warmer encomiums on the beauty of his person; enumerating many
particulars, and ending with the whiteness of his skin.
This discourse had an effect on Sophia's countenance, which would
not perhaps have escaped the observance of the sagacious
waiting-woman, had she once looked her mistress in the face, all the
time she was speaking: but as a looking-glass, which was most
commodiously placed opposite to her, gave her an opportunity of
surveying those features, in which, of all others, she took most
delight; so she had not once removed her eyes from that amiable object
during her whole speech.
Mrs. Honour was so intirely wrapped up in the subject on which she
exercised her tongue, and the object before her eyes, that she gave
her mistress time to conquer her confusion; which having done, she
smiled on her maid, and told her, "she was certainly in love with this
young fellow."- "I in love, madam!" answers she: "upon my word,
ma'am, I assure you, ma'am, upon my soul, ma'am, I am not."- "Why, if
you was," cries her mistress, "I see no reason that you should be
ashamed of it; for he is certainly a pretty fellow."- "Yes, ma'am,"
answered the other, "that he is, the most handsomest man I ever saw in
my life. Yes, to be sure, that he is, and, as your ladyship says, I
don't know why I should be ashamed of loving him, though he is my
betters. To be sure, gentlefolks are but flesh and blood no more
than us servants. Besides, as for Mr. Jones, thof Squire Allworthy
hath made a gentleman of him, he was not so good as myself by birth:
for thof I am a poor body, I am an honest person's child, and my
father and mother were married, which is more than some people can
say, as high as they hold their heads. Marry, come up! I assure you,
my dirty cousin! thof his skin be so white, and to be sure it is the
most whitest that ever was seen, I am a Christian as well as he, and
nobody can say that I am base born: my grandfather was a clergyman,*
and would have been very angry, I believe, to have thought any of
his family should have taken up with Molly Seagrim's dirty leavings."
*This is the second person of low condition whom we have recorded in
this history to have sprung from the clergy. It is to be hoped such
instances will, in future ages, when some provision is made for the
families of the inferior clergy, appear stranger than they can be
thought at present.
Perhaps Sophia might have suffered her maid to run on in this
manner, from wanting sufficient spirits to stop her tongue, which
the reader may probably conjecture was no very easy task; for
certainly there were some passages in her speech which were far from
being agreeable to the lady. However, she now checked the torrent,
as there seemed no end of its flowing. "I wonder," says she, "at
your assurance in daring to talk thus of one of my father's friends.
As to the wench, I order you never to mention her name to me. And with
regard to the young gentleman's birth, those who can say nothing
more to his disadvantage, may as well be silent on that head, as I
desire you will be for the future."
"I am sorry I have offended your ladyship," answered Mrs. Honour. "I
am sure I hate Molly Seagrim as much as your ladyship can; and as
for abusing Squire Jones, I can call all the servants in the house
to witness, that whenever any talk hath been about bastards, I have
always taken his part; for which of you, says I to the footman,
would not be a bastard, if he could, to be made a gentleman of? And,
says I, I am sure he is a very fine gentleman; and he hath one of
the whitest hands in the world; for to be sure so he hath: and, says
I, one of the sweetest temperedest, best naturedest men in the world
he is; and, says I, all the servants and neighbours all round the
country loves him. And, to be sure, I could tell your ladyship
something, but that I am afraid it would offend you."- "What could
you tell me, Honour?" says Sophia. "Nay, ma'am, to be sure he meant
nothing by it, therefore I would not have your ladyship be
offended."- "Prithee tell me," says Sophia; "I will know it this
instant."- "Why, ma'am," answered Mrs. Honour, "he came into the room
one day last week when I was at work, and there lay your ladyship's
muff on a chair, and to be sure he put his hands into it; that very
muff your ladyship gave me but yesterday. La! says I, Mr. Jones, you
will stretch my lady's muff, and spoil it: but he still kept his hands
in it: and then he kissed it- to be sure I hardly ever saw such a
kiss in my life as he gave it."- "I suppose he did not know it was
mine," replied Sophia. "Your ladyship shall hear, ma'am. He kissed
it again and again, and said it was the prettiest muff in the world.
La! sir, says I, you have seen it a hundred times. Yes, Mrs. Honour,
cried he; but who can see anything beautiful in the presence of your
lady but herself?- Nay, that's not all neither; but I hope your
ladyship won't be offended, for to be sure he meant nothing. One
day, as your ladyship was playing on the harpsichord to my master, Mr.
Jones was sitting in the next room, and methought he looked
melancholy. La! says I, Mr. Jones, what's the matter? a penny for your
thoughts, says I. Why, hussy, says he, starting up from a dream,
what can I be thinking of, when that angel your mistress is playing?
And then squeezing me by the hand, Oh! Mrs. Honour, says he, how happy
will that man be!- and then he sighed. Upon my troth, his breath is
as sweet as a nosegay.- But to be sure he meant no harm by it. So I
hope your ladyship will not mention a word; for he gave me a crown
never to mention it, and made me swear upon a book, but I believe,
indeed, it was not the Bible."
Till something of a more beautiful red than vermilion be found
out, I shall say nothing of Sophia's colour on this occasion.
"Honour," says she, "I- if you will not mention this any more to me-
nor to anybody else, I will not betray you-I mean, I will not be
angry; but I am afraid of your tongue. Why, my girl, will you give it
such liberties?"- "Nay, ma'am," answered she, "to be sure, I would
sooner cut out my tongue than offend your ladyship. To be sure I shall
never mention a word that your ladyship would not have me."- "Why, I
would not have you mention this any more," said Sophia, "for it may
come to my father's ears, and he would be angry with Mr. Jones; though
I really believe, as you say, he meant nothing. I should be very angry
myself, if I imagined-" - "Nay, ma'am," says Honour, "I protest I
believe he meant nothing. I thought he talked as if he was out of
his senses; nay, he said he believed he was beside himself when he had
spoken the words. Ay, sir, says I, I believe so too. Yes, says he,
Honour.- But I ask your ladyship's pardon; I could tear my tongue out
for offending you." "Go on," says Sophia; "you may mention anything
you have not told me before."- "Yes, Honour, says he (this was some
time afterwards, when he gave me the crown), I am neither such a
coxcomb, or such a villain, as to think of her in any other delight
but as my goddess; as such I will always worship and adore her while I
have breath.- This was all, ma'am, I will be sworn, to the best of my
remembrance. I was in a passion with him myself, till I found he meant
no harm."- "Indeed, Honour," says Sophia, "I believe you have a real
affection for me. I was provoked the other day when I gave you
warning; but if you have a desire to stay with me, you shall."- "To
be sure, ma'am," answered Mrs. Honour, "I shall never desire to part
with your ladyship. To be sure, I almost cried my eyes out when you
gave me warning. It would be very ungrateful in me to desire to
leave your ladyship; because as why, I should never get so good a
place again. I am sure I would live and die with your ladyship; for,
as poor Mr. Jones said, happy is the man--"
Here the dinner bell interrupted a conversation which had wrought
such an effect on Sophia, that she was, perhaps, more obliged to her
bleeding in the morning, than she, at the time, had apprehended she
should be. As to the present situation of her mind, I shall adhere
to a rule of Horace, by not attempting to describe it, from despair of
success. Most of my readers will suggest it easily to themselves;
and the few who cannot, would not understand the picture, or at
least would deny it to be natural, if ever so well drawn.
BOOK V
CONTAINING A PORTION OF TIME SOMEWHAT LONGER THAN HALF A YEAR
Chapter 1
Of the serious in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced
Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which
will give the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than those which
have given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these
probably may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed
to the historical matter contained in every book; and which we have
determined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing, of
which we have set ourselves at the head.
For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound
to assign any reason; it, being abundantly sufficient that we have
laid it down as a rule necessary to be observed in all
prosai-comi-epic writing. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice
unity of time or place which is now established to be so essential
to dramatic poetry? What critic hath been ever asked, why a play may
not contain two days as well as one? Or why the audience (provided
they travel, like electors, without any expense) may not be wafted
fifty miles as well as five? Hath any commentator well accounted for
the limitation which an antient critic hath set to the drama, which he
will have contain neither more nor less than five acts? Or hath any
one living attempted to explain what the modern judges of our theatres
mean by that word low; by which they have happily succeeded in
banishing all humour from the stage, and have made the theatre as dull
as a drawing-room! Upon all these occasions the world seems to have
embraced a maxim of our law, viz., cuicunque in arte sua perito
credendum est*: for it seems perhaps difficult to conceive that any
one should have had enough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules
in any art or science without the least foundation. In such cases,
therefore, we are apt to conclude there are sound and good reasons
at the bottom, though we are unfortunately not able to see so far.
*Every man is to be trusted in his own art.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to
critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than
they really are. From this complacence, the critics have been
emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded,
that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give
laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received
them.
The critic, rightly considered, is no more than the clerk, whose
office it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great
judges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light
of legislators, in the several sciences over which they presided. This
office was all which the critics of old aspired to; nor did they
ever dare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by the
authority of the judge from whence it was borrowed.
But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk began to
invade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws of
writing were no longer founded on the practice of the author, but on
the dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator, and those
very peremptorily gave laws whose business it was, at first, only to
transcribe them.
Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for
these critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook
mere form for substance. They acted as a judge would, who should
adhere to the lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little
circumstances, which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were
by these critics considered to constitute his chief merit, and
transmitted as essentials to be observed by his successors. To these
encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of
imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have
been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or
nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and
restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it
down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.
To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for
posterity, founded only on the authority of ipse dixit*- for which,
to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration- we shall
here waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed to lay
before the reader the reasons which have induced us to intersperse
these several digressive essays in the course of this work.
*An assertion without proof.
And here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of
knowledge, which if it hath been discovered, hath not, to our
remembrance, been wrought on by any antient or modern writer. This
vein is no other than that of contrast, which runs through all the
works of the creation, and may probably have a large share in
constituting in us the idea of all beauty, as well natural as
artificial: for what demonstrates the beauty and excellence of
anything but its reverse? Thus the beauty of day, and that of
summer, is set off by the horrors of night and winter. And, I believe,
