attorney was immediately sent for, ordered to stop any further
proceedings in the action, and to make out the deputation.
Tom's success in this affair soon began to ring over the country,
and various were the censures passed upon it; some greatly
applauding it as an act of good nature; others sneering, and saying,
"No wonder that one idle fellow should love another." Young Blifil was
greatly enraged at it. He had long hated Black George in the same
proportion as Jones delighted in him; not from any offence which he
had ever received, but from his great love to religion and virtue;-
for Black George had the reputation of a loose kind of a fellow.
Blifil therefore represented this as flying in Mr. Allworthy's face;
and declared, with great concern, that it was impossible to find any
other motive for doing good to such a wretch.
Thwackum and Square likewise sung to the same tune. They were now
(especially the latter) become greatly jealous of young Jones with the
widow; for he now approached the age of twenty, was really a fine
young fellow, and that lady, by her encouragements to him, seemed
daily more and more to think him so.
Allworthy was not, however, moved with their malice. He declared
himself very well satisfied with what Jones had done. He said the
perseverance and integrity of his friendship was highly commendable,
and he wished he could see more frequent instances of that virtue.
But Fortune, who seldom greatly relishes such sparks as my friend
Tom, perhaps because they do not pay more ardent addresses to her,
gave now a very different turn to all his actions, and showed them
to Mr. Allworthy in a light far less agreeable than that gentleman's
goodness had hitherto seen them in.
Chapter 6
An apology for the insensibility of Mr. Jones to all the charms of
the lovely Sophia; in which possibly we may, in a considerable degree,
lower his character in the estimation of those men of wit and
gallantry who approve the heroes in most of our modern comedies
There are two sorts of people, who, I am afraid, have already
conceived some contempt for my heroe, on account of his behaviour to
Sophia. The former of these will blame his prudence in neglecting an
opportunity to possess himself of Mr. Western's fortune; and the
latter will no less despise him his backwardness to so fine a girl,
who seemed ready to fly into his arms, if he would open them to
receive her.
Now, though I shall not perhaps be able absolutely to acquit him
of either of these charges (for want of prudence admits of no
excuse; and what I shall produce against the latter charge will, I
apprehend, be scarce satisfactory); yet, as evidence may sometimes
be offered in mitigation, I shall set forth the plain matter of
fact, and leave the whole to the reader's determination.
Mr. Jones had somewhat about him, which, though I think writers
are not thoroughly agreed in its name, doth certainly inhabit some
human breasts; whose use is not so properly to distinguish right
from wrong, as to prompt and incite them to the former, and to
restrain and withhold them from the latter.
This somewhat may be indeed resembled to the famous trunk-maker in
the playhouse; for, whenever the person who is possessed of it doth
what is right, no ravished or friendly spectator is so eager or so
loud in his applause: on the contrary, when he doth wrong, no critic
is so apt to hiss and explode him.
To give a higher idea of the principle I mean, as well as one more
familiar to the present age; it may be considered as sitting on its
throne in the mind, like the Lord High Chancellor of this kingdom in
his court; where it presides, governs, directs, judges, acquits, and
condemns according to merit and justice, with a knowledge which
nothing escapes, a penetration which nothing can deceive, and an
integrity which nothing can corrupt.
This active principle may perhaps be said to constitute the most
essential barrier between us and our neighbours the brutes; for if
there be some in the human shape who are not under any such
dominion, I choose rather to consider them as deserters from us to our
neighbours; among whom they will have the fate of deserters, and not
be placed in the first rank.
Our heroe, whether he derived it from Thwackum or Square I will
not determine, was very strongly under the guidance of this principle;
for though he did not always act rightly, yet he never did otherwise
without feeling and suffering for it. It was this which taught him,
that to repay the civilities and little friendships of hospitality
by robbing the house where you have received them, is to be the basest
and meanest of thieves. He did not think the baseness of this
offence lessened by the height of the injury committed; on the
contrary, if to steal another's plate deserved death and infamy, it
seemed to him difficult to assign a punishment adequate to the robbing
a man of his whole fortune, and of his child into the bargain.
This principle, therefore, prevented him from any thought of
making his fortune by such means (for this, as I have said, is an
active principle, and doth not content itself with knowledge or belief
only). Had he been greatly enamoured of Sophia, he possibly might have
thought otherwise; but give me leave to say, there is great difference
between running away with man's daughter from the motive of love,
and doing the same thing from the motive of theft.
Now, though this young gentleman was not insensible of the charms of
Sophia; though he greatly liked her beauty, and esteemed all her other
qualifications, she had made, however, no deep impression on his
heart; for which, as it renders him liable to the charge of stupidity,
or at least of want of taste, we shall now proceed to account.
The truth then is, his heart was in the possession of another woman.
Here I question not but the reader will be surprized at our long
taciturnity as to this matter; and quite at a loss to divine who
this woman was, since we have hitherto not dropt a hint of any one
likely to be a rival to Sophia; for as to Mrs. Blifil, though we
have been obliged to mention some suspicions of her affection for Tom,
we have not hitherto given the least latitude for imagining that he
had any for her; and, indeed, I am sorry to say it, but the youth of
both sexes are too apt to be deficient in their gratitude for that
regard with which persons more advanced in years are sometimes so kind
to honour them.
That the reader may be no longer in suspense, he will be pleased
to remember, that we have often mentioned the family of George Seagrim
(commonly called Black George, the gamekeeper), which consisted at
present of a wife and five children.
The second of these children was a daughter, whose name was Molly,
and who was esteemed one of the handsomest girls in the whole country.
Congreve well says there is in true beauty something which vulgar
souls cannot admire; so can no dirt or rags hide this something from
those souls which are not of the vulgar stamp.
The beauty of this girl made, however, no impression on Tom, till
she grew towards the age of sixteen, when Tom, who was near three
years older, began first to cast the eyes of affection upon her. And
this affection he had fixed on the girl long before he could bring
himself to attempt the possession of her person: for though his
constitution urged him greatly to this his principles no less forcibly
restrained him. To debauch a young woman, however low her condition
was, appeared to him a very heinous crime; and the good-will he bore
the father, with the compassion he had for his family, very strongly
corroborated all such sober reflections; so that he once resolved to
get the better of his inclinations, and he actually abstained three
whole months without ever going to Seagrim's house, or seeing his
daughter.
Now, though Molly was, as we have said, generally thought a very
fine girl, and in reality she was so, yet her beauty was not of the
most amiable kind. It had, indeed, very little of feminine in it,
and would have become a man at least as well as a woman; for, to say
the truth, youth and florid health had a very considerable share in
the composition.
Nor was her mind more effeminate than her person. As this was tall
and robust, so was that bold and forward. So little had she of
modesty, that Jones had more regard for her virtue than she herself.
And as most probably she liked Tom as well as he liked her, so when
she perceived his backwardness she herself grew proportionably
forward; and when she saw he had entirely deserted the house, she
found means of throwing herself in his way, and behaved in such a
manner that the youth must have had very much or very little of the
heroe if her endeavours had proved unsuccessful. In a word, she soon
triumphed over all the virtuous resolutions of Jones; for though she
behaved at last with all decent reluctance, yet I rather chuse to
attribute the triumph to her, since, in fact, it was her design
which succeeded.
In the conduct of this matter, I say, Molly so well played her part,
that Jones attributed the conquest entirely to himself, and considered
the young woman as one who had yielded to the violent attacks of his
passion. He likewise imputed her yielding to the ungovernable force of
her love towards him; and this the reader will allow to have been a
very natural and probable supposition, as we have more than once
mentioned the uncommon comeliness of his person: and, indeed, he was
one of the handsomest young fellows in the world.
As there are some minds whose affections, like Master Blifil's,
are solely placed on one single person, whose interest and
indulgence alone they consider on every occasion; regarding the good
and ill of all others as merely indifferent, any farther than as
they contribute to the pleasure or advantage of that person: so
there is a different temper of mind which borrows a degree of virtue
even from self-love. Such can never receive any kind of satisfaction
from another, without loving the creature to whom that satisfaction is
owing, and without making its well-being in some sort necessary to
their own ease.
Of this latter species was our heroe. He considered this poor girl
as one whose happiness or misery he had caused to be dependent on
himself. Her beauty was still the object of desire, though greater
beauty, or a fresher object, might have been more so; but the little
abatement which fruition had occasioned to this was highly
overbalanced by the considerations of the affection which she
visibly bore him, and of the situation into which he had brought
her. The former of these created gratitude, the latter compassion; and
both, together with his desire for her person, raised in him a passion
which might, without any great violence to the word, be called love;
though, perhaps, it was at first not very judiciously placed.
This, then, was the true reason of that insensibility which he had
shown to the charms of Sophia, and that behaviour in her which might
have been reasonably enough interpreted as an encouragement to his
addresses; for as he could not think of abandoning his Molly, poor and
destitute as she was, so no more could he entertain a notion of
betraying such a creature as Sophia. And surely, had he given the
least encouragement to any passion for that young lady, he must have
been absolutely guilty of one or other of those crimes; either of
which would, in my opinion, have very justly subjected him to that
fate, which, at his first introduction into this history, I
mentioned to have been generally predicted as his certain destiny.
Chapter 7
Being the shortest chapter in this book
Her mother first perceived the alteration in the shape of Molly; and
in order to hide it from her neighbours, she foolishly clothed her
in that sack which Sophia had sent her; though, indeed, that young
lady had little apprehension that the poor woman would have been
weak enough to let any of her daughters wear it in that form.
Molly was charmed with the first opportunity she ever had of showing
her beauty to advantage; for though she could very well bear to
contemplate herself in the glass, even when dressed in rags; and
though she had in that dress conquered the heart of Jones, and perhaps
of some others; yet she thought the addition of finery would much
improve her charms, and extend her conquests.
Molly, therefore, having dressed herself out in this sack, with a
new laced cap, and some other ornaments which Tom had given her,
repairs to church with her fan in her hand the very next Sunday. The
great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and
vanity to themselves. These noble qualities flourish as notably in a
country church and churchyard as in the drawing-room, or in the
closet. Schemes have indeed been laid in the vestry which would hardly
disgrace the conclave. Here is a ministry, and here is an
opposition. Here are plots and circumventions, parties and factions,
equal to those which are to be found in courts.
Nor are the women here less practised in the highest feminine arts
than their fair superiors in quality and fortune. Here are prudes
and coquettes. Here are dressing and ogling, falsehood, envy,
malice, scandal; in short, everything which is common to the most
splendid assembly, or politest circle. Let those of high life,
therefore, no longer despise the ignorance of their inferiors; nor the
vulgar any longer rail at the vices of their betters.
Molly had seated herself some time before she was known by her
neighbours. And then a whisper ran through the whole congregation,
"Who is she?" but when she was discovered, such sneering, giggling,
tittering, and laughing ensued among the women, that Mr. Allworthy was
obliged to exert his authority to preserve any decency among them.
Chapter 8
A battle sung by the muse in the Homerican stile, and which none but
