A History of English Literature

would render impossible at the present day) and that sometimes when the
emotional strain became too great the various listeners would retire to
their own rooms to cry out their grief. Richardson appealed directly, then,
to the prevailing taste of his generation, and no one did more than he to
confirm its hold on the next generation, not only in England, but also in
France and Germany.
5. We have not yet mentioned what according to Richardson's own reiterated
statement was his main purpose in writing, namely, the conveying of moral
and religious instruction. He is extremely anxious to demonstrate to his
readers that goodness pays and that wickedness does not, generally even in
this world (though in 'Clarissa' his artistic sense refuses to be turned
aside from the inevitable tragic outcome). The spiritual vulgarity of the
doctrine, so far as material things are concerned, is clearly illustrated
in the mechanically virtuous Pamela, who, even in the midst of the most
outrageous besetments of Squire B----, is hoping with all her soul for the
triumph which is actually destined for her, of becoming his wife and so
rising high above her original humble station. Moreover, Richardson often
goes far and tritely out of his way in his preaching. At their worst,
however, his sentimentality and moralizing were preferable to the
coarseness which disgraced the works of some of his immediate successors.
6. Lastly must be mentioned the form of his novels. They all consist of
series of letters, which constitute the correspondence between some of the
principal characters, the great majority being written in each case by the
heroine. This method of telling a story requires special concessions from
the reader; but even more than the other first-personal method, exemplified
in 'Robinson Crusoe,' it has the great advantage of giving the most
intimate possible revelation of the imaginary writer's mind and situation.
Richardson handles it with very great skill, though in his anxiety that his
chief characters may not be misunderstood he occasionally commits the
artistic blunder of inserting footnotes to explain their real motives.
Richardson, then, must on the whole be called the first of the great
English novelists--a striking case of a man in whom one special endowment
proved much weightier than a large number of absurdities and littlenesses.
HENRY FIELDING. Sharply opposed to Richardson stands his later contemporary
and rival, Henry Fielding. Fielding was born of an aristocratic family in
Somersetshire in 1707. At Eton School and the University of Leyden (in
Holland) he won distinction, but at the age of twenty he found himself, a
vigorous young man with instincts for fine society, stranded in London
without any tangible means of support. He turned to the drama and during
the next dozen years produced many careless and ephemeral farces,
burlesques, and light plays, which, however, were not without value as
preparation for his novels. Meanwhile he had other activities--spent the
money which his wife brought him at marriage in an extravagant experiment
as gentleman-farmer; studied law and was admitted to the bar; and conducted
various literary periodicals. His attacks on the government in his plays
helped to produce the severe licensing act which put an end to his dramatic
work and that of many other light playwrights. When Richardson's 'Pamela'
appeared Fielding was disgusted with what seemed to him its hypocritical
silliness, and in vigorous artistic indignation he proceeded to write 'The
History of Joseph Andrews,' representing Joseph as the brother of Pamela
and as a serving-man, honest, like her, in difficult circumstances.
Beginning in a spirit of sheer burlesque, Fielding soon became interested
in his characters, and in the actual result produced a rough but masterful
picture of contemporary life. The coarse Parson Trulliber and the admirable