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 768 MONTAGU MONTAGUE cousin. Her beauty and wit made her the pet of her father, and she acquired the elements of Greek, Latin, and French under the tuition of her brother's preceptors. At the age of 12 she wrote a poetical epistle from Julia to Ovid ; at 15 she was meditating the establishment of an English nunnery, and was correcting her edu- cation by extensive reading ; at 20 she made a translation of the Enchiridion of Epictetus. Meantime she lived principally at Thoresby and at Acton, near London, and as the eldest daughter of a widower presided at the dinner table and exerted her social powers in the entertainment of guests. In 1712 she was privately married to Edward Wortley Mon- tagu. A disagreement concerning the settle- ments had caused the duke of Kingston to with- hold his consent, and the union did not prove happy. They lived in the country till after the accession of George I. in 1714, when Mr. Mon- tagu joined the ministry as one of the lords of the treasury. Lady Mary, on her first appear- ance at St. James's, was hailed with univer- sal admiration, as much for her conversation as for her beauty. In 1716 she accompanied her husband to Constantinople, whither he was sent as ambassador to the Porte and as consul general in the Levant. Her letters descriptive of the court and society of Vienna, and the scenery and customs of the East, which rank among the choicest publications of their class, were published surreptitiously after her death (3 vols., 1763), under circumstances which af- forded no guarantee for their authenticity; this, however, is in general proved by the co- incidences of style with her other writings, though the text has been tampered with and spurious letters introduced; a fourth volume was published in 1767. At Belgrade she first observed the practice of inoculation for the smallpox, by which malady she had lost an only brother and her own fine eyelashes. In 1718 she applied the process after earnest ex- amination to her son and daughter; and on her return to England the experiment was tried at her suggestion on five persons under sentence of death. The success of the trial did not prevent the most violent clamors against the innovation. On returning to Eng- land she had taken up her residence at Twick- enham, at the solicitation of Pope, who had been one of her most intimate correspon- dents. A rupture soon took place between them, according to her statement, because she could not refrain from laughter when at an ill- chosen moment he was solemnly and passion- ately making love to her ; and from that time he treated her with constant malice. She wrote many witty verses. In 1739 her health was declining in consequence of a cancer which ultimately proved fatal, and she went abroad. She took up her abode in a deserted palace on the shores of Lake Iseo, in Lombardy, and af- terward in the city of Venice, where she was residing when her husband died in 1761. She then returned to England, and died within a year. The best edition of her "Letters and Works" (3 vols., London, 1837), by. her great- grandson Lord Wharncliffe, containing full biographical notices, was critically revised for Bohn's "Historical Library" by Moy Thomas (1861). Her letters were edited by Mrs. 8. J. Hale (New York, 1856). MONTAGUE, a N. county of Texas, separated from Indian territory by Red river ; area, 900 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 890, of whom 24 were colored. There are some good bottom lands on Red river. The chief productions in 1870 were 2,473 bushels of wheat, 41,715 of Indian corn, 4,933 of oats, and 21,200 Ibs. of but- ter. There were 383 horses, 687 milch cows, 10,182 other cattle, and 5,093 swine. MONTAGUE, Charles, earl of Halifax, a British statesman, born at Horton, Northamptonshire, April 16, 1661, died May 19, 1715. His father was a younger son of the earl of Manchester. Charles was destined for the church, and was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge. He wrote there in 1685 some verses on the death of King Charles II., and in 1687 joined Prior in the composition of a parody in prose and verse on Dryden's " Hind and Panther " under the title of " The Hind and the Panther Transversed to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse." He signed in 1688 the invitation to the prince of Orange, was a member of the convention parliament, and soon afterward, having married the countess dowager of Man- chester, gave up the church, and purchased the place of one of the clerks of the council. In 1690 he was again returned to the house of commons, where for some years his life was a series of triumphs. He was soon called to the treasury board and the privy council, and in 1694 was appointed chancellor of the ex- chequer, in reward for having devised the es- tablishment of the bank of England, the plan of which had been proposed by William Pat- erson, three years before, but not acted upon. Montague was the originator of the great re- coinage act (1695), of exchequer bills (1696), and of the tax on windows. On May 1, 1697 r he was made first lord of the treasury, and ap- pointed one of the regency during the king's absence on the continent ; but on the reorgan- ization of the ministry in 1699 he was removed to the auditorship of the exchequer. In 1700 he was created Baron Halifax. In April, 1701, he was impeached by the commons, togeth- er with Portland,- Oxford, and Somers, for ad- vising the king to sign the partition treaties and for other alleged offences ; but the prose- cution was dropped. After the accession of Queen Anne he was accused by the lower house of breach of trust in his management of the public accounts while chancellor of the exchequer ; but he again escaped by the pro- tection of the house of lords. He proposed and negotiated the union with Scotland in 1707, and was one of the judges in Sachever- ell's trial, when he voted for a mild sentence. On the death of the queen he acted as one of