Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M y W y M e

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LET. LII.

TO MR P----.

_Dover, Nov_. 1. O. S. 1718.

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 hay-makers) 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 passed in the common
track with their fellow parishioners. His endeavouring to shield her
from a 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, tho' 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 that 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 cocking hay,
In hopes to pass the time away,
But the_ BOLD THUNDER _found them out,
(Commission'd 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 fun,
A beaten wife and cockold swain
Had jointly curs'd the marriage chain:
Now they are happy in their doom_,
FOR POPE 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 C----; but suppose you will read this to him, if
he inquires after me.

LET. LIII.

[Footnote: This and the following letters are now first published.]

TO LADY ----.

_January_ 13. 1715-16.

I FIND, after all, by your letter of yesterday, that Mrs D---- is
resolved to marry the old greasy curate. She was always high-church
in an excessive degree; and, you know, she used to speak of
Sacheveral as an apostolic saint, who was worthy to sit in the same
place with St Paul, if not a step above him. It is a matter,
however, very doubtful to me, whether it is not still more the _man_
than the _apostle_ that Mrs D---- looks to in the present alliance.
Though at the age of forty, she is, I assure you, very far from being
cold and insensible; her fire may be covered with ashes, but it is
not extinguished.--Don't be deceived, my dear, by that prudish and
sanctified air.--Warm devotions is no equivocal mark of warm
passions; besides, I know it is a fact, (of which I have proofs in
hand, which I will tell you by word of mouth) that our learned and
holy prude is exceedingly disposed to use the _means_, supposed in
the primitive command, let what will come of the end. The curate
indeed is very filthy.--Such a red, spungy (sic), warty nose! Such a
squint!--In short, he is ugly beyond expression; and, what ought
naturally to render him peculiarly displeasing to one of Mrs D----'s
constitution and propensities, he is stricken in years. Nor do I
really know how they will live. He has but forty-five pounds
a-year--she but a trifling sum; so that they are likely to feast upon
love and ecclesiastical history which will be very empty food,
without a proper mixture of beef and pudding. I have however,
engaged our friend, who is the curate's landlord, to give them a good
lease; and if Mrs D----, instead of spending whole days in reading
Collier, Hicks, and vile translations of Plato and Epictetus; will
but form the resolution of taking care of her house, and minding her
dairy, things may go tolerably. It is not likely that their _tender
loves_ will give them many _sweet babes_ to provide for.

I MET the lover yesterday, going to the ale-house in his dirty
nightgown, with a book under his arm, to entertain the club; and, as
Mrs D---- was with me at the time, I pointed out to her the charming
creature: she blushed, and looked prim; but quoted a passage out of
Herodotus, in which it is said that the Persians wore long
night-gowns. There is really no more accounting for the taste in
marriage of many of our sex, than there is for the appetite of your
Miss S----y, who makes such waste of chalk and charcoal, when they
fall in her way.

AS marriage produces children, so children produce care and disputes;
and wrangling, as is said (at least by old batchelors (sic) and old
maids) is one of the _sweets_ of the conjugal state. You tell me
that our friend Mrs ---- is, at length, blessed with a son, and that
her husband, who is a great philosopher, (if his own testimony is to
be depended upon) insists on her suckling it herself. You ask my
advice on this matter; and, to give it you frankly, I really think
that Mr ----'s demand is unreasonable, as his wife's constitution is
tender, and her temper fretful. A true philosopher would consider
these circumstances; but a pedant is always throwing his system in
your face, and applies it equally to all things, times and places,
just like a taylor who would make a coat out of his own head, without
any regard to the bulk or figure of the person that must wear it.
All those fine-spun arguments that he has drawn from nature, to stop
your mouths, weigh, I must own to you, but very little with me. This
same _Nature_ is, indeed, a specious word, nay there is a great deal
in it, if it is properly understood and applied; but I cannot bear to
hear people using it, to justify what common sense must disavow. Is
not nature modified by art in many things? Was it not designed to be
so? And is it not happy for human society, that it is so? Would you
like to see your husband let his beard grow, until he would be
obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the
gift of nature? The instincts of nature point out neither taylors,
nor weavers, nor mantua-makers, nor sempsters, nor milliners; and yet
I am very glad that we do not run naked like the Hottentots. But not
to wander from the subject--I grant, that nature has furnished the
mother with milk to nourish her child; but I maintain, at the same
time, that if she can find better milk elsewhere, she ought to prefer
it without hesitation. I don't see why she should have more scruple
to do this, than her husband has to leave the clear fountain which
nature gave him, to quench his thirst, for stout october, port, or
claret. Indeed, if Mrs ---- was a buxom, sturdy woman, who lived on
plain food, took regular exercise, enjoyed proper returns of rest,
and was free from violent passions (which you and I know is not the
case) she might be a good nurse for her child; but, as matters stand,
I do verily think, that the milk of a good comely cow, who feeds
quietly in her meadow, never devours ragouts, nor drinks ratifia, nor
frets at quadrille, nor sits up till three in the morning, elated
with gain, or dejected with loss; I do think, that the milk of such a
cow, or of a nurse that came as near it as possible, would be likely
to nourish the young squire much better than hers. If it be true
that the child sucks in the mother's passions with her milk, this is
a strong argument in favour of the cow, unless you may be afraid that
the young squire may become a calf; but how many calves are there
both in state and church, who have been brought up with their
mother's milk.

I PROMISE faithfully, to communicate to no mortal the letter you
wrote me last.--What you say of two of the rebel lords, I believe to
be true; but I can do nothing in the matter.--If my projects don't
fail in the execution, I shall see you before a month passes. Give
my service to Dr Blackbeard.--He is a good man, but I never saw in
my life, such a persecuting face cover a humane and tender heart. I
imagine (within myself) that the Smithfield priests, who burned the
protestants in the time of Queen Mary, had just such faces as the
doctor's. If we were papists, I should like him very much for my
confessor; his seeming austerity would give you and I a great
reputation for sanctity; and his good, indulgent heart, would be the
very thing that would suit us, in the affair of penance and ghostly
direction. Farewell, my dear lady, &c. &c.

LET. LIV.

TO THE ABBOT ----.

_Vienna, Jan_. 2. O. S. 1717.

I AM really almost tired with the life of Vienna. I am not, indeed,
an enemy to dissipation and hurry, much less to amusement and
pleasure; but I cannot endure, long, even pleasure, when it is
fettered with formality, and assumes the air of system. 'Tis true I
have had here some very agreeable connections; and what will perhaps
surprise you, I have particular pleasure in my Spanish acquaintances,
count Oropesa and general Puebla. These two noblemen are much in the
good graces of the emperor, and yet they seem to be brewing mischief.
The court of Madrid cannot reflect, without pain, upon the
territories that were cut off from the Spanish monarchy by the peace
of Utrecht, and it seems to be looking wishfully out, for an
opportunity of getting them back again. That is a matter about which
I trouble myself very little; let the Court be in the right or in the
wrong, I like mightily the two counts its ministers. I dined with
them both some days ago at count Wurmbrand's, an aulic counsellor,
and a man of letters, who is universally esteemed here. But the
first man at this court, in point of knowledge and abilities, is
certainly count Schlick, high chancellor of Bohemia, whose immense
reading is accompanied with a fine taste and a solid judgment; he is
a declared enemy to prince Eugene, and a warm friend to the honest
hot-headed marshal Staremberg. One of the most accomplished men I
have seen at Vienna, is the young count Terracco, who accompanies the
amiable prince of Portugal. I am almost in love with them both, and
wonder to see such elegant manners, and such free and generous
sentiments in two young men that have hitherto seen nothing but their
own country. The count is just such a Roman-catholic as you; he
succeeds greatly with the devout beauties here; his first overtures
in gallantry are disguised under the luscious strains of spiritual
love, that were sung formerly by the sublimely voluptuous Fenelon,
and the tender madam Guion, who turned the fire of carnal love to
divine objects: thus the count begins with the _spirit_, and ends
generally with the _flesh_, when he makes his addresses to holy
virgins.

I MADE acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rousseau, who
lives here under the peculiar protection of prince Eugene, by whose
liberality he subsists. He passes here for a free-thinker, and, what
is still worse in my esteem, for a man whose heart does not feel the
encomiums he gives to virtue and honour in his poems. I like his
odes mightily; they are much superior to the lyric productions of our
English poets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of
poetry. I don't find that learned men abound here; there is, indeed,
a prodigious number of alchymists (sic) at Vienna; the _philosopher's
stone_ is the great object of zeal and science; and those who
have more reading and capacity than the vulgar, have transported
their superstition (shall I call it?) or fanaticism, from
religion to chymistry (sic); and they believe in a new kind of
transubstantiation, which is designed to make the laity as rich as
the other kind has made the priesthood. This pestilential passion
has already ruined several great houses. There is scarcely a man of
opulence or fashion, that has not an alchymist in his service; and
even the emperor is supposed to be no enemy to this folly, in secret,
though he has pretended to discourage it in public.

PRINCE EUGENE was so polite as to shew me his library yesterday; we
found him attended by Rousseau, and his favourite count Bonneval, who
is a man of wit, and is here thought to be a very bold and
enterprizing (sic), spirit. The library, though not very ample, is
well chosen; but as the prince will admit into it no editions but
what are beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and there are,
nevertheless, numbers of excellent books that are but indifferently
printed, this finikin (sic) and foppish taste makes many disagreeable
chasms in this collection. The books are pompously bound in Turkey
leather; and two of the most famous book-binders of Paris were
expressly sent for to do this work. Bonneval pleasantly told me,
that there were several quartos, on the art of war, that were bound
with the skins of _spahis_ and _janizaries_: and this jest, which was
indeed elegant, raised a smile of pleasure on the grave countenance
of the famous warrior. The prince, who is a connoisseur in the fine
arts, shewed me, with particular pleasure, the famous collection of
portraits that formerly belonged to Fouquet, and which he purchased
at an excessive price. He has augmented it with a considerable
number of new acquisitions; so that he has now in his possession such
a collection in that kind, as you will scarcely find in any ten
cabinets in Europe. If I told you the number, you will say that I
make an indiscreet use of the permission to lie, which is more or
less given to travellers, by the indulgence of the candid.

COUNT TARRACCO is just come in.--He is the only person I have
accepted, this morning, in my general order to receive no company.--I
think I see you smile;--but I am not so far gone as to stand in need
of absolution; though as the human heart is deceitful, and the count
very agreeable, you may think, that even though I should not want an
absolution, I would, nevertheless, be glad to have an indulgence.--No
such thing.--However, as I am a heretic, and you no confessor, I
shall make no declarations on this head.--The design of the count's
visit is a ball;--more pleasure.--I shall be surfeited.
Adieu, &c.

LET. LV.

TO MR P----.

_Sept_. 1. 1717.

WHEN I wrote to you last, Belgrade was in the hands of the Turks;
but, at this present moment, it has changed masters, and is in the
hands of the Imperialists. A janizary, who, in nine days, and yet
without any wings but what a panic terror seems to have furnished,
arrived at Constantinople from the army of the Turks before Belgrade,
brought Mr W---- the news of a complete victory obtained by the
Imperialists, commanded by prince Eugene, over the Ottoman troops.
It is said, the prince has discovered great conduct and valour in
this action; and I am particularly glad that the voice of glory and
duty has call'd him from the--(Note in the published book: _here
several words of the manuscript are effaced._)--Two day's after the
battle, the town surrendered. The consternation, which this defeat
has occasioned here, is inexpressible; and the sultan, apprehending a
revolution, from the resentment and indignation of the people,
fomented by certain leaders, has begun his precautions, after the
goodly fashion of this blessed government, by ordering several
persons to be strangled, who were the objects of his royal suspicion.
He has also ordered his treasurer to advance some months pay to the
janizaries, which seems the less necessary, as their conduct has been
bad in this campaign, and their licentious ferocity seems pretty well
tamed by the public contempt. Such of them as return in straggling
and fugitive parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit
enough to defend themselves from the insults of the mob; the very
children taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they
pass. They refused, during the battle, to lend their assistance to
save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, were
defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the janizaries and
spahis were nobly employed in plundering their own camp.

You see here, that I give you a very _handsome_ return for your
obliging letter. You entertain me with a most agreeable account of
your amiable connexions (sic) with men of letters and taste, and of
the delicious moments you pass in their society under the rural
shade; and I exhibit to you, in return, the barbarous spectacle of
Turks and Germans cutting one another's throats. But what can you
expect from such a country as this, from which the Muses have fled,
from which letters seem eternally banished, and in which you see, in
private scenes, nothing pursued as happiness, but the refinements of
an indolent voluptuousness; and where those who act upon the public
theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror? Here, pleasure,
to which I am no enemy, when it is properly seasoned, and of a good
composition, is surely of the coying kind. Veins of wit, elegant
conversation, easy commerce, are unknown among the Turks; and yet
they seem capable of all these, if the vile spirit of their
government did not stifle genius, damp curiosity, and suppress an
hundred passions, that embellish and render life agreeable. The
luscious passion of the seraglio is the only one almost that is
gratified here to the full; but it is blended so with the surly
spirit of despotism in one of the parties, and with the dejection and
anxiety which this spirit produces in the other, that, to one of my
way of thinking, it cannot appear otherwise than as a very mixed kind
of enjoyment. The women here are not, indeed, so closely confined as
many have related; they enjoy a high degree of liberty, even in the
bosom of servitude, and they have methods of evasion and disguise,
that are very favourable to gallantry; but, after all, they are still
under uneasy apprehensions of being discovered; and a discovery
exposes them to the most merciless rage of jealousy, which is here a
monster that cannot be satiated but with blood. The magnificence and
riches that reign in the apartments of the ladies of fashion here,
seem to be one of their chief pleasures, joined with their retinue of
female slaves, whose music, dancing, and dress, amuse them highly;
but there is such an air of form and stiffness amidst this grandeur,
as hinders it from pleasing me at long-run, however, I was dazzled
with it at first sight. This stiffness and formality of manners are
peculiar to the Turkish ladies; for the Grecian belles are of quite
another character and complexion; with them, pleasure appears in more
engaging forms; and their persons, manners, conversation and
amusements, are very far from being destitute of elegance and ease.

I RECEIVED the news of Mr Addison's being declared secretary of state
with the less surprise, in that I know that post was almost offered
to him before. At that time he declined it; and I really believe
that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as
that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in
prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic; and we may see the
day, when he will be heartily glad to resign them both. It is well
that he laid aside the thoughts of the voluminous dictionary, of
which I have heard you or somebody else frequently make mention. But
no more on that subject; I would not have said so much, were I not
assured that this letter will come safe and unopened to hand. I long
much to tread upon English ground, that I may see you and Mr
Congreve, who render that ground _classic ground_; nor will you
refuse our present secretary a part of that merit, whatever reasons
you may have to be dissatisfied with him in other respects. You are
the three happiest poets I ever heard of; one a secretary of state,
the other enjoying leisure, with dignity, in two lucrative
employments; and you, though your religious profession is an obstacle
to Court promotion, and disqualifies you from filling civil
employments, have found the _philosopher's stone_; since, by making
the Iliad pass through your poetical crucible into an English form,
without losing aught of it's original beauty, you have drawn the
golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this finding the
philosopher's stone, since you alone found out the secret, and
nobody else has got into it. A----n and T----l tried it, but their
experiments failed; and they lost, if not their money, at least a
certain portion of their fame in the trial--while you touched the
mantle of the divine bard, and imbibed his spirit. I hope we shall
have the Odyssey soon from your happy hand; and I think I shall
follow, with singular pleasure, the traveller Ulysses, who was an
observer of men and manners, when he travels in your harmonious
numbers. I love him much better than the hot-headed son of Peleus,
who bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is
true, the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or
dignity; but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a hero
somewhat less pettish and less fantastic: a perfect hero is
chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is
also true, that while the epic hero ought to be drawn with the
infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be
represented as extremely absurd. But it becomes me ill to play the
critic; so I take my leave of you for this time, and desire you will
believe me, with the highest esteem, Your's, &c.

LET. LVI.

[Footnote: As this letter is the supplement to a preceding one, which
is not come to the hands of the editor, it was probably, on that
account, sent without a date. It seems evidently to have been
written after Lady M. W. M. had fixed her residence in Italy.]

To THE COUNTESS OF ----.

_Saturday-Florence_.

I SET out from Bologne (sic) the moment I had finished the letter I
wrote you on Monday last, and shall now continue to inform you of the
things that have struck me most in this excursion. Sad roads--hilly
and rocky--between Bologna and Fierenzuola. Between this latter
place and Florence, I went out of my road to visit the monastery of
La Trappe, which is of French origin, and one of the most austere and
self-denying orders I have met with. In this gloomy retreat, it gave
me pain to observe the infatuation of men, who have devoutly reduced
themselves to a much worse condition than that of the beasts. Folly,
you see, is the lot of humanity, whether it arises in the flowery
paths of pleasure, or the thorny ones of an ill-judged devotion. But
of the two sorts of fools, I shall always think that the merry one
has the most eligible fate; and I cannot well form a notion of that
spiritual and ecstatic joy, that is mixed with sighs, groans, hunger
and thirst, and the other complicated miseries of monastic
discipline. It is a strange way of going to work for happiness, to
excite an enmity between soul and body, which nature and providence
have designed to live together in an union and friendship, and which
we cannot separate like man and wife, when they happen to disagree.
The profound silence that is enjoined upon the monks of La Trappe, is
a singular circumstance of their unsociable and unnatural discipline;
and were this injunction never to be dispensed with, it would be
needless to visit them in any other character than as a collection of
statues; but the superior of the convent suspended, in our favour,
that rigorous law, and allowed one of the mutes to converse with me,
and answer a few discreet questions. He told me, that the monks of
this order in France are still more austere than those of Italy, as
they never taste wine, flesh, fish, or eggs; but live entirely upon
vegetables. The story that is told of the institution of this order
is remarkable, and is well attested, if my information be good. Its
founder was a French nobleman, whose name was Bouthillier da (sic)
Rance, a man of pleasure and gallantry, which were converted into the
deepest gloom of devotion, by the following incident. His affairs
obliged him to absent himself for some time, from a lady with whom he
had lived in the most intimate and tender connections of successful
love. At his return to Paris, he proposed to surprise her agreeably;
and, at the same time, to satisfy his own impatient desire of seeing
her, by going directly, and without ceremony, to her apartment by a
back stair, which he was well acquainted with.--But think of the
spectacle that presented itself to him at his entrance into the
chamber that had so often been the scene of love's highest raptures!
His mistress dead--dead of the small-pox--disfigured beyond
expression--a loathsome mass of putrified (sic) matter--and the
surgeon separating the head from the body, because the coffin had
been made too short! He stood for a moment motionless in amazement,
and filled with horror--and then retired from the world, shut
himself up in the convent of La Trappe, where he passed the remainder
of his days in the most cruel and disconsolate devotion.--Let us
quit this sad subject.

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