Listings for Reader:
Catherine Talbot
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Samuel Richardson : Sir Charles Grandison
'In 1753 Catherine Talbot stayed with the Berkeley family and participated enthusiastically in readings of "Sir Charles Grandison".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: french romances
'Carter and Talbot read fiction and corresponded about it, including "Roderick Random", the novels of Eliza Haywood, French romances, and Charlotte Lennox's "Henrietta", in which Talbot finds a number of objectionable qualities including "irreligion" and "the pride and sauciness" of the heroine. Their "favourite" among women novelists was Sarah Fielding, many of whose works they read and discussed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Tobias Smollett : Roderick Random
'Carter and Talbot read fiction and corresponded about it, including "Roderick Random", the novels of Eliza Haywood, French romances, and Charlotte Lennox's "Henrietta", in which Talbot funds a number of objectionable qualities including "irreligion" and "the pride and sauciness" of the heroine. Their "favourite" among women novelists was Sarah Fielding, many of whose works they read and discussed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Eliza Haywood : various novels
'Carter and Talbot read fiction and corresponded about it, including "Roderick Random", the novels of Eliza Haywood, French romances, and Charlotte Lennox's "Henrietta", in which Talbot finds a number of objectionable qualities including "irreligion" and "the pride and sauciness" of the heroine. Their "favourite" among women novelists was Sarah Fielding, many of whose works they read and discussed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Sarah Fielding : various works
'Carter and Talbot read fiction and corresponded about it, including "Roderick Random", the novels of Eliza Haywood, French romances, and Charlotte Lennox's "Henrietta", in which Talbot funds a number of objectionable qualities including "irreligion" and "the pride and sauciness" of the heroine. Their "favourite" among women novelists was Sarah Fielding, many of whose works they read and discussed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: French romances
'Carter and Talbot read fiction and corresponded about it, including "Roderick Random", the novels of Eliza Haywood, French romances, and Charlotte Lennox's "Henrietta", in which Talbot finds a number of objectionable qualities including "irreligion" and "the pride and sauciness" of the heroine. Their "favourite" among women novelists was Sarah Fielding, many of whose works they read and discussed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Katherine Phillips : works
'[Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot] read and admired the work of Elizabeth Rowe, and questioned each other excitedly about an almost forgotten Katherine Phillips, "the matchless Orinda", impressed that her work is mentioned with "the highest respect, admiration and reverence by the writers of that time".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Elizabeth Rowe : works
'[Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot] read and admired the work of Elizabeth Rowe, and questioned each other excitedly about an almost forgotten Katherine Phillips, "the matchless Orinda", impressed that her work is mentioned with "the highest respect, admiration and reverence by the writers of that time".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Homer : Odyssey
'As Catherine Talbot later remarked of the "Odyssey", "Mr Pope's verse can give dignity to a peg or a pig, and the divine Eumaeus is so worthy a man, that I overlook the unlucky circumstance of his being a hogherd' [Letter to Elizabeth Carter, October 1746]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
[N/A] : Rambler
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 19 January 1751: 'I was sorry the other day to see a Rambler (though a good one) upon Milton, because the author has been much censured for carrying his humanity and good- nature so much too far, as to assist that villainous forger Lauder in his Apology.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
Fielding : [?The] Patriot
Catherine Talbot to Eliazbeth Carter, 29 February 1751: 'Indeed one is terrified at the growing profligacy of the age [...] Have you read Fielding's excellent, incomparable "Patriot," truly patriot book? or the Bishop of Worcester upon Gin? -- Yet these things can be published, talked of, acknowledged to be just and well writ, and not wake one statesman out of his dream of ambition, or fashion, or amusement, into care of the real interests of the public. Not one heart seems to glow with the desire of extirpating villainy or preventing misery and pain. Very soon we shall be a nation of savages.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Samuel Richardson : 'Rambler' [essay]
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, in response to Carter's attack on the perceived misogyny of Richardson's 'Rambler' essay: 'Fie upon you! indeed I see no harm in that poor Paper, and must own myself particularly fond of it. He does not pretend to give a scheme (not an entire scheme) of female education, only to say how when well educated they should behave, in opposition to the racketing life of the Ranelagh-education misses of these our days. Do read it over again a little candidly. How can you imagine that the author of Clarissa has not an idea enough of what women may be, and ought to be?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
: The Idler
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 8 June 1751: 'There is a paper called "The Idler," that I cannot commend on the whole, and yet it so far amuses me that I am glad to take it in rather than any other.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
Duc de Sully : Memoirs
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 15 July 1751: 'I am deep in the Memoires of the Duc de Sully, and exceedingly entertained by them. I make him my companion with pleasure, as he seems to have an honest, brave, and worthy heart [...] I am reading many other books, but will not trouble you with my thoughts of them till I have read them through.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Maximilien de Bethune de Sully : Memoirs
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 16 August 1751: 'I am still bewitched by the "Memoires de Sully" [...] I know none that shews the world in a more entertaining and instructive way, and numberless are the reflections that every page suggests to me.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Bernard de Montfaucon : French Antiquities
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 24 October 1751: 'I am sick of all human greatness and activity, and so would you be if you had been turning over with me five great folios of Montfaucon's French Antiquities, where warriors, tyrants, queens, and favourites, have past before my eyes in a quick succession, of whose pomp, power, and bustle, nothing now remains but quiet Gothic monuments, vile prints, and the records of still viler actions [...] [later comments, in same letter] Let me do justice to human nature and French history; my last night's reading afforded some instances of most charming generosity [...] and of real goodness.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Samuel Richardson : Sir Charles Grandison
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 December 1751: 'Do you know the Grandison family? [...] Oh, Miss Carter, did you ever call Pigmalion a fool, for making an image and falling in love with it -- and do you know that you and I are two Pigmalionesses? Did not Mr Richardson ask us for some traits of his good man's character? And did not we give him some? And has he not gone and put these and his own charming ideas into a book and formed a Sir Charles Grandison? [...] I have seen some parts of this amiable book, but I tell you this as a profound secret, which I have not named even to Lady Grey, who is therefore much puzzled why we cannot find time to read Amelia, when she knows we read en famille after supper.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle : Plays
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 December 1751: 'I want to talk to you of Fontanelle's Plays, have you seen them? They are incomparable. Truth, virtue, simplicity, and good sense, are the characteristics of his heroines, and there is besides something agreeably odd and uncommon in the whole manner.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Charlotte Lennox : The Female Quixote
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 14 March 1752: 'I have begun reading a book which promises some laughing amusement, "The Female Quixote;" the few chapters I read to my mother last night while we were undressing were whimsical enough and not at all low.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Hester Mulso : verses
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 22 April 1752: 'I thank you for your offer of sending me Miss Mulso's verses, Mr Richardson has been so good as to shew them to me. I admire her and them as I ought, and indeed from all I have heard of her character, or seen of her writing, I love and esteem her much.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot
: 'Arlequin'
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [c. July 1752, following illness with fever]: 'What have I been doing since I came here [a 'pretty place in Surry']? giving trouble and reading idle books to while away the hours of prescribed solitude [...] Dear, dear, with what companions have I been spending my lonely hours! Arlequin, a stupidissima Princess Mesirida, an infamous Con. Philips, and a ten times more profligate Jack Connor!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Unknown
: 'Princess Mesirida'
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [c. July 1752, following illness with fever]: 'What have I been doing since I came here [a 'pretty place in Surry']? giving trouble and reading idle books to while away the hours of prescribed solitude [...] Dear, dear, with what companions have I been spending my lonely hours! Arlequin, a stupidissima Princess Mesirida, an infamous Con. Philips, and a ten times more profligate Jack Connor!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Unknown
Con. [Teresia Constantia] Phillips : An Apology for the Conduct of Mrs. T. C. Phillips
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [c. July 1752, following illness with fever]: 'What have I been doing since I came here [a 'pretty place in Surry']? giving trouble and reading idle books to while away the hours of prescribed solitude [...] Dear, dear, with what companions have I been spending my lonely hours! Arlequin, a stupidissima Princess Mesirida, an infamous Con. Philips, and a ten times more profligate Jack Connor!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
William Chaigneau : The History of Jack Connor
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [c. July 1752, following illness with fever]: 'What have I been doing since I came here [a 'pretty place in Surry']? giving trouble and reading idle books to while away the hours of prescribed solitude [...] Dear, dear, with what companions have I been spending my lonely hours! Arlequin, a stupidissima Princess Mesirida, an infamous Con. Philips, and a ten times more profligate Jack Connor!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Mary Jones : Miscellanies in Prose and Verse
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [c. July 1752]: 'I never answered you about the authoress of certain Miscellanies. Is it possible you could really admire them? Is it the cleanliness or delicacy of Holt Waters, or the Letter to a Physician, that delights you? The Letters appear to me in a forced style -- in the very "false gallop" of wit! [comments further]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Françoise d'Aubigné de Maintenon : Letters
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 December 1752: 'Did I ever tell you I was reading Madame de Maintenon's Letters? [...] She seems to have been both a great and a good woman. [comments further]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Elizabeth Singer Rowe :
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 21 July 1753: 'I scarce know a greater pleasure than reading over a book one is fond of with persons of taste and candour, to whom it is entirely new. A great deal of this pleasure I have had lately. Mrs Rowe's excellent works were an undiscovered treasure to Mrs Berkeley, and she values them as they deserve. We read one night a certain Vision in the Rambler, that I saw fixed her whole attention.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: 'Vision'
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 21 July 1753: 'I scarce know a greater pleasure than reading over a book one is fond of with persons of taste and candour, to whom it is entirely new. A great deal of this pleasure I have had lately. Mrs Rowe's excellent works were an undiscovered treasure to Mrs Berkeley, and she values them as they deserve. We read one night a certain Vision in the Rambler, that I saw fixed her whole attention.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
Louis-Jean Lévesque de Pouilly : Theorie des sentimens agreables
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 16 March 1754: '"Theorie des Sentimens Agreables" I have read some years ago, and quite forget. It made no deep impression upon me, but that may be my fault.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Carlo Maria Maggi : Sonnet 'Care dell'alma stanca Albengatrici...'
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 June 1754: 'I will send you a sonnet that I am extremely fond of, from no modern author, but from one whom I am sure you never met with, because you never mentioned him, Carlo Maria Maggi [...] [reproduces sonnet opening "Care dell'alma stanca Albengatrici..."] Is not this sonnet perfect in its way? And is it not utterly untranslatable?'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot
Richard Owen Cambridge : papers (i.e. essays)
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 June 1754: 'Your cousin [Richard Owen] Cambridge has writ many lively papers in the World this winter from the mere motive of charity; and some of them are very pretty.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
David Fordyce : Elements of Moral Philosophy
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 19 August 1754: 'I was much pleased the other day in reading a system of moral philosophy, to find that the moral frame was not perfect without a due degree of fear, and of all sorts of passions. 'Tis a posthumous work of Mr Fordyce, and all together an excellent little book.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Unknown
Anthony Ashley Cooper : Characterisks of Men, Manners, Times, Opinions, [volume 1].
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 26 November 1754: 'I was going one day to have writ to you in a hurry to ask you whether I had dreamt it, or whether it was possible that I should ever have heard you mention that bigotted heathen Lord Shaftesbury with approbation? I have only looked into the first volume [...] but I have met with so many things that offend me excessively as to leave little little inclination to look further. Arrogance, bitterness, prejudice and obscurity, the falsest reasoning, the absurdest pride, the vilest ingratitude, the most offensive levity, disgrace whatever there was of elegant, and fair, and honest in some of the ideas, and whatever is easy and genteel in some parts of his style.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Sarah Fielding : The Cry
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 26 November 1754: 'Yes, I did read the "Cry" last spring, but was too much out of charity with one sign-post painting in it, to name it to you. Ferdinand's way of making love did charm me, but his hard-hearted, dishonest, lying, unnatural absurdity of behaviour at last provoked me absolutely beyond all patience.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: The World, No. CIV
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 27 December 1754: 'I cannot help being so ungenteel as to send you the good wishes of the season, though to any of the fine folks of this town it would certainly be an affront. There was a pretty "World" [No. CIV] on this subject last night, accounting with humour, and also with truth, for the general indistinction of all seasons that prevails.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
: 'volumes of Stoic philosophy'
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 January 1755: 'Dr Dalton [i.e a volume of his poetry] is coming, but he has waited this last fortnight for some volumes of Stoic philosophy, which the Bishop of Norwich has lent me for your service, as he thinks there is the best account given in them that he has any where met with.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: Man: A Paper for Ennobling the Species
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 7 February 1755:] 'There is a whole shoal of new books. The Centaur, well worth reading I think; Theron and Aspasia, too grave, I am afraid, to be much read; the Bishop of London's second volume of excellent Sermons; Dean Swift's poor and conceited account of his Uncle [Jonathan Swift], with some few things in it one likes to see [...] Man is a serious Paper, but a dull one.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
Fulke Greville : Reflections, maxims, and characters, moral, critical, and satirical
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 13 April 1756:] 'Have you seen the reflections, maxims, and characters moral and satirical? Amusing, I think, and not bad; writ by a fine man that no mortal suspected for an author; a Mr Greville [...] somebody said of it very well, that it is quite a French book written in English.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Thomas Browne : Christian Morals
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 7 May 1756:] 'Has Mr Johnson sent you his new edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Christian Morals? 'Tis a collection of the noblest thoughts, drest in the uncouthest language possible, for which reason few will read, and half of those despise, a book as superior to Mr Greville's [Reflections, Maxims, and Characters...] as Epictetus to Tom Thumb.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Sarah Fielding : The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 29 July 1757:] 'My mother's passion is feeding chickens, in this too I share with her, and we study the various characters of the poultry with infinite amusement. Two of our hens are called Cleopatra and Octavia, my mother named them, and with perfect justice, and we divert ourselves with studying how the chickens take after them. These names put me in mind to ask you how could Mrs Fielding who is so good a woman make Octavia self-sufficient under suffering and trials, and not so much as hint the smallest degree of uninstructed piety as even heathens had [...] I do not love any dialogues of the dead, because it is representing a true and awful state in generally a false light [...] Fine people are too apt to think they may live very happy, and be very remarkably good without any religion, and Octavia will convince them of it, for her story is enchantingly told, and in some parts made [italics] even me [end italics] cry very heartily -- [italics] even me [end italics] as if I was of adamant.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Robert Dodsley : The Ladies' Memorandum Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter [1758] following stay in London with Carter:] 'I have looked in Dodsley, to see if any events had happened between your leaving town [on 'Wednesday last'] and this time worth mentioning.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Serial / periodical
Ben Jonson :
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 15 August 1758, following Talbot's stepfather's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his household's change of residence:] 'I have not had any spare time, not but that I have lounged away many a half hour over Ben Jonson, Marivaux's Spectateur Francois, and any such idle books as chance presented me'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Pierre de Marivaux : Le Spectateur Francois
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 15 August 1758, following Talbot's stepfather's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his household's change of residence:] 'I have not had any spare time, not but that I have lounged away many a half hour over Ben Jonson, Marivaux's Spectateur Francois, and any such idle books as chance presented me'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Unknown
: 'ridiculous French books'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, during convalescence from illness, 1 January 1759:] 'I have run over a heap of most ridiculous French books, and think with real grief how shameful it is that people should sit down to study such trash in perfect health -- in [italics] real [end italics] illness they woud be a still more unfit occupation, and I can scarce excuse myself for turning over so many, even in the state of langour in which I am, and which makes me unfit for application, and under a necessity of amusement. Indeed many of them are so vile that a page at a time was quite enough.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: 'French plays'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 November 1759:] 'I thank you for the Barrow, and in idle hours, for the French plays.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Epictetus : Ode
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 6 January 1760, following illness:] 'Now I am well [...] as my mornings are engaged by exercise, I am glad enough in the evening of two or three solitary hours to read and write. Indeed I have seldom so much, for we are only admitted into the study between eight and nine [...] I was sadly reduced too for want of books -- I supplied that want by reading Epictetus. A thousand thanks to you for the treasure! Though the good old man continually vexed me with his half right notions, and I longed to talk with him and set him right on a thousand points. The sweet Ode I read with a higher admiration than ever, and to do it true justice cried over it very heartily, and yet on the whole found my mind relieved and my spirits the better for it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Euripides : The Phoenician Women
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 January 1760:] 'For want of other nonsense books, I am reading an Italian translation of Euripides. -- A pretty good one, I fancy, though, what in Italian is peculiarly provoking, rugged and inharmonious. The Phenicians, and the Medea, filled me with horror [comments further] [...] The Orestes amused me very well, for its turn is rather comic; and I am now breaking my heart over the Hecuba.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Euripides : Medea
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 January 1760:] 'For want of other nonsense books, I am reading an Italian translation of Euripides. -- A pretty good one, I fancy, though, what in Italian is peculiarly provoking, rugged and inharmonious. The Phenicians, and the Medea, filled me with horror [comments further] [...] The Orestes amused me very well, for its turn is rather comic; and I am now breaking my heart over the Hecuba.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Euripides : Orestes
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 January 1760:] 'For want of other nonsense books, I am reading an Italian translation of Euripides. -- A pretty good one, I fancy, though, what in Italian is peculiarly provoking, rugged and inharmonious. The Phenicians, and the Medea, filled me with horror [comments further] [...] The Orestes amused me very well, for its turn is rather comic; and I am now breaking my heart over the Hecuba.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Euripides : Hecuba
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 January 1760:] 'For want of other nonsense books, I am reading an Italian translation of Euripides. -- A pretty good one, I fancy, though, what in Italian is peculiarly provoking, rugged and inharmonious. The Phenicians, and the Medea, filled me with horror [comments further] [...] The Orestes amused me very well, for its turn is rather comic; and I am now breaking my heart over the Hecuba.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Roger Boyle : Parthenissa
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 April 1760:] 'As you was, upon the whole, I believe, very determined to go into the country [following visit to Talbot 'on Tuesday'], I denied myself the telling you how very sorry and grieved I was to part with you. Perhaps I did wrong [...] I have learnt from the heroines of Parthenissa that these sorts of offences are never to be forgiven. Oh dear, what a precious treasure of false thoughts, and refinements, and hyperbole have you brought me in that volume. It does me a vast deal of good, for its absurdities make me laugh more than any book of intended humour could do.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
King Frederick of Prussia : Oeuvres du philosophe de Sans-Souci
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 8 May 1760:] 'To-day I have been reading with due wrath and abomination "Le Philosophe Sans Souci." Some lines in that wickedest of all books are so evidently taken from the wrong reasonings of the ungodly in the Wisdom of Solomon, chap. 2, that I confess to me they are perfectly harmless, but I tremble to think what mischief they will do in the fine world. In other parts of the book there seem to be really pretty things -- but how is it possible a man should be such an ideot? How unaccountable is it that pride [...] should make a writer so very mean and grovelling as to triumph in the very thought of annihilation, rather than acknowledge any being in the universe superior to himself? But there would be more use in writing these things to [italics] him [end italics] than to you, so I will have done.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : The Family Instructor
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 September 1760:] 'I have picked up a very strange [book], but which, with some faults that would make it dangerous to some sort of people, and some excellencies in it that would make it excessively despised by others, has a great deal of merit. It is written by the author of Robinson Crusoe, and called "The Family Instructor," and is so engaging, that when I had once taken it up I knew not how to lay it down again, and have recommended it to my mother as an amusing book, that with all her nicety of taste will not set her to sleep.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Katherine Phillips : Letters (as 'Orinda')
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 9 June 1761:] 'Did you ever chance to see Orinda's Letters? They are rather stiff, but seem to have an air of genuineness -- and were not printed for Curl, but Lintot.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Jonas Hanway : 'two volumes'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 9 June 1761:] 'My dear Mr Hanway has published two volumes at last, which you saw, and only told me you had seen them, but for which I love and honour him (and so far as spending thirty hours upon them I believe I shall also [italics] obey [end italics] him) as much as the world, and the wits, and the critics will, I suppose, despise him [...] Not that I would have licensed [italics] every [end italics] word in his book neither, but the whole delights me.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Salomon Gessner : La Mort d'Abel
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 August 1761:] 'I am ashamed to say I have not yet sent La Mort d'Abel to Mrs Donnelan; but the truth is, I began reading it to my mother, and cannot find in [sic] my heart to send it away till I have done. It has taught us to be fond of a sweet flowery spot in the garden, which is our reading place, and we impatiently sigh for a quiet hour or two to finish it [...] It is not faultless to be sure, but it seems to me absolutely one of the most charming and instructive things I ever read.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
George Lord Lyttelton : The Vision
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 September 1762:] 'Thank my stars, I have torn it this minute all to bits! What? Why a reflection upon the Vision, but that was of a kind I will not suffer myself to write [...] 'I am enclosing back the Vision the very night I received it, to prevent all temptations to dishonesty or carelessness; 'tis certainly very elegant.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Unknown
Edward Young :
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 September 1762:] 'Yesterday evening we were entertained by one of the noblest storms I ever enjoyed, and truly this was not enjoyed without some mixture of terror. My mother sat with me till past one, and I tried to amuse away her fears as suitably as I could by reading her some of the noblest passages in Dr Young. By that hour we were both, even in spite of [italics] him [end italics], somewhat sleepy, and there was an interval of lightning (I mean an interval of darkness) that made the hall just passable.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Carlo Maggi : 'Prologue to a comedy of Plautus'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 26 April 1763:] 'Your Carlo Maggi, were he not such a horrible papist, is a most excellent companion to me. Do you remember the laughing prologue to a comedy of Plautus? Surely it is quite original: and whether Carlo is penitential, or merry, or critical, or satirical, or complimental, one sees the same pure amiable good mind through every form. Indeed it hurts me grievously that he should have been born in a popish country, and some flights of his popery are quite shocking [...] but surely there might be a scelta made even with parts of his Letters to Rosa, that would be a most valuable book.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Carlo Maggi : Letters to Rosa
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 26 April 1763:] 'Your Carlo Maggi, were he not such a horrible papist, is a most excellent companion to me. Do you remember the laughing prologue to a comedy of Plautus? Surely it is quite original: and whether Carlo is penitential, or merry, or critical, or satirical, or complimental, one sees the same pure amiable good mind through every form. Indeed it hurts me grievously that he should have been born in a popish country, and some flights of his popery are quite shocking [...] but surely there might be a scelta made even with parts of his Letters to Rosa, that would be a most valuable book.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Carlo Maggi : 'the Death of Adam'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 14 May 1763:] 'Some of [Carlo Maggi's] prose is delightful. Pray do not read the death of Adam. It is extremely fine, but so painful, that at first it gives one's thoughts a wrong turn -- one cannot get it out of one's head; yet if one thinks it thoroughly over, one may get a great deal of good out of it. We shall have a very different one after supper, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters. They are very amusing for that half hour, and I dare say genuine. Mrs Montagu whom I saw a few days ago, first told me of them.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Frances Brooke : The History of Lady Julia Mandeville
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 21 July 1763:] 'I am curious to know whether you have at Spa (as at all places of that sort here) a circulating bookseller: if you have I shall not wonder you have no time to write, for as his shop must contain the whole collected nonsense of Europe, it must be a temptation irresistible. We have a Lady a Julia Mandeville here, written by Mrs Sheridan [sic], that has faults and excellencies enough to raise it above this denomination.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Epictetus :
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 22 September 1763:] 'The sickliness of the season has a little affected us here [...] to be sure I was unhappy enough. My mother laid open some useful pages of your Epictetus, and I read them with profit. How shall I thank you for them?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: treatise 'sur la gaiete'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 October 1763:] 'The physical [i.e. medical] book I am studying at present is a very pretty treatise, "sur la gaiete," which the author recommends as essential to health, and as health is also essential to gaiety, he prescribes a proper regimen. One part of it I have long been in, for he advises above all things to avoid cards, large assemblies, routs, and strings of engagements for a fortnight beforehand. These he very justly calls chains and shackles, un art de s'ennuier, painful studies, and assujetissemens; 'tis a very pretty book. Talking of books, I will tell you in what a large one you have engaged me -- Dr Jortin's Life of Erasmus. I know you will wonder how [italics] I [end italics] could be tempted to read any thing of [italics] his [end italics], considering how widely (I thank God) we differ in some points; but in good truth, in this book, so far as I have gone, I have been very much pleased with him in many places, and found a candour that I did not expect.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
John Jortin : Life of Erasmus
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 1 October 1763:] 'The physical [i.e. medical] book I am studying at present is a very pretty treatise, "sur la gaiete," which the author recommends as essential to health, and as health is also essential to gaiety, he prescribes a proper regimen. One part of it I have long been in, for he advises above all things to avoid cards, large assemblies, routs, and strings of engagements for a fortnight beforehand. These he very justly calls chains and shackles, un art de s'ennuier, painful studies, and assujetissemens; 'tis a very pretty book. Talking of books, I will tell you in what a large one you have engaged me -- Dr Jortin's Life of Erasmus. I know you will wonder how [italics] I [end italics] could be tempted to read any thing of [italics] his [end italics], considering how widely (I thank God) we differ in some points; but in good truth, in this book, so far as I have gone, I have been very much pleased with him in many places, and found a candour that I did not expect.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
?Elizabeth ?Carter : sonnet
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 28 November 1763:] 'I have long owed you my thanks, dear Miss Carter, for enclosing to me that sweet melancholy sonnet, which as you kindly sent me in confidence, I have shewn to no one but my mother.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: 'French books'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 28 November 1763:] 'I have been reading French books lately that represent us as a nation of infidels. The specimens we most commonly send abroad, and the books they most commonly get from hence, give too much colour to this most injurious and abominable opinion.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock : Messiah
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 28 November 1763:] 'Shall I send your subscription copy of the Messiah, or keep it till you come? I admire many things in it extremely, but am grievously hurt and disappointed at many more. I wish Dr Young had been the translator, and I the correctress.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Edward Kimber : Maria; The genuine memoirs of an admired lady of rank and fortune, and of some of her friends
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, during stay in Canterbury, 12 February 1764:] 'I brought with me Hurd's Dialogues on Education, which have entertained his Grace very well, and a silly harmless story book called Maria, which serves to entertain myself at minutes when I am fit for nothing else.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Horace Walpole : Memoirs of Lord Herbert of Cherbury
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 August 1764:] 'Pray has Mrs M. got one of Mr Walpole's Memoirs of Lord Herbert [of Cherbury]? So few copies are dispersed, that I know Lord Chesterfield was not able to get one, and it is so amusing I wish you had it to wear away a rainy evening.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Robert Leighton : Sermons
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 25 June 1765:] 'The book I am happiest in reading at present, is a volume of Sermons of Abp. Leighton, strongly recommended to me by the Bishop of Man.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Robert Leighton : Works including 'Exposition of the Lord's Prayer'
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 25 November 1765:] 'Abp. Leighton's works are great favourites with me at present. There is, I think, the best exposition of the Lord's Prayer I ever read; were I to educate a child, instead of teaching it prayers by rote, I would, as soon as it was old enough to comprehend any thing, read to it with proper familiarisations the most striking parts of this exposition, till it had learnt that one prayer word by word, with full sense of the meaning of every one.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
?Thomas Simon ?Gueullette : ?Peruvian Tales (vol 3)
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 12 June 1766:] 'I have been reading your third volume of Peruvians with pleasure, and though the objection you made is just, it does not hurt me in these as in the Tales of the Genii. The Peruvian seems a patriarchal religion before it grew corrupted, but Christian piety with Mahometan doctrines, is "a jewel of gold in a swine's snout."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Charles Morrell : The Tales of the Genii
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 12 June 1766:] 'I have been reading your third volume of Peruvians with pleasure, and though the objection you made is just, it does not hurt me in these as in the Tales of the Genii. The Peruvian seems a patriarchal religion before it grew corrupted, but Christian piety with Mahometan doctrines, is "a jewel of gold in a swine's snout."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
?Jean ?de la Chapelle : Zaide
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 August 1766:] 'I have read Zaide, which I do not admire, as it is calculated to undo all the good impressions that may have been made by the Marquis de Rozelle.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
James Fordyce : Sermons to Young Women
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 23 August 1766:] 'I have just been reading a book, lately published, which I entreat you to like, as I do, exceedingly. -- It is in two volumes, Sermons to Young Women. [italics]You[end italics] are in, and handsomely in, but not [italics]so[end italics] handsomely as you would have been, had the author known you better.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Pedro de Ribadeneira : ?Flos Sanctorum
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 3 September 1766:] 'Little puss is sitting by me on a huge folio of popish saints, on which I have wasted many a half hour lately. -- It is a translation of Ribadeneira, lent me by Dr Hawkesworth, whom I like mightily, and his wife likewise.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
: Account of 'Mrs Wilson's' visit to New York
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 24 September 1766:] 'Pray ask Mrs Montagu if she hears any thing in Newcastleshire of the charming Mrs Wilson of 104 [?years old], who has taken a trip to New York to visit her grandchildren there. I fell in love with her in yesterday's paper, and want to know if it is true.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Newspaper
Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Hariri : Six assemblies; or, ingenious conversations of learned men among the Arabians
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 October 1767:] 'Pray, pray get on as fast as you can with your Arabic, that you may be fit to translate for us forty-four Assemblies, or ingenious conversations, by Hariri, the son of Himam; there are fifty of them, six just translated by a gentleman of Cambridge, and we are undone to know whether the whole fifty can be equally dull and unedifying. Did you ever read Noah? it seems to me even in the translation delightfully fine.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Bodmer Johann Jakob : Noah. Attempted from the German of Mr. Bodmer. In twelve books.
Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 10 October 1767: 'Pray, pray get on as fast as you can with your Arabic, that you may be fit to translate for us forty-four Assemblies, or ingenious conversations, by Hariri, the son of Himam; there are fifty of them, six just translated by a gentleman of Cambridge, and we are undone to know whether the whole fifty can be equally dull and unedifying. Did you ever read Noah? it seems to me even in the translation delightfully fine.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Gautier de Costes de la Calprenède : Pharamond; or the History of France
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 May 1768:] 'This day I finish Pharamond: is Mrs Sutton still in town, that I may return it to her? if not, when you write, pray return my thanks for the amusement it has afforded me. This day I also begin Mrs Montagu's [copy of] "Chevaliers de Malthe." I rejoice to hear so good an account of her.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Rene Aubert de Vertot : Histoire des Chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 May 1768:] 'This day I finish Pharamond: is Mrs Sutton still in town, that I may return it to her? if not, when you write, pray return my thanks for the amusement it has afforded me. This day I also begin Mrs Montagu's [copy of] "Chevaliers de Malthe." I rejoice to hear so good an account of her.'
