He had some reason, perhaps, to feel careless and embittered, for in this year, 1762, his mother died, showing her cruel contempt for him by leaving him a guinea, which he gave to Mr. Davison, a friend and companion in his wayfaring. It was from his mother, said Mrs. Piozzi, that the ‘learned’ and accomplished Edward Wortley Montagu inherited all his ‘tastes and talents for sensual delights.’
In the same year, 1762, the English consul at Alexandria was a Scandinavian, a native either of Denmark or Sweden, named Feroe. His wife was a beautiful young woman, born at Leghorn in 1741. Her father (sometimes said to be an innkeeper) was English, or of English descent. His name was Dormer, the name of a family that had once given a duchess to one of the Italian states, and that has given a line of barons to the English peerage since the year 1615 to the present day. The mother of the lady in question was an Italian; her maiden name was Maria Sciale. There were several children of this marriage, but we have only to notice the beautiful Caroline Dormer, who married Consul Feroe, of Alexandria. This Caroline is said to have been as much distinguished for her virtue as for her beauty. The Dormer family record (in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession), in which this double distinction is chronicled, perhaps, ‘doth protest too much’ with respect to the virtue, as that quality would now be understood; but of this the reader may judge for himself.
The consul and his wife were happily settled at Alexandria, when Wortley Montagu was sojourning in that city. Her beauty, as the Scripture phrase expresses it, took his mind prisoner. The object he had in view—that of carrying her off from her husband—seemed unattainable; but Montagu did not allow himself to be deterred by difficulties, and he found a way to surmount them. It was the way of a very unscrupulous man, but he had few scruples in compassing any end. He appeared as the friend of the family. He made no advances to the lady, but he manifested great interest in the welfare of her husband. Egypt was too dull a place for a man of such abilities. Montagu succeeded in inducing Feroe to leave it for a while on some pretended mission to Europe, which was to prove very lucrative to the poor consul, who took men and things for what they seemed to be. After Feroe’s departure there came news of his sudden illness. A little additional time elapsed, and then came intelligence of his death. The decease of the consul in Holland was officially attested, and in 1763 Montagu presented the mournful document to the beautiful young widow. After she had made herself mistress of its contents, and saw herself left alone in a strange land, he took pity on her exquisite grief, made love to her at once, and proposed a remedy for her loneliness by her taking him for husband. The fair young widow was not hard to woo. She did not indeed yield at once. She suggested some becoming objections. She, a Roman Catholic, had erred, she thought, in marrying Mr. Feroe, who was a Protestant. She could not bring herself to repeat the error, but she intimated that she might be won if her handsome lover would turn from his heretical ways and become a true son of the true church. As nothing more than this trifle stood as an obstacle to his success, Montagu resolved to become Roman Catholic. Perhaps he reflected long enough on the matter to persuade himself that he had a true call to that church. At all events, he professed to be somewhat divinely driven. He repaired to Jerusalem, and made his profession at the fountain-head of Christianity. In October 1764 Montagu presented himself in the Holy City to Father Paul, prefect of the missions in Egypt and Cyprus. The traveller said that he had come to Jerusalem rather out of curiosity than devotion, but that the hand of God had fallen upon him. From his youth up, he stated (truly enough) that he had been the dupe of the devil. He made the statement with manifestations of grief, especially as he had obstinately resisted the impulses of the Holy Spirit, for which he now expressed penitence and humbly sought pardon. Father Paul gave heed to the repentant sinner’s statement, and finding him cleansed from all heretical depravity, freed him from all pains and penalties decreed by the church against heretics, gave him plenary absolution, and received him into communion with Rome. Father Paul thought much of his convert, whom he styles, in the official certificate of Montagu’s conversion, ‘Dominus Comes de Montagu’ (as every Englishman abroad in those days used to be called ‘mi lord,’) and the good father bids all the faithful to refrain from snubbing the convert, but on the contrary, to rejoice and be merry over him, as they would be over the unexpected finding of a treasure. A copy of the original document, which still sparkles with the silver dust showered over the finely written Italian letters, was printed in ‘Notes and Queries,’ January 4, 1873.
There is no reason to doubt that soon after this act was accomplished Mr. Wortley Montagu and Madame Feroe née Dormer, were duly married. Their conjugal felicity, however, was slightly disturbed by the reappearance of the consul Feroe, who very naturally expressed the greatest surprise at the household arrangements which had taken place in his absence, and he laid claim to his beautiful wife. The Catholic lady was persuaded that her first marriage with the Protestant consul was null and void, the validity of such a union not being recognised by her church. At the same time she looked with some doubt, or she affected so to look, on the contract with her second husband. Appeal was made to the law tribunals of Tuscany, and pending the appeal, the wife of two husbands retired to a religious house at Antoura, in Syria. Montagu solaced himself with travel: he possibly knew that Italian judges were tardy in coming to conclusions. Whither he wended is quite easy to tell, for in 1765 Mr. Montagu was encountered at Venice. Mr. Sharp, in his Letters from Italy, has one dated Venice, September 1765, in which he gives the following account:
One of the most curious sights we saw among these curiosities, was the famous Mr. Montagu, who was performing quarantine at the Lazaretto. All the English made a point of paying him their compliments in that place, and he seemed not a little pleased with their attention. It may be supposed that visitors are not suffered to approach the person of any who is performing quarantine. They are divided by a passage of about seven or eight feet wide. Mr. Montagu was just arrived from the East; he had travelled through the Holy Land, Egypt, Armenia, &c., with the Old and New Testaments in his hands for his direction, which, he told us, had proved unerring guides. He had particularly taken the road of the Israelites through the Wilderness, and had observed that part of the Red Sea which they had passed through. He had visited Mount Sinai, and flattered himself he had been on the very part of the rock where Moses spake face to face with God Almighty. His beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half growth; and the dress of his head was Armenian. He was in the most enthusiastic raptures with Arabia and the Arabs. Like theirs, his bed was the ground, his food rice, his beverage, water, his luxury, a pipe and coffee. His purpose was to return once more among that virtuous people, whose morals and hospitality, he said, were such, that were you to drop your cloak in the highway, you would find it there six months afterwards, an Arab being too honest a man to pick up what he knows belongs to another; and, were you to offer money for the provision you meet with, he would ask you, with concern, why you had so mean an opinion of his benevolence, to suppose him capable of accepting a gratification. ‘Therefore, money,’ said he, ‘in that country, is of very little use, as it is only necessary for the purchase of garments, which, in so warm a climate, are very few and of very little value.’ He distinguishes, however, between the wild and the civilised Arab, and proposes to publish an account of all that I have written.
In 1765, Wortley Montagu (while sojourning at Pisa), wrote his well-known account of his journey to ‘The Written Mountains’ in the East. It is a clever and modest record; his conclusion being that the rock inscriptions were undecipherable, and probably would not, if interpreted, be worth the outlay of means. This account was read before the Royal Society. In March 1766 he was still at Pisa, whence he wrote to M. Varsy, a merchant from Marseilles, established at Rosetta, and married to a sister of Mrs. Feroe, or Mrs. Montagu, as the Tuscan judges might decide. The letter in French (now, with others quoted below, in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession,) contains the following personal matter:—
... On my way back I shall go through Alexandria and Rosetta to see you, and also to see whether I cannot establish myself at Rosetta rather than in Syria. As my father-in-law sets out for Syria next week, I shall not be obliged to take the shortest road; my wife will be at ease, and I shall have at least time to assure you how charmed I shall be to find opportunities of testifying to you my gratitude, and of renewing our old and dear friendship—a friendship which will always be dear to me, and with which I shall never cease to be, &c., &c.
D. Montaigu.
I have before me the original ‘dispensation,’ to enable him to neglect keeping Lent in the usual abstinent way. That he should take the trouble to procure such a power would seem to be warrant for a sincerity for which we can hardly credit him. It is dated ‘March 6, 1767,’ and he is styled ‘Excellentissimus Dominus Eduardus de Comitibus Montagu.’ Meanwhile the question of the marriage was still undecided. The ecclesiastical and civil judges were perhaps not long in forming, but they were very slow in delivering judgment. Mrs. Montagu, however, or ‘the Countess,’ as she was sometimes called, seems to have formed a judgment of her own; or, at all events, to have accepted that of her second husband. They lived together at Smyrna, where for two years both applied themselves to the study of Turkish, in which language, as in others of the East, Montagu became a proficient scholar. On New Year’s day, 1769, he addressed a joyous letter to his brother-in-law Varsy. The Tuscan and the Roman tribunals had at length pronounced on the great question. The rich and orthodox second husband was declared to be the legal possessor of the lady, and her previous marriage with the poor heretical consul was decreed to be no marriage at all.
You cannot imagine, thus runs the letter, the great joy I feel at being able to tell you that Mr. Feroe has the final decree of the Court of the Nuncio at Florence. Accordingly, as Madame is already here (Smyrna), we reckon on being as soon as possible at Rosetta. But prudence requires that we should first write to you to beg you to find us a suitable house. That in which we were before would be good enough, but I think and fear that the consul may have it. Without the servants, there are myself, my wife, and her father (monsieur son père). We live more in the Turkish fashion than ever. Accordingly, the women’s apartments must be comfortable and convenient for the salamlike (sic), and there must be a chamber for my father-in-law. You know what is necessary. The quarter in which we live must be free from disturbance, from plague, and from robbers. Have the kindness to inform me if the country is tranquil, and if you believe that there is no danger from the government; for here no end of stories is being circulated. Write by the first ship. Be convinced of the constant friendship with which I am, my very dear friend, entirely yours,
D. Montaigu.
There seems to have been some obstruction to impede the desired settlement in Egypt. In a letter, dated ‘Antoura’ (Syria), ‘January, 1771,’ there is the following passage:—