Henry Fielding
(T O James R USSELL L OWELL .)
N OT from the ranks of those we call
Philosopher or Admiral, —
Neither as L OCKE was, nor as B LAKE ,
Is that Great Genius for whose sake
We keep this Autumn festival.
And yet in one sense, too, was he
A soldier — of humanity;
And, surely, philosophic mind
Belonged to him whose brain designed
That teeming C OMIC E POS where,
As in C ERVANTES and M OLIÈRE ,
Jostles the medley of Mankind.
Our E NGLISH N OVEL'S pioneer!
His was the eye that first saw clear
How, not in natures half-effaced
By cant of Fashion and of Taste, —
Not in the circles of the Great,
Faint-blooded and exanimate, —
Lay the true field of Jest and Whim,
Which we to-day reap after him.
No: — he stepped lower down and took
The piebald P EOPLE for his Book!
Ah, what a wealth of Life there is
In that large-laughing page of his!
What store and stock of Common-Sense,
Wit, Wisdom, Books, Experience!
How his keen Satire flashes through,
And cuts a sophistry in two!
How his ironic lightning plays
Around a rogue and all his ways!
Ah, how he knots his lash to see
That ancient cloak, Hypocrisy!
Whose are the characters that give
Such round reality? — that live
With such full pulse? Fair S OPHY yet
Sings Bobbing Joan at the spinet;
We see A MELIA cooking still
That supper for the recreant W ILL ;
We hear Squire W ESTERN'S headlong tones
Bawling " Wut ha? — wut ha? " to J ONES .
Are they not present now to us, —
The Parson with his Æschylus?
S LIPSLOP the frail, and N ORTHERTON ,
P ARTRIDGE , and B ATH , and H ARRISON ? —
Are they not breathing, moving, — all
The motley, merry carnival
That Fielding kept, in days agone?
He was the first who dared to draw
Mankind the mixture that he saw;
Not wholly good nor ill, but both,
With fine intricacies of growth.
He pulled the wraps of flesh apart,
And showed the working human heart;
He scorned to drape the truthful nude
With smooth, decorous platitude!
He was too frank, may be; and dared
Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared,
Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought
Into the light their secret thought.
Therefore the T ARTUFFE -throng who say
" Couvrez ce sein , " and look that way, —
Therefore the Priests of Sentiment
Rose on him with their garments rent.
Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting
Plies ever round some generous thing,
Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores,
Old " might-have-beens " and " heretofores " ; —
Then, from that garbled record-list,
Made him his own Apologist.
And was he? Nay, — let who has known
Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone!
If to have sense of Joy and Pain
Too keen, — to rise, to fall again,
To live too much, — be sin, why then,
This was no pattern among men.
But those who turn that later page,
The Journal of his middle-age,
Watch him serene in either fate, —
Philanthropist and Magistrate;
Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend,
Faithful, and patient to the end;
Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve,
But for the loved ones he must leave:
These will admit — if any can —
That 'neath the green Estrella trees,
No Artist merely, but a M AN ,
Wrought on our noblest island-plan,
Sleeps with the alien Portuguese.
N OT from the ranks of those we call
Philosopher or Admiral, —
Neither as L OCKE was, nor as B LAKE ,
Is that Great Genius for whose sake
We keep this Autumn festival.
And yet in one sense, too, was he
A soldier — of humanity;
And, surely, philosophic mind
Belonged to him whose brain designed
That teeming C OMIC E POS where,
As in C ERVANTES and M OLIÈRE ,
Jostles the medley of Mankind.
Our E NGLISH N OVEL'S pioneer!
His was the eye that first saw clear
How, not in natures half-effaced
By cant of Fashion and of Taste, —
Not in the circles of the Great,
Faint-blooded and exanimate, —
Lay the true field of Jest and Whim,
Which we to-day reap after him.
No: — he stepped lower down and took
The piebald P EOPLE for his Book!
Ah, what a wealth of Life there is
In that large-laughing page of his!
What store and stock of Common-Sense,
Wit, Wisdom, Books, Experience!
How his keen Satire flashes through,
And cuts a sophistry in two!
How his ironic lightning plays
Around a rogue and all his ways!
Ah, how he knots his lash to see
That ancient cloak, Hypocrisy!
Whose are the characters that give
Such round reality? — that live
With such full pulse? Fair S OPHY yet
Sings Bobbing Joan at the spinet;
We see A MELIA cooking still
That supper for the recreant W ILL ;
We hear Squire W ESTERN'S headlong tones
Bawling " Wut ha? — wut ha? " to J ONES .
Are they not present now to us, —
The Parson with his Æschylus?
S LIPSLOP the frail, and N ORTHERTON ,
P ARTRIDGE , and B ATH , and H ARRISON ? —
Are they not breathing, moving, — all
The motley, merry carnival
That Fielding kept, in days agone?
He was the first who dared to draw
Mankind the mixture that he saw;
Not wholly good nor ill, but both,
With fine intricacies of growth.
He pulled the wraps of flesh apart,
And showed the working human heart;
He scorned to drape the truthful nude
With smooth, decorous platitude!
He was too frank, may be; and dared
Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared,
Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought
Into the light their secret thought.
Therefore the T ARTUFFE -throng who say
" Couvrez ce sein , " and look that way, —
Therefore the Priests of Sentiment
Rose on him with their garments rent.
Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting
Plies ever round some generous thing,
Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores,
Old " might-have-beens " and " heretofores " ; —
Then, from that garbled record-list,
Made him his own Apologist.
And was he? Nay, — let who has known
Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone!
If to have sense of Joy and Pain
Too keen, — to rise, to fall again,
To live too much, — be sin, why then,
This was no pattern among men.
But those who turn that later page,
The Journal of his middle-age,
Watch him serene in either fate, —
Philanthropist and Magistrate;
Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend,
Faithful, and patient to the end;
Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve,
But for the loved ones he must leave:
These will admit — if any can —
That 'neath the green Estrella trees,
No Artist merely, but a M AN ,
Wrought on our noblest island-plan,
Sleeps with the alien Portuguese.
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