Richardsoniana
by
T. C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D.
Kimpel
All scholars who have worked on Samuel Richardson have used the
six large bound volumes of manuscript material in the Forster Collection at
the Victoria and Albert Museum—for the most part letters to
Richardson
and copies or first drafts of his replies, once part of his own collection. But
most of them seem not to have been aware of a bound volume of printed
matter labeled "Richardsoniana" which also forms part of the Forster
Collection. Comparison of this volume with Richardson's manuscript
indices to items about Clarissa and Sir Charles
Grandison
[1] shows that all but
the second of these printed works in the "Richardsoniana" volume are from
Richardson's own collection and that it, therefore, answers several minor
questions which Richardson scholars have been unable to settle
conclusively.
The first item is the anonymous pamphlet entitled Remarks on
Clarissa, Addressed to the Author (London, 1749).[2] Professor Alan Dugald McKillop
states
that this pamphlet was probably written by Sarah Fielding: "A manuscript
bearing exactly this title is entered in the Index to Clarissa
material, Forster MS XV, 3, f. 2, but is no longer to be found in the
collection. The entry is marked in Richardson's hand, 'By Miss F------g.'
The pagination recorded in the Index shows that this piece was over fifty
pages long, thus corresponding in length to the printed pamphlet."[3] The index to the
Clarissa
material reads "p: 216:—Remarks on Clarissa address'd to
ye
Author. By Miss F------g." The next item in the index is on page 272. The
last page of "Remarks on Clarissa" should, therefore, be page 271; and the
pamphlet in the "Richardsoniana" volume is, in fact, numbered in ink from
216 through 271. This
confirms Professor McKillop's conjecture that the item listed in the index
is Remarks on Clarissa, and that Remarks on
Clarissa is, therefore, by Sarah Fielding.
The second item is a copy of the catalogue of the Southgate sale of
January 21-22, 1828, at which the Richardson material in the Forster
Collection was purchased.
The third item is Answer to the Letter of a Very Reverend and
Worthy Gentleman, Objecting to the Warmth of a Particular Scene in the
History of Clarissa, an eleven-page pamphlet without a title-page
(the
verso of
page 11 is blank), dated at the end "London, June 8, 1749." The pamphlet
is numbered in ink from 204 through 215, which corresponds to the item
in the
Clarissa index "p: 204:—Letter to a Gentleman
who
had objected to y
e Fire Scene in Clarissa." The next item
in the index
is numbered 216. Austin Dobson gives a brief description of this printed
letter,
[4] but Professor William
Merritt Sale, Jr., (page 54) states that he has not seen a copy and Professor
McKillop (page 266) refers only to Dobson's description and a Dutch
translation of the letter by Johannes Stinstra. It appears likely that Dobson
had examined the "Richardsoniana" volume and that it is this copy of
Richardson's
Answer that he has described. For scholars who
could not read Dutch, Dobson's brief and incomplete account of the letter's
contents has been the only source of information about this pamphlet.
A good deal of Richardson's defence of the fire scene is, as Dobson
says, on artistic grounds. Richardson carefully analyzes the situation which
makes such a scene necessary and the character of Lovelace (who describes
the scene) which justifies the terms of the description. "You,
[sic] know Sir, what is required of Writers, who aim at
personating (in order to describe the more naturally) a
particular
Character, whether good or bad" (page 7). He also points out that unless
such a scene is detailed and vivid there will be no apparent justification for
Clarissa's flight to Hampstead. However, Dobson implies that Richardson
justifies the scene only on artistic grounds, whereas he justifies it on moral
grounds as well. Young women should be warned by being shown "the sly,
the artful Progressions to a criminal Attempt" (page 5), and should also be
shown how to triumph, as Clarissa does, if such an attempt is made. If the
scene had not been described, the licentious would
have been ready to blame Lovelace for not succeeding "and to boast what
They would have done on the like Occasion" (page 7). If the attempt had
not been particularly described, the licentious would have imagined "that
the Indignities offered to her were of an higher and
grosser Nature, than now there is room to suppose they
were"
(page 8). Richardson mentions another worthy gentleman and several ladies
of his acquaintance who have also objected to the scene, but he himself
cannot imagine that it can really be inflaming: in writing it "the Passion I
found strongest in me, whenever I supposed myself a Reader only, and the
Story real, was Anger, or Indignation: I had
too
great an Aversion to the intended Violator of the Honour of a CLARISSA,
to suffer any-thing but alternate Admiration and Pity of her, and
Resentment against him, to take place in my Mind, on the Occasion" (page
7); "What a Mind must that be, that could make Sport to itself, or even
light, of
what was Death, or worse than Death, to a Fellow-creature supremely
excellent!" (page 11).
The fourth and fifth items are clippings from the Gentleman's
Magazine, XIX (June, August, 1749), 245-246, 345-349, which
contain a character of Clarissa "by an Ingenious Foreigner" and remarks on
and objections to
Clarissa "Translated from the French," with a long note
answering the objections. The
Clarissa index lists for page
272
"Critical Acct: of Clarissa Translated from y
e french.
Objections
answer'd &c." The clippings are numbered in ink from 272 through
279,
and the next item in the index is listed as on page 280. Professor Sale
(pages 54, 107-108) and Professor McKillop (page 252) identify these
articles as translations of articles by Albrecht von Haller in the
Bibliothèque raisonnée of Amsterdam.
Nothing in these
copies would confirm or disprove their conjecture that the note at the end
of the second article was written by Richardson himself.
The last two items are two copies of the printed letters "Copy of a
Letter to a Lady" and "Answer to a Letter from a Friend," written by
Richardson and described by Professor Sale (pages 94-95). The first page
of the first copy is numbered in ink 157, and the first page of the second
copy 277. In Richardson's manuscript index to the Sir Charles
Grandison material are two items "Printed Letters--------p. 157" and
"Printed Letters--------p. 277." The letters are eight pages long and eight
pages are left for them in the index in the first place and nine in the
second.
Notes
[1]
Forster MS, XV, 3, ff. 2, 1.
[2]
This pamphlet is described by William Merritt
Sale, Jr., in Samuel Richardson A Bibliographical Record of His
Literary Career with Historical Notes (1936), p. 131.
[3]
Samuel Richardson Printer and
Novelist (1936), p. 156n.
[4]
Samuel Richardson (1902), pp.
101-102.