“I was such an old fool as to weep over Clarissa Harlowe, like any milkmaid of sixteen over the ballad of the Lady’s Fall” (she wrote to her daughter).  “To say truth, the first volume softened me by a near resemblance of my maiden days; but on the whole ’tis most miserable stuff.  Miss How, who is called a young lady of sense and honour, is not only extreme silly, but a more vicious character than Sally Martin, whose crimes are owing at first to seduction, and afterwards to necessity; while this virtuous damsel, without any reason, insults her mother at home and ridicules her abroad; abuses the man she marries; and is impertinent and impudent with great applause.  Even that model of affection, Clarissa, is so faulty in her behaviour as to deserve little compassion.  Any girl that runs away with a young fellow, without intending to marry him, should be carried to Bridewell or to Bedlam the next day.  Yet the circumstances are so laid as to inspire tenderness, notwithstanding the low style and absurd incidents; and I look upon this and Pamela to be two books that will do more general mischief than the works of Lord Rochester.  There is something humorous in R.  Random, that makes me believe that the author is H. Fielding.  I am horribly afraid I guess too well the writer of those abominable insipidities of Cornelia, Leonora, and the Ladies’ Drawing Room.”

“This Richardson is a strange fellow,” she said in another letter.  “I heartily despise him, and eagerly read him, nay, sob over his works in a most scandalous manner.”

“I have now read over Richardson—­he sinks horribly in his third volume (he does so in his story of Clarissa).  When he talks of Italy, it is plain he is no better acquainted with it than he is with the kingdom of Mancomugi.  He might have made his Sir Charles’s amour with Clementina begin in a convent, where the pensioners sometimes take great liberties, but that such familiarity should be permitted in her father’s house, is as repugnant to custom, as it would be in London for a young lady of quality to dance on the ropes at Bartholomew fair:  neither does his hero behave to her in a manner suitable to his nice notions.  It was impossible a discerning man should not see her passion early enough to check it, if he had really designed it.  His conduct puts me in mind of some ladies I have known, who could never find out a man to be in love with them, let him do or say what he would, till he made a direct attempt, and then they were so surprised, I warrant you!  Nor do I approve Sir Charles’s offered compromise (as he calls it).  There must be a great indifference as to religion on both sides, to make so strict a union as marriage tolerable between people of such distinct persuasions.  He seems to think women have no souls, by agreeing so easily that his daughters should be educated in bigotry and idolatry.—­You will perhaps think this last a hard word; yet it is