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THE LETTERS AND WORKS

OF

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE.1

TO LADY

AVING (like other undeserving people) a vast opinion of my own merits, and some small faith in your sincerity, I believed it impossible you should forget me, and therefore very impudently expected a long letter from you this morning; but Heaven, which you know delights in abasing the proud, has, I find, decreed no such thing; and, notwithstanding my vanity and your vows, I begin to fancy myself forgotten; and this epistle comes, in humble manner, to kiss your hands, and petition for the scanty alms of one little visit, though never so short: pray, madam, for God's sake, have pity on a poor prisoner-one little visit-so may God send you a fine husband, continuance of beauty, &c.; but if you deny my request, and make a jest of my tenderness (which, between friends, I do think a little upon the ridiculous), I do vow never to -; but I had better not vow, for I shall certainly love you, do what you will-though I beg you would not tell some certain

1 The letters in this section, except where otherwise stated in notes, are printed from the originals among the Wortley papers.-T.

I have not found the original of this letter. There is nothing to show to whom it was addressed.-T. [Lord Wharncliffe assumes that it was written before her marriage.]

people of that fond expression, who will infallibly advise you to follow the abominable maxims of, no answer, illtreatment, and so forth, not considering that such conduct is full as base as beating a poor wretch who has his hands tied; and mercy to the distressed is a mark of divine goodness. Upon which Godly consideration I hope you will afford a small visit to your disconsolate.

TO THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY.1

[WITH HER TRANSLATION OF EPICTETUS.]

July 20, 1710.2

MY LORD,-Your hours are so well employed, I hardly dare offer you this trifle to look over; but then, so well am I acquainted with that sweetness of temper which accompanies your learning, I dare ever assure myself of a pardon. You have already forgiven me greater impertinencies, and condescended yet further in giving me instructions, and bestowing some of your minutes in teaching me. This surprising humility has all the effect it ought to have on my heart; I am sensible of the gratitude I owe to so much goodness, and how much I am ever bound to be your servant. Here is the work of one week of my solitudeby the many faults in it your lordship will easily believe I spent no more time upon it; it was hardly finished when I was obliged to begin my journey, and I had not leisure to write it over again. You have it here without any corrections, with all its blots and errors; I endeavoured at no beauty of style, but to keep as literally as I could to the sense of the author. My only intention, in presenting it, is to ask your lordship whether I have understood Epictetus? The fourth chapter, particularly, I am afraid I have mistaken. Piety and greatness of soul set you above all misfortunes that can happen to yourself, and the calumnies of false tongues; but that same piety which renders what happens to yourself indifferent to you, yet softens the

1 1 [Dr. Gilbert Burnet.]—W.

2 So in Dallaway's edition; but there is no date to the manuscript in this place. A last leaf, however, is missing, and it is possible that Mr. Dallaway found this date at the foot of the letter.-T.

natural compassion in your temper to the greatest degree of tenderness for the interests of the Church, and the liberty and welfare of your country: the steps that are now made towards the destruction of both, the apparent danger we are in, the manifest growth of injustice, oppression, and hypocrisy, cannot do otherwise than give your lordship those hours of sorrow, which, did not your fortitude of soul, and reflections from religion and philosophy, shorten, would add to the national misfortunes, by injuring the health of so great a supporter of our sinking liberties. I ought to ask pardon for this digression: it is more proper for me in this place to say something to excuse an address that looks so very presuming. My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature, and folly reckoned so much our proper sphere, we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that, than the least pretensions to reading or good sense. We are permitted no books but such as tend to the weakening and effeminating of the mind. Our natural defects are every way indulged, and it is looked upon as in a degree. criminal to improve our reason, or fancy we have any. We are taught to place all our art in adorning our outward forms, and permitted, without reproach, to carry that custom even to extravagancy, while our minds are entirely neglected, and, by disuse of reflections, filled with nothing but the trifling objects our eyes are daily entertained with. This custom, so long established and industriously upheld, makes it even ridiculous to go out of the common road, and forces one to find as many excuses as if it was a thing altogether criminal not to play the fool in concert with other women of quality, whose birth and leisure only serve to render them the most useless and most worthless part of the creation. There is hardly a character in the world more despicable, or more liable to universal ridicule, than that of a learned woman: those words imply, according to the received sense, a tattling, impertinent, vain, and conceited creature. I believe nobody will deny that learning may have this effect, but it must be a very superficial degree of it. Erasmus was certainly a man of great learning and good sense, and he seems to have my opinion of it when he says, Fomina qui [sic] vere sapit, non videtur sibi sapere; contra, quæ cum nihil sapiat sibi videtur sapere,

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ea demum bis stulta est. The Abbé Bellegarde gives a right reason for women's talking over-much: they know nothing, and every outward object strikes their imagination, and produces a multitude of thoughts, which, if they knew more, they would know not worth their thinking of. I am not now arguing for an equality of the two sexes. I do not doubt God and nature have thrown us into an inferior rank; we are a lower part of the creation, we owe obedience and submission to the superior sex, and any woman who suffers her vanity and folly to deny this, rebels against the law of the Creator, and indisputable order of nature: but there is a worse effect than this, which follows the careless education given to women of quality, its being so easy for any man of sense, that finds it either his interest or his pleasure, to corrupt them. The common method is, to begin by attacking their religion: they bring them a thousand fallacious arguments their excessive ignorance hinders them from refuting: and I speak now from my own knowledge and conversation among them, there are more atheists among the fine ladies than the loosest sort of rakes; and the same ignorance that generally works out into excess of superstition, exposes them to the snares of any who have a fancy to carry them to t'other extreme. I have made my excuses already too long, and will conclude in the words of Erasmus:-Vulgus sentit quod lingua Latina non convenit fœminis, quia parum facit ad tuendam illarum pudicitiam quoniam rarum et insolitum est fœminam scire Latinam ; attamen consuetudo omnium malarum rerum magistra. Decorum est fæminam in Germania nata [sic] discere Gallice, ut loquatur cum his qui sciunt Gallice; cur igitur habetur indecorum discere Latine, ut quotidie confabuletur cum tot autoribus tam facundis, tam eruditis, tam sapientibus, tam files consultoribus? Certe mihi quantulumcunque cerebri est, malim in bonis studiis consumere, quam in precibus sine mente dictis, in pernoctibus conviviis, in exhauriendis capacibus pateris, &c.1

I have tired your lordship, and too long delayed to subscribe myself

Your lordship's most respectful and obliged.

1 All that follows this word is now missing in the manuscript.-T.

TO MRS. ANNE JUSTICE.'

[Postmark," Aug. 7."]

I AM very glad you direct yourself so well. I endeavour to make my solitude as agreeable as I can. Most things of that kind are in the power of the mind; we may make ourselves easy if we cannot perfectly happy. The news you tell me very much surprises me. I wish Mrs. B.2 extremely well, and hope she designs better for herself than a stolen wedding with a man who (you know) we have reason to believe not the most sincere lover upon earth; and since his estate [is] in such very bad order, I am clearly of your opinion his best course would be the army, for I suppose six or seven thousand pound (if he should get that with his mistress) would not set him up again, and there he might possibly establish his fortune, at least better it, and, at worst, be rid of all his cares. I wonder all the young men in England don't take that method, certainly the most profitable as well [as] the noblest. I confess I cannot believe Mrs. B. so imprudent to keep on any private correspondence with him. I much doubt her perfect happiness if she runs away with him; I fear she will have more reason than ever to say there is no such thing. I have just now received the numbers of the great lottery which is drawing; I find myself (as yet) among the unlucky, but, thank God, the great prize is not come out, and there is room for hopes still. Prithee, dear child, pray heartily for me if I win. I don't question (in spite of all our disputes) to find myself perfectly happy, my heart goes very much pit-a-pat about it, but I've a horrid ill-boding mind that tells me I shan't win a farthing; I should be very glad to be mistaken in that case. I hear Mrs. B. has been at the Spa; I wonder you don't mention it. Adieu, my dear; pray make no more excuses about long letters, and believe yours never seem so to me.

1 From the original, lately in the possession of Mr. Boone, of Bondstreet. There is little in the contents to fix the date, and the letter is without signature. It is addressed "To Mrs. Anne Justice, at Mr. Justice's, on the Pavement at York, Yorkshire, by way of London."-T. * Perhaps Miss Banks, an early Nottinghamshire friend.-T.

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