Nor even do I think Bob Lovelace himself, who glories so much in intrigue, a very formidable man among the ladies, if we except his potions and his doses of opium, which an apothecary’s ’prentice could have managed better than either mother Sinclair or him. He possibly might have taken all the freedoms he did with Clarissa, except the last shocking one, and not offended her half so much, if he had ordered his conduct otherwise. But you seem to have a notion, at least you represent your heroes acting as if nothing could be done with women, but by down-right bribery and corruption, and by teazing and terrifying them out of their senses. You are however mistaken; women are never mercenary in their amours, until they are totally debauched, and prostitution has become their trade, and many not even then, where they like their man. The youngest and most artless of them all know, that when money is offered beforehand they are treated like prostitutes, a character which they naturally hate and despise, they are sensible their man entertains the same sentiments of them, and they as naturally hate and despise him for doing so. Neither is the greatest success to be expected from putting them in ill humour, and keeping their tempers constantly on the fret; surely more is to be done when their hearts are at ease, their fears asleep, and their minds softened by sympathizing love and tenderness. At the same time there is a due medium between an abject whiner, and an obstinate insulting teazer, which characters women know well how to distinguish; they despise the one, and they hate the other: all your lovers are of these kinds; Hickman and Lord Goosecap of the first; Lovelace and Booby, when he put on his _stately airs_ after the summer-house adventure, of the last. You have not been able to describe an agreeable, artful, and accomplish’d seducer, who, without raising fears and terrors, could melt, surprize, or reason a woman out of her virtue. It is well you have not, for such a character could do no good, and might do a great deal of mischief. Nay, there is reason to fear, that the characters you have already drawn, whatever your intentions may be, have not quite so innocent a tendency as you imagine.