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.

It is pleasant to think of Richardson, now well into the
sixties, amiable, plump and prosperous, surrounded for the
remainder of his days--he was to die seven years later at the
ripe age of seventy-five--by a bevy of admiring women, who,