ABSTRACT
WHEN Richardson records the merest small-talk and the minutest gestures of Sir Charles Grandison or Clarissa Harlowe, we do not quarrel with his particularity. As critics, considering parts in relation to their wholes, and in the more genial character of novel readers, feeling that great interests are growing upon us, we allow the amplitude of detail as a means, and submit ourselves to that dominion over the fancy which minute description will not fail to acquire, provided always that it be connected with objects of interest. The leaf, we allow, must be painted, in order to paint the tree; and the lace must be painted, in order to pourtray the dowager: and if the subject be worth the pains, and the work of art be in its totality effective, we are bound to give our approval to its indispensable incidents and conditions. But we are under no such obligation in respect of descriptions, however faithful and minute, which have no connexion with any object that we much care to contemplate, and Which contribute to the construction of nothing. The painter who should bring before us the counterfeit presentment of a bundle of leaves, or of a certain number of yards of lace, claiming our admiration of the particulars per so, would place us in a very embarrassing situation: and it is under some such difficulty that we have always found ourselves to labour, when required to give our humble tribute of approbation to the sort of book which is commonly called a fashionable novel.
