South's sermon on Gen. i. 27); ‘A Letter addressed to Charles Purton Cooper, Esq., Secretary to the Commissioners on the Public Records upon the Report of the recent Record Committee,’ London, 1837, 8vo; ‘The Law of Parliamentary Elections’ (in conjunction with W. Johnson Neale), London, 1839, 8vo; ‘The Funerals of the Quakers,’ London, 1840, 12mo; ‘The Law and Practice upon Election Petitions before Committees of the House of Commons,’ London, 1840, 8vo; ‘Three Lectures on the Works of Lord Bacon’ (of uncertain date).
[Gent. Mag. 1790 pt. ii. p. 858, 1806 pt. i. p. 590, 1824 pt. ii. p. 560, 1852 pt. i. p. 410; Athenæum, 1851, p. 1282; Law Times, xliii. 237; Gunning's Reminiscences, i. 155 et seq.; Cambridge Triposes, 1754–1807; Grad. Cant.; Foster's Gray's Inn Reg.; Law List, 1799, 1836, and 1847; Knight's English Cyclopædia; Knight's Life of Wordsworth, i. 103, ii. 169–73, 278, iii. 214; Sir James Mackintosh's Memoirs, 2nd ed. pp. 147–66; Kegan Paul's William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries; Crabb Robinson's Diary, i. 371, 488, ii. 37, 129, 252, 254; Sir Samuel Romilly's Memoirs, ii. 410; An Account of the Origin and Object of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge upon the Punishment of Death and the Improvement of Prison Discipline, London, 1812, 8vo; Allsop's Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, i. 102, ii. 69, 211; Stephens's Memoir of the Right Hon. William Page Wood, Baron Hatherley, i. 51, 57, 160, 175, ii. 120; Fitzgerald's Life and Letters of C. Lamb, iii. 22; Carlyle's Reminiscences (under Edward Irving); Froude's Thomas Carlyle, 1795–1835 and 1830–1881; Bryan Waller Procter's Autobiography, p. 56; Mrs. Oliphant's Life of Edward Irving, 4th ed. pp. 91, 103, 111, and Literary History of England in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century, ii. 316; Letters addressed to Mrs. Basil Montagu and B. W. Procter by Mr. Thomas Carlyle, with prefatory note by Anne Benson Procter, 1881; Visitations of Essex (Harl. Soc.), pt. ii. p. 704; Add. MS. 24811, ff. 308–11.]
MONTAGU, CHARLES, Earl of Halifax (1661–1715), said to have been born at Horton, Northamptonshire, on 16 April 1661, was fourth son of George Montagu of Horton, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Irby, knight, of Boston, Lincolnshire. His father was son of Sir Henry Montagu, first earl of Manchester [q. v.], by his third wife, and Sir James Montagu [q. v.] was his brother. Charles was baptised at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 12 May 1661, and in 1675 entered Westminster School, where in 1677 he was admitted on the foundation as the captain of his election. At Westminster he distinguished himself by his 'extempore epigrams made upon theses appointed for the king's scholars at the time of election, and had more presents made him, according to custom, on that account than any one of his contemporaries' (Life, p. 4). Leaving school before he was entitled to compete for the scholarships, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1679 as a fellow commoner. Here he commenced his lifelong friendship with Isaac Newton, whom he assisted in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a philosophical society at Cambridge in 1685. Montagu's ingenious and fulsome verses on the death of Charles II, which were published in 'Mœstissimæ ac Lætissimæ Academiæ Cantabrigiensis affectus,' &c. (Cambridge, 1684-1685, 4to), attracted the attention of the Earl of Dorset, by whom he was invited to London and introduced to the wits of the town. Previously to the publication of this book Montagu had been created a Master of Arts and elected a fellow of Trinity. In 1687 he wrote in conjunction with Matthew Prior [q. v.] 'The Hind and the Panther transvers'd to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse' (London, 4to), a clever burlesque of Dry den's poem, which was received with great applause. In the following year he signed the letter of invitation to William, prince of Orange, and joined the rising in Northamptonshire in the prince's favour (Hatton Correspondence, Camd. Soc. Publ., 1878, ii. 116). He now abandoned his original intention of taking orders, and in January 1689 was returned to the Convention parliament for the borough of Maldon, which he continued to represent until October 1695. In February 1689 he became one of the clerks of the privy council, a post which he purchased for 1,500l. Shortly after William's coronation Dorset is said to have introduced Montagu to the king, with the remark that he had 'brought a Mouse to have the honour of kissing his hand,' to which the king replied, 'You will do well to put me in the way of making a man of him,' and thereupon ordered him a pension of 500l. a year until the opportunity should arise (Life, p. 17, but see Johnson, Works, x. 44-5). In December 1691 Montagu was elected chairman of the committee of the House of Commons appointed to confer with a committee of the House of Lords on the amendments to the bill for regulating trials in the cases of high treason.
In consequence of the great ability which he displayed as a debater on this occasion, Montagu was appointed a lord of the treasury on 21 March 1692. His proposal to raise a million by way of loan was approved by
