His beau ideal, Grandison, turns out the most impossible prig in English literature.  He is as insufferable as that later prig, Meredith’s Sir Willoughby in “The Egotist,” with the difference that the author does not know it, and that you do not believe in him for a moment; whereas Meredith’s creation is appallingly true, a sort of simulacrum of us all.  The best of the story is in its portrayal of womankind; in particular, Sir Charles’ two loves, the English Harriet Byron and the Italian Clementina, the last of whom is enamored of him, but separated by religious differences.  Both are alive and though suffering in the reader’s estimation because of their devotion to such a stick as Grandison, nevertheless touch our interest to the quick.  The scene in which Grandison returns to Italy to see Clementina, whose reason, it is feared, is threatened because of her grief over his loss, is genuinely effective and affecting.

The mellifluous sentimentality, too, of the novelist seems to come to a climax in this book; justifying Taine’s satiric remark that “these phrases should be accompanied by a mandolin.”  The moral tag is infallibly supplied, as in all Richardson’s tales—­though perhaps here with an effect of crescendo.  We are still long years from that conception of art which holds that a beautiful thing may be allowed to speak for itself and need not be moraled down our throats like a physician’s prescription.  Yet Fielding had already, as we shall see, struck a wholesome note of satiric fun.  The plot is slight and centers in an abduction which, by the time it is used in the third novel, begins to pall as a device and to suggest paucity of invention.  The novel has the prime merit of brevity; it is much shorter than “Clarissa Harlowe,” but long enough, in all conscience, Harriet being blessed with the gift of gab, like all Richardson’s heroines.  “She follows the maxim of Clarissa,” says Lady Mary with telling humor, “of declaring all she thinks to all the people she sees without reflecting that in this mortal state of imperfection, fig-leaves are as necessary for our minds as our bodies.”  It is significant that this brilliant contemporary is very hard on Richardson’s characterization of women in this volume (which she says “sinks horribly"), whereas never a word has she to say in condemnation of the hero, who to the present critical eye seems the biggest blot on the performance.  How can we join the chorus of praise led by Harriet, now her ladyship and his loving spouse, when it chants:  “But could he be otherwise than the best of husbands who was the most dutiful of sons, who is the most affectionate of brothers, the most faithful of friends, who is good upon principle in every relation in life?” Lady Mary is also extremely severe on the novelist’s attempt to paint Italy; when he talks of it, says she, “it is plain he is no better acquainted with it than he is with the Kingdom of Mancomingo.”  It is probable tat Richardson could not say more for his Italian knowledge than did old Roger Ascham of Archery fame, when he declared:  “I was once in Italy, but I thank God my stay there was only nine days.”  “Sir Charles Grandison” has also the substantial advantage of ending well:  that is, if to marry Sir Charles can be so regarded, and certainly Harriet deemed it desirable.