91 



Pamela for the abandoned seducer, there is something greatly 

 repugnant to delicacy, besides its being a precedent, which 

 in some degree authorises a virtuous young woman to hold a 

 parley with a seducer, an incident which has been greatly 

 improved upon in the more modern novels. 



But after all those objections, an'd many more that might 

 be urged, perhaps there is more danger to be comprehended 

 from many writers, who have taken care to avoid all appear- 

 ance of grossness, or indelicacy, but who, (in the words of 

 an excellent writer) * " have made the least refined affec- 

 tions of humanity lose their indelicate nature in the eyes. of 

 many, when dignified by the epitliet o^ sentimental, and have 

 made a softened appellation give a gracefulness to moral: 

 deformity." 



There is not any more natural way of accounting for the 

 greatly increased multiplication of those trials that are the 

 disgrace of our daily newspapers, than the light manner in 

 which the breach of the seventh commandment is treated in 

 novels ; considered in this point of view, the Julies, and Del- 

 phines of Frances, have greatly afforded to the moralist sub- 

 jects for animadversion: and even one of our own country 

 women has thought proper to make the hero of her tale, 

 (who is the person for. whose feelings, and affections, the 

 young, the tender, and perhaps the virtuous, are to be in- 

 terested, and to sympathise with,) guilty of a crime, m. 

 « 



* VJceiitMus Knox. 



