in length from four to eight volumes is not really significant, since these
were the very small volumes which (as a source of extra profit) were to be
the regular form for novels until after the time of Scott. Even 'Clarissa,'
the longest, is not longer than some novels of our own day. Yet they do
much exceed the average in length and would undoubtedly gain by
condensation. Richardson, it may be added, produced each of them in the
space of a few months, writing, evidently, with the utmost fluency, and
with little need for revision.

3. Most permanently important, perhaps, of all Richardson's contributions,
was his creation of complex characters, such as had thitherto appeared not
in English novels but only in the drama. In characterization Richardson's
great strength lay with his women--he knew the feminine mind and spirit
through and through. His first heroine, Pamela, is a plebeian serving-maid,
and his second, Clarissa, a fine-spirited young lady of the wealthy class,
but both are perfectly and completely true and living, throughout all their
terribly complex and trying experiences. Men, on the other hand, those
beyond his own particular circle, Richardson understood only from the
outside. Annoyed by criticisms to this effect, he attempted in the hero of
his last book to present a true gentleman, but the result is only a
mechanical ideal figure of perfection whose wooden joints creak painfully
as he moves slowly about under the heavy load of his sternly self-conscious
goodness and dignity.

4. Richardson's success in his own time was perhaps chiefly due to his
striking with exaggerated emphasis the note of tender sentiment to which
the spirit of his generation was so over-ready to respond. The substance of
his books consists chiefly of the sufferings of his heroines under
ingeniously harrowing persecution at the hands of remorseless scoundrels.
Pamela, with her serving-maid's practical efficiency, proves able to take