Page "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu" Paragraph 16

At Florence in 1740 she visited Horace Walpole, who cherished a great spite against her, and exaggerated her eccentricities into a revolting slovenliness ( see Letters, ed.

Cunningham, i. 59 ).

As Lady Mary was then in her sixty-third year, the scandalous interpretation put on the matter by Horace Walpole may safely be discarded.

She lived at Avignon, at Brescia, at Gottolengo and at Lovere on the Lago d ' Iseo.

She was disfigured by a painful skin disease, ( smallpox ), and her sufferings were so acute that she hints at the possibility of madness.

She was struck with a terrible fit of sickness while visiting the countess Palazzo and her son, and perhaps her mental condition made restraint necessary.