HISTORY O F TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING. By HENRY FIELDING, Esq; Mores hominum multorum vidit VOLUME III. DRESDEN, Printed for G. C. WALTHER. MDCCLXXIV. THE HISTORY OF A FOUNDLING. BOOK XIV. Containing two days, CHAP. I. An Effay to prove that an Author will write the better, for having fome knowledge of the . fubject on which he writes. As S feveral gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least affiftance of learning, perhaps without being well able to read, have made a confiderable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to affert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural fprightlinefs and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from foaring to thofe high flights which) otherwise it would be able to reach. A 2 This |