s.

The length of the piece has been objected to by some, who perhaps looked
upon it as a mere novel or romance; and yet of these there are not
wanting works of equal length.

They were of opinion, that the story moved too slowly, particularly in
the first and second volumes, which are chiefly taken up with the
altercations between Clarissa and the several persons of her family.

But is it not true, that those altercations are the foundation of the
whole, and therefore a necessary part of the work? The letters and
conversations, where the story makes the slowest progress, are presumed
to be characteristic. They give occasion, likewise, to suggest many
interesting personalities, in which a good deal of the instruction
essential to a work of this nature is conveyed. And it will, moreover,
be remembered, that the author, at his first setting out, apprized the
reader, that the story (interesting as it is generally allowed to be) was
to be principally looked upon as the vehicle to the instruction.

To all which we may add, that there was frequently a necessity to be very
circumstantial and minute, in order to preserve and maintain that air of
probability, which is necessary to be maintained in a story designed to
represent real life; and which is rendered extremely busy and active by
the plots and contrivances formed and carried on by one of the principal
characters.

Some there are, and ladies too! who have supposed that the excellencies
of the heroine are carried to an improbable, and even to an
impracticable, height in this history. But the education of Clarissa,
from early childhood, ought to be considered as one of her very great
advantages; as, indeed, the foundation of all her excellencies: and, it
is to be hoped, for the sake of the doctrine designed to be inculcated by
it, that it will.

She had a pious, a well-read, a not meanly-descended woman for her nurse,
who with her milk, as Mrs. Harlowe says,* gave her that nurture which no
other nurse could give her. She was very early happy in the
conversation-visits of her learned and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her
correspondencies, not with him only, but with other divines mentioned in
her last will. Her mother was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did
credit to her birth and fortune; and both delighted in her for those
improvements and attainments which gave her, and them in her, a
distinction that caused it to be said, that when she was out of the
family it