Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Lewis Melville
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"I forgot to tell you that from Octavia's first serving the old lady,
there came frequent charities in her name to her poor parent, which
nobody was surprised at, the lady being celebrated for pious works, and
Octavia known to be a great favourite with her. It is now discovered
that they were all sent by the generous lover, who has presented Don
Joseph very handsomely, but he has brought neither letter nor message to
the house of Ardinghi, which affords much speculation."
Lady Mary followed this narrative with her reflections. She was sure
that all these adventures proceeded from artifice on one side and
weakness on the other. "An honest, tender mind," she says, "is betrayed
to ruin by the charms that make the fortune of a designing head, which,
when joined with a beautiful face, can never fail of advancement, except
barred by a wise mother, who locks up her daughters from view till
nobody cares to look on them." She instanced the case of "my poor
friend" the Duchess of Bolton, who "was educated in solitude, with some
choice books, by a saint-like governess: crammed with virtue and good
qualities, she thought it impossible not to find gratitude, though she
failed to give passion; and upon this plan threw away her estate, was
despised by her husband, and laughed at by the public." Lady Mary
compared the case of the Duchess with that of "Polly, bred in an
ale-house, and produced on the stage, who has obtained wealth and title,
and found the way to be esteemed." This particular instance hardly
furnishes the basis for the general rule laid down by her: "So useful is
early experience--without it half of life is dissipated in correcting
the errors that we have been taught to receive as indisputable truths."
According to all accounts Charles Paulet, third Duke of Bolton, was at
the age of twenty-eight forced by his father to marry Lady Anne Vaughan,
only daughter and heiress of John, Earl of Carbery. When the old Duke
died in 1722 they separated. Some years later the Duke took for his
mistress Lavinia Fenton, the "Polly" in Gay's "Beggar's Opera." On the
death of his wife in 1751 he married her.
Henry Fielding, was Lady Mary's second cousin; but there had never been
any intimacy between them, although some acquaintance. The novelist was
eighteen years the younger. In 1727, when he was twenty and near the
beginning of his career as a playwright, he had consulted her about his
comedy, "Love in Several Masques," of which, when it was published in
the following year, he sent her a copy. "I have presumed to send your
Ladyship a copy of the play which you did me the honour of reading three
acts last spring and hope it may meet as light a censure from your
Ladyship's judgment as then; for while your goodness permits me (what I
esteem the greatest and indeed only happening of my life) to offer my
unworthy performances to your perusal, it will be entirely from your
sentence that they will be regarded or disesteemed by me." Fielding
wrote Lady Mary another letter about four years later: "I hope your
Ladyship will honour the scenes which I presume to lay before you, with
your perusal. As they are written on a model I never yet attempted, I am
exceedingly anxious less they should find less mercy from you than my
lighter productions. It will be a slight compensation to 'The Modern
Husband' that your Ladyship's censure will defend him from the
possibility of any other reproof, since your least approbation will
always give me pleasure, infinitely superior to the loudest applauses of
a theatre. For whatever has passed your judgment may, I think, without
any imputation of immodesty, refer want of success to want of judgment
in an audience. I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon your
Ladyship at Twickenham to receive my sentence."
One evening when she arrived home, after having ridden twenty miles in
the moonlight, she found a box of books, and pouncing upon her cousin
Fielding's works, sat up all night reading.
"I think _Joseph Andrews_ better than his _Foundling._[13] I believe I
was the more struck with it, having at present a Fanny in my own house,
not only by the name, which happens to be the same, but the
extraordinary beauty, joined with an understanding yet more
extraordinary at her age, which is but few months past sixteen: she is
in the post of my chambermaid. I fancy you will tax my discretion for
taking a servant thus qualified; but my woman, who is also my
housekeeper, was always teasing me with her having too much work, and
complaining of ill-health, which determined me to take her a deputy; and
when I was at Lovere, where I drank the waters, one of the most
considerable merchants there pressed me to take this daughter of his:
her mother has an uncommon good character, and the girl has had a
better education than is usual for those of her rank; she writes a good
hand, and has been brought up to keep accounts, which she does to great
perfection; and had herself such a violent desire to serve me, that I
was persuaded to take her: I do not yet repent it from any part of her
behaviour. But there has been no peace in the family ever since she came
into it; I might say the parish, all the women in it having declared
open war with her, and the men endeavouring at treaties of a different
sort: my own woman puts herself at the head of the first party, and her
spleen is increased by having no reason for it, the young creature never
stirring from my apartment, always at needle, and never complaining of
anything."
[Footnote 13: _The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling_.]
Later Lady Mary has more to say about Fielding's books:
"H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife, in
the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure
excepted; and, I am persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are
real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr.
Booth are sorry scoundrels. All these sort of books have the same fault,
which I cannot easily pardon, being very mischievous. They place a merit
in extravagant passions, and encourage young people to hope for
impossible events, to draw them out of the misery they chose to plunge
themselves into, expecting legacies from unknown relations, and generous
benefactors to distressed virtue, as much out of nature as fairy
treasures. Fielding has really a fund of true humour, and was to be
pitied at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he
said himself, but to be a hackney writer, or a hackney coachman. His
genius deserved a better fate; but I cannot help blaming that continued
indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run through his
life, and I am afraid still remains. I guessed _Random_ to be his though
without his name. I cannot think _Ferdinand Count Fathom_ wrote by the
same hand, it is every way so much below it."
Adventures of Roderick Random_ (1748) and _The Adventures of Ferdinand
Count Fathom_ (1753) were published anonymously. Lady Mary was not the
only one to attribute _Roderick Random_ to Fielding, and it was actually
translated into French in his name.
When Lady Mary heard of Fielding's death, she expressed deep regret:
"I am sorry for H. Fielding's death, not only as I shall read no more of
his writings, but I believe he lost more than others, as no man enjoyed
life more than he did, though few had less reason to do so, the highest
of his preferment being raking in the lowest sinks of vice and misery. I
should think it a nobler and less nauseous employment to be one of the
staff-officers that conduct the nocturnal weddings. His happy
constitution (even when he had, with great pains, half demolished it)
made him forget everything when he was before a venison pasty, or over a
flask of champagne; and I am persuaded he has known more happy moments
than any prince upon earth. His natural spirits gave him rapture with
his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was fluxing in a garret. There
was a great similitude between his character and that of Sir Richard
Steele. He had the advantage both in learning and, in my opinion,
genius: they both agreed in wanting money in spite of all their friends,
and would have wanted it, if their hereditary lands had been as
extensive as their imagination; yet each of them was so formed for
happiness; it is a pity he was not immortal."
Writing of imaginative prose literature generally, Lady Mary wrote:
"The general want of invention which reigns among our writers, inclines
me to think it is not the natural growth of our island, which has not
sun enough to warm the imagination. The press is loaded by the servile
flock of imitators. Lord B. [Bolingbroke] would have quoted Horace in
this place. Since I was born, no original has appeared excepting
Congreve and Fielding, who would, I believe, have approached nearer to
his excellences, if not forced by necessity to publish without
correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have
thrown into the fire if meat could have been got without money, or money
without scribbling. The greatest virtue, justice, and the most
distinguishing prerogative of mankind, writing, when duly executed, do
honour to human nature; but when degenerated into trades, are the most
contemptible ways of getting bread. I am sorry not to see any more of
Peregrine Pickle's performances: I wish you would tell me his name."
It appears strange that Lady Mary should have been ignorant, when she
wrote the above passage in July or August, 1755, of the authorship of
_Roderick Random_, for in January of that year she had evinced an
interest in Smollett: "I am sorry my friend Smollett loses his time in
translations; he has certainly a talent for invention, though I think it
flags a little in his last work. _Don Quixote_ is a difficult
undertaking: I shall never desire to read any attempt to redress him.
Though I am a mere piddler in the Spanish language, I had rather take
pains to understand him in the original than sleep over a stupid
translation."
_Peregrine Pickle_, however, Lady Mary had read shortly after its
appearance in 1751:
"I began by your direction with _Peregrine Pickle_. I think Lady Vane's
_Memoirs_[14] contain more truth and less malice than any I ever read in
my life. When she speaks of her own being disinterested, I am apt to
believe she really thinks herself so, as many highwaymen, after having
no possibility of retrieving the character of honesty, please themselves
with that of being generous, because, whatever they get on the road,
they always spend at the next ale-house, and are still as beggarly as
ever. Her history, rightly considered, would be more instructive to
young women than any sermon I know. They may see there what
mortifications and variety of misery are the unavoidable consequences of
gallantries. I think there is no rational creature that would not prefer
the life of the strictest Carmelite to the round of hurry and misfortune
she has gone through. Her style is clear and concise, with some strokes
of humour, which appear to me so much above her, I can't help being of
opinion the whole has been modelled by the author of the book in which
it is inserted, who is some subaltern admirer of hers. I may judge
wrong, she being no acquaintance of mine, though she has married two of
my relations. Her first wedding was attended with circumstances that
made me think a visit not at all necessary, though I disobliged Lady
Susan by neglecting it; and the second, which happened soon after, made
her so near a neighbour, that I rather choose to stay the whole summer
in town than partake of her balls and parties of pleasure, to which I
did not think it proper to introduce you; and had no other way of
avoiding it, without incurring the censure of a most unnatural mother
for denying you diversions that the pious Lady Ferrers permitted to her
exemplary daughters. Mr. Shirley has had uncommon fortune in making the
conquest of two such extraordinary ladies, equal in their heroic
contempt of shame, and eminent above their sex, the one for beauty, and
the other wealth, both which attract the pursuit of all mankind, and
have been thrown into his arms with the same unlimited fondness. He
appeared to me gentile [_sic_], well bred, well shaped and sensible; but
the charms of his face and eyes, which Lady Vane describes with so much
warmth, were, I confess, always invisible to me, and the artificial part
of his character very glaring, which I think her story shows in a strong
light."
[Footnote 14: Frances Anne Hawes (1713-1788) married Lord William
Douglas in 1731, and after his death, William, second Viscount Vane, in
1735. She was notorious for profligacy and extravagance of all kinds.
She was responsible for the scandalous _Memoirs of a Lady of Quality_
which she paid Smollett to insert in _Peregrine Pickle_.]
Of minor novelists Lady Mary had also something to say from time to
time.
"Sally [Fielding] has mended her style in her last volume of _David
Simple_, which conveys a useful moral, though she does not seem to have
intended it: I mean, shows the ill consequences of not providing against
casual losses, which happen to almost everybody. Mrs. Orgueil's
character is well drawn, and is frequently to be met with. The _Art of
Tormenting_, the _Female Quixote_[15] and _Sir C. Goodville_ are all
sale work. I suppose they proceed from her pen, and heartily pity her,
constrained by her circumstances to seek her bread by a method, I do not
doubt, she despises. Tell me who is that accomplished countess she
celebrates. I left no such person in London; nor can I imagine who is
meant by the English Sappho mentioned in Betsy Thoughtless, whose
adventures and those of Jenny Jessamy, gave me some amusement."
[Footnote 15: By Charlotte Lennox.]
"I have read _The Cry_[16] and if I would write in the style to be
admired by good Lord Orrery, I would tell you _The Cry_ made me ready to
cry, and the _Art of Tormenting_ tormented me very much. I take them to
be Sally Fielding's, and also the _Female Quixote_; the plan of that is
pretty, but ill executed: on the contrary, the fable of _The Cry_ is the
most absurd I ever saw, but the sentiments generally just; and I think,
if well dressed, would make a better body of ethics than Bolingbroke's.
Her inventing new words, that are neither more harmonious or significant
than those already in use, is intolerable.
[Footnote 16: By Sarah Fielding and Miss Collier.]
"The next book I laid my hand on was _The Parish Girl_ which interested
me enough not to be able to quit it till it was read over, though the
author has fallen into the common mistake of romance-writers; intending
a virtuous character, and not knowing how to draw it; the first step of
his heroine (leaving her patroness's house) being altogether absurd and
ridiculous, justly entitling her to all the misfortunes she met with.
"Candles came (and my eyes grown weary), I took up the next book, merely
because I supposed from the title it could not engage me long. It was
_Pompey the Little_,[17] which has really diverted me more than any of
the others, and it was impossible to go to bed till it was finished. It
was a real and exact representation of life, as it is now acted in
London, as it was in my time, and as it will be (I do not doubt) a
hundred years hence, with some little variation of dress, and perhaps
government. I found there many of my acquaintance. Lady T. and Lady O.
are so well painted, I fancied I heard them talk, and have heard them
say the very things there repeated....
[Footnote 17: By Francis Coventry.]
"I opened my eyes this morning on _Leonora_, from which I defy the
greatest chemist in morals to extract any instruction; the style most
affectedly florid, and naturally insipid, with such a confused heap of
admirable characters, that never were, or can be, in human nature. I
flung it aside after fifty pages, and laid hold of _Mrs. Philips_, where
I expected to find at least probable, if not true facts, and was not
disappointed. There is a great similitude in the genius and adventures
(the one being productive of the other) between Madame Constantia and
Lady Vane: the first mentioned has the advantage in birth and, if I am
not mistaken, in understanding: they have both had scandalous lawsuits
with their husbands, and are endowed with the same intrepid assurance.
Con. seems to value herself also on her generosity, and has given the
same proofs of it. The parallel might be drawn out to be as long as any
of Plutarch's; but I dare swear you are already heartily weary of my
remarks, and wish I had not read so much in so short a time, that you
might not be troubled with my comments; but you must suffer me to say
something of the polite Mr. Ste, whose name I should never have guessed
by the rapturous description his mistress makes of his person, having
always looked upon him as one of the most disagreeable fellows about
town, as odious in his outside as stupid in his conversation, and I
should as soon have expected to hear of his conquests at the head of an
army as among women; yet he has been, it seems, the darling favourite of
the most experienced of the sex, which shows me I am a very bad judge of
merit. But I agree with Mrs. Philips, that, however profligate she may
have been, she is infinitely his superior in virtue; and if her
penitence is as sincere as she says, she may expect their future fate to
be like that of Dives and Lazarus."
Lady Mary received from her daughter a copy of Lord Orrery's _Remarks on
the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift_, published in 1751, six years
after the death of Swift. This book so aroused the ire of Lady Mary
that, writing of it, she attacked everyone concerned.
"Lord Orrery's work has extremely entertained, and not at all surprised
me, having the honour of being acquainted with him, and knowing him for
one of those danglers after wit, who, like those after beauty, spend
their time in humbly admiring, and are happy in being permitted to
attend, though they are laughed at, and only encouraged to gratify the
insatiate vanity of those professed wits and beauties who aim at being
publicly distinguished in those characters. Dean Swift, by his
lordship's own account, was so intoxicated with the love of flattery, he
sought it amongst the lowest of the people, and the silliest of women;
and was never so well pleased with any companions as those that
worshipped him while he insulted them. It is a wonderful condescension
in a man of quality to offer his incense in such a crowd, and think it
an honour to share a friendship with Sheridan, &c., especially being
himself endowed with such universal merit as he displays in these
Letters, where he shows that he is a poet, a patriot, a philosopher, a
physician, a critic, a complete scholar, and most excellent moralist;
shining in private life as a submissive son, a tender father, and
zealous friend. His only error has been that love of learned ease which
he has indulged in a solitude, which has prevented the world from being
blest with such a general, minister, or admiral, being equal to any of
these employments, if he would have turned his talents to the use of the
public. Heaven be praised, he has now drawn his pen in its service, and
given an example to mankind that the most villanous actions, nay, the
coarsest nonsense, are only small blemishes in a great genius. I happen
to think quite contrary, weak woman as I am. I have always avoided the
conversation of those who endeavour to raise an opinion of their
understanding by ridiculing what both law and decency obliges them to
revere; but, whenever I have met with any of those bright spirits who
would be smart on sacred subjects, I have ever cut short their discourse
by asking them if they had any lights and revelations by which they
would propose new articles of faith? Nobody can deny but religion is a
comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a
restraint on the wicked; therefore, whoever would argue or laugh it out
of the world, without giving some equivalent for it, ought to be treated
as a common enemy: but, when this language comes from a churchman, who
enjoys large benefices and dignities from that very Church he openly
despises, it is an object of horror for which I want a name, and can
only be excused by madness, which I think the Dean was strongly touched
with. His character seems to me a parallel with that of Caligula; and
had he had the same power would have made the same use of it. That
emperor erected a temple to himself, where he was his own high priest,
preferred his horse to the highest honours in the state, professed
enmity to [the] human race, and at last lost his life by a nasty jest on
one of his inferiors, which I dare swear Swift would have made in his
place. There can be no worse picture made of the Doctor's morals than he
has given us himself in the letters printed by Pope. We see him vain,
trifling, ungrateful to the memory of his patron, the Earl of Oxford,
making a servile court where he had any interested views, and meanly
abusive when they were disappointed, and, as he says (in his own
phrase), flying in the face of mankind, in company with his adorer Pope.
It is pleasant to consider, that, had it not been for the good nature
of these very mortals they contemn, these two superior beings were
entitled, by their birth and hereditary fortune, to be only a couple of
link-boys. I am of opinion their friendship would have continued, though
they had remained in the same kingdom: it had a very strong
foundation--the love of flattery on the one side, and the love of money
on the other. Pope courted with the utmost assiduity all the old men
from whom he could hope a legacy, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord
Peterborough, Sir G. Kneller, Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Wycherley, Mr.
Congreve, Lord Harcourt, &c., and I do not doubt projected to sweep the
Dean's whole inheritance, if he could have persuaded him to throw up his
deanery, and come to die in his house; and his general preaching against
money was meant to induce people to throw it away, that he might pick it
up. There cannot be a stronger proof of his being capable of any action
for the sake of gain than publishing his literary correspondence, which
lays open such a mixture of dulness and iniquity, that one would imagine
it visible even to his most passionate admirers, if Lord Orrery did not
show that smooth lines have as much influence over some people as the
authority of the Church in these countries, where it cannot only veil,
but sanctify any absurdity or villany whatever. It is remarkable that
his lordship's family have been smatterers in wit and learning for three
generations: his grandfather has left monuments of his good taste in
several rhyming tragedies, and the romance of Parthenissa. His father
began the world by giving his name to a treatise wrote by Atterbury and
his club, which gained him great reputation; but (like Sir Martin
Marall, who would fumble with his lute when the music was over) he
published soon after a sad comedy of his own, and, what was worse, a
dismal tragedy he had found among the first Earl of Orrery's papers.
People could easier forgive his being partial to his own silly works, as
a common frailty, than the want of judgment in producing a piece that
dishonoured his father's memory.
"Thus fell into dust a fame that had made a blaze by borrowed fire. To
do justice to the present lord, I do not doubt this fine performance is
all his own, and is a public benefit, if every reader has been as well
diverted with it as myself. I verily believe it has contributed to the
establishment of my health."
Nor was Lady Mary more kindly about the writings and character of Lord
Bolingbroke, for whom she had always had a feeling even more of hatred
than disapproval.
"I have now read over the books you were so good to send, and intend to
say something of them all, though some are not worth speaking of" (she
wrote to her daughter). "I shall begin, in respect to his dignity, with
Lord Bolingbroke, who is a glaring proof how far vanity can blind a man,
and how easy it is to varnish over to one's self the most criminal
conduct. He declares he always loved his country, though he confesses he
endeavoured to betray her to popery and slavery; and loved his friends,
though he abandoned them in distress, with all the blackest
circumstances of treachery. His account of the Peace of Utrecht is
almost equally unfair or partial: I shall allow that, perhaps, the views
of the Whigs, at that time, were too vast and the nation, dazzled by
military glory, had hopes too sanguine; but sure the same terms that the
French consented to, at the treaty of Gertruydenberg, might have been
obtained; or if the displacing of the Duke of Marlborough raised the
spirits of our enemies to a degree of refusing what they had before
offered, how can he excuse the guilt of removing him from the head of a
victorious army, and exposing us to submit to any articles of peace,
being unable to continue the war? I agree with him, that the idea of
conquering France is a wild, extravagant notion, and would, if possible,
be impolitic; but she might have been reduced to such a state as would
have rendered her incapable of being terrible to her neighbours for some
ages: nor should we have been obliged, as we have done almost ever
since, to bribe the French ministers to let us live in quiet. So much
for his political reasonings, which, I confess, are delivered in a
florid, easy style; but I cannot be of Lord Orrery's opinion, that he is
one of the best English writers. Well-turned periods or smooth lines are
not the perfection either of prose or verse; they may serve to adorn,
but can never stand in the place of good sense. Copiousness of words,
however ranged, is always false eloquence, though it will ever impose on
some sort of understandings. How many readers and admirers has Madame de
Sevigne, who only gives us, in a lively manner and fashionable phrases,
mean sentiments, vulgar prejudices, and endless repetitions? Sometimes
the tittle-tattle of a fine lady, sometimes that of an old nurse, always
tittle-tattle; yet so well gilt over by airy expressions, and a flowing
style, she will always please the same people to whom Lord Bolingbroke
will shine as a first-rate author. She is so far to be excused, as her
letters were not intended for the press; while her labours to display to
posterity all the wit and learning he is master of, and sometimes spoils
a good argument by a profusion of words, running out into several pages
a thought that might have been more clearly expressed in a few lines,
and, what is worse, often falls into contradiction and repetitions,
which are almost unavoidable to all voluminous writers, and can only be
forgiven to those retailers whose necessity compels them to diurnal
scribbling, who load their meaning with epithets, and run into
digressions, because (in the jockey phrase) it rids the ground, that is,
covers a certain quantity of paper, to answer the demand of the day. A
great part of Lord B.'s letters are designed to show his reading, which,
indeed, appears to have been very extensive; but I cannot perceive that
such a minute account of it can be of any use to the pupil he pretends
to instruct; nor can I help thinking he is far below either Tillotson or
Addison, even in style, though the latter was sometimes more diffuse
than his judgment approved, to furnish out the length of a daily
_Spectator_. I own I have small regard for Lord B. as an author, and the
highest contempt for him as a man. He came into the world greatly
favoured both by nature and fortune, blest with a noble birth, heir to
a large estate, endowed with a strong constitution, and, as I have
heard, a beautiful figure, high spirits, a good memory and a lively
apprehension, which was cultivated by a learned education: all these
glorious advantages being left to the direction of a judgment stifled by
unbounded vanity, he dishonoured his birth, lost his estate, ruined his
reputation, and destroyed his health, by a wild pursuit of eminence even
in vice and trifles.