y of
his portraits and the multiplicity of his persons. In fact, Richardson
has the merit of having well characterized them all; but with respect to
their number, he has that in common with the most insipid writers of
novels who attempt to make up for the sterility of their ideas by
multiplying persons and adventures. It is easy to awaken the attention
by incessantly presenting unheard of adventures and new faces, which pass
before the imagination as the figures in a magic lanthorn do before the
eye; but to keep up that attention to the same objects, and without the
aid of the wonderful, is certainly more difficult; and if, everything
else being equal, the simplicity of the subject adds to the beauty of the
work, the novels of Richardson, superior in so many other respects,
cannot in this be compared to mine. I know it is already forgotten,
and the cause of its being so; but it will be taken up again. All my
fear was that, by an extreme simplicity, the narrative would be
fatiguing, and that it was not sufficiently interesting to engage the
attention throughout the whole. I was relieved from this apprehension by
a circumstance which alone was more flattering to my pride than all the
compliments made me upon the work.

It appeared at the beginning of the carnival; a hawker carried it to the
Princess of Talmont--[It was not the princess, but some other lady,
whose name I do not know.]--on the evening of a ball night at the opera.
After supper the Princess dressed herself for the ball, and until the
hour of going there, took up the new novel. At midnight she ordered the
horses to be put into the carriage, and continued to read. The servant
returned to tell her the horses were put to; she made no answer. Her
people perceiving she forgot herself, came to tell her it was two
o'clock. "There is yet no hurry," replied the princess, still reading
on. Some time afterwards, her watch having stopped, she rang to know the
hour. She was told it was four o'clock. "That being the case," she
said, "it is too late to go to the ball; let the horses be taken off."
She undressed herself and passed the rest of the night in reading.

Ever since I came to the knowledge of this circumstance, I have had a
constant desire to see the lady, not only to know from herself whether or
not what I have related be exactly true, but because I have always
thought it impossible to be interested in so lively a manner in the
happiness of Julia, wit