ers of
Lady Mary which Walpole could have seen. If Mr. Pinkerton preferred them
to those of Mme. de Sevigne, he could certainly have adduced plausible
reasons for his preference. There is far greater variety in them, as was
natural from the different lives led by the two fair writers. Mme. de
Sevigne's was almost confined to Paris and the Court; Lady Mary was a
great traveller. Her husband was English ambassador at Constantinople
and other places, and her letters give descriptions of that city, of
Vienna, the Hague, Venice, Rome, Naples, &c., &c. It may be fitly
pointed out here that in a letter to Lord Strafford Walpole expresses an
opinion that letter-writing is a branch of literature in which women are
likely to excel men; "for our sex is too jealous of the reputation of
good sense to hazard a thousand trifles and negligences which give
grace, ease, and familiarity to correspondence."]

_CRITICISM ON VARIOUS AUTHORS: GREEK, LATIN, FRENCH, AND ENGLISH--HUMOUR
OF ADDISON, AND OF FIELDING--WALLER--MILTON--BOILEAU'S "LUTRIN"--"THE
RAPE OF THE LOCK"--MADAME DE SEVIGNE._

TO JOHN PINKERTON, ESQ.

_June_ 26, 1785.

I have sent your book to Mr. Colman, Sir, and must desire you in return
to offer my grateful thanks to Mr. Knight, who has done me an honour, to
which I do not know how I am entitled, by the present of his poetry,
which is very classic, and beautiful, and tender, and of chaste
simplicity.

To _your_ book, Sir, I am much obliged on many accounts; particularly
for having recalled my mind to subjects of delight, to which it was
grown dulled by age and indolence. In consequence of your reclaiming it,
I asked myself whence you feel so much disregard for certain authors
whose fame is established: you have assigned good reasons for
withholding your approbation from some, on the plea of their being
imitators: it was natural, then, to ask myself again, whence they had
obtained so much celebrity. I think I have discovered a cause, which I
do not remember to have seen noted; and _that_ cause I suspect to have
been, that certain of those authors possessed grace:--do not take me for
a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, nor imagine that I mean to erect grace
into a capital ingredient of writing, but I do believe that it is a
perfume that will serve from putrefaction, and is distinct even from
style, which regards expression. _Grace_, I think, belongs to _manner_.
It is from the charm of grace that I believe some authors, n