576 Romances and Novels, [Chap. XIX. 



perhaps more true to nature than his rival. The 

 former succeeds better in describing manners; the 

 latter in developing and displaying the hearti 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*. Fielding is most at 

 home when describing low life, and exhibiting the 

 humorous effusions of coarseness and indelicacy f. 

 Richardson, on the other hand, is more in his 

 element when displaying the purity and sublimity 

 of virtue J. 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 

 euloo'ised than those of anv other author in this 



o ^ 



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

 jfaid, " Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story your im- 

 patience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. 

 But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story 

 ds only giving occasion to the sentiment." 



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

 was, he should have believed him to be an ostler, 



X Richardson was a man of great purity and excellence of cha- 

 racter. He was one of the best bred gentlemen of his day — ha- 

 bituated to genteel life — amiable, benevolent, and unaffectedly 

 pious ; and no doubt endeavoured, though eome have supposed 

 without complete success, to constmct all his narratives in such a 

 manner as to give them an unexceptionable moral tendency. Field- 

 ing was less pure in his principles and character, 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 Shakspearc. 



