uncertain, his son Samuel was born in 1689. As a little boy he was very grave and earnest, preferred the society of women, and, characteristically, earned his first money by composing letters for people who could not write for themselves. His father was too poor to give him the necessary education to study for the Church, which was his obvious career. Throughout his life Richardson suffered from the insufficiency of his early training. In 1706 he was apprenticed to a printer in London, was a long while serving as a diligent compositor and press corrector, and finally, in 1719, was able to start in business for himself in Fleet Street, and then in Salisbury Court. Speaker Onslow employed him to print the Journals of the House of Commons. He slowly prospered, and indulged in a handsome brick house at North End, Fulham. Meanwhile, in 1739, some publishers, conscious of his epistolary facility, persuaded him to compose a collection of Familiar Letters, to be issued as a guide to the illiterate. He undertook this task, presently bethought him of a chain of incidents and a moral purpose, and in 1740-41 produced, in four volumes, and as a separate work, what is usually called the first English novel of manners, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. This work, or at least the earlier instalment of it, enjoyed a great popularity, but Richardson was slow in following it up. His next book, Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady, did not appear until 1747-48, and of this novel, a production vastly superior in conception and execution to Pamela, the success was extraordinary. The strangest legends are on record to exemplify the hysterical anxiety with which most women and some men followed the slowly developed fortunes of so much "merit and innocence and beauty." A still more complicated study of modern life followed in 1754 in the shape of the adventures of the incomparable Sir Charles Grandison. This was the apogee of Richardson's career. Extremely famous, and the centre of a choir of adoring women, he slackened the activity of his business, was elected Master of the Stationers' Company, and moved to a house at Parson's Green. He wrote no more books, but continued to attend in a measure to his business as a printer, and rebuilt his premises at Salisbury Court on a handsomer scale. He died of apoplexy, with which he had long been

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threatened, on the 4th of July 1761, in London. There was little external incident in this decorous and prosperous life. Richardson was married twice and had twelve children, so many of whom died early that by 1741 his nerves-he suffered "eleven affecting deaths in two years"-had become permanently injured by the constant strain on his emotions. All through middle life he was the victim of "sudden startings and dizziness," which made him extremely solicitous to avoid excitement. has left, in one of his letters, a description of his person, so close and evidently faithful, that it enables us to reconstruct with exactitude the short, plump, ruddy printer, with his important manner, his grey eye "always on the ladies," toddling about among "the very large hoops" of his admirers with an expression "as if he would be thought wise, but perhaps the sillier for that." Richardson had some weaknesses; in particular, his vanity was great, and unfortunately it led him easily to the detraction of his contemporaries. He was "very shy of obtruding himself on persons of condition," to whose company Lady Mary Wortley Montagu unkindly says that he was never admitted, but he watched their movements closely out of his keen, down-looking eyes. In that age, when successful authors easily took the fashionable world by storm, Richardson remained a tradesman. He was happiest with his pen in his hand, writing long epistles to his "dearest ladies," the younger of whom became at last so numerous that they called him in return their "dear papa." Of his correspondents the most enthusiastic and the most voluminous was a certain Lady Bradshaigh, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of the excellent little moralist. It should be pointed out that in each of his novels Richardson employs the form of letters, the only one in which he was at ease, for the evolution of his story.

Illustration by Stothard to "Clarissa"

FROM "CLARISSA."

I am just returned from attending the afflicted parents in an effort they made to see the corpse of their beloved child. They had requested my company, and that of the good Mrs. Norton. A last leave, the Mother said, she must take.

An effort, however, it was, and no more. The moment they came in sight of the coffin, before the lid could be put aside: "O my dear," said the Father, retreating, "I cannot,

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You defive to know, if I concur with you in your lating to the Compromise between Sir Charles Grandifen and Clementina, in the Article of Religion. Those Sembriments are contained in your Wishes, that I head given another Furn to it, and had zone further. in the Jubject: "Fer Jay you, as fuck an Agreement is now almost a Ponit "in Cougle in the Mamage of Perfour of different Religious, if you head "made use of that Handle to expose the I'm quity of such a Practice and poor Girls Souls were as much to be regarded as Boys. Some fars " of those Reasons which you would have then hong hit, inight there dove " more Service ouvard's putting a stop to so wie hed a Practice, then the best Set Discourse could have Loves Muthtudes of young People of both Perfuafions reading the one, who must have been retter Strangers "1 to the other."

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I am very much obliged to you, Sir, for your good Oper mon of my dertaking, and in genome of the Exacestion, and of the Sovance to man. kind that may result from it.

Five me Leave to say, that I have shewn in the Vohmes, when the Jutjub requited it, that I have the Itemaer to be of your Opprimcn, as to this Componsmi sa I have in Vol 11. Octwo, p. 105, 106. made the Bishers / Clementiras Prother) them fay to run Grandifore, after a debate between them on the bod Church allows of a PoffiAcligious, "You will call to mind, Chevalier, that "My Lord, "an frem obe "bility of Salvation out of its Pole - Own Loes nots." Chevalier, "Our Churate allows not of its Members indulging there falvos in capi4 bar Eirons, against Conviction."

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Mr. Grandifen was a youny Man : He pretend not to be disaped of Paffion. It was neceffory to let the Porretta Family, and the. Reader, who, it was supposed, would not be unconserved in the Desting of Clementina, far, that he was defirous to make fame Jarnfices, for those on the Family made, in Confideration of to excellent a Orea bure, who had suffered to unch, and was actually in a State of Sustering for her Love of lirim. Whats could be to ancore, bearbes Dr. Barthell, than to make fuck an He west Relations, the person the confiders it as a very great conceffion, the' be must krew, that is yes, as you des offove, a too wheat one. And he tells ber

Facsimile Letter from Samuel Richardson to Dr. Cox Macro in answer to
his criticism of "Sir Charles Grandison"