... On my way back I shall go through Alexandria and Rosetta to see you, and also to see whether I cannot establish myself at Rosetta rather than in Syria. As my father-in-law sets out for Syria next week, I shall not be obliged to take the shortest road; my wife will be at ease, and I shall have at least time to assure you how charmed I shall be to find opportunities of testifying to you my gratitude, and of renewing our old and dear friendship--a friendship which will always be dear to me, and with which I shall never cease to be, &c., &c. D. MONTAIGU. I have before me the original ‘dispensation,’ to enable him to neglect keeping Lent in the usual abstinent way. That he should take the trouble to procure such a power would seem to be warrant for a sincerity for which we can hardly credit him. It is dated ‘March 6, 1767,’ and he is styled ‘Excellentissimus Dominus Eduardus de Comitibus Montagu.’ Meanwhile the question of the marriage was still undecided. The ecclesiastical and civil judges were perhaps not long in forming, but they were very slow in delivering judgment. Mrs. Montagu, however, or ‘the Countess,’ as she was sometimes called, seems to have formed a judgment of her own; or, at all events, to have accepted that of her second husband. They lived together at Smyrna, where for two years both applied themselves to the study of Turkish, in which language, as in others of the East, Montagu became a proficient scholar. On New Year’s day, 1769, he addressed a joyous letter to his brother-in-law Varsy. The Tuscan and the Roman tribunals had at length pronounced on the great question. The rich and orthodox second husband was declared to be the legal possessor of the lady, and her previous marriage with the poor heretical consul was decreed to be no marriage at all.