A Series of Letters Between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from 1741 to 1770: To which are Added, Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Vesey, Between 1763 and 1787, Published from the Original Manuscripts in the Possession of the Rev. Montagu Pennington, M.a, Volume 1

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Rivington, 1809

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Page 313 - Richardson has no doubt a very good hand at painting excellence, but there is a strange awkwardness and extravagance in his vicious characters. To be sure, poor man, he had read in a book, or heard some one say, there was such a thing in the world as wickedness, but being totally ignorant in what manner the said wickedness operates upon the human heart, and what checks and restraints it meets with to prevent its ever being perfectly uniform and consistent in any one character, he has drawn such a...
Page 242 - There can be no doubt, can there,, that you love Clarissa? As for us, we lived quite' happy the whole time we were reading it, and we...
Page 256 - In the evening my Lord W carried us to Ranelagh. I do not know how I might have liked the place in a more giddy humour, but it did not strike me with any agreeable impression ; but, indeed, for the most part these tumultuary torchlight entertainments are very apt to put one in mind of the revel routs of Comus.
Page 44 - I really cannot help thinking this kind of entertainment must necessarily hare some effect in correcting or moderating at least the levity of the age ; and let an audience be ever so thoughtless, they can scarcely come, away, I should think, without being the. better for an evening so spent- I heartily wish you had been with me when I heard it.
Page 313 - Jones [she wrote] ; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character, with all that honesty, good nature, and generosity of temper. Though nobody can admire Clarissa more than I do, yet with all our partiality, I am afraid, it must be confessed that Fielding's book is the most natural representation of what passes in the world...
Page 250 - Random ! It is a very strange and a very low one, though not without some characters in it, and I believe some very just, though very wretched descriptions.
Page 16 - I want very much to know whether you have yet condescended to read Joseph Andrews, as I am well assured the character of Mr. Adams is drawn from one in real life ; if the book strikes you as it did me, you will certainly come up to town next winter, that you and I may join in contriving some means of getting acquainted with...
Page 191 - I was obliged to content myself with quietly setting by the fire-side, and listening to the storm at a distance. Was you ever electrified? We have an itinerant philosopher here, who knocks people down for the moderate consideration of sixpence, and men, women, and children are electrified out of their senses.
Page 33 - ... for the future, my lord has inscribed under the figures, Adam Stanhope of Eden garden Egypt, and Eve Stanhope his wife, with their two sons. Cain Stanhope and Abel Stanhope; his genealogy would have been indisputable, if he had put Seth Stanhope instead of Cain; but the humour was really a good one, as you may see I thought it, by writing you such a long story about it. Pray have you seen the epistle of Aml Boleyn?
Page 216 - One would think you had a mind to insult me upon a misfortune that happened to me some fifteen years ago, when I produced a pudding of a new invention, so overcharged with pepper and brandy that it put the whole family in a flame. The children all set up their little throats against Greek and Latin, and I found this unlucky event was like to prove my everlasting disgrace...

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