TOM JONES.
Writing from Basingstoke to his brother Tom, on the 29th October 1746,
Joseph Warton thus refers to a visit he paid to Fielding:--
"I wish you had been with me last week, when I spent two evenings with
Fielding and his sister, who wrote David Simple, and you may guess I was
very well entertained. The lady indeed retir'd pretty soon, but Russell
and I sat up with the Poet [Warton no doubt uses the word here in the
sense of 'maker' or 'creator'] till one or two in the morning, and were
inexpressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly may, his Joseph
Andrews above all his writings: he was extremely civil to me, I fancy,
on my Father's account." [Footnote: i.e. the Rev. Thomas Warton, Vicar
of Basingstoke, and sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford.]
This mention of _Joseph Andrews_ has misled some of Fielding's
biographers into thinking that he ranked that novel above _Tom Jones_.
But, in October 1746, _Tom Jones_ had not been published; and, from the
absence of any reference to it by Warton, it is only reasonable to
conclude that it had not yet assumed a definite form, or Fielding, who
was by no means uncommunicative, would in all probability have spoken of
it as an effort from which he expected still greater things. It is
clear, too, that at this date he was staying in London, presumably in
lodgings with his sister; and it is also most likely that he lived much
in town when he was conducting the _True Patriot_ and the _Jacobite's
Journal_. At other times he would appear to have had no settled place of
abode. There are traditions that _Tom Jones_ was composed in part at
Salisbury, in a house at the foot of Milford Hill; and again that it was
written at Twiverton, or Twerton-on-Avon, near Bath, where, as the Vicar
pointed out in _Notes and Queries_ for March 15th, 1879, there still
exists a house called Fielding's Lodge, over the door of which is a
stone crest of a phoenix rising out of a mural coronet. This latter
tradition is supported by the statement of Mr. Richard Graves, author of
the _Spiritual Quixote_, and rector, _circa_ 1750, of the neighbouring
parish of Claverton, who says in his _Trifling Anecdotes of the late
Ralph Allen_, that Fielding while at Twerton used to dine almost daily
with Allen at Prior Park. There are also traces of his residence at Bath
itself; and of visits to the seat of Lyttelton's father at Hagley in
Worcestershire. Towards the close of 1747 he had, as before stated,
rooms in Back Lane, Twickenham; and it must be to this or to some
earlier period that Walpole alludes in his _Parish Register_ (1759):--
"Here Fielding met his bunter Muse
And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice,
Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit
With unimaginable wit;"--
a quatrain in which the last lines excuse the first. According to Mr.
Cobbett's already-quoted _Memorials of Twickenham_, he left that place
upon his appointment as a Middlesex magistrate, when he moved to Bow
Street. His house in Bow Street belonged to John, Duke of Bedford; and
he continued to live in it until a short time before his death. It was
subsequently occupied by his half-brother and successor, Sir John,
[Footnote: In the riots of '80--as Dickens has not forgotten to note in
_Barnaby Rudge_--the house was destroyed by the mob, who burned Sir
John's goods in the street (Boswell's _Johnson_, chap. lxx.)] who,
writing to the Duke in March 1770, to thank him for his munificent gift
of an additional ten years to the lease, recalls "that princely instance
of generosity which his Grace shewed to his late brother, Henry
Fielding."
What this was, is not specified. It may have been the gift of the leases
of those tenements which, as explained, were necessary to qualify
Fielding to act as a Justice of the Peace for the county of Middlesex;
it may even have been the lease of the Bow Street house; or it may have
been simply a gift of money. But whatever it was, it was something
considerable. In his appeal to the Duke, at the close of the last
chapter, Fielding referred to previous obligations, and in his
dedication of _Tom Jones_ to Lyttelton, he returns again to his Grace's
beneficence. Another person, of whose kindness grateful but indirect
mention is made in the same dedication, is Ralph Allen, who, according
to Derrick, the Bath M.C., sent the novelist a present of L200, before
he had even made his acquaintance, [Footnote: Derrick's Letters, 1767,
ii. 95.] which, from the reference to Allen in _Joseph Andrews_,
probably began before 1742. Lastly, there is Lyttelton himself,
concerning whom, in addition to a sentence which implies that he
actually suggested the writing of _Tom Jones_, we have the express
statements on Fielding's part that "without your Assistance this History
had never been completed," and "I partly owe to you my Existence during
great Part of the Time which I have employed in composing it." These
words must plainly be accepted as indicating pecuniary help; and, taking
all things together, there can be little doubt that for some years
antecedent to his appointment as a Justice of the Peace, Fielding was in
straitened circumstances, and was largely aided, if not practically
supported, by his friends. Even supposing him to have been subsidised by
Government as alleged, his profits from the _True Patriot_ and the
_Jacobite's Journal_ could not have been excessive; and his gout, of
which he speaks in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford, must have
been a serious obstacle in the way of his legal labours.
_The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, was published by Andrew Millar
on the 28th of February 1749, and its appearance in six volumes, 12mo,
was announced in the _General Advertiser_ of that day's date. There had
been no author's name on the title-page of _Joseph Andrews_; but _Tom
Jones_ was duly described as "by Henry Fielding, Esq.," and bore the
motto from Horace, seldom so justly applied, of "_Mores hominum multorum
vidit._" The advertisement also ingenuously stated that as it was
"impossible to get Sets bound fast enough to answer the Demand for them,
such Gentlemen and Ladies as pleased, might have them sew'd in Blue
Paper and Boards at the Price of 16s a Set." The date of issue
sufficiently disposes of the statement of Cunningham and others, that
the book was written at Bow Street. Little more than the dedication,
which is preface as well, can have been produced by Fielding in his new
home. Making fair allowance for the usual tardy progress of a book
through the press, and taking into consideration the fact that the
author was actively occupied with his yet unfamiliar magisterial duties,
it is most probable that the last chapter of _Tom Jones_ had been penned
before the end of 1748, and that after that time it had been at the
printer's. For the exact price paid to the author by the publisher on
this occasion we are indebted to Horace Walpole, who, writing to George
Montagu in May 1749, says--"Millar the bookseller has done very
generously by him [Fielding]: finding Tom Jones, for which he had given
him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another
hundred."
It is time, however, to turn from these particulars to the book itself.
In _Joseph Andrews_, Fielding's work had been mainly experimental. He
had set out with an intention which had unexpectedly developed into
something else. That something else, he had explained, was the comic
epic in prose. He had discovered its scope and possibilities only when
it was too late to re-cast his original design; and though _Joseph
Andrews_ has all the freshness and energy of a first attempt in a new
direction, it has also the manifest disadvantages of a mixed conception
and an uncertain plan. No one had perceived these defects more plainly
than the author; and in _Tom Jones_ he set himself diligently to perfect
his new-found method. He believed that he foresaw a "new Province of
Writing," of which he regarded himself with justice as the founder and
lawgiver; and in the "prolegomenous, or introductory Chapters" to each
book--those delightful resting-spaces where, as George Eliot says,
"he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in
all the lusty ease of his fine English"--he takes us, as it were, into
his confidence, and discourses frankly of his aims and his way of work.
He looked upon these little "initial Essays" indeed, as an indispensable
part of his scheme. They have given him, says he more than once, "the
greatest Pains in composing" of any part of his book, and he hopes that,
like the Greek and Latin mottoes in the _Spectator_, they may serve to
secure him against imitation by inferior authors. [Footnote:
Notwithstanding this warning, Cumberland (who copied so much) copied
these in his novel of _Henry_. On the other hand, Fielding's French and
Polish translators omitted them as superfluous.] Naturally a great deal
they contain is by this time commonplace, although it was unhackneyed
enough when Fielding wrote. The absolute necessity in work of this kind
for genius, learning, and knowledge of the world, the constant
obligation to preserve character and probability--to regard variety and
the law of contrast:--these are things with which the modern tiro
(however much he may fail to possess or observe them) is now supposed to
be at least theoretically acquainted. But there are other chapters in
which Fielding may also be said to reveal his personal point of view,
and these can scarcely be disregarded. His "Fare," he says, following
the language of the table, is "HUMAN NATURE," which he shall first
present "in that more plain and simple Manner in which it is found in
the Country," and afterwards "hash and ragoo it with all the high
_French_ and _Italian_ seasoning of Affectation and Vice which Courts
and Cities afford." His inclination, he admits, is rather to the middle
and lower classes than to "the highest Life," which he considers to
present "very little Humour or Entertainment." His characters (as
before) are based upon actual experience; or, as he terms it,
"Conversation." He does not propose to present his reader with "Models
of Perfection;" he has never happened to meet with those "faultless
Monsters." He holds that mankind is constitutionally defective, and that
a single bad act does not, of necessity, imply a bad nature. He has also
observed, without surprise, that virtue in this world is not always "the
certain Road to Happiness," nor "Vice to Misery." In short, having been
admitted "behind the Scenes of this Great Theatre of Nature," he paints
humanity as he has found it, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught
in malice, but reserving the full force of his satire and irony for
affectation and hypocrisy. His sincere endeavour, he says moreover in
his dedication to Lyttelton, has been "to recommend Goodness and
Innocence," and promote the cause of religion and virtue. And he has all
the consciousness that what he is engaged upon is no ordinary
enterprise. He is certain that his pages will outlive both "their own
infirm Author" and his enemies; and he appeals to Fame to solace and
reassure him--
"Come, bright Love of Fame,"--says the beautiful "Invocation" which
begins the thirteenth Book,--"inspire my glowing Breast: Not thee I
call, who over swelling Tides of Blood and Tears, dost bear the Heroe on
to Glory, while Sighs of Millions waft his spreading Sails; but thee,
fair, gentle Maid, whom _Mnesis_, happy Nymph, first on the Banks of
_Hebrus_ didst produce. Thee, whom _Maeonia_ educated, whom _Mantua_
charm'd, and who, on that fair Hill which overlooks the proud Metropolis
of _Britain_, sat, with thy _Milton_, sweetly tuning the Heroic Lyre;
fill my ravished Fancy with the Hopes of charming Ages yet to come.
Foretel 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. 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."
With no less earnestness, after a mock apostrophe to Wealth, he appeals
to Genius:--
"Teach me (he exclaims), which to thee is no difficult Task, to know
Mankind better than they know themselves. Remove that Mist which dims
the Intellects of Mortals, and causes them to adore Men for their Art,
or to detest them for their Cunning in deceiving others, when they are,
in Reality, the Objects only of Ridicule, for deceiving themselves.
Strip off the thin Disguise of Wisdom from Self-Conceit, of Plenty from
Avarice, and of Glory from Ambition. Come thou, that hast inspired thy
_Aristophanes_, thy _Lucian_, thy _Cervantes_, thy _Rabelais_, thy
_Moliere_, thy _Shakespear_, thy _Swift_, thy _Marivaux_, fill my Pages
with Humour, till Mankind learn the Good-Nature to laugh only at the
Follies of others, and the Humility to grieve at their own."
From the little group of immortals who are here enumerated, it may be
gathered with whom Fielding sought to compete, and with whom he hoped
hereafter to be associated. His hopes were not in vain. Indeed, in one
respect, he must be held to have even outrivalled that particular
predecessor with whom he has been oftenest compared. Like _Don Quixote_,
_Tom Jones_ is the precursor of a new order of things,--the earliest and
freshest expression of a new departure in art. But while _Tom Jones_ is,
to the full, as amusing as _Don Quixote_, it has the advantage of a
greatly superior plan, and an interest more skilfully sustained. The
incidents which, in Cervantes, simply succeed each other like the scenes
in a panorama, are, in _Tom Jones_, but parts of an organised and
carefully-arranged progression towards a foreseen conclusion. As the
hero and heroine cross and re-cross each other's track, there is
scarcely an episode which does not aid in the moving forward of the
story. Little details rise lightly and naturally to the surface of the
narrative, not more noticeable at first than the most everyday
occurrences, and a few pages farther on become of the greatest
importance. The hero makes a mock proposal of marriage to Lady
Bellaston. It scarcely detains attention, so natural an expedient does
it appear, and behold in a chapter or two it has become a terrible
weapon in the hands of the injured Sophia! Again, when the secret of
Jones' birth [Footnote: Much ink has been shed respecting Fielding's
reason for making his hero illegitimate. But may not "The History of Tom
Jones, a _Foundling_," have had no subtler origin than the recent
establishment of the Foundling Hospital, of which Fielding had written
in the _Champion_, and in which his friend Hogarth was interested?] is
finally disclosed, we look back and discover a hundred little
premonitions which escaped us at first, but which, read by the light of
our latest knowledge, assume a fresh significance. At the same time, it
must be admitted that the over-quoted and somewhat antiquated dictum of
Coleridge, by which _Tom Jones_ is grouped with the _Alchemist_ and
_OEdipus Tyrannus_, as one of the three most perfect plots in the world,
requires revision. It is impossible to apply the term "perfect" to a
work which contains such an inexplicable stumbling-block as the Man of
the Hill's story. Then again, progress and animation alone will not make
a perfect plot, unless probability be superadded. And although it cannot
be said that Fielding disregards probability, he certainly strains it
considerably. Money is conveniently lost and found; the naivest
coincidences continually occur; people turn up in the nick of time at
the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but entirely
casual) relations with the characters. Sometimes an episode is so
inartistically introduced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end of the
book, for instance, it has to be shown that Jones has still some power
of resisting temptation, and he accordingly receives from a Mrs.
Arabella Hunt, a written offer of her hand, which he declines. Mrs.
Hunt's name has never been mentioned before, nor, after this occurrence,
is it mentioned again. But in the brief fortnight which Jones has been
in town, with his head full of Lady Bellaston, Sophia, and the rest, we
are to assume that he has unwittingly inspired her with so desperate a
passion that she proposes and is refused--all in a chapter.
Imperfections of this kind are more worthy of consideration than some of
the minor negligences which criticism has amused itself by detecting in
this famous book. Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer
in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that in one place winter and summer come
too close together; or the "strange specimen of oscitancy" which another
(it is, in fact, Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to record
respecting the misplacing of the village of Hambrook. To such trifles as
these last the precept of _non offendar maculis_ may safely be applied,
although Fielding, wiser than his critics, seems to have foreseen the
necessity for still larger allowances:--
"Cruel indeed," says he in his proemium to Book XI., "would it be, if
such a Work as this History, which hath employed some Thousands of Hours
in the composing, should be liable to be condemned, because some
particular Chapter, or perhaps Chapters, may be obnoxious to very just
and sensible Objections.... To write within such severe Rules as these,
is as impossible as to live up to some splenetic Opinions; and if we
judge according to the Sentiments of some Critics, and of some
Christians, no Author will be saved in this World, and no Man in the
next."
Notwithstanding its admitted superiority to _Joseph Andrews_ as a work
of art, there is no male character in _Tom Jones_ which can compete with
Parson Adams--none certainly which we regard with equal admiration.
Allworthy, excellent compound of Lyttelton and Allen though he be,
remains always a little stiff and cold in comparison with the "veined
humanity" around him. We feel of him, as of another impeccable
personage, that we "cannot breathe in that fine air, That pure severity
of perfect light," and that we want the "warmth and colour" which we
find in Adams. Allworthy is a type rather than a character--a fault
which also seems to apply to that Molieresque hypocrite, the younger
Blifil. Fielding seems to have welded this latter together, rather than
to have fused him entire, and the result is a certain lack of
verisimilitude, which makes us wonder how his pinchbeck professions and
vamped-up virtues could deceive so many persons. On the other hand, his
father, Captain John Blifil, has all the look of life. Nor can there be
any doubt about the vitality of Squire Western. Whether the germ of his
character be derived from Addison's Tory Foxhunter or not, it is certain
that Fielding must have had superabundant material of his own from which
to model this thoroughly representative, and at the same time,
completely individual character. Western has all the rustic tastes, the
narrow prejudices, the imperfect education, the unreasoning hatred to
the court, which distinguished the Jacobite country gentleman of the
Georgian era; but his divided love for his daughter and his horses, his
good-humour and his shrewdness, his foaming impulses and his quick
subsidings, his tears, his oaths, and his barbaric dialect, are all
essential features in a personal portrait. When Jones has rescued
Sophia, he will give him all his stable, the Chevalier and Miss Slouch
excepted; when he finds he is in love with her, he is in a frenzy to
"get _at un_" and "spoil his Caterwauling." He will have the surgeon's
heart's blood if he takes a drop too much from Sophia's white arm; when
she opposes his wishes as to Blifil, he will turn her into the street
with no more than a smock, and give his estate to the "_zinking_ Fund."
Throughout the book he is _qualis ab incepto_,--boisterous, brutal,
jovial, and inimitable; so that when finally in "Chapter the Last," we
get that pretty picture of him in Sophy's nursery, protesting that the
tattling of his little granddaughter is "sweeter Music than the finest
Cry of Dogs in _England_," we part with him almost with a feeling of
esteem. Scott seems to have thought it unreasonable that he should have
"taken a beating so unresistingly from the friend of Lord Fellamar," and
even hints that the passage is an interpolation, although he wisely
refrains from suggesting by whom, and should have known that it was in
the first edition. With all deference to so eminent an authority, it is
impossible to share his hesitation. Fielding was fully aware that even
the bravest have their fits of panic. It must besides be remembered that
Lord Fellamar's friend was not an effeminate dandy, but a military man--
probably a professed _sabreur_, if not a salaried bully like Captain
Stab in the _Rake's Progress_; that he was armed with a stick and
Western was not; and that he fell upon him in the most unexpected
manner, in a place where he was wholly out of his element. It is
inconceivable that the sturdy squire, with his faculty for distributing
"Flicks" and "Dowses,"--who came so valiantly to the aid of Jones in his
battle-royal with Blifil and Thwackum,--was likely, under any but very
exceptional circumstances, to be dismayed by a cane. It was the
exceptional character of the assault which made a coward of him; and
Fielding, who had the keenest eye for inconsistencies of the kind, knew
perfectly well what he was doing.
Of the remaining _dramatis personae_--the swarming individualities with
which the great comic epic is literally "all alive," as Lord Monboddo
said--it is impossible to give any adequate account. Few of them, if
any, are open to the objection already pointed out with respect to
Allworthy and the younger Blifil, and most of them bear signs of having
been closely copied from living models. Parson Thwackum, with his
Antinomian doctrines, his bigotry, and his pedagogic notions of justice;
Square the philosopher, with his faith in human virtue (alas! poor
Square), and his cuckoo-cry about "the unalterable Rule of Eight and the
eternal Fitness of Things;" Partridge--the unapproachable Partridge,--
with his superstition, his vanity, and his perpetual _Infandum regina_,
but who, notwithstanding all his cheap Latinity, cannot construe an
unexpected phrase of Horace; Ensign Northerton, with his vague and
disrespectful recollections of "Homo;" young Nightingale and Parson
Supple:--each is a definite character bearing upon his forehead the mark
of his absolute fidelity to human nature. Nor are the female actors less
accurately conceived. Starched Miss Bridget Allworthy, with her pinched
Hogarthian face; Miss Western, with her disjointed diplomatic jargon;
that budding Slipslop, Mrs. Honour; worthy Mrs. Miller, Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, Mrs. Waters, Lady Bellaston,--all are to the full as real.
Lady Bellaston especially, deserves more than a word. Like Lady Booby in
_Joseph Andrews_, she is not a pleasant character; but the picture of
the fashionable demirep, cynical, sensual, and imperious, has never been
drawn more vigorously, or more completely--even by Balzac. Lastly, there
is the adorable Sophia herself, whose pardon should be asked for naming
her in such close proximity to her frailer sister. Byron calls her
(perhaps with a slight suspicion of exigence of rhyme) too "emphatic;"
meaning, apparently, to refer to such passages as her conversation with
Mrs. Fitzpatrick, etc. But the heroine of Fielding's time--a time which
made merry over a lady's misadventures in horsemanship, and subjected
her to such atrocities as those of Lord Fellamar--required to be
strongly moulded; and Sophia Western is pure and womanly, in spite of
her unfavourable surroundings. She is a charming example--the first of
her race--of an unsentimentalised flesh-and-blood heroine; and Time has
hated no jot of her frank vitality or her healthy beauty. Her
descendants in the modern novel are far more numerous than the family
which she bore to the fortunate--the too fortunate--Mr. Jones.
And this reminds us that in the foregoing enumeration we have left out
Hamlet. In truth, it is by no means easy to speak of this handsome, but
very un-heroic hero. Lady Mary, employing, curiously enough, the very
phrase which Fielding has made one of his characters apply to Jones,
goes so far as to call him a "sorry scoundrel;" and eminent critics have
dilated upon his fondness for drink and play. But it is a notable
instance of the way in which preconceived attributes are gradually
attached to certain characters, that there is in reality little or
nothing to show that he was either sot or gamester. With one exception,
when, in the joy of his heart at his benefactor's recovery, he takes too
much wine (and it may be noted that on the same occasion the Catonic
Thwackum drinks considerably more), there is no evidence that he was
specially given to tippling, even in an age of hard drinkers, while of
his gambling there is absolutely no trace at all. On the other hand, he
is admittedly brave, generous, chivalrous, kind to the poor, and
courteous to women. What, then, is his cardinal defect? The answer lies
in the fact that Fielding, following the doctrine laid down in his
initial chapters, has depicted him under certain conditions (in which,
it is material to note, he is always rather the tempted than the
tempter), with an unvarnished truthfulness which to the pure-minded is
repugnant, and to the prurient indecent. Remembering that he too had
been young, and reproducing, it may be, his own experiences, he exhibits
his youth as he had found him--a "piebald miscellany,"--
"Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire;"
and, to our modern ideas, when no one dares, as Thackeray complained,
"to depict to his utmost power a Man," the spectacle is discomforting.
Yet those who look upon human nature as keenly and unflinchingly as
Fielding did, knowing how weak and fallible it is,--how prone to fall
away by accident or passion,--can scarcely deny the truth of Tom Jones.
That such a person cannot properly serve as a hero now is rather a
question of our time than of Fielding's, and it may safely be set aside.
One objection which has been made, and made with reason, is that
Fielding, while taking care that Nemesis shall follow his hero's lapses,
has spoken of them with too much indulgence, or rather without
sufficient excuse. Coleridge, who was certainly not squeamish, seems to
have felt this when, in a MS. note [Footnote: These notes were
communicated by Mr. James Gillman to _The Literary Remains of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge_, published by H. N. Coleridge in 1836. The book in
which they were made, (it is the four volume edition of 1773, and has
Gillman's book-plate), is now in the British Museum. The above
transcript is from the MS.] in the well-known British Museum edition, he
says:--
"Even in this most questionable part of Tom Jones [i.e. the Lady
Bellaston episode, chap. ix. Book xv.], I cannot but think after
frequent reflection on it, that an additional paragraph, more fully &
forcibly unfolding Tom Jones's sense of self-degradation on the
discovery of the true character of the relation, in which he had stood
to Lady Bellaston--& his awakened feeling of the dignity and manliness
of Chastity--would have removed in great measure any just objection, at
all events relating to Fielding himself, by taking in the state of
manners in his time."
Another point suggested by these last lines may be touched _en passant_.
Lady Bellaston, as Fielding has carefully explained (chap. i. Book
xiv.), was not a typical, but an exceptional, member of society; and
although there were eighteenth-century precedents for such alliances
(e.g. Miss Edwards and Lord Anne Hamilton, Mrs. Upton and General
Braddock,) it is a question whether in a picture of average English life
it was necessary to deal with exceptions of this kind, or, at all
events, to exemplify them in the principal personage. But the discussion
of this subject would prove endless. Right or wrong, Fielding has
certainly suffered in popularity for his candour in this respect, since
one of the wisest and wittiest books ever written cannot, without
hesitation, be now placed in the hands of women or very young people.
Moreover, this same candour has undoubtedly attracted to its pages many,
neither young nor women, whom its wit finds unintelligent, and its
wisdom leaves unconcerned.
But what a brave wit it is, what a wisdom after all, that is contained
in this wonderful novel! Where shall we find its like for richness of
reflection--for inexhaustible good-humour--for large and liberal
humanity! Like Fontenelle, Fielding might fairly claim that he had never
cast the smallest ridicule upon the most infinitesimal of virtues; it is
against hypocrisy, affectation, insincerity of all kinds, that he wages
war. And what a keen and searching observation,--what a perpetual
faculty of surprise,--what an endless variety of method! Take the
chapter headed ironically _A Receipt to regain the lost Affections of a
Wife_, in which Captain John Blifil gives so striking an example of Mr.
Samuel Johnson's just published _Vanity of Human Wishes_, by dying
suddenly of apoplexy while he is considering what he will do with Mr.
Allworthy's property (when it reverts to him); or that admirable scene,
commended by Macaulay, of Partridge at the Playhouse, which is none the
worse because it has just a slight look of kinship with that other
famous visit which Sir Roger de Coverley paid to Philips's _Distrest
Mother_. Or take again, as utterly unlike either of these, that
burlesque Homeric battle in the churchyard, where the "sweetly-winding
Stour" stands for "reedy Simois," and the bumpkins round for Greeks and
Trojans! Or take yet once more, though it is woful work to offer bricks
from this edifice which _has_ already (in a sense) outlived the
Escorial, [Footnote: The Escorial, it will be remembered, was partially
burned in 1872.] the still more diverse passage which depicts the
changing conflict in Black George's mind as to whether he shall return
to Jones the sixteen guineas that he has found:--
"_Black George_ having received the Purse, set forward towards the
Alehouse; but in the Way a Thought occurred whether he should not detain
this Money likewise. His Conscience, however, immediately started at
this Suggestion, and began to upbraid him with Ingratitude to his
Benefactor. To this his Avarice answered, 'That his conscience should
have considered that Matter before, when he deprived poor _Jones_ of his
500l. That having quietly acquiesced in what was of so much greater
Importance, it was absurd, if not downright Hypocrisy, to affect any
Qualms at this Trifle.'--In return to which, Conscience, like a good
Lawyer, attempted to distinguish between an absolute Breach of Trust, as
here where the Goods were delivered, and a bare Concealment of what was
found, as in the former Case. Avarice presently treated this with
Ridicule, called it a Distinction without a Difference, and absolutely
insisted, that when once all Pretensions of Honour and Virtue were given
up in any one Instance, that there was no Precedent for resorting to
them upon a second Occasion. In short, poor Conscience had certainly
been defeated in the Argument, had not Fear stept in to her Assistance,
and very strenuously urged, that the real Distinction between the two
Actions, did not lie in the different degrees of Honour, but of Safety:
For that the secreting the 500l. was a Matter of very little Hazard;
whereas the detaining the sixteen Guineas was liable to the utmost
Danger of Discovery.
"By this friendly Aid of Fear, Conscience obtained a compleat Victory in
the Mind of _Black George_, and after making him a few Compliments on
his Honesty, forced him to deliver the Money to _Jones_."
When one remembers that this is but one of many such passages, and that
the book, notwithstanding the indulgence claimed by the author in the
Preface, and despite a certain hurry at the close, is singularly even in
its workmanship, it certainly increases our respect for the manly genius
of the writer, who, amid all the distractions of ill-health and poverty,
could find the courage to pursue and perfect such a conception. It is
true that both Cervantes and Bunyan wrote their immortal works in the
confinement of a prison. But they must at least have enjoyed the
seclusion so needful to literary labour; while _Tom Jones_ was written
here and there, at all times and in all places, with the dun at the door
and the wolf not very far from the gate. [Footnote: Salisbury, in the
neighbourhood of which _Tom Jones_ is laid, claims the originals of some
of the characters. Thwackum is said to have been Hele, a schoolmaster;
Square, one Chubb, a Deist; and Dowling the lawyer a person named
Stillingfleet.]
The little sentence quoted some pages back from Walpole's letters is
sufficient proof, if proof were needed, of its immediate success. Andrew
Millar was shrewd enough, despite his constitutional confusion, and he
is not likely to have given an additional L100 to the author of any book
without good reason. But the indications of that success are not very
plainly impressed upon the public prints. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ for
1749, which, as might be expected from Johnson's connection with it,
contains ample accounts of his own tragedy of _Irene_ and Richardson's
recently-published _Clarissa_, has no notice of _Tom Jones_, nor is
there even any advertisement of the second edition issued in the same
year. But, in the emblematic frontispiece, it appears under _Clarissa_
(and sharing with that work a possibly unintended proximity to a sprig
of laurel stuck in a bottle of Nantes), among a pile of the books of the
year; and in the "poetical essays" for August, one Thomas Cawthorn
breaks into rhymed panegyric. "Sick of her fools," sings this
enthusiastic but scarcely lucid admirer--
"Sick of her fools, great _Nature_ broke the jest,
And _Truth_ held out each character to test,
When _Genius_ spoke: Let _Fielding_ take the pen!
Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men."
There were others, however, who would scarcely have echoed the laudatory
sentiments of Mr. Cawthorn. Among these was again the excellent
Richardson, who seems to have been wholly unpropitiated by the olive
branch held out to him in the _Jacobite's Journal_. His vexation at the
indignity put upon _Pamela_ by _Joseph Andrews_ was now complicated by a
twittering jealousy of the "spurious brat," as he obligingly called _Tom
Jones_, whose success had been so "unaccountable." In these
circumstances, some of the letters of his correspondents must have been
gall and wormwood to him. Lady Bradshaigh, for instance, under her _nom
de guerre_ of "Belfour," tells him that she is fatigued with the very
name of the book, having met several young ladies who were for ever
talking of their Tom Jones's, "for so they call their favourites," and
that the gentlemen, on their side, had their Sophias, one having gone so
far as to give that all-popular name to his "Dutch mastiff puppy." But
perhaps the best and freshest exhibition (for, as far as can be
ascertained, it has never hitherto been made public) of Richardson's
attitude to his rival is to be found in a little group of letters in the
Forster collection at South Kensington. The writers are Aaron Hill and
his daughters; but the letters do not seem to have been known to Mrs.
Barbauld, whose last communication from Hill is dated November 2, 1748.
Nor are they to be found in Hill's own Correspondence. The ladies, it
appears, had visited Richardson at Salisbury Court in 1741, and were
great admirers of _Pamela_, and the "divine _Clarissa_." Some months
after _Tom Jones_ was published, Richardson (not yet having brought
himself to read the book) had asked them to do so, and give him their
opinion as to its merits. Thereupon Minerva and Astraea, who despite
their names, and their description of themselves as "Girls of an
untittering Disposition," must have been very bright and lively young
persons, began seriously "to lay their two wise heads together" and
"hazard this Discovery of their Emptiness." Having "with much ado got
over some Reluctance, that was bred by a familiar coarseness in the
_Title_," they report "much (masqu'd) merit" in the "whole six volumes"
--"a double merit, both of Head, and _Heart_."
Had it been the latter only it would be more worthy of Mr. Richardson's
perusal; but, say these considerate pioneers, if he does spare it his
attention, he must only do so at his leisure, for the author "introduces
All his Sections (and too often interweaves the _serious_ Body of his
meanings), with long Runs of bantering Levity, which his [Fielding's]
Good sense may suffer by Effect of." "It is true (they continue), he
seems to wear this Lightness, as a grave Head sometime wears a
_Feather_: which tho' He and Fashion may consider as an ornament,
Reflection will condemn, as a Disguise, and _covering_." Then follows a
brief excursus, intended for their correspondent's special consolation,
upon the folly of treating grave things lightly; and with delightful
sententiousness the letter thus concludes:--
"Mean while, it is an honest pleasure, which we take in adding, that
(exclusive of one wild, detach'd, and independent Story of a _Man of the
Hill_, that neither brings on Anything, nor rose from Anything that went
before it) All the changefull windings of the Author's Fancy carry on a
course of regular Design; and end in an extremely moving Close, where
Lives that seem'd to wander and run different ways, meet, All, in an
instructive Center.
"The whole Piece consists of an inventive Race of Disapointments and
Recoveries. It excites Curiosity, and holds it watchful. It has just and
pointed Satire; but it is a partial Satire, and confin'd, too narrowly:
It sacrifices to Authority, and Interest. Its _Events_ reward Sincerity,
and punish and expose Hypocrisy; shew Pity and Benevolence in amiable
Lights, and Avarice and Brutality in very despicable ones. In every Part
It has Humanity for its Intention: In too many, it _seems_ wantoner than
It was meant to be: It has bold shocking Pictures; and (I fear)
[Footnote: The "pen-holder" is the fair Astraea.] not unresembling ones,
in high Life, and in low. And (to conclude this too adventurous Guess-
work, from a Pair of forward Baggages) woud, every where, (we think,)
_deserve_ to please,--if stript of what the Author thought himself most
sure to _please by_.
"And thus, Sir, we have told you our sincere opinion of _Tom Jones_....
"Your most profest Admirers and most humble Servants,
"Astraea and Minerva Hill.
"PLAISTOW the 27th of July 1749."
Richardson's reply to this ingenuous criticism is dated the 4th of
August. His requesting two young women to study and criticise a book
which he has heard strongly condemned as immoral,--his own obvious
familiarity with what he has not read but does not scruple to censure,--
his transparently jealous anticipation of its author's ability,--all
this forms a picture so characteristic alike of the man and the time
that no apology is needed for the following textual extract:--
"I must confess, that I have been prejudiced by the Opinion of Several
judicious Friends against the truly coarse-titled Tom Jones; and so have
been discouraged from reading it.--I was told, that it was a rambling
Collection of Waking Dreams, in which Probability was not observed: And
that it had a very bad Tendency. And I had Reason to think that the
Author intended for his Second View (His _first_, to fill his Pocket, by
accommodating it to the reigning Taste) in writing it, to whiten a
vicious Character, and to make Morality bend to his Practices. What
Reason had he to make his Tom illegitimate, in an Age where Keeping is
become a Fashion? Why did he make him a common--What shall I call it?
And a Kept Fellow, the Lowest of all Fellows, yet in Love with a Young
Creature who was traping [trapesing?] after him, a Fugitive from her
Father's House?--Why did he draw his Heroine so fond, so foolish, and so
insipid?--Indeed he has one Excuse--He knows not how to draw a delicate
Woman--He has not been accustomed to such Company,--And is too
prescribing, too impetuous, too immoral, I will venture to say, to take
any other Byass than that a perverse and crooked Nature has given him;
or Evil Habits, at least, have confirm'd in him. Do Men expect Grapes of
Thorns, or Figs of Thistles? But, perhaps, I think the worse of the
Piece because I know the Writer, and dislike his Principles both Public
and Private, tho' I wish well to the _Man_, and Love Four worthy Sisters
of his, with whom I am well acquainted. And indeed should admire him,
did he make the Use of his Talents which I wish him to make, For the
Vein of Humour, and Ridicule, which he is Master of, might, if properly
turned do great Service to ye Cause of Virtue.
"But no more of this Gentleman's Work, after I have said, That the
favourable Things, you say of the Piece, will tempt me, if I can find
Leisure, to give it a Perusal."
Notwithstanding this last sentence, Richardson more than once reverts to
_Tom Jones_ before he finishes his letter. Its effect upon Minerva and
Astraea is hest described in an extract from Aaron Hill's reply, dated
seven days later (August the 11th):--
"Unfortunate _Tom Jones_! how sadly has he mortify'd Two sawcy
Correspondents of your making! They are with me now: and bid me tell
you, You have spoil'd 'em Both, for Criticks.--Shall I add, a Secret
which they did not bid me tell you?--They, Both, fairly _cry'd_, that
You shou'd think it possible they you'd approve of Any thing, in Any
work, that had an _Evil Tendency_, in any Part or Purpose of it. They
maintain their Point so far, however, as to be convinc'd they say, that
_you_ will disapprove this over-rigid Judgment of those Friends, who
you'd not find a Thread of Moral Meaning in Tom Jones, quite independent
of the Levities they justly censure.--And, as soon as you have Time to
read him, for yourself, tis there, pert Sluts, they will be bold enough
to rest the Matter.--Mean while, they love and honour you and your
opinions."
To this the author of _Clarissa_ replied by writing a long epistle
deploring the pain he had given the "dear Ladies," and minutely
justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used.
He refers to Fielding again as "a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an
unyielding-spirited Man;" and he also trusts to be able to "bestow a
Reading" on _Tom Jones_; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed
in Barbauld, and dated December 1749, it seems that even at that date he
had not, or pretended he had not, yet done so. In another of the
unpublished South Kensington letters, from a Mr. Solomon Lowe, occurs
the following:--"I do not doubt"--says the writer--"but all Europe will
ring of it [_Clarissa_]: when a Cracker, that was some thous'd hours a-
com-posing, [Footnote: _Vide Tom Jones_, Book xi. chap. i.] will no
longer be heard, or talkt-of." Richardson, with business-like precision,
has gravely docketed this in his own handwriting,--"Cracker, T. Jones."
It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowe's reputation as a prophet that, after
more than one hundred and thirty years, this ephemeral firework, as he
deemed it, should still be sparkling with undiminished brilliancy, and
to judge by recent editions, is selling as vigorously as ever. From the
days when Lady Mary wrote "_Ne plus ultra_" in her own copy, and La
Harpe called it _le premier roman du monde_, (a phrase which, by the
way, De Musset applies to _Clarissa_), it has come down to us with an
almost universal accompaniment of praise. Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge,
Scott, Dickens, Thackeray,--have all left their admiration on record,--
to say nothing of professional critics innumerable. As may be seen from
the British Museum Catalogue, it has been translated into French,
German, Polish, Dutch, and Spanish. Russia and Sweden have also their
versions. The first French translation, or rather abridgment, by M. de
La Place was prohibited in France (to Richardson's delight) by royal
decree, an act which affords another instance, in Scott's words, of that
"French delicacy, which, on so many occasions, has strained at a gnat,
and swallowed a camel" (e.g. the novels of M. Crebillon _fils_). La
Place's edition (1750) was gracefully illustrated with sixteen plates by
Hubert Bourguignon, called Gravelot, one of those eighteenth-century
illustrators whose designs at present are the rage in Paris. In England,
Fielding's best-known pictorial interpreters are Rowlandson and
Cruikshank, the latter being by far the more sympathetic. Stothard also
prepared some designs for Harrison's _Novelists Magazine_; but his
refined and effeminate pencil was scarcely strong enough for the task.
Hogarth alone could have been the ideal illustrator of Henry Fielding;
that is to say--if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for _Tristram
Shandy_, he could have been induced to undertake the work in the larger
fashion of the _Rake's Progress_, or _The Marriage a la Mode_.
As might perhaps be anticipated, _Tom Jones_ attracted the dramatist.
[Footnote: It may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. As
_Pamela_ had its sequel in _Pamela's Conduct in High Life_, 1741, so
_Tom Jones_ was continued in _The History of Tom Jones the Foundling, in
his Married State_, a second edition of which was issued in 1750. The
Preface announces, needlessly enough, that "Henry Fielding, Esq., is not
the Author of this Book." It deserves no serious consideration.] In
1765, one J. H. Steffens made a comedy of it for the German boards; and
in 1785, a M. Desforges based upon it another, called _Tom Jones a
Londres_, which was acted at the _Theatre Francais_. It was also turned
into a comic opera by Joseph Reed in 1769, and played at Covent Garden.
But its most piquant transformation is the _Comedie lyrique_ of
Poinsinet, acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of Philidor. The
famous Caillot took the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by
_piqueurs_, and girt with the conventional _cor de chasse_ of the Gallic
sportsman, sings the following _ariette_, diversified with true
Fontainebleau terms of venery:--
"D'un Cerf, dix Cors, j'ai connaissance:
On l'attaque au fort, on le lance;
Tous sont prets:
Piqueurs & Valets
Suivent les pas de l'ami Jone (_sic_).
J'entends crier: Volcelets, Volcelets.
Aussitot j'ordonne
Que la Meute donne.
Tayaut, Tayaut, Tayaut.
Mes chiens decouples l'environnent;
Les trompes sonnent:
'Courage, Amis: Tayaut, Tayaut.'
Quelques chiens, que l'ardeur derange,
Quittent la voye & prennent le change
Jones les rassure d'un cri:
Ourvari, ourvari.
Accoute, accoute, accoute.
Au retour nous en revoyons.
Accoute, a Mirmiraut, courons
Tout a Griffaut;
Y apres: Tayaut, Tayaut.
On reprend route,
Voila le Cerf a l'eau.
La trompe sonne,
La Meute donne,
L'echo resonne,
Nous pressons les nouveaux relais:
Volcelets, Volcelets.
L'animal force succombe,
Fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe:
Et nos chasseurs chantent tous a l'envi:
'Amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire;
'Amis, Amis, celebrons notre gloire.
'Halali, Fanfare, Halali
'Halali.'"
With this triumphant flourish of trumpets the present chapter may be
fittingly concluded. [Footnote: See Appendix No. II.: Fielding and Mrs.
Hussey.]