these certificates of his own virtues. He was exceedingly pious and religious; not very conversant, apparently, in polemical divinity, nor bigoted to any particular mode of faith; but sufficiently warm against unbelievers. Vain he certainly was, and almost perpetually occupied with himself and his works, but we ought to make allowance for the prodigious quantity of flattery continually heaped upon him by his admirers, male and female; particularly the latter, among whom he chiefly lived.

We now take leave, with regret, of this admirable piece of biography and criticism, and proceed to the letters themselves. Those of that benevolent,but unfortunate schemer Aaron Hill, first occur; they contain, mixed with abundant compliments to his correspondent, many passages relative to his own projects, and some characteristic of his extravagant self-opinion and heated imagination, through the fumes of which occasional flashes of sense, feeling, and fancy

are apparent.

"What you tell me concerning my Cæsar gives me the pleasure you intended it should; But I receive it from a different quarter. It was your purpose to balance my chagrin at the inconsiderable effect of that essay, by representing it as obtaining some notice; whereas all the delight I enjoy from this generous artifice, is in my reflection on the view it arose from. For my part, I am afraid to be popular. I sc see so many who write to the living, and deserve not to live, that I content myself with a resurrection when dead. I very often remember, with pleasure, an old man (I am sure near a hundred), whom I rode by in a journey to Devonshire, and observed in the midst of a field, that had newly been plowed, very busy with a stick and a basket. When I came up to the place he was at work in, I found he was making holes in the ground, and in every one of them planting an acorn. Friend, said I, is it for profit, or pleasure, you labour?-For neither, sir, replied the honest old patriot; but here will be a grove when I want no shelter."

Dr. Young's letters are tinctured with the gloom and discontent which clouded his life and his writings; but they are well expressed, and some of them not unpleasing. Richardson seems to have been aware of the degrading querulousness of his complaints relative to church preferment, and gives him some wholesome advice on the subject. Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of Clarissa, says, "Richardson loved to draw death-beds. He

seems to have imbibed from his friend, Dr. Young, an opinion of their being a touchstone of merit or demerit. There are three described in this work, besides that of Lovelace." This very plausible conjecture seems to be overturned by the following passage in a letter from our author to Young.

what you say of Mr. Addison's death :-, "Let me ask, however great and noble whether it may not bear shortening? WE it not be thought laboured? And when, from the different nature of diseases, sore of them are literally incapaciting, and dele riums happen often, is it not, or may it t be, discouraging to surviving friends to fird wanting, in the dying, those tokens of te signation and true christian piety which Mr. Addison was graciously enabled to express so exemplarily to lord W. Sir J-'Swas a good man, yet I have heard you mettion his anxiety, and painful death, with no small concern."

The letters to and from the Miss Fieldings and Miss Collier, are such as it might be pleasant to receive from a friend, but contain little to interest the public. Richardson called many of the young ladies with whom he correspond ed his daughters, and seems to have as sumed the privilege of telling them of their faults pretty plainly; while they, on the other hand, are all reverence, compliments, and submission. Some letters from Lætitia Pilkington afford, a Mrs. Barbauld observes, a striking lesson of the degradation and distress subse quent on the loss of female virtue; but it mars the moral a little to find her, when she afterwards returns to Dublin, flourishing again in gay society and comparative affluence. Richardson ap pears to have administered liberally to her necessities; she was bashful neither in her requests, nor her acknowledge ments, which, had her benefactor beca averse to flattery, must have distressed and disgusted him. We cannot quite agree with Mrs. Barbauld in her opinica of the letters of Colley Cibber, who

shows," says she, " in every line the man of wit, and the man of the world." They seem to us more characteristic of a flippant libertine-for instance.

e cannot but think that Richardacquaintance with Cibber, though s not formed" till the more dissipart of his life was over," reflects discredit on so zealous a moralist. magination of a worn out debauchee s little be restored to purity, as his to vigour; and his ideas might mprobably contribute to sully those ur author. In a letter to Miss more, who was then, it seems, atto Mr. Duncombe, whom she afids married, we have a specimen at peculiar kind of humourous g in which several of his novel cters excel.

out half the third volume is comof a correspondence with Mr. rds, author of the Canons of Cri; the letters are sensible and friendit contain nothing sufficiently strikor citation. Mr. Edwards died on tto Richardson, by whom, and orthy family, he was nursed with most tenderness. We have a few ing letters in broken English, enhances their effect, from the of the poet Klopstock; her calas and untimely death broke off this sting correspondence almost in its y. We shall excite the reader's by an extract.

ou will know all that concerns me. dear sir, all what me concerns! And all be all what I will tell you in this

one happy night I read my husband's the Messiah. I was extremely touchit. The next day I asked one of his who was the author of this poem? s was the first time I heard Klopstock's I believe, I fell immediately in love

with him. At the least, my thoughts were ever with him filled, especially because his friend told me very much of his character. But I had no hopes ever to see him, whea quite unexpectedly I heard that he should pass through Hamburg. I wrote immediately to the same friend, for procuring by his means that I might see the author of the Messiah, when in Hamburg. He told him, that a certain girl at Hamburg wished to see him, and, for all recommendation, showed him some letters, in which I made bold to criticize Klopstock's verses. Klopstock came, and came to ine. I must confess that, though greatly prepossessed of his qualities, I never thought him the amiable youth whom I found him. This made its effect. After having seen him two hours, I was obliged to pass the evening in a company, which never had been so wearisome to me. I could not speak, I could not play; I thought I saw day, and the following, and we were very nothing but Klopstock. I saw him the next seriously friends. But the fourth day he departed. It was an strong hour the hour of his departure! He wrote soon after, and from that time our correspondence began to be a very diligent one. I sincerely believed my love to be friendship. I spoke with my ed his letters. They rallied at me, and said friends of nothing but Klopstock, and showI was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued eight months, in which time my friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last Klopstock said plainly, that he loved; and I startled as for a love, but friendship, as it was what I felt for wrong thing. I answered, that it was no him; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love must have more time than friendship!). This was sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one another the first time. We saw, we were friends; we loved; and we believed that we loved; and a short time after I could even tell Klopstock that I loved. But we were obliged to part again, and wait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let marry me a stranger. I could marry then without her consentment, as by the death of my father my fortune depended not on her; but this was an horrible idea for nie; and thank heaven that I have prevailed by prayers! At this time knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world. In some few months it will be four years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon Klopstock as if he was my bridegroom.

"If you knew my husband, you would not wonder. If you knew his poem, I could

describe him very briefly, in saying he is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I can say with all wifely modesty.. But I dare not to speak of my husband; I'am all raptures when I do it. And as happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship, in my mother, two elder sisters, and five other

women. How rich I am!”

We have a good many letters from Richardson to Miss Mulso, chiefly on sentimental subjects, which appear to have been very freely discussed between them; but the want of the lady's part, of course, renders the other uninteresting, and sometimes not very intelligible. Of lady Bradshaigh, "the largest contributor to this correspondence," Mrs. Barbauld thus speaks.

"She married (after a persevering courtship, on his part, of ten years, as she herself informs u-) sir Roger Bradshaigh, of Haigh, near Wigan, in Lancashire, at which place they lived in what was called the true English stile of country gentry, before the villa of the manufacturer had eclipsed, by its ephemeral splendour, the paternal seat of the hereditary landholder."

"Lady Bradshaigh bore the character of a most worthy, pious, and charitable woman. Sir Roger and herself were a very happy couple, as, ind ed, sufficiently appears from the letters. She was active and managing, and her large houshoid was so regulated as to be a pattern of order and decorum. They had no children. Lady Bradshaigh lived many years at Haigh, as a widow, keeping up the same stile of chearful hospitality as in her husband's life-time. She died at an advanced age, above eighty, with all the sentiments of a piety which had been habitually wrought into the constitution of her mind.

Lady Bradshnigh's mental qualifications seem to have been a good deal of sound native sense, and strong feeling, with a lively impressible imagination. She wrote with ease, and was fond of writing. She had a chearful and generous disposition, as well as great natural vivacity, and in her letters exhibits a flow of expression, which, if the critic will not admit to be wit, must at least be allowed to rise to an agreeable sprightli

ness."

This correspondence opened in a manner truly romantic. A lady, calling herself Belfour, wrote to Richardson, whilst as yet only part of his Clarissa was published, pleading very warmly

for the reformation of Lovelace, and a happy ending of the story; he replied; the incognita rejoined; and the correspondence was carried on about a year

before Richardson was made acquainte with the real name of the lady. A cere friendship followed the dischar which continued till the death of author. The letters written after personal acquaintance began are t most interesting. We cannot but 's that Richardson formed the lively of his Charlotte Grandison, in measure, from this lady's; but le rited style and sensible remarks a following letter, he wanted enlarge of mind to take pattern by.

"Sir,

"You are very provoking-rou v understand me. You said, wrheitz. any exceptions, that to have the dr address of a rake, they must appar dent, and curse and swear, and Leba monkeys. Now, I have often se behave with the strictest decency, the with a well-bred gaiety. What I won is, If there are not rakes who, in company, can appear like modest with a genteel, easy, politenes? Tr and address of such a man, with a vices, is what I would recommen! sober men, who are too often forml disagreeable in their mann r, for wate liberal education. And have I not said, and I think with regret, that s could not be educated as a gentleman to be, (such are the evil habits of without being infected with vices bei sei great men, though custom has so fa them to the gentleman? More's dep But would a go-1 man t the worse fr rving the outside of such a one as I Would it hurt a man's morals, to ht appearance of even Lovelace, as Miss describes him at colonel Ambrose's Let me sec-I will give you her words

So little of the fop, yet so elegant a rich in his dress! His person so sper his air so intrepid! So much meüze penetration in his face! So much yet so little of the monkey! Though velled gentleman, yet no affectation mere toupée-man, but all manly! An courage and wit-the one so knowr, i other so dreaded! Now, sir, I suppose was designed to be thought an amate pearance, do not you think it was answer yes. Well, then, to this body join a great and good soul-and pray, what fault have you to find with the un Might not your starch, and your we your whining Hickmans and Ormes, be valuable with such an appearance, as w Miss Byron. I durst venture to pui the contrary? Ask either Miss How

question to a Clarissa.

"You write my words, without t my meaning, or you would not have te so startled. Is a bad person, a bad att