Aetat. 72.]

Blue-stocking Clubs.

125

that which I now beheld, would have been an excellent subject for a picture. It presented to my mind the happy days which are foretold in Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the kid'.

After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he was pleased to say, 'Then, Sir, let us live double.'

About this time 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. These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs, the origin of which title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was Mr. Stillingfleet', whose dress was remarkably grave, and in particular it was observed, that he wore blue stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without the blue stockings; and thus by degrees the title was established. Miss Hannah More has admirably described a Blue-stocking Club, in her Bas Bleu', a poem in which many of the persons who were most conspicuous there are mentioned.

Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these circles, and did not think himself too grave even for the

1 When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard, that shall lie down with the kid. Isaiah, xi. 6. ' Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts history, &c. BOSWELL.

relating to natural

-'I

Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet: 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.' Montagu's Letters, iv. 117.

4 See ante, iii. 333, note 5.

126

An evening at Miss Monckton's.

[A.D. 1781. lively Miss Monckton' (now Countess of Corke), who used to have the finest bit of blue at the house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it. I am sure, (said she,) they have affected me.' 'Why, (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce'. When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal

1

Miss Burney thus describes her:-'She is between thirty and forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air, manner, voice, and discourse, that speak [sic] all within to be comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which, like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude all beside. . . . Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. The company in general were dressed with more brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was surrounded by strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in 1834 (Autobiographical Recollections, i. 137, 243) :—'Notwithstanding her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro named Prince Saunders, who as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable circles.' She died in 1840.

26

'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's [Sterne's] Sermons. "I know nothing about them, Madam," was his reply. But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them. The lady retorted:-"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never read them." No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large."' Cradock's Memoirs, p. 208.

truth

Aetat. 72.]

Boswell's boisterous talk.

127

truth and politeness, 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.'

Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham' and I went together to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous manner, desirous to let the company know how I could con-, tend with Ajax. I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my argument, asking him, 'What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that the (naming the most charming Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not be very happy?' My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may easily be conceived how he must have felt'. However, when a few days afterwards I

1 See ante, iii. 434, note 2.

' Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses :

TO THE HONOURABLE MISs Monckton.

'Not that with th' excellent Montrose

I had the happiness to dine;

Not that I late from table rose,

From Graham's wit, from generous wine.

It was not these alone which led

On sacred manners to encroach;

And made me feel what most I dread,
JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach.

But when I enter'd, not abash'd,

From your bright eyes were shot such rays,

128

Boswell's neglect of his journal.

[A.D. 1781.

waited upon him and made an apology, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness'.

While I remained in London this year', Johnson and I dined together at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter's', who had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; but of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record', and shall therefore insert here some miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes.

His disorderly habits, when 'making provision for the day that was passing over him,' appear from the following anecdote, communicated to me by Mr. John Nichols: -In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to his Shakspeare: and observing that the Doctor made no

At once intoxication flash'd,

And all my frame was in a blaze.

But not a brilliant blaze I own,

Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd;
I was a dreary ruin grown,

And not enlighten'd though inflam'd.
Victim at once to wine and love,

I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive;

While I invoke the powers above,

That henceforth I may wiser live.'

The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I thus obtained an Act of Oblivion, and took care never to offend again. Boswell.

1 See ante, ii. 499, and iv. 102, note 1.

2 On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (Letters, viii. 44)

Boswell,

that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he ventured his errand. Had I seen Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets?" I said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'

See ante, iii. 1.

See ante, ii. 53, note 2; 403, note; and iii. 428, for explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.

See ante, i. 346, note 2.

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