*>J 



MOSTAQU. LADT MART WORTLKY. 



MONTAGU, EDWARD WORTI.KY. 



i 



A new law was made (1*2 Wm. IV. c. 66), under 



-sj-i. aa-^ iadM eoMtituted a Court of Review, and six commis- 

 ^fcnctions similar to those previously exercised by 

 _ under the great seel Mr. Montagu was vary 



d with th* new Uw, bat he accepted the office 

 \eoountant*neral in bankruptcy, which he held during ten 

 \Vbib in this offlo* b* dsmtnded from tho governors of 

 UM P-T* of EofUnd intorat for th* bankruptcy moneys in their pos- 

 n whkh had never previously been paid. His demand was at 

 ; ultimately b* obtained 20,0001. for the bankruptcy 



rb. V ork and compilaUon* by which Mr. Montagu a belt known 

 to raxral leaden are the following : 'Selection* from the works of 

 Tailor Hooker. Hall, and Lord Bcon, with an Analysis of the Ad- 

 vanoriaetit of Learning,' 12mo, 1S05. The analysis U carefully 



ecnted, and very uteful for thoM who wiah to study Lord Bacon s 



tr*Us*. ' The Opinion* of different Authon on the Punishment of 



Drain.' > tola. 8vo. 1800-1S. In furtherance of tbe*e Opinions,' he 



formed' a tocirty for " the diffusion of knowledge upon the punishment 



laath." Hi* effort* for the abolition of kinging for iorgery and 



. . _ ? i *i _*o:_ a^___t 



Ramilly. Mr. Wilberforco, and others, were at length rewarded by com- 

 plete sice.**. ' Inquiries into the Effect* of Fermented Liquor*, by 

 Water-Drinker,' 8vo, 1S14. Tlie Works of Francis Bacon, Lord 

 Chancellor of England,' 16 vols. 8vo, London, 1825-34. This work 

 was commenced while l.e was at the university by the translation of 

 Bacons Latin works, in which be was assisted by Archdeacon 

 Wrangbam and others. Th* 16th volume, in 8 parts, contains 

 Montagu's ' Life of Bacon,' which, though not distinguished by much 

 power of thought or beauty of style, is a useful exhibition of the 

 haniinc events and labour* of Bacons life, active and contemplative, 

 Khar's and Selections, by Basil Montagu,' 12mo, 1S37. He pub- 

 lished altogether about 40 volume*, and i* stated to have left about 

 100 volumes of manuscripts, a Memoir of himself and his contem- 

 poraries, and a Diary. 



p-fijl Montagu assisted in the establishment of several mechanics insti- 

 tutes, and frequently gave lectures in them. He seems to have been not 

 only an industrious and useful lawyer, but an honest, liberal-minded, 

 and benevolent man. He died November 27, 1S61, at Boulogne, in 

 France. At the age of thirty-five he had been twice a widower, both 

 wives having died in childbirth, leaving him four children. In 1 SOS 

 he married the widow of Thomas Skipper, Esq., who survives him, 

 and by whom he had four children. Uf his eight children only a sou 

 and a daughter are living. Hi* daughter-in-law, Miss Auu Skipper, is 

 the wife of Mr. Procter (Harry Cornwall). 



MONTAUU, LAUY MAKY WORTLEY, by birth Lady Mary 

 Pterrepoint. was the eldest daughter of Evelyn, earl of Kingston (after 

 wards Marquis of Dorchester, finally Duke of Kingston), by his wife 

 the Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of William, earl of Dunbigh, and 

 wa* born at her lather'* seat of Thoresby in Nottinghamshire, about 

 the yew KVO. Displaying great attractions of person as well as 

 snrlsjntiines* of mind from her earliest years, she was the favourite and 

 pride of her father, who, having lost his wife in ll>94, and continuing 

 a widower, introduced his daughter to society, and made her ; 

 at hi* table, almost before she had wrll outgrown her childhood. It 

 does not appear however that there is any truth in the common 

 account of his taking pains to have her talents cultivated by a learned 

 education. What Latin ah* knew she seems to have acquired of her 

 own accord ; and there is no reason to suppose that she ever studied 

 Greek, a translation mado by her, when a girl, of the ' Euchciridion ' of 

 Epietetus, which has been referred to as a proof of her knowledge of 

 g bean in fact made from the Latin. She was 

 eager reader of whatever fell in her way in her 



t language, having bean in fact made from the Latin. She was 

 at l*a*t however an 

 mother- toogoe. 



In August 1712 without the consent of hor father, with whose 

 views in regard to a settlement his proposed iou-in-law had refused to 

 comply, I<a>ly Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq., eldest 

 son ol the Moo. Sydney Montagu, and grandson of the first Earl of 

 Sandwich. Her Utter* to Mr. Montagu before their marriage, which 

 her* been published entire for the first time in the complete i .litu.n 

 of her work* by her great grandson, the hue Lord Wbarncliffe, prove 

 Uiat an* had already i*imrl much of that sharpness both of style 

 and thought for which her writing* are remarkable, a* well as a 

 maturity of judgment far beyond her years. Soon after the accession 

 of Oeorg* L, Mr. WorUey, who had been for some year* in parliament, 

 obtained a *sat at th* Treasury Board, of which his cousin, Charle* 

 Montagu. eail of Halifax, had been appointed first commissioner; 

 ad from this Urn* Lady Mary resided principally in London, where 

 her wit and beauty immediately acquired her a brilliant reputation. 

 II. r kuaband had long been on term* of intimate friendship with 

 Addison and other eminent literary man of the day, and in that society 

 she mored with the *am* lusU* a* in the circles of rank and fashion. 



In 1710, Mr. WortUy Montagu was appointed ambassador to the 

 Porte ; and in August of that yaw he set out for Constantinople, *c 

 Mbpai.wd tj his wife. They remained abroad till October 17 18, and 

 it * during this abssne* from b*r nativ* country that Lady Mary 

 *d.irt**d to btrsistir, tb* count*** of Mar, Mr. Pope, and other male 

 and female friends, the celebrated Letters upon which her fame prin- 



cipally rests. The picture of Eastern life and manners given in these 

 letters is admitted by all who have since visited tho Levant to be in 

 general as correct as it is clear, lively, and striking ; and they abound 

 not only in wit and humour, but in a depth and sagacity of remark, 

 conveyed in a style at once flowing and forcible, such as has rarely 

 proceeded from a female pen. Although they were not given to the 

 world during her lifetime, they were evidently written with a view to 

 publication ; copies of all of them were preserved by Lndy Mary, and 

 some time before her death she presented two complete transcripts of 

 them, the one, in her own handwriting, to the Rev. lU-njamin Sowden, 

 mini-tor at Rotterdam, "to be disposed of as he thinks proper ; " tho 

 other, in a different band, to Mr. Molrsworth. Both these copies were 

 procured immediately after her death by her daughter, Lady Unto, 

 the first-mentioned having been purchased for the sum of 500<. ; but 

 it appeared that a transcript had been previously taken (as Mr. Sowden 

 affirmed, without his knowledge) and from this the Letters were pub- 

 li.hed, in three volume* 12mo, in 1763, the editor, it is said, having 

 been the notorious Captain Cleland. A fourth volume appeared in 

 1767, composed of letters of which no manuscript is known to exist, 

 but of the authenticity of which no doubt wai ever entertained by 

 Lady Mary's family. As they originally appeared, the Letters were 

 introduced by a ' Preface by a Lady,' dated 1721, and signed M. A., 

 which now turns out to have been written by a person once of con- 

 siderable literary reputation, Mrs. Mary Astell, the Madouclla of the 

 Tatler (see Nos. 32 and 03), who was a particular friend of Lady Mary, 

 and who had drawn up the said preface after perusing the Letters in 

 manuscript. The authenticity of the Letters was not considered 

 to be conclusively established till the publication of the first col- 

 lected edition of Lady Mary's works in 1S03, in five volumes 

 12mo, " by permission, from her genuine papers," by Mr. Dallaway, 

 who prefixed to the whole a Life of her ladyship, of very little merit 

 in every respect. A second edition of this publication appeared in 

 1817, containing some additional letters ; but its value has been since 

 entirely superseded by the publication of ' The Letters and Works of 

 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,' edited by her great-grandson, Lord 

 Wharncliffe, 3 voK Svo, London, 1336, and again in 1S37. Besides 

 presenting the letters formerly printed in a much more correct 

 this publication contains several letters and other pieces which had not 

 b for^ bc-eu given to the world ; but it derives its chief value and 

 interest from a new Life of Lady Mary, mo lestly entitled 'Biogra- 

 phical Anecdotes' (understood to be from the pen of lur grand- 

 daughter, Lady Louisa Stuart), which is as able aud spirited aa 

 anything Lady Mary herself ever wrote. 



Lady Mary's visit to Turkey, beside* producing the Letters, is 

 famous for having been followed by the introduction, through her 

 means, into this country, and thence into tho rest of Europe, aud also 

 into America, of the practice of inoculation for the small-pox. 

 ! [MATHER, COTTOM, vol. iv. col. 150.] Of the next twenty years of 

 her lift-, which she passed in England, tho most memorable incident in 

 her quarrel with Pope, an affair which is involved in considerable 

 mystery, but in which it appears probable that the vanity of the poet 

 was at least as much to blame as the levity of tho lady. During this 

 interval also she composed a considerable quantity of verse, which was 

 handed about in society, and some of which got iuto pijnt ; but she 

 had not much of the poetical temperament, and her rhymes, though 

 not without sprightlincss, contained nothing which could ensure them 

 a long life. Among those of her performances in this line of greatest 

 pretension were six satirical sketches, entitled ' Town Eclogues,' which 

 nave been often printed ; others of her poetical piece.', or that have 

 been generally attributed to her, are in BO free a style, as to make it 

 necessary to exclude them from the modern editions of her works. For 

 reasons, the nature of which is not well known, she again left Kngland 

 in 1730, but this time without her husband, from whom however she 

 seems to have ported on very good terms, although they never met 

 again. She directed her course to Italy, where she lived first on the 

 shores of the Lake of Iseo, and afterwards at Venice, till 1761, when 

 ah* was prevailed upon, by the solicitations of her daughter, to return 

 to England. She only survived her return to her native country a 

 few months, dying of a cancer in the breast, on the 21st of August 

 1762. Beside* a son, the subject of the next article, she lett a 

 daughter, Mary, who had been married in 1736 to John, third carl of 

 Bute (Ueorge lll.'s celebrated minister), and who died in 1784. 



MONTAGU, EDWARD WoRILEY, son of Edward Wortley 

 Montagu, Esq., and his wife Lady Mary, the subject of the preceding 

 article, was born in 1713, at Wharncliffe, in Yorkshire. His niece, 

 I July Louisa Stuart, in her biographical sketch of his mother, describes 

 him as " betraying from the b. ginning that surest symptom of moral 

 (or mental) disease, an habitual disregard of truth, accompanied by a 

 fertile resdy invention never at fault." When very young he was sent 

 to Westminster School, from which herepeatedly rau away, till at last, 

 making his escape altogether from his friends, or abandoned by them 

 as irreclaimable, he gave himself up to the lowest vices, and after 

 going through a variety of adventures, hind himself for a cabin-boy 

 in a ship sailing to Spain, where he was after some time discovered by 

 the r.ritish consul at Cadiz, aud once more restored to bis f.umlv. He 

 was then sent to travel on the Continent in charge of a private tutor, 

 and it was whilo abroad that he published his first work, a tract 

 entitled ' KoaocUons on tho Kiso and Fall of Ancient Republics.' Hi* 



