Moll Flanders | Page 2

difference lies not in the real worth of the subject so much as
in the gust and palate of the reader.
But as this work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to read it, and how to
make the good uses of it which the story all along recommends to them, so it is to be
hoped that such readers will be more leased with the moral than the fable, with the
application than with the relation, and with the end of the writer than with the life of the
person written of.
There is in this story abundance of delightful incidents, and all of them usefully applied.
There is an agreeable turn artfully given them in the relating, that naturally instructs the
reader, either one way or other. The first part of her lewd life with the young gentleman
at Colchester has so many happy turns given it to expose the crime, and warn all whose
circumstances are adapted to it, of the ruinous end of such things, and the foolish,
thoughtless, and abhorred conduct of both the parties, that it abundantly atones for all the
lively description she gives of her folly and wickedness.
The repentance of her lover at the Bath, and how brought by the just alarm of his fit of
sickness to abandon her; the just caution given there against even the lawful intimacies of
the dearest friends, and how unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of
virtue without divine assistance; these are parts which, to a just discernment, will appear
to have more real beauty in them all the amorous chain of story which introduces it.
In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that
was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses. None
can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our
design in publishing it.
The advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the great argument to persuade
people that their plays are useful, and that they ought to be allowed in the most civilised
and in the most religious government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes,
and that by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommend virtue and
generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts of vice and corruption of
manners; and were it true that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as
the test of their acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.
Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to;
there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is first and last rendered unhappy and
unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is
brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned
but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous, just thing but it carries its praise
along with it. What can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even
those representations of things which have so many other just objections leaving against
them? namely, of example, of bad company, obscene language, and the like.
Upon this foundation this book is recommended to the reader as a work from every part

of which something may be learned, and some just and religious inference is drawn, by
which the reader will have something of instruction, if he pleases to make use of it.
All the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations upon mankind, stand as so many
warnings to honest people to beware of them, intimating to them by what methods
innocent people are drawn in, plundered and robbed, and by consequence how to avoid
them. Her robbing a little innocent child, dressed fine by the vanity of the mother, to go
to the dancing-school, is a good memento to such people hereafter, as is likewise her
picking the gold watch from the young lady's side in the Park.
Her getting a parcel from a hare-brained wench at the coaches in St. John Street; her
booty made at the fire, and again at Harwich, all give us excellent warnings in such cases
to be more present to ourselves in sudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life and industrious management at last in Virginia, with her
transported spouse, is a story fruitful of instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who
are obliged to seek their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of transportation
or other disaster; letting them know that diligence and application have their due
encouragement, even