Women of Letters Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... MRS. MONTAGU: "THE QUEEN OF THE BLUE STOCKINGS." The Robinsons of Rokeby, descended from the Scottish Barons of Strowan, were, in the early part of last century, a fine old north-country family of more than local importance. The head of the elder branch, often met with in the annals of the period under the sobriquet of " Long Tom Robinson," was an English Squife of the order familiar in melodrama, so inseparable from his hunting-suit that he entered Parisian society in it, and was greeted by a French Abbe with the gravely sarcastic inquiry whether he were " Robinson Crusoe." "Long Tom "was made a baronet. On his death the title passed to his brother Richard, a clergyman, who, after becoming Archbishop of Armagh, was created Baron Rokeby, with remainder to Matthew Robinson, of West Layton Hall, the only male representative of a cadet branch of the family. Matthew married the heiress of Robert Drake, and had twelve children, of whom nine survived infancy. Two were daughters, both of pronounced literary tastes. The elder, in after years, from her beauty, wealth, acquirements, and position as the centre of an admiring circle, gained the title of "Queen of the Blue Stockings." Elizabeth Robinson was born at York in 1720, and one of her earliest recollections was of being taken to see the funeral of a Dean of York, who was buried in the grand old Minster with great state and solemnity. The impression made by the scene on so imaginative a child was very strong, and may have helped to produce a tendency, seen throughout her letters, to speculate on death and a future existence, even while enjoying the present life with all the ardour of youth and high spirits. When she was seven years old some property was inherited by her mother, which caused...