SOURCE: Hornbeak, Katherine G. “New Light on Mrs. Montagu.” In The Age of Johnson: Essays Presented to Chauncey Brewster Tinker, edited by Frederick W. Hilles, pp. 349-61. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949.

[In the following essay, Hornbeak examines those letters of Montagu that relate to her relationship with James Woodhouse, a poet and her employee, and what they impart about various aspects of her life.]

Luckily for Mrs. Montagu's peace of mind and prestige, the most unsympathetic account of her by a contemporary was not published until nearly a century after her death. Occasionally during her lifetime some critical comment on the Queen of the Blues struck a discordant note in the chorus of adulation. In 1785 Richard Cumberland's pretentious Vanessa was immediately identified as Mrs. Montagu. In 1794 Mathias in The Pursuits of Literature devoted a couplet to her:

Nor can I pass LYCISCA MONTAGU,
Her yelp though feeble, and her sandals blue.

These, however, are only pinpricks compared to the cruel portrait finally published in 1896. So far as I know, none of the biographers of Mrs. Montagu has ever looked into two ponderous volumes of verse by James Woodhouse, who spent eighteen years in her service. This neglect is regrettable—though not surprising. Who would expect to find in The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus a wealth of intimate though unflattering detail about the Queen of the Bluestockings? Even if the student of Mrs. Montagu happened to know of this autobiography of James Woodhouse, the poetical shoemaker who became her bailiff and steward, the sheer bulk of the book, nearly thirty thousand lines of plodding couplets, is enough to daunt the hardiest reader. Furthermore, since Mrs. Montagu is never mentioned by name in the book, one might read it to the end without identifying his patroness, whom he calls Vanessa and Scintilla, unless one happened to know much more of the relationship than is to be gleaned from the printed records.

With the details of the connection, which can be filled in from the Montagu correspondence in the Huntington Library, I shall deal elsewhere, for the present suggesting some of the highlights and overtones. Mrs. Montagu first became interested in Woodhouse in 1764 (he was not quite thirty; she was his senior by fifteen years); the final rupture occurred nearly a quarter of a century later, about 1788. After working indefatigably to promote the success of his poems, published by subscription, Mrs. Montagu—in 1767—provided more substantially for him, his wife Daphne, and their ever increasing brood, by employing him as bailiff on her Berkshire estate, Sandleford Priory. As she wrote Lord Lyttelton, “I have taken from Apollo to give him to Ceres, who is a more benignant Deity & feeds her Votaries better.”¹ Woodhouse served Ceres and Mrs. Montagu until 1778. In the autumn of that year accumulated stress and strain led to a rupture (which Mrs. Montagu declared should be final), and Woodhouse returned to Rowley, his native village in Staffordshire. Three years later, however, Mrs. Montagu recalled him to be steward of the palace she had built in Portman Square. For the next seven years he served as her major-domo, dividing his time—according to the season—between Portman Square and Sandleford. At last, however, the situation proved intolerable: Woodhouse had become increasingly evangelical and equalitarian (a “methodistical” leveler), and Mrs. Montagu apparently rather imperious and peremptory. The clash of incompatible personalities led to Woodhouse's dismissal.

Such are the bare outlines of the relationship. Its quality can be suggested by a few passages from the unpublished correspondence. In the early stages of the relationship Mrs. Montagu was rapturous. After having worked hard to promote the subscription for his second edition, she first met him during the winter of 1765 when he dined with her several times in Hill Street. She writes her sister a glowing account:

I have not had time to tell you how much I have been charmd with my poetical shoemaker. I never saw so much humility & gentleness. He is perfect simplicity without awkwardness. His voice is remarkably musical, his language unaffected but elegant … you will wish to know the figure of this extraordinary man it was remarked that he is very like Raphaels picture of St John. He has an expression of sense sweetness & humility softened by bashfulness.

A few months later she wrote her husband, “Where did he get greatness of mind enough to be above pride?” In September, 1767, while the Woodhouse family was settling in at Sandleford during Mrs. Montagu's absence at the collieries, she wrote her husband praising the new bailiff's sense, sobriety, and steadiness. After the Woodhouses had been at Sandleford several months she wrote Lord Lyttelton: “… he exceeds even my hopes & wishes. Integrity, diligence, & sagacity, are by him employ'd for me with unremitting zeal, from the rising to the setting sun. … She [Daphne] is an excellent housewife, makes the best butter I ever tasted, & seems indeed not only worthy of Woodhouse the Farmer, but also of Woodhouse the Poet.” In Daphne Mrs. Montagu detected “elevation of sentiment, & delicacy of manners.” “… she is fair, & pretty, & elegant, in her Person. Such a shepherd and shepherdess are worthy of a place in Arcadia. … I really think I may say they are very happy.”

Unless Woodhouse was a hypocrite and a liar in his letters (and even when most exasperated with him Mrs. Montagu admits his honesty and integrity), he was breathless with adoration in the early stages of the relationship. In May of 1766, after he had met Mrs. Montagu but before he had moved his family to Sandleford, he wrote her: “… I found in all my other Friends Fathers & Mothers, but none so truly parental as you. … Receive mine & Daphne's Love & good Wishes; for Compliments are a cold Treat from Hearts so dearly loving to One so much beloved.” In April, 1768, seven months after he entered her employ, he wrote her: “God bless your good Heart with all those Joys, & Comforts that it bestows upon the Hearts of others; but then you would be too happy for this State of Tryal, as your Life would be one continued Extasy, a Lot reserv'd for you in a better State.”

From Mrs. Montagu's comments on Woodhouse it is clear that his devotion and gratitude to his benefactor did not simply evaporate in words. In fact, his zeal as a farmer exceeded Mrs. Montagu's expectations. “Your Steward,” she wrote Mr. Montagu, “has been at harvest every day from morning till 10 at night working by artificial light so much without repose or food than [sic] one night he was extreamly ill.” Woodhouse's letters to Mrs. Montagu and her letters to her friends give evidence of the bailiff's busy life. They show him valuing timber, overseeing ditching and plowing and planting, supervising improvements in the main house, forwarding hampers of farm produce to the Montagus in Berkeley Square, arbitrating quarrels among the servants, hunting plovers' eggs, dealing with poachers. He appears on horseback as grand marshal of the procession attending the hock cart, the last load of barley adorned with garlands and bows. In the evenings he read to Daphne and blind John, a retainer of the Montagus. On rainy days he taught little Matt, Mrs. Montagu's nephew and heir, to read. He also, in the capacity of domestic laureate or household bard, produced odes for such festal occasions as the Harvest Home feast and Mrs. Montagu's birthday. In his Life and Lucubrations Woodhouse gives an account of his work as bailiff. He drained swamps, discovered peat in the bogs, used the peat ashes to fertilize clover and grass. On Sundays he was on watch for poachers; he claims to have extirpated even the gypsies. Sometimes or other he managed to read “each Agrarian tract that grac'd the shelf.”

No wonder the farm prospered and “ampler barns” had to be built. In 1773 Mrs. Montagu wrote Mrs. Carter: “The Corn fields promise a rich harvest & all things flourish. Our Farm would astonish any one who had visited it in Atkinsons time.” In 1774 she wrote her sister: “Our Wheat is all safe in the Ricks. We have barley enough to feed 10,000 Hogs I believe if the weather will let us get it in. Of turnips a vast quantity.” In 1777 she wrote, “We finished our Hay last night, & begin to reap on Monday. Sandleford never was blest with so rich crops of either.” Woodhouse sums up his achievement thus:

When annual produce rose, on wretched grounds,
From nearly nothing to ten hundred pounds!

Why, then, just a year later—in the autumn of 1778—did Woodhouse “march off in surly dignity” to his own village? Why in November, 1778, did Mrs. Montagu write Mrs. Carter: “He march'd off with his family before day light. … It appears by many symptom [sic] this family has done as well for itself as ill for me during their abode here, but as they have killd the golden hen they will one day repent.” A few days later Mrs. Montagu declared, “… if he is in distress at any time I will assist him, but he shall never assist me.”

The causes of the rupture were complex, and the blame must be divided between the two parties. In Mrs. Montagu's version of the situation, Woodhouse and Daphne are at fault; Woodhouse naturally holds Mrs. Montagu responsible. As a matter of fact, there had been friction for nearly ten years. The details must be postponed to later publication, but the main causes of the tension, according to Mrs. Montagu, were Woodhouse's pride, arrogance, and impertinence and Daphne's pride and extravagance. In 1774 Mrs. Montagu, after commenting on the high tide of prosperity at Sandleford, adds, “But what pleases me best is to see Woodhouse in his right & sober senses & his Children tame & civil. He seems very happy now but a Proud Man never is so.” In 1778, soon after the departure of her bailiff, Mrs. Montagu wrote: “If Mr. Woodhouse had made every grain he sowed increase an hundred fold I would not have endured his pride & impertinence. He is very honest & was careful & well enough as a Baillif but never contented & pleased. … His letters are masterpieces … as he did amuse him [Mr. Montagu] it was a satisfaction to me & made me amends at that time for much of his impertinence.” A few months later Mrs. Montagu admits that she herself was partly responsible for this pride: “I pity in him the pride which my civility & liberality encouraged & I ought therefore to assist him in any distress which that pride has brought upon him.” As early as 1769, eighteen months after Woodhouse entered upon his duties at Sandleford, Mrs. Montagu was finding fault with Daphne: “He [Woodhouse] has behaved very well since my return home, & I believe will not let his Wife make a fool of him again. The farm is in great order, & he seems extreamly happy.” In the fall of 1771 occurs this comment on Daphne: “She behaves with decency, but is mad with pride & extravagance, & if her Husband did not, by his integrity, check her expense I shd be obliged to send her back to her Village & poverty.” Mrs. Montagu also disapproved of the upbringing of the Woodhouse children. In June of 1768 she wrote, “Mr. Woodhouses Children are far from being as well regulated as my Nephew, but their passions will probably be subdued by their situation in life. I tell him sometimes, that if a young Squire was to be so brought up, he would knock out the brains of half his Tenants the first year he came to his estate.” Apparently Woodhouse tried to curb the children, for in 1774, Mrs. Montagu is able to report that she is glad to find them “tame & civil.” Other causes of the breach, less fundamental but still exasperating, were Woodhouse's failure with the livestock and his carelessness—despite his unquestioned integrity—in keeping accounts.

Although there is, as usual, another side to the story, it is impossible here to do more than suggest the bailiff's grievances. The situation was difficult for Woodhouse. As a young man he had been encouraged by Shenstone and Lyttelton, had—as a nine days' wonder in London—met Dr. Johnson (who gave him a famous bit of advice), had dined at Mrs. Montagu's table with peers and other notables. He had corresponded with Mrs. Montagu on the Sublime and the Beautiful and the authenticity of Ossian. His picture had appeared in a contemporary periodical; his story had been told in the Gentleman's Magazine and the Annual Register. At this time, before he was employed by Mrs. Montagu, he wrote, “I know you are both [Mrs. Montagu and Lord Lyttelton] so elevated above my Reach that I shall never engross so much of your Attention as I wish.” He had hoped that, as bailiff of Sandleford, he would have leisure to read and study, but even while lamenting the lack of time he recognizes with some bitterness the contracted sphere to which circumstance confines him. On an occasion of some tension between him and his employer he declared, “… I rejoice & am thankful for an elevated Mind, that sets me upon an Equality with any other human Being.” No wonder this proud and sensitive soul, who had been invited “To dine, drink, talk, ride, sup, and lodge, with Lords,” did not make the perfect dependent!

He especially resented Mrs. Montagu's tone to Daphne. On June 26, 1769 he wrote Mrs. Montagu: “I have thought, upon some Occasions, that I perceived an Abatement of your Confidence & Esteem towards me; & my Wife has experienc'd frequently, to her Grief, & to the Loss of my Peace, a Sharpness & Harshness in your Conduct towards her, & Conversation with her, that ill agrees with your Conduct aforetime, & Professions of Regard, as it also oppresses her Sensibility.” In his Life and Lucubrations, written long afterward, he is still bitter about the anguish Daphne suffered from “proud Employer's keen, sarcastic, tongue,” which he compares to the sting of a serpent or hornet. (Daphne spent sleepless nights worrying over Mrs. Montagu's complaints about soggy bread and addled eggs.) His mistress' “snubs and sneers and freezing frowns” rankled for years. Not even the children escaped. In his autobiography he says that Mrs. Montagu decreed their sports, diet, dress, hours of sleep.

No wonder there was an open breach in 1778. The wonder is that three years later Mrs. Montagu invited Woodhouse to become her steward and that he hastened to express “the humblest Acceptation of your kind, your tender, your beneficent Offer,” adding that she knew “how to endear a Gift by the Manner of giving.” For seven years Woodhouse served as steward or major-domo of the new mansion in Portman Square and the old Gothic pile at Sandleford. In his autobiography he gives an account of his duties: he was in “full command of town, and country, domes”—all the servants, liveries, books, archives, storerooms, silver, linen, fuel. In town he marketed for state banquets; during dinner he stood at attention by the sideboard. On gala evenings, when crowds of guests attended Mrs. Montagu's musicales or dramatic readings, Woodhouse stood near the drafty entrance to oversee the auxiliary footmen—hired or borrowed for the occasion. During the summer months spent at Sandleford, in addition to his routine duties, he directed builders, laborers, gardeners in the execution of improvements planned by “Capability” Brown and Wyatt. According to Woodhouse, however, his most faithful services were rewarded with coldness, neglect, and distrust. Added to these sources of irritation, mistress and man did not see eye to eye on politics and religion. About 1788 they came to the final parting of the ways.

Woodhouse, set adrift at fifty-three, with a frail wife and several children to support (of twenty-seven children, at least fifteen were stillborn), set up a small bookshop in Grosvenor Square, whither he retired to lick his wounds. Here he brooded over his grievances. Out of this bitter resentment came his Life and Lucubrations, a catharsis of emotion not recollected in tranquillity. Here one would obviously look in vain for balanced, detached judgment. Nevertheless, even while discounting Woodhouse's exaggeration and distortion, one must admit that he has caught certain typical traits and features of Mrs. Montagu.²

The reader who is familiar with the superlative praise lavished on Mrs. Montagu by her better known contemporaries will be startled by Woodhouse's indictment. William Pitt pronounced her “the most perfect woman he ever met with.” Garrick endorsed a letter from her “Mrs. Montagu, first of women.” Mrs. Thrale, in ranking women of her acquaintance, gave Mrs. Montagu a score of 101 out of a possible 120. (The next highest score, Hannah More's, is only 72.) Woodhouse, however, in comparing Mrs. Montagu to his own Daphne (“a spotless lamb”), calls her fox, hyena, harpy, tiger!

The basic charges Woodhouse brings against Mrs. Montagu are pride and vanity, manifested in ostentation. According to Woodhouse, her husband agreed with this view of his wife:

He so far analiz'd his Consort's heart
As clearly, to infer Pride fill'd a part;
That Vanity another part possest,
And Ostentation occupied the rest. …

The mainspring of most of her activities, he claims, is pride and vanity. She was dominated by “thirst for Pomp, and lust for Fame,” craving “idol-worship from the Whole.” For instance, rooted in her “love of Eulogy” was her patronage of men of letters, especially poets,

For they could best bestow delightful dow'rs,
By flattering speech, or fam'd poetic pow'rs.

He is convinced that he would never have been dismissed if—as her household bard—he had been willing “To puff Protectress, in bold birth-day Ode,” to draw “A wonderous Woman-Deity,” surpassing Minerva, Venus, and Juno.

Mrs. Montagu's benevolence and philanthropy are, according to Woodhouse, tainted by these same qualities. He claims that Vanessa's husband

          knew her heart's vain-glorious bent;
What all her bustle, all her bounties, meant:
Saw thro' the colouring that the latent Cause
Was popularity, and Self-applause.

Woodhouse charges that her famous May Day feasts for the chimney sweeps of London were really inspired by “Morning-paper's rapturing paragraph.” The annual Sunday school treats at Sandleford, where her thirsty ears, “greedy of puerile applause,” drank “Dolts' harsh huzzas,” were simply another instance of her pride's assuming “celestial Charity's outside.” He imputes an even less attractive motive to her charity than vanity: he claims that she

Thought Charity, tho' sour'd with selfish leav'n,
Might purchase some snug settlement in Heav'n.
.....She fancied Seas of broth might well suffice,
To swim both Soul, and Body, to the Skies.

He finally sternly bids her not to aim

                    to occupy superior Niche
Among the pious, patronizing Rich!

Mrs. Montagu's keen interest in experimental farming is likewise explained by Woodhouse as dictated by her ambition to shine in yet another sphere. While her agricultural fads were primarily the result of love of praise, she was not, says Woodhouse, averse to profit. In fact, he baldly accuses her of greed in her exploitation of her estates and the mines near Newcastle:

Racks every tenant, ransacks all her Mines,
To build her Temples, and adorn her Shrines!

It was, says Woodhouse, ambition—her own and that of her family—which brought about the match between young Elizabeth Robinson, not quite twenty-two, and the elderly Edward Montagu, nearly thirty years her senior. With vindictive relish Woodhouse analyzes what appeared to him a loveless and mercenary marriage. The disparity of years (“'Twas Chaucer's January match'd with May”) merely aggravated temperamental incompatibility:

He, unassuming—She, like Satan, proud.
He lov'd retirement—She, a courtly Crowd.
He modest—unaffected—studious—plain—
She, splendid—specious—talkative—and vain.
.....A thoughtful Owl, from every eye retir'd,
And pompous Peacock ne'er enough admir'd.
.....Kings, and their Creatures were His warmest hate—
But She ador'd a Court, and courtly State.

Poor Woodhouse, caught in the crossfire of their disputes about morals, politics, and religion, was—he says—called upon to act as referee. With “One proof of perfect love” Woodhouse does credit her: “She wish'd him, Soul and Body, safe above.” But for more than thirty years Heaven frustrated her desire to “Secure the Money, and discard the Man.” Woodhouse positively gloats over the fact that her husband had inconsiderately lingered until she was fifty-four, “So sour'd in temper, and so sunk in Age” that she could not hope to marry a title.

According to Woodhouse, Mrs. Montagu welcomed her husband's death, which left her in possession of his substantial estates, enabling her to realize some of her ambitions:

Death having now Vanessa's knot untied,
Her soul felt pregnant with full broods of Pride;
While to exhibit more Wealth, Wit, and Taste,
Resolv'd to realize vast schemes at last.
.....Determin'd much sublimer Domes to build,
Than those mean Fanes, her Pride, before o'er-fill'd—
With Altars high'r, and Off'rings richer, stor'd;
Where she, great Goddess! might be more ador'd,
By Worshippers well-pick'd, of pompous—proud—
And rich—and rare—from great Augusta's crowd.

(A fragment of a letter from Mrs. Montagu to one of her brothers, written six weeks after her husband's death, reveals much: “I find I grow more good humored every day being in my unyoked condition ungalled in any. …” The rest of the letter is missing.) The mansion in Portman Square and the handsome new dining room and octagonal drawing room at Sandleford, then, were designed as a background for her ostentatious entertaining. This was repaid by “Flattery's incense, or fresh sprigs of praise.” At her dinners

Flesh—Fish—Fowl—Game, and Fruit, must grace the Treat;
With large libations of most costly Wine,
That Scholars—Commons—Lords—and Dukes—might dine—
Each proud expence tried Taste could then contrive,
To keep Importance, and loved Fame, alive!

Dazzled by this lavish display of wealth, who would ever have suspected Mrs. Montagu of penny-pinching behind the scenes? Woodhouse, who had to scour the cheapest markets for oysters, ducklings, guinea fowls, fruit, and cheese for these sumptuous feasts, then hired an economical cook, “To dress large dinners at the least expence.” But the last straw was being compelled to buy smuggled coffee in violation of his conscience and the law of the land. Armed with a note signed by his mistress, Woodhouse—“His smuggling Patroness's Plenipo”—sought out the shop of a Mrs. Green, where Mrs. Montagu dealt. (There is abundant evidence in Mrs. Montagu's letters of her buying smuggled tea, silks, handkerchiefs, etc. She boasted to her sister-in-law, an invaluable accomplice, of her “good luck in smuggling.”) After the banquet it was Woodhouse's duty to lock up any delicacies from the servants, who ate brown bread, lukewarm vegetables, “Fish-bones, heads, tails, with some few fibres, left,” rumps and wings of poultry, and rabbits' heads. Any funeral baked meats that escaped a state banquet unscathed furnished forth a lesser feast for less elegant friends. The wax lights that blazed on state occasions gave way in private to smoky tallow ends. Woodhouse explains this apparent contradiction—public extravagance and private parsimony—as a means of “magnifying Fame, yet sparing Pelf.”

Closely related to Mrs. Montagu's frugality was her suspicion that her servants were cheating her. She was sure the butler was watering the wine, that her Abigail was pilfering tea, that the laundress was filching indigo, starch, and soap. She even suspected Woodhouse of purloining food and books! Her accusations, he declared, were couched in foul-mouthed Billingsgate that would degrade a demirep. She also feared attack from without. Every night, before she was undressed, the maid had to look under the bed and chairs lest a burglar be lurking “To pilfer Property, or Life destroy.” Over Woodhouse's bed hung a bell, one of an elaborate system of burglar alarms installed to summon aid “When restless Fancy should create a Thief.”

Mrs. Montagu's “worldliness” was a thorn in the flesh of Woodhouse, who became increasingly evangelical. He was especially outraged by her Sunday evening parties when from twenty to sixty guests were feasted in Portman Square. This desecration of the Sabbath was aggravated by the fact that bishops led the “Troops of Epicures.”

          But how can Sunday-parties Heav'n offend,
When Priests, so privileg'd the rites attend!
Blythe Bishops too, sometimes, with smirking face,
Confirm the Crowd, and consecrate the Place!
Ev'n Y——k, most reverend, full of Grace, I ween,
Can, on occasion, sanctify the scene.

With aching conscience Woodhouse had to preside at the sideboard. His heart yearned over the servants thus compelled to break the Sabbath, and he tried to arouse them against this heinous desecration. Woodhouse is especially shocked to see the company—bishops and all—fall upon the feast without a word of thanks to the Almighty. (An entry in William Wilberforce's diary seems to corroborate the omission of grace at Mrs. Montagu's table: “Montagu [Mrs. Montagu's adopted son] took me to task for peculiarities—saying grace, etc.”) The steward's righteous indignation reaches a crescendo when he flays Mrs. Montagu for turning the ruined chapel of Sandleford Priory into a banquet hall. Although the bones of the monks were exhumed and reburied in Monkey Lane, Woodhouse speaks of Mrs. Montagu's rioting “o'er the tombs.” Where Mass had been celebrated (although not for over four centuries), “Now vain Voluptuaries carve and quaff.” She dares

Break down His altars! banish holy rites!
For festive boards, and Bacchanal delights!

Woodhouse's lurid account of the carousals of Mrs. Montagu's friends—Hannah More, Mrs. Carter, Dr. Beattie, and other eminently decorous guests—in the desecrated “catacombs” (to quote Woodhouse) suggests Walpurgis Night or the orgies at Medmenham Abbey. To purge the polluted place after the Bacchanalian throng had finished their idolatrous devoirs (to quote Woodhouse again), the pious steward would resort thither to pray and sing hymns. Even a less worldly woman than Mrs. Montagu would have found Woodhouse's aggressive piety somewhat oppressive. The reader need not penetrate very far into his autobiography to sympathize with his mistress, who “All moral maxims forcibly forbid!” There is in the self-righteous Woodhouse more than a trace of Malvolio. Many a time Mrs. Montagu must have been sorely tempted to ask, “Dost thou think, because thou are virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

Although the Queen of the Blues had been dust and ashes for nearly a century before The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus was printed, we know what she would have thought of Woodhouse's relentless exposé. She was completely out of sympathy with the trend of biography toward realism. In 1754 she lamented Dr. Thomas Birch's treatment of another Queen Elizabeth: “I shall hate these collectors of Anecdotes if they cure one of that Admiration of a great character that Arises from a pleasing deception of sight. … I cannot forgive Mr. Birch.” More than thirty years later she was indignant at Boswell's exposure of Johnson's “little caprices, his unhappy infirmities, his singularities.”

… they disgrace a character to a reader as Wens & Warts would do a Statue or Portrait to a spectator. May this new invented mode of disgracing the dead & calumniating the living perish with the short lived work of Master Boswell, but the effect & consequences of such an example of Biography makes one shudder as bitter pens, with still worse intentions, may adopt it, & the Grave be no longer the place where the Wicked cease from troubling.³

That shudder was prophetic.

Notes

1. All the excerpts from the letters of Mrs. Montagu and Woodhouse are quoted from unpublished manuscripts in the Huntington Library, except for one passage, the source of which is cited below. I am indebted to the trustees of the Huntington Library for permission to quote from the Montagu MSS.

2. Any reader curious to explore the passages of Woodhouse's autobiography dealing with Mrs. Montagu and his relations to her will find the following references useful: James Woodhouse, The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus in “Works” (1896), I, 67, 76-105, 123-223, 233-237; II, 1-34.

3. Unpublished letter from Mrs. Montagu to Mrs. Thrale in the possession of Prof. James Clifford, by whose kind permission I quote.