Shamela | Page 3

owe Formation to the future Effect of his Influence. I feel another
Emotion.
As soon as you have read this yourself five or six Times over (which
may possibly happen within a Week) I desire you would give it to my
little God-Daughter, as a Present from me. This being the only
Education we intend henceforth to give our Daughters. And pray let
your Servant-Maids read it over, or read it to them. Both your self and
the neighbouring Clergy, will supply yourselves for the Pulpit from the
Booksellers, as soon as the fourth Edition is published. I am,
Sir, Your most humble Servant, Tho. Tickletext.
----
Parson Oliver to Parson Tickletext.
Rev. SIR,
I received the Favour of yours with the inclosed Book, and really must
own myself sorry, to see the Report I have heard of an epidemical
Phrenzy now raging in Town, confirmed in the Person of my Friend.
If I had not known your Hand, I should, from the Sentiments and Stile
of the Letter, have imagined it to have come from the Author of the
famous Apology, which was sent me last Summer; and on my reading
the remarkable Paragraph of measured Fulness, that resembling Life
out-glows it, to a young Baronet, he cry'd out, C ly C b r by G . But I
have since observed, that this, as well as many other Expressions in
your Letter, was borrowed from those remarkable Epistles, which the
Author, or the Editor hath prefix'd to the second Edition which you
send me of his Book.
Is it possible that you or any of your Function can be in earnest, or

think the Cause of Religion, or Morality, can want such slender
Support? God forbid they should. As for Honour to the Clergy, I am
sorry to see them so solicitous about it; for if worldly Honour be meant,
it is what their Predecessors in the pure and primitive Age, never had or
sought. Indeed the secure Satisfaction of a good Conscience, the
Approbation of the Wise and Good, (which never were or will be the
Generality of Mankind) and the extatick Pleasure of contemplating, that
their Ways are acceptable to the Great Creator of the Universe, will
always attend those, who really deserve these Blessings: But for
worldly Honours, they are often the Purchase of Force and Fraud, we
sometimes see them in an eminent Degree possessed by Men, who are
notorious for Luxury, Pride, Cruelty, Treachery, and the most
abandoned Prostitution; Wretches who are ready to invent and maintain
Schemes repugnant to the Interest, the Liberty, and the Happiness of
Mankind, not to supply their Necessities, or even Conveniencies, but to
pamper their Avarice and Ambition. And if this be the Road to worldly
Honours, God forbid the Clergy should be even suspected of walking in
it.
The History of Pamela I was acquainted with long before I received it
from you, from my Neighbourhood to the Scene of Action. Indeed I
was in hopes that young Woman would have contented herself with the
Good-fortune she hath attained; and rather suffered her little Arts to
have been forgotten than have revived their Remembrance, and
endeavoured by perverting and misrepresenting Facts to be thought to
deserve what she now enjoys: for though we do not imagine her the
Author of the Narrative itself, yet we must suppose the Instructions
were given by her, as well as the Reward, to the Composer. Who that is,
though you so earnestly require of me, I shall leave you to guess from
that Ciceronian Eloquence, with which the Work abounds; and that
excellent Knack of making every Character amiable, which he lays his
hands on.
But before I send you some Papers relating to this Matter, which will
set Pamela and some others in a very different Light, than that in which
they appear in the printed Book, I must beg leave to make some few
Remarks on the Book itself, and its Tendency, (admitting it to be a true

Relation,) towards improving Morality, or doing any good, either to the
present Age, or Posterity: which when I have done, I shall, I flatter
myself, stand excused from delivering it, either into the hands of my
Daughter, or my Servant-Maid.
The Instruction which it conveys to Servant-Maids, is, I think, very
plainly this, To look out for their Masters as sharp as they can. The
Consequences of which will be, besides Neglect of their Business, and
the using all manner of Means to come at Ornaments of their Persons,
that if the Master is not a Fool, they will be debauched by him; and if
he is a Fool, they will marry him. Neither of which, I apprehend, my
good Friend, we desire should be the Case of our Sons.
And notwithstanding