CHAPTER VII.
Mrs. William Robinson, who, with her husband and children, had been so long abroad, had now returned to England, and had visited Mr. and Mrs. Montagu. Late in the year, Mrs. Montagu wrote to her sister-in-law:
“August ye 9th, 1772.... I am quite ashamed to think how ungrateful I must have appeared to you and my brother for your kind visit and obliging letter, in letting so long a time pass before I returned my thanks. Your visit appeared to us like a pleasant dream, from which we were sorry to awake and find ourselves deserted by such agreable guests. The Duchess of Portland arrived in two or three days after your departure. She made me rather a longer visit than you did, but still a much shorter than I wished it. Her grace submitted with infinite good-humour to all the awkwardnesses of a Tunbridge lodging. We had, happily, that kind of weather which makes pastoral life agreable. I was delighted to find that time had not robbed her grace of her pleasing vivacity, and we laugh’d as heartily as we used to do in our younger days. Her grace gave me as a fairing the most beautiful, rich, and elegant snuff-box I ever saw, for which I could only return her thanks; for I thought it would be putting myself too much upon a par with her, to make a return in kind.If I could get any natural curiosity to add to her collection, it would make me very happy.
“Every day after you left us the place began to fill with company.
“... We have had the finest weather I ever saw for any long continuance. As a farmer, I have some fault to find with it. Our wheat, and barley, and turnips have all suffered by drought. We had not any reason to complain of our hay, but the grass is very much burnt. The dearness of all kinds of provisions have reduced our poor neighbours to a state of wretchedness which I never saw before in England.... My father has been ill, but I believe his complaints were nervous, and partly the effects of hot weather. I wonder how he can endure to live in a brick oven all the summer season.
“... I went the other day to Winchester, and dined with Doctor Warton, and saw the school. The doctor allowed me to ask a play for the boys, which made them very happy, and gave him leisure to pass the time with me. My sweet, lovely Miss Gregory and I set out very early in the morning, so that we got to Winchester before eleven o’clock, and staid there till between six and seven, and were at home in good time.... Miss Gregory and Mrs. Morgan are much your humble servants.... When you have an opportunity to get the nankeen, tea, and handkerchiefs, I can pay what is due for them to your banker. If a blue tafety, or a white of a very fine colour should come in your way and seem a pennyworth, please to add it, or anything you may have offered that is plain.... Cheap, pretty, plain muslin for gowns would not come amiss. But, assmuggling is a dangerous trade, much counterband goods must not travel in the same box. All possible love to my dear nephew and neices, with whom I hope to make a more intimate acquaintance before they have disposed of all their love and friendship.”
August 15, 1772.—Mrs. Montagu to Mrs. Robinson. “... I was very sorry that your races happened so untowardly, that I could not edge in my visit without being complicated in them. I remember the time when the said races would have a very different effect than deterring me from the neighbourhood; but we change to everything and everything changes to us. I cannot say that as one grows older, one grows so much wiser as to despise foolish amusements, but one likes new kinds of follies. I mean we always like some of those things severe and frowning wisdom calls follies.
“I had the pleasure in finding Mr. Montagu in extreme good health, which gave me the higher satisfaction, as I had been alarmed about him some time before.
“I went a few miles out of my road to Sandleford, to fulfill my old promise to Mr. Burke to spend a day or two with him and Mrs. Burke, at Beaconsfield. I was sorry that I could not continue there longer than one whole day, as I was then not so assured that Mr. Montagu was in perfect health. When the talents of a man of genius, the acuteness of a politician, the alert vivacity of a man of business are all employed to make conversation agreable and society pleasant, one passes one’s time very delightfully in such company.
“At Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke is an industrious farmer, a polite husband, a kind master, a charitableneighbour, and a most excellent companion. The demons of ambition and party who hover about Westminster do not extend their influences as far as the villa. I know not why it is, but these busy spirits seem more tranquil and pleased in their days of retreat than the honest, dull justice of the quorum, who never stretched forth his hand to snatch the sceptre of power, or raised his voice in publick to fill the trumpet of fame. A little mind is for ever in a tracasserie, because it is moved by little things. I have always found that nothing is so gentle as the chief out of war, nor so serene and simple as the statesman out of place. If it were fit to name names and certify places, I would bring many examples to justify my assertion. I so much delight in these working master-spirits in their holiday humour, that I had rather play at tee-totum or cross and pile with Julius Cæsar than with Sardanapalus. The first would have the easy indifference that belongs to play; the other, the seriousness and anxiety which belong to business.
“I am now preparing for a little excursion in which I shall see some of the busy folks of the great world; so I expect to enjoy my time in the more joyous tranquility. On Friday, I am to go to Stowe, Lord and Lady Temple having given me repeated invitations there. I am much afraid the weather will not favour my excursion; however, as I shall stay four days at Stowe, I hope to see those superbe gardens while I am there in favourable gleams of sunshine. I have not seen Stowe since I first married. Lord Temple, I hear, has much improved them.
“I shall have the pleasure of making a visit atanother fine place which I never yet saw, which is Lord Nuneham’s, in Oxfordshire.... Mr. Herbert has given me a very agreable neighbour in Lady Elizabeth. She has been very well educated, and I dare say will always behave with great propriety. Mr. Herbert is a young man of uncommon understanding and merit. He has come early, and not too early, into ye possession of an ample fortune.
“... I am much pleased to hear my neice is so tractable and good; a disposition to oblige her Parents, and to do what those who love her advise her to, will make her much happier than wilfulness and obstinacy.... My nephews, Morris and Matthew, are just arrived. They are fine boys. Morris grows very handsome, and he has a very good character amongst his schoolfellows. These little men will be a great amusement to Mr. Montagu in my absence. I passed my time very well at Tunbridge, having so agreable a companion at home as my sister; so that I depend on the great world for nothing more than vagrant amusement at idle hours; and this is all one can reasonably expect of the great world. One should have one’s solid comforts at home. One makes a good meal; the other a pleasant dessert.
“... I regret that poor Mr. Gray is now no more than Pindar. One fatal moment sets two or three thousand years aside, and brings the account equal. I really believe our British Pindar not unequal in merit to the bard of Thebes. I hope Mr. Gray has left some works yet unpublished.”
Walpole, who never appears in a more favourable light than when he speaks with affectionate reverence of Gray, supplemented Mrs. Montagu’s hopes by saying:“I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything for the public, to print it at my press. It would do me honour and give me an opportunity of expressing what I feel for him. Methinks, as we grow old, our only business here is to adorn the graves of our friends or dig our own.”
From these reflections, Mrs. Montagu takes her readers back to life and its varieties, in a letter without date, but it is endorsed in a hand, not hers, 1773.
“In the early part of my life I was a most punctual correspondent; but of late I have been as much too remiss as I was formerly too diligent in writing letters. I have at length discovered that writing letters is idleness without ease, and fatigue without a purpose. When newspapers only told weddings, births, and burials, a letter from London bore some value; but now that the public papers not only tell when men are born and dye, but every folly they contrive to insert between those periods, the literary correspondent has nothing left. Lies and dulness used to be valued in manuscript, but printing has assumed a right over the lies of the day and the amusement of the hour. On stamped paper and by authority are publish’d what Lady B—— L——e says of a fat alderman, and how Miss Biddy Bellair was dress’d at the last masquerade. I can, however, tell you some news from St. Vincent, which I had just now from a gentleman in a public office, which is, that an account has just arrived from Colonel Dalrymple, with news of the total reduction of the Caribs, in St. Vincent, and a treaty concluded with them, with small loss on our side. I could find in my heart to say ‘poor Caribs!’
“I suppose you are not very deeply interested in Sir George C——ke’s affairs.... I hope no one will lose anything of such importance as to affect them essentially, as this disaster has been so long expected. It was said the other day, his effects amounted to £700,000, his debts to £300,000; but his contracts and dealings have been so universal, that I presume no one can tell ye just sum of the one or the other. Part of his effects are hemp and alum. Never was so much of the first used at Tyburn, nor of the second at the bakers’, as at this moment; but as I presume those commodities do not bear a settled price, a just estimate cannot be made. In ye present lack of specie and of confidence, paper, estates and houses must sell badly. I hope his unmarried sister will not lose anything, and that his family will not fall from affluence to narrow circumstances. I hear Lady C——ke has an estate in Jamaica of £4,000 per annum settled upon her. It is said the Irish Bank has only stopped for awhile, and that nothing will be lost. The state of that country is very bad. The poor are wretched, and all people discontented. The condition of Scotland is not much better. The bankruptcies there are numerous, and ye manufactories are stopped. I wish the bankruptcies here may not have as bad an effect on our trade. I rejoice that my brother Robinson has returned to his native land, and wish he would come and visit his friends in town.
“... Mr. Montagu has (in the main) had a pretty healthful winter. His cough is at present troublesome to him, but I hope the warm weather we have now a right to expect will soon cure him.
“The Archbishop of York’s second son, a fineyouth dyed of a milliary fever this morning. I lament the young man, and am heartily concerned for his family.
“As I have good luck in smuggling, I will wait for my gown till you come to town, and will send you a black silk, for which it may serve as a lining. The taffety will serve for another year, if it be too warm for this season, when it comes to London.
“I am glad you intend to send my eldest neice to a boarding-school. What girls learn at these schools is trifling, but they unlearn what would be of great disservice—a provincial dialect, which is extreamly ungenteel, and other tricks that they learn in the nursery. The carriage of the person, which is of great importance, is well attended to, and dancing is well taught. As for the French language I do not think it necessary, unless for persons in very high life. It is rarely much cultivated at schools. I believe all the boarding-schools are much on the same plan, so that you may place the young lady wherever there is a good air and a good dancing-master. I dare say you will find great improvement in her air and her speech by the time she has been there a year, and these are points of great importance. The Kentish dialect is abominable, tho’ not so bad as ye Northumberland and some others; but in this polish’d age, it is so unusual to meet with young Ladies who have anypatois, that I mightily wish to see my neice cured of it.
“The Duke of Gloucester is relapsed into a bad state of health. Miss Linley, who I suppose you have seen at Bath, is much in vogue. I am to hear her sing to-morrow morn at ye Bishop of Bristol’s.
“... Papa bears Sir G. C——’s shutting shop very patiently. If his money is safe, he has no objection to its being locked up. I do not imagine we shall lose anything. I am only sorry for him and for his family, as these things must be very unpleasant. There is a great deal of poverty and distress in London and in the southern counties. I wish very much to see my brother Robinson after his long absence. I rejoice that his health is so good. I wish you could persuade him to come to London. He improves society, and it is a pity he should not live in it.”
Another of the writer’s nieces is referred to in the following discursive letter:
“January ye 1st, 1774.Dear Madam,—I was very glad to hear that my pretty little friend got safe to you. I dare say the holidays will pass with her and her brother and sister in all the gayety and jolly mirth which belong’d to them in former times. When our maccaronic beaux and cotterie dames go into the country to pass the Christmas holydays, I have no great opinion of the festivity and joy of the party. Mirth belongs to youth and innocence. When the World was young and innocent, its laugh was hearty, and its mirth sincere, and festivals were gay. Old Father Christmas must now be content to gambol in the nursery; but such is the force of custom, that many persons go at this dreary season to their dreary mansions to keep their Christmas, who will not laugh till they return to London.
“... I think the fish will come safest by my neice, as it will escape being rummaged by the custom-house officers, who will be apt to suspect it has a pudding of Brussels lace in it. I thank you for twopound more of excellent tea. I think it full as good as that which costs me 16s.a pound.... My pretty neice is so good-humoured: she is never troublesome. She is a mighty orderly person, folds up her things very nicely. She will be both a notable housewife and a good-humoured woman, and therefore will make an excellent wife. Happy will be the man to whose lot she will fall. It is very rarely that one sees these characters meet. A good housewife is generally an anxious, peevish thing; and a good-humoured woman is too often careless and unmindful of her family. As she is your daughter, I do not wonder at her uniting perfections that are but rarely united. My brother William was a favourite of my mother’s, and she certainly made his whole christening suit of that part of her linnen which is supposed to derive matrimonial blessings on the son. For what mother’s darling my neice is reserved I do not know, but I hope one who will deserve her.
“I believe you will hardly be able to read my scrawl, which is even worse than usual; for I have almost put my eyes out with accounts, of which our steward brings a plentiful quantity at this time of year. He is a very diligent Person, and expects that I will apply many hours in the day. Our affairs go on very prosperously and in great order, so that I have as little trouble as is possible in a case where so many and large accounts are to be look’d over.
“... It is said that gaming is carried on with greater spirit among the fine people than ever was known. I desire my most affectionate compliments to my brothers of Horton, Denton and Canterbury.... My best love to ye dear little ones who adornyour fireside, and best wishes for the year begun, and for all succeeding years, to the parents and the babes.”
It was in this year, 1774, that Mrs. Montagu wrote the following to Mrs. Robinson, from Sandleford, September the 5th, 1774:
“... I had intended writing to you as soon as I could get a frank.... All frothy matter takes up a great deal of space, and my letters always run over the fourth side and incur double taxes at the post-office. By mistake I had left my franks to you in London, so I waited till I could see Mr. Congreve, the only member of Parliament in our neighbourhood.
“... The wet weather has hurt me as a valetudinarian, and mortified me as a farmer, so that I cannot say, in the pert fashionable phrase, it has not made me sick nor sorry, but more of the first than the last, and not greatly either.... We have a prodigious crop of barley, and there seems to be a great plenty of it everywhere, and yet the maltsters are contracting for it already at 30s.per quarter. I suppose the ensuing elections will raise the price of malt. I wish our poor people ate more and drank less.
“I am extremely mortified at Lord Mahone’s too great vivacity. Lord Stanhope brought him to Tunbridge to spend a day with me. I was pleased with his conversation and manners, and particularly in not finding him so exotick as I expected. His sentiments and language appear to me perfectly good English, such as suited the heir of an English peer, and not borrow’d fromun bourgeois de Genève, which, with all due respect to Jean Jacques, I take to be much inferior in nobleness of mind as well as dignity of office. But his lordship’s attackon Mr. Knight and his presenting articles to a candidate, looks as if he had steep’d his patriotism in the Lake of Geneva. Lord Stanhope is a very respectable man; has great virtues and great talents. These, under the military discipline of worldly warfare, do great things, while they lead and command regiments of inferior minds which fight under them. But in our days the unconnected patriot makes just such a figure in the political system as thepreuxchevalier would do now in the military. Nothing is to be done in these days by single combat. Neither the patriot nor the champion would be able to effect the abolition of the exorbitant toll of a bridge. If I had a son, I should desire him never to wander single in quest of adventures. Virtue, wisdom, honours, prosperity, happiness, are all to be found on the turnpike road, or not to be found at all....
“I had strong inclinations to make you and my brother at Horton a visit when I left Tunbridge; but as a northern journey was then in contemplation, I durst not propose such a measure to Mr. Montagu. He still talks of our going to Northumberland, but delays setting out. In the meantime, winter approaches. He is in very good health and spirits, but extremely feeble; goes to bed every afternoon by five o’clock, and seems by no means equal to so fatiguing a journey; so I hope it will end in talk.... Mr. Montagu loves delay so well, he intends not to set out till a fortnight after me. He did not leave London till the middle of August, tho’ he had not any business to detain him.
“... If I had children, I should be much moresolicitous about their temper than talents. As many hours in the day as a man of the finest parts is peevish or in a passion, he is more contemptible than a blockhead, and suffers (though he does not know it) the internal scorn and contempt of every rational creature that is in good humour. We are, too, much earlier able to judge of a child’s temper than capacity. Minds ripen at very different ages. If the understanding is naturally slow, preceptors should be patient, and not put it too much out of its natural pace. Some children apprehend quick; others acquire everything with difficulty. In the latter case, they should be encouraged, led, and not driven.”
Miss Gregory (a friend and companion of the writer) was very much liked at Cambridge. “Her sweet temper, good sense, and elegant simplicity of manners much charm every one who is well acquainted with her. She is perfectly free from missy pertnesses, airs, and minanderies, which put many of our girls of fashion upon a line with milliners’ apprentices. Though she has lived so much with me I never saw her out of humour. She seems as pleased with retirement as in a publick place; and is as sober and discreet in a publick place as in retirement.
“There is a report that Captain Darby is going to be married to a widow worth fourscore thousand pounds. It seems her first husband was a good-humoured, quiet, dull man.Elle s’en trouvait bien, and is going to take such another; but still, fourscore thousand pounds is a great price for a dull man.... Miss Snell is married to a gentleman of good character and six thousand pounds.
“I beg my best respects and most affectionate compliments to my brother Robinson. Will he never let us have the pleasure of seeing him? I wish he would visit the farmer and farmeress of Sandleford.”
In the course of the above year, 1774, when an invitation to Mrs. Montagu’s house in Hill Street was not lightly sent and was highly esteemed, she despatched a card of invitation to Doctor Johnson. The philosopher neither went to her assembly nor acknowledged the invitation. In a subsequent apologetic note, he said: “Having committed one fault by inadvertency, I will not commit another by sullenness.... The favour of your notice can never miss a suitable return but from ignorance or thoughtlessness; and to be ignorant of your eminence is not easy but to him who lives out of reach of the public voice.” Allegiance could not be more perfect! But Mrs. Montagu was not influenced by it, when, in 1775, she settled a small annuity on Doctor Johnson’s friend, Mrs. Williams, saving her from misery; for which rescue Mrs. Williams expressed her thanks in words almost of divine adoration. Doctor Johnson was moved by the generous act, when he subsequently heard that Mrs. Montagu was in town, ill. He wrote like a gallant. “To have you detained among us by sickness is to enjoy your presence at too dear a rate.” He wishes she may be “so well as to be able to leave us, and so kind as not to be willing.”... Here is more: “All that the esteem and reverence of mankind can give you, are already yours; and the little I can add to the voice of nations will not much exalt. Of that little, however, you are, I hope, very certain.”
The poor lady had now more serious matters claiming her attention than quarrels or compliments with Johnson. Her kind-hearted and now aged husband had long been slowly dying. His last hour seemed now approaching. In May, 1775, Mrs. Chapone, in a letter to Mrs. Delany, described Mrs. Montagu as being “in a most distressful situation.” Mr. Montagu, “instead of sinking easily, as might have been expected from so long and gradual a decline, suffers great struggle, and has a fever attended with deliriums, which are most dreadfully affecting to Mrs. Montagu. If this scene should continue, I tremble for the effects of it on her tender frame; but I think it must very soon have an end, and she will then reconcile herself to a loss so long expected, tho’ I doubt not she will feel it very sincerely. He is entitled to her highest esteem and gratitude, and, I believe, possesses them both.”
The aged philomath might have been the original of the legendary mathematician, who, having been induced to read “Paradise Lost,” asked, on reaching the last line of the poem, “Well, what does it prove?” Mr. Montagu’s wonted fires and ruling passion partook exclusively of a mathematical ardour. His wife, who had, previous to her husband’s fatal illness, passed from the most sincere spirit of free inquiry into the equally sincere acceptance of orthodoxy, was very anxious that her husband should be of the same faith with herself before they were parted for ever. She begged Beattie to effect this desired consummation, if it were possible. The aged mathematician was too much, however, for the minister and his clever wife together. “To her great concern,” saysBeattie, in a letter to Doctor Laing, “he set too much value on mathematical evidence, and piqued himself too much on his knowledge in that science. He took it into his head, too, that I was a mathematician, though I was at a great deal of pains to convince him to the contrary.” Mr. Montagu died in May, 1775. The poor gentleman’s death was immediately made the opportunity for speculation on the part of his friends, as to the prospects of his widow. “Mr. Edward Montagu is dead,” wrote Mrs. Delany. “He has left his widow everything, both real and personal: only charging it with a legacy of £3,000. If her heart prove as good as her head, she may do an abundance of good. Her possessions are very great.” Walpole speculated in another fashion on this gentleman’s demise. He wrote to Mason: “The husband of Mrs. Montagu, of Shakespearshire, is dead, and has left her an estate of £7,000 a year in her own power. Will you come and be candidate for her hand? I conclude it will be given to a champion at some Olympic games; and were I she, I would sooner marry you than Pindar!”
Johnson fully illustrated the charitable side of Mrs. Montagu’s character, when he said, in 1776, in reply to a hint that her liberality was pharisaical, “I have seen no beings who do as much good from benevolence as she does from whatever motive.” Johnson subsequently was less charitable and less accurate. Mrs. Montagu’s letters abound with references to her complete ignorance of Greek and her small knowledge of Latin. “But,” said Johnson, “she is willing you should think she knows them, but she does not say she does.” A hundred times she wrotethat she did not. Johnson’s were hardly the “respectful sentiments” he professed to have when he begged for a copy of her engraved portrait, as a reward for his love and adoration.