Clarissa — Inside the Classic

Fielding was familiar with the _Treatise_, and it is possible that Richardson had also looked at Le Bossu to prepare himself for dealing with the epic theory of his rival.[24]

There were also precedents for placing the novel in the dramatic rather than the epic tradition. Congreve, when he wrote _Incognita_ (1692), took the drama as his model. 'Since all Traditions must indisputably give place to the _Drama_,' he wrote in the Preface, 'and since there is no possibility of giving that life to the Writing or Repetition of a Story which it has in the Action, I resolved ... to imitate _Dramatick_ Writing ... in the Design, Contexture, and Result of the Plot. I have not observed it before in a Novel.'[25] The analogy with drama had also been drawn by Henry Gally in his _Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings_ (1725), who, after maintaining that 'the essential Parts of the Characters, in the _Drama_, and in _Characteristic-Writings_ are the same,' goes on to praise the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ for the 'excellent Specimens in the Characteristic-Way' that they offered their readers.[26] Such acknowledgments of the dramatic potentialities in prose fiction were, however, unusual. The romances were modelled on the epic (Fielding, in fact, describes _Joseph Andrews_ in his Preface as a 'comic Romance'); and the picaresque mode in which Smollett wrote had no obviously dramatic qualities. Richardson's advocacy of the novel in which action is presented rather than retailed seems, indeed, curiously modern: it is something Henry James would certainly have understood and approved.

In formulating his own theory of fiction Richardson had Fielding very much in mind. It would be surprising if he had not: the rivalry between the two novelists was open and recognised, although by the time _Clarissa_ was published it had assumed the appearance of friendliness. Sarah Fielding's association with Richardson probably had something to do with this; but the reconciliation was largely her brother's own work. His just and generous praise of _Clarissa_--publicly in the _Jacobite's Journal_ and privately in a letter to the author--[27] makes full and honourable amends for his mockery of Richardson in _Shamela_ and _Joseph Andrews_. If he had not published _Tom Jones_ all might have been well. But Richardson could not forgive his old enemy for achieving a triumph in his chosen field so soon after the publication of his own masterpiece. He abused Fielding covertly in letters to his friends; and his revisions of the Preface and Postscript were designed in part to counter the claims for the comic prose epic advanced in _Tom Jones_ and elsewhere. _Hints of Prefaces_ reveals this more clearly than the published versions of the Preface and Postscript: Richardson unfortunately lacked the courage and confidence to press home the attack.

_Hints of Prefaces_ bears no date, but there is evidence that it was assembled after the first edition of _Clarissa_ had appeared and, in part at least, after the publication of _Tom Jones_. Richardson refers directly at one point to 'this Second Publication',[28] and several sections in it are printed (either in full or in a condensed form) only in the revised Postscript. _Hints of Prefaces_ therefore cannot be a discarded draft of the Preface and Postscript to the first edition. The final volumes of this first edition came out in December 1748, and _Tom Jones_ was published in the following February. A letter from Skelton, dated June 10th, 1749,[29] which mentions an 'inclosed Paper' on _Clarissa_, indicates that his essay did not reach Richardson until after this date; and in the letter to Graham, from which I have already quoted, we find him in the May of 1750 still seeking assistance in the preparation of his Preface.

Apart from such evidence it is obvious that one section of _Hints of Prefaces_ is directed specifically at Fielding. In pages [12] and [13] of the manuscript Richardson seems to be answering, consciously and in sequence, arguments brought forward in the Preface to _Joseph Andrews_; the Prefaces contributed by Fielding to the second edition of _The Adventures of David Simple_ (1744), by his sister, Sarah, and its sequel, _Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple_ (1747); and, of course, the introductory chapters in _Tom Jones_. Richardson begins this part of _Hints of Prefaces_ with a discussion of the three kinds of romance: those that offer us '_Ridicule_; or _Serious Adventure_; or, lastly, a _Mixture of both_'. He admits 'that there are some Works under the First of these Heads, which have their Excellencies,' but doubts 'whether _Ridicule_ is a proper basis ... whereon to build instruction.'[30] The reference here seems clearly to be to the Preface to _Joseph Andrews_ where Fielding presents his theory of the comic romance and the ridiculous. Richardson then proceeds to defend his epistolary method--a convention which Fielding had singled out for attack in his Preface to _Familiar Letters_, remarking that 'no one will contend, that the epistolary Style is in general the most proper to a Novelist, or that it hath been used by the best Writers of this Kind.'[31] Even if Richardson had not been a subscriber to Miss Fielding's small volume, he could scarcely have overlooked a challenge so unequivocal as this. In _Clarissa_ he knew that the challenge had been answered triumphantly: among other things it is a complete vindication of the epistolary technique:

We need not insist on the evident Superiority of this Method to the dry Narrative; where the _Novelist_ moves on, his own dull Pace, to the End of his Chapter and Book, interweaving impertinent Digressions, for fear the Reader's Patience should be exhausted...[32]

_Tom Jones_, with its books, chapters, critical interpolations, and ironical apologies to the reader, is the target here; and Richardson clearly longed to inflict a defeat on its author in the realm of theory as resounding as the one he believed he had achieved over him in practice. His nerve failed him, however, and his defence of the epistolary method as it finally appears in the revised Postscript is cursory and deceptively restrained: 'The author ... perhaps mistrusted his talents for the narrative kind of writing. He had the good fortune to succeed in the Epistolary way once before.'[33]

After completing _Clarissa_ Richardson had a clear and conscious apprehension of the scope and unique qualities of his achievement. His ability to give an account of these things, however, was limited, though not so limited as he feared: for his theory of the novel to be fully understood, the final versions of his Preface and Postscript need to be read in conjunction with the hitherto unpublished _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_.

R. F. Brissenden Australian National University Canberra.

FOOTNOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[1] See _Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical Record of his literary Career_, by William Merritt Sale (New Haven, 1936), pp. 49-50.

[2] _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_, p. [13], 13.

[3] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 370.

[4] Forster MSS., XV, f 84, May 3, 1750.

[6] [6], ... Warburton's Preface is reproduced in _Prefaces to Fiction_, With an Introduction by Benjamin Boyce, Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 32 (Los Angeles, 1952).

[7] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 367.

[8] Preface (first edition) Vol. I, vi.

[9] '_Pleasantry_, (as the ingenious Author of Clarissa says of a Story) _should be made only the Vehicle of Instruction_. _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Number 10, 4th February, 1752. 'If entertainment, as Mr. Richardson observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance ... it may well be so considered in a work founded, like this, on truth.' _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ (London, 1755), The Preface, pp. xvi-xvii.

[10] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 349.

[11] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [2], 2.

[12] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 359.

[13] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [8], 7.

[14] Ibid., p. [9], 8.

[15] Ibid., p. [8], 7.

[16] Ibid., p. [9], 8.

[17] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 366, footnote (a).

[18] See Lawrence Marsden Price, 'On The Reception of Richardson in Germany', _JEGP_, XXV (1926), 7-33.

[19] _Pamela_ (London, 1741), Vol. I, vii. See _Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela_, edited by Sheridan W. Baker, Jr., Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 48 (Los Angeles, 1954).

[20] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 366.

[21] _Pamela_ (London, 1741), second edition, Vol. I, xviii.

[22] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 351.

[23] _The Poetics_, I, iv, in _Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric_ (Everyman's Library) (London, 1953), p. 8.

[24] _Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the Epick Poem_ (London, 1695), p. 114. Le Bossu's _Treatise_ was first published in France in 1675. Compare, for example, Richardson's use of the term 'episodes' (_Hints of Prefaces_, p. [4], 4) with the _Treatise_, Book II, chapters II-VI.

[25] Op. cit. The Preface to the Reader (unpaginated).

[26] _The Moral Characters of Theophrastus ... To which is prefix'd A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings_ (London, 1725), pp. 98-99. Reproduced, with an Introduction by Alexander H. Chorney, as Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 33 (Los Angeles, 1952).

[27] _The Jacobite's Journal_, January 2, 1747 [in mistake for 1748]. Number 5. 'Such Simplicity, such Manners, such deep Penetration into Nature; such Power to raise and alarm the Passions, few Writers, either ancient or modern, have been possessed of ... Sure this Mr. _Richardson_ is Master of all that Art which Horace compares to Witchcraft ...' Also, March 5, 1748, Number 14. The letter, dated October 15, 1748, is reprinted in 'A New Letter from Fielding', by E. L. McAdam, Jr., _Yale Review_ (NS), XXXVIII (1948-49), 300-310.

[28] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [12], 11.

[29] Forster MSS., Vol. XV, f 47.

[30] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [12], 11.

[31] _Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple_ (London, 1747), Vol. I, ix.

[32] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [13], 13.

[33] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 365.

HINTS OF PREFACES FOR CLARISSA

_APPENDIX: Philip Skelton and Joseph Spence_

Philip Skelton (1707-1787) was an Irish divine who could well have served as a model for Parson Adams, for in his life he exhibited a vigorous combination of good humour, physical bravery, quixotic gallantry and practical Christianity. The article in the DNB records that 'he studied physic and prescribed for the poor, argued successfully with profligates and sectaries, persuaded lunatics out of their delusions, fought and trounced a company of profane travelling tinkers, and chastised a military officer who persisted in swearing.' During famine he gave liberally to sustain his poor parishioners, on one occasion selling his library to help them. _The Life of Philip Skelton_, by Samuel Burdy, first published in 1792, still makes entertaining and interesting reading. Richardson met Skelton when he visited London in 1748 to publish _Ophiomaches, or Deism Revealed_. On David Hume's recommendation Andrew Millar published the work; and Richardson also seems to have played some part in getting the book accepted (Forster MSS, XV, f 34).

The author of Spence's _Anecdotes_ needs no special introduction, although some aspects of his relationship with Richardson are of interest. He apparently first met the novelist late in 1747 or early in 1748. Richardson sought his opinion on _Clarissa_ before the final volumes of the first edition had appeared: his letter discussing the novel [_The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson_, edited by Anna Laetitia Barbauld (London, 1804), Vol. II, 319-327], which emphasizes Richardson's truth to 'Nature' and lack of 'Art', makes an interesting contrast with the more considered verdict delivered in his contribution to _Hints of Prefaces_. Before writing this he had almost certainly read _Tom Jones_. In a letter, dated April 15, 1749, he says: 'Tom Jones is my old acquaintance, now; for I read it, before it was publisht: & read it with such rapidity, that I began & ended with in the compass of four days; tho' I took a Journey to St. Albans, in ye same time. He is to me extreamly entertaining....' He seems to have contemplated writing a memoir of Richardson after the novelist's death in 1760.

[See Austin Wright, _Joseph Spence: a critical Biography_ (Chicago, 1950), 120-123, 232 n.]

p. 368, 1. 31--p. 369, 1. 10:

This passage is part of Richardson's new material for his revised Postscript. What he wrote in this paragraph, however, was not reproduced completely or accurately in either the third or the fourth editions, in each of which it appears in different but equally incorrect versions. W.M. Sale has offered a convincing explanation of how the mistakes in printing came about, and suggests that the passage should read as follows:

She was very early happy in the conversation-visits of her learned and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her correspondencies, not with him only, but with other Divines mentioned in her last Will. Her Mother was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did credit to her birth and her fortune; and was able to instruct her in her early youth: Her Father was not a free-living, or free-principled man; and _both_ delighted in her for those improvements and attainments, which gave her, _and them in her_, a distinction that caused it to be said, that when she was out of the family, it was considered but as a common family.

[_Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical Record of his Literary Career_ (New Haven, 1936), 59-61].

The Preface to the first edition is reproduced from a copy at the Huntington Library, the Postscript to the fourth edition of _Clarissa_ from a copy in the Rare Books Room of the Library of the University of North Carolina. _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_ is a transcript of a manuscript in the Forster Collection (Vol. XV, ff 49-58) in the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Single underlinings have been rendered in italics, double underlinings in boldface.) Thanks is extended to these institutions for their kind permission for the reproduction of this material.

CLARISSA. OR, THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY: Comprehending _The most_ Important Concerns _of_ Private LIFE, And particularly shewing, The DISTRESSES that may attend the Misconduct Both of PARENTS and CHILDREN, In Relation to MARRIAGE.

_Published by the_ EDITOR _of_ PAMELA.

_LONDON:_ Printed for S. Richardson: And Sold by A. MILLAR, over-against _Catharine-street_ in the _Strand_: J. and JA. RIVINGTON, in _St. Paul's Church-yard_: JOHN OSBORN, in _Pater-noster Row_; And by J. LEAKE, at _Bath_.

The following History is given in a Series of Letters, written principally in a double, yet separate, Correspondence;

Between Two young Ladies of Virtue and Honour, bearing an inviolable Friendship for each other, and writing upon the most interesting Subjects: And

Between Two Gentlemen of free Lives; one of them glorying in his Talents for Stratagem and Invention, and communicating to the other, in Confidence, all the secret Purposes of an intriguing Head, and resolute Heart.

But it is not amiss to premise, for the sake of such as may apprehend Hurt to the Morals of Youth from the more freely-written Letters, That the Gentlemen, tho' professed Libertines as to the Fair Sex, and making it one of their wicked Maxims, to keep no Faith with any of the Individuals of it who throw themselves into their Power, are not, however, either Infidels or Scoffers: Nor yet such as think themselves freed from the Observance of those other moral Obligations, which bind Man to Man.

On the contrary, it will be found, in the Progress of the Collection, that they very often make such Reflections upon each other, and each upon himself, and upon his Actions, as reasonable Beings, who disbelieve not a future State of Rewards and Punishments (and who one day propose to reform) must sometimes make:--One of them actually reforming, and antidoting the Poison which some might otherwise apprehend would be spread by the gayer Pen, and lighter Heart, of the other.

And yet that other, [altho' in unbosoming himself to a _select Friend_, he discover Wickedness enough to intitle him to general Hatred] preserves a Decency, as well in his Images, as in his Language, which is not always to be found in the Works of some of the most celebrated modern Writers, whose Subjects and Characters have less warranted the Liberties they have taken.

Length will be naturally expected, not only from what has been said, but from the following Considerations:

That the Letters on both Sides are written while the Hearts of the Writers must be supposed to be wholly engaged in their Subjects: The Events at the Time generally dubious:--So that they abound, not only with critical Situations; but with what may be called _instantaneous_ Descriptions and Reflections; which may be brought home to the Breast of the youthful Reader:--As also, with affecting Conversations; many of them written in the Dialogue or Dramatic Way.

To which may be added, that the Collection contains not only the History of the excellent Person whose Name it bears, but includes The Lives, Characters, and Catastrophes, of several others, either principally or incidentally concerned in the Story.

But yet the Editor [to whom it was referred to publish the Whole in such a Way as he should think would be most acceptable to the Public] was so diffident in relation to this Article of _Length_, that he thought proper to submit the Letters to the Perusal of several judicious Friends; whose Opinion he desired of what might be best spared.

One Gentleman, in particular, of whose Knowlege, Judgment, and Experience, as well as Candor, the Editor has the highest Opinion, advised him to give a Narrative Turn to the Letters; and to publish only what concerned the principal Heroine;--striking off the collateral Incidents, and all that related to the Second Characters; tho' he allowed the Parts which would have been by this means excluded, to be both instructive and entertaining. But being extremely fond of the affecting Story, he was desirous to have every-thing parted with, which he thought retarded its Progress.

This Advice was not relished by other Gentlemen. They insisted, that the Story could not be reduced to a Dramatic Unity, nor thrown into the Narrative Way, without divesting it of its Warmth; and of a great Part of its Efficacy; as very few of the Reflections and Observations, which they looked upon as the most useful Part of the Collection, would, then, find a Place.

They were of Opinion, That in all Works of This, and of the Dramatic Kind, STORY, or AMUSEMENT, should be considered as little more than the _Vehicle_ to the more necessary INSTRUCTION: That many of the Scenes would be render'd languid, were they to be made less busy: And that the Whole would be thereby deprived of that Variety, which is deemed the Soul of a Feast, whether _mensal_ or _mental_.

They were also of Opinion, That the Parts and Characters, which must be omitted, if this Advice were followed, were some of the most natural in the whole Collection: And no less instructive; especially to _Youth_. Which might be a Consideration perhaps overlooked by a Gentleman of the Adviser's great Knowlege and Experience: For, as they observed, there is a Period in human Life, in which, youthful Activity ceasing, and Hope contenting itself to peep out of its own domestic Wicket upon bounded Prospects, the half-tired Mind aims at little more than _Amusement_.--And, with Reason; for what, in the _instructive_ Way, can appear either _new_ or _needful_ to one who has happily got over those dangerous Situations which call for Advice and Cautions, and who has fill'd up his Measures of Knowlege to the Top?

Others, likewise gave _their_ Opinions. But no Two being of the same Mind, as to the Parts which could be omitted, it was resolved to present to the World, the Two First Volumes, by way of Specimen: and to be determined with regard to the rest by the Reception those should meet with.

If that be favourable, Two others may soon follow; the whole Collection being ready for the Press: That is to say, If it be not found necessary to abstract or omit some of the Letters, in order to reduce the Bulk of the Whole.

Thus much in general. But it may not be amiss to add, in particular, that in the great Variety of Subjects which this Collection contains it is one of the principal Views of the Publication,

To caution Parents against the _undue_ Exertion of their natural Authority over their Children, in the great Article of Marriage:

And Children against preferring a Man of Pleasure to a Man of Probity, upon that dangerous, but too commonly received Notion, _That a Reformed Rake makes the best Husband_.

But as the Characters will not all appear in the Two First Volumes, it has been thought advisable, in order to give the Reader some further Idea of Them, and of the Work, to prefix

_HINTS OF PREFACES FOR CLARISSA_

HINTS OF PREFACES FOR CLARISSA

Prefatical Hints. Partly taken from Letters to the Warrington Lady, Letter VI.