(d) Yet his merits are very real, and the cumbrous machinery of the letter-series assists him. His character-drawing is among the best of his time, and is still among the most remarkable in English; he is specially happy in his treatment of feminine characters; his use of dialogue shows an advance, though it might be even more frequently employed. He gives a good start to the modern novel, though it is still a long distance from maturity.
HENRY FIELDING (1707–54)
1. His Life. A cadet of an ancient family, Fielding was born in Somersetshire, was educated at Eton, and studied law at Leyden. Lack of funds stopped his legal studies for a time; he took to writing plays for a living, but the plays were of little merit; then, having married, he resumed his studies and was called to the Bar. After some time in practice he was appointed (1749) Bow Street magistrate, a post which brought him a small income (“of the dirtiest money on earth,” as he said) and much hard work. His magisterial duties, however, had their compensations, for they gave him a close view of many types of human criminality which was of much use to him in his novels. Fielding himself was no Puritan, and his own excesses helped to undermine his constitution. In the hope that it would improve his health, he took a voyage to Portugal (1754); but he died some months after landing, and was buried at Lisbon.
2. His Novels. In 1742 appeared Joseph Andrews, which begins in a loud guffaw of laughter—not unkind, but not very delicate—at the namby-pamby Pamela of Richardson. In the story Joseph Andrews, the hero, is a footman, and the brother of Pamela. Along with a poor and simple curate called Abraham Adams he survives numerous ridiculous adventures. In a short time Fielding forgets about the burlesque, becomes interested in his own story, and we then see a novel of a new and powerful kind. From the very beginning we get the Fielding touch: the complete rejection of the letter-method; the bustle and sweep of the tale; the broad and vivacious humor; the genial and half-contemptuous insight into human nature; and the forcible and pithy prose style. His next works were A Journey from this World to the Next (1743) and Jonathan Wild the Great (1743). Jonathan Wild is the biography of the famous thief and highwayman who was hanged at Newgate. The story is one long ironical comment upon human action. In it Fielding deliberately turns morality inside out, calling good by the name of evil, and evil by the name of good. In the hands of a lesser writer such a method would at length become teasing and troublesome; but Fielding, through the intensity of his ironic insight, gives us new and piercing glimpses of the ruffian’s mentality. We give an extract to illustrate Fielding’s ironic power, which in several respects resembles that of Swift:
In Wild everything was truly great, almost without alloy, as his imperfections (for surely some small ones he had) were only such as served to denominate him a human creature, of which kind none ever arrived at consummate excellence. Indeed, while greatness consists in power, pride, insolence, and doing mischief to mankind—to speak out—while a great man and a great rogue are synonymous terms, so long shall Wild stand unrivalled on the pinnacle of GREATNESS. Nor must we omit here, as the finishing of his character, what indeed ought to be remembered on his tomb or his statue, the conformity above mentioned of his death to his life; and that Jonathan Wild the Great, after all his mighty exploits was, what so few GREAT men can accomplish—hanged by the neck till he was dead.
Jonathan Wild the Great
His greatest novel, Tom Jones (1749), completes and perfects his achievement. In the book we have all his previous virtues (and some of his weaknesses), with the addition of greater symmetry of plot, clearer and steadier vision into human life and human frailty, and a broader and more thickly peopled stage. His last novel, Amelia (1751), had as the original of the heroine Fielding’s first wife, and the character of the erring husband Booth is based upon that of Fielding himself. This novel, though possessing power and interest, lacks the spontaneity of its great predecessor. The last work he produced was his Voyage to Lisbon, a diary written during his last journey. It possesses a painful interest, for it reveals a strong and patient mind, heavy with bodily affliction, yet still lively in its perception of human affairs.
3. Features of his Novels. (a) Like Richardson, Fielding had a genius for sounding the emotions of the human heart, but his methods are different. Richardson pores over human weaknesses with puckered brow and with many a sigh; Fielding looks, laughs, and passes on. He does not seek to analyze or over-refine; and so his characters possess a breadth, humanity, and attraction denied to Richardson’s. Even a sneaking rogue like Blifil in Tom Jones has a Shakespearian roundness of contour that keeps him from being quite revolting.
(b) Fielding is breezy, bustling, and energetic in his narrative. He shows us life on the highway, in the cottage, and among the streets of London. Coleridge truly said that to take up Fielding after Richardson is like emerging from the sick-room on to the open lawn.
(c) Fielding’s humor is boisterous and broad to the point of coarseness—a kind of over-fed jollity. But it is frank and open, with none of the stealthy suggestiveness of Richardson. In dealing with this aspect of Fielding’s work (an aspect frequently repulsive to the more squeamish taste of the moderns) we must make allowance for the fashion of his time, which united a frankness of incident with a curious decorum of speech. He had also in him a freakishness of wit, the excess of his grosser mood, which led to fantastic interludes and digressions in his novels. For instance, in describing the numerous scuffles among his characters, he frequently adopts an elaborate mock-heroic style not quite in accordance with later taste. Fielding’s comic characters, such as Partridge, the humble companion of Tom Jones, are numerous, diversified, and exceedingly likeable and lively.