Martha Blount

Martha Blount (1690–1762) was an English woman, a friend of many English literary figures, especially Alexander Pope.
Early life
Martha was born on 15 June 1690 probably at the family seat, Mapledurham House at Mapledurham in Oxfordshire. She was educated first at Hammersmith in Middlesex, probably at the Roman Catholic convent there, and afterwards in the Rue Boulanger in Paris. Her father was Lister Blount, and her family had long been of the highest position among Roman Catholic gentry.
Pope and literary society
It is not known when Martha and Pope first met. Her family and his were in close friendship in 1710, in which year her father and her maternal grandfather died, both on the same day; from a story which she told Spence, it may be assumed that Pope and she were in the habit of meeting on easy terms as early as about 1705.
From 1710 to 1715 Blount continued to live at Mapledurham with her widowed mother, her brother, Michael...