Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 6-8 November 1793: 'Were men what they ought to be — Rousseau would be canonized for a greater saint than any in the calendar. Read his Julia & tell me whence may we learn the most instructive lesson from the mistress of St Preux or the temptation of St Anthony. My comparison of the Man of Nature with Richardson would have been branded with the epithets of immoral atheistical & licentious. Clodius accuset moechos! Xtianity is less understood & less practised in this country than in the desarts of Arabia! Let him who is innocent cast the first stone was the judgement of the most moral of philosophers, to use no superior title.'