Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1725

Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 1800

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (26 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat and writer, chiefly remembered today for her letters.

Quotes

• Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,—
  In part she is to blame that has been tried:
  He comes too near that comes to be denied.
  • The Lady’s Resolve (1713). A fugitive piece, written on a window by Lady Montagu, after her marriage. Compare: "In part to blame is she, Which hath without consent bin only tride: He comes to neere that comes to be denide", Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613), A Wife, stanza 36.

• In response to Lady Mary Montague's line 'And we meet, with champagne and a chicken at last' (from Montague's poem 'The Lover: A Ballad'):
  "What say you to such a supper with such a woman? … Is not her 'champagne and chicken' worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry?"

--from Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life. Ed. Thomas Moore. Paris: A. and W. Gaglinani, 1830. p. 391.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Quotes reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;
  In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.
  • A Summary of Lord Lyttelton’s Advice.

• Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
  Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
  • To the Imitator of the First Satire of Horace, Book ii.

• But the fruit that can fall without shaking
  Indeed is too mellow for me.
  • The Answer.

External links

• Works by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at Project Gutenberg
• The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lord Wharncliffe (great-grandson), ed. 2 Vols. Third Edition, with Additions and Corrections Derived from the Original Manuscripts, Illustrative Notes, and a New Memoir By W. Moy Thomas. Henry G. Bohn, London: York Street, Covent Garden, 1861.
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Exhibition at The Graves Art Gallery Sheffield, 10 March until 3 June 2007.