LORD MANSFIELD
At the end of Mrs. Montagu’s letter she states that Lord Mansfield[274] had shown her
“great civilities the few hours he was here ... an old quaker of four-score, who was reckoned one of the greatest Chymists in Europe, and is a man of witt and learning and who was connected with all the witts of the last age, has taken a great fancy to me because he will believe, in spite of all I can say, that I wrote certain ‘Dialogues,’ and he sits by me so cordially and attends on me so much, that if he was forty and I was twenty years younger it would be scandalous.... Torriano will be kill’d by the Archbishop’s[275] sumptuous fare, who feeds more like a pig of Epicurus than the head of a Christian Church.”
[274] William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, born 1704, died 1793; eminent statesman, Lord Chief Justice, etc.
[275] John Gilbert, Archbishop of York, 1757 to 1761. Torriano seems to have been then his secretary.
WINNING A COAL MINE
Mr. Montagu had been at Sandleford, where Morris, his wife, and little boy were spending some time. The little Morris was a great favourite, and delight to poor Mr. Montagu, who loved children. He was now preparing to set off northwards to Northumberland, having two collieries which he was going to work, or, as the expression was, to “win,” viz. Leamington and “Denton.” The first would cost a £1000, the latter, now called “Montagu’s main,” £5000. He consults his wife about all this, and adds, “I think j shall not while j live get rid of the trouble my succession has brought upon me, and have only one object, who, j hope, will reap the benefit of all my labour.” This meant his wife. At Tunbridge his wife, with “all our fine ladies and gentlemen,” was attending Mr. Ferguson’s lectures on Philosophy. In a letter of Lord Lyttelton’s he mentions his brother Richard. “Sir Richard, or rather ‘Duke Lyttelton’s’[276] Royall villa at Richmond, a finer room I never saw, and he seems made to sitt in it, with all the dignity of a gouty Prince. But though I greatly admired it, I would not have his gout to have his room.”
[276] He had married the Dowager Duchess of Bridgewater in 1745. She was second wife to Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater.
To this letter a long answer is returned by Mrs. Montagu, and she informs Lord Lyttelton that, despite her eyes being very weak, she had been reading
“the new translation of Sophocles.... The Œdipus Coloneus affected me extreamly, and would have done so more if it had not been for the constant presence of the Chorus, but the passions are awed and checked by a crowd. I am more than ever averse to the Chorus because, though the translator tells us the Choruses of Sophocles are less alien to the subject of the Drama, than those of any other tragedian, yet here they hurt the interest of it very much.”