FIELDING


_To Mrs. Goodhart, in the Upper Mississippi Valley_.

Dear Madam,--Many thanks for the New York newspaper you have kindly sent
me, with the statistics of book-buying in the Upper Mississippi Valley.
Those are interesting particulars which tell one so much about the taste
of a community.

So the Rev. E. P. Roe is your favourite novelist there; a thousand of his
books are sold for every two copies of the works of Henry Fielding? This
appears to me to speak but oddly for taste in the Upper Mississippi
Valley. On Mr. Roe's works I have no criticism to pass, for I have not
read them carefully.

But I do think your neighbours lose a great deal by neglecting Henry
Fielding. You will tell me he is coarse (which I cannot deny); you will
remind me of what Dr. Johnson said, rebuking Mrs. Hannah More. "I never
saw Johnson really angry with me but once," writes that sainted maiden
lady. "I alluded to some witty passage in 'Tom Jones.'" He replied: "I
am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear
you have read it; a confession which no modest lady should ever make."

You remind me of this, and that Johnson was no prude, and that his age
was tolerant. You add that the literary taste of the Upper Mississippi
Valley is much more pure than the waters of her majestic river, and that