of all living". Yet she is a real interesting woman, not
only full of delicacy and sweetness, but with all the unde-
finable fascination, the charm of personality, which such
typical characters hardly ever have. By what consummate
miracle of wit this charm of individuality is preserved,
without impairing the general idea which is ever present
to us, we cannot explain, for we do not know.

Adam is far less successful. He has good hair,
"hyacinthine locks" that "from his parted forelock manly
hung"; a "fair large front" and "eye sublime"; but he
has little else that we care for. There is, in truth, no
opportunity of displaying manly virtues, even if he possessed
them. He has only to yield to his wife's solicitations,
which he does. Nor are we sure that he does it well. He
is very tedious ; he indulges in sermons which are good ;

1 Book iv.



2i6 Literary Studies.



but most men cannot but fear that so delightful a being
as Eve must have found him tiresome. She steps away,
however, and goes to sleep at some of the worst points.

Dr. Johnson remarked, that, after all, "Paradise Lost"
was one of the books which no one wished longer : we fear,
in this irreverent generation, some wish it shorter. Hardly
any reader would be sorry if some portions of the later
books had been spared him. Coleridge, indeed, discovered
profound mysteries in the last ; but in what could not
Coleridge find a mystery if he wished ? Dryden more
wisely remarked that Milton became tedious when he
entered upon a "tract of Scripture". 1 Nor is it surprising
that such is the case. The style of many parts of Scripture
is such that it will not bear addition or subtraction. A word
less, or an idea more, and the effect upon the mind is the
same no longer. Nothing can be more tiresome than a
sermonic amplification of such passages. It is almost too
much when, as from the pulpit, a paraphrastic commentary
is prepared for our spiritual improvement. In deference to the
intention we bear it, but we bear it unwillingly; and we can-
not endure it at all when, as in poems, the object is to
awaken our fancy rather than to improve our conduct. The
account of the creation in the book of Genesis is one of the
compositions from which no sensitive imagination would
subtract an iota, to which it could not bear to add a word.
Milton's paraphrase is alike copious and ineffective. The
universe is, in railway phrase, "opened," but not created;
no green earth springs in a moment from the indefinite void.
Instead, too, of the simple loneliness of the Old Testament,
several angelic officials are in attendance, who help in
nothing, but indicate that heaven must be plentifully sup-
plied with tame creatures.

There is no difficulty in writing such criticisms, and,
1 " Essay on Satire."



John Milton. 217

indeed, other unfavourable criticisms on " Paradise Lost ".
There is scarcely any book in the world which is open to a
greater number, or which a reader who allows plain words to
produce a due effect will be less satisfied with. Yet what
book is really greater ? In the best parts the words have a
magic in them ; even in the inferior passages you are hardly
sensible of their inferiority till you translate them into your
own language. Perhaps no style ever written by man
expressed so adequately the conceptions of a mind so strong
and so peculiar ; a manly strength, a haunting atmosphere
of enhancing suggestions, a firm continuous music, are only
some of its excellences. To comprehend the whole of the
others, you must take the volume down and read it, the
best defence of Milton, as has been said most truly, against
all objections.

Probably no book shows the transition which our theology
has made since the middle of the seventeenth century, at
once so plainly and so fully. We do not now compose long
narratives to "justify the ways of God to man". The more
orthodox we are, the more we shrink from it ; the more we
hesitate at such a task, the more we allege that we have no
powers for it. Our most celebrated defences of established
tenets are in the style of Butler, not in that of Milton. They
do not profess to show a satisfactory explanation of human
destiny ; on the contrary, they hint that probably we could
not understand such an explanation if it were given us ; at
any rate, they allow that it is not given us. Their course is
palliative. They suggest an "analogy of difficulties". If
our minds were greater, so they reason, we should compre-
hend these doctrines : now we cannot explain analogous
facts which we see and know. No style can be more oppo-
site to the bold argument, the boastful exposition of Milton.
The teaching of the eighteenth century is in the very atmo-
sphere we breathe. We read it in the teachings of Oxfc-rd ;



218 Literary Studies.



we hear it from the missionaries of the Vatican. The air of
the theology is clarified. We know our difficulties, at least;
we are rather prone to exaggerate the weight of some than
to deny the reality of any.

We cannot continue a line of thought which would draw
us on too far for the patience of our readers. We must,
however, make one more remark, and we shall have finished
our criticism on " Paradise Lost ". It is analogous to that
which we have just made. The scheme of the poem is
based on an offence against positive morality. The offence
of Adam was not against nature or conscience, nor against
anything of which we can see the reason, or conceive the
obligation, but against an unexplained injunction of the
Supreme Will. The rebellion in heaven, as Milton describes
it, was a rebellion, not against known ethics, or immutable
spiritual laws, but against an arbitrary selection and an
unexplained edict. We do not say that there is no such
thing as positive morality : we do not think so ; even if we
did, we should not insert a proposition so startling at the
conclusion of a literary criticism. But we are sure that
wherever a positive moral edict is promulgated, it is no
subject, except perhaps under a very peculiar treatment, for
literary art. By the very nature of it, it cannot satisfy the
heart and conscience. It is a difficulty ; we need not
attempt to explain it away. There are mysteries enough
which will never be explained away. But it is contrary to
every principle of criticism to state the difficulty as if it were
not one ; to bring forward the puzzle, yet leave it to itself; to
publish so strange a problem, and give only an untrue
solution of it : and yet such, in its bare statement, is all
that Milton has done.

Of Milton's other writings we have left ourselves no
room to speak ; and though every one of them, or almost
every one of them, would well repay a careful criticism, yet



John Milton. 219

few of them seem to throw much additional light on his
character, or add much to our essential notion of his genius,
though they may exemplify and enhance it. "Comus" is the
poem which does so the most. Literature has become so
much lighter than it used to be, that we can scarcely realise
the position it occupied in the light literature of our fore-
fathers. We have now in our own language many poems
that are pleasanter in their subject, more graceful in their
execution, more flowing in their outline, more easy to read.
Dr. Johnson, though perhaps no very excellent authority on
the more intangible graces of literature, was disposed to
deny to Milton the capacity of creating the lighter literature :
" Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus
from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones ".
And it would not be surprising if this generation, which has
access to the almost indefinite quantity of lighter composi-
tions which have been produced since Johnson's time, were
to echo his sentence. In some degree, perhaps, the popular
taste does so. "Comus" has no longer the peculiar exceptional
popularity which it used to have. We can talk without
general odium of its defects. Its characters are nothing, its
sentiments are tedious, its story is not interesting. But it
is only when we have realised the magnitude of its deficien-
cies that we comprehend the peculiarity of its greatness. Its
power is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it :
it is soft, without a thought of weakness ; harmonious and
yet strong ; impressive, as few such poems are, yet covered
with a bloom of beauty and a complexity of charm that few
poems have either. We have, perhaps, light literature in
itself better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers
more in our memories ; but we have not any, we question if
there ever will be any, which gives so true a conception of
the capacity and the dignity of the mind by which it was
produced. The breath of solemnity which hovers round the



22o Literary Studies.



music attaches us to the writer. Every line, here as else-
where, in Milton excites the idea of indefinite power.

And so we must draw to a close. The subject is an in-
finite one, and if we pursued it, we should lose ourselves in
miscellaneous commentary, and run on far beyond the
patience of our readers. What we have said has at least a
defined intention. We have wished to state the impression
which the character of Milton and the greatest of Milton's
works are likely to produce on readers of the present genera-
tion a generation different from his own almost more than
any other.



221



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 1

(1862.)

NOTHING is so transitory as second-class fame. The name
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is hardly now known to
the great mass of ordinary English readers. A generation
has arisen which has had time to forget her. Yet only a
few years since, an allusion to the "Lady Mary" would
have been easily understood by every well-informed person ;
young ladies were enjoined to form their style upon hers j
and no one could have anticipated that her letters would
seem in 1862 as different from what a lady of rank would
then write or publish as if they had been written in the
times of paganism. The very change, however, of popular
taste and popular morality gives these letters now a kind of
interest. The farther and the more rapidly we have drifted
from where we once lay, the more do we wish to learn what
kind of port it was. We venture, therefore, to recommend
the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as an instructive
and profitable study, not indeed to the youngest of young
ladies, but to those maturer persons of either sex " who have
taken all knowledge to be their province," and who have
commenced their readings in " universality" by an assiduous
perusal of Parisian fiction.

1 The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited
by her Great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe. Third edition, with Additions
and Corrections derived from the original Manuscripts, illustrative Notes,
and a New Memoir. By W. Moy Thomas. In two volumes. London :
Henry Bohn.



222 Literary Studies.



It is, we admit, true that these letters are not at the pre-
sent day very agreeable reading. What our grandfathers
and grandmothers thought of them it is not so easy to say.
But it now seems clear that Lady Mary was that most
miserable of human beings, an ambitious and wasted
woman ; that she brought a very cultivated intellect into a
very cultivated society ; that she gave to that society what
it was most anxious to receive, and received from it all
which it had to bestow ; and yet that this all was to her
as nothing. The high intellectual world of England has
never been so compact, so visible in a certain sense, so
enjoyable, as it was in her time. She had a mind to under-
stand it, beauty to adorn it, and wit to amuse it; but she
chose to pass a great part of her life in exile, and returned
at last to die at home among a new generation, whose name
she hardly knew, and to whom she herself was but a
spectacle and a wonder.

Lady Mary Pierrepont for that was by birth her name
belonged to a family which had a traditional reputation for
ability and cultivation. The Memoirs of Lucy Hutchinson
(almost the only legacy that remains to us from the first
generation of refined Puritans, the only book, at any rate,
which effectually brings home to us how different they were
in taste and in temper from their more vulgar and feeble
successors) contains a curious panegyric on wise William
Pierrepont, to whom the Parliamentary party resorted as an
oracle of judgment, and whom Cromwell himself, if tradition
may be trusted, at times condescended to consult and court.
He did not, however, transmit much of his discretion to his
grandson, Lady Mary's father. This nobleman, for he in-
nerited from an elder branch of the family both the marquis-
ate of Dorchester and the dukedom of Kingston, was a mere
man "about town," as the homely phrase then went, who
passed a long life of fashionable idleness interspersed with



Lady Mary Worthy Montagu. 223

political intrigue, and who signalised his old age by marry-
ing a young beauty of fewer years than his youngest
daughter, who, as he very likely knew, cared nothing for
him and much for another person. He had the " grand
air," however, and he expected his children, when he visited
them, to kneel down immediately and ask his blessing,
which, if his character was what is said, must have been
very valuable. The only attention he ever (that we know
of) bestowed on Lady Mary was a sort of theatrical out-
rage, pleasant enough to her at the time, but scarcely in
accordance with the educational theories in which we now
believe. He was a member of the Kit-Cat, a great Whig
club, the Brooks's of Queen Anne's time, which, like
Brooks's, appears not to have been purely political, but to
have found time for occasional relaxation and for somewhat
unbusiness-like discussions. They held annually a formal
meeting to arrange the female toasts for that year ; and we
are told that "a whim seized" her father "to nominate"
Lady Mary, " then not eight years old, a candidate ; alleg-
ing that she was far prettier than any lady on their list.
The other members demurred, because the rules of the club
forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen.
' Then you shall see her,' cried he ; and in the gaiety 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 sweetmeats, overwhelmed with
caresses, and what 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



224 Literary Studies.



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 boast-
fulness 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 suffi-
cient 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 inde-
fatigable labour" that she had acquired her remarkable
attainments. Her father certainly seems to have been
capable of any degree of inattention and neglect ; but we
should not perhaps credit too 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,



Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 225

"of the 2nd of July, 1649, he records a day spent at God-
stone, where Sir John " (this lady's father) "was on a visit
with his daughter" ; and he adds: "Mem. The prodigious
memory of Sir John of Wilts's daughter, since married to
Mr. 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 bene-
ficial to her, and probably believed rightly; for she was in-
telligent 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 after-
wards 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 en-
couraged 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 perused, 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's character it is not difficult, from the

materials before us, to decipher the features ; he was a slow

man, with a taste for quick companions. Swift's diary to

Stella mentions an evening spent over a bottle of o4d wine

VOL. ii. 15



226 Literary Studies.



with Mr. Wortley and Mr. Addison. Mr. Wortley was
a rigid Whig, and Swift's transition to Toryism soon broke
short that friendship. But with Addison he maintained
an intimacy which lasted during their joint lives, and
survived the marriages of both. With Steele likewise he
was upon the closest terms, is said to have written some
papers in the Taller and Spectator ; and the second
volume of the former is certainly dedicated to him in
affectionate and respectful terms.

Notwithstanding, however, these conspicuous testi-
monials to high ability, Mr. Wortley was an orderly and
dull person. Every letter received by him from his wife
during five and twenty years of absence, was found, at his
death, carefully endorsed with the date of its arrival, and
with a synopsis of its contents. " He represented," we are
told, " at various times, Huntingdon, Westminster, and
Peterborough in Parliament, and appears to have been a
member of that class who win respectful attention by sober
and business-like qualities ; and his name is constantly
found in the drier and more formal part of the politics of
the time." He answered to the description given more
recently of a similar person : " Is not," it was asked, " Sir

John a very methodical person ? " " Certainly he is,"

was the reply, "he files his invitations to dinner." The
Wortley papers, according to the description 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.

Whatever good qualities Addison and Steele discovered
in Mr. Wortley, they were certainly not those of a good
writer. We have from his pen and from that of Lady Mary



Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 227

a description of the state of English politics during the
three first years of George III., and any one who wishes to
understand how much readability depends upon good writing
would do well to compare the two. Lady Mary's is a clear
and bright description of all the superficial circumstances
of the time ; Mr. Wortley's is equally superficial, often
unintelligible and always lumbering, and scarcely succeeds
in telling us more than that the writer was wholly un-
successful in all which he tried to do. As to Mr. Wortley's
contributions to the periodicals of his time, we may suspect
that the jottings preserved at London are all which he
ever wrote of them, and that the style and arrangement
were supplied by more skilful writers. Even a county
member might furnish headings for the Saturday Review.
He might say : " Trent British vessel Americans always
intrusive Support Government Kill all that is necessary ".

What Lady Mary discovered in Mr. Wortley it is easier
to say and shorter, for he was very handsome. If his
portrait can be trusted, there was a placid and business
like repose about him, which might easily be attractive to
a rather excitable and wild young lady, especially when
combined wuh imposing features and a quiet sweet ex-
pression. He attended to her also. When she was a girl
of fourteen, he met her at a party, and evinced his admira-
tion. And a little while later, it is not difficult to fancy
that a literary young lady might be much pleased with a
good-looking gentleman not uncomfortably older than her-
self, yet having a place in the world, and well known to
the literary men of the age. He was acquainted with the
classics too, or was supposed to be so ; and whether it was
a consequence of or a preliminary to their affections, Lady
Mary wished to know the classics also.

Bishop Burnet was so kind as to superintend the singu-
lar studies for such they were clearly thought of this



228 Literary Studies.



aristocratic young lady ; and the translation of the Enchiri-
dion 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 pursuits. She
commenced a correspondence with Miss Wortley, Mr.
Wortley's unmarried sister, which still remains, though
Miss Wortley's letters are hardly to be called hers, for her
brother composed, and she merely copied them. The cor-
respondence is scarcely in the sort of English or in the tone
which young ladies, we understand, now use.

"It is as impossible," says Miss Wortley, "for my dearest Lady
Mary to utter thought that can seem dull as to put on a look that is not
beautiful. Want of wit is a fault that those who envy you most would
not be 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 humour, 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 o<
your charms, would be sufficient to make me lament the only fault you
have your inconstancy."

To which the reply is :

" I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear Mrs. Wortley, for the wit,
beauty, and other fine qualities you so generously bestow upon me.
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 bound-
less. After giving me imaginary wit and beauty, you give me imaginary