triumph of mental chastity; he has drawn it uncontaminated, untarnished, and incapable of mingling with pollution.-The scenes which follow the death of the heroine, exhibit grief in an affecting variety of forms, as it is modified by the characters of different survivors. They run into considerable length, but we have been so deeply interested, that we feel it a relief to have our grief drawn off, as it by a variety of sluices, and we are glad not to be dismissed till we have shed tears, even to satiety."-Introd. pp. xciii.-xcvii.

were,

This criticism we think is equally judicious and refined; and we could easily prolong this extract, in a style not at all inferior. With regard to the morality of the work, Mrs. Barbauld is very indignant at the notion of its being intended to exhibit a rare instance of female chastity.

She objects with some reason, to the number of interviews which Clarissa is represented to have had with Lovelace after the catastrophe; and adds, "If the reader, on casually opening the book, can doubt of any scene between them, whether it passes before or after the outrage, that scene is one too much."The character of Lovelace, she thinks, is very much of a fancy piece; and affirms, that our national manners do not admit of the existence of an original. If he had been placed in France, she observes, and his gallantries directed to married women, it might have been more natural; "but, in England, Lovelace would have been run through the body, long before he had seen the face either of Clarissa or Colonel Morden."

Mrs. Barbauld gives us a copious account of the praise and admiration that poured in upon the author from all quarters, on the publication of this extraordinary work: he was overwhelmed with complimentary letters, messages, and visits. But we are most gratified with the enthusiasm of one of his female correspondents, who tells him that she is very sorry, "that he was not a woman, and blest with the means of shining as Clarissa did; for a person capable of drawing such a character, would certainly be able to act in the same manner, if in a like situation!"

man whose study it is to aroid fighting is not quite
so likely as another to be the best."
Introd. pp. cxxvii. cxxviii.

Besides his great works, Richardson published only a paper in the Rambler (the 97th); an edition of Æsop's Fables, with Reflections and a volume of Familiar Letters for the use of persons in inferior situations. It was this latter work which gave occasion to Pamela: it is excellently adapted to its object, and we think may be of singular use to Mr. Words worth and his friends in their great scheme of turning all our poetry into the language of the common people. In this view, we re commend it very earnestly to their considera tion.

There is little more to be said of the transactions or events of Richardson's life. His books were pirated by the Dublin booksellers: at which he was very angry, and could obtain no redress. He corresponded with a great number of females; and gradually withdrew himself from the fatigues of business to his country residence at Parson's Green; where his life was at last terminated in 1761, by a stroke of apoplexy, at the age of seventy-two.

His moral character was in the highest degree exemplary and amiable. He was tem perate, industrious, and upright; punctual and honourable in all his dealings; and with a kindness of heart, and a liberality and gene rosity of disposition, that must have made him a very general favourite, even if he had never acquired any literary distinction.-He had a considerable share of vanity, and was observ ed to talk more willingly on the subject of his own works than on any other. The lowness of his original situation, and the lateness of his introduction into polite society, had given to his manners a great shyness and reserve; and a consciousness of his awkwardness and his merit together, rendered him somewhat jealous in his intercourse with persons in more conspicuous situations, and made him require more courting and attention, than every one was disposed to pay. He had high notions of parental authority, and does not seem always quite satisfied with the share of veneration which his wife could be prevailed on to show for him. He was particularly partial to the society of females; and lived, indeed, as Mrs. Barbauld has expressed it, in a flower-garden of ladies. Mrs. Barbauld will have it, that this was in the way of his profession as an author; and that he frequented their society "Sir Charles, as a Christian, was not to fight a to study the female heart, and instruct him. duel; yet he was to be recognised as the finished self in all the niceties of the female charac gentleman, and could not be allowed to want the ter. From the tenor of the correspondence most essential part of the character, the deportment now before us, however, we are more inclin of a man of honour, courage, and spirit. And, in ed to believe, with Dr. Johnson, that this par order to exhibit his spirit and courage, it was neces- tiality was owing to his love of continual sary to bring them into action by adventures and superiority, and that he preferred the conver rencounters. His first appearance is in the rescue of Miss Byron, a meritorious action, but one which sation of ladies, because they were more must necessarily expose him to a challenge. How lavish of their admiration, and more easily enmust the author untie this knot? He makes him gaged to descant on the perplexities of Sir ble of disarming his adversary without endangering close application to business, and the sedenso very good a swordsman, that he is always capa- Charles, or the distresses of Clarissa. His

After Clarissa, at an interval of about five years, appeared his Sir Charles Grandison. Upon this work, also, Mrs. Barbauld has made many excellent observations, and pointed out both its blemishes and beauties, with a very delicate and discerning hand. Our limits will not permit us to enter upon this disquisition: we add only the following acute paragraph.

either of their lives. But are a man's principles to depend on the science of his fencing-master? very one cannot have the skill of Sir Charles; one cannot be the best swordsman; and the

tary habits of a literary life, had materially injured his health: He loved to complain, as most invalids do who have ary hope of being

out some notice of his nervous tremors, his giddiness and catchings. "I had originally a good constitution," he says, in one place, "and hurt it by no intemperance, but that of application."

nstened to, and scarcely writes a letter with- | in question, will be at no loss to comprehend the reasons of the unqualified reprehension we are inclined to bestow on their publica tion. For the information of those who have not had an opportunity of seeing them, we may observe that, so far from containing any In presenting our readers with this imper-view of the literature, the politics, or manners fect summary of Mrs. Barbauld's biographical of the times-any anecdotes of the eminent dissertation, we have discharged by far the and extraordinary personages to whom the most pleasing part of our task; and proceed author had access-or any pieces of elegant to the consideration of the correspondence composition, refined criticism, or interesting which it introduces, with considerable heavi- narrative, they consist almost entirely of comness of spirit, and the most unfeigned reluct-pliments and minute criticisms on his novels, ance. The letters are certainly authentic; a detail of his ailments and domestic conand they were bought, we have no doubt, for cerns, and some tedious prattling disputations a fair price from the legal proprietors: but with his female correspondents, upon the their publication, we think, was both im- duties of wives and children; the whole so proper and injudicious, as it can only tend to loaded with gross and reciprocal flattery, as lower a very respectable character, without to be ridiculous at the outset, and disgusting Sommunicating any gratification or instruction in the repetition. Compliments and the novels to others. We are told, indeed, in the pre-form indeed the staples of the whole corresface, "that it was the employment of Mr. pondence: we meet with the divine Clarissa, Richardson's declming years, to select and and the more divine Sir Charles, in every arrange the collection from which this publi- page, and are absolutely stunned with the cation has been made; and that he always clamorous raptures and supplications with looked forward to their publication at some which the female train demand the converlistant period;" nay, "that he was not with- sion of Lovelace, and the death or restoration out thoughts of publishing them in his life- of Clementina. Even when the charming time; and that, after his death, they remain- books are not the direct subject of the corresed in the hands of his last surviving daughter, pondence, they appear in eternal allusions, upon whose decease they became the property and settle most of the arguments by an au of his grandchildren, and were purchased thoritative quotation. In short, the Clarissa from them at a very liberal price by Mr. Phil- and Grandison are the scriptures of this conlips." We have no doubt that what Mrs. gregation; and the members of it stick as Barbauld has here stated to the public, was close to their language upon all occasions, as stated to her by her employers: But we can- any of our sectaries ever did to that of the not read any one volume of the letters, with- Bible. The praises and compliments, again, out being satisfied that the idea of such a which are interchanged among all the parties, publication could only come into the mind of are so extremely hyperbolical as to be ludi Richardson, after his judgment was impaired crous, and so incessant as to be excessively by the infirmities of "declining years;" and fatiguing. We shall trouble our readers with we have observed some passages in those but a very few specimens. which are now published, that seem to prove sufficiently his own consciousness of the impropriety of such an exposure, and the absence of any idea of giving them to the world. In the year 1755, when nine-tenths of the whole collection must have been completed, We find him expressing himself in these words to his friend Mr. Edwards:

"I am employing myself at present in looking wer and sorting and classing my correspondences and other papers. This, when done, will amuse me, by reading over again a very ample correspondence, and in comparing the sentiments of my correspondents, at the time, with the present, and moving from both. The many letters and papers I shall destroy will make an executor's work the and if any of my friends desire their letters to be returned, they will be readily come at for that purpose. Otherwise they will amuse and direct ay children, and teach them to honour their father's frends in their closets for the favours done him." Vol. iii. pp. 113, 114.

easier;

Accordingly, they remained in the closet till the death of the last of his children; and then the whole collection is purchased by a bookseller, and put into the hands of an editor, who finds it expedient to suppress two

thinds of it!

Those who have looked into the volumes

The first series of letters is from Aaron Hill, a poet of some notoriety, it seems, in his day; but, if we may judge from these epistles, a very bad composer in prose. The only amusing things we have met with in this volume of his inditing, are his prediction of his own great fame, and the speedy downfal of Pope's; and his scheme for making English wine of a Of Pope he says, that he died "in the wane superior quality to any that can be imported. of his popularity; and that it arose originally only from meditated little personal assiduities, and a certain bladdery swell of management.' And a little after

"But rest his memory in peace! It will very rarely be disturbed by that time he himself is ashes. It is pleasant to observe the justice of forced fame; she lets down those, at once, who got themselves pushed upward; and lifts none above the fear of falling, but a few who never teased her. "What she intends to do with knows!"-Vol. i. p. 107.

me, the Lord

In another place he adds, "For my part, I am afraid to be popular; I see so many who write to the living, and deserve not to live, that I content myself with a resurrection when dead:" And after lamenting the un. popularity of some of his writings, he says

"But there will arise a time in which they | no sort of relation to Richardson or his writ will be seen in a far different light. I know ings), and sets off in this manner:

it on a surer hope than that of vanity." The wine project, which is detailed in many pages, requires no notice. As a specimen of the adulation with which Richardson was incensed by all his correspondents, we may add the following sentences.

"Where will your wonders end? or how could I be able to express the joy it gives me to discern your genius rising with the grace and boldness of a pillar! &c. Go on, dear sir (I see you will and must), to charm and captivate the world, and force a scribbling race to learn and practise one rare virtue to be pleased with what disgraces them." -"There is a manner (so beyond the matter, extraordinary too as that is) in whatever you say or do, that makes it an impossibility to speak those sentiments which it is equally impossible not to conceive in reverence and affection for your good

ness."

In allusion to the promise of Sir Charles, he says

"I am greatly pleased at the hint you gave of a design to raise another Alps upon this Appenine: we can never see too many of his works who has no equal in his labours."

These passages, we believe, will satisfy most readers; but those who have any desire to see more, may turn up any page in the volume: It may be of some use, perhaps, as a great commonplace for the materials of "soft dedication."

The next series of letters is from Miss Fielding, who wrote David Simple, and Miss Collier, who assisted in writing The Cry. What modern reader knows any thing about the Cry, or David Simple? And if the elaborate performances of these ladies have not been thought worthy of public remembrance, what likelihood is there that their private and confidential letters should be entitled to any notice? They contain nothing, indeed, that can be interesting to any description of readers; and only prove that Richardson was indulgent and charitable to them, and that their gratitude was a little too apt to degenerate into flattery.

"Thou frolicsome farce of fortune! What! Is

there another act of you to come then? I wa afraid, some time ago, you had made your last exit. Well! but without wit or compliment, I am glad to hear you are so tolerably alive," &c.

We can scarcely conceive that this pitiful slang could appear to Mrs. Barbauld like the pleasantry of a man of fashion. His lettera to Richardson are, if any thing, rather more despicable. After reading some of the proof sheets of Sir Charles, he writes,

"Z-ds! I have not patience, till I know what has become of her. Why, you-I do not know what to call you!-Ah! ah! you may laugh if you please: but how will you be able to look me in the face, if the lady should ever be able to show her again? What piteous, dd, disgraceful pickle have you plunged her in? For God's sake send me the sequel; or—I dont know what to say!—" The following is an entire letter:

"The delicious meal I made of Miss Byron on Sunday last has given me an appetite for another slice of her, off from the spit, before she is served up to the public table. If about five o'clock tomorrow afternoon will not be inconvenient, Mrs. Brown and I will come and piddle upon a bit more Richardson at the head of them, come in for their of her but pray let your whole family, with Mrs. share. This, sir, will make me more and more yours," &c.

respondence with Mr. Edwards, the author After these polite effusions, we have a cor of the Canons of Criticism, a good deal of which is occupied as usual with flattery and mutual compliments, and the rest with con sultations about their different publications. Richardson exclaims, "O that you could resolve to publish your pieces in two pretty volumes!" And Mr. Edwards sends him long epistles in exaltation of Sir Charles and Clarissa. It is in this correspondence that we meet with the first symptom of that most absurd and illiberal prejudice which Richardson indulged against all the writings of Fielding. He writes to Mr. Edwards

"Mr. Fielding has met with the disapprobation

you foresaw he would meet with, of his Amelia. of the Common Garden, contributing to his own He is, in every paper he publishes under the title overthrow. He has been overmatched in his own way by people whom he had despised, and whom he thought he had vogue enough, from the success his spurious brat Tom Jones so unaccountably met with, to write down, but who have turned his own and made him even poorly in his Court of Criticism artillery against him, and beat him out of the field, give up his Amelia, and promise to write no more on the like subjects."-Vol. iii. pp. 33-34.

The letters of Mrs. Pilkington and of Colley Cibber appear to us to be still less worthy of publication. The former seems to have been a profligate, silly actress, reduced to beggary in her old age, and distressed by the misconduct of her ill-educated children. The compassionate heart of Richardson led him to ity and relieve her; and she repays him with paltry adulation, interlarded, in the bombastic style of the green room, with dramatic misquotations misapplied. Of the letters of Cibber, Mrs. B. says that "they show in every line the man of wit and the man of the his antipathy. He says to his French trans This, however, is but a small specimen of world." We are sorry to dissent from so re-lator, "Tom Jones is a dissolute book. Its run spectable an opinion; but the letters appear is over, even with us. Is it true that France to us in every respect contemptible and dis-had virtue enough to refuse to license such a gusting; without one spark of wit or genius profligate performance?" But the worst of of any sort, and bearing all the traces of vanity, impudence, affectation, and superanmated debauchery, which might have been ected from the author. His first epistle Mrs. Pilkington (for the editor has more once favoured us with letters that have

all is the following

"I have not been able to read any more than the first volume of Amelia. Poor Fielding! I could prised at, and concerned for, his continued lowness not help telling his sister, that I was equally sur Had your brother, said I, been born in a stable, of

been a runner at a sponging house, we should have thought him a genius, and wished he had had the advantage of a liberal education, and of being admitted into good company; but it is beyond my conception, that a man of family, and who had some learning, and who really is a writer, should descend so excessively low in all his pieces. Who can care for any of his people? A person of honour asked me, the other day, what he could mean, by saying, in his Covent Garden Journal, that he had followed Homer and Virgil in his Amelia? I answered, that he was justified in saying so, because he must mean Cotton's Virgil Travested, where the women are drabs, and the men roundrels."-Vol. vi. pp. 154, 155.

It is lamentable that such things should have been written confidentially; it was surely unnecessary to make them public.

After the dismissal of Mr. Edwards, we meet with two or three very beautiful and interesting letters from Mrs. Klopstock, the first wife of the celebrated German poet. They have pleased us infinitely beyond any hing else in the collection; but how far they are indebted for the charm we have found in them to the lisping innocence of the broken English in which they are written, or to their intrinsic merit, we cannot pretend to determine. We insert the following account of her courtship and marriage.

"

ship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it

happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship, in my mother, two elder sisters, and five other women. How rich I am!"-Vol. iii. pp. 146-149. One of the best letters is dated from Tun. bridge in 1751. We shall venture on an extract.

"But here, to change the scene, to see Mr. Walsh at eighty (Mr. Cibber calls him papa), and Mr. Cibber at seventy-seven, hunting after new faces; and thinking themselves happy if they can obtain the notice and familiarity of a fine woman!-How ridiculous!

"Mr. Cibber was over head and ears in love with Miss Chudleigh. Her admirers (such was his happiness!) were not jealous of him; but, pleased with that wit in him which they had not, were always she was Miss Chudleigh. He said pretty thingsfor calling him to her. She said pretty things-for for he was Mr. Cibber; and all the company, men and women, seemed to think they had an interest in what was said, and were half as well pleased as if they had said the sprightly things themselves; hand repeaters of the pretty things. But once I and mighty well contented were they to be secondfaced the laureate squatted upon one of the benches, with a face more wrinkled than ordinary with disappointment. "I thought,' said I, 'you were of the party at the tea treats-Miss Chudleigh is gone into the tea-room.'- Pshaw!' said he, there is no coming at her, she is so surrounded by the toupets." And I left him upon the fret-But he was called to soon after; and in he flew, and his face shone again, and looked smooth.

p.

316-319.

After having seen him two hours, I was obliged here, but of a very different turn; the noted Mr. "Another extraordinary old man we have had pass the evening in a company, which never had been so wearisome to me. I could not speak, I Whiston, showing eclipses, and explaining other could not play; I thought I saw nothing but Klop-nium and anabaptism (for he is now, it seems, of phenomena of the stars, and preaching the millenRock. I saw him the next day, and the following, that persuasion) to gay people, who, if they have and we were very seriously friends. But the fourth white teeth, hear him with open mouths, though day he departed. It was an strong hour the hour of his departure! He wrote soon after, and from perhaps shut hearts; and after his lecture is over, that time our correspondence began to be a very to C-r and W-sh, and to flutter among the loudnot a bit the wiser, run from him the more eagerly digent one. I sincerely believed my love to be laughing young fellows upon the walks, like boys freadship. I spoke with my friends of nothing and girls at a breaking up."—Vol. iii. but Klopstock, and showed his letters. They rallied at me, and said I was in love. I rallied As Richardson was in the habit of flattering them again, and said that they must have a very his female correspondents, by asking their friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friend- advice (though he never followed it) as to the continued eight months, in which time my friends conduct of his works, he prevailed on a cer found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. tain Lady Echlin to communicate a new perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. catastrophe which she had devised for his At the last Klopstock said plainly that he loved; Clarissa. She had reformed Lovelace, by and startled as for a wrong thing. I answered, means of a Dr. Christian, and made him die that it was no love, but friendship, as it was what I of remorse, though the last outrage is not fe for him; we had not seen one another enough love tas if love must have more time than friend- supposed to be committed. How far Lady ship This was sincerely my meaning, and I had Echlin's epistles are likely to meet with the meaning till Klopstock came again to Ham-readers, in this fastidious age, may be sonburg. This he did a year after we had seen one jectured, from the following specimen. other the first time. We saw, we were friends, we loved; and we believed that we loved: and, a "I heartily wish every Christain would read and short time after, I could even tell Klopstock that I wisely consider Mr. Skelton's fine and pious lesloved. But we were obliged to part again, and man's zeal; it is laudable and necessary, especially sons. I admire the warmth of this learned gentlewait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let me marry a stranger. I could marry in an age like this, which, for its coldness (he obthen without her consentment, as by the death of serves) may be called the winter of Christianity.'. my father my fortune depended not on her; but A melancholy truth, elegantly expressed! I have this was an horrible idea for me; and thank Hea-only perused a small part of this divine piece, and fe that I have prevailed by prayers! At this am greatly delighted with what I have read. me knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her Surely he is a heavenly man. I am also very fond lifely son, and thanks God that she has not per- of Dr. Clark: and excellent good Seed! I thank ed. We married, and I am the happiest wife you, sir, for introducing another wise charmer, not in the world. In some few months it will be four less worthy of every body's regard. He merits attenKlopstock as if he was my bridegroom. years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon tion, and religiously commands it."—Vol. v. p. 40.

"If you knew my husband, you would not wander. If you knew his poem, I could describe hire very briefly, in saying he is in all respects what he 1s as a poet. This I can say with all wifely modesty...... But dare not to speak of my husband I am all raptures when I do it. And as

Next come several letters from the Reverend Mr. Skelton, mostly on the subject of the Dublin piracy, and the publication of some works of his own. He seems to have been a man of strong, coarse sense, but extremely irritable. Some delay in the publication of

his sermons draws from him the following art Richardson is undoubtedly without an amusing piece of fretfulness.