The Speckled Monster (82 page)

From her letters, Lady Mary appears to have been giddily in love in the summer of 1725; by the spring of 1726, this infatuation had faded, apparently unconsummated and possibly unrequited. Again, her beloved's identity is lost. While she gazed elsewhere, Alexander Pope was gazing at her.

To her family, Lady Mary maintained that the infamous quarrel between her and the poet began when, with ill-chosen timing, he declared his passionate love for her, and she laughed at him. Pope scholars tend to dismiss this event as fiction; Lady Mary scholars tend to accept it as at least a contributory factor.

Smallpox did kill Lady Townshend that spring; with terribly irony, it also took another of Lady Mary's girlhood friends who had refused inoculation. In the latter case, however, I have avoided introducing a new character, but preserved the historical irony by substituting Philippa Mundy in the place of Sarah Chiswell—probably another of the Sisters in Affliction. (As Lady Mary's live-in companion, Chiswell played her own part in the Paradise adventures; presumably because she was present. No letters survive to trace her role.)

Boylston presented his book to the Royal Society to great acclaim. The sentence I have him read is his (though I have edited and abridged it slightly and added the phrase
also called inoculation
). The image of taming the smallpox, in other words, is Boylston's; I am, however, responsible for making him restate that idea more succinctly as “we have tamed the smallpox.” The standing ovation is my crystallization of all his other applause—I do not know precisely what went on in that room in Crane Court, though it was clearly highly complimentary.

His ensuing election as a Fellow is recorded fact.

ABBREVIATIONS

BG:
Boston Gazette

BL: The British Library

BNL:
Boston News-Letter

BTR:
Boston Town Records

CM: Cotton Mather

CMA: CM,
Account

CMD: CM,
Diary

CMAB: CM,
Angel of Bethesda

CMSL: CM,
Selected Letters

DAB:
Dictionary of American Biography

ELCP:
Early Letters and Classified Paper
(The Royal Society)

EWM: Edward Wortley Montagu

Grundy, LMWM: Isobel Grundy,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

JHRM:
Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts

LM: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

LMCL: LM,
Collected Letters

LMEP: LM,
Essays and Poems

LMRW: LM,
Romance Writings

Miller, AIS: Genevieve Miller,
The Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox

MMV:
Mr. Maitland's Account . . . Vindicated
.

MS: Manuscript

MSS: Manuscripts

NEC:
New-England Courant

NEHGR:
New England Historical and Genealogical Register

NPG: National Portrait Gallery, London

PRO: The Public Record Office, London

PTRS:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

RCB:
Records of the Churches of Boston

RSI: The Royal Society,
Inoculations

SM:
Selectmen's Minutes

SSD: Samuel Sewall,
Diary

Thwing RCN: Reference Code Number,
Inhabitants and Estates
database on the Thwing CD

WD: William Douglass

WDCC: WD, “Letters . . . to Cadwallader Colden”

WDD: WD,
Dissertation

WDPE: WD,
Practical Essay

WDS: WD, “A Digression Concerning the Small-Pox”

WHO: Frank Fenner, et. al.,
Smallpox and its Eradication
(published by the World Health Organization)

ZB: Zabdiel Boylston

ZBHA: ZB,
An Historical Account,
2nd (corrected) ed.

SOURCES

This book is indebted throughout to Robert Halsband's and Isobel Grundy's encyclopedic scholarship on Lady Mary's life, and to their meticulous editions of her works. Kenneth Silverman's scholarship on Cotton Mather has proved equally indispensable. Far less scholarship exists on Boylston, but Gerald Marvin Mager's doctoral dissertation,
Zabdiel Boylston: Medical Pioneer of Colonial Boston,
offers a solid starting point. Charles Creighton's 1894
History of Epidemics in Britain,
Genevieve Miller's
Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox in England and France,
and John B. Blake's
Public Health in the Town of Boston, 1630-1822
(the latter two both from the 1950s) all remain treasure troves of eighteenth-century descriptions, medical theories, and statistics concerning smallpox.

The finest modern descriptions of the symptoms and course of the disease are Thomas Francis Ricketts's 1908 study
The Diagnosis of Smallpox,
based on his work as medical superintendent of London's smallpox hospitals, and the World Health Organization's justifiably triumphant
Smallpox and its Eradication,
which appeared eighty years after Ricketts's work, coauthored by the international team of crusaders who finally conquered the disease: Frank Fenner, Donald Ainslie Henderson, Isao Arita, Zdeněk Ježek, and Ivan Danilovich Ladnyi.

Biblical quotations are from the King James Version of 1611.

In quoting eighteenth-century writers and speakers, I have updated spelling and pronunciation, and substituted
you were
for
you was
(then standard), and
it's
for
'tis
. My goal has been to allow the speakers to sound natural to modern ears—as they did to each other—rather than quaint and archaic. I have tried, however, to retain their greater sense of formality and decorum (though their distinctly pre-Victorian humor and oaths were often more earthy than is commonly realized today).

 

References are keyed to the Bibliography. Throughout, I refer to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as LM, Edward Wortley Montagu as EWM, Zabdiel Boylston as ZB, Cotton Mather as CM, and William Douglass as WD.

Reactions to LM: Stuart 36; reactions to ZB: Peter Thacher 777; ZBHA Preface. Eradication of smallpox from nature: Tucker 1 (prison metaphor), 3 (victim count and comparisons to bubonic plague and twentieth-century wars), 116-118 (last-known case).

Odds of the vaccine resulting in death: “Vaccinia (Smallpox) Vaccine Recommendations”; odds of variolation resulting in death: Jurin,
Letter to the Learned Caleb Cotesworth
and his 1724-27 series of pamphlets titled
Account of the Success of Inoculating the Small Pox in Great Britain
. Arguments over the origin of vaccinia: Tucker 37-38.

Jenner: see sources for “The Practice.”

Queen's illness and death: Contemporary accounts: Creighton 2:459-60; Walter Harris,
De Morbis Acutis Infantum
158-63. Modern biographies: Chapman 250-60; Elizabeth Hamilton 327-37. Queen's “why are you crying?” and king's letter: Chapman 252.

Hemorrhagic smallpox (early and late): Ricketts 73-103; WHO 37-38; WDPE throughout; WDS 401-403; Mead 236-239. “Like creatures flayed”: ZBHA 38. Fatality statistics: WHO 5.

Garden imagery: scattered throughout Mead; Walter Harris, “De Inoculatione Variolarum” and
De Morbis Acutis Infantum;
ZBHA; WDD; WDPE; WDS.

Historical confusion of smallpox with measles: Creighton 1:448-55.

Gloucester's death: Gregg 120-21. Smallpox death statistics for 1694 and 1700: Creighton: 2:456 (death figures from the London Bills of Mortality).

LM's childhood: Grundy, LMWM 5-13; chasing the sun: LMCL 3:132; chasing the steeple of Salisbury Cathedral: LMCL 1:112. Thoresby: John Harris, “Thoresby House” and “Thoresby Concluded.”

Kit-Cat visit: LM's recollection: Stuart 9; toasts:
Miscellany Poems
5: 60-70; LM's verse to Lord Halifax on the Countess of Sunderland: Harrowby MS 250, folio 4. Kit-Cat history and membership: Allen 33-54; Caulfield. “Pleasure was too poor a word . . .”: adapted from Stuart 9.

Eighteenth-Century London: Ashton, Besant, George, Picard; Eighteenth-century dress: Buck, Cunnington.

LM's girlhood: Grundy, LMWM 14-29; garden-wall escapade with Brownlows: LMCL 1:23. LM's youthful writings (including the book burning): Grundy, LMWM 18-21, and Grundy, “ ‘The Entire Works of Clarinda.' ” The two albums: Harrowby MSS Trust MSS 250 and 251. Dorchester's children greeting him on bended knee: Stuart 31; Kneller's portrait of Dorchester, c. 1709: NPG 3213; Dorchester's character: Stuart 8. Secret learning of Latin: Spence,
Observations
1:303-04, and Grundy, LMWM 15-16.

LM's friendship with Anne Wortley and meeting of EWM: Grundy, LMWM 28-33. EWM's gift of Quintus Curtius with inscribed poem: Stuart 15. Courtship, elopement, and early married life with EWM, generally: Grundy, LMWM 30-65, LMCL 1:4-181. Betty Laskey fiasco: LMCL 1:27-40; LMEP 80; Laroon 138-39, 166-67; Ashton 365-66, 369-70. 1710 Smallpox epidemic: Creighton 1:461 and 2:57; Jurin's later statistics: Miller, AIS 114-18. Quack medicine advertisements: Defoe,
Journal
30-31. Life and street encounters during an epidemic: Miller, AIS 37-43; Creighton 2:452-53. Margaret Brownlow's death: Grundy, LMWM 23; LMCL 1:34. Recipe for applying cream with a feather
Accomplish'd Lady's Delight
58. Intensifying fears of smallpox: Creighton 1:463-67, 2:434-45. LM, “Men are vile inconstant toads”: LMCL 1:42. EWM, “I know that when you write”: LMCL 1:52. LM, “Madam, you are the greatest coquette”: LMCL 1:60, 62. LM and Lady Frances, “He has all the qualities of an upright man . . .”: adapted from LMRW 124. EWM, “At last I am ready to confess . . .”: LMCL 1:100 (16 April 1711); LM's response: LMCL 1:102 (17 April 1711).

Deaths of Emperor Joseph I and the grand dauphin Louis: Hopkins 43-45; McKay 132-33; Saint-Simon 2:128-45. Hot and cold regimens: Creighton 1:447-48, 2:445-50; Hopkins 27, 33; Mead 239-40; Miller, AIS 35-39.

LM to Philippa Mundy: “I am glad, dear Phil, . . .”: abridged from LMCL 1:110-111 (2 Nov. 1711); “Your obliging letters . . .”: LMCL 1:111-13 (23 Nov. 1711 and 12 Dec. 1711, combined and condensed); “My adventures are very odd . . .”: LMCL 1:149-50 (Aug. 1712, slightly rearranged).

LM's letter to Dorchester protesting aversion to Skeffington, and ensuing encounters with him and the family, as well as her “final” answer: drawn from LM's letters to EWM in LMCL 1:133-36 (26 July 1712), 1:146-47 (7 Aug. 1712), 1:160-61 (16 Aug. 1712).

EWM to LM, “I have been grieved . . .”: LMCL 1:125 (16 June 1712). LM to EWM: “Were I to choose my destiny . . .”: LMCL 1:129 (17 July 1712); “Come next Sunday . . .”: LMCL 1:150 (12 Aug. 1712); “A pious prude in love”: adapted from LMRW 124; “You have not been gone three hours . . .”: LMCL 1:181 (22 June 1713).

Elopement: LMCL 1:164-167 (18-20 Aug. 1712); LMRW 128-36 (“Princess Docile”); Grundy, LMWM 50-56. “I thought to find Limbo . . .”: adapted from LMCL 1:167, n. 1.

EWM as Prince Sombre: LMRW 124. Dorchester as Sir Thomas Grandison (the title character's father) in Samuel Richardson's
Sir Charles Grandison:
LMCL 3:90.

LM's life from her brother's death through her own bout with smallpox: Grundy, LMWM 66-102. Reactions to her brother's death and her consequent relations with EWM: LMCL 1:181-245; “My Brother . . . is as well as can be”: LMCL 1:182 (25 June 1713); “Your absence . . .”: LMCL 1:183 (3 July 1713). Journal entry about her brother: Stuart 21. Lady Frances's marriage: Grundy, LMWM 72-74; Philippa Mundy's marriage: LMCL 1:109, 177-80, 204-207. EWM revenge: LMCL 1:236-45.

Pope's reading before Lord Halifax: Spence,
Observations
1:87-88 and Mack 271-72. His illness and appearance: Mack 152-58.

Craggs on the stairs: Stuart 28-29. Personalities and habits of King George I, Schulenberg, and Kielmansegg: Hatton, especially 25, 29, 50-51, 133, 137-38. LM's description of the court, including the Prince of Wales: LMEP 82-94.

LM's bout with smallpox: Ricketts's description of “confluent smallpox with severe suppurative fever”: Ricketts 4, 26-42; see also WHO 7-22 and Mead. London gossip: Grundy, LMWM 100-103; the earl of Carnarvon (later duke of Chandos), quoted in Sherburn, 204 and 208 n. 1 (pitted/pitied pun); and Lady Loudoun, quoted in Halsband,
Life
52.

LM's smallpox eclogue: LMEP 201-204; LM's loss of beauty, and her claim that “Flavia” was herself: Stuart 35. Kneller's early painting of LM: Grundy, LMWM 91-92. Pepys on the duchess of Richmond: Pepys 9:134-35, 139.

Lady Hertford on LM's loss of beauty (given here to Lady Townshend): Grundy: LMWM 102. LM's “reply”: adapted from “Carabosse” in LMEP 153-55, 383-84. LM's friendship with Lady Townshend, generally: Stuart 22-24; Grundy, LMWM 22, 66, 91, 214.

LM's convalescence: Grundy, LMWM 102-115. Preventatives against smallpox and remedies for the scarring: Mead 262;
Accomplish'd Lady's Delight
53-62; Miller, AIS 40 (Boyle's excrement-in-wine concoction). Pope's revenge on Curll: Grundy, LMWM 109-10; and Mack 296. Early rumors of inoculation heard in London: Miller, AIS 48-69 (including Mr. Townshend's report to the Royal Society); Stearns and Pasti 106-13; Creighton 2:646 (discussing Kennedy). Original sources: Kennedy; Pylarinus; Timonius. LM's mask: LM, “Satturday, the Smallpox, Flavia,” line 70, in LMEP 203; Grundy, LMWM 102, 113.

Departure: Grundy, LMWM 117-18; LMRW 74. Street cries: Laroon. Shops like “gilded theaters”: contemporary account (1715) reprinted in Besant 239-40.

LM's travels: Grundy, LMWM, 117-42; LMCL 1:248-446.