Plots and Machinations to
destroy her; and says, 'I am sure now, that I would have thanked thee
for it with all my Heart, and thought thee more a Father and a Friend,
than my real Father and my best Friend.'

All false Shame has he exposed, by shewing the Beauties of an open and
frank Heart in _Clarissa's_ charming Simplicity, when she tells Mrs.
_Smith_, in a publick Shop, that she had been in Prison; and when in a
Letter to Lady _Betty Laurance_ she declares, that _the Disgrace she
cannot hide from herself, she is not sollicitous to conceal from the
World_.

True and false Friendship was never more beautifully displayed than in
this Work; the firm, the steady Flame that burns in the fixed Affection
between _Clarissa_ and Miss _Howe_, which, in _Clarissa's_ Words, _has
Virtue for its Base_, is both well described and accounted for by
Colonel _Morden_; and that Chaff and Stubble, as she well calls it, that
_has not Virtue for its Base_, is inimitably painted by _Belford_, in
his Account of _Mowbray's_ Behaviour to the dying _Belton_. 'It is such
a horrid thing (says he) to think of, that a Man who had lived in such
strict Terms of Amity with another (the Proof does not come out so as to
say Friendship) who had pretended so much Love for him, could not bear
to be out of his Company, would ride an hundred Miles an End to enjoy
it, and would fight for him, be the Cause right or wrong; yet now could
be so little moved to see him in such Misery of Body and Mind as to be
able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him; because he was
more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a Malefactor (hardened
perhaps by Liquor, and not softened by previous Sickness) on his going
to Execution.'

What Merit has _Clarissa_ in breaking up and dispersing this profligate
Knot of Friends, that, in the first Volume, are represented so
formidable as to terrify all the honest People in the Neighbourhood, who
rejoice when they go up to Town again. _She_ was to revenge on
_Lovelace_ his Miss _Betterton_, his _French_ Devotee, his _French_
Countess, the whole Hecatomb which he boasts that he had in different
Climes sacrificed to his _Nemesis_, and all this by the natural Effects
of his own vile Actions, and her honest noble Simplicity; whilst she
steadily pursues the bright Path of Innocence, and proposes to herself
no other End, no not even in Thought, but to preserve untainted her
spotless Mind, and diffuse Happiness to all around he