mention religion, I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England."

With Thwackum's hot disputant, one can be more definite. Square's original was Thomas Chubb, a native like Hele of Salisbury, where he kept a tallow-chandler's shop, but employed his leisure in theological studies, from which he emerged as a deist, though not an unqualified one. His death occurred two years before the appearance of "Tom Jones." To his many tracts, which display an elevation of mind, Fielding was considerably indebted. Chubb's "Reflections on Virtue and Happiness," for example, anticipated, at least, the best things that Fielding ever said on "the benevolent temper" as illustrated in the remarks and character of Allworthy. Nevertheless his lack of scholarship and training in the schools exposed him to easy ridicule; one could but smile at titles like "A Vindication of God's Moral Character." He had, too, a "darling phrase,' which popped up on all occasions. It appeared, for instance, in his definition of reason as "that reflecting power of the mind, by which we are enabled to discern and judge of the fitness or unfitness, of the agreement or disagreement, of the good or evil, and of the truth or falshood of things." So whether an act were good or bad, he repeated many times over, was dependent upon whether "it was consistent with, or repugnant to the nature or truth of things."* No one need be told that Fielding parodied the phrase in the formula by which Square measured "true honour and true virtue"; to wit, by "the unalterable Rule of Right and the eternal Fitness of Things." Though Chubb, in contrast with Square, was a man of blameless character, the two philosophers were equally disputatious. This is evident from Chubb's many controversies with * See Chubb's "Treatises,'' 1730, p. 366, and elsewhere.

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eminent divines and from the fact that he formed a club at Salisbury for the discussion of his favourite doctrines. Did Fielding while living in Salisbury sometimes attend the meetings of the club? Did he actually witness a passage at arms between Chubb and Hele? These are questions to be asked, though they cannot be definitely answered. It is most probable, however, that Fielding was present on more than one occasion.

Concerning Sophia Western, Fielding left no doubt. This charming girl he meant as a portrait of Charlotte Cradock as she was when he first saw her in the freshness of youth and beauty at Salisbury-where he danced with her, addressed verses to her, and in the end fell upon his knees. Twice in "Tom Jones" he made the identification complete. Sophia, he declared on her entrance into the novel, was "a copy from nature," as lovely as the Venus of Medici, lovelier by far-and here there is a touch of irony-than all the beauties whose portraits hang in the galleries of Hampton Court or all the toasts of the KitCat; "most like," if there must be a comparison, "the picture of Lady Ranelagh; and I have heard more still to the famous Dutchess of Mazarine; but most of all, she resembled one whose image never can depart from my breast, and whom, if thou dost remember, thou hast then, my friend, an adequate idea of Sophia." And when the portrait was nearly finished, he told the reader that all the worth which he had ascribed to Sophia "once existed in my Charlotte." In both of them, Fielding would have us believe, were the same constancy and devotion, in both the same intense passion combined with good sense, the same sweet but firm insistence that they be free to heed the promptings of a heart that never betrayed them.

And there is Tom Jones himself, who likewise reflects Harry Fielding as he was in his impetuous youth, when he tried to run away with Sarah Andrew and perhaps did