is 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 earned 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
h