History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
Chapter i.
2026 words | Chapter 240
Of those who lawfully may, and of those who may not, write such
histories as this.
Among other good uses for which I have thought proper to institute
these several introductory chapters, I have considered them as a kind
of mark or stamp, which may hereafter enable a very indifferent reader
to distinguish what is true and genuine in this historic kind of
writing, from what is false and counterfeit. Indeed, it seems likely
that some such mark may shortly become necessary, since the favourable
reception which two or three authors have lately procured for their
works of this nature from the public, will probably serve as an
encouragement to many others to undertake the like. Thus a swarm of
foolish novels and monstrous romances will be produced, either to the
great impoverishing of booksellers, or to the great loss of time and
depravation of morals in the reader; nay, often to the spreading of
scandal and calumny, and to the prejudice of the characters of many
worthy and honest people.
I question not but the ingenious author of the Spectator was
principally induced to prefix Greek and Latin mottos to every paper,
from the same consideration of guarding against the pursuit of those
scribblers, who having no talents of a writer but what is taught by
the writing-master, are yet nowise afraid nor ashamed to assume the
same titles with the greatest genius, than their good brother in the
fable was of braying in the lion's skin.
By the device therefore of his motto, it became impracticable for any
man to presume to imitate the Spectators, without understanding at
least one sentence in the learned languages. In the same manner I have
now secured myself from the imitation of those who are utterly
incapable of any degree of reflection, and whose learning is not equal
to an essay.
I would not be here understood to insinuate, that the greatest merit
of such historical productions can ever lie in these introductory
chapters; but, in fact, those parts which contain mere narrative only,
afford much more encouragement to the pen of an imitator, than those
which are composed of observation and reflection. Here I mean such
imitators as Rowe was of Shakespear, or as Horace hints some of the
Romans were of Cato, by bare feet and sour faces.
To invent good stories, and to tell them well, are possibly very rare
talents, and yet I have observed few persons who have scrupled to aim
at both: and if we examine the romances and novels with which the
world abounds, I think we may fairly conclude, that most of the
authors would not have attempted to show their teeth (if the
expression may be allowed me) in any other way of writing; nor could
indeed have strung together a dozen sentences on any other subject
whatever.
_Scribimus indocti doctique passim_,[*]
[*] --Each desperate blockhead dares to write:
Verse is the trade of every living wight.--FRANCIS.
may be more truly said of the historian and biographer, than of any
other species of writing; for all the arts and sciences (even
criticism itself) require some little degree of learning and
knowledge. Poetry, indeed, may perhaps be thought an exception; but
then it demands numbers, or something like numbers: whereas, to the
composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper,
pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them. This, I
conceive, their productions show to be the opinion of the authors
themselves: and this must be the opinion of their readers, if indeed
there be any such.
Hence we are to derive that universal contempt which the world, who
always denominate the whole from the majority, have cast on all
historical writers who do not draw their materials from records. And
it is the apprehension of this contempt that hath made us so
cautiously avoid the term romance, a name with which we might
otherwise have been well enough contented. Though, as we have good
authority for all our characters, no less indeed than the vast
authentic doomsday-book of nature, as is elsewhere hinted, our labours
have sufficient title to the name of history. Certainly they deserve
some distinction from those works, which one of the wittiest of men
regarded only as proceeding from a _pruritus_, or indeed rather from a
looseness of the brain.
But besides the dishonour which is thus cast on one of the most useful
as well as entertaining of all kinds of writing, there is just reason
to apprehend, that by encouraging such authors we shall propagate much
dishonour of another kind; I mean to the characters of many good and
valuable members of society; for the dullest writers, no more than the
dullest companions, are always inoffensive. They have both enough of
language to be indecent and abusive. And surely if the opinion just
above cited be true, we cannot wonder that works so nastily derived
should be nasty themselves, or have a tendency to make others so.
To prevent therefore, for the future, such intemperate abuses of
leisure, of letters, and of the liberty of the press, especially as
the world seems at present to be more than usually threatened with
them, I shall here venture to mention some qualifications, every one
of which are in a pretty high degree necessary to this order of
historians.
The first is, genius, without a full vein of which no study, says
Horace, can avail us. By genius I would understand that power or
rather those powers of the mind, which are capable of penetrating into
all things within our reach and knowledge, and of distinguishing their
essential differences. These are no other than invention and judgment;
and they are both called by the collective name of genius, as they are
of those gifts of nature which we bring with us into the world.
Concerning each of which many seem to have fallen into very great
errors; for by invention, I believe, is generally understood a
creative faculty, which would indeed prove most romance writers to
have the highest pretensions to it; whereas by invention is really
meant no more (and so the word signifies) than discovery, or finding
out; or to explain it at large, a quick and sagacious penetration into
the true essence of all the objects of our contemplation. This, I
think, can rarely exist without the concomitancy of judgment; for how
we can be said to have discovered the true essence of two things,
without discerning their difference, seems to me hard to conceive. Now
this last is the undisputed province of judgment, and yet some few men
of wit have agreed with all the dull fellows in the world in
representing these two to have been seldom or never the property of
one and the same person.
But though they should be so, they are not sufficient for our purpose,
without a good share of learning; for which I could again cite the
authority of Horace, and of many others, if any was necessary to prove
that tools are of no service to a workman, when they are not sharpened
by art, or when he wants rules to direct him in his work, or hath no
matter to work upon. All these uses are supplied by learning; for
nature can only furnish us with capacity; or, as I have chose to
illustrate it, with the tools of our profession; learning must fit
them for use, must direct them in it, and, lastly, must contribute
part at least of the materials. A competent knowledge of history and
of the belles-lettres is here absolutely necessary; and without this
share of knowledge at least, to affect the character of an historian,
is as vain as to endeavour at building a house without timber or
mortar, or brick or stone. Homer and Milton, who, though they added
the ornament of numbers to their works, were both historians of our
order, were masters of all the learning of their times.
Again, there is another sort of knowledge, beyond the power of
learning to bestow, and this is to be had by conversation. So
necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that
none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives
have been entirely consumed in colleges, and among books; for however
exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true
practical system can be learnt only in the world. Indeed the like
happens in every other kind of knowledge. Neither physic nor law are
to be practically known from books. Nay, the farmer, the planter, the
gardener, must perfect by experience what he hath acquired the
rudiments of by reading. How accurately soever the ingenious Mr Miller
may have described the plant, he himself would advise his disciple to
see it in the garden. As we must perceive, that after the nicest
strokes of a Shakespear or a Jonson, of a Wycherly or an Otway, some
touches of nature will escape the reader, which the judicious action
of a Garrick, of a Cibber, or a Clive,[*] can convey to him; so, on the
real stage, the character shows himself in a stronger and bolder light
than he can be described. And if this be the case in those fine and
nervous descriptions which great authors themselves have taken from
life, how much more strongly will it hold when the writer himself
takes his lines not from nature, but from books? Such characters are
only the faint copy of a copy, and can have neither the justness nor
spirit of an original.
[*] There is a peculiar propriety in mentioning this great actor,
and these two most justly celebrated actresses, in this place, as
they have all formed themselves on the study of nature only, and not
on the imitation of their predecessors. Hence they have been able to
excel all who have gone before them; a degree of merit which the
servile herd of imitators can never possibly arrive at.
Now this conversation in our historian must be universal, that is,
with all ranks and degrees of men; for the knowledge of what is called
high life will not instruct him in low; nor, _e converso_, will his
being acquainted with the inferior part of mankind teach him the
manners of the superior. And though it may be thought that the
knowledge of either may sufficiently enable him to describe at least
that in which he hath been conversant, yet he will even here fall
greatly short of perfection; for the follies of either rank do in
reality illustrate each other. For instance, the affectation of high
life appears more glaring and ridiculous from the simplicity of the
low; and again, the rudeness and barbarity of this latter, strikes
with much stronger ideas of absurdity, when contrasted with, and
opposed to, the politeness which controuls the former. Besides, to say
the truth, the manners of our historian will be improved by both these
conversations; for in the one he will easily find examples of
plainness, honesty, and sincerity; in the other of refinement,
elegance, and a liberality of spirit; which last quality I myself have
scarce ever seen in men of low birth and education.
Nor will all the qualities I have hitherto given my historian avail
him, unless he have what is generally meant by a good heart, and be
capable of feeling. The author who will make me weep, says Horace,
must first weep himself. In reality, no man can paint a distress well
which he doth not feel while he is painting it; nor do I doubt, but
that the most pathetic and affecting scenes have been writ with tears.
In the same manner it is with the ridiculous. I am convinced I never
make my reader laugh heartily but where I have laughed before him;
unless it should happen at any time, that instead of laughing with me
he should be inclined to laugh at me. Perhaps this may have been the
case at some passages in this chapter, from which apprehension I will
here put an end to it.
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