Biographical Sketch Edward Wortley Montague

A FEW PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE LATE EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGUE, ESQ.

Reprinted from February 1810 La Belle Assemblee at 70-72.

Though many particulars have been published respecting this extraordinary man, the son of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montague, yet we have no doubt that the following account will be interesting to our readers.

As this gentleman was remarkable for the uncommon incidents which attended his life, the close of that life was no less marked with singularity. He had been early married to a woman, who aspired to no higher character than that of an industrious washerwoman. As the marriage was solemnized in a frolic, Wortley never deemed her sufficiently the wife of his bosom to cohabit with her; she was allowed a maintenance, and lived contented; she was too submissive to be troublesome on account of the conjugal rites. Wortley, on the other hand, was a perfect Patriarch in his manners; he had wives of almost every nation. When he was with Ali Bey in Egypt, he had his household of Egyptian females, each striving who should be the happy she, who would gain the greatest ascendency over this Anglo-eastern Bashaw. At Constantinople the Grecian women had charms to captivate this unsettled wanderer; in Spain a brunette; in Italy the olive complexioned female, were solicited to partake the honours of the bridal bed. It may be asked what became of this group of wives? Mr. Montague was continually shifting the place and constantly varying the scene. did he travel with his wives? No such thing; Wortley considering his wives as bad traveling companions, generally left them behind him. It happened, however, that news reached the ears of the death of the original Mrs. Montaue, the washerwoman. Wortley had no issue by her; and without issue male a very large estate would revert to the second son of the Earl of Bute. Wortley owing the family, as he had conjectured, no obligations, was determined, if possible, to defeat their expectations. He resolved to return to England and marry; he acquainted a friend with his intentions, and commissioned him to advertise accordingly. The advertisement appeared in one of the Morning Papers; was answered, and a person selected. The lady impatiently waited the arrival of the expected bridegroom, but whilst he was on his journey, death arrested him in his career. Thus ended the days of this celebrated person, a man who had passed through such variegated scenes, that a bare recital of them would savour of the marvelous. From Westminster school, wherein he was placed for education, he ran away three several times. He exchanged cloaths with a chimney-sweeper, and followed for some time the sooty occupation. He next joined himself to a fisherman, and cried flounders in Rotherhithe. He then sailed as a cabin boy to Spain, where he had no sooner arrived than he ran away from the vessel, and hired himself to a driver of mules. After thus vagabonding it for some time, he was discovered by the British Consul who returned him to his friends in England. He was next sent to the West Indies, where he remained some time, then came back, acted agreeably to the dignity of his illustrious descent, was chosen a member, and served in two successive parliaments. His expences exceeding his income, he became of course involved in debt. He quitted one more his native country, and commenced that wandering traveler which he continued to the day of his death. Having visited most of the eastern countries, he contracted a partiality for their manners. He drank little wine, a great deal of coffee, wore a long beard, smoked much, and even whilst at Venice, he was habited in the eastern style; he sat cross-legged, in the Turkish fashion, through choice. With the Hebrew, the Arabic, the Chaldaic, and the Persian languages he was as well acquainted as with his native tongue. He published several pieces, one “On the rise and Fall of the Ancient Republics,” another ‘An Exploration of the Causes of Earthquakes.” He had great natural abilities, and a vast share of acquired knowledge.

“On of the most curious sights,” says Sharpe in his Travels through Italy, “we saw in Venice, was the famous Mr. Wortley Montague, who was performing quarantine at the Lazaretto. All the English made a point of paying him their compliments in that place, and he seemed not a little pleased with their attentions. It may be supposed that visitors are not suffered to approach the person who is performing quarantine; they are divided by a passage of about seven or eight feet wide. Mr. Montague was just arrived from the East; he had traveled through the Holy Land, Egypt, Armenia, &c. with the Old and New Testament his hands for his directions, which he told us had proved unerring guides. He had particularly taken the road of the Israelites through the wilderness, and had observed the part of the Red Sea which they had passed through. He had visited Mount Sinai, and flattered himself he had been on the very part of the rock where Moses spoke face to face with God Almighty. His beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half’s growth, and the dress of his head was Armenian. He was in the most enthusiastic raptures with Arabia and the Arabs; his bed was the ground, his food rice, his beverage water, his luxury a pipe and coffee. His purpose was to return once more amongst that virtuous people whose morals and hospitality, he said, were such, that were you to drop your cloak on the highway, you would find it there six months afterwards, an Arab being too honest a man to pick up what he knows belongs to another; and were you to offer him money for the provision you meet with, he would ask you with concern, why you had so mean an opinion of his benevolence, to suppose him capable of receiving a gratification; therefore money (said he) in that country is of very little use, as it is only necessary for the purchase of garments, which in so warm a climate are very few and of very little value. He distinguishes, however, betwixt the wild and civilized Arabs, and proposes to publish an account of all I have written.”

The following extract is from a letter of the writer of this article to his sister, dated Dec. 29, 1765.

“Mr. Campbell dined on Monday at the Earl of Hardwicke’s, in St. James’s-square where my Lord and his Lady the Marchioness of Grey reside. He was prodigiously struck with the grandeur and elegance of their magnificent and princely mansion. It was built by the Marchioness’s grandfather, the Duke of Kent, and is one vast cabinet of pictures, statues, bronzes, vases, and the choicest pieces of art and nature; the tables are of the finest stones, and are covered with figures incumbent and other attitudes, every niche is filled with something rare and costly. He numbered twenty-two pictures in the room in which they dined, among others the famous portrait of the great Lord Admiral Nottingham, by Vandyke; this gallant nobleman commanded the English fleet that defeated the invincible armada in the days of the glorious Queen Elizabeth. It was merely a literary dinner, there being no company only the Rev. Dr. Birch, one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society, and Dr. Watson of Lincoln’s-inn-fields, a very ingenious physician. The latter produced a very curious letter which he had just received from Mr. Wortley Montague, dated at Pisa, Dec. 2, 1765, which took an hour and three quarters to go through. It certainly was worthy of its learned author, and perhaps few except himself could have penned it, what I heard would occupy no small space was it placed upon paper. He purposes returning again into the East as soon as he hath consulted some books in the Vatican library at Rome. He has suffered his beard to grow to such a length that it reaches his breast; it is white as snow, and he who was heretofore not accounted the most handsome, is now reputed to be so, and to look very graceful with that which one would have imagined must have produced a contrary effect.  He speaks the Arabic tongue equally well with the natives, has learned their different dialects, sits on the ground in their manner, eats as they do, and conforms himself as much as possible to their customs. This, and his long beard, has proved of wonderful service to him in his travels in the desert, and elsewhere, the Arabs treating him with uncommon distinction, for the great deference he has shewn to the Eastern manners, styling him the English Sheik, and affording him every assistance in their power. You are not ignorant of the profligate life this gentleman has led, yet any one who heard that letter read would believe he was the best of men, and the best Christian this world ever produced. His observations on the rock which Moses struck when the Israelites clamoured for water, are very fine; and though so many have wrote before on the subject, none have touched it in so masterly a manner. He says the rents made in the stone on that occasion bear a polish so truly wonderful as to exceed any thing that can be performed by the finest tool. He has also remarked, what was never noticed by any, that the place in the Red Sea which the Children of Israel crossed when the waters divided, as also that into which those waters discharged themselves which gushed from the rock in consequence of the stroke, are still distinguished by two riplings, as lasting proofs of the stupendous miracles which God wrought on those occasions; he has copied the inscriptions on the written mountains some of which he inserted in his letter; these being in Hebrew, the Doctors passed them over, they not understanding that language. Mr. Campbell desired to have the letter given him, when he read them with ease, being acquainted with the Chaldaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, and other Oriental tongues. This raised him highly in the opinion of the Marchioness; and what still added thereto, was, that at some pages distant, Mr. Montague, apprehensive that they would be puzzled with the old Hebrew, had himself inserted a translation, which, excepting in one instance was literally the same with Mr. Campbell’s; Mr. Montague in his translation had substituted Christ for Messiah;  now it seems there is no such word as Christ in the Hebrew, our Redeemer being constantly styled the Messiah throughout the Bible. He has besides collected such stores of knowledge that it is very doubtful whether he will have length of days sufficient to give them to the world.”

Mr. Montague died on his way from Venice to England about May or June 1776.