On Saturday, February 14, 1741, the London Daily Advertiser carried the announcement:

This Day is published (Price bound 6s) In two neat Pocket Volumes The Second Edition (to which are prefix'd Extracts from several curious Letters written to the Editor on the Subject) of Pamela: or, Virtue rewarded. In a Series of Familiar Letters From A Beautiful Young Damsel, To Her Parents. Now first Published In order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes. A Narrative which has its Foundation in Truth and Nature; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct.¹

Since this second edition was called for only three months after the appearance of a large first edition on November 6, 1740, it looked as though booksellers Rivington and Osborn had a best seller on their hands. The anonymous author of this piece, which scrupulously avoided the title of novel, was a certain Mr. Samuel Richardson, a printer of about fifty years of age, who already had performed some small editing, indexing, and writing stints, but of whom very little had been heard until the appearance of Pamela.² As one result of the book's crashing success, Richardson emerged from his anonymity to become a major figure on the London scene.

The plot of this novel which captivated all of Britain is a disarmingly simple one. The story is narrated in the form of long, explicit letters from Pamela Andrews, a poor country girl in service with a rich family. After the death of the mistress of the household, Pamela is continually put to the necessity of resisting the advances of the young master. When his seduction schemes fail, he attempts rape on several occasions but always is thwarted at the last instant. Finally, in desperation, he proposes marriage and the offer is joyfully accepted, Pamela thus receiving the reward of her virtue.

Whatever the reasons for the book's appeal, the fact is that by September of 1741 five editions had been published, not to mention a pirated Irish edition.³ Undoubtedly sales were helped along by such friendly notices as that which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine (January 1741):

Several Encomiums on a Series of Familiar Letters, publish'd but last Month, entitled Pamela or Virtue rewarded, came too late for this Magazine, and we believe there will be little Occasion for inserting them in our next; because a Second Edition will then come out to supply the Demands in the Country, it being judged in Town as great a Sign of Want of Curiosity not to have read Pamela, as not to have seen the French and Italian Dancers.

In a similar vein was Horace Walpole's remark, made that same winter of 1740-1741: "Pamela est comme la neige, elle couvre tout de sa blancheur."⁴

The arrival of spring saw no abatement of the Pamela rage. In April, with warmer weather ahead, a "tie-in product" was offered for sale:

For the entertainment of the Ladies, more especially for those who have the Book, Pamela, a new Fan, representing the principal adventures of her Life, in Servitude; Love, and Marriage. Design'd and engraven by the best Masters.

Virtues Reward you in this fan may view,
To Honours Tie, Pamela strictly true:
But when by conjugal Affection mov'd
A Pattern to her Sex, and Age she prov'd
In ev'ry amiable scene of Life
Beneficient, fond Parent, loving Wife.⁵

Pamela souvenirs continued to be offered to the public for a good many years. In 1744 Joseph Highmore completed a series of twelve illustrations of Pamela, which, engraved by Truchy and Benoist, were delivered to subscribers.⁶ In 1745 some clever showman advertised a three-dimensional Pamela:

This is to acquaint all Gentlemen and Ladies, That there is to be seen, without Loss of Time, at the corner of Shoe Lane, facing Salisbury Court Fleet-Street, Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded.

Being a curious Piece of Wax-work, representing the Life of that fortunate Maid, from the Lady's first taking her to her Marriage; also Mr. B. her Lady's Son, and several Passages after; with the Hardships she suffered in Lincolnshire, where her Master sent her, and the grand Appearance they made when they came back to Bedfordshire.⁷

Even more indicative of Pamela's popularity was the tribute paid to her early in her career by the Grub Street hacks. These gentlemen were quick to make capital of Richardson's success, and on May 28, 1741, there appeared Pamela's Conduct in High Life, a spurious continuation now attributed to one John Kelly. Aware of this Grub Street activity and considerably vexed by Kelly's illegitimate offspring, Richardson set to work and produced his own "true" sequel, which came out on December 7, 1741. By this time there had been published a second fraudulent continuation, whose title was an obvious attempt to draw on both Kelly and Richardson: Pamela in High Life; or, Virtue Reward ed. And as if this were not enough, hard on the heels of Richardson's own continuation followed a third fake, Life of Pamela, which retold Pamela's epistolary first-person narrative in straight third-person style.⁸

Apparently it was felt that one couldn't have too much of a good thing; at any rate, the proliferation of Pamelas had only begun. By the end of 1742 there were three dramatic versions in England alone: Pamela, A Comedy, by Henry Giffard; Pamela: or, Virtue Triumphant, possibly by James Dance,⁹ and Pamela: An Opera, by Mr. Edge. Before long there were also Pamela The Second; Pamela Censured; Anti-Pamela, or Feign'd Innocence Detected; The True Anti-Pamela; Pamela Versified; Pamela: ou La Vertu recompensée, a French translation; The Virgin in Eden … To which are added Pamela's Letters; Memoirs of the Life of Lady H—, the celebrated Pamela; Lettre Sur Pamela; and Pamela: or The Fair Impostor.

Across the channel in France an almost identical Pamela vogue was in full swing. Dottin records the observation that to be in style one must own a Pamela; and that without Pamela there was nothing to talk about.¹⁰ As well as the translation of Richardson's original work, the current Pamela literature included Boissy's Pamela en France; Mémoires de Pamela; La Chausée's stage version, Pamela; Antipamela ou Memoires de M.D. ***; La Déroute des Pamela by Godard d'Aucour; and in the contemporary periodicals several letters about Pamela besides the usual analyses.

The history repeated itself in Germany and Italy, with one important difference. On the continent, Goldoni's Italian play, Pamela nubile, became even more popular than the parent work, and over the next few years was translated into more European languages than Richardson's novel.¹¹ Indeed, the "Adventures of 'Pamela' on the Continental Stage" is a story in itself,¹² and her influence on European literature in general is attested in many studies.¹³

The books and plays cited above by no means comprise a complete catalogue of the works directly inspired by Pamela, for the list has been limited to those which openly acknowledge their debt by carrying the name "Pamela" in their titles. A complete roster would include all such others as Voltaire's Nanine, Bicker-staffee's Maid of the Mill, and Moore's The Foundling. It also would take into account another category excluded here—the works written more than ten years after Pamela was first published, among them Cerlone's Pamela nubile and Pamela maritate, Rossi's Pamela, and Pamela by François de Neufchateau.

As for the duration of the Pamela vogue, perhaps some idea of it may be gathered from the following two instances:

In 1741 a bookseller trying to trade on Pamela's "sex interest" advertised: "The pleasures of conjugal love revealed…. of the same Letter and Size with Pamela, and very proper to be bound with it."¹⁴ Twenty years later, in 1760, a similar trick was used to push a book by John Piper, Esq., The Life of Miss Fanny Brown; or, Pamela the Second (A Clergyman's Daughter). The title relies for its effect on a vulgar play on words. [The first name is self-explanatory, and there is no doubt that the second is a play upon the slang of the period, as both "Fanny" and "Miss Brown" meant "the female pudend"; cf. Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2nd ed.; London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1938), pp. 265 and 523. These titles together are an excellent indication of the salacious aura surrounding Pamela.]

In 1742 Joseph Warton describing Curio, a fop, "all prate and smiles," wrote:

Such weak-wing'd May-flies Britain's troops disgrace
That Flandria, wondring mourns our altered race:
With him the fair, enraptured with a rattle,
Of Vauxhall, Garrick, or Pamela, prattle.¹⁵

And ten years after, a critic writing in the Monthly Review (December 1752) still cites Pamela when discussing

The history of Betty Barnes (so called from her having been born in a Barn) contains the adventures of a maidservant, beloved by a young gentleman, who, after the usual course of obstruction from his relations, marries her (and she becomes a fine lady: of which the world has probably had enough in Pamela …).

It would hardly be proper to present an account of Pamela's popularity without reference to the two most famous incidents of all, mentioned by every Richardson biographer, one of which concerns the villagers of Slough and the other a Reverend Benjamin Slocock. The people of Slough, it seems, used to gather at the local smithy to hear Pamela read aloud by the blacksmith. No story had ever absorbed them as did this one, and when finally little Pamela was married to

Squire B., there was no containing their enthusiasm: out they rushed to the parish church and celebrated the happy nuptial with a joyous pealing of bells.¹⁶ (Mrs. Piozzi, relying on an aunt's memory, placed this story in "Preston in Lancashire" and even added flying flags and a holiday gaiety.¹⁷) As for the Reverend Benjamin Slocock, soon after the first appearance of Pamela this worthy divine recommended the book from the pulpit of St. Saviour's Church, Southwark.¹⁸ That a novel should be recommended from the pulpit in 1740 is in itself so dazzling a wonder that even the possibility of bribery, raised by Downs,¹⁹ can not entirely dim its effulgence.

If this introduction partakes of the character of a panegyric, it does so by design: from this point on Pamela is in for few kind words. Hereafter the discussion is limited to the anti-Pamelas, the myriad objections to Pamela, and even the sins which her own imitators disclosed in her. Surely it would be decidedly unfair to detail the many faults which Pamela's critics discover, and fail to preface it with some account of the great popularity she enjoyed in her early years and which, in a slighter measure, she continued to enjoy for two hundred years. For Pamela's critics have been many, they have been vociferous, and some of them have even been just.

II

The legitimate objections to Pamela all began on April 4, 1741, with the appearance of Shamela, or to give the full title:

An Apology For The Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews In which the many notorious Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of a Book called Pamela are exposed and refuted; and all the matchless Arts of that young Politician set in a true and just light. Together with a full Account of all that passed between her and Parson Arthur Williams; whose Character is represented in a manner something different from that which he bears in Pamela. The whole being exact Copies of authentick Papers delivered to the editor. Necessary to be had in all families.

To mark how closely Shamela burlesques Pamela, it is necessary to recount more fully the events of Richardson's novel: The story opens with Pamela's letter to her parents relating the death of Lady B., the mistress who had trained Pamela far above the station of common servant. Mr. B., the son, assures Pamela that for the sake of his dear mother she will continue to be well treated. He gives her some small gifts, and in the process takes her by the hand—a gesture which so alarms her parents that they write back to warn her to guard her virtue.

As the days go by, Squire B. makes further presents, insists on reading her letters to her parents, and makes an oblique remark about her legs. When he refuses to permit Pamela to leave his house as his sister's maid, his designs become apparent. He makes his first real sortie in a small summerhouse, but his fumblings result in nothing more than his kissing her "two or three times, with frightful eagerness," after which he tries to bribe Pamela to silence. She refuses the money, informs Mrs. Jervis, the housekeeper, of the attempt, and for mutual protection they agree to sleep together thereafter.

B. soon tries again. This attempt occurs when he has learned of Pamela's revelation of the summerhouse "secret" and punctuates the subsequent angry interview with undercover caresses. Pamela refuses his generous offer to let the proposed seduction pass as a rape for which he will take full blame, but weakened by prayers and weeping she is forced into an ardent embrace. B. once again makes the worst of opportunity and, pressing his advantage too far too soon, insinuates his hand into Pamela's bosom. Indignation gives her "double strength," she escapes, flees to the next room, and faints.

Pamela is now resolved to leave, but nonetheless she stays to embroider a waistcoat for the master. With the idea of reaccustoming herself to the simple life of the home to which she is to return, she puts on her homespun dress and ordinary cap, and is led to Squire B.'s study, where this disguise inspires B. to kiss her as some "other" girl. Then, thoroughly vexed with Pamela's continued offishness, B. decides on action, and that night conceals himself in her bedroom closet. She hears a rustle, but has undressed down to an "under-pettiecoat" before a second rustle leads to an inspection. At B.'s onrush Pamela flees to Jervis and the double bed. B. orders Jervis out; instead she throws herself on Pamela. With both women screaming and Jervis and B. fighting over her supine form, Pamela once again faints at the touch of B.'s hand upon her bosom. She awakes to find the worst has been averted.

Jervis and Pamela are discharged, Pamela agreeing to wait one week to accompany Jervis from the house. However Jervis is rehired, and though it seems that perhaps Pamela may stay too, she finally determines to leave. There is a to-do about her dividing her clothes into three bundles: her lady's presents, Mr. B.'s gifts, and her own things, the latter being the only bundle she will take with her. After resisting further temptations to stay, among them a promise of an arranged marriage with B.'s handsome chaplain, Parson Williams, Pamela leaves the Bedfordshire estates, memorializing her departure with fourteen stanzas of "Verses On My Going Away."

Supposedly as a last gesture of good will, Mr. B. supplies her with his coach driven by his own coachman, but Pamela soon discovers that B. has compounded his crimes by adding kidnap to attempted rape. She is taken to his Lincolnshire estates presided over by Mrs. Jewkes, at present a Gorgon though formerly an "innkeeper's housekeeper"—and whatever else that implies in Pamelian circumlocution. Here, carefully guarded, Pamela is told with Jewkesian straightforwardness that she is being held for B.'s pleasure. She therefore plots an escape with Parson Williams, Pamela doing all the plotting while Williams merely nods assent. Subsequently the bungling Parson is temporarily crippled by hired ruffians, and the plot is discovered and thwarted. In the interim Pamela fails in her own escape attempt solely from her apprehensive maidenly fancies, and weeps selfpitying tears over a contemplated suicide which never goes beyond the stage of contemplation.

B. arrives at Lincolnshire and offers Pamela a legal settlement as the price for her acquiescence, adding that refusal will only produce the identical consummation minus the cash. When she refuses—naturally!—B. leaves orders for two women to guard Pamela in her bedroom, and pretends to leave. He returns privily disguised as Nan, Pamela's second guard, and watches while Pamela undresses and discourses with Jewkes, warder number one. Finally in bed, Jewkes holds Pamela's right arm as B. takes her left, clasps her, and announces her fate. Pamela makes screaming protestations of his action, Jewkes of his inaction; B. yells for both of them to stop so he can talk. Then the forgetful bungler once again slips his hand into her bosom, and Pamela "fainted away quite."

Upon regaining consciousness Pamela demands to know if—? But B. swears "that he had not offered the least indecency." Upon which Jewkes spurs him on again and Pamela swoons once more, reawakening in time to forgive the Squire all as he takes his crest-fallen departure.

Of course after this there is nothing to do but marry the girl, but even here the suspense is sustained by a letter declaring that a sham marriage is to be perpetrated upon Pamela. However, with her father in attendance, the marriage is truly performed by Parson Williams, and thereafter interest subsides rapidly as a graceful and charming Mrs. B. wins over various members of the B. family. This takes the story to the end of the second volume. Volumes III and IV—Richardson's continuation of Pamela in Her Exalted Condition—are outside the scope of this study, and a good thing it is, for two duller volumes have rarely graced the English language.

To conclude this obviously biased recital on a more impartial note, it should be stressed that a summary of the plot of Pamela without Richardson's development of detail, psychology, and sentiment can only display Pamela's naked faults without the clothing of Rich ardson's artistry. Or as Dr. Johnson put it:

Why Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment.²⁰

Both the sentiment and the story are the objects of Henry Fielding's satire in Shamela;²¹ indeed, Fielding began before the beginning and satirized the "Extracts from several curious Letters …," the commendatory letters which Richardson had had inserted into the second edition of Pamela.²² For the sake of scholarly exactitude, perhaps it should be noted that the burlesque actually started even before the commendations with the title and the name of the "author," Conny Keyber. When he wrote his satire, Fielding was still unaware of the true identity of the "editor" of Pamela although the secret must have been fairly known by then. The Daily Advertiser on April 7, 1741 ran the ditty:

Advice to Booksellers (after reading Pamela),
Since Printers with such pleasing Nature write,
And since so aukwardly your Scribes indite,
Be wise in Time, and take a friendly Hint:
Let Printers write, and let your Writers print.

However, Fielding mistakenly attributed Pamela to Colley Cibber, who had recently published An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber. Thus Colley Cibber became Conny Keyber.

Fielding's bawdy dedication to Miss Fanny contains a foretaste of what is to come; and his burlesque of the dedicatory letters attacks not only Cibber and two other minor writers of the day, but also the Reverend Slocock for his pulpit commendation, and Pope's remark that Pamela "will do more good than many volumes of sermons."²³ After some extravagant flattery, the first dedicatory letter ends with the note that Shamela "will do more good than the C[lerg]y have done harm in the World."²⁴

The Shamela narrative begins with Parson Tickletext sending Parson Oliver a copy of Pamela, which has been praised in "pulpit" and "Coffee-house." He declares that when Pamela casts "off the Pride of Ornament, and displays itself without any Covering; which it frequently doth … the coldest zealot cannot read without Emotion…." After several "emotions," he admonishes Oliver to be sure to read the book to his girls and servants. Parson Oliver, however, wishes to be excused from reading it to them because he knows the true story of Pamela, whose real name is Shamela and whose "authentick" letters he is sending on to Tickletext so that he may judge for himself.

There follows a series of letters in which the surface action of Pamela is so closely duplicated that were only the action dramatized, an onlooker would believe he was viewing identical stories—one in a condensed version. The difference lies beneath the surface. Where Richardson has Pamela pass her time in prayer, in softly entuned hymns, and in reading The Whole Duty of Man, Fielding takes the position that between drinks she is reciting the latest barroom ditty and Rochester's poems, and reading Venus in the Cloyster: or, the Nun in her Smock. Fielding has also filled out Richardson's Mr. B. to his full proportions with a name that is almost as famous as Pamela itself—it is "Booby."

In Shamela, Booby's first presents are accompanied with more material evidence of his regard. Led on by Shamela's skilled pretenses of innocence, he is halted in his first attempt on her virtue only by Mrs. Jervis' entrance. "How troublesome is such Interruption," Shamela writes to her mother, and is irritated to receive a reply reminding her of the consequences of her past error, the illegitimate birth of Parson Williams' bantling. Shamela heatedly tells the pot not to call the kettle black; and Mama replies that she is not upbraiding her for "being thy Mother's own Daughter," but this time "take care to be well paid before-hand…."

The next attempt on her "virtue" is introduced with a direct parody of Pamela's sweet, demure, modest reply to Mr. B. Booby, cursing Shamela for pertness, says, "You are a d—d impudent, stinking, cursed, confounded Jade, and I have a great Mind to kick your A—.You, kiss—, says I." Shamela then retreats, but just so far:

if you don't come to me, I'll come to you, says he; I shant come to you I assure you, says I. Upon which he run up, caught me in his Arms, and flung me upon a Chair, and began to offer to touch my Under-Petticoat. Sir, says I you had better not offer to be rude; well, says he, no more I wont then; and away he went out of the Room. I was so mad to be sure I could have cry'd.

Oh what a prodigious Vexation it is to a Woman to be made a Fool of.

Mrs. Jervis, who has been eavesdropping, is highly amused by the whole incident. She tells Shamela that it was different with the "Jolly Blades" of her day; and conspires to draw Booby on by giving him a view of Shammy naked in bed. Booby of course takes the bait and Shamela helps matters along by feigning sleep, but when she "awakes," her screaming and scratching end only as she "swoons." Booby, scared witless, begs forgiveness after Shamela "recovers": "By Heaven, I know not whether you are a Man or a Woman, unless by your swelling Breasts. Will you … forgive me: I forgive you! D—n you (says I)." After all he is not dealing with Pamela here, as witness Shamela's remarks to Mrs. Jervis on the subject of his hands going no further than her bosom: "Hang him, … he is not quite so cold as that I assure you; our Hands on neither side, were idle in the Scuffle, nor have left us any doubt of each other as to that matter."

The two women are sacked, and Jervis plans to open a "house" in London. This proves unnecessary, thanks to the success of Shamela's scheme to appear before Booby dressed as a demure farmer's daughter. Jervis is rehired, and Shamela is sent off to Lincolnshire, supposedly kidnaped by the coachman, who is really a member of the counterplot against the master (they "hang together … as well as any Family of Servants in the Nation").

There is an interesting note on techniques here. Since Pamela is in the act of being abducted, she cannot send any letters. Richardson resorts to an editor's account of the action, but Fielding stays with the characters. Robin, the coachman, gives full details to Jervis, who immediately writes them to Shamela's mama, Henrietta Maria Honoria Andrews, adding that Booby is now sure to come through with a settlement. Mama's pleased return letter is short because "I have sprained my right Hand with boxing three new-made Officers."

Shamela, in Lincolnshire, immediately resumes her old relations with Williams. Jewkes comments slightingly upon this affair, which provokes Shamela to call her a "Mynx," whereupon she slaps Sham. This is a mistake. Shamela's counterattack with unsheathed talons is so effective that Jewkes is forced to flee. (In Richardson's novel, Pamela, when slapped for calling Jewkes a "Jezebel," throws herself upon the grass and bemoans her lot.) An ardent letter from Booby, implying a settlement, convinces Shamela that she need not settle merely for cash. With a little artful parrying she can be mistress "of a great Estate … a dozen Coaches and Six, … a fine House at London, and another at Bath, and Servants, and Jewels, and Plate, and go to Plays, and Operas, and Court, and do what I will, and spend what I will" as the wife of Booby. Thus, when Jewkes mentions the coming settlement, our heroine declares that she would not receive such an offer if it came from the "greatest King, no nor Lord in the Universe. I value my Vartue more than I do anything my Master can give me; and so we talked a full Hour and a half, about my Vartue." As for Williams, "Well! and can't I see Parson Williams, as well after Marriage as before."

Shamela duplicates the false-suicide gambit as an excuse for having stayed out too long with Williams, and prepares for her new role with Booby by exposing as much of her bosom as possible, practicing her "Airs before the Glass" and reading "a Chapter in the Whole Duty of Man." Upon Booby's arrival, she announces that she is aware he contemplates "the Destruction of my Vartue…. what a charming Word that is, rest his Soul who first invented it" and asks to be sent home. Booby angrily dismisses her, and she and Jewkes retire to discuss her "Vartue till Dinner-time." At the dinner's conclusion, Booby sets the stage for the ultimate attempt with a bumper of champagne and some off-color toasts.

In bed, Shamela once again feigns sleep, which allows Booby to get in the usual preliminaries. Yet despite Jewkes' coaching he is thoroughly foiled for Shamela follows Mama's expert instructions

to avoid being ravished, … which soon brought him to Terms, and he promised me, in quitting my hold, that he would leave the Bed.

O Parson Williams, how little are all the Men in the World compared to thee.

The next morning Booby offers a settlement, but Shamela now is certain her "Vartue" is worth far more than 250 pounds per year. Mama is delighted to receive these tidings and repeats lesson number one: "that a married Woman injures only her husband, but a single Woman herself." Therefore she urges less of Williams and more of Booby. Before this advice can be accepted or rejected Shamela learns for herself "What a Foolish Thing it is for a Woman to dally too long with her Lover's Desires; how many have owed their being Old Maids to their holding out too long." An effusion of excessive coyness has been too much even for Booby; he sends her off to pack up and get out.

Shamela's nondescript linen and bawdy books are a fine parody of Pamela's three bundles, and, as in the Richardson novel, our heroine leaves Lincolnshire only to return the next day with a promise of marriage. After the wedding she has some trouble mustering up the blushes and other maidenly manifestations suitable to the role of a pure young bride, but sustains her part well to the accompaniment of reflective comparisons between Booby and Williams.

Legally entrenched as Mrs. Booby, she starts spending the estate, cows Booby utterly, and even manages to see a great deal of Williams. On his advice she disavows Mama Andrews, since it would never do "for a Lady of my Quality and Fashion to own such a Woman as you for my Mother." Paying Shamela back in kind, her enraged parent turns over the original letters to Parson Oliver—an apt revenge, because she has learned from Shamela that Booby is having a book made about himself and his bride by a man "who does that Sort of Business for Folks, one, who can make my Husband, and me, and Parson Williams, to be all great People; for he can make black white it seems. Well, but they say my Name is to be altered, Mr. Williams, says the first Syllabub hath too comical a Sound, so it is to be changed into Pamela."

Shamela concludes with Parson Tickletext's note that he will have these "authentick" letters printed to counteract the other book; and "P. S. Since I writ, I have a certain Account, that Mr. Booby hath caught his Wife in bed with Williams; hath turned her off, and is prosecuting him in the spiritual court."

Pamela has now been presented in two sets of dress—or, if you will, undress—and within the bounds of identical actions there seem to be two totally different characters displayed. But are they really so different? If we look carefully at Richardson's heroine, some of these apparent contradictions disappear. For one thing, modest little Pamela is quite well aware of the beauties of her person.²⁵ What's more, this artless miss has her Machiavellian side: Richardson has painted a full picture of her crafty ability to plot and conspire (I, 161 ff.). Most important of all, he has depicted her with a morality which has gold as its standard, for Pamela's "virtue" rests, not on principle, but on good business sense. How stupid it would be to sell "the whole sixteen years innocence … for a pair of diamond earrings, a necklace, and a diamond ring for my finger" (I, 274) when with clever bargaining "innocence" can fetch a much higher price! Pamela knows full well she carries a jewel on her person; and the best that can be said for her is that once she has established a price for her jewel no one can talk her into lowering it.

The proof of Pamela's businesslike attitude is too clear-cut to be open to doubt. When B. intimates that he is willing to meet Pamela's terms and marry her, she not only agrees to return, but is in such a hurry to do so that her impatience taxes the endurance of the coachmen and even the horses. This unseemly haste stems from more than her eagerness to "close the deal." Her presence in the flesh is part and parcel of her strategy: it is "good for business" to keep B. constantly aware of the prize within his reach. (Viewed in this light, it is not hard to understand why Pamela stayed to embroider the waistcoat, stayed to accompany Jervis, and failed to take advantage of her numerous opportunities to escape.) When marriage finally is offered to her, not for one moment does she consider refusing this villain whose courtship has consisted of revilement, incarceration, kidnaping, and attempted rape; indeed, so far is she from being indignant that she falls on her knees to thank him for his generosity. Moreover, in accepting him she unwittingly discloses the hypocrisy of her earlier repeated denials of the possibility of marriage between one so great and one so low. For when B. inquires how she will pass the time after her marriage, Pamela promptly presents a list of projected household duties whose extent and organization indicate hours of serious planning.

Pamela's actions show clearly that it is B.'s position as landowner which makes him such a desirable husband. As Clara Thomson put it:

… what makes her behaviour particularly repulsive is the conviction it forces upon one that it is mainly prompted by a disproportionate respect for her lover's wealth and position. No one can doubt that if equal insults had been offered her by a man of her own class she would have rejected him with scorn. But because Mr. B. is a gentleman, and has a large income, and two or three country seats, he is to be forgiven what would be unpardonable in a hero of low degree. Richardson's vulgar exaggeration of class distinctions permeates the book, and Pamela blissfully crawls to the feet of her master.²⁶

Regardless of Richardson's intention, an attentive reading of the novel reveals behind the Pamela who minces across its pages the Shamela whom Fielding exposed.

While the cumulative effect of Shamela, and its main achievement, is an indictment of Pamela's total ethical view, Fielding, through his character Parson Oliver, also condemns the book on several specific points. Though the parson is careful to say that there are "many more objections" that may be made, his arraignment lists only five (p. 58).

First, there are many lascivious Images in it, very improper to be laid before the Youth of either Sex.

2dly, Young Gentlemen are here taught, that to marry their mother's chambermaids, and to indulge the Passion of Lust, at the Expence of Reason and Common Sense, is an Act of Religion, Virtue and Honour; and, indeed, the surest Road to Happiness.

Despite the harsh little note of class awareness that intrudes itself, this is a valid objection to B. He is apparently a satyr whose frustration by one girl blinds him to everything but the necessity to enjoy her. Such a basis for marriage is hardly reasonable or sensible; it is not even romantic. But the complaint about the effect of his example on "young gentlemen" can be discounted as an effort to capitalize on the eighteenth-century view that literature influences action by inducing emulation in an impressionable reader. It seems highly improbable that many young men were tempted to emulate B., although it is true that in 1754 Lady Mary Wortley Montague did write her daughter of a noble-commoner wedding which was stirring the Italian countryside, and which was "copied from, Pamela."²⁷

3dly, All Chambermaids are strictly enjoined to look after their Masters; they are taught to use little Arts to that purpose; and lastly, are countenanced in Impertinence to their Superiors, and in betraying the secrets of Families.

This third objection, which is a commentary on a favorite theme of the eighteenth century, the prevailing notion of chambermaids as sluttish, avaricious, and scheming,²⁸ must also be regarded with suspicion. For anything Pamela could teach the chambermaids, it would seem more than likely they already knew. Swift took back-stairs depravity for granted in his Directions to Servants. Addressing the "waiting maid," he wrote, "I must caution you particularly against My Lord's eldest Son: If you are dextrous enough, it is odds that you may draw him in to marry you and make you a Lady … [but] probably you will get nothing from him, but a big Belly or a Clap, and probably both together."²⁹ Swift's satire leaves one wondering how far the exaggeration extends: that there is some factual basis for his view may be seen in Eliza Haywood's straightforward Present for a Serving Maid, a manual for girls going into service, which is an obvious attempt at a distaff duplication of John Barnard's famous Present For An Apprentice, and copies its title page and format closely. Haywood admits to the girls that a master's "importunities" will probably win out, but "resistance … is a Duty however owing to yourself to endeavour it."³⁰ She provides precepts on how to act if the man is single or married—never tell the wife—and advises the maids that the master's son will not keep a promise of marriage: "This last Bait has seduced some who have been Proof against all the others … [do] not flatter yourselves, that because such Matches have sometimes happened, it will be your Fortune: Examples of this kind are very rare …" (p. 43). So objection number three is not all rhetoric.

4thly, In the Character of Mrs. Jewkes Vice is rewarded; whence every Housekeeper may learn the Usefulness of pimping and bawding for her Master.

This objection and the one to follow are both invalid, because they apply only to Shamela and do not carry over to Pamela. In Shamela, Booby is a dupe; the villain on his side of the struggle is Jewkes. But in Richardson's novel, regardless of his bungling, the arch-villain is B. and Jewkes is merely his tool—one must not be misled by her greater coarseness. Thus in the character of B. we have vice rewarded.

Pamela's contradictory reactions to B. and to Jewkes are very important because they picture so clearly her class attitude toward morals. The master villain is thanked by Pamela on her knees, but Jewkes, who has merely been carrying out B.'s orders (with perhaps unnecessary relish), must do penance with "humility and apprehension" before Pamela forgives her. Pamela, we see, has one set of standards for the master, another for the servants.

5thly, in Parson Williams, who is represented as a faultless Character, we see a busy Fellow, intermeddling with the Private Affairs of his Patron, whom he is very ungratefully forward to expose and condemn on every occasion.

This has even less validity in Pamela than number four. We can only object that whatever Williams did was not done forcefully enough. Pamela had good reason to stay away from the police,³¹ but Williams had none. Far from being a busy meddler, he is an ineffectual do-nothing.

However invalid these final objections may be, Shamela soon gathered her converts, of whom one, at least, was moved to pen a testimonial:

     To the Author of Shamela

Admir'd Pamela, till Shamela shown,
Appear'd in ev'ry colour—but her own:
Uncensur'd she remain'd in borrow'd light,
No nun more chaste, few angels shone so bright.
But now, the idol we no more adore.
Jervice a bawd, and our chaste nymph a w——
Each buxom lass may read our Booby's case
And charm a Williams to supply his place;
Our thoughtless sons for round ear'd caps may burn
And curse Pamela, when they've serv'd a turn.³²…

Notes

¹ No attempt has been made to reproduce the typography of this title or of any subsequent titles, and occasional italicization is omitted.

² Cf. Alan Dugald McKillop, Samuel Richardson, Printer and Novelist (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1936). pp. 4-7 and 284-291.

³ William M. Sale, Jr., Samuel Richardson, A Bibliographical Record of His Literary Career with Historical Notes (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1936), p. xv.

⁴ Paul Dottin, Samuel Richardson, Imprimeur de Londres (Paris: Perrin et Cie., 1931), p. 111.

⁵Daily Advertiser, April 28, 1741.

⁶ McKillop, op. cit., p. 71.

⁷Daily Advertiser, August 8, 1745.

⁸ Cf. Frank G. Black, "The Continuations of Pamela," Revue Anglo-Américaine, XIII (1936), 499-507.

⁹ Cf. Sale, op. cit., p. 122.

¹⁰ Dottin, op. cit., p. 118.

¹¹ McKillop, op. cit., pp. 100-103.

¹² E. Purdie, "Some Adventures of 'Pamela' on the Continental Stage," in German Studies Presented to H. G Fiedler (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), pp. 352-384.

¹³ For a partial listing see: Francesco Cordasco, Samuel Richardson, A List of Critical Studies Published from 1896 to 1946 (Brooklyn: Long Island Univ. Press, 1948), Section VII, p. 10.

¹⁴Daily Advertiser, April 9, 1741.

¹⁵ Joseph Warton, "Fashion," in Vol. 18 of Works of the English Poets, ed. Alexander Chalmers (21 vols.; London: J. Johnson, 1810), p. 162.

¹⁶ Cf. Archibald Boiling Shepperson, The Novel in Motley (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1936), pp. 9-10.

Austin Dobson, Samuel Richardson ("English Men of Letters" [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1942]), p. 31.

McKillop, op. cit., p. 45.

¹⁷ Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, CD. Katherine Balderston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), I, 145.

¹⁸ Cf. Clara Thomson, Samuel Richardson (London: Horace Marshall & Son, 1900), p. 31.

Dottin, op. cit., p. 110.

McKillop, op. cit., pp. 47, 102.

¹⁹ Brian W. Downs, Samuel Richardson (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1928), p. 48.

²⁰ James Boswell, Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887), II, 175.

²¹ While no primary material has been discovered to link Fielding to Shamela, the circumstantial evidence is so strong we shall refer to him as the author without the modification of "supposed."

See Wilbur L. Cross, The History of Henry Fielding (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1918), I, 23, 303-309.

Notes and Queries, 12th Series, II (1916), 24-26.

R. Brimley Johnson, ed., An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press, 1926), pp. iii-vi.

Brian W. Downs, ed., An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (Cambridge: The Minority Press, 1930), pp. ix-xi.

Dobson, op. cit., pp. 43-45.

And especially, Charles B. Woods, "Fielding and the Authorship of Shamela," Philological Quarterly, XXV (July 1946), pp. 248-272.

²² For a full account of these introductory letters, see Sheridan W. Baker, Jr., ed., Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela ("Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 48" [Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1954]), pp. 1-12. An equally fine account of the introductory pages of Fielding's Shamela may be found in Ian Watt's introduction to An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews ("Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 57" [Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1956]), pp. 1-11.

²³ Thomson, op. cit., p. 31.

²⁴ Fielding, Shamela (Cambridge: Minority Press, 1930), p. 7.

²⁵ Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, "Shakespeare Head Edition" (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1929), I, 67. All references to Pamela will be to this edition.

²⁶ Thomson, op. cit., pp. 165-166.

²⁷ Lady Mary Wortley Montague, The Letters & Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, ed. Lord Wharncliffe (London: George Bell & Sons, 1887), II, 272.

²⁸ For contemporary views of this attitude, see Sir John Barnard, Present for an Apprentice (London: T. Cooper, 1740), pp. 30-31; Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business Is Nobody's Business by Andrew Moreton Esq. [pseud.], (5th CD.; London: W. Meadows, 1725), p. 5; and Ralph Strauss, ed., Tricks of the Town (New York: Robert M. McBride & Co., 1927), p. 29.

²⁹ Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants (London: R. Dodsley & M. Cooper, 1745), p. 83.

³⁰ Eliza Haywood, Present for a Serving Maid (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1743), p. 45.

³¹ See Downs, Richardson, pp. 100-101.

³²London Magazine, X (June 1741), 304….