'Why mourn the dead? You wrong the grave,
From storms that safe resort;
We still are tossing out at sea—
Our Admiral's in port.'
As another illustration of her intimacy with literary people, and of her fondness for their pursuits, it may be mentioned that Mrs. Boscawen was one of the society of 'eminent friends, both ladies and gentlemen,' who used to meet at Mrs. Montagu's, where she made herself welcome, says Dr. Doran, by 'the strength of her understanding, the poignancy of her humour, and the brilliancy of her wit.' A Mr. Stillingfleet, one of the coterie, was rather slovenly in his costume, and, amongst other delinquencies, wore grey stockings, which caused Admiral Boscawen humorously to affix to the whole party a name which has now become a household word—'The Blue Stockings.'
After they had been dining together on the 29th April, 1778, at Allan Ramsay's—when Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds had been of the party—Boswell wrote of Mrs. Boscawen, 'If it be not presumptuous in me to praise her, let me say that her manners were the most agreeable, and her conversation the best of any lady of our party with whom I had the happiness of being acquainted.' Tenderhearted and sprightly she undoubtedly was; and, as an instance of her vivacity, I may perhaps be excused for quoting a passage in one of her letters to Mrs. Delany which Lady Llanover has given in those well-known 'Memoirs' of her ancestress, to which I have already more than once referred. 'The first time,' writes Mrs. Boscawen, 'I experienced the pains of child-bearing, I concluded that no woman had ever endured the like upon the like occasion, and that I could not possibly recover it; whereas I danced a minuet about my room in ten days, to insult my nurse-keeper and set her a scolding for my diversion!'
But she was something more than a vivacious letter-writer and a dilettante, for she dabbled too in political affairs, especially in the Cornish elections, giving her interest to 'the old members' rather than to Sir William Lemon in 1774. She took, of course, great interest in the warlike views of the day; and on returning to her inn one evening whilst she was travelling through the country, on hearing of the retaking of Long Island, 'made a most agreeable supper and drank health to the noble brothers'—the two Howes. When her son-in-law, Mr. Leveson, had the command of the Valiant, man-of-war, conferred upon him in November, 1776, she set to work for him 'with great alacrity,' as she says, to raise a crew of fishermen in Cornwall. In fact, throughout her life her correspondence shows that she took the keenest possible interest in the doings of our army and navy. As an illustration of the warlike spirit which at this time pervaded even the bosoms of the gentler sex, Walpole thus writes in May, 1778: 'The Parliament is only to have short adjournments; and our senators, instead of retiring to horse-races (their plough), are all turned soldiers, and disciplining militia. Camps everywhere, and the ladies in the uniforms of their husbands.' 'It is said,' writes Mrs. Boscawen to Mrs. Delany, 'that the Duchess of Devonshire marched through Islington at the head of the Derbyshire Militia, dressed in the uniform of that regiment!'
Her residence when in London seems to have been generally in Audley Street; but she also had a pretty place at Enfield, and a small house at Colney Hatch which she used to call her 'nut-shell.'
When about eighty years of age she was living at Rosedale, a place near the entrance to Richmond from Kew, which was formerly occupied by the poet Thomson, whose table, cane, and chair were long preserved in the house; and whilst residing here a little poetical correspondence took place which may be worth recording, not only as an illustration of the courtly politeness of the time, and of the respect in which the good old lady was evidently held by her contemporaries, but also because Mrs. Boscawen's letter, written in a firm, almost manly hand, notwithstanding her advanced age, is still preserved in the British Museum, where it will be found in the Additional MSS. Pye, the Poet Laureate, had written a sonnet on Rosedale, which he communicated to the Rev. W. Butler, who sent it on to Mrs. Boscawen. The lines, by no means remarkable for vigour or originality, conclude thus:
'Still Fancy's Train your verdant Paths shall Trace,
Tho' clos'd her fav'rite Votary's dulcet lay;
Each wonted Haunt their footsteps still shall grace,
Still Genius thro' your green Retreats shall stray:
For, from the Scene Boscawen loves to grace,
Th' Attendant Muse shall ne'er be long away.'
The lady graciously acknowledged the compliment conveyed to her in the last two lines, and thus replied on the 26th June, 1797:
'Sir,