worse effect than this, which follows the careless education given to
women of quality, its being so easy for any man of sense, that finds it
either his interest or his pleasure, to corrupt them. The common method
is, to begin by attacking their religion: they bring them a thousand
fallacious arguments, which their excessive ignorance hinders them from
refuting: and I speak now from my own knowledge and conversation among
them, there are more atheists among the fine ladies than the loosest
sort of rakes; and the same ignorance that generally works out into
excess of superstition, exposes them to the snares of any who have a
fancy to carry them to t'other extreme. I have made my excuses already
too long, and will conclude in the words of Erasmus:--_Vulgus sentit
quod lingua Latina, non convenit foeminis, quia parum facit ad tuendam
illarum pundicitiam, quoniam rarum et insolitum est foeminam scire
Latinam; attamen consuetudo omnium malarum rerum magistra. Decorum est
foeminam in Germania nata_ [sic] _discere Gallice, ut loquatur_ _cum his
qui sciunt Gallice; cur igitur habetur indecorum discere Latine, ut
quotidie confabuletur cum tot autoribus tam facundis, tam eruditis, tam
sapientibus, tam fides consultoribus. Certe mihi quantulumcunque cerebri
est, malim in bonis studiis consumere, quam in precibus sine mente
dictis, in pernoctibus conviviis, in exhauriendis, capacibus pateris,
&c."_


This was not the sort of letter that in the opening years of the
eighteenth century even Bishops received from young ladies of rank, who
usually took their pleasure in other and lighter ways. Lady Mary,
however, loved to exercise her pen. She later composed some imitations of
Ovid, and tried her hand at one or two romances in the French manner.
She thus acquired a facility of expression that stood her in good stead
when she came to write those letters that constitute her principal claim