Mr Mary left England and her husband to travel and live abroad. She visited Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, and settled first at Avignon and then at Lovere, on the Lago d'Iseo. Montagu having died in 1761, Lady Mary was prevailed upon by her daughter, the Countess of Bute, to return to England, but died in the following year. Her letters, printed surreptitiously in 1763, were edited by her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, in 1837. The wit and varied talents of Lady Mary are visible throughout the whole of her correspondence. Her desire to communicate piquant personal stories or to paint graphically leads her into details which modern taste hardly approves. She described what she saw and heard without mincing matters; and her strong masculine understanding and absolute frankness render her sometimes apparently unamiable and unfeeling, and frequently defective in what we account feminine delicacy. But otherwise, as models of epistolary style, easy, familiar, and elegant, no less than as pictures of foreign scenery and manners and fashionable gossip, the letters of Lady Mary must always hold their place in literature. They are truly letters, not critical or didactic essays enlivened by formal compliment and elaborate wit; though some of them are perhaps rather like a brightly-written chapter of a book of travel, or one section ('to be continued in our next') of a systematic description of life and manners abroad -such, for example, as Lady Mary's long letter to her sister describing in great and vivid detail her reception by the Grand Vizier's chief wife, and in the harem of the Vizier's chief deputy. Some rather objectionable letters, published even in Lord Wharncliffe's and, with corrective notes, in Mr Moy Thomas's editions, were assuredly not written by Lady Mary, but are forgeries presumably by John Cleland, son of Pope's friend Major Cleland, a clever but notoriously unprincipled littérateur. On Matrimonial Happiness. 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 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. Whatever 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 that 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 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 volupté) a smooth tranquillity. I shall lose the vivacity which 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 conversation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness; and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with everything else. I am 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 be 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. ... (From a letter to Mr Wortley Montagu in 1712.) Eastern Manners and Language. 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 thrashing and churning, both which are unknown here, the corn being all trod out by oxen; and butter (I speak it with sorrow) unheard 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 I 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 generally 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 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 description 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 half-a-dozen of old pashas (as I do very often), 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, and 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 language. And 'tis as ridiculous to make use of the expressions commonly used in speaking to a great man or lady, as it would be to speak 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 will 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 occasion 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. I. The nightingale now wanders in the vines : I went down to admire the beauty of the vines: But wild and disdainful as those of a stag. II. The wished possession is delayed from day to day; The sweetness of your charms has ravished my soul. But wild and disdainful as those of a stag. III. The wretched Ibrahim sighs in these verses: The sweetness of your charms has ravished my soul. IV. My cries pierce the heavens! Turn to me, Sultana-let me gaze on thy beauty. If you call me, I return. My heart is hot as sulphur; sigh, and it will flame. I rub my face against the earth-I am drowned 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 interpreters, I might spare myself the trouble of assuring you that they have received no poetical touches from their hands. (From a letter to Mr Pope, dated Adrianople, April 1, O.S., 1717; one of six long letters to various persons bearing the same date-surely a good day's work.) On Inoculation for Small-pox. The Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that will make you wish yourself here. 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 perform 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 that 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 opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm, and one 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 time they are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded, there remain running sores during the distemper, which I 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 diversion, 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 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 invention 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 mankind. 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. (From a letter to Mrs Sarah Chiswell, dated Adrianople, April 1, O.S., 1717.) France in 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 accablée with visits, and those so full of vivacity and compliment that 'tis full employment to hearken, whether one answers or not. The French embassadress 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 upon 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 Godlike attribute of being capable to redress them; and all the country villages of France shew 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 wretched ness of their condition. This is all the French magnificence till you come to Fontainebleau. There you begin to think the country rich, when you are shewed one thousand five hundred rooms in the king's huntingpalace. The apartments of the royal family are very large, and richly gilt; but I saw nothing in the architecture or painting worth remembering. . . . 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 unnatural in their paint! their hair cut short, and curled round their faces, and so 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 that they 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 anybody else, I should say that these grotesque daubers give me still a higher esteem of the natural charms of dear Lady R.'s auburn hair, and the lively colours of her unsullied complexion. (From a letter to Lady Rich, dated Paris, October 10, O.S., 1718.) To the Countess of Bute-On Female Education. LOVERE, Jan. 28, N.S. 1753. I DEAR CHILD-You have given me a great deal of satisfaction by your account of your eldest daughter. I am particularly pleased to hear she is a good arithmetician; it is the best proof of understanding: the knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and. the brutes. If there is anything in blood, you may reasonably expect your children should be endowed with an uncommon share of good sense. Mr Wortley's family and mine have both produced some of the greatest men that have been born in England; I mean Admiral Sandwich, and my grandfather, who was distinguished by the name of Wise William. have heard Lord Bute's father mentioned as an extraordinary genius, though he had not many opportunities of shewing it; and his uncle the present Duke of Argyll has one of the best heads I ever knew. I will therefore speak to you as supposing Lady Mary not only capable, but desirous of learning; in that case, by all means let her be indulged in it. You will tell me I did not make it a part of your education; your prospect was very different from hers. As you had no defect either in mind or person to hinder, and much in your circumstances to attract the highest offers, it seemed your business to learn how to live in the world, as it is hers to know how to be easy out of it. It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is displaced. Hence we see so many edifices raised that the raisers can never inhabit, being too large for their fortunes. Vistas are laid open over barren heaths, and apartments contrived for a coolness very agreeable in Italy, but killing in the north of Britain; thus every woman endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement to which she is destined. Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it. No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety of company, if she can be amused with an author in her closet. To render this amusement extensive she should be permitted to learn the languages. I have heard it lamented that boys lose so many years in mere learning of words: this is no objection to a girl, whose time is not so precious : she cannot advance herself in any profession, and has therefore more hours to spare; and as you say her memory is good, she will be very agreeably employed this way. There are two cautions to be given on this subject: first, not to think herself learned when she can read Latin, or even Greek. Languages are more properly to be called vehicles of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the most ignorant fellows upon earth. True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words. I would no further wish her a linguist than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are often corrupted, and always injured, by translations. Two hours' application every morning will bring this about much sooner than you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough besides to run over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a woman's education than it is generally supposed. Many a young damsel has been ruined by a fine copy of verses, which she would have laughed at if she had known it had been stolen from Mr Waller. I remember, when I was a girl, I saved one of my companions from destruction, who communicated to me an epistle she was quite charmed with. As she had naturally a good taste, she observed the lines were not so smooth as Prior's or Pope's, but had more thought and spirit than any of theirs. She was wonderfully delighted with such a demonstration of her lover's sense and passion, and not a little pleased with her own charms, that had force enough to inspire such elegancies. In the midst of this triumph, I shewed her that they were taken from Randolph's poems, and the unfortunate transcriber was dismissed with the scorn he deserved. To say truth, the poor plagiary was very unlucky to fall into my hands: that author, being no longer in fashion, would have escaped any one of less universal reading than myself. You should encourage your daughter to talk over with you what she reads; and as you are very capable of distinguishing, take care she does not mistake pert folly for wit and humour, or rhyme for poetry, which are the common errors of young people, and have a train of ill consequences. The second caution to be given her (and which is most absolutely necessary) is to conceal whatever learning she attains, with as much solicitude as she would hide crookedness or lameness: the parade of it can only serve to draw on her the envy, and consequently the most inveterate hatred, of all he and she fools, which will certainly be at least three parts in four of her acquaintance. The use of knowledge in our sex, beside the amusement of solitude, is to moderate the passions, and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life; and it may be preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves, and will not suffer us to share. You will tell me I have not observed this rule myself; but you are mistaken; it is only inevitable accident that has given me any reputation that way. I have always carefully avoided it, and ever thought it a you misfortune. The explanation of this paragraph would occasion a long digression, which I will not trouble with, it being my present design only to say what I think useful for the instruction of my granddaughter, which I have much at heart. If she has the same inclination (I should say passion) for learning I was born with, history, geography, and philosophy will furnish her with materials to pass away cheerfully a longer life than is allotted to mortals. I believe there are few heads capable of making Sir I. Newton's calculations, but the result of them is not difficult to be understood by a moderate capacity. Do not fear this should make her affect the character of Lady or Lady, or Mrs [the blanks are in the original]; these women are ridiculous not because they have learning, but because they have it not. One thinks herself a complete historian after reading Echard's Roman History, another a profound philosopher after having got by heart some of Pope's unintelligible essays, and the third an able divine on the strength of Whitefield's sermons; thus you hear them screaming politics and controversy. It is a saying of Thucydides, ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved. Indeed it is impossible to be far advanced in it without being more humbled by a conviction of human ignorance than elated by learning. At the same time I recommend books, I neither exclude work nor drawing. I think it is as scandalous for a woman not to know how to use a needle, as for a man not to know how to use a sword. I was once extremely fond of my pencil, and it was a great mortification to me when my father turned off my master, having made a considerable progress for a short time I learnt. My over eagerness in the pursuit of it had brought a weakness on my eyes, that made it necessary to leave it off; and all the advantage I got was the improvement of my hand. I see by hers that practice will make her a ready writer: she may attain it by serving you for a secretary, when your health or affairs make it troublesome to you to write yourself; and custom will make it an agreeable amusement to her. She cannot have too many for that station of life which will probably be her fate. The ultimate end of your education was to make you a good wife (and I have the comfort to hear that you are one); hers ought to be to make her happy in a virgin state. I will not say it is happier, but it is undoubtedly safer than any marriage. In a lottery, where there are (at the lowest computation) ten thousand blanks to a prize, it is the most prudent choice not to venture. I have always been so thoroughly persuaded of this truth, that, notwithstanding the flattering views I had for you (as I never intended you a sacrifice to my vanity), I thought I owed you the justice to lay before you all the hazards attending matrimony: you may recollect I did so in the strongest manner. Perhaps you may have more success in the instructing your daughter; she has so much company at home, she will not need seeking it abroad, and will more readily take the notions you think fit to give her. As you were alone in my family, it would have been thought a great cruelty to suffer you no companions of your own age, especially having so many near relations, and I do not wonder their opinions influenced yours. I was not sorry to see you not determined on a single life, knowing it was not your father's intention; and contented myself with endeavouring to make your home so easy that you might not be in haste to leave it. I am afraid you will think this a very long insignificant letter. I hope the kindness of the design will excuse it, being willing to give you every proof in my power that I am Your most affectionate mother. More complete than the surreptitious edition of Lady Mary's letters in 1763 was that of 1803 (5 vols.), and still better that edited by her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe (1837). This was further extended and improved by Mr Moy Thomas (1861; revised, 1887). The letters from Constantinople and from France have appeared in various shapes. The editor of the surreptitious 1763 edition (3 vols.) was probably John Cleland (1709-89); the forged letters, presumably by him, were issued as a fourth volume in 1767. John Norris (1657-1711), an English Platonist and mystic divine,' was one of the earliest opponents of the philosophy of Locke. Educated at Oxford, in 1689 he took a Somersetshire living, but from 1692 he held George Herbert's old rectory of Bemerton near Salisbury. He was an intimate of Henry More. Hallam described him as 'more thoroughly Platonic than Malebranche, to whom, however, he pays great deference, and adopts his fundamental hypothesis of seeing all things in God.' More noteworthy is it that he carried into the eighteenth century much of the spirit of Henry More, something of the mood of Crashaw and Vaughan. His first original work was An Idea of Happiness (1683); his poems, essays, discourses, and letters, entitled A Collection of Miscellanies (1687), went through nine editions. His verses are quaint and full of conceits. One simile of his, in 'The Parting,' was copied or annexed by two better-known poets-by Blair in The Grave, and by Thomas Campbell in The Pleasures of Hope: How fading are the joys we dote upon! In 'Lines to the Memory of my dear Neece' Norris repeats the idea in other words: Angels, as 'tis but seldom they appear, Again, when Campbell wrote "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,' he certainly had before his mind this from Norris's 'Infidel :' Distance presents the objects fair, In the same poem, with its unpromising title we find the rather memorable stanza : So to the unthinking boy the distant sky Some of his verses are prosaic and tuneless enough to recall Zachary Boyd's paraphrases of Scripture at their worst. Thus Adam Turned out of Paradise' complains in these words: O whither now, whither shall I repair, There's nothing left that 's pleasant, good, or fair; The creatures me as their chief lord obey, Can't make me happy, tho' it makes me great. His twenty-three publications include The Picture of Love Unveiled (a translation from Waring's Latin, 1682); The Theory and Regulation of Love, a Moral Essay (1688); four volumes of Practical Discourses (1690-93); essays on reason and religion, on schism, against Quakerism; a Theory of the Ideal and Intelligible World (1701-4); and A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Immortality of the Soul (1708). Dr Grosart edited Norris's Poems in 1871 for Vol. III. of the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library,' where he suggests many parallelisms between Norris and later writers, and insists on the debt of Blair and Campbell especially. Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) was admitted by Johnson into his gallery of English poets. His best-known work is his translation (1725) of Vida's Art of Poetry; and in 1740 he produced a complete English Eneid. He also imitated some of the satires and epistles of Horace, and helped with Creech's Lucretius and Pope's Odyssey. 'Pitt pleases the critics, and Dryden the people; Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read.' Such was Johnson's report; but even the critics have long ceased to delight in him. From New College, Oxford, he was presented to the rectory of Pimperne in his native county of Dorset, and there he spent the rest of his life. Diamond Pitt,' Lord Chatham's grandfather, was his cousin. Gilbert West (1700?-1756) translated the Odes of Pindar (1749), prefixing a dissertation on the Olympic games, praised by Gibbon. He wrote Education, a Poem; The Institution of the Garter; and a number of other miscellaneous pieces of poetry. One On the Abuse of Travelling, professedly in imitation of Spenser's manner (1739), was noticed by Gray with very warm commendation. For his Observations on the Resurrection, the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L.; and Lyttelton addressed to him his treatise on St Paul. Pope left West a sum of £200, payable after the death of Martha Blount, and he did not live to receive it. The son of a prebendary of Winchester, he was educated at Eton and Christchurch, and found a post under the Secretary of State for the time. By the influence of Pitt, he was appointed (1752) one of the clerks of the Privy Council, and under-treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. Johnson included his miscellaneous poems in his collection. |