The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than
_Pamela_. The author was then fifty years old; and he presents in this
work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,--the
printer's notions of the social condition of England,--shrewd, clever, and
defective.
Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the "huge
folios of inanity" which had preceded him, the work was hailed with
delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and
natural. Ladies carried _Pamela_ about in their rides and walks. Pope,
near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock
recommended it from the pulpit.
PAMELA, AND OTHER NOVELS.--_Pamela_ is represented as a poor servant-maid,
but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute
master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and
reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her.
Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day
were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect
to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.
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