Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/249

 Easter day 1782, when the 'palace' was completed, Mrs. Montagu invited her friends to a house-warming, and for more than ten years, with even greater zeal than of old, she organised breakfast and dinner parties and evening receptions all inconveniently crowded. She still adhered to some of her 'blue-stocking' proclivities, but in 1781 a depreciatory remark on the 'Dialogues of the Dead' in Johnson's 'Life of Lyttelton' caused a breach between Mrs. Montagu and the doctor (, iv. 64). 'Mrs. Montagu and her Msenades intend,' wrote Walpole, 'to tear him limb from limb.' But Mrs. Montagu still asked him to dinner, although she took little notice of him, and he regretfully confessed that she had dropped him. Among her friends of a newer generation, William Wilberforce [q. v.] spent a whole day with lier in 1789, and admired 'her many and great amiable qualities' (, Life of Wilberforce, 1839, i. 236). Early in June 1791 she entertained the king and queen (, ix. 325), and on 13 June she accommodated as many as seven hundred guests at breakfast in 'the feather room' (cf., Memoirs, v. 302). But mindful of her poorer neighbours, she invited the youthful chimney-sweepers of London to eat roast beef and plum pudding on the lawn before her house every May-day morning. She is 'the kind-hearted lady' commemorated in William Lisle Bowles's poem on the 'Little Sweep' (cf., Chimney Sweep Album ; , Poems, ed. Gilfillan, ii. 263).

To the world at large Mrs. Montagu's devotion to society in extreme old age excited much sarcasm. Her love of finery, which Johnson had excused as a pardonable foible, did not diminish. Samuel Rogers, who came to know her in her latest years, regarded her as 'a composition of art,' and as 'long attached to the trick and show of life' (, Early Life of Rogers, p. 173). Cumberland, in a paper called 'The Feast of Reason,' in his periodical 'The Observer,' No. 25, ridiculed her under the name of Vanessa (, ii. 208), and in February 1785, when she fell downstairs at a drawing-room, Jerningham penned some amusing verses (, vi. 251). Her friend Hannah More, on the other hand, described her in her last days as an affectionate, zealous, and constant friend, and an instructive and pleasant companion. Beattie wrote of her on receiving a false report of her death in March 1799 as 'a faithful and affectionate friend, especially in seasons of distress and difficulty' (, iii. 163). With members of her own family she was always on affectionate terms. A nephew, Matthewson of her brother, Morris Robinson, of the six clerks' office, who died in 1777 she brought up and amply provided for. He was her constant companion after her husband's death, taking her own surname of Montagu 3 June 1776 (cf., Life of Wilberforce, i. 236). In 1798, though she still entertained a few 'blue-stockings,' she was almost blind and very feeble (, vi. 211). She died at Montagu House on 25 Aug, 1800, within six weeks of her eightieth birthday. Her epitaph (she suggested) should record that she had done neither harm nor good, and only asked oblivion.

All her property, which was said to amount to 10,000l. a year, went to her nephew, Matthew Montagu. Born on 23 Nov. 1762, he entered parliament as M.P. for Bossiney in 1786, seconded the address in 1787, was elected for Tregony in 1790, and for St. Germains in 1806 and 1807 (cf., iv. 377 sq.) He succeeded his brother, Morris Robinson, as fourth Lord Rokeby in 1829, and died 1 Sept. 1831. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Charlton (d. 1817), he was father of Edward Montagu, fifth lord Rokeby (1787-1847), and of Henry Robinson Montagu, K.C.B. (1798-1883), a general in the army, who was the sixth and last lord Rokeby.

A miniature portrait of Mrs. Montagu, then Miss Robinson, in the character of Anne Boleyn, was painted by Zinke, and was engraved by R. Cooper. The engraving appears in Wraxall's 'Memoirs,' vol. i. A portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds belonged to the last lord Rokeby ; an engraving by Bartolozzi and a mezzotint by J. R. Smith are both valuable. A medallion portrait was engraved by Thomas Holloway for the 'European Magazine' (1800, pt. ii. p. 243).

Mrs. Montagu was a voluminous correspondent, writing with vivacity, but with too much prolixity to be altogether readable. William Windham, the statesman, commended the easy and natural yet sparkling style of her letters (Diary, 1866, p. 498). In 1809 Matthew Montagu, her nephew and executor, published two volumes of them. Two more volumes followed in 1813. The latest letter in this collection is one addressed to Mrs. Carter in September 1761. Her correspondence in later years, chiefly with her sister-in-law, Mary, wife of William Robinson, rector of Burghfield, Berkshire, and of Denton, Kent, was published in 1873 by Dr. Doran from the originals in the possession of Richard Bentley, the publisher. Of other extant letters by her, two to Lord Lyttelton, dated 1769, appear in the 'Grenville Correspondence' (iv. 425, 496) ; one to Mrs.