History of Tom Jones, a Foundling - 14

had she once looked her mistress in the face, all the time she was
speaking: but as a looking-glass, which was most commodiously placed
opposite to her, gave her an opportunity of surveying those features,
in which, of all others, she took most delight; so she had not once
removed her eyes from that amiable object during her whole speech.

Mrs Honour was so intirely wrapped up in the subject on which she
exercised her tongue, and the object before her eyes, that she gave
her mistress time to conquer her confusion; which having done, she
smiled on her maid, and told her, "she was certainly in love with this
young fellow."--"I in love, madam!" answers she: "upon my word, ma'am,
I assure you, ma'am, upon my soul, ma'am, I am not."--"Why, if you
was," cries her mistress, "I see no reason that you should be ashamed
of it; for he is certainly a pretty fellow."--"Yes, ma'am," answered
the other, "that he is, the most handsomest man I ever saw in my life.
Yes, to be sure, that he is, and, as your ladyship says, I don't know
why I should be ashamed of loving him, though he is my betters. To be
sure, gentlefolks are but flesh and blood no more than us servants.
Besides, as for Mr Jones, thof Squire Allworthy hath made a gentleman
of him, he was not so good as myself by birth: for thof I am a poor
body, I am an honest person's child, and my father and mother were
married, which is more than some people can say, as high as they hold
their heads. Marry, come up! I assure you, my dirty cousin! thof his
skin be so white, and to be sure it is the most whitest that ever was
seen, I am a Christian as well as he, and nobody can say that I am
base born: my grandfather was a clergyman,[*] and would have been very
angry, I believe, to have thought any of his family should have taken
up with Molly Seagrim's dirty leavings."

[*] This is the second person of low condition whom we have recorded
in this history to have sprung from the clergy. It is to be hoped
such instances will, in future ages, when some provision is made for
the families of the inferior clergy, appear stranger than they can
be thought at present.

Perhaps Sophia might have suffered her maid to run on in this manner,
from wanting sufficient spirits to stop her tongue, which the reader
may probably conjecture was no very easy task; for certainly there
were some passages in her speech which were far from being agreeable
to the lady. However, she now checked the torrent, as there seemed no
end of its flowing. "I wonder," says she, "at your assurance in daring
to talk thus of one of my father's friends. As to the wench, I order
you never to mention her name to me. And with regard to the young
gentleman's birth, those who can say nothing more to his disadvantage,
may as well be silent on that head, as I desire you will be for the
future."

"I am sorry I have offended your ladyship," answered Mrs Honour. "I am
sure I hate Molly Seagrim as much as your ladyship can; and as for
abusing Squire Jones, I can call all the servants in the house to
witness, that whenever any talk hath been about bastards, I have
always taken his part; for which of you, says I to the footmen, would
not be a bastard, if he could, to be made a gentleman of? And, says I,
I am sure he is a very fine gentleman; and he hath one of the whitest
hands in the world; for to be sure so he hath: and, says I, one of the
sweetest temperedest, best naturedest men in the world he is; and,
says I, all the servants and neighbours all round the country loves
him. And, to be sure, I could tell your ladyship something, but that I
am afraid it would offend you."--"What could you tell me, Honour?"
says Sophia. "Nay, ma'am, to be sure he meant nothing by it, therefore
I would not have your ladyship be offended."--"Prithee tell me," says
Sophia; "I will know it this instant."--"Why, ma'am," answered Mrs
Honour, "he came into the room one day last week when I was at work,
and there lay your ladyship's muff on a chair, and to be sure he put
his hands into it; that very muff your ladyship gave me but yesterday.
La! says I, Mr Jones, you will stretch my lady's muff, and spoil it:
but he still kept his hands in it: and then he kissed it--to be sure I
hardly ever saw such a kiss in my life as he gave it."--"I suppose he
did not know it was mine," replied Sophia. "Your ladyship shall hear,
ma'am. He kissed it again and again, and said it was the prettiest
muff in the world. La! sir, says I, you have seen it a hundred times.
Yes, Mrs Honour, cried he; but who can see anything beautiful in the
presence of your lady but herself?--Nay, that's not all neither; but I
hope your ladyship won't be offended, for to be sure he meant nothing.
One day, as your ladyship was playing on the harpsichord to my master,
Mr Jones was sitting in the next room, and methought he looked
melancholy. La! says I, Mr Jones, what's the matter? a penny for your
thoughts, says I. Why, hussy, says he, starting up from a dream, what
can I be thinking of, when that angel your mistress is playing? And
then squeezing me by the hand, Oh! Mrs Honour, says he, how happy will
that man be!--and then he sighed. Upon my troth, his breath is as
sweet as a nosegay.--But to be sure he meant no harm by it. So I hope
your ladyship will not mention a word; for he gave me a crown never to
mention it, and made me swear upon a book, but I believe, indeed, it
was not the Bible."

Till something of a more beautiful red than vermilion be found out, I
shall say nothing of Sophia's colour on this occasion. "Ho--nour,"
says she, "I--if you will not mention this any more to me--nor to
anybody else, I will not betray you--I mean, I will not be angry; but
I am afraid of your tongue. Why, my girl, will you give it such
liberties?"--"Nay, ma'am," answered she, "to be sure, I would sooner
cut out my tongue than offend your ladyship. To be sure I shall never
mention a word that your ladyship would not have me."--"Why, I would
not have you mention this any more," said Sophia, "for it may come to
my father's ears, and he would be angry with Mr Jones; though I really
believe, as you say, he meant nothing. I should be very angry myself,
if I imagined--"--"Nay, ma'am," says Honour, "I protest I believe he
meant nothing. I thought he talked as if he was out of his senses;
nay, he said he believed he was beside himself when he had spoken the
words. Ay, sir, says I, I believe so too. Yes, says he, Honour.--But I
ask your ladyship's pardon; I could tear my tongue out for offending
you." "Go on," says Sophia; "you may mention anything you have not
told me before."--"Yes, Honour, says he (this was some time
afterwards, when he gave me the crown), I am neither such a coxcomb,
or such a villain, as to think of her in any other delight but as my
goddess; as such I will always worship and adore her while I have
breath.--This was all, ma'am, I will be sworn, to the best of my
remembrance. I was in a passion with him myself, till I found he meant
no harm."--"Indeed, Honour," says Sophia, "I believe you have a real
affection for me. I was provoked the other day when I gave you
warning; but if you have a desire to stay with me, you shall."--"To be
sure, ma'am," answered Mrs Honour, "I shall never desire to part with
your ladyship. To be sure, I almost cried my eyes out when you gave me
warning. It would be very ungrateful in me to desire to leave your
ladyship; because as why, I should never get so good a place again. I
am sure I would live and die with your ladyship; for, as poor Mr Jones
said, happy is the man----"

Here the dinner bell interrupted a conversation which had wrought such
an effect on Sophia, that she was, perhaps, more obliged to her
bleeding in the morning, than she, at the time, had apprehended she
should be. As to the present situation of her mind, I shall adhere to
a rule of Horace, by not attempting to describe it, from despair of
success. Most of my readers will suggest it easily to themselves; and
the few who cannot, would not understand the picture, or at least
would deny it to be natural, if ever so well drawn.




BOOK V.

CONTAINING A PORTION OF TIME SOMEWHAT LONGER THAN HALF A YEAR.



Chapter i.

Of the SERIOUS in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced.


Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which will
give the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than those which have
given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these probably
may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed to the
historical matter contained in every book; and which we have
determined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing, of
which we have set ourselves at the head.

For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound to
assign any reason; it being abundantly sufficient that we have laid it
down as a rule necessary to be observed in all prosai-comi-epic
writing. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice unity of time or
place which is now established to be so essential to dramatic poetry?
What critic hath been ever asked, why a play may not contain two days
as well as one? Or why the audience (provided they travel, like
electors, without any expense) may not be wafted fifty miles as well
as five? Hath any commentator well accounted for the limitation which
an antient critic hath set to the drama, which he will have contain
neither more nor less than five acts? Or hath any one living attempted
to explain what the modern judges of our theatres mean by that word
_low_; by which they have happily succeeded in banishing all humour
from the stage, and have made the theatre as dull as a drawing-room!
Upon all these occasions the world seems to have embraced a maxim of
our law, viz., _cuicunque in arte sua perito credendum est:_ for it
seems perhaps difficult to conceive that any one should have had
enough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules in any art or science
without the least foundation. In such cases, therefore, we are apt to
conclude there are sound and good reasons at the bottom, though we are
unfortunately not able to see so far.

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to
critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than
they really are. From this complacence, the critics have been
emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded,
that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give
laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received
them.

The critic, rightly considered, is no more than the clerk, whose
office it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great
judges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light of
legislators, in the several sciences over which they presided. This
office was all which the critics of old aspired to; nor did they ever
dare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by the authority of
the judge from whence it was borrowed.

But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk began to
invade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws of
writing were no longer founded on the practice of the author, but on
the dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator, and those
very peremptorily gave laws whose business it was, at first, only to
transcribe them.

Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for these
critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook mere form
for substance. They acted as a judge would, who should adhere to the
lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little circumstances,
which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were by these critics
considered to constitute his chief merit, and transmitted as
essentials to be observed by all his successors. To these
encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of
imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have
been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or
nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and
restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it
down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.

To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for
posterity, founded only on the authority of _ipse dixit_--for which,
to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration--we shall
here waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed to lay
before the reader the reasons which have induced us to intersperse
these several digressive essays in the course of this work.

And here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of knowledge,
which if it hath been discovered, hath not, to our remembrance, been
wrought on by any antient or modern writer. This vein is no other than
that of contrast, which runs through all the works of the creation,
and may probably have a large share in constituting in us the idea of
all beauty, as well natural as artificial: for what demonstrates the
beauty and excellence of anything but its reverse? Thus the beauty of
day, and that of summer, is set off by the horrors of night and
winter. And, I believe, if it was possible for a man to have seen only
the two former, he would have a very imperfect idea of their beauty.

But to avoid too serious an air; can it be doubted, but that the
finest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her charms in the
eye of a man who had never seen one of another cast? The ladies
themselves seem so sensible of this, that they are all industrious to
procure foils: nay, they will become foils to themselves; for I have
observed (at Bath particularly) that they endeavour to appear as ugly
as possible in the morning, in order to set off that beauty which they
intend to show you in the evening.

Most artists have this secret in practice, though some, perhaps, have
not much studied the theory. The jeweller knows that the finest
brilliant requires a foil; and the painter, by the contrast of his
figures, often acquires great applause.

A great genius among us will illustrate this matter fully. I cannot,
indeed, range him under any general head of common artists, as he hath
a title to be placed among those

_Inventas qui vitam excoluere per artes._
Who by invented arts have life improved.

I mean here the inventor of that most exquisite entertainment, called
the English Pantomime.

This entertainment consisted of two parts, which the inventor
distinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. The serious
exhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes, who were
certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was
ever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actually
intended so to be, in order to contrast the comic part of the
entertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better
advantage.

This was, perhaps, no very civil use of such personages: but the
contrivance was, nevertheless, ingenious enough, and had its effect.
And this will now plainly appear, if, instead of serious and comic, we
supply the words duller and dullest; for the comic was certainly
duller than anything before shown on the stage, and could be set off
only by that superlative degree of dulness which composed the serious.
So intolerably serious, indeed, were these gods and heroes, that
harlequin (though the English gentleman of that name is not at all
related to the French family, for he is of a much more serious
disposition) was always welcome on the stage, as he relieved the
audience from worse company.

Judicious writers have always practised this art of contrast with
great success. I have been surprized that Horace should cavil at this
art in Homer; but indeed he contradicts himself in the very next line:

_Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;
Verum opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum._

I grieve if e'er great Homer chance to sleep,
Yet slumbers on long works have right to creep.

For we are not here to understand, as perhaps some have, that an
author actually falls asleep while he is writing. It is true, that
readers are too apt to be so overtaken; but if the work was as long as
any of Oldmixon, the author himself is too well entertained to be
subject to the least drowsiness. He is, as Mr Pope observes,

Sleepless himself to give his readers sleep.

To say the truth, these soporific parts are so many scenes of serious
artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the rest; and
this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who told the
public that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was a
design in it.

In this light, then, or rather in this darkness, I would have the
reader to consider these initial essays. And after this warning, if he
shall be of opinion that he can find enough of serious in other parts
of this history, he may pass over these, in which we profess to be
laboriously dull, and begin the following books at the second chapter.



Chapter ii.

In which Mr Jones receives many friendly visits during his
confinement; with some fine touches of the passion of love, scarce
visible to the naked eye.


Tom Jones had many visitors during his confinement, though some,
perhaps, were not very agreeable to him. Mr Allworthy saw him almost
every day; but though he pitied Tom's sufferings, and greatly approved
the gallant behaviour which had occasioned them; yet he thought this
was a favourable opportunity to bring him to a sober sense of his
indiscreet conduct; and that wholesome advice for that purpose could
never be applied at a more proper season than at the present, when the
mind was softened by pain and sickness, and alarmed by danger; and
when its attention was unembarrassed with those turbulent passions
which engage us in the pursuit of pleasure.

At all seasons, therefore, when the good man was alone with the youth,
especially when the latter was totally at ease, he took occasion to
remind him of his former miscarriages, but in the mildest and
tenderest manner, and only in order to introduce the caution which he
prescribed for his future behaviour; "on which alone," he assured him,
"would depend his own felicity, and the kindness which he might yet
promise himself to receive at the hands of his father by adoption,
unless he should hereafter forfeit his good opinion: for as to what
had past," he said, "it should be all forgiven and forgotten. He
therefore advised him to make a good use of this accident, that so in
the end it might prove a visitation for his own good."

Thwackum was likewise pretty assiduous in his visits; and he too
considered a sick-bed to be a convenient scene for lectures. His
stile, however, was more severe than Mr Allworthy's: he told his
pupil, "That he ought to look on his broken limb as a judgment from
heaven on his sins. That it would become him to be daily on his knees,
pouring forth thanksgivings that he had broken his arm only, and not
his neck; which latter," he said, "was very probably reserved for some
future occasion, and that, perhaps, not very remote. For his part," he
said, "he had often wondered some judgment had not overtaken him
before; but it might be perceived by this, that Divine punishments,
though slow, are always sure." Hence likewise he advised him, "to
foresee, with equal certainty, the greater evils which were yet
behind, and which were as sure as this of overtaking him in his state
of reprobacy. These are," said he, "to be averted only by such a
thorough and sincere repentance as is not to be expected or hoped for
from one so abandoned in his youth, and whose mind, I am afraid, is
totally corrupted. It is my duty, however, to exhort you to this
repentance, though I too well know all exhortations will be vain and
fruitless. But _liberavi animam meam._ I can accuse my own conscience
of no neglect; though it is at the same time with the utmost concern I
see you travelling on to certain misery in this world, and to as
certain damnation in the next."

Square talked in a very different strain; he said, "Such accidents as
a broken bone were below the consideration of a wise man. That it was
abundantly sufficient to reconcile the mind to any of these
mischances, to reflect that they are liable to befal the wisest of
mankind, and are undoubtedly for the good of the whole." He said, "It
was a mere abuse of words to call those things evils, in which there
was no moral unfitness: that pain, which was the worst consequence of
such accidents, was the most contemptible thing in the world;" with
more of the like sentences, extracted out of the second book of
Tully's Tusculan questions, and from the great Lord Shaftesbury. In
pronouncing these he was one day so eager, that he unfortunately bit
his tongue; and in such a manner, that it not only put an end to his
discourse, but created much emotion in him, and caused him to mutter
an oath or two: but what was worst of all, this accident gave
Thwackum, who was present, and who held all such doctrine to be
heathenish and atheistical, an opportunity to clap a judgment on his
back. Now this was done with so malicious a sneer, that it totally
unhinged (if I may so say) the temper of the philosopher, which the
bite of his tongue had somewhat ruffled; and as he was disabled from
venting his wrath at his lips, he had possibly found a more violent
method of revenging himself, had not the surgeon, who was then luckily
in the room, contrary to his own interest, interposed and preserved
the peace.

Mr Blifil visited his friend Jones but seldom, and never alone. This
worthy young man, however, professed much regard for him, and as great
concern at his misfortune; but cautiously avoided any intimacy, lest,
as he frequently hinted, it might contaminate the sobriety of his own
character: for which purpose he had constantly in his mouth that
proverb in which Solomon speaks against evil communication. Not that
he was so bitter as Thwackum; for he always expressed some hopes of
Tom's reformation; "which," he said, "the unparalleled goodness shown
by his uncle on this occasion, must certainly effect in one not
absolutely abandoned:" but concluded, "if Mr Jones ever offends
hereafter, I shall not be able to say a syllable in his favour."

As to Squire Western, he was seldom out of the sick-room, unless when
he was engaged either in the field or over his bottle. Nay, he would
sometimes retire hither to take his beer, and it was not without
difficulty that he was prevented from forcing Jones to take his beer
too: for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea
than he did this; which, he said, had more virtue in it than was in
all the physic in an apothecary's shop. He was, however, by much
entreaty, prevailed on to forbear the application of this medicine;
but from serenading his patient every hunting morning with the horn
under his window, it was impossible to withhold him; nor did he ever
lay aside that hallow, with which he entered into all companies, when
he visited Jones, without any regard to the sick person's being at
that time either awake or asleep.

This boisterous behaviour, as it meant no harm, so happily it effected
none, and was abundantly compensated to Jones, as soon as he was able
to sit up, by the company of Sophia, whom the squire then brought to
visit him; nor was it, indeed, long before Jones was able to attend
her to the harpsichord, where she would kindly condescend, for hours
together, to charm him with the most delicious music, unless when the
squire thought proper to interrupt her, by insisting on Old Sir Simon,
or some other of his favourite pieces.

Notwithstanding the nicest guard which Sophia endeavoured to set on
her behaviour, she could not avoid letting some appearances now and
then slip forth: for love may again be likened to a disease in this,
that when it is denied a vent in one part, it will certainly break out
in another. What her lips, therefore, concealed, her eyes, her
blushes, and many little involuntary actions, betrayed.

One day, when Sophia was playing on the harpsichord, and Jones was
attending, the squire came into the room, crying, "There, Tom, I have
had a battle for thee below-stairs with thick parson Thwackum. He hath
been a telling Allworthy, before my face, that the broken bone was a
judgment upon thee. D--n it, says I, how can that be? Did he not come
by it in defence of a young woman? A judgment indeed! Pox, if he never
doth anything worse, he will go to heaven sooner than all the parsons
in the country. He hath more reason to glory in it than to be ashamed
of it."--"Indeed, sir," says Jones, "I have no reason for either; but
if it preserved Miss Western, I shall always think it the happiest
accident of my life."--"And to gu," said the squire, "to zet Allworthy
against thee vor it! D--n un, if the parson had unt his petticuoats
on, I should have lent un o flick; for I love thee dearly, my boy, and
d--n me if there is anything in my power which I won't do for thee.
Sha't take thy choice of all the horses in my stable to-morrow
morning, except only the Chevalier and Miss Slouch." Jones thanked
him, but declined accepting the offer. "Nay," added the squire, "sha't
ha the sorrel mare that Sophy rode. She cost me fifty guineas, and
comes six years old this grass." "If she had cost me a thousand,"
cries Jones passionately, "I would have given her to the dogs." "Pooh!
pooh!" answered Western; "what! because she broke thy arm? Shouldst
forget and forgive. I thought hadst been more a man than to bear
malice against a dumb creature."--Here Sophia interposed, and put an
end to the conversation, by desiring her father's leave to play to
him; a request which he never refused.

The countenance of Sophia had undergone more than one change during
the foregoing speeches; and probably she imputed the passionate
resentment which Jones had expressed against the mare, to a different
motive from that from which her father had derived it. Her spirits
were at this time in a visible flutter; and she played so intolerably
ill, that had not Western soon fallen asleep, he must have remarked
it. Jones, however, who was sufficiently awake, and was not without an
ear any more than without eyes, made some observations; which being
joined to all which the reader may remember to have passed formerly,
gave him pretty strong assurances, when he came to reflect on the
whole, that all was not well in the tender bosom of Sophia; an opinion
which many young gentlemen will, I doubt not, extremely wonder at his
not having been well confirmed in long ago. To confess the truth, he
had rather too much diffidence in himself, and was not forward enough
in seeing the advances of a young lady; a misfortune which can be
cured only by that early town education, which is at present so
generally in fashion.

When these thoughts had fully taken possession of Jones, they
occasioned a perturbation in his mind, which, in a constitution less
pure and firm than his, might have been, at such a season, attended
with very dangerous consequences. He was truly sensible of the great
worth of Sophia. He extremely liked her person, no less admired her
accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In reality, as he
had never once entertained any thought of possessing her, nor had ever
given the least voluntary indulgence to his inclinations, he had a
much stronger passion for her than he himself was acquainted with. His
heart now brought forth the full secret, at the same time that it
assured him the adorable object returned his affection.



Chapter iii.

Which all who have no heart will think to contain much ado about
nothing.


The reader will perhaps imagine the sensations which now arose in
Jones to have been so sweet and delicious, that they would rather tend
to produce a chearful serenity in the mind, than any of those
dangerous effects which we have mentioned; but in fact, sensations of