ting her untainted Purity (surely we may say so, since the
Violation reached not her Soul) in Marriage with so gross a Violator;
and must for ever continue in Force, till the eternal Differences of
Vice and Virtue shall coalesce, and make one putrid Mass, a Chaos in the
Moral and Intellectual World.

We have a remarkable, and in some Degree a parallel Case in Scripture;
where we find, that the Rape of _Dinah_ was revenged, cruelly revenged,
by the Sons of Jacob. _Dinah_, like =Clarissa=, had Proposals of Marriage
made to her by the Ravisher. But these were not thought sufficient to
expunge the Stain upon a Person of that Family, from which was to
proceed the =Son= of Him whose eyes are purer than to behold Iniquity.
Therefore a Massacre was made of the King Hamor, and his son Shechem;
and their People were led into Captivity. The Answer of Simeon and Levi
to their Father's Complaint of Cruelty was only this: _Should he deal
with_ =our Sister=, _as with an_ =Harlot=?

The only Use we intend to make of this Passage is, to shew that it is no
new thing, that a Violation of this sort should be desperately resented,
as this was by the resolute =Morden=; however _new_ it may be, that a
young Lady should disdain the Villain, who had betrayed her Person, and
soon after laid her Hopes, and the Hopes of all her flourishing Family,
in the Dust of the Grave.

POSTSCRIPT.

_Referred to in the Preface._

IN WHICH

Several Objections that have been made, as well to the Catastrophe
as to different Parts of the preceding History, are briefly
considered.

The foregoing Work having been published at three different periods of
time, the Author, in the course of its publication, was favoured with
many anonymous Letters, in which the Writers differently expressed their
wishes with regard to the apprehended catastrophe.

Most of those directed to him by the gentler Sex, turned in favour of
what they called a _Fortunate Ending_. Some of the fair writers,
enamoured, as they declared, with the character of the Heroine, were
warmly solicitous to have her made happy:"And others, likewise of their
mind, _insisted that Poetical Justice_ required that it should be so.
And when, says one ingenious Lady, whose undoubted motive was
good-nature and humanity, it must be concluded, that it is in an
author's power to make his piece end as he pleases, why should he not
give pleasure rather than pain to the Reader whom he has intere