"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 impudence, 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, it if is a mistake, I would not be undeceived 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."
[Postmark, October 6, 1714.]
"I cannot imagine why you should desire that I should not be glad, though from a mistake, since, at least, it is an agreeable one. I confess I shall ever be of opinion, if you are in the Treasury, it will be an addition to your figure and facilitate 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."
[Endorsed, October 9, 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 have 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 acquaintance 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."
The relations between Lady Mary and her husband did not improve. Not only did he neglect to write to her when he left her in the country, but he does not at any time appear to have had any desire to have her with him in town. Lady Mary showed extreme, in fact overmuch, forbearance, but towards the end of November her patience gave out: "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," she went on to say. "As if this was not hardship enough, you do not tell me you are sorry for it. You write seldom, and with so much indifference 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 express; but I reflect with grief a man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable, is generally proud of those that [are] shameful and silly."
Lady Mary, once having given vent to her feeling of injustice, was not concerned to mince her words: "You seem perfectly pleased with our separation, and indifferent how long it continues…. When I reflect on your behaviour, I am ashamed of my own: I think I am playing the part of my Lady Winchester. At least be as generous as My Lord; and as he made early confession of his aversion, own to me your inconstancy, and upon my word I will give you no more trouble about it…. For my part, as 'tis my first, this is my last complaint, and your next of the kind shall go back enclosed to you in blank paper."
CHAPTER VI
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU'S ACCOUNT OF THE COURT OF GEORGE I
Lady Mary, then, had been in Yorkshire when the Queen died, and was still in the country, much against her will, when the King arrived on September 18. Soon after, however, she came to town, and, so to speak, looked around the Court. Her "Account of the Court of George I" is not always accurate, and is certainly often prejudiced. It is not the less interesting because the writer did not mince her words, even when discussing the character of her friend, "Dolly" Walpole. Notwithstanding, this bird-eye view of the royal and political circles at the accession of the first of the Hanoverian monarchs is so valuable as to deserve inclusion in this work.
"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 in the succession, and was reinstated in his 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 contributed to his advancement, he had a very handsome sister, whose folly had lost her reputation 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 while to show them a new path, go regularly 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 serviceable relation whenever 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 prodigality or avarice, always gains a man the reputation of reasonable 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. Robethon, a French refugee (secretary to Bernstorff, one of the Elector of Hanover's ministers), happened to be at The Hague, and was civilly received by Lord Townshend, 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 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 Goertz was the most considerable among them both for birth and fortune. He had managed the King's treasury, for thirty years, with the utmost fidelity and economy; and had the true German honesty, being a plain, sincere and unambitious man. Bernstorff, 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. Robethon 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 personally 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 probably have retained for ever if he had not been entirely governed by his wife and her brother Robert 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 necessary 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 considerable, though his profligate life lessened that weight that a more regular conduct would have given him.
"Lord Halifax, who was now advanced to the dignity of Earl, and graced with the Garter, and First Commissioner of the Treasury, treated him with contempt. The Earl of Nottingham, 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.
"The Duke of Marlborough, who in his old age was making the same figure at Court that he did when he first came into it—I mean, bowing and smiling in the antechamber while Townshend was in the closet,—was not, however, pleased with the 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 considerable 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 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 which 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 happiness, 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 incapable 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 carried by the stream of the people about him, in that, as in every 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 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 three score) 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 barbarously, 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 without knowing where to pass his evenings; which he was accustomed to do in the apartments of women free from business. But Madame Keilmansegg saved him from this misfortune. She was told that Mademoiselle Schulenburg scrupled this terrible journey, and took the opportunity of offering her service to his Majesty, who willingly accepted it, though he did not facilitate it to her by the payment of debts, which made it very difficult for her to leave Hanover without 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 that I should be a little particular in her character, 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 with youth; and had once appeared so charming to the King, that it was said the divorce and ruin of his beautiful Princess, the Duke of Celle's daughter, was owing to the 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 project did not succeed, by the passion which Madame Kielmansegg took for M. Kielmansegg, who was a son of a merchant of Hamburg, and after having a child by him, there was nothing left for her but to marry him. Her ambitions ran mad with the disappointment, and died in that deplorable manner, leaving £40,000 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 constitution inclined her to gallantry. She was well-bred and amusing in company. She knew both how 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 with very little remaining, and she made what haste she could to make advantage 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 which 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 my opinion can set the King's character in a clearer light. That lady was married to Madame Kielmansegg's brother, the most considerable man in Hanover for birth and fortune; and 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 Schulenburg.
"In 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 nobody could refuse her the first rank in that place, it was very mortifying to see his Highness not show her any mark of favour; 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 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 Mademoiselle Schulenburg, 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 upon 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 Schulenburg 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 travelling. He was in his first bloom of youth and vigour, and 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 Mordaunt, 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 chose for that purpose. She found him both faithful and discreet, and he was soon advanced 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 King 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; and did not concern 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 calculation, great industry, and was so just an observer of the world, that the meanness of his education never appeared in his conversation.
"The Duke of Marlborough, who was sensible how well he was qualified for affairs that required secrecy, employed him as his procurer 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 valuable in the eyes of cool judges, but Madame Platen was not of that number. His youth and fire made him appear very well worthy of his passionate addresses. Two people so well disposed towards each other 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 favour hindered her coming hither.
"Bernstorff was afraid she might meddle in the distribution 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 objection to her appearance at the Court of England, at least so early; but he gave her private hopes that things might be so arranged as to make her admittance easy when the King was settled in his new dominions. And with this hope she consented without much concern 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 affected a stronger head, and had too good an opinion of her own beauty to believe anything in England could efface it, while Madame Kielmansegg 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 polite 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 for it by furnishing Madame Kielmansegg 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 Artamenes nor Oroondates ever had more valour, honour, constancy, and discretion. Half of these bright qualities were enough to charm Madame Kielmansegg, and they were soon in the strictest familiarity, which continued for different reasons, to the pleasure of both parties, till the arrival of Mademoiselle Schulenburg, which was hastened by the German ministers, who envied the money accumulated by Madame Kielmansegg, 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 Schulenburg of the fond reception all the Germans met with in England, and gave her a view of the immense fortune that waited her here. This was enough to cure her fears, and she arrived accompanied by a young niece who had already made some noise at Hanover. She had projected the conquest of the Prince of Wales, and had so far succeeded as to obtain his favours for some months, but the Princess, who dreaded a rival to her power, soon put an end to the correspondence, and she was no longer possessed of his good graces when she 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 understanding, 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 if a more decent and regular behaviour than is expected from those who are not set in so conspicuous a light. He was far from being of that opinion, that he looked on all 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 insolent rebels to the will of God, who created them for his use, and judged of the merit of all people by their submission to his orders, or the relation they had to his power. 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 complaisant as 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 German beauty, and had genius which qualified her for the government of a fool; and made her despicable in the eyes of 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 to observe that falsehood in conversation, like red on the face, should be used very seldom, and very sparingly, or they destroy that interest and beauty which 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 purpose 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 for 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 situation the family first appeared in when they came into England. This behaviour did not, however, hinder schemes being laid by various persons of gratifying their ambition, or making their fortunes, by particular attachments to each of the Royal Family."
CHAPTER VII
AT HERRENHAUSEN AND ST. JAMES (1714-1716)
The Elector George Lewis not delighted at his accession to the British throne—A greater man in Hanover than in London—Lady Mary modifies her first impression of the King—She is in high favour at Court—An amusing incident at St. James's—The early unpopularity of George I in England generally, and especially in the capital—The Hanoverians in the Royal Household—The Duchess of Kendal—The Countess of Darlington—Lady Mary's description of the Hanoverian ladies—The Duchess of Kendal's passion for money—Her influence with the King in political matters—Count de Broglie—The scandal about Lady Darlington refuted—Lady Mary and the Prince of Wales—The King and the Prince of Wales—The poets and wits of the day—Gay's tribute to Lady Mary—Pope's verses on her—"Court Poems."
It is beyond question that the accession to the British throne gave no thrill of pleasure to the King. He was fifty-four years of age, and had no desire to change his state. It was necessary for him, as the present writer has said elsewhere, now to go from a country where he was absolute, to another where, so far from being supreme, when King and people differed on a matter of vital importance, the monarch had to give way—the price of resistance having been fixed, at worst at death, at best exile or civil war. He had to go from a country where he was the wealthiest and most important personage to another where he would be merely regarded as a minor German princeling set up as a figurehead, and where many of the gentry were wealthier than he. This point was appreciated by Lady Mary when she went to Hanover in November, 1716, for she wrote from there to the Countess of Bristol: "I have now made the tour of Germany, and cannot help observing difference between travelling here and in England. One sees none of those fine seats of noblemen that are so common among us, nor anything like a country gentleman's house, though they have many situations perfectly fine. But the whole people are divided into absolute sovereignties, where all the riches and magnificence are at Court, or communities of merchants, such as Nuremberg and Frankfort, where they live always in town for the convenience of trade."
Worse than all George must set forth by no means sure of his reception, and with no love, nor even liking, for the people over whom he was called to reign. That he did go at all is greatly to his credit, for he was doubtful if he would be allowed to remain, and he never revisited Hanover without some suspicion that he might not be able to return to England. He would have been a much happier man if he could have remained at his beloved Herrenhausen. He never felt he owed Britain anything, and indeed he did not: the throne had been settled on his mother, not for love of her, but simply because she was the only alternative to the succession of the dreaded Roman Catholic heirs. So George came as a visitor, rather submitting to be King of England, than anxious for the honour, prepared to be forced by circumstances to return, little dreaming that two hundred years later his descendants would be firmly seated upon his throne.
It may be mentioned that Lady Mary, as she became better acquainted with the King, grew to like him. In the letter from Hanover just quoted, she says: "His Majesty dines and sups constantly in public. The Court is very numerous, and his affability and goodness make it one of the most agreeable places in the world to me." The King was indeed at his best when in residence at Herrenhausen. Lord Peterborough said that George was so happy there that he believed he had forgot the accident that occurred to him and his family on the 1st of August, 1714.
It may be that, the King having taken a great fancy to Lady Mary, modified that lady's earlier impression. When she and her husband went to Hanover, the King, as she mentioned in one of her letters to Lady Bristol, "has had the goodness to appoint us a lodging in one part of the Palace, without which we should be very ill accommodated; for the vast number of English crowds the town so much, it is very good luck to be able to get one sorry room in a miserable tavern. I dined to-day with the Portuguese ambassador, who thinks himself very happy to have two wretched parlours in an inn."
Lady Mary was, indeed, in high favour at the Courts of Hanover and St. James's. "Mr. Wortley and his lady are here," the British Minister at Hanover, John Clavering, wrote in December, 1716, to Lady Cowper. "They were so very impatient to see his Majesty that they travelled night and day from Vienna here. Her Ladyship is mighty gay and airy, and occasions a great deal of discourse. Since her arrival the King has took but little notice of any other lady, not even of Madame Kielmansegg, which the ladies of Hanover don't relish very much; for my part, I can't help rejoicing to see his Majesty prefer us to the Germans."
It was evidently before that the following incident occurred. Lady Mary often went to St. James's, but, as it was very dull there, was often glad to go instead to some less august and more amusing assembly. One evening Lady Mary particularly desired to leave early, and induced the Duchess of Kendal to persuade the King to dismiss her. The King reluctantly acquiesced, though, when Lady Mary made her bow, he declared it was an act of perfidy to run away, but, in spite of that and other complimentary remarks, she at last contrived to make her escape.
At the foot of the staircase she met Mr. Secretary Craggs, who, seeing her leave so early, enquired if the King had retired, but she reassured him on that point, and dwelt complacently on the King's reluctance to let her go. Craggs made no remark, but took her in his arms, ran upstairs, and deposited her in the ante-chamber, whereupon the pages at once threw open the doors leading to the King's apartment.
"Ah! la re-voilà," cried his Majesty and the Duchess of Kendal, and expressed their pleasure that she had changed her mind, but Lady Mary was so flustered that, instead of maintaining a discreet silence she burst out, "Oh, Lord, Sir, I have been so frightened!" and related her adventure.
She had scarcely finished relating her adventure, when the door was thrown open, and Mr. Secretary Craggs was announced. He entered calmly, and made his bow as if nothing had happened, but the King strode up to him, and said angrily: "Mais, comment, donc, Monsieur Craggs, est ce que c'est l'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 as if they were a sack of wheat?") The culprit was dumbfounded by the unexpected attack, and glanced reproachfully at Lady Mary for having betrayed him, but, soon finding his wits, parried with, "There is nothing I would not do for your Majesty's satisfaction."
One of the reasons for the early unpopularity of George I was that he brought with him a large suite from Hanover.
The household that accompanied him numbered sixty-three. There was Baron von Kielmansegg, who was Master of the Horse; Count von Platen, son of the late Prime Minister of Hanover; and Baron von Hardenburg, Marshal of the Court. With them came the Lutheran clergyman, Braun; a group of physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; five body-servants, including the Turks, Mahomet and Mustapha; four pages, two trumpeters, a carver, twelve footmen, eighteen cooks, three cellarmen, two housemaids, and one washerwoman. It may be mentioned that in 1696 there were only two washerwomen for the three hundred and seven persons, exclusive of royalty, that at this date made up the Court of Hanover.
The political staff that came included twenty-three persons. Baron von
Bothmer was already in England. Now arrived Baron von Bernstorff, Prime
Minister of Hanover; Baron von Schlitz-Goertz, Hanoverian Finance
Minister; Baron von Hattorf, Hanoverian Minister of War; and John
Robethon.
To these men, who advised the King in his capacity of Elector of Hanover, there would have been no objection had they confined their energies to administering that country. This, unfortunately, was not the case. Some of them, at least, notably Bernstorff and Robethon, meddled in English politics, and most of them desired high office, lucrative appointments, peerages, and other grants. It is certain that they must have known that they were barred from such delights by an Act of 1700 which carefully guarded against foreigners acquiring any share in the government of this country. Nothing, in fact, could be more definite than clause three of the "Act for the further limitation of the Crown": "No person born out of the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging (although he be naturalised or made a denizen, except such as are born of English parents)," so runs clause three of the above-mentioned Act, "shall be capable of the Privy Council, or a Member of either House of Parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the Crown to himself or to any other or others in trust for him." Still, Acts of Parliament have been repealed, and the invaders may well have hoped that, with the King's support, their influence might increase until they were strong enough to have the clause revoked.
As a matter of fact, nothing of the kind happened, and no Hanoverian statesman or court officer was appointed to any place of profit under the Crown or rewarded for his services in the Electorate by the grant of a British peerage. It may be noted that the Hanoverian officials, fond as all Germans were and are of wordy distinctions, styled themselves "Koenigliche-Gross-britannische-Kurfuerstlich-Braunschweig-Lueneburgische" (Royal-British-Electoral-Brunswick-Luenburg) councillors or magistrates.
The Hanoverians who were on the political side or held posts in the Household might, by the exercise of a little tact, have lived down an unpopularity that was the result of circumstances rather than arising from any personal animosity. That they did not do so may be ascribed partly, anyhow, to their own fault.
On the other hand, nothing probably would have overcome the prejudice against the ladies who followed George to this country. These were the Countess Ehrengard Melusina von der Schulenburg, who, in 1716, was created Duchess of Munster in the Irish peerage, and three years after Duchess of Kendal, by which latter title she is more generally known, and the Baroness von Kielmansegg (née Platen), who was presently elevated to the dignity of Countess of Darlington. It was generally assured that these ladies were the King's mistresses, and they were accordingly disliked not only at Court but also by the mob. One of them when driving in London was assailed by terms of abuse—as she understood scarcely any English, she could only go by the tone of the voices—and putting her head out of the coach said: "Good people, why abuse us? We come for all your goods." "Yes, damn you," cried someone, "and for our chattels, too." The man in the crowd only voiced the general opinion, and, it must be said, the general opinion was not far removed from the truth.
Of course, the Jacobites made the most of this, and, as Horace Walpole has related, "the seraglio was food for all the venom of the Jacobites, and, indeed, nothing could be grosser that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse against the Sovereign and the new Court and chanted even in their hearing in the public streets."
It is mentioned in Walpoliana that "this couple of rabbits, the favourites, as they were called, occasioned much jocularity on their first importation." Some of the jocularity was aroused by their appearance. The style of beauty, or what passed for beauty, in each country was markedly different. Hear Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing from Hanover in December, 1716: "I have now got into the regions of beauty," she told Lady Rich. "All the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads 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 death, 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, and are in much danger of melting away by too near approaching the fire which they for that reason carefully avoid, though it is now such excessively cold weather, that I believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial."
The Duchess of Kendal at the time of the accession of George I was forty-seven years of age. The King's mother, the Electress Sophia, had commented on her to Mrs. Howard: "Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son's passion." If a family portrait, now in the possession of Count Werner Schulenburg, may be trusted, she was what is called "a fine figure of a woman"; she had blue eyes and fair hair. She was so tall that she was nicknamed in England "the May-pole." She was certainly determined to make the most of her opportunities, and the more eager because at the beginning of the reign she was very doubtful whether George I would not have hurriedly to retire to Hanover for good and all. So doubtful of the likelihood of the duration of the Hanoverian line in this country was she that at first she declined to accompany the Elector, and she only changed her mind when she found the Baroness von Kielmansegg had decided to go to England. She was in high favour with George, and took every advantage of her influence. She left an immense fortune, which was acquired in ways into which an eulogistic biographer of the lady would not enquire. Certainly, she received for her good offices large sums of money from the promoters of the South Sea Act, she accepted bribes to secure peerages, and, it is said on the authority of Sir Robert Walpole, that Bolingbroke presented her with £11,000 to endeavour to secure his restoration to the royal favour. It may be remarked, en passant, that Spence records that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said to him: "I would never be acquainted with Lord Bolingbroke, because I always looked upon him as a vile man."
Duchess of Kendal was not content with indulging her passion for money; she, in matters of politics, acted as the hidden hand behind the throne—any services that she rendered were, it is certain, adequately remunerated. Her ascendancy over the King was unquestionable, and Walpole was compelled to admit that she "was in effect as much Queen of England as ever any was, that he did everything by her." She not only used her power in connection with home affairs, but also in matters of foreign policy, and the Count de Broglie, French Minister of the Court of St. James, was urgent in his endeavours to secure her support.
"As the Duchess of Kendal seemed to express a wish to see me often, I have been very attentive to her, being convinced that it is highly essential to the advantage of your Majesty's service to be on good terms with her, for she is closely united with the three ministers who now govern," the Count wrote to Louis XV on July 6, 1724, and four days later returned to the subject: "The more I consider state affairs, the more I am convinced that the Government is entirely in the hands of Mr. Walpole, Lord Townshend, and the Duchess of Newcastle, who are on the best terms with the Duchess of Kendal. The King visits her every afternoon from five till eight, and it is there that she endeavours to penetrate the sentiments of his Britannic majesty for the purpose of consulting the three ministers, and pursuing the measures which may be thought necessary for accomplishing their designs. She sent me word that she was desirous of my friendship, and that I should place confidence in her. I assured her that I would do everything in my power to merit her esteem and friendship. I am convinced that she may be advantageously employed in promoting your Majesty's service, and that it will be necessary to employ her, though I will not trust her further than is absolutely necessary." To these letters Louis replied on July 18: "There is no doubt that the Duchess of Kendal, having a great ascendancy over the King of Great Britain, and maintaining strict union with his ministers, must materially influence their principal resolutions. You will neglect nothing to acquire a share of her confidence, from a conviction that nothing can be more conducive to my interests. There is, however, a manner of giving additional value to the marks of confidence you bestow on her in private, by avoiding in public all appearances which might seem too pointed, by which means you will avoid falling into the inconvenience of being suspected by those who are not friendly to the Duchess, at the same time that a kind of mysteriousness in public on the subject of your confidence, will give rise to a firm belief of your having formed a friendship mutually sincere."
The case of Lady Darlington was different. It was assured generally that she, too, was a mistress of the King, a view that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu accepted, and one which was endorsed by the historians and biographers for more than a century. The first English writer to discover the truth was Carlyle, who in his Life of Frederick the Great said: "Miss Kielmansegg, Countess of Darlington, was, and is, believed by the gossiping English to have been a second simultaneous Mistress of His Majesty's, but seems after all to have been his Half-Sister and nothing more." She was, in fact, a daughter of the Countess of Platen (née Clara Elizabeth von Meysenbach), not, indeed, by that lady's husband, but by Ernest Augustus, Duke (afterwards Elector) of Hanover, the father of George I. Only Lady Cowper seems to have known this, and to have accepted it as a fact. Yet there was no secrecy concerning the paternity of the Countess, and it was, of course, well-known in the German Courts. Further, it was overlooked that in the patent of nobility in 1721 there is a reference to the royal blood of the recipient of the title, and actually the patent, in addition to the Great Seal, had a miniature of the King and the arms of the houses of Platen, Kielmansegg, and Great Britain (Brunswick-Lueneburg) with the bar-sinister.[2]
[Footnote 2: Refutation of the scandal is to be found in a work published in Hanover in 1902: "Briefe des Hertzogs Ernst August zu Braun schweig-Lüneburg an Johann Franz Diedrich von Wendt aus dem Jahren 1705 bis 1726," edited by Erich Graf Kielmansegg.]
All this at this time must have been very distressing to Lady Darlington, for she was very careful of her reputation, as the following amusing incident, given in Lady Cowper's Diary (February 4, 1716) indicates: "Madame Kielmansegg had been told that the Prince, afterwards George II, had said that she intrigued with all the men at Hanover. She came to complain of this to the Princess, who replied, she did not believe the Prince had said so, it not being his custom to speak in that manner. Madame Kielmansegg cried and said it had made her despised, and that many of her acquaintance had left her upon that story, but that her husband had taken all the care she could to vindicate her reputation, and thereupon she drew forth a certificate under her husband's hand, in which he certified, in all the due forms, that she had always been a faithful wife to him, and that he had never had any cause to suspect her honesty. The Princess smiled, and said she did not doubt it at all, and that all the trouble was very unnecessary, and that it was a very bad reputation that wanted such a support."
In appearance, Lady Darlington was a contrast to the Duchess of Kendal. She was in her youth a good-looking woman, but as the years passed she became immensely corpulent, and Horace Walpole, who saw her at his mother's when he was a child, thus described her: "Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling between two lofty arched eye-brows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed, and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays." He christened her "Elephant and Castle."
For a while, Lady Mary was popular also with the Prince of Wales, who was attracted by her looks and her vivacity. It is recorded that on one occasion when Lady Mary appeared in a gown more than usually becoming the Prince called his wife from the card table to admire her. The Princess came, looked, and then said calmly, "Lady Mary always dresses so well," and went on with her game.
It was impossible, however, even for the most tactful person in the world to be on good terms with the King and the Prince of Wales. It is said of George I that he was of an affectionate disposition and that throughout his life he hated only three people in the world: his mother, who was dead, his wife, who was imprisoned at Ahlden, and his son. It has been said that the trouble began when in his early youth the Prince expressed sympathy with his mother; it may be that it started from the fact that the Prince was the son of a woman who had sullied the honour of the Royal House. It is, however, unnecessary to look for reasons; to hate the heir-apparent was a tradition with the Georges.
Matters did not improve after the accession of George I to the British throne. He disliked his daughter-in-law, Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, and spoke of her as "Cette diablesse Madame la Princesse." The opposition was not slow to take advantage of the rift, and planted itself on the side of his Royal Highness. It proposed, on the Civil List vote, a separate revenue of £100,000 for the Prince—which infuriated the King, as it was intended to do.
In 1716 George was anxious to visit his beloved Hanover, but he was torn between the desire to do so and the dislike to leave his son in England as Regent during his absence. Indeed, he almost decided not to go, unless he could join others with the Prince in the administration and limit his authority by the most rigorous restriction. To this, however, the Government could not consent, and Townshend stated that "on a careful persual of precedents, finding no instance of persons being joined in commission with the Prince of Wales, and few, if any, restrictions, they were of opinion that the constant tenour of ancient practice could not conveniently be receded from."
Lady Mary, like the rest of the world, found the Court dull, and she much preferred to spend her time in the more congenial society of men of letters. Addison, she knew, and Steele, and Arbuthnot, and Jervas, and Gay, who presently paid her a pretty compliment in Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece, wherein he inserted tributes to the ladies of the Court:
"What lady's that to whom he gently bends?
Who knows her not? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes.
How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends;
For she distinguishes the good and wise."
Pope, too, wrote of her with appreciation:
TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
I
In beauty or wit,
No mortal as yet
To question your empire has dared.
But men of discerning
Have thought that in learning,
To yield to a lady was hard.
II
Impertinent schools,
With musty dull rules,
Have reading to females denied;
So Papists refuse
The Bible to use
Lest flocks should be wise as their guides.
III
Twas woman at first
(Indeed she was curst)
In knowledge that tasted delight,
And sages agree
The laws should decree
To the first possessor the right.
IV
Then bravely, fair dame,
Resume the old claim,
Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive
From a second bright Eve
The knowledge of right and of wrong.
V
But if the first Eve
Hard doom did receive,
When only one apple had she,
What a punishment new
Shall be found out for you,
Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree!
The acquaintance with Pope began shortly after Lady Mary came to town in the autumn of 1714. It soon developed into friendship. "Lady Mary Wortley," Jervas wrote to the poet, probably in 1715 or early in the following year, "ordered me by express this morning, cedente Gayo et ridente Fortescuvio, to send you a letter, or some other proper notice, to come to her on Thursday about five, which I suppose she meant in the evening."
There appeared in March, 1716, a volume bearing the title Court Poems, the authorship being attributed to "A Lady of Quality," who, it soon became known, was Lady Mary. The book was issued by Roberts, who had received the three sets of verses contained in it from the notorious piratical publisher, Edmund Curll. How the manuscript "fell" into the hands of Curll it is not easy to imagine. Curll's account is that they were found in a pocket-book taken up in Westminster Hall on the last day of the trial of the Jacobite Lord Winton. Anyhow, however it came about, the volume was published in 1716, when it was found to contain "The Basset Table," "The Drawing Room," and "The Toilet."
Curll was an excellent publicity agent for his wares. He wrote, or caused to be written, a most intriguing "advertisement" about the authorship of the poems:
"Upon reading them over at St. James' Coffee House, they were attributed by the general voice to be the productions of a lady of quality. When I produced them at Button's, the poetical jury there brought in a different verdict; and the foreman strenuously insisted upon it that Mr. Gay was the man. Not content with these two decisions, I was resolved to call in an umpire, and accordingly chose a gentleman of distinguished merit, who lives not far from Chelsea. I sent him the papers, which he returned next day, with this answer: "Sir, depend upon it these lines could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of Homer." Thus, having impartially given the sentiments of the Town, I hope I may deserve thanks for the pains I have taken in endeavouring to find out the author of these valuable performances, and everybody is at liberty to bestow the laurel as they please."
Pope was furious, and there is a story that he invited Curll to drink wine with him at a coffee-house, and put in his glass some poison that acted as an emetic. What is certain is that the poet wrote a pamphlet with the title, "A full and true Account of a horrid and barbarous Revenge by Poison on the body of Edmund Curll."
The three pieces in Court Poems were claimed by Lady Mary as her own, but this claim was disputed. Pope declared himself the author of "The Basset Table," and it was printed among his works, and he asserted that "'The Toilet' is almost wholly Gay's," there being "only five or six lines in it by that lady." "The Toilet" is included in his collected edition of Gay's poems.
The whole matter is best explained by that sound student of the eighteenth century, "George Paston," who suggests that the truth seems to be that the verses were handed round in manuscript to be read and corrected by the writer's literary friends, and therefore they owe something to the different hands. "George Paston" goes on to say: "Lady Mary was not unaware of the danger of this proceeding, for Richardson the painter relates that on one occasion she showed Pope a copy of her verses in which she intended to make some trifling alterations, but refused his help, saying, 'No, Pope, no touching, for then whatever is good for anything will pass for yours, and the rest for mine.'"
CHAPTER VIII
THE EMBASSY TO THE PORTE—I (1716)
Montagu loses his place at the Treasury—His antagonism against Walpole—Lady Mary, "Dolly" Walpole, and Molly Skerritt—The Earl and Countess of Mar leave England—Montagu appointed Ambassador to the Porte—Leaves England for Constantinople, accompanied by his wife—Letters during the Embassy to Constantinople—Rotterdam—Vienna— Lady Mary at Court—Her gown—Her interest in clothes—Viennese society—Gallantry—Lady Mary's experience—Count Tarrocco—Precedence at Vienna—A nunnery—The Montagus visit the German Courts—A dangerous drive—Prince Frederick (afterwards Prince of Wales)—Herrenhausen.
Edward Wortley Montagu did not long hold office. Lord Halifax, First Lord of the Treasury in the Townshend Administration, died in May, 1715, when his place was taken by Lord Carlisle, who, however, held it only until the following October. Carlisle was succeeded by Sir Robert Walpole, promoted from the less important but far more lucrative post of Paymaster-General. In the new Commission of the Treasury Montagu's name did not appear. Why Montagu was removed has not transpired; it may, indeed, be that he resigned, for he had a strong dislike for the new Minister. There may also have been some family sentiment in the matter, for while Lady Mary was an intimate friend of Walpole's harum-scarum sister, "Dolly," who was now Lady Townshend, Lady Walpole was very decidedly her enemy. Lady Mary presently had her tit-for-tat with Lady Walpole by "taking up" Walpole's mistress, Molly Skerritt.
It may be here mentioned that Lady Mar was at this time living with her husband at Paris, at St. Germain, and that she remained abroad for the rest of her life. She had left England owing to the conduct of Lord Mar in taking an active part in the rebellion of '15. He had set up the Pretender's standard at Braemar, had suffered defeat at Sheriffmuir, and had been so fortunate as to escape with his master to Gravelines. In gratitude for his services, the Pretender created Lord Mar a Duke. Mar lived until 1732, dying at the age of fifty-seven, and he spent the years in losing the confidence of the Jacobites and endeavouring to ingratiate himself with the Hanoverian Kings of England—in which latter quest he was markedly unsuccessful. His Scotch estates were confiscated, and his title attained—the attainder of the earldom was not reversed until 1824.
Montagu, having tasted the sweets of office, even so minor a place as that of a Lord of the Treasury, was not content to enjoy such pleasures as a private life could afford. He desired to be somebody. Probably he worried the Government of the day, possibly he pointed out to the leaders of the Whig Party that he was possessed of parts that should not, in justice to his country, be ignored. He may even have approached the Throne. It is not inconceivable that he made himself a nuisance to all concerned.
Anyhow, it was ultimately decided that something must be done with him. But what? Austria and Turkey were at war in 1716; what better than to send Montagu as Ambassador to the Porte, with a mission to endeavour to reconcile the protagonists? He was appointed to this post on June 5.
It was while accompanying her husband on this mission that Lady Mary wrote her famous "Letters during the Embassy to Constantinople," which constitute a very important document on the state of Europe at the time. It is by no means certain, however, that, in the first instance, these reflections were all cast in letter-form; it is much more likely that some were written in a diary. The letters appear as addressed to the Countess of Bristol, to the Princess of Wales, to Mrs. Thistlethwayte, to Lady Rich, to Alexander Pope, to the Abbé Conti, to Miss Sarah Chiswell, to Mrs. Hewet, to Lady Mary's sister, the Countess of Mar, and others.
At the beginning of August, 1716, Montagu, with his wife and son, and, it is to be presumed, his suite, left England, and, after a very bad crossing, landed at Rotterdam. From that city, the cleanliness of which surprised and delighted Lady Mary—"you may see the Dutch maids washing the pavement of the street with more application than ours do our bed-chambers"—the party proceeded by way of the Hague, Nimeguen, Cologne, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Wurzberg, and Ratisbon to Vienna, where they arrived during the first week in September.
Lady Mary was all impatient to go to Court, for, as she put it, "I am not without a great impatience to see a beauty that has been the admiration of so many nations," but she was forced to stay for a gown, without which there was no waiting on the Empress. Presently the gown was ready, and Lady Mary was presented.
"I was squeezed up in a gown" (she wrote to her sister, Lady Mar), "and adorned with a gorget and the other implements thereunto belonging: a dress very inconvenient, but which certainly shews the neck and shape to great advantage. I cannot forbear in this place giving you some description of the fashions here which are more monstrous and contrary to all 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 diamonds, 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 whalebone 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."
The above passage is the more interesting because it has so often been asserted that Lady Mary took no interest in dress. As a matter of fact, however, there are several indications in her letters that she thought a good deal about clothes.
"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," she wrote in June, 1721, to her sister, Lady Mar, at Paris.
"I would have no black silk, having bought here," she said on another occasion; and again, "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." "Dear Sister, adieu," she wrote in 1723. "I have been very free in this letter, because I think I am sure of its going safe. I wish my nightgown may do the same: I only choose that as most convenient 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 nightgown à la mode."
Apparently Lady Mar was careless or forgetful of the commission, for a little later Lady Mary was writing pathetically: "I wish you would think of my lutestring, for I am in terrible want of linings."
The account of the Austrian Court of the day, as given by Lady Mary, is invaluable, for there is no other available written by an English person accustomed to another Court.
Lady Mary's descriptions of Viennese society are also delightful, and if she wrote of the royal circle with respect, she bubbled over with merriment when writing of folk less highly placed. A letter of hers to Lady Rich is too delicious to be omitted.
"I have compassion for the mortifications that you tell me befall our little friend, and I pity her much more, since I 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, even 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 Suffolk with passion, or pressing to lead the Countess of 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 retired 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 reputation; 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 favourably 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; in one word, 'tis the established custom for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another 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 husband, 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 who 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 inconstant; 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 pensions 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 mistresses for nothing; and a great part of their emulation consists 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 Lady Mary, though only twenty-seven, and therefore, according to her own account, much too youthful for the gallants of Vienna, yet had an experience:
"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 a delicate manner the belles passions are managed in this country. 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 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 rightest notions of both, we shall never know till the day of judgment, for which great day of éclaircissement, I own there is very little impatience in your, &c."
Love-making was indeed one of the principal pastimes at Vienna. There was Count Tarrocco (who was in attendance on the Prince of Portugal), and, as she told Lady Mar, "just such a Roman Catholic as you." "He succeeds greatly with the devout beauties here," she went on to say; "his first overtures in gallantry are disguised under the luscious strains of spiritual love, that were sung formerly by the sublimely voluptuous Fenelon and the tender Madam Guion, who turned the spirit of carnal love to divine objects; thus the Count begins with the spirit and ends generally with the flesh, when he makes his addresses to holy virgins." Presently, she teased her sister about this same young man. "Count Tarrocco is just come in," she wrote. "He is the only person I have excepted 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; though as my heart is deceitful, and the Count very agreeable, you may think that even though I should not want an absolution, I would nevertheless be glad to have an indulgence.—No such thing. However, as I am a heretic, and you no confessor, I shall make no more declarations on this head.—The design of the Count's visit is a ball;—more pleasure—I shall be surfeited."
The "phlegm of the country" surprised Lady Mary, who declared that it was not from Austria that one could write with vivacity—and by her letters at once disproved her statement. According to her, amours and quarrels were carried on calmly and almost good-temperedly. Strong feelings only came into play when points of ceremony were concerned. A man not only scorned to marry a woman of family less illustrious than his own, but even to make love to her—"the pedigree is much more considered by them than either the complexion or features of their mistresses. Happy are the shes that can number among their ancestors Counts of the Empire; they have neither occasion for beauty, money, or good conduct to get them husbands." How far this passion for rank and precedence went is indicated by an amusing incident related by Lady Mary.
"'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 gallantry 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."
Lady Mary herself was, of course, unaffected, because, as the wife of an ambassador, she, by their own customs, had the pas before all other ladies—to the great envy of the town.
Lady Mary, who had had enough of solitude during her long residence in Yorkshire, now in Vienna was determined to enjoy herself and flung herself into all the social gaieties. She went everywhere and met everyone. She dined at the villa of Count Schönbrunn, the Vice-Chancellor; she attended all the assemblies of Madame Rabutin and the other leaders of society, and all the "gala days"; she danced; she went to the theatre, and, then, as a contrast, to a nunnery, which left her unhappy, as, indeed, she put on record:
"I was surprised to find here the only beautiful young woman I have seen at Vienna, and not only beautiful, 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, seeing 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 yet more tender sentiments; and I never in my life had so little charity for the Roman-catholic religion as since I see the misery 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 pagodas of China. God knows whether it be the womanly spirit of contradiction that works in me; but there never before was so much zeal against popery in the heart of,