There is, however, one extract from this portion of the work, which we have all along promised ourselves the pleasure of giving to our readers. When we saw the name of Richardson, the author of _Sir Charles Grandison_, heading one of the chapters, our only impulse was to hurry on as fast as possible. We have no other association with his name but that of a mortal weariness, the result of a conscientious but fruitless effort to read his novels. We laboured conscientiously, and might been have labouring to this hour, if a kind friend had not relieved us from our self-imposed task, by his solemn assurance "that no living man had read them!" It was a feat that had not been accomplished for years. When, therefore, we saw the name of Samuel Richardson at the head of a chapter, we ran for it--we _skipped_; but, in turning over the pages, the name of Klopstock caught our eye, and we found ourselves reading some letters of the wife of the poet Klopstock which had been addressed to Richardson. They are the most charming of letters. The foreigner's imperfect English could not be replaced with advantage by the most classical elegance. One of these, we resolved, should lend its interest to our own critical notice. Here it is-- "_Hamburg, May 6, 1758._ "It is not possible, sir, to tell you what a joy your letters give me. My heart is very able to esteem the favour, that you in your venerable age are so condescending good to answer so soon the letters of an unknown young woman, who has no other merit than a heart full of friendship, though at so many miles of distance. "It will be a delightful occupation for me, my dear Mr Richardson, to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published; being always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. You may think that two people, who love as we do, have no need of two chambers. We are always in the same. I, with my little work, still, still, only regarding my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time! with tears of devotion, and all the sublimity of the subject--my husband reading me his young verses, and suffering my criticisms. Ten books are published, which I think probably the middle of the whole. I will, as soon as I can, translate you the arguments of these ten books, and what besides I think of them. The verses of the poem are without rhymes, and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has been the first to introduce in our language; we being still closely attached to the rhymes and the iambics.