It would take up too much time to animadvert upon all the rest of your male and female characters. I shall only observe in general, that you seem to have succeeded better in your subordinate ones, than in the principal; the divine Clarissa, as you justly call her, always excepted. Though some are faulty, yet many appear to be well marked and distinguished. The third and last thing that is to be done in an epic or dramatic composition is, to inculcate some one great moral virtue, by making it the characteristic of the hero or the chief person. Thus Homer, in his Odyssey, proposes Ulysses as an example of prudence he professes to sing, Τον ανδρα πολυτροπον. _The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d._ And Virgil, in the person of Æneas, gives an example of piety to the Gods, he sings the pious Æneas. In the same manner, in the memoirs of Sir Cha. Grandison you propose an example of benevolence, and in Pamela of chastity; you celebrate the benevolent Grandison and the chaste Pamela. I have already, in the two foregoing articles, given my opinion sufficiently of the first, and shall here say somewhat more of the latter, and enquire a little into the nature of chastity. The influence of custom, habit, and education, over human minds is prodigious and inconceivable. It is so great and extensive, that perhaps it is utterly impossible to determine what principles or conceptions we receive from nature, and what from the other sources. All women of honour and condition among civilized nations imagine, that what are called virgin delicacy and reserve, female chastity and modesty, are not only fit and proper, but natural and inherent in their sex. Fit and proper they certainly are, as the universal consent of all ages and nations shews; and besides, that fitness and propriety is founded on the nature of things, but natural and inherent they are not, as is equally manifest from experience. In ancient Greece, where the women were remarkable both for continence before marriage, and fidelity after it, customs prevailed diametrically opposite to all our most established notions of modesty and delicacy. It was customary among them, for the women to perform the offices of rubbers, sweaters, and cuppers to the men, when bathing; nor was this the employment of the servants, or female slaves, but of young ladies of the highest rank and quality. Thus, in the third Odyssey, when Telemachus is entertained at Nestor’s palace, his youngest daughter, _Sweet Polycaste, takes the pleasing toil,_ _To bathe the prince, and pour the fragrant oil._