"Asiatick Fire & Figure," or, How Joseph Emin Made Mrs. Montagu an Avant-garde Critic in Her Empathy with the East

Against a background of fears that Britain might repeat the Roman decline into imperial decadence, indolence, and corruption, this essay attempts to explore the appeal of Joseph Emin for a whole swath of the haut ton. His desperate courage and profound patriotism provided an absolute contrast with the "vain, luxurious and selfish Effeminacy" that Dr. John Brown had diagnosed as the disease of England's elite. To the romanticism of this idealistic "Oriental" was added the imprimatur of the Duke of Northumberland, qualifying the thirty-year-old Emin for admission into Elizabeth Montagu's menage of "lovers." Emin's company and traveler's tales ignited the Orientalist in the Bluestocking, encouraging an appetite for translations from Asian literatures and rendering her an early and appreciative reader of the Bhagavad Gītā. In "'The Commerce of Life': Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800)," ed. Nicole Pohl, special issue, http://muse.jhu.edu/issue/39838/print