His personages, though silent, are alive before me; and of those who speak, the actions are still more affecting than the words."—The famous John James Rousseau, speaking, in his letter to M. D'Alembert, of the novels of Richardson, asserts, "that nothing was ever written equal to, or even approaching them, in any language."
Mr. Aaron Hill calls his Pamela a "delightful nursery of virtue." Dr. Warton speaks thus of Clementina: "Of all representations of madness, that of Clementina, in the History of Sir Charles Grandison, is the most deeply interesting. I know not whether even the madness of Lear is wrought up, and expressed by so many little strokes of nature and passion, It is absolute pedantry to prefer and compare the madness of Orestes in Euripides to this of Clementina." Dr, Young very pertinently observed, that Mr. Richardson, with the mere advantages of Nature, improved by a very moderate progress in education; struck out at once, and of his own accord, into a new province of writing, in which he succeeded to admiration. And what is more remarkable, that he not only begun, but finished the plan on which he set out, leaving no room for any one after him to render it more complete: and that not one of the various writers that have ever since attempted to imitate him, have in any respect equalled, or at all approached near him. This kind of Romance is peculiarly his own; and "I consider him," continues the doctor, "as a truly great natural genius; as great and supereminent in his way, as Shakespeare and Milton were in theirs."
To these respectable eulogies of Richardson, we shall add a very acute and discriminating, as well as lively and pleasing estimate of his merit, by the Rev. Martin Sherlock, Author of the "Letters of an English Traveller," and "Letters on several Subjects."
"Richardson's views were grand. His soul was noble, and his heart was excellent. He formed a plan that embraced all human nature. His object was to benefit mankind. His knowledge of the world shewed him that happiness was to be attained by man, only in proportion as he practised virtue. His good sense then shewed him, that no practical system of morality ex-
