Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/137

 Rh being translated into any other language. Your form and manner would seduce Apollo himself on his throne of criticism on Parnassus."

Lord Lyttelton was perhaps more remarkable for amiability than for judgment; but Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who wrote good letters himself, ardently admired Mrs. Montagu's, and pronounced her "the Madame du Deffand of the English capital." Cowper meekly admitted that she stood at the head "of all that is called learned," and that every critic "veiled his bonnet before her superior judgment." Even Dr. Johnson, though he despised the "Dialogues," and protested to the end of his life that Shakespeare stood in no need of Mrs. Montagu's championship, acknowledged that the lady was well-informed and intelligent. "Conversing with her," he said, "you may find variety in one"; and this charming phrase stands now as the most generous interpretation of her fame. It is something we can credit amid the bewildering nonsense which was talked and written about a woman whose hospitality dazzled society, and whose assertiveness dominated her friends.