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S the world is, and will be, 't is a sort of duty to be rich," wrote Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and her words—which sound almost ascetic in our ears—were held to be of doubtful morality in the godless eighteenth century which she adorned and typified. Even Lady Mary endeavoured to qualify their greed by explaining that she valued money because it gave her the power to do good; but her hard-headed compatriots frankly doubted this excusatory clause. They knew perfectly well that a desire to do good is not, and never has been, a motive power in the acquisition of wealth.

Lady Mary did render her country one inestimable service; but her fortune (which, after all, was of no great magnitude) had nothing whatever 227