Dr. Doran

“ Montagu wrote as follows to her sister-in-law at Naples:
February 16, 1762.—“You have lately returned to us from Italy a very extraordinary personage, Lady Mary Wortley. When Nature is at the trouble of making a very singular person, Time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved, when common coin is worn out; and as great geniuses are rather matters of curiosity than of art, this lady seems reserved to be a wonder for more than our generation. She does not look older than when she went abroad, has more than the vivacity of fifteen, and a memory which, perhaps, is unique. ”

“ Her failure in the above respect at home found ample compensation in success at Tunbridge Wells, at Bath, and at country races, at all of which Elizabeth Robinson’s beauty attracted all eyes; her vivacious wit charmed or stung all ears. At these places, she studied life quite as much as she enjoyed its pleasures; and she could not go down a dance at the Wells or at “The Bath,” without making little mental epigrams on the looks of newly married people, the manners of lovers, and the doings of eccentric folk. ”

“ Lady Percy was the wife of a nobleman of a most distinguished merit, who had a mind too noble to be satisfied with the greatest hereditary wealth and honours, has, merely to serve his king and country, exposed himself to all the difficulties and dangers of military service. Lord Carmarthen is the prettiest man in his person; the most polite and pleasing in his manners, with a sweet temper and an excellent Understanding, happily cultivated. ”

“ This was the final judgment of a lady who, in her own girlhood, had expressed herself in much the same terms, and who, later in life, had laid it down as a law for her own niece, that to dance a minuet well was of more importance than to have a knowledge of a foreign language. She had escaped perils herself, because she was always occupied. If, when a nymph, she so sported in the Mary-le-bone waters, that lords wrote sonnets on her, she forgot the homage in her higher enjoyments of native and foreign literature. ”

“ I have at length discovered that writing letters is idleness without ease, and fatigue without a purpose. When newspapers only told weddings, births, and burials, a letter from London bore some value; but now that the public papers not only tell when men are born and dye, but every folly they contrive to insert between those periods, the literary correspondent has nothing left. Lies and dulness used to be valued in manuscript, but printing has assumed a right over the lies of the day and the amusement of the hour. ”

“ Among the divines, scholars, philosophers, travellers, men of the world who were, together or in turn, to be met with at Doctor Middleton’s house, the figure of the silent, listening, and observant little maid was always to be seen. Her presence there was a part of her education. Doctor Middleton trained her to give perfect attention to the conversation, and to repeat to him all that she could retain of it, after the company had dispersed. ”

“ People seem to think that by making one person in their family rich, they can make one very happy; but alas! human happiness cannot be carried beyond a certain pitch. Competency will make every one easy: great wealth cannot make any one happy. It is strange, parents should seem to feel only for one child, or, indeed, that the heir should be dearer than the child; for it is as heir they show their regards to one of the family. No personal merit, no tender attachment, no sympathy of disposition can overrule that circumstance. ”

“ As I always leave London early in May, I was convinced it was not worth while to run hazard for a few weeks’ pleasure. It is much the fashion to go and see my house, and I receive many compliments upon its elegance and magnificence, but what most recommends it to me is its convenience and cheerfulness. A good house is a great comfort in old age and among the few felicities that money will procure. ”

“ Montagu led her usual life. In London, gay; in the country, busy and thoughtful. “In London,” she asks, “who can think? Perhaps, indeed, they may who are lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, but it cannot happen to ladies in Chinese-rooms!” In those rooms she received all, native and foreign, whose brains or other desirable possessions entitled them to a welcome. At Sandleford, she was sometimes reading a translation of Sophocles, dear to her almost as Shakespeare himself, but as often she was amid accounts relative to firkins of butter, tubs of soap, and chaldrons of coal. ”

“ The chief honour and felicity of my life has been derived from the superior merit of my friends; and, from my experience, I would, above all things, recommend to every young person to endeavour to connect themselves with persons whom they can esteem, and, indeed, reverence, rather than with those whose understandings and virtues they think merely on a level with, or, perhaps, inferior to, their own.... Principles, opinions, and habits are acquired and formed from those with whom we live and converse most.... ”

“ Nothing can be more easy and natural than the manner in which the thoughts rise one out of the other, even where the thoughts may appear rather forced, nor is the expression ever hard or laboured. I see but little to object to in the thoughts themselves, but nothing can be more natural or graceful than the manner in which they are put together. The flow of her style is not less natural, because it is fully charged with shining particles, and sparkles as it flows.”
In 1813, Mr. Matthew Montagu published two more volumes of his aunt’s correspondence. ”

“ The loss is not only a brother, but, as Solomon expresses it, that friend that was more than a brother, one with whom I had lived full forty years in the tenderest affection, in the most perfect harmony; never interrupted even by a mere dispute, except on his first connexion with his present widow. It is totally irreparable. I own I loved nothing so well; and though I am not so new to misfortune as not to have learnt to bear patiently, and to see, while I lament the loss of a blessing, that I ought to be grateful for having so long enjoyed one so uncommon ”

“ The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company, is the meanest person in it. But at the same time, when a man of celebrated talents disdains to mix in common conversation, or refuses to talk on ordinary subjects, it betrays a latent pride. There is a much brighter character than that of a wit or a poet, or a savant, which is that of a rational and sociable being, willing to carry on the commerce of life with all the sweetness and condescension decency and virtue will permit. ”

“ The great decay of his mental powers has for some time rendered him an object of great pity; yet, to my unspeakable indignation, I was told by a gentleman here, that one of ye whist-party at the coffee-house, some months ago, had not only refus’d to pay a debt of eighteen guineas, which he owed my father, but had triumphed over him in a shocking manner, asserting his loss of memory and imbecillity. What a wretch must it be that would insult an old man. Extream old age is little to be coveted. In a long life one must outlive one’s friends, and, perhaps, oneself. ”

“ Montagu stands at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judgment. I am now reading and have reached the middle of her essay on the genius of Shakespeare—a book of which, strange as it may seem, though I must have read it formerly, I had absolutely forgot the existence.
“The learning, the good sense, the sound judgment, and the wit displayed in it fully justify, not only my compliment, but all compliments that either have been already paid to her talents, or shall be paid hereafter. ”

“ Freind, of Canterbury: “I saw some fine jewels that are to adorn my fair enemy, Mrs. S——. I beheld them without envy, and was proud to think that a woman who is thought worthy to wear jewels to adorn her person, should do me the honour to envy and hate me.... Surely, of all vanities, that of jewels is the most ridiculous; they do not even tend to the order of dress, beauty, and cleanliness; for a woman is [21] not a jot the handsomer or cleaner for them.” ”

“ Some younger ladies, to whom nature has been rather a stepdame than a kind mother, join in their lamentations, and London is in an uproar. The exultation of those who, conscious of their charms, rejoice in laying aside as much covering as possible, being as little silent at the distress of the others. ”

“ The young lady observed him in the brilliant scene more closely and more approvingly than she did others. “The men were not fine,” she writes to her Grace; but she makes exception. “Mr. Lyttelton was, according to Polonius’ instruction, rich, not gaudy; costly, but not exprest in fancy.” In her eyes and to her mind, he was a perfect gentleman and scholar. “Mr. Lyttelton has something of an elegance in all his compositions, let the subject be ever so trifling.... Happy is the genius that can drink inspiration at every stream and gather similes with every nosegay.” ”

“ Montagu’s on a sofa, leaning on one elbow, in a passive attitude, counting, or seeming to count, the sticks of her fan, as homage and compliments are profusely laid at her feet. To silly questions she has sensible replies—replies which indicate the queries: “I strove to do it the best I could; I shall do as the manager bids me; I always endeavour to make the part I am about my best part;” and, “I never study anything but my author.” There is, probably, no exaggeration in this; and the more fantastic side of Mrs. Montagu’s character is not overcharged in the incident that follows. ”

“ Montagu was soon afterward in town, running, as she said, “from house to house, getting the cold scraps of visiting conversation, served up with the indelicacy and indifference of an ordinary, at which no power of the mind does the honours; the particular taste of each guest is not consulted, the solid part of the entertainment is too gross for a delicate taste, and the lighter fare insipid. ”

“ A little mind is for ever in a tracasserie, because it is moved by little things. I have always found that nothing is so gentle as the chief out of war, nor so serene and simple as the statesman out of place. If it were fit to name names and certify places, I would bring many examples to justify my assertion. I so much delight in these working master-spirits in their holiday humour, that I had rather play at tee-totum or cross and pile with Julius Cæsar than with Sardanapalus. ”

“ Scott to Mrs. Robinson, Denton.—“... Miss Coke is a most extraordinary character, and, in my opinion, a most contemptible one, though I suppose she thinks herself a heroine. I have great compassion on one who blushes at her frailties, or rather her vices, for I hate those mincing names, designed only to palliate wrong actions; but I detest a woman who glories in her shame, and sets the world at defiance. Such desperate spirits should not be clad in feminine bodies. ”

“ To undertake a trust which, by not fulfilling, may be detrimental to some person; to bring children into the world when it is too late in life to hope to see them educated and established, are things about which a prudent person [154] may hesitate; but even in this case, we can never do wrong when we follow the general principles by which the author of our nature has intended we should be directed. The shortness and uncertainty of life would discourage all great undertakings; and, as the human race is to continue, providence has ordered we should act as if we were to live for ever. ”

“ The elopement of Miss Hunter (a maid of honour, too!) from Bath with the Earl of Pembroke formed one of the most delicious bits of scandal ever discussed in the Rooms, on the Parade, or in the Meadows. The excitement attendant thereon was shared by the whole country; for Kitty Hunter was a well-known, and not at all suspected, beauty of the day. Her father, Orby Hunter, was, at the time of the elopement, one of the lords of the admiralty. ”

“ I have always wonder’d at the wild and rash ambition which impell’d men to wish and seek for conditions and offices to which they were not by talents or circumstances well adapted; but I may say without vanity, I have the age, the experience, the wrinkles, the foibles which form the compleat character of grandmother; and I long to be in full office, but it will be above a fortnight before father, mother, child and cradle will be fix’d at Sandleford.... ”

“ Montagu might forget a part, but she could not forgive an expression of compassionate contempt, which was worse than adverse criticism. She might forget that Johnson spoke of “The Progress of Love,” as verses that “cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers.” She may have been only momentarily stung by the censurer’s remark that, in the “Persian Letters,” the ardour for liberty which found expression there, was only such “as a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.” ”

“ I made a visit at Burniston to my Uncle Robinson’s almshouses. I gave each of the old people a guinea. I have sometimes sent them money; for what my uncle appointed near a hundred years ago is hardly a subsistence. Indeed, they would starve if they had not some helps.
“I have not been one moment ill since I set out on my journey. I walk about my farms, and down to my colliery, like a country gentlewoman of the last century. I rejoyce in the great improvement of my land here by good cultivation, but I do not like my tenants so well as those in Yorkshire. ”

“ For the most part, they are drunken and vicious, and worse than hypocrites—profligates. I am very happy that drinking is not within our walls. We have not had one person disordered by liquor since we came down, though most of the poor ladies in the neighbourhood have had more hogs in their drawing-room than ever they had in their hog-sty.” One visitor was unwelcomely assiduous. She thus hits him off to the duchess, as a portrait of a country beau and wit: “Had you seen the pains this animal has been taking to imitate the cringe of a beau, you would have pitied him. ”