Pamela by Samuel Richardson
262. (p. 346) staves: stanzas.
263. (p. 349) common translation: the metrical arrangement by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins and others; first published in 1562, it was printed, with various modifications, more than a thousand times between then and the end of the eighteenth century. It was, however, rivalled in the eighteenth century by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady’s New Version of the Psalms, first published in 1596.
264. (p. 349) Sion: Zion, or Jerusalem.
265. (p. 349) watched: Richardson had altered ‘watched’ to ‘guarded’ in the octavo edition when Pamela first reads her poem (p. 179), but in both the octavo and 1801 he failed to make the alteration when Mr B. reads her poem aloud.
266. (p. 351) sons of Edom: descendants of Esau, at war much of the time with the Israelites; they aided the Babylonians in sacking Jerusalem.
267. (p. 355) sackcloth and ashes: worn for mourning or repentance.
268. (p. 356) cinnamon-water: an aromatic beverage, prepared from cinnamon.
269. (p. 357) Thursday: a private reference; Thursday was one of the second Mrs Richardson’s two lucky days. Eaves and Kimpel note that in Pamela’s insistence on being married on a Thursday, Richardson ‘was permitting himself a little fun with his wife’s superstition’ (Samuel Richardson: A Biography, 1971, p. 485).
270. (p. 358) æra: epoch.
271. (p. 362) à propos: opportunely, pertinently.
272. (p. 367) five or six: she had only two or three thousand more in previous editions, but the B. of 1801 is worth a greater fortune.
273. (p. 369) Very well, sir… power: an insertion, contributing to Pamela’s study of Mrs Jewkes.
274. (p. 371) conning: learning by heart.
275. (p. 373) But first let me… done me: an insertion, justifying Pamela’s continued use of the word ‘master’, rather than ‘husband’.
276. (p. 376) tool.: the one hundred pounds had been fifty pounds in previous editions; another example of Mr B.’s increased largesse.
277. (p. 377) beat up the quarters: visit unceremoniously.
278. (p. 377) pet: temper.
279. (p. 380) frothy: empty, trifling.
280. (p. 388) useless in my generation: Pamela wishes to be a model of good conduct to her contemporaries and, with a play on ‘generation’, does not wish to be barren.
281. (p. 388) cypher: ‘an arithmetical mark, which, standing for nothing in itself, increases the value of the other figures’ (Johnson).
282. (p. 391) I myself would make… motives: an insertion, explaining why Mr B. will not pay Pamela her quarterly allowance in person. Richardson’s interest in the financial provisions made by a man for his wife was advanced for his time.
283. (p. 392) But, dear sir… am not: in this insertion Pamela asks Mr B. for his rules of conduct; in previous editions he had delivered them without her prompting, and their tone was more dictatorial.
284. (p. 394) supper by nine: in previous editions Mr B. dined at two and had supper at eight; the later times here reflect changing fashion in the 1750s. He is still keeping country hours (‘old-fashioned rules’), however; dinner in a fashionable household would not begin until four or five, while supper could take place even after midnight (see Turberville, I, 346).
285. (p. 394) Everyone mendone: proverbial; ‘If every man mend one all shall be mended’ (Tilley, M196).
286. (p. 397) with his hands: an anonymous correspondent, several of whose criticisms of Pamela were printed in the introduction to the second edition, complained that ‘the Passage where the Gentleman is said to span the Waist of Pamela with his Hands, is enough to ruin a Nation of Women by Tight-lacing’; the passage, however, was never altered.
287. (p. 398) officiously: used here with the older meaning of ‘dutifully’.
288. (p. 398) Rhenish: Rhine wine. Several details in this paragraph are insertions, including ‘waddled’, ‘what she herself dearly loves’, and Mr B.’s surprise and encouragement as Mrs Jewkes pours the wine for Pamela.
289. (p. 399) near sixteen: eighteen in previous editions.
290. (p. 400) eleven: ten in previous editions.
291. (p. 400) She looked down… say: an insertion; see n. 106.
292. (p. 400) Seven o’Clock: this is altered from ‘Eleven’ in previous editions, while Mr B.’s letter is now written not at one but at three in the morning. The delivery time is thus reduced from ten to four hours, suggesting that Mr B. has more efficient messengers in 1801. They also, however, have two miles less to travel; see n. 289.
293. (p. 401) W.B.: William Brandon; in Pamela II Pamela names her firstborn son William after his father.
294. (p. 401) chariot and six: a chariot drawn by six horses. The coronets are small crowns, indicating nobility.
295. (p. 402) right side of the hedge: proverbial; ‘on the safer (better) side of the hedge’ (Tilley, S428).
296. (p. 403) fool’s paradise: proverbial (Tilley, F523).
297. (p. 403) Worden: addressed, with greater familiarity, by her Christian name Beck in previous editions.
298. (p. 404) drolling: making fun of.
299. (p. 408) Lady Would-be: this fictitious surname was first used to indicate aspiration in Sir Politick Would-be, the schemer in Jon-son’s Volpone (1606).
300. (p. 408) in bar of: as a reason for not doing.
301. (p. 409) madam: in the sense of bawd; hence Pamela’s scarlet face.
302. (p. 409) clownish: ill-bred, ill-mannered.
303. (p. 410) merry-thought: the wishbone of a chicken; Jackey laughs because whoever gets the longer piece will be married before the other. In previous editions the joke was more bawdy; Jackey there inquired if Pamela wanted the ‘rump’.
304. (p. 411) Silence… gives consent: proverbial (Tilley, S446).
305. (p. 412) laced: covered in lace.
306. (p. 415) mannerly: well-mannered.
307. (p. 415) beats you quite out of the pit: the metaphor is taken from the then popular sport of cock-fighting; the pit is the cockpit, resembling a small amphitheatre, in which cock-fights were held.
308. (p. 418) My dearest love… with it: Lady Davers’s commentary on Mr B.’s letter to Pamela is considerably expanded in 1801.
309. (p. 419) setting up for a family: pretending to come from a good family.
310. (p. 419) Herald’s Office: founded in 1483 to settle questions of precedence and trace pedigrees.
311. (p. 421) sixteen: Pamela was ‘little more than fifteen years of age’ on p. 52; about a year elapses, however, between then and her wedding. See Dorothy Parker, ‘The Time Scheme of Pamela and the Character of B.’, Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 11 (1969), 695–704.
312. (p. 422) chine: break the back of; latest example in OED.
313. (p. 423) loo: card game in which the loser is required to pay a certain sum, or ‘loo’, to the pool.
314. (p. 427) whist: whist, an early form of bridge, became immensely popular in the early 1740s; Horace Walpole described it as a ‘universal opium’ in 1742 (Turberville, I, 358).
315. (p. 427) cast in: chose partners at cards; only example in OED.
316. (p. 427) honours: the four highest trumps: ace, king, queen and knave.
317. (p. 427) up at one deal: ahead after one round.
318. (p. 432) who far, very far surpassed me: an insertion, displaying Pamela’s modesty.
319. (p. 433) secret-keeper: procuress; bawd.
320. (p. 438) bravo: ‘a man who murders for hire’ (Johnson).
321. (p. 441) York: in 1660 the Duke of York, later James II, married Anne, daughter of Edward Hyde, a commoner.
322. (p. 442) calf: Jeroboam, who in fact made two golden calves, offended God in doing so and was cursed (I Kings, xii–xiv).
323. (p. 444) fore yard: courtyard in front of a building.
324. (p. 446) complaisantly: courteously, agreeably.
325. (p. 447) hail-fellow: on intimate terms; from the proverbial ‘hail fellow well met’ (Tilley
326. (p. 448) thy property: Lady Davers stresses that Mr B. now belongs to Pamela as a husband, not to herself as a brother.
327. (p. 450) Quaker sister: Mr B. calls Lady Davers a Quaker because of the exaggerated formality of her ‘thy’, ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in the previous sentence, and her use of the word ‘friend’ instead of ‘brother’.
328. (p. 450) chalk it out: plan or arrange it.
329. (p. 450) a good fancy: good taste.
330. (p. 451) dueller: Richardson’s own aversion to duelling is expressed in his ‘Six Original Letters Upon Duelling’, Candid Review, March 1765, pp. 227–31; and in the Concluding Note to Sir Charles Grandison.
331. (p. 456) niceness: ‘superfluous delicacy or exactness’ (Johnson).
332. (p. 460) Saul among the prophets: before Saul was made King of Israel he surprisingly prophesied among a company of Philistine prophets, instead of doing battle with them; ‘Therefore it became a proverb, Is Saul also among the prophets?’ (I Samuel, x. 12). In his contribution to The Rambler, no. 97, Richardson refers to the same story, noting that ‘even a Saul was once found prophesying among the prophets whom he had set out to destroy’.
333. (p. 460) of his own head: spontaneously, of his own accord.
334. (p. 462) resist it: in Richardson’s Aesop’s Fables, no. 163, ‘An Oak and a Willow’, the willow bends and withstands the storm undamaged, while the oak resists it and is destroyed.
335. (p. 464) vapourish: inclined to depression or low spirits.
336. (p. 466) supererogatory: supererogation, in Roman Catholic theology, is the performance of good works beyond what God commands or requires, constituting a state of merit which the Church may dispense to others to make up for their deficiencies. Mr B. is thus accusing Pamela of attempting to atone for Lady Davcrs’s fault.
337. (p. 469) A hard lesson… hypocrite: this and the next response to Mr B.’s rules of conduct were inserted in 1801, while Pamela’s responses to nos. 26–29 were expanded; as elsewhere the commentary thus becomes more astringent than in previous editions; see n. 99.
338. (p. 469) a parliament of women: alluding to the courts of love presided over by women in the Middle Ages. To characterize his own female correspondents, with whom he exchanged numerous lengthy letters on topics such as the duties of wives to husbands, Richardson borrowed the term ‘little senate’ from Pope’s Prologue to Addison’s Cato, 1. 23.
339. (p. 473) post-haste: ‘haste like that of a courier’ (Johnson); hence, with all possible haste.
340. (p. 473) harp upon that string: proverbial (Tilley, S936).
341. (p. 476) a pair of gloves: a gratuity given ostensibly for a pair of gloves; Mrs Worden is given the same amount here as the coachmen, maids, Abraham and Thomas received on p. 381.
342. (p. 480) Somebody: alluding to Longman’s signature on the anonymous letter, p. 262.
343. (p. 480) sleek: smooth-haired.
344. (p. 482) contiguous: adjacent.
345. (p. 483) equipages: ‘the Provision of all things necessary for a Voyage or Journey; as Attire, Furniture, Horses, Attendance, &c.’ (Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological Dictionary, 8th ed., 1737).
346. (p. 483) escritoire: a writing-desk constructed to contain stationery and documents.
347. (p. 487) but the best answer… was silence: a sign of Pamela’s increased sense of decorum in 1801; in previous editions she makes a surprisingly risqué comment about ‘Improvements in every kind of Thing’.
348. (p. 487) postilion and two helpers: a postilion is ‘one who guides the first pair of a set of six horses in a coach’ (Johnson); helpers are groom’s assistants in a stable.
349. (p. 487) scullion-boy: ‘the lowest domestic servant that washes the dishes and the kettles in a kitchen’ (Johnson).
350. (p. 488) October: strong ale brewed in October.
351. (p. 488) repeating-watch: ‘a watch that strikes the hours at will by compression of a spring’ (Johnson).
352. (p. 492) I curtsied in silence: Pamela’s silence in 1801 replaces a witty reply in previous editions, which led to an indecorous debate about marriage.
353. (p. 494) engagements to the world: debts.
354. (p. 494) Whole Duty of Man: a highly popular devotional work, first published in 1658; probably by Richard Allestree (1618–91), chaplain to the King and provost of Eton.
355. (p. 495) double chaise: carriage with four, as opposed to two, horses (‘chaise and pair’).
356. (p. 495) made their honours: curtsied.
357. (p. 496) brown: with brown hair and/or brown complexion.
358. (p. 499) half-pay officer: an officer receiving half-pay when not in actual service, or after retirement at a prescribed time.
359. (p. 501) her month was up: a month after childbirth.
360. (p. 502) Calne: in Wiltshire.
361. (p. 503) Crosby-square: a square of good houses, off Bishopgate.
362. (p. 503) flying-coach: a swift stagecoach.
363. (p. 505) arms to quarter: alluding to the practice of adding another’s coat of arms to one’s hereditary arms.
364. (p. 505) olive-branch: representing children; ‘thy children like olive plants round about thy table’ (Psalms, cxxviii. 3).
365. (p. 505) Paduasoy: a strong, corded silk fabric.
366. (p. 511) such a Herod: alluding to the story of Herod’s jealousy and eventual murder of his wife, Mariamne, as told by Flavius Josephus and translated into English by l’Estrange. Anna Howe refers to the same story in Clarissa, complaining that Lovelace loves Clarissa with ‘such a love as Herod loved his Mariamne’ (1748, IV, 340).
367. (p. 512) Philomel: the nightingale.
368. (p. 513) adorn: this poem, which was in the first edition of Pamela, is probably by Richardson himself.
369. (p. 514) You, my dear love… Humility: an insertion in 1801, intended to show that Pamela has poetic ability, as well as moral virtue. The verses may be by one of Richardson’s circle.
370. (p. 516) meeting: the meeting, which is indeed a happy one, is summarized by Richardson in a headnote to the Contents of Volume III; the old couple were ‘received by Mr B. with great kindness, and by their beloved daughter with transports of dutiful joy’.
* See p. 129. Her alterations and additions are there in a different character.
*The following is a copy of her father’s letter:
‘My dearest Daugh ter,
‘Our prayers are at length heard, and we are overwhelmed with joy. O what sufferings, what trials have you gone through! Blessed be the Divine Goodness, which has enabled you to withstand so many temptations! We have not yet had leisure to read through in course148 your long accounts of all your hardships. I say long, because I wonder how you could find time and opportunity for them; but otherwise, they are the delight of our spare hours; and we shall read them over and over, as long as we live, with thankfulness to God, who has given us so virtuous and so discreet a daughter. How happy is our lot, in the midst of our poverty! O let none ever think children a burden to them; when the poorest circumstances can produce so much riches in a Pamela! Persist, my dear daughter, in the same excellent course; and we shall not envy the highest estate, but defy the great world to produce such a daughter as ours.
‘I said, we had not read through all yours in course. We were too impatient, and so turned to the end; where we find your virtue within view of its reward, and your master’s heart turned to see the folly of his ways, and the injury he had intended to our dear child. For, to be sure, my dear, he would have ruined you, if he could. But seeing your virtue, his heart is touched, and he has, no doubt, been awakened by the Divine Goodness, rewarding your prudence.
‘We don’t see, that you can do any way so well, as to come into the present proposal, and make Mr Williams, the worthy Mr Williams! (God bless him) happy. And though we are poor, and can add no merit, no fortune to our dear child, but rather must be a disgrace to her, as the world will think; yet I ho
Your most indulgent Parents, Amen.
‘ Our humblest service and thanks to the worthy Mr Williams. Again, we say, God bless him for ever!
‘O what a deal we have to say to you! God give us a happy meeting! We understand the ‘squire is setting out for London. He is a fine gentleman. I wish he was as good. But I hope he will now reform.’
*The Lord is only my support,
And he that doth me feed:
How can I then lack any thing,
Whereof I stand in need?
In pastures green he feedeth me,
Where I do safely lie;
And after leads me to the streams,
Which run most pleasantly.
And when I find myself near lost,
Then doth he me home take;
Conducting me in his right paths,
E’en for his own name’s sake.
And though I were e’en at death’s door,
Yet would I fear no ill;
For both thy rod and shepherd’s crook
Afford me comfort still.
Thou hast my table richly spread
In presence of my foe:
Thou hast my head with balm refreshed;
My cup doth overflow:
And finally, while breath doth last,