Richardson, the author of Clarissa, had been a common printer, and possessed no literature whatever. He was very silent in company, and so vain that he neyer enjoyed any subject but that of himself or his works. He once asked Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, how he liked Clarissa. The bishop said he could never get beyond the Bailiff scene. The author, thinking this a condemnation of his book, looked grave; but all was right when the bishop added, it affected him so much that he was drowned in tears, and could not trust himself with the book any longer.
Richardson had a kind of club of women about him—Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Talbot, &c.—who looked up to him as to a superior being; to whom he dictated and gave laws; and with whom he lived almost entirely. To acquire a facility of epistolary writing he would on every trivial occasion write notes to his daughters even when they were in the same house with him.—( Bishop Douglas and Dr. Johnson.)
The paper published by Dalrymple in his appendix, p. 11, p. 78, and ascribed to Lord Nottingham, is not of unquestionable authority, being not in his handwriting. Dr. Percy got his copy from [not filled up].
When King William found himself much pressed and harassed by the Whigs who had put him on the throne, he one day exclaimed to Lord Wharton, that after all the Tories were the only true supporters of an English king. “True,” replied Wharton, “but please your Majesty, you should recollect that you are not their king.”—(Lord Ossory.)
