"But no more of this Gentleman's Work, after I have said, That the favourable Things, you say of the Piece, will tempt me, if I can find Leisure, to give it a Perusal."
Notwithstanding this last sentence, Richardson more than once reverts to Tom Jones before he finishes his letter. Its effect upon Minerva and Astraea is hest described in an extract from Aaron Hill's reply, dated seven days later (August the 11th):—
"Unfortunate Tom Jones! how sadly has he mortify'd Two sawcy Correspondents of your making! They are with me now: and bid me tell you, You have spoil'd 'em Both, for Criticks.—Shall I add, a Secret which they did not bid me tell you?—They, Both, fairly cry'd, that You shou'd think it possible they you'd approve of Any thing, in Any work, that had an Evil Tendency, in any Part or Purpose of it. They maintain their Point so far, however, as to be convinc'd they say, that you will disapprove this over-rigid Judgment of those Friends, who you'd not find a Thread of Moral Meaning in Tom Jones, quite independent of the Levities they justly censure.—And, as soon as you have Time to read him, for yourself, tis there, pert Sluts, they will be bold enough to rest the Matter.—Mean while, they love and honour you and your opinions."
To this the author of Clarissa replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the "dear Ladies," and minutely justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used. He refers to Fielding again as "a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spirited Man;" and he also trusts to be able to "bestow a Reading" on Tom Jones; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, and dated December 1749, it seems that even at that date he had not, or pretended he had not, yet done so. In another of the unpublished South Kensington letters, from a Mr. Solomon Lowe, occurs the following:—"I do not doubt"—says the writer—"but all Europe will ring of it [Clarissa]: when a Cracker, that was some thous'd hours a- com-posing, [Footnote: Vide Tom Jones, Book xi. chap. i.] will no longer be heard, or talkt-of." Richardson, with business-like precision, has gravely docketed this in his own handwriting,—"Cracker, T. Jones."
It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowe's reputation as a prophet that, after more than one hundred and thirty years, this ephemeral firework, as he deemed it, should still be sparkling with undiminished brilliancy, and to judge by recent editions, is selling as vigorously as ever. From the days when Lady Mary wrote "Ne plus ultra" in her own copy, and La Harpe called it le premier roman du monde, (a phrase which, by the way, De Musset applies to Clarissa), it has come down to us with an almost universal accompaniment of praise. Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray,—have all left their admiration on record,— to say nothing of professional critics innumerable. As may be seen from the British Museum Catalogue, it has been translated into French, German, Polish, Dutch, and Spanish. Russia and Sweden have also their versions. The first French translation, or rather abridgment, by M. de La Place was prohibited in France (to Richardson's delight) by royal decree, an act which affords another instance, in Scott's words, of that "French delicacy, which, on so many occasions, has strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel" (e.g. the novels of M. Crebillon fils). La Place's edition (1750) was gracefully illustrated with sixteen plates by Hubert Bourguignon, called Gravelot, one of those eighteenth-century illustrators whose designs at present are the rage in Paris. In England, Fielding's best-known pictorial interpreters are Rowlandson and Cruikshank, the latter being by far the more sympathetic. Stothard also prepared some designs for Harrison's Novelists Magazine; but his refined and effeminate pencil was scarcely strong enough for the task. Hogarth alone could have been the ideal illustrator of Henry Fielding; that is to say—if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for Tristram Shandy, he could have been induced to undertake the work in the larger fashion of the Rake's Progress, or The Marriage a la Mode.
As might perhaps be anticipated, Tom Jones attracted the dramatist. [Footnote: It may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. As Pamela had its sequel in Pamela's Conduct in High Life, 1741, so Tom Jones was continued in The History of Tom Jones the Foundling, in his Married State, a second edition of which was issued in 1750. The Preface announces, needlessly enough, that "Henry Fielding, Esq., is not the Author of this Book." It deserves no serious consideration.] In 1765, one J. H. Steffens made a comedy of it for the German boards; and in 1785, a M. Desforges based upon it another, called Tom Jones a Londres, which was acted at the Theatre Francais. It was also turned into a comic opera by Joseph Reed in 1769, and played at Covent Garden. But its most piquant transformation is the Comedie lyrique of Poinsinet, acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of Philidor. The famous Caillot took the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by piqueurs, and girt with the conventional cor de chasse of the Gallic sportsman, sings the following ariette, diversified with true Fontainebleau terms of venery:—
"D'un Cerf, dix Cors, j'ai connaissance:
On l'attaque au fort, on le lance;
Tous sont prets:
Piqueurs & Valets
Suivent les pas de l'ami Jone (sic).
J'entends crier: Volcelets, Volcelets.
Aussitot j'ordonne
Que la Meute donne.
Tayaut, Tayaut, Tayaut.
Mes chiens decouples l'environnent;
Les trompes sonnent:
'Courage, Amis: Tayaut, Tayaut.'
Quelques chiens, que l'ardeur derange,
Quittent la voye & prennent le change
Jones les rassure d'un cri:
Ourvari, ourvari.
Accoute, accoute, accoute.
Au retour nous en revoyons.
Accoute, a Mirmiraut, courons
Tout a Griffaut;
Y apres: Tayaut, Tayaut.
On reprend route,
Voila le Cerf a l'eau.
La trompe sonne,
La Meute donne,
L'echo resonne,
Nous pressons les nouveaux relais:
Volcelets, Volcelets.
L'animal force succombe,
Fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe:
Et nos chasseurs chantent tous a l'envi:
'Amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire;
'Amis, Amis, celebrons notre gloire.
'Halali, Fanfare, Halali
'Halali.'"
With this triumphant flourish of trumpets the present chapter may be fittingly concluded. [Footnote: See Appendix No. II.: Fielding and Mrs. Hussey.]