“The King’s Speech has a warlike tone. But still we flatter ourselves that the French king’s aversion to war may prevent our being again engaged in one.... Lord Chatham was to have spoken in the House of Lords to-day, if poor Mr. Grenville’s death, which happened at seven this morning, had not hindered his appearing in publick....
“Mr. Montagu did not leave Denton till almost a week after I came away; and he was stop’d at Durham by waters being out; but I had the pleasure of hearing yesterday that he got safe to Darlington, where he was to pass a few days with a famous mathematician, but I expect him in town the end of this week. My nephew, Morris, has got great credit at Eton already.... My doctors order me to forbear writing, but this letter does not show my obedience to them.... The celebrated coterie will go on, in spite of all remonstrances, and there is to be an assembly thrice a week for the subscribers to the opera, so little impression do rumours of wars and apprehensions of the plague make in the fine world....
“I am in your debt for my pretty neice’s dancing-master, which I forgot when I had the pleasure of seeing you. I shall hope to supply her, as opportunity offers, with all the assistance of that sort which her happy genius will make of great use to her; but your constant care will supply many better things than those the artists teach, and I do not doubt of her making an amiable and valuable woman. With the most sincere regard, I am, dear madam, your very affectionate sister, and faithful friend, and humble servt., E. M.... I know you will be very glad to hear I left everything in such order in the north, that I shall not pay my devotions to ye pole-star again for some years.”
No two people had more delight in mutual conversation than Mrs. Montagu and Lord Kames. They were so agreed upon one subject,—the insincerity, ignorance, and meanness of Voltaire, as to make their conversation most lively when it turned upon the Frenchman who defiled the character of the most glorious of Frenchwomen, Joan of Arc,—who heaped abuse upon Shakespeare and on those who defended him,—and who hated and miscalled Lord Kames for having weighed his “Henriade” in the scales of criticism, and for having found it “wanting.” Over this reply of Voltaire to Lord Kames, that judge and philosopher, reading it aloud, laughed himself, and raised irrepressible laughter in the lady who listened to him. The reply is in one of Voltaire’s “Lettres à un Journaliste.” “Permit me to explain to you some whimsical singularities of ‘The Elements of Criticism,’ in three volumes, by Lord Makames (sic), a justice of peace in Scotland. That philosopher has a most profound knowledge of nature and art, and he uses the utmost efforts to make the rest of the world as wise as himself. He begins by proving that we have five senses; and that we are less struck by a gentle impression made on our eyes and ears, by colours and sounds, than by a knock on the head or a kick on the leg. Proceeding from that to the rules of time and space, M. Home concludes with mathematical precision, that time seems long to a lady who is about to be married, and short to a man who is going to be hanged. M. Home applies doctrines equally extraordinary to every department of art. It is a surprising effect of the progress of the human mind, that we should now receive from Scotland rules for our taste in all matters, from an epic poem down to a garden. Knowledge extends daily, and we must not despair of hereafter obtaining performances in poetry and oratory from the Orkney Islands. M. Home always lays down his opinions as a law, and extends his despotic sway far and wide. He is a judge who absorbs all appeals.”
The famous mathematician to whom Mrs. Montagu refers in the above letter was William Emerson, of whom Mr. Montagu is believed to have been the original patron. Mr. Montagu may, in some degree, have helped that poor and eccentric scholar, but the energies of the once idle Yorkshire dreamer were really developed by an injustice. He had married the niece of a clergyman, who basely cheated the bride out of her dowry of £500. Whereupon the proud and angry husband sent back the whole of his wife’s wardrobe, with the message that he would “scorn to be beholden to such a fellow for a rag!” When Mr. Montagu married Elizabeth Robinson, Emerson had just ready for the press the work which gave him a place in the highest rank of mathematicians—his “Doctrine of Fluxions.” The distinction neither affected his eccentricity nor softened his audacity. He was wont to sign his mathematical solutions with a name that might have made Minerva breathless—“Philofluentimechanelgegeomastrolonzo,” and he lived to shock Mrs. Edward Montagu by snapping his fingers at the Royal Society, and damning the fellows and their fellowships!
George Grenville and Burke are among the best samples of the men whom Mrs. Montagu appreciated, and who could thoroughly appreciate Mrs. Montagu. Burke has spoken in the highest terms of both. Of the statesman who, five years before his death, resigned all his offices, Burke said: “With a masculine understanding and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business, not as a duty he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of the house, except in such things as in some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, that his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself not by the low, pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power through the laborious gradations of public service, and to secure himself a well-earned rank in Parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution and in perfect practice in all its business.” Mrs. Montagu might justly be proud of the good opinion of a friend who could express such a judgment of another friend like Grenville, for whom she herself entertained the highest esteem.
Mrs. Montagu to Mrs. Robinson. “January 17, 1771. ... I have kept very well all this frost, and what is more strange in a town lady, I have been very discreet. I have improved upon Lady Grace’s plan of doing very soberly. I have been serious, and solemn and retired, and have sat as quietly at my fireside as any antiquated dowager when her quadrille party was gone into the country. But I have said enough upon such an atom, and I will now talk of ye great persons and things of this world. The Duke of Bedford died of a fit of the asthma. He departed singing the 104th Psalm. This shows he had some piety, but I think his grace sang out of tune; so I am not an admirer of his singing.” (Walpole says he “had lost his sight, and almost his speech and limbs.”) “I like a Psalm-singing cobler in death as well as in life. A poor man who has maintained a wife and children by his labour, has kept the ten commandments, has observed the Sabbath, kept the laws of the community, and lived kindly with his neighbours, may sing his own requiem with a comfortable and cheerful assurance. Of him to whom little is given, little shall be required. But the debtor and creditor of a long account is not so easily settled. Wealth, titles, power give a great influence in society. Have the poor been relieved, the weak protected, the industrious been encouraged, virtue countenanced, merit brought forth to view, the profligate discouraged, the commonwealth served equal to its great demands on a Duke of Bedford, the proprietor of a vast estate? I mean not to intimate that he was to dye in despair, for his Judge is merciful, but in his sight no man living shall be justified; so that, unless there is an uncommon merit or innocence of character, I see no reason for this kind of jollity. His grace has left enough to make the duchess’s jointure £6,000 a year. She is to keep up the houses at Bloomsbury and at Wooburn. Her grace, Mr. Palmer, and the Duchess of Marlborough are trustees for the young duke....
“As the late duke was sometimes headstrong, the court will have an advantage in having the duchess to deal with, as Lord Sandwich is her guide in politicks. The duke left Mr. Rigby £5,000, a sum for which he had Mr. Rigby’s bond. He has left a sum of fourscore pound a year to Miss Wrottesley; a year’s wages to servants. I hear not of other legacies. It is believed Lord Suffolk will not accept of any place....
“It is believed we shall have a Peace. The King of Prussia and the Emperor joined to get a peace for the Turks. These potentates design to keep the French in order and to defend Germany. The Emperor wishes to recover Lorraine and Alsace. So it is supposed the French will sit quiet even if the Spaniards should go to war with us. I am not afraid of the Dons, if not assisted by French vivacity. All our family is well, and the père de famille best of all.... Mr. M. is pure well.”
The following letter to Mrs. Robinson, the writer’s sister-in-law, whose father, Mr. Richardson, was a private gentleman of Kensington, contains a reference to the Kensington “ladies’-school” of the writer’s early time, and one to the Chelsea school, where she visited Mrs. William Robinson’s daughter in 1772. These references are valuable illustrations of the female scholastic life of the two periods. “I called on my pretty neice at Chelsea, who I had the pleasure of finding in perfect health, with a little addition of embonpoint extremely becoming. She received me very politely, and her governesses spoke much in her praise. Indeed, she is a very good subject for them, appearing to have much good-humour, docility, and everything I could wish.” The young Sarah Elizabeth’s extremely becoming embonpoint induced her sagacious aunt to look at her stays. “I found fault with her stays,” she writes, “which lift up her shoulders; and they say they had your leave to get others, but I could not understand why they had neglected to do it. I was pleased to find my neice perfectly clean and neat, tho’ I called on ye Saturday, which is usually only the eve of cleanliness. I remember at Mrs. Robartes’, at Kensington, the girls used to be so dirty, sometimes one could not salute them!”