The following History is given in a series of letters, written
Principally in a double yet separate correspondence;
Between two young ladies of virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable
friendship for each other, and writing not merely for amusement, but
upon the most interesting subjects; in which every private family, more
or less, may find itself concerned; and,
Between two gentlemen of free lives; one of them glorying in his
talents for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other, in
confidence, all the secret purposes of an intriguing head and resolute
heart.
But here it will be proper to observe, for the sake of such as may
apprehend hurt to the morals of youth, from the more freely-written
letters, that the gentlemen, though professed libertines as to the
female sex, and making it one of their wicked maxims, to keep no faith
with any of the individuals of it, who are thrown into their power,
are not, however, either infidels or scoffers; nor yet such as think
themselves freed from the observance of those other moral duties which
bind man to man.
On the contrary, it will be found, in the progress of the work, that
they very often make such reflections upon each other, and each upon
himself and his own actions, as reasonable beings must make, who
disbelieve not a future state of rewards and punishments, and who one
day propose to reform--one of them actually reforming, and by that means
giving an opportunity to censure the freedoms which fall from the gayer
pen and lighter heart of the other.
And yet that other, although in unbosoming himself to a select friend,
he discovers wickedness enough to entitle him to general detestation,
preserves a decency, as well in his images as in his language, which
is not always to be found in the works of some of the most celebrated
modern writers, whose subjects and characters have less warranted the
liberties they have taken.
In the letters of the two young ladies, it is presumed, will be
found not only the highest exercise of a reasonable and practicable
friendship, between minds endowed with the noblest principles of
virtue and religion, but occasionally interspersed, such delicacy of
sentiments, particularly with regard to the other sex; such instances
of impartiality, each freely, as a fundamental principle of their
friendship, blaming, praising, and setting right the other, as are
strongly to be recommended to the observation of the younger part (more
specially) of female readers.
The principle of these two young ladies is proposed as an exemplar to
her sex. Nor is it any objection to her being so, that she is not in
all respects a perfect character. It was not only natural, but it was
necessary, that she should have some faults, were it only to show the
reader how laudably she could mistrust and blame herself, and carry to
her own heart, divested of self-partiality, the censure which arose from
her own convictions, and that even to the acquittal of those, because
revered characters, whom no one else would acquit, and to whose much
greater faults her errors were owing, and not to a weak or reproachable
heart. As far as it is consistent with human frailty, and as far as she
could be perfect, considering the people she had to deal with, and those
with whom she was inseparably connected, she is perfect. To have been
impeccable, must have left nothing for the Divine Grace and a purified
state to do, and carried our idea of her from woman to angel. As such is
she often esteemed by the man whose heart was so corrupt that he could
hardly believe human nature capable of the purity, which, on every trial
or temptation, shone out in her's [sic].
Besides the four principal person, several others are introduced, whose
letters are characteristic: and it is presumed that there will be found
in some of them, but more especially in those of the chief character
among the men, and the second character among the women, such strokes of
gayety, fancy, and humour, as will entertain and divert, and at the same
time both warn and instruct.
All the letters are written while the hearts of the writers must be
supposed to be wholly engaged in their subjects (the events at the time
generally dubious): so that they abound not only in critical situations,
but with what may be called instantaneous descriptions and reflections
(proper to be brought home to the breast of the youthful reader;) as
also with affecting conversations; many of them written in the dialogue
or dramatic way.
'Much more lively and affecting,' says one of the principal character,
'must be the style of those who write in the height of a present
distress; the mind tortured by the pangs of uncertainty (the events then
hidden in the womb of fate;) than the dry, narrative, unanimated style
of a person relating difficulties and danger surmounted, can be; the
relater perfectly at ease; and if himself unmoved by his own story, not
likely greatly to affect the reader.'
What will be found to be more particularly aimed at in the following
work is--to warn the inconsiderate and thoughtless of the one sex,
against the base arts and designs of specious contrivers of the
other--to caution parents against the undue exercise of their natural
authority over their children in the great article of marriage--to warn
children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity upon
that dangerous but too-commonly-received notion, that a reformed rake
makes the best husband--but above all, to investigate the highest and
most important doctrines not only of morality, but of Christianity, by
showing them thrown into action in the conduct of the worthy characters;
while the unworthy, who set those doctrines at defiance, are condignly,
and, as may be said, consequentially punished.
From what has been said, considerate readers will not enter upon the
perusal of the piece before them as if it were designed only to divert
and amuse. It will probably be thought tedious to all such as dip into
it, expecting a light novel, or transitory romance; and look upon story
in it (interesting as that is generally allowed to be) as its sole end,
rather than as a vehicle to the instruction.
Different persons, as might be expected, have been of different
opinions, in relation to the conduct of the Heroine in particular
situations; and several worthy persons have objected to the general
catastrophe, and other parts of the history. Whatever is thought
material of these shall be taken notice of by way of Postscript, at the
conclusion of the History; for this work being addressed to the public
as a history of life and manners, those parts of it which are
proposed to carry with them the force of an example, ought to be as
unobjectionable as is consistent with the design of the whole, and with
human nature.