ideas of gentlemanlike ease and affability, either with the one or the other. We believe this objection has been very generally entertained by the fair sex, for whose protection the laws of politeness are introduced, and who must therefore be the best judges how far they are complied with. Notwithstanding these imperfections, and the disadvantage which a new work always sustains at first comparison with its predecessors, Richardson's fame was not diminished by the publication of his Sir Charles Grandison, and his fortune would have been increased but for a mercantile fraud, of a nature peculiarly audacious. By some means which he could not detect, sheet after sheet of the work as it passed the press was stolen from the author's printing-house, and sent to Dublin, where, availing themselves of the relations between the two countries as they then stood, some unprincipled booksellers prepared an Irish edition of the book, which they were thus enabled to bring into the market as soon as the author, and, by underselling him, greatly limited his deserved profits. Richardson appears in vain to have sought redress for this injustice by means of his correspondents in Ireland.1 The union with the sister kingdom has, among other beneficial effects, had that of rendering such frauds impossible in future; and in that respect has been of the greatest service to literature. Such is the succinct history of Richardson's productions, and such was its conclusion. It is only necessary to mention, that, besides his three cele 1 [For a minute detail of proceedings in this matter, see Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv., p, 586 to 593.] brated novels, he completed that collection of Familiar Letters, the commencement of which led the way to Pamela—" A work,” says Mrs Barbauld, "usually found in the servant's drawer, but which when so found, has not unfrequently detained the eye of the mistress, wondering all the while by what secret charm she was induced to turn over a book, apparently too low for her perusal, and that charm was-Richardson." This work, which we have never seen, is said, by the same authority, to illustrate the extreme accuracy with which Richardson had attended to all the duties of life. Richardson also wrote, in order to assist Dr Johnson, the ninety-seventh number of the Rambler, which the editor ushered in by the following deserved encomium :- "The reader is indebted for this day's entertainment to an author from whom the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue." " 1 1 [Number 97 bears the form of a letter, to the Editor of the Rambler, entitled, "Advice to Unmarried Ladies." Mr Croker says, "Lady Bradshaigh, one of Mr Richardson's female sycophants, thus addresses him on the subject of this letter: A few days ago, I was pleased with hearing a very sensible lady greatly pleased with the Rambler, No. 97. She happened to be in town when it was published; and I asked if she knew who was the author? She said, "it was supposed to be one who was concerned in the Spectator, it being much better written than any of the Ramblers." I wanted to say who was really the author, but durst not, without your permission.'-Rich. Cor., vol. vi., p. 108.-It was probably on some such authority that Mr Payne told Mr Chalmers (Brit. Ess., vol. xix., p. 14,) that No. 97 was the only paper which had a prosperous sale, and was popular.' The flatteries IN our detailed remarks on Richardson's several novels, we have, as usual, anticipated much which we otherwise had to say concerning his general merits as an author. It will be to his immortal praise, that he was perhaps the first in this line of fictitious narrative, who threw aside the trappings of romance, with all its extravagance, and appealed to the genuine passions of the human heart. The circumstances which led him to descend from the stilts of bombast into the walks of nature, are described in his own account of the origin of Pamela, and he quickly discovered that it was not in humble life only that those feelings exist which find sympathy in every reader's bosom; for, if the sympathy which the distresses and the magnanimity of Clarissa excite, be not universal, we cannot envy those who are proof against their charm. Richardson was well qualified to be the discoverer of a new style of writing, for he was a cautious, deep, and minute examinator of the human heart, and, like Cooke or Parry, left neither head, bay, nor inlet behind him, until he had traced its soundings, and laid it down in his chart, with all its minute sinuosities, its depths, and its shallows. Hence the high, and, comparatively considered, perhaps the undue superiority assigned by Johnson which Richardson's coterie lavished on him and all his works were quite extravagant. The paper is rather a poor one." -CROKER'S Boswell.-Note, vol. i., p. 178.] to Richardson over Fielding, against whom the Doctor seems to have entertained some prejudice. In one passage he asserts, that "there is more knowledge of the human heart in one letter of Richardson's than in all Tom Jones."1 And in another, he thus explains the proposition: "There is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners, and there is this difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." Again, in comparing these two distinguished authors, the critic uses this illustration,—" that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking at the dial-plate." Dissenting as we do from the conclusions to be deduced from Dr Johnson's simile, we would rather so modify it as to describe both authors as excellent mechanics; the time-pieces of Richardson showing a great deal of the internal work by which the index is regulated; while those of Fielding merely point to the hour of the day, being all that most men desire to know. Or, to take a more manageable comparison, the analogy betwixt the writings of Fielding and Richardson resembles that which free, bold, and true sketches bear to paintings that have been very minutely laboured, and which, amid their excel [Boswell's Life of Johnson, Croker's edition, 1831, vol. ii., p. 49.] lence, still exhibit some of the heaviness that almost always attends the highest degree of finishing. This, indeed, is admitted by Johnson himself, in his reply to the observation of the Honourable Thomas Erskine, that Richardson was tedious. "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, and consider the story only as giving occasion to the sentiment.” Were we to translate the controversy into plain language, it might be summed up in pronouncing the works of Richardson the more instructive, and the more deeply affecting, those of Fielding the more amusing; and that a reader might select the one or the other for his studies, according to Tony Lumpkin's phrase, as he felt himself "in a concatenation accordingly ;"-with this difference, however, that he who would laugh with Fielding, may open Tom Jones at a venture; but he who would weep with Richardson, must be content to read through many pages, until his mind is in the mood fittest to appreciate the pathetic scenes introduced by a succession of minute and highly laboured details. This no doubt frequently occasions a suspension of the narrative, in order to afford time for the minute delineation of character. "Richardson himself has explained his principle," as is well observed by Mr D'Israeli. "If," he tells us, "I give speeches 1 ["The censure," says Mr D'Israeli, "which the Shakspeare of novelists has incurred for the tedious procrastination and the minute details of his fable; his slow unfolding characters, and the slightest gestures of his personages, is extremely un |