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.
+Hektora dion aeikea mêdeto erga+ 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.