- Edward Wortley Montagu
Edward Wortley Montagu (1713 –
April 29 ,1776 ), was an Englishauthor and traveller.He was the son of Edward Wortley Montagu, MP and of
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , whose talent and eccentricity he seems to have inherited.He twice ran away from
Westminster School , and the second time made his way as far asPorto . He was then sent to travel with a tutor in theWest Indies , and afterwards with a keeper to theNetherlands . He made, however, a serious study of Arabic at Leiden (1741), and returned twenty years later to prosecute his studies. His father made him a meagre allowance, and he was heavily encumbered with debt.He was
Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdonshire in 1747, and was one of the secretaries at the conference ofAix-la-Chapelle . In 1751 he was involved in a disreputable gaming quarrel in Paris, and was imprisoned for eleven days in the Châtelet. He continued to sit in parliament, and wrote "Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Antient Republics ..." (1759). His father left him an annuity of £1000, the bulk of the property going to Lady Bute.He set out for extended travel in the East, and George Romney describes him as living in the Turkish manner at
Venice . He had great gifts as a linguist, and was an excellent talker. His family thought him mad, and his mother left him a Guinea, but her annuity devolved on him at her death. He died atPadua in Italy.References
*"Isobel Grundy, "Edward Wortley Montagu", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19013?docPos=1]
*"This entry incorporates domain text originally from the1911 Encyclopædia Britannica ."
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