148-536: Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature , Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock , The Dunciad , and An Essay on Criticism , and for his translations of Homer . Pope
296-477: A Turkish bath , which are reserved for both diversion and health. In a letter, she wrote, "They [Ottoman women] generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours, without getting cold immediately coming out of the hot bath into the cold room, which was surprising to me." She also recorded a particularly amusing incident in which a group of Turkish women at a bath in Sofia , horrified by
444-404: A book was printed by an unknown author under the pseudonym "Sophia, a person of quality", titled Woman not Inferior to Man . This book is often attributed to Lady Mary. Her Letters and Works were published in 1837. Montagu's octogenarian granddaughter Lady Louisa Stuart contributed to this, anonymously, an introductory essay titled "Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M. W. Montagu", from which it
592-583: A brief epistolary novel , and a prose-and-verse romance modelled after Aphra Behn 's Voyage to the Isle of Love (1684). She also corresponded with two bishops, Thomas Tenison and Gilbert Burnet , who supplemented the instruction of the governess. Overall, Mary impressed her father, who was not a scholar, with her progress. By 1710, Lady Mary had two possible suitors to choose from: Edward Wortley Montagu (born 8 February 1678) and Clotworthy Skeffington . The friendship between Lady Mary and Edward Wortley Montagu,
740-623: A calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. In England , Wales , Ireland and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from 25 March ( Lady Day , the Feast of the Annunciation ) to 1 January,
888-535: A change which Scotland had made in 1600. The second discarded the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days in the month of September to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start-of-year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate
1036-451: A child Pope survived once being trampled by a cow , but when he was 12 he began struggling with tuberculosis of the spine ( Pott disease ), which restricted his growth, so that he was only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres) tall as an adult. He also suffered from crippling headaches. In the year 1709, Pope showcased his precocious metrical skill with the publication of Pastorals , his first major poems. They earned him instant fame. By
1184-530: A coach and six at seven o'clock to-morrow." The marriage license is dated 17 August 1712, and the marriage probably took place on 23 August 1712. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Edward Wortley Montagu spent the first years of their married life in England. She had a son, Edward Wortley Montagu the younger , named after his father Edward Wortley Montagu, on 16 May 1713, in London. On 13 October 1714, her husband accepted
1332-444: A concerted propaganda assault against Robert Walpole 's Whig ministry and the financial revolution it stabilised. Although Pope was a keen participant in the stock and money markets, he never missed a chance to satirise the personal, social and political effects of the new scheme of things. From The Rape of the Lock onwards, these satirical themes appear constantly in his work. In 1731, Pope published his "Epistle to Burlington ", on
1480-400: A continuance of Pope's tradition – William Wordsworth found Pope's style too decadent to represent the human condition. George Gilfillan in an 1856 study called Pope's talent "a rose peering into the summer air, fine, rather than powerful". Pope's reputation revived in the 20th century. His work was full of references to the people and places of his time, which aided people's understanding of
1628-650: A decade, leaving for Lovere in 1754. In the summer of 1756, Lady Mary travelled to Venice for an undisclosed business errand. After August 1756, she resided in Venice and Padua and saw Algarotti again in November. Throughout the time, Lady Mary exchanged letters with her daughter, Lady Bute, discussing topics such as philosophy, literature, and the education of girls, as well as conveying details of her geographical and social surroundings. Lady Mary received news of her husband Edward Wortley Montagu's death on 1 January 1761, and he
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#17328480119881776-403: A few days before her mother's death. After she received these volumes, Lady Bute "kept it always under lock and key, and though she often looked over it herself, and read passages aloud to her daughters and friends, excepting the first five or six copy-books, which at a late period, she permitted Lady Louisa Stuart to peruse alone, upon condition that nothing should be transcribed." Lady Louisa,
1924-574: A great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because it was a folk treatment process. In April 1721, when a smallpox epidemic struck England, she had her daughter inoculated by Maitland, the same physician who had inoculated her son at the Embassy in Turkey, and publicised the event. This was the first such operation done in England. She persuaded Caroline of Ansbach , the Princess of Wales , to test
2072-428: A history so uncommon." Members of the newly formed Kit-Cat Club , a group of fashionable men, nominated her when she was seven years old, as the subject of their toast to the beauty of the season, and they had her name engraved on the glass goblet used for this purpose. As a child, she had a "desire of catching the setting sun" and she would run across the meadow to "catch hold of the great golden ball of fire sinking on
2220-481: A house in Great George Street, Hanover Square, and her daughter and grandchildren often visited her. In June 1762, it became known that Lady Mary was suffering from cancer. Even though she tried to conceal her illness from her family as long as possible, she grew rapidly weaker that month. She wrote her last letter but with difficulty on 2 July to Lady Frances Steuart; in this letter, she wrote "I have been ill
2368-513: A husband other than Edward Wortley Montagu for his daughter. Lady Mary's father pressured her to marry Clotworthy Skeffington, the heir to the Irish Viscount Massereene. Skeffington's marriage contract included "an allowance of £500 a year as 'pin-money,' and £1,200 a year if he died." However, she rejected him. Thus, to avoid marriage to Skeffington, she eloped with Montagu. In a letter to Wortley, she wrote, "He [my father] will have
2516-454: A letter dated "12/22 Dec. 1635". In his biography of John Dee , The Queen's Conjurer , Benjamin Woolley surmises that because Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/84 date set for the change, "England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates". In contrast, Thomas Jefferson , who lived while
2664-455: A long time, and am now so bad I am little capable of writing, but I would not pass in your opinion as either stupid or ungrateful. My heart is always warm in your service, and I am always told your affairs shall be taken care of." Lady Frances's son was in London, and when he visited Lady Mary's house, he was summoned to her bedroom where he was surrounded by her relatives, including Lord and Lady Bute. Lady Mary then ordered her relatives to leave
2812-532: A more accurate account of Turkish women, their dress, habits, traditions, limitations and liberties, at times irrefutably more a critique of the Occident than a praise of the Orient. Montagu also carefully constructed Ottoman female spaces, and her own engagement with Ottoman women, as full of homoerotic desire, which is consistent with the gender and sexual fluidity that characterized much of her life and writings. In
2960-487: A pustulate of cowpox on the hand of a milkmaid into the arm of an inoculate." Jenner first tested his method on James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy, and when Phipps did not have any reaction after the procedure, Jenner claimed that his procedure "bestowed immunity against smallpox." Then, after spending the next few years experimenting his new procedure, he discovered that his hypothesis was correct. As vaccination gained acceptance, variolation gradually fell out of favour. In
3108-587: A scathing pamphlet called Shakespeare Restored , which catalogued the errors in Pope's work and suggested several revisions to the text. This enraged Pope, wherefore Theobald became the main target of Pope's Dunciad . The second edition of Pope's Shakespeare appeared in 1728. Apart from some minor revisions to the preface, it seems that Pope had little to do with it. Most later 18th-century editors of Shakespeare dismissed Pope's creatively motivated approach to textual criticism. Pope's preface continued to be highly rated. It
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#17328480119883256-542: A source of Enlightenment, as evidenced in her calling the Qur'an "the purest morality delivered in the very best language" By comparison, Montagu dedicated large portions of the Turkish Embassy Letters to criticizing Catholic religious practices, particularly Catholic beliefs around sainthood, miracles, and religious relics , which she frequently excoriated. In relation to these practices, she wrote, "I cannot fancy there
3404-878: A start-of-year adjustment works well with little confusion for events before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is well known to have been fought on 25 October 1415, which is Saint Crispin's Day . However, for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in Continental Western Europe and in British domains. Events in Continental Western Europe are usually reported in English-language histories by using
3552-460: A thousand plausible reasons for being irreconcilable, and 'tis very probable the world will be on his side...I shall come to you with only a night-gown and petticoat, and that is all you will get with me. I told a lady of my friends what I intended to do. You will think her a very good friend when I tell you she has proffered to lend us her house if we would come there the first night...If you determine to go to that lady's house, you had better come with
3700-568: A transcript to the Reverend Benjamin Sowden, a British clergyman, in Rotterdam in 1761. Sowden also lent the book to two English travelers, including Thomas Becket. Furthermore, during that night, the travelers made copies of her letters. After the travelers returned the book, Sowden handed the book to Lady Mary's son-in-law, Lord Bute (later Prime Minister ), in exchange for £200 (equivalent to £37,000 in 2023). In 1763 in London,
3848-489: A translation of the Iliad . The work would be available by subscription , with one volume appearing every year over six years. Pope secured a revolutionary deal with the publisher Bernard Lintot, which earned him 200 guineas (£210) a volume, a vast sum at the time. His Iliad translation appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as "a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal". Conversely,
3996-456: A villa at Twickenham , where he created his now-famous grotto and gardens. The serendipitous discovery of a spring during the excavation of the subterranean retreat enabled it to be filled with the relaxing sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Pope was said to have remarked, "Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything." Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, much of
4144-436: A wholly original poem that reviews his own literary career and includes famous portraits of Lord Hervey (" Sporus "), Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull ("Balbus") and Addison ("Atticus"). In 1738 came "The Universal Prayer". Among the younger poets whose work Pope admired was Joseph Thurston . After 1738, Pope himself wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus , but only
4292-464: Is "Sources that Have Been Inaccessible to Other Travellers". The letters themselves frequently draw attention to the fact that they present a different, and Montagu asserts more accurate description than that provided by previous (male) travellers: "You will perhaps be surpriz'd at an Account so different from what you have been entertained with by the common Voyage-writers who are very fond of speaking of what they don't know." In general, Montagu dismisses
4440-476: Is 9 February 1649, the date by which his contemporaries in some parts of continental Europe would have recorded his execution. The O.S./N.S. designation is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the "historical year" (1 January) and the legal start date, where different. This was 25 March in England, Wales, Ireland and the colonies until 1752, and until 1600 in Scotland. In Britain, 1 January
4588-427: Is abated...thousands undergo this operation...[and there] is not one example of anyone that has died in it." Afterwards, she updated the status of Edward to her husband: "The Boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and playing, and very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as good an account of him." On her return to London, she enthusiastically promoted the procedure, but encountered
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4736-544: Is also known for introducing and advocating smallpox inoculation in Britain after her return from Turkey. Her writings address and challenge some contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth at that time. Lady Mary Pierrepont was born on 15 May 1689 at Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottinghamshire , and baptised on 26 May 1689 at St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden , London. She
4884-429: Is anything new in letting you know that priests can lie, and the mob believe all over the world." Montagu's Turkish letters were to prove an inspiration to later generations of European women travellers and writers. In particular, Montagu staked a claim to the authority of women's writing, due to their ability to access private homes and female-only spaces where men were not permitted. The title of her published letters
5032-525: Is false. He had been gay [happy], but left that way of life upon his acquaintance with Mrs. B." In May 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published in the sixth part of bookseller Jacob Tonson 's Poetical Miscellanies . This earned Pope instant fame and was followed by An Essay on Criticism , published in May 1711, which was equally well received. Around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers Jonathan Swift , Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot , who together formed
5180-423: Is in my opinion no worse than servitude all over the world." Montagu's Turkish letters were frequently cited by Western female travellers, more than a century after her journey. Such writers cited Montagu's assertion that women travellers could gain an intimate view of Turkish life that was not available to their male counterparts. However, they also added corrections or elaborations to her observations. In 1739,
5328-532: Is made no other use of but to raise her price...While the poor lover very innocently waits, till the plenipotentiaries at the inns of court have debated about the alliance, all the partisans of the lady throw difficulties in the way, till other offers come in; and the man who came first is not put in possession, until she has been refused by half the town." These arguments did not persuade Lord Dorchester. Even though these negotiations reached an impasse, Lady Mary and Edward continued corresponding with one another. At
5476-599: Is often quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations , some of his verses having entered common parlance (e.g. " damning with faint praise " or " to err is human; to forgive, divine "). Alexander Pope was born in London on 21 May 1688 during the year of the Glorious Revolution . His father (Alexander Pope, 1646–1717) was a successful linen merchant in the Strand , London . His mother, Edith (née Turner, 1643–1733),
5624-513: Is tempered, however, by a genuine, almost voyeuristic interest in the "beau-monde" (fashionable world) of 18th-century society. The revised, extended version of the poem focuses more clearly on its true subject: the onset of acquisitive individualism and a society of conspicuous consumers. In the poem, purchased artefacts displace human agency and "trivial things" come to dominate. Though The Dunciad first appeared anonymously in Dublin , its authorship
5772-612: The Austro-Turkish War . In August 1716, Lady Mary accompanied him to Vienna , and thence to Adrianople and Constantinople. He was recalled in 1717, but they remained at Constantinople until 1718. While away from England, the Wortley Montagus had a daughter on 19 January 1718, who would grow up to be Mary, Countess of Bute . After an unsuccessful delegation between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, they set sail for England via
5920-673: The Embassy Letters or Turkish Embassy Letters because it was "composed during and after Montagu's journey through Europe to Constantinople in the company of her husband ." The first edition of the book sold out; in fact, the Critical Review newspaper editor, Tobias Smollett , wrote that the letters were "never equaled by any letter-writer of any sex, age or nation" and Voltaire also had high praise of these letters. Four years later in 1767, editor John Cleland added five spurious letters, along with previous printed essays and verses, to
6068-601: The Nonsense of Common-Sense , supporting the Robert Walpole government. The title was a reference to a journal of the liberal opposition entitled Common Sense . She wrote six Town Eclogues and other poems. Lady Mary wrote notable letters describing her travels through Europe and the Ottoman Empire; these appeared after her death in three volumes. Although not published during her lifetime, her letters from Turkey were clearly intended for print. She revised them extensively and gave
Alexander Pope - Misplaced Pages Continue
6216-592: The Russian Empire and the very beginning of Soviet Russia . For example, in the article "The October (November) Revolution", the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "25 October (7 November, New Style)" to describe the date of the start of the revolution. The Latin equivalents, which are used in many languages, are, on the one hand, stili veteris (genitive) or stilo vetere (ablative), abbreviated st.v. , and meaning "(of/in) old style" ; and, on
6364-681: The "Great Chain of Being", at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. Accomplish this and we potentially could lead happy and virtuous lives. The poem is an affirmative statement of faith: life seems chaotic and confusing to man in the centre of it, but according to Pope it is truly divinely ordered. In Pope's world, God exists and is what he centres the Universe around as an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and experience only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope, which then leads to faith. Man must be aware of his existence in
6512-406: The 'surprising death' of her father. Furthermore, they exchanged intellectual letters with Montagu's daughter, Mary, Lady Bute . Lady Mary and Lady Mar discontinued their correspondence in 1727. Despite the availability of her work in print and the revival efforts of feminist scholars, the complexity and brilliance of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's extensive body of work has not yet been recognized to
6660-603: The 1734 marriage of her niece Lady Mary Pierrrepont (1711-1795) who had eloped with Philip Meadows , Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park saying that her "ruin" was due to the "silly good people that had the care of her". In August 1736, Lady Mary's daughter married Bute, despite her parents' disapproval of the match. Later, Lady Mary wrote to Lord Gower, 1st Earl Gower, about her daughter's disobedience. In response, Lord Gower tried to console Lady Mary: "I hope by her future conducts she will atone for her past, and that choice will prove more happy than you and Mr. Wortley expect." In
6808-407: The 18th century, Europeans began an experiment known as inoculation or variolation to prevent, not cure the smallpox. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu defied convention, most memorably by promoting smallpox inoculation to Western medicine after witnessing it during her travels and stay in the Ottoman Empire. Previously, Lady Mary's brother had died of smallpox in 1713, and although Lady Mary recovered from
6956-506: The 19th century, a practice that the author Karen Bellenir considered to reveal a deep emotional resistance to calendar reform. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont ; 15 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat , medical pioneer, writer, and poet. Born in 1689, Lady Mary spent her early life in England . In 1712, Lady Mary married Edward Wortley Montagu , who later served as
7104-448: The 20th century, a concerted campaign by the WHO to eradicate smallpox via vaccination would succeed by 1979. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's introduction of smallpox inoculation had ultimately led to the development of vaccines, and the later eradication of smallpox. After returning to England, Lady Mary took less interest in court compared to her earlier years. Instead, she was more focused on
7252-532: The 4th century , had drifted from reality . The Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these figures, between the years 325 and 1582, by skipping 10 days to set the ecclesiastical date of the equinox to be 21 March, the median date of its occurrence at the time of the First Council of Nicea in 325. Countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar after 1699 needed to skip an additional day for each subsequent new century that
7400-579: The Boyne was commemorated with smaller parades on 1 July. However, both events were combined in the late 18th century, and continue to be celebrated as " The Twelfth ". Because of the differences, British writers and their correspondents often employed two dates, a practice called dual dating , more or less automatically. Letters concerning diplomacy and international trade thus sometimes bore both Julian and Gregorian dates to prevent confusion. For example, Sir William Boswell wrote to Sir John Coke from The Hague
7548-455: The British Isles and colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, instructed that his tombstone bear his date of birth by using the Julian calendar (notated O.S. for Old Style) and his date of death by using the Gregorian calendar. At Jefferson's birth, the difference was eleven days between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and so his birthday of 2 April in the Julian calendar is 13 April in
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#17328480119887696-606: The British ambassador to the Sublime Porte . Lady Mary joined her husband on the Ottoman excursion, where she was to spend the next two years of her life. During her time there, Lady Mary wrote extensively on her experience as a woman in Ottoman Constantinople . After her return to England, Lady Mary devoted her attention to the upbringing of her family before dying of cancer in 1762. Although having regularly socialised with
7844-410: The British colonies, changed the start of the year from 25 March to 1 January, with effect from "the day after 31 December 1751". (Scotland had already made this aspect of the changes, on 1 January 1600.) The second (in effect ) adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian calendar. Thus "New Style" can refer to the start-of-year adjustment , to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar , or to
7992-612: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However, confusion occurs when an event involves both. For example, William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar), after he had set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar) 1688. The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland took place a few months later on 1 July 1690 (Julian calendar). That maps to 11 July (Gregorian calendar), conveniently close to
8140-466: The Gregorian calendar. Similarly, George Washington is now officially reported as having been born on 22 February 1732, rather than on 11 February 1731/32 (Julian calendar). The philosopher Jeremy Bentham , born on 4 February 1747/8 (Julian calendar), in later life celebrated his birthday on 15 February. There is some evidence that the calendar change was not easily accepted. Many British people continued to celebrate their holidays "Old Style" well into
8288-430: The Julian and Gregorian dating systems respectively. The need to correct the calendar arose from the realisation that the correct figure for the number of days in a year is not 365.25 (365 days 6 hours) as assumed by the Julian calendar but slightly less (c. 365.242 days). The Julian calendar therefore has too many leap years . The consequence was that the basis for the calculation of the date of Easter , as decided in
8436-564: The Julian calendar had added since then. When the British Empire did so in 1752, the gap had grown to eleven days; when Russia did so (as its civil calendar ) in 1918, thirteen days needed to be skipped. In the Kingdom of Great Britain and its possessions, the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 introduced two concurrent changes to the calendar. The first, which applied to England, Wales, Ireland and
8584-510: The Julian date of the subsequent (and more decisive) Battle of Aughrim on 12 July 1691 (Julian). The latter battle was commemorated annually throughout the 18th century on 12 July, following the usual historical convention of commemorating events of that period within Great Britain and Ireland by mapping the Julian date directly onto the modern Gregorian calendar date (as happens, for example, with Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November). The Battle of
8732-517: The Lock ), was twenty years older than the poet and had made many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh , a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals . There, he met the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha (Patty) , in 1707. He remained close friends with Patty until his death, but his friendship with Teresa ended in 1722. From
8880-764: The Mediterranean, and reached London on 2 October 1718. In the same year, the Austrians and Turkish signed the Treaty of Passarowitz at the conclusion of the Austro-Turkish War. The story of this voyage and of her observations of Eastern life is told in Letters from Turkey , a series of lively letters full of graphic descriptions; Letters is often credited as being an inspiration for subsequent female travelers and writers, as well as for much Orientalist art. During her visit she
9028-488: The Memory of an Unfortunate Lady and the famous proto-romantic poem Eloisa to Abelard . Though Pope never married, about this time he became strongly attached to Lady M. Montagu, whom he indirectly referenced in his popular Eloisa to Abelard , and to Martha Blount, with whom his friendship continued through his life. As a satirist , Pope made his share of enemies as critics, politicians and certain other prominent figures felt
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#17328480119889176-603: The Ottoman Empire in The Turkish Embassy Letters to her correspondents, very few of the letters survived, and the letters in the book may not be accurate transcriptions of the actual correspondence. According to Daniel O'Quinn, the book was not a culmination of facts but of opinions, and there must be some filtering during the editing processes. Furthermore, to avoid public censure, Montagu used pseudonyms, such as "a Turkey merchant" and "Lady President", in her publications. Lastly, Montagu's The Turkish Embassy Letters
9324-472: The Ottoman Empire, she saw and wrote extensively concerning the practise of slavery along with the treatment of slaves by the Turks. Montagu wrote many letters with positive descriptions of the various enslaved people that she saw in the elite circles of Istanbul, including eunuchs and large collections of serving and dancing girls dressed in expensive outfits. In one of her letters written back home, famously from
9472-505: The Reverend Benjamin Sowden of Rotterdam, for safe keeping and "to be dispos'd of as he thinks proper." After she left Rotterdam on 12 December, a hard, impenetrable frost hindered her voyage. Towards the end of the month, she sailed for England, but a mountainous sea obstructed the passage and the captain returned to harbor. On the next attempt a few days later, Lady Mary reached London in January 1762. After arriving in London, Lady Mary rented
9620-590: The Universe and what he brings to it in terms of riches, power and fame. Pope proclaims that man's duty is to strive to be good, regardless of other situations. FATHER of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah , Jove , or Lord! If I am right, thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O, teach my heart To find that better way! Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Or aught thy goodness lent. Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide
9768-454: The Universe: no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe may be, it functions in a rational fashion according to natural laws, so that the Universe as a whole is a perfect work of God, though to humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways. Pope ascribes this to our limited mindset and intellectual capacity. He argues that humans must accept their position in
9916-506: The abdication of James II . One of these banned them from living within ten miles of London, another from attending public school or university. So except for a few spurious Catholic schools , Pope was largely self-educated . He was taught to read by his aunt and became a book lover, reading in French, Italian, Latin and Greek and discovering Homer at the age of six. In 1700, when only twelve years of age, he wrote his poem Ode on Solitude . As
10064-424: The age of 12 he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott disease , a form of tuberculosis that affects the spine, which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain. He grew to a height of only 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 metres). Pope
10212-437: The age of 23, he had written An Essay on Criticism , released in 1711. A kind of poetic manifesto in the vein of Horace 's Ars Poetica , it met with enthusiastic attention and won Pope a wider circle of prominent friends, notably Joseph Addison and Richard Steele , who had recently begun to collaborate on the influential The Spectator . The critic John Dennis , having found an ironic and veiled portrait of himself,
10360-439: The age of twenty-six, Lady Mary contracted smallpox . She survived, but while she was ill someone circulated the satirical "court eclogues" she had been writing. One of the poems was read as an attack on Caroline, Princess of Wales , in spite of the fact that the "attack" was voiced by a character who was herself heavily satirised. In 1716, Edward Wortley Montagu was appointed Ambassador at Constantinople to negotiate an end to
10508-470: The charge was untrue, it did much damage to Pope. There has been some speculation on a feud between Pope and Thomas Hearne , due in part to the character of Wormius in The Dunciad , who is seemingly based on Hearne. An Essay on Man is a philosophical poem in heroic couplets published between 1732 and 1734. Pope meant it as the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form. It
10656-460: The classical scholar Richard Bentley wrote: "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer." Encouraged by the success of the Iliad , Bernard Lintot published Pope's five-volume translation of Homer's Odyssey in 1725–1726. For this Pope collaborated with William Broome and Elijah Fenton : Broome translated eight books (2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 23), Fenton four (1, 4, 19, 20) and Pope
10804-486: The combination of the two. It was through their use in the Calendar Act that the notations "Old Style" and "New Style" came into common usage. When recording British history, it is usual to quote the date as originally recorded at the time of the event, but with the year number adjusted to start on 1 January. The latter adjustment may be needed because the start of the civil calendar year had not always been 1 January and
10952-519: The consequence of its being known that I write to her." A servant in Lady Mary's household found this letter and gave it to her father; this letter put her father "in the utmost rage." However, Wortley was flattered that Lady Mary "had given the father as 'an artifice to bring the affair to a proper conclusion.'" The next day, Wortley called Lady Mary's father about a formal proposal. Mary's father, now Marquess of Dorchester had insisted on one condition in
11100-734: The countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest . Pope's formal education ended at this time, and from then on, he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal , the epic poets Homer and Virgil , as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer , William Shakespeare and John Dryden . He studied many languages, reading works by French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from London literary society such as William Congreve , Samuel Garth and William Trumbull . At Binfield he made many important friends. One of them, John Caryll (the future dedicatee of The Rape of
11248-537: The court of George I and George Augustus, Prince of Wales (later King George II) , Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her Turkish Embassy Letters describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire , as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which Billie Melman describes as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient". Aside from her writing, Mary
11396-481: The disease in 1715, it left her with a disfigured face. In the Ottoman Empire, she visited the women in their segregated zenanas , a house for Muslims and Hindus, making friends and learning about Turkish customs. There in March 1717, she witnessed the practice of inoculation against smallpox – variolation – which she called engrafting, and wrote home about it in a number of her letters. The most famous of these letters
11544-552: The early summer of 1710. Lady Mary's primary concern with her engagement was financial, not romantic. Lady Mary denied transient emotions guiding her life: "I can esteem, I can be a friend, but I don't know whether I can love." Then, after setting forth all her terms, including her deference, she warned to Edward that "Make no answer to this, if you can like me on my own terms" and that his proposals not be made for her. However, these correspondences soon endangered Edward. In one particular letter, Edward wrote, "Her being better in 1710,
11692-768: The end of March 1711, Lady Mary's father 'determined to end her friendship with Wortley'. Her father summoned her to a conference, forced her to promise to not to write, and hustled her to West Dean. However, Lady Mary broke her promise to tell Wortley about her rights and duty: "Had you had any real Affection for me, you would have long go applied yourself to him, from whose hand only you can receive me." After their exchanges of disagreements and realizing she did not like him, he realized their friendship must end. On 2 May, he replied, "Adieu, Dearest L[ady] M[ary]. This once be assur'd you will not deceive me. I expect no answer." Consequently, Lady Mary did not respond that summer. In that same summer, her father Lord Dorchester decided to find
11840-533: The end of the following December, 1661/62 , a form of dual dating to indicate that in the following twelve weeks or so, the year was 1661 Old Style but 1662 New Style. Some more modern sources, often more academic ones (e.g. the History of Parliament ) also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 24 March for years before the introduction of the New Style calendar in England. The Gregorian calendar
11988-464: The fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me. Mean though I am, not wholly so, Since quickened by thy breath; O, lead me wheresoe’er I go, Through this day’s life or death! To thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar, earth, sea, skies! One chorus let all Being raise! All Nature’s incense rise! Pope, "The Universal Prayer" The Imitations of Horace that followed (1733–1738) were written in
12136-460: The first letter she addressed to Edward. Lady Mary corresponded with Edward Wortley Montagu via letters until 2 May 1711 without her father's permission. Keeping up with their communication became harder when Lady Mary's father bought a house at Acton , a suburban village famous for its mineral springs. Lady Mary hated the house because it was 'dull and disagreeable,' and it did not have a library in it. A few weeks after moving, Lady Mary had
12284-656: The fortunes of the Tories , and Pope's friend Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke , fled to France. This was added to by the Impeachment of the former Tory Chief Minister Lord Oxford . Pope lived in his parents' house in Mawson Row, Chiswick , between 1716 and 1719; the red-brick building is now the Mawson Arms , commemorating him with a blue plaque . The money made from his translation of Homer allowed Pope to move in 1719 to
12432-508: The general fear of inoculation, Lady Mary, under a pseudonym, wrote and published an article describing and advocating in favour of inoculation in September 1722. Later, other royal families soon followed Montagu's act. For instance, in 1768, Catherine the Great of Russia had herself and her son, the future Tsar Paul, inoculated. The Russians continued to refine the process. Nevertheless, inoculation
12580-400: The grotto survives beneath Radnor House Independent Co-educational School. The grotto has been restored and will open to the public for 30 weekends a year from 2023 under the auspices of Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust. An Essay on Criticism was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711. Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it. At the time
12728-447: The horizon". However, she then realized that this activity "was impossible". Overall, the pursuit of achieving the impossible became a recurring pattern throughout her life. However, misfortune occurred – her mother, who she thought would have supported her aspirations, died. Then her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Pierrepont, raised Mary and her siblings until she died when Mary was eight years old. After Mrs Pierrepont's death, Mary
12876-633: The hostility of its victims and their sympathizers, who pursued him implacably from then on with a few damaging truths and a host of slanders and lies." According to his half-sister Magdalen Rackett, some of Pope's targets were so enraged by The Dunciad that they threatened him physically. "My brother does not seem to know what fear is," she told Joseph Spence , explaining that Pope loved to walk alone, so went accompanied by his Great Dane Bounce, and for some time carried pistols in his pocket. This first Dunciad , along with John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels , joined in
13024-441: The instruction of a despised governess, Lady Mary used the well-furnished library to "steal" her education by hiding in the library, between 10am and 2pm, and "every afternoon from four to eight". She taught herself Latin , a language usually reserved for men at the time. She secretly got a hold of a "Latin dictionary and grammar" and by the age of thirteen, her handling with the language was on par to most men. Furthermore, she
13172-475: The interior of a bath house, she dismisses the idea that slaves of the Ottoman elite should be figures to be pitied. In response to her visit to the slave market in Istanbul , she wrote "you will imagine me half a Turk when I don't speak of it with the same horror other Christians have done before me, but I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to those creatures. They are never ill-used, and their slavery
13320-532: The marriage contract: "that Wortley's estate be entailed on the first son born to him." However, Wortley refused to do this as it would require £10,000. Consequently, in order to convince Lady Mary's father, Edward thought of publishing the marriage contract in the Tatler , a British journal. On the Tatler ' s issue of 18 July, Wortley wrote the following: "Her first lover has ten to one against him. The very hour after he has opened his heart and his rent rolls he
13468-773: The measles, and she asked her maid to write Edward a letter to tell him about the illness. Soon, there were misunderstandings between Edward and Lady Mary. Edward hurried to Acton. There, he left a note, revealing his love: "I should be overjoyed to hear your Beauty is very much impaired, could I be pleased with anything that would give you displeasure, for it would lessen the number of Admirers." In response, she scolded his indiscretion by saying, "Forgive and forget me." Then, in his reply, Edward stated that "he would deal with her father if he were sure they could be happy together." This reply helped Lady Mary forget her irritation. Lady Mary in Acton and Edward in London kept writing to each other until
13616-420: The moral qualities and virtues inherent in an ideal critic, whom Pope claims is also the ideal man. Pope's most famous poem is The Rape of the Lock , first published in 1712, with a revised version in 1714. A mock-epic , it satirises a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor (the "Belinda" of the poem) and Lord Petre , who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without permission. The satirical style
13764-480: The opening lines survive. His major work in those years was to revise and expand his masterpiece, The Dunciad . Book Four appeared in 1742 and a full revision of the whole poem the following year. Here Pope replaced the "hero" Lewis Theobald with the Poet Laureate , Colley Cibber as "king of dunces". However, the real focus of the revised poem is Walpole and his works. By now Pope's health, which had never been good,
13912-452: The other, stili novi or stilo novo , abbreviated st.n. and meaning "(of/in) new style". The Latin abbreviations may be capitalised differently by different users, e.g., St.n. or St.N. for stili novi . There are equivalents for these terms in other languages as well, such as the German a.St. (" alter Stil " for O.S.). Usually, the mapping of New Style dates onto Old Style dates with
14060-604: The past. The post-war period stressed the power of Pope's poetry, recognising that Pope's immersion in Christian and Biblical culture lent depth to his poetry. For example, Maynard Mack, in the late 20th-century, argued that Pope's moral vision demanded as much respect as his technical excellence. Between 1953 and 1967 the definitive Twickenham edition of Pope's poems appeared in ten volumes, including an index volume. Old Style and New Style dates Old Style ( O.S. ) and New Style ( N.S. ) indicate dating systems before and after
14208-413: The poem was published, its heroic couplet style was quite a new poetic form and Pope's work an ambitious attempt to identify and refine his own positions as a poet and critic. It was said to be a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past. The "essay" begins with a discussion of
14356-450: The political and social freedom that women had access to in the Ottoman Empire during the 18th century. Even though Montagu refused to undress for the bath at first, the girls managed to persuade her to "open my shirt, and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well". In one letter to her sister Lady Mar, she wrote, "nothing will surprise you more than the sight of my person, as I am now in my Turkish habit." During Montagu's time in
14504-412: The popular Augustan form of an "imitation" of a classical poet, not so much a translation of his works as an updating with contemporary references. Pope used the model of Horace to satirise life under George II , especially what he saw as the widespread corruption tainting the country under Walpole's influence and the poor quality of the court's artistic taste. Pope added as an introduction to Imitations
14652-436: The possibility of a scandal. According to O'Quinn, although The Turkish Embassy Letters has been considered one of the best literary works published in the eighteenth century, the work has not been as appreciated as those published by her male peers, such as Alexander Pope and Horace Walpole . She was the "target of vicious attacks" from printing presses and male peers. Although she describes her travels through Europe to
14800-511: The post of Junior Commissioner of the Treasury. When Lady Mary joined him in London, her wit and beauty soon made her a prominent figure at court. She was among the society of George I and George Augustus, Prince of Wales , and counted amongst her friends Molly Skerritt, Lady Walpole , John, Lord Hervey , Mary Astell , Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough , Alexander Pope , John Gay , and Abbé Antonio Schinella Conti . In December 1715, at
14948-421: The previous edition of the book. Despite the immediate success following the publication of Turkish Embassy Letters , Lady Mary's daughter, Mary Stuart, Countess of Bute , was furious and worried about how an unauthorized publication would impact the family's reputation. One of the manuscript volumes that others found was Lady Mary's famous diary, and Lady Bute did not have any knowledge of this existence until
15096-497: The quality of European travel literature of the 18th century as nothing more than "trite observations...superficial...[of] boys [who] only remember where they met with the best wine or the prettiest women". Montagu writes about the "warmth and civility" of Ottoman women. She describes the hammam , known to her readers as a 'Turkish bath', "as a space of urbane homosociality, free of cruel satire and disdain". She mentions that " hammam are remarkable for their undisguised admiration of
15244-454: The remaining twelve. Broome provided the annotations. Pope tried to conceal the extent of the collaboration, but the secret leaked out. It did some damage to Pope's reputation for a time, but not to his profits. Leslie Stephen considered Pope's portion of the Odyssey inferior to his version of the Iliad , given that Pope had put more effort into the earlier work – to which, in any case, his style
15392-754: The room, saying of Lady Frances's son, "My dear young friend has come to see me before I die, and I desire to be left alone with him." She died on 21 August 1762 at her house in Great George Street, and was buried in Grosvenor Chapel the day after she died. Although Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is now best known for her Turkish Embassy Letters , she wrote poetry and essays as well. A number of Lady Mary's poems and essays were printed in her lifetime, either without or with her permission, in newspapers, in miscellanies, and independently. Montagu did not intend to publish her poetry, but it did circulate widely, in manuscript, among members of her own social circle. Lady Mary
15540-506: The same year, Lady Mary met and fell in love with Count Francesco Algarotti , who competed with an equally smitten John Hervey for her affections. Lady Mary wrote many letters to Francesco Algarotti in English and in French after his departure from England in September 1736. In July 1739, Lady Mary departed England without her husband ostensibly for health reasons, possibly from a disfiguring skin disease, and declared her intentions to winter in
15688-455: The satirical Scriblerus Club . Its aim was to satirise ignorance and pedantry through the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. He also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele . In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim. During Pope's friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addison's play Cato , as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator . Around this time, he began
15836-490: The scholar Achmet Beg, Montagu participates in a wider English dialogue on Enlightenment ideas about religion, particularly deism, and their overlap with Islamic theology. Montagu, along with many others, including the freethinking scholar Henry Stubbe , celebrated Islam for what they saw as its rational approach to theology, for its strict monotheism, and for its teaching and practice around religious tolerance. In short, Montagu and other thinkers in this tradition saw Islam as
15984-573: The sight of the stays she was wearing, exclaimed that "they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband." Lady Mary wrote about the misconceptions that previous travelers, specifically male travelers, had recorded about the religion, traditions and the treatment of women in the Ottoman Empire. Her gender and class status provided her with access to female spaces that were closed off to males. Her personal interactions with Ottoman women enabled her to provide, in her view,
16132-522: The son of Sidney Wortley Montagu, began through Edward's younger sister Anne Wortley. In London, Anne and Lady Mary met frequently at social functions and exchanged visits to each other's homes. They also communicated through writing, in which they filled their letters with "trivial gossip" and "effusive compliments". After Anne died in November 1709, Lady Mary began conversing with Anne's brother Edward Wortley Montagu. Lady Mary often met Edward at "friends' houses" and "at Court". On 28 March 1710, she wrote
16280-591: The south of France; after she left England, she and her husband never met again. In reality, she left to visit and live with Algarotti in Venice. Their relationship ended in 1741 after Lady Mary and Algarotti were both on a diplomatic mission in Turin. Lady Mary stayed abroad and travelled extensively. After travelling to Venice, Florence, Rome, Genoa and Geneva, she finally settled in Avignon in 1742. She left Avignon in 1746 for Brescia , where she fell ill and stayed for nearly
16428-459: The standard rules that govern poetry, by which a critic passes judgement. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards and the authority he believed should be accredited to them. He discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while analysing poetry, pointing out the important function critics perform in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to simply attacking them. The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses
16576-422: The states of mind "of knaves, coxcombs, the mob, and party zealous—all characteristic of the London of her time". "Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to her Husband", written in 1724, stages a letter from Mrs. Yonge to her libertine husband and exposes the social double standard which led to the shaming and distress of Mrs. Yonge after her divorce. In 1737 and 1738, Lady Mary published anonymously a political periodical called
16724-418: The sting of his sharp-witted satires. Some were so virulent that Pope even carried pistols while walking his dog. In 1738 and thenceforth, Pope composed relatively little. He began having ideas for a patriotic epic in blank verse titled Brutus , but mainly revised and expanded his Dunciad . Book Four appeared in 1742; and a complete revision of the whole in the year that followed. At this time Lewis Theobald
16872-573: The subject of architecture, the first of four poems later grouped as the Moral Essays (1731–1735). The epistle ridicules the bad taste of the aristocrat "Timon". For example, the following are verses 99 and 100 of the Epistle: At Timon's Villa let us paſs a day, Where all cry out, "What ſums are thrown away!" Pope's foes claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons . Though
17020-524: The treatment. In August 1721, seven prisoners at Newgate Prison awaiting execution were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of execution: they all survived and were released. Despite this, controversy over smallpox inoculation intensified. However Caroline, Princess of Wales, was convinced of its value. The Princess's two daughters Amelia and Caroline were successfully inoculated in April 1722 by French-born surgeon Claudius Amyand . In response to
17168-453: The upbringing of her children, reading, writing, and editing her travel letters—which she then chose not to publish. Before starting for the East, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had met Alexander Pope , and during her Embassy travels with her husband, they wrote each other a series of letters. While Pope may have been fascinated by her wit and elegance, Lady Mary's replies to his letters reveal that she
17316-551: The vagaries of fashionable people to her sister Frances, Countess of Mar, the wife of the Jacobite Earl of Mar . They met when the Wortleys visited Paris on 29 September 1718. During her visit, Montagu observed the beauties and behaviors of Parisian women. She wrote "their hair cut short and curled round their faces, loaded with powder that makes it look like white wool!" In one of their correspondences, Lady Mary informed her sister of
17464-528: The women's beauty and demeanor", which creates a space for female authority. Montagu provides an intimate description of the women's bathhouse in Sofia , in which she derides male descriptions of the bathhouse as a site for unnatural sexual practices, instead insisting that it was "the Women's coffee house, where all the news of the Town is told, Scandal invented, etc." Montagu's reference to "women's coffee house" represents
17612-818: The work of translating the Iliad , which was a painstaking process – publication began in 1715 and did not end until 1720. In 1714 the political situation worsened with the death of Queen Anne and the disputed succession between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites , leading to the Jacobite rising of 1715 . Though Pope, as a Catholic, might have been expected to have supported the Jacobites because of his religious and political affiliations, according to Maynard Mack , "where Pope himself stood on these matters can probably never be confidently known". These events led to an immediate downturn in
17760-613: The year after her death, Becket and De Hondt published this error-laden version manuscript in three volumes, entitled Letters of the Right Honourable Lady My W—y M----e: Written, during her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in different Parts of Europe; Which contain, Among other curious Relations, Accounts of the Policy and Manners of the Turks , commonly referred to as
17908-426: The youngest of Lady Bute's daughters, was scolded for reading books and wanting to be like her grandmother. Later, Lady Louisa followed her grandmother's footsteps and became a writer. Then when Lady Bute felt that the end of her life was near, in 1794, she burnt the diary that her mother kept since her marriage. She chose to burn the diary because Lady Bute always spoke to her mother with great respect, and she feared
18056-555: Was a piece that he sought to make into a larger work, but he did not live to complete it. It attempts to "vindicate the ways of God to Man", a variation on Milton's attempt in Paradise Lost to "justify the ways of God to Man" (1.26). It challenges as prideful an anthropocentric worldview. The poem is not solely Christian, however. It assumes that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation. Consisting of four epistles addressed to Lord Bolingbroke , it presents an idea of Pope's view of
18204-473: Was already removed from society as a Catholic, and his poor health alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters, including Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . It has been alleged that his lifelong friend Martha Blount was his lover. His friend William Cheselden said, according to Joseph Spence , "I could give a more particular account of Mr. Pope's health than perhaps any man. Cibber 's slander (of carnosity)
18352-436: Was also a voracious reader. She jotted the list of characters and titles she read into a notebook. Some of the works she read included "plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden , Rowe, Lee, Otway" and French and English romances, including " Grand Cyrus , Pharamond , Almahide , and Parthenissa ." By 1705, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, Mary Pierrepont had written two albums entitled "Poems, Songs &c" filled with poetry,
18500-474: Was altered at different times in different countries. From 1155 to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ); so for example, the execution of Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on 30 January 164 8 (Old Style). In newer English-language texts, this date is usually shown as "30 January 164 9 " (New Style). The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar
18648-437: Was better suited. In this period, Pope was employed by the publisher Jacob Tonson to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare. When it appeared in 1725, it silently regularised Shakespeare's metre and rewrote his verse in several places. Pope also removed about 1,560 lines of Shakespeare's material, arguing that some appealed to him more than others. In 1726, the lawyer, poet and pantomime-deviser Lewis Theobald published
18796-415: Was buried at Wortley. As soon as she learned of her husband's death, Lady Mary left Venice for England. She had a self-imposed exile because of her strained relationship with Edward , but her return made sense because she wanted to see her daughter and her grandchildren before she died. On 1 September 1761, she began her journey back home; she decided to go through Germany and Holland because France, which
18944-587: Was celebrated as the New Year festival from as early as the 13th century, despite the recorded (civil) year not incrementing until 25 March, but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used". To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers to place a statutory new-year heading after 24 March (for example "1661") and another heading from
19092-785: Was clear that Stuart was troubled by her grandmother's focus on sexual intrigues and did not see Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Account of the Court of George I at his Accession as history. However, Montagu's historical observations, both in the "Anecdotes" and the Turkish Embassy Letters , prove quite accurate when put in context. During the twentieth century, Lady Mary's letters were edited separately from her essays, poems and plays. Lady Mary corresponded with Anne Wortley and wrote courtship letters to her future husband Edward Wortley Montagu, as well as love letters to Francesco Algarotti. She corresponded with notable writers, intellectuals and aristocrats of her day. She wrote gossip letters and letters berating
19240-556: Was deemed the easier route, was at war. However, the journey was dangerous and exhausting. When she reached Augsburg on 1 October, she wrote to Sir James and Lady Francis Steuart that "she hoped to meet them in Holland." She recorded her perils and fatigues to Sir James in a letter: "I am dragging my ragged remnant of life to England. The wind and the tide are against me; how far I have strength to struggle against both, I know not." While detained at Rotterdam, she handed her Embassy Letters to
19388-423: Was eager to spare her children, thus, in March 1718 she had her nearly five-year-old son, Edward , inoculated there with the help of Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland . In fact, her son was the "first English person to undergo the operation." In a letter to a friend in England, Montagu wrote, "There is a set of old women [here], who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn...when then great heat
19536-620: Was failing. When told by his physician, on the morning of his death, that he was better, Pope replied: "Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms." He died at his villa surrounded by friends on 30 May 1744, about eleven o'clock at night. On the previous day, 29 May 1744, Pope had called for a priest and received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was buried in the nave of St Mary's Church, Twickenham . Pope had been fascinated by Homer since childhood. In 1713, he announced plans to publish
19684-402: Was her "Letter to a Friend" of 1 April 1717. Variolation used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a mild smallpox blister and introduced it into scratched skin of the arm or leg (the most usual spots) of a previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease. Consequently, the inoculate would develop a milder case of smallpox than the one he/she might have contracted. Lady Mary
19832-455: Was highly suspicious of any idealizing literary language. She wrote most often in heroic couplets, a serious poetic form to employ, and, according to Susan Staves, "excelled at answer poems". Some of her widely anthologized poems include "Constantinople" and "Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to her Husband". "Constantinople", written in January 1718, is a beautiful poem in heroic couplets describing Britain and Turkey through human history, and representing
19980-545: Was implemented in Russia on 14 February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 , pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree signed 24 January 1918 (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin . The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date, until 1 July 1918. It is common in English-language publications to use the familiar Old Style or New Style terms to discuss events and personalities in other countries, especially with reference to
20128-430: Was not always a safe process; inoculates developed a real case of smallpox and could infect others. The inoculation resulted in a "small number of deaths and complications, including serious infections." Subsequently, Edward Jenner , who was 13 years old when Lady Mary died in 1762, developed the much safer technique of vaccination using cowpox instead of smallpox. Jenner's method involves "engrafting lymph taken from
20276-487: Was not equally smitten. Very few letters passed between them after Lady Mary's return to England, and various reasons have been suggested for the subsequent estrangement. In 1728, Pope attacked Lady Mary in his Dunciad , which inaugurated a decade in which most of his publications made some sort of allegation against her. Lady Mary went through a series of trials with her children. In 1726 and 1727, Lady Mary's son Edward ran away from Westminster School several times. He
20424-421: Was not in doubt. Pope pilloried a host of other "hacks", "scribblers" and "dunces" in addition to Theobald, and Maynard Mack has accordingly called its publication "in many ways the greatest act of folly in Pope's life". Though a masterpiece due to having become "one of the most challenging and distinctive works in the history of English poetry", writes Mack, "it bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time
20572-399: Was outraged by what he saw as the impudence of a younger author. Dennis hated Pope for the rest of his life, and save for a temporary reconciliation, dedicated his efforts to insulting him in print, to which Pope retaliated in kind, making Dennis the butt of much satire. A folio containing a collection of his poems appeared in 1717, along with two new ones about the passion of love: Verses to
20720-407: Was passed to the care of her father, who did not believe he was obliged to assist with her education. Mary Wortley Montagu's education was divided between a governess and the use of the library at the family property Thoresby Hall . According to Lady Mary, the governess gave her "one of the worst [educations] in the world" by teaching Lady Mary "superstitious tales and false notions". To supplement
20868-402: Was published posthumously — Walpole affirmed that it was Montagu's deathbed wish to get the letters published. An important early letter was published, probably without Montagu's consent, titled "The Genuine Copy of a Letter Written From Constantinople by an English Lady" in 1719. Both in this letter and in the Turkish Embassy Letters more broadly, particularly in the letters about her host,
21016-723: Was replaced with the Poet Laureate Colley Cibber as "king of dunces", but his real target remained the Whig politician Robert Walpole . By the mid-18th century, new fashions in poetry emerged. A decade after Pope's death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope's style was not the most excellent form of the art. The Romantic movement that rose to prominence in early 19th-century England was more ambivalent about his work. Though Lord Byron identified Pope as one of his chief influences – believing his own scathing satire of contemporary English literature English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to be
21164-532: Was sincerely charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she encountered. In letters she wrote about how different fashion was as she made her way to Turkey. In a letter to Lady Mar, from Vienna, she wrote: "They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads, about a yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with numberless yards of heavy ribbon...Their whalebone petticoats outdo ours by several yards' circumference, and cover some acres of ground." Furthermore, she recorded her experiences in
21312-400: Was suggested that Shakespeare's texts were thoroughly contaminated by actors' interpolations and they would influence editors for most of the 18th century. Pope's poetic career testifies to an indomitable spirit despite disadvantages of health and circumstance. The poet and his family were Catholics and so fell subject to the prohibitive Test Acts , which hampered their co-religionists after
21460-547: Was taught to read by his aunt and attended Twyford School circa 1698. He also attended two Roman Catholic schools in London. Such schools, though still illegal, were tolerated in some areas. In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood , in Binfield , Berkshire , close to the royal Windsor Forest . This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing " Papists " from living within 10 miles (16 km) of London or Westminster. Pope would later describe
21608-474: Was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York . Both parents were Catholics . His mother's sister, Christiana, was the wife of famous miniature painter Samuel Cooper . Pope's education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts , a series of English penal laws that upheld the status of the established Church of England , banning Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, and holding public office on penalty of perpetual imprisonment. Pope
21756-424: Was the eldest child of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull (c.1655–1726), and his first wife Lady Mary Feilding (died 20 December 1697), the only daughter of the third Earl of Denbigh (1640–1685). Lady Mary had three younger siblings: two girls, Frances and Evelyn, and a boy, William. Lady Mary was a bright, free-spirited child who dreamed of greatness. She wrote in her diary, "I am going to write
21904-472: Was then entrusted to a tutor with strict orders to keep him abroad. In later years, her son managed to return to England without permission and continued to have a strained relationship with both his parents. In the summer of 1736, Lady Mary's daughter, also named Mary, fell in love with John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute , but he had little fortune; Lady Mary warned her daughter about the disadvantages of living in poverty. Lady Mary similarly had concerns regarding
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