Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to draw the portrait of a man of _true honor_; "acting uniformly well through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and virtue; of liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself, and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model. "Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial. But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb, and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles, our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended to remedy.