have developed into _Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded_. The necessity for some
connecting link between the letters suggested a story, and the story
chosen was founded upon the actual experiences of a young servant girl,
who, after victoriously resisting all the attempts made by her master to
seduce her, ultimately obliged him to marry her. It is needless to give
any account here of the minute and deliberate way in which Richardson
filled in this outline. As one of his critics, D'Alembert, has
unanswerably said--_"La, nature est bonne a imiter, mais non pas
jusgu'a l'ennui"_--and the author of _Pamela_ has plainly disregarded
this useful law. On the other hand, the tedium and elaboration of his
style have tended, in these less leisurely days, to condemn his work to
a neglect which it does not deserve. Few writers--it is a truism to say
so--have excelled him in minute analysis of motive, and knowledge of the
human heart. About the final morality of his heroine's long-drawn
defence of her chastity it may, however, be permitted to doubt; and, in
contrasting the book with Fielding's work, it should not be forgotten
that, irreproachable though it seemed to the author's admirers, good Dr.
Watts complained (and with reason) of the indelicacy of some of the
scenes.

But, for the moment, we are more concerned with the effect which
_Pamela_ produced upon Henry Fielding, struggling with the "eternal want
of pence, which vexes public men," and vaguely hoping for some
profitable opening for powers which had not yet been satisfactorily
exercised. To his robust and masculine genius, never very delicately
sensitive where the relations of the sexes are concerned, the strange
conjunction of purity and precaution in Richardson's heroine was a thing
unnatural, and a theme for inextinguishable Homeric laughter. That
Pamela, through all her trials, could really have cherished any
affection for her unscrupulous admirer would seem to him a sentimental