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MONTAGUE, Edward, Earl of Sandwich, one of the most distinguished of British admirals, was born July 27, 1625, being the son of Sir Sidney Montague. In 1643, when in his nineteenth year, he raised a regiment on a commission received from parliament, and served under Lord Essex. He was present at the storming of Lincoln, distinguished himself at Marston Moor, was in the battle of Naseby, and at the storming of Bridgewater and Bristol. He sat in parliament for Huntingdonshire. After the Dutch war the Protector gave him a command in Blake's fleet, bound to the Mediterranean. Having done good service against the Spaniards, he was appointed to command the fleet in the Downs, in order to watch the Dutch. He was highly esteemed by Cromwell, on whose death he was invested by Richard Cromwell with the command of an expedition to the Baltic. He was, however, so fettered by his instructions, and by the presence of four commissioners from the parliament, that he became disgusted with the service, and listened to overtures made by Charles and his chancellor Hyde, who required his aid to accomplish the king's restoration. He led the fleet home, and was charged with treason by Algernon Sidney, who had been one of the four commissioners. Acquitted of this charge, but deprived of his command, he retired into private life, whence he was soon recalled by Monk's advance to London. He was reinstated in his command, and soon after conveyed the king from Holland to Dover. Honours were showered upon him. He became earl of Sandwich and a knight of the garter, and was looked upon as one of the king's principal ministers. On the 3rd June, 1665, he gained a great victory over the Dutch, whose admiral, Opdam, was killed in the battle. In 1666 he was employed to negotiate peace both at Madrid and Lisbon, a duty he performed with skill and success. In the third and last Dutch war Lord Sandwich was second in command of the fleet under the duke of York, when De Ruyter took the English by surprise on the 28th May, 1672. Sandwich, in the Royal James, was the first in action, and fought with desperation, disabling seven Dutch ships and driving off three fire-ships. He and his crew were nearly exhausted, when a fourth fire-ship grappled and set his ship in flames. He would not leave her, however, and perished with some of his faithful sailors in the explosion of the ship about noon. His body was recovered, and buried with public honours in Westminster Abbey.—R. H.

MONTAGUE, Edward Wortley, son of Edward Montague, Esq., and the famous Lady Mary, was born at Wharncliffe Lodge, near Sheffield, in 1713. He ran away from Westminster school several times, on one occasion taking up the trade of a sweep, on another that of a fisherman, and on a third sailing as a cabin boy to Spain. After a visit to the West Indies he was elected to parliament for the county of Huntingdon in 1747, but in 1751 he was obliged to repair to Paris to escape his creditors. He became a papist and then a Mahometan. To prevent a large estate from descending to the family of his brother-in-law. Lord Bute, he was on the point of marrying a young woman, whom he had never seen, when he died at Padua in 1776.

MONTAGU, Elizabeth, the daughter of Matthew Robinson, Esq., a country gentleman, was born at York in 1720, but resided during her early years at Cambridge, where her education was superintended by Conyers Middleton, who had become her grandmother's second husband. In 1742 she married Edward Montagu, grandson of the first earl of Sandwich. The marriage was without issue; and on her husband's death, in 1775, she was left in a position of great opulence, which she sustained by a munificent hospitality, of which the learned were the chief partakers. She died in 1800. Of her writings, three "Dialogues of the Dead" were published with Lord Lyttleton's; and she subsequently published an essay on the genius and writings of Shakspeare. After her death four volumes of her correspondence were published by her nephew. She will be more familiarly remembered as having originated the literary society which was known as the Blue Stocking Club; and as having for many years given an annual dinner on the first of May to the chimney-sweeps of London.—W. J. P.

MONTAGUE, George, a diligent naturalist, was descended from a family who held the estate of Lackham in Wiltshire. He was born at Lackham; a younger son, he entered the army, and attained the rank of captain in the 15th foot. He served for some years in the war between England and America. His elder brother dying in 1778, he quitted the army, and returned to take possession of the paternal estate. He subsequently entered the Wiltshire militia, in which he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1779 he left the militia and retired into Devonshire, where he devoted himself to the study of natural history. He was one of the earliest fellows of the Linnæan Society, and contributed to their Transactions several papers on ornithology; he also distinguished himself by original observations on the mollusca. He died at Knowles, near Kingsbridge, on 20th June, 1815. His collections of preserved birds and animals were purchased for the British museum. His chief works were an "Ornithological Dictionary" and "Testacea Britannica, or a natural history of British shells."—F. C. W.

MONTAGU, John, fourth earl of Sandwich, a well-known politician, was born in 1718. He entered public life as an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole's administration. In 1744 he was appointed second lord of the admiralty. Two years later he was named plenipotentiary to the congress at Breda, and his powers were continued until the treaty of peace was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. On his return home he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, an office from which he was dismissed in 1751. In 1755 he became one of the joint vice-treasurers of Ireland; in 1763 he was reinstated in the admiralty; three years later he was made joint-postmaster; and in 1771 he was a third time placed at the head of the admiralty under Lord North, with whom he acted during the American war, and quitted office on its unfortunate termination. He subsequently held for a short time the office of ranger of the royal parks under the coalition cabinet. He died in 1792. Lord Sandwich was a man of ability, and of great activity and zeal, but utterly unprincipled and profligate. He was the intimate friend of John Wilkes and other members of the infamous fraternity of Medmenham abbey, and his attack in the house of lords on his former associate on account of his Essay on Woman, gained him the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher, which adhered to him through life. Sandwich was bitterly satirized by Gray and Churchill, and branded by the keen and eloquent denunciations of Erskine in his famous speech on the case of Captain Baillie.—(See the Candidate by Gray, and the Duellist and Candidate by Churchill.)—J. T.

MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley, a celebrated letter-writer and bel esprit, was born in London in 1689. Until her marriage she was known as Lady Mary Pierrepoint, being the daughter of Evelyn, earl of Kingston, a pleasure-seeking and thoughtless nobleman of the whig party, created Marquis of Dorchester in 1706, and Duke of Kingston in 1715. While quite a child Lady Mary lost her mother, whom at a very early age she replaced in presiding over the hospitalities of her father's table. When she was eight her fond father introduced her to his boon companions of the Kit Cat Club, who caressed the beautiful and clever little girl, and formally admitted her of their fraternity. Lady Mary's education, nominally intrusted to an "old governess," was very much her own work. She browsed upon the Scuderi-romances and miscellaneous English literature of her father's library, even teaching herself Latin, from which, rather than from the original Greek, she seems to have translated, under the auspices of Burnet, the Encheiridion of Epictetus. When a girl of fourteen she met in society her future husband, Mr. Wortley Montagu, a grave, solid whig member of parliament, considerably older than herself, and grandson of the first earl of Sandwich. He fell in love with the young lady, who had not only beauty and vivacity to recommend her, but could talk of Quintus Curtius, and after some correspondence he knew that his passion was returned. On the question of settlement, however, there was a split between Mr. Montagu and Lord Kingston, and at last, probably in the August of 1712, an elopement was the result. For some years after her marriage Lady Mary lived quietly in the country; but with the accession of George I. and the triumph of the whigs, Mr. Montagu was appointed through the influence of Halifax a commissioner of the treasury; and without seeking a place at court, his beautiful and witty wife played a conspicuous part in the highest society of the new régime. She was the friend of Addison, and Pope professed himself her passionate admirer. In 1716 Mr. Montagu was appointed ambassador to the Porte, with instructions to mediate between the Turks and the imperialists, when the masculine and energetic Lady Mary resolved to accompany him. Delayed on the continent, they quitted Venice for Constantinople in the January of 1717, and after a residence of some fifteen months in the sultan's dominions, returned to England in May, 1718. It is to this embassy that we owe those charming, lively, witty letters addressed by Lady Mary to friends at home, descriptive of Turkish life and society, on