establishment of the Foundling Hospital, of which Fielding had written
in the _Champion_, and in which his friend Hogarth was interested?] is
finally disclosed, we look back and discover a hundred little
premonitions which escaped us at first, but which, read by the light of
our latest knowledge, assume a fresh significance. At the same time, it
must be admitted that the over-quoted and somewhat antiquated dictum of
Coleridge, by which _Tom Jones_ is grouped with the _Alchemist_ and
_OEdipus Tyrannus_, as one of the three most perfect plots in the world,
requires revision. It is impossible to apply the term "perfect" to a
work which contains such an inexplicable stumbling-block as the Man of
the Hill's story. Then again, progress and animation alone will not make
a perfect plot, unless probability be superadded. And although it cannot
be said that Fielding disregards probability, he certainly strains it
considerably. Money is conveniently lost and found; the naivest
coincidences continually occur; people turn up in the nick of time at
the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but entirely
casual) relations with the characters. Sometimes an episode is so
inartistically introduced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end of the
book, for instance, it has to be shown that Jones has still some power
of resisting temptation, and he accordingly receives from a Mrs.
Arabella Hunt, a written offer of her hand, which he declines. Mrs.
Hunt's name has never been mentioned before, nor, after this occurrence,
is it mentioned again. But in the brief fortnight which Jones has been
in town, with his head full of Lady Bellaston, Sophia, and the rest, we
are to assume that he has unwittingly inspired her with so desperate a
passion that she proposes and is refused--all in a chapter.
Imperfections of this kind are more worthy of consideration than some of
the minor negligences which criticism has amused itself by detecting in
this famous book. Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer
in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that in one place winter and summer come