Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 Page 7

  CHAPTER II.

  _A night scene, wherein several wonderful adventures befel Adams and hisfellow-travellers._

  It was so late when our travellers left the inn or alehouse (for itmight be called either), that they had not travelled many miles beforenight overtook them, or met them, which you please. The reader mustexcuse me if I am not particular as to the way they took; for, as we arenow drawing near the seat of the Boobies, and as that is a ticklishname, which malicious persons may apply, according to their evilinclinations, to several worthy country squires, a race of men whom welook upon as entirely inoffensive, and for whom we have an adequateregard, we shall lend no assistance to any such malicious purposes.

  Darkness had now overspread the hemisphere, when Fanny whispered Joseph"that she begged to rest herself a little; for that she was so tiredshe could walk no farther." Joseph immediately prevailed with parsonAdams, who was as brisk as a bee, to stop. He had no sooner seatedhimself than he lamented the loss of his dear Aeschylus; but was alittle comforted when reminded that, if he had it in his possession, hecould not see to read.

  The sky was so clouded, that not a star appeared. It was indeed,according to Milton, darkness visible. This was a circumstance, however,very favourable to Joseph; for Fanny, not suspicious of being overseenby Adams, gave a loose to her passion which she had never done before,and, reclining her head on his bosom, threw her arm carelessly roundhim, and suffered him to lay his cheek close to hers. All this infusedsuch happiness into Joseph, that he would not have changed his turf forthe finest down in the finest palace in the universe.

  Adams sat at some distance from the lovers, and, being unwilling todisturb them, applied himself to meditation; in which he had notspent much time before he discovered a light at some distance thatseemed approaching towards him. He immediately hailed it; but, to hissorrow and surprize, it stopped for a moment, and then disappeared.He then called to Joseph, asking him, "if he had not seen the light?"Joseph answered, "he had."--"And did you not mark how it vanished?"returned he: "though I am not afraid of ghosts, I do not absolutelydisbelieve them."

  He then entered into a meditation on those unsubstantial beings; whichwas soon interrupted by several voices, which he thought almost at hiselbow, though in fact they were not so extremely near. However, he coulddistinctly hear them agree on the murder of any one they met; and alittle after heard one of them say, "he had killed a dozen since thatday fortnight."

  Adams now fell on his knees, and committed himself to the care ofProvidence; and poor Fanny, who likewise heard those terrible words,embraced Joseph so closely, that had not he, whose ears were also open,been apprehensive on her account, he would have thought no danger whichthreatened only himself too dear a price for such embraces.

  Joseph now drew forth his penknife, and Adams, having finished hisejaculations, grasped his crab-stick, his only weapon, and, coming up toJoseph, would have had him quit Fanny, and place her in the rear; buthis advice was fruitless; she clung closer to him, not at all regardingthe presence of Adams, and in a soothing voice declared, "she would diein his arms." Joseph, clasping her with inexpressible eagerness,whispered her, "that he preferred death in hers to life out of them."Adams, brandishing his crabstick, said, "he despised death as much asany man," and then repeated aloud--

  "Est hic, est animus lucis contemptor et illum, Qui vita bene credat emi quo tendis, honorem."

  Upon this the voices ceased for a moment, and then one of them calledout, "D--n you, who is there?" To which Adams was prudent enough to makeno reply; and of a sudden he observed half-a-dozen lights, which seemedto rise all at once from the ground and advance briskly towards him.This he immediately concluded to be an apparition; and now, beginning toconceive that the voices were of the same kind, he called out, "In thename of the L--d, what wouldst thou have?" He had no sooner spoke thanhe heard one of the voices cry out, "D--n them, here they come;" andsoon after heard several hearty blows, as if a number of men had beenengaged at quarterstaff. He was just advancing towards the place ofcombat, when Joseph, catching him by the skirts, begged him that theymight take the opportunity of the dark to convey away Fanny from thedanger which threatened her. He presently complied, and, Joseph liftingup Fanny, they all three made the best of their way; and without lookingbehind them, or being overtaken, they had travelled full two miles, poorFanny not once complaining of being tired, when they saw afar offseveral lights scattered at a small distance from each other, and at thesame time found themselves on the descent of a very steep hill. Adams'sfoot slipping, he instantly disappeared, which greatly frightened bothJoseph and Fanny: indeed, if the light had permitted them to see it,they would scarce have refrained laughing to see the parson rolling downthe hill; which he did from top to bottom, without receiving any harm.He then hollowed as loud as he could, to inform them of his safety, andrelieve them from the fears which they had conceived for him. Joseph andFanny halted some time, considering what to do; at last they advanced afew paces, where the declivity seemed least steep; and then Joseph,taking his Fanny in his arms, walked firmly down the hill, withoutmaking a false step, and at length landed her at the bottom, where Adamssoon came to them.

  Learn hence, my fair countrywomen, to consider your own weakness, andthe many occasions on which the strength of a man may be useful to you;and, duly weighing this, take care that you match not yourselves withthe spindle-shanked beaus and _petit-maitres_ of the age, who, insteadof being able, like Joseph Andrews, to carry you in lusty arms throughthe rugged ways and downhill steeps of life, will rather want to supporttheir feeble limbs with your strength and assistance.

  Our travellers now moved forwards where the nearest light presenteditself; and, having crossed a common field, they came to a meadow, wherethey seemed to be at a very little distance from the light, when, totheir grief, they arrived at the banks of a river. Adams here made afull stop, and declared he could swim, but doubted how it was possibleto get Fanny over: to which Joseph answered, "If they walked along itsbanks, they might be certain of soon finding a bridge, especially as bythe number of lights they might be assured a parish was near." "Odso,that's true indeed," said Adams; "I did not think of that."

  Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,and came to a little orchard, which led them to a house. Fanny begged ofJoseph to knock at the door, assuring him "she was so weary that shecould hardly stand on her feet." Adams, who was foremost, performed thisceremony; and, the door being immediately opened, a plain kind of manappeared at it: Adams acquainted him "that they had a young woman withthem who was so tired with her journey that he should be much obliged tohim if he would suffer her to come in and rest herself." The man, whosaw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his hand,perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensionsfrom the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered, "That the youngwoman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were hercompany." He then ushered them into a very decent room, where his wifewas sitting at a table: she immediately rose up, and assisted them insetting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down; which they had nosooner done than the man of the house asked them if they would haveanything to refresh themselves with? Adams thanked him, and answered heshould be obliged to him for a cup of his ale, which was likewise chosenby Joseph and Fanny. Whilst he was gone to fill a very large jug withthis liquor, his wife told Fanny she seemed greatly fatigued, anddesired her to take something stronger than ale; but she refused withmany thanks, saying it was true she was very much tired, but a littlerest she hoped would restore her. As soon as the company were allseated, Mr Adams, who had filled himself with ale, and by publicpermission had lighted his pipe, turned to the master of the house,asking him, "If evil spirits did not use to walk in that neighbourhood?"To which receiving no answer, he began to inform him of the adventurewhich they met with on the downs; nor had he proceeded far in the storywhen somebody knocked very hard at the door. The company expressed someamazement, and Fanny and the good woma
n turned pale: her husband wentforth, and whilst he was absent, which was some time, they all remainedsilent, looking at one another, and heard several voices discoursingpretty loudly. Adams was fully persuaded that spirits were abroad, andbegan to meditate some exorcisms; Joseph a little inclined to the sameopinion; Fanny was more afraid of men; and the good woman herself beganto suspect her guests, and imagined those without were rogues belongingto their gang. At length the master of the house returned, and,laughing, told Adams he had discovered his apparition; that themurderers were sheep-stealers, and the twelve persons murdered were noother than twelve sheep; adding, that the shepherds had got the betterof them, had secured two, and were proceeding with them to a justice ofpeace. This account greatly relieved the fears of the whole company; butAdams muttered to himself, "He was convinced of the truth of apparitionsfor all that."

  They now sat chearfully round the fire, till the master of the house,having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock, which,having fallen down, appeared under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabbylivery on Joseph Andrews, did not well suit with the familiaritybetween them, began to entertain some suspicions not much to theiradvantage: addressing himself therefore to Adams, he said, "Heperceived he was a clergyman by his dress, and supposed that honest manwas his footman." "Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman at yourservice; but as to that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest,he is at present in nobody's service; he never lived in any otherfamily than that of Lady Booby, from whence he was discharged, I assureyou, for no crime." Joseph said, "He did not wonder the gentleman wassurprized to see one of Mr Adams's character condescend to so muchgoodness with a poor man."--"Child," said Adams, "I should be ashamedof my cloth if I thought a poor man, who is honest, below my notice ormy familiarity. I know not how those who think otherwise can professthemselves followers and servants of Him who made no distinction,unless, peradventure, by preferring the poor to the rich.--Sir," saidhe, addressing himself to the gentleman, "these two poor young peopleare my parishioners, and I look on them and love them as my children.There is something singular enough in their history, but I have not nowtime to recount it." The master of the house, notwithstanding thesimplicity which discovered itself in Adams, knew too much of the worldto give a hasty belief to professions. He was not yet quite certainthat Adams had any more of the clergyman in him than his cassock. Totry him therefore further, he asked him, "If Mr Pope had latelypublished anything new?" Adams answered, "He had heard greatcommendations of that poet, but that he had never read nor knew any ofhis works."--"Ho! ho!" says the gentleman to himself, "have I caughtyou? What!" said he, "have you never seen his Homer?" Adams answered,"he had never read any translation of the classicks." "Why, truly,"reply'd the gentleman, "there is a dignity in the Greek language whichI think no modern tongue can reach."--"Do you understand Greek, sir?"said Adams hastily. "A little, sir," answered the gentleman. "Do youknow, sir," cry'd Adams, "where I can buy an Aeschylus? an unluckymisfortune lately happened to mine." Aeschylus was beyond thegentleman, though he knew him very well by name; he therefore,returning back to Homer, asked Adams, "What part of the Iliad hethought most excellent?" Adams returned, "His question would beproperer, What kind of beauty was the chief in poetry? for that Homerwas equally excellent in them all. And, indeed," continued he, "whatCicero says of a complete orator may well be applied to a great poet:'He ought to comprehend all perfections.' Homer did this in the mostexcellent degree; it is not without reason, therefore, that thephilosopher, in the twenty-second chapter of his Poeticks, mentions himby no other appellation than that of the Poet. He was the father of thedrama as well as the epic; not of tragedy only, but of comedy also; forhis Margites, which is deplorably lost, bore, says Aristotle, the sameanalogy to comedy as his Odyssey and Iliad to tragedy. To him,therefore, we owe Aristophanes as well as Euripides, Sophocles, and mypoor Aeschylus. But if you please we will confine ourselves (at leastfor the present) to the Iliad, his noblest work; though neitherAristotle nor Horace give it the preference, as I remember, to theOdyssey. First, then, as to his subject, can anything be more simple,and at the same time more noble? He is rightly praised by the first ofthose judicious critics for not chusing the whole war, which, though hesays it hath a complete beginning and end, would have been too greatfor the understanding to comprehend at one view. I have, therefore,often wondered why so correct a writer as Horace should, in his epistleto Lollius, call him the Trojani Belli Scriptorem. Secondly, hisaction, termed by Aristotle, Pragmaton Systasis; is it possible for themind of man to conceive an idea of such perfect unity, and at the sametime so replete with greatness? And here I must observe, what I do notremember to have seen noted by any, the Harmotton, that agreement ofhis action to his subject: for, as the subject is anger, how agreeableis his action, which is war; from which every incident arises and towhich every episode immediately relates. Thirdly, his manners, whichAristotle places second in his description of the several parts oftragedy, and which he says are included in the action; I am at a losswhether I should rather admire the exactness of his judgment in thenice distinction or the immensity of his imagination in their variety.For, as to the former of these, how accurately is the sedate, injuredresentment of Achilles, distinguished from the hot, insulting passionof Agamemnon! How widely doth the brutal courage of Ajax differ fromthe amiable bravery of Diomedes; and the wisdom of Nestor, which is theresult of long reflection and experience, from the cunning of Ulysses,the effect of art and subtlety only! If we consider their variety, wemay cry out, with Aristotle in his 24th chapter, that no part of thisdivine poem is destitute of manners. Indeed, I might affirm that thereis scarce a character in human nature untouched in some part or other.And, as there is no passion which he is not able to describe, so isthere none in his reader which he cannot raise. If he hath any superiorexcellence to the rest, I have been inclined to fancy it is in thepathetic. I am sure I never read with dry eyes the two episodes whereAndromache is introduced in the former lamenting the danger, and in thelatter the death, of Hector. The images are so extremely tender inthese, that I am convinced the poet had the worthiest and best heartimaginable. Nor can I help observing how Sophocles falls short of thebeauties of the original, in that imitation of the dissuasive speech ofAndromache which he hath put into the mouth of Tecmessa. And yetSophocles was the greatest genius who ever wrote tragedy; nor have anyof his successors in that art, that is to say, neither Euripides norSeneca the tragedian, been able to come near him. As to his sentimentsand diction, I need say nothing; the former are particularly remarkablefor the utmost perfection on that head, namely, propriety; and as tothe latter, Aristotle, whom doubtless you have read over and over, isvery diffuse. I shall mention but one thing more, which that greatcritic in his division of tragedy calls Opsis, or the scenery; andwhich is as proper to the epic as to the drama, with this difference,that in the former it falls to the share of the poet, and in the latterto that of the painter. But did ever painter imagine a scene like thatin the 13th and 14th Iliads? where the reader sees at one view theprospect of Troy, with the army drawn up before it; the Grecian army,camp, and fleet; Jupiter sitting on Mount Ida, with his head wrapt in acloud, and a thunderbolt in his hand, looking towards Thrace; Neptunedriving through the sea, which divides on each side to permit hispassage, and then seating himself on Mount Samos; the heavens opened,and the deities all seated on their thrones. This is sublime! This ispoetry!" Adams then rapt out a hundred Greek verses, and with such avoice, emphasis, and action, that he almost frightened the women; andas for the gentleman, he was so far from entertaining any furthersuspicion of Adams, that he now doubted whether he had not a bishop inhis house. He ran into the most extravagant encomiums on his learning;and the goodness of his heart began to dilate to all the strangers. Hesaid he had great compassion for the poor young woman, who looked paleand faint with her journey; and in truth he conceived a much higheropinion of her quality than it deserved. He said he was sorry he couldnot accommodate them all; but if they were contented with his firesi
de,he would sit up with the men; and the young woman might, if shepleased, partake his wife's bed, which he advised her to; for that theymust walk upwards of a mile to any house of entertainment, and that notvery good neither. Adams, who liked his seat, his ale, his tobacco, andhis company, persuaded Fanny to accept this kind proposal, in whichsollicitation he was seconded by Joseph. Nor was she very difficultlyprevailed on; for she had slept little the last night and not at allthe preceding; so that love itself was scarce able to keep her eyesopen any longer. The offer, therefore, being kindly accepted, the goodwoman produced everything eatable in her house on the table, and theguests, being heartily invited, as heartily regaled themselves,especially parson Adams. As to the other two, they were examples of thetruth of that physical observation, that love, like other sweet things,is no whetter of the stomach.

  Supper was no sooner ended, than Fanny at her own request retired, andthe good woman bore her company. The man of the house, Adams, andJoseph, who would modestly have withdrawn, had not the gentlemaninsisted on the contrary, drew round the fireside, where Adams (to usehis own words) replenished his pipe, and the gentleman produced a bottleof excellent beer, being the best liquor in his house.

  The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the gracefulness of his person, thecharacter which Adams gave of him, and the friendship he seemed toentertain for him, began to work on the gentleman's affections, andraised in him a curiosity to know the singularity which Adams hadmentioned in his history. This curiosity Adams was no sooner informed ofthan, with Joseph's consent, he agreed to gratify it; and accordinglyrelated all he knew, with as much tenderness as was possible for thecharacter of Lady Booby; and concluded with the long, faithful, andmutual passion between him and Fanny, not concealing the meanness of herbirth and education. These latter circumstances entirely cured ajealousy which had lately risen in the gentleman's mind, that Fanny wasthe daughter of some person of fashion, and that Joseph had run awaywith her, and Adams was concerned in the plot. He was now enamoured ofhis guests, drank their healths with great chearfulness, and returnedmany thanks to Adams, who had spent much breath, for he was acircumstantial teller of a story.

  Adams told him it was now in his power to return that favour; for hisextraordinary goodness, as well as that fund of literature he was masterof,[A] which he did not expect to find under such a roof, had raised inhim more curiosity than he had ever known. "Therefore," said he, "if itbe not too troublesome, sir, your history, if you please."

  [A] The author hath by some been represented to have made a blunder here: for Adams had indeed shown some learning (say they), perhaps all the author had; but the gentleman hath shown none, unless his approbation of Mr Adams be such: but surely it would be preposterous in him to call it so. I have, however, notwithstanding this criticism, which I am told came from the mouth of a great orator in a public coffee-house, left this blunder as it stood in the first edition. I will not have the vanity to apply to anything in this work the observation which M. Dacier makes in her preface to her Aristophanes: _Je tiens pour une maxime constante, qu'une beaute mediocre plait plus generalement qu'une beaute sans defaut._ Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, "She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as if he himself was possessed of it."

  The gentleman answered, he could not refuse him what he had so muchright to insist on; and after some of the common apologies, which arethe usual preface to a story, he thus began.