...in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones. I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews' ERSKINE. 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious.' JOHNSON....the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.' We talked of gaming, and animadverted on it with severity. JOHNSON. 'Nay, gentlemen, let us not aggravate...

..."Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson Jfor the story, your impatience would be so much fretted I that you would hang yourself. But you must read him...Johnson's excessive and unaccountable depreciation of one of the best writers that England has produced. "Tom Jones" has stood the test of public opinion with...

...considered normal. The following bit of dialogue from Boswell's "Johnson" is significant: Erskine. "Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious." Johnson....the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," the first novel, gave the author an established reputation. It is the...

...like Boswell, must be regarded as representing the younger generation, enters his demurrer. ERSKINE. 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious." JOHNSON....consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.'10 Nearly twenty years later, when Boswell published his Life of Johnson, he looked back...

...very tedious, doubtless because he tried to read him for the story. " Why, sir," said Dr. Johnson, " if you were to read Richardson for the story, your...the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." The plots of Elizabethan playwrights rarely display originality. The greatest of them, Shakespeare...

...not seemingly suitable to be spun out through two volumes.1 But in Dr. Johnson's trenchant phrase, ' If you were to read Richardson for the story, your...read him for the sentiment, and consider the story only as giving occasion to the sentiment.' It is in delicate sentimental analysis, subtle delineation...

...Honourable Thomas Erskine said to the great man, 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious.' Johnson replied: Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story...the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment. By 'the sentiment' Johnson meant what we could call the morality or even the 'message'. Both Richardson...

...rather than by way of any storytelling narrative. The plot was less than challenging, as noted by Samuel Johnson: "Why Sir, if you were to read Richardson...yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment." Considered by some to be the first "true" novel, Pamela is primarily a novel of character. Substituting...

...made more than two decades after the novel appeared, may reflect the emphasis of fond familiarity: "Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the...the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." 1 Nevertheless, the evidence of Richardson's readers, then and now, belies him. What is happening among...

...slights the story in a way that would certainly have offended a writer as sensitive as Richardson: "Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the...the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." 163 Amelia, on the other hand, both satisfied Johnson's moral demands for fiction and accomplished...