The Duchess of Newcastle wrote a series of letters on beauty, eloquence, time, theology, servants, wit, and kindred subjects, often illustrated by a little story, reminding the reader of some of the _Spectator_ papers, which delighted the next generation. As in those papers, characters were introduced. Mrs. P.I., the Puritan dame, appears in several letters. She had received sanctification, and consequently considered all vanities of dress, such as curls, bare necks, black patches, fans, ribbons, necklaces, and pendants, temptations of Satan and the signs of damnation. In a subsequent letter she becomes a preaching sister, and the Duchess has been to hear her, and thus comments upon the meeting: "There were a great many holy sisters and holy brethren met together, where many took their turns to preach; for as they are for liberty of conscience, so they are for liberty of preaching. But there were more sermons than learning, and more words than reason." This is the first example of the use of letters in English fiction. In the next century it was adopted by Richardson for his three great novels, _Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Sir Charles Grandison_; it was used by Smollett in the novel of _Humphry Clinker_, and became a popular mode of composition with many lesser writers. But posterity is chiefly indebted to the Duchess of Newcastle for her life of her husband and the autobiography that accompanies it. Of the former Charles Lamb wrote that it was a jewel for which "no casket is rich enough." Of the beaux and belles who were drawn by the ready pens of the playwrights of the court of Charles the Second none are worthy of a place beside the Duke of Newcastle and his incomparable wife. With rare felicity she has described her home life in London with her brothers and sisters before her marriage. Their chief amusements were a ride in their coaches about the streets of the city, a visit to Spring Gardens and Hyde Park; and sometimes a sail in the barges on the river, where they had music and supper. She announces with dignity her first meeting with the Duke of Newcastle in Paris, where she was maid of honour to the Queen Mother of England: "He was pleased to take some particular notice of me, and express more than an ordinary affection for me; insomuch that he resolved to choose me for his second wife." And in another place she writes: "I could not, nor had not the power to refuse him, by reason my affections were fixed on him, and he was the only person I ever was in love with. Neither was I ashamed to own it, but gloried therein." Here is the charm of brevity. Richardson would have blurred these clearly cut sentences by eight volumes.