“The distance j am now at from you, unhappily hinders me from discussing an affair of this moment with you and consulting with myne or your friends. At present j can only say that if you mean nothing more than paying your duty to our new sovereign j see no harm in it, and j think Lady Cardigan of all others the properest person to introduce you; but if you go further, before you give your attendance at a Court, j wish you would take the consequences into your most serious thoughts. The principal reason of my absenting myself ever since j was Member of Parliament was that j did not concur in the measures that were then taking, and the Principal members in the opposition thought they had no business at St. James, and j believe neither the wifes of the Peers nor of the Members of the House of Commons were found there. If j should be still so unhappy as out of dislike for the present measures not to alter my way of acting, and not to appear at Court, would it be proper for you to be attendant? Indeed, it seems to me that it would not, but if you can make out the contrary upon any sound Principles of reason j will readily submit. I have for many years liv’d in a state of Independancy though j may truly call it of Proscription, so far as those could make it to those who thought not, and acted not with them where politics they thought endanger’d the Liberties and good of their country, am j to alter now, or maintain the same conduct j hitherto have done? Whilst j flatter’d myself that we were in the same way of thinking, and that my conduct met with your approbation, j did hardly suffer anything. I then thought and still reflect with the utmost sense of gratitude on the sacrifice you made me in your early bloom, by giving up all the pleasures and gaieties of a Court, and it was the greater because you had all the advantages of beauty and sense to shine and make a figure there. I think that capacity is not so far gone as you in your modesty are pleas’d to say, and j may add in some sense perhaps improv’d, either at a Court or anywhere else j wish you every thing that is good that you may long enjoy that good will and esteem which your merit has acquir’d you, and leave the rest to your own candid and impartial consideration.”
To this his wife replies—
“I had yesterday your most kind and judicious letter, and my own way of thinking coincides so much with yours I have no merit in acquiescence. Your wonted independancy I hope in God you will ever preserve.... If you should be in opposition, I shall drop going at all; as to Peers, all who were not profess’d Jacobites, and also their wives, always went to St. James’, even the most protesting Lords, till the Division between the late King and late Prince of Wales.”
KISSING HANDS
At the end of the letter Lord Bath is mentioned as urging her to kiss hands, and she declares she will only attend two drawing-rooms a year, and not those, if Mr. Montagu disapproves.
MR. PITT AND THE SECRET
On November 22, from Hill Street, Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband that her toothache having been very agonizing, she had sent to Mr. Lodomie to examine her teeth. As he is often mentioned, he must have been the fashionable dentist of that period. In the same letter we read that—
“there has been a quarrel between General Townshend[305] and Lord Albemarle,[306] which had ended in a duel if Mr. Stanley[307] had not carried the Captain of the Guards to take them into custody. The story is too long for a letter. Mr. Townshend appears to have been too hasty: Lord Albemarle behaved very well, and all is now made up. Mr. Beckford in the House of Commons the day before yesterday call’d our German campaign this year a languid campaign, for which Mr. Pitt gave him a notable threshing, repeating languid and languor several times, and once how rash must that gentleman be, how inconsiderate, if he calls this languid, after repeating what had been done, and after enlarging on everything, again, again, and again, retorting the languid upon Beckford, who himself made a languid campaign, not returning to the charge. I heard of a good piece of witt of Mr. Pitt on my Lord Mayor of London’s absurdly asking him in the Drawing-room, where the secret expedition was destined. He ask’d his Lordship if he could keep a secret, which the grave Magistrate assured him he could upon his honour, and expected to be inform’d, on which Mr. Pitt only made a low bow and said, so can I, Sir, a very proper reproof for his impertinent question.”
[305] George Townshend, 4th Viscount and Marquis, born 1723, died 1807.
[306] George Keppel, 15th Earl of Albemarle.