THE HISTORY OF A FOUNDLING. BOOK X. In which the history goes forward about twelve hours. RE CHAPTER I. EADER, it is impossible we should know what sort of person thou wilt be; for, perhaps, thou mayest be as learned in human nature as Shakespeare himself was, and, perhaps, thou mayest be no wiser than some of his editors. Now, lest this latter should be the case, we think proper, before we go any farther together, to give thee a few wholesome admonitions; that thou mayest not as grossly misunderstand and misrepresent us, as some of the said editors have misunderstood and misrepresented their author. First, then, we warn thee not too hastily to condemn any of the incidents in this our history, as impertinent and foreign to our main design, because thou dost not immediately conceive in what manner such incident may conduce to that design. VOL. II. B This work may, indeed, be considered as a great creation of our own; and for a little reptile of a critic to presume to find fault with any of its parts, without knowing the manner in which the whole is connected, and before he comes to the final catastrophe, is a most presumptuous absurdity. The allusion and metaphor we have here made use of, we must acknowledge to be infinitely too great for our occasion; but there is indeed, no other, which is at all adequate to express the difference between an author of the first rate, and a critic of the lowest. Another caution we would give thee, my good reptile, is, that thou dost not find out too near a resemblance between certain characters here introduced; as for instance, between the landlady who appears in the seventh book, and her in the ninth. Thou art to know, friend, that there are certain characteristics, in which most individuals of every profession and occupation agree. To be able to preserve these characteristics, and at the same. time to diversify their operations, is one talent of a good writer. Again, to mark the nice distinction between two persons actuated by the same vice or folly, is another; and as this last talent is found in very few writers, so is the true discernment of it found in as few readers; though, I believe, the observation of this forms a very principal pleasure in those who are capable of the discovery; every per. son, for instance, can distinguish between Sir Epicure Mammon and Sir Fopling Flutter; but to note the difference between Sir Fopling Flutter and Sir Courtly Nice, requires a more exquisite judgement; for want of which, vulgar spectators of plays very -often do great injustice in the theatre; where I have sometimes known a poet in danger of being convicted as a thief, upon much worse evidence than the resemblance of hands hath been held to be in the law. In reality, I apprehend every amor. ous widow on the stage would run the hazard of being condemned as a servile imitation of Dido, but that happily very few of our play-house critics understand enough of Latin to read Virgil. If In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy friend (for, perhaps, thy heart may be better than thy head), not to condemn a character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste; but as we have not, in the course of our conversation, ever happened to meet with any such person, we have not chosen to introduce any such here. To say the truth, I a little question whether mere man ever arrived at this consummate degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever existed a monster bad enough to verify that -nulla virtute redemptum in Juvenal; nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes served by inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or such diabolical depravity, in any work of invention; since, from contemplating either, the mind of man is more likely to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, than to draw any good uses from such patterns; for, in the former instance, he may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of excellence in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of ever arriving at; and, in contemplating the latter, he may be no less affected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing the nature of which he is a partaker, degraded into so odious and detestable a creature. In fact, if there be enough of goodness in a cha racter to engage the admiration and affection of a well-disposed mind, though there should appear Whose vices are not allayed with a single virtue.. |