The private life of this great statesman and magistrate was malignantly scrutinised; and tales were told about his libertinism which went on growing till they became too absurd for the credulity even of party spirit.  At last, long after he had been condemned to flannel and chicken broth, a wretched courtesan, who had probably never seen him except in the stage box at the theatre, when she was following her vocation below in a mask, published a lampoon in which she described him as the master of a haram more costly than the Great Turk’s.  There is, however, reason to believe that there was a small nucleus of truth round which this great mass of fiction gathered, and that the wisdom and selfcommand which Somers never wanted in the senate, on the judgment seat, at the council board, or in the society of wits, scholars and philosophers, were not always proof against female attractions.478

Another director of the Whig party was Charles Montague.  He was often, when he had risen to power, honours and riches, called an upstart by those who envied his success.  That they should have called him so may seem strange; for few of the statesmen of his time could show such a pedigree as his.  He sprang from a family as old as the Conquest; he was in the succession to an earldom, and was, by the paternal side, cousin of three earls.  But he was the younger son of a younger brother; and that phrase had, ever since the time of Shakspeare and Raleigh, and perhaps before their time, been proverbially used to designate a person so poor as to be broken to the most abject servitude or ready for the most desperate adventure.

Charles Montague was early destined for the Church, was entered on the foundation of Westminster, and, after distinguishing himself there by skill in Latin versification, was sent up to Trinity College, Cambridge.  At Cambridge the philosophy of Des Cartes was still dominant in the schools.  But a few select spirits had separated from the crowd, and formed a fit audience round a far greater teacher.479 Conspicuous among the youths of high promise who were proud to sit at the feet of Newton was the quick and versatile Montague.  Under such guidance the young student made considerable proficiency in the severe sciences; but poetry was his favourite pursuit; and when the University invited her sons to celebrate royal marriages and funerals, he was generally allowed to have surpassed his competitors.  His fame travelled to London; he was thought a clever lad by the wits who met at Will’s, and the lively parody which he wrote, in concert with his friend and fellow student Prior, on Dryden’s Hind and Panther, was received with great applause.