Yet, I confess, there is _One_, in the World, of whom I think with still greater Respect, than of PAMELA: and That is, of the [_del._ 5th] { wonderful} AUTHOR of PAMELA.----Pray, Who is he, Dear Sir? and where, and how, has he been able to hide, hitherto, such an encircling and all-mastering Spirit? He possesses every Quality that ART could have charm’d by: yet, has lent it to, and conceal’d it in, NATURE.----The Comprehensiveness of his Imagination must be truly prodigious!----It has stretch’d out this diminutive mere _Grain_ of _Mustard-seed_, (a poor Girl’s little, innocent, Story) into a Resemblance of That _Heaven_, which the Best of Good Books has compar’d it to.----All the Passions are His, in their most close and abstracted Recesses: and by selecting the most delicate, and yet, at the same time, most powerful, of their Springs, thereby to act, wind, and manage, the Heart, He _moves_ us, every where, with the Force of a TRAGEDY.
What is there, throughout the _Whole_, that I do not sincerely admire!---I admire, in it, the strong distinguish’d Variety, and picturesque glowing Likeness to _Life_, of the Characters. I know, hear, see, and live among ’em All: and, if I cou’d paint, cou’d return you their _Faces_. I admire, in it, the noble Simplicity, Force, Aptness, and Truth, of so many modest, œconomical, moral, prudential, religious, satirical, and cautionary, _Lessons_; which are introduc’d with such seasonable Dexterity, and with so polish’d and exquisite a Delicacy, of Expression and Sentiment, that I am only apprehensive, for the _Interests_ of _Virtue_, lest some of the _finest_, and _most touching_, of those elegant Strokes of Good-breeding, Generosity, and Reflection, shou’d be lost, under the too gross Discernment of an unfeeling Majority of Readers; for whose Coarseness, however, they were kindly design’d, as the most useful and charitable Correctives.
One of the best-judg’d Peculiars, of the Plan, is, that These Instructions being convey’d, as in a Kind of Dramatical Representation, by those beautiful _Scenes_, Her own Letters and Journals, who acts the most moving and suffering _Part_, we feel the Force in a threefold Effect,----from the Motive, the Act, and the Consequence.