befalls several "indecent" passages; and the story of the sham licence granted to Lovelace by the Bishop of London is omitted as irreverent. On other occasions it is the realism of certain details which disturbs Prévost: the incarceration of Clarissa is a "very long and very English" episode; the anguish of her death would not be tolerated in its entirety, and her posthumous letters do not appear in the translation. Some of Lovelace's forgeries seem really too "revolting" to be transcribed; and if after all the translator decides to include them, it is "in order to prove that the work is founded on reality." The same squeamishness caused the omission of the death-scene of the libertine Belton, in Clarissa, and also of the descriptions of Sinclair's death and of Clarissa's funeral. In Grandison, Prévost went so far as to alter the dénouement.1

Thus the contemporaries of Diderot and Rousseau did not read Richardson "in the crude state," but Richardson refined by Prévost, relieved of a certain amount of dross and reduced by almost a third. But the English novelist suffered less from these changes than might be supposed. In reality he is destitute of style; and even writes incorrectly. His whole merit lies in his wealth of moral observation and his mastery of pathos. And in the "charming infidelities" of Prévost there remained enough of observation to prevent the French taste from finding any very great cause of offence in this overwhelming mass of analysis. In the more passionate scenes what is essential has been left intact: the author of Cleveland was not likely to clip the wings of the author of Clarissa in such passages as these. Where Prévost has been false to his author is in giving us less moralizing, less of trivial detail, and a more ornate and elegant form. And in compensation for this infidelity he has left the pathos of the work and the distinctness of the characters unimpaired. In spite of Prévost's pruning, Richardson's work seemed very fresh to French readers.

1 Cf. the edition of 1784, vol. iv., p. 401.

Chapter IV

THE WORK OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON

I. Defects of Richardson's novels-Reasons for their success-Wherein they are opposed to classical art.

II. Wherein the realism of the author of Clarissa Harlowe consists-His lack of distinction-His brutality-His power.

III. Richardson a delineator of character-He is an inferior painter of the manners of good society, and an excellent painter of middle-class manners: Lovelace, Pamela, Clarissa.

IV. His moral ideas; his preaching-Taste for casuistry and the discussion of moral problems.

V. His sensibility-The place of love in his works-Emotional gifts.

VI. Magnitude of the revolution effected by Richardson in the art of fiction.

I

TO-DAY the works of Richardson are entirely forgotten. Of these once famous novels the public no longer knows anything beyond the titles. Even the critics scarcely pay any attention to the man who was considered the greatest of all English writers in point of pathos,1 and if Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield and Robinson Crusoe are still read, Clarissa Harlowe is read no more than Clélie or Le Grand Cyrus. This neglect may be explained, but it cannot be justified. Richardson's work must always be of the highest importance in the history of fiction, by reason of the magnitude of the revolution he effected.

His very faults even, obvious as they are, stamp him with originality.

We can imagine the shock it would give, not Voltaire or

1 No satisfactory monograph on Richardson exists. The principal source of information concerning him is Mrs Barbauld's collection: Life and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 1806, 6 vols. 8vo. The best study of his work as a whole is that by Mr Leslie Stephen, in his Hours in a Library. Sir Walter Scott's study should also be consulted.

Marivaux only, but also Addison and Pope, when, on opening Pamela, they found such compliments as this: A suitor, putting his hands on a young lady's shoulders, says to her, playfully : "Let me see, let me see, . . where do your wings grow? for I never saw anybody fly like you." So happy does this touch appear to the author that he employs it again in another of his novels, where Lovelace, speaking of Clarissa, says: "Surely, Belford, this is an angel. And yet, had she not been known to be a female, they would not from babyhood have dressed her as such, nor would she, but upon that conviction, have continued the dress."1 So much for the language of gallantry. When the characters talk naturally they speak in the following manner: "Tost to and fro by the high winds of passionate controul (and, as I think, unseasonable severity), I behold the desired port, the single state, into which I would fain steer; but am kept off by the foaming billows of a brother's and sister's envy, and by the raging winds of a supposed invaded authority; while I see in Lovelace, the rocks on the one hand, and in Solmes, the sands on the other; and tremble lest I should split upon the former, or strike upon the latter."2 Such is the language of that affected little provincial, the immortal Clarissa.

But affectation goes hand and hand with coarseness. A certain Lady Davers-intended as a portrait of a lady of qualityhas an inexhaustible flow of fishwife's pleasantries, and such expressions as "wench," "chastity," "insolent creature," fall thick as hail on poor Pamela's head. On another occasion, a gentleman, speaking to a young lady, delicately alludes to his intention of perpetuating with her at once his happiness and his race.

Not only is the author both vulgar and affected, but he is a pedant as well. When Clarissa is dying, Lovelace exclaims: "She is very ill!" and adds sententiously: "What a fine subject for tragedy would the injuries of this lady and her behaviour under them... make." 3 Then follow ten or twelve pages in

1 The novels of Samuel Richardson (Ballantyne's Novelists' Library), vol. ii., p. 197. 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 669.

3 Vol. ii., p. 565. Observe the curious footnote.

which the author sketches the plot of this tragedy, and favours the reader with his reflections on the state of the drama, and on the causes of its decadence-a digression which refreshes our interest, nevertheless.

When he intends to be impressive, he is bombastic. Lovelace, in a passion, threatens Clarissa, and she exclaims, "For your own sake, leave me !-My soul is above thee, man! . . . Urge me not to tell thee, how sincerely I think my soul above thee." 1 This pathetic passage-if they read it—must have delighted the readers of La Vie de Marianne, but the translators were careful to tone down everything of this sort.

The romantic element is commonplace to the last degree, or else it is the lowest of low comedy. On one occasion Lovelace, in a frightful dream, foresees his own destiny; he beholds Clarissa ascending to heaven amid a chorus of angels, and himself falling into a bottomless abyss. On another, in the very crisis of his sufferings, he occupies himself with selling gloves and soapballs in order to pass the time, installing himself behind a counter and-for no reason perceptible to the reader-mystifying the passers by.

But assuming that the French reader has become used to Richardson's peculiarities of form, his want of taste, his coarseness, his pedantry and affectation, how, if he has studied good novels, can he tolerate the perpetual intrusion of the author's personality, that preaching I which buttonholes you on every page and shouts into your ears : "Whatever you do, mark the moral of this tale!" The mere title of one of his novels takes up a whole page so that we may be in no doubt as to its object: "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; 2 and at the same time that it agreeably

1 Vol. i., p. 200.

2 A friend of Richardson's had told him the story of a servant-girl whom her master had attempted to seduce, but whose innocence had so touched him that he had married her. (Cf. Walter Scott, Lives of the Novelists, vol. ii., p. 30.)

entertains, by a variety of curious and affecting incidents is entirely divested of all those images, which, in too many pieces calculated for amusement only, tend to inflame the minds they should instruct." But not to dwell longer upon the title, which is a programme in itself, let us resign ourselves to a rapid perusal of this singular book. Just as we are beginning to get an idea of the characters, to take an interest in the progress of events, the author assails us with the following reflection: "The whole [of this history] will show the base acts of designing men to gain their wicked ends, and how much it behoves the fair sex to stand upon their guard against artful contrivances, especially when riches and power conspire against innocence and a low estate." 1 A strange novel, forsooth, is this sermon!

Not only is the moralizing cumbersome, but the narrative is simply crowded with matter. Richardson gives us not so much novels by means of letters, as letters developed and spun out into the form of novels. In Clarissa eight volumes are devoted to a story which extends over less than twelve months— from January 10th to December 8th of the same year. We feel as we read these substantial volumes that life is spent in writing letters. In the light of this constant interchange of notes and epistles, it seems to take the appearance of a vast game of chess, in which the players are for ever seated before a writing-desk, thinking out to-morrow's move. An incredible and truly paradoxical abuse of the inkstand! Miss Byron, in Grandison, writes, on March 22nd, a letter which occupies fourteen pages of a closely-printed edition. On the same day she writes two others, one ten, the other twelve pages long; on the 23rd, two others of eighteen and ten pages; and on the 24th, two which together fill thirty pages. She remarks at last that she must lay down her pen, but allows herself nevertheless a postscript of six pages. Thus in three days she writes nearly one hundred and fifty pages of an ordinary-sized volume.-And all the characters are alike. Not a moment but two or three couriers are on the road. Nor is this all: this world of scribblers makes preserve a duplicate of the most trifling note.

it a practice to

1 Ballantyne, vol. vi., p. 52.