Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

with himself. Philosophy could not have done so much with a thousand words.

It was now evening, and the good peasants were about to depart, when a clock was heard to strike seven, and the hour was followed by a particular chime. The country folks who had come to welcome their pastor, turned their looks towards him at the sound; he explained their meaning to his guest. That is the signal,' said he, ' for our evening exercise; this is one of the nights of the week in which some of my parishioners are wont to join in it; a little rustic saloon serves for the chapel of our family, and such of the good people as are with us. If you choose rather to walk out, I will furnish you with an attendant; or here are a few old books that may afford you some entertainment within.' By no means,' answered the philosopher, I will attend Mademoiselle at her devotions.' 'She is our organist,' said La Roche; our neighbourhood is the country of musical mechanism, and I have a small organ fitted up for the purpose of assisting our singing.' 'Tis an additional inducement,' replied the other, and they walked into the room together. At the end stood the organ mentioned by La Roche; before it was a curtain, which his daughter drew aside, and placing herself on a seat within, and drawing the curtain close, so as to save her the awkwardness of an exhibition, began a voluntary, solemn and beautiful in the highest degree. Mr was no musician, but he was not altogether insensible to music; this fastened on his mind more strongly, from its beauty being unexpected. The solemn prelude introduced a hymn, in which such of the audience as could sing immediately joined; the words were mostly taken from holy writ; it spoke the praises of God, and his care of good men. Something was said of the death of the just, of such as die in the Lord. The organ was touched with a hand less firm; it paused, it ceased, and the sobbing of Mademoiselle La Roche was heard in its stead. Her father gave a sign for stopping the psalmody, and rose to pray. He was discomposed at first, and his voice faltered as he spoke; but his heart was in his words, and his warmth overcame his embarrassment. He addressed a Being whom he loved, and he spoke for those he loved. His parishioners catched the ardour of the good old man; even the philosopher felt himself moved, and forgot for a moment to think why he should not. La Roche's religion was that of sentiment, not theory, and his guest was averse from disputation; their discourse, therefore, did not lead to questions concerning the belief of either; yet would the old man sometimes speak of his, from the fulness of a heart impressed with its force, and wishing to spread the pleasure he enjoyed in it. The ideas of his God and his Saviour were so congenial to his mind that every emotion of it naturally awaked them. A philosopher might have called him an enthusiast; but if he possessed the fervour of enthusiasts, he was guiltless of their bigotry. Our father which art in heaven!' might the good man say, for he felt it, and all mankind were his brethren.

[ocr errors]

·

You regret, my friend,' said he to Mr, when my daughter and I talk of the exquisite pleasure derived from music, you regret your want of musical powers and musical feelings; it is a department of soul, you say, which nature has almost denied you, which from the effects you see it have on others you are sure must be highly delightful. Why should not the same thing be said of religion? Trust me, I feel it in the same way-an energy, an inspiration, which I would not lose for all the blessings of sense, or enjoyments of the world; yet, so far from lessening my relish of the pleasures of life, methinks I feel it heighten them all. The thought of receiving it from God adds the blessing of sentiment to that of sensation in every good thing I possess; and when calami

ties overtake me and I have had my share-it confers a dignity on my affliction, so lifts me above the world. Man, I know, is but a worm, yet methinks I am then allied to God!' It would have been inhuman in our philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief.

His discourse, indeed, was very remote from metaphysical disquisition, or religious controversy. Of all men I ever knew, his ordinary conversation was the least tinctured with pedantry, or liable to dissertation. With La Roche and his daughter it was perfectly familiar. The country around them, the manners of the village, the comparison of both with those of England, remarks on the works of favourite authors, on the sentiments they conveyed, and the passions they excited, with many other topics in which there was an equality or alternate advantage among the speakers, were the subjects they talked on. Their hours too of riding and walking were many, in which Mr —, as a stranger, was shown the remarkable scenes and curiosities of the country. They would sometimes make little expeditions to contemplate, in different attitudes, those astonishing mountains, the cliffs of which, covered with eternal snows, and sometimes shooting into fantastic shapes, form the termination of most of the Swiss prospects. Our philosopher asked many questions as to their natural history and productions. La Roche observed the sublimity of the ideas which the view of their stupendous summits, inaccessible to mortal foot, was calculated to inspire, which naturally, said he, leads the mind to that Being by whom their foundations were laid. They are not seen in Flanders,' said Mademoiselle with a sigh. That's an odd remark,' said Mr, smiling. She blushed, and he inquired no farther.

'Twas with regret he left a society in which he found himself so happy ; but he settled with La Roche and his daughter a plan of correspondence; and they took his promise, that if ever he came within fifty leagues of their dwelling, he should travel those fifty leagues to visit them.

About three years after, our philosopher was on a visit at Geneva; the promise he made to La Roche and his daughter on his former visit was recalled to his mind by a view of that range of mountains, on a part of which they had often looked together. There was a reproach, too, conveyed along with the recollection, for his having failed to write to either for several months past. The truth was, that indolence was the habit most natural to him, from which he was not easily roused by the claims of correspondence either of his friends or of his enemies; when the latter drew their pens in controversy, they were often unanswered as well as the former. While he was hesitating about a visit to La Roche, which he wished to make, but found the effort rather too much for him, he received a letter from the old man, which had been forwarded to him from Paris, where he had then his fixed residence. It contained a gentle complaint of Mr want of punctuality, but an assurance of continued gratitude for his former good offices; and as a friend whom the writer considered interested in his family, it informed him of the approaching nuptials of Mademoiselle La Roche with a young man, a relation of her own, and formerly a pupil of her father's, of the most amiable dispositions, and respectable character. Attached from their earliest years, they had been separated by his joining one of the subsidiary regiments of the canton, then in the service of a foreign power. In this situation he had distinguished himself as much for courage and military skill as for the other endowments which he had cultivated at home. The term of his service was now expired, and they expected him to return in a few weeks, when the old man hoped, as he expressed it in his letter, to join their hands, and see them happy before he died.

Our philosopher felt himself interested in this event; but he was not, perhaps, altogether so happy in the tidings of Mademoiselle La Roche's marriage as her father supposed him. Not that he was ever a lover of the lady's; but he thought her one of the most amiable women he had seen, and there was something in the idea of her being another's for ever, that struck him, he knew not why, like a disappointment. After some little speculation on the matter, however, he could look on it as a thing fitting, if not quite agreeable, and determined on this visit to see his old friend and his daughter happy.

On the last day of his journey, different accidents had retarded his progress: he was benighted before he reached the quarter in which La Roche resided. His guide, however, was well acquainted with the road, and he found himself at last in view of the lake, which I have before described, in the neighbourhood of La Roche's dwelling. A light gleamed on the water, that seemed to proceed from the house; it moved slowly along as he proceeded up the side of the lake, and at last he saw it glimmer through the trees, and stop at some distance from the place where he then was. He supposed it some piece of bridal merriment, and pushed on his horse that he might be a spectator of the scene; but he was a good deal shocked, on approaching the spot, to find it proceed from the torch of a person clothed in the dress of an attendant on a funeral, and accompanied by several others, who, like him, seemed to have been employed in the rites of sepulture. On Mr -'s making inquiry who was the person they had been burying, one of them, with an accent more mournful than is common to their profession, answered, then you knew not Mademoiselle, sir? you never beheld a lovelier.' 'La Roche!' exclaimed he, in reply. Alas! it was she indeed!' The appear ance of surprise and grief which his countenance assumed attracted the notice of the peasant with whom he talked. He came up closer to Mr; I perceive, sir, you were acquainted with Mademoiselle La Roche.'

Acquainted with her! Good God! when how-where did she die? Where is her father?' 'She died, sir, of heart-break, I believe; the young gentleman to whom she was soon to have been married, was killed in a duel by a French officer, his intimate companion, and to whom, before their quarrel, he had often done the greatest favours. Her worthy father bears her death as he has often told us a Christian should; he is even so composed as to be now in his pulpit, ready to deliver a few exhortations to his parishioners, as is the custom with us on such occasions: follow me, sir, and you shall hear him.' He followed the man without answering.

up

The church was dimly lighted, except near the pulpit, where the venerable La Roche was seated. His people were now lifting up their voices in a psalm to that Being whom their pastor had taught them ever to bless and to revere. La Roche sat, his figure bending gently forward, his eyes half-closed, lifted in silent devotion. A lamp placed near him threw its light strong on his head, and marked the shadowy lines of age across the paleness of his brow, thinly covered with gray hairs. The music ceased: La Roche sat for a moment, and nature wrung a few tears from him. His people were loud in their grief. Mr was not less affected than they. La Roche arose: Father of mercies,' said he, forgive these tears; assist thy servant to lift up his soul to thee; to lift to thee the souls of thy people. My friends, it is good so to do, at all seasons it is good; but in the days of our distress, what a privilege it is! Well saith the sacred book, "Trust in the Lord; at all times trust in the Lord." When every other support fails us, when the fountains of worldly comfort are dried up, let us then seek those living waters which

flow from the throne of God. 'Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man. Human wisdom is here of little use; for, in proportion as it bestows comfort, it represses feeling, without which we may cease to be hurt by calamity, but we shall also cease to enjoy happiness. I will not bid you be insensible, my friends-I cannot, I cannot, if I would (his tears flowed afresh)-I feel too much myself, and I am not ashamed of my feelings; but therefore may I the more willingly be heard; therefore have I prayed God to give me strength to speak to you, to direct you to him, not with empty words, but with these tears; not from speculation, but from experience; that while you see me suffer, you may know also my consolation. You behold the mourner of his only child, the last earthly stay and blessing of his declining years! Such a child too! It becomes not me to speak of her virtues; yet it is but gratitude to mention them, because they were exerted towards myself. Not many days ago you saw her young, beautiful, virtuous, and happy: ye who are parents will judge of my felicity then-ye will judge of my affliction now. But I look towards him who struck me; I see the hand of a father amidst the chastenings of my God. Oh! could I make you feel what it is to pour out the heart when it is pressed down with many sorrows, to pour it out with confidence to him, in whose hands are life and death, on whose power awaits all that the first enjoys, and in contemplation of whom disappears all that the last can inflict. For we are not as those who die without hope; we know that our Redeemer liveththat we shall live with him, with our friends his servants, in that blessed land where sorrow is unknown, and happiness is endless as it is perfect. Go, then, mourn not for me; I have not lost my child: but a little while and we shall meet again, never to be separated. But ye are also my children: would ye that I should not grieve without comfort? So live as she lived; that when your death cometh, it may be the death of the righteous, and your latter end like his.'

Such was the exhortation of La Roche; his audience answered it with their tears. The good old man had dried up his at the altar of the Lord; his countenance had lost its sadness, and assumed the glow of faith and of hope. Mr followed him into his house. The inspiration of the pulpit was past; at sight of him the scene they had last met in rushed again on his mind; La Roche threw his arms round his neck, and watered it with his tears. The other was equally affected; they went together in silence into the parlour where the evening service was wont to be performed. The curtains of the organ were open; La Roche started back at the sight. Oh! my friend,' said he, and his tears burst forth again. Mr now recollected himself; he stept forward and drew the curtains close; the old man wiped off his tears, and taking his friend's hand, You see my weakness, said he; 'tis the weakness of humanity; but my comfort is not therefore lost.' I heard you,' said the other, in the pulpit; I rejoice that such consolation is yours.' 'It is, my friend,' said he, and I trust I shall ever hold it fast. If there are any who doubt our faith, let them think of what importance religion is to calamity, and forbear to weaken its force; if they cannot restore our happiness, let them not take away the solace of our affliction.'

[ocr errors]

-had

Mr- -'s heart was smitten; and I have heard him long after confess that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical dis covery, and the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted.

NOVELISTS.

[ocr errors]

lapse of more than a century, have had no superiors, and only one equal.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON was born in Derbyshire in 1689, and was the son of a joiner, who could not afford to give his son more than the ordinary elements of education. When fifteen years of age, he was put apprentice to a printer in London; and by good conduct rose to be master of an extensive business of his own, and printer of the Journals of the House of Commons. In 1754 he was chosen master of the Stationers' Company, and in 1760 he purchased a moiety of the patent of printer to the king,

a prosperous and liberal man-mild in his manners and dispositions-and seems to have had only one marked foible-excessive vanity. From a very early period of his life, Richardson was a fluent letterwriter: at thirteen he was the confidant of three young women, whose love correspondence he carried on without any one knowing that he was secretary to the others. Two London publishers having urged

The decline of the tragic drama was accompanied by a similar decline of the heroic romances, both being in some measure the creation of an imaginative and chivalrous spirit. As France had been the country in which the early romance, metrical or prosaic, flourished in greatest perfection, it was from the same nation that the second class of prose fictions, the heroic romances, also took its rise. The heroes were no longer Arthur or Charlemagne, but a sort of pastoral lovers, like the characters of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia,' who blended modern with chivalrous manners, and talked in a style of conventional propriety and decorum. This spurious off-which greatly increased his emoluments. He was spring of romance was begun in the seventeenth century by an author named Honore d'Urfe, who was followed by Gomberville, Calprenede, and Madame Scudery. D'Urfe had, episodically, and under borrowed names, given an account of the gallantries of Henry IV.'s court, which rendered his style more piquant and attractive; but generally, this species of composition was harmless and insipid, and its productions of intolerable length. The Grand Cyrus' filled ten volumes! Admired as they were in their own day, the heroic romances could not long escape being burlesqued. The poet Scarron, about the time of our commonwealth, attempted this in a work which he entitled the Comique Roman,' or 'Comic Romance' which detailed a long series of adventures, as low as those of Cyrus were elevated, and in a style of wit and drollery of which there is hardly any other example. This work, though designed only as a ludicrous imitation of another class of fictions, became the first of a class of its own, and found followers in England long before we had any writers of the pure novel. Mrs Aphra Behn amused the public during the reign of Charles II. by writing tales of personal adventure similar to those of Scarron, which are almost the earliest specimens of prose fiction that we possess. She was followed by Mrs Manley, whose works are equally humorous, and equally licentious. The fictions of Daniel Defoe, which have been adverted to in the preceding section, are an improvement upon these tales, being much more pure, while they, at the same time, contain more interesting pictures of character and situation. Other models were presented in the early part of the century by the French novelist Le Sage, whose Gil Blas,' and Devil on Two Sticks,' imitating in their turn the fictions of certain Spanish writers, consist of humorous and satirical pictures of modern manners, connected by a thread of adventure. In England, the first pictures of real life in prose fiction were given by Defoe, who, in his graphic details, and personal adventures, all impressed with the strongest appearances of truth or probability, has never, in his own walk, been excelled. That walk, however, was limited: of genuine humour or variety of character he had no conception; and he paid little attention to the arrangement of his plot. The gradual improvement in the tone and manners of society, the complicated relations of life, the growing contrast between town and country manners, and all the artificial distinctions that crowd in with commerce, wealth, and luxury, banished the heroic romance, and gave rise to the novel, in which the passion of love still maintained its place, but was surrounded by events and characters, such as are witnessed in ordinary life, under various aspects and modifications. The three great founders of this improved species of composition-this new theatre of living and breathing characters-were Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, who even yet, after the

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

Richardson's House, Parson's Green.

him, when he was above the age of fifty, to write them a book of familiar letters on the useful concerns of life, he set about the composition of his Pamela, as a warning to young people, and with a hope that it would turn them into a course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance writing.' It was written in about three months, and published in the year 1741, with such success, that five editions were exhausted in the course of one year. It requires a reader,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'to be in some degree acquainted with the huge folios of inanity, over which our ancestors yawned themselves to sleep, ere he can estimate the delight they must have experienced from this unexpected return to truth and nature.' 'Pamela' became the rage of the town: ladies carried the volumes with them to Ranelagh gardens, and held them up to one another in triumph. Pope praised the novel as likely to do more good than twenty volumes of sermons; and Dr Sherlock recommended it from the pulpit! In 1749 appeared Richardson's second and greatest work, The History of Clarissa Harlowe; and in 1753 his novel, designed to repre

sent the beau ideal of a gentleman and Christian, The History of Sir Charles Grandison. The almost unexampled success and popularity of Richardson's life and writings were to himself disturbed and clouded by nervous attacks, which rendered him delicate and feeble in health. He was flattered and soothed by a number of female friends, in whose society he spent most of his time, and after reaching the goodly age of seventy-two, he died on the 4th of July 1761.

The works of Richardson are all pictures of the heart. No man understood human nature better, or could draw with greater distinctness the minute shades of feeling and sentiment, or the final results of our passions. He wrote his novels, it is said, in his back-shop, in the intervals of business; and must have derived exquisite pleasure from the moral anatomy in which he was silently engaged-conducting his characters through the scenes of his ideal world, and giving expression to all the feelings, motives, and impulses, of which our nature is susceptible. He was happiest in female characters. Much of his time had been spent with the gentler sex, and his own retired habits and nervous sensibility approximated to feminine softness. He well repaid the sex for all their attentions by his character of Clarissa, one of the noblest tributes ever paid to female virtue and honour. The moral elevation of this heroine, the saintly purity which she preserves amidst scenes of the deepest depravity and the most seductive gaiety, and the never-failing sweetness and benevolence of her temper, render Clarissa one of the brightest triumphs of the whole range of imaginative literature. Perhaps the climax of her distress is too overwhelming-too oppressive to the feelings-but it is a healthy sorrow. We see the full radiance of virtue; and no reader ever rose from the perusal of those tragic scenes without feeling his moral nature renovated, and his detestation of vice increased.

masters, because, like Pamela, they may rise to obtain their hand in marriage.

'Sir Charles Grandison' is inferior in general interest, as well as truth, to either of Richardson's other novels. The 'good man' and perfect gentleman, perplexed by the love of two ladies whom he regarded with equal affection, is an anomaly in nature with which we cannot sympathise. The hero of Clarissa,' Lovelace, being a splendid and accomplished, a gay and smiling villain, Richardson wished to make Sir Charles in all respects the very opposite: he has given him too little passion and too much perfection for frail humanity. In this novel, however, is one of the most powerful of all our author's delineations-the madness of Clementina. Shakspeare himself has scarcely drawn a more affecting or harrowing picture of high-souled suffering and blighting calamity. The same accumulation of details as in Clarissa,' all tending to heighten the effect and produce the catastrophe, hurry on the reader with breathless anxiety, till he has learned the last sad event, and is plunged in unavailing grief. This is no exaggerated account of the sensations produced by Richardson's pathetic scenes. He is one of the most powerful and tragic of novelists; and that he is so, in spite of much tediousness of description, much repetition and prolixity of narrative, is the best testimony to his art and genius. The extreme length of our author's novels, the epistolary style in which they are all written, and the number of minute and apparently unimportant circumstances with which they abound, added to the more energetic character of our subsequent literature, have tended to cast Richardson's novels into the shade. Even Lord Byron could not, he said, read 'Clarissa.' We admit that it requires some resolution to get through a fictitious work of eight volumes; but having once begun, most readers will find it difficult to leave off the perusal of these works. They are eminently original, which is always a powerful recommendation. They show an intimate acquaintance with the human heart, and an absolute command over the passions; they are, in fact, romances of the heart, embellished by sentiment, and as such possess a deep and enchaining interest, and a power of exciting virtuous emotions, which blind us to blemishes in style and composition, and to those errors in taste and manners which are more easily ridiculed than avoided in works so voluminous confined to domestic portraiture.

HENRY FIELDING.

'Pamela' is a work of much humbler pretensions than Clarissa Harlowe:' it is like the domestic tragedy of Lillo compared with Lear or Macbeth. A simple country girl, whom her master attempts to seduce, and afterwards marries, can be no very dignified heroine. But the excellences of Richardson are strikingly apparent in this his first novel. His power of circumstantial painting is evinced in the multitude of small details which he brings to bear on his story-the very wardrobe of poor Pamela, her gown of sad-coloured stuff, and her round-eared caps-her various attempts at escape, and the conveyance of her letters-the hateful character of Mrs Jewkes, and the fluctuating passions of her master, Coleridge has said, that to take up Fielding after before the better part of his nature obtains the as- Richardson is like emerging from a sick-room heated cendency-these are all touched with the hand of a by stoves into an open lawn on a breezy day in May. master. The seductive scenes are too highly coloured We have felt the agreeableness of the transition: for modern taste, and Pamela is deficient in natu- from excited sensibilities and overpowering pathos, ral dignity; she is too calculating, too tame and to light humour, lively description, and keen yet submissive; but while engaged with the tale, we sportive satire, must always be a pleasant change. think only of her general innocence and artlessness; The feeling, however, does not derogate from the of her sad trials and afflictions, down to her last con- power of Richardson as a novelist. The same senfinement, when she hid her papers in the rose-bush sation may be experienced by turning from Lear to in the garden, and sat by the side of the pond in Falstaff, from tragedy to comedy. The feelings canatter despair, half-meditating suicide. The eleva- not remain in a state of constant tension, but seek tion of this innocent and lovely young creature to be relief in variety. Perhaps Richardson stretches the bride of her master is an act of justice; but them too violently and too continuously; his porafter all, we feel she was too good for him, and wish traits are in classes, full charged with the peculiarishe had effected her escape, and been afterwards ties of their master. Fielding has a broader canvass, united to some great and wealthy nobleman who more light than shade, a clear and genial atmohad never condescended to oppress the poor and un-sphere, and groups of characters finely and natufortunate. The moral of the tale would also have been improved by some such termination. Esquire Bshould have been mortified, and waiting maids taught not to tolerate liberties from their young

rally diversified. Johnson considered him barren compared with Richardson, because Johnson loved strong moral painting, and had little sympathy for wit that was not strictly allied to virtue. Richardson,

53

too, was a pious respectable man, for whom the critic entertained great regard, and to whom he was under obligations. Fielding was a thoughtless man of fashion-a rake who had dissipated his fortune, and passed from high to low life without dignity or respect; and who had commenced author without any higher motive than to make money, and confer amusement. Ample success crowned him in the latter department! The inimitable character of Parson Adams, the humour of road-side adventures and alehouse dialogues, Towwouse and his termagant wife, Parson Trulliber, Squire Western, the faithful Partridge, and a host of ludicrous and witty scenes, and characters, and situations, all rise up at the very mention of the name of Fielding! If Richardson 'made the passions move at the command of virtue,' Fielding bends them at will to mirth and enjoyment. He is the prince of novelists-holding the novel to include wit, love, satire, humour, observation, genuine pictures of human nature without romance, and the most perfect art in the arrangement of his plot and incidents.

HENRY FIELDING was of high birth: his father (a grandson of the Earl of Denbigh) was a general in the army, and his mother the daughter of a judge.

Henry Fielding.

He was born at Sharpham Park, Somersetshire, April 22, 1707. The general had a large family, and was a bad economist, and Henry was early familiar with embarrassments. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards studied the law for two years at Leyden. In his twentieth year his studies were stopped, 'money-bound,' as a kindred genius, Sheridan, used to say, and the youth returned to England. His father promised him £200 per annum, but this, the son remarked, any one might pay who would!' The same sum came to him in a few years by the death of his mother, from whom he inherited a small estate of that amount per annum. He also obtained £1500 by his marriage with Miss Cradock, a lady of great beauty and worth, who resided in Salisbury. Having previously subsisted by writing for the stage, in which he had little success, Fielding gladly retired with his wife to the country. Here, however, he lived extravagantly; kept a pack of hounds, and a retinue of servants, and feasted all

the squires in his neighbourhood. In three years he was again penniless. He then renewed his legal studies, and qualified himself for the bar. His prac tice, however, was insufficient for the support of his family, and he continued to write pieces for the stage, and pamphlets to suit the topics of the day. ! In politics he was an anti-Jacobite, and a steady supporter of the Hanoverian succession. In 1742 | appeared his novel of Joseph Andrews, which at once stamped him as a master, uniting to genuine English humour the spirit of Cervantes and the inock heroic of Scarron. There was a wicked wit in the choice of his subject. To ridicule Richardson's 'Pamela,' Fielding made his hero a brother of that renowned and popular lady; he quizzed Gammar Andrews and his wife, the rustic parents of Pamela, and in contrast to the style of Richardson's work, he made his hero and his friend Parson Adams, models of virtue and excellence, and his leading female characters (Lady Booby and Mrs Slipslop) of frail morals. Even Pamela is brought down from her high standing of moral perfection, and is represented as Mrs Booby, with the airs of an upstart, whom the parson is compelled to reprove for laughing in church. Richardson's vanity was deeply wounded by this insult, and he never forgave the desecration of his favourite production. The ridicule was certainly unjustifiable; but, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, how can we wish that undone without which Parson Adams would not have existed?' The burlesque portion of the work would not have caused its exten sive and abiding popularity. It heightened its humour, and may have contributed at first to the number of its readers, but Joseph Andrews' possessed strong and original claims to public favour, and has found countless admirers among persons who knew nothing of 'Pamela.' Setting aside some ephemeral essays and light pieces, Fielding's next works were A Journey from this World to the Next, and The History of Jonathan Wild. A vein of keen satire runs through the latter, but the hero and his companions are such callous rogues, and unsentimental ruffians, that we cannot take pleasure in their dexterity and success. The ordinary of Newgate, who administers consolation to Wild before his execution, is the best character in the novel. The ordinary preferred a bowl of punch to any other liquor, as it is nowhere spoken against in Scripture; and his ghostly admonitions to the malefactor are in harmony with this predilection. In 1749 Fielding was appointed one of the justices of Westminster and Middlesex, for which he was indebted to the services of Lyttelton. He was a zealous and active magistrate; but the office of a trading justice, paid by fees, was as unworthy the genius of Fielding as Burns's provision as an exciseman. It appears, from a statement made by himself, that this appointment did not bring him in, of the dirtiest money upon earth,' £300 a-year. In the midst of his official drudgery and too frequent dissipations, our author produced Tom Jones, unquestionably the first of English novels. He received £600 for the copyright, and such was its success, that Millar the publisher presented £100 more to the author. In 1751 appeared Amelia, for which he received £1000. Johnson was a great admirer of this novel, and read it through without stopping. Its domestic scenes moved him more deeply than heroic or ambitious adventures; but the conjugal tenderness and affection of Amelia are but ill requited by the conduct of Booth, her husband, who has the vices without the palliation of youth possessed by Tom Jones, independently of his ties as a husband and father. The character of Amelia was drawn for Fielding's wife, even down to the accident which disfigured her beauty; and the frailties of

[graphic]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »