Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/54

 As the Hon. Miss Monckton, she was a prime favourite with Dr. Johnson, who delighted in her liveliness and intelligence.

Boswell says that Johnson "did not think himself too grave even for the lively Miss Monckton, who used to have the finest bit of blue at the house of her mother. Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. One evening she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it.

"I am sure," she said, "they have affected me.

"Why," said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about, "that is because, dearest, you are a dunce."

When she repeated this speech to him afterwards, he said, "Madam, if I had thought it, I should not have said it."

Ever afterwards Miss Monckton became known as "Johnson's little dunce."

She did not at all object to the name, though she belonged to Mrs. Montagu's Blue Stocking Club, and frequented every literary re-union of the day. She once appeared at a masquerade at Mrs. Cornely's, at Soho, as an Indian Sultana, in a robe of cloth of gold, and a rich veil. The seams of her gown were embroidered with precious stones, and she had a magnificent cluster of diamonds on her head. Her jewels on this occasion were valued