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fraud and falsehood, and, quite at the end, of intimidation, supplied its place. We find, however, that though there was not the reality, there was the report of her being forcibly detained, as is shown, not only by the vague rumour in Horace Walpole's letter to Mann, of August, 1751, but by the fact, that at nearly the same period, the Signor Contarini, as Podesta or Chief Magistrate of Brescia, insisted upon sending one of his officers to Lady Mary, and learning from herself whether she had any such cause of complaint. Lady Mary being then deluded by the artifices of the Count, gave, as her answer, "Che io non avevo ricevuto che politezze dalla Casa Palazzo." By degrees, however, the eyes of the lady were opened as to the Count's real character. Louvere she tells us," Teneva accademia di gioco in casa sua ;" and his want of principle came still more home to her, when she found that he had, under various pretexts, defrauded her of large sums, and in all probability was the person who, some years before, purloined her jewels. In their explanations before his aunt, Madame Roncadelli, she left him, with the words, "Voi siete un ladro indegno!" Nevertheless, from intimidation, being then in Madame Roncadelli's house, she consented to sign a sort of discharge or accommodation, and what is more remarkable, "Il Conte mi fece dimandare per ultima grazia di lasciarmi accompagnare sino a Mantova ove egli aveva de parenti; glielo permisi." Nor did his pursuit stop then. She found him at Padua, where he had engaged a lodging to be ready for her. She consented to occupy it for two or three days, and on returning from Venice to a house she had ordered to be taken

for her at Padua, she heard that the Count had taken up his quarters there, and was living in the Loge du Suisse. She was obliged to send him word that she did not keep an inn, and he then set off for Gotolengo. At this point ends Lady Mary's narrative. The remainder of her life in Italy, till Mr. Wortley's death, appears to have been passed between Padua and Venice, with the exception perhaps of a visit to Genoa in 1759, if indeed (which I doubt) her letter from thence be rightly given at that date.

We come then to the question whether it would be advisable for you to insert this Memoir in the next edition of Lady Mary's works. I must own that I think your doing so will be the most consistent with that "candour and liberality" for which your share in the publication has been already so highly, yet so deservedly, praised by the 'Quarterly Review.' Would those qualities be still so manifest, were you to withhold this important fragment of autobiography after its existence has been already made known to the world, and after conjecture has already done its worst upon it? The question is not, you will observe, whether or not you shall bury all these transactions in oblivion, but whether, when once stirred and glanced at, you shall throw upon them all the light your papers allow, or else leave some future critics and reviewers-no very charitable race to surmise that the papers must contain something too shocking to publish. You may see what is already said on this subject in the Quarterly Review.' Under present circumstances, thereforethe affair being once mooted, and the existence of

This point, for which, natural anxiety, I will What is the chief fact character as the story is

this Memoir once proclaimed-I am decidedly of opinion that its publication will be more advantageous than hurtful to Lady Mary's fame. no doubt, you feel a just and endeavour to unfold more fully. that tells against Lady Mary's at present known? That after having been forcibly kept in durance for some sinister purpose, she, instead of loud complaints, concealed the whole affair from her husband and her daughter. This I own, till I read the Memoir, seemed to me a decisive consideration. But its force is certainly blunted in no small degree, when we find that it was no sudden single act of outrage, but rather a series of petty frauds on the one part and of pecuniary losses on the other. A lady of high character could not, I think, hush up any sudden abduction or forcible detention, but might be unwilling to tell a tale of friendship abused, of judgment duped, of money gone. She would not conceal a violence, she might a delusion. Besides, as I have elsewhere shown, it appears, from comparing the Memoir and the letters, that the first steps of this friendship and delusion had been explicitly related to Mr. Wortley.

On the whole, then, if I were in your place I should certainly publish the Memoir, either in the original or in an English translation, or in both; and I should make room for it by omitting Mr. Dallaway's life. That life, besides the dates (and even of these it omits one of the most important, Mr. Wortley's death), contains nothing that is not either to be found in the letters, or that is not flatly contradicted in Lady Louisa Stuart's

introductory anecdotes.

It is all, it appears to me,

either a truism or an untruth. A notice of a few dates prefixed to Lady Louisa's interesting Essay, or embodied in it, would do all that is required, or, at least, as much as is done in Mr. Dallaway's sixty pages.

I beg your pardon for the length to which my opinion has run; however, I will not lengthen it more by apologies, for I will hasten to subscribe myself,

Ever sincerely yours,

MAHON.

PosгSCRIPT.-January, 1872.

The course here recommended was not followed by Lord Wharncliffe in his new edition. It would have had one advantage beyond what he or I foresaw, since, by some accident, as I have lately been informed, the original MS. has been lost or mislaid, without any copy taken.

I may add that, some years after the date of my letter to Lord Wharncliffe, I chanced to find in the despatches then preserved at the State Paper Office, a passage that bears upon the point in question. It is as follows:

:

Mr. John Murray, Minister Resident at Venice, to the

Secretary of State.

Venice, Sept. 10, 1756.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu arrived here two days ago. She has been for some years past, and still continues, in the hands of a Brescian Count, who, it is said, plunders her of all her riches.

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