here presented, with some subsequent remarks on the _Miscellanies_ here
selected. And, indeed, it is not fanciful to perceive in each book a
somewhat different presentment of the author's genius; though in no one
of the four is any one of his masterly qualities absent. There is
tenderness even in _Jonathan Wild_; there are touches in _Joseph
Andrews_ of that irony of the Preacher, the last echo of which is heard
amid the kindly resignation of the _Journey to Lisbon_, in the sentence,
"Whereas envy of all things most exposes us to danger from others, so
contempt of all things best secures us from them." But on the whole it
is safe to say that _Joseph Andrews_ best presents Fielding's
mischievous and playful wit; _Jonathan Wild_ his half-Lucianic
half-Swiftian irony; _Tom Jones_ his unerring knowledge of human nature,
and his constructive faculty; _Amelia_ his tenderness, his _mitis
sapientia_, his observation of the details of life. And first of
the first.

_The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr
Abraham Adams_ was, as has been said above, published in February 1742.
A facsimile of the agreement between author and publisher will be given
in the second volume of this series; and it is not uninteresting to
observe that the witness, William Young, is none other than the asserted
original of the immortal Mr Adams himself. He might, on Balzac's plea in
a tolerably well-known anecdote, have demanded half of the L183, 11s. Of
the other origins of the book we have a pretty full account, partly
documentary. That it is "writ in the manner of Cervantes," and is
intended as a kind of comic epic, is the author's own statement--no
doubt as near the actual truth as is consistent with comic-epic theory.
That there are resemblances to Scarron, to Le Sage, and to other
practitioners of the Picaresque novel is certain; and it was inevitable
that there should be. Of directer and more immediate models or