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According to C-H, out of the eight uses of the term “intermeddling” in the novels included in this database, two instances are in Clarissa (3rd edn.)
Although the C-H registers twenty-three instances of “first quality,” with seven going to Richardson's novels, the only actual phrase “men of the first quality” appears in Grandison, 1:9.
Apparently the phrase “knock down” is very rare among the early novelists. Except for one instance in Thomas Amory's John Buncle, the only other reference is to Clarissa (3rd edn., but not the 1st), 7:396.
If the author of this letter is Richardson, he may have been recalling the language used by Hutcheson while urging Sunderland to get the King to limit the present parliament to one year and to promote a bill for either triennial or annual parliaments: “On this Foundation, the British Liberties would be firmly Established, and innumerable good Consequence would flow therefrom. An Assurance of this kind, must tend to the immediate Quieting the Minds of a disturbed People,” Copies of Some Letters from Mr. Hutcheson, to the late Earl of Sunderland (1722), p. 22.
Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne.... Made English by Charles Cotton, Esq. Three Volumes. Fourth Edition (London, 1711).
Cf. Clarissa, 3rd edn. (1751), 4:139; and Montaigne's Essays, Book Two, Chapter Fifteen, p. 434: “That our Desires are augmented by Difficulty”: “For there is not only Pleasure, but moreover, Glory, to conquer and debauch that soft Sweetness, and that childish Modesty, and to reduce a cold and Matronlike Gravity to the Mercy of our ardent Desires: 'Tis a Glory, say they, to triumph over Modesty, Chastity, and Temperance.'”
Cf. The Daily Journal, 3 January 1723/24: “It may not be improper to acquaint our Readers, that Phillip Neyno, so often mention'd in the Proceedings against Mr. Kelly and the late Bishop of Rochester, was on the 31st of July, 1720, ordained in the Cathedral Church of Chester, by the present Bishop of that See; and in the Instrumental or Testimonial of his Ordination under the Episcopal Seal, and sign'd by the Bishop, (after the usual Preamble) are the following Words: Dilectum nobis in Christo Phillippum Neyno &c Moribus nobis commendatum, ac in Doctrina &c Scientia per nos &c examinatores Nostros, approbatum nec non sufficienter Intitulatum, &c. He was drowned in making his Escape from the Custody of a Messenger, soon after the Discovery of the late Conspiracy.”
(18 March 1722/23): “Mrs. Spinkes, Wife to a Nonjuring Clergyman, being traced out, and found to be capable of giving some Light into the Conspiracy, is put under Restraint, in order to her Examination. She is Aunt to Mrs. Hughes in the Hands of the Government, lately Nurse to the young Pretender.”
“St. John, as you most properly call him, has raised against his Works many Writers. I almost wish, that they had been left to the noble Discourses of Sherlock, so seasonably publish'd... and to Leland; for the Sale is far from answering the sanguine Expectations of Boutefeu Editor [David Mallett]; and I am afraid that so many Tracts on them will add to his Profits, by carrying into Notice Works that would have `probably' otherwise sink under the Weight of their dogmatical Abuse & Virulence. I imagine, that these Works of the quondam Peer, so far as they favour the Cause of Infidelity, rather abound with Objections against the Christian System, that he thought New, than were really so. He seems to have been willing to frame a Religion to his Practices. Poor Man! He is not a Doubter now!” R to Thomas Edwards: 30 December 1754, FM XII, 1, ff. 123-124; B, 3:106-107; C, p. 317.
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