Lady Wortley Montagu.
Mary Wortley Montagu.
It is a lady that I next introduce; a very much admired lady in her day; and much admired by many even now. She was correspondent at one time of Dr. Young, as well as of Pope, Steele, and Swift (who was one of the few men she feared). She knew and greatly admired Congreve, had free entrée to the palace in time of George I., could and did translate Epictetus before she was turned of twenty, and wrote letters to her daughter, Lady Bute, that were long held up to young ladies as patterns of epistolary work: of course it is Lady Mary Montagu,[[13]] of whom I speak.
Lady Mary Montagu.
She was born at Thoresby Park, a little northward of Sherwood Forest in Nottingham; was the petted daughter of the Earl of Kingston, and he introduced her (as the story runs) when only eight years old to that famous Kit-Kat Club, which held its summer sessions out by Hampstead Heath; and the applause that greeted her beauty and sprightliness there, very likely fastened upon her that greed for public triumphs which clung to her all her life. She presided at her father's table, was taught in Greek, Latin, French, Italian; was full of accomplishments, and at twenty-one fell in with Mr. Montagu, similarly accomplished, whom she had a half mind to marry. Her father, however, had other views, against which the self-willed young lady rebelled; she had, however, her hesitations—sometimes flinging a new bait to Mr. Montagu and then showing a coquettish coolness. Finally, between two days, she decides; orders Mr. Montagu to have his chaise and four in readiness and makes a runaway match of it.
Their life for some time is in a suburb of London; where the Lady Mary chafes at the retirement, in a way which is not very agreeable to Mr. Montagu and nettles him; and the nettles creep into their future correspondence. But her husband being appointed (1716) ambassador to Constantinople, her Ladyship sets off delightedly with a retinue of attendants to the shores of the Bosphorus; and writes thence and on her way thither, letters full of piquancy and charm.
To the distinguished Mr. Pope, who has addressed her in almost a lover's strain, she says:
"'Tis certain that I may, if I please, take the fine things you say to me for wit and raillery; and, it may be, it would be taking them right. But I never in my life was half so well disposed to believe you in earnest as I am at present."
And thereupon she goes on to describe a Sunday at the opera in the garden of the Favorita at Vienna.