entirely all the legends which an old lady recounted to her grandchildren of the intellectual difficulties of her youth. She seems to have been encouraged by her grandmother, one of the celebrated Evelyn family, whose memory is thus enigmatically but still expressively enshrined in the diary of the author of Sylva. "Under this date," we are informed, " of the 2d of July, 1649, he records a day spent at Godstone, where Sir John " (this lady's father) "was on a visit with his daughter; " and he adds, than any lady on their list. The other mem- | pable of any degree of inattention and negbers demurred, because the rules of the club lect; but we should not perhaps credit too forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen. 'Then you shall see her,' cried he; and in the gayety of the moment sent orders home to have her finely dressed and brought to him at the tavern, where she was received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form upon a drinking-glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweet-" Mem. The prodigious memory of Sir John meats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what of Wilts's daughter, since married to Mr. perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations; they amounted to ecstasy: never again, throughout her whole future life, did she pass so happy a day. Nor, indeed, could she; for the love of admiration, which this scene was calculated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully gratified; there is always some alloying ingredient in the cup, some drawback upon the triumphs, of grown people. Her father carried on the frolic, and, we may conclude, confirmed the taste, by having her picture painted for the club-room, that she might be enrolled a regular toast." Perhaps some young ladies of more than eight years old would not much object to have lived in those times. Fathers may be wiser now than they were then, but they rarely make themselves so thoroughly agreeable to their children. This stimulating education would leave a weak and vain girl still more vain and weak; but it had not that effect on Lady Mary. Vain she probably was, and her father's boastfulness perhaps made her vainer; but her vanity took an intellectual turn. She read vaguely and widely; she managed to acquire some knowledge-how much is not clear of Greek and Latin, and certainly learned with sufficient thoroughness French and Italian. She used to say that she had the worst education in the world, and that it was only by the "help of an uncommon memory and indefatigable labor" that she had acquired her remarkable attainments. Her father certainly seems to have been ca W. Pierrepont." The lady who was thus formidable in her youth deigned in her old age to write frequently, as we should now say,—to open a "regular commerce" of letters, as was said in that age,-with Lady Mary when quite a girl, which she always believed to have been beneficial to her, and probably believed rightly; for she was intelligent enough to comprehend what was said to her, and the old lady had watched many changes in many things. Her greatest intellectual guide, at least so in after-life she used to relate, was Mr. Wortley, whom she afterwards married. "When I was young," she said, "I was a great admirer of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and that was one of the chief reasons that set me upon the thoughts of stealing the Latin language. Mr. Wortley was the only person to whom I communicated my design, and he encouraged me in it. I used to study five or six hours a day for two years in my father's library; and so got that language, whilst everybody else thought I was reading nothing but novels and romances." She pursued, however, some fiction also ; for she possessed, till her death, the whole library of Mrs. Lennox's Female Quixote, a ponderous series of novels in folio, in one of which she had written, in her fairest youthful hand, the names and characteristic qualities of "the beautiful Diana, the volatile Clemene, the melancholy Doris, Celadon the faithful, Adamas the wise, and so on, forming two columns." Of Mr. Wortley it is not difficult, from the materials before us, to decipher his character; he was a slow man, with a taste for quick companions. Swift's diary to Stella mentions an evening spent over a bottle of more than that the writer was wholly unsuc old wine with Mr. Wortley and Mr. Addison. cessful in all which he tried to do. As to Mr. Wortley was a rigid Whig, and Swift's Mr. Wortley's contributions to the perioditransition to Toryism soon broke short that cals of his time, we may suspect that the jotfriendship. But with Addison he maintained tings preserved at Loudon are all which he an intimacy which lasted during their joint ever wrote of them, and that the style and lives, and survived the marriages of both. arrangement were supplied by more skilful With Steele likewise he was upon the closest writers. Even a county member might furterms, is said to have written some papers nish headings for the Saturday Review. He in the Tatler and Spectator; and the second might say: "Trent British vessel-Amerivolume of the former is certainly dedicated cans always intrusive-Support Government to him in affectionate and respectful terms. Kill all that is necessary.' Notwithstanding, however, these conspic- What Lady Mary discovered in Mr. Wortuous testimonials to high ability, Mr. Wort-ley it is easier to say and shorter, for he was ley was an orderly and dull person. Every very handsome. If his portrait can be letter received by him from his wife during trusted, there was a placid and business-like five-and-twenty years of absence, was found, repose about him, which might easily be atat his death, carefully indorsed with the date tractive to a rather excitable and wild young of its arrival and with a synopsis of its con- lady, especially when combined with impostents. "He represented," we are told, "at ing features and a quiet sweet expression. various times, Huntingdon, Westminster, He attended to her also. When she was a and Peterborough in Parliament, and ap- girl of fourteen, he met her at a party, and pears to have been a member of that class evinced his admiration. And a little while who win respectful attention by sober and later, it is not difficult to fancy that a literary business-like qualities; and his name is young lady might be much pleased with a constantly found in the drier and more for- good-looking gentleman not uncomfortably mal part of the politics of the time." He older than herself, yet having a place in the answered to the description given more re- world, and well known to the literary men cently of a similar person: "Is not," it was of the age. He was acquainted with the asked, "Sir John a very methodical classics too, or was supposed to be so; and person? "Certainly he is," was the reply, whether it was a consequence of or a prelim"he files his invitations to dinner." The inary to their affections, Lady Mary wished Wortley papers, according to the descrip- to know the classics also. tions of those who have inspected them, seem to contain the accumulations of similar documents during many years. He hoarded money, however, to more purpose, for he died one of the richest commoners in England; and a considerable part of the now marvellous wealth of the Bute family seems at first to have been derived from him. Bishop Burnet was so kind as to superin- / tend the singular studies-for such they were clearly thought-of this aristocratic young lady; and the translation of the Enchiridion of Epictetus, which he revised, is printed in this edition of her works. But even so grave an undertaking could not wholly withdraw her from more congenial Whatever good qualities Addison and pursuits. She commenced a correspondence Steele discovered in Mr. Wortley, they were with Miss Wortley, Mr. Wortley's unmarried certainly not those of a good writer. We sister, which still remains, though Miss have from his pen and from that of Lady Wortley's letters are hardly to be called Mary a description of the state of English hers, for her brother composed, and she politics during the three first years of George merely copied them. The correspondence III., and any one who wishes to understand is scarcely in the sort of English or in the how much readibility depends upon good tone which young ladies, we understand, now writing would do well to compare the two. Lady Mary's is a clear and bright description of all the superficial circumstances of" for my dearest Lady Mary to utter thought "It is as impossible," says Miss Wortley, the time; Mr. Wortley's is equally super- that can seem dull as to put on a look that ficial, often unintelligible and always lum- is not beautiful. Want of wit is a fault bering, and scarcely succeeds in telling us that those who envy you most would not be use. able to find in your kind compliments. To me they seem perfect, since repeated assurances of your kindness forbid me to question their sincerity. You have often found that the most angry, nay, the most neglectful air you can assume, has made as deep a wound as the kindest; and these lines of yours, that you tax with dulness (perhaps because they were writ when you was not in a right humor, or when your thoughts were elsewhere employed), are so far from deserving the imputation, that the very turn of your expression, had I forgot the rest of your charms, would be sufficient to make me lament the only fault you have your inconstancy." me. "I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear Mrs. Wortley, for the wit, beauty, and other fine qualities, you so generously bestow upon Next to receiving them from Heaven, you are the person from whom I would choose to receive gifts and graces: I am very well satisfied to owe them to your own delicacy of imagination, which represents to you the idea of a fine lady, and you have good-nature enough to fancy I am she. All this is mighty well, but you do not stop there; imagination is boundless. After giving me imaginary wit and beauty, you give me imaginary passions, and you tell me I'm in love: if I am, 'tis a perfect sin of ignorance, for I don't so much as know the man's name: I have been studying these three hours, and cannot guess who you mean. I passed the days of Nottingham races [at] Thoresby without seeing, or even wishing to see, one of the sex. Now, if I am in love, I have very hard fortune to conceal it so in dustriously from my own knowledge, and yet discover it so much to other people. "Tis against all form to have such a passion as that, without giving one sigh for the matter. Pray tell me the name of him I love, that I may (according to the laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves here abouts, and teach it to the echo." After some time Miss Wortley unfortunately died, and there was an obvious difficulty in continuing the correspondence without the aid of an appropriate sisterly screen. Mr. Wortley seems to have been tranquil and condescending; perhaps he thought placid tactics would be most effective, for Lady Mary was not so calm. He sent her some Tatlers, and received, by way of thanks, the following tolerably encouraging letter: "To Mr. Wortley Montagu. "I am surprised at one of the Tatlers you send me ; is it possible to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes capable of wife. You distrust me-I can neither be "I don't enjoin you to burn this letter. I know you will. 'Tis the first I ever writ to 1 one of your sex, and shall be the last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all correspondence of the kind; my resolu tions are seldom made and never broken." Mr. Wortley, however, still grumbled. He seems to have expected a young lady to do something even more decisive than ask him to marry her. He continued to hesitate and pause. The lady in the comedy says, "What right has a man to intend unless he states his intentions ?" and Lady Mary's biographers are entirely of that opinion, They think her exceedingly ill-used, and Mr. Wortley exceedingly to blame. And so it may have been; certainly a love correspondence is rarely found where activity and intrepidity on the lady's side so much contrasts with quiescence and timidity on the gentleman's. If, however, we could summon him before us, probably Mr. Wortley would have something to answer on his own behalf. It is tolerably plain that he thought Lady Mary too excitable. "Certainly," he doubtless reasoned, "she is a handsome young lady and very witty; but beauty and wit are dangerous as well as attractive. Vivacity is delightful; but my esteemed friend Mr. Addison has observed that excessive quickness of parts is not unfrequently the cause of extreme rapidity in action. Lady Mary makes love to me before marriage, and I like it; but may she not make love also to some one else after marriage, and then I shall not like it." Accordingly, he writes to her timorously as to her love of pleasure, her love of romantic reading, her occasional toleration of younger gentlemen and quicker admirers. At last, however, he proposed; and as far as the lady was concerned, there was no objection. We might have expected, from a superficial view of the facts, that there would have been no difficulty either on the side of her father. Mr. Wortley died one of the richest commoners in England; was of the first standing in society, of good family, and he had apparently, therefore, money to settle and station to offer to his bride. And he did offer both. He was ready to settle an ample sum on Lady Mary, both as his wife and as his widow, and was anxious that, if they married they should live in a manner suitable to her rank and his prospects. But nevertheless there was a difficulty. The Tatler had recently favored its readers with dissertations upon social ethics not altogether dissimilar to those with which the Saturday Review frequently instructs its readers. One of these dissertations contained an elaborate exposure of the folly of settling your estate upon your unborn children. The arguments were of a sort very easily imaginable. "Why," it was said, "should you give away that which you have to a person whom you do not know; whom you may never see; whom you may not like when you do see; who may be undutiful, unpleasant, or idiotic? Why, too, should each generation surrender its due control over the next? When the family estate is settled, men of the world know that the father's control is gone, for disinterested filial affection is an unfrequent though doubtless possible virtue; but so long as property is in suspense, all expectants will be attentive to those who have it in their power to give or not to give it." These arguments had converted Mr. Wortley, who is said even to have contributed notes for the article, and they seem to have converted Lady Mary also. She was to have her money, and the most plain-spoken young ladies do not commonly care to argue much about the future provision for their possible children; the subject is always delicate and a little frightful, and, on the whole, must be left to themselves. But Lord Dorchester, her father, felt it his duty to be firm. It is an old saying, that "you never know where a man's conscience may turn up," and the advent of ethical feeling was in this case even unusually beyond calculation. Lord Dorchester had never been an anxious father, and was not now going to be a liberal father. He had never cared much about Lady Mary, except in so far as he could himself gain éclat by exhibiting her youthful beauty, and he was not now at her marriage about to do at all more than was necessary and decent in his station. It was not therefore apparently probable that he would be irritatingly obstinate respecting the income of his daughter's children. He was so, however. He deemed it a duty to see that "his grandchild never should be a beggar," and, for what reason does not so clearly appear, wished that his eldest male grandchild should be immensely richer than all his other grandchildren. The old feudal aristocrat, often in modern Europe so curiously disguised in the indifferent exterior of a careless man of the world, was, And as became him, dictatorial and unalterable money which he had promised her. upon the duty of founding a family. Though there is nothing offensive in her mode of he did not care much for his daughter, he expression. ""Tis something odd for a wocared much for the position of his daugh- man that brings nothing to expect anything; ter's eldest son. He had probably stumbled but after the way of my education, I dare on the fundamental truth that " girls were not pretend to live but in some degree suitagirls and boys were boys," and was disin-ble to it. I had rather die than return to a clined to disregard the rule of primogeniture dependency upon relations I have disobliged. by which he had obtained his marquisate, Save me from that fear, if you love me. and from which he expected a dukedom. Mr. Wortley, however, was through life a man, if eminent in nothing else, eminent at least in obstinacy. He would not give up the doctrine of the Tatler even to obtain Lady Mary. The match was accordingly abandoned, and Lord Dorchester looked out for and found another gentleman whom he proposed to make his son-in-law; for he believed, according to the old morality, "that it was the duty of the parents to find a husband for a daughter, and that when he was found, it was the daughter's duty to marry him." It was as wrong in her to attempt to choose as in him to neglect to seek. Lady Mary was, however, by no means disposed to accept this passive theory of female obligation. She had sought and chosen; and to her choice she intended to adhere. The conduct of Mr. Wortley would have offended some ladies, but it rather augmented her admiration. She had exactly that sort of irritable intellect which sets an undue value on new theories of society and morality, and is pleased when others do so too. She thought Mr. Wortley was quite right not to "defraud himself for a possible infant," and admired his constancy and firmness. She determined to risk a step, as she herself said, unjustifiable to her own relatives, but which she nevertheless believed that she could justify to herself. She decided on eloping with Mr. Wortley. If you cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere and tell me so. 'Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a short happiness, involve myself in ages of misery. I hope there will never be occasion for this precaution; but, however, 'tis necessary to make it." But true and rational as all this seems, perhaps it is still truer and still more rational to say, that if a woman has not sufficient confidence in her lover to elope with him without a previous promise of a good settlement, she had better not elope with him at all. After all, if he declines to make the stipulated settlement, the lady will have either to return to her friends or to marry without it, and she would have the full choice between these satisfactory alternatives, even if she asked no previous promise from her lover. At any rate, the intrusion of coarse money among the refined materials of romance is, in this case, even more curious and remarkable than usual. After some unsuccessful attempts, Lady Mary and Mr. Wortley did elope and did marry, and, after a certain interval, of course, Lord Dorchester received them, notwithstanding their contempt of his authority, into some sort of favor and countenance. They had probably saved him money by their irregularity, and economical frailties are rarely judged severely by men of fashion who are benefited by them. Lady Mary, however, was long a little mistrusted by her own relations, and never seems to have acquired much family influence; but her marriage was not her only peculiarity, or the only one which impartial relations might dislike. Before, however, taking this audacious leap, she looked a little. Though she did not object to the sacrifice of the customary inheritance of her contingent son, she by no means approved of sacrificing the settlement which Mr. Wortley had undertaken at a The pair appear to have been for a little prior period of the negotiation to make upon while tolerably happy. Lady Mary was exherself. And according to common sense citable, and wanted letters when absent, she was undoubtedly judicious. She was and attention when present; Mr. Wortley going from her father, and foregoing the was heavy and slow; could not write letters money which he had promised her; and when away, and seemed torpid in her society therefore it was not reasonable that, by go- when at home. Still these are common ing to her lover, she should forfeit also the troubles. Common, too, is the matrimonial |