piercing strain of victory to which he has set the catastrophe of a fair life destroyed, we shall still less need their apologies when we hear them pronounce this work divine. E. S. D. NOTE. To prevent any mistake as to the name of this novel, which is sometimes supposed to be Clarissa Harlowe, a copy of the original title page is printed opposite. It may be right to add that nearly all the short passages of narrative which intersperse the following correspondence, and are printed in Italics, belong to the author; and that the editor is responsible only for those which are subscribed as his. CLARISSA: OR, THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY. Comprehending The most important Concerns of PRIVATE LIFE. And particularly shewing The DISTRESSES that may attend the Misconduct In Relation to MARRIAGE. Publifhed by the Editor of PAMELA. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR S. RICHARDSON And Sold by A. MILLAR, over-against CATHERINE-STREET in the STRAND: J. and Ja. RIVINGTON, in ft. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD: JOHN OSBORN, in PATER-NOSTER ROW: And by S. LEAKE, at BATH. M.DCC. XLVIII. PREFACE. HE following history is given in a series of letters written principally in a double yet separate correspondence; Between two young ladies of virtue and honour, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other, and writing not merely for amusement, but upon the most interesting subjects; in which every private family, more or less, may find itself concerned: and, Between two gentlemen of free lives; one of them glorying in his talents for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other, in confidence, all the secret purposes of an intriguing head and resolute heart. But here it will be proper to observe, for the sake of such as may apprehend hurt to the morals of youth, from the more freely written letters, that the gentlemen, though professed libertines as to the female sex, and making it one of their wicked maxims, to keep no faith with any of the individuals of it, who are thrown into their power, are not, however, either infidels or scoffers; nor yet such as think themselves freed from the observance of those other moral duties which bind man to man. On the contrary, it will be found, in the progress of the work, that they very often make such reflections upon each other, and each upon himself and his own actions, as reasonable beings must make, who disbelieve not a future state of rewards and punishments, and who one day propose to reform-one of them actually reforming, and by that means giving an opportunity to censure the freedoms which fall from the gayer pen and lighter heart of the other. And yet that other, although in unbosoming himself to a select friend, he discover wickedness enough to entitle him to general detestation, preserves a decency, as well in his images, as in his language, which is not always to be found in the works of some of the most celebrated modern writers, whose subjects and characters have less warranted the liberties they have taken. In the letters of the two young ladies, it is presumed will be found not only the highest exercise of a reasonable and practical friendship, between minds endowed with the noblest principles of virtue and religion, but, occasionally interspersed, such delicacy of sentiments, particularly with regard to the other sex; such instances of impartiality, each freely, as a fundamental principle of their friendship, blaming, praising, and setting right the other, as are strongly to be recommended to the observation of the younger part (more especially) of the female readers. The principal of these two young ladies is proposed as an exemplar to her sex. Nor is it any objection to her being so, that she is not in all respects a perfect character. It was not only natural, but it was necessary, that she should have some faults, were it only to show the reader how laudably she could mistrust and blame herself, and carry to her own heart, divested of self-partiality, the |