March 1754, a few months before Fielding left for Lisbon. Before Fielding died in Lisbon, he included a response to Richardson in his preface to Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon. Structure The epistolary form unites The History of Sir Charles Grandison with Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa, but Richardson uses the form in a different way for his final work. In Clarissa, the letters emphasise the plot's drama, especially when Lovelace alters Clarissa's letters. However, the dramatic mood is replaced in Grandison with a celebration of Grandison's moral character. In addition to this lack of dramatic emphasis, the letters of Grandison do not serve to develop character, as the moral core of each character is already complete at the outset. In Richardson's previous novels, the letters operated as a way to express internal feelings and describe the private lives of characters; however, the letters of Grandison serve a public function. The letters are not kept to individuals, but forwarded to others to inform a larger community of the novel's action. In return, letters share the recipients' responses to the events detailed within the letters. This sharing of personal feelings transforms the individual responders into a chorus that praises the actions of Grandison, Harriet, and Clementina. Furthermore, this chorus of characters emphasises the importance of the written word over the merely subjective, even saying that "Love declared on paper means far more than love declared orally". Themes 20th-century literary critic Carol Flynn characterises Sir Charles Grandison as a "man of feeling who truly cannot be said to feel". Flynn claims that Grandison is filled with sexual passions that never come to light, and he represents a perfect moral character in regards to respecting others. Unlike Richardson's previous novel Clarissa, there is an emphasis on society and how moral characteristics are viewed by the public. As such, Grandison stresses characters acting in the socially accepted ways instead of following their emotional impulses. The psychological realism of Richardson's earlier work gives way to the expression of exemplars. In essence, Grandison promises "spiritual health and happiness to all who follow the good man's exemplary pattern". This can be taken as a sort of "political model of the wise ruler", especially with Charles's somewhat pacifist methods of achieving his goals. Although Flynn believes that Grandison represents a moral character, she finds Grandison's "goodness" "repellent". Richardson's other characters, like Clarissa, also exhibit high moral characters, but