Cavendish as a woman author willing to converse with men on natural philosophy and prone to a theatrical sense of dress, gained the nickname "Mad Madge", while many contemporaries lambasted her works for perceived eccentricity. Fellow scholar and Royal Society member Samuel Pepys once wrote of her as "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman" after reading one of her biographies. Dorothy Osborne reflected in one published letter, after reading a book by the Duchess, that she was "sure there are soberer people in Bedlam." This seems to typify the impression the public seems to have had of her. She had her admirers, however: Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland, John Dryden, Kenelm Digby, Henry More were among them; Joseph Glanvill and Walter Charleton took her opinions seriously and offered her advice. Charles Lamb enjoyed her "Sociable Letters"" and so much admired her biography of her husband that he called it a jewel "for which no casket is rich enough."