"Saturday. The Small-Pox."
By
Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady
- Correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Workshop participants at the Behn/Burney Conference 2019, Laura Runge, Mona Narain, Shea Stuart, Emily MN Kugler
TOWN ECLOGUES
With some other
POEMS
By the Rt. Hon. L. M. W. M.montagu
montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born Pierrepont (1689-1762), was an eccentric woman and talented writer who has not received as much attention as her friends and contemporaries, like Alexander Pope, with whom she had a close relationship before it turned acrimonious. Montagu was a member of the aristocracy, daughter of the Earl of Kingston and Lady Mary Fielding (yes, she was related to the Henry Fielding of Tom Jones fame!). She fled an arranged marriage and eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu. Most remember her as a letter-writer, whose letters were designed for posthumous publication. Most significant in these letters are those typically referred to as the "Turkish Embassy" letters, because they discuss her experience traveling to and living in Contantinople (now Istanbul) with her husband, who served as ambassador to Turkey from 1716-1718.
Her "Town Eclogues," from which this selection is taken, are a series of six adaptations of the Roman poet Virgil’s Eclogues, written in 37BCE. An "eclogue" is a kind of poem that presents a snippet (or a "selection") of life. In Virgil’s eclogues—a series of 10 poems—rural herdsman sing and discuss their experiences, often relating to the turbulent time in Rome just as the Roman Empire was emerging. In the early 18th century, "Augustan" British poets saw themselves as modern inheritors of a Roman tradition inaugurated by Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.
Montagu’s eclogues focus similarly on a turbulent, transitional era characterized by the social, political, and economic structures of rapid commercialization in the England and the United Kingdom. These "Town Eclogues" offer a series of six poems, which you can read in their entirety on Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive. The poems are organized by days of the week and discuss themes of sexuality, relationships between men and women, illness, and fashionable society. In this poem, "Saturday; or the Small-Pox," the poetic speaker recounts the character Flavia’s thoughts about her smallpox scars, which were shared by Mary Wortley Montagu herself—Montagu suffered from smallpox in her youth, which marked her for the rest of her life. During her travels to Turkey, she witnessed the act of inoculation for smallpox, which she employed to inoculate her children. She brought word of the innovation back to England, though she is not credited with its popularization. To read more about Montagu’s connection with the smallpox vaccine, read Tom Solomon’s article on The Conversation.
In 1736, Montagu fell in love with an Italian writer, and she left her husband and family to live with him on the Continent, under cover of traveling for health reasons. He never caught up with her in Italy, however, and she traveled through France and Italy in the 40s and 50s, living for a decade with an Italian Count. After her husband died in 1761, she returned to London, and died of cancer shortly after. Her letters were published in 1763, but the first complete modern edition was published in the 1960s. The portrait of Montagu included here was painted in 1725 by Jonathan Richardson. It is currently in the collection of the Earl of Harrowby, Stafford (via Wikimedia Commons).
- [TH] LONDON:Printed for M. Cooper in Pater-noster-Row. 1747. 32 SATURDAY.
The SMALL-POXsmallpox. smallpoxSmallpox is an infectious disease caused by the variola virus, which ravaged many parts of the world until its eradication in 1980. Throughout the eighteenth century, over 400,000 people died in Europe from the disease. It is characterized by pus-filled blisters that form on the skin, before hardening and falling off; smallpox often caused severe scarring and even blindness among those who survived. The virus was used as a biological weapon, notably by the British against Native Americans in Pontiac's War of the 1760s. The disease was 90% fatal among the Amerindian population, causing mass destruction. Before a vaccine was developed, the virus was managed through a process of inoculation--also called variolation--whereby a small amount of infected fluid, often from a cow, was introduced to a healthy person's body, causing an immune response. This process of inoculation was practiced in Asia and Africa, before appearing in the Ottoman Empire, where Mary Wortley Montagu witnessed the procedure. To read more, see Tom Solomon’s article on The Conversation. - [BehnBurney19] FLAVIA. 1THE wretched FLAVIA on her couch reclin'd, 2Thus breath'd the anguish of a wounded mind; 3A glass revers'd in her right hand she bore, 4For now she shun'd the face she sought before. 5'How am I chang'd! alas! how am I grown 6'A frightful spectre, to myself unknown! 7'Where's my complexion? where my radiant bloom, 8'That promis'd happiness for years to come? 9'Then with what pleasure I this face survey'd! 10'To look once more, my visits oft delay'd! 11'Charm'd with the view, a fresher red would rise, 12'And a new life shot sparkling from my eyes! 33 13'Ah! faithless glass, my wonted bloom restore; 14'Alas! I rave, that bloom is now no more! 15'The greatest good the Gods on men bestow, 16'Ev'n youth itself, to me is useless now. 17'There was a time (oh! that I cou'd forget!) 18'When opera-ticketsopera-tickets pour’d before my feet; opera-ticketsOpera was a fashionable entertainment past-time in the eighteenth century. Opera stars were celebrities, often extravagantly-compensated, and also the subject of some criticism, as Michael Burden describes in "Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England." Here, Flavia claims that "opera-tickets pour'd before [her] feet," which would have been an extravagance, indeed. According to Judith Milhous and Robert Hume, throughout much of the period ticket prices were fixed at 1s 6d or 5s, for pit/boxes or gallery seating, respectively. "A season subscription for fifty nights," they note, "was 15 [guineas]" (79). For more information on eighteenth-century opera, see this overview from the Victoria and Albert Museum. For more information on cost of living in the early eighteenth century, see the discussion of coinage at the Old Bailey Online. - [TH] 19'And at the ringring, where brightest beauties shine, ring


Footnotes

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born Pierrepont (1689-1762), was an eccentric woman and talented writer who has not received as much attention as her friends and contemporaries, like Alexander Pope, with whom she had a close relationship before it turned acrimonious. Montagu was a member of the aristocracy, daughter of the Earl of Kingston and Lady Mary Fielding (yes, she was related to the Henry Fielding of Tom Jones fame!). She fled an arranged marriage and eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu. Most remember her as a letter-writer, whose letters were designed for posthumous publication. Most significant in these letters are those typically referred to as the "Turkish Embassy" letters, because they discuss her experience traveling to and living in Contantinople (now Istanbul) with her husband, who served as ambassador to Turkey from 1716-1718.
Her "Town Eclogues," from which this selection is taken, are a series of six adaptations of the Roman poet Virgil’s Eclogues, written in 37BCE. An "eclogue" is a kind of poem that presents a snippet (or a "selection") of life. In Virgil’s eclogues—a series of 10 poems—rural herdsman sing and discuss their experiences, often relating to the turbulent time in Rome just as the Roman Empire was emerging. In the early 18th century, "Augustan" British poets saw themselves as modern inheritors of a Roman tradition inaugurated by Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.
Montagu’s eclogues focus similarly on a turbulent, transitional era characterized by the social, political, and economic structures of rapid commercialization in the England and the United Kingdom. These "Town Eclogues" offer a series of six poems, which you can read in their entirety on Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive. The poems are organized by days of the week and discuss themes of sexuality, relationships between men and women, illness, and fashionable society. In this poem, "Saturday; or the Small-Pox," the poetic speaker recounts the character Flavia’s thoughts about her smallpox scars, which were shared by Mary Wortley Montagu herself—Montagu suffered from smallpox in her youth, which marked her for the rest of her life. During her travels to Turkey, she witnessed the act of inoculation for smallpox, which she employed to inoculate her children. She brought word of the innovation back to England, though she is not credited with its popularization. To read more about Montagu’s connection with the smallpox vaccine, read Tom Solomon’s article on The Conversation.
In 1736, Montagu fell in love with an Italian writer, and she left her husband and family to live with him on the Continent, under cover of traveling for health reasons. He never caught up with her in Italy, however, and she traveled through France and Italy in the 40s and 50s, living for a decade with an Italian Count. After her husband died in 1761, she returned to London, and died of cancer shortly after. Her letters were published in 1763, but the first complete modern edition was published in the 1960s. The portrait of Montagu included here was painted in 1725 by Jonathan Richardson. It is currently in the collection of the Earl of Harrowby, Stafford (via Wikimedia Commons).

