not all either one thing or the other, nor has it ever been so.
Such reality is not found in a satire, for a satire, as
distinguished from a novel, both conceals and exaggerates: it
gives half-truths instead of whole truths; it shows not all of
life but only a part; and even this it cannot show quite truly,
for its avowed object is to magnify some vice or foible. In doing
so, a satire finds no means so effective as irony, which makes its
appeal wholly to the intellect. A good novel, on the contrary,
touches the head and the heart both; along with passages which
give keen intellectual enjoyment, it offers passages which move
its reader's tears. Still, a good novelist without appreciation of
irony cannot be imagined, for without the sense of humour which
makes irony appreciated, it is impossible to see the objects of
this world in their right proportions. Irony, then, which is the
main part of a satire, is essential to a good novel, though not
necessarily more than a small part of it. Intellectually there is
nothing in English literature of the eighteenth century greater
than A Tale of a Tub or the larger part of Gullivers Travels;
intellectually there is nothing in Fielding's works greater than
most of Jonathan Wild; but taken all in all, is not a novel like
Tom Jones, with its eternal appeal to the emotions as well as the
intellect, greater than a perfect satire? Even if this be not
admitted, Jonathan Wild, we have already seen, is not a perfect
satire. For a work of its kind, it is too sympathetically human,
and so suffers in exactly the opposite way from Vanity Fair, which
many people think is kept from being the greatest English novel of
the nineteenth century because it is too satirical.

No, I cannot agree with Professor Saintsbury that "Fielding has
written no greater book" than Jonathan Wild. It was unquestionably