ANECDOTES FROM PENNINGTON'S MEMOIRS OF MRS. CARTER MRS. CARTER always spoke in high terms of Dr. Johnson's constant attendance to religious duties, and the soundness of his moral principles. In one of their latest conversations she was expressing this opinion of him to himself; he took her by the hand, and said with much eagerness; 'You know this to be true, and testify it to the world when I am gone.' Vol. i. p. 41. The following epigram by Dr. Johnson, found among Mrs. Carter's poems, in his own hand-writing has never, I believe, been published before. 'Quid mihi cum cultu? Probitas inculta nitescit, Vol. i. p. 398. To these parties [at Mrs. Montagu's and Mrs. Vesey's] it was not difficult for any person of character to be introduced. There was no ceremony, no cards and no supper. Even dress was so little regarded, that a foreign gentleman, who was to go there with an acquaintance, was told in jest that it was so little necessary that he might appear there, if he pleased, in blue stockings. This he understood in the literal sense; and when he spoke of it in French called it the Bas Bleu meeting. And this was the origin For his other epigrams to her, see Life, i. 122, 140, and Works, i. 170. of of the ludicrous appellation of the Blue Stocking Club, since given to these meetings, and so much talked of1. 2 Nothing could be more agreeable, nor indeed more instructive, than these parties. Mrs. Vesey had the almost magic art of putting all her company at their ease, without the least appearance of design. Here was no formal circle to petrify an unfortunate stranger on his entrance; no rules of conversation to observe; no holding forth of one to his own distress, and the stupefying of his audience, no reading of his works by the author. The company naturally broke into little groups, perpetually varying and changing 3. They talked or were silent, sat or walked about, just as they pleased. Nor was it absolutely necessary even to talk sense. There was no bar to harmless mirth and gaiety: and while perhaps Dr. Johnson in one corner held forth on the moral duties, in another, two or three young people might be talking of the fashions and the Opera; and in a third Lord Orford (then Mr. Horace Walpole) might be amusing a little group around him with his lively wit and intelligent conversation *. I For another explanation of the name, see Life, iv. 108. 'Blue-stocking. Wearing blue worsted (instead of black silk) stockings; hence, not in full dress, in homely dress (contemptuous). Applied to the "Little Parliament" of 1653, with reference to the puritanically plain or mean attire of its members. Applied depreciatively to the assemblies that met at Montagu House, and those who frequented them or imitated them. Hence of women: Having or affecting literary tastes. Transferred sneeringly to any woman showing a taste for learning. Much used by reviewers of the first quarter of the nineteenth century; but now, from the general change of opinion on the education of women, nearly abandoned.' New English Dictionary. Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 140) says that the Blue Stockings' formed a very numerous, powerful, compact phalanx in the midst of London.' 'Lord Jeffrey said that there was no objection to the blue-stocking, provided the petticoat came low enough down.' Cockburn's Memoirs, ed. 1856, p. 268. 2 · Life, iii. 424-6. Hannah More's Bas Bleu is addressed to her. 3 According to Miss Burney, 'Lord Harcourt said, "Mrs. Vesey's fear of ceremony is really troublesome; for her eagerness to break a circle is such that she insists upon everybody's sitting with their backs one to another; that is, the chairs are drawn into little parties of three together in a confused manner all over the room.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 184. 4 Life, iii. 425, n. 3. Now Now and then perhaps Mrs. Vesey might call the attention of the company in general to some circumstance of news, politics, or literature, of peculiar importance; or perhaps to an anecdote, or interesting account of some person known to the company in general. Of this last kind a laughable circumstance occurred about the year 1778, when Mrs. Carter was confined to her bed with a fever, which was thought to be dangerous. She was attended by her brother-in-law, Dr. Douglas, then a physician in Town, and he was in the habit of sending bulletins of the state of her health to her most intimate friends, with many of whom he was well acquainted himself. At one of Mrs. Vesey's parties a note was brought to her, which she immediately saw was from Dr. Douglas. 'Oh!' said she, before she opened it, 'this contains an account of our dear Mrs. Carter. We are all interested in her health: Dr. Johnson, pray read it out for the information of the company.' There was a profound silence; and the Doctor, with the utmost gravity, read aloud the physician's report of the happy effect which Mrs. Carter's medicines had produced, with a full and complete account of the circumstances attending them. Vol. i. p. 465. ANECDOTES BY JOSEPH CRADOCK 1 THE first time I dined in company with Dr. Johnson was at T. Davies's, Russell Street, Covent Garden, as mentioned by Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Fohnson3. On mentioning my engagement previously to a friend, he said, 'Do you wish to be well with Johnson ?' 'To be sure, Sir,' I replied, or I should not have taken any pains to have been introduced into his company.' 'Why then, Sir,' says he, 'let me offer you some advice: you must not leave him soon after dinner to go to the play; during dinner he will be rather silent-it is a very I 6 'From Mr. Cradock's Memoirs. [Literary Memoirs, 4 vols. London, 1828.] These anecdotes are certainly very loose and inaccurate; but as they have been republished in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1828, with some corrections and additions from the author's MS.," I think it right to notice them; and, as they profess to be there enlarged from the MS., I copy this latter version, which differs, in some points, from the memoirs.'-Croker, ix. 236. Croker does not always follow the version in the Gentleman's Magazine. Life, i. 390. 2 Dr. Campbell said of Davies :-'he was not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. vi. 429 n. Perhaps he was too much of a gentleman, and too little of a tradesman, for less than two years after this dinner Johnson wrote to Mrs. Montagu :-'Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the repurchase of part of his household stuff.' Letters, ii. 64. 3' On Friday, April 12 [1776], I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's, where we met Mr. Cradock, of Leicestershire, authour of Zobeide, a tragedy; a very pleasing gentleman; and Dr. Harwood, who has written and published various works; particularly a fantastical translation of the New Testament, in modern phrase, and with a Socinian twist.' Life, iii. 38. 'There is a new tragedy at Covent Garden, called Zobeide, which, I am told, is very indifferent, though written by a country-gentleman.' Walpole's Letters, v. 356. serious serious business with him '; between six and seven he will look about him, and see who remains, and, if he then at all likes the party, he will be very civil and communicative. He exactly fulfilled what my friend had prophesied. Mrs. Davies2 did the honours of the table: she was a favourite with Johnson, who sat betwixt her and Dr. Harwood; I sat next, below, to Mr. Boswell opposite. Nobody could bring Johnson forward more civilly or properly than Davies. The subject of conversation turned upon the tragedy of Edipus3. This was particularly interesting to me, as I was then employed in endeavouring to make such alterations in Dryden's play, as to make it suitable to a revival at Drury Lane theatre. Johnson did not seem to think favourably of it; but I ventured to plead, that Sophocles wrote it expressly for the theatre, at the public cost, and that it was one of the most celebrated dramas of all antiquity. Johnson said, 'Edipus was a poor miserable man, subjected to the greatest distress, without any degree of culpability of his own.' I urged, that Aristotle, as well as most of the Greek poets, were [sic] partial to this character; that Addison considered that, as terror and pity were particularly excited, he was the properest -here Johnson suddenly becoming loud, I paused, 5 I 'When at table he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite.' Life, i. 468. 2 Ib. i. 391, n. 2, 484. 'I am strongly affected by Mrs. Davies's tenderness,' Johnson wrote to her husband. Ib. iv. 231. 3'I introduced' (writes Boswell) 'Aristotle's doctrine in his Art of Poetry, of "the κábaрois тŵv naŋμárov, the purging of the passions," as the purpose of tragedy. But how are the passions to be purged by terrour and pity? said I, with an assumed air of ignorance, to incite 66 him to talk, for which it was often necessary to employ some address." Ib. iii. 39. Boswell does not mention any talk about Edipus. 46 'Edipus is a tragedy formed by Dryden and Lee in conjunction, from the works of Sophocles, Seneca and Corneille. Dryden planned the scenes and composed the first and third acts.' Johnson's Works, vii. 269. 5 Addison quotes Aristotle's observation-if we see a man of virtue, mixt with infirmities, fall into any misfortune, it does not only raise our pity, but our terror; because we are afraid that the like misfortune may happen to ourselves, who resemble the character of the suffering person.' The Spectator, No. 273. See also ib. No. 297. and |