Sister's Reproach come
quite up to the Point they will rest on. For, tho' indeed it is true, all the
World wou'd acquit the best Gentleman in it, if he married such a Waiting-maid
as Pamela, yet, there is an ill-discerning Partiality, in Passion, that will
overthrow all the Force of that Argument: because every belov'd Maid will be
PAMELA, in a Judgment obscur'd by her Influence.
    And, since the Ground of this Fear will seem solid, I don't know how to be
easy, till it is shewn (nor ought it to be left to the Author's Modesty) that
they who consider his Design in that Light will be found but short-sighted
Observers.
    Request it of him then to suffer to be told them, that not a limited, but
general, Excitement to Virtue was the first and great End to his Story: And that
this Excitement must have been deficient, and very imperfectly offer'd, if he
had not look'd quite as low as he cou'd for his Example: because if there had
been any Degree or Condition, more remote from the Prospect than that which he
had chosen to work on, that Degree might have seem'd out of Reach of the Hope,
which it was his generous Purpose to encourage. - And, so, he was under an
evident Necessity to find such a Jewel in a Cottage: and expos'd, too, as she
was, to the severest Distresses of Fortune, with Parents unable to support their
own Lives, but from the daily hard Product of Labour.
    Nor wou'd it have been sufficient to have plac'd her thus low and
distressful, if he had not also suppos'd her a Servant: and that too in some
elegant Family; for if she had always remain'd a Fellow-cottager with her
Father, it must have carried an Air of Romantick Improbability to account for
her polite Education.
    If she had wanted those Improvements, which she found means to acquire in
her Service, it wou'd have been very unlikely, that she shou'd have succeeded so
well; and had destroy'd one great Use of the Story, to have allow'd such
uncommon Felicity to the Effect of mere personal Beauty. - And it had not been
judicious to have represented her as educated in a superior Condition of Life
with the proper Accomplishments, before she became reduc'd by Misfortunes, and
so not a Servant, but rather an Orphan under