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Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson

S >> Samuel Richardson >> Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9)




'Whatever crosses and disappoints a good man suffers in the body of the
tragedy, they will make but small impression on our minds, when we know,
that, in the last act, he is to arrive at the end of his wishes and
desires.

'When we see him engaged in the depth of his afflictions, we are apt to
comfort ourselves, because we are sure he will find his way out of them,
and that his grief, however great soever it may be at present, will soon
terminate in gladness.

'For this reason, the antient writers of tragedy treated men in their
plays, as they are dealt with in the world, by making virtue sometimes
happy and sometimes miserable, as they found it in the fable which they
made choice of, or as it might affect their audience in the most
agreeable manner.

'Aristotle considers the tragedies that were written in either of those
kinds; and observes, that those which ended unhappily had always pleased
the people, and carried away the prize, in the public disputes of the
state, from those that ended happily.

'Terror and commiseration leave a pleasing anguish in the mind, and fix
the audience in such a serious composure of thought, as is much more
lasting and delightful, than any little transient starts of joy and
satisfaction.

'Accordingly, we find, that more of our English tragedies have succeeded,
in which the favourites of the audience sink under their calamities, than
those in which they recover themselves out of them.

'The best plays of this kind are The Orphan, Venice Preserved, Alexander
the Great, Theodosius, All for Love, Oedipus, Oroonoko, Othello, &c.

'King Lear is an admirable tragedy of the same kind, as Shakespeare wrote
it: but as it is reformed according to the chimerical notion of POETICAL
JUSTICE, in my humble opinion it has lost half its beauty.

'At the same time I must allow, that there are very noble tragedies which
have been framed upon the other plan, and have ended happily; as indeed
most of the good tragedies which have been written since the starting of
the above-mentioned criticism, have taken this turn: The Mourning Bride,
Tamerlane,* Ulysses, Phaedra and Hippolitus, with most of Mr. Dryden's. I
must also allow, that many of Shakespeare's, and several of the
celebrated tragedies of antiquity, are cast in the same form. I do not,
therefore, dispute against this way of writing tragedies; but against the
criticism that would establish this as the only method; and by that means
would very much cramp the English tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent
to the genius of our writers.'


* Yet, in Tamerlane, two of the most amiable characters, Moneses and
Arpasia, suffer death.


This subject is further considered in a letter to the Spectator.*


* See Spect. Vol. VII. No. 548.


'I find your opinion,' says the author of it, 'concerning the
late-invented term called poetical justice, is controverted by some
eminent critics. I have drawn up some additional arguments to strengthen
the opinion which you have there delivered; having endeavoured to go to
the bottom of that matter. . . .

'The most perfect man has vices enough to draw down punishments upon his
head, and to justify Providence in regard to any miseries that may befall
him. For this reason I cannot but think that the instruction and moral
are much finer, where a man who is virtuous in the main of his character
falls into distress, and sinks under the blows of fortune, at the end of
a tragedy, than when he is represented as happy and triumphant. Such an
example corrects the insolence of human nature, softens the mind of the
beholder with sentiments of pity and compassion, comforts him under his
own private affliction, and teaches him not to judge of men's virtues by
their successes.* I cannot think of one real hero in all antiquity so
far raised above human infirmities, that he might not be very naturally
represented in a tragedy as plunged in misfortunes and calamities. The
poet may still find out some prevailing passion or indiscretion in his
character, and show it in such a manner as will sufficiently acquit
Providence of any injustice in his sufferings: for, as Horace observes,
the best man is faulty, though not in so great a degree as those whom
we generally call vicious men.**


* A caution that our Blessed Saviour himself gives in the case of the
eighteen person killed by the fall of the tower of Siloam, Luke xiii. 4.
** Vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille,
Qui minimis urgentur.----


'If such a strict poetical justice (proceeds the letter-writer,) as some
gentlemen insist upon, were to be observed in this art, there is no
manner of reason why it should not be so little observed in Homer, that
his Achilles is placed in the greatest point of glory and success, though
his character is morally vicious, and only poetically good, if I may use
the phrase of our modern critics. The AEnead is filled with innocent
unhappy persons. Nisus and Euryalus, Lausus and Pallas, come all to
unfortunate ends. The poet takes notice in particular, that in the
sacking of Troy, Ripheus fell, who was the most just character among the
Trojans:

'----Cadit & Ripheus, justissimus unus
Qui fuit in Teucris, & servantissimus aequi.
Diis aliter visum est.--

'The gods thought fit.--So blameless Ripheus fell,
Who lov'd fair Justice, and observ'd it well.'

'And that Pantheus could neither be preserved by his transcendent piety,
nor by the holy fillets of Apollo, whose priest he was:

'--Nec te tua plurima, Pantheu,
Labentum pietas, nec Apollinis infula texit. AEn. II.

'Nor could thy piety thee, Pantheus, save,
Nor ev'n thy priesthood, from an early grave.'

'I might here mention the practice of antient tragic poets, both Greek
and Latin; but as this particular is touched upon in the paper
above-mentioned, I shall pass it over in silence. I could produce
passages out of Aristotle in favour of my opinion; and if in one place he
says, that an absolutely virtuous man should not be represented as
unhappy, this does not justify any one who should think fit to bring in
an absolutely virtuous man upon the stage. Those who are acquainted with
that author's way of writing, know very well, that to take the whole
extent of his subject into his divisions of it, he often makes use of
such cases as are imaginary, and not reducible to practice. . . .

'I shall conclude,' says this gentleman, 'with observing, that though the
Spectator above-mentioned is so far against the rule of poetical justice,
as to affirm, that good men may meet with an unhappy catastrophe in
tragedy, it does not say, that ill men may go off unpunished. The reason
for this distinction is very plain; namely, because the best of men [as
is said above,] have faults enough to justify Providence for any
misfortunes and afflictions which may befall them; but there are many men
so criminal, that they can have no claim or pretence to happiness. The
best of men may deserve punishment; but the worst of men cannot deserve
happiness.'

Mr. Addison, as we have seen above, tells us, that Aristotle, in
considering the tragedies that were written in either of the kinds,
observes, that those which ended unhappily had always pleased the people,
and carried away the prize, in the public disputes of the stage, from
those that ended happily. And we shall take leave to add, that this
preference was given at a time when the entertainments of the stage were
committed to the care of the magistrates; when the prizes contended for
were given by the state; when, of consequence, the emulation among
writers was ardent; and when learning was at the highest pitch of glory
in that renowned commonwealth.

It cannot be supposed, that the Athenians, in this their highest age of
taste and politeness, were less humane, less tender-hearted, than we of
the present. But they were not afraid of being moved, nor ashamed of
showing themselves to be so, at the distresses they saw well painted and
represented. In short, they were of the opinion, with the wisest of men,
that it was better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of
mirth; and had fortitude enough to trust themselves with their own
generous grief, because they found their hearts mended by it.

Thus also Horace, and the politest Romans in the Augustan age, wished to
be affected:

Ac ne forte putes me, quae facere ipse recusem,
Cum recte tractant alii, laudere maligne;
Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet; falsis terroribus implet,
Ut magus; & modo me Thebis, modo point Athenis.

Thus Englished by Mr. Pope:

Yet, lest thou think I rally more than teach,
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach;
Let me, for once, presume t'instruct the times
To know the poet from the man of rhymes.
'Tis he who gives my breast a thousand pains:
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;
Enrage--compose--with more than magic art,
With pity and with terror tear my heart;
And snatch me o'er the earth, or through the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.

Our fair readers are also desired to attend to what a celebrated critic*
of a neighbouring nation says on the nature and design of tragedy, from
the rules laid down by the same great antient.


* Rapin, on Aristotle's Poetics.


'Tragedy,' says he, makes man modest, by representing the great masters
of the earth humbled; and it makes him tender and merciful, by showing
him the strange accidents of life, and the unforeseen disgraces, to which
the most important persons are subject.

'But because man is naturally timorous and compassionate, he may fall
into other extremes. Too much fear may shake his constancy of mind, and
too much of tragedy to regulate these two weaknesses. It prepares and
arms him against disgraces, by showing them so frequent in the most
considerable persons; and he will cease to fear extraordinary accidents,
when he sees them happen to the highest part of mankind. And still more
efficacious, we may add, the example will be, when he sees them happen
to the best.

'But as the end of tragedy is to teach men not to fear too weakly common
misfortunes, it proposes also to teach them to spare their compassion for
objects that deserve it. For there is an injustice in being moved at the
afflictions of those who deserve to be miserable. We may see, without
pity, Clytemnestra slain by her son Orestes in AEschylus, because she had
murdered Agamemnon her husband; yet we cannot see Hippolytus die by the
plot of his step-mother Phaedra, in Euripides, without compassion, because
he died not, but for being chaste and virtuous.

These are the great authorities so favourable to the stories that end
unhappily. And we beg leave to reinforce this inference from them, that
if the temporary sufferings of the virtuous and the good can be accounted
for and justified on Pagan principles, many more and infinitely stronger
reasons will occur to a Christian reader in behalf of what are called
unhappy catastrophes, from the consideration of the doctrine of future
rewards; which is every where strongly enforced in the History of
Clarissa.

Of this, (to give but one instance,) an ingenious modern, distinguished
by his rank, but much more for his excellent defence of some of the most
important doctrines of Christianity, appears convinced in the conclusion
of a pathetic Monody, lately published; in which, after he had deplored,
as a man without hope, (expressing ourselves in the Scripture phrase,)
the loss of an excellent wife; he thus consoles himself:

Yet, O my soul! thy rising murmurs stay,
Nor dare th' All-wise Disposer to arraign,
Or against his supreme decree
With impious grief complain.
That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade,
Was his most righteous will: and be that will obey'd.
Would thy fond love his grace to her controul,
And in these low abodes of sin and pain
Her pure, exalted soul,
Unjustly, for thy partial good detain?
No--rather strive thy grov'ling mind to raise
Up to that unclouded blaze,
That heav'nly radiance of eternal light,
In which enthron'd she now with pity sees,
How frail, how insecure, how slight,
Is every mortal bliss.

But of infinitely greater weight than all that has been above produced
on this subject, are the words of the Psalmist:

'As for me, says he,* my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh
slipt: for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the
wicked. For their strength is firm: they are not in trouble as other
men; neither are they plagued like other men--their eyes stand out with
fatness: they have more than their heart could wish--verily I have
cleansed mine heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence; for all
the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. When I
thought to know this, it was too painful for me. Until I went into the
sanctuary of God; then understood I their end--thou shalt guide me with
thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.'


* Psalm lxxiii.


This is the Psalmist's comfort and dependence. And shall man, presuming
to alter the common course of nature, and, so far as he is able, to elude
the tenure by which frail mortality indispensably holds, imagine that he
can make a better dispensation; and by calling it poetical justice,
indirectly reflect on the Divine?

The more pains have been taken to obviate the objections arising from the
notion of poetical justice, as the doctrine built upon it had obtained
general credit among us; and as it must be confessed to have the
appearance of humanity and good nature for its supports. And yet the
writer of the History of Clarissa is humbly of opinion, that he might
have been excused referring to them for the vindication of his
catastrophe, even by those who are advocates for the contrary opinion;
since the notion of poetical justice, founded on the modern rules, has
hardly ever been more strictly observed in works of this nature than in
the present performance.

For, is not Mr. Lovelace, who could persevere in his villanous views,
against the strongest and most frequent convictions and remorses that
ever were sent to awaken and reclaim a wicked man--is not this great,
this wilful transgressor condignly punished; and his punishment brought
on through the intelligence of the very Joseph Leman whom he had
corrupted;* and by means of the very woman whom he had debauched**--is
not Mr. Belton, who had an uncle's hastened death to answer for***--are
not the infamous Sinclair and her wretched partners--and even the wicked
servants, who, with their eyes open, contributed their parts to the
carrying on of the vile schemes of their respective principals--are they
not all likewise exemplarily punished?


* See Letter LVIII. of this volume.
** Ibid. Letter LXI.
*** See Vol. VIII. Letter XVI.


On the other hand, is not Miss HOWE, for her noble friendship to the
exalted lady in her calamities--is not Mr. HICKMAN, for his
unexceptionable morals, and integrity of life--is not the repentant and
not ungenerous BELFORD--is not the worthy NORTON--made signally happy?

And who that are in earnest in their professions of Christianity, but
will rather envy than regret the triumphant death of CLARISSA; whose
piety, from her early childhood; whose diffusive charity; whose steady
virtue; whose Christian humility, whose forgiving spirit; whose meekness,
and resignation, HEAVEN only could reward?*


* And here it may not be amiss to remind the reader, that so early in the
work as Vol. II. Letter XXXVIII. the dispensations of Providence are
justified by herself. And thus she ends her reflections--'I shall not
live always--may my closing scene be happy!'--She had her wish. It was
happy.


We shall now, according to the expectation given in the Preface to this
edition, proceed to take brief notice of such other objections as have
come to our knowledge: for, as is there said, 'This work being addressed
to the public as a history of life and manners, those parts of it which
are proposed to carry with them the force of example, ought to be as
unobjectionable as is consistent with the design of the whole, and with
human nature.'

Several persons have censured the heroine as too cold in her love, too
haughty, and even sometimes provoking. But we may presume to say, that
this objection has arisen from want of attention to the story, to the
character of Clarissa, and to her particular situation.

It was not intended that she should be in love, but in liking only, if
that expression may be admitted. It is meant to be every where
inculcated in the story for example sake, that she never would have
married Mr. Lovelace, because of his immoralities, had she been left to
herself; and that of her ruin was principally owing to the persecutions
of her friends.

What is too generally called love, ought (perhaps as generally) to be
called by another name. Cupidity, or a Paphian stimulus, as some women,
even of condition, have acted, are not words too harsh to be substituted
on the occasion, however grating they may be to delicate ears. But take
the word love in the gentlest and most honourable sense, it would have
been thought by some highly improbable, that Clarissa should have been
able to show such a command of her passions, as makes so distinguishing
a part of her character, had she been as violently in love, as certain
warm and fierce spirits would have had her to be. A few observations are
thrown in by way of note in the present edition, at proper places to
obviate this objection, or rather to bespeak the attention of hasty
readers to what lies obviously before them. For thus the heroine
anticipates this very objection, expostulating with Miss Howe on her
contemptuous treatment of Mr. Hickman; which (far from being guilty of
the same fault herself) she did, on all occasions, and declares she would
do so, whenever Miss Howe forgot herself, although she had not a day to
live:

'O my dear,' says she, 'that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted
to live single) to have met with a man, by whom I could have acted
generously and unreservedly!

'Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time,
thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should
be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him, who made mine difficult.
And you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with than Mr. Lovelace, or
had he but half the merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found, that
my doctrine on this subject, should have governed my whole practice.'
See this whole Letter, No. XXXII. Vol. VIII. See also Mr. Lovelace's
Letter, Vol. VIII. No. LIX. and Vol. IX. No. XLII. where, just before his
death, he entirely acquits her conduct on this head.

It has been thought, by some worthy and ingenious persons, that if
Lovelace had been drawn an infidel or scoffer, his character, according
to the taste of the present worse than sceptical age, would have been
more natural. It is, however, too well known, that there are very many
persons, of his cast, whose actions discredit their belief. And are not
the very devils, in Scripture, said to believe and tremble?

But the reader must have observed, that, great, and, it is hoped, good
use, has been made throughout the work, by drawing Lovelace an infidel,
only in practice; and this as well in the arguments of his friend
Belford, as in his own frequent remorses, when touched with temporary
compunction, and in his last scenes; which could not have been made, had
either of them been painted as sentimental unbelievers. Not to say that
Clarissa, whose great objection to Mr. Wyerley was, that he was a
scoffer, must have been inexcusable had she known Lovelace to be so, and
had given the least attention to his addresses. On the contrary, thus
she comforts herself, when she thinks she must be his--'This one
consolation, however, remains; he is not an infidel, an unbeliever. Had
he been an infidel, there would have been no room at all for hope of him;
but (priding himself as he does in his fertile invention) he would have
been utterly abandoned, irreclaimable, and a savage.'* And it must be
observed, that scoffers are too witty, in their own opinion, (in other
words, value themselves too much upon their profligacy,) to aim at
concealing it.


* See Vol. IV. Letter XXXIX. and Vol. V. Letter VIII.


Besides, had Lovelace added ribbald jests upon religion, to his other
liberties, the freedoms which would then have passed between him and his
friend, must have been of a nature truly infernal.

And this father hint was meant to be given, by way of inference, that the
man who allowed himself in those liberties either of speech or action,
which Lovelace thought shameful, was so far a worse man than Lovelace.
For this reason he is every where made to treat jests on sacred things
and subjects, even down to the mythology of the Pagans, among Pagans, as
undoubted marks of the ill-breeding of the jester; obscene images and
talk, as liberties too shameful for even rakes to allow themselves in;
and injustice to creditors, and in matters of Meum and Tuum, as what it
was beneath him to be guilty of.

Some have objected to the meekness, to the tameness, as they will have it
to be, of Mr. Hickman's character. And yet Lovelace owns, that he rose
upon him with great spirit in the interview between them; once, when he
thought a reflection was but implied on Miss Howe;* and another time,
when he imagined himself treated contemptuously.** Miss Howe, it must be
owned, (though not to the credit of her own character,) treats him
ludicrously on several occasions. But so she does her mother. And
perhaps a lady of her lively turn would have treated as whimsically any
man but a Lovelace. Mr. Belford speaks of him with honour and
respect.*** So does Colonel Morden.**** And so does Clarissa on every
occasion. And all that Miss Howe herself says of him, tends more to his
reputation than discredit,***** as Clarissa indeed tells her.******


* See Vol. VII. Letter XXVIII.
** Ibid.
*** Ibid. Letter XLVIII.
**** See Letter XLVI. of this volume.
***** See Vol. II. Letter II. and Vol. III. Letter XL.
****** See Vol. II. Letter XI.


And as to Lovelace's treatment of him, the reader must have observed,
that it was his way to treat every man with contempt, partly by way of
self-exaltation, and partly to gratify the natural gaiety of his
disposition. He says himself to Belford,* 'Thou knowest I love him not,
Jack; and whom we love not, we cannot allow a merit to; perhaps not the
merit they should be granted.' 'Modest and diffident men,' writes
Belford, to Lovelace, in praise of Mr. Hickman, 'wear not soon off those
little precisenesses, which the confident, if ever they had them,
presently get over.'**


* See Vol. VII. Letter XXVIII.
** Ibid. Letter XLVIII.


But, as Miss Howe treats her mother as freely as she does her lover; so
does Mr. Lovelace take still greater liberties with Mr. Belford than he
does with Mr. Hickman, with respect to his person, air, and address, as
Mr. Belford himself hints to Mr. Hickman.* And yet is he not so readily
believed to the discredit of Mr. Belford, by the ladies in general, as he
is when he disparages Mr. Hickman. Whence can this particularity arise?


* See Letter XXXVI. of this volume.


Mr. Belford had been a rake: but was in a way of reformation.

Mr. Hickman had always been a good man.

And Lovelace confidently says, That the women love a man whose regard for
them is founded in the knowledge of them.*


* See Vol. V. Letter XVIII.


Nevertheless, it must be owned, that it was not purposed to draw Mr.
Hickman, as the man of whom the ladies in general were likely to be very
fond. Had it been so, goodness of heart, and gentleness of manners,
great assiduity, and inviolable and modest love, would not of themselves
have been supposed sufficient recommendations. He would not have been
allowed the least share of preciseness or formality, although those
defects might have been imputed to his reverence for the object of his
passion; but in his character it was designed to show, that the same man
could not be every thing; and to intimate to ladies, that in choosing
companions for life, they should rather prefer the honest heart of a
Hickman, which would be all their own, than to risk the chance of
sharing, perhaps with scores, (and some of those probably the most
profligate of the sex,) the volatile mischievous one of a Lovelace: in
short, that they should choose, if they wished for durable happiness, for
rectitude of mind, and not for speciousness of person or address; nor
make a jest of a good man in favour of a bad one, who would make a jest
of them and of their whole sex.