James Montgomery

“ That like a giant monster, that hideous traffic laughed at our enactments, and laughs at them still, having nearly quadrupled the number of its annual victims since the great contest against it was begun. But among those whose voice and spirit have been in fixed and perpetual operation against this vile cannibal commerce, none have more effectually exercised their influence than James Montgomery. His poem, arrayed in all the charms and graces of his noble art, has been read by every genuine lover of genuine poetry. It has sunk into the generous heart of youth ”

“ James Montgomery spent years of his life amending and modifying the hymns of others, but asked that others should not change his verses. He insisted that if good people could not conscientiously adopt his doctrines and diction, it was a little questionable in them to impose theirs on him.
It is interesting to note that Montgomery could not “conscientiously 65 adopt the doctrine and diction” of the first verse of Cowper’s “There is a fountain filled with blood” and substituted a verse of his own of which he said, “I think my version is unexceptionable.” ”

“ An English poet, the son of a Moravian preacher, James Montgomery was born at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, November 4, 1771. At the age of seven he was sent to the Moravian settlement at Fulneck, near Leeds, to prepare for the Moravian ministry. To the annoyance of the Moravians, his leisure at school was employed in the composition of epics on King Alfred and the fall of man. ”

“ With the religious world, as was to be expected, James Montgomery has always stood in high esteem, and in the most friendly relation. The names of Montgomery and Sheffield will always mutually present each other to the mind of the man of taste. Through his own exertions, the proceeds of his pen, and a small pension of £150 a-year, in testimony of his poetic merit, the poor orphan who set out from the little shop at Mirfield to seek fame and fortune with less than five shillings in his pocket, has now for some years retired to an enjoyment of both ”

“ But from a glance at the orgies, which, spite of all that education and the philanthropist have so long been doing, still are to be found in the dark purlieus of the manufacturing town, we must hasten to bid adieu to the poet of religion and refinement. James Montgomery resides at the Mount, on the Glossop road, the West End of Sheffield. ”

“ In this there is a striking difference between him and James Montgomery, Sheffield's other eminent poet, whose writings, beautiful as they are, and full as they are of the love of nature, might have been written anywhere. They do not localize themselves. ”

“ There is often a tone of melancholy, but it is never that of doubt. It is the sighing of a feeling and sensitive heart over the evils of life; but ever and anon this tone rises into the more animated one of conscious strength and well placed confidence; and terminates in that pæan of happy triumph which the Christian only can ascend to. There is no "dealing damnation round the land" in the religious poetry of James Montgomery ”

“ Thereupon Montgomery entered into communication with the Jacobite agent, Neville Payne [q. v.] , and they concerted together a plot for the restoration of King James, known as the Montgomery Plot, each being, according to Balcarres, more or less the dupe of the other (ib. p. 57) . Montgomery's coalition with the Jacobites proved to him rather a hindrance than a help in parliament, and as soon as his influence began to wane the Jacobites revolted against him. ”

“ No father could have evinced a greater affection for a darling son; the tears he shed were honorable to his feelings, and were the best testimony to the conduct and integrity of James Montgomery.
From Wath he removed to London, having prepared his way by sending a volume of his manuscript poems to Mr. Harrison, then a bookseller in Paternoster-row. Mr. Harrison, who was a man of correct taste and liberal disposition, received him into his house, and gave him the greatest encouragement to cultivate his talents, but none to publish his poems ”

“ He died on 16 Oct. 1816 at Birch House, near Bolton, Lancashire, the residence of his friend Roger Hollond. Two days previously he had preached at Bolton, and his death inspired James Montgomery to write his poem ‘The Christian Soldier.’ While at Chester in 1767 he married the descendant of a French protestant family, by whom he had several children. ”

“ John, Catherine's father, returned to Montgomery after the Revolution, was one of the founders of Montgomery Academy, an associate judge of the County Court, a member of the state legislature, and a church elder for fifty years. In Henry James, Senior's, reminiscences there is a passage which describes him as an old man, much addicted to the reading of military history, and which contrasts his stoicism with his wife's warm and spontaneous temperament and her exceptional gift of interesting her grandchildren in conversation. ”

“ He shines without a shadow on their graves."
In the Fulneck academy, among a people remarkable for their ardor in religion, and their industry in the pursuit of useful learning, James Montgomery received his education. He was intended for the ministry, and his preceptors were every way competent to the task of preparing him for the important office for which he was designed. His studies were various: the French, German, Latin, and Greek languages ”

“ The first of those was Sir Philip Herbert, brother of the Earl of Pembroke and son of the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. He was created Earl of Montgomery, and was especially agreeable to James because he despised learned men—for James was jealous of all such—and took pleasure only, like his royal master, in dogs and horses. Montgomery was in the ascendant till the king's eye fell on one Robert Carr, destined to a strange history; and the English and Scottish favourites, by their mutual hatred of each other, their quarrels and duels, gave James sufficient trouble. ”

“ Aunt Augusta would have said icily, "We do not use such expressions, James," but Aunt Augusta was not there to hear.
"I'm afraid the Very Handsome Cat isn't coming to-day," sighed Jims. Then he brightened up; the Very Handsome Cat was coming across the lawn. He was the only living thing, barring birds and butterflies, that Jims ever saw in the garden. Jims worshipped that cat. He was jet black, with white paws and dickey, and he had as much dignity as ten cats. Jims' fingers tingled to stroke him. ”

“ Montgomery’s eyes, and she indulged in a proud little jerk of the head.
“I don’t know how you have found that out!” she exclaimed.
“By a philosophic trick—by what they call induction. You know you have always your option of contradicting me. But kindly answer me a question. Don’t you give your brother money? I think you ought to answer that.”
“Yes, I have given him money,” said Mrs. Montgomery.
“And you have not had much to give him?”
She was silent a moment. “If you ask me for a confession of poverty, that is easily made. I am very poor.” ”

“ After the revolution Payne became, according to Bishop Burnet, ‘the most active and determined of all King James's agents,’ and, although he had ‘lost the reputation of an honest man entirely,’ succeeded by his ‘arts of management’ in inducing those to employ him who were well aware of his indifferent character (Own Time, ed. 1838, p. 545) . He was generally believed to have been the chief instigator of the Montgomery plot in 1690 [see Montgomery, Sir James, tenth Baronet of Skelmorlie] . ”

“ Ross and Annandale readily agreed to whatever their able and active colleague proposed. An adventurer, who was sometimes called Simpson and sometimes Jones, who was perfectly willing to serve or to betray any government for hire, and who received wages at once from Portland and from Neville Payne, undertook to carry the offers of the Club to James. Montgomery and his two noble accomplices returned to Edinburgh, and there proceeded to form a coalition with their old enemies, the defenders of prelacy and of arbitrary power. ”

“ He is such a very handsome cat."
"But where did you come from?" said the lady. "It is so long since I saw a child in this garden," she added, as if to herself. Her voice was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.
"I came from the house over the wall," he said. "My name is James Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have had a ride this afternoon—and ice cream—and maybe a movie. So I was mad. ”

“ Montgomery was evidently a thrifty and self-respecting little person—the modest proportions of her dwelling seemed to indicate that she was of small stature—who took a virtuous satisfaction in keeping herself tidy, and had resolved that, since she might not be splendid, she would at least be immaculate. ”

“ The Pilgrims left England because King James would not let them hold their religious meetings in peace. He thought, as all kings then did, that everybody in England should belong to the same church and worship God in the same way that he did. [4] He was afraid that if people were allowed to go to whatever church they thought best that it would lead to disputes and quarrels, which would end by breaking his kingdom to pieces. Quite a number of Englishmen, seeing that they could not have religious liberty at home, escaped with their wives and children to Holland ”

“ If I were not honoured, it would be enough for me not to be abominated; and if I could not live like men, I might at least quench the thirst that consumes me, like the brutes which freely drink from stream and fountain. ”

“ Not but what James is a good man—the only fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear. It always frightens my appetite clear away. ”

“ Dunlop was, in the mean time, magnifying, wherever he went, the divine goodness which had, by so humble an instrument as himself, brought a noble person back to the right path. Montgomery no sooner heard of this wonderful work of grace than he too began to experience compunction. He went to Melville, made a confession not exactly coinciding with Ross's, and obtained a pass for England. William was then in Ireland; and Mary was governing in his stead. At her feet Montgomery threw himself. ”

“ The whole country now seemed to turn against the King. By his obstinate folly James had succeeded in making enemies of all classes, not only of the Whig Roundheads (S479) who had fought against his father in the civil war, but also of the Tory Cavaliers (S479) who had fought for him, and of the clergy who had taught the duty of obedience to him.
One of the bishops sent to the Tower was Trelawney of Bristol. He was a native of Cornwall. The news of his imprisonment roused the rough, independent population of that country. ”

“ At the time of the discovery of the Rye-House Plot (S480) a number of Whigs (S479) who were implicated in the conspiracy fled to Holland, where the Duke of Monmouth had gone when banished. Four months after the accession of James, the Duke, aided by these refugees and by a small force which he had gathered in the Netherlands, resolved to invade England and demand the crown. He believed that a large part of the nation would look upon him as representing the cause of Protestantism, and would therefore rally to his support. ”

“ His father, John Montgomery, was a missionary of the Moravian Brethren, and in this capacity came to Irvine from Ireland, only a few days before the birth of James, his eldest son. In his fourth year he returned to Ireland with his parents, and received the rudiments of his education from the village schoolmaster of Grace Hill, a settlement of the Moravian Brethren in the county of Antrim. In October 1777, in his seventh year, he was placed by his father in the seminary of the Moravian settlement of Fulneck, near Leeds ”

“ But these qualities were evidently combined with an unaffected humility, and the Doctor gave her his esteem as soon as he had looked at her. A brave little person, with lively perceptions, and yet a disbelief in her own talent for social, as distinguished from practical, affairs—this was his rapid mental résumé of Mrs. Montgomery, who, as he saw, was flattered by what she regarded as the honour of his visit. Mrs. Montgomery, in her little red house in the Second Avenue, was a person for whom Dr. Sloper was one of the great men, one of the fine gentlemen of New York ”

“ It speedily appeared that the opposition which Montgomery had organized was irresistibly strong. Though made up of many conflicting elements, Republicans, Whigs, Tories, zealous Presbyterians, bigoted Prelatists, it acted for a time as one man, and drew to itself a multitude of those mean and timid politicians who naturally gravitate towards the stronger party. The friends of the government were few and disunited. Hamilton brought but half a heart to the discharge of his duties. He had always been unstable ”

“ Nature presents her most enchanting aspect; and the voice of human genius breathing from the silent tomb, speaks of the influence of the imagination of man, and of the power which he possesses to communicate his ideas in all their warmth and beauty to his fellow creatures. Such is the tomb of Virgil now—such was it five hundred years ago, when Boccaccio's heart glowed with new-born enthusiasm as he gazed upon it. ”