CLARISSA HARLOWE.

[Samuel Richardson, born in Derbyshire, 1689; died in London, 4th July, 1761, and was buried in St. Bride's

Church. He was the son of a joiner, his father intended him for the church, but finding the expense of education was too great, bound him apprentice to a printer in London. Having served his apprenticeship and worked several years as a journeyman, he set up as a master printer. His care and diligence earned success. obtained the printing of the journals of the House of

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Commons; in 1754 he was chosen master of the Stationers' Company; and in 1760 he purchased a moiety of the patent of printer to the king, which added much to his revenue. From his youth he had been an active letter-writer, and his services in that capacity had been frequently required by his friends of both sexes; in his business he found it useful to be able to oblige the booksellers by writing for them prefaces and dedications. He was asked by two publishers to write a book of familiar letters "on the useful concerns in common life." He gave them Pamela, which appeared in 1740 -the author being then fifty years of age. The work was received with enthusiasm. Eight years afterwards he issued Clarissa Harlowe, and five years later (1753) the History of Sir Charles Grandison. "This last production," Scott says, "has neither the simplicity of the two first volumes of Pamela, nor the deep and overwhelming interest of the inimitable Clarissa, and must, considering it as a whole, be ranked considerably beneath both these works." "The publication of Clarissa (eight volumes) raised the fame of the author to the height. And high as his reputation stood in his own country, it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany." The work is still regarded as one of the most important contributions to English fiction.] [Clarissa was a young lady of high Christian principle, beloved by everybody. Her grandfather had bequeathed to her his fortune; and her avaricious brother and sister, fearing that their uncles John and Anthony Harlowe might also make her their heiress, were ready to find any means of bringing her into disgrace. She was commanded to marry a man she could not like; she refused, and this was attributed to her preference for an unprincipled fellow, Lovelace. She had been induced to correspond with the latter in order to prevent an encounter between him and her brother. Lovelace persuaded her to grant him a private interview, and he then succeeded in abducting her. conveyed her to a vicious house in London, and there, after every other means had failed, she was rendered insensible by means of drugs. On recovering, she escaped from the place to the house of an honest tradesman. On her way to church she was discovered by some of Lovelace's agents, who, thinking to oblige their master, caused her to be arrested on pretence of debt; but Lovelace obtained her release the moment this new cruelty became known to him. She returned to her lodgings to die. Her only sin

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had been that of disobedience to her parents, but they would not hear her prayers for pardon and for a last blessing. Various circumstances rendered it impossible for her chief friend and correspondent, Miss Howe, to attend her, and she was therefore obliged to depend upon Whilst in the direst distress, her strangers. exalted ideas of virtue compelled her to refuse the hand of the man who had betrayed her, although his family joined their prayers to his that she would accept the only possible reparation for the wrong which had been done her. The writer of the following letters, Belford, had been a companion of Lovelace, but, impressed by the noble character of Clarissa, he had determined upon a new life. Colonel Morden, her cousin, had returned to England too late to save her.]

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY NOON, July 21.

This morning I was admitted, as soon as I sent up my name, into the presence of the divine lady. Such I may call her; as what I have to relate will fully prove.

She had had a tolerable night, and was much better in spirits, though weak in person; and visibly declining in looks.

Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith [the landlady] were with her; and accused her, in a gentle manner, of having applied herself too assiduously to her pen for her strength, having been up ever since five. She said she had rested better than she had done for many nights: she had found her spirits free, and her mind tolerably easy: and having, as she had reason to think, but a short time, and much to do in it, she must be a good housewife of her hours.

She had been writing, she said, a letter to her sister, but had not pleased herself in it; though she had made two or three essays: but that the last must go.

By hints I had dropped from time to time, she had reason, she said, to think that I knew everything that concerned her and her family: and if so, must be acquainted with the heavy curse her father had laid upon her; which had been dreadfully fulfilled in one part, as to her prospects in this life, and that in a very short time; which gave her great apprehensions of the other part. She had been applying herself to her sister, to obtain a revocation of it. "1 hope my father will revoke it," said she, "or I shall be very miserable-Yet" (and she gasped as she spoke, with apprehension)—“I am ready to tremble at what the answer may be; for my sister is hard-hearted."

I said something reflecting upon her friends; as to what they would deserve to be thought of, if the unmerited imprecation were not withdrawn-Upon which she took me up, and talked in such a dutiful manner of her parents as must doubly condemn them (if they remain implacable) for their inhuman treatment of such a daughter.

She said, I must not blame her parents: it was her dear Miss Howe's fault to do so. but what an enormity was there in her crime, which could set the best of parents (they had been to her, till she disobliged them) in a bad light, for resenting the rashness of a child from whose education they had reason to expect better fruits! There were some hard circumstances in her case, it was true; but my friend could tell me, that no one person, throughout the whole fatal transaction, had acted out of character but herself. She submitted therefore to the penalty she had incurred. If they had any fault, it was only that they would not inform themselves of some circumstances which would alleviate a little her misdeed; and that supposing her a more guilty creature than she was, they punished her without a hearing.

Lord-I was going to curse thee, Lovelace! How every instance of excellence, in this allexcelling creature, condemns thee;-thou wilt have reason to think thyself of all men the most accursed, if she die!

I then besought her, while she was capable of such glorious instances of generosity and forgiveness, to extend her goodness to a man whose heart bled in every vein of it for the injuries he had done her; and who would make it the study of his whole life to repair them.

The women would have withdrawn when the subject became so particular. But she would not permit them to go. She told me that if after this time I was for entering with so much earnestness into a subject so very disagreeable to her, my visits must not be repeated. Nor was there occasion, she said, for my friendly offices in your favour; since she | had begun to write her whole mind upon that subject to Miss Howe, in answer to letters from her, in which Miss Howe urged the same arguments, in compliment to the wishes of your noble and worthy relations.

not to answer for!]; and that I shall not think myself qualified for the state I am aspiring to, if, after a few struggles more, I cannot forgive him too: and I hope," clasping her hands together, uplifted as were her eyes, "my dear earthly father will set me the example my Heavenly one has already set us all; and, by forgiving his fallen daughter, teach her to forgive the man, who then, I hope, will not have destroyed my eternal prospects, as he has my temporal!"

Stop here, thou wretch!-But I need not bid thee!- -For I can go no farther.

You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me at the time when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to drop my pen. The women had tears in their eyes. I was silent for a few moments. At last, "6 "Matchless excellence! inimitable goodness!" I called her with a voice so accented, that I was half-ashamed of myself, as it was before the women. But who could stand such sublime generosity of soul in so young a creature, her loveliness giving grace to all she said? "Methinks," said I [and I really, in a manner involuntarily, bent my knee], "I have before me an angel indeed. I can hardly forbear prostration, and to beg your influence to draw me after you to the world you are aspiring to! Yet-but what shall I say?—only, dearest excellence, make me, in some small instances, serviceable to you, that I may (if I survive you) have the glory to think I was able to contribute to your satisfaction while among us.

Here I stopped. She was silent. I proceeded "Have you no commission to employ me in; deserted as you are by all your friends; among strangers, though, I doubt not, worthy people? Cannot I be serviceable by message, by letter-writing, by attending personally, with either message or letter, your father, your uncles, your brother, your sister, Miss Howe, Lord M., or the ladies his sisters? Any office to be employed to serve you, absolutely independent of my friend's wishes, or of my own wishes to oblige him? Think, madam, if I cannot?"

"I thank you, sir, very heartily I thank you: but in nothing that I can at present think of, or at least resolve upon, can you do me service. I will see what return the letter I have written will bring me. Till then"My life and my fortune," interrupted I, "are devoted to your service. Permit me to observe, that here you are, without one natural friend; and (so much do I know of your

She then desired they would all sit down. "You have several times, Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith, hinted your wishes that I would give you some little history of myself: now, if you are at leisure, that this gentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, and can tell you if I give it justly or not, I will oblige your curiosity.'

They all eagerly, the man Smith too, sat down; and she began an account of herself, which I will endeavour to repeat as nearly in her own words as I possibly can: for I know you will think it of importance to be apprised of her manner of relating your barbarity to her, as well as what her sentiments are of it; and what room there is for the hopes your friends have in your favour for her.

"At first when I took these lodgings," said she, "I thought of staying but a short time in them; and so, Mrs. Smith, I told you: I therefore avoided giving any other account of myself than that I was a very unhappy young creature, seduced from good friends, and escaped from very vile wretches.

plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved of his visits: and, having a great sway in our family, brought other gentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) he introduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eyes disagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me to have him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against, and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies.

"To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly that, in a rash fit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention, you'll say! But I was greatly provoked; nevertheless I repented, and resolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to me neither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter, and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly and contrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine, to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was tricked away: poorly enough tricked away, I must needs say; though others who had been first guilty of so rash a step as the meeting of him was, might have been so deceived and surprised as well as I.

"My sudden absence for three days and nights together, when arrested, must still further surprise you: and although this gentleman, who, perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story than I do myself, has informed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unhappy, not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to suffer honest minds to be in doubt about my character. "You must know, then, that I have been in one instance (I had like to have said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutiful child to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call cruelty in them is owing but to the excess of their love, and to their disappointment, having had reason to expect better from me.

"I was visited (at first, with my friends' connivance) by a man of birth and fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed any man could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent at that

VOL. V.

"After remaining some time at a farmhouse in the country, and behaving to me all the time with honour, he brought me to handsome lodgings in town till still better provision could

he indeed knew and designed) at a vile, a very vile creature's; though it was long before I found her to be so, for I knew nothing of the town or its ways.

"There is no repeating what followed: such unprecedented vile arts!-For I gave him no opportunity to take me at any disreputable advantage."

And here (half covering her sweet face with her handkerchief put to her tearful eyes) she stopped.

Hastily, as if she would flee from the hateful remembrance, she resumed:-"I made escape afterwards from the abominable house in his absence, and came to yours: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which was made, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings: for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them,"-[She sighed, and again wiped her charming eyes—adding in a softer, lower voice] -"for being ruined.”

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"Well, and so I wish him to be.-That evil, heavy as it was, is one of the slightest evils I have suffered. But hence you'll observe, Mrs. Lovick (for you seemed this morning curious to know if I were not a wife), that I never was married.-You, Mr. Belford, no doubt, knew before that I am no wife: and now I never will be one. Yet I bless God that I am not a guilty creature!

"As to my parentage, I am of no mean family; I have in my own right, by the intended favour of my grandfather, a fortune not contemptible: independent of my father, if I had pleased; but I never will please.

"My father is very rich. I went by another name when I came to you first: but that was to avoid being discovered to the perfidious man: who now engages, by this gentleman, not to molest me.

"My real name you now know to be Har lowe: Clarissa Harlowe. I am not yet twenty

years of age.

"I have an excellent mother, as well as father; a woman of family, and fine senseworthy of a better child!-They both doated upon me.

"I have two good uncles: men of great fortunes; jealous of the honour of their family, which I have wounded.

"I was the joy of their hearts; and, with theirs and my father's, I had three houses to call my own; for they used to have me with them by turns, and almost kindly to quarrel for me: so that I was two months in the year with the one; two months with the other; six months at my father's; and two at the houses of others of my dear friends, who thought themselves happy in me: and whenever I was at any one's, I was crowded upon with letters by all the rest, who longed for my return to them.

"In short, I was beloved by everybody. The poor-I used to make glad their hearts: I never shut my hand to any distress, wherever I was-But now I am poor myself!

"So, Mrs. Smith-so, Mrs. Lovick-I am not married. It is but just to tell you so. And I am now, as I ought to be, in a state of humiliation and penitence for the rash step which has been followed by so much evil. God, I hope, will forgive me, as I am endeavouring to bring my mind to forgive all the world, even the man who has ungratefully, and by dreadful perjuries [Poor wretch! he thought all his wickedness to be wit!], reduced to this

and who was believed to be of rank, and fortune, and expectations, considerable enough to make it the interest of any gentleman in England to be faithful to his vows to her. But I cannot expect that my parents will forgive me: my refuge must be death; the most painful kind of which I would suffer rather than be the wife of one who could act by me as the man has acted upon whose birth, education, and honour, I had so much reason to found better expectations.

"I see," continued she, "that I, who once was every one's delight, am now the cause of grief to every one-You, that are strangers to me, are moved for me!-'Tis kind!-But 'tis time to stop. Your compassionate hearts, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, are too much touched."-[For the women sobbed, and the man was also affected.]-"It is barbarous in me, with my woes, thus to sadden your wedding-day." Then turning to Mr. and Mrs. Smith- "May you see many happy ones, honest, good couple-How agreeable is it to see you both join so kindly to celebrate it, after many years are gone over you!-I once -But no more!-All my prospects of felicity, as to this life, are at an end. My hopes, like opening buds or blossoms in an over-forward spring, have been nipped by a severe frost!— blighted by an eastern wind-But I can but once die; and if life be spared me but till I am discharged from a heavy malediction, which my father in his wrath laid upon me, and which is fulfilled literally in every article relating to this world; that, and a last blessing, are all I have to wish for; and death will be welcomer to me than rest to the most wearied traveller that ever reached his journey's end."

And then she sunk her head against the back of her chair, and, hiding her face with her handkerchief, endeavoured to conceal her tears from us.

Not a soul of us could speak a word. Thy presence, perhaps, thou hardened wretch, might have made us ashamed of a weakness which perhaps thou wilt deride me in particular for, when thou readest this!

She retired to her chamber soon after, and was forced, it seems, to lie down. We all went down together: and, for an hour and half, dwelt upon her praises; Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick repeatedly expressing their astonishment that there could be a man in the world capable of offending, much more of wilfully injuring, such a lady; and repeating, that they had an angel in their house.I thought