l,'[13] we
have 'a Work of a new kind among us'.[14] _Clarissa_ is concerned with
'the Workings of private and domestic Passions', says Skelton, and
'[not] those of Kings, Heroes, Heroines ... it comes home to the Heart,
and to common Life, in every Line.'[15] The author, says Spence, has not
followed the example of the writers of romances, but 'has attempted to
give a plain and natural Account of an Affair that happened in a private
Family, just in the manner that it did happen.'[16]

Richardson's decision not to include these two essays in the Postscript
was perhaps influenced by the fact that he was able to use a similar
testimonial which had the added virtue of being patently unsolicited.
This is the 'Critique on the History of CLARISSA, written in French, and
published at Amsterdam',[17] an English translation of which had been
printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of June and August, 1749.
Published anonymously, but written by Albrecht von Haller,[18] this
review must have been particularly attractive also to Richardson because
of the singular praise it accords his Epistolary method'. It had already
been asserted by de Freval, in the first of the introductory letters to
_Pamela_, that with this way of writing 'the several Passions of the
Mind must ... be more affectingly described, and Nature may be traced in
her undisguised Inclinations with much more Propriety and Exactness,
than can possibly be found in a Detail of Actions long past;'[19] and
von Haller carries the charge even further by claiming not only that it
allows the author a greater degree of psychological veracity but also
that the convention itself is inherently more realistic than ordinary
narrative: 'Romances in general ... are wholly improbable; because they
suppose the History to be written after the series of events is closed
by the catastrophe: A circumstance which implies a strength of memory
beyond all example and probability in the persons concerned.'[20]

Richardson also believed that the epistolary method was superior to the
narrative because it was essentially dramatic. Aaron Hill, in one of the
introductory letters to _Pamela_, had maintained that 'one of the
best-judg'd Peculiars of the Plan' was that the moral instruction was
conveyed 'as in a kind of Dramatical Representation';[21] while in the
Postscript to _Clarissa_ Richardson describes it as a 'History (or
rather Dramatic Narrative)'.[22] The parallels which he draws between
_Clar