“Dear Madam,
“I should be asham’d of myself to be in the house of a Prime Minister, and not let you know the King sent a long letter from the King of Prussia hither this evening, giving a long detail of his last victory[208] over the Russians, but it being in French and the Duke of N(ewcastle) not being the best reader, I am unable to give you an account, though my Lord G(odolphin) heard it as well as I, and wou’d have interpreted for me, if he cou’d. However there is an English account too of which I will give you some particulars. Eighteen thousand killed by their own account, 6 generals killed, I don’t remember how many wounded, 7 Generals prisoners in the King’s Camp, 73 pieces of cannon taken, the military chest with 850,000 Rubles. General Brown killed, refusing quarter. The Russian infantry as they had behaved like Bears, fought like Lyons, part of Count Dohna’s foot gave way, or else it had been a most compleat victory. The King himself took the colours in his hand and brought ’em on again, sure this is too bold for anybody but an immortal and invulnerable. He had two aide-de-camps killed.”
[208] Battle of Zorndorff, fought August 25.
Monsey picked up the cover to the letter, addressed—
This he intended to send Mrs. Montagu, but the Duke asked for it. It was sealed with two large seals, the arms and royal Crown under a camp canopy in black wax.
On September 9 Emin wrote a long letter from the Duke of Marlborough’s Quarter in Germany, whither he had retired disconsolate at not being allowed to fight in the battle by General Yorke, Lady Anson’s brother, to whom he had been recommended by her. Meanwhile he had marched four days with the Army, and the King of Prussia had taken notice of him, staring at him hard and saying to Mr. Mitchell he wished he had 12,000 men like him. Emin wished he had a letter to the King, and was furious at General Yorke’s forbidding him to fight; probably the General was too anxious for his safety. The following description of the King of Prussia is so interesting I insert it, the whole letter to Mrs. Montagu, a folio sheet closely written, being too long:—
“I will do my endeavour to describe the King of Prussia’s person, and his way of living. He is no taller than Emin the Persian, he has a short neck, he has one of the finest made heads ever I saw in my life, with a noble forehead; he wears a false wigg, he has very handsome nose. His eyes are grey, sharp and lively, ready to pearce one through and through. He likes a man that looks him in the face when he is talking to him. He is well made everywhere, with a bend back, not stupid (sic, stooped?) at all, like many Europeans. His voice is the sweetest and clearest ever I heard. He takes a great quantity of Spanish snuff, from his nose down to the buckles of his shoes or boots is all painted with that confounded stuff. His hands are as red as paint, as if he was a painter, grizy all over. He dines commonly between twelve and one, and drinks a bottle of wine at his dinner. I was told that he was very unhealthy in the time of peace, but since this war he has grown healthy, and left off drinking a great quantity of coffee, which he did formerly. All the satisfaction that I have, which is great enough that I have seen Cæsar alive, nay twenty times greater, he is more like King Solomon, for he rules his nation by wisdom and understanding.... His armies are not only disciplined to the use of arms, but very religious, and say their prayers three times a day: it is never neglected, even when they are on the march.”
Emin winds up with a message of apology to Mr. Burke at not having written to him from want of time.
Meanwhile his adored Mrs. Montagu had nearly lost her life through the carelessness of a maid. It happened on September 3. Writing to Sarah Scott, she gives this description—
“On this day sennight at 4 in the morn I was seized with a fainting fit, in which I lay some time, my maids in their fright let the eau de luce fall into my eye, nostril and mouth, my eyes were enflamed and nostril, the mouth and uvula of the throat excoriated. After a long and cruel struggle for life,[209] a most sharp contention with this medicine, I awaken’d to find myself in this terrible condition. Dr. Askew unhappily lay at Durham that night, so had no assistance till 2 at noon, then I was blooded, which abated the inflammation so far I could articulate. The Doctor told me my safety depended on frequent gargling and drinking, so for, four days, I was never a quarter of an hour without doing so, the spitting was more violent than from a mercurial salivation.... When I came out of my fit, to see blood running from eye, nose and mouth drove Mr. Montagu almost distracted, and I knew not which way my agonies would end.... Mr. Montagu has shown on this occasion the most passionate love imaginable. Dr. Askew has been very careful, and an excellent apothecary has watched me night and day.”
[209] For two days her life was despaired of; for four days she could swallow no solid, and was salivated for a week.
In a second letter she says, “On the fourth day when I was able to look up I was surprized at the impression concern had made on Mr. Montagu, and I should hardly have known him, he looked 20 years older at least.”
In a letter of Monsey’s we learn eau de luce was made of strong sal ammoniac and quicklime.
Mr. Montagu’s sister, now Lady Medows, wrote on September 14 to say her brother-in-law, Sir Philip, had been nearly killed in the same way by hartshorn. At the end of the letter she says, “Lady Bath dyed at two this morning of the Palsy.” This was the wife of Pulteney, Earl of Bath, soon after this to become one of Mrs. Montagu’s most intimate friends. Lady Bath’s maiden name was Maria Gumley, daughter and heiress of a great glass manufacturer. She had the character of great penuriousness, and her husband was credited with the same character, but I hope to show later that he could be very generous. When the news of Mrs. Montagu’s accident spread amongst her numerous friends, many were the letters of condolence and rejoicing at her safety from Lord Lyttelton and a host of others. Dr. Monsey had been staying with the Garricks; he was a great admirer of Mrs. Garrick, whom he often quotes in his letters. It was whilst staying with them he heard of it. Both he and Lord Lyttelton were quite frantic at the risk she had run, and distressed at her fainting fit. Monsey was suffering from a bad cough, for which, when staying with Sir John Evelyn at Wooton, he tried bleeding, cathartics, and syrup of white poppies. He returned to St. James’s, where Mrs. Garrick came to sit with him, and cheer him up. In a letter of his to Mrs. Montagu of September 23, mention is made of Lady Burlington’s death. “Lady Burlington is dead. Mrs. G(arrick) gets nothing, but rid of her, and that’s a great deal, I think. She gives the Duke of D. £3000 per annum ... not a farthing to any one servant, she had some lived with her 20 or 25 years.”
Lady Burlington, widow of the 3rd Earl, the celebrated amateur architect, was the daughter of William, Marquis of Halifax. On Eva Marie Viegel’s[210] arrival in England from Austria, the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, gave her a recommendation to Lady Burlington, who received her at Burlington House as an inmate. It is said “La Violette,” as she was called from her exquisite dancing in the operas, had attracted the Emperor of Austria’s attention so much as to alarm the Empress, and that she therefore sought to remove her from Austria. Lady Burlington strongly objected to Garrick’s attachment to La Violette, having more ambitious projects for her protégée, but it was a true love affair from the beginning even to the end, and not one word could ever be said against Mrs. Garrick; theirs was indeed a love match, and after fifteen years of married life Garrick presented her with a ring on her birthday, with the most touching love verses. From the letters, I gather it was Dr. Monsey who brought Mrs. Montagu into personal intercourse with the Garricks.
[210] Eva Maria Viegel, or Veilchen, born at Vienna, 1725; married David Garrick on June 22, 1749.
Dr. Monsey was so disturbed at Mrs. Montagu’s accident that he wrote almost daily to her, and no one who reads his letters could imagine, however eccentric he was, that he was a free thinker in religion, as is asserted in the “Dictionary of National Biography.” His letters are so long that it is impossible to print them in full in this book. He had a bad cough and a sort of vertigo at this time, in the midst of which he was called to the Earl of Northumberland, who was desperately ill, whose sufferings Monsey succeeded in alleviating. In a letter of October 8 we learn that his birthday and Mrs. Montagu’s were on the same day, viz. October 2.[211] He promises in joke to marry Mrs. Stuart, a widow lady who had nursed Mrs. Montagu with the greatest attention. To add to Mrs. Montagu’s troubles, her faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Crosby, a lady by birth, but reduced to poverty, died of a quinsy in twelve days.
[211] Monsey, in a letter, said he was sixty-four then.
In a letter of Dr. Monsey’s of October 27, mention is made of Lord Godolphin drinking “absent friends” as a toast, coupled with special mention of Mrs. Montagu, and also of Allan Ramsay,[212] the artist. “Ramsay is one of us, he was born on October 2. I jumped for joy, but hang it, ’tis the old October. I tell him he must be regenerated, become a child of grace, and then he shall be adopted into our family....” Dr. Monsey’s little grand-daughter “loves Missy Montagu dearly.”
[212] Eminent portrait painter; son of the Scotch poet of the same name; born 1709, died 1784.
A letter of Atkinson, the farm bailiff at Sandleford, on October 3, to Mrs. Crosby, the late housekeeper, shows the current price of food: “Everything continues dear for ye pour, and will do so all this winter, I am afraid, befe is sold in our market for 3d. for a pd. Muton 4d. to 4½d., it is beyond prise wich I never heard before at this time of ye year, pork and veal 5d. a pound.”
Mrs. Donnellan wrote from Fulham on October 21 condoling with Mrs. Montagu on her accident, and the loss of Mrs. Crosby. She says—
“I told you how near we were losing our respectable friend Mrs. Sherlock, she is now quite recovered ... they say there never was a more moving scene than between her and the Bishop,[213] who would be carried up to her in the worst of her illness; he got hold of her hand and it was with difficulty they could get him to let it go and separate them.” (Bishop Sherlock was born in 1678, so was then eighty years of age.) “I went yesterday pour égayer a little to see Mrs. Spencer[214] after her lying in, and there is nothing but joy and magnificence; the child[215] is likely to live tho’ it came, they reckon, six weeks before its time. Mrs. Poinne showed me all the fineries; the pap boat is pure gold, etc., etc. I like Mrs. Spencer, she is a natural good young woman, no airs, no affectation, but seems to enjoy her great fortune by making others partakers, and happy with herself.”
This was Georgina, née Poyntz, who had married Mr. John Spencer, afterwards 1st Earl Spencer, by whom she had Georgiana, afterwards the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire; George John,[216] who was born on September 1, 1758, was the owner of the gold pap boat. and Lady Besborough. Mrs. Donnellan adds—
“Mrs. Poinne (Poyntz) has the practical moral virtues, and when I see her good works I think she is worth a hundred such poor spectators as I am; her present business is attending the foundling Hospital, and she has six and twenty children nursing under her care.... The Duchess of Portland and her family are at Bath.”
[213] Thomas Sherlock, then Bishop of London.
[214] Née Georgina, daughter of Stephen Poyntz, of Midgham, Berks.
[215] Became Earl Spencer, born September, 1758.
[216] Became 2nd Earl Spencer in 1783.
The next letter is from Lord Lyttelton on October 10, full of anxiety as to Mrs. Montagu’s health, and urging her to return South as soon as possible. In this he says—
“You inquire about my new house,[217] and my History,[218] both are going on but the first much faster and better than the other. When the History will be finished I cannot tell, and when it is, I fear it will be little better than a gothick house modernised. The Goths will think it too Græcian and the Græcians too Gothic.” He winds up with, “Adieu, best Madonna, take great care of yourself, your late danger has shown you how dear you are to your friends. Don’t try their affection that way any more.”
Writing on October 20 to Dr. Stillingfleet, who was exploring Wales with Charles Lyttelton, the Dean of Exeter and brother of Lord Lyttelton, Mrs. Montagu says—
“Carville[219] is just at the end of the Picts’ Wall, it makes part of our enclosures, and we have a Roman Altar in the stables. The din of War has so frightened the rural Deities that even the long time that has passed since the Union with Scotland, has not brought them to make their residence with us. Pan, Ceres, and Pomona, seem to neglect us; we are under the domination of the god of mines. There is a great deal of rich land in this country, but agriculture is ill understood. The great gain made by several branches of the coal trade has turned all attention that way. Every gentleman in the country, from the least to the greatest, is as solicitous in the pursuit of gain as a tradesman. The conversation always turns upon money; the moment you name a man, you are told what he is worth, the losses he has had, or the profit he has made by coal mines. As my mind is not naturally set to this tune, I should often be glad to change it for a song from one of your Welch Bards.”
[219] Carville, the house they had hired.
Mrs. Lowther had asked her to spend some time at Lowther Hall,[220] of which she says, “Lowther is much greater than Gibside, which is too great for me.” In the next letter of Lord Lyttelton’s he mentions Mr. Anson and Mr. Steward being at Hagley—
“Stuart seems almost as fond of my hall as of the Thessala Tempe,[221] which I believe you heard him describe when I brought him to see you.... He is going to embellish one of the Hills with a true Attick building, a Portico of six pillars, which will make a fine object to my new house, and command a most beautiful view of the country. He has also engaged to paint me a Flora and four pretty little Zephyrs in my drawing-room ceiling, which is ornamented with flowers in Stucco, but has spaces left for these pictures. He thinks all my Stucco work is well done.”
This was James Stuart,[222] nicknamed “Athenian Stuart,” traveller and antiquary, author of “The Antiquities of Athens.” Alluding to Tom, he says, “Dr. Bernard[223] offered to putt him into the Remove, but rather advised him to stay in the fourth form in order to learn more Greek, which advice he has prudently and cheerfully followed.”
[220] Now Lowther Castle.
[221] Mr. Bower’s place.
[222] James Stuart, born 1713, died 1788.
[223] Head-master of Eton.
Mrs. Montagu, being attacked by a choleraic disorder, which kept her in her room a week, and being still very hoarse from the eau de Luce, Mr. Montagu insisted on her returning to London before himself, so as to be in reach of Dr. Monsey. On November 6, from Wexford, she writes to Sarah Scott to inform her she is returning to London. Mr. Montagu had accompanied her three days’ journey; he then returned to Carville. She had left behind the post-chaise, and travelled in the “body coach, but my horses are so stout I believe they will perform the journey from Carville to London in seven days.” En route she picks up Mr. Tom Pitt,[224] nephew of Miss Pitt and a friend of his, and carries them to Durham, putting her maid into their post-chaise. “My gentlemen leave me at Stilton, from whence they go to Cambridge.” She mentions that Mr. Montagu had bought all the jewels belonging to Mr. Rogers for her, “and to-day intimated he should give me a great purse of old gold which fell to his share in the division; some of the pieces are curious, but there will be between £60 to £70 of money that one may spend with a good conscience.”
[224] 1st Lord Camelford, Thomas Pitt, junior, son of Lord Cobham’s brother Thomas and his wife, née Christian Lyttelton.
Arrived in London, Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband that his sister, Lady Medows,[225] was in very bad health, and she had recommended her to take “Viper broth!” if her doctor approved it, “as it is a nourishing food, and by its quality supplies deficiency of food.” I believe vipers are still used as medicine in France, but whether in England I know not; perhaps “Brusher Mills,”[226] the famous New Forest snake-catcher, could inform one; it does not sound inviting! In the same letter she mentions having secured a berth as midshipman for Montagu Isaacson,[227] Mr. Montagu’s cousin, with Admiral Boscawen. The Admiral had been most graciously received by the King, “and nothing can exceed the honours the Admiral meets with from all quarters.”
A Scotch gardener had been hired for Sandleford, and she adds, “The Scotch Gardener was tired a little, so I thought you would not dislike his recreating himself and resting his horse a little. I have sent him to the play to-night.”
[225] She was suffering from cancer and dropsy.
[226] Since this was written, “Brusher” died.
[227] Son of Margaret, née Creagh, and Anthony Isaacson.
In the next letter she writes, “The Carville gardener will set out to-morrow, he is more happy in London than a young toast, he has seen St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, etc., and sees them with taste; his mind was made for a higher condition of life.” Mentioning the horses, she says she shall send three to Sandleford, “it is a shame for a little animal as I am to keep 7 horses in town.” The team for a big coach was then six, but a seventh was ridden alongside by a servant in case of accidents on the way.
George II. had been very ill. “Princess Emilia not well, and the Duke[228] has got the gout.... Sixteen thousand pounds a year of annuities on the Duke of Marlborough[229] expire with him, so there are many sincere mourners; the Duchess[230] bears her loss better than could have been imagined. Lord Bath[231] is so apparently rejoiced at his deliverance, it makes people smile, he ordered a plentiful table to be kept as soon as she was dead, and is gay and jolly, and at the Bath like a young heir just come to his estate.... It is thought Mr. Charles Montagu[232] can live but a few days.”
[228] Cumberland.
[229] 3rd Duke of Marlborough, died October 20, 1758, at Munster in Westphalia.
[230] Elizabeth, daughter of 2nd Baron Trevor.
[231] William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, had just lost his wife.
[232] Charles Montagu, son of the Hon. James Montagu, cousin of Mr. Edward Montagu. He died in 1759.
Great anxiety reigned for some days about the health of little Morris Robinson, Morris’s son. Dr. Monsey stayed with the child four days and nights, and he pulled through, but it painfully reminded his aunt of her loss in little “Punch,” Morris being much of the same age. Dr. Monsey wrote to Mr. Montagu to say he had insisted, when the child was at its worst, that Mrs. Montagu should not come to see it. Mention is made of young Mr. Pitt “just come to town, not so well as when you saw him; he was here on Tuesday night, and I thought looked ill; his chairmen were drunk and threw him in the street, and cut his face and hurt him a little, and he had a bad fit that night from the surprise.” This was Thomas Pitt, junior, son of Thomas Pitt, of Boconoc, Cornwall, brother of Mr. William Pitt, and afterwards 1st Lord Camelford.
On November 23 both houses of Parliament met at Westminster, and Mrs. Montagu writes on the 28th to her husband—
“Mr. Pitt opened the session on Tuesday with a very fine speech, Mr. Beckford stood up and said the turn things had taken of late had put him in good humour, so that he was willing to give two millions towards the war on the Continent; he thought it too little to be of service, but rather more than could be got. Mr. Pitt answered the sum must not be limited, a great deal indeed would be wanted, he knew not how it would be raised, for he did not concern himself with Treasury business, but the honourable gentleman, signifying Mr. Legge, understood these matters, and he did not doubt would raise a proper sum. Poor Legge looked distressed. No one knows how these great sums are to be raised, taxes on Dogs and publick diversions are talked of, the King is much pleased with his Secretary’s declaration of a support of the continent interest at any rate. I hear Mr. Pitt’s speech was much admired, and nowhere more than at St. James’s.... Mr. Pitt has a personal dignity that supports open measures, and I am glad he does not learn the political art of prevarication. He has the people’s intire confidence, and I hope he will use it to good ends.”
On December 2, writing to Mr. Montagu, she says—
“Emin is come home, he has a great loss of the Duke of Marlborough, who called him his Lion and kept him always with him. He has been a sort of aide-de-camp to Count Schullenburg; he has lately been in Holland where the Armenians have promised to assist his schemes. Lady Yarmouth has him with her in a morning and promises him her interest with a very great man; Lord Northumberland, Lord Anson, and General York are to be his advocates with Mr. Pitt. He is an astonishing creature to take thus with all kinds of people. He hopes to go home in January in a sort of public character. He is full of anecdotes of the King of Prussia. He says his eyes and forehead are just like mine, and he is as particular in his description of him as a portrait painter would be. He marched with him seven days, the Prussian Hero is as easy and familiar as a private man, knowing his character will give him more respect than his rank: it is not advisable in general for Princes to lay aside their rank lest they should not otherwise gain respect, but a truly great man is above all respect that is not personal.”
A set of verses sent by Dr. Monsey from North Mimms to Lord Lyttelton is amusing, but too prolix to insert. Lyttelton had a bad cold, and wanted to go to Eton to see his boy—
Much allusion is made to Mrs. Montagu in the verses, which are rank doggerel.
Louisburg had been taken on July 27. On December 7 Mrs. Montagu writes, “The House of Commons yesterday returned thanks to Admiral Boscawen and General Amherst for their services at Louisburg, and to Admiral Osborne for his conduct in the Mediterranean.”
Dr. Monsey had been reading the “Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon,” in whom he sees a strong likeness to Mrs. Montagu.
“I take her into my hand and you into my mind as I go along ... tho’ Lewis was a scrub of a scoundrel and not worthy a crown which he would not put upon her head, he now and then thought right about her, instead of a foreign Princess whom he must study to please, he chose a woman who made it her whole business to please him, the only one who could inspire him with a lasting passion, and so revered that in the admiration which the recital of her vertues occasioned he cried, ‘Let us go and shut ourselves up to talk of this woman.’ That’s my Lord (Lyttelton), and I!”
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. Boscawen yesterday show’d us a box of horrid implements with which the French cannon was charged at Louisbourg, rusty locks, pieces of pokers, curling tongs, nails in abundance and all sorts of iron instruments, and this not for want of ammunition, but wanton cruelty. He found the cannons loaded with these as well as ball. General Wolfe had a gridiron shot at him; it fell short of him, but he had it taken up and straiten’d and eat a beef steak broil’d upon it.”
In a letter undated, but presumably at the end of December, Mrs. Montagu says—
“Lord Bath said there had been but three speeches in Parliament this year; one was Lord Middleton’s,[233] who said he would give all he was worth to support the war; the other Sir Michael Grosvenor’s,[234] who said he would lend all he was worth; and the third, Mr. Pitt’s, who said he would take all they were both worth.... If Mr. Isaacson wants any enquiries made at Cork, I can get good intelligence by means of Mr. Burke, a young lawyer by profession, tho’ an author by practice, for he wrote Natural History[235] preferable to Artificial; he has several acquaintance of credit at Cork, you have often heard me mention him.”
[233] 3rd Viscount Middleton.
[234] Sir Richard Grosvenor, afterwards 1st Earl Grosvenor.
[235] “Vindication of Natural Society,” his first avowed work copied for him by Emin, and published in 1756.
This is the third mention of Edmund Burke, the first being in a letter of Emin’s, whose patron he was, to Dr. Monsey.
On December 28, writing to her husband, who was still at Carville, Mrs. Montagu says—
“The Parliaments meet on the 16th ... the ardour for carrying on the war is such it will be rather a point of contention who shall give most money. Some people think Mr. Boscawen will be sent against Quebec. General Conway is taken into favour again, he is going to settle ye dispute between us and the Dutch concerning the ships we have taken. The Princess of Orange is thought in a desperate state of health.... My Father call’d on me on Monday; he was not well, which put him a little out of sorts, he seems uneasy that he is not immortal, however, he takes the best means for long life, and I daresay will attain it unless fears of the inevitable moment should hurt his spirits. Life has been to him one long play day, he must not expect the rattles and sugar plumbs will hold good to the last. He has never tasted business, care, or study; vivre du jour la journée, as the French saying is, has been his moral maxim; it may make a merry day, but it does not make the best evening; the mind that has employ’d itself in study and application or in active life has more to look back upon, and old age’s joy is in the retrospect.”
This ends the letters for 1758.
On January 2, 1759, writing to Mr. Montagu, who was still in the north, his wife says—
“I am now reading a very ingenious, pernicious French author, his name is Helvetius,[236] a descendant of the famous Helvetius;[237] he is a man of fortune in France, very amiable in his private character, good-natured, liberal and witty, so has many disciples at Paris from respect to his person; I fear he will have many here from respect to his doctrines well adapted to the corruptions of the human heart. He endeavours to show it is custom makes virtue and vice, like Epicurus, placing his good in pleasure but not his pleasure in good. He thinks a less strict observation of some moral rules would make man in general happier. He would trust everything to laws, Legislature is to be the god and conscience of mankind. He does not consider how many by their situation are above laws, how many one may say are below it, and how many more by fraud, evasions, concealment would hope to escape it. I hope conscience, call’d by Mr. Pope ‘the god within the mind,’ will keep her empire in spite of Mr. Helvetius.... The church has obliged him to a retractation, which indeed may in some measure mortify the author but will not alter the argument of his book.... Lord Clarendon’s other volume[238] will soon be published.... I forgot to tell you I have receiv’d great compliments from Mr. Pitt, the Secretary, since I came to town, congratulations on your accession of fortune, congratulations on my recovery from the eau de Luce, high expressions of esteem and friendship, but being a person of moderate ambition, I have not ask’d for a place at Court.”
[236] Claude Adrien Helvetius, born 1715, died 1771. Published “De l’Esprit” in 1758.
[237] John Claude Helvetius, his father, celebrated physician and author; died 1755.
[238] His “History of the Rebellion.”
In the next letter of January 4 she says—
“I was last night at Lady Cowper’s concert, where there was much good company and good musick. The night before I was at an assembly at Mrs. Pitt’s, where I found Sir John Mordaunt playing at cards with Lady Hester Pitt; this might be accident, but among political folks one is apt to look deeper perhaps than the truth lies, but this and General Conway being received into grace and sent to Le Cas[239] to settle the cartel for exchange of prisoners, makes me suspect some coalition may be designed between the folks at Leicester House and the D(uke).... I am to go to the play with Miss Pitt to-morrow night. Mr. Garrick is to act Anthony, he will make but a diminutive hero; I should not think it a part he would shine in, but he has taken great pains about it.”
[239] He was sent to Sluys, for which the French is L’Ecluse, not Le Cas, to meet Monsieur de Bareil.
On January 18, writing to her husband, Mrs. Montagu says—
“It is apprehended the loss of the King of Spain[240] will be a misfortune to Great Brittain. There is a great conspiracy discovered in Portugal; it was at first surmised that the assassination[241] of the King arose from jealousy, but people now think there was more of ambition than jealousy in it. The Marquis of Tavora’s family had a nearer claim to the crown than that Duke of Braganza who got it, but not being personally so well qualified for so great an attempt, or for want of alliances or other means, they were quietly governed by Spain, but when the Braganzas gained the Royal dignity, they grudged it to them, and ambition and envy may easily form conspiracy and assassination. Twelve of the first nobility will be brought to the scaffold.”
[240] Ferdinand VI.
[241] Attempted assassination of Joseph I., led to the expulsion of the Jesuits.
On the 24th occurs a very long letter to Mrs. Carter. In this mention is made of Rousseau: “There is a letter from Rousseau to Mr. D’Alembert[242] upon the project of settling a theatre at Geneva, which treats of Dramatical performances in general; it is ingeniously written and with great eloquence.” She also adds that she is sending Mrs. Carter Dr. Newton’s “Dissertation on the Prophecies,” Leland’s “Life of Philip of Macedon.”
“Lord Lyttelton’s History is not yet ready to appear; the work goes on slowly, as the writer is scrupulously exact in following truth. His delicacy in regard to characters, his candour in regard to opinions, his precision in facts, would entitle him to the best palm history can claim, if he had not added to these virtues of History (if I may call them so) the highest ornaments of style, and a most peculiar grace of order and method.... I shall send you a treatise on the ‘Sublime and Beautiful,’[243] by Mr. Burke, a friend of mine. I do not know that you will always subscribe to his system, but think you will find him an elegant and ingenious writer. He is far from the pert pedantry and assuming ignorance of modern witlings; but in conversation and writing an ingenious and ingenuous man, modest and delicate, and on great and serious subjects full of that respect and veneration which a good mind and a great one is sure to feel, while fools mock behind the altar, at which wise men kneel and pay mysterious reverence.”