1749, when he looked through most of the novel for the new edition in six volumes to be published the next month. As it was, he must have read mainly for verbal errors, else he would not have let stand several inaccuracies in the narrative which have been observed by readers ever since his day. Nearly as obvious, for example, as that oversight with reference to the age of his hero, which he corrected, was a sudden transition in the course of three or four weeks from mid-summer to mid-winter, which he left uncorrected. Nor, when he reached the sixth volume in revision, did he look sharply, if at all, at the text for slips of the compositors. Attention, I think, has never been called to the most corrupt passage to be found anywhere in the novel. It occurs during a conversation in the eighth chapter of the sixteenth book, where Lady Bellaston addresses Sophia's maiden aunt, Mrs. Western, first as "Bel" and then as "Bell." Nowhere else in the novel is it certain that a Christian name was given to Mrs. Western. Once Lady Bellaston had earlier referred to her as "Di," short for "Diana," because of her imperious bearing and air of virginity, and men had called her "the cruel Parthenissa" in verses scratched upon windows, which she immediately broke into a thousand pieces. But Parthenissa and probably Diana were sobriquets not names, quite different from "Bel" or "Bell," which I surmise got into the text through a blunder. I say "surmise," for not a sentence of "Tom Jones" exists in manuscript for verification. It was, however, the custom of authors in the eighteenth century, so far as we know it, to abbreviate words wherever they were disposed to do so. No one, for instance, would have thought it necessary to write out on all occasions the names of the characters in a play or a novel. Much was left to the printer. So I take it that in this passage Fielding in his haste wrote merely "Bel" or "Bell" when he meant Lady Bellaston; and that the compositor at this point misunder

stood him. Probably the manuscript was not clear. Except that "Bel" was altered to "Bell" in the four-volume edition dated 1750, the text remained unchanged during Fielding's lifetime. The conversation was first set straight by Murphy in 1762, in his second edition of the author's works. This confusion of names, be it noted, occurred on page 67 of the sixth volume of "Tom Jones" as originally published. The list of errata for this edition, it will be remembered, did not cover that volume. It accordingly seems certain that Fielding left all corrections therein to Millar and his men, never going through the proofs for himself.

By April, 1749, "Tom Jones" was for Fielding a thing of the past. Critics might snarl, but he gave no heed to them. No copy of the novel appears in the catalogue of his library advertised by the auctioneer a few months after Fielding's death. Like many other novelists, Fielding did not ponder his works for his own edification; they were written for the delight of a public willing to pay for them. Not that Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" just for money, though we may be sure that if Millar offered him another hundred in April, he took it. As he sat in his little parlour with the manuscript spread out before him, he could hear the clink of the shining heap that was to be his and could already feel the warmth of the comfortable house that it would bring to himself and family; but he declared that gold was not his inspiration; it was his reward for a book upon which he had expended thousands of hours and into which he had put all the wit and humour of which he was master.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RECEPTION OF TOM JONES

The story of the hundred pounds, coupled with the patronage of Lyttelton and the Duke of Bedford, led Sir Walter Scott to say that "Tom Jones" was greeted "with unanimous acclamation." The assertion is quite untrue. The novel evidently had a wide sale for those days; probably ten thousand or more copies were printed the first year; everywhere it supplied among the upper and middle classes a topic for conversation; but the public divided into hostile camps on its merits. It was still almost as true as in Pope's day that

Parties in Wit attend on those of State,

And public faction doubles private hate.

Fielding's praise of Lyttelton and the Duke of Bedford at once drew the fire of the whole mob of writers employed against the Ministry. Moreover, Richardson three months before had published the last volumes of "Clarissa Harlowe," with which "Tom Jones" came into rivalry. From the first Richardson and his coterie were very bitter against Fielding, as if he had no business to enter the lists for public favour at this time. As a result, we have few unbiassed estimates of "Tom Jones" by Fielding's contemporaries; we have unmeasured praise from some of Fielding's friends, though fewer instances of it than one would expect; we have unmeasured abuse from his enemies. But outsiders, with here and there an exception, did not quite understand Fielding's drift; they expected to find in

"Tom Jones" as in "Clarissa" one or more models of perfection; whereas they found men and women such as they had seen and known in real life; and they were nonplussed by Fielding's frank realism. The great fame of "Tom Jones" belongs to later times, when neither private friendship nor malice nor envy could warp the reader's judgment. With this explanation and caution, I will proceed to the real story of how the novel was received when first published. Fact may seem stranger than fiction.

Of Fielding's friends, where were Pitt and Lyttelton, both of whom had commended the book while it was in manuscript? In their published works neither "Tom Jones" nor Fielding is even mentioned. A passage, to be sure, in one of Lyttelton's "Dialogues of the Dead" compliments Fielding for "a true spirit of comedy, and an exact representation of nature, with fine moral touches"; that dialogue, however, was written not by Lyttelton, but by his friend Elizabeth Montagu, the Blue Stocking, who in general put Richardson above Fielding. Where was Garrick, whose Hamlet Fielding had praised for its perfect naturalness? Where was Allen, whose character had been drawn in Squire Allworthy? Where was Warburton, in whose hands, said Fielding, had been placed the key to the treasures of ancient learning? The guest of Allen at Prior Park in the summer of 1749, Warburton was sending to Richard Hurd at Cambridge news of the literary world, but he condescended to no phrase in favour of a writer who had bestowed upon him many an undeserved compliment. Two years elapsed before the world knew that he rated Marivaux and Fielding foremost among those novelists who have given "a faithful and chaste copy of real life and manners." Both Shenstone and Lady Luxborough preferred "Joseph Andrews" to "Tom Jones." Writing to the poet from Barrells, March 23, 1749, Lady Luxborough says in the midst of her letter:

"I might live at least five hundred years in this place before one quarter of the incidents happened which are related in any one of the six volumes of Tom Jones. I have not yet read the two last; but I think as you do, that no one character yet is near so striking as Adams's in the author's other composition, and the plan seems far-fetched; but in the adventures that happen, I think he produces personages but too like those one meets with in the world; and even among those people to whom he gives good characters, he shews them as in a concave glass which discovers blemishes that would not have appeared to the common

A similar opinion was expressed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Since 1739, Lady Mary had been living abroad, and so did not see "Joseph Andrews" when it first appeared. But in September, 1749, her daughter, the Countess of Bute, sent her a box of books containing this novel, presumably the recent edition of it, and "Tom Jones." On the first of October, she wrote back, from Lovere, Italy, to her daughter:

"My Dear Child, I have at length received the box, with the books enclosed, for which I give you many thanks, as they amused me very much. I gave a very ridiculous proof of it, fitter indeed for my granddaughter than myself. I returned from a party on horseback; and after having rode twenty miles, part of it by moonshine, it was ten at night when I found the box arrived. I could not deny myself the pleasure of opening it; and, falling upon Fielding's works, was fool enough to sit up all night reading. I think Joseph Andrews better than his Foundling."

In course of time, Lady Mary, however, reversed her judgment. She admired, says her grand-daughter Lady Stuart, "Tom Jones" above all her cousin's books, and wrote in her own copy Ne plus ultra, though she was sorry "Letters of Shenstone,'' 1775, p. 88.