I must be permitted to observe that lawyers have been great
Richardsonians. The Rev. Mr. Loftus, writing to our author from Ireland,
says: 'I will tell you a story about your sweet girl Pamela. Our late
lord chancellor,[4] who was a man more remarkable for the goodness of
his heart than even for the abilities of his head, which were of the
most exalted kind, was so struck with her history that he sat up reading
it the whole night, although it was then the middle of term, and
declared to his family he could not find it in his heart to quit his
book, nor imagined it to be so late by many hours.'
The eminent Sergeant Hill, though averse to literature, used to set
Clarissa's will before his pupils, and bid them determine how many of
its uses and trusts could be supported in court. I am sorry to have to
add that in the learned sergeant's opinion, poor Clarissa, in addition
to all her other misfortunes, died intestate.
All this commotion and excitement and Clarissa-worship meant that
something was brewing, and that good Mr. Richardson, with his fat,
round face flushed with the fire, had his ladle in the pan and was busy
stirring it about. What is called the correspondence of Samuel
Richardson, which was edited by that admirable woman, Mrs. Barbauld, and
published in six volumes in 1804, is mostly made up, not of letters
from, but to, the author of _Clarissa_. All the more effectually on that
account does it let us into the manufactory of his mind. The letters a
man receives are perhaps more significant of his real character than
those he writes. People did not write to Mr. Richardson about themselves
or about their business, or about literature, unless it were to say they
did not like _Tom Jones_, or about politics, or other sports, but they
wrote to him about himself and his ideas, his good woman, Clarissa, his
good man, Sir Charles, and the true relation between the sexes. They are
immense fun, these letters, but they ought also to be taken seriously;
Mr. Richardson took them as seriously as he always took himself. There
was, perhaps, only one subject Richardson regarded as of equal
importance with himself, and that was the position of woman. This is
why he hated Fielding, the triumphant, orthodox Fielding, to whom man
was a rollicking sinner, and woman a loving slave. He pondered on this
subject, until the anger within him imparts to his style a virility and
piquancy not usually belonging to it. The satire in the following
extract from a letter he wrote to the good lady who shed a pint of tears
over _Clarissa_, is pungent: 'Man is an animal that must bustle in the
world, go abroad, converse, fight battles, encounter other dangers of
seas, winds, and I know not what, in order to protect, provide for,
maintain in ease and plenty, women. Bravery, anger, fierceness are made
familiar to them. They buffet and are buffeted by the world; are
impatient and uncontrollable; they talk of honour, run their heads
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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