LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAMELA, VOL. I PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON Frontispiece From a painting by Highmore, engraved by Caroline Watson. "This picture has always been esteemed the best likeness of Mr. Richardson. He had a private plate engraved from it, and used to circulate impressions among his friends. The chair, in which he wrote most of his pieces, with an ink bottle in the elbow, is represented in the background."-From Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, edited by Mrs. Barbauld, 1804. THE COMPANY AT TUNBRIDGE WELLS WHEN RICHARDSON WAS From a drawing by Loggan the Dwarf, who has introduced MR. RICHARDSON READING THE MANUSCRIPT OF SIR CHARLES From a sketch made at the time by Miss Highmore, after- xvii xxxii FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON TO MR. FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM MR. RICHARDSON TO MR. DUN- PORTRAIT OF LADY BRADSHAIGH FACSIMILE OF TITLE PAGE AND PREFACE, AS WRITTEN BY RICH- " AND THERE SAT GOOD MRS. JERVIS AT WORK, MAKING a shift Engraved by J. Heath, R. A., from a drawing by E. F. Burney. xxxvi xxxix xl lvi 52 "SHE BAITED THE HOOK, AND I HELD IT, AND SOON HOOKED A LOVELY CARP 139 ... "THEY BRUISED MY HEAD AND FACE, AND TIPPED ME INTO "THE CREATURE WAS SADLY FRIGHTENED, BUT WAS TAKING UP A BILLET TO KNOCK ME ON THE HEAD Engraved by Angus, from a drawing by E. F. Burney. "I TREMBLE TO RELATE IT! THE PRETENDED SHE CAME INTO BED BUT TREMBLED LIKE AN ASPEN-LEAF Engraved by Angus, from a drawing by E. F. Burney. Engraved by J. Heath, A. R. A., from a drawing by E. F. SAMUEL RICHARDSON I LIFE (1689-1761) It is a curious fact, that our knowledge of Richardson's life and character, abundant and varied as it is, should, in two rather important details, be defective. We do not know, and we may never discover, the exact day, and the exact place of his birth. The reticence of Richardson was unlike that of most men, for the majority of writers are willing enough to furnish biographical data of time and place; what they withhold are the secrets of the soul. Our great novelist, however, resembled his heroines in giving to his correspondents his complete spiritual annals; like Bishop Blougram, he rolled out a mind long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth. But the superficial facts of birth and childhood no man or no woman could draw from him. He was born somewhere in Derbyshire, in the year 1689. His father was a joiner, a peaceful trade, indeed, and yet he managed to get himself suspected of treason. Whether his son's reserve was owing to the obscurity of his birth, or to the suspicion above mentioned, we do not know; best let him speak for himself. In a letter to Dr. Stinstra, he said: "My father was a very honest man, descended of a family of middling note, in the county of Surry, but which having for several generations a large number of children, the not large possessions were split and divid ed, so that he and his brothers were put to trades; and the sisters were married to tradesmen. My mother was also a good woman, of a family not ungenteel; but whose father and mother died in her infancy, within half-an-hour of each other, in the London pestilence of 1665. "My father's business was that of a joiner, then more distinct from that of a carpenter than now it is with us. He was a good draughtsman, and understood architecture. His skill and ingenuity, and an understanding superior to his business, with his remarkable integrity of heart and manners, made him personally beloved by several persons of rank, among whom were the Duke of Monmouth and the first Earl of Shaftsbury, both so noted in our English history; their known favour for him having on the Duke's attempt on the crown, subjected him to be looked upon with a jealous eye, notwithstanding he was noted for a quiet and inoffensive man, he thought proper, on the decollation of the first-named unhappy nobleman, to quit his London business, and to retire to Derbyshire, though to his great detriment; and there I, and three other children out of nine, were born." The boy's education was fully as commonplace as his birth. His father had intended him for the church, not a bad guess at the youth's talents for religious instruction. But financial embarrassments prohibited a long and expensive education; and when fifteen or sixteen years old, circumstances compelled the diligent and godly Samuel to earn his living at business. Like Shakspere, he had only the book-training of the common school; he knew no language but his own; and although as a printer he had a bowing acquaintance with contemporary literature, he was never, to his bitter and lasting regret, either a learned or a well-read man. The Latin quotations in his books were prompted by his friends. At school, however, he learned something besides the three R's; even at that tender age, the two things in which he chiefly excelled in later years the manufacture of moral phrases and the knowledge of the hearts of women-are what he practised and studied with unwearied assiduity. He was a childish anomaly a wise and prudent prig. The boys called him "Serious and Gravity," but when did Richardson care for the opinion of boys and men, so long as he had their sisters on his side? As Mrs. Barbauld says, "He was fond of two things, which boys have generally an aversion to, letter-writing, and the company of the other sex." The author of Treasure Island represented exactly the opposite type; Stevenson was always a boy at heart, while Richardson, whatever he was in his teens, was never a boy. It is now a commonplace of criticism to say that Richardson excels in his "dissection of the female heart." But after a little reflection, what man would dare to make so bold an assertion? If we dissect this statement of dissection, we find, to our own mortification, that we are colossal egotists. How do I know whether or not Richardson has successfully dissected the female heart? If I affirm that he has, does it not imply that I am a competent judge not only of the process of dissection, but of the female heart as well? Turgenev, one of the world's greatest analytical novelists, said that the heart of a girl was a dark forest, and he knew far more about it than we. The women themselves know best; and for one hundred and fifty years, they have acknowledged the correctness of the little printer's diagnosis. Let us therefore make no rash assertions, but meekly acquiesce in the decision of the final court of appeal. Surely if it were ever given to any man to know the windings of a woman's heart, it was to Richardson, and he began his |