“My dear Mrs. Montagu,
“I am sure will be pleased to hear I am got safe to the end of my journeys and voyage, and am with my good friend Mrs. Delany resting myself after a good deal of fatigue. I left London as I told you I should, as I informed you by a letter from King’s Weston, which I hope you got. Mr. Leslie, the gentleman who took the charge of conducting me to Ireland, came at the time appointed, but we heard so bad an account of the cross roads between Bristol and Chester that we were very near setting out again for London, and going from thence to Chester. However, I plucked up courage, and as my good friends would do everything to accommodate me, we set out on Thursday sen’night with Mr. Southwell’s coach, two post-chaises and Mr. Southwell’s groom and double horse,[524] so that we had variety enough. The road for the greatest part to Gloucester was so bad I rid most of it, but hearing it would rather mend I sent back the coach, and between the chaise and the horse got to Chester and on to Park Gate in five days, and Mr. Leslie my companion, being a very sensible, polite travelled man, made the journey as agreeable as such a journey could be. We found Lord and Lady Fitzwilliams and many more waiting at Park Gate for the King’s Yacht, but as I hate a crowded ship and am not a coward, I resolved not to wait, and the wind being fair, we hired a small ship for ten guineas and set sail. The next morning at six o’clock and with the finest weather imaginable made our passage and landed in Dublin in 30 hours. The Bishop of Clogher, who had been enquiring for me the morning tide, came to the house when I was landed, with his usual politeness, and carried me to their house, and as it was too late to come here, they kept me that night, and the next day Mrs. Delany came and brought me here, where I am extremely happy, the most polite and hearty welcome, a large and convenient house, sweet gardens and a manner of living quite to my sober taste. Our only disturbance are visitors: we had yesterday seven coaches and six, mostly my own relations, my brother, sister, nephews and nieces.”
[524] Means a horse trained to carry a pillion.
THE DAUPHIN
On October 31 there is a letter dated from London to Mr. Gilbert West. In this Mrs. Montagu is forwarding him patterns of all kinds of dove-coloured paper from Mr. Bromedge’s shop, and Mr. Linnell was sending a marble chimney-piece for West’s big room at Wickham. She says—
“Poor Dr. Courayer notified to me that he was ill of a sore throat, and could not come to visit me, though he wanted to see me. I went to him, I was obliged to pass through all the gay vanities of Mrs. Chenevix,[525] and then ascend a most steep and difficult staircase to get at the little Philosopher: this way to wisdom through the vanities and splendid toys of the world might be prettily allegorized by the pen of the great Bunyan; the good man himself to an emblematizeing genius would have afforded an ample subject; his head was enfoncé in a cap of the warmest beaver, made still more respectable by a gold orrace, ‘a wondrous hieroglyphick robe he wore,’ in which was portrayed all the attributes of the god Fo, with the arms and delineaments of the Cham of Tartary.... I began to consider him as the best piece of Chinese furniture I had ever seen, and could hardly forbear offering him a place on my chimney-piece. He asked much after your health.... There has been a terrible fracas in the court of the grand Monarque, the people, generally credulous, have strangely taken it into their heads that the Duke of Burgundy is not legitimate, and instead of acclamations and huzzas, murmurs and sighs have echo’d through the streets, on the days the feasts were made for the birth of this child; besides this there was conveyed into the cradle some gunpowder and a match with an epigram expressing that they would serve to blow up the pretended Duke of Burgundy. Upon his Majesty hearing this, the gouvernante, sub-gouvernante, women of the bedchamber, even to the toothless pap tasters, were all sent to the Bastille, one of the women who said she saw a hand reach over a screen to throw a paper into the cradle is since dead. A little knowledge is allowed to be a dangerous thing; had the lady been able to inform his Majesty at once who threw the paper, she had been safe, but it is supposed the hand that threw it, lest she should discover more, gave her a dose that has silenced her for ever....
“The Duke and Duchess of Portland and Lord Titchfield dined with us to-day, and staid till eight o’clock; her grace inquired after you.”
[525] Famous shop for bric-à-brac and toys.
MR. NATHANIEL HOOKE
The last letter of the year is on December 17, to Mr. West, from Sandleford. From this it appears Mrs. Montagu was extremely unwell, but anxious for the health of Mr. West, who had had one of his periodical gout attacks, which had rendered his hands temporarily incapable of use. In this mention of Mr. Hooke is made. Mr. Nathaniel Hooke[526] wrote a “History of Rome,” and other works. He assisted the old Duchess of Marlborough to write her “Memoirs of her Life,” for which she gave him £5000. He was a Roman Catholic, a disciple of Fenelon’s, and brought a Catholic priest to Pope on his death-bed. “Pray have you made a good Protestant of Mr. Hooke? If you cure heresy and schism, should you not have your doctor’s degree in divinity rather than law?”