nt secure them prosperity in all their undertakings.
In the same manner, in the first part of Clarissa, we find
the bad consequences of the cruel treatment of parents
towards their children, and forcing their inclinations in
marriage; and in the second part, we see a fine example of
the pernicious effects of a young lady's reposing confidence
or engaging in correspondence with a man of profligate and
debauched principles. I do not at present recollect any
composition which, view'd in this light, can be compared
with the Iliad and Clarissa. The morals of the first are of
the utmost importance in public life, and those of the last
in private life. If the little states and republicks of
Greece, for whom Homer's poems were originally calculated,
had adhered uniformly to their maxims, they would have been
invincible, and must have subsisted to this day in all their
glory and splendor. In the same manner, if the morals
contained, and so admirably enforced by example, in your
Clarissa, had their due weight, a vast variety of mischiefs
and miseries in private life would be prevented. There is
nothing in which parents are apter to stretch their
authority too far, than in the article of marriage; there is
nothing in which they pay less regard to the happiness of
their children; nothing in which they allow less to the
influence of passion and inclination in them; and nothing in
which they are more sway'd by the dirty grovling passions of
vanity, pride, and avarice, themselves. On the other hand,
there is nothing in which young ladies, even of the greatest
modesty and discretion, more readily fall into errors. It is
pretty certain, that where they are allowed freely to follow
their own biass, they generally prefer either real or
reputed rakes, to men of a regular life and more sober
deportment. I have often been puzzled in endeavouring to
account for this conduct in the female world, so entirely
contrary to what all of them think their real and most
valuable interests. I have sometimes been tempted to impute
it to the truth of this satyrical maxim in the poet,

That _every woman is at heart a rake_,

and that, custom and education having deterred them from the
practice, they cannot help loving the theory in themselves,
and preferring the practice in others. But I rather incline
to attribute it to a cruel and unjust policy in the other
sex, who have deceived and bubbled them in this, as well as
several other articles, and h