grew upon him, and describes his own appearance minutely in a letter to Lady Bradshaigh (Correspondence, iv. 290). He was about 5 ft. 5 in. in height, plump, and fresh-coloured; he carried a cane to support him in ‘sudden tremors;’ stole quietly along, lifting ‘a grey eye too often overclouded by mistinesses from the head’ to observe all the ladies whom he passed, looking first humbly at their feet, and then taking a rapid but observing glance at their whole persons. A portrait, by Joseph Highmore [q. v.] (with a companion portrait of Mrs. Richardson), is in the Stationers' Hall. An engraving from this forms the frontispiece to the first volume of the ‘Correspondence.’ Two others by Highmore are in the National Portrait Gallery. A portrait, by Mason Chamberlin [q. v.], ‘in possession of the Earl of Onslow,’ was engraved by Scriven in 1811.
Richardson's vanity, stimulated by the little coterie in which he lived, was an appeal for tenderness as much as an excessive estimate of his own merits. He fully accepted the narrow moral standard of his surroundings, and his dislike of Fielding and Sterne shows his natural prejudices. His novels represented the didacticism of his time, and are edifying tracts developed into great romances. They owe their power partly to the extreme earnestness with which they are written. His correspondents discuss his persons as if they were real, and beg him to save Lovelace's soul (Corresp. iv. 195). Richardson takes the same tone. He wrote, as he tells us (ib. v. 258, vi. 116), ‘without a plan,’ and seems rather to watch the incidents than to create them. He spared no pains to give them reality, and applied to his friends to help him in details with which he was not familiar. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu could not help weeping over Clarissa ‘like a milkmaid,’ but declares that Richardson knew nothing of the manners of good society (Letters, 1 March and 20 Oct. 1752), and was no doubt a good judge upon that point. Chesterfield, who, however, recognises his truth to nature, and Horace Walpole make similar criticisms (Walpole, Correspondence, ed. Cunningham, iv. 305 n.) The minute realism of his stories convinced most readers of their truthfulness. But his influence was no doubt due chiefly to his sentimentalism. Lady Bradshaigh begs him in 1749 to tell her the meaning of this new word ‘sentimental,’ which has come into vogue for ‘everything that is clever and agreeable’ (Corresp. iv. 283). Richardson's works answer her inquiry, and, though polite circles were offended by his slovenly style and loose morality, the real pathos attracted the world at large. He was admired in Germany, whence Klopstock's first wife wrote him some charming letters, and the Moravians invited him to visit them. A Dutch minister declared that parts of ‘Clarissa,’ if found in the Bible, would be ‘pointed out as manifest proofs of divine inspiration’ (Corresp. v. 242). His success was most remarkable in France, where Diderot wrote of him with enthusiasm (see remarks in Morley's Diderot, ii. 44–9; cf. Texte, Rousseau et le Cosmopolitisme Littéraire au xviiie siècle, chap. v. 1895), and Rousseau made him a model for the ‘Nouvelle Héloïse.’ In his letter to D'Alembert, Rousseau says that there is in no language a romance equal to or approaching ‘Clarissa.’ Richardson, it is said (Nichols, Anecd. iv. 198), annotated his disciple's performance in a way which showed ‘disgust.’ In England, Richardson's tediousness was felt from the first. ‘You would hang yourself from impatience,’ as Johnson said to Boswell (6 April 1772), if you read him for the story. The impatience, in spite of warm eulogies by orthodox critics, has probably grown stronger. His last enthusiastic reader was Macaulay, who told Charles Greville (Queen Victoria, ii. 70) that he could almost restore ‘Clarissa’ if it were lost. The story of his success in infecting his friends in India with his enthusiasm is told in Thackeray's ‘Roundabout Papers’ (Nil nisi bonum), and confirmed in Sir G. Trevelyan's ‘Life.’ Probably Indian society was then rather at a loss for light literature.
The dates of publication of Richardson's three novels have been given above. The British Museum contains French translations of ‘Pamela,’ dated 1741 (first two volumes) and 1742; of ‘Clarissa Harlowe,’ 1785, and, by Jules Janin, 1846; of ‘Grandison,’ 1784; Italian translations of ‘Clarissa,’ 1783, and of ‘Grandison,’ 1784–9; and a Spanish translation of ‘Grandison,’ 1798. Abridgments of ‘Clarissa’ by E. S. Dallas and one by Mrs. Ward were published in 1868; and an abridgment of ‘Grandison’ by M. Howell in 1873. An edition of the novels by Mangin, in nineteen volumes, crown 8vo, appeared in 1811. ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Grandison’ are in the ‘British Novelists’ (1820), vols. i. to xv.; the three novels are in Ballantyne's ‘Novelists Library’ (1824), vols. vi. to viii.; and an edition of the three in twelve volumes, published by Sotheran, appeared in 1883. A ‘Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments,’ &c., in the three volumes, was published in 1755. Richardson published editions of De Foe's ‘Tour through Great Britain’ in 1742 and
