The writings of Henry Fielding. Comprising his celebrated works of fiction, carefully revised and collated with the best authorities. With a memoir by David Herbert

Front matter

4^ $F . - Y — »- COMPRiSI NGHK HIS C^ LEB Ait fe i> WORKS SQUIRE WESTZRK SEIZING- TOM JONES AT "UPTON EBINB URG-H WIIiLIiM P. KIM MO. THE WRITINGS OF HENRY FIELDING COMPRISING HIS CELEBRATED WORKS OF FfCTfON, CAREFULLY REVISED AND COLLATED WITH THE BEST AUTHORITIES. W\i\ a gt,mxrir BY DAVID HERBERT, M.A. EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. Iss I M M O. 1872. MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. CONTENTS. * nmon- • Pl ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH ANDREWS n THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING, . . . .139 AMELIA, ' .491 MEMOIR. THE genius of Lord Byron crystallized many a comprehensive truth ; but it never exercised the poet's critical faculty with greater intensity than when he spoke of Henry Fielding as 'The prose Homer of Human Nature.' Much of Fielding's dialogue is of the lengthy Homeric sort.

In Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones especially he affects a mock heroic style, which has an echo of the epic in it. Both of these peculiarities are to he remarked in Jonathan Wild also, — that inimitable satire upon what the world calls ' Greatness.' Fielding is as direct and truthful in his treatment of what is rakish, generous, or riotous in English human nature, as was Homer in his rehabilitation of the bellowing, disputatious, and butchering heroes of Hellas or Troy. The ancient fictionist was the father of Greek literature, — of its drama and history, as well as of the hexametric ballad. His modern imitator was, as Sir Walter Scott terms him, ' The Father of the English Novel.' Daniel De Foe and Richardson wrote, it is true, their immortal works of fiction before Fielding attempted Joseph Andrews.

But Fielding made the pattern, and showed how to mould and cast that species of literature which has been known for more than a century as ' The Eng lish Novel.' It is not the offspring of the elder romance, like Richard son's works ; nor is it a fictitious autobiography, like Robinson Crusoe. The characters by means of which its plot is woven, complicated, and extricated, are utterly English. Its virtues are not impossible to the countrymen of Fielding ; its vices are such as they have little difficulty in understanding. Fielding owed nothing to his illustrious ancestry but his name, and a most inconvenient inheritance of foolish and extravagant tastes. We owe to his ancestry that wisdom which he acquired, — for our benefit, as the result has proved, — while sinking from the comparatively high estate in which he was born, to those depths and low surroundings amid winch his great heart beat so wearily during the suffering days of a degrading occupation, at the best maturity of his few and evil years.

Preface

As it is possible the mere English reader may have a different idea of romance from the author of these little1 volumes, and may consequently expect a kind of entertainment not to be found, nor which was even intended, in the following pages, it may not be improper to premise a few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language. the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others, which contain, as I apprehend, very little instruction or entertainment. Now, a comic romance is a comic epic poem iu prose, differing from comedy as the serious epic from tragedy; its action being more ex tended and comprehensive, containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs from the serious romance in its fable and action in this, that as in the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light aud ridiculous ; it differs in its characters by introducing persons of inferior rank, and consequently of inferior manners, whereas the grave romance sets the highest before us; lastly, in its sentiments and diction, by preserving the ludicrous instead of the sublime.

In the diction, I think, burlesque itself may be sometimes admitted, of which many instances will occur in this work, as in the description of the battles, and some other places, not necessary to be pointed out to the classical reader, for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque imitations are chiefly calculated. The Epic, as well as the Drama, is divided into tragedy and comedy. Homer, who was the father of this species of poetry, gave us a pattern of both these, though that of the latter kind is entirely lost, which, Aristotle tells us, bore the same relation to comedy which his Iliad bears to tragedy. And, perhaps, that we have no more instances of it among the writers of antiquity, is owing to the loss of this great pattern, which, had it survived, would have found its imitators equally with the other poems of this great original.

And further, as this poetry may be tragic or comic, I will not scruple to say it may be like wise either in verse or prose : for though it wants one particular which the critic enumerates in the constituent parts of an epic poem, namely metre ; yet, when any kind of writing contains all its other parts, such as fable, action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre only, it seems, 1 think, reasonable to refer it to the epic; at least, as no critic hath thought proper to range it under another head, or to assign it a particular name to itself. But though we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we have carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters ; for there it is never properly introduced, unless in writings of the burlesque kind, which this is not intended to be.

Indeed, no two species of writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque ; for as the latter is ever the exhibition of what is monstrous and unnatural, and where our delight, if we examine it, arises from the surpris ing absurdity, as in appropriating the manners of the highest to the lowest, or e converso, so in the former we should ever confine ourselves strictly to nature, from the just imitation of which will flow all the pleasure we can this way convey to a sensible reader. And perhaps there is one reason why a comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the Thus the Telemachns of the Archbishop of Cambray appears to me of the epic kind, as well as the Odyssey of Homer; indeed, it is much fairer and more reasonable to give it a name common with that species from which it differs only in a single instance, than to confound it with those which it resembles in no other, — such as those voluminous' works, commonly called romances, Clelia, Cleopatra, Astrxct, Cassandra, 1 Joseph Andrews was originally published in 2 vols. 12mo. pleasure arises to us from it.

He who should call the ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my opinion, do him very little honour ; for sure it is much easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a nose or any other feature of a preposterous size, or to expose him in some absurd or monstrous atti tude, than to express the affections of men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commen dation of a painter to say his figures seem to breathe; but surely it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to think. admirable ; but life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous. I have hinted this little concerning burlesque, because I have often heard that name given to performances which have been truly of the comic kind, from the author's having sometimes ad mitted it in his diction only, which, as it is the dress of poetry, doth, like the dress of men, establish characters (the one of the whole poem, and the other of the whole man), in vulgar opinion, beyond any of their greater ex cellences ; but surely a certain drollery in style, where characters and sentiments are perfectly natural, no more constitutes the burlesque than an empty pomp and diguity cA words, where everything else is mean and low, can entitle any performance to the appellation of the true sublime.

But to return. The ridiculous only, as 1 have before said, falls within my province in the present work. Nor will some explanation of this word be thought impertinent by the reader, if he considers how wonderfully it hath been mistaken, even by writers who hath professed it; for to what but such a mistake can we attribute the many attempts to ridicule the blackest vil lanies, and, what is yet worse, the most dreadful calamities? What could exceed the absurdity of an author, who should write the comedy of Nero with the merry incident of ripping up his mother's, belly ? or what would give a greater shock to humanity than an attempt to expose the miseries of poverty and distress to ridicule ? And yet the reader will not want much learning to suggest such instances to himself. And I apprehend my Lord Shaftesbury's opinion of mere burlesque agrees with mine, when he asserts.

There is no such thing to be found in the writings of the ancients. But per haps I have less abhorrence than he professes for it ; and that, not because I have had some little success on the stage this way, but rather as it contributes more to exquisite mirth and laughter than any other ; and these are probably more wholesome physic for the mind, and con duce better to purge away spleen, melancholy, and ill affections, than is generally imagined. Nay, I will appeal to common observation, whether the same companies are not found more full of good-humour aud benevolence, after they have been sweetened for two or three hours with entertainments of this kind, than when soured by a tragedy or a grave lecture. Besides, it may seem remarkable that Aristotle, who is so fond and free of definitions, hath not thought proper to define the ridiculous.

Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to comedy, he hath remarked that villany is not its object ; but he hath not, as I remember, positively asserted what is. Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath written a treatise on this subject, though he shows us many species of it, once traco it to its fountain. But to illustrate all this by another science, in which, perhaps, we shall see the distinction more clearly and plainly, let us examine the works of a comic history painter with those per formances which the Italians call Caricatura, where we shall find the true excellence of the former to consist in the exactest copying of nature, insomuch that a judicious eye instantly rejects anything outre, any liberty which the painter hath taken with the features of that alma mater; whereas in the Caricatura we allow all licence, — its aim is to exhibit monsters, not men, and all distortions and exaggerations whatever are within its proper province.

The only source of the true ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation. But though it arises from one spring only, when we consider the infinite streams into which this one branches, we shall presently cease to admire at the copious field it affords to an observer. Now, affectation proceeds from one of these two causes, vanity or hypocrisy; for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters in order to purchase applause, so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to avoid censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues. And though these'two causes are often confounded (for there is some difficulty in distinguishing them), yet, as they proceed from very different motives, so they are as clearly distinct in their operations ; for, indeed, the affectation which arises from vanity is nearer to truth than the other, as it hath not that violent repugnancy of nature to struggle with which that of the hypocrite hath.

It may be likewise noted, that affectation doth not imply an absolute negation of those qualities which are affected ; and therefore though, when it proceeds from hypocrisy, it be nearly allied to Now, what caricatura is in painting, burlesque is in writing ; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other. And here I shall observe, that as in the former the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer; for the monstrous is much easier to paint than to describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint. And though perhaps this latter species doth not in either science so strongly affect and agitate the muscles as the other, yet it will be owned, I believe, that a more rational and useful deceit, yet when it comes from vanity only, it partakes of the nature of ostentation : for in stance, the affectation of liberality in a vain man differs visibly from the same affectation in the avaricious ; for though the vain man is not what he would appear, or hath not the virtue he affects to the degree he would be thought to have it, yet it sits less awkwardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is the very reverse of what he would seem to be. culous to close the first line, the thought would be rather more proper.

Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity ; but affectation appears to me the only true source of the ridiculous. But perhaps it may be objected to me, that I have, against my own rules, introduced vices, and of a very black kind, into this work. To which I shall answer: First, that it is very difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them. Secondly, that the vices to be found here are rather the accidental con sequences of some human frailty or foible than causes habitually existing in the mind. T hirdly, that they are never set forth as the objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never tho principal figure at that time on the scene ; and lastly, they never produce the intended evil. From the discovery of this affectation arises the ridiculous, which always strikes the reader with surprise and pleasure ; and that in a higher and stronger degree when the affectation arises from hypocrisy than when from vanity : for to discover any one to be exact the reverse of what he affects, is more surprising, and consequently more ridiculous, than to find him a little deficient in the quality he desires the reputation of.

I might observe that our Ben Jonson, who of all men understood the ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the hypocritical affectation. Having thus distinguished Joseph Andrews from the productions of romance writers on the one hand, and burlesque writers on the other, and given some few very short hints (for I in tended no more) of this species of writing, which I have affirmed to be hitherto unattempted in our language, I shall leave to my good-natured reader to apply my piece to my observations, and will detain him no longer than with a word concerning the characters in this work. Now, from affectation only, the misfortunes and calamities of life, or the imperfections of nature, may become the objects of ridicule. Surely he hath a very ill-framed mind who can look on ugliness, infirmity, or poverty, as ridi culous in themselves : nor do I believe any man living, who meets a dirty fellow riding through the streets iu a cart, is struck with an idea of the ridiculous from it; but if he should see the same figure descend from his coach and six, or bolt from his chair with his hat under his arm, he would then begin to laugh, and with justice.

In the same manner, were we to enter a poor house and behold a wretched family shivering with cold and languishing with hunger, it would not incline us to laughter (at least we must have very diabolical natures if it would); but should we discover there a grate instead of coals adorned with flowers, empty plate or china dishes on the sideboard, or any other affectation of riches and finery, either on their persons or in their furni ture, we might then indeed be excused for ridi culing so fantastical an appearance. Much less are natural imperfections the object of derision ; but when ugliness aims at the applause of beauty, or lameness endeavours to display agility, it is then that these unfortunate circumstances, which at first moved our compassion, tend only to raise our mirth. And here I solemnly protest I have no intention to vilify or asperse any one; for though everything is copied from the book of nature, and scarce a character or action produced which I have not taken from my own observations and experience, yet I have used the utmost care to obscure the persons by such different circumstances, degrees, and colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any degree of certainty ; and if it ever happens otherwise, it is only where the failure characterized is so minute that it is a foible only which the party himself may laugh at as well as any other.

As to the character of Adams, as it is the most glaring in the whole, so I conceive it is not to be found in any book now extant It is designed a character of perfect simplicity • and as the goodness of his heart will recommend him to the good-natured, so I hope it will excuse me to the gentlemen of his cloth, for whom, while they are worthy of their sacred order, no man can possibly have a greater respect. They will therefore excuse me, notwithstanding the low adventures in which he is engaged, that 1 have made him a clergyman, since no other office could have given him so many opportunities of displaying his worthy inclinations. The poet carries this very far : — None are for being what they are in fault, But for not being what they would be thought ;— where, if the metre would suffer the word ridi-

Book I. Chapter

I. and of Mrs. Pamela Andrews. How artfully doth the former, by insinuating that he escaped being promoted to the highest stations in Church and State, teach us a contempt of worldly gran deur! how strongly doth he inculcate an absolute submission to our superiors ! Lastly, how completely doth he arm us against so uneasy, so wretched a passion as the fear of shame ! how clearly doth he expose the emptiness and vanity of that phantom, reputation ! Of writing lives in general, and particularly op Pamela; with a word by the by of Colley Cibber and others. It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts ; and if this be just in what is odious and blame able, it is more strongly so iu what is amiable and praiseworthy. Here emulation most effectually operates upon us, and inspires our imitation in an irresistible manner.

A good man there fore is a standing lesson to all his acquaintance, and of far greater use in that narrow circle than a good book. What the female readers are taught by the memoirs of Mrs. Andrews, is so well set forth in the excellent essays or letters prefixed to the second and subsequent editions of that work, that it would be here a needless repetition. The authentic history with which I now present the public is an instance of the great good that book is likely to do, and of the prevalence of example which I have just observed ; since it will appear that it was by keeping the excellent pattern of his sister's virtues before his eyes, that Mr. Joseph Andrews was chiefly enabled to preserve his purity in the midst of such great temptations. I shall only add that this character of male chastity, though doubtless as desirable and be coming in one part of the human species as in the other, is almost the only virtue which the great apologist hath not given himself for the sake of giving the example to his readers.

But, as it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way, the writer may be called in aid to spread their history further, and to present the amiable pictures to those who have not the happiness of knowing the originals ; and so, by communicat ing such valuable patterns to the world, he may perhaps do a more extensive service to mankind than the person whose life originally afforded the pattern. In this light I have always regarded those biographers who have recorded the actions of great and worthy persons of both sexes. Not to mention those ancient writers which of late days are little read, being written in obsolete, and, as they are generally thought, unintelligible lan guages, such as Plutarch, Nepos, aad others, which I heard of in my youth, our own language affords many of excellent use and instruction, finely calculated to sow the seeds of virtue in youth, and very easy to be comprehended by persons of moderate capacity.

Such as the history of John the Great, who, by his brave and heroic actions against men of large and athletic bodies, obtained the glorious appellation of the Giant-killer ; that of an Earl of Warwick, whose Christian name was Guy ; the lives of Argalus and Parthenia ; and, above all, the history of those seven worthy personages, the Champions of Christendom. In all these delight is mixed with instruction, and the reader is almost as much unproved as entertained.

Chapter II

Of Mr. Joseph Andrews, his birth, parentage, education, and great endowments; with a word or two concerning ancestors. Mr. Joseph Andrews, the hero of our ensuing history, was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer aud Gammer Andrews,' and brother to the illustrious Pamela, whose virtue is at present so famous. As to his ancestors, we" have searched with great diligence, but little success, being unable to trace them further than his great grandfather, who, as an elderly person in the parish remembers to have heard his father say, was an excellent cudgel-player. Whether he had any ancestors before this, we must leave to the opinion of our curious reader, finding nothing of sufficient certainty to rely on. However, we cannot omit inserting an epitaph which an in genious friend of ours hath communicated : But I pass by these and many others to men tion two books lately published, which represent au admirable pattern of the amiable in either sex.

The former of these, which deals in male virtue, was written by the great person himself, who lived the life he hath recorded, and is by many thought to have lived such a life only in order to write it. The other is communicated to us by an historian who borrows his lights, as the common method is, from authentic papers and records. The reader, I believe, already con jectures I mean the lives of Mr. Colley Cibber Stay, traveller, for underneath this pew Lies fast asleep that merry man Andrew : When the last day's great sun shall gild the skies Then he shall from his tomb get up and rise. Be men-y while thou canst, for surely thou Shalt shortly be as sad as he is now. The words are almost out of the stone with antiquity. But it is needless to observe that Andrew here is writ without an s, and is, besides, a Christian name.

My friend, moreover, conjectures this to have been the founder of that sect of laughing philosophers since called Merry andrews. scornfully refused a considerable bribe to play booty on such an occasion. This extremely raised his character, and so pleased the Lady Booby, that she desired to have him (being now seventeen years of age) for her own footboy. Joey was now preferred from the stable to attend on his lady, to go on her errands, stand behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer book to church ; at which place his voice gave him an opportunity of distinguishing himself by singing psalms : he behaved likewise in every other respect so well at divine service, that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the curate, who took an opportunity one day, as he was drinking a cup of ale in Sir Thomas's kitchen, to ask the young man several questions concerning religion, with his answers to which ho was wonderfully pleased.

To waive, therefore, a circumstance which, though mentioned in conformity to the exact rules of biography, is not greatly material, I proceed to things of more consequence. Indeed, it is sufficiently certain that he had as many ancestors as the best man living, and, perhaps, if we look five or six hundred years backwards, might be related to some persons of very great figure at present, whose ancestors within half the last century are buried in as great obscurity. But suppose, for argument's sake, we should ad mit that he had no ancestors at all, but had sprung up, according to the modern phrase, out of a dunghill, as the Athenians pretended they themselves did from the earth, would not this autokopros1 have been justly entitled to all the praise arising from his own virtues ? Would it not be hard that a man who hath no ancestors should therefore be rendered incapable of acquir ing honour ; when we see so many who have no virtues enjoying the honour of their forefathers ?

At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing and reading) he was bound an apprentice, according to the "statute, to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of Mr. Booby's by the father's side. Sir Thomas having then an estate in his own hands, the young Andrews was at first employed in what in the country they call keeping birds. His office was to perform the part the ancients assigned to the god Priapus, which deity the moderns caU by the name of Jack 0' Lent ; but his voice being so extremely musical, that it rather allured the birds than terrified them, he was soon transplanted from the fields into the dog -kennel, where he was placed under the huntsman, and made what sportsmen term whipper-in. For this place likewise the sweetness of his voice disqualified him, the dogs preferring the melody of his chiding to all the alluring notes of the huntsman; who soon be came so incensed at it, that he desired Sir Thomas to provide otherwise for him, aud constantly laid every fault the dogs were at to the account of the poor boy, who was now transplanted to the stable.

Here he soon gave proofs of strength and agility beyond his years, and constantly rode the most spirited and vicious horses to water, with an intrepidity which surprised every one. While he was in this station, he rode several races for Sir Thomas, and this with such expertness aud success, that the neighbouring gentlemen frequently solicited the knight to permit little Joey (for so he was called) to ride their matches. The best gamesters, before they laid their money, always inquired which horse little Joey was to ride ; and the bets were rather proportioned by the rider than by the horse himself, especially after he had

Chapter III

Of Mr. Abraham Adams the citrate, Mrs. Slipslop the chambermaid, and others. Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar. He was a perfect-master of the Greek and Latin languages ; to which he added a great share of knowledge in the Oriental tongues; and could read and translate French, Italian, and Spanish. He had applied many years to the most severe study, and had treasured up a fund of learning rarely to be met with in a university. He was, besides, a man of good sense, good paprts, and good-nature ; but was at the same time as entirely ignorant of the ways of this world as an infant just entered into it could possibly be. As he had never any intention to deceive, so he never sus pected such a design in others. He was generous, friendly, and brave, to an excess ; but simplicity was his characteristic : he did, no more than Mr. Colley Cibber, apprehend any such passions as malice and envy to exist in mankind ; which was indeed less remarkable iu a country parson than in a gentleman who hath passed his life behind the scenes, — a place which hath been seldom thought the school of innocence, and where a very little observation would have convinced the great apologist that those passions have a real existence in the human mind.

His virtue, and his other qualifications, as they rendered him equal to his office, so they made him an agreeable and valuable companion, and had so much endeared and well recommended him to a bishop, that at the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty three pounds a-year; which, however, he could not make any great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children. It was this gentleman who, having, as I have said, observed the singular devotion of young Andrews, had found means to question him con cerning several particulars ; as, how many books 1 In Euglish, sprung from a dunghill. " " ., .„ nuarrel was a manor. The foundation of . f^^-tage of modus, by setting which aside" several shillings per annum jouia to the rector; but he had no , yet accomplish his V^se^^ P^ nothing better from tlie sui_ _ _ (which he used indeed frequently to say was no small one) of reflecting that he had utterly un done many of the poor tenants, though he had at the same time greatly impoverished himself.