ELIZABETH MONTAGU
THE QUEEN OF THE BLUE-STOCKINGS
Before entering on the life of Elizabeth Robinson, afterwards Mrs. Edward Montagu, the famous bas bleu, the focus, as she may be called, of all the cleverest and most intellectual society of the last half of the eighteenth century, a few words must be said of the family she sprang from. The Robinsons are said to have been originally Robertsons, the name being corrupted into Robinson. They are in many Peerages[4] said to descend from the Robertsons of Struan, or Strowan, in Perthshire, who descended from Duncan de Atholia, Earl of Athole, hence descendants of Duncan, King of Scotland. My grandfather, the 4th Baron Rokeby, in an unfinished pedigree, believed this, but there have been Robinsons bearing the same[5] coat-of-arms in Yorkshire as early as the time of copyhold record in Edward III.’s reign. However, they may have been related. Our narrative starts from William, said to be younger son of the 7th Baron Robertson of Strowan, who, being deprived of his portion of inheritance as younger son by the Earl of Athole, fled into England, and settled at Kendal in Westmorland, in the time of Henry VIII. He had three children, Ralph, Henry, and Ursula. Ralph married Agnes Philip, by whom he had William, who succeeded to his father’s estates at Kendal and Brignal, and who on June 7, 1610, bought the estate of Rokeby in Yorkshire from Sir Thomas Rokeby, whose family had been possessed of it before the Conquest. Rokeby continued to belong to the Robinson family for 160 years, when “Long Sir Thomas Robinson” sold it in 1769 to John B. Saurey Morritt, the friend of Sir Walter Scott. The Robinsons finally assumed two lines (vide Pedigree), William, the eldest, remaining master of Rokeby, and his posthumous brother, Leonard, becoming the direct ancestor of our heroine. Leonard Robinson was a merchant in London; he became Chamberlain of the City of London, and was knighted on October 26, 1692. He married, first, Lucy Layton, of West Layton, etc., by whom he had no issue. For his second wife he married Deborah, daughter of Sir James Collet, Knight and Sheriff of London, by whom he had six daughters, all of whom married and had issue, and one son, Thomas, who married a widow, Elizabeth Light. She was daughter of William Clarke, Esq., of Merivale Abbey, Warwickshire, and heiress of her brother, William Clarke. By her first husband, Anthony Light, she had one daughter, Lydia. By her second marriage with Thomas Robinson she had three sons. Matthew, the eldest, alone concerns us as father of Mrs. Montagu. The following table will show the connection between the Robinson and Sterne families: the Rev. Laurence Sterne marrying their cousin, Elizabeth Lumley:—
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| 1st. Anthony Light 1 daughter. |
= ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ |
Elizabeth Clarke, daughter of William Clarke, of Merivale Abbey, Warwickshire; heiress to her brother, William Clarke. |
= ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ |
2nd. Thomas Robinson, son of Sir Leonard Robinson. |
||||||||
| ｜ | ｜ | |||||||||||
| 1st. Thomas Kirke of Cockridge, co, Yorks. Great Virtuoso. d. 1709 |
= | Lydia | = ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ |
2nd. The Rev. Robert Lumley of Lumley Castle, Rector of Bedale, Yorks, 1721–1731. | Matthew Robinson. | = | Elizabeth Drake, daughter of Councillor Robert Drake, of the Drakes of Ash, Devon. | |||||
| ｜ | ｜ | |||||||||||
| Lydia | = | Rev. Henry Botham, Vicar of Albury and Ealing. 5 children. |
Elizabeth | = ｜ ｜ |
Rev. Laurence Sterne. | |||||||
| ｜ | ｜ | |||||||||||
| Lydia died an infant. | Lydia | = | |
A. de Medalle. | |||||||||
| Son. | ||||||||||||
[4] Vide Debrett and Lodge’s Peerages; Collin’s Baronetage, 1741, vol. iv.; Burke, “The New Peerage,” by W. Owen, 1785; and Longmate’s Peerage.
[5] Coat vert, a chevron between three bucks trippant. Mrs. Laurence Sterne and her sister, Mrs. Botham, as will be seen in the letters, call Matthew Robinson and his wife “Uncle” and “Aunt,” they being really their step-uncle and aunt. Thomas Robinson died at the early age of thirty-three, in the year 1700.
We now enter on the history of Matthew Robinson, the eldest surviving son of Thomas, and his wife Elizabeth. He was born in 1694, therefore was only six years old when his father died. At an early age he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a fellow-commoner. He was a person of great intellectual parts, a conversationalist and wit, the life of the coffee-houses, which then served, as clubs do nowadays, as a rendezvous for men of fashion. His talent for painting was remarkable. His great nephew states, “He acquired so great a proficiency as to excel most of the professional artists of his day in landscape.” At the early age of eighteen, in 1712, he married Elizabeth Drake, daughter of Councillor Robert Drake, of Cambridge, descended from the Drakes of Ashe in Devonshire. Elizabeth’s mother’s name was Sarah Morris. The Morris family had been seated in Kent at East Horton since the reign of Elizabeth. Thomas Morris, father of Sarah, built the mansion of Mount Morris, sometimes called Monk’s Horton, near Hythe. He had one son, Thomas, who was drowned under London Bridge on his return from Holland in 1697, ætat 23. His sister Sarah had two children by Councillor Drake, Morris and Elizabeth. Their maternal grandfather lived to 1717, when he devised his estates to his grandson, Morris Drake, with the proviso of his assuming the extra name of Morris, and failing of his issue with remainder to Elizabeth, his sister, then Mrs. Matthew Robinson. Her mother, Mrs. Drake, having become a widow, had remarried the celebrated Dr. Conyers Middleton, but had no children by him. The following table will elucidate this:—
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| Thomas Morris, Esq., of Mount Morris, alias Monk’s Horton,[6] Kent, which he built; d. 1717. |
|||
| ｜ | |||
| ｜ | ｜ | ||
| Thomas, drowned under London Bridge, 1697, ætat 23, returning from Holland. | Sarah, d. Feb. 19, 1730–1.
｜ ｜ ｜ ｜ |
= | 1st. Councillor Robert Drake, 2nd. (1710) Dr. Conyers Middleton, of Trinity College, Cambridge. |
| ｜ | ｜ | ||
| Morris Drake (Morris) took name of Morris on becoming heir to his grandfather; died s.p. His property entailed on his sister, Eliz. Robinson. | Elizabeth, m. 1713, d. 1745, sister and heir of her brother, Morris Drake Morris. Inherited Coveney, Cambs., and Mount Morris, Kent. | = | Matthew Robinson, of Edgeley and of West Layton Hall, Yorks. Born at York, 1694; died October, 1778. |
[6] Monk’s Horton, or Up Horton, alienated by Heyman Rooke in the time of Queen Anne to Thomas Morris, who entailed it to his daughter’s male issue.
To return to the Robinsons, they settled at their property of West Layton Hall, derived from Lucy Layton, first wife of Sir Leonard Robinson, and Edgeley in Wensleydale for the summer, and spent the winter in York; most country families at that period repairing to London or their nearest county town for convenience and society during the winter. To this young couple were born twelve children, of whom seven sons and two daughters lived to grow up—
1. Matthew, born April 6, 1713; afterwards 2nd Baron Rokeby. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge; became a Fellow. Died November 30, 1800, ætat 87.
2. Thomas, born 1714, died in 1746–7. Barrister-at-law.
3. Morris, born 1715, died 1777; of the Six Clerks’ Office.
4. Elizabeth, born at York, October 2, 1720, died August 25, 1800.
5. Robert, Captain, E.I.C.S. Died in China, 1756.
6. Sarah, born September 21, 1723, died 1795.
7. William, born 1726, died 1803.
8. John, of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
9. Charles, born 1733, died 1807.
Elizabeth, the subject of this book, was about seven years old when, by the death of her uncle, Morris Drake Morris, her mother inherited, as his heir, the important property of East Horton, and Mount Morris in Kent. The family then left Yorkshire for residence at Mount Morris. But before and after their inheritance of the Kentish property much time was spent with the Conyers Middletons both at Coveney, Cambridgeshire, a property Mrs. Conyers Middleton had inherited from her first husband, Councillor Drake; the advowson of the living being hers, she bestowed it on her second husband, Dr. Conyers Middleton,[7] whom she had married in 1710; also at Cambridge, where was their usual residence, and where several of the little Robinsons were born in their grandmother’s house, as we learn from a letter of Dr. Middleton’s. Elizabeth Robinson was naturally much with her grandmother, with whom and Conyers Middleton she was a great favourite. Her nephew and adopted son, in his volumes of her letters[8] that he published in 1810, states—
“Her uncommon sensibility and acuteness of understanding, as well as extraordinary beauty as a child, rendered her an object of great notice in the University, and Dr. Middleton was in the habit of requiring from her an account of the learned conversations at which, in his society, she was frequently present; not admitting of the excuse of her tender age as a disqualification, but insisting that although at the present time she could but imperfectly understand their meaning, she would in future derive great benefit from the habit of attention inculcated by this practice.”
[7] Conyers Middleton, D.D., born 1683, died 1750. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, etc., etc. Wrote the “Life of Cicero,” etc., etc.
[8] “The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu,” by her nephew, Matthew Montagu, afterwards 4th Baron Rokeby.
Her father was proud of her vivacious wit, and encouraged her gifts of repartee which she possessed in as large a measure as himself.
“In her youth her beauty was most admired in the peculiar animation and expression of her blue eyes, with high arched eyebrows, and in the contrast of her brilliant complexion with her dark brown hair. She was of the middle stature, and stooped a little, which gave an air of modesty to her countenance, in which the features were otherwise so strongly marked as to express an elevation of sentiment befitting the most exalted condition.”
Her elder brothers, members of Cambridge University, were all extremely literary, and became, early, distinguished scholars. We are told—
“Their emulation produced a corresponding zeal in their sisters, and a diligence of application unusual in females of that time. Their domestic circle was accustomed to struggle for the mastery in wit, or in superiority in argument, and their mother, whose frame of mind partook rather of the gentle sedateness of good sense than of the eccentricities of genius, was denominated by them ‘the Speaker,’ from the frequent mediation by which she moderated their eagerness for victory.”
In Harris’s “History of Kent,” published in 1719, on p. 156, is a picture of Mount Morris, the home of the Robinsons, a large square house with a cupola surmounted by a ball and a weathercock, surrounded by a number of walled gardens laid out in the formal Dutch manner, an inner Topiary garden, leading to a steep flight of steps to the front door. Whilst staying in Cambridgeshire, Elizabeth had several times visited at Wimpole with her father and mother. Wimpole was the seat of Edward,[9] second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, who had married Henrietta Cavendish, only daughter and heiress of John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne. She was a great heiress, and brought her husband £500,000; she is said to have been a good but a very dull woman, very proud, and a rigid worshipper of etiquette. In the “National Biography” she is said to have “disliked most of the wits who surrounded her husband, and hated Pope!”[10] The Earl spent enormous sums in collecting books, manuscripts, pictures, medals, and articles of virtu, spending £400,000 of his wife’s fortune. To him we are indebted for the Harleian manuscripts, bought from his widow in 1753 for £10,000 by the nation, now in the British Museum. With the Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley,[11] only child of the Earl and Countess of Oxford, Elizabeth became on the most intimate terms, and her first extant letter is addressed to her when she was only eleven years old, and the Lady Margaret eighteen. So greatly did Lady Margaret value Elizabeth’s letters, that for a series of years she preserved them between the leaves of an old grey book which I possess. The first letter is endorsed, “Received, February 24, 1731–2, at Wimpole.” It commences—
“Madam,
“Your ladyship’s commands always give me a great deal of pleasure, but more especially when you ordered me to do myself this honour, without which I durst not have taken that liberty, for it would have been as great impertinence in me to have attempted it as it is condescension in your ladyship to order it.”
This alludes evidently to Lady Margaret having desired her to write to her. It ends—
“My duty to my Lord and Lady Oxford, and service to Lord Dupplin,[12] and my best respects to Miss Walton,[13] hope in a little while it may be duty. I am in great hopes that when your ladyship sees any impertinent people in London it will put you in mind of, Madam,
[9] Lord Oxford sold Wimpole in 1740 to Lord Hardwick to pay off his debts.
[10] Pope was his bosom friend, Swift and Prior also; the latter died at Wimpole.
[11] Prior celebrated the Lady Margaret in the lines commencing “My noble, lovely, little Peggy.”
[12] Afterwards 8th Earl of Kinnoul.
[13] Lady Margaret’s governess, about to be married.
MOUNT MORRIS.
The formal terms in this letter were then considered essential, even when addressing those of lower birth, all the more so to a person of Lady Margaret’s rank. Viscount Dupplin, whose name frequently occurs in the letters, was a cousin of Lady Margaret’s on her father’s side, his mother being a daughter of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford. The two young friends now kept up a lively correspondence, but as many of the letters have been published by my grandfather in 1810, I shall for this early period of her life give only a résumé of them, picking out such facts as point to the manners of the time, or that strike one as of interest. From Mount Morris in August, 1732, she writes—
“Since I came here I have been to Canterbury Races, at which there was not much diversion, as only one horse ran for the King’s Plate.... We had an assembly for three nights; the rooms are so small and low that they were exceedingly hot.”
From this date one perceives that young ladies were allowed to appear in public early, as Elizabeth was then not quite twelve years old!
In October, 1733, she paid, in company of her parents, her first visit to Tunbridge Wells, ever afterwards such a favourite resort of hers. She says—
“It is so pleasant a place I don’t wonder the physicians prescribe it as a cure for the spleen; a great part of the company, especially of the gentlemen, are vapoured. When the wind is not in the east they are very good company, but they are as afraid of an easterly wind as if it would bring caterpillars upon our land as it did on the land of Egypt.... I am very sorry I could not get you any verses at Tunbridge, of which, at the latter part of the season, when the garrets grow cheap, that the poets come down, there is commonly great plenty.”
Further on she says, “I thank your ladyship for the verses, and I wish I had any to send you in return for them, but my poet is turned lawyer, and has forsook the Muses for ‘Coke upon Littleton.’” This alludes to her brother Tom, who was then studying law. The collecting of verses on every sort of circumstance seems to have been as fashionable then as photograph, autograph, or stamp-collecting, etc., are now.
In the next letter of November, 1733, she alludes to Dr. Conyers Middleton, who, as stated before, had married Mrs. Drake, Elizabeth’s grandmother, and who was now a widower—
“I suppose you have heard Dr. Middleton has brought his Cousin Place[14] to keep his house. He very gravely sent us word that his cousin had come to spend the winter with him, and it was not impossible they might agree for a longer time; so I fancy he has brought her with him to see if she likes to play at quadrille, and sup on sack posset with the grave doctors, whose company to one of her gay temper must be delightful. I suspected his designs when he made so many complaints in London, that it was so very difficult to find a maid who understood making jellies and sack posset, which he and a certain doctor used to have for their suppers. He lost one lady because she was deaf to him; but I believe that fortune, to make amends to him, has blinded this. For though I don’t doubt he always takes care to show her the side of his face which Mr. Doll says is younger by ten years than the other, yet that is rather too old to be a match for twenty-five, which I believe is the age of Mrs.[15] Place.”
[14] Mary, daughter of the Rev. Conyers Place, of Dorchester. She died April 26, 1745.
[15] It was the custom at this time to give spinster ladies the complimentary title of “Mrs.”
The next letter she says—
“I have not heard from Dr. Middleton a great while. I suppose his thoughts are taken up with business and his pretty cousin in the West. I don’t know whether she has made a complete conquest of his heart.”
In May, 1733—
“Dr. Middleton now owns his marriage. I wish he finds the felicity of it answers his resigning a £100 a year. I am glad, for the sake of any other family, he has not got another rich widow; if he had, it would have been her turn to resign.”
This alludes to the fact that on the learned doctor’s remarriage he had to resign his fellowship.
Mr. Robinson, Elizabeth’s father, was not fond of the country, where his wife’s fine estate and his nine children condemned him to reside the greater part of the year; and when we consider how young a man he was, then only thirty-one, and his great love of witty society, one cannot be surprised at his having attacks of the “hyp” or “vapours,” as the terms for ennui were then. Elizabeth writes to Lady Margaret from Mount Morris—
“Though I am tired of the country, to my great satisfaction I am not so much so as my Pappa; he is a little vapoured, and last night, after two hours’ silence, he broke out with a great exclamation against the country, and concluded in saying that living in the country was sleeping with one’s eyes open. If he sleeps all day, I am sure he dreams much of London. What makes this place more dull is, my brothers are none of them here; two of them went away about a fortnight ago, and ever since my Pappa has ordered me to put a double quantity of saffron[16] in his tea.”
[16] Saffron, said to be good for heaviness of spirits.
February 11, 1734, she writes—
“Dr. Middleton sends us word my Pappa’s acquaintance wonder he has not the spleen, but they would cease their surprise if they knew he was so much troubled with it that his physicians cannot prescribe him any cordial strong enough to keep up his spirits. We think London would do it effectually, and I believe he will have recourse to it.”
On July 11, 1734, Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley married William, 2nd Duke of Portland.[17] There are no letters of Elizabeth’s in my possession on the occasion of her friend’s marriage; they recommence October 20 in the same year. Henceforward all the duchess’s letters were franked by the duke, and many of Elizabeth’s, often unfortunately undated. At this period ladies prevailed on such of their friends as were either Peers or members of Parliament, to sign sheets of letter-paper with their names at the back, often of folio size, which they used free of cost as they wanted them, wrapping their letters in these outer sheets and sealing them. As a single letter from London to Edinburgh cost 1s. 1½d., if double 2s. 3d., and if treble 3s. 4½d., the smallest inclosure being treated as an additional sheet, to send letters unfranked was a costly luxury. The practice of forging people’s names led to such intolerable abuse of franking that an Act was passed in 1764 making it compulsory for the whole address to be written by the person franking the letter.
[17] William, 2nd Duke of Portland, born 1708, died 1762. Hearne, in his Diary, says, “Is reported the handsomest man in England.”
In October, the same year, Elizabeth replies to a letter from the duchess chiding her for not writing—
“Oct. 3, 1734.—I am surprised that my answer to your Grace’s letter has never reached your hands. I sent it immediately to Canterbury by the servant of a gentleman who dined here, and I suppose he forgot to put it in the post. I am reconciled to the carelessness of the fellow, since it has procured to me so particular a mark of your concern. If my letter were sensible, what would be the mortification, that instead of having the honour to kiss your Grace’s hands, it must lie confined in the footman’s pocket with greasy gloves, rotten apples, a pack of dirty cards, and the only companion of its sort, a tender epistle from his sweetheart, ‘tru tell deth.’ Perhaps by its situation subject to be kicked by his master every morning, till at last, by ill-usage and rude company, worn too thin for any other use, it may make its exit in lighting a tobacco-pipe. I believe the fellow who lost my letter knew very well how ready I should be to supply it with another.
The duchess’s favourite name for Elizabeth was “Fidget,” a name adopted by all the Bullstrode[18] circle. This was due to her vivacity of mind and body. She was never really a strong person, but her nervous energy enabled her frail body to perform feats that a more lethargic person could not have accomplished. “Why should a table that stands still require so many legs when I can fidget on two?” she would exclaim. The duchess returns an answer on October 25, portions of which I copy—
“Dear Fidget,
“I assure you I am very angry at the fellow’s not taking care of your letter, for they always give me infinite pleasure, and I esteem it as a great loss. I am very sensible of the friendship you have for me, and hope you never shall find any reason to the contrary. You have painted extremely well the fate of your letter was not according to its deserts.... Pray do you hear anything of Dr. Middleton and his fine wife?[19] I had a letter not long ago wherein it was said she made the doctor very sensible she had a tongue, and a very sharp one too, with the addition of a clear and distinct voice. If you have any poetry, send it to me; you know it will be acceptable to her who is
[18] The duchess always spelt Bullstrode with the double l, from the story of the place, and I choose to do the same.
[19] On Dr. Middleton’s second wife.
In Elizabeth’s next letter, November 3, 1734, she regrets that her father, having recovered his spirits, had given up going to Bath as projected, and says—
“One common objection to the country, one sees no faces but those of one’s own family, but my Pappa thinks he has found a remedy for that by teaching me to draw; but then he husbands these faces in so cruel a manner that he brings me sometimes a nose, sometimes an eye at a time: but on the King’s birthday, as it was a festival, he brought me out a whole face with its mouth wide open. Your Grace desired me to send you some verses; I have not heard so much as a Rhyme lately, and I believe the Muses have all got agues in this country, but I have enclosed you the following Summons which we sent an old bachelor, who is very much our humble servant, and would die but not dance for us; but being once in great necessity for partners, we thought him better than an elbow chair, and compelled him to come to this Summons, which pleased me extremely, as I believe it was the first time he ever found the power of the fair sex.... I am so far from Cambridge, and have no friend charitable enough to send me any scandal, I have heard nothing of either of the doctors, but as to my dear grandmother,[20] I have before heard she was as famous as a free speaker as he is for a free-thinker.[21]
[20] This is Elizabeth’s fun, as her own grandmother was dead, and the doctor was her step-grandfather.
[21] Dr. Middleton held free-thinking views on the Old Testament.
“‘Summons.
“‘Kent, to J. B., Esqre.[22]
“‘Whereas complaint has been made to us Commissioners of Her Majesties’ Balls, Hopps, Assemblies, &c., for the county aforesaid, that several able and expert men, brought up and instructed in the art or mistery of Dancing, have and daily do refuse, though often thereunto requested, to be retained and exercised in the aforesaid Art or Mistery, to the occasion of great scarcity of good dancers in these parts, and contrary to the Laws of Gallantry and good manners, in that case made and provided: And whereas we are likewise credibly informed that you J. B., Esqre., though educated in the said Art by that celebrated Master, Lally, Senior, are one of the most notorious offenders in this point, these are therefore in the name of the Fair Sex, to require you, the said J. B., Esqre., personally to be and appear before us, at our meeting this day at the sign of the “Golden Ball,” in the parish of Horton, in the county aforesaid, between the hours of twelve and one in the forenoon to answer to such matter as shall be objected against you, concerning the aforesaid refusal and contempt of our jurisdiction and authority, and to bring with you your dancing shoes, laced waistcoat and white gloves. And hereby fail not under peril of our frowns, and being henceforth deemed and accounted an Old Bachelor. Given under our hands and seals this eighth day of October, 1734, to which we all set our hands.’”
[22] James Brockman, of Beachborough. The summons is still kept at Beachborough.
The “Golden Ball” was the ball of the weathercock on the lantern cupola of the house at Mount Morris. In the next letter, November 20, she says—
“Out of my filial piety I would persuade my Pappa to set out for London. I have been preaching to him all this day, that when Saul had the spleen, David’s musick did him a great deal of good, and that I am satisfied Farinelli[23] would do him as much service. He goes frequently shooting or coursing, and fancies that will prevent its return, and to answer me with the Scripture, says, Nimrod the mighty hunter never had the Hyp. Dr. Middleton designed to bring his Dearee to London, but if she is so gay it may be as prudent to keep her at Cambridge ... if it should enter her head that the doctor is no greater than another, what a mortification it would be to my good Grand-pappa; if he knows himself and her, I think he would agree with Arnolfe in L’Ecole des Femmes[24]—
[23] Carlo Brocchi, whose professional name was Farinelli, vocalist and pupil of Porpora.
[24] A play of Molière’s.
Emery Walker Ph. Sc.
Miss Sarah Morris
Mr. Robinson, who drew and painted in a style worthy of a professional artist, was anxious Elizabeth should become a proficient in the same art, but she writes to the duchess—
“If you design to make any proficiency in that art, I would advise you not to draw old men’s heads. It was the rueful head countenance of Socrates or Seneca that first put me out of conceit of it; had my Pappa given me the blooming faces of Adonis or Narcissus, I might have been a more apt scholar; and when I told him I found those great beards difficult to draw, he gave me St. John’s head in a charger, so to avoid the speculation of dismal faces, which by my art I dismalized ten times more than they were before, I threw away my pencil.”
In October, 1735, the duchess’s first child was born, Elizabeth, eventually wife of the 1st Marquis of Bath. Elizabeth writes to congratulate her, and states she heard Dr. Mead (then the great ladies’ doctor) pronounced it the finest child he ever saw. Elizabeth had just returned from her first visit to Tunbridge Wells for her health, suffering much from headaches and weak eyes. At this period the Dowager Duchess of Portland died. The letters up to this date were addressed to “To Her Grace, The junior Duchess of Portland.”
Elizabeth writes a description of her five weeks at Tunbridge Wells. After comments on an unhappy marriage recently made, she says—
“You know some of our Grub Street wits compared marriage to a country dance, which scheme I extremely approved, but when I read it, I thought it should have been set to the tune of ‘Love for ever;’ but they say it never did go to that tune, nor ever would. I danced twice a week all the time I was at Tunbridge, and once extraordinary, for Lord Euston[25] came down to see Lord Augustus Fitzroy,[26] and made a ball. Lord Euston danced with the Duchess of Norfolk,[27] but her Grace went home early, and then Lord Euston danced with Lady Delves. We all left off about one o’clock. The day after I left the Wells, I went to the Races (Canterbury), which began on Monday, and ended on Thursday.... Monday there was an Assembly, Tuesday a Play, Wednesday an Assembly again, and Thursday another play, and as soon as that was over, we had a ball where we had ten couple. I did not go to bed after our private ball till six o’clock, and rose again before nine.
“The person who was taken most notice of at Tunbridge as particular is a young gentleman your Grace may be perhaps acquainted with, I mean Lord Stanhope.[28] He is always making mathematical scratches in his pocket-book, so that one half the people took him for a conjurer, and the other half for a fool.”
[25] George, Earl of Euston, son of the 2nd Duke of Grafton.
[26] A brother of Lord Euston.
[27] Wife of Edward, 9th Duke of Norfolk.
[28] Philip, 2nd Earl Stanhope, born 1714.
In a letter of October 2 is the first mention of Mrs. Pendarves,[29] afterwards Mrs. Delany. It runs—
“Your pleasures are always my satisfactions; I assure you I partake at Mount Morris all the happiness you tell me you receive at Bullstrode. I am sure Mrs. Pendarves cannot give you any pleasure in her conversation that she is not repayed in enjoying yours. I am glad you have got so agreeable a companion with you; it is a happiness you have not always enjoyed, though deserved.”
[29] Née Mary Granville, widow of Mr. W. Pendarves, born 1700, died 1788. Daughter of John Granville.
Mention is made of the duchess’s desire to obtain beautiful shells, and Elizabeth desired her sailor brother Robert, who had just returned from Italy, and was going in his ship to the East Indies, to bring home what he can in shells and feathers of all sorts—parrots, peacocks, etc.—for work the duchess was doing. This feather work became a rage of both the duchess and Elizabeth, and was the precursor of the celebrated feather hangings, immortalized by Cowper’s verses in Elizabeth’s later years. A humorous description of Lady Thanet,[30] then the great lady of West Kent, an amusing character, and great-aunt of the Duchess of Portland, is given in the same letter—
“Lord Thanet[31] said when he came to Kent this summer that Lord Cowper[32] had brought his Countess[33] to affront all East Kent, and he had brought his Countess to affront all West Kent. She was a little discomposed one day at dinner and threw a pheasant and a couple of partridges off the table in shoving them up to my Lord to cut up.”
[30] Mary, 4th daughter and coheiress of 2nd Marquis of Halifax.
[31] 7th Earl of Thanet.
[32] William, 2nd Earl Cowper.
[33] Henrietta, daughter of Earl Grantham.
Early in 1737, the second daughter of the duchess’s was born—Henrietta, afterwards Countess of Stamford and Warrington. Elizabeth writes to congratulate her on the event. She and her family were very ill of fever that summer, thirteen persons down with it in the house. The smallpox raged at Canterbury, and Mrs. Robinson would not allow her daughters to attend the races. In a letter of September mention is made of Dr. Conyers Middleton’s disappointment at not obtaining the Mastership of the Charter House, which he most desired. Another peep at Lady Thanet—
“Lady Thanet came into this part of the country ten days ago; her French woman rode astride through the wilds of Kent, and the country people having heard her Ladyship was something odd, took Mademoiselle for Lady Thanet.”
The first letter extant between Elizabeth and Miss Anstey, sister of Christopher Anstey, the author of the “New Bath Guide,”[34] may be placed here, though undated, except “Mount Morris, near Hythe, July 15.” This extract shows her vivacious nature—
[34] The “New Bath Guide” was not written till 1766. The Ansteys lived at Brinckley near Cambridge.
“Yesterday I was overturned coming from a neighbour’s. We got no hurt at all, but were forced to borrow a coach to bring us the rest of the way, our own being quite disabled by the fall.... I always think one visits in the country at the hazard of one’s bones, but fear is never so powerful with me, as to make me stay at home, and the next thing to being retired, is to be morose: contemplation is not made for a woman on the right side of thirty, it suits prodigiously well with the gout or the rheumatism: rest and an elbow chair are the comfort of age, but the pleasures of youth are of a more lively sort. I have in winter gone eight miles to dance to the music of a blind fiddler, and returned at two in the morning, mightily pleased that I had been so well entertained. I am so fond of dancing that I cannot help fancying I was at some time bit by a tarantula,[35] and never got well cured of it. I shall this year lose my annual dancings at Canterbury Races, for my Papa has made a resolution (I assure you without my advice) not to go to them.”
[35] It was believed that a tarantula’s bite was only to be cured by dancing.
In the next letter to the duchess, October 15, 1737—
“Lady Thanet made a ball at Hothfield a few days ago to which she did our family the honour to invite them, and as we were obeying her commands and got into the coach with our ball airs and our dancing shoes, at five miles of our journey we met with a brook so swelled by the rain it looked like a river, and the water, we were told, was up to the coach seat, and as I had never heard of any balls in the Elysian Fields, and don’t so much as know whether the ghosts of departed beaux wear pumps, I thought it better to reserve ourselves for the Riddotto[36] than hazard drowning for this ball, and so we turned back and went to Sir Wyndham Knatchbull’s,[37] who were hindered by the same water; for my part I could think of nothing but the ball, when any one asked me how I did I cry’d tit for tat, and when they bid me sit down, I answered ‘Jack of the green.’ A few days after the ball, Lady Thanet bespoke a play at a town eight miles from us, and summoned us to it; two of my brothers, and my sister,[38] and your humble servant went, and after the play the gentlemen invited all the women to a supper at a tavern, where we staid till two o’clock in the morning, and then all set out for their respective homes. Here I suppose you will think my diversion ended, but I must tell your Grace it did not; for before I had gone two miles, I had the pleasure of being overturned, at which I squalled for joy; and to complete my felicity I was obliged to stand half an hour in the most refreshing rain, and the coolest north breeze I ever felt; for the coach’s braces breaking were the occasion of our overturn, and there was no moving till they were mended. You may suppose we did not lose so favourable an opportunity of catching cold; we all came croaking down to breakfast the next morning, and said we had caught no cold, as one always says when one has been scheming, but I think I have scarce recovered my treble notes yet. We had seven coaches at the play; there was Lord Winchilsea,[39] Lady Charlotte Finch,[40] Lady Betty Fielding,[40] Capt. Fielding,[41] his lady, and the Miss Palmers.[42] Mr. Fielding and Miss Molly Palmer caught such colds they sent for a physician the next day; Lady Knatchbull and Miss Knatchbull have kept their beds ever since: poor Lady Thanet was overturned as she went home, and caught a terrible hoarseness, which was the better for the poor coachman, who by that means escaped a sharp and shrill reproof; and indeed it is enough for any poor man to lye under the terror of her frowns, with a look she can wound, with a frown she can kill; I think I never saw so formidable a countenance. I think Lord Thanet’s education of his son[43] is something particular; he encourages him in swearing and singing nasty ballads with the servants: he is a very fine boy, but prodigiously rude; he came down to breakfast the other day when there was company, and his maid came with him, who, instead of carrying a Dutch toy, or a little whirligig for his Lordship to play with, was lugging a billet for his plaything. There was a fine supper at the ball, 33 dishes all very neat. My elder brother got out of the coach and put on a pair of boots, and rode on to the ball when we turned back.”
[36] An entertainment of music first and afterwards dancing.
[37] 5th Baronet. His place called Mersham Hatch.
[38] Sarah Robinson, three years younger than Elizabeth.
[39] Daniel, 7th Earl Winchilsea.
[40] Sisters of Lord Winchilsea.
[41] Father of Henry Fielding, the novelist.
[42] Daughters of Sir Thomas Palmer of Wingham, Kent. Miss Molly afterwards 2nd Lady Winchilsea.
[43] Sackville Tufton, 8th Earl of Thanet, born 1733.
November 21, the duchess writes to condole with Elizabeth on the loss of the ball, and mentions having been staying with the Duke at Lady Peterborough’s[44]—
“Bevis Mount[45] is the most delightful place I ever saw, the house bad and tumbling down, but there is a summer-house in the garden, such a one! From thence there is a prospect of the sea, the Isle of Wight, New Forest, the town of Southampton, the garden laid out with an elegant taste, and in short everything that is agreeable, but particularly the Mistress.... Lord and Lady Wallingford are with us now; they are extremely agreeable. I fancy you must have seen her in public places. She is extremely pretty, and in the French dress.”
Lady Wallingford was the daughter of John Law, the famous financier, by his wife Katherine Knollys, third daughter of Charles Knollys, titular 3rd Earl of Banbury. Mary Katherine Law married in 1732 her first cousin, called Viscount Wallingford.
At this period, though undated, may be placed Elizabeth’s request to her father for a handsome suit of clothes. In a letter to her mother she thanks her “for your goodness in giving me leave to stay, and making it convenient to answer the Duchess’s and my wishes to stay during her confinement. When we came to town the Duchess reckoned the end of April.” From Bullstrode, therefore, she accompanied the duchess and her family to Whitehall, where in a portion of the old palace was the Portlands’ town residence. Elizabeth was now in her eighteenth year. In a letter to her father, too lengthy to insert entirely, worded in the respectful way children addressed their parents then, with “Sir” and “Madam,” and concluding with “your most dutiful daughter,” she says—
“You know this year I am to be introduced by the Duchess to the best company in the town, and when she lies in, am both to receive in form with her all her visits as Lady Bell[46] used to do on that occasion, all the people of quality of both sexes that are in London, and I must be in full dress, and shall go about with her all the winter, therefore a suit of cloathes will be necessary for me, the value of which I submit entirely to you. I shall never so much want a handsome suit as upon this occasion of first appearing with my Lady Duchess; but as the first consideration is to please you, I would by no means urge this beyond your pleasure, by duty or inclination, I shall always be content with what you order, and hope you will not be displeased with my requests.”
[46] Lady Isabella Bentinck, sister of the duke.
To this appeal her father sent her £20, and she returns thanks thus:—
“Whitehall, Thursday.
“Sir,
“Wit is seldom accompanied with money, but your letter came to me with so much of both, that I can neither send you thanks, nor an answer worthy of your present epistle. You are very good to gratify my bosom friend, vanity, which, though it does not abandon me in a plain gown, takes greater delight in seeing me in a handsome one, and it has promised me that I shall appear to advantage in my new suit of cloathes, both to myself and other people.... The Duchess, with her advice, will help me to make the best use of your generosity. I have been to the Mercer’s, but have not yet pitched upon a silk.... Mr. Pope has wrote an epitaph upon himself, which is not by far the best monument of his wit; it is a trifling thing, and seems wrote for amusement. I would send it you if I could, but I have not got a copy of it; as soon as I have I will convey it to Mount Morris, where I imagine you may want amusements, and our roads are not smooth enough for Pegasus.”
This epitaph is probably the one commencing “Under this marble, or under this sill, or under this turf, or e’en what they will.” At the end of the letter she says of her sailor brother—
“Now Robert is secure of his commission, his life is something hazardous, but he holds danger in contempt, the golden fruit of gain is always guarded by some dragon which courage or vigilance must conquer.”
He had just been made captain of the Bedford, a ship in the merchant service. Evidently Mrs. Robinson wrote a letter of advice as to the important choice of “cloathes.” The answer runs—
“Madam,
“I have obeyed your commands as to my cloathes, and have bought a very handsome Du Cape within the twenty pounds; a little accident which had happened to the silk in the Lomb made it a great deal cheaper, and, I believe, will not be at all the worse when made up; the colour in some places is a little damaged, but that will cut for the tail, and the rest is perfectly good. It will last longer clean than a flowered silk, and I have already had two since I have been in Mantuas:[47] I saw some of 25s. a yard that I did not think so pretty. Pray, Madam, let my thanks be repeated to my Pappa, to whose goodness I owe this suit of cloathes.... Pray send me by Tom the figured Dimity that was left of my upper coat, for it is too narrow and too short for my present hoop, which is of the first magnitude.”
[47] The expression then used for the period when young ladies were what we call “out.”
At the end of this letter Anne Donnellan is mentioned for the first time. She was a friend of Dean Swift’s, together with her sister, Mrs. Clayton, and her brother, the Rev. Christopher Donnellan. Anne Donnellan’s pet name in the Duchess of Portland’s circle was “Don,” as Mrs. Pendarves (afterwards Mrs. Delany) was “Pen,” Miss Dashwood “Dash,”[48] and Lady Wallingford “Wall.”
[48] The “Delia” of the poet Hammond.