rtifice. These are all real people who do real things in a real way
now, as they did nearly two hundred years ago: however much dress, and
speech, and manners may have changed. And we are told of their doings in
a real way, too. Exactly how the teller knew it we do not know: but we
do not think of this at all. And on the other hand there is no perpetual
reminder of art, like the letter-ending and beginning, to disturb or
alloy the once and gladly accepted "suspension of disbelief."

A slight digression may not be improper here. Even in their own days,
when the _gros mot_ was much less shocking than it is now, there was a
general notion--which has more or less persisted, in spite of all
changes of fashion in this respect, and exists even now when licence of
subject as distinguished from phrase has to a great extent
returned--that Fielding is more "coarse," more "improper," and so forth
than Richardson. As a matter of fact, neither admits positively indecent
language--that had gone out, except in the outskirts and fringes of
English literature, generations earlier. But I am much mistaken if there
are not in Richardson more than a few scenes and situations the
"impropriety" of which positively exceeds anything in Fielding.
Naturally one does not give indications: but readers may be pretty
confident about the fact. The comparative "bloodlessness," however--the
absence of life and colour in the earlier and older writer--acts as a
sort of veil to them.

Yet (to return to larger and purer air), however much one may admire
_Joseph Andrews_, the kind of _parasitic_ representation which it allows
itself, and the absence of any attempt to give an original story tells
against it. And it may, in any case, be regarded as showing that the
novelist, even yet, was hugging the shore or allowing himself to be
taken in tow--that he did not dare to launch out into the deep and
trust to his own sails and the wind of nature to propel him--to his own
wits and soul to guide. Even Fielding's next venture--the wonderful and
almost unique venture of _Jonathan Wild_--leaves some objection of this
sort possible, though, for myself, I should never dream of admitting it.
Jonathan was (so much the worse for human nature) a real person: and the
outlines of his story--if not the actual details--are given partly by
his actual life, partly by Gay's _Beggar's Opera_ and its sequel.
Moreover, the whole marvellous little book has a purpose--the purpose of
sa