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 Lyttelton, the Earl of Bath (Pulteney), Horace Walpole, and Mr. Stillingfleet. Around these some of the most distinguished persons of intellect used to assemble. Mrs. Vesey (daughter of the Bishop of Ossory and wife of Agmondesham Vesey), says Sir William, was another centre of pleasing and rational society. Without attempting to shine herself, she had the happy secret of bringing forward talents of every kind, and for diffusing over the society the gentleness of her own character. Mrs. Boscawen (née Granville, wife of the renowned admiral), unknown to the literary world, but made familiar to modern readers by her pleasant letters in the Delany correspondence, made herself welcome by “the strength of her understanding, the poignancy of her humour, and the brilliancy of her wit.” 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 Bluestocking 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 Bluestocking Ladies, the once renowned Literary Club owed 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 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. Vesey, 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 Bluestocking 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 Bluestockings 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 ladies divided themselves.
Mrs. Montagu, being a thorough woman of business as well as a recognised leader in social life, did not make her house in Hill Street a “court for the votaries of the muses” all at once. She had a wholesome horror of being in debt, and she indulged her tastes only when her purse authorised the outlay. In 1767, she completed the Chinese-room which had charmed Madame du Bocage years before. “Mr. Adams,” as Mrs. Montagu informed Lord Kames, “has made me a cieling, and chimney-piece, and doors which are pretty enough to make me a thousand enemies. Envy,” she said, jestingly, “turns livid at the first glimpse of them.”
At this time, Mrs. Montagu had been living in Hill Street more than thirty years. It was not even at the later period the well-macadamised and broadly paved street it now is. A few of the original and noble houses still dignify the street. Mrs. Montagu began to reside there a short time before Lord Chesterfield removed from Grosvenor Square to Chesterfield House; namely, in 1748. In the June of that year, Chesterfield wrote to Mr. Dayrolles: “I am now extremely busy in moving to my new house, where I must be before Michaelmas next.... As my new house is situated among a parcel of thieves and murderers, I shall have occasion for a house-dog.” Chesterfield House is within a stone’s throw of Hill Street. The “thieves and murderers” were among the butchers of May Fair and Sheppard’s Market—not then cleared out for such streets as have since been erected on the site. Park Lane was then Tyburn Lane, and what with the fair of six weeks’ duration (with blackguardism and incidents of horror that will not bear repeating), and the monthly hangings at Tyburn, from which half the drunken and yelling spectators poured through May Fair, Hill Street, and adjacent outlets on their way to home and fresh scenes of riot,—between the fair, the gallows, and the neighbouring rascalry,—the district was not to be entered after dark without risk of the wayfarer being stripped by robbers. Footpads were as common between Hay Hill and Park Lane as highwaymen between Hounslow and Bagshot. Now, Hill Street looks as if no mounted gentleman of the road had ever quietly ridden through it on a summer’s evening westward, on felonious thoughts intent. Chesterfield House stands, but new mansions occupy its once brilliant gardens, whence all the gay spirits have been driven. In that locality no longer can it be said that—
“... round and round the ghosts of beauties glide,
Haunting the places where their honour died!”
In 1770, Hill Street, still unpaved, was most crowded with the carriages of visitors to Mrs. Montagu’s rooms. In the assemblies held there, the hostess had words for all, but she had no special idols; and this was not always gratifying to those who looked for idolatry. Boswell notices one night when “a splendid company had assembled, consisting of the most eminent literary characters. I thought he (Johnson) seemed highly pleased with the respect and attention that was shown him, and asked him on our return home if he were not highly gratified by his visit. ‘No, sir,’ said he; ‘not highly gratified, yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections.’”
How “objectionable” Johnson could be to others is well known; but they took it good-naturedly. Soame Jenyns having been roughly treated by the doctor on one of these occasions, revenged himself by writing an anticipatory epitaph. It was probably read aloud at one of Mrs. Montagu’s coteries. The original is preserved, with half a hundred sprightly letters by Garrick, among the MSS. belonging to Earl Spencer.
“Here lies poor Johnson! Reader, have a care,
Tread lightly, lest you rouse a sleeping bear!