'You want to know what I think of the "Diary". I wil tell you fairly & impartially. after wading with pain and sorrow through the tautology and vanity of the first volume, I began to be amused by the second, and every suceeding volume has, to my thinking, encreased in power to interest & entertain. That there is still considerable vanity I cannot deny. In her life, she bottled it all up, & looked and generally spoke with the most refined modesty, & seemed ready to drop if ever her works were alluded to. But what was kept back, and scarcely suspected in society, wanting a safety valve, found its way to her private journal. Thence, had Mrs Barrett been judicious, she would have trundled it out, by half quires, and even whole quires at a time'.