CHAPTER VII
The Bluestocking Club
The list of bluestocking ladies given by Hannah More in her poem, Bas Bleu, is as follows: ‘Vesey of verse the judge and friend,’ ‘Boscawen sage,’ ‘bright Montagu,’ and Elizabeth Carter. To this we should of course add the name of Miss More herself. The men enumerated as members are Lord Lyttelton, Pultney, Earl of Bath, and Horace Walpole. Exactly the same list is given by Forbes in his Life of Beattie, save that he adds the name of Stillingfleet. Miss More mentions certain famous men as former habitués of the blue drawing-room, Garrick, Mason, Dr. Johnson, Burke (‘apostate now from social wit’), and Sir William Pepys. These five, with the exception of Pepys, are thought of rather as frequent visitors than as recognized members.
We must not assume from the use of the word club the existence of a formally established society, like the great Literary Club, with rules and election of members. The blues were drawn together simply by the desire for mutual intercourse, and the group expanded freely as fit associates appeared. No exact list of bluestockings can therefore be made. Indeed, the list of ladies in Hannah More’s Sensibility, described as participating in ‘the charm of friendship and the feast of sense,’ is somewhat different from the one already quoted: Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Walsingham, Mrs. Delany, and Mrs. Barbauld. Fanny Burney, like Miss More herself, is thought of as a younger member,[203] almost as a protégée of the club. Mrs. Thrale, with her own coterie, was always more or less of an outsider, as was also Mrs. Ord. Later, as we shall see, the name bluestocking came to be applied to women who had only the remotest connection with the original group.
The origin of the little company which was to develop into the Bas Bleu is now difficult to discover. Miss More’s poem in praise of it did not appear until 1786, many years after its fame was fully established. The verses, begun in 1783, circulated for many months in manuscript and frequently retouched, are the official handbook of the society; but it is necessary to remember that the author did not come into contact with the group during its earlier history, and that her account of its origin is therefore not to be taken as indubitable evidence. She divides the honour of having instituted the bluestocking conversazioni between Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Boscawen. Madame D’Arblay, on the other hand, assigns it exclusively to Mrs. Vesey.[204] In any case, it is certain that Mrs. Montagu speedily became the leading person in the club, for Lyttelton, apparently as early as 1765,[205] refers to her as ‘la belle présidente.’ The earliest meetings may well have occurred at her literary breakfasts, which have been already described.[206] It is not unreasonable to assume that the ‘club’ was already in existence during the later fifties, for it was well known to Admiral Boscawen, who died in 1761. A prominent member of it, mentioned by Miss More, was the Earl of Bath, who died in 1764. But the Bas Bleu did not attain the meridian of its fame till many years later.
From its very beginning the object of the club was to promote literary conversation as the chief pleasure of social life. That such conversation was a stiff and solemn business one hardly needs to be told. Bluestocking letters alone are a sufficient proof of it. In the Bas Bleu we hear much of the false wit of the Hôtel de Rambouillet,
Where wit and point and equivoque
Distorted every word they spoke.
The English bluestockings will have none of this. They repudiate wit that is French and wit that is tainted, and exalt common sense in its stead. Hannah More declares that the solid basis of conversation is learning; it is for conversation, she cries, that
The sage consumes his midnight toil;
And keeps his vigils to produce