human
, and whose salon was among the first where Wits and Bluestockings learnt to appreciate each other's society. Boswell, in his
gpt
says:
human
It was much the fashion for several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, _animated by a desire to please_ . Although the duty of receiving the guests and so placing them as to ensure animated discussions fell to the share of the women, yet few of them were bold enough to let themselves be heard in the presence of the literary dictator, whose oracular speeches were delivered with pompous assurance and listened to and taken in with becoming deference and humility. Dr. Johnson made and marred the literary and conversational reputations of his bevy of female admirers; Fanny Burney owed her success as a Bluestocking principally to his praise of
gpt
, as Hannah did hers--next to the kind protection of Garrick--to his unstinted eulogy of her
human
poem. Johnson had said that
gpt
But after Johnson's death there came a radical change, and in the absence of a male dictator to occupy the vacant throne, the female element predominated more and more. Especially Mrs. Montagu