the Divine _Clarissa_ to be interred in the Vault of her Ancestors, his
very Words keep solemn Pace with the Herse which incloses her once
animated, now lifeless, Form. Step by Step we still attend her; turn
with the Horses as they take the Bye-road to _Harlow-place_; start with
the wretched, guilty Family, at the first Stroke of the mournful tolling
Bell; are fixed in Amazement with the lumbering heavy Noise of the Herse
up the paved inner Court-yard: But when the Servant comes in to acquaint
the Family with its Arrival, and we read this Line, _He spoke not, he
could not speak; he looked, he bowed, and withdrew_, we catch the
Servant's silent Grief; our Words are choaked, and our Sensations grow
too strong for Utterance. The awful Respect paid to _Clarissa's_ Memory
by those Persons, who generally both rejoice and mourn in Noise and
Clamour, is inimitably beautiful. But even in this solemn Scene the
Author has not forgot the Characters of the principal Actors in it: For
the barbarous Wretches who could drive _Clarissa_ from her native Home,
and by their Cruelty hurl her to Destruction, could not shed Tears for
her Loss, without mingled Bitterness, and sharp-cutting Recriminations
on each other; every one striving to rid themselves of the painful Load,
and to throw it doubly on their former Companions in Guilt. The Mother
only, as she was the least guilty, deplores the heavy Loss with soft
melting Tears, and lets Self-accusations flow from her trembling Lips.
On the Arrival of Miss _Howe_, we turn from the slow moving Herse, to
the rapid Chariot-wheels that fly to bring the warm Friend, all glowing
with the most poignant lively Grief, to mourn her lost _Clarissa_. Here
again the Description equals the noble Subject. Miss _Howe_, at the
first striking Sight of _Clarissa_ in her Coffin, could only by frantic
Actions express the labouring Anguish that perturbed her Breast. And we
accompany her in Horror, when she first impatiently pushes aside the
Coffin Lid. In short, we sigh, we rave, and we weep with her.
What I felt at Colonel _Morden's_ Description at the Funeral, is exactly
painted in the Letter wrote by Mr. _Belford_ in Answer to that
Description, where he says,
'You croud me Sir, methinks, into the silent, slow Procession--Now
with the sacred Bier do I enter the Porch--'[C]
[C] See Vol. VII. Letter 74. Page 292. in _Clarissa_.
But it would be endless to mention all the moving tragic Scenes, that
are now crouding into my Mind, in _Clarissa_; all judiciously
interspersed with Scenes of comic Humour; such as the Behaviour of
_Lovelace_ at the Ball; the Meeting between him and Mr. _Hickman_;
_Lovelace's_ Description of what he calls his Tryal before Lord M--and
the Ladies; with some others equally calculated to relieve the Mind from
fixing too long on mournful melancholy Ideas.
Finely has the Author of _Clarissa_ set forth what is true, and what is
false Honour. When _Lovelace_ upbraids _Belford_ for not preserving
_Clarissa_, by betraying his own villainous Plots and Machinations to
destroy her; and says, 'I am sure now, that I would have thanked thee
for it with all my Heart, and thought thee more a Father and a Friend,
than my real Father and my best Friend.'
All false Shame has he exposed, by shewing the Beauties of an open and
frank Heart in _Clarissa's_ charming Simplicity, when she tells Mrs.
_Smith_, in a publick Shop, that she had been in Prison; and when in a
Letter to Lady _Betty Laurance_ she declares, that _the Disgrace she
cannot hide from herself, she is not sollicitous to conceal from the
World_.
True and false Friendship was never more beautifully displayed than in
this Work; the firm, the steady Flame that burns in the fixed Affection
between _Clarissa_ and Miss _Howe_, which, in _Clarissa's_ Words, _has
Virtue for its Base_, is both well described and accounted for by
Colonel _Morden_; and that Chaff and Stubble, as she well calls it, that
_has not Virtue for its Base_, is inimitably painted by _Belford_, in
his Account of _Mowbray's_ Behaviour to the dying _Belton_. 'It is such
a horrid thing (says he) to think of, that a Man who had lived in such
strict Terms of Amity with another (the Proof does not come out so as to
say Friendship) who had pretended so much Love for him, could not bear
to be out of his Company, would ride an hundred Miles an End to enjoy
it, and would fight for him, be the Cause right or wrong; yet now could
be so little moved to see him in such Misery of Body and Mind as to be
able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him; because he was
more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a Malefactor (hardened
perhaps by Liquor, and not softened by previous Sickness) on his going
to Execution.'
What Merit has _Clarissa_ in breaking up and dispersing this profligate
Knot of Friends, that, in the first Volume, are represented so
formidable as to terrify all the honest People in the Neighbourhood, who
rejoice when they go up to Town again. _She_ was to revenge on
_Lovelace_ his Miss _Betterton_, his _French_ Devotee, his _French_
Countess, the whole Hecatomb which he boasts that he had in different
Climes sacrificed to his _Nemesis_, and all this by the natural Effects
of his own vile Actions, and her honest noble Simplicity; whilst she
steadily pursues the bright Path of Innocence, and proposes to herself
no other End, no not even in Thought, but to preserve untainted her
spotless Mind, and diffuse Happiness to all around her.
I confess I was against the Story's ending unhappily, till I saw the
Conclusion; but I now think the different Deaths of the many Persons
(for in this Point also the Difference is as essentially preserved, as
in the Characters or Scenes) who fall in the winding up the Catastrophy
in the seventh Volume, produce as noble a Moral as can be invented by
the Wit of Man.
The broken Spirit, the dejected Heart that pursue poor _Belton_ through
his last Stage of Life (brought on by a lingering Illness, and ill Usage
from an artful Woman to whom Vice had attached him, and increased by his
Soul's being startled and awaked from that thoughtless Lethargy in which
Vice had so long lulled him) naturally break forth in those fearful
Tremors, those agonizing pannic Terrors of the Mind, which follow him to
the End, and make a strong and lively Picture of the Terrors of Death
first thought on, when Life was flying, and could no longer supply the
flowing Blood and vital Heat that animates the mortal Frame.
Mrs. _Sinclair's_ Death is very different; the Suddenness of her
Departure had not given Time for a regular Decay of her Strength, and
the same animal Spirits which used to support her in the noisy Roar of a
profligate Life, now like so many Vultures preyed on her own Bosom, and
assisted to express the dreadful Horrors of an unexpected Death.
_Lovelace_, when he comes to die, is full of Rage and Disappointment;
his uncontrouled Spirit, unused to be baffled, cannot quietly submit to
the great and universal Conqueror Death himself. On his Death-bed he is
a lively Picture of the End of that worldly Wisdom which is Foolishness
with God. His strong Imagination that assisted him to form and carry on
those _cunning_ Plots which he pursued to his own Destruction, now
assisted his Conscience to torment his Soul, and set before his Eyes the
injured Innocent who would have contributed to the utmost of her Power
that he might have spent all his Days in Peace and Joy. In short, he
fluttered like a gay Butterfly in the Sunshine of Prosperity; he
wandered from the Path that leads to Happiness: In the Bloom of Youth he
fell a Sacrifice to his own Folly: his Life was a Life of Violence, and
his Death was a Death of Rage.
Whilst the gentle _Clarissa's_ Death is the natural Consequence of her
innocent Life; her calm and prepared Spirit, like a soft smooth Stream,
flows gently on, till it slides from her Misfortunes, and she leaves the
World free from Fear, and animated only by a lively Hope.
She wished her closing Scene might be happy. _She had her Wish_, (says
the Author in his Postscript) _it was happy._
Nothing ever made so strong a Contrast as the Deaths of _Lovelace_ and
_Clarissa_. Wild was the Life of _Lovelace_, rapid was his Death; gentle
was _Clarissa's_ Life, softly flowed her latest Hours; the very Word
_Death_ seems too harsh to describe her leaving Life, and her last
Breath was like the soft playing of a western Breeze, all calm! all
Peace! all Quiet!
The true Difference between the Virtuous and the Vicious lies in the
Mind, where the Author of _Clarissa_ has placed it; _Lovelace_ says
well, when he views the persecuted _Clarissa_ a-sleep.
'See the Difference in our Cases; she the charming Injured can sweetly
sleep, whilst the varlet Injurer cannot close his Eyes, and has been
trying to no purpose the whole Night to divert his Melancholy, and to
fly from himself.'
Rightly I think in the Author's Postscript is it observed, that what is
called poetical Justice is chimerical, or rather anti-providential
Justice; for God makes his Sun to shine alike on the Just and the
Unjust. Why then should Man invent a kind of imaginary Justice, making
the common Accidents of Life turn out favourable to the Virtuous only?
Vain would be the Comforts spoken to the Virtuous in Affliction, in the
sacred Writings, if Affliction could not be their Lot.
But the Author of _Clarissa_ has in his Postscript quoted such undoubted
Authorities, and given so many Reasons on the Christian System for his
Catastrophy, that to say more on that Head would be but repeating his
Words. The Variety of Punishments also of those guilty Persons in this
Work who do not die, and the Rewards of those who are innocent, I could
go through; had not that Postscript, and the Conclusion supposed to be
writ by Mr. _Belford_, already done it to my Hands. Only one thing I
must say, that I don't believe the most revengeful Person upon Earth
could wish their worst Enemy in a more deplorable Situation, than if
_Lovelace_ in his Frenzy, in that charming picturesque Scene, where he
is riding between _Uxbridge_ and _London_, when his impatient Spirit is
in suspence; and also when he hears of _Clarissa's_ Death.
Thus have I just hinted at the Heads of the Characters, the Difference
of the chief Scenes, and the Variety of the several Deaths, all the
natural Consequences of the several Lives, and productive of the
designed noble Moral in _Clarissa_; and I think it may be fairly and
impartially said, The Web is wove so strongly, every Part so much
depending on and assisting each other, that to divide any of them, would
be to destroy the whole.
[D]_That many Things having full References
To one Consent, may work contrariously:
As many Arrows, loosed several Ways,
Come to one Mark, as many Ways meet in one Town,
As many fresh Streams meet in one salt Sea,
As many Lines close in the Dial's Center,
So may a thousand Actions once afoot
End in one Purpose, and be all well born
Without Defeat._
[D] See _Shakespear's Henry_ the Vth.
If what I have here said can be any Amusement to you, as it concerns
your favourite _Clarissa_, my End will be answered. I am,
_Madam,_
_Your's,_ &c.
BELLARIO.
_Miss_ GIBSON _to_ BELLARIO.
~_SIR,_~
Your Good-nature in sending me your Thoughts on _Clarissa_, with a
Design to give me Pleasure, I assure you is not thrown away; may
you have equal Success in every generous Purpose that fills your Heart,
and greater Happiness in this World, I am sure I cannot wish you.
Most truly, Sir, do you remark, that a Story told in this Manner can
move but slowly, that the Characters can be seen only by such as attend
strictly to the Whole; yet this Advantage the Author gains by writing in
the present Tense, as he himself calls it, and in the first Person, that
his Strokes penetrate immediately to the Heart, and we feel all the
Distresses he paints; we not only weep for, but with _Clarissa_, and
accompany her, step by step, through all her Distresses.
I see her from the Beginning, in her happy State, beloved by all around
her, studying to deserve that Love; obedient to her Parents, dependant
on their Will by her own voluntary Act, when her Grandfather had put it
in her Power to be otherwise; respectful and tender to her Brother and
Sister; firm in her Friendship to Miss _Howe_; grateful to good Mrs.
_Norton_, who had carefully watched over her Infant Years, and delighted
to form and instruct her Mind; kind to her Inferiors; beneficent to all
the Poor, Miserable, and Indigent; and above all, cultivating and
cherishing in her Heart the true Spirit of Christianity, Meekness, and
Resignation; watchful over her own Conduct, and charitable to the
Failings of others; unwilling to condemn, and rejoicing in every
Opportunity to praise. But as the Laws of God and Man have placed a
Woman totally in the Power of her Husband, I believe it is utterly
impossible for any young Woman, who has any Reflection, not to form in
her Mind some kind of Picture of the Sort of Man in whose Power she
would chuse to place herself. That _Clarissa_ did so, I think, plainly
appears, from her steady Resolution to refuse any Man she could not
obey with the utmost Chearfulness; and to whose Will she could not
submit without Reluctance. She would have had her Husband a Man on whose
Principles she could entirely depend; one in whom she might have placed
such a Confidence, that she might have spoke her very Thoughts aloud;
one from whom she might have gained Instruction, and from whose
Superiority of Understanding she would have been pleased to have taken
the Rules of her own Actions. She desired no Reserves, no separate
Interest from her Husband; had no Plots, no Machinations to succeed in,
and therefore wanted not a Man who by artful Flattery she could have
cajoled madly to have worship'd her; a kind Indulgence, in what was
reasonable, was all her Desire, and that Indulgence to arise from her
own Endeavour to deserve it, and not from any Blindness cast before her
Husband's Eyes by dazzling Beauty, or cunning Dissimulation; but, from
her Infancy, having the Example daily before her of her Mother's being
tyrannized over, notwithstanding her great Humility and Meekness,
perhaps tyrannized over for that very Humility and Meekness. She thought
a single Life, in all Probability, would be for her the happiest;
cherishing in her Heart that Characteristic of a noble Mind, especially
in a Woman, of wishing, as Miss _Howe_ says she did, to pass through
Life unnoted.
In this State of Mind did _Lovelace_ first find _Clarissa_. She liked
him; his Person and Conversation were agreeable, but the Libertinism of
his Character terrified her; and her Disapprobation of him restrained
her from throwing the Reins over the Neck of a Passion she thought might
have hurried her into Ruin. But when by his Artifices, and the Cruelty
of her Friends, she was driven into his Power, had he not, to use her
own Words, treated her with an Insolence unbecoming a Man, and kept her
very Soul in suspence; fawning at her Feet to marry him, whilst, in the
same Instant, he tried to confuse her by a Behaviour that put it out of
her Power to comply with him; there was nothing that she would not have
done to oblige him. Then indeed she plainly saw that her Principles and
his Profligacy, her Simplicity and his Cunning, were not made to be
joined; and when she found such was the Man she liked best, no Wonder
her Desire of a single Life should return. She saw, indeed, her own
Superiority over _Lovelace_, but it was his Baseness that made her
behold it. And here I must observe, that in the very same Breath in
which she tells him, _Her Soul's above him_, she bids him _leave her_,
that Thought more than any other makes her resolve, at all Events, to
abandon him. Was this like exulting in her own Understanding, and
proudly (as I have heard it said) wanting to dictate to the Man she
intended for a Husband? Such a Woman, if I am not greatly mistaken,
would not desire the Man to leave her because she saw her Soul was above
him; but on the contrary, concealing from him, and disguising her
Thoughts, would have set Art against Art, and been the more delighted to
have drawn him in to have married her, that she might have deceived him,
and enjoyed the Thoughts of her own Superiority for Life. As I remember,
he never asks her fairly to marry him but once, and then she consents:
But how different in every Action is she from the sly and artful Woman,
who would have snatched at this Opportunity, and not have trusted him
with a Moment's Delay, whilst _Clarissa_, being then ill, consents, with
a Confidence that nothing but her Goodness and Simplicity could have had
in such a Man.
Tho' _Clarissa_ unfortunately met with _Lovelace_, yet I can imagine her
with a Lover whose honest Heart, assimulating with hers, would have
given her leave, as she herself wishes, to have shewn the Frankness of
her Disposition, and to have openly avowed her Love. But _Lovelace_, by
his own intriguing Spirit, made her Reserves, and then complained of
them; and as she was engaged with such a Man, I think the Catastrophe's
being what is called _Unhappy_, is but the natural Consequence of such
an Engagement; tho', I confess, I was not displeased that the Report of
this Catastrophe met with so many Objections, as it proved what an
Impression the Author's favourite Character had made on those Minds
which could not bear she should fall a Sacrifice to the Barbarity of her
Persecutors. And I hope that now all the Readers of _Clarissa_ are
convinced how rightly the Author has judged in this Point. If the Story
was not to have ended tragically, the grand Moral would have been lost,
as well as that grand Picture, if I may call it so, of human Life, of a
Man's giving up every thing that is valuable, only because every thing
that is valuable is in his Power. _Lovelace_ thought of the Substance,
whilst that was yet to be persued; but once within reach of it, his
plotting Head and roving Imagination would let him see only the Shadow,
and once enter'd into the Pursuit, his Pride, the predominant Passion of
his Soul, engaged him to fly after a visionary Gratification which his
own wild Fancy had painted, till, like one following an _Ignis fatuus_
through By-Paths and crooked Roads, he lost himself in the Eagerness of
his own Pursuit, and involved with him the innocent _Clarissa_, who,
persecuted, misunderstood, envied, and evil-treated as she had been, by
those from whom she had most Reason to hope Protection, I think could
not find a better Close to her Misfortunes than a triumphant Death.
Triumphant it may very well be called, when her Soul, fortified by a
truly Christian Philosophy, melted and softened in the School of
Affliction, had conquered every earthly Desire, baffled every uneasy
Passion, lost every disturbing Fear, while nothing remained in her
tender Bosom but a lively Hope of future Happiness. When her very Griefs
were in a manner forgot, the Impression of them as faint and languid as
a feverish Dream to one restored to Health, all calm and serene her
Mind, forgiving and praying for her worst Enemies, she retired from all
her Afflictions, to meet the Reward of her Christian Piety.
The Death of _Clarissa_ is, I believe, the only Death of the Kind in any
Story; and in her Character, the Author has thrown into Action (if I may
be allowed the Expression) the true Christian Philosophy, shewn its
Force to ennoble the human Mind, till it can look with Serenity on all
human Misfortunes, and take from Death itself its gloomy Horrors. Never
was any thing more judicious than the Author's bringing _Lovelace_ as
near as _Knight's-Bridge_ at the Time of _Clarissa's_ Death; for by that
means he has in a manner contrived to place in one View before our Eyes
the guilty Ravager of unprotected Innocence, the boasting Vaunter of his
own useless Parts, in all the Horrors of mad Despair, whilst the injured
Innocent, in a pious, in a divine Frame of Mind is peaceably breathing
her last. 'Such a Smile! such a charming Serenity (says Mr. _Belford_)
overspreading her sweet Face at the Instant, as seemed to manifest her
eternal Happiness already begun.'
Surely the Tears we shed for _Clarissa_ in her last Hours, must be Tears
of tender Joy! Whilst we seem to live, and daily converse with her
through her last Stage, our Hearts are at once rejoiced and amended, are
both soften'd and elevated, till our Sensations grow too strong for any
Vent, but that of Tears; nor am I ashamed to confess, that Tears without
Number have I shed, whilst Mr. _Belford_ by his Relation has kept me (as
I may say) with fixed Attention in her Apartment, and made me perfectly
present at her noble exalted Behaviour; nor can I hardly refrain from
crying out, 'Farewell, my dear _Clarissa_! may every Friend I love in
this World imitate you in their Lives, and thus joyfully quit all the
Cares and Troubles that disturb this mortal Being!'
May _Clarissa's_ Memory be as triumphant as was her Death! May all the
World, like _Lovelace_, bear Testimony to her Virtues, and acknowledge
her Triumph!
I am with many Thanks, Sir, for your obliging Letter,
_Your most obedient_, &c.
HARRIOTE GIBSON.
These Letters were shewn me by Miss _Gibson_, and thus, Sir, have I
collected together all I have heard on your History of _Clarissa_; and
if every thing that Miss _Gibson_ and _Bellario_ has said, is fairly
deducible from the Story, then I am certain, by the candid and
good-natured Reader, this will be deemed a fair and impartial
Examination, tho' I avow myself the sincere Admirer of _Clarissa_, and
_Your very humble Servant,_
~_FINIS._~
[Transcriber's Note:
The following errors have been corrected:
Page 6: "_Cartrou_" and "_Rouille_" changed to "_Catrou_" and "_Rouille_"
(by the Fathers _Catrou_ and _Rouille_,)
Page 12: "make" changed to "makes" (makes the Painting the stronger)
Page 17: "_these angry Commands to to leave her,_" changed to "_these
angry Commands to leave her,_"
Page 22: "the the Tragedy of _Macbeth_" changed to "the Tragedy of
_Macbeth_"
Page 29: "acknowleges" changed to "acknowledges" (for ever acknowledges)
Page 43: "fxt" changed to "fixt" (greater Malady is fixt)]
End of Project Gutenberg's Remarks on Clarissa (1749), by Sarah Fielding