ments are not altogether so heroic as yours; but
I hope you will forgive them in favour of the two last lines. You see
how much I esteem the honour you have done them; though I am not very
impatient to have the same, and had rather continue to be your stupid
living humble servant, than be celebrated by all the pens in Europe.

"I would write to Mr. Congreve, but suppose you will read this to him,
if he enquires after me."

CHAPTER XI

AT TWICKENHAM

The Montagus take a house at Twickenham--Lady Mary's liking for country
life--Neighbours and visitors--Pope--Bononcini, Anastasia Robinson,
Senesino--Lord Peterborough--Sir Geoffrey Kneller--Henrietta
Howard--Lord Bathurst--The Duke of Wharton--His early history--He comes
to Twickenham--His relations with Lady Mary--Horace Walpole's reference
to them--Pope's bitter onslaught on the Duke--An Epilogue by Lady
Mary--"On the death of Mrs. Bowes"--The Duke quarrels with Lady Mary.

Pope went to live at Twickenham in 1718, and it was generally believed
that it was by his persuasion that the Montagus rented a house in that
little riverside hamlet. It was not until 1722 that they bought "the
small habitation."

Lady Mary divided her time between London and Twickenham, but apparently
enjoyed herself more at her country retreat. "I live in a sort of
solitude that wants very little of being such as I would have it," she
wrote to her sister, Lady Mar, in August, 1721. As a matter of fact, the
solitude was more imaginary than real, for round about there was a small
colony of friends.

She was, indeed, very rarely lonely. "My time is melted away in almost
perpetual concerts," she told her sister. "I do not presume to judge,
but I'll assure you I am a very hearty as well as an humble admirer. I
have taken my little thread satin beauty into the house with me; she is
allowed by Bononcini to have the finest voice he ever heard in England.
He and Mrs. Robinson and Senesino lodge in this village, and sup often
with me: and this easy indolent life would make me the happiest
in the world, if I had not this execrable affair [of Remond] still
hanging over my head." To Anastasia Robinson there is more than one
allusion in Lady Mary's correspondence, and she gives a most amusing
account of an incident in that lady's career.

"Could one believe that Lady Holdernesse is a beauty, and in love? and
that Mrs. Robinson is at the same time a prude and a kept mistress? and
these things in