Remarks on Clarissa (1749)

On the Arrival of Miss Howe, we turn from the slow moving Herse, to the rapid Chariot-wheels that fly to bring the warm Friend, all glowing with the most poignant lively Grief, to mourn her lost Clarissa. Here again the Description equals the noble Subject. Miss Howe, at the first striking Sight of Clarissa in her Coffin, could only by frantic Actions express the labouring Anguish that perturbed her Breast. And we accompany her in Horror, when she first impatiently pushes aside the Coffin Lid. In short, we sigh, we rave, and we weep with her.

What I felt at Colonel Morden's Description at the Funeral, is exactly painted in the Letter wrote by Mr. Belford in Answer to that Description, where he says,

'You croud me Sir, methinks, into the silent, slow Procession – Now with the sacred Bier do I enter the Porch – '3

But it would be endless to mention all the moving tragic Scenes, that are now crouding into my Mind, in Clarissa; all judiciously interspersed with Scenes of comic Humour; such as the Behaviour of Lovelace at the Ball; the Meeting between him and Mr. Hickman; Lovelace's Description of what he calls his Tryal before Lord M – and the Ladies; with some others equally calculated to relieve the Mind from fixing too long on mournful melancholy Ideas.

Finely has the Author of Clarissa set forth what is true, and what is false Honour. When Lovelace upbraids Belford for not preserving Clarissa, by betraying his own villainous Plots and Machinations to destroy her; and says, 'I am sure now, that I would have thanked thee for it with all my Heart, and thought thee more a Father and a Friend, than my real Father and my best Friend.'

All false Shame has he exposed, by shewing the Beauties of an open and frank Heart in Clarissa's charming Simplicity, when she tells Mrs. Smith, in a publick Shop, that she had been in Prison; and when in a Letter to Lady Betty Laurance she declares, that the Disgrace she cannot hide from herself, she is not sollicitous to conceal from the World.

True and false Friendship was never more beautifully displayed than in this Work; the firm, the steady Flame that burns in the fixed Affection between Clarissa and Miss Howe, which, in Clarissa's Words, has Virtue for its Base, is both well described and accounted for by Colonel Morden; and that Chaff and Stubble, as she well calls it, that has not Virtue for its Base, is inimitably painted by Belford, in his Account of Mowbray's Behaviour to the dying Belton. 'It is such a horrid thing (says he) to think of, that a Man who had lived in such strict Terms of Amity with another (the Proof does not come out so as to say Friendship) who had pretended so much Love for him, could not bear to be out of his Company, would ride an hundred Miles an End to enjoy it, and would fight for him, be the Cause right or wrong; yet now could be so little moved to see him in such Misery of Body and Mind as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him; because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a Malefactor (hardened perhaps by Liquor, and not softened by previous Sickness) on his going to Execution.'

What Merit has Clarissa in breaking up and dispersing this profligate Knot of Friends, that, in the first Volume, are represented so formidable as to terrify all the honest People in the Neighbourhood, who rejoice when they go up to Town again. She was to revenge on Lovelace his Miss Betterton, his French Devotee, his French Countess, the whole Hecatomb which he boasts that he had in different Climes sacrificed to his Nemesis, and all this by the natural Effects of his own vile Actions, and her honest noble Simplicity; whilst she steadily pursues the bright Path of Innocence, and proposes to herself no other End, no not even in Thought, but to preserve untainted her spotless Mind, and diffuse Happiness to all around her.

I confess I was against the Story's ending unhappily, till I saw the Conclusion; but I now think the different Deaths of the many Persons (for in this Point also the Difference is as essentially preserved, as in the Characters or Scenes) who fall in the winding up the Catastrophy in the seventh Volume, produce as noble a Moral as can be invented by the Wit of Man.

The broken Spirit, the dejected Heart that pursue poor Belton through his last Stage of Life (brought on by a lingering Illness, and ill Usage from an artful Woman to whom Vice had attached him, and increased by his Soul's being startled and awaked from that thoughtless Lethargy in which Vice had so long lulled him) naturally break forth in those fearful Tremors, those agonizing pannic Terrors of the Mind, which follow him to the End, and make a strong and lively Picture of the Terrors of Death first thought on, when Life was flying, and could no longer supply the flowing Blood and vital Heat that animates the mortal Frame.

Mrs. Sinclair's Death is very different; the Suddenness of her Departure had not given Time for a regular Decay of her Strength, and the same animal Spirits which used to support her in the noisy Roar of a profligate Life, now like so many Vultures preyed on her own Bosom, and assisted to express the dreadful Horrors of an unexpected Death.

Lovelace, when he comes to die, is full of Rage and Disappointment; his uncontrouled Spirit, unused to be baffled, cannot quietly submit to the great and universal Conqueror Death himself. On his Death-bed he is a lively Picture of the End of that worldly Wisdom which is Foolishness with God. His strong Imagination that assisted him to form and carry on those cunning Plots which he pursued to his own Destruction, now assisted his Conscience to torment his Soul, and set before his Eyes the injured Innocent who would have contributed to the utmost of her Power that he might have spent all his Days in Peace and Joy. In short, he fluttered like a gay Butterfly in the Sunshine of Prosperity; he wandered from the Path that leads to Happiness: In the Bloom of Youth he fell a Sacrifice to his own Folly: his Life was a Life of Violence, and his Death was a Death of Rage.

Whilst the gentle Clarissa's Death is the natural Consequence of her innocent Life; her calm and prepared Spirit, like a soft smooth Stream, flows gently on, till it slides from her Misfortunes, and she leaves the World free from Fear, and animated only by a lively Hope.

She wished her closing Scene might be happy. She had her Wish, (says the Author in his Postscript) it was happy.

Nothing ever made so strong a Contrast as the Deaths of Lovelace and Clarissa. Wild was the Life of Lovelace, rapid was his Death; gentle was Clarissa's Life, softly flowed her latest Hours; the very Word Death seems too harsh to describe her leaving Life, and her last Breath was like the soft playing of a western Breeze, all calm! all Peace! all Quiet!

The true Difference between the Virtuous and the Vicious lies in the Mind, where the Author of Clarissa has placed it; Lovelace says well, when he views the persecuted Clarissa a-sleep.

'See the Difference in our Cases; she the charming Injured can sweetly sleep, whilst the varlet Injurer cannot close his Eyes, and has been trying to no purpose the whole Night to divert his Melancholy, and to fly from himself.'

Rightly I think in the Author's Postscript is it observed, that what is called poetical Justice is chimerical, or rather anti-providential Justice; for God makes his Sun to shine alike on the Just and the Unjust. Why then should Man invent a kind of imaginary Justice, making the common Accidents of Life turn out favourable to the Virtuous only? Vain would be the Comforts spoken to the Virtuous in Affliction, in the sacred Writings, if Affliction could not be their Lot.

But the Author of Clarissa has in his Postscript quoted such undoubted Authorities, and given so many Reasons on the Christian System for his Catastrophy, that to say more on that Head would be but repeating his Words. The Variety of Punishments also of those guilty Persons in this Work who do not die, and the Rewards of those who are innocent, I could go through; had not that Postscript, and the Conclusion supposed to be writ by Mr. Belford, already done it to my Hands. Only one thing I must say, that I don't believe the most revengeful Person upon Earth could wish their worst Enemy in a more deplorable Situation, than if Lovelace in his Frenzy, in that charming picturesque Scene, where he is riding between Uxbridge and London, when his impatient Spirit is in suspence; and also when he hears of Clarissa's Death.

Thus have I just hinted at the Heads of the Characters, the Difference of the chief Scenes, and the Variety of the several Deaths, all the natural Consequences of the several Lives, and productive of the designed noble Moral in Clarissa; and I think it may be fairly and impartially said, The Web is wove so strongly, every Part so much depending on and assisting each other, that to divide any of them, would be to destroy the whole.

4That many Things having full ReferencesTo one Consent, may work contrariously:As many Arrows, loosed several Ways,Come to one Mark, as many Ways meet in one Town,As many fresh Streams meet in one salt Sea,As many Lines close in the Dial's Center,So may a thousand Actions once afootEnd in one Purpose, and be all well bornWithout Defeat.

If what I have here said can be any Amusement to you, as it concerns your favourite Clarissa, my End will be answered. I am,

Madam, Your's, &c.Bellario. Miss GIBSON to BELLARIO

SIR,

Your Good-nature in sending me your Thoughts on Clarissa, with a Design to give me Pleasure, I assure you is not thrown away; may you have equal Success in every generous Purpose that fills your Heart, and greater Happiness in this World, I am sure I cannot wish you.

Most truly, Sir, do you remark, that a Story told in this Manner can move but slowly, that the Characters can be seen only by such as attend strictly to the Whole; yet this Advantage the Author gains by writing in the present Tense, as he himself calls it, and in the first Person, that his Strokes penetrate immediately to the Heart, and we feel all the Distresses he paints; we not only weep for, but with Clarissa, and accompany her, step by step, through all her Distresses.

I see her from the Beginning, in her happy State, beloved by all around her, studying to deserve that Love; obedient to her Parents, dependant on their Will by her own voluntary Act, when her Grandfather had put it in her Power to be otherwise; respectful and tender to her Brother and Sister; firm in her Friendship to Miss Howe; grateful to good Mrs. Norton, who had carefully watched over her Infant Years, and delighted to form and instruct her Mind; kind to her Inferiors; beneficent to all the Poor, Miserable, and Indigent; and above all, cultivating and cherishing in her Heart the true Spirit of Christianity, Meekness, and Resignation; watchful over her own Conduct, and charitable to the Failings of others; unwilling to condemn, and rejoicing in every Opportunity to praise. But as the Laws of God and Man have placed a Woman totally in the Power of her Husband, I believe it is utterly impossible for any young Woman, who has any Reflection, not to form in her Mind some kind of Picture of the Sort of Man in whose Power she would chuse to place herself. That Clarissa did so, I think, plainly appears, from her steady Resolution to refuse any Man she could not obey with the utmost Chearfulness; and to whose Will she could not submit without Reluctance. She would have had her Husband a Man on whose Principles she could entirely depend; one in whom she might have placed such a Confidence, that she might have spoke her very Thoughts aloud; one from whom she might have gained Instruction, and from whose Superiority of Understanding she would have been pleased to have taken the Rules of her own Actions. She desired no Reserves, no separate Interest from her Husband; had no Plots, no Machinations to succeed in, and therefore wanted not a Man who by artful Flattery she could have cajoled madly to have worship'd her; a kind Indulgence, in what was reasonable, was all her Desire, and that Indulgence to arise from her own Endeavour to deserve it, and not from any Blindness cast before her Husband's Eyes by dazzling Beauty, or cunning Dissimulation; but, from her Infancy, having the Example daily before her of her Mother's being tyrannized over, notwithstanding her great Humility and Meekness, perhaps tyrannized over for that very Humility and Meekness. She thought a single Life, in all Probability, would be for her the happiest; cherishing in her Heart that Characteristic of a noble Mind, especially in a Woman, of wishing, as Miss Howe says she did, to pass through Life unnoted.

In this State of Mind did Lovelace first find Clarissa. She liked him; his Person and Conversation were agreeable, but the Libertinism of his Character terrified her; and her Disapprobation of him restrained her from throwing the Reins over the Neck of a Passion she thought might have hurried her into Ruin. But when by his Artifices, and the Cruelty of her Friends, she was driven into his Power, had he not, to use her own Words, treated her with an Insolence unbecoming a Man, and kept her very Soul in suspence; fawning at her Feet to marry him, whilst, in the same Instant, he tried to confuse her by a Behaviour that put it out of her Power to comply with him; there was nothing that she would not have done to oblige him. Then indeed she plainly saw that her Principles and his Profligacy, her Simplicity and his Cunning, were not made to be joined; and when she found such was the Man she liked best, no Wonder her Desire of a single Life should return. She saw, indeed, her own Superiority over Lovelace, but it was his Baseness that made her behold it. And here I must observe, that in the very same Breath in which she tells him, Her Soul's above him, she bids him leave her, that Thought more than any other makes her resolve, at all Events, to abandon him. Was this like exulting in her own Understanding, and proudly (as I have heard it said) wanting to dictate to the Man she intended for a Husband? Such a Woman, if I am not greatly mistaken, would not desire the Man to leave her because she saw her Soul was above him; but on the contrary, concealing from him, and disguising her Thoughts, would have set Art against Art, and been the more delighted to have drawn him in to have married her, that she might have deceived him, and enjoyed the Thoughts of her own Superiority for Life. As I remember, he never asks her fairly to marry him but once, and then she consents: But how different in every Action is she from the sly and artful Woman, who would have snatched at this Opportunity, and not have trusted him with a Moment's Delay, whilst Clarissa, being then ill, consents, with a Confidence that nothing but her Goodness and Simplicity could have had in such a Man.

Tho' Clarissa unfortunately met with Lovelace, yet I can imagine her with a Lover whose honest Heart, assimulating with hers, would have given her leave, as she herself wishes, to have shewn the Frankness of her Disposition, and to have openly avowed her Love. But Lovelace, by his own intriguing Spirit, made her Reserves, and then complained of them; and as she was engaged with such a Man, I think the Catastrophe's being what is called Unhappy, is but the natural Consequence of such an Engagement; tho', I confess, I was not displeased that the Report of this Catastrophe met with so many Objections, as it proved what an Impression the Author's favourite Character had made on those Minds which could not bear she should fall a Sacrifice to the Barbarity of her Persecutors. And I hope that now all the Readers of Clarissa are convinced how rightly the Author has judged in this Point. If the Story was not to have ended tragically, the grand Moral would have been lost, as well as that grand Picture, if I may call it so, of human Life, of a Man's giving up every thing that is valuable, only because every thing that is valuable is in his Power. Lovelace thought of the Substance, whilst that was yet to be persued; but once within reach of it, his plotting Head and roving Imagination would let him see only the Shadow, and once enter'd into the Pursuit, his Pride, the predominant Passion of his Soul, engaged him to fly after a visionary Gratification which his own wild Fancy had painted, till, like one following an Ignis fatuus through By-Paths and crooked Roads, he lost himself in the Eagerness of his own Pursuit, and involved with him the innocent Clarissa, who, persecuted, misunderstood, envied, and evil-treated as she had been, by those from whom she had most Reason to hope Protection, I think could not find a better Close to her Misfortunes than a triumphant Death. Triumphant it may very well be called, when her Soul, fortified by a truly Christian Philosophy, melted and softened in the School of Affliction, had conquered every earthly Desire, baffled every uneasy Passion, lost every disturbing Fear, while nothing remained in her tender Bosom but a lively Hope of future Happiness. When her very Griefs were in a manner forgot, the Impression of them as faint and languid as a feverish Dream to one restored to Health, all calm and serene her Mind, forgiving and praying for her worst Enemies, she retired from all her Afflictions, to meet the Reward of her Christian Piety.

The Death of Clarissa is, I believe, the only Death of the Kind in any Story; and in her Character, the Author has thrown into Action (if I may be allowed the Expression) the true Christian Philosophy, shewn its Force to ennoble the human Mind, till it can look with Serenity on all human Misfortunes, and take from Death itself its gloomy Horrors. Never was any thing more judicious than the Author's bringing Lovelace as near as Knight's-Bridge at the Time of Clarissa's Death; for by that means he has in a manner contrived to place in one View before our Eyes the guilty Ravager of unprotected Innocence, the boasting Vaunter of his own useless Parts, in all the Horrors of mad Despair, whilst the injured Innocent, in a pious, in a divine Frame of Mind is peaceably breathing her last. 'Such a Smile! such a charming Serenity (says Mr. Belford) overspreading her sweet Face at the Instant, as seemed to manifest her eternal Happiness already begun.'

Surely the Tears we shed for Clarissa in her last Hours, must be Tears of tender Joy! Whilst we seem to live, and daily converse with her through her last Stage, our Hearts are at once rejoiced and amended, are both soften'd and elevated, till our Sensations grow too strong for any Vent, but that of Tears; nor am I ashamed to confess, that Tears without Number have I shed, whilst Mr. Belford by his Relation has kept me (as I may say) with fixed Attention in her Apartment, and made me perfectly present at her noble exalted Behaviour; nor can I hardly refrain from crying out, 'Farewell, my dear Clarissa! may every Friend I love in this World imitate you in their Lives, and thus joyfully quit all the Cares and Troubles that disturb this mortal Being!'

May Clarissa's Memory be as triumphant as was her Death! May all the World, like Lovelace, bear Testimony to her Virtues, and acknowledge her Triumph!

I am with many Thanks, Sir, for your obliging Letter,

Your most obedient, &c.Harriote Gibson.

These Letters were shewn me by Miss Gibson, and thus, Sir, have I collected together all I have heard on your History of Clarissa; and if every thing that Miss Gibson and Bellario has said, is fairly deducible from the Story, then I am certain, by the candid and good-natured Reader, this will be deemed a fair and impartial Examination, tho' I avow myself the sincere Admirer of Clarissa, and

Your very humble Servant,FINIS

1

Pope's Homer.

2

Othello.

3

See Vol. VII. Letter 74. Page 292. in Clarissa.

4

See Shakespear's Henry the Vth.