The  other  sides,  or  most  of  them,  are  delectable
enough,  though  the  rarest  and  most  refreshing  delight
is  not  to  be  found  in  Richardson.  Pamela —
*'  at  least  if  its  mostly  dull  afterpart  and  after-
thought be  omitted,  or  rather  stopped  short  of — is  so
very  much  the  liveliest  story  which  had  been,  at  its
date,  vouchsafed  to  the  English  reader  that  we  cannot
be  surprised  at  people  buying  four  editions  (a  number
equal  to  at  least  forty  now)  in  not  much  more  than
four  months.  In  later  days  the  more  ambitious
character  of  the  author's  other  books,  the  admitted
limitations  to  the  charm  of  the  heroine,  and  perhaps  a
rather  snobbish  reluctance  to  take  an  interest  in  a
little  person  of  no  "  quality  "  have  been  against  it ;  but
it  remains  the  only  book  of  Richardson's  which  you
can  read  for  the  story  without  the  exercise  of  an  almost
painful  agility  of  mind  to  discover  exactly  when  to
skip,  and  of  hand  and  eye  to  conduct  the  skipping.
The  old  motive  of  "  the  quest  "  is  briskly  carried  out ;
the  characters,  if  not  exactly  diploma-pieces,  are


RICHARDSON  117

sufficiently  hit  off,  bustled  through  effective  incident,
and  made  to  talk  in  a  human  manner.  It  is  a  novel,
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  acted  like  a  bit  of  already
fermented  dough  to  set  further  fermentation  going,
and  to  introduce  the  enormous  mass  of  novels  which
the  last  seven  quarters  of  a  century  have  seen.
