Openly therefore when
they met, they combated for precedence of admiration, with placid
though high-strained intellectual exertion on the one side, and an
exuberant pleasantry or classical allusion or quotation on the other;
without the smallest malice in either."
[Footnote 1: The first of these was then (about 1768) in the meridian
of its lustre, but had been instituted many years previously at Bath,
It owed its name to an apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet in declining
to accept an invitation to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey's, from
not being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper equipment for
an evening assembly. "Pho, pho," said she, "don't mind dress. Come in
your blue stockings." With which words, humorously repeating them as
he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet
claimed permission for entering according to order. And these words,
ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs. Vesey's
associations. _(Madame D'Arblay.)_ Boswell also traces the term to
Stillingfleet's blue stockings; and Hannah More's "Bas-Bleu" gave it
a permanent place in literature.]
A different account of the origin of Bluestocking parties was given
by Lady Crewe to a lady who has allowed me to copy her note of the
conversation, made at the time (1816):
"Lady Crewe told me that her mother (Mrs. Greville), the Duchess of
Portland, and Mrs. Montagu were the first who began the conversation
parties in imitation of the noted ones, _temp.
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