SOURCE: Davis, Rose Mary. “The Blue Stockings.” In The Good Lord Lyttelton: A Study in Eighteenth Century Politics and Culture, pp. 283-90. Bethlehem, PA: Times Publishing Company, 1939.

[In the following excerpt, Davis explores Montagu's relationship with Lord Lyttelton, referring to their correspondence, and discusses the Bluestocking social circle, which was created by Montagu and frequented by Lyttelton.]

Lord Lyttelton's insignificance in politics during the years when he sat in the House of Lords did not extend to the literary world. It was an age of literary dictators; and while he can claim no such position of authority as was given to Dryden, Pope, or Johnson, he also gave his little senate laws and was, we may assume, not entirely inattentive to his own applause. His power of dispensing royal and ministerial patronage was co-extensive with his connection with Prince Frederick and with his tenure of office under Pelham and Newcastle. After that period his literary, like his political activity, was un-official. Respect for his learning and literary talents, however, was somewhat mingled with an impression that he had the disposal of large private resources for the assistance of needy men of letters. The name of Macenas, which undoubtedly gave him great satisfaction in his youth, clung to him and was too often a source of embarrassment to him in these later years.

But the friendships which grew out of some of these literary contacts were among his most genuine sources of happiness. Two of the most satisfying friendships of his life had been with the two men, from whom he draws his chief claim to be taken seriously as a patron of literature, Thomson and Fielding. But at the period of his life upon which we have entered, these two, along with so many of his earlier friends and associates, had gone to their graves. New faces had appeared, and new voices sounded their strains in prose and verse.

During these years Lord Lyttelton was drawn more and more into Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu's circle of Blue-Stockings. Elizabeth Carter, Hester Chapone, Catherine Talbot, all disciples of Johnson, were not prevented by the blinding light of his presence from discerning that lesser luminary, Lord Lyttelton, for whom Johnson, as we shall learn, had but little regard. From about 1750 on (soon after the Lytteltons moved to Hill Street) Mrs. Montagu sought to make her husband's house a point of union for the intellect and fashion of London, substituting conversation for cards at her supper parties. Lyttelton, who in his youth had detested quadrille at Lunéville, must have found gratifying the substitution of conversation for cards.

Mrs Montagu aspired to be the social leader of the intelligentsia; and, perhaps with somewhat less assurance, to literary accomplishment in her own right. High social position and wealth caused her to take herself seriously, and her rather superior natural intelligence caused her admirers to spoil her. Though her literary style is for the most part ruined by self-consciousness, a strain of Johnsonian common sense in a more feminine vein is not entirely obscured by the affectation and insipidity of her many classical allusions. She and Lord Lyttelton were attracted to one another by a similarity of temperament and by common literary tastes, and as life closed in on him in his later years, she assumed more and more the role of consoler. She regarded him as her intellectual superior, and he reciprocated with an exalted opinion of her talents.¹

We know that she admired him when they were both young, and it is entirely possible that she thought of him at that time as a man whom she would be willing to marry. On this possibility and the fact of her marriage to the fifty-one-year-old Edward Montagu two months after Lyttelton's marriage to Miss Fortescue, the romantically inclined might build a story of thwarted love which later found expression in friendship. But it is unlikely that she underwent any emotional disturbance over the matter or that she was piqued by his marriage to Miss Fortescue. She was not amorous by temperament; her later friendship with Lord Lyttelton was characterized by its tranquillity; and although she was devoted to him, he played “second fiddle” during the lifetime of her first favorite, the aged Lord Bath.

As the years went by and Lord Lyttelton's son and daughter grew up, his correspondence with Mrs. Montagu was largely taken up with family problems, but there is also considerable display of erudition and literary taste. She read a number of historical works on his recommendation: the seventeenth century Spanish historian, Antonio de Soils, whom Lyttelton regarded as “a classical Writer”;² Strada's Prolusions to De Bello Belgico, a history of the Dutch wars of independence, by Famiano Strada (1572-1649); and the Turkish letters of Busbequius (Ogier Ghislani de Busbecq, Imperial ambassador of Constantinople 1554-1562).³

The Greek drama (which Mrs. Montagu read in translation) provided a topic for repeated discussions. Lord Lyttelton admires what she says of the Oedipus Tyrannus, but for his own part,

though I think the intrigue of that play is the best unfolded of any I ever read, the conclusion of it shocks me. To suppose that heaven would inflict all the severity of its vengeance upon a man quite unconscious of the guilt of his actions, and therefore quite innocent, nay more, deserving all the favours of heaven for the purity and the virtue of his intentions, appears to me the most horrid impiety. But this, I own, is the fault of the theology of the times, and not of the poet.⁴

A little later he is charmed with her comparison between the Greek Plays and Shakespear. The latter he finds “unequalled in the power of painting Nature as she is and giving you sometimes the utmost energy of a Character of [sic] a Passion in the Stroke and Dash of a Pen.” He agrees with her that “the moral Reflexions in Shakespear's Plays are much more affecting by coming warm from the Heart of the interested Persons, than putt into the mouth of a chorus, as in the Greek Plays.” Among the latter Philoctetes is his favorite.⁵

In September, 1760, soon after the opening of Hagley Hall, Mrs. Montagu offered condolences on the departure from Hagley of a certain Mr. Rust, who had translated Sophocles and Euripides,

for I often pity your painful preeminence of talents and knowledge, which makes it difficult for my Lord Lyttelton to meet with any one capable of bearing a part in the kind of conversation he would naturally choose.⁶

Mrs. Montagu, who had first appeared in print in three dialogues which she contributed to Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead in 1760, acquired some literary celebrity in 1769 from the anonymous appearance of her Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets. With some remarks upon the representations of Mons. de Voltaire, in which she took up the cudgels against Voltaire's condescending attitude towards the great English playwright. Until the authorship of the book was revealed there were many who attributed it to Lyttelton.⁷ In a letter written on November 26 he claims the honor of being “the man-midwife who helped to bring it [the Essay] forth, …”⁸

Lyttelton's friendship with Mrs. (by courtesy) Elizabeth Carter, the retiring and scholarly spinster of Deal, who made a reputation for herself with her translation of Epictetus, dates from 1755. Early in that year, Sir George saw some of her verses and was so well impressed that he advised publication.⁹ A little later, acting upon what may have been a pretext to make his acquaintance as well as to perform a charitable act, she appealed to him in behalf of a certain Mrs. Parker, whose children were in need, and for whom she solicited a vacant place as post-mistress. The place was already filled, but Sir George promised to try to obtain something else for Mrs. Parker and in the meantime gave Mrs. Carter permission to draw on him for twenty pounds.¹⁰

Mutual compliments were exchanged, and by May, 1756, the friendship had progressed so well that he visited her at Deal. Her intimate friend, Miss Talbot, regretted that the visit was short, as “he speaks so much, and you so little, that he certainly did not hear you say three words.”¹¹ We have more than one amusing picture of Mrs. Carter's silence in the face of Lord Lyttleton's volubility, which, however, seems to have been an aid rather than a hindrance to friendship. Apparently the lady was a good listener. Mrs. Montagu's sister, Miss Robinson, wrote in 1766 of receiving a visit from Mrs. Carter, who looked “as if she had a great deal to say.” All these gems of conversation, however, were lost to the world, for at this moment in came Lord Lyttelton, and Mrs. Carter, although she could sing a duet, “would not venture to engage in a trio,” so that the burden of the conversation fell on his Lordship, while Mrs. Carter played her preferred role of audience, now and then throwing in “some of her judicious observations.”¹²

Lord Lyttelton was much impressed with Mrs. Carter's introduction to her translation of Epictetus, published in April, 1758, and wrote of his increasing admiration for it, as well as for the poem prefixed “by another female hand [Mrs. Chapone's].” “The English ladies,” he adds, “will appear as much superior to the French in wit and learning, as the men in arms.”¹³

During the summer of 1761, when Mrs. Carter was at Tunbridge Wells with Mrs. Montagu and Lords Bath and Lyttelton, she was persuaded by the joint efforts of her companions to prepare her poems for publication.¹⁴ They appeared in 1762 under the title of Poems on Several Occasions, dedicated to Lord Bath, and with some verses in a Miltonic strain by Lord Lyttelton prefixed.

Such were the notes that struck the wond'ring ear
Of silent Night, when, on the verdant banks
Of Siloa's hallow'd brook, celestial harps,
According to seraphic voices, sung,
‘Glory to God on high, and on the earth
Peace, and good-will to men.’(15)

During the Penhurst visit Lord Lyttelton also wrote some complimentary verses on Lord Bath and Mrs. Montagu, the former being designated as the venerable oak from which

          as from Dodona's oak, the state
In surest oracles is told its fate!

while Mrs. Montagu is represented as the fragrant myrtle tended by the Muses, which lifts its head near the oak.¹⁶ It was probably as a result of their common friendship with Mrs. Montagu that Lyttelton and his old leader, the former William Pulteney, were brought once more into close personal association. Mrs. Montagu's friendship with the aged Earl, now past fourscore, seems to have begun in the summer of 1760, and they soon idolized one another;¹⁷ Lyttelton was accustomed to rally her playfully on her preference of Bath to himself, “an older friend, tho' a younger man.”¹⁸ In June, 1762, Lord Lyttelton entertained at Hagley a party consisting of the Montagus, their friend, Dr. Messenger Monsey,¹⁹ Lord Bath, Mr. and Mrs. Vesey, and Dr. Douglas.²⁰

Benjamin Stillingfleet, the naturalist, whose blue stockings are said to have suggested the name of the society,²¹ was an intimate friend of both Mrs. Montagu and Lord Lyttelton. He visited Hagley in the summer of 1756²² and was invited again in 1757.²³ In 1759, he dedicated to Lord Lyttelton a volume of Miscellaneous Tracts.²⁴

An exotic note enters into the Bluestocking circle presided over by those two staid old gentlemen, Bath and Lyttelton, in the person of an Armenian adventurer named Emin, who lived in England for some years preceding 1759 and during that time won the friendship of Edmund Burke, Mrs. Montagu, and probably through her good offices that of Lyttelton.²⁵ Mrs. Montagu admired him as a patriot, as she was later to admire the Corsican, General Paoli. After he had left England, she enclosed one of his letters to Lyttelton, recommending that his Lordship should try to dissuade him from some of his heroic projects. Emin had kindled the imagination of the grave and sober lord no less than of the Blue-stocking lady. She finds that as he “approaches nearer to his native woods and deserts he grows more savage. There is a sort of wildness in his letter that speaks the hero untamed,”²⁶ while his Lordship foretells that the young man will go to the court of “some Indian nabob or Raja,” from whence his friends “may have the pleasure of tracing his marches on the banks of the Ganges, and over many regions, ‘where the gorgeous East showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold’.”²⁷

Lord Lyttelton wrote to this glamorous hero on March 14, 1762, addressing him as “My brave Emin,” and encouraging him to write when he has “anything material” to communicate, or wants his opinion in any case where it may be of use. The questions which he asks of his noble friend can best be answered by his own genius:

An heroical spirit can see that to be practicable which to others appears impossible; and finds Resources where others would sink into Despair. You have already shewn that this spirit belongs to you, and I dare say that your future Actions will continue to show it, whenever opportunities present themselves to you.²⁸

Emin drops out of the picture for a period of years, until in September, 1769, Mrs. Montagu reports to her husband that she has received from him, whom they had supposed to be dead, a journal, containing among other things a harangue which he had made to his soldiers, “a fine piece of savage eloquence.”²⁹ The Noble Savage was in the air. Lord Lyttelton wrote on October 10 that he longed for this journal

and had rather read his Oration than hear Ld Chatham, tho all the thunder of his Eloquence should revive with him. Emin's is the Voice of Nature: his Lordship's is Playhouse Thunder. I admire the Vision with which the Armenian Orator enforced his Rhetorick, when he found it fail. What a pity it is we do not believe in Visions here! The long Trance of our Great Man would furnish as many as Mahomed had in all his fitts of the falling sickness. It would make a complete Koran, and give a new Religion to a People that now has none. …³⁰

Notes

1. The “unkindest thrust” which Professor Tinker attributes to Lord Lyttelton (The Salon and English Letters, 139-140) is really taken from the letters attributed to his son (Letters of the Late Lord Lyttelton, 74-75).

2. Letter of August 17, 1758, in possession of Mrs. Hugh Wyndham. See also Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu, II, 135.

3. Montagu, Letters, 224, 241.

4. Ibid., IV, 279.

5. Climenson, Op. cit., II, 206. For further expression of Lyttelton's views on Shakespeare in his Dialogues of the Dead, see p. 317 below.

6. Montagu, Letters, IV, 293-294.

7. Blunt, Mrs. Montagu, II, 150.

8. R. Huchon, Mrs. Montagu, …, 152-153. For a more favorable estimate of Mrs. Montagu's critical powers, as exemplified in this essay, than has been given by most modern critics, see R. W. Babcock, The Genesis of Shakespeare Idoltary, 1766-1799, 109 and passim.

9. A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741-1770, …, ed. Rev. Montagu Pennington, II, 74.

10. Rev: Montagu Pennington, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a New Edition of her Poems …, I, 216-217. Phillimore (II, 552) says that Lyttelton first became acquainted with Mrs. Carter at Lambeth after Thomas Secker became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1758, and that after his accession Lambeth was much frequented by Lyttelton and other men of letters.

11. Letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot, II, 100.

12. MS. letter of February 18, 1776, in Johnson House, Gough Square, London.

13. Pennington, Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, I, 212-213.

14. Ibid.; Letters from Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu between the years 1755 and 1800, …, ed. Pennington, I 130-131.

15. Pennington, Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, II, 5.

16. Letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot, I, 567-568.

17. Climenson, Op. cit., II, 201.

18. Letters in possession of Mrs. Hugh Wyndham.

19. For a humorous letter which Lord Lyttelton wrote to Dr. Monsey in 1772 on the occasion of his seventy-eighth birthday, see B. M., Add. MSS. 28,051, f. 395, and Rao, A Minor Augustan, 366-367.

20. Blunt, Mrs. Montagu, I, 22.

21. Tinker, Salon and English Letters, 129.

22. Climenson, Op. cit., II, 93.

23. Montagu, Letters, IV, 57.

24. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, II, 337.

25. For an account of Emin, see Climenson, Op. cit., II, 99-102, and Maurice Hewlett, “An Armenian Knight's Entertainments” (London Mercury, VI, 1922, 68-76).

26. Montagu, Letters, IV, 233-234.

27. Montagu, Letters, IV, 329-330.

28. Letter in possession of Mrs. Hugh Wyndham.

29. Blunt, Mrs. Montagu, I, 228.

30. Ibid., I, 230.

Bibliography

(The place of publication is London, unless otherwise specified.)

Lyttelton's Published Work

1760 Dialogues of the Dead, Printed for W. Sandby, in Fleet-street; first, second, and third editions.

Works of Reference

Babcock, R. W. The Genesis of Shakespeare Idolatry, 1766-1799, Chapel Hill, N. C., 1931.

Blunt, Reginald. Mrs. Montagu “Queen of the Blues,” 1923. 2 vols.

Climenson, Emily J. Elizabeth Montagu, …, 1906. 2 vols.

Huchon, R. Mrs. Montague, 1720-1800, An Essay Proposed as a thesis to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Paris, …, 1906.

Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth. Letters. … Published by Matthew Montagu. Esq., 1810-1813. 4 vols.

Nichols, John. Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 1812-1816. 9 vols.

Pennington, Rev. Montagu. Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a New Edition of her Poems, … The Second Edition, 1808. 2 vols.

———A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770, 1819. 3 vols.

———Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu between the years 1755 and 1880 …, 1817. 3 vols.

Rao, A. Vittal. A Minor Augustan, Being the Life and Works of George, Lord Lyttelton, 1709-1773, Calcutta 1934.

Tinker, Chauncey B. The Salon and English Letters, New York, 1915.