Lady Mary Wortley Montague | Page 3

trace of the original groundwork

remains distinguishable."
Lady Mary's most redoubtable assailants were Pope and Horace
Walpole, and both were biassed. The story of Pope's quarrel with her is
told in the following pages. Walpole, it has been suggested, disliked her
much because she had championed his father's mistress, Molly Skerritt,
against the mother to whom he was devoted. Pope, of course, knew her
well; but Walpole, who was twenty-eight years her junior, only met her
in her late middle age. Walpole's prejudice was so great what when
Lady Mary said, "People wish their enemies dead--but I do not. I say,
give them the gout, give them the stone," he reported it solemnly.
Of course, it is not to be assumed that Lady Mary had not her full share
of malice--she was undoubtedly well equipped with that useful
quality--and she did not turn the other cheek when she was assailed.
She could even stand up to the vitriolic Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough,
and stand up so effectively that they tacitly agreed to an armed
neutrality that verged perilously upon friendship. The young Duke of
Wharton sometimes beat her in open fight, but she harboured no very
angry feelings towards him. As regards Pope, if it was not tit-for-tat
with him, at least she gave him hard knocks. Pope, great poet as he was,
never played fair in war.
"Lady Mary, quite contrary," she might have been dubbed, for she was
frequently in trouble. The Rémond scandal, that will presently be
unfolded, was a thing apart; but her witty tongue made her many
enemies and cost her many friends. Had the contents of her letters
about London society become known at the time, nearly every man's
and all women's hands would have been against her. She had, in fact,
little that was kind to say about people; when she had, she usually
refrained from mentioning it.
In this work Lady Mary's letters, either whole or in part, are given only
in so far as they have biographical or historical value. At the same time
I have, wherever possible, allowed Lady Mary to tell her story, or to
give her impressions, in her own words. The quotations have been
taken, by kind permission of Messrs. J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., from the
edition of the letters in their "Everyman Library" (edited by Mr. Ernest

Rhys), with an introduction by Mr. R. Brimley Johnson.
The first edition of the letters appeared in three volumes in 1763,
believed to have been edited by John Cleland. A fourth volume, issued
in 1763, is regarded by Sir Leslie Stephen as of doubtful authenticity.
James Dallaway, in 1803, brought out an enlarged collection and added
to it the poems, and a second edition, with some new letters, appeared
fourteen years later. Lady Mary's great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe,
edited the correspondence in 1837, and this, revised by Mr. Moy
Thomas, was reprinted in 1861 and again in 1887.
There have been published selections from the correspondence by Mr.
A.R. Ropes (1892) and by Mr. Hannaford Bennett (1923).
The principal authorities for the life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
are the Memoirs of James Dallaway prefixed to an edition of the Works
(1803) and the Introductory Anecdotes in a new edition (1837) by Lady
Louisa Stuart, the daughter of Lady Bute and the granddaughter of
Lady Mary. There is another account of Lady Mary by the late Moy
Thomas in revised editions of the letters and writings (1861 and 1887).
Sir Leslie Stephen was responsible for the memoir in the Dictionary of
National Biography. In 1907 appeared Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
and her Times, by that sound authority on the eighteenth century,
"George Paston," who was so fortunate as to discover many scores of
letters hitherto unpublished.
Other sources of information are to be found in Pope's Correspondence,
Spence's Anecdotes, Dilke's Papers of a Critic, Cobbetts Memorials of
Twickenham, the Stuart MSS. at Windsor Castle, the MSS. of the Duke
of Beaufort, and the Lindsay MSS.
My thanks--though not, perhaps, the thanks of my readers--are
especially due to that ripe scholar Mr. Hannaford Bennett, who
suggested this work to me. I am indebted to Mr. M.H. Spielmann and
other friends and correspondents for information and suggestions.
Finally, I must acknowledge the valuable assistance of Mrs. E.
Constance Monfrino in the preparation of this biography.

LEWIS MELVILLE.
London, March, 1925.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD (1689-1703)
Birth of Mary Pierrepont, after Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--Account
of the Pierrepont family--Lady Mary's immediate ancestors--Her father,
Evelyn Pierrepont, succeeds to the Earldom of Kingston in 1790--The
extinct marquisate of Dorchester revived in his favour--His
marriage--Issue of the marriage--Death of his wife--Lady Mary stays
with her grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont--Her early taste for
reading--She learns Latin, and, presently, Italian--Encouraged in her
literary ambitions by her uncle, William