RICHARDSON, SAMUEL. 



RICHELIEU, CARDINAL DE. 



He was so punctual and indufltrious during the Beven years of his 

 apprenticeship that Wilde ueed to call him the pillar of his house ; 

 yet he did not neglect his private studies, finding time, by stealing it 

 from the hours of rest and relaxation, both for much reading and a 

 good deal of letter-writing. He remained five or six years as foreman 

 in Mr. Wilde's printing-office after his apprenticeship expired, and 

 then set up for himself iu Salisbury-court, Fleet-street. Soon finding 

 himself in possession of a good business, he married Miss Allingtou 

 Wilde, his old master's daughter, whom however he lost in 1731, after 

 she had borno him five sons and a daughter, all of whom he likewise 

 survived. He afterwards married Miss Leake, sister of Mr. James 

 Leake, bookseller, by whom he had five daughters and a son : of these 

 four daughters, with. -their mother, survived him. 



Richardson first became an author in the year 1740. He had been 

 in the habit of occasionally furnishing prefaces and dedications for the 

 works which he printed, at the request of the publishers, and had 

 been often importuned by his friends Mr. Rivington and Mr. Osborne 

 to draw up for them a small collection of familiar letters on subjects 

 of general interest in common life ; a task, they conceived, well adapted 

 to his style and turn of mind. Many years before he had been greatly 

 interested by a story of real life that had been told him the same in 

 its general outline with that of ' Pamela ; ' he now thought of making 

 it the topic of a letter or two in the proposed little volume ; but when 

 he began to reflect on the subject, its capabilities gradually unfolded 

 themselves to him, and." I thought," eays he, " the story, if written in 

 an easy and natural manner suitable to the simplicity of it, might 

 possibly turn young people into a course of reading different from the 

 pomp and parade of romance-writing, and, dismissing the improbable 

 and marvellous, with which novels generally abound, might tend to 

 promote the cause of religion and virtue." The result was the compo- 

 sition of the first part of ' Pamela,' the two large volumes of which 

 were written between the 10th of November 1739, and the 10th of 

 January 1740. It was published in the latter year, and became imme- 

 diately so popular that five editions of it were called for within the 

 twelvemonth. So refreshing and exciting were mere nature, truth, 

 and simplicity, even under many disadvantages and indeed positive 

 offensiveness of style and mam.er, found to be in a species of compo- 

 sition fitted above all others to amuse and interest the popular fancy, 

 but which had hitherto been cultivated in our language only in a spirit 

 and after a mode of working with which the taste of the most nume- 

 rous class of readers was the least formed to sympathise. 



The first part cf ' Pamela ' was soon followed by the second part, 

 which was frit at the time by most people to be a great falling off, 

 and which it has since been generally agreed is an attempt at improving 

 the original story that might very well have been spared. The author 

 was led to write it by the appearance of a sequel to his book by another 

 hand, under the title of 'Pamela in High Life' the wretched specu- 

 lation of some needy scribbler to turn to his own profit the interest 

 and curiosity which Richardson's work had excited. It ought to be 

 mentioned that Richardson also completed and published the ' Collec- 

 tion of Familiar Letters ' out of the project of which his novel had 

 arisen. Another incident connected with the publication of Richard- 

 son's first novel is the circumstance of its having been the means of 

 impelling his celebrated contemporary Fielding into the same line 

 of writing : Fielding's first novel, properly so called his ' Joseph 

 Andrews' which appeared in 1742, was an avowed burlesque of 

 'Pamela,' for which Richardson never forgave him. 



It was not till after an interval of several years that ' Pamela ' was 

 followed by 'The History of Clarissa Harlowe.' The first four 

 volumes of this greatest of Richardson's novels appeared in 1748, and 

 immediately raised his reputation as a master of fictitious narrative 

 to the highest point. The admiration it excited was not confined to 

 his own country ; the work, translated into the French and German 

 languages, soon acquired for him a European name. So strong was 

 the hold which the story took of the imaginations of its readers, that, 

 as if the events and characters had all been real, and the author's pen 

 had a power of actual creation and embodiment, many persons, 

 during the progress of the work, wrote to him in the most urgent 

 terms to gratify them by such a winding up of the plot as they had 

 set their hearts upon, declaring that their own happiness depended 

 upon the extrication of the heroine from the miseries in which he had 

 involved her. But Richardson obeyed his own genius, and was not 

 to be persuaded to turn the deep and noble tragedy of unconquerable 

 and triumphant endurance which he had so finely conceived, into a 

 mere common-place stimulant for sentimentalism. 



Richardson's next and last great work, his ' History of Sir Charles 

 Grandison,' appeared in 1753. This is of all his works that in which 

 he has most frequently deserted the true field of his genius, and 

 ventured farthest upon ground on which he was not qualified to 

 appear with advantage ; and accordingly it contains much more that 

 is tedious and uninteresting than either of his other novels ; the plot 

 too has little that excites curiosity or sympathy ; and the conception 

 of the principal personage sins against all the principles both of 

 poetical art and of probability and the philosophy of human nature. 

 Yet with all its faults this novel too is full of its author's most graphic 

 and dramatic genius ; the whole picture of Clementina, in particular, 

 is perhaps surpassed by nothing in either ' Pamela ' or ' Clarissa.' 

 The only publications of Richardson's that have not been men- 



tioned are, a paper in the ' Rambler ' (No. 97) ; an edition of ' ^Esop's 

 Fables, with Reflections ; ' a single printed sheet, entitled ' The Duties 

 of Wives to Husbands ' (a subject on which, with all his amenity of 

 nature, he entertained somewhat strong notions) ; and his ' Case,' a 

 statement of the piracy of his ' Sir Charles Grandison ' by the Dublin 

 booksellers. His works brought him a considerable harvest of profit 

 as well as of fame ; and his pen and a flourishing business together 

 soon placed him not only in easy, but even, it may be said, in affluent 

 circumstances. He early obtained, through the interest of Mr. 

 Speaker Onslow, the lucrative employment of printing the Journals 

 of the House of Commons; and in 1760 he purchased the moiety of 

 the patent of king's printer. In 1754 he was elected to the post of 

 master of the Stationer's Company. He continued to reside and carry 

 on his business to the last in Salisbury-court ; but he had also his 

 country villa, first at North End, Fulham, afterwards at Parson's Green, 

 where his last years were spent in the midst of a little coterie of female 

 admirers. He died on the 4th of July 1761, and was buried beside 

 his first wife, in the middle aisle of St. Bride's church. Deficient in 

 robust manliness of character, no one could 'be freer from vice of every 

 sort, or more irreproachable, than Richardson. In all the duties of 

 morality and piety he was the most regular and exemplary of men. 

 His principal weakness was a rather greater than usual share of literary 

 vanity, not untinctured with some disposition to underrate other 

 writers of the day, more especially those who were fortunate enough 

 to share the public favour with him in his own walk. 



RICHARDSON, WILLIAM, the son of a parish clergyman in 

 Perthshire, was born in 1743. He was educated for the church in the 

 university of Glasgow, became tutor to the sons of Earl Cathcart, and 

 spent two years with these youths at Eton. Afterwards, when their 

 father became ambassador extraordinary to Russia, he accompanied 

 the family to St. Petersburg, where he acted for four years as the earl's 

 private secretary. In 1773 he was appointed professor of Humanity 

 in the university of Glasgow, and discharged the duties of this office 

 till his death, which took place in 1814. Professor Richardson was a 

 highly popular and successful teacher, and also published several 

 literary works of some merit. He was a contributor to the ' Mirror ' 

 and ' Lounger,' and the author of two dramas, of ' Anecdotes of the 

 Russian Empire,' and of a series of periodical essays called ' The 

 Philanthrope.' He was best known however for a series of Essays on 

 the principal Characters of Shakspere, which appeared in three suc- 

 cessive volumes beginning in 1775, and were in 1797 collected into 

 one volume, which became very popular and has been reprinted 

 several times. These essays show come small critical talent, and 

 literary skill : their chief fault is the depreciatory spirit in which they 

 treat the great poet, of whose works he has shown himself to be a 

 very incompetent judge. 



RICHELIEU, ARMAND JEAN DU PLESSIS, CARDINAL DE, 

 a younger son of Frangois du Plessis, Lord of Richelieu, was born at 

 Paris, in 1585. He studied at the college of Navarre, and was at first 

 intended for the military profession, but his elder brother Alphonse, 

 bishop of Luon, having resolved to withdraw from active life and 

 retire into a Carthusian convent, young Armand was looked upon as 

 his successor iu his see. Accordingly he applied himself to the study 

 of divinity, in which he took a doctor's degree at the ago of twenty. 

 The pope objected to his being consecrated bishop of Lucon on 

 account of his youth ; but Armand repaired to Rome, and succeeded 

 in convincing the pope of his aptitude for the episcopal office, and he 

 was consecrated in 1607- Having taken possession of his see, he 

 applied himself sedulously to the discharge of his pastoral duties, and 

 in preaching and converting the Calvinists. In 1614 he sat as deputy 

 of the clergy of Poitou in the assembly of the States-General, on which 

 occasion he harangued the young king Louis XIII., and so pleased the 

 queen-mother Marie de' Medici, that she made him her almoner, 

 which was the beginning of his fortune. He was soon made secretary 

 of state, but in consequence of a quarrel between the king and his 

 mother, Richelieu was banished to his diocese. He afterwards acted 

 as mediator between those two personages, and acquired a permanent 

 influence over both. In 1622 he was made a cardinal, soon after which 

 the queen-mother obtained for him a seat in the council in 1624, when 

 he became the chief minister of the crown, and continued such for the 

 remaining eighteen years of his life. The history of his political 

 career forms an important period in the history of the French 

 monarch. Richelieu had three givat objects in view: 1, to render 

 the power of the crown absolute, and to humble the feudal nobility; 

 2, to annihilate the Calvinists as a political party; 3, to reduce the 

 power of the house of Austria, both in its German and Spanish 

 branches, and to extend that of France. Unscrupulous about the 

 means, he succeeded in breaking down the political influence of the 

 nobles, many of whom he sent to the scaffold on various pretences. 

 He put to death Marshal de Marillac, the duke of Montmorency, Cinq 

 Mars, and De Thou, and many more in a cruel manner. Others were 

 shut in dungeons during the cardinal's life. His great political oppo- 

 nent was Gaston d'Orldans, the king's brother, who conspired against 

 the cardinal. The conspiracy failed, and was the cause of the death 

 of Gaston's friends. Gaston then openly revolted against the king, 

 being assisted by the Duke of Lorraine, whose sister he had married. 

 He was not more successful in this attempt, was obliged to seek an 

 asylum in the Spanish Netherlands, and the Duke of Lorraine lost his 



