Possibly, too, he did not, for this reason, study the book very
carefully, for, with the episode of Heartfree under one's eyes, it is
not strictly accurate to say (as he does) that it presents "a picture of
complete vice, _unrelieved by any thing of human feeling_, and never by
any accident even deviating into virtue." If the author's introduction
be borne in mind, and if the book be read steadily in the light there
supplied, no one can refrain from admiring the extraordinary skill and
concentration with which the plan is pursued, and the adroitness with
which, at every turn, the villainy of Wild is approximated to that of
those securer and more illustrious criminals with whom he is so seldom
confused. And Fielding has never carried one of his chief and
characteristic excellences to so great perfection: the book is a model
of sustained and sleepless irony. To make any extracts from it--still
less to make any extracts which should do justice to it, is almost
impracticable; but the edifying discourse between Wild and Count La Ruse
in Book i., and the pure comedy of that in Book iv. with the Ordinary of
Newgate (who objects to wine, but drinks punch because "it is no where
spoken against in Scripture"), as well as the account of the prison
faction between Wild and Johnson, [Footnote: Some critics at this point
appear to have identified Johnson and Wild with Lord Wilmington and Sir
Robert Walpole (who resigned in 1742), while Mr. Keightley suspects that
Wild throughout typifies Walpole. But the advertisement "from the
Publisher" to the edition of 1754 disclaims any such "personal
Application." "The Truth is (he says), as a very corrupt State of Morals
is here represented, the Scene seems very properly to have been laid in
Newgate: Nor do I see any Reason for introducing any allegory at all;
unless we will agree that there are, without those Walls, some other
Bodies of Men of worse Morals than those within; and who have,
consequently, a Right to change Places with its present Inhabitants."
The writer was probably Fielding.] with its admirable speech of the