The censure which the Shakspeare of novelists has incurred for the
tedious procrastination and the minute details of his fable; his slow
unfolding characters, and the slightest gestures of his personages, is
extremely unjust; for is it not evident that we could not have his
peculiar excellences without these accompanying defects? When characters
are fully delineated, the narrative must be suspended. Whenever the
narrative is rapid, which so much delights superficial readers, the
characters cannot be very minutely featured; and the writer who aims to
instruct (as Richardson avowedly did) by the glow and eloquence of his
feelings, must often sacrifice to this his local descriptions.
Richardson himself has given us the principle that guided him in
composing. He tells us, "If I give speeches and conversations, I ought
to give them justly; for the _humours_ and _characters_ of persons
cannot be known unless I _repeat_ what they say, and their _manner_ of
saying."
Foreign critics have been more just to Richardson than many of his own
countrymen. I shall notice the opinions of three celebrated writers,
D'Alembert, Rousseau, and Diderot.
D'Alembert was a great mathematician. His literary taste was extremely
cold: he was not worthy of reading Richardson. The volumes, if he ever
read them, must have fallen from his hands. The delicate and subtle
turnings, those folds of the human heart, which require so nice a touch,
was a problem which the mathematician could never solve. There is no
other demonstration in the human heart, but an appeal to its feelings:
and what are the calculating feelings of an arithmetician of lines and
curves? He therefore declared of Richardson that "La Nature est bonne à
imiter, mais non pas jusqu'à l'ennui."
But thus it was not with the other two congenial geniuses! The fervent
opinion of Rousseau must be familiar to the reader; but Diderot, in his
éloge on Richardson, exceeds even Rousseau in the enthusiasm of his
feelings. I extract some of the most interesting passages. Of Clarissa
he says, "I yet remember with delight the first time it came into my
hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected! At every
moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced the
same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love, and
are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to
remain deserted."
The impassioned Diderot then breaks forth:--"Oh, Richardson! thou
singular genius in my eyes! thou shalt form my reading in all times. If
forced by sharp necessity, my friend falls into indigence; if the
mediocrity of my fortune is not sufficient to bestow on my children the
necessary cares for their education, I will sell my books,--but thou
shalt remain! yes, thou shalt rest in the _same class_ with MOSES,
HOMER, EURIPIDES, and SOPHOCLES, to be read alternately.
"Oh Richardson, I dare pronounce that the most veritable history is full
of fictions, and thy romances are full of truths. History paints some
individuals; thou paintest the human species. History attributes to some
individuals what they have neither said nor done; all that thou
attributest to man he has said and done. History embraces but a portion
of duration, a point on the surface of the globe; thou hast embraced all
places and all times. The human heart, which has ever been and ever
shall be the same, is the model which thou copiest. If we were severely
to criticise the best historian, would he maintain his ground as thou?
In this point of view, I venture to say, that frequently history is a
miserable romance; and romance, as thou hast composed it, is a good
history. Painter of nature, thou never liest!
"I have never yet met with a person who shared my enthusiasm, that I was
not tempted to embrace, and to press him in my arms!
"Richardson is no more! His loss touches me, as if my brother was no
more. I bore him in my heart without having seen him, and knowing him
but by his works. He has not had all the reputation he merited.
Richardson! if living thy merit has been disputed; how great wilt thou
appear to our children's children, when we shall view thee at the
distance we now view Homer! Then who will dare to steal a line from thy
sublime works! Thou hast had more admirers amongst us than in thine own
country, and at this I rejoice!"
It is probable that to a Frenchman the _style_ of Richardson is not so
objectionable when translated, as to ourselves. I think myself that it
is very idiomatic and energetic; others have thought differently. The
misfortune of Richardson was, that he was unskilful in the art of
writing, and that he could never lay the pen down while his inkhorn
supplied it.
He was delighted by his own works. No author enjoyed so much the bliss
of excessive fondness. I heard from the late Charlotte Lenox the
anecdote which so severely reprimanded his innocent vanity, which
Boswell has recorded. This lady was a regular visitor at Richardson's
house, and she could scarcely recollect one visit which was not taxed by
our author reading one of his voluminous letters, or two or three, if
his auditor was quiet and friendly.
The extreme delight which he felt on a review of his own works the works
themselves witness. Each is an evidence of what some will deem a violent
literary vanity. To _Pamela_ is prefixed a _letter_ from the _editor_
(whom we know to be the _author_), consisting of one of the most
minutely laboured panegyrics of the work itself, that ever the blindest
idolater of some ancient classic paid to the object of his frenetic
imagination. In several places there, he contrives to repeat the
striking parts of the narrative which display the fertility of his
imagination to great advantage. To the author's own edition of his
_Clarissa_ is appended an _alphabetical arrangement_ of the sentiments
dispersed throughout the work; and such was the fondness that dictated
this voluminous arrangement, that such trivial aphorisms as, "habits are
not easily changed," "men are known by their companions," &c., seem
alike to be the object of their author's admiration. This collection of
sentiments, said indeed to have been sent to him anonymously, is curious
and useful, and shows the value of the work, by the extensive grasp of
that mind which could think so justly on such numerous topics. And in
his third and final labour, to each volume of _Sir Charles Grandison_ is
not only prefixed a complete _index_, with as much exactness as if it
were a History of England, but there is also appended a _list_ of the
_similes_ and allusions in the volume; some of which do not exceed
_three_ or _four_ in nearly as many hundred pages.
Literary history does not record a more singular example of that
self-delight which an author has felt on a revision of his works. It was
this intense pleasure which produced his voluminous labours. It must be
confessed there are readers deficient in that sort of genius which makes
the mind of Richardson so fertile and prodigal.