A GOOD HATER OF BLUE-STOCKINGS.
"If anything could increase my extreme horror of Blue-Stockings, it would be the terrible suspicion I cannot divest myself of that every Blue-Stocking drinks. I fancy that the only person she pays her devoirs to—and those only in secret—is Old Tom; and that it is as much as she can do to keep her lips away from him. The suspicion is a very ungallant one, but I cannot help imagining that when two Blue-Stockings get together, they do love a good soaking. In fact, who was the goddess who first gave her countenance to Gin? Pallas, to be sure; and her very origin was the result of a drunken frolic, for are we not told that she came into the world during one of Jove's splitting headaches? Now Pallas is the confessed patroness of all Blue-Stockings; and as a public-house is to this day called, in honour of her, a "Gin Pallas", it is not very unreasonable to suppose that her protégées are addicted to the same terrible practice! It is sad, indeed, to think—and I only hope it is not true—that the Tree of Knowledge should, with elderly ladies, be a Juniper Tree."—Anon.