Montagu--Account of
the Pierrepont family--Lady Mary's immediate ancestors--Her father,
Evelyn Pierrepont, succeeds to the Earldom of Kingston in 1690--The
extinct marquisate of Dorchester revived in his favour--His
marriage--Issue of the marriage--Death of his wife--Lady Mary stays with
her grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont--Her early taste for
reading--She learns Latin, and, presently, Italian--Encouraged in her
literary ambitions by her uncle, William Feilding, and Bishop
Bumet--Submits to the Bishop a translation of "Encheiridion" of
Epictetus--An attractve child--A "toast" at the Kit-Cat Club--Acts as
hostess to her father.

Mary Pierrepont, afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was born in May,
1689, and was baptised on the twenty-sixth day of that month at St.
Paul's, Covent Garden. In the register is the entry: "Mary, daughter of
Evelyn Pierrepoint, Esquire, and Lady Mary, his wife."

The event, it may be remarked, was not one of any considerable social
interest, for the Hon. Evelyn Pierrepont was merely a younger son and
remote from the succession to the Earldom of Kingston.

The Pierreponts of Holme Pierrepont were a Nottinghamshire family of
considerable antiquity, though of no particular distinction. One Robert
Pierrepont, who was born in 1584, the son of Sir Henry by Frances,
sister of William, first Earl of Devonshire, was the first of the family
upon whom a peerage was bestowed. He was created in 1627 Baron
Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont and Viscount Newark, and in the following
year was elevated to the dignity of Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, Co.
York. A zealous royalist, he was in 1643 appointed Lieutenant-General of
the King's forces in the counties of Lincoln, Rutland, Huntingdon,
Cambridge, and Norfolk, and soon after taking up this command was
accidentally shot near Gainsborough, when being carried off in a pinnace
as a prisoner to Hull by the Parliamentary Army. He married in 1601
Gertrude, eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir William Reyner, of Orton
Longueville, Co. Huntingdon. She survived her husband six years.

The second Earl was Henry Pierrepont, who was born in 1607. From 1628,
when his father was given the earldom, he was known under the style of
Viscount Newark. In that year he was elected Member of Parliament for
Nottingham, and he represented that constituency until 1641, when he was
summoned to the House of Lords in his father's barony as Lord
Pierrepont. He, too, was an ardent