History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
to the lady. However, she now checked the torrent, as there seemed no
end of its flowing. “I wonder,” says she, “at your assurance in daring
to talk thus of one of my father's friends. As to the wench, I order
you never to mention her name to me. And with regard to the young
gentleman's birth, those who can say nothing more to his disadvantage,
may as well be silent on that head, as I desire you will be for the
future.”
“I am sorry I have offended your ladyship,” answered Mrs Honour. “I am
sure I hate Molly Seagrim as much as your ladyship can; and as for
abusing Squire Jones, I can call all the servants in the house to
witness, that whenever any talk hath been about bastards, I have
always taken his part; for which of you, says I to the footmen, would
not be a bastard, if he could, to be made a gentleman of? And, says I,
I am sure he is a very fine gentleman; and he hath one of the whitest
hands in the world; for to be sure so he hath: and, says I, one of the
sweetest temperedest, best naturedest men in the world he is; and,
says I, all the servants and neighbours all round the country loves
him. And, to be sure, I could tell your ladyship something, but that I
am afraid it would offend you.”--“What could you tell me, Honour?”
says Sophia. “Nay, ma'am, to be sure he meant nothing by it, therefore
I would not have your ladyship be offended.”--“Prithee tell me,” says
Sophia; “I will know it this instant.”--“Why, ma'am,” answered Mrs
Honour, “he came into the room one day last week when I was at work,
and there lay your ladyship's muff on a chair, and to be sure he put
his hands into it; that very muff your ladyship gave me but yesterday.
La! says I, Mr Jones, you will stretch my lady's muff, and spoil it:
but he still kept his hands in it: and then he kissed it--to be sure I
hardly ever saw such a kiss in my life as he gave it.”--“I suppose he
did not know it was mine,” replied Sophia. “Your ladyship shall hear,
ma'am. He kissed it again and again, and said it was the prettiest
muff in the world. La! sir, says I, you have seen it a hundred times.
Yes, Mrs Honour, cried he; but who can see anything beautiful in the
presence of your lady but herself?--Nay, that's not all neither; but I
hope your ladyship won't be offended, for to be sure he meant nothing.
One day, as your ladyship was playing on the harpsichord to my master,
Mr Jones was sitting in the next room, and methought he looked
melancholy. La! says I, Mr Jones, what's the matter? a penny for your
thoughts, says I. Why, hussy, says he, starting up from a dream, what
can I be thinking of, when that angel your mistress is playing? And
then squeezing me by the hand, Oh! Mrs Honour, says he, how happy will
that man be!--and then he sighed. Upon my troth, his breath is as
sweet as a nosegay.--But to be sure he meant no harm by it. So I hope
your ladyship will not mention a word; for he gave me a crown never to
mention it, and made me swear upon a book, but I believe, indeed, it
was not the Bible.”
Till something of a more beautiful red than vermilion be found out, I
shall say nothing of Sophia's colour on this occasion. “Ho--nour,”
says she, “I--if you will not mention this any more to me--nor to
anybody else, I will not betray you--I mean, I will not be angry; but
I am afraid of your tongue. Why, my girl, will you give it such
liberties?”--“Nay, ma'am,” answered she, “to be sure, I would sooner
cut out my tongue than offend your ladyship. To be sure I shall never
mention a word that your ladyship would not have me.”--“Why, I would
not have you mention this any more,” said Sophia, “for it may come to
my father's ears, and he would be angry with Mr Jones; though I really
believe, as you say, he meant nothing. I should be very angry myself,
if I imagined--“--“Nay, ma'am,” says Honour, “I protest I believe he
meant nothing. I thought he talked as if he was out of his senses;
nay, he said he believed he was beside himself when he had spoken the
words. Ay, sir, says I, I believe so too. Yes, says he, Honour.--But I
ask your ladyship's pardon; I could tear my tongue out for offending
you.” “Go on,” says Sophia; “you may mention anything you have not
told me before.”--“Yes, Honour, says he (this was some time
afterwards, when he gave me the crown), I am neither such a coxcomb,
or such a villain, as to think of her in any other delight but as my
goddess; as such I will always worship and adore her while I have
breath.--This was all, ma'am, I will be sworn, to the best of my
remembrance. I was in a passion with him myself, till I found he meant
no harm.”--“Indeed, Honour,” says Sophia, “I believe you have a real
affection for me. I was provoked the other day when I gave you
warning; but if you have a desire to stay with me, you shall.”--“To be
sure, ma'am,” answered Mrs Honour, “I shall never desire to part with
your ladyship. To be sure, I almost cried my eyes out when you gave me
warning. It would be very ungrateful in me to desire to leave your
ladyship; because as why, I should never get so good a place again. I
am sure I would live and die with your ladyship; for, as poor Mr Jones
said, happy is the man----”
Here the dinner bell interrupted a conversation which had wrought such
an effect on Sophia, that she was, perhaps, more obliged to her
bleeding in the morning, than she, at the time, had apprehended she
should be. As to the present situation of her mind, I shall adhere to
a rule of Horace, by not attempting to describe it, from despair of
success. Most of my readers will suggest it easily to themselves; and
the few who cannot, would not understand the picture, or at least
would deny it to be natural, if ever so well drawn.
BOOK V.
CONTAINING A PORTION OF TIME SOMEWHAT LONGER THAN HALF A YEAR.
Chapter i.
Of the SERIOUS in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced.
Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which will
give the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than those which have
given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these probably
may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed to the
historical matter contained in every book; and which we have
determined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing, of
which we have set ourselves at the head.
For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound to
assign any reason; it being abundantly sufficient that we have laid it
down as a rule necessary to be observed in all prosai-comi-epic
writing. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice unity of time or
place which is now established to be so essential to dramatic poetry?
What critic hath been ever asked, why a play may not contain two days
as well as one? Or why the audience (provided they travel, like
electors, without any expense) may not be wafted fifty miles as well
as five? Hath any commentator well accounted for the limitation which
an antient critic hath set to the drama, which he will have contain
neither more nor less than five acts? Or hath any one living attempted
to explain what the modern judges of our theatres mean by that word
_low_; by which they have happily succeeded in banishing all humour
from the stage, and have made the theatre as dull as a drawing-room!
Upon all these occasions the world seems to have embraced a maxim of
our law, viz., _cuicunque in arte sua perito credendum est:_ for it
seems perhaps difficult to conceive that any one should have had
enough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules in any art or science
without the least foundation. In such cases, therefore, we are apt to
conclude there are sound and good reasons at the bottom, though we are
unfortunately not able to see so far.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to
critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than
they really are. From this complacence, the critics have been
emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded,
that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give
laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received
them.
The critic, rightly considered, is no more than the clerk, whose
office it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great
judges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light of
legislators, in the several sciences over which they presided. This
office was all which the critics of old aspired to; nor did they ever
dare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by the authority of
the judge from whence it was borrowed.
But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk began to
invade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws of
writing were no longer founded on the practice of the author, but on
the dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator, and those
very peremptorily gave laws whose business it was, at first, only to
transcribe them.
Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for these
critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook mere form
for substance. They acted as a judge would, who should adhere to the
lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little circumstances,
which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were by these critics
considered to constitute his chief merit, and transmitted as
essentials to be observed by all his successors. To these
encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of
imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have
been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or
nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and
restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it
down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.
To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for
posterity, founded only on the authority of _ipse dixit_--for which,
to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration--we shall
here waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed to lay
before the reader the reasons which have induced us to intersperse
these several digressive essays in the course of this work.
And here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of knowledge,
which if it hath been discovered, hath not, to our remembrance, been
wrought on by any antient or modern writer. This vein is no other than
that of contrast, which runs through all the works of the creation,
and may probably have a large share in constituting in us the idea of
all beauty, as well natural as artificial: for what demonstrates the
beauty and excellence of anything but its reverse? Thus the beauty of
day, and that of summer, is set off by the horrors of night and
winter. And, I believe, if it was possible for a man to have seen only
the two former, he would have a very imperfect idea of their beauty.
But to avoid too serious an air; can it be doubted, but that the
finest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her charms in the
eye of a man who had never seen one of another cast? The ladies
themselves seem so sensible of this, that they are all industrious to
procure foils: nay, they will become foils to themselves; for I have
observed (at Bath particularly) that they endeavour to appear as ugly
as possible in the morning, in order to set off that beauty which they
intend to show you in the evening.
Most artists have this secret in practice, though some, perhaps, have
not much studied the theory. The jeweller knows that the finest
brilliant requires a foil; and the painter, by the contrast of his
figures, often acquires great applause.
A great genius among us will illustrate this matter fully. I cannot,