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Sir Charles Grandison: The Anglican Family and the Admirable Roman Catholic

2003; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/ecf.2003.0029

1911-0243

Teri Doerksen,

Scottish History and National Identity

SzV Charles Grandison: The Anglican Family and the Admirable Roman Catholic Teri Doerksen Religious difference and its import are discussed extensively in Samuel Richardson's final novel, Sir Charles Grandison, and, in an extremely unusual move for an eighteenth-century English author, the novel presents Roman Catholic characters who are admirable and worthy of emulation in their own right. Richardson's final novel presents a starding contrast to the virulendy anti-Cadiolic sentiments prevalent in eighteenth-century popular writing and made evident in characters such as Laurence Sterne's "papist" Dr Slop, whose tendency to cross himself inspires the narrator to exclaim, "Pugh!" in disgusL1 While critics have noted this feature ofRichardson's writing, they generally stress the anti-Catholicism that he does not display; as Sylvia Kasey Marks succinctly puts it: "Catholics, of course, were viewed unsympadietically in England. Nevertheless, there are no sneaking Jesuits or odd abbesses in Grandison."2 Margaret Anne Doody suggests that the tolerance in Sir Charles Grandison is a natural extension of the elements of Cadiolic tradition incorporated into Clarissa: "His Anglicanism is not antipathetic to some elements of 1 Laurence Sterne, Vie Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy, Gentleman, ed. Melvyn New and Joan New (Gainesville: University Presses ofFlorida, 1978), 1:122. 2 Sylvia Kasey Marks, Sir Citarles Grandison: Vie Compleat Conduct Book (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1986), p. 59. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 15, Number 3-4, April-July 2003 540 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Catholicism (witness the elements ofsaint's legend in Clarissa), and imaginatively he is surprisingly ready to sympathize and unwilling to condemn. We do not hear from him the fulminations against priestcraft, tyranny, absurdity, and tawdry ceremonywhich so readily emanate from the pens ofDefoe or Charlotte Brontë."3 Both critics focus on what is missing from Richardson's presentation of Roman Catholicism, and the list is striking: condemnations, accusations, and stereotypes ofthe sort that these critics list are simply absentfrom the novel, exceptfor a single reference, by Sir Charles's somewhat laughable spinster aunt Eleanor, to "papistry" instead ofthe more respectful "Catholicism."4 A significant distinction must be made between the point that Doody and Marks make and my own. They indicate diat Richardson does not demonize Roman Catholics, and indeed he does not; yet his characterization of the Italian Cadiolic characters is far more notable for the positive virtues that the della Porrettas display than for the negative ones that fail to appear: he presents Roman Catholic characters who, despite some human faults, are admirable and wordiy of praise and emulation, even by the English characters. There is evidence that Richardson worked hard to achieve diis parity between his English characters and his Italian ones. In a letter ofJuly 1753 to Alexis Claude Clairaut, Richardson describes his efforts to characterize the Protestant Sir Charles and the Roman Catholic Clementina, who is in love with him: I shall be greatly disappointed, ifI have not done as much Honour to the Lady for her Zeal and Steadfastness, and that from motives that could not be found fault with at Rome; as to the Gentleman ... this Part is one of those that I value myself most upon, having been as zealous a Catholic when I was to personate the Lady, and her Catholic Friends, as a Protestant, when I was the Gentleman.5 Even Clementina's confessor is portrayed as a worthy man; this was extremely unusual in anywritten representation ofa Roman Catholic priest by an Anglican. Richardson notes in the same letter to Clairaut 3 MargaretAnne Doody, A NaturalPassion: A Study oftlieNovels ofSamuelRichardson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 322. 4 Samuel Richardson, Sir Charles dandismi, ed.Jocelyn Harris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 2:658. References are to this edition. 5 John Carroll, Selected Letters of Samuel Richaidson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 236-38. SIR CHARLES GRANDISON541 that "a very eminent Clergyman told me ... that I should be thought by some, to be more of a Catholic than a Protestant, for that I had made as amiable a Confessor, as a Protestant Divine."6 To say that the Roman Catholic characters are made admirable in the text does not suggest that Sir Charles Grandison erases, or even attempts to erase...