while gently censuring the liberty he had taken.
With Richardson's splendid triumph to spur them on, the passion of Englishwomen for novel-reading reached its height. Young girls hitherto debarred from this diversion, began more and more to taste the forbidden sweets, and wise men, like Dr. Johnson, meekly acknowledged that there was no stopping them. When Frances Chamberlayne Sheridan told him that she never allowed her little daughter to read anything but the "Rambler," or matters equally instructive, he answered with all his customary candor: "Then, madam, you are a fool! Turn your daughter's wits loose in your library. If she be well inclined, she will choose only good food. If otherwise, all your precautions will amount to nothing." Both Charles Lamb and Ruskin cherished similar opinions, but the sentiment was more uncommon in Dr. Johnson's day, and we know how even he reproached good Hannah More for quoting from "Tom Jones."
With or without permission, however, the girls read gayly on. In Garrick's epilogue
