A Bluestocking over the Border: Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu's Aesthetic Adventures in Scotland, 1766

Abstract

11 THAT CAN you be employ'd about my Dr Mrs Mountagu'1 wrote one of that lady's numerous correspondents on August 20, 1766, yr Coal Pit that can engage all yr Hours not to give a moment to a friend who has such pleasure in hearing from you'2 Since May of that year, Mrs. Montagu's letters had indeed been filled with accounts of the winning of a colliery-that is, the preliminary excavation necessary for working a bed of coal-on her husband's estate at Denton Hall, Northumberland. The coal bed was reached in July, and this event was celebrated by a procession and a feast in the tradition of a coal-mining community. Then Mrs. Montagu sought relaxation from her duties as a developer of coal-mines and Lady Bountiful to pitmen by taking a jaunt to Scotland to enjoy there such manifestations of the picturesque, the terrible sublime, and the beautiful, as well as the Gothic and primitive, as that country could offer. Her jaunt lasted just under four weeks, from August 2 until August 27, allowing her to return to Denton in good time to supervise the commercial activities of the mine. As she said herself in a letter to Elizabeth Carter: could I believe amuse myself much longer in Scotland if I was a Gentlewoman, but being a Coal owner, I must mind my business more than my pleasure, and our New won Colliery will be sending out ships of Coal in about 3 weeks, & I must