having hit a tailor on
the head, the two skulls sent equally forth a hollow sound at their
meeting, and the tailor took presently measure of his length on the
ground, where the skulls lay side by side, and it was doubtful
which was the more valuable of the two. Molly, then taking a thigh
bone in her hand, fell in among the flying ranks, and dealing her
blows with great liberality on either side, overthrew the carcass
of many a mighty hero and heroine. Recount, O muse, the names of
those who fell on this fatal day. First Jemmy Tweedle felt on his
hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks of sweetly
winding Stour had nourished, where he first learnt the vocal art,
with which, wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered
the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved
the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to
his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the
verdant floor with his carcass. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder,
received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and
immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and
fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at
the same time from his pocket, which Molly took up as lawful
spoils. Then Kate of the Mill tumbled unfortunately over a
tombstone, which catching hold of her ungartered stocking, inverted
the order of nature, and gave her heels the superiority to her
head. Betty Pippin, with young Roger her lover, fell both to the
ground; where, O Perverse Fate! she salutes the earth, and he the
sky.[174]

Fielding had shown more than any predecessor the possibilities of
fiction in the study of character and the illustration of manners, and
to the art of the narrator, he had added that of the dramatist. The
falling of the rug in Molly Seagrim's bedroom[175] is one of the
happiest incidents ever devised, and no doubt suggested to Sheridan the
falling of the screen in the "School for Scandal." But the chief
distinction of Fielding lies in his having carried the novel to a high
point as a work of art. It was the opinion of Coleridge that the
"Oedipus Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three
most perfect plots ever planned.[176] It is to this excellence of
plot--the subordination of each minor circumstance to the general aim,
the skill