“At Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke is an industrious farmer, a polite husband, a kind master, a charitable neighbour, and a most excellent companion. The demons of ambition and party who hover about Westminster do not extend their influences as far as the villa. I know not why it is, but these busy spirits seem more tranquil and pleased in their days of retreat than the honest, dull justice of the quorum, who never stretched forth his hand to snatch the sceptre of power, or raised his voice in publick to fill the trumpet of fame. A little mind is for ever in a tracasserie, because it is moved by little things. I have always found that nothing is so gentle as the chief out of war, nor so serene and simple as the statesman out of place. If it were fit to name names and certify places, I would bring many examples to justify my assertion. I so much delight in these working master-spirits in their holiday humour, that I had rather play at tee-totum or cross and pile with Julius Cæsar than with Sardanapalus. The first would have the easy indifference that belongs to play; the other, the seriousness and anxiety which belong to business.
“I am now preparing for a little excursion in which I shall see some of the busy folks of the great world; so I expect to enjoy my time in the more joyous tranquility. On Friday, I am to go to Stowe, Lord and Lady Temple having given me repeated invitations there. I am much afraid the weather will not favour my excursion; however, as I shall stay four days at Stowe, I hope to see those superbe gardens while I am there in favourable gleams of sunshine. I have not seen Stowe since I first married. Lord Temple, I hear, has much improved them.
“I shall have the pleasure of making a visit at another fine place which I never yet saw, which is Lord Nuneham’s, in Oxfordshire.... Mr. Herbert has given me a very agreable neighbour in Lady Elizabeth. She has been very well educated, and I dare say will always behave with great propriety. Mr. Herbert is a young man of uncommon understanding and merit. He has come early, and not too early, into ye possession of an ample fortune.
“... I am much pleased to hear my neice is so tractable and good; a disposition to oblige her Parents, and to do what those who love her advise her to, will make her much happier than wilfulness and obstinacy.... My nephews, Morris and Matthew, are just arrived. They are fine boys. Morris grows very handsome, and he has a very good character amongst his schoolfellows. These little men will be a great amusement to Mr. Montagu in my absence. I passed my time very well at Tunbridge, having so agreable a companion at home as my sister; so that I depend on the great world for nothing more than vagrant amusement at idle hours; and this is all one can reasonably expect of the great world. One should have one’s solid comforts at home. One makes a good meal; the other a pleasant dessert.
“... I regret that poor Mr. Gray is now no more than Pindar. One fatal moment sets two or three thousand years aside, and brings the account equal. I really believe our British Pindar not unequal in merit to the bard of Thebes. I hope Mr. Gray has left some works yet unpublished.”
Walpole, who never appears in a more favourable light than when he speaks with affectionate reverence of Gray, supplemented Mrs. Montagu’s hopes by saying: “I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything for the public, to print it at my press. It would do me honour and give me an opportunity of expressing what I feel for him. Methinks, as we grow old, our only business here is to adorn the graves of our friends or dig our own.”
From these reflections, Mrs. Montagu takes her readers back to life and its varieties, in a letter without date, but it is endorsed in a hand, not hers, 1773.
“In the early part of my life I was a most punctual correspondent; but of late I have been as much too remiss as I was formerly too diligent in writing letters. I have at length discovered that writing letters is idleness without ease, and fatigue without a purpose. When newspapers only told weddings, births, and burials, a letter from London bore some value; but now that the public papers not only tell when men are born and dye, but every folly they contrive to insert between those periods, the literary correspondent has nothing left. Lies and dulness used to be valued in manuscript, but printing has assumed a right over the lies of the day and the amusement of the hour. On stamped paper and by authority are publish’d what Lady B—— L——e says of a fat alderman, and how Miss Biddy Bellair was dress’d at the last masquerade. I can, however, tell you some news from St. Vincent, which I had just now from a gentleman in a public office, which is, that an account has just arrived from Colonel Dalrymple, with news of the total reduction of the Caribs, in St. Vincent, and a treaty concluded with them, with small loss on our side. I could find in my heart to say ‘poor Caribs!’
“I suppose you are not very deeply interested in Sir George C——ke’s affairs.... I hope no one will lose anything of such importance as to affect them essentially, as this disaster has been so long expected. It was said the other day, his effects amounted to £700,000, his debts to £300,000; but his contracts and dealings have been so universal, that I presume no one can tell ye just sum of the one or the other. Part of his effects are hemp and alum. Never was so much of the first used at Tyburn, nor of the second at the bakers’, as at this moment; but as I presume those commodities do not bear a settled price, a just estimate cannot be made. In ye present lack of specie and of confidence, paper, estates and houses must sell badly. I hope his unmarried sister will not lose anything, and that his family will not fall from affluence to narrow circumstances. I hear Lady C——ke has an estate in Jamaica of £4,000 per annum settled upon her. It is said the Irish Bank has only stopped for awhile, and that nothing will be lost. The state of that country is very bad. The poor are wretched, and all people discontented. The condition of Scotland is not much better. The bankruptcies there are numerous, and ye manufactories are stopped. I wish the bankruptcies here may not have as bad an effect on our trade. I rejoice that my brother Robinson has returned to his native land, and wish he would come and visit his friends in town.