History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
occasions;--I must insist on a very high one for my honesty;--it is,
madam, no less than the honour of being permitted to pay another visit
here.”
“Sir,” replied the lady, “I make no doubt that you are a gentleman,
and my doors are never shut to people of fashion.”
Jones then, after proper ceremonials, departed, highly to his own
satisfaction, and no less to that of Sophia; who was terribly alarmed
lest Lady Bellaston should discover what she knew already but too
well.
Upon the stairs Jones met his old acquaintance, Mrs Honour, who,
notwithstanding all she had said against him, was now so well bred to
behave with great civility. This meeting proved indeed a lucky
circumstance, as he communicated to her the house where he lodged,
with which Sophia was unacquainted.
Chapter xii.
In which the thirteenth book is concluded.
The elegant Lord Shaftesbury somewhere objects to telling too much
truth: by which it may be fairly inferred, that, in some cases, to lie
is not only excusable but commendable.
And surely there are no persons who may so properly challenge a right
to this commendable deviation from truth, as young women in the affair
of love; for which they may plead precept, education, and above all,
the sanction, nay, I may say the necessity of custom, by which they
are restrained, not from submitting to the honest impulses of nature
(for that would be a foolish prohibition), but from owning them.
We are not, therefore, ashamed to say, that our heroine now pursued
the dictates of the above-mentioned right honourable philosopher. As
she was perfectly satisfied then, that Lady Bellaston was ignorant of
the person of Jones, so she determined to keep her in that ignorance,
though at the expense of a little fibbing.
Jones had not been long gone, before Lady Bellaston cryed, “Upon my
word, a good pretty young fellow; I wonder who he is; for I don't
remember ever to have seen his face before.”
“Nor I neither, madam,” cries Sophia. “I must say he behaved very
handsomely in relation to my note.”
“Yes; and he is a very handsome fellow,” said the lady: “don't you
think so?”
“I did not take much notice of him,” answered Sophia, “but I thought
he seemed rather awkward, and ungenteel than otherwise.”
“You are extremely right,” cries Lady Bellaston: “you may see, by his
manner, that he hath not kept good company. Nay, notwithstanding his
returning your note, and refusing the reward, I almost question
whether he is a gentleman.----I have always observed there is a
something in persons well born, which others can never acquire.----I
think I will give orders not to be at home to him.”
“Nay, sure, madam,” answered Sophia, “one can't suspect after what he
hath done;--besides, if your ladyship observed him, there was an
elegance in his discourse, a delicacy, a prettiness of expression
that, that----”
“I confess,” said Lady Bellaston, “the fellow hath words----And
indeed, Sophia, you must forgive me, indeed you must.”
“I forgive your ladyship!” said Sophia.
“Yes, indeed you must,” answered she, laughing; “for I had a horrible
suspicion when I first came into the room----I vow you must forgive
it; but I suspected it was Mr Jones himself.”
“Did your ladyship, indeed?” cries Sophia, blushing, and affecting a
laugh.
“Yes, I vow I did,” answered she. “I can't imagine what put it into my
head: for, give the fellow his due, he was genteely drest; which, I
think, dear Sophy, is not commonly the case with your friend.”
“This raillery,” cries Sophia, “is a little cruel, Lady Bellaston,
after my promise to your ladyship.”
“Not at all, child,” said the lady;----“It would have been cruel
before; but after you have promised me never to marry without your
father's consent, in which you know is implied your giving up Jones,
sure you can bear a little raillery on a passion which was pardonable
enough in a young girl in the country, and of which you tell me you
have so entirely got the better. What must I think, my dear Sophy, if
you cannot bear a little ridicule even on his dress? I shall begin to
fear you are very far gone indeed; and almost question whether you
have dealt ingenuously with me.”
“Indeed, madam,” cries Sophia, “your ladyship mistakes me, if you
imagine I had any concern on his account.”
“On his account!” answered the lady: “You must have mistaken me; I
went no farther than his dress;----for I would not injure your taste
by any other comparison--I don't imagine, my dear Sophy, if your Mr
Jones had been such a fellow as this--”
“I thought,” says Sophia, “your ladyship had allowed him to be
handsome”----
“Whom, pray?” cried the lady hastily.
“Mr Jones,” answered Sophia;--and immediately recollecting herself,
“Mr Jones!--no, no; I ask your pardon;--I mean the gentleman who was
just now here.”
“O Sophy! Sophy!” cries the lady; “this Mr Jones, I am afraid, still
runs in your head.”
“Then, upon my honour, madam,” said Sophia, “Mr Jones is as entirely
indifferent to me, as the gentleman who just now left us.”
“Upon my honour,” said Lady Bellaston, “I believe it. Forgive me,
therefore, a little innocent raillery; but I promise you I will never
mention his name any more.”
And now the two ladies separated, infinitely more to the delight of
Sophia than of Lady Bellaston, who would willingly have tormented her
rival a little longer, had not business of more importance called her
away. As for Sophia, her mind was not perfectly easy under this first
practice of deceit; upon which, when she retired to her chamber, she
reflected with the highest uneasiness and conscious shame. Nor could
the peculiar hardship of her situation, and the necessity of the case,
at all reconcile her mind to her conduct; for the frame of her mind
was too delicate to bear the thought of having been guilty of a
falsehood, however qualified by circumstances. Nor did this thought
once suffer her to close her eyes during the whole succeeding night.
BOOK XIV.
CONTAINING TWO DAYS.
Chapter i.
An essay to prove that an author will write the better for having some
knowledge of the subject on which he writes.
As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius
only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, without being
well able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of
letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert,
that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and,
indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness
and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and
prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would
be able to reach.
This doctrine, I am afraid, is at present carried much too far: for
why should writing differ so much from all other arts? The nimbleness
of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move;
nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse by
having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that
Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if instead of being
masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant
as most of the authors of the present age. Nor do I believe that all
the imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt, could have produced those
orations that have made the senate of England, in these our times, a
rival in eloquence to Greece and Rome, if he had not been so well read
in the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, as to have transferred
their whole spirit into his speeches, and, with their spirit, their
knowledge too.
I would not here be understood to insist on the same fund of learning
in any of my brethren, as Cicero persuades us is necessary to the
composition of an orator. On the contrary, very little reading is, I
conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of
all to the politician. For the first, perhaps, Byshe's Art of Poetry,
and a few of our modern poets, may suffice; for the second, a moderate
heap of plays; and, for the last, an indifferent collection of
political journals.
To say the truth, I require no more than that a man should have some
little knowledge of the subject on which he treats, according to the
old maxim of law, _Quam quisque nôrit artem in eâ se exerceat_. With
this alone a writer may sometimes do tolerably well; and, indeed,
without this, all the other learning in the world will stand him in
little stead.
For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and
Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have
clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art
of dancing: I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have
equalled the excellent treatise which Mr Essex hath given us on that
subject, entitled, The Rudiments of Genteel Education. And, indeed,
should the excellent Mr Broughton be prevailed on to set fist to
paper, and to complete the above-said rudiments, by delivering down
the true principles of athletics, I question whether the world will
have any cause to lament, that none of the great writers, either
antient or modern, have ever treated about that noble and useful art.
To avoid a multiplicity of examples in so plain a case, and to come at
once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one reason why many
English writers have totally failed in describing the manners of upper
life, may possibly be, that in reality they know nothing of it.
This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many authors to
arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect idea of it; nor will
the stage a much better: the fine gentleman formed upon reading the
former will almost always turn out a pedant, and he who forms himself
upon the latter, a coxcomb.
Nor are the characters drawn from these models better supported.
Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature; but they who copy them draw as
unlike the present age as Hogarth would do if he was to paint a rout
or a drum in the dresses of Titian and of Vandyke. In short, imitation
here will not do the business. The picture must be after Nature
herself. A true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation,
and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known.
Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be seen,
like all the rest of the human species, for nothing, in the streets,
shops, and coffee-houses; nor are they shown, like the upper rank of
animals, for so much a-piece. In short, this is a sight to which no
persons are admitted without one or other of these qualifications,
viz., either birth or fortune, or, what is equivalent to both, the
honourable profession of a gamester. And, very unluckily for the
world, persons so qualified very seldom care to take upon themselves
the bad trade of writing; which is generally entered upon by the lower
and poorer sort, as it is a trade which many think requires no kind of
stock to set up with.
Hence those strange monsters in lace and embroidery, in silks and
brocades, with vast wigs and hoops; which, under the name of lords and
ladies, strut the stage, to the great delight of attorneys and their
clerks in the pit, and of the citizens and their apprentices in the
galleries; and which are no more to be found in real life than the
centaur, the chimera, or any other creature of mere fiction. But to
let my reader into a secret, this knowledge of upper life, though very
necessary for preventing mistakes, is no very great resource to a
writer whose province is comedy, or that kind of novels which, like
this I am writing, is of the comic class.
What Mr Pope says of women is very applicable to most in this station,
who are, indeed, so entirely made up of form and affectation, that