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"Saturday. The Small-Pox"

By Mary Wortley Montagu

Correction, editorial commentary, and markup by

Workshop participants at the Behn/Burney Conference 2019

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SIX

TOWN ECLOGUES

With some other

POEMS

By the Rt. Hon. L. M. W. M. ,

montagu

LONDON :

Printed for M. Cooper in Pater-noster-Row.

32 'For me the Wit, wit^ to nonsense was betray'd;

33 'The Gamester has for me his dun, dun^ delay'd, 34 'And overseen the card I would have pay'd. 35 'The bold and haughty by success made vain, 36 'Aw'd by my eyes, have trembled to complain: 37 'The bashful 'Squire touch'd by a wish unknown, 38 'Has dar'd to speak with spirit not his own; 39 'Fir'd by one wish, all did alike adore; 40 'Now beauty's fled, and lovers are no more!

41 'As round the room I turn my weeping eyes, 42 'New unaffected scenes of sorrow rise! 43 'Far from my sight that killing picture bear, 44 'The face disfigure, and the canvas tear! 45 'That picture, which with pride I us'd to show, 46 'The lost resemblance but upbraids me now.

47 'And thou, my toilette, toilette! where I oft have sate, 48 'While hours unheeded pass'd in deep debate,

49 'How curls should fall, or where a patch, patch^ to place; 50 'If blue or scarlet best became my face;

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51 'Now on some happier nymph, nymph^ your aid bestow; 52 'On fairer heads, ye useless jewels, glow! 53 'No borrow'd lusture can my charms restore; 54 'Beauty is fled, and dress is now no more!

55 'Ye meaner beauties, I permit ye shine; 56 'Go, triumph in the hearts that once were mine; 57 'But 'midst your triumphs with confusion know, 58 ''Tis to my ruin all your arms ye owe. 59 'Would pitying heav'n restore my wonted mein, 60 'Ye still might move unthought-of and unseen: 61 'But oh! how vain, how wretched is the boast 62 'Of beauty faded, and of empire lost! 63 'What now is left but weeping, to deplore 64 'My beauty fled, and empire now no more!

65 'Ye, cruel Chymists, what with-held your aid!

66 'Could no pomatums, pomatums^ save a trembling maid? 67 'How false and trifling is that art ye boast; 68 'No art can give me back my beauty lost. 69 'In tears, surrounded by my friends I lay, 70 'Mask'd o'er and trembled at the sight of day;

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71 'MIRMILIO, Mirmilio^ came my fortune to deplore, 72 '(A golden headed cane well carv'd he bore) 73 'Cordials, he cried, my spirits must restore: 74 'Beauty is fled, and spirit is no more!

75 'GALEN, Galen, the grave; officious SQUIRT, Squirt, was there, 76 'With fruitless grief and unavailing care:

77 'MACHAON, Machaon^ too, the great MACHAON, known 78 'By his red cloak and his superior frown; 79 'And why, he cry'd, this grief and this despair? 80 'You shall again be well, again be fair; 81 'Believe my oath; (with that an oath he swore) 82 'False was his oath; my beauty is no more!

83 'Cease, hapless maid no more thy tale pursue, 84 'Forsake mankind, and bid the world adieu! 85 'Monarchs and beauties rule with equal sway; 86 'All strive to serve, and glory to obey: 87 'Alike unpitied when depos'd they grow; 88 'Men mock the idol of their former vow.

89 'Adieu! ye parks!—in some obscure recess, 90 'Where gentle streams will weep at my distress,

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91 'Where no false friend will in my grief take part, 92 'And mourn my ruin with a joyful heart; 93 'There let me live in some deserted place, 94 'There hide in shades this lost inglorious face. 95 'Ye operas, circles, I no more must view! 96 'My toilette, patches, all the world adieu!

before hardening and falling off; smallpox often caused severe scarring and even blindness among those who survived. The virus was used as a biological weapon, notably by the British against Native Americans in Pontiac's War of the 1760s. The disease was 90% fatal among the Amerindian population, causing mass destruction. Before a vaccine was developed, the virus was managed through a process of inoculation--also called variolation--whereby a small amount of infected fluid, often from a cow, was introduced to a healthy person's body, causing an immune response. This process of inoculation was practiced in Asia and Africa, before appearing in the Ottoman Empire, where Mary Wortley Montagu witnessed the procedure. To read more, see Tom Solomon’s article on The Conversation.

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opera- tickets

Opera was a fashionable entertainment past-time in the eighteenth century. Opera stars were celebrities, often extravagantly-compensated, and also the subject of some criticism, as Michael Burden describes in "Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England." Here, Flavia claims that "opera-tickets pour'd before [her] feet," which would have been an extravagance, indeed. According to Judith Milhous and Robert Hume, throughout much of the period ticket prices were fixed at 1s 6d or 5s, for pit/boxes or gallery seating, respectively. "A season subscription for fifty nights," they note, "was 15 [guineas]" (79). For more information on eighteenth-century opera, see this overview from the Victoria and Albert Museum. For more information on cost of living in the early eighteenth century, see the discussion of coinage at the Old Bailey Online.

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ring The "ring" referred to a circular path in Hyde Park where fashionable people would walk, ride, or take a carriage ride. It was a place to be seen. You can see a rendering of the Ring in the detail, included here, of the 1833 map of London engraved by William Smollinger. For more information on Hyde Park, see article from Wikipedia.

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Lilly Charles Lilly, also known as Charles Lille, "opened a perfume shop on The Strand in London in 1708 where he sold ‘snuffs and perfumes that refresh the brain.’" Peter Motteux, author, also owned an "India house" on Leadenhall Street that sold oriental goods. For more information about Motteux and his shop, see Wikipedia and British History Online.

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Japan Japanese artifacts with painted or vanished design. A fashionable item that would be found in Motteux's store. For more information, see this article on East Asian lacquer from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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beau From the French, a beau is a ladies' man, or a suitor, often very fashionable (OED).

wit Used here as a noun, a wit was (usually) a man known for cleverness or wittiness (OED).

dun Used here as a noun, a dun in this sense is a demand for payment of a debt (OED).

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toilette Flavia's toilette is her dressing table. The word is used in multiple senses, either to refer to the location of the action of dressing and readying oneself for the day or as a collective term for the items of dressing or applying makeup (OED).

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patch A patch in this sense has a specific historical meaning, now obsolete. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was common for fasionable people to wear "patches," or small pieces of black silk or velvet, sometimes cut into shapes. These patches--called "les mouches" in French, because they resembled a fly--would be worn on the face, sometimes to cover a blemish or simply for fashionable purposes, as an artificial beauty mark. Patches were also sometimes used to declare a particular loyalty or party. To learn more about patches, see the Collector's Weekly article, "That Time the French Aristocracy Was Obsessed With Sexy Face Stickers." The image included here, from that article (via the Metropolitan Museum of Art), is an engraving showing a fashionable young woman at her toilette; she has two patches on her cheek. Engraving “The Morning: The Woman at Her Toilet” by Gilles-Edme Petit, c. 1745-1760.

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nymph According to the OED, "nymph" (n1. 1-3) is a poetic way of describing a beautiful young woman. It derives from classical mythology, but also can suggest an ironic usage.

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pomatumsPomatum, or pomade, refers to a cosmetic applied to the face--often, it was made with lead, and used to add a whiteness to the skin (OED).

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MirmilioIn these lines, Montagu invokes characters from Samuel Garth's popular early mock-epic poem, "The Dispensary" (1699). According to Sarah Gillam, writing for the Royal College of Physicians, Mirmillo likely represents William Gibbons, one of the physicians caught up in the late 17th century dispute about whether to open a free dispensary for the health of the poor in London.

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Galen While not referenced in Garth's "Dispensary," Galen is a Greek physician (129-216 CE) known for pioneering work in anatomy, among other branches of medicine and philosophy. His humoral work was highly influential in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. Squirt Another character in Garth's "Dispensary," Squirt--always designated there "officious"--is an assistant to Horoscope, the chief apothecary in the poem, who revives his master with a squirt from a urinal at the end of Canto II:

Oft he essay'd the Magus to restore, By Salt of Succinum's prevailing pow'r; But still supine the solid Lumber lay, An Image of scarce animated Clay;