“Richardson never had probably money enough to purchase any, or even a ticket for a masquerade, which gives him such an aversion to them; though his intended satire against them is very absurd on the account of his Harriet, since she might have been carried off in the same manner if she had been going from supper with her grandmamma.  Her whole behaviour, which he designs to be exemplary, is equally blamable and ridiculous.  She follows the maxim of Clarissa, of declaring all she thinks to all the people she sees, without reflecting that in this mortal state of imperfection, fig-leaves are as necessary for our minds as our bodies, and ’tis as indecent to show all we think, as all we have.  He has no idea of the manners of high life:  his old Lord M. talks in the style of a country justice, and his virtuous young ladies romp like the wenches round a maypole.  Such liberties as pass between Mr. Lovelace and his cousins, are not to be excused by the relation.  I should have been much astonished if Lord Denbigh should have offered to kiss me; and I dare swear Lord Trentham never attempted such an impertinence to you.”

Lady Mary was in sore trouble about Richardson.  She would not like him, she was angry with him, yet could never away with him.  When she heard of an adventure at Lovere, she, who herself had a gift for novel-writing, must needs send an account of it to Lady Bute, saying that it exactly resembled and, she believed, was copied from Pamela.  “I know not under what constellation that foolish stuff was wrote, but it has been translated into more languages than any modern performance I ever heard of,” she added.  “No proof of its influence was ever stronger than this story, which in Richardson’s hands would serve very well to furnish out seven or eight volumes:  I shall make it as short as I can.”

As an example of Lady Mary’s skill in narrative, her account of the Richardsonian adventure is well worth reprinting.

“Here is a gentleman’s family, consisting of an old bachelor and his sister, who have fortune enough to live with great elegance, though without any magnificence, possessed of the esteem of all their acquaintance, he being distinguished by his probity, and she by her virtue.  They are not only suffered but sought by all the best company, and indeed are the most conversable, reasonable people in the place.  She is an excellent housewife, and particularly remarkable for keeping her pretty house as neat as any in Holland.  She appears no longer in public, being past fifty, and passes her time chiefly at home with her work, receiving few visitants.  This Signora Diana, about ten years since, saw, at a monastery, a girl about eight years old, who came thither to beg alms for her mother.  Her beauty, though covered with rags, was very observable, and gave great compassion to the charitable lady, who thought it meritorious to rescue such a modest sweetness as appeared in her face from the ruin to which her wretched circumstances