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Title: Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754)

Author: Anonymous

Commentator: Alan Dugald McKillop

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  The Augustan Reprint Society


  _Critical Remarks on Sir Charles
  Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela_
  (1754)


  With an Introduction by
  Alan Dugald McKillop


  Publication Number 21
  (Series IV, No. 3)


  Los Angeles
  William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
  University of California
  1950




_GENERAL EDITORS_

  H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
  RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
  EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
  H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITORS_

  W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
  JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

  EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
  BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
  LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
  CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
  JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
  ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
  SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
  ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
  JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_




INTRODUCTION


The present pamphlet was published in February 1754, after six volumes
of _Sir Charles Grandison_ had appeared and about a month before the
appearance of the seventh and last volume. Though _Grandison_ was
technically anonymous, its authorship was generally known, and the
pamphlet refers to Richardson by name. Sale’s bibliography gives further
details (_Samuel Richardson: A Bibliographical Record_, New Haven, 1936,
pp. 131-32), including the suggestion of the _Monthly Review_
(X, 159-60) that the author was Alexander Campbell, who also wrote
_A Free and Candid Examination of Lord Bolingbroke’s Letters on History_
(1753). The pro-Bolingbroke and deistic sentiments of the _Critical
Remarks_ lend color to this attribution. Nichols’ _Literary Anecdotes_
(II, 277) says under the year 1755 that William Bowyer printed a few
copies of two pamphlets on _Grandison_, one by Francis Plumer and one by
Dr. John Free. To Plumer is attributed _A Candid Examination of the
History of Sir Charles Grandison_ (April 1754; 3rd ed., 1755), and the
inference might then be that Free was the author of the _Critical
Remarks_, even though the date 1755 given by Nichols is not right, since
these two are the only known early _Grandison_ pamphlets. But Free’s
orthodox religious views seem to eliminate him as a possibility. Whoever
the author was, his references to Henry and Sarah Fielding are decidedly
friendly, and he speaks well of Mason, Gray, Dodsley, and Pope.

The _Remarks_ represents a type of pamphlet occasionally called forth by
works which engaged the general attention of the town, such as the great
novels of the period; thus before the _Grandison_ pamphlets we have
_Pamela Censured_, _Lettre sur Pamela_, _An Examen of the History of Tom
Jones_, _An Essay on the New Species of Writing Founded by Mr.
Fielding_, and _Remarks on Clarissa_. Usually these fugitive essays are
hostile to the work they discuss, and represent the attempt of some
obscure writer to turn a shilling by exposing for sale a title page
which might catch the eye with a well known name. The J. Dowse who sold
the _Critical Remarks_ was an obscure pamphlet-shop proprietor, not a
prominent bookseller. Richardson and his correspondents were of course
irritated at both the _Grandison_ pieces: Mrs. Sarah Chapone was
indignant at the _Critical Remarks_, venturing the absurd suggestion
that Fielding might be the author (Victoria and Albert Museum, Forster
Collection, Richardson MSS., XIII, 1, ff. 102-03, letter of 6 April
1754); and Lady Bradshaigh and Richardson considered the more favorable
_Candid Examination_ an unfriendly work (Forster Collection, Richardson
MSS., XI, ff. 98, 100-02). Yet these obscure publications give an
interesting view of some current approaches and reactions before opinion
has taken a set form, and help us to get access to the contemporary
reading public.

The present author airs some cynical and skeptical views in religion and
ethics which are not of great critical interest. His ideas about
“sentimental unbelievers” and “political chastity,” his simulated
disapproval of contemptuous references to the clergy, the attack on John
Hill’s _Inspector_ to which he devotes his Postscript--these points
are little to our purpose. As to literary opinions, he falls into the
usual way of judging fiction by its supposed overt intellectual and
moral effects. His admiration for _Clarissa_ is based on his acceptance
of the complete idealization of the heroine, and of Richardson’s
declared intention to show “the distresses that may attend the
misconduct both of parents and children in relation to marriage.” In
formal literary criticism he is pompous and scholastic. He approves the
plot of _Clarissa_ in terms of the _Iliad_, but judges subtle and
complex characters by an over-simplified standard of decorum and
censures Lovelace as an intricate combination of Achilles and Ulysses!
His unnecessary labors to show that Richardson is not really Homeric
illustrate the sterile application of epic canons to the novel that
vitiates much early criticism of fiction.

In general, he represents the reader with pretensions to culture which
make him feel superior to Richardson’s novels. He thinks they have been
attracting too much attention, yet finds himself forced to attend to
what he professes to despise. The stories are far too long, he
complains, and Richardson pads them to increase the profits of
authorship. (The _Candid Examination_ concurs on this point, and both
writers agree that _Clarissa_ should have been in five volumes instead
of eight.) The _Remarks_ echoes the common complaint that Richardson is
responsible for the flood of new fiction, and prophesies that his novels
will be merely the first in a succession of ephemeral best sellers. All
in all, we have here a fairly common pattern of opinion: _Pamela_ is low
and has no sound moral; _Grandison_ is tedious and excessively mannered;
_Clarissa_ at its best must be admitted to be supreme, despite
moralistic objections to the Mother Sinclair scenes and to the character
of Lovelace. The pamphleteer’s silences are sometimes significant:
Pamela is not condemned as a scheming little minx, and he does not seem
to be much interested in her; despite his approval of Fielding and his
preference of Allworthy to Grandison, he shows little interest in the
Fielding-Richardson opposition, even omitting the Tom Jones-Grandison
antithesis which seemed obvious to many; he passes over the admired
Italian story, the madness of Clementina, and the issues raised by Sir
Charles’ proposed marriage with a Catholic; nor does he offer the
familiar comment, soon to become a _cliché_, on the excessive
idealization of Sir Charles.

His best points do not follow from his jejune critical principles,
but from close reading that forces him at times to admit that he is
interested even while he carps and cavils. His predictions about the
last volume of _Grandison_ show that the story has at least carried him
along. His admiration for the character of Clarissa, though based on his
approval of idealization, is really a tribute to Richardson’s art,
and his qualification that Clarissa is “rather too good, at least too
methodically so,” is fair enough, as is the comment about Grandison’s
“showy and ostentatious” benevolence and his excessive variety of
accomplishments. The judgment about Richardson’s incessant emphasis on
sex anticipates much later criticism, and is made at first hand, though
connected with the stock comment that modern tragedies dwell too
exclusively on the passion of love. There is truth in the observation
that Mr. B-- and Lovelace think nothing can be done with women except by
bribery, corruption, and terror, that Richardson is unable to describe a
plausible seducer. The author of the _Candid Examination_ seems to take
up this cue when he says of the same pair, “I am of Opinion, that
neither of the two Gentlemen conducted themselves so, as to overcome an
ordinary Share of Virtue” (p. 24). Nevertheless the discussion in the
_Critical Remarks_ is thrown out of balance by exaggerated talk about
the portrayal of licentious scenes.

One important observation is that _Grandison_ duplicates some of the
principal characters in _Clarissa_: Charlotte Grandison is Anna Howe;
her much-enduring husband Lord G-- is Mr. Hickman (the writer expands
G-- to “Goosecap” on the model of Fielding’s Mr. Booby); Pollexfen is
Lovelace. This is self-evident, but may have been suggested by the
conversation in which Harriet Byron calls Charlotte “a very Miss Howe,”
while Charlotte refers to Lord G-- as “a very Mr. Hickman” (_Grandison_,
1754, II, 7-8). The _Candid Examination_, in a postscript commenting on
the last volume of _Grandison_, repeats the charge of duplication in a
rather odd way: “The Conduct and Behaviour of Sir _Charles_ and his
Lady, after the Marriage, is an Imitation of that of Mr. B-- and
_Pamela_; but does not equal the Original” (p. 42).

The pamphleteer has more to say about Charlotte than about Harriet, Sir
Charles, or Clementina, the characters with whom later criticism has
been chiefly concerned. Charlotte’s “whimsical” or “arch” way evidently
got on his nerves. He catches up a phrase which Harriet applies to her,
“dear flighty creature,” and derisively repeats it several times.
Contemporary readers paid her considerable attention. The _Candid
Examination_ names among the fine things in the book “a Profusion of Wit
and Fancy in Lady G--’s Conversation and Letters,” and thinks that
Harriet at times treats her levity too severely (pp. 6, 14-16). The
author of _Louisa: Or, Virtue in Distress_ (1760) remarks that Lady G--
is one of the most imitated of Richardson’s characters--“I have
observed that most of our modern novels abound with a lady G--” (p. x).
There were objections even among Richardson’s admirers, however, as by
Mrs. Delany: “Miss Grandison is sometimes diverting, has wit and humour,
but considering her heart is meant to be a good one, she too often
behaves as if it were stark naught” (_Autobiography and Correspondence_,
London, 1861, 1 Ser., III, 251). The evidence seems to show that early
readers of _Grandison_ did not isolate the principal characters, except
perhaps Clementina, but considered them with due reference to the
secondary characters and to the whole social context in which they
appear.

Finally, this critic is irritated by the conversational and epistolary
style which Richardson evolves in the process of “writing to the
moment”; he is particularly vexed at the coined or adapted words which
are sometimes italicized and dwelt on as characteristic of an
individual. He cites only a few, such as Uncle Selby’s _scrupulosities_,
but he has others in mind, both from _Grandison_ and from Lovelace’s
letters in _Clarissa_, and wonders whether such words as these will get
into the dictionary. (It happened that Johnson was entering words from
_Clarissa_ in his _Dictionary_ during these years.) He burlesques an
epistle from Charlotte, slipping in a few of Lovelace’s locutions as
well (pp. 47-48; cf. _Grandison_, 1754, VI, 288). The author of the
_Candid Examination_ distinguishes between what he considers the low
mawkish talk of some of Richardson’s characters, which he condemns
(pp. 11-12), and Richardson’s freedom in coining words, which he
approves (p. 36). These slight instances may serve to remind us that
many of Richardson’s early readers must have been keenly aware of his
innovations in style, and that these developments form an important link
in the 1750’s between Richardson and the further innovations of Sterne.

The present reproduction is made by permission from a copy in the
University of Michigan Library.

  _Alan Dugald McKillop_
  _The Rice Institute_




  CRITICAL

  REMARKS

  ON

  _Sir CHARLES GRANDISON,
  CLARISSA and PAMELA._

  ENQUIRING,

  Whether they have a Tendency to corrupt
  or improve the Public Taste and Morals.

  IN A

  LETTER to the AUTHOR.


  By a LOVER of VIRTUE.


  _LONDON:_

  Printed for J. DOWSE, opposite _Fountain Court_
  in the _Strand_. MDCCLIV.

  [Price One Shilling.]




[Decoration]

Critical Remarks, _&c._


SIR,

I hope you will take nothing amiss that may be said in the
following remarks on your compositions; I firmly believe
that your motive in writing them was a laudable intention to
promote and revive the declining causes of religion and
virtue. And when I have said so much, I have surely a right
from you to the same favourable interpretation of my design,
in publishing these Considerations on them, and endeavouring
to shew how far you have fallen short of your commendable
purpose.

That your writings have in a great measure corrupted our
language and taste, is a truth that cannot be denied. The
consequences abundantly shew it. By the extraordinary
success you have met with, if you are not to be reckoned a
classical author, there is certainly a very bad taste
prevailing at present. Our language, though capable of great
improvements, has, I imagine, been for some time on the
decline, and your works have a manifest tendency to hasten
that on, and corrupt it still farther. Generally speaking,
an odd affected expression is observable through the whole,
particularly in the epistles of Bob Lovelace. His many
new-coin’d words and phrases, Grandison’s _meditatingly_,
Uncle Selby’s _scrupulosities_; and a vast variety of
others, all of the same Stamp, may possibly become Current
in common Conversation, be imitated by other writers, or by
the laborious industry of some future compiler, transferred
into a Dictionary, and sanctioned by your great Authority.
Your success has farther corrupted our taste, by giving
birth to an infinite series of other compositions all of the
same kind, and equally, if not more, trifling than your’s. A
catalogue of them would look like a Bible genealogy, and
were I to undertake the task of giving it, I should be
obliged to invoke the muse, as Homer does before he begins
the catalogue of the ships in his second Iliad. How long the
currency of such compositions may continue, how many may be
annually poured forth from the press, is more than any man
can say, without being endued with the spirit of prophesy.
But, without making any such pretensions, I can foretel,
that if ever a good taste universally prevails, your
romances, as well as all others, will be as universally
neglected, and that in any event their fate will not be much
better; for what recommends them to the notice of the
present age is, their novelty, and their gratifying an idle
and insatiable curiosity. In a few years that novelty will
wear off, and that Curiosity will be equally gratified by
other Compositions, it may be, as trifling, but who will
then have the additional charm of novelty, to recommend
them. Such, Sir, must be the fate of all works which owe
their success to a present capricious humor, and have not
real intrinsic worth to support them.

Short-lived then as they are, and must be, in their own
nature, it might be thought cruel to hasten them to the
grave, could that be effected by any thing I have in my
power to say, if they did not prevent the success, and
stifle in the birth, works which have a just title to life,
fame and immortality. Human genius is pretty much the same
in all ages and nations, but its exertion, and its
displaying itself to advantage, depend on times, accidents,
and circumstances. There are, no doubt, writers in the
present age, who, did they meet with proper encouragement,
might be capable of producing what would last to posterity,
and be read and admired by them. We have some good poets,
such as the authors of Elfrida, the Church-yard Elegy, and
the Poem on Agriculture; a performance which would have been
highly valued in an Augustan age, and is the best, perhaps
the only Georgic in our language. By the great manner in
which the author has executed the first part of his noble
plan, he has shewn himself sufficiently able for the rest;
but by his not prosecuting it, I imagine he has not met with
the deserved success. This may possibly be imputed to its
coming abroad at an improper time. I remember it was first
advertised just when the Memoirs of Sir Charles Grandison
were appearing by piece-meal. This was a very injudicious
step, for who could be supposed to attend to any thing else,
when the lovely Harriet Byron continued in suspence, when
the fate of Lady Clementina was undetermined, when it was
not yet settled, whether she was to marry Grandison, retire
to a Nunnery, or continue crack-brain’d all her lifetime.
After all, I am well-pleased to see Grandison and Harriet
fairly buckled. And I hope soon to hear, that the ceremony
is performed between the Count de Belvedere and Lady
Clementina. I am afraid there could have been no compleat
happiness in the matrimonial union of the English Gentleman
and the Italian Lady. The marriage state may be aptly enough
compared to two fiddles playing in concert: if the one can
sound no higher than Tweedle-dum, and the other no lower
than Tweedle-dee, there never can be any thing but a
perpetual jarring discord and dissonance betwixt them. In
the same manner the difference in religious sentiments would
have been a great allay in the felicity of that illustrious
couple.

I now proceed, Sir, to the principal business of this
address, which is, to enquire how far your writings have
contributed to promote the causes of religion and virtue,
for which, as you say, and I believe, they were chiefly
intended.

It is, no doubt, the indispensable duty of every writer to
promote, as far as lies in his power, in the society, of
which he is a member, the advancement of virtue, especially
the moral and social duties of mutual good-will and
universal benevolence. And as far as the established
religious system of a country has the same tendency, so far
is every man, who writes a popular treatise, let his private
sentiments, with respect to the pretensions it makes to
truth and a divine original, be what they will, obliged to
recommend it to the belief of the people. It is equally his
duty, if not more so, to inculcate on their minds a
reverence and regard for the established religious
corporation, and to avoid saying or doing any thing which
may subject them to ridicule and contempt. It must be owned,
that your conduct in these articles, especially the last,
cannot be sufficiently commended. Your works are designed
for the perusal of people in all ranks, they have had an
universal run, and in them you have not only shewn yourself
a pious Christian, and a good _Bible-scholar_, but you have
made all your heroines the same, and have besides introduced
the Characters of several pious and worthy clergymen, and
represented them acting in very advantageous lights. For
these things, as I observed just now, you cannot be more
than enough applauded; and no doubt your writings have in so
far produced a good effect; but I am afraid you have not
acted consistently throughout, for you have not only brought
in your hero Lovelace, but Mr. Moden, the only virtuous male
character in your Clarissa, expressing contempt for the
clergy. Now, in my opinion, a virtuous man, and we have had
several instances of that kind among the ancients, may very
consistently despise the public religion, but he will never
allow himself to bring the order belonging to it under
contempt. In fact, it is the clergy alone who render a
public religion useful and valuable, let its divine original
be a truth never so evident, it could have no influence upon
the people, unless they should be catechized and instructed
in it by the clergy; and though we should suppose it
downright nonsense, yet that order of men must always be
reckoned a venerable and necessary institution, in as far as
they are teachers of moral duties to the people, and
recommend to them the practice of virtue, either by precept
or example.

Another thing in which I humbly conceive you have been in
the wrong, is this: you constantly express a great virulence
against those whom you call sentimental unbelievers, and
take all opportunities to render them the objects of public
odium and detestation. You cannot but be sensible, that such
a conduct is contrary to the first and great duties of
social virtue. Ought you to quarrel with any man because he
is taller or shorter, fairer or blacker than yourself? And
yet we can no more help our differing in speculative
opinions than in stature or complexion. If you happen to
feel the knowledge and perception of divine things
supernaturally implanted on your mind, rejoice and be happy,
but let not your Wrath arise against those who are not blest
with the same sensations. Would you be angry with any man
because his eye-sight cannot distinguish objects at such a
great distance as yours? Why then quarrel with another for a
deficiency of the same kind in spiritual optics? No doubt
you will assert, that the truth of the present religious
system may be proved by a long connected chain of
demonstrative arguments. But if I might be allowed, without
offence, to give my opinion in this matter, as far as you
are concerned, I should say, that such an assertion is in
you unbecoming, as well as the conduct you observe in
consequence unjust and imprudent. The assertion is in you
unbecoming, because, whatever you may think, the question,
whether there was ever a divine revelation given, or a
miracle wrought, or whether, supposing such things done,
they can be proved to the conviction of a rational
unprejudiced man, by moral evidence, and human testimony,
requires more learning and judgment than you are possessed
of, to determine with any precision. It requires, indeed,
the greatest and most universal skill and knowledge in
nature and her philosophy, which has not come to your share,
as appears from your writings, where, as may easily be
perceived, you retail all that little you have pickt up. The
more knowledge a man has, he will always be the less
assuming; and a positive stiffness, especially in
commonly-received opinions, is a certain sign and constant
attendant of ignorance. Socrates, the wisest man among the
wisest people, after all his researches declared, that all
that he knew was, that he knew nothing. Cicero, the greatest
master of reason that ever lived, was a professed academic
or sceptist. And a learned and virtuous modern, whom I
forbear to name, in a letter to an intimate friend,
confessed, that the more he thought, he found the more
reason to doubt, and had always been more successful in
discovering what was false, than what was true. Those
illustrious three, learned, virtuous, and lovers of their
country, to whom it would be difficult, perhaps impossible,
to add a fourth, were all sentimental unbelievers, and all
at the same time inculcated a reverence and regard to the
established religions of their respective countries. Nay,
all sentimental unbelievers, had they not been provoked by
the ill-judged bigotry of their adversaries, would have
adhered unanimously to the same maxims. If their unbelief
proceeds from a consciousness of the weakness and limited
state of the human understanding, the constant result of
true learning and philosophy, they will be the more firmly
convinced of the great utility and absolute necessity of a
public form of worship, and a religious corporation, and
uniformly square their conduct accordingly. It was therefore
unjust, as well as imprudent, in you, Sir, who are a popular
writer, and whose works are read by every body, to endeavour
to render sceptical free-thinkers, from their own principles
the fastest and sincerest friends to religion in general,
the objects of odium and detestation to the believers in
that particular religion, which happens to be at present
established by law. This, Sir, and I shall say no more,
I hope may be said, from general principles, without offence
to any party, without determining or declaring my own
sentiments, which are in the right, and which in the wrong,
with respect to the truth of their opinions.

I now proceed to the last thing proposed in these remarks,
to examine how far your compositions have a natural tendency
to advance virtue. They are all strictly dramatical, and
therefore, whether they have a good or a bad tendency, they
must exert themselves with a stronger influence on the minds
of those who are affected by them. In all works of this
kind, in order to make them truly valuable and useful, all,
at least one of these three things ought to be done. First,
by the constitution of the plot or the fable, some great and
useful moral ought to be enforced and recommended. In the
second place, the characters which are introduced ought to
be so contrived, that the readers should be induced to
imitate their virtues, or avoid their vices. Or, lastly,
some one great moral virtue ought to be inculcated, by
making it the characteristic of the Hero, or the chief
person in the dramatic work. In these, as in every other
species of poetry and composition, the divine Homer has
excelled all other writers, he reigns unrivalled in them
all, and will for ever be without a competitor; insomuch,
that one certain way of judging the merit or demerit of all
other authors, is, to enquire how near they have approached,
or how far they have fallen short of this standard of
perfection in writing. I shall now examine how far you, in
your several performances, have succeeded, with respect to
these articles, in the same order wherein they are set down.
I have perused your late work, Grandison, carefully, and I
hope impartially, with this view, and for my Heart I cannot
so much as perceive the least shadow of either plot, fable,
or action. If there are any, they certainly lie far out of
the reach of my gross observation. Obvious they are not,
which they ought to be to the most common reader. It may,
indeed, be said, that no certain judgment can be formed of
it, in that respect, till the whole is compleated. But it is
no difficult matter to make probable conjectures about the
contents of the volume still in embrio. We shall probably be
entertained with a description of the nuptials between Lady
Clementina and the Count de Belvedere; that happy couple,
with Signor Jeronymo, and the rest of the Porretta family,
will certainly pay a visit to Grandison and his admired
Harriet; Beauchamp will be married to _that rogue_ Emily, in
whom he already _meditates his future wife_; _the good
doctor_ Bartlet may possibly pick up the dowager Lady
Beauchamp; but if the dowager Lady should chuse a younger
bedfellow, a match may be made up between him and _old aunt_
Nell; or if _old aunt_ Nell should continue obstinately
determined against matrimony, the _good doctor_ and
_grandmama_ Shirley may go to church together. And now, Sir,
though all these desirable events should be happily
accomplished, I should still be of the same opinion; nor can
I see any moral that could be drawn from them, unless it be
this, that men and women, old and young, after a certain
ceremony is performed, may go to bed together, without shame
or scandal, or any fear of being called to account for so
doing by the churchwardens. The plot and fable of your
Pamela may indeed be easily enough discovered. They consist
in Mr. B.’s attempts to debauch his beautiful waiting-maid;
in her resistance, and their happy nuptials. If we look for
a moral, we shall find the only one that can be extracted
out of it to be very ridiculous, useless, and impertinent;
it appears to be this, that when a young gentleman of
fortune cannot obtain his ends of a handsome servant girl,
he ought to marry her; and that the said girl ought to
resist him, in expectation of that event. Thus it is
manifest, that these two compositions are equally below
criticism, in this article, and, to do you justice, it must
be confessed, that your Clarissa is as much above it. When
considered in this light, it seems to be entirely Homerical.
That divine poet, in his Iliad, has inculcated by one fable,
and in the continuation of one action, two great and noble
morals. The first is, that discord among chiefs or allies
engaged in a confederacy, ruins their common designs, and
renders them unsuccessful; and the second, that concord and
agreement secure them prosperity in all their undertakings.
In the same manner, in the first part of Clarissa, we find
the bad consequences of the cruel treatment of parents
towards their children, and forcing their inclinations in
marriage; and in the second part, we see a fine example of
the pernicious effects of a young lady’s reposing confidence
or engaging in correspondence with a man of profligate and
debauched principles. I do not at present recollect any
composition which, view’d in this light, can be compared
with the Iliad and Clarissa. The morals of the first are of
the utmost importance in public life, and those of the last
in private life. If the little states and republicks of
Greece, for whom Homer’s poems were originally calculated,
had adhered uniformly to their maxims, they would have been
invincible, and must have subsisted to this day in all their
glory and splendor. In the same manner, if the morals
contained, and so admirably enforced by example, in your
Clarissa, had their due weight, a vast variety of mischiefs
and miseries in private life would be prevented. There is
nothing in which parents are apter to stretch their
authority too far, than in the article of marriage; there is
nothing in which they pay less regard to the happiness of
their children; nothing in which they allow less to the
influence of passion and inclination in them; and nothing in
which they are more sway’d by the dirty grovling passions of
vanity, pride, and avarice, themselves. On the other hand,
there is nothing in which young ladies, even of the greatest
modesty and discretion, more readily fall into errors. It is
pretty certain, that where they are allowed freely to follow
their own biass, they generally prefer either real or
reputed rakes, to men of a regular life and more sober
deportment. I have often been puzzled in endeavouring to
account for this conduct in the female world, so entirely
contrary to what all of them think their real and most
valuable interests. I have sometimes been tempted to impute
it to the truth of this satyrical maxim in the poet,

  That _every woman is at heart a rake_,

and that, custom and education having deterred them from the
practice, they cannot help loving the theory in themselves,
and preferring the practice in others. But I rather incline
to attribute it to a cruel and unjust policy in the other
sex, who have deceived and bubbled them in this, as well as
several other articles, and have persuaded them of the truth
of this notable maxim, that rakes make the best husbands,
than which, as experience abundantly testifies, nothing can
be more false. A rake, indeed, may be a good husband while
the honey-moon lasts, for so long, perhaps, may novelty have
a charm; but when that is ended, the lust of variety, the
distinguishing characteristic of a rake, haunts him
incessantly, like a ghost, and soon extinguishes all his
principles of love, justice, and generosity. It is true,
indeed, the proverb goes, that a reformed rake makes the
best husband. It may be so, but then it is a truth of equal
importance with this, that a pick-pocket going to the
gallows is an honest man. His hands are tied behind him, and
he has it not in his power to be otherwise; in the same
manner a reformed rake is honest, because he has lost the
ability to be otherwise, and he naturally fondles and doats
upon his wife, that she may overlook deficiencies in more
essential articles. He acts entirely from the same
principles with those profuse and liberal old keepers, who
are said to pay for what they cannot do.

Should we now examine how you have succeeded in contriving
your characters, so as to be fit objects of imitation, if
virtuous, and if vicious, so as to be proper examples for
deterring others from the like practices, we shall find the
principal ones extremely faulty, generally quite destitute
of poetical probability, and in a word, far short of the
Homeric standard. Homer’s characters are for the most part
drawn beyond the life; but the art with which he has reduced
them to truth, and probability, is surprising. He has
prodigiously exaggerated the bodily strength of Ajax, but
then he has rendered all probable, by representing him of
dull and heavy intellects. For it is a fact, that, with
bulky unwieldy force, we generally connect the idea of a
slow understanding. How consistently prudent is Ulysses,
thro’ the whole of his character; we never see him err thro’
rashness, but rather commit faults, thro’ an over caution.
How wonderfully are we reconciled to the great garrulity of
the venerable Nestor, which would be inexcusable, did we not
reflect, at the same time, on his extreme old age, of which
the poet never fails to remind us? How readily do we excuse
the ferocity of Achilles, when we reflect that the generous
youth prefers a short life, with fame and reputation, to a
length of days, with peace and happiness? How artfully are
we prevented from being shocked at his cruelty, in
slaughtering without distinction, or remorse, all who come
in his way? When we are told that he himself is acting under
the certainty of meeting his death before the Trojan Wall?
In short, Homer is possessed of this peculiar secret, to
contrive and add such circumstances that render all his
characters probable, and to blend vices and virtues of a
similar quality so together, as to render them all uniformly
consistent. And now tho’ I confess, with pleasure, that
you are far from being destitute of merit, in some of
the characters you draw, yet you seem to be intirely
unacquainted with this secret. In order to illustrate my
assertion, I shall run thro’ your principal characters in a
cursory and desultory manner.

In Grandison, you have endeavoured to give an example of
universal goodness and benevolence. But I am afraid you have
strained and stretched that character too far; you have
furnished him with too great a variety of accomplishments,
some of them destructive, at least not so consistent with
the principal and most shining virtue. _The man is every
thing_, as Lucy or Harriet says; which no man ever was, or
will be. Homer in the Odyssey, and in the character of
Euemæus, has given an example of universal benevolence; but
then he represents him an entire rustic, living constantly
in the country, shunning all public concourse of men, the
court especially, and never going thither, but when obliged
to supply the riotous luxury and extravagance of the
suitors. Mr. Fielding has imitated these circumstances, as
far as was consistent with our manners, in the character of
Allworthy, and has with admirable judgment denied him an
university education, made him a great lover of retirement,
seldom absent from his country seat, never at the metropolis
but when called by business, and constantly leaving it, when
that was over. The ingenious authoress of David Simple,
perhaps the best moral romance that we have, in which there
is not one loose expression, one impure, one unchaste idea;
from the perusal of which, no man can rise unimproved, has
represented, her hero, a character likewise of universal
benevolence, agreeably to the part he was to act; of tender
years, quite unimproved by education, unexperienced, and
ignorant of the ways of the world. Should we now consider
the matter a little deeply, we shall find a reason in nature
for the practice of these just painters of men and manners.
A human creature, in a simple unimproved state, is naturally
generous and benevolent; but when he comes abroad into the
world, and observes the universal depravity of morals, and
the narrow selfishness that every where prevail, according
to his particular temper or circumstances, he is either
contaminated by the example, or contracts a misanthropical
disposition, and hates or despises the greatest part of his
species. There may be, and no doubt there are, men who have
seen the world, who have been conversant, even in courts,
during their whole lives, who yet have retained and
exercised humane and benevolent dispositions; but such
characters are very rare, and, for the reasons above
specified, never can be poetically probable. Such, Sir, is
your Grandison; he seems never to have enjoyed retirement,
to have been abroad almost all his life-time, to have seen
all the courts in Europe, and been conversant, with the
great, rich, and powerful, in all nations. You represent him
likewise to be a man universally learned, and tell us, at
the same time, in capital letters, that SIR CH. GRAN. is a
CHRISTIAN; and that too, in the strictest and most bigotted
sense of the word; for he refuses the woman he loves, for a
difference in religious principles. This, in my humble
opinion, is likewise an inconsistency, for universal
learning naturally leads to scepticism, and the most useful,
as well as solid branch of human knowledge, consists in
knowing how little can be known. There are several other
inconsistencies in his character, particularly in some of
his duelling stories; besides, at any rate, his benevolence
has something showy and ostentatious in it; nothing in short
of that graceful and beautiful nature which appears in
Fielding’s Allworthy.

The character of Lovelace is yet more inconsistent, still
more deficient in poetical probability, and indeed intirely
contradictory to Homer and nature. In all Homer’s works,
there are not two characters between whom there is a greater
contrast and opposition, than between those of Achilles and
Ulysses. They enjoy no quality in common, but that of
valour; and the valour of the one is as different from that
of the other, as can well be imagin’d; for they all along
partake of their general characters, and are consistent with
them. But you, Sir, who, in the mouth of Harriet Byron and
that _dear flighty creature_ Lady G. sometimes take upon you
to criticize that great master of nature, shew that you have
either never studied him, or profited very little by him;
for in this one character of Lovelace, you have united these
two dissimilar and discordant characters of Achilles and
Ulysses; you have given him all the fierceness, cruelty, and
contempt of laws, impetuosity, rashness, in short, all the
furious ungovernable passions of the one, and have at the
same time provided him with all the cunning, craft,
dissimulation, and command over his passions, which so much
distinguish the other. How to reconcile to probability, or
even to possibility, the existence of such opposite and
contradictory qualities in one human bosom, is a task which
I leave to you.

The fine, or rather the _naughty gentleman_, in your Pamela,
to whom Mr. Fielding very properly gives the sirname of
Booby, is indeed one of the greatest bubbles, and blunderers
that one can meet withal. You have informed us, that he had
been a great rake, and had debauched several women; ’tis
well you have done so, but he certainly had made little
proficiency in that laudable science, for, from his whole
behaviour towards his Pamela, one should be apt to think him
the meerest novice in the world. He opens trenches before
her properly enough, by giving her silk stockings and fine
cloaths to feed her pride and vanity; but when he comes to
make a more direct attack in the summer-house, how
sheepishly does he act, and what blunders does he not
commit? He attempts to kiss her, the girl, as is natural,
struggles, and grows angry; he lets her go, and bribes her,
with five guineas, to keep the secret. This was knocking his
project in the head at once; and had he been guilty of no
other blunders, as he was of innumerable, was sufficient to
ruin his cause with her for ever. He was not to expect, that
a girl, piously educated, would surrender at the very first,
especially to a summons given in so blunt and indelicate a
manner; on the contrary, he ought to have laid his account
with meeting a good deal of anger and resistance; to have
born all, with patience, and laughed off his attempt for an
innocent frolic; and if she threatened to inform Mrs.
Jervis, to have bidden her do so, and told her, that he
would kiss Mrs. Jervis and her both. In which case she never
would have opened her lips about the matter; in every
succeeding attempt, he would have met with less and less
resistance, till at last he might have accomplished his
desires, before Miss Pamela had certainly known what he
would be at. But by his offering to bribe her to silence, he
betrayed all his designs, and informed her she had a secret
to keep, which unless she had been constitutionally vicious,
it was imposible for her not to disclose. Mr. Booby shews
likewise the utmost ignorance of human nature, in thinking
to gain his ends with a young and innocent girl by the force
of money. All young girls are taught to put a value on their
virginity, and unless debauched by their own sex, they never
will part with it, but to those they like. None but
well-disciplin’d ladies of the town are to be gained upon by
meer money; and Mr. Booby, by the whole of his conduct,
appears to be nothing but a downright Covent-garden rake. He
was resolved to have Pamela, and marriage was indeed the
only way left for him. This your first performance concludes
with that happy event, and having sold well, I imagine you
was induced to continue the story. But had I undertaken that
task, without violating the probability or the consistency
of the characters, I should have introduced Parson Williams
very fairly making a cuckold of Booby, and providing him
with an heir to his estate, which is the way all such
Boobies ought to be treated, and a proper catastrophe for
all such preposterous matches.

Your three Heroines are, Pamela, Harriet, and Clarissa,
ladies all renowned for chastity and _Bible-scholarship_.
The chastity of the first was from beginning to end never
well attackt, and the defence she made is so far from being
extraordinary, that had she surrendered at discretion, it
ought to have been reckoned miraculous. There is nothing
very characteristic about Harriet, yet is she a good sort of
a girl enough, especially as times go. _The men are sunk,
and the women barely swim_, saith the lively Charlotte
Grandison. But the character of Clarissa is, indeed,
admirable throughout the whole. Nature and propriety are not
only strictly observed, but we see the greatest nobleness of
soul, generosity of sentiments, filial affection, delicacy,
modesty, and every female virtue, finely maintained and
consistently conspicuous all along. The circumstances which
induced her noble and generous spirit to contract a liking
for Lovelace, are finely imagin’d; her delicacy and reserve,
her disgust at his teazing ways, after she was in his power,
are naturally to be expected from a woman of her superior
accomplishments. There is something excessively pathetic, and
even sublime, in her first address to him, after she was
betrayed; her constant refusal of his proffer’d hand, her
resignation to her fate, and her behaviour to her
hard-hearted relations, are all equally noble, and all
natural in a Clarissa. Her character, in short, is such,
that unless one should be hunting for faults, scarce any can
be found; and perhaps it is owing to such a disposition in
me, that I cannot help observing she is rather too good, at
least too methodically so: The division of her time, and her
diary had been better omitted; all such things detract from
the nature and simplicity of a character. The characters of
her family are finely marked and distinguished, and well
adapted for bringing on the catastrophe. There is something
likewise extremely noble and generous in the friendship
between Clarissa and Miss Howe. But I must here observe,
that in this, your capital performance, you seem in a good
measure to have exhausted your invention with respect to
characters. For instance, that _dear flighty creature_ Lady
G. is nothing else but a second edition of _Madam Howe’s
lively daughter_. They are both wits, and have both high
notions of female prerogative, and the pre-eminence of their
own sex over the other; they had both like to have run away
with too worthless fellows, and both afterwards treated two
honest well-meaning men, during the time of their courtship,
like dogs; and both, I imagine, for all these reasons, will
be great favourites with the female part of your readers.
Pollexfen and his crew very much resemble Lovelace and his
Beelzebubs; and Grandmamma Shirley is nothing else but a
_second mamma_ Horton; as Lord Goosecap is another Hickman.

It would take up too much time to animadvert upon all the
rest of your male and female characters. I shall only
observe in general, that you seem to have succeeded better
in your subordinate ones, than in the principal; the divine
Clarissa, as you justly call her, always excepted. Though
some are faulty, yet many appear to be well marked and
distinguished.

The third and last thing that is to be done in an epic or
dramatic composition is, to inculcate some one great moral
virtue, by making it the characteristic of the hero or the
chief person. Thus Homer, in his Odyssey, proposes Ulysses
as an example of prudence he professes to sing,

  Τον ανδρα πολυτροπον.

  _The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d._

And Virgil, in the person of Æneas, gives an example of
piety to the Gods, he sings the pious Æneas. In the same
manner, in the memoirs of Sir Cha. Grandison you propose an
example of benevolence, and in Pamela of chastity; you
celebrate the benevolent Grandison and the chaste Pamela.
I have already, in the two foregoing articles, given my
opinion sufficiently of the first, and shall here say
somewhat more of the latter, and enquire a little into the
nature of chastity.

The influence of custom, habit, and education, over human
minds is prodigious and inconceivable. It is so great and
extensive, that perhaps it is utterly impossible to
determine what principles or conceptions we receive from
nature, and what from the other sources. All women of honour
and condition among civilized nations imagine, that what are
called virgin delicacy and reserve, female chastity and
modesty, are not only fit and proper, but natural and
inherent in their sex. Fit and proper they certainly are, as
the universal consent of all ages and nations shews; and
besides, that fitness and propriety is founded on the nature
of things, but natural and inherent they are not, as is
equally manifest from experience. In ancient Greece, where
the women were remarkable both for continence before
marriage, and fidelity after it, customs prevailed
diametrically opposite to all our most established notions
of modesty and delicacy. It was customary among them, for
the women to perform the offices of rubbers, sweaters, and
cuppers to the men, when bathing; nor was this the
employment of the servants, or female slaves, but of young
ladies of the highest rank and quality. Thus, in the third
Odyssey, when Telemachus is entertained at Nestor’s palace,
his youngest daughter,

  _Sweet Polycaste, takes the pleasing toil,_
  _To bathe the prince, and pour the fragrant oil._

How would Clarissa’s delicacy have been shock’d and
disgusted, had brother James laid his commands upon her to
rub down Mr. Solmes! nor would that office have been in the
least less disagreeable, had she been to perform it on the
handsome person of Bob Lovelace; she would have sooner died,
than have done it to either. Again, in the sixth Odyssey,
when Ulysses, awakened by the noise which Nausicaa and her
nymphs make at their sports, comes quite naked out of her
hiding place; the nymphs, indeed, run away, not at the sight
of a naked man, but for fear of an enemy, while the princess
stays, and, without betraying the least disgust or
uneasiness at his appearance, holds a long conversation with
him, calls back her fugitive companions, and reprimands them
very sharply for their timorousness. Had such an adventure,
Sir, happened to your Harriet, how do you think she would
have behaved? she who was not able, without the utmost
palpitation, nor unless her trembling hand had been guided,
to sign the marriage articles with her beloved Grandison.
Instead of giving assistance to the naked hero, she would
have wanted help herself; the _dear creature_ would have
fainted away. Among the northern nations in America, who
lead a simple life, and where conjugal fidelity is very
strictly observed, it is customary for parents to provide
their guests with companions for the night in the persons of
their daughters. They reckon it a necessary branch of
hospitable duty, and the young ladies think themselves
affronted, if their embraces are rejected. Had Pamela and
Clarissa been bred up near the great lake of Hurons, they
would have gone to bed to Booby and Lovelace, without any
scruple, had they come to their father’s houses, in the
character of English envoys; and had an Iroquois damsel
received her education in Northamptonshire, under the wings
of grandmamma Shirley, and kept company constantly with Lucy
and Nancy Selby, she would have been as delicate as Harriet
herself. From whence does this mighty difference proceed,
among creatures of the same species, all endued with the
same passions, appetites, and desires? Undoubtedly from
custom, habit, and education; and the reason that women of
candid and open dispositions, who can freely examine into
themselves, are never sensible of it, and cannot make the
discovery, is this; they feel these principles immoveably
rooted in their minds, and they had received them so early,
that they never remember the time when they had them not.
This chastity, this delicacy, _&c._ may probably enough be
termed political; some people have reckoned it the meer
invention of the statesman or politician; but, as I observed
before, its fitness and propriety are founded on the nature
of things and of human society. In all societies there are
families, inheritances, and distinctions of ranks and
orders. To keep these separate and distinct, to prevent them
from falling into confusion, on all which the good oeconomy
and internal happiness of the state much depend, the
chastity and continence of women are absolutely and
indispensably necessary. Therefore it has been universally
agreed, to educate the sex in the principles leading to that
continence, and to make their honour and reputation consist
in adhering to them. In women of condition, in short in all
above a certain rank, the inconveniencies of deviating from
these principles are always very observable, and sensibly
felt; particular families are hurt, orders are confused,
inheritances are uncertain, the example is bad, and the
scandal great. Therefore in all such we perceive this
political chastity strongly to prevail; but in the rank
below them we find it, for obvious reasons, exerting no
great influence. However it has so far exerted its
influence, that it has universally become customary for the
woman to deny, and of course it must be the prerogative of
the man to ask. This has rendered a greater indulgence
necessary, and introduced a greater latitude in the practice
of the male sex, with respect to amours. But I am afraid
they have stretched this indulgence too far, indeed far
beyond what the oeconomy of nature requires, and much
farther than is confident with public utility. I may
likewise add, that the fair sex have been too remiss, that
they have suffered themselves to be outwitted, and allowed
the other sex to carry this inequality in their manners to
too great a length. Nothing certainly appears more
inconsistent, than that the same action which brings the
greatest disgrace and ruin, the utmost shame and infamy on
the woman, should not at all affect the man, though the most
guilty, as he is always the temptor and seducer. Nay, it is
unjust to the highest degree; for compliance and weakness
are the worst that can be laid to the charge of the one,
whereas the other can seldom be excused from premeditated
villainy. Many undergo capital punishments daily for crimes
much less attrocious in their own nature, and much less
destructive to the interests of Society. For what can be in
itself more infamous, than to rob a creature of its most
valuable possession, and then abandon it to a life of vice
and a death of misery? If there be in nature a tender and
delicate passion, love is certainly such. Yet how different
and inconsistent is the conduct of the sexes in this
article. A man who loves a woman with an honourable
intention, rejects her with abhorrence, if he has a
suspicion that she has been blown upon by another,
especially a person of a subordinate rank. A woman again,
who is addressed by the man she loves, makes no objection,
and feels little uneasiness, even at the certainty of his
prostituting his person to all the women of the town. Nay,
if he has the reputation of having ruined two or three of
rank and character, so far from hurting, that generally
recommends him to her favour. These are facts incontestable,
they can be accounted for by no principle in nature, they
are quite contrary to all the maxims of delicacy, but prove
at the same time the prodigious force of habit and custom.
This is a thing undoubtedly wrong, and perhaps the women are
rather more to blame than the men. In all general affairs,
indeed, in all matters of consequence, the male sex must
ever lead, and the other follow; but surely they have
something in their power, were they to exert themselves.
They ought never, by a silent approbation, to encourage
looseness and profligacy among the men, and thus be
accessary to the prostitution of numbers in the lower rank
of their own sex; and if they have it not in their power to
reform their gallants altogether, they can at least make
them throw the mask of decency over their vices.

There is another species of chastity, which may properly
enough be stiled religious, and is equally obligatory on all
ranks; but is only found among those nations where the
Christian system is established. The founder of our religion
was himself a bright and a shining pattern of this virtue,
and he and his immediate disciples recommended and enforced
it strongly, both by precept and example. It was this,
chiefly, that, in the first ages of the church, filled the
mountains and desarts with hermits of all sexes and ages; it
was this that gave rise to the religious orders of monks and
nuns, and the celibacy of the clergy, which still subsist in
Popish countries. But these consequences were pernicious to
the publick good, they discouraged marriage, and established
that ecclesiastical tyranny, under which all Europe groaned
before the reformation and the resurrection of letters. But
as these precepts and examples are now applied in protestant
countries, they are useful and proper; they are only applied
to recommend conjugal fidelity and continence before
marriage, and thus in some measure supply the deficiencies
of the political chastity, among women of the lower rank, to
whom that does not extend. And even though it were to be
granted, that Christianity is no divine institution, yet, on
account of this and several other excellent maxims it
contains and strongly enforces, in common with other
religions, its divine origin ought to be inculcated on the
minds of those people who can believe it. But though this
kind of chastity is more comprehensive, yet its influence,
as experience shews us, is infinitely weaker than that of
the other. I believe it may be said, with justice, that
there are fewer unchaste women, even in proportion to their
numbers, among those of rank and condition, than there are
chaste among these of an inferior order, though the lives of
the first are generally lazy and luxurious, and much the
greatest part of their reading lies among modern plays,
novels and romances, which, instead of curbing and
restraining, have a manifest tendency to heighten and
inflame their passions. All these circumstances shew the
superior efficacy of the political over the religious
chastity. From the nature of things it must be so, for the
punishments of a future state are objects too remote to have
any great weight in deterring people from yielding to the
importunate sollicitations of a present powerful passion.
When once a woman has got the length to undervalue the
immediate shame, ruin and disgrace she has to dread from
being detected in an amour, religious motives never can
restrain her from indulging her inclinations. Far be it from
me, by any thing here said, to derogate in the least from
the utility of this great and fundamental article in all
religions, the commonly received doctrine of rewards and
punishments in a future state. On the contrary, I am
sensible of its utility in the highest degree, and that too
in cases where it is most necessary, by inciting men to
virtues to which no temporal rewards are annexed, and
deterring them from crimes and vices, where they have no
temporal punishments to dread, or where, from the secrecy of
the commission, they have hopes to escape the punishments
provided for them by the laws. In all cases of the last
kind, thought and deliberation are required, to contrive and
put them in execution; the mind is then cool, at least not
transported out of itself by hurrying passion, and has time
and leisure to weigh and reflect on every circumstance;
religious motives, no doubt, then exert their influence,
awaken fears and terrors, and keep many faithful and honest,
who would otherwise yield to the temptations of revenge,
ambition, and interest. For these reasons, this doctrine can
never be too sedulously inculcated on the minds of the
people by their public teachers, nor represented to their
imaginations in too lively or too affecting colours.

It is very possible, Sir, that a great deal of this
philosophy may lie too deep for your conception; it is
possible, that not understanding, or not being able to
answer it, you may incline to fix an odium on it, and
alledge, that it has an affinity with that of Hobbes and
Mandevill. But granting it were so, which it is not, truth
ought only to be regarded, and names to have no weight in a
dispute of this kind. I wanted to say something on female
chastity and delicacy, about which you and your heroines
make such a rout and a pother, and I shall now apply it to
examine how far your Pamela is a proper example of either.
In the first place, she was not of that rank or situation in
life which could entitle her to those notions of honour and
virtue, which are extremely proper and becoming in Clarissa
or Harriet. In the next place, the principles which she
imbibed from her religious education under Booby’s lady
mother never could have been sufficient to preserve her
virtue, as it is called, had it been properly besieged. No
doubt their may have been servant girls who have withstood
the earnest sollicitations of great ’squires, their masters;
but then they have either disliked the persons, their
affections have been pre-ingaged, or, like Pamela, they have
had a Booby to deal with. In short, your whole atchievement,
in your first performance, amounts to no more than this; by
giving so circumstantial an account of Booby’s fruitless
operations, you have pointed out to young gentlemen, who may
have the same designs, the quite contrary method, by which
they may assuredly promise themselves better success.

Nor even do I think Bob Lovelace himself, who glories so
much in intrigue, a very formidable man among the ladies, if
we except his potions and his doses of opium, which an
apothecary’s ’prentice could have managed better than either
mother Sinclair or him. He possibly might have taken all the
freedoms he did with Clarissa, except the last shocking one,
and not offended her half so much, if he had ordered his
conduct otherwise. But you seem to have a notion, at least
you represent your heroes acting as if nothing could be done
with women, but by down-right bribery and corruption, and by
teazing and terrifying them out of their senses. You are
however mistaken; women are never mercenary in their amours,
until they are totally debauched, and prostitution has
become their trade, and many not even then, where they like
their man. The youngest and most artless of them all know,
that when money is offered beforehand they are treated like
prostitutes, a character which they naturally hate and
despise, they are sensible their man entertains the same
sentiments of them, and they as naturally hate and despise
him for doing so. Neither is the greatest success to be
expected from putting them in ill humour, and keeping their
tempers constantly on the fret; surely more is to be done
when their hearts are at ease, their fears asleep, and their
minds softened by sympathizing love and tenderness. At the
same time there is a due medium between an abject whiner,
and an obstinate insulting teazer, which characters women
know well how to distinguish; they despise the one, and they
hate the other: all your lovers are of these kinds; Hickman
and Lord Goosecap of the first; Lovelace and Booby, when he
put on his _stately airs_ after the summer-house adventure,
of the last. You have not been able to describe an
agreeable, artful, and accomplish’d seducer, who, without
raising fears and terrors, could melt, surprize, or reason a
woman out of her virtue. It is well you have not, for such a
character could do no good, and might do a great deal of
mischief. Nay, there is reason to fear, that the characters
you have already drawn, whatever your intentions may be,
have not quite so innocent a tendency as you imagine.

Having now enquired into the merit of your compositions,
with respect to the manner of their execution, I shall next
proceed to examine what tendency their subject, or the
matter contained in them, has to promote chastity, modesty,
and delicacy; virtues, the advancement of which I believe
you have sincerely at heart. You and I, perhaps, entertain
quite different notions about their nature and origin; but
while we are agreed as to their utility and fitness, and
that the conduct of both sexes ought to be more under the
influence of these principles than it generally is, we need
not trouble ourselves about such abstract speculations; so
that it is to be hoped we shall reason henceforth upon
common principles, and the natural and necessary connection
between causes and effects. Love, eternal Love, is the
subject, the burthen of all your writings; it is the
poignant sauce, which so richly seasons Pamela, Clarissa and
Grandison, and makes their flimzy nonsense pass so glibly
down. Love, eternal love, not only seasons all our other
numerous compositions of the same kind, but likewise
engrosses our theatres and all our dramatic performances,
which were originally calculated to give examples of nobler
passions. From this situation of affairs among our authors,
one would be apt to imagine, that the propagation of the
species was at a stand, and that, not to talk of marrying
and giving in marriage, there was hardly any such thing as
fornication going forward among us, and that therefore our
publick-spirited penmen, to prevent the world from coming to
an end, employ’d all their art and eloquence to keep people
in remembrance, that they were composed of different sexes.
But provident nature has rendered all their endeavours
unnecessary, nay, she has rather erred, if I may be allowed
the expression, in making that passion already too strong of
itself. She has rather implanted too many allurements, and
has affixed too great a variety of pleasures to the
intercourse between the sexes, and has likewise allow’d that
passion to display itself much sooner than is consistent
either with the good of society, or the happiness of
individuals. Therefore I must always maintain, that those
writings which heighten and inflame the passion, which paint
in lively colours the endearments between the sexes, are of
a bad and pernicious tendency, and do much more evil than
they can possibly do good, especially to the young and
amorous, whose appetites are by nature furious and
ungovernable. Your writings are all evidently of this kind,
and fall within this censure in the strongest manner; and
none of your brother romancers are, in my opinion, entirely
free from it, except the moral and ingenious authoress of
David Simple. Indeed, if they employed what power they may
have to raise the passions, and made use of the possession
they have got of the public ear, to inculcate patriotism,
the love of a country, and other public and private virtues,
which perhaps were never scarcer than at present, they would
in that case be as much to be commended, as they now ought
to be blamed.

Many, Sir, share equally in this guilt with you; however, it
is not the less for being divided; but if this were all, you
might pass undistinguished in the general censure. There is
one species of iniquity, for so I must call it, in which you
so much excel, in which you have acquired a pre-eminence so
conspicuous, that all other writers, when you appear, must
hide their diminished heads, like stars before the sun: that
consists in drawing characters the most shockingly vicious,
and giving examples of villainy the most infamous, and by
that means instructing the ignorant and innocent in the
theory of crimes, which, without a thorough knowledge of the
town, they could never have suspected human nature to have
been capable of. Any one who remembers the correspondence
between Lovelace and Belford, and what passes in that
infernal brothel, to which Clarissa was conducted, will at
once perceive what I have in view. Equally admirable and
just is this aphorism of our noble and inimitable poet.

  _Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,_
  _As to be hated needs but to be seen;_
  _But seen too oft, familiar with her face,_
  _We first endure, then pity, then embrace._

The truth of this is confirmed, both by experience and the
nature of things. The hearts of men are very corruptible,
especially where there is an incitement from a natural
passion; when they hear an unexampled piece of villainy,
they are at first shocked, but if they dwell much upon it,
they are at last familiarized to it, they are ingenious
at inventing excuses for that to which they find an
inclination, and at last feel less remorse at the actual
commission, than they had conceived horror at the bare
recital. But Mr. Pope is a Poet, and as you entertain no
great affection for the tuneful tribe, perhaps his authority
may have little weight; you are, however, a staunch
believer, and an excellent _Bible-scholar_; I shall
therefore try the efficacy of a scriptural inference.
_Moses_, in his celebrated apologue of the fall, has
introduced a fanciful imaginary scene, which he calls
paradise; he has placed there a human couple, under the name
of _Adam_ and _Eve_; he supposes them created in a state of
innocence and happiness, and prohibited to eat of one tree
in the garden, which he calls the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, under the penalty of being subjected to death
and misery; but that, being tempted by the serpent, they eat
of this tree, and are driven out of Paradise. Many and
various allegorical interpretations have been given of this
fable, but the following, which has been adopted by some of
the most eminent of the primitive fathers, and our modern
divines, pleases me best, and seems most agreeable to the
intention of the author. It is said, that by Adam we are to
understand the mind or reason of man; by Eve, the flesh or
outward senses; and by the serpent, lust or pleasure. This
allegory, we are told, clearly explains the true causes of
man’s fall and degeneracy, when his mind, through the
weakness and treachery of his senses, became captivated and
seduced by the allurements of lust and pleasure, he was
driven by God out of Paradise; that is, lost and forfeited
the happiness and prosperity which he had enjoyed in his
innocence. This interpretation is certainly very ingenious,
and conveys a noble and a beautiful moral; but I am of
opinion, that, without straining it in the least, it may be
carried a good deal farther, and that Moses, by prohibiting
his imaginary pair to taste of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, intended to warn men against, and shew them
the dangerous consequences of, an idle curiosity and
researches into vain and useless Things, and to make them
sensible, that all they could acquire thereby would be pain
and misery, the necessary consequences of the loss of virtue
and innocence, and a shameful sense of their own nakedness;
that is, the corruption and depravity of human nature. This
interpretation is not only deducible in a very obvious
manner from the fable itself, but is likewise agreeable to
experience. It is certain, that an ignorance of vice is,
with great numbers, the best, and sometimes the only
preservative against it, and that a simple and rural life is
the proper soil wherein every virtue flourishes. Neither is
such a state incompatible with the improvement of mankind in
natural and moral philosophy, or their advancement in all
the valuable arts and sciences.

The application of this doctrine to you is very obvious. Not
to mention many faulty scenes in your Grandison and Pamela,
several volumes of your Clarissa contain nothing else but a
minute and circumstantial detail of the most shocking vices
and villainous contrivances, transacted in the most infamous
of places, and by the most infamous characters, and all to
satisfy the brutal and the sensual appetite. Thus you act
the part of the serpent, and not only throw out to men the
tempting suggestions of lust and pleasure, but likewise
instruct the weak head and the corrupt heart in the methods
how to proceed to their gratification. That is, you tempt
them to swallow the forbidden fruit of the tree which they
were commanded not to eat; I mean the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. This is a heavy, and indeed the principal
charge against you; and I shall now condemn, or, if you
please, judge you out of your own mouth. Lady G. in the
letter she wrote to Harriet, just as she was setting out for
Northamptonshire, to witness her happy nuptials with
Grandison, has this remarkable passage.

_Let me whisper you Harriet--sure you proud maiden minxes
think--But I did once--I wonder in my heart oftentimes--But
men and women are cheats to one another. But we may in a
great measure thank the poetical tribe for the fascination.
I hate them all. Are they not inflamers of the worst
passions? With regard to Epics, would Alexander, madman as
he was, have been so much a madman had it not been for
Homer? Of what violences, murders, depredations, have not
the Epic Poets been the occasion, by propagating false
honour, false glory, and false religion? Those of the
amorous class ought in all ages (could their future geniuses
for tinkling sound and measure have been known) to have been
strangled in their cradles. Abusers of talents given them
for better purposes (for all this time I put sacred poesy
out of the question) and avowedly claiming a right to be
licentious, and to overleap the bounds of decency, truth and
nature._

_What a rant!_ (a rant indeed, Charlotte) _how came these
fellows into my rambling head? O I remember my whisper to
you led me into all this stuff._

_Well, and you at last recollect the trouble you have given
my brother about you. Good Girl! Had I remembered that,
I would have spared you my reflections on the poets and
poetasters of all ages, the truly inspired ones_ (who are
these, my dear) _excepted. And yet I think the others should
have been banished our commonwealth as well as Plato’s._ So
it seems we are to have a female republic, of which I
suppose these _Varletesses_ Harriet and Charlotte will be
_Consulesses_.

There is good reason to believe that her lively ladyship
speaks here your own sentiments, but what you can understand
by sacred poesy is, I confess, above my comprehension. Does
it consist in celestial ballads, holy madrigals, spiritual
garlands, or bellmen’s verses? for I hardly know any other
species of sacred poesy in our language, our religion being
the most unpoetical in the world; so that a sacred subject
can never appear with any grace, dignity, or beauty in a
poem. I have already declared my opinion very explicitely
about amorous writers, whether in prose or verse; but if the
sentence which the _dear flighty creature_ passes upon them
all, without distinction, could have been executed, what
must have become of her good friend Mr. Samuel Richardson.
He too is a poet, for though he does not write in verse, yet
he draws characters, and deals in fiction, and is besides
one of the most amorous poets in the world; he does not
indeed paint a Chloe or a Sachurissa in an ivy bower, or a
shady grove, there is something of delicacy in that; but he
represents all the preparations to the good work, and the
good work itself, going forward, in a downright honest
manner, among whores and rakes, in brothels and bagnios. He
not only raises the passions, but kindly points out the
readiest and the easiest way to lay them. That man must have
a very philosophical constitution, indeed, who does not find
himself moved by several descriptions, particularly that
luscious one, which Bob Lovelace gives of Clarissa’s person,
when he makes the attempt on her virtue, after the adventure
of the fire. Not that I think any genius is required for
such an atchievement; nature, with the least hint, is more
than sufficient for the purpose; few good writers have
attempted such things, and the very worst have succeeded.
However, the passions of the reader being now raised, his
next business is to satisfy them; and he cannot but reflect
that this virtuous scene passes in a brothel, where, though
Clarissa may be impregnable, unless a dose of opium be first
administered, there are such girls as Sally Martin and Polly
Horton; but they not being _every man’s girls_, as Bob
Lovelace tells us, and our adventurer, perhaps, not having
money, address, or patience, to come to the _ultimatum_ with
those first-rate ladies of pleasure, he very sagely
concludes, that one woman is as good as another, especially
as the same Bob Lovelace, so experienced in the ways of
women, informs him, that _that prime gift differs only in
its external customary visibles_, and that _the skull of
Philip is no better than another man’s_, he very contentedly
resolves to take up with Dorcas Wykes, or the first _ready
non-apparent_ he can meet with in _the outer house_.
Accordingly our amorous youth sallies forth, fully bent to
enjoy Clarissa in imagination; but before he has got half
way to mother Sinclair’s, he meets a pretty girl in the
streets, who invites him to a glass of wine, and the next
tavern stands open for their reception. This is the natural
catastrophe of a serious perusal of the fire-adventure; and
I believe it has ended this way much oftener than in any
good way. Thus if her flighty Ladyship would be impartial in
the execution of her sentence, we may easily conjecture what
would become of Samuel Richardson, at least of his works.

_Let me whisper you, Charlotte.--Ought not this writer of
the amorous class (could his future genius for loose and
lascivious description have been known) to have been
strangled in his cradle?--I see the charming archness rising
in your eyes, which makes one both love you and fear
you.--Yet you look meditatingly--Tell me, thou dear flighty
creature--Am I not right?--Very right, Sir.--Huzzah,
Sam.--well said--that’s a good girl--give me a buss for
that, Hussy--Heyday, SIRR--Who allows you these liberties,
SIRR!--I take them, Charlotte.--Do not think you have
wemmell’d me quite--so none of your scrupulosities with me
Varletess--but oh! what an eye-beam was there,--she has
soul-harrow’d me by her frowns,--yet her anger may slide off
on its own ice.--Then hey for lady Goosecap,--O Jack, the
charmingest bosom, ever mine eyes beheld._  *  *  *  *  *  *
  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

This is a small specimen of the manner and stile
_Richardsonian_, _that is my word_, so greatly and so
justly admired by the present age, with which, no less than
eighteen large volumes are stuffed from beginning to end.
But to return to our argument.

You have been already found fault with for the shocking
description Jack Belford gives of that levy of damsels who
attended mother Sinclair on her death-bed, such a scene must
certainly be shocking enough, yet could not be near so much
on the part of the ladies as is represented; but it must be
remembered, that Jackey had then _got into his Horribles_,
as Bob terms it, and, as Bays has it, he rounded it off
egad. I have one great objection to all such descriptions
which is implied in the verses above cited from Mr. Pope,
but there is another and a greater against this, that it is
contrary to truth. Few, or none of our English ladies of
pleasure exercise the mystery of painting, and bating the
odoriferous particles of gin, which sometimes exhale from
their breaths, there are many of them, without any
disparagement, as little slatternly in their persons, as
most other fine ladies in a morning; indeed, if such
descriptions had the same effect on the minds of youth, that
raw-head and bloody-bones have upon children, to frighten
them from the objects they ought to shun they might be of
some service, but when upon trial they find them better than
they have been taught to believe them, they are apt to
imagine them not so bad as they really are.

Let us now return to _the dear flighty creature_, and the
sentence which she passes upon the Poets. She has a fling at
Homer, whom the beauteous Harriet, in her dispute with the
university pedant, had before criticized upon in a masterly
manner, and like a good Englishwoman, from the authority of
her godfather Deane, concluded, that our Milton has excelled
him in the sublimity of his images, this, is a controversy
which I shall not enter into, with so lovely a disputant,
whose eyes, whatever her lips may be, are always in the
right. We are asked, _would Alexander, madman as he was,
have been so much a madman, had it not been for Homer, of
what violences, murders, depredations, have not the Epic
poets been the occasion, by propagating false honour, false
glory, and false Religion?_ These remarks are, I suppose,
occasioned by the great veneration which the Macedonian hero
professed for Homer’s writings, and by his famous imitation,
or rather improvement, on the cruelty of Achilles, in
dragging round the walls of a conquered city its brave
defender. But may it not be asked with equal, if not greater
propriety, would many profligate and abandoned, as they
naturally are, be so very profligate and abandoned, were it
not for Richardson? And, of what rapes, violences, and
debaucheries, have not the Romance writers been the
occasion, by propagating false love, false chastity, and
false, I shall not add religion, ’till you, who are so well
qualified, have demonstrated which is the true one? If
Alexander exceeded Achilles in cruelty, may not many go
beyond Lovelace in that, as well as in debauchery? None but
such as Alexander have ever proposed to imitate Achilles,
but every man of a moderate fortune may set up Lovelace for
a pattern, by whom to model his conduct. Should it be said,
that in Lovelace, Richardson gives the example of a man, who
brought ruin and destruction on himself by his vices, and
that he constantly expresses the utmost abhorrence of his
bad morals, with equal, nay, with greater justice, must not
the same be said of Homer? Nay, as it happens, he expresses
in his own person a thing not usual with him, his
disapprobation in the strongest terms, of Achilles’s
barbarous usage of Heistor’s dead Body, that piece of
cruelty which Alexander particularly imitated.

Ἑκτορα διον αεικεα μηδετο εργα are his words, when he
introduces the narration of that event. No doubt Homer’s
writings have been, and may be abused, and so may the best
and most useful of all human inventions; religion itself has
not escaped, and its abuse has been ever attended with the
most pernicious and destructive consequences. But surely
they are not so liable to be abused as your compositions;
Homer, indeed, describes vicious characters, but all their
viciousness consists in the natural passions being carried
to a blameable excess, he paints no improvement, no
refinement, no elaborate contrivance in villany, this is
what you excell in, above all the authors antient or modern,
I remember to have read. The anger of Achilles was raised by
a most provoking insult which he received from Agamemnon. He
thus expresses himself:

  _My maid, my black-ey’d maid he forc’d away,_
  _Due to the toils of many a dreadful Day,_
  _From me he forc’d her, me, the bold and brave,_
  _Disgrac’d, dishonour’d, like the vilest slave._

What could be more natural than a resentment on such an
occasion? And what could be more natural, than for a man of
Achilles’s temper to carry that resentment too far? Both he
and Agamemnon suffer severely for the errors they commit;
and what renders the fable still more beautiful, and the
moral still more instructive, is this consideration, that
their sufferings appear to be the unavoidable and necessary
consequences of their errors; of course, nothing can more
effectually deter others in similar circumstances from being
guilty of the like faults for the future. But the oeconomy
of your plot, and the disposition of your characters, are
entirely different. Lovelace determines on the ruin of
Clarissa, from motives and passions altogether unnatural,
which could subsist no where, but in a heart debauched of
itself, initiated in all the mysteries of villany, and
regularly educated in an academy of wickedness; his motives
and passions are an aversion to marriage, a resentment
against Clarissa’s family, an infamous resolution to wreak
his revenge on the only person in it, who loved him;
a ridiculous doubt of her virtue, and a vain-glorious pride,
in having a reputation for intrigue, and adding an
honourable name to a list, which it seems he kept, of the
credulous fools he had already ruined, and the tricks which
he put in practice, to bring about that diabolical end, are
all uniformly of a piece with the motives and passions which
inspired them; nor is the matter in the least mended by the
catastrophe which ensues; for it is not the necessary and
unavoidable consequence of his committed crimes, you are at
the greatest pains to let us know so much out of his own
mouth: _Who could have thought it_, says he to his friend
Belford, _I have said it a thousand times, surely there
never can be such another woman_; thus, you must be sensible
you have entirely destroyed the moral, and any good effect
that could be expected from the example; for, if there never
can be such another woman as Clarissa, and such a
catastrophe is not again to be dreaded, there is nothing to
deter another Rake from putting in practice the same
infamous schemes, upon any other woman he may happen to have
in his power.

Thus far, Sir, have I carried the parallel between Homer and
you, with respect to the moral tendency of your works,
a parallel in any other view, you yourself must be sensible
would be ridiculous. Were I to extend it farther, it would
still conclude more to your disadvantage, but I think enough
is said to convince any impartial person, that if the one,
with the smallest appearance of justice, was denied an
admission into the Platonic commonwealth, the other would
have been kick’d out of it with shame and disgrace; yet, you
have very pleasantly contrived to find a place there for
yourself, in Homer’s room. You have adopted and inserted in
your Clarissa the four following verses, of a poetical
encomium which was made upon it.

  _Even Plato in Lyceum’s awful shade,_
  _Th’ instructive page, with transport had survey’d,_
  _And own’d its author, to have well supplied,_
  _The place, his laws, to Homer’s self denied._

Under these lines we have this note. By the laws of Plato’s
commonwealth, Homer was denied a place there, on account of
the bad tendency of the morals he ascribes to his Gods and
his Heroes; but from the short parallel I have drawn, let
the impartial determine whose writings have the worst
tendency. I know nothing of your poet Laureate, therefore
shall say as little of him, but I cannot tell which most to
wonder at, your own ignorance or vanity, the last is
conspicuous in numberless other places as well as this, the
first is scarce less so. Tho’ you have mention’d Plato’s
commonwealth oftener than once in your works, yet, it
appears that you know nothing of its nature or constitution,
by which it was rendered impossible, for such characters as
you describe, to have either an existence, or an admission
into that imaginary republic. The pride of wealth in the
Harlow family, and the pride of titles and descent in the
Lovelace family, can no where be found, save, in a
monarchial and commercial state, where there is a hereditary
noblesse, and a great inequality among the fortunes of the
citizens. Neither can such characters as Lovelace and his
associates, or mother Sinclair and her nymphs, display
themselves, or such a place as the mother’s brothel, subsist
any where but in a city like London, the overgrown
metropolis of a powerful Empire, and an extensive commerce;
all these corruptions, are the necessary and unavoidable
consequences of such a constitution of things. In order to
prevent which, Plato made the basis of his republic consist
in a perfect equality of the citizens, both with respect to
honours and estates, and to banish commerce, in his opinion,
the other great corrupter of the morals of a people, forever
from the state; he supposes that his city is built in an
inland country, at a distance from the Ocean or Sea-ports.
I shall not pretend to justify Plato in all his whims; but
it is certain, that if such an establishment were
practicable, every public and private virtue would have a
better chance to flourish there, than in any other State,
where different principles prevail. From these circumstances
it is manifest, that if we could suppose a Platonic citizen,
entirely unacquainted with what passes in the world, beyond
the verges of his own republic, he would imagine, if such a
book as Clarissa was recommended to his perusal, that the
characters described in it were monsters, not men, and
existed no where, except in the depraved fancy of its
author.

Here, Sir, I put a period to my general remarks on your
compositions; I cannot say they are thrown altogether into a
regular order, but they may do well enough in a loose essay,
as this is intended to be. It would require a bulky volume
to contain remarks on all the passages which deserve it,
whether it were to point out innumerable faults, or some few
shining beauties. I am not equal to the task, and, though I
were, should not undertake it. Had you wrote nothing else,
Pamela would have been consigned, long before now, to utter
neglect and oblivion. Such soon will be the fate of
Grandison, admired and sought after as it is at present.
People must some time or other tire of conning over such
quantities of flimzy stuff. I wonder at their present
patience and perseverance, and can never sufficiently admire
the contexture of that brain which can weave with unwearied
toil such immense webs of idle tittle-tattle, and gossipping
nonsense. Clarissa perhaps deserves a better fate.

_Great are its faults, but glorious is its flame_, may not
improperly be said of it, as has been said of Shakespear’s
Othello.

It must be owned, you have fallen upon a manner of writing,
in a series of Letters, which is very affecting, and capable
of great improvements. It preserves a great probability in
the narration, and makes every thing appear animated and
impassioned. It is to be regretted, that you have trifled so
egregiously as you have done; you are one of those who,
having an exuberant genius, and little judgment, never know
when they have said enough. The manner in which you have
published your pieces is a proof of this; Pamela came out
first in two volumes, and was then compleat, however two
more were afterwards added; Clarissa made her first
appearance in seven volumes, and there are now eight; and
Grandison, I suppose, will in a short time be improved in
the same manner. This conduct, Sir, may at first encrease
the profits of authorship, but in the end will always
destroy the credit of the author. There never was a good
writer yet, who blotted not out ten lines for one that he
added. It has been said of Virgil, that when composing, he
used to dictate a great many lines in the morning, and
employ the rest of the day in reducing them to a small
number. It was said in commendation of Shakespear, that he
never blotted a line; Ben Johnson replied, he wished he had
blotted a thousand, in which I believe every body now
concurs with him. Homer alone seems to be an exception to
this rule, in all his writings there are so much ease and
nature, that I can hardly think he either blotted or
corrected, his verses appear to have been wholly dictated by
the inspired Muse herself. But you, Sir, are not a Homer,
and are besides totally ignorant of that art, without the
frequent exercise of which no other authors have ever
attained to a great and lasting reputation, I mean the art
of blotting judiciously, and lopping off superfluities and
excrescences, without tenderness or remorse. Instead of
adding one volume to Clarissa, as originally printed, had
you taken three away, it might have been made a valuable
performance. The best, perhaps, the only way to correct
Grandison and Pamela, would be to make them pass thro’ the
fire.

To conclude, I think your writings have corrupted our
language and our taste; that the composition of them all,
except Clarissa, is bad; and that they all, particularly
that, have a manifest tendency to corrupt our morals. I have
likewise shewn that your principal characters are all,
except Clarissa’s, faulty, ridiculous, or unmeaning.
Grandison is an inconsistent angel, Lovelace is an absolute
devil, and Booby is a perfect ass; Pamela is a little pert
minx, whom any man of common sense or address might have had
on his own terms in a week or a fortnight, Harriet appears
to be every thing, and yet may be nothing, except a ready
scribe, a verbose letter-writer; and as to Clarissa,
I believe you will own yourself, that I have done you ample
justice. I now leave you seriously to contemplate the merit
of your performances, and shall only add, that I hope you
will have the candour not to impute these animadversions to
any spiteful envy conceived at your great reputation and
extraordinary success; yet, this I will say, that some
expressions might perhaps have been pointed with less
severity, had I not observed that your constant endeavours
are to render a certain set of men amongst us, the objects
of public hatred and detestation; for any thing you know to
the contrary they may be in the right, and you in the wrong,
at least, as I told you before, you are no proper judge in
the controversy, whether they are or not. At any rate this
conduct of yours must proceed either from a weakness of the
head, or a badness of the heart. A weakness in the head,
that your understanding still continues blinded with all
those prejudices, in their full strength, which you imbibed
in the years of your childhood, from the old women in the
nursery. A badness of the heart, that makes you imagine any
difference in opinions, merely speculative, ever can give
just occasion to an unfavourable distinction among members
of the same society, partakers of the same human nature, and
children of one common indulgent Parent, the almighty and
beneficent Creator of all things.

  _I am_, &c.




_POSTSCRIPT._


After having animadverted warmly, yet, I hope, justly, upon
one author, a worthy and virtuous man, as I believe, for
shewing an indiscreet zeal in behalf of a religion, in the
profession of which he is undoubtedly sincere; it would be
an unpardonable neglect, to take no notice of another
author, a daily journalist too, whose sincerity at the best
is dubious, but whose zeal, whether real or pretended,
flames out beyond all the bounds of order or decency. The
zeal of Richardson, when weigh’d against the zeal, or rather
the fury of Hill, _would be found wanting, and as dust in
the balance_. The Inspectors which have given occasion to
this postscript, are those of Saturday the 9th, and
Wednesday the 13th of this present month of February;
neither of which had made its appearance before the
foregoing remarks were compleated and sent to the press. In
these the journalist has done his utmost, not only to
prejudice weak minds against Lord Bolingbroke’s posthumous
works, and the Essays on Crucifixion, Fainting Fits,
Resurrections and Miracles, proposals for printing which by
subscription have been lately published; but to raise the
furies of religious rage and persecution against the editor
of the one, and the author of the other. He tells the first,
that _were he a robber and a murderer, he would be less
criminal, less worthy capital punishment and the Detestation
of all Mankind_. He declares _he shall do all a private man
can do to bring him to punishment_. Of the last he says,
that _not the religious alone, but all who have wisdom, and
a sense of decency, join to say, that no punishment can be
too severe for him_: And, after having given some charitable
hints, drawn from the death of Socrates, and the practice of
the Heathens, he thus apostrophizes. _Will Christians suffer
what they could not bear? It cannot be: It is not possible.
Laws will be put in execution, and the histories of the
whole world cannot produce a greater criminal._

The bare recital of these distempered ravings is a
sufficient confutation of them, is sufficient to inspire all
men of sense and common humanity with a detestation for
them, and a contempt for their author. This is not the
language of a protestant writer, but of a furious
blood-thirsty popish inquisitor. That he would be gladly
invested with such a character, and that he would act most
furiously and bloodily in it, is evident from his journals;
but that he is only a private man, and even as such his
influence small, is surely a happy circumstance for our
native country.

Should it be enquired, what has given occasion to this
flaming manifestation of popish zeal, the candid reader
would undoubtedly be surprized, should he be told, that one
article is, a random and incredible report, concerning Lord
Bolingbroke’s expected posthumous works, that their design
is to prove, _there is no human soul, no deity, no spirit,
and nothing but matter in the universe_. Whoever is
acquainted with his lordship’s writings, which have already
been published; whoever knows that Mr. Pope was indebted to
him for the plan of the noblest poem extant in any language,
I mean his Essay on Man, must at once be convinced, from
ocular demonstration, of the infamous falshood of this
assertion. That his lordship was a theist, and a disbeliever
in miracles and revelations, cannot and need not be denied.
But that he was no atheist, no materialist, his acknowledged
good sense is, alone, a sufficient proof. I do think
scepticism the best and truest philosophy; and I scruple not
to own, I have called in question, one time or other, the
truth of most things which cannot be demonstrated. But the
existence of spirit and deity was never one of those things.
Of this I am certain, from consciousness, from reason, from
demonstration. But I have often doubted the real existence
of matter; for this I have not even the testimony of my
senses, only prejudice and instinct. It is only such a
philosopher as our inspector, who believes animals are mere
machines, who can be an atheist and a materialist.

The other article which has given an opportunity to our
Jesuitical journalist to flame forth with the true spirit of
a popish inquisitor, is, the publication of proposals for
printing by subscription, Essays on Crucifixion; Syncopes,
or Fainting-Fits; the uncertainty of the signs of Death, and
the real nature and frequency of those Accidents which have
been called Resurrections from the Dead; and on Miracles,
their Nature, and the Evidence for them. There is surely
nothing, either in this title or the proposals themselves,
which appears to have a pernicious tendency against any
religious establishment whatsoever; and he, surely, must be
endued with a wonderful penetration, who can discover any
thing like it in them. They seem only to promise medical and
philosophical enquiries into medical and philosophical
subjects. Why may not an essay on Crucifixion be as harmless
as a dissertation on Tar-Water? and what destructive
consequences can attend a treatise on Fainting-Fits and
counterfeited Death, more than a treatise on broken heads or
bloody noses? They are all physical subjects, and fall
within the province of a medical writer, which it is to be
supposed the author of the proposals is, otherwise he cannot
be equal to the task he has undertaken. But our admirable
and sagacious inspector thus addresses the public, _’Tis
palpable, ’tis evident_, says he, _that this man means to
tell you, the Saviour of the world did not die upon the
cross; that he did not rise from the dead; that he did not
work miracles._ I shall only observe, that the words Jesus,
Christianity, or even Religion, are not so much as once
mentioned in these proposals, and probably may not be found
in the work itself, when it appears. Hence we may reasonably
infer, that the world is indebted for these discoveries to
the wonderful acuteness of the Inspectorial nostrils, which
can smell out irreligion and infidelity, where no such
things are intended, or even dreamt of. If such, indeed, are
the intentions of this proposer, he is, doubtless, greatly
obliged to his good friend, the Inspector, or rather the
would-be inquisitor, for discovering to the public what it
seems he himself either would not, or durst not, so much as
hint at. But ’tis malice, ’tis fiction all, and ’tis most
probable, the author himself never had any such things in
his thoughts.

But to be serious, for the subject requires it; too much
detestation, too much abhorrence, can never be shewn for the
principles and practices of this journalist, and they can
never be sufficiently exposed and exploded. If he is not
sincere, if he makes religion only a stalking horse, to
gratify his passions, his pride, his vanity, his ambition,
or his interest, there never was a character more infamous,
more detestable. If he is sincere, his principles are
equally destructive, equally pernicious, to all the most
valuable interests of civil government and social life.
I would incline to the more favourable interpretation; but,
without any breach of charity, it may be said, that his
dirty interest is one of his great motives for such a
conduct. In a late famous letter of his, where, in so many
words, he affirms, that _no other, unless he be conjured
from the dead, is qualified to be Keeper of Sir Hans
Sloane’s Museum, except himself_, he thus addresses the
Chancellor: _My Lord, I shall conclude with saying that, to
his grace of Canterbury, I hope that respect I have, in all
my writings, shewn to the religion of my country, will prove
some recommendation._ Here the cloven foot manifestly
appears; and, do doubt, he greedily laid hold of these
proposals, to display, at this seasonable juncture, that
_recommending_ respect to the religion of his country, which
he imagined, though perhaps erroneously, was intended to be
attacked.

  _FINIS._

       *       *       *       *       *
           *       *       *       *

  _The Editors of THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY_

  _are pleased to announce that_

  THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

  _of The University of California, Los Angeles_

will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The
editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the past,
the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints of rare
seventeenth and eighteenth century works.

All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and
Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial
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Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of
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should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.

Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950)

(_At least six items will be printed in the main from the following
list_)

  [Where available, Project Gutenberg e-text numbers are shown in
  brackets. The numbering system using “Series I-VI” was abandoned
  after Year 3, and earlier publications were retroactively renumbered.]

SERIES IV: MEN, MANNERS, AND CRITICS

John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681)  [15074]

Daniel Defoe (?), _Vindication of the Press_ (1718)  [14084 (year 5)]

_Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela_ (1754)
[_present text_]

SERIES V: DRAMA

Thomas Southerne, _Oroonoko_ (1696)  [_not published_]

Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709)  [16740]

Charles Johnson, _Caelia_ (1733)  [_not published_]

Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781)  [14463 (year 5)]

SERIES VI: POETRY AND LANGUAGE

Andre Dacier, _Essay on Lyric Poetry_  [_not published_]

_Poems_ by Thomas Sprat  [_not published_]

_Poems_ by the Earl of Dorset  [_not published_]

Samuel Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and one of the 1750
_Rambler_ papers.  [13350]

EXTRA SERIES:

Lewis Theobald, _Preface to Shakespeare’s Works_ (1733)  [16346]

A few copies of the early publications of the Society are still
available at the original rate.


GENERAL EDITORS

  H. RICHARD ARCHER, Clark Memorial Library
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  EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
  H. T. SWEDENBERG JR., University of California, Los Angeles

  ------------------------------------------------------------

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PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

  [All titles from the first three years are available from Project
  Gutenberg; e-text numbers are given in brackets.]


First Year (1946-1947)

1. Richard Blackmore’s _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison’s _Freehold_
No. 45 (1716). (I, 1)  [13484]

2. Samuel Cobb’s _Of Poetry_ and _Discourse on Criticism_ (1707).
(II, 1)  [14937]

3. _Letter to A. H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and Richard
Willis’ _Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (III, 1)  [14047]

4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and
Joseph Warton’s _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2)  [14528]

5. Samuel Wesley’s _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700) and
_Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). (II, 2)  [16506]

6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_ (1704)
and _Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). (III, 2)  [15656]

Second Year (1947-1948)

7. John Gay’s _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on Wit
from _The English Theophrastus_ (1702). (I, 3)  [14800]

8. Rapin’s _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684). (II, 3)
[14495]

9. T. Hanmer’s (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736).
(III, 3)  [14899]

10. Corbyn Morris’ _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit,
etc._ (1744). (I, 4)  [16233]

11. Thomas Purney’s _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). (II, 4)  [15313]

12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood
Krutch. (III, 4)  [16335]

Third Year (1948-1949)

13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). (IV, 1)  [15999]

14. Edward Moore’s _The Gamester_ (1753). (V, 1)  [16267]

15. John Oldmixon’s _Reflections on Dr. Swift’s Letter to Harley_
(1712); and Arthur Mainwaring’s _The British Academy_ (1712). (VI, 1)
[25091]

16. Nevil Payne’s _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). (V, 2)  [16916]

17. Nicholas Rowe’s _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear_
(1709). (Extra Series, I)  [16275]

18. Aaron Hill’s Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton’s
Preface to _Esther_. (IV, 2)  [15870]

       *       *       *       *       *
           *       *       *       *

Errors and Inconsistencies

In the body text, variable spellings such as “villany” : “villainy” and
“intire” : “entire” are unchanged. Unless otherwise noted, all spelling,
punctuation and capitalization are as printed.

Introduction:

  “... an ordinary Share of Virtue” (p. 24)  [(p.24)]

Critical Remarks:

  there never can be any thing but a perpetual jarring discord
    [pertpeual]
  limited state of the human understanding  [understandng]
  according to his particular temper or circumstances  [cricumstances]
  How to reconcile to probability
    [_printed “proba-/bability” at line break_]
  But as these precepts and examples are now applied
    [_“a” in “and” printed upside-down_]
  and by the serpent, lust or pleasure. This allegory  [pleasure,]
  just as she was setting out  [just us]
  paint a Chloe or a Sachurissa  [_unchanged: error for “Sacharissa”?_]
  Ben Johnson replied, he wished  [_spelling unchanged_]
  any difference in opinions, merely speculative  [opinions.]
  the Detestation of all Mankind  [_first “l” in “all” invisible_]

Greek Quotations:

  Τον ανδρα πολυτροπον.
  Ton andra polutropon.

  Ἑκτορα διον αεικεα μηδετο εργα
  Hektora dion aeikea mêdeto erga





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