Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Lewis Melville
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"If you follow my advice in relation to Lady Mary, my correspondence may
be of use to her; and I shall very willingly give her those instructions
that may be necessary in the pursuit of her studies. Before her age I
was in the most regular commerce with my grandmother, though the
difference of our time of life was much greater, she being past
forty-five when she married my grandfather. She died at ninety-six,
retaining, to the last, the vivacity and clearness of her understanding,
which was very uncommon. You cannot remember her, being then in your
nurse's arms. I conclude with repeating to you, I only recommend, but am
far from commanding, which I think I have no right to do. I tell you my
sentiments, because you desired to know them, and hope you will receive
them with some partiality, as coming from
"Your most affectionate mother."
One of Lady Mary's friends was Cardinal Gerolamo Guerini, a distinguished
scholar as well as a great churchman. One day, in October, 1753, he sent
a request, by one of his chief chaplains, that Lady Mary would send him
her printed works for the shelves that he was dedicating to English
literature in the library attached to the college at Brescia that he had
founded.
"I was struck dumb for some time with this astonishing request; when I
recovered my vexatious surprise (foreseeing the consequence), I made
answer, I was highly sensible of the honour designed me, but, upon my
word, I had never printed a single line in my life. I was answered in a
cold tone, his Eminence could send for them to England, but they would
be a long time coming, and with some hazard; and that he had flattered
himself I would not refuse him such a favour, and I need not be ashamed
of seeing my name in a collection where he admitted none but the most
eminent authors. It was to no purpose to endeavour to convince him. He
would not stay to dinner, though earnestly invited; and went away with
the air of one that thought he had reason to be offended. I know his
master will have the same sentiments, and I shall pass in his opinion
for a monster of ingratitude, while it is the blackest of vices in my
opinion, and of which I am utterly incapable--I really could cry for
vexation.
"Sure nobody ever had such various provocations to print as myself. I
have seen things I have wrote, so mangled and falsified, I have scarce
known them. I have seen poems I never read, published with my name at
length; and others, that were truly and singly wrote by me, printed
under the names of others. I have made myself easy under all these
mortifications, by the reflection I did not deserve them, having never
aimed at the vanity of popular applause; but I own my philosophy is not
proof against losing a friend, and it may be making an enemy of one to
whom I am obliged."
In this letter to Lady Mar, in which Lady Mary explains her plight, she
goes on to deliver herself of her sentiments concerning the difference
of opinion as regards women writers that was current in Italy and in
England.
Lady Mary held strong views on what are called to-day, or at least were
so called until they were lately in the main conceded, women's rights.
Although she said that she did not complain that it was men, and men
only, who were privileged to exercise the power of government, it is not
unlikely that she yielded this point in order the more effectively to
emphasise some other. Anyhow she was unfeignedly pleased to be able to
record (to Lady Pomfret, March, 1737) a "rumpus" made by ladies who
regarded their exclusion from a debate in Parliament as unwarrantable.
"I confess I have often been complimented, since I have been in Italy,
on the books I have given the public. I used at first to deny it with
some warmth; but, finding I persuaded nobody, I have of late contented
myself with laughing whenever I heard it mentioned, knowing the
character of a learned woman is far from being ridiculous in this
country, the greatest families being proud of having produced female
writers; and a Milanese lady being now professor of mathematics in the
university of Bologna, invited thither by a most obliging letter, wrote
by the present Pope, who desired her to accept of the chair, not as a
recompense for her merit, but to do honour to a town which is under his
protection. To say truth, there is no part of the world where our sex is
treated with so much contempt as in England. I do not complain of men
for having engrossed the government: in excluding us from all degrees of
power, they preserve us from many fatigues, many dangers, and perhaps
many crimes. The small proportion of authority that has fallen to my
share (only over a few children and servants) has always been a burden,
and never a pleasure, and I believe every one finds it so who acts from
a maxim (I think an indispensable duty), that whoever is under my power
is under my protection. Those who find a joy in inflicting hardships,
and seeing objects of misery, may have other sensations; but I have
always thought corrections, even when necessary, as painful to the giver
as to the sufferer, and am therefore very well satisfied with the state
of subjection we are placed in: but I think it the highest injustice to
be debarred the entertainment of my closet, and that the same studies
which raise the character of a man should hurt that of a woman. We are
educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our
natural reason; if some few get above their nurses' instructions, our
knowledge must rest concealed, and be as useless to the world as gold in
the mine. I am now speaking according to our English notions, which may
wear out, some ages hence, along with others equally absurd. It appears
to me the strongest proof of a clear understanding in Longinus (in every
light acknowledged one of the greatest men among the ancients), when I
find him so far superior to vulgar prejudices as to choose his two
examples of fine writing from a Jew (at that time the most despised
people upon earth) and a woman. Our modern wits would be so far from
quoting, they would scarce own they had read the works of such
contemptible creatures, though, perhaps, they would condescend to steal
from them, at the same time they declared they were below their notice.
This subject is apt to run away with me; I will trouble you with no more
of it."
"Here is no news to be sent you from this place, which has been for this
fortnight and still continues overwhelmed with politics, and which are
of so mysterious a nature, one ought to have some of the gifts of Lilly
or Partridge to be able to write about them; and I leave all those
dissertations to those distinguished mortals who are endowed with the
talent of divination though I am at present the only one of my sex who
seems to be of that opinion, the ladies having shown their zeal and
appetite for knowledge in a most glorious manner. At the last warm
debate in the House of Lords, it was unanimously resolved there should
be no crowd of unnecessary auditors; consequently the fair sex were
excluded, and the gallery destined to the sole use of the House of
Commons. Notwithstanding which determination, a tribe of dames resolved
to show on this occasion that neither men nor laws could resist them.
These heroines were Lady Huntingdon, the Duchess of Queensberry, the
Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Westmorland, Lady Cobham, Lady Charlotte
Edwin, Lady Archibald Hamilton and her daughter, Mrs. Scott, and Mrs.
Pendarves, and Lady Frances Saunderson. I am thus particular in their
names, since I look upon them to be the boldest assertors, and most
resigned sufferers for liberty, I ever read of. They presented
themselves at the door at nine o'clock in the morning, where Sir William
Saunderson respectfully informed them that the Chancellor had made an
order against their admittance. The Duchess of Queensberry, as head of
the squadron, pished at the ill-breeding of a mere lawyer, and desired
him to let them upstairs privately. After some modest refusals, he swore
by G--he would not let them in. Her Grace, with a noble warmth,
answered, by G--they would come in in spite of the Chancellor and the
whole House. This being reported, the Peers resolved to starve them out;
an order was made that the doors should not be opened till they had
raised their siege. These Amazons now showed themselves qualified for
the duty of even foot soldiers; they stood there till five in the
afternoon, without either sustenance or evacuation, every now and then
playing volleys of thumps, kicks, and raps against the door, with so
much violence that the speakers in the House were scarce heard. When the
Lords were not to be conquered by this, the two duchesses (very well
apprised of the use of stratagems in war) commanded a dead silence of
half an hour; and the Chancellor, who thought this a certain proof of
their absence (the Commons also being very impatient to enter), gave
order for the opening of the door, upon which they all rushed in, pushed
aside their competitors, and placed themselves in the front rows of the
gallery. They stayed there till after eleven, when the House rose; and
during the debate gave applause, and showed marks of dislike, not only
by smiles and winks (which have always been allowed in these cases), but
by noisy laughs and apparent contempts; which is supposed the true
reason why poor Lord Hervey spoke miserably. I beg your pardon, dear
madam, for this long relation; but 'tis impossible to be short on so
copious a subject; and you must own this action very well worthy of
record, and I think not to be paralleled in history, ancient or modern."
Lady Mary, however, was less concerned with "the open door" for women in
politics: her primary desire was that a woman should have the right,
within reason, to live her own life, and not merely be a chattel of her
husband. There is the conduct of her own married life to prove her
sincerity.
Her view of the Turkish woman has already been given, as also has her
opinion that marriages should be for the limited period of seven years.
Now, she gave her opinion of the woman question in Italy, and it would
seem that, realising that her own marriage has been anything but
satisfactory to either party, she wrote from her heart.
"I cannot let pass in silence the prodigious alteration, since Misson's
writing, in regard to our sex. This reformation (or, if you please,
depravation) began so lately as the year 1732, when the French overran
this part of Italy; but it has been carried on with such fervour and
success, that the Italian go far beyond their patterns, the Parisian
ladies, in the extent of their liberty. I am not so much surprised at
the women's conduct, as I am amazed at the change in the men's
sentiments. Jealousy, which was once a point of honour among them, is
exploded to that degree, it is the most infamous and ridiculous of all
characters; and you cannot more affront a gentleman than to suppose
him capable of it. Divorces are also introduced, and frequent enough;
they have long been in fashion in Genoa; several of the finest and
greatest ladies there having two husbands alive. The constant pretext is
impotency, to which the man often pleads guilty, and though he marries
again, and has children by another wife, the plea remains good by saying
he was so in regard to his first; and when I told them that in England a
complaint of that kind was esteemed so impudent no reasonable woman
would submit to make it, I was answered we lived without religion, and
that their consciences obliged them rather to strain a point of modesty
than to live in a state of damnation. However, as this method is not
without inconvenience (it being impracticable where there is children),
they have taken another here: the husband deposes upon oath that he has
had a commerce with his mother-in-law, on which the marriage is declared
incestuous and nullified, though the children remain legitimate. You
will think this hard on the old lady, who is scandalised; but it is no
scandal at all, nobody supposing it to be true, without circumstances to
confirm it; but the married couple are set free to their mutual content;
for I believe it would be difficult to get a sentence of divorce, if
either side made opposition: at least I have heard no example of it."
Lady Mary made no secret of her views upon marriage; and though she did
not so frequently air her religious beliefs, she often pondered the
subject, and when challenged to speak was not reticent. As regards
sacred matters, she always had the courage of her convictions, even as
she had in mundane affairs.
"I always, if possible, avoid controversial disputes: whenever I cannot
do it, they are very short" (she wrote to her daughter in October,
1755). "I ask my adversary if he believes in the Scripture? When that is
answered affirmatively their church may be proved, by a child of ten
years old, contradictory to it, in their most important points. My
second question is, if they think St. Peter and St. Paul knew the true
Christian religion? The constant reply is, O yes. Then say I, purgatory,
transubstantiation, invocation of saints, adoration of the Virgin,
relics (of which they might have had a cartload), the observation of
Lent, is no part of it, since they neither taught nor practised any of
these things. Vows of celibacy are not more contrary to nature, than to
the positive precept of St. Paul. He mentions a very common case, in
which people are obliged, by conscience, to marry. No mortal can promise
that case shall never be theirs, which depends on the disposition of the
body as much as a fever; and 'tis as reasonable to engage never to feel
the one as the other. He tells us, the marks of the Holy Spirit are
charity, humility, truth, and long suffering. Can anything be more
uncharitable than damning eternally so many millions for not believing
what they never heard? or prouder than calling their head a Vice-god?
Pious frauds are avowedly permitted, and persecution applauded: these
maxims cannot be dictated by the spirit of peace, which is so warmly
preached in the Gospel. The creeds of the apostles, and council of Nice,
do not speak of the mass, or real presence, as articles of belief; and
Athanasius asserts, whosoever believes according to them shall be saved.
Jesus Christ, in answer to the lawyer, bids him love God above all
things, and his neighbour as himself, as all that is necessary to
salvation. When he describes the last judgment, he does not examine what
sect, or what church, men were of, but how far they had been beneficent
to mankind. Faith cannot determine reward or punishment, being
involuntary, and only the consequence of conviction: we do not believe
what we please, but what appears to us with the face of truth. As I do
not mistake exclamation, invective, or ridicule for argument, I never
recriminate on the lives of their popes and cardinals, when they urge
the character of Henry the Eighth; I only answer, good actions are often
done by all men through interested motives, and 'tis the common method
of Providence to bring good out of evil: history, both sacred and
profane, furnishes many examples of it. When they tell me I have forsook
the worship of my ancestors, I say I have had more ancestors heathen
than Christian, and my faith is certainly ancienter than theirs, since I
have added nothing to the practice of the primitive professors of
Christianity. As to the prosperity or extent of the dominion of their
church, which Cardinal Bellarmin counts among the proofs of its
orthodoxy, the Mahometans, who have larger empires, and have made a
quicker progress, have a better plea for the visible protection of
Heaven. If the fopperies of their religion were only fopperies, they
ought to be complied with, wherever it is established, like any
ridiculous dress in fashion; but I think them impieties: their devotions
are scandal to humanity from their nonsense; the mercenary deceits and
barbarous tyranny of their ecclesiastics, inconsistent with moral
honesty. If they object the diversity of our sects as a mark of
reprobation, I desire them to consider, that objection has equal force
against Christianity in general. When they thunder with the names of
fathers and councils, they are surprised to find me as well (often
better) acquainted with them than themselves. I show them the variety of
their doctrines, their virulent contests and various factions, instead
of that union they boast of. I have never been attacked a second time in
any of the towns where I have resided, and perhaps shall never be so
again after my last battle, which was with an old priest, a learned man,
particularly esteemed as a mathematician, and who has a head and heart
as warm as poor Whiston's. When I first came hither, he visited me every
day, and talked of me everywhere with such violent praise, that, had we
been young people, God knows what would have been said. I have always
the advantage of being quite calm on a subject which they cannot talk of
without heat. He desired I would put on paper what I had said. I
immediately wrote one side of a sheet, leaving the other for his answer.
He carried it with him, promising to bring it the next day, since which
time I have never seen it, though I have often demanded it, being of
my defective Italian. I fancy he sent it to his friend the Archbishop of
Milan. I have given over asking for it, as a desperate debt. He still
visits me, but seldom, and in a cold sort of a way. When I have found
disputants I less respected, I have sometimes taken pleasure in raising
their hopes by my concessions: they are charmed when I agree with them
in the number of the sacraments; but are horridly disappointed when I
explain myself by saying the word sacrament is not to be found either in
Old or New Testament; and one must be very ignorant not to know it is
taken from the listing oath of the Roman soldiers, and means nothing
more than a solemn, irrevocable engagement. Parents vow, in infant
baptism, to educate their children in the Christian religion, which they
take upon themselves by confirmation; the Lord's Supper is frequently
renewing the same oath. Ordination and matrimony are solemn vows of a
different kind: confession includes a vow of revealing all we know, and
reforming what is amiss: extreme unction, the last vow, that we have
lived in the faith we were baptised: in this sense they are all
sacraments. As to the mysteries preached since, they were all invented
long after, and some of them repugnant to the primitive institution."
CHAPTER XVI
ON THE CONTINENT (1745-1760)
Lady Mary stays at Avignon--She removes to Brescia--And then to
Lovere--She abandons all idea of Montagu joining her abroad--Her house
at Lovere--Her daily round--Her health--Her anxiety about her son--An
amazing incident--A serious illness--A novel in a letter--Her
correspondence attracts the attention of the Italian authorities--Sir
James and Lady Frances Steuart--Politics--She is in the bad books of the
British Resident at Venice--Lord Bute--The philosophy of Lady
Mary--Letters to Lady Bute and Sir James Steuart.
Lady Mary liked Avignon so well that she stayed there until July 1746.
Then she moved to Brescia, where she stayed for a year, and then took up
her quarters at Lovere, a small place in Lombardy on the Lake d'Iseo, a
most attractive spot, as she was at pains to tell her daughter at some
length. For some time she alternated between Lovere and Brescia.
"I am now in a place the most beautifully romantic I ever saw in my
life: it is the Tunbridge of this part of the world, to which I was sent
by the doctor's order, my ague often returning, notwithstanding the
loads of bark I have taken" (she wrote to her daughter from Lovere, July
24, 1747). "To say truth, I have no reason to repent my journey, though
I was very unwilling to undertake it, it being forty miles, half by land
and half by water; the land so stony I was almost shook to pieces, and I
had the ill luck to be surprised with a storm on the lake, that if I had
not been near a little port (where I passed a night in a very poor inn),
the vessel must have been lost. A fair wind brought me hither next
morning early. I found a very good lodging, a great deal of good
company, and a village in many respects resembling Tunbridge Wells, not
only in the quality of the waters, which is the same, but in the manner
of the buildings, most of the houses being separate at little distances,
and all built on the sides of hills, which indeed are far different from
those of Tunbridge, being six times as high: they are really vast rocks
of different figures, covered with green moss, or short grass,
diversified by tufts of trees, little woods, and here and there
vineyards, but no other cultivation, except gardens like those on
Richmond-hill. The whole lake, which is twenty-five miles long, and
three broad, is all surrounded with these impassable mountains, the
sides of which, towards the bottom, are so thick set with villages (and
in most of them gentlemen's seats), that I do not believe there is
anywhere above a mile distance one from another, which adds very much to
the beauty of the prospect.
"We have an opera here, which is performed three times in the week. I
was at it last night, and should have been surprised at the neatness of
the scenes, goodness of the voices and justness of the actors, if I had
not remembered I was in Italy. Several gentlemen jumped into the
orchestra, and joined in the concert, which I suppose is one of the
freedoms of the place, for I never saw it in any great town. I was yet
more amazed (while the actors were dressing for the farce that concluded
the entertainment) to see one of the principal among them, and as errant
a _petit maitre_ as if he had passed all his life at Paris, mount the
stage, and present us with a cantata of his own performing. He had the
pleasure of being almost deafened with applause. The ball began
afterwards, but I was not witness of it, having accustomed myself to
such early hours, that I was half asleep before the opera finished: it
begins at ten o'clock, so that it was one before I could get to bed,
though I had supped before I went, which is the custom.
"I am much better pleased with the diversions on the water, where all
the town assembles every night, and never without music; but we have
none so rough as trumpets, kettle-drums, and French horns: they are all
violins, lutes, mandolins, and flutes doux. Here is hardly a man that
does not excel in some of these instruments, which he privately
addresses to the lady of his affections, and the public has the
advantage of it by his adding to the number of the musicians.
"The fountain where we drink the waters rises between two hanging hills,
and is overshadowed with large trees, that give a freshness in the
hottest time of the day. The provisions are all excellent, the fish of
the lake being as large and well tasted as that of Geneva, and the
mountains abounding in game, particularly blackcocks, which I never saw
in any other part of Italy."
Lady Mary, though still corresponding with her husband, had clearly
given up all idea of returning to England or of Montagu joining her
abroad. She was quite content with her state, which, after all, so far
as we know, was her own choice. She took a house at Lovere, and
interested herself in improving it and developing the grounds.
"I have been these six weeks, and still am, at my dairy-house, which
joins to my garden" (she wrote to her daughter in July, 1748). "I
believe I have already told you it is a long mile from the castle, which
is situated in the midst of a very large village, once a considerable
town, part of the walls still remaining, and has not vacant ground
enough about it to make a garden, which is my greatest amusement, it
being now troublesome to walk, or even go in the chaise till the
evening. I have fitted up in this farm-house a room for myself--that is
to say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the chimney with moss and
branches, and adorned the room with basins of earthen-ware (which is
made here to great perfection) filled with flowers, and put in some
straw chairs, and a couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This spot of
ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you will scarce credit the
description, which, however, I can assure you, shall be very literal,
without any embellishment from imagination. It is on a bank, forming a
kind of peninsula, raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which you
may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, and either take the air on
the river, which is as large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walking
[in] an avenue two hundred yards on the side of it, you find a wood of a
hundred acres, which was all ready cut into walks and ridings when I
took it. I have only added fifteen bowers in different views, with seats
of turf. They were easily made, here being a large quantity of
underwood, and a great number of wild vines, which twist to the top of
the highest trees, and from which they make a very good sort of wine
they call _brusco_. I am now writing to you in one of these arbours,
which is so thickly shaded, the sun is not troublesome, even at noon.
Another is on the side of the river, where I have made a camp kitchen,
that I may take the fish, dress, and eat it immediately, and at the same
time see the barks, which ascend or descend every day to or from Mantua,
Guastalla, or Pont de Vie, all considerable towns. This little wood is
carpeted, in their succeeding seasons, with violets and strawberries,
inhabited by a nation of nightingales, and filled with game of all
kinds, excepting deer and wild boar, the first being unknown here, and
not being large enough for the other.