Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

noblewoman; writer and poet from England, editor (1689-1762)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (26 May 168921 August 1762) was an English aristocrat and writer, chiefly remembered today for her letters.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1725
Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 1800

Quotes edit

  • Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,—
    In part she is to blame that has been tried:
    He comes too near that comes to be denied.
    • The Lady’s Resolve (1713). A fugitive piece, written on a window by Lady Montagu, after her marriage. Compare: "In part to blame is she, Which hath without consent bin only tride: He comes to neere that comes to be denide", Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613), A Wife, stanza 36.
  • In response to Lady Mary Montague's line 'And we meet, with champagne and a chicken at last' (from Montague's poem 'The Lover: A Ballad'):
    "What say you to such a supper with such a woman? … Is not her 'champagne and chicken' worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry?"

--from Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life. Ed. Thomas Moore. Paris: A. and W. Gaglinani, 1830. p. 391.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) edit

Quotes reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
  • Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;
    In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.
    • A Summary of Lord Lyttelton’s Advice.
  • Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
    Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
    • To the Imitator of the First Satire of Horace, Book ii.
  • But the fruit that can fall without shaking
    Indeed is too mellow for me.
    • The Answer.

External links edit

 
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
 
Commons