In the February of this year, 1762, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had returned to England, after many years of absence. In October, in the same year, she died. Of her appearance on her return, Mrs. Montagu wrote as follows to her sister-in-law at Naples:
February 16, 1762.—“You have lately returned to us from Italy a very extraordinary personage, Lady Mary Wortley. When Nature is at the trouble of making a very singular person, Time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved, when common coin is worn out; and as great geniuses are rather matters of curiosity than of art, this lady seems reserved to be a wonder for more than our generation. She does not look older than when she went abroad, has more than the vivacity of fifteen, and a memory which, perhaps, is unique. Several people visited her out of curiosity, which she did not like. I visit her because her cousin and mine were cousin-germans. Though she has not any foolish partiality for her husband or his relations, I was very graciously received, and you may imagine entertained, by one who neither thinks, speaks, acts or dresses like anybody else. Her domestick is made up of all nations, and when you get into her drawing-room, you imagine you are in the first story of the Tower of Babel. An Hungarian servant takes your name at the door: he gives it to an Italian, who delivers it to a Frenchman; the Frenchman to a Swiss, and the Swiss to a Polander; so that, by the time you get to her ladyship’s presence, you have changed your name five times, without the expense of an act of parliament.”
In October, the same writer thus wrote of Lady Mary’s death, and of the son who survived his mother:
“Lady Mary Wortley Montagu returned to England, as it were, to finish where she began. I wish she had given us an account of the events that filled in the space between. She had a terrible distemper; the most virulent cancer I ever heard of, which carried her off very soon. I met her at Lady Bute’s in June, and she then looked well. In three weeks, at my return to London, I heard she was given over. The hemlock kept her drowsy and free from pain; and the physicians thought if it had been given early, might possibly have saved her. She left her son one guinea. He is too much of a sage to be concerned about money, I presume. When I first knew him, a rake and a beau, I did not imagine he would addict himself at one time to Rabbinical learning, and then travel all over the East, the great Itinerant Savant of the World. One has read that the believers in the transmigration of souls suppose a man, who has been rapacious and cunning, does penance in the shape of a fox. Another, cruel and bloody, enters the body of a wolf; but I believe my poor cousin, in his pre-existent state, having broken all moral laws, has been sentenced to suffer in all the various characters of human life. He has run through them all unsuccessfully enough. His dispute with Mr. Needham has been communicated to me by a gentleman of the Museum, and I think he will gain no laurels there; but he speaks as decisively as if he had been bred in Pharaoh’s court, in all the learning of the Egyptians. He has certainly very uncommon parts, but too much of the rapidity of his mother’s genius.
“... I am sure my brother will be glad to hear that Mrs. Scott, of Scottshall, is wet-nurse to our Prince of Wales, and is much liked by our king and royal family; so that I hope she will be able to make interest to establish all her children. A little of the royal favour and protection will bring them forward in professions, and the girls may have little places in the household; and I hope the scheme which I forwarded to the utmost of my power, will save an ancient, honourable family from ruin. She is vastly pleased and happy in her situation, and her royal nursling is as fine and healthy a child as can be.
“... I have rambled a good deal this summer, much to my amusement and the amendment of Mr. Montagu’s health, who was greatly out of order in the spring. We went to Lord Lyttelton’s in Worcestershire, with a large party consisting of my Lord Bath, Mr. and Mrs. Vesey, and Doctor Monsey. Lord Lyttelton had his daughter, his sister, Mrs. Hood, and the Bishop of Carlisle (his brother) with him, so we made a pretty round family. The weather was fine, and the place is delightful beyond all description. I should do it wrong, if I were to attempt to describe it. Its beauties are summed up in the lines of my favourite Italian poet:
“‘Culte pianure e delicati colli,
Chiare acqe, ombrose ripe, e prati molli.’
These lines seem to have been written for Hagley; but, besides these soft beauties, it has magnificent prospects of distant mountains, and hills shaded with wood. The house is magnificent and elegant; we had several agreeable entertainments of musick in different parts of the Park, and adapted to the scenes. In some places, the French horns reverberated from hill to hill. In the shady parts near the cascades, the soft musick was concealed and seemed to come from the unseen genius of the wood. We were all in great spirits, and enjoyed the amusements prepared for us. Mr. Montagu grew better every day, by the air and exercise, and returned to London quite well, though he had been much pulled down by the fashionable cold called l’influenza.