Richardson’s chief defects as a novelist are:
(i) He had no knowledge of the upper classes and his ‘genteel’ character, therefore, tend to be artificial and unnatural.
(ii) On the comic side he is weak. He throws the comic part on young ladies who are in no way suited to perform it.
(iii) He is frequently intolerably lengthy and verbose. He lacs the epic breadth and comprehends sweep of Fielding. His picture of life is a limited one.