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.]