course,
is that _Clarissa_ is morally valuable. The reader who expects it to be
a 'mere _Novel_ or _Romance_'[7] will be disappointed; and, as 'in all
Works of This, and of the Dramatic Kind, STORY, or AMUSEMENT, should be
considered as little more than the _Vehicle_ to the more necessary
INSTRUCTION'[8]--a dictum that Fielding was to quote with approval.[9]

The argument, though valid, is excessively laboured. In the Postscript,
especially, Richardson is so preoccupied with demonstrating that
_Clarissa_ is a Christian tragedy that he neglects to develop in any
detail the other claims he makes for it. Yet _Hints of Prefaces_ shows
that he had given considerable thought to what might be called the
purely fictive qualities of his novel, and that at one stage he intended
to present a much fuller account of them than he finally did. It is also
clear that he realized that his didactic purposes could be achieved only
if the novel succeeded first at the level of imaginative realism.

From the beginning Richardson claimed to be a realist: _Pamela_, it is
announced on the title page, is a 'Narrative which has its Foundation in
TRUTH and NATURE;' and the main purpose of the Postscript to _Clarissa_
is to demonstrate that the story and the manner in which it is told are
consonant both with the high artistic standards set by the Greek
dramatists and with the facts of everyday life. The decision not to
conclude the story with the reformation of Lovelace and his marriage to
the heroine is defended on the grounds that 'the Author ... always
thought, that _sudden Conversions_ ... had neither _Art_, nor _Nature_,
nor even _Probability_, in them;'[10] and in the passage in _Hints of
Prefaces_[11] of which this is a condensation, he attempts to make out a
case for the second part of _Pamela_ as a realistic study of married
life. _Clarissa_ is stated to be superior to pagan tragedies because it
dispenses with the old ideas of poetic justice and takes into account
the continuance of life after death. (Richardson has his cake while
eating it, however, for he points out that 'the notion of _Poetical
Justice_ founded on the _modern rules_'[12] is strictly observed in
_Clarissa_).

The claim that _Clarissa_ presents a generally truthful rendering of
life is given its clearest expression by Skelton and Spence. Both
emphasize that it is different from conventional romances and novels:
'it is another kind of Work, or rather a new Species of Nove