Elizabeth Montagu

“ Elizabeth said if her eyes and general health were better, she would be inoculated too. She had just been given, “by a wise son of Æsculapius, a diabolical bolus that half killed me. I fainted away about three hours after I swallowed the notable composition, and was above an hour in such agony that if I had not waited for your letter I had certainly gone to the Elysian fields.”
A letter of Mrs. Botham’s from Elford, of which place, as well as of Yoxall, Staffordshire, her husband was Vicar, mentions a legacy left to her and her sister, Mrs. Laurence Sterne—
“My husband is in the North ”

“ She was as interested in Betty’s rheumatism as she was in the conversation of a duke or a duchess; a discussion with bishops and Gilbert West on religion, or with Emerson on mathematics, or Elizabeth Carter on Epictetus, all came alike to her gifted nature. She danced with the gay, she wept with the mourner; her sympathies never lay idle, even to the very end of life; and in a century which has been deemed by many to be coarse, uneducated, and irreligious, her sweet wholesome nature shone like a star, and attracted all minor lights. ”

“ I believe the fellow who lost my letter knew very well how ready I should be to supply it with another.
“I am, Madam,
“Your Grace’s most obedient servant,
“Elizabeth Robinson.”
“FIDGET”
The duchess’s favourite name for Elizabeth was “Fidget,” a name adopted by all the Bullstrode [18] circle. This was due to her vivacity of mind and body. She was never really a strong person, but her nervous energy enabled her frail body to perform feats that a more lethargic person could not have accomplished. “Why should a table that stands still require so many legs when I can fidget on two?” ”

“ Mrs. Montagu was much distressed by the poor boy employed in her garden at Sandleford having accidentally fallen into a pond there and been drowned, an account of which she writes to the duchess on August 7. In this letter she begs the duchess to send the “Little Père,” as he was fondly called (Dr. Courayer) , to stay with her, from Bullstrode, where he had been domiciled some time. At the same time she asks for two peacocks, “After asking for Dr. Courayer to beg your two peacocks, are there in Nature things that differ like this Philosopher and the bird of noise, vanity, and ostentation?” ”

“ In the same letter it appears that the good old Yorkshire steward, Mr. Carter, had had a bad fall, and the house in Dover Street not being large enough, Morris Robinson was trying to secure them one in Bruton Street. Mrs. Montagu, having suffered from weakness and hysterical fits, was recommended to ride daily—a pastime which was agreeably varied by the cutting of new walks through the Sandleford woods, and the continual amusement afforded to her and Mr. Montagu by the contemplation of their child’s too precocious ways. ”

“ He adds, “He is unwearied, j never knew his fellow. He has lived three times as much as any other man no older than he, and has done three times as much business and benefited many and hurt none. I wish j could say as much of those who are in a rank of life infinitely superior to him.” Truly this is a fine picture of a righteous steward.
THE BIRTH OF A SON
By May 1, when Elizabeth writes to her mother, Mr. Montagu had returned to her, she and her sister meeting him at Highgate. Mention is made in this letter of Miss Brockman having become temporarily speechless from [148] inoculation. ”

“ As inoculation is now out of date, I shall extract from the various letters the mode of procedure. Arrived in Dover Street, Mrs. Montagu is told by Elias, the duchess’s porter (then a most important domestic magnate) , his mistress was coming to London on Monday. She therefore writes to beg the duchess, the duke, and Mr. Achard to dine with her that day “at 4 or 5 according to their convenience.” Business, however, prevented the duchess leaving Bullstrode for a week, but she is reinvited, as Dr. Mead says Mrs. Montagu will not be infectious till the disease appears. ”

“ Indeed, Madam, you are too cruel to desire to postpone my happiness till the beginning of the next century. I can die for the lady I love any day she pleases to command me, but to live 40 years for her is more than I can promise; besides, Madam, I would have you consider that in all the conquests Love makes, there is on the male side, constantly a little pride and vanity; do you think that I have not something of that kind, in the pleasure I propose to myself of making Mr. Montagu jealous, and of triumphing and insulting over Dr. Monsey ”

“ Her spirits reviving, Mrs. Montagu, writing to the duchess, says, “Whisk and the noble game of E. O. employ the evening; three glasses of water, a toasted [256] roll, a Bath cake, and a cold walk the mornings,” but the regimen agreed with her, and she accompanied Mr. Montagu to Sandleford on May 1, leaving Sarah Robinson, who was suffering from headache, with her friend, Miss Grinfield, at Bath. ”

“ For his second wife he married Deborah, daughter of Sir James Collet, Knight and Sheriff of London, by whom he had six daughters, all of whom married and had issue, and one son, Thomas, who married a widow, Elizabeth Light. She was daughter of William Clarke, Esq., of Merivale Abbey, Warwickshire, and heiress of her brother, William Clarke. By her first husband, Anthony Light, she had one daughter, Lydia. By her second marriage with Thomas Robinson she had three sons. Matthew, the eldest, alone concerns us as father of Mrs. Montagu. ”

“ The company at Tunbridge Wells had been increased by the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, the Duchess of Norfolk, and, Mrs. Montagu writes, “we expect those goddesses called the Gunnings and Sir Thomas Robinson.... My Father is very gay, but complains he never saw the place so dull. I never said so to those about me, lest they should say to me as Swift to the fat man who complained of a crowd, ‘Friend, you make the very crowd you blame!’ Mr. West reads to us in the evening, and the wit of the last age supplies us when we do not meet with any in this.” ”

“ West will be obliged to you if you will bring her jewels with you.”
Mrs. Montagu arrived at Tunbridge on June 11, and on the 13th writes to her husband, then in London, to say
“my cough is much abated, and my appetite increased: the asses’ milk sits well on my stomach.... I have a constant invitation to dinner at the ‘White House’; Mr. Pitt is too ill to dine abroad, and the Wests cannot leave him, so as often as I am disposed for company, I dine there; the rest of my time passes in taking air and exercise, and now and then the relief of a book.” ”

“ The three avowedly “by another hand” interested the public, as the circumstance gave them a riddle to be solved in their leisure hours. They were attributed to men of such fine intellect that Mrs. Montagu had every reason to be delighted at such an indirect compliment.
If her own account is to be taken literally, she had now, at forty, assumed gravity as a grace and an adornment. In 1761, she wrote to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter that, whether in London or in the country, “I am become one of the most reasonable, quiet, good kind of country gentlewoman that ever was.” ”

“ Teach me to love you less or imitate you better. I admire the resignation with which you submit to your pain.” Mrs. Carter suffered from excruciating headaches at this period. Lord Bath said that if she would drink less green tea, take less snuff, and not study so much, they would disappear.
Mrs. Montagu says the house at Newcastle was very comfortable, and instead of an equipage, she could pay visits to her neighbours in a Sedan chair.
“That I might not offend here I enter’d into all the diversions of this town, visits, concerts, plays, and balls. ”

“ Montagu’s letters are undated. In the end of this letter she mentions that she is returning to London next day to spend the evening with Mrs. Boscawen, who was to leave the Admiralty that day for her new house.
“She will be too apt to reflect on the change of her condition upon such an occasion, and the less time she has to dwell on the subject the better. Alas, how few people are there so happily situated that they can intrepidly look on their condition! ”

“ Both parents were dead; Lydia had recently married the Rev. John Botham, Rector of Yoxall, Staffordshire. Elizabeth Lumley, her sister, was residing alone in “Little Alice Lane,” under the shadow of York Cathedral. In a folio-sheet letter to her sister Sarah, Elizabeth explains that owing to the Countess of Oxford being at Bullstrode, she had more time to herself, as the countess and she had spent alternate mornings with the duchess. The countess was kind to Elizabeth, but she was a rare admirer of etiquette. ”

“ Freind having written a letter in which he rallies [58] Elizabeth about not choosing one of her many admirers, she replies—
“I have lately studied my own foibles, and I have found out I should make a very silly wife, and an extremely foolish Mother, and so have as far resolved as is consistent with deference to reason and advice, never to trouble any man, or spoil any children. I already love too many people in this world to enjoy a perfect tranquility, and I don’t care to have any more strings to pull my heart; it is very tender, and a small matter hurts it. ”

“ The music of the ‘Penseroso’ some say is best, ‘but Mirth with thee I choose to live.’ Adieu.”
One can, indeed, pity the unfortunate Abigail with “Fidget” writing whilst she had her hair dressed! Once after a visit to Bullstrode, the duchess says she had found a glass-stand left behind by Elizabeth, should she send it? And the reply was that the stand was used for her to rest her chin on whilst her maid dressed her hair. The ridiculously high coiffure of the day must have taken a long time to erect. ”

“ I hope time will bring me comfort. I will assist it with my best endeavours; it is in affliction like mine that reason ought to exert itself else one should fall beneath the stroke. I apply myself to reading as much as I can, and I find it does me service. Poor Mr. Montagu shows me an example of patience and fortitude, and endeavours to comfort me, though undoubtedly he feels as much sorrow as I can do, for he loved his child as much as ever parent could do. ”

“ If you will be at home to-morrow at two o’clock, I will pass an hour with you; but pray send me word to Jermyn Street at eleven, whether I can come to you without meeting any person at Whitehall but the Duke; to every one else pray deny your dressing room. Mr. Freind will tell your Grace I behaved magnanimously, and not one cowardly tear, I assure you, did I shed at the solemn Altar, my mind was in no mirthful mood indeed. I have a great hope of happiness; the world, as you say, speaks well of Mr. Montagu, and I have many obligations to him, which must gain my particular esteem ”

“ Montagu writes to say she is packing up for London, and she begs her husband, who is thinking of moving southward, not to travel with a single servant, as “every newspaper is filled with accounts of robbery.” She congratulates him “on having so well considered and settled Mr. Rogers’ affairs. It appears a noble estate, and I hope to see it in your possession who would nobly enjoy it.”
Matthew Robinson had been in Yorkshire, and thence travelled to Scotland, then little visited. Mrs. Montagu says—
“I suppose my brother Robinson is by this time returning to the known world. ”

“ On December 17 the Earl of Arran died; he had married Mr. Montagu’s relation, Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Crewe of Stene, who brought him a large fortune. It was an unhappy marriage, and Mrs. Montagu hints that, had Lady Arran treated her husband as he deserved, her money would have come to Mr. Montagu and Lady Mary Gregory. He died at eighty-eight. His sister, Lady Emily Butler,
“is a surprising woman, healthy and lively at past 99! Mr. ”

“ From this period dates the extreme intimacy which grew up between Miss Robinson and Lady Barbara Montagu, sister of George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, who was then living at Bath, and invited Miss Robinson to stay with her.
The Hill Street house not being completed, Mrs. Knight, [457] a cousin of the family, lent Mrs. Montagu her house in Golden Square, London. Miss Grinfield, just mentioned, was just made a dresser to the princesses, daughters of George II.
[457] Née Robinson.
“Miss Grinfield is in waiting.... The place is enough to weary a person of the strongest constitution ”

“ To this letter Elizabeth replies—
“The date of your letter from London is the strongest temptation to me to wish myself there, that you could lay before me: as for Plays and the Beau monde, I hardly wear vanity enough in the country, to wishing myself once more in—
“‘The dull farce, the empty show
Of Powder, pocket glass and Beau.’
“I know your town is the Kingdom of Cards, and the Reign of Mattadores I am disaffected to; here I enjoy all [93] the pleasures of friendship, and the satisfaction of tranquillity....
“I hope you will find great benefit by your machine ”

“ Through Mrs. Montagu, Dr. Monsey sends to Dr. Young a powder for his rheumatism. From “Hog Magog” on September 26, Dr. Monsey writes a long letter to Lord Lyttelton, describing his visit to Tunbridge to see “dear Amadissa,” meaning Mrs. Montagu. In it he says—
“It may be new to your Lordship tho’ not strange, that the Earl of Bath is fall’n desperately in love with one who seems not insensible of his passion, and I think ’tis time for you and I to look about us, for an Earl is better than a Baron or a quack Doctor ... ”

“ I am still well and in perfect good spirits: it would be a sign of levity as I should be sorry and ashamed to find in myself to be disturbed at the approach of a distemper I have been seeking. The Duchess of Portland spent the day with me on Monday, and was here again with Lady Wallingford yesterday, and I expect her Grace this afternoon. In the meantime I hope to hear from you, and my sister will give you intelligence of me. Dr. Mead and Dr. Cotes attend me ”