Note 52 — STRAWBERRY HILL.

Lady M. W. Montagu’s letters, judged by the conventional standard of modern refinement, must be deemed occasionally vulgar, coarse, and indelicate; but they are clever, spirited, and easy, and invaluable for the traits of manners they have preserved of her own times. Her anecdotes of her friends, Moll Skerratt, Peg Pelham, Biddy Noel, and the pretty fellows,—her lady-like remedy against spleen, galloping all day, and champagne at night,—are exquisite. Her account also of the state of morals, in those good old times, is worth quoting:—“When honour, virtue, and reputation, are laid aside like crumpled ribbons, the forlorn state of matrimony is as much ridiculed by young ladies as by young fellows.”—See her Letters, Vol. I.

It is worth adding, that Lady Mary was so sensible of the superiority of her own letters over those of her contemporaries, that she makes the following prophecy of their future success:—“The last pleasant work that fell in my way, was Madame de Sévigné’s Letters: very pretty they are; but I assure you, without the least vanity, that mine will be full as interesting in forty years.”