e Hawes (1713-1788) married Lord William
Douglas in 1731, and after his death, William, second Viscount Vane, in
1735. She was notorious for profligacy and extravagance of all kinds.
She was responsible for the scandalous _Memoirs of a Lady of Quality_
which she paid Smollett to insert in _Peregrine Pickle_.]

Of minor novelists Lady Mary had also something to say from time to
time.

"Sally [Fielding] has mended her style in her last volume of _David
Simple_, which conveys a useful moral, though she does not seem to have
intended it: I mean, shows the ill consequences of not providing against
casual losses, which happen to almost everybody. Mrs. Orgueil's
character is well drawn, and is frequently to be met with. The _Art of
Tormenting_, the _Female Quixote_[15] and _Sir C. Goodville_ are all
sale work. I suppose they proceed from her pen, and heartily pity her,
constrained by her circumstances to seek her bread by a method, I do not
doubt, she despises. Tell me who is that accomplished countess she
celebrates. I left no such person in London; nor can I imagine who is
meant by the English Sappho mentioned in Betsy Thoughtless, whose
adventures and those of Jenny Jessamy, gave me some amusement."

[Footnote 15: By Charlotte Lennox.]

"I have read _The Cry_[16] and if I would write in the style to be
admired by good Lord Orrery, I would tell you _The Cry_ made me ready to
cry, and the _Art of Tormenting_ tormented me very much. I take them to
be Sally Fielding's, and also the _Female Quixote_; the plan of that is
pretty, but ill executed: on the contrary, the fable of _The Cry_ is the
most absurd I ever saw, but the sentiments generally just; and I think,
if well dressed, would make a better body of ethics than Bolingbroke's.
Her inventing new words, that are neither more harmonious or significant
than those already in use, is intolerable.

[Footnote 16: By Sarah Fielding and Miss Collier.]

"The next book I laid my hand on was _The Parish Girl_ which interested
me enough not to be able to quit it till it was read over, though the
author has fallen into the common mistake of romance-writers; intending
a virtuous character, and not knowing how to draw it; the first step of
his heroine (leaving her patroness's house) being altogether absurd and
ridiculous, justly entitling her to all the misfortunes she met with.

"Candles came (and my eyes grown weary), I took up the next book, merely
because I supposed from the