idewell 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 not difficult to prove, that
either the papists are guilty of idolatry, or the pagans never were so.
You may see in Lucian (in his vindication of his images), that they did
not take their statues to be real gods, but only the representations of
them. The same doctrine may be found in Plutarch; and it is all the
modern priests have to say in excuse for their worshipping wood and
stone, though they cannot deny