P O S T S C R I P T.
Referred to in the Preface.
IN WHICH
Several Objections that have been made, as well to the Catastrophe as to different Parts of the preceding History, are briefly considered.
The foregoing Work having been published at three different periods of time, the Author, in the course of its publication, was favoured with many anonymous Letters, in which the Writers differently expressed their wishes with regard to the apprehended catastrophe.
Most of those directed to him by the gentler Sex, turned in favour of what they called a Fortunate Ending. Some of the fair writers, enamoured, as they declared, with the character of the Heroine, were warmly solicitous to have her made happy: "And others, likewise of their mind, insisted that Poetical Justice required that it should be so. And when, says one ingenious Lady, whose undoubted motive was good-nature and humanity, it must be concluded, that it is in an author's power to make his piece end as he pleases, why should he not give pleasure rather than pain to the Reader whom he has interested in favour of his principal characters?
"Others, and some Gentlemen, declared against Tragedies in general, and in favour of Comedies, almost in the words of Lovelace, who was supported in his taste by all the women at Mrs. Sinclair's, and by Sinclair herself. 'I have too much Feeling, said he[36]. There is enough in the world to make our hearts sad, without carrying grief into our diversions, and making the distresses of others our own.'