The Works of Henry Fielding vol. 11 Page 3

  INTRODUCTION.

  When it was determined to extend the present edition of Fielding, notmerely by the addition of _Jonathan Wild_ to the three universallypopular novels, but by two volumes of _Miscellanies_, there could be nodoubt about at least one of the contents of these latter. The _Journalof a Voyage to Lisbon_, if it does not rank in my estimation anywherenear to _Jonathan Wild_ as an example of our author's genius, is aninvaluable and delightful document for his character and memory. It isindeed, as has been pointed out in the General Introduction to thisseries, our main source of indisputable information as to Fielding _dansson naturel_, and its value, so far as it goes, is of the very highest.The gentle and unaffected stoicism which the author displays under adisease which he knew well was probably, if not certainly, mortal, andwhich, whether mortal or not, must cause him much actual pain anddiscomfort of a kind more intolerable than pain itself; his affectionatecare for his family; even little personal touches, less admirable, buthardly less pleasant than these, showing an Englishman's dislike to be"done" and an Englishman's determination to be treated with properrespect, are scarcely less noticeable and important on the biographicalside than the unimpaired brilliancy of his satiric and yet kindlyobservation of life and character is on the side of literature.

  There is, as is now well known since Mr Dobson's separate edition of the_Voyage_, a little bibliographical problem about the first appearance ofthis _Journal_ in 1755. The best known issue of that year is muchshorter than the version inserted by Murphy and reprinted here, thepassages omitted being chiefly those reflecting on the captain, &c., andso likely to seem invidious in a book published just after the author'sdeath, and for the benefit, as was expressly announced, of his family.But the curious thing is that there is _another_ edition, of date soearly that some argument is necessary to determine the priority, whichdoes give these passages and is identical with the later or standardversion. For satisfaction on this point, however, I must refer readersto Mr Dobson himself.

  There might have been a little, but not much, doubt as to a companionpiece for the _Journal_; for indeed, after we close this (with orwithout its "Fragment on Bolingbroke"), the remainder of Fielding's worklies on a distinctly lower level of interest. It is still interesting,or it would not be given here. It still has--at least that part whichhere appears seems to its editor to have--interest intrinsic and "simpleof itself." But it is impossible for anybody who speaks critically todeny that we now get into the region where work is more interestingbecause of its authorship than it would be if its authorship weredifferent or unknown. To put the same thing in a sharper antithesis,Fielding is interesting, first of all, because he is the author of_Joseph Andrews_, of _Tom Jones_, of _Amelia_, of _Jonathan Wild_, ofthe _Journal_. His plays, his essays, his miscellanies generally areinteresting, first of all, because they were written by Fielding.

  Yet of these works, the _Journey from this World to the Next_ (which, bya grim trick of fortune, might have served as a title for the moreinteresting _Voyage_ with which we have yoked it) stands clearly firstboth in scale and merit. It is indeed very unequal, and as the authorwas to leave it unfinished, it is a pity that he did not leave itunfinished much sooner than he actually did. The first ten chapters, ifof a kind of satire which has now grown rather obsolete for the nonce,are of a good kind and good in their kind; the history of themetempsychoses of Julian is of a less good kind, and less good in thatkind. The date of composition of the piece is not known, but it appearedin the _Miscellanies_ of 1743, and may represent almost any period ofits author's development prior to that year. Its form was a very commonform at the time, and continued to be so. I do not know that it isnecessary to assign any very special origin to it, though Lucian, itschief practitioner, was evidently and almost avowedly a favourite studyof Fielding's. The Spanish romancers, whether borrowing it from Lucianor not, had been fond of it; their French followers, of whom the chiefwere Fontenelle and Le Sage, had carried it northwards; the Englishessayists had almost from the beginning continued the process ofacclimatisation. Fielding therefore found it ready to his hand, thoughthe present condition of this example would lead us to suppose that hedid not find his hand quite ready to it. Still, in the actual "journey,"there are touches enough of the master--not yet quite in his stage ofmastery.

  It seemed particularly desirable not to close the series without somerepresentation of the work to which Fielding gave the prime of hismanhood, and from which, had he not, fortunately for English literature,been driven decidedly against his will, we had had in all probability no_Joseph Andrews_ and pretty certainly no _Tom Jones_. Fielding'speriodical and dramatic work has been comparatively seldom reprinted,and has never yet been reprinted as a whole. The dramas indeed are opento two objections--the first, that they are not very "proper;" thesecond, and much more serious, that they do not redeem this want ofpropriety by the possession of any remarkable literary merit. Three (ortwo and part of a third) seemed to escape this double censure--the firsttwo acts of the _Author's Farce_ (practically a piece to themselves, forthe _Puppet Show_ which follows is almost entirely independent); thefamous burlesque of _Tom Thumb_, which stands between the _Rehearsal_and the _Critic_, but nearer to the former; and _Pasquin_, the maturestexample of Fielding's satiric work in drama. These accordingly have beenselected; the rest I have read, and he who likes may read. I have readmany worse things than even the worst of them, but not often worsethings by so good a writer as Henry Fielding.

  The next question concerned the selection of writings more miscellaneousstill, so as to give in little a complete idea of Fielding's variouspowers and experiments. Two difficulties beset this part of thetask--want of space and the absence of anything so markedly good asabsolutely to insist on inclusion. The _Essay on Conversation_, however,seemed pretty peremptorily to challenge a place. It is in a style whichFielding was very slow to abandon, which indeed has left strong traceseven on his great novels; and if its mannerism is not now veryattractive, the separate traits in it are often sharp and well-drawn.The book would not have been complete without a specimen or two ofFielding's journalism. _The Champion_, his first attempt of this kind,has not been drawn upon in consequence of the extreme difficulty offixing with absolute certainty on Fielding's part in it. I do not knowwhether political prejudice interferes, more than I have usually foundit interfere, with my judgement of the two Hanoverian-partisan papersof the '45 time. But they certainly seem to me to fail in redeemingtheir dose of rancour and misrepresentation by any sufficient evidenceof genius such as, to my taste, saves not only the party journalism inverse and prose of Swift and Canning and Praed on one side, but that ofWolcot and Moore and Sydney Smith on the other. Even the often-quotedjournal of events in London under the Chevalier is overwrought andtedious. The best thing in the _True Patriot_ seems to me to be ParsonAdams' letter describing his adventure with a young "bowe" of his day;and this I select, together with one or two numbers of the _CoventGarden Journal_. I have not found in this latter anything morecharacteristic than Murphy's selection, though Mr Dobson, with hisunfailing kindness, lent me an original and unusually complete set ofthe _Journal_ itself.

  It is to the same kindness that I owe the opportunity of presenting thereader with something indisputably Fielding's and very characteristic ofhim, which Murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as I know,ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of Fielding's work.After the success of _David Simple_, Fielding gave his sister, for whomhe had already written a preface to that novel, another preface for aset of _Familiar Letters_ between the characters of _David Simple_ andothers. This preface Murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, ordid not choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the bookattributing certain of the letters to the author of the preface, theattribution being accompanied by an agreeably warm and sisterlydenunciation of those who ascribed to Fielding matter unworthy of him.From these the letter which I have chosen, describing a row on theThames, seems to me not only characteristic, but, like all thismiscellaneo
us work, interesting no less for its weakness than for itsstrength. In hardly any other instance known to me can we trace soclearly the influence of a suitable medium and form on the genius of theartist. There are some writers--Dryden is perhaps the greatest ofthem--to whom form and medium seem almost indifferent, their all-roundcraftsmanship being such that they can turn any kind and every style totheir purpose. There are others, of whom I think our present author isthe chief, who are never really at home but in one kind. In Fielding'scase that kind was narrative of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental,half-satirical, and almost wholly sympathetic--narrative which has thesingular gift of portraying the liveliest character and yet of admittingthe widest digression and soliloquy.

  Until comparatively late in his too short life, when he found thisspecial path of his (and it is impossible to say whether the actualfinding was in the case of _Jonathan_ or in the case of _Joseph_), hedid but flounder and slip. When he had found it, and was content to walkin it, he strode with as sure and steady a step as any other, even thegreatest, of those who carry and hand on the torch of literature throughthe ages. But it is impossible to derive full satisfaction from hisfeats in this part of the race without some notion of his performanceselsewhere; and I believe that such a notion will be supplied to thereaders of his novels by the following volumes, in a very large numberof cases, for the first time.

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  A Journey from

  This World to the Next,

  _ETC. ETC._