the Miss Fieldings, whom Richardson loved, notwithstanding the offences of their brother, there was a Miss Mulso, Miss Westcombe, and other ladies besides, full of veneration for the kind instructor, whom they were permitted to term their adopted father. Mrs Charlotte Lennox was also a regular visitor at Parsons-Green, and scarce could remember a visit in which her host had not rehearsed at least one, but probably two or three, voluminous letters, if he found her in the humour of listening with attention.

While Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison were in progress, Richardson used to read a part of his labours to some of this chosen circle every morning, and receive, it may readily be supposed, a liberal tribute of praise, with a very moderate portion of criticism. Miss Highmore, who inherited a paternal taste for painting, has recorded one of those scenes in a small drawing, where Richardson, in a morning-gown and cap, is introduced reading the manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison to such a little group.

This was all very amiable, though perhaps bordering on an effeminate love of flattery and applause ; but it must be owned that our author disdained not

flattery from less pure hands than those of his ordinary companions. We will not dwell upon poor Lætitia Pilkington, whose wants, rather than her extravagant praises, may be supposed to have conciliated the kindness of Richardson, notwithstanding the infamy of her character;1 but we are rather

["See Mrs Pilkington's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 238; and Niccoll's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv., p. 583. It may be

!

scandalized that the veteran iniquity of old Cibber should not have excluded him from the intimacy of the virtuous Richardson, and that the grey profligate could render himself acceptable to the author of Sir Charles Grandison by such effusions of vulgar vivacity as the following, which we cannot forbear inserting :— "I have just finished the sheets you favoured me with; but never found so strong a proof of your sly ill-nature, as to have hung me up upon tenters till I see you again. Z-ds! I have not patience, till I know what's become of her. Why, you! I don't know what to call you -Ah! ah! you may laugh if you please: but how will you be able to look me in the face, if the lady should ever be able to show hers again? What piteous, d-d, disgraceful pickle have you plunged her in? For God's sake send me the sequel; or -I don't know what to say!"-Yet another delectable quotation from the letters of that merry old good-for-nothing, which, as addressed by a rake of the theatre to the most sentimental author of the age, and as referring to one of his favourite and most perfect characters, is, in its way, a matchless specimen of elegant vivacity." The delicious meal I made of Miss Byron on Sunday last, has given me an appetite for another slice of her, off from the spit, before she is served up to the public table;

worth noting, that Lætitia describes herself as calling on Richardson in an undress, never having formed any great idea of a printer by those she had seen in Ireland,' and being 'extremely surprised when she was directed to a house of very grand outward appearance.""]

1 Correspondence of Richardson, vol. ii., p. 172, 173.

if about five o'clock to-morrow afternoon will not be inconvenient, Mrs Brown and I will come and piddle upon a bit more of her: but pray let your whole family, with Mrs Richardson at the head of them, come in for their share.”1

An appetite for praise, and an over-indulgence of that appetite, not only teaches an author to be gratified with the applause of the unworthy, and to prefer it to the censure of the wise, but it leads to the less pardonable error of begrudging others their due share of public favour. Richardson was too good, too kind a man to let literary envy settle deep in his bosom, yet an overweening sense of his own importance seems to have prevented his doing entire justice to the claims of those who might be termed his rivals. He appears to have been rather too prone to believe ill of those authors, against whose works exceptions, in point of delicacy, might justly be taken. He has inserted in his Correspondence an account of Swift's earlier life, highly injurious to the character of that eminent writer, and which the industry of Dr Barrett has since shown to be a gross misrepresentation. The same tone of feeling has made him denounce, with the utmost severity, the indecorum of Tristram Shandy, without that tribute of applause which, in every view of the case, was so justly due to the genius of the author, and which would have come with particular propriety from Richardson, himself a master of the pathetic style of composition. Richardson seems also to have joined Aaron Hill in the cuckoo-song, that Pope had written himself out

1 Correspondence of Richardson, vol. ii., p. 176.

-and, finally, the dislike which he manifests towards Fielding, though it originated in a gratuitous insult on the part of the latter, breaks out too often, and is too anxiously veiled under an affectation of charity and candour, not to lead us to suspect that the author of Tom Jones was at least as obnoxious to Richardson through the success, as from the alleged immorality, of his productions. It would have been generous in the wealthier and happier of these competitors for public fame, to have reflected, that, while his own bark lay safe in harbour, or was wafted on by the favouring gale of applause, his less fortunate rival had to struggle with the current and the storm. But as this disagreeable subject will be found canvassed in Fielding's Life, we will not farther dwell on it here. Of all pictures of literary life, that which exhibits two men, of transcendent, though different talents, engaged in the depreciation of each other, is most humbling to human nature, most unpleasing to a candid and enlightened reader. Excepting against Fielding, Richardson seems to have nourished no positive literary feud. But it is to be regretted, that, in his Correspondence, we find few traces that he either loved or admired contemporary genius.1

[Lord Byron, on finding some sheets of Pamela applied to "base uses," at Ravenna, in 1821, thus writes:-" What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of living authors, (i. e. while alive)—he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature) and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets)-what would he have said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French princes' toilets (see Boswell) to the grocer's counter and the gipsy-murderess's

It may appear invidious to dwell thus long on a sufficiently venial speck in a character so fair and amiable. But it is no useless lesson to show, that a love of praise, and a feeling of literary emulation, not to say vanity, foibles pardonable in themselves, and rarely separated from the poetical temperament, lead to consequences detrimental to the deserved reputation of the most ingenious author, and the most worthy man, as a dead fly will pollute the most precious unguent. Every author, but especially those who cultivate the lighter kinds of literature, should teach themselves the stern lesson, that their art must fall under the frequent censure, Non est tanti; and, for this reason, they should avoid, as they would the circle of Alcina, that sort of society, who so willingly form around every popular writer an atmosphere of assentation and flattery, and represent his labours as a matter of great consequence to the world, and his popularity as a matter to be defended on all occasions, and against all rivals.

Dismissing these considerations, we cannot omit to state, that Richardson's correspondence with one of his most intelligent and enthusiastic admirers, commenced, and was for some time carried on, in a manner which might have formed a pleasing incident in one of the author's own romances.

bacon!!! What would he have said?

What can any body

say, save what Solomon said long before us? After all, it is but passing from one counter to another-from the bookseller's to the other tradesman's-grocer or pastry-cook. For my part, I have met with most poetry upon trunks; so that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship."Life and Works, vol. v., p. 55.]