Captain. Pardon me—Tom Jones.
Author. True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. He challenges a comparison between the Novel and the Epic. Smollett, Le Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of the rules he has laid down, have written rather a history of the miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of life, than the plot of a regular and connected epopeia, where every step brings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters have been satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end—just as the traveller alights at the inn, because it is evening.
Captain. A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at least. In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes—“What the devil does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?”
Author. Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and spirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had sufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in another, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a brow bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place of bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an idler to study the history of his country; in all, save where the perusal interrupted the discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless amusement,—might not the author of such a work, however inartificially executed, plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave, who, about to be punished for having spread the false report of a victory, saved himself by exclaiming—“Am I to blame, O Athenians, who have given you one happy day?”
Captain. Will your goodness permit me to mention an anecdote of my excellent grandmother?
Author. I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain Clutterbuck.
Captain. It may come into our dialogue on Bayes's plan.—The sagacious old lady—rest her soul!—was a good friend to the church, and could never hear a minister maligned by evil tongues, without taking his part warmly. There was one fixed point, however, at which she always abandoned the cause of her reverend protege—it was so soon as she learned he had preached a regular sermon against slanderers and backbiters.
Author. And what is that to the purpose?
Captain. Only that I have heard engineers say, that one may betray the weak point to the enemy, by too much ostentation of fortifying it.
Author. And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose?