The salon and English letters | Project Gutenberg

[278] Posthumous Works 1. 174. ‘In the hour and half I was in his company, he uttered as much as would have made him an agreeable companion for a week, had he allotted time for answers.’

[279] Series of Letters 4. 113; cf. 3. 228 and 4. 108. It would appear that Mrs. Montagu feared that Mrs. Vesey was about to adopt certain of Rousseau’s ‘absurdities.’ Cf. Letters of Mrs. Carter to Mrs. Montagu 3. 241; 24 June 1785.

[280] Hartley writes to W. W. Pepys (20 August 1800), ‘Mrs. Vesey’s ... was indeed the most agreeable house for conversation.’ Gaussen’s A Later Pepys 2. 154.

[281] Frances Glanville Boscawen (1719?-1805) was the wife of the Hon. Edward Boscawen, Admiral (d. 1761), and mother of Viscount Falmouth and the Duchess of Beaufort.

[283] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 182; 93.

[284] She did, however, give some assistance to Johnson in the Lives of the Poets. ‘I have claims,’ she writes to Miss More (Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 191), ‘upon Dr. Johnson, but as he never knows me when he meets me, they are all stifled in the cradle; for he must know who I am before he can remember that I got him Mr. Spence’s manuscripts.’ These papers were of great use to Johnson, as he himself remarks (Lives 1. xxvii, ed. Hill). Boswell regrets (Life 4. 63) that Johnson did not make a more handsome acknowledgment; but Boswell seems to have been unaware of Mrs. Boscawen’s connection with the whole transaction. Mrs. Boscawen cannot be serious in what she writes of Johnson’s ignorance of her. A conversation with Johnson, in which she took part, is described in the Life (4. 98).

[285] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 129.

[288] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 190.

[289] Mrs. Boscawen was the subject of more than one literary tribute before this. Young’s dreary ode, Resignation, was addressed to her, on the death of Admiral Boscawen; Mrs. Montagu had taken the widow to the ancient poet for consolation. In this poem she is bidden to ‘go forth a moral Amazon, armed with undaunted thought.’ Perhaps the last of these poetical tributes was a sonnet (from which a selection is here printed for the first time), by Pye when poet laureate. Writing of her villa at Richmond, once the home of Thomson, the poet Pye says:

Still Fancy’s Train your verdant Paths shall trace,

Tho’ closed her fav’rite Votary’s dulcet lay;

Each wonted Haunt their footsteps still shall grace,

Still Genius thro’ your green Retreats shall stray;

For, from the Scene Boscawen loves to grace,

Th’ Attendant Muse shall ne’er be long away.

Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 27578.

[290] Mrs. Boscawen chose Opie to paint the portrait, though the subject, she writes (Roberts’s Memoirs of More 2. 35), ‘is worthy of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s superior skill; but I can command Opie, and make him alter, or even refaire if we do not like it.’ In her reply, Miss More stated that nothing could overcome her natural repugnance to having her portrait taken, but Mrs. Boscawen’s wishes which are to her ‘such indisputable commands.’ The portrait, which was hung in Mrs. Boscawen’s dining-room, became so popular that both Walpole and Mrs. Walsingham wished copies of it.

[291] Anne Dillingham Ord (d. 1808) was the widow of William Ord (d. 1766), who had been High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1747. She is often spoken of as ‘Mrs. Ord of Queen Anne Street.’

[292] Notably Doran, Lady of the Last Century, p. 264, and the New English Dictionary, under ‘Bluestocking.’

[293] Letters 2. 146; cf. 149.

[294] Hannah More and Fanny Burney, e.g. Rev. Montagu Pennington (Carter’s Letters to Montagu 3. 199 n.) speaks of her as one ‘of whom too much good can hardly be said, and of whom the editor believes it would be impossible to say any ill.’

[295] Early Diary of Frances Burney 2. 138.

[297] Not invariably, however, for Hannah More once found such a crowd that she thought herself well off to be ‘wedged in with Mr. Smelt, Langton, Ramsay, and Johnson.’ Roberts’s Memoirs 1. 174; 1780.

[298] Ib. 1. 274; 7 March 1783.

[299] Ib. 1. 317; 1784.

[300] Diary of Madame D’Arblay 2. 378.

[301] She once mustered the whole tribe of blues that Fanny might show her old friends that a sojourn at Court had not made her forget them. On this occasion the gathering was exceptionally brilliant, and included Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Garrick, Reynolds, Langton, and Horace Walpole. At this assembly Miss Burney says that she shall be ‘proud to show everybody the just first place she [Mrs. Ord] holds with me, among all that set.’ Diary of Madame D’Arblay 3. 357 (3 January 1788).

[302] Diary of Madame D’Arblay 5. 33; 1791.

[304] Correspondence of Mrs. Delany 5. 12 n.

[305] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 285 and 1. 92.

[306] Correspondence of Mrs. Delany 4. 283; 1770.

[307] Ib. 4. 489; 30 December 1772.

[309] Diary of Madame D’Arblay 2. 364.

[310] A newspaper announced that ‘Miss Burney, the sprightly writer of the elegant novel Evelina, is now domesticated with Mrs. Thrale, in the same manner that Miss More is with Mrs. Garrick, and Mrs. Carter with Mrs. Montagu.’ Diary of Madame D’Arblay 1. 492; May 1781.

[311] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 2. 100.

[312] The phrase is from Bas Bleu.

[313] See Lounsbury’s Shakespeare and Voltaire, New York, 1902.

[314] See Walpole’s Letters 11. 67.

[315] See Lounsbury, op. cit.

[316] Life 2. 88. As late as 1787, she was thus described in the Epilogue to Thomas Holcroft’s play, Seduction:

Say, shall not we, with conscious pride proclaim

A female critic raised—ev’n Shakespear’s Fame!

Towards the end of the century the fame of the book declined. Mrs. Montagu was anonymously attacked by Mathias in his Pursuits of Literature (1794). In speaking of commentators on Shakespeare he says (p. 37):

Nor can I pass Lycisca Montagu,

Her yelp though feeble, and her sandals blue.

[317] Mrs. Montagu and her Friends, chapter 2.

[321] Essay, p. 161.

[324] Letters to Mrs. Montagu 3. 251 and 224.

[326] ‘The Temple Classics’ and ‘Everyman’s Library.’

[328] Johnsonian Miscellanies 2. 11.

[329] Numbers 44 and 100. They were reprinted in the editions of her collected poems.

[330] Young praised her in his poem Resignation (Part 2). Like Eve, Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Montagu have ‘caused a fall—A fall of fame in man.’ He institutes a comparison with Addison. But Lord Lyttelton is even bolder: Carter’s singing reminds him at times of the angels singing over Bethlehem and at times of Sappho,

‘Greece shall no more

Of Lesbian Sappho boast.... For the sacred head

Of Britain’s poetess the Virtues twine

A nobler wreath.’

—On reading Miss Carter’s Poems in Manuscript. Mr. Smelt told Fanny Burney that he considered Mrs. Carter’s Ode the best in the language. Diary 4. 222.

[331] Poems on Several Subjects, 3d edition, 1776, p. 94, ‘To Mrs. Vesey.’

[332] Letters to Mrs. Montagu 3. 224.

[335] Series of Letters 3. 288.

[336] Letters to Mrs. Montagu 1. 313.

[339] Series of Letters 4. 112.

[340] Dedication to the Letters.

[341] Correspondence of Mrs. Delany 5. 93; 14 January 1775.

[342] Ib. 5. 55, 309.

[343] Posthumous Works of Mrs. Chapone 1. 163.

[344] Her letters to Pepys, printed by Mrs. Gaussen, in A Later Pepys, are not so interesting. There is a charming note to Fanny Burney in the Diary 5. 50.

[345] Roberts’s Memoirs of Hannah More 1. 47.

[347] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 63.

[349] See above, pp. 147 ff.; 175.

[350] Notably the Inflexible Captive, based on the story of Regulus.

[352] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 140.

[353] Ib. See above, p. 155.

[354] Roberts 1. 130.

[355] Letters 10. 166-67; 11 December 1777.

[356] Diary of Madame D’Arblay 1. 148 (1778).

[357] The ‘sacred’ dramas, Moses in the Bulrushes, David and Goliath, Belshazzar, and Daniel, escaped the contamination of the stage.

[358] Roberts 2. 153.

[360] Roberts 2. 111.

[362] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 62.

[363] See ‘Advice to the Herald.’

[364] Forbes’s Life of Beattie 1. 195; letter to Gregory, 13 March 1771.

[366] M. Forbes’s Beattie and his Friends, p. 66.

[368] Forbes’s Life of Beattie 1. 255; May 1773.

[369] Ib. 1. 260. Extract from Beattie’s Diary; 21 May 1773.

[370] Correspondence of Mrs. Delany 4. 516; 13 June 1773.

[371] M. Forbes, op. cit. 78. In this matter Johnson’s view happened to coincide with hers (ib. p. 90).

[373] Ib. pp. 95-6.

[374] Essays, Edinburgh 1776.

[375] M. Forbes, p. 120.

[376] Beattie, always nervous about his Scotticisms, was flutteringly pleased, and some time later repaid her with this astounding piece of flattery: ‘My models of English are Addison and those who write like Addison, particularly yourself, Madam, and Lord Lyttelton. We may be allowed to imitate what we cannot hope to equal.’ Forbes’s Life 2. 115; 30 January 1783.

[377] Forbes’s Life 2. 132 and M. Forbes, op. cit. p. 110.

[378] Arbuthnot. Forbes’s Life 1. 203 and n.

[379] He wrote that he had ‘been making some progress in a little work of which you saw a sketch at Sandelford, and which you did me the honour to read and approve of. It was your approbation and that of the Bishop of Chester and Sir William Forbes that determined me to revise, correct, and enlarge it, with a view to publication.’ Forbes 2. 164.

[380] See Forbes’s Beattie 2. 41.

[381] Literary Anecdotes of E. H. Barker, London 1852.

[382] Inquiry into some Passages in Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, particularly his Observations on Lyric Poetry and the Odes of Gray. London 1783.

[383] Letters 13. 5.

[384] Cowper’s Letters, edited by Thomas Wright, 3. 267.

[385] Cowper’s Letters, edited by Thomas Wright, 3. 306; 21 August 1788; cf. 3. 266; 267; 277.

[386] In March he wrote to Mrs. Throckmorton, ‘The two first books of my Iliad have been submitted to the inspection and scrutiny of a great critic of your sex, at the instance of my cousin, as you may suppose. The lady is mistress of more tongues than a few (it is to be hoped she is single) and particularly she is mistress of the Greek.’ Letters 3. 444; 21 March 1790. The book was published in July 1791.

[387] Letters 3. 439; 8 March 1790.

[388] See the accompanying illustration.

[389] Barry’s Series of Engravings in the ... Society of Arts, London 1808.

[390] Walpole’s Letters 4. 319; 8 November 1759.

[391] Ib. 11. 410; 3 March 1781.

[392] In his edition of the Diary of Madame D’Arblay.

[393] See Melville’s Life of Sterne 1. 289 ff. and Climenson’s Letters of Mrs. Montagu 2. 270 ff.

[394] Correspondence of David Garrick 2. 189; 3 November 1776.

[396] Correspondence of David Garrick 1. 388 ff.

[397] A Later Pepys 2. 283.

[398] Posthumous Works of Mrs. Chapone 1. 151.

[399] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 363; 1784.

[400] Correspondence of Mrs. Delany 6. 209; 22 January 1784.

[401] Letters 13. 214; 13 November 1784.

[402] Letters 13. 432; 22 December 1786.

[403] Wraxall’s Historical Memoirs 1. 115.

[404] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 2. 225; April 1790.

[405] Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works 1. 163; journal for May 1763.

[406] Private Letters of Gibbon 1. 31; 25 March 1763.

[407] See above, p. 123. As early as 1769, Mrs. Carter had long regretted that he had left ‘the tranquil pleasures of select society for the turbulent schemes of ambition.’ Letters to Mrs. Montagu 2. 23.

[408] Miss Burney was well aware of the difference here noted. In talking with Wyndham of Johnson’s life at Streatham, she gave ‘a little history of his way of life there,—his good humour, his sport, his kindness, his sociability, and all the many excellent qualities that, in the world at large, were by so many means obscured.’ Diary 3. 477.

[409] ‘Cette littérature devait briller des le dix-septième siècle, puisque dès lors se forme et se propage en France l’esprit de société.... Avant cet âge, en France du moins, les salons n’existent pas.’ P. de Julleville’s Histoire de la Littérature Française 5. 600.

[410] Letters, ed. Bradshaw, 1. 55.

[411] Memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh 2. 172.

[412] Diary of Madame D’Arblay 2. 266.

[413] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 2. 26; cf. Walpole’s Letters 14. 65 et passim.

[414] Letters 7. 9-10.

[417] Madame Necker asserted that he was ‘as like Madame de Sévigné as two peas.’ Letters 10. 80. Horace Mann had noticed the similarity many years before. Ib. 2. 410.

[418] Letters 7. 137; 13 October 1767.

[419] Boswell’s Life 4. 102.

[420] Letters 8. 427; 23 February 1774.

[421] These letters he prepared for the press after they had been returned to him by Mann. In August 1784 he wrote: ‘I have been counting how many letters I have written to you since I landed in England in 1741: they amount—astonishing!—to above eight hundred; and we have not met in three-and-forty years! A correspondence of near half a century is, I suppose, not to be paralleled in the annals of the post office!’ Letters 13. 182.

[422] In sending to Mason the letters which Gray had written to him, Walpole wrote: ‘I need not say that there are several things you will find it necessary to omit.... It is much better to give them [the public] nothing, than what they do not comprehend and which they consequently misunderstand, because they will think they comprehend, and which, therefore, must mistake. I do not know whether it is not best that good writings should appear very late, for they who by being nearest in time are nearest to understanding them, are also nearest to misapprehending.’ Letters 8. 202; 19 September 1772.

[423] Letters 8. 376; 8 December 1773.

[424] Letters 9. 308; 21 December 1775.

[425] Roberts’s Memoirs of More 1. 51; cf. 1. 235.

[426] Lettres à Walpole 1. 591; 4 July 1769.

[427] Letters, ed. Thomas, 2. 257; 20 July 1754.

[428] ‘J’aurais bien du plaisir de pouvoir lire vos lettres avec quelqu’un qui en sentirait le mérite et avec qui j’en pourrais rire.’ Lettres à Walpole 1. 9; 21 April 1766.