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RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
"Lady Mary Wortley Montagu." By
Iris Barry. London: Ernest Benn-It
having occurred to Miss Barry and her
publishers that another "Life" of Lady
Stilly ___nta_n was wanting, we nave me
pr^ent very lively picture of the "most
famous woman of the eighteenth cen.nrj'."
It is .^m;_-__4 by the author that the
world is not without "several admirable
bi^graphies oi this fascinating woman,"
bus they fail, it is suggested, in one par
ticular. "They concern a corpse, and
"Lady Mary was very much alive." There
fore she is presented in these pases nol
as a museum esiubit, but in her habit as
she lived. Aa the daughter of a duke,
wile of an ambassador, and jnother-in-law
of a Prime Minister, she could not fail
to be -widely known among her contem
poraries, but considered merely as a. poet
and wit and the writer of letters which
have been compared with those of Madame
de —evigne, she would stave —eon famous
apart from her distin-piis-ed connections.
She was that ra—a avis 'among her sex. a
person interested in everything and having
an enthusiasm for nothing. As for en
thusiasm, it was _ point of honor among
the -shining light— of the eighteen—li cen
tury to avoid any display of it. Bishop
Butler thought it sufficient in matters
religions to have "a cool and reasonable
concern-" for oneself; the third Earl of
Shaftesbury, whase moral philosophy is
immortalised in Pope'- "Essay on Man,**'
thought that the best thing that could be
said for the sense.of humor was that it
preserved its possessor from any addiction
to enthusiasm; and Gibbon found (h-t
tbe greatest drawback to tiie ——im ot
Law, author of The Serious Call," to be
"one of the most insertions writers of the
times,** was his addiction to enthusiasm-
No Ofcst—nts. Questionings.
It was a lesson Lady Mary Montagu took
to heart, and applied to every subject
that occupied her mind. ReUgioue ordi
nances —be considered sacred because t&ey
were "absolutely necessary to all civil
government-** No legal system coold be
far-reaching and powerful enough to keep
everyone in order, and vixat the police
and law courts could not prevent might
|be prevent—._ by- the —invera—_ inculcation
of a belief is the "Al_ein_? Eye," and
in the existence of another world in w_jc—i
the righteous or the wicked would be re
ward—- or punished- For her own part
she had no "obsrinate <p_tionings*' about
anythin g. __!_—t and courted, the posses
sor of good health and of a multiplicity
of occupations, life wait very well -with
her, as she considered it should do with
everyone else. "I've got cream in my
tea; why, thai, are bo many people mise
rable?** tthough the words *re not here)
6nms np her philosophy. She introduced
inoculation for small-pox into Britain, and
taught the Italian peasantry how to make
butter; but it never entered her mind to
play the Lady Bountiful, or to be any
thing else but a. bhxe-etockmg, a society
dame, a friend of Addison and the wits
generally, and possessor of a deter—ima
tion "never to have half-an-hoor heavy
on her hands,*" not even in her advanced
years, when she softened the asperities
of i-Utude by farming- and gardening. <
Her personal history "may be told in a
few words. *I_he daughter of the fifth
Earl of Kingston, she was born in 1639.'
Passionately food of reading, Ac owed
her education to her own labors. _[er
ha-bard. Wortley Montagu, a friend of
—_Idistn, with whom she stopped, was
a member of several Parliament-, and in
I7IS was appointed Ambasjdor t_ the Porte.
Lady Mary went with him. and some of
the most interesting of ber letters are dated
from Constantinople. After their retnra
to London Lady Mary went abroad
I again, and it was during her absence
that her husband died, leaving a. eon.
Edward (whose vices had "oog estranged
him bora his parents, and who in 1773
followed his father to the grave), sad
a danghter, who became Lady Bate. Lady
Mary's letters from Turkey were the talk
of London society, for they were passed
from hand to hand. The free way in
which tbe spoke of the Sultan and his
court, and bis admiration for herself, oc
casioned an impression that their re
lationship was *aot what it ought to bave
been. But this readiness to put a scan
dalous interpretation oa Lady Mary's
narrative was due to a complete igno
rance of Modem practice, especially in
the upper circles. Very seldom was ma
addition made to the harem of a womai
not specially reserved for the purpose
from childhood, and no Sultan -would ever
have thought of having his harem pol
luted by a person who Lad previously be
longed to another man. Ko temporary in
mates were allowed, the Sultan's rights
over every woman who joined his men
age bein^ absolute. As a woman's righte
votary. Lady Mary was not likely to sub
mit herself to masculine domination in
tbis fashion. She learned from en old
Jewess who sold beads and bracelets to
the carefully-guarded women in the
ferritin's harem something about
their treatment by the viragoes
who ordered them about, and by the
negro eunuchs who, as an additional pre
caution, were chosen for their repulsive
faces and distorted bodies. In visiting
the baths where 200 women (including
slaves) were all in a state of -nature.
some in the wafer, and others reclin
ing on rich sofas. Lady Mary had some
difficulty in resisting the invitation of many
to unrobe and take a dip, and could
only still their importunities by showing
them Iter stays, and allow—ig_ them to
think that she was locked up iv a —ma!*'
fortress by ber husband, who kept tbe
key.
Carinas Relationship-,
Turkish women then went about in
public witb their faces covered, and
by a sort of irony th? very means
adopted to prevent intrigues actually pro
moted them, for a woman cou'd pass her
husband without his knowing her, anl
even were he suspicions it was illegal
either to touch or to follow a woman in
the street. But the ways of Turkey are
hardly more curious than those of
other countries at that time. Married
women in society had men not their hus
batidj to dance attendance on them, at
tend to their affairs, and escort them
to places of entertainment. But this
companion was rarely a lover. *"Th
eighteenth century was robust in some
of its habits, but about love it was
infinitely more idealistic It understock
far better the enjoyment of the com
panionship of the opposite sex as opt———
to the enjoyment of possession." These
curious relationships did not often de
generate into intrigues. Thus we read
that the poet Pope was admitted by Lady
Mary to ""as close an intimacy as any
of her acquaintance enjoyed, sat on her
bed as she drank her morning chocolate,
scanning the newspapers, complimenting
ber on the form and color of her bosom,
which was in evidence because that was
the fashion, and helping her to clioosi
a new ribbon, or polish one of the poems
that —Topped from her pen." Altogether
it is a curious society ou which Mis*
Barry raises the curtain, and the author
is to be congratulated **> the success
I with which site has made it live astin.
It .is long since we have read a volume
as interesting of its kind.
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