native Persians; and in the large host here the skill of Datis did not desert him, there was no uniformity of language, creed, and he sailed round to the western coast of race, or military system. Still, among Attica, in hopes to find the city unprotected, them there were many gallant men, under and to gain possession of it from some of a veteran general; they were familiarized Hippias' partizans. Miltiades, however, with victory, and in contemptuous confi-saw and counteracted his manœuvre. dence their infantry, which alone had time Leaving Aristides, and the troops of his to form, awaited the Athenian charge. On tribe, to guard the spoil and the slain, the came the Greeks, with one unwavering line Athenian commander led his conquering of levelled spears, against which the light army by a rapid night-march back across armor, the short lances and sabres of the the country to Athens. And when the Orientals offered weak defence. Their Persian fleet had doubled the Cape of Sufront rank must have gone down to a man nium and sailed up to the Athenian harbor at the first shock. Still they recoiled not, in the morning, Datis saw arrayed on the but strove by individual gallantry, and by heights above the city the troops before the weight of numbers, to make up for the whom his men had filed on the preceding disadvantages of weapons and tactics, and evening. All hope of further conquest in to bear back the shallow line of the Euro-Europe for the time was abandoned, and peans. In the centre, where the native the baffled armada returned to the Asiatic Persians and the Sacæ fought, they suc- coasts. ceeded in breaking through the weakened It was not by one defeat, however signal, part of the Athenian phalanx; and the that the pride of Persia could be broken, tribes led by Aristides and Themistocles and her dreams of universal empire diswere, after a brave resistance, driven back pelled. Ten years afterwards she renewed over the plain, and chased by the Persians her attempts upon Europe on a grander up the valley towards the inner country. scale of enterprise, and was repulsed by There the nature of the ground gave the Greece with greater and reiterated loss. opportunity of rallying and renewing the Larger forces and heavier slaughter than struggle and, meanwhile, the Greek had been seen at Marathon, signalized the wings, where Miltiades had concentrated conflicts of Greeks and Persians at Artehis chief strength, had routed the Asiatics misium, Salamis, Platæa, and the Euryopposed to them, and the Athenian officers, medon, and the after-triumph of the Maceinstead of pursuing the fugitives, kept donian King at the Granicus, at Issus, and their troops well in hand, and wheeling Arbela. But mighty and momentous as round, assailed on each flank the hitherto these battles were, they rank not with victorious Persian centre. Aristides and Marathon in importance. They originated Themistocles charged it again in front no new impulse. They turned back no with their re-organized troops. The Per-current of fate. They were merely consians strove hard to keep their ground. firmatory of the already existing bias Evening came on, and the rays of the set- which Marathon had created. The day of ting sun darted full into the eyes of the Marathon is the critical epoch in the hisAsiatic combatants, while the Greeks tory of the two nations. It broke for ever fought with increasing advantage with the the spell of Persian invincibility, which light at their backs. At last the hitherto had previously paralyzed men's minds. It unvanquished lords of Asia broke and fled, generated among the Greeks the spirit and the Greeks followed, striking them which beat back Xerxes, and afterwards led down, to the water's edge, where the in- on Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, vaders were now hastily launching their in terrible retaliation through their Asiatic. galleys, and seeking to re-embark and fly. campaigns. It secured for mankind the inFlushed with success, the Athenians at- tellectual treasures of Athens, the growth tacked and strove to fire the fleet. But of free institutions, the liberal enlightenhere the Asiatics resisted desperately, and ment of the western world, and the gradual the principal loss sustained by the Greeks ascendency for many ages of the great was in the assault on the ships. Here fell principles of European civilization. the brave War-Ruler, Callimachus, the general Stesilaus, and other Athenians of note. Seven galleys were fired; but the Persians succeeded in saving the rest. They pushed off from the fatal shore; but evenl VOL. XIII. No. II. 14 From Fraser's Magazine. THE LITERARY CIRCLES OF THE LAST CENTURY. MRS. MONTAGU AND HER FRIENDS. THE pursuits of literature had become, until within the last ten years, a trade among us; they constituted a refuge for the aristocratic poor, a manual employment for the intellectual plebeian. The days when not to shine in the wide field of letters was to want one qualification of the highest fashion, were clean gone-obscured at all events-and the disinterested reapers in that glorious glebe seemed to be extinct. congenial sphere all that was most suited "There genius, learning, fancy, wit, Shine safe, without a fear to fade." A new era has, however, arrived; and,. Mrs. Montagu is one of the best speciby a general impulse, society has practical- mens on record of that most comprehenly acknowledged, that, whilst to some the sive character-a woman of the world, for profession of literary tastes may be conve- she was of the world, yet not corrupted by nient, to all it is graceful. Our weekly jour-it. Her wit, displayed in the girlish nals are spangled with noble names; our effusions of a satire, rather the result of lowest circulating libraries dignify their high spirits than of a sarcastic tone, imsign-boards with "Honorables," obtained at proved as age advanced. Passionately fond the rate of three-penee a volume; smart of society, a lover of the great, she disbroughams, garnished with coronets, stand played, nevertheless, a perfect contentment at the doors of publishers, patient at the when deprived of excitement by any accidictum of some invisible "reader;" impas- dent; and, whilst she courted the great, sioned verses, penned by fair hands, which she was courteous and bountiful to the grasped last night the jewelled finger of a small. peer in the gay quadrille, find entrance to- In her youth, tainted by the opinions of day in periodicals. The list of noble, if Dr. Conyers Middleton, she is said to have not of royal authors, is swelled daily; and been sceptical-probably, only unthinking; a new edition of Horace Walpole's savage, but in her maturer years she lost that repartial, but delightful book-his Royal volting attribute of the esprit fort, which and Noble Authors,-is now a desideratum, confounds presumption with philosophy. to bring it down to the last effort of Lady She became earnestly, but cheerfully and Dalmeny's skill, or the last effusion of La- practically, pious. Reared herself in prosdy Georgiana Fullerton's genius. I know perity her sympathy with suffering was one not how this may tell upon our literary re- of the most beautiful traits of her generous putation as a nation; but that it will raise nature. Upon this superstructure, one of and refine the tone of society, there can be the fairest specimens of womankind was little doubt. Yet, still something is want-framed. To a ready but good-tempered ing a rallying point, a leader, a polar wit, Mrs. Montagu united great charms of star; such as, perhaps, may never shine person; and the gentleness and loveliness again. We want a Queen of Literature-a of her appearance and manners disarmed lady of condition, of some talent, some ac- the admiration which might otherwise have quirement, of high reputation, and grace- been tinctured with fear. Her features ful manners, who may draw around her the were strongly marked, yet delicate, excultured and the gifted, and secure to lite-pressing an elevation of sentiment befitting rature the place in social life to which it so eminently deserves to attain. Peculiarly fitted by birth, disposition, and education, to hold the post which she occupied for more than half a century, Elizabeth Montagu recurs to remembrance, as embodying that vision of an influential and benignant spirit, effecting within its the most exalted condition. Her deep blue eyes were set off by a most brilliant complexion, and were full of animation. Her eyebrows were high and arched; but the bright physiognomy was softened by its feminine delicacy, and the spirit and dash of her deportment were subdued by a stature not above the middle height, and by a slight stoop. In after life, that peculiar at country pleasure, dearer, perhaps, in and undefinable charm which we call high- after times to her memory, than the subsebreeding an expression, thoughtful and yet quent splendor of her town dinners and lively, kept up, though in a different man- routs; we follow her going eight miles "to ner, the attractions of her appearance. It dance to the music of a blind fiddler, and was not a matter of wonder that the scho- returning at two o'clock in the morning lar and the statesman delighted in her con- mightily well pleased." Next we find her, versation; for her mind was continually at the grand epoch of a woman's life, progressing, not only from her own efforts though scarcely eighteen, thinking of mato improve it, but from the insensible col- trimony, with very liberal notions on the lision with superior understandings. subject of love; liking, generally, six or Her letters present the best views of her eight men at a time, yet never loving one character, and form, in truth, her history. and expecting in her future helpmate We find her the blythe country damsel, the that he should have "constancy to like her. daughter of a Yorkshire squire, by name as long as other people do; that is, till her Matthew Robinson. Her mother was a face was wrinkled by age, or scarred with Miss Drake, and, amongst other property, the small-pox; after which, she should exheiress to the estate of Coveney, in Cam- pect civility in the room of love." bridgeshire, a circumstance which drew the family much into that county, and influenced greatly the intellectual progress of And so the young Elizabeth. For she became al- rily says, All I can hope of mortal man, y she goes on, thinking, as she mer"that Solomon was in the wrong most the pupil of the celebrated Conyers when he said, 'all was vanity or vexation Middleton, who had married her grand- of spirit;' he ought to have said, 'all was mother, Mrs. Drake; and, during a con- vanity or vexation of spirit ;' and been siderable period of her childhood, she was very willing to take the vexation, if allowto be seen sitting among grave professors, ed the previous vanity." listening-her fair young face turned to After an uneventful girlhood, varied by them to their disquisitions, of which she fears of the small-pox, which drove her to was required to give an account to Dr. retreat to an old manor-house, where a Middleton, who thus exercised her mind," grave society of rooks" cawed over her and the powers of her attention when they head, the young wit and beauty was marretired. ried, at the age of twenty-one, to the highNext she appears, a girl of fourteen, as ly respectable, well-born, and very dull a correspondent of the great Duchess of Edward Montagu, grandson of the first Portland, the daughter of the minister Earl of Sandwich, and cousin of the Lady Harley; a lady, her intimacy with whom Mary Wortley's ill-mated Mr. Montagu. never broke through the forms of ceremony It is probable that Mrs. Montagu had not usual in those times, and whom, in the left a very peaceful home to enter upon her hey-day of their friendship, Mrs. Montagu new career; her sister, indeed, afterwards never addressed otherwise than as "Ma- Mrs. Scott, but called by Mrs. Montagu, dam." And now shines forth the incipient from her resemblance to herself, "Pea," belle and woman of the world, impatient formed a fond tie; but her brothers. under the dulness of a country life, and la- though clever, were eccentric; their unbrimenting that she had nothing wherewith to dled wit came into collision with their faentertain her grace. "If I should preach ther's sarcastic vein; and the intervention a sermon on an old woman who died yes- of their mother, called on that account, by terday, you would think it a dry subject; the family, "the Speaker," was often necesor, if I should tell you my papa's dogs sary to maintain a calm around the stately have devoured my young turkeys, you dinner, or the less dangerous period of tea. would rather laugh than pity me;" but, Mr. Robinson, a man framed for the world, even in the midst of this trifling, the lite- and sighing for its gayest circles, but chainrary propensities are alluded to, though ed to dull Yorkshire by the burden of a not in the most hopeful manner. "Your large, expensive family, was subject to the grace desired me," she says, "to send you" hyp," and, occasionally, as fathers are some verses. I have not heard so much as prone to be, "grievously out of tune." In a rhyme lately; and I believe the muses giving her hand, therefore, to the opulent have all got agues in this country." We and erudite Mr. Montagu, then in parliatrace the gay damsel through all her snatches ment, Elizabeth Robinson may have hoped for, what her heart dearly loved, free and her character appears in a loftier point of frolicsome intercourse with the flower of view. "She was," observes Dr. Beattie, "a that gay crew, above which she soon rose sincere Christian, both in faith and pracin intellectual eminence. tice and took every opportunity to show Her marriage appears, indeed, to have it." Let us behold her also as the friend been no interregnum to her sunny passage and patroness of letters, the matron whose through life She was no friend to celiba- hospitality was proverbial, the moralist cy, "old virginity-ship being," in her opin- and benefactress,-and the centre of a band ion, "certainly Milton's hell." With this of wits, poets, statesmen, and churchmen. conviction, no wonder that she accepted At a certain extremity of Portman Square the hand of the proprietor of two very still stands the scene of her truest enjoylarge estates Sandleford Abbey in Berk-ments. There, in that suite of saloons, shire, and Denton in Northumberland. were assembled all that the metropolis conAnd there appears to have existed between tained of learning, wit, fashion:-politiher and her husband-devoted as he was to cians, divines, novelists, poets, dramatists, severe studies, especially to mathematics and blues, the sage and dignified Mrs. the most perfect friendship; a dutiful con- Elizabeth Carter by the side of the leader cession to his tastes on her part, and libe- of the ton, Lady Townshend; bishops and rality and kindness on his side. Yet their archbishops mingling in easy parlance with correspondence is rather that of a respect- Mrs. Chapone, or with Fanny Burney,ed tutor with a favorite pupil, or of a fa- and prime ministers trifling with Mrs. Dether and child, than of two beings whose laney, or with Mrs. Boscawen. Portman hearts were fondly intertwined, and whose Square was, in truth, the scene of all that tastes accorded. motley collection; for at Sandleford,-a place which has passed out of the Montagu family, having been sold by the late Lord Rokeby to Mr. Chatteris,-she held a different course. There, writing to her sister, she thanks her for a letter which had refreshed her mind, which, whilst deep in accounts, had been "travelling from tubs of soap to firkins of butter, and from thence to chaldrons of coals." But in Portman Square Mr. Montagu was many years older than his wife; he was absorbed in mathematical pursuits, and, although a man of strict honor and integrity, had his doubts on religious subjects: one can hardly suppose a character more opposed to that of the gay Elizabeth Robinson, whose heart was, as she herself avows, set on the fascinating career of London pleasures. She who doated upon "pink satin negligée trimmed she was herself again. fort galamment," was now pinned to the so- In 1775, the death of her husband left ciety of problems and decimal fractions. her a widow, at the age of fifty-five. We That she loved Mr. Montagu, appears to may suppose that her tea-table was not the be very doubtful; that, in the midst of the less cheerful for the one place occupied by highest society in London,-beautiful, the a grave mathematician being left vacant; fashion, a wit, she never lost for an instant but the nucleus of that unparalleled sociher own respect or that of others, shows how great is the mistake which attributes to the gay and light-hearted want of prudence. They are always safer than the gloomy and reserved. ety, of which the fame still lingers among the lettered, must have been formed in Mr. Montagu's lifetime. Some of its brightest ornaments were, indeed, even at that period, extinct in death. Pulteney, earl of Mr. Montagu died in extreme old age in Bath, between whom and Mrs. Montagu 1775. His want of belief was then a great the stupid scribblers of the day (mistaking sorrow to his wife; "he set too much value the raillery of an old gallant on the one on mathematics," so writes Dr. Beattie, hand, and the sallies of a fair and flattered "and piqued himself too much on his know-wit on the other, for a sentiment), ascribed ledge of that science." And in vain did an attachment only governed by circumthat excellent man, at the request of Mrs. stances. He was one of the widow's most Montagu, confer with the expiring philoso- ardent votaries. He had found it impospher on the truths of Christianity. One sible, thus he wrote, to comply with Mrs. child, a son, was the result of this union. Montagu's conditions of their mutual hapHis death in infancy contributed to sober piness, namely, to wait for her until the down the exuberant spirits of his afflicted millennium arrived; but had yielded up his mother. She bore that sorrow heroically, spirit at an advanced age, after his busy but her heart was touched; and henceforth part on the stage of life was played out But among the most favored of Mrs. Mon- ness of manner, sufficient to disarm even tagu's friends there were not wanting others, Johnson, whom she knew in his earliest whose admiration of her accomplishments dawn of fame, of his rudeness. His forof mind and person were construed into an attachment, elevated indeed by respect, yet partaking of the tenderest feelings of friendship. bearance to her was repaid by esteem and confidence on her part-when, in his decline of health, she expressed her conviction of the soundness of his religious prinBut let us take a survey of her tea-table, ciples to himself, he took her by the hand, and offer a brief sketch of those who exclaiming earnestly, "You know this to courted her smiles and enhanced her fame. be true, and testify it to the world when I First, as in gallantry due, for the ladies: am gone." A fine tribute at once to her Entering at an early hour,--for she had friendship to himself, and her influence risen at five, her powdered locks turned over others. back under a stately cap of fine lace, Her literary fame was chiefly founded adorned with puckered riband; her shoul- upon her translation of Epictetus, and this ders covered with a black lace mode; her one work sufficed, as it well may do, for a snuff-box in one hand, and a poem, sent by lifetime. For of all her other literary some stripling author for approval (and efforts,-her translations from the French, neither hands very clean) in another, steps and the Italian, her contributions as "EliMrs. Elizabeth Carter. Three years was za" to The Gentleman's Magazine,-hershe Mrs. Montagu's senior, and the gravest odes and elegies, the fame thereof has long respect subsisted between them. Yet the since been entombed with her bones. But time was when Mrs. Carter, learned almost she acquired, and maintained, a high posifrom her cradle, and the daughter of a cler- tion as a woman of learning and piety. gyman at Deal, had been as frolicsome as She headed the great band of modern ever muse or maiden could be; the days saints, and her mantle descended upon Mrs. had been, when the grave and classical lady Hannah More. Herself an ardent admirer had written to a friend for " all the trum- of Mrs. Rowe,--whose tomb she visited as pery tinsel things she might rummage up," a votary, forty years after her death,-she "for all the gold and silver lace that could has, in her turn, become the model and be found," to enact some part in a play; saint especial of all godly spinsters who and her rage for dancing was acknowledged flourished a generation or two back. by herself. It is not easy to picture to one's She presented, in truth, one of the fairest self Mrs. Carter walking three miles to an instances of the respect, influence, and conassembly,-dancing nine hours, and then sideration which may be acquired by a wowalking back again; nor to credit her sub-man of the middle ranks (her grandfather scribing to the Sandwich balls: but so it having been a farmer), without the gifts of was and one can conceive that the same genius. She showed how much industry, energy that procured her from Dr. Johnson good sense, and a conciliatory disposition, the praise of being the best Greek scholar dignify the position of literary women, that he knew, may have gone with her into who, it must be avowed, are apt to disher diversions, characterizing the enthusi- regard these sober attributes, forming, astic mind as well in the ball-room as in the closet. as they do, the character distinctively termed "respectable." She proved how Early in life, Elizabeth Carter is said to much it is in the power of women to raise have formed a resolution never to marry, themselves in society, and to obliterate and at an advanced period she received the those barriers of rank, of which we justly questionable honor of having Hayley's Tri- complain, when they keep out not only the umphs of Temper dedicated to her, in "her idle and the vulgar, but the refined and cultriple character of poet, philosopher, and tured portion of the middle ranks. old maid" For the benefit of all who may Between Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter be disposed to form resolutions equally rash, a close alliance of friendship was formed. it must, however, be stated, that an early They travelled together, they read the same disappointment in the character of a gentle- works, they admired the same public chaman, to whom she was partly engaged, may racters. Their correspondence turned chiefly have influenced her decision. Living from upon erudite themes; and when the gay the age of eighteen in London, amid the widow mended her pen to write to Mrs. best society, Mrs. Carter united to an ear- Carter, she put aside her satire and her nest, but somewhat stilted piety, a sweet- mirth, and poured forth disquisitions upon |