almost every page of these letters. Mrs. Montagu is evidently oppressed by the load of her own superiority. She writes like a person that has a character to support, and whose correspondents would have a right to complain if she ceased one moment to be very wise or very witty. One of her friends (Mrs. West, the wife of Gilbert West) tells her that public fame had acquainted her, that Mrs. Montagu was the most agreeable correspondent in the world.' Such a reputation was worth an effort to maintain, and that effort was almost unavoidably fatal to the ease and grace of that species of composition which more than any other seems to defy the power of labour and of art. Mrs. Montagu would, in all probability, have written much more agreeable and much more really sensible letters, if she had never once been led to suspect 'that she was the most agreeable correspondent in the world.

But though we do not think quite so highly of her as Mrs. West had been taught to think, we are far from denying that she writes with a vivacity and cleverness which account well enough for the impression she seems to have made upon her contemporaries. Her defects are to be ascribed to her situation and the fashion of the day; her merits are her own. There are, perhaps, five hundred women now that can write as well as Mrs. Montagu, and that too without being guilty of those sins against good taste with which she is justly chargeable. But how many of these would have written as well in her time, and in her circumstances, is quite another question. We are inclined to believe that the number would have been comparatively very small. On the other hand, if Mrs. Montagu had lived in our days, she would have maintained nearly the same station. Her acquirements would not have been so remarkable, which would have been attended by this advantage, that she would have thought less about them, and been free from that tinge of pedantry which is now visible in her writings. Her ethics would not have been so trite, nor her wit so laboured. But her talents would have carried her equally far in a happier direction. She would have been now, as she was then, one of the liveliest, cleverest, best-informed women of the age. In vigour, spirit, and originality, she was far, very far indeed, inferior to her incomparable namesake, Lady M. W. Montagu. But Lady Mary was so extraordinary a person, that she is perhaps hardly a fair object of comparison. However, although we have derived considerable amusement from these letters, and though they have, as we have already acknowledged, inspired us with a favourable opinion as to the talents of their author, we have some doubts whether they have quite body and substance enough for publication. Mrs. Montagu did not write at one of those distant periods when a mere account of the ordinary occurrences of life, and a mere picture of the state

of society as they appear in a familiar correspondence, interest one from their contrast with our own habits and manners; nor are her letters sufficiently interspersed with anecdotes of eminent persons in her own time, to gratify our curiosity in a different but equally agreeable manner. We own that we were at first a good deal disappointed at the little notice Mrs. Montagu takes of her illustrious contemporaries; and the more, because it is evident that she enjoyed the advantage of being familiarly acquainted with the greater part of them. However, upon consideration, it appears to us that though the absence of this sort of information renders her letters vastly less interesting now that they are published at an interval of two generations, it is no cause of just blame to the writer. Her correspondents were just as well acquainted with the history and character of the time as herself, and it would have been only telling stories they all knew, and delivering opinions in which they all agreed. Incidentally, however, she is sometimes led to speak of the eminent persons of that time, and from the letters in which these passages occur, we shall make one or two extracts. In general, we should say that the merit of her letters is in an inverse proportion to the pains she takes with them. Those addressed to her husband, and to Gilbert West, who appears to have been one of her earliest and most intimate friends, are often natural, lively, and agreeable. Those to Lord Lyttelton are vastly more laboured, and vastly less pleasant. But those, fortunately few in number, composed for the benefit of that very learned, very excellent, and very tiresome person, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, once very celebrated, and now almost forgotten, whom she seems desirous to dazzle by a prodigious display of wit, knowledge, taste, virtue, and piety, are the worst of all, and indeed absolutely unreadable.

Some of her opinions upon subjects of literature are somewhat curious. She assigns the highest place among the historical writers of that time to Lord Lyttelton, the next to Dr. Robertson; but as to Mr. Hume, she thinks his history 'lively and entertaining, but likely (she is afraid) to promote jacobitism.' She has a great contempt for Voltaire, particularly as a philosophical historian, and she is not at all affected by the Orphelin de la Chine.' As the world is fond of every thing Chinese, Mons. Voltaire has given us a Chinese tragedy, which I would send you if I thought it would entertain you, but I think your good taste would not be pleased with a Chinese tale dressed in a French habit. I read it without any concern.' vol. iv. p. 7. What she says of Bolingbroke is just and well written. She is speaking of the intended publication of his posthumous works. As to the rules of conduct to be given by this noble writer, I hope they will not be such as have governed him, for should they make us what they left him, virtue would

be

be no great gainer; none of the boisterous passions of his youth restrained; none of the peevish or mischievous ones of his old age mitigated or allayed; envy, ambition, and anger gnawing and burning in his heart to the last.' v. iii. p. 179. She had the good fortune to know, and the good taste to admire, Mr. Burke in the very early part of his life. We transcribe with pleasure the passage in which she mentions him.

'I shall send you a Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, by Mr. Burke, a friend of mine. I do not know whether you will always subscribe to his system, but I think you will find him an elegant and ingenious writer. He is far from the pert pedantry and assuming ignorance of modern witlings, but in conversation and in writing an ingenious and ingenuous man, modest and delicate, and on great and serious subjects full of that respect and veneration which a good mind and a great one is sure to feel, while fools rush behind the altar at which wise men kneel and pay mysterious reverence.'

One cannot but rejoice to see that this great man was always consistent with himself, and that the same decency and worth in private life, the same humble and deep-rooted piety that adorned his maturer years, were already characteristic of him at his first entrance into life.

There are inserted in this collection a few letters from George, Lord Lyttelton. They are, as might be expected from such a person, elegant and gentlemanlike, but they contain nothing material. Two of them are written upon the death of the late king, and the accession of his present Majesty. The first of these is truly statesmanlike. The body of the letter, written under the recent impression of the intelligence that had just reached him, is employed entirely in conjectures as to the duration of the administration, and his own continuance in office. Certainly it is no season for any great changes.' 'As to my own situation, I doubt not it will be as it is.' It is not till the next day, in a postscript, that he recollects the proper decorums on such an occcasion, feels 'real grief for the death of his good master,' hopes he is gone to receive an eternal crown,' &c. &c. according to the most authentic forms of lamentation.

In a subsequent letter he describes the state of things at that critical period.

Hill-street, November 5, 1760. Wednesday night.

A THOUSAND thanks to the good Madonna for her last letter, which eased my heart of as much anxiety as it almost ever felt for the health of a friend; and, since it has been quite cured of ambition, that heart can hardly know much pleasure or pain but in its sensations for those it loves. You ought to value me a little on this account: for in the present conjuncture there are, I believe, few hearts in this state. Private friendships are little thought of: all attention now goes to political connections. But those connections, God be thanked, are not

C4

offensive

offensive at present, being rather made to guard against future hostilities, than to begin any now. So, we shall have peace at home, and war

abroad.

If I were to write the History of my own Times, I would transcribe into it your character of the late king, and should thereby pay my debt of gratitude to his memory. I would only add to it, that it appears by several wills he has left, that he never had been such a hoarder of treasure as was generally supposed. And of what he had saved, this war has consumed so much, that he was able to leave no more to his three surviving children than thirty thousand pounds in equal proportions, and I have heard that the Duke has given up his to his sisters. Princess Emily is to come and live in my brother's house, like a private woman. It is said that the Princess of Wales will not come to St. James's. The great court officers are not yet settled, but I believe it is certain that Lord Bute will be continued Groom of the Stole, and Lord Huntington Master of the Horse. It was expected that the latter would rather have been disgraced than promoted to a cabinet office; but in a private audience he touched the good nature of the King, and has the benefit of the general disposition of the times, to let nobody complain or be discontented. The greatest difficulty is how to find an equivalent for my Lord Gower. Many changes are talked of on that account; but as I understand that nothing is fixed, I will not send you conjectures which may be falsified before my letter comes to you. The vis imperii is supposed to be in Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle; and I believe that their vis unita would be too strong for all opposition; but how long it will continue unita as much as it is now, or which of them would be most favoured by a third power, if they disagreed, time will shew?'

Mrs. Montagu's character of George II. to which Lord Lyttelton alludes in such flattering terms, is not ill written, with the exception of the introductory sentence, which is execrable. shall conclude by transcribing it.

To Lord Lyttelton.

We

MY LORD, Newcastle, October 31st, 1760. It would be perfect sacrilege and robbing the mighty dead of his due rites, if one began one's letter with any subject but the loss of our sovereign; on which I condole with your Lordship, in whom the virtue of patriotism, and the antiquated one of loyalty still remain. I know you had that veneration for our late king, which the justice and prudence of his government so well deserved. With him our laws and liberties were safe; he possessed in a great degree the confidence of his people and the respect of foreign governments; and a certain steadiness of character made him of great consequence in these unsettled times. During his long reign we never were subject to the insolence and rapaciousness of favourites, a grievance of all others most intolerable, when persons born only one's equals, shall, by the basest means perhaps, possess themselves of all the strength of sovereign power, and keep their fellow subjects in a dependance on illegal authority, which insults while it subjects, and is more grievous to the spirits than even to the fortunes of freeborn men. If we consider only the evils we have avoided during

his late majesty's reign, we shall find abundant matter of gratitude towards him, and respect for his memory. His character would not af ford subject for epic poetry, but will look well in the sober page of history. Conscious, perhaps, of this, he was too little regardful of sciences and the fine arts; he considered common sense as his best panegyrist. The monarch whose qualities are brilliant enough to entitle him to glory, cultivates the love of the Muses, and their handmaid arts, painting, sculpture, &c. sensible that they will blazon and adorn his fame.'-vol. iv. p. 314.

ART. III. Substance of the Speech of the Earl of Harrowby, on moving for the Recommitment of a Bill for the better Support and Maintenance of Stipendiary Curates.

IT is not without some apprehension of difficulties greater than we have been able to discover in this question, that we enter upon an examination of the Noble Earl's argument, on whom the task has devolved of bringing it under the notice of Parliament; and who has succeeded, notwithstanding the formidable opposition of nearly the whole bench of bishops, in carrying it through both Houses. The case is therefore a curious one, at least, and almost singular. That a question of wide extent, and of a nature purely ecclesiastical, should originate with laymen confessedly friendly to the Church establishment-that it should derive no assistance or support from an order of men whose office and station require them more especially to watch over the interests of the church, and who seldom address the assembly in which they sit on any other occasions-that most of them, on the contrary, should have opposed it in every stage, without denying the existence of the evil complained of, and without offering any better remedy-that in spite of these obstacles, and of the general though suppressed murmur of the holders of church property, it should have passed into a law, are circumstances so strange as to excite more than ordinary surprise and curiosity. It is obvious that some serious and weighty objections must be felt to the measure; but we seek in vain for any full and authentic statement of them in print. The scanty reports of debates have, indeed, furnished us with one or two objections, but those of so flimsy a nature, that we do not wonder they presented no obstruction whatever to the mass of fact and argument alleged on the other side. It is perhaps to be regretted that none of the opponents of the bill thought it worth while, after the example of the noble Earl, to lay their view of the case before the public. The public, we think, had a right to something of this kind. No man, we will venture to assert, will call the noble Earl's case, prima facie, a bad one. No man will accuse him of giving it a false colour, of distorting or of exaggerating a single feature. It contains no appeal to the pas