Her friendship with Mrs. Wortley paved the way to an acquaintance with that lady’s son, which, after much negotiation and many quarrels, the causes of which are rather alluded to than explained in the published correspondence, ended in a private marriage, which took place August 12, 1712. Lady Mary now resided chiefly at Wharncliffe Lodge, near Sheffield, where her son Edward was born, while her husband was detained by his parliamentary duties and political connexions in London. It would appear from various circumstances that Mr. Wortley Montague was a quiet, unambitious man, endowed with very moderate abilities; but his philosophic indifference or timid mode of wooing honours by no means answered the views of his wife, who was haunted in an incredible manner by the desire of celebrity, and who, possessing a caustic wit, a vivacious style, and splendid personal attractions, was conscious, that if once fairly launched upon the tide of the great world she could not fail of effecting her purpose. In the letters which emanated from her solitude we discover, amid a world of affected indifference, her extreme passion for exciting admiration. Now literary projects engross her thoughts; and now she aims, by goading her husband up “the steep of fame,” to open herself a wide field for the exhibition of her Circean powers. In 1714 Mr. Montague was appointed one of the lords of the treasury; upon which Lady Mary quitted her retirement and appeared at court, where her beauty, her wit, and the ingenuous levity of her manners (a commendable quality in those days) commanded universal admiration. Her genius now moved in its proper sphere. Surrounded, flattered, caressed by the most distinguished characters of the age, she tasted of all those gratifications which the peculiarities of her temperament required; and being in the very flower of her age, looked forward with well-founded hopes to numerous years of the same kind of enjoyments. It was at this period that her intimacy with Pope, who was just two years older than herself, commenced; and as her latest biographer with a pardonable partiality observes, both he and Addison “contemplated her _uncommon genius_ at that time without envy!” From which one might infer that it was literary jealousy, and not the rage of a neglected lover, that afterward rendered Pope the inveterate enemy of Lady Mary.