8 40 Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then, Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice; RULE, BRITANNIA. When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sang this strain: 'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves! The nations not so blest as thee, The dread and envy of them all. Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; To thee belongs the rural reign; The Muses, still with Freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair; 28 Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair! 'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never will be slaves!' 32 From THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. Canto I, II. 10—54 (1748). In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round, A most enchanting wizard did abide, 4 Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. And there a season atween June and May, Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned, No living wight could work, ne cared ev'n for play. II. Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmer made. III. Joined to the prattle of the purling rills IV. Full in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood; Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move, Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro, And where this valley winded out, below, 36 The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. 40 44 V. A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was: Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; SAMUEL RICHARDSON. SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689–1761) was born somewhere in Derbyshire, his father being a joiner. In 1706 he was apprenticed to a London stationer, worked for some years as a compositor and corrector of the press, and, in 1719, set up for himself as a master printer in London. Through an influential friend he was employed to print the Journals of the House of Commons. By and by he became a prosperous citizen, took a comfortable country house at Hammersmith, near London (1739), and was chosen Master of the Stationers' Company (1754). He died of apoplexy in 1761. It was not till Richardson was 50 years old that he started as an author. He began by compiling a collection of Familiar Letters (1741), a guide to letter-writing, which displayed both his great epistolary skill and his inclination for moral teaching. The preparation of this volume suggested to him his first novel of Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (anon., 1740), in which he tells us the story of a simple country-girl and maidservant who resists every temptation of her master, a young squire, and at last marries him. The book had an immense success: it reached four editions in one year, was imitated, adapted to the stage, and was heartily ridiculed in Fielding's story of the good footman Joseph Andrews (1742). The fame of Pamela was, however, eclipsed by his second novel, Clarissa Harlowe (7 vols., anon., 1747-1748), which is assuredly his masterpiece. It is the story of a young lady, who, placing herself under the protection of her lover, the fascinating, but unscrupulous Robert Lovelace, is betrayed by him, and dies of a broken heart, whilst Lovelace is killed in a duel. As a pendant to the portrait of a good woman in Clarissa, he depicted the ideal of a good man and perfect gentleman in his third and last novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753-1754), which, though equally praised at the time, is of less literary interest. Richardson's novels added a new species to literature: they first gave us a minutely truthful analysis of the human heart ('novel of sentimental analysis'). By an avowed purpose of enforcing lessons of morality and by applying them to the affections of home and the surroundings of ordinary life, Richardson was the first to appeal to the middle class reader, thus creating the sentimental domestic novel. In all his novels the story is told in a series of letters, a form favourable for the slow realistic development of characters and incidents, but involving a certain diffuseness and prolixity. Richardson's influence was equally great on French (Rousseau) and on German literature (Gellert, Lessing, Wieland). From CLARISSA HARLOWE. [1747] Letter VII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe to Miss Howe. [After her return from her.] Harlowe Place, Febr. 20. I beg your excuse for not writing sooner! Alas, my dear, I have sad prospects before me! My brother and sister have succeeded in all their views. 5 They have found out another lover for me; an hideous one! Yet he is encouraged by every body. No wonder that I was ordered home so suddenly. At an hour's warning! 10 No other notice, you know, than what was brought with the chariot that was to carry me back. It was for fear, as I have been informed Herrig-Förster, British Authors. an unworthy fear!) that I should have entered into any concert with 16 Mr. Lovelace, had I known their motive for commanding me home; apprehending, 'tis evident, that I should dislike the man they had to propose to me. so: And well might they apprehend 20 for who do you think he is? No other than that Solmes! Could you have believed it? And they are all determined too; my mother 25 with the rest! Dear, dear excellence! how could she be thus 14. brought over, when I am assured that, on his first being proposed, 30 she was pleased to say that, had Mr. Solmes the Indies in possession, and would endow me with them, she would not think him deserving of her Clarissa! 35 40 The reception I met with at my return, so different from what I used to meet with on every little absence (and now I had been from them three weeks), convinced me that I was to suffer for the happiness I had had in your company and conversation, for that most agreeable period. will give you an account of it. unusual. I was forced to turn my face from them, and pull out my handkerchief. My unbrotherly accuser hereupon 80 stood forth, and charged me with having received no less than five or six visits at Miss Howe's from the man they had all so much reason to hate (that was the expression) not- 85 withstanding the commands I had had to the contrary. And he bid me deny it, if I could. I had never been used, I said, to deny the truth, nor would I now. 90 II owned I had in the three weeks past seen the person I presumed he meant, oftener than five or six times. (Pray hear me, brother, said I, for he was going to flame out.) But he 95 always asked for Mrs. or Miss Howe, when he came. My brother met me at the door, 45 and gave me his hand when I stepped out of the chariot. He bowed very low: 'Pray, Miss, favour me' I thought it in good humour; but found it afterwards mock respect; and so he led me in great form, I prattling all the way, inquiring of every body's health (although I was so soon to see them, and there was hardly time for answers), into the great parlour, 55 where were my father, mother, my two uncles, and sister. 50 I was struck to the heart as soon as I entered, to see a solemnity, which I had been so little used to 60 on the like occasions, in the countenances of every dear relation. They all kept their seats. I ran to my father, and kneeled: then to my mother: and met from both a cold 65 salute: from my father a blessing but half pronounced: my mother indeed called me child, but embraced me not with her usual indulgent ardour. 70 After I had paid my duty to my uncles, and my compliments to my sister, which she received with solemn and stiff form, I was bid to sit down. But my heart was full: and I said 75 it became me to stand, if I could stand, upon a reception so awful and I proceeded that I had reason to believe that both Mrs. Howe and Miss, as matters stood, would much 100 rather have excused his visits; but they had more than once apologized that, having not the same reason my papa had to forbid him their house, his rank and fortune entitled him to 105 civility. You see, my dear, I made not the pleas I might have made. My brother seemed ready to give a loose to his passion: my father put 110 on the countenance which always portends a gathering storm: my uncles mutteringly whispered: and my sister aggravatingly held up her hands. While I begged to be heard out; — 115 and my mother said, 'Let the child,' that was her kind word, 'be heard.' I hoped, I said, there was no harm done: that it became not me to prescribe to Mrs. or Miss Howe 120 who should be their visitors: that Mrs. Howe was always diverted with the raillery that passed between Miss and him: that I had no reason to challenge her guest for my visitor, 125 as I should seem to have done had I refused to go into their company when he was with them; that I had never seen him out of the presence 130 of one or both of those ladies; and had signified to him once, on his urging for a few moments' private conversation with me, that, unless a reconciliation were effected between 135 my family and his, he must not expect that I would countenance his visits, much less give him an opportunity of that sort. I told them further that Miss Howe 140 So well understood my mind, that she never left me a moment while Mr. Lovelace was there: that when he came, if I was not below in the parlour, I would not suffer myself 145 to be called to him: although I thought it would be an affectation which would give him advantage rather than the contrary, if I had left company when he came in; or refused 150 to enter into it when I found he would stay any time. My brother heard me out with such a kind of impatience as shewed he was resolved to be dissatisfied 155 with me, say what I would. The rest, as the event has proved, behaved as if they would have been satisfied, had they not further points to carry by intimidating me. All 160 this made it evident, as I mentioned above, that they themselves expected not my voluntary compliance; and was a tacit confession of the disagreeableness of the person they had 165 to propose. I was no sooner silent than my brother swore, although in my father's presence (swore, unchecked either by eye or countenance), that for his 170 part, he would never be reconciled to that libertine: and that he would renounce me for a sister, if I encouraged the addresses of a man so obnoxious to them all. A man who had like to have been 175 my brother's murderer, my sister said, with a face even bursting with restraint of passion. My father, with vehemence both of action and voice (my father has, 180 you know, a terrible voice when he is angry!) told me that I had met with too much indulgence in being allowed to refuse this gentleman and the other gentleman; and it was now 185 his turn to be obeyed. Very true, my mother said: and hoped his will would not now be disputed by a child so favoured. To shew they were all of a senti- 190 ment, my uncle Harlowe said, he hoped his beloved niece only wanted to know her father's will, to obey it. And my uncle Antony, in his rougher manner, added that surely 195 I would not give them reason to apprehend that I thought my grandfather's favour to me had made me independent of them all. — If I did, he would tell me, the will could 200 be set aside, and should. I was astonished, you must needs think.-Whose addresses now, thought I, is this treatment preparative to Mr. Wyerley's again Mr. Wyerley's again or whose? 205 And then, as high comparisons, where self is concerned, sooner than low come into young people's heads, be it for whom it will, this is wooing as the English did for the heiress 210 of Scotland in the time of Edward the Sixth. But that it could be for Solmes, how should it enter into my head? I did not know, I said, that I 215 had given occasion for this harshness. I hoped I should always have a just sense of every one's favour to me, superadded to the duty I owed as a daughter and a niece: but that I 220 was so much surprised at a reception so unusual and unexpected, that I hoped my papa and mamma would |