Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/328

 (1702-13). Like his father he early interested himself in practical schemes of colonisation, and after the peace he set about a project which the war had deferred. On 19 June 1717 he received from the lords proprietors of Carolina a grant of land between the rivers Allatamaha and Savanna, and published a full prospectus of the method by which he proposed to settle the territory, which he called the Margravate of Azilia. His tract was entitled 'A Discourse concerning the designed Establishment of a New Colony to the South of Carolina,' 1717. On 20 Feb. 1718 the lords proprietors recommended him to the council as life governor of the southern part of Carolina; on attendance before the council he stated that he had raised 30,000l. among his friends, and needed no money from the crown. On 24 July the scheme was approved. But it seems never to have taken practical shape. It is doubtful whether he even went out to Carolina himself. Doubtless the assumption of the government by the crown a little later put an end to the project, for on 15 Sept. 1720 an application was made to the council to restrain action 'upon some advertisement now published by Sir Robert Montgomery,' which suggested that he was sending persons 'to the Golden Islands, one of which islands lies in the mouth of the River Allatamaha, which has been proposed to be secured.' In August 1731 he died in Ireland, and in the following year a new undertaker made the first effort to plant, under the name of Georgia, the territory which had belonged to Montgomery. He married Frances, eldest daughter of Colonel Francis Stirling; she died at Skelmorlie on 9 June 1759, leaving three daughters, one of whom,Lillias, inherited Coilsfield; she married Alexander Montgomerie, by whom she was mother of Hugh, twelfth earl of Eglinton [q. v.], and died at Coilsfield on 18 Nov. 1783. On Sir Robert's death his title devolved on his uncle, Sir Hugh Montgomery, M.P. for Glasgow, and became extinct on Sir Hugh's death, 14 Jan. 1735.

 MONTGOMERY, ROBERT (1807–1855), poetaster, born at Bath in 1807, was the natural son of Robert Gomery—'a most gentlemanly and well-informed man,' and for many years clown at the Bath Theatre—by 'a lady who kept a school at Bath, and who subsequently removed from that city and married a respectable schoolmaster.' Gomery afterwards married a Mrs. Power (whom he survived), and died at Walcot Buildings, Bath, on 14 June 1853. His last appearance on the Bath stage, as recorded by Genest (viii. 39, ix. 215), was as Master Heriot in the 'Fortunes of Nigel,' 7 Dec. 1822. The son was fairly well educated, at Dr. Arnot's school in his native town, became well known among his father's friends as a future Byron, and assumed the aristocratic prefix Mont. When about seventeen he founded a weekly paper at Bath called 'The Inspector,' which had a brief existence. His first considerable poem, 'The Stage Coach,' was written in 1827; it was followed in the same year by 'The Age Reviewed,' a satire upon contemporary mankind, in two parts. In 1828, with a dedication to Bishop Howley, appeared 'The Omnipresence of the Deity,' a poem which proved so acceptable to the religious sentiment of the day that it passed through eight editions in as many months. Prefixed to the later editions was a portrait of the youthful author (who is admitted by his detractors to have 'looked like a poet'), with open collar and upward gaze so arranged as to resemble as nearly as possible the well-known features of Byron. In the same year appeared another volume of blank verse, dedicated to Sharon Turner, and entitled 'A Universal Prayer; Death; a Vision of Heaven; and a Vision of Hell.' Inflated eulogies of these productions appeared in the chief London and provincial papers. Edward Clarkson, who reviewed them in the 'Sunday Times' and the 'British Traveller,' compared Montgomery with Milton. Southey, Bowles, Crabbe, and other men of letters hailed him as a rising poet of much promise; Southey afterwards wrote of him to Caroline Bowles (1832) as 'a fine young man who has been wickedly puffed and wickedly abused.'

There followed from his pen in rapid succession 'The Puffiad,' a satire (1830), and 'Satan, or Intellect without God,' a poem (1830). The last work commended itself strongly to the evangelical party (see Evangel. Mag. February 1830), and seemed likely to surpass in popularity all the poet's previous effusions. It ran through more editions, and suddenly elicited more contemporary fame than the publication of any poet since the death of Byron. Severe criticism was, however, by no means withheld. Montgomery was smartly denounced in the first volume of 'Fraser,' and he received a tolerably candid admonition from Wilson in 'Blackwood' (cf. London Monthly Review, cxvii. 30). But a sterner Nemesis was in store for him. In March 1830 Macaulay wrote to Macvey 