Having now enquired into the merit of your compositions, with respect to the manner of their execution, I shall next proceed to examine what tendency their subject, or the matter contained in them, has to promote chastity, modesty, and delicacy; virtues, the advancement of which I believe you have sincerely at heart. You and I, perhaps, entertain quite different notions about their nature and origin; but while we are agreed as to their utility and fitness, and that the conduct of both sexes ought to be more under the influence of these principles than it generally is, we need not trouble ourselves about such abstract speculations; so that it is to be hoped we shall reason henceforth upon common principles, and the natural and necessary connection between causes and effects. Love, eternal Love, is the subject, the burthen of all your writings; it is the poignant sauce, which so richly seasons Pamela, Clarissa and Grandison, and makes their flimzy nonsense pass so glibly down. Love, eternal love, not only seasons all our other numerous compositions of the same kind, but likewise engrosses our theatres and all our dramatic performances, which were originally calculated to give examples of nobler passions. From this situation of affairs among our authors, one would be apt to imagine, that the propagation of the species was at a stand, and that, not to talk of marrying and giving in marriage, there was hardly any such thing as fornication going forward among us, and that therefore our publick-spirited penmen, to prevent the world from coming to an end, employ’d all their art and eloquence to keep people in remembrance, that they were composed of different sexes. But provident nature has rendered all their endeavours unnecessary, nay, she has rather erred, if I may be allowed the expression, in making that passion already too strong of itself. She has rather implanted too many allurements, and has affixed too great a variety of pleasures to the intercourse between the sexes, and has likewise allow’d that passion to display itself much sooner than is consistent either with the good of society, or the happiness of individuals. Therefore I must always maintain, that those writings which heighten and inflame the passion, which paint in lively colours the endearments between the sexes, are of a bad and pernicious tendency, and do much more evil than they can possibly do good, especially to the young and amorous, whose appetites are by nature furious and ungovernable. Your writings are all evidently of this kind, and fall within this censure in the strongest manner; and none of your brother romancers are, in my opinion, entirely free from it, except the moral and ingenious authoress of David Simple. Indeed, if they employed what power they may have to raise the passions, and made use of the possession they have got of the public ear, to inculcate patriotism, the love of a country, and other public and private virtues,