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ures on Shakespeare and some other old poets and dramatists; Augustine Thierry's history of The Conquest of England by the Normans, in two volumes,--one of the most brilliant histories of that great event; Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler's Essay on the Principles of Translation; George Finlay's history of Greece Under the Romans; Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa,-travels now a century old, but still full of vivid interest; Virgil's Aeneid, in a new translation into English verse, by Mr. E. Fairfax Taylor, who beguiled his leisure through many years in turning the great epic into limpid Spenserian verse; and that classic among classics, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, with an introduction by Rev. H. Elvet Lewis.

Mr. Henry Cecil Wyld's "The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue" is not meant for those dwelling in the lower air in which spelling reform and similar questions are discussed, but for those seriously intent upon learning through what changes and by what influences English has become what it is, not only to the ear and eye, but also to the understanding mind. "To give some indications of the point of view from which a language should be studied, and of the principal points of method in such a study," is the author's modest summary of its object; and his hope, as he states it, is to prepare the way for the study of some of the great pioneers of our knowledge, and the chief framers of contemporary philological theory. The opening chapters on phonetics may be read with profit by all teachers of orthoepy and elocution, and students of easy etymology may gain from later passages something of that wider view of their work which will give zest and energy to its pursuit, but the proper readers of the work

are those who have taken philology for their subject, who have something of the enthusiasm of Trench although their way is charted by those who have traversed it in the years intervening between this happy day and his. (E. P. Dutton & Co.)

Mrs. Colquhoun Grant's "Queen and Cardinal" is such a history of Anne of Austria and of Mazarin as may be gleaned not only from the kindly, respectful pages of De Motteville but from the less good-natured persons who according to a fashion not yet banished from courts saw the better and decided that others had followed the worse. The story, like all stories of its time, one is tempted to say, is sad. Tranquillity was nowhere: faith hardly existed; intrigue was universal; simplicity hardly possible, and, interesting although the story of the period may be, too often it is almost too painful. The only advantage possessed by royalty in Anne's day seems to have been an opportunity to try all the discomforts and misadventures possible in every one of the lower ranks, with the added torture of enduring everything in the glare of publicity, and the occasional outbursts of splendor and luxury are poor compensation for intervening troubles. Anne's story has not hitherto been made the chief subject of a book written in English, and, although the author disclaims any historical pretensions, she has made the two Cardinals, Madame de Chevreuse, and the Queen herself living figures, not easily forgotten. Portraits of both Queen and Cardinal at various ages have been added by the publisher, but inscrutability was the royal merit of those days, and the pictured faces furnish no key to the characters of the originals. (E. P. Dutton & Co.)

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME XXXV.

No. 3278 May 4, 1907.

CONTENTS.

FROM BEGINNING
Vol. CCLIII.

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Henry Fielding and His Writings. By Harry Christopher Minchin
FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 259

Women and Politics: Two Rejoinders. By Caroline E. Stephen
NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER

and Theo. Chapman

Fakumen. By David Fraser

BLACK WOOD'S MAGAZINE

The Enemy's Camp. Chapter VII. (To be continued)

270

276

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OUTLOOK 308

NATION 310

SPECTATOR 314

NATURE 316 SATURDAY REVIEW 318

v.

"Eugenics" and Descent. By R. Brudenell Carter

VI.

Tembo's Intercession. By Ralph A. Durand

VII.

The Poetry of Bridges

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

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Britanniæ Omnes. By H. W. Just

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HENRY FIELDING AND HIS WRITINGS.

Some years ago the late Dr. Traill, in one of his witty dialogues written after Lucian's manner, represented Samuel Richardson as inflamed with jealousy because posterity had raised a statue to Henry Fielding and left him without one. Whereupon Fielding offered the satirical consolation that in one particular at least they had been treated impartially-for that posterity did not read the works of either of them.

This statement, whatever we may think of its probability, is scarcely susceptible of proof. Publishers occasionally assure us that such and such an author is "the favorite reading" of such and such a great personage; the novels of Gaboriau, for instance, have been described as "the favorite reading of Prince Bismarck." The Waverley novels accompanied Napoleon on his campaigns, and Charles II. took especial delight in Hudibras. I have not discovered that any person of note has admitted the works of Henry Fielding to the first place in his regard-Horace Walpole actually says he found them stupid and vulgar-but I do know that a British admiral who came home from his last cruise about 1850 always made Tom Jones a part of his sea library. These attested facts do not, of course, materially help us to gauge the taste of "the great variety of readers." But as the majority of them are usually credited with a good appetite for fiction, it would certainly be strange if Henry Fielding, whom Sir Walter deemed the father of the English novel, were, in the multitude of his descendants, left stranded high and dry; if Tom Jones, "that exquisite picture of human manners," as Gibbon called it, so far from outliving "the Palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of Austria,” were to pass, along with the hobby

horse, to the land where all things are forgotten.

Whether that History of a Foundling would continue to exist if nobody read it, let metaphysicians decide. Dr. Traill's statement, sweeping as it is. must not be taken literally. Fielding still has readers, still has admirers. But Dr. Traill, who was an excellent judge of such matters, clearly thought that their number was not very extensive, and I venture to believe that he was right. If that were not the case, if I supposed that all the readers of this Review knew as much of Henry Fielding and his works as they desire to know, I would hold my hand; but it is because I surmise the contrary that I have dared to string together some random thoughts about the man and his writings, now that the bi-centenary of his birth approaches. Even so might a Lilliputian who had made a study of Gulliver during many nights and days discourse of the Man-Mountain to other Lilliputians, whose avocations had debarred them from so close a scrutiny. For, whatever else we may think of Fielding, he is admittedly among the Titans; and as to the comparative neglect which has overtaken him, it may be partially explained by the fairly common feeling that the first half of the eighteenth century, of which he wrote, is an especially ignoble period in our annals. Yet it may be of service to cast a backward glance at that noisy, robustious age, when our rude forefathers were (it appears) so very different from their polite descendants.

There is little doubt that the most striking instance of that contrast in manners is to be found in the person of Squire Western, Tory, fox-hunter, and preserver of the game. Bred at the University, he talked the broad dia

lect of Somersetshire, cursed and swore and used foul language in the presence of his womenkind on any provocation, was a cruel tyrant to his daughter Sophia (whom at the same time he idolized) and got drunk every day of his life. What is worse, he constantly vilified his late wife, an unhappy and inoffensive lady, in Sophia's hearing; to no purpose, be it said, for Sophia loved and reverenced her mother's memory, and could never be brought to assent to his abuse. In this one particular he was, we may hope, rather worse than his neighbors, but in his other characteristics Fielding would have us take him for an average specimen of his class. Thus the language with which he "bespattered" Jones on one occasion is described as of that kind "which passes between country gentlemen who embrace opposite sides of the question," ard included a certain invitation "which is generally introduced into all controversies that arise among the lower orders of the English gentry at horse-races, cock-matches, and other public places." Well might Anthony Trollope exclaim, in describing a country gentleman of the mid-nineteenth century, that if Western was a true representative of the race of squires, that race had made marvellous progress in improvement in a hundred years.2 At the same time, he would be a bold man who would take upon himself to assert that there cannot be found today in that position any man as violent, as brutal, and as drunken as Western; but the difference is, that such a man is now exceptional. He is frowned upon by his class, probably reduced to a minority of one, and forced to fall back on the company of inferiors, who drink with him and are his toadies, but laugh at him behind his back. Western, on the other hand, set the tone in his country. Yet we must

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"Tom Jones," Book II., ch. ix. 2. Barchester Towers," ch. xxii.

not forget that his neighbor, Mr. Allworthy, was in every respect his exact opposite. Allworthy, however, filled his house (as did Ralph Allen, his original) with educated men, so as to be independent of the society of his fellowsquires-I had almost said, in Allworthy's case, with educated scoundrels.

3

But that "if" of Trollope's, though it may not have "much virtue," has at least much suggestiveness. As to Western, Fielding is borne out by the evidence of his great contemporary, John Wesley, who tells how at Newcastle he "met a gentleman in the streets cursing and swearing in so dreadful a manner that I could not but stop him." Wesley managed to appease the gentleman, who said he would come and hear him preach, "only he was afraid I should say something against fighting of cocks." " At Bradford-on-Avon, too, which is on the border of Squire Western's county, Wesley's discourse was interrupted "especially by one, called a gentleman, who had filled his pockets with rotten eggs; but a young man coming unawares clapped his hands on each side, and smashed them all at once. In an instant," the entry concludes with pardonable humor, "he was perfumed all over, though it was so sweet as balsam." Western's truth to nature, then, I do not think that we need question; but the doubt which lurked in Trollope's mind crops up unbidden in other connections, as one turns the pages of Tom Jones or of Amelia. Is there indeed (or was there then) such a preponderance in the mass of mankind of meanness over generosity, of hypocrisy over candor, of callousness over humanity? Were women in general so careless of their honor, and men in general so ready to betray it? Were the manners and customs of eighteenthcentury England really so corrupted?

Wesley's "Journal." January, 1743.

Wesley's Journal," September 19th. 1769.

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