Lady Mary Wortley Montague biography

Dromo's Den

Lady Mary Wortley Montague Biography

MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley (1689–1762). An English poet and letter writer, eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont (afterward Duke of Kingston). She was baptized in London, May 26, 1689. From her brother's tutor or by herself she learned Latin, and read widely in English drama and romance. When a mere girl she was toasted by her father at the Kit-Cat Club, and on her appearing there was admitted a member by acclamation. Without the approval of her family she privately married (Aug. 12, 1712) Edward Wortley Montagu, a Whig member of Parliament, with whom she lived for a time in retirement. On the accession of George I she went to London with her husband. There her beauty and wit attracted unusual attention at court, and she was much admired by the wits, especially by Pope. In 1716 appeared surreptitiously her Court Poems, afterward called Town Eclogues. The same year she set out with her husband on his embassy to Constantinople. At Adrianople she became interested in inoculation for smallpox (1717) and on her return introduced the practice into England. During her travels in the East she wrote her well-known Letters (posthumously published), delightful in themselves and valuable for the light they throw upon the manners and customs of the time. Returning to England (1718), the Montagus soon settled near Pope at Twickenham, and Lady Mary became one of the best-known women in London society. Pope had addressed verses to her and had kept up a correspondence during her absence. The friendship was now renewed on more intimate terms, but by 1722 they quarreled. Pope seems to have made a declaration of love, which was met with a burst of laughter. Pope afterward satirized her as Sappho in various poems. Swift lampooned her in The Capon's Tale (1726). In the Epilogue to the Satires (1738) she is accused by Pope of starving a sister and forswearing a debt, and in the Imitations of Horace (1733) a worse charge is brought against her (first satire, 2d book, i, 84). For unknown cause she left her husband in 1739 and lived abroad for many years, chiefly in Italy. Her husband died in 1761, and the next year she returned to England, at the request of her daughter, Lady Bute. She died Aug. 21, 1762. Consult her Works, edited by her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe (London, 1837; new eds., 1887, 1893), and E. M. Symonds, Lady M. W. Montagu and her Times (New York, 1907).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 176-177.