too close together; or the "strange specimen of oscitancy" which another
(it is, in fact, Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to record
respecting the misplacing of the village of Hambrook. To such trifles as
these last the precept of _non offendar maculis_ may safely be applied,
although Fielding, wiser than his critics, seems to have foreseen the
necessity for still larger allowances:--

"Cruel indeed," says he in his proemium to Book XI., "would it be, if
such a Work as this History, which hath employed some Thousands of Hours
in the composing, should be liable to be condemned, because some
particular Chapter, or perhaps Chapters, may be obnoxious to very just
and sensible Objections.... To write within such severe Rules as these,
is as impossible as to live up to some splenetic Opinions; and if we
judge according to the Sentiments of some Critics, and of some
Christians, no Author will be saved in this World, and no Man in the
next."

Notwithstanding its admitted superiority to _Joseph Andrews_ as a work
of art, there is no male character in _Tom Jones_ which can compete with
Parson Adams--none certainly which we regard with equal admiration.
Allworthy, excellent compound of Lyttelton and Allen though he be,
remains always a little stiff and cold in comparison with the "veined
humanity" around him. We feel of him, as of another impeccable
personage, that we "cannot breathe in that fine air, That pure severity
of perfect light," and that we want the "warmth and colour" which we
find in Adams. Allworthy is a type rather than a character--a fault
which also seems to apply to that Molieresque hypocrite, the younger
Blifil. Fielding seems to have welded this latter together, rather than
to have fused him entire, and the result is a certain lack of
verisimilitude, which makes us wonder how his pinchbeck professions and