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_.