[241] Mrs. Freind’s brother. See note on Rokeby at the end of this book.
FIRST LETTER TO MR. MONTAGU
Mr. Montagu having left Elizabeth for a few days for business at Newcastle, she writes to him—
“How very fortunate are those few who in the Person they love, meet with the principles of Honour and Virtue to guide them through the World, but this, my fortune, so happy and so rare, shall not breed in me that insolence of opinion that I deserve it, but I will still look up to Heaven and you with gratitude and continual acknowledgments.”
This sufficiently indicates the happiness and mutual confidence reigning between the newly wedded pair.
On October 2 Dr. Conyers Middleton wrote Mrs. Montagu a long letter, mainly a dissertation on marriage and its duties. He alludes to his pleasure at her having her three youngest brothers with her, calling them “enfans trouvés by a sister unknown to them,” and he adds—
“I shall always think myself particularly interested in their success, for they were all born under my roof, which may, one day perhaps, derive an accession of fame from that circumstance. If I should live to see any of them in the University, it would be a pleasure to me to do everything in my power that might be of use to their improvement.”
This shows that Mrs. Robinson had been accustomed to stay with her mother, the first Mrs. Middleton, for her latter frequent confinements, though Elizabeth and some of the elder sons were born at York. Dr. Middleton begs Mr. and Mrs. Montagu to pay him a visit at Cambridge on their return to London, and states, “This university had the honour of Mr. Montagu’s education, and claims some share in yours.”
PÈRE LE COURAYER —
WORKSOP
Being detained by business in the north, Mrs. Montagu wrote to Mrs. Donnellan to send her a winter mantle and muff, and as prices of those times may interest my readers, I will mention the blue velvet mantle cost £5, the ermine muff one guinea. In Mrs. Donnellan’s letter the Père Courayer sends his compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Montagu. As he figures much in later letters, I give a short sketch of his biography. Peter Francis le Courayer was born in 1681, and was a Normandy ecclesiastic; although a Roman Catholic, he had the courage to defend the ordinances of the English Church, for which the Pope censured him severely. He left France for England, and went to Oxford, where he lodged with Mrs. Chenevix, the famous toy-woman. He was made LL.D., and translated Father Paul’s “History of the Council of Trent,” also Sleidan’s “History of the Reformation.” He was well known to Horace Walpole. He died in 1776. His pet-name was “the little Père.” In a letter of the duchess’s of October 9 from Welbeck, where she was visiting her mother, Lady Oxford, she says—