The History of Tom Jones (Penguin Classics)
Page 112
CGJ
Henry Fielding, The Covent-Garden Journal and A Plan of the Universal Register-Office, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
Champion
Henry Fielding, Contributions to the Champion and Related Writings, ed. W. B. Coley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003)
Characteristics
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
Clarissa
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, ed. Angus Ross (London: Penguin, 1985)
Companion
Martin C. Battestin, A Henry Fielding Companion (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000)
David Simple
Sarah Fielding, The Adventures of David Simple, ed. Linda Bree (London: Penguin, 2002)
Enquiry
Henry Fielding, An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers and Related Writings, ed. Malvin R. Zirker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
Examen
‘Orbilius’, An Examen of the History of Tom Jones (1749)
JA
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews / Shamela, ed. Judith Hawley (London: Penguin, 1999)
JJ
Henry Fielding, The Jacobite’s Journal and Related Writings, ed. W. B. Coley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975)
JVL
Henry Fielding, The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, ed. Tom Keymer (London: Penguin, 1996)
Miscellanies I
Henry Fielding, Miscellanies, Volume One, ed. Henry Knight Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)
Miscellanies II
Henry Fielding, Miscellanies, Volume Two, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar and Hugh Amory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)
Miscellanies III
Henry Fielding, Miscellanies, Volume Three [i.e. Jonathan Wild], ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar and Hugh Amory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)
OED2
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989)
Pamela
Samuel Richardson, Pamela, ed. Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2001)
TP
Henry Fielding, The True Patriot and Related Writings, ed. W. B. Coley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)
DEDICATION
1. George Lyttleton, Esq: George Lyttelton (1709–73), Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (1744–54), and HF’s friend and patron. See below, VIII. i, n. 17, and, for a further compliment to Lyttelton, XIII. i, at n. 8; also Companion, pp. 94–5.
2. a particular Acquaintance of yours: Ralph Allen (1693–1764), another friend and patron, whose wealth derived from his reform of the provincial postal system and his ownership of quarries near Bath. Allen was renowned for philanthropic works such as his sponsorship of hospital-building, and HF here compliments him, alongside Lyttelton and Bedford (see n. 3 below), by association with the fictional Allworthy. See below, VIII. i, n. 15, and, for a further compliment to Allen, XIII. i, at n. 8; also Companion, p. 21.
3. Duke of Bedford: John Russell (1710–71), 4th Duke of Bedford, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (1748–51). Through Bedford’s influence HF was appointed High Steward of the New Forest in 1746 and Justice of the Peace for Westminster in 1748, and his assignment to HF of leasehold property enabled HF to qualify for the Middlesex magistracy in January 1749. See Companion, pp. 27–8.
4. Do Good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame: Alexander Pope (referring to Ralph Allen), ‘Epilogue to the Satires’ (1738), i. 136. The insufficiency of this compliment is later implied: see below, VIII. i, n. 15.
5. Virtue… naked Charms: Adapting Phaedrus, 250 d, where Plato ‘draws Virtue in the Person of a fine Woman’, as HF puts it elsewhere (Miscellanies I, p. 143).
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
1. Bill of Fare to the Feast: Here, and in the paragraphs that follow, HF plays on a trope that was already familiar by the time of A Tale of a Tub (1704), when Swift’s narrator denounces ‘that pernicious Custom, of making the Preface a Bill of Fare to the Book’ (sect. v). Cf. the introductory scene of HF’s comedy Don Quixote in England (1734), in which the author-figure refuses to justify his play in a prologue: ‘But of what real Use is a Bill of Fare to any Entertainment, where the Guests are not left to their Choice what Part they will pick at, but are oblig’d to swallow the Whole indifferently?’
2. Ordinary: ‘A Victualling-House, where a certain Allowance of Meat, &c. is made at a set Rate’ (Edward Phillips, New World of Words (1678), s.v. Ordinary).
3. sensible Reader: Reader of sensibility, capable of refined and sensitive feeling – an expression HF may wryly have adopted from the preface to Richardson’s Pamela, p. 3.
4. The Tortoise… Calibash and Calipee: Calipash and calipee, delicacies taken from the upper and lower shells, respectively, of the turtle, are similarly alluded to in JVL, p. 78 (21 July 1754).
5. True Wit… ne’er so well exprest: Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), lines 297–8.
6. Heliogabalus: Emperor of Rome (218–22), renowned for his lavish banquets; also the pseudonym given to a gluttonous correspondent in HF’s journal the True Patriot, pp. 367–8 (No. 5, 3 December 1745).
CHAPTER II.
1. Trained Bands: Civilian militia, a standing joke previously played on by HF in Joseph Andrews, p. 155 (II. vii).
CHAPTER III.
1. recorded his own Merit… over the Door of that Hospital: Apparently a compliment to Ralph Allen, who was a major benefactor of the Bath General Hospital (constructed 1738–42), having provided ‘from his Stone-yard all the Wall-stone, wrought Freestone, Paving-stone, and Lime… besides giving a very large Sum of Money’ (Daniel Defoe, A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 4th edn (1748), II, 297–8).
2. The History of England: The title of two vast serialized histories by Paul de Rapin-Thoyras (English translation published 1725–31) and Laurence Echard (published 1707–18), authors whom HF mockingly pairs elsewhere: see below, VI. ii, n. 2; also JA, p. 201 (III. i), and Companion, pp. 60, 124. A third ‘droll Author’ is John Oldmixon, author of The Critical History of England (1724–6) and The History of England (1729–35), who was a favourite target of HF’s satire: see below, V. i, n. 7; also Companion, p. 110.
3. Mrs.: Common title for women, particularly servants, whether married or not.
4. committed to Bridewel: House of correction for minor offenders (named after the Bridewell Hospital in London, which was converted to a prison in 1720). Mothers of illegitimate children to be kept by the parish (see n. 5 below) were often sent to Bridewell, where they endured physical punishment and a year’s hard labour. HF deplored the institution, and would never send ‘a Woman thither, while she retains even any external Mark of Decency’ (CGJ, p. 307 (No. 57, 1 August 1752); see also below, I. ix, n. 1).
5. what the Parish is obliged to maintain: Under the terms of the sixteenth-century Poor Laws, parishes were obliged to look after the vulnerable poor, such as foundlings, through the ‘poor’s rate’ tax. The scheme was managed by local churchwardens.
CHAPTER IV.
1. It stood on the South-east Side of a Hill… the Prospect was closed: ‘To reconcile this Description with Probability will be the Difficulty’, objected ‘Aretine’ in Old England for 27 May 1749, for sound topographical reasons. Paradise Hall is a fictionalized location, but aspects of its description (the high tor, the ruined abbey) have traditionally encouraged an association with Glaston-bury, near HF’s birthplace of Sharpham Park.
2. Great Surprizes… are apt to be silent: It was a truism of contemporary criticism that, in the words of Lord Kames, ‘surprise and terror are silent passions’ (Elements of Criticism (1762), ch. xvii). HF may still be joking about a particular expression from Benjamin Martyn’s tragedy Timoleon (1730) that he had ridiculed in Joseph Andrews, where Lady Booby is struck dumb for two minutes: ‘Thou look’st a very Statue of Surprize’ (Timoleon, IV. iii; cf. J
A, p. 79 (I. viii)).
CHAPTER V.
1. a base-born Infant, to which all Charity is… irreligious: HF ironically adopts the viewpoint of the ‘virtuous Reader’, reflecting contemporary opposition to the new Foundling Hospital in London (established in 1739 ‘for the Maintenance and Education of exposed and deserted young Children’) on the grounds that its existence encouraged wantonness and prostitution. He attacks the same mindset in the Champion for 21 February 1740, wondering of the hospital’s foundation ‘how it was possible through Stupidity or Barbarity, to have been delayed so long’ (p. 193); see also below, XIV. vi, n. 2.
CHAPTER VII.
1. Bubble: A dupe or victim of deception (as again in VI. iii).
2. Scripture bids us love our Enemies: Cf. Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27, 35.
3. Ingenuity: Ingenuousness, honourable straightforwardness.
CHAPTER VIII.
1. the famous Hole… ‘O wicked, wicked Wall!’: Cf. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V. i, conflating lines 172 and 178 (which in fact are spoken by Pyramus, Thisbe’s lover).
2. De non apparentibus… est ratio: ‘That which is not seen is the same as if it did not exist’: a legal rule concerning evidence, which HF also applies in Amelia, p. 61 (I. x) and CGJ, p. 22 (No. 2, 7 January 1752).
3. laughter-loving Goddess: HF may be following Pope’s Iliad translation of 1715–20, in which Venus is the ‘Laughter-loving Dame’ (iii. 476; xx. 52).
4. Seraphina: ‘A particular Lady of Quality is meant here’, HF notes when using the same sobriquet in A Journey from This World to the Next (1743). Bertrand A. Goldgar proposes either Sarah Lennox, Duchess of Richmond (1706–51), or Susannah Noel Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury (d. 1758): see Miscellanies II, p. 12 and n.
5. Tisiphone: One of the three Furies in classical mythology.
CHAPTER IX.
1. beating Hemp in a Silk Gown: Alluding to the common fate of convicted prostitutes under forced labour in Bridewell, and perhaps specifically to William Hogarth’s depiction of this punishment in Plate 4 of The Harlot’s Progress (1732), a satirical series named elsewhere in the novel (see below, II. iii, n. 3, and III. vi, n. 3).
CHAPTER X.
1. she seemed to deserve the Name of Saint… Roman Kalendar: St Brigid or St Bride of Ireland (d. c. 525), after whom Bridewell was named, was famous for her chastity. HF also hints at the place in the calendar of less consistently pure female saints, such as the patron of penitent sinners, Mary Magdalene.
2. Methodism: A newly powerful and popular religious movement, the ‘pernicious Principles’ of which are frequently satirized in HF’s writings. See below, VIII. viii, n. 1; also Companion, pp. 241–2.
3. as great a Master of the Art of Love as Ovid was formerly: Referring to Ovid’s three-part work of the same name, the Ars Amatoria. In 1747, HF published an anonymous, politicized burlesque of the first book, Ovid’s Art of Love Paraphrased, and Adapted to the Present Time.
CHAPTER XI.
1. Chairman: Carriers of Sedan chairs were proverbially burly. Cf. Amelia, p. 455 (XI. i): ‘the Shoulders of a Porter, and the Legs of a Chairman’.
2. Mr. Hogarth himself… Prayer-book: The first of several compliments in the novel to HF’s friend William Hogarth (1697–1764), the painter and engraver. The print referred to is ‘Morning’, Plate 1 from a series entitled The Four Times of Day (1738), in which a pious but fashionably attired old woman is followed by a shivering footboy. See below, II. iii, n. 3; III. vi, n. 3; VI. iii, n. 1; also Companion, p. 82.
3. the Witch of Endor: The witch of 1 Samuel 28:7–25.
4. Nolo Episcopari… on another Occasion: ‘I do not wish to be a bishop’ – the reply traditionally made by a clergyman when offered a bishopric. In HF’s Journey from This World to the Next, Cromwell confesses that he had no more ambition to the crown ‘than an Ecclesiastic hath to the Mitre, when he cries Nolo Episcopari’ (Miscellanies II, p. 43).
5. a certain great Author: Joseph Addison, who calls courtship ‘the pleasantest part of a Man’s Life’ (Spectator, No. 261, 29 December 1711).
CHAPTER XII.
1. Sui Juris: Of one’s own right, i.e. legally competent to manage one’s own affairs. To minimize intrusive annotation, small Latin tags of this kind are listed and translated in the Glossary below.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
1. an Apology for a Life, as is more in Fashion: A belated hit at the autobiography of HF’s theatrical rival Colley Cibber (1671–1757), entitled An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber (1740), which HF extensively mocks in earlier writing, notably Shamela and Joseph Andrews (pp. 61–2 (I. i)). See Companion, pp. 43–4.
2. the excellent Latin Poet… glorious Lord of all: Adapting Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, iii. 833–7, and quoting Thomas Creech’s translation (1682), iii. 812–15.
3. Registers of that Lottery… her Cabinet-Council: State lotteries had been held since 1694 to raise funding for public projects, the draws taking place at the Guildhall (the hall of the Corporation of the City of London) over the closing weeks of the year. The associated corruption and profiteering were often satirized by HF, notably in his popular ballad-opera The Lottery (1732, and still frequently performed in the 1748–9 season), though he was later to recommend lotteries as a valid means of supplementing the poor rate (Enquiry, p. 265; see also Companion, p. 238). Battestin suggests that the allusion here is specifically to the rival claims of two competing brokers, in newspaper advertisements of December 1746 and again December 1747, to have sold the same winning tickets (Wesleyan edn, p. 77).
4. a jure divino Tyrant: A king who claims absolute power by divine right – a position that HF attributes to modern Jacobitism, the evils of which ‘all flow from that one great natural Principle of the Divine Right of Kings’ (JJ (No. 3, 19 December 1747), p. 108). See Companion, pp. 236–7.
CHAPTER II.
1. He quoted several Texts… set on Edge, &c: Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9; Ezekiel 18:2.
CHAPTER III.
1. Rules directly contrary to those of Aristotle: Primarily, that the husband is master of his family by nature (Politics I. v. 1–2).
2. Syntaxis: The second stage of instruction in Latin grammar, which would normally be taught in public schools to pupils aged 12 or 13.
3. the Harlot’s Progress: In Plate 3 of his satirical series The Harlot’s Progress (1732), Hogarth depicts the harlot, Moll Hackabout, with her maid, whose face is ominously scarred by syphilis. See above, I. ix, n. 1, and below, III. vi, n. 3.
4. Xanthippe of old: The wife of Socrates, by legend a shrew.
5. Da mihi aliquid Potum: ‘Give me some drink’ (clumsily rendered).
6. no more than Othello… once to be resolved: Adapting Othello, III. iii. 181–4.
7. Leve fit, quod bene fertur Onus: Ovid, Amores, I. ii. 10: ‘nothing truer ever came from the Mouth of a Heathen than that Sentence’, as Dr Harrison comments when quoting it in Amelia, p. 137 (III. x).
CHAPTER IV.
1. Mr. John Fr ——: John Freke (1688–1756), FRS, the felicitously named author of An Essay to Shew the Cause of Electricity; and Why Some Things are Non-Electricable (1746). Freke’s work was widely ridiculed for its outlandish theories. See below, IV. ix, n. 2.
2. Horace, in one of his Epistles… in the same Light: Actually Satires, I. vii. 1–3: