-novels is, that the habit is apt to generate an indisposition to real history, and useful literature; and that the best which can be hoped is, that they may sometimes instruct the youthful mind by real pictures of life, and sometimes awaken their better feelings and sympathies by strains of generous sentiment, and tales of fictitious woe. Beyond this point they are a mere elegance, a luxury contrived for the amusement of polished life, and the gratification of that half love of literature, which pervades all ranks in an advanced stage of society, and are read much more for amusement, than with the least hope of deriving instruction from them. The vices and follies of Tom Jones, are those which the world soon teaches to all who enter on the career of life, and to which society is unhappily but too indulgent, nor do we believe, that, in any one instance, the perusal of Fielding's Novel has added one libertine to the large list, who would not have been such, had it never crossed the press. And it is with concern we add our sincere belief, that the fine picture of frankness and generosity, exhibited in that fictitious character, has had as few imitators as the career of his follies. Let it not be supposed that we are indifferent to morality, because we treat with scorn that affectation, which, while in common life, it connives at the open practice of libertinism, pretends to detest the memory of an author, who painted life as it was, with all its shades, and more than all the lights which it occasionally exhibits, to relieve them.1 For particular

["With all due deference, we must take the liberty to believe, that both Dr Johnson and Sir Walter Scott had

than ours.

passages of the work, the author can only be defended under the custom of his age, which permitted, in certain cases, much stronger language He has himself said, that there is nothing which can offend the chastest eye in the perusal; and he spoke probably according to the ideas of his time. But in modern estimation, there are several passages at which delicacy may justly

judged as to these matters more from the vigour of their own masculine minds than from actual observation of the world at large, as it was, and is. The Beggars' Opera did, we may admit, no harm in the boxes, but we suspect the galleries, if they could speak, might tell a very different tale. Schiller's

Robbers did, all the world knows, seduce certain enthusiastic Burschen from the German universities to the highway; and the records of our police courts and of graver tribunals are ready to prove, that while Tom and Jerry were crowding the streets with brawlers, the Memoirs of Messrs Moffat and Haggart were leading or hurrying their victims to the gallows. In truth, to deny the influence of artificial representations of human life upon the manners of those who contemplate them, appears to us to be not very different from denying absolutely the effect of example. There are men and women, and there are boys and girls too, who may keep bad company with impunity; but such happy strength of mind, and still happier purity of nature, are, to say the least of the matter, by no means universal possessions. Our author, moreover, seems to speak rather inconsistently. He admits that romances 'may instruct the youthful mind by real pictures of life, and awaken our better feelings and sympathies by strains of generous sentiment.' But if they may be thus powerful for good, we fear it follows, as an unavoidable consequence, that they may be equally powerful for evil. And again he tells us, that · the vices and follies of Tom Jones, are those which the world soon teaches to all who enter on the career of life, and to which society is unhappily too indulgent.' But he has not told us that such novels as Tom Jones are read by many long before they enter the career of life, anticipating, and, with fatal skill, paving the way for its lessons of licentiousness; nor

take offence; and we can only say, that they may be termed rather jocularly coarse than seductive; and that they are atoned for by the admirable mixture of wit and argument, by which, in others, the cause of true religion and virtue is supported and advanced.

Fielding considered his works as an experiment in British literature; and, therefore, he chose to prefix a preliminary Chapter to each Book, explanatory of his own views, and of the rules attached to this mode of composition. Those critical introductions, which rather interrupt the course of the story, and the flow of the interest at the first perusal, are found, on a second or third, the most entertaining chapters of the whole work.

The publication of Tom Jones carried Fielding's fame to its height; but seems to have been attended with no consequences to his fortune, beyond the temporary relief which the copy-money afforded him. It was after this period, that he published his proposal for making an effectual Provision for the Poor, formerly noticed, and a pamphlet relating to the mysterious case of the celebrated Elizabeth Canning, in which he adopted the cause of common has he made any estimate of the extent to which the overindulgence of society, in regard to certain classes of vice, may be the effect of an immoral literature, operating, through a long course of years, on the individual minds of which society is composed. And when he excludes from consideration those infamous works which address themselves directly to awakening the grosser passions,' we suspect he excludes a class of books by no means so generally injurious, as those which insinuate cunning doses of such stimulants, amidst materials which the wisest must admire, and the gravest cannot condemn."-Quarterly Review, Sept. 1826.]

sense against popular prejudice, and failed in consequence in the object of his publication.

Amelia was the author's last work of importance. It may be termed a continuation of Tom Jones; but we have not the same sympathy for the ungrateful and dissolute conduct of Booth, which we yield to the youthful follies of Jones. The character of Amelia is said to have been drawn for Fielding's second wife. If he put her patience, as has been alleged, to tests of the same kind, he has, in some degree, repaid her, by the picture he has drawn of her feminine delicacy and pure tenderness. Fielding's Novels show few instances of pathos; it was, perhaps, inconsistent with the life which he was compelled to lead; for those who see most of human misery become necessarily, in some degree, hardened to its effects. But few scenes of fictitious distress are more affecting, than that in which Amelia is described as having made her little preparations for the evening, and sitting in anxious expectation of the return of her unworthy husband, whose folly is, in the meantime, preparing for her

1

1 ["H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife, in the characters of Mr and Mrs Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted; and I am persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr Booth are sorry scoundrels. All this sort of books have the same fault, which I cannot easily pardon, being very mischievous. They place a merit in extravagant passions, and encourage young people to hope for impossible events, to draw them out of the misery they choose to plunge themselves into, expecting legacies from unknown relatives, and generous benefactors to distressed virtue, as much out of nature as fairy treasures."-LADY M. W. MONTAGU-Works, vol. iv., p. 259-60.]

new scenes of misery. But our sympathy for the wife is disturbed by our dislike of her unthankful helpmate, of whose conversion we have no hope, and with whose errors we have no sympathy. The tale is, therefore, on the whole, unpleasing, even though relieved by the humours of the doughty Colonel Bath, and the learned Dr Harrison, characters drawn with such force and precision, as Fielding alone knew how to employ.

Millar published Amelia in 1751. He had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to Amelia, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver it to the trade in the usual manner. The ruse succeeded the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale. 1

Notwithstanding former failures, Fielding, in 1752, commenced a new attempt at a literary newspaper and review, which he entitled the

["Johnson," says Boswell, "read Fielding's Amelia through without stopping."-" He appears," says Malone, "to have been particularly pleased with the character of the heroine of this novel, and said, Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances, but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, of which, being published betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night.”—Anecdotes, p 221.]