Part 6

It is a fact, however, that our grandfathers, in spite of their belief in pigtails, and in Pope's poetry, and other matters that have gone out of fashion, had some very excellent qualities, and even some genuine sentiment, in their compositions. Indeed, now that their peculiarities have been finally packed away in various lumber-rooms, and the revolt against the old-fashioned school of thought and manners has become triumphant instead of militant, we are beginning to see the picturesque side of their character. They have gathered something of the halo that comes with the lapse of years; and social habits that looked prosaic enough to contemporaries, and to the generation which had to fight against them, have gained a touch of romance. Richardson's characters wear a costume and speak a language which are indeed queer and old-fashioned, but are now far enough removed from the present to have a certain piquancy; and it is becoming easier to recognise the real genius which created them, as the active aversion to the forms in which it was necessarily clothed tends to disappear. The wigs and the high-heeled shoes are not without a certain pleasing quaintness; and when we have surmounted this cause of disgust, we can see more plainly what was the real power which men of the most opposite schools in art have recognised. Readers whose appetite for ancient fiction is insufficient to impel them to a perusal of 'Clarissa' may yet find some amusement in turning over the curious collection of letters published with a life by Mrs. Barbauld in 1804. Nowhere can we find a more vivid picture of the social stratum to which Richardson belonged. We take a seat in the old gentleman's shop, or drop in to take a dish of tea with him at North End, in Hammersmith. We learn to know them almost as well as we know the literary circle of the next generation from Boswell or the higher social sphere from Horace Walpole--and it is a pleasant relief, after reading the solemn histories which recall the struggles of Walpole and Chesterfield and their like, to drop in upon this quiet little coterie of homely commonplace people leading calm domestic lives and amusingly unconscious of the political and intellectual storms which were raging outside. Richardson himself was the typical industrious apprentice. He was the son of a London tradesman who had witnessed with due horror the Popish machinations of James II. Richardson, born just after the Revolution, had been apprenticed to a printer, married his master's daughter, set up a fairly successful business, was master of the Stationers' Company in 1754, and was prosperous enough to have his country box, first at North End and afterwards at Parson's Green. He never learned any language but his own. He had taken to writing from his infancy; he composed little stories of an edifying tendency and had written love-letters for young women of his acquaintance. From his experience in these departments he acquired the skill which was afterwards displayed in 'Pamela' and his two later and superior novels. We hear dimly of many domestic trials: of the loss of children, some of whom had lived to be 'delightful prattlers,' of 'eleven affecting deaths in two years.' Who were the eleven remains unknown. His sorrows have long passed into oblivion, unless so far as the sentiment was transmuted into his writings. We do not know whether it was from calamity or constitutional infirmity that he became a very nervous and tremulous little man. He never dared to ride, but exercised himself on a 'chamber-horse,' one of which apparently wooden animals he kept at each of his houses. For years he could not raise a glass to his lips without help. His dread of altercations prevented him from going often among his workmen. He gave his orders in writing that he might not have to bawl to a deaf foreman. He gave up 'wine and flesh and fish.' He drew a capital portrait of himself, for the benefit of a lady still unknown to him, who recognised him by its help at a distance of 'above three hundred yards.' His description is minute enough: 'Short; rather plump than emaciated, notwithstanding his complaints; about 5 foot 5 inches; fair wig, lightish cloth coat, all black besides; one hand generally in his bosom, the other, a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat usually, that it may imperceptibly serve him as a support when attacked by sudden tremors or startings and dizziness, which too frequently attack him, but, thank God, not so often as formerly; looking directly foreright, as passers by would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either hand of him without moving his short neck; hardly ever turning back; of a light-brown complexion; teeth not yet failing him; smoothish-faced and ruddy cheeked; at some times looking to be about sixty-five, at others much younger' (really sixty); 'a regular even pace stealing away ground rather than seeming to rid it; a grey eye, too often overclouded by mistinesses from the head; by chance lively--very lively it will be if he have hopes of seeing a lady whom he loves and honours; his eye always on the ladies; if they have very large hoops, he looks down and supercilious and as if he would be thought wise, but perhaps the sillier for that; as he approaches a lady his eye is never fixed first upon her face, but upon her feet and thence he raises it up pretty quickly for a dull eye; and one would think (if we thought him at all worthy of observation) that from her air and the last beheld (her face) he sets her down in his mind as _so_ and _so_, and then passes on to the next object he meets; only then looking back, if he greatly likes or dislikes, as if he would see if the lady appear to be all of a piece in the one light or the other.' After this admirable likeness we can appreciate better the two coloured engravings in the letters. Richardson looks like a plump white mouse in a wig, at once vivacious and timid. We see him in one picture toddling along the Pantiles at Tunbridge-Wells, in the neighbourhood of the great Mr. Pitt and Speaker Onslow and the bigamous Duchess of Kingston and Colley Cibber and the cracked and shrivelled-up Whiston and a (perhaps not the famous) Mr. Johnson in company with a bishop. In the other, he is sitting in his parlour with its stiff old-fashioned furniture and a glimpse into the garden, reading 'Sir Charles Grandison' to the admirable Miss Mulso, afterwards Mrs. Chapone, and a small party, inclusive of the artist, Miss Highmore, to whom we owe sincere gratitude for this peep into the past. Richardson sits in his 'usual morning dress,' a kind of brown dressing-gown with a skull-cap on his head, filling the chair with his plump little body, and raising one foot (or has the artist found difficulties in planting both upon the ground?) to point his moral with an emphatic stamp.

Many eminent men of his time were polite to Richardson after he had won fame at the mature age of fifty. He was not the man to presume on his position. He was 'very shy of obtruding himself on persons of condition.' He never rose like Pope, whose origin was not very dissimilar, to speak to princes and ministers as an equal. He was always the obsequious and respectful shopkeeper. The great Warburton wrote a letter to his 'good sir'--a phrase equivalent to the two fingers of a dignified greeting--suggesting, in Pope's name and his own, a plan for continuing 'Pamela.' She was to be the ingenuous young person shocked at the conventionalities of good society. Richardson sensibly declined a plan for which he was unfitted; and in 1747 Warburton condescended to write a preface to 'Clarissa Harlowe,' pointing out (very superfluously!) the nature of the intended moral. Warburton afterwards took offence at a passage in the same book which he took to glance at Pope; and Richardson was on friendly terms with two authors, Edwards, of the 'Canons of Criticism,' and Aaron Hill, who were among the multitudinous enemies of Warburton and his patron Pope. Hill's letters in the correspondence are worth reading as illustrations of the old moral of literary vanity. He expresses with unusual _naïveté_ the doctrine, so pleasant to the unsuccessful, that success means the reverse of merit. Pope's fame was due to personal assiduities, and 'a certain bladdery swell of management.' It is already passing away. He does not speak from jealousy, for nobody ever courted fame 'with less solicitude than I.' But for all that, there will come a time! He knows it on a surer ground than vanity. Let us hope that this little salve to self-esteem never lost its efficacy. Surely of all prayers the most injudicious was that of Burns, that we might see ourselves as others see us. What would become of us? Richardson, as we might expect, was highly esteemed by Young of the 'Night Thoughts,' and by Johnson, to both of whom he seems to have given substantial proofs of friendship. He wrote the only number of the 'Rambler' which had a good sale, and helped Johnson when under arrest for debt; Johnson repaid him by the phrase, which long passed for the orthodox decision, that Richardson taught the passions to move at the command of virtue. But the most delightful of Richardson's friends was the irrepressible Colley Cibber. Mrs. Pilkington, a disreputable adventuress, faintly remembered by her relations to Swift, describes Cibber's reception of the unpublished 'Clarissa.' 'The dear gentleman did almost rave. When I told him that she (Clarissa) must die, he said G---- d---- him if she should, and that he should no longer believe Providence or eternal wisdom or goodness governed the world if merit and innocence and beauty were to be so destroyed. "Nay," added he, "my mind is so hurt with the thought of her being violated, that were I to see her in heaven, sitting on the knees of the blessed Virgin and crowned with glory, her sufferings would still make me feel horror, horror distilled." These were his strongly emphatical impressions.' Cibber's own letters are as lively as Mrs. Pilkington's report of his talk. 'The delicious meal I made off Miss Byron on Sunday last,' he says, '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 to-morrow afternoon be not inconvenient, Mrs. Brown and I will come and nibble upon a bit more of her! And we have grace after meat as well as before.' 'The devil take the insolent goodness of your imagination!' exclaims the lively old buck, now past eighty, and as well preserved as if he had never encountered Pope's 'scathing satire' (does satire ever 'scathe'?) or Fielding's rough horseplay. One of Richardson's lady admirers saw Cibber flirting with fine ladies at Tunbridge Wells in 1754 (he was born in 1671), and miserable when he was neglected for a moment by the greatest _belle_ in the society. He professed to be only seventy-seven!

Perhaps even Cibber was beaten in flattery by the 'minister of the gospel' who thought that if some of Clarissa's letters had been found in the Bible they would have been regarded as manifest proofs of divine inspiration. But the more delightful incense came from the circle of admiring young ladies who called him their dear papa; who passed long days at his feet at Parson's Green; allowed him to escape to his summer-house to add a letter to the growing volumes, and after an early dinner persuaded him to read it aloud. Their eager discussions as to the fate of the characters and the little points of morality which arose are continued in his gossiping letters. When a child he had been the confidant of tender-hearted maidens, and now he became a kind of spiritual director. He was, as Miss Collier said, the 'only champion and protector' of her sex. Women, and surely they must be good judges, thought that he understood the feminine heart, as their descendants afterwards attributed the same power to Balzac. The most attractive of his feminine correspondents was Mrs. Klopstock, wife of the 'German Milton,' who tells her only little love story with charming simplicity, and thus lays her homage at the feet of Richardson. 'Honoured sir, will you permit me to take this opportunity, in sending a letter to Dr. Young, to address myself to you? It is very long that I wished to do it. Having finished your "Clarissa" (oh, the heavenly book!), I would have prayed you to write the history of a _manly_ Clarissa, but I had not courage enough at that time. I should have it no more to-day, as this is only my first English letter; but I have it! It may be because I am now Klopstock's wife (I believe you know my husband by Mr. Hohorst), and then I was only the single young girl. You have since written the manly Clarissa without my prayer; oh, you have done it to the great joy and thanks of all your happy readers! Now you can write no more, you must write the history of an angel!'

Mrs. Klopstock died young; having had the happiness to find that Richardson did not resent her intrusion, great author as he was. Another correspondent, Lady Bradshaigh, wife of a Lancashire country gentleman, took precautions which show what a halo then surrounded the author in the eyes of his countrywomen. It was worth while to be an author then! Lady Bradshaigh was a good housewife, it seems, but, having no children, was able to devote some time to reading. She obtained a portrait of Richardson, but altered the name to Dickenson, in order that no one might suspect her of corresponding with an author. After reading the first four volumes of 'Clarissa' (which were separately published), she wrote under a feigned name to beg the author to alter the impending catastrophe. She spoke as the mouthpiece of a 'multitude of admirers' who desired to see Lovelace reformed and married to Clarissa. 'Sure you will think it worth your while, sir, to save his soul!' she exclaims. Richardson was too good an artist to spoil his tragedy; and was rewarded by an account of her emotions on reading the last volumes. She laid the

## book down in agonies, took it up again, shed a flood of tears, and threw

herself upon her couch to compose her mind. Her husband, who was plodding after her, begged her to read no more. But she had promised Richardson to finish the book. She nerved herself for the task; her sleep was broken, she woke in tears during the night, and burst into tears at her meals. Charmed by her delicious sufferings, she became Richardson's friend for life, though it was long before she could muster up courage to meet him face to face.

Yet Lady Bradshaigh seems to have been a sensible woman, and shows vivacity and intelligence in some of her discussions with Richardson. If he was not altogether spoilt by the flattery of so many excellent women, we can only explain it by remembering that he did not become famous till he was past fifty, and therefore past spoiling. One peculiarity, indeed, is rather unpleasant in these letters. Richardson's worshippers evidently felt that their deity was jealous, and made no scruple of offering the base sacrifice of abuse of rival celebrities. Richardson adopts their tone; he is always gibing at Fielding. '_I could not help telling his sister_', he observes--a sister, too, whose merits Fielding had praised with his usual generosity--'that I was equally surprised at and concerned for his continuous lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born in a stable or been a runner at a sponging-house we should have thought him a genius,' but now! So another great writer came just in time to be judged by Richardson. A bishop asked him, 'Who is this Yorick,' who has, it seems, been countenanced by an 'ingenious dutchess.' Richardson briefly replies that the bishop cannot have looked into the books, 'execrable I cannot but call them.' Their only merit is that they are 'too gross to be inflaming.' The history of the mutual judgments upon each other of contemporary authors would be more amusing than edifying.

Richardson should not have been so hard upon Sterne, for Sterne was in some degree following Richardson's lead. 'What is the meaning,' asks Lady Bradshaigh (about 1749) 'of the word _sentimental_, so much in vogue among the polite both in town and country? Everything clever and agreeable is comprehended in that word; but I am convinced a wrong interpretation is given, because it is impossible everything clever and agreeable can be so common as that word.' She has heard of a sentimental man; a sentimental party, and a sentimental walk; and has been applauded for calling a letter sentimental. I hope that the philological dictionary may tell us what was the first appearance of a word which, in this sense, marks an epoch in literature, and, indeed, in much else. I find the word used in the old sense in 1752 in a pamphlet upon '_Sentimental_ differences in point of faith,' that is, differences of sentiment or opinion. When, a few years later, Sterne published his 'Sentimental Journey,' Wesley asks in his journal what is the meaning of the new phrase, and observes (the illustration has lost its point) that you might as well say _continental_. The appearance of the phrase coincides with the appearance of the thing; for Richardson was the first sentimentalist. We may trace the same movement elsewhere, though we need not here speculate upon the cause. Pope's 'Essay on Man' is the expression in verse of the dominant theology of the Deists and their opponents, which was beginning to be condemned as dry and frigid. A desire for something more 'sentimental' shows itself in Young's 'Night Thoughts,' in Hervey's 'Meditations,' and appears in the religious domain as Methodism. The literary historian has to trace the rise of the same tendency in various places. In Germany, as we see from Mrs. Klopstock's enthusiasm, the flame was only waiting for the spark. Goethe, in his 'Wahrheit und Dichtung,' notices the influence of Richardson's novels in Germany. They were among the predisposing causes of Wertherism. In France, as I have said, Richardson found congenial hearers, and Clarissa's soul doubtless transmigrated into the heroine of the 'Nouvelle Héloïse.' Even in stubborn England, where Fielding's masculine contempt for the whinings of 'Pamela' was more congenial, the students of Richardson were prepared to receive 'Ossian' with enthusiasm, and to be ecstatic over 'Tristram Shandy.' That Richardson would have agreed with Johnson in regarding Rousseau as fit only for a penal settlement, and that he actually considered Sterne to be 'execrable,' does not relieve him of the responsibility or deprive him of the glory. He is not the only writer who has helped to evoke a spirit which he would be the last to sanction. When he encouraged his admirably proper young ladies to indulge in 'sentimentalism,' he could not tell where so vague an impulse would ultimately land them. He was a sound Tory, and an accepter of all established creeds. Sentimentalism with him was merely a delight in cultivating the emotions, without any thought of consequences; or, later, of cultivating them with the assumption that they would continue to move, as he bade them, 'at the command of virtue.' Once set in motion, they chose to take paths of their own; they revolted against conventions, even those which he held most sacred; and by degrees set up 'Nature' as an idol, and admired the ingenuous savage instead of the respectable Clarissa, and denounced all corruption, including, alas, the British constitution, and even the Thirty-nine Articles, and put themselves at the disposal of all manner of revolutionary audacities. But the little printer was safe in his grave, and knew not of what strange developments he had been the ignorant accomplice.