'Miss James has lent me, and I have been reading Alphonsine - that is the two first volumes - and it has completely bewitched me - I was such an old Ass as to sit up last night till three o'clock, reading - and then snuffed out my candle, and went to bed by daylight., The perfect originality of the plan upon which the story is founded, enchants me - and difficult as such an idea was to developpe, Mde de Genlis I think has done justice to her own design - a felicity many authors fail in attaining. - Oh - (But now another day has passed, and I have finished the three volumes of Alphonsine - and the [underlined] last [end underlining] disgraces the two first - Such a pack of higgledy piggledy stuff, without interest, finish, or any attempt at probability, I never read - Whip the woman!-'