clergy.  My fate was similar to that of a guinea, which at one time is in the hands of a Queen, and at another is in the fob of a greasy Israelite.”

From land to land he wandered, assuming a fresh character in each, and thoroughly enjoying them all.  During a two years’ residence at Venice he was visited by the Duke of Hamilton and a Dr Moore, the latter of whom gives the following entertaining account of the visit.

“He met us,” Dr Moore writes, “at the stairhead, and led us through some apartments furnished in the Venetian manner, into an inner room quite in a different style.  There were no chairs, but he desired us to seat ourselves on a sofa, while he placed himself on a cushion on the floor, with his legs crossed, in the Turkish fashion.  A young black slave sate by him; and a venerable old man with a long beard served us with coffee.  After this collation, some aromatic gums were brought and burnt in a little silver vessel.  Mr Montagu held his nose over the steam for some minutes, and snuffed up the perfume with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards endeavoured to collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and rubbing it carefully along his beard, which hung in hoary ringlets to his girdle.  This manner of perfuming the beard seems more cleanly, and rather an improvement upon that used by the Jews in ancient times.

“We had a great conversation with this venerable-looking person, who is, to the last degree, acute, communicative, and entertaining, and in whose discourse and manners are blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity of a Turk.  We found him, however, wonderfully prejudiced in favour of the Turkish characters and manners, which he thinks infinitely preferable to the European, or those of any other nation.  He describes the Turks in general as a people of great sense and integrity; the most hospitable, generous, and the happiest of mankind.  He talks of returning as soon as possible to Egypt, which he paints as a perfect paradise.  Though Mr Montagu hardly ever stirs abroad, he returned the Duke’s visit, and as we were not provided with cushions, he sate, while he stayed, upon a sofa with his legs under him, as he had done at his own house.  This posture, by long habit, has become the most agreeable to him, and he insists upon its being by far the most natural and convenient; but, indeed, he seems to cherish the same opinion with regard to all customs which prevail among the Turks.”

It was during this interview that Mr Montagu declared:  “I have never once been guilty of a small folly in the whole course of my life”—­probably making the mental reservation that all his follies had been great ones.  Thus this singular sprig of nobility drifted through his kaleidoscopic life, changing his religion as lightly as he changed from priest to ploughman, or from debauchee to Armenian storyteller.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing he ever did was the publication of the following advertisement, the object of which was evidently to secure the large Yorkshire estate devised by his father to any son he might have: