upon him by small critics and poor poets, and dexterously turned them to the advantage of his own renown. But to be beaten by a woman with his own weapons, and with no more expenditure of labour or pains than might be bestowed in a chance minute snatched during a journey at an inn; to be represented as laughed out of countenance, and out of all his fine sentimentalism and artificial moralizings, in the presence of an audience who enjoyed his discomfiture, was an offence which Pope's sensitive and spiteful nature could not easily forgive. It was with Lady Mary too common a practice to exercise her wit at the expense of friends, and to be afterwards surprised at their resentment, for us to wonder at the simplicity with which, if these suppositions be correct, she induced persons to inquire what was the cause of his ill-will. Pope would naturally avoid the confession that her satire had wounded him; but the offence appears to reveal itself in his allusions to her as "that dangerous thing, a female wit," as one who had "too much wit" for him; and particularly in his note to the Dunciad, declaring that the offensive passage which had been supposed to refer to Lady Mary, was intended to apply to all "bragging travellers." Of the existence of his ill feeling she had soon convincing proof. The Capon's Tale, written by Pope or Swift, or both, and published in their Miscellany, appears

66

to have been the first attack. Then followed the allusion to Lady Marys" in the Dunciad, 1728, which was at once fixed upon her by Curll, and to which Pope subsequently appended an insulting note. Pope accused her of retaliating in "A Pop upon Pope," and appears to have suspected her of having had a hand in a libel called "One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope," published in 1730; which explains the appearance of a still more savage attack in his Imitation of the first Satire of the Second Book of Horace, under the name of Sappho. Pope, indeed, denied that the satire referred to her; but his readers so applied it, which served his purpose; and there can now be little doubt of the insincerity of his denial. After this, attacks, or what were understood by the public as attacks, both upon herself and her husband, were frequent; and the popularity of Pope's Satires at length rendered her so conspicuous, that she may well have become disgusted with that scene from which she soon afterwards finally retired.

Two obscure allusions in Pope's writings, to a "debt denied" by Lady Mary, and a "French wit" whom he charges her with

having "cheated" of " £5000 in the South Sea year" have since been to some extent elucidated by the statements of Horace Walpole, and the publication of the letters to Lady Mar. The facts, however, are still imperfectly known, and they require further explanation than can be obtained from those letters.

The statement of Horace Walpole, who had been permitted to read the letters to Lady Mar in manuscript, is, that—

"Ten of the letters indeed are dismal lamentations and frights, on a scene of villany of Lady Mary's, who, having persuaded one Ruremonde, a Frenchman and her lover, to entrust her with a large sum of money to buy stock for him, frightened him out of England by persuading him that Mr. Wortley had discovered the intrigue, and would murder him, and then would have sunk the trust."

That this is an untruthful representation of the case upon the authority of the letters, the reader may himself ascertain; but the terror which Lady Mary displays lest her persecutor should fulfil his threat of acquainting Mr. Wortley with the facts, or publishing her letters to the world, is not calculated to relieve her from the supposition of great impropriety of conduct; and it is not surprising that writers who have possessed no other evidence upon the subject, should have come to a conclusion unfavourable to her. The name of the person referred to in the letters by the initial R., is only once mentioned in the correspondence with Lady Mar, and as Walpole had no other source of information, he must have noted it incorrectly, the real name being, not Ruremonde, but Rémond. He was, as Pope says, 66 a French wit," though in a small way. If, as may be assumed, the poem referred to as "Rémond's Alexias," which Broome professes to imitate in some verses in Pope's Miscellany in 1712, was by him, Pope knew him at least by name. He was of a good family in France, son of a gentleman well known in his day by the sobriquet of "Rémond le Diable," of whom and his family some account will be found in the Armorial General. Another son of Rémond le Diable was better known as a mathematician and philosopher, and was a correspondent of Sir Isaac Newton and other English savants, whom he visited in England. As a friend of the Abbé Conti, he was probably also known to Lady Mary. His brother the "French wit," who more immediately concerns

us, appears, from the account in the Armorial, to have been in his forty-fifth year at the time of his supposed intimacy with Lady Mary. He is described by St. Simon as a little, stunted, or unfinished man, with a large nose, big round staring eyes, coarse ugly features, and a hoarse voice. "He had," says his portrayer,

a great deal of wit, some reading, and taste for letters, and was a maker of verses: but he had still more of impudence, self-conceit, and contempt for others. He piqued himself upon being an adept in everything-prose, poetry, philosophy, history, even gallantry: a circumstance which involved him in many ridiculous adventures, and made him the object of many jeers." Such was the suppposed lover of Lady Mary. What was the nature of those letters which she had written, and the threat to expose which to the world filled her with so much alarm, can only now be inferred; but the letters from Rémond to Lady Mary are still existing. The whole series evidently passed, at some time, into the hands of her husband, who has indorsed each one in his own handwriting, with a synopsis of its contents. It may be inferred, therefore, that, exasperated by Lady Mary's refusal to comply with his demands for money, Rémond, whose first letter to Mr. Wortley she had succeeded in intercepting, finally found means of executing his threat, and that Lady Mary thereupon placed in her husband's hands the letters referred to, in her own justification. They reveal with unmistakable clearness the true character of their relations. It appears from them that M. Rémond began his correspondence, and reached a very high pitch in that style of exalted gallantry in which "French wits" and English wits were then so accomplished, many months before he had ever seen the object of his compliments. The first of his letters is dated "Paris, April 20, 1718," a time when she was at Constantinople, and begins as follows:

“I have never had, and in all probability never shall have, the

1 The passage in St. Simon is as follows: "Ce fils était un petit homme qui n'était pas achevé de faire . . . avec un gros nez, de gros yeux ronds sortant, de gros vilains traits, et une voix enrouée comme un homme réveillé en pleine nuit en sursaut. Il avait beaucoup d'esprit, il avait aussi de la lecture, et des lettres, et faisait des vers. Il avait encore plus d'effronterie, d'opinion de soi, et de mépris des autres. piquait de tout savoir, prose, poésie, philosophie, histoire, même galanterie; ce qui lui procura force ridicules aventures et brocards."-Edit. Paris, 1829, 8vo, xvii. 306.

Il se

honour of seeing you. I am, however, unable to restrain myself from writing to you. The Abbé C. [Conti], who is a particular friend of mine, has confided to me a letter written to him by you from Constantinople. I have read it, and read it again, a hundred times. I have made a copy of it, and leave it neither day nor night. Observe my vanity. In that letter alone I have fancied myself capable of perceiving the singularity of your character and the infinite charms of mind." 1 your

Other letters follow, in which M. Rémond intermingles expressions no less fervid with dissertations upon the ancients, and copious allusions to Plato, Terence, Sir Isaac Newton, the Island of Calypso, Horace, and Homer. After a while prosaic allusions to money affairs and worldly hankerings after prospective gains in South Sea stocks, then at their height, are permitted to adulterate the pure stream of French gallantry and "wit." The lady's influence and supposed good information, which appear to have induced her to speculate herself to a considerable degree, are invoked, in the hope of their proving fruitful of shares at enormous premiums. Then follow thanks for "that friendship which induces you to condescend to the details of my domestic affairs; and for the advice which you give me for retrieving my little tottering fortune." It is, fortunately for the reader, not necessary to quote largely from M. Rémond's letters. It may be supposed that Lady Mary, in her brief sojourn in Paris, on her way home from Constantinople, met her admirer, who was an acquaintance of her sister Lady Mar, and of her friends Lord Stair and the Abbé Conti: there is evidence in the letters of that visit to England of which Lady Mary speaks, and which was immediately followed by the rupture between them; but the only letter necessary to clear her of the inferences of Pope and Walpole is the last of the series, written after Rémond had finally

"Je n'ai jamais eu l'honneur de vous voir, et vraisemblablement je ne l'aurai jamais. Cependant je vous écris sans pouvoir m'en empêcher. Monsieur l'Abbé C. [Conti], qui est particulièrement de mes amis, m'a confié une lettre que vous lui avez écrite de Constantinople. Je l'ai lue, je l'ai relue cent fois. Je l'ai copiée, et je ne la quitte ni jour ni nuit. Voyez ma vanité. Sur cette seule lettre j'ai cru connaître la singularité de votre caractère et les agréments infinis de votre esprit."

2 "Cette amitié qui vous fait descendre jusqu'au détail de mes affaires domestiques, ces conseils que vous me donnez pour assurer ma petite fortune chancelante."

quitted her and returned to France. It is dated" 4th September," and is indorsed by Mr. Wortley: "Mr. Rémond, after his return to Paris. His loss by the Mississippi, and his small gain in England. Advises to realise." It begins as follows:

"At last I am in Paris. I do not regret the climate or the society of England, but the conversation of a few personsparticularly yours, which I enjoyed but rarely. . . . If you ever come to France (it is indeed a beautiful country), you will be more satisfied with me than I have reason to be with you. 'All this is not by way of complaint. I know that English ladies are incapable of friendship and of love. I care little about the folly of the one, but I was very sensible of the pleasure of the other. I shall love you without exacting a return,” &c.1

After reading these letters in the handwriting of her accuser, there is no reason, notwithstanding Lady Mary's natural alarm at his threats, to doubt the truth of her account of the matter, which will be found in the earlier letters of the section addressed to Lady Mar, or the correctness of Lord Wharncliffe's suggestion that her dread of exposure arose from the fact that her letters. would have revealed to her husband, whose strict principles on money matters are conspicuous in his letters, the extent of her secret and imprudent ventures in the disastrous South Sea bubble. To this must of course be added a dread of the ridicule

-the sarcasms and the ballads—which would inevitably have followed the public exposure of her letters, however innocent, and to which none are more sensitive than than those who are themselves prone to indulge in such amusements.

No one of the charges which have been made against Lady Mary had less foundation than that of her having behaved ill to her sister Lady Mar. It appeared, like nearly all of these

1 Enfin me voici à Paris. Je ne regrette point le climat ni la société d'Angleterre, mais bien la conversation de quelques personnes, surtout la vôtre, dont je n'ai joui que rarement. . . . Si vous venez jamais en France (en vérité c'est un beau pays) vous serez plus contente de moi que je n'ai dû être content de vous. Tout cela n'est pas pour me plaindre. Je sais que les dames anglaises sont incapables d'amitié et d'amour. Je ne me soucie guère de la foli de l'un mais je suis fort sensible à la douceur de l'autre. Je vous aimerai sans exiger de retour."