And now, in the year 1757, the celebrated word “bluestockings” first occurs in Mrs. Montagu’s correspondence. Boswell, under the date 1781, tells us in his “Life of Johnson,” that “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. One of the most eminent members of these societies, when they first commenced, was Mr. Benjamin 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.” Boswell was greatly mistaken, for, in 1781, Benjamin Stillingfleet, the highly accomplished gentleman, philosopher, and barrack-master of Kensington, had been dead ten years, and he had left off wearing blue stockings at least fourteen years before he died. This subject will be referred to in a subsequent page. Meanwhile, in March, 1757, when rumours of war were afloat, Mrs. Montagu gaily wrote to her husband; “If we were in as great danger of being conquered by the Spaniards as by the French, I should not be very anxious about my continuance in the world; but the French are polite to the ladies, and they admire ladies a little in years, so that I expect to be treated with great politeness, and as all laws are suspended during violence, I suppose that you and the rest of the married men will not take anything amiss that happens on the occasion: nor, indeed, should it be a much greater fault than keeping a monkey if one should live with a French marquis for a quarter of a year!” A little later, Walpole told George Montagu a story which illustrates the scandal-power of the period. “I was diverted,” he wrote, “with the story of a lady of your name and a lord whose initial is no further from hers than he himself is supposed to be. Her postilion, a lad of fifteen, said, ‘I’m not such a child but I can guess something! Whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in nobody else, and then they call for pen and ink, and say they are going to write history!’ I am persuaded, now that he is parted, that he will forget he is married, and propose himself in form to some woman or other!”