MONTAGU, LADY Mary Wortley, lish author: b. 1689; d. 21 Aug. 1762. She was the eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, after ward Duke of Kingston. She learned Latin very early, and also became versed in English literature, especially its romance and drama. The Kit-Cat Club (q.v.) by acclamation ad mitted her to membership. In 1712, without the consent of her father, she married Edward Wortley Montagu, a wealthy Whig scholar, with whom the former had quarreled. On the accession of George I in 1714 Montagu ob tamed an official position in London, and Lady Mary came out from the seclusion in which she had lived. Her beauty, wit and vivacity gained her admiration and influence, and she became familiarly acquainted with Addison, Congreve, Pope and other distinguished writers. In 1716 her husband was appointed Ambassador to Turkey, and Lady Mary accompanied him to Constantinople, where they remained from January 1717 to May 1718. During this period her famous 'Turkish Letters' were written. On her return to England she re-entered the world of wit and fashion. She had a quarrel
with Pope, and a long and keen literary war ensued, which did honor to neither. In 1739, for reasons never satisfactorily explained, she left England to live on the Continent. This she did with the full concurrence of her husband. She lived chiefly in Italy until her husband's death in 1761, and soon after her return to England she herself died. Her letters are marked by great sprightliness, combined with graphic power and keen observation, and with independence of judgment. Lady Mary has another claim to remembrance in her coura geous adoption for her own children of the Turkish practice of inoculation (q.v.) for small pox, and for her energy in promoting its intro duction into England in the face of violent prejudice. Consult her 'Works,' edited by Lord Wharncliffe, her great-grandson (1837; latest ed., 1893) ; and Symonds, E. M., 'Lad M. W. Montagu and her Times' (New York 1907).