There was nothing for it but to enter the lists herself, and measure swords with the assailant. She accordingly set to work at her “Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare,” and very well she acquitted herself of the task. Her essay, though heavy, did credit to her taste and erudition. It was published in 1769, and had no small success. From first to last, six editions appeared. She treated Voltaire in it with surprising forbearance; yet he is said to have been extremely nettled at his sovereign dictum being called in question—and by a woman too! This was not her only literary performance. To the “Dialogues of the Dead,” of which her friend Lord Lyttleton was the author, she contributed three, the brightest being that in which Mercury and Mrs. Modish are made to converse. Mrs. Modish is a typical woman of fashion of the day. Mercury summons her to cross the Styx with him, and she—surprised and unprepared—pleads in excuse divers trumpery engagements (balls, plays, card-assemblies, and the like), to meet which she neglects all her home duties. As several fine ladies tossed their heads on reading the dialogue, and declared the Modish utterances to be “abominably satirical,” we may presume that the cap fitted. In 1770, Mrs. Montagu had completely established her empire in the world of literature. A list of the remarkable people who assembled beneath her roof would fill a page. She was on terms of friendly intimacy with Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Reynolds, Walpole, Garrick, Dr. Burney, Dr. Young, Bishop Percy, Lords Lyttleton, Bath, Monboddo, and a host more. Of the other sex may be named Mesdames Carter, Chapone, Barbauld, Boscawen, Thrale, Vesey, Ord, and Miss Burney. Dr. Doran, in his memoir of Mrs. Montagu, explains how her parties, and those given by Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord, came to be called _Bluestocking_ Assemblies. It seems that Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, who was always a welcome guest at them, wore stockings of a bluish grey; and this peculiarity was fixed upon, by those disposed to deride such gatherings, as affording a good stamp wherewith to brand them. A _Bluestocking Club_ never existed. There was a _Literary Club_, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson were the promoters, and to this the so-called bluestockings of both sexes belonged. It was in 1774 that Hannah More was first introduced to Mrs. Montagu. Hannah was the daughter of a schoolmaster in Gloucestershire, and had come up to town at the invitation of Garrick. Her ambition from her earliest childhood had been to mix in intellectual society, and win for herself, if possible, a place therein. This she succeeded in doing with a swiftness that will surprise those who have tried to read the plays and ballads by which she made her name. Her cleverness, sound sense, and fresh enthusiasm, attracted the “female Mecænas of Hill Street” (so she styles Mrs. Montagu), who invited her to dinner, Johnson, Reynolds, and Mrs. Boscawen, being of the party.