I have collected most of the letters written to me on the subject of
this publication, and deposited them, tied up together, in the hands
of Madam de Nadillac. Should this collection ever be given to the
world, very singular things will be seen, and an opposition of
opinion, which shows what it is to have to do with the public. The
thing least kept in view, and which will ever distinguish it from
every other work, is the simplicity of the subject and the
continuation of the interest, which, confined to three persons, is
kept up throughout six volumes, without episode, romantic adventure,
or anything malicious either in the persons or actions. Diderot
complimented Richardson on the prodigious variety of his portraits and
the multiplicity of his persons. In fact, Richardson has the merit
of having well characterized them all; but with respect to their
number, he has that in common with the most insipid writers of novels,
who attempt to make up for the sterility of their ideas by multiplying
persons and adventures. It is easy to awaken the attention by
incessantly presenting unheard of adventures and new faces, which pass
before the imagination as the figures in a magic lanthorn do before
the eye; but to keep up that attention to the same objects, and
without the aid of the wonderful, is certainly more difficult; and if,
everything else being equal, the simplicity of the subject adds to the
beauty of the work, the novels of Richardson, superior in so many
other respects, cannot in this be compared to mine.
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