or exacted by
him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much
sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last
century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less
abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors
who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person
should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be
examined.

With Richardson's novels English fiction took a long step forward; but
it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The
latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to
carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He
united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an
exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a noble
family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with
all classes of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and
protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand,
his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it,
"raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always
denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said
sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are
all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous
sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had
seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth
and power in describing human nature which the confined life of
Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly
compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued
different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place
in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make
him laugh.

Fielding was a tall, handsome fellow, so full of life and spirits that
"his happy disposition," to quote Lady Mary, "made him forget every
evil when he was before a venison-pastry, or over a flask of
champagne." This rollicking, careless joyousness is the tone of his
books. Whether taken to a prison, an inn, or a lady's boudoir, whether
watching the breaking of heads, the blackening of eyes, or the making
of love, the reader is always kept smiling.

Fielding is often censured by moralists for the