42 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



Lady Mary Wortley Montagu apologises to Lady ]\Iar for 

 having neglected her correspondence by saying she has not a 

 moment miemployed now she is at Twickenham. ' I pass 

 many hours on horseback, and, I'll assure you, ride stag- 

 hunting, which I know you'll stare to hear of. I have 

 arrived at vast courage and skill in that way, and I am well 

 pleased with it as with the acquisition of a new sense.' 

 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was at this time in her sixty- 

 fourth year, and was enjoying the service and companion- 

 ship of a really nice horse. ' I have got a horse,' she writes 

 to Lady Mar, * superior to any two-legged animal, he being 

 without a fault.' I dare say her friends wished she had not 

 taken to hunting. ' Her narratives,' Horace Walpole writes 

 to somebody, 'become incomparably tedious.' 



Now for the young ladies. Mr. Pope, as we have seen, 

 tells Miss Martha Blunt how he meets the Prince of Wales, 

 with all the maids of honour on horseback coming back 

 tired and hot from hunting. These ladies can hardly have 

 done themselves justice on the hired hacks provided for 

 them. But the 'Sporting Magazine' speaks of Lady Lade 

 and Lady Shuldham as always being well up. Lady Lade, 

 who had started in life as a cook, after a good run in 

 October, 1796, is declared to be the first horsewoman in 

 the kingdom. In the picture at Cumberland Lodge she is in 

 a lightish blue habit. The conspicuous horse is a bay brown 

 against a very real Windsor background. It is a charming 

 painting and the landscape is in Stubbs's best manner.' On 



' This picture must have been a commission of the Prince of Wales — for 

 we hear of her attracting the Prince's admiration out hunting at Windsor. 

 Lad.y Lade was also greatly noticed at the execution of Sixteen-String Jack, a 

 notorious and popular highwayman, who was hanged at Tyburn. He was re- 

 markable for the originality of his dress, and for wearing a bunch of sixteen 

 strings at the knees of his breeches. Neither she nor Sir John Lade can have 

 been to the king's liking. Lady Lade was also painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds 

 in a big hat. She looks very pretty and demure in this picture. Blue habits faced 

 and turned up with red, and white beaver hats with black feathers, were the regu- 

 lation for the queen, princesses and ladies of the Court in 1771). 



