n by way of note in the present edition, at proper places to
obviate this objection, or rather to bespeak the attention of hasty
readers to what lies obviously before them. For thus the heroine
anticipates this very objection, expostulating with Miss Howe on her
contemptuous treatment of Mr. Hickman; which (far from being guilty of
the same fault herself) she did, on all occasions, and declares she would
do so, whenever Miss Howe forgot herself, although she had not a day to
live:

'O my dear,' says she, 'that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted
to live single) to have met with a man, by whom I could have acted
generously and unreservedly!

'Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time,
thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should
be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him, who made mine difficult.
And you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with than Mr. Lovelace, or
had he but half the merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found, that
my doctrine on this subject, should have governed my whole practice.'
See this whole Letter, No. XXXII. Vol. VIII. See also Mr. Lovelace's
Letter, Vol. VIII. No. LIX. and Vol. IX. No. XLII. where, just before his
death, he entirely acquits her conduct on this head.

It has been thought, by some worthy and ingenious persons, that if
Lovelace had been drawn an infidel or scoffer, his character, according
to the taste of the present worse than sceptical age, would have been
more natural. It is, however, too well known, that there are very many
persons, of his cast, whose actions discredit their belief. And are not
the very devils, in Scripture, said to believe and tremble?

But the reader must have observed, that, great, and, it is hoped, good
use, has been made throughout the work, by drawing Lovelace an infidel,
only in practice; and this as well in the arguments of his friend
Belford, as in his own frequent remorses, when touched with temporary
compunction, and in his last scenes; which could not have been made, had
either of them been painted as sentimental unbelievers. Not to say that
Clarissa, whose great objection to Mr. Wyerley was, that he was a
scoffer, must have been inexcusable had she known Lovelace to be so, and
had given the least attention to his addresses. On the co