As still responding to each plaintive part,
With love and rage, a tranquil hour can find.
Ah! not alone the tender RHYMES I give
Are fictions: but my FEARS and HOPES I deem
Are FABLES all; deliriously I live,
And life's whole course is one protracted dream.
Eternal Power! when shall I wake to rest
This wearied brain on TRUTH'S immortal breast?




RICHARDSON.


The censure which the Shakspeare of novelists has incurred for the
tedious procrastination and the minute details of his fable; his slow
unfolding characters, and the slightest gestures of his personages, is
extremely unjust; for is it not evident that we could not have his
peculiar excellences without these accompanying defects? When characters
are fully delineated, the narrative must be suspended. Whenever the
narrative is rapid, which so much delights superficial readers, the
characters cannot be very minutely featured; and the writer who aims to
instruct (as Richardson avowedly did) by the glow and eloquence of his
feelings, must often sacrifice to this his local descriptions.
Richardson himself has given us the principle that guided him in
composing. He tells us, "If I give speeches and conversations, I ought
to give them justly; for the _humours_ and _characters_ of persons
cannot be known unless I _repeat_ what they say, and their _manner_ of
saying."