"The multitude of stories circulated about her--as about all people who were objects of note in their day--increase, instead of lessening, the difficulty," she said.

"Some of these may be confidently pronounced inventions, simple and purely false; some, if true, concerned a different person; some were grounded upon egregious blunders; and not a few upon jests, mistaken by the dull and literal for earnest.

Others, again, where a little truth and a great deal of falsehood were probably intermingled, nobody now living can pretend to confirm, or contradict, or unravel.

Nothing is so readily believed, yet nothing is usually so unworthy of credit, as tales learned from report, or caught up in casual conversation.

A circumstance carelessly told, carelessly listened to, half comprehended, and imperfectly remembered, has a poor chance of being repeated accurately by the first hearer; but when, after passing through the moulding of countless hands, it comes, with time, place, and person, gloriously confounded, into those of a bookmaker ignorant of all its bearings, it will be lucky indeed if any trace of the original groundwork remains distinguishable." Lady Mary's most redoubtable assailants were Pope and Horace Walpole, and both were biassed.