ively pathetic, and
even sublime, in her first address to him, after she was
betrayed; her constant refusal of his proffer'd hand, her
resignation to her fate, and her behaviour to her
hard-hearted relations, are all equally noble, and all
natural in a Clarissa. Her character, in short, is such,
that unless one should be hunting for faults, scarce any can
be found; and perhaps it is owing to such a disposition in
me, that I cannot help observing she is rather too good, at
least too methodically so: The division of her time, and her
diary had been better omitted; all such things detract from
the nature and simplicity of a character. The characters of
her family are finely marked and distinguished, and well
adapted for bringing on the catastrophe. There is something
likewise extremely noble and generous in the friendship
between Clarissa and Miss Howe. But I must here observe,
that in this, your capital performance, you seem in a good
measure to have exhausted your invention with respect to
characters. For instance, that _dear flighty creature_ Lady
G. is nothing else but a second edition of _Madam Howe's
lively daughter_. They are both wits, and have both high
notions of female prerogative, and the pre-eminence of their
own sex over the other; they had both like to have run away
with too worthless fellows, and both afterwards treated two
honest well-meaning men, during the time of their courtship,
like dogs; and both, I imagine, for all these reasons, will
be great favourites with the female part of your readers.
Pollexfen and his crew very much resemble Lovelace and his
Beelzebubs; and Grandmamma Shirley is nothing else but a
_second mamma_ Horton; as Lord Goosecap is another Hickman.

It would take up too much time to animadvert upon all the
rest of your male and female characters. I shall only
observe in general, that you seem to have succeeded better
in your subordinate ones, than in the principal; the divine
Clarissa, as you justly call her, always excepted. Though
some are faulty, yet many appear to be well marked and
distinguished.

The third and last thing that is to be done in an epic or
dramatic composition is, to inculcate some one great moral
virtue, by making it the characteristic of the hero or the
chief person. Thus Homer, in his Odyssey, proposes Ulysses
as an example of prudence he professes to sing,

+Ton andra polutropon.+

_The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd._

And Virgil, in t