Amelia | Page 4

and in the second, a little more romantic in her attachment to him. As it
is, he was _son homme_; he was handsome; he had broad shoulders; he
had a sweet temper; he was the father of her children, and that was
enough. At least we are allowed to see in Mr. Booth no qualities other
than these, and in her no imagination even of any other qualities. To
put what I mean out of reach of cavil, compare Imogen and Amelia,
and the difference will be felt.

But Fielding was a prose writer, writing in London in the eighteenth
century, while Shakespeare was a poet writing in all time and all space,
so that the comparison is luminous in more ways than one. I do not
think that in the special scheme which the novelist set himself here he
can be accused of any failure. The life is as vivid as ever; the minor
sketches may be even called a little more vivid. Dr Harrison is not
perfect. I do not mean that he has ethical faults, for that is a merit, not a
defect; but he is not quite perfect in art. His alternate persecution and
patronage of Booth, though useful to the story, repeat the earlier fault
of Allworthy, and are something of a blot. But he is individually much
more natural than Allworthy, and indeed is something like what Dr
Johnson would have been if he had been rather better bred, less
crotchety, and blessed with more health. Miss Matthews in her earlier
scenes has touches of greatness which a thousand French novelists
lavishing "candour" and reckless of exaggeration have not equalled;
and I believe that Fielding kept her at a distance during the later scenes
of the story, because he could not trust himself not to make her more
interesting than Amelia. Of the peers, more wicked and less wicked,
there is indeed not much good to be said. The peer of the
eighteenth-century writers (even when, as in Fielding's case, there was
no reason why they should "mention him with Kor," as Policeman X.
has it) is almost always a faint type of goodness or wickedness dressed
out with stars and ribbons and coaches- and-six. Only Swift, by
combination of experience and genius, has given us live lords in Lord
Sparkish and Lord Smart. But Mrs. Ellison and Mrs. Atkinson are very
women, and the serjeant, though the touch of "sensibility" is on him, is
excellent; and Dr Harrison's country friend and his prig of a son are
capital; and Bondum, and "the author," and Robinson, and all the minor
characters, are as good as they can be.
It is, however, usual to detect a lack of vivacity in the book, an
evidence of declining health and years. It may be so; it is at least certain
that Fielding, during the composition of _Amelia,_ had much less time
to bestow upon elaborating his work than he had previously had, and
that his health was breaking. But are we perfectly sure that if the
chronological order had been different we should have pronounced the
same verdict? Had Amelia come between Joseph and _Tom,_ how
many of us might have committed ourselves to some such sentence as

this: "In Amelia we see the youthful exuberances of Joseph Andrews
corrected by a higher art; the adjustment of plot and character arranged
with a fuller craftsmanship; the genius which was to find its fullest
exemplification in Tom Jones already displaying maturity"? And do we
not too often forget that a very short time--in fact, barely three
years--passed between the appearance of Tom Jones and the appearance
of _Amelia?_ that although we do not know how long the earlier work
had been in preparation, it is extremely improbable that a man of
Fielding's temperament, of his wants, of his known habits and history,
would have kept it when once finished long in his desk? and that
consequently between some scenes of Tom Jones and some scenes of
Amelia it is not improbable that there was no more than a few months'
interval? I do not urge these things in mitigation of any unfavourable
judgment against the later novel. I only ask--How much of that
unfavourable judgment ought in justice to be set down to the fallacies
connected with an imperfect appreciation of facts?
To me it is not so much a question of deciding whether I like Amelia
less, and if so, how much less, than the others, as a question what part
of the general conception of this great writer it supplies? I do not think
that we could fully understand Fielding without it; I do not think that
we could derive the full quantity of pleasure from him without it. The
exuberant romantic faculty of Joseph Andrews and its