'That _Pamela_ and _Clarissa_ have again "obtained the _honour_ of my perusal," do you say, my dear Mr. Richardson. I assure you I think it an _honour_ to be able to say I have read, and as long as I have eyes will read, all your three most excellent _pieces_ at least once a year, that I am capable of doing it with increasing pleasure which is perpetually doubled by the reflection, that this good man, this charming author, is _my friend_. I have been this day weeping over the seventh volume of _Clarissa_ as if I had attended her dying bed and assisted at her funeral procession. Oh may my latter end be like hers!' It is no wonder the author of _Clarissa_ had soon a great correspondence with ladies, married and single, young and old, virtuous and the reverse. Had he not written seven volumes, all about a girl? had he not made her beautiful, wise and witty and learned withal? had he not depicted with extraordinary skill the character of the fascinating--the hitherto resistless Lovelace, who, though accomplishing Clarissa's ruin does thereby but establish her triumph and confound himself? It is no doubt unhappily the case that far too many of Richardson's fair correspondents lacked the splendid courage of their master, and to his infinite annoyance fell in love with his arch-scamp, and prayed his creator that Lovelace might first be led to see the error of his ways, and then to the altar with the divine Clarissa. But the heroic printer was adamant to their cries, and he was right if ever man was. As well might _King Lear_ end happily as _Clarissa Harlowe_. The seven volumes caused immense talk and discussion, and it was all Clarissa, Clarissa, Clarissa. Sophia Western was, as we have seen, a comely girl enough, but she was as much like Clarissa as a ship in dock is like a ship at sea and on fire. What can you find to say of her or to her?[3] When you have dug Tom Jones in the ribs, and called him a lucky dog, and wished her happy, you turn away with a yawn; but Clarissa is immense. Do you remember Thackeray's account in the _Roundabout Papers_ of Macaulay's rhapsody in the Athenæum Club? 'I spoke to him once about _Clarissa_. "Not read _Clarissa_?" he cried out. "If you have once thoroughly entered on _Clarissa_ and are infected by it, you can't leave off. When I was in India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the governor-general, the secretary of government, the commander-in-chief and their wives. I had _Clarissa_ with me, and as soon as they began to read the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for tears." He acted the whole scene, he paced up and down the Athenæum Library. I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book, of that book, and of what countless piles of others.'