title it could not engage me long. It was
_Pompey the Little_,[17] which has really diverted me more than any of
the others, and it was impossible to go to bed till it was finished. It
was a real and exact representation of life, as it is now acted in
London, as it was in my time, and as it will be (I do not doubt) a
hundred years hence, with some little variation of dress, and perhaps
government. I found there many of my acquaintance. Lady T. and Lady O.
are so well painted, I fancied I heard them talk, and have heard them
say the very things there repeated....

[Footnote 17: By Francis Coventry.]

"I opened my eyes this morning on _Leonora_, from which I defy the
greatest chemist in morals to extract any instruction; the style most
affectedly florid, and naturally insipid, with such a confused heap of
admirable characters, that never were, or can be, in human nature. I
flung it aside after fifty pages, and laid hold of _Mrs. Philips_, where
I expected to find at least probable, if not true facts, and was not
disappointed. There is a great similitude in the genius and adventures
(the one being productive of the other) between Madame Constantia and
Lady Vane: the first mentioned has the advantage in birth and, if I am
not mistaken, in understanding: they have both had scandalous lawsuits
with their husbands, and are endowed with the same intrepid assurance.
Con. seems to value herself also on her generosity, and has given the
same proofs of it. The parallel might be drawn out to be as long as any
of Plutarch's; but I dare swear you are already heartily weary of my
remarks, and wish I had not read so much in so short a time, that you
might not be troubled with my comments; but you must suffer me to say
something of the polite Mr. Ste, whose name I should never have guessed
by the rapturous description his mistress makes of his person, having
always looked upon him as one of the most disagreeable fellows about
town, as odious in his outside as stupid in his conversation, and I
should as soon have expected to hear of his conquests at the head of an
army as among women; yet he has been, it seems, the darling favourite of
the most experienced of the sex, which shows me I am a very bad judge of
merit. But I agree with Mrs. Philips, that, however profligate she may
have been, she is infinitely his superior in virtue; and if her
penitence is as sincere as she says, she may expect their future fate to
be like that of Dives and