In the same year, 1762, the English consul at Alexandria was a Scandinavian, a native either of Denmark or Sweden, named Feroe. His wife was a beautiful young woman, born at Leghorn in 1741. Her father (sometimes said to be an innkeeper) was English, or of English descent. His name was Dormer, the name of a family that had once given a duchess to one of the Italian states, and that has given a line of barons to the English peerage since the year 1615 to the present day. The mother of the lady in question was an Italian; her maiden name was Maria Sciale. There were several children of this marriage, but we have only to notice the beautiful Caroline Dormer, who married Consul Feroe, of Alexandria. This Caroline is said to have been as much distinguished for her virtue as for her beauty. The Dormer family record (in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession), in which this double distinction is chronicled, perhaps, ‘doth protest too much’ with respect to the virtue, as that quality would now be understood; but of this the reader may judge for himself. The consul and his wife were happily settled at Alexandria, when Wortley Montagu was sojourning in that city. Her beauty, as the Scripture phrase expresses it, took his mind prisoner. The object he had in view--that of carrying her off from her husband--seemed unattainable; but Montagu did not allow himself to be deterred by difficulties, and he found a way to surmount them. It was the way of a very unscrupulous man, but he had few scruples in compassing any end. He appeared as the friend of the family. He made no advances to the lady, but he manifested great interest in the welfare of her husband. Egypt was too dull a place for a man of such abilities. Montagu succeeded in inducing Feroe to leave it for a while on some pretended mission to Europe, which was to prove very lucrative to the poor consul, who took men and things for what they seemed to be. After Feroe’s departure there came news of his sudden illness. A little additional time elapsed, and then came intelligence of his death. The decease of the consul in Holland was officially attested, and in 1763 Montagu presented the mournful document to the beautiful young widow. After she had made herself mistress of its contents, and saw herself left alone in a strange land, he took pity on her exquisite grief, made love to her at once, and proposed a remedy for her loneliness by her taking him for husband. The fair young widow was not hard to woo. She did not indeed yield at once. She suggested some becoming objections. She, a Roman Catholic, had erred, she thought, in marrying Mr. Feroe, who was a Protestant. She could not bring herself to repeat the error, but she intimated that she might be won if her handsome lover would turn from his heretical ways and become a true son of the true church. As nothing more than this trifle stood as an obstacle to his success, Montagu resolved to become Roman Catholic.