dislike to Walpole. Lady Mary was often at court, and was in favour with the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline. 'Dolly' Walpole, Sir Robert's sister, afterwards Lady Townshend, had been an early friend, but Sir Robert's wife was her decided enemy. She became well known to all the wits, and among others to Pope, who professed especial admiration for her. Upon the surreptitious publication of her 'Court Poems'(afterwards called ' Town Eclogues') in 1716, Pope revenged her or himself by administering an emetic to Curll [see under Curll, Edmund]. On 5 June 1716 Montagu was appointed ambassador to the Porte, then at war with Austria. The embassy was intended to reconcile the Turks and the emperor. Montagu left London with his wife and their child at the end of July. They reached Vienna at the beginning of September, and, after visiting other German courts, left Vienna on 17 Jan. 1717, and travelled to Adrianople, where they stayed for two months, reaching Constantinople at the end of May. On 28 Oct. following Montagu received letters of recall, with a private letter from Addison,who had now become secretary of state. Addison's endeavours to assign complimentary reasons for the recall imply a consciousness that Montagu would scarcely see the measure in that light. Montagu was not, as Addison suggested, anxious to return to England, for he remained at Constantinople till 6 June 1718. His daughter Mary (afterwards Lady Bute) was born in February 1718. The Montagus returned by sea to Genoa, and reached England at the end of October. Montagu collected some oriental manuscripts, and presented an inscribed marble to Trinity College, Cambridge. Lady Mary's interest in the manners of the country is shown by her 'Letters,' and she learnt a little Turkish. At Adrianople she had noticed the practice of inoculation for the small-pox (see letter of 1 April 1717). She had her son inoculated, and took much pains to introduce the practice upon her return to England. The physician of the embassy, a Mr. Maitland, inoculated in London under her patronage, and in 1724 Steele celebrated her merits in a paper in the 'Plain Dealer,' 3 July ( Gent. Mag. xxvii. 409; Phil. Trans. 1757, No.lxxi.), and congratulated her upon her 'godlike delight 'of saving' many thousand British lives' every year. For many years after her return to England Lady Mary was a leader in London society. Her 'Letters' show that she was not without a keen appetite for the scandal of the times, and she was one of the greatest sufferers by the same propensity in her neighbours. Her husband again represented Huntingdon in the parliaments elected in 1722 and 1727. He afterwards sat for Peterborough from 1734 to 1747, and from 1754 till 1751. He never took any conspicuous part in politics, and devoted himself chiefly to saving money.
Upon returning to England Lady Mary had resumed intercourse with Pope. Pope had celebrated her in the 'Epistle to Jervas' (published 1717), and more than one copy of occasional verses (POPE, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iv. 491-3). The thought of her in- spired the 'Epistle of Eloisato Abelard,'and to her during her journey were addressed letters of the most stilted and fine-spun gallantry. She replied, checking his ecstasies with calm good breeding and sense. On 1 Sept. 1718 Pope wrote to her the well-known letter upon the romantic death of two rustic lovers struck by lightning, to which she replied from Dover (1 Nov.), on her way home, by a bit of cynicism, too true to be pleasant. He continued his adoration, and persuaded her and her husband to take a cottage at Twickenham, in order to be his neighbours. The close relation between the keen woman of the world and the querulous and morbidly sensitive poet was dangerous. The friendship continued for a time. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted her picture for the poet in 1719; his last letter, in September 1721, is in the old style ; and in the spring of 1722 she says in a letter to her sister that she seldom sees him, but encloses some of his verses containing a compliment to her. A quarrel followed, the causes of which have been much discussed. Various stories are given: Miss Hawkins (Anecdotes, p. 75) reported that the quarrel was due to a pair of sheets lent by Pope to the Montagus and returned unwashed. This was confirmed by Worsdale the painter (Life of Malone, p. 150). Lady Mary herself told Spence (Anecdotes, 1820, p. 233) that Pope told Arbuthnot that he had refused to write a satire upon somebody when requested to do so by Lady Mary and Lord Hervey ; Lady Mary implies that this story was false, but speaks as though she did not know the true cause. Mr. 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. Mr. 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. This story is in harmony with all that we
