Note 1 — LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MRS. PIOZZI.

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.