University of Virginia Library

I

Richardson left two helpful indications of at least his major addenda to the third edition. One is the separate volume Letters and Passages Restored, in which he arranged the "restored" items chronologically as a handy collection for readers who owned the shorter novel. Every passage printed in this volume is in fact found in the version of Clarissa that reached booksellers in 1751. The second indication employs a device he worked out to flag "restored" passages visually in the margin of each page affected in the third edition. He announced his plans to use this device in a letter to David Graham, dated May 3, 1750: "I intend to restore a few Letters, and not a few Passages in different Places of the Work long as it already is (by particular Desire) and shall distinguish the Additions by turn'd Full Points, as we call them, or Dots, in the Manner of turn'd Commas."[6]

Unlike what we might expect, however, these two records are not identical. In Letters and Passages Restored, Richardson collects 127 separate passages, 27 from the second edition, the remainder from the third. With his dotting technique he identifies 168 items, including all of the 127 gathered in the supplementary volume. Both records are least useful in indicating deletions; they do note some of the most significant passages that are reworked, but their greatest value is in identifying the major additions to the novel. The smallest unit that Richardson marks is at least one printed line of text, but he certainly does not record all his changes of this magnitude, for he actually made 739 revisions of one printed line or more: 375 in the second edition, 364 new ones in the third.

Another clue to how many significant revisions he omits from Letters and Passages Restored, or fails to dot in the third edition, is provided by a comparison of these two records with his hand-written

memorandum listing some of his revisions in the second edition.[7] Of the 102 "most material changes" he noted in 1749 (all of which are incorporated into the third edition), only 27 are selected for Letters and Passages Restored. Only 1 of the 19 listed "Alterations," none of the 6 "Omissions," only 7 of the 22 "Notes added," and 6 of the 25 "Additions" are found in the supplementary volume, although all 5 "Insertions" are included, 5 of the 10 "Alterations and Additions," and most of the miscellaneous items. And of course the thousands of smaller substantive changes (in isolated words or short phrases), that cumulatively alter the general quality of the text, are not singled out by any of these records.

In certain important respects, those who purchased Letters and Passages Restored to supplement their copy of the first edition did not have a text very close to the one newly printed in 1751. What they did gain was 127 of Richardson's longest addenda and revisions. They could therefore talk intelligently about the major new scenes or letters, but they possessed very little evidence of how thoroughly he reshaped his masterpiece in numerous other important ways.

As had been true previously in 1749, Volumes III and IV again seem to have taxed Richardson the most, perhaps because these two volumes present the delicate circumstance of Clarissa residing under the same roof with Lovelace, first at St. Albans, later in London. Furthermore, they pose interpretive problems, for they are also the first ones in which Lovelace's point of view becomes prominent as a controlling narrative principle. An attentive reader is expected to take this into account, and to supplement and correct Clarissa's and Anna's points of view with clues from Lovelace's letters and actions.

In short, a reader's moral and intellectual sensitivities are continually challenged, for amid the lively flux of this long novel, he needs to make a host of carefully balanced judgments with respect to a congeries of elusive matters: of propriety in unusual conditions; of artifice and responsibility amid a tangled web of snares; of the distinction between liking and love; of hopes sprung from limited knowledge. To Richardson's dismay, not all readers succeeded in doing this. Indeed, some even censored the heroine for not marrying Lovelace at once, believing that she was responsible for the delay out of concern for the mere niceties of social behavior.

These readers may have been swayed by Anna Howe's vigorous argument that Clarissa should raise the question of marriage herself, even if Lovelace didn't. To offset this reading, Richardson had introduced

several changes in the second edition, including 18 new footnotes that urge readers to be more attentive to Lovelace's artfulness and to Clarissa's true sense of propriety. He did not, in 1751, expand this practice of using omniscient footnotes,[8] but he did attempt several refinements of Clarissa's delicate moral sense. He struck out one pointed admission by her: "I could not, all at once, act as if I thought all punctilio was at an end. I was unwilling to suppose it was so soon" (2nd ed., III, 96).

Another change adds a tribute, by Lovelace himself, to Clarissa's delicacy as something precious:

A third revision greatly expands a dialogue between Lovelace and Clarissa shortly after their arrival at St. Albans. This twelve-page insertion (3rd ed., III, 132-144) enters that section of the novel in which Clarissa "selects" new quarters, while Lovelace manipulates the conversation so that she will choose London. This point in the action gave Richardson great concern, for he had already introduced 7 footnotes in 1749 to stress Clarissa's limited state of knowledge, and to show that her propriety renders her vulnerable to Lovelace's scheme to avoid proposing marriage. A much shorter new addition in the same volume also shows how her sense of decorum is being taxed: "He now does nothing but talk of the Ceremony; but not indeed of the Day. I don't want him to urge that—But I wonder he does not" (3rd ed., III, 313).

Several minor changes are designed to purify Clarissa of unbecoming artifice, again continuing a pattern begun in the second edition. Since this is one of a handful of examples that he revised twice, I quote all three versions:

The most significant of these three versions clearly is the second one, for it enhances the heroine by recasting her motivation. Although it was not Richardson's general practice to revise a revision, he went on to amplify the passage in 1751, but with no important alteration in content.

A new paragraph excuses Clarissa's forbidden correspondence with Anna Howe, reinforcing some touches attempted in the second edition. Since their contact must be kept alive if the established story line is to continue, the narrative challenge is how to accomplish this without showing Clarissa willfully disobeying Mrs. Howe's injunctions:

This avoids pitting the heroine in direct opposition to Mrs. Howe, for it shifts the responsibility for the decision to Anna even though Clarissa takes all the fault upon herself. It mainly underscores Clarissa's lonely isolation, letting that poignant fact speak for itself as a persuasive advocate for her desire to stay in touch with Anna.

A less successful attempt to excuse this correspondence is found in Clarissa's letter to Anna of Sunday Night (April 16). Richardson fashioned new opening lines for his heroine, but they show her engaging in the kind of sophistry critics have occasionally attacked: "I may send to you, altho' you are forbid to write to me; may I not?—For that is not a cor-respondence (Is it?) where Letters are not answered" (3rd ed., III, 141).

The question of artifice even colors Clarissa's scheme to mislead Lovelace, shortly before her death, by writing to him ambiguously about her "Father's house." She tells Belford that Lovelace will seek her out in two or three days "in revenge for what he will think a deceit." In the third edition, Richardson adds several brief qualifications to exonerate her action. She is shown saying it "is not I hope a wicked one" (3rd ed., VII, 251); a few lines later she explains that her scheme "was done in a hurry of spirits," (3rd ed., VII, 251); and still later she adds: "I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable artifice. But I am afraid it is not strictly right" (3rd ed., VII, 252).

Quite a different problem that Richardson sought to resolve in 1751 was the precise quality of Clarissa's feeling for Lovelace. When his novel was in manuscript form the author stated that he fully intended Clarissa to be in love with Lovelace, but that he wanted to establish this fact through someone other than herself. He told Aaron Hill on October 29, 1746: "As to Clarissa's being in downright Love, I must acknowledge, that I rather chose to have it imputed to her, (his too well-known Character consider'd) by her penetrating Friend, (and then a Reader will be ready enough to believe it, the more ready, for her not owning it, or being blind to it herself) than to think her self that she is."[9]

And again, in a letter to Hill dated January 26, 1747: "I must still say, that I would not have Clarissa in Love, at setting out: And that I intended the Passion should be inspired and grow, unknown to herself, and be more obvious, for a good while, to every-body than to herself; and when it became glowing, that it should be owing more to unreasonable Opposition, than to the Merits of the Man."[10]

There is no ambiguity here about the nature and development of the passion Richardson selected: Clarissa would feel some initial preference for Lovelace in contrast to her profound distaste for Solmes, and to her objection to Wyerly (an earlier suitor), on other grounds. Her first favorable feelings for Lovelace could plausibly become a strong love, if only he would treat her as she deserved. Accordingly,

the middle volumes offer glimpses of how Clarissa might respond to a reformed Lovelace, interspersed with persistent evidence of her dislike for his unreformed character. Whatever may be the intricacy Richardson desired in her emotion toward Lovelace, he seems never to have anticipated that it would become the basis for further criticism of her.

Some readers accused her of being cold and distant to Lovelace, particularly in their meetings at St. Albans. Richardson, obviously annoyed by this reaction, inserted a short passage in his Postscript to the third edition qualifying her attitude as much less serious than love: "Several persons have censured the Heroine as too cold in her love, too haughty, and even sometimes provoking. But we may presume to say, that this objection has arisen from want of attention to the Story, to the Character of Clarissa, and to her particular Situation. It was not intended that she should be in Love, but in Liking only, if that expression may be admitted" (3rd ed., VIII, 290).

Although several lines had been already touched up in the second edition, perhaps to cope with this problem, there are still more changes in 1751. Three of them occur in Volume IV, after Lovelace takes Ipecacuanha to test Clarissa's affection for him. Two new speeches indicate his frame of mind. Part of one is quoted here: "She loves me. The Ipecacuanha contrivance convinces me, that she loves me. Where there is Love, there must be confidence, or a desire of having reason to confide, Generosity, founded on my supposed generosity, has taken hold of her heart. Shall I not now see (since I must be for ever unhappy, if I marry her, and leave any trial unessayed) what I can make of her Love, and her newly-raised confidence?" (3rd ed., IV, 304).[11]

A new line is invented for Clarissa right after the same incident. It does not at all support Lovelace's emphatic conclusions, for it carefully avoids the word "love," and it only admits an unrealized possibility: "'Tis true, I have owned more than once, that I could have liked Mr. Lovelace above all men" (3rd ed., IV, 279).

A longer insertion in Clarissa's letter to Anna of May 27 again shows her admitting an earlier inclination toward Lovelace, but now she evaluates her attachment as a serious shortcoming:

One of Richardson's best artistic gifts is his mastery of suspense, exploiting the fact that plausible human hopes are kindled whenever limited knowledge leads a character or the reader to interpret a new action favorably, as a sign of something better to come. Among Richardson's many efforts to perfect his craft in 1751, he created several revisions that prolong suspense by heightening Clarissa's expectations for good fortune before her hopes are reversed.

Some of these occur in Volume I when a confrontation with her family is developed and its outcome delayed until the following morning. Four separate changes are made in this incident. The first transforms Clarissa's proposals to her brother into a completely separate letter (3rd ed., I, 298); the second begs Arabella's assistance in this matter (3rd ed., I, 299); the third prolongs the incident by having Arabella deliver the proposals to her brother, and then announce to Clarissa that the family will not act upon them until the next day (3rd ed., I, 299-300); the fourth is a new eight-page letter from Clarissa to Anna, dated Tuesday, March 21, the night before the family council, revealing her hopes that the Harlowes will act in her interest.

Although the original version in the first two editions is reasonably good, the new one is even better, for it transmutes a sketchy scene into something more developed, dramatically charged to make us anxious witnesses of the evil engulfing Clarissa at the moment. This kind of longer revision shows Richardson at his best, controlling incident, character and dialogue with the measured skill that is his enviable trademark.

Three new passages in later volumes also show Clarissa more hopeful that events will favor her. One change is in the opening to her letter of Friday, May 19, in which she confesses to Anna, "I would not, if I could help it, be so continually brooding over the dark and gloomy face of my condition [All nature, you know, my dear, and every-thing in it, has a bright and a gloomy side] as to be thought unable to enjoy a more hopeful prospect. . . . Let me tell you then, my dear, that I have known four-and-twenty hours together not unhappy ones, my situation considered" (3rd ed., IV, 147). This passage introduces an

even larger addition (3rd ed., IV, 148-150) which illustrates how effectively Clarissa has been deceived by a contrived conversation between Lovelace, Mrs. Sinclair and Sally Martin. The revision makes it more probable that Clarissa in this mood would consent to accompany Lovelace to a performance of Venice Preserved, an incident which is necessary to the plot if her letters from Anna are to be found and copied without her knowledge.

A third insertion shows her anticipating that Capt. Tomlinson (whom she does not know is Lovelace's agent) will reunite her with her family: "It cannot but yield me some pleasure, hardly as I have sometimes thought of the people of the house, that such a good man, as Captain Tomlinson, had spoken well of them, upon enquiry. And here I stop a minute, my dear, to receive, in fancy, your kind congratulation. My next, I hope, will confirm my present, and open still more agreeable prospects . . ." (3rd ed., IV, 319-320). In all three cases our own privileged state of greater knowledge makes us aware that her hopes are illusory, and that her disappointment will be keener accordingly.

Richardson also altered Clarissa's reaction to her father's curse. Numerous small revisions accentuate the cruelty of the curse and stress its impact on her.[12] All but one occur in Volume VI after she has been raped and permanently isolated from her family. The one exception is an editorial footnote, added to Volume III, stressing Clarissa's state of mind when she first received news of the curse: "Mr. Lovelace in his next Letter tells his friend how extremely ill the Lady was; recovering from fits to fall into stronger fits, and nobody expecting her life. She had not, he says, acquainted Miss Howe, how very ill she was. In p. 273 she tells Miss Howe, that her motives for suspending were not merely ceremonious ones" (3rd ed., III, 267).

Other revisions play down Clarissa's hope that the curse will be revoked. They stress most of all her wish for forgiveness and her hope for a blessing. This passage, in its original and revised versions, is typical:

When the curse is mentioned, Clarissa eagerly seeks to have it removed, as much for her father's sake as for her own:

The new stress on Mr. Harlowe's guilt is seen even more clearly in this new comment by Anna Howe, and seems to be part of several other new revisions to darken the Harlowes:

Of the 67 larger revisions centering on Clarissa in 1751, 20 are of one kind: new statements eulogizing her character and actions. Most of these testimonials come after her death, especially in Anna's letter XLIX which received 14 new insertions,[13] but there are also new tributes by Lovelace (3rd ed., IV, 224, 324; V, 268; VI, 311-313); by Belford (VIII, 95); and by Morden (VIII, 164-165). This failure of invention, in Anna's letter in particular, has been duly criticized more than once.[14] Perhaps the most telling comment, by an anonymous critic in 1754, reveals that Richardson's proliferation of praise was no more persuasive with his contemporaries than with us: "The division of her time, and her diary had been better omitted: all such things detract from the nature and simplicity of a character."[15]

Only once in 1751 does Richardson delete material in praise of his heroine. The words are by Clarissa herself, after her escape from Lovelace: "High resolution, a courage I never knew before; a settled, not

a rash courage; and such a command of my passions—I can only say, I know not how I came by such an uncommon elevation of mind, if it were not given me in answer to my earnest prayers to Heaven for such a command of myself, before I entered into the horrid company" (1st ed., VI, 241).

In general, Richardson's renewed efforts to improve his protagonist in 1751 reinforce certain patterns already begun in the second edition. Although he no longer considered her delicacy a major problem, he was still drawn to some passages that explicitly take up the matter. With several more refinements he reduced the grounds for charging her with unflattering artifice and deceit. He apparently sought at this time to portray her turning more consciously toward spiritual comfort, a repentant fully aware of the snares of the world. Clarissa introduces further moral reflections, and excessively detailed praise is heaped upon her. Indeed, Anna's eulogy (VIII, Letter XLIX) is curiously conceived, for it undermines his efforts to elevate her above purely human concerns.

Although his heroine occupied much of Richardson's attention, his rake is not neglected in 1751. About one-third of the 364 revisions (of one printed line or more) that are new to the third edition concern the intricate and shifting relationships between Lovelace and Clarissa. While the very obvious blackening of Lovelace in 1749 by means of 18 new omniscient footnotes does not increase now, other revisions in the third edition show him plotting new schemes, or making old ones more explicit. Nonetheless, Richardson grafts his changes very tightly onto the framework of his text, and it is thus difficult, from internal evidence alone, to sort out newly written addenda from those invented much earlier as parts of Richardson's conception of Lovelace right from the beginning.

Several additions to the heavily-revised third volume disclose Lovelace devising ways to keep Clarissa in his power. The following passage, for example, establishes his plan to trick her to London by pretending to reform:

Once they are established in London, Lovelace spells out in added lines the role he has destined for Dorcas:

Two new paragraphs identify Lovelace's motives more pointedly. They stand as proof that Clarissa's decorum is not the only cause of Lovelace's conduct, but that revenge on the Harlowes, and his own pride, also drive him onward, goaded by the fallen women at Mrs. Sinclair's:

A three-page insert outlines with more detail Lovelace's pretense to secure and furnish Mrs. Fretchville's house for Clarissa (III, 314-316); and a new paragraph in the next volume, through Lovelace's point of view, lets us glimpse him evading a proposal:

Lovelace's instructions to his fellow rakes were expanded at length in the second edition. In 1751 another small insertion discloses the kind of calculating art he will use throughout his interview with them (3rd ed., III, 321-322), and a very long addition presents him exulting in the success of his story about Mrs. Fretchville's house (3rd ed., III, 327-328). A new paragraph in his Letter XXXI to Belford hints at his plan to intercept Anna's letters: "It is easy for me to perceive, that my Charmer is more sullen when she receives, and has perused, a Letter from that vixen, than at other times. But as the sweet Maid shews, even then, more of passive grief, than of active spirit, I hope she is rather lamenting than plotting. And indeed for what now should she plot? when I am become a reformed man, and am hourly improving in my morals?—Nevertheless I must contrive some way or other to get at their correspondence—Only to see the turn of it; that's all (3rd ed., III, 161).

The most elaborate scheme of all is disclosed in Letter XLII, added to the third edition (IV, 252-261). This sketches Lovelace's plan to rape Anna, Mrs. Howe and their maid during a projected trip to the Isle of Wight. The plan is farfetched and does little to enhance the novel, though it may have been intended to show Lovelace's debased condition. It certainly could not have been written in response to criticism vented after publication, because it was part of the original manuscript. Eaves and Kimpel analyze the evidence for this (from 1746 or 1747) in lines from Sarah Westcomb recommending that this letter be cut from the manuscript.[16] A comment by the "editor" in the first edition also explains why the scene was not included when the novel was first printed (IV, 196).

An inventive dialogue between Love and Conscience is added only 53 pages before the rape (3rd ed., V, 235-238). Love loses out and

Conscience refuses to plead for Clarissa, preparing the way for the catastrophe which follows. Kinkead-Weekes argues that this passage is "designed to drive home his [Lovelace's] heartlessness in dramatic terms,"[17] and he uses it, through contrast with the first edition, as evidence of the harder line Richardson took in 1751. I find, on the contrary, that the passage is utterly consistent with Richardson's complex presentation of his villain prior to the rape. Lovelace's mood is playful, and the gross realism of what he is plotting is partially hidden by his imaginative, mock-heroic point of view during the dialogue. His periodic hesitancy to continue with his plot ("I don't know what it is, that gives a check to my revenge, whenever I meditate treason against so sovereign a virtue.") nourishes our hope for his genuine reform, and it helps distract us until the news of the rape bursts out with sudden surprise. The passage perfectly embodies, in aesthetic terms, Richardson's moral thesis that evil hidden under a glittering surface is harmful even to the most virtuous, and thus should be completely avoided.

Four other additions amplify Lovelace's attitude toward religion and Scripture. Together they display quite a range of irreverence, cruelty, shrewd observation about religious practices, and wisdom about human nature, offering another sample of the uniquely mixed good and evil qualities typical of Lovelace. In the first edition, he comments upon a Scriptural passage, candidly noting how useful the Bible can be for defrauding pious believers: "O what a fine coat and cloak for an hypocrite will a text of Scripture, properly applied, make at any time in the eye of the pious! How easily are the good folks taken in!" (3rd ed., IV, 290).

The second occurs after Lovelace accompanies Clarissa to services at St. Paul's. It reveals the most radical diversity in his character, as it unfolds progressively worse aspects in him. But even here Lovelace is a moral spokesman for the author when he pays tribute to good Dr. Lewen, and when he comments upon contemporary religious services, remarking the exaggerated importance of the preacher:

The third addition occurs 4 weeks after the rape. It ridicules the marriage ceremony as so much "Legerdemain" (3rd ed., VI, 230), and the final addition shows him debauching a pious devotée in Paris, who tried to convert him (3rd ed., VI, 361).

Two other small revisions affect certain traits, already discussed, of Lovelace's character. A short passage, added to Volume II, shows his eloquent resentment when he learns from Clarissa that her brother has a servant spy upon her movements: "O my beloved creature!—But are not your very excuses confessions of excuses inexcusable? I know not what I write!—That servant in your way! By the great God of heaven, that servant was not, dared not, could not be in your way!—Curse upon the cool caution that is pleaded to deprive me of an expectation so transporting!" (3rd ed., II, 122). This insertion is quite appropriate to its context early in the novel, when Richardson wants to intensify readers' hatred of James Harlowe. Through contrast with James, Lovelace easily seems more appealing during this stage of the action, masking his own viciousness.

By Volume VI, however, Richardson eliminates lines that stress Lovelace's remorse for his crime. The original and revised versions are: "I am not asham'd to do justice to Miss Harlowe's merit in words, altho' I will confess, that I ought to blush that I have done it so little in deeds" (1st ed., VI, 113). "I am not asham'd to do justice to Miss Harlowe's merit" (3rd ed., VI, 221). Although this deletion serves the author's plan to detach us from any lingering pity for his villain, it is, as an excision, rare among his changes in 1751, for in that year Richardson's made only 21 deletions of at least one printed line,[18] and many of them are lines of verse, footnotes, contemporary

references no longer needed, or purely mechanical information rendered obsolete by further revisions.

Leaving aside the changes affecting Clarissa and Lovelace, it is clear that many of the larger substantive revisions in 1751 deal with major supporting characters, and a larger proportion of them do so than is true of the second edition. This time the Harlowe family, who drew considerable attention in 1749, are altered only in minor ways, but Anna Howe, Belford, Hickman, Brand and others become more prominent in the revisions. This is not totally surprising, for it reflects the greater importance of these other supporting characters in the second half of the novel, and Volumes V-VII had not been revised in 1749.

The only example I shall quote concerning the Harlowes is a brief deletion. Like most of the changes affecting them two years earlier, it is evidence of Richardson's sustained care to harden their image, for it removes a suggestion that the heroine's family would have accepted her eventually. The deletion is from Belford's letter to Lovelace of Friday, Sept. 22:

Anna's multiple persuasive functions are again expanded. Additions to her letter of Tuesday, April 18 further expose the stubbornness of the Harlowe family; she now identifies Clarissa's feeling for Lovelace as love, and she speculates upon Lovelace's behavior after marriage (3rd ed., III, 172-173); she also implicates Antony Harlowe in the plot to keep Anna from sending money to Clarissa, and she urges her friend to abandon all hopes of reconciliation with her family and to leave for London with Lovelace (3rd ed., III, 175-176). Other new comments by her build up false hopes for Lovelace's conversion (3rd ed., IV, 81-82). Since she seems to know Lovelace for what he is in this passage ("a specious deceiver"), and since we value her judgment as sound in regard to the Harlowe family, Richardson uses her authority to continue raising false expectations for Lovelace's reformation. Anna is in no way transformed in 1751; she is simply utilized,

over again, to assist Lovelace unwittingly, to keep readers off balance with respect to his essential character, and to mitigate Clarissa's responsibility for certain fateful decisions.

Seven revisions in 1751 focus on Anna's suitor Hickman. In the second edition, Richardson had deleted one small, but important passage that showed his morally good man to be stuffy and sheepish (1st ed., I, 174). More extensive changes are made now. The most effective adds two new letters (XXI, XXII) at a critical point early in the novel (3rd ed., II, 133-137) to exhibit Hickman's true worth, immediately after a very derogatory report by Anna. Her account of Hickman primping and preening (Letter XX), before he drove her and Mrs. Howe to their dying cousin Larkin's house, makes him appear silly and foppish. Through her eyes, Hickman seems in the first and second editions to be a man we cannot seriously respect, and it is extremely difficult to resist accepting her opinion, for we have no independent evidence of his true character as a check on her witty version of the day's events.

To balance her prejudicial description, the two new letters (between Hickman and Mrs. Howe) discuss the same event. We know these were specifically designed to offset criticism the novelist received about Hickman's character, because Richardson advertises this particular revision in his new Postscript (3rd ed., VIII, 292-295). After first attempting to refute certain charges (the "meekness" and "tameness" of Hickman), the author announces:

The letters themselves are far more effective than Richardson's begrudging statement in the Postscript. The first, from Hickman, draws us directly into his mind, permitting an insight not granted earlier in the novel. Indeed, it is the only sustained view of Hickman's private thoughts throughout the eight volumes, and he comes alive as a man more sensible and sympathetic than we would ever have expected from Anna's humorous raillery. Mrs. Howe's reply to Hickman substantiates our new esteem for him because her own persona works in his favor: she understands her spirited daughter, but she also expresses mature respect for Hickman.

Richardson need not have gone on public record in his Postscript as so nettled with his audience. Judging by the two letters he added, he clearly grasped the nature of the problem, and he possessed ample creative ability to cope with it. But his one novel revision could not, by itself, operate decisively, and he did not match it with others.

None of the six other changes is as successful in remodeling Hickman. These additions merely elaborate the novel's framework as it already bears on Richardson's virtuous man, instead of altering it sufficiently to reshape a reader's encounter with him. In one case, the "editor" introduces new excerpts from Clarissa's letter to Anna:

Similar lines are added to Belford's description of his meeting with Hickman (3rd ed., VI, 402), and to Col. Morden's account of his encounter with him too (3rd ed., VIII, 169). New lines of ridicule are given to Lovelace (3rd ed., IV, 272-273; V, 137; VI, 314). Unfortunately, these other revisions contribute little to solving the complex aesthetic problems raised by Hickman's role. Instead of cutting to the root of these problems, as Richardson's finest revision does, his other efforts leave the problems intact, even reinforced.

Many of the 13 revisions[19] affecting Belford elaborate his prime roles in the novel, especially his use as a moral commentator. He urges Lovelace to treat Clarissa honorably (3rd ed., III, 245; IV, 115); he recognizes the folly of holding false notions of honor (3rd ed., VIII, 153-154); he argues against the practice of keeping a mistress (3rd

ed., VI, 322-323); he envisions the deathbed scenes of Tourville and Mowbray if they do not reform (3rd ed., VI, 325-326); and he is given increased opportunities for moral reflection about his own life (3rd ed., VIII, 62).

The most interesting additions concerning Belford are three gracefully developed new hints in the closing volumes (3rd ed., VII, 284-285, 295-296; VIII, 152) of a romance between him and Miss Charlotte Montague, presumptive evidence for the permanence of his own reformation, in final contrast to Lovelace, the unregenerate libertine. These prepare the reader for a resolution Richardson had announced even in the "Conclusion" to his first edition. There he stated that Belford "having also kept in his mind some encouraging hints from Mr. Lovelace, . . . he besought that Nobleman's [Lord M.] Leave to make his addresses to Miss CHARLOTTE MONTAGUE" (1st ed., VII, 422-423). In 1751 this romance is set in motion by Lovelace's new note in his letter to Belford, Tuesday Afternoon, Aug. 29:

Belford quickly takes the hint and pursues the suggestion in his reply, added into his letter of Wednesday Night, Aug. 30:

The final clue to Belford's eventual marriage appears in Volume VIII. Lovelace speaks: "Altho' I think, in a whimsical way, as now, I mentioned Charlotte to thee once before. Yet would I fain secure thy morals too, if matrimony will do it.—Let me see!—Now I have it" (3rd ed., VIII, 152).

A very different kind of alteration raises puzzling questions about Charlotte and Patty Montague, as well as about Lovelace's reliability as a narrator, one of the central problems throughout much of the novel. The passage refers to the family gathering at Lord M's, convened to examine Lovelace about his treatment of Clarissa. Like its larger context, the newly developed paragraph reveals his disrespect for his family, and his habitual flippancy about grave matters:

Are the girls only pretending to be angry with Lovelace (as he claims), or do they seriously disapprove of his behavior? Clarissa testifies that they in particular have impeccable characters, and her view is supported by Anna Howe as well. This implies that Lovelace is misinterpreting his cousins' smiles—if indeed there are any at all. The revision mirrors the interpretive complexity of the larger world of this novel, where Lovelace's point of view must be constantly corrected by other signs, as it would have to be in real life.

The third edition also contains new material on various minor characters. Two new letters from Rev. Elias Brand to his friend Mr. John Walton and to his patron John Harlowe are restored, adding 18

pages of text (3rd ed., VII, 380-398). They must be genuine restorations from an earlier manuscript, because an "editor's" note in the first edition attests to their previous existence (VII, 189). Further, one of Richardson's correspondents, Mr. John Channing, refers to them as early as 1748.[20]

Mrs. Barbauld, the first editor of Richardson's papers, speculates too that Channing may have assisted Richardson with Brand's letters,[21] an opinion disputed by Eaves and Kimpel, who present convincing evidence that Richardson's own corrector for his press, Mr. R. Smith, was the more probable helper.[22] The two added letters develop Brand's foolish pedantry more elaborately, but they are tedious because of their excessive length. An artistically superior illustration of his pedantry is the one-paragraph insertion (3rd ed., VII, 290-291) that also entered the novel at this time.

Other addenda give readers a short account of Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Bevis, and Miss Rawlins (3rd ed., V, 316-318), the three ladies at Hampstead Heath. Lovelace relates new histories about Miss Dorrington, Miss Savage, a young widow Sanderson, and Miss Sally Anderson. They are added to embellish his argument that women disappointed in love will do strange things (3rd ed., VI, 339-340). The longest moral histories, however, take up 15 pages in the Conclusion (3rd ed., VIII, 257-271), to chronicle the fall of Sally Martin and Polly Horton, young ladies who started out with superior abilities but who were corrupted by their foolish parents, and thus became easy victims of Lovelace's power at Madame Sinclair's.

More than a hundred miscellaneous revisions, all one line or more, form no distinctive patterns. I will simply mention a few of the more important ones. Two footnotes provided contemporary readers with information appropriate to the period in which Clarissa is set, approximately 15 or 20 years earlier, i.e. 1730-35.[23] We learn that Lovelace wears "The fashionable Wigs at that time" (3rd ed., V, 72), and "The Seven o'clock Prayers at St. Dunstan's have been discontinued" (3rd ed., VI, 193). Belford's reference to "a small repast, at the Lebeck's Head in Chandos-Street" (1st ed., VI, 262) is cut, as is Col. Morden's allusion to Bishop Burnet (1st ed., VII, 398). An allusion to a French general is made less specific also: "So we read of a French general,

in the reign of Harry the IVth (I forget his name, if it were not Mareschal Biron)" (1st ed., VI, 290); "So we read of a famous French general [I forget as well the reign of the prince, as the name of the man]" (3rd ed., VII, 15).

A small alteration amplifies a discussion of narrative method. Belford's comment is developed briefly with an emphasis on Clarissa's psychological state at the time of writing: "How much more lively and affecting, for that reason, must her stile be, than all that can be read in the dry, narrative, unanimated stile of persons, relating difficulties and dangers surmounted!" (1st ed., VI, 336); "How much more lively and affecting, for that reason, must her style be; her mind tortured by the pangs of uncertainty (the events then hidden in the womb of Fate) than the dry, narrative, unanimated style of persons relating difficulties and dangers surmounted" (3rd ed., VII, 73).

Three more passages were altered from indirect to direct discourse (3rd ed., VII, 247, 308, 347) continuing an earlier pattern of revising, and two changes eliminate the "Roman style" (use of thy and thou) from Belford's speech (3rd ed., VII, 174; VIII, 35). Three lines of verse are omitted (3rd ed., VIII, 241); other revisions shuffle lines and images used elsewhere in the novel (3rd ed., III, 146; IV, 109; VII, 225), and a note in the Conclusion about duelling (3rd ed., VIII, 276) anticipates a problem Richardson will explore more fully in Sir Charles Grandison. Mrs. Smith's servant is now named Katherine instead of Sarah; Mulciber is now called Lucifer.

Clarissa leaves Anna and Hickman each 25 guineas (instead of 15) for mourning rings, and Lovelace sends Patrick McDonald (alias Capt. Tomlinson) 5 guineas instead of 3. Belford is left "a clear 1000 l. a year" by his uncle, not "500," and the nationality of Mrs. Sinclair's foolish surgeon is stressed in his new identification as "Monsieur" Garon. The author of Prospect of Death is named "Mr. Pomfret" instead of "Lord Roscommon," and a change from "Jew" to "Turk" alters Lovelace's remark in the third edition, on the question of whether women have souls, "I am a very Turk in this part, and willing to believe they have not."

As is true of the second edition, there is extensive evidence that Richardson also worked hard in 1751 to improve the general quality of his text, for he again made thousands of small substantive changes in single words or small phrases, continuing certain patterns of revising that he began earlier.[24] There are, for example, 38 more changes of "mamma"-"papa" to "Mother"-"Father"; class distinctions are again

observed with more precision by shifting 8 instances of "gentleman" and 55 instances of "lady" to "man" and "woman" or to neutral terms such as "friend," "person," etc. Thirty-one more references to Lovelace's relatives are changed from "my aunt" or "my uncle" to their proper names, "Lady Betty," "Lord M.," etc., and 5 expletives are softened in expressions like "Good God" to "Good Heaven."

There are several dozen instances in which adjectives, verbs or adverbs are altered to intensify the language, though these changes are not numerous in proportion to the magnitude of the novel. Uncle Antony calls Arabella's decision not to marry Lovelace a "cruel resolution" not an "unhappy" one; Lovelace is now a "wretch" and a "contriver," not a "man" or a "fellow." He has "betrayed" not "trick'd" Clarissa, and Mrs. Sinclair and her employees are described as people so "abhored" not "hated." Anna laments the Harlowes' "cruel treatment" of their daughter, not their "conduct," and she speaks of their "dislike" rather than their "resentment" of Lovelace. Clarissa's fits have not just "weaken'd" her, but "disordered" her, and she is shown "submitting" instead of "resigning" herself to her father's will. Those who arrest her are chided for their "detestable insolence," not their "insolence"; Lovelace has "cruel reflections," not "reflections," on his past actions, and Belford warns him of the "shocking scenes," not "scenes," which may haunt his deathbed.

Dozens of expressions are made more pointed and concrete. Mrs. Howe tells Anna that rarely does a handsome and sprightly man make a "tender and affectionate" husband, not just a "good" one. Lord M. is prepared now to present Clarissa "a very valuable set of Jewels," not "several valuables," as he did earlier. The "Park" becomes "St. James's Part" [sic]; Clarissa "got to her Father's" not "thither"; "may not be so" becomes "may not be light." Lovelace's fictitious wedding license is granted by permission of "Edmund" not "N.N." "They" becomes "those Ivy-cover'd Oaklings," "she" is replaced by a variety of descriptive phrases or specific names, such as "passionate Beauty," "the dear Creature," "the wench," "my Beloved," etc., and "He" becomes "My Chevalier," "Mr. Belford," "Mr. Lovelace," etc. Occasionally new brief phrases sharpen an image. Mrs. Sinclair twangs out a High-ho "thro her nose"; Lovelace cries out on his death-bed "as if he had seen some frightful Spectre," etc.

In about a dozen instances some colorful expressions become less flamboyant, but of these at least some were clearly reshaped to fit the speaker's character more realistically, i.e. more appropriately to their station, education, and ethos. Charlotte Montague no longer writes to Lovelace that "His Lordship frets like gum'd taffaty," but says "His

Lordship is very much displeased." She prepares to come "to town," not to "the great beastly town." Clarissa does not write of "your gay dressers," but speaks "of those who value themselves on dress and outward appearance." Lovelace describes Clarissa's letter after the rape as an "affecting" not a "plaguy" one, and he now writes to Clarissa that Lord M's commands "shall not have the least weight with me" instead of "shall not weigh with me one iota." Mowbray's exclamation "Lords-zounter, if I have patience with him!" becomes "The devil fetch me, if I have patience with him!"

In most cases of this sort, a more noble tone is gained at the deliberate expense of idiomatic, piquant colloquialisms. The change is well integrated into the massive refinement of thousands of details, already undertaken by the author in his second edition, designed to enhance the tone of his novel through greater formal clarity and disciplined restraint. Cases of this sort furnish at least modest counter-evidence that needs to be weighed carefully by a critic trying to generalize about the greater "freshness" of the first edition in contrast to the third. Like other aesthetic qualities, freshness is not absolute in value. Measured by its function in a complex context that includes other significant artistic considerations, its sacrifice may be a loss, but one that secures other desirable pleasures of the aesthetic imagination. In this novel, it is in some instances easy, in some others exceedingly difficult, to weigh the freshness lost against certain gains.

Richardson also trims a few more of his inventive adjectives, as he had done in the second edition; the "solemn wou'd-seem-wise doctors" becomes "of solemn and parading Doctors," "the poor dying, wise-too-late Belton," becomes "the poor dying Belton," "studied-for desire" is changed to "studied desire," "my broken-vowed obedience" to "my vowed obedience," "wry-facing woe" to "wry-fac'd woe," and the very clumsy "O forgive the distracted-thoughted Mother!" is revised as "O forgive the almost distracted Mother." However, "the right path" becomes "the fore-right path" and "her unseasonable love" is changed to "her unseasonably-expressed Love." Of course many unusual expressions are not touched at all.

Much of the general tidying up of the text actually began a few years earlier, even in manuscript form. But once again many different contractions and abbreviations are spelled out in 1751, either by Richardson or his printer: "han't you" to "have you not"; "ha" to "have"; "'Twas" to "He was"; "i'n't" to "Is it not"; "I'd" to "I would"; etc. Proper names are frequently given in full, "Mond. Morning" to "Monday Morning"; "CL. HARLOWE" to "CLARISSA HARLOWE"; numbers and times are spelled out fully: "100 guineas"

to "an hundred guineas," etc., and "10 o'clock" to "Ten o'Clock." Even "D—n him" becomes "Damn him."

Many grammatical changes are made to correct earlier errors: ("nothing . . . are wanting" to "nothing . . . is wanting"). Words and phrases are frequently added to fill out thoughts and round out sentences ("she has" to "that she has"; "and owed" to "and have owed"); several dozen phrases ending in prepositions are modified ("which they are moved to" to "to which they are moved"); comparatives are altered ("the miserablest" to "the most miserable"); some past participles are changed ("had broke" to "broken"; "shewed" to "shewn," etc.); and hundreds of single words are replaced: "deprivation" by "catastrophe"; "Gala" by "Festivity"; "Beloved" by "Charmer," etc.

When one turns from all the changes deliberately introduced by Richardson in 1751, one finds some minor mistakes in spelling, printing, etc. Aside from these, two important errors creep into the third edition. Letter XXVI in Volume II is incorrectly dated April 9 instead of April 6, and this error can still be found in The Shakespeare Head edition (1930), as well as in the Everyman's Library (1932) text. There is also a transposition of the first line of type to the top of page 110 in Volume V, instead of to page 111, but this slip is not retained in later texts.