communicated by Mr. James Gillman to _The Literary Remains of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge_, published by H. N. Coleridge in 1836. The book in
which they were made, (it is the four volume edition of 1773, and has
Gillman's book-plate), is now in the British Museum. The above
transcript is from the MS.] in the well-known British Museum edition, he
says:--

"Even in this most questionable part of Tom Jones [i.e. the Lady
Bellaston episode, chap. ix. Book xv.], I cannot but think after
frequent reflection on it, that an additional paragraph, more fully &
forcibly unfolding Tom Jones's sense of self-degradation on the
discovery of the true character of the relation, in which he had stood
to Lady Bellaston--& his awakened feeling of the dignity and manliness
of Chastity--would have removed in great measure any just objection, at
all events relating to Fielding himself, by taking in the state of
manners in his time."

Another point suggested by these last lines may be touched _en passant_.
Lady Bellaston, as Fielding has carefully explained (chap. i. Book
xiv.), was not a typical, but an exceptional, member of society; and
although there were eighteenth-century precedents for such alliances
(e.g. Miss Edwards and Lord Anne Hamilton, Mrs. Upton and General
Braddock,) it is a question whether in a picture of average English life
it was necessary to deal with exceptions of this kind, or, at all
events, to exemplify them in the principal personage. But the discussion
of this subject would prove endless. Right or wrong, Fielding has
certainly suffered in popularity for his candour in this respect, since
one of the wisest and wittiest books ever written cannot, without
hesitation, be now placed in the hands of women or very young people.
Moreover, this same candour has undoubtedly attracted to its pages many,