ELIZABETH MONTAGU
THE QUEEN OF THE BLUE-STOCKINGS
[1]January 1, 1752, an interchange of letters and compliments from the Wests and Mrs. Montagu take place. Mrs. West sends a huge turkey and ham pie, half for Mrs. Montagu, half for Temple West, Gilbert’s brother. Mr. Pitt, Lady Cobham, and Berenger were expected. In a letter to her sister, Sarah Scott, Mrs. Montagu mentions—
“My Father is going to purchase a fine living for Willy, indeed he will not enjoy it till after the death of the present incumbent, but it brings in £470 a year, a fine reversion for a younger brother, and what, joined to another moderate living, will be a comfortable subsistence.”
This was the living of Burghfield in Berkshire, purchased from the Shrewsbury family, for two lives, of which in after years William Robinson became rector, his son Matthew succeeding him. Further in this letter it says—
“I recommend to your perusal ‘The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.’[2] Lady Vane’s[3] story is well told. Mr. W. Robinson and the Doctor called on me this morning. The Doctor talks of Bath for his health, but he is the best-looking invalid I ever saw. An Irish Bishopric will cure him entirely. Mrs. Delany is not in England. Poor Mrs. Donnellan has lost her brother, Dr. Donnellan,[4] and is in great affliction.”
[1] In 1752 the New Style began. I adhere to the dates as placed on the letters, as I have all through this book.
[2] Published in 1751, by T. Smollett.
[3] Née Anne Hawes, of Purley Hall, Berks. Married, first, Lord William Hamilton; secondly, Lord Vane.
[4] The Rev. Christopher Donnellan, a friend of Swift’s.
Mr. W. Robinson, afterwards Sir William Robinson, and Dr. Robinson, were her cousins, brothers of “Long” Sir Thomas Robinson and Sir Septimus, and sons of William Robinson of Rokeby. Dr. Richard Robinson[5] was chaplain to the Duke of Dorset, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and had just been made Bishop of Killala. They were immense men, with fine features and rosy cheeks. Mr. Richard Cumberland[6] calls Dr. Richard Robinson “a colossal man.” So attached was Sir William to his brother Richard that Cumberland says he imitated the Archbishop in everything, even to the size of his shoes, diet, and physic!
[5] The Rev. Dr. Richard Robinson, born 1709, died 1794; afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, and 1st Baron Rokeby.
[6] Richard Cumberland, dramatist, born 1732, died 1811.
On February 10, Mr. West applied to the Bishop of London[7] for further preferment for Mr. Botham, and writes to Mrs. Montagu—
“Wickham, February 10, 1752.
“Dear Cousin,
“Inclosed is my letter to the Bishop of London, which I send open for your perusal; if you approve of it, be pleased to seal it and convey it to his Lordship in what manner you think proper. I most sincerely wish it may have any good effect for my cousin Botham’s sake, but we must not flatter ourselves too much. Great men often think their smiles sufficient Favors, and you know there is a Beauty in that of my Lord of London that must enhance its value....
[7] Rev. Thomas Sherlock, born 1678, died 1761.
The letter was sent to the Bishop. Here is his reply to Mr. West—
“London, ye 18th February, 1752.
“Sir,
“I had the honour of yours of the 10 inst., and tho’ I am disabled from writing myself with the Gout in my Hands, yet I will not omit to assure you that there are very few whom I should be better pleased to oblige than yourself, and the Lady at whose instance you write.
“I feel very sensibly the distress of Mr. Botham and his wife, and judge as you do that it is a case that calls for, and deserves assistance. But in considering where my Patronages lye, I cannot find that I have any living within distance of Albury, unless it be in the City of London, where probably Mr. Botham would not choose to live. When I have the Happiness to see you, you shall be more fully acquainted how far I am able to assist you.
“Mrs. Sherlock desires to join me in respects to you and Mrs. West.”
In March, Mr. Pitt obtained for Mr. Gilbert West the clerkship of the Privy Council, a lucrative office.
On March 25, from Hayes to Wickham, Mrs. Montagu writes—
“Dear Cousin,
“I thank you most heartily for immediately giving me the sincerest joy I have felt for this long time. May you long enjoy what you have so late attained.... You cannot imagine the pleasure I propose in hearing your friends congratulate you on Fortune’s first courtesy. Base Jade! to be so tedious and so sparing in her favours.”
With many congratulations to Mrs. West, etc., to which Lydia Botham, then at Hayes, added a few lines, Mrs. Montagu announces she will convey him and Mrs. West to London the next morning in her post-chaise, and they shall stay in Hill Street, where Mr. Montagu was attending to his parliamentary business; and, she adds, to fix an hour “so as to be with the President of the Council at 12 o’clock.”
From London, on April 17, Mr. Montagu writes an account of the celebrated surgeon, Dr. William Chesilden’s death—
“The papers, I suppose, have informed you of the death of poor Chesilden. I had an account of the manner of his death from one Mr. Vourse, an eminent man in his own profession. He told me the poor man was with Jerry Pierce and others, telling them how soon after his being seized with the Palsy he had been making a bargain with an undertaker to bury him, with this he was entertaining them with his usual humour, and in the midst of his story was seiz’d with an apoplectic fit which finish’d him in half an hour.... I forgot to add that Mr. Chesilden had eat a great deal of Bread and drank a good quantity of ale; being asthmatic, this was reckoned to be the cause of his death.”
It will be remembered that Mrs. Montagu was always opposed to her sister Sarah’s marriage to George Lewis Scott. Unfortunately, her fears as to their felicity were prophetic, for in April, 1752, after only a year’s matrimony, they separated; incompatibility of temper was alleged, but from the letters there was evidently much more below the surface. Mrs. Delany, writing in April to her sister, Mrs. D’Ewes, says—
“What a foolish match Mrs. Scott has made for herself. Mrs. Montagu wrote Mrs. Donnellan word that she and the rest of her friends had rescued her out of the hands of a very bad man: but for reasons of interest, they should conceal his misbehaviour as much as possible, but entreated Mrs. Donnellan would vindicate her sister’s character whenever she heard it attacked, for she was very innocent.”
Sarah was only twenty-nine. Her father and brothers separated her from Mr. Scott, as is shown in his own letters to Mr. Montagu, who had been his original friend. He acknowledged “that Mrs. Montagu knew nothing of the separation till it was communicated to her;” in truth she was at Hayes at the time. Her letters indicate the enmity and rancour of a great lady whose name was kept behind the scenes. Mr. Scott wrote two letters to Mr. Montagu, dated April 29 and May 1, but both are so involved and mysterious as to shed no real light on his misdemeanours.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Montagu received Mrs. Scott at Hayes, and in a letter to her husband, whom she was preparing to join in London, says Morris was urging Mrs. Scott to go to Albury. She says—
“I could leave her at Hayes when I go to town, but her spirits are so bad and she is so ill she cannot be alone.... Indeed, poor creature, her situation is miserable, allied to the faults and the infamy of a bad man, subject to his aspersions, and liable to the censures of his friends (for the worst have some), as in all disagreements in wedlock, blame falls ever on the innocent where there is no harmony. ‘How happy to behold in wedded pair!’ each has the credit of the other’s virtues; they have double honour, united interests and all that can make people strong in society. This, my Dearest, is my happier lot, inriched by your fortune, ennobled by your virtues, graced by your character, and supported by your interest.”
Mrs. Montagu accompanied Mrs. Scott to Albury. She writes—
“We had a very pleasant journey here, and our horses performed well. We found Lydia and Johnny in health and happiness, surrounded by five of the finest children I ever saw; the youngest boy is a little cherubim and has the finest white hair imaginable.”
Mrs. Donnellan, in May, writes from Delville, where she still was, to Mrs. Montagu, to say that Lord Holderness was to give up her house in Hanover Square about August, and as it was too large for her fortune, and the lease was near its end,[8] she wishes Mrs. Montagu to look out for a house for her “not farther than Windsor from London. Soon after our return, the Dean and Mrs. Delany go to Down, and I fear his affairs will not permit him to go to England this year.” She adds—
“I have writ to Mrs. Shuttleworth to bespeak me a chair of Vaughan.[9] I would have it plain and light, lined with white cloath and green curtains, as white and green is my livery. If you should go to town, I should be obliged to you if you would send to Vaughan about it....
“I now come to the interesting part of your letter, the unhappy affair of poor Mrs. Scott. I had heard before I received yours that she and Mr. Scott were parted, but could hardly believe it, a match so much of mutual inclination seemed to promise mutual happiness, and the shortness of the time of their union hardly allowed them to find out they were not happy, so that you are unwilling to hurt the gentleman in his character. I must conclude he is very bad, since in so short a time he could force Mrs. Scott and all her family to come to such an éclat. I am extremely concerned for all the uneasiness you have had on the occasion, but you have had the consolation of showing yourself a most generous and kind sister in supporting her in her misfortunes, and especially as it was a match made against your better judgment. I beg my compliments to Mrs. Scott, and I heartily wish her health and spirits to support her situation; ’tis said here she is returning to Bath to live with Lady Montagu. On these occasions people love to seem to know more than perhaps they do; all I say is that you entirely justify Mrs. Scott, and I am sure you must know the truth. I hear, too, he has given her back half her fortune, and has settled a 150 pounds a year on her; this, I think, is a justification to her.”
Mrs. Montagu had indeed a great deal of trouble at this time, for besides sheltering and endeavouring to cheer Mrs. Scott’s failing spirits, she had, to say nothing of her own constant ill-health, the additional trouble of her favourite brother Jack’s illness, now continuing some months, of a nervous disorder, which he never recovered from.
On May 26, from Sandleford, Mrs. Montagu writes to Mr. West, who is at her house in Hill Street, attending as clerk to the Privy Council—
“Dear Cousin,
“I was informed by Mrs. Isted[10] that you intended to return to town in the middle of this week, so I imagine that by this time you are in the Empire of China.[11] The leafless trees and barren soil of my landscape will very ill bear comparison with the shady oaks and beautiful verdure of South Lodge, and the grinning Mandarins still worse supply the place of a British Statesman: but as you can improve every society and place into which you enter, I expect such hints from you as will set off the figures, and enliven the landscape with rural beauty. I grieved at the rain from an apprehension that it might interfere with your pleasure at South Lodge. I hope it did not, but that you saw the place with the leisure and attention it deserves; if you give me an account of the parts of it which charmed you most, or of the whole, you will lead my imagination to a very fine place in very good company, and I shall walk over it with great pleasure. I imagine you would feel some poetic enthusiasm in the Temple of Pan, and hope it produced a hymn or ode in which we shall see him knit with the Graces and the Hours to dance, lead on to the Eternal Spring, through groves of your unfading bays.”
South Lodge, Enfield, was then the residence of Mr. Pitt, the grounds of which he laid out with great taste, and designed the Temple of Pan. Mrs. Montagu had recently been on a visit to him here, as will be seen in West’s answer. At the end of a long letter, which contains directions as to the ornaments of her room, comments on her bad health, in which she quotes Pope’s saying, “ill-health is an early old age,” she winds up with regretting that Sir George Lyttelton and Miss West were going to Tunbridge so soon, for “I fear they will leave the place the earlier, as they go at the beginning of the season.” She finishes by commending her brother William, who was to spend a day or two in Hill Street, to West, saying—
“I wrote my advice to him to take this opportunity to pay his respects to you, but possibly a little College awkwardness, added to natural timidity, may prevent his doing it. I assure you he is a very good young man, more I will not say, for having for some years had a mother’s care of him, I have also a mother’s partiality: perhaps you may like him the better for his resemblance to your son.”
[10] Mrs. Isted, Mrs. Montagu’s lady housekeeper.
[11] She was fitting up her big room in Chinese style, and West was assisting her with hints.
From Albury she had brought Lydia’s second daughter, Bessie—
“Not so handsome as her sister whom you have seen, but she is fair and well shaped, very sensible and of a sweet disposition, and though but ten years of age, reads and writes well, and has made a great progress in arithmetic.”
To this letter Gilbert West answers on May 30—
“Mr. Pitt, as you will easily imagine from your own experience, received and entertained us with great politeness, and something still more pleasing and solid, with every mark of friendship and esteem. He had provided for me a wheeling chair, by the help of which I was enabled to visit every sequestered nook, dingle and bosky bower from side to side in that little paradise opened in the wild, and by the help of my imagination doubled the pleasure I received from the various Beauties of Art and Nature, by recalling and participating the past pleasure of a certain person,[12] some of whose remarks and sayings Mr. Pitt repeated with a secret pride, and I heard with equal admiration and delight. The weather indeed was not so favourable to us as we could have wished.... Molly[13] indeed, who has an insatiable ardour in viewing a fine place, and an almost implicit faith in Mr. Pitt’s taste and judgment, stole out often by herself, and in defiance of wind or rain walked many times over the enchanting round.... Kitty[14] has seemed to be inspired with an unusual flow of spirits, which not only emboldened her to undertake, but enabled her also to complete the tour, which I was forced to make in my chair, attended by her, Molly, and Mr. Pitt.”
In the reply occurs the following passage:—
“I am very glad you and Mrs. West went over every part of South Lodge, as you see with more judgment you must see with more pleasure than I did, and I think there can hardly be a finer entertainment not only to the eyes but to the mind, than so sweet and peaceful a scene. I was surprised to hear Mr. Pitt say he had never spent an entire week there, this shows one that a person who has an active mind and is qualified for the busy scene of life, need not fear any excess in the love of retirement.”
Captain Robinson returned from his Chinese expedition in the Saint George the middle of June, and Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Scott met him from Sandleford at her villa at Hayes. “He has brought me two beautiful gowns and a fine Chinese lanthorn. We are to go on board the St. George to-morrow,” she writes to her husband. He also brought a gown apiece for Lady Sandwich and her sister, Miss Fane. The greater part of the Robinson family went to dine on the Saint George, but on a stormy day, and Mrs. Montagu was very terrified at the tossing of the small boat they went in. Soon after this, in the beginning of July, Mrs. Montagu left for her annual visit to Tunbridge Wells, where she had taken the “White Stone House” on Mount Ephraim. Sarah Scott returned to Sandleford to Mr. Montagu, en route for Bath, where she was about to take up residence with her friend, Lady Bab Montagu. At Tunbridge were Sir George and Lady Lyttelton, Mr. West, Miss Charlotte Fane, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Bower, the Dean of Exeter, General Pulteney,[15] etc. At a big ball Mrs. Montagu says—
“I shone forth in full Chinese pomp at the ball, my gown was much liked, the pattern of the embroidery admired extremely.... Garrick had an incomparable letter from Beranger which he read with proper humour one day he dined here.... I go every day to Mr. King’s lectures.”
[15] Brother of Lord Bath.
On July 22 Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband—
“Sir George and Lady Lyttelton[16] went away this morning, as to the lady, she is so unsociable and retired, her departure makes no difference in the Society, in all her manners she signified a dislike and contempt of the company, and in this, the world is always just, and pays in kind to the full measure, and even with more than legal interest at 4 per cent!”
[16] The second Lady Lyttelton, née Rich.
Mr. West from Tunbridge visited his cousins, the Bothams, at Albury, and found Lydia in a terrible state of health, and worried with the preparation of her five children to be inoculated. He persuaded her to go to Tunbridge to consult Dr. Shaw, and writes from Stoke to Mrs. Montagu to suggest that Mrs. Botham should stay with her at Sandleford whilst the children are inoculated, and left in their father’s care. He mentions Mr. Hooke being in a cottage near Stoke, very busy writing. Lydia Botham, despite of all entreaties, returned to Albury to remain with her children. Mrs. Montagu contemplated a visit to Horton, alias Mount Morris, with her husband, to stay with her brother Matthew, but violent rheumatism attacked her in the shoulders. She was reluctantly obliged to let Mr. Montagu visit “the brethren,” as they termed them, alone. Meanwhile, West, not being satisfied with the tutor with whom his son was residing, hastened to Hill Street to remove him to Oxford. Mrs. Medows[17] writes from Chute on October 3 to say she had taken her nieces, the Miss Pulses, to see Sandleford, where they ate “a cold loaf,”[18] and “I was not a little exalted as a planter when I saw chestnuts I had set nuts, five and forty feet high.” She mentions that Mrs. Isted gave them a great many good things, “and showed several pretty pieces of her painting, and one of your curtains finished and a handkerchief the little girl you are so good as to take care of is making for you, that will look very like point.”
Mr. Montagu set out on October 2 to Horton, and arrived at Canterbury, where he ascended the Cathedral tower for the view, his first sight of that place. His first letter crossed one of his wife’s, in which she laments her inability to accompany him, and says—
“I suppose you will see the place with great veneration, where your consort’s virtues, charms and accomplishments were ripened to their present perfection, besides the pleasure of seeing my brothers, which would have been great. I should have reviewed the place where I spent the careless days of infancy and the more gay ones of early youth with satisfaction. To the Fair, the years from 15 to 20 are very agreeable.” She continues, “When do my brethren come to town? I hear my brother Robinson stays to cultivate the maternal acres. As to the Paternal they will not come yet. I think he will think of the Père Eternel when he does not say the Lord’s Prayer. I design to go to Mrs. Donnellan to-morrow, she is at North End, where she designs to remain till her house is ready for her reception.”
These letters are addressed thus:—
Morris Robinson, when not in town on business, lived with his brother, and it was a home to all the brothers as they required one, their gay old father, Mr. Robinson, preferring lodgings in London, where he was the life and soul of the fashionable coffee-houses.
Mr. Montagu having complained of his horse not liking stony roads, his wife writes—
“I am sorry your horse does not like hard roads, for the ways about Horton are very stony; a dull horse is like a dull friend, one is safe but not much delighted in their company.” She adds, “I hope the sight of so many merry bachelors does not revive in you the love of a single state. Theirs is the joy of the wicked, not the pure comforts of a holy state like matrimony.... Poor Mr. Brockman is the only man truly sensible of the evils of celibacy, and he weeps and will not be comforted, as all unmarried men should do, were they truly sensible of their misfortune.”
This is playfully malicious, as Mr. Brockman had been one of her earliest admirers.
Her husband, on October 12, answers a long letter of hers about the monuments in Canterbury Cathedral, and says—
“Since I came here I have passed my time much to my satisfaction, the entire freedom and liberty that reigns here, the love and harmony that dwells amongst the brethren, as it is very uncommon, so is the more agreeable to me, as I cannot but take a part and be affected with pleasure and pain in everything that relates to you. If you had been here you would have much added to our happiness, and I believe this not only to be my sentiments but that of all the rest of the company. I have never before now had an opportunity of sufficiently observing this house, which is very large and perfectly regular, though it is not placed just where one could wish it, ’tis easy to see is capable of great improvement by openings and cuttings in a good deal of that fine prospect which is now shut out by the walls and trees; and by grubbing up the bushes and hedges and making a kind of Paddock on the South side of the house. A bason of water like that at Newbold might also be easily made.... Some of these things the worthy owner is not without having some thoughts of doing, as well as cutting some walks and vistas through his wood.”
There is a picture of Mount Morris in Harris’ ‘History of Kent,’ 1719, a large square house with a cupola surmounted by a big ball and weathercock. In front of the house and round it are the small walled gardens, formally planted, the fashion of the period. These were eventually pulled down by Matthew Robinson, the hedges grubbed and all thrown into one large park,[19] in which his numerous horses and cattle roamed at large. Mr. Montagu seemed to have enjoyed some fine partridge shooting whilst at Horton. He also frequented “‘Old Father Ocean’ at Hythe, with whose solemn majestic look I am always delighted.”
[19] A picture of Mount Morris as altered by Matthew is in the Kent volume of “Beauties of England and Wales”.
Visits to the Scotts of Scotts Hall, the Brockmans of Beachborough, etc., are spoken of. In a letter of the same date, October 12, to her husband, Mrs. Montagu first mentions Archibald Bower[20] and his wife.
[20] Archibald Bower, born 1686, died 1766; wrote “The History of the Popes,” etc., etc.
To give the whole biography of Archibald Bower would take too much space in this book. An account of him can be found in the “National Biography,” vol. vi. p. 48. He was a Scotsman, was sent to Douai, and entered the Jesuit Society in 1706. In 1717 he studied Divinity at Rome; became Reader of Philosophy and Adviser to the College of Arezzo. Horrified at the “hellish proceedings” of the Court of Inquisition, where he witnessed the torture of two innocent gentlemen, he fled to England, and while there made the acquaintance of Dean Berkeley, the old admirer and friend of Mrs. Donnellan, who was afterwards Bishop of Cloyne. He entered, as tutor, the family of Mr. Thompson, Coley Park, Berks, and afterwards that of Lord Aylmer. He revised the “Universal History.” In 1748 he was made keeper of the Queen’s Library, and in 1749 he married a widow with one child, a niece of Bishop Nicholson. His first volume of his “History of the Popes” was published in 1748, the second in 1751, the third in 1753. Though renouncing the Jesuit order, he seems to have had business dealings with the Society, some of which brought him into considerable obloquy, but they are too lengthy to be detailed here.
Mrs. Montagu, returning to Hayes, says—
“Mr. Bower and his wife are to come to me on Friday, and stay till Saturday or Monday, he is a very merry entertaining companion. He left all gloominess in that seat of horrors—the Inquisition. I breakfasted with him on Tuesday, he is but between two or three miles from Hayes. His wife is civil and silent, so I asked her to come over with him. I never saw any country more beautiful than about Chislehurst, where he lives. I cannot say much in praise of his habitation, which he terms his Paradise, but indeed to a mind so gay and cheerful as his, all places are a Paradise. He is much engaged with those old ladies, the Popes, but says he will leave the Santi Padri for his Madonna. He will teach me the pronunciation of Italian, which he has reduced to a Method, so it may easily be acquired. He taught it to Mr. Garrick at Tunbridge.”
Apparently Bower was introduced to Mrs. Montagu by Gilbert West. He was an intimate friend of Sir George Lyttelton. Both he and Sir George gave Mrs. Montagu the sobriquet of “Madonna,” but as Bower’s first letter of 1753 addresses her as “Madonna,” with him probably the nickname originated. They corresponded for some years in Italian.
In the next letter of October 14, she says—
“The Bowers came here yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. West met them here at dinner, and to-morrow we are all to dine at Wickham. This morning I shall carry Mrs. Bower to see Cæsar’s Camp, the prospect from which is now in high beauty.”
The five Botham children had been inoculated! Their mother had been persuaded in her bad health to leave them in their father’s care. Lydia, writing to Mrs. Montagu to thank her for a present of Madeira, says—
“You will desire to hear something of my Babes. My letter from their good Father to-day says they were well when he wrote, but that my kind and humane friends, Dr. Shaw and Winchester, who had both been with them in the morning, said their eyes were so heavy and their pulses so loaded that they would not hold up long.”
A postscript to this letter gives the next day’s account in Mr. Botham’s words—
“My dear Babes are all drooping round me, and wonder not if I tell you I am glad they are so, since from the gentlest symptoms of the distemper I have a good foundation to hope they will do well. They are sometimes up and sometimes down, and sicken so gradually that Winchester doubts not that they will have a favourable sort of the smallpox. I expect they will be in their beds to-morrow.”
By November 16 the five children were well, and Mrs. Montagu writes to Mr. West from Sandleford—
“Mrs. Botham returns to her little family to-morrow, they are all quite recovered, and I hope this lucky event will hasten the recovery of my Lydia. I should indeed be glad to behold the happy smile that will illuminate her countenance at her return to her babes. Mr. Rogers[21] is recovering from another mortification.... I really believe he will live to the age of Methuselah, for he recovers of those illnesses which destroy the strongest.
“I find the Princess of Wales will have a drawing-room as soon as the King returns, and I hope you will consult with your friends, whether it will not be proper you should appear there.... Mr. Linnell[22] brought me his bill the morning I left town, and I think I will send a copy of it as a proper warning to your Mrs. West, and if you will still proceed in spite of my sad and woeful example, I cannot help it. I shall repent my misdeeds as the daughters of Israel did theirs in sackcloth and ashes. Adieu Brocade, Embroidery, and lace, and even the cheaper vanities of lutestring and blonde.”
[21] John Rogers, of Denton Hall, to whom Mr. Montagu, his cousin, was trustee, as he was a lunatic.
[22] Linnell had been decorating rooms in her house at Hill Street, and Mr. West was also employing him at Wickham.
Mr. West took Mrs. Montagu’s advice as to going to Court and “kissing hands, a ceremony which upon more deliberation I think it most advisable to go through, however glad I should have been to avoid it.”
In a letter to Miss Anstey from Mrs. Montagu, of November 23, we gain a glimpse of the books being read then—
“Mr. Hooke has published a second edition of his ‘Roman History,’ which is much admired. Mr. Brown’s[23] essays on the ‘Characteristics of Lord Shaftesbury’[24] are well spoken of; Lord Orrery[25] has just published his Observations on the ‘Life and Writings of Dr. Swift.’ ... The ‘Biographia Brittanica’ will entertain you with the Lives of many great men, some of them are very well written. Mr. Warburton’s[26] Edition of Mr. Pope’s Works contains some new pieces, and some alterations of old ones. ‘The Memoires du Duc de Sully’[27] are very entertaining.... The Duke of Cumberland has been dangerously ill, is now something better. Lord Coventry[28] they say is to marry Miss Gunning. Some actors have appeared at the Theatre, and their characters are not of the first rank. One of them imitates Mr. Garrick.” This must have been Foote.
[23] John Brown, D.D., born 1715, died 1766. Eminent divine, indefatigable writer.
[24] 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, born 1671, died 1713; wrote “Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times.”
[25] Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery.
[26] William Warburton, born 1698, died 1779. Divine and writer; Bishop of Gloucester.
[27] Duc de Sully, favourite minister of Henry IV. of France.
[28] Lord Coventry, married March 5, 1782, to Maria Gunning.
Gilbert West was busied at this time planting his garden at Wickham with firs and laurels, and Mrs. Montagu teased him by letter about his “evergreen-nevergreen garden,” as she called it. She says—
“Remember that while you avoid winter, you exclude Spring, and forbid the glad return of the vernal season, as well as the sad approach of autumn. In your garden and in your life, may all that is necessary for shade, for shelter and for comfort be permanent and unchanged. May the pleasures and aromatics be various, successive, sweet and new! ... I shall be much obliged to you if when you see the incomparable Mr. Bower you will get of him the second volume of the ‘History of the Popes.’ I have almost finished Mr. Hooke’s history. I do not care to quit the city of Rome till I have seen the establishment of its spiritual Monarchy.... I have just received a collection of letters, wrote by Madame de Maintenon, though Voltaire has diminished my opinion of her in some degree; yet I have an impatience to open the book.... I shall like to see what alteration there is in her from the wife and widow of poor Scarron to becoming the consort of Louis le Grand.”
On December 2 Lady Courtenay sent feathers and shells to Mrs. Montagu for her work. She was the daughter of Heneage, 2nd Lord Aylesford, and married to Sir William Courtenay, afterwards 1st Viscount Courtenay. She was a sister of Lady Andover’s, and a great friend of Lydia Botham’s, and in this letter expresses great concern at Lydia’s sad state of health.
On December 29 Mrs. Montagu writes to her sister Sarah that she had sustained the great loss of her lady housekeeper, Mrs. Isted, who had died very suddenly whilst Mr. and Mrs. Montagu had been spending a few days with Lydia Botham. The latter was then supposed to be dying.
From the letters it appears Mrs. Isted was a widow lady, who had lost an only child, and had been known to Mrs. Montagu in her more prosperous years. Lydia Botham rallied for a time.