Sir,
Your most obliged,
and most obedient
humble servant,
HENRY FIELDING.

_Bow Street, Dec. 2, 1751._


[Illustration.]





AMELIA.

BOOK I.

Chapter i.

_Containing the exordium, &c._


The various accidents which befel a very worthy couple after their
uniting in the state of matrimony will be the subject of the following
history. The distresses which they waded through were some of them so
exquisite, and the incidents which produced these so extraordinary,
that they seemed to require not only the utmost malice, but the utmost
invention, which superstition hath ever attributed to Fortune: though