��of the ludicrous appellation of the Blue Stocking Club, since given to these meetings, and so much talked of 1 .
Nothing could be more agreeable, nor indeed more instructive, than these parties. Mrs. Vesey 2 had the almost magic art of putting all her company at their ease, without the least appear ance of design. Here was no formal circle to petrify an unfor tunate stranger on his entrance; no rules of conversation to observe; no holding forth of one to his own distress, and the stupefying of his audience, no reading of his works by the author. The company naturally broke into little groups, perpetually varying and changing 3 . They talked or were silent, sat or walked about, just as they pleased. Nor was it absolutely necessary even to talk sense. There was no bar to harmless mirth and gaiety : and while perhaps Dr. Johnson in one corner held forth on the moral duties, in another, two or three young people might be talking of the fashions and the Opera ; and in a third Lord Orford (then Mr. Horace Walpole) might be amusing a little group around him with his lively wit and intelligent conversation 4 .
��1 For another explanation of the name, see Life, iv. 108.
1 Blue-stocking. Wearing blue worsted (instead of black silk) stock ings ; hence, not in full dress, in homely dress (contemptuous]. Ap plied to the " Little Parliament " of 1653, with reference to the puritani cally plain or mean attire of its mem bers. Applied depreciatively to the assemblies that met at Montagu House, and those who frequented them or imitated them. Hence of women : Having or affecting literary tastes. Transferred sneeringly to any woman showing a taste for learning. Much used by reviewers of the first quarter of the nineteenth century ; but now, from the general change of opinion on the education of women, nearly abandoned.' New English Dictionary.
Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 140)
��says that the Blue Stockings ' formed a very numerous, powerful, compact phalanx in the midst of London.'
- Lord Jeffrey said that there was
no objection to the blue-stocking, provided the petticoat came low enough down.' Cockburn's Memoirs, ed. 1856, p. 268.
2 Life, iii. 424-6. Hannah More's Bas Bleu is addressed to her.
3 According to Miss Burney, ' Lord Harcourt said, " Mrs. Vesey's fear of ceremony is really troublesome ; for her eagerness to break a circle is such that she insists upon every body's sitting with their backs one to another ; that is, the chairs are drawn into little parties of three together in a confused manner all over the room." ' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 184.
4 Life, iii. 425, n. 3.
Now
�� �
