The History Of The Life Of The Late Mr. Jonathan Wild The Great(Fiscle Part 3), Henry Fielding [most read books in the world of all time .txt] 📗

Introduction Pg 1

Jonathan Wild,  Born About 1682 And Executed At Tyburn In 1725,  Was

One Of The Most Notorious Criminals Of His Age. His Resemblance To

The Hero In Fielding's Satire Of The Same Name Is General Rather

Than Particular. The Real Jonathan (Whose Legitimate Business Was

That Of A Buckle-Maker) Like Fielding's,  Won His Fame,  Not As A

Robber Himself,  But As An Informer,  And A Receiver Of Stolen

Goods. His Method Was To Restore These To The Owners On Receipt Of

A Commission,  Which Was Generally Pretty Large,  Pretending That He

Had Paid The Whole Of It To The Thieves,  Whom For Disinterested

Motives He Had Traced. He Was A Great Organiser,  And He Controlled

Various Bands Of Robbers Whose Lives He Did Not Hesitate To

Sacrifice,  When His Own Was In Danger. Naturally He Was So Hated

By Many Of His Underlings That It Is A Wonder He Was Able To

Maintain His Authority Over Them As Many Years As He Did. His

Rascality Had Been Notorious A Long Time Before His Crimes Could

Actually Be Proved. He Was Executed At Last According To The

Introduction Pg 2

Statute Which Made Receivers Of Stolen Goods Equally Guilty With

The Stealers.

 

Beyond This General Resemblance,  The Adventures Of The Real

Jonathan,  So Far As We Know Them,  Are Not Much Like Those Of The

Fictitious. True,  The Real Jonathan's Married Life Was Unhappy,

Though His Quarrel With His Wife Did Not Follow So Hard Upon His

Wedding As The Quarrel Of Fielding's Hero And The Chaste Laetitia.

Not Until A Year From His Marriage Did The Real Jonathan Separate

From His Spouse,  After Which Time He Lived,  Like Fielding's,  Not

Always Mindful Of His Vows Of Faithfulness. Like Fielding's,  Too,

He Was Called Upon To Suppress Rebellions In His Gangs,  And Once

He Came Very Near Being Killed In A Court Of Justice By One Blake,

Alias Blueskin. Apart From These Misadventures,  The Experiences Of

Fielding's Wild Seem To Be Purely Imaginary. "My Narrative Is

Rather Of Such Actions Which He Might Have Performed," The Author

Himself Says,  [Footnote: Introduction To Miscellanies,  1st Ed.,  P.

Xvii.] "Or Would,  Or Should Have Performed,  Than What He Really

Did. ... The Life And Actions Of The Late Jonathan Wild,  Got Out

With Characteristic Commercial Energy By Defoe,  Soon After The

Criminal's Execution,  Is Very Different From Fielding's Satirical

Narrative,  And Probably A Good Deal Nearer The Truth."

 

Jonathan Wild Was Published As The Third Volume Of The

Miscellanies "By Henry Fielding,  Esq." Which Came Out In The

Spring Of 1743. From The Reference To Lady Booby's Steward,  Peter

Pounce,  In Book Ii.,  It Seems To Have Been,  As Mr. Austin Dobson

Has Observed,  And As The Date Of Publication Would Imply,  Composed

In Part At Least Subsequently To Joseph Andrews,  Which Appeared

Early In 1742. But The Same Critic Goes On To Say That Whenever

Completed,  Jonathan Wild Was Probably "Planned And Begun Before

Joseph Andrews Was Published,  As It Is In The Highest Degree

Improbable That Fielding,  Always Carefully Watching The Public

Taste,  Would Have Followed Up That Fortunate Adventure In A New

Direction By A Work So Entirely Different From It As Jonathan

Wild." [Footnote: Henry Fielding,  1900,  P. 145.] Mr. Dobson's

Surmise Is Undoubtedly Correct. The "Strange,  Surprising

Adventures" Of Mrs. Heartfree Belong To A Different School Of

Fiction From That With Which We Commonly Associate Fielding. They

Are Such As We Should Expect One Of Defoe's Characters To Go

Through,  Rather Than A Woman Whose Creator Had Been Gratified Only

A Year Before At The Favourable Reception Accorded To Fanny And

Lady Booby And Mrs. Slipslop.

 

That Jonathan Wild Is For The Most Part A Magnificent Example Of

Sustained Irony,  One Of The Best In Our Literature,  Critics Have

Generally Agreed. The Comparison Steadfastly Insisted Upon Between

Jonathan Wild's Greatness And The Greatness Which The World Looks

Up To,  But Which Without Being Called Criminal Is Yet Devoid Of

Humanity,  Is Admirable. Admirable,  Too,  Is The Ironical Humour,  In

Which Fielding So Excelled,  And Which In Jonathan Wild He Seldom

Drops. It Would Take Too Long To Mention All The Particularly Good

Ironical Passages,  But Among Them Are The Conversation Between

Wild And Count La Ruse,  And The Description Of Miss Tishy Snap In

Introduction Pg 3

The First Book; The Adventures Of Wild In The Boat At The End Of

The Second Book; And,  In The Last,  The Dialogue Between The

Ordinary Of Newgate And The Hero,  The Death Of Wild,  And The

Chapter Which Sets Forth His Character And His Maxims For

Attaining Greatness. And Yet As A Satire Jonathan Wild Is Not

Perfect. Fielding Himself Hits Upon Its One Fault,  When,  In The

Last Book,  After The Long Narrative Of Mrs. Heartfree's Adventures

By Sea And By Land,  He Says,  "We Have Already Perhaps Detained Our

Reader Too Long ... From The Consideration Of Our Hero." He Has

Detained Us Far Too Long. A Story Containing So Much Irony As

Jonathan Wild Should Be An Undeviating Satire Like A Tale Of A

Tub. The Introduction Of Characters Like The Heartfrees,  Who Are

Meant To Enlist A Reader's Sympathy,  Spoils The Unity. True,  The

Way They Appear At First Is All Very Well. Heartfree Is "A Silly

Fellow," Possessed Of Several Great Weaknesses Of Mind,  Being

"Good-Natured,  Friendly,  And Generous To A Great Excess," And

Devoted To The "Silly Woman," His Wife. But Later Fielding Becomes

So Much Interested In The Pair That He Drops His Ironical Tone.

Unfortunately,  However,  In Depicting Them,  He Has Not Met With His

Usual Success In Depicting Amiable Characters. The Exemplary

Couple,  Together With Their Children And Friendly,  Are Much Less

Real Than The Villain And His Fellows. And So The Importance Of

The Heartfrees In Jonathan Wild Seems To Me A Double Blemish. A

Satire Is Not Truth,  And Yet In Mr. And Mrs. Heartfree Fielding

Has Tried--Though Not With Success--To Give Us Virtuous Characters

Who Are Truly Human. The Consequence Is That Jonathan Wild Just

Fails Of Being A Consistently Brilliant Satire.

 

As To Its Place Among Fielding's Works,  Critics Have Differed

Considerably. The Opinion Of Scott Found Little In Jonathan Wild

To Praise,  But Then It Is Evident From What He Says,  That Scott

Missed The Point Of The Satire. [Footnote: Henry Fielding In

Biographical And Critical Notices Of Eminent Novelists. "It Is Not

Easy To See What Fielding Proposed To Himself By A Picture Of

Complete Vice,  Unrelieved By Anything Of Human Feeling. ..."].

Some Other Critics Have Been Neither More Friendly Than Sir

Walter,  Nor More Discriminating,  In Speaking Of Jonathan Wild And

Smollett's Count Fathom In The Same Breath,  As If They Were

Similar Either In Purpose Or In Merit. Fathom Is A Romantic

Picaresque Novel,  With A Possibly Edifying,  But Most Unnatural

Reformation Of The Villainous Hero At The Last; Jonathan Wild Is A

Pretty Consistent Picaresque Satire,  In Which The Hero Ends Where

Fathom By All Rights Should Have Ended,--On The Gallows. Fathom Is

The Weakest Of All Its Author's Novels; Jonathan Wild Is Not

Properly One Of Fielding's Novels At All,  But A Work Only A Little

Below Them. For Below Them I Cannot Help Thinking It,  In Spite Of

The Opinion Of A Critic Of Taste And Judgment So Excellent As

Professor Saintsbury's. When This Gentleman,  In His Introduction

To Jonathan Wild,  In A Recent English Edition Of Fielding's Works,

Says That: "Fielding Has Written No Greater Book," He Seems To Me

To Give Excessive Praise To A Work Of Such Great Merit That Only

Its Deserved Praise Is Ample.

 

A Great Satire,  I Should Say,  Is Never The Equal Of A Great Novel.

Introduction Pg 4

In The Introductions Which I Have Already Written,  In Trying To

Show What A Great Novel Is,  I Have Said That An Essential Part Of

Such A Book Is The Reality Of Its Scenes And Characters. Now

Scenes And Characters Will Not Seem Real,  Unless There Is In Them

The Right Blend Of Pleasure And Pain,  Of Good And Bad; For Life Is

Not All Either One Thing Or The Other,  Nor Has It Ever Been So.

Such Reality Is Not Found In A Satire,  For A Satire,  As

Distinguished From A Novel,  Both Conceals And Exaggerates: It

Gives Half-Truths Instead Of Whole Truths; It Shows Not All Of

Life But Only A Part; And Even This It Cannot Show Quite Truly,

For Its Avowed Object Is To Magnify Some Vice Or Foible. In Doing

So,  A Satire Finds No Means So Effective As Irony,  Which Makes Its

Appeal Wholly To The Intellect. A Good Novel,  On The Contrary,

Touches The Head And The Heart Both; Along With Passages Which

Give Keen Intellectual Enjoyment,  It Offers Passages Which Move

Its Reader's Tears. Still,  A Good Novelist Without Appreciation Of

Irony Cannot Be Imagined,  For Without The Sense Of Humour Which

Makes Irony Appreciated,  It Is Impossible To See The Objects Of

This World In Their Right Proportions. Irony,  Then,  Which Is The

Main Part Of A Satire,  Is Essential To A Good Novel,  Though Not

Necessarily More Than A Small Part Of It. Intellectually There Is

Nothing In English Literature Of The Eighteenth Century Greater

Than A Tale Of A Tub Or The Larger Part Of Gullivers Travels;

Intellectually There Is Nothing In Fielding's Works Greater Than

Most Of Jonathan Wild; But Taken All In All,  Is Not A Novel Like

Tom Jones,  With Its Eternal Appeal To The Emotions As Well As The

Intellect,  Greater Than A Perfect Satire? Even If This Be Not

Admitted,  Jonathan Wild,  We Have Already Seen,  Is Not A Perfect

Satire. For A Work Of Its Kind,  It Is Too Sympathetically Human,

And So Suffers In Exactly The Opposite Way From Vanity Fair,  Which

Many People Think Is Kept From Being The Greatest English Novel Of

The Nineteenth Century Because It Is Too Satirical.

 

No,  I Cannot Agree With Professor Saintsbury That "Fielding Has

Written No Greater Book" Than Jonathan Wild. It Was Unquestionably

The Most Important Part Of The Miscellanies Of 1743. Its

Brilliancy May Make It Outrank Even That Delightful Journal Of The

Voyage To Lisbon. A Higher Place Should Not Be Claimed For It. Mr.

Dobson,  In His Henry Fielding,  Has Assigned The Right Position To

Jonathan Wild When He Says That Its Place "In Fielding's Works Is

Immediately After His Three Great Novels,  And This Is More By

Reason Of Its Subject Than Its Workmanship," Which