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ner of question about Fielding's humor, whatever we may think of his moral. And with that I must come to those two very faulty heroes, Tom Jones and Captain Booth, on whom Lady Mary passed such summary condemnation.

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It seems hard measure to describe as sorry scoundrels men who, however deeply they offended, were capable of repentance and of amending their ways. Of the two Booth has the better moral character, for when he repents it is in dust and ashes. Newgate, whither he had been committed for siding with the weaker party in a street disturbance, is the scene of his downfall. It was one of the infamies of the age that prisons were forcinghouses for all kinds of wickedness. Fielding's description of the horrors of Newgate may have helped to arouse the public conscience. Ten years after the appearance of Amelia John Wesley records that the Bristol Newgate had been entirely cleansed; that fighting, cheating, drinking, and vice had all been swept away. In the uncleansed London Newgate vice throve in the tainted soil and was fostered by the venality of the keeper. Booth succumbs to temptation, but his repentance is sincere and effectual. Released from Newgate, he returns to his proper allegiance, which he does not afterwards forsake. He has, unhappily, the love of gambling in his blood, and by its indulgence comes near to ruining his family and himself; but this failing, too, he conquers. He is distinctly a good-hearted man, although a weak one; not too weak, moreover, to pull himself up in time. We may part with him in the author's own words, with which the novel closes: "Amelia declared to me, the other day, that she did not remember to have seen her husband out of humor these ten years; and upon my insinuating to her that he had the best of wives, she answered, with a smile, that she ought to 16 Wesley's "Journal," January 2nd, 1761.

be so, for that he had made her the happiest of women."

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With Jones it is less easy to deal fairly. While he is in many respects a more amiable character than Booth, he is a far worse offender. He is brave, generous, affectionate, hates meanness and hypocrisy, and is "nobody's enemy but his own." 17 For these characteristics the reader is disposed to love him, and for their sake to pardon (while regretting) his early irregularities. sympathies are won by the Spartan fortitude with which he endures the severe corrections of the Rev. Mr. Thwackum, his tutor, sooner than betray his accomplice in a boyish escapade; and by his generosity to the family of his friend Black George, the gamekeeper, to supply whose needs he sells the "little horse" which Mr. Allworthy had given him. We think of him as a fine, manly young fellow, who will soon outgrow his follies. We are angry with him for his behavior at Upton-angry, and astonished that he can think of any other woman when sworn to love Sophia only. It is not what we expected of him, but we do not give up hope. But the crowning offence is too much for us. After his cold-blooded and mercenary intrigue with Lady Bellaston we wash our hands of him. How can any self-respecting reader tolerate one "who sold himself" (as Colonel Newcome put it) while professing himself to be Sophia's, and Sophia's only? True, his last shilling was gone; but anything was better than this. He was young and strong: he had better have bought a porter's knot. as the bookseller advised Johnson to do, and labored for his living. That would have been a safer way to Sophia's heart. The only means of regaining our lost liking is to discredit the episode altogether. I am going to be greatly audacious. For once, I humbly but seriously think, Fielding's psychology is at 17 Tom Jones," Book IV., ch. v.

fault. I do not believe that a man with the undoubted good qualities which Jones possessed would have stooped to such an infamy-the lowest, or almost the lowest, degradation to which any man could descend.

If the reader cannot see this matter as I do, I hope he may find some explanation that can satisfy him. We may, at any rate, agree that Jones was not fortunate in his upbringing. True, he enjoyed the protecting care of Mr. Allworthy; but the good man (as Fielding loves to call him) was mistaken, as the sequel showed, in the character of those whom he appointed to instruct his adopted son. Thwackum, who was a great upholder of religious observance, "too much neglected virtue"; Square, who insisted perpetually upon the natural beauty of virtue, "too much neglected religion." "In one point only they agreed," says the author, "in all their discourses on morality never to mention the word goodness.' Thwackum was a bully, and Square a time-server. It is not surprising that the pupil grew up with some confusion in his principles. Things might have turned out differently, had Parson Adams been his tutor.

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Of all Fielding's male characters, Mr. Abraham Adams seems to me at once the most lovable and the most diverting, though in the latter quality some may give the preference to Partridge. He is also, in all probability, the most widely known, and there cannot be two opinions as to the supreme excellence with which he is drawn. To talk about him is almost presumptuous; yet how can one write of Fielding and not mention Adams? Besides, I have dwelt so much upon the darker side of the picture that it is time to come out into the sunshine. The character of Parson Adams, then, who was, like the poet Gay (according to Pope's testimony)

18 Tom Jones," Book III., ch. iv.

In wit, a man; simplicity, a child,

would appear to have been devised in the happiest and gayest hour of Fielding's genius. He is compounded of good sense and good humor, is learned yet credulous, goes about the world thinking every one as honest and goodnatured as himself, has the courage of a lion and the tenderness of a woman, with a dash of harmless vanity which there is no resisting. Does the reader recollect Mr. Wilson's tirade against vanity, and how the parson received it? "Adams now began to fumble in his pockets, and soon cried out, 'Oh, la! I have it not about me.' Upon this the gentleman asked him what he was searching for. He said he searched after a sermon, which he thought his masterpiece, against vanity, 'Fie upon it, fie upon it,' cries he, 'why do I ever leave that sermon out of my pocket? I wish it was within five miles; I would willingly fetch it, to read it to you... I am confident you would admire it; indeed, I have never been a greater enemy to any passion than that silly one of vanity!" 18 Yet of all the passions he was a notable opponent, and their conquest may have formed the matter of those nine volumes of sermons to sell which he set out to London, but which he had unluckily forgotten to put in his saddle-bags. There could hardly be a more delightful picture of inconsistency than the scene in which he harangues Joseph at great length on the sin of indulging overmuch the passion of love. "No Christian," he concludes, "ought so to set his heart on any person or thing in this world, but that whenever it shall be required, or taken from him in any manner by divine Providence, he may be able peaceably, quietly, and contentedly to resign it." "At which words," the narrative proceeds, "one came hastily in and acquainted Mr. Adams that his youngest 19 Joseph Andrews," Book III., ch. iii.

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son was drowned. He stood silent a moment, and soon began to stamp about the room and deplore his loss with the bitterest agony. Joseph, who was overwhelmed with concern likewise, recovered himself sufficiently to attempt to comfort the parson; in which attempt he used many arguments that he had at several times remembered out of his own discourses, both in private and public, but he was not at leisure now to hearken to his advice. 'Child, child,' said he, 'do not go about impossibilities. Had it been any other of my children, I could have borne it with patience; but my little prattler, the darling and comfort of my old age" and so he goes on lamenting, we respectfully sharing his grief, when on a sudden little Johnny appears, "not dead, but very wet" (like the character in The Stranger) and lamentation is exchanged for all the extravagances of joy. But the best is yet to come. "When these tumults were over," we read, "the parson, taking Joseph aside, proceeded thus-'No, Joseph, do not give too much way to thy passions, if thou dost expect happiness.'" This was more than Joseph, for all his patience, could endure, and he turned upon his admonisher. The ensuing dialogue, together with the intervention of good Mrs. Adams, is too long to quote, but every word of it is admirable. The episode, from beginning to end, touches the high-water mark of pure comedy."

The full and even flow of Fielding's narratives has won much admiration. Equally to be admired is the naturalness of his conversations. They are always spontaneous and appropriate, packed with ready rejoinders, and casting flashes of light upon contrasted characters. Fielding's practice as a writer of plays no doubt helped to give him a facility in this direction, which, however, was mainly the outcome of his own disposition. "Confer

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ence maketh a ready man," and he loved to confer with persons of all classes. He did not think, with Parson Adams, that all knowledge is contained in books. On his voyage to Lisbon, when his fellow-travellers were prostrate below, and the sailors wholly occupied with their duties, the absence of all con. versation could not have befallen, he tells us, one who disliked it more than he did. Talk was the food his social disposition craved," and his love of it made it easy for him to imagine conversations when he came to write. It is in the course of conversation, as much as in action, that character (in novels) is discerned; and it was in the delineation and development of character, we may fancy, that Fielding, as a writer, took the keenest pleasure.

Be that as it may, his high spirits are at their highest in The History of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams, that "comic epic poem in prose," as he calls it, which is avowedly written in Cervantes' manner; written, too, while his wife was still living, and before his own health began to give him trouble. Launched with the design of ridiculing Richardson's Pamela, it soon sails out upon more open waters. It is the gayest of his novels, as Tom Jones is the most powerful, and Amelia the most sombre. Yet even in Joseph Andrews there is visible that tendency to moralize which is accentuated in the later works. In them the author constantly reminds us that he writes with moral purpose. The Bow Street magistrate (for such is Fielding now become) is perpetually confronted with human nature in its darker aspects: with crime, with vice. with subterfuge, with misery. Association with these grim facts, and the depression caused by declining health. have certainly infected the atmosphere of Amelia. Tom Jones, his masterpiece. is of the middle period, when he was a 21Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon."

working barrister and journalist, went the Western Circuit, and enjoyed Ralph Allen's hospitality at Prior Park. The reader need only refer to the prefaces of these works to be reminded that their author assures us they were written "to promote the cause of virtue." And so, in the main, they were. Of one virtue, it is true, he is a questionable champion and is too lenient to its corresponding fault.

Jones's code in this matter -for he had a code-is explicitly stated, and is not condemned.22 But what about the others? What about unselfishness, generosity, bravery, honesty, and truthfulness? Of these Fielding is a stout and consistent upholder. Sometimes he commends their excellence by positive examples, such as Parson Adams, Allworthy, and Dr. Harrison; nore often he makes us feel it by showing us what human beings may become without them. Vice in general he does not make attractive. One would sooner be Booth who loses his money to Trent, than Trent who wins it; sooner be Jones when turned out of Allworthy's house, than Blifil, the treacherous instrument of his ejection, who remains there. Western's example does not tempt to drunkenness, nor Lawyer Scout's to knavery. It must be remembered, too, that Fielding arraigns public evils as well as private; the condition of prisons and of spunginghouses, the scandalous favoritism which regulated promotion in the public services, the cruelty of imprisonment for debt, and the oppression of the poor by those who were intended to protect them-Justice Thrasher, for instance, in town, and Justice Frolick in the country. The sight of a mother and her children in undeserved distress "affords," he declares, "a juster motive to grief and tears in the beholder than it would be to see all the heroes who have ever infested the earth hanged all toThe Fortnightly Review.

22 Tom Jones," Book XIII., ch. vii. Compare with this his admonition of his friend Nightingale (Book XIV., ch. vii.).

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gether in a string." In his last piece of writing he deplores the fact that in London there is not one poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish, except that of sprats, although it is so plentiful, and ought, but for the shortsighted greed of "a few monopolizing fishmongers," to be so cheap." Anxiety for the reform of social evils, and sympathy with those who suffer by them, pervade and dignify the novels. Add to this that their author has few equals as a story-teller, and, if confirmation be needed, turn to that incident in Tom Jones which is headed, "A receipt to regain the lost affections of a wife, which hath never been known to fail in the most obstinate cases,' or to the entire last book of that history, where incidents hardly noticed at the time are all seen to have conduced to the working of the plot, and where the complications of what was once called the fable are unravelled with an ease and mastery which could scarcely be surpassed. Lastly, let the host of characters with which he has peopled the highways and vlllages and green lanes of England certify us of his great creative stature. In a sense his range is limited. Once only (in Amelia) does he cross the Channel. Except for this, he confines hiniself to the rural life of our island, and to certain sections of society in London. It must be remembered, however, that his novels only occupied a tithe of his time, and that he died at forty-seven. His world, if contrasted with that of Scott or Balzac, may appear a narrow one, but we may fearlessly adapt to his case the words of Cassius:

He doth bestride this narrow world Like a Colossus,

extracting from it as much mirth, as much pathos, and as much horror as he pleases.

Harry Christopher Minchin. 25Amelia," Book IX., ch. i. The type of hero he has in mind may easily be imagined. 24 Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon."

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WOMEN AND POLITICS.

TWO REJOINDERS.

Miss Gore Booth appears to believe that women's wages can be raised by Act of Parliament; and that the main cause of the difference between their earnings and that of men is unfair legislation by a masculine assembly, I am not a political economist, and must leave this theory to be dealt with by those who are. I own, however, that I am profoundly sceptical with regard to it. Miss Gore Booth and I differ, not as to the fact of the miserable condition of great numbers of working women, nor as to its tragic importance, but as to the causes and the true cure of this state of things.

The question of female suffrage is but a minor point in the larger question of the right general position of women. It is a political question which I have no desire to argue, being (as I said in my article on "Women and Politics") well aware that I am not competent to deal with it in all its aspects. My object in that article was to recall attention to some undeniable truths which lie at the very root of the larger question, but which are often and disastrously forgotten. I was certainly not pleading for elegant leisure, still less for conventual seclusion, as luxuries to be maintained for well-to-do women at the expense of their poorer sisters. I was pleading for home life and home duties as the natural and indispensable function of women generally. Nor did I represent women as too weak, but as too fully occupied, to engage in politics. I urged the claim for a fair division of labor between the sexes, and the paramount importance of those offices which women alone can fill as entitling them to some exemption from the more ordi1"The Living Age," April 20.

I.

nary duties (e.g. electing members of Parliament and serving on juries) which men are competent to perform. I pointed out-did it need that I should do so?-that marriage and motherhood are in their very nature an arduous undertaking, the duties of which cannot be neglected without ruin to the nation.

The whole controversy seems to turn on the question whether politics and legislation are a sphere of labor or of privilege. If political power be a mere privilege which can be used without either care or study, and which yet is certain to bring in its train an increase not only of wages but of personal freedom, by all means let it be enjoyed by all of either sex who can get it. But if politics and legislation (even our modern legislation by constituencies) are tusks, involving hard work and calling for serious study, then let them be undertaken by those whose hands Nature has left free. You cannot legislate with one hand and rock a cradle with the other.

What precise effect would be produced by giving votes to women is quite beyond the calculation of one who, like myself, is no politician. I doubt whether it can be accurately foreseen by any one. Should the experiment ever be tried, the result may well prove much less important than we either hope or fear. It is, I repeat, not the value of the suffrage as a political engine that we have chiefly to consider, but the whole movement towards a redistribution of labor as between the sexes. I deprecate any such redistribution as would assign to women an increased share in the outer work of the world; not that women may be idle, but that their whole energies may be be

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