kind!' And have I lived,' rejoined she, 'to receive these proofs of affection from the best and most illused of men. Oh! Trueworth! Trueworth!' added she, 'I have not merited this from you.' 'You merit all things,' said he; 'let us talk no more of what is past, but tell me that you now are mine; I came to make you so by the irrevocable ties of love and law, and we must now part no more! Speak, my angel— my first, my last charmer!' continued he, perceiving she was silent, blushed, and hung down her head. 'Let those dear lips confirm my happiness, and say the time is come, that you will be all mine.' The trembling fair now having gathered a little more assurance, raised her eyes from the earth, and looking tenderly on him: You know you have my heart, cried she, and cannot doubt my hand.'"

6

,

Such is a meagre sketch of the plot of this once popular novel, omitting numerous episodes which, at the present day, would be deemed very unfit for the perusal of those for whom it is professedly designed. But, notwithstanding these, it is obvious throughout that it is the honest purpose of the writer to promote the cause of innocence and virtue. In no one of her characters does immorality go unpunished; and, if vicious scenes are too nakedly described, she cannot be accused of making them alluring and attractive.

J

A

In that age it was taken for granted that they must occur in the so-called journey of life, as much as dirty puddles must be met with in an actual road.

Beyond the risks which every young lady was then supposed to run of becoming the object of licentious addresses, such as would be impossible in good society now, there is not much in this novel that is characteristic of a different state of manners from those of the present day. But a few little touches may be noticed: It seems that it was not thought indecorous for a young woman to receive male visitors in her dressing-room while performing her toilet. The usual mode of conveyance was a chair, and ladies, when they wished to preserve an incognito, went abroad in masks. It is in this disguise that Flora Mellasin meets Trueworth by appointment "at General Tatten's bench, opposite Rosamond's pond, in St. James's Park." Rosamond's pond had rather a bad reputation, both as the scene of assignations and a place for suicide. In Southern's play of the Maid's Last Prayer, acted in 1693, when Granger says to Lady Trickett that he did not see her at Rosamond's pond, she exclaims, "Me! fie, fie, a married woman there, Mr. Granger!" What has become of General Tatten's bench I know not, but Rosamond's pond was filled up in 1770 by "Capability" Brown.

The fashionable dinner-hour was then three o'clock.* Knockers were so constructed that they could be removed from the front door at night when the inmates went to bed. At least so I gather from the following passage: "She came not home till between one and two o'clock in the morning, but was extremely surprised to find that when she did so the knocker was taken off the door: a thing which, in complaisance to her, had never before been done till she came in, how late soever she stayed abroad."

The passion of love is the same in all ages, but the style of love-making is very different.

One of Miss Betsy Thoughtless's lovers thus addresses her:

"The deity of soft desires flies the confused glare of pomp and public shows;-'tis in the shady bowers, or on the banks of a sweet purling stream, he spreads his downy wings, and wafts his thousand nameless pleasures on the fond-the innocent and the happy pair.'

"He was going on, but she interrupted him with a loud laugh. 'Hold, hold,' cried she; was there ever such a romantic description? I wonder how

* In 1725, the time of dinner at Merton College, Oxford, was altered from twelve o'clock to one: and was altered soon afterward to twelve o'clock again, "for weighty reasons. Rawlinson's MSS., quoted in 'Oxoniana.'

such silly ideas come into your head-" shady bowers! and purling streams!"-Heavens, how insipid! Well' (continued she), 'you may be the Strephon of the woods, if you think fit; but I shall never envy the happiness of the Chloe that accompanies you in these fine recesses. What! to be cooped up like a tame dove, only to coo, and bill, and breed? O, it would be a delicious life, indeed!""

CHAPTER VII.

RICHARDSON.

'CLARISSA HARLOWE.' — ‘PAMELA.” 'PAMELA.'-'SIR CHARLES GRANDISON.'-RICHARDSON'S CORRESPONDENCE.-HIS PORTRAIT DRAWN BY HIMSELF.

If my object were to give a history of fiction in the eighteenth century, there is hardly any name which would more deservedly claim our attention than the name of Defoe, who, of all novelists, is the one who has given the most lifelike reality to his stories, and cheats his readers most easily into the belief that imaginary scenes are the narratives of actual fact. But my purpose is different, and the works of Defoe throw little or no light upon the social manners of the age with which we have to deal, not to mention the difficulty there would be in conveying, without offence, an idea of such heroes and heroines as Captain Singleton, Roxana, Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jack. We may therefore dismiss from our notice the immortal author of 'Robinson Crusoe,' and turn to the next chief figure among the novelists of the