In his letters to Miss Margaret Collier, Richardson is most earnest in his defense of literary women. In answer to her complaint that Fielding's _Voyage to Lisbon_ was counted an inferior work and hence attributed to her, he "inveighed vehemently" against women who published anonymously, and wished it in his power to punish those geniuses of the female sex who studiously "wrapped up their napkin'd talents," elaborately concealing their "God-_given_ talents." "What is it that they fear?... Is it that the men will be afraid of them, and shun them as wives? Unworthy fear! Let the wretches shun and be afraid of them. Unworthy of such blessings, let such men not dare to look up to merits so superior to their own; and let them enter into contract with women, whose sense is as diminutive as their own souls." Miss Collier answers (with a deep sigh) that a preference for "little-minded creatures" and an aversion to women of uncommon understanding is not confined to the wretches he anathematizes, but is as characteristic of "men of real good sense, great parts, and many fine qualities." Miss Collier styles Richardson "the vindicator" of her sex, but he holds his wrath and asks, "Who shall vindicate the honour of a sex, the most excellent of which desert themselves?"[439] [Sidenote: Henry Fielding] Fielding has, in _Tom Jones_, an entertaining learned lady in the person of Mrs. Western, the sister of Squire Western. She was of a masculine form, near six foot high, which, added to her manner and learning, possibly prevented the other sex from regarding her, notwithstanding her petticoats, in the light of a woman. "She had considerably improved her mind by study; she had not only read all the modern plays, operas, oratorios, poems, and romances--in all which she was a critic--but had gone through Rapin's _History of England_, Eachard's _Roman History_, and many French _Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire_: to these she had added most of the political pamphlets and journals published within the last twenty years. From which she had obtained a very competent skill in politics, and could discourse very learnedly on the affairs of Europe." Squire Western did not approve of his sister's learned tastes. "You know," he says, "I do not love to hear you talk about politics; they belong to us, and petticoats should not meddle." But in Fielding's attitude towards his sister's work, and in the personal opinions he expressed in the prefaces to her novels, we find quite a different tone.[440] Mrs. Western represented a self-assertive, pretentious woman whose claim to learning was without justification, and as such Fielding satirized her. For a modest woman of real learning and ability Fielding had great respect. [Sidenote: Pompey the Little (1757)]