“... He carried me to see Oxford, which, indeed, I had been at before; but when there are so many cities built for trade and commerce, it is always so pleasant to me to see there are places dedicated to the improvement of the human mind and the nobler commerce with the Muses; and tho’ it is easy to find fault in everything, yet I think these places of education and study must have been of great service in advancing the noblest interests of mankind, the improvement of knowledge, and harmonizing the mind.
“We went to Blenheim, which I saw with great pleasure, as the monument of England’s foreign glory and national gratitude. In our return to town, we saw Warwick Castle, the seat of the great Neville, surnamed ‘the Make-King.’ We visited his tomb and the monuments of Beauchamps, Nevilles, and Brookes. I walked an hour under some trees, on a beautiful terrass where Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sydney used to take their morning’s walk, blending, I dare say, as in his ‘Arcadia,’ Wisedom of state and schemes of great enterprize with rural talk.
“In our next stage, we saw Kenilworth Castle, once the strong place of Simon de Montfort, since the seat of the Earl of Leicester. He entertained Queen Elizabeth there in all the pageantry of the old times of chivalry. From the lake a lady came, who told the queen, in rude rhime, that she had been confined there ever since the days of Merlin, but her majesty’s power had set her free. The lake is now dry’d up. The place no longer belongs to ambition or luxury. Laughing Ceres re-assumed the land, and what the proud rebel and the assuming favorite left is enjoy’d by a farmer. There are great remains of the stately castle, made more venerable by the finest ivy I ever saw. I could wish this object placed rather at the edge of a bleak mountain, and that it frowned on a desert, but it unhappily overlooks a sweet pastoral scene; however, the memory of the illustrious persons it has belonged to gives the mind that serious solemn, disposition its situation wants.
“But you who walk on classic ground will despise my Gothick antiquities. I will own my Nevilles and Montforts dare not stand equal with your Gracchi, nor my Earl of Leicester with any of the favorites of Augustus; but, perhaps, to the rough virtues and untamed valour of these potent rebels, we owe part of our present liberty and happiness, and even our taste for the venerable remains of ancient Rome.... I desire my most affectionate love to my brother; and to my nephew and godson, my best wishes; and I desire he will be a Roman, not an Italian. I beg to go back as far as before the ruin of Carthage for his morals.” ...
In a fragment of a letter written in 1763, Mrs. Montagu says:
“Miss Hunter has come back in the character of the Fair Penitent. Her lover was soon tired of an engagement which had not the sanctions of virtue and honour. Shame and a fatherless babe she has brought back. I hope her miserable fate will deter adventurous damsels from such experiments.” Kitty Hunter’s fate was far from being miserable. She married Captain Clarke, who became Field Marshal Sir Alured Clarke; and the once audacious maid of honour died in the odour of fashion, A. D. 1810.
In 1764, Mrs. Montagu was an invalid—one who would fulfil the duties of her position, but who was glad to withdraw from them to the repose of Sandleford. Supremely admired as she was in society for the brilliancy of her talents, Mrs. Montagu was seen to the greatest advantage when at home with one or a very few choice friends. After Mrs. Elizabeth Carter had spent some time with her at pleasant Sandleford, she wrote to Mrs. Vesey. “... For most part of the time we were entirely alone.... Our friend, you know, has talents which must distinguish her in the largest circles; but there it is impossible for one fully to discover either the beauties of her character or the extent and variety of her understanding, which always improves on a more accurate examination and on a nearer view.... The charm is inexpressibly heightened when it is complicated with the affections of the heart.” Mr. Pennington, Mrs. Carter’s nephew, and editor of her correspondence, states that those who did not know Mrs. Montagu in her exclusive home character were ignorant of the real charms of her understanding, the strength of her mind, and the goodness of her heart.
One of her great trials visited her this year—the death of her constant and venerated friend, the Earl of Bath. There is no letter in the unpublished collection which bears any reference to Lord Bath’s death—Walpole’s great enemy, and Mrs. Montagu’s most devoted and admiring friend. It would be difficult to say whether this accomplished nobleman, or the good Lord Lyttelton, or the profound Lord Kames, or discerning Burke had the greatest veneration for the mental endowments of Mrs. Montagu. It may be here added, as a sample of one or two other ladies of the last century, that after Lord Bath was a widower, and had been made childless by the loss of his gallant son, unattached ladies made offers of marriage to him, he being one of the wealthiest men of the day. They proposed seriously, like Mrs. Anne Pitt, or by strong innuendo, like Lady Bell Finch. The latter, on Lord Bath returning to her half a crown which he had borrowed, wished he could give her a crown. Lady Bell replied, that though he could not give her a crown, he could give her a coronet, and that she was ready to accept it! Lyttelton celebrated the friendship which existed between Mrs. Montagu, Lord Bath, and himself in 1762, in a little poem called “The Vision.” The noble poet told how a bard appeared to him, and how the minstrel sang of the superiority of the myrtle to the oak, then—
“... closed the bard his mystic song,—his shade