ng_.]

Samuel Richardson, the First Modern English Novelist.--Samuel
Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire. When he was only
thirteen years old some of the young women of the neighborhood
unconsciously began to train him for a novelist by employing him to
conduct their love correspondence. This training partly accounts for
the fact that every one of his novels is merely a collection of
letters, written by the chief characters to each other and to their
friends, to narrate the progress of events.

At the age of fifteen Richardson went to London and learned the
printer's trade, which he followed for the rest of his life. When he
was about fifty years old, some publishers asked him to prepare a
letter writer which would be useful to country people and to others
who could not express themselves with a pen. The idea occurred to him
of making these letters tell a connected story. The result was the
first modern novel, _Pamela_, published in four volumes in 1740. This
was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, in seven volumes, in 1747-48, and
this by _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, in 1753.

The affairs in the lives of the leading characters are so minutely
dissected, the plot is evolved so slowly and in a way so unlike the
astonishing bounds of the old romance, that one is tempted to say that
Richardson's novels progress mere slowly than events in life. One
secret of his success depends on the fact that we feel that he is
deeply interested in all his characters. He is as much interested in
the heroine of his masterpiece, _Clarissa Harlowe_, as if she were his
own daughter. He has the remarkable power of so thoroughly identifying
himself with his characters that, after we are introduced to them, we
can name them when we hear selections read from their letters.

The length and slow development of his novels repel modern readers,
but there was so little genuinely interesting matter in the middle of
the eighteenth century that many were sorry his novels were no longer.
The novelty of productions of this type also added to their interest.
His many faults are largely those of his age. He wearies his readers
with his didactic aims. He is narrow and prosy. He poses as a great
moralist, but he teaches the morality of direct utility.

The drama and the romance had helped to prepare the way for the novel
of everyday domestic life. While this way seemed simple, natural, and
inevitable, Richardson was the first to travel