TOM JONES
"In God's Name let us speak out honestly and set the good against
the bad."
No. 48 of the _Jacobite's Journal_.
The two years of Fielding's life preceding his appointment as a Bow Street
magistrate (an appointment comparable only to the choice of Robert Burns
as an exciseman) were marked, as we have seen, by lively passages in the
political arena, and a steady output of political journalism. Indeed, by
this time, the public must have associated swingeing denunciations of
Jacobites, and glowing eulogies of the British Constitution, with Harry
Fielding's name; just as seven years previously he had been in their eyes
the 'Champion' journalist of a brilliant Opposition; and, for ten years
before that, the witty writer of a stream of popular farces and comedies.
For there is no evidence that his audacious innovation, his splendid
adventure in literature, _Joseph Andrews_, really revealed the existence
of a new genius in their midst to the Whigs and Tories of those factious
days, to the gay frequenters of the play-house, to the barristers at
Westminster Hall and on the Western Circuit. In 1748 Fielding must have
been, to his many audiences, a witty and well-born man of letters who, at
forty-one, had as yet achieved no towering success; a facile dramatist;
and a master of slashing political invective, growing perplexingly
impartial, alike in his praise and his condemnation. While, as regards
outward circumstances, the struggling barrister, baffled in his
professional hopes by persistent attacks of gout, was now so far enlisted,
to use his own fine image, under the black banner of poverty, that even
the small post and hard duties of a Bow Street magistrate were worth his
acceptance. [1]
Such was Harry Fielding as the world of 1748 knew him, in the Coffee
houses, the Mall, the Green-room and the Law-courts. What that world did
not know was that all this dramatic, journalistic, and political action,
was little more than the surface movement of a vitality far too exuberant
to be contained in any one groove of hackney writing,--of an impetuous
'enthusiasm for righteousness' far too ardent to pass by any flagrant
social, moral, or political abuse without inflicting some form of
chastisement; and that beneath this ever active surface movement
Fielding's genius was slowly maturing in that new continent of literature
the borders of which he had already crossed seven years before. In the
pages of _Joseph Andrews_, he had, as we know, tentatively explored that
continent feeling his way along the unknown paths of this long neglected
world of human nature; bringing back with him one immortal figure, that
living embodiment of simple piety and scholarship, of charity and honest
strength, Parson Adams; disclosing hints of discoveries, not yet
perfected, among the humours and villanies, the virtues and charms, of a
dozen other inhabitants of his _terra incognita_. But there is no sign
that the greatness of his discovery, the splendour of his addition to the
empire of English literature, was in the least apprehended during the
seven years following the appearance of _Joseph Andrews_. Only Fielding
himself was conscious that he had created a kind of writing "hitherto
unattempted in our language."
And, having crossed the borders of this new continent, he seems, after his
first survey, to have deliberately immersed himself in one portion, and
that the blackest, of his re-discovered world. For _Jonathan Wild_, with
its disclosure of the active spirit of 'diabolism,' of naked vice, is
little else than the exploration of those darkest recesses of human nature
which can be safely entered only by the sanest and healthiest of
intellects. Fielding's strength was equal to his exploit; and from this,
his second adventure, he brought back a picture of the deformity and folly
of vice, drawn with a just and penetrating scorn unequalled, perhaps, by
any English moralist. But neither of these two essays in the new field of
writing had covered more than isolated or outlying portions, the first in
sunlight, the second in shadow, of that vast territory. And it was not
till the perfect maturity of his powers and of his experience, not till he
had seen both the 'manners of many men,' and the workings of many hearts,
not in a word till he had made himself master of great tracts of that
human nature which had so long lain neglected, that Fielding in _Tom
Jones_ disclosed himself as the creator of the English novel.
Little is known as to when the conception of _Tom Jones_ first shaped
itself in his mind, of where he lived during the writing of the great
Comic Epic, or of the time occupied in its completion. Appropriately for a
book expressly designed "to recommend goodness and innocence" the plan of
the novel was suggested, many years before its appearance, by the 'good
Lord Lyttelton'; and we know, further, that the writing occupied 'some
thousands of hours'; but _Tom Jones_ does not emerge into definite
existence till the summer of 1748.
Legend it is true, attesting to the greatness of the achievement contained
in the six little volumes, endows many localities with the fame of their
origin. A well-credited contemporary writer, the Rev. Richard Graves,
declared that the novelist "while he was writing his novel of Tom Jones"
lived at Tiverton (Twerton), one and a half miles from Bath, and dined
daily at Prior Park the seat of his munificent and pious friend Ralph
Allen. Mr Graves says that Fielding then lived in "the first house on the
right hand with a spread eagle over the door." [2] Salisbury is insistent
that part at least of the great novel was written at Milford House, near
to that city. An anonymous old engraver asserts the same honour for
Fielding's Farm at East Stour, an assertion certainly not confirmed by the
newly found documents concerning Fielding's sale of property at Stour in
1738. Twickenham claims that the book was wholly composed in the house in
Back Lane. And to an ancient building at Tintern Parva in the Wye Valley,
said to have once been the lodging of the Abbot of Tintern, was also
assigned the reputation of being the birthplace of the English novel. If
the latter tradition were true, the fact that it was in the Harlequin
chamber of the Abbots of Glastonbury that Henry Fielding was born, becomes
strangely matched by the birth, some forty years later, of his
masterpiece, in the lodging of the Abbot of Tintern. The one point of real
interest in all these traditions is the fact that the fame of _Tom Jones_
has been sufficient to create a widespread popular legend. The truth
probably is that the book was written in the many shifting scenes of
Fielding's life during these years; now at Bath whither his gout and the
generous hospitality of Ralph Allen would take him; now in Salisbury, the
home of his boyhood, and the scene of his courtship with the lovely
original of Sophia Western; possibly in his own county of Somerset; and
most probably both at Twickenham, and in London.
From these various legends it is pleasant to be able to disentangle one
clear picture of the making of _Tom Jones_. Before the manuscript was
placed in the printers' hands Fielding submitted it to the opinion both of
the elder Pitt, and of the estimable and pious Lyttelton; and the account
of this memorable meeting cannot be better given than in the words of a
descendant of the hostess on that occasion, the Rev. George Miller,
great-grandson of that Sanderson Miller of Radway, Warwickshire, who
numbered many men of note among his acquaintance, and with whom Fielding
was on terms of intimate friendship. [3] Writing to the present writer, in
1907, Mr. Miller says: "Lord Chatham and Lord Lyttleton came to Radway to
visit my ancestor, when Lord Chatham planted three trees to commemorate
the visit, and a stone urn was placed between them. Fielding was also of
the party and read 'Tom Jones' in manuscript after dinner for the opinion
of his hearers before publishing it. My father told me this often and he
had the account from his Grandmother who survived her husband several
years and who was the hostess on the occasion." Unhappily no record exists
of the comments of one of the greatest of English statesmen when listening
to this reading, in manuscript, of indubitably one of the greatest of
English novels.
The vagueness which hangs over the places in which _Tom Jones_ was
written, the certainty that in all of them poverty was constantly present,
is in perfect accord with the power of detachment manifested in this book
from circumstances that would surely have tinged, if not over-whelmed, a
weaker genius. Sickness and poverty are stern sponsors; but neither were
suffered to leave more than two traces on the pages destined to outlive so
greatly the harsh circumstances in which they had birth. There is the
frank acknowledgement of the writer's dependence on Lyttelton's noble
generosity, without which the book had never, Fielding says, been
completed, since "I partly owe to you my Existence during great Part of
the Time which I have employed in composing it." And a touching betrayal
occurs of his anxiety for the future provision of the "prattling babes,
whose innocent play hath often been interrupted by my labours." Fielding
was sensitively anxious for his wife and children; but, for himself,
living as he did with visions such as that of the _Invocation_ introducing
Book xiii of _Tom Jones_, the precise situation of his "little Parlour,"
or the poorness of its furniture, cannot have appeared very material.
"Come bright Love of Fame," he cries "... fill my ravished Fancy with the
Hopes of charming Ages yet to come... Do thou teach me not only to
foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future Praise. Comfort me by a
solemn Assurance, that when the little Parlour in which I sit at this
Instant, shall be reduced to a worse furnished Box, I shall be read, with
Honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall neither know
nor see."
This capacity of Fielding for relegating circumstance to its true level,
the detached idealism that moulded his genius, are, indeed, shown once for
all in the fact that the exquisite picture of virtue, the whole-hearted
attack on vice, the genial humour, the sunny portraits of humanity, the
splendid cheerfulness of _Tom Jones_, that 'Epic of Youth,' came from a
man in middle age, immersed in disheartening struggles, and fighting
recurrent ill health. Superficial critics have called Fielding a realist
because his figures are so full-blooded and alive that we feel we have met
them but yesterday in the street; to eyes so shortsighted life itself must
seem merely realistic. As none but an idealist could have conceived Parson
Adams, so the creator of Sophia again announced himself an idealist in the
Dedication of _Tom Jones_. Here, in language of pure symbolism, he
contends that the ideal virtues such as goodness and innocence, may most
effectively be presented to men in a figure, for "an Example is a Kind of
Picture, in which Virtue becomes as it were an Object of Sight, and
strikes us with an Idea of that Loveliness, which _Plato_ asserts there is
in her naked Charms." [4] To the man who could write thus, and, who, in
later pages of his great 'Epic,' could humbly desire of Genius "do thou
kindly take me by the Hand, and lead me through all the Mazes, the winding
Labyrinth of Nature. Initiate me into all those Mysteries which profane
Eyes never beheld,"--to this man the material surroundings of life must
have seemed of little greater import than the fittings of that narrow box
to the occupation of which he looked forward with so calm a foresight.
Indeed he himself acknowledges a carelessness of outward comfort on his
own behalf. "Come," he cries, to the spirit of mercenary success, "Thou
jolly Substance, with thy shining Face, ... hold forth thy tempting
Rewards; thy shining chinking Heap; thy quickly-convertible Bank-bill, big
with unseen Riches; thy often-varying Stock; the warm, the comfortable
House; ... Come thou, and if I am too tasteless of thy valuable Treasures,
warm my Heart with the transporting Thought of conveying them to others."
His happy constitution, wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "made him forget
everything when he was before a venison pasty or a flask of champagne";
but behind those healthy exhilarations was, assuredly, a serenity based on
a clear perception of the values of life. To a man of Fielding's happy
social temperament, and who was yet also initiated into mysteries and
occupied in converting ideal loveliness into 'an object of sight,' such
matters as duns and pawnbrokers would seem precisely fit for oblivion in
venison and champagne. In the creator of Tom Jones and of Sophia the most
indestructible delight in living, and the keenest discernment of the
unsubstantial qualities of that delight, appear to have been admirably
interwoven.
By June 11, 1748, the book was far enough advanced for the publisher,
Andrew Millar, to pay £600 for it, as appears from a receipt now in the
possession of Mr. Alfred Huth. [5] And it is eminently characteristic of
the finances of a man who, as Lady Mary said, would have wanted money had
his estates been as extensive as his imagination, that the receipt for
this £600 is dated more than six months before the publication of the
book. For it was not till February 28, 1749, that the _General Advertiser_
announced
This day is published, in six vols., 12 mo
THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES,
A FOUNDLING
_Mores hominum multorum vidit_.
_By_ HENRY FIELDING, _Esqre_
Henceforth Fielding ceases to be the boisterous politician, the witty
dramatist; his poverty and his struggles for subsistence fall back, at his
own bidding, among the accidents of life; and he stands revealed as the
supreme genius, the creator of the English novel, the inheritor of that
lasting fame which he had dared so confidently to invoke.
The immediate success of the book, in that eighteenth-century world into
which it was launched, is attested by the notice in the _London Magazine_
of the very month of its publication. Under the heading of a "Plan of a
late celebrated NOVEL," the _Magazine_ devotes its five opening pages to a
summary of a book "which has given great Amusement and we hope Instruction
to the polite Part of the Town." The summary is preceded by a description
of _Tom Jones_ as a novel "calculated to recommend religion and virtue, to
shew the bad consequences of indiscretion, and to set several kinds of
vice in their most deformed and shocking light." The reviewer declares
that "after one has begun to read it, it is difficult to leave off before
having read the whole." And he concludes, "Thus ends this pretty novel,
with a most just distribution of rewards and punishments, according to the
merits of all the persons who had any considerable share in it." [6] Three
months later Horace Walpole wrote, "Millar the bookseller has done very
generously by him [Fielding]: finding Tom Jones, for which he had given
him £600, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred." An
admirer breaks out into rhyme, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for August
1749,--
"let Fielding take the pen!
Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men."
thereby anticipating Thackeray's famous complaint that in his day no one
dared "to depict to his utmost power a Man." Lady Bradshaigh, writing by a
happy irony of fate to Richardson, says "as to Tom Jones I am fatigued
with the name, having lately fallen into the company of several young
ladies, who had each a 'Tom Jones' in some part of the world, for so they
call their favourites." The gentlemen also had their Sophias, one indeed
having bestowed that all-popular name on his 'Dutch mastiff puppy.' That
eccentric eighteenth century philosopher, and enthusiastic Greek scholar,
Lord Monboddo declared that _Tom Jones_ had more of character in it than
any other work, ancient or modern, known to him, adding, "in short, I
never saw anything that was so animated, and as I may say, _all alive_
with characters and manners as _the History of Tom Jones_"; a criticism
that recalls Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's remark that no man enjoyed life
more than did Fielding. Doubtless it was his own magnificent capacity for
living that endowed the very creatures of his pen with so abundant a
vitality. In her own copy Lady Mary wrote _Ne plus Ultra_.
To turn from the popular voices of the day to the comments of those
capable of appraising genius, "What a master of composition Fielding was!"
exclaimed Coleridge, "Upon my word I think 'Oedipus Tyrannus,' the
'Alchemist,' and 'Tom Jones' the three most perfect plots ever planned."
To Sir Walter Scott _Tom Jones_ was "truth and human nature itself."
Gibbon described the book as "the first of ancient or modern romances";
and, as we have seen, declared that its pages would outlive the Imperial
Eagle of those Hapsburgs from whom Fielding was said to be descended.
"There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge," wrote
Thackeray. "To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it
written on the dome of St Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and
behold it." Pilgrims from all the world have likewise admired _Tom Jones_.
Translations have appeared in French, German, [7] Spanish, Swedish,
Russian, Polish and Dutch; and as for the English editions, they range
from the three editions issued within the year of publication to the
several noble volumes newly edited in our own day, and the sixpenny copies
on our railway bookstalls. So fully has time justified the invocation to
future fame sent forth from the little ill-furnished parlour of the
struggling barrister.
To analyse the grounds for a chorus of praise ranging from the 'young
ladies' of the eighteenth century to the utterances of distinguished
critics, and popular authors of our own day, would be to confound literary
criticism with biography. But there are some points appertaining to
Fielding's great novel which cannot be here disregarded, in that they
closely affect his personal character. Such are the light in which he
himself regarded his masterpiece, the intention with which he wrote it,
and the means which he selected to carry that intention into effect.
All these he himself very plainly sets forth in his _Dedication_ to
Lyttelton and in other passages of _Tom Jones_. As to his intention. "I
declare," he says, in the _Dedication_, "that to recommend Goodness and
Innocence hath been my sincere Endeavour in this History." And the means
selected for this end, and for the companion object of persuading men from
guilt, are as clearly stated. First as we have seen, Fielding plays the
part of pure idealist, purposing to create a picture "in which virtue
becomes as it were an object of sight." For such pictures we have but to
think of Sophia Western, and of that final page of _Tom Jones_, than which
no more charming representation of mutual affection, esteem, and well
doing can be imagined. But besides this means of reaching his audience
Fielding adopted, he tells us, a second method. He argues that no
acquisitions of guilt can compensate a man for the loss of inward peace,
for the attendant horror, anxiety, and danger, to which he subjects
himself; thus endeavouring to enlist man's self-interest no less than his
admiration, on the side of virtue. Again, he explains yet another method
by which he essays to foil the progress of evil, viz. to show that virtue
and innocence are chiefly betrayed "into the snares that deceit and
villainy spread for them" by indiscretion; a moral which he has "the more
industriously laboured ... since I believe it is much easier to make good
Men, wise than to make bad Men good." For this purpose, he concludes,
namely to show, as in a figure, the beauty of virtue, to persuade men that
in following innocence and virtue they follow their own obvious interests,
to arm them from the snares of villainy and deceit, "I have employed all
the Wit and Humour of which I am Master in the following History; wherein
I have endeavoured to laugh Mankind out of their favourite Follies and
Vices."
And, conscious that wit and humour require a rein quite unneeded by the
methods of the professional moralist, Fielding further asserts that in
these pages his laughter is worthy of the aim which he sets before him.
Here, he carefully insists, are wit and humour wholly void of offence. He
assures his reader that in the whole course of the work, he will find
"nothing prejudicial to the Cause of Religion and Virtue; nothing
inconsistent with the strictest Rules of Decency, nor which can offend
even the chastest Eye in the Perusal." As the almost incredible change
from the manners of 1749 to those of the following century, and of our own
day, has injuriously affected the reputation of Fielding among readers
ignorant of past conditions, this protest, in striking accord with the
prologue for his first play acted when he was but a lad of twenty, cannot
be too emphatically recorded. And no further justification of Fielding's
words need be entered than that verdict of the eighteenth century scholar
and bishop of the English Church, Doctor Warburton, when he declared that
"Mr. Fielding [stands] the foremost among those who have given a faithful
and chaste copy of life and manners."
Such were the noble purposes to which Fielding consciously dedicated his
genius in _Tom Jones_, and such was the careful restraint with which he
exercised his chosen methods of wit and humour. That these purposes,
executed by a supreme genius in the language and scenes of his own day,
should ever have laid their author open to a charge of immorality is
perhaps one of the most amazing pieces of irony in the whole history of
English literature. But as this charge of moral laxity has been seriously
brought against the pages of _Tom Jones_, and is perhaps not yet quite
exploded, it cannot be wholly disregarded. The imputation amounts,
briefly, to a too easy forgiveness for the youthful sins of Jones, and the
involving that engaging youth in too deep a degradation. The answers to
these charges are, firstly, that Fielding held strongly, and here
exhibits, the humane and wise doctrine that a man should be judged, not by
what he sometimes does, but by what he _is_. And, secondly, that as Sir
Walter Scott pointed out, when dealing with this very matter, "the vices
into which Jones suffers himself to fall are made the direct cause of
placing him in the distressful situation which he occupies during the
greater part of the narrative; while his generosity, his charity, and his
amiable qualities become the means of saving him from the consequences of
his folly." Fielding was not wholly concerned with the acts of a man; to
him the admission of the Penitent Thief into Paradise, at the eleventh
hour, could have been no stumbling block. And, further, Tom Jones not only
suffers for his ill doing, but wins no heaven until he wholly purges
himself from the sin which did so easily beset him.
The distinction between doing and being is very fully enunciated by
Fielding himself, in the _Introduction_ to Book vii. "A single bad Act,"
he says, "no more constitutes a Villain in Life, than a single bad Part on
the Stage". And again, "Now we, who are admitted behind the Scenes of this
great Theatre of Nature, (and no Author ought to write any Thing besides
Dictionaries and Spelling-Books who hath not this Privilege) can censure
the Action, without conceiving any actual Detestation of the Person, whom
perhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill Part in all her Dramas:
For in this Instance, Life most exactly represents the Stage, since it is
often the same Person who represents the Villain and the Heroe". Coleridge
has expressed the same truth in words written in a copy of _Tom Jones_,
"If I want a servant or mechanic I wish to know what he _does_--but of a
Friend I must know what he _is_. And in no writer is this momentous
distinction so finely brought forward as by Fielding. We do not care what
Blifil does ... but Blifil _is_ a villain and we feel him to be so." [8]
It is true that, as Scott regrets the depth of degradation into which Tom
Jones is suffered to fall, so Coleridge expresses a wish, "relatively to
Fielding himself" that the great novelist had emphasised somewhat more the
repentance of his hero: but this may be balanced by that other noble
tribute to his morality, "I dare believe who consulted his heart and
conscience only without adverting to _what the world_ would say could rise
from the perusal of Fielding's _Tom Jones_, _Joseph Andrews_ and _Amelia_
without feeling himself the better man--at least without an intense
conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act." [9] To be forced to
watch the temporary degradation of a noble nature, and the miseries
ensuing, is surely one of the most effective means of rousing a hatred of
vice. That such an exhibition should ever have been construed into moral
laxity on the part of the author, especially when the restoration of the
hero's character is drawn as entirely due to his ingrained worship of
innocence and virtue, is almost incredible.
In exact accordance with Fielding's character as moralist in intent,
although supreme artist in execution, is the fact of the dedication of
_Tom Jones_ to his life-long friend Lyttelton. George Lyttelton,
statesman, scholar, and orator, was a friend of whom any man might be
proud. It was said of him that he "showed the judgment of a minister, the
force and wit of an orator, and the spirit of a gentleman." As theologian
he wrote a treatise on _The Conversion of St. Paul_ which, a hundred years
later, was described as being "still regarded as one of the subsidiary
bulwarks of Christianity." As poet he won the praise of Gray for his
tender and elegiac verse. Thomson sang of his "sense refined," and adds
Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind
As little touch'd as any man's with bad;
And Pope drew his character as
"Still true to virtue and as warm as true."
It was to this devout scholar, this refined gentleman, this warm-hearted
follower of virtue, that _Tom Jones_ was dedicated, nay more, to him it
owed both origin and completion. "To you, Sir," Fielding writes in his
_Dedication_, "it is owing that this History was ever begun. It was by
your Desire that I first thought of such a Composition.... Again, Sir,
without your Assistance this History had never been completed.... I partly
owe to you my Existence during great Part of the Time in which I have
employed in composing it." And that Lyttelton cordially approved the book
which owed so much to his own insight and generosity is evident from the
references, in the _Dedication_, to his favourable judgment.
With the appearance of _Tom Jones_ Fielding steps into his own place among
the immortals. But lofty as his genius was, his feet were firmly planted
in the world which he relished so keenly. To no man could be applied more
happily the motto chosen by him for his title page, _mores hominum
multorum vidit_--he saw the manners of many men. This characteristic
emerges in a personal reminiscence of the novelist, at the very moment
when the sheets of _Tom Jones_ were passing through the press. The
great-nephew of his intimate friend Mrs Hussey relates; "Henry Fielding
was fond of colouring his pictures of life with the glowing and variegated
tints of Nature, by conversing with persons of every situation and
calling, as I have frequently been informed by one of my great aunts, the
late Mrs Hussey, who knew him intimately. I have heard her say, that Mr
Fielding never suffered his talent for sprightly conversation to mildew
for a moment; and that his manners were so gentlemanly, that even with the
lower classes, with which he frequently condescended particularly to chat
such as Sir Roger de Coverley's old friends, the Vauxhall water-men, they
seldom outstepped the limits of propriety. My aunt ... [was] a fashionable
sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand, ... One day Mr Fielding
observed to Mrs Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which
he thought would be his best production; and that he intended to introduce
into it the characters of all his friends. Mrs Hussey, with a smile,
ventured to remark, that he must have many niches, and that surely they
must already be filled. 'I assure you, my dear madam,' replied he, 'there
shall be a bracket for a bust of you.' Some time after this, he informed
Mrs Hussey that the work was in the press; but, immediately recollecting
that he had forgotten his promise to her, went to the printer, and was
time enough to insert, in vol. iii. p. 17, where he speaks of the shape of
Sophia Western--'Such charms are there in affability, and so sure is it to
attract the praises of all kinds of people.... It may indeed be compared
to the celebrated Mrs Hussey.' To which observation he has given the
following note: 'A celebrated mantua-maker in the Strand, famous for
setting off the shapes of women.'" [10]
Here is yet further proof, that Fielding loved not only to see the manners
of many men, but also to render them whatever service lay within his
power. Never were the warmest heart and the loftiest genius more happily
united than in the creator of the English novel.
Lyttelton not only suggested and approved the great Comic Epic, and
enabled distressed genius to live while composing it; his own worth and
benevolence, together with those of the generous Allen, afforded Fielding,
as he tells us, the materials for the picture here presented of Allworthy.
"The World," he says, speaking of this picture, "will not, I believe, make
me the Compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I care not: This they
shall own, that the two Persons from whom I have taken it, that is to say,
two of the best and worthiest Men in the World, are strongly and zealously
my Friends." And a point of still closer personal interest is the fact,
already noticed, that in the lovely character and person of Sophia
Western, Fielding raised an enduring memorial to that beloved wife whose
death had occurred a few years before the publication of _Tom Jones_. The
authenticity of the portrait is explicitly stated in the _Invocation_
prefixed to Book xiii. Apostrophizing that 'gentle Maid,' bright 'Love of
Fame,' Fielding bids her, in the eighteenth century phrase that falls so
strangely on a modern ear, "Foretell me that some tender Maid, whose
Grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when under the fictitious Name of
_Sophia_ she reads the real worth which once existed in my _Charlotte_,
shall, from her sympathetic Breast, send forth the _Heaving Sigh_." Then
follows, immediately, his own desire that he too may live in the knowledge
and honour of far distant readers. Fielding lies buried under southern
skies, far from his wife's English grave; but in the immortal pages of his
masterpiece they are not divided.
[1] The Fiat appointing Fielding as Magistrate for the City and Borough of
Westminster, now in the House of Lords, is dated July 30, 1748.
[2] On the house identified with Mr Graves' description, and now known as
"Fielding's Lodge," a tablet has recently been placed, through the energy
of Mr R. G. Naish of Twerton.
[3] See _Life of the Earl of Hardwicke_. G. Harris. 1847. Vol. II. pp.
456-7.
[4] _Tom Jones_. Dedication.
[5] See Appendix for this, hitherto unpublished, receipt.
[6] _London Magazine_. Feb. 1749.
[7] In Germany an edition of 1771 was followed by a second in 1780, and a
third in 1786. In 1765 a lyrical comedy founded on the famous novel was
acted in Paris; and the same year it was transformed into a German comedy
by J.H. Steffens.
[8] S. T. Coleridge. Manuscript notes in a copy of _Tom Jones_, now in the
British Museum.
[9] Ibid.
[10] J. T. Smith. _Nollekens and his Times_. Vol. i. pp. 124-5.