Whatever may be the fate of these letters, the editor is satisfied
they will meet with justice; and commits them to the press, though
hopeless of fame, yet not regardless of censure.

1)However superior the capacities in which these great writers deserve
to be considered, they must pardon me that, for the dignity of my
subject, I here rank the authors of Rasselas and Eloise as Novelists.


LETTER I

LADY HOWARD TO THE REV. MR. VILLARS Howard Grove, Kent.


CAN any thing, my good Sir, be more painful to a friendly mind, than
a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence? Indeed it is
sometimes difficult to determine, whether the relator or the receiver
of evil tidings is most to be pitied.


I have just had a letter from Madame Duval; she is totally at a loss
in what manner to behave; she seems desirous to repair the wrongs she
has done, yet wishes the world to believe her blameless. She would
fain cast upon another the odium of those misfortunes for which she
alone is answerable. Her letter is violent, sometimes abusive, and
that of you!-you, to whom she is under obligations which are greater
even than her faults, but to whose advice she wickedly imputes all the
sufferings of her much injured daughter, the late Lady Belmont. The
chief purport of her writing I will acquaint you with; the letter
itself is not worthy your notice.