Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754)

by Unknown

Sweet Polycaste, takes the pleasing toil,

To bathe the prince, and pour the fragrant oil.

How would Clarissa’s delicacy have been shock’d and disgusted, had brother James laid his commands upon her to rub down Mr. Solmes! nor would that office have been in the least less disagreeable, had she been to perform it on the handsome person of Bob Lovelace; she would have sooner died, than have done it to either. Again, in the sixth Odyssey, when Ulysses, awakened by the noise which Nausicaa and her nymphs make at their sports, comes quite naked out of her hiding place; the nymphs, indeed, run away, not at the sight of a naked man, but for fear of an enemy, while the princess stays, and, without betraying the least disgust or uneasiness at his appearance, holds a long conversation with him, calls back her fugitive companions, and reprimands them very sharply for their timorousness. Had such an adventure, Sir, happened to your Harriet, how do you think she would have behaved? she who was not able, without the utmost palpitation, nor unless her trembling hand had been guided, to sign the marriage articles with her beloved Grandison. Instead of giving assistance to the naked hero, she would have wanted help herself; the dear creature would have fainted away. Among the northern nations in America, who lead a simple life, and where conjugal fidelity is very strictly observed, it is customary for parents to provide their guests with companions for the night in the persons of their daughters. They reckon it a necessary branch of hospitable duty, and the young ladies think themselves affronted, if their embraces are rejected. Had Pamela and Clarissa been bred up near the great lake of Hurons, they would have gone to bed to Booby and Lovelace, without any scruple, had they come to their father’s houses, in the character of English envoys; and had an Iroquois damsel received her education in Northamptonshire, under the wings of grandmamma Shirley, and kept company constantly with Lucy and Nancy Selby, she would have been as delicate as Harriet herself. From whence does this mighty difference proceed, among creatures of the same species, all endued with the same passions, appetites, and desires? Undoubtedly from custom, habit, and education; and the reason that women of candid and open dispositions, who can freely examine into themselves, are never sensible of it, and cannot make the discovery, is this; they feel these principles immoveably rooted in their minds, and they had received them so early, that they never remember the time when they had them not. This chastity, this delicacy, &c. may probably enough be termed political; some people have reckoned it the meer invention of the statesman or politician; but, as I observed before, its fitness and propriety are founded on the nature of things and of human society. In all societies there are families, inheritances, and distinctions of ranks and orders. To keep these separate and distinct, to prevent them from falling into confusion, on all which the good oeconomy and internal happiness of the state much depend, the chastity and continence of women are absolutely and indispensably necessary. Therefore it has been universally agreed, to educate the sex in the principles leading to that continence, and to make their honour and reputation consist in adhering to them. In women of condition, in short in all above a certain rank, the inconveniencies of deviating from these principles are always very observable, and sensibly felt; particular families are hurt, orders are confused, inheritances are uncertain, the example is bad, and the scandal great. Therefore in all such we perceive this political chastity strongly to prevail; but in the rank below them we find it, for obvious reasons, exerting no great influence. However it has so far exerted its influence, that it has universally become customary for the woman to deny, and of course it must be the prerogative of the man to ask. This has rendered a greater indulgence necessary, and introduced a greater latitude in the practice of the male sex, with respect to amours. But I am afraid they have stretched this indulgence too far, indeed far beyond what the oeconomy of nature requires, and much farther than is confident with public utility. I may likewise add, that the fair sex have been too remiss, that they have suffered themselves to be outwitted, and allowed the other sex to carry this inequality in their manners to too great a length. Nothing certainly appears more inconsistent, than that the same action which brings the greatest disgrace and ruin, the utmost shame and infamy on the woman, should not at all affect the man, though the most guilty, as he is always the temptor and seducer. Nay, it is unjust to the highest degree; for compliance and weakness are the worst that can be laid to the charge of the one, whereas the other can seldom be excused from premeditated villainy. Many undergo capital punishments daily for crimes much less attrocious in their own nature, and much less destructive to the interests of Society. For what can be in itself more infamous, than to rob a creature of its most valuable possession, and then abandon it to a life of vice and a death of misery? If there be in nature a tender and delicate passion, love is certainly such. Yet how different and inconsistent is the conduct of the sexes in this article. A man who loves a woman with an honourable intention, rejects her with abhorrence, if he has a suspicion that she has been blown upon by another, especially a person of a subordinate rank. A woman again, who is addressed by the man she loves, makes no objection, and feels little uneasiness, even at the certainty of his prostituting his person to all the women of the town. Nay, if he has the reputation of having ruined two or three of rank and character, so far from hurting, that generally recommends him to her favour. These are facts incontestable, they can be accounted for by no principle in nature, they are quite contrary to all the maxims of delicacy, but prove at the same time the prodigious force of habit and custom. This is a thing undoubtedly wrong, and perhaps the women are rather more to blame than the men. In all general affairs, indeed, in all matters of consequence, the male sex must ever lead, and the other follow; but surely they have something in their power, were they to exert themselves. They ought never, by a silent approbation, to encourage looseness and profligacy among the men, and thus be accessary to the prostitution of numbers in the lower rank of their own sex; and if they have it not in their power to reform their gallants altogether, they can at least make them throw the mask of decency over their vices.

There is another species of chastity, which may properly enough be stiled religious, and is equally obligatory on all ranks; but is only found among those nations where the Christian system is established. The founder of our religion was himself a bright and a shining pattern of this virtue, and he and his immediate disciples recommended and enforced it strongly, both by precept and example. It was this, chiefly, that, in the first ages of the church, filled the mountains and desarts with hermits of all sexes and ages; it was this that gave rise to the religious orders of monks and nuns, and the celibacy of the clergy, which still subsist in Popish countries. But these consequences were pernicious to the publick good, they discouraged marriage, and established that ecclesiastical tyranny, under which all Europe groaned before the reformation and the resurrection of letters. But as these precepts and examples are now applied in protestant countries, they are useful and proper; they are only applied to recommend conjugal fidelity and continence before marriage, and thus in some measure supply the deficiencies of the political chastity, among women of the lower rank, to whom that does not extend. And even though it were to be granted, that Christianity is no divine institution, yet, on account of this and several other excellent maxims it contains and strongly enforces, in common with other religions, its divine origin ought to be inculcated on the minds of those people who can believe it. But though this kind of chastity is more comprehensive, yet its influence, as experience shews us, is infinitely weaker than that of the other. I believe it may be said, with justice, that there are fewer unchaste women, even in proportion to their numbers, among those of rank and condition, than there are chaste among these of an inferior order, though the lives of the first are generally lazy and luxurious, and much the greatest part of their reading lies among modern plays, novels and romances, which, instead of curbing and restraining, have a manifest tendency to heighten and inflame their passions. All these circumstances shew the superior efficacy of the political over the religious chastity. From the nature of things it must be so, for the punishments of a future state are objects too remote to have any great weight in deterring people from yielding to the importunate sollicitations of a present powerful passion. When once a woman has got the length to undervalue the immediate shame, ruin and disgrace she has to dread from being detected in an amour, religious motives never can restrain her from indulging her inclinations. Far be it from me, by any thing here said, to derogate in the least from the utility of this great and fundamental article in all religions, the commonly received doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state. On the contrary, I am sensible of its utility in the highest degree, and that too in cases where it is most necessary, by inciting men to virtues to which no temporal rewards are annexed, and deterring them from crimes and vices, where they have no temporal punishments to dread, or where, from the secrecy of the commission, they have hopes to escape the punishments provided for them by the laws. In all cases of the last kind, thought and deliberation are required, to contrive and put them in execution; the mind is then cool, at least not transported out of itself by hurrying passion, and has time and leisure to weigh and reflect on every circumstance; religious motives, no doubt, then exert their influence, awaken fears and terrors, and keep many faithful and honest, who would otherwise yield to the temptations of revenge, ambition, and interest. For these reasons, this doctrine can never be too sedulously inculcated on the minds of the people by their public teachers, nor represented to their imaginations in too lively or too affecting colours.

It is very possible, Sir, that a great deal of this philosophy may lie too deep for your conception; it is possible, that not understanding, or not being able to answer it, you may incline to fix an odium on it, and alledge, that it has an affinity with that of Hobbes and Mandevill. But granting it were so, which it is not, truth ought only to be regarded, and names to have no weight in a dispute of this kind. I wanted to say something on female chastity and delicacy, about which you and your heroines make such a rout and a pother, and I shall now apply it to examine how far your Pamela is a proper example of either. In the first place, she was not of that rank or situation in life which could entitle her to those notions of honour and virtue, which are extremely proper and becoming in Clarissa or Harriet. In the next place, the principles which she imbibed from her religious education under Booby’s lady mother never could have been sufficient to preserve her virtue, as it is called, had it been properly besieged. No doubt their may have been servant girls who have withstood the earnest sollicitations of great ’squires, their masters; but then they have either disliked the persons, their affections have been pre-ingaged, or, like Pamela, they have had a Booby to deal with. In short, your whole atchievement, in your first performance, amounts to no more than this; by giving so circumstantial an account of Booby’s fruitless operations, you have pointed out to young gentlemen, who may have the same designs, the quite contrary method, by which they may assuredly promise themselves better success.

Nor even do I think Bob Lovelace himself, who glories so much in intrigue, a very formidable man among the ladies, if we except his potions and his doses of opium, which an apothecary’s ’prentice could have managed better than either mother Sinclair or him. He possibly might have taken all the freedoms he did with Clarissa, except the last shocking one, and not offended her half so much, if he had ordered his conduct otherwise. But you seem to have a notion, at least you represent your heroes acting as if nothing could be done with women, but by down-right bribery and corruption, and by teazing and terrifying them out of their senses. You are however mistaken; women are never mercenary in their amours, until they are totally debauched, and prostitution has become their trade, and many not even then, where they like their man. The youngest and most artless of them all know, that when money is offered beforehand they are treated like prostitutes, a character which they naturally hate and despise, they are sensible their man entertains the same sentiments of them, and they as naturally hate and despise him for doing so. Neither is the greatest success to be expected from putting them in ill humour, and keeping their tempers constantly on the fret; surely more is to be done when their hearts are at ease, their fears asleep, and their minds softened by sympathizing love and tenderness. At the same time there is a due medium between an abject whiner, and an obstinate insulting teazer, which characters women know well how to distinguish; they despise the one, and they hate the other: all your lovers are of these kinds; Hickman and Lord Goosecap of the first; Lovelace and Booby, when he put on his stately airs after the summer-house adventure, of the last. You have not been able to describe an agreeable, artful, and accomplish’d seducer, who, without raising fears and terrors, could melt, surprize, or reason a woman out of her virtue. It is well you have not, for such a character could do no good, and might do a great deal of mischief. Nay, there is reason to fear, that the characters you have already drawn, whatever your intentions may be, have not quite so innocent a tendency as you imagine.

Having now enquired into the merit of your compositions, with respect to the manner of their execution, I shall next proceed to examine what tendency their subject, or the matter contained in them, has to promote chastity, modesty, and delicacy; virtues, the advancement of which I believe you have sincerely at heart. You and I, perhaps, entertain quite different notions about their nature and origin; but while we are agreed as to their utility and fitness, and that the conduct of both sexes ought to be more under the influence of these principles than it generally is, we need not trouble ourselves about such abstract speculations; so that it is to be hoped we shall reason henceforth upon common principles, and the natural and necessary connection between causes and effects. Love, eternal Love, is the subject, the burthen of all your writings; it is the poignant sauce, which so richly seasons Pamela, Clarissa and Grandison, and makes their flimzy nonsense pass so glibly down. Love, eternal love, not only seasons all our other numerous compositions of the same kind, but likewise engrosses our theatres and all our dramatic performances, which were originally calculated to give examples of nobler passions. From this situation of affairs among our authors, one would be apt to imagine, that the propagation of the species was at a stand, and that, not to talk of marrying and giving in marriage, there was hardly any such thing as fornication going forward among us, and that therefore our publick-spirited penmen, to prevent the world from coming to an end, employ’d all their art and eloquence to keep people in remembrance, that they were composed of different sexes. But provident nature has rendered all their endeavours unnecessary, nay, she has rather erred, if I may be allowed the expression, in making that passion already too strong of itself. She has rather implanted too many allurements, and has affixed too great a variety of pleasures to the intercourse between the sexes, and has likewise allow’d that passion to display itself much sooner than is consistent either with the good of society, or the happiness of individuals. Therefore I must always maintain, that those writings which heighten and inflame the passion, which paint in lively colours the endearments between the sexes, are of a bad and pernicious tendency, and do much more evil than they can possibly do good, especially to the young and amorous, whose appetites are by nature furious and ungovernable. Your writings are all evidently of this kind, and fall within this censure in the strongest manner; and none of your brother romancers are, in my opinion, entirely free from it, except the moral and ingenious authoress of David Simple. Indeed, if they employed what power they may have to raise the passions, and made use of the possession they have got of the public ear, to inculcate patriotism, the love of a country, and other public and private virtues, which perhaps were never scarcer than at present, they would in that case be as much to be commended, as they now ought to be blamed.

Many, Sir, share equally in this guilt with you; however, it is not the less for being divided; but if this were all, you might pass undistinguished in the general censure. There is one species of iniquity, for so I must call it, in which you so much excel, in which you have acquired a pre-eminence so conspicuous, that all other writers, when you appear, must hide their diminished heads, like stars before the sun: that consists in drawing characters the most shockingly vicious, and giving examples of villainy the most infamous, and by that means instructing the ignorant and innocent in the theory of crimes, which, without a thorough knowledge of the town, they could never have suspected human nature to have been capable of. Any one who remembers the correspondence between Lovelace and Belford, and what passes in that infernal brothel, to which Clarissa was conducted, will at once perceive what I have in view. Equally admirable and just is this aphorism of our noble and inimitable poet.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen;