Abstract
In this elaborately polite letter from November 1771, Elizabeth Carter explicitly praises the many Irish women who resided in England during the late-eighteenth century, bringing with them both “sense” and “virtue.” These women “flourished” in England as well of course as in Ireland where their sense and virtue had been originally fostered and where they still occasionally resided. Many of Ireland’s aristocracy and gentry spent much of their time between the two countries, passing up to 18 months in England and then returning to Dublin for six months or more during the parliamentary season, thus contributing to the societies of both countries.2 One such woman who passed her time between the two countries was the Bluestocking hostess Elizabeth Vesey (c. 1715–1791), the recipient of Carter’s letter and praise.
I scarce ever met with an Irish woman in my life, who did not in a very kindly manner take root and flourish in the soil of England. We are much obliged to you for this partiality, for you have among you imported more sense and virtue than I fear we are likely to repay you….1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Elizabeth Carter, A Series of Letters between Mrs Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770: to which are added, letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Uesey, between the years 1763 and 1787 (London, 1808) 227.
From 1715 until the 1780s Parliament usually met in Dublin every second winter for five to eight months.” Tighearnan Mooney and Fiona White, “The Gentry’s Winter Season,” in The Gorgeous Mask: Dublin 1700–1850 (Dublin: Trinity History Workshop, 1987) 2.
Even Elizabeth Eger’s, Bluestockings, Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) refers only sporadically to Vesey, generally presenting her as dear friend of Montagu rather than emphasising her Irish salons.
See, for example, Elizabeth Sheridan, Betsy Sheridan’s Journal, Letters from Sheridan’s Sister 1784–1786 and 1788–1790, ed. William Le Fanu (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1960);
Emily Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu, the Queen of the Blue-stockings: Her Correspondence From 1720 to 1761 (London: Murray, 1906); and
Reginald Blunt, ed., Mrs Montagu, “Queen of the blues”: Her Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800, 2 vols. (London: Constable, 1923). The Elizabeth (Robinson) Montagu Papers, MO 1–6923, at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, contain many letters to and from Elizabeth Vesey. There are 96 letters written by Vesey herself between 1761 and 1785; 90 of these are directed to Montagu and the remaining six to Lord Lyttelton, in addition to 260 letters received by Vesey from Montagu dating from almost the identical time period, from 1761 to 1786–Montagu Papers MO6265–6360 and Montagu Papers MO 6361–6614.
Angelique Day, ed. Letters from Georgian Ireland. The Correspondence of Mary Delany, 1731–68 (Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1991) 109.
Elizabeth Carter, Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu between the Years 1755 and 1800 (London, 1817) 40.
Seân O’Reilly and Alistair Rowan, eds., Lucan House County Dublin (Dublin: Eason, 1988) 4.
Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland; With General Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom… (London, 1780) 17.
Thomas Milton, A Collection ofSelect Views from the different seats of the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdom of Ireland. Engraved by Thomas Milton. From original drawings, by the best masters (London, 1793) v.
Finola O’Kane,Landscape Design in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Cork: Cork UP, 2004) 70–71.
Francis Elrington Ball, A History of the County Dublin: The People, Parishes and Antiquities (Dublin: Alex. Thorn and Company, 1906).
Francis Bickley, ed., Report on the Manuscripts of the Late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, Esq…. Vol. 3. Historical Manuscripts Commission (London: HMSO, 1934) 144.
Anon. A New Ballad on the Masquerade Lately Given by the Countess of Moira (Dublin: 1768).
Mary O’Dowd, History of Women in Ireland, 1500–1800 (London: Pearson Education, 2005) 56.
Edward Evans, “Old Dublin Mansion-houses, Moira House, Residence of Earl Moira…” The Irish Builder 36.835 (Dublin, 1 October 1894): 222.
Thomas B. Bayley, Thoughts on the Necessity and Advantages of Care and Oeconomy in Collecting and Preserving different Substances for Manure. Addressed to the Members of the Agriculture Society of Manchester, October the 12th, 1795 (Manchester, 1796) 6.
Leverian Museum. A Companion to the Museum (late Sir Ashton Lever’s) Removed to Albion Street, the Surry End of Black Friars Bridge (London, 1790) 27.
Frances Burney, Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, ed. Charlotte Barrett, vol. 4 (London, 1876) 338.
Hannah More, “The Bas Bleu,” from Florio: A Tale, for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies: And, The Bas Bleu; or, Conversation (London: 1786) 76.
Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Peter Cunningham, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions (London, 1891).
Rachel Stewart, The Town House in Georgian London (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009) 73. Stewart has noted that “Rent for good houses in good areas were generally between £100 and £400 per annum, although the range was much wider.”
Betty Rizzo, Companions Without Vows (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994) 369. Rizzo cites the Daily Advertiser for 27 November 1779.
John R. Redmill, “The Lady Anne Dawson Temple, Dartrey, Co. Monaghan,” Irish Georgian Society Newsletter (Autumn 2010) 14.
Elizabeth Carter, Poems on Several Occasions, 3rd ed. (London, 1776) 104.
Patrick Kelly, “Anne Donnellan: Irish Proto-Bluestocking,” Hermathena, cliv, (Summer 1993): 39–68, 57.
See Laetitia Pilkington, Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington. ed. A.C. Elias Jr., 2 vols. (London: University of Georgia Press, 1997).
F. Elrington Ball, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, DD, vol. V (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1913) 126–127.
Elizabeth Montagu, The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu… vol. 2 (Boston, 1825) 150.
There are references to Vesey in the Duchess’s correspondence, such as in the following letter to Emily from her son Lord Edward Fitzgerald: “Mrs Vesey and Mrs Handcock called to see us and enquired very kindly for you” (Black Rock, 23 March 1774). Emily Fitzgerald, The Correspondence of Emily, Duchess of Leinster, ed. Brian Fitzgerald, vol. 2 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1949–1957) 13.
Thos. U. Sadleir, “The Manor of Blessington,” The Journal of the Royal Society ofAntiquaries of Ireland 18.2 (1928): 130.
Frances Burney, Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, ed. Charlotte Barrett, vol. 5 (London: Macmillan, 1904–1905) 30–31.
Ethel Roth Wheeler, “An Irish Blue Stocking,” The Irish Book Lover, VI (June 1915): 176–178.
Horace Walpole, Correspondence with Hannah More (and others) ed. W. S. Lewis (and others) (London: OUP, 1961) 247.
Vesey to Montagu, MO Fragment. See JoEllen DeLucia, “‘Far Other Times are These’: The Bluestockings in the Time of Ossian,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 27. 1 (2008): 39–62.
Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Thomas W. Copeland, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1958) 476.
David Hume, Essays Moral Political and Literary, ed. Eugene Miller, Revised ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987) 271.
Montagu to Vesey, MO 6437; Montagu to Vesey, MO 6489. Lettres Nouvelles: Ou Nouvellement Recouvrées de La Marquise de Sévignée (Paris, 1774).
Dustin Griffin in Literary Patronage in England, 1650–1800 (1996) notes the “disproportionate amount of attention” money has received as the key element provided by patrons. See especially Chapter Two, “The Cultural Economics of Literary Patronage” for details of what patrons offered.
Robert Jephson, Braganza. A Tragedy… (London, 1775) iv.
Gary Kelly, Bluestocking Feminism, Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–1790, vol. 2 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999) xxxi; Blunt 226.
M. Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books 1550–1800, Lyell Lectures, 1986–1987 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) 161.
It must be borne in mind, however, that during the period c.1788–1800, from the formation of the Irish Volunteers until the Act of Union, most polemical work written by Irish people was first published in Ireland rather than England. See, Niall Gillespie, Irish Political Literature, c. 1778–1832: The Imaginative Prose, Poetry and Drama of the Irish Volunteers, the United Irish Society and the Anti-Jacobins (PhD Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2013).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Amy Prendergast
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Prendergast, A. (2015). “Never Was a Flock So Scattered for Want of a Shepherdess”: Elizabeth Vesey Between England and Ireland. In: Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137512710_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137512710_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56514-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51271-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)