Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Lewis Melville
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"My garden was a plain vineyard when it came into my hands not two years
ago, and it is, with a small expense, turned into a garden that (apart
from the advantage of the climate) I like better than that of
Kensington. The Italian vineyards are not planted like those in France,
but in clumps, fastened to trees planted in equal ranks (commonly
fruit-trees), and continued in festoons from one to another, which I
have turned into covered galleries of shade, that I can walk in the heat
without being incommoded by it. I have made a dining-room of verdure,
capable of holding a table of twenty covers; the whole ground is three
hundred and seventeen feet in length, and two hundred in breadth. You
see it is far from large; but so prettily disposed (though I say it),
that I never saw a more agreeable rustic garden, abounding with all sort
of fruit, and produces a variety of wines. I would send you a piece [_sic_]
if I did not fear the customs would make you pay too dear for it."
Lady Mary was now in her sixtieth year, and asked for nothing better
than peace and comfort. Her manner of life she described as being as
regular as that of any monastery. She rose at six, and after an early
breakfast worked in the garden. Then she visited the dairy and inspected
her chickens--at one time she had two hundred of them--and her turkeys,
geese, ducks, and peacocks, her bees and her silkworms. At eleven she
read for an hour, and after an early dinner would take a siesta. Then
she played picquet or whist with some friendly priests. In the evening
she walked in the woods, or rode, or went on the lake. "I enjoy every
amusement that solitude can afford," she said. "I confess I sometimes
wish for a little conversation, but I reflect that the commerce of the
world gives more uneasiness than pleasure, and quiet is all the hope
that can reasonably be indulged at my age." It would not have been Lady
Mary if she had not kept a keen eye on the pence. She was delighted to
be able to say in relation to her house and grounds that "all things
have hitherto prospered under my care; my bees and silkworms are
doubled, and I am told that, without accidents, my capital will be so in
two years' time." She enjoyed the more her evening now and her fish at
dinner, because neither cost her anything. "The fishery of this part of
the river belongs to me; and my fisherman's little boat (where I have a
green lutestring awning) serves me for a barge. He and his sons are my
rowers without expense, he being very well paid by the profit of the
fish, which I give him on condition of having every day one dish for my
table."
Age dealt gently with Lady Mary. At the age of sixty-two, she could say
that her hearing and her memory were good, and her sight better than she
had any right to expect. She had appetite enough to relish what she ate,
slept as soundly as she had ever done, and had never a headache. Still,
the fact was forced upon her that she was no longer so young as she had
been--which unpleasing reflection she accepted philosophically enough.
"I no more expect to arrive at the age of the Duchess of Marlborough[19]
than to that of Methusalem; neither do I desire it" (she wrote to Lady
Bute in the early spring of 1751). "I have long thought myself useless
to the world. I have seen one generation pass away; and it is gone; for
I think there are very few of those left that flourished in my youth.
You will perhaps call these melancholy reflections: they are not so.
There is a quiet after the abandoning of pursuits, something like the
rest that follows a laborious day. I tell you this for your comfort. It
was formerly a terrifying view to me, that I should one day be an old
woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.
Those are only unhappy who will not be contented with what she gives,
but strive to break through her laws, by affecting a perpetuity of youth
which appears to me as little desirable at present as the babies do to
you, that were the delight of your infancy."
[Footnote 19: The Duchess of Marlborough was born on May 29, 1660, and
died on October 18, 1744.]
She reverted to the same subject when writing to her husband a month or
two later:
"I can no longer resist the desire I have to know what is become of my
son. I have long suppressed it, from a belief that if there was anything
of good to be told, you would not fail to give me the pleasure of
hearing it. I find it now grows so much upon me, that whatever I am to
know, I think it would be easier for me to support, than the anxiety I
suffer from my doubts. I beg to be informed, and prepare myself for the
worst, with all the philosophy I have. At my time of life I ought to be
detached from a world which I am soon to leave; to be totally so is a
vain endeavour, and perhaps there is vanity in the endeavour: while we
are human, we must submit to human infirmities, and suffer them in mind
as well as body. All that reflection and experience can do is to
mitigate, we can never extinguish, our passions. I call by that name
every sentiment that is not founded upon reason, and own I cannot
justify to mine the concern I feel for one who never gave me any view of
satisfaction.
"This is too melancholy a subject to dwell upon. You compliment me on
the continuation of my spirits: 'tis true, I try to maintain them by
every art I can, being sensible of the terrible consequences of losing
them. Young people are too apt to let theirs sink on any disappointment."
There was, in 1751, some extraordinary incident in the life of Lady
Mary, the true history of which has never been made public.
"Pray tell me," Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann on August 31 of
that year, "if you know anything of Lady Mary Wortley: we have an
obscure history here of her being in durance in the Brescian or the
Bergamasco: that a young fellow that she set out with keeping has taken
it into his head to keep her close prisoner, not permitting her to write
or receive any letters but which he sees: he seems determined, if her
husband should die, not to lose her, as the Count [Richcourt] did Lady
Oxford."
No reply to this letter reached Walpole, but his insatiable curiosity
would not accept this as a check, and he wrote again on October 14: "Did
you ever receive the question I asked you about Lady Mary Wortley's
being confined by a lover that she keeps somewhere in the Brescian? I
long to know the particulars."
At the time of this incident Lady Mary was in her sixty-second year. It
is possible, but extremely improbable, therefore, that Lady Mary should
have taken a young man into keeping. Horace Walpole may always be
trusted to make the best of a rumour. Still, it may be stated, on the
authority of Wright, that among Lady Mary's papers there was found a
long account of the matter, written in Italian. In this she mentioned
that for some time she had been forcibly detained in a country house
belonging to an Italian Count and occupied by him and his mother. This
paper, it is further mentioned, seems to have been submitted to a lawyer
for his opinion or for production in a court of law. It may be, of
course, that Lady Mary did, to some extent, adopt the young man, who
thought that by keeping possession of her person he might be able to
extort money from her.
Not long after this business, in fact, in February, 1752, Lady Mary was
reporting that she was well enough in health. She had been reading
Coventry's _Pompey the Little_, and tells her daughter that she saw
herself in the character of Mrs. Qualmsick:
"You will be surprised at this, no Englishwoman being so free from
vapours, having never in my life complained of low spirits or weak
nerves; but our resemblance is very strong in the fancied loss of
appetite, which I have been silly enough to be persuaded into by the
physician of this place. He visits me frequently, as being one of the
most considerable men in the parish, and is a grave, sober thinking
great fool, whose solemn appearance, and deliberate way of delivering
his sentiments gives them an air of good sense, though they are often
the most injudicious that ever were pronounced. By perpetual telling me
I eat so little, he is amazed I am able to subsist, he had brought me to
be of his opinion; and I began to be seriously uneasy at it. This useful
treatise has roused me into a recollection of what I eat yesterday, and
do almost every day the same. I wake generally about seven, and drink
half a pint of warm asses' milk, after which I sleep two hours; as soon
as I am risen, I constantly take three cups of milk coffee, and
hours after that a large cup of milk chocolate: two hours more brings my
dinner, where I never fail swallowing a good dish (I don't mean plate)
of gravy soup, with all the bread, roots, &c., belonging to it. I then
eat a wing and the whole body of a large fat capon, and a veal
sweetbread, concluding with a competent quantity of custard, and some
roasted chestnuts. At five in the afternoon I take another dose of
asses' milk; and for supper twelve chestnuts (which would weigh
twenty-four of those in London), one new laid egg, and a handsome
porringer of white bread and milk. With this diet, notwithstanding the
menaces of my wise doctor, I am now convinced I am in no danger of
starving; and am obliged to Little Pompey for this discovery."
Two years later, however, when she was in her sixty-fifth year, Lady
Mary found herself far from well. In April of that year, she told her
daughter: "My time is wholly dedicated to the care of a decaying body,
and endeavouring, as the old song says, to grow wiser and better, as my
strength wears away." Shortly after, she was taken seriously unwell at
Gottolengo. When she had recovered she, always interested in medical
science, sent Lady Bute a full account of her illness and of the
extraordinary physician from the neighbouring village of Lovere.
"Soon after I wrote my last letter to my dear child, I was seized with
so violent a fever, accompanied with so many bad symptoms, my life was
despaired of by the physician of Gottolengo, and I prepared myself for
death with as much resignation as that circumstance admits: some of my
neighbours without my knowledge, sent express for the doctor of this
place, whom I have mentioned to you formerly as having uncommon secrets.
I was surprised to see him at my bedside. He declared me in great
danger, but did not doubt my recovery, if I was wholly under his care;
and his first prescription was transporting me hither; the other
physician asserted positively I should die on the road. It has always
been my opinion that it is a matter of the utmost indifference where we
expire, and I consented to be removed. My bed was placed on a bancard;
my servants followed in chaises; and in this equipage I set out. I bore
the first day's journey of fifteen miles without any visible alteration.
The doctor said, as I was not worse, I was certainly better; and the
next day proceeded twenty miles to Iseo, which is at the head of this
lake. I lay each night at noblemen's houses, which were empty. My cook,
with my physician, aways preceded two or three hours, and I found my
chamber, with all necessaries, ready prepared with the exactest
attention. I was put into a bark in my litter bed, and in three hours
arrived here. My spirits were not at all wasted (I think rather raised)
by the fatigue of my journey. I drank the water next morning, and, with
a few doses of my physician's prescription, in three days found myself
in perfect health, which appeared almost a miracle to all that saw me.
You may imagine I am willing to submit to the orders of one that I must
acknowledge the instrument of saving my life, though they are not
entirely conformable to my will and pleasure. He has sentenced me to a
long continuance here, which, he says, is absolutely necessary to the
confirmation of my health, and would persuade me that my illness has
been wholly owing to my omission of drinking the waters these two years
past. I dare not contradict him, and must own he deserves (from the
various surprising cures I have seen) the name given to him in this
country of the miraculous man. Both his character and practice are so
singular, I cannot forbear giving you some account of them. He will not
permit his patients to have either surgeon or apothecary: he performs
all the operations of the first with great dexterity; and whatever
compounds he gives, he makes in his own house: those are very few; the
juice of herbs, and these waters, being commonly his sole prescriptions.
He has very little learning, and professes drawing all his knowledge
from experience, which he possesses, perhaps, in a greater degree than
any other mortal, being the seventh doctor of his family in a direct
line. His forefathers have all of them left journals and registers
solely for the use of their posterity, none of them having published
anything; and he has recourse to these manuscripts on every difficult
case, the veracity of which, at least, is unquestionable. His vivacity
is prodigious, and he is indefatigable in his industry: but what most
distinguishes him is a disinterestedness I never saw in any other: he is
as regular in his attendance on the poorest peasant, from whom he never
can receive one farthing, as on the richest of the nobility; and,
whenever he is wanted, will climb three or four miles in the mountains,
in the hottest sun, or heaviest rain, where a horse cannot go, to arrive
at a cottage, where, if their condition requires it, he does not only
give them advice and medicines gratis, but bread, wine, and whatever is
needful. There never passes a week without one or more of these
expeditions. His last visit is generally to me. I often see him as dirty
and tired as a foot post, having eat nothing all day but a roll or two
that he carries in his pocket, yet blest with such a perpetual flow of
spirits, he is always gay to a degree above cheerfulness. There is a
peculiarity in his character that I hope will incline you to forgive my
drawing it."
It was probably by the advice of her physician that Lady Mary decided to
make Lovere her headquarters. He prescribed taking the waters there and
a long rest. Lovere was a dull place, visitors coming only during the
water-drinking season. The plague that overran Europe in 1626 had
ravaged it: the poor were almost destroyed, and the rich deserted it. A
few of the ancient palaces had been turned into lodging-houses; the rest
were in ruinous condition. Lady Mary bought one of the palaces.
"I see you lift up your eyes in wonder at my indiscretion. I beg you to
hear my reasons before you condemn me. In my infirm state of health the
unavoidable noise of a public lodging is very disagreeable; and here is
no private one: secondly, and chiefly, the whole purchase is but one
hundred pounds, with a very pretty garden in terraces down to the water,
and a court behind the house. It is founded on a rock, and the walls so
thick, they will probably remain as long as the earth. It is true, the
apartments are in most tattered circumstances, without doors or windows.
The beauty of the great saloon gained my affection: it is forty-two feet
in length by twenty-five, proportionably high, opening into a balcony of
the same length, with marble balusters: the ceiling and flooring are in
good repair, but I have been forced to the expense of covering the wall
with new stucco; and the carpenter is at this minute taking measure of
the windows, in order to make frames for sashes. The great stairs are in
such a declining way, it would be a very hazardous exploit to mount
them: I never intend to attempt it. The state bedchamber shall also
remain for the sole use of the spiders that have taken possession of it,
along with the grand cabinet, and some other pieces of magnificence,
quite useless to me, and which would cost a great deal to make
habitable. I have fitted up six rooms, with lodgings for five servants,
which are all I ever will have in this place; and I am persuaded that I
could make a profit if I would part with my purchase, having been very
much befriended in the sale, which was by auction, the owner having died
without children, and I believe he had never seen this mansion in his
life, it having stood empty from the death of his grandfather. The
governor bid for me, and nobody would bid against him. Thus I am become
a citizen of Lovere, to the great joy of the inhabitants, not (as they
would pretend) from their respect for my person, but I perceive they
fancy I shall attract all the travelling English; and, to say the truth,
the singularity of the place is well worth their curiosity; but, as I
have no correspondents, I may be buried here fifty years, and nobody
know anything of the matter."
Lady Mary found great pleasure in her correspondence. It was one of the
occupations with which she solaced her loneliness, and she was never more
happy than when she had an exciting story to set down, for she could set
it down with the ease of a Walpole and an individual touch that was all
her own:
"I was quietly reading in my closet, when I was interrupted by the
chambermaid of the Signora Laura Bono, who flung herself at my feet,
and, in an agony of sobs and tears, begged me, for the love of the holy
Madonna, to hasten to her master's house, where the two brothers would
certainly murder one another, if my presence did not stop their fury. I
was very much surprised, having always heard them spoken of as a pattern
of fraternal union. However, I made all possible speed thither, without
staying for hoods or attendance. I was soon there (the house touching my
garden wall), and was directed to the bedchamber by the noise of oaths
and execrations; but, on opening the door, was astonished to a degree
you may better guess than I describe, by seeing the Signora Laura
prostrate on the ground, melting in tears, and her husband standing with
a drawn stiletto in his hand, swearing she should never see tomorrow's
sun. I was soon let into the secret. The good man, having business of
consequence at Brescia, went thither early in the morning; but, as he
expected his chief tenant to pay his rent that day, he left orders with
his wife, that if the farmer, who lived two miles off, came himself, or
sent any of his sons, she should take care to make him very welcome. She
obeyed him with great punctuality, the money coming in the hand of a
handsome lad of eighteen: she did not only admit him to her own table,
and produce the best wine in the cellar, but resolved to give him _chere
entiere_. While she was exercising this generous hospitality, the
husband met midway the gentleman he intended to visit, who was posting
to another side of the country; they agreed on another appointment, and
he returned to his own house, where, giving his horse to be led round to
the stable by the servant that accompanied him, he opened his door with
the _passe-partout_ key, and proceeded to his chamber, without meeting
anybody, where he found his beloved spouse asleep on the bed with her
gallant. The opening of the door waked them: the young fellow
immediately leaped out of the window, which looked into the garden, and
was open, it being summer, and escaped over the fields, leaving his
breeches on a chair by the bedside--very striking circumstance. In
short, the case was such, I do not think the queen of fairies herself
could have found an excuse, though Chaucer tells us she has made a
solemn promise to leave none of her sex unfurnished with one, to all
eternity. As to the poor criminal, she had nothing to say for herself
but what I dare swear you will hear from your youngest daughter, if ever
you catch her stealing of sweetmeats--"Pray, pray, she would do so no
more, and indeed it was the first time." This last article found no
credit with me: I cannot be persuaded that any woman who had lived
virtuous till forty (for such is her age) could suddenly be endowed with
such consummate impudence, to solicit a youth at first sight, there
being no probability, his age and station considered, that he would have
made any attempt of that kind. I must confess I was wicked enough to
think the unblemished reputation she had hitherto maintained, and did
not fail to put us in mind of, was owing to a series of such frolics;
and to say truth, they are the only amours that can reasonably hope to
remain undiscovered. Ladies that can resolve to make love thus
_extempore_, may pass unobserved, especially if they can content
themselves with low life, where fear may oblige their favourites to
secrecy: there wants only a very lewd constitution, a very bad heart,
and a moderate understanding, to make this conduct easy: and I do not
doubt it has been practised by many prudes beside her I am now speaking
of. You may be sure I did not communicate these reflections. The first
word I spoke was to desire Signer Carlo to sheathe his poniard, not
being pleased with its glittering! He did so very readily, begging my
pardon for not having done it on my first appearance, saying he did not
know what he did, and indeed he had the countenance and gesture of a man
distracted. I did not endeavour a defence; that seemed to me impossible;
but represented to him, as well as I could, the crime of a murder, which,
if he could justify before men, was still a crying sin before God; the
disgrace he would bring on himself and posterity, and irreparable injury
he would do his eldest daughter, a pretty girl of fifteen, that I knew
he was extremely fond of. I added, that if he thought it proper to part
from his lady, he might easily find a pretext for it some months hence;
and that it was as much his interest as hers to conceal this affair from
the knowledge of the world. I could not presently make him taste these
reasons, and was forced to stay there near five hours (almost from five
to ten at night) before I durst leave them together, which I would not
do till he had sworn in the most serious manner he would make no future
attempt on her life. I was content with his oath, knowing him to be very
devout, and found I was not mistaken. How the matter was made up between
them afterwards I know not; but it is now two years since it happened,
and all appearances remaining as if it had never been. The secret is in
very few hands; his brother, being at that time at Brescia, I believe
knows nothing of it to this day. The chambermaid and myself have preserved
the strictest silence, and the lady retains the satisfaction of insulting
all her acquaintance on the foundation of a spotless character, that only
she can boast in the parish, where she is most heartily hated, from these
airs of impertinent virtue, and another very essential reason, being the
best dressed woman among them, though one of the plainest in her figure.
"The discretion of the chambermaid in fetching me, which possibly saved
her mistress's life, and her taciturnity since, I fancy appear very
remarkable to you, and is what would certainly never happen in England.
The first part of her behaviour deserves great praise; coming of her own
accord, and inventing so decent an excuse for her admittance: but her
silence may be attributed to her knowing very well that any servant that
presumes to talk of his master will most certainly be incapable of
talking at all in a short time, their lives being entirely in the power
of their superiors: I do not mean by law but by custom, which has full
as much force. If one of them was killed, it would either never be
inquired into at all, or very slightly passed over; yet it seldom
happens, and I know no instance of it, which I think is owing to the
great submission of domestics, who are sensible of their dependence, and
the national temper not being hasty, and never inflamed by wine,
drunkenness being a vice abandoned to the vulgar, and spoke of with
greater detestation than murder, which is mentioned with as little
concern as a drinking-bout in England, and is almost as frequent. It was
extreme shocking to me at my first coming, and still gives me a sort of
horror, though custom has in some degree familiarised it to my
imagination. Robbery would be pursued with great vivacity, and punished
with the utmost rigour, therefore is very rare, though stealing is in
daily practice; but as all the peasants are suffered the use of
fire-arms, the slightest provocation is sufficient to shoot, and they
see one of their own species lie dead before them with as little remorse
as a hare or a partridge, and, when revenge spurs them on, with much
more pleasure. A dissertation on this subject would engage me in a
discourse not proper for the post."
Lady Mary, being a prolific letter-writer, came under the suspicions of
the Italian authorities, who carefully examined the correspondence--a
fact that was only by a chance conversation revealed to her. "I think I
now know why our correspondence is so miserably interrupted, and so many
of my letters lost to and from England," she wrote to her husband in
October, 1753; "but I am no happier in the discovery than a man who has
found out his complaints proceed from a stone in the kidneys; I know the
cause, but am entirely ignorant of the remedy, and must suffer my
uneasiness with what patience I can."