Naturally the Duke's activities in this noble sport were not pent up in a country village, and, in February, 1724, Lady Mary, sending the news of London to her sister, tells of a band of "twenty very pretty fellows" who called themselves the "Schemers," and met regularly three times a week to consult with Wharton as a "committee of gallantry." "T is true," she adds, "they have the envy and curses of the old and ugly of both sexes, and a general persecution from all old women; but this is no more than all reformations must expect in their beginning." But Twickenham was the centre of the hottest fighting, and Lady Mary had good reason for knowing the Duke's prowess as a "Schemer." It was even hinted that hers was the attraction that lured him thither, and Lady Mary herself declared that Pope's jealousy of Wharton was the cause of her quarrel with the wicked wasp. Whether that charge is true or notprobably literary intrigue had more to do with the quarrel than amatory jealousy the marriage of gallantry and wit ran no smooth course with the Lady and the Peer. Indeed, the Lady had good reason for resentment. When she wrote a set of melting verses on the death of a young bride, the Duke parodied them with a bit of insulting scurrility which shows only too plainly the savage grossness underlying the polish even of the Olympians. That was bad enough, but the outrage became intolerable when the Duke amused himself at her expense with one of the common practical jokes of the day. Lady Mary tells the story in a letter to her sister: Sophia [the Duke] and I have an immortal quarrel; which though I resolve never to forgive, I can hardly forbear laughing at. An acquaintance of mine is married, whom I wish very well to: Sophia has been pleased, on this occasion, to write the most infamous ballad that ever was written; ... and Sophia has distributed this ballad in such a manner as to make it pass for mine, on purpose to pique the poor innocent soul of the newmarried man, whom I should be the last of creatures to abuse. It needed a strong man to play the game of wit in that fashion, and it is not hard to understand why life at Twickenham, and indeed in England, should have become impossible for Wharton, even apart from his political vagaries. A few months after the placable letter just cited Lady Mary is again writing of her gallant rival: Sophia is going to Aix la Chapelle, and from thence to Paris. . . . We are broke to an irremediable degree. Various are the persecutions I have endured from him this winter, in all which I remain neuter, and shall certainly go to heaven from the passive meekness of my temper. So the Duke of Wharton passes out of the literary life of England. The meekness of Lady Mary others had a different name for it endured the strain for fourteen more years, and then she too, partly by the venom of Pope's satire, was driven from the land; both Peer and Lady lost in the battle where the little captain of Twickenham was wielding his "terrible swift sword." But neither was the victory long. The year after Lady Mary's exit the wife of another Edward Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, is gossiping thus to a friend: "Lady Shadwell saw Lady Mary Wortley at Venice, where she now resides, and asked her what made her leave England; she told them the reason was, people were grown so stupid she could not endure their company, all England was infected with dulness." The writer adds charitably that by "dulness" the exile meant her husband, whom she had abandoned. That gentleman was dull enough and mean enough, in all conscience, to afford his wife excuse for such a synonym; but when one thinks of the change from Lady Mary to Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, and of the difference between the society that fought and bled at Twickenham and the insipid circle that purred about the "Queen of the Blue-Stockings," one is inclined to believe the Lady meant precisely what she said. The twilight of the wits was come: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, |