"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 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