sentence as this: "In _Amelia_ we see the youthful exuberances of
_Joseph Andrews_ corrected by a higher art; the adjustment of plot and
character arranged with a fuller craftsmanship; the genius which was
to find its fullest exemplification in _Tom Jones_ already displaying
maturity"? And do we not too often forget that a very short time--in
fact, barely three years--passed between the appearance of _Tom Jones_
and the appearance of _Amelia?_ that although we do not know how long
the earlier work had been in preparation, it is extremely improbable
that a man of Fielding's temperament, of his wants, of his known
habits and history, would have kept it when once finished long in his
desk? and that consequently between some scenes of _Tom Jones_ and
some scenes of _Amelia_ it is not improbable that there was no more
than a few months' interval? I do not urge these things in mitigation
of any unfavourable judgment against the later novel. I only ask--How
much of that unfavourable judgment ought in justice to be set down to
the fallacies connected with an imperfect appreciation of facts?

To me it is not so much a question of deciding whether I like _Amelia_
less, and if so, how much less, than the others, as a question what
part of the general conception of this great writer it supplies? I do
not think that we could fully understand Fielding without it; I do not
think that we could derive the full quantity of pleasure from him
without it. The exuberant romantic faculty of Joseph Andrews and its
pleasant satire; the mighty craftsmanship and the vast science of life
of _Tom Jones;_ the ineffable irony and logical grasp of _Jonathan
Wild_, might have left us with a slight sense of hardness, a vague
desire for unction, if it had not been for this completion of the
picture. We should not have known (for in the other books, with the
possible exception of Mrs. Fitzpatrick, the characters are a little
too determinately goats and sheep) how Fielding could draw _nuances_,