To Richardson's contemporaries, Pamela Censured must consequently have seemed a much more serious attack than Shamela. The humor of Fielding's parody might be misinterpreted or at least dismissed as "low"; in Pamela Censured, the rather personal attack on the author of Pamela and the precise censure of specific passages could not, however, be misconstrued or ignored. Moreover, the critical principle behind Pamela Censured appears quite sound, at least on its most simple level: Pamela is bad because it violates what might be called a literary "truth in labeling" law. Casting himself in the role of "consumer advocate," the author of Pamela Censured systematically attempts to show that Pamela fails to live up to the advertisement on its title page:
a SERIES of FAMILIAR LETTERS FROM A Beautiful Young DAMSEL, To her PARENTS. Now first Published in order In order to cultivate the Principles of VIRTUE and RELIGION in the Minds of the YOUTH of BOTH SEXES. A Narrative which has its Foundation in TRUTH and NATURE; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting INCIDENTS, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct.
In applying this test to Pamela, the author of Pamela Censured displays a curious mixture of naiveté and sophistication. His first attack involves a silly and perhaps consciously dishonest misreading of the words "Now first Published" on Pamela's title page. While this phrase clearly means that Pamela's letters are now being published for the first time, Pamela Censured attacks Pamela for claiming to be the first work ever aimed at cultivating "the Principles of VIRTUE and RELIGION in the Minds of the YOUTH of BOTH SEXES." When Pamela Censured later assails Pamela for not telling a true story, as the title page advertises, it naively fails to understand that by the time of Pamela's publication the guise of telling a true story had virtually become a fictional convention.
But when Pamela Censured considers the implications of Pamela's fictionality, it raises two valid literary problems, treating the first in a cursory fashion and devoting to the second most of its space and attention. If, as Pamela Censured first of all asserts, the "editor" of Pamela is really the author, then all of the prefatory material in Pamela must be seen as proof of the author's immorality: he is a man consumed by vanity. Secondly, this author must be convicted on even more serious moral grounds: his fiction instructs readers to sin and enflames those passions which he, as a moral man, should extinguish. Not only is this a clear moral flaw in the author and in his book, but it also blatantly contradicts the promises made on the title page.
In attacking Pamela's morality, Pamela Censured raises a problem inherent in virtually all narrative fiction: stories inevitably lead some readers to imitate the vicious characters rather than the virtuous ones, in spite of any moral statements made by the author or any punishments meted out at the end of the story. Even in "forbidding a silly ostler to grease the horse's teeth," as Alithea says in The Country Wife (III, i), one may very easily teach him "to do't." Such concerns, of course, are not new. From Plato and Horace to the Neo-Humanists of the twentieth century, critics have dwelled in varying degrees on the moral effects of literature. The eighteenth century, reacting against the supposed immorality of the Restoration, often emphasized the utile, losing sight of the dulce in its criticism. Pamela Censured in its moral approach bears a striking similarity to Jeremy Collier's Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698): both virtually try to bludgeon to death literary works for inciting immoral actions. In one respect, however, A Short View exercises a bit more control than does Pamela Censured. While Collier refuses to quote directly from the offensive literature, affirming that his intention is "rather to kill the Root than Transplant it," the author of Pamela Censured meticulously provides his readers with a compendium of the so-called dirty parts of Pamela. Such attention to the morality of literature, moreover, may easily backfire. The anonymous author of A Vindication of the Stage (1698) concludes that Collier's "dwelling so long on the Subject of Debauchery, argues something of Delight and Pleasure in the Case." Likewise, the author of Pamela's Conduct in High Life sees the treatment of sexual immodesty in Pamela Censured as evidence of "how much of the Goat" there is in the author's "Constitution."[4]
More importantly, however, Pamela Censured—as the first sustained criticism of what is probably the first English novel—amasses much of the moral ammunition which was to be fired at realistic novels during the eighteenth century. Echoes of Pamela Censured may, for instance, be heard in Clara Reeve's Progress of Romance (1785), where Hortensia comments that in reading, "The seeds of vice and folly are sown in the heart,—the passions are awakened,—false expectations are raised.—A young woman is taught to expect adventures and intrigues." Euphrasia, who expresses Clara Reeve's attitudes throughout the work, qualifies this statement, pointing out that these ill effects come from reading novels, but not romances.[5] Indeed, romances do not mislead readers precisely because they are so removed from real life. Moreover, romances morally instruct readers without hazarding the pitfalls inherent in novels. Dr. John Gregory's Comparative View (1765), for instance, concludes that:
Notwithstanding the ridiculous extravagance of the old Romance in many particulars, it seems calculated to produce more favourable effects on the morals of Mankind, than our modern Novels.—If the former did not represent men as they really are, it represented them better; its Heroes were patterns of courage, generosity, truth, humanity, and the most exalted virtues. Its Heroines were distinguished for modesty, delicacy, and the utmost dignity of manners.—The latter [i.e., novels] represent Mankind too much what they are, paint such scenes of pleasure and vice as are unworthy to see the light, and thus in a manner hackney youth in the ways of wickedness, before they are well entered into the World; expose the fair sex in the most wanton and shameless manner to the eyes of the world.[6]
Novels tend to "inflame the Passions and corrupt the Heart" of the reader because they treat real life with all its sordid concerns: sex, social status, pride, money, and the like. If the novel describes such matters in a realistic fashion, "warm scenes" will inevitably creep into it. As Pamela Censured complains, men are inflamed by the description of a woman's body, especially when she seems about to be ravished; women are corrupted into believing they can seduce a man into a lucrative marriage without any moral or physical danger. Novels, moreover, are most likely to inflame and corrupt young readers, who lack experience and who are frequently ruled by their passions.[7]
To a moral man like Richardson, the criticisms in Pamela Censured must have seemed painfully serious. The pamphlet virtually proclaims his novel a total failure by showing that it tends "to excite Lasciviousness"—not "the Principles of VIRTUE and RELIGION"—among its readers. In addition, Pamela is especially pernicious since its title page advertises that it is written for the "YOUTH of BOTH SEXES," precisely those people who—according to Pamela Censured—must not read this book. Pamela Censured concludes with an appeal to the author of Pamela to emend or strike out entirely the offending passages from his novel.
Richardson's revisions bear witness to the seriousness with which he took such criticism. For the fifth edition (22 September, 1741), he toned down the extravagant praises in the introductory letters, and for the sixth edition (7 December 1741), he entirely omitted these letters, substituting in their place a table of contents. The "warm scenes" furthermore gradually began to loose their warmth. In the fifth edition, Pamela now lies face down on the floor while Mr. B peeks through the keyhole (Letter XV). Pamela Censured had attacked the original passage for exciting "Passions of Desire" by picturing Pamela stretched out on the floor, presumably having collapsed on her back (p. 31). Richardson's change indicates more about his sense of decorum and his attention to Pamela Censured than about his ignorance—as Eaves and Kimpel imply—concerning sexual perversions.[8]