Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Lewis Melville
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The second Earl was Henry Pierrepont, who was born in 1607. From 1628,
when his father was given the earldom, he was known under the style of
Viscount Newark. In that year he was elected Member of Parliament for
Nottingham, and he represented that constituency until 1641, when he was
summoned to the House of Lords in his father's barony as Lord
Pierrepont. He, too, was an ardent supporter of the King, and was a
member of His Majesty's Council of War at Oxford. He was created
Marquess of Dorchester in 1645. After the Restoration he was in high
favour at Whitehall. He was Commissioner of Claims at the Coronation of
Charles II, and in 1662 and again in 1673 he acted as Joint Commissioner
of the office of Earl Marshal. He was twice married, but had no direct
heirs, and on his death in 1680 the marquessate became extinct.
The earldom passed to the family of the younger brother of the last
holder. This was the great grandfather of Lady Mary, William Pierrepont,
who deservedly earned the title of "Wise William." He sided with the
Parliament, and during the Long Parliament, in the proceedings of which
he took an active part, he sat for Great Wenlock. He was one of the
Commissioners selected to treat with Charles in 1642, and after the
failure to open negotiations he was anxious to retire from public
affairs. However, he was persuaded not to resign, and in 1644 was
appointed one of the Committee of both Kingdoms. He became a leader of
the independent party, and did not always see eye to eye with Cromwell.
He quarrelled with his party, disapproving of its attitude towards
Purge's Pride and the trial of the King. After this he took little part
in politics, though the Protector sought, and he gave on occasions, his
advice. In February, 1660, he was elected to the new Council of State at
the head of the list, and in the Convention Parliament represented
Nottingham. In the negotiations with Charles II he was a moderating
influence. Afterwards, he retired into private life. He died in 1678 or
1679. His eldest son, Robert, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
John Evelyn, pre-deceased his father, dying in 1666, and the earldom
passed to his eldest son, Robert, who died unmarried in 1682. The title
then went to his next brother, William, who died without issue eight
years later.
A younger brother of Robert and William, Evelyn Pierrepont, now
succeeded as (fifth) earl. He was the father of Lady Mary. Born in 1665,
he was returned to Parliament for East Retford in 1689, but his stay in
the House of Commons was brief, for in the following year the peerage
descended to him. In December, 1706, the higher dignity that had once
been in his family was revived in his favour, and he was created Earl of
Dorchester, with a special remainder, failing heirs male of his body, to
his uncle Gervase Pierrepont, who had himself been raised to the peerage
as Lord Pierrepont of Ardglass in Ireland and later was given the
dignity of Lord Pierrepont of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire. Lord
Pierrepont died in 1715, and both his titles became extinct.
The Marquess married Mary, daughter of William Feilding, third Earl of
Denbigh, by his first wife, Mary, sister of John, first Baron of
Kingston, in the peerage of Ireland. Lady Mary was, therefore, a
relation of the novelist, Henry Fielding, whose surname was spelt
differently because, he explained, his branch of the family was the only
one that could spell correctly.
Of this marriage, there was issue:
(i.) William, who took the style of Viscount Newark until 1706, and then
was known as Earl of Kingston until his death in 1713, at the age of
twenty-one. He had married before 1711 Rachel, daughter of Thomas
Baynton, of Little Charfield, Wilts, who outlived her husband eight
years. There was a son, Evelyn, who succeeded to the peerage.
(ii.) Lady Mary, the subject of this memoir.
(iii.) Lady Frances, who in 1714 became the second wife of John Erskine,
sixth or eleventh Earl of Mar; and
(iv.) Lady Evelyn, who married John, second Baron, and afterwards first
Earl Gower, and died in June, 1727.
In the winter of 1697, when Lady Mary was eight years old, her mother
died. After this, the little girl was allowed to run rather wild. Lord
Kingston was very much a man about town and a gallant, and was too
greatly occupied with his affairs and his parliamentary duties, which
took him often from home, to concern himself about her education. In
fact, before her mother's death, it would seem that Lady Mary spent
months at her grandmother's, Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont, at her house at
West Dean. When she was in her ninth year she returned to Holme
Pierrepont, where, as she later complained, she was left "to the care of
an old governess, who, though perfectly good and pious, wanted
capacity."
Lady Mary early had a taste for books, and enjoyed to the full the
library, where she no doubt read much that was good for her, and a good
deal that was not. She read everything that she could lay her hands on,
the old romances, poetry, and plays. One account has it that she was
taught Greek and Latin by her brother's tutor; but Sir Leslie Stephen
was doubtful about the Greek and inclined to the belief that she taught
herself Latin. Later, certainly, she taught herself Italian, and quoted
Tasso in her letters. In her studies she was encouraged by her uncle,
William Feilding, and also by Bishop Burnet, of whom she said many
years later: "I knew him in my very early youth, and his condescension
in directing a girl in her studies is an obligation I can never forget."
She had literary aspirations, and just after her twenty-first birthday
she submitted to Burnet, with the following letter, a translation of
"Encheiridion" of Epictetus from the Latin version. This will be found
in the collected works.
"July 20, 1710.
"My Lord,
"Your hours are so well employed, I hardly dare offer you this trifle to
look over; but then, so well am I acquainted with the sweetness of
temper which accompanies your learning, I dare ever assure myself of a
pardon. You have already forgiven me greater impertinencies, and
condescended yet further in giving me instructions and bestowing some of
your minutes in teaching me. This surprising humility has all the effect
it ought to have on my heart; I am sensible of the gratitude I owe to so
much goodness, and how much I am ever bound to be your servant. Here is
the work of one week of my solitude--by the many faults in it your
lordship will easily believe I spent no more time upon it; it was hardly
finished when I was obliged to begin my journey, and I had not leisure
to write it over again. You have it here without any corrections, with
all its blots and errors: I endeavoured at no beauty of style, but to
keep as literally as I could to the sense of the author. My only
intention in presenting it, is to ask your lordship whether I have
understood Epictetus? The fourth chapter, particularly, I am afraid I
have mistaken. Piety and greatness of soul set you above all misfortunes
that can happen to yourself, and the calumnies of false tongues; but
that same piety which renders what happens to yourself indifferent to
you, yet softens the natural compassion in your temper to the greatest
degree of tenderness for the interests of the Church, and the liberty
and welfare of your country: the steps that are now made towards the
destruction of both, the apparent danger we are in, the manifest growth
of injustice, oppression, and hypocrisy, cannot do otherwise than give
your lordship those hours of sorrow, which, did not your fortitude of
soul, and reflections from religion and philosophy, shorten, would add
to the national misfortunes, by injuring the health of so great a
supporter of our sinking liberties. I ought to ask pardon for this
digression; it is more proper for me in this place to say something to
excuse an address that looks so very presuming. My sex is usually forbid
studies of this nature, and folly reckoned so much our proper sphere, we
are sooner pardoned any excesses of that, than the least pretensions to
reading or good sense. We are permitted no books but such as tend to the
weakening and effeminating of the mind. Our natural defects are every
way indulged, and it is looked upon as in a degree criminal to improve
our reason, or fancy we have any. We are taught to place all our art in
adorning our outward forms, and permitted, without reproach, to carry
that custom even to extravagancy, while our minds are entirely
neglected, and, by disuse of reflections, filled with nothing but the
trifling objects our eyes are daily entertained with. This custom, so
long established and industriously upheld, makes it even ridiculous to
go out of the common road, and forces one to find as many excuses, as if
it were a thing altogether criminal not to play the fool in concert with
other women of quality, whose birth and leisure only serve to render
them the most useless and most worthless part of the creation. There is
hardly a character in the world more despicable, or more liable to
universal ridicule, than that of a learned woman; those words imply,
according to the received sense, a talking, impertinent, vain, and
conceited creature. I believe nobody will deny that learning may have
this effect, but it must be a very superficial degree of it. Erasmus was
certainly a man of great learning, and good sense, and he seems to have
my opinion of it, when he says _Foemina qui_ [sic] _vere sapit, non
videtur sibi sapere; contra, quae cum nihil sapiat sibi videtur sapere,
ea demum bis stulta est_. The Abbe Bellegarde gives a right reason for
women's talking overmuch: they know nothing, and every outward object
strikes their imagination, and produces a multitude of thoughts, which,
if they knew more, they would know not worth their thinking of. I am not
now arguing for an equality of the two sexes. I do not doubt God and
nature have thrown us into an inferior rank, we are a lower part of the
creation, we owe obedience and submission to the superior sex, and any
woman who suffers her vanity and folly to deny this, rebels against the
law of the Creator, and indisputable order of nature; but there is a
worse effect than this, which follows the careless education given to
women of quality, its being so easy for any man of sense, that finds it
either his interest or his pleasure, to corrupt them. The common method
is, to begin by attacking their religion: they bring them a thousand
fallacious arguments, which their excessive ignorance hinders them from
refuting: and I speak now from my own knowledge and conversation among
them, there are more atheists among the fine ladies than the loosest
sort of rakes; and the same ignorance that generally works out into
excess of superstition, exposes them to the snares of any who have a
fancy to carry them to t'other extreme. I have made my excuses already
too long, and will conclude in the words of Erasmus:--_Vulgus sentit
quod lingua Latina, non convenit foeminis, quia parum facit ad tuendam
illarum pundicitiam, quoniam rarum et insolitum est foeminam scire
Latinam; attamen consuetudo omnium malarum rerum magistra. Decorum est
foeminam in Germania nata_ [sic] _discere Gallice, ut loquatur_ _cum his
qui sciunt Gallice; cur igitur habetur indecorum discere Latine, ut
quotidie confabuletur cum tot autoribus tam facundis, tam eruditis, tam
sapientibus, tam fides consultoribus. Certe mihi quantulumcunque cerebri
est, malim in bonis studiis consumere, quam in precibus sine mente
dictis, in pernoctibus conviviis, in exhauriendis, capacibus pateris,
&c."_
This was not the sort of letter that in the opening years of the
eighteenth century even Bishops received from young ladies of rank, who
usually took their pleasure in other and lighter ways. Lady Mary,
however, loved to exercise her pen. She later composed some imitations of
Ovid, and tried her hand at one or two romances in the French manner.
She thus acquired a facility of expression that stood her in good stead
when she came to write those letters that constitute her principal claim
to fame.
Lady Mary was an attractive child, and her father was very proud of her,
especially when she was in what may be called the kitten stage. The
story is told that, when she was about eight years old, he named her as
a "toast" at the Kit-Cat Club, and as she was not known to the majority
of the members he sent for her, where, on her arrival, she was received
with acclamation by the Whig wits there assembled.
Sometimes Lady Mary in her girlhood stayed at Thoresby, and occasionally
came up to her father's London house, which was in Arlington Street,
which visits, accepting the story told by her granddaughter, Lady Louisa
Stuart, cannot have been an unmixed delight. "Some particulars, in
themselves too insignificant to be worth recording, may yet interest the
curious, by setting before them the manners of our ancestors," Lady
Louisa says. "Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his
table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon
as she had bodily strength for the office: which in those days required
no small share. For this mistress of a country mansion was not only to
invite--that is urge and tease--her company to eat more than human
throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every dish, when
chosen, with her own hands. The greater the lady, the more indispensable
the duty. Each joint was carried up in its turn, to be operated upon by
her, and her alone; since the peers and knights on either hand were so
far from being bound to offer their assistance, that the very master of
the house, posted opposite her, might not act as her croupier, his
department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for the crowd of
guests, the most inconsiderable among them--the curate, or subaltern, or
squire's younger brother--if suffered through her neglect to help
himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed
it in bitterness and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a
wrong vote at the next election. There were then professed
carving-masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically; from
one of whom Lady Mary said she took lessons three times a week that she
might be perfect on her father's public days, when, in order to perform
her functions without interruption, she was forced to eat her own dinner
alone an hour or two beforehand."
CHAPTER II
GIRLHOOD (1703-1710)
Lady Mary makes the acquaintance of Edward Wortley Montagu--Montagu
attracted by her looks and her literary gifts--Assists her in her
studies--Montagu a friend of the leading men of letters of the
day--Addison, Steele, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and others--The second volume
of the _Tatler_ dedicated to him by Steele--Montagu a staunch Whig--His
paternal interest for Lady Mary does not endure--He becomes a suitor for
her hand--Lady Mary's devotion and respect for him--Her flirtations--She
and Montagu correspond through the medium of his sister, Anne--Lady
Mary's mordant humour--Her delight in retailing society scandal--The
death of Anne Wortley--Lady Mary and Montagu henceforth communicate
direct--Her first letter to him.
At the age of fourteen the precocious Lady Mary, when on a visit to
Wharncliffe Lodge, some thirty miles from Thoresby, made a conquest that
was vastly to influence her life. The conquest was no less a person than
Edward Wortley Montagu, son of Sidney Wortley Montagu, who was the
second son of Edward, first Earl of Sandwich, the famous Admiral of
Charles II. Sidney had taken the name of Wortley on his marriage to
Anne, daughter of Sir Francis Wortley. To Sidney Wortley Montagu, of
whom there is to-day little known, is an interesting reference in a
letter from the Earl of Danby to his wife, dated from Kiveton, September
6, 1684: "I have had Mr. Montague with me--my Lord Sandwich his son--who
lives at Wortley, and calls himself by that name, and is really a very
fine gentleman and told me he was sorry that any of his relations--much
more of his name--should have carried themselves so unjustly towards me,
and he hoped I would not have the worse opinion of him for their
ill-behaviour."
Edward Wortley Montagu, who was then twenty-five, was already a person
of some distinction. He was a good classical scholar, acquainted with
modern languages, and versed in what his grand-daughter, Lady Louisa
Stuart, styled "polite literature." He was interested in the pretty,
clever girl, and encouraged her to talk to him of her reading and
writing. "When I was very young," she said, as is recorded in the
_Anecdotes_ of the Rev. Joseph Spence, "I was a great admirer of Ovid's
'Metamorphosis,' and that was one of the reasons that set me upon the
thoughts of stealing the Latin language. Mr. Wortley was the only person
to whom I communicated my design, and he encouraged me in it. I used to
study five or six hours a day for two years in my father's library, and
so got that language whilst everybody else thought I was reading nothing
but novels and romances."
Montagu affected the company of men of letters. He was intimate with
Addison, a close friend of Steele, and on terms with Congreve, Vanbrugh,
and Garth, the author of _The Dispensary._ Steele, in fact, dedicated
the second volume of the _Tatler_ to him.
"SIR,
"When I send you this Volume, I am rather to make a Request than a
Dedication. I must desire, that if you think fit to throw away any
Moments on it, you would not do it after reading those excellent Pieces
with which you are usually conversant. The Images which you will meet
with here, will be very feint, after the Perusal of the _Greeks_ and
_Romans_, who are your ordinary Companions. I must confess I am obliged
to you for the Taste of many of their Excellencies, which I had not
observed till you pointed them to me. I am very proud that there are
some things in these Papers which I know you pardon, and it is no small
Pleasure to have one's Labours suffered by the Judgment of a Man who so
well understands the true Charms of Eloquence and Poesie. But I direct
this Address to you, not that I think I can entertain you with my
Writings, but to thank you for the new Delight I have from your
Conversation in those of other men.
"May you enjoy a long Continuance of the true Relish of the Happiness
Heaven hath bestowed on you. I know not how to say a more affectionate
Thing to you, than to wish you may be always what you are, and that you
may ever think, as I know you now do, that you have a much larger
Fortune than you want. I am,
"Sir,
"Your most Obedient and most Humble Servant,
"ISAAC BICKERSTAFF."
Montagu was also interested in politics. He was a staunch Whig, and in
favour with the leaders of his party. He sat in the House of Commons
from 1705 to 1713 as member for Huntingdon, where there was family
interest. It was not, however, until after the accession of George I
that he held office.
At first, it may be, Montagu took some kind of paternal interest in Lady
Mary. This attitude did not long endure. When the change in his feelings
took place there is no means of knowing. He does not seem to have been a
passionate man, nor a very ardent lover, but there is no doubt that at
this period he inspired the girl with a very real devotion and respect,
even though perhaps her heart was not deeply engaged.
Montagu would have had the girl find her pleasures exclusively in books
and in his own conversation. She, at the age of twenty, on the other
hand, was full of the joy of life and liked the various social pleasures
that came her way. Naturally, she tried the effect of her good looks and
wit on men. In fact, she was fond of flirting, and as it must probably
have been impossible to flirt with Montagu, she indulged herself in that
agreeable pastime with more than one other--to the great annoyance of
that pompous prig of an admirer of hers. The following letter, dated
September 5, 1709, written to Anne Wortley for her brother's perusal,
was clearly an endeavour to sooth away the man's jealousy.
"September 5, 1709.
"My dear Mrs. Wortley, as she has the entire power of raising, can also,
with a word, calm my passions. The kindness of your last recompenses me
for the injustice of your former letter; but you cannot sure be angry at
my little resentment. You have read that a man who, with patience, hears
himself called heretic, can never be esteemed a good Christian. To be
capable of preferring the despicable wretch you mention to Mr. Wortley,
is as ridiculous, if not as criminal, as forsaking the Deity to worship
a calf. Don't tell me any body ever had so mean an opinion of my
inclinations; 'tis among the number of those things I would forget. My
tenderness is always built upon my esteem, and when the foundation
perishes, it falls: I must own, I think it is so with every body--but
enough of this: you tell me it was meant for raillery--was not the
kindness meant so too? I fear I am too apt to think what is amusement
designed in earnest--no matter, 'tis for my repose to be deceived, and I
will believe whatever you tell me.
"I should be very glad to be informed of a right method, or whether
there is such a thing alone, but am afraid to ask the question. It may
be reasonably called presumption in a girl to have her thoughts that
way. You are the only creature that I have made my confidante in that
case: I'll assure you, I call it the greatest secret of my life. Adieu,
my dear, the post stays, my next shall be longer."
Lady Mary was probably more complaisant on paper than actually in her
conduct of life. She desired male as well as female companionship; she
liked the admiration and the flattery of men, and, no doubt, did her
best to evoke it. It is strange, however, that with her beauty--for that
she was in her early years beautiful has generally been accepted--she
was not unduly attractive to men. It may be that her good looks brought
young men to her feet, and that her tongue drove them away. In no age
has a clever woman been very popular with the other sex, and in the
early years of the eighteenth century, when girls could do little more
than read and write--and not always so much--wit such as hers and the
readiness of reply with which she was gifted must have been a deterrent.
What could the ordinary social butterfly think of a Lady Mary who had as
a friend Mary Ansell, the author of a _Serious Proposal to Ladies--_
what, though perhaps not one of them had read the book?
Still, there was enough levity in Lady Mary's behaviour in society for
her to think it desirable to make some explanation to Montagu.
"[Indorsed '9 April,' 1711.]
"I thought to return no answer to your letter, but I find I am not so
wise as I thought myself. I cannot forbear fixing my mind a little on
that expression, though perhaps the only insincere one in your whole
letter--I would die to be secure of your heart, though but for a
moment:--were this but true, what is there I would not do to secure you?
"I will state the case to you as plainly as I can; and then ask yourself
if you use me well. I have shewed, in every action of my life, an esteem
for you that at least challenges a grateful regard. I have trusted my
reputation in your hands; I have made no scruple of giving you, under my
own hand, an assurance of my friendship. After all this, I exact nothing
from you: if you find it inconvenient for your affairs to take so small
a fortune, I desire you to sacrifice nothing to me; I pretend no tie
upon your honour: but, in recompence for so clear and so disinterested a
proceeding, must I ever receive injuries and ill usage?
"I have not the usual pride of my sex; I can bear being told I am in the
wrong, but tell it me gently. Perhaps I have been indiscreet; I came
young into the hurry of the world; a great innocence and an undesigning
gaiety may possibly have been construed coquetry and a desire of being
followed, though never meant by me. I cannot answer for the [reflections]
that may be made on me: all who are malicious attack the careless and
defenceless: I own myself to be both. I not anything I can say more to
shew my perfect desire of pleasing you and making you easy, than to
proffer to be confined with you in what manner you please. Would any
woman but me renounce all the world for one? or would any man but you
be insensible of such a proof of sincerity?"
From an early age Lady Mary indulged her somewhat mordant humour, not
less in her letters than in her conversation, and as that quality must
have some subject upon which to exercise itself, she was generally on
the look-out for some tit-bit of scandal which she could relate in her
own inimitable manner.
"Next to the great ball, what makes the most noise is the marriage of an
old maid, who lives in this street, without a portion, to a man of
L7,000 _per annum_, and they say L40,000 in ready money," she wrote to
Mrs. Hewet about the beginning of 1709. "Her equipage and liveries
outshine anybody's in town. He has presented her with L3,000 in jewels;
and never was man more smitten with these charms that had lain invisible
for these forty years; but, with all his glory, never bride had fewer
enviers, the dear beast of a man is so filthy, frightful, odious, and
detestable. I would turn away such a footman, for fear of spoiling my
dinner, while he waited at table. They were married on Friday, and came
to church _en parade_ on Sunday. I happened to sit in the pew with them,
and had the honour of seeing Mrs. Bride fall fast asleep in the middle
of the sermon, and snore very comfortably; which made several women in
the church think the bridegroom not quite so ugly as they did before.
Envious people say 'twas all counterfeited to please him, but I believe
that to be scandal; for I dare swear, nothing but downright necessity
could make her miss one word of the sermon. He professes to have married
her for her devotion, patience, meekness, and other Christian virtues he
observed in her; his first wife (who has left no children) being very
handsome, and so good natured as to have ventured her own salvation to
secure his. He has married this lady to have a companion in that
paradise where his first has given him a title. I believe I have given
you too much of this couple; but they are not to be comprehended in few
words."