Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/245

 in the autumn of 1762, and wintered in Egypt, where he went through the ceremony of marriage with Caroline Dormer, the Irish Roman catholic wife of one Feroe, a protestant merchant of Danish nationality, settled at Alexandria. In Feroe's absence he induced her to believe him dead. He then took her with him to Cairo, and on her discovering the ruse quieted her scruples of conscience by the assurance that her marriage with the Dane, which had been solemnised in Italy, was null and void by reason of the difference of faith, and promising to get it so declared. Pursued by the Dane, the pair travelled by the supposed route of the Exodus to Sinai, and thence to Jerusalem, where on 26 Nov. 1764 Montagu was received into the church of Rome. He then parted with the lady, leaving her in a convent on Mount Lebanon, while he visited Armenia and returned to Italy. He reached Venice in September 1765, and passed the winter at Pisa, whence he communicated to the Royal Society a narrative of his journey from Cairo to Sinai (Phil. Trans. Ivi. 40 et seq. and cf. Gent. Mag. 1767, pp. 374, 401). He afterwards visited Leghorn, and having instituted the process for obtaining the decree of nullity, returned to the Levant, and rejoined the lady. From Zante in 1767 he communicated to the Royal Society 'New Observations on what is called Pompey's Pillar in Egypt,' the date of which he assigned to a period subsequent to the reign of Vespasian (Phil. Trans. lvii. 438). He was at Smyrna with his mistress in 1769 when the decree was pronounced. The pair afterwards lived at Rosetta in Egypt, but separated in 1772, Montagu having become enamoured of a fair Nubian. While in the East he conformed to the Turkish regimen, religion, and costume. In 1775 he was at Venice, where he continued to live like a Turk, and received visitors squatting on the floor. Among them was the painter, George Romney, who painted a half-length portrait of him in his oriental costume, now in the possession of Lord Wharncliffe. A crayon sketch of his head by the same artist appears to be lost (see frontispieces to Moy Thomas's edition of the Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1861, vol. ii. and Europ. Mag. 1793 ; and cf. Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, &c., by Gainsborough and Romney, 1891).

While at Venice Montagu heard of the death of his wife, and was on his way home with the intention of marrying, when he died at Padua on 29 April 1776. His death is said to have been due to the swallowing of a fish-bone. He was buried in the cloister of the Eremetani, Padua. An obscene advertisement for a wife, which appeared in the 'Public Advertiser' of 16 April 1776, was supposed to have been inserted by him. He left several illegitimate children, for whom he provided by his will. Montagu had a handsome person and lively parts. His linguistic faculty was extraordinary and his conversational powers great. He is said to have possessed, and perhaps did pretend to possess, the power of divination. His loose and roving life made him the hero of much vulgar and indecent romance. There is little doubt that he was more or less insane. A portrait by Romney is in the possession of the Earl of Wharncliffe ; another by Peters was engraved by J. R. Smith in 1776.

Montagu's narrative of the affair with the Jew at Paris appeared in French as 'Mémoire pour Edouard Wortley Montagu, Membre du Parlement d'Angleterre, contre Abraham Payba, se disant Jacques Roberts,' Paris, 1752, 4to. An English translation appeared the same year, with the title 'Memorial of Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq. Written by himself in French, and published lately at Paris against Abraham Payba, a Jew by birth, who assumed the name of James Roberts,' London, 8vo. In connection with this affair there also appeared 'The Sentence of the Lieutenant Criminal at Paris in the Extraordinary Cause between Abraham Payba, alias James Roberts, Plaintiff, and Edward Wortley Montagu and Theobald Taafie, Esqrs., Members of the Hon. House of Commons, Defendants,' London, 1752, 8vo ; and 'A Memorial or Humble Petition presented to the Judges in the High Court of the Tournelle in Paris by the Honourable Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq., Member of Parliament for the County of Huntingdon, and Theobald Taaffe, Esq., Member of Parliament for Arundel, against Abraham Payba, alias James Roberts, and Louis Pierre, Jeweller, appealing from the Sentence given in favour of the said Roberts and Pierre the 14th June, 1752.' Translated from the original, printed at Paris, London (no date), 8vo. Some of Montagu's letters are printed in Seward's 'Anecdotes,' 1804, ii. 404-18, in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes,' iv. 64 et seq., and ix. 792 et seq., and Winckelmann's 'Briefe,' ed. Förster, iii. 122 ; others are preserved in Add. MSS. 32703 f. 483, 32718 f. 3, 32805 f. 23, 32831 ff. 121, 123, 32832 f. 215, 32833 f. 163. (See also Add. MS. 21416, ff. 52, 60, and Eg. MS. 2002, ff. 134, 136, 145-55, 191.) During a tour in Epirus and Thessaly he 'took exact plans of Actium and Pharsalia,' now lost. While at Rosetta he translated Veneroni's 'Dialogues' into Arabic. He is said to have written an 'Explication of the