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The Leadenhall Press Sixteenpenny Series.

Illustrated Gleanings from the Classics.
V^umber i.

SIR CHARLES

GRANDISON,

BY

SAMUEL RICHARDSON:

tiaaitlj %)\v 3inu0tration0
from the original copper-plates engraved in 1778

BY

ISAAC TAYLOR:

AND A PREFACE BY

JOHN OLDCASTLE.

PRICE

SIXTE EN-PENCE,

LOIVDON:

Field & Titer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C.

Simpkin, Marshall b Co.; Hamilton, Adams 6r Co.

New York : Scnbner & Welford, 743 6- 745- Broadway.

FIELD &■ TUER,

THE LEADENHALL PRESS, E.C.

T 4,284.

SIR CHARLES

GRANDISON

HS2.'i2.'J

The Leadenhall Press Sixteenpenny Series.

Illustrated Gleanings from the Classics,

C^o. I. — Sir Charles Grandison,

by Samuel Richardson. With Six Illustrations from
the original copper-plates engraved in 1778 by ISAAC
Taylor : and a Preface by John Oldcastle.

C^o. 2. — Solomon Gessner,

" The Swiss Theocritus." With Six Illustrations and
extra Portrait from the original copper-plates engraved in
1802 by Robert Cromek from Drawings by Thomas
Stothard, R.A. : and a Preface by John Oldcastle.

CONfENrS.

PAGE

The Author 7

The Book n

The Artist and the Engraver - - 17

Sir Charles Grandison Rescues Miss Byron 2 3

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1778-

Sir Thomas Grandison and his Daughters 25

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1778-

Sir Charles Grandison Saves Jeronymo 27

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1778.

Sir Charles Grandison Reconciles

Sir Harry and Lady Beauchamp - 29

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1 778.

Clementina and her Family - - - 31

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1778.

Coming Home to Grandison Hall - - 33

With an Illustration
from the Original Copper-Plate engraved in 1778,

"PVBLlSHQTi^S V^OTQ.

In the days ivhen wood-engraving as now practised^
and when lithography^ zincography^ photography^ and
ihe thousand and one mechanical processes for cheap
and direct reproduction of the artist'' s drawing were
practically unknown^ illustrations were perforce almost
entirely confined to direct impressions from engraved
copperplates. The minor as well as the more important
works of the best engravers of that elastic period find
a safe refuge in the folio of the art collector. But
only a few of the original copperplates have escaped
the melting pot., and impressions from some of the more
finely engraved of these are here presented. Each
one has been carefully and separately struck off direct
from the original copperplate itself — the only method
of printing by which the minuteness and beauty of the
engraved work can be properly rendered.

The parts of the Sixteenpenny Series of
Illustrated Gleanings from the Classics
will be uniform in size, so that the few it is
possible to produce may, if desired, eventually
be bound in a volume.

Notice to Binder. — The parts should be bound
with an India-rubber back, so as to ensure the volume
opening perfectly flat.

The t^uthor.

N a world which boasts,
or laments, that " of
making books there
is no end," every year
necessarily adds to
our store of imperish-
able literary treasures.
Every year, therefore, increases the number
of books which deserve to be read and
multiplied, and for those whose lives can-
not be passed in a library, the difficulty of

( 7 )

becoming acquainted with as much of the
literature of even their own country as
claims to be immortal becomes annually
greater. Even our own young generation,
in the struggle and fever of life, find that
time fails for making acquaintance with
the heroes and heroines dear to the hearts
of their predecessors. And perhaps one
of the first of our classic authors to be
thrust aside is that leisurely and voluble
author who delighted our grandmothers
with portraits of " the best of men," and
our grandfathers with delineations of the
"most excellent of women."

Richardson was born in Derbyshire, in
1689. The son of a printer, he was ap-
prenticed at the age of fifteen to a printer
in London. It was characteristic of his
deliberateness that he took half a century
to discover he was a fine author. For he

( 8 )

was fifty when he wrote Pamela^ which,
with a speed unknown to its creator, made
haste into five editions. Eight years later,
Clarissa Harlowe appeared ; and four
years after that. The History of Sir Charles
Grandison, in which Richardson designed
to draw the character of a christian
gentleman. It was a venturesome under-
taking on the part of the old bookseller,
writing in a back-shop, and in an age of
license and of false honour. Yet how^ well
he succeeded is seen by the great con-
temporary fame he (very keenly) enjoved,
and by the fact that his graceful pages
retain for fastidious readers to-day the
fascinations they first exercised over fine
ladies in the Ranelagh Gardens, who
triumphantly waved Richardson's volumes
— fresh from the press — before the eyes of
envious beholders who possessed them not.

(I ( 9 )

This maker and printer of books — an
ideal combination — had lived for seventy-
two years, when he died in 1761. His
declining days were soothed by the
friendship of many ladies, who repaid with
tenderness the true homage Richardson
had offered in his pages to their sex. Nor
was this all he gained from his worship
of womanhood. For it was his gallantry,
of a good kind, which did more than any-
thing else to educate and to develop him
— freeing him from ignorances and limita-
tions common to his time. May the same
dear devotion have always similar and
sweet rewards !

JOHN OLDCASTLE.

The (Book.

*

^

F all Richardson's
books, Grandison is
perhaps the most con-
spicuously unknown.
Clarissa Harlowe,
shortened, has been
kept, by its strong
incidents, among the books which are
familiar ; and Pamela is doubtless looked
into on account of the fame of the
literary retort which it provoked. But
The History of Sir Charles Grandison

( II )

must be taken according to the authors
own intention, or not at all.

It is a pity that it should not be
taken at all. The book is full of charm.
We even venture to say that no one
reading it with dramatic reference to time
and manners would seriously wish to
shorten its polysyllables, or moderate its
gush, its tears, its sprightliness, its per-
fectly high-bred and graceful twaddle,
or would diminish the number of Sir
Charles's virtues, accomplishments, or
adorers. The " best of men " is really a
very fine, generous, and delicate gentle-
man. The old bookseller who drew him
set his heart upon making a virtuous
contemporary Christian, who should not
be a milksop ; and the little absurdities of
the book ought not to impair the import-
ance of the fact that he succeeded.

( 12 )

The whole being in the form of letters
— such letters ! " the loveliest of her sex "
must have given all her days and all her
nights, and they would not have sufficed,
to her correspondence — Richardson has
presented his hero dramatically, through
the narratives of the other characters,
whose virtues he encourages, whose vices
he reforms, whose faults he forgives,
whose good looks he outshines, whose
dancing, fencing, wooing, and praying he
outdoes. Thus the whole book has the
effect of a chorus of admiration. Miss
Byron narrowly escapes a decline through
her suspense as to the state of his affect-
ions, while the excellent Clementina, in
Bologna, goes mad for love of him, and
the reprehensible Olivia, at Florence,
makes attempts upon his life and liberty
in the vindictiveness of her love, and the
ingenuous Miss Jervois spends her time in

( i3 )

tears. Miss Byron, the chosen one and
thus " the happiest woman in England,"
must be shown worthy of such a man,
and so we have infinite correspondence
on her beauties of mind and person.

The minor characters, at which Rich-
ardson did not labour with so careful a
hand, are really admirable. Lady G.'s
letters are charming, even now, although
the fashions in fun change so much ; Sir
Charles's " awful dad " (we really beg
pardon for using slang on a subject which
the best of men treats with such filial re-
spect and such circumspection) is cleverly
sketched ; and the Italian group (excepting
perhaps the ill-behaved Olivia) are very
good for the untravelled time at which
Sir Charles, Grandison was written.

The story consists simply in the de-
liberations and difficulties of Sir Charles's

( 14 )

choice in marriage. Before he had seen
the amiable Byron he had felt a pure
flame for the admirable Clementina, who
has conscientious objections to marrying
a Protestant. Sir Charles had promised
this lady her own confessor, her chapel,
and the education of daughters, but
Clementina fears that his virtues and his
goodness might some day wean her in-
sensibly from her faith, and she struggles
against her feelings at the (temporary)
expense of her reason. Grandison inci-
dentally reforms her brother Jeronymo,
who is addicted to light courses. He
returns to England to save from forcible
marriage Harriet Byron, whom one of
her innumerable adorers has kidnapped
after a masquerade, and is hurrying across
Hounslow Heath in a " chariot." Sir
Charles's two sisters, Lady L. and Charlotte
Grandison (afterwards Lady G.) swear

( 15 )

eternal friendship with Harriet, and re-
count to her the family history, including
the tyrannical behaviour of the late
naughty Sir Thomas to his children.
After innumerable scenes of high sensi-
bility, Clementina decides against her
English suitor, and Sir Charles is free to
make the lovliest woman in the world his
own. Incidentally he does a quantity of
good works — among them being the
reconciliation of Sir Harry Beauchamp
and his unmanageable wife, who had
l|ad a long dispute about the younger
Beauchamp. So much will make the
illustrat ons intelligible to those who have
not read the complete work.

The f^Artist and the

Sngraver.

SAAC Taylor, Stot-
hard's competitor in
the illustration of
"Grandison," was
one of many artists
who, in the course
of the history of de-
sign, have entered the studio by way of
the silversmith's workshop — a way ap-
proved by Mr. Ruskin. He was born in

b ( 17 )

1730, and was the son of a provincial
brass founder, and in this business did
his first engraved work on metal. But
some change of conditions sent him in
his youth, on foot, to London, destitute
and quite alone. He was lucky in finding
immediate employment with a silversmith,
was industrious, prospered, and married.
By degrees he began to produce en-
gravings for the Gentleman' s Magazine^
which, with its peculiarly dismal plates,
seems to have been a kind of nursery
for young reputations in its day. Other
magazines employed his graver, and he
was encouraged to begin design, so that
we find him in 1766-70 engraving and
exhibiting his book illustrations.

The " Sir Charles Grandison " was his
magnum opus. He had the sympathy of
affinity wnth his author. Richardson's

( 18 )

naif sentimentality, his elaborate scenes,
over-explicit and minute, in which nothing
— not a word, or look, or tone — was left
to the imagination of the reader, his
propriety and state, all had their counter-
part in Taylor's illustrations. Both men
loved to add fact to fact, and line to line ;
all corners are explored, all accessories
emphatically explained. The modern
novelist will sometimes record an action
and leave you to infer the motive from
what he has told you of the person's
character, and the modern illustrator wiU
leave you in the dark as to the precise
way in which a lady's frill is finished, or
the pattern in a carpet repeated. But
Isaac Taylor and Richardson will permit
no such mysteries.

The artist's explicitness in costume can
scarcely be appreciated at a glance. A

( 19 )

lady, minded to go to a bal poudre as a
graceful Miss Grandison, or as the lovely
Harriet herself, could perfectly well have
a complete fancy costume made after Lady
Grandison's coming-home attire, or the
dinner dresses of Caroline and Charlotte.
See the conscientious way in which Taylor
has varied the trimming of these two
ladies' skirts, and the perfect manner in
which he has rendered the several textures
in the "head" of the weeping Caroline —
the taffeta puff, the quilled ribbon, the
lapet of exquisite lace that lies on her
powdered hair. See also Lady Beau-
champ's still more fearful and wonderful
coiffure, and the lace pendant therefrom.
And Sir Charles's travelling dress, en-
closing a figure which, allowing for the
long-bodied and short-legged ideal of the
day, is exquisitely drawn — so solid, clean,
and clear. See also the dress of the

( 20 )

General in the Porretta Palace, and the
mosaic marble pavement. The ecclesi-
astical costume has evidently presented
some difficulty to the realistic Taylor, but
he came nearer to the facts than Stot-
hard, who put his Bolognese Bishop into
a surplice. And all Taylor's extraordinary
detail is expressed precisely as he in-
tended. He "interpreted" himself, and
thus had no engraver's misapprehensions
to complain of. Moreover, his labour is
all the more direct and unmistakeable,
inasmuch as he engraved directly on the
metal. That means of engraving bids fair
to become, in time, one of several lost
arts, of which the place is taken by new
handicrafts. The many mechanical pro-
cesses now in use have driven out the
human precision of Taylor's method, but
the relics we have of it will never lose
their value. Energy, dramatic power, or

( 21 )

singular grace cannot be claimed for him,
but he was beforehand with the Pre-ra-
phaelite movement — in part at least of its
principles and practice.

'Ii:i.u luvh-r Ml. I .■.■„//• ^

I'liLlMieA as tlio A.-rdJrocts ...'\rtmo 1778 JiyT.CaH.-lI in liio Siraiid.

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The Illustrations.

^^4^

81% CHqAT{L&S GliQAOSi'BISOT^
1{SSCU6S miss "BYlipC^a.

The following is a passage from Sir Charles
Grandison's account of his rescue of Miss Byron
from the hands of Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. He
has heard a lady scream from the flying carriage,
has challenged, stopped, and felled her captor.

HAD not drawn my sword :
I hope I never shall be pro-
voked to do it in a private
quarrel . . . The lady,
though greatly terrified, had
disengaged herself from the
cloak. I had not leisure to
consider her dress ; but I was struck with her

( 23 )

figure, and more with her terror . . . Have
you not read . . . (Pliny, I think, gives the
relation) of a frightened bird that, pursued by a
hawk, flew for protection into the bosom of a man
passing by ? In like manner, your lovely cousin,
the moment I returned to the chariot door, instead
of accepting of my offered hand, threw herself into
my arms. " O save me ! save me ! " She was
ready to faint . . . I carried the lovely creature
round Sir Hargrave's horses, and seated her in my
chariot. " Be assured, Madam," said I, " that you
are in honourable hands."

I'ublifliedas t]ic Act -luoots iIViuk- ly-S.In-T.CaaeJI in rhe Strand .

5/7^ THOmoAS GT{(iA7^<THS0VSi
QA7^n:> HIS "BcAUGHT&liS.

*******

Miss Byron writes out to her chief correspond-
ent, Lucy, the account given to her by Sir Charles's
sisters of their early sufferings from their father's
cruelt)'. The meek Caroline had accepted the
blameless addresses of Lord L., and the spirited
Charlotte had abetted her. Sir Thomas, for no
particular reason, except that he was a rake, and
therefore unjust and suspicious, had resolved to
make the path of true love as rough as possible.
He had summoned the damsels from their weeping
upstairs to attend him at dinner (their "heads"
announce full dress), and to be bullied afterwards
in the drawing room. The scene is told at
immense length.

c ( 25 )

IR Thomas : — " Let me know,
Caroline, what hopes you
have given to Lord L, — Or
rather, perhaps, what hopes
he has given you ? Why
are you silent ? Answer me,
girl."

Caroline :— " I hope, Sir, I shall not disgrace
my father in thinking well of Lord L."

******

Sir Thomas : — " Well, Charlotte, tell me, when
are yoti to begin to estrange from me your affections ?
When are you to begin to think that your Father
stands in the way of your happiness ? ''

******

" I could not help speaking here," said Miss
Grandison, " * Oh, Sir, how you wound me ! ' "

Fubliftietl as tlie Ai-l a.V.'ots iC.Jun,- lyya.WI'. rn<f.-!! iiillu- StrjiJuL

sill CHqA^L&S G1icAC\fDIS0C\^
SqAVQS J&TiOV^YeMO.

Sir Charles regains the friendship of Jeronymo
by saving his life, though the young Italian had
been estranged by our admirable Englishman's
reproof of his evil ways. Sir Charles writes :

SJeRONYMO pursued the ad-
venture which had occasioned
the difference ; and one of the
lady's admirers envying him
his supposed success, hired
Brescian bravoes to assassinate
him . . . They had got
him into their toils in a little thicket ... I,

( 27 )

attended by two servants, happened to be passing,
when a frightened horse ran across the way, his
bridle broken, and his saddle bloody. ... I
soon beheld a man struggling on the ground with
two ruffians ... I leapt out of the post-chaise
and drew my sword, running towards them as fast
as I could, calling as if I had a number with me.
On this they fled. I hastened to the unhappy
man : but how much was I surprised when I found
him to be the Barone della Porretta !

Ji:,„.T.,yl nil! ,

I'uVJJlieil as die Act directs i"Jimc lyyfi.tyT.Cadcll in tlie Strand .

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'i' ana'y /.a-/.v^y '^fX/-^cn<^'

5/^ CHoATiL^S GT^T^DISOT^

Ti&COVSiCILQS SI'li HqAT{T{Y qAU^T)

LqAT>Y 'BQqAUCHqA<£MT>.

The settlement of the Beauchamps' conjugal
quarrel is one of Sir Charles's most delicate achieve-
ments. He quells the stepmother's temper, brings
the father into courteous relation with his wife,
and gets /6oo a year, with arrears, for the "absent
youth." As usual, the episode ends with the
praises of the incomparable man :

( 29 )

OW, my dear Lady Beau-
champ," said I, . . . " permit
me to give you joy. All
doubts and misgivings so
triumphantly got over, so
solid a foundation laid for
family harmony. What was
the rnoment of your nuptials to this ? Sir Harry,
I congratulate you : you may be, and I believe you
have been, as happy as most men ; but now you
will be still happier.

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FcAmiLY.

Richardson's English and Italian personages
alike are as eager to enter upon "scenes" as
moderns are to escape from those demonstrations
of sensibility. The book is indeed a series of scenes,
but those which take place in the noble family of
Porretta are naturally the most emotional. The
fifth illustration presents the incident of the general
entreaty to Clementina that she should consent to
bring herself to favour an Italian suitor. All the
members of the family meet m the room of the still
invalided Jeronymo, who writes to Sir Charles :

( 31 )

HEN did we all supplicate her
to oblige us. The General
was at first tenderly urgent ;
the Bishop besought her ; the
young Marchioness pressed
her ; my Mother took her
hand between both hers, and
in silent tears could only sigh over it ; and lastly,
my Father dropt down on one knee to her — " My
daughter, my child,'' said he, "oblige me." Your
Jeron5^mo could not restrain his tears. She fell
on her knees — "O my Father," said she, "rise,
or I shall die at your feet ! Rise, my Father ! "

T/ I J I / /

PnUifii'd as the Act dii-ocfs June i:'i7;fi,liv T. Caiiel] in tli,- SD-rinii.

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COcPHIC^G H0<£M6>
TO G%QAU^T>IS07<i HqALL.

Finally, Sir Charles takes his bride to the chief
of his ancestral houses, Grandison Hall, which
Harriet had not before seen. She writes :

T our alighting, Sir Charles
(after paying his compliments
in a most respectful manner
to Lady W.) clasping me in
his arms, "I congratulate you,
my dearest life," said he, ** on
your entrance into your own
house. The last Lady Grandison and the present
might challenge the whole British Nation to pro-

( 33 )

duce their equals." Then turning to every one of
his guests, those of my family first, as they were
strangers to the place, he said the kindest, the
politest things that ever proceeded from the mouth
of man. I wept for joy, I would have spoken, but
could not. Everybody congratulated the happy
Harriet. Dr. Bartlett [the excellent Chaplain] was
approaching to welcome us, but drew back until
our mutual congratulations were over. He then
appeared. " I present to you, my dear Dr.
Bartlett," said the best of men, " the lovely friend
whom you have so long wished to see mistress of
this house." ..." God bless you, Madam ! "
tears in his eyes, " God bless you both ! " Then
kissed my offered cheek. He could say no more :
I could not speak distinctly.

:K

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