eparating the head from the body, because the
coffin had been made too short! He stood for a moment motionless in
amazement, and filled with horror--and then retired from the world, shut
himself up in the convent of La Trappe, where he passed the remainder of
his days in the most cruel and disconsolate devotion.--Let us quit this
sad subject."

The news that Lady Mary was coming to Florence came to the ears of
Horace Walpole, who was staying there. If he had not yet made her
acquaintance, he certainly knew much about her. "On Wednesday we expect
a third she-meteor," he wrote to Richard West, July 31, 1740. "Those
learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole[9] are to be joined by
the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. You have not been witness to the rhapsody
of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and
consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple
alliance: we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery,
debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian and
metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters,
or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy."
Walpole sent, some seven weeks later, an account of the lady to the Hon.
Henry Seymour Conway: "Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? She
laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by
the whole town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any
one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover
her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled,
mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvas petticoat.
Her face swollen violently on one side is partly covered with a
plaister, and partly with white paint, which for cheapness she has
bought so coarse, that you would not use it to wash a chimney."

[Footnote 9: The wife of the eldest son of Sir Robert Walpole, who in
1723 was created Baron Walpole. He later succeeded as (second) Earl of
Orford.]

In another letter, to Richard West (October 2, 1740), Walpole gives an
account of the "Academy." "But for the Academy, I am not of it; but
frequently in company with it," he wrote. "Tis all disjointed. Madame
----,[10] who, though a learned lady, has not lost her modesty and
character, is extremely scandalised with the two other dames, especially
with Moll Worthless,[11] who knows no bounds. She is at rivalry with
Lady W---- [12