with her picture set in 
 diamonds. The three first of them are called Ladies of the 
 
 1 Charles the Sixth, Emperor of Germany. T. 
 
 8 Amelia Wilhelmina, daughter of John Frederick, Duke of Hanover, born in 
 1673. T. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 Key, and wear gold keys by their sides ; but what I find most 
 pleasant, is the custom which obliges them, as long as they 
 live, after they have left the empress's service, to make her 
 some present every year on the day of her feast. Her majesty 
 is served by no married women but the grande maitresse, who 
 is generally a widow of the first quality, always very old, and 
 is at the same time groom of the stole, and mother of the 
 maids. The dressers are not at all in the figure they pretend 
 to in England, being looked upon no otherwise than as down- 
 right chambermaids. 
 
 I had audience next day of the empress mother, 1 a princess 
 of great virtue and goodness, but who piques herself so much 
 on a violent devotion, she is perpetually performing extraordi- 
 nary acts of penance, without having ever done anything to 
 deserve them. She has the same number of maids of honour, 
 whom she suffers to go in colours ; but she herself never quits 
 her mourning ; and sure nothing can be more dismal than the 
 mourning here, even for a brother. There is not the least bit 
 of linen to be seen ; all black crape instead of it. The neck, 
 ears, and side of the face covered with a plaited piece of the 
 same stuff, and the face that peeps out in the midst of it, looks 
 as if it were pilloried. The widows wear, over and above, a 
 crape forehead cloth ; and in this solemn weed go to all the 
 public places of diversion without scruple. 
 
 The next day I was to wait on the empress Amelia, who is 
 now at her palace of retirement half a mile from the town. I 
 had there the pleasure of seeing a diversion wholly new to me, 
 but which is the common amusement of this court. The em- 
 press herself was seated on a little throne at the end of a fine 
 alley in the garden, and on each side of her were ranged two 
 parties of her ladies of honour with other young ladies of 
 quality, headed by the two young archduchesses, all dressed 
 in their hair full of jewels, with fine light guns in their hands ; 
 and at proper distances were placed three oval pictures, which 
 were the marks to be shot at. The first was that of a CUPID, 
 filling a bumper of Burgundy, and the motto, 'Tis easy to be 
 
 1 Eleanora Magdalen, a Princess of Palatine Newburgh, third wife of the Ein- 
 peror Leopold. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 243 
 
 valiant here. The second a FORTUNE, holding a garland in 
 her hand, the motto, For her whom Fortune favours. The 
 third was a SWORD, with a laurel wreath on the point, the 
 motto, Here is no shame to the vanquished. Near the empress 
 was a gilded trophy wreathed with flowers, and made of little 
 crooks, on which were hung rich Turkish handkerchiefs, 
 tippets, ribbons, laces, &c., for the small prizes. The empress 
 gave the first with her own hand, which was a fine ruby ring 
 set round with diamonds, in a gold snuff-box. There was for 
 the second, a little Cupid set with brilliants : and besides these, 
 a set of fine china for a tea-table enchased in gold, japan 
 trunks, fans, and many gallantries of the same nature. Al 
 the men of quality at Vienna were spectators ; but only the 
 ladies had permission to shoot, and the Archduchess Amelia 
 carried off the first prize. I was very well pleased with having 
 seen this entertainment, and I do not know but it might make 
 as good a figure as the prize-shooting in the Eneid, if I could 
 write as well as Virgil. This is the favourite pleasure of the 
 emperor, and there is rarely a week without some feast of this 
 kind, which makes the young ladies skilful enough to defend 
 a fort, and they laughed very much to see me afraid to handle 
 a gun. 
 
 My dear sister, you will easily pardon an abrupt conclusion. 
 I believe, by this time, you are ready to fear I would never 
 conclude at all. 
 
 TO THE LADY R. [RICH]. 1 
 
 Vienna, Sept 20, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I AM extremely pleased, but not at all surprised, at the long 
 delightful letter you have had the goodness to send me. I 
 know that you can think of an absent friend even in the 
 midst of a court, and that you love to oblige, where you can 
 have no view of a return ; and I expect from you that you 
 should love me, and think of me, when you don't see me. 
 
 I have compassion for the mortifications that you tell me 
 befall our little friend, and I pity her much more, since I 
 
 1 It appears from Lady Mary's memoranda, that she corresponded during the 
 embassy with her friend Lady Rich, mentioned in the Introductory Anecdotes. T. 
 
 R2
 
 244 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 know that they are only owing to the barbarous customs of 
 our country. Upon my word, if she was here, she would have 
 no other fault but being something too young for the fashion, 
 and she has nothing to do but to transplant hither about seven 
 years hence, to be again a young and blooming beauty. I can 
 assure you that wrinkles, or a small stoop in the shoulders, nay, 
 grey hair itself, is no objection to the making new conquests. 
 I know you cannot easily figure to yourself a young fellow of 
 five-and-twenty ogling my Lady Suff [Suffolk] with passion, 
 or pressing to lead the Countess of O d [Oxford] from an 
 opera. But such are the sights I see every day, and I don't 
 perceive any body surprised at them but myself. A woman, 
 till five-and-thirty, is only looked upon as a raw girl, and can 
 possibly make no noise in the world till about forty. I don't 
 know what your ladyship may think of this matter ; but 'tis a 
 considerable comfort to me, to know there is upon earth such 
 a paradise for old women ; and I am content to be insignificant 
 at present, in the design of returning when I am fit to appear 
 nowhere else. I cannot help lamenting upon this occasion, the 
 pitiful case of too many good English ladies, long since re- 
 tired to prudery and ratafia, whom if their stars had luckily 
 conducted hither, would still shine in the first rank of beauties ; 
 and then that perplexing word reputation has quite another 
 meaning here than what you give it at London ; and getting 
 a lover is so far from losing, that 'tis properly getting reputa- 
 tion ; ladies being much more respected in regard to the rank 
 of their lovers, than that of their husbands. 
 
 But what you'll think very odd, the two sects that divide 
 our whole nation of petticoats, are utterly unknown. Here 
 are neither coquettes nor prudes. No woman dares appear 
 coquette enough to encourage two lovers at a time. And I 
 have not seen any such prudes as to pretend fidelity to their 
 husbands, who are certainly the best natured set of people in 
 the world, and they look upon their wives' gallants as favour- 
 ably as men do upon their deputies, that take the troublesome 
 part of their business off of their hands ; though they have not 
 the less to do ; for they are generally deputies in another place 
 themselves ; iu one word, 'tis the established custom for eveiy
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 
 
 lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and an- 
 other that performs the duties. And these engagements are so 
 well known, that it would be a downright affront, and publicly 
 resented, if you invited a woman of quality to dinner, without 
 at the same time inviting her two attendants of lover and hus- 
 band, between whom she always sits in state with great gravity. 
 These sub-marriages generally last twenty years together, and 
 the lady often commands the poor lover's estate even to the utter 
 ruin of his family ; though they are as seldom begun by any 
 passion as other matches. But a man makes but an ill figure 
 that is not in some commerce of this nature ; and a woman 
 looks out for a lover as soon as she's married, as part of her 
 equipage, without which she could not be genteel ; and the 
 first article of the treaty is establishing the pension, which 
 remains to the lady though the gallant should prove incon- 
 stant ; and this chargeable point of honour I look upon as the 
 real foundation of so many wonderful instances of constancy. 
 I really know several women of the first quality, whose pen- 
 sions are as well known as their annual rents, and yet nobody 
 esteems them the less ; on the contrary, their discretion would 
 be called in question, if they should be suspected to be mis- 
 tresses for nothing ; and a great part of their emulation con- 
 sists in trying who shall get most ; and having no intrigue at 
 all is so far a disgrace, that, I'll assure you, a lady, who is very 
 much my friend here, told me but yesterday, how much I was 
 obliged to her for justifying my conduct in a conversation on 
 my subject, where it was publicly asserted that I could not 
 possibly have common sense, that I had been about town above 
 a fortnight, and had made no steps towards commencing an 
 amour. My friend pleaded for me that my stay was uncertain, 
 and she believed that was the cause of my seeming stupidity ; 
 and this was all she could find to say in my justification. 
 
 But one of the pleasantest adventures I ever met in my life 
 was last night, and which will give you a just idea after what 
 delicate manner the belles passions are managed in this coun- 
 try. I was at the assembly of the Countess of , and the 
 
 young Count of led me down stairs, and he asked me 
 
 how long I intended to stay here ? I made answer that my
 
 246 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 stay depended on the emperor, and it was not in my power to 
 determine it. Well, madam, (said he,) whether your time 
 here is to be long or short, I think you ought to pass it 
 agreeably, and to that end you must engage in a little 
 affair of the heart. My heart (answered I gravely enough) 
 does not engage very easily, and I have no design of parting 
 with it. I see, madam, (said he sighing,) by the ill nature of 
 that answer, that I am not to hope for it, which is a great 
 mortification to me that am charmed with you. But, however, 
 I am still devoted to your service ; and since I am not worthy 
 of entertaining you myself, do me the honour of letting me 
 know whom you like best among us, and I'll engage to manage 
 the affair entirely to your satisfaction. You may judge in 
 what manner I should have received this compliment in my 
 own country ; but I was well enough acquainted with the way 
 of this, to know that he really intended me an obligation, and 
 thanked him with a grave courtesy for his zeal to serve me, and 
 only assured him that I had no occasion to make use of it. 
 
 Thus you see, my dear, gallantry and good-breeding are as 
 different, in different climates, as morality and religion. Who 
 have the lightest notions of both, we shall never know till the 
 day of judgment , for which great day of dclaircissement, I 
 own there is very little impatience in your, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. T * * * T [THISTLETHWAYTE]. 
 
 Vienna, Sept 26, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I WAS never more agreeably surprised than by your obliging 
 letter. 'Tis a particular mark of my esteem that I tell you so ; 
 and I can assure you, that if I loved you one grain less than I 
 do, I should have been very sorry to see it as diverting as it is. 
 The mortal aversion I have to writing, makes me tremble at 
 the thoughts of a new correspondent ; and I believe I dis- 
 obliged no less than a dozen of my London acquaintance by 
 refusing to hear from them, though I did verily think they in- 
 tended to send me very entertaining letters. But I had rather 
 lose the pleasure of reading several witty things, than be forced 
 to write many stupid ones.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 247 
 
 Yet, in spite of these considerations, I am charmed with 
 this proof of your friendship, and beg a continuation of the 
 same goodness, though I fear the dulness of this will make 
 you immediately repent of it. It is not from Austria that one 
 can write with vivacity, and I am already infected with the 
 phlegm of the countiy. Even their amours and their quarrels 
 are carried on with a surprising temper, and they are never 
 lively but upon points of ceremony. There, I own, they 
 show all their passions ; and 'tis not long since two coaches, 
 meeting in a narrow street at night, the ladies in them not 
 being able to adjust the ceremonial of which should go back, 
 sat there with equal gallantly till two in the morning, and 
 were both so fully determined to die upon the spot, rather 
 than yield in a point of that importance, that the street would 
 never have been cleared till their deaths, if the emperor had 
 not sent his guards to part them ; and even then they refused 
 to stir, till the expedient was found out of taking them both 
 out in chairs exactly at the same moment ; after which it was 
 with some difficulty the pas was decided between the two 
 coachmen, no less tenacious of their rank than the ladies. 
 
 Nay, this passion is so omnipotent in the breasts of the 
 women, that even their husbands never die but they are ready 
 to break their hearts, because that fatal hour puts an end to 
 their rank, no widows having any place at Vienna. The men 
 are not much less touched with this point of honour, and they 
 do not only scorn to marry, but to make love to any woman 
 of a family not as illustrious as their own ; and the pedigree is 
 much more considered by them, than either the complexion or 
 features of their mistresses. Happy are the shes that can 
 number amongst their ancestors counts of the empire ; they 
 have neither occasion for beauty, money, or good conduct, to 
 get them husbands. 'Tis true, as to money, it is seldom any 
 advantage to the man they marry ; the laws of Austria con- 
 fine a woman's portion not to exceed two thousand florins 
 (about two hundred pounds English), and whatever they 
 have beside remains in their own possession and disposal. 
 Thus, here are many Indies much richer than their husbands,
 
 248 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 who are, however, obliged to allow them pin-money agreeable 
 to their quality ; and I attribute to this considerable branch of 
 prerogative, the liberty that they take upon other occasions. 
 
 I am sure you, that know my laziness and extreme indif- 
 ference on this subject, will pity me, entangled amongst all 
 these ceremonies, which are wonderful burthensome to me, 
 though I am the envy of the whole town, having, by their 
 own customs, the pas before them all. But, they revenge 
 upon the poor envoys this great respect shewn to ambassadors, 
 using them with a contempt that (with ah 1 my indifference) I 
 should be very uneasy to suffer. Upon days of ceremony 
 they have no entrance at court, and on other days must con- 
 tent themselves with walking after every soul, and being the 
 very last taken notice of. But I must write a volume to let 
 you know all the ceremonies, and I have already said too 
 much on so dull a subject, which, however, employs the whole 
 care of the people here. I need not, after this, tell you how 
 agreeably the tune slides away with me ; you know as well as 
 I do the taste of, Your, &c. 
 
 TO THE LADY X- 
 
 Vienna, Oct 1, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 You desire me, madam, to send you some account of the 
 customs here, and at the same time a description of Vienna. 
 I am always willing to obey your commands ; but I must upon 
 this occasion, desire you to take the will for the deed. If I 
 should undertake to tell you all the particulars, in which the 
 manner here differs from ours, I must write a whole quire of 
 the dullest stuff that ever was read, or printed without being 
 read. Their dress agrees with the French or English in no 
 one article but wearing petticoats, and they have many fashions 
 peculiar to themselves ; as that it is indecent for a widow ever 
 to wear green or rose colour, but all the other gayest colours at 
 her own discretion. The assemblies here are the only regular 
 diversion, the operas being always at court, and commonly on 
 some particular occasion. Madam Rabutin has the assembly 
 
 i Sic in MS. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 249 
 
 constantly every night at her house; and the other ladies, 
 whenever they have a mind to display the magnificence of their 
 apartments, or oblige a friend by complimenting them on the 
 day of their saint, they declare that on such a day the assembly 
 shall be at their house in honour of the feast of the Count or 
 
 Countess such a one. These days are called days of 
 
 Gala, and all the friends or relations of the lady whose saint 
 it is, are obliged to appear in their best clothes and all their 
 jewels. The mistress of the house takes no particular notice 
 of any body, nor returns any body's visit ; and whoever pleases 
 may go, without the formality of being presented. The com- 
 pany are entertained with ice in several forms, winter and 
 summer : afterwards they divide into parties of ombre, piquet, 
 or conversation, all games of hazard being forbid. 
 
 I saw t'other day the gala for Count Altheim, the emperor's 
 favourite, and never in my life saw so many fine clothes ill- 
 fancied. They embroider the richest gold stuffs ; and provided 
 they can make their clothes expensive enough, that is all the 
 taste they shew in them. On other days, the general dress is 
 a scarf, and what you please under it. 
 
 But now I am speaking of Vienna, I am sure you expect I 
 should say something of the convents; they are of all sorts 
 and sizes, but I am best pleased with that of St. Lawrence, 
 where the ease and neatness they seem to live with, appears to 
 me much more edifying than those stricter orders, where per- 
 petual penance and nastiness must breed discontent and 
 wretchedness. The nuns are all of quality. I think there are 
 to the number of fifty. They have each of them a little cell 
 perfectly clean, the walls covered with pictures more or less 
 fine, according to their quality. A long white stone gallery 
 runs by all of them, furnished with the pictures of exemplary 
 sisters ; the chapel extremely neat and richly adorned. But I 
 could not forbear laughing at their shewing me a wooden 
 head of our Saviour, which, they assured me, spoke during the 
 siege of Vienna; and, as a proof of it, bid me remark his 
 mouth, which had been open ever since. Nothing can be 
 more becoming than the dress of these nuns. It is a fine
 
 250 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 white camlet, the sleeves turned up with fine white calico, and 
 their head-dress and [?] the same, only a small veil of black 
 crape that falls behind. They have a lower sort of serving 
 nuns, that wait on them as their chambermaids. They receive 
 all visits of women, and play at ombre in their chambers, with 
 permission of the abbess, which is very easy to be obtained. I 
 never saw an old woman so good-natured ; she is near four- 
 score, and yet shews very little sign of decay, being still lively 
 and cheerful. She caressed me as if I had been her daughter, 
 giving me some pretty things of her own work, and sweet- 
 meats in abundance. The grate is not one of the most rigid ; 
 it is not very hard to put a head through, and I don't doubt 
 but a man, a little more slender than ordinary, might squeeze 
 in his whole person. The young Count of Salmes came to the 
 grate while I was there, and the abbess gave him her hand to 
 kiss. But I was surprised to find here the only beautiful 
 young woman I have seen at Vienna, and not only beau- 
 tiful, but genteel, witty, and agreeable, of a great family, 
 and who had been the admiration of the town. I could not 
 forbear shewing my surprise at seeing a nun like her. She 
 made me a thousand obliging compliments, and desired me to 
 come often. It will be an infinite pleasure to me, (said she, 
 sighing,) to see you ; but I avoid, with the greatest care, see- 
 ing any of my former acquaintance, and whenever they come 
 to our convent, I lock myself in my cell. I observed tears 
 come into her eyes, which touched me extremely, and I began 
 to talk to her in that strain of tender pity she inspired me 
 with ; but she would not own to me that she is not perfectly 
 happy. I have since endeavoured to learn the real cause of 
 her retirement, without being able to get any other account, 
 but that every body was surprised at it, and nobody guessed 
 the reason. 
 
 I have been several times to see her ; but it gives me too 
 much melancholy to see so agreeable a young creature buried 
 alive, and I am not surprised that nuns have so often inspired 
 violent passions ; the pity one naturally feels for them, when 
 they seem worthy of another destiny, making an easy way for
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 251 
 
 yet more tender sentiments ; and I never in my life had so 
 little charity for the Koman-catholic religion, as since I see 
 the miseiy it occasions ; so many poor unhappy women ! and 
 the gross superstition of the common people, who are, some or 
 other of them, day and night offering bits of candle to the 
 wooden figures that are set up almost in every street. The 
 processions I see very often, are a pageantry as offensive, and 
 apparently contradictory to all common sense, as the pagods of 
 China. God knows whether it be the womanly spirit of con- 
 tradiction that works in me ; but there never before was so 
 much zeal against popery in the heart of, 
 
 Dear madam, &c. 
 
 TO MR. . ft] ] 
 
 Vienna, Oct. 10, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I DESERVE not all the reproaches you make me. If I have 
 been some time without answering your letter, it is not that I 
 don't know how many thanks are due to you for it ; or that I 
 am stupid enough to prefer any amusements to the pleasure of 
 hearing from you ; but after the professions of esteem you 
 have so obligingly made me, I cannot help delaying, as long 
 as I can, shewing you that you are mistaken, and if you 
 are sincere when you say you expect to be extremely enter- 
 tained by my letters, I ought to be mortified at the disappoint- 
 ment that I am sure you will receive when you hear from me ; 
 though I have done my best endeavours to find out something 
 worth writing to you. 
 
 I have seen every thing that is to be seen with a very dili- 
 gent curiosity. Here are some fine villas, particularly the late 
 Prince of Lichtenstein's ; but the statues are all modern, and 
 the pictures not of the first hands. 'Tis true the emperor has 
 some of great value. I was yesterday to see that repository, 
 which they call his treasure, where they seem to have been 
 more diligent in amassing a great quantity of things than in 
 
 1 This letter is addressed in Mr. Dallaway's and "Lord Wharncliffe's edition 
 " To Mr. Pope." The heading in the manuscript cannot be deciphered, but it 
 bears no resemblance to " Pope." T.
 
 252 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 the choice of them. I spent above five hours there, and yet 
 there were very few things that stopped me long to consider 
 them. But the number is prodigious, being a very long gal- 
 lery filled on both sides, and five large rooms. There are a 
 vast quantity of paintings, among which are many fine minia- 
 tures ; but the most valuable pictures are a few of Corregio, 
 those of Titian being at the Favorita. 
 
 The cabinet of jewels did not appear to me so rich as I ex- 
 pected to see it. They showed me there a cup, about the size 
 of a tea-dish, of one entire emerald, which they had so par- 
 ticular a respect for, only the emperor has the privilege of 
 touching it. There is a large cabinet full of curiosities of 
 clock-work, only one of which I thought worth observing, that 
 was a craw-fish, with all the motions so natural, it was hard to 
 distinguish it from the life. 1 
 
 The next cabinet was a large collection of agates, some of 
 them extremely beautiful, and of an uncommon size, and 
 several vases of lapis lazuli. I was surprised to see the cabinet 
 of medals so poorly furnished ; I did not remark one of any 
 value, and they are kept in a most ridiculous disorder. As to 
 the antiques, very few of them deserve that name. Upon my 
 saying they were modern, I could not forbear laughing at the 
 answer of the profound antiquary that shewed them, that they 
 were ancient enough ; for, to his knowledge, they had been 
 there these forty years. But the next cabinet diverted me yet 
 better, being nothing else but a parcel of wax babies, and 
 toys in ivory, very well worthy to be presented [to] children 
 of five years old. Two of the rooms were wholly filled with 
 relics of all kinds, set in jewels, amongst which I was desired 
 to observe a crucifix, that they assured me had spoken very 
 wisely to the Emperor Leopold. I won't trouble you with the 
 catalogue of the rest of the lumber ; but I must not forget to 
 mention a small piece of loadstone that held up an anchor of 
 
 1 The Imperial cabinet at Vienna has been greatly improved since 1716, by the 
 Emperors Joseph and Ferdinand. In the classes of mineralogy, and a collection of 
 medals, it now yields to few others in Europe. See Eckel. Catal. Musssei Caesarei 
 Vindobon. Numm. Vet. fol. 1779, and Baron Bornn's Shells of the Imp. Mus. at 
 Vienna, fol. 1780. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 253 
 
 steel too heavy for me to lift. This is what I thought most 
 curious in the whole treasure. There are some few heads of 
 ancient statues ; but several of them defaced by modern addi- 
 tions. 
 
 I perceive that you will be very little satisfied with this 
 letter, and I dare hardly ask you to be good-natured enough 
 to charge the dulness of it on the barrenness of the subject, 
 and overlook the stupidity of, 
 
 Your, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS [OF MAR]. 
 
 Prague, Nov. 17, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I HOPE my dear sister wants no new proof of my sincere 
 affection for her : but I am sure, if you did, I could not give 
 you a stronger than writing at this time, after three days, or, 
 more properly speaking, three nights and days, hard post- 
 travelling. 
 
 The kingdom of Bohemia is the most desert of any I have 
 seen in Germany ; the villages so poor, and the post-houses so 
 miserable, clean straw and fair water are blessings not always 
 to be found, and better accommodation not to be hoped. 
 Though I carried my own bed with me, I could not some- 
 times find a place to set it up in ; and I rather chose to travel 
 all night, as cold as it is, wrapped up in my furs, than go into 
 the common stoves, which are filled with a mixture of all 
 sorts of ill scents. 
 
 This town was once the royal seat of the Bohemian kings, 
 and is still the capital of the kingdom. There are yet some 
 remains of its former splendour, being one of the largest 
 towns in Germany, but, for the most part, old built and thinly 
 inhabited, which makes the houses very cheap, and those 
 people of quality, who cannot easily bear the expence of 
 Vienna, choose to reside here, where they have assemblies, 
 
 1 Vienna, Nov. 28 [N.S. Nov. 17]. On the 24th [N.S. 13th], Mr. Wortley 
 Montague, Ambassador Extraordinary from his Britannic Majesty to the Ottoman 
 Porte, set out from hence for Hanover, designing to return in a short time. 
 Paragraph in London Gazette, Dec. 4-8, 1716. T.
 
 254 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 music, and all other diversions (those of a court excepted), at 
 very moderate rates, all things being here in great abundance, 
 especially the best wild-fowl I ever tasted. I have already 
 been visited by some of the most considerable ladies, whose re- 
 lations I knew at Vienna. They are dressed after the fashions 
 there, as people at Exeter imitate those of London ; that is, 
 their imitation is more excessive than the original ; 'tis not 
 easy to describe what extraordinary figures they make. The 
 person is so much lost between head-dress and petticoat, they 
 have as much occasion to write upon their backs, " This is a 
 Woman," for the information of travellers, as ever sign-post 
 painter had to write, " This is a Bear." 
 
 I will not forget to write to you again from Dresden and 
 Leipzig, being much more solicitous to content your curiosity, 
 than to indulge my own repose. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Leipzig, Nov. 21, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I BELIEVE, dear sister, you will easily forgive my not writ- 
 ing to you from Dresden, as I promised, when I tell you that 
 I never went out of my chaise from Prague to that place. 
 
 You may imagine how heartily I was tired with twenty- 
 four hours' post-travelling, without sleep or refreshment (for I 
 can never sleep in a coach, however fatigued). We passed by 
 moonshine the frightful precipices that divide Bohemia from 
 Saxony, at the bottom of which runs the river Elbe ; but I 
 cannot say that I had reason to fear drowning in it, being per- 
 fectly convinced that, in case of a tumble, it was utterly im- 
 possible to come alive to the bottom. In many places the road 
 is so narrow, that I could not discern an inch of space between 
 the wheels and the precipice. Yet I was so good a wife not 
 
 to wake Mr. W , who was fast asleep by my side, to make 
 
 him share in my fears, since the danger was unavoidable, till 
 I perceived, by the bright light of the moon, our postilions 
 nodding on horseback, while the horses were on a full gallop, 
 and I thought it very convenient to call out to desire them to
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 255 
 
 look were they were going. My calling waked Mr. W , 
 and he was much more surprised than myself at the situation 
 we were in, and assured me that he had passed the Alps five 
 times in different places, without ever having gone a road so 
 dangerous. I have been told since it is common to find the 
 bodies of travellers in the Elbe ; but, thank God, that was not 
 our destiny ; and we came safe to Dresden, so much tired with 
 fear and fatigue, it was not possible for me to compose myself 
 to write. 
 
 After passing these dreadful rocks, Dresden appeared to 
 me a wonderful agreeable situation, in a fine large plain on 
 the banks of the Elbe. I was very glad to stay there a day 
 to rest myself. The town is the neatest I have seen in Ger- 
 many ; most of the houses are new built ; the elector's palace 
 very handsome, and his repository full of curiosities of dif- 
 ferent kinds, with a collection of medals very much esteemed. 
 Sir , ! our king's envoy, came to see me here, and Ma- 
 dame de L , whom I knew in London, when her hus- 
 band was minister to the King of Poland there. She offered 
 me all things in her power to entertain me, and brought 
 some ladies with her, whom she presented to me. The Saxon 
 ladies resemble the Austrian no more than the Chinese those 
 of London ; they are very genteelly dressed after the French 
 and English modes, and have generally pretty faces, but the 
 most determined minaudi&res in the whole world. They would 
 think it a mortal sin against good-breeding, if they either 
 spoke or moved in a natural manner. They all affect a little 
 soft lisp, and a pretty pitty-pat step ; which female frailties 
 ought, however, to be forgiven them, in favour of their civility 
 and good-nature to strangers, which I have a great deal of 
 reason to praise. 
 
 The Countess of Cozelle is kept prisoner in a melancholy 
 castle, some leagues from hence ; 2 and I cannot forbear telling 
 
 1 Mr. Dallaway here inserted the name Sir Robert Sutton ; but no name ap- 
 pears in the manuscript, and Sir Robert Sutton was at this time at Constantinople, 
 where Mr. Wortley Montagu succeeded him. T. 
 
 2 The countess was seized at Halle, and imprisoned by the King of Prussia's 
 orders in October, 1716. T.
 
 256 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 you what I have heard of her, because it seems to me very- 
 extraordinary, though I foresee I shall swell my letter to the 
 size of a pacquet. She was mistress to the King of Poland 
 (Elector of Saxony), with so absolute a dominion over him, 
 that never any lady had had so much power in that court. 
 They tell a pleasant story of his majesty's first declaration of 
 love, which he made in a visit to her, bringing in one hand a 
 bag of a hundred thousand crowns, and in the other a horse- 
 shoe, which he snapped asunder before her face, leaving her to 
 draw consequences from such remarkable proofs of strength 
 and liberality. I know not which charmed her ; but she con- 
 sented to leave her husband, to give herself up to him entirely, 
 being divorced publicly in such a manner, as, by their laws, 
 permits either party to marry again. God knows whether it 
 was at this time, or in some other fond fit, but it is certain the 
 king had the weakness to make her a formal contract of 
 marriage, which, though it could signify nothing during the 
 life of the queen, pleased her so well, that she could not be 
 contented without telling all the people she saw, and giving 
 herself the airs of a queen. Men endure every thing while 
 they are in love ; but when the excess of passion was cooled 
 by long possession, his majesty began to reflect on the ill 
 consequences of leaving such a paper in her hands, and de- 
 sired to have it restored to him. She rather chose to endure 
 all the most violent effects of his anger, than give it up ; and 
 though she is one of the richest and most avaricious ladies of 
 her country, she has refused the offer of the continuation of 
 a large pension, and the security of a vast sum of money she 
 has amassed ; and has at last provoked the king to confine 
 her person, where she endures all the terrors of a strait im- 
 prisonment, and remains still inflexible either to threats or 
 promises though her violent passions have brought her into 
 fits, which it is supposed will soon put an end to her life. I 
 cannot forbear having some compassion for a woman that 
 suffers for a point of honour, however mistaken, especially in 
 a country where points of honour are not over-scrupulously 
 observed among ladies.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 257 
 
 I could have wished Mr. W.'s business had permitted a 
 longer stay at Dresden. 
 
 Perhaps I am partial to a town where they profess the Pro- 
 testant religion; but every thing seemed to me with quite 
 another air of politeness than I have found in other places. 
 Leipzig, where I am at present, is a town very considerable 
 for its trade ; and I take this opportunity of buying pages' 
 liveries, gold stuffs for myself, &c., all things of that kind 
 being at least double the price at Vienna ; partly because of 
 the excessive customs, and partly the want of genius and in- 
 dustry in the people, who make no one sort of thing there ; 
 and the ladies are obliged to send even for their shoes out of 
 Saxony. The fair here is one of the most considerable in 
 Germany, and the resort of all the people of quality, as well 
 as the merchants. This is a fortified town ; but I avoid ever 
 mentioning fortifications, being sensible that I know not how 
 to speak of them. I am the more easy under my ignorance, 
 when I reflect that I am sure you will willingly forgive the 
 omission ; for if I made you the most exact description of all 
 the ravelins and bastions I see in my travels, I dare swear you 
 would ask me, What is a ravelin ? and, What is a bastion ? 
 
 Adieu, my dear sister. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF - - [MAR]. 
 
 Brunswick, Nov. 23, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I AM just come to Brunswick, a very old town, but which 
 has the advantage of being the capital of the Duke of Wol- 
 fenbuttel's dominions, a family (not to speak of its ancient 
 honours) illustrious by having its younger branch on the 
 throne of England, and having given two empresses to Ger- 
 many. 1 I have not forgotten to drink your health here in 
 nmm, which I think very well deserves its reputation of being 
 the best in the world. This letter is the third I have writ to 
 you during my journey, and I declare to you, that if you 
 
 1 It appears from Lady Mary's memoranda that she wrote to the Duchess of 
 Wfdfenbuttel [Brunswick] from Adrianople, giving her an account of her travels, 
 and a description of Adrianople. T. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 don't send me immediately a full and true account of all the 
 changes and chances among our London acquaintance, I will 
 not write you any description of Hanover (where I hope to be 
 to-night), though I know you have more curiosity to hear of 
 that place than of any other. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF B. [BRISTOL]. 
 
 Hanover, Nov. 25, O.S. [1716], 
 
 I RECEIVED your ladyship's [letter] but the day before I 
 left Vienna, though, by the date, I ought to have had it much 
 sooner ; but nothing was ever worse regulated than the post 
 in most parts of Germany. I can assure you, the pacquet at 
 Prague was tied behind my chaise, and in that manner con- 
 veyed to Dresden ; the secrets of half the country were at my 
 mercy, if I had had any curiosity for them. I would not 
 longer delay my thanks for yours, though the number of my 
 acquaintances here, and my duty of attending at court, leave 
 me hardly any time to dispose of. I am extremely pleased 
 that I can tell you, without either flattery or partiality, that our 
 young prince 1 has all the accomplishments that it is possible 
 to have at his age, with an air of sprightliness and under- 
 standing, and something so very engaging and easy in his 
 behaviour, that he needs not the advantage of his rank to 
 appear charming. I had the honour of a long conversation 
 with him last night, before the King came in. His governor 
 retired on purpose (as he told me afterwards) that I might 
 make some judgment of his genius, by hearing him speak 
 without constraint ; and I was surprised at the quickness and 
 politeness that appeared in every thing he said ; joined to a 
 person perfectly agreeable, and the fine fair hair of the 
 princess. 
 
 This town is neither large nor handsome ; but the palace 
 capable of holding a greater court than that of St. James's. 
 The King has had the goodness to appoint us a lodging in one 
 part of it, without which we should be very ill accommodated ; 
 for the vast number of English crowds the town so much, it 
 
 1 Afterwards Frederick Prince of Wales. W.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 259 
 
 is very good luck to be able to get one sony room in a miser- 
 able tavern. I dined to-day with the Portuguese ambassador, 
 who thinks himself very happy to have two wretched parlours 
 in an inn. I have now made the tour of Germany, and cannot 
 help observing a considerable difference between travelling here 
 and in England. One sees none of those fine seats of noble- 
 men that are so common amongst us, nor any thing like a 
 country gentleman's house, though they have many situations 
 perfectly fine. But the whole people are divided into abso- 
 lute sovereignties, where all the riches and magnificence are 
 at court, or communities of merchants, such as Nuremburg 
 and Frankfort, where they live always in town for the con- 
 venience of trade. The King's company of French come- 
 dians play here every night. They are very well dressed, and 
 some of them not ill actors. His Majesty dines and sups con- 
 stantly in public. The court is very numerous, and his affa- 
 bility and goodness make it one of the most agreeable places 
 in the world, to 
 
 Dear madam, your Ladyship's, &c. 
 
 TO THE LADY R. [RICH]. 
 
 Hanover, Dec. 1, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 i AM very glad, my dear Lady R., that you have been so 
 well pleased, as you tell me, at the report of my returning to 
 England ; though, like other pleasures, I can assure you it has 
 no real foundation. I hope you know me enough to take my 
 word against any report concerning myself. 'Tis true, as to 
 distance of place, I am much nearer to London than I was 
 some weeks ago ; but as to the thoughts of a return, I never 
 was farther off in my life. I own, I could with great joy in- 
 dulge the pleasing hopes of seeing you, and the very few others 
 that share my esteem ; but while Mr. - - [Wortley] is deter- 
 mined to proceed in his design, I am determined to follow him. 
 
 I am running on upon my own affairs, that is to say, I am 
 going to write very dully, as most people do when they write 
 of themselves. I will make haste to change the disagreeable 
 
 subject, by telling you that I have now got into the region of 
 
 c o 
 
 9 Ll
 
 260 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 beauty. All the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy fore- 
 heads and bosoms, jet eye-brows, and scarlet lips, to which 
 they generally add coal-black hair. These perfections never 
 leave them till the hour of their deaths, and have a very fine 
 effect by candle-light ; but I could wish they were handsome 
 with a little more variety. They resemble one another as 
 much as Mrs. Salmon's court of Great Britain, 1 and are in as 
 much danger of melting away by too near approaching the 
 fire, which they for that reason carefully avoid, though it is 
 now such excessive cold weather, that I believe they suffer 
 extremely by that piece of self-denial. 
 
 The snow is already very deep, and people begin to slide 
 about in their traineaus. This is a favourite diversion all over 
 Germany. They are little machines fixed upon a sledge, that 
 hold a lady and gentleman, and are drawn by one horse. The 
 gentleman has the honour of driving, and they move with a 
 prodigious swiftness. The lady, the horse, and the traineau, 
 are all as fine as they can be made ; and when there are many 
 of them together, it is a very agreeable show. At Vienna, 
 where all pieces of magnificence are carried to excess, there 
 are sometimes traineaus that cost five or six hundred pounds 
 English. 
 
 The Duke of Wolfenbuttel is now at this court ; you know 
 he is nearly related to our king, and uncle to the reigning 
 empress, who is, I beh'eve, the most beautiful queen upon 
 earth. She is now with child, which is all the consolation of 
 the imperial court for the loss of the archduke. I took my 
 leave of her the day before I left Vienna, and she began to 
 speak to me with so much grief and tenderness, of the death 
 of that young prince, I had much ado to withhold my tears. 
 You know that I am not at all partial to people for their 
 titles ; but I own that I love that charming princess (if I may 
 use so familiar an expression) ; and if I did not, I should have 
 been very much moved at the tragical end of an only son, born 
 after being so long desired, and at length killed by want of 
 good management, weaning him in the beginning of the winter. 
 
 1 A celebrated waxwork show in London. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 261 
 
 Adieu, my dear Lady R. ; continue to write to me, and be- 
 lieve none of your goodness is lost upon 
 
 Your, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Blankenburg, Dec. 17, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 I RECEIVED yours, dear sister, the very day I left Hanover. 
 You may easily imagine I was then in too great a hurry to 
 answer it ; but you see I take the first opportunity of doing 
 myself that pleasure. 
 
 I came here the 15th, very late at night, after a terrible 
 journey, in the worst roads and weather that ever poor tra- 
 veller suffered. I have taken this little fatigue merely to 
 oblige the reigning empress, and carry a message from her 
 imperial majesty to the Duchess of Blankenburg, her mother, 
 who is a princess of great address and good-breeding, and may 
 be still called a fine woman. It was so late when I came to 
 this town, I did not think it proper to disturb the duke and 
 duchess with the news of my arrival ; and took up my 
 quarters in a miserable inn : but as soon as I had sent my 
 compliments to their highnesses, they immediately sent me 
 their own coach and six horses, which had however enough to 
 do to draw us up the very high hill on which the castle is 
 situated. The duchess is extremely obliging to me, and this 
 little court is not without its diversions. The duke taillys at 
 basset every night ; and the duchess tells me that she is so 
 well pleased with my company that it makes her play less than 
 she used to do. I should find it very difficult to steal time to 
 write, if she was not now at church, where I cannot wait on 
 her, not understanding the language enough to pay my devo- 
 tions in it. 
 
 You will not forgive me, if I do not say something of Ha- 
 nover ; I cannot tell you that the town is either large or mag- 
 nificent. The opera-house, which was built by the late Elector, 
 is much finer than that at Vienna. I was veiy sorry that the 
 ill weather did not permit me to see Hernhausen in all its 
 beauty ; but, in spite of the snow, I thought the gardens very
 
 262 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number of 
 orange-trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in Eng- 
 land, though this climate is certainly colder. But I had more 
 reason to wonder that night at the king's table. There was 
 brought to him from a gentleman of this country, two large 
 baskets full of ripe oranges and lemons of different sorts, 
 many of which were quite new to me ; and, what I thought 
 worth all the rest, two ripe ananas, which, to my taste, are a 
 fruit perfectly delicious. You know they are naturally the 
 growth of Brazil, and I could not imagine how they could 
 come there but by enchantment. Upon enquiry, I learnt that 
 they have brought their stoves to such perfection, they lengthen 
 the summer as long as they please, giving to every plant the 
 degree of heat it would receive from the sun in its native soil. 
 The effect is very near the same ; I am surprised we do not 
 practise in England so useful an invention. 
 
 This reflection naturally leads me to consider our obstinacy 
 in shaking with cold six months in the year, rather than make 
 use of stoves, which are certainly one of the greatest con- 
 veniences of life; and so far from spoiling the form of a 
 room, they add very much to the magnificence of it, when 
 they are painted and gilt, as at Vienna, or at Dresden, where 
 they are often in the shapes of china jars, statues, or fine 
 cabinets, so naturally represented, they are not to be distin- 
 guished. If ever I return, in defiance to the fashion, you 
 shah 1 certainly see one in the chamber of, 
 
 Dear sister, &c. 
 
 I will write often, since you desire it : but I must beg you 
 to be a little more particular in yours ; you fancy me at forty 
 miles' distance, and forget that, after so long an absence, I 
 cannot understand hints. 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 Vienna, Jan 1, O.S., 1717. 
 
 I HAVE just received here at Vienna, your ladyship's com- 
 pliment on my return to England, sent me from Hanover. 
 You see, madam, all things that are asserted with confi-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 263 
 
 dence are not absolutely true ; and that you have no sort of 
 reason to complain of me for making my designed return a 
 mystery to you, when you say, all the world are informed of 
 it. You may tell all the world in my name, that they are 
 never so well informed of my affairs as I am myself; and 
 that I am very positive I am at this time at Vienna, where 
 the Carnival is begun, and all sorts of diversions in perpetual 
 practice, except that of masquing, which is never permitted 
 during a war with the Turks. The balls are in public places, 
 where the men pay a gold ducat 1 at entrance, but the ladies 
 nothing. I am told that these houses get sometimes a thousand 
 ducats on a night. They are very magnificently furnished, 
 and the music good, if they had not that detestable custom of 
 mixing hunting horns with it, that almost deafen the company. 
 But that noise is so agreeable here, they never make a concert 
 without them. The ball always concludes with English coun- 
 try dances, to the number of thirty or forty couple, and so ill 
 danced, that there is very little pleasure in them. They know 
 but half a dozen, and they have danced them over and over 
 these fifty years. I would fain have taught them some new 
 ones, but I found it would be some months' labour to make 
 them comprehend them. 
 
 Last night there was an Italian comedy acted at court. 
 The scenes were pretty, but the comedy itself such intolerable 
 low farce, without either wit or humour, that I was surprized how 
 all the court could sit there attentively for four hours together. 
 No women are suffered to act on the stage, and the men 
 dressed like them were such awkward figures, they very much 
 added to the ridicule of the spectacle. What completed the 
 diversion, was the excessive cold, which was so great, I thought 
 I should have died there. 
 
 It is now the very extremity of the winter here ; the Da- 
 nube is entirely frozen, and the weather not to be supported 
 without stoves and furs ; but, however, the air so clear, almost 
 every body is well, and colds not half so common as in Eng- 
 land, and I am persuaded there cannot be a purer air, nor 
 
 1 About nine shillings. D.
 
 264 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 more wholesome, than that of Vienna. The plenty and excel- 
 lence of all sorts of provisions are greater here than in any 
 place I was ever in, and it is not very expensive to keep a 
 splendid table. It is really a pleasure to pass through the 
 markets, and see the abundance of what we should think 
 rarities, of fowls and venison, that are daily brought in from 
 Hungary and Bohemia. They want nothing but shell-fish, 
 and are so fond of oysters, they have them sent from Venice, 
 and eat them very greedily, stink or not stink. 
 
 Thus I obey your commands, madam, in giving you an 
 account of Vienna, though I know you will not be satisfied 
 with it. You chide me for my laziness, in not telling you a 
 thousand agreeable and surprising things, that you say you 
 are sure I have seen and heard. Upon my word, madam, it 
 is my regard to truth, and not laziness, that I do not entertain 
 you with as many prodigies as other travellers use to divert 
 their readers with. I might easily pick up wonders in every 
 town I pass through, or tell you a long series of popish mi- 
 racles ; but I cannot fancy that there is any thing new in letting 
 you know that priests can lie, and the mob believe, all over 
 the world. Then as for news, that you are so inquisitive 
 about, how can it be entertaining to you (that don't know the 
 
 people) that the Prince of has forsaken the Countess 
 
 of ? or that the Princess such a one has an intrigue with 
 
 Count such a one ? Would you have me write novels like 
 the Countess d'Aunois ? and is it not better to tell you a plain 
 truth, 
 
 That I am, &c. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT - 1 
 
 Vienna, Jan. 2, O.S., 1717. 
 
 I AM really almost tired with the life of Vienna. I am not, 
 indeed, an enemy to dissipation and hurry, much less to 
 amusement and pleasure ; but I cannot endure long even 
 
 1 This letter is not in the manuscript book. It was first published in the " Ad- 
 ditional Volume," &c., 1767, and is of doubtful authenticity. The heading was 
 probably imitated from some of the letters previously published. See note on 
 letter "To Mr. P.," post, p. 336. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 265 
 
 pleasure, when it is fettered with formality, and assumes the 
 air of system. 'Tis true, I have had here some very agree- 
 able connexions, and what will perhaps surprize you, I have 
 particular pleasure in my Spanish acquaintances, Count 
 Oropesa and General Puebla. These two noblemen are much 
 in the good graces of the Emperor, and yet they seem to be 
 brewing mischief. The court of Madrid cannot reflect with- 
 out pain upon the territories that were cut off from the Spanish 
 monarchy by the peace of Utrecht, and it seems to be look- 
 ing wishfully out for an opportunity of getting them back 
 again. That is a matter about which I trouble myself very 
 little ; let the court be in the right, or in the wrong, I like 
 mightily the two counts, its ministers. I dined with them 
 both some days ago at Count Wurmbrand's, an Aulic-coun- 
 sellor and a man of letters, who is universally esteemed here. 
 But the first man at this court in point of knowledge and 
 abilities is certainly Count Schlick, High Chancellor of Bo- 
 hemia, whose immense reading is accompanied with a fine 
 taste and a solid judgment ; he is a declared enc my to Prince 
 Eugene, and a warm friend to the honest hot-headed Marshal 
 Staremberg. One of the most accomplished men I have seen 
 at Vienna is the young Count Tarrocco, who accompanies the 
 amiable Prince of Portugal. I am almost in love with them 
 both, and wonder to see such elegant manners, and such free 
 and generous sentiments in two young men that have hitherto 
 seen nothing but their own country. The count is just such 
 a Roman-catholic as you ; he succeeds greatly with the devout 
 beauties here; his first overtures in gallantry are disguised 
 under the luscious strains of spiritual love, that were sung for- 
 merly by the sublimely voluptuous Fenelon, and the tender 
 Madam Guion, who turned the fire of carnal love to divine 
 objects : thus the count begins with the spirit, and ends ge- 
 nerally with the flesh, when he makes his addresses to holy 
 virgins. 
 
 I made acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rous- 
 seau, 1 who lives here under the peculiar protection of Prince 
 1 J. B. Rousseau. See notes on the section of letters from Pope. T
 
 266 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 Eugene, by whose liberality he subsists. He passes here for 
 a free-thinker, and, what is still worse in my esteem, for a 
 man whose heart does not feel the encomiums he gives to vir- 
 tue and honour in his poems. I like his odes mightily, they 
 are much superior to the lyrick productions of our English 
 poets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of 
 poetry. I don't find that learned men abound here : there is 
 indeed a prodigious number of alchyrnists at Vienna; the 
 philosopher's stone is the great object of zeal and science ; 
 and those who have more reading and capacity than the 
 vulgar, have transported their superstition (shall I call it 1) or 
 fanaticism from religion to chymistry ; and they believe in a 
 new kind of transubstantiation, which is designed to make 
 the laity as rich as the other kind has made the priesthood. 
 This pestilential passion has already ruined several great 
 houses. There is scarcely a man of opulence or fashion, that 
 has not an alchymist in his service ; and even the Emperor is 
 supposed to be no enemy to this folly in secret, though he has 
 pretended to discourage it in publick. 
 
 Prince Eugene was so polite as to shew me his library 
 yesterday; we found him attended by Rousseau, and his 
 favourite Count Bonneval, who is a man of wit, and is here 
 thought to be a very bold and enterprizing spirit. The library, 
 though not very ample, is well chcsen ; but as the Prince will 
 admit into it no editions but what are beautiful and pleasing 
 to the eye, and there are nevertheless numbers of excellent 
 books that are but indifferently printed, this finnikin and 
 foppish taste makes many disagreeable chasms in this collec- 
 tion. The books are pompously bound in Turkey leather, 
 and two of the most famous bookbinders of Paris were ex- 
 pressly sent for to do this work. Bonneval pleasantly told me 
 that there were several quartos on the art of war, that were 
 bound with the skins of spahis and janissaries ; and this jest, 
 which was indeed elegant, raised a smile of pleasure on the 
 grave countenance of the famous warrior. The Prince, who 
 is a connoisseur in the fine arts, shewed me, with particular 
 pleasure, the famous collection of portraits, that formerly be-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTAKTINOPLE. 267 
 
 longed to Fouquet, and which he purchased at an excessive 
 price. He has augmented it with a considerable number of 
 new acquisitions, so that he has now in his possession such a 
 collection in that kind as you will scarcely find in any ten 
 cabinets in Europe. If I told you the number, you would 
 say that I make an indiscreet use of the permission to lie, 
 which is more or less given to travellers by the indulgence of 
 the candid. 
 
 Count Tarrocco is just come in he is the only person I 
 have excepted this morning in my general order to receive no 
 company. I think I see you smile, but I am not so far gone 
 as to stand in need of absolution ; tho' as the human heart is 
 deceitful, and the Count very agreeable, you may think that 
 even though I should not want an absolution, I would never- 
 theless be glad to have an indulgence. No such thing. 
 However, as I am a heretick, and you no confessor, I shall 
 make no declarations on this head. The design of the Count's 
 visit is a ball ; more pleasure. I shall be surfeited. 
 
 Adieu, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Vienna, Jan. 16, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I AM now, dear sister, to take leave of you for a long time, 
 and of Vienna for ever; designing to-morrow to begin my 
 journey through Hungary, in spite of the excessive cold, and 
 deep snows, which are enough to damp a greater courage than 
 I am mistress of. But my principles of passive obedience 
 carry me through every thing. 
 
 I have had my audiences of leave of the Empresses. His 
 Imperial Majesty was pleased to be present when I waited on 
 the reigning Empress ; and after a very obliging conversation, 
 both their Imperial Majesties invited me to take Vienna in 
 my road back; but I have no thoughts of enduring over 
 again so great a fatigue. I delivered a letter to the Empress 
 from the Duchess of Blankenburg. I staid but few days at that 
 court, though her highness pressed me very much to stay ; and 
 when I left her, engaged me to write to her.
 
 268 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 I wrote you a long letter from thence, which I hope you 
 have received, though you don't mention it ; but I believe I 
 forgot to tell you one curiosity in all the German courts, 
 which I cannot forbear taking notice of : all the princes keep 
 favourite dwarfs. The Emperor and Empress have two of 
 these little monsters, as ugly as devils, especially the female ; 
 but all bedaubed with diamonds, and stand at her Majesty's 
 elbow in all public places. The Duke of Wolfenbuttel has 
 one, and the Duchess of Blankenburg is not without hers, but 
 indeed the most proportionable I ever saw. I am told the 
 King of Denmark has so far improved upon this fashion, 
 that his dwarf is his chief minister. I can assign no reason 
 for their fondness for these pieces of deformity, but the opi- 
 nion that all absolute princes have, that it is below them to 
 converse with the rest of mankind ; and, not to be quite alone, 
 they are forced to seek their companions among the refuse of 
 human nature, these creatures being the only part of their 
 court privileged to talk freely to them. 
 
 I am at present confined to my chamber by a sore throat ; 
 and am really glad of the excuse, to avoid seeing people that 
 I love well enough to be very much mortified when I think 
 I am going to part with them for ever. It is true, the Aus- 
 trians are not commonly the most polite people in the world, 
 or the most agreeable. But Vienna is inhabited by all nations, 
 and I had formed to myself a little society of such as were 
 perfectly to my own taste. And though the number was not 
 very great, I could never pick up, in any other place, such a 
 number of reasonable, agreeable people. We were almost 
 always together, and you know I have ever been of opinion 
 that a chosen conversation, composed of a few that one es- 
 teems, is the greatest happiness of life. 
 
 Here are some Spaniards of both sexes, that have all the 
 vivacity and generosity of sentiments anciently ascribed to 
 their nation ; and, could I believe the whole kingdom were 
 like them, I should wish nothing more than to end my days 
 there. The ladies of my acquaintance have so much good- 
 ness for me, they cry whenever they see me, since I am deter-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 269 
 
 mined to undertake this journey. And, indeed, I am not 
 very easy when I reflect on what I am going to suffer. Almost 
 every body I see frights me with some new difficulty. Prince 
 Eugene has been so good to say all things he could to per- 
 suade me to stay till the Danube is thawed, that I may have 
 the conveuiency of going by water; assuring me, that the 
 houses in Hungary are such as are no defence against the 
 weather ; and that I shall be obliged to travel three or four 
 days between Buda and Essek, without finding any house at 
 all, through desert plains covered with snow, where the cold 
 is so violent, many have been killed by it. I own these terrors 
 have made a very deep impression on my mind, because I 
 believe he tells me things truly as they are, and nobody can 
 be better informed of them. 
 
 Now I have named that great man, I am sure you expect 
 I should say something particular of him, having the advan- 
 tage of seeing him very often ; but I am as unwilling to 
 speak of him at Vienna, as I should be to talk of Hercules in 
 the court of Omphale, if I had seen him there. I don't 
 know what comfort other people find in considering the weak- 
 nesses of great men (because, it brings them nearer to their 
 level), but 'tis always a mortification to me to observe that 
 there is no perfection in humanity. The young Prince of 
 Portugal is the admiration of the whole court ; he is hand- 
 some and polite, with a great vivacity. All the officers tell 
 wonders of his gallantry the last campaign. He is lodged at 
 court with all the honours due to his rank. Adieu, dear 
 sister: this is the last account you will have from me of 
 Vienna. If I survive my journey, you shall hear from me 
 again. I can say with great truth, in the words of Moneses, 
 I have long learnt to hold myself at nothing ; but when I 
 think of the fatigue my poor infant must suffer, I have all a 
 mother's fondness in my eyes, and all her tender passions in 
 my heart. 
 
 P.S. I have written a letter to my Lady , that I believe 
 
 she won't like ; and, upon cooler reflection, I think I had done 
 better to have let it alone ; but I was downright peevish at
 
 z,' 1 ' 1 -KTTERS iuj;i>a, "iin% I 
 
 HI er questions, :unl > er rid n I have 
 
 Bert ai nly seen :i.liini(i:, :e of wonders lh;ii ; nr 
 
 But of men- mail, lie is _ lie like 
 lybeli 
 
 pf the A niliroi'iij -,'. men vl '-\ their 
 
 boulders -, howe ay say son 'lit g l.o p 
 
 TO MT;. r. 
 
 p717]. 
 
 not tinii" to ansv all the 
 
 'i'( -pa my journey : ua'ht to 
 
 to niy (tends with the ;':n . was 
 
 loiint n h, at I i the in- 
 
 l< here, who f teiTors 
 
 o me: ;itnl jmlf ii,, fclie weaihi-r !: : , | > a vein- 
 
 few ever set out in. 1 am threatened at the same mm', wffl 
 being frozen to death, buried in the snow, and taken by the 
 Tartars, who ravage that part of Hungary I am to pass. 'Tis 
 true, we shall have a considerable escorte, so that possibly I may 
 be diverted with a new scene, by finding myself in the midst 
 of a battle. 
 
 How my adventures will conclude, I leave entirely to Pro- 
 vidence ; if comically, you shall hear of them. Pray be so 
 
 good to tell Mr. [Congreve?] I have received his letter. Make 
 him my adieus ; if I live, I will answer it. The same compli- 
 ment to my Lady R. [Rich ?]. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Peterwaradin, Jan. 30, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 AT length, dear sister, I am safely arrived, with all my 
 family, in good health, at Peterwaradin ; having suffered so 
 little from the rigour of the season (against which we were 
 well provided by furs), and found every where, by the care of 
 sending before, such tolerable accommodation ; I can hardly 
 forbear laughing when I recollect all the frightful ideas that 
 
 1 It appears from the London Gazette, Feb. 2-5, 1716-17, that Lady Mary and 
 her husband left Vienna on this day, or N.S. January 27. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 27 1 
 
 were given me of this journey, which were wholly owing to 
 the tenderness of my Vienna friends, and their desire of keep- 
 ing me with them for this winter. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be disagreeable to you to give you a 
 short journal of my journey, being through a country entirely 
 unknown to you, and very little passed even by the Hun- 
 garians themselves, who generally choose to take the conve- 
 niency of going down the Danube. We have had the blessing 
 of being favoured by finer weather than is common at this 
 time of the year; though the snow was so deep, we were 
 obliged to have our coaches fixed upon traineaus, which move 
 so swift and so easily, 'tis by far the most agreeable manner of 
 travelling post. We came to Raab (the second day from 
 
 Vienna) on the seventeenth instant, where Mr. sending 
 
 word of our arrival to the governor, we had the best house in 
 the town provided for us, the garrison put under arms, a 
 guard ordered at our door, and all other honours paid to us. 
 
 The governor and officers immediately waited on Mr. , to 
 
 know if there was any thing to be done for his service. The 
 Bishop of Temeswar came to visit us with great civility, 
 earnestly pressing us to dine with him the next day ; which 
 we refusing, as being resolved to pursue our journey, he sent 
 us several baskets of winter fruit, and a great variety of fine 
 Hungarian wines, with a young hind just killed. This is a 
 pi slate of great power in this country, of the ancient family 
 of Nadasti, so considerable for many ages in this kingdom. 
 He is a very polite, agreeable, cheerful old man, wearing the 
 Hungarian habit, with a venerable white beard down to his 
 girdle. 
 
 Raab is a strong town, well garrisoned and fortified, and 
 was a long time the frontier town between the Turkish and 
 German empires. It has its name from the river Rab, on 
 which it is situated, just on its meeting with the Danube, in 
 an open champaign country. It was first taken by the Turks, 
 under the command of Pashd Sinan, in the reign of Sultan 
 Amurath III., fifteen hundred and ninety-four. The governor, 
 being supposed to have betrayed it, was afterwards beheaded
 
 272 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 by the emperor's command. The Counts of Swartzenburg 
 and Palfi retook it by surprise, 1598 ; since which time it has 
 remained in the hands of the Germans, though the Turks once 
 more attempted to gain it by stratagem 1642. The cathedral 
 is large and well built, which is all that I saw remarkable in 
 the town. 
 
 Leaving Comora on the other side [of] the river, we went 
 the eighteenth to Nosmuhl, a small village, where, however, we 
 made shift to find tolerable accommodation. We continued 
 two days travelling between this place and Buda, through the 
 finest plains in the world, as even as if they were paved, and 
 extremely fruitful ; but for the most part desert and unculti- 
 vated, laid waste by the long war between the Turk and em- 
 peror, and the more cruel civil war occasioned by the barba- 
 rous persecution of the Protestant religion by the Emperor 
 Leopold. That prince has left behind him the character of 
 an extraordinary piety, and was naturally of a mild merciful 
 temper ; but, putting his conscience into the hands of a Jesuit, 
 he was more cruel and treacherous to his poor Hungarian 
 subjects, than ever the Turk has been to the Christians; 
 breaking, without scruple, his coronation oath, and his faith, 
 solemnly given in many public treaties. Indeed, nothing can 
 be more melancholy than, travelling through Hungary, re- 
 flecting on the former flourishing state of that kingdom, and 
 seeing such a noble spot of earth almost uninhabited. This 
 is also the present circumstances of Buda (where we arrived 
 very early the twenty-second), once the royal seat of the Hun- 
 garian kings, where their palace was reckoned one of the most 
 beautiful buildings of the age, now wholly destroyed, no part 
 of the town having been repaired since the last siege, but the 
 fortifications and the castle, which is the present residence of 
 the governor-general Ragule, an officer of great merit. He 
 came immediately to see us, and carried us in his coach to his 
 house, where I was received by his lady with all possible 
 civility, and magnificently entertained. 
 
 This city is situated upon a little hill on the south side of 
 tne Danube, the castle being much higher than the town,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 273 
 
 from whence the prospect is very noble. Without the walls 
 lie a vast number of little houses, or rather huts, that they 
 call the Rascian town, being altogether inhabited by that 
 people. The governor assured me it would furnish twelve 
 thousand fighting men. These towns look very odd ; their 
 houses stand in rows, many thousands of them so close toge- 
 ther, they appear at a little distance like odd-fashioned 
 thatched tents. They consist, every one of them, of one 
 hovel above, and another under ground ; these are their sum- 
 mer and winter apartments. Buda was first taken by Soly- 
 man the Magnificent, 1526, and lost the following year to 
 Ferdinand I., King of Bohemia. Solyman regained it, 1529, 
 by the treachery of the garrison, and voluntarily gave it into 
 the hand of King John of Hungary ; after whose death, his 
 son being an infant, Ferdinand laid siege to it, and the Queen 
 mother was forced to call Solyman to her aid, who raised the 
 siege, but left a Turkish garrison in the town, and commanded 
 her to remove her court from thence, which she was forced to 
 submit to, 1541. It resisted afterwards the sieges laid to it by 
 the Marquis of Brandenburg, 1542 ; the Count of Swartzen- 
 burg, 1598 ; General Rosworm, 1602 ; and the Duke of 
 Lorraine, commander of the Emperor's forces, 1684 ; to whom 
 it yielded, 1686, after an obstinate defence, Apti Bassa, the 
 governor, being killed, fighting in the breach with a Roman 
 bravery. The loss of this town was so important, and so 
 much resented by the Turks, it occasioned the deposing of 
 their Emperor Mahomet the Fourth the year following. 
 
 We did not proceed on our journey till the twenty-third, 
 passing through Adam and Todowar, both considerable towns 
 when in the hands of the Turks. These are now quite 
 ruined ; only the remains of some Turkish towers shew some- 
 thing of what they have been. This part of the country is 
 very much overgrown with wood, and so little frequented, 'tis 
 incredible what vast numbers of wild-fowl we saw, who often 
 live here to a good old age, 
 
 " And undisturbed by guns, in quiet slsep." 
 We came the twenty-fifth to Mohatch, and were shewed the 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 field near it, where Lewis, the young King of Hungary, lost his 
 army and his life, being drowned in a ditch, trying to fly from 
 Balybeus, general of Solyman the Magnificent. This battle 
 opened the first passage for the Turks into the heart of Hun- 
 gary. 1 don't name to you the little villages, of which I 
 
 can say nothing remarkable; but I'll assure you I have 
 always found a warm stove, and great plenty, particularly of 
 wild boar, venison, and all kind of gibier. The few people 
 that inhabit Hungary live easily enough ; they have no money, 
 but the woods and plains afford them provision in great abun- 
 dance : they were ordered to give us all things necessary, even 
 what horses we pleased to demand, gratis ; but Mr. W 
 [Wortley] would not oppress the poor country people by making 
 use of this order, and always paid them the full worth of what 
 we had from them. They were so surprized at this unexpected 
 generosity, which they are very little used to, they always 
 pressed upon us, at parting, a dozen of fat pheasants, or 
 something of that sort, for a present. Their dress is very 
 primitive, being only a plain sheep's skin, without other dress- 
 ing than being dried in the sun, and a cap and boots of the 
 same stuff. You may imagine this lasts them for many win- 
 ters ; and thus they have very little occasion for money. 
 
 The twenty-sixth, we passed over the frozen Danube, with 
 all our equipage and carriages. We met on the other side 
 General Veterani, who invited us, with great civility, to pass 
 the night at a little castle of his, a few miles off, assuring us 
 we should have a very hard day's journey to reach Essek, 
 which we found but too true, the woods being scarcely pass- 
 able and very dangerous, from the vast quantity of wolves 
 that hoard in them. We came, however, safe, though late, 
 to Essek, where we stayed a day to despatch a courier with 
 letters to the Pasha of Belgrade ; and I took that opportunity 
 of seeing the town, which is not very large, but fair built, and 
 well fortified. This was a town of great trade, very rich and 
 populous, when in the hands of the Turks. It is situated on 
 the Drave, which runs into the Danube. The bridge was 
 esteemed one of the most extraordinary in the world, being
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 275 
 
 eight thousand paces long, and all built of oak, which was 
 burnt, and the city laid in ashes by Count Lesley, 1685, but 
 again repaired and fortified by the Turks, who, however, 
 abandoned it, 1687, and General Dunnewalt took possession of 
 it for the Emperor, in whose hands it has remained ever since, 
 and is esteemed one of the bulwarks of Hungary. 
 
 The twenty-eighth, we went to Bocorwar, a very large Ras- 
 cian town, all built after the manner I have described to you. 
 
 We were met there by Colonel , who would not suffer us to 
 
 go anywhere but to his quarters, where I found his wife, a 
 very agreeable Hungarian lady, and his niece and daughter, 
 two pretty young women, crowded into three or four Rascian 
 houses cast into one, and made as neat and convenient as 
 those places were capable of being made. The Hungarian 
 ladies are much handsomer than those of Austria. All the 
 Vienna beauties are of that country ; they are generally very 
 fair and well-shaped, their dress I think extremely becoming. 
 This lady was in a gown of scarlet velvet, lined and faced 
 with sables, made exact to her shape, and the skirt falling to 
 her feet. The sleeves are strait to then* arms, and the stays 
 buttoned before, with two rows of little buttons of gold, pearl, 
 or diamonds. On their heads they wear a cap embroidered 
 with a tassel of gold, that hangs low on one side, lined with 
 sable or some other fine fur. They gave us a handsome 
 dinner, and I thought the conversation very polite and agree- 
 able. They would accompany us part of our way. 
 
 The twenty-ninth, we arrived here, where we were met by 
 the commandant at the head of all the officers of the garrison. 
 We are lodged in the best apartment of the governor's house, 
 and entertained in a very splendid manner by the Emperor's 
 order. We wait here till all points are adjusted, concerning 
 
 our reception on the Turkish frontiers. Mr. 's [Wortley's] 
 
 courier, which he sent from Essek, returned this morning, 
 with the pasha's answer in a purse of scarlet satin, which the 
 interpreter here has translated. It is to promise him to be 
 honourably received, and desires him to appoint where he 
 would be met by the Turkish convoy. He has dispatched the 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 courier back, naming Betsko, a village in the midway between 
 Peterwaradin and Belgrade. We shall stay here till we 
 receive the answer. 1 
 
 Thus, dear sister, I have given you a very particular, and 
 (I'm afraid you'll think) a tedious account, of this part of my 
 travels. It was not an affectation of shewing my reading, 
 that has made me tell you some little scraps of the history of 
 the towns I have passed through ; I have always avoided any- 
 thing of that kind, when I spoke of places which I believed 
 you knew the story of as well as myself. But Hungary being 
 a part of the world that I believe quite new to you, I thought 
 you might read with some pleasure an account of it, which I 
 have been very solicitous to get from the best hands. How- 
 ever, if you don't like it, 'tis in your power to forbear reading 
 it. I am, dear sister, &c. 
 
 I am promised to have this letter carefully sent to Vienna. 
 
 TO MR. P. [POPE]. 
 
 Belgrade, 2 Feb. 12, O.S. [1717], 
 
 1 DID verily intend to write you a long letter from Peter- 
 waradin, where I expected to stay three or four days ; but the 
 pasha here was in such haste to see us, he dispatched our 
 
 1 " I set out from Essek on the 6th, the day after I had despatched a courier to 
 the Seraskier of Belgrade, who, after having detained him longer than he needed 
 to have done, dismissed him last night, and this morning he has brought me a letter 
 in which the seraskier desires me to name where I would be received, and the 
 number of the convoy. The commanding officer of Peterwaradin makes me the same 
 offer. I shall this afternoon despatch the courier back to Belgrade, and I propose 
 to go on the llth to Besko, near Salankment, at a league beyond which place I 
 have desired to be received by the Turks. The Grand Signior is at Adrianople." 
 Letter of Mr. Worthy Moniagu to Secretary Stanhope, dated " Peterwardein, 9 Feb., 
 1717," in the State Paper Office. 1. 
 
 2 A paragraph in the London Gazette of Mar. 5-9, 1717, gives the following ac- 
 count of the ambassador's journey to Belgrade : " As soon as he arrived there 
 [Peterwaradin] he despatched a courier to the Seraskier of Belgrade to notify his 
 coming, and to desire him to make the necessary preparations for his reception. 
 At the same time he would have had the commanding officer at Peterwaradin send 
 another courier to the same effect on his part, it having been customary so to do. 
 But he excused himself upon his having orders to furnish him with everything 
 necessary, but not to send any messenger to the Turks lest they should interpret 
 it as an argument of the emperor's desire of peace. The Turks, seeing the ambas- 
 sador's courier come alone contrary to the practice in like cases, suspected he might 
 be a spy sent under that pretence, and thought fit to send him back with one of 
 their officers to see if the ambassador was at Peterwaradin, and to settle the number 
 of men who should convoy him, and the place of their meeting ; which being done,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 277 
 
 courier back 1 (which Mr. [Wortley] had sent to know the 
 
 time he would send the convoy to meet us) without suffering 
 him to pull off his boots. 
 
 My letters were not thought important enough to stop our 
 journey ; and we left Peterwaradin the next day, being waited 
 on by the chief officers of the garrison, and a considerable 
 convoy of Germans and Rascians. The Emperor has several 
 regiments of these people ; but, to say truth, they are rather 
 plunderers than soldiers ; having no pay, and being obliged to 
 furnish their own arms and horses ; they rather look like vaga- 
 bond gipsies, or stout beggars, than regular troops. 
 
 I cannot forbear speaking a word of this race of creatures, 
 who are very numerous all over Hungary. They have a 
 patriarch of their own at Grand Cairo, and are really of the 
 Greek church ; but their extreme ignorance gives their priests 
 occasion to impose several new notions upon them. These 
 fellows, letting their hair and beards grow inviolate, make 
 exactly the figure of the Indian brahmins. They are heirs- 
 general to all the money of the laity ; for which, in return, 
 they give them formal passports signed and sealed for heaven ; 
 and the wives and children only inherit the houses and cattle. 
 In most other points they follow the Greek Rites. 
 
 This little digression has interrupted my telling you we 
 passed over the fields of Carlowitz, where the last great victory 
 was obtained by Prince Eugene over the Turks. The marks 
 of that glorious bloody day are yet recent, the field being 
 strewed with the skulls and carcases of unburied men, horses, 
 and camels. I could not look without horror, on such numbers 
 of mangled human bodies, and reflect on the injustice of war, 
 that makes murder not only necessary but meritorious. Nothing 
 seems to me a plainer proof of the irrationality of mankind 
 (whatever fine claims we pretend to reason) than the rage 
 
 the ambassador set out on the llth instant from Peterwaradin with a guard of 150 
 horse and as many foot. On the 12th he was met about a league and a half 
 beyond the ancient limits by a guard of Turks of the same number, who at taking 
 him under their care gave the imperial officer a receipt." T. 
 
 1 Yet see Pope's letter, evidently written in the summer of 1717, in which he 
 says : " The last I received from your hands was from Peterwaradin." T.
 
 278 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 with which they contest for a small spot of ground, when such 
 vast parts of fruitful earth lie quite uninhabited. It is true, 
 custom has now made it unavoidable; but can there be a 
 greater demonstration of want of reason, than a custom being 
 firmly established, so plainly contrary to the interest of man 
 in general ? I am a good deal inclined to believe Mr. Hobbes, 
 that the state of nature is a state of war ; but thence I conclude 
 human nature not rational, if the word reason means common 
 sense, as I suppose it does. I have a great many admirable 
 arguments to support this reflection ; but I won't trouble you 
 with them, but return, in a plain style, to the history of my 
 travels. 
 
 We were met at Betsko (a village in the midway between 
 Belgrade and Peterwaradin) by an aga of the janissaries, with 
 a body of Turks, exceeding the Germans by one hundred 
 men, though the pasha had engaged to send exactly the same 
 number. You may judge by this of their fears. I am really 
 persuaded, that they hardly thought the odds of one hundred 
 men set them even with the Germans ; however, I was very 
 uneasy till they were parted, fearing some quarrel might arise, 
 notwithstanding the parole given. 
 
 We came late to Belgrade, 1 the deep snows making the 
 ascent to it very difficult. It seems a strong city, fortified on 
 the east side by the Danube, and on the south by the river 
 Save, and was formerly the barrier of Hungary. It was first 
 taken by Solyman [the] Magnificent, and since by the Em- 
 peror's forces, led by the Elector of Bavaria, who held it only 
 two years, it being retaken by the Grand Vizier, and is now 
 fortified with the utmost care and skill the Turks are capable 
 of, and strengthened by a very numerous garrison of their 
 bravest janissaries, commanded by a pasha seraskier (i. e. ge- 
 neral). This last expression is not very just; for, to say 
 
 1 Lord Paget, in 1698, had made a similar procession to Belgrade on the frontiers 
 of Turkey, in which nothing was omitted to impress the Turks with ideas of the 
 splendour of the nation he represented, the expense of that single mission amount- 
 ing to three thousand pounds. Both these ambassadors travelled with three hun- 
 dred horses, and had their tents placed nearest to that of the Grand Vizier. 
 Dallaway's Memoir of Lady Mary. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 279 
 
 truth, the seraskier is commanded by the janissaries, who have 
 an absolute authority here, not much unlike a rebellion, which 
 you may judge of by the following story, which, at the same 
 time, will give you an idea of the admirable intelligence of the 
 governor of Peterwaraclin, though so few hours distant. We 
 were told by him at Peterwaradin, that the garrison and in- 
 habitants of Belgrade were so weary of the war, they had 
 killed their pasha about two months ago, in a mutiny, because 
 he had suffered himself to be prevailed upon, by a bribe of 
 five purses (five hundred pounds sterling), to give permission 
 to the Tartars to ravage the German frontiers. We were 
 very well pleased to hear of such favourable dispositions in 
 the people ; but when we came hither, we found the governor 
 had been ill-informed, and this the real truth of the story. 
 The late pasha fell under the displeasure of his soldiers, for no 
 other reason but restraining their incursions on the Germans. 
 They took it into their heads, from that mildness, he was of 
 intelligence with the enemy, and sent such information to the 
 Grand Signior at Adrianople ; but, redress not coming quick 
 from thence, they assembled themselves in a tumultuous man- 
 ner, and by force dragged their pasha before the cadi and 
 mufti, and there demanded justice in a mutinous way ; one 
 crying out, Why he protected the infidels ? Another, Why 
 he squeezed them of their money "? that [sic] easily guessing 
 their purpose, he calmly replied to them, that they asked him 
 too many questions ; he had but one life, which must answer 
 for all. They immediately fell upon him with their scimitars 
 (without waiting the sentence of their heads of the law), and 
 in a few moments cut him in pieces. The present pasha has 
 not dared to punish the murder ; on the contrary, he affected 
 to applaud the actors of it, as brave fellows, that knew how to 
 do themselves justice. 1 He takes all pretences of throwing 
 
 1 Mr. AVortley Montagu thus alludes to these circumstances in a letter preserved 
 in the State Paper Office, and dated " Adrianople, April 10, 1717 :" " This pasha's 
 predecessor was stabbed and cut into small pieces by the janissaries in the market- 
 place. Their chief reason was his not having agreed to their desire of plundering 
 the German country from whence, at that time, and when I went by, they bought 
 the greatest part of their provisions. From his not complying with them they 
 argued that he was not enough inclined to carry on the war. They stabbed a
 
 280 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 money among the garrison, and suffers them to make little 
 excursions into Hungary, where they burn some poor Rascian 
 houses. 
 
 You may imagine, I cannot be very easy in a town which 
 is really under the government of an insolent soldiery. We 
 expected to be immediately dismissed, after a night's lodging 
 here; but the pasha detains us till he receives orders from 
 Adrianople, which may possibly be a month a-coming. In 
 the mean time, we are lodged in one of the best houses, be- 
 longing to a very considerable man amongst them, and have 
 a whole chamber of janissaries to guard us. My only diver- 
 sion is the conversation of our host, Achmet Beg, a title some- 
 thing like that of count in Germany. His father was a great 
 pasha, and he has been educated in the most polite eastern 
 learning, being perfectly skilled in the Arabic and Persian 
 languages, and is an extraordinary scribe, which they call 
 effendi. This accomplishment makes way to the greatest pre- 
 ferments ; but he has had the good sense to prefer an easy, 
 quiet, secure life, to all the dangerous honours of the Porte. 
 He sups with us every night, and drinks wine very freely. 
 You cannot imagine how much he is delighted with the liberty 
 of conversing with me. He has explained to me many pieces 
 of Arabian poetry, which, I observed, are in numbers not un- 
 like ours, generally alternate verse, and of a very musical 
 sound. Their expressions of love are very passionate and 
 lively. I am so much pleased with them, I really believe I 
 should learn to read Arabic, if I was to stay here a few 
 months. He has a very good library of their books of all 
 kinds ; and, as he tells me, spends the greatest part of his life 
 there. I pass for a great scholar with him, by relating to him 
 some of the Persian tales, which I find are genuine. 1 At first 
 
 citizen in the streets when I was there for no reason but his being a Christian. 
 Not one man was asked any questions about either of these facts, and the pasha used 
 no other method to hinder these disorders, which differed little from a mutiny, but 
 gave them money in great quantity." T. 
 
 1 The Persian tales appeared first in Europe as a translation, by Monsieur Petit 
 de la Croix ; and what are called " The Arabian Nights," in a similar manner, by 
 Monsieur Galland. The Tales of the Genii, said in the title-page to have been 
 translated by Sir Charles Morell, were, in fact, entirely composed by James Ridley, 
 Esq. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 281 
 
 he believed I understood Persian. I have frequent disputes 
 with him concerning the difference of our customs, particularly 
 the confinement of women. He assures me, there is nothing 
 at all in it ; only, says he, we have the advantage, that when 
 our wives cheat us, nobody knows it. He has wit, and is more 
 polite than many Christian men of quality. I am very much 
 entertained with him. He has had the curiosity to make one 
 of our servants set him an alphabet of our letters, and can al- 
 ready write a good Roman hand. 
 
 But these amusements do not hinder my wishing heartily to 
 be out of this place ; though the weather is colder than I be- 
 lieved it ever was any where but in Greenland. We have a 
 very large stove constantly kept hot, and yet the windows of 
 the room are frozen on the inside. God knows when I may 
 have an opportunity of sending this letter : but I have written 
 it in the discharge of my own conscience ; and you cannot 
 now reproach me, that one of yours can make ten of mine. 
 
 TO HER R. H. THE P [PRINCESS OF WALES]. 1 
 
 Adrianople, April 1,* O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I HAVE now, madam, past a journey that has not been 
 undertaken by any Christian since the time of the Greek 
 emperors : and I shall not regret all the fatigues I have suf- 
 fered in it, if it gives me an opportunity of amusing your R. H. 
 by an account of places utterly unknown amongst us ; the 
 Emperor's ambassadors, and those few English that have 
 come hither, always going on the Danube to Nicopolis. 3 But 
 
 1 Afterwards Queen Caroline, wife of George II. W. 
 
 * It appears from official correspondence in the State Paper Office that Mr. 
 Wortley Montagu arrived at Adrianople 13th March, O.S. T. 
 
 s Mr. Wortley Montagu, in a letter in the State Paper Office, remarks that " Sir 
 William Hussey, who was sent by King William, travelled with his lady [to Con- 
 stantinople], and by setting out too late, was obliged to stay all the winter at 
 Vienna." Lady Mary does not allude to these facts, which is the more remark- 
 able, as they are almost exactly parallel with the circumstances of her own journej*. 
 Mr. Dallaway also observes that " it has been said that Lady Mary was the iirst 
 Englishwoman who had the curiosity and spirit to visit the Levant ;" but that he 
 recollected " seeing an account at Constantinople that both Lady Paget and Lad}- 
 Winchelsea were included in the suite of their lords during their several em- 
 bassies." T.
 
 282 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 that river was now frozen, and Mr. [Wortley] so zealous 
 
 for the service of his Majesty, he would not defer his journey 
 to wait for the conveniency of that passage. 
 
 We crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite overgrown 
 with wood, though a country naturally fertile, and the in- 
 habitants industrious ; but the oppression of the peasants is so 
 great, they are forced to abandon their houses, and neglect 
 their tillage, all they have being a prey to the janissaries, 
 whenever they please to seize upon it. We had a guard of 
 five hundred of them, and I was almost in tears every day 
 to see their insolencies in the poor villages through which we 
 passed. 
 
 After seven days' travelling through thick woods, we came 
 to Nissa, once the capital of Servia, situate in a fine plain on 
 the river Nissava, in a very good air, and so fruitful a soil, 
 that the great plenty is hardly credible. I was certainly 
 assured, that the quantity of wine last vintage was so pro- 
 digious, they were forced to dig holes in the earth to put it in, 
 not having vessels enough in the town to hold it. The happi- 
 ness of this plenty is scarce perceived by the oppressed people. 
 I saw here a new occasion for my compassion. The wretches 
 that had provided twenty waggons for our baggage from Bel- 
 grade hither for a certain hire, being all sent back without 
 payment, some of their horses lamed, and others killed, with- 
 out any satisfaction made for them. The poor fellows came 
 round the house weeping and tearing their hair and beards in 
 the most pitiful manner, without getting anything but drubs 
 from the insolent soldiers. I cannot express to your R. H. 
 how much I was moved at this scene. I would have paid 
 them the money out of my own pocket, with all my heart ; but 
 it had been only giving so much to the aga, who would have 
 taken it from them without any remorse. 
 
 After four days' journey from this place over the moun- 
 tains, we came to Sophia, situate in a large beautiful plain on 
 the river Isca, or Iscae, surrounded with distant mountains. 
 It is hardly possible to see a more agreeable landscape. The 
 city itself is very large, and extremely populous. Here are
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 283 
 
 hot baths, very famous for their medicinal virtues. Four 
 days' journey from hence we arrived at Philipopoli, after 
 having passed the ridges between the mountains of Hsemus 
 and Rhodope, which are always covered with snow. This 
 town is situate on a rising ground near the river Hebrus, and 
 is almost wholly inhabited by Greeks : here are still some 
 ancient Christian churches. They have a bishop ; and several 
 of the richest Greeks live here ; but they are forced to conceal 
 their wealth with great care, the appearance of poverty (which 
 includes part of its inconveniences) being all their security 
 against feeling it in earnest. The country from hence to 
 Adrianople is the finest in the world. Vines grow wild on all 
 the hills ; and the perpetual spring they enjoy makes every 
 thing look gay and flourishing. But this climate, as happy as 
 it seems, can never be preferred to England, with all its snows 
 and frosts, while we are blessed with an easy government, 
 under a king who makes his own happiness consist in the 
 liberty of his people, and chooses rather to be looked upon as 
 their father than their master. 
 
 This theme would carry me very far, and I am sensible 
 that I have already tired out your R. II.'s patience. But my 
 letter is in your hands, and you may make it as short as you 
 please, by throwing it into the fire, when you are weary of 
 reading it. 
 
 I am, madam, 
 
 With the greatest respect, &c. 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 Adrianople, 1 April 1, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I AM now got into a new world, where every thing I see 
 appears to me a change of scene ; and I write to your ladyship 
 
 1 The Daily Courant of June 24, 1717, quotes from the Leyden Gazette an advice 
 dated Adrianople, April 21, as follows: " Mr. Wortley Montagu arrived here the 
 24th of last month [13th March, O.S.] ... the llth instant [N.S.] he had au- 
 dience of the Prime Vizier, and on the 18th he was admitted to audience of the 
 Grand Signior with the usual ceremonies. Sir Robert Sutton, his predecessor, 
 having been recalled, took his audience of leave of the Prime Vizier the beginning 
 of last month by writing, and had audience of the Caimacan of Constantinople, 
 and soon after departed in an English man-of-war named the Assurance." T.
 
 284 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 with some content of mind, hoping at least that you will find 
 the charm of novelty in my letters, and no longer reproach 
 me, that I tell you nothing extraordinary. 
 
 I won't trouble you with a relation of our tedious journey ; 
 but I must not omit what I saw remarkable at Sophia, one of 
 the most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire, and famous 
 for its hot baths, that are resorted to both for diversion and 
 health. I stopped here one day on purpose to see them. 
 Designing to go incognita, I hired a Turkish coach. These 
 voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for 
 the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very 
 troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of 
 the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded ; 
 the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers? 
 intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are 
 covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined with silk, and very 
 often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely 
 hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at plea- 
 sure, and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four 
 people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised. 
 
 In one of these covered waggons, I went to the bagnio about 
 ten o'clock. It was already full of women. It is built of 
 stone, in the shape of a dome, with no windows but in the 
 roof, which gives light enough. There were five of these 
 domes joined together, the outmost being less than the rest, 
 and serving only as a hall, where the portress stood at the 
 door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman the value 
 of a crown or ten shillings ; and I did not forget that cere- 
 mony. The next room is a very large one paved with marble, 
 and all round it, raised, two sofas of marble, one above an- 
 other. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, 
 falling first into marble basins, and then running on the floor 
 in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the 
 streams into the next room, something less than this, with the 
 same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur 
 proceeding from the baths joining to it, it was impossible to 
 stay there with one's clothes on. The two other domes were
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 285 
 
 the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning 
 into it, to temper it to what degree of wannth the bathers have 
 a mind to. 
 
 I was in my travelling habit, which is a riding dress, and 
 certainly appeared very extraordinary to them. Yet there 
 was not one of them that shewed the least surprize or imper- 
 tinent curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility 
 possible. I know no European court where the ladies would 
 have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. 
 I believe in the whole, there were two hundred women, and 
 yet none of those disdainful smiles, or satiric whispers, that 
 never fail in our assemblies when any body appears that is not 
 dressed exactly in the fashion. They repeated over and over 
 to me, " Uzelle, pek uzelle," which is nothing but Charming, 
 very charming. The first sofas were covered with cushions 
 and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies ; and on the second, 
 their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank 
 by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain 
 English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. 
 Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture 
 amongst them. They walked and moved with the same ma- 
 jestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. 
 There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as 
 ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian, 
 and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by 
 their beautiful hair divided into many tresses, hanging on 
 their shoulders, braided either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly 
 representing the figures of the Graces. 
 
 I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had 
 often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face 
 would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies with 
 the finest skins and most delicate shapes had the greatest 
 share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes 
 less beautiful than those of their companions. To tell you 
 the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr. 
 Jervas l could have been there invisible. I fancy it would 
 
 1 Charles Jervas was a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller. He was the friend of
 
 286 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 have very much improved his art, to see so many fine women 
 naked, in different postures, some in conversation, some work- 
 ing, others drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently 
 lying on their cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty 
 girls of seventeen or eighteen) were employed in braiding 
 their hair in several pretty fancies. In short, it is the women's 
 coffee-house, where all the news of the town is told, scandal 
 invented, &c. They generally take this diversion once a-week, 
 and stay there at least four or five hours, without getting cold 
 by immediate coming out of the hot bath into the cold room, 
 which was very surprizing to me. The lady that seemed the 
 most considerable among them, entreated me to sit by her, 
 and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused 
 myself with some difficulty. They being all so earnest in 
 persuading me, I was at last forced to open my shirt, and 
 shew them my stays ; which satisfied them very well for, I 
 saw, they believed I was so locked up in that machine, that it 
 was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they 
 attributed to my husband. 1 I was charmed with their civility 
 and beauty, and should have been very glad to pass more time 
 
 with them ; but Mr. W [Wortley] resolving to pursue 
 
 his journey the next morning early, I was in haste to see the 
 ruins of Justinian's church, which did not afford me so agree- 
 able a prospect as I had left, being little more than a heap of 
 stones. 
 
 Adieu, madam : I am sure I have now entertained you 
 with an account of such a sight as you never saw in your 
 life, and what no book of travels could inform you of. 'Tis 
 
 Pope, and much celebrated for his portraits of females. The beauties of his day 
 were proud to be painted by his hand, after Pope had published his celebrated 
 epistle to him, in which he is complimented as " selling a thousand years of 
 bloom." D. 
 
 1 One of the highest entertainments in Turkey is having you to their baths. 
 When I was introduced to one the lady of the house came to undress me ; another 
 high compliment they pay to strangers. After she had slipped off my gown and 
 saw my stays she was very struck at the sight of them, and cried out to the other 
 ladies in the bath : " Come hither and see how cruelly the poor English ladies are 
 used by their husbands. You need boast indeed of the superior liberties allowed 
 you, when they lock you thus up in a box." Lady M. W. Montagu to Spence, 
 1741. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 287 
 
 iio less than death for a man to be found in one of these 
 places. 1 
 
 TO THE ABBOT - - [THE ABBE CONTl]. 2 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 You see that I am very exact in keeping the promise you 
 engaged me to make ; but I know not whether your curiosity 
 will be satisfied with the accounts I shall give you, though I 
 can assure you, that the desire I have to oblige you to the 
 utmost of my power, has made me very diligent in my en- 
 quiries and observations. It is certain we have but very im- 
 perfect relations of the manners and religion of these people ; 
 this part of the world being seldom visited but by merchants, 
 who mind little but their own aifairs, or travellers, who make 
 too short a stay to be able to report any thing exactly of their 
 own knowledge. The Turks are too proud to converse fami- 
 liarly with merchants, &c. ; who can only pick up some con- 
 fused informations, which are generally false ; and they can 
 give no better account of the ways here, than a French re- 
 fugee, lodging in a garret in Greek-street, could write of the 
 court of England. 
 
 The journey we have made from Belgrade hither by land, 
 cannot possibly be passed by any out of a public character. 
 
 1 Dr. Russel, an author of great credit, in his History of Aleppo, questions the 
 truth of the account here given by Lady Mary Wortley, affirming that the native 
 ladies of that city, with whom, as their physician, he had permission to converse 
 through a lattice, denied to him the prevalence, and almost the existence of the 
 custom she describes, and even seemed as much scandalised at hearing of it, as if 
 they had been born and bred in England. The writer of this note confesses to 
 having entertained doubts upon this point, arising from the statement of Dr. Russel ; 
 but these doubts were removed by the testimony of a lady, who travelled some 
 years ago in Turkey, and was several months an inmate of the English ambas- 
 sador's house at Pera, whose veracity no one who knew her, could doubt, and whose 
 word would have been taken, before the oaths of a whole haram. That lady, having 
 been prevented, by circumstances, from visiting the baths at Constantinople, had 
 an opportunity of doing so at Athens, and there she found Lady Mary's account 
 strictly correct in the main points, although the sight did not inspire her with the 
 same degree of admiration. To use a trite metaphor, she found Lady Mary's out- 
 line faithful, but her colouring too vivid. It may therefore be fairly presumed 
 that the Aleppo ladies, perceiving the doctor's opinion of the custom, thought fit 
 to disclaim it, or that it really did not prevail in that particular city, and their 
 knowledge went no further. W. 
 
 2 See Memoir, ante, p. 20. T.
 
 288 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 The desert woods of Servia are the common refuge of thieves, 
 who rob, fifty in a company, [so] that we had need of all our 
 guards to secure us ; and the villages so poor, that only force 
 could extort from them necessary provisions. Indeed the 
 janissaries had no mercy on their poverty, killing all the 
 poultry and sheep they could find, without asking whom they 
 belonged to ; while the wretched owners durst not put in 
 their claim, for fear of being beaten. Lambs just fallen, 
 geese and turkies big with egg, all massacred without distinc- 
 tion ! I fancied I heard the complaints of Melibceus for the 
 hope of his flock. When the pashas travel, it is yet worse. 
 Those oppressors are not content with eating all that is to be 
 eaten belonging to the peasants ; after they have crammed 
 themselves and their numerous retinue, they have [the] im- 
 pudence to exact what they call teeth-money, a contribution 
 for the use of their teeth, worn with doing them the honour 
 of devouring their meat. This is a literal known truth, 
 however extravagant it seems ; and such is the natural cor- 
 ruption of a military government, their religion not allowing 
 of this barbarity no more than ours does. 
 
 I had the advantage of lodging three weeks at Belgrade 
 with a principal effendi, that is to say, a scholar. This set of 
 men are equally capable of preferments in the law or the 
 church, those two sciences being cast into one, a lawyer and a 
 priest being the same word. They are the only men really 
 considerable in the empire ; all the profitable employments 
 and church revenues are in their hands. The Grand Signior, 
 though general heir to his people, never presumes to touch 
 their lands or money, which go, in an uninterrupted succes- 
 sion, to their children. It is true, they lose this privilege by 
 accepting a place at court, or the title of pasha ; but there are 
 few examples of such fools among them. You may easily 
 judge the power of these men, who have engrossed all the 
 learning, and almost all the wealth, of the empire. 'Tis they 
 that are the real authors, though the soldiers are the actors, of 
 revolutions. They deposed the late Sultan Mustapha; and
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 289 
 
 their power h w> well known, it is the Emperor's interest to 
 flatter them. 
 
 This is a long digression. I was going to tell you that an 
 intimate daily conversation with the effendi Achmet-Beg gave 
 me an opportunity of knowing their religion and morals in a 
 more particular manner than perhaps any Christian ever did. 
 I explained to him the difference between the religion of Eng- 
 land and Rome ; and he was pleased to hear there were Chris- 
 tians that did not worship images, or adore the Virgin Mary. 
 The ridicule of transubstantiation appeared very strong to him. 
 
 Upon comparing our creeds together, I am convinced that 
 
 if our friend Dr. had free liberty of preaching here, it 
 
 would be very easy to persuade the generality to Christianity, 
 whose notions are already little different from his. Mr. Wh 
 [Whiston] would make a very good apostle here. I don't 
 doubt but his zeal will be much fired, if you communicate this 
 account to him ; but tell him, he must first have the gift of 
 tongues, before he could possibly be of any use. 
 
 Mahometism is divided into as many sects as Christianity ; 
 and the first institution as much neglected and obscured by 
 interpretations. I cannot here forbear reflecting on the natural 
 inclination of mankind to make mysteries and novelties. 
 The Zeidi, Kudi, Jabari, &c., put me in mind of the Catholic, 
 Lutheran, and Calvinist, &c., and are equally zealous against 
 one another. But the most prevailing opinion, if you search 
 into the secret of the effendis, is plain deism. But this is kept 
 from the people, who are amused with a thousand different 
 notions, according to the different interests of their preachers. 
 There are very few amongst them (Achmet-Beg denied there 
 were any) so absurd, as to set up for wit by declaring they 
 believe no God at all. Sir Paul Eycaut is mistaken (as he 
 commonly is) in calling the sect muterin 1 (i.e. the secret with 
 us) atheists, they being deists, and their impiety consists in 
 making a jest of their prophet. Achmet-Beg did not own to 
 
 1 Sec D'Ohsson, Tableau Ge'ne'ral de 1'Empire Othoman, 5 vols. 8vo, 1791, in 
 which the religious code of the Mohammedans, and of each sect, is very satisfac- 
 torily detailed. D. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 me that he was of this opinion ; but made no scruple of de- 
 viating from some part of Mahomet's law, by drinking wine 
 with the same freedom we did. When I asked him how he 
 came to allow himself that liberty ? he made answer, all the 
 creatures of God were good, and designed for the use of man ; 
 however, that the prohibition of wine was a very wise maxim, and 
 meant for the common people, being the source of all disorders 
 among them ; but that the prophet never designed to confine 
 those that knew how to use it with moderation. However, 
 scandal ought to be avoided, and that he never drank it in public. 
 This is the general way of thinking among them, and very- 
 few forbear drinking wine that are able to afford it. He as- 
 sured me, that if I understood Arabic, I should be very well 
 pleased with reading the Alcoran, which is so far from the 
 nonsense we charge it with, it is the purest morality, delivered 
 in the very best language. I have since heard impartial Chris- 
 tians speak of it in the same manner ; and I don't doubt but 
 all our translations are from copies got from the Greek priests, 
 who would not fail to falsify it with the extremity of malice. 
 No body of men ever were more ignorant, and more corrupt : 
 yet they differ so little from the Romish church, I confess 
 nothing gives me a greater abhorrence of the cruelty of your 
 clergy, than the barbarous persecution of them, whenever they 
 have been their masters, for no other reason than not acknow- 
 ledging the pope. The dissenting , in that one article has got 
 them the titles of heretics, schismatics ; and, what is worse, the 
 same treatment. I found at Philipopolis a sect of Christians 
 that call themselves Paulines. They shew an old church, 
 where, they say, St. Paul preached ; and he is the favourite 
 saint, after the same manner as St. Peter is at Rome ; neither 
 do they forget to give him the same preference over the rest 
 of the apostles. 
 
 But of all the religions [sic] I have seen, the Arnaout [sic] 
 seem to me the most particular. They are natives of Arnaoutlich, 
 the ancient Macedonia, and still retain something of the courage 
 and hardiness, though they have lost the name, of Macedo- 
 nians, being the best militia in the Turkish empire, and the
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 291 
 
 only check upon the janissaries. They are foot soldiers ; we 
 had a guard of them, relieved in every considerable town we 
 passed : they are all clothed and armed at their own expense, 
 generally lusty young fellows, dressed in clean white coarse 
 cloth, carrying guns of a prodigious length, which they run 
 with on their shoulders as if they did not feel the weight of 
 them, the leader singing a sort of rude tune, not unpleasant, 
 and the rest making up the chorus. These people, living be- 
 tween Christians and Mahometans, and not being skilled in 
 controversy, declare that they are utterly unable to judge 
 which religion is best ; but, to be certain of not entirely 
 rejecting the truth, they very prudently follow both, and go 
 to the mosques on Fridays and the church on Sundays, saying 
 for their excuse, that at the day of judgment they are sure of 
 protection from the true prophet ; but which that is, they are 
 not able to determine in this world. I believe there is no 
 other race of mankind have so modest an opinion of their 
 own capacity. 
 
 These are the remarks I have made on the diversity of 
 religions I have seen. I don't ask your pardon for the liberty 
 I have taken in speaking of the Roman. I know you equally 
 condemn the quackery of all churches, as much as you revere 
 the sacred truths, in which we both agree. 
 
 You will expect I should say something to you of the 
 antiquities of this country ; but there are few remains of 
 ancient Greece. We passed near the piece of an arch, which 
 is commonly called Trajan's Gate, as supposing he made it to 
 shut up the passage over the mountains between Sophia and 
 Philipopolis. But I rather believe it the remains of some 
 triumphal arch (though I could not see any inscription) ; for if 
 that passage had been shut up, there are many others that 
 would serve for the march of an army ; and, notwithstanding 
 the story of Baldwin Earl of Flanders being overthrown in 
 these straits, after he won Constantinople, I don't fancy the 
 Germans would find themselves stopped by them. It is true, 
 the road is now made (with great industry) as commodious as 
 possible, for the march of the Turkish army ; there is not one 
 
 u2
 
 292 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 ditch or puddle between this place and Belgrade that has not 
 a large strong bridge of planks built over it ; but the precipices 
 were not so terrible as I had heard them represented. At the 
 foot of these mountains we lay at the little village of Kiskoi, 
 wholly inhabited by Christians, as all the peasants of Bulgaria 
 are. Their houses are nothing but little huts, raised of dirt 
 baked in the sun ; and they leave them, and fly into the 
 mountains, some months before the march of the Turkish 
 army, who would else entirely ruin them, by driving away 
 their whole flocks. This precaution secures them in a sort of 
 plenty : for, such vast tracts of land lying in common, they 
 have liberty of sowing what they please, and are generally 
 very industrious husbandmen. I drank here several sorts of 
 delicious wine. The women dress themselves in a great 
 variety of coloured glass beads, and are not ugly, but of 
 tawny complexions. 
 
 I have now told you all that is worth telling you, and per- 
 haps more, relating to my journey. When I am at Constan- 
 tinople, I'll try to pick up some curiosities, and then you shall 
 hear again from 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF B. [BRISTOL]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 As I never can forget the smallest of your ladyship's com- 
 mands, my first business here has been to enquire after the 
 stuffs you ordered me to look for, without being able to find 
 what you would like. The difference of the dress here and at 
 London is so great, the same sort of things are not proper for 
 caftans and manteaus. However, I will not give over my 
 search, but renew it again at Constantinople, though I have 
 reason to believe there is nothing finer than what is to be 
 found here, being the present residence of the court. The 
 Grand Signior's eldest daughter was married some few days 
 before I came ; and, upon that occasion, the Turkish ladies 
 display all their magnificence. The bride was conducted to 
 her husband's house in very great splendour. She is widow
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 293 
 
 of the late Vizier, who was killed at Peterwaradin, though 
 that ought rather to be called a contract than a marriage, not 
 having ever lived with him ; however, the greatest part of his 
 wealth is hers. He had the permission of visiting her in the 
 seraglio ; and, being one of the handsomest men in the empire, 
 had very much engaged her affections. When she saw this 
 second husband, who is at least fifty, she could not forbear 
 bursting into tears. He is a man of merit, and the declared 
 favourite of the Sultan (which they call mosdyp), but that is 
 not enough to make him pleasing in the eyes of a girl of 
 thirteen. 1 
 
 The government here is entirely in the hands of the army ; 
 and the Grand Signior, with all his absolute power, as much 
 a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a janissary's 
 frown. Here is, indeed, a much greater appearance of sub- 
 jection than among us : a minister of state is not spoken to, 
 but upon the knee ; should a reflection on his conduct be 
 dropped in a coffee-house (for they have spies everywhere), 
 the house would be rased to the ground, and perhaps the 
 whole company put to the torture. No huzzaing mobs, sense- 
 less pamphlets, and tavern disputes about politics : 
 
 " A consequential ill that freedom draws ; 
 A bad effect, but from a noble cause." 
 
 None of our harmless calling names ! but when a minister 
 here displeases the people, in three hours' time he is dragged 
 even from his master's arms. They cut off his hands, head, 
 
 1 In a letter dated Adrianople, April 10, 1717, preserved in the State Paper 
 Office, Mr. Wortley Montagu writes as follows : " I . . . had an audience of the 
 Vizier Azem by hia appointment on the 31st [March, O.S.], at which nothing was 
 said but the usual compliments. The next day I was with the Mosaip, or favourite, 
 who has all the business of the empire upon his hands, and has the entire confi- 
 dence of the Grand Signior The Mosaip, it is certain, has very earnestly 
 
 pressed for an order to consummate his marriage with the Grand Signior's daughter, 
 who is the widow of the late Vizier, and is now in this favourite's house. It is 
 refused him, as it is said the Grand Signior declares this is not a proper time for the 
 rejoicings that are usually made at this Court upon such an occasion, and that 
 he chose him for his son-in-law to take care of his affairs. That his request shall 
 be granted when he has got the better of the Germans : and it does seem upon the 
 whole very probable that he has undertaken to do it. If he fails in his attempt 
 the changes .it this court are likely to be very great." Notwithstanding the re- 
 verses experienced by the Turks, the Sultan's son-in-law, Ibrahim Pasha, conti- 
 nued in favour. In the following year Azem the Vizier was deposed, and Ibrahim 
 appointed in his place. T.
 
 294 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 and feet, and throw them before the palace gate, with all the 
 respect in the world ; while that Sultan (to whom they all 
 profess an unlimited adoration) sits trembling in his apart- 
 ment, and dare neither defend nor revenge his favourite. 
 This is the blessed condition of the most absolute monarch 
 upon earth, who owns no law but his will. 
 
 I cannot help wishing, in the loyalty of my heart, that the 
 parliament would send hither a ship-load of your passive- 
 obedient men, that they might see arbitrary government in its 
 clearest strongest light, where it is hard to judge whether the 
 prince, people, or ministers, are most miserable. I could make 
 many reflections on this subject ; but I know, madam, your 
 own good sense has already furnished you with better than I 
 am capable of. 
 
 I went yesterday with the French embassadress 1 to see the 
 Grand Signior 2 in his passage to the mosque. He was pre- 
 ceded by a numerous guard of janissaries, with vast white 
 feathers on their heads, spahis and bostangees (these are foot 
 and horse guard), and the royal gardeners, which are a very 
 considerable body of men, dressed in different habits of fine 
 lively colours, that, at a distance, they appeared like a parterre 
 of tulips. After them the aga of the janissaries, in a robe of 
 purple velvet, lined with silver tissue, his horse led by two 
 slaves richly dressed. Next him the kyzldr-aga (your lady- 
 ship knows this is the chief guardian of the seraglio ladies) in 
 a deep yellow cloth (which suited very well to his black face) 
 lined with sables, and last his Sublimity himself, in green 
 lined with the fur of a black Muscovite fox, which is supposed 
 worth a thousand pounds sterling, mounted on a fine horse, 
 with furniture embroidered with jewels. Six more horses 
 
 1 Madame de Bonnac. She was a daughter of the Due de Biron, Peer of France, 
 and Lieutenant-General of the Royal Armies, and was married to the Marquis de 
 Bonnac in 1715, during his embassy. They had a son born in Constantinople the 
 7th of December, 1716. She and her husband were the same Monsieur and 
 Madame de Bonnac whom Rousseau visited at Soleurres, as related in his Con- 
 fessions. Lady Mary contracted a friendship with Madame de Bonnac, and con- 
 tinued to correspond with her some years later than the date of this letter. T. 
 
 * Aclimet III., who reigned from 1703 to 1730, recovered the Morea from the 
 Venetians, but lost Belgrade, Peterwaradin, and Temesvar, to the Imperialists. 
 He preferred his palace at Adrianople to the Ottoman Porte, which lost him the 
 favour of the janissaries. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 29 J 
 
 richly furnished were led after him ; and two of his principal 
 courtiers bore, one his gold, and the other his silver coffee-pot, 
 on a staff ; another carried a silver stool on his head for him 
 to sit on. 
 
 It would be too tedious to tell your ladyship the various 
 dresses and turbans by which their rank is distinguished ; but 
 they were all extremely rich and gay, to the number of some 
 thousands; [so] that, perhaps, there cannot be seen a more 
 beautiful procession. The Sultan appeared to us a handsome 
 man of about forty, with a very graceful air, but something 
 severe in his countenance, his eyes very full and black. He 
 happened to stop under the window where we stood, and (I 
 suppose being told who we were) looked upon us very atten- 
 tively, [so] that we had full leisure to consider him, and the 
 French embassadress agreed with me as to his good mien : I 
 see that lady very often ; she is young, and her conversation 
 would be a great relief to me, if I could persuade her to live 
 without those forms and ceremonies that make life formal 
 and tiresome. But she is so delighted with her guards, her 
 four-and-twenty footmen, gentlemen ushers, <fcc., that she 
 would rather die than make me a visit without them: not 
 to reckon a coachful of attending damsels yclep'd maids of 
 honour. What vexes me is, that as long as she will visit with 
 a troublesome equipage, I am obliged to do the same : however, 
 our mutual interest makes us much together. 
 
 I went with her the other day all round the town, in an 
 open gilt chariot, with our joint train of attendants, preceded 
 by our guards, who might have summoned the people to see 
 what they had never seen, nor ever would see again two 
 young Christian embassadresses never yet having been in this 
 country at the same time, nor I believe ever will again. Your 
 ladyship may easily imagine that we drew a vast crowd of 
 spectators, but all silent as death. If any of them had taken 
 the liberties of our mob upon any strange sight, our janissaries 
 had made no scruple of falling on them with their scimitars, 
 without danger for so doing, being above law. Yet these 
 people have some good qualities ; they are very zealous and
 
 296 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 faithful where they serve, and look upon it as their business 
 to fight for you upon all occasions. Of this I had a very 
 pleasant instance in a village on this side Philipopolis, where 
 we were met by our domestic guard. I happened to bespeak 
 pigeons for my supper, upon which one of my janissaries went 
 immediately to the cadi (the chief civil officer of the town), 
 and ordered him to send in some dozens. The poor man 
 answered, that he had already sent about, but could get none. 
 My janissary, in the height of his zeal for my service, imme- 
 diately locked him up prisoner in his room, telling him he 
 deserved death for his impudence, in offering to excuse his 
 not obeying my command; but, out of respect to me, he 
 would not punish him but by my order, and accordingly, came 
 very gravely to me, to ask what should be done to him ; 
 adding, by way of compliment, that if I pleased he would 
 bring me his head. This may give you some idea of the un- 
 limited power of these fellows, who are all sworn brothers, and 
 bound to revenge the injuries done to one another, whether 
 at Cairo, Aleppo, or any part of the world ; and this inviolable 
 league makes them so powerful, the greatest man at the 
 court never speaks to them but in a flattering tone ; and in 
 Asia, any man that is rich is forced to enrol himself a janissary, 
 to secure his estate. 
 
 But I have already said enough ; and I dare swear, dear 
 madam, that, by this time, 'tis a very comfortable reflection to 
 you that there is no possibility of your receiving such a tedious 
 letter but once in six months ; 'tis that consideration has given 
 me the assurance to entertain you so long, and will, I hope, 
 plead the excuse of, dear madam, &c. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717], 
 
 I WISH to God, dear sister, that you were as regular in letting 
 me have the pleasure of knowing what passes on your side of 
 the globe, as I am careful in endeavouring to amuse you by 
 the account of all I see that I think you care to hear of. You 
 content yourself with telling me over and over, that the town
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 297 
 
 is very dull : it may possibly be dull to you, when every day 
 does not present you with something new ; but for me that 
 am in arrear at least two months' news, all that seems very 
 stale with you would be fresh and sweet here. Pray let me 
 into more particulars, and I will try to awaken your gratitude, 
 by giving you a full and true relation of the novelties of this 
 place, none of which would surprise you more than a sight of 
 my person, as I am now in my Turkish habit, though I believe 
 you would be of my opinion, that 'tis admirably becoming. 
 I intend to send you my picture ; in the mean time accept of 
 it here. 
 
 The first piece of my dress is a pair of drawers, very full, 
 that reach to my shoes, and conceal the legs more modestly 
 than your petticoats. They are of a thin rose-coloured damask, 
 brocaded with silver flowers, my shoes of white kid leather, 
 embroidered with gold. Over this hangs my smock, of a fine 
 white silk gauze, edged with embroidery. This smock has 
 wide sleeves, hanging half way down the arm, and is closed at 
 the neck with a diamond button ; but the shape and colour of 
 the bosom very well to be distinguished through it. The 
 antery is a waistcoat, made close to the shape, of white and 
 gold damask, with very long sleeves falling back, and fringed 
 with deep gold fringe, and should have diamond or pearl 
 buttons. My caftan, of the same stuff with my drawers, is a 
 robe exactly fitted to my shape, and reaching to my feet, with 
 very long strait falling sleeves. Over this is the girdle of 
 about four fingers broad, which all that can afford have en- 
 tirely of diamonds or other precious stones ; those who will 
 not be at that expense, have it of exquisite embroidery on 
 satin ; but it must be fastened before with a clasp of diamonds. 
 The cur dee is a loose robe they throw off or put on according 
 to the weather, being of a rich brocade (mine is green and 
 gold), either lined with ermine or sables ; the sleeves reach 
 very little below the shoulders. The head-dress is composed 
 of a cap, called talpock, which is in winter of fine velvet em- 
 broidered with pearls or diamonds, and in summer of a light 
 shining silver stuff. This is fixed on one side of the head,
 
 298 LETTERS DUKING THE 
 
 hanging a, little way down with a gold tassel, and bound on, 
 either with a circle of diamonds (as I have seen several) or a 
 rich embroidered handkerchief. On the other side of the 
 head, the hair is laid flat ; and here the ladies are at liberty to 
 shew their fancies ; some putting flowers, others a plume of 
 heron's feathers, and, in short, what they please ; but the 
 most general fashion is a large bouquet of jewels, made like 
 natural flowers ; that is, the buds of pearl ; the roses, of diffe- 
 rent coloured rubies ; the jessamines, of diamonds ; jonquils, 
 of topazes, &c. so well set and enamelled, 'tis hard to imagine 
 any thing of that kind so beautiful. The hair hangs at its 
 full length behind, divided into tresses braided with pearl or 
 ribbon, which is always in great quantity. 
 
 I never saw in my life so many fine heads of hair. I have 
 counted a hundred and ten of these tresses of one lady's all 
 natural ; but it must be owned, that every beauty is more 
 common here than with us. 'Tis surprising to see a young 
 woman that is not very handsome. They have naturally the 
 most beautiful complexions in the world, and generally large 
 black eyes. I can assure you with great truth, that the court 
 of England (though I believe it the fairest in Christendom) 
 cannot shew so many beauties as are under our protection 
 here. They generally shape their eyebrows ; and the Greeks 
 and Turks have a custom of putting round their eyes (on 
 the inside) a black tincture, that, at a distance, or by 
 candle-light, adds very much to the blackness of them. I 
 fancy many of our ladies would be overjoyed to know this 
 secret ; but 'tis too visible by day. They dye their nails a 
 rose-colour. I own, I cannot enough accustom myself to this 
 fashion to find any beauty in it. 
 
 As to their morality or good conduct, I can say, like Har- 
 lequin, that 'tis just as it is with you ; and the Turkish ladies 
 don't commit one sin the less for not being Christians. Now 
 I am a little acquainted with their ways, I cannot forbear ad- 
 miring either the exemplary discretion or extreme stupidity of 
 all the writers that have given accounts of them. 'Tis very
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 299 
 
 easy to see they have more liberty than we have. No woman, 
 of what rank soever, being permitted to go into the streets 
 without two muslins ; one that covers her face all but her 
 eyes, and another that hides the whole dress of her head, and 
 hangs half way down her back, and then* shapes are wholly 
 concealed by a thing they call &ferigee, which no woman of any 
 sort appears without ; this has strait sleeves, that reach to 
 their finger-ends, and it laps all round them, not unlike a 
 riding-hood. In winter 'tis of cloth, and in summer plain 
 stuff or silk. You may guess how effectually this disguises 
 them, [so] that there is no distinguishing the great lady from 
 her slave. 'Tis impossible for the most jealous husband to know 
 his wife when he meets her ; and no man dare either touch or 
 follow a woman in the street. 
 
 This perpetual masquerade gives them entire liberty of fol- 
 lowing their inclinations without danger of discovery. The 
 most usual method of intrigue is, to send an appointment to 
 the lover to meet the lady at a Jew's shop, which are as 
 notoriously convenient as our Indian-houses ; and yet, even 
 those who don't make that use of them, do not scruple to go 
 to buy pennyworths, and tumble over rich goods, which are 
 chiefly to be found amongst that sort of people. The great 
 ladies seldom let their gallants know who they are ; and it is 
 so difficult to find it out, that they can very seldom guess 
 at her name they have corresponded with above half a year 
 together. You may easily imagine the number of faithful 
 wives very small in a country where they have nothing to fear 
 from a lover's indiscretion, since we see so many that have the 
 courage to expose themselves to that in this world, and all the 
 threatened punishment of the next, which is never preached 
 to the Turkish damsels. Neither have they much to appre- 
 hend from the resentment of their husbands; those ladies 
 that are rich having all their money in their own hands, which 
 they take with them upon a divorce, with an addition which 
 he is obliged to give them. 
 
 Upon the whole, I look upon the Turkish women as the
 
 300 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 only free people in the empire : the very Divan pays a respect 
 to them ; and the Grand Signior himself, when a pasha is exe- 
 cuted, never violates the privileges of the harem (or women's 
 apartment), which remains unsearched entire to the widow. 
 They are queens of their slaves, whom the husband has no 
 permission so much as to look upon, except it be an old woman 
 or two that his lady chooses. 'Tis true their law permits them 
 four wives ; but there is no instance of a man of quality that 
 makes use of this liberty, or of a woman of rank that would 
 suffer it. When a husband happens to be inconstant (as those 
 things will happen), he keeps his mistress in a house apart, 
 and visits her as privately as he can, just as it is with you. 
 Amongst all the great men here, I only know the tefterdar 
 (i. e. treasurer), that keeps a number of she slaves for his own 
 use (that is, on his own side of the house ; for a slave once 
 given to serve a lady is entirely at her disposal), and he is 
 spoken of as a libertine, or what we should call a rake, and his 
 wife won't see him, though she continues to live in his house. 
 
 Thus, you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not 
 differ so widely as our voyage writers would make us believe. 
 Perhaps it would be more entertaining to add a few surprising 
 customs of my own invention ; but nothing seems to me so 
 agreeable as truth, and I believe nothing so acceptable to you. 
 I conclude with repeating the great truth of my being, 
 
 Dear sister, &c. 
 
 TO MR. P [POPE]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717], 
 
 I DARE say you expect at least something very new in this 
 letter, after I have gone a journey not undertaken by any 
 Christian for some hundred years. The most remarkable ac- 
 cident that happened to me, was my being very near over- 
 turned into the Hebrus ; and, if I had much regard for the 
 glories that one's name enjoys after death, I should certainly 
 be sorry for having missed the romantic conclusion of swim- 
 ming down the same river in which the musical head of Or- 
 pheus repeated verses so many ages since :
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 301 
 
 " Caput a cervice revulsum, 
 Gnrgite cum medio portans Oeagrius Hebrns 
 Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua, 
 Ah ! miseram Eurydicen ! anima fugiente vocabat, 
 Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripse." 
 
 [ViRG. Gtorg. lib. iv.] 
 
 Who knows but some of your bright wits might have found 
 it a subject affording many poetical turns, and have told the 
 world, in an heroic elegy, that, 
 
 " As equal were our souls, so equal were our fates ?" 
 
 I despair of ever having so many fine things said of me, as 
 so extraordinary a death would have given occasion for. 
 
 I am at this present writing in a house situated on the 
 banks of the Hebrus, which runs under my chamber window. 
 My garden is full of tall cypress-trees, upon the branches of 
 which several couple of true turtles are saying soft things to 
 one another from morning till night. How naturally do boughs 
 and vows come into my head at this minute ! and must not 
 you confess, to my praise, that 'tis more than ordinary discre- 
 tion that can resist the wicked suggestions of poetry, in a 
 place where truth, for once, furnishes all the ideas of pastoral? 
 The summer is already far advanced in this part of the world ; 
 arid, for some miles round Adrianople, the whole ground is 
 laid out in gardens, and the banks of the river set with rows 
 of fruit-trees, under which all the most considerable Turks 
 divert themselves every evening; not with walking, that is 
 not one of their pleasures, but a set party of them choose out a 
 green spot, where the shade is very thick, and there they spread 
 a carpet, on which they sit drinking their coffee, and generally 
 attended by some slave with a fine voice, or that plays on some 
 instrument. Every twenty paces you may see one of these 
 little companies listening to the dashing of the river; and 
 this taste is so universal, that the very gardeners are not with- 
 out it. I have often seen them and their children sitting on 
 the banks, and playing on a rural instrument, perfectly an- 
 swering the description of the ancient fistula, being composed 
 of unequal reeds, with a simple but agreeable softness in the 
 sound.
 
 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 Mr. Addison might here make the experiment he speaks 
 of in his travels j 1 there not being one instrument of music 
 among the Greek or Roman statues, that is not to be found 
 
 o ' 
 
 in the hands of the people of this country. The young lads 
 generally divert themselves with making garlands for their 
 favourite lambs, which I have often seen painted and adorned 
 with flowers, lying at their feet while they sung or played. 
 It is not that they ever read romances, but these are the 
 ancient amusements here, and as natural to them as cudgel- 
 playing and foot-ball to our British swains ; the softness and 
 warmth of the climate forbidding all rough exercises, which 
 were never so much as heard of amongst them, and naturally 
 inspiring a laziness and aversion to labour, which the great 
 plenty indulges. These gardeners are the only happy race of 
 country people in Turkey. They furnish all the city with 
 fruit and herbs, and seem to live very easily They are most 
 of them Greeks, and have little houses in the midst of their 
 gardens, where their wives and daughters take a liberty not 
 permitted in the town, I mean, to go unveiled. These 
 wenches are very neat and handsome, and pass their time at 
 their looms under the shade of their trees. 
 
 I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer ; he 
 has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the 
 peasants of his country ; who, before oppression had reduced 
 them to want, were, I suppose, all employed as the better sort 
 of them are now. I don't doubt, had he been born a Briton, 
 his Idylliums had been filled with descriptions of threshing 
 and churning, both which are unknown here, the corn being 
 all trod out by oxen ; and butter (I speak it with sorrow) un- 
 heard of. 
 
 I read over your Homer here with an infinite pleasure, and 
 find several little passages explained, that I did not before 
 entirely comprehend the beauty of; many of the customs, 
 and much of the dress then in fashion, being yet retained, and 
 
 1 " It would perhaps be no impertinent design to take off all their models in 
 wood, which might not only give us some notion of the ancient music, but help us 
 to pleasanter instruments than are now in use." Addison's Remarks on several 
 Parts of Italy. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 303 
 
 T don't wonder to find more remains here of an age so distant, 
 than is to be found in any other country, the Turks not taking 
 that pains to introduce their own manners as has been gene- 
 rally practised by other nations, that imagine themselves more 
 polite. It would be too tedious to you to point out all the 
 passages that relate to the present customs. But I can assure 
 you that the princesses and great ladies pass their time at 
 their looms, embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their 
 maids, which are always very numerous, in the same manner 
 as we find Andromache and Helen described. The descrip- 
 tion of the belt of Menelaus exactly resembles those that are 
 now worn by the great men, fastened before with broad golden 
 clasps, and embroidered round with rich work. The snowy 
 veil that Helen throws over her face, is still fashionable ; and 
 I never see (as I do very often) half a dozen of old pashas 
 with their reverend beards, sitting basking in the sun, but I 
 recollect good King Priam and his counsellors. Their manner 
 of dancing is certainly the same that Diana is sung to have 
 danced on the banks of the Eurotas. The great lady still 
 leads the dance, and is followed by a troop of young girls, 
 who imitate her steps, arid, if she sings, make up the chorus. 
 The tunes are extremely gay and lively, yet with something 
 in them wonderfully soft. The steps are varied according to 
 the pleasure of her that leads the dance, but always in exact 
 time, and infinitely more agreeable than any of our dances, at 
 least in my opinion. I sometimes make one in the train, but 
 am not skilful enough to lead : these are Grecian dances, the 
 Turkish being very different. 
 
 I should have told you, in the first place, that the Eastern 
 manners give a great light into many Scripture passages, that 
 appear odd to us, their phrases being commonly what we 
 should call Scripture language. The vulgar Turk is very 
 different from what is spoken at court, or amongst the people 
 of figure, who always mix so much Arabic and Persian in 
 their discourse, that it may very well be called another lan- 
 guage. And 'tis as ridiculous to make use of the expressions 
 commonly used, in speaking to a great man or a lady, as it
 
 304 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 would be to talk broad Yorkshire or Somersetshire in the 
 drawing-room. Besides this distinction, they have what they 
 call the sublime, that is, a style proper for poetry, and which 
 is the exact Scripture style. I believe you would be pleased 
 to see a genuine example of this ; and I am very glad I have 
 it, in my power to satisfy your curiosity, by sending you a 
 faithful copy of the verses that Ibrahim Pasha, the reigning 
 favourite, has made for the young princess, his contracted 
 wife, whom he is not yet permitted to visit without witnesses, 
 though she is gone home to his house. He is a man of wit 
 and learning; and whether or no he is capable of writing 
 good verse himself, you may be sure, that, on such an occa- 
 sion, he would not want the assistance of the best poets in the 
 empire. Thus the verses may be looked upon as a sample of 
 their finest poetry ; and I don't doubt you'll be of my mind, 
 that it is most wonderfully resembling The Song of Solomon, 
 which was also addressed to a royal bride. 
 
 TURKISH VERSES addressed to the SULTANA, eldest daughter of Sultan ACHJOST IIL 
 
 STANZA I. 
 
 Verse 1. The nightingale now wanders in the vines : 
 Her passion is to seek roses. 
 
 2. I went down to admire the beauty of the vines : 
 The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my soul. 
 
 3. Your eyes are black and lovely, 
 
 But wild and disdainful as those of a stag. 1 
 
 STANZA II. 
 
 1. The wish'd possession is delay'd from day to day ; 
 The cruel Sultan Achmet will not permit me 
 
 To see those cheeks more vermilion than roses. 
 
 2. I dare not snatch one of your kisses ; 
 
 The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my soul. 
 
 3. Your eyes are black and lovely, 
 
 But wild and disdainful as those of a stag. 
 
 STANZA III. 
 
 1. The wretched Pasha Ibrahim sighs in these verses : 
 One dart from your eyes has pierc'd thro' my heart 
 
 2. Ah ! when will the hour of possession arrive ? 
 Must I yet wait a long time ? 
 
 The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my souL 
 
 1 Sir W. Jones, in the preface to his Persian Grammar, objects to this trar>u*- 
 tion. The expression is merely analogous to the " BOVWTTW" of Homer. I).
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 305 
 
 Verse 3. Ah ! Sultana! stag-ey'd an angel amongst angels I 
 1 desire, and, my desire, remains unsatisfied. 
 Can you take delight to prey upon my heart ? 
 
 STANZA rv 
 
 1. My cries pierce the heavens ! 
 My eyes are without sleep ! 
 
 Turn to me, Sultana let me gaze on thy beauty. 
 
 2. Adieu ! I go down to the grave. 
 If you call me I return. 
 
 My heart is hot as sulphur ; sigh, and it will flame. 
 
 3. Crown of my life ! fair light of my eyes ! 
 My Sultana! my princess! 
 
 I rub my face against the earth; I am drown'd in scalding tears 
 
 I rave! 
 Have you no compassion ? Will you not turn to look upon me ? 
 
 I have taken abundance of pains to get these verses in a 
 literal translation ; and if you were acquainted with my inter- 
 preters, I might spare myself the trouble of assuring you, that 
 they have received no poetical touches from their hands. In 
 my opinion (allowing for the inevitable faults of a prose trans- 
 lation into a language so very different) there is a good deal 
 of beauty in them. The epithet of stag-ey'd (though the 
 sound is not very agreeable in English) pleases me extremely ; 
 and is I think a very lively image of the fire and indifference 
 in his mistress's eyes. Monsieur Boileau has very justly ob- 
 served, we are never to judge of the elevation of an expression 
 in an ancient author by the sound it carries with us ; which 
 may be extremely fine with them, at the same time, it looks 
 low or uncouth to us. You are so well acquainted with 
 Homer, you cannot but have observed the same thing, and 
 you must have the same indulgence for all Oriental poetry. 
 
 The repetitions at the end of the two first stanzas are meant 
 for a sort of chorus, and agreeable to the ancient manner of 
 writing, the music of the verses apparently changes in the 
 third stanza, where the burthen is altered ; and I think he 
 very artfully seems more passionate at the conclusion, as 'tis 
 natural for people to warm themselves by then* own discourse, 
 especially on a subject where the heart is concerned, and is far 
 more touching than our modern custom of concluding a song 
 of passion with a turn which is inconsistent with it. The first 
 verse is a description of the season of the year ; all the country 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 being now full of nightingales, whose amours with roses is an 
 Arabian fable, as well known here as any part of Ovid 
 amongst us, and is much the same thing as if an English 
 poem should begin by saying " Now Philomela sings." Or 
 what if I turned the whole into the style of English poetry, to 
 see how it would look ? 
 
 STANZA I. 
 
 " Now Philomel renews her tender strain, 
 Indulging all the night her pleasing pain : 
 
 I sought the groves to hear the wanton sing, 
 There saw a face more beauteous than the spring. 
 
 Your large stag-eyes, where thousand glories play, 
 As bright, as lively, but as wild as they. 
 
 STANZA II. 
 
 In vain I'm promised such a heav'nly prize; 
 Ah ! cruel Sultan ! who delays my joys ! 
 
 While piercing charms transfix my am'rous heart, 
 I dare not snatch one kiss to ease the smart. 
 
 Those eyes ! like, &c. 
 
 STANZA III. 
 
 Tour wretched lover in these lines complains ; 
 From those dear beauties rise his killing pains. 
 
 When will the hour of wish'd-for bliss arrive ? 
 Must I wait longer ? Can I wait and live ? 
 
 Ah! bright Sultana! maid divinely fair! 
 Can you, unpitying, see the pain I bear ? 
 
 STANZA rv, 
 
 The heavens relenting, hear my piercing cries, 
 I loathe the light, and sleep forsakes my eyes ; 
 Turn thee. Sultana, ere thy lover dies : 
 
 Sinking to earth I sigh the last adieu ; 
 Call me, my goddess, and my life renew. 
 
 My queen ! my angel ! my fond heart's desire ! 
 I rave my bosom burns with heav'nly fire ! 
 Pity that passion which thy charms inspire." 
 
 I have taken the liberty, in the second verse, of following 
 what I suppose is the true sense of the author, though not 
 literally expressed. By his saying, He went down to admire 
 the beauty of the vines, and her charms ravished his soul, I 
 understand by this a poetical fiction, of having first seen her 
 in a garden, where he was admiring the beauty of the spring. 
 But I could not forbear retaining the comparison of her eyes 
 to those of a stag, though, perhaps, the novelty of it may give
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 307 
 
 it a burlesque sound in our language. I cannot determine 
 upon the whole how well I have succeeded in the translation, 
 neither do I think our English proper to express such violence 
 of passion, which is very seldom felt amongst us ; and we 
 want those compound words which are very frequent and 
 strong in the Turkish language. 
 
 You see I am pretty far gone in Oriental learning ; and, to 
 say truth, I study very hard. I wish my studies may give me 
 an occasion of entertaining your curiosity, which will be the 
 utmost advantage hoped for from it by, &c. 
 
 TO MKS. S. C [MISS SARAH CHISWELL]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 IN my opinion, dear S., I ought rather to quarrel with you 
 for not answering my Nimeguen letter of August till De- 
 cember, than to excuse my not writing again till now. I 
 am sure there is on my side a very good excuse for silence, 
 having gone such tiresome land- journeys, though I don't find 
 the conclusion of them so bad as you seem to imagine. I am 
 very easy here, and not in the solitude you fancy me. The 
 great quantity of Greek, French, English, and Italians, that 
 are under our protection, make their court to hie from morn- 
 ing till night ; and, I'll assure you, are many of them very 
 fine ladies ; for there is no possibility for a Christian to live 
 easily under this government but by the protection of an em- 
 bassador and the richer they are, the greater their danger. 
 
 Those dreadful stories you have heard of the plague have 
 very little foundation in truth. I own I have much ado 
 to reconcile myself to the sound of a word which has always 
 given me such terrible ideas, though I am convinced there is 
 little more in it than a fever. As a proof of which we passed 
 through two or three towns most violently infected. In the 
 very next house where we lay (in one of them) two persons 
 died of it. Luckily for me, I was so well deceived that I 
 knew nothing of the matter ; and I was made believe, that our 
 second cook who fell ill here had only a great cold. However, 
 we left our doctor to take care of him, and yesterday they both 
 
 x2
 
 308 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 arrived here in good health ; and I am now let into the secret 
 that he has had the plague. There are many that escape it ; 
 neither is the air ever infected. I am persuaded it would be 
 as easy to root it out here as out of Italy and France ; but 
 it does so little mischief, they are not very solicitous about it, 
 and are content to suffer this distemper instead of our variety, 
 which they are utterly unacquainted with. 
 
 A propos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that 
 I am sure will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, 
 so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless 
 by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. 
 There is a set of old women who make it their business to per- 
 form the operation every autumn, in the month of September, 
 when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to 
 know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox : 
 they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met 
 (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes 
 with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small- 
 pox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She 
 immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needle 
 (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and 
 puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head 
 of her needle, and after binds up the little wound with a 
 hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four or five 
 veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of open- 
 ing one in the middle of the forehead, in each arm, and on the 
 breast, to mark the sign of the cross ; but this has a very ill 
 effect, all these wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by 
 those that are not superstitious, who choose to have them in 
 the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed. The 
 children or young patients play together all the rest of the 
 day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever 
 begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very 
 seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or thirty 
 in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' tune they 
 are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded, 
 there remain running sores during the distemper, which I
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 309 
 
 don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands 
 undergo this operation; and the French embassador says 
 pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diver- 
 sion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no 
 example of any one that has died in it ; and you may believe 
 I am very well satisfied of the safety of the experiment, since 
 I intend to try it on my dear little son. 
 
 I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful iven- 
 tion into fashion in England ; and I should not fail to write to 
 some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any 
 one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such 
 a considerable branch of their revenue for the good of man- 
 kind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them not to 
 expose to all their resentment the hardy wight that should 
 undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps, if I live to return, I 
 may, however, have courage to war with them. Upon this 
 occasion admire the heroism in the heart of your friend, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. T [THISTLETHWAYTE]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I CAN now tell dear Mrs. T. that I am safely arrived at the 
 end of my very long journey. I will not tire you with the 
 account of the many fatigues I have suffered. You would 
 hear something of what I see here ; and a letter out of Turkey 
 that has nothing extraordinary in it, would be as great a dis- 
 appointment as my visitors will receive at London if I return 
 thither without any rarities to shew them. 
 
 What shall I tell you of"? You never saw camels in 
 
 your life ; and, perhaps, the description of them will appear 
 new to you : I can assure you the first sight of them was very 
 much so to me ; and though I have seen hundreds of pictures 
 of those animals, I never saw any that was resembling enough 
 to give a true idea of them. I am going to make a bold ob 
 servation, and possibly a false one, because no body has ever 
 made it before me ; but I do take them to be of the stag kind ; 
 their legs, bodies, and necks, are exactly shaped like them, and 
 their colour very near the same. 'Tis true, they are much
 
 310 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 larger, being a great deal higher than a horse ; and so swift, 
 that, after the defeat of Peterwaradin, they far outran the 
 swiftest horses, and brought the first news of the loss of the 
 battle to Belgrade. They are never thoroughly tamed ; the 
 drivers take care to tie them one to another with strong ropes, 
 fifty in string, led by an ass, on which the driver rides. I have 
 seen three hundred in one caravan. They carry the third part 
 more than any horse ; but, 'tis a particular art to load them, 
 because of the hunch on their back. They seem to me very 
 ugly creatures; their heads being ill-formed and dispropor- 
 tioiied to their bodies. They carry all the burthens ; and the 
 beasts destined to the plough are buffaloes, an animal you are 
 also unacquainted with. They are larger and more clumsy 
 than an ox ; they have short, black horns close to their heads, 
 which grow turning backwards. They say this horn looks 
 very beautiful when 'tis well polished. They are all black, 
 with very short hair on their hides, and extremely little white 
 eyes, that make them look like devils. The country people 
 dye their tails, and the hair of their forehead, red, by way of 
 ornament. 
 
 Horses are not put here to any laborious work, nor are they 
 at all fit for it. They are beautiful and full of spirit, but 
 generally little, and not so strong, as the breed of colder 
 countries ; very gentle, with all their vivacity, swift and sure- 
 footed. I have a little white favourite that I would not part 
 with on any terms ; he prances under me with so much fire, 
 you would think that I had a great deal of courage to dare to 
 mount him ; yet, I'll assure you, I never rid a horse in my 
 life so much at my command. My side-saddle is the first was 
 ever seen in this part of the world, and gazed at with as much 
 wonder as the ship of Columbus was in America. Here are 
 some birds held in a sort of religious reverence, and, for that 
 reason, multiply prodigiously : turtles, on the account of their 
 innocence; and storks, because they are supposed to make 
 every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca. To say truth, they 
 are the happiest subjects under the Turkish government, and 
 are so sensible of then* privileges, they walk the streets with-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 311 
 
 out fear, and generally build in the low parts of houses. 
 Happy are those that are so distinguished. The vulgar Turks 
 are perfectly persuaded that they will not be that year either 
 attacked by fire or pestilence. I have the happiness of one 
 of their sacred nests just under my chamber-window. 
 
 Now I am talking of my chamber, I remember the descrip- 
 tion of the houses here would be as new to you as any of the 
 birds or beasts. I suppose you have read, in most of our ac- 
 counts of Turkey that their houses are the most miserable 
 pieces of building in the world. I can speak very learnedly 
 on that subject, having been in so many of them ; and I assure 
 you 'tis no such thing. We are now lodged in a palace belong- 
 ing to the Grand Signior. I really think the manner of build- 
 ing here very agreeable, and proper for the country. 'Tis 
 true they are not at all solicitous to beautify the outsides of 
 their houses, and they are generally built of wood, which I 
 own is the cause of many inconveniences ; but this is not to be 
 charged on the ill taste of the people, but the oppression of 
 the government. Every house upon the death of its master 
 is at the Grand Signior's disposal ; and, therefore, no man 
 cai-es to make a great expense, which he is not sure his family 
 will be the better for. 1 All their design is to build a house 
 commodious, and that will last their lives ; and [they] are very 
 indifferent if it falls down the year after. 
 
 Every house, great and small, is divided into two distinct 
 parts, which only join together by a narrow passage. The 
 first house has a large court before it, and open galleries all 
 round it, which is to me a thing very agreeable. This gallery 
 leads to all the chambers, which are commonly large, and 
 with two rows of windows, the first being of painted glass: 
 they seldom build above two stories, each of which has such 
 galleries. The stairs are broad, and not often above thirty 
 steps. This is the house belonging to the lord, and the 
 adjoining one is called the harem,) that is, the ladies' apart- 
 ment (for the name of seraglio is peculiar to the Grand 
 Signior's) ; it has also a gallery running round it towards the 
 
 1 If it be not put into " vacuf ;" that is, annexed to some mosque, or fountain. D.
 
 312 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 garden, to which all the windows are turned, and the same 
 number of chambers as the other, but more gay and splendid, 
 both in painting and furniture. The second row of windows 
 is very low, with grates like those of convents ; the rooms are 
 all spread with Persian carpets, and raised at one end of them 
 (my chamber is raised at both ends) about two feet. This is 
 the sofa, and is laid with a richer sort of carpet, and all round 
 it a sort of couch, raised half a foot, covered with rich silk 
 according to the fancy or magnificence of the owner. Mine 
 is of scarlet cloth, with a gold fringe ; round this are placed, 
 standing against the wall, two rows of cushions, the first very 
 large, and the next little ones ; and here the Turks display 
 their greatest magnificence. They are generally brocade, or 
 embroidery of gold wire upon satin ; nothing can look more 
 gay and splendid. These seats are so convenient and easy, I 
 shall never endure chairs as long as I live. The rooms are 
 low, which I think no fault, the ceiling is always of wood, 
 generally inlaid or painted and gilded. They use no hangings, 
 the rooms being all wainscoted with cedar set off with silver 
 nails or painted with flowers, which open in many places with 
 folding-doors, and serve for cabinets, I think, more conve- 
 niently than ours. Between the windows are little arches to 
 set pots of perfume, or baskets of flowers. But what pleases 
 me best is the fashion of having marble fountains in the 
 lower part of the room, which throw up several spouts of 
 water, giving at the same time an 'agreeable coolness, and a 
 pleasant dashing sound, falling from one basin to another. 
 Some of these fountains are very magnificent. Each house 
 has a bagnio, which is generally two or three little rooms, 
 leaded on the top, paved with marble, with basins, cocks of 
 water, and all conveniences for either hot or cold baths. 
 
 You will perhaps be surprised at an account so different 
 from what you have been entertained with by the common 
 voyage-writers, who are very fond of speaking of what they 
 don't know. It must be under a very particular character, or 
 on some extraordinary occasion, when a Christian is admitted 
 into the house of a man of quality; and their harems are
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 313 
 
 always forbidden ground. Thus they can only speak of the 
 outside, which makes no great appearance ; and the women's 
 apartments are all built backward, removed from sight, and 
 have no other prospect than the gardens, which are inclosed 
 with very high walls. There are none of our parterres in 
 them; but they are planted with high trees, which give an 
 agreeable shade, and, to my fancy, a pleasing view. In the 
 midst of the garden is the chiosk, that is, a large room, com- 
 monly beautified with a fine fountain in the midst of it. It is 
 raised nine or ten steps, and inclosed with gilded lattices, 
 round which vines, jessamines, and honeysuckles twining, 
 make a sort of green wall. Large trees are planted round this 
 place, which is the scene of their greatest pleasures, and where 
 the ladies spend most of their hours, employed by their music 
 or embroidery. In the public gardens there are public chiosks, 
 where people go that are not so well accommodated at home, 
 and drink their coffee, sherbet, &c. Neither are they ignorant 
 of a more durable manner of building : their mosques are all 
 of freestone, and the public hanns, or inns, extremely magnifi- 
 cent, many of them taking up a large square, built round with 
 shops under stone arches, where poor artificers are lodged 
 gratis. They have always a mosque joining to them, and the 
 body of the hann is a most noble hall, capable of holding three 
 or four hundred persons, the court extremely spacious, and 
 cloisters round it, that give it the air of our colleges. I own I 
 think these foundations a more reasonable piece of charity than 
 the founding of convents. 
 
 I think I have now told you a great deal for once. If you 
 don't like my choice of subjects, tell me what you would have 
 me write upon ; there is nobody more desirous to entertain 
 you than, dear Mrs. T., Yours, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. HEWET. 1 
 
 Adrianople, April 1, 1717. 
 I DARE say my dear Mrs. Hewet thinks me the most stupid 
 
 1 This letter was not included in Lady Mary's manuscript book, and has, there- 
 fore, not hitherto been inserted in this section. It was first published by Dallaway 
 from the original among the letters to Mrs. Hewet. T.
 
 314 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 thing alive, to neglect so agreeable a correspondence ; but it 
 has hitherto been utterly out of my power to continue it. I 
 have been hurried up and down, without intermission, these 
 last eight months. Wholly taken up either in going post, or 
 unavoidable court attendance. You know very well how little 
 leisure it is possible to find on either of those employments. I 
 like travelling extremely, and have had no reason to complain 
 of having had too little of it, having now gone through all the 
 Turkish dominions in Europe, not to reckon my journeys 
 through Hungary, Bohemia, and the whole tour of Germany ; 
 but those are trifles to this last. I cannot, however, (thank 
 God,) complain of having suffered by fatigue, either in my 
 own health or that of my family. My son never was better in 
 his life. This country is certainly one of the finest in the 
 world; hitherto all I see is so new to me, it is like a fresh 
 scene of an opera every day. I will not tire you with descrip- 
 tions of places or manners, which perhaps you have no curiosity 
 for ; but only desire you would be so good as to let me hear as 
 oft as you can (which can be no other than very seldom), 
 what passes on your side of the globe. Before you can receive 
 this, you must consider all things as six months old, which now 
 appear new to me. There will be a great field for you to 
 write, if your charity extends so far, as it will be entirely dis- 
 interested and free from ostentation (it not being possible for 
 me here to boast of your letters), and it will be very beneficial 
 to your precious soul, which I pray Heaven to put into your 
 head to consider and practise accordingly. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Adrianople, April 18, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I WROTE to you, dear sister, and all my other English cor- 
 respondents, by the last ship, and only Heaven can tell when 
 I shall have another opportunity of sending to you; but I 
 cannot forbear writing, though perhaps my letter may lie 
 upon my hands this two months. To confess the truth, my 
 head is so full of my entertainment yesterday, that 'tis abso-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 315 
 
 lutely necessary for my own repose to give it some vent. 
 Without farther preface, I will then begin my story. 
 
 I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier's lady, 1 and it 
 was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an 
 entertainment which was never given before to any Christian. 
 I thought I should very little, satisfy her curiosity (which I 
 did not doubt was a considerable motive to the invitation) by 
 going in a dress she was used to see, and therefore dressed 
 myself in the court habit of Vienna, which is much more mag- 
 nificent than ours. However, I chose to go incognita, to avoid 
 any disputes about ceremony, and went in a Turkish coach, 
 only attended by my woman that held up my train, and the 
 Greek lady who was my interpretress. I was met at the court 
 door by her black eunuch, who helped me out of the coach 
 with great respect, and conducted me through several rooms, 
 where her she-slaves, finely dressed, were ranged on each side. 
 In the innermost I found the lady sitting on her sofa, in a 
 sable vest. She advanced to meet me, and presented me half 
 a dozen of her friends with great civility. She seemed a very 
 good-[looking] woman, near fifty years old. I was surprised 
 to observe so little magnificence in her house, the furniture 
 being all very moderate ; and, except the habits and number 
 of her slaves, nothing about her that appeared expensive. She 
 guessed at my thoughts, and told me that she was no longer of 
 an age to spend either her time or money in superfluities; 
 that her whole expense was in charity, and her whole employ- 
 ment praying to God. There was no affectation in this 
 speech ; both she and her husband are entirely given up to 
 devotion. He never looks upon any other woman ; and, what 
 is much more extraordinary, touches no bribes, notwithstand- 
 ing the example of all his predecessors. He is so scrupulous 
 in this point, that he would not accept Mr. W 's [Wort- 
 ley's] present, till he had been assured over and over that it 
 was a settled perquisite of his place at the entrance of every 
 ambassador. , 
 
 1 This was the Sultana Hafitcu, the favourite nud widow of the Sultan Mus- 
 tapha II., who died in 1703. D.
 
 316 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 She entertained me with all kind of civility till dinner came 
 in, which was served, one dish at a time, to a vast number, all 
 finely dressed after their manner, which I do not think so bad 
 as you have perhaps heard it represented. I am a very good 
 judge of their eating, having lived three weeks in the house of 
 an effendi at Belgrade, who gave us very magnificent dinners, 
 dressed by his own cooks, which the first week pleased me ex- 
 tremely; but I own I then began to grow weary of it, and de- 
 sired our own cook might add a dish or two after our manner. 
 But I attribute this to custom. I am very much inclined to 
 believe an Indian, that had never tasted of either, would prefer 
 their cookery to ours. Their sauces are very high, all the 
 roast very much done. They use a great deal of rich spice. 
 The soup is served for the last dish ; and they have at least as 
 great variety of ragouts as we have. I was very sorry I could 
 not eat of as many as the good lady would have had me, who 
 was very earnest in serving me of every thing. The treat 
 concluded with coffee and perfumes, which is a high mark of 
 respect ; two slaves kneeling censed my hair, clothes, and hand- 
 kerchief. After this ceremony, she commanded her slaves to 
 play and dance, which they did with their guitars in their 
 hands ; and she excused to me their want of skill, saying she 
 took no care to accomplish them in that art. 
 
 I returned her thanks, and soon after took my leave. I was 
 conducted back in the same manner I entered ; and would 
 have gone straight to my own house ; but the Greek lady with 
 me earnestly solicited me to visit the kiyayds lady, 1 saying, he 
 was the second officer in the empire, and ought indeed to be 
 looked upon as the first, the Grand Vizier having only the 
 name, while he exercised the authority. I had found so little 
 diversion in this haremf that I had no mind to go into another. 
 But her importunity prevailed with me, and I am extreme 
 glad that I was so complaisant. 
 
 1 Kyhaia, lieutenant. The deputy to the Grand Vizier. D. 
 
 2 Harem, literally " The Forbidden," the apartment sacredly appropriate to 
 females, into which every man in Turkey, but the master of the house, is inter- 
 dicted from entering. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 317 
 
 All things here were with quite another air than at the 
 Grand Vizier's ; and the very house confessed the difference 
 between an old devote and a young beauty. It was nicely 
 clean and magnificent. I was met at the door by two black 
 eunuchs, who led me through a long gallery between two 
 ranks of beautiful young girls, with their hair finely plaited, 
 almost hanging to their feet, all dressed in fine light damasks, 
 brocaded with silver. I was sorry that decency did not permit 
 me to stop to consider them nearer. But that thought was 
 lost upon my entrance into a large room, or rather pavilion, 
 built round with gilded sashes, which were most of them 
 thrown up, and the trees planted near them gave an agreeable 
 shade, which hindered the sun from being troublesome. The 
 jessamines and honeysuckles that twisted round their trunks, 
 shedding a soft perfume, increased by a white marble fountain 
 playing sweet water in the lower part of the room, which fell 
 into three or four basins with a pleasing sound. The roof 
 was painted with all sort of flowers, falling out of gilded 
 baskets, that seemed tumbling down. On a sofa, raised three 
 steps, and covered with fine Persian carpets, sat the kiyayds 
 lady, leaning on cushions of white satin, embroidered ; and at 
 her feet sat two young girls, the eldest about twelve years 
 old, lovely as angels, dressed perfectly rich, and almost covered 
 with jewels. But they were hardly seen near the fair Fatima 
 (for that is her name), so much her beauty effaced every thing 
 I have seen, all that has been called lovely either in England 
 or Germany, and [I] must own that I never saw any thing so 
 gloriously beautiful, nor can I recollect a face that would have 
 been taken notice of near hers. She stood up to receive me, 
 saluting me after their fashion, putting her hand upon her 
 heart with a sweetness full of majesty, that no court breeding 
 could ever give. She ordered cushions to be given to me, and 
 took care to place me in the corner, which is the place of 
 honour. I confess, though the Greek lady had before given 
 me a great opinion of her beauty, I was so struck with admira- 
 tion, that I could not for some time speak to her, being wholly 
 taken up in gazing. That surprising harmony of features !
 
 318 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 that charming result of the whole ! that exact proportion of 
 body ! that lovely bloom of complexion unsullied by art ! the 
 
 unutterable enchantment of her smile ! But her eyes ! 
 
 large and black, with all the soft languishment of the blue ! 
 every turn of her face discovering some new charm. 
 
 After my first surprise was over, I endeavoured, by nicely 
 examining her face, to find out some imperfection, without 
 any fruit of my search, but being clearly convinced of the 
 error of that vulgar notion, that a face perfectly regular 
 would not be agreeable; nature having done for her with 
 more success, what Apelles is said to have essayed, by a col- 
 lection of the most exact features, to form, a perfect face, and 
 to that, a behaviour so full of grace and sweetness, such easy 
 motions, with an air so majestic, yet free from stiffness or 
 affectation, that I am persuaded, could she be suddenly trans- 
 ported upon the most polite throne of Europe, nobody would 
 think her other than born and bred to be a queen, though 
 educated in a country we call barbarous. To say all in a 
 word, our most celebrated English beauties would vanish near 
 her. 
 
 She was dressed in a caftan of gold brocade, flowered with 
 silver, very well fitted to her shape, and shewing to advan- 
 tage the beauty of her bosom, only shaded by the thin gauze 
 of her shift. Her drawers were pale pink, green and silver, 
 her slippers white, finely embroidered : her lovely arms adorned 
 with bracelets of diamonds, and her broad girdle set round 
 with diamonds ; upon her head a rich Turkish handkerchief 
 of pink and silver, her own fine black hair hanging a great 
 length in various tresses, and 011 one side of her head some 
 bodkins of jewels. I am afraid you will accuse me of extra- 
 vagance in this description. I think I have read somewhere 
 that women always speak in rapture when they speak of 
 beauty, but I cannot imagine why they should not be allowed 
 to do so. I rather think it [a] virtue to be able to admire 
 without any mixture of desire or envy. The gravest writers 
 have spoken with great warmth of some celebrated pictures 
 and statues. The workmanship of Heaven certainly excels all
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 319 
 
 our weak imitations, and, I think, has a much better claim to 
 our praise. For me, I am not ashamed to own I took more 
 pleasure in looking on the beauteous Fatima, than the finest 
 piece of sculpture could have given me. 
 
 She told me the two girls at her feet were her daughters, 
 though she appeared too young to be their mother. Her fair 
 maids were ranged below the sofa, to the number of twenty, 
 and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient nymphs. 
 I did not think all nature could have furnished such a scene 
 of beauty. She made them a sign to play and dance. Four 
 of them immediately began to play some soft airs on instru- 
 ments between a lute and a guitar, which they accompanied 
 with their voices, while the others danced by turns. This 
 dance was very different from what I had seen before. Nothing 
 could be more artful, or more proper to raise certain ideas. 
 The tunes so soft ! the motions so languishing ! accom- 
 panied with pauses and dying eyes ! half-falling back, and 
 then recovering themselves in so artful a manner, that I am 
 very positive the coldest and most rigid prude upon earth 
 could not have looked upon them without thinking of some- 
 thing not to be spoken of. I suppose you may have read that 
 the Turks have no music but what is shocking to the ears ; 
 but this account is from those who never heard any but what 
 is played in the streets, and is just as reasonable as if a fo- 
 reigner should take his ideas of the English music from the 
 bladder and string, and marrow-bones and cleavers. I can 
 assure you that the music is extremely pathetic ; 'tis true I am 
 inclined to prefer the Italian, but perhaps I am partial. I am 
 acquainted with a Greek lady who sings better than Mrs. Ro- 
 binson, 1 and is very well skilled in both, who gives the pre- 
 ference to the Turkish. 'Tis certain they have very fine natural 
 voices ; these were very agreeable. When the dance was over, 
 four fair slaves came into the room with silver censers in their 
 hands, and perfumed the air with amber, aloes-wood, and 
 other rich scents. After this they served me coffee upon their 
 knees in the finest japan china, with soucoupes of silver, giit. 
 
 Anastasia Robinson, the opera singer, afterwards Countess of Peterborough. T.
 
 320 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 The lovely Fatima entertained me all this time in the most 
 polite agreeable manner, calling me often Guzdl sultanum, or 
 the beautiful sultana, and desiring my friendship with the best 
 grace in the world, lamenting that she could not entertain me 
 in my own language. 
 
 When I took my leave, two maids brought in a fine silver 
 basket of embroidered handkerchiefs; she begged I would 
 wear the richest for her sake, and gave the others to my 
 woman and interpretress. I retired through the same cere- 
 monies as before, and could not help fancying I had been 
 some time in Mahomet's paradise, so much I was charmed with 
 what I had seen. I know not how the relation of it appears 
 to you. I wish it may give you part of my pleasure ; for I 
 would have my dear sister share in all the diversions of, &c. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT [THE ABBE CONTl]. 
 
 Adrianople, May 17, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I AM going to leave Adrianople, and I would not do it with- 
 out giving some account of all that is curious in it, which I 
 have taken a great deal of pains to see. 
 
 I will not trouble you with wise dissertations, whether or no 
 this is the same city that was anciently Orestesit or Oreste, 
 which you know better than I do. It is now called from the 
 Emperor Adrian, and was the first European seat of the Tur- 
 kish empire, and has been the favourite residence of many 
 sultans. Mahomet the Fourth, the father, and Mustapha, the 
 brother of the reigning emperor, were so fond of it that they 
 wholly abandoned Constantinople : which humour so far ex- 
 asperated the janissaries, it was a considerable motive to the 
 rebellions which deposed them. Yet this man seems to love 
 to keep his court here. I can give no reason for this partiality. 
 'Tis true the situation is fine, and the countiy all round very 
 beautiful ; but the air is extremely bad, and the seraglio itself 
 is not free from the ill effect of it. The town is said to be 
 eight miles in compass ; I suppose they reckon in the gardens. 
 There are some good houses in it, I mean large ones ; for the 
 architecture of their palaces never makes any great show. It
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 321 
 
 is now very full of people ; but they are most of them such 
 as follow the court, or camp ; and when they are removed, I am 
 told 'tis no populous city. The river Maritza (anciently the 
 Hebrus), on which it is situated, is dried up every summer, 
 which contributes very much to make it unwholesome. It is 
 now a very pleasant stream. There are two noble bridges 
 built over it. 
 
 I had the curiosity to go to see the Exchange in my Turkish 
 dress, which is disguise sufficient. Yet I own I was not very 
 easy when I saw it crowded with janissaries ; but they dare not 
 be rude to a woman, and made way for me with as much re- 
 spect as if I had been in my own figure. It is half a mile in 
 length, the roof arched, and kept extremely neat. It holds 
 three hundred and sixty-five shops, furnished with all sort of 
 rich goods, exposed to sale in the same manner as at the New 
 Exchange 1 in London ; but the pavement kept much neater ; 
 and the shops all so clean, they seemed just new painted. Idle 
 people of all sorts walk here for their diversion, or amuse 
 themselves with drinking coffee, or sherbet, which is cried 
 about as oranges and sweetmeats are in our play-houses. 
 
 I observed most of the rich tradesmen were Jews. That 
 people are in incredible power in this country. They have 
 many privileges above all the natural Turks themselves, and 
 have formed a very considerable commonwealth here, being 
 judged by their own laws, and have drawn the whole trade of 
 the empire into their hands, partly by the firm union among 
 themselves, and prevailing on the idle temper and want of in- 
 dustry of the Turks. Every pasha has his Jew, who is his 
 homme d? affaires ; he is let into all his secrets, and does all his 
 business. No bargain is made, no bribe received, no merchan- 
 dise disposed of, but what passes through their hands. They 
 are the physicians, the stewards, and the interpreters of all 
 the great men. 
 
 You may judge how advantageous this is to a people who 
 never fail to make use of the smallest advantages. They have 
 found the secret of making themselves so necessary, they are 
 
 1 Exeter Change. W. 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 certain of the protection of the court, whatever ministry is in 
 power. Even the English, French, and Italian merchants, 
 who are sensible of their artifices, are, however, forced to 
 trust their affairs to their negotiation, nothing of trade being 
 managed without them, and the meanest among them is too im- 
 portant to be disobliged, since the whole body take care of his 
 interests with as much vigour as they would those of the most 
 considerable of their members. There are many of them 
 vastly rich, but take care to make little public show of it ; 
 though they live in their houses in the utmost luxury and 
 magnificence. This copious subject has drawn me from my 
 description of the exchange, founded by AH Pasha, whose 
 name it bears. Near it is the tchartshi, a street of a mile in 
 length, full of shops of all kinds of fine merchandise, but ex- 
 cessive dear, nothing being made here. It is covered over the 
 top with boards, to keep out the rain, that merchants may 
 meet conveniently in all weathers. The bessiten near it, is 
 another exchange, built upon pillars, where all sort of horse- 
 furniture is sold : glittering every where with gold, rich em- 
 broidery, and jewels, [it] makes a very agreeable show. 
 
 From this place I went, in my Turkish coach, to the camp, 
 which is to move in a few days to the frontiers. The Sultan 
 is already gone to his tents, and all his court ; the appearance 
 of them is, indeed, very magnificent. Those of the great 
 men are rather like palaces than tents, taking up a great com- 
 pass of ground, and being divided into a vast number of 
 apartments. They are all of green, and the pashas of three 
 tails have those ensigns of their power placed in a very con- 
 spicuous manner before their tents, which are adorned on the 
 top with gilded balls, more or less according to their different 
 ranks. The ladies go in their coaches to see this camp, as 
 eagerly as ours did to that of Hyde Park -, 1 but it is easy to 
 observe, that the soldiers do not begin the campaign with any 
 great cheerfulness. The war is a general grievance upon the 
 people, but particularly hard upon the tradesmen, now that 
 
 Alluding to the encampment of the Horse and Foot Guards in Hyde Park in 
 the summer of 1715. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 323 
 
 the Grand Signior is resolved to lead his army in person. 
 Every company of them is obliged, upon this occasion, to 
 make a present according to their ability. 
 
 I took the pains of rising at six in the morning to see that 
 ceremony, which did not, however, begin till eight. The 
 Grand Signior was at the seraglio window, to see the proces- 
 sion, which passed through all the principal streets. It was 
 preceded by an e/endi mounted on a camel, richly furnished, 
 reading aloud the Alcoran, finely bound, laid upon a cushion. 
 He was surrounded by a parcel of boys, in white, singing 
 some verses of it, followed by a man dressed in green boughs, 
 representing a clean husbandman sowing seed. After him 
 several reapers, with garlands of ears of corn, as Ceres is 
 pictured, with scythes in their hands, seeming to mow. Then 
 a little machine drawn by oxen, in which was a windmill, and 
 boys employed in grinding corn, followed by another machine, 
 drawn by buffaloes, carrying an oven, and two more boys, one 
 employed in kneading the bread, and another in drawing it 
 out of the oven. These boys threw little cakes on both sides 
 among the crowd, and were followed by the whole company 
 of bakers, marching on foot, two and two, in their best clothes, 
 with cakes, loaves, pasties, and pies of all sorts, on their heads, 
 and after them two buffoons, or jack-puddings, with their 
 faces and clothes smeared with meal, who diverted the mob 
 with their antic gestures. In the same manner followed all 
 the companies of trade in their empire ; the nobler sort, such 
 as jewellers, mercers, &c., finely mounted, and many of the 
 pageants that represented their trades perfectly magnificent ; 
 among which the furriers' made one of the best figures, being 
 a very large machine, set round with the skins of ermines, 
 foxes, &c., so well stuffed, the animals seemed to be alive, fol- 
 lowed by music and dancers. I believe they were, upon the 
 whole, at least twenty thousand men, all ready to follow his 
 highness if he commanded them. The rear was closed by 
 the volunteers, who came to beg the honour of dying in his 
 service. This part of the show seemed to me so barbarous, I 
 removed from the window upon the first appearance of it.
 
 324 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 They were all naked to the middle. Some had their arms 
 pierced through with arrows, left sticking in them. Others 
 had them sticking in their heads, the blood trickling down 
 their faces, and some slashed their arms with sharp knives, 
 making the blood spout out upon those that stood near ; and 
 this is looked upon as an expression of their zeal for glory. I 
 am told that some make use of it to advance their love ; and, 
 when they are near the window where their mistress stands, 
 (all the women in town being veiled to see this spectacle,) 
 they stick another arrow for her sake, who gives some sign of 
 approbation and encouragement to this gallantry. The whole 
 show lasted near eight hours, to my great sorrow, who was 
 heartily tired, though I was in the house of the widow of the 
 capitain-pasha (admiral), who refreshed me with coffee, sweet- 
 meats, sherbet, &c., with all possible civility. 
 
 I went, two days after, to see the mosque of Sultan Selim I., 1 
 which is a building very well worth the curiosity of a tra- 
 veller. I was dressed in my Turkish habit, arid admitted 
 without scruple : though I believe they guessed who I was, by 
 the extreme officiousness of the doorkeeper to shew me every 
 part of it. It is situated very advantageously in the midst 
 of the city, and in the highest part, making a very noble show. 
 The first court has four gates, and the innermost three. They 
 are both of them surrounded with cloisters, with marble pil- 
 lars of the Ionic order, finely polished and of very lively 
 colours ; the whole pavement being white marble, the roof of 
 the cloisters being divided into several cupolas or domes, 
 leaded, with gilt balls on the top. In the midst of each court 
 [are] fine fountains of white marble ; before the great gate of 
 the mosque, a portico, with green marble pillars. It has five 
 gates, the body of the mosque being one prodigious dome. 
 
 I understand so little of architecture, I dare not pretend to 
 speak of the proportions. It seemed to me very regular ; this 
 I am sure of, it is vastly high, and I thought it the noblest 
 
 1 The same Sultan, between the years 1552 and 1556, constructed another 
 mosque at Constantinople, which bears his name. The architecture exactly re- 
 sembles this, and forms a perfect square of seventy-five feet, with a flat cupola, 
 rising from the side walls. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 325 
 
 building I ever saw. It had two rows of marble galleries on 
 pillars, with marble balusters ; the pavement marble, covered 
 with Persian carpets, and, in my opinion, it is a great addition 
 to its beauty, that it is not divided into pews, and incumbered 
 with forms and benches like our churches; nor the pillars 
 (which are most of them red and white marble) disfigured by 
 the little tawdry images and pictures that give the Roman 
 Catholic churches the air of toy-shops. The walls seemed to 
 me inlaid with such very lively colours, in small flowers, I 
 could not imagine what stones had been made use of. But 
 going nearer, I saw they were crusted with japai* china, which 
 has a very beautiful effect. In the midst hung a vast lamp of 
 silver, gilt ; besides which, I do verily believe, there were at 
 least two thousand of a lesser size. This must look very 
 glorious when they are all lighted ; but that being at night, 
 no women are suffered to enter. Under the large lamp is a 
 great pulpit of carved wood, gilt ; and just by it, a fountain 
 to wash, which you know is an essential part of their devotion. 
 In one corner is a little gallery, inclosed with gilded lattices, 
 for the Grand Signior. At the upper end, a large niche, very 
 like an altar, raised two steps, covered with gold brocade, and, 
 standing before it, two silver gilt candlesticks, the height of a 
 man, and in them white wax candles, as thick as a man's 
 waist. The outside of the mosque is adorned with four towers, 
 vastly high, gilt on the top, from whence the imaums call the 
 people to prayers. I had the curiosity to go up one of them, 
 which is contrived so artfully, as to give surprise to all that 
 see it. There is but one door, which leads to three different 
 staircases, going to the three different stories of the tower, 
 in such a manner, that three priests may ascend, rounding, 
 without ever meeting each other; a contrivance very much 
 admired. 
 
 Behind the mosque is an exchange full of shops, where 
 poor artificers are lodged gratis. I saw several dervises at 
 then* prayers here. They are dressed in a plain piece of 
 woollen, with their arms bare, and a woollen cap on their 
 heads, like a high-crowned hat without brims. I went to see
 
 326 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 some other mosques, built much after the same manner, but 
 not comparable in point of magnificence to this I have de- 
 scribed, which is infinitely beyond any church in Germany 
 or England ; I won't talk of other countries I have not seen. 
 The seraglio does not seem a very magnificent palace. But 
 the gardens [are] very large, plentifully supplied with water, 
 and full of trees : which is all I know of them, having never 
 been in them. 
 
 I tell you nothing of the order of Mr. W 's [Wortley's] 
 
 entry and his audience. Those things are always the same, 
 and have been so often described, I won't trouble you with the 
 repetition. The young prince, about eleven years old, sits 
 near his father when he gives audience : he is a handsome 
 boy ; but, probably, will not immediately succeed the Sultan, 
 there being two sons of Sultan Mustapha (his eldest brother) 
 remaining ; the eldest about twenty years old, on whom the 
 hopes of the people are fixed. This reign has been bloody 
 and avaricious. I am apt to believe, they are very impatient 
 to see the end of it. 
 
 I am, Sir, your, &c. 
 
 I will write to you again from Constantinople. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT [ABB^ CONTl]. 
 
 Constantinople, May 29, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I HAVE had the advantage of very fine weather all my 
 journey ; and the summer being now in its beauty, I enjoyed 
 the pleasure of fine prospects ; and the meadows being full of 
 all sort of garden flowers and sweet herbs, my berlin perfumed 
 the air as it pressed them. The Grand Signior furnished us 
 with thirty covered waggons for our baggage, and five coaches 
 of the country for my women. We found the road full of the 
 great spahis and their equipages coming out of Asia to the 
 war. They always travel with tents; but I chose to lie in 
 houses all the way. 
 
 I will not trouble you with the names of the villages we 
 passed, in which there was nothing remarkable, but at 
 Tchiorlii we were lodged in a conac, or little seraglio, built for
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 327 
 
 the use of the Grand Signior when he goes this road. I had 
 the curiosity to view all the apartments destined for the ladies 
 of his court. They were in the midst of a thick grove of 
 trees, made fresh by fountains ; but I was surprised to see the 
 walls almost covered with little distiches of Turkish verse, 
 written with pencils. I made my interpreter explain them to 
 me, and I found several of them very well turned ; though I 
 easily believed him, that they lost much of their beauty in the 
 translation. One was literally thus in English : 
 
 " We come into this world ; we lodge, and we depart, 
 He never goes, that's lodged within my heart." 
 
 The rest of our journey was through fine painted meadows, 
 by the side of the Sea of Marmora, the ancient Propontis. 
 We lay the next night at Selivrea, anciently a noble town. It 
 is now a very good seaport, and neatly built enough, and has 
 a bridge of thirty-two arches. Here is a famous ancient 
 Greek church. I had given one of my coaches to a Greek 
 lady, who desired the conveniency of travelling with me ; she 
 designed to pay her devotions, and I was glad of the opportu- 
 nity of going with her. I found it an ill-built place, set out 
 with the same sort of ornaments, but less rich, than the 
 Roman Catholic churches. They shewed me a saint's body, 
 where I threw a piece of money ; and a picture of the Virgin 
 Mary, drawn by the hand of St. Luke, very little to the credit 
 of his painting ; but, however, the finest Madonna of Italy is 
 not more famous for her miracles. The Greeks have a most 
 monstrous taste in their pictures, which, for more finery, are 
 always drawn upon a gold ground. You may imagine what a 
 good air this has ; but they have no notion either of shade or 
 proportion. They have a bishop here, who officiated in his 
 purple robe, and sent me a candle almost as big as myself for 
 a present, when I was at my lodging. 
 
 We lay the next night at a town called Bujuk Checkmedji, 
 or Great Bridge ; and the night following, Kujuc Checkmedji, 
 Little Bridge ; in a very pleasant lodging, formerly a monas- 
 tery of dervises, having before it a large court, encompassed 
 with marble cloisters, with a good fountain in the middle
 
 328 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 The prospect from this place, and the gardens round it, are 
 the most agreeable I have seen ; and shews that monks of all 
 religions know how to choose their retirements. 'Tis now be- 
 longing to a hogia or schoolmaster, who teaches boys here; 
 and asking him to shew me his own apartment, I was sur- 
 prised to see him point to a tall cypress-tree in the garden, on 
 the top of which was a place for a bed for himself, and, a little 
 lower, one for his wife and two children, who slept there every 
 night. I was so diverted with the fancy, I resolved to ex- 
 amine his nest nearer ; but after going up fifty steps, I found 
 I had still fifty to go [up], and then I must climb from branch 
 to branch, with some hazard of my neck. I thought it the 
 best way to come down again. 
 
 We arrived the next evening at Constantinople ; but I can 
 yet tell you very little of it, all my time having been taken up 
 with receiving visits, which are, at least, a very good enter- 
 tainment to the eyes, the young women being all beauties, and 
 their beauty highly improved by the good taste of their dress. 
 Our palace is in Pera, which is no more a suburb of Constan- 
 tinople than Westminster is a suburb to London. All the 
 embassadors are lodged very near each other. One part of 
 our house shews us the port, the city, and the seraglio, and 
 the distant hills of Asia ; perhaps, all together, the most beau- 
 tiful prospect in the world. 
 
 A certain French author says, that Constantinople is twice 
 
 as large as Paris. Mr. W [Wortley] is unwilling to own it 
 
 is bigger than London, though I confess it appears to me to 
 be so; but I don't believe it is so populous. The burying- 
 fields about it are certainly much larger than the whole city. 
 It is surprising what a vast deal of land is lost this way in 
 Turkey. Sometimes I have seen burying-places of several 
 miles, belonging to very inconsiderable villages, which were for- 
 merly great towns, and retain no other mark of then: ancient 
 grandeur. On no occasion they remove a stone that serves 
 for a monument. Some of them are costly enough, being of 
 very fine marble. They set up a pillar, with a carved turban 
 on the top of it, to the memory of a man ; and as the turbans,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 329 
 
 by their different shapes, shew the quality or profession, 'tis in 
 a manner putting up the arms of the deceased ; besides, the 
 pillar commonly bears a large inscription in gold letters. The 
 ladies have a simple pillar, without other ornament, except 
 those that die unmarried, who have a rose on the top of it. 
 The sepulchres of particular families are railed in, and planted 
 round with trees. Those of the sultans, and some great men, 
 have lamps constantly burning in them. 
 
 When I spoke of then- religion, I forgot to mention two 
 particularities, one of which I have read of, but it seemed so 
 odd to me, I could not believe it ; yet 'tis certainly true : that, 
 when a man has divorced his wife in the most solemn manner, 
 he can take her again upon no other terms than permitting 
 another man to pass a night with her; and there are some 
 examples of those who have submitted to this law, rather than 
 not have back their beloved. The other point of doctrine 
 is very extraordinary. Any woman that dies unmarried is 
 looked upon to die in a state of reprobation. To confirm this 
 belief, they reason, that the end of the creation of woman is 
 to increase and multiply ; and she is only properly employed 
 in the works of her calling when she is bringing [forth] chil- 
 dren, or taking care of them, which are all the virtues that 
 God expects from her. And, indeed, their way of life, which 
 shuts them out of all public commerce, does not permit them 
 any other. Our vulgar notion, that they do not own women to 
 have any souls, is a mistake. 'Tis true, they say they are not of 
 so elevated a kind, and therefore must not hope to be admitted 
 into the paradise appointed for the men, who are to be enter- 
 tained by celestial beauties. But there is a place of happiness 
 destined for souls of the inferior order, where all good women 
 are to be in eternal bliss. Many of them are very supersti- 
 tious, and will not remain widows ten days, for fear of dying 
 in the reprobate state of a useless creature. But those that 
 like their liberty, and are not slaves to their religion, content 
 themselves with marrying when they are afraid of dying. 
 This is a piece of theology very different from that which 
 teaches nothing to be more acceptable to God than a vow of
 
 330 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 perpetual virginity : which divinity is most rational, I leave 
 you to determine. 
 
 I have already made some progress in a collection of Greek 
 medals. Here are several professed antiquaries who are ready 
 to serve any body that desires them. But you cannot imagine 
 how they stare in my face when I enquire about them, as if 
 nobody was permitted to seek after medals till they were 
 grown a piece of antiquity themselves. I have got some very 
 valuable of the Macedonian kings, particularly one of Perseus, 
 so lively, I fancy I can see all his ill qualities in his face. I 
 have a porphyry head finely cut, of the true Greek sculpture ; 
 but who it represents, is to be guessed at by the learned when 
 I return. For you are not to suppose these antiquaries (who 
 are all Greeks) know any thing. Their trade is only to sell ; 
 they have correspondents at Aleppo, Grand Cairo, in Arabia, 
 and Palestine, who send them all they can find, and very often 
 great heaps that are only fit to melt into pans and kettles. 
 They get the best price they can for any of them, without 
 knowing those that are valuable from those that are not. 
 Those that pretend to skill, generally find out the image of 
 some saint in the medals of the Greek cities. One of them 
 shewing me the figure of a Pallas, with a victory in her hand 
 on a reverse, assured me it was the Virgin holding a crucifix. 
 The same man offered me the head of a Socrates on a sar- 
 donyx ; and, to enhance the value, gave him the title of Saint 
 Augustin. 
 
 I have bespoken a mummy, which I hope will come safe to 
 my hands, notwithstanding the misfortune that befel a very- 
 fine one designed for the King of Sweden. He gave a great 
 price for it, and the Turks took it into their heads that he 
 must certainly have some considerable project depending upon 
 it. They fancied it the body of God knows who ; and that 
 the fate of their empire mystically depended on the conserva- 
 tion of it. Some old prophecies were remembered upon this 
 occasion, and the mummy committed prisoner to the Seven 
 Towers, where it has remained under close confinement ever 
 since : I dare not try my interest in so considerable a point as
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 331 
 
 the release of it ; but I hope mine will pass without examina- 
 tion. 
 
 I can tell you nothing more at present of this famous city. 
 When I have looked a little about me, you shall hear from 
 me again. 
 
 I am, Sir, &c. 
 
 TO MR. P [POPE]. 
 
 Belgrade Village, 1 June 17, O.S. [1717]. 
 
 I HOPE before this time you have received two or three of 
 my letters. I had yours but yesterday, though dated the 
 third of February, in which you suppose me to be dead and 
 buried. I have already let you know that I am still alive ; 
 but to say truth, I look upon my present circumstances to be 
 exactly the same with those of departed spirits. 
 
 The heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, 
 which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields. 
 I am in the middle of a wood, consisting chiefly of fruit-trees, 
 watered by a vast number of fountains, famous for the excel- 
 lency of their water, and divided into many shady walks, upon 
 short grass, that seems to be artificial, but, I am assured, is 
 the pure work of nature ; within view of the Black Sea, from 
 whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes, 
 that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The vil- 
 lage is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, 
 who meet every night at a fountain, forty paces from my 
 house, to sing and dance, the beauty and dress of the women 
 exactly resembling the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are 
 given us by the representations of the poets and painters. But 
 what persuades me more fully of my decease, is the situation 
 of my own mind, the profound ignorance I am in of what 
 
 1 The heat of Constantinople during the summer months is excessive, and the 
 European embassies usually retire to the shores of the Bosphorus, or the village of 
 Belgrade, about fourteen miles distant. In these delicious shades, and most beau- 
 tiful forest scenery, Lady Mary was happy to pass her days. No English traveller 
 visits Belgrade without participating her pleasure in her description, and inquiring 
 after the site of her residence. At present no part of the house remains ; for such 
 is the fragility of Turkish structures, excepting their mosques, that they seldom 
 last a century. Dalluwaya Memoir of Lady Mary. T
 
 332 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 passes among the living (which only comes to me by chance), 
 and the great calmness with which I receive it. Yet I have 
 still a hankering after my friends and acquaintance left in 
 the world, according to the authority of that admirable 
 author, 
 
 " That spirits departed are wondrous kind 
 To friends and relations left behind : 
 
 Which nobody can deny." 
 
 Of which solemn truth I am a dead instance. I think Virgil 
 is of the same opinion, that in human souls there will still be 
 some remains of human passions : 
 
 " Curae non ips& in morte relinquunt." 
 
 And 'tis very necessary, to make a perfect Elysium, that 
 there should be a river Lethe, which I am not so happy to 
 find. 
 
 To say truth, I am sometimes very weary of this singing, 
 and dancing, and sunshine, and wish for the smoke and im- 
 pertinencies in which you toil, though I endeavour to persuade 
 myself that I live in a more agreeable variety than you do; 
 and that Monday, setting of partridges Tuesday, reading 
 English Wednesday, studying the Turkish language (in 
 which, by the way, I am already very learned) Thursday, 
 classical authors Friday, spent in writing Saturday, at my 
 needle and Sunday, admitting of visits, and hearing music, 
 is a better way of disposing the week, than Monday, at the 
 drawing-room - Tuesday, Lady Mohun's Wednesday, the 
 opera Thursday, the play Friday, Mrs. Chetwynd's, &c., a 
 perpetual round of hearing the same scandal, and seeing the 
 same follies acted over and over, which here affect me no 
 more than they do other dead people. I can now hear of dis- 
 pleasing things with pity, and without indignation. The 
 reflection on the great gulph between you and me, cools all 
 news that come hither. I can neither be sensibly touched 
 with joy nor grief, when I consider that possibly the cause of 
 either is removed before the letter comes to my hands. But 
 (as I said before) this indolence does not extend to my few 
 friendships; I am still warmly sensible of yours and Mr.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 333 
 
 C.'s [Congreve's], 1 and desire to live in your remembrances, 
 though dead to all the world beside. 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 Belgrade Village, June 17, O.S. [1717].* 
 
 I HEARTILY beg your ladyship's pardon ; but I really could 
 not forbear laughing heartily at your letter, and the commis- 
 sions you are pleased to honour me with. 
 
 You desire me to buy you a Greek slave, who is to be mis- 
 tress of a thousand good qualities. The Greeks are subjects, 
 and not slaves. Those who are to be bought in that manner, 
 are either such as are taken in war, or stolen by the Tartars 
 from Russia, Circassia, or Georgia, and are such miserable, 
 awkward, poor wretches, you would not think any of them 
 worthy to be your housemaids. 'Tis true that many thou- 
 sands were taken in the Morea ; but they have been, most of 
 them, redeemed by the charitable contributions of the Chris- 
 tians, or ransomed by their own relations at Venice. The 
 fine slaves that wait upon the great ladies, or serve the plea- 
 sures of the great men, are all bought at the age of eight or 
 nine years old, and educated with great care, to accomplish 
 them in singing, dancing, embroidery, &c. They are com- 
 monly Circassians, and their patron never sells them, except 
 it is as a punishment for some very great fault. If ever they 
 grow weary of them, they either present them to a friend, or 
 give them their freedom. Those that are exposed to sale at 
 the markets are always either guilty of some crime, or so en- 
 
 1 In the manuscript, " Congreve's," but struck out except initial. T. 
 
 2 Mr. Wortley Montagu removed to the Sultan's camp at Basarsich, near Sophia, 
 in September following the date of this letter, and remained there till the end of the 
 year. Whether Lady Mary accompanied him does not appear. His departure from 
 Constantinople is thus announced in the Weekly Journal of Dec. 21, 1717, in the 
 form of an advice from the " Grand Vizier's camp," dated Oct. 1 : " The Lord Am- 
 bassador Wortley Montagu having received an invitation from the Porte to come 
 to the Grand Signior's camp at Philipopoli, set out from Constantinople the 12th of 
 September, and arrived at the said camp the 21st of September, where, according 
 to the custom of ambassadors, he made his public entry with a great ceremony 
 and magnificence. The next day the Grand Vizier arrived in the camp from 
 Nizza, ordered his excellency's tents to be pitched near his own, and a chamber of 
 janissaries was ordered to serve and guard him. October 5 he visited the Vizier, 
 and was received and entertained with great civility." T.
 
 334 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 tirely worthless that they are of no use at all. I am afraid 
 you will doubt the truth of this account, which I own is very 
 different from our common notions in England ; but it is no 
 less truth for all that. 
 
 Your whole letter is full of mistakes from one end to the 
 other. I see you have taken your ideas of Turkey from that 
 worthy author Dumont, who has written with equal ignorance 
 and confidence. 'Tis a particular pleasure to me here, to read 
 the voyages to the Levant, which are generally so far removed 
 from truth, and so full of absurdities, I am very well diverted 
 with them. They never fail giving you an account of the 
 women, whom 'tis certain they never saw, and talking very 
 wisely of the genius of the men, into whose company they are 
 never admitted ; and very often describe mosques, which they 
 dare not peep into. The Turks are very proud, and will not 
 converse with a stranger they are not assured is considerable 
 in his own country. I speak of the men of distinction ; for 
 as to the ordinary fellows, you may imagine what ideas their 
 conversation can give of the general genius of the people. 
 
 As to the balm of Mecca, I will certainly send you some ; 
 but it is not so easily got as you suppose it, and I cannot, in 
 conscience, advise you to make use of it. I know not how it 
 comes to have such universal applause. All the ladies of my 
 acquaintance at London and Vienna have begged me to send 
 pots of it to them. I have had a present of a small quantity 
 (which, I'll assure you, is very valuable) of the best sort, and 
 with great joy applied it to my face, expecting some wonder- 
 ful effect to my advantage. The next morning the change 
 indeed was wonderful ; my face was swelled to a very extraor- 
 dinary size, and all over as red as my Lady B.'s. It remained 
 in this lamentable state three days, during which you may be 
 sure I passed my time very ill. I believed it would never be 
 otherways ; and to add to my mortification, Mr. W [Wort- 
 ley] reproached my indiscretion without ceasing. However, 
 my face is since in statu quo ; nay, I am told by the ladies here, 
 that it is much mended by the operation, which I confess I 
 cannot perceive in my looking-glass. Indeed, if one were to
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 335 
 
 form an opinion of this balm from their faces, one should 
 tnink very well of it. They all make use of it, and have the 
 loveliest bloom in the world. For my part, I never intend to 
 endure the pain of it again ; let my complexion take its natural 
 course, and decay in its own due time. I have very little 
 esteem for medicines of this nature; but do as you please, 
 madam; only remember, before you use it, that your face 
 will not be such as you will care to show in the drawing-room 
 for some days after. 
 
 If one was to believe the women in this country, there is a 
 surer way of making one's self beloved than by becoming 
 handsome; though you know that's our method. But they 
 pretend to the knowledge of secrets that, by way of enchant- 
 ment, give them the entire empire over whom they please. 
 For me, who am not very apt to believe in wonders, I cannot 
 find faith for this. I disputed the point last night with a 
 lady, who really talks very sensibly on any other subject ; but 
 she was downright angry with me, that she did not perceive 
 she had persuaded me of the truth of forty stories she told me 
 of this kind; and at last mentioned several ridiculous mar- 
 riages, that there could be no other reason assigned for. I 
 assured her, that in England, where we were entirely ignorant 
 of all magic, where the climate is not half so warm, nor the 
 women half so handsome, we were not without our ridiculous 
 marriages ; and that we did not look upon it as any thing super- 
 natural when a man played the fool for the sake of a woman. 
 But my arguments could not convince her against (as she said) 
 her certain knowledge, though, she added, that she scrupled 
 making use of charms herself ; but that she could do it when- 
 ever she pleased ; and, staring in my face, said (with a very 
 learned air), that no enchantments would have their effect 
 upon me ; and that there were some people exempt from their 
 power, but very few. You may imagine how I laughed at 
 this discourse ; but all the women here are of the same opinion. 
 They don't pretend to any commerce with the devil ; but that 
 there are certain compositions to inspire love. If one could 
 send over a ship-load of them, I fancy it would be a very quick
 
 336 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 way of raising an estate. What would not some ladies of our 
 acquaintance give for such merchandize? 
 
 Adieu, my dear Lady , I cannot conclude my letter 
 
 with a subject that affords more delightful scenes to [the] 
 imagination. I leave you to figure to yourself the extreme 
 court that will be made to me, at my return, if my travels 
 should furnish uie with such a useful piece of learning. 
 
 I am, dear madam, &c. 
 
 TO MR. P - 1 
 
 Sept. 1, 1717. 
 
 WHEN I wrote to you last, Belgrade was in the hands of 
 the Turks ; but at this present moment, it has changed mas- 
 ters, and is in the hands of the Imperialists. A janissary, who 
 in nine days, and yet without any wings but what a panic 
 terror seems to have furnished, arrived at Constantinople from 
 the army of the Turks before Belgrade, brought Mr. W. the 
 news of a complete victory obtained by the Imperialists, com- 
 manded by Prince Eugene, over the Ottoman troops. It is 
 said, the prince has discovered great conduct and valour in 
 this action, and I am particularly glad that the voice of glory 
 
 and duty has called him from the (Here several words of 
 
 the manuscript are effaced?) Two days after the battle the town 
 surrendered. The consternation which this defeat has occa- 
 sioned here, is inexpressible ; and the Sultan apprehending a 
 revolution from the resentment and indignation of the people, 
 fomented by certain leaders, has begun his precautions, after 
 the goodly fashion of this blessed government, by ordering 
 several persons to be strangled who were the objects of his 
 royal suspicion. He has also ordered his treasurer to advance 
 some months' pay to the janissaries, which seems the less 
 
 1 This letter was first published in the " Additional Volume to the Letters of 
 the Right Honourable Lady M y W y M e," 1767, said to have been edited by 
 the notorious John Cleland. No manuscript authority has ever been produced, 
 and the authenticity of the letter, as of all others first published in the volume 
 referred to, is extremely doubtful. It is evidently intended to be read as a letter 
 to Pope ; but the compliments to him at the expense of Addison are such as Lady 
 Mary was not likely to have written, and the allusion to Twickenham was impos- 
 sible, as Pope did not remove to Twickenham till more than twelve months later. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 337 
 
 necessary, as their conduct has been bad in this campaign, and 
 tiieir licentious -ferocity seems pretty well tamed by the public 
 contempt. Such of them as return in straggling and fugitive 
 parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit enough to 
 defend themselves from the insults of the mob ; the very chil- 
 dren taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they 
 pass. They refused during the battle to lend their assistance 
 to save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, 
 were defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the 
 janissaries and spahis were nobly employed in plundering their 
 own camp. 
 
 You see here that I give you a very handsome return for 
 your obliging letter. You entertain me with a most agreeable 
 account of your amiable connections with men of letters and 
 taste, and of the delicious moments you pass in their society 
 under the rural shade ; and I exhibit to you in return, the 
 barbarous spectacle of Turks and Germans cutting one an- 
 other's throats. But what can you expect from such a coun- 
 try as this, from which the Muses have fled, from which letters 
 seem eternally banished, and in which you see, in private 
 scenes, nothing pursued as happiness but the refinements of 
 an indolent voluptuousness, and where those who act upon the 
 public theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror ! Here 
 pleasure, to which I am no enemy, when it is properly seasoned 
 and of a good composition, is surely of the cloying kind. 
 Veins of wit, elegant conversation, easy commerce, are un- 
 known among the Turks ; and yet they seem capable of all 
 these, if the vile spirit of their government did not stifle 
 genius, damp curiosity, and suppress a hundred passions, that 
 embellish and render life agreeable. The luscious passion of 
 the seraglio is the only one almost that is gratified here to the 
 full, but it is blended so with the surly spirit of despotism in 
 one of the parties, and with the dejection and anxiety which 
 this spirit produces in the other, that to one of my way of 
 thinking it cannot appear otherwise than as a very mixed kind 
 of enjoyment. The women here are not, indeed, so closely 
 confined as many have related ; they enjoy a high degree of 
 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 liberty, even in the bosom of servitude, and they have methods 
 of evasion and disguise that are very favourable to gallantry ; 
 but, after all, they are still under uneasy apprehensions of 
 being discovered ; and a discovery exposes them to the most 
 merciless rage of jealousy, which is here a monster that cannot 
 be satiated but with blood. The magnificence and riches that 
 reign in the apartments of the ladies of fashion here, seem to 
 be one of their chief pleasures, joined with their retinue of 
 female slaves, whose music, dancing, and dress amuse them 
 highly ; but there is such an air of form and stiffness amidst 
 this grandeur, as hinders it from pleasing me at long run, how- 
 ever I was dazzled with it at first sight. This stiffness and 
 formality of manners are peculiar to the Turkish ladies ; for 
 the Grecian belles are of quite another character and com- 
 plexion ; with them pleasure appears in more engaging forms, 
 and their persons, manners, conversation, and amusements, are 
 very far from being destitute of elegance and ease. 
 
 I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared secre- 
 tary of state with the less surprise, in that I know that post 
 was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined 
 it, and [T] really believe that he would have done well to have 
 declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the 
 countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man 
 that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be 
 heartily glad to resign them both. It is well that he laid aside 
 the thoughts of the voluminous dictionary, of which I have 
 heard you or somebody else frequently make mention. But 
 no more on that subject ; . I would not have said so much, were 
 I not assured that this letter will come safe and unopened to 
 hand. I long much to tread upon English ground, that I may 
 see you and Mr. Congreve, who render that ground classic 
 ground ; nor will you refuse our present secretary a part of 
 that merit, whatever reasons you may have to be dissatisfied 
 with him in other respects. You are the three happiest poets 
 X tver heard of ; one a secretary of state, the other enjoying 
 leisure with dignity in two lucrative employments ; and you., 
 though your religious profession is an obstacle to court promo-
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 339 
 
 tion, and disqualifies you from filling civil employments, have 
 found the philosopher's stone, since by making the Iliad pass 
 through your poetical crucible into an English form, without 
 losing aught of its original beauty, you have drawn the golden 
 current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this finding the 
 philosopher's stone, since you alone found out the secret and 
 
 nobody else has got into it. A n [Addison] and T 1 
 
 [Tickell] tried it, but their experiments failed ; and they lost, 
 if not their money, at least a certain portion of their fame in 
 the trial ; while you touched the mantle of the divine bard, 
 and imbibed his spirit. I hope we shall have the Odyssey soon 
 from your happy hand, and I think I shall follow with singular 
 pleasure the traveller Ulysses, who was an observer of men 
 and manners, when he travels in your harmonious numbers. I 
 love him much better than the hot-headed son of Peleus, who 
 bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is true, 
 the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or 
 dignity, but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a 
 hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastic : a perfect hero 
 is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive ; 
 but it is also true that while the epic hero ought to be drawn 
 with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought 
 never to be represented as extremely absurd. But it becomes 
 me ill to play the critic ; so I take my leave of you for this 
 time, and desire you will believe me, with the highest esteem, 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 TO MRS. T. [THISTLETHWAYTE]. 
 
 Pera of Constantinople, Jan. 4, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I AM infinitely obliged to you, dear Mrs. T. [Thistle- 
 thwayte], 1 for your entertaining letter. You are the only one 
 of my correspondents that have judged right enough, to think 
 I would gladly be informed of the news among you. All the 
 rest of them tell me (almost in the same words) that they sup- 
 pose I know every thing. Why they are pleased to suppose 
 in this manner, I can guess no reason, except that they are 
 
 1 Originally " Thistlethvrayte," but struck out except initial. T. 
 
 z2
 
 340 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 persuaded that the breed of Mahomet's pigeon still subsists in 
 this country, and that I receive supernatural intelligence. 
 
 I wish I could return your goodness with some diverting, 
 accounts from hence. But I know not what part of the scenes 
 here would gratify your curiosity, or whether you have any 
 curiosity at all for things so far distant. To say the truth, I 
 am, at this present writing, not very much turned for the recol- 
 lection of what is diverting, my head being wholly filled with 
 the preparations necessary for the increase of my family, 
 which I expect every day. You may easily guess at my 
 uneasy situation. But I am, however, in some degree com- 
 forted, by the glory that accrues to me from it, and a reflec- 
 tion on the contempt I should otherwise fall under. You 
 won't know what to make of this speech ; but, in this country, 
 it is more despicable to be married and not fruitful, than it is 
 with us to be fruitful before marriage. They have a notion, 
 that, whenever a woman leaves off bringing children, it is be- 
 cause she is too old for that business, whatever her face says to 
 the contrary ; and this opinion makes the ladies here so ready 
 to make proofs of their youth, (which is as necessary, in order 
 to be a received beauty, as it is to shew the proofs of nobility, 
 to be admitted knight of Malta,) that they do not content 
 themselves with using the natural means, but fly to all sort of 
 quackeries, to avoid the scandal of being past child-bearing, 
 and often kill themselves by them. Without any exaggera- 
 tion, all the women of my acquaintance that have been married 
 ten years, have twelve or thirteen children ; and the old ones 
 boast of having had five-and-twenty or thirty a-piece, and are 
 respected according to the number they have produced. When 
 they are with child, it is their common expression to say, 
 They hope God will be so merciful to them to send two this 
 time ; and when I have asked them sometimes, How they ex- 
 pected to provide for such a flock as they desire ? they an- 
 swered, That the plague will certainly kill half of them; 
 which, indeed, generally happens, without much concern to 
 the parents, who are satisfied with the vanity of having 
 brought forth so plentifully.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 341 
 
 The French embassadress is forced to comply with this 
 fashion as well as myself. She has not been here much above 
 a year, and has lain in once, and is big again. What is most 
 wonderful is, the exemption they seem to enjoy from the curse 
 entailed on the sex. They see all company the day of their 
 delivery, and, at the fortnight's end, return visits, set out in 
 their jewels and new clothes. I wish I may find the influence 
 of the climate in this particular. But I fear I shall continue 
 an Englishwoman in that affair, as well as I do in my dread 
 of fire and plague, which are two things very little feared 
 here, most families having had their houses burnt down once 
 or twice, occasioned by their extraordinary way of warming 
 themselves, which is neither by chimneys nor stoves, but a 
 certain machine called a tendour, the height of two feet, in the 
 form of a table, covered with a fine carpet or embroidery. 
 This is made only of wood, and they put into it a small 
 quantity of hot ashes, and sit with their legs under the carpet. 
 At this table they work, read, and very often sleep ; and, if 
 they chance to dream, kick down the tendour, and the hot 
 ashes commonly set the house on fire. There were five hun- 
 dred houses burnt in this manner about a fortnight ago, and I 
 have seen several of the owners since, who seemed not at all 
 moved at so common a misfortune. They put their goods into 
 a bark, and see their houses burn with great philosophy, their 
 persons being very seldom endangered, having no stairs to 
 descend. 
 
 But, having entertained you with things I don't like, it is 
 but just I should tell you something that pleases me. The 
 climate is delightful in the extremest degree. I am now 
 sitting, this present fourth of January, with the windows open, 
 enjoying the warm shine of the sun, while you are freezing 
 over a sad sea-coal fire ; and my chamber set out with carna- 
 tions, roses, and jonquils, fresh from my garden. I am also 
 charmed with many points of the Turkish law, to our shame 
 be it spoken, better designed and better executed than ours ; 
 particularly, the punishment of convicted liars (triumphant 
 criminals in our country, God knows) : They are burnt in the
 
 342 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 forehead with a hot iron, being proved the authors of any no- 
 torious falsehood. How many white foreheads should we see 
 disfigured, how many fine gentlemen would be forced to wear 
 their wigs as low as their eyebrows, were this law in practice 
 with us ! I should go on to tell you many other parts of jus- 
 tice, but I must send for my midwife. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Pera of Constantinople, March 10, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I HAVE not written to you, dear sister, these many months : 
 a great piece of self-denial. But I know not where to 
 direct, or what part of the world you were in. I have received 
 no letter from you since that short note of April last, in which 
 you tell me, that you are on the point of leaving England, 
 and promise me a direction for the place you stay in ; but I 
 have in vain expected it till now : and now I only learn from 
 the gazette, that you are returned, which induces me to ven- 
 ture this letter to your house at London. 1 I had rather ten of 
 my letters should be lost, than you imagine I don't write ; and 
 I think it is hard fortune if one in ten don't reach you. How- 
 ever, I am resolved to keep the copies, as testimonies of my 
 inclination to give you, to the utmost of my power, all the di- 
 verting part of my travels, while you are exempt from all the 
 fatigues and inconveniences. 
 
 In the first place, I wish you joy of your niece ; for I was 
 brought to bed of a daughter 2 five weeks ago. I don't men- 
 tion this as one of my diverting adventures ; though I must 
 own that it is not half so mortifying here as in England, there 
 being as much difference as there is between a little cold in 
 the head, which sometimes happens here, and the consump- 
 tive coughs, so common in London. Nobody keeps their 
 house a month for lying in ; and I am not so fond of any of 
 our customs to retain them when they are not necessary. I 
 
 1 The Daily Journal of April 20, 1717, announced that " The Countess of Mar, 
 upon leave obtained, set out last week to go to her husband, who by the last ad- 
 vices from abroad, is said to be going to embark in France for Sweden." Her 
 return is mentioned in the Weekly Journal of the 19th of October following. T. 
 
 2 Mary, afterwards married to John, Earl of Bute. W.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 343 
 
 returned my visits at three weeks' end ; and about four days 
 ago crossed the sea, which divides this place from Constanti- 
 nople, to make a new one, where I had the good fortune to 
 pick up many curiosities. 
 
 I went to see the Sultana Hafit^n, favourite of the late 
 Emperor Mustapha, who, you know, (or perhaps you don't 
 know) was deposed by his brother, the reigning Sultan 
 Achmet, and died a few weeks after, being poisoned, as it 
 was generally believed. This lady was, immediately after his 
 death, saluted with an absolute order to leave the seraglio, and 
 choose herself a husband from the great men at the Porte. I 
 suppose you may imagine her overjoyed at this proposal. 
 Quite contrary : these women, who are called, and esteem 
 themselves, queens, look upon this liberty as the greatest dis- 
 grace and affront that can happen to them. She threw herself 
 at the Sultan's feet, and begged him to poignard her, rather 
 than use his brother's widow with that contempt. She repre- 
 sented to him, in agonies of sorrow, that she was privileged 
 from this misfortune, by having brought five princes into the 
 Ottoman family ; but all the boys being dead, and only one 
 girl surviving, this excuse was not received, and she [was] 
 compelled to make her choice. She chose Bekir Effendi, then 
 secretary of state, and above fourscore years old, to convince 
 the world that she firmly intended to keep the vow she had 
 made, of never suffering a second husband to approach her 
 bed ; and since she must honour some subject so far as to be 
 called his wife, she would choose him as a mark of her grati- 
 tude, since it was he that had presented her at the age of ten 
 years old, to her last lord. But she has never permitted him 
 to pay her one visit ; though it is now fifteen years she has 
 been in his house, where she passes her time in uninterrupted 
 mourning, with a constancy very little known in Christendom, 
 especially in a widow of twenty-one, for she is now but thirty- 
 six. She has no black eunuchs for her guard, her husband 
 being obliged to respect her as a queen, and not inquire at all 
 into what is done in her apartment, where I was led into a 
 large room, with a sofa the whole length of it, adorned with
 
 344 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 white marble pillars like a ruelle, covered with pale blue 
 figured velvet on a silver ground, with cushions of the same, 
 where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared, who 
 had contrived this manner of reception to avoid rising up at 
 my entrance, though she made me an inclination of her head 
 when I rose up to her. I was very glad to observe a lady 
 that had been distinguished by the favour of an emperor, to 
 whom beauties were every day presented from all parts of the 
 world. But she did not seem to me to have ever been half so 
 beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople ; though she 
 had the remains of a fine face, more decayed by sorrow than 
 time. But her dress was something so surprisingly rich, I 
 cannot forbear describing it to you. She wore a vest called 
 donalma, and which differs from a caftan by longer sleeves, 
 and folding over at the bottom. It was of purple cloth, strait 
 to her shape, and thick set, on each side, down to her feet, and 
 round the sleeves, with pearls of the best water, of the same 
 size as their buttons commonly are. You must not suppose I 
 
 mean as large as those of my Lord , but about the 
 
 bigness of a pea ; and to these buttons large loops of diamonds, 
 in the form of those gold loops so common upon birthday 
 coats. This habit was tied, at the waist, with two large tassels 
 of smaller pearl, and round the arms embroidered with large 
 diamonds : her shift fastened at the bottom with a great dia- 
 mond, shaped like a lozenge; her girdle as broad as the 
 broadest English ribbon, entirely covered with diamonds. 
 Round her neck she wore three chains, which reached to her 
 knees : one of large pearl, at the bottom of which hung a 
 fine coloured emerald, as big as a turkey-egg; another, con- 
 sisting of two hundred emeralds, close joined together, of the 
 most lively green, perfectly matched, every one as large as a 
 half-crown piece, and as thick as three crown pieces ; and 
 another of small emeralds, perfectly round. But her ear- 
 rings eclipsed all the rest. They were two diamonds, shaped 
 exactly like pears, as large as a big hazel-nut. Round her 
 talpoche she had four strings of pearl, the whitest and most 
 perfect in the world, at least enough to make four necklaces,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 345 
 
 every one as large as the Duchess of Marlborough's, and of 
 the same size, fastened with two roses, consisting of a large 
 ruby for the middle stone, and round them twenty drops of 
 clean diamonds to each. Beside this, her head-dress was 
 covered with bodkins of emeralds and diamonds. She wore 
 large diamond bracelets, and had five rings on her fingers, all 
 single diamonds, (except Mr. Pitt's) the largest I ever saw in 
 my life. It is for jewellers to compute the value of these 
 things ; but, according to the common estimation of jewels in 
 our part of the world, her whole dress must be worth above a 
 hundred thousand pounds sterling. This I am very sure of, 
 that no European queen has half the quantity ; and the 
 empress's jewels, though very fine, would look very mean near 
 hers. 
 
 She gave me a dinner of fifty dishes of meat, which (after 
 their fashion) were placed on the table but one at a time, and 
 was extremely tedious. But the magnificence of her table 
 answered very well to that of her dress. The knives were of 
 gold, the hafts set with diamonds. But the piece of luxury 
 that grieved my eyes was the tablecloth and napkins, which 
 were all tiffany, embroidered with silks and gold, in the finest 
 manner, in natural flowers. It was with the utmost regret 
 that I made use of these costly napkins, as finely wrought as 
 the finest handkerchiefs that ever came out of this country. 
 You may be sure, that they were entirely spoiled before dinner 
 was over. The sherbet (which is the liquor they drink at 
 meals) was served in china bowls ; but the covers and salvers 
 massy gold. After dinner, water was brought in a gold basin, 
 and towels of the same kind of the napkins, which I very 
 unwillingly wiped my hands upon ; and coffee was served in 
 china, with gold soucoupes. 
 
 The Sultana seemed in very good humour, and talked to 
 me with the utmost civility. I did not omit this opportunity 
 of learning all that I possibly could of the seraglio, which is 
 so entirely unknown among us. She assured me, that the 
 story of the Sultan's throwing a handkerchief is altogether 
 fabulous ; and the manner upon that occasion, no other but
 
 346 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 that he sends the kysldr agd, to signify to the lady the honour 
 he intends her. She is immediately complimented upon it by 
 the others, and led to the bath, where she is perfumed and 
 dressed in the most magnificent and becoming manner. The 
 Emperor precedes his visit by a royal present, and then comes 
 into her apartment : neither is there any such thing as her 
 creeping in at the bed's foot. She said, that the first he made 
 choice of was always after the first in rank, and not the 
 mother of the eldest son, as other writers would make us be- 
 lieve. Sometimes the Sultan diverts himself in the company 
 of all his ladies, who stand in a circle round him. And she 
 confessed that they were ready to die with jealousy and envy of 
 the happy she that he distinguished by any appearance of pre- 
 ference. But this seemed to me neither better nor worse than 
 the circles in most courts, where the glance of the monarch 
 is watched, and every smile waited for with impatience, and 
 envied by those who cannot obtain it. 
 
 She never mentioned the Sultan without tears in her eyes, 
 yet she seemed very fond of the discourse. " My past happi- 
 ness," said she, " appears a dream to me. Yet I cannot forget 
 that I was beloved by the greatest and most lovely of mankind. 
 I was chosen from all the rest, to make all his campaigns with 
 him ; I would not survive him, if I was not passionately fond 
 of the princess my daughter. Yet all my tenderness for her 
 was hardly enough to make me preserve my life. When I 
 lost him, I passed a whole twelvemonth without seeing the 
 light. Time has softened my despair; yet I now pass some 
 days every week in tears, devoted to the memory of my 
 Sultan." 
 
 There was no affectation in these words. It was easy to 
 see she was in a deep melancholy, though her good humour 
 made her willing to divert me. 
 
 She asked me to walk in her garden, and one of her slaves 
 immediately bnmght her a pellice of rich brocade lined with 
 sables. I waited on her into the garden, which had nothing 
 in it remarkable but the fountains; and from thence she 
 shewed me all her apartments. In her bed-chamber her toilet
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 347 
 
 was displayed, consisting of two looking-glasses, the frames 
 covered with pearls, and her night talpoche set with bodkins 
 of jewels, and near it three vests of fine sables, every one of 
 which is, at least, worth a thousand dollars (two hundred 
 pounds English money). I don't doubt these rich habits were 
 purposely placed in sight, but they seemed negligently thrown 
 on the sofa. When I took my leave of her, I was compli- 
 mented with perfumes, as at the Grand Vizier's, and pre- 
 sented with a very fine embroidered handkerchief. Her slaves 
 were to the number of thirty, besides ten little ones, the eldest 
 not above seven years old. These were the most beautiful 
 girls I ever saw, all richly dressed ; and I observed that the 
 Sultana took a great deal of pleasure in these lovely children, 
 which is a vast expense ; for there is not a handsome girl of 
 that age to be bought under a hundred pounds sterling. They 
 wore little garlands of flowers, and their own hair, braided, 
 which was all their head-dress ; but their habits all of gold 
 stuffs. These served her coffee, kneeling ; brought water when 
 she washed, &c. It is a great part of the business of the 
 older slaves to take care of these girls, to learn them to em- 
 broider, and serve them as carefully as if they were children 
 of the family. 
 
 Now, do I fancy that you imagine I have entertained you, 
 all this while, with a relation that has, at least, received many 
 embellishments from my hand ? This is but too like (say you) 
 the Arabian Tales : these embroidered napkins ! and a jewel 
 as large as a turkey's egg ! You forget, dear sister, those very 
 tales were written by an author of this country, and (except- 
 ing the enchantments) are a real representation of the man- 
 ners here. We travellers are in very hard circumstances : If 
 we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull, 
 and we have observed nothing. If we tell any thing new, we 
 are laughed at as fabulous and romantic, not allowing for the 
 difference of ranks, which afford difference of company, more 
 curiosity, or the changes of customs, that happen every twenty 
 years in every country. But people judge of travellers ex- 
 actly with the same candour, good nature, and impartiality,
 
 348 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 they judge of their neighbours upon all occasions. For my 
 part, if I live to return amongst you, I am so well acquainted 
 with the morals of all my dear friends and acquaintance, that 
 I am resolved to tell them nothing at all, to avoid the imputa- 
 tion (which their charity would certainly incline them to) of 
 my telling too much. But I depend upon your knowing me 
 enough to believe whatever I seriously assert for truth ; though 
 I give you leave to be surprised at an account so new to you. 
 
 But what would you say if I told you, that I have been in 
 a harem, where the winter apartment was wainscoted with 
 inlaid work of mother-of-pearl, ivory of different colours, and 
 olive wood, exactly like the little boxes you have seen brought 
 out of this country; and those rooms designed for summer, 
 the walls all crusted with japan china, the roofs gilt, and the 
 floors spread with the finest Persian carpets ? Yet there is 
 nothing more true; such is the palace of my lovely friend, 
 the fair Fatima, whom I was acquainted with at Adrianople. 
 I went to visit her yesterday ; and, if possible, she appeared 
 to me handsomer than before. She met me at the door of 
 her chamber, and, giving me her hand with the best grace in 
 the world " You Christian ladies," said she, with a smile that 
 made her as handsome as an angel, " have the reputation of 
 inconstancy, and I did not expect, whatever goodness you ex- 
 pressed for me at Adrianople, that I should ever see you 
 again. But I am now convinced that I have really the hap- 
 piness of pleasing you ; and, if you knew how I speak of you 
 amongst our ladies, you would be assured that you do me jus- 
 tice if you think me your friend." She placed me in the 
 corner of the sofa, and I spent the afternoon in her conversa- 
 tion, with the greatest pleasure in the world. 
 
 The Sultana Hafiten is, what one would naturally expect to 
 find a Turkish lady, willing to oblige, but not knowing how 
 to go about it ; and it is easy to see in her manner, that she 
 has lived secluded from the world. But Fatima has all the 
 politeness and good breeding of a court ; with an air that in- 
 spires, at once, respect and tenderness ; and now I understand 
 her language, I find her wit as engaging as her beauty. She
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 349 
 
 is very curious after the manners of other countries, and has 
 not that partiality for her own, so common to little minds. A 
 Greek that I carried with me, who had never seen her before, 
 (nor could have been admitted now, if she had not been in 
 my train,) shewed that surprise at her beauty and manner 
 which is unavoidable at the first sight, and said to me in 
 Italian, " This is no Turkish lady, she is certainly some Chris- 
 tian." Fatima guessed she spoke of her, and asked what she 
 said. I would not have told, thinking she would have been 
 no better pleased with the compliment than one of our court 
 beauties to be told she had the air of a Turk ; but the Greek 
 lady told it her ; and she smiled, saying, " It is not the first time 
 I have heard so : my mother was a Poloneze, taken at the 
 siege of Caminiec ; and my father used to rally me, saying, 
 He believed his Christian wife had found some Christian 
 gallant ; for I had not the air of a Turkish girl." I assured 
 her, that, if all the Turkish ladies were like her, it was abso- 
 lutely necessary to confine them from public view, for the 
 repose of mankind; and proceeded to tell her what a noise 
 such a face as hers would make in London or Paris. " I can't 
 believe you," replied she agreeably ; " if beauty was so much 
 valued in your country as you say, they would never have 
 suffered you to leave it." Perhaps, dear sister, you laugh at 
 my vanity in repeating this compliment ; but I only do it as I 
 think it very well turned, and give it you as an instance of 
 the spirit of her conversation. 
 
 Her house was magnificently furnished, and very well 
 fancied ; her winter rooms being furnished with figured velvet 
 on gold grounds, and those for summer with fine Indian quilt- 
 ing embroidered with gold. The houses of the great Turkish 
 ladies are kept clean with as much nicety as those in Holland- 
 This was situated in a high part of the town ; and from the 
 windows of her summer apartment we had the prospect of 
 the sea, the islands, and the Asian mountains. 
 
 My letter is insensibly grown so long, I am ashamed of it. 
 This is a very bad symptom. 'Tis well if I don't degenerate 
 into a downright story-teller. It may be, our proverb, that
 
 350 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 knowledge is no burthen, may be true as to one's self, but 
 knowing too much is very apt to make us troublesome to 
 other people. 
 
 TO THE LADY 
 
 Pera, Constantinople, March 16, OS. [1718]. 
 
 I AM extremely pleased, my dear lady, that you have at 
 length found a commission for me that I can answer without 
 disappointing your expectations ; though I must tell you, that 
 it is not so easy as perhaps you think it ; and that, if my cu- 
 riosity had not been more diligent than any other stranger's 
 has ever yet been, I must have answered you with an excuse, 
 as I was forced to do when you desired me to buy you a Greek 
 slave. I have got for you, as you desire, a Turkish love-letter, 
 which 1 have put in a little box, and ordered the captain of 
 the Smyrniote to deliver it to you with this letter. The trans- 
 lation of it is literally as follows : The first piece you should 
 pull out of the purse is a little pearl, which is in Turkish 
 called Ingi, and should be understood in this manner : 
 
 Ingi, Sensin Guzelerin gingi 
 
 Pearl, Fairest of the young. 
 
 Caremfil, Caremfilsen cararen yok 
 Clove, Conge gulsum timarin yok 
 
 Benseny chok than, severim 
 
 Senin benden, haberin yok. 
 
 You are as slender as this clove ! 
 
 You are an unblown rose ! 
 
 I have long loved you, and you have not known it .' 
 
 Pul, Derdime derman bul 
 
 Kihat, Birlerum sahat sahat 
 
 Paper, I faint every hour! 
 
 Ermus, Ver bize bir umut 
 
 Pear, Give me some hope. 
 
 Jabun, Derdinden oldum zabun 
 
 Soap, I am sick with love. 
 
 Chemur, Ben oliyim size umur 
 
 Coal, May I die, and all my years be yours ! 
 
 Gul, Ben aglarum sen gul 
 
 A rose, May you be pleased, and all your sorrows mine I
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 351 
 
 Hasir, Oliim sana yazir 
 
 A straw, Suffer me to be your slave. 
 
 Jo ha, Ustune bulunmaz palm 
 
 Cloth, four price is not to be found. 
 
 Tartsin, Sen ghel beu chekeim senin hargin 
 Cinnamon, But my fortune is yours. 
 
 Gira, Esking-ilen oldum ghira 
 
 A match, I burn, I burn I my flame consumes me ! 
 
 Sinna, Uzunu benden a yirma 
 
 Gold thread, Don't turn away your face. 
 
 Satch, Bazmazum tatch 
 
 Hair, Grown of my head I 
 
 Uzum, Benim iki Guzmn 
 
 Or ape, My eyes ! 
 
 Tel, Ulugornim tez ghel 
 
 Gold wire, I die come quickly. 
 
 And, by way of postscript : 
 
 Biber, Bize bir dogm haber 
 
 Pepper, Send me an answer. 
 
 You see this letter is all verses, and I can assure you there is 
 as much fancy shewn in the choice of them, as in the most 
 studied expressions of our letters ; there being, I believe, a 
 million of verses designed for this use. There is no colour, 
 no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather, that has 
 not a verse belonging to it ; and you may quarrel, reproach, 
 or send letters of passion, friendship or civility, or even of 
 news, without ever inking your fingers. 
 
 I fancy you are now wondering at my profound learning ; 
 but, alas ! dear madam, I am almost fallen into the misfortune 
 so common to the ambitious; while they are employed on 
 distant insignificant conquests abroad, a rebellion starts up at 
 home ; I am in great danger of losing my English. I find it 
 is not half so easy to me to write in it as it was a twelvemonth 
 ago. I am forced to study for expressions, and must leave 
 off all other languages, and try to learn my mother tongue. 
 Human understanding is as much limited as human power, 
 or human strength. The memory can retain but a certain 
 number of images; and 'tis as impossible for one human
 
 352 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 creature to be perfect master of ten different languages, as to 
 have in perfect subjection ten different kingdoms, or to fight 
 against ten men at a time : I am afraid I shall at last know 
 none as I should do. I live in a place that very well repre- 
 sents the tower of Babel : in Pera they speak Turkish, Greek, 
 Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Sclavonian, 
 Wallachian, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian, Hun- 
 garian ; and, what is worse, there are ten of these languages 
 spoken in my own family. My grooms are Arabs ; my foot- 
 men, French, English, and Germans ; my nurse, an Arme- 
 nian ; my housemaids, Russians ; half a dozen other servants, 
 Greeks ; my steward, an Italian ; my janissaries, Turks ; [so] 
 that I live in the perpetual hearing of this medley of sounds, 
 which produces a very extraordinary effect upon the people 
 that are born here ; they learn all these languages at the same 
 time, and without knowing any of them well enough to write 
 or read in it. There are very few men, women, or even chil- 
 dren, here, that have not the same compass of words in five or 
 six of them. I know myself several infants of three or four 
 years old, that speak Italian, French, Greek, Turkish, and 
 Russian, which last they learn of their nurses, who are gene- 
 rally of that country. This seems almost incredible to you, 
 and is, in my mind, one of the most curious things in this 
 country, and takes off very much from the merit of our ladies 
 who set up for such extraordinary geniuses, upon the credit of 
 some superficial knowledge of French and Italian. 
 
 As I prefer English to all the rest, I am extremely morti- 
 fied at the daily decay of it in my head, where I'll assure you 
 (with grief of heart) it is reduced to such a small number of 
 words, I cannot recollect any tolerable phrase to conclude my 
 letter, and am forced to tell your ladyship very bluntly that I 
 am, your faithful humble servant. 
 
 TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. 1 
 
 Sunday, March 23, 1717-8. 
 
 "... THE boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this 
 
 1 From a fac-siniile published by Mr. Dallaway, and headed " Extracts from a 
 letter written by Lady M. W. M. from Belgrade [village] to Mr. Wortley at 
 Pera." The letter is not included in the collection in the manuscript book. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 353 
 
 trme singing and playing, and very impatient for his supper. 
 1 pray God my next may give as good an account of him. . . . 
 1 cannot engraft the girl ; her nurse has not had the small- 
 pox." 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF B. [BRISTOL]. 
 
 [10 April, 1718.] 
 
 AT length I have heard for the first time from my dear 
 Lady [Bristol]. 1 I am persuaded you have had the good- 
 ness to write before, but I have had the ill fortune to lose your 
 letters. Since my last, I have staid quietly at Constantinople, 
 a city that I ought in conscience to give your ladyship a right 
 notion of, since I know you can have none but what is partial 
 and mistaken from the writings of travellers. 'Tis certain there 
 are many people that pass years here in Pera, without having 
 ever seen it, and yet they all pretend to describe it. 
 
 Pera, Tophana, and Galata, wholly inhabited by Frank 2 
 Christians (and which, together, make the appearance of a 
 very fine town), are divided from it by the sea, which is not 
 above half so broad as the broadest part of the Thames ; but 
 the Christian men are loth to hazard the adventures they 
 sometimes meet with amongst the levents or seamen (worse 
 monsters than our watermen), and the women must cover 
 their faces to go there, which they have a perfect aversion to 
 do. 'Tis true they wear veils in Pera, but they are such as 
 only serve to shew their beauty to more advantage, and which 
 would not be permitted in Constantinople. These reasons 
 deter almost every creature from seeing it ; and the French 
 embassadress will return to France (I believe) without ever 
 having been there. 
 
 You'll wonder, madam, to hear me add, that I have been 
 there very often. The asmack, or Turkish veil, is become 
 not only very easy, but agreeable to me ; and, if it was not, I 
 would be content to endure some inconveniency to content a 
 
 1 A passage is here struck out in the manuscript, hot the words " Lady Bristol, 
 this present 10th of April, 1718," can be deciphered. T. 
 
 * A term indiscriminately applied to all European settlers in the Turkish domi- 
 nions. D. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 passion so powerful with me as curiosity. And, indeed, th 
 pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to 
 that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for 
 twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beau- 
 tiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side 
 is covered with fruit-trees, villages, and the most delightful 
 landscapes in nature ; on the European, stands Constantinople 
 situate on seven hills. The unequal heights make it seem 
 ?s large again as it is (though one of the largest cities in the 
 world), shewing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and 
 cypress-trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised 
 one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of 
 symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by 
 the most skilful hands, jars shewing themselves above jars, 
 mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very 
 odd comparison ; but it gives me an exact image of the thing. 
 
 I have taken care to see as much of the seraglio as is to be 
 seen. It is on a point of land running into the sea ; a palace 
 of prodigious extent, but very irregular. The gardens [take 
 in] a large compass of ground, full of high cypress-trees, 
 which is all I know of them : the buildings all of white stone, 
 leaded on top, with gilded turrets and spires, which look very 
 magnificent ; and, indeed, I believe, there is no Christian 
 king's palace half so large. There are six large courts in it, 
 all built round, and set with trees, having galleries of stone ; 
 one of these for the guard, another for the slaves, another for 
 the officers of the kitchen, another for the stables, the fifth for 
 the divan, the sixth for the apartment destined for audiences. 
 On the ladies' side there are at least as many more, with dis- 
 tinct courts belonging to their eunuchs and attendants, their 
 kitchens, &c. 
 
 The next remarkable structure is that of St. Sophia, which 
 is very difficult to see. I was forced to send three times to 
 the caimaican (the governor of the town), and he assembled 
 the chief effendis, or heads of the law, and enquired of the 
 mufti whether it was lawful to permit it. They passed some 
 days in this important debate ; but I insisting on my request.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 355 
 
 permission was granted. I can't be informed why the Turks 
 are more delicate on the subject of this mosque than any of 
 the others, where what Christian pleases may enter without 
 scruple. I fancy they imagine that, having been once conse- 
 crated, people, on pretence of curiosity, might profane it with 
 prayers, particularly to those saints who are still very visible 
 in Mosaic work, and no other way defaced but by the decays 
 of time; for it is absolutely false, what is so universally 
 asserted, that the Turks defaced all the images that they 
 found in the city. The dome of St. Sophia is said to be one 
 hundred and thirteen feet diameter, built upon arches, sus- 
 tained by vast pillars of marble, the pavement and staircase 
 marble. There are two rows of galleries, supported with pil- 
 lars of party-coloured marble, and the whole roof Mosaic work, 
 part of which decays very fast, and drops down. They pre- 
 sented me a handful of it ; the composition seems to me a 
 sort of glass, or that paste with which they make counterfeit 
 jewels. They shew here the tomb of the Emperor Constan- 
 tine, for which they have a great veneration. 
 
 This is a dull imperfect description of this celebrated build- 
 ing ; but I understand architecture so little, that I am afraid 
 of talking nonsense in endeavouring to speak of it particularly. 
 Perhaps I am in the wrong, but some Turkish mosques please 
 me better. That of Sultan Solyman is an exact square, with 
 four fine towers in the angles ; in the midst a noble cupola, 
 supported with beautiful marble pillars; two lesser at the 
 ends, supported in the same manner ; the pavement and gal- 
 lery round the mosque of marble ; under the great cupola is a 
 fountain, adorned with such fine coloured pillars I can hardly 
 think them natural marble ; on one side is the pulpit, of white 
 marble, and on the other, the little gallery for the Grand 
 Signior. A fine staircase leads to it, and it is built up with 
 gilded lattices. At the upper end is a sort of altar, where the 
 name of God is written ; and before it stand two candlesticks 
 as high as a man, with wax candles as thick as three flam- 
 beaux. The pavement is spread with fine carpets, and the 
 mosque illuminated with a vast number of lamps. The court 
 
 2 A2
 
 356 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 leading to it is very spacious, with galleries of marble, with 
 green columns, covered with twenty-eight leaded cupolas on 
 two sides, and a fine fountain of three basins in the midst 
 of it. 
 
 This description may serve for all the mosques in Con- 
 stantinople. The model is exactly the same, and they only 
 differ in largeness and richness of materials. That of the 
 Valide is the largest of all, built entirely of marble, the most 
 prodigious, and, I think, the most beautiful structure I ever 
 saw, be it spoken to the honour of our sex, for it was founded 
 by the mother of Mahomet IV. Between friends, St. Paul's 
 church would make a pitiful figure near it, as any of our 
 squares would do near the atlerdan, 1 or place of horses (at 
 signifying a horse in Turkish). This was the hippodrome in 
 the reign of the Greek emperors. In the midst of it is a 
 brazen column, of three serpents twisted together, with their 
 mouths gaping. 'Tis impossible to learn why so odd a pillar 
 was erected ; the Greeks can tell nothing but fabulous 
 legends when they are asked the meaning of it, and there is 
 no sign of its having ever had any inscription. At the upper 
 end is an obelisk of porphyry, probably brought from Egypt, 
 the hieroglyphics all very entire, which I look upon as mere 
 ancient puns. It is placed on four little brazen pillars, upon 
 a pedestal of square free-stone, full of figures in bas-relief on 
 two sides ; one square representing a battle, another an assem- 
 bly. The others have inscriptions in Greek and Latin : the 
 last I took in my pocket-book, and is literally, 
 
 DIFFICILIS QUONDAM, DOMINIS PAREKE SEKENIS 
 JUSSUS, ET EXTINCTIS PALMAM PORTARE TYRANNI8 
 OMNIA THEODO8IO CEDUNT, SOBOLIQUE PERENNI." 
 
 1 More commonly called " Atmeydan." D. 
 
 z Two more lines were probably concealed at that time. This inscription con- 
 cludes : 
 
 TERDENIS SIC VICTU8 EGO DOMITCSQUE DIEBUS 
 JCDICE SUB PROCLO SUPERAS ELATU8 AD AUBAS, 
 
 which is a translation from another in Greek, on the opposite square of the base. D. 
 George Douse, in his " Epistola de Itinere suo Constantinopolitano, Lug. Batav. 
 1599," gives an account of this column with a copy of the inscription ; but it ap- 
 pears that even at that time the last two lines were not sufficiently legible to enable 
 him to make an intelligible transcription. If really found by Mr Dallaway com- 
 plete as he gives them they had probably been recut since Lady Mary's visit. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 357 
 
 Your lord will interpret these lines. Don't fancy they are a 
 love-letter to him. 
 
 All the figures have their heads on ; and I cannot forbear 
 reflecting again on the impudence of authors, who all say they 
 have not : but I dare swear the greatest part of them never 
 saw them ; but took the report from the Greeks, who resist, 
 with incredible fortitude, the conviction of their own eyes, 
 whenever they have invented lies to the dishonour of their 
 enemies. Were you to ask them, there is nothing worth 
 seeing in Constantinople but Sancta Sophia, though there are 
 several larger mosques. That of Sultan Achmet has that of 
 particular its gates are of brass. In all these mosques there 
 are little chapels, where are the tombs of the founders and 
 their families, with vast candles burning before them. 
 
 The exchanges are all noble buildings, full of fine alleys, 
 the greatest part supported with pillars, and kept wonderfully 
 neat. Every trade has their distinct alley, the merchandize 
 disposed in the same order as in the New Exchange at London. 
 The besistdn, or jewellers' quarter, shews so much riches, such 
 a vast quantity of diamonds, and all kind of precious stones, 
 that they dazzle the sight. The embroiderers' is also very 
 glittering, and people walk here as much for diversion as 
 business. The markets are most of them handsome squares, 
 and admirably well provided, perhaps better than in any other 
 part of the world. 
 
 I know you'll expect I should say something particular of 
 that of the slaves; and you will imagine me half a Turk 
 when I don't speak of it with the same horror other Christians 
 have done before me. But I cannot forbear applauding the 
 humanity of the Turks to these creatures ; they are never ill- 
 used, and their slavery is, in my opinion, no worse than servi- 
 tude all over the world. 'Tis true they have no wages ; but 
 they give them yearly clothes to a higher value than our 
 salaries to any ordinary servant. But you'll object, men buy 
 women with an eye to evil. In my opinion, they are bought 
 and sold as publicly and more infamously in all our Christian 
 great cities.
 
 358 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 I must add to the description of Constantinople, that the 
 historical pillar is no more ; : [it] dropped down about two years 
 before I came. I have seen no other footsteps of antiquity 
 except the aqueducts, which are so vast, that I am apt to 
 believe they are yet more ancient than the Greek empire, 
 though the Turks have clapped in some stones with Turkish 
 inscriptions, to give their nation the honour of so great a work ; 
 but the deceit is easily discovered. 
 
 The other public buildings are the hanns and monasteries ; 
 the first very large and numerous ; the second few in number, 
 and not at all magnificent. I had the curiosity to visit one of 
 them, and observe the devotions of the dervises, which are as 
 whimsical as any in Rome. These fellows have permission to 
 marry, but are confined to an odd habit, which is only a piece 
 of coarse white cloth wrapped about them, with then* legs and 
 arms naked. Their order has few other rules, except that of 
 performing their fantastic rites every Tuesday and Friday, 
 which is in this manner : They meet together in a large hall, 
 where they all stand with their eyes fixed on the ground, and 
 their arms across, while the imaum, or preacher, reads part of 
 the Alcoran from a pulpit placed in the midst ; and when he 
 has done, eight or ten of them make a melancholy concert 
 with their pipes, which are no unmusical instruments. Then 
 he reads again, and makes a short exposition on what he has 
 read ; after which they sing and play till their superior (the 
 only one of them dressed in green) rises and begins a sort of 
 solemn dance. They all stand about him in a regular figure ; 
 and while some play, the others tie their robe (which is very 
 wide) fast round their waists, and begin to turn round with an 
 amazing swiftness, and yet with great regard to the music, 
 moving slower or faster as the tune is played. This lasts above 
 an hour, without any of them shewing the least appearance of 
 giddiness; which is not to be wondered at, when it is con- 
 sidered they are all used to it from infancy; most of them 
 
 1 The Arcadian column, built in 404 after the model of those of Trajan and 
 Antoninus at Rome. The shaft of it was entirely taken down in 1695, having 
 become ruinous by earthciuakes and fire. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 359 
 
 being devoted to this way of life from their birth, and sons 
 of dervises. There turned amongst them some little dervises, 
 of six or seven years old, who seemed no more disordered by 
 that exercise than the others. At the end of the ceremony 
 they shout out, There is no other god but God, and Mahomet 
 is his prophet ; after which they kiss the superior's hand and 
 retire. The whole is performed with the most solemn gravity. 
 Nothing can be more austere than the form of these people ; 
 they never raise their eyes, and seem devoted to contemplation. 
 And as ridiculous as this is in description, there is something 
 touching in the air of submission and mortification they 
 assume. 
 
 This letter is of a horrible length ; but you may burn it 
 when you have read enough, &c. &C. 1 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF 
 
 I AM now preparing to leave Constantinople, 3 and perhaps 
 you will accuse me of hypocrisy when I tell you 'tis with re- 
 
 1 A postscript is obliterated, but the words " to Lord Bristol and Mr. Hervey" 
 may be still read. T. 
 
 2 Originally began thus, but obliterated: " Your ladyship may be assured I re- 
 ceived yours with very great pleasure. I am very glad to hear that our friends are 
 in good health, particularly Mr. Congreve, who I heard was ill of the gout." T. 
 
 3 The following is a copy of the private letter in which Addison, then Secretary 
 of State, announced to his friend Mr. Wortley the intention to recal him : 
 
 " September 28th, 1717. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Having been confined to my chamber for some time by a dangerous 
 fit of sickness, I find upon my coming abroad, that some things have passed 
 which I think myself obliged to communicate to you, not as the secretary to the 
 ambassador, but as an humble servant to his friend. Mr. Benson, being convinced 
 that forms of law would in their ordinary course be very tedious and dilatory in 
 the affair of the auditors, has procured the grant of a reversion for those places to 
 you and myself, after which, if an ejectment ensues, you are in immediate pos- 
 session. This ejectment, he believes, may be soon brought about by law, unless a 
 voluntary surrender makes such a proceeding unnecessary. Our great men are of 
 opinion, that upon your being possessed (which they look upon as sure and sudden), 
 it would be agreeable to your inclinations, as well as for the King's service, which 
 you are so able to promote in parliament, rather to return to your own country 
 than to live at Constantinople. For this reason they have thoughts of relieving you 
 by Mr. Stanyan, who is now at the Imperial court, and of joining Sir Robert Sut- 
 ton with him in the mediation of a peace between the Emperor and the Turke [tic]. 
 I need not suggest to you that Mr. Stanyan is in great favour at Vienna, and how 
 necessary it is to humour that court in the present juncture. Besides, as it would 
 have been for your honour to have acted as sole mediator in such a negotiation, 
 perhaps it would not have been so agreeable to you to act only in commi&uou. This 
 was suggested to me the other day by one of our first ministers, who told me that
 
 360 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 gret ; but I am used to the air, and have learnt the language. 
 I am easy here ; and as much as I love travelling, I tremble 
 at the inconveniences attending so great a journey with a nu- 
 merous family, and a little infant hanging at the breast. 
 However, I endeavour upon this occasion to do as I have 
 hitherto done in all the odd turns of my life ; turn them, if I 
 can, to my diversion. In order to this, I ramble every day, 
 wrapped up in my ferigde and asmdck, about Constantinople, 
 and amuse myself with seeing all that is curious in it. 
 
 I know you will expect this declaration should be followed 
 with some account of what I have seen. But I am in no 
 humour to copy what has been writ so often over. To what 
 purpose should I tell you that Constantinople was the ancient 
 Byzantium? that 'tis at present the conquest of a race of 
 people supposed Scythians I that there are five or six thousand 
 mosques in it ? that Sancta Sophia was founded by Justinian ? 
 &c. Til assure you 'tis not [for] want of learning that I for- 
 bear writing all these bright things. I could also, with little 
 trouble, turn over Knolles and Sir Paul Bycaut, to give you a 
 list of Turkish emperors ; but I will not tell you what you may 
 find in every author that has writ of this country. I am more 
 inclined, out of a true female spirit of contradiction, to tell you 
 the falsehood of a great part of what you find in authors ; as, 
 for example, in the admirable Mr. Hill, 1 who so gravely asserts, 
 
 he believed Sir R. Button's being joined in a mediation, which, was carried on by 
 my Lord Paget singly, would be shocking to you, but that they could be more free 
 with a person of Mr. Stanyan's quality. I find by his Majesty's way of speaking 
 of you, that you are much in his favour and esteem, and I fancy you would find 
 your ease and advantage more in being nearer his person than at the distance you 
 are from him, at present. I omit no opportunity of doing you justice where I 
 think it is for your service, and wish I could know your mind as to these severa 
 particulars, by a more speedy and certain conveyance, that I might act accordingly 
 to the utmost of my power. Madame Kilmansech and my Lady Harvey desire 
 me to forward the enclosed to my Lady Mary Wortley, to whom I beg you will 
 deliver them, with my most humble respects. 
 
 " I am ever, sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient 
 
 " And most humble servant, 
 
 "J. ADDISON. 
 
 " Mr. Chevalier tells me since the writing of this, that he has stated to you Mr. 
 Benson's and your own case, who, I find, is better acquainted with it than I am, 
 that affair having been transacted by my Lord Sunderland during my illness." T. 
 
 1 Aaron Hill travelled to Constantinople at the age of fifteen, and was received
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 361 
 
 that he saw in Sancta Sophia a sweating pillar, very balsamic 
 for disordered heads. There is not the least tradition of any 
 such matter ; and I suppose it was revealed to him in vision 
 during his wonderful stay in the Egyptian catacombs ; for I 
 am sure he never heard of any such miracle here. 1 
 
 'Tis also very pleasant to observe how tenderly he and all 
 his brethren voyage-writers lament the miserable confinement 
 of the Turkish ladies, who are perhaps freer than any ladies 
 in the universe, and are the only women in the world that 
 lead a life of uninterrupted pleasure exempt from cares ; their 
 whole time being spent in visiting, bathing, or the agreeable 
 amusement of spending money, and inventing new fashions. 
 A husband would be thought mad that exacted any degree of 
 economy from his wife, whose expenses are no way limited 
 but by her own fancy. 'Tis his business to get money, and 
 hers to spend it : and this noble prerogative extends itself to 
 the very meanest of the sex. Here is a fellow that carries 
 embroidered handkerchiefs upon his back to sell, as miserable 
 a figure as you may suppose such a mean dealer, yet I'll as- 
 sure you his wife scorns to wear any thing less than cloth of 
 gold ; has her ermine furs, and a very handsome set of jewels 
 for her head. They go abroad when and where they please. 
 'Tis true they have no public places but the bagnios, and there 
 can only be seen by their own sex ; however, that is a diver- 
 sion they take great pleasure in. 
 
 I was three days ago at one of the finest in the town, and 
 had the opportunity of seeing a Turkish bride received there, 
 and all the ceremonies used on that occasion, which made me 
 recollect the epithalamium of Helen, by Theocritus ; and it 
 
 with kindness by his relative Lord Paget, at that time our ambassador to the 
 Porte. He returned to England in 1703 in the suite, and soon afterward published 
 his " Account of Turkey," in folio, a very crude and juvenile performance. D. 
 
 1 Lady Mary was mistaken in supposing that Aaron Hill invented this story of 
 the " Sweating Pillar." It was described nearly a hundred years earlier by the 
 Dutc'n traveller George Douse, in his " Epistola de Itinere suo Constantinopo- 
 litano," already alluded to. The passage is as follows : " In hoc templo [the 
 mosque of St. Sophia] prater alia quae Gyllius diligenter observavit, monstrabant 
 mini Turca columnam quandam marmoream inducto laminarum tectorio inferius 
 coopertam, e quibus sudor perpetub prorumpit, quern ipsi pudenda^ superstitione 
 siulariis suis extergunt et adversus varios morbos conducere sibi persuadent." T.
 
 362 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 seems to me, that the same customs have continued ever since. 
 All the she-friends, relations, and acquaintance of the two 
 families, newly allied, meet at the bagnio ; several others go 
 out of curiosity, and I believe there were that day at least two 
 hundred women. Those that were or had been married placed 
 themselves round the room on the marble sofas ; but the vir- 
 gins very hastily threw off their clothes, and appeared without 
 other ornament or covering than their own long hair braided 
 with pearl or ribbon. Two of them met the bride at the door, 
 conducted by her mother and another grave relation. She 
 was a beautiful maid of about seventeen, very richly dressed, 
 and shining with jewels, but was presently reduced by them 
 to the state of nature. Two others filled silver gilt pots with 
 perfume, and began the procession, the rest following in pairs 
 to the number of thirty. The leaders sung an epithalamium, 
 answered by the others in chorus, and the two last led the fair 
 bride, her eyes fixed on the ground, with a charming affectation 
 of modesty. In this order they marched round the three 
 large rooms of the bagnio. 'Tis not easy to represent to you 
 the beauty of this sight, most of them being well proportioned 
 and white skinned ; all of them perfectly smooth and polished 
 by the frequent use of bathing. After having made their 
 tour, the bride was again led to every matron round the rooms, 
 who saluted her with a compliment and a present, some of 
 jewels, others pieces of stuff, handkerchiefs, or little gallan- 
 tries of that nature, which she thanked them for by kissing 
 their hands. 
 
 I was very well pleased with having seen this ceremony : 
 and, you may believe me, that the Turkish ladies have at least 
 as much wit and civility, nay, liberty, as ladies among us. 
 'Tis true, the same customs that give them so many opportu- 
 nities of gratifying their evil inclinations (if they have any), 
 also put it very fully in the power of their husbands to revenge 
 them if they are discovered ; and I do not doubt but they 
 suffer sometimes for their indiscretions in a very severe man- 
 ner. About two months ago there was found at day-break, 
 not very far from my house, the bleeding body of a young
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 363 
 
 woman, naked, only wrapped in a coarse sheet, with two 
 wounds with a knife, one in her side and another in her breast. 
 She was not yet quite cold, and so surprisingly beautiful, that 
 there were very few men in Pera that did not go to look upon 
 her ; but it was not possible for any body to know her, no 
 woman's face being known. She was supposed to be brought 
 in [the] dead of the night from the Constantinople side and 
 laid there. Very little enquiry was made about the murderer, 
 and the corpse privately buried without noise. Murder is 
 never pursued by the king's officers as with us. 'Tis the busi- 
 ness of the next relations to revenge the dead person ; and if 
 they like better to compound the matter for money (as they 
 generally do), there is no more said of it. One would imagine 
 this defect in their government should make such tragedies 
 very frequent, yet they are extremely rare ; which is enough 
 to prove the people not naturally cruel. Neither do I think 
 in many other particulars they deserve the barbarous character 
 we give them. I am well acquainted with a Christian woman 
 of quality who made it her choice to live with a Turkish hus- 
 band, and is a very agreeable, sensible lady. Her story is so 
 extraordinary, I cannot forbear relating it ; but I promise 
 you it shall be in as few words as I can possibly express it. 
 
 She is a Spaniard, and was at Naples with her family when 
 that kingdom was part of the Spanish dominion. Coming 
 from thence in a felucca, accompanied by her brother, they 
 were attacked by the Turkish admiral, boarded, and taken. 
 And now, how shall I modestly tell you the rest of her adven- 
 ture ? The same accident happened to her that happened to 
 the fair Lucretia so many years before her. But she was too 
 good a Christian to kill herself, as that heathenish Roman 
 did. The admiral was so much charmed with the beauty and 
 long-suffering of the fair captive, that, as his first compliment, 
 he gave immediate liberty to her brother and attendants, who 
 made haste to Spain, and in a few months sent the sum of 
 four thousand pounds sterling as a ransom for his sister. The 
 Turk took the money, which he presented to her, and told 
 her she was at liberty. But the lady very discreetly weighed
 
 364 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 the different treatment she was likely to find in her native 
 country. Her Catholic relations (as the kindest thing they 
 could do for her in her present circumstances) would certainly 
 confine her to a nunnery for the rest of her days. Her in- 
 fidel lover was very handsome, very tender, fond of her, and 
 lavished at her feet all the Turkish magnificence. She 
 answered him very resolutely that her liberty was not so 
 precious to her as her honour ; that he could no way restore 
 that but by marrying her ; she desired him to accept the ran- 
 som as her portion, and give her the satisfaction of knowing 
 no man could boast of her favours without being her husband. 
 The admiral was transported at this kind offer, and sent back 
 the money to her relations, saying, he was too happy in her 
 possession. He married her, and never took any other wife, 
 and (as she says herself) she never had any reason to repent 
 the choice she made. He left her some years after one of the 
 richest widows in Constantinople. But there is no remaining 
 honourably a single woman, and that consideration has obliged 
 her to marry the present captain pasha (i.e. admiral), his suc- 
 cessor. I am afraid that you will think my friend fell in love 
 with her ravisher ; but I am willing to take her word for it, 
 that she acted wholly on principles of honour, though I think 
 she might be reasonably touched at his generosity, which is 
 very often found among the Turks of rank. 
 
 'Tis a degree of generosity to tell the truth, and 'tis very 
 rare that any Turk will assert a solemn falsehood. I don't 
 speak of the lowest sort ; for as there is a great deal of igno- 
 rance, there is very little virtue amongst them ; and false wit- 
 nesses are much cheaper than in Christendom, those wretches 
 not being punished (even when they are publicly detected) 
 with the rigour they ought to be. 
 
 Now I am speaking of their law, I don't know whether I 
 have ever mentioned to you one custom, peculiar to then* 
 country, I mean adoption, very common amongst the Turks, 
 and yet more amongst the Greeks and Armenians. Not having 
 it in their power to give their estates to a friend or distant re- 
 lation, to avoid its falling into the Grand Signior's treasury,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 365 
 
 when they are not likely to have children of their own, they 
 choose some pretty child of either sex among the meanest 
 people, and carry the child and its parents before the cadi, and 
 there declare they receive it for their heir. The parents at 
 the same time renounce all future claim to it ; a writing is 
 drawn and witnessed, and a child thus adopted cannot be dis- 
 inherited. Yet I have seen some common beggars that have 
 refused to part with their children in this manner to some of 
 the richest among the Greeks (so powerful is the instinctive 
 fondness natural to parents), though the adopting fathers are 
 generally very tender to these children of their souls, as they 
 call them. I own this custom pleases me much better than 
 our absurd following our name. Methinks 'tis much more rea- 
 sonable to make happy and rich an infant whom I educate 
 after my own manner, brought up (in the Turkish phrase) 
 upon my knees, and who has learned to look upon me with a 
 filial respect, than to give an estate to a creature without other 
 merit or relation to me than by a few letters. Yet this is an 
 absurdity we see frequently practised. 
 
 Now I have mentioned the Armenians, perhaps it will be 
 agreeable to tell you something of that nation, with which I 
 am sure you are utterly unacquainted. I will not trouble you 
 with the geographical account of the situation of their country, 
 which you may see in the map, or a relation of their ancient 
 greatness, which you may read in the Roman history. They 
 are now subject to the Turks ; and, being very industrious in 
 trade, and increasing and multiplying, are dispersed hi great 
 numbers through all the Turkish dominions. They were, as 
 they say, converted to the Christian religion by St. Gregory, 
 and are perhaps the devoutest Christians in the whole world. 
 The chief precepts of their priests enjoin the strict keeping 
 of their lents, which are at least seven months in every year, 
 and are not to be dispensed with on the most emergent neces- 
 sity ; no occasion whatever can excuse them, if they touch any 
 thing more than mere herbs or roots (without oil) and plain 
 dry bread. That is their lenten diet. Mr. W. [Wortley] has 
 one of his interpreters of this nation ; and the poor fellow was
 
 366 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 brought so low by the severity of his fasts, that his life was 
 despaired of. Yet neither his master's commands, or the doe- 
 tor's entreaties (who declared nothing else could save his life), 
 were powerful enough to prevail with him to take two or three 
 spoonfuls of broth. Excepting this, which may rather be 
 called custom than an article of faith, I see very little in their 
 religion different from ours. 'Tis true they seem to incline very 
 
 much to Mr. Wh 's [Whiston's] doctrine ; neither do I think 
 
 the Greek church very distant from it, since 'tis certain insist- 
 ing on the Holy Spirit's only proceeding from the Father, is 
 making a plain subordination in the Son. But the Armenians 
 have no notion of transubstantiation, whatever account Sir 
 Paul Eycaut gives of them (which account I am apt to believe 
 was designed to compliment our court in 1679) ; and they 
 have a great horror for those amongst them that change to 
 the Roman religion. 
 
 What is most extraordinary in their customs, is their matri- 
 mony ; a ceremony I believe unparallel'd all over the world. 
 They are always promised very young; but the espoused 
 never see one another till three days after their marriage. 
 The bride is carried to church with a cap on her head, in the 
 fashion of a large trencher, and over it a red silken veil which 
 covers her all over to her feet. The priest asks the bride- 
 groom, Whether he is contented to marry that woman, be she 
 deaf, be she blind ? These are the literal words : to which 
 having answered, yes, she is led home to his house, accom- 
 panied with all the friends and relations on both sides, singing 
 and dancing, and is placed on a cushion in the corner of the 
 sofa ; but her veil never lifted up, not even by her husband, 
 till she has been three days married. There is something so 
 odd and monstrous in these ways, that I could not believe 
 them till I had enquired of several Armenians myself, who all 
 assured me of the truth of them, particularly one young fellow, 
 who wept when he spoke of it, being promised by his mother 
 to a girl that he must marry in this manner, though he pro- 
 tested to me, he had rather die than submit to this slavery,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 367 
 
 having already figured his bride to himself with all the de- 
 formities in nature. 
 
 I fancy I see you bless yourself at this terrible relation. I 
 cannot conclude my letter with a more surprising story ; yet 
 'tis as seriously true as that I am, 
 
 Dear sister, your &c. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT OF - - [ABBE CONTl]. 
 
 Constantinople, May 19 [O.S.], 1718. 
 
 I AM extremely pleased with hearing from you, and my vanity 
 {the darling frailty of her [sic] mankind) not a little flattered 
 by the uncommon questions you ask me, though I am utterly 
 incapable of answering them. And, indeed, were I as good a 
 mathematician as Euclid himself, it requires an age's stay to 
 make just observations on the air and vapours. I have not 
 been yet a full year here, and am on the point of removing. 1 
 Such is my rambling destiny. This will surprise you, and 
 can surprise nobody so much as myself. 
 
 Perhaps you will accuse me of laziness, or dulness, or both 
 together, that can leave this place without giving you some 
 account of the Turkish court. I can only tell you, that if 
 you please to read Sir Paul Rycaut, you will there find a full 
 and true account of the viziers, the beglerbeys, the civil and 
 spiritual government, the officers of the seraglio, &c., things 
 that 'tis very easy to procure lists of, and therefore may be 
 
 depended on ; though other stories, God knows 1 say no 
 
 more every body is at liberty to write their own remarks ; 
 
 the manners of people may change, or some of them escape 
 the observation of travellers, but 'tis not the same of the 
 government ; and for that reason, since I can tell you nothing 
 new, I will tell nothing of it. 
 
 7 O 
 
 In the same silence shall be passed over the arsenal and 
 seven towers ; and for mosques, I have already described one 
 of the noblest to you very particularly. But I cannot forbear 
 
 1 Mr. Stanyan, who superseded Mr. Wortley as ambassador at the Porte, arrived 
 8t Adrianople on the 24th of April, O.S. T.
 
 368 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 taking notice to you of a mistake of Gemelli (though I honour 
 him in a much higher degree than any other voyage-writer) : 
 he says that there are no remains of Calcedon ; this is cer- 
 tainly a mistake : I was there yesterday, and went cross the 
 canal in my galley, the sea being very narrow between that 
 city and Constantinople. 'Tis still a large town, and has several 
 mosques in it. The Christians still call it Calcedonia, and 
 the Turks give it a name I forgot, but which is only a corrup- 
 tion of the same word. 1 I suppose this an error of his guide, 
 which his short stay hindered him from rectifying ; for I have, 
 in other matters, a very just esteem for his veracity. Nothing 
 can be pleasanter than the canal ; and the Turks are so well ac- 
 quainted with its beauties, all their pleasure-seats are built on 
 its banks, where they have, at the same time, the most beauti- 
 ful prospects in Europe and Asia ; there are near one another 
 some hundreds of magnificent palaces. 
 
 Human grandeur being here yet more unstable than any- 
 where else, 'tis common for the heirs of a great three-tailed 
 pasha not to be rich enough to keep in repair the house he 
 built ; thus, in a few years, they all fall to ruin. I was yes- 
 terday to see that of the late Grand Vizier, who was killed 
 at Peterwaradin. It was built to receive his royal bride, 
 daughter of the present Sultan, but he did not live to see her 
 there. I have a great mind to describe it to you ; but I check 
 that inclination, knowing very well that I cannot give you, 
 with my best description, such an idea of it as I ought. It is 
 situated on one of the most delightful parts of the canal, with 
 a fine wood on the side of a hill behind it. The extent of it 
 is prodigious ; the guardian assured me there are eight hun- 
 dred rooms in it ; I will not answer for that number, since I 
 did not count them ; but 'tis certain the number is very large, 
 and the whole adorned with a profusion of marble, gilding, 
 and the most exquisite painting of fruit and flowers. The 
 windows are all sashed with the finest crystalline glass brought 
 from England ; and all the expensive magnificence that you 
 
 1 C&dykuy, or the Town of Judges, from the great Christian council held 
 tbere.-D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 369 
 
 can suppose in a palace founded by a vain young luxurious 
 man, with the wealth of a vast empire at his command. But 
 no part of it pleased me better than the apartments destined 
 for the bagnios. There are two built exactly in the same 
 manner, answering to one another ; the baths, fountains, and 
 pavements, all of white marble, the roofs gilt, and the walls 
 covered with Japan china ; but adjoining to them, two rooms, 
 the upper part of which is divided into a sofa ; in the four 
 corners falls of water from the very roof, from shell to shell, 
 of white marble, to the lower end of the room, where it falls 
 into a large basin, surrounded with pipes, that throw up the 
 water as high as the room. The walls are in the nature of 
 lattices ; and, on the outside of them, vines and woodbines 
 planted, that form a sort of green tapestry, and give an agree- 
 able obscurity to these delightful chambers. 
 
 I should go on and let you into some of the other apart- 
 ments (all worthy your curiosity) ; but 'tis yet harder to 
 describe a Turkish palace than any other, being built entirely 
 irregular. There is nothing can be properly called front or 
 wings ; and though such a confusion is, I think, pleasing to 
 the sight, yet it would be very unintelligible in a letter. I 
 shall only add, that the chamber destined for the Sultan, when 
 he visits his daughter, is wainscoted with mother of pearl 
 fastened with emeralds like nails. There are others of mother- 
 of-pearl and olive wood inlaid, and several of Japan china. 
 The galleries, which are numerous and very large, are adorned 
 with jars of flowers, and porcelain dishes of fruit of all sorts, 
 so well done in plaster, and coloured in so lively a manner, 
 that it has an enchanting effect. The garden is suitable to 
 the house, where arbours, fountains, and walks, are thrown 
 together in an agreeable confusion. There is no ornament 
 wanting, except that of statues. Thus, you see, sir, these 
 people are not so unpolished as we represent them. 'Tis true 
 their magnificence is of a different taste from ours, and per- 
 haps of a better. I am almost of opinion they have a right 
 notion of life ; while they consume it in music, gardens, wine, 
 and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains with 
 
 VOL. i. 2 B
 
 370 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 some scheme of politics, or studying some science to which we 
 can never attain, or, if we do, cannot persuade people to set 
 that value upon it we do ourselves. 'Tis certain what we feel 
 and see is properly (if any thing is properly) our own ; but 
 the good of fame, the folly of praise, hardly purchased, and, 
 when obtained, poor recompense for loss of time and health. 
 We die or grow old and decrepid before we can reap the fruit 
 of our labours. Considering what short-lived weak animals 
 men are, is there any study so beneficial as the study of pre- 
 sent pleasure ? I dare not pursue this theme ; perhaps I have 
 already said too much, but I depend upon the true knowledge 
 you have of my heart. I don't expect from you the insipid 
 railleries I should suffer from another in answer to this letter. 
 You know how to divide the idea of pleasure from that of 
 vice, and they are only mingled in the heads of fools. But 
 I allow you to laugh at me for the sensual declaration that I 
 had rather be a rich effendi with ah 1 his ignorance, than Sir 
 Isaac Newton with all his knowledge. 
 
 I am, sir, &c. 
 
 TO COUNT [ABBE coNTi]. 1 
 
 Translated from the French. 
 
 I AM charmed, sir, with your obliging letter ; and you may 
 perceive by the largeness of my paper, that I intend to give 
 punctual answers to all your questions, at least if my French 
 will permit me ; for as it is a language I do not understand to 
 perfection, so I much fear, that, for want of expressions, I 
 shall be quickly obliged to finish. Keep in mind, therefore, 
 that I am writing in a foreign language; and be sure to 
 attribute all the impertinences and triflings dropping from my 
 
 1 This was probably addressed to the Abbe* Conti, and was, I suppose, the letter 
 referred to in the following advertisement which appeared several times in the news- 
 papers in 17 19 : "Lately published, the second edition of the genuine Copy of a Letter 
 written from Constantinople by an English lady who was lately in Turkey, and 
 who was no less distinguished by her wit than by her quality, to a Venetian no- 
 bleman, one of the Prince Virtuosi of the age. Sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick- 
 lane, and A. Dod, without Temple Bar. Price 3d." In one of the letters of 
 Remond there is an allusion to the indiscretion of the Abbe* Conti in permitting 
 one of Lady Mary's letters to be made public. The letter is not to be found in thfl 
 manuscript book. The editor of the "Additional Volume" of 1767, from which 
 it is now printed, had no doubt obtained a copy of the publication referred to. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 371 
 
 pen, to the want of proper words for declaring my thoughts, 
 but by no means to dulness, or natural levity. 
 
 These conditions being thus agreed and settled, I begin 
 with telling you, that you have a true notion of the Alcoran, 
 concerning which, the Greek priests (who are the greatest 
 scoundrels in the universe) have invented out of their own 
 heads a thousand ridiculous stories, in order to decry the law 
 of Mahomet ; to run it down, I say, without any examination, 
 or so much as letting the people read it ; being afraid that if 
 once they began to sift the defects of the Alcoran, they might 
 not stop there, but proceed to make use of their judgment, 
 about their own legends and fictions. In effect, there is 
 nothing so like as the fables of the Greeks and of the 
 Mahometans ; and the last have multitudes of saints, at whose 
 tombs miracles are by them said to be daily performed ; nor 
 are the accounts of the lives of those blessed Mussulmans 
 much less stuffed with extravagances, than the spiritual 
 romances of the Greek Papas. 
 
 As to your next enquiry, I assure you it is certainly false, 
 though commonly believed in our parts of the world, that 
 Mahomet excludes women from any share in a future happy 
 state. He was too much a gentleman, and loved the fair sex 
 too well, to use them so barbarously. On the contrary, he 
 promises a very fine paradise to the Turkish women. He 
 says, indeed, that this paradise will be a separate place from 
 that of their husbands ; but I fancy the most part of them 
 won't like it the worse for that ; and that the regret of this 
 separation will not render their paradise the less agreeable. 
 It remains to tell you, that the virtues which Mahomet re- 
 quires of the women, to merit the enjoyment of future happi- 
 ness, are not to live in such a manner as to become useless to 
 the world, but to employ themselves, as much as possible, in 
 making little Mussulmans. The virgins, who die virgins, and 
 the widows who marry not again, dying in mortal sin, are ex- 
 cluded out of paradise ; for women, says he, not being capable 
 to manage the affairs of state, nor to support the fatigues of 
 war, God has not ordered them to govern or reform the world ; 
 
 2s2
 
 372 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 but he has entrusted them with an office which is not less 
 honourable, even that of multiplying the human race, and 
 such as, out of malice or laziness, do not make it their busi- 
 ness to bear or to breed children, fulfil not the duty of their 
 vocation, and rebel against the commands of God. Here are 
 maxims for you prodigiously contrary to those of your con- 
 vents. What will become of your St. Catherines, your St. 
 Theresas, your St. Claras, and the whole bead-roll of your 
 holy virgins and widows 1 who, if they are to be judged by 
 this system of virtue, will be found to have been infamous 
 creatures, that passed their whole lives in most abominable 
 libertinism. 
 
 I know not what your thoughts may be concerning a doc- 
 trine so extraordinary with respect to us; but I can truly 
 inform you, sir, that the Turks are not so ignorant as we 
 fancy them to be, in matters of politics, or philosophy, or even 
 of gallantry. It is true, that military discipline, such as now 
 practised in Christendom, does not mightily suit them. A 
 long peace has plunged them into an universal sloth. Content 
 with their condition, and accustomed to boundless luxury, they 
 are become great enemies to all manner of fatigues. But to 
 make amends, the sciences flourish among them. The ef- 
 fendis (that is to say, the learned) do very well deserve this 
 name : they have no more faith in the inspiration of Mahomet, 
 than in the infallibility of the Pope. They make a frank pro- 
 fession of deism among themselves, or to those they can trust, 
 and never speak of their law but as of a politic institution, fit 
 now to be observed by wise men, however at first introduced 
 by poh'ticians and enthusiasts. 
 
 If I remember right, I think I have told you in some former 
 letter, that at Belgrade we lodged with a great and rich 
 effendi, a man of wit and learning, and of a very agreeable 
 humour. We were in his house about a month, and he did 
 constantly eat with us, drinking wine without any scruple. 
 As I rallied him a little on this subject, he answered me, 
 smiling, that all creatures in the world were made for the 
 pleasure of man ; and that God would not have let the vine 
 grow, were it a sin to taste of its juice : but that nevertheless
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 373 
 
 the law which forbids the use of it to the vulgar, was very 
 wise, because such sort of folks have not sense enough to take 
 it with moderation. This effendi appeared no stranger to the 
 parties that prevail among us ; nay, he seemed to have some 
 knowledge of our religious disputes, and even of our writers : 
 and I was surprised to hear him ask, among other things, how 
 Mr. Tolanddid? 
 
 My paper, large as it is, draws towards an end. That I 
 may not go beyond its limits, I must leap from religions to 
 tulips, concerning which you ask me news. Their mixture 
 produces surprising effects. But what is to be observed most 
 surprising, is the experiments of which you speak concerning 
 animals, and which is tried here every day. The suburbs of 
 Pera, Tophana, and Galata, are collections of strangers from 
 all countries of the universe. They have so often inter- 
 married, that this forms several races of people, the oddest 
 imaginable. There is not one single family of natives that 
 can value itself on being unmixed. You frequently see a 
 person whose father was born a Grecian, the mother an 
 Italian, the grandfather a Frenchman, the grandmother an Ar- 
 menian, and their ancestors English, Muscovites, Asiatics, &c. 
 
 This mixture produces creatures more extraordinary than you 
 can imagine ; nor could I ever doubt but there were several 
 different species of men ; since the whites, the woolly and the 
 long-haired blacks, the small-eyed Tartars and Chinese, the 
 beardless Brazilians, and (to name no more) the oily-skinned 
 yellow Nova Zemblians, have as specific differences under 
 the same general kind as greyhounds, mastiffs, spaniels, 
 bull-dogs, or the race of my little Diana, if nobody is 
 offended at the comparison. Now, as the various inter- 
 mixing of these latter animals causes mongrels, so man- 
 kind have their mongrels too, divided and subdivided into 
 endless sorts. We have daily proofs of it here, as I told you 
 before. In the same animal is not seldom remarked the 
 Greek perfidiousness, the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arro- 
 gance, the French loquacity, and all of a sudden he is seized 
 with a fit of English thoughtfulness, bordering a little upon 
 dulness, which many of us have inherited from the stupidity
 
 374 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 of our Saxon progenitors. But the family which charms me 
 most, is that which proceeds from the fantastical conjunction 
 of a Dutch male with a Greek female. As these are natures 
 opposite in extremes, 'tis a pleasure to observe how the differ- 
 ing atoms are perpetually jarring together in the children, 
 even so as to produce effects visible in their external form. 
 They have the large black eyes of the country, with the fat, 
 white, fishy flesh of Holland, and a lively air streaked with 
 dulness. At one and the same time, they shew that love of 
 expensiveness so universal among the Greeks, and an inclina- 
 tion to the Dutch frugality. To give an example of this : 
 young women ruin themselves to purchase jewels for adorning 
 their heads, while they have not the heart to buy new shoes, 
 or rather slippers for their feet, which are commonly in a 
 tattered condition; a thing so contrary to the taste of our 
 English women, that it is for shewing how neatly their feet are 
 dressed, and for shewing this only, they are so passionately 
 enamoured with their hoop petticoats. I have abundance of 
 other singularities to communicate to you, but I am at the end 
 both of my French and my paper. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT OF [ABB CONTl]. 1 
 
 Tunis, July 31, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I LEFT Constantinople the sixth of the last month, 2 and this 
 is the first post from whence I could send a letter, though I 
 have often wished for the opportunity, that I might impart 
 some of the pleasure I have found in this voyage through the 
 most agreeable part of the world, where every scene presents 
 me some poetical idea. 
 
 Warm'd with poetic transport I survey 
 Th' immortal islands, and the well-known sea. 
 For here so oft the muse her harp has strung, 
 That not a mountain rears his head unsung. 
 
 1 In the manuscript this letter is addressed " To the Countess of ," but the 
 
 words are struck out and this heading substituted. It is evident that it originally 
 stood in the book as a letter to the Countess of Mar, for the words " My dear 
 sister," in the body of the letter, are also struck out. T. 
 
 2 Mr. Stanyan, in a letter to Secretary Craggs, dated " Grand Vizier's Camp at 
 Sophia, 22 July, 1718, O.S." (State Paper Office), says: "Yesterday I received 
 an account from Constantinople that Mr. Wortley sailed from thence on the 4th 
 instant on board the Preston man-of-war." T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 375 
 
 1 beg your pardon for this sally, and will, if I can, con- 
 tinue the rest of my account in plain prose. The second day 
 after we set sail we passed Gallipolis, a fair city, situate in the 
 bay of Chersonesus, and much respected by the Turks, being 
 the first town they took in Europe. At five the next morning 
 we anchored in the Hellespont, between the castles of Sestos 
 and Abydos, now called the Dardanelli. There are now two 
 little ancient castles, but of no strength, being commanded by 
 a rising ground behind them, which I confess I should never 
 have taken notice of, if I had not heard it observed by our 
 captain and officers, my imagination being wholly employed 
 by the tragic story that you are well acquainted with : 
 
 The swimming lover, and the nightly bride, 
 How Hero loved, and how Leander died. 
 
 Verse again ! I am certainly infected by the poetical air I 
 have passed through. That of Abydos is undoubtedly very 
 amorous, since that soft passion betrayed the castle into the 
 hands of the Turks, in the reign of Orchanes, who besieged 
 it. The governor's daughter, imagining to have seen her 
 future husband in a dream (though I don't find she had either 
 slept upon bride-cake, or kept St. Agnes's fast), fancied she 
 afterwards saw the dear figure in the form of one of her be- 
 siegers ; and, being willing to obey her destiny, tossed a note 
 to him over the wall, with the offer of her person, and the 
 delivery of the castle. He shewed it to his general, who con- 
 sented to try the sincerity of her intentions, and withdrew his 
 army, ordering the young man to return with a select body of 
 men at midnight. She admitted him at the appointed hour ; 
 he destroyed the garrison, took her father prisoner, and made 
 her his wife. This town is in Asia, first founded by the Mi- 
 lesians. Sestos is in Europe, and was once the principal city 
 of Chersonesus. Since I have seen this strait, I find nothing 
 improbable in the adventure of Leander, or very wonderful in 
 the bridge of boats of Xerxes. 'Tis so narrow, 'tis not sur- 
 prising a young lover should attempt to swim it, or an ambi- 
 tious king try to pass his army over it. But then 'tis so sub- 
 ect to storms 'tis no wonder the lover perished, and the
 
 376 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 bridge was broken. From hence we had a full view of 
 Mount Ida, 
 
 Where Juno once caress'd her am'rous Jove, 
 And the world's master lay subdu'd by love. 
 
 Not many leagues' sail from hence, I saw the point of land 
 where poor old Hecuba was buried ; and about a league from 
 that place is Cape Janizary, the famous promontory of Si- 
 gseum, where we anchored, and my curiosity supplied me with 
 strength to climb to the top of it, to see the place where 
 Achilles was buried, and where Alexander ran naked round 
 his tomb in his honour, which no doubt was a great comfort to 
 his ghost. I saw there the ruins of a very large city, and found 
 
 a stone, on which Mr. W [Wortley] plainly distinguished 
 
 the words of Sigaian Polin. We ordered this on board the ship ; 
 but were shewed others much more curious by a Greek priest, 
 though a very ignorant fellow, that could give no tolerable 
 account of any thing. On each side the door of his little 
 church lies a large stone, about ten feet long each, five in 
 breadth, and three in thickness. That on the right is very 
 fine white marble, the side of it beautifully carved in bas- 
 relief ; it represents a woman, who seems to be designed for 
 some deity, sitting on a chair with a footstool, and before her 
 another woman weeping, and presenting to her a young child 
 that she has in her arms, followed by a procession of women 
 with children in the same manner. This is certainly part of a 
 very ancient tomb ; but I dare not pretend to give the true 
 explanation of it. On the stone, on the left side, is a very 
 fair inscription ; which I am sure I took off very exactly, but 
 the Greek is too ancient for Mr. W.'s interpretation. This is 
 the exact copy. * * * * I am very sorry not to have the original 
 in my possession, which might have been purchased of the poor 
 inhabitants for a small sum of money. But our captain as- 
 sured us, that without having machines made on purpose, 
 'twas impossible to bear it to the sea-side ; and, when it was 
 there, his long-boat would not be large enough to hold it. 1 
 
 1 The first-mentioned of these marbles is engraved in the Ionian Antiquities, 
 published by the Dilettanti Society, and described by Dr. Chandler in his Tour in
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 377 
 
 The ruins of this great city are now inhabited by poor 
 Greek peasants, who wear the Sciote habit, the women being 
 in short petticoats, fastened by straps round their shoulders, 
 and large smock sleeves of white linen, with neat shoes and 
 stockings, and on their heads a large piece of muslin, which 
 falls in large folds on their shoulders. One of my country- 
 men, Mr. Sandys 1 (whose book I do not doubt you have read, 
 as one of the best of its kind), speaking of these ruins, supposes 
 them to have been the foundation of a city begun by Cori- 
 stantine, before his building Byzantium ; but I see no good 
 reason for that imagination, and am apt to believe them much 
 more ancient. 
 
 We saw very plainly from this promontory the river Simois 
 rolling from Mount Ida, and running through a very spacious 
 valley. It is now a considerable river, and called Simores ; 
 joined in the vale by the Scamander, which appeared a small 
 stream half choked with mud, but is perhaps large in the 
 winter. This was Xanthus among the gods, as Plomer tells 
 us ; and 'tis by that heavenly name the nymph Oenone in- 
 vokes it in her epistle to Paris. The Trojan virgins 2 used to 
 offer their first favours to it, by the name of Scamander, till 
 the adventure which Monsieur de la Fontaine has told so 
 agreeably abolished that heathenish ceremony. When the 
 stream is mingled with the Simois, they run together to the sea. 
 
 All that is now left of Troy is the ground on which it 
 stood ; for, I am firmly persuaded, whatever pieces of antiquity 
 may be found round it are much more modern, and I think 
 Strabo says the same thing. However, there is some pleasure 
 in seeing the valley where I imagined the famous duel of 
 Menelaus and Paris had been fought, and where the greatest 
 
 Asia Minor. The second bears the celebrated inscription so often referred to, in 
 proof of the Bovorpo^ijfioj', one of the most ancient forms of writing among the 
 Greeks. For accurate accounts and engravings of these curiosities, see Chishull, 
 Shuckford, and Chandler, Inscript. Antiq., Knight on the Greek Alphabet, &c. D. 
 
 1 George Sandys, one of the most valuable travellers into the Levant, whose 
 work had reached four editions in the reign of Charles the First. D. 
 
 2 For this curious story, Monsieur Bayle may be consulted in his Dictionary, 
 article " Scamander." It appears in the Letters of Oschines, vol. i. pp. 125, 126, 
 edit Genev. 1607 ; also in Philostrates and Vigenerus. D.
 
 378 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 city in the world was situate ; and 'tis certainly tne noblest 
 situation that can be found for the head of a great empire, 
 much to be preferred to that of Constantinople, the harbour 
 here being always convenient for ships from all parts of the 
 world, and that of Constantinople inaccessible almost six 
 months in the year, while the north wind reigns. 
 
 North of the promontory of Sigeum we saw that of Rhse- 
 teum, famed for the sepulchre of Ajax. While I viewed these 
 celebrated fields and rivers, I admired the exact geography of 
 Homer, whom I had in my hand. Almost every epithet he 
 gives to a mountain or plain is still just for it ; and T spent 
 several hours in as agreeable cogitations as ever Don Quixote 
 had on mount Montesinos. We sailed that night to the shore, 
 where 'tis vulgarly reported Troy stood ; and I took the pains 
 of rising at two in the morning to view coolly those ruins 
 which are commonly shewed to strangers, and which the 
 Turks call Eski Stamboul, 1 i. e. Old Constantinople. For that 
 reason, as well as some others, I conjecture them to be the 
 remains of that city begun by Constantine. I hired an ass 
 (the only voiture to be had there), that I might go some miles 
 into the country, and take a tour round the ancient walls, 
 which are of a vast extent. We found the remains of a 
 castle on a hill, and another in a valley, several broken pillars, 
 and two pedestals, from which I took these Latin inscriptions : 
 
 DIVI. AUG. COL. 
 ET COL. IUL. PHIL1PPEN8IS 
 
 EOKUNDUM PRINCIPUM 
 
 COL. IUL. PABIANAE TE1BUN. 
 
 SI1LIT. COH. XXXII. VOLUNTAR. 
 
 TRIE. MILIT. LEO. XIII. GEM. 
 
 PKAEFKCTO EQUIT. ALAE. I. 
 
 SCUBULORUM 
 
 VIC. VIII. 
 
 1 Alexandria Troas, which the early travellers have erroneously considered as 
 the true site of ancient Troy. See Belon, ch. vi. 4to, 1588, Viaggi di Pietro 
 Delia Valle, 4to, 1650. Gibbon (Rom. Hist. vol. iii. p. 10) remarks, that Wood, 
 in his observations on the Troad, pp. 140, 141, had confounded Ilium with Alex- 
 andria Troas, although sixteen miles distant from each other. In the Ionian Anti- 
 quities are some line views of these ruins. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 379 
 
 DIVI. IULI. FI-AMININE 
 
 C. ANTONIO. M. F. 
 
 VOLT. BUFO. FLAMEN. 
 
 DIV. AUG. COL. CL. APREXS. 
 
 ET COL. IUL. PHILIPPENSIS 
 
 EORUNDUM ET PR1NCIPUM 
 
 COL. ICL. PARIANAE TBIB. 
 
 JIILIT. COH. XXXII. VOLUNTARIOE. 
 
 TBIB. MILIT. XIII. 
 
 OEM. PBAEF. EQUIT. ALAS. I. 
 
 8COBULOBUM 
 
 VIC. VII. 
 
 I do not doubt but the remains of a temple near this place are 
 the ruins of one dedicated to Augustus ; and I know not why 
 Mr. Sandys calls it a Christian temple, since the Romans cer- 
 tainly built hereabouts. Here are many tombs of fine marble, 
 and vast pieces of granite, which are daily lessened by the 
 prodigious balls that the Turks make from them for their 
 cannon. We passed that evening the Isle of Tenedos, once 
 under the patronage of Apollo, as he gave it in himself in the 
 particular of his estate when he courted Daphne. It is but 
 ten miles in circuit, but in those days very rich and well- 
 peopled, still famous for its excellent wine. I say nothing of 
 Tennes, from whom it was called ; but naming Mitylene, 
 where we passed next, I cannot forbear mentioning that 
 Lesbos, where Sappho sung, and Pittacus reigned, famous for 
 the birth of Alcseus, Theophrastus, and Arion, those masters 
 in poetry, philosophy, and music. This was one of the last 
 islands that remained in the Christian dominion after the con- 
 quest of Constantinople by the Turks. But need I talk to 
 you of Cantacuseno, &c., princes that you are as well ac- 
 quainted with as I am 1 'Twas with regret I saw us sail swift 
 from this island into the Egean sea, now the Archipelago, 
 leaving Scio (the ancient Chios) on the left, which is the 
 richest and most populous of these islands, fruitful in cotton, 
 corn, and silk, planted with groves of orange and lemon trees ; 
 and the Arvisian mountain, still celebrated for the nectar that 
 Virgil mentions. Here is the best manufacture of silk in all
 
 380 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 Turkey. The town is well built, the women famous for their 
 beauty, and shew their faces as in Christendom. There are 
 many rich families, though they confine their magnificence to 
 the inside of their houses, to avoid the jealousy of the Turks, 
 who have a pasha here : however, they enjoy a reasonable 
 liberty, and indulge the genius of their country ; 
 
 And eat, and sing, and dance away their time, 
 Fresh as their groves, and happy as their clime. 
 
 Their chains hang lightly on them, though 'tis not long since 
 they were imposed, not being under the Turk till 1566. But 
 perhaps 'tis as easy to obey the Grand Signior as the state of 
 Genoa, to whom they were sold by the Greek Emperor. But 
 I forget myself in these historical touches, which are very im- 
 pertinent when I write to you. Passing the strait between 
 the islands of Andros and Achaia, now Libadia, we saw the 
 promontory of Sunium, now called Cape Colonna, where are 
 yet standing the vast pillars of a temple of Minerva. This 
 venerable sight made me think, with double regret, on a beau- 
 tiful temple of Theseus, which, I am assured, was almost 
 entire at Athens till the last campaign in the Morea, that the 
 Turks filled it with powder, and it was accidentally blown up. 
 You may believe I had a great mind to land on the famed 
 Peloponnesus, though it were only to look on the rivers of 
 JEsopus, Peneus, Inachus, and Eurotas, the fields of Arcadia, 
 and other scenes of ancient mythology. But instead of demi- 
 gods and heroes, I was credibly informed 'tis now overrun by 
 robbers, and that I should run a great risk of falling into their 
 hands by undertaking such a journey through a desert country ; 
 for which, however, I have so much respect, that I have much 
 ado to hinder myself from troubling you with its whole his- 
 tory, from the foundation of Nycana and Corinth, to the last 
 campaign there ; but I check that inclination, as I did that of 
 landing. We sailed quietly by Cape Angelo, once Malea, 
 where I saw no remains of the famous temple of Apollo. We 
 came that evening in sight of Candia : it is very mountainous ; 
 we easily distinguished that of Ida. We have Virgil's autho- 
 rity, here were a hundred cities
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 381 
 
 ' Centum urbes habitant magiias." 
 
 The chief of them, Gnossus, the scene of monstrous passions. 
 Metellus first conquered this birthplace of his Jupiter ; it fell 
 
 afterwards into the hands of 1 am running on to the very 
 
 siege of Candia; and I am so angry at myself, that I will 
 pass by all the other islands with this general reflection, that 
 'tis impossible to imagine any thing more agreeable than this 
 journey would have been between two or three thousand years 
 since, when, after drinking a dish of tea with Sappho, I might 
 have gone the same evening to visit the temple of Homer in 
 Chios, and have passed this voyage in taking plans of magni- 
 ficent temples, delineating the miracles of statuaries, and con- 
 versing with the most polite and most gay of human kind. Alas ! 
 art is extinct here ; the wonders of nature alone remain ; and it 
 was with vast pleasure I observed those of Mount Etna, whose 
 flame appears very bright in the night many leagues off at sea, 
 and fills the head with a thousand conjectures. However, I 
 honour philosophy too much, to imagine it could turn that of 
 Empedocles ; and Lucian shall never make me believe such a 
 scandal of a man, of whom Lucretius says, 
 
 " Vix humana videtur stirpe creatus." 
 
 We passed Trinacria without hearing any of the syrens that 
 Homer describes; and, being neither thrown on Scylla nor 
 Charybdis, came safe to Malta, first called Melita, from the 
 abundance of honey. It is a whole rock covered with very 
 little earth. The Grand Master lives here in the state of a 
 sovereign prince ; but his strength at sea now [is] very small. 
 The fortifications are reckoned the best in the world, all cut 
 in the solid rock with infinite expense and labour. Off of 
 this island we were tossed by a severe storm, and very glad, 
 after eight days, to be able to put into Porta Farine on the 
 African shore, where our ship now rides. We were met here 
 by the English consul who resides at Tunis. I readily accepted 
 of the offer of his house there for some days, being very curious 
 to see this part of the world, and particularly the ruins of 
 Carthage. I set out in his chaise at nine at night, the moon
 
 382 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 being at full. I saw the prospect of the country almost as 
 well as I could have done by daylight ; and the heat of the 
 sun is now so intolerable, 'tis impossible to travel at any other 
 time. The soil is for the most part sandy, but every where 
 fruitful in date, olive, and fig-trees, which grow without art, 
 yet afford the most delicious fruit in the world. Their vine- 
 yards and melon-fields are enclosed by hedges of that plant 
 we call the Indian-fig, which is an admirable fence, no wild 
 beast being able to pass it. It grows a great height, very 
 thick, and the spikes or thorns are as long and sharp as bod- 
 kins : it bears a fruit much eaten by the peasants, and which 
 has no ill taste. 
 
 It being now the season of the Turkish Ramadan, or Lent, 
 and ah 1 here professing, at least, the Mahometan religion, they 
 fast till the going down of the sun, and spend the night in 
 feasting. We saw under the trees in many places companies 
 of the country people, eating, singing, and dancing to their 
 wild music. They are not quite black, but all mulattoes, and 
 the most frightful creatures that can appear in a human 
 figure. They are almost naked, only wearing a piece of coarse 
 serge wrapped about them.- 1 - But the women have their arms, 
 to their very shoulders, and their necks and faces, adorned 
 with flowers, stars, and various sorts of figures impressed by 
 gunpowder ; a considerable addition to their natural defor- 
 mity ; which is, however, esteemed very ornamental among 
 them ; and I believe they suffer a good deal of pain by it. 
 
 About six miles from Tunis we saw the remains of that noble 
 aqueduct which carried the water to Carthage, over several 
 high mountains, the length of forty miles. There are still many 
 arches entire. We spent two hours viewing it with great atten- 
 tion, and Mr. W. [Wortley] assured me that of Rome is very 
 much inferior to it. The stones are of a prodigious size, and 
 yet all polished, and so exactly fitted to each other, very little 
 cement has been made use of to join them. Yet they may 
 probably stand a thousand years longer, if art is not used to 
 pull them down. Soon after daybreak I arrived at Tunis, a 
 town fairly built of a very white stone, but quite without 
 gardens, which, they say, were all destroyed and their fine
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 383 
 
 cjroves cut down when the Turks first took it, none having 
 been planted since. The dry sand gives a very disagreeable 
 prospect to the eye ; and the want of shade contributing to 
 the natural heat of the climate, renders it so excessive, I have 
 much ado to support it. 'Tis true here is every noon the re- 
 freshment of the sea-breeze, without which it would be im- 
 possible to live ; but no fresh water but what is preserved in 
 the cisterns of the rains that fall in the month of September. 
 The women in the town go veiled from head to foot under 
 a black crape ; and, being mixed with a breed of renegades, 
 are said to be many of them fair and handsome. This city 
 was besieged 1270, by Lewis King of France, who died under 
 the walls of it of a pestilential fever. After his death, Philip, 
 his son, and our Prince Edward, son of Henry III., raised the 
 siege on honourable conditions. It remained under its natural 
 African kings, till betrayed into the hands of Barbarossa, ad- 
 miral of Solyman the Magnificent. The Emperor Charles V. 
 expelled Barbarossa, but it was recovered by the Turk, under 
 the conduct of Sinan Pasha, in the reign of Selim II. From 
 that time till now it has remained tributary to the Grand 
 Signior, governed by a bey, who suffers the name of subject 
 to the Turk, but has renounced the subjection, being absolute, 
 and very seldom paying any tribute. The great city of Bagdat 
 is at this tune in the same circumstance; and the Grand 
 Signior connives at the loss of these dominions, for fear of 
 losing even the titles of them. 
 
 I went very early yesterday morning (after one night's 
 repose) to see the ruins of Carthage. I was, however, half 
 broiled in the sun, and overjoyed to be led into one of the 
 subterranean apartments, which they called the stables of the 
 elephants, but which I cannot believe were ever designed for 
 that use. I found in many of them broken pieces of columns 
 of fine marble, and some of porphyry. I cannot think any 
 body would take the insignificant pains of carrying them 
 thither, and I cannot imagine such fine pillars were designed 
 for the ornament of a stable. I am apt to believe they were 
 summer apartments under their palaces, which the heat of the 
 climate rendered necessary. They are now used as granaries
 
 384 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 by the country people. While I sat here, from the town of 
 Tents, not far off, many of the women flocked in to see me, 
 and we were equally entertained with viewing one another. 
 Their posture in sitting, the colour of their skin, their lank 
 black hair falling on each side their faces, their features, and 
 the shape of their limbs, differ so little from their own country 
 people the baboons, 'tis hard to fancy them a distinct race ; 
 and I could not help thinking there had been some ancient 
 alliances between them. 
 
 When I was a little refreshed by rest, and some milk and 
 exquisite fruit they brought me, I went up the little hill where 
 once stood the castle of Byrsa, and from whence I had a dis- 
 tinct view of the situation of the famous city of Carthage, 
 which stood on an isthmus, the sea Doming on each side of it. 
 'Tis now a marshy ground on one side, where there are salt 
 ponds. Strabo calls Carthage forty miles in circuit. There 
 are now no remains of it but what I have described ; and 
 the history of it [is] too well known to want my abridgment 
 of it. You see, that I think you esteem obedience more than 
 compliments. I have answered your letter, by giving you the 
 account you desired, and have reserved my thanks to the con- 
 clusion. I intend to leave this place to-morrow, and continue 
 my journey through Italy and France. In one of those places 
 I hope to tell you, by word of mouth, that I am, 
 
 Your humble servant. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF [MAR]. 
 
 Genoa, 1 Aug. 28, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I BEG your pardon, my dear sister, that I did not write to 
 you from Tunis, the only opportunity I have had since I left 
 Constantinople. But the heat there was so excessive, and the 
 light so bad for the sight, I was half blind by writing one letter 
 
 to the Abbot [Abbe Conti], and durst not go on to write 
 
 many others I had designed ; nor, indeed, could I have enter- 
 
 1 " They write from Genoa that the Preston, Captain Johnson, Commander, 
 arrived there the 15th of August, O.S., in forty-eight days from Constantinople, 
 having on board the Honourable Mr. Wortley Montagu, lately his Majesty's am- 
 bassador at the Porte." Original Weekly Journal, Sept. 13, 1718. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 385 
 
 tain ed you very well out of that barbarous country. I am now 
 surrounded with objects of pleasure, and so much charmed with 
 the beauties of Italy, I should think it a kind of ingratitude 
 not to offer a little praise in return for the diversion I have 
 had here. I am in the house of Mrs. d'Avenant, 1 at St. Pierre 
 1'Arene, and should be very unjust not to allow her a share of 
 that praise I speak of, since her good humour and good com- 
 pany have very much contributed to render this place agree- 
 able to me. 
 
 Genoa is situate in a very fine bay ; and being built on a 
 rising hill, intermixed with gardens, and beautified with the 
 most excellent architecture, gives a very fine prospect off at 
 sea; though it lost much of its beauty in my eyes, having 
 been accustomed to that of Constantinople. The Genoese 
 were once masters of several islands in the Archipelago, and 
 ah 1 that part of Constantinople which is now called Galata. 
 Their betraying the Christian cause, by facilitating the taking 
 of Constantinople by the Turk, deserved what has since hap- 
 pened to them the loss of all their conquests on that side to 
 those infidels. They are at present far from rich, and despised 
 by the French, since their Doge was forced by the late King 
 to go in person to Paris, to ask pardon for such a trifle as the 
 arms of France over the house of the envoy being spattered 
 with dung in the night. I suppose, by some of the Spanish 
 faction, which still makes up the majority here, though they 
 dare not openly declare it. The ladies affect the French habit, 
 and are more genteel than those they imitate. I do not doubt 
 but the custom of cecisbeos has very much improved their 
 airs. I know not whether you have ever heard of those ani- 
 mals. Upon my word, nothing but my own eyes could have 
 convinced [me] there were any such upon earth. The fashion 
 began here, and is now received all over Italy, where the hus- 
 bands are not such terrible creatures as we represent them. 
 There are none among them such brutes to pretend to find 
 fault with a custom so well established, and so politically 
 
 1 Mrs. Davenant will be found again alluded to in one of the letters to Lady 
 Mar. T. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 C
 
 386 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 founded, since I am assured here that it was an expedient first 
 found out by the senate, to put an end to those family hatreds 
 which tore their state to pieces, and to find employment for 
 those young men who were forced to cut one another's throats 
 pour passer le temps ; and it has succeeded so well, that, since 
 the institution of cecisbei, there has been nothing but peace 
 and good humour among them. These are gentlemen who 
 devote themselves to the service of a particular lady (I mean 
 a married one, for the virgins are all invisible, confined to 
 convents) : they are obliged to wait on her to all public places, 
 the plays, operas, and assemblies (which are called here Con- 
 versations) , where they wait behind her chair, take care of her 
 fan and gloves if she plays, have the privilege of whispers, 
 &c. When she goes out, they serve her instead of lacquies, 
 gravely trotting by her chair. 'Tis their business to present 
 against any day of public appearance, not forgetting that of 
 her own name: 1 in short, they are to spend all their time 
 and money in her service, who rewards them according to her 
 inclination (for opportunity they want none) ; but the husband 
 is not to have the impudence to suppose this any other than 
 pure Platonic friendship. 'Tis true, they endeavour to give 
 her a cecisbeo of their own choosing ; but when the lady hap- 
 pens not to be of the same taste, as that often happens, she 
 never fails to bring it about to have one of her own fancy. 
 In former times, one beauty used to have eight or ten of these 
 humble admirers ; but those days of plenty and humility are 
 no more : men grow more scarce and saucy ; and every lady is 
 forced to content herself with one at a time. 
 
 You see the glorious liberty of a republic, or more properly, 
 an aristocracy, the common people being here as errant slaves 
 as the French; but the old nobles pay little respect to the 
 Doge, who is but two years in his office, and at that very time 
 his wife assumes no rank above another noble lady. 'Tis true, 
 the family of Andrea Doria (that great man, who restored them 
 that liberty they enjoy) have some particular privileges: 
 when the senate found it necessary to put a stop to the luxury 
 of dress, forbidding the wear of jewels and brocades, they left 
 1 That is, the day of the saint after whom she is called. D.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 387 
 
 them at liberty to make what expense they pleased. I look 
 with great pleasure on the statue of that hero, which is in the 
 court belonging to the house of Duke Doria. This puts me 
 in mind of their palaces, which I can never describe as I ought. 
 Is it not enough that I say they are, most of them, of the 
 design of Palladio ? The street called Strada Nova is perhaps 
 the most beautiful line of building in the world. I must par- 
 ticularly mention the vast palace of Durazzo ; those of two 
 Balbi, joined together by a magnificent [colonnade] ; that of 
 the Imperiale at this village of St. Pierre 1'Arene ; and another 
 of the Doria. The perfection of architecture, and the utmost 
 profusion of rich furniture, are to be seen here, disposed with 
 the most elegant taste and lavish magnificence. But I am 
 charmed with nothing so much as the collection of pictures 
 by the pencils of Raphael, Paulo Veronese, Titian, Caracci, 
 Michael Angelo, Guido, and Corregio, which two I mention 
 last as my particular favourites. I own I can find no pleasure 
 in objects of horror ; and, in my opinion, the more naturally a 
 crucifix is represented, the more disagreeable it is. These, my 
 beloved painters, shew nature, and shew it in the most charm- 
 inn: light. I was particularly pleased with a Lucretia in the 
 house of Balbi : the expressive beauty of that face and bosom 
 gives all the passion of pity and admiration that could be raised 
 in the soul by the finest poem on that subject. A Cleopatra 
 of the same hand deserves to be mentioned ; and I should say 
 more of her, if Lucretia had not first engaged my eyes. Here 
 are also some inestimable ancient bustos. The church of St. 
 Lawrence is all black and white marble, where is kept that 
 famous plate of a single emerald, which is not now permitted 
 to be handled, since a plot which they say was discovered to 
 throw it on the pavement and break it a childish piece of 
 malice, which they ascribe to the King of Sicily, to be re- 
 venged for their refusing to sell it to him. The church of the 
 Annunciation is finely lined with marble; the pillars of red 
 and white marble : that of St. Ambrose very much adorned 
 by the Jesuits : but I confess, all these churches appeared so 
 mean to me, after that of Sancta Sophia, I can hardly do 
 
 2c2
 
 388 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 them the honour of writing clown their names. But I hope 
 you will own I have made good use of my time, in seeing so 
 much, since 'tis not many days that we have been out of the 
 quarantine, from which nobody is exempted coming from the 
 Levant. But ours was very much shortened, and very agree- 
 ably passed in Mr. d'Avenant's company, in the village of St. 
 Pierre 1'Arene, about a mile from Genoa, in a house built by 
 Palladio, so well designed and so nobly proportioned, 'twas a 
 pleasure to walk in it. We were visited here only in the com- 
 pany of a noble Genoese, commissioned to see we did not touch 
 one another. I shall stay here some days longer, and could 
 almost wish it for all my life ; but mine, I fear, is not destined 
 to so much tranquillity. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. T 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF 
 
 Turin, Sept. 12, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I CAME in two days from Genoa, through fine roads to this 
 place. I have already seen what is shewed to strangers in the 
 town, which, indeed, is not worth a very particular descrip- 
 tion ; and I have not respect enough for the holy handkerchief 
 to speak long of it. The church is handsome, and so is the 
 king's palace ; but I have lately seen such perfection of architec- 
 ture, I did not give much of my attention to these pieces. The 
 town itself is fairly built, situate on a fine plain on the banks 
 of the Po. At a little distance from it, we saw the palaces of 
 La Venerie and La Valentin, both very agreeable retreats. 
 We were lodged in the Piazza Royale, which is one of the 
 noblest squares I ever saw, with a fine portico of white stone quite 
 
 round it. We were immediately visited by the Chevalier , 
 
 whom you knew in England ; who, with great civility, begged 
 to introduce us at court, which is now kept at Bivoli, about a 
 league from Turin. I went thither yesterday, and had the 
 honour of waiting on the queen, being presented to her by her 
 first lady of honour. I found her majesty in a magnificent 
 
 1 The first volume of the Sowden manuscript ends here. The second volume 
 appears to have been intended as a separate work. It begins with the following 
 letter, headed " Copies of Letters. Letter 1st." T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 389 
 
 apartment, with a train of handsome ladies, all dressed in 
 gowns, among whom it was easy to distinguish the fair Prin- 
 cess of Carignan. The queen 1 entertained me with a world of 
 sweetness and affability, and seemed mistress of a great share 
 of good sense. She did not forget to [put] me in mind of her 
 English blood, and added, that she always felt in herself a 
 particular inclination to love the English. I returned her 
 civility, by giving her the title of majesty as often as I could, 
 which, perhaps, she will not have the comfort of hearing many 
 months longer. 2 The king has a great vivacity in his eyes ; 
 and the young Prince of Piedmont is a very handsome youth ; 
 but the great devotion which this court is at present fallen 
 into, does not permit any of those entertainments proper for 
 his age. Processions and masses are all the magnificences in 
 fashion here ; and gallantry so criminal, that the poor Count 
 
 of , who was our acquaintance at London, is very seriously 
 
 disgraced, for some small overtures he presumed to make to a 
 maid of honour. I intend to set out to-morrow, to pass those 
 dreadful Alps, so much talked of. If I come alive to the 
 bottom you shall hear of me. 
 
 TO MRS. T [THISTLETHWAYTE]. 
 
 Lyons, Sept. 25, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I RECEIVED, at my arrival here, both y^ur obliging letters, 
 and from many of my other friends, designed to Constanti- 
 nople, and sent me from Marseilles hither : our merchant there 
 knowing we were upon our return. I am surprised to hear 
 my sister [Mar] has left England. I suppose what I wrote 
 to her from Turin will be lost, and where to direct I know 
 not, having no account of her affairs from her own hand. For 
 my own part, I am confined to my chamber, having kept my 
 bed, till yesterday, ever since the 17th, that I came to this 
 town ; where I have had so terrible a fever, I believed for some 
 time that all my journeys were ended here : and I do not at 
 
 1 Anna Maria, wife of Victor Amadeus, at this time Duke of Savoy and King 
 of Sicily. She was a daughter of Philip, Duke of Orleans, by Henrietta Maria, 
 daughter of King Charles the First T. 
 
 2 The Spaniards were at this time successfully invading Sicily, by which Victor 
 Amadeus shortly afterwards lost his regal title. T.
 
 390 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 all wonder that such fatigues as I have passed should have 
 such an effect. The first day's journey, from Turin to No- 
 valesse, is through a very fine country, beautifully planted, 
 and enriched by art and nature. The next day we began 
 to ascend Mount Ceuis, being carried in little seats of twisted 
 osiers, fixed upon poles upon men's shoulders; our chaises 
 taken to pieces, and laid upon mules. 
 
 The prodigious prospect of mountains covered with eternal 
 snow, clouds hanging far below our feet, and the vast cascades 
 tumbling down the rocks with a confused roaring, would have 
 been solemnly entertaining to me, if I had suffered less from 
 the extreme cold that reigns here ; but the misty rain which 
 falls perpetually, penetrated even the thick fur I was wrapped 
 in ; and I was half dead with cold, before we got to the foot 
 of the mountain, which was not till two hours after 'twas dark. 
 This hill has a spacious plain on the top of it, and a fine lake 
 there ; but the descent is so steep and slippery, 'tis surprising 
 to see these chairmen go so steadily as they do. Yet I was 
 not half so much afraid of breaking my neck, as I was of 
 falling sick; and the event has shewed that I placed my 
 fears in the right place. 
 
 The other mountains are now all passable for a chaise, and 
 very fruitful in vines and pastures ; among them is a breed of 
 the finest goats in the world. Acquebellet is the last ; and 
 soon after we entered Pont Beauvoisin, the frontier town of 
 France, whose bridge parts this kingdom and the dominion of 
 Savoy. The same night we arrived late at this town, where I 
 have had nothing to do but to take care of my health. I think 
 myself already out of any danger, and am determined that the 
 sore throat, which still remains, shall not confine me long. I 
 am impatient to see the antiquities of this famous city, and 
 more impatient to continue my journey to Paris, from whence 
 I hope to write you a more diverting letter than 'tis possible 
 for me to do now, with a mind weakened by sickness, a head 
 muddled with spleen, from a sorry inn, and a chamber 
 crammed with the mortifying objects of apothecaries' phials 
 and bottles.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 391 
 
 TO MR. P . 
 
 Lyons, Sept. 28, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I RECEIVED yours here, and should thank you for the plea- 
 sure you express for my return ; but I can hardly forbear 
 being angry at you for rejoicing at what displeases me so 
 much. You will think this but an odd compliment on my 
 side. I'll assure you 'tis not from insensibility of the joy of 
 seeing my friends ; but when I consider that I must at the 
 same time see and hear a thousand disagreeable impertinents, 
 that I must receive and pay visits, make courtesies, and assist 
 at tea-tables, where I shall be half killed with questions ; on 
 the other part, that I am a creature that cannot serve any 
 body but with insignificant good wishes ; and that my presence 
 is not a necessary good to any one member of my native 
 country, I think I might much better have staid where ease 
 and quiet made up the happiness of my indolent life. I 
 should certainly be melancholy if I pursued this theme one 
 line further. I will rather fill the remainder of this paper 
 with the inscriptions on the tables of brass that are placed on 
 each side the town-house here. 
 
 I. TABLE. 
 
 MJSRORUM. NOSTR :-.::-. sn ::-.:: EQUIDEM. PRIMAN. OMNIUM. 
 ILLAM. COGITATIONEM. HOMINUM. QUAM. MAX1ME. PIUMAM. OCCURSURAM. 
 MIHI. PROVIDED. DEPRECOR. NE. QUASI. NOVAM. ISTAM. REM. INTRODUCI. 
 EXHORRESCATIS. SED. ILLA. POTIUS. COGITETIS. QUAM. MULTA. IN. HAC. 
 CIVITATE. NOVATA. SINT. ET. QUIDEM. STATIM. AB. ORIGINE. URBIS. NOSTRE. 
 IN. QUOT. FORMAS. STATUSQUE. RES. P. NOSTRA. DIDUCTA. SIT. 
 
 QUONDAM. REGES. HANC. TENUERE. URBEM. NE. TAMEN. DOMESTICIS. 
 SUCCESSORIBUS. EAM. TRADERE. CONTIG1T. SUPERVENERE. ALIENI. ET. 
 QUIDAM. EXTERNI. UT. NUMA. RoMULO. SUCCESSERIT. EX. SABINIS. VENIENS. 
 
 VICINUS. QUIDEM. SED. TUNC. EXTERNUS. UT. ANCO. MARCIO. PRISCUS. TAR- 
 QUINIUS. PROPTER. TEMERATUM. SANGUINEM. QUOD. PATRK. DE. MARATO. 
 CORINTHIO. NATUS. ERAT. ET. TARQUINIENSI. MATRE. GENEROSA. SED. IXOPI. 
 UT. QU^E. TALI. MARITO. NECESSE. HABUERIT. SUCCUMBERE. CUM. DOMI. RE- 
 PELLERETUR. A. GERENDIS. HONORIBUS. POSTQUAM. E.OMAM. MIGRAVIT. 
 REGNUM. ADEPTUS. EST. HUIC. QUOQUE. ET. FILIO. NEPOTIVE. EJUS. NAM. ET. 
 HOC. INTER. AUCTORES. DISCREPAT. INCRETUS. SERVIUS. TULLIUS. SI. NOS- 
 TROS. SEQUIMUR. CAPTIVA. NATUS. OCRESIA. SI. TUSCOS. COELI. QUONDAM. 
 VIVENN^E. SODALIS. FIDELISSIMUS. OMNISQUE. EJUS. CASUS. COMES. POST- 
 QUAM. VAR1A. FORTUNA. EXACTUS. CUM. OMNIBUS. REL1QUIS. COELIANI. EXER- 
 
 CITUS. ETRURIA. EXCESSIT. MONTEM. COELIUM. OCCUPAVIT. ET. A. DUCE. suo.
 
 392 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 COELIO. ITA. APPELLITATUS. MUTATOQUE. NOMINE. NAM. TUSCE. MASTABNA. 
 El. NOMEN. ERAT. ITA. APPELLATUS. EST. TJT. DIXI. ET. REGNUM. SUMMA. CUM. 
 REIP. TJTILITATE. OBTINUIT. DEINDE. POSTQUAM. TARQUINI. SuPEKBI. MOBES. 
 INVISI. CIVITATI. NOSTBuE. ESSE. COEPEBUNT. QUA. IPSIUS. QUA. FILIOBUM. 
 EJUS. NEMPE. PERT.ESUM. EST. MENTES. BEGNI. ET. AD. CONSULES. ANNUOS. 
 MAGISTBATUS. ADMINISTKATIO. BEIP. TBANSLATA. EST. 
 
 QUID. NUNC. COMMEMOREM. DICTATURES. HOC. IPSO. CONSULABI. IMPERIUM. 
 VALENT1US. BEPEBTUM. APUD. MAJORES. NOSTROS. QUO. IN. ASPERIORIBUS. 
 BELLIS. AUT. IN. CIV1LI. MOTU. DIFFICILIORI. UTEBENTUB. AUT. IN. AUXILIUM. 
 PLEBIS. CREATOS. TRIBUNOS. PLEBEI. QUID. A. CONSULIBUS. AD. DECEMVIROS. 
 TRANSLATUM. IMPEBIUM. SOLUTOQUE. POSTEA. DECEMVIBALI. BEGNO. AD. CON- 
 SULES. BUBSUS. REDITUM. QUID. IM : : : : V. RIS. DISTRIBUTUM. CONSULARE. 
 IMPERIUM. TRIBUNOSQUE. MILITUM. CONSULABI. IMPEBIO. APPELLATUS. QUI. 
 SENI. ET. OCTONI. CBEABENTUB. QUID. COMMUNICATOS. POSTBEMO. CUM. 
 PLEBE. HONOBES. NON. IMPEBI. SOLUM. SED. SACEBDOTIOBUM. QUOQUE. JAMSI. 
 NABBEM. BELLA. A. QUIBUS. COEPEBINT. MAJOBES. NOSTBI. ET. QUO. PROCES- 
 SEBIMUS. VEBEOR. NE. NIMIO. INSOLENTIOR. ESSE. VIDEAB. ET. QU^ESISSE. 
 JACTATIONEM. GLORLS. PBOLATI. IMPEBI. ULTBA. OCEANUM. SED. ILLO. C. Po- 
 EIUS. BEVEBTAB. CTVITATEM. 
 
 I cannot take the pains with the second table I have done 
 with the first. 1 You may easily imagine it in the same cha- 
 racter, and pointed after the same manner. These are the 
 
 words. 
 
 II. TABLE. 
 
 ::::::::::::::: SANE I:::::::::::::::::: NOVO : : : 
 DIVUS : AUG : : : NO : LUS. ET. PATRUUS. Tl. CAESAR. OMNEM. FLOREM. 
 UBIQUE. COLONIARUM. AC. MUNICIPIORUM. BONOBUM. SCILICET. VIRORUM. ET. 
 LOCUPLETIUM. IN. HAC. CURIA. ESSE. VOLUIT. QUID. ERGO. NON. ITALICUS. 
 SENATOR. PROVINCIALI. POTIOR. EST. JAM. VOBIS. CUM. HANC. PARTEM. CEN- 
 SURES. ME^E. APPROBARE. COEPERO. QUID. DE. EA. BE. SENTIAM. REBUS. 
 OSTENDAM. SED. NE. PBOVINCIALES. QUIDEM. SI. MODO. OBNABE. CUBIAM. 
 POTEBINT. BEJICIENDOS. PUTO. 
 
 OBNATISSIMA. ECCE. COLONIA. VALENTISSIMAQUE. RIENNENSIUM. QUAM. 
 LONGO. JAM. TEMPOBE. SENATOBES. HUIC. CUBI^E. CONFERT. EX. QUA. COLONIA. 
 INTER. PAUCOS. EQUESTBIS. OBDINIS. ORNAMENTUM. L. RESTINUM. FAMI- 
 LIARISSIME. DILIGO. ET. HODIEQUE. IN. BEBUS. MEIS. DETINEO. CUJUS. LIBERI. 
 FRUANTUB. QU-SO. PBIMO. SACEBDOTIORUM. GRADU. POST. MODO. CUM. 
 ANNIS. PROMOTURI. DIGNITATIS. SU^E. INCREMENTA. UT. DIRUM. NOMEN. LA- 
 TRONIS. TACEAM. ET. ODI. ILLUD. PALESTRICUM. PRODIGIUM. QUOD. ANTE. 
 IN. DOMUM. CONSULATUM. INTULIT. QUAM. COLONIA. SUA. SOLIDUM. CIVITATIS. 
 ROMANS. BENEFICIUM. CONSECUTA. EST. IDEM. DE. FRATRE. EJUS. POSSUM. 
 DICERE. MISERABILI. QUIDEM. INDIGNISSIMOQUE. HOC. CASU. UT. VOBIS. 
 UTILIS. SENATOR. ESSE. NON. POSSIT. 
 
 1 In the manuscript the first portion only of the transcription is in capital let- 
 ters. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 393 
 
 TEMPUS. EST. JAM. Ti. C.ESAR. GERMANICS. DETEGERE. TE. PATRIBUS. COK- 
 SCRIPTIS. QUO. TENDAT. ORATIO. TUA. JAM. ENIM. AD. EXTREMOS. FINES. 
 GALLLS. NARBONENSIS. VENISTI. 
 
 TOT. ECCE. INSIGNES. JUVENES. QUOT. INTUEOR. NON. MAGIS. SUNT. POENI- 
 TENDI. SENATORIB. QUAM. POENITET. PERSICUM. NOBILISSIMUM. VIRUM. 
 
 AMICUM. MEUM. INTER. IMAGINES. MAJORUM. SUORUM. ALLOROGICI. NOMEN. 
 LEGERE. QUOD. SI. HjEC. ITA. ESSE. CONSENTI. IS. QUID. ULTRA. DESIDERATIS. 
 
 QUAM. UT. VOBIS. DIGITO. DEMONSTREM. SOLUM. IPSUM. ULTRA. PINES. PRO- 
 VINCLE. NARBONENSIS. JAM. VOBIS. SENATORES. MITTERE. QUANDO. EX. LUG- 
 DUNO. HABERE. NOS. NOSTRI. ORDINIS. VIHOS. NON. POENITET. TIMIDE. QUIDEM. 
 P. C. EGRESSUS. ADSUETOS. FAMILIARESQUE. VOBIS. PROVINCIARUM. TERMINOS. 
 SUM. SED. DESTRICTE. JAM. COMAT.E. GALLIC. CAUSA- AGENDA. EST IN. QUA. 
 SI- QUIS. HOC. INTUETUR. QUOD. BELLO- PER. DECEM- ANNOS. EXERCUERUNT. 
 DIVOM. JULIUM. IDEM. OPPONAT. CENTUM. ANNORUM. IMMOBILEM. FIDEM. 
 OBSEQUIUMQUE. MULTI3. TRIPIDIS. REBUS. NOSTRIS. PLUSQUAM. EXPERTUM. 
 ILLI. PATRI. MEO. DRUSO. GfiRMANIAM. SUBIGENTI. TUTAM. QUIETE. SUA. 
 SECURAMQUE. A. TERGO. PACEM. PRJSSTITERUNT. ET. QUIDEM. CUM. AJD. 
 CENSUS. NOVO. TUM. OPERE. ET. IN. ADSUETO. GALLIIS. AD. BELLUM. AVOCATUS. 
 ESSET. QUOD. OPUS. QUAM. ARDUUM. SIT. NOBIS. NUNC. CUM. MAXIME. QUAMVIS. 
 NIHIL. ULTRA. QUAM. UT. PUBLICE. NOT.E. SINT. FACULTATES. NOSTRI. EXQUI- 
 RATUR. NIMIS. MAGNO. EXPERIMENTO. COGKOSCIMUS. 
 
 I was also shewed, without the gate of St. Justimis, some 
 remains of a Roman aqueduct ; and behind the monastery of 
 St. Mary's there are the ruins of the imperial palace where 
 the Emperor Claudius was born, and where Severus lived. 
 The great cathedral of St. John is a good Gothic building, 
 and its clock much admired by the Germans. In one of the 
 most conspicuous parts of the town is the late King's statue 
 set up, trampling upon mankind. I cannot forbear saying one 
 word here of the French statues (for I never intend to men- 
 tion any more of them), with their gilded full-bottomed wigs. 
 If their king had intended to express, in one image, ignorance, 
 ill taste, and vanity, his sculptors could have made no other 
 figure to represent the odd mixture of an old beau, who had a 
 mind to be a hero, with a bushel of curled hair on his head, 
 and a gilt truncheon in his hand. The French have been so 
 voluminous on the history of this town, I need say nothing of 
 it. The houses are tolerably well built, and the Belle Cour 
 well planted, from whence is seen the celebrated joining of the 
 Saone and Rhone.
 
 394 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 " Ubi Rhodanus ingens amne praerapido fluit 
 Ararque dubitans quo suos fluctus agat." 
 
 I have had time to see every thing with great leisure, having 
 been confined several days to this town by a swelling in my 
 throat, the remains of a fever, occasioned by a cold I got in 
 the damps of the Alps. The doctors here (who are charmed 
 with a new customer) threaten me with all sorts of distempers, 
 if I dare to leave them till this swelling is quite vanished ; but 
 I, that know the obstinacy of it, think it just as possible to 
 continue my way to Paris with it, as to go about the streets of 
 Lyons ; and am determined to pursue my journey to-morrow, 
 in spite of doctors, apothecaries, and sore throats. 
 
 When you see Lady R. [Rich], tell her I have received her 
 letter, and will answer it from Paris, believing that the place 
 she would most willingly hear of. 
 
 TO THE LADY 11 [RICH]. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 10, 1 O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I CANNOT give my dear Lady R. [Rich] a better proof of 
 the pleasure I have in writing to her, than choosing to do it in 
 this seat of various amusements, where I am accablee with 
 visits, and those so full of vivacity and compliment, that 'tis 
 full employment enough to hearken, whether one answers or 
 not. The French ambassadress at Constantinople has a very 
 considerable and numerous family here, who all come to see 
 me, and are never weary of making enquiries. The air of 
 Paris has already had a good effect on me ; for I was never in 
 better health, though I have been extremely ill all the road 
 from Lyons to this place. You may judge how agreeable the 
 journey has been to me ; which did not need that addition to 
 make me dislike it. I think nothing so terrible as objects of 
 misery, except one had the God-like attribute of being capable 
 to redress them ; and all the country villages of France shew 
 
 1 As to the dates of the letters which conclude this section, see remarks in the 
 Memoir, ante, p. 31. T
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 395 
 
 nothing else. While the post-horses are changed, the whole 
 town comes out to beg, with such miserable starved faces, and 
 thin tattered clothes, they need no other eloquence to persuade 
 [one of] the wretchedness of their condition. This is all the 
 French magnificence till you come to Fontainebleau. There 
 you begin to think the kingdom rich when you are shewed one 
 thousand five hundred rooms in the King's hunting palace. 
 The apartments of the royal family are very large, and richly 
 gilt ; but I saw nothing in the architecture or painting worth 
 remembering. The long gallery, built by Henry IV., has 
 prospects of all the King's houses: its walls designed after 
 the taste of those times, but appear now very mean. The park 
 is, indeed, finely wooded and watered, the trees well grown 
 and planted, and in the fish-ponds are kept tame carp, said to 
 be, some of them, eighty years of age. The late King passed 
 some months every year at this seat ; and all the rocks round 
 it, by the pious sentences inscribed on them, shew the devotion 
 in fashion at his court, which I believe died with him ; at 
 least, I see no exterior marks of it at Paris, where all people's 
 thoughts seem to be on present diversion. 
 
 The fair of St. Lawrence is now in season. You may be 
 sure I have been carried thither, and think it much better dis- 
 posed than ours of Bartholomew. The shops being all set in 
 rows so regularly, well lighted, they made up a very agreeable 
 spectacle. But I was not at all satisfied with the grosstirete 
 of their harlequin, no more than with their music at the 
 opera, which was abominably grating, after being used to that 
 of Italy. Their house is a booth, compared to that of the Hay- 
 market, and the play-house not so neat as that in Lincoln's 
 Inn-fields ; but then it must be owned, to their praise, their 
 tragedians are much beyond any of ours. I should hardly 
 allow Mrs. O. [Oldfield] a better place than to be confidante 
 to La . I have seen the tragedy of Bajazet so well repre- 
 sented, I think our best actors can be only said to speak, but 
 these to feel ; and 'tis certainly infinitely more moving to see 
 a man appeal* unhappy, than to hear him say that he is so,
 
 396 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 with a jolly face, and a stupid smirk in his countenance. 
 A propos of countenances, I must tell you something of the 
 
 French ladies ; I have seen all the beauties, and such (I 
 
 can't help making use of the coarse word) nauseous [creatures] ! 
 so fantastically absurd in their dress ! so monstrously unna- 
 tural in their paint ! their hair cut short, and curled round 
 their faces, loaded with powder, that makes it look like white 
 wool ! and on their cheeks to their chins, unmercifully laid on, 
 a shining red japan, that glistens in a most flaming manner, 
 that they seem to have no resemblance to human faces, and I 
 am apt to believe, took the first hint of their dress from a fair 
 sheep newly ruddled. 'Tis with pleasure I recollect my dear 
 pretty countrywomen : and, if I was writing to any body else, 
 I should say that these grotesque daubers give me a still 
 higher esteem of the natural charms of dear Lady R.'s auburn 
 hair, and the lively colours of her unsullied complexion. 
 
 P.S. I have met the Abb6 [Conti] here, who desires me to 
 make his compliments to you. 
 
 TO MRS. T [THISTLETHWAYTEJ. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 16, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 You see I'm just to my word, in writing to you from 
 Paris, where I was very much surprised to meet my sister 
 
 [Mar] ; I need not add, very much pleased. She as little 
 
 expected to see me as I her (having not received my late 
 letters) ; and this meeting would shine under the hand of Mr. 
 De Scuderie ;* but I shall not imitate his style so far as to tell 
 you how often we embraced ; how she enquired by what odd 
 chance I returned from Constantinople ; and I answered her 
 by asking what adventure brought her to Paris ? To shorten 
 the story, all questions and answers, and exclamations, and 
 compliments, being over, we agreed upon running about 
 together, and have seen Versailles, Trianon, Marli, and St. 
 Cloud. We had an order for the waters to play for our 
 
 1 George de Scude'rie, brother of the more celebrated Madame de Scuderie. He 
 was a member of the French Academy, but was notorious for his bad poetry. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 397 
 
 diversion, and I was followed thither by all the English at 
 Paris. I own Versailles appeared to me rather vast than 
 beautiful ; and after have [having ?] seen the exact pro- 
 portions of the Italian buildings, I thought the irregularity of 
 it shocking. 
 
 The King's cabinet of antiques and medals is, indeed, 
 very richly furnished. Among that collection none pleased 
 me so well as the apotheosis of Germanicus, on a large agate, 
 which is one of the most delicate pieces of the kind that I re- 
 remember to have seen. I observed some ancient statues of 
 great value. But the nauseous flattery, and tawdry pencil of 
 Le Brun, are equally disgusting in the gallery. I will not 
 pretend to describe to you the great apartment, the vast 
 variety of fountains, the theatre, the grove of Esop's fables, 
 &c., all which you may read very amply particularised in some 
 of the French authors that have been paid for those descrip- 
 tions. Trianon, in its littleness, pleased me better than Ver- 
 sailles ; Marli, better than either of them ; and St. Cloud, 
 best of all ; having the advantage of the Seine running at the 
 bottom of the gardens, the great cascade, &c. You may find 
 in the foresaid books, if you have any curiosity to know the 
 exact number of the statues, and how many feet they cast up 
 the water. 
 
 We saw the King's pictures in the magnificent house of the 
 Duke d'Antin, who has the care of preserving them till his 
 Majesty is of age. There are not many, but of the best 
 hands. I looked with great pleasure on the archangel of 
 Raphael, where the sentiments of superior beings are as well 
 expressed as in Milton. You won't forgive me if I say 
 nothing of the Thuilleries, much finer than our Mall ; and the 
 Cours, more agreeable than our Hyde Park, the high trees 
 giving shade hi the hottest season. At the Louvre I had the 
 opportunity of seeing the King, accompanied by the Duke- 
 Regent. He is tall and well-shaped, but has not the air 
 of holding the crown so many years as his grandfather. And 
 now I am speaking of the court, I must say I saw nothing in 
 France that delighted me so much as to see an Englishman
 
 398 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 (at least a Briton) absolute at Paris ; I mean Mr. L , l 
 
 who treats their dukes and peers extremely de haut en bas, 
 and is treated by them with the utmost submission and re- 
 spect. Poor souls ! This reflection on their abject slavery 
 puts me in mind of the Place des Victoires ; but I will not 
 take up your time and my own with such descriptions, which 
 are too numerous. 
 
 In general, I think Paris has the advantage of London, in 
 the neat pavement of the streets, and the regular lighting of 
 them at nights, the proportion of the streets, the houses all 
 built of stone, and most of those belonging to people of qua- 
 lity, being beautified by gardens. But we certainly may boast 
 of a town very near twice as large ; and when I have said 
 that, I know nothing else we surpass it in. I shall not con- 
 tinue here long ; if you have any thing to command me during 
 my short stay, write soon, and I shall take pleasure in obey- 
 ing you. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 TO MR. P- 
 
 I HAVE been running about Paris at a strange rate with 
 my sister, and strange sights have we seen. They are, at 
 least, strange sights to me, for after having been accustomed 
 to the gravity of Turks, I can scarcely look with an easy and 
 familiar aspect at the levity and agility of the airy phan- 
 toms that are dancing about me here, and I often think that 
 I am at a puppet-shew amidst the representations of real life. 
 I stare prodigiously, but nobody remarks it, for every body 
 stares here ; staring is a la mode there is a stare of attention 
 and intdrt, a stare of curiosity, a stare of expectation, a stare 
 of surprise, and it would greatly amuse you to see what trifling 
 objects excite all this staring. This staring would have rather 
 a solemn kind of air, were it not alleviated, by grinning, for 
 
 1 Mr. Law was the projector of the Mississippi scheme, and the colonisation of 
 Louisiana, similar in its plan and event to our South Sea. D. 
 
 2 This letter is not in the manuscript book. It was first published in the " Ad- 
 ditional Volume," 1767, and is of doubtful authenticity. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 399 
 
 at the end of a stare there comes always a grin, and very 
 commonly the entrance of a gentleman or a lady into a room 
 is accompanied with a grin, which is designed to express com- 
 placence and social pleasure, but really shews nothing more 
 than a certain contortion of muscles that must make a stranger 
 laugh really, as they laugh artificially. The French grin is 
 equally remote from the cheerful serenity of a smile, and the 
 cordial mirth of an honest English horse-laugh. I shall not 
 perhaps stay here long enough to form a just idea of French 
 manners and characters, though this, I believe, would require 
 but little study, as there is no great depth in either. It 
 appears, on a superficial view, to be a frivolous, restless, and 
 agreeable people. The Abbot is my guide, and I could not 
 easily light upon a better ; he tells me that here the women 
 form the character of the men, and I am convinced in the per- 
 suasion of this by every company into which I enter. There 
 seems here to be no intermediate state between infancy and 
 manhood ; for as soon as the boy has quit his leading-strings, 
 he is set agog in the world ; the ladies are his tutors, they 
 make the first impressions, which generally remain, and they 
 render the men ridiculous by the imitation of their humours 
 and graces, so that dignity in manners is a rare thing here 
 before the age of sixty. Does not King David say some- 
 where, that Man walketh in a vain shew ? I think he does, 
 and I am sure this is peculiarly true of the Frenchman but 
 he walks merrily and seems to enjoy the vision, and may he 
 not therefore be esteemed more happy than many of our solid 
 thinkers, whose brows are furrowed by deep reflection, and 
 whose wisdom is so often clothed with a misty mantle of spleen 
 and vapours'? 
 
 What delights me most here is a view of the magnificence, 
 often accompanied with taste, that reigns in the King's palaces 
 and gardens ; for though I don't admire much the architecture, 
 in which there is great irregularity and want of proportion, 
 yet the statues, paintings, and other decorations afford me 
 high entertainment. One of the pieces of antiquity that 
 struck me most in the gardens of Versailles, was the famous
 
 400 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 colossean statue of Jupiter, the workmanship of Myron, which 
 Mark Antony carried away from Samos, and Augustus or- 
 dered to be placed in the Capitol. It is of Parian marble, 
 and though it has suffered in the ruin of time, it still preserves 
 striking lines of majesty. But surely, if marble could feel, 
 the god would frown with a generous indignation to see him- 
 self transported from the Capitol into a French garden ; and 
 after having received the homage of the Roman emperors, 
 who laid their laurels at his feet when they returned from 
 their conquests, to behold now nothing but frizzled beaus 
 passing by him with indifference. 
 
 I propose setting out soon from this place, so that you are 
 to expect no more letters from this side of the water ; besides, 
 I am hurried to death, and my head swims with that vast 
 variety of objects which I am obliged to view with such ra- 
 pidity, the shortness of my time not allowing me to examine 
 them at my leisure. There is here an excessive prodigality 
 of ornaments and decorations, that is just the opposite extreme 
 to what appears in our royal gardens ; this prodigality is owing 
 to the levity and inconstancy of the French taste, which 
 always pants after something new, and thus heaps ornament 
 upon ornament without end or measure. It is time, however, 
 that I should put an end to my letter ; so I wish you good 
 night. And am, &c. 
 
 TO THE ABBOT [ABBE" CONTl]. 
 
 Dover, Oct. 81, O.S. [1718]. 
 
 I AM willing to take your word for it, that I shall really 
 oblige you, by letting you know, as soon as possible, my safe 
 passage over the water. I arrived this morning at Dover, 
 after being tossed a whole night in the packet-boat, in so 
 violent a manner, that the master, considering the weakness of 
 his vessel, thought it prudent to remove the mail, and gave us 
 notice of the danger. We called a little fisher boat, which 
 could hardly make up to us ; while all the people on board us 
 were crying to Heaven ; and 'tis hard to imagine one's self in 
 a scene of greater horror than on such an occasion ; and yet,
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 401 
 
 shall I own it to you ? though I was not at all willing to be 
 drowned, I could not forbear being entertained at the double 
 distress of a fellow-passenger. She was an English lady that 
 I had met at Calais, who desired me to let her go over with 
 me in my cabin. She had bought a fine point-head, which 
 she was contriving to conceal from the custom-house officers. 
 When the wind grew high, and our little vessel cracked, she 
 fell very heartily to her prayers, and thought wholly of her 
 soul. When it seemed to abate, she returned to the worldly 
 care of her head-dress, and addressed herself to me : " Dear 
 madam, will you take care of this point? if it should be 
 
 lost ! All, Lord, we shall all be lost ! Lord have mercy 
 
 on my soul ! Pray, madam, take care of this head-dress." 
 
 This easy transition from her soul to her head-dress, and the 
 alternate agonies that both gave her, made it hard to deter- 
 mine which she thought of greatest value. But, however, the 
 scene was not so diverting but I was glad to get rid of it, and 
 be thrown into the little boat, though with some hazard of break- 
 ing my neck. It brought me safe hither ; and I cannot help 
 looking with partial eyes on my native land. That partiality 
 was certainly given us by nature, to prevent rambling, the 
 effect of an ambitious thirst after knowledge, which we are 
 not formed to enjoy. All we get by it is a fruitless desire of 
 mixing the different pleasures and conveniences which are 
 given to different parts of the world, and cannot meet in any 
 one of them. After having read all that is to be found in the 
 languages I am mistress of, and having decayed my sight by 
 midnight studies, I envy the easy peace of mind of a ruddy 
 milkmaid, who, undisturbed by doubt, hears the sermon with 
 humility every Sunday, having not confused the sentiments of 
 natural duty in her head by the vain enquiries of the schools, 
 who may be more learned, yet, after all, must remain as 
 ignorant. And, after having seen part of Asia and Africa, 
 and almost made the tour of Europe, I think the honest 
 English squire more happy, who verily believes the Greek 
 wines less delicious than March beer ; that the African fruits 
 have not so fine a flavour as golden-pippins ; and the beca- 
 VOL. i. 2 D
 
 402 LETTERS DURING THE 
 
 figuas of Italy are not so well tasted as a rump of beef ; and 
 that, in short, there is no perfect enjoyment of this life out of 
 Old England. I pray God I may think so for the rest of my 
 life ; and, since I must be contented with our scanty allowance 
 of daylight, that I may forget the enlivening sun of Constan- 
 tinople. I am, &c. &c. 
 
 TO MR. P. [POPE.] 
 
 Dover, Nov. 1 [1718]. 
 
 I HAVE this minute received a letter of yours, 1 sent me from 
 Paris. I believe and hope I shall very soon see both you and 
 Mr. Congreve ; but as I am here in an inn, where we stay to 
 regulate our march to London, bag and baggage, I shall 
 employ some of my leisure time in answering that part of yours 
 that seems to require an answer. 
 
 I must applaud your good nature, in supposing that your 
 pastoral lovers (vulgarly called haymakers) would have lived 
 in everlasting joy and harmony, if the lightning had not inter- 
 rupted their scheme of happiness. I see no reason to imagine 
 that John Hughes 2 and Sarah Drew were either wiser or 
 more virtuous than their neighbours. That a well-set man of 
 twenty-five should have a fancy to marry a brown woman of 
 eighteen, is nothing marvellous ; and I cannot help thinking, 
 that, had they married, their lives would have passed in the 
 common track with their fellow parishioners. His endeavour- 
 ing to shield her from the storm, was a natural action, and 
 what he would have certainly done for his horse, if he had 
 been in the same situation. Neither am I of opinion, that 
 their sudden death was a reward of their mutual virtue. You 
 know the Jews were reproved for thinking a village destroyed 
 by fire more wicked than those that had escaped the thunder. 
 Time and chance happen to all men. Since you desire me to 
 try my skill in an epitaph, I think the following lines perhaps 
 more just, though not so poetical as yours : 
 
 1 See letter from Pope, dated Sept. 1 [1718], post, p. 436 T. 
 
 2 Lady Mary had originally written " Hewet," which was the true name, as ap- 
 pears from the inscription on the monument ; but a name of two syllables was evi- 
 dently unsuited to the first line of her verses. T.
 
 EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 403 
 
 Here lie John Hughes and Sarah Drew ; 
 Perhaps you'll say, what's that to you ? 
 Believe me, friend, much may be said 
 On this poor couple that are dead. 
 On Sunday next they should have married ; 
 But see how oddly things are carried ! 
 On Thursday last it rain'd and lighten'd ; 
 These tender lovers, sadly frighten'd, 
 Shelter'd beneath the cocking hay, 
 In hopes to pass the storm away ; 
 But the bold thunder found them out 
 (Commission'd for that end, no doubt), 
 And, seizing on their trembling breath, 
 Consign'd them to the shades of death. 
 Who knows if 'twas not kindly done ? 
 For had they seen the next year's sun, 
 A beaten wife and cuckold swain 
 Had jointly curs'd the marriage chain ; 
 Now they are happy in their doom, 
 For P. has wrote upon their tomb. 
 
 I confess these sentiments are not altogether so heroic as 
 yours ; but I hope you will forgive them in favour of the two 
 last lines. You see how much I esteem the honour you have 
 done them ; though I am not very impatient to have the same, 
 and had rather continue to be your stupid living humble ser- 
 vant, than be celebrated by all the pens in Europe. 
 
 I would write to Mr. C. [Congreve], but suppose you will 
 read this to him, if he enquires after me.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 1 
 
 [17161721.] 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 Tuesday morning [July, 1716], 
 
 MADAM, So natural as I find it is to me, to neglect every- 
 body else in your company, I am sensible I ought to do any 
 thing that might please you, and I fancied, upon recollection, 
 our writing the letter you proposed was of that nature. I 
 therefore sate down to my part of it last night, when I should 
 have gone out of town. Whether or no you will order me, in 
 recompense, to see you again, I leave to you ; for indeed I find 
 I begin to behave myself worse to you than to any other 
 woman, as I value you more ; and yet if I thought I should 
 not see you again, I would say some things here which I could 
 not to your person. For I would not have you die deceived 
 in me, that is, go to Constantinople without knowing that I 
 am, to some degree of extravagance, as well as with the utmost 
 reason, Madam, 
 
 Your most faithful and most obedient humble servant. 2 
 
 1 All the letters of Pope to Lady Mary are now published from the originals, ex- 
 cept where otherwise stated in notes. See another note attributed by Mr. Dal- 
 laway to Pope among " Miscellaneous Correspondence." T. 
 
 2 In the so-called "spurious" editions of Pope's Letters (1735) is one "To a 
 Lady, written on one column of a letter while Lady M. writ to the lady's husband 
 on the other." Mr. Roscoe surmised, no doubt correctly, that this was Pope's por- 
 tion of the joint letter above referred to, and that it was addressed to Lady Mary's 
 friend, Lady Rich, the wife of " Sir Robert." It is as follows : " The wits 
 would say, that this must needs be a dull letter, because it is a marry'd one. I 
 am afraid, indeed, you will find what spirit there is must be on the side of the wife, 
 and the husband's part as usual will prove the dullest. What an unequal pair are
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 405 
 
 FROM POPE. 1 
 
 Aug. 18 [1716]. 
 
 MADAM, I can say little to recommend the letters I am 
 beginning to write to you, but that they will be the most im- 
 partial representations of a free heart, and the truest copies 
 you ever saw, though of a very mean original. Not a feature 
 will be softened, or any advantageous light employed to make 
 the ugly thing a little less hideous, but you shall find it in all 
 respects most horribly like. You will do me an injustice if 
 you look upon any thing I shall say from this instant, as a 
 compliment either to you or to myself : whatever I write will 
 be the real thought of that hour, and I know you will no more 
 expect it of me to persevere till death in every sentiment or 
 notion I now set down, than you would imagine a man's face 
 should never change after his picture was once drawn. 
 
 The freedom I shall use in this manner of thinking aloud 
 (as somebody calls it), or talking upon paper, may indeed 
 
 put together in this sheet ! in which though we sin, it is you must do penance. 
 When you look on both sides of this paper, you may fancy that our words (accord- 
 ing to a Scripture expression) are as a two-edged sword, whereof Lady M. is the 
 shining blade, and I only the handle. But I can't proceed without so far mortify- 
 ing Sir Robert as to tell him, that she writes this purely in obedience to me, and 
 that it is but one of those honours a husband receives for the sake of his wife. 
 
 " It is making court but ill to one fine woman to shew her the regard we have 
 for another : and yet I must own there is not a period of this epistle but squints 
 towards another over against it It will be in vain to dissemble : your penetrating 
 eyes cannot but discover, how all the letters that compose these words lean for- 
 ward after Lady M.'s letters, which seem to bend as much from mine, and fly from 
 them as fast as they are able. Ungrateful letters that they are ! which give them- 
 selves to another man, in the very presence of him who will yield to no mortal, in 
 knowing how to value them. 
 
 " You will think I forget myself, and am not writing to you ; but let me tell 
 you 'tis you forget yourself in that thought, for you are almost the only woman to 
 whom one can safely address the praises of another. Besides, can you imagine a 
 man of my importance so stupid, as to say fine things to you before your hus- 
 band ? Let us see how far Lady M. herself dares do anything like it. with all the 
 wit and address she is mistress of. If Sir Robert can be so ignorant (now he is 
 left to himself in the country) to imagine any such matter, let him know from me 
 that here in town every thing that lady says, is taken for satire. For my part, 
 everybody knows it is my constant practice to speak truth, and I never do it more 
 than when I call myself, your, &c." T. 
 
 1 This letter was first published among others in 1735, but afterwards [1737] 
 in Pope's own edition of his letters in the " Table of Contents," to which it is said 
 to be " To a Lady Abroad." In this, as in the case of later letters. Pope's pub- 
 lished versions have variations and omissions, the most important of which will be 
 found mentioned in notes, post. They are thought worth preserving, as indicating 
 in some cases Pope's feeling towards Lady Mary in 1735-37, a period at which 
 they had long been at open variance. T.
 
 406 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 prove me a fool, but it will prove me one of the best sort of 
 fools, the honest ones. And since what folly we have will in- 
 fallibly buoy up at one time or other in spite of all our art to 
 keep it down, it is almost foolish to take any pains to conceal 
 it at all, and almost knavish to do it from those that are our 
 friends. If Momus his project had taken, of having windows 
 in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further and making 
 those windows casements : that while a man showed his heart 
 to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, 
 e'en take it out and trust it to their handling. I think I love 
 you as well as King Herod could Herodias (though I never 
 had so much as one dance with you), and would as freely give 
 you my heart in a dish as he did another's head. But since 
 Jupiter will not have it so, I must be content to show my taste 
 in life as I do my taste in painting, by loving to have as little 
 drapery as possible. Not that I think every body naked alto- 
 gether so fine a sight as yourself and a few more would be ; 
 but because it is good to use people to what they must be ac- 
 quainted with ; and there will certainly come some day of 
 judgment to uncover every soul of us. We shall then see 
 how the prudes of this world owed all their fine figure only to 
 their being a little straighter laced, and that they were natu- 
 rally as arrant squabs as those that went more loose, nay, as 
 those that never girded their loins at all. 
 
 But a particular reason to engage you to write your thoughts 
 ' the more freely to me, is, that I am confident no one knows 
 you better. For I find, when others express their opinion of 
 you, it falls very short of mine, and I am sure, at the same 
 time, theirs is such as you would think sufficiently in your 
 favour. 
 
 You may easily imagine how desirous I must be of a cor- 
 respondence with a person who had taught me long ago, that 
 it was as possible to esteem at first sight as to love ; and who 
 has since ruined me for all the conversation of one sex, and 
 almost all the friendship of the other. I am but too sensible, 
 through your means, that the company of men wants a certain
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 407 
 
 softness to recommend it, and that of women wants everything 
 else. How often have I been quietly going to take possession 
 of that tranquillity and indolence I had so long found in the 
 country, when one evening of your conversation has spoiled 
 me for a solitaire too! 1 Books have lost their effect upon 
 me ; and I was convinced, since I saw you, that there is some- 
 thing more powerful than philosophy, and, since I heard you, 
 that there is one alive wiser than all the sages. A plague of 
 female wisdom ! It makes a man ten times more uneasy than 
 his own ! What is very strange, Virtue herself, when you 
 have the dressing her, is too amiable for one's repose. What a 
 world of good might you have done in your time, if you had 
 allowed half the fine gentlemen who have seen you, to have 
 but conversed with you ! They would have been strangely 
 caught, 2 while they thought only to fall in love with a fail- 
 face, and you had bewitched them with reason and virtue; 
 two beauties, that the very fops pretend to no acquaintance 
 with. 
 
 The unhappy distance at which we correspond, removes a 
 great many of those punctilious restrictions and decorums that 
 oftentimes in nearer conversation prejudice truth to save good 
 breeding. I may now hear of my faults, and you of your 
 good qualities, without a blush on either side. We converse 
 upon such unfortunate generous terms, as exclude the regards 
 of fear, shame, or design in either of us. And inethinks it 
 would be as ungenerous a part to impose even in a single 
 thought upon each other, in this state of separation, as for 
 
 1 So, seven years later, Pope wrote to Judith Cowper, afterwards Mrs. Madan, 
 and aunt of the poet Cowper : " You have spoiled him [Pope himself] for a solitaire 
 and a book all the days of his life ; and put him into such a condition that he 
 thinks of nothing and enquires of nothing, but after a person who has nothing to 
 say to him, and has left him for ever," &c. T. 
 
 2 In this passage, on its first publication, the word " bit" was substituted for 
 " caught," probably a sly allusion to his couplet 
 
 " Tet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, 
 
 Sapho can tell you how this man was bit ;" 
 or, as originally written, 
 
 " Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit, 
 And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit." T.
 
 408 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 spirits of a different sphere, who have so little intercourse with 
 us, to employ that little (as some would make us think they 
 do) in putting tricks and delusions upon poor mortals. 
 
 Let me begin, then, madam, by asking you a question, which 
 may enable me to judge better of my own conduct than most 
 instances of my life. In what manner did I behave the last 
 hour I saw you? What degree of concern did I discover 
 when I felt a misfortune, which I hope you never will feel, 
 that of parting from what one most esteems ? For if my 
 parting looked but like that of your common acquaintance, I 
 am the greatest of all the hypocrites that ever decency made. 
 
 I never since pass by the house but with the same sort of 
 melancholy that we feel upon seeing the tomb of a friend, 
 which only serves to put us in mind of what we have lost. I 
 reflect upon the circumstances of your departure, your be- 
 haviour in what I may call your last moments, and I indulge 
 a gloomy kind of satisfaction in thinking you gave some of 
 those last moments to me. I would fain imagine this was not 
 accidental, but proceeded from a penetration which I know 
 you have in finding out the truth of people's sentiments, and 
 that you were not unwilling the last man 1 that would have 
 parted with you should be the last that did. I really looked 
 upon you then, as the friends of Curtius might have done 
 upon that hero in the instant he was devoting himself to glory, 
 and running to be lost, out of generosity. I was obliged to 
 admire your resolution in as great a degree as I deplored it ; 
 and could only wish that Heaven would reward so much merit 
 as was to be taken from us, with all the felicity it could enjoy 
 elsewhere. 2 May that person for whom you have left all the 
 world, be so just as to prefer you to all the world. I believe 
 his good understanding has engaged him to do so hitherto, and 
 I think his gratitude must for the future. May you con- 
 tinue to think him worthy of whatever you have done ; may 
 
 1 " I reflect upon the circumstances of your departure, which I was there a wit- 
 ness of (your behaviour in what I may call your last moments), and I indulge a 
 gloomy kind of pleasure in thinking that those last moments were given to me. I 
 would fain imagine that this was not accidental," &c., " and that you are willing 
 the last man," &c. Pope's published version. T. 
 
 z All the remainder of the letter was omitted in Pope s published version. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 409 
 
 you ever look upon him with the eyes of a first lover, nay, if 
 possible, with all the unreasonable happy fondness of an unex- 
 perienced one, surrounded with all the enchantments and 
 ideas of romance and poetry. In a word, may you receive 
 from him as many pleasures and gratifications as even I think 
 you can give. I wish this from my heart, and while I examine 
 what passes there in regard to you, I cannot but glory in my 
 own heart that it is capable of so much generosity. I am, 
 with all unalterable esteem and sincerity, 
 
 Madam, 
 Your most faithful obedient humble servant. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 [August 20, 1716.] 
 
 MADAM, You will find me more troublesome than ever 
 Brutus did his evil genius. I shall meet you in more places 
 than one, and often refresh your memory of me before you 
 arrive at your Philippi. These shadows of me, my letters, 
 will lie haunting you from time to time, and putting you in 
 mind of the man who has really suffered by you, and whom 
 you have robbed of the most valuable of his enjoyments, your 
 conversation. The advantage of learning your sentiments by 
 discovering mine was what I always thought a great one, and 
 even worth the risk I run of manifesting my own indiscretion. 
 You then rewarded my trust in you the moment it was given, 
 and was sure to please or inform me the minute you answered. 
 I must now be contented with more slow returns ; however, 
 'tis some pleasure that your thoughts upon paper will be more 
 durable, and that I shall no longer have cause to complain of 
 a loss I have so often regretted, that of any thing you said 
 which I happened to forget. In earnest, madam, if I were to 
 write to you as often as I think of you, it must be eveiy day 
 of my life. I attend you in spirit through all your ways, I 
 follow in books of travels through every stage, I wish for 
 you and fear for you through whole folios. You make me 
 shrink at the past dangers of dead travellers, and when I read 
 of a delightful place cr agreeable prospect, I hope it yet sub-
 
 410 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 sists to give you pleasure. 1 enquire the roads, the amuse- 
 ments, the company of every town and country you pass 
 through, with as much diligence as if I were to set out next 
 week to overtake you. In a word, no one can have you more 
 constantly in mind, not even your guardian angel (if you 
 have one), and I am willing to indulge so much popery as to 
 imagine some being takes care of you, who knows your value 
 better than you do yourself. I am willing to think Heaven 
 never gave so much self -neglect and resolution to a woman to 
 occasion her calamity; but have the piety to believe those quali- 
 ties must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory. 
 Your first short letter only serves to show me you are living. 
 It puts me in mind of the first dove that returned to Noah, 
 and just made him know it had found no rest abroad. There 
 is nothing in it that can please me, but when you say you had 
 no sea-sickness. I beg your next may give me all the pleasure 
 it can ; that is, tell me any that you receive ; nothing that 
 regards the countries you pass through engages so much of 
 my curiosity or concern as what relates purely to yourself. 
 You can make no discoveries that will be half so valuable to 
 me as those of your own mind, temper, and thoughts ; and 
 your welfare, to say truth, is more at my heart than that of 
 Christendom. I am sure I may defend the truth, though per- 
 haps not the virtue, of this declaration. One is ignorant, or 
 at best doubtful, of the merits of differing religions and 
 governments ; but private virtue one can be sure of. I can 
 therefore judge what particular person deserves to be happier 
 than others, but not what nation deserves to conquer another. 
 You'll say I am not public spirited. Let it be so ; I may have 
 too many tendernesses, particular regards, or narrow views ; 
 but, at the same time, I am certain the man who wants these 
 can never be public spirited ; for how is it possible for him to 
 love a hundred thousand men who never loved one ? 
 
 I communicated your letter to Mr. Congreve : he thinks of 
 you, and talks of you as he ought ; I mean as I do (for one 
 always thinks that to be as it ought). His health and my 
 own are now so good, that we wish with all our souls you were
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 411 
 
 a witness of it. We never meet but we lament over you ; we 
 pay a sort of weekly rite to your memory, where we strow 
 flowers of rhetoric, and offer such libations to your name as it 
 were a profaneness to call toasting. I must tell you, too, that 
 the Duke of Buckingham 1 has been more than once your high 
 priest, in performing the office of your praises ; and, upon the 
 whole, I believe there are as few men who do not deplore 
 your departure, as women that sincerely do. For you, who 
 know how many of your sex want good sense, know also they 
 must want generosity. And I know how much of that virtue 
 is requisite to make the very best not to enjoy you, but you 
 have enough of both to pardon whatever you despise. For 
 my part, I hate a great many women for your sake, and under- 
 value all the rest. 'Tis you are to blame, and may God 
 revenge it upon you with all those blessings and earthly pros- 
 perities which the divines tell us are the cause of our perdi- 
 tion ; for if he makes you happy in this life, I dare trust your 
 own virtue to do it in the other. I am, with the most un- 
 feigned truth, madam, 
 
 Your most faithful and most obliged humble servant. 
 P.S. This letter is written on the 20th of August, though 
 it will scarce reach you in a month, at my Lord James Hay's 
 arrival at Leghorn. 2 I shall then be in a particular manner 
 solicitous for you, on your going again by sea ; and therefore 
 beg the earliest notice of your safe landing on the other side. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 MADAM, 8 I no more think I can have too many of your 
 letters, than that I could have too many writings to entitle 
 me to the greatest estate in the world ; which I think so 
 valuable a friendship as yours is equal to. I am angry at 
 every scrap of paper lost, as at something that interrupts the 
 
 1 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, the poet and friend of Pope. T. 
 
 2 Mr. Wortley Montagu originally intended to proceed to Constantinople by 
 sea from Leghorn. T. 
 
 * Pope, in his edition of his Correspondence [1 737], omitted most of the opening 
 lines, his version beginning thus : " I can never have too many of your letters. I 
 am angry at every scrap," &c. T.
 
 412 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 history of my title ; and though it is but an odd compliment 
 to compare a fine lady to Sibyl, your leaves, methinks, like 
 hers, are too good to be committed to the winds ; though I 
 have no other way of receiving them but by those unfaithful 
 messengers. I have had but three, and I reckon in that short 
 one from Dort, 1 which was rather a dying ejaculation than a 
 letter. 2 But I have so great an opinion of your goodness, 
 that had I received none, I should not have accused you of 
 neglect or insensibility. I am not so wrong-headed as to 
 quarrel with my friends the minute they don't write ; I'd 
 as soon quarrel at the sun the minute he did not shine, which 
 he is hindered from by accidental causes, and is in reality all 
 that time performing the same course, and doing the same 
 good offices as ever. 
 
 You have contrived to say in your last, the two most pleasing 
 things to me in nature ; the first is, that whatever be the fate 
 of your letters, you will continue to write in the discharge of 
 your conscience. This is generous to the last degree, and a 
 virtue you ought to enjoy. Be assured in return, my heart 
 shall be as ready to think you have done every good thing, as 
 yours can be to do it ; so that you shall never be able to 
 favour your absent friend, before he has thought himself 
 obliged to you for the very favour you are then conferring. 
 
 4 The other is, the justice you do me in taking what I writ 
 to you in the serious manner it was meant : it is the point 
 upon which I can bear no suspicion, and in which, above all, 
 I desire to be thought serious : 5 it would be the most vexa- 
 
 1 This letter does not appear in the manuscript book prepared by Lady 
 Mary. T. 
 
 2 All the remainder of this paragraph was omitted in Pope's published ver- 
 sion. T. 
 
 3 The remainder of this paragraph is omitted in Pope's published version. T. 
 
 4 The third and sixth paragraphs appear to relate to passages in a letter from 
 Lady Mary, dated Vienna, September 14, O.S. [1716]. The fact that Pope has 
 only heard that she is " going to Hanover," shows that the letter must have been 
 written early in the correspondence ; but no passage similar to that quoted in the 
 second paragraph appears earlier than her letter (concluding lines) dated Belgrade, 
 February 12, 1717. T. 
 
 5 Pope's published version runs thus : " It would be vexatious, indeed, if you 
 should pretend to take that for wit which is no more than the natural overflowing 
 of a heart," &c. T.
 
 LETTERS FKOM POPE. 413 
 
 tious of all tyranny, if you should pretend to take for raillery, 
 what is the mere disguise of a discontented heart, that is un- 
 willing to make you as melancholy as itself; and for wit, 
 what is really only the natural overflowing and warmth of 
 the same heart, as it is improved and awakened by an esteem 
 for you : but, since you tell me you believe me, I fancy my 
 expressions have not at least been entirely unfaithful to those 
 thoughts, to which I am sure they can never be equal. May 
 God increase your faith in all truths that are as great as this ; 
 and depend upon it, to whatever degree your belief may ex- 
 tend, you can never be a bigot. 
 
 If you could see the heart I talk of, you would really think 
 it a foolish good kind of thing, with some qualities as well 
 deserving to be half laughed at, and half esteemed, as any in 
 the world : its grand foible, in regard to you, is the most like 
 reason of any foible in nature. Upon my faith, this heart is 
 not, like a great warehouse, stored only with my own goods, 
 with vast empty spaces to be supph'ed as fast as interest or 
 ambition can fill them up ; but it is every inch of it let out 
 into lodgings for its friends, and shall never want a corner at 
 your service ; where I dare affirm, madam, your idea lies as 
 warm and as close as any idea in Christendom. 1 
 
 2 If I don't take care, I shall write myself all out to you ; 
 and if this correspondence continues on both sides at the free 
 rate I would have it, we shall have very little curiosity to 
 encourage our meeting at the day of judgment. I foresee 
 that the further you go from me, the more freely I shall write ; 
 and if (as I earnestly wish) you would do the same, I can't 
 guess where it will end : let us be like modest people, who, 
 when they are close together, keep all decorums ; but if they 
 step a little aside, or get to the other end of a room, can untie 
 garters or take off shifts without scruple. 
 
 If this distance (as you are so kind as to say) enlarges your 
 
 1 " And shall never want a corner where your idea will always lie as warm and 
 as close as any idea in Christendom." Pope's published version T. 
 
 2 The whole of this paragraph was omitted in Pope's published version. T.
 
 414 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 belief of my friendship, I assure you it has so extended my 
 notion of your value, that I begin to be impious on your 
 account, and to wish that even slaughter, ruin, and desola- 
 tion, 1 might interpose between you and Turkey ; I wish you 
 restored to us at the expense of a whole people : I barely hope 
 you will forgive me for saying this, but I fear God will scarce 
 forgive me for desiring it. 
 
 Make me less wicked then. Is there no other expedient to 
 return you and your infant 2 in peace to the bosom of your 
 country ? I hear you are going to Hanover : can there be no 
 favourable planet at this conjuncture, or do you only come 
 back so far to die twice ? Is Eurydice once more snatched to 
 the shades ? If ever mortal had reason to hate the king, it is 
 I ; for it is my particular misfortune to be almost the only in- 
 nocent man whom he has made to suffer, both by his govern- 
 ment at home, and his negotiations abroad. 3 
 
 FROM POPE. 4 
 
 IF you must go from us, I wish at least you might pass to 
 your banishment by the most pleasant way ; might all your 
 road be roses and myrtles, and a thousand objects rise round 
 you, agreeable enough to make England less desirable to you. 
 I am glad, madam, your native country uses you so well as to 
 justify your regret for it : it is not for me to talk of it with 
 tears in my eyes ; I can never think that place my country, 
 where I cannot call a foot of paternal earth my own. 5 Indeed, 
 
 1 The paragraph concludes in Pope's published version thus : " may interpose 
 between you and the place you design for ; and that you were restored to us at 
 the expense of a whole people." T. 
 
 2 Lady Mary's son Edward Wortley Montagu. T. 
 
 3 Alluding to the circumstance of her husband being sent to Constantinople as 
 a negotiator, and the double taxes he himself paid as a Catholic. Bowles. 
 
 * This probably formed one letter with the preceding, or was forwarded in the 
 same enclosure. T. 
 
 * This passage seems to refer to some expressions in a letter from Lady Mary; 
 but no such expressions appear in the manuscript book of Letters during the Em- 
 bassy. Pope's printed version is as follows : " It is not now my interest to wish 
 England agreeable. It is highly probable it may use me ill enough to drive me 
 from it. Can I think that place my country where I cannot now call a foot of 
 paternal earth my own ? Yet it may seem some alleviation," &c. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 41 5 
 
 it may seem some alleviation, that when the wisest thing I can 
 do is to leave my country, that which was most agreeable in it 
 should be taken from thence beforehand. I could overtake 
 you with pleasure in Italy (if you took that way), and make 
 that tour in your company. Every reasonable entertainment 
 and beautiful view would be doubly engaging when you par- 
 took of it, and doubly instructive when you talked of it. I 
 should at least attend you to the sea-coast, and cast a last look 
 after the sails that transported you, if I liked Italy enough to 
 reside in it. But I believe I should be as uneasy in a country 
 where I saw others persecuted by the rogues of my own re- 
 ligion, as where I was so myself by those of yours. And it is 
 not impossible but I might run into Turkey in search of 
 liberty ; for who would not rather live a free man among a 
 nation of slaves, than a slave among a nation of free men ? 
 
 In good earnest, if I knew your motions toward Italy (on 
 the supposition you go that course), and your exact time, I 
 verily think I should be once more happy in a sight of you 
 next spring. I'll conclude with a wish, God send you with 
 us, or me with you. 1 
 
 By what I have seen of Mons. Rousseau's 2 works, I should 
 envy you his conversation. But I am sure I envy him yours. 
 
 Mr. Addison has not had one Epithalamium that I can 
 hear of, 3 and must e'en be reduced, like a poorer and a better 
 poet, Spenser, to make his own. 
 
 Mr. Congreve is entirely yours, and has writ twice to you ; 
 he is not in town, but well. I am in great health, and sit up 
 all night ; a just reward for a fever I just come out of, that 
 kept me in bed seven days. 
 
 How may I send a large bundle to you ? 
 
 I beg you will put dates to your letters ; they are not long 
 enough. 
 
 1 All the remainder of the letter was omitted in Pope's published version. T 
 * Jean Baptiste Rousseau, the French poet. He was banished from France, and 
 resided some time at Vienna. T. 
 
 3 Addison's marriage to the Countess of Warwick took place August 2, 
 . 1716. T.
 
 LETTEES FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 [October, 1716.] 
 
 MADAM, After having dreamed of you several nights, 
 besides a hundred reveries by day, I find it necessary to 
 relieve myself by writing ; though this is the fourth letter I 
 have sent, two by Mr. Methuen, 1 and one by Lord James 
 Hay, who was to be your convoy from Leghorn. In all I 
 can say, I only make you a present in many words of what 
 can do you no manner of good, but only raises my own 
 opinion of myself, all the good wishes and hearty disposi- 
 tions I am capable of forming or feeling for a deserving 
 object ; but mine are indeed so warm, that I fear they can 
 proceed from nothing but what I can't very decently own to 
 you, much less to any other ; yet what if a man has, he can't 
 help it. 
 
 For God's sake, madam, let not my correspondence be but 
 like a traffic with the grave, from whence there is no return. 
 Unless you write to me, my wishes must be like a poor papist's 
 devotions to separate spirits, who, for all they know or hear 
 from them, either may or may not be sensible of their ad- 
 dresses. None but your guardian angels can have you more 
 constantly in mind than I ; and if they have, it is only because 
 they can see you always. If ever you think of those fine 
 young beaux of heaven, I beg you to reflect, that you have 
 just as much consolation from them as I at present have from 
 you. 
 
 While all people here are exercising their speculations upon 
 the affairs of the Turks, I am only considering them as they 
 may concern a particular person ; and, instead of forming 
 prospects of the general tranquillity of Europe, am hoping for 
 some effect that may contribute to your greater ease : above 
 all, I would fain indulge an imagination, that the nearer view 
 of the unquiet scene you are approaching to may put a post 
 to your farther progress. I can hardly yet relinquish a faint 
 hope I have ever had, that Providence will take some uncom- 
 mon care of one who so generously gives herself up to it ; and 
 
 1 That is, through Mr. Methuen, the secretary of state, who corresponded with 
 Mr. Wortley Montagu on the affairs of the embassy. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 417 
 
 I can't imagine God Almighty so like some of his vicegerents, 
 as absolutely to neglect those who surrender to his mercy. 
 May I thus tell you the truth of my heart ? or must I put on 
 a more unconcerned person, and tell you gaily, that there is 
 some difference between the court of Vienna and the camps 
 hi Hungary ; that scarce a basha living is so inoffensive a 
 creature as Count Volkra ; that the wives of ambassadors are 
 as subject to human accidents, and as tender as their shins ; 
 that it is not more natural for glass to cut, than for Turks and 
 Tartars to plunder (not to mention ravishing, against which I 
 am told beauty is no defence in those parts) ; that you are 
 strangely in the wrong to forsake a nation that but last year 
 toasted Mrs. Walpole, for one that has no taste of beauty 
 after twenty, and where the finest woman in England will be 
 almost superannuated ? Would to God, madam, all this might 
 move either Mr. Wortley or you ; and that I may soon apply 
 to you both what I have read in one of Harlequin's comedies : 
 he sees Constantinople in a raree-show, vows it is the finest 
 thing upon earth, and protests it is prodigiously like. " Ay, 
 sir," says the man of the show, " you have been at Constanti- 
 nople, I perceive." "No, indeed," says Harlequin, " I was never 
 there myself, but I had a brother I loved dearly, who had the 
 greatest mind in the world to have gone thither." 
 
 This is what I really wish from my soul, though it would 
 ruin the best project I ever laid, that of obtaining, through 
 your means, my fair Circassian slave ; she whom my imagi- 
 nation had drawn more amiable than angels, as beautiful as 
 the lady who was to choose her by a resemblance to so divine 
 a face ; she whom my hopes had already transported over so 
 many seas and lands, and whom my eager wishes had already 
 lodged in my arms and heart ; she, I say, upon this condition, 
 may remain under the cedars of Asia, and weave a garland of 
 palms for the brows of a Turkish tyrant, with those hands 
 which I had destined for the soft offices of love, or at worst 
 for transcribing amorous madrigals : let that breast, I say, be 
 now joined to some savage heart, that never beat but with lust 
 or rage ; that breast, inhabited by far more truth, fidelity, and 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E
 
 418 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 innocence, than those that heave with pride and glitter with 
 diamonds; that breast, whose very conscience would have 
 been love, where duty and rapture made but one thought, 
 and honour must have been the same with pleasure. 
 
 I can't go on in this style : I am not able to think of you 
 without the utmost seriousness ; and, if I did not take a par- 
 ticular care to disguise it, my letters would be the most 
 melancholy things in the world. I believe you see my con- 
 cern through all this affectation of gaiety, which is but like a 
 fit of laughing in the deepest spleen or vapours. I am just 
 alarmed with a piece of news, that Mr. Wortley thinks of 
 passing through Hungary, notwithstanding the war there. If 
 ever any man loved his wife, or any mother her child, this offers 
 you the strongest reason imaginable for staying at Vienna, at 
 least this winter. For God's sake, value yourself a little 
 more ; and don't give us cause to imagine that such extrava- 
 gant virtue can exist any where else than in a romance. I 
 tremble for you the more, because (whether you'll believe it 
 or not) I am capable myself of following one I love, not only 
 to Constantinople, but to those parts of India, where, they 
 tell us, the women best like the ugliest fellows, as the most 
 admirable productions of nature, and look upon deformities as 
 the signatures of divine favour. But (so romantic as I am) I 
 should scarce take these rambles, without greater encourage- 
 ment than I fancy any one who has been long married can 
 expect. You see what danger I shall be in, if ever I find a 
 fair one born under the same planet with Astolfo's wife. If, 
 instead of Hungary, you passed through Italy, and I had any 
 hopes that lady's climate might give a turn to your inclina- 
 tions, it is but your sending me the least notice, and I'll 
 certainly meet you in Lombardy, the scene of those celebrated 
 amours between the fair princess and her dwarf. 1 From 
 thence, how far you might draw me, and I might run after 
 you, I no more know than the spouse in the Song of 
 Solomon : this I know, that I could be so very glad of being 
 
 1 This story forms the subject of a tale in verse entitled " Woman," published 
 in 1709, in Jacob Tonson's Miscellany, to which Pope contributed some of his eany 
 poems. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 419 
 
 with you in any pleasure, that I could be content to be with 
 you in any danger. Since I am not to partake either, adieu : 
 but may God, by hearing my prayers and preserving you, 
 make me a better Christian than any modern poet is at pre- 
 sent. I am, madam, 
 
 Most faithfully yours. 
 
 FROM POPE. 1 
 
 Nov. the 10th, O.S. [1716]. 
 
 THE more I examine my own mind, the more romantic I 
 find myself. Methinks it is a noble spirit of contradiction to 
 fate and fortune, not to give up those that are snatched from 
 us, but follow them with warmer zeal, the farther they are 
 removed from the sense of it. Sure flattery never travelled 
 so far as three thousand miles : it is now only for truth, which 
 overtakes all things, to reach you at this distance. 'Tis a 
 generous piece of popery that pursues even those who are to 
 be eternally absent, into another world; let it be right or 
 wrong, the very extravagance is a sort of piety. I cannot be 
 satisfied with strewing flowers over you, and barely honouring 
 you as a thing lost ; but must consider you as a glorious 
 though remote being, and be sending addresses and prayers 
 after you. You have carried away so much of my esteem, 8 
 that what remains of it is daily languishing and dying over 
 my acquaintance here ; and, I believe, in three or four months 
 more, I shall think Aurat-bassar as good a place as Covent- 
 garden. You may imagine this but raillery, but I am really 
 so far gone as to take pleasure in reveries of this kind. Let 
 them say I am romantic, so is every one said to be that either 
 admires a fine thing, or praises one : 'tis no wonder such people 
 are thought mad, for they are as much out of the way of com- 
 mon understanding as if they were mad, because they are in 
 the right. On my conscience, as the world goes, 'tis never 
 
 1 This letter first appeared anonymously in the edition of Pope's Letters, pub- 
 lished in 1737 by Cooper, with whom Pope confessed to have had secret relations ; 
 but the copy so published has several variations and omissions, the principal of 
 which will be found mentioned in the notes, post. T. 
 
 * " Of me, that what remains is," &c. Pope's published version. T. 
 
 2E2
 
 420 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 worth any body's while to do a noble thing for the honour of 
 it ; glory, the only pay of generous actions, is now as ill-paid 
 as other just debts are ; and neither Mrs. Macfarland l [sic] 
 for immolating her lover, nor 2 Lady Mary for sacrificing her- 
 self, must hope to be ever compared with Lucretia or Portia. 
 
 I write this in some anger; for having frequented those 
 people most, since you went, who seemed most in your favour. 
 I heard nothing that concerned you talked of so often, as 
 that you went away in a black full-bottom ; which I did but 
 assert to be a bob, arid was answered, love is blind. I am 
 persuaded your wig had never suffered this criticism, but on 
 the score of your head, and the two fine eyes 3 that are in it. 
 
 For God's sake, madam, when you write to me, talk of 
 yourself, there is nothing I so much desire to hear of ; talk a 
 great deal of yourself, that she who I always thought talked 
 best, may speak upon the best subject. The shrines and relics 
 you tell me of, no way engage my curiosity ; I had ten times 
 rather go on pilgrimage to see your face, than St. John Bap- 
 tist's head : I wish you had not only all those fine statues you 
 talk of, but even the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar 
 set up, provided you were to travel no farther than you could 
 carry it. 
 
 The court of Vienna is really very edifying : the ladies, 
 with respect to then* husbands, seem to understand that text 
 very literally, that commands us to bear one another's bur- 
 thens : but I fancy many a man there is, like Issachar, an ass 
 between two burthens. I shall look upon you no longer as a 
 Christian, when you pass from that charitable court to the 
 land of jealousy, where the unhappy women converse with 
 none but eunuchs, and where the very cucumbers are brought 
 to them cut. I expect to hear an exact account how, and at 
 what places, you leave one article of faith after another, as 
 
 1 Mrs. Macfarlane shot Captain Cayley for an attempt upon her chastity at Edin- 
 burgh, October 2, 1716, as appears by the narrative published in the Weekly 
 Journal of October 13. T. 
 
 2 " Nor you for constancy to your lord," &c. Pope's published version. T. 
 
 3 " The two eyes," &c. Pope's polished version. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 421 
 
 you approach nearer to Turkey. 1 Pray, how far are you gone 
 already ? Amidst the charms of high mass, and the ravishing 
 trills of a Sunday opera, what think you of the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Church of England ? Have you from your 
 heart a reverence for Sternhold and Hopkins ? How do your 
 Christian virtues hold out in so long a voyage ? You have 
 already (without passing the bounds of Christendom) out- 
 travelled the sin of fornication, and are happily arrived at the 
 free region of adultery : in a little time you'll look upon some 
 other sins with more impartiality than the ladies here are 
 capable of. I reckon you'll time it so well as to make your 
 faith serve out just to the last verge of Christendom ; that 
 you may discharge your chaplain (as humanity requires) in a 
 place where he may find some business, and not be out of the 
 way of all trade. 
 
 I doubt not but I shall be told (when I come to follow you 
 through those countries) in how pretty a manner you accom- 
 modated yourself to the customs of the true believers. At 
 this town, they will say, she practised to sit on the sofa ; at 
 that village she learnt to fold the turban ; here she was 
 bathed and anointed; and there she parted with her black 
 full-bottom : at every Christian virtue 2 you lost, and at every 
 Christian habit you quitted, it will be decent for me to fetch a 
 holy sigh ; but still I shall proceed to follow you. How happy 
 will it be for a gay young woman, to live in a country where 
 it is a part of religious worship to be giddy-headed! I shall 
 hear at Belgrade how the good basha received the fair convert 
 with tears of joy ; how he was charmed with her pretty manner 
 of pronouncing the words Allah and Muhammed ; and how 
 earnestly you joined with him in exhorting 3 Mr. Wortley to 
 be circumcised ; but he satisfies you by demonstrating, how 
 in that condition, he could not properly represent his Britan- 
 nic Majesty. Lastly, I shall hear how, the very first night 
 
 1 " As you approach to the land of infidelity." Pope's published version. T. 
 
 * From the words " at every Christian virtue' 1 to the end of the sentence omitted 
 in Pope's published version. T. 
 
 * " Exhorting your friend to embrace the religion." Pope^t published version. T.
 
 422 LETTEKS FROM POPE. 
 
 you lay at Pera, you had a vision of Mahomet's paradise, and 
 happily awaked without a soul ; from which blessed instant, 
 the beautiful body was left at full liberty to perform all the 
 agreeable functions it was made for. 1 But if my fate be 
 such, that this body of mine (which is as ill-matched to my 
 mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the 
 journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it : 
 
 " Hie jacet immiti consumptus morte Tibullus, 
 Messalam, terra, dum, sequiturque mari." 
 
 Here, stopt by hasty death, Alexis lies, 
 
 Who crossed half Europe, led by Wortley's eyes. 2 
 
 I shall at least be sure to meet you in the next world, if there 
 be any truth in our new doctrine of the day of judgment. 
 Since your body is so full of fire, and capable of such solar 
 motions as your letter describes, your soul can never be long 
 going to the fixed stars, where I intend to settle ; or else you 
 may find me in the milky way ; because Fontenelle assures us, 
 the stars are so crowded there, that a man may stand upon 
 one and talk to his friend on another. From thence, with a 
 good telescope, what do you think one should take such a 
 place as this world for? I fancy, for the devil's rookery, 
 where the inhabitants are ready to deafen and destroy one 
 another, with eternal noise and hunger. 
 
 I see I have done in this letter, as I have often done in your 
 conversation, talked myself into a good humour, though I 
 began in an ill one : the mere pleasure of addressing to you 
 
 1 From this point down to the words " eternal noise and hunger" was omitted 
 in Pope's published version. T. 
 
 2 Lady Mary's " eyes" have been so often alluded to, both by flatterers and 
 enemies, that it may be assumed, at least, that they were in some way remarkable. 
 Before she left England, Pope's epistle to the painter Jervas had been published, in 
 which is the line, 
 
 " And other beauties envy Wortley's eyes," 
 
 though Pope, long after their quarrel, altered Wortley to " Worsley." Gay, in 
 " Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece," says : 
 
 " What lady's that to whom he gently bends ? 
 
 Who knows not her? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes ;" 
 So Swift, in the not very complimentary poem of " The Capon's Tale," 
 
 " With eyes so piercing yet so pleasant." 
 
 Horace Walpole, less favourable, speaks of her " wild staring eye ;'' and another 
 authority informs us that her eyes appeared prominent, from her having lost her 
 eyelashes through the small-pox. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 423 
 
 makes me run on, and it is in your own power to shorten this 
 letter by giving over where you please, so I'll make it no longer 
 by apologies. 1 
 
 The rapidity of your journeys is what I have been imitating, 
 though in a less sphere : I have been at York and at Bath in 
 less than a fortnight ; 2 all that time, your letter (for which you 
 have a thousand thanks from me) lay in London ; I had just 
 before sent one by Mr. Stanyan, 3 giving another for lost that 
 went by Lord James Hay to Leghorn, where you was then 
 expected. Mr. Congreve had written some time before, as I 
 acquainted you in that, who, I assure you, no way deserves to 
 be thought forgetful of you. I obey your orders, in sending 
 inclosed two little pieces ; the printed one has made much 
 noise, and done some good at court : I am wrongfully sus- 
 pected to [be] the author of it. They talk of some alterations 
 there, which little affect a man who never asked for any 
 thing but your Pastorals. Lady Rich is brought to bed. I 
 can only add my desire of being always thought yours, and of 
 being told I am thought so by yourself, whenever you would 
 make me as happy as I can be at this distance. 
 
 Madam, your most faithful humble servant. 
 
 Mr. Craggs is very much yours. 
 
 I am just now told you are to go by way of Italy ; I hope to 
 God this is true, and that you will stay this winter, to refresh 
 yourself for new travels, at Vienna. The seas will shew no 
 respect to merit or beauty in the winter season. To give you 
 a convincing proof how romantic I am, if you pass through 
 Italy next spring, and will give me timely notice and direction, 
 it is very possible I may meet you there, and attend you till 
 you take sea again for Constantinople. 
 
 1 All the remainder of the letter was omitted in Pope's published version. T. 
 
 * Pope, in a letter to Teresa Blount, of August 7, 1716, says: " Lord Burlington's 
 and my journey to the north is put off till September ;" and the Weekly Journal, of 
 Saturday, October 27, announces that " on Thursday last," the " Earl of Bur- 
 lington set out for the Bath " If Pope's journeys to York and Bath were with Lord 
 Burlington, the date of this letter must be as late as November. T. 
 
 It appears from the London Gazette of December 4-8, 1716, that Mr. Stanyan 
 arrived in Vienna on the 17th of November, O.S., a few days after Lady Mary and 
 her husband had started thence for Hanover. -T.
 
 424 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 February 3 [1717]. 
 
 MADAM, I wish I could write any thing to divert you, 
 but it is impossible in the unquiet state I am put into by 
 your letter : it has grievously afflicted me, without affectation ; 
 and I think you would hardly have writ it in so strong terms, 
 had you known to what a degree I feel the loss of those I 
 value (it is only decency that hinders me from saying, of her I 
 value). From this instant you are doubly dead to me ; and 
 all the vexation and concern I endured at your parting from 
 England was nothing to what I suffer the moment I hear you 
 have left Vienna. Till now, I had some small hopes in God, 
 and in fortune ; I waited for accidents, and had at least the 
 faint comfort of a wish, when I thought of you ; I am now I 
 can't tell what I won't tell what, for it would grieve you. 
 This letter is a piece of madness that throws me after you in a 
 distracted manner. I don't know which way to write, which 
 way to send it, or if ever it will reach your hands : if it does, 
 what can you infer from it, but what I am half afraid and 
 half willing you should know, how very much I was yours, 
 how unfortunately well I knew you, and with what a miserable 
 constancy I shall ever remember you ? 
 
 If this falls into any other hands, it will say nothing I shall 
 be ashamed to own, when either distance or death (for aught 
 I can tell) shall have removed you for ever from the scandal 
 of so mean an admirer. 
 
 What you say of your illness frightens me with a prospect 
 I can never so much as dream of without horror. Though I 
 am never to see you again, may you live to please other eyes, 
 and improve other minds than mine ; may you appear to dis- 
 tant worlds like a sun that is sunk out of the sight of our 
 hemisphere, to gladden the other. It is no figure of speech 
 when I tell you, that those mountains of snow, and woods laid 
 in ashes, you describe, are what I could wish to traverse with 
 you. I find I flattered myself when I thought Italy had plea- 
 sures that could allure me to have met you there ; I see it was 
 only the view of meeting you that made that country appear
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 425 
 
 charming to me ; and I now envy the deserts and devastations 
 of Hungary more than any parts of the polite world. It is 
 seriously time, that I have not, since your last letter, the least 
 inclination to see Italy, though, before I received it, I longed 
 for your summons thither : but it is foolish to tell you this ; 
 did I say foolish ? it is a thousand times worse, it is in vain ! 
 
 You touch me very sensibly in saying you think so well of 
 my friendship ; in that you do me too much honour. Would 
 to God you would (even at this distance) allow me to correct 
 this period, and change these phrases according to the real 
 truth of my heart. I am foolish again ; and methinks I am 
 imitating in my ravings the dreams of splenetic enthusiasts 
 and solitaires who fall in love with saints and fancy them- 
 selves in the favour of angels and spirits whom they can never 
 see or touch. I hope indeed that you, like one of those better 
 beings, have a benevolence towards me, and I, on my part, 
 really look up to you with zeal and fervour, not without some 
 faint expectation of meeting hereafter, which is something be- 
 twixt piety and madness. 
 
 Madam, I beg you to be so just to my impatience and 
 anxiety for your sake as to give me the first notice possible of 
 your health and progress. This letter takes its chance from 
 Mr. Stanhope's 1 office ; though you direct me to the merchant 
 ships bound for Constantinople, I could not stay so long as till 
 one of those sets out. Whether you receive letters from me or 
 not, you may depend upon my having writ, as the consequence 
 of my thinking so often and so warmly of you. May Provi- 
 dence overshadow you, and that virtue and spirit which 
 exposes you to dangers protect you from them. I am the 
 most earnest of your well-wishers, and, I was going to say, your 
 most faithful servant, but am angry at the weakness of all the 
 terms I can use to express myself yours. 
 
 1 Afterwards Earl Staiihope. He was then Secretary of State. T.
 
 426 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 [June, 1717.] 
 
 MADAM, If to live in the memory of others have any thing 
 desirable in it, 'tis what you possess with regard to me, in the 
 highest sense of the words. There is not a day in which your 
 figure does not appear before me ; your conversations return 
 to my thought, and every scene, place, or occasion, where I 
 have enjoyed them, are as livelily painted, as an imagination 
 equally warm and tender can be capable to represent them. 
 Yet how little accrues to you from all this, when not only my 
 wishes, but the very expressions of them, can hardly ever 
 arrive to be known to you ? I cannot tell whether you have 
 seen half the letters I have writ ; but if you had, I have not 
 said in them half of what I desired to say ; and you can have 
 seen but a faint, slight, timorous eschantillon of what my 
 spirit suggests, and my hand follows slowly and imperfectly, 
 indeed unjustly, because discreetly and reservedly. When 
 you told me there was no way left for our correspondence but 
 by the merchant ships, I watched ever since for any that set 
 out, and this is the first I yet could learn of. I owe the 
 knowledge of it to Mr. Congreve (whose letters, with my 
 Lady Rich's, accompany this). However, I was impatient 
 enough to venture two from Mr. Methuen's office; 1 if they 
 have miscarried, you have lost nothing but such words and 
 wishes as I repeat every day in your memory, and for your 
 welfare. I have had thoughts of causing what I write for the 
 future to be transcribed, and to send copies by more ways 
 than one, that one at least might have a chance to reach you. 
 The letters themselves would be artless and natural enough to 
 prove there could be no vanity in this practice, and to show it 
 proceeded from the belief of their being welcome to you, not 
 as they came from me, but from England. My eyesight has 
 grown so bad, that I have left off all correspondence except 
 with yourself ; in which methinks I am like those people who 
 abandon and abstract themselves from all that are about them 
 (with whom they might have business and intercourse), to 
 
 1 One at least of the letters here referred to appears to be wanting. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 427 
 
 employ their addresses only to invisible and distant beings, 
 whose good offices and favours cannot reach them in a long 
 time, if at all. If I hear from you, I look upon it as little 
 less than a miracle, or extraordinary visitation from another 
 world ; 'tis a sort of dream of an agreeable thing, which sub- 
 sists no more to me; but however it is such a dream as 
 exceeds most of the dull realities of my life. Indeed, what 
 with ill-health and ill-fortune, I am grown so stupidly philoso- 
 phical as to have no thought about me that deserves the name 
 of warm or lively, but that which sometimes awakens me into 
 an imagination that I may yet see you again. Compassionate 
 a poet, and (which is more) a young poet, who has lost all 
 manner of romantic ideas ; except a few that hover about 
 the Bosphorus and Hellespont, not so much for the fine sound 
 of their names, as to raise up images of Leander, who was 
 drowned in crossing the sea to kiss the hand of fair Hero. 
 This were a destiny less to be lamented, than what we are 
 told of the poor Jew, one of your interpreters, who was 
 beheaded at Belgrade as a spy. 1 I confess such a death 
 would have been a great disappointment to me ; and I believe 
 Jacob Tonson 2 will hardly venture to visit you, after this 
 news. 
 
 You tell me, the pleasure of being nearer the sun has a 
 great effect upon your health and spirits. You have turned 
 my affections so far eastward, that I could almost be one of 
 his worshippers : for I think the sun has more reason to be 
 proud of raising your spirits, than of raising all the plants, 
 and ripening all the minerals in the earth. It is my opinion, 
 a reasonable man might gladly travel three or four thousand 
 
 1 Mr. AVortley Montagu, in a letter dated Pera of Constantinople, Aug. 2, 1717, 
 O.S., among the papers of his embassy in the State Paper Office, alludes to this 
 circumstance as follows : " It is said in a Dutch Gazette that a Jew who came 
 with me to Belgrade was there hanged for a spy. The Jew was not only very well 
 with the Basha of Belgrade that knew him, but at Adrianople, where he lived, he 
 went often to the houses of those that were in the greatest employments, and was 
 well received by them." T. 
 
 2 The bookseller. This probably refers to some banter in a letter which is 
 missing on the notion of Tonson's following her for a manuscript. Tonson was 
 secretary to the Kitcat Club, to which Lady Mary was carried by her father in her 
 childhood. See Introductory Anecdotes. T.
 
 428 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 leagues, to see your nature and your wit in their full perfec- 
 tion. What may not we expect from a creature that went 
 out the most perfect of this part of the world, and is every day 
 improving by the sun in the other ! If you do not now write 
 and speak the finest things imaginable, you must be content 
 to be involved in the same imputation with the rest of the 
 East, and be concluded to have abandoned yourself to extreme 
 effeminacy, laziness, and lewdness of life. 
 
 I make not the least question but you could give me great 
 eclaircissements upon many passages in Homer, since you 
 have been enlightened by the same sun that inspired the 
 father of poetry. You are now glowing under the climate 
 that animated him ; you may see his images rising more 
 boldly about you, in the very scenes of his story and action ; 
 you may lay the immortal work on some broken column of a 
 hero's sepulchre ; and read the fall of Troy in the shade of a 
 Trojan ruin. But if, to visit the tomb of so many heroes, 
 you have not the heart to pass over that sea where once a lover 
 perished ; you may at least, at ease, in your own window, con- 
 template the fields of Asia, in such a dim and remote prospect, 
 as you have of Homer in my translation. 
 
 I send you therefore with this, the third volume of the 
 Iliad, and as many other things as fill a wooden box, directed 
 to Mr. Wortley. 1 Among the rest, you have all I am worth, 
 that is, my works : there are few things in them but what you 
 have already seen, except the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, in 
 which you will find one passage, that I cannot tell whether to 
 wish you should understand, or not. 
 
 For the news in London, I'll sum it up in short ; we have 
 masquerades at the theatre in the Haymarket, of Mr. Hei- 
 deker's institution ; they are very frequent, yet the adventures 
 
 1 The third volume of the Iliad, and the " Works" containing the Epistle of 
 Eloisa (quarto, Lintot), were both published on the same date the 3rd of June, 
 1717. " The box of books" which accompanied this letter is evidently that 
 referred to in the next letter as having been forwarded to Constantinople " by a 
 merchant ship that set sail lust June." T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 429 
 
 arc not so numerous but that of my Lady Mohun ' still makes 
 the chief figure. Her marriage to young Mordaunt, and all 
 its circumstances, I suppose you'll have from Lady Rich or 
 Miss Griffith. 2 The political state is under great divisions, 
 the parties of Walpole and Stanhope as violent as Whig and 
 Tory. 3 The K[ing] and P[rince] * continue two names ; there 
 is nothing like a coalition but at the masquerade ; however, 
 the Princess is a dissenter from it, and has a very small party 
 in so unmodish a separation. 
 
 The last I received from your hands was from Peter- 
 waradin : it gave me the joy of thinking you in good health 
 and humour: one or two expressions in it are too generous 
 ever to be forgotten by me. I writ a very melancholy one 
 just before, which was sent to Mr. Stanyan, to be forwarded 
 through Hungary. 8 It would have informed you how meanly 
 I thought of the pleasures of Italy, without the qualification of 
 your company, and that mere statues and pictures are not more 
 cold to me than I to them. I have had but four of your 
 letters ; I have sent several, and wish I knew how many you 
 have received. For God's sake, madam, send to me as often 
 as you can ; in the dependence that there is no man breathing 
 more constantly, or more anxiously mindful of you. Tell me 
 that you are well, tell me that your little son is well, tell me 
 that your veiy dog (if you have one) is well. Defraud me of 
 no one thing that pleases you : for whatever that is, it will 
 please me better than anything else can do. 
 
 I am always yours. 
 
 1 Relict of Lord Mohun, who was killed in the duel with the Duke of Hamilton, 
 in 1712. She married Colonel Charles Mordaunt, a nephew of Pope's friend, Lord 
 Peterborough. Mordaunt was her third husband, and was much younger than 
 his wife. T. 
 
 2 Anne, daughter of Lady Mohun by Colonel Edward Griffith. T. 
 
 * Walpole resigned April 10, 1717. T. 
 
 4 George the First and his son, afterwards George the Second. They were 
 at this time at open rupture, all persons who visited the prince beiiig forbidden by 
 the feicg to come to court. T. 
 
 * This letter appears to be missing. T.
 
 430 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 [October, 1 1717.] 
 
 MADAM, I could quarrel with you quite through this 
 paper, upon a period in yours, which bids me remember you 
 if possibly I can. You would have shewn more knowledge 
 both of yourself and of me, had you bid me forget you if 
 possibly I could. When I do, may this hand (as the Scrip- 
 ture says) forget its cunning, and this heart its folly, I was 
 going to say but I mean, its reason, and the most rational 
 sensation it ever had that of your merit. 
 
 The poetical manner in which you paint some of the scenes 
 about you, makes me despise my native country, and sets me 
 on fire to fall into the dance about your fountain in Belgrade 
 village. I fancy myself, in my romantic thoughts and distant 
 admiration of you, not unlike the man in the Alchemist, that 
 has a passion for the queen of the fairies ; I lie dreaming of 
 you in moonshiny nights, exactly in the posture of Endymion 
 gaping for Cynthia in a picture ; and with just such a sur- 
 prise and rapture should I awake, if, after your long revolu- 
 tions were accomplished, you should at last come rolling back 
 again, smiling with all that gentleness and serenity peculiar to 
 the moon and you, and gilding the same mountains from 
 which you first set out on your solemn melancholy journey. 
 I am told that fortune (more just to us than your virtue) will 
 restore the most precious thing it ever robbed us of. Some 
 think it will be the only equivalent the world affords for 
 Pitt's diamond, 2 so lately sent out of our country ; which, 
 after you was gone, was accounted the most valuable thing 
 here. Adieu to that toy ! let the costly bauble be hung about 
 the neck of the baby king it belongs to, so England does but 
 recover that jewel which was the wish of all her sensible 
 hearts, and the joy of all her discerning eyes. I can keep no 
 measures in speaking of this subject. I see you already 
 coming ; I feel you as you draw nearer ; my heart leaps at 
 
 1 Pope, in his next letter, evidently refers to this letter as written " within a 
 few days" of the death of his father, which took place on the 23rd of October, 
 1717. T. 
 
 2 Governor Pitt's celebrated diamond was purchased for the young King of 
 France, as announced in the Daily Courant, June 5, 1717. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 431 
 
 your arrival. Let us have you from the East, and the sun is 
 at her service. 
 
 I write as if I were drunk ; the pleasure I take in thinking 
 of your return transports me beyond the bounds of common 
 sense and decency. Yet believe me, madam, if there be any 
 circumstance of chagrin in the occasion of that return, if 
 there be any public or private ill fortune that may give you a 
 displeasure, I must still be ready to feel a part of it, notwith- 
 standing the joy I now express. 
 
 I have been mad enough to make all the enquiry I could 
 at what time you set out, and what route you were to take. 
 If Italy run yet in your thoughts, I hope you'll see it in your 
 return. If I but knew you intended it, I'd meet you there, 
 and travel back with you. I would fain behold the best and 
 brightest thing I know, in the scene of ancient virtue and 
 glory ; I would fain see how you look on the very spot where 
 Curtius sacrificed himself for his country ; and observe what 
 difference there would be in your eyes when you ogled the 
 statue of Julius Cassar and Marcus Aurelius. Allow me but 
 to srieak after you in your train, to fill my pockets with coins, 
 or to lug an old busto behind you, and I shall be proud 
 beyond expression. Let people think, if they will, that I did 
 all this for the pleasure of treading on classic ground; I 
 would whisper other reasons in your ear. The joy of follow- 
 ing your footsteps would as soon carry me to Mecca as to 
 Rome ; and let me tell you as a friend, if you are really dis- 
 posed to embrace the Mahometan religion, I'll fly on pilgrim- 
 age with you thither, with as good a heart and as sound 
 devotion as ever Jeffery Rudel, the Proven9al poet, went 
 after the fine Countess of Tripoly to Jerusalem. 1 If you 
 never heard of this Jeffery, I'll assure you he deserves your 
 acquaintance. He lived in our Richard the First's time; 
 put on a pilgrim's weed, took his voyage, and, when he got 
 ashore, was just upon the point of expiring. The Countess 
 of Tripoly came to the ship, took him by the hand ; he lifted 
 UD his eyes, said that having been blest with a sight of her 
 
 1 This story will be found in Sismondi's " Histoire de la Littdrature du Midi," 
 torn. i. chap. iii. T.
 
 432 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 he was satisfied, and so departed this life. What did the 
 Countess of Tripoly upon this ? She made him a splendid 
 funeral ; built him a tomb of porphyry ; put his epitaph upon 
 it in Arabic verse ; had his sonnets curiously copied out, and 
 illumined with letters of gold ; was taken with melancholy, 
 and turned nun. All this, madam, you may depend upon 
 for a truth, and I send it to you in the very words of my 
 author. 
 
 I don't expect all this should be punctually copied on either 
 side, but methinks something like it is done already. The 
 letters of gold, and the curious illumining of the sonnets, was 
 not a greater token of respect than what I have paid to your 
 Eclogues: 1 they lie inclosed in a monument of red Turkey, 
 written in my fairest hand; 2 the gilded leaves are opened with 
 no less veneration than the pages of the sibyls; like them, 
 locked up and concealed from all profane eyes ; none but my 
 own have beheld these sacred remains of yourself, and I 
 should think it as great a wickedness to divulge them as to 
 scatter abroad the ashes of my ancestors. As for the rest, if 
 I have not followed you to the ends of the earth, 'tis not my 
 fault ; if I had, I might possibly have died as gloriously as 
 Jeffery Rudel ; and if I had so died, you might probably have 
 done every thing for me that the Countess of Tripoly did, ex- 
 cept turning nun. 
 
 But since our romance is like to have a more fortunate 
 conclusion, I desire you to take another course to express your 
 favour towards me ; I mean, by bringing over the fair Cir- 
 cassian we used to talk of. I was serious in that request, and 
 will prove it by paying for her, if you will but lay out my 
 money so well for me. The thing shall be as secret as you 
 please, and the lady made another half of me, that is, both 
 my mistress and my servant, as I am both my own servant 
 and my own master. But I beg you to look oftener than you 
 use to do in your glass, in order to choose me one I may like. 
 
 1 The Town Eclogues. See Poems. T. 
 
 2 This copy, in Pope's early, print hand, and bound in " red Turkey," is 6tul 
 existing among the Wortley manuscripts. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 433 
 
 If you hare any regard to my happiness, let there be some- 
 thing as near as possible to that face ; but, if you please, the 
 colours a little less vivid, the eyes a little less bright (such as 
 reflexion will shew 'em) ; in short, let her be such an one as 
 you seem in your own eyes, that is, a good deal less amiable 
 than you are. Take care of this, if you have any regard to 
 my quiet ; for otherwise, instead of being her master, I must 
 be only her slave. 
 
 I cannot end this letter without asking if you have received 
 a box of books, together with letters, from Mr. Congreve and 
 myself ? It was directed to Mr. Wortley at Constantinople, 
 by a merchant ship that set sail last June. Mr. Congreve, in 
 fits of the gout, remembers you. Dr. Garth makes epigrams 
 in prose when he speaks of you. Sir Robert Rich's lady loves 
 you, though Sir Robert admires you. Mr. Craggs commemo- 
 rates you with honour ; the Duke of Buckingham with praise ; 
 I myself with something more. When people speak most 
 highly of you, I think them sparing; when I try myself to 
 speak of you, I think I am cold and stupid. I think my 
 letters have nothing in 'em, but I am sure my heart has so 
 much, that I am vexed to find no better name for your friend 
 and admirer, than 
 
 Your friend and admirer. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 I WRITE this after a very severe illness, that had like to 
 have cost you a friend : and in writing I rebel against a despotic 
 doctor, whose tyranny the greatest here obey, and from the 
 same servile principles that most men obey tyrants, the fear 
 of death. He says I must think but slightly of any thing : 
 now I am practising if I can think so of you, which if I can I 
 shall be above regarding any thing in nature for the future : I 
 may then look upon the sun as a spangle, and the world as a 
 hazel-nut. But in earnest, you should be pleased at my re- 
 covery, as it is a thing you'll get something by. Heaven has 
 renewed a lease to you of a sincere servant : abundance of 
 
 VOL. I. 2 F
 
 434 LETTEES FROM POPE. 
 
 good wishes and grateful thanks will be added to those you 
 have had from me already ; and Lady Mary will be spoken 
 of with respect and tenderness some years longer. 
 
 This last winter has seen great revolutions in my little 
 affairs. My sickness was preceded by the death of my father, 
 which happened within a few days after I had writ to you, 1 
 inviting myself to meet you in your journey homewards. I 
 have yet a mother of great age and infirmities, whose last pre- 
 carious days of life I am now attending, with such a solemn 
 pious kind of officiousness as a melancholy recluse watches the 
 last risings and fallings of a dying taper. My natural temper 
 is pretty much broke, and I live half a hermit within five 
 miles of London. 2 A letter from you soothes me in my reve- 
 ries; 'tis like a conversation with some spirit of the other 
 world, the least glimpse of whose favour sets one above all 
 taste of the things of this : indeed,' there is little or nothing 
 angelical left behind you ; the women here are women. I 
 can't express how I long to see you face to face ; if ever you 
 come again, I shall never be able to behave with decency, I 
 shall walk, look, and talk at such a rate that all the town must 
 know I have seen something more than human. Come, for 
 God's sake ; come, Lady Mary ; come quickly ! 
 
 I extremely regret the loss of your Oriental learning, for 
 that letter I never had, but am heartily glad you kept a copy. 
 I believe one of mine had the same fate, wherein I begged a 
 Circassian woman of you, the likest yourself that could be 
 purchased. Don't think to put me off with a little likeness of 
 you ; the girl which I hear you have some way or other pro- 
 cured, and are bringing with you, is not fit for me ; whatever 
 you may fancy, Molyneux 3 is married, and I am past a boy. 
 
 I must tell you a story of Molyneux : the other day, at the 
 prince's levee, he took Mr. Edgcombe aside, and asked, with 
 an air of seriousness, What did the Czar of Muscovy, when 
 he disinherited his son, do with his secretary? To which 
 
 1 See note on preceding letter. T. 
 
 2 Pope then resided at " Mawsom's New Buildings, Chiswick." T. 
 
 3 Samuel Molyneux, son of Locke's friend, and secretary to the Prince of Wales. 
 He married Lady Elizabeth Capel, April 5, 1717. T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 435 
 
 Edgcombe answered, He was sewed up in a football, and tost 
 over the water. 
 
 Now I am got among your acquaintance, yon must be con- 
 tent to hear how often I talk of you with Mr. Craggs, Mr. 
 Methuen, Mr. Congreve, D. of Buckingham, Sir E. Rich, 
 Miss Griffin, &c. I am almost angry to go into any body's 
 company where I ever saw you ; I partly enjoy and partly 
 regret it. It is not without vexation that I roam on the 
 Thames in a fine evening, or walk by moonlight in St. James's 
 Park : I can scarce allow that any thing should be calm, or 
 any thing sweet without you. Give me leave at this distance 
 to say, that I am something so much between a philosopher 
 and a lover, that I am continually angry at fortune for letting 
 me enjoy those amusements which I fancy you want ; and I 
 seldom receive any pleasure, but it is got into my head, why 
 has not she a share of it ? This is really true ; and yet you 
 are not so prodigiously obliged to me neither, because I wish 
 almost every body, not only every sensible pleasure, but almost 
 every vanity that can delight them. 
 
 Our gallantry and gaiety have been great sufferers by the 
 rupture of the two courts here: scarce any ball, assembly, 
 basset-table, or any place where two or three are gathered to- 
 gether. No lone house in Wales, with a rookery, is more 
 contemplative than Hampton Court : I walked there the other 
 day by the moon, and met no creature of any quality but the 
 king, who was giving audience all alone to the birds under 
 the garden wall. 1 
 
 How many hundred things have I to say to you, not ten 
 of which, perhaps, I shall remember when we meet. I have 
 seen many fine things, many vile things, and many ridiculous 
 things, all which are an amusement to those who can think : 
 though one naturally emulates the first sort, it is hurt by the 
 
 1 Pope sent the same anecdote to the Miss Blounts, in a letter dated Sep- 
 tember 13, 1717 many months earlier but the variations from the first version are 
 curious. The passage is as follows : " I can easily believe no lone house in Wales, 
 with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this court, and as a proof 
 of it 1 need only tell you Mrs. L. [LepellJ walked with me three or four hours by 
 moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality but the king, who gave audience 
 to the vice-chamberlain all alone under the garden wall." T.
 
 436 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 second, and vext at the third. If one laughs at the world, 
 they'll say he is proud ; if one rails at it, they'll say he is ill- 
 natured ; and yet one or other of these one must do upon the 
 whole. I am melancholy, which (to say truth) is all one gets 
 by pleasures themselves ; but I should not tell you this, if I 
 did not think you of opinion, that melancholy does me as little 
 hurt as any man : and, after all, he must be a beast that can 
 be melancholy with such a fine woman as you to his friend. 
 Adieu. Were I your guardian spirit, your happiness would 
 be my whole care ; as I am a poor mortal, it is one of my 
 most earnest wishes. Yours. 
 
 I beg you write to me soon ; you are now come into the 
 region of posts, and under the care of secretaries, the whole 
 succession of whom are your servants, and give me more than 
 pensions and places when they give me your letters. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 September 1 [1718]. 
 
 MADAM, I have been (what I never was till now) in debt 
 to you for a letter some weeks. I was informed you were at 
 sea, and that 'twas to no purpose to write till some news had 
 been heard of your arriving somewhere or other. Besides, I 
 have had a second dangerous illness, from which I was more 
 diligent to be recovered than from the first, having now some 
 hopes of seeing you again. If you make any tour in Italy, I 
 shall not easily forgive you for not acquainting me soon enough 
 to have met you there. I am very certain I can never be 
 polite unless I travel with you : and it is never to be repaired, 
 the loss that Homer has sustained, for want of my translating 
 him in Asia. You will come hither full of criticisms against 
 a man who wanted nothing to be in the right but to have kept 
 you company ; you have no way of making me amends, but 
 by continuing an Asiatic when you return to me, whatever 
 English airs you. may put on to other people. 
 
 I prodigiously long for your sonnets, your remarks, your 
 Oriental learning ; but I long for nothing so much as your 
 Oriental self. You must of necessity be advanced so far back
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 437 
 
 into true nature and simplicity of manners, by these three 
 years' residence in the East, that I shall look upon you as so 
 many years younger than you was, so much neai-er innocence 
 (that is, truth) and infancy (that is, openness). I expect to see 
 your soul as much thinner dressed as your body ; and that you 
 have left off, as unwieldy and cumbersome, a great many d d 
 European habits. Without offence to your modesty, be it 
 spoken, I have a burning desire to see your soul stark naked, 
 for I am confident 'tis the prettiest kind of white soul in the 
 universe. But I forget whom I am talking to ; you may pos- 
 sibly by this time believe, according to the prophet, that you 
 have none ; if so, show me that which comes next to a soul ; 
 you may easily put it upon a poor ignorant Christian for a 
 soul, and please him as well with it ; I mean your heart ; 
 Mahomet, I think, allows you hearts; which (together with 
 fine eyes and other agreeable equivalents) are worth all the 
 souls on this side the world. But if I must be content with 
 seeing your body only, God send it to come quickly : I honour 
 it more than the diamond-casket that held Homer's Iliads ; for 
 in the very twinkle of one eye of it there is more wit, and in 
 the very dimple of one cheek of it there is more meaning, than 
 in all the souls that ever were casually put into women since 
 men had the making them. 
 
 I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident 
 that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great im- 
 pression upon me. I have past part of this summer at an old 
 romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. 1 It 
 overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, 
 sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in Komance, be- 
 neath a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound 
 as it will) was John Hewet, of the other Sarah Drew. John 
 was a well-set man about five-and-twenty ; Sarah a brown 
 woman of about eighteen. John had for several months 
 borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah : 
 when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to 
 
 ' O O O 
 
 bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not 
 
 1 At Stmton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. W.
 
 438 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood ; for all they aimed 
 at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It 
 was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' con- 
 sent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait 
 to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their 
 work, they were talking of their wedding-clothes ; and John was 
 now matching several kinds of poppies and field flowers to her 
 complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While 
 they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a terrible 
 storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers 
 to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened 
 and out of breath, sunk down on a haycock, and John (who 
 never separated from her) sate by her side, having raked two or 
 three heaps together to secure her* Immediately there was 
 heard so loud a crack as if Heaven had burst asunder. The 
 labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one 
 another : those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, 
 stepped to the place where they lay: they first saw a little 
 smoke, and after, this faithful pair ; John, with one arm 
 about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if 
 to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and 
 already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There 
 was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's 
 eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot appeared between 
 her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, in 
 the parish of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfordshire ; where my 
 Lord Harcourt, at my request, has erected a monument over 
 them. Of the following epitaphs which I made, the critics 
 have chosen the godly one : I like neither, but wish you had 
 been in England to have done this office better ; I think 'twas 
 what you could not have refused me on so moving an oc- 
 casion. 
 
 When Eastern lovers feed the fun'ral fire, 
 On the same pile their faithful fair expire ; 
 Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found, 
 And blasted both, that it might neither wound. 
 Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd, 
 Sent his own lightning, and the victims seiz'd.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 439 
 
 Think not, by rig'rous judgment seiz'd, 
 
 A pair so faithful could expire ; 
 Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd, 
 
 And snatch' d them in celestial tire. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Live well, and fear no sudden fate : 
 
 When God calls virtue to the grave, 
 Alike 'tis justice, soon or late, 
 
 Mercy alike to kill or save. 
 Virtue nnmov'd can hear the call, 
 And face the flash that melts the ball. 
 
 Upon the whole, I can't think these people unhappy. The 
 greatest happiness next to living as they would have done, was 
 to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low 
 degree could have was to be remembered on a little monument ; 
 unless you will give them another, that of being honoured 
 with a tear from the finest eyes in the world. I know you 
 have tenderness ; you must have it; it is the very emanation 
 of good sense and virtue ; the finest minds, like the finest 
 metals, dissolve the easiest. 1 
 
 But when you are reflecting upon objects of pity, pray do 
 not forget one who had no sooner found out an object of the 
 lughest esteem, than he was separated from it ; and who is so 
 very unhappy as not to be susceptible of consolation from 
 others, by being so miserably in the right as to think other 
 women what they really are. Such an one can't but be despe- 
 rately fond of any creature that is quite different from these. 
 If the Circassian be utterly void of such honour as these have, 
 and such virtue as these boast of, I am content. I have de- 
 tested the sound of honest woman, and loving spouse, ever 
 since I heard the pretty name of Odaliche. Dear madam, 1 
 am for ever yours, and your slave's slave and servant. 
 
 My most humble services to Mr. Wortley. Pray let me 
 hear from you soon, though I shall very soon write again. 1 
 am confident half our letters have been lost. 
 
 1 See Lady Mary's letter purporting to have been an answer to this, dated 
 Dover, November 1 [1718]. Pope and Gay, or both, appear to have written this 
 account for the amusement of their friends, and to have sent it to Lord Burlington, 
 Martha Blount, Mr. Fortescue, and perhaps to others. It is said to have sug- 
 gested Thomson's episode of Celadon and Amelia in the " Seasons." T.
 
 440 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 DEAR MADAM, 'Tis not possible to express the least part 
 of the joy your return gives me ; time only and experience 
 will convince you how very sincere it is. I excessively long 
 to meet you, to say so much, so very much to you, that I 
 believe I shall say nothing. I have given orders to be sent 
 for the first minute of your arrival (which I beg you will let 
 them know at Mr. Jervas's). I am fourscore miles from 
 London, a short journey compared to that I so often thought 
 at least of undertaking, rather than die without seeing you 
 again. Though the place I am in is such as I would not quit 
 for the town, if I did not value you more than any, nay every 
 body else there ; and you'll be convinced how little the town 
 has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you 
 know what a place this is which I prefer to it ; I shall there- 
 fore describe it to you at large, as the true picture of a genuine 
 ancient country-seat. 
 
 You must expect nothing regular in my description of a 
 house that seems to be built before rules were in fashion : the 
 whole is so disjointed, and the parts so detached from each 
 other, and yet so joining again one can't tell how, that (in a 
 poetical fit) you'd imagine it had been a village in Amphion's 
 time, where twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were 
 all out, and stood still in amazement ever since. A stranger 
 would be grievously disappointed who should ever think to 
 get into this house the right way: one would expect, after 
 entering through the porch, to be let into the hall ; alas ! 
 nothing less, you find yourself in a brewhouse. From the 
 parlour you think to step into the drawing-room ; but upon 
 opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced by a flight of 
 birds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that 
 'tis the pigeon-house. On each side our porch are two chimneys, 
 that wear then' greens on the outside, which would do as well 
 within, for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of 
 the windows. Over the parlour-window hangs a sloping bal- 
 cony, which time has turned to a very convenient penthouse. 
 The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 441 
 
 of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it as if it 
 were the true steeple. 
 
 The great hall is high and spacious, flanked with long tables, 
 images of ancient hospitality ; ornamented with monstrous 
 horns, about twenty broken pikes, and a matchlock musket 
 or two, which they say were used in the civil wars. Here is 
 one vast arched window, beautifully darkened with divers 
 scutcheons of painted glass. There seems to be great pro- 
 priety in this old manner of blazoning upon glass, ancient 
 families being like ancient windows, in the course of genera- 
 tions seldom free from cracks. One shining pane bears date 
 1286. There the face of Dame Elinor owes more to this 
 single piece, than to all the glasses she ever consulted in her 
 life. Who can say after this that glass is frail, when it is not 
 half so perishable as human beauty or glory ? For in another 
 pane you see the memory of a knight preserved, whose marble 
 nose is mouldered from his monument in the church adjoin- 
 ing. And yet, must not one sigh to reflect, that the most 
 authentic record of so ancient a family should lie at the mercy 
 of every boy that throws a stone ? In this hall, in former days, 
 have dined gartered knights and courtly dames, with ushers, 
 sewers, and seneschals ; and yet it was but t'other night that 
 an owl flew in hither, and mistook it for a barn. 
 
 This hall lets you up (and down) over a very high threshold 
 into the parlour. It is furnished with historical tapestry, 
 whose marginal fringes do confess the moisture of the air. 
 The other contents of this room are a broken-bellied virginal, 
 a couple of crippled velvet chairs, with two or three mildewed 
 pictures of mouldy ancestors, who look as dismally as if they 
 came fresh from hell with all their brimstone about 'em. 
 These are carefully set at the further corner ; for the windows 
 being every where broken, make it so convenient a place to 
 dry poppies and mustard-seed in, that the room is appropriated 
 to that use. 
 
 Next this parlour lies (as I said before) the pigeon-house ; 
 by the side of which runs an entry that leads, on one hand 
 and t'other, into a bed-chamber, a buttery, and a small hole 
 called the chaplain's study. Then follow a brewhouse, a little
 
 442 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 green and-gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under which is 
 the dairy. A little further on the right, the servants' hall ; 
 and by the side of it, up six steps, the old lady's closet, which 
 has a lattice into the said hall, that while she said her prayers, 
 she might cast an eye on the men and maids. There are upon 
 this ground-floor in all twenty-four apartments, hard to be 
 distinguished by particular names ; among which I must not 
 forget a chamber, that has in it a large antiquity of timbe^ 
 which seems to have been either a bedstead or a cyder-press. 
 
 Our best room above is very long and low, of the exact pro- 
 portion of a band-box : it has hangings of the finest work in 
 the world, those I mean which Arachne spins out of her own 
 bowels : indeed, the roof is so decayed, that after a favourable 
 shower of rain, we may (with God's blessing) expect a crop of 
 mushrooms between the chinks of the floors. 
 
 All this upper story has for many years had no other inha- 
 bitants than certain rats, whose very age renders them worthy 
 of this venerable mansion, for the very rats of this ancient 
 seat are grey. Since these have not quitted it, we hope at 
 least this house may stand during the small remainder of days 
 these poor animals have to live, who are now too infirm to 
 remove to another : they have still a small subsistence left them 
 in the few remaining books of the library. 
 
 I had never seen half what I have described, but for an old 
 starched grey-headed steward, who is as much an antiquity as 
 any in the place, and looks like an old family picture walked 
 out of its frame. He failed not, as we passed from room to 
 room, to relate several memoirs of the family, but his observa- 
 tions were particularly curious in the cellar : he shewed where 
 stood the triple rows of butts of sack, and where were ranged 
 the bottles of tent for toasts in the morning : he pointed to 
 the stands that supported the iron-hooped hogsheads of strong 
 beer ; then stepping to a corner, he lugged out the tattered 
 fragment of an unframed picture : This (says he, with tears 
 in his eyes) was poor Sir Thomas, once master of all the drink 
 I told you of : he had two sons (poor young masters !) that 
 never arrived to the age of his beer ; they both fell ill in this 
 very cellar, and never went out upon their own legs. He
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 443 
 
 could not pass by a broken bottle, without taking it up to 
 shew us the arms of the family on it. He then led me up the 
 tower, by dark winding stone steps, which landed us into 
 several little rooms, one above another; one of these was 
 nailed up, and my guide whispered to me the occasion of it. 
 It seems the course of this noble blood was interrupted about 
 two centuries ago, by a freak of the Lady Frances, who was 
 here taken with a neighbouring prior ; ever since which, the 
 room has been made up and branded with the name of the 
 adultery-chamber. The ghost of Lady Frances is supposed 
 to walk here ; some prying maids of the family formerly re- 
 ported that they saw a lady in a f ardingale through the key- 
 hole ; but this matter was hushed up, and the servants forbid 
 to talk of it. 1 
 
 I must needs have tired you with this long letter ; but what 
 engaged me in the description was a generous principle to 
 preserve the memory of a thing that must itself soon fall 
 to ruin; nay, perhaps, some part of it before this reaches 
 your hands : indeed, I owe this old house the same sort of 
 gratitude that we do to an old friend, that harbours us in his 
 declining condition, nay even in his last extremities. I have 
 found this an excellent place for retirement and study, where 
 no one who passes by can dream there is an inhabitant, and 
 even any body that would visit me dares not venture under 
 my roof. You will not wonder I have translated a great deal 
 of Homer in this retreat ; any one that sees it will own I 
 could not have chosen a fitter or more likely place to converse 
 with the dead. As soon as I return to the living, it shall be 
 to converse with the best of them. I hope therefore very 
 speedily to tell you in person how sincerely and unalterably 
 
 I am, Madam, 
 Your most faithful, obliged, and obedient servant. 2 
 
 I beg Mr. Wortley to believe me his most humble servant. 
 
 1 Mr. Carruthers remarks that this description of Stanton-Harcourt is almost 
 wholly fanciful. The observation is probably equally applicable to the stories of Sir 
 Thomas and his sons, and " Lady Frances." No Sir Thomas had been the posses- 
 sor of Stanton-Harcourt for several centuries preceding the date of this letter. T. 
 
 9 It is remarkable that this description of an old mansion is the very same 
 with that he sent to the Duke of Buckingham, in answer to one the duke had 
 given him of Buckingham House. WAUTON.
 
 444 LETTEES FROM POPE. 
 
 FROM POPE. 1 
 
 IT is not in my power (dear madam) to say what agitation 
 the two or three words I wrote to you the other morning have 
 given me. Indeed, I truly esteem you, and put my trust 
 in you. I can say no more, and I know you would not 
 have me. 
 
 I have been kept in town by a violent headache, so that if 
 I might see you any time to-day (except two, three, or four 
 o'clock, when I am engaged to dinner) I should be pleased 
 and happy, more indeed than any other company could make 
 me. 
 
 Your most faithful obliged servant. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 INDEED, dear madam, 'tis not possible to tell you, whether 
 you give me every day I see you, more pleasure or more re- 
 spect. And, upon my word, whenever I see you after a day 
 or two's absence, it is in just such a view as that you yesterday 
 had of your own writings. I find you still better than I 
 could imagine, and think I was partial before, to your pre- 
 judice. 
 
 The picture dwells really at my heart, and I have made a 
 perfect passion of preferring your present face to your past. I 
 know and thoroughly esteem yourself of this year : I know no 
 more of Lady Mary Pierrepont, than to admire at what I have 
 heard of her, or be pleased with some fragments of hers as I 
 am with Sappho's. But now I can't say what I would say 
 of you now. Only still give me cause to say you are good to 
 me, and allow me as much of your person as Sir Godfrey 
 can help me to. Upon conferring with him yesterday, I find 
 he thinks it absolutely necessary to draw the face first, which 
 he says can never be set right on the figure, if the drapery and 
 posture be finished before. To give you as little trouble as 
 possible, he proposes to draw your face with crayons, and finish 
 it up at your own house in a morning ; from whence he will 
 1 Indorsed by Mr. Wortley Montagu " Mr. Pope." T.
 
 LETTERS FROM FOPE. 445 
 
 transfer it to the canvas, so that you need not go to sit at his 
 house. This, I must observe, is a manner in which they sel- 
 dom draw any but crowned heads; and I observe it with 
 secret pride and pleasure. 
 
 Be so kind as to tell me, if you care he should do this to- 
 morrow at twelve. Though if I am but assured from you of 
 the thing, let the manner and time be what you best like : let 
 every decorum you please, be observed. I should be very un- 
 worthy of any favour from your hands, if I desired any at the 
 expense of your quiet, or conveniency, in any degree. 
 
 I have just received this pamphlet, which may divert you. 
 I am sincerely 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 Thursday, 9 o'clock. 
 
 MADAM, Sir Godfrey, happening to come from London 
 yesterday (as I did myself), will wait upon you this morning 
 at twelve, to take a sketch of you in your dress, if you will 
 give leave. He is really very good to me. I heartily wish 
 you will be so too. But I submit to you in all things ; nay, in 
 the manner of all things: your own pleasure, and your own 
 time. Upon my word I will take yours, and understand you 
 as you would be understood, with a real respect and resigna- 
 tion when you deny me any thing, and a hearty gratitude when 
 you grant me any thing. Your will be done ! but God send 
 it may be the same with mine ! 
 
 I am most truly yours. 
 
 P.S. I beg a single word in answer, because I am to send to 
 Sir Godfrey accordingly. 
 
 FROM POPE. 1 
 
 Twitnam, 2 March 16 [1720]. 
 
 MADAM, You received, I suppose, the epistle Sir Godfrey 
 dictated to me, which (abating some few flowers) was word 
 
 1 Indorsed by Mr. Wortley Montagu " Mr. Pope." T. 
 
 2 Pope frequently spelt Twickenham in this way. T.
 
 446 LETTERS PROM POPE. 
 
 for word. My own concern, that you should be settled in my 
 neighbourhood, has since put me upon farther enquiries, and I 
 find there is a pretty good house in the town opposite to that 
 which my Lord William Pawlett has taken ; 'tis the same that 
 Lord Coventiy lately had. If Mr. Wortley would come and see 
 it, he'll know all the particulars, which I am riot able to give an 
 exact account of, having sent you this notice the moment I 
 heard of it. Though still, that which I believe you both 
 would like best is the house in the field I spoke to him about, 
 and which I think the prettiest situated thing imaginable. 
 
 Lord Bathurst told me you had given orders that the book 
 of Eclogues should be trusted to my hands to return it to you. 
 I am sensible of the obligation, and had been the faithful am- 
 bassador between you, had I not been forced to leave the town 
 the minute he told me of it. I cannot perform impossibilities, 
 therefore will not pretend to tell you the esteem with which I 
 always have been, and am, 
 
 Dear Madam, 
 Your most faithf id humble servant. 
 
 FEOM POPE. 1 
 
 Twickenham, Aug. 22 [1720]. 
 
 MADAM, I was made acquainted, late last night, that I 
 might depend upon it as a certain gain to buy the South Sea 
 Stock at the present price, which will certainly rise in some 
 weeks, or less. I can be as sure of this as the nature of any 
 such thing will allow, from the first and best hands, and 
 therefore have dispatched the bearer with all speed to you. I 
 am sincerely, 2 
 
 Dear Madam, 
 Your most faithful humble servant. 
 
 1 Indorsed by Mr. Wortley Montagu " Mr. Pope." T. 
 
 2 The disastrous fall in the South Sea Stock had now commenced. It is an 
 illustration of the infatuation of the times that an observer so shrewd as Pope felt 
 sanguine of its recovery. The stock was at its highest point on the 1st of August 
 (950J. with the dividend). It had fallen to 7701. on the 1st of September, and on 
 the 1st of November to 210Z.-T.
 
 LETTERS FROM POPE. 4-17 
 
 FROM POPE. 
 
 Cirencester, Sept. 15, 1721. 
 
 MADAM, I write this purely to confess myself ingenuously 
 what I am, a beast ; first for writing to you without gilt 
 paper; and secondly, for what I said and did about the 
 harpsichord. For which (and many other natural reasons) I 
 am justly turned as a beast to grass and parks. I deserve no 
 better pillow than a mossy bank, for that head which could 
 be guilty of so much thoughtlessness, as to promise what was 
 not in my power, without considering first whether it was or 
 not. But the truth is, I imagined you would take it merely 
 as an excuse, had I told you I had the instrument under such 
 conditions ; and I likewise simply thought I could obtain leave 
 to lend it ; which failing on the trial, I suffer now, I find, in 
 your opinion of my veracity, purely from my over-forward 
 desire to have gratified you. The next thing I can do, is to 
 intreat you, since you have not the harpsichord, that you 
 would have that and the gallery together for your concerts ; 
 which I sincerely wish you could make use of, and which I 
 take to be mine to lend, unless my mother knows of some con- 
 ditions against it, to Mr. Vernon. 1 
 
 I very much envy you your musical company, which you have 
 a sort of obligation to believe, in return to a man, who singly 
 asserts your fine taste that way, in contradiction to the whole 
 world. 
 
 It must be sure from that piece of merit (for I have no 
 other that I know of toward you) that you can think of flat- 
 tering me at a hundred miles' distance, in the most affecting 
 manner, by a mention of my trees and garden. What an 
 honour is it to my great walk, that the finest woman in this 
 world could not stir from it ? That walk extremely well an- 
 swered the intent of its contriver, when it detained her there. 
 But for this accident, how had I despised and totally forgot my 
 own little colifichies, in the daily views of the noble scenes, 
 openings, and avenues, of this immense design at Cirencester ? 
 No words, nor painting, nor poetry (not even your own), can 
 
 1 Pope's house was held under Mr. or Mrs. Vernon. BOWLES.
 
 448 LETTERS FROM POPE. 
 
 give the least image proportionable to it. And my Lord 
 Bathurst bids me tell you, and the young lady with you, 
 that the description would cost me much more time than it 
 would cost you to ccme hither; which, if you have any re- 
 gard, either for my pains or reputation, you will do to save 
 me that trouble, as well as to take to yourself the glory of de- 
 scribing it. 
 
 For lodging, you need be under no manner of concern ; for 
 he invites hither every woman he sees, and every man ; those 
 of a more aerial or musical nature, may lodge upon the trees 
 with the birds ; and those of a more earthly or gross tempera- 
 ture, with the beasts of the field upon the ground. 
 
 We exceedingly rejoice that you are in a state of Nuripan ; 
 and in that situation can no more help wishing ourselves with 
 
 you, than if you were my Lady God [Godolphin 1 ] on a 
 
 couch. Though, indeed, it's to be feared, few men could lie 
 perfectly in that state with you. 
 
 I am very sincerely, Madam, 
 Your Ladyship's most faithful humble servant. 
 
 1 Henrietta, Countess of Godolphin, eldest daughter of the Duke of Marlboro ugh, 
 and afterwards Duchess of Marlborough in her own right. T.
 
 17211727.> 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1721.] 
 
 FROM the tranquil and easy situation in which you left me, 
 dear sister, 2 I am reduced to that of the highest degree of 
 vexation, which I need not set out to you better than by the 
 plain matter of fact, which I heartily wish I had told you long 
 since ; and nothing hindered me but a certain mauvaise honte 
 which you are reasonable enough to forgive, as very natural, 
 though not very excusable where there is nothing to be 
 ashamed of ; since I can only accuse myself of too much good- 
 nature, or at worst too much credulity, though I believe there 
 never was more pains taken to deceive any body. In short, a 
 person whose name is not necessary, 3 because you know it, 
 took all sort of methods, during almost two year [sic], to per- 
 suade me that there never was so extraordinary an attachment 
 (or what you please to call it) as they had for me. This 
 ended in coming over to make me a visit against my will, and, 
 as was pretended, very much against their interest. I cannot 
 
 1 The first six of these letters, and the eighth, tenth, and eleventh, are printed from 
 the originals in Lady Mary's handwriting. Most of them are addressed " A Ma- 
 dame, Mad me la Comtesse de Mar," and appear to have been forwarded by hand. 
 Of the remaining letters I have found no originals, but they are printed from 
 copies among the papers in an old handwriting. T. 
 
 * Lady Mar left for Paris in January, 1721, and was now residing with her hus- 
 irrl in that city. T. 
 
 1 M. Re'mond. See Memoir prefixed to this edition. T. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 O
 
 459 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 
 
 deny I was very silly in giving the least credit to this stuff. 
 But if people are so silly, you'll own 'tis natural for any body 
 that is good-natured to pity and be glad to serve a person they 
 believe unhappy upon their account. It came into my head, 
 out of a high point of generosity (for which I wish myself 
 hanged), to do this creature all the good I possibly could, since 
 'twas impossible to make them happy their own way. I ad- 
 vised him very strenuously to sell out of the subscription, 1 and 
 in compliance to my advice he did so ; and in less than two 
 days saw he had done very prudently. After a piece of ser- 
 vice of this nature, I thought I could more decently press his 
 departure, which his follies made me think necessary for me. 
 He took leave of me with so many tears and grimaces (which 
 I can't imagine how he could counterfeit) as really moved my 
 compassion ; and I had much ado to keep to my first resolution 
 of exacting his absence, which he swore would be his death. 
 I told him that there was no other way in the world I would 
 not be glad to serve him in, but that his extravagances made 
 it utterly impossible for me to keep him company. He said 
 that he would put into my hands the money I had won for 
 him, and desired me to improve it, saying that if he had 
 enough to buy a small estate, and retire from the world, 'twas 
 all the happiness he hoped for in it. I represented to him 
 that if he had so little money as he said, 'twas ridiculous to 
 hazard it all. He replied that 'twas too little to be of any 
 value, and he would either have it double or quit. After 
 many objections on my side and replies on his, I was so weak 
 to be overcome by his entreaties, and flattered myself also that 
 I was doing a very heroic action, in trying to make a man's 
 fortune though I did not care for his addresses. He left me with 
 these imaginations, and my first care was to employ his money 
 to the best advantage. I laid it all out in stock, the general 
 discourse and private intelligence then scattered about being 
 of a great rise. You may remember it was two or three days 
 before the fourth subscription, 2 and you were with me when I 
 
 1 For South Sea Stock. T. 
 
 " August, 1720. See Pope's letter to Lady Mary, dated Aug. 22 [1720]. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 451 
 
 paid away the money to Mr. Binfield. I thought I had 
 managed prodigious well in selling out the said stock the day 
 after the shutting the books (for a small profit), to Cox and 
 Cleeve, goldsmiths of very good reputation. When the 
 opening of the books came, my men went off, leaving the 
 stock upon my hands, which was already sunk from near nine 
 hundred pounds to four hundred pounds. I immediately writ 
 him word of this misfortune, with the sincere sorrow natural 
 to have upon such an occasion, and asked his opinion as to the 
 selling the stock remaining in. He made me no answer to 
 this part of my letter, but a long eloquent oration of miseries 
 of another nature. I attributed this silence to his disinterested 
 neglect of his money ; but, however, resolved to make no more 
 steps in his business without direct orders, after having been 
 so unlucky. This occasioned many letters to no purpose ; but 
 the very post after you left London, I received a letter from 
 him, in which he told me that he had discovered all my tricks; 
 that he was convinced I had all his money remaining un- 
 touched : and he would have it again, or he would print all 
 my letters to him ; which though, God knows, very innocent 
 in the main, yet may admit of ill constructions, besides the 
 monstrousness of being exposed in such a manner. I hear 
 from other people that he is liar enough to publish that I have 
 borrowed the money of him ; though I have a note under his 
 hand, by which he desires me to employ it in the funds, and 
 acquits me of being answerable for the losses that may happen. 
 At the same time, I have attestations and witnesses of the 
 bargains I made, so that nothing can be clearer than my in- 
 tegrity in this business; but that does not hinder me from 
 being in the utmost terror for the consequences (as you may 
 easily guess) of his villany ; the very story of which appears 
 so monstrous to me, I can hardly believe myself while I write 
 it ; though I omit (not to tire you) a thousand aggravating 
 circumstances. I cannot forgive myself the folly of ever 
 regarding one word he said ; and I see now that his lies have 
 made me wrong several of my acquaintances, and you among 
 the rest, for having said (as he told me) horrid things against
 
 452 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 me to him. 'Tis long since that your behaviour has acquitted 
 you in my opinion ; but I thought I ought not to mention, to 
 hurt him with you, what was perhaps more misunderstanding, 
 or mistake, than a designed lie. But he has very amply ex- 
 plained his character to me. What is very pleasant is, that, 
 but two posts before, I received a letter from him full of 
 higher flights than ever. I beg your pardon (dear sister) for 
 this tedious account ; but you see how necessary 'tis for me to 
 get my letters from this madman. Perhaps the best way is 
 by fair means ; at least, they ought to be first tried. I would 
 have you, then (my dear sister), try to make the wretch sen- 
 sible of the truth of what I advance, without asking for the 
 letters, which I have already asked for. Perhaps you may 
 make him ashamed of his infamous proceedings by talking of 
 me, without taking notice that you know of his threats, only 
 of my dealings. I take this method to be the most likely to 
 work upon him. I beg you would send me a full and true 
 account of this detestable affair (enclosed to Mrs. Murray 1 ). 
 If I had not been the most unlucky creature in the world, his 
 letter would have come while you were here, that I might 
 have shewed you both his note and the other people's. I 
 knew he was discontented, but was far from imagining a pos- 
 sibility of this thing. I give you a great deal of trouble, but 
 you see I shall owe you the highest obligation if you can serve 
 me : the very endeavouring of it is a tie upon me to serve you 
 the rest of my life without reserve and with eternal gratitude. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I AM now at Twickiiam : 'tis impossible to tell you, dear 
 sister, what agonies I suffer every post- day ; my health really 
 suffers so much from my fears, that I have reason to appre- 
 hend the worst consequences. If that monster acted on the 
 least principles of reason, I should have nothing to fear, since 
 'tis certain that after he has exposed me he will get nothing by 
 
 1 Griselda Baillie, married to Mr., afterwards Sir A. Murray, of Stanhope. 
 See Introductory Anecdotes, ante, p. 97 ; also notes later, on Lady Mary's quarrel 
 with her. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 453 
 
 it. Mr. Wortley can do nothing for his satisfaction I am not 
 willing to do myself. I desire not the least indulgence of any- 
 kind. Let him put his affair into the hands of any lawyer 
 whatever. I am willing to submit to any examination ; 'tis 
 impossible to make a fairer offer than this is: whoever he 
 employs may come to me hither on several pretences. I desire 
 nothing from him, but that he would send no letters nor mes- 
 sages to my house at London, where Mr. Wortley now is. I 
 am come hither in hopes of benefit from the air, but I carry 
 my distemper about me in an anguish of mind that visibly 
 decays my body every day. I am too melancholy to talk of 
 any other subject. Let me beg you (dear sister) to take some 
 care of this affair, and think you have it in your power to do 
 more than save the life of a sister that loves you. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I GIVE you many thanks (my dear sister) for the trouble 
 you have given yourself in my affair ; but am afraid 'tis not 
 yet effectual. I must beg you to let him know I am now at 
 Twickenham, and that whoever has his procuration may come 
 here on divers pretences, but must by no means go to my 
 house at London. I wonder you can think Lady Stafford ! has 
 not writ to him : she shewed me a long plain letter to him 
 several months ago ; as a demonstration he received it, I saw 
 his answer. 'Tis true she treated him with the contempt he 
 deserved, and told him she would never give herself the 
 trouble of writing again to so despicable a wretch. She is 
 willing to do yet further, and write to the Duke of Villerci 
 about it, if I think it proper. R. [R6mond] does nothing but 
 lie, and either does not, or will not, understand what is said 
 to him. You will forgive me troubling you so often with this 
 business ; the importance of it is the best excuse ; in short, 
 
 " 'tis joy or sorrow, peace or strife, 
 
 'Tis all the colour of remaining life." 
 
 I can foresee nothing else to make me unhappy, and, I believe, 
 
 1 See Introductory Anecdotes, ante, p. 115. T.
 
 454 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 shalltake care another time not to involve myself in difficul- 
 ties by an overplus of heroic generosity. 
 
 I am, dear sister, ever yours, with the utmost esteem and 
 affection. If I get over this cursed affair, my style may 
 enliven. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [June, 1721.] 
 
 I HAVE just received your letter of May 30th, and am sur- 
 prised, since you own the receipt of my letter, that you give 
 me not the least hint concerning the business that I writ so 
 earnestly to you about. Till that is over, I am as little capable 
 of hearing or repeating news, as I should be if my house was 
 on fire. I am sure, a great deal must be in your power ; the 
 hurting of me can be in no way his interest. I am ready to 
 assign, or deliver the money for 5001. stock, to whoever he will 
 name, if he will send my letters into Lady Stafford's hands ; 
 which, were he sincere in his offer of burning them, he would 
 readily do. Instead of that, he has writ a letter to Mr. W. 
 [Wortley] to inform him of the whole affair : luckily for me, 
 the person he has sent it to assures me it shall never be deli- 
 vered ; but I am not the less obliged to his good intentions. 
 For God's sake, do something to set my mind at ease from 
 this business, and then I will not fail to write you regular 
 accounts of all your acquaintance. Mr. Strickland has had a 
 prodigy of good fortune befallen him, which, I suppose, you 
 have heard of. 
 
 My little commission is hardly worth speaking of ; if you 
 have not already laid out that small sum in St. Cloud ware, I 
 had rather have it in plain lutestring of any colour. 
 
 Lady Stafford desires you would buy one suit of minunet 
 for head and ruffles at Boileau's. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I CANNOT enough thank you, dear sister, for the trouble 
 you give yourself in my affairs, though I am still so unhappy 
 to find your care very ineffectual. I have actually in my
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 455 
 
 present possession a formal letter directed to Mr. W. [Wortley] 
 to acquaint him with the whole business. You may imagine 
 the inevitable eternal misfortunes it would have thrown me 
 into, had it been delivered by the person to whom it was 
 intrusted. I wish you would make him sensible of the infamy 
 of this proceeding, which can no way in the world turn to his 
 advantage. Did I refuse giving the strictest account, or had 
 I not the clearest demonstration in my hands of the truth and 
 sincerity with which I acted, there might be some temptation 
 to this baseness ; but all he can expect by informing Mr. W. 
 [Wortley], is to hear him repeat the same things I assert ; he 
 will not retrieve one farthing, and I am for ever miserable. I 
 beg no more of him than to direct any person, man or woman, 
 either lawyer, broker, or a person of quality, to examine me ; 
 and as soon as he has sent a proper authority to discharge me 
 on enquiry, I am ready to be examined. I think no offer can 
 be fairer from any person whatsoever: his conduct towards 
 me is so infamous, that I am informed I might prosecute him 
 by law if he was here ; he demanding the whole sum as a debt 
 from Mr. Wortley, at the same time I have a note under liis 
 hand signed to prove the contrary. I beg with the utmost 
 earnestness that you would make him sensible of his error. I 
 believe 'tis very necessary to say something to fright him. I 
 am persuaded, if he was talked to in a style of that kind, he 
 would not dare to attempt to ruin me. I have a great inclina- 
 tion to write seriously to your lord about it, since I desire to 
 determine this affair in the fairest and the clearest manner. I 
 am not at all afraid of making any body acquainted with it ; 
 and if I did not fear making Mr. Wortley uneasy (who is the 
 only person from whom I would conceal it), all the transac- 
 tions should have been long since enrolled in Chancery. I 
 have already taken care to have the broker's depositions taken 
 before a lawyer of reputation and merit. I deny giving him 
 no satisfaction ; and after that offer, I think there is no man 
 of honour that would refuse signifying to him that as 'tis all 
 he can desire, so, if he persists in doing me an injury, he may 
 repent it. You know how far 'tis proper to take this method.
 
 456 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I say nothing of the uneasiness I am under, 'tis far beyond 
 any expression ; my obligation would be proportionable to any 
 body that would deliver me from it, and I should not think it 
 paid by all the services of my life. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 DEAR SISTER, Having this occasion, I would not omit 
 writing, though I have received no answer to my two last. 
 The bearer is well acquainted with my affair, though not from 
 me, till he mentioned it to me first, having heard it from those 
 to whom R. [Remond] had told it with all the false colours he 
 pleased to lay on. I shewed him the formal commission I had 
 to employ the money, and all the broker's testimonies taken 
 before Delpeeke, with his certificate. Your remonstrances 
 have hitherto had so little effect, that R. [R6mond] will neither 
 send a letter of attorney to examine my accounts, or let me be 
 in peace. I received a letter from him but two posts since, in 
 which he renews his threats except I send him the whole sum, 
 which is as much in my power as it is to send a million. I 
 can easily comprehend that he may be ashamed to send a pro- 
 curation, which must convince the world of all the lies he has 
 told. For my part, I am so willing to be rid of the plague of 
 hearing from him, I desire no better than to restore him with 
 all expedition the money I have in my hands ; but I will not 
 do it without a general acquittance in due form, not to have 
 fresh demands every time he wants money. If he thinks that 
 he has a larger sum to receive than I offer, why does he not 
 name a procurator to examine me ? If he is content with that 
 sum, I only insist on the acquittance for my own safety. I 
 am ready to send it him, with full license to tell as many lies 
 as he pleases afterwards. I am weary with troubling you with 
 repetitions which cannot be more disagreeable to you than 
 they are to me. I have had, and still have, so much vexation 
 with this execrable affair, 'tis impossible to describe it. I had 
 rather talk to you of any thing else, but it fills my whole head. 
 
 I am still at Twicknam, where I pass my time in great indo-
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 457 
 
 lence and sv.-cetness. Mr. W. [Wortley] is at this present in 
 Yorkshire. My fair companion puts me oft in mind of our 
 Thoresby conversations ; we read and walk together, and I am 
 more happy in her than any thing else could make me except 
 your conversation. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [July, 1721.] 
 
 I WISH to see you, dear sister, more than ever I did in my 
 life ; a thousand things pass before my eyes that would afford 
 me infinite pleasure in your conversation, and that are lost for 
 want of such a friend to talk them over. Lechmere is to be 
 Lord Hungerford ; l but the most considerable incident that 
 has happened a good while, was the ardent affection that Mrs. 
 Hervey 2 and her dear spouse took to me. They visited me 
 twice or thrice a day, and were perpetually cooing in my 
 rooms. I was complaisant a great while ; but (as you know) 
 my talent has never lain much that way, I grew at last so 
 weary of those birds of paradise, I fled to Twicknam, as much 
 to avoid their persecutions as for my own health, which is still 
 in a declining way. I fancy the Bath would be a good re- 
 medy, but my affairs lie so oddly I cannot easily resolve upon 
 it. If you please, dear sister, to buy twenty yards of the lute- 
 string I have bespoke (black), and send it by the first oppor- 
 tunity ; I suppose you know we are in mourning for Lady 
 Pierrepont. 8 Lady Loudoun and Lady Stair are in my neigh- 
 bourhood. The first of those ladies is on the brink of Scot- 
 land for lif e. She does not care ; to say truth, I see no very 
 lively reasons why she should. 
 
 I am affectionately yours. 
 
 1 Lechmere was not created Lord Hungerford, though, that being a family name, 
 such a title might have been contemplated. He was created Lord Lechmere (or 
 Lechemere) on the 25th August, 1721. T. 
 
 2 Mary Lepell, who married Mr. Hervey in 1720. She is called " Mrs. Hervey" 
 until the death of her husband's elder brother, Carr Lord Hervey, in November, 
 1723. T. 
 
 * Lady Mary's aunt, relict of Gervase Lord Pierrepont. She died at Ken- 
 sington, July 8, 1721. T.
 
 458 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I SEND you, dear sister, by Lady Lansdowne 1 this letter, ac- 
 companied with the only present that ever was sent me by that 
 monster. I beg you to return it immediately. I am told he 
 is preparing to come to London. Let him know that 'tis not 
 at all necessary for receiving his money or examining my ac- 
 counts ; he has nothing to do but to send a letter of attorney 
 to whom he pleases (without exception), and I will readily de- 
 liver up what I have in my hands, and his presence will not 
 obtain one farthing more : his design then can only be to 
 expose my letters here. I desire you would assure him that 
 my first step shall be to acquaint my Lord Stair 2 with all his 
 obligations to him, as soon as I hear he is in London ; and if 
 he dares to give me further trouble, I shall take care to have 
 him rewarded in a stronger manner than he expects ; there is 
 nothing more true than this ; and I solemnly swear, that if all 
 the credit or money that I have in the world can do it, either 
 for friendship or hire, I shall not fail to have him used as he 
 deserves ; and since I know his journey can only be designed 
 to expose me, I shall not value what noise is made. Perhaps 
 you may prevent it ; I leave you to judge of the most proper 
 method ; 'tis certain no time should be lost ; fear is his pre- 
 dominant passion, and I believe you may fright him from 
 coming hither, where he will certainly find a reception very 
 disagreeable to him. 
 
 Lady Lansdowne does not go till Tuesday ; I have left the 
 cup with her, and three guineas to be laid out in plain lute- 
 string. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [August, 1721.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I give you ten thousand thanks for the trou- 
 ble you have given yourself. I hope you will continue to take 
 
 1 The wife of Lord Lansdowne, the poet and early patron of Pope, who was now 
 ;in exile, residing, like Mar, in Paris. Lady Lansdowne passed frequently between 
 France and England, her journeys being viewed with much distrust by the Jacobite 
 party, who suspected her husband, as they suspected Mar, of treachery. T. 
 
 2 Re*mond is described by St. Simon as having been the tool of Stair during his 
 embassy in Paris. Lady Mary may have known or suspected that Re'moud be- 
 trayed Stair's secrets. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 459 
 
 some care of my affairs, because I do not hear they are finished, 
 and cannot yet get rid of my fears. You have not told me 
 that you have received what I sent you by Lady Lansdowne, 
 as also three guineas that she took for you ; one of which I 
 beg you would lay out in the same narrow minunet that you 
 sent Mrs. Murray ; and send it me by the first opportunity, 
 for the use of my daughter, who is very much your humble 
 servant, and grows a little woman. I suppose you know our 
 sister Gower 1 has lain-in in the country of a son. The Duchess 
 of Kingston 2 is preparing for the Bath. I live in a sort of 
 solitude, that wants very little of being such as I would have it. 
 Lady J. [Jane] Wharton 3 is to be married to Mr. Holt, which 
 I am sorry for ; to see a young woman that I really think one 
 of the agreeablest girls upon earth so vilely misplaced but 
 where are people matched ! I suppose we shall all come right 
 in Heaven ; as in a country dance, the hands are strangely 
 given and taken, while they are in motion, at last all meet 
 their partners when the jig is done. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 Twicknam, Sept. G [1721]. 
 
 I HAVE just received your letter, dear sister ; I am extreme 
 sensible of your goodness, which I beg you to continue. I 
 am very glad to hear of the good health of your family, and 
 should be only more so, to be a witness of it, which I am not 
 without some hopes of. My time is melted away here in 
 almost perpetual concerts. I do not presume to judge, but 
 I'll assure you I am a very hearty as well as humble admirer. 
 I have taken my little thread satin beauty into the house with 
 me; she is allowed by Bononcini 4 to have the finest voice he 
 ever heard in England. He and Mrs. Robinson 5 and Sene- 
 
 1 Lady Gower was delivered of a son 26 July, 1721. T. 
 
 2 Lady Mary's stepmother. T. 
 
 1 Sister of the profligate duke. The marriage did not take place till two years 
 later. T. 
 
 4 The Italian composer. He came to England in 1720, where he resided for 
 some years, and produced several operas at the theatre in the Haymarket.- T. 
 
 5 Anastasia Robinson, the singer, previously mentioned. See allusions to her 
 affair with Senesino. vast. T.
 
 460 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 sino lodge in this village, and sup often with me : and this 
 easy indolent life would make me the happiest thing in the 
 world, if I had not this execrable affair still hanging over my 
 head. I have consulted my lawyer, and he says I cannot, 
 with safety to myself, deposit the money I have received into 
 other hands, without the express order of R. [Remond] ; and he 
 is so unreasonable, that he will neither send a procuration to 
 examine my accounts, or any order for me to transfer his 
 stock into another name. I am heartily weary of the trust, 
 which has given me so much trouble, and can never think 
 myself safe till I am quite got rid of it : rather than be 
 plagued any longer with the odious keeping, I am willing to 
 abandon my letters to his discretion. I desire nothing more 
 of him than an order to place his money in other hands, 
 which methinks should not be so hard to obtain, since he is so 
 dissatisfied with my management ; but he seems to be bent to 
 torment me, and will not even touch his money, because I beg 
 it of him. I wish you would represent these things to him ; 
 for my own part, I live in so much uneasiness about it, that I 
 am sometimes weary of life itself. 
 
 Mrs. Stoner 1 will be a good person to send things by. I 
 would have no black silk, having bought here. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I CANNOT forbear (dear sister) accusing you of unkindness 
 that you take so little care of a business of the last consequence 
 to me. R. [Remond] writ to me some time ago, to say if I would 
 immediately send him 2000Z. sterling, he would send me an 
 acquittance. As this was sending him several hundreds out 
 of my own pocket, I absolutely refused it ; and, in return, I 
 have just received a threatening letter, to print I know not 
 what stuff against me. I am too well acquainted with the 
 world (of which poor Mrs. Murray's affair 2 is a fatal instance), 
 
 1 Probably the Mrs. Stoner who appears from Ironside's History of Twicken- 
 ham to have resided at Twickenham about this time. T. 
 
 2 Alluding to the affair of Arthur Grey the footman, whose attempt on Mrs. 
 Murray made much noise at this time. The circumstance alluded to took place on
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAU. 461 
 
 not to know that the most groundless accusation is always of 
 ill consequence to a woman; besides the cruel misfortunes it 
 may bring upon me in my own family. If you have any 
 compassion either for me or my innocent children, I am sure 
 you will try to prevent it. The thing is too serious to be 
 delayed. I think (to say nothing either of blood or affection), 
 that humanity and Christianity are interested in my preserva- 
 tion. I am sure I can answer for my hearty gratitude and 
 everlasting acknowledgment of a service much more important 
 than that of saving my life. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAP.. 
 
 [April or May, 1722. 1 ] 
 
 I HAVE had no answer, dear sister, to a long letter that I 
 writ to you a month ago; but, however, I shall continue 
 letting you know (de temps en temps) what passes in this 
 corner of the world 'till you tell me 'tis disagreeable. I shall 
 say little of the death of our great minister, because the news- 
 papers say so much. I suppose the same faithful historians 
 give you regular accounts of the growth and spreading of the 
 inoculation of the small-pox, which is become almost a general 
 practice, attended with great success. I pass my time in a 
 small snug set of dear intimates, and go very little into the 
 grand monde, which has always had my hearty contempt. I 
 see sometimes Mr. Congreve, and very seldom Mr. Pope, who 
 continues to embellish his house at Twickenham. He has 
 made a subterranean grotto, which he has furnished with 
 looking-glass, and they tell me it has a very good effect. I 
 
 the 1st of October, 1721. See " Select Trials," 12mo, 1742. Grey defended him- 
 self by making scandalous assertions as to Mrs. Murray's manner of life, which he 
 afterwards acknowledged to be false. See Introductory Anecdotes. T. 
 
 1 Mr. Dallaway and Lord Wharncliffe affixed to this letter the date of 
 " Twickenham, 1720." The year was certainly incorrect. Lady Mar did not leave 
 England to reside in Paris till January, 1721. Lady Mary's letters to her for 
 some time afterwards are, as we have seen, entirely upon the Re'mond affair. The 
 " great minister," of whose death the papers " say so much." would not apply to 
 Craggs, who died disgraced and unpopular on account of his connexion with the 
 South Sea Bubble. 1 have no doubt that Lady Mary refers to Sunderland, who 
 died on the 19th of April, 1722. The latter part of the verses was sent by Pope 
 to Judith Cowper on the 5th of November, 1722, in a letter in which he asks, 
 "Would you have me describe my solitude and grotto to you?" T.
 
 462 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 
 
 here send you some verses addressed to Mr. Gay, who wrote 
 him a congratulatory letter on the finishing his house. I 
 stifled them here, and I beg they may die the same death at 
 Paris, and never go further than your closet : 
 
 " Ah, friend, 'tis true this truth you lovers know 
 In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow, 
 In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes 
 Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens : 
 Joy lives not here ; to happier seats it flies, 
 And only dwells where W casts her eyes. 
 
 What is the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade, 
 The morning bower, the ev'ning colonnade, 
 But soft recesses of uneasy minds, 
 To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds ? 
 So the struck deer in some sequestrate part 
 Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart ; 
 There, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day, 
 Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away." * 
 
 My paper is done, and I will only put you in mind of my 
 lutestring, which I beg you will send me plain, of what colour 
 you please. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I am surprised at your silence, which has 
 been very long, and I am sure is very tedious to me. I have 
 writ three times ; one of my letters I know you received long 
 since, for Charles Churchill 9 told me so at the Opera. At 
 this instant I am at Twickenham; Mr. Wortley has pur- 
 chased the small habitation where you saw me. We propose 
 to make some small alterations. That and the education of 
 my daughter are my chief amusements. I hope yours is well, 
 
 1 Lady Mary copied these lines into a common-place book, but they are there 
 headed in her handwriting, " Pope to Arbuthnot." The words appear, from the 
 colour of the ink, to have been written later than the verses. It will be observed 
 
 that the name in the sixth line is only designated by the initial " W ." Lady 
 
 Mary undoubtedly believed the lines referred to her, and it must be so assumed ; but 
 it is remarkable that the opening lines could hardly be applied to a lady who, like 
 Lady Mary, was a neighbour of Pope, and spent, as appears by these letters, much 
 of her time at Twickenham. T. 
 
 2 Colonel Charles Churchill. He went to Paris in May, 1722, and his return 
 is mentioned in the papers of June 9. The Jacobites maintained that his mission 
 was to concert with Lord Mar and General Dillon for the betrayal of Atterbury. 
 Mar was certainly the cause, and, as Atterbury always asserted, the wilful cause 
 of the bishop's ruin. This letter, at all events, shows that Churchill when in Paris 
 was in communication with Lady Mar. It must have been written between the 
 date of Churchill's return (June) and the coronation of the French king, 14th of 
 October, 1722. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 ei ne fait que croitre et embellir. I beg you would let me hear 
 soon from you ; and particularly if the approaching coronation 
 at Paris raises the price of diamonds. 1 I have some to sell, 
 and cannot dispose of them here. I am afraid you have quite 
 forgot my plain lutestring, which I am in great want of; 
 and I can hardly think you can miss of opportunities to send 
 it. At this dead season 'tis impossible to entertain you with 
 news ; and yet more impossible (with my dulness) to entertain 
 you without it. The kindest thing I can do is to bring my 
 letter to a speedy conclusion. I wish I had some better way 
 of shewing you how sincerely I am yours. I am sure I never 
 will slip any occasion of convincing you of it. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [About Dec. 25, 1722.] 
 
 I HAVE writ to you at least five-and-f orty letters, dear sister, 
 without receiving any answer, and resolved not to confide in 
 post-house fidelity any more ; being firmly persuaded that they 
 never came to your hands, or you would not refuse one line 
 to let me know how you do, which is and ever will be of great 
 importance to me. The freshest news in town is the fatal 
 accident happened three nights ago to a very pretty young 
 fellow, brother to Lord Finch, who was drinking with a dearly 
 beloved drab, whom you may have heard of by the name of 
 Sally Salisbury. 2 In a jealous pique she stabbed him to the 
 heart with a knife. He fell down dead immediately, but a 
 surgeon being called for, and the knife drawn out of his body, 
 he opened his eyes, and his first words were to beg her to be 
 friends with him, and kissed her. She has since stayed by his 
 bedside till last night, when he begged her to fly, for he 
 thought he could not live ; and she has taken his advice, and 
 
 1 The rise in the price of diamonds was, I suppose, a matter of course on such 
 occasions. Before the coronation of George II., the Edinburgh Evening Coav.int 
 of September 26, 1727, announced in its news from London that "jewels for the 
 ensuing coronation are lent out from two to five per cent." T. 
 
 * Sarah Pretteyn (or Prydden), alias Sally Salisbury. This affair, which gave 
 much employment to Grub-street authors, took place on December 22, 1722, at the 
 Three Tun Tavern, in Chandos-street, Covent-garden. Even Hearne, the learned 
 antiquary, appears to have thought her adventures worthy of frequent entries in 
 >jis Diary. She was tried, and sentenced to a fine of 100 and twelve months 1 im- 
 prisonment in Newgate, where she died of consumption and fever before her sentence 
 expired. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 perhaps will honour you with her residence at Paris. Adieu, 
 dear sister. I send you along with this letter the Count of 
 Caylus, 1 who if you do not know already, you will thank me 
 for introducing to you ; he is a Frenchman, and no fop ; 
 which, besides the curiosity of it, is one of the prettiest things 
 in the world. 
 
 Since you find it so difficult to send me the lutestring that I 
 asked for, I beg you would lay out my money in a nightgown 
 ready made, there can be no difficulty in sending that by the 
 first person that comes over ; I shall like it the better for your 
 having worn it one day, and then it may be answered for that 
 it is not new. If this is also impossible, pray return me my 
 money, deducting for the minunets I have received. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [April, 1723.] 
 
 DBAS SISTER, I am now so far recovered from the danger- 
 ous illness which I had when I received your letter, that I hope 
 I may think of being once more a woman of this world. But I 
 know not how to convey this letter to you. I intend to send 
 it to Mrs. Murray. I have a great many reasons to believe 
 the present direction 2 you have given me a very bad one ; es- 
 pecially since you say that you never received one of the 
 number of letters that I really have sent you. I suppose the 
 public prints (if nobody else) have informed you of the sudden 
 death of poor Lady [Dowager] Gower, 3 which has made a 
 large addition to Lord Gower's fortune, and utterly ruined 
 Mrs. Proby's, 4 who is now in very deplorable circumstances. 
 I see Mrs. Murray so seldom I can give little account of her, 
 but I suppose her house is the same place it used to be. 
 Operas flourish more than ever, and I have been in a tract of 
 going every time. The people I live most with are none of 
 your acquaintance ; the Duchess of Montagu 5 excepted, whom 
 
 1 The well-known French writer. T. 2 See note on next letter. T. 
 
 She died in March, 1723. T. 
 
 * Mrs. Proby was the wife of John Proby, of Elton Hall, in the county of Hun- 
 tingdon, Esq., and sister of John Leveson Gower, Lord Gower, the first earl. W. 
 
 The Duchess of Montagu was the youngest daughter of John Duke of Marl- 
 oorough. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 465 
 
 I continue to see often. Her daughter Belle is at this instant 
 in the paradisal state of receiving visits every day from a 
 passionate lover, who is her first love ; whom she thinks the 
 finest gentleman in Europe, and is, besides that, Duke of 
 Manchester. 1 Her mamma and I often laugh and sigh re- 
 flecting on her felicity, the consummation of which will be in 
 a fortnight. In the mean time they are permitted to be alone 
 together every day and all the day. These are lawful matters 
 that one may talk of ; but letters are so surely opened, 2 I dare 
 say nothing to you either of our intrigues or duels, both which 
 would afford great matter of mirth and speculation. Adieu, 
 dear sister. Pray don't forget the nightgown, and let it be 
 what you please. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1723.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I have writ to you twice since I received 
 yours in answer to that I sent by Mr. De Caylus, but I believe 
 none of what I send by the post ever come to your hands, nor 
 ever will while they are directed to Mr. Waters, for reasons 
 that you may easily guess. 3 I wish you would give me a safer 
 direction ; it is very seldom I can have the opportunity of a 
 private messenger, and it is very often that I have a mind to 
 write to my dear sister. If you have not heard of the Duchess 
 of Montagu's intended journey, you will be surprised at your 
 manner of receiving this, since I send it by one of her servants : 
 she does not design to see any body nor any thing at Paris, 
 and talks of going from Montpellier to Italy. 4 I have a tender 
 esteem for her, and am heartily concerned to lose her con- 
 
 1 William Montagu, Duke of Manchester, married to the Lady Isabella Mon- 
 tagu, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Montagu, April 16, 1723. W. 
 
 2 See next note. T. 
 
 3 Waters was a banker and agent for the Pretender and the Jacobites. Lady 
 Mary had good reason for her suspicions : for Mar was at this time deeply dis- 
 trusted by the Jacobites on account of the Atterbury affair, which was approach- 
 ing its crisis in the trial of Atterbury ; and they, or Waters, whose name figures 
 frequently in the evidence, would naturally be tempted to waylay, in the hopes of 
 information, letters from the Whig sister. T. 
 
 4 The London Journal of May 11, 1723, announces that the Duchess of Mon- 
 tagu is " preparing to go in a tew days to Montpellier." T. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 H
 
 466 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 versation, yet I cannot condemn her resolution. I am yet in 
 this wicked town, but purpose to leave it as soon as the Parlia- 
 ment 1 rises. Mrs. Murray 2 and all her satellites have so seldom 
 fallen in my way, I can say little about them. Your old 
 friend Mrs. Lowther is still fair and young, and in pale pink 
 every night in the Parks ; but, after being highly in favour, 
 poor I am in utter disgrace, without my being able to guess 
 wherefore, except she fancied me the author or abettor of two 
 vile ballads written on her dying adventure, which I am so 
 innocent of that I never saw [them]. 3 A propos of ballads, a 
 most delightful one is said or sung in most houses about our 
 dear beloved plot, 4 which has been laid firstly to Pope, and 
 secondly to me, when God knows we have neither of us wit 
 enough to make it. Mrs. Harvey lies-in of a female child. 5 
 Lady Rich is happy in dear Sir Robert's absence, 6 and the polite 
 Mr. Holt's return to his allegiance, who, though in a treaty 
 of marriage with one of the prettiest girls in town (Lady J. 
 [Jane] Wharton), appears better with her than ever. Lady B. 
 [Betty] Manners is on the brink of matrimony with a York- 
 
 1 Parliament rose May 27, 1723. T. 
 
 2 See note on quarrel with Mrs. Murray, post, p. 482. T. 
 
 3 Mrs. Lowther was a respectable woman, single, and, as it appears by the text, 
 not willing to own herself middle-aged. Another lady happened to be sitting at 
 breakfast with her, when an awkward country lad, new in her service, brought 
 word that " there was one as begged to speak to her." " What is his name?" 
 "Don't know." "What sort of person? a gentleman?" "Can't say rightly." 
 " Go and ask him his business." The fellow returned grinning. " Why, madam, 
 
 he says as how he says he is " " Well, what does he say, fool ?" " He says 
 
 he is one as dies for your ladyship." "Dies for me!" exclaimed the lady, the 
 more incensed from seeing her friend inclined to laugh as well as her footman 
 " was there ever such a piece of insolence ? Turn him out of my house this mi- 
 nute. And hark ye, shut the door in his face." The clown obeyed ; but going to 
 work more roughly than John Bull will ever admit of, produced a scuffle that dis- 
 turbed the neighbours and called in the constable. At last the audacious lover, 
 driven to explain himself, proved nothing worse than an honest tradesman, a dyer, 
 whom her ladyship often employed to refresh her old gowns. W. In " Additions 
 to Pope's Works," 1776, are verses headed " On a Lady mistaking a Dying Trader 
 for a Dying Lover. By Lady Mary Wortley Montague, on Mrs. Lowther, Lord 
 Lonsdale's sister." T. 
 
 4 The Atterbury plot. The ballad was probably that " Upon the Horrid Plot 
 discovered by Harlequin the Bishop of Rochester's French Dog," attributed to 
 Swift T. 
 
 5 Lepel Hervey, born, according to Collins, in January, 1722-3. T. 
 
 f The British Journal of Saturday, April 13, 1723, announces that " Sir 
 Robert Rich, Bart., being made colonel of a regiment of Dragoons in Ireland, set 
 out for that kingdom on Saturday last." T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 467 
 
 shire Mr. Monckton 1 of 3000Z. per annum : it is a match of the 
 young duchess's making, and she thinks matter of great triumph 
 over the two coquette beauties, who can get nobody to have and 
 to hold ; they are decayed to a piteous degree, 2 and so neglected 
 that they are grown constant and particular to the two ugliest 
 fellows in London. Mrs. Pulteney condescends to be publicly 
 kept by the noble Earl of Cadogan ; whether Mr. Pulteney 3 
 has a pad nag deducted out of the profits for his share I 
 cannot tell, but he appears very well satisfied with it. This is, 
 I think, the whole state of love ; as to that of wit, it splits 
 itself into ten thousand branches : poets increase and multiply 
 to that stupendous degree, you see them at every turn, even in 
 embroidered coats and pink-coloured top-knots ; making verses 
 is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what 
 miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer 
 to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse 
 reading and taking a pinch. This is a very great grievance, 
 and so particularly shocking to me, that I think our wise law- 
 givers should take it into consideration, and appoint a fast-day 
 to beseech Heaven to put a stop to this epidemical disease, as 
 they did last year 4 for the plague with great success. 
 
 Dear sister, adieu. I have been very free in this letter, 
 because I think I am sure of its going safe. I wish my night- 
 gown may do the same : I only choose that as most conve- 
 nient to you; but if it was equally so, I had rather the 
 money was laid out in plain lutestring, if you could send me 
 eight yards at a time of different colours, designing it for 
 linings ; but if this scheme is impracticable, send me a night- 
 gown a la mode. 
 \ 
 
 1 Afterwards Viscount Galway. By " the young duchess," Lady Mary means 
 the wife of John, then third Duke of Rutland, as distinguished from two dowager- 
 duchesses then living. T. 
 
 2 This alludes, I suppose, to Lady Elizabeth Manners's two elder sisters, Cathe- 
 rine and Frances, who were at this time unmarried. Catherine was married in 
 1726 to the Right Hon. Henry Pelham : Frances, in 1732, to Richard, second son 
 of John, Lord Arundell of Trerice. T. 
 
 * Daniel Pulteney, Esq., married to Mrs. Tichborne, sister to the Countess of 
 Sunderland, 14th of December, 1717. W. 
 
 4 Not strictly correct. The fast-day for " the plague" was the 8th of December, 
 1721. T. 
 
 2n2
 
 468 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1723.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I sent you a long letter by the Duchess of 
 Montagu ; though I have had no answer, I cannot resolve to 
 leave London without writing another. I go to-morrow to 
 Twickenham, where I am occupied in some alterations of my 
 house and gardens. I believe I have told you we bought it 
 last year, and there is some sort of pleasure in shewing one's 
 own fancy upon one's own ground. If you please to send my 
 nightgown to Mr. Hughes, an English banquier at Paris, 
 directed for Madame Cantillon, 1 it will come safe to my hands ; 
 she is a new neighbour of mine, has a very handsome house in 
 the village, and herself eclipses most of our London beauties : 
 you know how fond we are of novelty, besides that she is 
 really very pretty and does not want understanding, and I 
 have a thousand commodities in her acquaintance. Mrs. 
 Davenant 2 is returned from Genoa, and I have the pleasure 
 of an agreeable intimacy with her : so much for my acquaint- 
 ance. Lady Byng has inoculated both her children, and is 
 big with child herself; the operation is not yet over, but I 
 believe they will do very well. Since that experiment has not 
 yet had any ill effect, the whole town are doing the same 
 thing, and I am so much pulled about, and solicited to visit 
 people, that I am forced to run into the country to hide myself. 
 There is a ridiculous marriage on the point of conclusion that 
 diverts me much. You know Lady Mary Sanderson : she is 
 making over her discreet person and 1500/. a year jointure to 
 the tempting embrace of the noble Earl of Pembroke, aged 73. 3 
 
 1 The wife of Cantillon the banker. T. 
 
 2 She was the wife of Henry Davenant, son of the political arithmetician. The 
 Postboy of March 7, 1722 [-3], announces that "Mr. Davenant, lately his Ma- 
 jesty's envoy at Genoa, is arrived here from thence." See Lady Mary's letters 
 from Genoa, among Letters during the Embassy. T. 
 
 3 The noble earl's matrimonial intentions at this time must have been generally 
 known, though the object of them appears to have been uncertain, for " Mrs. Gre- 
 ville" is mentioned as the lady in the Postboy of March 12, 1722[-3]. Neither 
 this report, nor the statement in the text, however, proved correct. The earl, 
 whose second wife died in 1721, married thirdly, in 1725, Mary, daughter of 
 Scrope, first Viscount Howe, and one of the maids of honour to the Princess of 
 "Wales. The marriage gave rise to much pleasantry among the Court ladies. 
 See Lady Hervey to Mrs. Howard, Suffolk Corresp., i. 191. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 469 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1723. 1 ] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I have wrote you so many letters which 
 you say you have not received, that I suppose you will not re- 
 ceive this ; however, I will acquit myself to my own conscience 
 as a good Christian ought to do. I am sure I can never be 
 really wanting in any expression of affection to you, to whom 
 I can never forget what I owe in many respects. Our mutual 
 acquaintance are exceedingly dispersed, and I am engaged in 
 a new set, whose ways would not be entertaining to you, since 
 you know not the people. Mrs. Murray is still at Castle- 
 Howard : I am at Twickenham, where there is, at this time, 
 more company than at London. Your poor soul Mrs. John- 
 ston is returned into our neighbourhood, and sent to me to carry 
 her to Eichmond-court to-morrow, but I begged to be excused : 
 she is still in sad pickle. I think Mr. and Madame Harvey 
 are at Lord Bristol's. A propos of that family : the countess 
 is come out a new creature ; she has left off the dull occu- 
 pations of hazard and basset, and is grown young, blooming, 
 coquette, and gallant ; and, to shew she is fully sensible of the 
 errors of her past life, and resolved to make up for time mis- 
 spent, she has two lovers at a time, and is equally wickedly 
 talked of for the gentle Colonel Cotton 2 and the superfine 
 Mr. Braddocks. Now I think this the greatest compliment 
 in nature to her own lord ; since it is plain that when she will 
 be false to him, she is forced to take two men in his stead, and 
 that no one mortal has merit enough to make up for him. 
 Poor Lady Gage 8 is parting from her discreet spouse for a 
 
 1 Lord Wharncliffe dated this letter 1722; but the manuscript has no date, and 
 is indorsed " 1723," which is no doubt correct. It could not have been written 
 later than November, 1723, when " Mr. Hervey" became Lord Hervey. T. 
 
 2 Colonel Cotton's " bonnes fortunes" are alluded to in a letter from Mrs. Brad- 
 shaw to Mrs. Howard, dated " Bath, Aug. 30, 1721." " Here is a Colonel Cotton, 
 who is a good, agreeable man, but the ladies are so fond of him that I believe he 
 must take to his bed soon. If you see a footman in the streets, his errand is to 
 Colonel Cotton: he gives breakfasts, makes balls, plays, and does everything a 
 lady can desire ; but then he is but one man, and cannot turn himself to at least 
 ten women that have fastened upon him, from which contests do often arise amongst 
 us." T. 
 
 3 Benedicta Maria, daughter and sole heir of Benedict Hall, of High Meadow, 
 in the county of Gloucester, Esq. W.
 
 470 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 mere trifle. She had a mind to take the air this spring in a 
 new yacht (which Lord Hillsborough 1 built for many good 
 uses, and which has been the scene of much pleasure and 
 pain) : she went in company with his Lordship, Fabrice, 2 Mr. 
 Cook, Lady Litchfield, 3 and her sister, as far as Greenwich, 
 and from thence as far as the buoy of the Nore ; when to the 
 great surprise of the good company, who thought it impossible 
 the wind should not be as fair to bring them back as it was to 
 carry them thither, they found there was no possibility of re- 
 turning that night. Lady Gage, in all the concern of a good 
 wife, desired her lord might be informed of her safety, and 
 that she was no way blamable in staying out all night. 
 Fabrice writ a most gallant letter to Lord Gage, 4 concluding 
 that Mr. Cook presents his humble service to him, and let him 
 know (in case of necessity) his " Lady Margaret was in 
 town:" 5 but his lordship not liking the change, I suppose, 
 carried the letter straight to the King's Majesty, who not 
 being at leisure to give him an audience, he sent it in open 
 by Mahomet : 6 though it is hard to guess what sort of redress 
 he intended to petition for the nature of the thing being 
 , such, that had he complained he was no cuckold, his Majesty 
 at least might have prevailed that some of his court might 
 confer that dignity upon him, but if he was, neither king, 
 council, nor the two houses of parliament, could make it null 
 and of none effect. This public rupture is succeeded by a 
 treaty of separation : and here is all the scandal that is 
 
 1 Lord Hillsborough, father of the Lord Hillsborough who was secretary of 
 state under George the Third, and ancestor to the Marquis of Downshire, had the 
 fame, both in England and Ireland, of being the wildest and most scandalous liber- 
 tine of the age. W. 
 
 2 Sometimes written " Fabricius." Riva, the Duke of Modena's minister, speaks 
 of him as " a Hanover gentleman, and in high favour with the king." (Coxe's 
 Walpole, 4to, ii. 512.) Fabrice was with the king when he died on his journey to 
 Hanover. T. 
 
 3 Frances, daughter of Sir John Hales, of Woodchurch, Kent. D. 
 
 4 Thomas, first Lord Gage. W. 
 
 s Lady Margaret Tufton, daughter of the Earl of Thanet, was married to Thomas 
 Coke, of Norfolk, Esq., July 2, 1718. W. 
 
 A servant of George the First. Pope, in his Epistle to Martha Blount, 
 On the Characters of Women, calls him " honest Mahomet;" and adds, in a note, 
 " Servant to the late king, said to be the son of a Turkish Bassa whom he took at 
 the siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his person." T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 471 
 
 uppermost in my head. Dear sister, I should be glad to 
 contribute any way to your entertainment, and am very sorry 
 you seem to stand in so much need of it. I am ever yours. 
 
 I wish you would think of my lutestring, for I am in 
 terrible want of linings. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [July, 1723.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I have received by Lady Lansdowne the 
 very pretty nightgown you sent me ; I give you many thanks 
 for it ; but I should have thought it much more valuable if it 
 had been accompanied with a letter. I can hardly persuade 
 myself you have received all mine, and yet can never spare 
 tune from the pleasures of Paris to answer one of them. I am 
 sorry to inform you of the death of our nephew, my sister 
 dower's son, 1 of the small-pox. I think she has a great deal 
 of reason to regret it, in consideration of the offer I made her, 
 two years together, of taking the child home to my house, 
 where I would have inoculated him with the same care and 
 safety I did my own. I know nobody that has hitherto re- 
 pented the operation : though it has been very troublesome to 
 some fools, who had rather be sick by the doctor's prescrip- 
 tions, than in health in rebellion to the college. 
 
 I am at present at Twickenham, which is become so fa- 
 shionable, and the neighbourhood so much enlarged, that 'tis 
 more like Tunbridge or the Bath than a country retreat. 
 Adieu, dear sister. I shall write you longer letters when I am 
 sure you receive them ; but it really takes off very much from 
 the pleasure of your correspondence, when I have no assur- 
 ance of their coming to your hands. Pray let me know if this 
 does, and believe me ever affectionately yours. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [Indorsed " 1723."] 
 
 I AM heartily sorry to have the pleasure of hearing from 
 you lessened by your complaints of uneasiness, which I wish 
 
 1 John Leveson Gower, her eldest son, died July 15, 1723. T.
 
 472 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAT?. 
 
 with all my soul I was capable of relieving, either by my 
 letters or any other way. My life passes in a kind of indo- 
 lence which is now and then awakened by agreeable moments ; 
 but pleasures are transitory, and the groundwork of every- 
 thing in England stupidity, which is certainly owing to the 
 coldness of this vile climate. I envy you the serene air 
 of Paris, as well as many other conveniences : here, what 
 between the things one cannot do, and the things one 
 must not do, the time but dully lingers on, though I 
 make as good a shift as many of my neighbours. To 
 my great grief, some of my best friends have been ex- 
 tremely ill; and, in general, death and sickness have never 
 been more frequent than now. You may imagine poor gal- 
 lantry droops ; and, except in the Elysian shades of Richmond, 
 there is no such thing as love or pleasure. It is said there is 
 a fair lady retired for having taken too much of it : for my 
 part they are not at all cooked to my taste ; and I have very- 
 little share in the diversions there, which, except seasoned with 
 wit, or at least vivacity, will not go down with me, who have 
 not altogether so voracious an appetite as I once had : I 
 intend, however, to shine and be fine on the birth-night, and 
 review the figures there. My poor friend the young Duchess 
 of Marlborough, I am afraid, has exposed herself to a most 
 violent ridicule ; she is as much embarrassed with the loss of 
 her big belly, and as much ashamed of it, as ever dairymaid 
 was with the getting one. 1 
 
 I desire you would say something very pretty to your 
 daughter in my name: notwithstanding the great gulf that 
 is as present between us, I hope to wait on her to an opera one 
 time or other. I suppose you know our uncle Fielding is 
 dead : I regret him prodigiously. 
 
 1 This passage, with the previous allusion to the approaching " Birth-night " 
 (see note on next letter), would seem to be inconsistent with the year indorsed on 
 this letter; but the allusion to the death of "uncle Fielding," which took place at 
 Epsom on the 22nd of September, 1723, confirms it. The duchess had a 
 daughter born 23rd November, 1723. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 473 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 Oct. 31. 
 
 I WRITE to you at this time piping hot from the birth- 
 night ;' my brain warmed with all the agreeable ideas that 
 fine clothes, fine gentlemen, brisk tunes, and lively dances, 
 can raise there. It is to be hoped that my letter will enter- 
 tain you ; at least you will certainly have the freshest account 
 of all passages on that glorious day. First you must know 
 that I led up the ball, which you'll stare at ; but what is more, 
 I believe in my conscience I made one of the best figures 
 there ; to say truth, people are grown so extravagantly ugly, 
 that we old beauties are forced to come out on show-days, to 
 keep the court in countenance. I saw Mrs. Murray there, 
 through whose hands this epistle is to be conveyed ; I do not 
 know whether she will make the same compliment [complaint ?] 
 to you that I do. Mrs. West was with her, who is a great 
 prude, having but two lovers at a time: I think those are 
 Lord Haddington and Mr. Lindsay; the one for use, the 
 other for show. 
 
 The world improves in one virtue to a violent degree, I 
 mean plain-dealing. Hypocrisy being, as the Scripture de- 
 clares, a damnable sin, I hope our publicans and sinners will 
 be saved by the open profession of the contrary virtue. I was 
 told by a very good author, who is deep in the secret, that at 
 this very minute there is a bill cooking-up at a hunting-seat in 
 Norfolk, 2 to have not taken out of the commandments and 
 clapped into the creed, the ensuing session of parliament. 
 This bold attempt for the liberty of the subject is wholly pro- 
 jected by Mr. Walpole, who proposed it to the secret com- 
 mittee in his parlour. William Young 3 seconded it, and 
 answered for all his acquaintance voting right to a man : 
 Dodington 4 very gravely objected, that the obstinacy of 
 human nature was such, that he feared when they had posi- 
 
 1 The birth-night of the Prince of Wales, October 30. T. 
 
 * Houghton; Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Walpole's, then prime minister. D- 
 
 3 Afterwards Sir William Yonge. T. 
 
 4 George Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe-Regis, whose Diary has 
 beeu published. D.
 
 474 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAIL 
 
 tive commandments to do [so], perhaps people would not 
 commit adultery and bear false witness against their neigh- 
 bours with the readiness and cheerfulness they do at present. 
 This objection seemed to sink deep into the minds of the 
 greatest politicians at the board ; and I don't know whether 
 the bill won't be dropped, though it is certain it might 
 be carried with great ease, the world being entirely "re- 
 venue du [sic] bagatelle" and honour, virtue, reputation, &c., 
 which we used to hear of in our nursery, is as much laid aside 
 and forgotten as crumpled riband. To speak plainly, I am 
 very sorry for the forlorn state of matrimony, which is as 
 much ridiculed by our young ladies as it used to be by young 
 fellows : in short, both sexes have found the inconveniences of 
 it, and the appellation of rake is as genteel in a woman as 
 
 a man of quality ; it is no scandal to say Miss , the maid 
 
 of honour, looks very well now she is up again, and poor 
 Biddy 1 Noel has never been quite well since her last flux. 
 You may imagine we married women look very silly; we 
 have nothing to excuse ourselves, but that it was done a great 
 while ago, and we were very young when we did it. This is 
 the general state of affairs : as to particulars, if you have any 
 curiosity for things of that kind, you have nothing to do but 
 to ask me questions, and they shall be answered to the best of 
 my understanding ; my time never being passed more agree- 
 ably than when I am doing something obliging to you : this 
 is truth, in spite of all the beaus, wits, and witlings in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [February, 1724.] 
 
 I DO verily believe, dear sister, that this is the twelfth if not 
 the thirteenth letter I have written since I had the pleasure of 
 hearing from you; and 'tis an uncomfortable thing to have 
 precious time spent, and one's wit neglected, in this manner. 
 Sometimes I think you are fallen into that utter indifference 
 
 1 Bridget, daughter of the Hon. John Noel, of Walcot House, Northampton- 
 shire, a son of Viscount Campden. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 475 
 
 for all things on this side the water, that you have no more 
 curiosity for the affairs of London than for those of Pekin ; 
 and if that be the case, 'tis downright impertinent to trouble 
 you with news. But I cannot cast off the affectionate concern 
 I have for you, and consequently must put you in mind of me 
 whenever I have an opportunity. The bearer of this epistle is 
 our cousin, 1 and a consummate puppy, as you will perceive 
 at first sight ; his shoulder-knot 2 last birthday made many a 
 pretty gentleman's heart ache with envy, and his addresses 
 have made Miss Howard the happiest of her highness's honour- 
 able virgins ; 3 besides the glory of thrusting the Earl of De- 
 loraine from the post he held in her affections. But his 
 relations are so ill bred as to be quite insensible of the honour 
 arising from this conquest, and fearing that so much gallantry 
 may conclude in captivity for life, pack him off to you, where 
 'tis to be hoped there is no such killing fair as Miss Howard. 
 I made a sort of resolution at the beginning of my letter not 
 to trouble [you] with the mention of what passes here, since 
 you receive it with so much coldness. But I find it is impossible 
 to forbear telling the metamorphoses of some of your acquaint- 
 ance, which appear as wondrous to me as any in Ovid. 
 Could one believe that Lady Holdernesse is a beauty, and in 
 love ? and that Mrs. Robinson is at the same time a prude and 
 a kept mistress ? and these things in spite of nature and for- 
 tune. The first of these ladies is tenderly attached to the 
 polite Mr. Mildmay, 4 and sunk in all the joys of happy love, 
 notwithstanding she wants the use of her two hands by a 
 rheumatism, and he has an arm that he cannot move. I wish 
 I could send you the particulars of this amour, which seems to 
 
 1 This cousin probably was Lord Fielding. W. 
 
 2 The shoulder-knot appears, while it flourished, to have been considered a pe- 
 culiarly fascinating article of male attire. The Taller says, " Many a lady has 
 fetched a sigh at the top of a wig. . . It is impossible to describe all the execution 
 that was done by the shoulder- knot while that fashion prevailed." T. 
 
 * Miss Howard was daughter of Colonel Philip Howard, and was married, 
 in 1726, to Henry Scott, Earl of Deloraine, third son of James Duke of Mon- 
 mouth. W. 
 
 4 Benjamin Mildmay, Esq., brother of Charles Mildmay, Lord Fitzwalter [and 
 afterwards Lord Fitzwalter], married to the Lady Frederica Schomberg, eldest 
 daughter of Meynhart, Duke of Schomberg, and widow of Robert D'Arcy, Earl of 
 Holdernesse, 18 June. 1724. Histwical Register. W.
 
 476 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 me as curious as that between two oysters, and as well worth 
 the serious enquiry of the naturalists. The second heroine 
 has engaged half the town in arms, from the nicety of her 
 virtue, which was not able to bear the too near approach of 
 Senesino in the opera ; and her condescension in accepting of 
 Lord Peterborough for her champion, who has signalised both 
 his love and courage upon this occasion in as many instances 
 as ever Don Quixote did for Dulcinea. Poor Senesino, 1 like 
 a vanquished giant, was forced to confess upon his knees that 
 Anastasia was a nonpareil of virtue and beauty. Lord Stan- 
 hope, 2 as dwarf to the said giant, joked of his side, and was 
 challenged for his pains. Lord Delawar was Lord Peter- 
 borough's second ; my lady miscarried the whole town 
 divided into parties on this important point. Innumerable 
 have been the disorders between the two sexes on so great an 
 account, besides half the house of peers being put under 
 arrest. By the providence of Heaven, and the wise cares of 
 his Majesty, no bloodshed ensued. However, things are now 
 tolerably accommodated ; and the fair lady rides through the 
 town in triumph, in the shining berlin of her hero, not to 
 reckon the essential advantage of 100/. a month, which 'tis 
 said he allows her/' 
 
 In general, gallantry never was in so elevated a figure as it 
 
 1 Senesino was a man of large stature ; but his cowardice was proverbial. " The 
 Bee," a periodical, for February, 1733, quoting from Fog's Journal, says that, 
 singing in the opera of Julius Caesar, he had arrived at the words " Cesare non 
 seppe mai che sia timore," when some of the machinery fell on the stage from the 
 roof of the theatre ; and that " the poor creature, forgetting the part he was acting, 
 was so frightened at this accident, that he lost his voice, fell a crying, and was 
 unable to go on." T. 
 
 2 The celebrated Philip Dormer Stanhope, Lord Stanhope 1713 Lord Chester- 
 field 1726. W. 
 
 3 Anastasia Robinson, the singer, according to manuscript notes of Lord Oxford, 
 was "daughter to Mr. Robinson, a painter, who was blind;" and he adds, that 
 " her mother was a Lane, descended from the Lanes that took care of King Charles 
 the Second." (Harleian MSS., No. 7654.) The affair with Senesino probably took 
 place early in 1724, as "An Epistle from S o to A a Rn" is advertised as 
 " this day published" in the Daily Journal of February 27, 1723-4. There were 
 no doubt other squibs written on the subject; for among Aaron Hill's Works 
 is an " Answer to a scurrilous obscene Poem, entitled An Epistle from Mrs. 
 Robinson to Senesino." Peterborough married Anastasia Robinson publicly 
 in 1735, shortly before his death ; but according to his statement to Pope, he had 
 married her privately some time before. See Pope's letter to Martha Blount, dated 
 Aug. 25, 1735. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. -177 
 
 is at present. Twenty very pretty fellows (the Duke of 
 Wharton being president and chief director) have formed 
 themselves into a committee of gallantry. They call them- 
 selves Schemers ; and meet regularly three times a week, to 
 consult on gallant schemes for the advantage and advance- 
 ment of that branch of happiness. ... I consider the 
 duty of a true Englishwoman is to do what honour she can to 
 her native country ; and that it would be a sin against the 
 pious love I bear the land of my nativity, to confine the 
 renown due to the Schemers within the small extent of this 
 little island, which ought to be spread wherever men can 
 sigh, or women wish. 'Tis true they have the envy and 
 curses of the old and ugly of both sexes, and a general perse- 
 cution from all old women ; but this is no more than all refor- 
 mations must expect in their beginning. . . . 
 
 The enclosed, as you will very well perceive, was writ to be 
 sent by Mr. Vane, but he was posted off a day sooner than I 
 expected, and it was left upon my hands : since which time 
 the Schemers got hold of it amongst them, and I had much 
 ado to get it from them. I have also had a delightful letter 
 from you, to let me know you are coming over j 1 and I am 
 advised not to write ; but you having not named the time 
 (which is expected with the utmost impatience by me and 
 many more), I am determined to send my epistle ; but trouble 
 you with no further account, though you will find here a 
 thousand new and consequently amusing scenes. 
 
 Among our acquaintance things strangely are carry'd 
 Lord Tenham is shot, 2 Mrs. Strickland is marry'd, 
 
 and [_sic\ with child, and her husband is dying. 
 
 1 It appears from letters of Lord Mar and Bishop Atterbury among the Stuart 
 Papers (1847), that Lady Mar came to England in May, 1724. Lord Mar's for- 
 feited estate was appointed to be sold the beginning of June, and Mar, who still 
 maintained a correspondence with the Pretender, wrote to the latter that one of the 
 objects of her journey was " to see if any methods can be fallen on for getting the 
 estate bought for my son." A contemporary authority states that the estate was 
 bought by Lord Grange (Mar's brother) for 36,000 no doubt for Mar- for there 
 is good reason to believe that the hostility of the English government to Mar was 
 at this time feigned. Lady Mar probably remained with her sister some time, as 
 there appears here to be a gap in the correspondence. T. 
 
 * Henry Roper, Lord Teynham, shot himself at his house in the Havmarket, ICth 
 May, 1723. W.
 
 478 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 1 AM heartily sorry, dear sister, without any affectation, for 
 any uneasiness that you suffer, let the cause be what it will, 
 and wish it were in my power to give you some more essential 
 mark of it than unavailing pity ; but I am not so fortunate ; 
 and till a fit occasion of disposing of some superfluous dia- 
 monds, I shall remain in this sinful seacoal town ; and all that 
 remains for me to do, to shew my willingness at least to divert 
 you, is to send you faithful accounts of what passes among 
 your acquaintance in this part of the world. Madame de 
 Broglie 1 makes a great noise. . . . My Lord Clare 2 at- 
 tracts the eyes of all the ladies, and gains all the hearts of 
 those who have no other way of disposing of them but through 
 their eyes. I have dined with him twice, and had he been 
 dumb, I believe I should have been in the number of his ad- 
 mirers ; but he lessened his beauty every time he spoke, till 
 he left himself as few charms as Mr. Vane ; though I confess 
 his outside very like Mr. Duncombe, but that the lovely 
 lines are softer there, with wit and spirit, and improved by 
 learning. 
 
 The Duke of Wharton has brought his duchess to town, 3 
 and is fond of her to distraction ; in order to break the hearts 
 
 1 The Due de Broglie came to England as ambassador from the French king 
 early in 1724. T. 
 
 2 Charles O'Brien, Viscount Clare, subsequently better known as Marshal 
 Thomond. His family had been living in France since the Revolution, when 
 the third Viscount fled with King James the Second. The Lord Clare men- 
 tioned in the text was, therefore, no doubt well known to Lady Mar. He was born 
 in 1699. When Lady Mary's stepmother, the Duchess of Kingston, then a widow, 
 went to Paris, shortly before her death, the newspapers announced that she 
 had married " the Lord Viscount Clare, a colonel in one of the Irish regiments in 
 the French service" (Country Journal, Feb. 17, 1727-8); but the report was 
 no doubt incorrect. T. 
 
 3 Philip, son of the Marquis of Wharton, married in March, 1714-15, and 
 when in his sixteenth year only, the eldest daughter of Major- General Holmes. 
 The marriage was performed by a Fleet parson, and was the first of the long series 
 of escapades for which the young nobleman became afterwards so notorious. The 
 young wife was said to be a person of " extraordinary education," and she appears 
 to have preserved through all her troubles a blameless character. Her husband 
 deserted her shortly after their marriage, partly, it is believed, at the instigation of 
 his father, who disapproved of the match, so much that it is said to have hastened 
 his death, which certainly occurred soon afterwards. After his father's death, and 
 while yet a boy, Philip was created an English duke : his influence, and the talents
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 4?9 
 
 of all the other women that have any claim upon his. . . . 
 He has public devotions twice a day, and assists at them in 
 person with exemplary devotion ; and there is nothing plea- 
 santer than the remarks of some pious ladies on the conversion 
 of so great a sinner. For my own part, I have some coteries 
 where wit and pleasure reign, and I should not fail to amuse 
 myself tolerably enough, but for the d d d d quality of 
 growing older and older every day, and my present joys are 
 made imperfect by fears of the future. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [January, 1725.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I am extremely sorry for your indisposi- 
 tion, and did not wait for a letter to write to you, but my Lord 
 Clare has been going every day this five weeks, and I in- 
 tended to charge him with a packet. Nobody ever had such 
 ineffectual charms as his lordship ; beauty and money are 
 equally ill bestowed, when a fool has the keeping of them ; they 
 
 he had already displayed, no less than his avowed Jacobite tendencies, having pro- 
 bably made him an object of uneasiness to the new government. The young 
 duke squandered his large fortune in the wildest profligacy ; but he appears soon 
 to have repented of his abandonment of the duchess, and to have been afterwards 
 guilty of no worse neglect than keeping her in seclusion in the country. The cele- 
 brated writer of scandalous stories, Mrs. Haywood, in the first volume of her Me- 
 moirs of the Kingdom of Utopia, published about twelve months after the pre- 
 sumed date of this letter, says : " After some years of continued extravagance, 
 the duke, either through the natural inconstancy of his temper, or the reflection 
 how much he had been drawn in by his unworthy companions to embezzle his 
 estate . . . began to think there were comforts in retirement ; and falling into the 
 conversation of the sober part of mankind, more than he had done, was persuaded 
 by them to take home his duchess. . . . He brought her to his house ; but love 
 had no part in his resolution. He lived with her indeed, but she is with him as a 
 housekeeper, as a nurse." The duke, who had at last openly espoused the Jacobite 
 cause, fled to the Continent, was created by the Pretender Duke of Northumber- 
 land, and continued, to the disgust of his new friends, to indulge in those eccentri- 
 cities which rendered him notorious throughout Europe. The duchess died " at 
 her house in Gerrard-street" soon after his flight, and the duke married imme- 
 diately at Madrid the daughter of an Irish officer in the Spanish service, with 
 whom he wandered about Europe for some time in a state almost of destitution. 
 He died in France in May, 1731. Some poems and satirical ballads are attributed 
 to him. Two volumes of his " Works," chiefly consisting of the essay papers en- 
 titled " The True Briton," were published soon after his death ; but it is doubtful 
 whether he was really their author. Prefixed to these is a memoir of the duke, 
 drawn up with some ability, and which was, I suspect, written by the poet Young. 
 Lady Mary's father, the Duke of Kingston, -was one of the guardians of Wharton 
 under his father's will. Pope's allusions to his career and fate will be remembered 
 by many readers. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 are incapable of happiness, and every blessing turns useless in 
 their hands. You advise a change of taste, which I confess I 
 have no notion of ; I may, with time, change my pursuit, for 
 the same reason that I may feed upon butcher's meat when I 
 am not able to purchase greater delicates, but I am sure I 
 shall never forget the flavour of gibier. In the mean time I 
 divert myself passably enough, and take care to improve as 
 much as possible that stock of vanity and credulity that 
 Heaven in its mercy has furnished me with ; being sensible 
 that to those two qualities, simple as they appear, all the plea-, 
 sures of life are owing. My sister Gower is in town, on the 
 point of lying-in. 1 I see every body, but converse with nobody 
 but des amies choisies ; in the first rank of these are Lady 
 Stafford, and dear Molly Skerritt, 2 both of which have now 
 the additional merit of being old acquaintances, and never 
 having given me any reason to complain of either of 'em. I 
 pass some days with the Duchess of Montagu, who might 
 be a reigning beauty if she pleased. 3 I see the whole town 
 every Sunday, and select a few that I retain to supper ; in 
 short, if life could be always what it is, I believe I have so 
 much humility in my temper I could be contented without 
 anything better than this two or three hundred years : but, 
 alas! 
 
 Dulness, and wrinkles, and disease, must come, 
 And age, and death's irrevocable doom. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [February, 1725.] 
 
 I BELIEVE you have by this time, dear sister, received my 
 letter from the hand of that thing my Lord Clare ; however, 
 I love you well enough to write again, in hopes you will 
 answer my letters one time or other. All our acquaintances 
 are run mad ; they do such things ! such monstrous and stu- 
 pendous things ! Lady Hervey and Lady Bristol have quar- 
 
 1 Lady Gower was delivered of a daughter January 27, 1725. T. 
 
 2 Maria Skerritt, afterwards second wife of Sir Robert Walpole. See Introduc- 
 tory Anecdotes. T. 
 
 8 There is probably a slight exaggeration in this, to express Lady Mary's esti- 
 mate of the younger beauties of the time. The duchess had a daughter married. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 481 
 
 relied in such a polite manner, that they have given one 
 another all the titles so liberally bestowed amongst the ladies 
 at Billingsgate. 1 Sophia 2 and I have been quite reconciled, 
 and are now quite broke, and I believe not likely to piece up 
 again. Ned Thompson 8 is as happy as the money and charms 
 of Belle Dunch can make him, and a miserable dog for all 
 that. Public places flourish more than ever : we have assem- 
 blies for every day in the week, besides court, operas, and 
 masquerades ; with youth and money, 'tis certainly possible to 
 be very well diverted in spite of malice and ill-nature, though 
 they are more and more powerful every day. For my part, 
 as it is my established opinion that this globe of ours is no 
 better than a Holland cheese, and the walkers about in it 
 mites, I possess my mind in patience, let what will happen ; 
 arid should feel tolerably easy, though a great rat came and 
 ate half of it up. My sister Gower has got a sixth daughter 
 by the grace of God, and is as merry as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. My poor love Mr. Cook 4 has fought and been disarmed 
 by J. Stapleton on a national quarrel ; in short, he was born 
 to conquer nothing in England, that's certain, and has good 
 luck neither with our ladies nor gentlemen. B. [Bridget] Noel 
 is come out Lady Milsington, 5 to the encouragement and con- 
 solation of all the coquettes about town ; and they make haste 
 to be as infamous as possible, in order to make their fortunes. 
 I have this moment received from Mrs. Peling a very pretty 
 cap for my girl ; I give you many thanks for the trouble you 
 have had in sending it, and desire you would be so good to 
 send the other things when you have opportunity. I have 
 
 1 Mr. Croker doubted this. See his note on letter of Lady Hervey in the 
 Suffolk Corresp., i. 193. Lady Hervey was certainly not on good terms with her 
 mother-in-law, but Lady Mary appears to have somewhat improved the story in 
 the fashion of most writers of amusing letters. T. 
 
 2 See note, post, p. 484. T. 
 
 * Edward Thompson, of Marsden, in the county of York, Esq., married 6th 
 February, 1725, to Mrs. Arabella Dunch, daughter of Edmund Dunch, of Wit- 
 tenham, in the county of Berks, Esq. Historical Register. W. 
 
 * He is described in the newspapers of the time as " M. Cooke, a captain of 
 dragoons in the service of France, who came over with the French Embassy." 
 He was wounded in the body and in the sword-arm. The duel took place about 
 the 5th February, 1725. T. 
 
 * This marriage took place 30th November, 1724. Lord Milsington was eldest 
 bon of David Collier, Earl of Portmore. W. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I
 
 482 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 another favour to ask, that you would make my compliments 
 to our English embassador 1 when you see him. I have a con- 
 stancy in my nature that makes me always remember my old 
 friends. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, My eyes are very bad to-day, from having 
 been such a beast 2 to sit up late last night ; however, I will 
 write to enquire after your health, though at the expense of my 
 own. I forgot whether I told you Lord Dorchester 3 and our 
 sister 4 Caroline have been inoculated, and are perfectly well 
 after it. I saw her grace the Duchess of Kingston yesterday, 
 who told me that she heard from you last post, and that you 
 have been ill, but are recovered. My father is going to the 
 Bath, Sir William Wyndham is dying of a fistula, 3 Lady Dar- 
 lington 6 and Lady Mohun are packing up for the next world, 
 and the rest of our acquaintance playing the fool in this a 
 V ordinaire. Among the rest a very odd whim has entered the 
 little head of Mrs. Murray : do you know she won't visit me 
 this winter ? I, according to the usual integrity of my heart, 
 and simplicity of my manners, with great naweti desired to 
 explain with her on the subject, and she answered that she 
 was convinced that I had made the ballad upon her, and was 
 resolved never to speak to me again. 7 I answered (which was 
 
 i Horatio Walpole, uncle of Horace the letter- writer. T. 
 
 i Lady Mary probably translates the French expression " bSte." T. 
 
 3 Lady Mary's nephew, Evelyn, afterwards Duke of Kingston. T. 
 
 4 Half-sister ; being the daughter of the Duke of Kingston by his second wife. T. 
 s Sir William Wyndham lived many years after the date of this letter. T. 
 
 6 Countess Platen, Madame Kilmansegg by marriage, was one of the German 
 favourites of George I., and created by him Countess of Darlington : Lady Howe, 
 her daughter by the king, decorously called her niece, was lady of the bedchamber 
 to Augusta, Princess of Wales ; and the Prince used constantly to call her aurA. 
 The three successive Lords Howe, whose names will remain in history, were 
 the sons of this Lady Howe. W. The Weekly Journal of the 27th February, 
 1725, says : " The Countess of Darlington lies dangerously ill at St. James's, 
 wherefore the beating of the drums and the playing of the musick are suspended 
 at Court." She died 20th April, 1725. Lady Mohun died at Kensington on the 
 16th May in the same year. T. 
 
 " This refers not to the Epistle of Arthur Grey included among the poems of 
 Lady Mary, but to a witty though indelicate ballad on the same subject, entitled 
 " Virtue in Danger," which may well have provoked Mrs. Murray's indignation 
 against Lady Mary if she believed her to have been its author. A copy may be 
 seen in " Additions to Pope's Works," 1776. It will be observed that Lady Mary
 
 LETTEES TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 483 
 
 true), that I utterly defied her to have any one single proof of 
 my making it, without being able to get any thing from her, 
 but repetitions that she knew it. I cannot suppose that any 
 thing you have said should occasion this rupture, and the re- 
 putation of a quarrel is always so ridiculous on both sides, that 
 you would oblige me in mentioning it to her, for 'tis now at 
 that pretty pass, she won't curtsey to me whenever she meets 
 me, which is superlatively silly (if she really knew it), after a 
 suspension of resentment for two years together. To turn the 
 discourse on something more amusing, we had a masquerade 
 last night, where I did not fail to trifle away a few hours 
 agreeably enough, and fell into company with a quite new 
 man, that has a great deal of wit, joined to a diabolical person : 
 'tis my Lord Irwin, 1 whom 'tis impossible to love, and impos- 
 sible not to be entertained with; that species are the most 
 innocent part of the creation, et ne laisse pas de faire plaisir. 
 I wish all mankind were of that class. Dear sister, I would 
 give the world to converse with you ; mais, hdlas I the sea is 
 between us. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 I CANNOT help being very sorry, for your sake, to hear that 
 you persist in your design of retiring ; 2 though as to my own 
 part, I have no view of conversing with you where you now 
 are, and ninety leagues are but a small addition to the distance 
 between us. London was never more gay than it is at pre- 
 sent; but I don't know how, I would fain be ten years 
 younger ; I love flattery so well, I would fain have some cir- 
 cumstances of probability added to it, that I might swallow it 
 with comfort. The reigning Duchess of Marlborough has 
 
 in this letter does not deny the authorship, and seems to hint that her sister was in 
 the secret. See Introductory Anecdotes. T. 
 
 1 Arthur, sixth Viscount Irwin, succeeded to the title in 1721. W. He suc- 
 ceeded his brother Edward, who was the husband of Lady Mary's early friend, 
 Lady Anne Howard, elsewhere alluded to in the letters as Lady Irwin. T. 
 
 2 Atterbury wrote from Paris to the Pretender, March 26, 1725 : "The Duke 
 of Mar talks every day of leaving his place, and makes great enquiries after a house 
 in some distant part of France," but from a subsequent letter Mar appears to have 
 removed with the Countess to a house near Fontainebleau for the summer. T. 
 
 2i2
 
 484 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 entertained the town with concerts of Bononcini's composition 
 very often : but she and I are not in that degree of friendship 
 to have me often invited : we continue to see one another like 
 two people who are resolved to hate with civility. Sophia 1 
 is going to Aix la Chapelle, and from thence to Paris. I 
 dare swear she'll endeavour to get acquainted with you. We 
 are broke to an irremediable degree. Various are the per- 
 secutions I have endured from him 2 this winter, in all 
 which I remain neuter, and shall certainly go to heaven from 
 the passive meekness of my temper. Lady Lansdowne is in 
 that sort of figure here, nobody cares to appear with her. 
 Madame Villette 3 has been the favourite of the town, and by 
 a natural transition is become the aversion : she has now no- 
 body attached to her suite but the vivacious Lord Bathurst, 4 
 with whom I have been well and ill ten times within these 
 two months : we now hardly speak to one another. I wish 
 you would lay out part of my money in a made-up mantua 
 and petticoat of Rat de St. Maur. It will be no trouble to 
 you to send a thing of that nature by the first travelling lady. 
 I give you many thanks for the good offices you promise me 
 with regard to Mrs. Murray, and I shall think myself sincerely 
 obliged to you, as I already am on many accounts. 'Tis very 
 
 1 The names in all these letters in the original have been struck out, and signs 
 substituted, apparently that they might be copied, and the copies read by means of 
 a key. To this name, wherever it occurs, the letters " W. A." are affixed, which 
 are elsewhere invariably used to designate the Duke of Wharton. The duke was 
 at that time a dangerous man to be acquainted with, being a ruined and desperate 
 spendthrift, and notoriously in communication with the Jacobite party ; and the 
 opening of letters being almost a universal practice, it is not impossible that in 
 writing to Lady Mar, herself the wife of a Jacobite and an exile, Lady Mary may 
 have used a name agreed upon between them to designate him. Such elaborate 
 cyphers were then in common use with Lord Mar and his friends : and appear to 
 have been generally well known. See a letter of Lady Mary to Mr. Wortley 
 Montagu, dated Lovere, Oct. 10, N.S. [1753]. T. 
 
 2 It is some confirmation of the speculation above, that in the old manuscript 
 copy from which this is printed this stood originally " her ;" the word is struck out, 
 and " him" substituted. T. 
 
 3 The Marquise de Villette, niece of Madame de Maintenon, and second wife of 
 Lord Bolingbroke. Like the wives of other Jacobites who had privately " treated" 
 with King George's government, she passed frequently between France and Eng- 
 land on political errands. Lord Lansdowne, writing to the Chevalier, July 10, 1724, 
 says : " She has not the luck to please at Court. Elle park trop et sans respect 
 was the character given her by the master of the house [the king]. You can tell, 
 sir, whether this is a just character. She is your old acquaintance." T. 
 
 4 Allen, Lord Bathurst, the well-known friend and patron of Pope, Swift, and 
 Gay. D.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 485 
 
 disagreeable in her to go about behaving and talking as she 
 does, and very silly into the bargain. 
 
 I am ever affectionately yours. 
 
 70 THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [March or April, 1725.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, Having a few momentary spirits, I take pen 
 in hand, though 'tis impossible to have tenderness for you, with- 
 out having spleen upon reading your letter, which will, I hope, 
 be received as a lawful excuse for the dulness of the following 
 
 O 
 
 lines ; and I plead (as I believe has been done on different 
 occasions), I should please you better if I loved you less. My 
 Lord Carleton 1 has left this transitory world, and disposed of 
 his estate as he did of his time, between Lady Clarendon and 
 the Duchess of Queensberry. 2 Jewels to a great value he 
 has given, as he did his affections, first to the mother, and 
 then to the daughter. He was taken ill in my company at a 
 concert at the Duchess of Marlborough's, and died two days 
 after, holding the fair Duchess by the hand, and being fed at 
 the same time with a fine fat chicken ; thus dying as he had 
 lived, indulging his pleasures. Your friend Lady A. [Anne] 
 Bateman (every body being acquainted with her affair) is grown 
 discreet ; and nobody talks of it now but his family, who are 
 violently piqued at his refusing a great fortune. Lady Gains- 
 borough has stolen poor Lord Shaftesbury, aged fourteen,'' and 
 chained him for life to her daughter, upon pretence of having 
 been in love with her several years. But Lady Hervey makes 
 the top figure in town, and is so good to show twice a week at 
 the drawing-room, and twice more at the opera, for the enter- 
 tainment of the public. As for myself, having nothing to say, 
 I say nothing. I insensibly dwindle into a spectatress, and lead 
 
 1 Lord Carleton's death " on Sunday last," at " his house in Pall-mall," is an- 
 nounced in the Weekly Journal of Saturday, 20th March. 1725. He was a 
 younger son of the Earl of Orrery, and had been secretary of state to Queen 
 Anne. T. 
 
 2 The patroness of Gay, and the daughter of Lady Clarendon, wife of Henry 
 Hyde, fourth Earl of Clarendon. Other references to the Duchess, Lady Clarendon, 
 and Lord Carleton, will be found in letters to the Countess oi Bute. T. 
 
 * The statement as to the age of the young bridegroom appears, from the 
 peerages, to have been literally true. The marriage took place about 12th March, 
 1725. T.
 
 486 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 a kind of [sic] as it were. I wish you here every day ; 
 
 and see, in the mean time, Lady Stafford, the D. [Duchess] of 
 Montagu, and Miss Skerritt, and really speak to almost no- 
 body else, though I walk about everywhere. Adieu, deai 
 sister ; if my letters could be any consolation to you, I should 
 think my time best spent in writing. 
 
 When you buy the trifles that I desired of you, I fancy Mr. 
 Walpole 1 will be so good to give you opportunity of sending 
 them without trouble, if you make it your request and tell 
 him they are for me. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 I AM now at the same distance from London that you are 
 from Paris, and could fall into solitary amusements with a 
 good deal of taste ; but I resist it, as a temptation of Satan, 
 and rather turn my endeavours to make the world as agree- 
 able to me as I can, which is the true philosophy; that of 
 despising it is of no use but to hasten wrinkles. I ride a good 
 deal, and have got a horse superior to any two-legged animal, 
 he being without a fault. I work like an angel. I receive 
 visits upon idle days, and I shade my life as I do my tent- 
 stitch, that is, make as easy transitions as I can from business 
 to pleasure ; the one would be too flaring and gaudy without 
 some dark shades of t'other; and if I worked altogether in 
 the grave colours, you know 'twould be quite dismal. Miss 
 Skerritt is in the house with me, and Lady Stafford has taken 
 a lodging at Richmond : as their ages are different, and both 
 agreeable in their kind, I laugh with the one, or reason with 
 the other, as I happen to be in a gay or serious humour ; and I 
 manage my friends with such a strong yet with a gentle hand, 
 that they are both willing to do whatever I have a mind to. 
 
 My daughter presents her duty to you, and service to Lady 
 Frances, 2 who is growing to womanhood apace : I long to see 
 her and you, and am not destitute of wandering designs to 
 that purpose. 
 
 1 Horatio Walpole, before mentioned. T. 
 
 2 Lady Frances Erskine, daughter of Lady Mar. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 487 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I take this occasion of writing to you, though 
 I have received no answer to my last ; but 'tis always most agree- 
 able to me to write when I have the conveniency of a private hand 
 to convey my letter, though I have no dispositions to politics, 
 but I have such a complication of things both in my head and 
 heart that I do not very well know what I do, and if I can't 
 settle my brains, your next news of me will be, that I am 
 locked up by my relations : in the mean time I lock myself 
 up, and keep my distraction as private as possible. The most 
 facetious part of the history is, that my distemper is of such a 
 nature I know not whether to laugh or cry at it ; I am glad 
 and sorry, and smiling and sad; but this is too long an 
 account of so whimsical a being. I give myself sometimes 
 admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it. Mr. Baily, 1 
 you know, is dismissed the Treasury, and consoled with a pen- 
 sion of equal value. Your acquaintance, D. Rodrigue, has 
 had a small accident befallen him. Mr. Annesley found him 
 in bed with his wife, prosecuted, and brought a bill of divorce 
 into Parliament. Those things grow more fashionable every 
 day, and in a little time won't be at all scandalous. The best 
 expedient for the public, and to prevent the expense of private 
 families, would be a general act of divorcing all the people of 
 England. You know those that pleased might marry again ; 
 and it would save the reputations of several ladies that are now 
 in peril of being exposed every day. I saw Horace the other 
 day, who is a good creature ; he returns soon to France, 2 and 
 I will engage him to take care of any packet that you design 
 for me. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [September, 1725.] 
 
 I HAVE already writ you so many letters, dear sister, that if 
 I thought you had silently received them all, I don't know 
 whether I should trouble you with any more; but I natter 
 
 1 George Baillie, Esq , the father of Mrs. Murray. The event referred to oc- 
 curred in May, 1725. T. 
 
 2 Walpole left London on his return to Paris in July, 1725, as appears by a 
 paragraph in the Daily Courant of July 31. T.
 
 488 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 myself that they have most of them miscarried : I had rather 
 have my labours lost, than accuse you of unkindness. I send 
 this by Lady Lansdowne/ who 1 hope will have no curiosity to 
 open my letter, since she will find in it, that I never saw any 
 thing so miserably altered in my life : I really did not know 
 her: 
 
 So must the fairest face appear, 
 
 When youth and years are flown ; 
 So sinks the pride of the parterre, 
 
 When something over-blown. 2 
 
 My daughter makes such a noise in the room, 'tis impossible 
 to go on in this heroic style. I hope yours is in great bloom 
 of beauty. I fancy to myself we shall have the pleasure of 
 seeing them co-toasts of the next age. I don't at all doubt 
 but they will outshine all the little Auroras of this, for there 
 never was such a parcel of ugly girls as reign at present. In 
 recompense, they are very kind, and the men very merciful, 
 and content, in this dearth of charms, with the poorest stuff in 
 the world. This you'd believe, had I but time to tell you the 
 tender loves of Lady Romney and Lord Carmichael ; 3 they 
 are so fond, it does one's heart good to see them. There are 
 some other pieces of scandal not unentertaining, particularly 
 the Earl of Stair and Lady M. [Mary] Howard, 4 who being 
 your acquaintance, I thought would be some comfort to you. 
 The town improves daily, all people seem to make the best of 
 the talent God has given 'em. 
 
 The race of Roxbourghs, Thanets, and Suffolks, 5 are utterly 
 extinct; and every thing appears with that edifying plain 
 dealing, that I may say, in the words of the Psalmist, " there 
 is no sin in Israel." 
 
 I have already thanked you for my nightgown, but 'tis so 
 pretty it will bear being twice thanked for. 
 
 1 Lady Lansdowne returned to France, after a short visit to England, in Sep- 
 tember, 1725. Her arrival at Calais, whither her husband came to meet her, is 
 mentioned in Mist's Weekly Journal of September 25. T. 
 
 2 This is a parody of a stanza in Mallet's ballad of William and Margaret. T. 
 8 Lady Romney was Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Her 
 
 first husband, Lord Romney, died on the 28th of November, 1724. She married 
 secondly Lord Carmichael, then Lord Hyndford, in 1732, the lady being at that 
 time forty years of age, the husband nearly ten years younger. T. 
 
 4 Youngest daughter of the Earl of Carlisle. T. 
 
 s Roxburghs, Thanets, and Suffolks elderly ladies distinguished for prudery 
 and stateliness. The Roxana of Lady M. Wortley's Town-Eclogue was meant for 
 the Duchess of Roxburgh. W.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 489 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I think this is the first time in my life that 
 a letter of yours has lain by me two posts unanswered. You'll 
 wonder to hear that short silence is occasioned by not having a 
 moment unemployed at Twickenham ; but I pass many hours 
 on horseback, and, I'll assure you, ride stag-hunting, which I 
 know you'll stare to hear of. I have arrived to vast courage and 
 skill that way, and am as well pleased with it as with the ac- 
 quisition of a new sense : his Royal Highness hunts in Rich- 
 mond Park, and I make one of the beau monde in his train. 
 I desire you after this account not to name the word old 
 woman to me any more : I approach to fifteen nearer than I 
 did ten years ago, and am in hopes to improve every year in 
 health and vivacity. Lord Bolingbroke is returned to Eng- 
 land, 1 and is to do the honours at an assembly at Lord 
 Berkeley's the ensuing winter. But the most surprising news 
 is Lord Bathurst's assiduous court to their Royal Highnesses, 
 which fills the coffee-houses with profound speculations. But 
 I, who smell a rat at a considerable distance, do believe in 
 private that Mrs. Howard and his lordship have a friendship 
 that borders upon " the tender ;" 2 
 
 And though in histories, learned ignorance 
 Attributes all to cunning or to chance, 
 Love in that grave disguise does often smile, 
 Knowing the cause was kindness all the while. 
 
 I am in hopes your King of France behaves better than 
 our Duke of Bedford ; 3 who, by the care of a pious mother, 
 certainly preserved his virginity to his marriage-bed, where he 
 
 1 Lord Bolingbroke was in England in June, 1725. The Weekly Journal of 
 June 5 mentions his having " kissed the king's hand." T. 
 
 2 Mr. Croker doubts the correctness of this piece of scandal. See note to 
 Suffolk Corresp., i. 178. Mist's Weekly Journal of Aug. 14, 1725, says: " Lord 
 Bathurst has been lately to pay his court to his Royal Highness at Richmond," 
 and that " he was received with particular marks of esteem." There is a letter of 
 Bathurst to Pope on the back of a portion of Pope's manuscript of the Odyssey in 
 the British Museum, probably translated in the summer of 1725, and in this Lord 
 Bathurst says : " I will not fail to attend Mrs. Howard upon Marble Hill next 
 Tuesday, but Lady Bathurst is not able to come at this time." T. 
 
 3 The marriage of the King of France (Louis XV.) took place on Aug. 25, 1725. 
 He was in his sixteenth year. The young Duke of Bedford married 22 April, 
 1725, Anne, daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgwater. T.
 
 490 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 was so much disappointed in his fair bride, who (though his 
 own inclinations 1 ) could not bestow on him those expressless 
 raptures he had figured to himself, that he already pukes at 
 the very name of her, and determines to let his estate go to 
 his brother, rather than go through the filthy drudgery of 
 getting an heir to it. 
 
 N.B. This is true history, and I think the most extraordi- 
 nary has happened in this last age. This comes of living till 
 sixteen without a competent knowledge either of practical or 
 speculative anatomy, and literally thinking fine ladies com- 
 posed of lilies and roses. A propos of the best red and white 
 to be had for money ; Lady Hervey is more delightful than 
 ever, and such a politician, that if people were not blind to 
 merit, she would govern the nation. Mrs. Murray has got a 
 new lover of the most accomplished Mr. Dodington. So far 
 for the progress of love. That of wit has taken a very odd 
 course, and is making the tour of Ireland, from whence we have 
 packets of ballads, songs, petitions, panegyrics, &c. : so power- 
 ful is the influence of Lord Carteret's wit, and my lady's 
 beauty, the Irish rhyme that never rhymed before. 
 
 Adieu, dear sister, I take a sincere part in all that relates to 
 you, and am ever yours. I beg, as the last favour, that you 
 would make some small enquiry, and let me know the minute 
 Lord Finch 2 is at Paris. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 I WROTE to you very lately, my dear sister ; but ridiculous 
 things happening, I cannot help (as far as in me lies) sharing 
 all my pleasures with you. I own I enjoy vast delight in the 
 folly of mankind ; and, God be praised, that is an inexhaust- 
 ible source of entertainment. You may remember I mentioned 
 in my last some suspicions of my own in relation to Lord 
 Bathurst, which I really never mentioned, for fifty reasons, to 
 any one whatever ; but, as there is never smoke without some 
 fire, there is very rarely fire without some smoke. These 
 
 1 His own inclinations, his own choice. "W. 
 
 2 Afterwards Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham. D.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 491 
 
 smothered flames, though admirably covered with whole heaps 
 of politics laid over them, were at length seen, felt, heard, and 
 understood; and the fair lady given to understand by her 
 commanding officer, 1 that if she shewed under other colours, 
 she must expect to have her pay retrenched. Upon which the 
 good lord was dismissed, and has not attended in the drawing- 
 room since. You know one cannot help laughing, when one 
 sees him next, and I own I long for that pleasurable 
 moment. 
 
 I am sorry for another of our acquaintance, whose follies 
 (for it is not possible to avoid that word) are not of a kind to 
 give mirth to those who wish her well. The discreet and sober 
 Lady Lechmere 2 has lost such furious sums at the Bath, that 
 'tis questioned, whether all the sweetness that the waters can 
 put into my lord's blood, can make him endure it, particularly 
 700^. at one sitting, which is aggravated with many astonish- 
 ing circumstances. This is as odd to me as my Lord Teyn- 
 ham's shooting himself; and another demonstration of the 
 latent fire that lies under cold countenances. We wild girls 
 always make your prudent wives and mothers. 
 
 I hear some near relations of ours are at Paris, whom I 
 think you are not acquainted with. I mean Lord Denbigh and 
 his Dutch lady, 3 who, I am very certain, is the produce of 
 some French valet de chambre. She is entertaining enough, 
 
 extremely gay, 
 
 Loves music, company, and play 
 
 I suppose you will see her. 
 
 1 The Prince of Wales, afterwards George II T. 
 
 2 Lady Lechmere was one of the daughters of the Earl of Carlisle, the early 
 friends of Lady Mary and her sister. The arrival of Lord Lechmere at Bath is 
 announced in Mist's Weekly Journal of Aug. 28, 1725. T. 
 
 3 Isabella, daughter of Peter de Yong, of Utrecht, in Holland, and sister of the 
 Marchioness of Blandford. D. The Dutch or " Belgian" dame is thus alluded 
 to among the " Toasts of the Rumpsteak Club" in " A New Miscellany for the Year 
 1734:" 
 
 " W. [Walpole] this charge to noble Denbigh gave, 
 Or quit your pension, peer, or be n slave. 
 Dare to be poor, replied the Belgian dame, 
 
 And take what monarchs cannot give thee, fame. 
 
 * * 
 
 To Denbigh's heroine let the bowl flow round, 
 With Belgian, Spartan, Roman virtue crowned." T.
 
 492 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 IT is 'very true, dear sister, that if I writ to you a full 
 account of all that passes, my letters would be both frequent 
 and voluminous. This sinful town is very populous, and my 
 own affairs very much in a hurry ; but the same things that 
 afford me much matter, give me very little time, and I am 
 hardly at leisure to make observations, much less to write them 
 down. But the melancholy catastrophe of poor Lady Lech- 
 mere is too extraordinary not [to] attract the attention of 
 every body. After having played away her reputation and 
 fortune, she has poisoned herself. This is the effect of pru- 
 dence ! ' All discreet people live and flourish. Mrs. Murray 
 has retrieved his Grace, 2 and being reconciled to the temporal 
 has renounced the spiritual. Her friend Lady Hervey, by 
 aiming too high, has fallen very low ; and is reduced to trying 
 to persuade folks she has an intrigue, and gets nobody to be- 
 lieve her ; the man in question taking a great deal of pains to 
 clear himself of the scandal. Her Chelsea Grace of Rutland 
 is married to an attorney," there's prudence for you ! 
 
 1 The date of this letter has been the subject of discussion between editors and 
 critics. The story of Lady Lechmere's poisoning appears to be the sequel to the 
 account of her gambling at Bath, in the preceding letter. Lady Lechmere did not 
 die till 1739 certainly long after the date of the latest letter in this section : but 
 that she did attempt to poison herself, or was popularly believed to have done so, 
 is probable ; for Lord Hailes, in a letter to Edmund Malone, written more than 
 sixty years later upon the persons referred to in Pope's Epistle to Martha Blount 
 on the Characters of Women, says : " Rosamond's Bowl, I think, respects Lady 
 Lechmere of the Carlisle family, of whom you will see enough on a marble tablet 
 in the Westminster Abbey." T. 
 
 * Arthur Grey, the footman, by way of defence, accused Mrs. Murray of an 
 intrigue with a person whose name is suppressed in the report of the trial, a blank 
 being substituted ; this appears to have been the same person here alluded to, for in 
 the ballad which Mrs. Murray attributed to Lady Mary, there is also an allusion 
 to " his Grace" 
 
 " While this poor lady nothing dreamt ; 
 Or dreamt it was his Grace." T. 
 
 8 There were living at this time a Duchess of Rutland and two Dowager- 
 Duchesses, hence Lady Mary's attempt to distinguish the one referred to by her 
 place of residence. By " her Chelsea Grace," Lady Mary means Lucy, the widow 
 of the second Duke She resided at Beaufort House, Chelsea. This story of her 
 marriage was doubtless a mistake. Neither the peerages nor the newspapers of 
 the period make any mention of the fact; and I have examined her will, made 
 many years later, which does not contain any indication of a second marriage. 
 T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE 493 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1725.] 
 
 I AM heartily sorry, dear sister, for all that displeases you, 
 and for this time admit of your excuses for silence ; but I give 
 you warning, c'est pour la derniere fois : to say truth, they 
 don't seem very reasonable ; whatever keeps one at home 
 naturally inclines one to write, especially when you can give 
 a friend so much pleasure as your letters always do me. Miss 
 Skerritt staid all the remainder of the summer with me, and we 
 are now come to town, where [a] variety of things happen every 
 day. Sophia 1 and I have an immortal quarrel ; which though 
 I resolve never to forgive, I can hardly forbear laughing at. 
 An acquaintance of mine is married, whom I wish very well 
 to : Sophia has been pleased, on this occasion, to write the most 
 infamous ballad that ever was written ; where both the bride 
 and bridegroom are intolerably mauled, especially the last, who 
 is complimented with the hopes of cuckoldom, and forty other 
 things equally obliging, and Sophia has distributed this ballad 
 in such a manner as to make it pass for mine, on purpose to 
 pique the poor innocent soul of the new-married man, whom I 
 should be the last of creatures to abuse. I know not how to 
 clear myself of this vile imputation, without a train of conse- 
 quences I have no mind to fall into. In the mean time, Sophia 
 enjoys the pleasure of heartily plaguing both me and that 
 person. 
 
 Now the money is so high at Paris, I wish you would be 
 good [enough] to enquire for what I could sell a diamond 
 clean and thick, Indian cut, weighing thirty-nine grains strong. 
 Your quick answer to this would be very kind. If it is as I 
 like, perhaps I may pass the Christmas holidays at Paris. 2 
 Adieu, dear sister. The new opera is execrable. 
 
 1 The Duke of Wharton. See note, ante, p. 484. T. 
 
 2 It does not appear that Lady Mary did visit Paris as intended. T.
 
 494 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 March 7, O.S., 1726. 
 
 DEAR SISTER, This letter will be in a very different style 
 from that which I hope you received last post. I have now 
 to tell you the surprising death of my father, 1 and a great 
 deal of surprising management of the people about him, which 
 I leave informing you till another time, being now under 
 some hurry of spirit myself. I am unfeignedly sorry that I 
 cannot send you word of a considerable legacy for yourself. I 
 suppose the trustees will send you, as soon as possible, a copy 
 of the will. If you would have an abstract of it, Mr. Wortley 
 will take care to get it for you. 
 
 I am affectionately yours. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 London, April 15, 1726. 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I would have writ you some time ago, but 
 Lord Erskine 2 told me you had been ill. So my Lord M r 
 [Mar] has not acquainted you with my poor father's death. 
 To be sure, the shock must be very great to you whenever 
 you heard it ; as indeed it was to us all here, being so sudden. 
 It is to no purpose now to relate particulars, but only renew- 
 ing our grief. I can't forbear telling you the Duchess 8 has 
 behaved very oddly in endeavouring to get the guardianship 
 of the young Duke and his sister, contrary to her husband's 
 will ; but the boy, when he was fourteen, confirmed the trus- 
 tees his grandfather left; so that ended all disputes; and 
 Lady Fanny 4 is to live with my aunt Cheyne. There is a 
 vast number of thirds that have happened, and some people's 
 behaviour so extraordinary in this melancholy business, that it 
 would be great ease of mind if I could tell it you ; but I must 
 not venture to speak too freely in a letter. Pray let me hear 
 from vou soon, for I long to know how you do. I am but in 
 
 1 The Duke of Kingston died March 5, 1726, of the cholic, at his house in Ar- 
 lington-street, Piccadilly. T. 
 
 2 Thomas, Lord Erskine, Lady Mar's stepson. T. 
 
 3 The Duchess of Kingston, Lady Mary's stepmother. T. 
 
 4 Lady Mary's niece, Lady Frances Pierrepont. Her father, Lord Kingston, 
 died 1713; her mother, 1722. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 495 
 
 an uneasy way myself ; for I have been confined this f ourteen- 
 night to one floor, after my usual manner. I can send you 
 no news, for I see very few people, and have hardly been any 
 where since I came to town. Adieu. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [April, 1726.] 
 
 I RECEIVED yours, dear sister, this minute, and am very 
 sorry both for your past illness and affliction ; though, au bout 
 du compte, I don't know why filial piety should exceed fatherly 
 fondness. So much by way of consolation. As to the ma- 
 nagement at that time I do verily believe, if my good aunt 
 and sister had been less fools, and my dear mother-in-law 
 less mercenary, things might have had a turn more to your 
 advantage and mine too ; when we meet, I will tell you many 
 circumstances which would be tedious in a letter. I could 
 not get my sister Gower to join to act with me, and mamma 
 and I were in an actual scold when my poor father expired ; 
 she has shewn a hardness of heart upon this occasion that 
 would appear incredible to any body not capable of it them- 
 selves. The addition to her jointure is, one way or other, 
 2000Z. per annum ; so her good Grace remains a passable rich 
 widow, 1 and is already presented by the town with variety of 
 young husbands ; but I believe her constitution is not good 
 enough to let her amorous inclinations get the better of her 
 covetous. 
 
 Mrs. Murray is in open wars [sic] with me in such a manner 
 as makes her very ridiculous without doing me much harm ; 
 my moderation having a very bright pretence of shewing itself. 
 Firstly, she was pleased to attack me in very Billingsgate at a 
 masquerade, 2 where she was as visible as ever she was in her 
 
 1 She was much younger than her late husband the Duke, being at this time 
 in her thirtieth year. T. 
 
 * The celebrated Heyclegger, mentioned in Pope's Dunciad, had brought mas- 
 querades into grent fashion at this time. They were held during the season at 
 " the King's Theatre, in the Haymarket," the site of the present Opera-house. 
 Tickets were generally delivered, to subscribers only, at White's Chocolate House 
 in St James's-street, and great efforts were made to keep the company exclusive. 
 " Persons of quality" were publicly requested not to lend their names to 
 obtain tickets for others, or if they had tickets to spare to send them to
 
 496 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 own clothes. I had the temper not only to keep silence my- 
 self, but enjoined it to the person with me ; who would have 
 been very glad to have shewn his great skill, in sousing upon 
 that occasion. She endeavoured to sweeten him by very 
 exorbitant praises of his person, which might even have been 
 mistaken for making love from a woman of less celebrated 
 virtue ; and concluded her oration with pious warnings to him, 
 to avoid the conversation of one so unworthy his regard as 
 myself, who to her certain knowledge loved another man. 
 This last article, I own, piqued me more than all her pre- 
 ceding civilities. The gentleman she addressed herself to had 
 a very slight acquaintance with me, and might possibly go 
 away in the opinion that she had been confidante in some very 
 notorious affair of mine. However, I made her no answer at 
 the time, but you may imagine I laid up these things in my 
 heart ; and the first assembly I had the honour to meet her at, 
 with a meek tone of voice, asked her how I had deserved so 
 much abuse at her hands, which I assured her I would never 
 return. She denied it in the spirit of lying ; and in the spirit 
 of folly owned it at length. I contented myself with telling 
 
 the office in the Haymarket, where the money they cost would be returned, 
 " to prevent their falling into bad hands." Heydegger always advertised that 
 "a sufficient guard" was "appointed, within and without the house, to prevent 
 all disorders and indecencies," and that " strict orders " were " given not to deliver 
 any bottles and glasses from the sideboards, and to shut them up early." Notwith- 
 standing this, however, the utmost licence and disorder prevailed among the 
 fashionable company. Quarrels and duels were frequent. Bishops preached ser- 
 mons warning the public against them ; poets satirised their vices and follies ; 
 and the grand jury presented the masquerades at the King's Theatre, " conceiving 
 the same to be a wicked and unlawful design to carry on gaming, chances by way 
 of lottery, and other impious and illegal practices." For all this, however, mas- 
 querades and Mr. Heydegger continued to flourish ; and Lady Mary, in excuse 
 for her conduct, could certainly plead the example of others in even a higher sta- 
 tion. The nobility were Mr. Heydegger's chief supporters. Lord Chesterfield 
 wrote to Mrs. Howard : " 18 May, N.S. [1728]. I considered you particularly 
 last Tuesday, suffering the heat and disorders of the masquerade, supported by the 
 Duchess of Richmond of one side, and Miss Fitzwilliam of the other." Suffolk 
 Corresp., i. 290. Even royalty joined in this defiance of bishop, satirist, and grand 
 jury. The Edinburgh Evening Courant of February 20, 1727, quotes from a Lon- 
 don paper the announcement that " the King and the Prince were last night at the 
 masquerade ;" nor was Mr. Heydegger personally out of royal favour, for the 
 same paper for August 24 of that year again informs us, under date of " London, 
 August 19," that "last evening the king and queen went to Baron [Barnes] 
 Elms, and stayed till ten that night, at the house of Mr. Hidegar, master of the 
 Opera, during which time the house and gardens wera illuminated after the Italian 
 manner." T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. , 497 
 
 her she was very ill advised, and thus we parted. But two 
 days ago, when Sir G. K.'s ] pictures were to be sold, she went 
 to my sister Gower, and very civilly asked if she intended to 
 bid for your picture ; assuring her that, if she did, she would 
 not offer at purchasing it. You know crimp and quadrille 
 incapacitate that poor soul from ever buying any thing ; but 
 she told me this circumstance ; and I expected the same civility 
 from Mrs. Murray, having no way provoked her to the con- 
 trary. But she not only came to the auction, but with all 
 possible spite bid up the picture, though I told her that, if you 
 pleased to have it, I would gladly part with it to you, though 
 to no other person. This had no effect upon her, nor her 
 malice any more on me than the loss of ten guineas extraor- 
 dinary, which I paid upon her account. The picture is in 
 my possession, and at your service if you please to have it. 
 She went to the masquerade a few nights afterwards, and 
 had the good sense to tell people there that she was very un- 
 happy in not meeting me, 2 being come there on purpose to 
 abuse me. What profit or pleasure she has in these ways I 
 cannot find out. This I know, that revenge has so few joys 
 for me, I shall never lose so much time as to undertake it. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1726.] 
 
 ALL that I had to say to you, was that my F. [father] 
 really expressed a great deal of kindness to me at last, and 
 
 1 Sir Godfrey Kneller. He died October 19, 1723. Lady Kneller advertised 
 in the newspapers, early in 1726, desiring all persons to fetch away pictures 
 ordered of her late husband, and to pay for them " according to their agreement 
 with the said Sir Godfrey, or in proportion to the number of times they sat." I 
 suppose Lady Mar had sat for her portrait when in England, and was one of those 
 who took no heed of Lady Kneller's notice "The remaining pictures" were sold 
 at " Mr. Murray's, in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden," on April 18, 1726, and 
 several following days. Lounging at auctions was one of the fashionable pastimes 
 among the ladies of the time. The Duchess of Marlborough says of Sir Robert 
 Walpole's second wife, Miss Skerritt, " I never saw her in my life but at auctions ;" 
 and Pope is believed to allude to Miss Skerritt in the lines : 
 
 " Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys? 
 Phryne foresees a general excise." T. 
 
 * It does not appear how Mrs. Murray could have expected to meet Lady 
 Mary at a masquerade so soon after her father's death. T. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 K
 
 498 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 even a desire of talking to me, which my Lady Duchess would 
 not permit; nor my aunt and sister shew any thing but a 
 servile complaisance to her. This is the abstract of what you 
 desire to know, and is now quite useless. 'Tis over and better 
 to be forgot than remembered. The Duke of Kingston has 
 hitherto had so ill an education, 'tis hard to make any judg- 
 ment of him; he has spirit, but I fear will never have his 
 father's good sense. 1 As young noblemen go, 'tis possible he 
 may make a good figure amongst them. Wars and rumours 
 of wars make all the conversation at present. 2 The tumbling 
 of the stocks, one way or other, influences most people's affairs. 
 For my own part, I have no concern there or any where, but 
 hearty prayers that what relates to myself may ever be exactly 
 what it is now. Mutability of sublunary things is the only 
 melancholy reflection I have to make on my own account. I 
 am in perfect health, and hear it said I look better than ever 
 I did in my life, which is one of those lies one is always glad 
 to hear. However, in this dear minute, in this golden now, 
 I am tenderly touched at your misfortune, and can never call 
 myself quite happy till you are so. 
 
 My daughter makes her compliments to yours, but has not 
 yet received the letter Lord Erskine said he had for her. 
 Adieu, dear sister. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [June, 1726.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I cannot positively fix a time for my wait- 
 ing on you at Paris ; but I do verily believe I shall make a 
 trip thither, sooner or later. This town improves in gaiety 
 every day ; the young people are younger than they used to 
 be, and all the old are grown young. Nothing is talked of 
 but entertainments of gallantry by land and water, and we 
 insensibly begin to taste all the joys of arbitrary power. 
 
 1 Lady Mary was not mistaken in this estimate of her nephew. He was after- 
 wards notorious chiefly for his profligacy. The Duke's marriage to Miss Chud- 
 leigh and her trial by the House of Peers for bigamy are well known. He was 
 the last of the Dukes of Kingston, and died in 1773. T. 
 
 2 War with Spain was considered imminent, when in April, 1726, Admiral 
 Hosier sailed for Portobello. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 499 
 
 Politics are no more ; nobody pretends to wince or kick under 
 their burthens ; but we go on cheerfully with our bells at our 
 ears, ornamented with ribands, and highly contented with our 
 present condition : so much for the general state of the nation. 
 The last pleasure that fell in my way was Madame S6vign's 
 letters j 1 very pretty they are, but I assert, without the least 
 vanity, that mine will be full as entertaining forty years 
 hence. I advise you, therefore, to put none of them to the 
 use of waste paper. You say nothing to me of the change of 
 your ministry ; 2 I thank you for your silence on that subject ; 
 I don't remember myself ever child enough to be concerned 
 who reigned in any part of the earth. I am more touched at 
 the death of poor Miss Chiswell, who is carried off by the 
 small-pox. I am so oddly made, that I never forget the 
 tenderness contracted in my infancy ; and I think of any past 
 playfellow with a concern that few people feel for their pre- 
 sent favourites. 3 After giving you melancholy by this tra- 
 gedy, 'tis but reasonable I should conclude with a farce, that 
 I may not leave you in ill humour. I have so good an opinion 
 of your taste, to believe Harlequin in person will never make 
 you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for 
 Lady Walpole 4 (aged fourteen and some months). Mrs. 
 Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided 
 the opportunity (a great ingredient you'll say) ; but the young 
 lady proved skittish. She did not only turn this heroic flame 
 into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, 
 to divert her husband and father-in-law. 5 His lordship is gone 
 to Scotland; 6 and if there was anybody wicked enough to 
 write upon it, there is a subject worthy the pen of the best 
 ballad-maker in Grub-street. 
 
 1 First published, according to Querard, at La Hayeand Rouen, in 1726. They 
 are advertised among " Books just imported," in Daily Courant of June 1. T. 
 
 2 Alluding to the fall of the Due de Bourbon, who was disgraced and exiled 
 about June 11, 1726, and succeeded by the Cardinal de Fleury. T. 
 
 * See Memoir, ante, p. 21. T. 
 
 4 Margaret, daughter and heir of Samuel Rolle, Esq., of Haynton, co. Devon, 
 married to Robert Lord Walpole, March 26, 1724. D. There are frequent allu- 
 sions to her in Lady Mary's letters from Florence. T. 
 
 5 Sir Robert Walpole. T. 
 
 ' The Earl of Stair's departure " for his seat in Scotland" is announced in the 
 London Journal of June 4, 1726. T. 
 
 2x2
 
 500 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [1726.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I writ to you some time ago a long letter, 
 which I perceive never came to your hands : very provoking ; 
 it was certainly a chef tfceuvre of a letter, and worth any of 
 the Sevigne's, or Grignan's, crammed with news. And I 
 can't find in my heart to say much in this, because I believe 
 there is some fault in the direction : as soon as I hear you 
 have received this, you shall have a full and true account of 
 the affairs of this island; my own are in the utmost pro- 
 sperity : 
 
 "Add but eternity, you make it heaven." 
 
 I shall come to Paris this summer without fail, and endea- 
 vour to pull you out of your melancholies. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [July, 1726.] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I am very glad to hear you mention meet- 
 ing in London. We are much mistaken here as to our ideas 
 of Paris : to hear gallantry has deserted it, sounds as extra- 
 ordinary to me as a want of ice in Greenland. We have 
 nothing but ugly faces in this country, but more lovers than 
 ever. There are but three pretty men in England, and they 
 are all in love with me, at this present writing. This will amaze 
 you extremely; but if you were to see the reigning girls at 
 present, I will assure you, there is very little difference be- 
 tween them and old women. I have been embourbee in family 
 affairs for this last fortnight. Lady F. [Frances] Pierrepont 
 having four hundred pounds per annum for her maintenance, 
 has awakened the consciences of half her relations to take 
 care of her education ; and (excepting myself) they have all 
 been squabbling about her ; and squabble to this day. My 
 sister Gower carries her off to-morrow morning to Stafford- 
 shire. 1 The lies, twattles, and contrivances about this affair, 
 are innumerable. I should pity the poor girl, if I saw she 
 pitied herself. The Duke of Kingston is in France, 2 but is 
 
 1 Trentham, in Staffordshire, the seat of Lord Gower. T. 
 
 2 " Yesterday the Duke of Kingston went for Dover in order to embark for 
 France, to begin his travels in foreign parts." Daily Post, July 5, 1726. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 501 
 
 not to go to your capital ; so much for that branch of your 
 family. My blessed offspring has already made a great noise 
 in the world. That young rake, my son, 1 took to his heels 
 t'other day and transported his person to Oxford ; being in 
 his own opinion thoroughly qualified for the University. 
 After a good deal of search we found and reduced him, 
 much against his will, to the humble condition of a schoolboy. 
 It happens very luckily that the sobriety and discretion is of 
 my daughter's side ; I am sorry the ugliness is so too, for my 
 son grows extremely handsome. 
 
 I don't hear much of Mrs. Murray's despair on the death of 
 poor Gibby, and I saw her dance at a ball where I was two 
 days before his death. I have a vast many pleasantries to tell 
 you, and some that will make your hair stand on an end with 
 wonder. Adieu, dear sister : " couservez-moi 1'honneur de 
 votre amitie, et croyez que je suis toute k vous." 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [Nov. 1726.] 
 
 I AM very sorry, dear sister, for your ill health, but hope 
 it is so entirely past, that you have by this time forgot it. I 
 never was better in my life, nor ever past my hours more 
 agreeably ; I ride between London and Twickenham perpe- 
 tually, and have little societies quite to my taste, and that is 
 saying every thing. I leave the great world to girls that know 
 no better, and do not think one bit the worse of myself for 
 having out-lived a certain giddiness, which is sometimes ex- 
 cusable but never pleasing. Depend upon it, 'tis only the 
 spleen that gives you those ideas ; you may have many de- 
 lightful days to come, and there is nothing more silly than to 
 be too wise to be happy : 
 
 If to be sad is to be wise, 
 I do most heartily despise 
 Whatever Socrates has said, 
 Or Tully writ, or Montaigne read. 
 
 So much for philosophy. What do you say to P. [Peg] 
 
 1 Edward Wortley Montagu, now thirteen years of age. He absconded again 
 in the following year. See notes on subsequent letters. T.
 
 502 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 
 
 Pelham's 1 marriage ? There's flame ! there's constancy ! It 
 I could not employ my time better, I would write the history 
 of their loves, in twelve tomes : Lord Hervey should die in 
 her arms like the poor King of Assyria ; she should be some- 
 times carried off by troops of Masques, arid at other times 
 blocked up in the strong castles of the Bagnio ; but her 
 honour should always remain inviolate by the strength of her 
 own virtue, and the friendship of the enchantress Mrs. Murray, 
 till her happy nuptials with her faithful Cyrus : 'tis a thou- 
 sand pities I have not time for these vivacities. Here is a 
 book come out, 2 that all our people of taste run mad about : 
 'tis no less than the united work of a dignified clergyman, an 
 eminent physician, and the first poet of the age ; 3 and very 
 wonderful it is, God knows ! great eloquence have they em- 
 ployed to prove themselves beasts, and shew such a veneration 
 for horses, that, since the Essex Quaker, 4 nobody has appeared 
 so passionately devoted to that species ; and to say truth, they 
 talk of a stable with so much warmth and affection, I cannot 
 help suspecting some very powerful motive at the bottom of it. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [March, 1727.] 
 
 I AM very sorry, dear sister, that you are in so melancholy 
 a way, but I hope a return to Paris will revive your spirits ; 
 I had much rather have saicf London, but I do not presume 
 upon so much happiness. I was last night at the play en 
 famille, in the most literal sense ; my sister Gower dragged me 
 thither in company of all our children, with Lady F. [Frances] 
 Pierrepont at their head. My third niece Leveson, Jenny by 
 name, 5 will come out an arrant beauty ; she is really like the 
 Duchess of Queensberry. 
 
 1 The Hon. Margaret Pelham was married about the 16th March, 1727, to Sir 
 John Shelley, Bart., of Maresfield Park, Sussex. Sir John had been a widower 
 less than six months, his first wife having been killed by a fall from a horse in 
 September, 1726. T. 
 
 * The first two volumes of the Travels of Gulliver were advertised as " this day 
 published," in the Daily Post of Oct. 28, 1726. T. 
 
 * Swift, Arbuthnot, and Pope. D. 
 
 4 Alluding to a poem by Sir John Denham, entitled " News from Colchester, 
 or a Proper new Ballad,'' &c. T. 
 
 * Hon. Jane Leveson Gower, died unmarried in May, 1737. D.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 503 
 
 As for news, the last wedding is that of Peg Pelham, and 
 I think I have never seen so comfortable a prospect of hap- 
 piness ; according to all appearance she cannot fail of being a 
 widow in six weeks at farthest, and accordingly she has been 
 so good a housewife to line her wedding-clothes with black. 1 
 Assemblies rage in this part of the world ; there is not a street 
 in town free from them, and some spirited ladies go to seven 
 in a night. You need not question but love and play nourish 
 under these encouragements : I now and then peep upon these 
 things with the same coldness I would do on a moving picture ; 
 I laugh at some of the motions, wonder at others, &c., and 
 then retire to the elected few, that have ears and hear, but 
 mouths have they and speak not. One of these chosen, to 
 my great sorrow, will soon be at Paris ; I mean Lady Staf- 
 ford, who talks of removing next April : she promises to 
 return, but I had rather she did not go. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [April, 1727.] 
 
 MY Lady Stafford set out towards France this morning, 
 and has carried half the pleasures of my life along with her ; 
 I am more stupid than I can describe, and am as full of moral 
 reflections as either Cambray or Pascal. I think of nothing 
 but the nothingness of the good things of this world, the 
 transitoriness of its joys, the pungency of its sorrows, and 
 many discoveries that have been made these three thousand 
 years, and committed to print ever since the first presses. I 
 advise you, as the best thing you can do that day, let it happen 
 as it will, to visit Lady Stafford : she has the goodness to 
 carry with her a true-born Englishwoman, who is neither 
 good nor bad, nor capable of being either, Lady Phil Pratt 
 by name, of the Hamilton family, and who will be glad of 
 your acquaintance, and you can never be sorry for hers. 2 
 
 1 The Lady's husband lived, in spite of Lady Mary's prediction, nearly half a 
 century after the date of this letter. He died in 1 771. T. 
 
 2 Lady Philippa Hamilton, daughter of James Earl of Abercorn, and wife of 
 Dr. Pratt, Dean of Downe. D. Lady Stafford quarrelled with her companion, 
 of whom she thus speaks, in a letter to Lady Mary, written soon afterwards, 
 among the Wortley papers : " Outre qu'elle est sotte couirae vous le savez, elle est
 
 504 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 
 
 Peace or war, cross or pile, makes all the conversation. 1 
 The town never was fuller, and, God be praised, some people 
 brille in it who brilled twenty years ago. My cousin Buller is 
 of that number, who is just what she was in all respects when 
 she inhabited Bond-street. The sprouts of this age are such 
 green withered things, 'tis a great comfort to us grown up 
 people : I except my own daughter, who is to be the ornament 
 of the ensuing court. I beg you will exact from Lady Staf- 
 ford a particular of her perfections, which would sound sus- 
 pected from my hand ; at the same time I must do justice to 
 a little twig belonging to my sister Gower. Miss Jenny is 
 like the Duchess of Queensberry both in face and spirit. A 
 propos of family affairs : I had almost forgot our dear and 
 amiable cousin Lady Denbigh, who has blazed out all this 
 winter: she has brought with her from Paris 2 cart-loads of 
 riband, surprising fashions, and collection [complexion ?] of 
 the last edition, which naturally attracts all the she and he 
 fools in London ; and accordingly she is surrounded with a 
 little court of both, and keeps a Sunday assembly to shew she 
 has learned to play at cards on that day. Lady F. [Frances] 
 Fielding 8 is really the prettiest woman in town, and has sense 
 enough to make one's heart ache to see her surrounded with 
 such fools as her relations are. The man in England that 
 gives the greatest pleasure, and the greatest pain, is a youth 
 of royal blood, with all his grandmother's beauty, wit, and 
 good qualities. 4 In short, he is Nell Gwyn in person, with the 
 sex altered, and occasions such fracas amongst the ladies of 
 
 fausse et le contrepied de la raison en toute chose. Je vons garde le detail de 
 sa conduite et de ses raisonnements. Cela vous divertira." T. 
 
 1 So says Swift, writing to Sheridan from London, May 18, 1727: "The 
 dispute about a war or no war still continues." T. 
 
 2 Lady Denbigh's being in Paris is mentioned in a previous letter, which I have 
 conjecturally dated, on what appear good grounds, 1725 ; but she was certainly 
 in Paris in 1726, for Mr. Robinson, in a letter in the State Paper Office, dated 
 June 5, 1726, N.S., says, " I was yesterday shewing Lady Denbigh over Ver- 
 sailles." T. 
 
 3 Youngest daughter of Basil, fourth Earl of Denbigh ; [afterwards] married 
 to Daniel, seventh Earl of Winchilsea. W. 
 
 4 Lord Sidney Beauclerk, son of the first Duke of St. Albans. He was born 
 February 27, 1702. T.
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 505 
 
 gallantry that it passes [description]. You'll stare to hear of 
 her Grace of Cleveland at the head of them. 1 If I was 
 poetical, I would tell you 
 
 i. 
 
 The god of love, enraged to see 
 
 The nymph despise his flame, 
 At dice and cards misspend her nights, 
 
 And slight a nobler game ; 
 
 2. 
 
 For the neglect of offers past 
 
 And pride in days of yore, 
 He kindles up a fire at last, 
 
 That burns her at threescore. 
 
 3. 
 
 A polish'd white is smoothly spread 
 
 Where whilome wrinkles lay ; 
 And, glowing with an artful red, 
 
 She ogles at the play. 
 
 m 
 
 4. 
 
 Along the Mall she softly sails, 
 
 In white and silver drest ; 
 Her neck exposed to Eastern gales, 
 
 And jewels on her breast. 
 
 5. 
 
 Her children banish'd, age forgot, 
 
 Lord Sidney is her care ; 
 And, what is much a happier lot, 
 
 Has hopes to be her heir. 
 
 This is all true history, though it' is doggrel rhyme : in good 
 earnest she has turned Lady Grace 2 and family out of doors 
 to make room for him, and there he lies like leaf-gold upon a 
 pill ; there never was so violent and so indiscreet a passion. 
 Lady Stafford says nothing was ever like it, since Phaedra 
 and Hippolitus. " Lord ha' mercy upon us ! See what we 
 may all come to !" 
 
 1 Anne, daughter of Sir W. Pulteney, of Misterton, in the county of Stafford. 
 D. She was the second wife of Charles, first Duke of Cleveland, the natural 
 son of Charles the Second. T. 
 
 * Lady Grace Fitzroy, third daughter of Charles Duke of Cleveland ; married, 
 in 1725, to [the Hon. Henry Vane, afterwards] Henry, first Earl of Darling- 
 ton. W.
 
 506 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [May or June, 1727. ?>] 
 
 DEAR SISTER, I was very glad to hear from you, though 
 there was something in your letters very monstrous and shock- 
 ing. I wonder with what conscience you can talk to me of 
 your being an old woman ; I beg I may hear no more on't. 
 For my part I pretend to be as young as ever, and really am 
 as young as needs to be, to all intents and purposes. I attri- 
 bute all this to your living so long at Chatton, 2 and fancy a 
 week at Paris will correct such wild imaginations, and set 
 things in a better light. My cure for lowness of spirit is not 
 drinking nasty water, but gaUoping all day, and a moderate 
 glass of champagne at night in good company ; and I believe 
 this regimen, closely followed, is one of the most wholesome 
 that can be prescribed, and may save one a world of filthy 
 doses, and more filthy doctor's fees at the year's end. I rode 
 to Twickenham last night, and, after so long a stay in town, 
 am not sorry to find myself in my garden ; our neighbourhood 
 is something improved by the removal of some old maids, and 
 the arrival of some fine gentlemen, amongst whom are Lord 
 Middleton 3 and Sir J. Gifford, who are, perhaps, your ac- 
 quaintances : they live with their aunt, Lady Westmoreland, 4 
 and we endeavour to make the country agreeable to one 
 another. 
 
 Doctor Swift and Johnny Gay are at Pope's, and their 
 conjunction has produced a ballad, 5 which, if nobody else has 
 sent you, I will, being never better pleased than when I am 
 endeavouring to amuse my dear sister, and ever yours. 
 
 1 This letter must have been written in 1726 or 1727, the years in which 
 Swift visited England. I incline to 1727, because Lady Mary's father died about 
 the time of Swift's arrival, in 1726, and her letters for some time after have all 
 allusions to his death, or changes consequent upon it. Swift arrived in April, 
 1727. Lady Mary's sister, Lady Gower, died June 27. If written subsequently 
 to this, the letter would probably have indicated it. T. 
 
 2 Some of Mar's letters in the State Paper Office, near this time, are dated from 
 Chatton. T. 
 
 * Son of Charles, Earl of Middleton, Secretary of State for Scotland in the 
 reign of King James II., with whom he fled to France. T. 
 
 4 Dorothy, widow of Charles, third Earl of Westmoreland. T. 
 
 s It has been suggested that the ballad here referred to was Swift's Capon's Tale. 
 But that poem being offensive to Lady Mary, she would hardly have alluded to 
 it so complacently. Whether written in 1726 or 1727, the ballad would most 
 probably have been inserted in the volume of Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies,
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 507 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [June, 1727.] 
 
 I HAD writ you a long letter, dear sister, and only wanted 
 sealing it, when I was interrupted by a summons to my sister 
 Gower's 1 whom I never left since. She lasted from Friday to 
 Tuesday, and died about eight o'clock, in such a manner as 
 has made an impression on me not easily shaken off. We are 
 now but two in the world, and it ought to endear us to one 
 another. I am sure whatever I can serve my poor nieces and 
 nephews in, shall not be wanting on my part. I won't trouble 
 you with melancholy circumstances ; you may easily imagine 
 the affliction of Lord Gower and Lady Cheyne. I hope you 
 will not let melancholy hurt your own health, which is truly 
 dear to your affectionate sister. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 ,'. [July, 1727.] 
 
 You see, dear sister, that I answer your letters as soon as I 
 receive them, and if mine can give you any consolation or 
 amusement, you need never want 'em. I desire you would 
 not continue grieving yourself. Of all sorrows, those we pay 
 to the dead are most vain ; and, as I have no good opinion of 
 sorrow in general, I think no sort of it worth cherishing. I 
 suppose you have heard how good Lady Lansdowne has passed 
 her tune here ; 2 she has lived publicly with Lord Dunmore, 
 famed for their loves. You'll wonder perhaps to hear Lord 
 Gower is a topping courtier, and that there is not one Tory 
 left in England. 8 There is something extremely risible in 
 these affairs, but not so proper to be communicated by letter ; 
 and so I will, in an humble way, return to my domestics. I 
 
 which contained poems (3rd vol.), and which was published in March, 1728. 
 There are but four poems in that collection which are called " Ballads," and of 
 these the one entitled " A Ballad on Quadrille" seems most likely to be the one 
 referred to. T. 
 
 1 Lady Gower died June 27, 1727. VV. She had had a daughter born about 
 28th of May preceding. T. 
 
 2 It appears from dates of letters in the Suffolk Correspondence, that Lady Lans- 
 downe was in England on the 8th of April, 17:27, and that she had returned to 
 Paris some time before the 20th of August. T. 
 
 Alluding probably to the alacrity displayed by many of the Tory Lords on 
 paying court to King George II. News of George I.'s death arrived about June 
 14. T.
 
 508 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAE. 
 
 hear your daughter is a very fine young lady, and I wish you 
 joy of it, as one of the greatest blessings of life. My girl gives 
 me great prospect of satisfaction, but my young rogue of a son 
 is the most ungovernable little rake that ever played truant. 
 If I were inclined to lay worldly matters to heart, I could 
 write a quire of complaints about it. You see no one is quite 
 happy, though 'tis pretty much in my nature to console upon 
 all occasions. I advise you to do the same, as the only remedy 
 against the vexations of life ; which in my conscience I think 
 affords disagreeable things to the highest ranks, and comforts 
 to the veiy lowest ; so that, upon the whole, things are more 
 equally disposed among the sons of Adam, than they are 
 generally thought to be. You see my philosophy is not so 
 lugubre as yours. I am so far from avoiding company, that I 
 seek it on all occasions ; and, when I am no longer an actor 
 upon this stage (by the way, I talk of twenty years hence at 
 the soonest), as a spectator I shall laugh at the farcical actions 
 which may then be represented, nature being exceedingly 
 bountiful in all ages in providing coxcombs, who are the 
 greatest preservatives against the spleen that I ever could find 
 out. I say all these things for your edification, and shall con- 
 clude my consolatory epistle with one rule that I have found 
 very conducing to health of body and mind. As soon as you 
 wake in the morning, lift up your eyes and consider seriously 
 what will best divert you that day. Your imagination being 
 then refreshed by sleep, will certainly put in your mind some 
 party of pleasure, which, if you execute with prudence, will 
 disperse those melancholy vapours which are the foundation 
 of all distempers. 
 
 I am your affectionate sister. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 I All always pleased to hear from you, dear sister, particu- 
 larly when you tell me you are well. I believe you will find 
 upon the whole my sense is right ; that air, exercise, and com- 
 pany are the best medicines, and physic and retirement good 
 for nothing but to break hearts and spoil constitutions. I was
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 509 
 
 glad to hear ]\Ir. Esmond's 1 history from you, though the 
 newspapers had given it me en gros, and my Lady Stafford in 
 detail, some time before. I will tell you in return as well as I 
 can what happens amongst our acquaintance here. To begin 
 with family affairs ; the Duchess of Kingston grunts on as 
 usual, and I fear will put us in black bombazine soon, which 
 is a real grief to me. My aunt Cheyne makes all the money 
 she can of Lady Frances, and I fear will carry on those poli- 
 tics to the last point ; though the girl is such a fool 2 'tis no 
 great matter : I am going within this half -hour to call her to 
 court. Our poor cousins, the Fieldings, are grown yet poorer 
 by the loss of all the money they had, which in their infinite 
 wisdom they put into the hands of a roguish broker, who has 
 fairly walked off with it. 
 
 The most diverting story about town at present is in relation 
 to Edgcombe ; though your not knowing the people concerned 
 so well as I do, will, I fear hinder you from being so much 
 entertained by it. I can't tell whether you know a tall, 
 musical, silly, ugly thing, niece to Lady Essex Roberts, who 
 is called Miss Leigh. 3 She went a few days ago to visit Mrs. 
 Betty Tichborne, Lady Sunderland's sister, who lives in the 
 house with her, and was denied at the door; but, with the 
 true manners of a great fool, told the porter that if his lady 
 was at home she was very positive she would be very glad to 
 see her. Upon which she was shewed up stairs to Miss Tich- 
 borne, who was ready to drop down at the sight of her, and 
 could not help asking her in a grave way how she got in, 
 being denied to every mortal, intending to pass the evening in 
 
 1 This is the " R " referred to earlier in the correspondence, but I have un- 
 fortunately searched in vain in the files of newspapers and other contemporary 
 records preserved in the British Museum, and in the Bibliotheque Impe'riale, in 
 Paris, for any trace of the particular fact in " Mr. Re'mond's history" here referred 
 to. T. 
 
 2 Lady Bute, when reading this letter after her mother's death, said warmly, 
 " No, Lady Frances was not a fool. She had very good sense, without pretension ; 
 but she was meek, gentle, and so uncommonly timid, that, when the least 
 fluttered or overawed, she lost all power of expressing herself. My mother was 
 too apt to set down people of this character for fools." Lady Bute herself had a 
 sister's affection for her cousin Lady Frances. W. 
 
 * Miss Leigh (or " Legh") and her musical propensity are frequently referred to 
 in the Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany. See vol. i. p. 80. T.
 
 510 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 devout preparation. Miss Leigh said she had sent away her 
 chair and servants, with intent of staying till nine o'clock. 
 There was then no remedy, and she was asked to sit down ; 
 but had not been there a quarter of an hour when she heard a 
 violent rap at the door, and somebody vehemently run up 
 stairs. Miss Tichborne seemed much surprised, and said she 
 believed it was Mr. Edgcombe, and was quite amazed how he 
 took it into his head to visit her. During these excuses enter 
 Edgcombe, who appeared frighted at the sight of a third 
 person. Miss Tichborne told him almost at his entrance that 
 the lady he saw there was perfect mistress of music, and as he 
 passionately loved it, she thought she could not oblige him 
 more than by desiring her to play. Miss Leigh very willingly 
 sat to the harpsichord ; upon which her audience decamped to 
 the adjoining room, and left her to play over three or four 
 lessons to herself. They returned, and made what excuses 
 they could, but said very frankly they had not heard her per- 
 formance, and begged her to begin again ; which she complied 
 with, and gave them the opportunity of a second retirement. 
 Miss Leigh was by this time all fire and flame to see her 
 heavenly harmony thus slighted; and when they returned, 
 told them she did not understand playing to an empty room. 
 Mr. Edgcombe begged ten thousand pardons, and said, if she 
 would play Godi, it was a tune he died to hear, and it would 
 be an obligation he should never forget. She made answer 
 she would do him a much greater favour by her absence, 
 which she supposed was all that was necessary at that tune ; 
 and ran down stairs in a great fury to publish as fast as she 
 could ; and was so indefatigable in this pious design, that in 
 four-and-twenty hours all the people in town had heard 
 the story. My Lady Sunderland could not avoid hearing 
 this story, and three days after, invited Miss Leigh to dinner, 
 where, in the presence of her sister and all the servants, she 
 told her she was very sorry she had been so rudely treated 
 in her house ; that it was very true Mr. Edgcombe had been 
 a perpetual companion of her sister's these two years, 1 and she 
 
 1 Mr. Edgcombe's visits appear to have given rise to a mistake as to their object, 
 for the British Journal of June 6, 1724, mentions a report that " a marriage is 
 treating between the Hon. Richard Edgcombe, Esq., Joint Vice Treasurer of Ire-
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 511 
 
 thought it high time he should explain himself, and she ex- 
 pected her sister should act in this matter as discreetly as Lady 
 K. [Katherine] Pelham had done in the like case ; J who had 
 given Mr. Pelham four months to resolve in, and after that he 
 was either to marry her or to lose her for ever. Sir Robert 
 Sutton interrupted her by saying, that he never doubted the 
 honour of Mr. Edgcombe, and was persuaded he could have 
 no ill design in his family. The affair stands thus, and Mr. 
 Edgcombe has four months to provide himself elsewhere; 
 during which time he has free egress and regress ; and 'tis 
 seriously the opinion of many that a wedding will in good 
 earnest be brought about by this admirable conduct. 
 
 I send you a novel instead of a letter, but, as it is in your 
 power to shorten it when you please, by reading no farther 
 than you like, I will make no excuses for the length of it. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [About August, 1727.] 
 
 MY cousin is going to Paris, and I will not let her go 
 without a letter for you, my dear sister, though I never was in 
 a worse humour for writing. I am vexed to the blood by my 
 young rogue of a son ; who has contrived at his age to make 
 himself the talk of the whole nation. He is gone knight- 
 erranting, God knows where ; 2 and hitherto 'tis impossible to 
 find him. You may judge of my uneasiness by what your 
 own would be if dear Lady Fanny was lost. Nothing that 
 ever happened to me has troubled me so much ; I can hardly 
 speak or write of it with tolerable temper, and I own it has 
 changed mine to that degree I have a mind to cross the water, 
 to try what effect a new heaven and a new earth will have 
 
 land, and the Right Honourable Judith Countess Dowager of Sunderland." So 
 Mrs. Pendarves, in a letter to Anne Granville of 28 March, 1724, says : " Mr. Ed- 
 combe [sic] lays close siege to Betty Tichborne, but the town will have it that it 
 is for the sake of the widow." (Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany.) 
 The Countess married Sir Robert Sutton on the 9th of December in that year. 
 Edgcombe, who was a widower, certainly did not marry Miss Tichborne. He 
 was afterwards created Lord Edgcumbe of Mount Edgcumbe. T. 
 
 1 Lady Katherine Manners was married to Mr. Pelham, Oct. 17, 1726. T. 
 
 * An advertisement offering twenty pounds for his discovery appears in the 
 Daily Journal of Aug. 18, 1727. He was discovered at Gibraltar in December 
 following. T.
 
 512 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 upon my spirit. If I take this resolution, you shall hear in a 
 few posts. There can be no situation in life in which the con- 
 versation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort 
 to me. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [September, 1727.] 
 
 THIS is a vile world, dear sister, and I can easily compre- 
 hend, that whether one is at Paris or London, one is stifled 
 Mith a certain mixture of fool and knave, that most people 
 are composed of. I would have patience with a parcel of 
 polite rogues, or your downright honest fools; but father 
 Adam shines through his whole progeny. So much for our 
 inside, then our outward is so liable to ugliness and distem- 
 pers, that we are perpetually plagued with feeling our own 
 decays and seeing those of other people. Yet, sixpennyworth 
 of common sense, divided among a whole nation, would make 
 our lives roll away glibly enough ; but then we make laws, 
 and we follow customs. By the first we cut off our own 
 pleasures, and by the second we are answerable for the faults 
 and extravagances of others. All these things, and five hun- 
 dred more, convince me (as I have the most profound venera- 
 tion for the Author of Nature) that we are here in an actual 
 state of punishment ; I am satisfied I have been one of the 
 condemned ever since I was born ; and, in submission to the 
 divine justice, I don't at all doubt but I deserved it in some 
 pre-existent state. I will still hope that I am only in purga- 
 tory ; and that after whining and grunting a certain number 
 of years, I shall be translated to some more happy sphere, 
 where virtue will be natural, and custom reasonable ; that is, 
 in short, where common sense will reign. I grow very devout, 
 as you see, and place all my hopes in the next life, being 
 totally persuaded of the nothingness of this. Don't you re- 
 member how miserable we were in the little parlour atThoresby? 
 we then thought marrying would put us at once into possession 
 of all we wanted. Then came being with child, &c., and you 
 see what comes of being with child. Though, after all, I
 
 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 513 
 
 am still of opinion that it is extremely silly to submit to ill- 
 fortune. One should pluck up a spirit, and live upon cordials 
 when one can have no other nourishment. These are my 
 present endeavours, and I run about, though I have five 
 thousand pins and needles running into my heart. I try to 
 console myself with a small damsel, who is at present every 
 thing I like but, alas ! she is yet in a white frock. At four- 
 teen, she may run away with the. butler : l there's one of the 
 blessed consequences of great disappointments ; you are not 
 only hurt by the thing present, but it cuts off all future hopes, 
 and makes your very expectations melancholy. Quelle vie ! 1 1 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 [October, 1727.] 
 
 I CANNOT deny, but that I was very well diverted on the 
 Coronation day. 2 I saw the procession much at my ease, in a 
 house which I filled with my own company, and then got into 
 Westminster Hall without trouble, where it was very enter- 
 taining to observe the variety of airs that all meant the same 
 thing. The business of every walker there was to conceal 
 vanity and gain admiration. For these purposes some lan- 
 guished and others strutted; but a visible satisfaction was 
 diffused over every countenance, as soon as the coronet was 
 clapped on the head. But she that drew the greatest number 
 of eyes, was indisputably Lady Orkney. 3 She exposed be- 
 hind, a mixture of fat and wrinkles ; and before, a very con- 
 siderable protuberance which preceded her. Add to this, the 
 inimitable roll of her eyes, and her grey hairs, which by good 
 fortune stood directly upright, and 'tis impossible to imagine a 
 more delightful spectacle. She had embellished all this with 
 considerable magnificence, which made her look as big again 
 
 1 Alluding, probably, to her son's flight and concealment. The advertisement 
 already referred to described him as "about fourteen." T. 
 
 2 October 11, 1727. T. 
 
 3 Lady Orkney, whom Swift calls tlie wisest woman he ever knew, must nave 
 been pretty old at the time of George II.'s coronation, since, in spite of her ugli- 
 ness, also commemorated by Swift, she was King William's declared mistress after 
 the death of Queen Mary. Mrs. Villiers originally, she married Lord Orkney, 
 one of the sons of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. W. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 L
 
 514 LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR. 
 
 as usual ; and I should have thought her one of the largest 
 things of God's making if my Lady St. John had not displayed 
 all her charms in honour of the day. The poor Duchess of 
 Montrose crept along with a dozen of black snakes playing 
 round her face ; and my Lady Portland 1 (who is fallen away 
 since her dismission from court) represented very finely an 
 Egyptian mummy embroidered over with hieroglyphics. In 
 general, I could not perceive but that the old were as well 
 pleased as the young ; and I, who dread growing wise more 
 than any thing in the world, was overjoyed to find that one 
 can never outlive one's vanity. I have never received the 
 long letter you talk of, and am afraid that you only fancied 
 that you wrote it. Adieu, dear sister; I am affectionately 
 yours. 2 
 
 1 A Temple by birth, widow of Lord Berkeley of Stratton, and secondly of the 
 Earl of Portland. She was his second wife, and had by him two sons, who 
 settled in Holland, and from whom descends the Dutch branch of the Bentincks. 
 George I. appointed her governess of his grandchildren, when he took them away 
 from their parents, upon coming to an open breach with his son. The Prince and 
 Princess one day going to visit them, and the latter desiring to see her daughters 
 alone, Lady Portland, with many expressions of respect, lamented that she could 
 not permit it, having his Majesty's strict orders to the contrary. Upon this, the 
 Prince flew into such a rage that he would literally have kicked her out of the 
 room, if the Princess had not thrown herself between them. Of course he made 
 haste t o dismiss her as soon as he came to the crown. W. 
 
 2 This was probably the last letter written by Lady Mary to her sister in Paris. 
 Lady Mar's mental disorder, hints of which may be observed in the correspondence, 
 appears to have reached its height soon after this time. Atterbury writing from 
 Paris to his daughter, Mrs. Morice, under date of November 17-28, 1727, says, 
 " Lady Mar is extremely out of order ; and it is apprehended that her life itself 
 may be in some danger." She was brought to England in March following (as 
 appears by a paragraph in Mist's Weekly Journal of March 16, 1727-8) and re- 
 mained in her sister's custody for some years. She was finally transferred to the 
 care of her daughter, Lady Frances Erskine, a short time before Lady Mary left 
 England for her long sojourn abroad. T. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 from which it was borrowed^
 
 Date Due 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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 Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137