Amelia learned of a reputable pawnbroker, with whom she deposited her trinkets and the little picture of herself, receiving on them twice what anyone else would let her have. Finally, we are told by Fielding that but for the assistance of the Universal Register Office, he could never have related many private matters contained in the novel, such as the anecdotes concerning Mrs. Bennet and Miss Mathews. Some of them were communicated to him, he said, by one of the clerks "who, by having a general acquaintance with servants, is master of all the secrets of every family in the kingdom."

For these puffs of an enterprise managed by his brother, Fielding was severely censured, though of course he intended that they should be taken facetiously. Even a very friendly critic, who called himself "Criticulus, "* wished the blot of the Universal Register Office removed from the novel. He would prefer, he assured the author, to take Mr. Fielding's word for the truth of any part of the novel rather than the word of a clerk or of Mr. Booth. Besides this, there was the anachronism. Many people had forgotten when Ranelagh was established or given over to masquerades; but everybody knew that the Universal Register Office was a recent venture. Again it was asked how Amelia could have been with her husband at the siege of Gibraltar and still be "a blooming beauty," say in 1749, when the famous office was opened in the Strand. By that time she must have been above forty, nearly if not quite as old as Henry Fielding himself.

A

There was a still more unfortunate inconsistency. remark of Dr. Johnson's about "Amelia," I think, has never been explained. "That vile broken nose never cured," he said, "ruined the sale"+ of the book. Though the novel would have failed for other reasons, it was poor *""The Gentleman's Magazine," XXII, 103 (March, 1752).

+ G. B. Hill, Johnsonian Miscellanies," 1897, I, 297.

Amelia's nose more than all else that did the business. Booth, in relating the accident to Miss Mathews, says that at the beginning of their courtship Amelia's "lovely nose was beat all to pieces" by the overturning of a chaise. Thereupon her suitors all deserted her; and her misfortune became the subject of much mirth among her former girl friends who had envied her beauty. In a company of these girls Booth overhead one of them remark, "She hoped Miss would not hold her head so high for the future." Another answered, "I don't know, Madam, what she may do with her head, but I am convinced she will never more turn up her nose at her betters." And another cried out, "What a very proper match might now be made between Amelia and a certain captain." The captain of course is Booth, who, it appears, had received a slight injury in the same part, "though," Fielding adds, "from no shameful cause. Nettled by these sarcasms, Booth retorted: "Indeed, ladies, you need not express such satisfaction at poor Miss Emily's accident: for without any nose at all, she will be the handsomest woman in England." Though Fielding goes on to say that Amelia underwent "the most painful and dreadful operations of surgery," he nowhere definitely states how successful these operations were. So far as the reader knows, Amelia's face is forever disfigured; and yet she remains a woman of exquisite beauty.

A "noseless heroine" may be impossible at any time; she certainly was impossible in the eighteenth century. Smollett and other wits degraded Amelia to the character of a common wench who had lost her nose in the service of Venus. The approaching death of the unfortunate woman was predicted by "Old England" on December 21, 1751, only a few days after the publication of the novel; and the next month it was announced that poor Amelia had died in the most distressful circumstances. Her obituary,

as one may read it in a facetious article of news, ran as follows:

"On Sunday last, in the Evening, were privately interred the Remains of Mrs. Amelia Booth, who fell a Sacrifice to the poisonous Influence of evil Tongues. A Lady who was possessed of all the domestick Virtues of Life; and so remarkable for her Meekness of Disposition, as to have equalled the Fame of Patient Grissel. The Expence of her Funeral was defrayed by his Excellency Sir Alexander, who was deeply affected with her Fate, and now begs that no Person will be so cruel and impious as to disturb her Ashes. . . 99#

To his assailants Fielding replied in "The CoventGarden Journal," a periodical which he began in January, 1752, under the pseudonym of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, by which he was designated in the obituary just quoted. His leader for the eleventh of that month he opened with an epigram of Martial's modernized to read—

No town can such a gang of critics shew,

Ev'n boys turn up that nose they cannot blow,

and from this text proceeded to set forth a few fundamental prerequisites to the office of criticism which would surely reduce the number of those who essayed the trade of vilifying the works of their superiors by uttering at random phrases like "poor stuff," "wretched stuff," "bad stuff," and "sad stuff," such as had been hurled at "Amelia.” Of course, Fielding remarks, any person, provided he keep his opinion to himself, is perfectly free to "dislike" on hearsay a book which he is unable to read or understand; but no such liberty can be granted to the professional critic who makes a public proclamation of his censure. Such a man, before being admitted to the order of critics, should be first required to learn the art of reading, other* "The Covent-Garden Journal Extraordinary," Jan. 20, 1752.

wise he cannot be called "a reader" either by himself or by others; and even then he should not be permitted to pass "a definitive sentence" on a book before he has read "at least ten pages in it." To this raillery further point was given by inserting in the news-items of the day a protest in behalf of the surgeon who attended Amelia when she was thrown from her carriage. The paragraph in question

runs:

"It is currently reported that a famous Surgeon, who absolutely cured one Mrs. Amelia Booth, of a violent Hurt in her Nose, insomuch, that she had scarce a scar left on it, intends to bring Actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous People, who have reported that the said Lady had no Nose, merely because the Author of her History, in a Hurry, forgot to inform his Readers of that Particular, and which, if those Readers had had any Nose themselves, except that which is mentioned in the Motto of this Paper, they would have smelt out."

This frank admission of an oversight due to haste merely offered a new occasion for ridicule. The question was immediately raised by the wits whether the surgeon had good grounds for prosecution, or whether the author's apology was necessary after all. Thus in a rival periodical called "Have at You All: or, The Drury Lane Journal," we read by way of parody on the doctor's threat:

"Whereas it has been reported by the sharp-nos'd Gentlemen, the Critics, that AMELIA has no nose, because her Biographer has inform'd us, in the beginning of her History, that her lovely nose was beat all to pieces; This is to certify that the said Report is malicious, false, and ill grounded; and that the said Author has taken care to obviate it, by telling us, in the said History, when the Cherry Brandy was pour'd over poor Mrs. Atkinson, that AMELIA'S delicate nose soon smelt it out."

*Drury Lane Journal," No. III, Jan. 30, 1752.

For variety's sake, the jester, one Bonnell Thornton, an Oxford man, attacked the author's style. Nothing has ever more shocked the formal stylist than the employment of personal pronouns of the third person, such as he, his, and him, to designate in the same sentence two or more persons. The practice does, indeed, cause confusion in the hands of unskilled writers. But the strenuous attempt of grammarians to avoid it at all costs leads to the awkward and almost unreadable English of legal documents. It is better by far to accept the English language as it is. Fielding so accepted it and acquired a happy use of its pronouns. Writing naturally, just as people talk, he did not stop to consider whether two or three he's in a sentence of some complexity referred to the same individual. No reader of common sense, however, could possibly misapply them. Nevertheless, his sentences abounding in pronouns were torn from their context and the reader was asked what he could make out of them. Furthermore, the format of his volumes was sometimes ridiculed. Throughout the novel the paragraphs were short and liberally spaced. The critic, observing this, asked why such a style had been followed; and answered his question by remarking that otherwise there would not have been matter enough to fill four small volumes. After this manner no conceivable point of attack escaped the wits. Nothing was to be left of the novel when they completed their work of destruction.

Fielding delivered one counter stroke and then turned away in silence. For the entertainment of his readers, he set up in "The Covent-Garden Journal," a "Court of Censorial Enquiry," much like the "Court of Criticism" which had been a feature of "The Jacobite's Journal." Before this court were summoned books and authors to make answer in legal fashion to charges brought against them. Amelia's turn came on January 25, but as the examination was very long, it had to be continued through the next