Volume 5 — HENRY FIELDING.[H]
Reading edition
HENRY FIELDING.[H]
We are glad to see this great humorist's works put forward in a popular form, and at a price exceedingly low. A man may be very much injured by perusing maudlin sentimental tales, but cannot be hurt, though he may be shocked every now and then, by reading works of sound sterling humor, like the greater part of these, full of benevolence, practical wisdom, and generous sympathy with mankind.
The work is prefaced by an able biography of Fielding, in which the writer does justice to the great satirist's memory, and rescues it from the attacks which rivals, poetasters, and fine gentlemen have made upon it.
Those who have a mind to forgive a little coarseness, for the sake of one of the honestest, manliest, kindest companions in the world, cannot, as we fancy, find a better than Fielding, or get so much true wit and shrewdness from any other writer of our language.
"With regard to personal appearance," says his biographer, "Fielding was strongly built, robust, and in height rather exceeding six feet." He was possessed of rare conversational powers and wit; a nobleman who had known Pope, Swift, and the wits of that famous clique, declared that Harry Fielding surpassed them all.
He and Hogarth between them have given us a strange notion of the society of those days. Walpole's letters, for all their cold elegance, are not a whit more moral than those rude coarse pictures of the former artists. Lord Chesterfield's model of a man is more polite, but not so honest as Tom Jones, or as poor Will Booth, with his "chairman's shoulders, and calves like a porter."
Let us, then, not accuse Fielding of immorality, but simply admit that his age was more free-spoken than ours, and accuse it of the fault (such as it is) rather than him. But there is a great deal of good, on the other hand, which is to be found in the writings of this great man, of virtue so wise and practical, that the man of the world cannot read it and imitate it too much. He gives a strong real picture of human life, and the virtues which he exhibits shine out by their contrasts with the vices which he paints so faithfully, as they never could have done if the latter had not been depicted as well as the former. He tries to give you, as far as he knows it, the whole truth about human nature; the good and the evil of his characters are both practical. Tom Jones's sins and his faults are described with a curious accuracy, but then follows the repentance which comes out of his very sins, and that surely is moral and touching. Booth goes astray (we do verily believe that many persons even in these days are not altogether pure), but how good his remorse is! Are persons who profess to take the likeness of human nature to make an accurate portrait? This is such a hard question, that, think what we will, we shall not venture to say what we think. Perhaps it is better to do as Hannibal's painter did, and draw only that side of the face which has not the blind eye. Fielding attacked it in full. Let the reader, according to his taste, select the artist who shall give a likeness of him or only half a likeness.
We have looked through many of the pieces of Mr. Roscoe's handsome volume. The dramatic works could not have been spared possibly, but the reader will have no great pleasure, as we fancy, in looking at them more than once. They are not remarkable for wit even, though they have plenty of spirits—a great deal too much perhaps.
But he was an honest-hearted fellow, with affections as tender and simple as ever dwelt in the bosom of any man; and if, in the heyday of his spirits and the prodigal outpouring of his jovial good humor, he could give a hand to many "a lad and lass" whom the squeamish world would turn its back on (indeed, there was a virtue in his benevolence, but we dare not express our sympathies now for poor Doll Tearsheet and honest Mistress Quickly)—if he led a sad riotous life, and mixed with many a bad woman in his time, his heart was pure, and he knew a good one when he found her. He married, and (though Sir Walter Scott speaks rather slightingly of the novel in which Fielding has painted his first wife) the picture of Amelia, in the story of that name, is (in the writer's humble opinion) the most beautiful and delicious description of a character that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakspeare. It is a wonder how old Richardson, girded at as he had been by the reckless satirist—how Richardson, the author of "Pamela," could have been so blinded by anger and pique as not to have seen the merits of his rival's exquisite performance.
Amelia was in her grave when poor Fielding drew this delightful portrait of her; but, with all his faults, and extravagancies, and vagaries, it is not hard to see how such a gentle, generous, loving creature as Fielding was, must have been loved and prized by her. She had a little fortune of her own, and he at this time inherited a small one from his mother. He carried her to the country, and like a wise, prudent Henry Fielding as he was, who, having lived upon nothing very jovially for some years, thought £5,000 or £6,000 an endless wealth; he kept horses and hounds, flung his doors open, and lived with the best of his country. When he had spent his little fortune, and saw that there was nothing for it but to work, he came to London, applied himself fiercely to the law, seized upon his pen again, never lost heart for a moment, and, be sure, loved his poor Amelia as tenderly as ever he had done. It is a pity that he did not live on his income, that is certain: it is a pity that he had not been born a lord, or a thrifty stock broker at the very least; but we should not have had "Joseph Andrews" if this had been the case, and indeed it is probable that Amelia liked him quite as well after his ruin as she would have done had he been as rich as Rothschild.
The biographers agree that he would have been very successful at the bar, but for certain circumstances. These ugly circumstances always fall in the way of men of Fielding's genius: for though he amassed a considerable quantity of law, was reputed to be a good speaker, and had a great wit, and a knowledge of human nature which might serve him in excellent stead, it is to be remarked that those without a certain degree of patience and conduct will not insure a man's triumph at the bar, and so Fielding never rose to be a Lord Chancellor or even a judge.
His days of trouble had now begun in earnest, and indeed he met them like a man. He wrote incessantly for the periodical works of the day, issued pamphlets, made translations, published journals and criticisms, turned his hand, in a word, to any work that offered, and lived as best he might. This indiscriminate literary labor, which obliges a man to scatter his intellects upon so many trifles, and to provide weekly varieties as sets-off against the inevitable weekly butcher's bills, has been the ruin of many a man of talent since Fielding's time, and it was lucky for the world and for him that at a time of life when his powers were at the highest he procured a place which kept him beyond the reach of weekly want, and enabled him to gather his great intellects together and produce the greatest satire and two of the most complete romances in our language.
Let us remark, as a strong proof of the natural honesty of the man, the exquisite art of these performances, the care with which the situations are elaborated, and the noble, manly language corrected. When Harry Fielding was writing for the week's bread, we find style and sentiment both careless, and plots hastily worked off. How could he do otherwise? Mr. Snap, the bailiff, was waiting with a writ without—his wife and little ones asking wistfully for bread within. Away, with all its imperfections on its head, the play or the pamphlet must go. Indeed, he would have been no honest man had he kept them longer on his hands, with such urgent demands upon him as he had.
But as soon as he is put out of the reach of this base kind of want, his whole style changes, and instead of the reckless and slovenly hack-writer, we have one of the most minute and careful artists that ever lived. Dr. Beattie gave his testimony to the merit of "Tom Jones." Moral or immoral, let any man examine this romance as a work of art merely, and it must strike him as the most astonishing production of human ingenuity. There is not an incident ever so trifling but advances the story, grows out of former incidents and is connected with the whole. Such a literary providence, if we may use such a word, is not to be seen in any other work of fiction. You might cut out the half of Don Quixote, or add, transpose, or alter any given romance of Walter Scott, and neither would suffer. Roderick Random, and heroes of that sort, run through a series of adventures, at the end of which the fiddles are brought and there is a marriage. But the history of Tom Jones connects the very first page with the very last, and it is marvellous to think how the author could have built and carried all this structure in his brain, as he must have done, before he began to put it to paper.
And now a word or two about our darling "Amelia," of which we have read through every single word in Mr. Roscoe's handsome edition. "As for Captain Booth, Madam," writes old Richardson to one of his toadies, "Captain Booth has done his business. The piece is short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago;" indeed, human nature is not altered since Richardson's time; and if there are rakes, male and female, as there were a hundred years since, there are in like manner envious critics now as then. How eager they are to predict a man's fall, how unwilling to acknowledge his rise! If a man write a popular work, he is sure to be snarled at; if a literary man rise to eminence out of his profession, all his old comrades are against him.
Well, in spite of Richardson's prophecies, the piece which was dead at its birth is alive a hundred years after, and will live, as we fancy, as long as the English language shall endure. Fielding, in his own noble words, has given a key to the philosophy of the work. "The nature of man," cries honest Dr. Harrison, "is far from being in itself evil; it abounds with benevolence, and charity, and pity, coveting praise and honor, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs debauch our nature, and drive it headlong into vice." And the author's tale is an exemplification of this text. Poor Booth's habits and customs are bad indeed, but who can deny the benevolence, and charity, and pity, of this simple and kindly being? His vices even, if we may say so, are those of a man; there is nothing morbid or mawkish in any of Fielding's heroes; no passionate pleasing extenuation, such as one finds in the pseudo-moral romances of the sentimental character; no flashy excuses like those which Sheridan puts forward (unconsciously, most likely), for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably gets its punishment.
Besides the matchless character of Amelia, whose beauty and charming innocent consciousness of it (so delicately described by the novelist), whose tenderness and purity are such that they endear her to a reader as much as if she were actually alive, his own wife or mother, and make him consider her as some dear relative and companion of his own, about whose charms and virtues is scarcely modest to talk in public; besides Amelia, there are other characters, not so beautiful, but not less admirably true to nature. Miss Matthews is a wonderful portrait, and the vanity which inspires every one of the actions of that passionate, unscrupulous lady, the color as it were which runs through the whole of the picture is touched with a master's hand. Mrs. James, the indifferent woman, is not less skilful.
"Can this be my Jenny?" cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage in an enormous hoop, the very pink of the fashion; to which Mrs. James answers, "Madam, I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, what admirable knowledge of the world do all these characters display: what good moral may be drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think! This, however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed to take upon them, and prefer that their favorite works should contain as little reflection as possible; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs. James, or Miss Matthews might read their own characters as here described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural.
But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he brings upon his stage: James has his generosity, and his silly wife her good nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable object, whom we like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness and love goes along with this kind of laughter, and it was this mixed feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself in, and knew so well how to excite in others. Whenever he has to relate an action of benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it: some writers of fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad characters: these our author treats with a philosophic calmness: it is when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic: you fancy that you see the tears in his manly eyes; nor does he care to disguise any of the affectionate sympathies of his great, simple heart. This is a defect in art perhaps, but a very charming one.
For further particulars of Fielding's life, we recommend the reader to consult Mr. Roscoe's biography. Indeed, as much as any of his romances, his own history illustrates the maxim we have just quoted from Amelia.
Want, sorrow, and pain subdued his body at last, but his great and noble humor rode buoyant over them all, and his frank and manly philosophy overcame them. His generous attachment to his family comforted him to the last; and though all the labors of the poor fellow were only sufficient to keep him and them in a bare competence, yet it must be remembered, to his credit, that he left behind him a friend who valued him so much as to provide for the family he had left destitute, and to place them beyond the reach of want. It is some credit to a man to have been the friend of Ralph Allen; and Fielding before his death raised a monument to his friend a great deal more lasting than bronze or marble, placing his figure in the romance of Tom Jones under the name of Allworthy. "There is a day, sir," says Fielding in one of his dedications to Mr. Allen, "which no man in the kingdom can think of without fear, but yourself—the day of your death." Can there he a finer compliment? Nor was Fielding the man to pay it to one whom he thought was undeserving of it.
Never do Fielding's courage, cheerfulness, and affection forsake him; up to the last days of his life he is laboring still for his children. He dies, and is beholden to the admiration of a foreigner, Monsieur de Meryionnet, French consul at Lisbon, for a decent grave and tombstone. There he lies, sleeping after life's fitful fever. No more care, no more duns, no more racking pain, no more wild midnight orgies and jovial laughter. Of the women who are weeping for him a pious friend takes care. Here, indeed, it seems as if his sorrow ended; and one hopes and fancies that the poor but noble fellow's spirit is at last pure and serene.