The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1870-05-11
A HUNDRED AND TiFTY YEARS
f AGO.
Graphic Picture Of English Society-
The Autobiography Of AsantArope.

Wortley Montagu has lately bee
printed. The writer was the onl,
son ofLady Mary Wortley Montagl
one of the most famous characters O
her times, and it will not be her som
fault il he does not become, through
this book. almost Oh quite as widely
known. 1t has been aptly character
lied as the work Of n misanthrope,
who dipped his caustic pen into gall
and vented his rage by striking, like a
mailman, right and left, al every one
who came within reach of his arm
He hates every one. He hates his
own mother, and, lastly, he evidently
hates himself, for the title page starts
off withthe %ominously dismal Hebrew
legend: "Let the day perish in
which 1 was born"
His own life was romantic enough,
even in its misanthropy. His father,
who was at one time a member of the
British Ministry, and afterward En-
bassador to Turkey, was a man of
learning and the friend of a ~literati of
his day. His mother was equally eel
ebrated for her beauty and her talent,
and will go down to fame, not only in
her own writings, but in the satirical
verse of Pope, whose suit she rejected
The son was unfortunate in being dis
liked and ill-treated by both his par
euts. He was left to the society of
meniais, picked up his education as
he could, and spent his life in a
dering about the world, a soured, dis
appointed, Discontinued man. He
has put the record of that life into
these pages, and a sorry record it is.
W. can best give an idea of the book
by a few extracts from it for every
page almost is Of the same character.
The very first paragraph Of the
very first chapter is devoted to his
mother, and here Is the picture he
draws Of the brilliant Lady Mary:
"Her heart, did 1 say? Alas! she
had no heart! What female wit ever
had? There was, it is true, a globu-
lar piece of flesh somewhere between
che right and left long, and this per-
formed the merely animal function
OF that noble organ, but resembled
its prototype only as a automaton
resemble a man. 1t was a
thing to look upon so fair
outside, and reflect how base and
black vas all within. The asp lurk-
ing under roses, the gilded chalice
filed with poison, the whited sepul-
cher covering rottenness-these are
hackneyed images, or 1 would have
likened her to one and all. Yet,
what more appropriate picture of
false man or heartIess woman than
last? How fine and smooth and
is that marble exteriori the
carving beautiful, the devices exqui-
site, the lines and curves breathing
grace, elegance and perfection; the
inscription eloquent of the angel that
lies beneath We lifted up the lid.
Pah! an ounce, no, q ton of civet to
sweeten the poisoned atmosphere, y
Let US replace the cover, moi scan too
the view of hall which is be-
held when human hearts or sepulchers
are opened"
This is the fitting prelude to over
i've hundred pages of his terrible in
vectiye. He expects to find hfs4
grandfather, the Duke of Kingston,
hell, with some misshappen, gi-
fox or colossal rat seated on
his dueal back, squirting him through
2erdition and glaring on him with
falpine eyes of fraud, cruelty, cum
and ~duplieity. l.
The first suitor's claims to the hand
his mother were that ''he was rot
on with every disorder that uubridIed
in the Court of King
Charles II, Of sacred memory, and
ais congregated yestais was snre to
.ntail upon the happy votary of morn
ng, noon and midnight pleasure !"
md that che had seen too many Bish
Dps to believe in God, too many pat
lots to believe IN honesty, and too
many Court virgins to believe in
chastity" His father, he says loved
TWO things with a devotion that never
"The first was his own dear
the second was his ewn darling
money. He ihpales Pope in one
Line by saying that he was the "dirti-
est little dwarf ofavarlet that ever
upon earth" Here are a few
of his pen-pictures of the celebrated
men of his mothers day. The Duke
of Buckingham was can atheist, a
libertine and a cheat" Prior was
~vain, sordid and sensual in his in
trigues." Congreve was Connected,
worthless, selfish and utterly profit
gate in his private life" Addison
was "a crawling sycophant, full of en-
Wy and spleen" Pope was "false as
a Jesuit, tickle as a fool, and mcrce-
nary as a waiting woman" In de-
scribing an interview between Pope
and his mother, which he witnessed,
he draws the following picture of the
laurels:
Suddenly I see a small, distorted
man, with a lean, haggard, monkey
face. clearing eyes, scarcely any hair,
a thin straight nose and coarse mouth
striding with a long ands play foot up
the walk; his back is bent, his body
crooked, his fingers long and like a
vulture's claws, his smile satirical,
hollow and sardonic, and his whole
appearance that of an obscene bird of
i'll omen. He is dressed in a black
velvet suit and leans on gold head
ed cane. This is Alexander Pope,
the great laureate of the fashionable
world, the Horace of the eighteenth
century, the ape-Appollo of the fair
and frivolous" las.
DIR. Young, the author of "Night
Thoughts" lie says, was ga sneaking
lying, dirty sycophant, who would
have any day licked the mud off the
boots of any Noble. Lord. or Lady