“A lady told us last night that Miss Molyneux is so great a Mathematician that she can inster Greek, and that often a dozen of the most learned men of the Kingdom had puzzled their wise heads about a piece of Greek, and could make nothing of it; they proposed to send it to Miss Molyneux, and she instered it (alias construed it), and returned them her insteration!”
Whilst Sarah was at Bath, Mrs. Montagu wrote frequently to her mother at Mount Morris, much, naturally enough, about her child, about whom the fond grandmother was never tired of hearing. A little sentence gives a clue to his looks, “If my Father has drawn a blue-eyed simpering Cherubim, you may fancy him not unlike your grandchild; the child’s eyelashes are black and long, and he has a laughing look in his eyes, blue, like my Father.” He was still toothless, and suffered much with his gums, which made his mother already uneasy. Mr. Montagu had just taken some prodigious sized carp from a fish-pond at Sandleford, and was throwing three of the old monks’ ponds, or fish stews, into one large one.
Mrs. Donnellan writes from Bullstrode on October 21, and says her brother is now going to Bath, where he will stay with their relations the Mountraths,[302] and that Sarah Robinson, “if she meets him she must make the advances, all the young ladies do, as he is a grave, stiff Parson.” Dr. Young and Lady Peterborough[303] were at Bullstrode when she wrote.
[302] 6th Earl of Mountrath and his wife.
[303] Née Anastasia Robinson.
MIDGHAM
In a letter to the duchess of October 25, Mrs. Montagu describes the gardens at Midgham, the seat of Mr. Poyntz,[304] near Aldermaston,
“to which Mr. Montagu carried me last week, I had no small expectations of them, both from report and the known sense and genius of the owner.... Over the door of a little grotto he declares for retirement in open fields, caves and dens, with living waters and woods. Statues of the Muses adorn his walls, their Arts adorn his mind and inspire him with the elegant ingenious gratitude that gives this public demonstration of honour to them. Every venerable oak has a seat under it from whence he takes the sacred oracles of meditation.... The gardens are of uneven ground, prettily diversified with hills and valleys. There is a fine bason before the house, that is always well supplied with water, and inhabited by fish.... I did not see Mr. Poyntz’s house, as it is not anything extraordinary, it would have been an impertinent curiosity to desire it, as they visit here when in the country.”
[304] Right Hon. Stephen Poyntz, Lord Treasurer.
Mrs. Donnellan writes for the duchess as well as herself in reply, Lady Oxford being there, and all the usual writing-hours given up to playing Pope Joan with her. In this letter, alluding to “Punch” watching with pleasure the colour of his bed-curtains, she says, “Master Wesley,[305] who is the most extraordinary child for sense I ever knew, at three months old, used to be put in a good humour with a suit of tawdry Tapestry hangings.”