coarseness of his
novels. But had he not been coarse he would not have been true. He
described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it
in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken
from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the
amusements, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with
the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with
country-gentlemen. He described the miserable prisons of his time as he
only could who had mingled with their degraded inmates, and had exerted
his power as a police magistrate to break up the gangs of ruffians who
infested the streets. Thus Fielding's novels have a high historical, as
well as a literary value. Mr. Lecky has testified to their importance
in a reconstruction of the past by placing "Amelia" among his
authorities. Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom Jones, Parson Adams,
are characters to be studied by whoever would understand social life in
the eighteenth century. The lovely Sophia, the modest Fanny, and above
all Amelia, whom Thackeray considered "the most charming character in
English fiction," are portraits in the gallery of history.[172]

As Fielding set out to describe truth and nature as he saw them, the
reader must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be
prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious assaults, a tub of
hog's blood thrown by a clergyman, coarse practical jokes, foul talk,
all put before him without disguise or circumlocution. As he follows
Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in their journey, he must always be
ready for a fight. Here is a specimen:

"The captain * * * drew forth his hanger as Adams approached him,
and was levelling a blow at his head which would probably have
silenced the preacher forever, had not Joseph in that instant
lifted up a certain huge stone pot of the chamber with one hand,
which six beaux could not have lifted with both, and discharged it,
together with the contents, full in the captain's face. The
uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the
floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his
pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white
liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and
his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having
in its passage shed its honors on his head, and be