Mrs. Montagu had, all her life, been a student of Shakespeare, and an ardent admirer of his works. Her indignation may be imagined therefore when Voltaire dared to condemn what he was pleased to call les farces monstrueuses of the bard of Avon.[44] It was contended by Voltaire that Corneille was immeasurably superior to Shakespeare as a dramatist, inasmuch as the latter set at nought Aristotle’s unities of time and place, and otherwise violated accepted rules of dramatic composition. That the vigor and freedom which characterise Shakespeare’s genius should be depreciated, and the stilted artificialities of the French school held up to admiration, was more than Mrs. Montagu could stand. She thus denounces the philosopher of Ferney, and his opinions, in a letter to Gilbert West:
“Foolish coxcomb! Rules can no more make a poet than receipts a cook. There must be taste, there must be skill. Oh, that we were as sure our fleets and armies could drive the French out of America as that our poets and tragedians can drive them out of Parnassus. I hate to see these tame creatures, taught to pace by art, attack fancy’s sweetest child.”
There was nothing for it but to enter the lists herself, and measure swords with the assailant. She accordingly set to work at her “Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare,” and very well she acquitted herself of the task. Her essay, though heavy, did credit to her taste and erudition. It was published in 1769, and had no small success. From first to last, six editions appeared. She treated Voltaire in it with surprising forbearance; yet he is said to have been extremely nettled at his sovereign dictum being called in question—and by a woman too! This was not her only literary performance. To the “Dialogues of the Dead,” of which her friend Lord Lyttleton was the author, she contributed three, the brightest being that in which Mercury and Mrs. Modish are made to converse. Mrs. Modish is a typical woman of fashion of the day. Mercury summons her to cross the Styx with him, and she—surprised and unprepared—pleads in excuse divers trumpery engagements (balls, plays, card-assemblies, and the like), to meet which she neglects all her home duties. As several fine ladies tossed their heads on reading the dialogue, and declared the Modish utterances to be “abominably satirical,” we may presume that the cap fitted.
In 1770, Mrs. Montagu had completely established her empire in the world of literature. A list of the remarkable people who assembled beneath her roof would fill a page. She was on terms of friendly intimacy with Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Reynolds, Walpole, Garrick, Dr. Burney, Dr. Young, Bishop Percy, Lords Lyttleton, Bath, Monboddo, and a host more. Of the other sex may be named Mesdames Carter, Chapone, Barbauld, Boscawen, Thrale, Vesey, Ord, and Miss Burney. Dr. Doran, in his memoir of Mrs. Montagu, explains how her parties, and those given by Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord, came to be called Bluestocking Assemblies. It seems that Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, who was always a welcome guest at them, wore stockings of a bluish grey; and this peculiarity was fixed upon, by those disposed to deride such gatherings, as affording a good stamp wherewith to brand them. A Bluestocking Club never existed. There was a Literary Club, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson were the promoters, and to this the so-called bluestockings of both sexes belonged.
It was in 1774 that Hannah More was first introduced to Mrs. Montagu. Hannah was the daughter of a schoolmaster in Gloucestershire, and had come up to town at the invitation of Garrick. Her ambition from her earliest childhood had been to mix in intellectual society, and win for herself, if possible, a place therein. This she succeeded in doing with a swiftness that will surprise those who have tried to read the plays and ballads by which she made her name. Her cleverness, sound sense, and fresh enthusiasm, attracted the “female Mecænas of Hill Street” (so she styles Mrs. Montagu), who invited her to dinner, Johnson, Reynolds, and Mrs. Boscawen, being of the party.
“I feel myself a worm,” she tells her sister, “the more a worm from the consequence which was given me by mixing with such a society. Mrs. Montagu received me with the most encouraging kindness. She is not only the finest genius, but the finest lady I ever saw. Her countenance is the most animated in the world—the sprightly vivacity of fifteen, with the judgment and experience of a Nestor. But I fear she is hastening to decay very fast; her spirits are so active that they must soon wear out the little frail receptacle that holds them.”
Cards were discountenanced in Hill Street. After dinner, the company, augmented by fresh arrivals, divided itself into little groups, and much animated conversation went on. The hostess was especially brilliant, holding her own in a brisk argument against four clever men. Hannah was amused at observing how “the fine ladies and pretty gentlemen” who could only talk twaddle, herded together.
Mrs. Montagu was generally happy in her friendships, which she made with caution, and only abandoned for good reason. It is hard to say what first caused a breach between her and Johnson, who sometimes smothered her with compliments, and as often, in chatting with Boswell, spoke of her with harshness and disrespect. She, it is stated, once pronounced his “Rasselas” an opiate, and the remark of course was not allowed to lie where it fell. In return, he fastened on her “Essay on Shakespeare,” declaring that there was not one sentence of true criticism in the whole book. There is reason to suppose also that he was jealous of the respectful deference she showed to Garrick and Lyttleton. He certainly caused her pain later on, by the sneers he bestowed on the latter (then dead) in his “Lives of the Poets.” He had shown her the manuscript of the Life in question, and the expressions in it which offended her she had marked for omission. He, however, thought fit to disregard her wishes, and sent it to press as originally written. On opening the book, and finding her idol alluded to as “poor Lyttleton,” and accused of vanity and a cringing fear of criticism, she was naturally incensed. As it was not convenient to seek out the offender in Bolt Court, she asked him to dinner, and he had the temerity to go. The repast over, he attempted to engage her in conversation, but her icy manner repelled him. Retiring discomfited, he seated himself next General Paoli, to whom he remarked, “Mrs. Montagu, sir, has dropped me. Now, sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.” After this, open war was declared on both sides. Malicious onlookers, for sport’s sake, fomented the disagreement. Foremost among these was Horace Walpole. He relates with infinite glee that, at a bluestocking assembly at Lady Lucan’s, “Mrs. Montagu and Johnson kept at different ends of the chamber, and set up altar against altar.” Johnson had many reasons for feeling grateful to Mrs. Montagu; it is therefore satisfactory to know that, at the time of his death, he and she were on cordial terms again.
Not only could she dispute with the learned, and frolic with the fashionable, in town; but at Sandleford Mrs. Montagu kept the farm accounts, and rattled away glibly about agriculture. Then again at Denton, her husband’s place in Northumberland, where he owned extensive coal-mines, it was she, not he, who visited the pits with the overseer, and discussed the prospects of trade. Her husband’s apathy to what went on around him, and disinclination to move, irritated her, as is evident from the slightly petulant remarks she lets drop thereupon in her letters. She lost all patience with her brother William, the clergyman, who preferred a life of easy retirement to going ahead in his profession. “He leads,” she writes, “a life of such privacy and seriousness as looks to the beholders like wisdom; but for my part, no life of inaction deserves that name.” In 1774, her husband’s health was visibly failing. He scarcely left the house, sought his bed at five o’clock in the evening, and did not leave it till near noon. He died the following year, bequeathing all his property, real and personal, to his widow. She, after an interval of seclusion at Sandleford, proceeded to the North, and busied herself in visiting her coal-mines, and feasting her tenants on a liberal scale. Her colliery people she blew out with boiled beef and rice-pudding. “It is very pleasant,” she remarks, “to see how the poor things cram themselves, and the expense is not great. We buy rice cheap, and skimmed milk and coarse beef serve the occasion.” Having projected various schemes of charity and usefulness among her vassals in Northumberland, she proceeded to Yorkshire, and with the state of affairs on her property there she was equally pleased. A prolonged drought, it is true, had this summer burnt the country to a brown crust; not a blade of grass was visible; cattle had to be driven miles to water. Yet her tenants asked no indulgence nor favor, but paid their rents like men, hoping philosophically that the next season would be better.
The following year, she was moving in a different scene. She was in Paris, where her reputation as a bel esprit of the first rank was established. The doors of the greatest houses were thrown open to receive her, and she was hurried hither and thither in a manner bewildering.