![MONTAGU, Mrs. Elizabeth (1720-1800). Autograph letter signed ('Eliz Montagu') to an unidentified correspondent [?Mr. Barrett], Hill Street, 21 July 1769, offering introductions on the continent, including a recommendation by Madame de Viry to the Secretary of State at Turin, 'I enquired a good deal concerning the names of the Court at Turin, & find they are very decent ... the King ... is much pleased with those, who, like you, aim at real improvement & elegant amusement', urging him to go to Geneva whence she had already sent letters to Lady Stanhope, asking to have the credit of presenting him 'where you wish to have recommendations', and sending her compliments to 'Mrs Barrett', 2½ pages, 4to.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1995/CKS/1995_CKS_05424_0357_000(103238).jpg?w=1)
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MONTAGU, Mrs. Elizabeth (1720-1800). Autograph letter signed ('Eliz Montagu') to an unidentified correspondent [?Mr. Barrett], Hill Street, 21 July 1769, offering introductions on the continent, including a recommendation by Madame de Viry to the Secretary of State at Turin, 'I enquired a good deal concerning the names of the Court at Turin, & find they are very decent ... the King ... is much pleased with those, who, like you, aim at real improvement & elegant amusement', urging him to go to Geneva whence she had already sent letters to Lady Stanhope, asking to have the credit of presenting him 'where you wish to have recommendations', and sending her compliments to 'Mrs Barrett', 2½ pages, 4to.
For nearly fifty years Elizabeth Montagu maintained a practically undisputed supremacy as hostess in the intellectual society of London. Hannah More, in her poem 'Bas Bleu', written in 1781, divides among Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Boscawen the credit of having, by the invention of 'blue-stocking assemblies', rescued fashionable life from the 'tyranny' of whist and quadrille.
For nearly fifty years Elizabeth Montagu maintained a practically undisputed supremacy as hostess in the intellectual society of London. Hannah More, in her poem 'Bas Bleu', written in 1781, divides among Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Boscawen the credit of having, by the invention of 'blue-stocking assemblies', rescued fashionable life from the 'tyranny' of whist and quadrille.