t may imperceptibly serve him as a
support, when attacked by sudden tremors or startings and dizziness."
. . . "Of a light-brown complexion; teeth not yet failing him;
smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked; at some times looking to be about
sixty-five, at other times much younger; a regular even pace,
stealing away ground, rather than seeming to get rid of it; a grey
eye, too often overclouded by mistiness from the head; by chance
lively--very lively it will be if he have hope of seeing a lady whom
he loves and honours; his eye always on the ladies"--and so on.

In return to this description, Lady Bradshaigh on the 16th December,
1749, half promises a meeting in an appointed place, for she tells the
elderly gentleman with "a grey eye, too often overclouded by mistiness
from the head," but "by chance lively," "that she will attend the Park
every fine warm day, between the hours of one and two. I do not," adds
this perfect specimen of a literary coquette,

"Say this to put you in the least out of your way, or make you stay a
moment longer than your business requires; for a walk in the Park is
an excuse she uses for her health; and as she designs staying some
months in town, if she misses you one day she may have luck another."

And Lady Bradshaigh proceeds to present, as if in ridicule of
Richardson's portrait as drawn by himself, her own.

"In surprise or eagerness she is apt to think aloud; and since you
have a mind to see _her_, who has seen the King, I give you the
advantage of knowing she is middle aged, middle sized, a degree above
plump, brown as an oak wainscot, a good deal of country red in her
cheeks: altogether a plain woman, but nothing remarkably forbidding."

Any one might think that a meeting would immediately have followed these
communications, and that the novel-writer and the novel-reader would have
presented themselves to each other's gaze for admiration, at the time and
place appointed, and thus the affair which their letters have left upon
record might have been satisfactorily wound up in one volume. But this
did not accord with the sentimental typographical taste of the times,
which required the dilution of an idea into seven or eight volumes to
make it palatable. For we are told that a young Cantab, who, when asked
if he had read Clarissa, replied, "D---n it, I would not read it through
to save my life," was set down as an incurab