the common method is, from authentic papers and records. The reader, I
believe, already conjectures, I mean the lives of Mr Colley Cibber and
of Mrs Pamela Andrews. How artfully doth the former, by insinuating that
he escaped being promoted to the highest stations in Church and State,
teach us a contempt of worldly grandeur! how strongly doth he inculcate
an absolute submission to our superiors! Lastly, how completely doth he
arm us against so uneasy, so wretched a passion as the fear of shame!
how clearly doth he expose the emptiness and vanity of that phantom,
reputation!

What the female readers are taught by the memoirs of Mrs Andrews is so
well set forth in the excellent essays or letters prefixed to the second
and subsequent editions of that work, that it would be here a needless
repetition. The authentic history with which I now present the public is
an instance of the great good that book is likely to do, and of the
prevalence of example which I have just observed: since it will appear
that it was by keeping the excellent pattern of his sister's virtues
before his eyes, that Mr Joseph Andrews was chiefly enabled to preserve
his purity in the midst of such great temptations. I shall only add that
this character of male chastity, though doubtless as desirable and
becoming in one part of the human species as in the other, is almost the
only virtue which the great apologist hath not given himself for the
sake of giving the example to his readers.



CHAPTER II.

_Of Mr Joseph Andrews, his birth, parentage, education, and great
endowments; with a word or two concerning ancestors._