absurdity, and the unprecedented success of the book would sharpen his
sense of its assailable side. Possibly, too, his acquaintance with
Richardson, whom he knew personally, but with whom he could have had no
kind of sympathy, disposed him against his work. In any case, the idea
presently occurred to Fielding of depicting a young man in circumstances
of similar importunity at the hands of a dissolute woman of fashion. He
took for his hero Pamela's brother, and by a malicious stroke of the pen
turned the Mr. B. of _Pamela_ into Squire Booby. But the process of
invention rapidly carried him into paths far beyond the mere parody of
Richardson, and it is only in the first portion of the book that he
really remembers his intention. After chapter x. the story follows its
natural course, and there is little or nothing of Lady Booby, or her
frustrate amours. Indeed, the author does not even pretend to preserve
congruity as regards his hero, for, in chapter v., he makes him tell his
mistress that he has never been in love, while in chapter xi. we are
informed that he had long been attached to the charming Fanny. Moreover,
in the intervening letters which Joseph writes to his sister Pamela, he
makes no reference to this long-existent attachment, with which, one
would think, she must have been perfectly familiar. These discrepancies
all point, not so much to negligence on the part of the author, as to an
unconscious transformation of his plan. He no doubt speedily found that
mere ridicule of Richardson was insufficient to sustain the interest of
any serious effort, and, besides, must have been secretly conscious that
the "Pamela" characteristics of his hero were artistically
irreconcilable with the personal bravery and cudgel-playing attributes
with which he had endowed him. Add to this that the immortal Mrs.
Slipslop and Parson Adams--the latter especially--had begun to acquire
an importance with their creator for which the initial scheme had by no
means provided; and he finally seems to have disregarded his design,
only returning to it in his last chapters in order to close his work