The author of Spence's _Anecdotes_ needs no special introduction,
although some aspects of his relationship with Richardson are of
interest. He apparently first met the novelist late in 1747 or early in
1748. Richardson sought his opinion on _Clarissa_ before the final
volumes of the first edition had appeared: his letter discussing the
novel [_The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson_, edited by Anna
Laetitia Barbauld (London, 1804), Vol. II, 319-327], which emphasizes
Richardson's truth to 'Nature' and lack of 'Art', makes an interesting
contrast with the more considered verdict delivered in his contribution
to _Hints of Prefaces_. Before writing this he had almost certainly read
_Tom Jones_. In a letter, dated April 15, 1749, he says: 'Tom Jones is
my old acquaintance, now; for I read it, before it was publisht: & read
it with such rapidity, that I began & ended with in the compass of four
days; tho' I took a Journey to St. Albans, in ye same time. He is to me
extreamly entertaining....' He seems to have contemplated writing a
memoir of Richardson after the novelist's death in 1760.

[See Austin Wright, _Joseph Spence: a critical Biography_ (Chicago,
1950), 120-123, 232 n.]

NOTES TO POSTSCRIPT

p. 368, 1. 31--p. 369, 1. 10:

This passage is part of Richardson's new material for his revised
Postscript. What he wrote in this paragraph, however, was not reproduced
completely or accurately in either the third or the fourth editions, in
each of which it appears in different but equally incorrect versions.
W.M. Sale has offered a convincing explanation of how the mistakes in
printing came about, and suggests that the passage should read as
follows:

She was very early happy in the conversation-visits of her learned
and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her correspondencies, not with him
only, but with other Divines mentioned in her last Will. Her Mother
was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did credit to her birth and
her fortune; and was able to instruct her in her early youth: Her
Father was not a free-living, or free-principled man; and _both_
delighted in her for those improvements and attainments, which gave
her, _and them in her_, a distinction that caused it to be said,
that when she was out of the family, it was considered but as a
common family.

[_Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical Record of his Literary Career_
(New Haven, 1936), 59-61].

BIBLIOGRA