after its
appearance in 1751:

"I began by your direction with _Peregrine Pickle_. I think Lady Vane's
_Memoirs_[14] contain more truth and less malice than any I ever read in
my life. When she speaks of her own being disinterested, I am apt to
believe she really thinks herself so, as many highwaymen, after having
no possibility of retrieving the character of honesty, please themselves
with that of being generous, because, whatever they get on the road,
they always spend at the next ale-house, and are still as beggarly as
ever. Her history, rightly considered, would be more instructive to
young women than any sermon I know. They may see there what
mortifications and variety of misery are the unavoidable consequences of
gallantries. I think there is no rational creature that would not prefer
the life of the strictest Carmelite to the round of hurry and misfortune
she has gone through. Her style is clear and concise, with some strokes
of humour, which appear to me so much above her, I can't help being of
opinion the whole has been modelled by the author of the book in which
it is inserted, who is some subaltern admirer of hers. I may judge
wrong, she being no acquaintance of mine, though she has married two of
my relations. Her first wedding was attended with circumstances that
made me think a visit not at all necessary, though I disobliged Lady
Susan by neglecting it; and the second, which happened soon after, made
her so near a neighbour, that I rather choose to stay the whole summer
in town than partake of her balls and parties of pleasure, to which I
did not think it proper to introduce you; and had no other way of
avoiding it, without incurring the censure of a most unnatural mother
for denying you diversions that the pious Lady Ferrers permitted to her
exemplary daughters. Mr. Shirley has had uncommon fortune in making the
conquest of two such extraordinary ladies, equal in their heroic
contempt of shame, and eminent above their sex, the one for beauty, and
the other wealth, both which attract the pursuit of all mankind, and
have been thrown into his arms with the same unlimited fondness. He
appeared to me gentile [_sic_], well bred, well shaped and sensible; but
the charms of his face and eyes, which Lady Vane describes with so much
warmth, were, I confess, always invisible to me, and the artificial part
of his character very glaring, which I think her story shows in a strong
light."

[Footnote 14: Frances Ann