No More Learning

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5692
EUGENE FIELD
In Ipswich once a witch I knew,—
An artless Saxon witch was she;
By that flaxen hair and those eyes of blue,
Sweet was the spell she cast on me.
Alas! but the years have wrought me ill,
And the heart that is old and battered and chill
Seeketh again on Heart-Break Hill
What was, but never again can be.
Dear Anna, I would not conjure down
The ghost that cometh to solace me;
I love to think of old Ipswich town,
Where somewhat better than friends were we;
For with every thought of the dear old place
Cometh again the tender grace
Of a Saxon witch's pretty face,
As it was, and is, and ever shall be.


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5693
HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux.
In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding-as he again tells us - means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
<


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Gravi d'apres Reynolds par CaseADE
HENRY FIELDING


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to
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HENRY FELDING


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5693
HENRY FIELDING
-
(1707-1754)
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
AM," says Fielding incidentally, in his most famous novel,
"the founder of a new province of writing. " The claim,
though bold, is certainly not groundless. The English novel,
as we know it, has in the main been developed upon the lines laid
down by Fielding. It is true that Fielding, like every leader of a
new literary dynasty, inherited much from earlier rulers. He looked
back with reverence to Cervantes; and critics have shown that he
was influenced by Le Sage, and more distinctly by Marivaux. In Eng-
lish literature, Defoe and Richardson in some respects anticipated
him; but with differences which show his originality. 'Robinson
Crusoe' is simply a narrative of facts, though the facts did not hap-
pen to take place. The author expects us to be interested in a
strange series of adventures, and is not consciously aiming at the
portrayal of life and character. Richardson, on the contrary, began
by composing edifying moral epistles, into which a story was intro-
duced by way of connecting thread. To his own mind the didactic
element always represented the ultimate aim; though his readers
become a good deal more interested in Clarissa than in the moral
which she was intended to point.
But Fielding as he again tells us — means deliberately to describe
"human nature. " Like Shakespeare before him or Scott after him,
he is to set before us impartially the world as it presented itself to
him; to give us living and moving types of the real human beings
whom he had seen acting under the ordinary conditions of contem-
porary society. The novel, thus understood, has grown and flourished
and taken many different forms. We wonder at times what our an-
cestors did to amuse themselves in the days before it was invented.
Contemporary moralists denounced the habit of frivolous reading as
they do now. What was the seduction to which these frivolous read-
ers yielded? They had novels in the old sense of the word, stories
such as had been once told by Boccaccio and had lately been fur-
bished up by Mrs. Behn. Or they might seek for more prolonged
enjoyment in the voluminous romances of the Grand Cyrus' kind,
which, hopelessly unreadable as they appear to us, were still intensely
fascinating to many readers; to Fielding's cousin Lady Mary Wortley
(


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5694
HENRY FIELDING
Montagu, for example, and to his contemporary Dr. Johnson. And
then, of course, the drama formed a larger proportion of light read-
ing than at present. But the comedy of the time to which they were
principally confined, brilliant as some of it is, shows but a very
limited aspect of human life. It introduced them to a smart game
of intrigue played by fine ladies and gentlemen, always clearly before
the footlights. The novel, with its flexibility, its freedom from all
external restrictions, enables us to enjoy to the full the pleasure-
obviously one of the greatest of pleasures-of steadily contemplating
ourselves. We do not see the characters by a single flash, as they
appear in some ingenious entanglement of affairs, but watch their
growth and development, their conduct through a whole series of
events, share their friendships and enmities, and are not prevented
from following them by the necessities of scenical representation.
Fielding showed his genius by perceiving the capabilities of the still
crude form of art, and he turned them to account in some directions
with a success scarcely surpassed.
Fielding explains his own theory of the art in some of those run-
ning commentaries in which some critics think-though I do not
that he indulged too freely. He aspired, as he tells us, to set forth
human nature. Naturally it had to be the human nature of his own
day, and of his own day in England; and a brief summary of his life
will show what that implies. Fielding's father was a soldier and
ultimately a general; but though connected with various great people,
he seems to have been always impecunious. Fielding, born April
22d, 1707, at Sharpham near Glastonbury, was sent to Eton, where he
was the contemporary of the elder Pitt, of Lyttelton, and of many
men who afterwards played a conspicuous part in the great game of
politics. Fielding, however, on leaving school had to leave the arena
in which a long purse was then essential. His father had married a
second time, and was burthened with a second family. Though he
made an allowance of £200 a year to Henry, it was an allowance,
said the son, which "anybody might pay who would. " Untroubled
by such considerations, he made love to a rich young lady, and even
put the young lady's guardian in fear of his life. Perhaps this per-
formance accounts for his being packed off to Leyden to study law.
Studying law, however, was not so much to his taste as writing
plays; and his first performance was acted when he was just of
age. Leyden and the law were soon deserted, and Fielding plunged
into the pleasures of a town life in London. He was six feet high,
strong and active, with enormous capacity for enjoyment and not
over-delicate in his tastes. Vigorous appetites and a narrow allow-
ance made some provision of ways and means essential. He had to
choose, said his cousin Lady Mary, between the trades of a hackney


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HENRY FIELDING
5695
coachman and a hackney author. The profession of author was just
coming into distinct existence; and the struggles and hardships of the
career have been commemorated by the best known authors of the
day.
Fielding belonged by birth to the social class which looked down
upon the hack author. Happily for itself, as Chesterfield remarked,
it had a more solid support than was to be found in its brains.
Fielding too had received a classical education, a fact which he is a
little too fond of indicating by allusions in his works. Play-writing
was the most gentlemanlike part of the profession, and therefore the
most attractive to the young man. The comedy presupposed some
familiarity with good society. Congreve, Addison, Steele, and many
others condescended to write plays, though they were also admitted
to the highest circles. Moreover, a successful play was more remu-
nerative than any other form of literary work. Gay had made a
little fortune by The Beggar's Opera. ' Fielding naturally followed
such examples with some gleams of success. It is indeed needless
for any one to read his performances now. He is, generally speak-
ing, in an artificial note, aping Congreve or adapting Molière. In
'Tom Thumb,' indeed,- a jovial burlesque, full of nonsense and high
spirit and broad satire, we see unmistakably the genuine Fielding.
It gave one of the only two pretexts, we are told, upon which Swift
ever indulged in a laugh.
<
The comedies may be kindly consigned to oblivion. There was
much else that Fielding would gladly have forgotten, in the part of
his life which most impressed his biographers. The reckless, jovial
rake, with pockets overflowing one day and empty the next, with a
velvet coat sometimes on his back and sometimes in pawn, some-
times admitted to the drawing-room of Lady Mary and then carous-
ing with boon companions in a tavern, or eclipsed for a period in the
sponging-house,—is the Fielding of this period, and has been taken
as the only Fielding. The scanty anecdotes which remain have
stamped the impression upon later readers. We are presented to
Fielding in the green-room, drinking champagne and chewing tobacco.
A friend has warned him that a passage in his play will offend the
audience. "Damn them! " he had replied, "let them find that out! "
The friend now reports that the audience are hissing. "Damn them! "
he exclaims, "they have found it out, have they? " The hisses, how-
ever, as we happen to know, affected him a good deal. Then we are
told how Fielding emptied his pockets into those of a poorer friend;
and when the tax-gatherer came, said, "Friendship has called for the
money; let the collector call again! " No doubt that was one aspect
of Fielding. To do him justice, it must be noted that a fuller record
would have shown some less equivocal proofs of good feeling.


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5696
HENRY FIELDING
We dimly make out that the chief incident of Fielding's dramatic
career was his share in a quarrel between Cibber, then manager, and
certain actors to whom, as Fielding thought, Cibber had behaved un-
fairly. Cibber, the smart, dapper little Frenchified coxcomb, was just
the type of all the qualities which Fielding most heartily despised;
and they fell foul of each other with great heartiness. On the other
hand, he was equally enthusiastic on behalf of his friends. Chief
among them were Hogarth, whose paintings are the best comment
on Fielding's novel, and Garrick, whom, though of very different tem-
perament, he admired and praised with the most cordial generosity.
«< Harry Fielding," as his familiars call him, was no doubt a wild
youth, but to all appearance a most trustworthy and warm-hearted
friend. Fielding moreover was a devoted lover. The facts about his
marriage are all uncertain: but we know that he courted Charlotte
Cradock of Salisbury; that he was writing poems to her in 1730, and
that he married her (probably) about 1735. If we wish to know what
Miss Cradock was like, we are referred to Sophia in 'Tom Jones';
and still more to Amelia. Amelia was his first wife, it is said,
«< even to that broken nose," which according to Johnson ruined the
success of the story. Both novels were written after her death, and
are indicative of a lasting passion, which, whatever else it may have
been, was worthy of a masculine and tender nature. Miss Cradock's
lover was not free from faults,- faults tangible enough and evidently
the cause of much bitter remorse; but he was at least a lover who
worshiped her with unstinted and manly devotion. The marriage,
which took place when he was about twenty-eight, changed his life.
Vague stories-dates and facts in Fielding's life, all of provoking
flimsiness and inconsistency-indicate that he tried to set up as a
country gentleman on some small property of his wife's; that the
neighboring squires spited the town wit, who, if not very refined, was
at least a writer of books, and therefore justly open to suspicion of
arrogance; but that Fielding himself, which is not surprising, made a
bad farmer; and that before long he was back in London, with his
finances again at the ebb and additional burthens to support. His
first effort was in his old line: he took a small theatre and brought
out a successful political farce. Walpole was at this time still at the
height of power, but a formidable and heterogeneous opposition was
gathering against him. Whigs, Tories, and Jacobites were uniting to
denounce corruption, which was right enough; but imagining, not so
rightly, that the fall of Walpole would imply the end of corruption.
Fielding was a hearty Whig; a believer in the British Constitution,
and a despiser of French frog-eaters, beggarly unbreeched Scots-
men, and Jacobites, and Papists, and all such obnoxious entities. He
joined heartily, however, in the cry against Walpole by his 'Pasquin:


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HENRY FIELDING
5697
A Dramatic Satire on the Times. ' The piece had a great run; and
Fielding, always sanguine, no doubt hoped that at last he was getting
his feet upon solid ground. But Walpole was a dangerous enemy.
He obtained the passage of an Act of Parliament which made it
necessary to obtain a license for plays.
Fielding's occupation was gone. It was quite plain that no license
would be given to farces aimed at the prime minister.
He gave up
the theatre and made another effort. He entered at one of the Inns
of Court and began to study the law. He was still only thirty-two,
and full of abundant energy. He would leave his tavern (perhaps it
would have been better not to have gone to it) to go home and pore
over "abstruse authors" till far into the night. He was called to the
bar in 1740, and duly attended the quarter-sessions. Briefs, however,
did not come. Then, as now, attorneys looked with some suspicion
upon men distracted by literary aims. Fielding, in fact, was obliged
to support himself during his legal studies by working at his old
trade. He tried the usual schemes of a professional author of those
days. He brought out a periodical on the Spectator model, called
the Champion. He wrote a Vindication' of the old Duchess of
Marlborough, for which the duchess paid five guineas,- only, we will
hope, an installment. During the rebellion of 1745, he published a
journal intended to arouse John Bull out of his apparent apathy. He
had already struck out another and more fruitful line. In 1742 he
brought out Joseph Andrews'-to indulge in a great guffaw at
Richardson's sentimental 'Pamela. ' As he developed the story he
fell in love with his characters as Dickens fell in love with Pickwick,
and became more serious in his aims. By this book he made about
£200, and his success encouraged him to publish by subscription in
1743 three volumes of 'Miscellanies. ' In those days a subscription
was a kind of joint-stock patronage, and showed chiefly that the
author had friends among "persons of quality. " Fielding probably
made £400 or £500, which was no doubt a welcome transient help.
The 'Miscellanies' include one of his most remarkable if not pleas-
antest performances, Jonathan Wild the Great. ' 'Joseph Andrews'
had shown his true power, and it is perhaps rather remarkable that
'Tom Jones' did not follow until 1749. Whatever Fielding's anxieties,
it is noticeable that he did his work as thoroughly as if he had been
independent of the pay. Before speaking of his literary perform-
ance, however, I will continue the story of his life.
His wife died at the end of 1743. His grief, it is said, was so
great that his friends feared the loss of his reason. He had how-
ever children to care for, and was too brave a man to relax in his
fight with the fates. He had still some hopes of success at the bar,
and at one moment, probably on some gleam of success, declared
X-357


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5698
HENRY FIELDING
that he would write no more. In 1747 he married Mary Daniel, who
had been an attached servant of his first wife. He did not know, he
said, where to find a better mother for his children or nurse for him-
self; and she seems to have justified his anticipations.
A patron or two had helped him during his struggles. Ralph
Allen, who had made a fortune by farming the posts, was a lover of
literature and a friend of Pope and Warburton. To Fielding, and to
Fielding's children after their father's death, he was a steady ben-
efactor, and Fielding showed his gratitude characteristically by por-
traying his friend as "Allworthy" in Tom Jones. ' Another patron,
by whom Fielding declared himself to have been mainly supported
during the composition of Tom Jones,' was his old schoolfellow
Lyttelton; and it was through Lyttelton that in 1748 Fielding was
appointed justice of the peace for Westminster. The office was a
singular one. In those days, and for at least two generations more,
London, though a large town even upon our present scale, was
merely an aggregation of villages. It had no systematic police.
Dogberry and Verges were still represented by decrepit watchmen
and stupid parish constables. They were ruled by magistrates who
were often of the family of Shallows and Silences. The chaos which
prevailed had at last induced Parliament to provide a paid and pro-
fessional magistrate. But according to the custom of those days,
he was to be paid by fees. The consequences are indicated by the
name of "trading justices" applied to these officials. Impartial and
speedy administration of justice was not the way to get fees. Field-
ing threw himself into his duties with characteristic energy. He
tried to be honest, and thereby reduced "£500 of the dirtiest money
on earth" to £300, most of which went to his clerk. He did his
best to call attention to abuses. He wrote a remarkable pamphlet
proposing a reform of the corrupting poor-laws. Another pamphlet
upon gin-drinking had great influence in producing the first Act which
attempted to discourage intemperance. He took up, perhaps with
more zeal than discretion, some of the strange tragedies which illus-
trated the squalor and misery of the London slums.
The queerest case was that of Betsy Canning, with which all Eng-
land rang for a year or two, and which is still worth reading in the
State Trials. A servant-girl in London had accounted for a month's
absence by inventing a story about having been kidnapped by gip-
sies. A gipsy was actually condemned for this imaginary offense:
but the girl herself was ultimately convicted of perjury and sent to
America to improve the morals of the colonists. Fielding believed
her story, took up her case with more than judicial warmth, and
exposed himself to some sharp criticism. He exerted himself, again,
to put down the highwaymen who flourished in the absence of police,


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HENRY FIELDING
5699
and who were regarded by Englishmen with a certain perverted
pride as exuberant products of British liberty. Fielding, while very
ill, set to work to devise a system for limiting their energies. Prac-
tically, I fear, it meant simply the employment of "trepans" who
betrayed the other members of their gangs. Fielding says however
that for the time he succeeded in putting down robbery, and sacri-
ficed his health in the effort. His constitution had in fact been
breaking down, from gout and an irregular life. His sanguine dispo-
sition led him to believe in one pretense of quackery after another:
in the great Bishop Berkeley's tar-water; in the treatment of the Dr.
Thompson who had already, it was said, killed Pope; and even in
the miraculous virtues of a well at Glastonbury. He was always
being "cured" without improving his health. At last he was sent to
Lisbon as a last hope. He sailed in the summer of 1754, and kept a
journal which remains to testify to his indomitable gallantry, buoyant
spirits, and flow of good-humor to the last. He died at Lisbon on
the 8th of October, 1754, leaving his widow and children to the care
of the kindly Allen and of his half-brother Sir John Fielding, who
had succeeded him as justice of the peace. The trust was worthily
discharged.
Till the age of twenty-eight, we see, Fielding had been a reckless
and impetuous pleasure-hunter. From that time till his death at the
age of forty-seven, he was engaged in a hard struggle to support
himself and his family and in an energetic attempt to do his duty in
a thankless office. The stains of the earlier period have injured his
memory, and it cannot be denied, imply serious moral defects; but
here I must touch the inevitable argument. It is most true that to
judge any man justly you must allow for the moral standard of his
time. Advantage, however, is often taken of this truth to draw ques-
tionable consequences. Whenever it is proved that a man broke one
of the Ten Commandments, it is roundly replied that in his day there
were only nine. Therefore, it is inferred, his want of honesty or de-
cency ceases to be a defect. Both fact and inference are often doubt-
ful. Fielding, for example, makes Tom Jones guilty of taking money
from a woman under circumstances which we all feel to be degrad-
ing.
Nobody, it is replied, thought such conduct degrading then. I
utterly disbelieve the fact. A similar story is told of Marlborough,
and perhaps it was true; but it was certainly told by a malicious
libeler, and was meant to injure him. I feel sure that not only
Richardson and Johnson, who were obtrusively moralists, but such
men as Addison or even the easy-going Steele, would have thought
of Tom Jones just what Colonel Newcome thought. Some of our
ancestors were gentlemen, with feelings of delicacy, and should not
be libeled even to save a novelist's reputation. And in any case,


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HENRY FIELDING
5700
such a statement would explain the fact but does not alter it for
us. Coarseness is rightly disgusting, though we may show how men
came to be coarse, and perhaps show too that it did not then imply
all that it would imply in the present day.
Nothing, indeed, is more difficult than to compare the moral stand-
ard of a distant time with that of our own. That vice was common
in England under Anne and the Georges, is undeniable; but I do not
know that it is altogether extinct to-day. I fancy that a modern
police magistrate could still tell us stories which would prove that
the world, the flesh, and the Devil have not yet been renounced by
everybody. M. Zola's world does not seem to be purer than Field-
ing's. Look beneath the surface anywhere and you can find ugly
things enough, especially if you have a taste for the revolting.
It is easier, no doubt, to judge of the surface; and there we may
find an explanation, though not a justification, of Fielding's obtuse-
ness on certain points. He was in the world of fiction what Wal-
pole was in the world of politics. Both of them were men of strong
common-sense, and of great qualities which were strangely mixed
with much that is coarse and repulsive. They were both given to
boisterous conviviality, to vast consumption of "the roast beef of old
England," and to tremendous post-prandial sittings over their bottles,
at which the talk was no more delicate than the fare. They indulged
in cock-fighting, and cudgel-playing, and rough practical joking, till
we fancy that only a pugilist or a rough of to-day could find such an
atmosphere congenial. Such tastes however could be combined with
a real love of art and literature: Walpole, for example, collected a
great picture gallery; and he and his like often studied the classics
like men of the world, if not like scholars. Neither can it be said
that in the days when the British Empire was being built up, there
was a want of public spirit or energy, though some of the accepted
modes of political warfare were base enough. We are liable to mis-
understandings if we argue from the want of refinement to the want
of some high mental and moral qualities; though undoubtedly we
find a strange obtuseness upon some points of the moral code, where
higher views and more delicate sensibilities are required.
Fielding's novels illustrate this as clearly as his friend Hogarth's
pictures. Both of them portray scenes now and then which grate
upon our nerves, and show a coarseness of fibre which would to-day
have to be sought in the lower haunts of debauchery. What we
have to remember is that such faults were then not inconsistent with
some excellences which they would now exclude. In the case of
Fielding, we can have no difficulty in recognizing many of the highest
qualities. In the first place, his novels are a genuine extract of hard-
bought experience. They are conspicuous for absolute veracity. He


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HENRY FIELDING
5701
speaks because he has thought and felt. We are conscious that he
paints all from the life. As novel-writing became a profession, this
is the merit which became rare. A young gentleman can easily give
himself the airs of knowledge of the world by picking up a few
smart epigrams in reproducing the stock characters of his predeces-
sors. He does not write because he has "studied men and cities,"
but appropriates second-hand experience because he wants to write a
novel. His "art," as he is proud to call it, may be admirable, his
style unimpeachable, his plot carefully constructed; but after all, he
cannot atone for the one great defect of having nothing to say by
trying to say it gracefully. One cannot read Fielding without per-
ceiving the contrast: he has really been "through the mill"; he has
bought his knowledge at a heavy price; and even if it sometimes
results in rather commonplace observations, a commonplace which
has been hammered into a man by hard facts is very different from
a commonplace which has been learnt from a book. It comes with a
certain momentum, with a weight and force, which can redeem even
occasional triteness. His words have the intensity of thorough con-
viction. The first impression made by the world upon a man of
great shrewdness and vigor is naturally the prevalence of humbug.
Society, he observes, is a great masquerade. To see things as they
are, you must strip men of their disguises: you will then often find
a strange likeness between heroes and highwaymen, patriots and
pickpockets, priests and jugglers. and discover selfishness in Protean
forms at the bottom of the most pretentious qualities. "All virtue,"
said Fielding's clever contemporary Mandeville, "is a sham. » "All
men," said Swift, soured by failure, "are Yahoos. "
It is Fielding's characteristic merit that he could take a completer
and saner view. His brave, generous nature could never give up a
belief in virtue or in the substantial happiness of a good heart. He
could see, as he proved by Jonathan Wild, into the very soul of a
thorough villain, the depth beyond depth of treachery and sensuality
that can be embodied in human form. His moral is, as he puts it,
that a man may "go to heaven with half the pains which it cost him
to purchase hell. " The villain, even as things go, naturally over-
reaches himself. Knowledge of the world takes the gloss off much;
but it properly leads to a recognition of the supreme advantage of
unworldly simplicity. Parson Adams, one of the great humorous
creations, is the embodiment of that sentiment. He represents the
conviction of the observer who has seen life in its ugliest phases,
that the most lovable of human beings is the man who from sheer
simplicity and kindliness remains comically unconscious of the trickery
and selfishness of his neighbors. It is not the less characteristic
because Adams appears to have been the portrait of a real friend,


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5702
HENRY FIELDING
and implies that Fielding often turned from his rowdy companions to
appreciate the simple country parson whom they would have regarded
as a predestined butt for rough practical jokes. In proportion to his
love of such characters was his hatred of the hypocrite - the humbug
who knows himself to be a humbug. His loathing for "Blifil," the
typical hypocrite, progresses to most obvious failure in Tom Jones';
for he becomes so angry that he caricatures instead of impartially
analyzing the loathsome object. This, again, is the secret of Field-
ing's humor. His worldly experience, instead of souring him, has
intensified his admiration of the simplicity and goodness which is
ridiculed or disbelieved by the man who is hardened by such experi-
ence. He was generous to the core; when he has to speak of any
one whom he admires or who has done him a service, he pours out
the heartiest and most genuine gratitude. He overflows with honest
admiration of the men whom he could appreciate; he praises even
the later work of Richardson, whose 'Pamela' he had satirized, and
who, one is sorry to admit, did not return the generosity. The
warmth of his belief in goodness, and this cordiality and hearty good-
will, always running through his books, give the characteristic flavor
to his humor. It flows so spontaneously and abundantly that we feel
it to be unmistakably as genuine as it is kindly.
The want of moral delicacy indeed implies limitations. It must
be admitted that Fielding's appreciation of some of the higher phases
of character is narrow. He lived in a day when common-sense was
triumphant; when men lived on solid beef, and were undoubtedly
made of rather ponderous flesh and blood. We may say with the
help of a still greater master of the art, that in Fielding's time there
was perhaps too little of the Don Quixote and too much of the San-
cho Panza in the accepted ideal. A humorist who cannot help perceiv-
ing the seamy side of things is tempted to lean too much to the cynical
side. He believes in the moral code by which men are actually gov-
erned, but is perhaps too suspicious of any professions of a higher
standard. High-flown sentiment has in his eyes a strong likeness to
his pet aversion, hypocrisy. What he admires, indeed, is really admi-
rable: though he may be over-anxious to keep within the plainest
limits of common-sense. Fielding's tone about women is character-
istic. Had he been asked what was the greatest blessing of life, he
would always have replied, as he does in Tom Jones,' the love of
a good woman. His good woman, however, is decidedly not prepared
to believe in woman's rights. He laughs rather too roughly at the
ladies who in those days showed certain intellectual aspirations. His
Sophia is a healthy, sensible girl, fit to be the mother of sturdy, well-
grown lads and lasses, unsurpassable within the domestic sphere.
but certainly not troubled by aspirations to literary glory. She is


## p. 5703 (#287) ###########################################

HENRY FIELDING
5703
unmistakably made of flesh and blood. She will love her husband
devotedly, and will, we fear, have to exercise the virtue of forgive-
ness: yet she is everything, perhaps more than everything, that we
could expect from the daughter of Squire Western. 'Amelia,' how-
ever, is the fullest embodiment of Fielding's true sentiment on that
subject. His last novel is the work of a man who had won and lost
the highest prize in life; who feels with bitter self-reproach his un-
worthiness and his backslidings, and tries to make some atonement
by raising a shrine to his lost idol. Some good judges have therefore
taken this pathetic and tender picture to be his masterpiece, in spite
of some falling off in spirit and rather dragging narrative. I will
not venture to decide; but I agree with them that it at least reveals
with singular power not only the massive common-sense and power
of sincere presentation of facts for which Fielding was conspicuous,
but also the generous and tender heart which attracts and com-
mands our affection.
If Fielding honestly described the human nature of his time, we
must remember that a man who can truly describe the human nature
in a village has really described it everywhere. He has a true
insight into those principal springs of character which may be more
or less modified, refined or made coarse, in different conditions, but
which work powerfully under every disguise of habit and cultivation.
Fielding's human being was the ideal John Bull: a personage who
has been ridiculed, caricatured, and denounced; who is called an
"amiable buffalo" by M. Taine; and who everywhere outside of the
British islands is considered to suffer under many intellectual and
moral limitations. Far be it from me to deny his faults; certainly
he is apt to be stolid and thick-skinned, and in Fielding's time he
showed some of his worst qualities to his neighbors, and was acquir-
ing a certain reputation for overbearing and brutal ways. Yet John
Bull was a human being. He had the passions of his kind, and
showed them with little regard to delicacy; but if Fielding was a
true observer, he had some great qualities which I hope he will not
speedily lose. He had the abundant energy and vigor which are
required for all greatness, amidst many queer prejudices, and singular
blindness to some things, he had a hearty love of fair play, respect
for true manhood, and in spite of his coarseness a genuine appre-
ciation of good homely domestic virtues. Fielding, in Thackeray's
familiar phrase, was the last English writer who dared to draw a
man. In a sense rather wider than Thackeray's, that is his most
obvious merit. He described with immense breadth, power, and
veracity some of the essential masculine qualities which do, in fact,
play an immense part in life. But we value him, I think, because he
showed most forcibly how such qualities can be allied not only with


## p. 5704 (#288) ###########################################

HENRY FIELDING
5704
a generous appreciation of allied qualities in others, but with a keen
and pathetic reverence for the gentleness, simplicity, and purity
which the more vigorous animal is too apt to despise. With all his
insight into the baser motives, Fielding retained a certain sweet-
blooded tenderness, and an enthusiasm for every generous and kindly
character, which relieves the repulsive ugliness of some of his scenes
by a breath as of fresh and healthy atmosphere. I can think of
none of our great writers who had a harder struggle, was forced into
closer association with the corrupt elements of society, or realized
more keenly the hollowness of many pretenders to virtue.
And yet
no one could have retained more buoyancy of spirit, more generous
feeling towards his successful competitors, or a more hearty faith in
the reality of human goodness and appreciation of some of the truest
elements of human happiness.
Leche
Stephen
PARSON ADAMS'S SHORT MEMORY
From Joseph Andrews'
MⓇ
R. ADAMS and Joseph were now ready to depart different
ways, when an accident determined the former to return
with his friend, which Tow-wouse, Barnabas, and the book-
seller had not been able to do. This accident was, that those
sermons which the parson was traveling to London to publish
were, O my good reader! left behind; what he had mistaken for
them in the saddle-bags being no other than three shirts, a pair
of shoes, and some other necessaries which Mrs. Adams, who
thought her husband would want shirts more than sermons on
his journey, had carefully provided him.
This discovery was now luckily owing to the presence of
Joseph at the opening of the saddle-bags; who, having heard his
friend say he carried with him nine volumes of sermons, and not
being of that sect of philosophers who can reduce all the matter
of the world into a nut-shell, seeing there was no room for them
in the bags, where the parson had said they were deposited, had
the curiosity to cry out, "Bless me, sir, where are your ser-
mons? " The parson answered, "There, there, child; there they
are, under my shirts. " Now, it happened that he had taken forth
his last shirt, and the vehicle remained visibly empty.
(( Sure,


## p. 5705 (#289) ###########################################

HENRY FIELDING
5705
sir," says Joseph, "there is nothing in the bags. " Upon which
Adams, starting, and testifying some surprise, cried:-"Hey! fie,
fie upon it! they are not here, sure enough. Ay, they are cer-
tainly left behind. "
SO.
Joseph was greatly concerned at the uneasiness which he
apprehended his friend must feel from this disappointment: he
begged him to pursue his journey, and promised he would him-
self return with the books to him with the utmost expedi-
tion. "No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be
What would it avail me to tarry in the great city, unless I
had my discourses with me, which are, ut ita dicam, the sole
cause, the ailia monotate, of my peregrination? No, child: as this
accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to my cure,
together with you; which indeed my inclination sufficiently leads
me to. This disappointment may perhaps be intended for my
good. " He concluded with a verse out of Theocritus, which
signifies no more than that sometimes it rains, and sometimes
the sun shines.
Joseph bowed with obedience and thankfulness for the inclina-
tion which the parson expressed of returning with him; and now
the bill was called for, which, on examination, amounted within
a shilling to the sum which Mr. Adams had in his pocket. Per-
haps the reader may wonder how he was able to produce a
sufficient sum for so many days: that he may not be surprised,
therefore, it cannot be unnecessary to acquaint him that he had
borrowed a guinea of a servant belonging to the coach-and-six,
who had been formerly one of his parishioners, and whose mas-
ter, the owner of the coach, then lived within three miles of
him; for so good was the credit of Mr. Adams, that even Mr.
Peter, the Lady Booby's steward, would have lent him a guinea
with very little security.
Mr. Adams discharged the bill, and they were both setting.
out, having agreed to ride and tie,—a method of traveling much
used by persons who have but one horse between them, and is
thus performed. The two travelers set out together, one on
horseback, the other on foot; now, as it generally happens that
he on horseback outgoes him on foot, the custom is that when
he arrives at the distance agreed on, he is to dismount, tie
the horse to some gate, tree, post, or other thing, and then pro-
ceed on foot; when the other comes up to the horse, unties
him, mounts, and gallops on; till, having passed by his fellow-


## p. 5706 (#290) ###########################################

5706
HENRY FIELDING
traveler, he likewise arrives at the place of tying. And this is
that method of traveling so much in use among our prudent
ancestors, who knew that horses had mouths as well as legs, and
that they could not use the latter without being at the expense of
suffering the beasts themselves to use the former. This was the
method in use in those days, when instead of a coach-and-six,
a member of Parliament's lady used to mount a pillion behind
her husband; and a grave sergeant-at-law condescended to amble
to Westminster on an easy pad, with his clerk kicking his heels
behind him.
Adams was now gone some minutes, having insisted on Jo-
seph's beginning the journey on horseback, and Joseph had his
foot in the stirrup, when the ostler presented him a bill for the
horse's board during his residence at the inn. Joseph said Mr.
Adams had paid all; but this matter being referred to Mr. Tow-
wouse, was by him decided in favor of the ostler, and indeed
with truth and justice; for this was a fresh instance of that
shortness of memory which did not arise from want of parts,
but that continual hurry in which Parson Adams was always
involved.
Joseph was now reduced to a dilemma which extremely puz-
zled him. The sum due for horse-meat was twelve shillings (for
Adams, who had borrowed the beast of his clerk, had ordered
him to be fed as well as they could feed him), and the cash in
his pocket amounted to sixpence; for Adams had divided the last
shilling with him. Now, though there have been some ingenious
persons who have contrived to pay twelve shillings with sixpence,
Joseph was not one of them. He had never contracted a debt
in his life, and was consequently the less ready at an expedient
to extricate himself. Tow-wouse was willing to give him credit
till next time, to which Mrs. Tow-wouse would probably have
consented; for such was Joseph's beauty, that it had made some
impression even on that piece of flint which that good woman
wore in her bosom by way of heart. Joseph would have found
therefore, very likely, the passage free, had he not, when he
honestly discovered the nakedness of his pockets, pulled out that
little piece of gold which we have mentioned before. This caused
Mrs. Tow-wouse's eyes to water: she told Joseph she did not
conceive a man could want money whilst he had gold in his
pocket. Joseph answered, he had such a value for that little.
piece of gold that he would not part with it for a hundred


## p. 5707 (#291) ###########################################

HENRY FIELDING
5707
times the riches which the greatest esquire in the country was
worth.
་་
"A pretty way, indeed," said Mrs. Tow-wouse, "to run in debt,
and then refuse to part with your money because you have a
value for it. I never knew any piece of gold of more value
"Not to pre-
than as many shillings as it would change for. "
serve my life from starving, nor to redeem it from a robber,
would I part with this dear piece! " answered Joseph.
"What!
says Mrs. Tow-wouse, "I suppose it was given you by some vile
trollop, some miss or other! If it had been the present of a
virtuous woman, you would not have had such a value for it.
My husband is a fool if he parts with the horse without being
paid for him. " "No, no, I can't part with the horse, indeed, till
I have the money," cried Tow-wouse; a resolution highly com-
mended by a lawyer then in the yard, who declared Mr. Tow-
wouse might justify the detainer.
As we cannot therefore at present get Mr. Joseph out of the
inn, we shall leave him in it, and carry our reader on after Par-
son Adams, who, his mind being perfectly at ease, fell into a
contemplation on a passage in Eschylus which entertained him
for three miles together, without suffering him once to reflect on
his fellow-traveler.
At length, having spun out his thread and being now at the
summit of a hill, he cast his eyes backwards, and wondered that
he could not see any sign of Joseph. As he left him ready to
mount the horse, he could not apprehend any mischief had hap-
pened, neither could he suspect that he missed his way, it being
so broad and plain: the only reason which presented itself to him
was, that he had met with an acquaintance, who had prevailed
with him to delay some time in discourse.
He therefore resolved to proceed slowly forwards, not doubt-
ing but that he should be shortly overtaken; and soon came to a
large water, which filling the whole road, he saw no method of
passing unless by wading through, which he accordingly did up
to his middle; but was no sooner got to the other side than he
perceived, if he had looked over the hedge, he would have found
a foot-path capable of conducting him without wetting his shoes.
His surprise at Joseph's not coming up grew now very trouble-
some; he began to fear he knew not what; and as he determined
to move no farther, and if he did not shortly overtake him, to
return back, he wished to find a house of public entertainment


## p. 5708 (#292) ###########################################

5708
HENRY FIELDING
where he might dry his clothes and refresh himself with a pint;
but seeing no such (for no other reason than because he did not
cast his eyes a hundred yards forwards), he sat himself down on
a stile and pulled out his schylus.
A DISCOURSE FROM PARSON ADAMS
From Joseph Andrews'
THE
HE parson and his wife had just ended a long dispute when
the lovers came to the door. Indeed, this young couple
had been the subject of the dispute; for Mrs. Adams was
one of those prudent people who never do anything to injure
their families, or perhaps one of those good mothers who would
even stretch their conscience to serve their children. She had
long entertained hopes of seeing her eldest daughter succeed
Mrs. Slipslop, and of making her eldest son an exciseman by
Lady Booby's interest. These were expectations she could not
endure the thoughts of quitting, and was therefore very uneasy
to see her husband so resolute to oppose the lady's intention in
Fanny's affair. She told him it behoved every man to take the
first care of his family; that he had a wife and six children, the
maintaining and providing for whom would be business enough
for him without intermeddling in other folks' affairs; that he had
always preached a submission to superiors, and would do ill to
give an example of the contrary behavior in his own conduct;
that if Lady Booby did wrong, she must answer for it herself,
and the sin would not lie at their door; that Fanny had been a
servant, and bred up in the lady's own family, and consequently
she must have known more of her than they did; and it was
very improbable, if she had behaved herself well, that the lady
would have been so bitterly her enemy; that perhaps he was too
much inclined to think well of her because she was handsome,
but handsome women are often no better than they should be;
that God made ugly women as well as handsome ones; and that
if a woman had virtue, it signified nothing whether she had
beauty or no: for all which reasons she concluded she should
oblige the lady and stop the future publication of the banns.
But all these excellent arguments had no effect on the parson,
who persisted in doing his duty without regarding the conse-


## p. 5709 (#293) ###########################################

HENRY FIELDING
5709
quence it might have on his worldly interest. He endeavored to
answer her as well as he could; to which she had just finished
her reply (for she had always the last word everywhere but at
church) when Joseph and Fanny entered their kitchen, where the
parson and his wife then sat at breakfast over some bacon and
cabbage. There was a coldness in the civility of Mrs. Adams
which persons of accurate speculation might have observed, but
escaped her present guests; indeed, it was a good deal covered
by the heartiness of Adams, who no sooner heard that Fanny
had neither eaten nor drunk that morning than he presented
her a bone of bacon he had just been gnawing, being the only
remains of his provision: and then ran nimbly to the tap and
produced a mug of small beer, which he called ale; however, it
was the best in his house.
Joseph, addressing himself to the parson, told him the dis-
course which had passed between Squire Booby, his sister, and
himself, concerning Fanny; he then acquainted him with the
dangers whence he had rescued her, and communicated some
apprehensions on her account. He concluded that he should
never have an easy moment till Fanny was absolutely his, and
begged that he might be suffered to fetch a license, saying he
could easily borrow the money.
The parson answered that he had already given his senti-
ments concerning a license, and that a very few days would
make it unnecessary. "Joseph," says he, "I wish this haste does
not arise rather from your impatience than your fear; but as it
certainly springs from one of these causes I will examine both.
Of each of these, therefore, in their turn; and first, for the first
of these; namely, impatience. Now, child, I must inform you
that if in your purposed marriage with this young woman you
have no intention but the indulgence of carnal appetites, you are
guilty of a very heinous sin. Marriage was ordained for nobler
purposes, as you will learn when you hear the service provided
on that occasion read to you; nay, perhaps if you are a good
lad, I, child, shall give you a sermon gratis, wherein I shall
demonstrate how little regard ought to be had to the flesh on
such occasions. The text will be Matthew the 5th, and part of
the 28th verse, 'Whosoever looketh on a woman, so as to lust
after her. The latter part I shall omit, as foreign to my pur-
pose. Indeed, all such brutal lusts and affections are to be
greatly subdued, if not totally eradicated, before the vessel can


## p. 5710 (#294) ###########################################

5710
HENRY FIELDING
be said to be consecrated to honor. To marry with a view of
gratifying those inclinations is a prostitution of that holy cere-
mony, and must entail a curse on all who so lightly undertake
it. If therefore this haste arises from impatience, you are to
correct and not give way to it. Now, as to the second head
which I proposed to speak to; namely, fear: it argues a diffidence.
highly criminal of that Power in which alone we should put our
trust, seeing we may be well assured that he is able not only
to defeat the designs of our enemies but even to turn their
hearts. Instead of taking, therefore, any unjustifiable or desper-
ate means to rid ourselves of fear, we should resort to prayer
only on these occasions; and we may be then certain of obtain-
ing what is best for us. When any accident threatens us, we
are not to despair, nor, when it overtakes us, to grieve; we must
submit in all things to the will of Providence, and set our affec-
tions so much on nothing here, that we cannot quit it without
reluctance. You are a young man, and can know but little of
this world; I am older, and have seen a great deal. All passions
are criminal in their excess; and even love itself, if it is not
subservient to our duty, may render us blind to it. Had Abra-
ham so loved his son Isaac as to refuse the sacrifice required, is
there any of us who would not condemn him? Joseph, I know
your many good qualities, and value you for them; but as I am
to render an account of your soul, which is committed to my
cure, I cannot see any fault without reminding you of it. You
are too much inclined to passion, child; and have set your affec-
tions so absolutely on this young woman, that if God required
her at your hands I fear you would reluctantly part with her.
Now, believe me, no Christian ought so to set his heart on any
person or thing in this world, but that whenever it shall be
required, or taken from him in any manner by Divine provi-
dence, he may be able peaceably, quietly, and contentedly to
resign it.