Samuel Richardson might have stood for Hogarth's "Industrious Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young Samuel stole from his hours of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the "pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's improvement.[162] Thus Richardson persevered in the path of virtue, until, like the "Industrious Apprentice," himself, he married his master's daughter, succeeded to his business, and lived happy and respected, surrounded by all the blessings which should fall to the lot of the truly good.
"I was not fond of play, as other boys," says the author of "Pamela"; "my school-fellows used to call me Serious and Gravity; and five of them particularly, delighted to single me out, either for a walk, or at their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they phrased it. Some I told them from my reading, as true; others from my head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond. * * * All my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, an useful moral."[163] In such a manner, and with such an intention, Richardson began his career as a novelist.
The life of the stout, vain little printer was already well advanced, his fortune was assured, and he was surrounded by a group of affectionate relatives and admiring female friends, when he was asked by a publisher to write "a little book of familiar letters on the useful concerns in common life." While thinking over this proposal, be recollected a story once told him of a young servant-girl, whose honor was long attempted by a dissolute master, and who, by her resolute chastity, finally conquered his vicious intentions, and was rewarded by honorable marriage with her thwarted seducer. And then it occurred to Richardson, that this story, "if written in an easy and natural manner, suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance writing, and, dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion and virtue." Such was the origin of a novel destined to make a new era in English fiction. It is evident that Richardson placed before himself two aims: to promote the cause of religion and virtue, and to introduce a new species of writing, and in both he succeeded.
The name, "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," sounds like a tract, and "Pamela" is, indeed, a very long tract. The contrast is curious between the moral object of the work and its contents. In the preface we are told that "Pamela" is to inculcate religion and morality in an easy and agreeable manner; it is to make vice odious, to make virtue truly lovely, and to give practical examples, "worthy to be followed, in the most critical cases, by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the obliging wife." Moreover, all this is to be done, "without raising a single idea throughout the whole, that shall shock the exactest purity." Yet, "Pamela" contains not a few scenes likely to inflame the imagination, and its subject, kept continually before the reader's mind, is the licentious pursuit of a young girl. This story would not now do for a tract. But it answered the purpose very well in the eighteenth century. Richardson had no fear his book would give the youthful reader any new knowledge of evil, or that the long account of Pamela's attempted seduction would shock the "exactest purity" of his time. He simply described the dangers to which every attractive young woman was more or less subject by the prevailing looseness of morals, while, by the pathetic and resolute resistance of Pamela's chastity, he undoubtedly enlisted the sympathies of his reader on the side of virtue. The perusal of the book was recommended by Dr. Sherlock from the pulpit. One critic declared that it would do more good than twenty volumes of sermons; another, that if all other books were to be burnt, "Pamela" and the Bible should be preserved. A gentleman said that he would give it to his son as soon as he could read, that he might have an early impression of virtue.[164]
The moral of "Pamela" was virtue rewarded. That of "Clarissa," Richardson's second novel, was virtue triumphant, even in disgrace and ruin. The heroine, to escape the tyranny of her parents who wished to force her into a marriage she abhors, throws herself on the protection of a lover, the famous Lovelace, who, failing to seduce her by any other means, lures her into a brothel, and there violates her person while she is rendered insensible by opiates. Lovelace offers to make reparation for his crime by marriage, but in refusing this offer, and in dying of a broken heart, Clarissa carries out the moral of the story.
Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to draw the portrait of a man of true honor; "acting uniformly well through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and virtue; of liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself, and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model. "Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial. But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb, and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles, our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended to remedy.
The moral design is an important element in Richardson's novels, but the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes. Richardson had known how to move his reader's heart, and how to give to his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce "a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a piteous, d——d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or—I don't know what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "God d——n him, if she should."[165] Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr. Cibber and me (who neither of us set up for immaculate chastity), what must it do with those who possess that inestimable treasure?"[166] Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described, in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in Sussex, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by the death of Clarissa: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine creature's."[167] Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence." Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous book.[168] Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa" with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up and down the Athenæum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book."[169] But admiration of Richardson was still greater among foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German, and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of Diderot's eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ('Clarissa') 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. * * * Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes! thou shalt form my reading at 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."[170]
What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and the impassioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed this word, or that expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly gratified with her lover's fervor and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I have asked her direction, I cannot tell you what to write; but (her heart on her lips) you cannot write too kindly."[171] With such an apprenticeship, Richardson had come to possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside; they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into the inmost recesses of his heroines' hearts. He is at home in describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume's description of the death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the passions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson's writing. But to paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the author's day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and "Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady's drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:
He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again kissed it—You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation; and will you permit me before I rise—loveliest of women, will you permit me to beg an early day?—
He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor—that displeased me not on reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; again pressed my cheeks with his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?
Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress; though you have always been generously left to a discretion that never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever comprehend mine.
The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the novelist.