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Elizabeth Montagu

Excerpt reprinted from Appleton's Journal, January 25, 1873.

We quote from Dr. Doran's "Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu," just published in London, a few passages illustrative of life and manners in the eighteenth century:

Mrs. Montagu's Family.

Elizabeth Robinson, who became so well known, subsequently, as Mrs. Montagu, belongs altogether to the eighteenth century. She was born at York, in October 1720. She died in the last year of that century, 1800. Miss Robinson was of a family, the founder of which, William Robinson, a London merchant, but a descendant of a line of Scottish barons, bought, in 1610, the estate of Rokeby, in Yorkshire, from Sir Thomas Rokeby, whose ancestors had held it from the time of the Conquest. Her father, Matthew Robinson, was an only son of a cadet branch of the Robinsons. He was a member of the University of Cambridge, where he wooed the Muses less ardently than he did Miss Elizabeth Drake, a beautiful heiress, whom he married when he was only eighteen years of age. The very young couple settled at Edgely, in Yorkshire; but the husband (owner through his wife, of more than one estate in the country) preferred the shady side of Pall Mall to fields of waving corn or groves vocal with nightingales.

Mrs. Montagu derived from her family a certain distinction: but she enjoyed greater advantage, for a time at least, from the marriage of her maternal grandmother, who took for her second husband the learned and celebrated Dr. Conyers Middleton. Dr. Middleton's home was at Cambridge, where a few of Miss Robinson's youthful years were profitably and curiously spent.

Curiously--from the method which the biographer of Cicero took with the bright and intelligent girl. Among the divines, scholars, philosophers, travellers, men of the world who were, together, or in turn, to be met with at Dr. Middleton's house, the figure of the silent, listening and observant little maid was always to be seen. Her presence there was a part of her education. Dr. Middleton trained her to give perfect attention to the conversation, and to repeat to him all that she could retain of it, after the company had dispersed. When she had to speak of what she did not well understand, Dr. Middleton enlightened his little pupil. This process not only filled her young mind with knowledge, but made her eager in the pursuit of more.

. . . .

Her Youth.

In the Robinson family, personal grace came naturally; but the mind was cultivated. Indeed, in that household, the wits were not allowed to rust. It was the delight of those bright boys and girls to maintain or to denounce, for the sport's sake, some particular argument set up for the purpose. Occasionally, the pleasant skirmish would develop into something like serious battle. The triumphant laugh of the victor would now and then bring tears to the eyes of the vanquished. At such times there was a moderator of the excited little assembly. The mother of the young disputants sat at a table close at hand. She read or worked; sometimes she listened smilingly; sometimes was not without apprehension. But she was equal to the emergency. Her children recognized her on such occasions as "Mrs. Speaker;" and that much loved dignitary always adjourned the house when victory was too hotly contested, or when triumph seemed likely to be abused.

It is hard to believe that Elizabeth Robinson, who was the liveliest of these disputants, assumed or submitted to the drudgery of copying the whole of the Spectator, when she was only eight years of age. Her courage and perseverance, however, were equal to such a task; but her energies were often turned in another direction. She was as unreservedly given to dancing, she tells us, as if she had been bitten by a tarantula. She as ardently loved fun--"within the limits of becoming mirth"--as she devotedly pursued learning.

With a head furnished with knowledge beyond that possessed by most girls her age; with feet restless and impatient to join any dance anywhere; she had a heart most sisterly and tenderly attuned to love for, and sympathy, with her brothers. "I have seven of them" she wrote while she was yet in her teens, "and would not part with one for a kingdom. If I had but one, I should be distracted about him. Surely, no one has so many or so good brothers." This is only one of a score of such testimonials of sisterly affection.

. . . .

Habits of Young Women in 1735.

Before she was fifteen, she had some experiences not likely to fall to the lot of young ladies of the present day. "I have in winter," she writes to Mrs. Anstey, "gone eight miles to dance to the music of a blind fiddler, and returned at two o'clock in the morning, mightily pleased that I had been so well entertained." Indeed, young ladies seem to have been thoroughly emancipated, and to have been abroad in the "wee sma' hours 'ayong the twal" enjoying all the perils consequent on such rather wild doings. In 1738, when our young lady was not quite eighteen, she went, with two of her brothers and her sister, eight miles to the play, from her Kentish home; and she tells the Duchess of Portland, "After the play, the gentlemen invited all the women to a supper at the inn, where we stayed till two o'clock in the morning, and then all set out for our respective homes." The frolicsome dame adds, "Before I had gone two miles, I had the pleasure of being overturned, at which I squalled for joy." It was, perhaps this indulgence in fun and late hours, joined to much solid reading, that made this youthful reveller and student hate early morning hours as she hated cards. But her "quality" was favorably shown in her ready observance of the law and custom of the house in which she happened to be a sojourner. There is not better proof than this of what is understood by "good-breeding." She would rather have gone down to breakfast at noon than at nine but if the breakfast-hour of her entertainers was at eight, there was the young guest at table, fresh as the rose and brighter than the dawn. She amusingly illustrated this matter once, by writing from a house where she was tarrying, "Six o'clock in the morning: New Style!"

Elizabeth Robinson's day is described on one of these occasions, as breakfasting in Marylebone Gardens at ten; giving a sitting to Zincke after mid-day, for her well-known miniature portrait as Anne Boleyn; and spending the evening at Vauxhall. At the nobility's private balls given in the first-named suburban paradise, Elizabeth Robinson was among the gayest and fairest of the revellers. Before the dances began in those days, the ladies' fans were thrown upon a table, and the men then drew them for partners, each taking for his own the lady to whom the fan which he had drawn, and which he presented to her belonged. It was not all breakfasting and dancing in those gardens. There was a large plunging-bath there, much used by fashionable Naiads, who rose from silken couches, donned a bathing-dress, took headers into the waters, gambolled in and under them till they were breathless, and then went home to dress for other entertainments.

At Turnbridge Wells, at Bath, and at country races, Elizabeth Robinson's beauty attracted all eyes; her vivacious wit charmed or stung all ears. At these places she studied life quite as much as she enjoyed its pleasures; and she could not go down a dance at the Wells or at "The Bath" without making little mental epigrams on the looks of newly-married people, the manners of lovers, and the doings of eccentric folk. These found their way, in writing, to her ducal friend, who had already bestowed on the restless maiden the nickname of "La Petite Fidget."

Customs at Bath.

At Bath she was as restless, as observant, and as epigrammatic as at Turnbridge Wells. She describes Bath life in 1740 as consisting all the morning of "How d'ye does?" and all night of "What's trumps?" The women, in the "Ladies Coffee House," talk only of diseases. The men "except Lord Noel Somerset, are altogether abominable. There is not one good; no, not one." Among the lady eccentrics was a certain dower duchess, who, said Miss Robinson, "bathes, and being very tall, had nearly drowned a few women in the Cross Bath; for she had ordered it to be filled till it reached her chin; and so all those who were below her in stature, as well as her rank, were obliged to come out or drown."

The glance thus obtained into the Bath itself only gives, as it were, a momentary view of the fashionable people in those fashionable waters. They who compare old accounts with what is now to be seen, will agree that he who looks, at the present day, into the dull, dark and simmering waters, can have no conception of the jollity, frolic, riot, dissipation, and indecorum, which once reigned there. There was a regular promenade in the waters, and the promenaders were of both sexes. They were in bathing costumes, and walked with the waters nearly up to their necks. The heads of the shorter people appeared to be floating. At the same time, they were frolicking or flirting or otherwise amusing themselves. The Cross Bath was the famous quality bath. Handsome japanned bowls floated before the ladies, laden with confectionery, or with oils, essences, and perfumery for their use. Now and then one of these bowls would float away form its owner, and her swain would float after it, bring it again before her, and, if he were in the humor, would turn on his back and affect to sink to the bottom, out of mere rapture at the opportunity of serving her. The spectators in the gallery looked on, laughed, or applauded, till the hour for closing came. Therewith came half-tub chairs, lined with blankets, whose owners plied for fares, and carried home the steaming freight at a sharp trot and a shilling for the job.

. . . .

Her Marriage.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1742, there is a record of eleven marriages. Four of them saucily chronicle the fortunes of the brides. Among the other seven, may be read this brief announcement: "August 5, Edward Montagu, Esq. member of Huntingdon, to the eldest daughter of Matthew Robinson, of Horton, in Kent, Esq."

Edward Montagu was the son of Charles, who was the fifth son of the Earl of Sandwich. He was a well-endowed gentleman, both intellectually and materially, and he adopted the Socratic maxim, that a wise man keeps out of public business. He is described as being "of a different turn from his wife, fond of the severer studies, particularly mathematics." Under his influences, the bounding Iambe from Horton gradually grew into the "Minerva" as she was called by friends as well as epigrammists. . . . They were married in London and did not immediately leave it. . . . .

Shortly after, the newly-wedded pair travelled to one of Mr. Montagu's estates in the north; but not alone. They were accompanied by the bride's sister. The custom of sending a chaperon with a young married couple prevailed. Indeed, down to a comparatively recent period, some husbands and wives who were married in Yorkshire, may remember that to have started on their wedding trip or their journey home, without a third person, would have been considered lamentable indecorum.

. . . .

Early in October, Mr. Montagu left his wife, parliamentary business calling him to town. She dreaded the invasion of condoling neighbors, and not without reason. "We have not been troubled with any visitors since Mr. Montagu went away; and could you see how ignorant, how awkward, how absurd, and how uncouth the generality of people are in this country, you would look upon this as no small piece of good fortune. For the most part, they are drunken and vicious, and worse than hypocrites--profligates. I am very happy that drinking is not within our walls. We have not had one person disordered by liquor since we came down, though most of the poor ladies in the neighborhood have had more hogs in their drawing-rooms than ever they had in their hog-sty." One visitor was unwelcomely assiduous. She thus hits him off to the duchess, as a portrait of a country beau and wit: "Had you seen the pains this animal has been taking to imitate the cringe of a beau, you would have pitied him. He walks like a tortoise, and chatters like a magpie . . . He was first a clown, then he was sent to the Inns of Court, where he first fell into a red waistcoat and velvet breeches, then into vanity. His light companions led him to the playhouse, where he ostentatiously coquetted with the orange wenches who cured him of the bad air of taking snuff. . . . He then fell into the company of the jovial, till want of money and want of taste led this prodigal son, if not to eat, to drink with swine . . . . where . . . people treat him civilly. . . and one gentlemen in the neighborhood is so fond of him as, I believe, to spend a great deal of money and most of his time upon him."

Biography/Elizabeth Montagu part 2

Excerpt reprinted from Appleton's Journal February 1, 1873

Life and Society in the Last Century.

People from all ends of the world then congregated at Turnbridge Wells, and Mrs. Montagu sketched them smartly, and grouped them cleverly, in pen and ink. One of the best of these outline sketches is that of a country parson, the Vicar of Turnbridge, to whom she paid a visit in company with Dr. Young and Mrs. Rolt. "The good parson offered to show us the inside of his church, but made some apology for his undress, which was a true canonical dishabille. He had on a gray striped calamanco nightgown; a wig that once was white, but, by the influence of an uncertain climate, turned to a pale orange; a brown hat encompassed by a black hat-band; a band, somewhat dirty that decently retired under the shadow of his chin; a pair of gray stockings, well mended with blue worsted, strong symptoms of the conjugal care and affection of his wife, who had mended his hose with the very worsted she had bought for her own." The lively lady and her companions declined to take refreshment at the parsonage, where, she made no doubt, that they would have been "welcomed by madam, in her muslin pinners and sarsnet hood; who would have given us some mead and a piece of cake that she had made in the Whitsun holidays to treat her cousins." After dinner at the inn, the vicar joined them, "In hopes of smoking a pipe, but our doctor hinted to him that it would not be proper to offer any incense but sweet praise to such goddesses as Mrs. Rolt and your humble servant. I saw a large horn tobacco-box, with Queen Anne's head upon it, peeping out of his pocket."

She was the centre of a circle of admiring friends; and, when established for months together at Turnbridge Wells, her coterie was a thing apart from those of the Jews, Christians, and heathens of all classes, who crowded the Pantiles or the assembly-rooms. Her letters sparkle with the figures that flit through them. Some contemporary ladies of the last century are thus sharply crayoned: "I think the Miss Allens sensible, and I believe them good; but I do not think the graces assisted Lucina at their birth . . . . Lady Parker and her two daughters make a very remarkable figure, and will ruin the poor mad woman of Turnbridge by outdoing her in dress. Such hats, capuchins, and short sacks as were ever seen! One of the ladies looks like a state-bed running upon castors. She has robbed the valance and tester of a bed for a trimming. They have each of them a lover."

A country-house, well furnished with books, made Sandleford more agreeable to her than the glories within and the dust without her house in Hill Street. She speaks deliciously of having her writing-table beneath the shade of the Sandleford elms, and she thus pleasantly contrasts country-house employments with the pleasures of reading ancient history, which lightened the burden of those employments: "To go from the toilet to the senate-house; from the head of a table to the head of an army; or, after making tea for a country justice, to attend the exploits, counsels, and harangues of a Roman consul, gives all the variety the busy find in the bustle of the world, and variety and change (except in a garden) make the happiness of our lives." She read Hooke's "Roman History" as an agreeable variety. Her mind was stronger than her body.

It was at this period that Mrs. Montagu first appeared as an authoress, but anonymously. Of the "Dialogues of the Dead," published under Lord Lyttleton's name, she supplied three. They are creditable to her, and are not inferior to those by my lord, which have been sharply criticised under the name of "Dead Dialogues," by Walpole. In "Cadmus and Mercury," the lady shows that strength of mind, properly applied, is better than strength of body. There is great display of learning; Hercules, however, talks like gentle Gilbert West; and Cadmus, when he says that "actions should be valued by their utility rather than their eclat," shows a knowledge of French which was hardly to be expected of him.

When the fashionable world flocked to Mrs. Montagu's house in Hill Street, in the middle of the last century, the street was not paved, and the road was very much at the mercy of the weather. To get to the house was not always an easy matter. When entered, the visitor found it furnished in a style of which much was said, and at which the hostess herself laughed. "Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothic grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarous gaudy gout of the Chinese; and fat-headed pagodas and shaking mandarins bear the prize from the finest works of antiquity; and Apollo and Venus must give way to a fat idol with a sconce on his head. You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with, but in trifles I shall always conform to fashion."

Adverting to a wicked saying that few women have the virtues of an honest man, Mrs. Montagu maintained that a little of the blame thereof falls on the men, "who are more easily deluded than persuaded into compliance. This makes the women have recourse to artifice to gain power, which, as they have gained by the weakness or caprice of those they govern, they are afraid to lose by the same kind of qualities; and the flattery bestowed by the men on all the fair from fifteen , makes them so greedy of praise, that they most excessively hate, detest, and revile every quality in another woman which they think can obtain it." This is the censure or judgment, be it remembered, on last century ladies!

Of course, Mrs. Montagu studied gentlemen as profoundly as the ladies. As one result, she gently laughed at Dr. Young's philosophy, which brought him to believe that one vice corrects another, till an animal made up of ten thousand bad qualities grows to be a social creature tolerable to live with. Sir William Brown could hardly claim this toleration, for he had not discovered (said Mrs. Montagu) that the wisest man in the company is not always the most welcome, and that people are not at all times disposed to be informed. Fancy may easily bring before the reader the sort of conversation which Mrs. Montagu was able to hold with Mr. Plunket. She says of it: "Some people reduce their wit to an impalpable powder, and mix it up in a rebus; others wrap up theirs in a riddle; but mine and Mr. Plunket's certainly went off by insensible perspiration in small talk." She was so satisfied that there was a right place for a wise man to play the fool in, that she expressed a hope to Gilbert West (who was turning much of her thought from this world to the next) and to his wife, that "you will, both of you, leave so much of your wisdom at Wickham, as would be inconvenient in town." West feared that, at Sandleford, she sent invitations to beaux and belles to fill the vacant apartments of her mind. She merrily answered that there was empty enough space there for French hoops and echoes of French sentiments; but she also seriously replied: "There are few of the fine world whom I should invite into my mind, and fewer still who are familiar enough there to come unasked."

. . . .

In the February of this year, 1762, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had returned to England after many years of absence. In October of that same year, she died. Of her appearance on her return, Mrs. Montagu wrote as follows to her sister-in-law at Naples:

"February 16, 1762. You have lately returned to us from Italy a very extraordinary personage, Lady Mary Wortley. When Nature is at the trouble of making a very singular person, Time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved when common coin is worn out; and, as great geniuses are rather matters of curiosity than of art, this lady seems reserved to be a wonder for more than our generation. She does not look older than when she went abroad, has more than the vivacity of fifteen, and a memory which, perhaps, is unique. Several people visited her out of curiosity, which she did not like. I visit her because her cousin and mine were cousin-germans. Though she has not any foolish partiality for her husband or his relations, I was very graciously received, and you may imagine entertained, by one who neither thinks, speaks, acts, nor dresses, like any body else. Her domestick is made up of all nations, and when you get into her drawing-room, you imagine you are in the first story of the Tower of Babel. An Hungarian servant takes your name at the door; he gives it to an Italian, who delivers it to a Frenchman; the Frenchman to a Swiss, and the Swiss to a Polander; so that, by the time you get to her ladyship's presence, you have changed your name five times, without the expense of an act of Parliament."

"I was told," (Mrs. Montagu writes from Edinburgh) "Mr. Gray was rather reserved when he was in Scotland, though they were disposed to pay him great respect. I agree perfectly with him that to endeavor to shine in conversation, and to lay out for admiration, is very paltry. The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company, is the meanest person in it. But, at the same time, when a man of celebrated talents disdains to mix in common conversation, or refuses to talk on ordinary subjects, it betrays a latent pride. There is a much brighter character than that of a wit, or a poet, or a servant, which is that of a rational and sociable being, willing to carry on the commerce of life with all the sweetness and condescension, decency and virtue will permit. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist. If the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbor dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honors. I do not love to see a man of wit win all the tricks in conversation, nor yet to see him sullenly pass. I speak not this of Mr. Gray in particular; but it is the common failing of men of genius to assert a proud superiority or maintain a prouder indolence. I shall be very glad to see Mr. Gray whenever he will be pleased to do me the favor. I think he is the first poet of the age; but, if he comes to my fireside, I will teach him not only to speak prose, but to talk nonsense, if occasion be . . . I would not have a poet always sit on the proud summit of the forked hill. I have a great respect for Mr. Gray, as well as a high admiration.

In 1769 Mrs. Montagu published anonymously her "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare." This work once widely famous, may still be read with pleasure. It was written in reply to Voltaire's grossly indecent attack on our national poet. . . . The greatest praise which the essay received was awarded to it by Cowper, many years after it was published. Writing in May 27, 1788, to Lady Hesketh, Cowper said: "I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montagu stands at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judgment. I am not reading and have reached the middle of her essay on the genius of Shakespeare--a book of which, strange as it may seem, though I absolutely forgot the existence. The learning, the good sense, the sound judgment, and the wit displayed in it, fully justify not only my compliment, but all compliments that either have been already paid to her talent, or shall be paid hereafter. Voltaire, I doubt not, rejoiced that his antagonist wrote in English, and that his countrymen could not possibly be judges of the dispute. Could they have known how much she was in the right, and by how many thousand miles the Bard of Avon is superior to all their dramatists, the French critic would have lost half his fame among them."

In 1775-76, among the visitors at Bath occasionally seen by Mrs. Scott, was a little lame Scottish boy, between four and five years old. When he had bathed in the morning, got through a reading-lesson at an old dame's near his lodge on the parade and had a drive over the Downs with the author of "Douglas" and Mrs. Home, the boy was sometimes to be seen in the boxes of the old theatre. On one such occasion, witnessing "As You Like It," his interest was so great that, in the middle of the wrestling-scene in the first act, he called out, "A'n't they brothers?" The boy, when he had become a man, said in his autobiography, "A few weeks' residence at home convinced me, who had till then been an only child in the house of my grandfather, that a quarrel between brothers was a very natural event." This boy's name was Walter Scott. Much of the company at Bath was then about to withdraw from the stage which the boy was to occupy with such glory to himself, and to the lasting delight of his countrymen.

In the summer of 1776 Mrs. Montagu was to be seen in Paris, welcomed to the first circles as a happy sample of an accomplished English lady. Voltaire, then in his dotage, took the opportunity of her presence to send to the Academy a furious paper against Shakespeare. The lady had a seat of honor among the audience while the vituperative paper was read. When the reading came to an end, Suard remarked to her, "I think, madame, you must be rather sorry at what you have just heard!" The English lady, Voltaire's old adversary, promptly replied: "I, sir! Not at all. I am not one of M. Voltaire's friends!" She subsequently wrote: "I felt the same indignation and scorn at the reading of Voltaire's paper, as I should have done if I had seen harlequin cutting capers and striking his wooden sword on the monument of a Caesar or Alexander the Great."

"You are very polite" (letter from Mrs. Montagu) "in supposing my looks not so homely as I described them; but, though my health is good, the faded roses do not revive, and I assure you I am always of the color of la feuille morte. My complexion has long fallen into the sear and yellow leaf; and I assure you one is as much warned against using art, by seeing the ladies of Paris, as the Spartan youths by observing the effects of intoxicating liquors on the helots. The vast quantity of rouge worn there by the fine ladies makes them hideous. As I always imagine one is less looked at by wearing the uniform of the society one lives in, I allowed my frizeuse to put on whatever rouge was usually worn. But, a few years ago, I believe, my vanity could not have submitted to such a disfiguration. As soon as I got to Dover, I returned to my former complexion. I own I think I could make that complexion a little better by putting on a little rouge; but, at my age, any appearance of solicitude about complexion is absurd, and therefore, I remain where age and former ill-health have brought me; and rejoice that I enjoy the comforts of health, though deprived of pleasing looks."

(To Mrs. Robinsin):--"Turnbridge Wells, 1778 . . . . I love London extremely, where one has the choice of society, but I hate he higgledy-piggledy of the watering-places. One never seen an owl in a flock of wild-geese, nor a pigeon in the same company as hawks and kites. I leave it to the naturalists to determine on the merit of each species of fowl. All I assert is, that nature has designed birds of a feather should flock together. On the menagerie of the Pantiles there is not so just an assortment. However, I have been fortunate now in finding Lady Spencer, Lady Clermont, Mrs. Boughton, Mr. and Mrs. Wedderburn, and many of my voluntary London society here. There was a pretty good ball last Tuesday; and Lady Spencer and the Duchess of Devonshire were so good as to chaperone Miss Gregory; so I did not think it necessary for me to sit and see the graces of Messrs. L'Epy, Valhouys and Mlle. Heinel exhibited by the misses. I understand that there are not above three dancing men, and the master of the ceremonies makes one of this number.

"Minuet-dancing is just now out of fashion; and, by the military air and dress of many of the ladies, I should not be surprised if backsword and cudgel playing should take the place of it. I think our encampment excellent for making men less effeminate; but if they make our women more masculine, the male and female character, which should ever be kept distinct, will now be more so than they have ever been."

(To Mrs. Robinson):--"Sandleford, June ye 13th, 1779 . . . .As I had not been to Bath since the Circus was finished and the Crescent began, I was much struck with the beauty of the town. In point of society and amusement it comes next (but after a long interval) to London. There are many people established at Bath, who were once of the polite and busy world, so they retain a certain politeness of manner and vivacity of mind which one cannot find in many country towns. All contracted societies, where there are no great objects of pursuit, must in time grow a little narrow and un peu fade; but then, there is an addition of company by people who come to the waters, from all the active parts of life, and they throw a vivacity into conversation which we must not expect from persons whose chief object was the odd trick or sans prendre. Cards is the great business of the inhabitants of Bath. The ladies, as is usual in little societies, are some of them a little gossiping, and apt to find fault with the cap, the gown, the manner, or the understandings of their neighbors."--[Dr. Doran's Lady of the Last Century.]

Excerpt reprinted from Appleton's Journal, February 15, 1873.

The Blue-Stockings.

And now, in the year 1757, the celebrated word "blue-stocking" first occurs in Mrs. Montagu's correspondence. Boswell, under the date 1781, tells us, in his "Life of Johnson," that "about this time, it was much the fashion for several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These societies were denominated Blue-Stocking Clubs. One of the most eminent members of these societies, when they first commenced was Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, whose dress was remarkably grave, and in particular, it was observed that he wore blue-stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without the blue-stockings,' and thus by degrees the title was established." Boswell was greatly mistaken, for, in 1781, Benjamin Stillingfleet, the highly-accomplished gentleman, philosopher, and barrack-master of Kensington, had been dead ten years, and he had left off wearing blue-stockings at least fourteen years before he died.

In 1750, Mrs. Montagu and some other ladies attempted to reform manners by having parties were cards could not be though of, and were the mental power was freshest for conversation. In that year there was a charming French lady taking notes among us. Madame du Bocage, in her "Letters on England, Holland, and Italy," notes Mrs. Montagu; and from the notice may be learned that the last-named lady was already giving entertainments of a nature to benefit society. While, at the Duke of Richmond's, as many as eighteen card tables were "set for playing" in the gallery of his house near Whitehall, with supper and wine to follow, for the consolation of the half-ruined, and congratulation of the lucky, gamblers, Mrs. Montagu gave breakfasts. Madame de Bocage thus speaks of them and of the hostess:

"In the morning, breakfasts, which enchant as much by the exquisite viands as by the richness of the plate on which they are served up, agreeably bring together the people of the country and strangers. We breakfasted in this manner to-day, April 8, 1750, at Lady Montagu's" (as Madame du Bocage mistakenly calls her), "in a closet lined with painted paper of Pekin, and furnished with the choicest movables of China. A long table, covered with the finest linen, presented to the view a thousand glittering cups, which contained coffee, chocolate, biscuits, cream, butter, toasts, and exquisite tea. You must understand that there is no good tea to be had anywhere but in London. The mistress of the house, who deserves to be served at the table of the gods, poured it out herself. This is the custom, and, in order to conform to it, the dress of the English ladies, which suits exactly to their stature, the white apron and the pretty straw-hat become them with the greatest propriety, not only in their own apartments, but at noon, in St. James's Park, where they walk with the stately and majestic gait of nymphs."

Mrs. Montagu was not the only lady who gave those literary breakfasts. Lady Schaub ( a foreign lady who would marry Sir Luke) received company at those pleasant repasts. When the breakfast gave way to the evening coteries for conversation (with orgeat, lemonades, tea and biscuits)is not known. After these had lasted a few years, the word "Blue-stocking" occurs for the first time in Mrs. Montagu's letters. Writing in March 1757, to Dr. Monsey, she says: 'Our friend Mr. Stillingfleet is more attracted to the lilies of the field than to the lilies of the town, who toil and spin as little as the others, and, like the former, are better arrayed than Solomon in all his glory. I assure you, our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay assemblies every night; so imagine whether a sage doctor, a dropsical patient, and a bleak mountain, are likely to attract him." Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet used to be seen as often as Mrs. Vesey's gatherings as at Mrs. Montagu's. "Blue Stocking" was not a term exclusively applied to Mrs. Montagu's assemblies. To all assemblies where ladies presided and scholars were welcomed, the name seems to have been given. A "Blue Stocking club" never existed. The title was given in derision by persons who, as before said, lacked the brains, or who were not distinguished by other merits that would have entitled them to an invitation. The assemblies of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord, were spoken of indifferently as bas-bleu assemblies.

Sir William Forbes in his "Life of Beattie," states that the society of eminent friends who met at Mrs. Montagu's, originally consisted of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Carter, Lord Lyttleton, the Earl of Bath (Pulteney), Horace Walpole, and Mr. Stillingfleet. Sir William adds that Stillingfleet was a learned man, negligent in his dress, and wearing gray stockings, which attracted Admiral Boscawen's notice, and caused the gallant seaman to call the assembly of these friends the Blue-Stocking Society, as if to indicate that, when those brilliant friends met, it was not for the purpose of forming a dressed assembly.

To one of the so-called Blue-Stocking Ladies, the once renowned literary club owned its name. Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed the formation of such a club; Johnson joyfully acceded, and "The Club" was formed. Hawkins, one of the members, has left on record that "a lady, distinguished by her beauty and her taste for literature, invited us two successive years to dinner at her house.' Hawkins does not name the hostess (opinion is divided between Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vessey and Mrs. Ord); but he ascribes her hospitality to curiosity as to a desire to intermingle with the conversation of the members the "charms of her own." This idea of "conversation" in place of gambling and other fashionable follies, was the leading idea with the ladies who share the merit of having founded the Blue-Stocking assemblies. The hostess who received the club "affected," says Hawkins, "to consider the members as literary men;" and he thinks it probable that the club thence derived an appellation which it never arrogated to itself. The Blue Stocking and the Literary Clubbists seem to have had this in common: their discourse was miscellaneous, chiefly literary: politics were alone excluded. The last, however, were sometimes quietly discussed in one or other of the groups into which the assemblies under the leadership of the ladies divided themselves.

Mrs. Garrick was among the ladies who met in Mrs. Montagu's drawing-room, and she remained the fast friend of the latter till death parted them. About a quarter of a century had elapsed since, as Eva Violetti, Mrs. Garrick, had made her first appearance on the stage as a dancer. In what guise she made her debut was, doubtless, laughingly alluded to by the Blue-Stockings. The Earl of Strafford, who died childless in 1791, has left a record of the fact in an unpublished letter (March 1746) in the Cathcart collection. "She surprised her audience at her first appearance on the stage; for, at her beginning to caper, she showed a neat pair of black velvet breeches, with roll'd stockings; but, finding they were unusual in England, she changed them the next time for a pair of white drawers." This was a joke for the more intimate circle in Hill Street. It is probable that it was at the more exclusive gatherings at Mrs. Montagu's, that the satirists, who had no title to enter, flung their shafts. "Beattie used to dwell with enthusiasm and delight," says Sir William Forbes, "on those more private parties into which he had had the happiness of being admitted at Mrs. Montagu's consisting of Lord Lyttleton, Mrs. Carter, and one or two other most intimate friends, who spent their evenings in an unreserved interchange of thoughts; sometimes on critical and literary subjects; sometimes on those of the most serious and interesting nature."

Mrs. Montagu's assemblies were held within-doors. Other ladies varied the character of their entertainments. Lady Clermont (for example) was not more remarkable for her conversational parties than for her al fresco gatherings. In May, 1773, when living in St. James's Place, she issued invitations to three hundred dear friends, "to take tea and walk in the Park." It is said that the Duchess of Bedford, who then resided on the site now occupied by the north side of Bloomsbury Square, sent out cards to "take tea and walk in the fields." It was expected that syllabubs would soon be milked in Berkeley Square, around the statue of his majesty. Walpole speaks of being invited to Lady Clermont's conversation pieces. These conversation pieces led to such easy manners, that etiquette was sometimes disregarded when it was most expected. Lady Clermont, for instance, being at a card-party at Gunnersbury, with many royal personages, and many witty ones, including Walpole, she remarked aloud that she was sure the Duke of Portland was dying for a pinch of snuff! And she pushed her own box toward him, across the Princess Amelia. Her fluttered Royal Highness, remembering that my lady had been much favored by the Queen of France said: "Pray Madam, where did you learn that breeding? Did the Queen of France teach it to you?"

One night in the autumn of 1776, the house in Hill Street was crowded. The French ambassador and Madame de Noailles were there, but the hero of the night was Garrick, who electrified his audience by reciting scenes from Macbeth and Lear.--"Though they had heard so much of you," Mrs. Montagu wrote to Roscius, "they had not the least idea such things were within the compass of art and Nature. Lady Spencer's eyes were more expressive than any human language. . . . She amazed them with telling them how you could look like a simpleton in Abel Drugger, and many comic arts equally surprising, when murderous daggers and undutiful daughters were out of the question." Madame de Noailles was so profuse, as she descended the stairs, in thanks for the great intellectual enjoyment, that Mrs. Montagu was afraid she would forget herself, and, by a false step, break her neck. She fervently hoped, too, that Garrick had not caught cold by going out into the air, "when warmed with that fire of genius which animated every look and gesture."

Johnson has described a scene at one of the Blue-Stocking assemblies (Mrs. Ord's), where, as he wrote to Mrs. Thrale: "I met one Mrs. Buller, a travelled lady of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the diversion of the company, that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place, and Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale." On another night he was at Miss Monkton's the then young lady whom many may remember as the old and eccentric Lady Cork. "As soon as Dr. Johnson had come in and had taken the chair, the company began to collect round him till they became not less than four, if not five, deep, those behind standing and listening over the heads of those that were sitting near him. The conversation for some time was between Mr. Johnson and the Provost of Eton, while the others contributed occasionally their remarks." How well Mrs. Montagu could converse, Johnson has portrayed in a few comprehensive words to Mrs. Thrale: "Mrs. Montagu is par pluribus. Conversing with her, you may find variety in one." These assemblies were miscalled and sneered at only by the blockheads. Walpole was scarcely sincere when he affected to laugh at them. He not only attended them, but stirred others to do so. Four years after this, he writes to Hannah More: "When will you blue stocking yourself and come among us?"

In 1781, Hannah More took the Blue Stockings for a theme for her sprightly little poem, which she entitled "Bas Bleu," and dedicated to Mrs. Vesey. In a few introductory words, the author explained the origin and character of the assemblies to which the well-known epithet was given. "Those little societies have been sometimes misrepresented. They were composed of persons distinguished in general for their rank, talents, or respectable character, who were frequently at Mrs. Vesey's and a few other houses, for the sole purpose of conversation, and were different in no respect from other parties, but that the company did not play at cards."

Hannah More describes the hours she passed at these parties as "pleasant and instructive." She states that she found there learning without pedantry, good taste without affectation, and conversation without calumny, levity, or any censurable error.

Next and perhaps equal with Johnson, is the unmistakable presence of Mrs. Siddons, who, since the October night of 1782, when she took the town by the passion and pathos of Isabella, had been the idol of the time. There she sits at Mrs. Montagu's on a sofa, leaning on one elbow, in a passive attitude, counting, or seeming to count, the sticks of her fan, as homage and compliments are profusely laid at her feet. To silly questions she has sensible replies--replies which indicate the queries: "I strove to do it the best I could; I shall do as the manager bids me: I always endeavor to make the part I am about my best part;" and "I never study any thing but my author." There is, probably no exaggeration in this; and the more fantastic side of Mrs. Montagu's character is not overcharged in the incident that follows. The hostess introduces a "young novitiate of the Muses," in a white frock. A fillet of flowers crowns her long hair, and the novice advancing to Melpomene, addresses her with--

"O thou, whom Nature's goddess calls her own,

Pride of the stage and fav'rite of the town;"

Which puts poor Mrs. Siddons to the blush, and half of those who are within hearing to flight." [Dr. Doran's "Lady of the Last Century."]

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