
Luke Batterham
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Senior Valuer
A FINE LETTER TO 'THE QUEEN OF BLUESTOCKINGS', from an ardent if unreliable admirer: "Nothing is difficult to my dear Madonna, who has plainly shown, that the most exquisite delicacy of modern politeness may be united with the hearty generosity of more ancient times. Of this her Letter and basket are a convincing proof. We, who pretend only to the latter quality, must be contented with thanking you in the old homely style for having feasted us and our friends so magnificently. We drank your health, and were perhaps as gay in Woodstock Street [his home, off Bond Street], as the more brilliant company at Memphis. Cleopatra had no such eel, else she would never have put her poor Lover off with an anchovy. You have not imitated, you have surpassed her as much in that, as you do in every other excellence. I hope the dear Madonna has enjoyed her health all this summer in the pure air of Sandleford [her Berkshire estate], as I have enjoyed mine, thank God, amidst the smoke of London".
The author of the letter was Archibald Bower (c.1686-1766), the disreputable, supposedly anti-Catholic, supposedly Jesuit, historian and supposed plagiarist, author, among other works, of the History of the Popes (1748-1766). He had been introduced to Elizabeth Montagu, the author and literary hostess, by Gilbert West, and they corresponded for some years in fervid Italian, both Bower and his erstwhile friend George (Lord) Lyttelton calling her 'Madonna'. For Bower's hand, see his letter of 1754, BL Add MS 4234, f. 125.