morning. His hospitality was of the most liberal, as well as the most judicious kind. One of his correspondents describes him as sitting at his door like an old patriarch, and inviting all who passed by to enter, and be refreshed ;—and this, says Mrs Barbauld, "whether they brought with them the means of amusing their host, or only required his kind notice, and that of his family." He was generous and benevolent to distressed authors, a class of men with whom his profession brought him into contact; and had occasion, more than once, to succour Dr Johnson during his days of poverty,' and to assist his efforts to force himself into public notice. The domestic revolutions of his life, after mentioning the losses he had sustained in his family, may be almost summed up in two great events. He changed his villa, in which he indulged, like other wealthy citizens, from North-End to ParsonsGreen; and his printing establishment, from the one side of Salisbury Court to the other; which last alteration, he complains, did not meet Mrs Richardson's approbation.

If we look yet closer into Richardson's private life, (and who loves not to know the slightest particulars concerning a man of his genius?) we find so much to praise, and so very little deserving censure, that we almost think we are reading the description of one of the amiable characters he has

[Johnson seems to have been, on one occasion at least, bailed out of a spunging-house by Richardson, and to have been in the habit of applying to him for small loans of money, when his immediate employers were out of the way. See the first volume of Boswell.]

drawn in his own works. A love of the human species; a desire to create happiness and to witness it; a life undisturbed by passion, and spent in doing good; pleasures which centered in elegant conversation, in bountiful hospitality, in the exchange of all the kindly intercourse of life,-marked the worth and unsophisticated simplicity of the good man's character. He loved children, and knew the rare art of winning their attachment; for, partaking in that respect the sagacity of the canine race, they are not to be deceived by dissembled attention. A lady, who shared the hospitality of Richardson, and gives an excellent account of the internal regulations of his virtuous and orderly family, remembers creeping to his knee, and hanging on his words, as well as the good-nature with which he backed her petitions, to be permitted to remain a little longer when she was summoned to bed, and his becoming her guarantee, that she would not require the servant's assistance to put her to bed, and to extinguish the candle. Trifling as these recollections may seem, they are pleasing proofs that the author of Clarissa was, in private life, the mild good man which we wish to suppose him.

The predominant failing of Richardson seems certainly to have been vanity; vanity naturally excited by his great and unparalleled popularity at home and abroad, and by the continual and concentred admiration of the circle in which he lived. Such a weakness finds root in the mind of every one who has obtained general applause, but Richardson, the gentleness of whose mind was almost feminine, was peculiarly susceptible of this feminine

weakness, and he fostered and indulged its growth, which a man of firmer character would have crushed and restrained. The cup of Circe converted men into beasts; and that of praise, when deeply and eagerly drained, seldom fails to make wise men in some degree fools. There seems to have been a want of masculine firmness in Richardson's habits of thinking, which combined with his natural tenderness of heart in inducing him to prefer the society of women; and women, from the quickness of their feelings, as well as their natural desire to please, are always the admirers, or rather the idolaters, of genius, and generally its willing flatterers. Richardson was in the daily habit of seeing, conversing, and corresponding with many of the fair sex; and the unvaried, and, it would seem, the inexhaustible theme, was his own writings. Hence, Johnson, whose lofty pride never suffered him to cherish the meaner foible of vanity, has passed upon Richardson, after a just tribute to his worth, the severe sentence recorded by Boswell:"I only remember," says the biographer, "that Johnson expressed a high value for his talents and virtues : But that his perpetual study was to ward off petty inconveniences, and to procure petty pleasures; that his love of continual superiority was such, that he took care always to be surrounded by women, who listened to him implicitly, and did not venture to contradict his opinions; and that his desire of distinction was so great, that he used to give large vails to Speaker Onslow's servants, that they might treat him with respect."1 An anecdote, which seems

1 Life of Richardson, vol. i., p. 171, 172.-This charac

1

to confirm Johnson's statement, is given by Boswell, on authority of a lady who was present when the circumstance took place. A gentleman, who had lately been at Paris, sought, while in a large company at Richardson's villa at North-End, to gratify the landlord, by informing him that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the king's brother's table. Richardson observing that a part of the company were engaged in conversation apart, affected not to hear what had been said, but took advantage of the first general pause, to address the gentleman with"Sir, I think you were saying something about❞— and then stopped, in a flutter of expectation; which his guest mortified, by replying, "A mere trifle, sir, not worth repeating."

"2

ter was given at the house of a venerable Scottish Judge, now no more, who was so great an admirer of Sir Charles Grandison, that he was said to have read that work over once every year in the course of his life.

1 ["Mr Northcote relates, that Johnson introduced Sir Joshua Reynolds and his sister to Richardson, but hinted to them, at the same time, that, if they wished to see the latter in good humour, they must expatiate on the excellences of 'Clarissa;' and Mrs Piozzi tells us, that, when talking of Richardson, he once said, 'You think I love flattery-and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.'"-CROKER'S Boswell, vol. i., p. 210.]

2 Johnson himself felt pride on finding his Dictionary in Lord Scarsdale's dressing-room, and pointed it out to his friend, with the classical quotation, Quæ terra nostri non plena laboris? Yet, under correction of both these great authors, the more substantial fame is to find a popular work, not in the closet of the great, who buy every book which bears a name, but in the cabins of the poor, who must have made some sacrifice to effect the purchase.

The truth seems to be, that Richardson, by nature shy, and of a nervous constitution, limited also by a very narrow education, cared not to encounter in conversation with those rougher spirits of the age, where criticism might have had too much severity in it. And he seems to have been reserved even in the presence of Johnson, though bound to him by obligation, and although that mighty aristarch professed to have the talent of "making him rear," and of calling forth his powers." Nor does he appear to have associated much with any of the distinguished geniuses of the age, saving Dr Young, with whom he corresponded late in life. Aaron Hill, who patriotically endeavoured to make him a convert to wines of British manufacture; and Mr Edwards, author of the Canons of Criticism, though both clever men, do not deserve to be mentioned as exceptions.

The society of Richardson was limited to a little circle of amiable and accomplished persons, who were contented to allow a central position to the author of Clarissa, and to revolve around him in inferior orbits. The families of Highmore and Duncombe produced more than one individual of this description; and besides Mrs Donellan, and

1 ["Richardson had little conversation except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson, when he carried Mr Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression- Sir, I can make him rear.' But he failed; for, in that interview, Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German." -CROKER'S Boswell, vol. v., p. 360.]