And although we may share Boswell’s feeling that Johnson estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding—­since he was a man of magnificent biases—­yet we may grant that the critic-god made a sound distinction here, that Fielding’s method is inevitably more external and shallow than that of an analyst proper like Richardson; no doubt to the great joy of many weary folk who go to novels for the rest and refreshment they give, rather than for their thought-evoking value.

The contrast between these novelists is maintained, too, in the matter of style:  Fielding walks with the easy undress of a gentleman:  Richardson sits somewhat stiff and pragmatical, carefully arrayed in full-bottomed wig, and knee breeches, delivering a lecture from his garden chair.  Fielding is a master of that colloquial manner afterwards handled with such success by Thackeray:  a manner “good alike for grave or gay,” and making this early fiction-maker enjoyable.  Quite apart from our relish of his vivid portrayals of life, we like his wayside chatting.  For another difference:  there is no moral motto or announcement:  the lesson takes care of itself.  What unity there is of construction, is found in the fact that certain characters, more or less related, are seen to walk centrally through the narrative:  there is little or no plot development in the modern sense and the method (the method of the type) is frankly episodic.

In view of what the Novel was to become in the nineteenth century, Richardson’s way was more modern, and did more to set a seal upon fiction than Fielding’s:  the Novel to-day is first of all psychologic and serious.  And the assertion is safe that all the later development derives from these two kinds written by the two greatest of the eighteenth century pioneers, Richardson and Fielding:  on the one hand, character study as a motive, on the other the portrayal of personality surrounded by the external factors of life.  The wise combination of the two, gives us that tangle of motive, act and circumstance which makes up human existence.

With regard to the morals of the story, a word may here be said, having all Fielding’s fiction in mind.  Of the suggestive prurience of much modern novelism, whether French or French-derived, he, Fielding, is quite free:  he deals with the sensual relations with a frank acknowledgment of their physical basis.  The truth is, the eighteenth century, whether in England or elsewhere, was on a lower plane in this respect than our own time.  Fielding, therefore, while he does no affront to essential decency, does offend our taste, our refinement, in dealing with this aspect of life.  We have in a true sense become more civilized since 1750:  the ape and tiger of Tennyson’s poem have receded somewhat in human nature during the last century and a half.  The plea that since Fielding was a realist depicting society as it was in his day, his license