Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/256

 in ascribing to him the ‘Sixe Court Comedies,’ by John Lyly, and the ‘Exchange Walk;’ the former was published by Edward Blount [q. v.], the stationer and joint publisher with Jaggard of the first folio Shakespeare; the latter is, in all probability, a blundering reference to the ‘Exchange Ware,’ a dialogue acted at Cambridge, the second edition of which appeared in 1615.

On 21 March 1639–40 Blount was knighted at Whitehall by Charles I. In the civil wars he sided with the royalists, and attended the king at York, Edgehill, and at Oxford as one of the gentlemen pensioners. He was appointed on commissions on several occasions: on 20 Jan. 1651 to regulate abuses of the law, again on 1 Nov. 1655, on the trade and navigation of the Commonwealth, and once again on trade after the Restoration, 18 Oct. 1669. From this period until his death he appears to have lived in retirement at Tittenhanger, whence he circulated among his many friends the following: ‘I am glad to hear it was reported that I was dead, but give God thanks that I am in good health.’ His character has been variously estimated by different writers. Gildon, who edited the collected works of his son Charles Blount [q. v.], regarded him as ‘the Socrates of his age;’ on the other hand, the orthodox Weldon set him down as a ‘sceptic philosopher,’ whose adventures were written with a purpose. The truth seems to be that although apparently wanting in several qualities of a good traveller, he combined with a sturdy independence of thought keen powers of observation of men and manners. The modern flavour of the latter is quite refreshing. Speaking of the new palaces that were being built in and near Cairo during his sojourn in Egypt, he writes that they are those ‘of Turkes and such Egyptians as most engage against their own country, and so flourish in its oppression’ (p. 210). He died at Tittenhanger, 9 Oct. 1682, at the ripe age of eighty years, and was buried two days later at Ridge. His portrait was engraved by Loggan in 1679.

[Wotton's Eng. Baronetage, 1741–3, pt. 2, 663; Granger's Biog. Hist. of Eng., 1775, iv. 76; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), 1780, p. 1177; T. Warton's Life of Sir T. Pope, 1780, p. 207; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss); Cussan's Hist. of Herts, Hund. of Cashio, 1881, p. 28; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Report, Appendix 196 b, 1876.] 

BLOUNT, MARTHA (1690–1762), friend of Pope, was born on 15 June 1690, probably at the family seat, Mapledurham, near Reading (, Pope, p. 65 note). She was educated first at Hammersmith, doubtless at the Roman catholic convent there, and afterwards in the Rue Boulanger, Paris. Her father was Lister Blount, and her family had long been of the highest position among Roman catholic gentry. It is not known when Miss Blount and Pope first met. Her family and his were in close friendship in 1710, in which year her father and her maternal grandfather died, both on the same day; from a story which she told Spence (, Anecdotes, p. 356), it may be assumed that Pope and she were in the habit of meeting on easy terms as early as about 1705. From 1710 to 1715 Miss Blount continued to live at Mapledurham with her widowed mother, her brother Michael, and her sister Teresa. During this period she and her sister were prominent figures in the fashionable world. In 1712 Pope sent them his ‘Rape of the Lock’ and his ‘Miscellany’ (, p. 79); in 1713 the sisters were corresponding with James Moore Smythe, author of the comedy ‘The Rival Modes’ (ibid. p. 70), he as Alexis, Teresa as Zephalinda, and Martha as Parthenissa; in 1714 Pope wrote to Martha from Bath that if she would come she would be the best mermaid in Christendom; in 1715 he had two fans painted for the sisters. Gay called them ‘two lovely sisters’ (Gay to Pope, Welcome from Greece), Pope spoke of their ‘endless smiles’ (Epistle to Jervas, line 61) and of Martha's ‘resistless charms’ (his Epistle to her with Voiture's works, line 59). In their portraits, still at Mapledurham, where they appear arm in arm, they both look very charming.

If Miss Blount's brother had died unmarried, Mapledurham would have become her property. But in 1715 Michael Blount married Mary Agnes, coheir of Sir J. Tichborne, and Martha with her mother and sister thenceforth had a country residence at Petersham, costing 20l. a year, and a town house, at one time in Bolton Street, at another in Welbeck Street (Pope to Caryll, 6 May 1733). The change in her fortunes called out Pope's warm pity. He had reason, too, to think that her mother, sister, and brother treated her unkindly; and though at first he was the friend of both sisters, having even settled 40l. a year on Teresa in 1717 for six years (, p. 75), he quarrelled with the latter lady before long, and showed so much preference and partisanship for Martha, that it was the cause of rumours which seriously affected her honour. His ‘Birthday Poem’ to her in 1723 strengthened these rumours; his letters, however, vehemently declared them to be false (to Caryll, Christmas Day, 1725, &c.), and he attributed the scandal to