at the untimely death of his friend, it was, at his particular desire, consigned to the flames.

Several years more were spent in the obscure drudgery of the printing-house, ere Richardson took out his freedom and set up as a master printer. His talents for literature were soon discovered, and, in addition to his proper business, he used to oblige the booksellers, by furnishing them with prefaces, dedications, and such like garnishing of the works submitted to his press. He printed several of the popular periodical papers of the day, and, at length, through the interest of Mr Onslow, the Speaker, obtained the lucrative employment of printing the Journals of the House of Commons, by which he must have reaped considerable advantages, although he occasionally had to complain of delay of payment on the part of government.

Punctual in his engagements, and careful in the superintendence of his business, fortune and respect, its sure accompaniments, began to flow in upon Richardson. In 1754, he was chosen Master of the Stationers' Company; and in 1760, he purchased a moiety of the patent of printer to the King, which seems to have added considerably to his revenue. He was now a man in very easy circumstances, and besides his premises in Salisbury Court, he enjoyed the luxury of a villa, first at North

End, near Hammersmith, afterwards at Parson's-green.

Richardson was twice married, first to Allington Wilde, his master's daughter, and after her death, in 1731, to the sister of James Leake, bookseller, who survived her distinguished husband. He has made a feeling. commemoration of the family misfortunes which he sustained, in a letter to Lady Bradshaigh. "I told you, madam, that I have been married twice, both times happily; you will guess so, as to my first, when I tell you that I cherish the memory of my lost wife to this hour; and as to the second, when I assure you, that I can do so without derogating from the merits of, or being disallowed by, my present, who speaks of her, on all occasions, as respectfully and affectionately as I do myself.

By my first wife, I had five sons and one daughter, some of them living to be delightful prattlers, with all the appearances of sound health, lively in their features, and promising as to their minds; and the death of one of them I doubt, accelerating, from grief, that of the otherwise laudably afflicted mother. have had, by my present wife, five girls and one boy; I have buried of these, the promising boy, and one girl: four girls I have living, all at present very good; their mother a true and instructing mother to them.

I

<< Thus have I lost six sons (all my sons), and

two daughters, every one of which, to answer your question, I parted with with the utmost regret. Other heavy deprivations of friends very near and very dear have I also suffered. I am very susceptible, I will venture to say, of impressions of this nature. A father, an honest worthy father, I lost by the accident of a broken thigh, snapped by a sudden jerk, endeavouring to recover a slip, passing through his own yard. My father, whom I attended in every stage of his last illness, I long mourned for. Two brothers, very dear to me, I lost abroad. A friend, more valuable than most brothers, was taken from me. No less than eleven affecting deaths in two years! My nerves were so affected with these repeated blows that I have been forced, after trying the whole materia medica, and consulting many physicians, as the only palliative (not a remedy to be expected), to go into a regimen ; and for seven years past have I forborne wine, and flesh and fish; and at this time, I and all my family are in mourning for a good sister, with whom neither I would have parted, could I have had my choice. From these affecting dispensations, will you not allow me, madam, to remind an unthinking world, immersed in pleasures, what a life this is that they are so fond of, and to arm them against the affecting changes of it ?»1

1

Life of Richardson, vol. i. pp. 48, 49, 50.

But this amiable and excellent man was not deprived of the most pleasing exercise of his affections, notwithstanding the breaches which had been made among his offspring. Four daughters survived to render those duties which the affectionate temper of their father rendered peculiarly precious to him. Mary was married, during her father's life-time, to Mr Ditcher, a respectable surgeon at Bath. His daughter Martha, who had been his principal amanuensis, became, after his decease, the wife of Edward Bridgen, esq., and Sarah married Mr Crowther, surgeon, in BoswellCourt. Anne, a woman of a most amiable disposition, but whose weak health had often alarmed the affection of her parents, survived, nevertheless, her sisters, as well as her pa

rents.

A nephew of Richardson paid him, in his declining years, the duties of a son, and assisted him in the conducting of his business, which concludes all it is necessary to say concerning the descendants and connexions of this distinguished author.

The private life of Richardson has nothing to detain the biographer. We have mentioned the successive opportunities which cautiously, yet ably, improved, led him to eminence in his highly respectable profession. He was unceasingly industrious; led astray by no idle views of speculation, and seduced by no temptations to premature expenditure. Industry

brought independence, and, finally, wealth in its train; and that well-won fortune was husbanded with prudence, and expended with liberality. A kind and liberal master, he was eager to encourage his servants to persevere in the same course of patient labour by which he had himself attained fortune; and it is said to have been his common practice to hide half-a-crown among the types, that it might reward the diligence of the workman who should first be in the office in the morning. His hospitality was of the most unlimited, as well as the most judicious kind. One of his correspondents describes him as sitting at his door like an old patriarch, and inviting all who passed by to enter and be refreshed;<< and this," says Mrs Barbauld, « whether they brought with them the means of amusing their host, or only required his kind notice and that' of his family." He was generous and benevolent to distressed authors, a class of men with whom his profession brought him into contact, and had occasion, more than once, to succour Dr Johnson, during his days of poverty, and to assist his efforts to force himself into public notice. The domestic revolutions of his life, after mentioning the losses he had sustained in his family, may be almost summed up in two great events. He changed his villa, in which he indulged, like other wealthy citizens, from North-End to Parsons-Green; and