I am very glad to be asked about Miss Clarke. I am very glad to be given this opportunity of making my opinion of her known. First, may I say that I have the greatest dislike to Females aspiring to become professional persons of any sort, but a novelist seems particularly bad. I dare say novel-writing might be forgiven in a woman if she were driven to such an extremity by poverty, or widowhood, or having numerous children or relations to support - but I cannot discover that this woman has any such excuse for her behaviour.

Worse still, I find that in her book she has attempted to give a description of the Glorious Revival of English magic - a description which is sure to be full of inaccuracies and misinformation. That Females should take it upon themselves to write about magic at all is very shocking. I am persuaded it must be possible to frame a law preventing such a thing ever occurring again, and I intend to take the first opportunity of speaking to the Prime Minister about it.

As to the other questions that the publishers of this deplorable book have put to me, I have nothing to say. I do not know what this woman looks like. I know nothing of her character or life or family. I do not care to know.