Listings for Reader:
Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
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unknown : unknown
'Your news and your book very much diverted me: it is an old, but very pleasant, Spanish novel.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
unknown : [dictionaries]
'I am now so much alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing you books. Your own fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but dictionaries and grammars...I find the study so diverting, I am not only easy, but pleased with the solitude that indulges it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'I was very well pleased with having seen this entertainment [a marksmanship contest for the ladies of the Austrian court], and I do not know but it might make as good a figure as the prize-shooting in the Eneid, if I could write as well as Virgil.'
UnknownCentury: Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Jean-Baptiste Rousseau : odes
'I made acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rousseau, who lives here [Vienna] under the peculiar protection of Prince Eugene, by whose liberality he subsists. He passes here for a free-thinker, and, what is still worse in my esteem, for a man whose heart does not feel the encomiums he gives to virtue and honour in his poems. I like his odes mightily, they are much superior to the lyrick productions of our English poets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of poetry.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
unknown : [history]
'Thus, dear sister, I have given you a very particular, and (I am afraid you'll think) a tedious account, of this part of my travels. It was not an affectation of shewing my reading, that has made me tell you some little scraps of the history of the towns I have passed through.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Sir Paul Rycaut : unknown
'Sir Paul Rycaut is mistaken (as he commonly is) in calling the sect [italics] muterin [italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Theocritus :
'I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer; he has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the peasants of his country; who, before oppression had reduced them to want, were, I suppose, all employed as the better sort of them are now. I don't doubt, had he been born a Briton, his [italics] Idylliums [italics] had been filled with descriptions of threshing and churning, both which are unknown here, the corn being all trod out by oxen; and butter (I speak it with sorrow) unheard of.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Homer : Iliad
'I read over your Homer here with an infinite pleasure, and find several little passages explained, that I did not before entirely comprehend the beauty of...It would be too tedious to you to point out all the passages that relate to present customs.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
: Bible
'I should have told you, in the first place, that the Eastern manners give us a great light into many Scripture passages, that appear odd to us, their phrases being commonly what we should call Scripture language.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Ibrahim Pasha : Turkish Verses
'They have what they call the [italics] sublime [italics], that is, a style proper for poetry, and which is the exact Scripture style. I believe you would be pleased to see a genuine example of this; and I am very glad I have it in my power to satisfy our curiosity, by sending you a faithful copy of the verses that Ibrahim Pasha, the reigning favourite, had made for the young princess, his contracted wife...Thus the verses may be looked upon as a sample of their finest poetry...I have taken abundance of pains to get these verses in a literal translation'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Manuscript: Sheet
: Song of Songs (Old Testament)
'It is most wonderfully resembling [italics] The Song of Solomon [italics], which was also addressed to a royal bride.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
unknown : unknown
'I endeavour to persuade myself that I live in a more agreeable variety that you do; and that Monday, setting of partridges - Tuesday, reading English - Wednesday, studying the Turkish language (in which, by the way, I am already very learned - Thursday, classical authors.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Jean Dumont : A New Voyage to the Levant
'Your whole letter is full of mistakes from one end to the other. I see you have taken your ideas of Turkey from that worthy author Dumont, who has written with equal ignorance and confidentiality. 'Tis a particular pleasure to me here, to read the voyages to the Levant, which are generally so far removed from truth, and so full of absurdities, I am very well diverted with them. They never fail giving you an account of the women, whom 'tis certain they never saw, and talking very wisely of the genius of the men, into whose company they are never admitted; and very often describe mosques, which they dare not peep into.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Homer : Odyssey
'I hope we shall have soon the Odyssey from your happy hand, and I think I shall follow with singular pleasure the traveller Ulysses, who was an observer of men and manners, when he travels in your harmonious numbers.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Homer : Iliad
'It is true, the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or dignity, but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastic: a perfect hero is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is also true that while the epic hero ought to be drawn with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be represented as extremely absurd.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
unknown : Arabian Tales
'This is but too like (say you) the Arabian Tales: these embroidered napkins! and a jewel as large as a turkey's egg! - You forget, dear sister, those very tales were written by an author of this country and (excepting the enchantments) are a real representation of the manners here.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
unknown : unknown
'I have got for you, as you desire, a Turkish love-letter, which I have put in a little box, and ordered the captain of the Smyrniote to deliver it to you with this letter. The translation of it is as literally as follows: The first piece you should pull out of the purse is a little pearl, which is in Turkish called [italics] Ingi [italics]...You see this letter is all verses, and I can assure you there is as much fancy shewn in the choice of them, as in the most studied expressions of our letters; there being, I believe, a million of verses designed for this use.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Manuscript: Letter
Richard Knolles : The Turkish History
'I could also, with little trouble, turn over Knolles and Sir Paul Rycaut, to give you a list of Turkish Emperors'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Sir Paul Rycaut : unknown
'I could also, with little trouble, turn over Knolles and Sir Paul Rycaut, to give you a list of Turkish Emperors'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Mr Hill : unknown
'I am more inclined, out of a true female spirit of contradiction, to tell you the falsehood of a great part of what you find in authors; as, for example, in the admirable Mr. Hill, who so gravely asserts, that he saw in Sancta Sophia a sweating pillar, very balsamic for disordered heads...'Tis also very pleasant to observe how tenderly he and all his brethren voyage-writers lament the miserable confinement of the Turkish ladies, who are perhaps freer than any ladies in the universe.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Theocritus : Idyll 18
'Tis true they have no public places but the bagnios...I was three days ago at one of the finest in the town, and had the opportunity of seeing a Turksih bride recieved there, and all the ceremonies used on that occasion, which made me recollect the epithalamium of Helen, by Theocritus.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Sir Paul Rycaut : unknown
'But the Armenians have no notion of transubstantiation, whatever accounts Sir Paul Rycaut gives of them (which account I am apt to believe was designed to compliment our court in 1679).'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Sir Paul Rycaut : unknown
'I can only tell you, that if you please to read Sir Paul Rycaut, you will there find a full and true account of the viziers, the [italics] beglerbeys [italics], the civil and spiritual government, the officers of the seraglio, &c., things that 'tis very easy to procure lists of, and therefore may be depended on; though other stories, God knows - I say no more - every body is at liberty to write their own remarks; the manners of people may change, or some of them escape the observation of travellers, but 'tis not the same of the government; and for that reason, since I can tell you nothing new, I will tell nothing of it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Gemelli : unknown
'But I cannot forbear takng notice to you of a mistake of Gemelli (though I honour him in a much higher degree than any other voyage-writer): he says that there are no remains of Calcedon; this is certainly a mistake.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
: Qu'ran
'I begin with telling you, that you have a true notion of the Alcoran, concerning which, the Greek priests (who are the greatest scoundrels in the universe) have invented out of their own heads a thousand ridiculous stories, in order to decry the law of Mahomet.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Mr Sandys : Unknown
'One of my countrymen, Mr. Sandys (whose book I do not doubt you have read, as one of the best of its kind), speaking of these ruins, supposes them to have been the foundation of a city begun by Constantine, before his building Byzantium.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
Strabo : Geographica
'Strabo calls Carthage forty miles in circuit.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Book
: newspaper
'I was glad to hear Mr. Remond's history from you, though the newspapers had given it to me [italics] en gros [italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu Print: Newspaper
Epictetus : unknown
'Here is the work of one week of my solitude - by the many faults in it your Lordship will easily believe I spend no more time upon it; it was hardly finished when I was obliged to begin my journey, and I had not leisure to write it over again. You have it here without any corrections, with all its blots and errors: as I endeavoured at no beauty of style, but to keep as literally as I could to the sense of the author. My only intention in presenting it, is to ask your lordship whether I have understood Epictetus?'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Alexander Pope : unknown
'I have perused the last lampoon of your ingenious friend, and am not surprised you did not find me out under the name of Sappho, because there is nothing I ever heard in our characters or circumstances to make a parallel, but as the town (except you, who know better) generally suppose Pope means me, whenever he mentions that name, which appears to be irritated by supposing her writer of the verses to the Imitator of Horace.'
Unknown
