1 60 Romances and Novels. 



latter in developing and displaying the lieart. In 

 plot and contrivance Fielding has no superior; 

 while Richardson interests us less by his incidents 

 than by the beauty of his descriptions and the ex- 

 cellence of his sentiments. 9 Fielding is most at 

 home when describing low life, and exhibiting the 

 humorous effusions of coarseness and indelicacy/ 

 Richardson, on the other hand, is rather in his 

 element when displaying the purity and subli- 

 mity of virtue/ The most eminent writers of dif- 

 ferent countries have paid homage to the merits of 

 Richardson as a novelist. His works have been 

 translated into almost every language of Europe, 

 and notwithstanding every dissimilitude of man- 

 ners, and every disadvantage of translation, they 

 have probably been more generally admired and 

 eulogized than those of any other author in this 

 species of composition. Though Fielding has 

 been less popular abroad, owing, perhaps, to the 

 peculiar appropriateness of his pictures of English 

 manners; yet, in several important attributes of fic- 

 titious narrative, he certainly transcends every 

 other writer. 



These distinguished and standard novelists have 

 had many imitators, particularly in their own coun- 

 try; but none who have risen to the same degree 



q Dr. Johnson, once in conversation with Mr. Thomas Erskine, 

 said, " Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impa- 

 tience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you 

 must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving oc- 

 casion to the sentiment." 



r Richardson used to say, that had he not known who Fielding 

 Was, he should have believed him to be an ostler. 



s Richardson was a man of great purity and excellence of character. 

 He was one of the best bred gentlemen of his day — habituated to genteel 

 life only — amiable, benevolent, and unaffectedly pious; and no doubt en- 

 deavoured, though some have supposed without complete success, to con- 

 struct all his narratives in such a manner as to give them an unexceptiona- 

 ble moral tendency. Fielding was less pure in his principles and cha- 

 racter, and had been more conversant at some periods with low life. In 

 wit, humour, and knowledge of mankind, he has been pronounced inferior 

 to no individual of modern times excepting Shaksfeare. 



