ances, against every
one of which the chances were enormous, the hero is re-instated in all
his old domains; this is merely improbable. The distinction which we
have been pointing out may be plainly perceived in the events of real
life; when any thing takes place of such a nature as we should call, in
a fiction, merely improbable, because there are many chances against it,
we call it a lucky or unlucky accident, a singular coincidence,
something very extraordinary, odd, curious, etc.; whereas any thing
which, in a fiction, would be called unnatural, when it actually occurs
(and such things do occur), is still called unnatural, inexplicable,
unaccountable, inconceivable, etc., epithets which are not applied to
events that have merely the balance of chances against them.

Now, though an author who understands human nature is not likely to
introduce into his fictions any thing that is unnatural, he will often
have much that is improbable: he may place his personages, by the
intervention of accident, in striking situations, and lead them through
a course of extraordinary adventures; and yet, in the midst of all this,
he will keep up the most perfect consistency of character, and make them
act as it would be natural for men to act in such situations and
circumstances. Fielding's novels are a good illustration of this: they
display great knowledge of mankind; the characters are well preserved;
the persons introduced all act as one would naturally expect they
should, in the circumstances in which they are placed; but these
circumstances are such as it is incalculably improbable should ever
exist: several of the events, taken singly, are much against the chances
of probability; but the combination of the whole in a connected series,
is next to impossible. Even the romances which admit a mixture of
supernatural agency, are not more unfit to prepare men for real life,
than such novels as these; since one might just as reasonably calculate
on the intervention of a fairy, as on the train of lucky chances which
combine first to involve Tom Jones in his difficulties, and afterwards
to extricate him. Perhaps, indeed, the supernatural fable is of the two
not only (as we before remarked) the less mischievous in its moral
effects, but also the more correct kind of composition in point of
taste: the author lays down a kind of hypothesis of the existence of
ghosts, witches, or fairies, and professes to describe what would take
place under