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B to R Late May-June 1751 (B, VI, 101-105, 109).
Lady Bradshaigh's Late May-June letter makes one of her "very best courtesies" to Sir Charles Grandison, whom Richardson has finally introduced to her. From the fact that Sir Charles has finally appeared and from Richardson's other letters, this letter can be placed as having been written in late May or in June.
On 2 May Richardson wrote Thomas Edwards, "After long, long Traveling I think I have found ye good Man; just found him: But you, Sir, & an auxiliary Lady or two must correct, adorn & finish him" (FM, XII, I, ff. 99-100). The "auxiliary Lady" was, of course, Lady Bradshaigh. Richardson had, in fact, described him to her in May as "your good man (your's he is—he owes the existence he has to you)", and so Richardson would have obviously sent her the character as soon as he had finished him. Lady Bradshaigh in her letter of Late May-June declines, though, to "correct, adorn & finish him" with the words "I 'tell you what I would have done!' Dear Sir, ask your own mind what I would have done: the dictates of that must be what I would have done" (B, VI, 102). Considering the circumstances and these words, Lady Bradshaigh's letter was probably written about the same time Richardson wrote Thomas Edwards. It is hard to imagine that it was written after 1 July, for around that date Sir Charles was given to the world, via a reading which Susanna Highmore was present at and recorded in a letter to Hester Mulso. (See Eaves and Kimpel, p. 372.) By 11 July Richardson himself had written Miss Mulso about Sir Charles. He would certainly have given Sir Charles to Lady Bradshaigh before Miss Mulso, and since he wanted Lady Bradshaigh to help "correct" Sir Charles, it is virtually impossible to imagine that he would have given the public reading before she had met the character. Lady Bradshaigh's letter, therefore, must have been written in late May or June of 1751.
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