Remarks on Clarissa (1749)

by Sarah Fielding

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.