forward (unconsciously,
most likely), for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief
characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in
Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably
gets its punishment.

Besides the matchless character of Amelia, whose beauty and charming
innocent consciousness of it (so delicately described by the novelist),
whose tenderness and purity are such that they endear her to a reader as
much as if she were actually alive, his own wife or mother, and make him
consider her as some dear relative and companion of his own, about whose
charms and virtues is scarcely modest to talk in public; besides Amelia,
there are other characters, not so beautiful, but not less admirably
true to nature. Miss Matthews is a wonderful portrait, and the vanity
which inspires every one of the actions of that passionate, unscrupulous
lady, the color as it were which runs through the whole of the picture
is touched with a master's hand. Mrs. James, the indifferent woman, is
not less skilful.

"Can this be my Jenny?" cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her
old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage in an enormous
hoop, the very pink of the fashion; to which Mrs. James answers, "Madam,
I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can
live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the
first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four
honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?"
Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and
James in their acquaintance--one all passion, and the other all
indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow,
with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions
of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, what admirable knowledge
of the world do all these characters display: what good moral may be
drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think! This,
however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed
to take upon them, and prefer that their favorite works should contain
as little reflection as possible; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs.
James, or Miss Matthews might read their own characters as here
described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural.

But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in