already been made, Fielding was careful to disclaim any personal
portraiture in _Joseph Andrews_. In the opening chapter of Book iii. he
declares "once for all that he describes not Men, but Manners; not an
Individual, but a Species," although he admits that his characters are
"taken from Life." In his "Preface," he reiterates this profession,
adding that in copying from nature, he has "used the utmost Care to
obscure the Persons by such different Circumstances, Degrees, and
Colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any degree of
certainty." Nevertheless--as in Hogarth's case--neither his protests
nor his skill have prevented some of those identifications which are so
seductive to the curious; and it is generally believed,--indeed, it was
expressly stated by Richardson and others,--that the prototype of Parson
Adams was a friend of Fielding, the Reverend William Young. Like Adams,
he was a scholar and devoted to AEschylus; he resembled him, too, in his
trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this
latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain
in Marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines
with his beloved _AEschylus_ in his hand. His peaceable intentions were
so unmistakable that he was instantly released, and politely directed to
his regiment. Once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman
with sitting for the portrait of Adams, he offered to knock the speaker
down, thereby supplying additional proof of the truth of the allegation.
He died in August 1757, and is buried in the Chapel of Chelsea Hospital.
The obituary notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ describes him as "late
of Gillingham, Dorsetshire," which would make him a neighbour of the
novelist. [Footnote: Lord Thurlow was accustomed to find a later
likeness to Fielding's hero in his _protege_, the poet Crabbe.] Another
tradition connects Mr. Peter Pounce with the scrivener and usurer Peter
Walter, whom Pope had satirised, and whom Hogarth is thought to have
introduced into Plate i. of Marriage _a-la-Mode_. His sister lived at