Next, and perhaps equal with Johnson, is the unmistakable presence of Mrs. Siddons, who, since the October night of 1782, when she took the town by the passion and pathos of Isabella, had been the idol of the time. There she sits at Mrs. Montagu’s on a sofa, leaning on one elbow, in a passive attitude, counting, or seeming to count, the sticks of her fan, as homage and compliments are profusely laid at her feet. To silly questions she has sensible replies—replies which indicate the queries: “I strove to do it the best I could; I shall do as the manager bids me; I always endeavour to make the part I am about my best part;” and, “I never study anything but my author.” There is, probably, no exaggeration in this; and the more fantastic side of Mrs. Montagu’s character is not overcharged in the incident that follows. The hostess introduces a “young novitiate of the Muses,” in a white frock. A fillet of flowers crowns her long hair, and the novice, advancing to Melpomene, addresses her with— “O thou, whom Nature’s goddess calls her own, Pride of the stage, and fav’rite of the town;” which puts poor Mrs. Siddons to the blush, and half of those who are within hearing to flight. In 1790, the so-called Bluestocking Club puzzled dwellers in country places. Nestor, of Bark Place, Salop, was sadly perplexed as to what the club was, and also as to the meaning of another slang term then prevailing. He writes to Sylvanus Urban accordingly, with a sort of apology for being old and living in remote Shropshire. Among others, he frequently meets with the term “white bear,” applied to many characters of eminence; and often reads of “the Bluestocking Club,” which he knows consists chiefly of the literati. But being ignorant of the derivation and propriety of application of those terms, he will be much obliged to any correspondent who will condescend to inform him. It does not appear that any correspondent, not even the editor himself, could enlighten Nestor, either as to the bear or the club. Among the latest writers who have, as Hannah More said, misrepresented these intellectual parties is Miss Mitford. She speaks of Batheaston in her “Recollections of a Literary Life” (A. D. 1857) as “memorable for the Bluestocking vagaries of a certain Lady Miller, a Somersetshire Clemence Isaure, who, some seventy years ago, offered prizes for the best verses thrown into an antique urn; the prize consisting, not of a golden violet, but a wreath of laurel, and the whole affair producing, as was to be expected, a great deal more ridicule than poetry.” In Lady Miller’s case, the original object, “conversation,” was lost sight of; and some vanity was mixed up with the doings of the Batheaston Muse. But to stir up even dull minds to make an attempt to write some sort of poetry was an intellectual exercise at least as beneficial as the process which counts honours, and eternally asks, “What’s trumps?” CHAPTER XII.