SOURCE: Blunt, Reginald. “Elizabeth Montagu Herself.” In Mrs. Montagu “Queen of the Blues”: Her Letters and Friendships from 1762-1800: Volume 2: 1777-2000, 349-68. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923.

In the following essay, Blunt describes the importance of Montagu and her letters, including how they shaped her persona and what her letters reveal about her character.

On the death of any of her particular friends, and also of the great folk of her day, such as Lord Bath, Lord Chatham, Lady Hervey, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Chesterfield, her cousin the Primate, and many others, it was, as we have seen, Mrs. Montagu's custom to set down in her letters her summary view of their characters, as she had seen them.

If her precept and example are to be followed, her own turn for such an analysis has now arrived. When one has spent many months in reading and arranging the letters of...