It is to the same kindness that I owe the opportunity of
presenting the reader with something indisputably Fielding's and
very characteristic of him, which Murphy did not print, and which
has not, so far as I know, ever appeared either in a collection
or a selection of Fielding's work. After the success of David
Simple, Fielding gave his sister, for whom he had already written
a preface to that novel, another preface for a set of Familiar
Letters between the characters of David Simple and others. This
preface Murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, or did
not choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the book
attributing certain of the letters to the author of the preface,
the attribution being accompanied by an agreeably warm and
sisterly denunciation of those who ascribed to Fielding matter
unworthy of him. From these the letter which I have chosen,
describing a row on the Thames, seems to me not only
characteristic, but, like all this miscellaneous work,
interesting no less for its weakness than for its strength. In
hardly any other instance known to me can we trace so clearly the
influence of a suitable medium and form on the genius of the
artist. There are some writers--Dryden is perhaps the greatest
of them--to whom form and medium seem almost indifferent, their
all-round craftsmanship being such that they can turn any kind
and every style to their purpose. There are others, of whom I
think our present author is the chief, who are never really at
home but in one kind. In Fielding's case that kind was narrative
of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental, half-satirical, and almost
wholly sympathetic--narrative which has the singular gift of
portraying the liveliest character and yet of admitting the
widest disgression and soliloquy.