Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4: The return to Italy

Image: Internet Archive

In Volume 3 of Sir Charles Grandison, by allowing Harriet to read his letters Sir Charles informs her of his prior attachment to Lady Clementina, the daughter of a noble Italian family whom he met during his exile from England. However, apparently insurmountable religious differences and her family's hostility to the match have separated the couple.

The fourth volume features returns of various kinds:

• Harriet, after a long stay with Sir Charles' family, returns to her relatives in Northamptonshire

• The Countess of D. renews her campaign to win Harriet's hand in marriage for her son, the Earl of D.

• Lady Olivia returns to her attack (literally) on Sir Charles' chastity

• Charlotte Grandison is commanded to reconsider a suitor in whom she has declared a decided indifference
   
• And Sir Charles returns to Italy to visit Lady Clementina.

All of these returns bring up the question of repetition in Sir Charles Grandison. A certain amount of repetition is built into the epistolary form, as the same events get described from different perspectives. Some authors have used this to advantage. In The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), Tobias Smollett creates comedy from the deflation, complication or contradiction of one person's account of events by other correspondents.

Repetition in Sir Charles Grandison is not generally used in the service of humor, unfortunately. Instead, it is used to reinforce character traits (such as Sir Charles' endlessly demonstrated virtue, generosity and manliness), reintroduce narrative dilemmas (such as Harriet's uncertainty about whether Sir Charles returns her feelings), and recapitulate moral lessons (such as Sir Charles' strictures against duelling). As Terry Eagleton writes,

Walter Scott tells of an old lady who chose to hear Grandison read to her in preference to any other work, as she could fall asleep and wake up again without missing anything of the story. [1]

It's in Volume 4 that readers may begin to feel more than a bit like that old lady.

"A man whom there is no resisting": Sir Charles as matchmaker and marriage counselor

Over the course of the novel Sir Charles regularly acts as matchmaker and marriage counselor. In Volume 4:

• After extracting his elderly, gout-ridden uncle Lord W. from his extramarital relationship with his domineering servant Mrs. Giffard, Sir Charles arranges a marriage between Lord W. and the 34-year-old spinster Miss Mansfield. Miss Mansfield is the daughter of Lady Mansfield, a widow who has fallen into genteel poverty. 
  
  Miss Mansfield will act as Lord W.'s caregiver and, replacing Mrs. Giffard, as his household manager. And, should he still be capable of having sex, she may provide him with an heir. In return Lord W. will assure that she, her mother and her siblings are made financially secure for the rest of their lives. It seems a marriage based more nakedly than most on the exchange of money (his) for services (hers).
  
  The scene in which Sir Charles makes the marriage proposal on behalf of Lord W. to Lady Mansfield and her daughter (whom, by the way, Lord W. has never met) is remarkable: Miss Mansfield remains silent throughout, and finally accepts her fate mutely by bowing her head (as one bows one's head to the executioner). Sir Charles tells her, "I dare say that he will engage your gratitude, and I defy a good mind to separate love from gratitude." [2] The voiceless Miss Mansfield cannot afford to demur.

• Sir Charles reconciles Sir Harry Beauchamp with his quarrelsome wife. She was a wealthy widow who had wanted the handsome young Mr. Edward Beauchamp, Sir Harry's son and Sir Charles' friend, for a second husband. When Mr. Beauchamp turned her down ("perhaps with too little ceremony") and Sir Harry, knowing nothing of her interest in his son, began to pay his own addresses to her, she married Sir Harry to "put both father and son in her power." [3] The ill-advised marriage results in Edward Beauchamp's exile to the continent.
  
  Lady Beauchamp and Sir Harry argue heatedly about whether Edward should remain abroad; she wants him to remain on the Continent and Sir Harry wants him to return. But Sir Charles, using his charm and raillery, is finally able to win Lady Beauchamp over in spite of herself. Mr. Beauchamp is finally allowed to return to England and marital harmony is established.
  
  When Harriet learns of Sir Charles' behavior towards Lady Beauchamp, she writes Lucy:
  

  It absolutely convinces me, of what indeed I before suspected, that he has not an high opinion of our Sex in general. . .He treats us, in Lady Beauchamp, as perverse humoursome babies, loving power, yet not knowing how to use it. [4]

"Sir Harry cleared up at once—May I hope, madam—and offered to take her hand."

Illustration engraved by Walker from a drawing by Stothard. image: Internet Archive

• Sir Charles' "opinion of [the] Sex" is even clearer in his treatment of his sister Charlotte. He all but forces her to accept as her betrothed Lord G., a suitor she considers nothing more than "a good natured silly man." In the eighteenth century, of course, marriage for women was not only a lifetime commitment, but due to the high rate of maternal mortality a life-threatening one.
  
  After Charlotte's reluctant acceptance of Lord G., Sir Charles insists on a quick marriage: within a week (!).  Although Charlotte is wracked by doubts, even at the church door, she finally resigns herself to the union: "'Do as you will—or rather, as my brother will.—What signifies opposing him?'"[6]

"Bad is my best": Emily and her mother.

"Anne saw her first, I alighted, and asked her blessing in the shop."
Illustration engraved by Walker from a drawing by Stothard. Image: Internet Archive

At the end of Volume 3 we were left with the suspicion that Emily was manipulating Harriet Byron with the ultimate aim of seducing Sir Charles. In Volume 4 we learn that Emily has been borrowing substantial sums of money from Sir Charles' sisters Lady L. and Charlotte Grandison/Lady G. and purchasing goods (including a carriage) for her mother with the aim of "enlarging her power to live handsomely." [7] Again, our suspicions are raised. Our concern is heightened when Sir Charles, at Emily's urging, raises her mother's allowance to four hundred pounds a year. Instead of antagonists, are Emily and her mother really in league?

"Vindictive, even to a criminal degree": Lady Olivia.

"She pulled out of her stays, in fury, a poniard, and vowed to plunge it into his heart." 

Drawn and engraved by R. Vinkeles, 1799. Image: Internet Archive

Sir Charles met the tempestuous, passionate Lady Olivia during his first visit to Italy. Now she has followed him to England, willing to abandon her religion and relations if Sir Charles will accept her. Instead, he tells her that he is about to embark on a return journey to Italy to visit Clementina and renew his promise of marriage to her.

She would have had him put off his journey. She was enraged because he would not; and they were high together; and at last she pulled out of her stays, in fury, a poniard, and vowed to plunge it into his heart. He should never, she said, see his Clementina more. He went to her. Her heart failed her. . .He took it from her. [8]

Sir Charles leaves for Italy as planned; Lady Olivia decides to stay in England until his return, seeking hope in a hopeless situation.

"They had by terror broke her spirit": Lady Clementina's trials.

"She heard them, and screamed, and leaving the ladder, ran, to avoid them, till she came in sight of the great cascade."

Illustration engraved by Heath from a drawing by Stothard. Image: Internet Archive

In Sir Charles' absence Lady Clementina has been turned over to Lady Sforza and her daughter Laurana to see if their "harsh methods" will succeed in bringing her out of her despondency. But the mother and daughter have ulterior motives for their severe treatment of Clementina: if Clementina enters a convent to escape her severe treatment, a vast estate originally intended for her will instead be inherited by Laurana. And Laurana is hoping not just for riches, but for a husband. As the Marchioness della Porretta tells Sir Charles:

We suspected not till very lately, that Laurana was deeply in love with the Count of Belvedere; and that her mother and she had views to drive our sweet child into a convent, that Laurana might enjoy the estate; which they hoped would be an inducement to the Count to marry her. . .

Can we so reward Laurana for her cruelty? Especially now, that we suspect the motives for her barbarity? Could I have thought that my sister Sforza—But what will not Love and Avarice do, their powers united to compass the same end; the one reigning in the bosom of the daughter, the other in that of the mother? Alas! alas! they have, between them, broken the spirit of my Clementina. [9]

Sir Charles' return to Italy.

In Volume 3, Sir Charles had left Italy knowing that Lady Clementina's brothers (except his friend Jeronymo) vigorously, not to say heatedly, opposed their marriage. But time and the persistence of Lady Clementina's mental distress have softened their hostility, and some members of the family have asked him to return to see if fulfilling Lady Clementina's request to have another audience with Sir Charles will bring her calm.

Sir Charles also intends to renew his friendship with Jeronymo, whose life he saved in Volume 3. However, the wounds Jeronymo received from his would-be assassins have stubbornly refused to heal. On his return to Italy Sir Charles has brought with him Mr. Lowther, a skilled surgeon, to attend to both Jeronymo's wounds and Lady Clementina's "disturbed intellects."

The della Porretta family has invited Sir Charles to return; will they also allow the renewal of his marriage proposal to Lady Clementina? And if so, will she now accept his terms?

Next time: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 5: Italy vs. England

Last time: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 3: The mystery revealed

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1.  Quoted in Terry Eagleton, The Rape of Clarissa, University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 96-97.
2. Samuel Richardson, Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter II. Miss [HARRIET] BYRON[, To Miss LUCY SELBY]. In Continuation.
3. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 2, Letter XXXVII. Dr. Bartlett[, To Miss BYRON]. In Continuation.
4. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter III. Miss [HARRIET] BYRON[, To Miss LUCY SELBY]. In Continuation.
5. Loudon I. (1986). Deaths in childbed from the eighteenth century to 1935. Medical history, 30(1), 1–41. doi:10.1017/s0025727300045014. According to this study, between 5 and 29 of every 1000 births resulted in the death of the mother. These figures do not count maternal morbidity, which involves death from complications of pregnancy or birth. 
6. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter XV. Miss [HARRIET] BYRON[, To Miss SELBY]. In Continuation.
7. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter XXXIV. Miss JERVOIS, TO Miss BYRON.
8. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter XXIV. Miss [HARRIET] BYRON[, To Miss SELBY]. In Continuation.
9. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4, Letter XL. Sir CHARLES GRANDISON, To Dr. BARTLETT.