Pope declared that “Pamela,” was as good as twenty sermons—­an innocently malignant remark, to be sure, which cuts both ways!  And plump, placid Mr. Richardson established warm epistolary relations with many excellent if too emotional ladies, who opened a correspondence with him concerning the conductment of this and the following novels and strove to deflect the course thereof to soothe their lacerated feelings.  What novelist to-day would not appreciate an audience that would take him au grand serieux in this fashion!  What higher compliment than for your correspondent—­and a lady at that—­to state that in the way of ministering to her personal comfort, Pamela must marry and Clarissa must not die!  Richardson carried on a voluminous letter-writing in life even as in literature, and the curled darlings of latter-day letters may well look to their laurels in recalling him, A certain Mme. Belfair, for example, desires to look upon the author of those wonderful tales, yet modestly shrinks from being seen herself.  She therefore implores that he will walk at an hour named in St. James Park—­and this is the novelist’s reply: 

I go through the Park once or twice a week to my little retirement; but I will for a week together be in it, every day three or four hours, till you tell me you have seen a person who answers to this description, namely, short—­rather plump—­fair wig, lightish cloth coat, all black besides; one hand generally in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat; ... looking directly fore-right as passers-by would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either hand of him; hardly ever turning back; of a light brown complexion, smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked, looking about sixty-five; a regular, even pace, a gray eye, sometimes lively—­very lively if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and honors!

Such innocent philandering is delicious; there is a flavor to it that presages the “Personals” in a New York newspaper.  “Was ever lady in such humor wooed?” or shall we say it is the novelist, not the lady, who is besieged!

“Pamela” ran through five editions within a year of its appearance, which was a conspicuous success in the days of an audience so limited when compared with the vast reading public of later times.  The smug little bookseller must have been greatly pleased by the good fortune attending his first venture into a new field, especially since he essayed it so late in life and almost by accident.  His motive had been in a sense practical; for his publishers had requested him to write a book “on the useful concerns of life”—­and that he had done so, he might have learned any Sunday in church, for divines did not hesitate to say a kind word from the pulpit about so unexceptionable a work.