CHAPTER XI.
THE BLUESTOCKINGS
To Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey (a warm-hearted Irish lady), and Mrs. Ord (daughter of an eminent surgeon, named Dillingham, and subsequently a wealthy widow) is generally ascribed the merit of having founded parties where conversation should form the chief, if not only, occupation. But there was a lady much connected with the above, and, indeed, with all the Blues, to whom may be assigned the honour of first attacking what it was the object of the Bluestockings to overthrow, namely, Miss Mulso, better known to us as Mrs. Chapone,—a name which she acquired by marriage in 1760. When this lady was about twenty-three (1750), she, in concert with Johnson, wrote the tenth number of the Rambler. Under the character of Lady Racket, she sent compliments to that censor of manners, and “lets him know she will have cards at her house every Sunday, ... where he will be sure of meeting all the good company in town.... She longs to see the torch of truth produced at an assembly, and to admire the charming lustre it will throw on the jewels, complexions, and behaviour of every dear creature there.”
Of course, this note was written as a text to which Johnson might append a comment that should sharply censure that card-playing against which intellectual ladies were beginning to set their faces and close their doors. Accordingly, the Rambler remarks: “At card-tables, however brilliant, I have always thought my visit lost; for I could know nothing of the company but their clothes and their faces. I saw their looks clouded at the beginning of every game, with a uniform solicitude now and then in its progress, varied with a short triumph, at one time wrinkled with cunning; at another, deadened with despondency, or, by accident, flushed with rage at the unskilful or unlucky play of a partner. From such assemblies ... I was quickly forced to retire; they were too trifling for me when I was grave, and too dull when I was cheerful.” When Johnson suggests to Lady Racket to “light up her apartments with myrtle,” he seems to have made the suggestion which ladies of sense and means adopted, and for which they were ridiculed and nicknamed by persons as brainless as any of the figures staring stupidly at nothing on the court cards.
There already existed, however, conversation parties that were as little attractive to persons of good taste as the ruinous card-tables were to persons of prudence. In one of the few letters of Mrs. Scott which survived her unfortunate request that all should be destroyed, she thus wrote of card-parties and conversations in the very year, 1750, that Johnson and Miss Mulso combined in the Rambler to reform both:
“I find no objection to large companies, except the want of society in them.... I have not the natural requisite for society—the love of cards.... I excuse myself from card-parties by saying I have a great dislike to sitting by a card-table, which no one can pretend is unreasonable; and I find nothing is so useful as asserting one’s liberty in these ceremonious points: it gives little offence, and without it, one may remain all one’s life the suffering slave of a painful civility.... I am glad, by-the-bye, there are such things as cards in the world; for otherwise one would be teazed by eternal conversation parties, which are terrible things. I seldom venture into a Sunday-night circle, and I quite disclaimed them a year before I left London. The principal speakers are always those to whom one is the least inclined to attend. Every day in the week would be as much taken up with these parties, if cards did not conquer even the love of talking.”
Mrs. Montagu, a year before she acquired that name, had expressed her distaste for the flashy conversation of her time. In a letter to her sister Sarah, she describes one of the “talkers” with great vivacity. “Mr. B——’s wife put out her strength to be witty, and, in short, showed such a brilliant genius, that I turned about and asked who it was that was so willing to be ingenious; for she had endeavoured to go off two or three times, but had unhappily flashed in the pan.” In 1750, Mrs. Montagu and some other ladies attempted to reform manners, by having parties where cards could not be thought of, and where the mental power was freshest for conversation.
In that year, 1750, there was a charming French lady taking notes amongst us. Madame du Bocage, in her “Letters on England, Holland, and Italy,” notices 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 du 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, agreably 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. Madame du Bocage met Frederick Prince of Wales at one of them. The prince, who, with all his faults, was an accomplished gentleman, came incognito, so as to enjoy and to allow greater freedom. Madame du Bocage treated him as an ordinary gentleman, and was perfectly delighted with his conversation, as well as with his thorough knowledge of the literature of her own country. They gossiped beneath the Sigismunda (one of many fine pictures possessed by Sir Luke), which stirred Hogarth to paint the same subject, in rivalry, as he thought, with Corregio; but the picture was since discovered to be by Farini.
When the breakfasts 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 “Bluestocking” 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 attached 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 at Mrs. Vesey’s gatherings as at Mrs. Montagu’s. “Bluestocking” 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 “Bluestocking 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.