have been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest and sweetest
lady in the world has cooked your little supper of boiled mutton and
awaited you all the night; you have spoilt the little dish of boiled
mutton thereby, and caused pangs and pains to Amelia's tender heart.(157)
You have got into debt without the means of paying it. You have gambled
the money with which you ought to have paid your rent. You have spent in
drink or in worse amusements the sums which your poor wife has raised upon
her little home treasures, her own ornaments, and the toys of her
children. But, you rascal! you own humbly that you are no better than you
should be; you never for one moment pretend that you are anything but a
miserable weak-minded rogue. You do in your heart adore that angelic
woman, your wife, and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your discharge.
Lucky for you and for others like you, that in spite of your failings and
imperfections, pure hearts pity and love you. For your wife's sake you are
permitted to go hence without a remand; and I beg you, by the way, to
carry to that angelical lady the expression of the cordial respect and
admiration of this court." Amelia pleads for her husband Will Booth:
Amelia pleads for her reckless kindly old father, Harry Fielding. To have
invented that character, is not only a triumph of art but it is a good
action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and loved
her: and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in
English fiction--Fiction! why fiction? why not history? I know Amelia just
as well as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I believe in Colonel Bath almost as
much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of Cumberland. I admire the author
of _Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and
delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_ perhaps is not a better story
than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the prodigal repents at
least, before forgiveness,--whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones
carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold
errors and shortcomings; and is not half punished enough before the great
prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too
much of the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous,
swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper
sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature,--"Indeed,
Mr. Jones," s