Lady Mary Wortley Montague Part 12

Pope's letters of this period to Lady Mary were all written in a strain of adulation, which may well have pleased Lady Mary and must certainly have amused her. She can, however, scarcely have been led into any self-deception as regards the sincerity of her correspondent, in spite of the fact that in one of the earliest epistles he addressed to her he subscribed himself: "I am, with all unalterable esteem and sincerity, Madam, your most faithful, obedient, humble servant." Yet, no doubt, she was pleased enough to read: "I communicated your letter to Mr. Congreve; he thinks of you as he ought, I mean as I do, for one always thinks that to be just as it ought.... We never meet but we lament over you: we pay a kind of weekly rites to your memory, when we strew flowers of rhetoric and offer such libations to your name as if it were a profaneness to call toasting." Well, alcoholic refreshment by any other name is just as potent. It must have been grateful and comforting to be told when in exile: "I must tell you, too, that the Duke of Buckingham has been more than once your high priest in performing the office of your praises: and upon the whole I believe there are few men who do not deplore your departure, as women that sincerely do."

Most excellent Pope, who would play at make-believe. It is almost a pity that he could not persuade the lady that he meant even a t.i.the of what he wrote to her. Listen to him again: "For my part, I hate a great many women for your sake, and undervalue all the rest. 'Tis you who are to blame, and may G.o.d revenge it upon you, with all those blessings and earthy prosperities which the divines tell us, are the cause of our perdition: for if He makes you happy in this world, I dare trust your own virtue to do it in the other." These poets!

Lady Mary took all this in the right way, and as love-letters appraised them at their true value. "Perhaps you'll laugh at me for thanking you very gravely for all the obliging concern you express for me," she wrote from Vienna in September, with, perhaps, just a touch of irony. "'Tis certain that I may, if I please, take the fine things you say to me for wit and raillery; and it may be, it would be taking them right. But I never in my life was half so well disposed to believe you in earnest; and that distance which makes the continuation of your friends.h.i.+p improbable, has very much increased my faith for it, and I find that I have (as well as the rest of my s.e.x), whatever face I set on't, a strong disposition to believe in miracles." As regards the rest, her side of the correspondence was matter-of-fact to such a degree that it suggests that she adopted that tone in order to lease him. Her replies can scarcely have given Pope any satisfaction. From Vienna she gave him a detailed account of the opera and the theatre; from Belgrade she told him of the war and of an Arabic scholar and also of the climate; from Adrianople she discoursed of the Hebrus, of the lads of the village, of Addison and Theocritus, pays him compliments on his translation of Homer, and a copy of some Turkish verses; and so on. The most striking thing about her letters is the absence of the personal note, which is so often introduced when she was writing to others. They read more like essays than communications to a friend.

Pope, in a letter dated September 1, 1718, sent Lady Mary a copy of his verses.

ON JOHN HUGHES AND SARAH DREW

When Eastern lovers fear'd the fun'eral fire On the same pile the faithful pair expire!

Here pitying Heav'n that virtue mutual found, And blasted both, that it might neither wound.

Hearts so sincere th' Almighty saw well pleas'd, Sent his own lightning and the victims seiz'd.

I Think not by vig'rous judgment seiz'd, A pair so faithful could expire; Victims so pure Heav'n saw well pleas'd, And s.n.a.t.c.h'd them in celestial fire.

II Live well, and fear no sudden fate: When G.o.d calls virtue to the grave; Alike 'tis justice, soon or late, Mercy alike to kill or save.

Virtue unmov'd can hear the call.

And face the flash that melts the ball.

These verses she acknowledged in a letter which, written while on the homeward path, she sent from Dover, where she arrived at the beginning of November.

"I have this minute received a letter of yours, sent me from Paris. I believe and hope I shall very soon see both you and Mr. Congreve; but as I am here in an inn, where we stay to regulate our march to London, bag and baggage, I shall employ some of my leisure time in answering that part of yours that seems to require an answer.

"I must applaud your good nature, in supposing that your pastoral lovers (vulgarly called haymakers) would have lived in everlasting joy and harmony, if the lightning had not interrupted their scheme of happiness.

I see no reason to imagine that John Hughes and Sarah Drew were either wiser or more virtuous than their neighbours. That a well-set man of twenty five should have a fancy to marry a brown woman of eighteen, is nothing marvellous; and I cannot help thinking, that, had they married, their lives would have pa.s.sed in the common track with their fellow paris.h.i.+oners. His endeavouring to s.h.i.+eld her from the storm, was a natural action, and what he would have certainly done for his horse, if he had been in the same situation. Neither am I of opinion, that their sudden death was a reward of their mutual virtue. You know the Jews were reproved for thinking a village destroyed by fire more wicked than those that had escaped the thunder. Time and chance happen to all men. Since you desire me to try my skill in an epitaph, I think the following lines perhaps more just, though not so poetical as yours:

Here lies John Hughes and Sarah Drew; Perhaps you'll say, what's that to you?

Believe me, friend, much may be said On this poor couple that are dead.

On Sunday next they should have married; But see how oddly things are carried!

On Thursday last it rain'd and lighten'd; These tender lovers, sadly frighten'd, Shelter'd beneath the c.o.c.king hay, In hopes to pa.s.s the storm away; But the bold thunder found them out (Commissioned for that end, no doubt), And, seizing on their trembling breath, Consign'd them to the shades of death.

Who knows if 'twas not kindly done?

For had they seen the next year's sun, A beaten wife and cuckold swain Had jointly curs'd the marriage chain; Now they are happy in their doom, For P. has wrote upon their tomb.

"I confess, these sentiments are not altogether so heroic as yours; but I hope you will forgive them in favour of the two last lines. You see how much I esteem the honour you have done them; though I am not very impatient to have the same, and had rather continue to be your stupid living humble servant, than be celebrated by all the pens in Europe.

"I would write to Mr. Congreve, but suppose you will read this to him, if he enquires after me."

CHAPTER XI

AT TWICKENHAM

The Montagus take a house at Twickenham--Lady Mary's liking for country life--Neighbours and visitors--Pope--Bononcini, Anastasia Robinson, Senesino--Lord Peterborough--Sir Geoffrey Kneller--Henrietta Howard--Lord Bathurst--The Duke of Wharton--His early history--He comes to Twickenham--His relations with Lady Mary--Horace Walpole's reference to them--Pope's bitter onslaught on the Duke--An Epilogue by Lady Mary--"On the death of Mrs. Bowes"--The Duke quarrels with Lady Mary.

Pope went to live at Twickenham in 1718, and it was generally believed that it was by his persuasion that the Montagus rented a house in that little riverside hamlet. It was not until 1722 that they bought "the small habitation."

Lady Mary divided her time between London and Twickenham, but apparently enjoyed herself more at her country retreat. "I live in a sort of solitude that wants very little of being such as I would have it," she wrote to her sister, Lady Mar, in August, 1721. As a matter of fact, the solitude was more imaginary than real, for round about there was a small colony of friends.

She was, indeed, very rarely lonely. "My time is melted away in almost perpetual concerts," she told her sister. "I do not presume to judge, but I'll a.s.sure you I am a very hearty as well as an humble admirer. I have taken my little thread satin beauty into the house with me; she is allowed by Bononcini to have the finest voice he ever heard in England.

He and Mrs. Robinson and Senesino lodge in this village, and sup often with me: and this easy indolent life would make me the happiest in the world, if I had not this execrable affair [of Remond] still hanging over my head." To Anastasia Robinson there is more than one allusion in Lady Mary's correspondence, and she gives a most amusing account of an incident in that lady's career.

"Could one believe that Lady Holdernesse is a beauty, and in love? and that Mrs. Robinson is at the same time a prude and a kept mistress? and these things in spite of nature and fortune. The first of these ladies is tenderly attached to the polite Mr. Mildmay, and sunk in all the joys of happy love, notwithstanding she wants the use of her two hands by a rheumatism, and he has an arm that he cannot move. I wish I could send you the particulars of this amour, which seems to me as curious as that between two oysters; and as well worth the serious enquiry of the naturalists. The second heroine has engaged half the town in arms, from the nicety of her virtue, which was not able to bear the too near approach of Senesino in the opera; and her condescension in accepting of Lord Peterborough for her champion, who has signalised both his love and courage upon this occasion in as many instances as ever Don Quixote did for Dulcinea. Poor Senesino, like a vanquished giant, was forced to confess upon his knees that Anastasia was a nonpariel of virtue and beauty. Lord Stanhope, as dwarf to the said giant, joked of his side, and was challenged for his pains. Lord Delawar was Lord Peterborough's second; my lady miscarried--the whole town divided into parties on this important point. Innumerable have been the disorders between the two s.e.xes on so great an account, besides half the house of peers being put under arrest. By the providence of Heaven, and the wise cares of his Majesty, no bloodshed ensued. However, things are now tolerably accommodated; and the fair lady rides through the town in triumph, in the s.h.i.+ning berlin of her hero, not to reckon the essential advantage of 100 a month, which 'tis said he allows her."

This story is, as a matter of fact, not far removed from the truth. It omits, however, the fact that Lord Peterborough, then about sixty years of age, had married Anastasia Robinson in 1722; but the marriage was secret, although Lady Oxford was present at the ceremony, and it was not made public until thirteen years later, although long before there were many who suspected it. He died in the same year that the announcement was made. His widow survived him by a score of years.

Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller had a house at Twickenham, and, at the instigation of Pope, sat to him for her portrait, upon which the following lines (generally ascribed to Pope) were written:

"The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth.

That happy air of majesty and truth; So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try, My narrow genius does the power deny;) The equal l.u.s.tre of the heav'nly mind, Where ev'ry grace with every virtue's join'd; Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe, With greatness easy, and with wit sincere; With just description show the work divine, And the whole princess in my work should s.h.i.+ne."

Mrs. Howard, afterwards the Countess of Suffolk, was a neighbour from 1723, when the Prince of Wales, whose mistress she was, provided her with funds for the purchase of Marble Hill. However, though, of course, she and Lady Mary were acquainted, there was at no time any intimacy between them. Lady Mary, in fact, does not appear to have liked Henrietta Howard. At least she on more than one occasion t.i.ttle-tattled about her. "The most surprising news is Lord Bathurst's a.s.siduous court to their Royal Highnesses, which fills the coffee-houses with profound speculations. But I, who smell a rat at a profound distance, do believe in private that Mrs. Howard and his lords.h.i.+p have a friends.h.i.+p that borders upon 'the tender.'

"And though in histories, learned ignorance Attributes all to cunning or to chance, Love in that grave disguise does often smile, Knowing the cause was kindness all the while."

So Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar in 1724, and shortly after returned to the subject in another epistle: "You may remember I mentioned in my last some suspicions of my own in relation to Lord Bathurst, which I really never mentioned, for fifty reasons, to anyone whatsoever; but, as there is never smoke without some fire, there is very rarely fire without some smoke. These smothered flames, though admirably covered with whole heaps of politics laid over them, were at last seen, felt, heard, and understood; and the fair lady given to understand by her commanding officer, that if she showed under other colours, she must expect to have her pay retrenched. Upon which the good Lord was dismissed, and has not attended the drawing-room since. You know one cannot help laughing, when one sees him next, and I own I long for that pleasurable moment."

To Twickenham came Philip, Duke of Wharton, and leased a villa, later called The Grove, at the farther end of the hamlet from London. Of all the lads of the village there was none for wildness like unto him. Born in 1698, and therefore nine years younger than Lady Mary, he had at an early age made himself conspicuous by unbridled excesses. Soon after the death of his father, Thomas, first Marquess of Wharton, in 1715, his conduct created so much scandal at home, that his guardians sent him abroad in the custody of a tutor. To the horror of that unfortunate person, his charge enrolled himself as an adherent of the Pretender, and went to pay his respects at Avignon. The Duke had talent beyond the ordinary. He could write fairly well, make an excellent speech, and had a keen sense of wit. When he went to Paris, the British Amba.s.sador, Lord Stair, took it upon himself to give this madcap some sound advice. He extolled the virtues of the late Marquess of Wharton, and, "I hope," he said, "you will follow so ill.u.s.trious an example of fidelity to your Prince and love to your country." "I thank your Excellency for your good counsel," replied the visitor courteously, "and as your Excellency had also a worthy and discerning father, I hope that you will likewise copy so bright an example, and tread in all his footsteps,"--an effective though a brutal rejoinder, for the first Lord Stair had betrayed his Sovereign. Young Wharton, on his return, however, showed by his conduct that his visit to Avignon had been little more than a prank, for while he had accepted a dukedom from the Pretender, he, in 1718, being still a minor, accepted a dukedom from the British Sovereign--the single instance of such a dignity being conferred upon a minor.

Wharton, who did everything in haste, had in his seventeenth year eloped with Martha, daughter of Major-General Richard Holmes, and married her in the Fleet on March 2, 1715. As was only to be expected from a person so volatile he from the beginning neglected his wife; but, as is put quaintly in that unreliable work, _Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia_, which was concocted by Mrs. Eliza Haywood, "after some years of continu'd extravagance, the Duke, either through the natural Inconsistency of his Temper, or the Reflection how much he had been drawn in by his unworthy Companions to embezel his Estate ...

began to think there were Comforts in Retirement; and falling into the Conversation of the sober part of Mankind, more than he had done, was persuaded by them to take home his Dutchess.... He brought her to his House; but Love had no part in his Resolution. He lived with her indeed but she is with him as a Housekeeper, as a Nurse." The relations were, however, more intimate than Mrs. Haywood believed, for in March, 1719, a son was born to them.

"The Duke of Wharton has brought his d.u.c.h.ess to town, and is fond of her to distraction; in order to break the hearts of all other women that have any claim on him," Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar. "He has public devotions twice a day, and a.s.sists at them in person with exemplary devotion; and there is nothing pleasanter than the remarks of some pious ladies on the conversion of such a sinner."

The letter from which the above pa.s.sage is an extract must have been written not later than the early spring of 1720, for after that date the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Wharton did not again live together. The immediate cause of the separation was that Wharton had forbidden his wife to come to London where small-pox was raging at the time. She, however, whether irked by the dulness of the country, or thinking by her presence to guard her husband against those temptations to which he was p.r.o.ne, followed him to the town, where the infant sickened of the epidemic and died. After one great scene, they never met again.

There is mention of the Duke in another letter of Lady Mary to Lady Mar, dated February, 1724:

"In general, gallantry never was in so elevated a figure as it is at present. Twenty very pretty fellows (the Duke of Wharton being president and chief director) have formed themselves into a committee of gallantry. They call themselves _Schemers_; and meet regularly three times a week, to consult on gallant schemes for the advantage and advancement of that branch of happiness.... I consider the duty of a true Englishwoman is to do what honour she can to her native country; and that it would be a sin against the pious love I bear the land of my nativity, to confine the renown due to the Schemers within the small extent of this little island, which ought to be spread wherever men can sigh, or women wish. 'Tis true they have the envy and curses of the old and ugly of both s.e.xes, and a general persecution from all old women; but this is no more than all reformations must expect in their beginning."

More than one writer has a.s.serted that it was the wit and beauty of Lady Mary that drew him thither. At the time the Duke was twenty-four and the lady nine years older. Certainly he paid her marked attention, but as he paid marked attention to all women who had not a hump or a squint-- sometimes, maybe, he even overlooked the squint--it is as impossible to say whether he was in love with her as it is to a.s.sert that she was in love with him. From the little that is known of their intimacy, it would seem that they were merely good comrades--good comrades of the type that might bite or scratch at any moment. Horace Walpole, who was more than usually malicious where Lady Mary was concerned, could scarcely induce himself to allow her any qualities. "My Lady Stafford,"[5] he wrote to George Montagu in 1751, "used to live at Twickenham when Lady Mary Wortley and the Duke of Wharton lived there; she had more wit than both of them. What would I give to have had Strawberry Hill twenty years ago!

I think anything but twenty years. Lady Stafford used to say to her sister, 'Well, child, I have come without my wit to-day'; that is, she had not taken her opium, which she was forced to do if she had any appointment, to be in particular spirits."

[Footnote 5: Claude Charlotte, Countess of Stafford, wife of Henry, Earl of Stafford, and daughter of Philibert, Count of Grammont, and Elizabeth Hamilton, his wife.]

Horace Walpole alluded to Lady Mary and the Duke in "The Parish Register of Twickenham":

"Twickenham, where frolic Wharton revelled Where Montagu, with locks dishevelled.