“Little Book, charming _Pamela_, get thee gone; face the World, in
which thou wilt find nothing like thyself.” Happy would it be for
Mankind, if all other Books were burnt, that we might do nothing but
read thee all Day, and dream of thee all Night. Thou alone art
sufficient to teach us as much Morality as we want. Dost thou not
teach us to pray, to sing Psalms, and to honour the Clergy? Are not
these the whole Duty of Man? Forgive me, O Author of _Pamela_,
mentioning the Name of a Book so unequal to thine: But, now I think
of it, who is the Author, where is he, what is he, that hath hitherto
been able to hide such an encircling, all-mastering Spirit, “he
possesses every Quality that Art could have charm'd by: yet hath lent
it to and concealed it in Nature. The Comprehensiveness of his
Imagination must be truly prodigious! It has stretched out this
diminutive mere Grain of Mustard-seed (a poor Girl's little, _&c._)
into a Resemblance of that Heaven, which the best of good Books has
compared it to.”
To be short, this Book will live to the Age of the Patriarchs, and
like them will carry on the good Work many hundreds of Years hence,
among our Posterity, who will not HESITATE their Esteem with
Restraint. If the _Romans_ granted Exemptions to Men who begat a
_few_ Children for the Republick, what Distinction (if Policy and we
should ever be reconciled) should we find to reward this Father of
Millions, which are to 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 Book-sellers, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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