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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Elizabeth Robinson Montagu (1720–1800)
Montagu, Mrs. (Elizabeth Robinson). An English social leader and letter-writer; born at York, Oct. 2, 1720; died in London, Aug. 25, 1800. She married Edward Montagu, grandson of the fifth Earl of Sandwich. She gave every year a famous dinner to the London chimney-sweeps. Her residence in Portman Square was the meeting-place of the celebrated “Blue-Stocking Club” (origin of this famous term). Among her visitors and associates were: Lord Lyttelton, Burke, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hannah More, Fanny Burney, etc. She wrote three of the dialogues in Lord Lyttelton’s ‘Dialogues of the Dead’ (4th ed. 1765); ‘The Genius of Shakespeare’ (1769), an essay; ‘Letters’ (4 vols., 1809), her best-known work.