This passage shows the position of the lower class of clergy of the period. Mr. Morgan was of Welsh birth, and preached long, dull sermons, as appears from former letters; his wife was a good motherly body, but no more. Mrs. Montagu apprenticed Nanny Morgan, as is shown by her next letter.
“She is too high and too giddy for a servant, time and experience may mend her, she likes the business she is going to.... I have obliged Mrs. Albert to promise she shall never go without her or Dettmere[485] or Mrs. Donnellan’s maid.... Charles went to Cambridge on Tuesday.”
[485] Mrs. Montagu’s lady’s-maid.
Charles’s health had improved, but as he did not like the sea as a profession, he entered Cambridge as an undergraduate.
“Tell Mr. Hoare when you see him, that if he pleases to send my face[486] to Hill Street, it will meet with a kind reception; it is a young face to be sure, but the retrospect to 18 is so pleasant I shall not find fault with it. I am, as you observe, Mistress of a post-chaize, which next to having wings, is the most convenient thing in the world, and must serve till it is brought to perfection. We liked so well our journey to Cambridge in the summer in a post-chaize which we hired for the time, that we bespoke one immediately.”
[486] Her portrait by Hoare.
The old post-chaises had only two wheels. Four-wheeled post-chaises were new, and were thought the more dangerous, as being liable to overturn.
LORD PEMBROKE’S DEATH
A letter occurs now from the Duchess Dowager of Chandos, third wife, and widow since 1744, of the 1st Duke of Chandos, surnamed the “Princely Duke,” the builder of the palatial residence of Canons, in Middlesex, on which he spent £200,000. Having spent his fortune in building and speculating, Canons was sold for the material at his death. The duchess’s maiden name was Van Hatten, but she had been married to a Sir Thomas Davall. After the duke’s death she came to reside at Shaw House,[487] near Newbury, from whence she writes to Mrs. Montagu, and after some inquiries as to health, etc., says—
“What different tempers the world consists of: I am told passion sent the late Lord Pembroke[488] out of the world, but that Mr. Middleton who opened him says that both heart and all the vitals were displaced by the continual swathing he used to keep himself from growing bulky. This was itself a discontented temper, and if at any time I should be extremely strait laced and contradicted, it is certain my crossness would have been very great, and I or my lace must burst. The giving Ward’s pill to a cock and then turning it into broth for old Lady Northampton[489] has something curious in it too, but as it ended in death, I suppose will not be practised further. How many tricks do we try to lengthen life, and yet like poor Lord Pembroke waste it in tormenting our blood because others will not be of our mind, or we are too fat, or too lean to please ourselves: if there is not another life where we may be more perfect, more happy, we are certainly the most inconsistent, foolish creatures this world produces; how much better the other planets have for inhabitants I know not.