Walpole’s liking for accomplished French women like Madame du Deffand was equalled by his dislike of the English “Blue-stockings.” At the beginning of 1781, he seems to have been a good deal in company with the latter, and we have some amusing passages: “I met Mrs. Montagu t’other night at a visit. She said she had been alone the whole preceding day, _quite hermetically sealed_--I was very glad she was uncorked, or I might have missed that piece of learned nonsense.… I was much diverted with your setting Mrs. Montagu on her head, which indeed she does herself without the help of Hermes. She is one of my principal entertainments at Mrs. Vesey’s, who collects all the graduates and candidates for fame, where they vie with one another, till they are as unintelligible as the good folks at Babel.” “Mr. Gilpin[83] talks of my researches, which makes me smile; I know, as Gray would have said, how little I have _researched_, and what slender pretensions are mine to so pompous a term. Apropos to Gray, Johnson’s ‘Life,’ or rather criticism on his Odes, is come out; a most wretched, dull, tasteless, _verbal_ criticism--yet, timid too. But he makes amends, he admires Thomson and Akenside, and Sir Richard Blackmore, and has reprinted Dennis’s ‘Criticism on Cato,’ to save time, and swell his pay. In short, as usual, he has proved that he has no more ear than taste. Mrs. Montagu and all her Mænades intend to tear him limb from limb for despising their moppet Lord Lyttelton.” * * * * * “I saw Dr. Johnson last night at Lady Lucan’s, who had assembled a _blue-stocking_ meeting in imitation of Mrs. Vesey’s Babels. It was so blue, it was quite Mazarine-blue. Mrs. Montagu kept aloof from Johnson, like the West from the East. There were Soame Jenyns, _Persian_ Jones, Mr. Sherlocke, the new court with Mr. Courtenay, besides the out-pensioners of Parnassus. Mr. Wraxall[84] was not, I wonder why, and so will he, for he is popping into every spot where he can make himself talked of, by talking of himself; but I hear he will come to an untimely beginning in the House of Commons.” CHAPTER VIII. Walpole in his Sixty-fourth Year.--The Royal Academy.--Tonton.--Charles Fox.--William Pitt.--Mrs. Hobart’s _Sans Souci_.--Improvements at Florence.--Walpole’s Dancing Feats.--No Feathers at Court.--Highwaymen.--Loss of the _Royal George_.--Mrs. Siddons.--Peace.--Its Social Consequences.--The Coalition.--The Rivals.--Political Excitement.--The Westminster Election.--Political Caricatures.--Conway’s Retirement.--Lady Harrington.--Balloons.--Illness.--Recovery.