but where I have laughed before him." That is, the characters were to Fielding real men and women in whose joys and sorrows he shared as if they were his own friends or acquaintances. His presence is felt quite as much as Tom's, for example, when the young man, confronted by a duel, has to reconcile the code of honour with the teachings of Scripture. Fielding doubtless smiled there with his reader when Tom's scruples were quieted by the assurance, coming from a parson over a bowl of punch, that a certain latitude might be granted to a gentleman, or that there must be a mistake, somewhere or other, in the translation or in the understanding of the command that we should love our enemies and do no murder.

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Likewise, though the plot has its logic, Fielding is never a detached spectator merely interested in the solution of his problem; he thrusts himself in with remarks, anecdotes, and disquisitions, becoming a sort of ubiquitous character whose appearance anywhere on the scene is conditioned by neither time nor place. Consequently the action is often suspended in order that the author may speak in propria persona, and pass sentence, as a Bow Street justice ought, on the conduct of his characters. This procedure Fielding likened to the parabasis of ancient comedy, where the chorus, between the Acts as it were, turned to the audience and addressed it directly. In fulfilment of his design, he comments on the follies of Tom Jones, foreshadows the punishment that will be meted out to them, and warns his young readers against imitation. If we look for a moral, here it is: "Prudence and circumspection are necessary even to the best of men. They are indeed as it were a guard to virtue, without which she can never be safe." According to his temper, one will like or dislike this kind of novel which "Tom Jones" established in English fiction. If we wish to do our own moralizing, we must shun Harry Fielding, the grandson of an archdeacon. And

yet it may be worth while to listen to a preacher who turns the light of his experience and humour on the devious ways of mankind.

It is right to consider apart from these casual parabasisopenings those long initial chapters to the successive books which were eliminated in the first French translation of "Tom Jones" and which some readers still pass by. They have little or no direct connection with the story, and so their presence may be explained rather than justified. In them Fielding, saturated with Cicero, Shaftesbury, and the New Testament, elaborated piecemeal a theory of morals based upon "goodness of heart," and out of his wide reading and practice in the drama set forth a complete art of fiction. They are essays, which have less finished analogues in many leading articles that Fielding had written for his newspapers. In Fielding's view, the essays lent dignity to the novel, which in his day was despised as a literary form. Those dealing with conduct supplied the reader with an extensive background of morality with which to judge the behaviour of the characters; those dealing with the novelist's craft described the "new province of writing" which he had discovered. The novel of real life was then in its infancy. No one before Fielding had ever written a novel comparable with his in its reliance upon contemporary manners and the facts of human nature. He accordingly felt it necessary to state in clear words his general design, his moral code, and his method of procedure with plot and characters. It would not have served his purpose to have published these essays by themselves; in order to gain the attention which he wished for them, they must be bound with his novel. Had Fielding lived in the nineteenth century, there might have been no introductory chapters. He could have reserved for the great quarterlies what he had to say on the art of fiction. What he did say in the only place at his command, we now read not be

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cause the essays are an organic part of the story but because they embody profound observations on art and life united with matchless irony and humour.

If either the story or the introductory chapters—one and not the other-were to be lost, many would be unable to decide which could go with the less pain. On this point George Eliot was uncertain, but she lamented the departure of those Georgian days "when summer afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the winter evenings"; when there was leisure to listen to the digressions of Fielding, "when he seems to bring his armchair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English."'* Scott had no doubt about his choice: he would have sacrificed the novel, despite his high regard for it, to the essays. "Those critical introductions," he declared, "which rather interrupt the course of the story, and the flow of the interest at the first perusal, are found, on a second or third, the most entertaining chapters of the whole work." It would be difficult to imagine "Tom Jones" without its initial chapters; and were they removed, I suspect that one would find it quite another book.

* "Middlemarch,'' Bk. II, Ch. XV.

CHAPTER XX

THE MIDDLESEX MAGISTRATE

I

THE RIOTS OF 1749

The man who wrote "Tom Jones" was already presiding as principal justice over the Bow Street police court, before which came business from all parts of the metropolis. By Fielding's friends, the position was regarded as lucrative as well as honourable, being worth, if the justice insisted on his full fees, a thousand pounds a year. Relying too much upon this assurance, Fielding entered upon his duties in the winter of 1748-1749, and began sending thieves and footpads to the Westminster jail where Tom Jones had spent an unhappy week. Among his first cases recorded in the newspapers, is the following from "The St. James's Evening Post" for December 8-10, 1748:

"Yesterday John Salter was committed to the Gatehouse by Henry Fielding, Esq; of Bow Street, Covent Garden, formerly Sir Thomas De Veil's, for feloniously taking out of a Bureau in the House of the Rev. Mr. Dalton, a Quantity of Money found upon him."

The man whose bureau was robbed may have been the Rev. John Dalton, known for his sermons and verses and for a sentimental friendship with Lady Luxborough and the Duchess of Somerset. He was a canon of Worcester, and the rector of St. Mary-at-Hill in London.

In a more serious case, given in the same newspaper a week later, the culprit bore the surname of Fielding's hero;

and the justice or his clerk took the occasion to enlighten the public on the law relative to the crime:

"Yesterday one Jones was brought before Henry Fielding, Esq; at his House in Bow Street, for barbarously and wantonly wounding a young Woman on the Head with a Cutlass the Night before, without any Provocation; the young Woman had the good Nature to forgive the Assault, but the Justice nevertheless committed the Offender to the Gatehouse, for being found arm'd with so dangerous a Weapon in the Streets, contrary to Law; and it's hoped that all Persons who have lately been robb'd or attack'd in the Streets by Men in Sailors Jackets, in which Dress the said Jones appeared, will give themselves the Trouble of resorting to the Prison in order to view him. It may perhaps be of some Advantage to the Publick to inform them (especially at this Time) that for such Persons to go about armed with any Weapon whatever, is a very high Offence, and expressly forbidden by several old Statutes still in force, on Pain of Imprisonment and Forfeiture of their Arms.''*

A few weeks after this, the jurisdiction of the Bow Street court was extended, as I have related earlier, over the entire county of Middlesex, enabling the justice to make commitments for similar or graver offences to places of confinement more dreaded than a gatehouse or a bridewell. To the New Prison in Clerkenwell went, for example, James Wood (brother of Peter and William Wood living at the Star in the Strand) for stealing a large quantity of human hair from Mr. Burket the merchant, "who hath been sollicited and offered a bond of 100 1., not to appear against him at the next Sessions at the Old Bailey"; and

Fielding's cases were very fully reported by his clerk, first in "The St. James's Evening Post," and later in "The Covent-Garden Journal'' and "The Public Advertiser.'' Some of them may be found in "The Gentleman's Magazine" and "The London Magazine.''