Considerations of a future existence certainly did come at different times to comfort her, but they were to her a remnant of convention and called forth in times of pressure rather than an inherent part of her being. In proportion as the more tangible ideals of the Revolution came to absorb her interest, the hope of salvation became a secondary consideration, which was not to be allowed to interfere with the necessity for correcting present evils and relieving present wants. To her, the problem of the female cause was stern reality which was well worth the devotion of a lifetime. Her energetic mind took in the subject in its entirety and thought it out to the minutest details, suggesting radical changes without stopping to consider their feasibility, and impressing us with the almost masculine width of its range.
How insipid and uninteresting compared to her radicalism are the attempts at a partial reform of a Hannah More, the very limitations of which bring out more clearly the utter want of breadth, the narrow conventionality which hampered the growth of the ideal! To her and to her associates the Woman Question had a much narrower range, and remained limited to the problem of moral improvement. Hannah More, indeed, had no cause to complain of scornful treatment at the hands of men, and in her circle, next to one or two of the greatest men of the day, women were the ruling influence. Of the lower classes and their struggles her early youth had taught her little or nothing, and her sympathy with the poor and humble was awakened in the course of the long and bitter struggle of conventionalism against radicalism, in which, viewing the matter broadly, she ranged herself among the defenders of a doubtful cause. It gave her a better insight into the social conditions of England, and no doubt she grew to realise that the great problem of humanity had reached an acute stage, and that even in her own cherished country there were many wrongs to be righted. From that time she became more and more of a social reformer, but the pressing need of the case was forever mitigated by considerations of Eternity. To her, who pinned her faith on the promise of life everlasting, the most glaring pictures of human misery faded before the beacon-light of faith and trust. She never found it difficult to be reconciled to the preponderance of evil, for she looked upon it "as making part of the dispensations of God", who in his supreme wisdom meant this world for a scene of discipline, not of remuneration. Hence the utter incompatibility of the orthodox view with the doctrine of perfectibility, and the hostile attitude of the Bluestocking ladies towards those of the new faith, by which this world was looked upon as all-in-all, and in which want and misery were considered as evils arising solely from the defects of human governments. "Whatever is, is right", was Hannah More's guiding principle, and to remove that inequality which in her eyes was a portion of God's great scheme seemed to her rebelling against God's own decree. She relieved human misery where she could, from a sense of Christian duty and propriety, and by establishing schools tried to rouse the poor to a sense of moral duty, teaching them to be satisfied in the position in which it had pleased God to place them and to live in the hope of Eternity. The practice of that humility which is among the first duties of a Christian forbade any attempt at rising in the social scale. Likewise, in the case of woman, there was to her only one great and leading circumstance that raised her importance, and might to a certain extent establish her equality: "Christianity had exalted them to true and undisputed dignity; in Christ Jezus, as there is neither rich nor poor, bond nor free, so there is neither male nor female. In the view of that immortality which is brought to light by the Gospel, she has no superior. Women, to borrow the idea of an excellent prelate, make up one half of the human race, equally with men redeemed by the blood of Christ." All other forms of equality do not seen to her worth fighting for.
This view of Hannah More's was fully shared by those among the Bluestockings who took a more direct interest in social questions: Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Chapone and Mrs. Carter. In their opinions about social inequality they were guided by the conservatism of dogmatic faith, as their views of the position of women derived colour from notions of propriety. They rejoiced with the rest of the nation at the news of the fall of the Bastille, which to every true John Bull had become the symbol of French slavery and which served as an opportunity to assert his own superiority and praise that perfect liberty which he imagined to be the privilege of every individual Briton—and no doubt thought themselves extremely enlightened in doing so. But at the first reports of bloodshed and lawlessness propriety suggested that they had suffered themselves by their all-embracing love of humanity to be betrayed into feelings which might be thought distinctly improper, or be translated into a want of patriotic feeling. They chose to be Englishwomen rather than cosmopolitans. This choice was made the easier for them as they had come to regard France as the chief bulwark of irreligion. Hannah More complains (1799) that "that cold compound of irony, irreligion, selfishness and sneer, which make up what the French (from whom we borrow the thing as well as the word) so well express by the term persiflage, has of late years made an incredible progress in blasting the opening buds of piety in young persons of fashion."[27] When the immediate danger of revolution in England was over, some Bluestockings—in particular Mrs. Montagu, Hannah More and Mrs. Carter—responded to the appeal of suffering humanity, in a narrow compass, to the best of their ability, and in the case of the second with highly creditable zeal and devotion, but they did not, like Mary Wollstonecraft, rise to the occasion, forego public praise and suffer martyrdom for the cause of humanity.
The Bluestockings, therefore, cannot be ranked as militant feminists. They were content with the position of dependence which the authority of the Bible assigns to women. It is true that even from among their circle an occasional protest was heard against the deliberate subjection of the female sex. The learned Mrs. Carter once complained to her friend Archbishop Seeker of the partiality of the male translator of the Bible, who in rendering the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians had translated the same verb in different ways so as to bring out what he thought ought to be the relations between husband and wife, writing that he was not to "put away" his wife, and that she was not to "leave" him; and the archbishop, who began by contradicting her, on referring to the Bible was forced to acknowledge that she was right. On the whole, however, the literary remains of the Bluestockings demonstrate pretty clearly that their confidence in female equivalence was not great. Mrs. Chapone, in her letters, mostly adheres to the creed of male superiority. She tries, however, to effect a compromise. Man, the appointed ruler and head, is undoubtedly woman's superior, but a woman "should choose for her husband one whom she can heartily and willingly acknowledge her superior, and whose understanding and judgment she can prefer to her own". This sounds most revolutionary at a time when women, as a rule, were not allowed to choose their own husbands. It is interesting to note that Miss Hester Mulso did, and made a love-match with Mr. Chapone, whom she soon after lost through death. She goes on to say that the husband should have "such an opinion of his wife's understanding, principles and integrity of heart, as will induce him to exalt her to the rank of his first and dearest friend", and concludes: "I believe it necessary that all such inequality and subjection as must check and refrain that unbounded confidence and frankness which are the essence of friendship, be laid aside or suffered to sleep". A qualified superiority, therefore, upon which the lord and master is supposed not to presume.
Among the correspondence of Mrs. Montagu, the "Queen of the Blues", published "by her great-great niece" Miss E. J. Climenson, is a letter to her devoted friend and admirer the Earl of Bath on the subject of her archenemy Voltaire's tragedy of "Tancred", in which she finds fault with the character of Aménaide for not following virtue as by law established, but despising forms and following sentiment, "a dangerous guide". This is what we should expect from a Bluestocking leader. She continues: "Designed by nature to act but a second part, it is a woman's duty to obey rules; she is not to make or redress them". Hannah More also admits the male superiority in a chapter on conversation in her "Strictures", where she follows Swift and Mrs. Barbauld in suggesting that men shall concur in the education of the female sex by allowing them the humble part of interested listeners to their superior conversation. "It is to be regretted", she says, "that many men, even of distinguished sense and learning, are too apt to consider the society of ladies as a scene in which they are rather to rest their understandings than to exercise them; while ladies, in return, are too much addicted to make their court by lending themselves to this spirit of trifling: they often avoid making use of what abilities they have, and affect to talk below their natural and acquired powers of mind, considering it as a tacit and welcome flattery to the understanding of men to renounce the exercise of their own"[28]. The last part of this statement strikes a higher note in its denunciation of the pernicious system of "relativity". Mrs. Carter also refers somewhere in her correspondence to the indignity of ladies and gentlemen at various assemblies being kept separated, as if the former were disqualified by the shortcomings of their sex from listening to the improving conversation of the latter.
In conclusion it may be stated that the Bluestocking assemblies in all probability arose from an ardent wish on the part of some intellectual ladies to intermingle with the conversation of the members of Dr. Johnson's club the charms of their own. One of the Literary Clubbists informs us that a certain lady, whom he does not name, but describes as distinguished by her beauty and taste for literature, used to invite them to dinner and share in the conversation. He may have meant Miss Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister, who wrote a much praised "Essay on Taste", and whose salon was among the first where Wits and Bluestockings learnt to appreciate each other's society. Boswell, in his "Life of Johnson" says: "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". Although the duty of receiving the guests and so placing them as to ensure animated discussions fell to the share of the women, yet few of them were bold enough to let themselves be heard in the presence of the literary dictator, whose oracular speeches were delivered with pompous assurance and listened to and taken in with becoming deference and humility. Dr. Johnson made and marred the literary and conversational reputations of his bevy of female admirers; Fanny Burney owed her success as a Bluestocking principally to his praise of "Evelina", as Hannah did hers—next to the kind protection of Garrick—to his unstinted eulogy of her "Bas Bleu" poem. Johnson had said that "there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it." But after Johnson's death there came a radical change, and in the absence of a male dictator to occupy the vacant throne, the female element predominated more and more. Especially Mrs. Montagu "queened it" over her satellites, both male and female, and of all the Bluestocking hostesses who vied for supremacy she came nearest to justifying the charge of pedantry.
The question whether the Bluestocking societies were either directly or indirectly an imitation of the older French salons must be answered with some degree of circumspection. That the influence of the latter was considerable may be taken for granted, and the direct points of contact were numerous. Horace Walpole in particular was an intimate of both, David Hume frequented several Paris salons and Mme du Bocage, Mme de Genlis and Mme de Staël—the last two in the year of their exile from France—were repeatedly seen in blue society. It is to the pen of the first that we owe one of the most vivid descriptions of Mrs. Montagu's convivial meetings. If we moreover consider that French interest in England which is a prominent feature of 18th century society and the close relations between the two countries, we do not wonder that a parallel movement to that of the French salon should have sprung up. And yet the Bluestocking assemblies had a distinct individuality of their own; inferior to their French rivals in some respects, they were superior to them in others. Most critics of the time agree in asserting their inferiority, which is a natural circumstance in view of the fact that they considered them as a literary and conversational movement, in which the chief aim was literary taste and polished, witty conversation. Their estimate never went beyond these limits to consider the influence exercised by these côteries upon society in general. And it is when throwing into the scale the moral improvement, especially among women, which was the result of the efforts of the Bluestocking ladies, that we realise that although different, they were not necessarily inferior to their French rivals.
Wraxall in his "Historical Memoirs" opines that "neither in the period of its duration, nor in the number, merit or intellectual eminence of the principal members, could the English society be held upon any parity with that of France." He might have added with equal truth that the average Frenchwoman of the cultivated class is distinguished from her English sister by greater keenness of wit and by a greater brilliance of conversation. The chief talents of the French are of the mind, "de l'esprit", and are shown off to the best advantage, those of the English are rather of the heart and are not flaunted in public. English society, in the matter of outside splendour and brilliance, has always been completely overshadowed by the greater expansiveness of the French. The Bluestocking hostesses were upon the whole less brilliant specimens of female magnificence, but they were undoubtedly far better women. For the light-hearted gallantry practised in the French salons they substituted warm and generous friendship, which considerations of envy only very rarely disturbed. The Bluestocking atmosphere was purer, allowing one to breathe more comfortably than in some French salon where intrigue ruled the hour. The women were like the men, lacking in that "finesse" in which the French excelled, but kind and considerate, and upon the whole quicker to praise than to find fault. Hannah More realised this when singing the praises of the Blues in her "Bas Bleu" poem. She describes the members of the French assemblies as brilliant and witty, but lacking common sense and simplicity. Her verdict would have been more correct if for the Hôtel de Rambouillet, against which her disapprobation is directed, she had substituted the later salons of the decline, where indeed a mistaken "préciosité" prevailed and "where point, and turn, and équivoque distorted every word they spoke". For indeed the parallelism with the salon of the 17th century is far more marked than with that of the 18th. The evolution of both French and English polite literary society furnishes a strong argument in favour of Rousseau's theory that "everything degenerates in the hands of man"—by which he meant "humanity"—for after a short spell of glory both degenerated sadly. In both pedantry supplanted wit, and Molière's "Femmes Savantes" might have found its counterpart—though probably not its equivalent—in Fanny Burney's play of "The Witlings", which the unfavourable criticism of her friends induced her to destroy. The history of Bluestocking pedantry is a repetition of what took place in French society with the exception that to the Bluestocking society of England no second blossoming was granted by the chilling blasts of Revolution. Pedantry, that archenemy of Wit, robbed it of all its charm, leaving naked Learning, than which nothing can be less sociable. Fanny Burney signalled its approach, warned against it, and ended by joining in the general homage.
There can be no doubt that the French salons occupy the more important place in the history of 18th century thought. No daring philosophical schemes were hatched under the auspices of the Bluestockings, and if their conversation showed the influence of the rationalist spirit, their rationalism was not made subservient to projects of a revolutionary nature, but made to support with its evidence the long-established truth of orthodox religion. Mrs. Chapone in her "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind" warns her niece that Reason, which may help us to discover some of the great laws of morality, is yet liable to error. The sending of God's son therefore is to be looked upon as a demonstration or revelation of the evidences of the Christian religion, by which we become convinced on rational grounds of its divine authority. Here, as in the matter of sexual preeminence, Mrs. Chapone loved a compromise between the head and the heart. The company at Mrs. Vesey's is described as a good "rational society" by Hannah More, who herself rather affected a "comfortable, rational day". Where politics are discussed, the door is opened wide to intrigue, and party-feelings will prevail. Politics had been the ruin of many a periodical attempt and their exclusion at the Bluestocking assemblies left the field to literary conversation. Philanthropy, or active benevolence, was practised instead, and the light moralising tendencies of the Spectator enlistened the same sympathy among the Bluestockings which the sterner moral code of Port Royal awakened in the heart of the more serious Hannah.
Upon the whole the Bluestockings were not, like their French rivals, recruited from the aristocracy. They belonged to the middle-class, to whom the 18th century was a time of great financial prosperity. Mrs. Montagu's wealth was considerable, and she made a liberal use of it not only in philanthropy, but also in encouraging needy authors, which made Hannah More refer to her as "the female Maecenas of Hill Street"[29]. They were mostly the daughters of clergymen and schoolmasters, who in early youth acquired that taste for learning which their fathers or near relations were able to gratify, and that serious cast of mind which never forsook some of them and fitted them to be religious moralists.