judges, in which it was certainly the orator's business chiefly to address them; and that the warmth of feeling, arising from a sense of the reality of all they were hearing, should not sometimes have been cooled by the recollection of the very artificial display they were witnessing. Yet no fact in history is more unquestionable than the union of the two capacities in the Athenian audience-their exquisite discrimination and high relish of rhetorical beauties, with their susceptibility of the strongest emotions which the orator could desire to excite. The powers of the artist become, no doubt, all the more wonderful on this account; and no one can deny that he was an artist, and worse, he used it again without any change, unless further labour and more trials had enabled him in any particular to improve the workmanship. They who speak or write with little or no labour to themselves, and proportionably small satisfaction to others, would, in similar circumstances, find it far easier to compose anew, than to recollect or go back to what they had finished on a former occasion. Not so the mighty Athenian, whom we find never disdaining even to make use of half a sentence which he had once happily wrought, and treasured up as complete; nay, to draw part of a sentence from one quarter and part from another, applying them by some slight change to the new occasion, and perhaps add-trusted as little to inspiration as Clairon and ing some new member-thus presenting the whole, in its last form, made of portions fabricated at three different periods, several years asunder. Nothing can more strikingly demonstrate how difficult, in the eyes of the first of all orators and writers, that composition was, which so many speakers and authors, in all after ages, have thought the easiest part of their task. But another inference may be drawn from the comparisons into which we have entered. If they prove the extreme pains taken by the orator, they illustrate as strikingly the delicate sense of rhetorical excellence in the Athenian audience; and seem even to show that they enjoyed a speech as modern assemblies do a theatrical exhibition, a fine drama or piece of music, which, far from losing by repetition, can only produce its full effect after a first, or even a second representation has made it thoroughly understood. It seems hardly possible, on any other supposition, to account for many of the repetitions in Demosthenes. A single sentence, or even a passage of some length, if it contained nothing very striking, might be given twice to a court or a popular assembly in modern times after no great interval of time; but who could now venture upon making a speech, about two-thirds of which had been spoken at different times, and nearly half of it upon one occasion the very year before? This would be impossible, how little soever there might be of bold figures, and other passages of striking effect. But we find Demosthenes repeating, almost word for word, some of his most striking passages-those which must have been universally known, and the recurrence of which might have been foreseen by the context. It seems to modern readers hardly possible to conceive that the functions of the critic thus performed by the Athenians should not have interfered with the capacity of actors or the other actors, of whose unconcern during the delivery of passages which were convulsing the audience so many striking anecdotes are preserved. In the whole range of criticism there is not, perhaps, a more sound remark than that of Quintilian, which has sometimes been deemed paradoxical, only because it is profound, in his celebrated comparison of the Greek and Roman masters-Curæ plus in illo, in hoc naturæ. PROGRESS. BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. "Give back my youth!" the poets cry, And leave the true thing on the shelf, CLARISSA HARLOWE. [Samuel Richardson, born in Derbyshire, 1689; died in London, 4th July, 1761, and was buried in St. Bride's Church. He was the son of a joiner; his father intended him for the church, but finding the expense of education was too great, bound him apprentice to a printer in London. Having served his apprenticeship and worked several years as a journeyman, he set up as a master printer. His care and diligence earned success. He had been that of disobedience to her parents, but they would not hear her prayers for pardon and for a last blessing. Various circumstances rendered it impossible for her chief friend and correspondent, Miss Howe, to attend her, and she was therefore obliged to depend upon strangers. Whilst in the direst distress, her exalted ideas of virtue compelled her to refuse the hand of the man who had betrayed her, obtained the printing of the journals of the House of although his family joined their prayers to his Commons; in 1754 he was chosen master of the Stationers' Company; and in 1760 he purchased a moiety of the patent of printer to the king, which added much to his revenue. From his youth he had been an active letter-writer, and his services in that capacity had been frequently required by his friends of both sexes; in his business he found it useful to be able to oblige the booksellers by writing for them prefaces and dedications. He was asked by two publishers to write a book of familiar letters on the useful concerns in common life." He gave them Pamela, which appeared in 1740 -the author being then fifty years of age. The work was received with enthusiasm. Eight years afterwards he issued Clarissa Harlowe, and five years later (1753) the History of Sir Charles Grandison. "This last production," Scott says, "has neither the simplicity of the two first volumes of Pamela, nor the deep and overwhelming interest of the inimitable Clarissa, and must, considering it as a whole, be ranked considerably beneath both these works." "The publication of Clarissa (eight volumes) raised the fame of the author to the height. And high as his reputation stood in his own country, it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany." The work is still regarded as one of the most important contributions to English fiction.] [Clarissa was a young lady of high Christian principle, beloved by everybody. Her grandfather had bequeathed to her his fortune; and her avaricious brother and sister, fearing that their uncles John and Anthony Harlowe might also make her their heiress, were ready to find any means of bringing her into disgrace. She was commanded to marry a man she could not like; she refused, and this was attributed to her preference for an unprincipled fellow, Lovelace. She had been induced to correspond with the latter in order to prevent an encounter between him and her brother. Lovelace persuaded her to grant him a private interview, and he then succeeded in abducting her. He conveyed her to a vicious house in London, and there, after every other means had failed, she was rendered insensible by means of drugs. On recovering, she escaped from the place to the house of an honest tradesman. On her way to church she was discovered by some of Lovelace's agents, who, thinking to oblige their master, caused her to be arrested on pretence of debt; but Lovelace obtained her release the moment this new cruelty became known to him. She returned to her lodgings to die. Her only sin that she would accept the only possible reparation for the wrong which had been done her. The writer of the following letters, Belford, had been a companion of Lovelace, but, impressed by the noble character of Clarissa, he had determined upon a new life. Colonel Morden, her cousin, had returned to England too late to save her.] MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. This morning I was admitted, as soon as I sent up my name, into the presence of the divine lady. Such I may call her; as what I have to relate will fully prove. She had had a tolerable night, and was much better in spirits, though weak in person; and visibly declining in looks. Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith [the landlady] were with her; and accused her, in a gentle manner, of having applied herself too assiduously to her pen for her strength, having been up ever since five. She said she had rested better than she had done for many nights: she had found her spirits free, and her mind tolerably easy: and having, as she had reason to think, but a short time, and much to do in it, she must be a good housewife of her hours. She had been writing, she said, a letter to her sister, but had not pleased herself in it; though she had made two or three essays: but that the last must go. By hints I had dropped from time to time, she had reason, she said, to think that I knew everything that concerned her and her family; and if so, must be acquainted with the heavy curse her father had laid upon her; which had been dreadfully fulfilled in one part, as to her prospects in this life, and that in a very short time; which gave her great apprehensions of the other part. She had been applying herself to her sister, to obtain a revocation of it. "I hope my father will revoke it," said she, "or I shall be very miserable-Yet" (and she gasped as she spoke, with apprehension)—“I am ready to tremble at what the answer may be; for my sister is hard-hearted." I said something reflecting upon her friends; as to what they would deserve to be thought of, if the unmerited imprecation were not withdrawn-Upon which she took me up, and talked in such a dutiful manner of her parents as must doubly condemn them (if they remain implacable) for their inhuman treatment of such a daughter. She said, I must not blame her parents: it was her dear Miss Howe's fault to do so. But what an enormity was there in her crime, which could set the best of parents (they had been to her, till she disobliged them) in a bad light, for resenting the rashness of a child from whose education they had reason to expect better fruits! There were some hard circumstances in her case, it was true; but my friend could tell me, that no one person, throughout the whole fatal transaction, had acted out of character but herself. She submitted therefore to the penalty she had incurred. If they had any fault, it was only that they would not inform themselves of some circumstances which would alleviate a little her misdeed; and that supposing her a more guilty creature than she was, they punished her without a hearing. Lord!-I was going to curse thee, Lovelace! How every instance of excellence, in this allexcelling creature, condemns thee;-thou wilt have reason to think thyself of all men the most accursed, if she die! I then besought her, while she was capable of such glorious instances of generosity and forgiveness, to extend her goodness to a man whose heart bled in every vein of it for the injuries he had done her; and who would make it the study of his whole life to repair them. The women would have withdrawn when the subject became so particular. But she would not permit them to go. She told me that if after this time I was for entering with so much earnestness into a subject so very disagreeable to her, my visits must not be repeated. Nor was there occasion, she said, for my friendly offices in your favour; since she had begun to write her whole mind upon that subject to Miss Howe, in answer to letters from her, in which Miss Howe urged the same arguments, in compliment to the wishes of your noble and worthy relations. "Meantime, you may let him know," said she, "that I reject him with my whole heart: -yet, that, although I say this with such a determination as shall leave no room for doubt, I say it not, however, with passion. On the contrary, tell him that I am trying to bring my mind into such a frame as to be able to pity him [poor perjured wretch! what has he 66 | not to answer for!]; and that I shall not think myself qualified for the state I am aspiring to, if, after a few struggles more, I cannot forgive him too: and I hope," clasping her hands together, uplifted as were her eyes, my dear earthly father will set me the example my Heavenly one has already set us all; and, by forgiving his fallen daughter, teach her to forgive the man, who then, I hope, will not have destroyed my eternal prospects, as he has my temporal!" Stop here, thou wretch!-But I need not bid thee!- -For I can go no farther. You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me at the time when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to drop my pen. The women had tears in their eyes. I was silent for a few moments. At last, "Matchless excellence! inimitable goodness!" I called her with a voice so accented, that I was half-ashamed of myself, as it was before the women. But who could stand such sublime generosity of soul in so young a creature, her loveliness giving grace to all she said? 66 Methinks," said I [and I really, in a manner involuntarily, bent my knee], "I have before me an angel indeed. I can hardly forbear prostration, and to beg your influence to draw me after you to the world you are aspiring to! Yet-but what shall I say?—only, dearest excellence, make me, in some small instances, serviceable to you, that I may (if I survive you) have the glory to think I was able to contribute to your satisfaction while among us." Here I stopped. She was silent. I proceeded "Have you no commission to employ me in; deserted as you are by all your friends; among strangers, though, I doubt not, worthy people? Cannot I be serviceable by message, by letter-writing, by attending personally, with either message or letter, your father, your uncles, your brother, your sister, Miss Howe, Lord M., or the ladies his sisters? Any office to be employed to serve you, absolutely independent of my friend's wishes, or of my own wishes to oblige him? Think, madam, if I cannot?" "I thank you, sir, very heartily I thank you: but in nothing that I can at present think of, or at least resolve upon, can you do me service. I will see what return the letter I have written will bring me. Till then unhappy case) that you must be in a manner destitute of the means to make friends She was going to interrupt me, with a prohibitory kind of earnestness in her manner. "I beg leave to proceed, madam; I have cast about twenty ways how to mention this before, but never dared till now. Suffer me, of my present course. My declining health will more and more confirm me in it. Those who arrested and confined me, no doubt thought they had fallen upon the ready method to distress me so as to bring me into all their measures. But I presume to hope that I have a mind that cannot be debased, in essential innow that I have broken the ice, to tender my-stances, by temporal calamities: little do those self as your banker only. I know you will not poor wretches know of the force of innate be obliged: you need not. You have sufficient principles” (“ forgive my own implied vanity,” of your own, if it were in your hands; and was her word), "who imagine that a prison, or from that, whether you live or die, will I con- penury, can being a right-turned mind to be sent to be reimbursed. I do assure you that guilty of a wilful baseness, in order to avoid the unhappy man shall never know either my such short-lived evils.” offer or your acceptance-Only permit me this small And down behind her chair I dropped a bank-note of £100 which I had brought with me, intending somehow or other to leave it behind me: nor shouldst thou ever have known it, had she favoured me with the acceptance of it; as I told her. "You give me great pain, Mr. Belford," said she, "by these instances of your humanity. And yet, considering the company I have seen you in, I am not sorry to find you capable of such. Methinks I am glad, for the sake of human nature, that there could be but one such man in the world, as he, you, and I know. But as to your kind offer, whatever it be, if you take it not up, you will greatly disturb me. I have no need of your kindness. I have effects enough, which I never can want, to supply my present occasions: and, if needful, can have recourse to Miss Howe. I have promised that I would-so, pray, sir, urge not upon me this favour. Take it up yourself. If you mean me peace and ease of mind, urge not this favour." And she spoke with impatience. "I beg, madam, but one word "Not one, sir, till you have taken back what you have let fall. I doubt not either the honour or the kindness of your offer; but you must not say one word more on this subject. I cannot bear it." She was stooping, but with pain. I therefore prevented her; and besought her to forgive me for a tender which, I saw, had been more discomposing to her than I had hoped (from the purity of my intentions) it would be. But I could not bear to think that such a mind as hers should be distressed: since the want of the conveniences she was used to abound in might affect and disturb her in the divine course she was in. "You are very kind to me, sir," said she, "and very favourable in your opinion of me. But I hope that I cannot now be easily put out She then turned from me towards the window, with a dignity suitable to her words; and such as showed her to be more of soul than of body, at that instant. What magnanimity!-No wonder a virtue so solidly founded could baffle all thy arts:and that it forced thee (in order to carry thy accursed point) to have recourse to those unnatural ones which robbed her of her charming senses. The women were extremely affected, Mrs. Lovick especially; who said whisperingly to Mrs. Smith, "We have an angel, not a woman, with us, Mrs. Smith!" I repeated my offers to write to any of her friends; and told her that, having taken the liberty to acquaint Dr. H. with the cruel displeasure of her relations, as what I presumed lay nearest her heart, he had proposed to write himself, to acquaint her friends how ill she was, if she would not take it amiss. It was kind in the doctor, she said: but begged that no step of that sort might be taken without her knowledge or consent. She would wait to see what effects her letter to her sister would have. All she had to hope for was, that her father would revoke his malediction, previous to the last blessing she should then implore: for the rest, her friends would think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer: for now, nothing could happen that could make her wish to live. Mrs. Smith went down; and, soon returning, asked if the lady and I would not dine with her that day; for it was her wedding-day. She had engaged Mrs. Lovick, she said; and should have nobody else if we would do her that favour. The charming creature sighed, and shook her head." Wedding-day," repeated she, "I wish you, Mrs. Smith, many happy weddingdays!-But you will excuse me. Mr. Smith came up with the same request. They both applied to me. On condition the lady would, I should make | time; and when he returned (from an old no scruple; and would suspend an engagement: which I actually had. She then desired they would all sit down. "You have several times, Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith, hinted your wishes that I would give you some little history of myself: now, if you are at leisure, that this gentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, and can tell you if I give it justly or not, I will oblige your curiosity." They all eagerly, the man Smith too, sat down; and she began an account of herself, which I will endeavour to repeat as nearly in her own words as I possibly can: for I know you will think it of importance to be apprised of her manner of relating your barbarity to her, as well as what her sentiments are of it; and what room there is for the hopes your friends have in your favour for her. "At first when I took these lodgings," said she, "I thought of staying but a short time in them; and so, Mrs. Smith, I told you: I therefore avoided giving any other account of myself than that I was a very unhappy young creature, seduced from good friends, and escaped from very vile wretches. "This account I thought myself obliged to give, that you might the less wonder at seeing a young creature rushing through your shop into your back apartment, all trembling and out of breath; an ordinary garb over my own; craving lodging and protection; only giving my bare word, that you should be handsomely paid: all my effects contained in a pockethandkerchief. "My sudden absence for three days and nights together, when arrested, must still further surprise you: and although this gentleman, who, perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story than I do myself, has informed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unhappy, not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to suffer honest minds to be in doubt about my character. "You must know, then, that I have been in one instance (I had like to have said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutiful child to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call cruelty in them is owing but to the excess of their love, and to their disappointment, having had reason to expect better from me. "I was visited (at first, with my friends' connivance) by a man of birth and fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed any man could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent at that VOL. V. grudge, and knowing the gentleman, it is plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved of his visits: and, having a great sway in our family, brought other gentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) he introduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eyes disagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me to have him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against, and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies. "To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly that, in a rash fit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention, you'll say! But I was greatly provoked; nevertheless I repented, and resolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to me neither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter, and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly and contrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine, to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was tricked away: poorly enough tricked away, I must needs say; though others who had been first guilty of so rash a step as the meeting of him was, might have been so deceived and surprised as well as I. "After remaining some time at a farmhouse in the country, and behaving to me all the time with honour, he brought me to handsome lodgings in town till still better provision could be made for me. But they proved to be (as he indeed knew and designed) at a vile, a very vile creature's; though it was long before I found her to be so, for I knew nothing of the town or its ways. "There is no repeating what followed: such unprecedented vile arts!-For I gave him no opportunity to take me at any disreputable advantage." And here (half covering her sweet face with her handkerchief put to her tearful eyes) she stopped. Hastily, as if she would flee from the hateful remembrance, she resumed:-"I made escape afterwards from the abominable house in his absence, and came to yours: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which was made, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings: for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them,"-[She sighed, and again wiped her charming eyes-adding in a softer, lower voice] “for being ruined." 102 |