Lady mary wortley montagu biography of christopher

Moy Thomas and Dilke think that the quarrel arose out of her ridicule of his story of the lovers killed by lightning. This assumes that the letter to him was not really sent at the date assigned to it, which is possible, but is a mere guess. Courthope thinks, and with apparent justice, that there is no reason for doubting the account given, according to Lady Louisa Stuart, by Lady Mary herself, that Pope was betrayed into a declaration of love, which Lady Mary received with a fit of laughter.

The more serious the cause the greater is the excuse for Pope's subsequent malignity, though no excuse can be more than a slight palliation. A coarse lampoon upon Lady Mary by Swift, 'The Capon's Tale,' first published in the 'Miscellany' ofimplies that the quarrel had begun, and hints at previous lampoons attributed to her. Pope's references to 'Sappho' are in the 'Dunciad,' bk.

Pope was apparently the aggressor in this warfare, although it seems that he suspected Lady Mary of being concerned in a previous libel called 'A Pop upon Pope'a story of his being whipped in revenge for the 'Dunciad' see CarruthersPope, pp. When the atrocious allusion in the 'Imitations of Horace' appeared, Lady Mary asked Peterborough to remonstrate with Pope.

Pope made the lady mary wortley montagu biography of christopher reply that he wondered that Lady Mary should suppose the lines to apply to any but some notoriously abandoned woman. It is of course impossible to prove who was in Pope's head when he wrote, but he certainly endeavoured to confirm the application to Lady Mary when it was made by the town see Mr.

Courthope 's remarks in Pope's Worksiii. The 'Verses addressed to an Imitator of Horace by a Lady,' published inare generally attributed to Lady Mary, in co-operation with her friend and fellow-victim to Pope's satire, Lord Hervey see Courthope in Pope's Works as above, and v. They insult Pope's family and person with a brutality only exceeded by his own.

His base insinuations probably injured Lady Mary's reputation in her time. She thought that she would get rid of him handsomely by making some money for him in the South Sea speculation. He gained something by selling out on her advice, but left the money in her hands to be again invested. In one of his last letters 22 Aug. Whether she lost on her own account does not appear; but the l.

He then claimed the repayment of the original sum as a debt, and threatened to publish her letters. She was certainly alarmed, and especially anxious to keep the matter from her husband, who was severe in all questions of money. Our knowledge of the affair is derived from her letters upon the subject to Lady Mar. Horace Walpole, who saw them, gave a distorted version of their purport to Sir Horace Mann.

But in fact, although they show her to have been imprudent, they refute any worse imputation upon her character or her honesty. The story about her sister refers to Lady Mar, who was for a time disordered in mind. Her brother-in-law, James Erskinelord Grange [q. Lady Mary obtained a warrant from the king's bench inand was for some time her sister's guardian.

There does not appear to be any ground for a charge of harsh treatment. Lady Mary was on very friendly terms with Lord Hervey, and on hostile terms with his wife. Her favour was courted by Young, of the 'Night Thoughts,' who in consulted her about his tragedy, 'The Brothers,' and by her second cousin, Fielding, who dedicated his first comedy to her inand asked her to read his 'Modern Husband.

In she went abroad, for reasons which have not been explained. Her letters to her husband imply that they still remained on friendly terms, and she speaks of him to their daughter with apparent affection. She told a correspondent that he had been detained by business till she was tired of waiting, and went abroad, expecting him to follow in six weeks to Lady Pomfret, from Venice, n.

In any case, they did not again meet. She left England in Julyand travelled to Venice. Cunningham, i. In she settled at Avignon, where the town gave her a piece of land with an old mill, which she patched up for a house. She thought Lovere 'the most beautifully romantic place' she ever saw, and compares it to Tunbridge Wells to Lady Bute, 21 July She chose to burn the diary because Lady Bute always spoke to her mother with great respect, and she feared the possibility of a scandal.

According to O'Quinn, although The Turkish Embassy Letters has been considered one of the best literary works published in the eighteenth century, the work has not been as appreciated as those published by her male peers, such as Alexander Pope and Horace Walpole. She was the "target of vicious attacks" from printing presses and male peers.

Although she describes her travels through Europe to the Ottoman Empire in The Turkish Embassy Letters to her correspondents, very few of the letters survived, and the letters in the book may not be accurate transcriptions of the actual correspondence. According to Daniel O'Quinn, the book was not a culmination of facts but of opinions, and there must be some filtering during the editing processes.

Furthermore, to avoid public censure, Montagu used pseudonyms, such as "a Turkey merchant" and "Lady President", in her publications. Both in this letter and in the Turkish Embassy Letters more broadly, particularly in the letters about the scholar Achmet Beg, Montagu participates in a wider English dialogue on Enlightenment ideas about religion, particularly deism, and their overlap with Islamic theology.

Montagu, along with many others, including the freethinking scholar Henry Stubbe, celebrated Islam for what they saw as its rational approach to theology, for its strict monotheism, and for its teaching and practice around religious tolerance. In short, Montagu and other thinkers in this tradition saw Islam as a source of Enlightenment, as evidenced in her calling the Qur'an "the purest morality delivered in the very best language" By comparison, Montagu dedicated large portions of the Turkish Embassy Letters to criticizing Catholic religious practices, particularly Catholic beliefs around sainthood, miracles, and religious relics, which she frequently excoriated.

In relation to these practices, she wrote, "I cannot fancy there is anything new in letting you know that priests can lie, and the mob believe all over the world. In particular, Montagu staked a claim to the authority of women's writing, due to their ability to access private homes and female-only spaces where men were not permitted. The letters themselves frequently draw attention to the fact that they present a different, and Montagu asserts more accurate description than that provided by previous male travellers: "You will perhaps be surpriz'd at an Account so different from what you have been entertained with by the common Voyage-writers who are very fond of speaking of what they don't know.

Montagu writes about the "warmth and civility" of Ottoman women. She describes the hammam, a Turkish bath, "as a space of urbane homosociality, free of cruel satire and disdain". She mentions that "hammam are remarkable for their undisguised admiration of the women's beauty and demeanor", which creates a space for female authority. Montagu provides an intimate description of the women's bathhouse in Sofia, in which she derides male descriptions of the bathhouse as a site for unnatural sexual practices, instead insisting that it was "the Women's coffee house, where all the news of the Town is told, Scandal invented, etc.

Even though Montagu refused to undress for the bath at first, the girls managed to persuade her to "open my shirt, and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well". In one letter to her sister Lady Mar, she wrote, "nothing will surprise you more than the sight of my person, as I am now in my Turkish habit. Montagu wrote many letters with positive descriptions of the various enslaved people that she saw in the elite circles of Istanbul, including eunuchs and large collections of serving and dancing girls dressed in expensive outfits.

In one of her letters written back home, famously from the interior of a bath house, she dismisses the idea that slaves of the Ottoman elite should be figures to be pitied. In response to her visit to the slave market in Istanbul, she wrote "you will imagine me half a Turk when I don't speak of it with the same horror other Christians have done before me, but I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to those creatures.

They are never ill-used, and their slavery is in my opinion no worse than servitude all over the world. Such writers cited Montagu's assertion that women travellers could gain an intimate view of Turkish life that was not available to their male counterparts. However, they also added corrections or elaborations to her observations.

Ina lady mary wortley montagu biography of christopher was printed by an unknown author under the pseudonym "Sophia, a person of quality", titled Woman not Inferior to Man. This book is often attributed to Lady Mary. Her Letters and Works were published in Montagu's octogenarian granddaughter Lady Louisa Stuart contributed to this, anonymously, an introductory essay titled "Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M.

Montagu", from which it was clear that Stuart was troubled by her grandmother's focus on sexual intrigues and did not see Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Account of the Court of George I at his Accession as history. However, Montagu's historical observations, both in the "Anecdotes" and the Turkish Embassy Letters, prove quite accurate when put in context.

Despite the availability of her work in print and the revival efforts of feminist scholars, the complexity and brilliance of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's extensive body of work has not yet been recognized to the fullest. Notes References Backscheider, Paula R. The Encyclopedia of British Literature — Gary Day and Jack Lynch. Blackwell Publishing, Grundy, Isobel.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Oxford University Press, Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Halsband, Robert Clarendon Press. ISBN Isobel Grundy. Penguin Books, Lindemann, Mary Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Lewis, Melville; Montagu, Mary Wortley Looser, Devoney. British Women Writers and the Writing of History — JHU Press, Montagu, Mary Wortley Letters from the Levant during the Embassy to Constantinople, — Arno Press.

Montagu, Mary Wortley, and Halsband, Robert. O'Loughlin, Katrina. Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Medications, — University of Pennsylvania Press, Paston, George. Putnam's Sons, Melman, Billie. The Great Queers of History, 8 August Rosenhek, Jackie, "Safe Smallpox Inoculations". Her husband had long been on terms of intimate friendship with Addison and other eminent literary men of the day, and in that society she moved with the same lustre as in the circles of rank and fashion.

InMr. Wortley Montagu was appointed ambassador to the Porte; and in August of that year he set out for Constantinople, accompanied by his wife. They remained abroad till October,and it was during this absence from her native country that Lady Mary addressed her sister, the countess of Mar, Mr. Pope, and other male and female friends, the celebrated Letters upon which her fame principally rests.

The picture of Eastern life and manners given in these letters is admitted by all who have since visited the Levant to be in general as correct as it is clear, lively, and striking; and they abound not only in with and humour, but in a depth and sagacity of remark, conveyed in a style at once flowing and forcible, such as has rarely been produced from a female pen.

Although they were not given to the world during her lifetime, they were evidently written with a view to publication; copies of all of them were preserved by Lady Mary, and some time before her death she presented two complete transcripts of them, then one, in her own handwriting, to the Rev. Benjamin Sowden, minister at Rotterdam, 'to be disposed of as he thinks proper;' the other, in a different hand, to Mr.

Both these copies were procured immediately after her death by her daughter, Lady Bute, the first-mentioned having been purchased for the sum of l. The story of this voyage and of her observations of Eastern life is told in Letters from Turkeya series of lively letters full of graphic descriptions; Letters is often credited as being an inspiration for subsequent female travelers and writers, as well as for much Orientalist art.

During her visit she was sincerely charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she encountered. In letters she wrote about how different fashion was as she made her way to Turkey. In a letter to Lady Mar, from Vienna, she wrote: "They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads, about a yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with numberless yards of heavy ribbon Their whalebone petticoats outdo ours by several yards' circumference, and cover some acres of ground.

Her gender and class status provided her with access to female spaces that were closed off to males. Her personal interactions with Ottoman women enabled her to provide, in her view, a more accurate account of Turkish women, their dress, habits, traditions, limitations and liberties, at times irrefutably more a critique of the Occident than a praise of the Orient.

In the 18th century, Europeans began an experiment known as inoculation or variolation to prevent, not cure the smallpox. Variolation used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a mild smallpox blister and introduced it into scratched skin of the arm or leg the most usual spots of a previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease.

Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, thus, in March she had her nearly five-year-old son, Edwardinoculated there with the help of Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland. I pray God my next may give as good an account of him. In Aprilwhen a smallpox epidemic struck England, she had her daughter inoculated by Maitland, the same physician who had inoculated her son at the Embassy in Turkey, and publicised the event.

In Augustseven prisoners at Newgate Prison awaiting execution were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of execution: they all survived and were released. However Caroline, Princess of Wales, was convinced of its value. For instance, inCatherine the Great of Russia had herself and her son, the future Tsar Paul, inoculated. The Russians continued to refine the process.

Nevertheless, inoculation was not always a safe process; inoculates developed a real case of smallpox and could infect others. Jenner's method involves "engrafting lymph taken from a pustulate of cowpox on the hand of a milkmaid into the arm of an inoculate.

Lady mary wortley montagu biography of christopher

In the 20th century, a concerted campaign by the WHO to eradicate smallpox via vaccination would succeed by After returning to England, Lady Mary took less interest in court compared to her earlier years. Instead, she was more focused on the upbringing of her children, reading, writing, and editing her travel letters—which she then chose not to publish.

Before starting for the East, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had met Alexander Popeand during her Embassy travels with her husband, they wrote each other a series of letters. While Pope may have been fascinated by her wit and elegance, Lady Mary's replies to his letters reveal that she was not equally smitten. Lady Mary went through a series of trials with her children.

He was then entrusted to a tutor with strict orders to keep him abroad. In later years, her son managed to return to England without permission and continued to have a strained relationship with both his parents. In the summer ofLady Mary's daughter, also named Mary, fell in love with John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Butebut he had little fortune; Lady Mary warned her daughter about the disadvantages of living in poverty.

In AugustLady Mary's daughter married Bute, despite her parents' disapproval of the match. Wortley expect. In the same year, Lady Mary met and fell in love with Count Francesco Algarottiwho competed with an equally smitten John Hervey for her affections. In the summer ofLady Mary travelled to Venice for an undisclosed business errand. Lady Mary received news of her husband Edward Wortley Montagu's death on 1 Januaryand he was buried at Wortley.

The wind and the tide are against me; how far I have strength to struggle against both, I know not. In Juneit became known that Lady Mary was suffering from cancer. She wrote her last letter but with difficulty on 2 July to Lady Frances Steuart; in this letter, she wrote "I have been ill a long time, and am now so bad I am little capable of writing, but I would not pass in your opinion as either stupid or ungrateful.

My heart is always warm in your service, and I am always told your affairs shall be taken care of. Montagu did not intend to publish her poetry, but it did circulate widely, in manuscript, among members of her own social circle. Yonge to her Husband". Yonge to her Husband", written instages a letter from Mrs. Yonge to her libertine husband and exposes the social double standard which led to the shaming and distress of Mrs.

Yonge after her divorce. The title was a reference to a journal of the liberal opposition entitled Common Sense. She wrote six Town Eclogues and other poems. Lady Mary wrote notable letters describing her travels through Europe and the Ottoman Empire; these appeared after her death in three volumes. Although not published during her lifetime, her letters from Turkey were clearly intended for print.

She revised them extensively and gave a transcript to the Reverend Benjamin Sowden, a British clergyman, in Rotterdam in Sowden also lent the book to two English travelers, including Thomas Becket. Despite the immediate success following the publication of Turkish Embassy LettersLady Mary's daughter, Mary Stuart, Countess of Butewas furious and worried about how an unauthorized publication would impact the family's reputation.

According to O'Quinn, although The Turkish Embassy Letters has been considered one of the best literary works published in the eighteenth century, the work has not been as appreciated as those published by her male peers, such as Alexander Pope and Horace Walpole.