“P.S.—Since I wrote the above we have been surprised with good news from abroad. Too much cannot be said about it, for it is truly matter of infinite Joy, as it is of Infinite Consequence.”
Lord Orford is here alluding to the battle of Dettingen.
THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH
The duchess, in a letter of August 26 from Bullstrode, says, “Thanks for Sir Robert’s letter, I had never seen it.” In alluding to the tiresome etiquette and interference she suffered from at Welbeck under Lady Oxford’s despotic rule, she says—
“I please myself that my children will love me better, as my covetousness will not be obliged ’em to pay me court, and as I shall have no suspicion of their duty, but be convinced that their motives proceed from disinterested love, and by that means we shall each of us be happy. Was the Duchess of Marlborough[289] possessed by one good quality? I should think she deserved pity more than the poorest creature in the street, not to have one child, but what wishes her dead, nor capable of knowing the enjoyments of friendship.... We propose being in London Monday sennight.”
[289] Sarah, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough.
On Thursday, August 25, Mrs. Montagu took a sad leave of her little boy, and started on her journey to London, sleeping at Windsor, at the house of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Medows. Mr. Montagu remained with the child till the time his wife should be inoculated, when he was to join her in London, and Mrs. Medows was to take charge of him. Sarah joined her sister in London; it will be remembered she had had the disorder.
PREPARATION FOR INOCULATION
As inoculation is now out of date, I shall extract from the various letters the mode of procedure. Arrived in Dover Street, Mrs. Montagu is told by Elias, the duchess’s porter (then a most important domestic magnate), his mistress was coming to London on Monday. She therefore writes to beg the duchess, the duke, and Mr. Achard to dine with her that day “at 4 or 5 according to their convenience.” Business, however, prevented the duchess leaving Bullstrode for a week, but she is reinvited, as Dr. Mead says Mrs. Montagu will not be infectious till the disease appears. Meanwhile, in preparation for the dreaded operation, she was “dosed, then blooded, another dose or two of physick is all I shall want, and then proceed to meet that distemper I have been running from these four and twenty years: it is at present my misfortune the smallpox is so little stirring they cannot find a subject.” She writes to the duchess also in another letter, “Though Dr. Mead, Dr. Cotes, Mr. Hawkins, and the subaltern of the Physical faculty, the Apothecary, have been smallpox-hunting this week, they have not procured a subject for me.” She urges the duchess to dine, “as I shall be as well till 7 or 9 days after the operation as ever I was in my life.”
The duchess had been out of order with hysterical fits, and states she was ordered to drive in a chaise. Of this vehicle we gain a glimpse from this allusion of Mrs. Montagu’s in answer to the duchess, “A chaise is health, spirits and speed, a lady must lay aside her hoop, her laziness and pride, before she is diminutive enough for a chaise.” A portion of a very beautiful letter, written by Mrs. Montagu to her husband before he joins her, I copy—