that could be expected from the example; for, if there never can be such another woman as Clarissa, and such a catastrophe is not again to be dreaded, there is nothing to deter another Rake from putting in practice the same infamous schemes, upon any other woman he may happen to have in his power. Thus far, Sir, have I carried the parallel between Homer and you, with respect to the moral tendency of your works, a parallel in any other view, you yourself must be sensible would be ridiculous. Were I to extend it farther, it would still conclude more to your disadvantage, but I think enough is said to convince any impartial person, that if the one, with the smallest appearance of justice, was denied an admission into the Platonic commonwealth, the other would have been kick’d out of it with shame and disgrace; yet, you have very pleasantly contrived to find a place there for yourself, in Homer’s room. You have adopted and inserted in your Clarissa the four following verses, of a poetical encomium which was made upon it. _Even Plato in Lyceum’s awful shade,_ _Th’ instructive page, with transport had survey’d,_ _And own’d its author, to have well supplied,_ _The place, his laws, to Homer’s self denied._ Under these lines we have this note. By the laws of Plato’s commonwealth, Homer was denied a place there, on account of the bad tendency of the morals he ascribes to his Gods and his Heroes; but from the short parallel I have drawn, let the impartial determine whose writings have the worst tendency. I know nothing of your poet Laureate, therefore shall say as little of him, but I cannot tell which most to wonder at, your own ignorance or vanity, the last is conspicuous in numberless other places as well as this, the first is scarce less so. Tho’ you have mention’d Plato’s commonwealth oftener than once in your works, yet, it appears that you know nothing of its nature or constitution, by which it was rendered impossible, for such characters as you describe, to have either an existence, or an admission into that imaginary republic. The pride of wealth in the Harlow family, and the pride of titles and descent in the Lovelace family, can no where be found, save, in a monarchial and commercial state, where there is a hereditary noblesse, and a great inequality among the fortunes of the citizens. Neither can such characters as Lovelace and his associates, or mother Sinclair and her nymphs, display themselves, or such a place as the mother’s brothel, subsist any where but in a city like London, the overgrown metropolis of a powerful Empire, and an extensive commerce; all these corruptions, are the necessary and unavoidable consequences of such a constitution of things. In order to prevent which, Plato made the basis of his republic consist in a perfect equality of the citizens, both with respect to honours and estates, and to banish commerce, in his opinion, the other great corrupter of the morals of a people, forever