prose, if we except the "Clementina" and "Clarissa" of Richardson. But, despite of his great merits, Richardson had one fault, fatal to the lasting popularity of an author—he was too conventional. The excellent and the beautiful had no wide grasp—to-day was too much with him; he dwelt on "nice observances," and made goodness so dependent on forms and ceremonies, that the spirit was lost while attending to the shape; yet some of his conceptions are singularly fine. I know nothing in all our old drama so fertile in striking situations, so utterly desolate, as Clarissa in her wretched lodging, seated calmly at work on her shroud. She is young, but the grave yawns at her feet; she is beautiful, but the pride of loveliness is gone by for ever: delicately nurtured, she lacks the common necessaries of life, and made to be cherished and beloved, she is deserted by relative and friend. It was a great moral truth that made Richardson feel that it was impossible for such a story to end happily—it would have been to make evil work out its own reward. Clarissa could not marry Lovelace: to marry him had been to swear love and respect; the pure and noble nature must have been perverted before she could have felt either: all Clarissa could do was to forgive, and that only on her death-bed, and in the presence of her God.
But Scott possessed what Richardson lacked,
