the infirmities often attendant on advanced life, she seemed to be almost wholly exempt. All the lines of her countenance bespoke intelligence, and her eyes, were accommodated to her cast of features, which had in them something satirical and severe, rather than amiable or inviting.

Destitute of taste in dispos

ing the ornaments of her dress, she nevertheless studied or affected those aids, more than would seem to have become a woman possessing a philosophic mind, intent on higher pursuits than toilet. Even when approaching to four score, this female weakness still accompanied her; nor could she relinquish her diamond necklace and bows, which . . . formed on evenings the perpetual ornament of her emaciated person. I used to think that these glittering appendages of opulence, sometimes helped to dazzle the disputants, whom her arguments might not always convince. . . . Notwithstanding the defects that I have enumerated, she possessed a masculine understanding, enlightened, cultivated, and expanded by the acquaintance of men, as well as of books. Many of the most illustrious persons in rank, no less than in ability, under the reigns of George II. and III., had been her correspondents, friends, companions and admirers. WRAXALL, SIR NATHANIEL WILLIAM, 1815, Historical Memoirs of My Own Time, from 1772 to 1784, pp. 64, 65.

She was equal to conversation on every subject; but she assumed that dogmatic and presumptuous tone which is well known as peculiar to learned English ladies, and even to young English tourists.—SCHLOSSER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH, 1823, History of the Eighteenth Century, tr. Davison, pt. ii. ch. i.

Her conversational powers were of a truly superior order; strong, just, clear, and often eloquent. Her process in argument, notwithstanding an earnest solicitude for pre-eminence, was uniformly polite and candid. But her reputation for wit seemed always in her thoughts, marring their natural flow, and untutored expression. No sudden start of talent urged forth any precarious opinion; no vivacious new idea varied her logical course of ratiocination. Her smile though most generally benignant, was rarely gay; and her liveliest sallies had a something of anxiety rather than of hilarity-till their

success was ascertained by applause. Her form was stately, and her manners were dignified. Her face retained strong remains of beauty throughout life; and though its native cast was evidently that of severity, its expression was softened off in discourse. by an almost constant desire to please. Taken for all in all, Mrs. Montagu was rare in her attainments; splendid in her conduct; open to the calls of charity; forward to precede those of indigent genius; and unchangeably just and firm in the application of her interest, her principles, and her fortune, to the encouragement of loyalty, and the support of virtue.

D'ARBLAY, MADAME (FANNY BURNEY), 1832, Memoirs of Doctor Burney.

Mrs. Montagu is one of the best specimens on record of that most comprehensive character a woman of the world, for she was of the world, yet not corrupted by it. Her wit, displayed in the girlish effusions of a satire, rather the result of high spirits than of a sarcastic tone, improved as age advanced. Passionately fond of society, a lover of the great, she displayed, nevertheless, a perfect contentment when deprived of excitement by any accident; and, whilst she courted the great, she was courteous and bountiful to the small.-THOMSON, KATHERINE, 1848, The Literary Circles of the Last Century, Fraser's Magazine, vol. 37, p. 73.

Mrs. Montague's parties were pleasant, no doubt, for she got together the people best worth knowing; and though she liked flattery, and loved to drape and pose herself as the chief Muse of a new British Parnassus, she was essentially a gentlewoman, full of kindness and benevolence, standing stoutly up for her friends, and always ready to help unknown and struggling people with her patronage, her advice, and her money. If she quarrelled with Johnson when in his "Lives of the Poets" he decried one of her idols, Lyttelton, she not the less kept up her annuity to poor blind Miss Williams. If her "Essay on Shakspere" is not very profound, it shows at least sounder appreciation of the great dramatist than the criticisms of Johnson, who abused it.-LESLIE, CHARLES ROBERT AND TAYLOR, TOM, 1865, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. I, p. 452.

But even in the days of her maidenhood, when she was glad in her youth and in her

beauty, and conscious of her intellect, yet unconscious of the pleasures, duties, and trials before her, yet when she feared she might live idle and die vain, she said, "If ever I have an inscription over me, it shall be without a name, and only, Here lies one whom having done no harm, no one should censure; and, having done no good, no one can commend; who, for past folly, only asks oblivion." She lived, however, to do much good, to make great amends for small and venial follies, and by the magnificent usefulness, which little Burney has recorded, to merit such pains as it may cost a poor chronicler to rescue her name and deeds from the oblivion which she asked in the pleasant days of her bright youth and her subduing beauty.-DORAN, JOHN, 1873, A Lady of the Last Century, p. 356.

Other ladies-Mrs. Montagu's friend the Duchess of Portland, Mrs. Ord, Mrs. Vesey, wife of Agmondesham Vesey, Mrs. Boscawen, wife of the admiral, and Mrs. Greville, wife of Fulke Greville-endeavoured to rival Mrs. Montagu's entertainments; but for nearly fifty years she maintained a practically undisputed supremacy as hostess in the intellectual society of London, and to her assemblies

was, apparently for the first time, applied the now accepted epithet of "blue-stocking." Two explanations of the term have been suggested. According to the ordinary account, which was adopted by Sir William Forbes in his "Life of Beattie," in 1806 (i. 210), full dress was not insisted on at Mrs. Montagu's assemblies, and Benjamin Stillingfleet who regularly attended them, as well as the rival assemblies presided over by Mrs. Vesey or Mrs. Boscawen, habitually infringed social conventions by appearing in blue worsted instead of black silk stockings; consequently, Admiral Boscawen, a scoffer at his wife's social ambitions, is stated to have applied the epithet "bluestockings" to all ladies' conversaziones. On the other hand, Lady Crewe, daughter of Mrs. Greville, who was one of Mrs. Montagu's rival hostesses, stated that the ladies themselves at Mrs. Montagu's parties wore "blue-stockings as a distinction," in initation of a fashionable French visitor, Madame de Polignac.-LEE, SIDNEY, 1894, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXvш, p. 241.

ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF SHAKESPEARE

1769

Mrs. Montague, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned,-REYNOLDS: "I think that essay does her honour." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, it does her honour; but it would do nobody else honour. I have, indeed, not read it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery. Sir, I will venture to say there is not one sentence of true criticism in her book." GARRICK: "But, sir, surely it shows how much Voltaire has mistaken

Shakspeare, which nobody else has done." JOHNSON: "Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while. And what merit is there in that? You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has construed ill. No, sir; there is no real criticism in it, none showing the beauty of thought as formed on the workings of the human heart." . . . One day at Sir Joshua's table; when it was related that Mrs. Montague, in an excess of compliment to the author of a modern tragedy (Braganza?), had exclaimed, "I tremble for Shakspeare," Johnson said, "When Shakspeare Montague for his defender, he is in a poor has got [Jephson?] for his rival and Mrs. state indeed."-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1769, Life by Boswell.

The most elegant and judicious piece of criticism which the present age has produced. WARTON, THOMAS, 1778-81, The History of English Poetry.

I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montagu stands at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judgment. I am now reading and have reached the middle. of her essay on the genius of Shakspeare

a book of which, strange as it may seem, though I must have read it formerly, I had absolutely forgot the existence. The learning, the good sense, the sound judgment, and the wit displayed in it fully justify, not only my compliment, but all compliments that either have been already paid to her talents or shall be paid hereafter. Voltaire, I doubt not, rejoiced that his antagonist wrote in English, and that his countrymen could not possibly be judges of the dispute. Could they have known how much she was in the right,

and by how many thousand miles the Bard of Avon is superior to all their dramatists, the French critic would have lost half his fame among them.-COWPER, WILLIAM, 1788, Letter to Lady Hesketh, May 27.

Considering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do; namely, vindicated Shakspeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs. Montagu's "Essay" was of service to Shakspeare with a certain class of readers, and is, therefore, entitled to praise. BOSWELL, JAMES, 1791-93, Life of Samuel Johnson, note.

Hurd and Lord Kames, especially the former, may be reckoned among the best of this class; Mrs. Montagu, perhaps, in her celebrated Essay, not very far from the bottom of the list.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iii, ch. vi, par. 54.

Mrs. Montague was the Minerva, for so she was complimented on this occasion, whose celestial spear was to transfix the audacious Gaul. Her "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, compared with the Greek and French dramatic poets," served for a popular answer to Voltaire. This accomplished lady, who had raised a literary coterie about her, which attracted such fashionable notice that its title has survived its institution, found in "the Blue-stocking Club" choral hymns and clouds of incense gathering about the altar in Portman Square! The volume is deemed "a wonderful performance," by those echoes of contemporary pre-possessions, the compilers of dictionary-biography: even the poet Cowper placed Mrs. Montague "at the head of all that is called learned."DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1841, Shakespeare, Amenities of Literature.

LETTERS

Mrs. Montagu's [Letters] are lively and ingenious, but not natural.-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1808, Life, vol. I, ch. viii.

I think very highly of them. One of their chief merits is series juncturaque. Nothing can be more easy and natural than

the manner in which the thoughts rise one out of the other, even where the thoughts may appear rather forced, nor is the expression ever hard or laboured. I see but little to object to in the thoughts themselves, but nothing can be more natural or graceful than the manner in which they are put together. The flow of her style is not less natural, because it is fully charged with shining particles, and sparkles as it flows.-WINDHAM, WILLIAM, 1809, Diary, Dec. 5.

The merit of the pieces before us seems to us to consist mainly in the great gaiety and vivacity with which they are written. The wit, to be sure, is often childish, and generally strained and artificial; but still it both sparkles and abounds; and though we should admire it more if it were better selected, or even if there were less of it, we cannot witness this profuse display of spirits and ingenuity without receiving a strong impression of the talents and ambition of the writer. The faults of the letters, on the other hand, are more numerous. In the first place, they have, properly speaking, no subjects. They are all letters of mere idleness, friendship, and flattery. There are no events,-no reasonings,―no anecdotes of persons who are still remembered, -no literature, and scarcely any original or serious opinions.

There are great faults in the volumes before us; and that we do not exactly perceive the necessity of reading the bad letters before we are favoured with the good. JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1809, Mrs. Montagu's Letters, Edinburgh Review, vol. 15, pp. 76, 87.

I am now reading the third and fourth volumes of Mrs. Montague's "Letters." To me, who have lived through all the time she writes of, they are interesting, -independent of the wit and talent,—as recalling a number of persons and events once present to my mind: they are also, I think, very entertaining, though, as letters, somewhat studied. BARBAULD, ANNA LÆTITIA, 1813, Works, vol. II, p. 139.

-

In her own generation Mrs. Montagu was without a superior in the art of letter writing. SCOONES, W. BAPTISTE, 1880, Four Centuries of English Letters, p. 277.

GENERAL

These letters do great credit both to her head and heart; they are written in an easy and perspicuous style; are filled

with judicious and pertinent reflections upon the passing events and the great men of the times; and, with her "Essay on Shakspeare," give her no mean rank among English authors. If not a profound critic, she was certainly an acute and ingenious one, possessing judgment and

taste as well as learning; and if not of such versatile talents as her namesake, Lady Mary Wortley, she is an example of much higher moral purity both in her writings and character. CLEVELAND, CHARLES D., 1853, English Literature of the Nineteenth Century, p. 25.

PERSONAL

Dr. Blair was a different kind of man from Robertson, and his character is very justly delineated by Dr. Finlayson, so far as he goes. Robertson was most sagacious, Blair was most naïf. Neither of them could have been said to have either wit or humor. Of the latter Robertson had a small tincture-Blair had hardly a relish for it. Robertson had a bold and ambitious mind, and a strong desire to make himself considerable; Blair was timid and unambitious, and withheld himself from public business of every kind, and seemed to have no wish but to be admired as a preacher, particularly by the ladies. His conversation was so infantine that many people thought it impossible, at first sight, that he could be a man of sense or genius. He was as eager about a new paper for his wife's drawingroom, or his own new wig, as about a new tragedy or a new epic poem.-CARLYLE, ALEXANDER, 1753-56-1860, Autobiography, p. 236.

Saturday morning proving rainy, I could not resist the temptation of staying till Sunday, and I heard Dr. Robertson in the morning, and Dr. Blair in the afternoon. They are neither of them orators, but Dr. Robertson has a serious, unaffected manner which pleased me very much. Dr. Blair is very pompous in his delivery, and all the great and fashionable attend his church. He gave us a sermon on

I

censoriousness, which I understand is soon to be published with some others, in a third volume.-ROGERS, SAMUEL, 1784, Letter, July 21; Early Life by Clayden, p. 79. With Dr. Blair I am more at ease. never respect him with humble veneration; but when he kindly interests himself in my welfare, or still more, when he descends from his pinnacle, and meets me on equal ground in conversation, my heart. overflows with what is called liking.When he neglects me for the mere carcass of greatness, or when his eye measures the difference of our points of elevation, I say to myself, with scarcely any emotion, What do I care for him, or his pomp either? -BURNS, ROBERT, 1787, Commonplace Book, Apr. 9.

In Edinburgh none was more famous in the latter half of the eighteenth century than Dr. Hugh Blair. His dingy church was attended by the most fashionable when he preached; his little, dark class-room at college was full of the most cultured when he lectured; every tea-table was silent when he spoke; every supper-party was deferential as he conversed. An uneventful life of unbroken health and prosperity was the fortune of the preacher-critic of Scotland. . . . He was accepted as the arbiter of taste. Poems and treatises were submitted for his judgment, and his opinion was considered infallible. Home brought to him his "Douglas," Blacklock his poems, Hume his essays, and we know how

in later years his verdict on Burns' poems was awaited with anxiety. He was the literary accoucheur of Scotland. At the same time patrons conferred with him on suitable moderate "presentees" for parishes, and town councils consulted him on candidates for professorial chairs. Is it surprising that the popular preacher, the respected critic, the deferred-to guide, had his constitutional vanity strengthened, and that all this homage made him more pompous and certain of his infallibility, especially as he was utterly devoid of any sense of humour?GRAHAM, HENRY GREY, 1901, Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 121, 126.

SERMONS

I love "Blair's Sermons." Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1781, Life by Boswell, ed. Hill, vol. IV, p. 113.

Great merit they undoubtedly have; but I cannot discover in them that sublime simplicity of manner and style, which I have long thought essential to such compositions. BEATTIE, JAMES, 1783, Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, Sept. 18; Life, ed. Forbes, vol. II, p. 308.

We have no modern sermons in the

English language that can be considered as very eloquent. The merits of Blair (by far the most popular writer of sermons within the last century) are plain good sense, a happy application of scriptural quotation, and a clear harmonious style, richly tinged with scriptural language. He generally leaves his readers pleased with his judgment, and his just observations on human conduct, without ever rising so high as to touch the great passions, or kindle any enthusiasm in favour of virtue. For eloquence we must ascend as high as the days of Barrow and Jeremy Taylor and even there, while we are delighted with their energy, their copiousness, and their fancy, we are in danger of being suffocated by a redundance which abhors all discrimination, which compares till it perplexes, and illustrates till it confounds. SMITH, SYDNEY, 1802, Dr. Rennel, Edinburgh Review, Essays, p. 6.

No other sermons in Great Britain have been followed by so splendid a success as the once famous, now forgotten, discourses

of Hugh Blair. Neither of Tillotson, nor Jeremy Taylor in past times, nor of Arnold or Newman or even Frederick Robertson in our own time, can be recorded, as of Blair, that they were translated into almost all the languages of Europe, and won for their author a public reward from the Crown. Nor was it only the vulgar public that was satisfied. Even the despot of criticism (fastidious judge, zealous Highchurchman, fanatically English as he was), the mighty Samuel Johnson, who had a few years before declared that no Scottish clergyman had written any good work on religious subjects, pronounced, after his perusal of Blair's first sermon, "I have read it with more than approbation--to say it is good is to say too little. STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN, 1872, Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, p. 143.

They are not so much sermons as essays, composed by a professor of rhetoric to illustrate the principles of his art. For unction there was mere mouthing; instead of the solid common sense of earlier writers, an infinite capacity for repeating the feeblest of platitudes; their style seems to be determined by an attempt at the easy flow of the Addisonian period, disturbed by a recollection of Johnsonian grandiloquence; the morality can scarcely be dignified by the name of prudential, unless all prudence be summed up in the great commandment, be respectable; the theology is retained rather to give a faint seasoning to the general insipidity of moral commonplace than seriously to influence the thought; and the nearest approach to a philosophical argument is some feeble echo of Pope's "Essay on Man." Blair, in short, is in theology what Hayley was in poetry-a mere washed-out retailer of second-hand commonplaces, who gives us the impression that the real man has vanished, and left nothing but a wig and gown.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 346.

They are perhaps grammatically correct in composition, but they are monotonous in style, and as for grasp of thought or reasoning, elevated emotion, or impassioned eloquence, they have none.-MACKINTOSH, JOHN, 1878-96, The History of Civilisation in Scotland, vol. IV, p. 216.

Of his sermons, which were originally