"Whores and Cheats": Alexander Pope’s reference to Lady Mary in The Dunciad

With all of the various references and allusions in Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad, I thought it was most appropriate to focus on the couplet pertaining to the “Lady Maries” (Pope 136).

From our brief discussions in class, we learned that Alexander Pope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu were acquaintances. What began as a friendly relationship between the two, turned into a hostile association where both authors insulted one another through their writing. This is exemplified in Book II of Pope’s The Dunciad:

                        To him the Goddess: ‘Son! thy grief lay down,

                        And turn this whole illusion on the town:

                        As the sage dame, experienced in her trade,

                        By names of toasts retails each battered jade;

                        (Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris

                        Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries); (II 131-136).

What is this connection between the Monsieur and the Duchesses and Lady Maries? How have these women wronged the Monsieur? Is he referring to Lady Mary? Aubrey L. Williams in, Pope's 'Duchesses and Lady Mary's', quotes Pope’s annotation to the couplet that appeared in two of the 1735 editions of The Dunciad:

This passage was thought to allude to a famous Lady who cheated a French wit of 5000 pounds in the South-Sea year. But the Author meant it in general of all bragging Travellers, and of all Whores and Cheats under the name of Ladies (Williams 360).

I couldn’t help but laugh upon reading Pope’s annotation. He doubly distances himself from the text and annotation when he says, “the Author” instead of “I.” His first statement is obviously directed towards a specific Lady, Lady Mary, who as Williams discusses, had “financial relations” with a Monsieur Remond. Williams says, “The first statement in Pope’s annotation certainly relates to what is known or suspected about M. Remond’s adventures with Lady Mary” (Williams 360). By claiming that he does not allude to a famous “Lady,” Pope ironically alludes to a famous Lady! This is especially obvious in his added, unnecessary explanation that this Lady “cheated a French wit,” thus, targeting Lady Mary’s relationship with M. Remond. Pope’s second statement contradicts his first when he claims that he’s actually being “general” when he says “Lady.” Then, of course, he adds in “Travellers.” If this wasn’t obvious to 18^th century readers (considering Lady Mary was “famous” for her traveling), I don’t know what is!

Williams suggests a different reading. Although she claims that Pope’s first statement “certainly relates to what is known…about M. Remond’s adventures with Lady Mary,” she then suggests there is some truth to Pope’s second statement about the couplet. She says, “the meaning of the lines, at last part of the meaning, must have been…quite ‘public’ in the poet’s time” (306). She states that three years before The Dunciad was published, the reference to “Frenchmen,” “Duchesses,” and  “Ladys” appeared in an anonymous work titled A View of London and Westminster: or, The Town Spy…By a German Gentlemans. This work discusses “Frenchmen,” “Duchesses,” and “Ladys” the context of the brothels near Drury Lane. Williams claims that “It was easy for Pope to associate the Lady and the Frenchman with the situation existing off Drury Lane to which his lines refer” (361). Thus, Williams believes that Pope may in fact be telling the truth when he claims not to have had a particular person in mind.

I think that his annotation is enough proof that he did indeed have Lady Mary in mind. Especially since we are aware of their turbulent relationship as is illustrated in their writings. Even if we were to give Pope the benefit of the doubt, he still claims that his couplet references ALL “cheats” who call themselves “Ladies.” And since he essentially tells us that Lady Mary cheated a Frenchman “of 5000 pounds,” he has thus situated her among the “general” circle of “Whores and Cheats” anyway!

Williams, Aubrey L. "Pope's 'Duchesses and Lady Mary's'." Review of

English Studies: A Quarterly Journal of English Literature and the English Language 4.16 (1953): 359-61.