 | The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu |  |
Notes
Most of the following notes have been taken directly from Thomas's edition. Those by Mr. Dallaway are signed with the initial D, Wharncliffe's with W, and Thomas's with T. A few glosses have been added using Johnson's Dictionary as the authority; these are signed S.J. My own notes, which are heavily indebted to the work of Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy, are signed with a B and refer the reader in many cases to notes in the excellent editions of these two editors.
and Grundy (Essays and Poems 83), citing J. H. Plumb, indicate that Walpole appears to have been innocent of the charges brought at the time (1712). — B.
who had been envoy to the court of the Elector, met Dolly Walpole in the country upon his return to England. The story is told in detail in Lady Louisa Stuart's "Anecdotes" (Thompson 1.68-71). — B.
Stanhope had been implicated in the English defeat at Almanza and also later captured and imprisoned (Halsband and Grundy 86). — B.
the elder Craggs began life as a barber, and was next a footman, has often been stated. The story was put forth in a pamphlet published shortly before his death, entitled "The Conspirators, or the Case of Catiline;" and it is repeated by Lord Macaulay in his History of England. It has, however, scarecely any foundation in fact. He was the son of Anthony Craggs, Esq., of Hole-house, of Holbech, near Walsingham, in the county of Durham, and a daughter of the Rev. Ferdinando Morecroft, of Goswick, Lancashire, D.D., Rector of Stanhope in Wardell, and Prebend of Durham. A nephew of Anthony was Rector of Walsingham, and another nephew was also a beneficed clergyman. Anthony Craggs appears to have extravagant, and to have mortgaged or sold his estate at Walsingham. James came to London some time before 1680. He had a kind of patron in the Earl of Arundel; and shortly afterwards, as appears from letters of Anthony to his nephew, he obtained the respectable appointment of "steward to the Duke of Norfolk, and married a lady of good fortune. The letters of James, written about this period, show him to have been a good son and a kind brother, tender towards the faults and follies of his father, and anxious, by his own prudence and exertions, to retrieve the decaying fortunes of his family: they also show him to have been a man of good education. — T.
and Grundy (91) report that Craggs became the Prince of Wales' Cofferer and not the King's. — B.
Nonsense of Common Sense," an Essay paper, started about this time to counteract the paper called "Common Sense," which had attained some influence, was edited, and probably projected, by the celebrated General Oglethorpe. The only number which I have seen bears the eccentric notice: "To be continued as long as the author thinks fit and the public likes it." It had but a short run, and it is doubtful whether any complete copy is in existence. — T. Nine issues exist, which may well be a complete set; this essay is Number VI. For the complete text of these remarkable essays, all of them Lady Mary's, see Halsband and Grundy 105-149. — B.
Giulio Mazzarini was cardinal of France and regent of Louis XIV. He served the King well but amassed an enormous fortune through sale of taxation rights and offices. — B.
Peter Cunningham, in a manuscript note, remarks that this very line occurs in Ben Jonson's conversation with Drummond. — T.
Dallaway having found that Pope, in one of his letters to Lady
Mary (see 1.432), promises to conceal a manuscript copy of these
Eclogues "from all profane eyes;" and believing that the whole of them
were subsequently published by Curll, with Pope's connivance, has stated
in his Memoir of Lady Mary that this was the cause which aggravated their
dissension "into implacability." The statement is entirely founded in
error. It is true that three of these Eclogues were published by Curll,
through his fellow book-seller Roberts; but this publication took place in
March, 1716, before Lady Mary left England for Constantinople, and long
before the date of the letter Pope referred to. Lord Wharncliffe gives the
following title and preface from Roberts's edition:
COURT POEMS.
viz.
1. The Basset-Table, An Eclogue.
2. The Drawing-Room.
3. The Toilet.
Published Faithfully As They Were Found In A Pocket-Book Taken Up In
Westminster Hall, The Last Day Of The Lord Winton's Trial.
London: printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick-lane,
1706. [1716.] Price Sixpence.
Then follows an
ADVERTISEMENT.
The reader is acquainted from the title-page how I came possessed of the
following poems. All that I have to add, is only a word or two concerning
their author. Upon reading them over at St. James's Coffee-house, they
were attributed, by the general voice, to be the productions of a lady of
quality. When I produced them at Button's, the poetical jury there brought
in a different verdict; and the foreman strenuously insisted upon it, that
Mr. Gay was the man, and declared, in comparing the Basset Table with that
gentleman's Pastorals, he found the style and turn of thought to be
evidently the same, which confirmed him, and his brethren, in the sentence
they had pronounced. Not content with these two decisions, I was resolv'd
to call in an umpire; and accordingly chose a gentleman of distinguished
merit, who lives not far from Chelsea. I sent him the papers, which he
returned to me the next day, with this answer:
"SIR, — Depend upon it, these lines could come from no other hand than
the judicious translator of Homer."
Thus having impartially given the sentiments of the Town, hope I may
deserve thanks for the pains I have taken in endeavouring to find out the
author of these valuable performances, and everybody is at liberty to
bestow the laurel as they please.
Curll charged Pope with having attempted to poison him in revenge for
this publication, which gave rise to the humorous "Account of a Horrid and
Barbarous Revenge by Poison on the body of Mr. Edmund Curll, bookseller,:
which will be found among Pope's works. The remaining three Eclogues do not
seem to have been published till 1747, when Horace Walpole, apparently with- out any authority, published them in 4to, with Lady Mary's initials. — T.
Finch, Duchess of Roxburgh, a daughter of Daniel Earl of Nottingham. She married first, William Marquis of Halifax, and afterwards John first Duke of Roxburgh. See allusion to her, 1.488. — T.
reputation of plays, as opposed to the opera, had suffered in the wake of the Restoration, but Lady Mary preferred the theatre, and her library consisted largely of books of plays, "as far back as Gammer Gurton's Needle" ("Anecdotes," Thompson 1.110). See her similarly ironic remarks on plays versus opera in The Nonsense of Common Sense Number VI., above. — B.
refers only to the duchess's assiduity in paying court. I do not find that she ever held any place about the princess. — T.
according to Horace Walpole, meant the Duchess of Shrewsbury. She was an Italian lady, a daughter of the Marquis Paleotti of Bologna, and was said to be a woman of violent temper. Her husband was Charles Talbot, the first Duke of Shrewsbury. She was appointed lady of the bedchamber to Caroline Princess of Wales in October, 1714. — T.
appears to refer to the same Lady Suffolk mentioned in one of the Letters during the Embassy (see 1.244). Who she was I am not able to ascertain. — T.
letter to Mrs. Hewet, 1.151. — T. This refers to the scene in which Nicolini strangled a lion in the opera Hydaspes. Lady Mary was amazed to see the ladies in the audience, who professed shock at a double-entendre such as the title of Gay's farce, look upon the nearly naked Nicolini with equanimity. — B.
says Halsband, identifies Silliander as John Campbell (fourth Duke of Argyll) and Patch as Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford (Halsband, Court Eclogs 65). — B.
also "The Epistle of Arthur Grey, the Footman," in which the three preceding lines recur in different order. — B.
learn from a note to Pope's unacknowledged poem, entitled "Sober Advice from Horace," that there was "a famous staymaker of this name." — T.
to John Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, the poet. — T. Marylebone was a popular place to play bowls. — B.
I am compelled to assume that this Eclogue was found by Mr. Dallaway and Lord Wharncliffe in the manuscript collection of poems "verified by Lady Mary's own hand as written by her," it is impossible to doubt that it was written by Gay. It does not appear in the manuscript copy of the Eclogues bound in "red Turkey," to which Pope refers in his letters. Pope's statement, according to Spence (Anecdotes, 2nd edit. 1858, p. 221), was as follows: "Lydia in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's poems is almost wholly Gay's, and is published as such in his Works. [It appears in Gays's Poems, 4to, 1720.] There are only five or six lines new set in it by that lady. It was that which gave the hint; and she wrote the other five Eclogues." The idea of "Town Eclogues" certainly appears to have been Gay's. His "Araminta, a Town Eclogue," was published in Steele's Miscellanies, 1714. — T. Dr. Isobel Grundy notes that "Gay's version of it, printed among his Poems on Several Occasions, 1720, really amounts to a different poem. Walpole judged that 'all six are by the same hand" (Halsband and Grundy 182). — B.
It was common for verse to be written in windows with a diamond as an expression of deep emotion; Lady Mary is said to have done this herself. See "The Lady's Resolve," above. — B.
Change: Change Alley, once famous for coffee houses. Was the scene of speculation on stocks, especially the South Sea Bubble. — B.
the original edition, "With steady hand, the band-box charge she bears;" and the next two lines do not appear. — W.
"The girdle of Venus. 'Venus, without any ornament but her own beauties, not so much as her own cestus' — Addison." — S.J.
Hertford appears to have regarded this poem as expressing Lady Mary's own feelings on being attacked with small-pox. — See Hertf. and Pomf. Corresp., 2nd edit. 2.169. — T.
Lilly, who was one of the publishers of the Tatler, a perfumer at the corner of Beaufort-buildings in the Strand, and no doubt a dealer in China and Japan knick-knacks. Motteux was equally well known as a poet, and a "china-man," or dealer in tea and Chinese curiosities. His poem on Tea (Tonson, 1712) has a prefatory address to the Spectator, dated from his china shop in Leaden-hall-street, wherein he says: "Traffic will hardly let poetry, which once seemed my business, be so much as my diversion." He came to a mysterious end in 1718, there being great suspicion of his having been murdered. His "Japan" ware and other curiosities were advertised to be sold for the benefit of his widow in the Daily Courant of Feb. 26, 1718. — T.
verses Lady Mary tells us were sent from Constantinople to her uncle Fielding, and "by his (well intended) indiscretion shown about, copies taken, and at length miserably printed." The date, "1718," is clearly a mistake, for Lady Mary had returned to England before December of that year. It must have been 1717. The poem first appeared in Anthony Hammond's Miscellany, published in May, 1720. — T.
epilogue was intended for a play on the story of Mary Queen of
Scots, which Philip Duke of Wharton began to write, but never finished. No
part of the play now remains but these four lines:
"Sure were I free, and Norfolk were a prisoner,
I'd fly with more impatience to his arms,
Than the poor Israelite gaz'd on the serpent,
When life was the reward of every look."
Walpole's Catalogue, 1.134. — D.
reader need hardly be informed that this was not the epilogue which was spoken on the performance of Cato. — T.
the castrati were the great singers of Italian opera at this time. Castration, performed while the subject was still very young, ensured that the high, pure voice of the boy sprano would continue into adulthood. — B.
the celebrated quack doctor, announced that he would administer his pill and drop gratis to indigent persons. — T.
Fulke Greville, author of Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Critical, Satyrical, and Moral [1756], is intended. Lady Mary was skeptical of the value of this work, and this poem of ostensible praise, in its original form, is highly ironic. Dallaway misunderstood her intent, and edited the irony out of it. Thomas, despite his promise in the Introduction to the 1861 edition, often failed to restore the original, though he had access to Lady Mary's papers. For comparison, see the newly edited version in Halsband and Grundy (307-8). — B.
and Sophronia are characters in Greville. Grundy (308) notes that Trasimond seems confused here with Torimond, the jockey. — B.
XIV. Marlborough's victories, particularly at Blenheim, altered the balance of power in Europe. — B.
by Lady Mary in response to the following "retirement" poem by
Lord Hervey, which appeared in Dodsley's Collection [1748] (Halsband and
Grundy 256):
LORD HERVEY TO MR. FOX.
Written at Florence, 1729, in imitation of the Sixth
Ode of the Second Book of Horace
Septimi Gades aditure mecum.
Thou dearest youth, who taught me first to know
What pleasures from a real friendship flow;
Where neither int'rest nor deceit have part,
But all the warmth is native of the heart;
Thou know'st to comfort, soothe, or entertain,
Joy of my health, and cordial to my pain.
When life seem'd failing in her latest stage,
And fell disease anticipated age;
When wasting sickness, and afflictive pain,
By A&esculapius' sons oppos'd in vain,
Forc'd me reluctant, desperate to explore
A warmer sun, and seek a milder shore,
Thy steady love, with unexampled truth,
Forsook each gay companion of thy youth,
Whate'er the prosperous or the great employs,
Business and interest, and love's softer joys,
The weary steps of misery to attend,
To share distress, and make a wretch thy friend.
If o'er the mountain's snowy top we stray,
Where Carthage first explor'd the vent'rous way;
Or through the tainted air of Rome's parch'd plains,
Where want resides and superstition reigns;
Cheerful and unrepining still you bear
Each dangerous rigour of the varying year;
And kindly anxious for thy friend alone,
Lament his sufferings and forget thy own.
Oh! would kind Heaven, those tedious sufferings past,
Permit me, Ickworth, rest and health at last!
In that lov'd shade, my youth's delightful seat,
My early pleasure, and my late retreat,
Where lavish Nature's favourite blessings flow,
And all the seasons all their sweets bestow;
There might I trifle carelessly away
The milder ev'ning of life's clouded day;
From business and the world's intrusion free,
With books, with love, with beauty, and with thee;
No further want, no wish, yet unpossess'd,
Could e'er disturb this unambitious breast.
Let those who Fortune's shining gifts implore,
Who sue for glory, splendour, wealth, or power,
View this inactive state with feverish eyes,
And pleasure they can never taste, despise;
Let them still court that goddess' falser joys,
Who, while she grants their pray'r, their peace destroys.
I envy not the foremost of the great,
Not Walpole's self, directing Europe's fate;
Still let him load ambition's thorny shrine,
Fame be his portion, and contentment mine.
But if the gods, sinister still, deny
To live in Ickworth, let me there but die;
Thy hands to close my eyes in Death's long night,
Thy image to attract their latest sight:
Then to the grave attend thy Poet's hearse,
And love his memory as you lov'd his verse.
Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, the friend and correspondent of Pope. This poem has been printed as addressed to Lord Bathurst, and Lady Mary's friend the Countess of Pomfret appears to have been of this opinion. The allusions apply rather to Burlington "the architect" than to Bathurst, who though also a cultivator of "Palladio's Art," was more often designated as "the planter." Every reader remembers Pope's celebrated Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, written, as Pope tells us in a note, when the earl was "publishing the Designs of Inigo Jones and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio." — T.
attack upon Pope, written jointly by Lady Mary and Lord Hervey.
Modern critical opinion assigns the much larger share to Lady Mary
(Halsband and Grundy 265). Pope's satire had struck at Hervey under the
name of Lord Fanny and Lady Mary as Sappho:
From Furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
Pox'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate.
Wharncliffe, a descendant of Lady Mary, found this poem particularly
embarrassing, but kept it, with the following notes. — B.
These verses, although contained in the collection of poems verified by
Lady Mary's own hand as written by her, have always been considered the
joint composition of Lord Hervey and Lady Mary, and to have been
occasioned by some lines, which they supposed to refer to them, in
Pope's Imitation of the First Satire of the Seconfd Book of Horace. In
the Introductory Anecdotes in vol. i it is stated that they will "not be
reprinted in this edition"; but, upon further consideration, the Editor
has thought it right to leave them. They have been printed in all the
former editions, and he does not think himself warranted in not
inserting them in this, however he may disapprove of some parts of them.
With regard to those parts, it appears to be only fair to Lady Mary's
memory, to remind the reader that the lines in Pope's poem, which she
conceived to apply to her, are most gross and unjustifiable; and when
the satirist indulges in such attacks, it may be very unwise, but it is
certainly natural, that his victims should retort upon him, in the way
they think likely to wound him most severely, if they are capable of
doing so with effect; and the reader of these verses will probably be of
opinion that the writer or writers of them were not without that power. — W.
This line [Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure] ought never to
have had a place in a poem written by Lord Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley.
They ought to have disdained to taunt Pope upon his origin. This taunt
and that upon his figure, a few lines before, are certainly unworthy of
them. These reflections, however, seem to have been most keenly felt by
Pope; and in the letter to Arbuthnot, which is called the Prologue to
the Imitations of Horace, he is at considerable pains to refute that
respecting his birth, which makes it probable that this letter was
written, in fact, after the Imitations of Horace. — W.
In Greek myth, Atreus and Thyestes, brothers, killed Chrysippus but then entered upon a long and deadly feud themselves. — B.
Henry Disney, a friend of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, among whom "Duke Disney" appears to have been a friendly nickname. — T.
and Madame Dacier on Homer were criticized by Pope, Swift attacked the Spectator, and Pope attacked Addison under the name of Atticus (Halsband and Grundy 249). — B.
Wharncliffe, and Thomas have omitted here some 17 lines suggesting that Dr. Arbuthnot's trade fits him for administering emetics rather than poetry (Halsband and Grundy 250). — B.
verses to Mr. John Moore, author of the celebrated worm powder, generally printed among Pope's works. — T.
alludes to a burlesque of the first Psalm, and The Challenge, a Court Ballad, attributed by Curll and others to Pope. — T.
"A cant word, probably without etymology. A play at which one gives a word, to which another finds a rhyme; a rhyme." — S.J.
accused Pope of having behaved unfairly in their negotiations concerning the publication of the Odyssey, and apparently with some show of reason, as appears in his unpublished correspondence with Broome and Fenton. — T.
were small and tasty birds much favored by gourmands; "pye of Perigord" was a meat pie flavored with truffles. The term was eventually applied to any expensive highly seasoned pie. — B.
whom Pope erected a tomb, which he inscribed to her memory, in the churchyard at Twickenham. — D. Her name was Mary Beach. She died Nov. 5, 1725. — T.
whole of this passage alludes to the Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace, in which Pope attacked Mr. Wortley Montagu and Lady Mary under the name of Avidien and his wife. — T.
letter to the Countess of Bute, 2.345. — T. The passage referred to reads as follows: Some months before Lord W. Hamilton married, there appeared a foolish song, said to be wrote by a poetical great lady, who I really think was the character of Lady Arabella, in the Female Quixote (without the beauty): you may imagine such a conduct, at court, made her superlatively ridiculous. Lady Delawarr, a woman of great merit, with whom I lived in much intimacy, showed this fine performance to me; we were very merry in supposing what answer Lord William would make to these passionate addresses; she begged me to say something for a poor man, who had nothing to say for himself. I wrote, extempore, on the back of the song, some stanzas that went perfectly well to the tune. She promised they never should appear as mine, and faithfully kept her word. By what accident they have fallen into the hands of that thing Dodsley, I know not, but he has printed them as addressed, by me, to a very contemptible puppy, and my own words as his answer. I do not believe either Job or Socrates ever had such a provocation (Thomas 2.345-6). — B.
acris hyems grata vice veris: "Set sail when the winter winds are pleased to truly change," Horace, Carm. 1.4.1. — B.
multa gracilis te puer in rosa: " What lithe youth among the roses," Horace, Carm. 1.5.1. — B.
have found this poem in a commonplace-book of Lady Mary's, headed in her handwriting, "To Molly." It was, I suspect, really addressed to Lord Hervey. — T. Early copies bore an obliteration after "C"; and it was thought by Walpole and others that "C" was one Richard Chandler. Lady Mary preferred to fill in the blank with "Molly." "Congreve makes his first appearance in 1803" (Halsband and Grundy 235-5). — B.
and Arethusa etc.: Daphne, to escape Apollo, was turned into a laurel tree (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.452-567); Arethusa, to escape Alpheius, was turned into a spring (Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.572-641 & Pausanius, 5.6.2-3). — B.
the wife of Edward Thompson, Esq., one of the daughters and co-heirs of Edmund Dunch, Esq. The others were the Duchess of Manchester and Lady Oxenden. — D. Mrs. Thompson's story is told by Lord Hervey in his Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (2.346). According to this she was separated from her husband in consequence of an intrigue with the notorious Sir George Oxenden, and died in childbed. — T.
the daughter of the Honourable Thomas Verney, eldest son of Thomas Lord Willoughby de Broke, married George Bowes, Esq., of Streatham, in the county of Durham, October 1, 1724, and died December 4, in the same year. — W.
qui ne se trouve point, et ne se trouvera jamais: From St. Everemond, writing on the ideal woman [Euvres en prose, 1962-9, 2.46] (Halsband and Grundy, 234).
sonnet is preserved by Count Algarotti in the seventh volume of his works, and is there mentioned with great commendation. — D.
poem was forwarded to Lord Wharncliffe by Mr. Sharpe. It does not appear to have been written by Lady Mary. — T.
at this time interchanged some secret civilities with the court and with the Walpoles (Wal. Co., May 25, 1736), which explains Lady M. W. Montagu's parody of Horace and Lydia into a dialogue between Walpole and Pulteney." — Note of Mr. Croker to Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 2.86. Mr. Croker refers to Sir R. Walpole's correspondence in Coxe's Memoirs, 4to, 1798, 3.321. — T.
Lady Irwin, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle. An Answer by Lady Irwin may be found in the so-called Additions to Pope's Works, 1776, 1.170. — T.
tea: an infusion of an herb thought to bring on sleep. Not to be confused with the esoteric concoction sometimes prepared from the horns of harts (stag or fallow deer). — B.
is very improbable that Lady Mary wrote this poem. There are "among her MSS." a great many poems, both in her own and other person's handwritings, which are certainly not by her. — T. Halsband and Grundy (261) regard it as hers. — B.
Wortley Montagu's town-house was in Cavendish-square, where he resided, at least as early as August, 1732. Lady Mary's letters to him during her long residence in Italy are sometimes addressed to him there. — T.
appears from the Strawberry Hill Catalogue, that "in the Glass Closet" was a copy of "Milton's Paradise Lost, given by the Duke of Wharton to Lady Mary Montagu, who has written verses in the first leaf." — T.
by the Countess of Pomfret to the Countess of Hertford, Nov. 2, N.S., 1740. — See Herford and Pomfret Correspondence, 2.53. Lady Pomfret says: "I shall conclude this letter with a philosophical reflection of Lady Mary's. She says that no one has had a copy of it but myself, so pray do not let us make it public." This poem is now [1861] for the first time added to Lady Mary's Works. — T.
| The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu | |