Part 7 (2/2)

”What lady's that to whom he gently bends?

Who knows her not? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes.

How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends; For she distinguishes the good and wise.”

Pope, too, wrote of her with appreciation:

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

I

In beauty or wit, No mortal as yet To question your empire has dared.

But men of discerning Have thought that in learning, To yield to a lady was hard.

II

Impertinent schools, With musty dull rules, Have reading to females denied; So Papists refuse The Bible to use Lest flocks should be wise as their guides.

III

Twas woman at first (Indeed she was curst) In knowledge that tasted delight, And sages agree The laws should decree To the first possessor the right.

IV

Then bravely, fair dame, Resume the old claim, Which to your whole s.e.x does belong; And let men receive From a second bright Eve The knowledge of right and of wrong.

V

But if the first Eve Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, What a punishment new Shall be found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree!

The acquaintance with Pope began shortly after Lady Mary came to town in the autumn of 1714. It soon developed into friends.h.i.+p. ”Lady Mary Wortley,” Jervas wrote to the poet, probably in 1715 or early in the following year, ”ordered me by express this morning, _cedente Gayo et ridente Fortescuvio_, to send you a letter, or some other proper notice, to come to her on Thursday about five, which I suppose she meant in the evening.”

There appeared in March, 1716, a volume bearing the t.i.tle _Court Poems_, the authors.h.i.+p being attributed to ”A Lady of Quality,” who, it soon became known, was Lady Mary. The book was issued by Roberts, who had received the three sets of verses contained in it from the notorious piratical publisher, Edmund Curll. How the ma.n.u.script ”fell” into the hands of Curll it is not easy to imagine. Curll's account is that they were found in a pocket-book taken up in Westminster Hall on the last day of the trial of the Jacobite Lord Winton. Anyhow, however it came about, the volume was published in 1716, when it was found to contain ”The Ba.s.set Table,” ”The Drawing Room,” and ”The Toilet.”

Curll was an excellent publicity agent for his wares. He wrote, or caused to be written, a most intriguing ”advertis.e.m.e.nt” about the authors.h.i.+p of the poems:

”Upon reading them over at St. James' Coffee House, they were attributed by the general voice to be the productions of a lady of quality. When I produced them at b.u.t.ton's, the poetical jury there brought in a different verdict; and the foreman strenuously insisted upon it that Mr.

Gay was the man. Not content with these two decisions, I was resolved to call in an umpire, and accordingly chose a gentleman of distinguished merit, who lives not far from Chelsea. I sent him the papers, which he returned next day, with this answer: ”Sir, depend upon it these lines could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of Homer.”

Thus, having impartially given the sentiments of the Town, I hope I may deserve thanks for the pains I have taken in endeavouring to find out the author of these valuable performances, and everybody is at liberty to bestow the laurel as they please.”

Pope was furious, and there is a story that he invited Curll to drink wine with him at a coffee-house, and put in his gla.s.s some poison that acted as an emetic. What is certain is that the poet wrote a pamphlet with the t.i.tle, ”A full and true Account of a horrid and barbarous Revenge by Poison on the body of Edmund Curll.”

The three pieces in _Court Poems_ were claimed by Lady Mary as her own, but this claim was disputed. Pope declared himself the author of ”The Ba.s.set Table,” and it was printed among his works, and he a.s.serted that ”'The Toilet' is almost wholly Gay's,” there being ”only five or six lines in it by that lady.” ”The Toilet” is included in his collected edition of Gay's poems.

The whole matter is best explained by that sound student of the eighteenth century, ”George Paston,” who suggests that the truth seems to be that the verses were handed round in ma.n.u.script to be read and corrected by the writer's literary friends, and therefore they owe something to the different hands. ”George Paston” goes on to say: ”Lady Mary was not unaware of the danger of this proceeding, for Richardson the painter relates that on one occasion she showed Pope a copy of her verses in which she intended to make some trifling alterations, but refused his help, saying, 'No, Pope, no touching, for then whatever is good for anything will pa.s.s for yours, and the rest for mine.'”

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