with some appearance of consistency. The _History of Joseph Andrews_, it
has been said, might well have dispensed with Lady Booby altogether, and
yet, without her, not only this book, but _Tom Jones_ and _Amelia_ also,
would probably have been lost to us. The accident which prompted three
such masterpieces cannot be honestly regretted.

It was not without reason that Fielding added prominently to his title-
page the name of Mr. Abraham Adams. If he is not the real hero of the
book, he is undoubtedly the character whose fortunes the reader follows
with the closest interest. Whether he is smoking his black and
consolatory pipe in the gallery of the inn, or losing his way while he
meditates a passage of Greek, or groaning over the fatuities of the man-
of-fashion in Leonora's story, or brandishing his famous crabstick in
defence of Fanny, he is always the same delightful mixture of
benevolence and simplicity, of pedantry and credulity and ignorance of
the world. He is "compact," to use Shakespeare's word, of the oddest
contradictions,--the most diverting eccentricities. He has Aristotle's
_Politics_ at his fingers' ends, but he knows nothing of the daily
_Gazetteers_; he is perfectly familiar with the Pillars of Hercules, but
he has never even heard of the Levant. He travels to London to sell a
collection of sermons which he has forgotten to carry with him, and in a
moment of excitement he tosses into the fire the copy of _AEschylus_
which it has cost him years to transcribe. He gives irreproachable
advice to Joseph on fortitude and resignation, but he is overwhelmed
with grief when his child is reported to be drowned. When he speaks upon
faith and works, on marriage, on school discipline, he is weighty and
sensible; but he falls an easy victim to the plausible professions of
every rogue he meets, and is willing to believe in the principles of Mr.
Peter Pounce, or the humanity of Parson Trulliber. Not all the
discipline of hog's blood and cudgels and cold water to which he is