of Facts, and the vegetarian publisher of Borrow's Lavengro. By Phillips, who is stated to have paid for them liberally, which must have been an unusual proceeding on his part, they were handed to Mrs. Barbauld to edit. In 1804 she published a selection from them in six volumes, preceded by a lengthy critical biography of considerable value, which, for a long time, and rightly, has been the chief source of information concerning Richardson. The original letters, which of course included a large number not printed by Mrs. Barbauld, were subsequently purchased by Mr. John Forster, by whom they were left, with his library, to the South Kensington Museum. But although, at the time of Mr. Forster's purchase, the collection included much unprinted material, it does not, as it now exists, comprise all the examples which Mrs. Barbauld selected. Probably in the interval between their ownership by Phillips and their ownership by Forster, letters were detached, and found their way into the hands of the autograph collector.

For example, the seeker at South Kensington will look vainly for one of the most important letters of the series, that in which, under date of 1753, Richardson gave an account of his early life and career to Mr. Stinstra, the Dutch minister who translated Clarissa. From this Mrs. Barbauld makes copious extracts in her memoir; but, because she has done so, does not reprint it with the rest of the Stinstra correspondence in her fifth volume. Consequently nothing remains of it but the passages she has quoted-passages so illuminative that one cannot but wish for the remainder. Then there is or rather there is not the letter from Dr. Watts complaining instead of complimenting in the

matter of Pamela. This is duly enumerated in the little manuscript index which Richardson had drawn up of the correspondence relative to that work; but, although it is in the index, it is not included in the collection. There are several other gaps of a disappointing character. In one or two cases, however, the letter which has disappeared is printed by Mrs. Barbauld, so no harm is done, provided she printed it textually. Unhappily, after the old imperious fashion of the old-time editor, she seems to have excised freely, and many of the letters she has reproduced have been, in technical phrase, considerably "cut."1

Among the Pamela correspondence is one letter she has not reprinted, although it has obviously been manipulated by Richardson with a view to publication. The light it throws on the circumstances which led to his ill-starred third and fourth volumes, is extremely interesting, besides illustrating very significantly some of the penalties of success in a thankless world. It is addressed to James Leake of Bath, Richardson's brother-in-law, and bears date August 1741. If this date be correct, it must have been written before the appearance of the spurious sequel to Pamela entitled Pamela's Conduct in High Life, as that sequel came out in September. Advertisements of Pamela's Conduct had been published in the Champion; and Richardson, in response to a request for information, gives Mr. Leake "a short Account of the Affair."

Having

1 As an instance of this, Hill's letter to Richardson of 17th December 1740, which Richardson quotes in the introduction to the second edition of Pamela (see ante, p. 37), there makes three and a half closely printed pages. In Mrs. Barbauld (i. 53), it barely makes two, widely set.

heard, he says, that Chandler, the bookseller, had commissioned one Kelly, styling himself of the Temple (this was, most probably, John Kelly of the Universal Spectator), to continue Pamela, he remonstrated to one of Kelly's friends. This brought Chandler to him. Chandler alleged he had understood that Richardson was not going to continue Pamela himself. Richardson replied that he had certainly said so, though this was in the belief that no one "would offer to meddle with it, at least without consulting him;" but that, if such an attempt were made, rather than his "Plan should be basely ravished out of his Hands," and his characters, in all probability, depreciated and degraded by those who knew nothing of the story, or of the delicacy required to continue it, he was resolved to complete it himself. He declared further that he should still decline to do this, unless he was forced to it in selfdefence, but that if Messrs. Chandler and Kelly persisted in their enterprise, he must and would continue Pamela, advertising against them as soon as they published.

Upon this, according to the narrative, Chandler had the effrontery to propose that Richardson should combine forces with Kelly, and allow the combination to be published with his name, a proposition which Richardson of course rejected with the contempt it deserved. It was next suggested that what Kelly had already written (and been paid for) should be cancelled, and that Richardson should continue the book for Chandler. To this Richardson very properly replied that if he were forced to continue it at all, he would suffer no one else to be concerned, and he commented strongly upon the baseness of the procedure,

and the "Hardship it was, that a Writer could not be permitted to end his own Work, when and how he pleased, without such scandalous Attempts of Ingrafting upon his Plan." 1 Upon this Chandler left him, apparently convinced of the error of his ways, and promising to consult his partner. He also promised to communicate further with Richardson, which he did not do. Kelly, however, seems to have sent what he had written to the author of Pamela, in the fatuous expectation that he must, upon inspection, approve it. But Richardson, as was only to be anticipated, found his purpose distorted and his personages caricatured.

It is needless, at this point, to pursue the story with Richardson's own particularity; and we may here take leave to summarise. Messrs. Chandler and Kelly persisting, and moreover putting about the report that he was not the real author of Pamela, and could not therefore continue it, he thought himself compelled, notwithstanding the objection he felt to second parts, and the mistake of pursuing a success until the buyers were tired out, to set about volumes three and four. He began towards the middle of April, when he had ascertained that the rival work was making rapid headway. His letter to Leake was written, as we have said, in August, when he was still busy with the work, and in recapitulating his difficulties, he incidentally sketches his plan, which he appears to have more fully thought out than one would imagine from some of his statements upon other occasions. "It is no easy Task," he writes, "to one that

1 This it may be noted was written previous to the "engraftment of Joseph Andrews, which did not appear until February 1742.

has so much Business upon his Hands, and so many Avocations of different Sorts, and whose old Complaints in the Nervous way require that he should sometimes run away from Business, and from himself, if he could. Then, Sir, to write up this Work as it ought, it is impossible it should be done in the Compass of one Volume. For her [Pamela's] Behaviour in Married Life, her Correspondencies with her new and more genteel Friends; her Conversations at Table and elsewhere; her pregnant Circumstance, her Devotional and Charitable Employments; her Defence of some parts of her former Conduct; which will be objected to her by Lady Davers, in the Friendly Correspondence between them. Her Opinion of some of the genteeler Diversions when in London, as the Masquerade, Opera, Plays, etc. Her Notions of Education, her Friendships, her relative Duties, her Family Oeconomy, and 20 other subjects as material ought to be touched upon; and if it be done in a common Narrative Manner, without those Reflexions and Observations which she intermingles in the New Manner attempted in the two first Volumes, it will be consider'd only as a dry Collection of Morals and Sermonising Instructions that will be more beneficially to a Reader, found in other Authors; and must neither Entertain or Divert, as the former have done beyond my Expectation."

This quotation, if it does nothing else, shows clearly that Richardson was more fully aware of the difficulties of the situation than might be imagined, and that he was no mean critic of his own efforts. already related, Pamela's Conduct in High Life appeared in September 1741, and Richardson's continuation

As