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Her Letter

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LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

[LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU: An English author; born at Thoresby, Nottinghamshire, England, about 1690; died August 21, 1762. She was married in 1712 to the Hon. Edward Wortley Montagu, whom she accompanied on his mission to the Porte. While in Constantinople, she wrote to her sister, the Countess of Mar, Pope, and other friends, her famous " Letters," by which she is chiefly known. She also published "Town Eclogues." Her writings are witty and vivacious and attracted much attention among English literati.]

TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE.

July 10, 1748.

DEAR CHILD,-I received yours of May the 12th but yesterday, July the 9th. I am surprised you complain of my silence. I have never failed answering yours the post after I received them; but I fear, being directed to Twickenham (having no other direction from you), your servants there may have neglected them.

I have been these six weeks, and still am, at my dairy house, which joins to my garden. I believe I have already told you it is a long mile from the Castle, which is situate in the midst of a very large village, once a considerable town, part of the walls still remaining, and has not vacant ground enough about it to make a garden, which is my greatest amusement, it being now troublesome to walk, or even go in the chaise till the evening. I have fitted up in this farmhouse a room for myself that is to say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the chimney with moss and branches, and adorned the room with basins of earthenware (which is made here to great perfection) filled with flowers, and put in some straw chairs, and a couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you will scarce credit the description, which, however, I can assure you, shall be very literal, without any embellishment from imagination. It is on a bank, forming a kind of peninsula, raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which you may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, and either take the air on the river, which is as large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walking in an avenue two hundred yards on the side of it, you find a wood of a hundred acres, which was already cut into walks and ridings when I took it. I have only added fifteen bowers in different views, with seats of turf. They were easily made, here being a large

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