ABSTRACT
The Bluestocking ethic included an ethic of social responsibility, of "giving back;" the rich and great were expected to perform works of charity. Induction into the Montagu circle was induction into circles both aristocratic and episcopal; hence John Burrows, reflecting on his good fortune, "rejoiced that he never, in any of his sermons, launched out into any common place against the rich and great". Burrows may have approached Boswell in eccentricity, too. He wrote one of his reports to Countess Spencer on her charity committee in verse. Chapone, Carter, and Montagu: Burrows knew personally the leading intellectuals among the Bluestocking women. To these names may be added Catherine Talbot, who knew of the Burrowses in 1762. John Verney, Lord Willoughby de Broke, was a Lord of the Bedchamber. An idea of how far the Bluestocking and the Court networks ramified can be gleaned from the fact that a nephew of Lady Jane Macartney was a pupil at Anna Letitia Barbauld's school at Palgrave.
