BEATTIE'S LETTERS. I. TO DR. JOHN OGILVIE.* Aberdeen, 20th August, 1759. I HAD intended to have written a long letter on the occasion of my reading "Clarissa ;" and I actually had begun one in a very methodical manner; but happening to read the postscript+ afterwards, I was surprised to find the very subject touched upon there, which I had proposed to treat of in my intended letter. I, therefore, changed my first resolution, judging it unnecessary to trouble you with reading in my words what you find much better expressed in that postscript. I intended to have inquired into the conveniences and disadvantages of Richardson's manner of writing, compared with that of other novelists; to have considered the pro The Reverend Dr. John Ogilvie, minister at Midmar, in Aberdeenshire, author of "Providence," and other poems. This letter was written when Dr. Beattie was in his twenty-fourth year. + To "Clarissa," referred to in the preface of the work, in which several objections are considered by the author. priety or impropriety of the catastrophe; and to have indulged what other critical reflections might have occurred upon the arrangement of the narrations, the length of the work, and a few other particulars. But finding this plan executed, as I said before, in the postscript, and executed in a manner very similar to that which I had designed, I shall trouble you at present only with a few miscellaneous observations upon that celebrated novel. The author shows great knowledge of mankind, and of human nature. He possesses an inexhaustible fund of original sentiment, a happy talent at some kinds of description, particularly conversation pieces; he delineates some characters with masterly and distinguishing strokes; he seems to be well acquainted with the human heart, and with the particular emotions that arise in it on particular occasions. The fervour wherewith he recommends religion and virtue, intimates that he is truly in earnest, and that his heart goes along with his pen. On reading" Clarissa," we immediately discover that its design is more to instruct than to amuse. The author warns the reader of this in his preface, and again repeats it in the postscript. It is for this reason, that they, who read more for amusement than instruction, will not be so much captivated with "Clarissa," as with some other of our English novels. I grant there are, in the novel before us, a great many passages of the most interesting kind, but these passages are few in comparison to the extent of the work. I cannot help thinking that our author is often tedious to a fault. In the first volumes there are, if I mistake not, many |