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] for a certain Mr.——­, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford....  He fell into sentiments with my Lady W., and was happy to catch her at platonic love; but as she seldom stops there, the poor man will be frightened out of his senses when she shall break the matter to him, for he never dreamt that her purposes were so naught.  Lady Mary is so far gone that to get him from the mouth of her antagonist, she literally took him out to dance country dances at a formal ball, where there was no measure kept in laughing at her....  She played at Pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon’s, where she cheats horse and foot.  She is really entertaining:  I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript; but they are too womanish:  I like few of her performances.”

[Footnote 10:  Lady Pomfret.] [Footnote 11:  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.] [Footnote 12:  Lady Walpole.]