Chapter XV: Boswell and the Art of Intimate Biography (2)

[113] _Ib._ 2. 479; ‘Il y a des gens ici qui l’appellent _Junius_.’

[114] J. Morley, _Burke_, p. 67.

[115] _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 589, in criticism of his _Speech on the Independence of Parliament_, 11 February 1780.

[116] _Ib._ 2. 479; 481.

[117] ‘Je lui donne une compagnie que j’ai tâché de lui assortir; un M. du Buc, qui est aussi un grand esprit, le Comte de Broglio, l’Évêque de Mirepoix, Madame de Cambis, les Caraman, etc.’ _Lettres à Walpole_ 2. 479; 24 February 1773.

[118] Printed in 1778.

[119] By J. A. H. de Guibert, Paris 1773.

[120] See _Lettres à Walpole_ 2. 488. He had spoken of it to Walpole, and evidently preferred it to La Harpe’s tragedy—which did not please Madame du Deffand. The tragedy, which was widely known from the author’s reading of it in the salons, was acted in 1775.

[121] See Bisset, _Life of Burke_ (1798), p. 158. Morley thinks it was in Mlle. de Lespinasse’s salon that Burke met Diderot.

[122] _Letters_ 8. 252; 11 March 1773.

[123] Diderot.

[124] Morellet.

[125] Professor Cross, however, considers them fairly reliable. _Life of Sterne_, p. 287.

[126] D. Garat, _Mémoires Historiques sur le XVIII^e Siècle_ 2. 136.

[127] 31 January 1762.

[128] _Letters_ 6. 370; 2 December 1765.

[129] Cf. Cross, _Life of Sterne_, p. 282.

[130] The rise of Julie de Lespinasse (1732-1776) to a position of first importance in Parisian society is a thrilling story. See Ségur, _Julie de Lespinasse_. The account of her break with Madame du Deffand whose ‘companion’ she had been, is referred to above, p. 61. Walpole (_Letters_ 9. 59) calls her ‘a pretended bel esprit,’ and begs Conway not to allow himself to be taken to her salon, frequented by Englishmen, lest he offend Madame du Deffand.

[131] Necker, _Mélanges_ 2. 287.

[132] _Letters_ to the Count de Guibert (1809) 2. 233.

[133] See _Lettres de Mlle. de Lespinasse ... suivies de deux chapitres dans le genre du Voyage sentimental de Sterne, par le même Auteur_. Paris 1809; 3. 261.

[134] The authenticity of these stories is vouched for by the first editor of Mlle. de Lespinasse’s _Letters_ (1809), _op. cit._ 1. xiv, and by the author of the ‘Portrait’ in _Éloges de Madame Geoffrin_ (1812), p. 47. Mlle. de Lespinasse read the chapters aloud in Madame Geoffrin’s salon.

[135] His father had sent him to Lausanne at the age of sixteen. His first literary venture, his _Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature_, was in French.

[136] _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 342; 8 June 1777.

[137] Gibbon, _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 247; 21 April 1781.

[138] _Lettres à Walpole_, 3. 367; 21 September 1777.

[139] _Private Letters_, ed. Prothero, 1. 29; 12 February 1763. Cf. _Memoirs_, ed. Hill, p. 153.

[140] Walpole’s account of him in dispute is less flattering. ‘He coloured; all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth and [rapped] his snuff-box.... I well knew his vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much sense to avow it so palpably.’ _Letters_ 11. 376; 27 January 1781. Gibbon avoided disputes with Johnson, and Boswell (_Life_ 2. 348) assumed that he feared ‘a competition of abilities.’

[141] _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 343, 351, and 376.

[142] _Private Lettres_ 1. 312; 16 June 1777.

[143] _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 336.

[144] Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 178; 30 September 1776.

[145] _Miscellaneous Works_ 1. 312; 16 June 1777.

[146] She wrote him in January 1777: ‘Votre entretien, Monsieur, a toujours été un grand plaisir de ma vie, car vous réunissez l’intérêt pour les petites choses, l’enthousiasme pour les grandes, l’abondance des idées, à l’attention pour celles des autres, et une légère causticité, âme de la conversation, à l’indulgence du moment, la sûreté du caractère et le courage de l’amitié.’ Gibbon, _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 193. Madame du Deffand applied to Gibbon’s conversation a phrase of Fontenelle’s, ‘forte de choses.’ _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 338; 27 May 1777.

[147] ‘C’est le ton de nos beaux esprits: il n’y a que des ornements, de la parure, du clinquant, et point du fond ... il a, si je ne me trompe, une grande ambition de célébrité; il brigue à force ouverte la faveur de tous nos beaux esprits.’ _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 357; 10 August 1777.

[148] Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 247; 21 April 1781.

[149] Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 214; 12 November 1777.

[150] Nicholas Breton’s _Pilgrimage to Paradise_, quoted by Miss Young.

[151] These and the like illustrations are drawn from Miss Frances Young’s _Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke_, London 1912.

[152] Epigram 94.

[153] _Life and Letters of John Donne_ 1. 212. Her ‘refining’ influence on Donne’s mind and judgment is particularly noted in his second _Letter to the Countess of Bedford_.

[154] Professor Grierson attributes to her the poem beginning,

‘Death, be not proud, thy hand gave not this blow.’

See his edition of Donne’s poems, 2. cxliv.

[155] _Twicknam Garden._

[156] Gosse 2. 79; 1651.

[157] This subject is pleasantly discussed by Professor Fletcher in his _Religion of Beauty in Woman_, ‘Précieuses at the Court of Charles I,’ but his discussion shows how inimical was the new movement to anything like a true patronage of letters.

[158] Thus there is no suggestion of the salon about such a figure as the Duchess of Newcastle.

[159] _Seventeenth Century Studies_, p. 208.

[160] To ‘Berenice,’ in _Familiar Letters_, London 1697; 1. 147; 30 December 1658.

[161] _On the Death of Mrs. Katherine Philips._ In his _Ode on Orinda’s Poems_ the lady’s descent is traced from Boadicea. Rowe, in his _Epistle to Daphnis_, declares that she soared as high as Corneille ‘and equalled all his fame.’ Dryden compares her with Mrs. Killigrew. Cowley may perhaps have owed more than the rest to her. The following reference to him in her letters seems to show that she had been of real service to him: ‘I am very glad of Mr. Cowley’s success, and will concern myself so much as to thank your ladyship for your endeavour in it.’ (To Berenice, _Familiar Letters_ 1. 143; 25 June [1758?].)

[162] _Discourse_, p. 38.

[163] _Works_ of Saint Évremond, English translation, 2d edition, London 1728; 2. 247.

[164] _Ib._ 2. 299.

[165] Her beauty was celebrated by Waller in _The Triple Combat_. Lely painted her portrait.

[166] See Dr. Upham’s ‘English Femmes Savantes at the End of the Seventeenth Century,’ in the _Journal of English and Germanic Philology_, April 1913. This is a fairly exhaustive treatment of the subject, and reveals a development of ‘feminism’ in England parallel in some respects with that in France. As the movement, however, reveals no attempt to centre literary activity in salons, the article must be regarded as treating a different aspect of the general subject from the one here dealt with.

[167] So Madame du Deffand told Walpole. Walpole’s _Letters_ 10. 28.

[168] Guests were not necessarily received in the sleeping-room. The adjoining dressing-room was often utilized for the purpose. See Colman’s _Man of Business_ (1774), opening of Act 2. The levee should be compared with Mme. de Rambouillet’s more intimate receptions, where a seat near the bedside, in the _ruelle_ or lane between bed and wall, was the place of honour, as being nearest to the hostess while she reclined in state.

Morning informality became so popular in Paris that ladies and gentlemen of quality appeared at lectures, ‘même en robe de chambre’ (Roberts’ _Memoirs of Hannah More_ 2. 17). Cf. Goldsmith (_Citizen of the World_, Letter 77), ‘the modern manner of some of our nobility receiving company in their morning gowns.’

[169] As early as the days of the _Spectator_, Addison deplored the custom, introduced by travelled ladies, of ‘receiving gentlemen in their bed-rooms.’

[170] Probably, as Hill notes, Mme. de Boufflers; cf. above, p. 53.

[171] Boswell’s _Life_ 2. 118; cf. 3. 207.

[172] Boswell’s _Life_ 5. 395; here the word levee is probably loosely employed for a morning conversazione.

[173] _Citizen of the World_, Letter 104.

[174] Cf. Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ 2. 318.

[175] _Diary of Mme. D’Arblay_ 5. 80-81.

[176] _Letters_ (1770) 1. 7; 8 April 1750.

[177] _Letters_ 8. 437.

[178] Roberts’ _Memoirs of More_ 1. 395.

[179] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 6. 229; 7 September 1784.

[180] Diary for 10 May 1773; M. Forbes’ _Life of Beattie_, p. 75.

[181] Hannah More’s piquant description of an assembly is worth quoting in full:

‘On Monday I was at a very great assembly at the Bishop of Saint Asaph’s. Conceive to yourself one hundred and fifty or two hundred people met together, dressed in the extremity of the fashion; painted as red as bacchanals; poisoning the air with perfumes; treading on each other’s gowns; making the crowd they blame; not one in ten able to get a chair; protesting they are engaged to ten other places; and lamenting the fatigue they are not obliged to endure; ten or a dozen card-tables, crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, and yellow admirals; and you have an idea of an assembly.’ Roberts’ _Memoirs of More_ 1. 242; cf. _ib._ 1. 311.

[182] Other contemporary descriptions of the salon will be found elsewhere in this volume. Still others—in general more fragmentary—may be consulted in Frances Brooke’s _Excursion_ 1. 142, Roberts’ _Memoirs of More_ 2. 22-23; 1. 92-93; 174; 317.

[183] Horace Walpole’s experiences in the English salons at Turin and Florence may be consulted in the first volume of his _Letters_. ‘Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all’ 1. 82; 31 July 1740.

[184] This was an important matter with some of the bluestockings, as the following quotation from Hannah More may show: ‘I never knew a great party turn out so pleasantly as the other night at the Pepys’s. There was all the pride of London—every wit and every wit-ess ... but the spirit of the evening was kept up on the strength of a little lemonade till past eleven, without cards, scandal, or politics.’ Roberts’ _Memoirs of More_ 1. 208.

Johnson’s opposition to anything of the sort is shown by his remark on ‘an evening society for conversation’: ‘There is nothing served about there, neither tea, nor coffee, nor lemonade, nor anything whatever, and depend upon it, Sir, a man does not love to go to a place from whence he comes out exactly as he went in.’ Boswell’s _Life_ 4. 90.

He urged Mrs. Thrale to provide her guests with ‘a profusion of the best sweetmeats.’

[185] How true this is to the spirit of conversation is shown by a somewhat scandalous discussion of Miss Hannah More which passed between Mrs. Cholmondeley and Miss Burney: Mrs. Cholmondeley: ‘I don’t like her at all; that is, I detest her! She does nothing but flatter and fawn; and then she thinks ill of nobody. Don’t you hate a person who thinks ill of nobody?’ _Diary of Mme. D’Arblay_ 1. 188.

[186] 1787. Act 3, scene 2.

[187] See her first conversation with Marlow, Act II. She herself calls it sentimental, in reference to these platitudes.

[188] _Mélanges_ 3. 243.

[189] _Ib._ 266.

[190] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 4. 236; 30 August 1769.

[191] _Diary of Mme. D’Arblay_ 2. 351.

[192] The tails of macaronis’ wigs were notoriously long.

[193] Spence’s _Anecdotes_ 378.

[194] Boswell’s _Life_ 4. 195. A specimen of what this sort of thing may be is seen in this epigram of Marmontel’s, upon picking up a lady’s pen:

Églé, cette plume est de celles
Qu’à vos pieds déposa l’Amour,
Quand ce Dieu, fixé sans retour,
Vous laissa lui couper les ailes.
Necker, _Nouveaux Mélanges_ 1. 30.

[195] ‘Institutress’ is Mrs. Miller’s unpretending designation of herself. The quotation is from the preface to a volume entitled, _Poetical Amusements at a Villa near Bath_, Bath 1775.

[196] Walpole’s _Letters_ 9. 134; 15 January 1775.

[197] See the preface to the volume for 1777.

[198] 1776; 1777; 1781.

[199] In 1781; a fifth volume had been announced for 1782.

[200] London 1777.

[201] Bath 1776.

[202] Bath 1776.

[203] She calls herself a bluestocking in 1780. _Diary_ 1. 403.

[204] _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_ 2. 262.

[205] See below, p. 140.

[206] See above, p. 105.

[207] Cf. the whole passage. Home’s _Lady Louisa Stuart_, pp. 159-60.

[208] An Italian equivalent for bluestocking is unknown to Tomaseo and Bellini. In a pamphlet, entitled _Pursuits of Literature_, printed in 1797, T. J. Mathias gives the term _calza azzurra_ as though from Ariosto, quoting,

Fortunata la Calza azzurra e d’ oro
Si grate a Febo e al santo Aonio coro.

The first line quoted, however, is not by Ariosto at all, but by Mathias himself. Cf. _Orlando Furioso_, ed. Papini, canto 46, st. 3.

[209] 1. 379 ff.

[210] Larousse, _Grande Encyclopédie_.

[211] Mills’s explanation of the word was adopted (without acknowledgment) by Dr. Brewer in his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, and has therefore had considerable currency. It has been recently repeated, notably in the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1903, in an article entitled ‘The Queen of the Bluestockings,’ by an anonymous writer, and in Mrs. Gaussen’s _A Later Pepys_.

[212] _King Henry IV, Part I_, Act 2, scene iv.

[213] Home’s _Lady Louisa Stuart_, p. 156; cf. the _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 4. 65.

[214] The following quotation from Mrs. Montagu’s _Letters_ (4. 117) has been cited (notably in the _New English Dictionary_ and in Hill’s edition of Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_) as showing that the term _bluestocking_ was in use as early as March 8, 1757, on which day Mrs. Montagu writes: ‘I assure you our philosopher (Mr. Stillingfleet) 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.’ Personally I do not think that this can be regarded as an occurrence of the word _bluestocking_ at all. I incline to think that Mrs. Montagu means no more than she literally says, that Mr. Stillingfleet has left off the homely garb for which he was noted. But, in any case, it is interesting as a reference to the fame of his stockings, and tends to support Boswell’s explanation of the term.

[215] _Life_ 4. 108.

[216] 1. 210 _n._; cf. a similar account by Pennington (who remembered the salons) in his _Letters of Mrs. Carter to Mrs. Montagu_.

[217] _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_ 2. 262-63. No explanation of the term _bluestocking_ is given in the _Diary_.

[218] _Letters of Mrs. Carter to Mrs. Montagu_ 3. 202; 22 September 1783. The occurrence is referred to by Hannah More in the ‘Advertisement’ prefixed to _Bas Bleu_ (1786). The story was apparently reported to the blues by Lady Dartrey. See Pepys’s letter to Hannah More, in _A Later Pepys_ 2. 235; 13 August 1783.

[219] Gaussen’s _A Later Pepys_ 1. 42.

[220] Those who care to study the playful development of the word may consult the sprightly article, ‘Bas bleu,’ in the earlier edition of Larousse’s _Dictionary_.

[221] _Letters_ 13. 217; 13 November 1784.

[222] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 5. 50; 27 December 1791.

[223] Much earlier certainly than the date (1790) given in the _New English Dictionary_, ‘In the evening we had a very strong reinforcement of blues,’ wrote Hannah More in March 1783 (Roberts’ _Memoirs of More_ 1. 275); ‘There was everything delectable in the blue way,’ writes the same author in 1784 in reference to Mrs. Ord’s _conversazione_ (_Ib._ 1. 317).

[224] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 236; 9 December 1783.

[225] _Ib._ 4. 66; 1 August 1788.

[226] Cf. Fanny Burney, ‘He had no small reverence for us blue-stockings.’ _Diary_ 1. 403; June 1780.

[227] _A Series of Letters_ 4. 218.

[228]

Montaigu, tes dons précieux
M’assurent de ta bienveillance,
Les miens, peu dignes de tes yeux,
Te prouvent mon obéissance.
Ainsi partout on voit les Dieux
Recevoir des chants ennuyeux
Pour les biens que leur main dispense.
Tes bienfaits me sont plus flatteurs
Que les trésors de la fortune,
Toujours aveugle en ses faveurs,
Elle prodigue les honneurs
À ceux dont la voix l’importune;
Mais tes regards doux et perçants
Du vrai mérite ont la balance;
Je juge aussi par tes présents
Qu’ils out souvent de l’indulgence.
Du Bocage, _Lettres sur l’Angleterre_,
p. 50; 25 May 1750.

[229] Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_ 2. 179; 30 September 1776.

[230] _Lettres à Walpole_ 3. 243, 256.

[231] _Ib._ 3. 383.

[232] Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 1. 389; 3 September 1775.

[233] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 5. 165.

[234] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 1. 460.

[235] _Letters_ 2. 149; 1 May 1780.

[236] _A Later Pepys_ 1. 404.

[237] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 4. 204-205.

[238] Home’s _Lady Louisa Stuart_, p. 158.

[239] The letter is undated, but, as it refers to the death of Lord Bath, it must be later than 1764. Burke is strangely criticised for ‘an intemperate vivacity of genius’; the common charge is made against Garrick that he is himself only on the stage, ‘and an actor everywhere else.’ Johnson is not mentioned. The palm is given to Lord Chatham among living wits. Lyttelton’s _Letters_ (1780), pp. 122 ff.

[240] _Letters_ 11. 366 and 368; 9 and 14 January 1781.

[241] Roberts, _Memoirs of More_ 1. 298.

[242] Carter, _Series of Letters_ 4. 141.

[243] _Letters on Several Subjects_ 2. 166.

[244] _Letters_ 14. 5.

[245] _Diary_ 1. 253.

[246] She was so called by Mrs. Delany as early as 1751. (_Correspondence_ 3. 21), who adds, ‘The spirits of the air protect her.’

[247] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 242.

[248] _Ib._ 1. 330.

[249] _Ib._ 1. 311.

[250] Mrs. Carter writes her (_Series of Letters_ 4. 27), ‘I prevented you from carrying me to every place you had ever heard of in England or Wales.’

[251] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 335, 2. 355; cf. 2. 109.

[252] _Series of Letters_ 4. 120.

[253] _Ib._ 4. 137.

[254] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 3. 40.

[255] _Ib._ 5. 523.

[256] Hannah More writes: ‘Tuesday I was at Mrs. Vesey’s assembly which was too full to be very pleasant. She dearly loves company; and as she is connected with almost everything that is great in the good sense of the word, she is always sure to have too much.’ Roberts’s _Memoirs_ 1. 278; 29 March 1783.

[257] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 214; 19 June 1783.

[258] _Letters_ 11. 170.

[259] ‘Madam, I have read his book, and I have nothing to say to him.’ _Series of Letters_ 3. 228 _note_; _Johnsonian Miscellanies_ 2. 12 _note_.

[260] _Series of Letters_ 3. 255; 21 May 1765.

[261] ‘She seemed rather desirous to assemble persons of celebrity and talents under her roof or at her table than assumed or pretended to form one of the number herself.’ Wraxall’s _Historical Memoirs_ 1. 103. ‘Without attempting to shine herself she had the happy secret of bringing forward talents of every kind, and of diffusing over the society the gentleness of her own character.’ Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 1. 209 _n._

[262] _Letters of Mrs. Carter to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 271 and _A Series of Letters_ 3. 292.

[263] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 234.

[264] Her letters, with the exception of a lively but rather incoherent note to Hannah More, have not been published. Lord Lyttelton wrote to Garrick: ‘You will be charmed (as I am) with the lively colouring and fine touches in the epistolary style of our sylph, joined to the most perfect ease. Mrs. Montagu’s letters are superior to her in nothing but force and compass of thought.’ Garrick, _Correspondence_ 1. 440; 12 October 1771.

[265] _Series of Letters_ 4. 6.

[266] _Ib._ 4. 83.

[267] _Ib._ 4. 354.

[268] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 335.

[269] _Diary_ 1. 253-54.

[270] _Letters_ 9. 152; 24 January 1775: ‘The Cophthi were an Egyptian race, of whom nobody knows anything but the learned; and thence I gave Mrs. Montagu’s academies the name of Coptic.’

[271] Johnson, Walpole, Goldsmith, Burke, Reynolds, Boswell, Garrick, Sterne, General Potemkin, General Paoli, General Oglethorpe, half a dozen bishops, and all the blues were at various times among her guests. Of one of her entertainments, Hannah More wrote: ‘She had collected her party from the Baltic to the Po, for there was a Russian nobleman, an Italian virtuoso, and General Paoli.’ Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 212.

[272] _Series of Letters_ 3. 323.

[273] _Ib._ 3. 255.

[274] Her prosaic sister-in-law, whom friends called ‘Body,’ as they called Vesey ‘Mind.’

[275] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 358.

[276] See Melville’s _Life and Letters of Sterne_ 2. 67 ff.

[277] _Life of Mrs. Delany_ 5. 307. Gibbon wrote of Raynal (_Letters_ 2. 75; 30 September 1783): ‘His conversation which might be very agreeable, is intolerably loud, peremptory, and insolent; and you could imagine that he alone was the Monarch and legislator of the World.’ Walpole, who met him at Baron d’Holbach’s, was so bored by his questions that he pretended to be deaf. ‘After dinner he found I was not, and never forgave me.’ Three years later, however, he dined with Walpole at Strawberry Hill: ‘The Abbé Raynal not only looked at nothing himself, but kept talking to the Ambassador the whole time, and would not let him see anything neither. There never was such an impertinent and tiresome old gossip. He said to one of the Frenchmen, we ought to come abroad to make us love our own country. This was before Mr. Churchill, who replied very properly, “Yes we had some Esquimaux here lately, and they liked nothing because they could get no train-oil for breakfast.”’ _Letters_ 9. 92; 12 November 1774, and 10. 62; 15 June 1777.

[278] _Posthumous Works_ 1. 174. ‘In the hour and half I was in his company, he uttered as much as would have made him an agreeable companion for a week, had he allotted time for answers.’

[279] _Series of Letters_ 4. 113; cf. 3. 228 and 4. 108. It would appear that Mrs. Montagu feared that Mrs. Vesey was about to adopt certain of Rousseau’s ‘absurdities.’ Cf. _Letters of Mrs. Carter to Mrs. Montagu_ 3. 241; 24 June 1785.

[280] Hartley writes to W. W. Pepys (20 August 1800), ‘Mrs. Vesey’s ... was indeed the most agreeable house for conversation.’ Gaussen’s _A Later Pepys_ 2. 154.

[281] Frances Glanville Boscawen (1719?-1805) was the wife of the Hon. Edward Boscawen, Admiral (d. 1761), and mother of Viscount Falmouth and the Duchess of Beaufort.

[282] 3. 331.

[283] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 182; 93.

[284] She did, however, give some assistance to Johnson in the _Lives of the Poets_. ‘I have claims,’ she writes to Miss More (Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 191), ‘upon Dr. Johnson, but as he never knows me when he meets me, they are all stifled in the cradle; for he must know who I am before he can remember that I got him Mr. Spence’s manuscripts.’ These papers were of great use to Johnson, as he himself remarks (_Lives_ 1. xxvii, ed. Hill). Boswell regrets (_Life_ 4. 63) that Johnson did not make a more handsome acknowledgment; but Boswell seems to have been unaware of Mrs. Boscawen’s connection with the whole transaction. Mrs. Boscawen cannot be serious in what she writes of Johnson’s ignorance of her. A conversation with Johnson, in which she took part, is described in the _Life_ (4. 98).

[285] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 129.

[286] _Ib._ 1. 179.

[287] _Ib._ 1. 192.

[288] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 190.

[289] Mrs. Boscawen was the subject of more than one literary tribute before this. Young’s dreary ode, _Resignation_, was addressed to her, on the death of Admiral Boscawen; Mrs. Montagu had taken the widow to the ancient poet for consolation. In this poem she is bidden to ‘go forth a moral Amazon, armed with undaunted thought.’ Perhaps the last of these poetical tributes was a sonnet (from which a selection is here printed for the first time), by Pye when poet laureate. Writing of her villa at Richmond, once the home of Thomson, the poet Pye says:

Still Fancy’s Train your verdant Paths shall trace,
Tho’ closed 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.
Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 27578.

[290] Mrs. Boscawen chose Opie to paint the portrait, though the subject, she writes (Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 2. 35), ‘is worthy of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s superior skill; but I can command Opie, and make him alter, or even refaire if we do not like it.’ In her reply, Miss More stated that nothing could overcome her natural repugnance to having her portrait taken, but Mrs. Boscawen’s wishes which are to her ‘such indisputable commands.’ The portrait, which was hung in Mrs. Boscawen’s dining-room, became so popular that both Walpole and Mrs. Walsingham wished copies of it.

[291] Anne Dillingham Ord (d. 1808) was the widow of William Ord (d. 1766), who had been High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1747. She is often spoken of as ‘Mrs. Ord of Queen Anne Street.’

[292] Notably Doran, _Lady of the Last Century_, p. 264, and the _New English Dictionary_, under ‘Bluestocking.’

[293] _Letters_ 2. 146; cf. 149.

[294] Hannah More and Fanny Burney, _e.g._ Rev. Montagu Pennington (Carter’s _Letters to Montagu_ 3. 199 _n._) speaks of her as one ‘of whom too much good can hardly be said, and of whom the editor believes it would be impossible to say any ill.’

[295] _Early Diary of Frances Burney_ 2. 138.

[296] See p. 139.

[297] Not invariably, however, for Hannah More once found such a crowd that she thought herself well off to be ‘wedged in with Mr. Smelt, Langton, Ramsay, and Johnson.’ Roberts’s _Memoirs_ 1. 174; 1780.

[298] _Ib._ 1. 274; 7 March 1783.

[299] _Ib._ 1. 317; 1784.

[300] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 378.

[301] She once mustered the whole tribe of blues that Fanny might show her old friends that a sojourn at Court had not made her forget them. On this occasion the gathering was exceptionally brilliant, and included Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Garrick, Reynolds, Langton, and Horace Walpole. At this assembly Miss Burney says that she shall be ‘proud to show everybody the just first place she [Mrs. Ord] holds with me, among all that set.’ _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 3. 357 (3 January 1788).

[302] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 5. 33; 1791.

[303] _Ib._ 5. 68.

[304] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 5. 12 _n._

[305] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 285 and 1. 92.

[306] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 4. 283; 1770.

[307] _Ib._ 4. 489; 30 December 1772.

[308] _Ib._ 5. 374.

[309] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 364.

[310] A newspaper announced that ‘Miss Burney, the sprightly writer of the elegant novel _Evelina_, is now domesticated with Mrs. Thrale, in the same manner that Miss More is with Mrs. Garrick, and Mrs. Carter with Mrs. Montagu.’ _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 1. 492; May 1781.

[311] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 2. 100.

[312] The phrase is from _Bas Bleu_.

[313] See Lounsbury’s _Shakespeare and Voltaire_, New York, 1902.

[314] See Walpole’s _Letters_ 11. 67.

[315] See Lounsbury, _op. cit._

[316] _Life_ 2. 88. As late as 1787, she was thus described in the Epilogue to Thomas Holcroft’s play, _Seduction_:

Say, shall not we, with conscious pride proclaim
A female critic raised—ev’n Shakespear’s Fame!

Towards the end of the century the fame of the book declined. Mrs. Montagu was anonymously attacked by Mathias in his _Pursuits of Literature_ (1794). In speaking of commentators on Shakespeare he says (p. 37):

Nor can I pass LYCISCA MONTAGU,
Her yelp though feeble, and her sandals _blue_.

[317] _Mrs. Montagu and her Friends_, chapter 2.

[318] _Essay_, p. 19.

[319] _Ib._ p. 18.

[320] _Ib._ p. 150.

[321] _Essay_, p. 161.

[322] _Ib._ p. 153.

[323] _Ib._ p. 156.

[324] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 3. 251 and 224.

[325] Higginson.

[326] ‘The Temple Classics’ and ‘Everyman’s Library.’

[327] _Life_ 1. 123.

[328] _Johnsonian Miscellanies_ 2. 11.

[329] Numbers 44 and 100. They were reprinted in the editions of her collected poems.

[330] Young praised her in his poem _Resignation_ (Part 2). Like Eve, Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Montagu have ‘caused a fall—A fall of fame in man.’ He institutes a comparison with Addison. But Lord Lyttelton is even bolder: Carter’s singing reminds him at times of the angels singing over Bethlehem and at times of Sappho,

‘Greece shall no more
Of Lesbian Sappho boast.... For the sacred head
Of Britain’s poetess the Virtues twine
A nobler wreath.’

—_On reading Miss Carter’s Poems in Manuscript._ Mr. Smelt told Fanny Burney that he considered Mrs. Carter’s _Ode_ the best in the language. _Diary_ 4. 222.

[331] _Poems on Several Subjects_, 3d edition, 1776, p. 94, ‘To Mrs. Vesey.’

[332] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 3. 224.

[333] _Ib._ 3. 180.

[334] _Ib._ 2. 292.

[335] _Series of Letters_ 3. 288.

[336] _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 1. 313.

[337] _Ib._ 3. 276.

[338] _Ib._ 3. 110.

[339] _Series of Letters_ 4. 112.

[340] Dedication to the _Letters_.

[341] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 5. 93; 14 January 1775.

[342] _Ib._ 5. 55, 309.

[343] _Posthumous Works of Mrs. Chapone_ 1. 163.

[344] Her letters to Pepys, printed by Mrs. Gaussen, in _A Later Pepys_, are not so interesting. There is a charming note to Fanny Burney in the _Diary_ 5. 50.

[345] Roberts’s _Memoirs of Hannah More_ 1. 47.

[346] _Ib._ 1. 60.

[347] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 63.

[348] _Ib._ 1. 64.

[349] See above, pp. 147 ff.; 175.

[350] Notably the _Inflexible Captive_, based on the story of Regulus.

[351] Act III.

[352] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 140.

[353] _Ib._ See above, p. 155.

[354] Roberts 1. 130.

[355] _Letters_ 10. 166-67; 11 December 1777.

[356] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 1. 148 (1778).

[357] The ‘sacred’ dramas, _Moses in the Bulrushes_, _David and Goliath_, _Belshazzar_, and _Daniel_, escaped the contamination of the stage.

[358] Roberts 2. 153.

[359] _Ib._ 1. 191.

[360] Roberts 2. 111.

[361] _Ib._ 2. 415.

[362] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 62.

[363] See ‘_Advice to the Herald_.’

[364] Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 1. 195; letter to Gregory, 13 March 1771.

[365] _Ib._

[366] M. Forbes’s _Beattie and his Friends_, p. 66.

[367] _Ib._ p. 68.

[368] Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 1. 255; May 1773.

[369] _Ib._ 1. 260. Extract from Beattie’s Diary; 21 May 1773.

[370] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 4. 516; 13 June 1773.

[371] M. Forbes, _op. cit._ 78. In this matter Johnson’s view happened to coincide with hers (_ib._ p. 90).

[372] _Ib._ p. 75.

[373] _Ib._ pp. 95-6.

[374] _Essays_, Edinburgh 1776.

[375] M. Forbes, p. 120.

[376] Beattie, always nervous about his Scotticisms, was flutteringly pleased, and some time later repaid her with this astounding piece of flattery: ‘My models of English are Addison and those who write like Addison, particularly yourself, Madam, and Lord Lyttelton. We may be allowed to imitate what we cannot hope to equal.’ Forbes’s _Life_ 2. 115; 30 January 1783.

[377] Forbes’s _Life_ 2. 132 and M. Forbes, _op. cit._ p. 110.

[378] Arbuthnot. Forbes’s _Life_ 1. 203 and _n._

[379] He wrote that he had ‘been making some progress in a little work of which you saw a sketch at Sandelford, and which you did me the honour to read and approve of. It was your approbation and that of the Bishop of Chester and Sir William Forbes that determined me to revise, correct, and enlarge it, with a view to publication.’ Forbes 2. 164.

[380] See Forbes’s _Beattie_ 2. 41.

[381] _Literary Anecdotes of E. H. Barker_, London 1852.

[382] _Inquiry into some Passages in Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, particularly his Observations on Lyric Poetry and the Odes of Gray._ London 1783.

[383] _Letters_ 13. 5.

[384] Cowper’s _Letters_, edited by Thomas Wright, 3. 267.

[385] Cowper’s _Letters_, edited by Thomas Wright, 3. 306; 21 August 1788; cf. 3. 266; 267; 277.

[386] In March he wrote to Mrs. Throckmorton, ‘The two first books of my _Iliad_ have been submitted to the inspection and scrutiny of a great critic of your sex, at the instance of my cousin, as you may suppose. The lady is mistress of more tongues than a few (it is to be hoped she is single) and particularly she is mistress of the Greek.’ _Letters_ 3. 444; 21 March 1790. The book was published in July 1791.

[387] _Letters_ 3. 439; 8 March 1790.

[388] See the accompanying illustration.

[389] Barry’s _Series of Engravings in the ... Society of Arts_, London 1808.

[390] Walpole’s _Letters_ 4. 319; 8 November 1759.

[391] _Ib._ 11. 410; 3 March 1781.

[392] In his edition of the _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_.

[393] See Melville’s _Life of Sterne_ 1. 289 ff. and Climenson’s _Letters of Mrs. Montagu_ 2. 270 ff.

[394] _Correspondence of David Garrick_ 2. 189; 3 November 1776.

[395] _Diary_ 1. 126.

[396] _Correspondence of David Garrick_ 1. 388 ff.

[397] _A Later Pepys_ 2. 283.

[398] _Posthumous Works of Mrs. Chapone_ 1. 151.

[399] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 363; 1784.

[400] _Correspondence of Mrs. Delany_ 6. 209; 22 January 1784.

[401] _Letters_ 13. 214; 13 November 1784.

[402] _Letters_ 13. 432; 22 December 1786.

[403] Wraxall’s _Historical Memoirs_ 1. 115.

[404] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 2. 225; April 1790.

[405] Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_ 1. 163; journal for May 1763.

[406] _Private Letters of Gibbon_ 1. 31; 25 March 1763.

[407] See above, p. 123. As early as 1769, Mrs. Carter had long regretted that he had left ‘the tranquil pleasures of select society for the turbulent schemes of ambition.’ _Letters to Mrs. Montagu_ 2. 23.

[408] Miss Burney was well aware of the difference here noted. In talking with Wyndham of Johnson’s life at Streatham, she gave ‘a little history of his way of life there,—his good humour, his sport, his kindness, his sociability, and all the many excellent qualities that, in the world at large, were by so many means obscured.’ _Diary_ 3. 477.

[409] ‘Cette littérature devait briller des le dix-septième siècle, puisque dès lors se forme et se propage en France l’esprit de société.... Avant cet âge, en France du moins, les salons n’existent pas.’ P. de Julleville’s _Histoire de la Littérature Française_ 5. 600.

[410] _Letters_, ed. Bradshaw, 1. 55.

[411] _Memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh_ 2. 172.

[412] _Diary of Madame D’Arblay_ 2. 266.

[413] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 2. 26; cf. Walpole’s _Letters_ 14. 65 _et passim_.

[414] _Letters_ 7. 9-10.

[415] _Ib._ 5. 87.

[416] _Ib._ 6. 356.

[417] Madame Necker asserted that he was ‘as like Madame de Sévigné as two peas.’ _Letters_ 10. 80. Horace Mann had noticed the similarity many years before. _Ib._ 2. 410.

[418] _Letters_ 7. 137; 13 October 1767.

[419] Boswell’s _Life_ 4. 102.

[420] _Letters_ 8. 427; 23 February 1774.

[421] These letters he prepared for the press after they had been returned to him by Mann. In August 1784 he wrote: ‘I have been counting how many letters I have written to you since I landed in England in 1741: they amount—astonishing!—to above eight hundred; and we have not met in three-and-forty years! A correspondence of near half a century is, I suppose, not to be paralleled in the annals of the post office!’ _Letters_ 13. 182.

[422] In sending to Mason the letters which Gray had written to him, Walpole wrote: ‘I need not say that there are several things you will find it necessary to omit.... It is much better to give them [the public] nothing, than what they do not comprehend and which they consequently misunderstand, because they will think they comprehend, and which, therefore, must mistake. I do not know whether it is not best that good writings should appear very late, for they who by being nearest in time are nearest to understanding them, are also nearest to misapprehending.’ _Letters_ 8. 202; 19 September 1772.

[423] _Letters_ 8. 376; 8 December 1773.

[424] _Letters_ 9. 308; 21 December 1775.

[425] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 51; cf. 1. 235.

[426] _Lettres à Walpole_ 1. 591; 4 July 1769.

[427] _Letters_, ed. Thomas, 2. 257; 20 July 1754.

[428] ‘J’aurais bien du plaisir de pouvoir lire vos lettres avec quelqu’un qui en sentirait le mérite et avec qui j’en pourrais rire.’ _Lettres à Walpole_ 1. 9; 21 April 1766.

[429] _Letters_ 7. 195; 15 June 1768.

[430] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 253; 1782.

[431] 4. 288.

[432] _Diary_ 3. 181.

[433] _Diary_ 4. 471 ff.; 4 June 1791.

[434] _Diary_, 19 November 1783.

[435] _Life_ 3. 155.

[436] Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 2. 175; 15 November 1785.

[437] _Letters_ 8. 443; 17 April 1774.

[438] May 1786.

[439] _Bozzy and Piozzi_, or the British Biographers, A Town Eclogue, 1786.

[440] This caricature is too unseemly to admit of reproduction here.

[441] _Letters_ 13. 379; 30 April 1786.

[442] _Remarks on the Journal of a Tour ..._ in a Letter to James Boswell, Esq. By ‘Verax.’ 1785.

[443] Cf. Walpole’s remarks about the _Life_, _Letters_ 14. 438; 26 May 1791.

[444] _Diary_ 3. 219; 26 February 1787.

[445] _Life of Beattie_ 2. 182; 9 January 1786.

[446] Roberts’s _Memoirs of More_ 1. 403; 1785.

[447] Forbes’s _Life of Beattie_ 2. 178.

[448] It has been reserved for Mr. Percy Fitzgerald to revive the old charges against Boswell and to discover new ones, which he has set forth with a virulence that would be inexcusable in any one who had not a preposterous theory to defend.

[449] _A Later Pepys_ 2. 260; 24 October 1785.

[450] _Journal_, p. 307.

[451] _Ib._ p. 383.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 14: ‘A philospher like’ replaced by ‘A philosopher like’.
Pg 92: ‘elegy, nor burlesque’ replaced by ‘elegy, not burlesque’.
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Pg 169: ‘Genius of Shakespear’ replaced by ‘Genius of Shakespeare’.
Pg 173: ‘of geniune critical’ replaced by ‘of genuine critical’.
Pg 209: ‘and more agreable’ replaced by ‘and more agreeable’.
Pg 210: ‘agreable societies’ replaced by ‘agreeable societies’.
Pg 217: ‘then to get’ replaced by ‘than to get’.
Pg 222: ‘upon a widow seat’ replaced by ‘upon a window seat’.
Pg 264: ‘Schwellenburg, who’ replaced by ‘Schwellenberg, who’.
Pg 288: ‘Mrs. Catharine’ replaced by ‘Mrs. Catherine’.