Joseph Andrews

by Henry Fielding

Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields,

  And, when the golden evening calls us home,

  Wing to our downy nests, and sleep till morn.’”

  Or how would this disdain of Otway—

  “Who ’d be that foolish sordid thing called man?”’

  “Hold! hold! hold!” said the poet: “Do repeat that tender speech in the third act of my play which you made such a figure in.”—“I would willingly,” said the player, “but I have forgot it.”—“Aye, you was not quite perfect enough in it when you played it,” cries the poet, “or you would have had such an applause as was never given on the stage; an applause I was extremely concerned for your losing.”—“Sure,” says the player, “if I remember, that was hissed more than any passage in the whole play.”—“Aye, your speaking it was hissed,” said the poet.—“My speaking it!” said the player.—“I mean your not speaking it,” said the poet. “You was out, and then they hissed.”—“They hissed, and then I was out, if I remember,” answered the player; “and I must say this for myself, that the whole audience allowed I did your part justice; so don’t lay the damnation of your play to my account.”—“I don’t know what you mean by damnation,” replied the poet.—“Why, you know it was acted but one night,” cried the player.—“No,” said the poet, “you and the whole town were enemies; the pit were all my enemies, fellows that would cut my throat, if the fear of hanging did not restrain them. All tailors, sir, all tailors.”—“Why should the tailors be so angry with you?” cries the player. “I suppose you don’t employ so many in making your clothes.”—“I admit your jest,” answered the poet; “but you remember the affair as well as myself; you know there was a party in the pit and upper-gallery that would not suffer it to be given out again; though much, aye infinitely, the majority, all the boxes in particular, were desirous of it; nay, most of the ladies swore they never would come to the house till it was acted again. Indeed, I must own their policy was good in not letting it be given out a second time: for the rascals knew if it had gone a second night it would have run fifty; for if ever there was distress in a tragedy,—I am not fond of my own performance; but if I should tell you what the best judges said of it——Nor was it entirely owing to my enemies neither that it did not succeed on the stage as well as it hath since among the polite readers; for you can’t say it had justice done it by the performers.”—“I think,” answered the player, “the performers did the distress of it justice; for I am sure we were in distress enough, who were pelted with oranges all the last act: we all imagined it would have been the last act of our lives.”

  The poet, whose fury was now raised, had just attempted to answer when they were interrupted, and an end put to their discourse, by an accident, which if the reader is impatient to know, he must skip over the next chapter, which is a sort of counterpart to this, and contains some of the best and gravest matters in the whole book, being a discourse between parson Abraham Adams and Mr Joseph Andrews.

  CHAPTER XI.

  CONTAINING THE EXHORTATIONS OF PARSON ADAMS TO HIS FRIEND IN AFFLICTION; CALCULATED FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE READER.

  JOSEPH NO SOONER came perfectly to himself than, perceiving his mistress gone, he bewailed her loss with groans which would have pierced any heart but those which are possessed by some people, and are made of a certain composition, not unlike flint in its hardness and other properties; for you may strike fire from them, which will dart through the eyes, but they can never distil one drop of water the same way. His own, poor youth! was of a softer composition; and at those words, O my dear Fanny! O my love! shall I never, never see thee more? his eyes overflowed with tears, which would have become any but a hero. In a word, his despair was more easy to be conceived than related.

  Mr Adams, after many groans, sitting with his back to Joseph, began thus in a sorrowful tone: “You cannot imagine, my good child, that I entirely blame these first agonies of your grief; for, when misfortunes attack us by surprise, it must require infinitely more learning than you are master of to resist them; but it is the business of a man and a Christian to summon Reason as quickly as he can to his aid; and she will presently teach him patience and submission. Be comforted, therefore, child; I say be comforted. It is true, you have lost the prettiest, kindest, loveliest, sweetest young woman, one with whom you might have expected to have lived in happiness, virtue, and innocence; by whom you might have promised yourself many little darlings, who would have been the delight of your youth and the comfort of your age. You have not only lost her, but have reason to fear the utmost violence which lust and power can inflict upon her. Now, indeed, you may easily raise ideas of horror, which might drive you to despair.”—“O I shall run mad!” cries Joseph. “O that I could but command my hands to tear my eyes out and my flesh off!”—“If you would use them to such purposes, I am glad you can’t,” answered Adams. “I have stated your misfortune as strong as I possibly can; but, on the other side, you are to consider you are a Christian, that no accident happens to us without the Divine permission, and that it is the duty of a man, much more of a Christian, to submit. We did not make ourselves; but the same power which made us rules over us, and we are absolutely at his disposal; he may do with us what he pleases, nor have we any right to complain. A second reason against our complaint is our ignorance; for, as we know not future events, so neither can we tell to what purpose any accident tends; and that which at first threatens us with evil may in the end produce our good. I should indeed have said our ignorance is twofold (but I have not at present time to divide properly), for, as we know not to what purpose any event is ultimately directed, so neither can we affirm from what cause it originally sprung. You are a man, and consequently a sinner; and this may be a punishment to you for your sins: indeed in this sense it may be esteemed as a good, yea, as the greatest good, which satisfies the anger of Heaven, and averts that wrath which cannot continue without our destruction. Thirdly, our impotency of relieving ourselves demonstrates the folly and absurdity of our complaints: for whom do we resist, or against whom do we complain, but a power from whose shafts no armour can guard us, no speed can fly?—a power which leaves us no hope but in submission.” “O sir!” cried Joseph, “all this is very true, and very fine, and I could hear you all day if I was not so grieved at heart as now I am.”—“Would you take physic,” says Adams, “when you are well, and refuse it when you are sick? Is not comfort to be administered to the afflicted, and not to those who rejoice or those who are at ease?” “O! you have not spoken one word of comfort to me yet!” returned Joseph. “No!” cries Adams; “what am I then doing? what can I say to comfort you?” “O tell me,” cries Joseph, “that Fanny will escape back to my arms, that they shall again enclose that lovely creature, with all her sweetness, all her untainted innocence about her!” “Why, perhaps you may,” cries Adams, “but I can’t promise you what’s to come. You must, with perfect resignation, wait the event: if she be restored to you again, it is your duty to be thankful, and so it is if she be not. Joseph, if you are wise and truly know your own interest, you will peaceably and quietly submit to all the dispensations of Providence, being thoroughly assured that all the misfortunes, how great soever, which happen to the righteous, happen to them for their own good. Nay, it is not your interest only, but your duty, to abstain from immoderate grief; which if you indulge, you are not worthy the name of a Christian.” He spoke these last words with an accent a little severer than usual: upon which Joseph begged him not to be angry, saying, he mistook him if he thought he denied it was his duty, for he had known that long ago. “What signifies knowing your duty, if you do not perform it?” answered Adams. “Your knowledge increases your guilt. O Joseph! I never thought you had this stubbornness in your mind.” Joseph replied, “He fancied he misunderstood him; which I assure you,” says he, “you do, if you imagine I endeavour to grieve; upon my soul I don’t.” Adams rebuked him for swearing, and then proceeded to enlarge on the folly of grief, telling him, all the wise men a
nd philosophers, even among the heathens, had written against it, quoting several passages from Seneca, and the consolation, which, though it was not Cicero’s, was, he said, as good almost as any of his works; and concluded all by hinting that immoderate grief in this case might incense that power which alone could restore him his Fanny. This reason, or indeed rather the idea which it raised of the restoration of his mistress, had more effect than all which the parson had said before, and for a moment abated his agonies; but, when his fears sufficiently set before his eyes the danger that poor creature was in, his grief returned again with repeated violence, nor could Adams in the least assuage it; though it may be doubted in his behalf whether Socrates himself could have prevailed any better.

  They remained some time in silence, and groans and sighs issued from them both; at length Joseph burst out into the following soliloquy: —

  “Yes, I will bear my sorrows like a man,

  But I must also feel them as a man.

  I cannot but remember such things were,

  And were most dear to me.”

  Adams asked him what stuff that was he repeated? To which he answered, they were some lines he had gotten by heart out of a play. “Aye, there is nothing but heathenism to be learned from plays,” replied he. “I never heard of any plays fit for a Christian to read, but Cato and the Conscious Lovers; and, I must own, in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.” But we shall now leave them a little, and enquire after the subject of their conversation.

  CHAPTER XII.

  MORE ADVENTURES, WHICH WE HOPE WILL AS MUCH PLEASE AS SURPRISE THE READER.

  NEITHER THE FACETIOUS dialogue which passed between the poet and the player, nor the grave and truly solemn discourse of Mr Adams, will, we conceive, make the reader sufficient amends for the anxiety which he must have felt on the account of poor Fanny, whom we left in so deplorable a condition. We shall therefore now proceed to the relation of what happened to that beautiful and innocent virgin, after she fell into the wicked hands of the captain.

  The man of war, having conveyed his charming prize out of the inn a little before day, made the utmost expedition in his power towards the squire’s house, where this delicate creature was to be offered up a sacrifice to the lust of a ravisher. He was not only deaf to all her bewailings and entreaties on the road, but accosted her ears with impurities which, having been never before accustomed to them, she happily for herself very little understood. At last he changed his note, and attempted to soothe and mollify her, by setting forth the splendour and luxury which would be her fortune with a man who would have the inclination, and power too, to give her whatever her utmost wishes could desire; and told her he doubted not but she would soon look kinder on him, as the instrument of her happiness, and despise that pitiful fellow whom her ignorance only could make her fond of. She answered, she knew not whom he meant; she never was fond of any pitiful fellow. “Are you affronted, madam,” says he, “at my calling him so? But what better can be said of one in a livery, notwithstanding your fondness for him?” She returned, that she did not understand him, that the man had been her fellow-servant, and she believed was as honest a creature as any alive; but as for fondness for men—“I warrant ye,” cries the captain, “we shall find means to persuade you to be fond; and I advise you to yield to gentle ones, for you may be assured that it is not in your power, by any struggles whatever, to preserve your virginity two hours longer. It will be your interest to consent; for the squire will be much kinder to you if he enjoys you willingly than by force.” At which words she began to call aloud for assistance (for it was now open day), but, finding none, she lifted her eyes to heaven, and supplicated the Divine assistance to preserve her innocence. The captain told her, if she persisted in her vociferation, he would find a means of stopping her mouth. And now the poor wretch, perceiving no hopes of succour, abandoned herself to despair, and, sighing out the name of Joseph! Joseph! a river of tears ran down her lovely cheeks, and wet the handkerchief which covered her bosom. A horseman now appeared in the road, upon which the captain threatened her violently if she complained; however, the moment they approached each other she begged him with the utmost earnestness to relieve a distressed creature who was in the hands of a ravisher. The fellow stopt at these words, but the captain assured him it was his wife, and that he was carrying her home from her adulterer, which so satisfied the fellow, who was an old one (and perhaps a married one too), that he wished him a good journey, and rode on. He was no sooner past than the captain abused her violently for breaking his commands, and threatened to gag her, when two more horsemen, armed with pistols, came into the road just before them. She again solicited their assistance, and the captain told the same story as before. Upon which one said to the other, “That’s a charming wench, Jack; I wish I had been in the fellow’s place, whoever he is.” But the other, instead of answering him, cried out, “Zounds, I know her;” and then, turning to her, said, “Sure you are not Fanny Goodwill?”—“Indeed, indeed, I am,” she cried—“O John! I know you now—Heaven hath sent you to my assistance, to deliver me from this wicked man, who is carrying me away for his vile purposes—O for God’s sake rescue me from him!” A fierce dialogue immediately ensued between the captain and these two men, who, being both armed with pistols, and the chariot which they attended being now arrived, the captain saw both force and stratagem were vain, and endeavoured to make his escape, in which however he could not succeed. The gentleman who rode in the chariot ordered it to stop, and with an air of authority examined into the merits of the cause; of which being advertised by Fanny, whose credit was confirmed by the fellow who knew her, he ordered the captain, who was all bloody from his encounter at the inn, to be conveyed as a prisoner behind the chariot, and very gallantly took Fanny into it; for, to say the truth, this gentleman (who was no other than the celebrated Mr Peter Pounce, and who preceded the Lady Booby only a few miles, by setting out earlier in the morning) was a very gallant person, and loved a pretty girl better than anything besides his own money or the money of other people.

  The chariot now proceeded towards the inn, which, as Fanny was informed, lay in their way, and where it arrived at that very time while the poet and player were disputing below-stairs, and Adams and Joseph were discoursing back to back above; just at that period to which we brought them both in the two preceding chapters the chariot stopt at the door, and in an instant Fanny, leaping from it, ran up to her Joseph.—O reader! conceive if thou canst the joy which fired the breasts of these lovers on this meeting; and if thy own heart doth not sympathetically assist thee in this conception, I pity thee sincerely from my own; for let the hard-hearted villain know this, that there is a pleasure in a tender sensation beyond any which he is capable of tasting. Peter, being informed by Fanny of the presence of Adams, stopt to see him, and receive his homage; for, as Peter was an hypocrite, a sort of people whom Mr Adams never saw through, the one paid that respect to his seeming goodness which the other believed to be paid to his riches; hence Mr Adams was so much his favourite, that he once lent him four pounds thirteen shillings and sixpence to prevent his going to gaol on no greater security than a bond and judgment, which probably he would have made no use of, though the money had not been (as it was) paid exactly at the time.

  It is not perhaps easy to describe the figure of Adams; he had risen in such a hurry, that he had on neither breeches, garters, nor stockings; nor had he taken from his head a red spotted handkerchief, which by night bound his wig, that was turned inside out, around his head. He had on his torn cassock and his great-coat; but, as the remainder of his cassock hung down below his great-coat, so did a small stripe of white, or rather whitish, linen appear below that; to which we may add the several colours which appeared on his face, where a long piss-burnt beard served to retain the liquor of the stone-pot, and that of a blacker hue which distilled from the mop.—This figure, which Fanny had delivered from his captivity, was no sooner spied by Peter than it disordered the composed
gravity of his muscles; however, he advised him immediately to make himself clean, nor would accept his homage in that pickle.

  The poet and player no sooner saw the captain in captivity than they began to consider of their own safety, of which flight presented itself as the only means; they therefore both of them mounted the poet’s horse, and made the most expeditious retreat in their power.

  The host, who well knew Mr Pounce and the Lady Booby’s livery, was not a little surprised at this change of the scene; nor was his confusion much helped by his wife, who was now just risen, and, having heard from him the account of what had passed, comforted him with a decent number of fools and blockheads; asked him why he did not consult her, and told him he would never leave following the nonsensical dictates of his own numskull till she and her family were ruined.

  Joseph, being informed of the captain’s arrival, and seeing his Fanny now in safety, quitted her a moment, and, running down-stairs, went directly to him, and stripping off his coat, challenged him to fight; but the captain refused, saying he did not understand boxing. He then grasped a cudgel in one hand, and, catching the captain by the collar with the other, gave him a most severe drubbing, and ended with telling him he had now had some revenge for what his dear Fanny had suffered.

  When Mr. Pounce had a little regaled himself with some provision which he had in his chariot, and Mr Adams had put on the best appearance his clothes would allow him, Pounce ordered the captain into his presence, for he said he was guilty of felony, and the next justice of peace should commit him; but the servants (whose appetite for revenge is soon satisfied), being sufficiently contented with the drubbing which Joseph had inflicted on him, and which was indeed of no very moderate kind, had suffered him to go off, which he did, threatening a severe revenge against Joseph, which I have never heard he thought proper to take.