re's "Bas-Bleu" gave it
a permanent place in literature.]

A different account of the origin of Bluestocking parties was given
by Lady Crewe to a lady who has allowed me to copy her note of the
conversation, made at the time (1816):

"Lady Crewe told me that her mother (Mrs. Greville), the Duchess of
Portland, and Mrs. Montagu were the first who began the conversation
parties in imitation of the noted ones, _temp._ Madame de Sevigne',
at Rue St. Honore. Madame de Polignac, one of the first guests, came
in blue silk stockings, then the newest fashion in Paris. Mrs.
Greville and all the lady members of Mrs. Montagu's _club_, adopted
the _mode_. A foreign gentleman, after spending an evening at Mrs.
Montagu's _soiree_, wrote to tell a friend of the charming
intellectual party, who had one rule; 'they wear blue stockings as a
distinction.'"

Wraxall, who makes the same comparison, remarks: "Mrs. Thrale always
appeared to me to possess at least as much information, a mind as
cultivated, and more brilliancy of intellect than Mrs. Montagu, but
she did not descend among men from such an eminence, and she talked
much more, as well as more unguardedly, on every subject. She was the
provider and conductress of Johnson, who lived almost constantly
under her roof, or more properly under that of Mr. Thrale, both in
Town and at Streatham. He did not, however, spare her more than other
women in his attacks if she courted and provoked his animadversions."

Although he seldom appeared to greater advantage than when under the
combined spell of feminine influence and rank, his demeanour varied
with his mood. On Miss Monkton's (afterwards Countess of Cork)
insisting, one evening, that Sterne's writings were very pathetic,
Johnson bluntly denied it. "I am sure," she rejoined, "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 truth and
politeness, "Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have
said it."

He did not come off so well on another occasion, when the presence of
women he respected might be expected to operate as a cheek. Talking,
at Mrs. Garrick's, of a very respectable author, he told us, says
Boswell, "a curious circumstance in his life, which was that he had
married a printer's devil. _Reynolds_. 'A printer's devil, Sir! why,
I thought a printer's devil was a creatur